and there's no glamour in simply placing one foot in front of the other, especially when every fiber of you is screaming for a leap, a dramatic return that would make for a good story, but that's precisely what it was, just that, the relentless, unyielding decision to just keep moving, even if it meant dragging myself across the floor some days, even if it meant the taste of dust in my mouth from sheer exertion, not soaring, never soaring, just... propulsion, a slow, deliberate forward momentum that became its own kind of victory, a very private, very quiet kind, the kind Mara probably saw in my eyes before I even knew it was there, that subtle shift in the light that just said, oh, THIS is how you rebuild.