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The morning after the storm dawned breathlessly still. Rain-scrubbed air hung cool in the courtyard, where puddles lay like shattered mirrors reflecting the pale sky. Beneath the greenhouse eaves, the Unity Garden project crouched under Emil’s sodden hoodie—a damp, humble shape against the door. Emil arrived as the first bell echoed across empty corridors. He peeled back the cloth, its fibers stiff with dried earth, and spread it over a bench to let the sun drink its sorrows.

Sam appeared first, then Aisha, then Mateo—silent as shadows. Their hands moved as one: lifting the garden’s warped frame, dabbing moisture from painted roots, propping splintered wood with stones. No words were needed. The work was its own language.

Inside the main hall, Lara’s gold-sword emblem presided over the stage. Sunlight caught its edges, sharp and cold, but the fabric curled inward where rainwater had crept under the door the night before. When assembly began, Lara stood at the podium, back straight as a spear. Her voice cut through the hush:
“First order—clubs must reapply for recognition. Projects require council approval. Funds will flow only to initiatives that deliver measurable outcomes.”
She paused, eyes sweeping the room.
“Sentiment is not strategy.”

No one spoke of the garden. They didn’t need to.

A ripple stirred in the rows. Members of Lara’s own coalition exchanged glances—the debate captain’s pen tapped restlessly; the robotics lead frowned at the phrase “measurable outcomes.” Mateo stared at his hands, knuckles white around a half-sketched blueprint.

By afternoon, the fracture surfaced. A slight girl from the Poetry Collective stood during Q&A:
“Will open-floor discussions continue?”
Lara’s smile stayed cool, polished.
“Efficiency demands structure. The core council will curate dialogue.”

A beat of silence followed—thick, charged—not of agreement but dismantled trust.

In the greenhouse, the air hummed with warmth and the smell of wet soil. Emil knelt beside a seedling tray, fingers pressing seeds into dark earth. Sam read planting depths from a crumpled packet (“Two knuckles deep for sunflowers…”). Aisha stitched fresh canvas over the garden project’s wounded back, her needle flashing silver. Mateo, silent until now, laid his blueprint beside Emil:
“Expanded beds,” he murmured. “Roots need room to breathe.”

No podium stood here. No titles. Only hands moving in concert—mending, planting, rebuilding.

GRANDFATHER met Emil under the fig tree, its branches bowed but unbroken by rain.
“Storms test roots,” he said, pressing a fig into Emil’s palm. “Hers clung only to rock. Yours…” He nodded toward the greenhouse, where Sam and Aisha were repotting salvaged ferns. “…reached for other hands.”

Emil split the fig open—sweet, seedy, alive. Somewhere in the soaked earth, new roots were already stirring.

Dusk bled gold through the auditorium windows as Emil passed. Through the open doors, he saw Lara alone on stage, adjusting the gold-sword banner where it sagged against the wall. Her fingers traced the water-stained edge—a flaw she couldn’t smooth away. When her eyes lifted, they met Emil’s across the shadowed hall. Not defiant. Not softened. Just… unanchored.

He walked on. The scent of turned soil clung to his skin. Ahead, the greenhouse glowed—a lantern in the gathering dark. Behind him, Lara’s fortress speech dissolved like mist, replaced by the sound of seeds meeting soil, one by one, in the quiet earth.