The Queen's Retirement

The moment Shia felt the weight of two decades of impossible transformations settle around her consciousness like a mantle she had forgotten she was wearing, she knew that the time had come for something she had never truly believed would arrive—the Golden Sunset of her reign.

Standing at the edge of the dimensional barriers that had once seemed like insurmountable obstacles, watching Zara's cosmic maturation unfold with the kind of magnificent inevitability that belonged to someone who had finally grown beyond the need for guidance, Shia felt her nature as the Tri-State Queen stir with something that might have been relief.

The universe no longer needed her to carry the burden of leadership that had defined every moment of her existence since the day she had first accepted the crown that came with responsibilities no one should have to bear alone.