As Elara sat in her private office later that afternoon, her quill hovered over a routine trade ledger for the first time in her life.
An unfamiliar, deeply inefficient sensation was pressing against the back of her mind. It wasn't pain, nor was it the sharp heat of anger. It was a cold, heavy weight that slowed her analytical processing. She didn't have the emotional vocabulary to name it, but if a normal person had looked at her data patterns, they would have called it helplessness.
