The question hung in their shared space, not as a threat, but as a quiet, persistent hum.
It was Silus, the bridge, who first understood. They did not need to dissolve into the whole, but to find their own resonant anchor within it.
Lyra found her anchor in the endless ’why,’ Kael in the steady rhythm of his hammer, Anya in the patient unfolding of a seed.
Echo, in the constant hum of the loom, found hers. These were not walls, but touchstones—points of stability in the beautiful, chaotic dance of their shared becoming.