Ferra yanked the loft ladder shut while Hajin kept the sleeping bench in sight below, right beside the banked hearth. Aria checked the disabled stream controls twice before opening the sealed diagnostic across the loft's low table for their session.
Soul Energy stayed off and Fragment Extraction paused while the hearth drew no air across Ash's blanket.
"Slow it down," Ferra rumbled through the link, leaning over the frozen image, "the edge before it closes, I want to see how the fragments meet."
Aria slowed the replay until each recorded mote crawled along its own path, joining without any collision at the boundary. Ferra traced their movement above the display, keeping her fingers clear of its controls while the replay crept toward closure.
The same shape stayed recognizable when the replay reached its closed edge.
"They didn't need a weld," she murmured, watching the joining points vanish beneath the curve, "they just followed the shape into place."
