The mortal realm.
"Lara… oh my god! You did it?!" Merlin beloud, his voice cracking against the stone walls of his study.
The room was dark, filled with the acrid smell of burned parchment, chalk dust still clinging to the air like pale ghosts. Hundreds of failed diagrams sprawled across the floor, circles half-smeared, glyphs abandoned.
But this one — this single parchment glowing faintly under the pressure of their combined will — was alive. It thrummed. The scroll pulsed faintly, like the heart of some slumbering beast.
For a moment, Merlin forgot the weight of age, the tremor in his hands. His eyes, dulled with years of exhaustion, lit with the fire of discovery.
They had finally done it.
Lara held her ground, her blue eyes fixed on the trembling scroll, though a flicker of disbelief still clung to her. "… it worked. We really… it really worked." Her voice was both fragile and fierce, as if she herself couldn't decide if this was triumph or madness.
