When Arin woke up, he felt as though he'd been sleeping for a long, long time.
It had been an entirely dreamless sleep.
And even though it took him a moment to orient himself when he first opened his eyes, his thoughts and memories seemed to all be perfectly in order.
His head didn't hurt. His ears didn't buzz.
His mind was clear.
There were some things he didn't want to think about just then. And while he remained very aware of those things, surprisingly, those memories seemed to obey his wishes, and didn't linger in his mind.
Then, there were other things - things that he actually wanted at the forefront of his thoughts. Things he was wondering about. Questions he had.
Well, it's not like the answers were going to come walking to him.
Arin sat up in bed.
It was an unfamiliar bed. He didn't mind that, though.
It was comfortable. Soft and warm, with smooth sheets that didn't scratch, and the thickest mattress he'd seen since coming to this world.
No wonder he felt so well-rested!
For a moment, Arin just sat there in silence. He looked down at his own hands; large and calloused.
So, not exactly his own hands.
He'd successfully re-entered and reanimated Rin's body.
He was glad for that. Much as he'd missed his own, more familiar hands, and even though there had been a small part of him that had rejoiced in getting to see them again in ghost-form, he didn't think he could bear to look at them again just yet. Not since he'd had to use them to...
Well, he hadn't had the illusion bracelet in his ghost form. There'd been no way of summoning a needleworm beetle without that.
He'd been out of both, options and time!
He'd only done what he'd had to.
In any case, he was happy about being corporeal again.
Arin flexed his fingers a some more, watching as the soft, natural light coming from a nearby window shifted across the planes of his moving skin.
Then, he looked up and stretched his arms, until there was a satisfying - crack! - somewhere behind his shoulders. He also shrugged his shoulders and tilted his head to either side a couple of times.
Feeling slightly more limber, Arin reached up to push some of the stray strands of his curly hair out of his face.
Finally, he twisted his body to get off the bed.
The floor underneath his bare feet was made of some kind of fine-grained wood. It was slightly cool to the touch; still much warmer and far more comfortable than he had been anticipating.
Just as he was looking around for his sandals, there was a soft creak. The door to the room was pushed open from the outside.
Arin watched, mouth slightly open, as the tall figure of the white-haired tower master gracefully glided in.
'Good. I'll not have to rouse you,' he said.
'Y-you're here,' said Arin dumbly.
The man before him raised a brow.
'Uh...' Arin shut his eyes for a moment. 'Sorry, of course you are. I called you. Are we back at the tower, then?'
The tower master didn't say anything. He'd moved past Arin to walk up to one of the simple chairs arranged by a small desk in the corner.
Still without answering him, the man settled into it with the ease of a falcon folding its wings. He then raised his head to look at him again.
Arin slowly walked up to him.
'Thanks for, uh, fixing me,' he said. 'Part of me was kinda worried you'd just get Rin's body, and leave me there in the middle of that forest.' He laughed a little. 'You could've done that. You'd said when we'd first met that it would be easier to deal with this situation without me running around and screwing things up. And I guess you weren't wrong. I did manage to get myself killed just the second time I left the tower.'
The white-haired man sighed softly.
'Sit, Arin,' was all he said.
'Yeah, sure.' Arin slipped into a chair, shifting it around until he was facing the man.
'But seriously, how did you even manage to fix me up after that?' he asked. 'Is that a thing you can just do here? In this world? Like, if you have the right magic and know-how, and if the body is mostly intact, can people just not... die? Because if that's the case, then maybe that kid can also -'
'Elara is dead, Arin,' came the white-haired man's gentle voice.
'Ah, right...'
He knew that already.
Arin leaned back in his chair and covered his face with a hand.
He'd just wondered if there might've been a chance.