“Urgh... this body is old and creaky. Nadier really needs to take care of the horse.” The dark elf cracked his neck with discomfort. His vision had fully returned, even in the eye that had been blinded. “All this stress isn't good for health.”

Ierba watched, for a moment confused. “You...?” Then, his eyes flourished with understanding. “Arborior Winterwayn.”

Arbor grumbled as he opened and closed his fists, attempting to get use to his own body again. “I hate that look on you. Confidence abound, as if nothing can bring you down or surprise you. Well, I sure proved you wrong that one time when I stabbed you in the back.” He looked to Zen, her head up with a glow of curiosity in her eyes as he smiled. “Hey girl.”

The shadow wolf stood to her feet and backed away a step on the bed. She eyed him up and down, unspoken bewilderment drawn across her snout as sparks of shadows danced along her fur. He reached out to her and stroke under her neck, which she ruffled approvingly. Her hind legs sat down as she calmed, the familiarity fading the dark fire from her body.

“This,” Arbor muttered under his breath. “This I missed.”

“Is this a thing now?” Ierba interrupted. “Have you just “killed” Nadier? Because if you have, you and I are going to have problems.”

“You ask me as if I know,” Arbor replied, guiding Zen's head to his lap. “I didn't even want to come back, but your friend, the new “me”, decides to dig through all our old memories. Couldn't very well leave it alone.”

“Can Nadier come back?”

Annoyed and tending to the dizziness of his trip through the ether of his mind, Arbor replied, “He's somewhere inside. I can feel him scratching at the back of my head. Why don't you wait a while and see if he comes and take me from this suffering? If not, you can just kill me.” He muttered finally under his breath, “I know I should have.”

The pair sat in silence; Arbor as he contemplated his return, and whether it was a blessing in disguise or closer to the curse that he feels it is; And Ierba on how to make of the situation, absorbing in both the information Nadier had given him and how to respond to the new situation.

Arbor broke the peace. “You don't seem that surprise at the circumstances of my return.”

“I have a friend with ten alternate personas. You're a cakewalk in comparison to comprehending that.” He paused, then quickly changed topic, realising, he did not know how much time he had with the resurgent personality. “Nadier said you had information on the Soul Arm, Wygahn.”

“I do,” Arbor admitted.

Ierba waited for the former to continue, but when he didn't, the knight clicked his tongue in frustration. “Could you tell me?”

“I could.”

Another long quiet and Ierba sighed. “Will you tell me?”

“Sure I will.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

A pause. Ierba yelled. “Now?!”

“Oh... no. I won't tell you right now.”

Ierba rocketed to his feet, grabbed his spear off the wall, and threw it hard into the ground between Arbor's feet, the force enough for the tip to break through the stone floor with a spark of light and embedding the weapon into the earth. Zen jumped in shock and ran under Arbor's coat.

“Are you screwing with me?”

The elf seemed impressed. “Nadier said you were from a different universe. What kind of phrasing is that though? Or am I just old now? Have linguistic flew by me with the dawn of a new age?” He scanned Ierba's face and squinted. “No matter. I can guess it's an anger issue. Still won't scare me into giving you the information yet, though.”

Ierba breathed angrily, accepting that he was not actually going to attack Arbor, given that Nadier still shared the same body. “Do you have a legitimate reason for not telling me, or are you just an asshole?”

Nadier's snark had a calculated intelligence behind them, striking painfully whenever he does hit, and only came by out of spite or annoyance. Ierba did not like that mindset, but he understood it at the very least, and felt challenged by it. Arbor on the other hand was the school yard bully, a kid with the power to anger and annoy and willing to throw their weight around, especially when knowing they had the protection of certain levels of invulnerability.

“You don't get it,” Arbor replied, scratching the edges of his injured eye, winking it as if trying to rid it of some dust. “I'm playing my cards here. At-Tro-Pos doesn't know I'm alive. If he did, he'd come kill me, because I have the information. If I just start handling out that same secret to every passersby, well, I might as well wear a bright red helmet and stand naked in the tundra.” He started looking at his hand, occasionally closing one or the other of his eyes as if gauging their efficacy.

The knight's frustration increased, and the thought of perhaps a light concussion would revert Arbor to Nadier crossed his mind. Then, he recalled a word.

“You said “will”. You said you will tell me...” He carefully phrased his next question. “When?”

Arbor grinned and quietly praised, “Good boy. You're at least smarter than the other you.” He leaned forward as Zen reappeared from the shadow of the coat behind his legs, circling around them casually now that the tension had disappeared. “I want to talk with Trini first.”

“We're not exactly at the liberty of leaving whenever we feel like right now.”

“It's not optional,” Arbor insisted. He blinked hard as the vision from his injured eye began to fade again, and he could hear Nadier in the back of his mind smashing and wailing to be released. “I have to talk to her.”

“Why?”

“For the same reason I let Raven and Enthes go all those years ago.” He pointed to his blinding eye. “Nadier's coming back soon. We have deal?”

Ierba snapped. “I don't see much of a choice. How do we get you back?”

“Don't worry... I'm sure Nadier has already figured it out. If he hadn't... then I really hadn't learned anything over these past two hundred years.” Arbor dragged his legs back onto the bed and huddled himself against the wall. He did not want to crash unexpectedly on something again and be hurt. His neck was already stiff enough as it is. As his consciousness began slipping, his voice and demeanour cracked while his words slurred. “What do you think... Langsley... the other you, would say to seeing you here? In his body... or at least something that looks exactly like him.”

“I wouldn't know...” Langsley answered. He was slightly unnerved at seeing the switch happen. It felt to him like witnessing the soft death of a soul. “I'm not him.”

“That's where we differ, I guess. Nadier's screaming it... at the back of my head... all the time. As you say, he's screwing with me. It's funny. Two hundred years ago, I ran away to survive... though ironically... I did kill myself. Now, half of me is a better... a better man than I was before... who wouldn't run if given a choice and reward.” He laughed, his body shaking as his mind melded together with Nadier's again, swallowed whole by an ocean of another person's personality. “I really wish... this switching thing gets easier... in the future...”