Path launches himself at Isabella as soon as she's home, and then leans out of her arms in Vern's direction, making inquisitive, concerned bird noises.

Path bites his witch's hand. She hisses, but doesn't push the owl away from her.

"You don't have to," assures Adarin. "Neither of you do, okay?"

"Of course -" Isabella reaches out for the kagu, Path clinging to her silks to leave her dexterity. "It was the alt of Adarin we were visiting, he screwed up a shield he was paranoidly trapping Adarin in, and - and I rushed through the resurrection of the Veron there instead of pausing to figure out why Path was so upset, I'm sorry."

"We're going to send letters first next time, warning people - maybe we should make Prime play emissary once or twice see how he likes it - we'll have - better timing." Pet pet pet.

"Okay," she agrees, and then she coos and nuzzles Isabella. She glances over to Path and motions for him to snuggle her.

"Okay," murmurs Vern.

Isabella kisses her feathery head.

Vern coos and preens her hair a little, then goes back to snuggling Path and Isabella. All of the snuggles. All of them.

After considerable snuggles - and a bit of a snack and a quick check-in with her staff - Isabella gets the mirror for Zeviana. And snuggles back up to solid-portion-of-spouse and birds on the couch to call her.

"...Congratulations. We've been busy, too."

"Oh? Anything interesting happen?"

"We met another Adarin, who was five hundred years old, unfriendly, sleep-deprived, and careless, and he accidentally killed this Adarin."

"I resurrected him, there was no beating applied because he had to go and get my my herbs and so on and was very apologetic, and also turns out the spell doesn't work on fae so now there's a live nonmagical Adarin and a ghost and I'm going to have to - try again with a revision."

"Alethiometer was pretty clear."

"Extra damn. Is he - wait, fuck, no, he's a wreck, isn't he. What do you need me to do, how can I fix this?"

"He thought you wanted to know, we aren't - I mean, you can't help me with the spell, can you? You could come keep the ghost company, though. We can't see him."

"Yeah, doing that. Gonna make it a teleport, he needs me now." Pause. "Are you going to be able to kill him?"

"We have - not settled on a method but it's probably not going to be me."

"Uh - sweetie?" Isabella passes the question on.

Isabella relays that.

"That's a yes. Okay, good, because I don't want my brother to have to figure out a way to kill himself."

"Okay. Then - that's that solved as soon as I have the spell."

"Yup. Be over in a bit, ghost-Ada probably needs me, you're in charge of human Ada."

"Mm-hm."

Zeviana waves, and then ends the mirror-call. She is going to go work on a teleportation spell. There will be swearing.

"... I can't tell if that's helpful or worrying," murmurs Adarin.

"That she's willing to do it?"

"Yeah. Just - immediately, like that."

"She thought the plan was for me to, which I found kind of unnerving in its own right."

"... Yeah. I worry about her, sometimes."

"I mean, she's also very concerned about you."

"I know, I'm not - that's not what I'm worried about, I'm concerned about her mental health, sometimes."

"What else has you concerned?"

"It's - I don't have a list ready, I'm afraid, but how she doesn't take other people's preferences into account and uses her own as a base for everyone else, how she can just move on from things, no problem - I worry. It's in the brotherly job description."

"The moving on might be adaptive."

"Eh, I guess. I might just be picking things to worry about for no reason, really."

He nods, and snuggles her back. "I wonder what the one who's five hundred is like, I should have thought of trying to find her while we were there."

"We can go back. We weren't expecting that reception and then we were - occupied."

"Yeah. And - to be honest I don't want to go back now, I just - want to be home with Path and Vern."

Snuggle.

Soon enough, there is a knock on their door. It didn't take as long as flying would, but there were more swear words involved.

Isabella gets the door, leaving Path to aggressively snuggle Vern as a substitute for human snuggling.

Vern aggressively snuggles him right back, like it is the high of summer in Texas and he is a giant owl-shaped ice cube.

"Hey," says Zeviana. "Where's - aha, hey, Ada." She starts addressing thin air. "Yeah. Nope, it's fine. You're welcome." She snorts. "Yes, I'm peachy. If you die a third time your extraplanar privileges get suspended, though. Mhm. Knew there was a reason for why I liked you. Besides the brother thing."

"How's he doing?"

"He's coping. He's glad to be back home and somewhere familiar. The strangers were nice, but he'd like to talk to people he actually knows."

"I wish I could see him."

"He wishes you could, too. But he stays close to you, so if you've got anything you want to say to him later he'll hear."

Isabella nods.

"Also - he's totally fine with everything the living Ada's said? I don't know why he wouldn't be, but I don't know what he said, so."

"It's still good to know they're on the same page."

"Uhhh - he's worried about continuity, he thinks one of them will lose their memories or they'll both just remember when they died the first time when they're one person again and nothing that happened after."

"I'll - check with the alethiometer. My best guess is that both sets of memories should persist but I can check."

"He says that he's just being paranoid, but it's worth checking."

"Okay, good, that's nice to know."

"Yeah." As long as she has the device out she fiddles with it a bit more. "Aaand - it's not a huge revision from the original spell, apparently, if this thing were better with numbers I could ask it if it's just a matter of adding a verse or - needs one new herb - okay -"

"Ada's got faith that you can do it," assures Zeviana.

"I'm sure - the question is how long it'll take."

"He's not going anywhere."

"Yes, but he has to be a ghost for the intervening time period, which doesn't - sound particularly fun."

"Oh, it's not, but I will be keeping him company."

And Zeviana goes and keeps her ghostly brother company. If she starts getting tired she'll look for someone else to keep him company while she sleeps, but for now - it can just be her.

"Do you want me here? For yourselves," says Isabella. Pet pet.

"If it was the other way around he'd hold Path, wouldn't he?"

"Yes, but that doesn't - mean that you have to?"

Isabella swallows, hard, and then - goes to perform her spell.

"...Better?"

"High? What on? The spell is not supposed to do that."

"Maaaagic!" singsongs Adarin, swaying a bit and then correcting. "I keep thinking how incredibly inappropriate it is for me to be having giggle fits right now but then -" He giggles. "I do it anyway."

Isabella snorts and then steps forward to hug him.

"I wasn't expecting it. Want me to ask the alethiometer?"

"Oh, oh no, I'm not complaining," he snorts, snuggling her back. "But I'm just - this is absurd!"

"Are you only just noticing?"

"No, no, but it's just - everything is weird and my head's a mess and I seem to be high and this is just another thing to add to the weirdness of my life and it seems so strange and hilarious!"

"Magic loss affect mind magic gain affect mind," Isabella reads off her thingamajig when the alethiometer has finished answering her question. "So you'll probably adjust to baseline again."

"Oh, good, I'd be utterly useless like this if it were permanent."

"Not utterly. You're speaking in complete grammatical sentences and everything."

"Do I get an award?" he asks, wryly.

"Do you want one? I could scare up an award if you wanted one."

"'Can speak grammatical sentences while under questionable effects after getting magic restored,'" he muses. "Hmmm. No, no, too many awkward questions, I'm not even a woman, they don't know I have magic."

"Yes, you'd have to display it only in limited settings." Nuzzle.

"I would, and if I have an award for grammatical speaking I think I'd want to display it to the world!"

"You're adorable."

He giggles. "You're beautiful."

"Thank you."

"Anytime! Except at six in the morning, when I am sleepy and vulnerable!"

"You've called me beautiful when you were groggy too, before."

"Yeeees, groggy-me gets an award! Awards for me, all around!"

"Do you want to go reassure Zeviana that you're properly alive at some point?"

Isabella goes with him, holding his arm helpfully.

Good, because he kind of needs that for support.

Isabella yields him up to this treatment.

"Pfff," says Zeviana. "Of course you are." She ends the hug and gives him a little affectionate push on the shoulder. "Isabella resurrected you."

"We should probably retrieve your wedding ring, but your armored clothes are still stuffed in my portal bag waiting for laundry day," says Isabella. "And then - whatever you want to do with - it."

"... Burn it, probably. Easiest."

Isabella nods. "Do you want me to do it?"

"Okay. ...Are you full up on mana? That's not how you died, the first time I mean, though the second time either."

"I have - the same amount I had when I died. So, not very much. That's interesting."

"At least this means we will never find ourselves in a situation where you have to die and be resurrected repeatedly to generate mana in some kind of mana emergency. I mean, having the option would be strictly useful, but at this moment I'm pretty happy with that just never coming up."

"Agreed. Let's not play the dying game."

Isabella reclaims her Adarin for snuggling. "Mm-hm."

"So will I. No more dying."

"Yeah. No more dying."

Snuggle.

Snuggle!

Zeviana is obviously not needed anymore. She waves goodbye, and then heads off to go find Luzia - she is of the opinion that she needs some comfort sex right now.

Yup, Adarin is so up for comfort snuggling right now. He starts the process of sorting out his head, the high from restored magic waning a bit.

And he is snuggled.