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[fleurdesel]

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Adelaide

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[pinprick]

"The Baroness. She pulled us all back of her own volition, and he was somehow caught up in it."

[fleurdesel]

"I am going to have to look into that." She'd never heard of much the same- but her studies had been focused on using spirits to mend, not demented spirits flipping through the Veil as though it is a door.

[pinprick]

"I always wondered if there was a way to send him back to the Fade. Kristoff's wife found it very upsetting that a spirit was walking around in his body, but the spirit claimed he couldn't do anything about it. None of the Warden mages I've ever talked to knew how it could have been reversed."

[fleurdesel]

"I can imagine." Normally once on this side of the Veil- that is it. The demon is appeased. "So he continued to walk around in a corpse until it rotted out from under him?"

[pinprick]

"He didn't have any other choice. He didn't want to do anything that made him like a demon, so possessing someone living was out of the question."

Until I talked him into it.

[fleurdesel]

"And now he possesses bones." The undead all fall away in time, unless preserved by necromancy. "A disconcerting thought indeed."

[pinprick]

"What mercy could you give him? Or Kristoff's widow?"

[fleurdesel]

"It is a complicated question. Spirits are not often so bound to this side of the veil as it does not hold their interest." Less often do they find their way into bodies, living or dead.

[pinprick]

"Complicated, or unanswered?"

[fleurdesel]

"Yes." She's had her inquisitive students in the past- and while Howe is no student, the answer is appropriate enough.

[pinprick]

He doesn't like it. He wants a different answer. He can't bear to think there's another person he can't save.

He lets out a long breath.

"Aura. That's the name of Kristoff's widow."

[fleurdesel]

"Kristoff himself passed before the spirit took his body. His soul is...wherever they go after we die." With the Maker, she might suppose.

[pinprick]

"Do you suppose he got trapped in the waking world the way we were trapped in the Fade? Physically, still present in the Fade, but unable to...wake?"

[fleurdesel]

"If Kristoff was dead before his body was possessed? I doubt it. He went...wherever one goes. For that you will have to speak to a Chantry sister, I am afraid." She is a mage, not a theologian.

[pinprick]

"I meant the spirit from the Fade, not Kristoff. His soul is resting."

[fleurdesel]

"I couldn't say. A spirit possessing stone, possessing items- things that cannot truly perish? These things I have heard of. A walking, talking spirit inhabiting a corpse, something that can and will rot away? That is new. I have never heard anything of the sort and cannot say what would happen when he loses that connection."

[pinprick]

Or what would happen to the living, breathing person he inhabits. Nathaniel will have to bring this up with Bethany. Who lacks any classical training, of course, but this information so far has been incredibly useful.

"Thank you," Nathaniel says quietly. He swirls the wine in his glass, looking contemplative. "This has been enlightening."

[fleurdesel]

"If there is anything else that comes to mind- or any other questions you might have? You are free to contact me. I will answer as best I am able." No matter the question- even should the answer be 'I do not know'.