Matthias adjusted to the secure medical room considerably better than Arion expected.
By the time Victor finished the first round of examinations and permitted him to sit somewhere other than beneath three scanners, Matthias had been given clean clothes, proper shoes, and enough time in a shower that one of the medical staff eventually checked whether he had fallen asleep beneath the water.
He had not.
Apparently, after nearly a century with soil embedded into a body no longer entirely human, forty minutes beneath hot water simply seemed reasonable.
When Arion entered the secure sitting room later that afternoon, Matthias was dressed in dark grey trousers, a plain black shirt, and a knitted jacket someone had found in the medical stores. His long hair had been washed but not cut, leaving it falling in loose black waves nearly to the middle of his back, while the years he had spent transformed had left surprisingly little visible damage now that Arion had restored him.
