Merath turned slightly, from staring at the skies of Elonora to Lumi directly. "Everything that there is in life. To be talking and socializing. To truly be working, fully pouring your mind into it. To be forming new beliefs, new convictions, to be fighting for what you believe. I had forgotten what it felt like to do any of those things."
He gave Lumi a look. "You have been aggravating about it, frankly. You keep asking things of me that I have no reason to agree to. And yet." He gave a small gesture that encompassed the demon corpse, the scattered scales, the departing players, and everything that had happened in the last several hours. "Here we are."
Lumi was quiet for a moment. He had not expected this. In his past life, Merath had simply been a figure of immense power, distant and untouchable, operating in the background of events that Lumi never fully understood. Perspective changed everything, apparently.
