Me?! Of course I'm real! [ Her heart's racing a mile a minute for the scare, and incredulity comes off a little like chastisement. ] What about you? When did you even get here?

[ With the fire — could he always do that? — it's easier to see the look of him. He's mostly the same as she remembers, of course, save for the scars, but her eye only flicks over them like checking the pattern on a shirt. They never really talked about it, but unlike most, Ruka always knew his fate. She'd known before they met.

And the thing about the dead is that they can't grow past you, not by leaving; he'll never return to this world as an old man, and the years have been short enough to preserve her mostly as he'd remember, too. Sure, she wears her hair up a little differently, but she hasn't gotten any taller, any more maimed than usual. If anything, she might look a little better than he remembers: skin a little less sallow, cheeks a little less hollow, light a little less dull.

She looks a little more suspicious than happy, though. ] You did come in by the Porter. Right? You didn't just wake up here in a corn field. Right?