[They smile, a little sad but warm. Real.] Thank you. [They raise their head a little, looking at their team having come in to rest around them.] Thank you all.

I was... trying to find my way back, I think. But I'd gotten lost along the way, and I couldn't get through until I had a clear path to walk. You showed me the way, by being here. [A living voice, like a clarion call on a dark night. Reminding them of life and living, of what they were.]

[Myrrh lands on their shoulder without passing through as Tanith does- but that's one ghost touching another. It's different for the living, and they still hold her hand gently, their phantom fingertips resting lightly over her own solid, living flesh.]

[It will never be the same. But maybe it can be something good, still.]

They were keeping the door open for me, I think. Making sure I had the chance, if I was willing to take it.

[Their hair is still the same inky blue-black as it always was, a match for Tanith's own, but their eyes have lost all color. They used to be almost purple, several shades off from their cousin's bright blue- now they're a blank off-white, iris and sclera and pupil all one shade with only the faintest of distinctions to tell where one part begins and another ends.]

[But they're clear and lucid, not hazed like someone in a fever dream or cold like something uncaring, inhuman. They're changed, but they're still themself.]

[They can work with that.]

I'm not done. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm not done yet. Probably not for a long time yet, I think.

[They're here. And they're not planning on going anywhere soon.]

[The rest of the world is just going to have to get used to it.]