If Alastor laid as much thought behind his intent as it deserved, he might have thought to anticipate this moment, and in doing so, had some guess as to whether it would feel more like being alive, or more like he always had in Hell. In either case, he would be wrong - It was neither, and all the more disorienting for it.
While Alastor remembered the loose and leeching darkness of dying, he couldn't say there was ever a time when he was dead. He was human, dying, and then himself. And this was something else, a mysterious stage in between the two. He wanted to feel it all, if only his muscles weren't too stiff.
Slowly, deliberately, in spite of the aching that ripped through him and threatened to seize up every tendon in his body, he sat up on the bed and took the glass from Lotte, downed in as swiftly as she did. His hand struck back out towards her. "Another, if you please," he said. She would notice, when she looked, that the bottle was no emptier than it had been, before she poured them each a drought.
And that may be answer enough, regarding how he felt, but really he simply had no way of describing it. His eyes, only the slightest hint of red left ringing his pupils, remained fixed on the burning fire across the room, its shape reflected there in his irises. They glimmered and shifted in that light, but didn't spin. His shadow curled quietly around his ankles; one of his pants legs was rucked up, exposing his ankle above the black of his sock, a sliver of untowardly human looking skin between it and his trousers.
Alastor forewent answering the question, and beamed down at Lotte, instead. "Truly, you were splendid. They won't be back for me until tomorrow, and we'll be long gone by then."
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If Alastor laid as much thought behind his intent as it deserved, he might have thought to anticipate this moment, and in doing so, had some guess as to whether it would feel more like being alive, or more like he always had in Hell. In either case, he would be wrong - It was neither, and all the more disorienting for it.
While Alastor remembered the loose and leeching darkness of dying, he couldn't say there was ever a time when he was dead. He was human, dying, and then himself. And this was something else, a mysterious stage in between the two. He wanted to feel it all, if only his muscles weren't too stiff.
Slowly, deliberately, in spite of the aching that ripped through him and threatened to seize up every tendon in his body, he sat up on the bed and took the glass from Lotte, downed in as swiftly as she did. His hand struck back out towards her. "Another, if you please," he said. She would notice, when she looked, that the bottle was no emptier than it had been, before she poured them each a drought.
And that may be answer enough, regarding how he felt, but really he simply had no way of describing it. His eyes, only the slightest hint of red left ringing his pupils, remained fixed on the burning fire across the room, its shape reflected there in his irises. They glimmered and shifted in that light, but didn't spin. His shadow curled quietly around his ankles; one of his pants legs was rucked up, exposing his ankle above the black of his sock, a sliver of untowardly human looking skin between it and his trousers.
Alastor forewent answering the question, and beamed down at Lotte, instead. "Truly, you were splendid. They won't be back for me until tomorrow, and we'll be long gone by then."