After having severed the last of the tissues, Neda gently put Asrael’s dismemberment down on the table. The arm that had saved her three times over- the arm that had allowed her brother his vengeance... the arm that had cruelly instructed her, was now, finally, dead and immobile. Where asrael saw the highly organized cuff, she saw a rounded, bony protrusion from amidst the surprisingly bloodless mess. The caput humeri had been neatly and cleanly removed from the glenoid cavern- effectively separating his shoulder from his upper arm without as much as scratching the smooth articulatory surface. He had to give it to the girl... even when she was terror-stricken, she was irkingly gentle.

Looking at her made him uncomfortable- especially in such close proximities. The stillness of the room, the closing night and the fading pain filled him with a profound... relief. Despite his discomfort. Her red eyes were surrounded by puffy eyelids, but at least the tears had ceased streaming. She looked even more ridiculous than the first time he had seen her- covered in soot, rather than dust, from top to toe, leaving only the streaks along her cheeks clean due to her lengthy session of sobbing. Both had words for one-another, but none could find them. Neda could always find a way to express herself- however clumsily, but Asrael... Having spent his life on his lonesome, cut-off from his supposed peers and like-minded- if there were any- he had never learned to understand why his social, primal mind would do as it did.

All logic and reason spoke that he should kill the girl for having cost him his arm. As Neda knew, had she not decided to step in Petrus’ way, Asrael would likely have made it across the rune and escaped scott free... but because of her decision, he was now left armless to stare ponderously into the cellar wall. Asrael was confused... Despite her usefulness, he should not have done as he did- his genius mind was simply valued far higher than hers could ever be. Objectively, he felt as if he were superior to the girl in every way, yet... he had still jumped in front of her and willingly taken the risk. He was no altruist- heroes were but fairy tales of fools to him. Despite knowing this, he had taken it upon himself to grab the ball of crackling fire and accepted that it would turn him into a cripple... the solution to his state had come later- after he had calmed down. He could feel her throwing her glances his way in his peripheral view, but he remained stalwart in his decision not to meet her pleading stare.

“Put the head of the gremlin’s arm into the rounded parabolic protrusion on my scapula.” He ordered. Neda grabbed Petrus’ limp, dead arm and held it still in her arms- attempting to decipher what he had just commanded her to do. He sighed and clarified: “Put the arm’s bone into my bone and keep it there. I suggest you get comfortable, as I assume this will take a few hours.” She was puzzled to hear how he seemed to... care... for her comfort- despite his previous fury. When she finally tapped the transplant against his own bone, he felt a jolt of pain, but knew that the worst was still to come. With great strain, he raised his fingers to extend his magic from his skin and feel the dead, cold tissues against his own. It was an odd experience- feeling what he would soon claim for himself as nothing more but a haunch of dead flesh.

The process took hours- long, excruciating hours in which Neda sat there in silence and looked at Asrael with terror, melancholy and a morbid curiosity. He shunted nerves, forced his own flesh to meld with Petrus’- bone, ligaments, muscle, skin, all of it just as painful as the last, but the end result was, to Neda, nothing short of amazing. To Asrael, it felt clumsy, as he could feel deep within his tissues that their cells were dissimilar. The intercellular matrixes were, macroscopically, incapable of observation, but for the man whose profound attention was directed at his tissues, it might as well have been a patchwork job.

Curiously, as time went by, Asrael noticed a change in Neda’s expression. She sat at his side, holding his shoulder in between her gentle fingers, while the arm lay in her lap. The sadness had turned to interest, then, finally, her cheeks had turned deep-red. Her ragged breathing and the smile were most unnerving, by far, but something about the glazed sheen to her eyes made him feel-… good. Confused as to what this all meant, he asked: “What is it?” She looked to his face and let her lips split into a wide grin, before asking: “Does this mean y-you forgive me?”

Forgiveness had always been an alien concept to him. People would beseech the Gods for it- people would beg the Courts for it, but Sins... they could never be forgotten, could they? He could never forget about his arm being blasted away, but-… He bit his lower lip ponderously. It hadn’t been her foolishness that had cost him his appendage... at an earlier stage of their partnership, he had asked her to sacrifice her life for his, should the need come to it. She had tried just that, but it had been he who had been the foolish one- not that he would ever tell. Dreadfully, he shook his head and mumbled: “Be quiet.” He felt his new arm twitch and in so doing, she let out a moan. He could feel his fourth and fifth fingers and curiously felt them touch something as soft as silk, but his other three fingers were still without sense, save for the tactile sensation of their repeated jerks. Relieved that the process was working, he dared feel hopeful he would some day regain the use of his fingers.

“Oh g-gosh... Y-you're so cold-….” She whispered. Finally, he followed his naked arm down to see that, in his efforts to reconnect his nerves, he had somehow found his way... under her dress. She leaned atop his newly connected shoulder to whisper: “I-I k-knew you’d come around, b-but I didn’t think getting your arm ripped off would do it...”

Then and there, he went from being glad he had killed the pyromancer to wishing he had kept him alive so that he might suffer part of his own torment.