Die. Respawn. Repeat.

Ahkelios didn’t quite know what to make of the cabin he’d picked.

Part of that was the fact that it was apparently designed specifically for him, despite the fact that he’d chosen it pretty much at random. It wasn’t like the cabins looked different from the outside. The first time he stepped into it he’d almost forgotten to breathe; the whole place ached of…

Well, it ached of home. And it had been a long, long time since he’d been home.

It was oddly difficult to get used to. In a way, he felt like he was obligated to love it the way he had his old home. The mess of scattered canvases, paints, and ceramic planters had always been a comfort to him back then. Every time the laboratory became too much—he’d enjoyed his job, but it could be demanding—he’d take a day or two off to sit and paint and be with his plants.

Now, the idea of doing that felt… foreign. The idea of taking a break felt foreign, really. And he was so far removed from the person he’d been back then that it felt more like a painful reminder of what he’d lost than a place of home and comfort.

Ahkelios sighed, glancing ruefully at the note he’d found taped to the bedside table. Ethan had worked hard to give him this, apparently, in some distant future. A part of him was touched, and a part of him felt guilty that he didn’t appreciate it the way he felt he should have.

Then again, if he’d truly disliked living here, he would have told Ethan before they got this whole cabin built in that hypothetical future, surely? Maybe there was a reason he hadn’t.

There was a chance he could learn to connect with his home again, here and now.

He’d tried, over the past few days, to engage with his old hobbies again. He painted a somewhat messy painting of the crystalline shards of Isthanok, floating over the city. He transplanted some of the smaller saplings and plants from the grove into his planters and watched them grow.