The bells in her heart chime, and Aria stirs.

She can feel Aria's hands on her, pushing her back, folding her over on herself. It's almost a caress.

Aria's hand touches her face and silences her chimes.

Aira picks her up, removes the strip of leather in her heart, and starts turning pages. 

It's intimate. She's delicate in this form, thin and fragile. She can follow along a little with where Aria is reading by where she turns each page. She knows the words that are written in her. 

And then she touches her, and the world is nothing but bliss for a long moment —

And she pokes her head out of the covers. Her body is far smaller than she's used to, with four legs rather than two. Her hearing is painfully acute, her vision yellow-grey rather than the full color than she is used to. But she can move again, and speak again after a fashion, and she is still here with the woman she loves and that is wonderful. 

She hops up into Aria's lap, rubs up against her stomach, looks her in the eyes, and bumps her nose against hers. 

It is not quite a kiss. But she thinks Aria gets the message. 

Aria pulls her close and blinks back tears. 

"Iselin..." 

She baps Aria on the nose with one paw and meows. 

Enough, she means. Honestly, Aria is being so dramatic about this whole affair. It was always going to happen eventually.

"... I'm sorry, I know it's not... I guess in a way you weren't there for the worst parts in a way..." Aria lets out a huffing breath. "Look, give me a moment —" 

She goes to touch the wire cages by her bedside. 

Iselin grabs her arm with her paws and gives her a Look —

But there's a moment of bliss, and suddenly she is no longer a cat. 

Aria —

And a moment later she has a very familiar body back. 

"Aria..." 

She sighs, scoops the cat into her lap, and shakes her head. 

"I guess if you're more comfortable this way."

The cat gives her a Look, and very deliberately nods. 

Iselin hugs her love close to her body, and squeezes. 

"Alright," she says. "We can time-share the body this morning. I just don't see why you should have to sacrifice when it's me who went and died like an idiot." 

Aria shakes the cat's head, and meows.

"Alright. Let's go get breakfast."

Iselin gets up, picks up the enclosing box for her and Aria's soul-weaves, and brings the whole apparatus over to the breakfast table. It's foolish to keep switching back and forth when they've only got the one human body available, but she has more marbles; she can give Aria the coffee grinder, the chairs, the tree outside so she can feel the wind in her leaves... 

It's awkward being dead, but they'll sort this out eventually. It's just damnably inconvenient in the short term.