"...Fine," Daphne says. This is apparently the best she's going to get, at least at three in the morning.

Daphne makes Residence Life look at their room again the next day. Residence Life continues not to find anything, and is in fact increasingly confident that what Daphne's describing is impossible. Daphne bitches about Residence Life's competence or lack thereof in multiple social contexts.

When it happens again, six weeks later, she feels more irritated and resigned than panicked.

Idaia has frost crystals collecting on her. Nothing else in the room does.

What the...

...

Instead of picking her up and carrying her out of the room, Daphne shakes her awake where she is.

The frost crystals dissolve. Not just dissolve, sublimate, leaving no moisture behind. The temperature in the room begins rising, not returning immediately to its original state but not held at a deadly chill either.

Daphne looks at Idaia.

Daphne opens the door to let the cold air out.

Daphne says, "I apologize for not taking your apology seriously last time this happened. What the fuck."

"That," she sighs, "would be the real reason people think I'm crazy."

"Can you not control this at all to prove it's real?"

"I could prove it's real. Then what? I could win the Randi Prize, I guess, but I don't want the kind of attention being one of only two magic users in the world would bring me. And just because I can do magic does not, in fact, prove the rest of it."

"The rest of it?"

"The reason I can use magic is that I came to this universe from one where anyone can, via an accident involving a giant snake, into a civilization that existed I don't even know how long but demonstrably before recorded history, died, and then reincarnated sixteen years and some ago."

"Huh."

"Still don't think you're crazy."

"Oh. Good."

"My sister and I reincarnated. I'm pretty sure I'm never going to see any of the rest of them again."

"How do you know?"

"They weren't human. They were immortal and fast and strong and beautiful and they had the most amazing singing voices--they were the Eldar. Humanity--humanity started after I died, the world was so different back then, the only reason I'm sure this is the same world is that a literal evil god had prophecies about humanity--all cherry-picked to be awful, we recognized it as our species despite the fact that the one that depicted the Holocaust was fairly typical. Anyway. I don't know how human souls work or how we're alive but they have something else, and my--the ones I loved best--they swore an oath--they can do that, make metaphysically binding oaths--if they died they're not coming back. And they died, the world wouldn't look like it does if they had lived."

"...I'm sorry."

"I was married. I am married, my wedding vows didn't say 'till death do us part,' they said forever. I want my husband back. I want my family back, my in-laws welcomed me with open arms and I loved them too and my only hope of seeing any of them again is to somehow fix aging and get stronger at magic than anyone in my birth universe ever did and I don't think I can do that but I have to try."

"If you can find a good angle, I'll help, I don't want to die either. And I want you to be okay."

"What's the point of coming back if I'm just going to die again, slowly while my body wilts around me."

"...I mean, most peoples' lives aren't meaningless."

"Yeah, but people don't just--come back, as a matter of course. Why me instead of someone brand-new or someone who wouldn't be disappointed by the span of a whole 'nother lifespan?"

"Maybe because you're going to fix it."

"That would be nice, but somehow I doubt the powers that be agree with my definition of fixing things, or they would have done it."

"We'll just have to fix it anyway."

"I sure as hell plan to try."

"Good. Hey, I know this does all sound crazy, but I believe you. And that means this is the most significant thing I could do with my life, basically. This is the kind of thing novels are written about, and I intend to be a major character, not that one bitch at the beginning who provides another emotional hurdle for Our Heroine to clear and never shows up again."