And Chamomile's opinions about the proper location of souls assert themselves.
Neither of them say a word, but there is some sobbing from the kagu.
Path launches himself at Isabella as soon as she's home, and then leans out of her arms in Vern's direction, making inquisitive, concerned bird noises.
"I-I," she begins, and then she sobs again and leans over to preen Path. "I'm sorry I died."
"Um," says Isabella.
"...what," says Path.
"... No," whimpers Vern, and she sobs again and curls into Adarin's arms. She has memories of Adarin's actions while he was alive and without her - she was curled up inside him, not gone forever.
"I am currently missing my magic," informs Adarin quietly. "And - the method to fix that is... There - needs to be another version of the resurrection..."
Path bites his witch's hand. She hisses, but doesn't push the owl away from her.
He kisses Isabella's hair, in lieu of hugging her with an armful of sobbing kagu.
"I can't watch. I can't watch it happen," he says.
"You don't have to," assures Adarin. "Neither of you do, okay?"
"If we can't come up with something painless it - it might be pleasantly distracting if I held her. Path can wait somewhere else."
"That's - up to you," murmurs her husband.
"Hold me, hold me please," whimpers Vern, "I died in front of Path, I was so scared and confused and I didn't - I didn't - what happened, why did we die?!"
"Of course -" Isabella reaches out for the kagu, Path clinging to her silks to leave her dexterity. "It was the alt of Adarin we were visiting, he screwed up a shield he was paranoidly trapping Adarin in, and - and I rushed through the resurrection of the Veron there instead of pausing to figure out why Path was so upset, I'm sorry."
The kagu sobs in Isabella's arms. "Okay," she says shakily, making a little bird-noise that sounds kind of like a mix between a sniffle and a hiccup. "It's - we need to take steps so it never happens again, are we doing that? We need to do that."
"We're going to send letters first next time, warning people - maybe we should make Prime play emissary once or twice see how he likes it - we'll have - better timing." Pet pet pet.
"Okay," she agrees, and then she coos and nuzzles Isabella. She glances over to Path and motions for him to snuggle her.
Vern snuggles Path and Isabella. She declines to say anything else. But she's stopped sobbing.
Pet pet.
Vern coos and preens her hair a little, then goes back to snuggling Path and Isabella. All of the snuggles. All of them.
After considerable snuggles - and a bit of a snack and a quick check-in with her staff - Isabella gets the mirror for Zeviana. And snuggles back up to solid-portion-of-spouse and birds on the couch to call her.
"Oo, hey, you're back! Hi, welcome back! I met my alt, we fought, I beat his ass and now his nickname is Turtle."