There is a flat expanse of greyish dirt, mostly old cracked mud, dusty and worn. A few low hills break up the monotony here and there.
To the west, a shimmer of distant water. To the north, a smudge of green. To the south, the spiky silhouettes of mountain peaks. To the east, only a sliver of sun just beginning to peek over the flat grey horizon.
"Ah, here we are. I hope they've had a chance to come up with some good testing options."
Hazel, currently shorter and more feathery and decidedly less busty than last time, steps out of their cottage and blinks at their unexpected guests.
"You gotta figure out if they have a soul," he says urgently, gesturing to Hailey. "Because like, what if they don't, right?"
"It's an objectively worrying possibility. We come from a world that had no detectable magic, at all, and none of the protective properties of souls here and in his homeworld," she jerks her thumb at Torok, "have ever been observed in our homeworld. We didn't even have any proof souls existed. There were just people who talked about them sometimes."
"But we can contemplate that over lunch, or while preparing lunch, because as Torok said we have vegetables, along with a fish from Palla."
"By all means let us prepare lunch," says Hazel, moving distractedly to reach for the fish sack.
Hazel blinks, then smiles. "An acceptable division of labour. —I've finished your commission, by the way, but we can deal with that later. For now I will, as you say, think smart thoughts."
And Hailey passes the fish sack to Torok and sits down between man and enby. "Y'all let us know if there's any way we can help with either project, mmkay?"
"—before I get too lost in my smart thoughts I should get out a pot for you to cook those vegetables in," says Hazel, "and some skewers for the fish."
They disappear into their house and return moments later lugging a big black cauldron, plus an intricate frame of folded metal which unfolds into something that the cauldron can hang from over the fire, with space beside it to roast some fish. There's also fresh firewood to supplement what's already in the pit.
"Thanks." Torok sets about deploying all this and building a fire under the pot. "Can you set up the fish?" he asks Hailey, offering her the skewers and peeking into the sack to remind himself how many fish Palla gave them. (There's three, each of a size to make a decent meal for one person.)
"Sure," she smiles and takes the skewers, carefully not brushing hands. Fish get skewered and put over the fire, and she watches carefully to be ready to turn them.
"My thoughts on the subject of your soul or souls," Hazel muses over the sound of Torok disassembling vegetables with a sword.
"The transformatives I provided you earlier worked as expected, which is an observation I expect to see in the presence of a soul and not in the absence of one—a soulless subject should have been transformed much more drastically. Instability of identity is a classic symptom of soullessness but my understanding is that without a soul it should be prohibitively difficult to, having moved from one identity to another, return again to the first. —it occurs to me to ask if you would like me to explain what a soul is, before I go on."
"A soul," says Hazel, "is... a bit like the skin of one's mind. It contains and strengthens the mind, and provides a barrier between it and the outside world. Colloquially the soul and the will are often conflated, but the soul is not the will, only its framework or substrate. A demon does have a will, but without a soul to mediate between will and world, they are powerless in all the realms the will normally governs—resisting transformation and injury being foremost among those. I believe, though I cannot confirm, that demons also cannot gain strength or endurance by training the body: being essentially a self-imposed transformation accomplished by the unconscious will, it should be impossible without a soul. I also theorize that demons have a hard time navigating—but I'm getting off track. So far, evidence tentatively suggests that you do have a soul. But the evidence is somewhat indirect; there could be other explanations for each observation. A more direct test is needed. As an alchemist, of course my mind jumps to alchemical solutions first—but alchemical solutions are slow and indirect, and we have a different kind of expert on hand just at the moment."
—it takes him a second to catch Hazel looking at him, and then he blinks, replays the last couple of seconds in his head, and says very firmly, "No murder!!!"
"Of course it would be incredibly dangerous to test for the presence of a soul by having someone attempt to kill the person who may not have one," Hazel agrees. "Which is why I am suggesting that if you want to settle the matter in the next five minutes," their gaze swings around to Hailey, "you should try to kill him, instead. Under controlled conditions and armed with thorough explanations of both the theory and practice involved."
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