"Hugging," he says. "I can stop but I would prefer not to."

...okay?

She'll. Let that happen. She supposes.

Eventually Arik manages to let go. (There's a few false starts first.)

"Taharqi is sleeping," he says. "Sorry for... getting you killed."

She blinks slowly. "I asked to be killed. You didn't do anything."

"If I hadn't been there you would have left," he says. "And told your Kafra people about the spirit. And they'd have sent someone to kill it who wouldn't have had to... do whatever you did. That was worse than dying."

O...kay? She really does not know how to reassure people and doesn't actually quite understand why he seems to need reassurance. "I paid to be resurrected quickly. The only reason I took this long to come back was because I was collecting our rewards. Dying wasn't that bad."

"...that's very strange to me but I'm not going to contradict you."

He steps back. "Anyway. I'm glad it went better than I thought."

Right. Sure.

She reaches into one of the pouches attached to the inside of her gi to grab a small bag of money that is nevertheless a lot heavier than it should plausibly be able to be, and offers it to him. "Your cut. 83,334 zeny."

"Gods, that's so much money."

He holds it up to a golden bangle on his wrist, then hands it back. It now weighs as much as a small empty bag.

She accepts it and puts it away. "You should buy a resurrection point. The most basic one costs six thousand zeny and is available for purchase at the cheapest subscription tier."

"I am absolutely going to do that. I didn't know they were a real thing. Taharqi has been explaining various things to me, like what a resurrection point is."

She blinks again, a few times. He didn't know...? That explains some things. And raises other questions. 

...other questions she really doesn't give a damn about. "Is Taharqi asleep?"

"Yes. You should go in and wake him up, he'll be happier to see you than he will be mad about the disruption to his sleep."

"...why."

"He likes you, and he was worried that killing you didn't fix whatever happened, and he'll sleep better knowing you're okay."

You know what, that kind of stuff does sound like the crazy rogue. "I'm fine." But, alright, sure, she'll go wake him up, she guesses.

(There is a small plate of falafel by his bedside.)

...she isn't sure how to do this. Does she... poke him?

His lips curl into a mostly involuntary smile. "Annika..." he mumbles, pretending to be talking in his sleep. "Annika... don't go..."

...he's not fooling her. "I'm fine," she repeats, grabbing the bag of zeny with his share of the reward and tossing it to him.

It hits his chest and he oofs with the sudden concentrated weight then starts coughing. "That was uncalled for," he croaks.

"That person said you'd sleep better if you knew. So now you know. 83,333 zeny, by the way."

"That explains why it's so heavy." He pulls it off his chest and drops it next to the bed before sitting up. 

Then he notices the falafel. "Aww, he's very sweet."

Yeah, sure. "Are you going to sleep longer?"

"After being so rudely awakened I think I'll have trouble going back to sleep."