Not really. [ It burns, of course, like it always does — but she's too used to it for the hurt to show anywhere else. Power comes from sacrifice. Power comes from pain. It always has. It always will. She pulls her sleeve back down to hide the shape of it. ] It'll be sore later, but I usually sleep through most of that anyway.

[ It's downplaying the matter, but this kind of thing isn't a big deal to Ruka, and Jaime worries; it's easier on them both if he thinks of it closer to how she feels about it, rather than the objective reality of it.

At any rate, they came here to do more than sit around in the grass and talk about her arm under the eternal sun. There's much more to see than this. Ruka takes a moment to look around, getting her bearings. This 'landing point' is the familiar destination she expected — the memory of that forest, the world of spirits, bound and boundary to her heart. The familiarity is recursive: each tree, each breath, each natural sound reminds her of some other facet of the true world cleaved from her, and rebuilds it. It will never be the real thing, but it's... it's nice to be back. She belonged here, once. ]

Your doorways are near the river. [ She can feel them. Her head cants, angling towards the sound of running water. There's a looseness to the gesture — divorced from the tension she often carries in the physical world. ] They're not too far at all.

[ And with that, Ruka leads the way into the forest. ]