"No idea what causes that, though I'd be the first to describe my own personal core temperament as 'choleric', to use that archaic term," he says, taking a spool of thick thread from his trouser pocket along with a large needle. "I'd hardly expect any part of me to be any different, considering that these parts seem to have minds of their own.

"I've wondered that, if, when I drank that potion that opened the way into this place, it somehow reacted with something in my mind, the notions of my research, picking up on the neurochemical markers in those thoughts," he says, threading the needle, cutting off a length with the edge of one fingernail and setting to work, stitching his limb back on. It might twitch, almost as if the stitching or being held irritates it, but it doesn't try to break loose of Rika's grasp. "And since it picked up on that, it affected, well, my present form."