Teatime hacked, painfully. It was as if his lungs had forgotten how they were supposed to work. As they ached back to life, he also noted that his spine burned horribly, and that there were a lot of strange textures under him. A lot of them were unpleasantly squishy, actually. And why on Earth was there so much noise?

He creaked his eyes open, only to be greeted by a gigantic pink… Was that a nose? How unfortunate.

His senses slowly came back to him, and he heard something about bright lights and near-death…

Well, that certainly explained it.

Teatime focused on the chandelier above him. It was certainly familiar… He'd seen it in a book once, which one…?

"Uh…" He finally settled on, "This is the Unseen University? And you are all wizards?"

"Now, you just lay still…" One, seemingly in charge, said. It was meant to be an order.

Teatime got up to his elbows, anyway. There were far more pressing matters to attended to. "There was a sword," he said. His tongue felt thick as if it, too, had to remember how it was meant to work.

"Oh, it's fallen on the floor," the wizard said, "But it looks as though it's -Did I do that?"

The table was sliced through, as was every table, cloth, and bit of metal in the way. So at least the sword knew its job. And if that worked again, that meant…

"Looks like a thin blue line in the air…" The wizard said, with almost childlike fascination.

"Excuse me, sir," Teatime said, voice polite but insistent. He took the sword back in the same way. "I really must be off." His legs seemed to work well enough, though certainly more sluggish than normal, and he ran from the hall.

Somewhere he heard a "he won't get far".

And, as his lungs, legs, and the rest of him remembered that they'd been dead only a moment ago, he had to admit that was certainly accurate.

The first thing he noticed was that the fabric didn't feel right.

Under his thick wool coat he'd had a silken undershirt, more for fashion's sake than anything practical, and now whatever fabric was on him scratched at his arms. Quite the same with his legs, actually. Including his feet which a wiggle of his toes revealed to definitely not be in his boots anymore.

He quickly ran a finger up his leg, and confirmed that his undergarments at least were still there. And the scratching fabric seemed to be laid on him, so a blanket… Someone had taken his outerwear and put him on a cot. Due to the table? Yes, that was the most logical and the least unsettling idea.

But he wasn't in the dining hall anymore. This room was quiet, outside of a fair amount of clicking, and… Did he smell cheese? And there a noise that could only be described as 'parp'.

Once he could will them to, his eyes creaked open to try and figure out where he was. And, looking at the giant… thing against the wall, he wasn't any closer to figuring it out. It had holly on it, though, and a teddy bear with a big bow. So at least he knew it was still Hogswatch.

A young man, seated on a stool in front of the thing, turned and hastily readjusted his glasses. "You. er… you really should stay laying down, this time. You got a, uh… a nasty bump when you hit the floor."

There were an awful lot of questions, but Teatime settled on, "Where are my clothes?" His tongue was still thick. Wonderful.

The young man, presumably a wizard as well, smiled apologetically. "We, ah… we sent them to the laundry. You… you were covered in food and we figured, you know, it wouldn't be comfortable to sleep like that." He swallowed and adjusted his glasses again. "We, ah… we also found your… your membership card, Mr-"

"Teh-ah-tim-eh," he slurred out, automatically.

He sounded even more tired than he was, and the wizard adjusted uncomfortably.

"Teh-ah-tim-eh. Yes, well… your sword is over there." He motioned to the far end of the room where it was placed. "Safe, safe!" he said, with hands up for urgent emphasis. "But you'll, ah… you'll understand if I'm more comfortable with it staying over there."

"Fine enough, I guess."

"I'm Ponder Stibbons… I'll, ah, I'll be taking care of you, I suppose."

Teatime nodded his acknowledgement, and adjusted the pillows so he could be propped up at least. "So what is this?"

"Oh, this? This is Hex," the wizard said. "It's… it's a thinking machine I guess is the easiest way. Doesn't actually think, though."

"Then how does it work?"

"Oh, well, you see, it, ah, starts with this ant hill…"

Unlike with the Arch chancellor, there was no premonition of a point being completely missed, or of bewildered disinterest. Teatime just sat, attentive and engaged as one could possibly be under the circumstances. Even his questions showed at least a basic grasp on magic that it certainly seemed some of Ponder's peers had long abandoned.

It was so refreshing to find this in someone other than one of his own students, Ponder went on for about two hours before he caught himself. "But I, ah… I don't want to bore you."

"I'm not bored," Teatime said. His voice was far more normalized, and a bit more earnest than he intended. "Tired and shockingly hungry, but not bored."

"There's, um… there's plenty of food still, I'm sure. You crashing into dinner… It kind of threw off a lot of appetites."

"I could see that. I'd love some, if it's there though."

"I'll be right back," Ponder said, and hurried out to go fetch a plate.

Teatime managed to sit up, with some difficulty, and tested his limbs. They still felt heavy, and far more than that his back ached. He certainly wasn't in the shape to head out, still, much less to tangle with a woman who was about to get something back after leaving the tower… He wasn't sure what, but he had a feeling whatever it was at probably rivaled the sword.

And there he was, freshly reanimated and down to his underwear until his coat was laundered. He didn't much care for formalities, but there was no dignity in killing someone like that. Plus he'd freeze. There was that.

He sat, patient and (nearly) unarmed. The dagger he could reach barely counted, so he figured that he could have one. After that he was far more comfortable waiting for Ponder to come back with a plate full of food. It was slid into Teatime's lap, and Ponder sat back on his stool with the notepad.

"Now, what did it feel like?" Ponder asked eagerly, with pencil poised just above the paper.

"Like falling spine-first onto a big pile of teeth," Teatime replied as he attended to his first bite. He glanced up and giggled at the blank look. "It hurt going out, and it didn't feel too good coming back in. There's a long, quiet gap in between the two."

"Did you see anything? A light, maybe? Relatives?"

"No. It was just very dark. I could see, but there was nothing but black to look at." He frowned as he put another bite together. "Felt like I was going to be waiting there a while."

Ponder scribbled that down. "Any sensations? A smell or…?"

Teatime closed his eyes as he chewed. "Think I might have been standing in sand. Or it could have been all that food I landed in. Not sure."

"Well, that's a lot to work with!" Ponder said, happily. "Never had, ah, someone come back from the dead before."

There was a slight redness on his cheeks, and Teatime leaned forward a bit to examine it.

Ponder moved back, his face even darker. His eyes wanted to dart, but that was probably a bad idea with an Assassin. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," Teatime grinned. He was fully ready to tease him some more, to at least bring some fun into the evening, and leaned a bit closer.

His back cracked. By all logic his spine should have been shattered, and there was more than enough pain now to remind him of that. He yelped, despite himself, and straightened back up.

Ponder leapt from his stool. "Y-you have to lay down!" He more moved than helped Teatime lay back on his stomach. "I'll, uh… I'll go get something!" he said, desperately, as he rushed out of the room.

Teatime buried his face in the pillow as he tried in vain to regulate his breathing. There was no way he could sneak out after they all fell asleep like he'd planned. He might not be able to get out for at least a week, even. And he didn't want to entertain the idea that an Assassin who couldn't walk was less than useless, but…

"Here it is!" Ponder said. He hurried back in.

He turned his head just enough to see Ponder give a few more meaningful grinds with a mortar and pestle, and a green cloud puffed out over the rim.

"What is it?" he muttered, apprehensively. As he watched the wizard scoop out a large blob of gray, he struggled to get back up and got a horrible shot of pain from his back. "Don't! What are you…!? … Oh"

Ponder rubbed the slime onto Teatime's bare back, and a warmth seeped deep into his bones. The pain slowly subsided, and his tight muscles started to relax. And, after a long day of physical and emotional stress and far too much cold even in that tower, it just felt so nice…

As he probably should have hours ago, Teatime soon fell into a deep sleep.