Voices reach him, muddy and slurred. He can only pick out a word in every ten. Seconds more pass before he perceives grainy light in the darkness.

This puzzles him.

Everything should be dark... but the light lends hope.

He tries to move his eyes. The sensation is unfamiliar, but they move, albeit sluggishly. Seto carefully stifles his shock as his gaze tracks sluggishly to the left, then to the right. He tries to make sense of the blurry light and dark, but they're too indistinct yet.

If he can move his eyes, what else...?

Seto strains to focus on what little he can hear. Sounds become voices, and voices slowly become words. He can identify the speakers after a moment's concentration.

"--oved his face!" Elder Hargo. He sounds awestruck.

"He's coming out of it." Elder Bughe; thoughtful.

"Give him a little space, everyone..." A third speaker, male, both itchingly familiar and foreign.

The Gi made a mistake, he realises then, as the pieces of his situation slowly come together. They didn't use enough poison to kill him.

Seto tries to look to one side again, trying to rein in his excitement. With effort he manages to wriggle his nose, by degrees. It's sluggish, but he can feel the movement. Experimentally he tries to relax his face from its death-snarl. Stone-splinter whiskers droop. His jaws fall open, teeth picked out in alabaster from the darker grey stone of his hide.

"Seto?" He can hear Elder Hargo again, right beside his ear. Reflexively he flicks it at the sound, but the motion is stiff and strange. Too slow. He tries to answer, but his throat won't obey. "His ear! His ear moved!" The old man sounds awed; joyous. "Bughe! Have you ever seen anything so splendid?"

"Fa... Father..." That third voice again, in a tone of wonder.

The pieces click into place.

He knows that third voice, now, with a rush of pride. It's little Nanaki, his own cub; a cub no longer. A sudden restlessness seizes him. This is no time to be trapped. Not when there is so much lost time to catch up on.

Seto throws all his effort into moving. He doesn't notice the low, grating snarl that reverberates through his chest, or the way pebbles jitter underfoot.

"Look, look! His tail twitched!" This time he can hear the eponymous owner of the weapon shop, Tiger Lily; excited as a child. "It moved! He's really back! Um. Is there anything I should go get?"

"I don't think so." Nanaki again. Puzzled. "This is new to me, too... What do you think...?"

None of them seem to know quite what to do for him, so he tunes out their words, although their voices fill him with unexpected joy. Instead, he treats the prison of his own body as he would a teaching-puzzle. Focus and effort will serve him, but how best can he tip those scales?

With care he tries to move different limbs; twitches his stone ears again. The stone splinters of his whiskers bristle and droop by turns.

"Nearly... there." He finds his voice at last, but it isn't his own. The sound is guttural, a deep basso sound like two boulders ground together. When he speaks, pebbles jitter underfoot. It doesn't matter to him. He can speak; that's all he cares about. "My... friends."

Movement comes more easily now. He tries moving a paw, flexing toes, and to his surprise finds he can retract his stone claws. He turns his head to the right; blinks slowly and eyes the space to the left of him.

"Take it easy, Seto." Elder Bughe. "We wouldn't want anything to break."

Seto obliges, swivelling his head to the right and opening the eye on that side. "Elder... Bughe." The old man flinches back from the stony rasp of Seto's voice, but he's grinning as he does. "Elder... Hargo. Tiger... Lily. Nanaki. I... thank... you." The last word reverberates even deeper. "All."

He can see them now as they look at each other, grinning. Tiger Lily looks ready to dance a jig, and even Nanaki looks cautiously pleased.

"It's good to have you back again, Seto." He can see Elder Hargo pat his stony shoulder, and he isn't surprised when he can't feel it. "You were missed."

"It is good... to be back." Seto stretches his leaden limbs and arching his stone spine. His tail flicks fastidiously, and he's satisfied to see the flame on its end, guttering-blue though it may be. The others have gathered around him, and once they start, he trudges along with them, standing tall.

It's slow going, limbs still stiff and awkward, but he doesn't mind.

For the moment he puts the distressed murmuring of the Planet out of his mind. There will be crises and problems to solve, and he will rise to that call, in time. Protecting the Planet is what his kind do... but the cries will keep for a few days longer, he decides, trugging back to town flanked by his friends and his son.

Seto switches his stone tail, rumbling cheerfully and setting blue shadows to dancing against the stone walls.

He'll face them in time, just like anything else... but for now, he has several decades to catch up on.