But the moment the food touched his mouth, taste arrived, full, real, exactly as if his living body in the labyrinth far away were the one eating. Salt. Fat. It was good...
It had a deep savory note he could not quite name, like the broth of a stew that had been cooked for two days. The texture was right. The temperature was right. He chewed and swallowed and felt the warmth of it go down inside him, and the hollow ache in his core eased a little where it landed.
He sat for a moment with the spoon in his hand, surprised.
He had been doing many things since he arrived in this realm, walking, fighting, feeling pain, feeling exhaustion, without quite registering that he was doing them. His soul-body had simply worked, the way his real body worked.
He had thought of it as a strange numbness, or as habit carrying him through. He understood now that it was not numbness. The soul-body could do everything a body could do. Hunger. Pain. Taste. Warmth. Tiredness. All of it.
