arthur and john and general body sharing: there are different ways for multiple beings to share one body, mortal-mortal, god-mortal, mortal-god, god-god, and even more with the addition of other species and subspecies. but for this we're only gonna be talking about a mortal hosting a god. usually, when this happens, they dont live long. with a reality god (a god born from the world) syrlthian (reason for reality gods) rot would start to spread throughout the hosts veins until it killed them, this process usually taking only a few months. arthurs veins stopped rotting while in the prison pits. when a body sharing situation happens, the body doesnt have enough room for 2 souls; its what kills the host. while there are two souls in one body, they move around each other- like a dance. however, changes can happen. sometimes, the souls get closer. at first this looks like the souls lightly crashing into each other, but if the host and parasite become close enough, each soul could lose half of themselves, and with the remaining half of each, meld together. arthur and johns souls started touching while arthur was in the coma and merged in the pits. for a soul to give up half of themself, the person themself also has to give up something. arthur had accepted the loss of his eyes and arm, and john had let go of his godhood. with them losing these parts of themselves, they unknowingly gave up half of their souls- allowing room for them to merge together. which makes them getting ripped apart even worse, as not only was the merge new, but a split soul is not a soul that can survive. with yellow, a fundamentally different god, arthur started to rot again, though it didnt spread too much because it lasted for barely a day. the rot stopped again when john came back, and started to spread again when lillith got there, and spread faster when it was just her. if the king decided to not give john back to arthur, they both wouldve died. when a soul loses half of its original self, you cant get that back. both their souls were split, and if they remained separate it wouldve only taken a few weeks/months for them both to die, feeling their worst pain tenfold as it happens. on any level deeper than surface, it becomes nearly impossible to differentiate the two. now, a mortal doesnt just live a normal life after their soul merges with a gods, there are changes. some changes can be the mortal having relations to the gods domain, added cosmetic features similar to the god, and an advanced lifespan. for a normal, non-magic human, like arthur, his lifespan would now be stretched to around 200 years. nothing else changes regarding his natural life, only that he'll age much slower and die much later. and since john is a part of his soul, no matter what happens, separated or not, they will die together. if theres an afterlife in the gods panethon, theyll go there after death, if theres no after life theyll do to the afterlife the mortal believes in, and if theres neither they will simply cease to exist. once two (or more, in rarer cases) souls are merged, theres no way to undo it. luckily people dont usually want to be separated from the person thats a part of their soul.