as a follow up to "if rhian really believed he could rehabilitate all evil then he would've brought aric back" i'm imagining a came-back-wrong situation:
rhian wins the power of the storian and he's willing to resurrect aric to placate japeth, but surely no one could blame him for including a few safeguards? after all, rhian's life is at stake here, and without him japeth would never have had aric back anyway, and japeth should really be grateful, that rhian's giving him a better lover than the original could have been-
cut to japeth who's initially ecstatic at having aric again, but as time goes on he notices more and more incongruities: he's just a bit softer than japeth remembers him, kinder, less prone to violence, more willing to love... does japeth close his eyes and tell himself it's natural and aric's just changed by having a second chance at life? or does there come a point where he can no longer pretend there's nothing wrong with him?
consider also if japeth is the one to seize the power of the storian, but he doesn't trust that the resurrected aric will love him in the way that he wants. we know that japeth and aric never kissed because aric was "ashamed of their love". does japeth really trust that aric will love him, even after everything he's done for him? can he resist using the pen to guarantee it? of course, any version of aric with modifications won't be the same one that japeth fell in love with in the first place. i'm picturing japeth desperately rewriting and rewriting, trying futilely to create a perfect happy ending that can't exist
