Ranulf's presence draws him out of his meditative but troubled focus. Soren is not exactly surprised to hear him there, for a part of him sensed that he wasn't alone, even if he'd been more distracted by the scatter of his disconnected thoughts to the point where he would notice the feeling and forget about it shortly after. The cat is right, though. No matter how hard Soren tries to impress upon himself a level of composure, his nerves are quite tangled beneath his attempts to set his head on straight. He'd even traveled to the aristocratic district thinking he would be returning home to see Ike before correcting himself, remembering with shame and misery that his loyalty had been tampered with, and rerouted course to the house of mirrors, the closest link he has to what he has left behind.

But it's just a mirror right now. The only thing he gets is his own reflection, distorted from what it used to be almost two years ago. He slowly lifts his head to see Ranulf's silhouette cast in moonbeams. Ranulf can sense it when the dragon's heart finds solace in him here, reinforcing what he needs to understand.

"One day..."

One day. Soren is far from an optimist, but if he doesn't believe in this one day, whether it be here or on Tellius or some other far-flung land, he might just fall to pieces or go numb and lose all hope. He clings to it like to prayer beads. The spines that line his back and tail on this full moon relax just a little.

"... I'm not doing well," he admits with a quick sigh and a shake of his head, freely and without concern for guarding his vulnerability. "I'm having an even more difficult time separating fiction from reality tonight. What's worse, I..." A pause. Tension fills the air, flows between them. "...keep getting confused about Ike. Things I used to remember, I'm... drawing blanks. I'm not even sure if I'm remembering the sound of his voice correctly."