Chapter Text
A small solitary figure sat alone beside a campfire, a lonely sentinel standing guard over his sleeping friends. His eyes moved back and forth along the perimeter of their camp, steady and alert, though inside he felt like screaming. His body hurt, his heart ached, and his mind raced. He clutched a sending stone to his chest in a viselike grip, knuckles white and hands trembling from the pressure.
He lifted the stone to his mouth, gaze never leaving the nearby treeline. His voice when he spoke was low and rough, weariness evident in every word. “The lines are blurring, Dorian. You know your songs. Is the hero always the hero? When does he become the monster he chases? I’m so-”
“...tired,” he finished in a defeated whisper. He knew he had exceeded the word limit of the spell, unable to deny himself the entreating utterance of Dorian’s name. He mentally kicked himself for his weakness, knowing the message’s delivery was impossible anyway after the Solstice, even if he had gotten things correct.
Orym of the Air Ashari, Savior Blade of the Tempest, tucked the stone back into his shirt and sat silent and still until Ashton came to relieve him an hour before dawn. Curling up against his faun friend, he fell into a troubled sleep, imagining strong arms around him and a melodic voice whispering his name.
An ocean away, a familiar bard sat quietly in the dark, despairing as the stone produced only static, blocking the loving reassurance of his reply.
xx
Polishing off the last dregs of the stew Fy’ra Rai had so thoughtfully brought him, Dorian set his bowl aside and leaned back with a sigh. Seated before the fire, he stared listlessly into the flames, attempting his best to ignore the muted thuds and creaks from the floor above. He wished he had taken Fy’ra on her offer to join her meditation, cursed as he was with too much knowledge of what was occurring upstairs.
Fearne likely would have been the first choice for Dariax’s current method of “distracting” Opal and redirecting her darker impulses, but Dariax had volunteered himself in her absence. Dorian could have lived the rest of his days without knowing his friends’ opinions on painplay.
Breaking mercifully into his thoughts, the sending stone in his side pocket crackled to life:
“The lines are blurring, Dorian. You know your songs. Is the hero always the hero? When does he become the monster he chases? I’m so-”
Dorian had known hurt in his life- his isolated childhood and his fraught relationship with his parents had seen to that- but leaving the Silken Squall had introduced him to pain like never before, a natural consequence of facing danger after danger alongside companions he cared for so deeply. Even so, none of it compared to the yawning chasm of grief Orym must have felt every day since losing Will. The dear man actually thought himself far more stoic than he could ever come across, but he wore his wounded heart on his sleeve for anyone who took the time to look. The viridian of his eyes were haunted and lonely, grief surrounding him like a shroud, and therein lay the deepest pain Dorian had ever experienced- his heart breaking over his inability to soothe Orym’s.
He was desperate to reply when a loud crash and masculine yelp echoed from upstairs, demanding his attention. The latest debacle took them all night to sort out, and it was during the new dawn that he stood before the dying embers of the fire and held the stone with shaking fingers.
“You’re not a monster, Orym, you’re just a man going through terrible things and facing terrible odds. Keep faith. Believe in yourself and our friends.”
It should have been the warm blue glow of the sending stone casting over his features as he finished speaking. Instead, only the dying light of the fire revealed the way his face crumbled in misery as he received only static, the brief exception allowing Orym’s message to come through not granting Dorian the same grace.
The stone remained silent for another five days.