Chapter Text
The return was silent, by the end. Though they took the fastest route home, spending an eye-watering amount of gold on teleportating from Nex to Drezen, they’d still had to get to Quantium from the edges of the Mwangi expanse where Bikotsi and the rest of his people had parted from their group and wished them well. It took hours, and left Sparrow exhausted by the time they stepped back onto the familiar grounds of Drezen’s citadel.
She and Daeran are the only ones remaining of their party by the time they reach Mendev once more. Seelah peeled off in Nex, saying she had business down south. Sparrow had offered help, but Seelah was apparently meeting other friends–and while she was more than ready to jump into another adventure, she recognized that Sparrow clearly was not. She’d told Sparrow she knew how to reach her if she did need the help, and then urged her to get some rest. It had been a long journey, after all.
Sosiel used the teleporter to return to Andoren, to his family and his husband. He’d hugged Sparrow before they left, offered to have them visit his vineyard to recuperate with friends. Sparrow said no, because she’d known what was really behind the offer. Bad shocks, painful moments, were best handled alone. She appreciated Sosiel’s care even if she did not want to endure his hovering.
Woljif had hovered, or tried to, with the benefits of coming to Drezen with the Arendaes. But Daeran knew what she needed and had sent him off to his own estate with a few well-placed words, with the promise they would meet again once everyone had slept off the journey. Woljif had agreed, his tail lashing, and had told Sparrow he’d be up and ready by the next day if she was.
And Nenio, of course, stayed behind in the Mwangi jungles, her work not yet done. The ruins still needed more study, she’d said. And besides, she wished to discuss theory with Isore, whose name she already engraved into her still-nebulous memory.
Isore. Crow. Isore, whose real name Sparrow had not even remembered. Isore, who had scars stark against his skin, who had looked so small compared to Sparrow’s memories. Who’d known where she was for years and never tried to find her; who had crushed her against his chest and stroked her hair and had spoken with a voice choked in tears, seeing her again for the first time since she was eleven. Who saved her life and the lives of all of her friends, the life of her husband.
Who, when she’d asked him to come home with her, said no.
Her body is aching by the time she and Daeran finally make it to their rooms, the paperwork and concerns brought to Sparrow’s attention non-emergent enough to wait. But, while Daeran strips to his skin as soon as he walks through the door and collapses onto their bed immediately, she sets down their traveling packs and starts pulling out everything inside. Her body itches even through the exhaustion. She wants to put things in their right place, clean up and erase the marks of travel from their room. She takes things out, one by one, and puts everything away in a drawer or a chest or their closet. Her body is distant and automatic in the motions.
It lasts for several minutes until she hears Daeran’s voice from the bed next to her. "Dear heart, if you do not come to bed this instant I will tie you to it.“ The threat is diminished somewhat by being addressed to the pillow Daeran has buried his face in, visible from the corner of Sparrow’s eye. "Whatever mess there is can be cleaned tomorrow, after sleep.”
Sparrow keeps putting things away. A mud-stained pair of trousers to be washed, the only Greater Restore scroll they hadn’t used, a ring of protection Crow had made–she closes the bag, moves on to another pack. “I don’t know if I’ll have the strength to rise at an appropriate time tomorrow,” she says, pulling out Daeran’s spare boots. “I’ll be just a few minutes.”
“You’ll be hours.” With clear disgruntlement, Daeran raises his head from the pillow. “And since ‘appropriate time’ for you is before even the sun wishes to grace the land I would go so far as to say that you are entitled to sleep in. We will put everything away tomorrow, I give my word.”
“You mean we’ll get servants to do it.”
“Did I not just say?” Daeran stretches out a single golden-skinned arm from under the covers, beckoning to her. “Come to bed. It’s cold without you.”
The image is tempting enough to make her pause, but the itching is still there, and she knows it won’t go away until everything is in its place and she doesn’t have to look at it anymore. “I don’t…I need a few more minutes.”
Daeran does not lower his head back down like Sparrow hoped. Instead, he raises one golden eyebrow. Sparrow takes out two more things and puts them in drawers before the nagging sense that she’s keeping her husband up forces her to say, “Please don’t wait for me. I’ll blow the lights. You need rest.”
“I certainly do, almost half as much as you,” Daeran returns. To her horror, he sits up entirely, looking absolutely miserable doing it. “If you insist on finishing tonight, I suppose I shall help.”
“No, don’t do that. Lie back down. It will just–” She closes her eyes. She's exhausted and she knows Daeran means well. “All right. Let me put out the light.”
Daeran stays upright while Sparrow takes off her stiff traveling clothes and blows out the lamps, until the only remaining light is that which emanates from her husband. But Sparrow still stands on the edge of the bed, keenly aware of the supplies still on the floor.
Supplies enough for two and no more, still stained from their trek through the Mwangi expanse.
“Why didn’t he want to come back?” Her throat is tight; she swallows once, twice. There’s a horrible pressure against the sides of her nose that she’s pressing back against. She has to keep it together.
After several seconds of black silence, Daeran says, “Please come to bed, Sparrow.”
Sparrow’s shoulders slump, as if all her strings have cut. She puts one knee on the soft feather mattress, and then feels more than sees Daeran’s dim arms reach forward and pull her to his chest in a crushing embrace. She buries her face into his shoulder, clinging to him like a lifeline.
“We only just found each other again,” she chokes out against his skin. Every moment of their hellish trip splinters inside of her, each culminating to the look on her brother’s face when he stepped away from her and said goodbye. When he walked away. “Why didn’t he want to be here?” Why didn’t he want to be with me? Even in her mind the words are too raw.
“I want to be here,” Daeran says, his voice uncommonly fierce. “I want to be here, and if your blasted brother had any sense he would want to be here as well. If his guilt, or his pride, keeps him from you, then that is his burden to bear. It has nothing do with you.”
“How could it not? How couldn’t it? What is wrong with me?” She doesn’t even know what she’s saying anymore, there is only the pressure, the breaking of a thousand shards of glass in her throat and her chest, and Daeran’s arms around her. The end of a trip where she found her brother and lost him all over again.
“I want to be here,” Daeran repeats, voice raspy. Sparrow feels the pressure of a kiss against her head, then her damp cheek. “I will always want to be here. Your brother can stew in his own misery or grow up and love you like he should have. I will be here either way.” He lays them down together, still holding Sparrow tight against him, an anchor in the storm. He lets Sparrow fall apart in his arms, and strokes her hair when the relief of exhaustion finally pulls her down into sleep.
When Sparrow wakes up the next day, eyes crusted and bleary, the sun is already shining through the room, and any traces of their travels are gone.