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Dariax couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this happy.
Dorian was laughing. He was trying to play a game Dariax was in the middle of teaching him. It was hard - some kind of matching-card memory game where you had to be the fastest to snag the correct card once it was turned. Dariax had grown up playing it, against Taros no less, so he could hold his own. Dorian, though? Dorian was terrible, but played like his life depended on it, all the while laughing. Dariax darted to snare another match, Dorian’s hand brushing the tips of his knuckles to snatch at the empty space just an instant too late. His brow crinkled into a pout as Dariax waved the card, flipping it onto the ground between them to join the growing pile at his feet, the smile never leaving his eyes.
Oh, they weren’t alone, of course. Never alone. Fearne breezed past, offering words of consolation and encouragement in Dorian’s direction that floated down like flower petals. Orym sat to the side, quiet as ever. Staving off Dorian’s pleading, he’d decided to watch for a few rounds to learn the rules before he joined in. Dariax was sure that as soon as he started to play, his own winning streak would be cut cruelly short. Opal threw an arm around Dariax’s shoulder, peeking at his hand, pointing him towards the wrong cards, heckling Dorian and Orym about their impending defeat at the hands of her genius card-shark partner. There, another match turned face-up, but Dorian was already moving and Dariax let his hand stop just short of what would have been his winning card. Dorian whooped as he brandished his third total match like a trophy, grinning like the sun, and as his friends laughed and cheered Dariax couldn’t stop the smile from stretching across his face at the warmth.
A hand clasped his shoulder - Fy’ra, probably, or maybe Opal bracing against him to stand and get another drink. He could go for another drink too, actually. He shifted his weight towards kneeling, turned to join her, to beckon Dorian and Orym and Fearne and Fy’ra to follow, to stay with him, and he turned to join her but Opal wasn’t there. Taros was, his hand gripping Dariax’s shoulder.
What was his brother doing here? He should be back home, or at least he was when Dariax had left. The smile slipped away from his face. This wasn’t right. He turned back towards his friends, tried to stand, but his foot hit empty space and kept going, his brother's hand still clutching him, hooked like a fish on a line.
The laughter of his friends still echoed in his ears but it was growing fainter, further away. It hit him that they weren’t leaving, he was being pulled away from them. And they were still laughing. They hadn’t noticed he was gone. Or, no, they had, but it didn’t matter that he was gone. They didn’t stop their fun just because he wasn’t there, of course they wouldn’t, and even Dorian- he could still hear Dorian’s laugh ringing above the rest. It hadn’t been Dariax who had made him laugh like that. Of course it hadn’t, of course he couldn’t, why had he thought so?
He didn’t want to leave them. Maybe they really hadn’t noticed he was gone. He shouted, called out as they faded into the glowing distance, but it came out as a croak. His voice wasn’t working right. He screamed and it was just a breathy whisper, drowned out by the wind rushing in his ears. The wind buffeted him where he stood, and the flickering light that illuminated his friends sputtered and snuffed out, and he was alone in a wasteland.
Not a wasteland. Empty fields, winter-bare but scoured clear of snow. He turned and there, his house, and there, the pigpen and the coop and - the hand still on his shoulder. Something curdled in his stomach. He didn’t want to turn around. Something was wrong. And the instant the thought entered his mind, the world around him broke.
The trees and buildings withered where they stood, cracking and warping, curling in on themselves like the legs of a dead insect. Dariax turned back to his brother to see his face fractured like glass. Like a broken window hit by a wayward stone - I didn’t do it, I didn’t mean to, he tried to say, but his voice still wasn’t working, and the only sound that came out was a choked gasp. That familiar asshole smile was frozen for an instant, for two beats of Dariax’s pounding heart, until a shard slipped out of place, and the whole visage shifted at the fault lines and his brother collapsed and shattered on the ground.
A creeping cold burned at his feet, rooting dread in his gut. He had to get back. He had to get back. The cold hadn’t reached behind him. If he could get far enough back, he’d be safe. His friends were back there. He had to get back.
A wave of darkness rolled over the edge of the horizon. Ink-black blotted out the cracked fields and rigor-mortis trees and it was coming for him.
Dariax ran.
He ran, the cold biting at his hands, clawing at his face, tripping at his feet, every stumble letting the blackness gain ground on him. He wasn’t going to make it, it was catching up too fast, and he was sprinting but barely moving, the terror of the growing void spurring him faster and faster but the faster he ran, the slower he went and he wasn’t going to make it-
He ran face first into a door.
A house. Still standing, unaffected by the frozen withering that had turned the world to a wasteland. The instant he had registered that, he was inside. One room, empty, lit by a crackling fire. Warmth flooded around him, making his breath hitch as it fought the painful cold from his skin. He could be safe here. He scrambled for the door, fumbling with shaking fingers to turn the lock, braced his back against the solid door, letting the warmth soak deeper into his bones. There was a blanket around his shoulders and he wrapped it closer. He could be safe-
The fire snuffed out.
He glanced up to the window just in time to see the ash-gray sky blanketed with pure black. A force like a stormfront slammed against the house, shaking it down to its foundation, the windows rattling in their frames against the gale. A keening wind sent tremors through the walls, and the blanket around his shoulders was ripped away and he backed into the corner, and for an instant the howling wind shifted into a taunting, sibilant voice.
“Did you think that would be enough to protect you?”
With a final shudder, the windows shattered and a tidal wave of icy void impacted.
Dariax’s eyes snapped open to a wall of darkness.
Not darkness.
Dimness. A forest. The camp, in the dead of night. A fire that had burned down to glowing embers, and the still forms of his friends at the corners of his vision. Wrapped in blankets. Sleeping, not dead.
He’d had another nightmare.
Fear still flooded his mind from the last moments of the dream. His body felt frozen in place, limbs pinned by the inertia of sleep. He couldn’t move a muscle. Couldn’t turn his head. Couldn’t blink. The corners of his eyes were wet with tears.
He took a deep breath. Focused on his breathing. His heart was pounding like he’d just run a mile, and he still felt a pinprick of terror as the final impact of that cold darkness loitered at the fringe of his mind. But the soft sounds of crickets and rustling leaves were already working to banish the memory of that screaming wind. And besides, any idiot could breathe. So he did. Breathe in for a long few seconds, hold it, out for another few seconds. And again. And again. And again.
As his pulse settled down, he could start to feel control returning to his muscles, fighting past the weight of sleep. A second of concentration, and he was able to twitch his toes. Another second, and he could move his fingers. A shift at the hinge of his knee and a bend in his spine told him his body had finally joined his mind in wakefulness. Already, the panic was ebbing away, tiredness creeping back to blunt the sharp spaces it had carved, the warmth of Dorian’s back against his helping to ease the last shivers of fear.
He stirred his shoulders, preparing to try to fall back asleep, but found himself still pinned. His blanket must have gotten wrapped up in itself while he slept. And his blankets were… heavier? He shifted his head, blearily trying to see beyond the patch of dirt in front of his face.
A soft snore sounded in his ear.
Oh. Well, that explained it.
The weight pinning Dariax’s shoulders in place was Dorian’s arm. Sometime during the night, he must have rolled over in his sleep. Now that he was aware of it, he could see Dorian’s hand half-buried in his own blankets. He was definitely fast asleep.
A flood of affection washed through Dariax, burning across his face and wrapping around his ribs, burning away the lingering shreds of the nightmare. He couldn’t stop the smile from breaking across his face, nor the tears that pricked at his eyes. He’d been right. He was always right, of course, but he really didn’t know why the rest of the party hadn’t believed him earlier. Dorian really could fix anything.
The last line from his dream wormed its way into his mind. Do you think he will be enough to protect you?
Y’know, I don’t really know, he thought back. Protect him from what? The network of criminals running one of the most important cities in Tal’Dorei? A Betrayer God’s plaything? Whatever dropped a plateau with an ash-hole on Emon? Fuck if he knew. Dorian was just one person. But those were problems for later. Tomorrow, at least.
For tonight, though?
Dariax pulled his arm out of his cocoon of blankets and swiped the moisture from the corners of his eyes, then inched himself ever-so-slightly closer against Dorian’s side, careful not to jostle him. Gently, gently, he laid his hand on top of Dorian’s. The chill of the night air, the darkness beyond the treeline, the dangers ahead - right here, with Dorian’s gentle snoring at his back, his arm around his shoulders, and his thumb tracing circles across the soft, blue skin of his hand - Dariax had never been less afraid.
Yeah. Yeah, he was enough.