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To Dorian's ear, Fearne's voice sounded like a strong wind through sturdy branches, a sound he hadn't heard much until leaving the Silken Squall. She had her typical mischievous, twinkling look on her face though, so he was certain she was simply speaking in a language he didn't know. He had studied many languages with private tutors in his childhood, but there were many gaps in his education based on "tradition," a thin veneer to hide generations of prejudice. He had been proud of his supposed worldliness until meeting Dariax and realizing his parents had never deemed Dwarvish important enough to devote time to, preferring to keep their focus skyward. Dorian was a quick learner, though, and his mind took to languages in much the same way it took to music. Dariax had been a patient teacher, and Dorian felt much less self-conscious and ashamed with a passable knowledge of the dwarven language tucked among the multitudinous melodies and scripts flowing through his brain.
This must be something similar, he thought with a frown, feeling his brown crease as he examined Fearne a bit more closely. He had no way of making heads or tails of it, though her expression was one he had seen many times. He began to open his mouth to ask Orym if he was as lost as Dorian was, but he was instead startled into silence by what sounded like ice creaking from over his shoulder. He turned rapidly without thinking, knocking into Orym slightly with an unwieldy elbow that must have missed the memo on grace and poise in his confusion.
Sure enough, the sounds were coming from Orym's mouth, similarly to Fearne's mere moments ago. Dorian's mouth fell open in surprise, and Orym met his eyes in amusement, finishing whatever he had been addressing solely to Fearne before moving his arm up from around Dorian's waist to rest a hand on his cheek. Fearne giggled madly and began a cadence reminiscent of sleet falling into a shallow pond. Dorian wasn't quite sure how he was able to so quickly place the sound, but there was nothing else it could be. Her tone was light and airy, but there was no mistaking the source her speech had clearly been pulled from. Yet again before he could raise a question Orym was responding in kind, a drier sweeping of cracked earth and dead leaves being pushed along with time. There was substantial mirth in his eyes now, and Dorian covered Orym's hand on his face with his own. He surely looked undignified with his mouth hanging open, but there weren't the normal pauses expected in conversation available for him to interject.
Interrupting whatever the other two were sharing felt sacrilegious, somehow, as if a stark halt would ensure the occurrence never transpiring again. Despite how out of his depth he felt, Dorian couldn't allow that. Their voices were beautiful, dancing through the air over the trio's bed with ease and simplicity. Fearne's clawed hand was resting gently on his shoulder now, one finger twirling strands of his hair. He couldn't help the blush that rose to his cheeks, purple tint spreading generously across his face and to the tips of his ears.
He was used to resting between Orym and Fearne, but the newness of their current interaction made it feel all the more intimate. Now Fearne was echoing a damp springing of moss, somehow encapsulating the weighted life of a rainforest despite, Dorian knew, not having been to one since their own journeys near Niirdal-Poc. Whatever she said drew a laugh out of Orym, warm and rich, the vibrations from his chest reaching down to his hand, still resting gently on Dorian's face.
Dorian resigned himself to his body's contentment with remaining flushed, relaxing deeper into the mattress and letting Orym's rattling sunflower seed tone pull his eyes shut. A few more similar exchanges washed over him as he seemed to float weightlessly in time and space between the participants of a conversation that felt as aged and unbreakable as the earth itself. Finally, a comfortable silence fell once again on the room, and he hummed slightly.
"I haven't heard anything like that before; what was it?" He inquired, pausing to hold his breath before the inevitable stumble. "Of course, you don't have to tell me. I was just wondering because it was so lovely, and-"
"Dorian," Orym cut him off, knocking his knee lightly into Dorian's thigh. "It's okay. Druidic is a very beautiful and reverent language. We wouldn't share it with you if it wasn't alright for you to know and ask about it."
That response stilled Dorian. "Ah," he said gently. "Well, that's very generous of you. I really appreciated being able to hear it; it felt so much like times I've spent out in nature. It made me think a bit about Niirdal-Poc."
Fearne hummed in agreement. "I felt that too, when we were there. It's a very old place. Very in tune with its surroundings. I wonder whether the city or the language came first," she mused, bringing her other arm up to pet Mister where he lay in a hammock of her day skirts that was bundled along the headboard.
Orym's eyes closed as he made a small noise of wonderment, but Dorian felt a tug to persist with the initial conversation topic.
"What were you… talking about? If it isn't too personal, obviously, I don't want to pry or intrude if it's a- a trade secret, or anything." He chuckled nervously, turning his head slightly to catch Fearne's gaze since Orym's eyes were still shut.
It was Orym who answered first, however. "Just talking about how cute you are when you blush," he revealed, stroking his thumb across Dorian's cheekbone.
"And how we love you very much," Fearne chimed in, curling further forward into Dorian. He felt one of her horns against the back of his head as she turned her gaze from the halfling beside them to the ceiling.
"O-oh!" was all Dorian managed to squeak out before squeezing his own eyes shut as he felt the initial, forgotten blush race down to his collarbones.
"See?" Orym chuckled, leaning closer and pressing a kiss to the base of Dorian's neck.
Fearne's laughter was bells on a spring day.
"I- I am not sure I'm worthy of such an… important tongue!" Dorian choked out, wetting his lips after realizing how dry his mouth suddenly was. He belatedly noticed he was clutching Orym's hand rather tightly, and attempted to give him a bit of room to breathe, but Orym didn't take it, instead pulling himself up and pressing their foreheads together. Instead of answering Dorian, he let the sound of driftwood logs rolling through sand float over to Fearne, who hugged Dorian tighter and responded to Orym in kind with a woodpecker's investigative tapping layered over the soft noise of dirt being judiciously moved from underneath a shifting mound of gravel.
"You are," she then said simply in Common.
Orym spoke up, "Your very existence is like a druidic tribute to the wind, Dorian Storm. Forgive us for celebrating having such an impossibly exquisite thing in our lives."
Dorian's half-hearted protests were silenced with a soft kiss placed on his lips. Internally, he hoped he would hear more druidic, even if it was at the expense of mild embarrassment. The morning sun was poking through the curtains, and though they were in an inn in the middle of Jrusar, Dorian felt blanketed by all the kindest parts of nature.