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G’raha flicks his ear in the direction of the door, a quick acknowledgement of the click of it opening, then closing again. Krile is sitting across from him and has been for hours, engrossed in her own reading, so it’s likely Ojika, perhaps with food, or at the least with a suggestion that they should get food.
Hours. Food. His stomach rumbles as if in answer to his realization that he’s lost all track of time while reading and taking notes. That he has no idea what time it is or when he last ate is perhaps reason enough to take a short break, no matter who the visitor or their business.
He closes his eyes and stretches, shoulders complaining as he reaches for the ceiling. He opens one eye in response to the soft clearing of a throat to see Ojika hovering by the corner of the desk, wringing his hands.
“Ah, I thought it might be you come to check on us.” G’raha gives him a smile that fades when it’s not returned, Ojika instead looking up at him with eyes wide with concern behind his glasses. It’s unlike him, and sets G’raha on edge right away; even Krile straightens from her book, catching G’raha’s gaze when he glances at her.
“Everything all right?” He asks, looking past Ojika at the door as if he could see whatever lay beyond that that has the administrator so worried.
“I don’t know. I hope so, but I’m not sure, so I thought it best to fetch you.” Ojika shifts his weight, eyes on the carpet at first before looking up at G’raha. “Iolaine’s been back for some time. She went into her room without a word and hasn’t come out again. She appeared to be… dishevelled when she arrived.”
He’s on his feet at the mention of Iolaine’s name, catching his staff when it starts to slide from where he rested it by the table earlier. She’d mentioned business in Labyrinthos to him, shown him a crystal similar to the Azem one she carries and explained about returning to Elpis. He’d felt a pang at her explanation of the plan to go to the First and then use the Ocular’s portal, but he’d understood her thinking, even if he wasn’t entirely clear on the need to find the crystal’s owner. Sometimes research can lead to unexpected places, which seemed likely in the case of this Pandaemonium.
Any excitement he might feel about her return, however, is overshadowed by worry as Ojika watches him.
“I’ve heard the shower running in the room since then,” Ojika explains. “I didn’t want to just barge in, but I thought--” He screws up his face and gives a helpless shrug.
“No, no, it’s quite all right. You were right to come get me, I’ll go check on her,” G’raha replies. He’s already moving towards the door but stops, turning to look at Krile. He doesn’t need her permission to take a break, but he usually asks all the same, and even in these circumstances he finds himself waiting for her approval.
“Yes, of course Raha.” Her brow is furrowed but she waves him towards the door without getting up. “Come get me if you need anything.”
He gives her a nod, then strides to the door with Ojika at his heels. Iolaine’s room is one of the first along the hallway on the other side of the Annex, and it’s just as Ojika said: The sound of the shower comes to him when he turns and sets an ear to the door.
“I’ll be at the desk,” Ojika offers. He stopped at the hallway’s threshold and points a thumb towards his usual spot.
The door is unlocked, so G’raha opens it just enough to look inside. The room is palpably warmer and steam whirls in eddies, disturbed by the door’s motion. He slips in, stopping as he closes the door. Iolaine’s chakrams lay discarded in the floor. The aether around them swirls in familiar colors, even as one is bent as if it’s been hit by a hammer.
“Iolaine? It’s me.”
The bathing area is behind a screen in the far corner of the room, with a wash basin and a shower that hangs above a claw-foot tub. Water streams from the wide showerhead, but Iolaine is nowhere to be seen, her height in the tub usually leaving her standing with head and shoulder visible above the top of screen.
Sour fear curls in G’raha’s stomach as he moves fully into the room, staff still hanging in one hand. There’s not much space to cover, and he’s at the edge of the screen a few quick steps.
“Io?” He breathes.
Iolaine is sitting in the tub with her back to him, head bowed to reach the stream of water from above. Her clothes are soaked through, clinging to her skin with water beaded on the leather. A hole burned through one sleeve rings a patch of red, damaged skin, and he sees remnants of some sickly green substance staining the skirt of her top and caught in her hair. There is the smell of ozone, of copper, and of something worse, as if she’s spent time in the very bowels of this Pandaemonium. A clear line of bruises crosses her back, the shape of chain links setting his teeth on edge.
She doesn’t stir at the sound of her name, the sound of his voice.
G’raha moves in at once, dropping to his knees by the side of the tub to get a better look at her. Her glasses are broken and there are bleeding cuts on her legs and chest, and a fresh bruise on her cheekbone. Her gaze is turned to the bar of soap in her hand, but it’s as if she either doesn’t see it or can’t recall its purpose, a line between her brows sending a stream of water down her nose.
He reaches in only to recoil. The water is scalding, though she doesn’t seem to notice. He twists the knob at the far end of the tub to adjust the temperature and is both disappointed and relieved when she reacts to the change, drawing a ragged breath and shuddering.
Her grip is steel when she grabs his arm, startled by his hand at her periphery. Her eyes are sharp and narrowed when her head snaps to look at him, and for the briefest moment he is the focus of what so many of their enemies have seen. Then she softens, her face falling as her eyes move over him. She goes to pull her hand away but he stops her, covering it with his own, the outline of her Azem crystal pressed into his arm under her grasp.
“It’s all right, Io. You’re back in the Annex. You’re safe,” he adds, “but for the water being too hot.” His chuckle rings hollow and if his attempt at humor is any reassurance then it doesn’t show in her expression.
Her hair is too wet to move when he attempts to brush it from her face, but she lifts her head to the shower’s stream, letting the water do the work instead. Only for a moment, however, before she gasps and sputters, putting up a hand to keep the water out of her eyes.
“Let’s get you out of these things and into bed, hmm?”
The low hum of agreement from her is the first sign that she’s listening to him, and it lightens his heart to hear it. It’s the work of a moment to strip off his gloves, scarf and vest, leaving them discarded on the floor by his staff, before he returns his attention to her. She sways when he lifts her glasses off, folding them and setting them on his piled clothes. Their look belies the weight of them, and he’s reminded that so much of what she wears is glamoured, offering more protection than might first appear, a fact he’s grateful for as he considers the stretches of bare skin on her arms and legs.
Iolaine offers no resistance, but no help either as he unfastens buckles and straps on her arms, massaging her fingers and gently uncurling her hand where she clutches the Azem crystal.
“Just for a moment,” he murmurs, taking the orange stone from her palm to work her glove off. “There you go,” he offers as he returns it to her possession. She rubs her thumb over the etched symbol again and again, a habit she picked up after getting the crystal for the first time.
There is no sensuality to the work of undressing her. He knows her body well, and every new bit of exposed skin shows him some awful surprise hidden beneath her armor - bruises, cuts, a fractal pattern that chases down her back as if she’s been struck by lightning. Three rows of holes punched into her long skirt match a set of marks up the back of her leg and she shies away when his fingers brush along the edges of them. There is evidence of healing magic in the way that bruises are already colored as if days old and cuts have already begun to knit themselves together, but there is still so much damage that G’raha has to swallow around a lump in his throat, eyes stinging as he recalls the last time she was returned to him in something close to this condition.
He is soaked to the skin by the time he’s stripped her, with as much water on the floor around him as there is in the bottom of the tub.
“How about a warm bath then?”
Her eyes are bleary when she turns them up to look at him, and he does his best to smile at her before reaching past to set the plug in at the bottom of the tub.
It fills quickly, and G’raha takes a moment to add some soap that turns to scented foam on the water’s surface, familiar scents of tea and roses washing away the other, less pleasant smells in the room. Iolaine closes her eyes and takes a single deep breath, and for the first time since he came in she appears to be returning to him from wherever she disappeared to in her mind.
He glances to make sure he locked the door, then strips the rest of the way down and steps carefully into the tub behind her. She doesn’t shift at all to make room for him when he lowers himself to sit but follows at only the gentlest of nudges to lean back against his chest. Part of him wishes that circumstances were different; they have so little time alone together, and there is such obvious romance in the idea of sharing a warm bubble bath. Such thoughts will have to wait, however. She is in little condition for anything other than healing and recuperation.
The water stops and quiet fills the room, the only sounds now their breathing and the sporadic crackle of popping bubbles on the water. He runs his hands over her skin, touch tingling with a slow, constant flow of healing. Whoever she brought with her to that place did much for her, and some things cannot be solved with magic, only time, but he does what he can to relax her muscles and ease the pain she must be feeling, watching as the lines on her forehead and around her mouth smooth out. Her head falls on to his shoulder and her breathing is deep and steady.
“Raha, I-- It was--” She swallows thickly and tries to move, to turn to look at him better.
He shushes her, lips on the shell of her ear. “It can wait, Io. Relax for now, love.”
The frown she makes shouldn’t feel like such a reward, but it’s proof of her awareness, as is her saying his name, and he’s glad to hear it.
He picks up a soap from a small shelf by the wall and starts to wash her, keeping his movement slow and soft as he goes. There was a time when all of this would have horrified him, and a wave of shame rolls over him at the memories. He’d not been immune to the power of stories and the way that they can shape how a person is seen, and finding that the Warrior of Darkness he brought to the First was a real person, a woman with thoughts and feelings and flaws, had been jarring for him. The shining hero eager to help one and all without a thought for herself is not wholly an act. Iolaine cares deeply and will fight without reservation for causes she believes in, and for the people she loves, but being the solution to every problem faced by the star would take a toll on anyone, in ways that cut differently but just as deeply as her wounds. He also discovered that such a position was lonelier than he ever imagined, though he’s since promised himself that she will never be alone again, not while he is here to go with her on her adventures, keep her company and keep her safe however he can.
Was it like this after her time in the Empty? He’d been caught up in his own research and his own emotions, trying to get them to the Source and trying to decipher how he felt for her, or rather what he wanted to do with those feelings. Iolaine was resolved, willing to accept happiness for them in the moment regardless of the future’s uncertainty, but after so long alone, he’d been unsure if he could give himself over to her in the same way. Throwing himself into looking for ways to get them home had been an important mission on its own but also a good distraction to keep him occupied, locked in his chambers with Beq Lugg away from where Iolaine was waiting for him with the sort of patience only love can grant. He knew she went with Ryne, Thancred and Urianger to the Empty to see if it could be restored. In the end they succeeded but had to fight to see it done, rousing the aether one element at a time through some sort of manifested primal simulations. While fighting primals is hardly new for Iolaine, G’raha can’t help but wonder if she came back from those battles like this, empty and shaken and bloodied. He trusts fully in Urianger’s healing and Thancred’s drive to protect, but curses himself that he didn’t see it at the time, that he was so preoccupied with his own concerns that he failed to see the trials she put herself through to continue the work of restoring a star not her own.
She draws a breath so deep that it rouses G’raha from his thoughts, and he focuses his eyes to see her looking up at him, blue eyes clear and alert, if set into dark circles.
“I don’t want to fall asleep here,” she says with a smile, looking so sheepish that another pang of guilt goes through him for letting his mind wander while he meant to tend to her.
“Then we shall move this to the bed,” he replies, only to balk at her raised brows. “So that you can get some sleep, of course.”
“This is so nice. I wish there was any part of me that didn’t hurt, wasn’t so godsdamned tired.” Her fingers trace lines along the inside of his thigh and a bolt of pleasure goes through him, but he bites down on it and shakes his head.
“Oh, as do I,” he sighs with a low chuckle, “but we shall simply have to make time for that when you are better recovered.” He lets a little heat into his voice and it has the intended effect, her smile widening as she relaxes with him again.
“I’d like that,” she mutters, and the sigh she gives this time is a pleasant one.
“Wait here, I’ll be only a moment.” He brushes a kiss to her ear before slipping out of the tub, lowering her against the side as he stands and steps out onto the tiled floor. She turns enough to watch him as he gathers towels from a nearby cabinet, then returns to pull the plug from the drain.
“Up you get, come on.” He takes her arm to help her stand, holding her to him as he dries her back and hair, careful of her injuries but also pleased to see that his healing ministrations have helped them along. It takes her a second to steady herself when he wraps her in the towel, then bends to scoop her up out of the tub.
“Raha, no, you can’t--” She clings to him, throwing an arm around his shoulders as he steps across the room. Her dark hair smells like roses from the long-dissolved bubbles.
“Of course I can,” he replies, channelling as much confidence as possible into his voice. It’s only a few fulms, and while she may be a good deal taller than him, he is no weakling. He is nonetheless glad to set her down onto the bed, smiling when she doesn’t let go, holding him in an embrace with her face tucked into the crook of his neck.
“I could’ve walked,” she mumbles.
“I never said you couldn’t,” he replies, his breath reflected warm against her skin. “I just simply wasn’t finished taking care of you yet.”
He pulls back, and she reaches out to cup his cheek. She looks better, but he can see that sleep is already starting to take her. “Stay?” She asks.
G’raha nods, moving over her to lay down on the bed beside her, turning on his side and pulling her in close against him. His work is important, but past are the days when he will let research stand between him and being there for Iolaine when she needs him. The tomes can wait; Iolaine has done her waiting for him, and as her breathing evens out beside him, he says a silent thank you to those forces that protect her when he can’t and allow them this time together.