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The message woke Dorian up when it came in. Laudna’s voice, without any of the accompanying whispers he’d never quite gotten used to anyways. “Oh Dorian!” she sang, and then her voice abruptly dropped in pitch. “Actually. This is serious. Orym’s alive, but things got bad. He can’t talk right now, he said to say he loves you, and-” She cut off. They never gotten any better at counting their words.
Dorian responded right away. “I’m on my way. Tell him, well. I’ll tell him. Just, tell him to hang on.”
No response, but there never was. Couldn’t be, until tomorrow at the earliest. He was not reading into that.
It was easier than he thought to get to Bassuras. Even a skyship wouldn’t get him back quick, so Dorian did what he did best; he sought out a powerful woman to help him. Kymal was just a few days' travel from Zephrah - two, when money was no object and Cyrus his only travelling companion. Once there, Dorian sought an audience with the Voice of the Tempest again. Emergency, he stressed to the guard he talked to, and tried not to let his voice waver.
Keyleth saw him in a matter of minutes, and was immediately willing to aid him. She promised to look after Cyrus, as well, even though Dorian assured her his brother could look after himself. Perhaps she could see through his uneasy reassurances. She was an archdruid, after all.
A tree would transport him to Bassuras, she told him, which of course it would. ”Tell him to keep fighting," Keyleth added. Her eyes looked just like Orym’s, green and determined and bright.
"I will," Dorian promised, and reached out.
His hand made contact with rough bark, but only for a moment. The same instant he touched it, he also felt something else. The smooth, windswept wood of a gnarled desert tree. Heat assaulted his senses, the smell of dust and something worse, and the glare of bright sunlight made it hard to see for a moment. It was apparently that simple. He was no longer in Zephrah. Actually, he wasn’t really sure where he was.
A quick scan of his surroundings let him know he was on a street. Ramshackle buildings huddled down the sides, and none of his friends were anywhere in sight.
No matter. Dorian bribed a passing young person with a couple silvers and learned a tall woman with goat legs was staying at the inn down the street. Information in hand, he ducked in the door he was pointed towards and strode purposefully towards the steps. He wasn’t stopped - or maybe he wasn’t caught. They certainly tried to stop him once he was shouting Orym’s name from the hallway. But by then, Imogen and Ashton had emerged from a room and assured the innkeeper that Dorian meant to be there.
“How in the world did you get here so quickly?” Imogen asked once everything was straightened out.
“Keyleth. Where is he?”
Dorian wasn’t expecting Orym to be on his deathbed or anything. He knew, rationally, that FCG and even Fearne could heal what time wouldn’t. But he was still so relieved to see Orym stand to greet him. “I’m okay,” Orym said, but it didn’t sound like he believed it. And he bounced up on the toes of his boots so he could levitate and meet Dorian’s hug at height.
Words failed Dorian, as they did at the truly important moments in his life. All he could do was hold as tight as possible. And then worry, of course, that perhaps he was holding on too tight.
No, if it was too tight Orym would’ve said something. Orym was, as a matter of fact, squeezing Dorian just as tightly. He was strong, small arms hard with lean muscle. That always came as a bit of a surprise, given his size. Dorian’s sheltered childhood likely coming into play, there. But he wasn’t thinking about his childhood or his prejudices, he was holding onto his dear friend who was alive. Maybe just barely so.
After several long moments of standing there, Dorian was finally able to let his breath out. “What happened?” he asked.
“We picked a fight with someone a little above our weight class,” Orym answered. He sounded just like he always did - quiet, understated. Somehow, that was less comforting than ever.
“Did you…” Dorian began to ask, and then discovered he couldn’t say the words out loud.
Orym, as ever, was brave enough for both of them. “Yeah. I died for a second. Fearne got me back up.”
“Really, only a second?”
“Couple dozen of them.”
“We were pretty well fucked, actually,” Ashton translated from somewhere behind Dorian. They must’ve stayed in the door to watch. Good thing Dorian never minded an audience. “Half of us were down when the fight was over. It was just Imogen and FCG left standing, and a stiff breeze would’ve taken them down too.”
Imogen contributed to the conversation then, too. “And Laudna.”
Ashton scoffed. “She can’t die.”
“That’s not true, don’t be mean.”
“I’m not being mean, I’m just saying. She goes down, she bounces back up. That bitch in her head wants her alive.”
The bickering wasn’t a new addition, but it was more lived-in than Dorian remembered. They felt like better friends - and this duo in particular, too. Uptight anxious Imogen and her exact opposite, Ashton. He’d missed things. Of course he’d missed things.
Orym pulled back around then, so Dorian hastily let him go. Didn’t want to force anything. “Any lasting effects?” he asked, scanning Orym for visible injuries. He looked tired, mainly.
“Chest is pretty sore,” Orym answered.
“He got stabbed,” Imogen interjected pleasantly.
After some more prompting, Orym lifted the hem of his shirt to show off the scar. There was a certain manufactured sheen that magic healing left on those it touched, a texture to the scars that gave it away. Orym had been healed, the shiny edges of the scar made that clear. The wound had been huge. Fatal, even.
Before Dorian could figure out how to react, Laudna appeared in the doorway. “Dorian! That was fast,” she said with evident glee. “Found a wizard to teleport you, perhaps?”
“Found an archdruid,” he answered, and accepted the bony hug she offered. Parts of her were, as always, sticky for some reason. She squeezed with probably all the strength in her thin limbs and then pulled back. Dorian tried not to look at the strands of viscous ooze that connected where they’d touched. “I hear you were hurt too, are you feeling alright?”
Laudna gave him her broadest, most toothy gin. “Feeling just peachy. I can crawl up walls now, isn’t that fun?”
“Very fun.” Dorian hoped his high voice did not betray the apprehension he felt at the thought of that. Laudna, scuttling up a vertical surface to hide in a corner, dripping with black. It was truly the stuff of nightmares.
But she was the kind of nightmare that then also said stuff like, “How’s your brother? Still hot and dumb?” with the huge smile of someone who knew exactly what shit they were stirring. A monster wasn’t really a monster when it loved you.
“Still very much both of those things, yes,” Dorian answered, and then ended up explaining the whole situation in Kymal because Laudna and Imogen kept asking questions. And the whole time he was talking, he couldn’t help but feel Orym’s keen eyes on him, watching, paying attention.
“Sounds like things are going well for you. Why did you come back?” Ashton asked, their tone confrontational.
Dorian knew his answer was going to sound defensive before he even opened his mouth. “Because! I got a terrifying message from Laudna that told me very little and basically no follow up. I panicked!”
“Terrifying?” Laudna put a hand over her chest, affronted. “Please.”
“You said things were bad! It sounded like final words or something. And the fact that it was you and not him, I just…” Dorian turned to meet Orym’s gaze, to explain himself. “I didn’t want to have any regrets. If things really were that bad. So. I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.”
Orym reached up in that unselfconscious way he had and took Dorian’s hand. “I’m glad you did.”
That was about all the catching up they could do before everyone else found their way into the room, too. Fearne was moving slowly, a wicked curved scar over her neck and shoulder. Chetney was as wizened and grizzled as ever - Dorian had no doubt that he’d been fine. Something about him implied he always would be. And FCG wheeled in too, his chassis gold and shiny but his expression somehow guilt-stricken. As badly as Dorian wanted some privacy to address the other part of Laudna’s message, the he loves you part, he waited until later that evening when the group naturally drifted apart and he was alone with Orym again.
They were downstairs, at the bar of the inn they were all staying at. The bartender seemed familiar with the rest of the group, mainly in how he brought them copious amounts of liquor without needing to ask what they wanted, and then left them alone. He and Orym were the last ones at their table, sequestered off in one corner safely. Dorian had no doubt that even unwell, Orym was keeping an eye on the rest of the room.
The number of drinks Dorian had consumed in an effort to keep up with Fearne tasted a lot like recklessness now. “Did you mean to die, maybe?”
“No,” Orym said immediately. Then the truth. “But if it’s between me and someone else.”
“That’s not how things work.”
“It is, sometimes.”
“You’re not any of our bodyguard, so no. It doesn’t.”
Orym’s mouth became a tight line.
“Look,” Dorian added desperately. “I don’t know if you meant it how it sounded, but. In the event that you did. That was why I had to come. I couldn’t just hear that secondhand and not answer. Not the kind of thing I wanted to say over the stones, either. And the thought that we might not get to say it at all, was…” Unsurvivable, he wanted to say, but that sounded a touch too dramatic. Even if it was true.
Around them, the sounds of the room swelled. Two orcs at the bar were having an intense conversation. The fire crackled merrily. Dorian fiddled with the handle of his mug, ran the edge of his thumb over a chip in the edge.
When Orym spoke, it was softer than usual. Measured. “It felt unfair. To say it secondhand like that. But I had to tell you.”
“I understand.”
“And I’ll say it again now. I do love you.”
“And I, you, yes, I love you too,” Dorian hastened to assure him. The words came so easily off his tongue he forgot entirely to worry about his right to say them. There were so many reasons he shouldn’t say that, points he needed clarification on before he said it back. There was Will to think about, and the effect of near-death experiences on someone’s psyche, and none of that seemed to matter once the words were out. He loved Orym. That could be the starting place, instead of where they ended.
A smile began to warm Orym’s face, and he leaned closer. Dorian set a hand on the table - not too close, but close enough that they could touch if both parties wanted to. Orym immediately covered Dorian’s hand with his. “I’m glad you came. Selfishly, maybe. I’ve missed you.”
It was curious, given how much of Dorian’s childhood has been spent anxiously avoiding even perceived misdoing, but Dorian felt no apprehension. He smiled at Orym, and not a showman’s smile. This was real. They were real. “Well. Maybe we get to be a little selfish. Just this once.”