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“Laudna, you gotta fucking stop,” Ashton snaps.
“I can’t just not try.” Laudna is gritting her teeth; Orym can practically hear the strain cracking through her paper-thin jaw.
“It didn’t work before, it isn’t working now, stop before you go full fucking tree –”
Ah. Orym takes a mental step back from the conversation and lets the words wash over him. Laudna had tried to message Imogen again, he guesses. The loop of feedback when it didn’t work was awful. Orym brushes a thumb over the dead sending stone in his pocket, understands the desperation, the itching need, of throwing yourself at a wall because what if this time–
Please don’t be dead, Orym begs. Fearne. Dorian. Imogen. FCG. Chetney. Opal. Doriax. Tempest. Please. He clutches the sending stone hard enough to make his knuckles ache. It sends a sharp startling feeling across his palm, like he’s clutching a pile of shattered glass. Orym drops the stone, flinching away from the pain.
Orym forces his hand to unfurl, to stretch beyond the confines of the threadbare pocket. The rippling purples of the seeping dusk colored his arms in a wash of intangible bruises. He had taken to marking time in the rise and fall of the chilling burn of the Wilds where the apogee solstice catastrophe had thrown them.
Catha shines bright–and alone–above them.
Do you miss it, Orym thinks idly. Do you miss your little moon?
Ashton and Laudna’s conversation had dropped to low tones behind him, and lost the bite of worry Orym recently heard traded back and forth between them. It surprised Orym the first time he was peripheral to one of their conversations; the way they both had of poking at hurts, to check in how they were both healing.
Orym glances over his shoulder. Their expressions are shaded by the dark, but Orym can make out the wide range of expressions they were using to talk about something . He could try to read their lips but, and he felt his mouth twist into a half-smile, that was rude. He drops a hand on the hilt of dead Seedling. It still served as a proper sword, but whatever touch the Wildmother had imbued it with broke when Ludinus pulled the lever. No Seedling, no sending stone. Manners and flowers were perilously close to being all Orym could grasp close.
“Orym,” Laudna calls, and he swivels to face her, “will you?” she waves her arm. Orym forces back a flinch where he can see the ever growing patch of twisted bark on it has gained more ground. No wonder Ashton was pissed earlier.
“Yeah, of course.” Orym reaches up on tiptoes. “Any request in particular?”
“The–oh shoot.” Laudna snaps her fingers. “Imogen’s favorites, please. I don’t remember the proper name.”
Orym doesn’t need the name. All it takes is a light brush of his hand against Laudna’s arm and the dark, scraggly bark was covered by a rush of peaceful lavender-pink blooms.
“You’re next,” Orym threatens Ashton.
“I’m a rock,” Ashton says, deadpan. You weren’t yesterday, Orym doesn’t say. You woke up and you were Ashton but not .
“And?” Orym says, aiming for playfulness. “I have a list of flowers taller than Fresh Cut Grass that would compliment all your greens and purples.”
“You know me, making sure I match has always been a top priority.”
Orym laughs. “I guess if you don’t want a flower crown–”
“Hey,” Ashton interjects, “you promised me one, you gotta follow through.”
Orym calls flowers to his hands, letting himself fall into the soothing memory of knotting together flower stems. Tries not to think about how tomorrow morning, he will wake and time will be empty, because Fearne won’t need any help braiding flowers into her hair. Because Fearne is–not here. Orym untangles a few stems, shifting the pattern.
Soon, a completed flower crown rested in his hands. Orym bounces on his feet, genuinely excited.
“Here, crouch down.”
Ashton kneels down just far enough for Orym to reach, because he’s a bastard. Orym pokes their nose in retaliation.
The flower crown rests a little lopsided. Brilliant bursts of color, with an especially large group of flowers almost completely blocking out the shimmering stone in Ashton’s head. Orym can’t fight a magic stone–and he can hear the red-headed Wizard sighing a little at the inadequacy of the description–but he can do this.
“How do I look?” Ashton drops into a mocking bow.
Laudna offers cheerfully enthusiastic applause. Orym pretends to swoon.
They all break into breathless laughter. For a moment, just one desperate heartfelt moment in the seeping dark, Orym doesn’t think about the possibility of waking up tomorrow morning being truly alone.
Flowers and manners.
It would have to be enough.