Work Text:
Orix couldn’t hear anything except the ringing in his ears. He felt numb. Looking around wildly, the sound rushed back into his ears and he heard many voices echoing around him. The party clamored around him as Dianne leaned back from him, her hands still glowing. He looked down to see his torso covered in blood, but he felt no pain. The party crowded around him, all looking generally scuffed up. Several of them were speaking, but he heard nothing. His glance flitted across the faces of each member of the group, once, twice, three times. He grew more frantic each time, and some of them seemed to notice. He heard Dr. Strauss usher everyone away from Orix, but he wasn’t paying attention. He couldn’t process anything that was going on, because the only thought running through his head was Jard. Q’Rirr, Clank, Dianne, Dr. Strauss, Shin, Kick, Het, and Jimli were all there, worried expressions set firmly on their faces, but Jard wasn’t. His spectral form was missing. Orix got up, but he was unable to form a coherent thought. What happened? Where was Jard?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An hour later, Orix was sitting in his room in the Haven. The group had made their way back, Dr. Strauss informing everyone that Orix was probably “delirious” and that his near brush with death had been “traumatic”. He was still reeling, not from the near death experience, but from losing Jard. Why did he care so much anyway? He had dreamt of finally being rid of the insufferable, psychopathic wizard for so long, but now that it had happened, he couldn’t seem to process it. He felt no pain from the injury that had “nearly killed him”, according to Clank, but his chest hurt. It was a deep pain, one he didn’t know he could feel, but he couldn’t understand it.
When he told the others what had happened, they didn’t do much. Dianne had recited a small prayer under her breath and Clank had brought a hand to the pouch at their side that Orix knew held a collection of bones, but save for that and the silence that had fallen over the group upon their realization of what had transpired, they all seemed to be handling the loss well. So why wasn’t Orix? Telling Dr. Strauss hadn’t helped. He had told Strauss to take the pain in his chest away and the doctor had simply looked at him with sympathy, written something down (how infuriating, what did he write??), and told him to rest.
How could Orix rest? He had just lost a friend. Not just a friend, but someone who was connected to him on a deeper level. The others were friends, maybe. Jard was something else. He wished he could still hate Jard. Maybe then this wouldn’t hurt as much. Maybe he wouldn’t feel like his chest was being compressed, like his lungs and his heart were being destroyed bit by bit. It felt as though all the blood in his body was rushing to his head, with how loud it sounded in his ears. How could something hurt this much and not even leave a scar? He reached for the spellbook by his side for the fourth time, rifling through the pages, trying as hard as he could to combine the components in some way, any way, that would bring Jard back to them, to HIM. How could they be victorious if Jard was gone? How could any of them feel anything?
It was almost funny. He had felt no remorse, nothing, from killing Jard. He wouldn’t have cared if Jard was gone then. But being haunted by him had been different. The idiot had still been insufferable. But Orix had grown used to Jard, and now it felt empty. He knew he couldn’t keep being wrapped up in this, but how could he help it? Jard had become part of him, and maybe the old him had hated it, but the new him hadn’t. Now the new him wasn’t enough, he needed to be newer. He needed to be more like the old him, in the sense that Jard wasn’t constantly occupying his mind. He didn’t just need to get Jard out of his mind, he needed to get Jard out of his heart. He needed to move on. It wouldn’t happen any time soon, he knew that. But it had to happen. Somehow.