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“Orym?” A voice called out from behind them, and Orym felt his shoulders go tense at the familiarity of the sound. It was a voice he heard every day for only twenty-five words a day through the small blue stone he carried with him. However, the stone was currently in his bag on the ship, so there was no way it could be coming from anywhere else.
“Dorian?” Orym asked, turning slowly to face the source, and his eyes grew wide at the sight before him. “Dorian!”
Orym ran across the distance between them, jumping and catching himself in Dorian's embrace. Dorian held fast, squeezing Orym to his chest, and spun them around with a delighted laugh.
Everything that occurred since Dorian had left suddenly didn't seem so awful anymore. The pressure weighing on Orym's shoulders for weeks felt lighter, and he felt….whole.
Alive.
Orym's feet touched the ground as Dorian finally released him, but the genasi didn't move away; in fact, he moved closer to Orym's space.
“Oh, look at you,” Dorian sighed, fingers tracing his face, lingering over new scars and marks he’d obtained in his absence. “What kind of trouble have you gotten into while I’ve been away?”
"All kinds," Orym told him, closing his eyes and basking the gentle touch of familiar hands against his face. "Trouble always seems to find me."
Dorian chuckled almost fondly. “Well, that’s certainly true,” he agreed, palm settling against his cheek. “Though I think it would help if you didn’t look for it.”
“Now you’re asking too much,” Orym replied, but his tone was playful, and Dorian laughed again. Orym had missed his laugh; it was so light and musical to his ears. “Don’t suppose you’d like to take this conversation indoors?”
“By all means, little Orym, please lead the way.”
Later in the evening, they found themselves alone for the first time since their arrival, tucked into Dorian's bed with wandering lips and equally wandering hands. Their voices were soft, barely above a whisper, as they spoke of the events that occurred in the other's absence, and the occasional gasp or laugh came out even more so, silenced by a press of lips.
It was the first true peace Orym had known since Dorian left them. His racing thoughts finally slowed and became nearly silent, calmed by the press of Dorian's skin against his own. It was as if the events in the last several days leading up to the solstice were a distant memory, a dream because all that mattered was that Dorian was here again in his arms.
"I've missed you," Dorian sighed, his fingers expertly dancing over the clasps and straps of Orym's armor, undoing them with practiced ease. His lips pressed kiss after kiss to the skin of his throat while Orym lay there and let him do so. "Twenty-five words a day simply isn't enough."
"It truly isn't," Orym breathlessly agreed, lifting his torso to help Dorian remove the chest piece. He didn't see it so much as hear it being set down on the floor beside the bed before Dorian's hands roamed again. "If only there were a way we could speak to each other from far away without so many limitations."
"Well, if they ever figure it out, I will be first in line to obtain it," Dorian's fingers were warm as they danced across his skin, sending shivers of excitement down Orym's spine. After a moment, Orym felt a light tug against the hem and opened his eyes to look up at Dorian. "Up."
"We could save ourselves time and money if we simply stayed together," Orym pushed himself into a sitting position, lifting his arms so that Dorian could pull the shirt over his head. "Either I with you or you with me."
"Oh, would that I," Dorian agreed with a sigh, eyes roaming over the newly exposed skin meticulously. "I wouldn't say no if you asked. As a matter of fact, I–huh."
Dorian's sentence trailed off, and Orym frowned, studying his expression, and followed his gaze. In the middle of Orym's chest was the scar Otohan's blade had left behind. The spot resulted from a gaping wound that had taken his life.
The incident he'd never mentioned to Dorian.
"Dorian?"
“What’s…this?” Dorian murmured, fingertips lingering against the marred skin. The scar that rested there directly resulted from Otohan’s attack, the attack he barely told Dorian anything about. “You haven’t always had this.”
“No,” Orym agreed uneasily. He hardly wanted to tell him about this now, not after they’d finally been reunited after so long, but the scar was large and ugly, and Orym knew that Dorian could not look at it for the entire night. “It’s relatively new.”
“Gods, Orym, it looks painful,” Dorian said sympathetically. What happened? What caused this?”
"Do we have to talk about this now?" Orym gently placed his hand over Dorian's, small fingers closing around larger ones while hoping to coax him into forgetting the topic entirely. "I'm in your bed for the first time in months, and you want to talk about a scar."
"You've never avoided talking about them before," Dorian's gaze drifted up from the offending mark and finally met Orym's eyes. Whatever he saw there, on Orym's face, didn't put him at ease. "Why is this one so different?"
Orym opened his mouth to answer but found that no words would come when the desire to lie was fresh on his tongue. After all they had been through together, did he choose to lie now and continue to avoid talking about what had happened?
"Orym?"
Why didn't he tell him in the first place? Was it the fear of finally confronting the ordeal that had nearly taken his life? Was it protecting Dorian from a harsh reality that Orym himself couldn't be protected from?
Orym's eyes moved toward the ceiling, stinging and vision blurring with tears. "I don't–" His voice came out hoarse, and he cleared his throat, trying to keep his voice steady. "I don't want you to feel guilty. I want to protect you."
Dorian said nothing for some time, and Orym could feel the weight of his gaze but refused to meet it again as he blinked the welling of tears from his eyes. The silence was uncomfortable, nearly suffocating, but Orym refused to break. He couldn't, he wouldn't–
Then suddenly, Dorian was moving. For a moment, there was a flicker of fear that Dorian was upset with him, leaving due to his secrecy, but Dorian's hands were gentle as they maneuvered Orym onto his side before settling down behind him. One arm settled beneath the pillow under their head while the other worked to pull the blanket up over them before settling over Orym's side.
With Dorian's weight, a solid comfort against his back, and his arms draped across his middle like a heavy blanket, Orym finally managed to take a deep breath. Their intertwined hands pressed against the scar, feeling each beat of Orym's heart.
"You are always protecting me," Dorian murmured, his lips moving against Orym's shoulder as he spoke. "Is it not my turn to protect you?"
Orym laughed and winced at the hollow sound of it. "You have nothing to protect me from," he replied. "It's over and done with."
"Orym," Dorian's voice was soft, a whisper of a plea. His fingers tightened around Orym's, pressing their hands more firmly against Orym's chest. "Please."
And how could he deny him anything? How could he have hidden it from him for so long?
"Her name is Otohan."
"Otohan?"
"The woman who gave me this, that's her name," Orym told him, resisting the desire to grimace as he spoke of her. "She's working with Ludinus."
"The man you met at the solstice," Dorian said, recounting the information he'd been told earlier. "But this didn't happen at the solstice. It's new, but it isn't fresh."
"It happened maybe a few weeks before that. Not too long after you left with Cyrus," Orym's mouth felt dry, tongue heavy. He forced the words out as much as he wished he wouldn't. "I want to say we knew what we were getting into, but I don't think any of us truly anticipated what was waiting for us."
A disaster.
A tragedy.
A bloodbath.
"She was born under a Ruidus moon, like Fearne and Imogen," Orym continued. "She has powers far beyond the magic I've ever seen Imogen use. She was too strong for us."
Too strong for them, too strong for Will, too strong for Dalen, and Keyleth and Caleb and Beau and–
"She cut through us like a knife through bread," Dorian's hand held tight, so tight that Orym could feel the tremors. He knew, didn't he? He had to know. "I tried to fight back but wasn't strong enough. We weren't strong enough."
"Orym–"
"I tried to call you on the stone," Orym told him quickly, knowing that if Dorian interrupted, he'd lose his nerve completely. "Dorian, I tried . I had my hand on it. I was going to tell you to run, to find Keyleth, something –"
That he was sorry.
That he loved him.
Orym took a deep breath and closed his eyes against the sting's resurgence. He was almost there, almost finished; he could do this.
"I looked up at her, and I realized I knew her. I think she recognized me, too. From the day she killed Will," Orym choked on Will's name, something he always seemed to do and something that never seemed to get easier. "And the moment she realized that? She killed me, too."
And Fearne.
And Laudna.
And so many others.
Dorian made a pained noise, something strangled and gutted that came out like it was forced from his lungs. "You…You were killed," he repeated in something close to disbelief. "As in unconscious or–"
"I saw Will," Orym replied, and Dorian squeezed his hand again, and another noise punched from his throat. Oh, how he wished he could see his face. "He was beautiful; it was all so beautiful. He wasn't angry with me for being 'early'; he was just happy to see me but wanted me to go back."
Dorian said nothing, his entire body rigid as he took in the details of Orym's story. Orym could only sigh, shrugging with one shoulder half-heartedly.
"Fearne brought me back in the end," he said simply. "Things just started getting crazier so fast that I didn't have a chance to tell you, and it felt wrong to tell you without really being able to tell you. I'm sorry."
"Why didn't you stay?"
"What?"
"Why didn't you stay?" Dorian asked again, voice quiet, hesitant. "You saw Will again; I know you wanted to stay."
Something in Dorian's tone made his stomach twist—that hidden doubt and grief that lingered just beneath the surface—the unasked question.
Orym turned in Dorian's arms, arranging himself so that he could see his eyes. Dorian knew how much he'd loved Will, how much he still did, and how much he missed him. Orym knew deep down that Dorian would never want to take Will's place and would always feel like he was infringing on what they'd had.
But it simply wasn't true.
"Because I had you waiting for me," Orym replied softly, his small hand reaching up to cup Dorian's face. His thumb gently brushed a tear from the corner of his eye. "I had you and the Bells Hells."
Dorian squeezed his eyes shut, more tears spilling from under closed lids. "But it's Will –"
"Will knows how important you are to me," Orym said confidently. "Even if I'd wanted to stay there, he never would have let me. He likes you too much."
Dorian laughed shakily, turning his face towards his hand and kissing his palm tenderly. “I’m supposed to be comforting you, and you’re comforting me.”
“Who says we can't comfort each other?” Orym reached for the blankets that had gotten pushed aside during their earlier activities and tugged them up over them. “Having you back is the greatest comfort I could ask for.”
“Sweet talker.”
“It’s the truth.”
“I should have been here,” Dorian murmured, fingertips brushing the mark left by Chetney's claws above his eye. “You died, and I wasn't here.”
“You're here now,” Orym whispered. “You're here, and I'm alive, and that's all that matters, isn't it?”
“Yeah,” Dorian replied. It wasn't exactly home, and it wasn't exactly the greatest circumstances, but they were together. The world outside their window was quiet and still while the sounds of their friends' voices met their ears from down the hall.
They didn't have much.
“Dorian?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
But they had what they needed.
“I love you too.”