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“... Dorian...?”
Lingering by the doorframe, Melody was surprised he heard her voice at all. It had been getting harder and harder to communicate with him. The past few months he’d barely been responding to anything at all. Barely doing anything, either.
Sitting against the side of the bed, his gaze (which previously had been examining his hands, folded neatly in his lap) shifted upwards at the sound of his own name to meet hers. His eyes were somewhat red, and tired- they had been for quite a while, now... She always reckoned he could find some good out of getting a little more sleep, though it didn’t seem to easily come to him.
He didn’t speak, and for a moment, neither did she. Both simply stared at each other, any attempt at conversation lost once the breath passed their lips.
Carefully, she stepped into the room, moving lightly. If it wasn’t for the floorboards, which creaked and moaned with age, she wouldn’t have made a sound at all.
“Are you doing any better...?”
Melody figured she knew the answer before she had finished speaking. It was always the same. Always had been for months. He was never quite as alright as either of them would prefer.
“... What time is it...?”
Was the question he redirected with, losing eye contact as he glanced back at his hands, first, and then around the room, inhaling quietly.
“Mid morning, I’d assume...” The bed creaked as well with the shifting and adding of weight as she took a seat beside him, “Not that close to noon, yet...”
“... Oh...”
It was distant, and a soft sort of sound. For the adventurer he was, Dorian was typically quite soft spoken upon addressing her; and it had only grown more apparent as of late. A distracted sort of musing.
It never failed to concern Melody. This shift in his demeanor... The toll the cruel hand of fate took on his entire life- and her’s, too, she supposed...
She leaned her head forward, pressing her forehead quietly to his. There was a sort of delayed reaction from him, as his gaze flickered back to meet her for a moment or two, before his eyes fell shut all together.
His forehead was warm. That wasn’t too much of a surprise; he didn’t sleep well, nor eat well, and it’s not like he was getting out all too much anymore... If there was any reason for one to be sick, those were among the top three.
“You still haven’t told me how you’re feeling, Dorian...” She pressed, softly, lifting a hand to the side of his head, brushing a couple of strands of untidy hair out of reach of his eyes. He hummed softly at this, still not giving that outright of an answer at first,
“I’m... not particularly sure...” Was the faint reply he forced after a couple more seconds of burning silence… Again, that was typical of him. Though, that didn’t mean he was well... If anything, it was an easy way to weave around the fact he wasn’t well at all...
Eventually, Dorian pulled his head away, not quite straightening the slouch in his posture, but seeming a little more awake than he had been before, which was somewhat rare of him. Blinking quietly, Melody sat attentively, watching as he took a small, almost quavering breath, preparing himself to speak,
“I’ve been thinking for quite some time now, Melody...” He began, lacking the confidence to look her in the eyes. From the corner of her eyes, she could see the fidgeting of his thumbs, gently scraping against the palms of his hands.
“... Yes...? Go on, then...”
“Yes, well...”
He cleared his throat, nervously, suppressing whatever anxiousness had been attempting to bubble up from it. She listened close as he took another breath, quavering as well, just as the last, before forcing a few words from his throat, as if they were foul and bitter as poison,
“I think I know how to get Cadence back.”
It forced her to pause, a chill like ice rocketing through her body. She blinked a couple of times, mouth open as though she had something to say, but didn’t dare speak a word. A stammer left her throat without her quite realizing, only followed by the smallest, faintest sound.
“... W-what...?”
“We can get her back, Melody...”
He still didn’t look her in the eyes, despite the fact she now was looking straight at him, disbelief still etched into her expression.
One of her hands gently took one of his, stopping his fidgeting (which had admittedly begun to grow a little more aggressive as time went on).
“No, Dorian...” She would have to be patient with him... She had been thus far, anyways.
“No... We can’t get her back.”
Outliving your child was a curse no one should have to bear, though while Melody had found some strength within her to hold herself together (for the most part), Dorian seemed to be collapsing in on himself more and more each day. Like trying to keep parchment together in the rain.
It was debatable whether he realized the way his nails dug into her hand… He’d been rather distracted with a small cobweb in the corner of the room, forcing his focus away from her gaze.
“No... No, we... I... There is a way, Melody... There’s a way...”
The weakness of his voice- the desperation that pulled on it, and forced it to waver so helplessly- it was so hard for her to endure. The past few months had been more or less the same. The two of them struggling to push themselves forward, while simply assuming that time would heal the wounds left behind.
Or at least, that’s what she had assumed. Whether Dorian felt the same was impossible to tell. Especially now
“It wasn’t fair, Melody...” His voice was almost whisper, running on whatever breath he managed to pass through his lips without quavering, “The plague could have taken anyone else. She was healthy... She was happy...”
“Yes, Dorian, she was...” It was difficult to steady her own voice for the sake of him, “And that’s how we should remember her... Our bright, happy little girl... That’s all we can do now, Dorian... We can only remember her. We can’t bring her back...”
“ The lute.”
It was spoken so suddenly- so clearly in comparison to everything else he had struggled to choke out- that Melody was left stunned. The words flitted through her mind in a haze... The lute... The lute. That troublesome, accursed lute.
It took a good few seconds or so for her to find her voice,
“... Dorian, no. We’re not performing necromancy on our own daughter.”
“But M-“
“I said no, Dorian.”
The wounded expression that flickered across his face forced her to lose eye contact, if only briefly. It wasn’t as though he had anything but good intentions, that much she completely understood. But he didn’t know a single thing about the lute aside from the whispers and rumours.
“The lute isn’t... a proper solution to this problem. Or to any problem, Dorian... It’s not a force one can go tampering around with. That’s why it was hidden in the first place. You don’t know what it can do. What it can make people do.”
His head tilted only slightly to face her, eyes unreadable as he paused,
“... I know it can reanimate. I know it can bring people back to life- as if they were never harmed in the first place... I know it could bring Cadence back.”
His hands were shaking, now... Even despite the fact she held onto one. It was the longest Dorian had kept a conversation for in a decent while. She supposed, up until now, he never had anything he was quite so passionate about to say.
“It’s dangerous, Dorian...” Her voice had always been like silk- it was something that came almost naturally to her- but attempting to make it somehow even softer, for his benefit, wasn’t proving to be easy, “It’s too risky...”
“Isn’t Cadence worth the risk...?”
Melody hesitated. It wasn’t as though she could just admit that saving (-or, maybe returning was a better word, here-) the life of her daughter wasn’t worth seeking down and playing simple instrument. But it wasn’t as if either of them had a choice in the matter. They could not- under any circumstances- rediscover it. What’s so well hidden isn’t meant to be found.
“... She is...” (Dorian’s eyes glinted with life), “But -“ (that was the moment in which the spark left), “It’s a risk we can’t afford, Dorian... Believe me, if there was a way to have her alive again- back in our arms without help of the lute- I’d do it in a heartbeat... But there’s not. There’s nothing we can do, Dorian...”
He bit his own lip- dry and pale, much like the rest of his complexion- staring at nothing in particular… Whether in thought, or simply in defeat, Melody wasn’t quite certain.
“Even if we did...” She added, in an attempt to smooth over whatever remaining motivation might have been left in Dorian’s mind as carefully as she possibly could, “It would do Cadence no good to be revived if she didn’t have anyone to look after her... She was just a child. Even if we somehow managed to retrieve the lute... Even if we made it through whatever gauntlet it’s locked behind alive, who’s to say our lives wouldn’t be at risk with it in our possession? A little girl can’t live on her own that way...”
A soft grunt of what Melody could only assume to be agreement was pulled from Dorian’s throat, though he didn’t look up.
( There was always Eli, piped the back of his mind- though of course he didn’t express this aloud.)
“... No... She can’t...” Was the minuscule agreement he decided on, his eyes flickering towards his own feet, gaze tracing each line and groove along the boards of the floor.
“I know you miss her, Dorian... I miss her too... And I know you want her back. But that isn’t how this works...” Still not letting go of his hand, the one she wasn’t currently using had gently brushed against his chin, tilting his head towards her.
“It’s not how this works, Dorian... I’m sorry...”
“... I understand...”
It was a struggle to force from his lips. There was a solution right there, in front of the both of them. But not one either of them could accept. Despite how strong they willed to,
“I’m sorry, I... just thought...” He cleared his throat again, shifting upright in his position, and carefully taking his hand back from her, “I’m sorry... I’ll try not to mention the lute again...”
“Dorian.”
“... Mnn?”
“You’re still not alright, are you?”
The question gave him pause, despite the answer being rather obvious, if the uncomfortable rigidness of his body, and the downward tilt of his head were any indication.
“I’ll manage...” Was the answer he fished up, tilting his head back to examine the corner of the room, again, hiding the shifting of his expression from her view, “With you, I somehow always do...”
He truly hoped she couldn’t see the determined sort of glint in his eye.