Chapter Text
Potions have all kinds of odd side effects. Too much strength will leave your muscles aching, while overuse of night vision makes your eyes burn. Fire res raises your body temperature, and invis lowers it.
The Mist is freezing. Lomedy is very familiar with the cold.
He’s not at the very top of the spike, because that’s a great way to get spotted by everyone and he doesn’t know if his bluff will work a second time. Flame will find him either way.
Lomedy chose the spot carefully. It’s up high, because players who aren’t Flame don’t tend to look up much. His best friend is always finding something tall to stand on and survey the terrain so he won’t get caught by surprise. He’ll climb this spike, or one near it, and then he’ll spot Lomedy or Lomedy will hear him and come out, and it’ll be fine.
This is how it always goes. Flame walks into a fight, Lomedy digs into a wall or runs around nearby to split the enemy forces, and then when it’s done his best friend comes to find him and check him for injuries and throw an arm over his shoulder while they soak up the joy of surviving together.
Flame always finds him. Lomedy just has to huddle in the crevice he’s wedged himself into and wait.
Unbidden, his mind drifts back in time.
The cold used to be his most constant companion. Cold armor against his skin, cold fingers checking his pulse-point, a cold helmet resting on his shoulder in brief moments of respite. That kind of cold wasn’t so bad. That was the kind of cold that promised safety.
Then- freezing metal pressed into his hands. A weapon he would've traded away in a heartbeat for the safe return of his friend and protector. That was a new kind of chill, one Lomedy learned to hate and fear in equal measure.
The cold no longer held any safety. Nothing did, nothing would ever be safe again because Lomedy was no longer a teammate or a friend or anything at all. Lomedy was just alone.
He doesn’t think he could survive that kind of loss a second time.
Somewhere along the way, Lomedy got used to warmth.
He got used to sunlight streaming through the large windows he’d built for that express purpose, got used to the sun beating down on his shoulders as he weeded and watered.
It may not look like much, but that farm is Lomedy’s everything. It was there that he stopped shrinking away from the light, there that he built himself back up into a person piece by painstaking piece.
It was there that he met his new teammate.
When Flame stumbled into his life, he brought with him a different warmth entirely. Lomedy learned what it felt like to have legs thrown over his lap as he reads out loud, to wrestle playfully in the grass as his heart gets so full that all he can do is laugh and laugh and laugh, to run his fingers through someone’s hair and feel them go boneless against his side.
Before he even noticed, his farm filled up with good memories.
Here is the secondhand blue couch under a large window where Flame will stretch out to doze on after getting back from a particularly satisfying fight. Some evenings Lomedy will sit on it and read from his horror novel collection.
Flame will complain about his genre choices, but he has to read out loud anyway cause if he tries to continue whatever book they were partway through by himself Flame complains even more. Sometimes he’ll shove his feet in Lomedy’s lap while cleaning his weapons, which would probably be intimidating to anyone who hadn’t seen him first thing in the morning.
Here is the birch kitchen table with a wooden block under one leg to stop it from wobbling. The surface is speckled with faint old stains that just won't wipe out, and in the middle lives a bowl of whatever fruits are in season.
They sometimes arm-wrestle on it, and the look on Flame’s face when Lomedy slammed his hand against the table that first time was priceless. Well worth the hassle of finding a magnet for the piece of paper tracking their win counts that now lives on the fridge.
Here is the little grove of fruit trees that Lomedy likes to nap in after lunch. Sometimes he’ll sit in their shade and watch his friend train, admiring his grace and skill. Sometimes Flame can be convinced to join him, and Lomedy will lightly scratch his scalp and keep watch as his friend dozes off in perfect safety.
He picks oranges right off the tree and peels them- enough for two, cause Flame’s not used to holding breakable things so he always squeezes too hard. It's just easier for Lomedy to do it. He doesn't mind at all, he’s happiest when he can do things like this for the people he loves.
Lomedy loves Flame like he loves sunlight. Like he loves the patchwork quilt that took him ages to make even with the pattern book he’d bought in Merchant City. Like he loves the smell of the jasmine bush next to their back porch on late summer nights.
His life is better with a thick blanket for when the seasons turn. His life is better with large windows to let the light in. His life is better with a best friend.
There’s not much to do while he waits.
Lomedy is used to long hours and tasks that require patience. None of that has quite prepared him for just sitting in one spot for so long his legs start going numb.
He has to stand up then, just to shift around and make sure it really is just the sitting. It’s not like he’s still dressed for the mesa; he was thankfully able to borrow some clothes from a Mist player to wear under his armor, but frostbite and hypothermia aren’t risks he wants to take.
The temperature has started dropping even further in a way that probably means night is fast approaching, and Lomedy hopes Flame has found somewhere safe to bunker down for the night. He wants to be found, obviously, but it’s probably more dangerous to search in the dark.
Being found can wait a night, even if it would be really nice to doze off plastered to his very warm best friend’s side right about now. Lomedy will just have to hug him extra tight the next time they see each other to make up for it.
He ends up curled in on himself, head resting on his knees. The armor is marginally warmer than the ice, especially with his arms folded to help keep heat in. It’s not great, but better than nothing.
He closes his eyes and waits for morning.
The next few days on the ice are basically the same as the first. It's just Lomedy, huddling in place to conserve warmth, scanning his surroundings for any sign of movement.
The ambient soundscape of this place is crazy. Total horror stuff, all this faint creaking and groaning the massive pillars of ice are doing.
At some point, Lomedy risks a torch just for a little bit. It really is freezing, okay? He just- he doesn't wanna get frostbite or something. So he warms his hands and face for as long as he dares, and feels a little better for as long as the light lasts.
The loneliness creeps back in as soon as he puts it out. Which is annoying, because he's not really alone! Flame is somewhere out here looking for him, and any minute now he'll appear out of the fog and his shoulders will relax when he spots Lomedy safe and sound, like every time before.
Flame always, always finds him.