RP:A Timely Reunion
Part of the Lies Within Us Arc
Part of the Weave Your Own Fate Arc
Summary: The terramancer has been rescued, but is he out of the woods yet? With the chaos of the heist only barely settling behind them and the growing threat of the Ossian Orders stranglehold on Xalious looming before them, Inks and Odh take a quiet moment to catch their breath and say some things that weigh heavy on their hearts.
The Oohjmayik's Tailor Shop
The flight from Xalious is a harrowing experience. Odhranos hangs like a ragdoll in Inks arms, his clothing threadbare and barely offering him any modesty. His hair is mangy and unkempt, the grey strands now blending with the brown thanks to the dust and grime that binds them together. His chest is bared, unnaturally pale in the morning sun and his skin is pulled taut against his ribs, which protrude like the rounded bars of a cage. Ironic, S’erok murmurs in the back of Inks’ mind, as his own golden cage bounces against Inks’ leg as she runs. The terramancer’s face is gaunt, his cheeks sunken, while his eyes are hidden by a dirty purple sash; Odhranos’ Provost sash, to be exact. Oh the delicious irony, bound and blinded by his seal of office. S’erok, had he teeth to be grinding, he would be grinding them. Instead, Inks gets to enjoy the jaw pain as her teeth are gritted. “They’re going to suffer for this, Weaver, I’m going to make them suffer.” Waves of fury pulse from the cage like it carries not sand within, but fire.
Iintahquohae didn't stop running with Odhranos' frail body held close to her until she had reached the dunes along Cenril's coast, to the doors partially hidden beneath the sand that led down to her shop and home. Thankfully the doors were already swung open for the day due to her parents opening the shop, so she walked down the stairs and through the entryway without having to stop and kick the doors open. Once inside, she came to a halt, gaze shifting down to Odhranos' face for the first time since scooping him up. Her face contorted, a mixture of gritting her teeth, likely due to S'erok's influence and not just her own while she frowned, eyes welling with tears. Fury and panic swirled within her. She didn't voice it, but she agreed with him. They would suffer, and she would have a hand in their suffering. But first they had to tend to Odhranos.
The shop's interior, typically pristine, is quickly thrown into disarray. Iintahquohae barks orders to a pair of the enchanted, wooden mannequins standing around the shop to yank bolts of fabric off of the walls and pile it up in the middle of the floor, creating a bed of sorts to lay the terramancer upon. The golden cage is removed from her and set by his side as well, while she all but collapses to the floor beside him, at a loss of what to do. Could she wake him? Was he dying? Her hand tentatively extends out to hold one of his, afraid that the limpness of his limbs meant he wouldn't last. The other hand moves to brush dirty grey strands of hair from his face, sliding down his thin, blindfolded face. She doesn't move to remove the purple sash however, for fear of shifting him around too much and potentially hurting him. A lengthy silence follows as tears freely stream down her face, before she looks to S'erok.
“Is he going to be okay?” She asks.
S'erok lapses into silence. He doesn't know, the dragon excels in action, in anger and the heat of battle, but in the quiet safety of this textiles shop, heavy with silent tension, he is out of his depth. Odhranos lies on his makeshift bed, his chest rising and falling imperceptibly, the only sign of life as Inks lightly traces his features. When the vampire poses her question to the quiet room, it hangs in the air, unanswered, until a hoarse whisper slips like sand from Odhranos' lips.
"I've never felt better."
Slowly, as if the simple motion requires a herculean effort, the terramancer's fingers close around Inks', clasping her hand in his. His grip is weak, to Inks vampiric strength, it would seem no stronger than a baby, but it conveys all that it needs to. Odhranos' dry, cracked lips quirk upward, and much as it pains him, he musters a weak grin. He squeezes Inks' hand and turns his head towards her. "Hey." Such a plain word, given what had transpired, but Odhranos is fresh out of vocabulary at the moment.
The silence is unbearable, so much so that the seamstress' face practically crumples from it while she quietly weeps. There was one potential solution she could think of, if Odhranos really was dying like she thought he may be, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Kasyr had never taught her how. As his fingers tighten around her hand, it takes Iintahquohae a moment to register the sensation. Believing she had imagined it along with his voice, she blinks, then notices the grin of his that she had grown so fond of. His greeting elicits a hushed sob.
“Odh,” she croaks, and with care she is quick to lift his upper half into an embrace. Head pressed against his shoulder, she continues to quietly sob, uncertain of what else to say. Their last encounter, the argument in the cabin, cycles through her mind. A string of apologies follows, muffled as she kept her head pressed against him while she continued to cry. “Odh, I'm so sorry, this is all my fault, I should have stayed, I – I'm so, so sorry...” Her arms wrap tighter around him to hold him close, not tight enough to crush him, but to hold him upright if he needed assistance. The apologies continue, devolving into mere sniffles until the seamstress settles down. One of her hands rests against his back, supporting him.
Unfamiliar words that she could never place the meaning of are whispered and she smiles, for the first time in what felt like ages. “Codladh mo ghrá, tá tú slán. Codladh mo ghrá, tá tú slán...”
Odhranos feels himself being lifted into a hug, powerless to resist, not that he would do anyway. Behind the darkness of the blindfold, all he can focus on is her voice, the feeling of her hand against the bare skin of his back to support him, while her curls tickle his cheek. The metal frame of her glasses pokes his neck and the gentle warmth of her apologies, spoken into his shoulder is like the warmth of the sun after a chilling fog, dispelling the cold like a bad dream. His voice comes out in croaks and mumbles, his throat dry with the dust of disuse, but he does what he can to comfort her, refusing to blame her, refusing what could have been. "You came back for me. That's all there is to it. That's all that matters." In a rare show of intimacy, Odhranos turns and nuzzles the seamstress, hugging her with his cheek when his arms cannot. "Thank you, Inks." He whispers into her hair, a quiet murmur, weighty with gratitude.
They stay like this, murmuring incoherently to each other, until the quiet wraps them again. A more comfortable silence than there had been before. Odhranos feels the movement in Inks' cheeks against his collarbone when she smiles, and he smiles in kind, until her words, spoken in a language no other in this continent should know, sent lighting down his spine. Odhranos is stunned, shocked even, then he sets his teeth as his breath hitches. His face screws up, his bottom lip quivers, and a sob escapes his throat. Odhranos buries his face in Inks' hair and bawls, like a child. His thin, wasted body shudders with each gulping breath, and the full weight of his ordeal crashes down on him like a wave. His weak arms clutch at Inks' back, the sole rock bearing him through the storm, as he sobs unconsolably. Eventually the sobs subside and Odhranos lies weakly in Inks' embrace, holding her as tightly as his withered strength can manage. "Tá mé tagtha abhaile... a stór" he whispers beside her ear, in the dusty tones of a foreign, forgotten dialect.
“I had to come back, Odh. I couldn't bear the thought of los-” Inks replies, then pauses. What is she saying? Can she say that now? Is it too much? They are alone apart from S'erok, and her parents probably downstairs nearby. “...I couldn't bear the thought of losing you,” she confesses. Almost immediately afterward she considers walking the words back, but the thought fades at the sound of the terramancer's sob, and she holds tighter to him while stroking his back and his hair.
“It's okay Odh, you're safe,” she soothes, followed by the phrase she spoke before, though slower and uncertain of the words' pronunciation or the language itself. Iintahquohae doesn't know what it means and cannot recall where she had heard it from, but it sounded oddly familiar and comforting enough. His response with equally unfamiliar, presumably comforting words is enough for her to assume whatever was said is acceptable. While crying along with him, her eyes briefly glance over to S'erok's golden cage and she whispers, “He's back! He's going to be okay.” Turning to Odhranos again, but pulling away just a bit to look at his blindfolded face, she repeats, “You're going to be okay.”
Inks' hesitation about her confession is unfounded, as Odhranos is still reeling from her previous, unintentional confession. Something about being exhausted, vulnerable, then having your saviour and debatably platonic roommate/apprentice/colleague call you "my love" in a language they really have no good reason to know really throws a terramancer for a loop, right? Just as he feels like he's processed it, she whispers it to him again and his mind goes for another whirl around the cosmos. Opting for the safest solution, Odhranos decides that not thinking is the far superior idea and he simply rests against Inks' shoulder, exhausted. He can't help but smirk when she whispers to S'erok; his connection with the dragon had faded in the interim, but he could only imagine what profane nonsense S'erok would be spewing at the sight of this scene. The notion elicits a snort of laughter, just as Inks pulls back to get a better look at him. Odhranos lifts his head, instinctively going to meet her eyes, then he slows. The dirty sash meets Inks gaze, and Odhranos lips purse with a troubled grimace. Instead, Odhranos lifts his hand, trailing Inks' shoulder, til he finds her cheek which he cups gently, grazing his thumb over her cheekbone. Odhranos' face scrunches, sadness washing over his features as he gently, tentatively reacquaints himself with Inks' features with the light trailing of his thumb. Her nose, her eyebrow, the slope of her jaw The pad of his thumb grazes the corner of her mouth and Odhranos chokes out a plaintive statement. "I… I forgot" His outburst is sudden, as impulsive as his actions, and he babbles, trying to explain. "I...I began forgetting. What you looked like…" The stammering dies and Odhranos' head dips, as his hand falls away. "They took… I can't…" He can't bring himself to say it. Saying it makes it real. Makes it immutable, unarguable. Permanent. "Sorry." He murmurs, turning away, crestfallen.
“Odh, wha-” she freezes mid thought as his thumb trails her face, damp with tears, both startled by how intimate the gesture seems to her and confused. “You forgot?” Inks asks, brow beginning to furrow. Her first thought is Haladavar, gritting her teeth. Maybe he took Odhranos' memories away. She believes that she's right as the terramancer continues, but as his head lowers, it sinks in. The purple sash. His frail, tortured appearance. The unimaginable hell he had to have gone through. A hand reaches to carefully lift his head, while the other, trembling hand moves to lift the sash from his eyes if allowed. Disbelief and guilt wash over her. Whether he allows her to lift the blindfold or not, she stammers, “They're gone? You really can't...” unable to bring herself to finish the question, she slumps, still clinging to the terramancer. “I wasn't there to - This is my fault,” she sniffs as more tears begin to fall. What else could she possibly say or do to fix this? It wasn't something that could be handwaved away with money or brute force like most problems she encountered. “I'll get him for this,” she mutters, “Every single person that harmed you in that horrible place.”
Odhranos feels his chin being lifted and he shivers, but he doesn't protest as Inks carefully lifts the fabric from where it is bound around his head. He instinctively squints at the sudden light, but when he opens his eyes, the darkness remains as untouched as ever. As it ever will be. When Inks lifts the sash aside, what's greets her is no gory sight of tortured flesh. What would first clue her in is the absence of gold in Odhranos' right eye, the hallmark of S'erok's tenancy. On closer inspection, she would find no colour to speak of in either eye. As if the colour were leeched away, Odhranos' irises are a ghostly ashy white, while his pupils are blank and unfocused. "It was one of his subordinates. She had a theory about the colour variance in my eyes. They… were worried that such a telltale sign would be detrimental to their secret pawns. Haladavar gave her free reign to conduct her research and, well…" Odhranos shrugs, looking down out of habit. He tilts forward, butting his head against Inks' shoulder. "It's not your fault, Inks. We had a fight. Neither of us could have known what would happen." Odhranos sighs, even now, after all that has happened, he still feels guilty about how he and Inks parted on such bad terms. "You came back for me, give yourself that credit, please." He rests his forehead on her shoulder and sighs. Odhranos hand still cradles Inks' cheek, his only means of judging her expressions even if it is odd and embarrassing for both of them. When he feels the muscles in her jaw bunching as she swears vengeance against Haladavar and his cronies, he tenderly strokes her cheek with his thumb, in an attempt to soothe her. "We will make this right, Inks, I promise. But right now-" Odhranos rests his cheek against her shoulder; "-I am just happy to be home and to be alive. That's enough for me right now. This right now is enough." The terramancer trails off and lapses into silence. His breathing settles as despite his best efforts, Odhranos succumbs to sleep in Inks' arms.
An audible gasp that Iintahquohae tries to suppress escapes her at the sight of Odhranos' blinded eyes. She expected far worse – that whoever the torturer was that did this to him ripped not only his sight, but the eyes as well. She searches the unfamiliar eyes, silently hoping that maybe he can still see and they will meet hers. As much as she wanted to ask him for the name of the person that did this to him, Inks can't bring herself to ask. She wants to protest that it is her fault even more when the terramancer rests his head upon her shoulder. A small smile is produced for him as her hand gently closes over his on her cheek. “I promise that I'll make this right for you, Odh. I promise.” The notion of him being home makes her smile grow just a bit, and the seamstress holds him closer. As he drifts to sleep, her eyes wander the shop, settling on the door at the far end of the space that leads downstairs to her and her parents' home. “You're safe here,” whispers Inks, as she moves to stand and carefully lift him, similarly to how she did when he first came to her cabin in Frostmaw. Casting a glance at S'erok's cage, she adds, “Both of you.” Cleaning up the pile of colorful fabric on the floor can wait. She heads for the door downstairs carrying Odhranos, to one of the home's bedrooms so he can properly rest.