WHO Orym WHERE His bedroom in the Bells Hells house WHEN Early morning of October 3 WHAT Orym receives an update from home and attempts to grapple with that. STATUS Complete WARNINGS Spoilers through C3E34 of CR. Themes surrounding death, guilt. ART CREDIThere
The house was quiet, as it usually was at the early hour Orym's body naturally woke him. He woke in a not unfamiliar position, with one of Dorian's arms flung over him and the distance that they had unconsciously--or, in Orym's case, consciously, but without conversation in an attempt at appearing normal--been putting between each other in the nights since their talk completely erased.
Resisting the impulse to enjoy the closeness for a few moments longer like he might have only the week prior, Orym carefully slid from under Dorian's arm, replacing himself with a pillow so as to try to not fully disturb his friend. Still, he couldn't quite resist hesitating a moment to watch Dorian's sleeping face before Orym crossed their room, stretching his arms above his head and his back to and fro as he made his way to their en suite bathroom.
Quickly closing the door behind him, so as to not disturb his roommate as the bathroom light turned on, Orym kicked out the stool that was built into the cabinetry that gave him the extra boost of height to reach the sink and see his reflection.
It was the latter that gave him immediate pause.
Orym could see the way that his head tilted to the side, curious and confused, but it wasn't his face that his eyes were locked on: it was his sternum. Much of his body was covered in the evidence of training and battles long past, there was none like this. The skin looked freshly healed, leaving a pink scar that stood out against his pale skin and the scattering of hair. It was the sort of scar that spoke of a fatal blow and, as he raised one hand and let his fingers gently brush the edges of the raised skin, he remembered exactly how this scar had come to be.
Seventeen days. It had only been seventeen days of new memories, but so much had happened and the sudden jolt of memory left Orym gripping the edge of the countertop. Their time spent in the Heartmoor Hamlet, Jrusar once more, then Bassuras. Clues found, mysteries followed, a handful of answers, and so many more questions. A dangerous race, a city on the moon, FCG being even more than they realized. Dusk and Yu, the Calloways, Ira, Otohan Thull.
Otohan Thull.
Chin dipping toward his chest, Orym squeezed his eyes shut as the images came to the surface, fully unbidden. He had watched as the shadowy assassins that had plagued his nightmares since he'd witnessed them strike down the two men that had shaped his young life do the exact same thing to his new family, before Thull had focused her attacks on him as he'd tried to put himself between her and where her interest clearly lay. He felt the sending stone fall from his grasp as words were left unsaid, saw the recognition in her eyes, and then black--
Except, it wasn't black. Not for long, anyway. Orym had dreamed, both waking and in sleep, of seeing Will again. He hadn't wanted it to come too soon, as he had so much left to do, and yet…there had been a comfort in seeing his husband once more. It was for only a moment, as Fearne's voice, the love for his friends, and his duty beckoned him alive once more, but it was Will.
It didn't end there, of course. He hardly had time to reconcile saying goodbye to Will once more, as the consequences of their meeting head to head with Thull came into sharp, devastating focus. An impossible choice had been made that had left him alive and Laudna gone, the guilt of which Orym felt with each inhale as much in Vallo as it had in Exandria.
The situation was different than that of Zephrah, yet somehow was also the exact same. Someone that Orym cared about was dead at the hands of these assassins, with him somehow still alive. It felt decidedly unfair.
Orym finally opened his eyes, his gaze rising to meet his own in the reflection of the mirror. He knew what survivor's guilt was and how heavy it had weighed on his shoulders. It had been suffocating for many years as he wandered Tal'Dorei in search of some sort of meaning, a reason that he had been spared when the two best people he knew had not. He had found meaning through the people he surrounded himself with and the incredibly personal mission that the Tempest had tasked him with, making that heaviness further lighten beyond what time and healing had done for him.
This feeling was similar. He felt that guilt, particularly when he imagined the grief on Imogen's face that was oh so familiar, when he thought about the potential to never hear Laudna's unique brand of optimism. There was a lingering hope in his chest that they would figure something out, of course; this group had done the impossible before, so what was one more miracle? They knew people. He knew people. And so even with the knowledge of how Will and Derrig didn't return to him when they tried to call them back from that place that felt so very much like Zephrah that Orym himself had glimpsed, he felt hope.
Orym's gaze dropped to his chest once more, one finger tracing his newest scar. There was, of course, nothing to be done where he was. He could not contact the Tempest or give what meager monetary offerings he had to some temple in the hopes that they could fix what Otohan had wrought. He couldn't search out Otohan directly, wherever they might have ended up, no matter how deadly an encounter that would most certainly be. Another version of himself was living that life and he, the Orym that was standing in the bathroom of a home that Laudna, who he was confident was very much alive and well in her own bedroom, had procured and made livable for them, had no control over that life.
And so, for now, all he could do was control the life that he could.
Orym looked back to the mirror, avoiding looking at his sternum to instead watch his very tired face as he inhaled deeply before releasing the breath all at once in a huff. It was not as healing as he may have liked and he still felt that hollow weight resting upon him, but he knew from many years of mourning that it wasn't that easy when it came to true healing. It took one day at a time, sometimes one hour or even a minute, and he had to allow himself that much. He didn't know what the future held in Exandria--hell, he didn't know what the day would look like in Vallo.
He could brush his teeth, though. He could do his morning Zeph'aeratam. Beyond that, time would tell.