until our blood runs dry, brother ;

@Raenar

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Tamir had heard the rumors, he'd heard the rumbles of a name from the mouth of an outsider. An outsider, of all people, had found his brother, and what? Left him to the winds of the Vale, battered and broken from a fall so serious he was incapable of walking himself. It took every last shred of restraint within him not to knock the brute from his feet where he stood. It didn't matter the previous branch he'd extended as a peace offering, it didn't matter who his companion was; that branch had burned and turned to ash the moment he dared lay a hand on his family. It was gone.

The shadowman's teeth punctured his tongue as his gait turned to a sprint, desperation and hope leaking out of every pore as he sought the place Vahaelarr had described. His shadows crooned to him, guiding him through the jungle of trees until all that lay before him was the hefty form of his brother.

Tamir's brows pinched together as he approached, nose lifting and scrunching with the smell that rose from him. And then a grin broke through, the first since Faust had discovered him. They'd found the last piece of their family, absolved themselves of the doubts that came with the male's absence. So, it was with that mighty grin and a soft laugh that the man nudged a paw against the other. Words left him as nothing more than a jest, similar to how Faust teased Tamir on that broken rise. “Oh, skorkydoso se mighty emagon fallen.” — Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

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Raenar was still swollen with anger long after the other man, and eventually the healer had left him. Anger, and admittedly confusion. The two emotions dueled one another upon the stage of his broken body. If only he had been healthy. If only he had his strength… a dark cloud loomed over him and he hated the way it felt. This was all Vahaelarr’s doing, whatever his name had been. How dare he. How dare he keep them from him! It was after an impossibility that he had somehow found them again, and here he was left, most likely to the desires of that stranger to die on those stones. Forgotten.

His body burned with the rage. Rage at the man, rage at himself for being unable to gather his strength through the pain. Not yet was he able, but soon, so very soon he would have crawled to them if that’s all his broken body would allow. Raenar refused to let anyone or anything get in his way of seeing them again, seeing his family again. He had already crossed one impossible road, he would do it again.

With all the days they had spent together, their bodies linked at the shoulder and their minds linked by something words had no need to bridge, Raenar knew that laugh immediately. Tamir. His eyes snapped to him, bright golden hues illuminating like the sun as he stared at his friend in complete disbelief. For a moment he was tempted to resist the grin pulling his mouth upwards, fighting off the emotions linked to what he thought could somehow have been a cruel trick. Eventually all hesitation broke away when Tamir nudged a paw against him. He was real, a ghost but still alive somehow.

“Looks raqagon ao’ve joined zirȳ rȳ se bottom” — Looks like you’ve joined them at the bottom. The quip effortlessly left his lips matching Tamir’s tone, his grin unashamedly growing. His voice was unusually rasped but overwhelmed by mirth and joy and disbelief, all of which pulled him every which way. This meeting should have been impossible. Raenar fought through the haze of pain, angling himself more toward the other man. Trying to turn himself, he moved onto the moss reeking of dried blood still lodged into the wound at his side. It stung immediately but it wasn’t enough that he had been unable to ignore it. “You damn sight for sore eyes. How is this possible?” He was sure he had watched him die, sure Tove had died with him, and he — That was it, wasn’t it? He was dead too?

@Tamir
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Tamir tsked, his head shaking. “Se yet issa ao glorifying se ground hae iā soiled se desperate lover.” — And yet it is you glorifying the ground like a soiled and desperate lover. He couldn't stop his grin from growing, but he'd been careful in his approach, eyes languidly drifting over any apparent wounds he seemed to have.

Raenar's questions were warranted and acknowledged by the shadowsinger, but there were things he couldn't explain. Things they still hadn't found the answers to, but did that really matter now? To him, it hadn't. He wouldn't go scouring the isles for answers, because he wouldn't ever be returning to that world. The darkness, the hatred, the anger. He refused. So when his brother questioned the why there was no true, solid answer he could give him.

“Sȳrje daor naejot másino ziry, lēkia. Lest se dream mōris sīr aderī.” — Best not to question it, brother. Lest the dream end so soon. He offered a grimace and a shrug in time with his words, but it was not his brethren's reaction that he was focused on. Not nearly. Now that they'd found him, Tamir would be damned if his family was left to the mountainside, nearly an hour's walk beyond the safety of their Vale. He blinked down at the other, his lip lifting in a brief flash of distaste. “Can you walk?” Raenar was no feather. While he appeared wounded and small now, the jester was a soldier. Crafted with the very stone he laid upon, he was almost just as heavy.

While admirable in his own strength, the shadowman was not nearly enough to carry the lug of a man. Not without nearly buckling beneath the weight of them both, he assumed. So he waited, waited for the man to at least try if not only to greet the rest of his family but to bring back some of the dignity lost while he lay among the weeds.

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