Not yet awake in this horrid stone place, Rory was at some sort of peace: sleeping easy. His thick (and bloodstained) outdoor clothing had been traded for a white linen shirt, the wool blankets keeping him warm. The blond hair was still confined to a messy, tangled braid. A soothing lotion was slathered over his burns, the bitten shoulder wrapped up, a gryphon cradled loosely in the crook of one arm, and a fox resting under the other.
It was a deep and healing sleep, dreamless at first: an exhausted mind and an exhausted body recovering from the madness and the brink. Vervain's gentle magic had given him the best possibles start to recovery, ensuring he would suffer no more blood loss worth the name, and snuffing out the budding infection in his open burns.
But as the phases of sleep cycled, again and again, and the events began to swim to the forefront of his mind as his eyes roved beneath closed eyelids.
Fire.
The insidious, sinister hiss in his ear, the monster within purring—fire.
It was just snatches of memory, the details all muddled, faces changed, and fire, fire, fire. And through it all, that thread of pure evil and discord, poisoning his mind and soul until the bright, bright flashes woke him.
Despite his dreaming he had been relatively still, mostly just twitching, but his hand had closed instinctively on the scruff and shoulders of the fox pressed up against him. It took him some time to figure out where he was, and what he was doing, and what the sensation of fur in his hand meant—the pain throbbed a dull beat in his face and chest, and he stared at the unfamiliar stone ceiling as memory washed back in, like so much driftwood.
Amalia and Wessex at his house. The fox in the barn. The first cycle of wakefulness and sleep, and then: the disturbance. A night flight. Fire and horror and anger.
Amalia falling. Edrei carrying her away. The fox Attuned, tall and lean and white-haired, more or less dragging him towards the Temple.
After that, he remembered very little. Not how they got in. Not how they got here. He had a vague impression of the white hair falling around his face, and of warmth seeping through his ragged body.
He was in the Infirmary. He was beneath a stone ceiling, within stone walls, and if his guess was right, the unnatural, starless dark pressed against the Temple still. Rory swallowed. Figured out his fingers were in the fox's scruff, and relaxed their grip on the small canine.
How had the gryphon made it to them? It didn't matter; knowing he had probably woken the fox already he put his hand on the bed, the other still around the owlkitten, and pushed himself into sit, back against the wall.
"Fuck," he said, rather mildly, voice rough from sleep.
It was a deep and healing sleep, dreamless at first: an exhausted mind and an exhausted body recovering from the madness and the brink. Vervain's gentle magic had given him the best possibles start to recovery, ensuring he would suffer no more blood loss worth the name, and snuffing out the budding infection in his open burns.
But as the phases of sleep cycled, again and again, and the events began to swim to the forefront of his mind as his eyes roved beneath closed eyelids.
Fire.
The insidious, sinister hiss in his ear, the monster within purring—fire.
It was just snatches of memory, the details all muddled, faces changed, and fire, fire, fire. And through it all, that thread of pure evil and discord, poisoning his mind and soul until the bright, bright flashes woke him.
Despite his dreaming he had been relatively still, mostly just twitching, but his hand had closed instinctively on the scruff and shoulders of the fox pressed up against him. It took him some time to figure out where he was, and what he was doing, and what the sensation of fur in his hand meant—the pain throbbed a dull beat in his face and chest, and he stared at the unfamiliar stone ceiling as memory washed back in, like so much driftwood.
Amalia and Wessex at his house. The fox in the barn. The first cycle of wakefulness and sleep, and then: the disturbance. A night flight. Fire and horror and anger.
Amalia falling. Edrei carrying her away. The fox Attuned, tall and lean and white-haired, more or less dragging him towards the Temple.
After that, he remembered very little. Not how they got in. Not how they got here. He had a vague impression of the white hair falling around his face, and of warmth seeping through his ragged body.
He was in the Infirmary. He was beneath a stone ceiling, within stone walls, and if his guess was right, the unnatural, starless dark pressed against the Temple still. Rory swallowed. Figured out his fingers were in the fox's scruff, and relaxed their grip on the small canine.
How had the gryphon made it to them? It didn't matter; knowing he had probably woken the fox already he put his hand on the bed, the other still around the owlkitten, and pushed himself into sit, back against the wall.
"Fuck," he said, rather mildly, voice rough from sleep.
