[center][h3][i]Lazarus[/i][/h3]
[i]I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 
and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.[/i]
[sub]- Jesus of Nazareth[/sub][/center]

Gregor awoke with a start. 

His eyes shot open and he saw the sky overhead. It was almost dawn and the last light of the stars was slowly being chased away by the imminent sunrise. “Raelynn!” he called out instinctively and he sat up straight, looking around for his lover with frantic eyes. There was nothing but desert around him. The copper hues of the sandy dunes spread out in all directions, up to the horizon, and a deep blue, utterly cloudless sky hung suspended overhead. The Alik’r, he remembered. He was in Hammerfell. That much he knew. But something was wrong. Everything was wrong. Why was he here? Why was-- 

Looking down on himself, Gregor saw that there was a dagger stuck into his heart all the way up to the crossguard. He stared at it, uncomprehending, and at the dried blood that caked his bare torso. “Raelynn?” he whispered, softly, breathless, pleading, and tore his gaze away from the impossible towards the dunes, the horizon, the sky. She was nowhere to be seen. There was nothing to be seen. 

“Am I dead?” he asked himself, eyes wide and mouth agape. No answer came, nor any pain, darkness or oblivion. He was not dead. Not anymore, at least.

He became aware of the fact that he was sitting in the middle of… something. Gregor climbed to his feet and took a few stumbling, uneven steps, away from whatever unnaturally smooth surface it was that coated the ground -- something told him it was vile and corrupted. After he was clear and his feet touched naught but sand, he turned around and looked back. 

The sand had turned to glass in a wide circle around the spot where he had lain, a perfectly flat plane with a reflective, mirrored surface. Upon the glass, placed along the arms of an invisible pentagram, were the shattered remains of five soul gems. Upon closer inspection, the glass did not reflect the sky of the Alik’r desert. It reflected a dark sky, devoid of stars, with a black hole that slowly consumed everything-- 

Gregor recoiled. Panic began to set in. He couldn’t remember how he got here, or what he’d done. What was the last thing he could remember? “Think, Gregor, [i]think,”[/i] he hissed and grabbed his head with his hands, eyes furtively searching for answers, explanations, hints, but his mind wouldn’t cooperate; it was like trying to run or fight in a dream. None of this made sense and he was alone. He was alone and it was his fault. “Why?” he whispered. 

Something came to him and he snapped his fingers. “The prison!” That’s where the party had gone after Gilane. That’s where he had gone. What had happened in there? It was then that Gregor remembered the dagger that protruded from his chest. He cursed and grabbed the hilt with trembling fingers. Why didn’t it hurt? Why was he still alive? How was he still alive? Gregor wasn’t sure of anything but the fact that he had to get that thing out of him. Fear twisted his insides. He closed his eyes and grit his teeth and pulled. 

The dagger came loose without a fight. Gregor had been holding his breath and gasped. He opened his eyes again and looked down. The dagger had left a thin wound behind, a clean thrust, but no blood came from it. He had just pulled a dagger from his own heart without bleeding. 

“What in Oblivion…” he stammered. 

He hadn’t been holding his breath. His fingers hadn’t been trembling. There had been no fear in his gut. Sure as sure, Gregor looked upon his hands and saw that they were still. He checked his breathing and realized he wasn’t breathing at all. He hadn’t been since he woke up. And the fear he felt… it was real, but it was distant, almost like it belonged to someone else that was merely watching him. Inside his body, Gregor did not feel anything. 

The sun rose over the horizon and the first rays of dawn touched his skin. The light was just as cold as the rest of the world and brought no warmth to him. Slowly, damnably slowly, Gregor realized the truth of the situation. He wanted to laugh but the joy died in his throat. Why couldn’t he laugh? It was done. He had succeeded. He was beyond the reach of Arkay now, beyond the reach of his family’s curse. Everything he had worked for over the past decade had finally come to fruition. Gregor looked at the dagger in his hand and, after a few seconds of deliberation, stabbed himself in the stomach. 

It hurt, but only vaguely so. He pulled the blade free and, once again, no blood came from the thin slit in his skin. Gregor took a closer look at himself and saw that he was pale. His hands were darker and their skin was mottled somewhat… like a corpse, Gregor realized, of which the blood had pooled in its extremities. He stepped closer to the pool of glass and peered into it, deliberately avoiding looking at the black hole in the sky and focusing exclusively on his own face. His skin was ashen; only a hint of his tan remained, there were dark circles around his eyes, his lips were bloodless and his cheeks were gaunt, as if the skin had pulled taut over his cheekbones. 

He was most definitely undead. Once more he cracked a smile and tried to laugh in celebration, and once more was he halted by the unassailable feeling that something was dreadfully, horribly wrong. Something he couldn’t remember. Only the feeling of the memory remained. It was cruel irony for [i]him[/i], of all people, to forget the circumstances that surrounded this very moment. It was a deeply uncomfortable realization and Gregor’s smile faded into nothing. What if he was alone out here? What if Raelynn was gone? He needed Raelynn. “I’m sorry,” he heard himself say, as if he was talking to her. Why was he sorry? 

After grabbing his belongings -- Gregor found his backpack and the rest of his clothes next to the glass -- he located a trail of footsteps that led away across the dunes. His own, presumably, that would hopefully lead him back to wherever he had come from. He hoped, wished, prayed that she was there. None of this would be, could be, right without her. Gregor got dressed, hiding the caked blood beneath his shirt as best he could, shouldered his backpack and set off, eyes squinting against the rising sun. 

[Hr]

It had been a near endless night. When she had finally set out into the desert to track him, it was already halfway between midnight and dawn. The silent hours had kept her company on the lonely trek across dark sand. Her mind on one thing only, her hand wrapped over the hilt her sword. If she had a mirror, she would be horrified at herself. Her eyes were red and bloodshot, dark circles sat underneath them on her pale skin. Her hair was unkempt and hidden under a purple scarf worn around her head and face as a mask.

She had dirt across her fingers, buried in her nail beds. Her clothing was not fitted to her figure, it allowed movement - kept her cool, but it did not flatter her body. Just simple, white linens over her tiny frame. Her expression had thus far conveyed a silent fury, that was until she came across the clearing in in between the rocks, where the winds seemed to die and sand sat still. Still enough for her to see Gregor's footprints, finally. She bent down to place her fingers against one, to brush at the carving in an almost scholarly fashion. He had been here. She continued forwards, finding respite in the long and narrow gap between the tall rocks, it was cool, and the ground was almost hard for a while. 

As she came to the end of the walkway, where once again the desert was all that lay on the horizon, she saw in the far distance a dark shape - a person, walking alone through the vast ocean of sand. “Gregor…” she breathed, the grip tightening around her sword but it was as if the very sight of him swayed her heat and she began to tremble. If she could see him, then he would undoubtedly soon see her. They were the only souls for miles around.  

He did see her. The loose clothing and the scarf made it hard to tell but something in Gregor's heart told him that that was Raelynn. Her name escaped his lips in a desperate whisper and he sped up his pace, but it was like his legs refused to run. He could only go so fast. It was bizarre -- he felt stronger and simultaneously slower than before. Nothing made sense. “Raelynn!” he yelled, the same urgency in his voice as when he has called out her name after waking up. “Is that you?” 

She didn't know how to respond to him. She could only see him begin to move faster but it wasn't fast at all, it was as though he was putting power into his movement and still nothing. She was entirely overcome as her mind went blank. She could only think of the man who had left their tent, her jaw shook and she took a single step back, she didn't want to leave, but she was anxious over whom that was. She stopped thinking about the sword, so much so that her grip weakened on it immensely, a feeling of relief moved through her hand and she looked at it. What a heavy thing to have carried all this way… She did not wish to speak, but she could show him. Slowly, with trembling hands she unwound the scarf from her face, and let her hair shake out from under it. Long waves of hair, almost golden in dawn's new light.

“It is! Oh gods, Raelynn,” Gregor said, his voice hoarse. He was overwhelmed by a great and terrible sorrow, a tsunami from far away that had finally reached him, and he stumbled and fell. Something was [I]so wrong[/I]. With great effort, he got to his feet again and trudged onward, fighting through the sand, while an indescribable pain in his soul almost drove him to tears. Only she could make it better. “Raelynn, please, come here, why won't you come here?”

She watched him carefully, she could hear him begging her to come near and yet her feet stayed where they were. She reached out a hand towards him, she didn't feel frightened, just unsure. Eventually she took a long breath and began to move, she started forwards with all of the hesitant grace of a curious doe, her heart beating fast in her chest. She was ready to bolt like a doe at the first sign of something being amiss too. “Gregor?” she croaked - realising that her voice was about gone and her throat dry. Still she moved, as he had asked. 

Gregor nodded as vigorously as his strange, unwieldy body allowed. “Yes, it's me,” he said and redoubled his efforts to close the remaining distance between them. “Of course it's me!” He stumbled again but remained upright this time. “Have I been gone long? Where are we? Raelynn, baby, what [I]happened?”[/I]

“Hours,” she began, unable to take her eyes off him. Now that he was coming closer she could make out the details of his appearance, how his skin was tight around his face… how it was no longer full of warmth, but looked cold. His fingertips… “you left our… you left the camp.” She stopped moving, her fingers barely touching the sword now, so much so that it slipped from them and hit the sand with a light clatter. “I left later than you… You left alone, I don’t know what happened.”

At last, Gregor reached her but something stopped him from pulling her into an embrace. He saw the sword she'd dropped and the look on her face. He stared at her, helpless and forlorn. “Which camp?” he asked eventually. His despair was evident in his voice. “I can't remember. There was the prison… my mind, Raelynn, it doesn't work right, it won't cooperate. I woke up with a dagger--” 

He fell silent and covered his mouth with his hand, eyes alight with fear and magic. With his free hand, Gregor undid the buttons of his shirt and let it slip off his shoulders. The slit in his stomach had disappeared, evidently already repaired by the same forces that animated his undead form, but the wound in his heart and the blood were still there.

“The camp with me… with our friends and the prisoners…” she uttered softly in a toneless voice as she continued to take him in with her eyes. Seeing his chest like that gave her a reason to step forward, closer to him. She raised a hand, alight with small golden wisps to the wound, not pressing it, just hovering over it. Nothing happened and she gasped. “It worked…” she finished with a sigh, pulling her hand away - her senses continued to be alert to him making a sudden movement, but there was something about him that made her confident that he could not. 

They were over an hours walk from the camp. Gregor had to have been here for a long time, how long had the ritual taken? How long had he been unconscious? “I don't know what I should say…” she admitted, finally meeting his eyes with her own, a sad look of concern sitting in them. “I don't know what I must do…” 

Gregor stiffened. “I did something,” he whispered. “Didn't I? I felt it before when I couldn't find you. I… I don't remember, but I'm sorry, my love.” He sounded both heartfelt and heartbroken. His arms dropped uselessly by his side. “I don't know what to do either. It worked… whatever I did out there, but something's not right. It's… I'm…” he stammered, unsure, but the longer he looked at Raelynn the better he felt he could put into words what he feared. “It's like I'm not really here,” he managed at last, an expression of confusion and desperation on his face. “Does that make sense at all?” 

So he did not remember. She could not ascertain whether that was a better or worse outcome for her. The spiteful, still hurting parts of her [i]wanted[/i] him to know exactly what he’d done. But the part of her that recognised Gregor already in pain and disarray just wanted to get him to safety before anything else. “Shhh shhhhh…” she uttered gently, to indulge him in his confusion would only make matters worse. The medic in her took over, and she placed a hand gently below his chin - the coldness of his skin, still a surprise to her. She rose to her tiptoes to be level with his eyeline, waving a finger in front of them. She could [i]feel[/i] his apology, but there was little she could do for him here. Soon enough, the sun would be hotter than she could bare, and she looked at him - knowing she had to take over now. “Camp is an hour or so away, can you make it back?” she asked in a voice laced with concern, her eyes soft and delicate now.

It was an immense relief to see kindness and compassion return to Raelynn's eyes and he nodded slowly. “I think so,” he said, voice unsteady. “Gods, this isn't how it was supposed to be. They've… there's…” He sighed in frustration and shook his head. “Let's go.” 

She saw exasperation in his expression, and she had no understanding of any of this. It was completely other-wordly and outside of her realm of understanding. [I]What can I do?[/i] she thought to herself, watching him. She had to be his strength again. That she could do. “We will figure this out. I can help you… If you would like me to,” without thinking, she plucked the sword up from the ground and sheathed it once more. Then she took his hand into her own. She would lead the way, she would get him back to camp. That is what she could do.

“Yes, yes, [i]please,”[/i] Gregor said gratefully and squeezed her hand when she grabbed his. He could not feel the warmth of her skin anymore. Gregor bit his lip and looked down at his feet while they walked. Was this really what he had been hurtling towards for ten years? He was cold, not just to the touch but down to the bone, and slow and disoriented. This was no state to be in. Perhaps it was all just aftereffects of the ritual that would fade with time, the rational part of him thought. There was no way of knowing. Only time would tell. And that, at least, he had more than enough of. Finally. 

After half an hour of walking in silence, Gregor saw movement from the corners of his vision and watched with wide eyes as he saw the spectral shape of a caravan pass them by, nothing more than transparent, white silhouettes trudging through the sand without disturbing it. He could hear them, the braying of their horses and their chatter, but it sounded like it came from underwater, or from very far away. He almost stumbled again as he forgot to look where he was going, turning his head as far as he could to keep his eyes on the apparitions, until they disappeared into thin air. It was like they hadn’t been there at all. 

Even in the slow manner with which he had been walking  Raelynn sensed a change in his movement still. She stopped in her own tracks to look at him, watching his head move and turn. His attention pulled to something she could not herself place, sense, or see. “What is it?” she asked, instinctively stepping in front of him, releasing his hand to touch her sword again, not fully aware of herself. All she could think about was getting him back to the tent. 

Gregor opened and closed his mouth a few times before he found his words again. “Ghosts,” he said with certainty. “Souls that were lost wandering the desert. I can see them now. There was a caravan…” He finally pulled his gaze away from where they had vanished and looked at Raelynn again, only then noticing that she had stepped in front of him with her hand on her blade. It was touching. “It’s fine, there’s no danger. We can keep going.”  

She glanced sidelong at him, rapping her fingers over the handle of the blade before nodding, taking from her side a canteen of water which she drank from. It was beginning to get drastically hot, they still had a way to go, and shade was gone. As she took a gulp, she considered whether he would need some too. She recognised that this whole time she'd felt… awkward. Not knowing how to address his situation, not understanding a lick of it. She felt out of her depth, maybe the reason she wanted to urgently to find her way back to the camp was to come back to tangible familiarity. This walk through the desert was like a strange dream. Nothing was right. “I'm just… Alert,” she confessed to him, holding out the water towards him, half out of curiosity and half out of it just being the [i]normal[/i] thing to do. 

“I understand,” Gregor said. He accepted the canteen without thinking and took a swig of water. He blinked in surprise when he barely felt it going down his throat and the expected refreshing sensation that he associated with a sip of cool water in the desert sun withheld itself from him. There was no parching thirst to soothe, he realized. Gregor muttered a curse to himself and gave the canteen back to Raelynn, holding it out as if it had personally offended him. “Thank you,” he remembered to add. 

Raelynn observed him quizzically, taking it back and hanging it back over her shoulder at her side. “Let's keep moving.” Once more she took his hand in hers and continued through the sands.

[hr]

Finally they reached camp, and fortunately it was still quiet. She was once again grateful to have pitched the tent far from the crowds. As they walked toward it, she could see a white hot light burning on the ground, just a few feet from the entrance of the tent which she recognised as the plate she'd tossed out. She glanced at Gregor quickly before heading with an increased speed towards their tent at last. As she lifted the flap, she looked at him as if to give him permission to enter first. 

Gregor bowed his head and stepped into the tent. Even if he could no longer feel heat, it was still pleasant to get out of the glaringly bright sunlight. That small relief was immediately undone by seeing several of his belongings strewn about somewhere that he could not remember ever visiting before. “I have no memory of this place,” he said and turned to Raelynn with weary eyes. Now that they were in the half-gloom of the tent, she would be able to see that there was the slightest hint of something cerulean twinkling behind his pupils, not dissimilar from the reflection in a cat’s eyes at night, but entirely out of place in a human. He sighed and sat down against a pillow, letting his exhaustion wash over him and dropping his arms limply by his sides. “I’m sorry,” he said in a repeat of his words from before. “About… earlier, and about [i]this.[/i] I… I think I’ve made a grave mistake.” 

She quietly followed him in, her footsteps soft. As he lay down she reached to a bowl of water and passed some over her face, wiping away the tan-coloured dirt that had set across her forehead. Now that her face was clear again, the redness of her eyes appeared darker and more harsh. She ran a brush through her hair and tied it all away from her face in a single ponytail that practically pulled her face back it was so taut. 

She carried the bowl over to where Gregor had chosen to sit. Her eyes glancing across at the mess of the tent. “Damned dogs must have got in here for food…” she lied with conviction, not wanting to admit that it had been her own fury. Her fingers tentatively hovered over his chest, the buttons of his shirt that he’d haphazardly fastened. With an almost ritualistic grace she began to unbutton them. A far cry from the many times she’d torn them open with reckless abandon. The wall of professionality sat between them now, and she took an almost clinical posture by his side, taking a damp cloth to wipe away at the blood on his chest. Her eyes briefly met his as he made his apology again, “don’t apologise, you have no memory of it...” She hadn’t meant it to sound callous. God’s no, she was just so… unsure of it all. She only knew she couldn’t show him that, she had to give him reassurance that she knew what she was doing. That she could help him, that they could get through this. “We don’t know that yet… Let us just clean you up and… We’ll know the next step then…”

Even in his current state Gregor could tell that things had changed between Raelynn and him. It was obvious in the way she relieved him of his shirt and set about cleaning his skin. He could hardly blame her. Gregor wasn't the same person, or even the same type of creature, that she had known before. There was a large void where Gregor's lurking anger and mortal fear had been, the place in his soul where the Pale Reaper had made his home. An enormous weight had been lifted off his shoulders and he would have been able to breathe freely and stand tall if it weren't for the new and almost as equally unpleasant fears that had wrapped themselves around his throat. What if he was never going to be the same? What if Raelynn would never get used to it? What if he was going to lose the rest of his memories too, despite all his efforts? And why oh why did he feel so deeply and thoroughly violated? 

“You're probably right,” Gregor said at length and conjured a wan smile. He could see himself in the mirror on the other side of the tent. It was an unsettling sight. He did not feel like he was looking at his own body at all, but just a vessel that happened to occupy the space around his eyes. Somehow, Gregor was convinced that [I]he[/I] was somewhere else, and not inside his own head. That this was all just… a window into a world he no could no longer call home. 

“Are you afraid?” Gregor asked softly, forcing himself to look away from the mirror and down at Raelynn while she worked. 

As she continued to work in cleaning him, she listened to his question and thought about it. It didn’t take her long to find the answer; “I’m not,” she said truthfully, slowing down to look up at him, she too was able to find a small smile for him before she got back to work, nearing his heart now - the open, bloodless wound. “I mean, I don’t think you’ll do anything that should make me or anyone be afraid of you, or of this...” She continued on, noticing that the water in the bowl was starting to get too dark for it to be effective at cleaning. “I’m worried about you…” she confessed as she placed the cloth down. “Worried about me… But no, I’m not afraid.” She cleared her throat and turned back to look at the wound again, almost fascinated by it. “Are you… in pain?”

“No,” Gregor replied and followed Raelynn's gaze to the mark on his chest. He thought about what she'd said. It was good that she wasn't afraid, because he was. “In fact, I don't feel much of anything. No thirst, no hunger, no heat… nothing. Even if I injure myself it doesn't really hurt and then the wound disappears by itself.” He frowned. “Except this one.” 

“I can close it for you, if you’d like” she said as her eyes met his. She felt his words and they stung her. She hadn’t considered the changing and loss of senses in undeath. “And your memory is clouded?” She knew from her own experiences that it was likely temporary, a reaction to his trauma. Simply having been stabbed through the heart would have been enough to kickstart such a reaction. “If it is any consolation to you, I don’t think the problems with your mind will last,” Raelynn said softly, placing a hand on his - hoping it would comfort him. 

Close the wound… the thought hadn't even occurred to Gregor yet. For some reason, he had just assumed he would have to deal with that being on his chest forever. “Yes, please,” he said and placed his other hand over Raelynn's. “As for my mind… it helps to hear you say that. I'm glad I can put my faith in you. I'm… really happy you're here.” Gregor gave her hand a squeeze before he sat back and allowed Raelynn to get to work. 

“I made a promise to you, it meant something to me... I don't intend to break it,” the Breton said clearly towards him. She began to lift her hand as if to stroke his cheek but caught herself before she did. “Do you remember anything at all? Maybe talking… I don't know, you don't have to…” Raelynn bit her lip, it was too much and suddenly she felt awkward for asking. She reached over to her satchel, carefully combing through the contents until she came across a small velvet pouch. She took a specialist needle and spool of thread from inside. “I should, uhm, bring fresh water, I'll be back.” With that said, she took the bowl and swiftly got to her feet, leaving him alone in the tent while she fetched it. 

With Raelynn gone and the rest of the camp still quiet, Gregor was left with nothing else but the silence and his thoughts. What did he remember? He remembered the prison, that was for sure. The image of a large man he couldn’t remember having seen anywhere else came to him, with blue eyes and a messy beard, stepping out of a prison cell. He remembered being afraid for Raelynn’s safety and how Jaraleet had come with him to search for her. But after that… he closed his eyes and rubbed his temples in a futile attempt to stimulate his memory. Nothing beyond that revealed itself. He could not remember the outcome of their sojourn into the prison, nor the journey to this camp, and most certainly not any time spent here. He realized he had no idea which day it was, or how long it had been since the prison. People could have died in there, people he considered friends, and he had no way of knowing. It was frightening not to be able to rely on his memories. He clung to Raelynn’s words of encouragement, that it was something temporary and that his memories would return to him. 

But she had recoiled from touching his cheek. That stung, and yet at the same time Gregor could no longer find it within himself to be upset. Despite the fog that permeated his mind he felt a certain sense of clarity. Not cognitively, but emotionally. He thought about things that had angered him before and had continued to anger him up until his final memories and felt… peace. Zaveed was no longer a monster to him, but just a broken man that had been pushed into a corner by forces beyond his control. Gregor wondered if Zaveed was still with them, and if not, if he would ever see him again. He almost felt like he wanted to apologize. It was strange to feel this way and yet deeply familiar. It took a minute of musing and rumination before Gregor realized why; it was reminiscent of his old ways, before his father died, before he took up arms, and before he started practicing black magic. Without the incessant fear of death hanging over his head he felt more at ease than he had in over a decade, despite all the current causes for concern. 

He thought about Raelynn and felt nothing but love. It was hard to imagine now that he’d done something to hurt her. Gregor looked around the tent. She’d said something about dogs, but he didn’t see the snout of some animal looking for food in this mess. He saw anger. Fury, even. Had she done this? Had he? Gregor bit his lip, pulled up his knees and wrapped his arms around himself, waiting for Raelynn to come back. 

As she re-entered the tent, clean water in hand, she saw that Gregor had moved and despite having been relatively calm until then, the sight of him like that gave her a start. “What's wrong?” she asked, stepping back through towards him and resuming her seat. What a stupid fucking question to have asked. Everything was wrong. “Sorry, a silly question,” the Breton whispered before he could answer. She picked up the needle from beside her and pulled at the spool to free the thread. She did not want them to be here, she wanted to take him into her arms and tell him everything would be okay, but truthfully she did not have that certainty. 

Small talk? Would idle chatter about [i]anything[/i] alse ease the strangling tension? “It's hard to know what to say right now, isn't it?” 

“Yes, it is,” Gregor said. It was a small relief that Raelynn acknowledged it. He smiled again, more sincerely this time, and relaxed so that she could stitch him back together in more ways than one. “Maybe…” he began, unsure, and continued with more certainty after a few seconds’ pause. “Maybe we should just focus on something else, talk about something else. You could fill me in about what happened in the prison and afterwards, for example.” He kept his tone light and casual, as if he was merely asking to be informed about his shenanigans during a drunk night out. 

She smiled back at him, threading the needle, deciding where to start. Give him all of the details? No, she'd tell it as she remembered and in no other way. “Well, I remember breaking out Fjolte in the lower levels when you appeared with Jaraleet - swinging your sword through the guards just to reach me…” She smiled again, wider this time and a soft blush appeared on her cheeks. She placed a finger either side of his wound and gently pushed it together. “I went with him to collect his clothes, when I returned… Something had happened in the room. We'd been separated you see. A fight had broken out down there… With a prison torturer, I guess that's what he was.” Her voice grew quiet with concentration as she pushed the needle through his skin for the first time. “Does any of that sound familiar yet?” Raelynn was unsure of how much to tell him in this state. On the one hand, he would remember eventually - but on the other, this is the point where she had known him to change. Maybe poking too much at that might stir it all back up for him. 

Gregor chuckled when Raelynn regaled how he’d fought to be by her side. That sounded like something he would do. But the rest of her story didn’t ring any bells just yet. He looked up at the roof of the tent and tried so very hard to picture the scene--

“Sevari,” Gregor muttered and looked back down at Raelynn. “I remember him pointing his pistol at me. What was that about?” 

She didn't want to tell him what had happened, she didn't fully know or understand it herself. She'd only heard the story last night from Gregor's mouth anyway. Was she the most reliable source? She gave a resigned sigh. Honesty was the best policy. They'd promised not to lie and hide things from each other.  “You took the torturer's soul. He was… He was a necromancer.” As the words fell, she swallowed back a lump in her throat, and the hand holding the needle almost began to shake. 

“Ah.” 

Gregor sank back into his seat with the resignation of a man who finally received bad news he knew was a long time coming. His memories weren’t really gone, just inaccessible, and therefore he failed to be surprised. He thought about it for a bit and rubbed his eyes as if he could massage the weariness out of his soul. “I doubt I was very tactful about it. Right?”

“I wasn't there. I don't fully know, but when I came back you were… Your Wrathman, and the torturer… They were there too, under a spell.” She sighed again, her forehead creased as she concentrated on telling him in the easiest way possible. “There were more soul gems and you took them all... I took your hand and led you out. Sirine found her brother and we all escaped. We travelled and I did not really see you until last night…” Raelynn was rushing through it with a nervousness on her voice. She took a deep breath to let the words ruminate and steadied her hands to perform another stitch. It was then, in the silence, that she felt the absence of a heartbeat. 

It was so easy to picture himself in that moment, snatching up the soul gems for his own dark purposes, that it felt like a memory. Gregor felt concern rise when Raelynn neared the end and the silence that fell afterward spoke volumes. Something had happened last night, before he had presumably set off into the desert to make his sacrifices and perform his rituals. “If you don’t want to talk about what happened here,” he said softly and gestured towards the rest of the tent, “that’s fine. If you do, that’s also fine. Whatever you need.”

She didn't. Not yet, not now. But her eyes followed his hand and she looked out over the mess. “I did it, it wasn't you,” the words came out sounding defeated and she felt a pain in her gut that was just shame. “You know, I'd like to hear something you do remember…” Raelynn pulled the thread taut at the final stitch, tying it off masterfully. “Something beyond all of this, something good… I can start, if you'd like? Maybe it will help you clear your mind. Stop focussing on it for now, my love, and we'll come back to it later.” She spoke her endearment so naturally, not realising that she'd said it either. If she had she might have gotten flustered again, but her hands were busy cleaning the needle in the freshwater. 

There was no hesitation. “I remember when you first told me that you loved me,” Gregor said. He briefly brushed her cheek with his fingers before lowering his hand again. “You looked so beautiful on that mezzanine, towering over me…” His smile was almost enough to restrain the melancholy in his eyes. “I remember that when things were bad, we overcame them.” 

He looked down at his chest and saw that the wound was stitched shut. “Thank you.”

His immediate answer brought a smile to her face too, and she brought both of her hands down to hold his. Raelynn relaxed her posture and let her legs stretch to the side. “I remember the first time I saw you. I'd been helping a wounded ranger, and through the smoke of cannonfire I saw you.” Her grip on his hand grew tighter, and her eyes grew warm as she recalled the memory. She took in a deep breath through her nose as if to even call the her mind the scent of the scene. “I saw you, and I just felt something, I don't know if you did… The way [i]you[/i] looked on that battlefield…” she stopped, suppressing a girlish giggle. “I've never looked at another man the way that I looked at you that day.” 

“Seems so long ago now, doesn’t it?” Gregor mused and laughed to himself. “You gave me a look when we talked for the first time, when you were healing Jaraleet. I noticed that. I was so busy with my own problems that I didn’t give it much thought until I ran into you again on the streets of Anvil. It took me a little longer than you, but I felt something alright. The price of being old and obsessed, I suppose. Asking you out for dinner was the best decision I ever made,” he said and smiled sheepishly. Suddenly the lazy, pleasant expression on his face vanished and he sat up straight, like a man alarmed by his own fluttering heartbeat. “Gods, Raelynn,” he stammered, close to panicking. “Don’t leave me. I need you.” His hands grasped at hers and he stared at her with wide-eyed desperation. “I know I’m all fucked up but you can’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.”

As he sat upright, a stream of golden light hit his features from the cracks in the flapping door as it moved against the breeze. In that sunlight, his ashen skin warmed up and he looked like he had before in just a flashing moment. He was still Gregor, somewhere. Just as quickly as the illusion came, it disappeared and he appeared cold again. But she was neither afraid nor deterred. He was still Gregor, his desperate grasping at her reminded her of that. “I won't, I'll be here, I'll be right here. Always.” She took his hand and squeezed again. “But don't you… You can't leave me either, when I'm… When you're…” A breath was catching in her throat and she noticed her own chest rising and falling rapidly as panic set in for her too. “If I stop being enough for you… Tell me, I'll understand. I'll understand…” 

He looked like he had been unexpectedly slapped very hard in the face. “What?” he asked, barely more than a whisper. Gregor leaned forward and shifted so that he was sitting on his knees and he put his hands on her shoulders. When he looked Raelynn in the eye again, the expression on his face was nothing but serious. “You won’t,” he said. “How could you? Having you is like… catching lightning in a bottle. How can that ever fail to be enough?” His voice was strained and he sounded nearer to tears than anything else. “Don’t say that. Come here.” He took her in his arms, as strong as ever despite everything, and kissed her forehead -- not at all like the false and cold kiss from the night before, but an outpouring of love, as best he could. “Don’t say that.”

That was all that she needed to hear, and hearing it was enough to give her the faith to reciprocate his passion and love. Her arms wrapped around him too, tightening around his chest. “I love you, Gregor. I love you, and I won’t give up on you or leave you. I will find out how to make you well again. I promise.” His kiss was invigorating, and as much as she did not want to, she slipped free from his strong embrace so that she could look him in the eye. Finally she let her hand caress his cheek. “We’ll do this together.”