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Ysoris was no fool.
Oh, he played the idiot well enough, of course, always had. It’s one of the talents that had helped him survive even before the Corrosion had driven him a bit more than half mad and made off with three-fourths of his limbs.
Afterward, with only a single arm left to him and without any of the status that had once been his shield?
Well, an amusing drunken fool is much less likely to be cut down in a vulnerable moment even if he is, occasionally, prone to sending people to their untimely deaths in the heart of a scrap heap. Vulnerable moments that, given the general nature of his predicament before his glorious little saviors arrived, Ysoris found himself having often.
It also didn’t hurt that the alcohol helped to dim, if only for a few moments at a time, the constant ache of agony he now existed in.
The point is, Ysoris wasn’t actually an idiot no matter how often he played the part of one.
He could see that something was deeply wrong with Daryon. Selene too for that matter but she concerned him much less than Daryon did.
For a number of reasons.
The boy, although that wasn’t really the best word for him, was troubled.
Sad in a soul-deep kind of way that Ysoris was all too familiar with even if his own dark days came from a wildly different source than Daryon’s so obviously did.
Ysoris had survived the Corrosion but Daryon had spent five years on the war front, hip deep in death and dying, and come out the other side wounded and less than.
Which was, again, something Ysoris knew more than his fair share about.
But, beyond the obvious troubles Daryon carried on his shoulders, Ysoris found himself drawn to other aspects of his traveling companion’s personality.
His dry humor and the obvious adoration and loyalty he held for his sister.
The way he couldn’t simply accept a compliment and how, despite being adamant that he was the only level-headed one of their group, he was always ready to throw down or pick up a challenge at any given moment.
And then there were the … other things that caught Ysoris’ attention. The sorts of things that had, once upon a time, played no small part in helping his family tear Ysoris’ entire world down around him.
Things like the wide shine of Daryon’s smile and the almost childish snicker of his laugh. The strength of his shoulders and the way his hair fell just above his eyes.
Or how, when he’d thought no one was looking, Daryon had tucked that paper dog away so carefully into one of his inner pockets.
Keeping the small, silly gift Ysoris had painstakingly made for him, the one he didn’t even know the real meaning of, safe when so many others had never seen the need to.
So, in the end, it didn’t matter where this road they were traveling down together led them. No matter what or where it ended, Ysoris was content to walk it.
Content to follow along behind the siblings who had lifted him up out of the literal trash heap that was his life, his eyes trained firmly on Daryon’s back.
Even if it was right off the edge of a cliff. Even if they survived this entire mad journey and it ended with Ysoris back where he once started, alone and rotting.
Dogs are loyal, after all.
Even paper ones.