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It’s a hiss of magic, Thoirt’s of course, that pluck her from the depths of her dreams. Not that the depths are that deep to pull her from, having grown accustomed to warmth in her bed and arms wrapped tightly over the skin of her hip, that without him in her arms it is a shallow walk in the land of dreams.
Her eyes peak open, the trail of moonlight illuminating his empty, but perfectly made, side of the bed they have come to share. It is her bed, really, part of the Mairi hall of Riorson house her, her parents, and her brother spent a significant time in while she was growing up. Sloane drags her right hand over her face, squinting as the light filters all the way over her skin. She had meant to shut the darkening curtains last night, and clearly fell asleep before she got the chance.
The war, the revolution that it was, was draining all of them. Some worse than others. Garrick was on the edge of burnout most days, Violet not far behind. Every single day the feeling in her stomach got a little worse, the feeling like this war is going to strip her of what love she has left. Violet was so sure she had figured out what it was going to take to bring Xaden home– which involved Sloane– but now they had to actually find the man in question.
“The door, Starlight, you need to get to the door.” Thoirt’s voice, groggy with sleep but with an edge of something Sloane simply does not like fills her head, and next thing she knows her feet are on the cold floor and she is moving.
“Is everyone okay?” Her mind flicks to Imogen or Violet or Garrick or anyone but Dain. This is his room, he can open the door, he doesn’t need her to pull him through the wards. Why would it be him, why would Thoirt be urging her out of bed for him, he’s fine he’s fine of course he’s fine–
Sloane doesn’t give Thoirt time to even reply, nor does she bother with throwing anything on besides the oversized shirt of Dain’s she slept in (just because it was comfy. Not because she missed the smell of him, nothing like that), before she nearly rips her door open.
He hadn't reached the door yet, so it wasn’t that he wasn’t able to cross the wards, but he couldn’t even reach them.
Dain leans against the stone wall, his forearm on the brick where he leans forward on his hands, bracing himself and the weight of his frame on that arm. His head rests against his wrist, and from where Sloane stands in her own door frame she can see the other hand is wrapped around his torso supporting the left side of his ribs as he takes steady but shallow breaths.
Sloane is moving to him before she can realize it, crossing the small space to snake her arm around his back, sliding her body in the space between his and the wall. “Fuck, Dain.”
The hand not around him comes to his face, thumb brushing some dried blood off of the bridge of his nose. Her hand waits there, drumming lithe fingers over his cheekbone as she waits for those warm, enchanting eyes to open for her.
“I was almost there, Sunshine.” He offers weakly, cracking her a smile despite the scrunch of his nose that betrays to her almost immediately that he’s very much not the same perfectly healthy man who left eight hours ago “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.” Her voice is low with warning, as if there is even a chance there’s anyone but the two of them down these halls. These are hers, had been her family’s, but now they are hers and hers alone. Well. Theirs. “Get in there.” She instructs, nodding to the door a short step or two away. “What the hell happened to you?”
“I’m fine, I swear.” Dain insists again, but follows her request and takes the few steps towards their room. He notes, with the hint of a smile, that her arm remains around his back as they do so, as if her little body has any chance of holding them up should his legs give out underneath them both. “You’re so bossy tonight, angel.”
“Yeah, usually you’re the bossy one.” Sloane mutters, but pulls him right into their room with ease. As soon as they're through the door, she pushes him immediately into the plush chair next to the door, dropping to her knees with an audible thud as her bones hit rock. “What the hell happened to you? I thought it was a simple patrol?”
She’ll kill Violet. Actually kill her, rip all that power right out of her with a touch of her hand if she knowingly sent this man into battle for her again. Dain will go wherever she says, do anything Violet asks, if for no other reason than he is the most loyal to a fault, dedicated to a cause man Sloane’s ever met. He will die, if only because it is the right thing, and do it without blinking an eye.
Noone deserves him.
“It was just supposed to be a scheduled patrol.” He confirms, absolutely slouching into the armchair the second she pushes him down into it. Dain’s hand instinctively reaches for her face as it so often does when they’re in this position, and god she doesn’t recoil away, shrinking out of his touch. She never does, like she isn’t afraid of what he could accidentally see in that beautiful mind.
His signet is well trained. He’d never take without asking, without the offer of her permission. Still. She lets him touch her so, so willingly.
It’s a testament to his level of exhaustion that his brain doesn’t even process the way she is crouched between his legs, hands grabbing at the edges of his leather jacket and ripping it open button by button.
“We crossed just over the wards and there were a couple of riderless Wyvern. We got the first one and the second came up from the side– Cath got it pretty fast but then Cath and Glane crashed into each other. Imogen got it worse than me, she’s fine, but she’s got at least half a dozen broken ribs Brennan is healing now. I thought it was going to be a lot worse, the sound she made when she hit Glane’s scales, Sloane…I thought she was dead.” Dain relives, eyes squeezed so tightly shut it was as if he could ward off the memories of the sickening crunch of bone on scale. If Imogen weren’t actively being mended he may even ask her to wipe it from his mind. Even then, he isn’t sure he could do it. They need to remember every fucking thing they risk day to day in a hope to end this war.
The rise and fall of his chest is thready, stuttered either with pain or the unsettling memory of what he had just endured. “We’re so close to the end of this, we can’t be dying on patrols because of blind spots.”
“You are not allowed to die.” Sloane’s voice crackles, like theres dragon talons scratching through her throat to shred any chance of her voice. It feels like a vice grip is wrapped around her heart at just the thought of Imogen, headstrong, independent, badass Imogen, dead from a patrol gone wrong. She’s alive, and she makes a mental note to see her in the morning once she’s had time to rest and get some of that spark back. They were both almost dead tonight, and she’d have had no idea until she woke up to her own heartbreak. “
“Take off your clothes,” She demands, more aggressively working to slip off the thick leather of his flight jacket, before her own hands are impatient tugging at the black shirt he has tucked into his pants. “We have too much to fucking live for after this war, we have too much we get to do after, now take off your clothes so I can look at you and touch you and know you’re okay!”
“That’s more like you.” He teases, squeezing her cheek with his hand gently, but the playful smile already falling off his face as she forces his arms above his head, and Sloane knows she’s about to see something she’s outright going to hate.
She’s right, because the second the cotton shirt rides up his torso her heart drops and pure dread induced nausea washes over her. There's no open wounds, fortunately, and clearly he had been checked out by the healers if he had taken Imogen there– but he looked horrific. She can see the individual scales bruised into his skin, with little cherry red pools of blood outlining deep, ugly purple and blue semi circles along the entirety of his sculpted chest. “Oh honey,” slips from her lips, as she reaches out and runs both hands over the expanse of his skin languidly, as if she is feeling each and every inch of his skin for something more sinister than bruising. “ You aren’t broken anywhere?”
“It looks worse than it is. Just a lot of bruising, baby, I promise.” He was sure of it, Brennan had given him a once over and deemed him non-mendable, just needing some significant rest for what was likely to be extremely aching muscles come tomorrow.
“You look terrible.” Sloane shakes her head, but leaves her hands splayed out broadly on either side of his heart, as if by will alone she could push healing energy into his frame. She wasn’t a mender, and he didn’t need power, but Gods what she wouldn’t do to be able to give him a healing touch with her hands.
“Thanks, Sloane, that's what every man likes to hear.” He reaches a hand forward weakly, and she watches his face contort as she feels the muscles of his chest flex under her palms. “Come here–”
“Take off your clothes.” Sloane pushes herself to a standing position, using the arms of the chair rather than his knees in fear of other secret bruising and swelling on the rest of his body. “Meet me in the bath.”
“Bossy, bossy girl today. I kind of like it.” He teases, pushing his bottom lip out in a pout as she slips out of the reach of his grasp. “I’m okay, really.”
“Less talking, more undressing.” She calls after her shoulder, before she beats him to the bathing room. She starts the water into the large claw foot bath tub, opening the little basket on the floor to shuffle through the runed disks there. Sloane tosses in one to keep the water the correct temperature, while she continues to search for another.
“You’re usually far more enthused about the whole naked thing.” Dain teases as he walks in behind her, the tell tale sign of a belt buckle hitting the floor behind her. “Should I be offended?”
“Yeah, yeah, get in the bath, Dain.” She finds the rune she’s looking for, tossing it in the water in front of her absently, not even paying attention in her flurry of action to the fact he is very alive and very naked behind her.
She opens her bath side cabinet, immediately shuffling through her collection of soaps, dried flowers, and oils, her luxury baths one of the few things she allows herself as a reminder of her past– and a promise for her future.
She’d survive this and she could take an overheated, delicious smelling baths for hours and hours every night for the rest of her life. That was going to be one of her rewards.
Behind her, Sloane hears the shifting of water as Dain follows her orders, and the outright groan from Dain brings a smirk to her face. Looks like her runes were working after all.
(Of course they worked, more than once she had been left with aching muscles from one activity or another, and she knew that particular combination worked like heaven. Plus, they’re her runes, of course they’re great.)
“Gods, this feels like a magic bath, Sloane.” He murmurs, leaning his arms over the side of the bath as he leaves that head full of curls leaning over the back edge.
“That’s cause it is.” She explains softly, tossing in a handful of dried lavender over him, along with a small amount of a similar scented soap. “The one rune is for the water temperature, the other, it’s kind of for like..swelling? Any time I’m hurting, from training…or, well, you…I use it. Loosens all the muscles right back up. All the muscles.“ Sloane kneels, then, behind the edge of the bath where his head rests. Her hands snake around to the front of his chest, once again splayed out beside his heart, where she can feel it beating steady just under her finger tips. She rests her chin on the edge of the bathtub, turning to place a soft kiss on his left cheek bone, before her temple leans against his.
“You can get in, baby.” He offers, and his own left hand wraps up to hold her face, strumming his thumb over her cheek bone as if he holds the entirety of his world there in his palm. “I promise I only bite if you ask.”
“Shush.” Sloane’s gorgeous eyes roll back in her head as she leans into his touch, something that once felt like a curse, having become her solace. “Just let me hold you.” Sloane mumbles, her nails scratching just lightly over his skin where she clung to him like life support itself. “I just..need to feel that you're alive.”
“I’m alive. I promised I wasn’t going anywhere.” He reminds her, craning his neck to try to capture her lips in a kiss, only able to catch the very edge of her tense lips. “I’m alive, Sloane.”
“We have too much to do after this all ends, Dain. We have a life to live.” A life where she could wake up with her hands on him every day for the rest of forever.