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It's night. The sun has well and truly set and now the two moons bask Juruar in their haunting glow.
Everyone is sleeping, soft snores and gentle breathing the only sounds breaking the silence, and Imogen keeps her eyes trained on Ashton sleeping on one of the beds as she completes her watch. Their body is still, too still, tense even in sleep, and their face is contorted into an expression of distress, mouth pinched into a deep grimace, eyes scrunched up, brows pulled down, and every now and then a bright light flashes through the glass on the side of their head.
The moments after she and F.C.G had combined their powers to help Ashton remember what had occurred on that fateful day with the Nobodies passed in a blur. They had tried and failed to mend the dents that Ashton's fists had left in the wall. F.C.G had cast calm emotions until they had run out of spells, and when they had, it had taken well-meaning threats from Orym and sweet cajoling from Fearne to convince Ashton not to leave the inn, and he had settled for pacing back and forth in their tiny room with such force that it made the window rattle. Laudna had left to retrieve some ale, and Chetney had returned a minute later with expensive liquor, which he handed wordlessly to Ashton and they downed the whole bottle without coming up for air, offering the fancy bottle over for Fearne to add to her collection.
Now, Ashton is asleep, mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted, but the sleep is not restful. He twitches, involuntary jerks that seem more like flinches, and their face scrunches up in distress. She regrets suggesting they go through with the plan, her plan, because she doesn't think that it was worth this much distress.
When a warm body slides down the wall and settles next to her, she can't help but jump in surprise. But the thoughts are calm and organised, like a warm summer breeze through the boughs of a tall cherry blossom tree. Orym nudges her gently. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you."
"It's alright," she hums. "I was just lost in my thoughts for a minute there."
He follows her gaze to where Ashton's face has twisted into something pained. "How're they doing?"
"Not great, as far as I can tell," Imogen curls up into a tighter ball, bringing her knees to her chest as if that'll protect her. "I'll be honest, after seeing his memories first-hand, I don't really have any interest in delving through his dreams."
Orym nods, a small, understanding thing, and his lips have been pressed into a thin line. "Was it bad?"
Imogen thinks back to the flashes of fractured memory, of clandestine meetings in dark tavern corners, running through the dark back alleys and empty streets, the creek of wood underfoot, the flashes of red runes, the small wooden crate, the clink of glass against glass, the wild eyes of a scraggly haired woman, anxiety and anticipation and weariness warring into a sickening mixture, and-
The night sky dotted with bright stars, the balcony, getting further and further away, the ground getting closer and closer, the impact of being shattered into a thousand pieces-
"It was horrible," Imogen admits, voice barely above a whisper. "I can't imagine having to live through that, and then having to relive it like that..."
She trails off, but Orym seems to understand. He bumps his shoulder against her own, but despite his attempt at reassurance, his face is grim. "Ashton's strong, I think. They'll be able to handle it. They did it once, didn't they?"
"Didn't handle it so well once we came out of it and the calming spell faded," Imogen says, and even in the dark, she thinks she sees Orym's eyes dart to the side of the room where Ashton's fists are still imprinted in the wall. "They left him behind. The Nobodies. They watched him fall, and then they looked at his body and they thought that he was dead and they left him but he heard every word. They heard them. Can you believe that? I can't imagine being hurt and having to hear you say that I can't be saved."
Orym shifts uncomfortably. He folds his legs beneath him, sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce. "We'd never do that. You know that. I hope that he knows that, too."
"For all that defensiveness about not needing people, working better alone, not wanting to be attached to a group, it's all a lie, isn't it?" Imogen muses, and Orym huffs out an amused laugh. "They thrive on people. The Nobodies, the people at the Krook house, us. They need people. Even though they hate it."
"Isn't that true of all of us, though?" Orym says. "I thought I was the same until I came across Fearne and Dorian and the rest of our friends. We're the first friends that Chetney has ever had. We're all a little bit lonely."
"Milo put them back together," Imogen says. She's fascinated, really. Looking at Milo, while obviously brilliant and talented and perhaps a little eccentric, she wouldn't ever have assumed that they would be able to use nonsense lying around to get a heart beating again. "Ashton was dead. I mean, I'm pretty sure that his heart stopped beating, and Milo used whatever was around, and brought him back."
"They all seem like a pretty tight-knit group, the misfits of the Krook House," Orym muses. "Ashton didn't seem surprised when you told him."
A shuffle, a breathy moan and a long, drawn-out sigh, and Imogen watches as Launda sits up from where she's curled into the corner and sits against her other side. She is cold, but despite that, she is a comfort. "Couldn't sleep either?"
"Technically, I'm on watch," Imogen points out, and Laudna laughs that faint laugh that she loves. "But I don't think that I could sleep even if I tried. Not after that."
"Good," says a voice from the other side of the room, and Chetney stumbles over, bleary-eyed and as grumpy as ever, his hat pulled down low over his eyes. He'd look very cuddly, if not for the scowl. "At least that means that we don't have to pretend to be asleep anymore. That shit he did today was fucking awesome."
The clutter of hooves and Fearne rolls over to lean against Oyrm's side, a heavy presence pressed flush against him. She nuzzles her face against his shoulder, her horns digging in slightly at the back of his neck, and he reaches up and threads a hand in her hair. They sit in compatible silence for a moment, broken only by the soft sounds of Ashton trying to rest, and the names that fall clumsily from his sleeping lips. "Sally," they say. "Jeto. Milo. Anni."
Eventually, F.C.G moves from the far corner beside Ashton's hammer where they were pretending to 'sleep', and comes to a stop at Ashton's bedside. "Well," They say as he hovers a hand over Ashton's sleeping form, magic pricking at their fingertips. "This night has been a mess, huh? A total crap-shoot of epic proportions."
Imogen thinks back to mere hours ago which already feels like days when Ashton put so much trust in her hands and she forced him to relive such an excruciating and traumatic experience. Sure, she'd had no idea that would happen, and he had consented willingly, but she still can't help but feel reasonable at the way Ashton twitches on the bed, his face scrunching up in pain, hands clenching and unclenching in the thin sheets. It makes her sick to think that she is the cause of this newfound pain- that everything she has tried to avoid all her life has finally come to bite her in the ass.
F.C.G. is looking at her as if he knows exactly what she's thinking about, and if they had a face that could from, she knows that he would be frowning at her. "Ashton will be fine. Sure, it looks pretty bad at the moment, and things seem rather bleak, but I'm telling you, that it's going to be fine. I like to think that I know our Ashton rather well, and once the initial shock and anger pass, they're going to be right as rain and we can all move on from this."
"Badass son of a bitch," Chetney mummers, arms wrapped around himself. "I just wish that they had taken out their anger on an asshole instead of a wall. I would have liked to get into a good ole'fashioned bar fight."
"There's always a next time," Orym offers. Laudna laughs, haunting and beautiful, and tosses her hair over his shoulder.
"Don't you think they look so lonely, lying in that big bed by themselves?" Fearne muses, almost as if she were talking to herself, but her eyes are too bright in the darkness for her to merely be voicing her thoughts. "I know that when I have a bad day and an even worse night, nothing makes me feel better than snuggling up next to my grandmother or Orym and Doian and falling asleep knowing that I'm not alone."
"What are you suggesting?" Launda asks before anybody else gathers the courage.
Wordlessly, Fearne pushes herself up gracefully and clomps around the room, her hooves clicking lightly on the floorboards, and begins the slow, careful process of moving the other bed across the room, and Orym stands to help until the bed is flush against the one Ashton snores on. They don't wake, and it is of little relief. Perhaps the real world might be better than whatever hell they have found themselves in, trapped within the oblivion of sleep.
Once the beds are together, one instead of two (and isn't that a perfect metaphor for their lives?) Fearne climbs atop the one not currently occupied by Ashton, spins three times and curls up in a ball. Ashton still doesn't wake, exhausted in every way. "Well?" Fearne says after a couple of moments. "What are you waiting for?"
Launda wastes no time joining Fearne and slides into the cramped space between the fawn and the Ashton, a space small enough for only the lythe form of Laudna to fit. Orym follows suit, curling up in the crook of her furry knee, and Imogen lays on Fearne's other side, her hair haloed across the pillow. After a moment of hesitation and a lot of grumbling, Chetney finds a space at the end of the bed and curls up like a dog. F.C.G doesn't join them on the bed, but instead stands like a sentinel at Ashton's side, one hand resting on his friend's shoulder as their eyes slowly dim and they shut down for the remainder of the night.
They all fall asleep like that, cramped in a pile on the two beds pushed together, listening to Ashton snore softly and mumble incoherently in their unrestful sleep, and they watch as the lights from behind the glass in their fractured skull paint the walls in a technicolour rainbow of reds and purples and blues.