G’raha awoke in pain.

Not a sore muscle or a cramp, but the sharp, persistent pain of injuries – felt most keenly on his back, but in varying capacities all over. As his mind cleared, he noticed that his arms were bound behind him, face planted into the cold floor upon which he was laying. It was dark and slightly cold.

The familiar muted feel of his crystal arm and shoulders gave him an odd sense of displacement – he’d become accustomed to his younger body and its full senses.

What…?

“Oh dear.” That voice sent a chill down his spine; before he could fully process why it felt so ominous, fingers were tipping his chin to direct his sight. Golden eyes set in the familiar visage of Emperor Solus zos Galvus met his gaze, and the lips beneath them tipped up at the corners.

“You didn’t actually believe that fantasy I spun, did you?”

---

For the second time that evening, G’raha awoke.

His heart was racing, the dismal pit in his stomach clenching and unclenching from distress. It took him a moment to recognize the ceiling in his quarters at the Baldesian Annex. It was still dark, the light of the moon just barely managing to create a glow in the room.

G’raha freed his right arm from the blankets and raised it in front of his eyes.

Flesh and blood, as he’d grown used to. He released a shaky breath, letting the arm flop down to his forehead, still shaken from the clarity of his nightmare vision.

Who is to say which is the dream, though…? The thought slipped in through his defenses, a doubt that he’d staunchly avoided from the moment he’d liberated himself from the Ascian’s clutches. Emet-Selch had spun a number of false realities in his mind in attempts to obtain his knowledge of the expanded facilities of the Crystal Tower. As time went on, the doubt had plagued him less and less, seeming more unlikely with each passing moment, but it had never entirely left him.

His current life felt real, for certain, but who was to say it wasn’t a clever illusion in the end?

“Mmm.” Beside him, Brynne stirred, and when he turned his head, her eyes were open, blinking sleepily at him. Something on his face must have triggered an awareness, because within a few seconds, she was narrowing her gaze, much more alert. “What’s wrong?”

“Ah.” G’raha was momentarily torn, wanting to spare her worry while simultaneously wishing to honor his promise that they did not keep secrets from one another. He turned back to face the ceiling. “It wasn’t – that is to say, it was just… a bad dream.”

She was silent for a moment. Then, “What about?”

There was no avoiding it, not when he could feel her gaze boring into him. G’raha shut his eyes. “I was still… with him.” His voice was unusually husky; he cleared his throat. “Emet-Selch, that is.”

“I see.” Brynne shifted a little; when he glanced at her again, she had moved closer to him on the bed. She reached up to set a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You’ve never told me what happened to you during that time.” She didn’t pause there, seeming to know already that he wouldn’t care to correct that. “He still haunts you, even now?”

There was a certain care behind the question; an unspoken note that indicated that she would honor his wishes if he chose to close the line of inquiry. G’raha felt a little surge of warmth at the evidence of her concern for him, while also in the same moment a tiny thread of shame wormed its way into his thoughts.

In the end, she sought to know him as desperately as he wished to know her. And following their defeat of Meteion and her subsequent period of healing, she had been open with him regarding her thoughts and feelings, even when it was clearly difficult for her to speak of them.

I suppose fair is far, after all. So, though it sat uncomfortably with him, he nodded. “I have been remiss with even myself, or so it would seem. I had thought these doubts quieted long ago.” G’raha lowered his right hand from his forehead to clasp it over her hand on his shoulder. “In truth, he was… quite adept at conjuring illusive scenarios.” He allowed himself a rueful smile. “Even now, I continue to ask myself if all of this… is truly the reality.”

Once again, there was a pregnant pause.

Then Brynne’s fingers tightened on his shoulder, just enough for him to feel it. “I can only offer a bit of reassurance, in case it helps.” She returned his smile with a small, wry one. “The rest is your battle, I know. But as creative as Emet-Selch may be… I doubt that even he would have thought to include some of the things we’ve gone through.”

That was true. G’raha breathed out slowly, considering it. Meteion, dynamis, the particular way the calamity impacted sundered beings, and even the brief appearance of both Emet-Selch’s and Hythlodaeous’s souls near the end of it all.

It did seem rather fantastical and out-of-character, yes…

“In particular,” Brynne went on, interrupting his thoughts, “having some sense of his… hm, feelings? Thoughts?… towards my unsundered self,” that came with a lopsided smile, “I somehow doubt he’d indulge you with the progression of our current relationship.”

That struck him more sharply. G’raha blinked at her, momentarily taken aback. He hadn’t really considered it before, but there had been something in Emet-Selch’s mood that shifted whenever he referred to G’raha’s feelings towards his ‘hero’ – or hers towards him, for that matter. There was a kind of self-mockery beneath it, or at least that was what he’d perceived, long ago. He hadn’t thought too deeply on it at the time, more concerned with his grand scheme and keeping it from the Ascian’s attention, but… well, there it was.

“Mayhap you have the right of it,” he conceded, responding to her smile with one of his own. He turned himself to face her properly, taking her hand in his as he did and leaning in to press their foreheads together. “Have I mentioned lately how incredibly grateful I am for that ‘progression’, as you say?”

Her eyes danced with mirth in the dim moonlight. “Not lately, but I never tire of hearing it.”

“Well.” G’raha tipped his head to plant a soft kiss on her lips. “I am.” Another kiss, and he murmured, “Incredibly grateful, that is.”

Brynne squeezed his hand affectionately, returning his kisses with languid enthusiasm. “I as well,” she whispered, gazing into his eyes with a look that took his breath from him. “Do you feel ready to sleep now?”

He stroked her hand with his thumb. “Yes, I believe I do.”

She snuggled down into the pillow, shutting her eyes with a little sigh. “Good. Pleasant dreams, Raha.”

“You as well.” As the exchange settled into silence, he watched her with a lidded gaze until her breathing evened out, and then shut his own eyes and allowed himself to drift off.

This time, his sleep was blissfully dreamless.