@shuffled Gather Your Allies

[hellrider]

He wakes on the cold ground, and sits up, disoriented. There's a wan sunrise beginning in the east, darkness slinking off to hide beneath the trees. Behind him the Shadow-Cursed lands are feeling the light for the first time in years.

He shouldn't be here. He should be...he should be home, shouldn't he? At the farm, getting up to care for the horses, to--

"Anthem!" He's on his feet in an instant, staggering because his body is weak, shaky from the shock of two sets of memory and raw disorientation. Is she here? Did she come with him? Or is he left to make it to Baldur's Gate alone?

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[shuffled]

Equally disoriented, Anthem awoke not too far from Zevlor, about as confused and slightly more irritated for the throbbing headache she seemed to be suffering as she sat up. For what she knew — her adventuring party should have been further south, toward the Cloakwood, and not... wherever she was now. She had anticipated, when she was finally returned, that is where she would be.

Mercifully, she was with Zevlor. So the whole plan she had concocted to convince her friends to head back to Baldur's Gate was unnecessary. But that brought up the question of whether or not her friends thought she had abandoned them suddenly in the night.

"I'm... I'm here." She managed to say just loud enough for him to hear, sitting up and rubbing her temples. So many problems to deal with at once, and she couldn't even stand up.

[hellrider]

As soon as he calls her name his heart sinks, because rationally there's no reason she would have been returned with him. They may even have come from different time periods, for Torm's sake...

Except, then he hears her voice and turns to the west, towards the sound of it. "--oh!"

No words other than that, just a single syllable of blended confusion and profound gratitude, and then he comes over to her side, crouching, then kneeling to collect her into a gentle hug. "I'm...I'm glad you're here, Beloved."

[shuffled]

He would, of course, feel no resistance as she leaned into his embrace, eyes shut.

"As am I." She managed after she took a moment to compose herself, clawed fingers gripping his shoulder. "Even if I am uncertain as to the how, I am glad to see you. Are you all right?"

[hellrider]

He's surprised by the sudden feeling of elation. This is the first time he's been able to hold her like this in their own world, and while the sensation is not different (just as good) as it was in Caldera, it feels like it makes it twice as real. They can't be separated now, not for long. One world or another, they will find their way back into one another's arms.

He nuzzles into her hair impulsively, the crook of her neck, and then stops himself before he gets too carried away.

"I'm fine," he says, and it's mostly true, but he's shaking. The shock he was in when he bedded down for the night in Faerun, months ago before being abducted, was waiting for him here. He can feel the glow of his reinforced Oath, as well, though, and he has no doubt that he'll recover. "What about you? How do you feel?"

[shuffled]

A clawed hand rose to gently press against the back of his head to keep him close, a deep inhale assuring she breathed in the familiar scent of him. Her tail coiled around to seek out his; twining tight around the appendage.

"My head is killing me." She admitted, fingers carding through his hair. "But I will be fine. We—" she looked around. "Where are we?"