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- Alquas: For a moment, eyes flicker, lips move.
- Alquas: "Chimrea..."
- Alquas: He's whispering, but not just from weakness.
- Alquas: "Chimrea, don't tell them I am speaking to you..."
- Alquas: "I failed, Chimrea. I don't have it."
- Chimrea bends over Alquas, sitting beside him while the others make preparations. "Don't tell who?"
- Alquas: "I.. they... I am in pain."
- Alquas leaves a silence, as if this explained everything.
- Chimrea brushes a hand over his forehead. "I'm glad you came back to us. I was worried about your spirit, out there in the dark."
- Alquas swallows, his eyes still shut though there is twitching beneath the lids.
- Alquas: "I must endure... I will not show weakness, not here, I will not. Do you understand? They must not know I hurt."
- Alquas smiles weakly. "You have a gentle touch, Chimrea."
- Chimrea sighs. "I think I understand. You're worried they'll look down on you?"
- Alquas chokes a little bit, but swalows it, still trying to keep quiet. "Must you think so little of me still? Here I am, having been abandoned by the closest thing I had to friends, then seperated from my body and planted in unfriendly flesh. And now I have made myself a fool and a cripple, and all for no end..."
- Alquas: "Permit me my dignity, Chimrea. Give me that."
- Alquas falls silent a while.
- Chimrea: "I'm sorry--I didn't mean it that way." She leans over him, her hair falling down in a curtain to shield their conversation from the others. "I meant... you remind me a bit of my mother."
- Chimrea: "She didn't want anyone to see her hurt, and the worse the hurt, the more she covered it. She was proud." Chimrea gives him a small, sad smile, trying to put her empathy into words.
- Alquas: "Pride, yes." he says, dully. "I am proud, Chimrea. I have to be. I have so little else left."
- Chimrea: "I promise I won't leave you behind again, Alquas. I don't know if I can help you with the rest of it, but I'm your friend."
- Chimrea: She doesn't say that pride didn't make her mother happy, in the end.
- Alquas smiles weakly, although unfamiliar facial muscles make it more of a grimace. "I am sorry I have not been of any help. I had owed you that much. I owe you still."
- Alquas: "You will press on, to the salamander?"
- Chimrea shakes her head. "Being friends means you don't talk about owing me. But we're going ahead to the Salamander, yes. And we'll get you back in your body."
- Alquas nods. "Good. Then asking as a friend, Chimrea, I ask a thing of you."
- Chimrea: "Name it," she says promptly.
- Alquas: "You know a little rherbalism, do you not? Things were brought... from Egani's workshop. Wormroot and fennelhair.... make a sleeping draught. You know it?"
- Chimrea nods. "For you?"
- Alquas: "This body needs to heal.... I need respite from its pains. And they may think me still unconscious. They will not know how I suffer."
- Chimrea: "It's dangerous to go dreaming through the spirit worlds. But if you want it, I will make it."
- Alquas: "I do."
- Chimrea leaves Alquas' side and goes to a pack discarded while Egani gets his bearings. She mixes the herbs in with some of their dwindling water and whispers a blessing over it, away from Alquas who might regard it as superstition. "Here," she says, returning after checking that the others don't seem to be watching.
- Alquas grasps it feebly and lets it dribble between his lips. He finishes quickly. "I thank you."
- Alquas opens his eyes for the first time and stares at her. "Chimrea, my friend. Today I have kissed you, and now I shall fall asleep with my last vision being your face." He smiles. "Perhaps this life is not so terrible."
- Chimrea: "You're not alone," Chimrea murmurs, kissing his forehead as he slips away.
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