“You ever going to talk about what happened?” Corven asked Elrim quietly as they walked ahead of the two talking behind them, his eyes on the slightly shorter courser intently. The shadow walked with him, trailing protectively close to Elrim’s shadow beside them, tracking his every move.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Do I need to call you a liar to your face, or would you prefer I keep it to my thoughts?”

Elrim’s eyes met Corven’s slowly, sharp and calculating despite the bone deep exhaustion within them. He didn’t want to talk about how the darkness had swallowed him, and how there was a part of him that wanted to let it. He didn’t want to approach the magic, or the way those voices had all seemed so real, about how they haunted him almost every day that he walked the caverns.

“Whichever you’d prefer.”

“Elrim,” please, “I can’t understand if you don’t let me in.” Corven almost begged him to reconsider, that word hanging from his lips as if it would save this tenuous friendship that they were building. He wanted to go back to the way it used to be. To the quiet moments between them, and the whispered conversations keeping them company at night. To the trust and the camaraderie that guided each of their steps, every fight as natural as breathing. The courser before him was so different from the one in his memories. There were hints of the Elrim that he had been in the beginning beneath the surface. If only he could take it all back…

“You don’t have to understand.” A door closed on their conversation as Elrim turned away, not entertaining the idea. None of his memories made sense, and every time he pictured Corven in his mind, he saw him charging towards him sword swirling above him, fire licking the blade, and blood followed. Too many for a courser to survive. The phantom pain on his body told him that he’d been injured. The wound in Corven’s chest should have been fatal. Was it a nightmare? Was it a memory? He didn’t know.

Corven sighed, head dipped as he nodded, stepping ahead of them. “When you’re ready, I’ll be here.” He had waited then. He’d wait now.

------------

“What do you mean those plants were coursers?” Quill asked Nautilya as they walked behind the two in deep conversation. “Like modeled after them, right?”

Nautilya laughed, tossing her head as she skipped along, rocks skittering under her hooves. Her hound at her heels. “Oh, you sweet summer child, no! The gardener prefers living inspiration. Their muses never escape their attention!”

Quill shuddered at the thought.

“You all let me get so close to them!”

“The gardener wasn’t home! We wouldn’t have made it out of he was. Or maybe we would have. It would have depended on Elrim.”

Quill hummed lightly, turning his head back towards Elrim and Corven, watching how they turned away from each other, another quiet fight that he didn’t understand.

“You know him from his life before, don’t you?”

“You could say that.”

Quill fell silent for a moment as they walked into the darkened cavern, the echoing of the halls eerie and unnatural. Once they were deep enough, and Elrim and Corven were just out of sight, he leaned in to whisper.

“Can you tell me about him?”

“Oh Quill… No one can tell you about who he used to be. They would have had to survive him.”

Quill’s head shot up as he heard a yell ahead of them. Walter honked on his back and took to the air.

“Water?” He asked tentatively, seeing Corven and Elrim turn around, charging towards them.

“MOVE!” Corven barked, hooves thundering across the ground.

“Oh you silly coursers, there’s treasure in that water. It will move for us,” Nautilya chirped as she stepped between them, her eyes glowing white as a solid shield slammed before them from floor to ceiling. The water bashed against it once, twice, and it held.

“Do grab what you can in the water, loves. There’s a fee for this protection.”