The silence that followed was the kind only gods or elves with superiority complexes dared to break. Aelorian trembled once, visibly, all shoulders and sniffles, and then made a tiny, hiccuping sound.

Thorne turned slowly. “Are you crying?” 

“No,” Aelorian said, voice and lip wobbling on the edge of heartbreak, “I’m not crying. I’m wilting. I’m spiritually ruined. You’ve destroyed the last vestige of beauty I had in this gods-forsaken swamp, and for what? For a non-functional fire? Do you want my liver next?” Shall I carve it out and offer it on a platter?” Aelorian moaned, flopping dramatically onto the cold stone like an opera singer on his deathbed. 

Thorne rubbed both hands down his face and looked at the smoldering twig pile, now taunting him with its complete lack of flame, and then at the elf, curled on the stone like the world’s saddest decorative napkin. “Are you serious right now?” he asked, almost begging.

Aelorian didn’t answer; he just turned his face to the wall. “That handkerchief,” he said, voice trembling, “was moonwoven silk from the southern cloister of Celene-Astrea. Blessed by the priestesses. Sprinkled with stardust. It smelled like lavender and maternal regret. Do you know how many men have bled for that kind of silk?”

“Is this a riddle?” Thorne said helplessly.

Aelorian sniveled louder. “My nurse hand-stitched that embroidery when I was nine, Thorne. Nine. And she did it with love in her heart and gout in both wrists.”

“Are you crying about the fabric or your nurse?”

“Yes!” 

Thorne groaned, dragging a hand through his hair. “I swear to the gods, elf, if I’d known it was that important to you, I would’ve found a dead squirrel instead.”

Aelorian let out a hiccuping, wet sigh and curled tighter into himself. While outside, the rain beat against the stone like a cruel laugh. The fireless fire pit smoked once, then gave up entirely, as if in shame. 

Thorne stood for a long, tortured moment, looking down at the elf who had just accused him of symbolic arson. He was cold, soaked, pissed, and starving. His shoulder ached. His dignity was in a ditch, and yet–God’s, the look on the elf’s face. 

Thorne rubbed his temples like he could massage the guilt out of his skull. He hadn’t known how special that damned handkerchief was when he burned it. He’d just assumed the elf was being dramatic about it. He didn’t think. He just acted. Like always. Too fast, too blunt, too much of an ogre for people to tolerate for more than five seconds. 

It was just a piece of fabric, he told himself. Some silk and thread. But that didn’t explain the heavy weight in his chest or the way the elf had gone so quiet. Not performative, or petulant, this time, though. Just…small. And the way he’d said it– “the last thing I have…”

Thone clenched his jaw. Of course, the fancy bastard had a tragic backstory. Of course, the one fragile scrap of comfort he carried through a gods-damned swamp was moon-kissed and full of memories, and of course, Thorne had gone and torched it like it was just more kindling.

Fucking idiot.

“Shit,” he muttered and stomped over, muttering the whole way before dropping down beside Aelorian, already digging around in his vest for something.

Aelorian stirred at the motion and cracked one suspicious eye open. “What are you doing?” he mumbled, voice rough with betrayal, “Are you going to eat me to survive the night? That feels very on-brand for you.”

Thorne grunted. “Don’t flatter yourself.” He said, then unwrapped a bundle, revealing a palm-sized stone, flat and smooth, its surface veined with odd streaks of green and blue, like petrified rivers beneath gray. “Here.”

Aelorian blinked at it. “You’re giving me…a rock.”

“Not a rock. A thing.” Thorne grumbled.

The elf sat up slightly, hair a tangled halo around his scandalized face. “You burned a priceless heirloom blessed by the moon priestesses, and now you’re offering me a geological detritus as consolation?”

Thorne didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he held the stone out again. “It’s from the Mouth of Velgren, Southern ridge. High cliffs.” 

Aelorian reached over and gently touched the rock, still nestled in Thorne’s massive hand. “And this is a special rock? From Velgren?”

“Nah. Found it in a pile of gravel after I slipped on goat shit and fell down a canyon. I used to go there when I was a kid. Before things got bad, I’d sit up there and watch the hawks fly over the ravine. It was quiet.”

Aelorian’s mouth opened, then closed. It was hard to imagine such a massive beast like thorne Harrowbranch even remotely resembling a child, but even ogres were once small, apparently. 

He reached out ever so slowly and took the stone from Thorne’s hand, cradling it like it might hum with old secrets. He turned it over, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “It’s warm,” he said softly.

Thorne almost told him the truth–how he’d kept it close ever since he went back to his village and found nothing but smoldering ashes. How he’d fallen down the ravine trying to outrun Seredane’s soldiers, ripped it from the dirt as they hauled him away, and buried it deep in the folds of his clothes to remember his wife’s smile and his children’s laughter. Not for luck, but to remember that there had been peace once. That it still existed somewhere.

But he didn’t say that part. Instead, he just cleared his throat and shrugged, looking suddenly uncomfortable in his own skin. “Yeah. Carried it around in my armpit for a while.”

Aelorian froze mid-cradle.

There was a long, vibrating pause as the elf slowly turned his head, eyes wide with affront. “You…armpit-marinated my consolation gift?”

Thorne smirked, lazy and entirely unapologetic. 

Aelorian gasped like someone had just slapped a swan in front of him. “You Neanderthalic toad-creature! You expect me to draw comfort from a sweat-baptized boulder? A keepsake dredged from the depths of your ogre pit-stink!?”

Thorne, unfazed, leaned back against the cave wall and folded his arms with a shrug that quickly dissolved into a wince and a grimace as pain radiated down his shoulder once again. “Didn’t have anywhere else to carry the thing.” He grumbled.

“It’s tainted!” Aelorian wailed, and dramatically held the stone at arm’s length like it might bite him or infect him with the scent of regret. “I am clutching a musky memory rock like it’s some sacred relic when it smells faintly of suffering and ogre musk! I feel betrayed! This is treason. This is criminal negligence. This is assault via mineral!”

“You’re still holding it,” Thorne pointed out, tone maddeningly neutral.

Aelorian faltered, then immediately turned his face away with a royal little sniff, cradling the rock back to his chest. “Only because I’ve bonded with it in my grief. We’ve been through trauma together now.”

Thorne snorted softly, rubbing at the back of his neck. “You’re unbelievable.” 

“And yet,” Aelorian huffed with great dignity, “I remain entirely believable. Tragic. Drenched. Emotionally blistered. But believable.”

The cave had gone quieter now, less cruel wind, less mocking rain, as if even the storm was growing tired of their melodrama.

Thorne’s gaze caught on Lori’s hands again, burned raw, blistered, and trembling slightly where he clutched the stone. And that gash on his cheek–still bleeding sluggishly.

“Hold still,” Thorne muttered.

“I will not hold still. I am in the middle of my soliloquy.”

Ignoring him, Thorne reached out and caught one slim wrist. Aelorian tried to jerk free, but the ogre’s grip was unyielding, yet careful, as if he knew how fragile the skin beneath his palm had become. “You’ll fester if you leave it,” He said.

“And what would you suggest, oh lord of mud and goat-stink? Do you carry a healer’s satchel in your armpit along with sacred relics?” Aelorian replied.

Thorne grunted, then, with one sharp motion, tore a strip from the hem of his leather jerkin. The sound of fabric ripping echoed through the cave.

Aelorian’s eyes widened slightly. “You barbarian. That was the only thing between your torso and the cruel, damp elements.”

“Won’t kill me.” Thorne dipped the cloth in a little puddle near the cave wall, wrung it out, and pressed it gently over Lori’s palms. The elf hissed, trembling, but didn’t pull away. The coolness soothed some of the fire, made it more bearable. 

“Stop squirming.” 

“I am not squirming. I am recoiling with dignity.”

Thorne’s brow furrowed as he wrapped the strip clumsily but securely around the worst of the burns, his big fingers surprisingly steady. He paused only once, thumb brushing against the inside of Lori’s wrist, feeling the fast, nervous flutter of his pulse. Then his gaze, those golden eyes, flickered to the cut on Aelorian’s face. And without asking, he reached for another strip of cloth and leaned in close.

Aelorian froze when Thorne’s hand—broad, callused, absurdly large—cupped his jaw. It dwarfed his face entirely, thumb and knuckle brushing lightly as though he were made of spun glass. The ogre tilted his chin, dabbing away the blood with a gentleness that felt wholly at odds with the sheer size of his hands.

“There,” Thorne muttered, voice pitched low, almost reluctant. “Not much. But it’ll do.”

The elf swallowed before remembering himself, snapping back into a sprawl of limbs and cloak, hair fanning around him like a tragic halo. “Oh, brilliant. Perfect. You patch me up with hands the size of dinner plates—like some brooding hero from my novels—and expect gratitude?” He scoffed, though his tone trembled dangerously close to flustered. “I’ll have you know, ogre, that I am not so easily swayed. Just because you cradle my fragile form like Prince Thistledown in The Ogre's Bride does not mean I shall swoon obligingly into your arms.”

Thorne blinked slowly. “…The Ogre's what now?”

“Don’t speak to me unless it’s to apologize,” Aelorian declared, nose in the air, even as his gaze flicked treacherously back to those massive hands—still warm, still stained faintly with his blood.

“Already did,” Thorne said.

“Then do it better.”

Thorne grunted.

Aelorian huffed, shivering just slightly as the cold snuck beneath the damp folds of fabric. But he refused to ask for help, refused to huddle closer, refused to even look Thorne’s way. Petty silence clung to him like mist.

Another beat passed, and then another. Thorne sighed, long and slow, and scooted closer—grumbling the entire way.

“Don’t touch me,” Aelorian said primly, eyes still shut.

“Not touching,” Thorne muttered, settling beside him. “Just proximity warming. For survival. Think of it as heat adjacency.”

There was a moment of silence. Then a very tiny voice, muffled against the fabric of his cloak: “You smell like guilt and pine tar.”

“Better than whatever cursed cologne you’re wearing.”

“It’s moonrose and despair,” Aelorian muttered into his sleeve.

They lay like that for another minute, backs to each other, nearly touching but not quite. The space between them pulsed with a mixture of unspoken pride, lingering embarrassment, and just enough chill to make both of them deeply miserable.

Then Thorne noticed the tremble again—small, barely there, but rhythmic. Aelorian’s shoulder jerking ever so slightly with the cold, breath hitching faintly behind his usual dramatic flair.

With a curse under his breath, Thorne shifted—then stilled. Then shifted again, closer this time, until his front pressed to Aelorian’s back.

Aelorian tensed immediately, shoulders going rigid, ears pricking slightly.

“Shut up,” Thorne grunted.

“I didn’t say anything,” Aelorian said stubbornly, even as his body betrayed him by leaning slightly into the heat.

They stayed that way for a while—bodies aligned, breath syncing almost accidentally. Thorne was so, so careful not to touch. Not properly. Not skin to skin.

Until Aelorian made a soft, sulky sound and pressed the back of his hand against Thorne’s.

It wasn’t a dramatic gesture, a speech, monologue, or some glittering noble declaration. Just one, cold, stubborn elf pressing one stubborn hand against the warmth of someone else’s. A whisper of contact, barely there.

Thorne swallowed. “Still cold?” he asked.

“Freezing,” Aelorian replied. “But I suppose death by ogre body heat is better than death by hypothermia. Marginally.”

Thorne smirked faintly, even if it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He shifted again, inching just a bit closer. The back of Aelorian’s head nearly brushed his jaw.

Then the elf shifted too—curling up tighter, rock still clutched against his chest like a tiny sacred relic. His face turned away, but Thorne could hear his breathing now—steadier. And much slower. Like the cold wasn’t quite as sharp anymore with the ogre at his back.

Thorne stared up at the ceiling for a moment. Then said, low, just loud enough to hear: “I really am sorry, elf. About your handkerchief.”

Silence stretched.

“You should be,” Aelorian finally whispered, voice quiet, icy, and almost shy.

Thorne opened his mouth to say something—anything—but before the words could come, the elf’s voice drifted in again, soft as snow.

“…Thank you for the rock.”

Thorne didn’t answer. But after a moment, very carefully, he let his fingers shift just enough to brush against Aelorian’s hand—not much. But just enough that they stayed touching.