“Orme? Orme! Come on my friend, wake up!”

He opened my eyes to blurriness and green. There was pain in his chest and even more pain in his leg. He blinked a few times, to try and reset his vision. And finally, he saw Iyona.

She was sitting on her feet next to him, a hand on his arm, slightly shaking him awake. “Oh thank fuck you’re awake. I was getting worried there for a minute.” She smiled, a real smile full of relief.

“What happened?” Orme asked, his voice slurred by pain and disuse.

She laughed. “What happened? We fought a fucking necromancer, and won! You should’ve seen me twirling around dropping skeletons. You both fell at some point, it was me against the baddie. I fought forever, dodging left and right, against 5 skeletons with blades and the big boss. I focused on him, only him, and in the end I went off with his head! Look, he’s still lying there.” She pointed at the floor a little bit farther and right as snow, there was the necromancer, head detached.

“What… How?”

She thumped his arm. “I told you I was good.”

Orme smiled. “I wouldn’t have hired you in the first place if you weren’t.” Then he remembered. “Where’s Wren?” HE tried to get up off the floor, only for the pain in his thigh to blind hiù again. He remained lying down, trying desperately to look around and find his kid. His kid. They’d fallen first. He had to help. Had to help them. Had to make sure they were okay.

“Relax,” Iyona said. “Wren is fine. They’re asleep over there. It was a hard battle for them, and I haven’t heard the story yet, but they’re alive.”

Alive. Orme sighed. Wren was alive. That was all that mattered.

“Now,” Iyona said, “we have to figure out what to do. You’re badly hurt. We don’t have enough rations for the 3 of us to last more than a week in here, and I doubt you’ll be able to walk in that timeframe. I need your guidance, Orme. What do we do?”

He pushed himself in a sitting position, retreating on his butt all the way to the wall. He couldn’t think lying down.

Orme grabbed his hair with one hand and pulled. This was a hard one. “What do we do?” He repeated. “The two of you go and find something to eat. I’ll stay here as long as it takes. You can either come and join me with new rations, or go on your way. Those are our only options.”

“Go on our way? And what, leave you here to rot? Never!” She recoiled at the thought. He smiled. 

“Thank you. So I guess when Wren awakens, check on them for injuries and see when you can leave to find food. I’ll stay here and study those books, since I can’t move much. Thanks for bandaging my leg by the way, and for everything else. You saved us out there.”

She smiled as an answer, and thumped his arm again. “Couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t told me where to aim. We’re a good team.”