Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Surrounded by Lumaya’s holy warriors, Galek lays down his axes and kneels in surrender. Though he aches to take fiery vengeance, it is not his place to seek glory at the end of a blade.

If there is a chance he might survive, then he must take it.

Orcs like him are few enough as it is.

Of all Lumaya’s wicked mercenaries, it had to be Elhain helming the force which slayed Galek’s detachment—the Orc Hunter. As her wretched battalion roots around the corpses of his comrades for spoils, she approaches him with an air befitting a commander, flanked on either side by her generals: a dark elf mage and a human knight.

Elhain brushes her ocean-black hair over her shoulder, smiling with demure cruelty. “An orc that knows when it’s beaten? That’s a first,” she says in her airy, harp-plucked accent. “It can’t be smarts, so you must be a coward.”

“A coward, am I?” Galek spits his disdain. “Says the elf who cowers in trees as she cuts us down from afar.”

Her dark elf companion lifts a brow in a privately amused sort of way, glancing at Elhain in anticipation of her response.

Elhain kicks Galek in the chest, cold armor on battered flesh, and Galek collapses into the dirt. As the warchanter’s song seeps from his veins, the sting and ache of his injuries comes to the fore, settling over him like the dust.

“I should kill you,” Elhain snaps like a sudden gust. And as quick as wind, she quells. “But an orc’s strength will be useful to the Arbiter.”

Galek snorts. “Then the Arbiter will be sorely disappointed,” he says. “I’m a healer.”

Elhain only laughs.

“Kael?”

The dark elf sighs and steps around her, hefting his staff like a walking stick. Galek tenses on his approach. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe he’s useless to them as a healer, and now he’ll be killed.

Kael kneels beside him without hesitation, though his compatriots tense, the clatter of shifting armor belying their change in stance. There is no fear in Kael’s red eyes, and that is how Galek knows the dark elf must believe him. Must know what it means, that Galek is a healer.

With considerable effort, Galek pushes himself to a seated position. He won’t be lying down when Lumaya swallows his mind.

There is a din over the battlefield: the sound of armor traipsing around and over corpses, the chatter of the victors as they compare and share their spoils; the howling of the wind in the desolate mountain pass. Beneath it, Kael feels at liberty to give him a word of kindness, albeit in the barest of whispers: “My condolences, friend.”

‘Can’t be helped,’ Galek absolves him in the relative privacy of his mind. He doubts their watchful jailers will fail to notice, if he tries to speak aloud.

‘It’s worse than you’re imagining,’ Kael promises. A warning. Another kindness. 

Kael touches Galek’s forehead, where white warpaint has smeared from the humid exertion of battle.

It’s been a long time since Galek admitted a dark elf into his mind, but he still knows how to open the door. Though he could resist—orcish healers have uncommonly powerful mental defenses—it would only hurt them both, and to little benefit. Kael doesn’t want this any more than Galek does, and soon they will both serve the same peremptory master.

As his comrades succumbed to their wounds, the fiery tethers of life connecting them to Galek have snuffed out, one by one. His is the last little flame, and as it flickers its last, his soul is flooded with the searing heat of Lumaya’s inferno.

Telerians call it ‘light’.

Galek calls it a fucking eyesore.

Chapter Text

Galek’s axes fit strangely in his hands, when he is called upon to use them in service of Lumaya’s will.

The wet crunch of a skull beneath his axehead is visceral in its unfamiliarity. Foreign blood clings to the blades, when the only blood they've ever tasted was his own—or that of his patients for the odd amputation. The metal sings a discordant tone, but it is no less loyal to its master for its inner turmoil: the blood of his foes feeds his axes' fiery flight, when he has only ever thrown them as a party trick.

Galek is put in mind of feasts and festivals, round wooden targets painted in anticipation of games of skill. Archers proved their mastery first, and with all the arrows collected the spearmen and axe-wielders had their turn at the pockmarked wood. On the rare occasion Galek turned his hand to axe-throwing, he never placed first. But he sometimes took home a small prize—a wooden carving or woven flowercraft, depending on the season.

His only prizes now are bursts of blood and the smell of burnt flesh, and the bloodthirsty cheers of his allies of circumstance.

Galek cleans his reeking axes in the forest clearing set aside for the campsite of Elhain’s personal coterie. As a healer, he's grown accustomed to encountering blood in the course of his profession. But he is preoccupied with its presence now. He cannot stop thinking about how easy it was to turn against his own kind—they were intercepted on the way back to the Arbiter’s garrison, cut off by the rear guard expecting support from Galek’s late detachment.

Some of them had recognized him.

None of them had surrendered.

The scent of their blood lingers on his blades and his body, inescapable by dint of a keen nose and sharp memory.

“Orc.”

At Elhain’s imperious command, Galek looks up from his work with sternly tilted brow. “Is the Arbiter’s war dog talking to me?”

Elhain tosses her head—not unlike a dog, at that—and scoffs. “Spare me, and light us a fire. How you miserable creatures survive these freezing climes, I’ll never know.”

Galek snorts. It’s early Spring, and there’s hardly any snow on the ground. “I didn't ask you to come."

"And I don't answer to you."

"Nor I to you," says Galek. "Build your own bloody fire."

Just as Elhain looks poised to draw her bow and fill Galek with arrows, Kael returns with a footsoldier in tow. He nudges her without mercy into Elhain’s periphery—but the human looks honored for the opportunity.

“Lady Elhain,” she stammers. “We had some extra kindling at the watch tent, if...”

Elhain is loath to appear unpoised before her admirer, and she quickly harnesses a veneer of calm for the benefit of their unexpected guest. Kael interposes himself between Elhain and Galek, a staying hand between flint and fuse.

Galek tunes out the conversation to size the elf up.

Kael carries the imperious airs of Lumaya’s Sacred Order like a second skin. There’s no telling how long he’s been in service of the Arbiter, but he navigates the encampment with confidence, and he seems to understand well the capricious moods of its commander.

“Could I tempt you to a change in scenery?” Kael inquires—not quite a whisper, but subdued enough that Galek would be a fool not to see it for the lifeline Kael intends it to be.

Elhain glances their way mistrustfully, but she’s evidently more interested in saving face in front of the human than stopping them from conspiring.

Galek stands and drops his axes into his belt.

"Fine."

As they leave Elhain with her simpering human, Kael tells him there's a river nearby where he might bathe, if he's so inclined.

Apprised of their destination, Galek lengthens his stride to take the lead.

"... This wasn't the place I was thinking of," Kael admits, when Galek leads them to a shadowy riverside copse, absent any telltale disturbances from the rest of their encampment and well-hidden by two mossy embankments. Downriver, the din of armor and watering hole chatter returns to them on the river's rushing hush.

Galek looks around and lifts his arms, inviting Kael to find meaningful fault with the location. "Is there a problem with this one?"

Kael is pensive as he roams the copse, idly curious in his assessment. “No, not as such..."

Galek has invited Kael to make his objections. In the absence of anything substantive, Galek stops listening to the drow’s muttering and focuses on the purpose of the excursion—as grateful as he is for the excuse to escape Elhain’s loathsome presence, he doesn’t intend for it to be excuse only. A bath would be welcome.

He finds an exposed root to sit on, setting his axes aside before working on his fur-lined metal vambraces. They tumble into the grass, exposing dark rings of grime where their edges laid around his wrists.

“Galek.”

Galek’s hands pause on the leather strap of his pauldron, momentarily cast adrift in that surreal moment of hearing his name.

It passes when he recalls that, of course, Kael would have learned his name when he entered his mind.

He doesn’t reply, only looks at the drow expectantly. The look he gets in return is complicated. Something like sympathy. Something like an apology.

“You... know these woods?”

“Not these woods.” Galek's knee guards and tassets join his vambraces in the grass, and as he works his boots from his feet, swollen from endless marching, he grunts, “I’m a woodsman.”

Kael tilts his head, catching sunlight from the water's surface in the gold disc of an earring. “I thought you were a healer.”

Galek wrenches a boot off and waves it rudely at Kael. “And I suppose you're just one thing?”

The corners of Kael’s eyes crease in subtle amusement. “Fair enough.” His gaze drifts away from Galek as the orc removes the last of his clothes, settling on the pile of discarded equipment instead. “I confess I'm no woodsman, though I do consider myself at home in the woods. So I have to ask: how did you find this place?”

Galek grunts as he rises to his feet. “Watercress.”

“Come again?”

Galek indicates the plant, a tight cluster of green sprouting from the frosted shore. “I expect you'll have me at a disadvantage when we leave the mountains. But watercress has a distinctive smell. Spicy. Grows by running water, in the shade.”

As Kael examines the plant, Galek steps into the frigid water; the cold is only made worse by the shade and the encroaching evening, but warming it is a simple exercise of will. Focusing his breath, Galek imbues the water with a mottled orange glow, indistinguishable from the dapple of sunset visible outside the deep shadows.

“Ah.” Kael has a watercress leaf in his mouth when Galek turns to look. “I wondered if you were too exhausted to perform for Elhain, but I see now you were guided chiefly by principle.”

Galek submerges himself, dousing his rage to avoid conjuring a pillar of fire. When he surfaces, it is with a meditative exhale. “Yes, she was oddly insistent. You'd think she'd never seen the like before."

Kael’s brow furrows. “Orcish magic?”

“Principled behavior.”

The watercress leaf flies from Kael's mouth with a sharp exhale, his shoulders twitching with suppressed humor.

Galek washes grit from his wild red hair, free-flowing as the fire he summons so readily to hand. Kael doesn't join him, but he's either responsible for Galek's wandering or just as eager for a reprieve from their captors, so Galek pays little mind to the elf's sedentary silence and wandering eye.

A clatter by his gear recaptures his attention.

Kael lifts Galek's vambraces. “May I?”

When Galek was led like a dog on a straining lead from the site of his capture, the corpses of his kin were left exposed to the chill. Not even cremated. And the rank and file of the Arbiter's forces had donned the armor of the fallen, complimenting the warm fur-lining, sneering at the iconography they lacked the cultural context to understand.

Galek's eyes narrow, and Kael is quick to lift his hands like an apprehended culprit. “I was offering to wash them, not asking to keep them. Though I can hardly blame you for misunderstanding, considering the company I keep...”

“You oblige me,” says Galek guardedly, wringing water from his hair. "... Is there something you want now? Or were you hoping to harbor goodwill today for favors tomorrow?"

Kael seems pleasantly surprised to be understood, though Galek finds his behavior perfectly straightforward. Dark elves are always looking to trade something—even among friends.

They would trade blades of grass for river stones if they had nothing better to do.

Kael admits, “A little of both.”

Galek hums, considering. “Then that steel had better shine like a mirror when you’re done with it.”

Kael straightens to attention. "And the fur and fabric...?"

Galek grimaces, considering that those may well be the source of the pervasive scent of blood that's been chasing him from the battlefield. He'd prefer them laundered even if he had to wear them soaking wet to bed. "Yes, go ahead. I can dry them with magic."

Kael yanks off his gloves and gets to work, and Galek permits himself a moment of amusement at Kael’s eagerness to earn whatever favor he intends to ask.

As the sun slinks behind the shelter of the mountains like a wounded animal, the chill dark descends and sends their allies of circumstance downriver fleeing to the shore and their fires. Galek savors the subsequent silence, and the warmth of his magic which spares him the need to seek shelter on land.

His curiosity about Kael’s impending proposition prevents him from lingering over-long in the river; he comes ashore, letting his fire lick the last cool drops from his skin. He navigates the rocky shore to sit beside Kael in the starlit dark, unselfconscious in his nudity.

Kael straightens from his assiduous hunch over Galek’s pauldron, and he hands the armor over for inspection at Galek’s prompting. Their hands touch very briefly; Kael’s are frigid and faintly trembling.

Galek inspects the grooves between the pauldron’s spikes by touch, rumbling a thoughtful sound. Spotless. Nevertheless—“I can’t see my reflection in this,” he says in a chiding tone.

Kael makes an offended sound. “The sun has set!”

Galek has to laugh. “Hand me my axe.” Kael shoves the item into Galek’s hand as if it’s personally offended him. In spite of the elf’s sour mood, Galek still sees fit to warn him with a brief, “Light,” before channeling fire through his axe to inspect Kael’s handiwork more closely.

Kael’s arms are stubbornly crossed, but he’s heeded Galek’s warning, turning his eyes away from the fire to preserve his eyesight.

Teasing aside, Galek does find cleaning his gear tedious, and Kael has saved him much time with those dexterous hands of his. Evidently he’d taken Galek’s guidance about wanting his armor to shine like a mirror to heart.

That, or he wants whatever he’s keen to ask for badly enough to go the extra mile regardless.

Galek shoves the haft of his axe into the rocky shore so it stands unassisted, its fire glittering on the water like a lantern at the end of a dock.

Detecting a strange scent, he lifts the armor to his face and smells it.

“Did you clean this with acid?”

Kael’s shoulders stiffen guiltily. “It’s perfectly safe,” he says, which is not strictly speaking an answer. But if Kael wants future favors from him, it would run contrary to that end to sabotage Galek’s armor with poison.

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Kael looks vaguely appalled to be taken at his word for anything—which doesn’t surprise Galek, if he’s spending all his time with humans and high elves.

Galek stands and dons his freshly-washed pants, which dry quickly when they come into contact with his magically-heated skin. “So? What do you want in return?”

“Healing, of course,” Kael huffs.

Galek lifts a brow and his axe, blowing out the flame for Kael’s benefit. “The Arbiter doesn’t keep healers in her retinue?”

“Of course she does. But Lumaya’s healing light has the same quality as the light of her thrall. Perhaps her willing servants suffer no ill effects, but I find it... nauseating.”

Galek had noticed as well. “Healing doesn’t come as easily to me now,” he cautions.

Kael wilts. “You can’t do it?”

“I think I can,” says Galek. “But I’ll have to touch you.”

“Oh,” says Kael, relieved. “Well, that works to the benefit of my other request.”

In that case, Galek is very curious to hear Kael’s other request.

“That being...?”

Kael wrings his hands and says, with a desperate, plaintive edge, “I’m freezing.”

Galek laughs and offers Kael his open palms, where the dark elf hastily deposits his icy hands with a shudder of relief.

“Gods and merciless stars, you’re warm!”

Lumaya’s oppressive light muffles Galek’s senses of those around him; when he was unencumbered by it, he could sense the life flame of anyone he could see, heal their wounds unobtrusively from afar. As it is, Kael’s doesn’t come into focus until the dark elf is climbing into his lap in a pile of purple and black skirts, covetously seeking his heat.

Cautious of having his magic smothered again by Lumaya’s inferno, he feeds his flame slowly into Kael’s fingertips, inching up his arms as he seeks sites of injury.

Kael drops his forehead onto Galek’s chest with a groan.

Galek’s healing navigates Kael’s own magical channels unopposed. Poison is Kael’s elemental predisposition, and though it is harmless to Galek here, there is a certain tang brought out by the heat of Galek’s fire magic, like chasing mint with water—or like the distinctive spice of watercress.

Galek knits every open wound he encounters, soothes every bruise, until Kael is possessed of an inner warmth uncharacteristic of bog- and cave-dwelling dark elves, resting his arms serenely around Galek’s neck.

Kael sighs like he’s never truly known peace before this moment. “I had forgotten how it felt to be tended by a competent healer.”

Galek isn’t in any rush to give Lumaya’s loyal servants undue credit, but this still surprises him. “How is that?”

Kael straightens to a seated position, and Galek expects him to stand—but instead he reaches for Galek’s armor, assisting him in redressing like it’s the most obvious next step. Galek wonders if Kael is looking for excuses to linger in the sphere of his heat, which is just as well—Galek was considering requesting his assistance anyway. That pauldron is finicky without someone to help him tighten its fastening.

Maybe Kael anticipated the request by virtue of his mystical perception, and that’s all he’s responding to.

Kael explains as he works, “The Sacred Order is drunk on Lumaya’s boons. There is no—finesse to their magical feats. They ask for what they want, and she gives it. That kind of direct contact with the divine is intolerable to all but the most spiritually obtuse creatures.”

Galek grunts when Kael yanks tight the leather fastening of his pauldron. “I suppose you’re referring to humans.”

Kael absently smooths a hand over the strap. “And high elves—though they’ll insist communion with their goddess heightens their senses...”

Galek doesn’t need telling that Lumaya’s followers are deluded, if they believe something so demonstrably untrue. It’s only been a day since Kael was compelled to bring Galek under Lumaya’s thrall, and he feels worse than blind. He can’t even tell Kael is injured without touching him. He might as well have awoken to his gift only yesterday.

Kael drags Galek’s belt across his lap, securing the leather bulk with his assistance. “And,” Kael goes on, “even if their magic weren’t tainted by association... their bedside manner when dealing with those they consider inferior leaves something to be desired.”

Galek requires no persuading on that point; he would sooner expect Elhain to leave him for dead on the roadside than deign to order a warpriest to tend his wounds.

"I wouldn't refuse you healing in any case," Galek assures him. Kael finally slides out of his lap to make room for Galek's tassets, and Galek accepts his boots when offered. "I require nothing in trade, or payment." He may be bound to the Arbiter, but he still held to his oaths—inasmuch as he could uphold them without directly defying her.

Kael wanders restlessly as he waits for Galek to don his boots. "Well. No reason to get off on the wrong foot... so to speak."

Galek might consider dark elf negotiations a bit convoluted, but he respects the social function they serve: offering to trade for what you knew would otherwise be freely offered establishes reciprocal trust. Galek's predicament is a sorry one, but he can appreciate that Kael is trying to make him feel welcome—at least in the sphere of their confidence as fellow prisoners.

When he's fully dressed, Galek retrieves his axes and replaces them in his belt, rising with a weary groan. "I suppose sleeping here is out of the question."

"I'm afraid so," says Kael, apologetic. "But you're welcome to join me at the watch tent. If you want to sleep there, I'll. Well. Keep watch. As it were."

Galek's smile catches on a chipped tooth. "What's the alternative?"

"Oh—you could sleep in my tent, I suppose. I don't use it much. But, ah, it's by Elhain's..."

Galek groans. "Pass." He holds out a hand, asking for guidance in the dark. "I'll take my chances at the watch tent."

Kael takes his hand. "If you insist," he says airily, the dark doing little to conceal the smile in his voice.