Experience Tumblr like never before
cw: mentions of blood and death below the cut, very mild 3.2 spoilers
i can't imagine the way dan heng's heart must have dropped after mem told him about the trial.
it was bad enough, having to drag the trailblazer's body from the crushed train car, them bleeding profusely, barely breathing. they stopped breathing at some point even. and then he's pushing through the black that's probably curling at the edges of his vision, desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood. its been mere minutes since they started out on this new journey and everything has gone to shit. they have no way of contacting the express and here they are with the trailblazer possibly... he grits his teeth and presses on until he can't anymore. he blacks out.
and then he wakes up and there the trailblazer is standing over him, still covered in blood, but it's... dry. their eyes widen and they stumble back, but then they're helping him up, and their skin feels nothing like the clammy chill that he learnt accompanied their bloodloss. and maybe, he thinks, things are okay, even if the blood that soaks them says otherwise.
and things really do seem okay. they meet the chrysos heirs and the trailblazer forges ahead with their characteristic irreverence, and everything is right in the world. or at least as right as it can get when you're exploring an unexplored world, and employing anthropological methods while also trying to save said world. nothing is ever boring when the trailblazer is involved.
so things go swimmingly, though dan heng has to get used to the fact that there's no cold water around. (one day the bath in their room does turn cold and dan heng sinks into it in relief. he doesn't see how the trailblazer looks at him fondly, infinitely pleased that their scheming worked.) he fights and asks questions and records and fights some more. he hates the amount of time the trailblazer spend out of his sight, going to places he doesn't know anything about, sighing in relief each time they come back intact.
though when agalea suggests that the trailblazer should become the vessel for oronyx's coreflame, he worries.
it's one thing for people of the world to do dangerous, esoteric things. it's another to get an outlander to do things specific to the world. it's a disruption of the ecosystem, an unknown in many aspects. it cannot go well.
but it's the best option, and none of the heirs seem particularly worried. the trailblazer is as determined as ever, though the way they pace their room before sleeping, and later the anxiety in their eyes as they enter the vortex of genesis betrays the worry they feel about the ordeal.
when the trailblazer turns back, dan heng's brow furrows as they tell them to wait for their return. they open their mouth to say something else, but close it, seemingly thinking better of their words. dan heng wonders, wanting to hear it.
time passes and dan heng worries, and then...
and then a flash of light and the trailblazer appears, collapsing on the floor (is it a floor? can you call a swirling void of water the floor?) unconscious, mem hovering above worriedly. mem scrabbles something out so hastily that dan heng isn't sure he's hearing right, but all the same he scoops the trailblazer up in his arms and rushes back to their room so that they can rest safely.
and dan heng waits. waits for mem to finish explaining what the hell went down in the trial. waits for the trailblazer to wake again and stop looking so dead.
dead...
fuck.