"Could not you have simply reformed?" This, Aleorn had asked, when Or'do told him of his thievery. 

"No." He shook his head sadly. "When the Dark Cinder struck me down, it severed my connection to the Flame. It was you that saved me from oblivion, and for that I shall forever be in your debt."

Or'do wept bitterly, lost in a darkness that deepened with each breath. He felt his life fading, and knew that the Dark had won, had claimed his body as plague claims flesh. No choice had he but to succumb, for his strength was already gone, and before him loomed a creature more than capable of dispatching him. With the frost of sorrow thick and heavy upon his heart, he closed his mental hand around the darkness, and prepared to draw upon it. Then, a light: pale, yet insistent; an anchor of gossamer to which he desperately clung. Faint words drifted through his stupor:  "Not like this!"

"Aleorn?" He murmured. "Aleorn!" He released the Dark, and the inexplicable light intensified, dragging him back to the world he had abandoned.

I stood over him, panting and gasping, my flesh the patchwork of char and flame that defines a Lord of Cinder. My eyes burned with light, with hate as I turned from him to the Old One Reborn. I felt more than saw him wake beneath me, yet I held him back with an outstretched hand.

"You've fought hard, Or'do. Rest now, my friend." Fire burst from my fists, curling up past my elbows like curious serpents. "They will pay for what they have done." I stalked forward, my steps leaving the stone molten and charred, my singed breath hissing from flaming lips.

The Old One seemed hesitant, recoiling upon its thousand limbs, eyeing me from afar with palpable trepidation. I lunged, crossing the meters between us as if it were mere paces, my fist of flame and steel crashing against its tangled body, heaving the monster to the earth. I charged along its body, striding to the grey, pallid torso that jutted from its tomb of writhing limbs and twisted flesh. Hate filled me, washed away my agony, as I charged over that span, its countless hands clawing at me in desperation, yet their fingers melted as they drew near, and the flesh beneath me turned brittle and black. My legs were engulfed in flame as I leaped, slamming my conflagrant hand into its jaw, spraying the monster across its immense body as a shower of ash. It fell limp beneath me, and burst apart in a radiant flare.

I felt weakness then, my limbs that had long yearned for collapse at last surrendering. I crumpled, and lay still, cold, nigh lifeless upon the stones. My vision turned ashen, then dark as a starless night, yet I met oblivion with a comrade's embrace, for at last, my friend was safe, and live or perish, I had at last repaid him for those merry nights that lived eternal inside me.