Or'do knelt at Aleorn's side, tears burning like drops of acid along his cheek, a cold fire roiling in his weary, battered heart. His chest still glowed faintly, the Cinder still aflame, if apathetic. Perhaps it took a vile pleasure in his sorrow, or perhaps it truly did care for him. The latter seemed unlikely, at least in the sorrow shrouded eyes of Or'do.

"What now?" He meant to scream this, yet found he hadn't the breath. It was as if his lungs had turned to stone, his heart to ice. Or'do roared in fury, slamming an iron fist into the ground next to his comrade, tears tracing rivers of glass along his angular features. Again, again again again! His knuckles crunched against the stone, his blood pooling with that of his comrade. With eyes that burned in almighty hate, he followed that dark pool to Aleorn's neck, realizing that he had in fact spared him the worst of the scythe's touch, its edge merely severing the left half, skittering across bone rather than shearing through it. It mattered not.

"My greed has struck you down." He slowly raised battered, bleeding fingers to his breast where the Cinder slept. "I never should have left you." Like blades of steel those cold fingers burrowed into his flesh. "You spent your strength saving me, and left none for yourself." Warmth pulsed against his fingertips, the Cinder roused from its slumber and flaring now in response to his undying, indomitable will.

Aleorn and Or'do sit at the side of a bonfire, lifting flagons to the heavens, smiling in a rare moment of true, untainted mirth.

 "You are my only friend in this cruel, cold, broken world." He grasped the Cinder in hands of iron, clenched tight with fingers like serpents of steel.

"Yeah!" Or'do pumped a fist in the air, standing astride the fallen form of Aldrich. Aleorn laughs, his lips tugged upward by a smile they had not known before Or'do, and would never again know since.

"Please, come back to me!" His blood spurted across the stones, its dark geyser painting his fingers, splattering the orb of light clasped between.

Darkness on the edges of his vision, devouring his sight, devouring his mind. Or'do collapsed atop his fallen comrade, the Cinder dropping from his grasp and settling upon Aleorn's breast, where it flared and blazed, an inferno that only all the brighter grew as tendrils of flesh rose to embrace it, to bear it into the darkness where its twin waited. Like all the hells man dared imagine, a blinding flare surged from Aleorn's chest, blades of light spearing toward the heavens, boneless limbs thrashing and convulsing in their primordial glee. Then, the light faded to black, and Aleorn took a sharp breath, his eyes snapping open. Aleorn gasped, rising halfway only to collapse back onto the stones.

"I died again didn't I."

"Gotta stop doing that." Or'do managed, pressing a hand against his chest, which now had healed, closing in mere seconds.

Aleorn stared at his hands, as if surprised to see them so smugly adorning his wrists. Flame curled around his fingers, then turned to wisps of vapor. "By the Gods, Or'do! You sacrificed your Cinder!" He closed his hands into fists, flame gushing like liquid iron between his fingers, spilling out as if he had scooped sand into his palm, its grains draining through the gaps between his knuckles. "What were you thinking?!"

"That it was my fault you fell." Or'do said calmly. "That I damned you once more."

"Once more?! You never damned me in the first place! I cannot-" Aleorn's voice broke. "I cannot understand why you would do this."

"Because you are more valuable than the flame."

"I do not deserve this."

"What would you do if I fell? If you knew that I was too weak, too unsteady to challenge even the frailest of the darkspawn, yet said nothing?" Now it was Or'do whose voice fractured. "What if it was I that you let perish?"

Aleorn sighed. "I'd stop at nothing to get you back."

Or'do clapped Aleorn's shoulder, a smile on his angular face. "Fret not, Aleorn. I gathered the Cinder once, I shall do it again."

Aleorn returned the smile, yet it was cold, hollow with sadness. "I'll never repay this debt."

"And I'll never collect on it." Or'do rose, extending a hand. "While you were challenging the Ancient Spawn, I discovered a chalice, the key to the labyrinth where the powerful dregs of shadow lay. Help me slay them all, Aleorn."

"Of course." Accepting the proffered hand, Aleorn rose. "It is our purpose is it not?"