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liquid drips from the dragons fangs and light reflects off of it. dorian feels cold, he can barely move, he's overcome with fear. dorian glances back at his master, but he can't see her face, he can't see anything
he feels the humid sensation of being swallowed whole, and then there's nothing but darkness
this should hurt much more. it should glow pink and red. he should feel sad. he's not sure what he is and isn't experiencing, moreover,
"m, master..?" dorian hears a familiar voice call a familiar name, and shivers at the nostalgic sound. he sort of feels a cold hand on his cheek, but he's still half asleep
it feels more like the petal-like skin is taking away his little heat, but dorian relishes in the feeling of physical touch anyways
then he opens his eyes to meet red and cyan ones
"ah, ruby.. good morning." dorian gently grabs rubedo's hand tinged with blue at the tips and moves it off his cheek. he doesn't let go of it, though.
a few moments of silence pass before rubedo decides to start talking
"the sun won't rise for a few more hours, but you were shivering in your sleep, so i wanted to help." rubedo's voice is really pleasant to hear in the morning. though more like a compressed whisper than speech, it's simple and genuine, unlike albedo who has his amicable tone for everyone well-practiced, or dorian's which is bitter and wavers.
"i appreciate that, ruby. not sure if i will be able to go back to sleep, but i feel fatigued, so i'll rest a bit longer.." dorian's head hurts. dorian just wants to press pause on existing. he feels guilty he can't spend time with his 'son' right now, but he was supposed to be asleep anyways.
"ok. rest well."
dorian buries his face into his pillow, he doesn't know how to feel. he's almost nauseous, but he swallows every sensation he has like needles.
he shouldn't have to worry about what master did anymore, he's fine now. he has people who love him back in his life now, he should be able to focus on more important things.
right now albedo's staying in mondstadt because the knights of favonius have a few important meetings regarding varka back to back. dorian's fine with that, albedo told him and ruby, there isn't anything wrong with that.
he misses albedo deeply, though... if he was here right now, dorian wouldn't have to feel like trash.
all he wants is to feel some kind of warmth, so he tightly hugs a pillow, and his consciousness fades.
when he wakes up, he's relieved that he didn't dream. it's a little bright outside, probably like 9? he heads over to albedo's camp through an underground passage he built.
"good morning master." ruby greets him without looking. they're crouched over the corpse of a treasure hoarder, stripping it of skin and any belongings, with the intent of preparing themself a meal.
"..i made some black tea."
dorian smiles at rubedo's thoughtfulness, since they don't drink tea themself, they only watch dorian and albedo enjoy it sometimes. dorian puts out the fire under the cooking pot. then he takes his own sketchbook and draws a teacup on it, before physically forming it with alchemy. he took up this habit because his creations disappear after a few minutes, and he won't have to clean it.
he fills his cup and immediately takes a sip. since the environment is quite cold, it's only warm, despite boiling over a flame a minute ago.
he watches rubedo pull organs out of the treasure hoarder they took. they don't wish to dirty their clothing with human blood, so they use blue vines already tinged with carmine pigmentation creeping out from under their cloak to do the dirty work.
he takes a sip before commenting, "you seem skilled at this, but why not just turn back into a whopperflower?"
"so you can better understand what i am doing, perhaps?"
after severing any connection to the flesh using sharp thorns, rubedo pulls bones and intestines out of the lump of meat. "you or sucrose could use it for bio-alchemy research. i think.” right, bio-alchemy.
“that's very considerate, ruby. i’ll tell you next time i have any interest in whopperflowers. or other animals, if you'll test your venom on them.”
ruby nods and hums. “okay, master..”