#(chetney is my sleeper hit for this though)

[densitywell]

thinking many ashrym thoughts rn. orym came back from issylra at his worst and ashton, somehow, has come out at their best. ashton wants to be a hero, to inspire people, to save the world; orym wants to get revenge on those who killed his family. when he's pushing the rest of the hells to go back to the key barely an hour after they've reunited, it's ashton who pulls them towards taking some desperately needed time to decompress.

ashton doesn't regret a single thing that happened in hearthdell. orym says they made compromises to get back to the hells. orym has admitted that he can't really grapple with one side of the gods debate because its the belief his family was killed over, while ashton is specifically exploring the ideologies most associated with the hishari. they both believe in people, and are dead set on destroying ludinus, and ashton thinks that maybe the gods deserve to die and orym is sure that they should live. orym is covering up, dressing in the standard armor of his people. ashton is standing out, taking the old things he loves and turning them into something new.

and yet the two of them, as a pair, still function the same. they move around, through, above and below each other as easily as they have for quite some time now. ashton loves zephrah, and orym is happy to have him there. two people who on the surface appear wildly different, whose lives feel like strange twisted mirrors, and yet who have developed this wordless understanding and love and respect for each other regardless. one that still holds - for the moment, at least - even as it feels like they're only moving farther apart.