Disclaimer: I own nothing in this world. I am still waiting for Bioware to remember that it owns Neverwinter Nights. Gann is too young to understand who owns him, you should not forget that he is an orphan in a very cruel part of the world. No wonder his imagination leads him to dangerous waters.

2. Gann

They reach another village before another nasty spring storm breaks out, and Gann sighs in relief when the innkeeper takes pity on them and lets them in. Perhaps it is not his compassion as much as the fact that the inn is empty and extremely run down that makes him disregard their origins and appearances. A spirit eater, a hagspawn and a Red Wizard. At least their teltor warrior does not need a roof and prefers to sleep underneath the frosty skies in the open air.

Of course, Ingrid pays double and takes three separate rooms, too. They have enough gold to spare and she is indifferent to it anyway. As Gann watches her disappear upstairs, her back very rigid with exhaustion and yet very straight, he sighs and rubs his temple. The days when he was her companion only to stay out of his prison are long gone. Now he cares. Too much.

He goes upstairs after a hapless meal of cold bread, cheese and smoked winter sausage they share with Safiya in silence. He knows that Safiya is wondering why her mother and Lienna chose to display such cruelty and plant Akachi the Betrayer in Ingrid's chest, to mercilessly butcher her fate and life. She probably believes that he is thinking about his mother and the hags. He is not. Too much happened over the week, and even the disclosure of those mysteries of his origin cannot compete with the vision of the Wall of the Faithless – limbs protruding at awkward angles, screams of suffering people in his ears, the smell of rotting leaves in the air. Cries of children who died before they had the capacity and the time to believe and worship. Ingrid, pale as death, reaching out for that man's – Bishop's – slimy hand, talking to him gently as if his betrayal had never happened.

Gann discards most of his stinking clothes and hangs them to dry on the chairs. He is spent and his feet hurt, but sleep does not accept him in its obliviating embrace. He thinks of Ingrid and what will happen if they do not find the cure for the curse soon. Spirit eaters never lasted that long.

It has been a full year, and she must be running on pure willpower. She controls her hunger better now that she is used to it and understands its routines, but there is less and less of her left to conquer it. She has grown fragile; her new injuries take longer to heal and sometimes he is surprised she can walk on her own. Gann has a kind and compassionate soul, and too often he feels completely helpless when Ingrid is in pain. She is in pain most of the time, for a brief respite from the Hunger can only be earned by the atrocity of erasing a spirit from the eternity. Moreover, every time her black shadow feeds, it grows stronger, and most of the time Ingrid chooses to suffer and abstain. He tries to read her, and he knows that by imagining this window into her mind he is about to fall in love. He is about to start imagining more and more. He cannot quite resist. It is innocent and harmless, so why the hells not.

He thinks about the night when he invaded her dream out of pure curiosity and saw her as she remembers herself – younger, prettier, carefree. The stoic woman he knows is a ghost of her former self.

A knock at his door arouses Gann from his half-dreams, half-memories. He jerks upright and opens the door. Ingrid steps into the room and Gann can see that she is in disarray. The dark areas under her eyes are noticeable even in the flickering candlelight. She is wearing a blanket over the same road clothes, half-buttoned as if she had started to undress and forgot about it. Silent tears roll down her face, and she is shivering. She walks into the room and sinks down on his bed as if it hurts her to stand. It probably does.

"I can't be alone." Ingrid says in a hollow, emotionless voice. "I'm losing it. I need company. Warmth."

Gann is uncomfortably aware that Ingrid's eyes are almost completely black. His gaze travels down to deep marks on her arms. She had evidently bitten on her wrists to keep from screaming. He chokes on his emotions and wraps another blanket and his arms around her skinny frame. She holds on to him for dear life. They sit like that for a while, and Ingrid slowly slackens her grip. He can hear her clench and unclench her teeth as waves of pain rise and subside. He starts to cry because he is so helpless, useless, inadequate, and she looks up and smiles at him bravely. Gann's insides tighten into a knot: she always puts on a mask to keep the others from feeling bad around her, these smiles are walls between them. One day she will refuse her dinner politely, pack her bag, make her bed and go to the forest to die quietly.

Ingrid's breath catches. Gann already knows what it means: the worst is about to come. She will have a minute of complete detachment while the hunger pushes at its chains madly, and then she will either stamp down on it or be consumed. Her face goes blank and cruel, and this wretched minute lasts and lasts and lasts, and Gann freaks out. He cannot think of anything better, and he has never been a good thinker in the first place, so he does what his intuition prompts. He presses her flush against his body and kisses her just like he had always wanted to kiss someone dear in the flesh, in the real world. She does not respond, but his ardour must have shocked her into feeling again, because after a minute she tenses and withdraws slightly.

Gann looks into her eyes and is happy to see no scorn there. She regards him with a strange, bleak expression he cannot quite place.

"I am better now." She hesitates for a moment and continues. "Thank you."

Gann wants to keep her close, and he does not release her even when she looks at the door. Ingrid sighs.

"Gann, I cannot reciprocate whatever it is that you are confessing now." Her voice is very tired, and this takes the edge off the remark.

"You are not going to die." He dares to offer, but Ingrid shakes her head in disbelief.

"It's not that. I am only holding up because I have someone I need to get back to. Something terrible has happened to him. I know I loved him with all my heart before this curse stripped me of it. My life and afterlife are promised to him, Gann."

"I understand that." His voice is light, and he finally releases her from his embrace. So many things are clearer now. "Finding such love is rare and you need to fight for your life to keep it then. I will not distract you with my unwelcome affection."

Ingrid folds her hands in her lap and stares at them.

"Today your affection helped me walk back from the brink of my madness. I want… I know I don't have a soul, and nothing matters to me much except the things I keep repeating in my mind, so it will probably seem abhorrent to me when I am truly back, but…" Her voice is barely audible. "In case I am lost again, you have my permission to use whatever means you can think of to help me return."

Ingrid stands up, squeezes his hand lightly and disappears in the darkness of the corridor. Gann stares at the door. His mind runs wild with possibilities of what these words may mean before he manages to collect his thoughts. The real Ingrid wants to get her love for another man back, and he intends to respect that. However, he never exactly needed the real world, so he can allow himself to dream of her. A little. Sometimes. Without going too far.