Upon reaching the fifth floor of the library, instead of heading directly for Gorion's room, Dorean drifted to the side as he walked, stopping in front of the door of the room next to it.
He looked up at the thin plaque nailed to the centre of the door, and the two names written on it. Imoen's hand-writing is as neat as his own, though with much more style and flair.
His eyes moved to the door of Gorion's room, then back to his own. The dwarf lowered his head and closed his eyes. He felt his gloved hands clench into fists and the grinding of his teeth.
After a moment, he took a deep breath and released it, relaxing his hands. Opening his eyes, he looked up at the plaque again, then turned away and walked to the other door.
Gorion was sitting at his desk, head lowered and eyes on a few opened scrolls in front of him. He raised his head as Dorean opened the door, and his face turned pale when he saw the grave expression on his ward's face along with the cut on his brow.
As Gorion rose from his desk, Dorean quietly stepped into the room, closing the door behind him.
..
A few minutes later, Dorean was sitting in front of the desk with a mug of copper-coloured herbal tea in his hands. Having gone around the room and finished checking old wards and placing new ones, Gorion returned to his desk and sat behind it to face his ward.
"Where is this man now?"
"In the storehouse, where I left him," he replied quietly.
Placing his elbows on the desk, Gorion clasped his hands together and leaned his jaw into them, his expression downcast. After a moment, he closed his eyes, seeming to have fallen into deep thought.
Dorean quietly sipped his tea, watching him.
Another moment passed before Gorion opened his eyes, silently nodded to himself, and then reached into his drawer. Pulling out a scroll, he wrote quickly and briefly on it, then stood up and moved to the window. He rolled up and then tossed it out. Wizard and thief watched as the seemingly ordinary scroll promptly turned into a white-feathered bird and flew away in the direction of the sea.
Gorion then turned to his ward, his expression telling Dorean before the words were spoken.
"We need to leave now."
Placing his teacup holding hands on his lap, Dorean silently lowered his head, his nod barely perceptible. He kept his gaze to the floor.
He heard Gorion move and felt the man's hand on his shoulder.
"Wait for me to gather my things," the wizard said softly.
Dorean did not move a muscle as Gorion went to a cupboard and drew out a pack. He stayed very still, ignoring the heat of the tea-cup against his leg.
Only his eyes moved, the orbs of gray rising to gaze blankly at the wall behind the desk.
..
Imoen was sitting up in her bed, close to the candle-stand on her bedside table. She looked up from her book when Dorean opened the door, and her welcoming smile instantly disappeared upon seeing the wizard standing behind Dorean, dressed and equipped for travel. She froze where she sat, the book falling from her slackened hands onto the bed next to her lap. For several seconds, there was no movement or sound from any of them.
"You are leaving now?"
The four words, spoken so softly that they were barely audible, felt to Dorean like four indiscernible pangs in his chest. The dwarf averted his gaze from her face and turned away from her, silently moving to his bed in the other side of the room.
Slowly, mouth hanging slightly open and eyes wide, Imoen got out of her own bed and stood next to it.
The dwarf placed his pack on the bed, then walked over to his cupboard and reached up to open it. The creak of the hinges sounded unusually loud to him this time. He kept his face and eyes away from the two humans.
"What happened?" whispered Imoen, her head moving back and forth between Dorean and Gorion before stopping to focus on the latter.
After taking a look over his shoulder, Gorion turned back to Imoen and stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. When he spoke, there was a slight tautness to his usual gentle tone. "One of the visitors here had just attempted to kill Dorean. He was waiting for him in the storehouse."
Imoen froze again, becoming more wide-eyed and slack-jawed as she stared at Gorion's grave expression. Still keeping his gaze averted from them, Dorean quietly took a few books, jars and a flask from the bottom shelves of the tall cupboard, then moved to his bed and placed them next to the pack.
"But...why?" said Imoen, her voice now rising in pitch. "Why would anyone want to hurt him?"
It was the dwarf's turn to freeze. He stared at the wall, one hand holding the open flap of his pack while the other held a jar. The air in the room was feeling heavier with every passing second.
Gorion blinked as he looked at Imoen, his eye-lids half-closing as his expression became even softer than before.
"I do not know," said Gorion. He looked up at a point slightly above Imoen's head, and his voice and expression changed. His eyes glinted, and there was a cold, steely edge to his usual gentle tone. "But I intend to find out, along with whoever is responsible."
A chill seemed to emanate from the old wizard, spreading throughout the room, and both Imoen and Dorean shivered slightly. The dwarf turned his head, though not enough to see either of them.
Gorion paused, and when he looked back at Imoen, his expression and voice became wholly gentle again. "Dorean and I must leave now, without delay. This place is no longer safe for him, and so long as we remain, it will not be for anyone else here."
Dorean did not move, keeping his gaze on the wall.
After a very long and silent moment, Imoen's mouth closed into a determined grimace. She lifted her head and straightened her shoulders, then turned and picked up the candle-stand on the bedside table. Hearing her footsteps, Dorean turned around to look at her. Wizard and dwarf watched as the pink thief marched behind the modesty screen in the corner of the room, placing the candle-stand on the sill of the window next to her clothing wardrobe.
They heard the wardrobe open, close, and then the rustling of clothing. Dorean slowly turned his head to look at Gorion. The wizard met his gaze for a moment, his eyes brimming with sympathy, and blinked slowly before he turned back to the screen.
"Imoen," he said slowly and gently, drawing out the three syllables.
The girl did not answer. From the sound behind the screen, she was now putting on her boots.
"Imoen."
No answer. Gorion fell silent. Both men stood quietly, looking at the screen. About a minute later, Imoen stepped out from behind it, adjusting the neckline of her pink cloak.
She moved to the center of the room to face Gorion, straight-backed and chin raised. For a moment, her eyes moved to and lingered on Dorean's face before moving back to Gorion's.
The jar still held loosely in his hand, Dorean looked up at her. The usual bright cheeriness and mischief on her face was gone, replaced with narrow-eyed, resolute determination. Somehow, despite him being nearly twice her height, Dorean thought for a second that Gorion seemed to be shrinking slightly before her.
The old wizard blinked several times and swallowed once before he spoke.
"The journey will not be sa-"
"I am not helpless, Mister G," she said quietly. Her voice was now unlike anything that either man had ever heard from her; low, flat and grim. "I have been training with the Watchers since I was ten. You have seen my skill with a bow."
"...yes. Yes, I have. But, Imoen." Again, he drew out the name. "I cannot promise that you will be safe in our company."
"And what do you want me to promise?" replied Imoen, her eyes flashing in an intense glare. "To stay here and be safe while you take him out there into danger?"
Dorean felt a tightness in his throat. He blinked quickly twice and swallowed involuntarily, tightening his grip on the jar to keep it from falling to the floor.
Gorion lifted his head slightly, his blue eyes meeting Imoen's green.
"I will be with him, Imoen," he said, his voice clear and sombre. "And I will protect him with all my strength. I promise."
Dorean looked at Gorion and then back to Imoen; she had squared her jaw, tightened her grimace further, and balled her hands into fists.
"You know that's not the point."
Her eyes blazed fiercely, and as he glanced at Gorion, it seemed to Dorean that the wizard just barely resisted an urge to step back.
"He's my brother, as much as he's your son." She lifted her chin at him. "I'm coming with you, and that's that."
The moment that passed next felt like the longest one of the entire day. Imoen gazed into Gorion's eyes, her expression and posture unwavering.
Gorion's face fell. He closed his eyes, drew in a deep and slow breath through his nose, filling his chest, and exhaled it through his mouth in a low, audible sigh. He slowly opened his eyes, looking at Imoen.
Dorean blinked and lifted his head, straightening his back as he looked up at Gorion. A strange, warm feeling arose in the dwarf's chest.
"I am sorry, Imoen."
Gorion lifted his hand, and Dorean's feeling instantly imploded. The jar fell from his hand, bouncing off and then landing unbroken on the floor.
In a single second, the old wizard had uttered the words of a spell. Imoen had enough time to widen her eyes in surprise before her eyelids began to close and her head drooped.
In a few quick steps, Gorion crossed the room and caught her by the shoulders as she fell forward, her head coming to rest on his chest.
For a long moment, he held her in a quiet embrace, resting his cheek on her head, then gently picked her up in his arms and carried her to her bed. Carefully, as though she were made of glass, he laid her on it.
After using the index and middle fingers of his right hand to part her hair from her face, Gorion placed his hand gently on her forehead and closed his eyes.
"Tymora bless and smile upon you always, child."
He slowly opened his eyes and leaned back from the bed, turning to face Dorean. Gorion paused, looking at the dwarf.
"She will wake in a few hours," he said gently. "Gather your belongings."
It was only after the wizard had moved to the window and extinguished the candle that Dorean realized why he had dropped the jar.
He looked down to see his left hand gripping the handle of his half-unsheathed knife.
The dwarf blinked slowly, then slowly sheathed and eased his hand from the weapon and turned back to his pack.
..
When Gorion turned away from the window a few minutes later, Dorean had put on his pack and removed the halfling cloak from its hiding place in the wall behind the cupboard.
The old man paused, looking at the dwarf as he put it on and secured the clasp. He blinked away an old memory as the dwarf looked up at him and then nodded. Nodding back, Gorion then crossed the room to the door, opened it and stood in the doorway, his eyes sweeping the library beyond.
He then turned to see that Dorean had crossed the room to Imoen's bed and now stood next to it, looking at the sleeping girl.
After giving him a few seconds, Gorion spoke softly.
"We must go."
Several more seconds passed, the dwarf not moving or turning his gaze from Imoen. Then he quietly drew a small knife from his belt.
Gorion tensed, his eyes widening and hand swiftly moving in the motions of a spell.
Seeming not to notice, Dorean reached over and took two-fingers-and-a-thumb-full of Imoen's hair, furthest from her head and face, and deftly cut it off.
Sheathing his knife, the dwarf tucked the hair into the glove of his right hand, then slowly lowered his hands to his sides, looking at Imoen again.
Gorion released the breath he was holding and lowered his own hand. He watched as Dorean placed the palm of his left hand on the back of Imoen's, gave it a slight squeeze, and then turned to face Gorion.
Without a word to the wizard, Dorean walked past him and out of the room, stopping a few paces away. He stared straight ahead at nothing.
Gorion turned his gaze from the dwarf to Imoen, and then stepped out from the doorway and closed the door behind him.
..
As Gorion led him through the entrance garden and into the outer grounds, Dorean's eyes narrowed at what he saw ahead of them; the castle doors and portcullis of the front gate open and unguarded, and no sign of any Watchers either at the gate or the battlements above. The dwarf's left hand moved to rest on the handle of his knife as he followed the wizard.
Gorion slowed his quick strides to a slow walk as they approached the gateway, stopping underneath the battlements with Dorean close behind him. The wizard went still, only his eyes scanning the area in front of him.
There was a footstep close to their left, and both wizard and dwarf jumped and whirled to face it.
Winthrop stood not a few paces away, a large sack over his right shoulder and Dorean's crossbow in his left hand, the business end pointed at the ground.
Gorion visibly relaxed, lowering his hand. Dorean stayed put, keeping his hand on his knife while relaxing his grip on it.
There was now no sign of the usual joviality on Winthrop's round face; instead, it was inscrutable, displaying no emotion.
Silently, Winthrop placed the sack on the ground, then reached into it with his right hand. He drew out a bag about half the size of Gorion's backpack. Dorean inhaled through his nose and deduced that it was filled with food. He slowly let go of his knife, his hand drifting to his side.
Still saying nothing, the innkeeper held up the small bag to Gorion.
The wizard kept his eyes on Winthrop's face as he reached out and took the bag with one hand. Dorean stared unblinkingly at them, and it seemed to him that a voiceless exchange of words passed between the two men before Winthrop relinquished the bag and Gorion slung it over his shoulder to rest against his backpack.
They looked at each other for a moment longer, neither men blinking nor showing any outward emotion, before Winthrop then picked up the sack and stepped over to Dorean.
As he looked up at the moonlight-silhouetted man, it occurred to Dorean just how big the innkeeper was; he was Gorion's height and nearly twice the wizard's size in terms of girth.
Stopping in front of the dwarf, Winthrop quietly looked down at Dorean's face. After a few seconds, his expression softened. He slowly put down the sack again, drew a quiver of crossbow bolts from it and handed it to Dorean. The dwarf silently took and fastened the quiver to his belt at his left hip.
He looked up slightly as Winthrop handed him the crossbow, and took it in both hands. Noticing the leather sling now attached to it, he slung the weapon onto his back behind his backpack.
He did not look up at Winthrop again, keeping his head down and looking past the innkeeper to Gorion; the old wizard quietly watched them both, and met Dorean's gaze.
For a moment, the only sounds were the coastal wind and waves crashing against the cliffs far below. Then, with only the ghost of a gentle smile on his lips, Winthrop reached out with his hand and very gently patted Dorean on the top of his head. He ruffled the dwarf's hair.
A voice rose in Dorean's mind, very similar to yet not quite his own.
Grab it, bite it, disembowel, stab his face.
He blinked heavily, shutting his eyelids for an entire second before opening them again.
He stayed still and silent, keeping his eyes fixed on Gorion. Another moment passed before Winthrop turned and walked back to Gorion. The wizard looked at his ward for a moment before lifting his head to meet the innkeeper's gaze.
They again exchanged silent nods, and Winthrop took Gorion's thin, long-fingered hand in his own.
"Oghma guide you both," said Winthrop quietly, giving Gorion's hand a single, short shake.
Gorion answered with another quiet nod, released his hand, and then turned to Dorean. "Come, my child," he said gently.
Without a gaze or word to Winthrop, Dorean quietly followed Gorion through the wooden castle doors and out from the outer walls of Candlekeep into the night.
He did not look back.