The first thing Runaan sees when he gets out of the coin is Ethari: crying, smiling, beautiful, sweeping him up into his arms. Runaan’s horn still aches, body sore—the arm that had been bound is impossible to feel quite right, so he’ll gauge it later—but all he feels is relief, and love. Somehow, by all miracles, he’s home, back in the arms of the person he loves. This time, Ethari cups his jaw and kisses him, soft and slow, coaxing him to remember how to be a person no longer bound.
Runaan beams at him, tears in their eyes, when they draw apart. Then, fidgeting beyond Ethari’s left shoulder, is Rayla. Taller than when he last saw her, in silvery Dragon Guard armour, her hair a little shorter, but still the same girl, the same daughter. It’s then that Runaan is able to take in his surroundings. The storm spire. The dragon coming up to Rayla’s waist, spry and young and of the sky. The Dragon Prince, now hatched. King?
Rayla’s face is plain, terror and love shining in her eyes, and Runaan isn’t cruel enough—to himself or to her—to do anything other than rush forward and embrace her. Rayla breaks in his arms and he cups the back of her head. It’s when she’s done crying that Ethari takes his hand, and they sit him down, with food and water in a little tray for him, and explain.
How the war between Xadia and the Pentarchy is over, that Rayla had finished her mission of bringing the egg back to the Dragon Queen. It’s the bare bones, but it’s good catch up all the same, even if they are a million other questions he wants answered (like her parents, they were in the coins too, are they out as well—)
They tell him how they figured out where and what he was imprisoned in, the Dark Mage Viren, and Rayla’s voice catches when she says how they got him out.
“It required two arcanums,” she said, “moon and earth—death and metal—Callum charmed you out. He’s a Mage now.”
The memory of his last free night flashes in his mind. Rayla on the roof with the two princes. Callum, Ezran, go. The older boy had hesitated.
It’s then that the light at the mouth of their cave parts, and that boy—older still now, perhaps by a year—walks in. There’s Skywing runes tattooed on his arms and a steely look in his eyes, but he softens when Rayla looks at him and Ethari smiles, so Runaan’s guard only goes up halfway.
The boy looks at him, not taking a seat, and Runaan looks back, knowing they’re both thinking about the same moment: the shing of his blades when he’d slain the boy’s father.
“Was it quick?” the prince says, voice unreadable, and somehow also surprisingly measured.
Runaan hears what he actually wants to know. Was it painless? Runaan gives a slight nod, his tone stiff. “Yes.”
The boy swallows, as though processing, and then blinks. “That’s all I needed to know.” Then the shift as he turns to Rayla, bends down, and kisses the side of her head as though it’s as easy as breathing. “I’m right here if you need me,” he murmurs, and she smiles and squeezes his hand before he goes again. Possibly to some place on the spire that they both know well.
Runaan adds it to his list of his questions, once he catches Ethari’s warning eye: there will be time for it later.
For now, he leans forward and lets his husband and daughter share what they will, what they think is important.
He’s just glad to be home.
