A Thousand Days of Autumn (Ardent Cashail)
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Her soft boots stepped gingerly over broken crockery as she pushed open the heavy door that lead into the Banshee's Delight within the dark depths of Oscura. She glanced downward to take in the remains of a roughly made clay mug whose only decoration was a single green stripe. She mused inwardly to herself that half the households in Oscura must have similar mugs, borrowed from this establishment. Or delivered, if someone walked past the door during a fight. Mysteriously dark liquid ran in rivulets beneath the door from the wreckage of the mug, it seemed to wish to flow into that mentally howling pit of souls that formed the spine of the deep city.
“Stop dancing about, alley cat. You are late.” The voice to her in a stern elven and her head shot up to take in the man in his darkened chain like one who has emerged from flames. His features were aquiline and his hair as smooth as draped silk, dark eyes narrowed at his dark clad progeny with a look that was always equal parts amusement and annoyance. This one, this girl, was to him the avatar of all his myriad children. Onto her head was poured the full measure of frustration that he felt for them all. This search that was endless was somehow made more endless every time this one came for her visits.
“Forgive me, father. There were these bugbears in Avalon and then cultists in the tunnels and it took two trips to do them in. Just a big mess! But you should have seen Cecil and Albry, they make it look easy.Nice to know my superior officers are well, superior. Cannot figure out what Belia liked about the place! Sure it had trees, but nicer places have trees and aren’t crazy! “ She spoke as she pulled back a chair and arranged herself in it, a collection of inky leathers and every possible type of pouch or pocket known to mankind and some she had jury rigged. He always flustered her and her actions lacked grace, her wrist bumping the tea he had ordered her and making the liquid slosh. He drew in his breath in disapproval of this awkward mess that seemed to be his offspring.
“It is always something.”
“Did you even hear the story? I went to Avalon to aid a knight!”
“And who appointed you some kind of poor man’s hero to go and take care of all it? I shall assume you used goods on others better used for sale or for yourself. Just gave it away as if you were some form of walking charity. Where is my duck?” He set lithe fingers on the table, drumming at the stone until she produced a wooden box with cloak tucked around the inside to prevent the jostling of two plates of wonderfully braised duck bathed in a dark fig sauce. Carrots paid homage, layered about the wonderfully greasy bird with almost magically tender flesh. He set his plate before him, hers before her, and the continued speaking between making short and brutal work of those innocent carrots.
“I just do not understand, Ardent. Where is the reward in your actions? You gain no leadership in society to exert your will and wishes upon others. You gain no wealth to influence anyone of import. You gain no loyal servitors either, your protection relies solely on the generosity of so called friends…” He glanced up at her between bites, watching her carefully cut each carrot into equal portions, several the duck into manageable pieces, and then set into eating.
“Father, I would barely try to justify my lifestyle to you. But if you must have something, my rewards are great. They are not tangible in the....normal sense, but they are great. I have many friends and slowly I gain a place up there. I gain respect!” She munched and lifted a fig to deposit it on his place. He looked at it a moment before removing the precious skin from his duck breast and placing it on hers in turn. These small almost unnoticeable kindness were what passed for familial love between the two.“Tch tch, the young are so naive. Rule or serve, Ardent. You have to decide whether you will shine brightly or just slowly wither under someone else’s canopy.” He leaned back to chew with a more sedate grace and she seemed to wilt under his gaze. Her voice grew quieter as if his mere gaze could sap the life from the young woman.
“Strange to hear you making tree metaphors...” Was her quiet remark before freeing some of the meat from a wing to pop it into her mouth.
“Whatever those snooty bastards think, I am still an elf. They can never take from you that which you won’t give, Ardent! Remember that. But should I continue?” He seemed to grin wide and leaned forward, sensing that had the girl on the ropes.
“If you do not rule your kind, your life is a thousand days of Autumn. You never receive the full measure of sunlight a more dominant plant receives, your water is secondary, your soil shared. Your gains will be few in this competition and while you live, you never thrive. For you are always beholden to THEIR dreams and THEIR wants. Not your own! There is no pointing living like a shriveling maple.” He seemed triumphant with wide predatory smile that seemed to darken rather than lighten his features. Her response caused it to fade, like the shiny remnants of a spell upon the air. She turned her head downward to her duck and took to sullen silence. No argument, no heated indignation, no thrown cup.She ate in silence, thinking of her father in the imagery of nature, the metaphors of trees.A thousand days of autumn, there was no apex to have fallen from. Just a steady slow dying of a relationship that had never known the glorious green of happiness. Steady as the days marched, so the color faded from his leaves and soon they would dry and blow away. She wondered if she would even remember the moments when he was at least red, once this happened. In him she found disappointment.
He leaned back to savor the flavor of the gifted meal and took in his shriveled maple child and in her he saw the steady dissolution of autumn as well. He had given her the brightest future in terms of parentage, her mother the granddaughter of a hero, himself of the finest elven stock. In her he saw the narrow eyed ambitious focus that was his goal and here it was dying on the branch of altruism. Ambition turning and losing it’s malachite to the heady but worthless red of the cloaks worn in Norwick. He wondered if when she was dead, he would remember her at all. In her, he found disappointment.
“I’m going to visit your mother soon, send a gift with me for her..” His voice was almost gentle, gracious in victory.
“I’ll send her bolts of fine yarn and new needles.” She said and waited for his nod of approval before taking a drink of her tea.Thus the pattern continued, willful child and frustrated parent meeting again and again to re enact rituals neither saw much point to much longer. Past knowing why she visited Oscura at all and him past knowing why he stayed. She sought to keep him safe by disallowing him the surface and he kept her safe by respecting this wish. A slow march of fading emotions and kindnesses so small as to be possible to carry away on the winds.
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@5428c00cbc:
"Oh clansmen, oh gods, I am struck when enemy arrow, I am torn by rival sword. Oh clansmen, oh gods, may I see my foe's dark marrow, may I dig hands into his horde." Old Song of the Wounded
Some people mourn with hot tears and heartfelt sobs. Others cling to their loved ones, bringing those they care about close to them for safety. Others seek out the divine for solace and understanding. Ardent had considered and in a sense all of these forms of self consolation, she was assured this was the time of mourning before action, a time to pour out grief and then put on the mantle of responsibility the following day.
She felt it was important to her healing to feed hobgoblins to spiders, cathartic really.
It was not an easy task but the scout tread a careful path through her regular silk draped haunt, fingers holding Horizon's blood stained leather pouch. She whispered her plan to the stone and thought, considering the Silver Valley, it may have been heartily approved. She did not notice the spiders, they did not notice her. How envious she was of them to worry for little more than how to fill their bellies.
@5428c00cbc:
"Can you hear me, voices in the sand? Can you hear me, spirits that haunt this dry land? I am wounded and I am filled with rage, I am robbed and my children sell from a cage.
The lands south, once she had climbed up the rope onto the bluff, nails scrabbling to find purchase in the wet soil, were another matter entirely. Patrolled by hobgoblin scouts that had somehow managed to spot Aranwe as well, she would be forced to cling close to the ground until she had spotted her prey. The waiting had begun.
Within an hour, she saw one of their scouts. He was bullying a goblin who was attempting to wrangle a beetle from blocking the cave entrance. The goblin carried a club and was placing sound thuds onto the beetles hard shell and yammering in the worthless language of goblins. Between blows and yelling, it leaped away each time the beetle tried to turn mandibles upon it in retaliation for the strikes. However, the beetle made just as much indication it would move as it would go into an elaborate dance routine. It stood solidly even when the hobgoblin approached and grabbed the goblin by the neck.
This caused a flurry of what were no doubt goblin begging, curses, more begging, something about the hobs mother, and then finally the goblin began to sob as it was held there. Large fat tears rolled down its greasy filthy cheeks and it pleaded with the hob to release it. The hobgoblin scout, not even close to being able to bully his own kind, laughed with a crack in his voice and held a sword above the goblin's head. In comparison to his fellows, his form was much thinner, his muscles wiry. Scores covered him fore and aft, a sure sign that he was a popular target for bullying among his own. Now he had chance to turn no doubt years of rage on something with little capacity to fight back at all.
@5428c00cbc:
"I sharpen my blades on my pride, I fletch the arrows with the crow's wings. Lo, run to the mountains to hide, Ask the hills to cover you, wretched things. My shield is the broken hide of my brother, my armor is the bones of my father. Beg the ocean over you slide, Cry the sands over you smother."
She watched the goblin receive a beating, the beetle impassive as its mandibles dryly clicked. She had to be somewhat amused but it also gave her an idea, an idea she would tell the rest when she returned. The goblin escaped its captor and ran off in short order, bruises seeming to somehow make it flee faster than it could before. She tossed a pebble off her ledge and then another. The hobgoblin inclined his head upward with a curious expression and approached the ledge where the pebbles dropped off.
Glancing upward, it was not watching it's feet and the spiked wires that were laid along the cliff ensnared it, snapping around him like a vise and digging painfully into his flesh. She had to act quickly now and was along the ledge like a flash, climbing down the old rope and approaching the hob from the rear. She held a dagger and pulled his head back with sharp grab, the hobs mouth opening to give cry when the dagger plunging downward, slicing both vocal cords but otherwise leaving him intact.
"I don't need you calling the alarm." She said quietly and started to haul, still wrapped in trap wire, toward the rope. He coughed and gagged blood and made guttural sounds of pain and protest but she continued, wrapping him in the rope, climbing to the top of the ledge via his shoulder, and then hauling him onto the cliff. He struggled as much as he could, this area was much feared for what lived so close northward. His eyes bugged out, wide with fear as she dragged him along the wet grass and soft soil that clung to the stone around the goblin hold.
@5428c00cbc:
Fill my wounds with the flesh of my hated. Salve my burns with the tears of his loved ones. For I have hunted, achieved the long awaited. I have avenged fathers and sons.
It was difficult and sweaty word, hauling the hobgoblins down the tree without murdering him in the process. Then shoving him into the cleft in the rock, pushing him through with a succession of kicks and bashes with her small shield, cursing his bulk all the while. Then dragged him back up a tree on the other side and to the end of a branch. He was near unconsciousness now from his beating and she tossed him down on the other side of the ravine unceremoniously,. He lay there for a moment, unrestrained, free. He rose swaying with weakness a moment and looking around.
He saw nothing but trees gilded with delicate spider silk, undergrowth that hid shadows, and streams that flowed on from hidden rock clefts to plunge toward the unknown depths below. He gave a guttural grunt of fear and ran back toward the bridge.
He never made it.
She watched the greater white spider that caught him knock him down easily with her long spindly legs and climb over the top of him to sink fangs that briefly shone on the wan daylight sun. He twitched and shuddered and was still even as she wrapped him in silk and began to take him back up the tree. His eyes were left uncovered to the last moment, staring in horror at the tree she hid in. She wondered if he could see her, she waved and smiled just in case.
"Ah Horizon, we have an idea. Their unity cannot hold, but it is bolstered by brief victory in Norwick. We shall have to break them down, coupled with defeating them on the field of battle. They are no more united than random things you shove into a jar. Also, I think the spiders like the taste."
@5428c00cbc:
"Oh clansmen, oh gods, I am struck the enemy with arrow, I have torn him with my sword. Oh clansmen, oh gods, I see my foe's dark marrow, I dig hands into his horde."
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A cold breeze was blowing up the stairs, tracing a path along the stone floor that touched icily at her feet now and then. It likely was tied to someone opening the temple door downstairs in the course of their normal duties but its persistence was like the prodding of some insistent person. Ardent lifted her feet onto the bed and pulled the heavy covers to her waist to continue writing. She had taken her rest in the upstairs of the Temple of Kelemvor, her sleep plagued by foul dreams as of late that made living in the barracks inconvenient for others. Her familiar forest home was not half as comforting when she felt at the mercy of the dark images in her mind.
She remembered the emotion of each dream and how whatever it was she saw inspired a rush of panic within her, an incredible rise in adrenaline that propelled her toward waking. Their content had always become the mists that rest on morning grasses, burning away quickly under the sun. By the time she had wiped the sleep from her eyes, they were gone. She was grateful that it seemed this night she would be alone, no travellers had yet come in to take their solace here. Perhaps with the Hoarans gone it was safe enough to press on toward Peltarch even as the evening sent dark shadows across the pass.
She was writing a letter to Sirion, the page more crossed out words and phrases than finished thoughts. This was not a letter she planned to deliver to him, just a method to organize her thoughts for an eventual conversation. It was slow work, she sometimes cursed the strength of his mind because it made arguments require as much forethought as grand journeys through the Underdark. She set her pencil, a cylinder of soft lead held within a brass holder, onto the rough paper once again to continue writing until a cramp in her left hand forced her to stop to rub her palm.
For a split instant, she could have sworn her left arm was severed. It was a flash, an almost certain view of red draining from the stump near her shoulder that caused her to gasp. Then she looked again and her arm was normal. She flexed her fingers, shaking her head with some disgust at her own childish hallucinations and continued writing. Her eyes grew heavy and the pencil soon left a shiny grey line arcing across the page as she dropped into a slumber, it dropping from her nerveless fingers to clink onto the floor and roll in a lazy half circle beneath the bed. She dreamed.
But she did not know she dreamed.
She sat up, her bedshirt wet along her arm and she looked lazily at it to see the splash of crimson there that made her cry out. She tried to draw away from her own injury, horrified at the missing limb and the carnage that moving the fabric must hold. The bed she sat in was her own in the barracks, a thin slat bunk bed with sleeping figures wrapped in blankets, the sounds of heavy snores filling the air. They did not wake despite her cries and her right hand moved hesitantly to give feather light touches to the the stump of the missing limb, anticipating pain. It was there and her paniced breathing increased as she felt the first shards of needle like pain travel from her shoulder to her brain.
“No, no not my arm, where is it? Where is it?” She looked to the floor and instead of blood saw ribbons of crimson undulating slowly in the dim tight of the torches. Twisted here and there before then joined a trail on the floor. In her dreaming mind, this was not a thing to find unusual, no her hand grasped the ribbons to follow their trail. Even as some part of her mind told her the stump bled at some point it became the ribbons. Her mind accepted this as all dreaming minds accept the laws of the dream world.
Pushing down sobs of pain and fear, she rose from her bunk to gather up handfuls of slender red ribbons as she followed the trail toward the doorway leading outside. She looked back to see that her comrades had not risen from their slumber, as much part of their beds as the frames. She heard the snores but no chests roses and fell, no faces were distinct. They were not individual people, just physical representations of sleeping. She accepted this and headed out into the night air.
The ribbons continued on the rain wet grass, her right hand gathering up handfuls, unable to properly loop them around her arm like a rope because she was minus the other limb. The idea of holding them in her mouth so she could causes nausea, even in her dreaming. Those ribbons were part of her, as irrational as that sounded. Soon she was forced to drop them, unable to grasp the path of them in just one hand and followed them like a tracker follows a trail of footsteps. Pitiful sounds escaped her as she saw the line of ribbons leave the grass for the hard packed road and head down the hill toward the gate.
“They’ll get dirty” She thought with increasing worry and within seconds, she was at the south gate with no memory of the journey down the hill. The ribbons continued onward south and those figures gathered around the fire were as formless and indistinct as those she saw in the barracks. They talked but she heard no words, a steady hum of speech that meant nothing. She continued outward barefoot and she was in the graveyard. That kind of skip travel of dreams and as her feet sunk into the mud near the stream, she realized she had no weapon. It was that same moment one of the numerous skeletons that wander this dreary place turned to face her. Empty dark sockets that seemed to drink in the line and let none escape and a slow parting of dry teeth to bring forth a deathly gasp. She froze there, staring at the battleaxe that swung lazily at the end of its bony arm and then turned to flee along the path of ribbons.
It pursued her with shocking speed as she headed southward, giving a piercing shriek to inform it’s comrades of her passing. Her feet splashed in the cold stream, slipped on the grass, and banged painfully against long forgotten gravestones jutting up from the cursed ground like rotted teeth. The pain was immediate and fierce did not linger and she saw her path her ribbons lead into the pile of rubble that defined the entrance of the worst of the crypts. In an instant she was there, staring at the cursed door that emanated evil energies. They poured over it like a skin, pulsing and twisting in place. Her ribbons lead the hallway and to the right and a voice at the back of her mind reminded her she was sans weapon, sans armor, even sans her arm.She ignored it in a kind of blind persistence to recover her lost limb.
This place where all horrors seemingly ended up, as if the weight of evil carried it downward through the ground to gather at the lowest point. She did not remember the journey save for flashes of familiar foes, rotting Norwick guard in a mockery of their former duties, zombies whose rotting flesh caused the very air to waver, skeletons with some tie to their lives as users of the arcane. All these evils she somehow was able to escape in her dogged pursuit of her wounded and forgotten limb. They were as much scenery as the shapes by the fire, there to reinforce her geographic location. Even her fear of them subsided as she followed the crimson path, her goal was further on and down the stairs.
She felt she was gaining her goal and quickened her step, finally coming upon the limb in a chest high pile of ribbons. She waded into the surprisingly strong strips of fabric trying to dig out her limb with a hand came forth from the shining red depths to grasp her right arm.
“Why did you leave us here?”
“You abandoned us”
“Where did you go?”
The voices came forth from the ribbon pile which faded until two corpses lying upon the ground there, rotted with threadbare clothes lying upon half chewed bodies. Their eyeless faces and hanging jaws exposed darkness and she drew back in horror as they reached for her.
“Your duty!”“Why did you not take us with you.” She stepped backward and felt hands on her ankles and calves to see them behind her now. She screamed and drew to the wall to slide downward, unable to explain herself in her panic.
“You failed us, you shall be like us now, forgotten in the dark.” She tried to fend off their grasping hands and awoke suddenly to the cold dark air of the upstairs of the temple. She cried out pitifully and curled up on the bed, rubbing at her left arm to ensure all of it was there. She remembered the dream vividly and it made sense. Those two corpses she had left in the crypt when she travelled through it to the Underdark, she had not gone back to get them. She could not traverse that land in safety alone, it had been her justification. She could not ask others to do her religious duty by going with her, her secondary justification. Neither stood up, even in her own mind. She had to go get them or would not know what a restful night was for however long it took to assuage her own guilt. She rose wearily, dressing in the darkness with the same insistence to follow a path that lead her after her own arm.
She had to bring them home.
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Leaves drifted, carried on unseen winds and going loops and whorls around the tree until falling to rest upon piles of their fellows. Everywhere she looked, the leaves dropped in a slow dance in the brilliance of fire captured in a painters palette. She felt one brush her dark hair and reached up with a quick snap of her hand to bring it slowly before her face.
It was a strange concept to her, for something to attain it's greatest beauty in dying. These leaves had been cut off from their parent tree, cut off from nourishment and purpose, and the wind had cast them aside. But they were so brilliantly shaded all the same, seemingly celebrating obsolescence. She bit the leaf, just to feel the bitter oaky flavor on her mouth then realized she felt silly with a leaf hanging from her lips and spit it out. The bitter taste lingered.
She had been sitting here, sans armor and weapon, for a quarter hour. She dearly had to get out of here but an obstacle prevented her from fleeing northward toward the shelter of her tree. That obstacle was a very large spider, body fit to burst with a load of hungry offspring. She had been mushroom hunting, the image of rich brown broths having blinded her from how south she wandered in her hunt. Now she was half buried beneath a pile of fall leaves and the spider clearly knew something was awry. That awry being her.
She watched it move back and forth, extending delicate leg tips into the spaces between trees, poking into leaf piles as eight eyes reflected back the glories of autumn. Seemingly furred pedipalps quivered with anticipation of a meal as it picked a path around where it had heard her moving. She did not move, ink dark eyes never faltering from the creature's elegant movements, despite it's greater weight than its fellows. She could not help admire it, but not enough to move and be eaten.
It turned its considerable bulk around so she could see the spinnerets at it's rear, a thread visible that stretched upward into the canopy, easy to retract in case of danger. Normally. At this moment she had considerable doubts it could do so. As it turned, she reached a hand into a battered leather waist pack and withdrew an apple. She palmed the apple, rolling it in her fingers and looking deeper into the forest. She shot an arm out and tossed it as far as she could, it hitting the leaf piles loudly with a crack of stick and a rustle. The spider turned and sped toward that direction as she rose, a flurry of red and gold conspicuous against her drab brown clothing, and ran off south.
She heard movement behind her and did not turn, dodging and darting between the trees with a basket over one arm, round soft mushrooms jostling one another as her booted feet pounded the ground. She ran until the air burned her lungs and light began to lance through the thinning canopy. She jumped a stream and disturbed a badger who had dug out a frog and felt the underbrush tugging at her tunic and scraping her wrist. Only when she was back at her tree did she turned to see…nothing. She dropped the basket in relief and pushed her hair back, reaching up to remove the leather tie and retie it, she never got the chance.
The bite hurt, it sunk into the flesh of her wrist with two largefangs that pierced skin and muscle, bypassing the two slender bones of her arm. The pain was a white hot shot up her arm and she cried out, ripping her limb free to look upward. In her tree was not the fattened creature she had fled from, this was smaller. But likely the same kind of spider, brown body and fairly large. She hugged her injured limb to her chest, blood dripping onto her fabric as the creature began to descend the tree, coming to stand firmly over the stone she hid her gear beneath, tucked away safe in a hole.
She tried to think what she had on her to defend herself. Her free hand patted her waist pack and pockets, over her shirt, until she found a single knife. The Cursed Bandit dagger she had as long as she could remember, at least since she came to these lands. It was not much, but it was better than nothing. She withdrew it from her shirt and eyed the spider as they began to attempt to circle one another. It brought up a leg to slash downward at her and she dodged it, darting her head to the side at the last moment. She slashed inward in a vicious lateral arc meant to remove a line of eyes and it backed away in time.
They went back and forth, the spider finding it's would be prey quicker than it had hoped and fact it's fangs pierced her arm clean through prevented the venom from taking hold. She found this spider more challenging than his fellows, many of which she could dispatch with an errant arrow shot lazily. She was considering running again when the badger she had disturbed decided to forgo the higher path to instead seek vengeance. Searching amidst all the bitter and vainglorious races in Faerun, many would be hard pressed to find someone more inclined to revenge than the humble badger. It found it's path blocked by the spider and was not disheartened in the least, sinking fangs into a leg sheathed in tough exoskeleton and piercing it to release a spray of greenish fluid.
The spider shrieked and turned to this new threat in time for her to sink dagger into the approximate location of the head to the hilt. It shivered, a full body convulsion that vibrated up the length of the blade so she felt it's death through her arm. Then it's limbs curled up on itself, a neat bundle of dead arachnid, and it died. The badger shrieked and charged over the corpse for her, fat furred body flowing over the rounded carapace of the felled monster.
"Oh come on!" She called out, one of the few times in the last few weeks in this isolation she had spoken at all. A self imposed exile out of shame and frustration. She stepped back, bloodied arm dripping freely a path of crimson to seemingly coordinate with the leaf fall. She did not wish to kill the badger, they were almost inedible, but she saw little other choice. She jumped over it the next time it tried to bite at her calf and reached down to grab a handful of the fur of it's back, a thick layer of winter fat beneath the skin giving her much to grip onto. She hefted it upward, keeping claws and teeth clear of her body, and spun in a circle once before releasing the badger to sail over the nearest stream and into the foggy depths of the woods.
She heard it land some ways away with an angered chitter and sighed, leaving it up to the badger to return or give up the chase. She looked down at her hand and before grabbing a handful of bandages from her hole in the ground, checked the surrounding trees carefully for more. It seemed clear now and she sunk against the trunk to wrap her wounded limb. She thought ruefully that if she was with her fellows, Therean would pray over this for a mere second and it would be gone. Or Vic would hit her with that incredibly powerful healing prayer and she would forget she ever had it. And be blind for ten minutes.
She missed them, all of them. However, whenever she moved to leave this forest, she could only think of bugbears. Multitudes of bugbears. So many they swarmed over the hills and blackened the landscape, destroying everything in their path until there were only howls and flashing blades. Then she would retreat and curl up for a few hours until it passed. out there, passed the treeline, she had left so much undone and unfinished. Dead Kelemvorites called to her from the ground, political intrigue, the protection of Norwick, friends and loved ones. It was too much and she retreated here where life was simple and there was no one. No one relief on her, no one asked her to do anything. No on did...anything. She missed them, all of them.
The brown mushroom broth later that evening helped some, the mushrooms bobbing up from the depths and joined late season squash to make her dinner. She had enough provisions to carry her some time, she had the squirrel's proclivities to horde food even before this. She sipped and thought of Sirion, he would have enjoyed this meatless meal. Another thing she had run away from. She had to go back, the weight of responsibility and duty loomed above her like the spider did.
Just not yet.
-
“It isn’t like he is going to kill his own children.” Ardent assured Sirion as she pulled her Nighthawk cloak and stuffed it into her bag. She could tell from his expression that he was incredulous of her words and leaned in to kiss his cheek.
“Are you trying to tell me not to worry?” There was something else there in his words but she couldn’t place it. She had the distinctive feeling that he carefully choosing his words. More so than normal and she thought perhaps she should inquire but she was running late. So she left him there and hopped out into the rain to feel it run down her bare arms and make her hair feel heavy. She did not bother with walking leisurely and broke into a run that pounded her boots through puddles and sent her skidding around a corner. She caught herself before going sideways into the mud and realized she was going to miss the boat.
“No!” She cried out as if that would change anything and sprinted with arms waving for them to wait for her, to wait to take her on that same dark trek into the deep. She ended up tossing coins at the boatman and jumping aboard, running into another woman who looked less than pleased with the arrangement. Ardent caught her breath as they pulled away, fingers combing through an inky mane of hair.
“Sorry!” She did not glance to see if her apology was accepted, Ardent was becoming more fearless with time. Danger was far away when one went on trips to battle trolls for fun. A sense of mortality did not hang over her head, she embraced risk as recreation. She was not alone, her friends seemed to have the same mindset. The frequent humor between the elves on trips served to bring a sense of everyday to the Underdark. She thought back, gloved hands on the worn wood of the ship’s railing, on the time they talked about Jin’s romantic life while killing umber hulks. Or debated tactics while wading through the fish people. They were a step above.
She entered Oscura with a sense of immortality and a bright smile on her face, waving to a few familiar faces now. She could never call this hole in the ground home but she was starting to think its foul reputation was largely undeserved. Sure there was slavery, that was bad. She remembered as she passed the pen of slaves. There was also a temple with sections dedicated to Shar, Mask, and Bane, there was that. Also, the pit that screamed into her mind. Well, alright maybe it was evil. However, it was not actively trying to eat her so she could cope for the moment. At least long enough to meet the errant architect of her creation.
She met him before look and from his dark expression, she was in serious trouble. His nearly black eyes caught her own on the slick stone ramp upward from the docks into the city and he reached out to grab her roughly by the wrist.
“I sent that whispering wind spell HOURS ago! What you think I have all damn day to wait around for you to grace me with your presence? You are certainly high on the horse now to come when you damn well please!” She struggled against his grip, caught by surprise and was towed to the top of the hill before he released her.
“I was in the middle of hordes of fish people with Sirion! What, I’m going to just tell him to handle that himself because you called for me? You know I am busy sometimes!” She rubbed her wrist ruefully and glanced around toward the miserable lot gathered around their molded tents and worn lean-to’s watching the pair. She turned back to him and he was shaking his head in disgust.
“When I go through the trouble of getting a wizard to call for you, you come here. You drop whatever the hell you are doing because this is important. Don’t start thinking just because you have some title in a barbarian backwater I am going to be beholden to you, girl!” His ferocity surprised even her and she turned on her heel to head back toward the docks.
“Take your temper out on someone else. This was a big waste of my time.” She grumbled under her breath about the waste of thirty coin but was unwilling to push past him to take the cave route toward the ridge.
“Eager is dead. They executed him.” She stopped because the words made no sense. She understood their individual meaning but not how they connected to one another. Because they did not belong in the same sentence, their meaning could not be even considered. Eager was healthy and well with a wife and daughter. He lived in Thay and helped transport goods from Surthay to Eltabbar on the river. None of those words made any sense to her and she turned to look up at him at the top of the slope.
“What?” Her face was filled with confusion and he nodded to her, crossing his arms over his chest with a kind of satisfaction to his face.“You still want to stomp off like a little child? Hm? Your life so important?” She ignored his jibes and walked back up to stand with him. He continued speaking, his voice dry and passionless as he glanced around once to the denizens of the dark city passing to and fro in the shadowy distance.
“He was helping Rashemi slaves escape by taking them from Eltabbar to Lake Mulsantir where he would hand them off to their own people. He got caught and they beheaded him. Kaila sent me word as soon as I found out and I went to stop her from doing something stupid, she was always hot headed especially about that boy…” He spoke blandly as if he was describing someone stealing a horse. Ardent looked like someone could have knocked her over with a puff of breath, tears clouding her vision as the words burrowed their way through her ears.
“No, not Eager! I mean...is she sure?!”
“I think she would know if her own son was executed.” He returned quickly and Ardent placed her hand over her face, sob escaping her throat. It was such a change of emotion, it was like getting the bends. The realization that her half brother, the only one she had spent any kind of considerable time with, was gone. Eager her friend, her comrade in arms, her fellow mischief maker. She could see him with his haphazardly chopped reddish hair and his bright symbol of Tymora swinging about his neck. That horrible set of leathers he would not part with no matter how cracked or worn it got. It was more holes than leather and he would tell you a million times he took it from a river pirate that hoped to get the drop on him.
“Did you....did you find his body....can...ca...can we raise him? I have coin!” Her hand went shaking to the coin purse at her belt, the leather shiny with much handling.
“They are not going to give back that body, even for burial. You think they want their criminals hopping up to bedevil them another day?”
“Eager was not a criminal!” The anger in her voice echoed off the cave walls and he took a step back.“I got news for you, Ardie, he was. Slavery is legal there and he stealing property. Stupid about it too because if someone is ever going to know where their property ended up, it will be a wizard.” He sighed at the thought of it and in a distant area in his mind he realized this was escalating quickly as her emotions rose. He looked around for some quiet place to drag her to prevent her from making a scene.
“My brother isn’t....wasn’t stupid! Slavery is wrong and I’m sure Eager was just doing what he felt was right! You didn’t even try did you! You didn’t try to get him back! They can be bribed, they are all corrupt! He was your son!” He grabbed her shoulder as her words came out between sobbing, her cheeks shiny with tears now. She struggled against him and he grabbed her other shoulder to turn her to face him, his words escaping between clenched teeth.
“You are making a fool of yourself and not in a good place. Slavery is legal here too you know. Just calm down, this isn’t going to bring him back.” He reached into a pocket for a handkerchief and wiped her face, speaking quietly.
“Your brother is gone, his wife and his daughter are safe in Rashemon. He had a feeling obviously they were onto him and sent them across the lake to hide. There is nothing else that can be done. Your brother obviously knew how dangerous this was and everything catches up with you eventually. You have to pay the piper and Eager paid the piper for his deeds. I know it hurts to lose him but don’t do anything stupid. I had to go stop Kaila from the same thing. Aren’t you a Kelemvorite?” Her head shot up with red shot eyes and she grabbed the handkerchief from his hands with a surprisingly quick motion then blew her nose, tears flowing down to take the place of those wiped away.
“It was not his natural death! He was killed. Murdered. He isn’t even buried. He was thirty, few half elves naturally die at thirty. Of course I am angry and of course I am going to show it. He was my brother and those bastards ...murdered him. May their slaves slit their throats and show them what a real red robe looks like. Oh Eager...” She shook her head angrily and looked around at the dark city with scorn.
“Ardent...” He shook his head and took her shoulders and hugged the angry half elf to him and set his hand on her hair.
“Of course it affects me to lose him. He was my son, even if he was never going to do anything with the life given him. Eager just never took anything seriously. Don’t make that same mistake, everything is not a game. Life has consequences, few people survive being a hero. Sometimes you have to look out for yourself first and let other people carry the damn banner. I don’t want to lose anymore children and if anyone would ever go the same foolish path Eager did, it would be you. Just....take this as a lesson. “ She did not respond to him and he felt the tension in her back, she was seething. It would pass. He looked at the rolled parcel of letters protruding from her pack and took them before releasing her. She looked a mess with red rimmed eyes and a miserable expression. She had no words and that expression broke the hardness of his own.
“Come on, let me get you some tea. You are no condition to go back up top, end up getting mugged and you won’t know or care. Eager was a good boy. He really was. He will be missed amongst all of us.”
“I want my brother back, dad...” Her voice sounded weak but she was walked along with him, using that rare term for him.
“I know, I know, we all do. Just learn from this, Ardie. Don’t do the same damn thing.”
-
It was finally spring with shards of brilliant green pushing upward from the disintegrating carpet of dead leaves and violets peeked from the shadows beneath tall trees. Sunlight that had been wan and half hearted now shone buttery bright upon branches speckled with buds. The wind still whistled over the town of Norwick but it’s chill seemed a final threat that could not be carried out. Winter was over. Ardent was ready for spring, she was dressed for spring cleaning. She addressed this task with as much seriousness as she addressed a trip to Mintas. She tied her headscarf around her long hair, she tied up her fluffy work shirt sleeves, and she smoothed her rough brown trousers that ended at her knee. Her boots were old and worn, a set that had seen many miles and the leather was so loose with time to have to be strapped around the ankle to keep them from abandoning her feet altogether.
A day could not be wasted, not for Ardent. Her grasp of death and life and the fragile gauze barrier than separated them infused her with an urgency to achieve those tasks that came with the turning of the season. It gave her a desperation to do what she never had done before, she stole something. A rake, to be exact. It had been leaning on the shrine of Chauntea and she had stalked up to it, circled it several times on a nonchalant stroll, and then snatched it go running off north like a mad woman with a rake over her head.
“Mine now, suckers!” She laughed at her own antics, the best kind of audience was oneself after all. She knew that she could easily buy a hundred rakes but there was something satisfying about a stolen rake, a kind of naughtiness that made her chore more bearable. Cleaning up the leaves around her tree was domestic but cleaning up the leaves with a stolen rake made it clandestine in some small sense. She did not make it far, a stones throw past the Grapevine when the guilt set in.
How would Ashena see such an act? She would disapprove very sharply and give Ardent a very reproachful look. Locrian would throw her in the clink for good measure. How would the elves react to a petty rake thief in their midst? Especially one who stole from the shrine of Chauntea, the goddess of all things simply happy like warm buttered toast. Even Jin would look down on such petty thievery. She sighed and turned, dragging the rake to form a furrow in the dirt of the road before leaning it against the shrine. She eyed it a moment with her own reproach.
“Who leaves tools out where they can just be stolen? It is their own fault really? What if someone else steals it?” She thought sighing and lifted the rake and walked to the door of the shrine, pushing it open to balance it against the wall, the dirt encrusted iron head leaning on the muddy mat therein. She closed the door quietly and started north, feeling more the tool than that rake at the moment. Had she really become this civilized? It seemed a great tragedy for a half elf to take on such an air of respectability. Also, she needed a rake!
She headed north with a song on her lips, skipping in a large circle around the pond near the north gate. The song she sang was one she had heard randomly while leaving the Mermaid, she did not know half the words and interchanged words in Damarran and Alzhedo whenever the mood took her. She looked much younger without her dark armor, she looked smaller and seemingly stripped of some portion of what she felt was her identity. Long ago, Yng’dir had told her to not make friends but make allies and it seemed to frame her perception of those around her. She treated people well but she wished to be valued for more than friendship. Not the loopy feather headed nature of romance either, she wished to be valued outside of her personality. She wished to be tactically useful. It ate at her constantly, how to improve her use to a group. Carry more balms for their wounds, potions for their needs, arrows, food, and every magical oddity she could come across for any possible contingency. It made for a heavy backpack!
She took compliments and reproach to heart in unequal measure. Compliments flowed off like the water of duck feathers and the corrections lived in her heart like eternal houseguests. They kept her awake at night in her bunk, lying curled on her side memorizing the patterns in Locrian’s door. She could have done this, she could have done that. Her recent death weighed heavily on her, she felt guilt for falling so easy. Even more guilt for the trip being cancelled upon her fall. Even more for not being able to contribute as fully as she once did. Even now as she wandered northward toward the crossroads she examined the most recent hunt into the ogre cave. She should have stayed behind the group and gone over the bridge last, so as to let those who had to wander without the luxury of being unseen sprint across. Beside this, she was unable to see any other failings in her conduct. For now.
She always liked to run the valley, just set fingers to the packed earth and then sprint for the far side of it. She set off, feet eating away the steps below them as her arms pumped at her sides. She leaped over puddles and carefully avoided the wagon ruts in the path that could easily cause her to turn an ankle. She smiled like a maniac the whole time before reaching the far edge of the valley and slowing to catch her breath. Sweat dripped off her chin and she wiped her face on her sleeve. Once she could breath normally again, she continued to sing, the great pit that was once a hill falling off sharply before her.
“Foggy sunsets are the best, walking backwards heading west…through a valley without a clue which paths lead me to you...” She would not be taking the bridge north today and jogged into the woods, darting around trees like a sparrow to set boots onto the soft leaf fall of the gypsy cliffs, grey granite that rose around her with light lancing through the trees. She heard a riotous concert of birds above her and she could not help but smile. This was life and it was self renewing. Reliable.
She soon found her tree, the stream high for this time of year and the ground was boggy. It was heaped to her waste in leaf fall, fallen branches, and the molted outer skin of a spider. She would have no rake, damn her morality, and she grabbed the molted spider skin and began to drag it toward the crevasse. it was easily the side of a sheep, mottled greens and browns marking it as the venomous variety she so disliked, and water had flowed into the empty spaces of the exoskeleton rendering it very heavy. She struggled and tugged, dragging it when a badger burst from his burrow to bare teeth at her for trespassing too closely.
“Oh bark up another tree, forest rat!” She bared teeth in return and there was a moment of mutual threatening gestures on both sides before the badger charged her. She jumped out of the way, rolling in the wet leaves and coming up to see the badger not letting up in his ire. Or hers. She could never tell. She came up and drew her left leg back and caught the beast in one fat side with the side of her foot to toss the angered beast a good ten feet away from her position. It landed with a thump and rolled over quickly to bare teeth at her before wandering off toward it’s burrow. She caught her breath and grabbed the carcass of the arachnid to continue tugging it toward the edge where she left it fall into the blackness.
“Enjoy, drow! Hope it lands on your head and squishes ya flat!” She called downward with impunity brought on by being a foolish youth and dusted her hands. She turned and stretched, it felt good to work. It always did, it felt good to set into a pile of sheets needing to be washed at the Temple of Kelemvor, it felt good to unleash a torrent of arrows into a hook horror, it felt good to toss spider carcasses off a cliff. It felt good to just be. Even if she wished to just be with Sirion around to share it. Except maybe not now, she did not see him the cleaning around a tree type. They had separate lives and she could respect this. She knew that so many aspects of her life could not have interested him less. Elves saw the world differently, big picture people. She just did not have the same grasp on time to live for the long view. She loved the little things, the insignificant events, the small happenings.
She missed him all the same, grinning like some form of continual idiot spell as she gathered up armfuls of wet leaves and tossed them over the edge to dance in the air before disappearing into the black. She made it rain onto the depths that had no forests or rain. It made the work go easier, thinking about their time together. Seeing him tactically important warmed her heart, it was the same way she judged herself. When they could both be useful, necessary, indispensable, then she would think they had finally made it. She tossed a large branch into the crevasse and wondered if perhaps that left them lacking in the softer times of life. But when would there be times for those? When would be a time for peace?
“Not in my lifetime!” She commented to a deer that had emerged from the spring fog to lap at the stream. It heard her and froze a moment before retreating swiftly the way it had come leaving no trace that it had ever been there at all. She looked to the tree, the trunk darkened but visible, the scars in the trunk where she had tied an awning, year after year. It was not much of a home, more of an oasis amidst the great craziness of the world. It held a hammock and those things she did not mind if they were stolen. She pulled the stained and worn canvas awning from within the trunk of the tree and roped it between the trees to form a shade and then hung her hammock.
As she settled in to relax and swing back and forth slowly her eyes focused upward on the tree branches ready to burst forth with leaves and she saw something odd. It was a rake. The rake from the barracks that she had borrowed last year and subsequently lost.
“I guess it is not stealing if you give it back.”
-
A cold winter wind whistled through bare branches and swayed the canopy with a rustle of branches. It filled the forest with sound and dropped a few dry grey leaves onto the cold ground white with morning frost. Everything made sounds in winter, the crunching of a boot breaking glass delicate ice into thin white shards like porcelain, the creaking of trees amidst their winter sleep, the endless wind bearing downward from the Giantspires. Ardent gazed upward to watch the sway of the canopy, the roaring drawing her attention from the vines before her, albeit briefly.
She soon turned her attention back to the task at hand, adjusting her thick leather gloves, lined with rabbit fur, on each hand and grasping a vine whose summer green luster faded beneath the winter chill. She grasped for a handhold and then a second, digging her soft leather boots into the face of the stone wall when a voice broke her concentration behind her. She dropped with a soft thump and turned to face the speaker with a bowstring pulled taut and arrowhead shining in the weak winter light.
“Where the hell are you going?” The voice came to her harshly and she dropped the bow once recognizing the face behind it. She groaned and leaned on the cold wall in frustration, the stone emanating winter but she was too stubborn to hop away and held the pose despite it seeping past her armor.
“I am scouting” Her annoyance echoed within her helm, the sharply curved stone encircling her face with shapes like the claws of an animal of the pincers of an insect. Black and silver, a kind of wicked barrier to hide her face. Her father stood opposite her, his chain as grey and colorless as everything else save for the splashes of green from the dyes layered over the metal. He looked like grass that had wintered over, appropriate for the scenery. Beneath it he wore a grey sweater that added bulk that his elven frame could not. Gloves covered his hands and a scarf sat around his neck, he did not deal with the cold weather with as much boldness as someone like Cecil or Shallyah.
“In the heart of the Gnoll lands? Along clif fsides sheathed in ice ready to send you a quick trip into the caves below? This is not anywhere near Norwick, who is sending you to scout here? What good could it possibly serve?” His questions shot rapid fire and she realized she would not be going anywhere anytime soon and pulled her helm off to puff out an annoyed exhale.
“It is a hobby of mine, no one is sending me. You know what, I don’t have time for this! You are supposed to be in Oscura anyway!” She was aware he walked the surface world easily now and her previous anger had given way to a kind of dull annoyance that raised a headache at her temples. She knew she would not be climbing the vines with him around, that was for certain. No potion she possessed would hide him the entire trip and even the scrolls would make the trip halfway at best. She could leave him here but was the lecture worth it later. She considered with a characteristic dark humor that for once being eaten by gnolls seemed preferable to something else.
“You clearly wish some manner of argument, I will not give in.” He said blandly and the heat rose in her face as she wished to yell at him. He clearly had wished the argument, coming at her like this. He was being manipulative by turning it around and she grasped for some manner of response to put him into his place. He held out the cup of tea to her held in a cup with a clay lid and wrapped in wool. She took it in silence and sipped at it as she slowly pulled away from the wall of cold grey stone.
She followed him, hopping the fence, and continuing toward the burning fires that cast the center of the camp in a glow of orange and welcoming yellow like the sun rising from the leaf littered ground. She sipped the tea, the steam warming her face, as she cut a nearly silent path beside the heavier impact of his boots. She glanced over to see him doing the same, the rich scent of mint tea swirling around them.
“How is life?” He finally asked, his voice quiet as he looked into the flames of the bonfire.
“Decent. Arlan, my commanding officer, came back from wandering from one end of Faerun to the other, he says. I showed him the spider pass I found, I guess in my mind he had become more pleasant, so it was a little disappointing to see him. Snarky as hell so it wasn’t as satisfying as I hoped.” She bobbed her head back and forth once, remembering the let down.
“They let him keep his position despite being going so long? Norwick is very complacent. You went nuts for three months and they still let you become a scout, so perhaps that is the way of things. I figure Scout is a fairly hard position to fill there. Beggars cannot be choosers.” She frowned at his words and shook her head.
“Don’t knock it until you are willing to do it. I’ve hung my ass out plenty of times, walking into dangerous situations knowing full well how little would be left of me. Arlan is good at his job, just has a chip on his shoulder you could mine gold out of it.” She found her teacup empty and gave it a kind of sad look, as if her expression could melt the heart of some spirit of mint tea and cause it to send more.Instead it caused her father to pour the rest of his in her cup with a defeated sigh.
“You seem proud of being a reckless idiot.” She actually grinned and nodded to his words, glancing over before speaking as her face took on a devil may care quality. Narrowed eyes and a toothy grin with her head leaning to the side to look all of lazy effortlessness.
“There is something to be said to being out farther onto the precipice than everyone else. To go deeper in the cave, farther in the wood, and closer to the beast. Makaio likes to watch the gnolls. He just stands still and watches them go about their everyday and they have no idea he is there. I love doing that too, just standing there as they move within inches of me. I could reach out and touch them, snap their neck, put a forest of arrows into their backs, and I do not. I just watch.”
“So it is power?” She nodded and finished the rest of the tea and swung the last few drops over the blazing fire. He watched her steady hand a moment and found it somewhat humbling how far this awkward child had come and he had not noticed before now. It worried him to have one more powerful than him, one that he perhaps could not stop if they moved against him. It set his heart to practice harder, find more allies, and otherwise even the field against this child. This one who could watch him and he would not know and perhaps fill his back with a forest of arrows. He knew his saving grace was the fact she still was a child with all the softness and foolishness of one.
“Beside being a spider, how is life?” He asked again, sincerely kicking himself for handing over his tea. He had as much right to a full cup of tea as her, more so since he had not chosen to come out to this frigid hellhole. She bobbed her head back and forth.
“Good. My friends are safe and alive. Sirion and I are doing alright, we continue our days in familiar comfortable paces. His presence is appreciated on hunts now, even without me there he is civil. I am very proud of him for this, it makes me happy to see division closed. I’m still not sure if they will let me be a Sha, elves take forever. Yng’dir is back! Ah, I ran into him and I was so happy. He is the best walk of the woods I’ve ever run into. He aided me greatly when I moved here. Doesn’t talk much but is good and does not falter or retreat.”
“Sounds like an idiot. How is he still alive?” He remarked with amusement and she scowled at him, the wish to defend those she held dear rising in her. He continuing realizing what affect his words had on her.
“You see out people like yourself, reckless idiots. Here I had hope for grandchildren, aw well.” He remarked with a click of his teeth and tossed the cup into the fire to shatter the cheap slay, the shards silhouetted black there a moment as the residual liquid rose as vapor.
“Well, if you are as good of a grandfather as a father, I am doing them a favor by dying young. “ She finally figured out something to shoot back and he scowled at her.
“Go to your gnolls, impudent spider hatchling. I’ve had enough of your willfulness for this visit. Why I have to do this is beyond me..” He remarked as he walked away leaving her expression as one of disbelief. She wanted to tell after him he had followed her, not vice-versa, but instead rolled her eyes and headed back to the vines to make short work of the climb. The wind continued to blow through the treetops, promising snow and ice. The shallow puddles offered dull ice that had neither the beauty of snow or the glimmer of water. The world seemed locked in a dreary nonexistence that made spring seem a thousand days away.
-
The gloomy Oscuran caves were cooler than the heady summer air of the ridge and Ardent was grateful for the break. She lifted her gourd canteen to upend it over her head, pouring the disappointingly warm water to pour down her hair and face. The chill wind of the large ceiling cavern caught her skin within moments which brought a smile to her face. Then she realized she would look like a drowned rat and dropped the gourd with a clunk to search her bag for a comb.
“Crud!” She pawed through trap wire, clinking bottles of potions, past tightly rolled scrolls with handmade labels hanging on loops of string, and a collection of rings strung like gems upon a cheap chain. Memories of a thousand excursions muddled into that heavily patched leather backpack. Memories of easy victory mingled with near death experiences and running through those like a thread of gold in a tapestry were the memory of stalwart allies who had stood at her side.
At the bottom of one of the pockets she found the well worn ivory comb, the top formed into the carving of a peacock, yellowed with age and use. She ran it hastily through to restore some semblance of dignity and adulthood to her appearance. As she did, she heard a foot crunch on gravel behind her and turned on her heel with surprising speed. Perhaps some traveler came in through the cave after her but it could just as easily be some enterprising fish person wishing to revenge upon her for the spilled blood of his kin. In a way she hoped it was, she really needed the coin. What she saw made her more alarmed than any fish people, more alarmed than a dozen fish people out for warm red blood.
“Father? What are you doing ..did you go up top?” She asked in an accusatory tone to the dark clad elf. Inverness carried dead rabbits with their feet tied together, hung on a loop of hemp rope over one shoulder. He carried it easily and standing he had half a foot on his progeny. His eyes narrowed to her accusation and he gave a world weary sigh much practiced to elicit reaction from her.
“I’m an elf, Ardent. I cannot lurk down here like a mushroom. I just went for rabbits, am I so untrustworthy?” He countered quickly and looked past her to the long foreboding bridge with its many wrought iron gates that lead into Oscura. He looked back to the cave from whence he emerged and turned on his heel, much to the chagrin of Ardent. She yelled after him, her voice filled with indignation and could not see the smile break his features as his feet traversed the sand and snakes. He had no need to turn back because he knew she would follow as certain as the sun rose in the east.
She wished to put an arrow to him. The expanse of his dark clad back mocked her to do so, to sink arrowhead skillfully between links and send him forward to his knees. She could picture it in her mind right down to the swing of the strung up rabbits as they were thrown to the ground. The second arrow almost as quickly as the first, striking nearer to the center to sever between the vertebrae. It was no wistful fantasy, she did this all the time. How many fish people corpses held the distinctive arrow patterning over her hide to distinguish her from Jin or Romulus? Sirion had offered, less than helpfully, that she kill her would be tyrant father and she had recoiled from the idea. She wondered if she recoiled from the idea or from the outward appearance of approval of such an idea. She sighed and headed after him, bow safely slung upon her back.
The day was clear with far off clouds lumbering across the sky, too thin and wispy to provide rain to break the heat. They were mocking in that they gifted this land with neither rain nor shaded the sun before for lands beyond the borders here. Inverness shielded his eyes from the sun before stepping out from the cave and walked about to climb the hill and sit above the cave. She emerged moments later to see him wielding a short flat blade and froze in place before he reached for a rabbit to begin the process of cleaning and skinning it. She scrambled up after him and stood looking down on him for a long time.
“You promised…”
“It was an unreasonable request for me. I kept to it for awhile but it is unrealistic to expect me to remain within Oscura. “ He continued to pull the skin from the animals, seated cross legged on the well trodden grass. She glanced toward the road seen through the trees for passersby, this area much trafficked.
“You can stand there and be petulant or make a fire. Your choice.” He glanced up to her to see her wander off to find some sticks and timbers and the words that escaped her lips drifted to him making him grin. She must not remember her father spoke Alzhedo perfectly fine, especially the dirty bits. He watched her arrange them carefully and nearly sprawled on the grass to blow on the small pile of moss and focus her burning lens. They worked in silence, less than five feet from another and the tension was nearly visibly to the eye. He knew he had angered her a great deal and she knew he would make no apology for it. But she felt helpless to think of something to do to remedy any of it. She could not manhandle him and tie him down there.
So they worked in silence, her own angry and his forcefully casual. To the outside observer they would merely seem the travelers fixing dinner. Every line of tension invisible despite it tugging and pulling at both mental combatants. When the meal was spitted and turning golden with plips and plops of fat hissing off the fire, she finally spoke to him
“How was mother?” She glanced up, knees drawn to her chest with her chin resting atop them. She looked so compact as to fit in a wooden chest and be the most surprising treasure anyone would ever find in the dungeon.
“Hanifah was fine, very good. She was rather displeased you did not come with but I made up a tale about your employer at the Grapevine being a kind of ogre and you not wishing to lose your employment. She was not sympathetic and argued that I should just bring you back to Calimport, as you can serve drinks there just as good as here. I think you need to tell her the truth, she is poking holes in your story you can walk an umber hulk through.” He glanced at her and her dark eyes went downward, brow furrowing at the thought of informing her mother of her real profession. She glanced at him and his expression was gentle for once.
“But ...I...I will have to tell her so much, father. I will have to tell her about the Scouts and Norwick and the Underdark and Sirion and...” Her father cut her off with a raised hand, motioning her to cease speaking.
“Sirion?” She realized she had made some form of error and corrected with a rapid fire line of speech which gave away the backpedaling nature of her argument, it was the verbal equivalent of running from a monster. This time without anyone to run behind to shield her from the blows.
“He is a close friend of mine, a comrade in arms. Ive known him nearly 3 years now, we actually met in Norwick when this vampire came along and nearly did the both of us in. Elven wizard, very talented and smart if a bit slow to warm to others.” As she spoke she saw his expression changed and her speech quickened as she grew nervous. He exhaled from his nostrils and slowly ran his tongue over his teeth.
“You are too young and I disapprove.”
“You haven’t even met him!” She had the good sense of mind to continue turning the spit, the smell of roasting rabbit bullying itself into a portion of her brain.
“I do not care if he is an elven noble...”
“He is actually an elven noble” She nodded fervently and he scowled and continued with his train of thought.
“I said, I don’t care. You are too young. I am standing firm on this that you will cease this relationship.” She actually grinned and she wondered briefly what he had played into her hands to bring forth such a predatory grin.
“I’ll cease my relationship with Sirion when you stay in Oscura like you promised me you would. Now that I know you will now, I shall live as I please. Plus, you have barely ever parented me in any respect of the word and are on a shaky stand to start doing so now. What are you going to do? Go up to him and declare he cannot be in a relationship with your daughter? I’m sure he will just click his heels to that.” She tested how done the rabbit was by pressing her finger to the flesh to see how it resisted her touch then licked her finger to sooth the heat from the roasted meat.
“Fine. Ruin your life, I don’t have to live it!” He declared grandly given that he could not admit she had some valid points. Never given an inch.
“I did bring you presents from home but since you have someone to buy you the niceties of life surely you don’t need me to do so anymore! A wizard to send your letters by his mighty spells!” Her expression changed to one of childlike glee and her hands extended forward to make grasping motions toward him.
“Presents! Gimmie gimmie gimmie!” He laughed despite himself and tugged his backpack to his lap.
“Oh how your mother would weep. Her child an adventurer and given herself to an elf, the cycle repeats itself.” He teased and she shot back, reaching for the backpack to tug it from his lap to her own. He immediately set about turning the spit, having just as much investment in a perfectly done rabbit as her.
“Go ahead and tell her when you are ready to admit you knew all along. If you are lucky, she will leave enough of you to raise. “ She tugged through the bag and withdrew a shimmering silk scarf with soft watery patterns of blues, greens, and yellows. She grinned in appreciation and placed the scarf over her hair, winding it on instinct to obscure her dark hair and the lower half of her face. She withdrew cloth bags of precious mint tea, wooden boxes of date cookies, a neatly folded stack of linens, knitted socks, and the thing she had wanted most. The thing her father had hunted the docks for, had harried and hassled half the merchants in Calimport for, had nearly gutted a Chultan for; the boxed shogi set brought from the far east. She pulled it open to inspect the flat playing pieces with the strange flowing markings and the black and white game board which was dyed cloth. The scroll of rules, the strange carvings on the box, the yellowing that the ivory pieces it, it all fascinated her and his face warmed to see her interest. A job well done.
“So why did you need this for?”
“Oh,I’m giving it away to a friend. A human warrior woman from the northlands, she will love it!”
His face fell and in that moment and he could have roasted her over the fire. How she frustrated him and bedeviled him with her ways and he in turn to her. That endless cycle repeating again but in the frustration there was pride. He had read the letters she sent to her half siblings, the truthful letters filled with exploits and dangers. The close calls and fearful encounters. He had wondered if they were false and found the far more fearful option to be if they were all true. He could bear this one a little while longer, this acorn that had rolled away from the tree as soon as it was able to nestle amidst the soil he felt unfit for it.