Fiona Shimmerstep
Fiona Shimmerstep is a strange, blue elf (Water Genasi) from a distant land. I played her on a so-called roleplay (definitely was not RP-oriented despite their claims) called Undead Nightmare.
Description
Arrival in Kalaram
Origins
Unusual Heritage
The Sending
The End Was Near...
Riftwalkers
Bloodletters
Journey's End
Description
Like a gently flowing stream, she is graceful, her movements fluid and easy. Hair as blue as the deepest ocean ripples over her shoulders and a pair of eyes so deeply colored they appear black in certain lights watch the world with a patience that seems at once endlessly gentle, mischievously plafyful, and somehow still capable of great violence.
Her garments are sipmle and free-flowing. She favors rippling silks and close-fitting leathers that will not restrain her movements.
Near the base of her delicate elven ears are small patches of blue-green scales that she tries feverishly to hide.
Arrival in Kalaram
She stood in the doorway, laden with only her trusty bow and wearing the traveling leathers she'd donned for the trip, and slowly drew back her hood.
Not exactly attractive, with her distinctly elven features, ocean blue hair, and unusual blue-tinted flesh, she was certainly striking. Those eyes, keen as a hawk's, moved across the open common room slowly, her brows knitting. Lips pursed, and at last she stepped forward. Her voice was melodic, but bore a hard edge just now.
"This... is not Xan'daakir."
Her Tale
We're not like any elves I've met here, in this world.
She chuckles inwardly and dips the quill once again in a well of ink so deeply indigo it appears black while wet. A sweet, spicy scent, like exotic southern cacao and chile, wafted from the pot, even when the cork was inserted.
I write 'we' as if I can truly count myself amonst the Aelystrii. Its not true. I was an outsider in Xan'daakir, and in Paellyrm, as I am here in Kalaram.
The woman sighed, instrument pausing above the parchment and closed her eyes. In her memories she can see Xan'daakir again. It is all glittering spires and dancing lights on an endless array of fountains and falls and lakes and streams.
I am not even sure why I write this, but it feels necessary. Its an urgency that surfaces each morning and ebbs away through the restless day - overshadowed by the more pressing issues... eating, surviving... Corwyn. But with the dawn it rises again and so here I sit, in this abandoned home. My humble, travelled feet propped up on the plush stool of a wealthy merchant, his fine gold-tipped quill (used to greedily tally his books, no doubt) in my unworthy, hunter's fingers. Everything is still rich here. The plague, the walking dead, they have never reached this place. Its inhabitants fled nonetheless.
I suppose I should feel guilty, wasting such expensive, sweet-smelling ink on my own mindless memories, but I do not. A twinge of regret when I realize I've already consumed half of a fine bottle of wine called 'Oniirka'vyr' which, if the quality is any indication, was worth more gold pieces than I may see in a given year. I shall salute the dead man who purchased it when I pour the last glass, and spill the pale golden wine into his fireplace. Fitting tribute, I think.
The writing stopped as she set the quill down gently and stretched her cramping fingers. Glancing toward the window, she could see the bountiful greenery, a pig squealed in the distance and was answered by a pair of twittering jays. The others called it the Sanctuary and so it was. Perhaps even amongst the most beautiful places she had ever seen, and she had seen many in her years.
Her word, delicate and graceful, flowed across the page, related closely to the native elven but altered by immeasurable time and space. "Common", the language shared by the majority of races here, was more difficult to assimilate, but the Gift of Tongues was one conjurement she had retained and it had helped her slip into the dialect seamlessly.
I'll be dull and begin at the logical beginning. To understand how I got here, my story, you need to know a few things about the place, and the people, I come from. My people are called the Aelystrii - the Weavers - and they are a nation of elves in a world we have molded and shaped across generations. We - they- are an ancient people, old and unchanging, and they revere magic.
It, magic, is more than just a 'thing' or a 'plane'. It is Life. To the Aelystrii, we do not use magic, we are magic. Arcane power sleeps in the veins of all Aelystrii - even the least educated of us can likely perform some small spell. A cantrip, I think they're called here. We are an well-learned, regimented, rigidly structured society. And yes, for those who do not fit the mold, it is an oppressive one.
Xan'daakir, my home, is the sacred city. It is the origin of our people and the center of our Empire. Shadow and Hell, but this is becoming less Chronicle and more history lesson. I will move on.
A frown played across rose-colored lips that possessed a strange, vaguely bluish tint. When at last she began to write again, the loose, elegant script had gained a hard edge that spoke silently of bitterness and possibly, regret.
I was the last child born to Be'Liirora Dæmõnbinder, the Arch Magi of Xan'daakir, chief of the ruling council of the arcane colleges. Mother was priestess and wizard combined, a scholar, diplomat, divine emissary, and frankly, a contemptuous bitch!
My family, like the Drow of this place we count our ancestry by the blood of our mothers, was long respected and rather powerful. My eldest sister, Vianeta, was in fact sent to study at the high college in Paellym to study. By the time I was born, she had catapulted through the ranks and was second-in-command to Latrillyn, the Arch Magi of Paellym. I was scarcely into adolescence when her mentor died. Vianeta was held blameless officially, but I and others retain our doubts. Both of my brothers, each a full century older than I, had dedicated themselves to the Priesthood, and were predicted to be given full orders as Bishops upon graduation. As for me...
The expression grew harder as she recalled the early years. Ever outcast, even as a child, the chasm between siblings and cousins would only grow wider with time.
I was... unexpected. Be'Liirora was into her sixth century and her golden-hair had gone to white. Dark-skinned, the color of teak not mahogony, with fair hair of varying shades, they were certainly surprised when I emerged.
She sat back in the chair, a discernable lessening of tension in her shoulders as she reflected. No one would have called it rape, the joining that brought her into being, but it was neither consentual nor intentional. The woman ran a hand back through her hair, a vivid shade of ocean blue, and sighed again, looking to the window.
Corwyn will return soon. I will write again tomorrow.
Unusual Heritage
The quill scribbled furiously as her thoughts flew, consuming the quiet hours of the night as Corwyn slept. They had taken up residence in the merchant's richly decorated house at his decision. She suspected that he came from a wealthy family, and was used to the finery here. A quiet confession one night had revealed that, like she, he had been severed from the bosom of his family. It was yet another unusual thing they had in common; shared experiences despite being (quite literally) worlds apart.
My siblings were as my mother. Dark with fair hair in shades of yellow and copper. I was always somewhat paler - until the burning sun of Annedhel scorched it until it nearly matched theirs - and they told me that when I was born, everyone believed me dead because I was so... blue. The tinge was much more pronounced when I was young, now it has faded and there is just a subtle undercurrent of it. My hair grew in slowly, a shade rather like the warm seas below Xan'daakir.
Were that not enough to set me apart, and it likely would have been, I am cursed with other evidence of my Mother's... misfortune. Scales, blue-green and shimmering, cover my flesh in several places. Patches behind each ear, the small of my back. A trail, shaped like a long diamond, begins low in the center of my chest, below the line of my breasts, and ends a point somewhere below my navel.
What sired me? What gave its leavings into my mother's womb and produced me? A half-breed, an abomination, a mixture of spirits? A being summoned forth from the Plane of Water. Had it a name, I do not know. Had it the shape of a man? I do not know. Be'Liirora says only this of that night. A ritual was performed, a combination of spells arcane and divine. She blames an unfortunate acolyte (murdered, in punishment, though officially her death was an accident) for the miscalculation, though my sister is convinced the error was caused by an enemy who hoped to eliminate Be'Liirora. Either way, this ritual resulted in, instead of whatever they intended, an unnatural conception.
Despite my unusual heritage, I am not alone. There are scores of half-breeds amongst the Aelystrii. We - they - are not quite conceited enough to believe they have control over all things arcane and their experimentations have often resulted in matches. There are half-elves born of demon blood, celestial, and even elemental blood, like me. But in a population of a million, we number perhaps one percent... we are a footnote, we are negligible.
The woman gave a start as the candle glutted out and she was plunged into darkness. Starlight filtered in, just enough for her to silently rise from the desk, draw a candle from the box near the bed, and slip it into the small candlestick. Without a conscious thought, she conjured a small flame, and lit the wick. Once again, the warm yellow glow spread across the parchment and she began to write.
My childhood is a blur of bullies and name-calling, of haughty bitchery from Vianeta and cold disdain from my brothers. I choose not to relive those years on parchment, so forgive my glossing over so many years in order to get to the meat of my tale.
I was exhiled from Xan'daakir when I was twenty-nine years old. In human years, I would have been an adult rushing quickly toward middle-age, but in the span of elven development, I was barely more than a child.
My sin was not that I was different, that I was born of some spirit of Water who forced his seed into my mother's womb. My sin was not even that I lacked the spark of genius that had propelled generations of Dæmõnstar to greatness.
My sin was that I asked why.
They sent me to study young, as all Aelystrii children do, and I asked why. At first, it was precocious. Why is the sky blue? Why do we not fall up instead of down? But soon they began to view it as rebellion. Why must we do this? Who says we must do that? Who made these rules? Why is the Word stronger than the Sword? Why study instead of practice? If I choose to wield a blade instead of a spell, will you strike me down?
The answer to that last one, is Yes.
I had seen the Watch at practice; their gleaming weapons and shining armor reflecting sunlight as they danced their martial dance in the training yard. I had seen their greatest champion, Rashkar, defeat a daemon armed with only his greatsword. My family, the Dæmõnbinders, had been slaying evil beasts since the dawn of the Empire - it was how we were named - and never had we resorted to base, barbaric violence. So my mother said, scoffed in fact, when I breathed a word of awe.
You see, Mages require guardians. Men and women skilled with weapons of a distinctly earthy nature. It is treason to suggest that they are dependant on the Watch, but they are. The pompous, self-centered, egotistical collective lot of them.
No Aelystrii man or woman serves in the watch. We are not taught to wield anything of more substance than a dagger in our own defense. That, so they say, is a task for lesser beings. So they employ hundreds and thousands of militia across the Empire. And every single one of them is Gryssierian. The Gryssier are elves, ebon-skinned and silver-haired. The unknowing may think them Drow, but their society bares little resemblance to Drowish culture here - as I understand it. Which, frankly, is only what I've gleaned from the stories told in the home. Things Corwyn and Dave and Tallie have said, things that bitch Nakshasa have done. Things even Xarun, one who reminded me strongly of my closest friend back home, have disclosed. He, I count as friend despite the fact that he seems to disdain me. Not just because of his kindness the day I suffered so with the Rot that I could barely stand, but because he does remind me so strongly of Rashkar.
But I digress. And Corwyn stirs, so I will return to bed. I will write more tomorrow.
The woman dusted the pages quickly, so as not to smear the precious, scented ink, and hid them in the merchant's desk. Then she slipped back into the feather-soft bed, inching closer to the large man and feeling immediately at peace when his heavy arm moved to embrace her.
The Sending
I do not write from the merchant's desk today, for we have returned to Kalaram to find Dave and Tallie and I was afraid to leave my Chronicle there. Not all of the survivors are benevolent and I often find my purse lighter when it ought not be. Thieves and pickpockets... may they perish and the rest of us live on.
Where was I?
Oh yes...him.
Rakshar was champion of the Watch.
He was my hero in youth. He was my mentor, my teacher, in adolescence. He was my lover. He was my enemy. And even at the last, he was my friend.
I had taken to sneaking away from classes and going to the Yard to watch them practice. I wanted to be one of them. I wanted it desperately. When they found me missing, I was first reprimanded, then placed on a leash of sorts (confined to academy grounds by way of an arcane tether), and eventually beaten.
Nothing deterred me. I had seen what I wanted. I was twenty-nine years old when I was found down in the Yard with the Gryssierians, a longsword in my hand as the champion himself instructed me on its use. I had disobeyed, I had befouled my lofty lineage, tarnished their reputations and I was a blight upon the name Dæmõnbinder. And so they banished me.
She chuckled as she wrote, a bitter and humorless sound.
Just a kid, really, with nothing and no money. How was I expected to survive? Turns out, as I discovered some years later, I was not. I was expected to die. Vianeta told me as much when I met her again, but that was some time later.
The Circle of Magi gathers frequently to pass judgement on important issues and criminals, to preen and pat themelves on the back for being such glorious, brilliant examples of elvenkind, and occasionally, to perform great spells. Normally, a case like mine would not see them blink an eye, but being the daughter of such an important figure... the whole city knew of my disobediance. It was blamed on the father's blood, naturally.
The old bastards came together one night and performed the Sending, a complex ritual used to expel unwanted individuals from Xan'daakir. You see, you cannot just... walk out the gates of the sacred city. Not only does it sit in an arcane bubble, warded from here to eternity, but it is afloat on a large island with hundreds of miles between it and the mainland.
Bound and trussed like a hog before slaughter, I was released into the forest twenty miles east of Paellym. It was sheer luck that I escaped their bindings, and just shy of a miracle that I made it, alive, to Paellym Gate.
The first year in the Gate, a village that has sprung up around the fortified walls of the city proper, was rough. I learned to wield a knife effectively and found I had deft enough fingers to lift spare change from passers-by. I killed my first man, a leering human with yellowed teeth who stank of onion and garlic. He had thought to have his drunken way with me. My dagger, stolen ironically from his brother some weeks before, pierced his soft belly twice in rapid succession and then was buried in his chest when he toppled over. Nearly crushed me, that bastard. I hadn't meant to kill him...
Or so I'd like to think.
She held the feathered end of the quill to her lips thoughtfully, brushing over them as she considered the next chapter of her Chronicle. Her eyes were to a previous page and the mention of Rakshar. Corwyn had never asked about her romantic pasts, except in asking once if she had left a husband back home. She had not, and the subject never rose again. Now, seeing his name spelled out again a surge of complicated, conflicted emotions welled up again and she wondered, would he be jealous to read mention of the other man? Rakshar featured prominently in the upcoming years and his part in her tale was... unavoidable.
There came a knock at the door, and that self-assured voice chuckled.
"Let me in, my little blue elf, I've brought dinner."
And in the hours that followed, there was only pleasantly exhausted rest... and no energy left to write.
The End Was Near...
Outside the groaning of the walking dead and the constant clang of battle proved a fitting soundtrack for the memories she recorded today.
I ran, after that. I left Paellym Gate better equipped (mentally, physically, and literally) than I had arrived a year before, but I was still alone. I don't think I spoke a single word all that year, in all honesty. Too scared, I suppose. Afraid to be caught and killed, or worse, caught and Sent back. I had no desire to see Be'Liirora again. Ever.
The Empire is vast and there are many places, even for one who is, like myself, very distinctive, to hide. I found myself in a port city called Fabrefall some weeks later, nearly copperless and half-starved. Perhaps I was too tired or simply out of practice, but for the first time I was caught in the midst of a 'lift'.
I remember being shocked, terrified, when a hand close around my wrist and yanked me forward. I probably began to cry, knowing well and true that most pickpockets die young. I would like to think it was Destiny or Fate, but likely it was just coincidence that the very purse I chose to pluck was tied to the belt of the finest champion in the Watch.
Who was no longer a champion of the Watch.
For his participation in corruption of an Aelystrii youth, and for spitting on the Arch Magi (something I laughed until I cried about when he told me later on) when she demanded he tell her the names of all those who had been meeting with her daughter, Rakshar had been exhiled. Two of his men were executed, Watch members being Gryssierian and therefore expendable, and two others Sent away with him.
He recognized me, of course, and anger burned in his eyes. But he merely smoldered; it was his companion named Jarotsh who flared into rage and brought his axe down into my shoulder.
I should have died from that wound, but by the grace of some Nameless god, I survived. When I awoke I was on a rug by a warm fire, not too far from a creaking Innroom bed; Rakshar and a local woman kept me awake all that night with their amorous tryst. It was that night, and her passionate groans that sealed my determination. I decided then that it was not chance, but Fate. I supposed to become his pupil, I was destined to be a great warrior like him. And maybe, I remember thinking, then he'll take me to bed and it will be my cries that echo down the hall.
She felt her cheeks color, remembering that youthful obsession. Rakshar had not been easy to convince, but her quick recovery from the nearly fatal wound assured him that she was strong enough to teach. The four of them, Rakshar, Jarotsh, Vikaniin and herself, formed a wandering mercenary troupe. So many years, she trailed those men across the Empire and into the neighboring lands, selling their swordarms for coin and gaining a reputation. Frequently, they had fought and beat back swarms of undead, a growing problem in the Empire and one that no one understood.
The wound never quite healed right and I was not as powerful a warrior as I had hoped to become, but I was good with a pair of short swords - deadly - and agile. My bow served me well and before he died, Vikaniin told me that I was the second best archer he'd ever known, just below his own teacher.
I will not go into the details of those years. We became the best of friends, and our numbers swelled to seven when we included Vikaniin's sister Haelisha, her husband - a human man called Simon - and Monkey, a half-breed like myself. Rakshar had many lovers, a woman or two in nearly every town we visited. And for years - two decades or more - I only simmered. I loved him in the way only a young girl can love; shallow and yet all-consuming. When he bedded another, I could not sleep, I could not eat. But after a time, I was not a child anymore.
And though my youthful adoration dimmed, when I blossomed, so did his interest. I did not notice at first, how he changed his attitude from one of brotherly affection to something more... but when the nocturnal visits from local women ceased and his bed grew cold. I began to suspect.
How it finally began, I don't recall. But the twenty years I spent in Rakshar's arms were some of the most memorable of my life. Our reputation grew, I was happy and in love - though we were a volitile match at times - and it seemed that it would always be that way.
Then a sealed letter arrived from Paellym and... the end was near.
With a great sigh, she sanded the pages and scooted away from the desk, pacing the room restlessly. An hour passed, then two, and finally she gathered her work and hid it away, before making her way downstairs. The madness hour was quick approaching and Corwyn had not returned. At least, that's how she justified venturing out into the streets at midnight.
The truth she did not admit, even to herself, was that she craved the danger. Old anger had welled up within and for once she was grateful for the undead plague. It allowed her to cleave out her frusterations...hacking away at the walking dead.
Riftwalkers
The end was near in more ways than one.
Paellym had a new mistress, my very own sibling, Vianeta. That bitch. Rumormills were rife with stories about her heavy-handed, cold-hearted, willful and possibly forcible take-over of the city. She had many powerful allies, not the least of which was the Arch Magi of Xan'daakir, and her seat was secure.
The message had been written by her very hand; she'd heard of Ser'uys d'Arbiir - the Riftwalkers - and had a job that we would be suitable to perform. Naturally, I balked. They insisted we go, and I resisted. Rakshar and I argued into the night about it. The promise of such riches as Paellyn would reward us with was more than enough motivation for the others, but I could not bear the thought of returning to Paellym - knowing my sister was Arch Magi.
Eventually, they out-voted me and gave me an ultimatum. I could stay behind, and be cast out of the troupe, or I could shut my mouth, stop complaining, and remain a member. I chose the latter, and voiced no more opposition. The love affair between Rakshar and myself, was ended.
The task was monumental, but nothing we could not have handled. An artifact of great power, blah blah blah. The journey was long, but not particularily arduous. In fact, looking back, we should have realized that having no restance along the way was a tell-tale sign that things were not as they appeared.
A few traps - one that nearly claimed Haelisha - and some very minor guardians were all that stood between us and this so-called relic my whore of a sister wanted. Standing at the base of a staircase, looking one hundred feet up at the very thing you came for, and wondering silently why no one else had nabbed it if it were this unguarded... maybe we had gotten lax, but I believe she spelled us. Not one of us saw the job for what it was, until it was too late.
Until a rabid beast with claws and rotting flesh pounced on Simon and tore into him ravenously.
Until the Wight's companions burst from the shadows, a flurry of talons and teeth and horrible, fetid stench...
Until two of the Riftwalkers lay dismembered in a pool of their own blood.
And even then, with Simon and Monkey in pieces around us, Jarotsh insisted that we finish the job, and retrieve the relic for Vianeta. So, like innocent fools, we did precisely that. Well, almost.
The woman wiped away a tear. She had not noticed the weeping until a fat droplet of cool water smeared her words upon the page. Monkey and Simon were only the first losses for the Riftwalkers, and sadly they were not the last.
We had only just found passage to the entrance again when they attacked. Vianeta's personal guard, the Bloodletters. Haelisha fell to an arrow, she was the first through the door. It was nearly noon and the sun was behind them - we were half-blinded. Four remained, the original four, and we fought our way down the steps, taking half her force with us.
I carried the relic in my satchel.
When Vianeta's apprentice, Shai , rode forward and demanded that we put up our weapons and hand over the artifact, it was Vikaniin who strode forward, blade drawn, and told her where she could shove her demands. They believed it was he who carried it, and they cut him down. Those bastards had no honor.
I choose to believe we had only two options. One, give her the relic, and be killed for our troubles. Or two, to flee. Maybe a third, we could have stood our ground, fought, and died with our blades in hand, but she would have had the relic anyway.
We ran, yes. Jarotsh, Rakshar, and myself.
And we were hunted.
But across the Empire the undead horde had grown and was becoming more than just a nuisance in the borderlands. We killed many, traveling through, but there were many more. It was not so different from Siranda, in fact.
We took the relic to a mystic we had helped many years before. It was, as Vianeta said, a powerful artifact and - he believed, the source of the undead trouble. So we came to a cross-roads, Rakshar, Jarotsh, and I.
Jarotsh believed that Vianeta wanted the relic to end the troubles, to keep Paellym and the Empire safe.
Rakshar said that the bitch had sent us into a trap and killed our friends to get that wicked thing, her motivations could not be honorable, and that she was probably going to use the damned thing to get more power. Maybe, he suggested, the whole undead threat was her doing.
I could not say. Vianeta was a bitch, a cold-hearted bitch. But was she evil? Inherantly? Did her studies lean toward the necromantic? Did I care?
I don't know. Even now, I don't know.
Knocking on the door startled her and she nearly toppled over on the chair. Hastily she gathered her papers, hiding them, and wiped her face. The story would just have to wait.
Journey's End
The morning had been long and dull. Corwyn had gone again to Kalaram - a place she avoided whenever possible - and again she was alone in Chantar. The bedroom had seemed so small, pacing it an unable to concentrate on the story at hand, she finally gave up and moved her things into the main eating hall.
It was silent now, the kitchens empty, all the chairs and tables vacant. Occasionally, other survivors came here, but it was rare for reason she didn't understand. There was no plague here, except for the skeletal merchant who seemed, despite his undeadness, rather pleasant. Shelter and food was abundant.
Somehow the cavernous room seemed like a closet. And without Corwyn's warm closeness, it was cold. She closed her eyes and sighed, but at length, began again to write.
I am not sure how much time passed between one hide-out and the next. Rakshar and Jarotsh fought constantly about how to handle the situation, coming to blows more than once. More often than not, I had to try to separate them...But I couldn't vote one way or the other, to break the tie, and so the dispute continued.
A year passed, and a year on the run seems like ten.
Then two.
The undead plague continued to worsen, hundreds of villages and farming communities were slaughtered, harvested for their bodies. The worst of it came when the Bloodletters caught up to us near Everspring City. We were sandwiched between a massive crowd of undead, zombies and animated skeletons, and the Bloodletters.
It was not as hopeless as it seemed. The horde hadn't noticed us yet, we were sneaking along a fence in the darkest hours of the night, and the Bloodletters were still searching to pick up our trail. Had we stayed in the shadows, we may have come out unscathed.
Had Jarotsh not acted the fool...
The woman pursed her lips as she wrote, gnawing at them the same way the reliving of the story gnawed at her insides.
He believed us caught, and in a last ditch effort to save us all, he struck me.
Not quite hard enough to knock me unconscious, but I did not expect it and the relic was plucked from my pack while I lay helpless on my back.
Rakshar barely had time to react, Jarotsh leapt up onto the fence and called Flame to a torch he held aloft, calling out for Shai's attention.
The collossal fool.
The Undead were upon our position in a matter of seconds, and the around us was alive with writhing black magic and a flurry of arrows. I was struck once, in the thigh, and lost my grip on the wall. Were it not for Rakshar, I would have fallen to a horrible death amongst the hungry dead. He caught me, and just as he pulled me over the edge, I saw a dark stain appearing in the center of his red tunic. An arrow blossomed from his back like bloody horn and he toppled.
Jarotsh.. his eyes were scorched out of his head by that black lightening Shai sent at us. He dropped off the wall, smoldering, dead before he hit the ground.
And then there was only one.
I didn't have time to mourn the loss of my best friend and former lover, I didn't have time to mourn a man who had never liked me but who had accepted me like a sister. The Bloodletters fought through the surge of walking dead, laying about them with weapons enchanted by Shai's arcane spells.
By the time they climbed the wall to find me, I was gone, watching from a roof some distance away. Shai ordered the bodies reanimated, her foul words hung in the air like a bloated cloud of stench.
I escaped. And with me, came the relic.
When we-
Her words stopped abruptly upon the page there, struck through when the front door of the Inn opened suddenly. A pair of men tromped in, bedecked in heavy armor and shields, but she recognized the one in the lead immediately and her troubled face broke into a smile.
Hastily, she gathered the pages and slipped them into her pack, standing to greet him.
"Welcome back, Corwyn."
Her Tale
Blood stained her white bodice as she sat up, writing by candlelight. Corwyn snored softly in the bed, just a few feet away; the contented, exhausted sleep of a man who has gotten exactly what he wanted, precisely the way he wanted it.
She smiled inwardly, smoothed her skirt down over her lap.
When we were chased as a group, it was often difficult to find secret places large enough to conceal all of us and our mounts. Harder still to cover the tracks of so many people and beasts. Alone, without even a horse to hide, I moved both quicker and slower, and had both more, and fewer problems.
Still, for more than a year I would run and hide, ducking the Watch in larger cities and the Bloodletters whenever they sought me. They could not get a handle on me, but they always found me, no matter how well I was hidden or how deep into the Heartlands I went. I think they could scry the magic on me, but Shadow and Hell, like I know anything about scrying.
When they cornered me at last, thanks to a well-played betrayal by my fine friend the Mystic in Dopésola. I had gone to him for a potion. He bade me sleep the night in his cellar, I would be safe there, and in the morning, he would memorize certain spells to help me evade capture. Like a fool, I believed him.
And when bells tolled at three hours past midnight - I was rudely awaked with the sharp prick of a drugged needle. I remained conscious just long enough to see that it was not Shai this time, superivising the operation... it was Vianeta herself.
The frown on her face grew deeper in the dim light of the room, and as if sensing her anger, Corwyn wrapped a meaty, bare arm around her, nuzzling his nose against her waist. He murmured something, but she stroked his face a moment and soon he was asleep again.
Almost finished, she did not want to stop now. Anything to take her mind off the events of the day....
I was unconscious for three days. They searched me, my things, and the Depths of the Abyss only know if they searched my mind. They did not find the relic, and when I regained my wits, I was dragged bound but otherwise naked, before my only sister in the Grand Hall at Paellym.
She demanded I give it to her.
I declined, politely.
She instructed her Captain to snap my left pinky finger.
He did.
I declined again, slightly less politely.
It continued like that, with my refuse growing ever more hateful and - bloody.
When I had run out of fingers and she had run out of patience, Vianeta dismissed her underlings and came to sit beside me. I was a pile of flesh at that point, twisted and bent from the agony - not so much the physical pain, but the fear of never again being able to wield a blade or bow with these mutiliated fingers.
"I can fix it for you, sister," she cooed. I remeber wondering if she had read my mind. "Give me the Key and your running can end. I will mend your fingers and we can go on as if this had never happened."
I asked her what she would do with it, I begged her not to be the one behind the walking dead, I couldn't believe it, but I couldn't not...believe it possible.
And she laughed.
She laughed long and hard, til tears streamed from her cold blue eyes. Very like mine, Mother always said, but she is the heart of a glacier, and I am like the warm sea.
"Behind it? Sister, I have worked feverishly for years to stop it. You are the one furthering the pain and suffering of our people! You are the reason the Aelystrii are dying, are losing power on the global scale."
She was lying.
Perhaps she would use the Key to stop the plague. But there was more to the story - a vie for power? A place as hero? To usurp our own mother as Arch Magi of the Empire? What could I do, but give her the relic.
Bargain, of course.
You see, all the years we wandered, all the wonderful sites I had seen... none compared to Xan'daakir, the sacred city. None felt like home, none suited me. And always I hungered to see it again. But an exhile, banished like a criminal, could not get through the wards.
So I offered her a deal. A selfish, petty deal that benefitted no one but myself. Were she to spin the story, so it favored me. Make me appear a hero instead of villanious, and I will make her a legend. It was simple, so simple.
The story went thus. Jarotsh and his friends had hidden the Key away long ago, stealing it from us. He did not realize we worked for Vianeta directly, and we had to maintain the facade while we sought the relic, or directions to it, from him. Rakshar and I were heroes then, though he was dead and I a traitor to the names of those I called friend.
I searched for that key, so the story went, for years, follwing every clue or trail my departed ally had left behind. And when I found it, I gave it directly to Vianeta, whose wisdom and intelligence had discovered the secret to ending the plague, and who hired the Riftwalkers to retrieve it.
My sister used that relic in a ritual and in a month, the threat had been pushed out of our lands - maybe ended completely, but at the very least it no longer affected the Empire or its people.
And as my reward, my banishment was lifted and... at long last, I was to be Sent home.
Finally, I would taste the sweet waters and listen to the song of the fountains in the Square. I would see the landmarks and feel the magic dancing around me as it had when I was a child. No place is more magical, more inspiring, more... home.
And that bitch, that stupid, contemptuous, self-serving BITCH... she followed through with her agreement, she assembled the Circle of Paellym and prepared to Send me home. But something went wrong, something was botched.
For I ended up here.
The Arch Magi of the second greatest city in the Empire does not fail unintentionally. And so I know it was her fault.
I hated her, for many days after I emerged into the Boarded Home. And still do, for she was only covering her own lying ass when she Sent me across time and space to this forsaken Abyss.
But here I have friends... here I've met Dave and Tallie. I've met people like Calendil, who offer their friendship with no strings attached, and people like Frin and Xarun who I never can be sure of but whom I would count as friends anyway.
And most profoundly, I met Corwyn.
There are many things I could say, many things I think and feel about the man. The gruff but sensitive man who saved the child from a zombie only to take diseease himself. The man who would have given everything he owned in trade to bring me back when I fell.
I thought I knew love once.
I was wrong.
But though I may never have the courage to speak it, I know it now.
I love him.
She closed the book silently and set the pages aside, letting them drop off the side of the bed. The day had been as trying a day as she could remember, and it would be Chronicled soon, but for now... she simply curled up beside the large man, tucking herself beneath his arm.
The tears had dried on her cheeks, but they began anew, this time spilt in joy instead of frusteration and anger. She wept a moment more, then smiled in the flickering light.
With a gentle breath, Fiona leaned toward the nightstand, and softly blew out the flame.