What is in a name?

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Fort Ettin’s Great Hall is abuzz with talk, cheers, clattering pewter and metal and the occasional clash and rustle of two or adventurers facing off. It is a wild crowd after all, sequestered away from the common folk as much for convenience as security, and Iorveth feels at home here, in this giant camp of badly contained power that threatens to erupt at any moment. It isn’t so much different from the warcamp of the Glorious Company on campaign, he muses…

Fresh from a vigorous retelling of his adventures across the planes to a group of young adventurers (“I duelled a dryad in Arboria, and she bested me! But she rewarded me for my skill with three twigs from her verdant hair…”) he nurses a cup of summer wine, paid for with his earnings.

“It feels good not to have to pull gold thread from my armour anymore..."” he says to himself and the wine cup.

Unexpectedly, Iorveth hears a response to his comment.

“I’m glad others are enjoying your stories as much as I have been.”

Standing on the other side of the table is a young halfling with sandy blonde hair, bright cornflower blue eyes, and a tentative smile alighting his face.

It’s him. The brother…

“Ah…” Iorveth intones, green eyes studying the halfling, recognizing the all too familiar and hated lines that frame his face and betray his relations. “…the young adventurer, stout of heart. I must have been taking up this seat for far too long if you have come to claim it. I will take my leave and commend this chair to the Copperkettle clan then. May it seat you well…”

“What? No! Please, that’s-” Marto starts, holding out a hand to forestall the eladrin. “I wanted to join you and, well, talk with you. If that’d be alright?”

He turns, looking for a tabard but there is one already standing beside him. Softly muttering his order, the tabard gives a slight bow and then rushes off to Coll at the bar. Marto turns back to Iorveth and his smile slowly fades.

“I don’t know what has happened between us, Iorveth. I don’t want to be your enemy, or have you angry at me.” Marto sighs and takes a small step closer to the table. “How about this: We share a bottle of summer wine. You talk, I’ll listen, and maybe I’ll say something too. But we’ll see how things are by the time we finish the bottle?”

His face twitches, teeth grinding… but he does not leave. The moment passes and Iorveth sighs, falling back into the chair. “I suppose we can give it a try.”

Marto beams at him as he sits down on the opposite side of the table. The wine comes and he pours, Iorveth observing the halfling intently as he does.

“Your name… Marto Copperkettle. You are related to the one called Merla, are you not? I can see it in your face. I see the resemblance, the mortal side of her that remains and always will…”

He pauses to take a swig, not taking his eyes off Marto.

“I suppose I have wronged you with my words. I have no quarrel with you, Stoutheart. It is Merla who has, and the memory of her that causes me more grief than I hope you will ever experience yourself. Tell me – how much do you know of Merla’s deeds? Before she claimed dominion of a Fey Court? What do you know of her foul crimes that she now hides behind sickly sweet words of harmony and music?”

Marto was taking a hearty sip of wine when Iorveth started talking and now takes the opportunity to really enjoy the taste of the drink on his tongue – not his usual fair but certainly something he would enjoy once in a while – before he swallows to answer.

“I only know the barest of details,” he says honestly. “That she had sought answers from someone who challenged her to a duel, and what happened when they crossed blades resulted in her banishment from the Summer Court for a time. I am not aware of any crimes, alleged or actual, my sister may have committed.”

“Well,” Iorveth says, fixating on the halfling across the table unblinkingly, “a duel it may have been, but it may come as a surprise to you that she is a murderer. She killed him. In cold blood…” His beautiful face screws up into a mask of grief and hatred. “…she murdered Arvel Morningdew, and she got away with it!”

The tears now run freely down his face.

“He was the best of us. He was a hero! Commander of the Glorious Company, the greatest fighting force the Summer Court has ever seen! He led us from victory to victory across every plane that Titania sent us to – fight in her name and for her honour! Stabbed and left to bleed out, like an animal… But more than anything else…” That look of hatred turns to pure desperation. “…he was my friend. The dearest I ever had. And she took him from me. She took him from me, and the Queen dained to do nothing, to let that murderer walk free, and there was nothing I could do about it…”

Marto’s expression is genuinely empathetic as he places a handkerchief on the table for the Eladrin. “That is truly horrible, Iorveth. I… I am so sorry you lost someone so dear to you.”

He looks at his glass, his expression becoming troubled. Marto wants to say something but instead asks, “What happened next?”

Iorveth takes the handkerchief and dabs his eyes. He swallows before continuing.

“Nothing much happened. I confronted the Queen. I was cast out in disgrace. I spend my days here, on the material plane, hoping to find clues and piece together a case that the Queen cannot ignore. So far, I have been less than successful…”

“I see… Do you have anyone helping you? Or are you doing this all on your own?”

He clings to his glass, like a drowning man clings to a plank of wood, tossed and turned in the great waves of a merciless ocean.

“I am alone. Everyone else has given up the hunt. Has made arrangements with the new order. Has decided to settle and accept.”

The tears have stopped. There is nothing left now besides pain calcifying into sheer determination.

“I will make this right. I will have justice. And I will have my vengeance.”

A silence settles between the two. Marto notices Iorveth’s glass is getting empty and begins to pour more summer wine for him.

“What do you hope to discover?” Marto asks, light blue eyes looking directly at the warrior across from him. “That my sister is some evil, conniving mortal-turned-fey who has somehow wormed her way into the heart of one of the strongest Fey Courts? What if what you discover is… not what you expect? What then? Will you still seek to kill her to complete your vengeance?”

He stares at the glass as it slowly fills with blood-red wine.

“I want to see justice served. I don’t see that having happened yet, and I won’t rest until I do. If, as you suggest, greater plots are discovered, then I shall follow them. But I do not trust your sister’s word, merely because the Queen has pardoned her. The Queen was wrong to let it ever come this far…”

He trails off, silent for a moment before snatching up the glass and draining it in one long gulp.

“We live in strange times, young Stoutheart… That I would ever openly question the Queen… I would not have thought that possible had you asked me a year ago, and like as not had cut you down where you stood for even suggesting it. And yet, here I am. An outcast. A renegade. Far from home, and far from friends."

Marto is already refilling Iroveth’s glass again. “How did you become an outcast, if I may ask?”

“I stood up when the Queen chose to let your sister walk free, her hands still slick with Arvel’s blood, the murder weapon clenched in her fist. I stood up for Arvel when no one else would. I stood up for what is right!

“And for that, I was banished. Accursed and attainted, until such a time as I submit, crawl and grovel at her feet…”

He looks up, a twisted smile on his lips, stained red with wine, mirth and pain dancing in his eyes. “… needless to say, I told her to go fuck herself.”

“Wow,” Marto breathes, stunned at the tale and the eladrin sitting across from him. But then he frowns, thoughts already racing. “I’ve heard tales that if the Summer Queen were to swing her sword you would not get up again. Perhaps you got off easy with a mere banishment because the Queen had reason enough to doubt the charges laid at my sister’s feet. Has the Summer Queen been known to pass incorrect judgements in the past?”

“Now there is a question...!” Iorveth is a few glasses in by now, the bottle quickly draining, the summer wine within staining both lips and inhibitions. “…she was always one leaning toward rash action, acts of rage and anger! But also passion. Choosing Alanaya as her Oberon probably was not the smartest of moves, but one guided by love and admiration. We Fey of the Summer Court never were the masters of well-laid plans and cold calculation, for that you have to seek out the Winterlings… But could she have had a deeper purpose…”

He trails off, intently studying the pattern on his glass, turning it this way and that, and draining it once more before snapping back. “…I suppose it is possible, innit? Some secondary plan, an additional iron in the fire? Yes, that sounds like the Warrior Queen…”

He looks over the table at Marto, green eyes narrowed. Something of the pain has receded now, the warmth of summer slowly reasserting itself.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you are doing, young Stoutheart. Trying to give me hope, a purpose guided by reason beyond obsession?” he chuckles, then fights down the oncoming hiccup with another glass of wine, the bottle now almost empty.

“Well, I won’t fault you for it. A fine move for an aspiring warrior – jab, feint, stab! – couldn’t have taught it better meself!” He slams a fist on the table, making the glasses rattle.

“You have your heart in the right place, strong, and a brain to match it. I admit, at first I was shocked when I learned of your heritage… your… relations.” He smiles, over the rim of this glass, pouring the rest of the bottle equally between both of theirs.

“But you are not your sister, and I am not Arvel. And to that, I think we can drink!" he declares, raising his glass to Marto’s.

The young knight chuckles, raising his glass, feeling that despite how things started between him and the Summer Warrior, things might end up working out.

“And who knows. Perhaps on this journey to finding out the truth, we could, in fact, become dear friends,” he says clinking his glass against the eladrin’s. “Cause if there’s one thing you did get wrong it is this: You aren’t far away from friends. What do you think this is?” Marto gestures between the two of them, indicating their budding camaraderie.

Iorveth snorts some wine from his perfect nose and chuckles.

“Always on the offensive, are we? Well, I s’ppose stranger things have happened. After all, what’s in a name?”