Sole Renata (3/8) - Jaezred
Aug 17, 2022 12:30:08 GMT
Delilah Daybreaker, Velania Kalugina, and 2 more like this
Post by Jaezred Vandree on Aug 17, 2022 12:30:08 GMT
(Continued from The Woman In Blue 5.)
Lord Jaezred’s day began at 4 o’clock in the morning, when the bells of the alarm spell went off in his head, breaking him out of trance and causing him to reflexively draw the wand under his pillow and point it at the intruder in the room. It turned out to just be Veridian Pentaghast. A shame; secretly, he was hoping it would be a different human wizard standing there by his bed, one with obsidian eyes and red hair tucked under a blue hood.
But Pentaghast’s presence could only mean one thing: the stars are aligning today. It is time.
By the time the first rays of the sun pierce through the wooded horizon, the six of them are already somewhere in the Angelbark Forest, standing around a slab of stone: Pentaghast, Laurel Shortstride, Sorrel Darkfire, Frankie the celestial dog, Je’Sathriel the archangel, and Jaezred himself. This is the team that had been chosen to bring Silvia back from the dead.
Silvia is stuck in a chthonic conundrum of sorts. Three powerful entities have laid a claim to her soul: Kurtz, her shadow dragon patron, Lathander the Morninglord, and Selûne the Moonmaiden, because Sorrel is there or something. (He isn’t entirely certain; surfacer gods and their bullshit have never interested him.) As such, her soul is currently stuck in a liminal place in the afterlife, unable to fully move on nor return to the Material Plane — because there was no body to return to. This, Je’Sathriel explains to them, and Jaezred transmits to Kurtz through the tome of witchcraft.
Their objective is to find Silvia’s soul and create a new body for it to inhabit. This, according to the celestials, has to be done through a complex ritual. Those gathered here are the three most powerful mages present in the Dawnlands: Veridian, the potential of arcane magic embodied; Laurel, a healer and priest of the Old Ways; and Jaezred, a ritualist and expert in esoteric magic.
And then there is Sorrel, holding Shadowclaw in her hands. The emotional connection. But who looks as though she doesn’t even believe that this will work — like she hasn’t yet realised that this can’t succeed without her — and who has been sneaking wary glances at Jaezred in particular. I’m not happy about this either, he wants to tell her, but a debt is a debt.
Despite Sorrel’s lack of faith, they get to work. Pentaghast fiddles around with some plane shift tuning forks, Laurel scans for Silvia through the various planes of existence with locate creature, and Jaezred follows their lead by entering a state of dream-walking, casting his mind to far-flung places in search of Silvia’s consciousness.
Eventually, Sorrel steps up to the slab where Shadowclaw has been laid and wraps a silver crescent-shaped charm around its shaft. The teardrops streaking down her cheeks are as white and bright as the moon itself.
A semi-conscious Jaezred looks around him. Somehow, without realising, the three of them are now seated in a circle on the stone slab. There appears to be an amber-coloured aura emanating out of Veridian, pastel pinks and blues from Laurel, and red and black from himself.
And then there is a blinding white light as they are shot up, high up beyond the skies, up into impossible heights.
The four of them are standing in the ether, no ground beneath their feet. There are intangible red strings coming out of each of their hearts, connecting them to one another, and one more leading off into the distance — so far away that the string appears slack, disappearing into the vanishing point. Something akin to the astral projection spell, Jaezred thinks, but different.
And very faintly, he feels the presence of another consciousness in his mind — a mental connection with Silvia. It is weak and constantly fluctuating, but it’s there. Laurel confirms that they can feel Silvia too with locate creature, somewhere very, very far off in the direction of the long red string.
They walk through the celestial plains for what feels like miles and miles and miles, following the trail of the red string, but it is nigh impossible to keep track of the flow of time in this place. Eventually, they reach a distance where the string picks up and gradually becomes more and more taut.
Three figures, each towering at 15 feet tall, slowly come into view. The first is a pale, faceless figure holding multitudes of long red strings in their hands, including the one that they have been led by; the second’s body seem to blend into the star-splashed night sky itself; the third is more humanoid-looking, a golden-haired woman in shining plate mail, gripping a sheathed longsword.
The Angel of Fate says that they are glad for the presence of a neutral party to break Silvia’s soul out of the current deadlock, gesturing at their companions, the Angel of Selûne and the Angel of Lathander. They tug lightly on the string, which yanks the four tethered souls off their feet to be pulled closer, and even though they lack anything resembling eyes, they seem to be studying each of the adventurers with interest.
“You… Mr. Vandree,” they say, and Jaezred perks up. They have picked out one of the strings from the bundle and appears to be reading something on it. “Hmm… So the whole thing with Lolth didn’t work out? What happened there?”
He hesitates. “If it’s all written there, then surely you already know why.”
“Oh, it’s all recorded here, yes, but just the facts. A very factual, boring retelling.”
“Well…” he says with a sigh. “It didn’t work out because…I wanted to be free.”
“Ah, I see.” The angel glances back and forth between him and the string they are holding up. “You fell in love.”
A strange, strangled noise escapes from his throat, which delights the angel.
“And you’re a warlock now. So you’ve done the opposite of what Silvia is doing!” they continue. Jaezred arches a brow. So Lathander’s involvement in this affair is not merely due to simple, everyday devotion. “Are you happy with your choice?”
Jaezred hesitates again. How would he answer that question? Being with Imryll makes him happy of course, happier than he has ever been. But is her love enough to drown out the self-loathing he feels for having made the choice to forsake his higher calling? Whatever the case, he has no desire of analysing this in front of others, and certainly not with a nosy celestial. So he settles for a simple:
“Yes.”
The Angel of Fate seems satisfied with that, and turns to the others to quiz them as well. He keeps an ear open to the conversation — as any good spy would — and at the same time, peers past the celestial figures. There is something like a white marble plinth behind the three, but before he can see what it is displaying, the Angel of Lathander fixes him with a harsh stare.
“And you,” her imperious voice booms. “You too have a connection to him.”
He squints up at her. “Connection to whom? Sorry, you’re like a glare in my eye.”
“I cannot help it nor can I turn it off. I was speaking of the dragon. Kurtz.”
“Oh. Yes, he’s an acquaintance of sorts.”
“And where do you stand in the matter of their pact?”
“Well, I am like Pentaghast in that regard. Whomever she enters or breaks pacts with is none of my concern. That is entirely her choice and I have no intention of taking that away from her.”
The harshness does not go from the angel’s golden eyes. In a flash, she draws her massive sword and points it at Jaezred’s throat.
“She is bound for greatness and destiny,” she declares.
He looks down at the tip of the blade under his chin as if it is a fleck of dust on his cravat and raises an unimpressed brow. “Again, I have no actual investment in this. It is wholly up to Silvia what she does.”
She removes the sword and sheathes back slowly into its scabbard. “That’s what they all say,” she mutters bitterly.
Well, can’t expect all omniscient beings to be smart, I suppose.
One by one, the angels begin to step aside, the dumb one being the last to move. Sitting atop of the marble plinth is a glass orb with a concentration of pure white light in its centre — silent, unmoving, yet somehow not at peace.
His mental connection to the red-haired girl has not grown any stronger and still fluctuates, but his mind manages to capture an instance of its strength. “Silvia. Don’t know if you can hear me,” he says, “but we’re coming.”
Then Veridian steps forward, taking the orb in his hands, and he utters a wish.
When they open their eyes, they are back in the Angelbark Forest in their respective bodies, and Silvia is lying face-down in the centre of the stone slab. Next to her, Shadowclaw lies broken in pieces.
They watch with bated breath as Silvia slowly pushes herself up, brushing the cascade of red hair out of her face with trembling fingers, as if unused to movement. She looks…better, more like herself somehow, but certainly weakened. Sorrel rushes forward to grab her, hug her so tightly she might just crush her lover’s new bones, and the two women sob in each other’s arms.
“Well, it seems you’ve done the impossible, Pentaghast,” Jaezred remarks to the wizard.
And for his reward, Father Cai Ok’tanys is suddenly here to take him home. Silvia and Sorrel clamber onto Frankie’s back to be flown to Daring Heights, and Je’Sathriel offers to teleport Jaezred and Laurel back to the fort. Before their brief fellowship is broken, Jaezred looks over at Silvia and Sorrel.
“Know that you have a choice. Power is a burden, but you knew that already,” he says. His gaze turns to Sorrel. “I think this means we’re even now.”
Sorrel gives him an awkward bow. Je’Sathriel bends down to lay his hands on Jaezred’s and Laurel’s shoulders, and in the blink of an eye, they are back in the great hall, empty save for floating tabards preparing the tables for breakfast.
The angel straightens himself up and stares at the two in an awkward pause. “Well, good job,” he says in an uncharacteristically stilted manner. “Let’s never do this again.”
“See you never, Jackal.”
He nods and turns to walk out of the open doors. An archangel casually walking out of the great hall of Fort Ettin. As Jaezred quietly admires the remarkable sight, a familiar voice calls out from the courtyard outside: “HI DAD!”
Je’Sathriel’s chrome wings unfurl and he shoots off into the clouds. One has never flown away from his feelings so quickly. As he stares at Je’Sathriel’s shrinking form in the sky, Zola Oussviir comes skipping into the hall in a light blue sundress. “Lord Jaezred! I thought you’d be here,” she chirps, lacing her hands behind her back.
The drow lord lifts a brow. “What did you just call him? He’s not actually your… Is he?”
She just grins at him.
“How dare you smile enigmatically at me. When did you even get here? It’s awfully early.”
“Oh, we just got here. I found your carriage and I harnessed Cor’Vandor to it and we took it for a joyride.”
“What? Why you— Hey, come back here!”
Zola giggles gleefully as she runs out of the hall with Jaezred, yelling and waving his cane in the air, chasing after her.
“Wait. You helped bring Silvia back to life? She’s alive again now?”
They are sitting side by side on the slope of a hill west of Fort Ettin, facing away from the rising sun for the sake of Jaezred’s poor eyes. The grass feels cool under his fingers, as though it had rained yesterday, and the air smells faintly of dew.
“Yes, I imagine that is what coming back to life means, unless my understanding of resurrection has been incorrect all these years,” he says drily.
In spite of the sarcasm, a joyous smile blooms across Zola’s face and, moving quick as lightning, she pecks a kiss on his right cheek.
“Thank you,” she says, her cheeks flushing pink. “Um, I…I don’t know her very well, but Silvia and I fought together in Phlegethos to rescue the High Diviner. But more importantly, this must have brought peace to Sorrel’s heart.”
“Yes, I think she was at least a little bit happy about that,” Jaezred says, turning his gaze away and ignoring the heat in his own face. “Now, I know what you’re going to say and I don’t want ever to hear the word ‘heroic’—”
“But you will!” she giggles out.
He sighs. “Once again, I did not do it out of the kindness of my tender heart — I owed Darkfire a favour. That’s all.”
“Well, how did it make you feel?”
“What, the resurrection?”
“Doing something good.”
The whistling of the summer wind fills the silence between them while he thinks.
“Nothing,” he finally answers. “I didn’t feel any strong emotions about her death, and I don’t feel anything in particular about her returning to life either.”
Zola sits up and hugs her knees to her chest. “Really? No sense of pride, happiness — anything? Maybe it’s because you feel that it was an obligation?”
“No. I suppose that’s odd, isn’t it? However, I have never felt anything special regarding the ‘good deeds’ you have ascribed to me.” He gives a nonchalant shrug. “Perhaps it is simply my nature.”
“With all due respect, my lord, that is a silly idea. No matter what the priestesses of Lolth say, drow are not averse to compassion and kindness. Not more than anyone else, at least.”
“Really? For it seems both the priestesses and the surfacers agree on this one thing: that we lack the so-called goodness present in other peoples.”
She plants her arms on the ground and leans back on her shoulders, gazing up at the blue morning sky. “Well. I don’t believe in inherent goodness.”
He arches a brow. “That is a surprisingly realistic opinion coming from you and your lot. Positively pessimistic by your standards.”
“Contrary to popular belief, I don’t always have my head in the clouds.” She flashes a grin at him. “No, but really, no one is inherently good or inherently bad. Not dark elves, not surface elves, not humans, not tieflings, not aasimar. Nobody at all. We, and all the choices we make, follow the course shaped by our past life experiences. If you and I had swapped places at birth, Lord Jaezred, if you were raised in Haspar Knoll and I had to grow up where you grew up — I have no doubt that we would be very different people.”
Jaezred stays silent for several moments; he finds himself slightly reluctant to concede the point even though logically, he knows she is right. Because accepting that would mean letting go of the notion that malice runs in his blood — that his family made him who he is, that his future children will inherit it no matter what he does.
No. She’s right. His family did make him who he is, just not in the way he thought.
“Alright then,” he speaks up again. “If not for an innate bend towards goodness, what compels a person to do good deeds for the benefit of others when he himself does not stand to benefit from it?”
“Well, let me turn that question around right back at you. Why do you do nice things for Lady Imryll?”
Better yet, why does everyone insist on bringing up our relationship?
“Because…” He frowns in deep thought. “Because it makes her happy, and therefore, it makes me happy.”
The smile on young Zola’s face is angelic, more beatific than any of the celestials he met today.
“Because of love, my lord, love for your fellow man. Love is the answer to everything.”
A smile tugs at the edge of his lips. Of course you’d say that.
“Oh, I don’t know about everything…” he says. “It doesn’t answer questions like, say, ‘What would you like for breakfast?’”
“Well, the answer for that is always scones!”
“Love and scones. I believe, Miss Oussviir, that we have found the key to all the universe’s mysteries.”
“Love and scones,” she echoes with a giggle. “Um, what were we talking about again?”
He chuckles. “Shall we go home, Miss Oussviir?”
“Yes please.”
When Zola next blinks, there is not a drow lord sitting next to her but a githyanki gish; a form faithfully copied with true polymorph, though the gentle look in the gith’s features reassures her that it is indeed still him. He extends an open palm to her and she reaches out to him, but for whatever reason, she hesitates at the last moment.
Her hand hovers above his palm, as if uncertain of something, her fingertips brushing lightly against his. He carefully nudges her fingers with his, continuing to offer his hand whilst letting her take her time.
Then finally, she takes a deep breath and grabs his hand fully. She blinks, and the two of them disappear from the Material Plane, the wind sweeping through the grass where they once sat.
Lord Jaezred’s day began at 4 o’clock in the morning, when the bells of the alarm spell went off in his head, breaking him out of trance and causing him to reflexively draw the wand under his pillow and point it at the intruder in the room. It turned out to just be Veridian Pentaghast. A shame; secretly, he was hoping it would be a different human wizard standing there by his bed, one with obsidian eyes and red hair tucked under a blue hood.
But Pentaghast’s presence could only mean one thing: the stars are aligning today. It is time.
By the time the first rays of the sun pierce through the wooded horizon, the six of them are already somewhere in the Angelbark Forest, standing around a slab of stone: Pentaghast, Laurel Shortstride, Sorrel Darkfire, Frankie the celestial dog, Je’Sathriel the archangel, and Jaezred himself. This is the team that had been chosen to bring Silvia back from the dead.
Silvia is stuck in a chthonic conundrum of sorts. Three powerful entities have laid a claim to her soul: Kurtz, her shadow dragon patron, Lathander the Morninglord, and Selûne the Moonmaiden, because Sorrel is there or something. (He isn’t entirely certain; surfacer gods and their bullshit have never interested him.) As such, her soul is currently stuck in a liminal place in the afterlife, unable to fully move on nor return to the Material Plane — because there was no body to return to. This, Je’Sathriel explains to them, and Jaezred transmits to Kurtz through the tome of witchcraft.
Their objective is to find Silvia’s soul and create a new body for it to inhabit. This, according to the celestials, has to be done through a complex ritual. Those gathered here are the three most powerful mages present in the Dawnlands: Veridian, the potential of arcane magic embodied; Laurel, a healer and priest of the Old Ways; and Jaezred, a ritualist and expert in esoteric magic.
And then there is Sorrel, holding Shadowclaw in her hands. The emotional connection. But who looks as though she doesn’t even believe that this will work — like she hasn’t yet realised that this can’t succeed without her — and who has been sneaking wary glances at Jaezred in particular. I’m not happy about this either, he wants to tell her, but a debt is a debt.
Despite Sorrel’s lack of faith, they get to work. Pentaghast fiddles around with some plane shift tuning forks, Laurel scans for Silvia through the various planes of existence with locate creature, and Jaezred follows their lead by entering a state of dream-walking, casting his mind to far-flung places in search of Silvia’s consciousness.
Eventually, Sorrel steps up to the slab where Shadowclaw has been laid and wraps a silver crescent-shaped charm around its shaft. The teardrops streaking down her cheeks are as white and bright as the moon itself.
A semi-conscious Jaezred looks around him. Somehow, without realising, the three of them are now seated in a circle on the stone slab. There appears to be an amber-coloured aura emanating out of Veridian, pastel pinks and blues from Laurel, and red and black from himself.
And then there is a blinding white light as they are shot up, high up beyond the skies, up into impossible heights.
The four of them are standing in the ether, no ground beneath their feet. There are intangible red strings coming out of each of their hearts, connecting them to one another, and one more leading off into the distance — so far away that the string appears slack, disappearing into the vanishing point. Something akin to the astral projection spell, Jaezred thinks, but different.
And very faintly, he feels the presence of another consciousness in his mind — a mental connection with Silvia. It is weak and constantly fluctuating, but it’s there. Laurel confirms that they can feel Silvia too with locate creature, somewhere very, very far off in the direction of the long red string.
They walk through the celestial plains for what feels like miles and miles and miles, following the trail of the red string, but it is nigh impossible to keep track of the flow of time in this place. Eventually, they reach a distance where the string picks up and gradually becomes more and more taut.
Three figures, each towering at 15 feet tall, slowly come into view. The first is a pale, faceless figure holding multitudes of long red strings in their hands, including the one that they have been led by; the second’s body seem to blend into the star-splashed night sky itself; the third is more humanoid-looking, a golden-haired woman in shining plate mail, gripping a sheathed longsword.
The Angel of Fate says that they are glad for the presence of a neutral party to break Silvia’s soul out of the current deadlock, gesturing at their companions, the Angel of Selûne and the Angel of Lathander. They tug lightly on the string, which yanks the four tethered souls off their feet to be pulled closer, and even though they lack anything resembling eyes, they seem to be studying each of the adventurers with interest.
“You… Mr. Vandree,” they say, and Jaezred perks up. They have picked out one of the strings from the bundle and appears to be reading something on it. “Hmm… So the whole thing with Lolth didn’t work out? What happened there?”
He hesitates. “If it’s all written there, then surely you already know why.”
“Oh, it’s all recorded here, yes, but just the facts. A very factual, boring retelling.”
“Well…” he says with a sigh. “It didn’t work out because…I wanted to be free.”
“Ah, I see.” The angel glances back and forth between him and the string they are holding up. “You fell in love.”
A strange, strangled noise escapes from his throat, which delights the angel.
“And you’re a warlock now. So you’ve done the opposite of what Silvia is doing!” they continue. Jaezred arches a brow. So Lathander’s involvement in this affair is not merely due to simple, everyday devotion. “Are you happy with your choice?”
Jaezred hesitates again. How would he answer that question? Being with Imryll makes him happy of course, happier than he has ever been. But is her love enough to drown out the self-loathing he feels for having made the choice to forsake his higher calling? Whatever the case, he has no desire of analysing this in front of others, and certainly not with a nosy celestial. So he settles for a simple:
“Yes.”
The Angel of Fate seems satisfied with that, and turns to the others to quiz them as well. He keeps an ear open to the conversation — as any good spy would — and at the same time, peers past the celestial figures. There is something like a white marble plinth behind the three, but before he can see what it is displaying, the Angel of Lathander fixes him with a harsh stare.
“And you,” her imperious voice booms. “You too have a connection to him.”
He squints up at her. “Connection to whom? Sorry, you’re like a glare in my eye.”
“I cannot help it nor can I turn it off. I was speaking of the dragon. Kurtz.”
“Oh. Yes, he’s an acquaintance of sorts.”
“And where do you stand in the matter of their pact?”
“Well, I am like Pentaghast in that regard. Whomever she enters or breaks pacts with is none of my concern. That is entirely her choice and I have no intention of taking that away from her.”
The harshness does not go from the angel’s golden eyes. In a flash, she draws her massive sword and points it at Jaezred’s throat.
“She is bound for greatness and destiny,” she declares.
He looks down at the tip of the blade under his chin as if it is a fleck of dust on his cravat and raises an unimpressed brow. “Again, I have no actual investment in this. It is wholly up to Silvia what she does.”
She removes the sword and sheathes back slowly into its scabbard. “That’s what they all say,” she mutters bitterly.
Well, can’t expect all omniscient beings to be smart, I suppose.
One by one, the angels begin to step aside, the dumb one being the last to move. Sitting atop of the marble plinth is a glass orb with a concentration of pure white light in its centre — silent, unmoving, yet somehow not at peace.
His mental connection to the red-haired girl has not grown any stronger and still fluctuates, but his mind manages to capture an instance of its strength. “Silvia. Don’t know if you can hear me,” he says, “but we’re coming.”
Then Veridian steps forward, taking the orb in his hands, and he utters a wish.
When they open their eyes, they are back in the Angelbark Forest in their respective bodies, and Silvia is lying face-down in the centre of the stone slab. Next to her, Shadowclaw lies broken in pieces.
They watch with bated breath as Silvia slowly pushes herself up, brushing the cascade of red hair out of her face with trembling fingers, as if unused to movement. She looks…better, more like herself somehow, but certainly weakened. Sorrel rushes forward to grab her, hug her so tightly she might just crush her lover’s new bones, and the two women sob in each other’s arms.
“Well, it seems you’ve done the impossible, Pentaghast,” Jaezred remarks to the wizard.
And for his reward, Father Cai Ok’tanys is suddenly here to take him home. Silvia and Sorrel clamber onto Frankie’s back to be flown to Daring Heights, and Je’Sathriel offers to teleport Jaezred and Laurel back to the fort. Before their brief fellowship is broken, Jaezred looks over at Silvia and Sorrel.
“Know that you have a choice. Power is a burden, but you knew that already,” he says. His gaze turns to Sorrel. “I think this means we’re even now.”
Sorrel gives him an awkward bow. Je’Sathriel bends down to lay his hands on Jaezred’s and Laurel’s shoulders, and in the blink of an eye, they are back in the great hall, empty save for floating tabards preparing the tables for breakfast.
The angel straightens himself up and stares at the two in an awkward pause. “Well, good job,” he says in an uncharacteristically stilted manner. “Let’s never do this again.”
“See you never, Jackal.”
He nods and turns to walk out of the open doors. An archangel casually walking out of the great hall of Fort Ettin. As Jaezred quietly admires the remarkable sight, a familiar voice calls out from the courtyard outside: “HI DAD!”
Je’Sathriel’s chrome wings unfurl and he shoots off into the clouds. One has never flown away from his feelings so quickly. As he stares at Je’Sathriel’s shrinking form in the sky, Zola Oussviir comes skipping into the hall in a light blue sundress. “Lord Jaezred! I thought you’d be here,” she chirps, lacing her hands behind her back.
The drow lord lifts a brow. “What did you just call him? He’s not actually your… Is he?”
She just grins at him.
“How dare you smile enigmatically at me. When did you even get here? It’s awfully early.”
“Oh, we just got here. I found your carriage and I harnessed Cor’Vandor to it and we took it for a joyride.”
“What? Why you— Hey, come back here!”
Zola giggles gleefully as she runs out of the hall with Jaezred, yelling and waving his cane in the air, chasing after her.
“Wait. You helped bring Silvia back to life? She’s alive again now?”
They are sitting side by side on the slope of a hill west of Fort Ettin, facing away from the rising sun for the sake of Jaezred’s poor eyes. The grass feels cool under his fingers, as though it had rained yesterday, and the air smells faintly of dew.
“Yes, I imagine that is what coming back to life means, unless my understanding of resurrection has been incorrect all these years,” he says drily.
In spite of the sarcasm, a joyous smile blooms across Zola’s face and, moving quick as lightning, she pecks a kiss on his right cheek.
“Thank you,” she says, her cheeks flushing pink. “Um, I…I don’t know her very well, but Silvia and I fought together in Phlegethos to rescue the High Diviner. But more importantly, this must have brought peace to Sorrel’s heart.”
“Yes, I think she was at least a little bit happy about that,” Jaezred says, turning his gaze away and ignoring the heat in his own face. “Now, I know what you’re going to say and I don’t want ever to hear the word ‘heroic’—”
“But you will!” she giggles out.
He sighs. “Once again, I did not do it out of the kindness of my tender heart — I owed Darkfire a favour. That’s all.”
“Well, how did it make you feel?”
“What, the resurrection?”
“Doing something good.”
The whistling of the summer wind fills the silence between them while he thinks.
“Nothing,” he finally answers. “I didn’t feel any strong emotions about her death, and I don’t feel anything in particular about her returning to life either.”
Zola sits up and hugs her knees to her chest. “Really? No sense of pride, happiness — anything? Maybe it’s because you feel that it was an obligation?”
“No. I suppose that’s odd, isn’t it? However, I have never felt anything special regarding the ‘good deeds’ you have ascribed to me.” He gives a nonchalant shrug. “Perhaps it is simply my nature.”
“With all due respect, my lord, that is a silly idea. No matter what the priestesses of Lolth say, drow are not averse to compassion and kindness. Not more than anyone else, at least.”
“Really? For it seems both the priestesses and the surfacers agree on this one thing: that we lack the so-called goodness present in other peoples.”
She plants her arms on the ground and leans back on her shoulders, gazing up at the blue morning sky. “Well. I don’t believe in inherent goodness.”
He arches a brow. “That is a surprisingly realistic opinion coming from you and your lot. Positively pessimistic by your standards.”
“Contrary to popular belief, I don’t always have my head in the clouds.” She flashes a grin at him. “No, but really, no one is inherently good or inherently bad. Not dark elves, not surface elves, not humans, not tieflings, not aasimar. Nobody at all. We, and all the choices we make, follow the course shaped by our past life experiences. If you and I had swapped places at birth, Lord Jaezred, if you were raised in Haspar Knoll and I had to grow up where you grew up — I have no doubt that we would be very different people.”
Jaezred stays silent for several moments; he finds himself slightly reluctant to concede the point even though logically, he knows she is right. Because accepting that would mean letting go of the notion that malice runs in his blood — that his family made him who he is, that his future children will inherit it no matter what he does.
No. She’s right. His family did make him who he is, just not in the way he thought.
“Alright then,” he speaks up again. “If not for an innate bend towards goodness, what compels a person to do good deeds for the benefit of others when he himself does not stand to benefit from it?”
“Well, let me turn that question around right back at you. Why do you do nice things for Lady Imryll?”
Better yet, why does everyone insist on bringing up our relationship?
“Because…” He frowns in deep thought. “Because it makes her happy, and therefore, it makes me happy.”
The smile on young Zola’s face is angelic, more beatific than any of the celestials he met today.
“Because of love, my lord, love for your fellow man. Love is the answer to everything.”
A smile tugs at the edge of his lips. Of course you’d say that.
“Oh, I don’t know about everything…” he says. “It doesn’t answer questions like, say, ‘What would you like for breakfast?’”
“Well, the answer for that is always scones!”
“Love and scones. I believe, Miss Oussviir, that we have found the key to all the universe’s mysteries.”
“Love and scones,” she echoes with a giggle. “Um, what were we talking about again?”
He chuckles. “Shall we go home, Miss Oussviir?”
“Yes please.”
When Zola next blinks, there is not a drow lord sitting next to her but a githyanki gish; a form faithfully copied with true polymorph, though the gentle look in the gith’s features reassures her that it is indeed still him. He extends an open palm to her and she reaches out to him, but for whatever reason, she hesitates at the last moment.
Her hand hovers above his palm, as if uncertain of something, her fingertips brushing lightly against his. He carefully nudges her fingers with his, continuing to offer his hand whilst letting her take her time.
Then finally, she takes a deep breath and grabs his hand fully. She blinks, and the two of them disappear from the Material Plane, the wind sweeping through the grass where they once sat.
