Summer Court Lovin' 1/9/22 Sorrel helps her bro a wooin' go
Sept 17, 2022 11:58:49 GMT
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Post by stephena on Sept 17, 2022 11:58:49 GMT
Sorrel rummaged through her large trunk – how many months had she been spending most nights with Silvia? Could she really not bring herself to unpack?
Apparently not.
She found what she was looking for, dressed rapidly and bounded downstairs where Kavel and Silvia were still bursting into bouts of hugging. She couldn’t blame them. It’s not every day someone comes back from the dead. But when she appeared she was gratified by their reaction.
The skirt was matronly enough to conceal a couple of switchblades, the hat large enough to cast a decent shadow on her face, the top so frumpy she gave off negative threat levels although she still couldn’t work where or how to hide the battle axe. Dress like a battle axe, carry a battle axe. Silvia covered her eyes and Kavel gasped.
“Ta da!” she cried. “Perfect for interviewing my brother’s prospective girlfriend and making sure she’s good enough for him.
“Sis, it’s… I mean… could you lose the axe?”
“But Herr Castiron,” Sorrel’s guttural tones had taken six solid months to perfect. “Does not the teacher of foreign languages for the tutoring of the traitor prince’s eldest son not give off the right – how you say – vibes?”
“I am going to the Damphenite Tangle and I want her to like me,” Kavel said. ‘We kissed last time so… please?”
“Tell me more,” Sorrel dropped the axe, bent and picked it up, losing her place. “Tell me more. Did you get very far?”
Kavel raised his eyebrow. Of course, her brother wouldn’t kiss and tell. But that left her in a bit of a quandary – was this woman good enough for her brother? And if not, presumably he would take it badly if she killed her…
“One more outfit,” Sorrel promised and disappeared upstairs again.
--
This time it was Silvia who gasped. The tight-fitting dress was slit to the thighs on both sides and top was… well, barely there. “Where did you get those… boots…” Silvia was breathing heavily.
“They don’t really lace up,” Sorrel smiled proudly, clicked a catch on the thigh high footwear and revealed eight small throwing daggers neatly arrayed down the inside leg. “The rope belt has some carefully prepared ground glass for any garrotting, but the sword is just a sword. I call it the Embassy Takedown.”
“And the chocolates?” Kavel was cautious.
“Actual chocolates. For the lady,” Sorrel nodded earnestly, took one and bit half. “Look. No poison.”
She was about to put the half-eaten chocolate back, thought better of it and rearranged the box so the chocolates fit the heart shape.
There was a long pause.
“Well, OK, but you should wear adventuring gear until we get there,” Kavel sounded dubious. “The Damphenite Tangle is a complicated place. And dress for the tropics.”
“What’s the whip for?” Silvia’s voice was thick and breathy.
“I’ll show you if you like,” Sorrel met her gaze.
There was a longer pause.
“Well, bless me, is that the time? I have to buy some wood to build that French Cleat shelving for you Silvia,” Kavel rose rapidly. “So you will join me in the Summer Court, sister. Excellent. Nathalie is strong, I'm sure she'll take a liking to my athletic, very nimble sister. Meet at Portal Plaza. Also… just in case things are tricksy… don’t just bring chocolate.”
--
As they stepped through the Portal Sorrel wished, perhaps for the first time in her life, that she’d bought fewer weapons. Dress for the tropics my pert little ass, she thought. Dress for Phlegethos. Except with music. Plinky plonky fair folk music.
The sun was merciless. It made summer in Chult seem like a soft autumn day. Her skin, clothes, hair and probably steel was soaked and dripping within about fifteen seconds. “Summer heat, boy and girl meet,” she muttered to herself. “I don’t know why we couldn’t have come at night.”
She sheltered under a large leaf after checking it for teeth and noticed Felix seeking similar shade. Derthaad and Taz seemed perkier – the benefits of dragon blood – and Kavel seemed to barely notice the heat, bounding off to a cavernous ledge with glee before pausing and staring down.
Sorrel squelched up alongside him and followed his gaze. The view was vertiginous, plummeting an impossible distance down into a valley of ruffled stone that looked like a minor god’s recently vacated bedspread, full of intersecting gorges and chasms in vibrant colours from warm yellow under their feet to purples and magentas off in the distance. She was normally good with heights, but she briefly became disorientated.
“The last time, guards came to meet us,” Kavel sounded puzzled.
Derthaad spotted a sprite camp barely 100ft away. Despite her fey blood Sorrel knew the courts could be tricksy even if they meant well. It would be wise not to be surrounded so she slipped into the jungle shadows and kept a bowshot distance from her comrades as they made for the village.
Sure enough an Eladrin strapped in more knives and swords than Sorrel, the queen of strapping knives and swords to herself, stepped out from a pavilion and got in everyone’s face whilst Sorrel could feel shapes moving through the jungle around her. She slowed her breathing and slipped between the beams of light until it would have taken an immortal to see her.
“It’s me! Kavel!” Kavel announced. The guard stared into his eyes with a hint of aggression.
“Did she send for you?”
“It depends who she is,” Derthaad said with the cautious practice of one who has negotiated with Eladrin before.
“It was Nathalie!” Kavel was unquenchable.
“Wait here,” the Eladrin vanished and returned with a bag, clinking with the unmistakable sound of bottles. As she pulled out potions shimmering with a purple light, Sorrel materialised out of the shadows next to her.
She was impressed by the Eladrin’s casual response – just handing over a potion with a respectful nod that said ‘I may have failed to spot your excellent junglecraft techniques but I have 50 archers with their arrows pointed at your heart right now so if you think I’m scared you’re a fool.’
“Right,” the Eladrin issued orders with the potions. “Try not to piss the sprites off. Don’t start any fights you don’t intend to win.”
“I’m Taz,” said Taz. “I always win. But I take your point.”
“Anything I should know?” Kavel asked.
The Eladrin looked at him strangely for a second. “It’s no longer high summer,” she said eventually. “Things change. It turns colder. That’s where it ends.”
The Eladrin watched in silence as the party walked to the edge, drank their potions and stepped into the void.
--
They started to shrink at once and drifted slowly down, tossed lightly on tiny breezes that coaxed them away from the jagged rock face and into the soft embrace of the wind. The light began to change. Purples, pinks and blues swam around them as if they were floating underwater but the new, dry breeze kept Sorrel as stone dry as any desert.
They landed on a cluster of crisscrossing bridges made of shifting rock and their slow descent had attracted plenty of attention. As soon as their feet touched the rock bridge they faced a forest of blades and bows as heavily armed sprites in hardened, natural armour and vivid war paint stared them down.
Kavel’s voice was upbeat. “It is I, Kavel Castiron!” he cried. “I was here for the Salivsuli Veranal!”
Sorrel had killed people in palaces, bars, embassies, barracks, stagecoaches… it’s probably easier to list the places she hadn’t killed anyone: - a greengrocers, and the children’s ward at a hospital. Depending on how you define a children’s ward. The point is – she had learned to read a room. And this room – or bridge – was suddenly turning ugly.
She moved a couple of paces to the left, so she had Kavel’s back covered and clicked her heels together releasing the straps on two venom tipped throwing knives, smiling carefully as she took a bead on the nearest armed sprites with a glint in her eyes that said, unmistakably, if there has been an error we mean no harm but if you touch Kavel you die painfully.
One of the sprite warriors met her gaze and nodded in understanding. She stepped forward. “I recognise you,” she said. “You celebrated Salivsuli Veranal with Nathalie. She speaks very highly of you. I am not familiar with the others. We were wondering if you would keep your promise.”
The light dawned on Sorrel. Her brother’s pronunciation had been Ver-anal. The sprite had said Veran-al. She rolled her eyes. For a second it looked like she’d have killed at least two people over a double entendre. She considered offering a smile of thanks to the sprite and in the end she gave her one.
Felix, meanwhile, was riffing on some pomp and circumstance. Sorrel sensed that whilst the tension over the arse joke had ratcheted down, the locals weren’t into his vibe. Fortunately, he too could eventually read rooms, and his lilting love songs at least stopped infuriating the crowd.
The sprite introduced herself as Steler, Natalie’s second in command, and gave some much needed exposition. Nathalie was spirit walking to protect the tribe but had been locked in a coma for days now. This was not standard practice and they were worried.
Would the party submit themselves to the trust of a group of armed strangers and enter a state of unconsciousness where they would have to travel just with the weapons they could hold in their hand and where “you will face shame and fear on the roads you are to tread,” according to Steler. “Humiliation and death will come for you.”
“I fear neither death nor pain,” Sorrel spat.
“Then what do you fear, my lady?” Steler raised an eyebrow.
“A cage,” Sorrel’s voice fell to a whisper. “To stay behind bars until old age accepts them and all chance of valour has gone beyond desire or hope.”
She did not speak of her shame. That everything bad that has happened to those she loved was her fault. That she did not save Sana, her first love, from death when it came. That she did not protect Silvia, her love and saviour, when the dragons came. That she is not and never will be good enough. She hoped the dark roads would not read this fear.
“Will you help me comrades?” Kavel sounded nervous.
“Why even ask, brother?” Sorrel began unstrapping her weapons. “You wouldn’t ask me to come swimming and worry if I minded getting wet if you swam by me getting my suit damp.”
“Are you going to try and get the entire song into this?” Kavel sighed.
“I’m struggling with car, bowling and lemonade for reasons of narrative anachronism,” Sorrel confessed. Kavel shook his head in despair.
They entered a fairy ring where Nathalie was kneeling. Sorrel could see why Kavel was drawn to her. She was beautiful and radiated a quiet power even in her trance. Her hair was tied in warrior braids, her armour tough and practical and in each hand she clutched a razor-sharp longsword. “Cute as can be,” she whispered to herself. “Looks like she’s putting up a fight.”
“Kneel down and breathe to our rhythm,” Sterel told them. “Take only those weapons you can hold in your hands. All others will fail you.”
Soft drumming surged up around her like a heartbeat, pulsing in time with her breath as she felt her eyes close. Words, music, voices, old and powerful passed through her mind and her spirit drifted.
Gradually the words became clearer, and she could pick out elvish phrases that seemed to dance at the edge of understanding.
She opened her eyes.
Around her she could feel rather than see a dim light flickering.
One moment her friends were beside her, then she was alone.
The air was misty and foetid as if the wind had never stirred it. She could feel dampness on her skin, drops so heavy they weighed her down, making it hard to lift her arms or turn her head.
Her eyes flickered left and right. Stone greeted her at every turn. Ancient walls covered in moss and faint scratches, messages from prisoners who died there, farewells to their loved ones and hopeless words of defiance.
She was in an oubliette, a narrow stone pit sealed above with a steel grating cemented into place so that it seemed to sprout from the rock itself. She could not sit or lie or even raise her hands.
She cried out, and heard her voice die against the rock.
Even a mocking jailor would be welcome but all was silence.
Her doom had come. The worst of all things. An endless night, trapped and forgotten. She felt panic rise and tried to twist and turn, but the walls were too close for all but the slightest tilt of her head and her bow kept knocking against her head.
Her bow.
The images came rushing back. The greatest fear. Of course. This was spirit road mind fucking. But Sorrel Darkfire had walked in the dream streets of Gadenthor and outwitted Slaad in Limbo, the plane of raw chaos. They’d picked the wrong bitch to mess with.
She smiled, closed her eyes and rose through the grating above her head.
She was in a clearing. Mist coalesced in front of her and a warrior was drawing her sword as she charged Sorrel. Within seconds three arrows were streaking towards this figure which seemed to shatter into a million fragments leaving just a gleaming face.
Sorrel’s face. The Sorrel who had just lost Silvia, back in Faerun when the dark sorcerers tore apart her close protection team while she watched, helpless.
There was a noise behind her and she twisted around to see Sorrel, again, this time the Sorrel who had just lost Sylvia, covered in blood, intent on killing until she had slaughtered happiness itself.
She moved forward to embrace this Sorrel just as the Jackal had embraced her then withdrew hastily as she sliced herself to ribbons. Embracing glass was not the smartest move she could have made.
Glass Sorrel looked at her, confused.
“Silvia is alive,” Sorrel told her. “You will see her again.”
She reached for the symbol of Selûne around her neck and let its reflection play in the million mirrored angles of her heartbroken self. “The goddess helped us bring her back.”
And then Taz, Derthaad and Felix were running towards her and Kavel was slapping her on her back.
“Comrades, I think I hear Nathalie, I need your help,” he said.
Taz growled “Let’s get this done and go home.”
There was an island, and Nathalie was fighting a figure obscured by shadows and magic that flickered in and out of existence, reappearing behind her, in front of her, always attacking, blades always moving.
Sorrel moved swiftly into position, a fey chant crackling with power around her arrow.
“Sorrel, what is that on your arrow?” Taz sounded worried.
“Why it’s greased lightning,” Sorrel gave a sly smile and winked at Kavel.
“Go greased lighting,” he grinned back, and she unleashed the fury of the storm, following it up with an arrow to the throat. The shadowy form reeled, wavered then teleported towards them, lancing a glaive into Kavel.
“The power I’m supplying, it’s electrifying,” Felix hollered, unleashing a lightning bolt.
The beasts glaive sliced across Kavel, Felix and Sorrel sending chills multiplying until Sorrel almost lost control.
The Kavel hurled himself at the flickering shadow, sweeping it to the ground and pinning it in place as Derthaad’s dragon spirit Ulhar slashed its claws down the shade.
Suddenly the thing was gone, rematerialising beside Nathalie and for a second the party held their breath, then Nathalie’s blade flourished and fell once, twice, three times, slicing the creature until it was no more than a memory.
Sorrel was impressed. This woman was worthy of her brother, she had no doubt. There would be no need for the extensive questionnaire and examination of her financial circumstance. Warriors of her calibre were rare. Imagine, she let her mind wander briefly, if they had children. Presumable the goliath/sprite combo would average out their size and they’d have both the strength and the nimbleness. And perhaps they’d call her Aunty Sorrel…
“What are you doing here?” Nathalie’s voice broke into her reverie.
Kavel was suddenly awkward. “I came to see you,” he was actually blushing.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she began, then her gaze melted. “But I’m glad you did.”
Kavel put his arm around her waist. “You look good in your dreds”
“And is that a beard?” Nathalie tugged mischievously at his chin. “I like it.”
Then she saw Derthaad and noticed a tattoo that Sorrel had barely paid heed to before. Some of the Dawnlanders had something similar – a gift from a Fey queen, she thought.
“You’ve been marked by her,” Nathalie snarled.
Something weird started and Sorrel felt she should have been paying attention, but she suddenly realised the chocolates… well, it was so hot.
She started searching through her pack as they span into the rising pulse of a drumbeat and slumped forward in their bodies on the floor of the sprite’s cave.
Kavel and Nathalie were deep in conversation, making plans, arguing about Derthaad, filled with affection they were too shy to convey, making their true love – or at least regular visit booty call – vows.
Sorrel sidled up to Derthaad. “Do you have anything for melted chocolate in your book of magic tricks,” she whispered.
He stared at the liquid sloshing around in her heart shaped box and gave a slight smile, muttered a few words and suddenly there was one perfectly heart shaped chocolate filling the box.
Sorrel bowed her thanks. “Kavel,” she whispered. “I don’t have all the chocolates. Just the one that you want.”
“The one that I want?”
“The one you need. Oh yes indeed.”
And she handed her brother the chocolate with all of her heart.
Apparently not.
She found what she was looking for, dressed rapidly and bounded downstairs where Kavel and Silvia were still bursting into bouts of hugging. She couldn’t blame them. It’s not every day someone comes back from the dead. But when she appeared she was gratified by their reaction.
The skirt was matronly enough to conceal a couple of switchblades, the hat large enough to cast a decent shadow on her face, the top so frumpy she gave off negative threat levels although she still couldn’t work where or how to hide the battle axe. Dress like a battle axe, carry a battle axe. Silvia covered her eyes and Kavel gasped.
“Ta da!” she cried. “Perfect for interviewing my brother’s prospective girlfriend and making sure she’s good enough for him.
“Sis, it’s… I mean… could you lose the axe?”
“But Herr Castiron,” Sorrel’s guttural tones had taken six solid months to perfect. “Does not the teacher of foreign languages for the tutoring of the traitor prince’s eldest son not give off the right – how you say – vibes?”
“I am going to the Damphenite Tangle and I want her to like me,” Kavel said. ‘We kissed last time so… please?”
“Tell me more,” Sorrel dropped the axe, bent and picked it up, losing her place. “Tell me more. Did you get very far?”
Kavel raised his eyebrow. Of course, her brother wouldn’t kiss and tell. But that left her in a bit of a quandary – was this woman good enough for her brother? And if not, presumably he would take it badly if she killed her…
“One more outfit,” Sorrel promised and disappeared upstairs again.
--
This time it was Silvia who gasped. The tight-fitting dress was slit to the thighs on both sides and top was… well, barely there. “Where did you get those… boots…” Silvia was breathing heavily.
“They don’t really lace up,” Sorrel smiled proudly, clicked a catch on the thigh high footwear and revealed eight small throwing daggers neatly arrayed down the inside leg. “The rope belt has some carefully prepared ground glass for any garrotting, but the sword is just a sword. I call it the Embassy Takedown.”
“And the chocolates?” Kavel was cautious.
“Actual chocolates. For the lady,” Sorrel nodded earnestly, took one and bit half. “Look. No poison.”
She was about to put the half-eaten chocolate back, thought better of it and rearranged the box so the chocolates fit the heart shape.
There was a long pause.
“Well, OK, but you should wear adventuring gear until we get there,” Kavel sounded dubious. “The Damphenite Tangle is a complicated place. And dress for the tropics.”
“What’s the whip for?” Silvia’s voice was thick and breathy.
“I’ll show you if you like,” Sorrel met her gaze.
There was a longer pause.
“Well, bless me, is that the time? I have to buy some wood to build that French Cleat shelving for you Silvia,” Kavel rose rapidly. “So you will join me in the Summer Court, sister. Excellent. Nathalie is strong, I'm sure she'll take a liking to my athletic, very nimble sister. Meet at Portal Plaza. Also… just in case things are tricksy… don’t just bring chocolate.”
--
As they stepped through the Portal Sorrel wished, perhaps for the first time in her life, that she’d bought fewer weapons. Dress for the tropics my pert little ass, she thought. Dress for Phlegethos. Except with music. Plinky plonky fair folk music.
The sun was merciless. It made summer in Chult seem like a soft autumn day. Her skin, clothes, hair and probably steel was soaked and dripping within about fifteen seconds. “Summer heat, boy and girl meet,” she muttered to herself. “I don’t know why we couldn’t have come at night.”
She sheltered under a large leaf after checking it for teeth and noticed Felix seeking similar shade. Derthaad and Taz seemed perkier – the benefits of dragon blood – and Kavel seemed to barely notice the heat, bounding off to a cavernous ledge with glee before pausing and staring down.
Sorrel squelched up alongside him and followed his gaze. The view was vertiginous, plummeting an impossible distance down into a valley of ruffled stone that looked like a minor god’s recently vacated bedspread, full of intersecting gorges and chasms in vibrant colours from warm yellow under their feet to purples and magentas off in the distance. She was normally good with heights, but she briefly became disorientated.
“The last time, guards came to meet us,” Kavel sounded puzzled.
Derthaad spotted a sprite camp barely 100ft away. Despite her fey blood Sorrel knew the courts could be tricksy even if they meant well. It would be wise not to be surrounded so she slipped into the jungle shadows and kept a bowshot distance from her comrades as they made for the village.
Sure enough an Eladrin strapped in more knives and swords than Sorrel, the queen of strapping knives and swords to herself, stepped out from a pavilion and got in everyone’s face whilst Sorrel could feel shapes moving through the jungle around her. She slowed her breathing and slipped between the beams of light until it would have taken an immortal to see her.
“It’s me! Kavel!” Kavel announced. The guard stared into his eyes with a hint of aggression.
“Did she send for you?”
“It depends who she is,” Derthaad said with the cautious practice of one who has negotiated with Eladrin before.
“It was Nathalie!” Kavel was unquenchable.
“Wait here,” the Eladrin vanished and returned with a bag, clinking with the unmistakable sound of bottles. As she pulled out potions shimmering with a purple light, Sorrel materialised out of the shadows next to her.
She was impressed by the Eladrin’s casual response – just handing over a potion with a respectful nod that said ‘I may have failed to spot your excellent junglecraft techniques but I have 50 archers with their arrows pointed at your heart right now so if you think I’m scared you’re a fool.’
“Right,” the Eladrin issued orders with the potions. “Try not to piss the sprites off. Don’t start any fights you don’t intend to win.”
“I’m Taz,” said Taz. “I always win. But I take your point.”
“Anything I should know?” Kavel asked.
The Eladrin looked at him strangely for a second. “It’s no longer high summer,” she said eventually. “Things change. It turns colder. That’s where it ends.”
The Eladrin watched in silence as the party walked to the edge, drank their potions and stepped into the void.
--
They started to shrink at once and drifted slowly down, tossed lightly on tiny breezes that coaxed them away from the jagged rock face and into the soft embrace of the wind. The light began to change. Purples, pinks and blues swam around them as if they were floating underwater but the new, dry breeze kept Sorrel as stone dry as any desert.
They landed on a cluster of crisscrossing bridges made of shifting rock and their slow descent had attracted plenty of attention. As soon as their feet touched the rock bridge they faced a forest of blades and bows as heavily armed sprites in hardened, natural armour and vivid war paint stared them down.
Kavel’s voice was upbeat. “It is I, Kavel Castiron!” he cried. “I was here for the Salivsuli Veranal!”
Sorrel had killed people in palaces, bars, embassies, barracks, stagecoaches… it’s probably easier to list the places she hadn’t killed anyone: - a greengrocers, and the children’s ward at a hospital. Depending on how you define a children’s ward. The point is – she had learned to read a room. And this room – or bridge – was suddenly turning ugly.
She moved a couple of paces to the left, so she had Kavel’s back covered and clicked her heels together releasing the straps on two venom tipped throwing knives, smiling carefully as she took a bead on the nearest armed sprites with a glint in her eyes that said, unmistakably, if there has been an error we mean no harm but if you touch Kavel you die painfully.
One of the sprite warriors met her gaze and nodded in understanding. She stepped forward. “I recognise you,” she said. “You celebrated Salivsuli Veranal with Nathalie. She speaks very highly of you. I am not familiar with the others. We were wondering if you would keep your promise.”
The light dawned on Sorrel. Her brother’s pronunciation had been Ver-anal. The sprite had said Veran-al. She rolled her eyes. For a second it looked like she’d have killed at least two people over a double entendre. She considered offering a smile of thanks to the sprite and in the end she gave her one.
Felix, meanwhile, was riffing on some pomp and circumstance. Sorrel sensed that whilst the tension over the arse joke had ratcheted down, the locals weren’t into his vibe. Fortunately, he too could eventually read rooms, and his lilting love songs at least stopped infuriating the crowd.
The sprite introduced herself as Steler, Natalie’s second in command, and gave some much needed exposition. Nathalie was spirit walking to protect the tribe but had been locked in a coma for days now. This was not standard practice and they were worried.
Would the party submit themselves to the trust of a group of armed strangers and enter a state of unconsciousness where they would have to travel just with the weapons they could hold in their hand and where “you will face shame and fear on the roads you are to tread,” according to Steler. “Humiliation and death will come for you.”
“I fear neither death nor pain,” Sorrel spat.
“Then what do you fear, my lady?” Steler raised an eyebrow.
“A cage,” Sorrel’s voice fell to a whisper. “To stay behind bars until old age accepts them and all chance of valour has gone beyond desire or hope.”
She did not speak of her shame. That everything bad that has happened to those she loved was her fault. That she did not save Sana, her first love, from death when it came. That she did not protect Silvia, her love and saviour, when the dragons came. That she is not and never will be good enough. She hoped the dark roads would not read this fear.
“Will you help me comrades?” Kavel sounded nervous.
“Why even ask, brother?” Sorrel began unstrapping her weapons. “You wouldn’t ask me to come swimming and worry if I minded getting wet if you swam by me getting my suit damp.”
“Are you going to try and get the entire song into this?” Kavel sighed.
“I’m struggling with car, bowling and lemonade for reasons of narrative anachronism,” Sorrel confessed. Kavel shook his head in despair.
They entered a fairy ring where Nathalie was kneeling. Sorrel could see why Kavel was drawn to her. She was beautiful and radiated a quiet power even in her trance. Her hair was tied in warrior braids, her armour tough and practical and in each hand she clutched a razor-sharp longsword. “Cute as can be,” she whispered to herself. “Looks like she’s putting up a fight.”
“Kneel down and breathe to our rhythm,” Sterel told them. “Take only those weapons you can hold in your hands. All others will fail you.”
Soft drumming surged up around her like a heartbeat, pulsing in time with her breath as she felt her eyes close. Words, music, voices, old and powerful passed through her mind and her spirit drifted.
Gradually the words became clearer, and she could pick out elvish phrases that seemed to dance at the edge of understanding.
She opened her eyes.
Around her she could feel rather than see a dim light flickering.
One moment her friends were beside her, then she was alone.
The air was misty and foetid as if the wind had never stirred it. She could feel dampness on her skin, drops so heavy they weighed her down, making it hard to lift her arms or turn her head.
Her eyes flickered left and right. Stone greeted her at every turn. Ancient walls covered in moss and faint scratches, messages from prisoners who died there, farewells to their loved ones and hopeless words of defiance.
She was in an oubliette, a narrow stone pit sealed above with a steel grating cemented into place so that it seemed to sprout from the rock itself. She could not sit or lie or even raise her hands.
She cried out, and heard her voice die against the rock.
Even a mocking jailor would be welcome but all was silence.
Her doom had come. The worst of all things. An endless night, trapped and forgotten. She felt panic rise and tried to twist and turn, but the walls were too close for all but the slightest tilt of her head and her bow kept knocking against her head.
Her bow.
The images came rushing back. The greatest fear. Of course. This was spirit road mind fucking. But Sorrel Darkfire had walked in the dream streets of Gadenthor and outwitted Slaad in Limbo, the plane of raw chaos. They’d picked the wrong bitch to mess with.
She smiled, closed her eyes and rose through the grating above her head.
She was in a clearing. Mist coalesced in front of her and a warrior was drawing her sword as she charged Sorrel. Within seconds three arrows were streaking towards this figure which seemed to shatter into a million fragments leaving just a gleaming face.
Sorrel’s face. The Sorrel who had just lost Silvia, back in Faerun when the dark sorcerers tore apart her close protection team while she watched, helpless.
There was a noise behind her and she twisted around to see Sorrel, again, this time the Sorrel who had just lost Sylvia, covered in blood, intent on killing until she had slaughtered happiness itself.
She moved forward to embrace this Sorrel just as the Jackal had embraced her then withdrew hastily as she sliced herself to ribbons. Embracing glass was not the smartest move she could have made.
Glass Sorrel looked at her, confused.
“Silvia is alive,” Sorrel told her. “You will see her again.”
She reached for the symbol of Selûne around her neck and let its reflection play in the million mirrored angles of her heartbroken self. “The goddess helped us bring her back.”
And then Taz, Derthaad and Felix were running towards her and Kavel was slapping her on her back.
“Comrades, I think I hear Nathalie, I need your help,” he said.
Taz growled “Let’s get this done and go home.”
There was an island, and Nathalie was fighting a figure obscured by shadows and magic that flickered in and out of existence, reappearing behind her, in front of her, always attacking, blades always moving.
Sorrel moved swiftly into position, a fey chant crackling with power around her arrow.
“Sorrel, what is that on your arrow?” Taz sounded worried.
“Why it’s greased lightning,” Sorrel gave a sly smile and winked at Kavel.
“Go greased lighting,” he grinned back, and she unleashed the fury of the storm, following it up with an arrow to the throat. The shadowy form reeled, wavered then teleported towards them, lancing a glaive into Kavel.
“The power I’m supplying, it’s electrifying,” Felix hollered, unleashing a lightning bolt.
The beasts glaive sliced across Kavel, Felix and Sorrel sending chills multiplying until Sorrel almost lost control.
The Kavel hurled himself at the flickering shadow, sweeping it to the ground and pinning it in place as Derthaad’s dragon spirit Ulhar slashed its claws down the shade.
Suddenly the thing was gone, rematerialising beside Nathalie and for a second the party held their breath, then Nathalie’s blade flourished and fell once, twice, three times, slicing the creature until it was no more than a memory.
Sorrel was impressed. This woman was worthy of her brother, she had no doubt. There would be no need for the extensive questionnaire and examination of her financial circumstance. Warriors of her calibre were rare. Imagine, she let her mind wander briefly, if they had children. Presumable the goliath/sprite combo would average out their size and they’d have both the strength and the nimbleness. And perhaps they’d call her Aunty Sorrel…
“What are you doing here?” Nathalie’s voice broke into her reverie.
Kavel was suddenly awkward. “I came to see you,” he was actually blushing.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she began, then her gaze melted. “But I’m glad you did.”
Kavel put his arm around her waist. “You look good in your dreds”
“And is that a beard?” Nathalie tugged mischievously at his chin. “I like it.”
Then she saw Derthaad and noticed a tattoo that Sorrel had barely paid heed to before. Some of the Dawnlanders had something similar – a gift from a Fey queen, she thought.
“You’ve been marked by her,” Nathalie snarled.
Something weird started and Sorrel felt she should have been paying attention, but she suddenly realised the chocolates… well, it was so hot.
She started searching through her pack as they span into the rising pulse of a drumbeat and slumped forward in their bodies on the floor of the sprite’s cave.
Kavel and Nathalie were deep in conversation, making plans, arguing about Derthaad, filled with affection they were too shy to convey, making their true love – or at least regular visit booty call – vows.
Sorrel sidled up to Derthaad. “Do you have anything for melted chocolate in your book of magic tricks,” she whispered.
He stared at the liquid sloshing around in her heart shaped box and gave a slight smile, muttered a few words and suddenly there was one perfectly heart shaped chocolate filling the box.
Sorrel bowed her thanks. “Kavel,” she whispered. “I don’t have all the chocolates. Just the one that you want.”
“The one that I want?”
“The one you need. Oh yes indeed.”
And she handed her brother the chocolate with all of her heart.
