Jaezred and Keros - Surprise Drinks at Fort Ettin
May 10, 2023 19:53:47 GMT
Ian (Menace), Jaezred Vandree, and 2 more like this
Post by Tom M on May 10, 2023 19:53:47 GMT
Late at night, when drinking in the great hall, Keros gets a whiff of that familiar rose-scented tobacco smoke. He doesn’t turn to look as Jaezred sits down on the chair beside him.
“I know I’m not the face you’d like to see tonight, but you still haven’t asked Rae out, so here we are…”
Keros sighs “Is there a word that goes further than ‘meddling’? I feel like you’re the kind of person to know it.” He has by this point accepted that he’s basically haunted by a well dressed drow
Jaezred chuckles. “Hey, I’m just pointing out the obvious, but you panic every time I do. Anyway, not here to talk about that.”
He hesitates, like he’s not sure how to bring this up and then takes a more serious now. “Look, I’m just here to tell you that… maybe you already know this… but you have what I have. I don’t know if there’s a name for it. The soldier’s rage.”
Keros looks him up and down, “Not the style of fighting I expected from you, but yes I have noticed since Avernus that things… change, when I get angry.”
He pauses, “And that I get angry… more.”
Jaezred nods, shifting the pipe between his lips to the other end of his mouth. “I thought I managed to suppress it. And then two months ago, I beat someone to death with my bare hands.”
“Did they deserve it?” Keros ventures
“She was trying to kill me, my friends, and a whole lot of innocents.” Replies Jaezred, “But I’ve fought people like that before. Something else triggered my rage. Memories.”
Keros, not fully understanding the conversation up until this point, stands up.
“Wait here I’ll get us some drinks.”
Jaezred lifts his eyebrows, surprised, but complies.
Keros returns with a bottle of Whisper of the Winds and two glasses
Jaezred smiles at the choice of drink. “My favourite beer.”
“There’s a right way to hear war stories.” Keros says as he pours, “So… when you say ‘memories’ you mean things that they’ve done in the past? Or things you’ve done in the past that they weren’t there for?”
Jaezred sighs and takes a hearty glug of the drink before answering. “I’d never met her before. She was…a priestess of Lolth, a divinely favoured one at that. You see, the place of my birth, Menzoberranzan, is a theocracy. Controlled by Lolth. Only women are allowed to be clerics of Lolth.”
“I was inundated by her lies since birth. Men are looked down upon in her society, but still I loved my city. I was barely an adult when an army of duergar and demons tried to invade Menzoberranzan. Caught up a fervour of patriotism, I signed up to join the army.”
“The grey dwarves are inventive with their weapons. Do you what stonefire is? Called so because it can burn through stone. Melted the flesh right off my bones.”
Keros takes a drink from his own glass, “That… doesn’t sound like an enjoyable experience.”
“The one nice thing my mother ever did for me was heal me from that hideous wound…”
“The siege came afterwards. We starved for a year. War is hell. Even knowing that, a hundred years later, I joined Lolth’s war of conquest for the surface world. We marched across a cold and foreign land, burning everything in our way. And we lost — I almost died defending a colony town founded by a drow noble house. Almost died for the bunch of perverted, inbred fucks that is House Xorlarrin.”
“War is hell indeed.” Keros muses, “I have never considered nearly dying for a good cause a luxury. Is this why you left?”
“No… I was banished in all but name. Because…because after I came home, I sought refuge and comfort in religion, and I prayed to Lolth every day. I prayed for strength, so my family would recognise my worth and value me. She ‘blessed’ me with divine magic. A male possessing Lolth’s divine magic proved too controversial for Menzoberranzan to deal with, and my matron mother asked me to leave for a while.”
Jaezred breaks out into a dry laugh and shakes his head. “You know what’s fucked? Compared to everything our enemies did to me, nothing was as bad as what was happening behind the lines. The abuse, the exploitation, the mercilessness from the priestesses. I was loyal and still they were happy to send me to agony and death. That…that was what triggered my rage.”
“And I was too stupid to recognise that.”
Keros looks at him quizzically “Dying for being loyal is a soldier’s death, but it sounds as if your culture didn’t attach much respect to that.”
“A dead soldier is no good according to the priestesses. He can’t fight from the grave, can he.”
“A dead soldier is a weak soldier.”
Keros raises an eyebrow at such an alien concept to him
“Our culture is one of ancestor veneration in many ways. The dead are remembered - especially those that sacrificed themselves. Why would you risk death if you expect to be ridiculed for it?”
“Or they used to be anyway. The Purists seem to want to treat our ancestors as shameful traitors by default.”
Keros shakes his head “Did this attitude not lead to cowardice?”
“Not cowardice… dirty fighting. We drow do everything we can to survive. We destroy our enemies by any means necessary.”
“Our culture also prized sadism, you see.”
“Remind me never to travel to Menzoberranzan.” Keros says before he catches himself
“Sorry, not to insult your home.”
Jaezred waves a hand flippantly at the apology and doesn’t seem to take offence “Heh. You’d only be welcome for seven days in a year anyway. We hated foreigners.”
“So… you saw a priestess of Lolth and you… felt as if you were back there?”
“Yes… She was trying to kill me and I was reminded of the many, many times a priestess of Lolth had hurt me. My sisters, my relatives, my paramours… And of all the times I bowed my head in obedience to them.”
“And you felt… shame.”
“And self-loathing.”
Keros drinks silently for a bit
“Maybe we have more in common than I thought.”
He raises a brow. “I’ve been talking too much.” He leans back in his chair — a gesture for Keros to tell his story.
Keros was waiting for more, well aware of the longevity of elves
“Oh… well, I was in a few skirmishes. Giants mostly. I think I dealt with it pretty well.”
He takes a deep breath “It sounds as if you were some great hero even back then, but I was just a soldier when I walked into Avernus.”
“Avernus was… different.”
Something clicks
“Wait… you were around for then. We were told there were elite teams from the Dawnlands working alongside the Errant Guard. It was our job to buy them time. Were you in one of them?”
“Avernus? No, but I did trap a bunch of Vanguard commanders in a room as my colleague burned them to death before that.”
“Oh. Yes that seems fair.”
“Well, we were told to march through that portal so we did. I should I guess be thankful that it was for a good cause.”
“The people at my side were my family. I… had a difficult relationship with my parents, but not as extreme as yours. We simply don’t speak anymore.”
“I watched my chosen family die and… I was holding a shield.”
“Armour protects the wearer… shields are for those beside you.”
Keros snorts a terse laugh “You feel shame for protecting those you fought for and I feel shame for failing the ones I fought for.”
Jaezred looks down into his glass. “It’s not your fault. You know that, intellectually, but emotionally…”
He doesn’t finish his sentence.
“Are you talking to me or yourself there?”
Jaezred shrugs, clearly tipsy.
“So yeah, people say shit like that as if it means something. Like we get to choose when we’re let off the hook. Like we should feel bad for feeling bad.”
“And nothing you can say to someone who doesn’t get it is going to make them get it. They think they know but they don’t. It’s something living within you that has a life of its own now.”
“I thought for a while that I was possessed. That a devil had left Avernus living inside me, torturing me.”
“It was comforting. I know that sounds wrong, but the idea that I could blame this on something that perhaps one day I could fight was comforting.”
Keros refills his glass
“But it’s not that simple is it?”
Keros sees Jaezred stare at him for a moment, as if weighing his soul.
“It’s never that simple. I could blame it all on Lolth and my family, but I know I could’ve tried harder to break free. Tried to have better judgement.”
“But I understand.”
Keros (carefully this time) twists to show a scar on his hip
“A pit fiend’s axe passed through another soldier before it reached me. I believe that is why I survived and why he didn’t.”
“Whatever words you’d need to hear to tell you that you did everything you could I’d have to hear tell me that our parts in that story shouldn’t be reversed.”
“And we both know that the words each of us would need to hear do not exist.”
Jaezred purses his lips
“I... I’m sorry for what I said earlier today.”
The pair blurt their words out simultaneously:
“What you said about sending you and Rae to your death set me off. But you were fair to think that. I…I don’t want to do that. I care about…” Jaezred doesn’t finish his sentence, looking embarrassed.
“Are you kidding me? That thing I said about sending us to our deaths must have been hell for you to hear!”
There is an awkward pause
“Look Jaezred. I get it. I understand that when a commander speaks to me I’m part of a grim calculation.”
“That’s the nature of war.”
“For all their cleverness Rae doesn’t understand that.”
“But the idea of them having to learn the lessons that you and I have learned physically pains me.”
“They don’t deserve that. They’re a good kid.”
“I was a wizard once, like them. I didn’t possess the diligence to continue, though.” He smiles wryly.
“Jokes aside… if someone has to lie down on a wire, and that calculation has to be made, I need it to be me.”
“It has to be me this time.”
“You can make all the jokes you want, but Rae is walking out of this alive.” Keros locks Jaezred in a stare.
“I intend for all of you to walk out of this alive.”
“General Razorback had the same intention.”
“I know. But this is not a war. It can be stopped before it gets to that point.”
“At least, I hope so. I’m tired of war. I don’t know anymore.”
Keros relents and holds his glass out toward Jaezred at that
“After the Battle of Fort Ettin, I decided that I will not do this again. I want to go home to my partner at the end of the day.” Jaezred clinks his glass against Keros’s
The pair drink in silence.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying. The inscription on your shield… I took an introductory class on Abyssal in the academy. For summoning demons, naturally. It says ‘Pact-sworn’.”
“’…and Oath-bound’. That’s the bit I don’t understand.”
“The brimstone smell. I know you know of it.”
Keros narrows his eyes again, having actually been feeling quite comfortable
“I suppose when I said that I brought something back from Avernus I was not entirely speaking in metaphor.”
“But I can control it now.”
Jaezred shakes his head. “I’m not judging you, Keros. I was once in the thrall of a demon queen.”
“All I’m saying is… fiends don’t let go unless you force them to.”
“Well these fiends seem to listen to me. They seem to protect others, force my enemies to focus on me and me alone.”
Keros is speaking quickly, as if he’s trying to convince himself as much as anyone else.
“They say Minotaurs are descendants of fiends. I believe my ancestors are joining me in battle.”
“I met an angel. A force of pure Will in the forest not long after I arrived in the Dawnlands. They did not consider me cursed. Their words helped me control the fiends.”
“Only…” he trails off
“Only what?”
“Well… plenty of us woke up in that hospital and I’m yet to find another who shares my condition.”
“This is not just ‘a thing that happens’ to Minotaurs.”
Jaezred thinks for a moment.
“Pactsworn and oathbound…” he murmurs under his breath.
“Oaths are sometimes passed down through lineage.”
“Look. You know yourself best, Keros. I will tell you this: I rejected Lolth because I feared for the people I love.”
“My partner is a surface elf. The people Lolth hates the most. I couldn’t take the risk of her making me hurt my beloved.”
“I snapped at her once. Yelled hurtful words at her. Because of that… ‘soldier’s rage’.” He bows his head. “I couldn’t forgive myself.”
“The downside of what we’ve been through, but if you had fiends following you around that helped you defend your beloved would you banish them?”
“You know, I am myself ‘pact-sworn’. A pact borne out of my desire to find another way.”
“But your way is your own to find, Keros.”
Keros takes another drink and settles for a bit
“Certainly something to think about.”
He smiles as slyly as is within his repertoire
“So, have you got the information you need out of me?”
“No… Just came here because I pitied you.” Jaezred shoots a sly grin back at him.
Keros snorts, “I’ll keep a bottle to one side in case I need some more pity then.”
“Well, keep that bottle for when you finally ask Rae out too.”
Keros rolls his eyes “Okay I’m drunk enough to ask. Do you actually think that would end anything other than terribly?”
“Are you serious? They obviously want to spend more time with you. And you with them.”
Keros tries to refill his glass from the empty bottle and sighs disappointedly
“Not what I asked, but I’ll… think about it, okay?”
“Sure.”
“I know I’m not the face you’d like to see tonight, but you still haven’t asked Rae out, so here we are…”
Keros sighs “Is there a word that goes further than ‘meddling’? I feel like you’re the kind of person to know it.” He has by this point accepted that he’s basically haunted by a well dressed drow
Jaezred chuckles. “Hey, I’m just pointing out the obvious, but you panic every time I do. Anyway, not here to talk about that.”
He hesitates, like he’s not sure how to bring this up and then takes a more serious now. “Look, I’m just here to tell you that… maybe you already know this… but you have what I have. I don’t know if there’s a name for it. The soldier’s rage.”
Keros looks him up and down, “Not the style of fighting I expected from you, but yes I have noticed since Avernus that things… change, when I get angry.”
He pauses, “And that I get angry… more.”
Jaezred nods, shifting the pipe between his lips to the other end of his mouth. “I thought I managed to suppress it. And then two months ago, I beat someone to death with my bare hands.”
“Did they deserve it?” Keros ventures
“She was trying to kill me, my friends, and a whole lot of innocents.” Replies Jaezred, “But I’ve fought people like that before. Something else triggered my rage. Memories.”
Keros, not fully understanding the conversation up until this point, stands up.
“Wait here I’ll get us some drinks.”
Jaezred lifts his eyebrows, surprised, but complies.
Keros returns with a bottle of Whisper of the Winds and two glasses
Jaezred smiles at the choice of drink. “My favourite beer.”
“There’s a right way to hear war stories.” Keros says as he pours, “So… when you say ‘memories’ you mean things that they’ve done in the past? Or things you’ve done in the past that they weren’t there for?”
Jaezred sighs and takes a hearty glug of the drink before answering. “I’d never met her before. She was…a priestess of Lolth, a divinely favoured one at that. You see, the place of my birth, Menzoberranzan, is a theocracy. Controlled by Lolth. Only women are allowed to be clerics of Lolth.”
“I was inundated by her lies since birth. Men are looked down upon in her society, but still I loved my city. I was barely an adult when an army of duergar and demons tried to invade Menzoberranzan. Caught up a fervour of patriotism, I signed up to join the army.”
“The grey dwarves are inventive with their weapons. Do you what stonefire is? Called so because it can burn through stone. Melted the flesh right off my bones.”
Keros takes a drink from his own glass, “That… doesn’t sound like an enjoyable experience.”
“The one nice thing my mother ever did for me was heal me from that hideous wound…”
“The siege came afterwards. We starved for a year. War is hell. Even knowing that, a hundred years later, I joined Lolth’s war of conquest for the surface world. We marched across a cold and foreign land, burning everything in our way. And we lost — I almost died defending a colony town founded by a drow noble house. Almost died for the bunch of perverted, inbred fucks that is House Xorlarrin.”
“War is hell indeed.” Keros muses, “I have never considered nearly dying for a good cause a luxury. Is this why you left?”
“No… I was banished in all but name. Because…because after I came home, I sought refuge and comfort in religion, and I prayed to Lolth every day. I prayed for strength, so my family would recognise my worth and value me. She ‘blessed’ me with divine magic. A male possessing Lolth’s divine magic proved too controversial for Menzoberranzan to deal with, and my matron mother asked me to leave for a while.”
Jaezred breaks out into a dry laugh and shakes his head. “You know what’s fucked? Compared to everything our enemies did to me, nothing was as bad as what was happening behind the lines. The abuse, the exploitation, the mercilessness from the priestesses. I was loyal and still they were happy to send me to agony and death. That…that was what triggered my rage.”
“And I was too stupid to recognise that.”
Keros looks at him quizzically “Dying for being loyal is a soldier’s death, but it sounds as if your culture didn’t attach much respect to that.”
“A dead soldier is no good according to the priestesses. He can’t fight from the grave, can he.”
“A dead soldier is a weak soldier.”
Keros raises an eyebrow at such an alien concept to him
“Our culture is one of ancestor veneration in many ways. The dead are remembered - especially those that sacrificed themselves. Why would you risk death if you expect to be ridiculed for it?”
“Or they used to be anyway. The Purists seem to want to treat our ancestors as shameful traitors by default.”
Keros shakes his head “Did this attitude not lead to cowardice?”
“Not cowardice… dirty fighting. We drow do everything we can to survive. We destroy our enemies by any means necessary.”
“Our culture also prized sadism, you see.”
“Remind me never to travel to Menzoberranzan.” Keros says before he catches himself
“Sorry, not to insult your home.”
Jaezred waves a hand flippantly at the apology and doesn’t seem to take offence “Heh. You’d only be welcome for seven days in a year anyway. We hated foreigners.”
“So… you saw a priestess of Lolth and you… felt as if you were back there?”
“Yes… She was trying to kill me and I was reminded of the many, many times a priestess of Lolth had hurt me. My sisters, my relatives, my paramours… And of all the times I bowed my head in obedience to them.”
“And you felt… shame.”
“And self-loathing.”
Keros drinks silently for a bit
“Maybe we have more in common than I thought.”
He raises a brow. “I’ve been talking too much.” He leans back in his chair — a gesture for Keros to tell his story.
Keros was waiting for more, well aware of the longevity of elves
“Oh… well, I was in a few skirmishes. Giants mostly. I think I dealt with it pretty well.”
He takes a deep breath “It sounds as if you were some great hero even back then, but I was just a soldier when I walked into Avernus.”
“Avernus was… different.”
Something clicks
“Wait… you were around for then. We were told there were elite teams from the Dawnlands working alongside the Errant Guard. It was our job to buy them time. Were you in one of them?”
“Avernus? No, but I did trap a bunch of Vanguard commanders in a room as my colleague burned them to death before that.”
“Oh. Yes that seems fair.”
“Well, we were told to march through that portal so we did. I should I guess be thankful that it was for a good cause.”
“The people at my side were my family. I… had a difficult relationship with my parents, but not as extreme as yours. We simply don’t speak anymore.”
“I watched my chosen family die and… I was holding a shield.”
“Armour protects the wearer… shields are for those beside you.”
Keros snorts a terse laugh “You feel shame for protecting those you fought for and I feel shame for failing the ones I fought for.”
Jaezred looks down into his glass. “It’s not your fault. You know that, intellectually, but emotionally…”
He doesn’t finish his sentence.
“Are you talking to me or yourself there?”
Jaezred shrugs, clearly tipsy.
“So yeah, people say shit like that as if it means something. Like we get to choose when we’re let off the hook. Like we should feel bad for feeling bad.”
“And nothing you can say to someone who doesn’t get it is going to make them get it. They think they know but they don’t. It’s something living within you that has a life of its own now.”
“I thought for a while that I was possessed. That a devil had left Avernus living inside me, torturing me.”
“It was comforting. I know that sounds wrong, but the idea that I could blame this on something that perhaps one day I could fight was comforting.”
Keros refills his glass
“But it’s not that simple is it?”
Keros sees Jaezred stare at him for a moment, as if weighing his soul.
“It’s never that simple. I could blame it all on Lolth and my family, but I know I could’ve tried harder to break free. Tried to have better judgement.”
“But I understand.”
Keros (carefully this time) twists to show a scar on his hip
“A pit fiend’s axe passed through another soldier before it reached me. I believe that is why I survived and why he didn’t.”
“Whatever words you’d need to hear to tell you that you did everything you could I’d have to hear tell me that our parts in that story shouldn’t be reversed.”
“And we both know that the words each of us would need to hear do not exist.”
Jaezred purses his lips
“I... I’m sorry for what I said earlier today.”
The pair blurt their words out simultaneously:
“What you said about sending you and Rae to your death set me off. But you were fair to think that. I…I don’t want to do that. I care about…” Jaezred doesn’t finish his sentence, looking embarrassed.
“Are you kidding me? That thing I said about sending us to our deaths must have been hell for you to hear!”
There is an awkward pause
“Look Jaezred. I get it. I understand that when a commander speaks to me I’m part of a grim calculation.”
“That’s the nature of war.”
“For all their cleverness Rae doesn’t understand that.”
“But the idea of them having to learn the lessons that you and I have learned physically pains me.”
“They don’t deserve that. They’re a good kid.”
“I was a wizard once, like them. I didn’t possess the diligence to continue, though.” He smiles wryly.
“Jokes aside… if someone has to lie down on a wire, and that calculation has to be made, I need it to be me.”
“It has to be me this time.”
“You can make all the jokes you want, but Rae is walking out of this alive.” Keros locks Jaezred in a stare.
“I intend for all of you to walk out of this alive.”
“General Razorback had the same intention.”
“I know. But this is not a war. It can be stopped before it gets to that point.”
“At least, I hope so. I’m tired of war. I don’t know anymore.”
Keros relents and holds his glass out toward Jaezred at that
“After the Battle of Fort Ettin, I decided that I will not do this again. I want to go home to my partner at the end of the day.” Jaezred clinks his glass against Keros’s
The pair drink in silence.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying. The inscription on your shield… I took an introductory class on Abyssal in the academy. For summoning demons, naturally. It says ‘Pact-sworn’.”
“’…and Oath-bound’. That’s the bit I don’t understand.”
“The brimstone smell. I know you know of it.”
Keros narrows his eyes again, having actually been feeling quite comfortable
“I suppose when I said that I brought something back from Avernus I was not entirely speaking in metaphor.”
“But I can control it now.”
Jaezred shakes his head. “I’m not judging you, Keros. I was once in the thrall of a demon queen.”
“All I’m saying is… fiends don’t let go unless you force them to.”
“Well these fiends seem to listen to me. They seem to protect others, force my enemies to focus on me and me alone.”
Keros is speaking quickly, as if he’s trying to convince himself as much as anyone else.
“They say Minotaurs are descendants of fiends. I believe my ancestors are joining me in battle.”
“I met an angel. A force of pure Will in the forest not long after I arrived in the Dawnlands. They did not consider me cursed. Their words helped me control the fiends.”
“Only…” he trails off
“Only what?”
“Well… plenty of us woke up in that hospital and I’m yet to find another who shares my condition.”
“This is not just ‘a thing that happens’ to Minotaurs.”
Jaezred thinks for a moment.
“Pactsworn and oathbound…” he murmurs under his breath.
“Oaths are sometimes passed down through lineage.”
“Look. You know yourself best, Keros. I will tell you this: I rejected Lolth because I feared for the people I love.”
“My partner is a surface elf. The people Lolth hates the most. I couldn’t take the risk of her making me hurt my beloved.”
“I snapped at her once. Yelled hurtful words at her. Because of that… ‘soldier’s rage’.” He bows his head. “I couldn’t forgive myself.”
“The downside of what we’ve been through, but if you had fiends following you around that helped you defend your beloved would you banish them?”
“You know, I am myself ‘pact-sworn’. A pact borne out of my desire to find another way.”
“But your way is your own to find, Keros.”
Keros takes another drink and settles for a bit
“Certainly something to think about.”
He smiles as slyly as is within his repertoire
“So, have you got the information you need out of me?”
“No… Just came here because I pitied you.” Jaezred shoots a sly grin back at him.
Keros snorts, “I’ll keep a bottle to one side in case I need some more pity then.”
“Well, keep that bottle for when you finally ask Rae out too.”
Keros rolls his eyes “Okay I’m drunk enough to ask. Do you actually think that would end anything other than terribly?”
“Are you serious? They obviously want to spend more time with you. And you with them.”
Keros tries to refill his glass from the empty bottle and sighs disappointedly
“Not what I asked, but I’ll… think about it, okay?”
“Sure.”