The twilight slipped into evening, the shadows ever growing, licking around the sides of the fire, where the light could not quite reach. I sat quietly, watching the fight between the two.
Slowly, I could make out a figure in their dance, could almost tell the steps, could almost tell who it was-
And a Drow male gave me a rather sound slap on my right upper arm.
"You'll have to tell her about that," he signed very slowly.
I blinked at him, momentarily not understanding him at all. I could not remember who he was, or why he was keeping me company here by the fire. It seemed he knew that this was happening to me, as he motioned to the ground- I looked down, and words began appearing there.
"Bahlzair. Arcana. Potions. Forge."
I gasped and put both hands to my face, more embarrassed this time than I had been in the times before. How had I so quickly slipped so far? It was as though Shar were not only pulling me delicately, as always She would, but somehow something was pushing me toward her endless Shadow- farther, faster than She herself would have ever done. She enjoyed the suffering, this was a proven fact. So it stood to reason that never would She rush the pleasure of watching me fall to Her, as we all do in the end.
Bahlzair moved himself until he sat crosslegged from me, and I sighed at how the light from the fire played with his deep black skin while the shadows wrapped themselves around my own periwinkle and tattooed hide. Nature itself recoiled at me, and lavished itself on him- I dwelt on this thought until he reached forward and pinched me.
"You give in so easily in her absence," he signed, again very slowly. He had to write out two of the words and sign them again before I understood him. "The wound was graver than I could heal, I suppose?"
"I must seek out a strong wizard-"
"Why?" came a familiar voice from behind me. I looked over my shoulder and into the radiant red orbs of a young woman that I somehow knew that I adored. The way her horns were filed to a most perfect point below her ears inspired me to touch them, to draw my blood on them. "By Baator, you're disappearing-"
"What is this?" a silvery-scaled Dragonborn intoned, his voice close to suspicion. "Maybe the Elves are tricking us, are making bad things happen to her?"
"No! No- it's- it's what I am," I said, scared that so many people were concerned all at once. I wasn't used to being the center of attention, or the focus of anyone's direct affections. I thought it wouldn't be hard to accept, but I was wrong. "My people- we're cursed. By Shar Herself."
The ruddy hued, dark haired woman spoke first, cutting me off. "Well, no need to go into the horrible backstory. It seems like all of us have had someone or something spit in our face as a child or take a solid shit on our future-"
"Or both," the Dragonborn said pointedly.
"We go, we find a strong wizard for you," the woman continued. "I owe you that, for doing whatever you were doing in that cave all that time. If you've been suffering with random disappearance this whole time- look, we just do this. In your travels, have you noted anyone you think up to the task?"
"I- don't think I can remember, right now," I admitted, looking down at the ground.
"Hey, look," she smiled, kneeling before me for a moment. "Look what I can do." Without even looking at the fire, she simply stuck her hand into it and pulled a piece of flaming brush from the center. "I'm almost as flame-resistant as you are, see?"
And I laughed, because of course she would be more flame-resistant than I. It was in her blood- her hellfire blood- just that quickly I remembered that this was Mi'ishaen. I found it twice as funny that my feelings for her had remained the same even when I could not remember her name.
"There you are. You're kind of back," she sighed, her voice on the edge of contentment. "Now, stay. You said something before, when we first were talking to Uirrigaen, about how Shar would pull you down to a hopeless death-"
"The Bleak Blessing, my mother called it. Anything we do anywhere near a shadow, the shadow will reach out to embrace us. But if we are weakened in any way when it beholds us, it will eat our souls," I explained as carefully as I could. I had never done so before, since I had almost always been surrounded by those who were already aware of the Plane of Shadow.
"Then you cannot be found weak," Mi'ishaen replied, standing up. "Let Bahlzair and Aleksei sport themselves with each other. We've got fighting to do."
I didn't think she was serious, until she drew one of her daggers and smacked my cheek with the flat of the blade. "On your feet, or you'll get the prettiest of scars right here, where Aleksei doesn't have an eye."
"I guess those two fingers are healing very well," Aleksei snorted, moving to sit down next to Bahlzair.
"They hurt, so I'm alive," Mi'ishaen responded. Something about that appreciation for pain made my heart beat a little faster. I managed to find the will to stand up and draw my katars, which seemed a little heavy in my hands. I tried to tell myself that it was only because I was a little tired. "Under the weather," as a Human would say.
"Asmodeus kill me where I sit, lay or stand, if I have any mercy on you this night," Mi'ishaen hissed, her eyes narrowing to lava-red slits in her beautiful face. "If Shar wants you, She'll have to wait behind me."
And she meant it, for we fought as though our people had been at war for hundreds of years, from that moment until the ancient witch of the morning jabbed her nails into my back. Bahlzair, who had never slept a single night since I had met him, periodically spit at us, and where his spit fell, the ground hissed an acidic reply. Every now and again, if we fought too close to him, he would grab at our ankles and trip us, not minding which one of us he harmed in the process. I was bruised and sore by the time I bent my knee in submission, having been disarmed for the fifth time.
"Alright," Mi'ishaen breathed, throwing her daggers toward where my katars had fallen. "I'm hungry now, and we need to get moving as soon as possible. Rest as lightly as you can, and I'll give you a swift kick when it's time to go."
I had to bite my tongue so that I would not reply with something like, "My mistress is gracious," but in truth, the gratitude burned in my mind. The soreness and warm sensation of thankfulness pinned my soul firmly to my bones even when my eyes finally closed, speared through by daylight.
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