"Turn to the right."
I faced the stone wall, looking up at the green tapestries that surrounded me in the attempt to feel less awkward in front of the magic worker who was staring at my naked body.
"Hmm- minor bruising, three small cuts on upper thigh, various scrape marks on lower legs and buttocks...I keep harping about those bushes... now the left."
I'd been in plenty of unpleasant situations, but this was the first time that I'd been this closely inspected by a healer. This Urmlaspyr was an extremely strange place.
"Ye gods- hold out that hand, girl."
There was a tingling sensation, as though I'd stuck my crushed fingers into comfortably warm water. I turned to look down at my hand, and received a sharp reprimand.
"Do you mind? Stand straight!" A couple of hmms and ahs later, I heard, "Face front and look straight up to the ceiling. Were you lustfully touched by anyone during your stay?"
"What?" I spat, snapping my head down at once.
"Ceiling!" the mage screeched furiously. "Just answer the question, and you'll be off."
"No, no one- touched me- lustfully," I managed, watching a spectral hand hover over me and feeling it rustle through my hair. After a few seconds of that, it seemed to feel my skull. "What're you checking for?"
"Young boy- orphan. Maybe five. Stole- what?- an apple? Didn't see any damage. He lived a day outside the walls, then dropped. They brought him back to me. Turned his head- pop. Blood. Everywhere. Ran through my study. Got on my robes. Blasted apple."
Based on the clipped delivery and the tone, her robe hadn't been the only thing stained by that boy's blood. I nodded slightly, making sure not to take my gaze from the ceiling, and didn't ask any more questions.
"Done," she said a few moments later, throwing a soft white peasant dress at me. "Move along."
"Thank you," I replied, looking into the older woman's tired, wrinkled brown eyes.
"Hm? Well- yes," she grunted. "Don't come back."
After I'd gotten the dress on- thinking Silveredge would be happy to see it- I was escorted down the narrow hall by two guards- one in front and one behind- and came to a young Eladrin male who was dressed simply, sitting at a desk with an open ledger.
"Fireblade- Mishka- Voyonov?" the Eladrin asked with a mocking tone, standing up and coming around the table to have a look at me.
"I'll take it," I replied with a shrug.
"And your patronymic?" he prodded, staring directly into my eyes.
I didn't like the flouncy elf getting so close to me, but I found when I tried to back up, there was a guard directly behind me. "Patronymic?"
"Enough," the Eladrin nodded, turning away from me. "Mi'ishaen Lucien-Azaroth. That Dragonborn that saved your hide from public torture and the gallows is referring to you as though you're married to him. You know anything about that?"
"You don't have all the answers, Daintyskirt?" I sneered, crossing my arms. "Assume the worst."
"I am a highly trained divination wizard, Miss Lucien-Azaroth," the Eladrin replied calmly. "I do not have to assume. I know." He scribbled for a few moments in his ledger, then turned it to face me and handed me his quill. "Please sign."
"Where?" I asked, annoyed.
A wry smirk etched across his sallow face, which made me instantly loathe him. "Here- don't worry; an X will do. I'll write your name for you."
I flipped the quill over so that the tip would hit the paper, then pulled it across the entire line. Behind me, the guard sighed his impatience. "What? Was that not what it was supposed to do?" I said with a thin smile. "I'm afraid I don't write very often."
"I still know who you are," the Eladrin said smugly, crossing his slender arms.
"And I know who you are too- an arrogant birth-rag," I replied. "Go on, write my name there."
"Do you want to go back in for disrespecting the court mages?" the guard behind me grumbled. "Voyonov basically sold his sword arm to get you off the gallows, you know."
I shut up.
I did know.
When I finally did emerge from the stone walls, pushed out into brilliant, noon-day sunlight that forced my eyes to squint, I heard Aleksei talking to a guard with a horned helmet at the outer gate.
"Nyet, it is completely gone. The healer who is working on me, he is saying that there is nothing he can do for me. So he is scooping what is left out of my head, and sealing it shut; it is shut many years. I am maybe living with it so long that I am not even thinking it is problem until someone is staring at me for long time."
He had been given pieces of chain mail armor that had been fitted to and around his shendyt, probably allowing for him to move easily while protecting what little of his body was indeed covered with leather-like skin instead of scuffed, hardened scale. His own sword- or the sword that he'd claimed from the Dragonborn camp- had been sharpened and tempered so dramatically that I could tell even from a distance. What had once been more of a crushing threat had morphed into a dangerous piercing and slicing one. The leather-wrapped hilt had been replaced with a stronger metal one, but the glistening, black talon still remained.
"We need to talk," I charged, marching up to him right away.
"What, angry?" Aleksei relented, bowing his head to the soldier, who began shuffling off.
"You bet I'm angry!" I retorted as I stormed out of the courtyard. "What do you think you were doing? I could have gotten out of there- you belong to these idiots now."
"It is no strange place," Aleksei shrugged simply, turning calmly down an alleyway- probably to keep my rant out of the easy sight range of a patrolling guard. "I am in army almost all of my life. And you are not killer. They are hurting you for no reason."
"So you JOIN the people who hurt people for no reason? You don't say anything against them, you bend your back and let them stand on top of you to get what they want?!"
"It will not be easy thing, finding Bahlzair. I am doing this three times before- you are seeing the third time, remember?"
A tricky shadow shifted on the side of a cottage wall- just enough to catch my eye. It wavered, then disappeared, and I pushed it out of my mind.
"You didn't bring him back, Aleksei. You brought back a half-done army that rained flaming arrows from the sky. They put us on a smuggler's boat just so that we could get out of their sight- it didn't go well, in case you're missing my point," I huffed. "We get here, here's the Drow, sitting on the dock, and we get attacked. I'm not even convinced that Bahlzair actually cared who won."
"He does not," Aleksei said calmly, turning the corner to return to the inn. "I know this."
Beyond him, on his blind side, I spotted that tricky shadow again. Having a feeling in my bones, I let Aleksei walk one step beyond me as I moved behind him. Sure enough, the shadow was a cutpurse, and made clean work of the small bag Aleksei had. While I wasn't armored and couldn't risk a full on assault, I was in perfect position to simply grab the lithe thief's arm, twist it behind him and wretch the purse back out of his grasp.
"Go find an old lady to push, amateur," I snorted, watching the fleet footed creature tear away from me as though I'd been a guard myself. "Aleksei, here. Why would you keep that-"
"I am not bringing him back," Aleksei replied, having stopped and turned the eyeless side of his face toward me. "Not once, though I am going out for this same Drow three times." He reached out his hand- scarred on the inside, half green-scaled on the other side, with all the trust that he had once extended to a Tiefling child, sitting alone in the middle of the street. "I am also not much fighting young thief, because I am older than her by an entire lifetime, and am seeing war face to face."
I wordlessly walked up to him, pressed the purse into his waiting hand and closed his fingers over it. He turned fully toward me, laid his other hand over mine, and accepted it. We turned and walked in silence all the way back to the tavern. I found myself trying to figure out how Aleksei and Bahlzair must have related to each other- and how they could have communicated. As far as I knew, Aleksei was as well-read as I was, so Common script appearing on the floor and the walls wouldn't have solved the Drow's inability to communicate verbally.
"You are silent now. Are you seeing the Shadow Child anywhere?" Aleksei asked as we entered the tavern. The Dwarf behind the bar fixed a penetrating stare on the Dragonborn, who was about as perceptive of it as a mole sleeping in a burrow.
"No, I haven't seen Silveredge- I figured she might be dancing somewhere, making a bit of coin, waiting for one or both of us to turn up, unless she decided to go elsewhere," I replied, sitting at the bar with him. "Nothing for me, thanks."
"One peat beer, one blackwater and one frenzywater," Aleksei said, pulling two gold pieces from his purse and laying it quietly on the bar that seemed just slightly too small to accommodate him.
"Frenzywater? I like my furniture where it is, thanks," the Dwarf warned, crossing his arms.
"You are just getting to know me, my friend," Aleksei replied affably. "Right now, I am having only morning meal."
"You let me know when he tries to cut you off," I threw over my shoulder, having noticed a few candidates for alms. I snatched a napkin, deciding to make a purse out of it, and pushed away from the bar, figuring that since I was in a ridiculously feminine get up at the moment, I ought to see what I could do with it. Sure enough, about an hour later, I was five gold, ten silver and a few coppers richer. Some of the money had been willingly donated for a smile and a bit of flirting, but most of it had been made by adventurous hands and quick fingers. The tavern was just large enough for me to take my time with the hits, pacing each one by how many plates of unrecognizable food and mugs of brew were ordered. I was just going to roll my way to another target when one of the bar maids nudged me and pointed over her shoulder. Behind the bar, the Dwarf was crooking a finger at me.
"Yeah?" I said calmly when I made it back over to the bar. Aleksei seemed to be meditating on his flagon, and I wasn't sure if it had anything in it or not, let alone which drink he was on.
"I thought you said you wasn't gonna remind 'im about that room," the Dwarf grumbled. "He called on that bet soon's he started that frenzywater."
"I have no idea what a frenzywater is, but based on its name, I'd say you better make good on that room no matter how he came to remember it," I shrugged, turning and leaning on the bar backward.
"Half blind, yes, but not deaf. I am telling people that my memory is good, but," Aleksei smirked, still looking into the cup. "they are not believing me. I do not know if it is me sleeping in this bed tonight, but whoever is sleeping in it, that will settle what is owing."
"Eh?" the Dwarf started, confused. "Who'm I looking out for, then?"
"Maybe it is me, or maybe this female, or maybe a Shadow Child, a Tiefling male or a Drow male. They will know my name if you say it. Whichever of these is coming for that bed, that is the debt."
"So I'm supposed to ask every Tiefling, every Drow male and every Shadar-Kai female that walks through here if they know you or not?" the Dwarf scoffed. "You think I got time for games like this?"
"Are you saying that you cannot handle this small task, that easily one of your young ladies is able to do? Ah, this is my fault, I see. I am thinking that a Dwarf would be remembering and settling his gambling debts." Whatever was in his flagon, he drained it, then lightly tapped the table with the flagon before he got up.
"You'll catch a battleaxe to the head- keep talking!" the Dwarf retorted, getting red in the face almost instantly.
"You are thinking you are able to hit me?" Aleksei soothed quietly. "Perhaps you are forgetting who is putting that Minotaur out for you."
The barmaids that were listening giggled quietly, and the Dwarf did reach down and get his battleaxe from beneath the bar.
"You come here and we'll see who's putting who out!"
"Torvold, you stop that this instant!"
The entire tavern- aside from the two combatants- turned to recognize this new voice, which came from the Dwarven female who was at the docks when we arrived.
"This is why I can't get any customers in here- I get them here and you take battleaxes to them? Don't you see this Dragonborn is with the guard now? You give him what he wants and shut up!" She waddled her way up to Aleksei, who instantly drew himself to full height and nodded his respect to her. "He promised you a room, eh?"
"Just a bed for the night," Aleksei responded. "For myself or one who I am travelling with."
"Well, I know who you were travelling with. I saw you all, and I'm not likely to forget you. Messed up my port stall but good. It was two day's work getting the rat guts off the crab barrels. Now off with you- you're helping my stone-headed husband to create a disturbance." The Dwarven female wasted no time in getting back behind the bar and smacking said husband behind the head. "You want to have a fight, pick on someone your own size. Put that toy down before you hurt yourself."
Aleksei and I turned our backs to that scene and walked out of the tavern. The breeze caught the edges of my dress and sent it dancing around my ankles- I accidentally got one of my hooves caught as we walked down the stone stairs and began collapsing gracelessly to the ground. Surprisingly enough, considering that I was on his left side, Aleksei got his arm out in time for me to catch it and get my balance back.
"But you didn't hear that sneak try to take your purse?" I joked, feeling ungainly and silly.
"Frenzywater," Aleksei shrugged. "I am awake, now."
"Three times, huh?" I mused, thinking back to our previous conversation.
"Da," Aleksei replied, squinting up at the rooftops surrounding us.
"I'm not weak. I could have taken you, even with all that experience you've got," I muttered, looking up along with him without knowing what we were searching for. He ignored that comment, which I found to be more than just mildly annoying to me. "How do you expect to make any good on this, anyway? If you weren't able to find him the first two times, what makes you think that this time will be different?"
Aleksei stopped looking at the rooftops and instead looked at the cobblestones on the ground. "I am not saying that I did not find Bahlzair. I am saying it is difficult. Maybe a little too difficult for those who want him now. Maybe unfair."
I marched right in front of the Dragonborn and squatted a little so that I could look right into the one eye that worked. "You're good. Mostly honest. Probably punishing yourself for things that you can't do anything about, no matter how much you want to. So what do you think you owe the Drow? Did something happen in the cave?"
Aleksei closed his eye and put a heavy, clawed hand on top of my head. "Bahlzair is different. I am, too."
"What are you talking about?" I asked. "You're not like Bahlzair. You don't just hurt people just to hurt them."
"Neither does he," Aleksei breathed. "but he cannot tell you this. We are different in the same way, he and I. Believe me when I say this."
"What, do you have some sort of bond?" I demanded, trying to push his hand off my head and failing due to the weight of it. I finally just turned myself out from under him, and as soon as I did, he turned and began to walk away. "What you're saying makes no sense! Bahlzair's most difficult choice was whether or not to kill just one of the surface Elves or all of them, because he didn't want to show any of them any mercy. I don't know if there's a day I've known you that you haven't defended Bahamut and meditation and otherwise ridiculously good things! Bahlzair attacked Silveredge, who wouldn't have done a thing to him if it would have saved her life! You just put yourself in the way of my hanging-"
Aleksei stopped walking, looking down at a place in the street where one stone seemed somehow different than the others around it. I growled my frustration at the whole situation, although I was a bit more angry at Aleksei's willingness to compare himself to Bahlzair than anything else.
"Here's Silveredge, trying to fight off ruffians and rats, and Bahlzair just makes it more difficult for her. He indiscriminately spits that blasted acid wherever he feels like- he's likely to just kill you and be done with it, you know."
Aleksei looked up from the stone in a couple of different directions. After a few moments of quiet contemplation, he turned toward a road that led out of the main town. "I am neither afraid of him nor hateful toward him. This is enough for him. He would kill any other for my life, because he wishes to kill me on his own time frame. This is enough for me," he said simply.
"So, you're completely comfortable with the idea that he might sneak up on you and, I dunno, spit in your drink? Which, since it's him doing it, basically means that your flagon is lethal?"
And he stopped, turned over his shoulder and smiled. "One day, maybe he will do this- but, that day is not today. Today, he is expecting me to look for him. This is why he is letting me know with his pact blade that it is him, instead of simply using spell. In his way, he is more loyal than those I am growing up with. One day, when he comes for you, you will see this for yourself."
"Aleksei, why did you sell your sword arm for me?" I asked, feeling ridiculous in my loaned dress and like an utter idiot for not understanding this strange male who seemed persistently and stubbornly accepting of a creature that would likely be his death.
"Not because I am thinking you are weak," Aleksei replied, turning back around. "You are far from weak- I know this well. If I am offending you, I am sorry for this."
I somehow sensed a tiredness from him- a weariness that at last betrayed the age that he was talking about. I figured I'd keep my last question for him simple. "Fireblade Mishka Voyonov? As though I'd married you?"
There was a long pause between the question and the answer that couldn't be filled with the distant calls in the market place or the rushing of the dock water or the bustling of the kids, thieves and beggars in the streets.
"Fireblade Mishka Alekseyevna Voyonova," Aleksei corrected gently. "You are missing patronymic."
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