Across the city, the dusk bell of the College of War Wizards pounded dutifully, joined by a few other such sounds. They sang disjointedly at first, but the last few notes fell into an eerie unison. Susanna looked up from her stitching, sensing that something unusual was at hand.
Sarai's soulless lute plucking could be heard as soon as the power of the bells died down. Susanna chuckled to herself, feeling a bit silly, and looked back down at the hem she was repairing. Stephen had gotten bigger in ways that neither of the two of them could understand, granted his age, and she'd had to tear out some stitches that she had sewn years before in order to accommodate the fact that there was more of him for her to love. Within her, the baby gave a few kicks. Whoever it was inside of Susanna was seated quite low in their mother, so all their kicks forced her to go to the bathroom almost immediately.
"Oh dear," Suze fretted aloud, dropping her threaded needle on her lap.
Salone looked over her shoulder at her mother.
"I just... help me up, please, my dove. I... I fear I might have soiled myself," Suze whispered, not wanting her younger son to hear.
Sly dutifully pretended not to have heard, but Aleksei, who was in the middle of practicing a "k", nearly ruined the pretense by looking up.
"No, no," Sly urged seriously. "I know it seems funny to put a curl there, but you must, or you won't remember that it can connect to another letter with that stroke. Try again, and... ehrm... connect an "a" to it, lowercase. A small "a," connect a small "a" to the "k", to remind yourself what that bottom curl is for."
Salone scooted herself sideways so that her shoulder could be leaned upon for extra support, and Susanna guiltily leaned on her youngest daughter in the way that one might lean on a cane.
"My fingers are not doing well this curling," Aleksei said, realizing what Sly's intent had been. "Maybe you are showing me again how I am to do it?"
"Of course," Sly said with a bit more warmth than he would normally show, reaching his hand out for the quill. "So, I know you're still choosing which hand you want to use, so I'll try it with my other hand when I'm done using this one, but all the same, look carefully."
A knock came at the door at the other end of the sitting room, and Sarai marched out of her room and down the stairs to answer it.
"Oh no," Susanna breathed, feeling the baby press more insistently on her bladder. "I'd better wait. At least I'm standing already."
Salone peeked behind her mother. "Your skirts aren't soiled," she reported.
Susanna squeezed her daughter's shoulder. "Thank you for checking that. I'll have to hold on at least until whoever this is is at least partially sorted out."
After a brief conversation with some low-voiced someone at the other side of the partially opened door, Sarai turned around. "Mama, it's a Ser Seyashen, who says he's looking for Uncle Iordi and Miss Misha."
Aleksei wasn't able to fake his way through not recognizing the first of the names called, and looked up from Sly's admirably good attempt at writing a script "k" with his off hand.
"Allow him entrance, dear raven," Susanna said, having noted Aleksei's attention.
Sarai opened the door fully, and the sight of the dark robed, red skinned man with golden eyes at her door nearly made Susanna's knees buckle.
"Please be welcome in our home," Sarai said in her best adult voice.
"I thank you, little miss," Seyashen answered, stepping quietly through and watching as Sarai closed the door behind him. He turned his attentions back to Susanna, and the pregnant woman feared that she would simply react to him with the same woozy weakness every time he looked directly at her.
"Sarai, please go get your uncle; he's... I believe he's out the back with Saul," she breathed with some difficulty.
"Yes Mama," Sarai said, moving off with determination in her steps.
"Please come and be seated, ser," Susanna smiled faintly. "May I offer you water or ale as you await my brother?"
"If you don't mind, I'll keep my place here," Seyashen replied, returning Susanna's smile. "I see you were... bound elsewhere, and... I know I won't be here long."
Aleksei put his clawed hand on Sly's head for a moment as a physical apology, then stood. "Good evening, Cousin Yashenka; it is very good to hear you sound so healthy and pleasant."
Seyashen's golden eyes bolted wide in surprise, entirely shocked that he'd somehow not noticed the Dragonborn immediately upon entry.
"Aleksei! Ser Voyonov- I- my goodness, your voice isn't so hard on the ears either! How are you?"
Aleksei stepped around the sofa that had been hiding him and engulfed Seyashen in a powerful hug. With a smile, Susanna turned to find her way to a convenient chamber pot, leaving Salone standing and looking after her.
"I am as well as you see me," Aleksei replied when he'd let Seyashen go. "It is many things happening in this Cormyr, but all of them are being good things, especially the bad ones. How are you coming here? It is costing you many fivestars, da?"
"Not so many as it should have," Seyashen laughed. "I've had two cart drivers take off without payment, now. To protect my good false name, I shall have to send payment after the second one. But, a Cormyrean translator took my fivestars and traded me lions so soon as I crossed the borders; there's a story for you, if you're ever dry or bored."
Iordyn came up the stairs from the smithy behind Sarai, who paused just off to the left of the top of them.
"Ah, come Iordyn, I am presenting now to you Seyashen; elder Cousin Yashenka," Aleksei grinned widely. "He is doing all he can to be very good man with the gifts the gods are giving him."
Seyashen blushed mightily. "That's quite the introduction," he commented quietly.
"And cousin, I am presenting to you Ser Iordyn of Marsember, son of Hanna and Lionar Yeshua Raibeart. He is called 'the Virtuous,' because always he is preaching to people of his beliefs with his saying and his doing, which not all the time is happening even with priests."
"Well, that's two of us he's embarrassed," Iordyn admitted, feeling his own cheeks sizzling. "But, I know that Ser Voyonov only tells good tales. So even if what he says isn't completely understood, it's to be believed. Please, be welcomed in our... well, my brother's home, really. Sylvester, is your mother-"
"She went to another room for something important," Salone interrupted. "She'll be back."
"Ah," Iordyn nodded. "Don't worry about it," he whispered to Sarai, who was glaring at Salone for having butted into a conversation in which no one was directly speaking to her.
"Cousin Yashenka, here also I present to you Salone, whose sweet name is Lona, Sylvester, whose sweet name is Sly, and Sarai, who does not seem much to be liking sweet names," Aleksei explained. "There is still also the first boy child of the house, Saul, but he is apprentice, and must work very hard."
"What brings you to Suzail?" Iordyn asked pleasantly, watching Seyashen's golden gaze trail from one child to another as they were introduced.
"I come to look for my cousin, Mi'ishaen, and am told that you are the guarantor of her good behaviour in this... strange, strange land," Seyashen said, returning his attentions to the adult man in the room.
"I am, and not for no reason," Iordyn chuckled weakly. "Your cousin... eheh... got into a bit of trouble here, so-"
"That's not uncommon, as I said to each set of guards that told me that same thing," Seyashen cut in. "Mi'ishaen must be busy, if nothing else. It's a product of being orphaned at a very early age. You learn to keep busy."
Iordyn, who absolutely had not known that Mi'ishaen's parents had died, was left without anything to say.
"It is as I am telling you before," Aleksei soothed knowingly. "Mishka is child of war. You perhaps are not remembering me saying this to you, because of how you are feeling when first we are coming here."
Iordyn gave an uncomfortable cough. "No, no, I can't say I remember you telling me that, Ser Voyonov, and... I truly... am sorry for your loss. For her loss, rather."
"Yes, plenty of people are sorry," Seyashen scoffed. "Some of them naturally, and some made so when she repays their darkened opinions of her back to them."
Aleksei hummed to himself. "This is big saying, Cousin Yashenka. Maybe it will take time to walk around it, sit underneath it, and look up at it from the ground. Come, and I will take you to where is Mishka. I hope my teacher will not mind if maybe today's recess is coming a little early."
"Me?" Sly dared, scared nearly senseless when the Dragonborn turned his attentions back to him. He scrambled to his feet. "I- no, please, it's fine, please. It's... it's fine. If you'd like some water, or some food to take with you as you go, I can ask my sisters to do that for you-"
Seyashen looked at the boy with undisguised pity. "A strange land," he repeated, almost only for his own benefit. "No, I expect that I'll be able to find a tavern of sufficiently ill report when I hunger or thirst. May your days be blessed, Ser Iordyn, and and yours, Sarai, and yours, Salone, and yours, Sylvester, and may the baby come to the matriarch here in health and safety."
"Thank you, Ser Seyashen; be safe and well as you go," Sylvester managed through a stress-choked voice.
"Indeed; be well and safe," Iordyn repeated. "And please, if your cousin will return here with you in tow, do not feel yourself too much a stranger to enter again."
"I thank you even for borrowed kindness," Seyashen nodded, aware that such an invitation shouldn't come from a guest, whether said guest was related to the owner of the home or not. "And now, good night. Ser Voyonov, shall we go?"
"Da, come," Aleksei agreed, not bothering to be as formal as he would normally have been. Having lived at the residence for longer than perhaps he should have, was well enough able to undo the locks, open the door, and leave with Seyashen going before him.
Sylvester was just finishing locking the door back behind the two departing men when Susanna finally made it back to the room.
"Has he gone so quickly?" she lamented. "He'll think me a terrible host; I just disappeared."
"He blessed the baby," Salone said simply.
"So he probably won't think anything of your disappearance," Iordyn said, finishing Salone's unspoken line of thought for his scattered sister-in-law. "Because he realizes you're very, very pregnant. In fact, perhaps that's why he felt so uncomfortable that he never sat down. He just stood talking at the door until he and Ser Voyonov left- they've only just left."
"Did he take any water, any food, or anything?" Susanna asked, making her way to her husband's chair and preparing to use the arms of it to lower herself into it.
"No, nothing," Sarai reported from the other side of the staircase down to the smithy. "He didn't even want either of us to pack anything for him to take."
"Oh well," Susanna fretted, smoothing her hands over her belly for a few moments. "Poor thing. I hope his mourning is nearing an end."
"Mourning?" Iordyn asked stupidly, inwardly upset at himself for not noticing whatever tell that Susanna had.
"Oh, of course; you saw how he was dressed, all in black, as though he'd just come from a graveside," Susanna said, looking up at Iordyn. "No one just dresses like that for sport; that man is in mourning. And the robes are worn, too, as though he'd had them for quite some time. Perhaps a parent, or a spouse, or a child... someone near to him. Or perhaps two or three at once; that could cause him years of mourning. Thank Mother Chauntea he hasn't lost his cousin too- did he say where he'd come from to see her? Was it far?"
"I just barely heard Ser Voyonov ask him how much coin he spent to get here, and he mentioned having to trade Semmite coin for Cormyrean coin, so... somewhere in Sembia, at least. But no, he didn't directly tell us," Iordyn answered, moving to Susanna's smaller wooden chair and sitting in it. "What he did say was that Mi'ishaen was orphaned very young. He didn't say much about it, but... well, he didn't have to. It seems the whole family might have been done terribly wrong in the past, and now... well... now they are as they are. What's left of them."
"Oh no," Susanna sighed. "It makes a certain sense, but one doesn't like to hear of it. He's Tiefling, then? He didn't have any horns or tail."
"The iron-red skin gives him away- his eyes... those were practically Elven gold, but... no, it's his skin. It's the same dull iron red as Mi'ishaen's. Maybe a bit lighter; they'd have to be standing next to each other for me to really... but, what does that matter? Why does that matter to us?" Iordyn ran his hand over his hair and tugged at the bottom of his ponytail before dropping his hand into his lap.
"Dear my children, will you leave your uncle and I for a moment? I'll
mind the shop; I have the price list you wrote me right here by my feet,
I see, and I'll do alright without you for just these few moments. Go,
please, and perhaps let Sarai practice her lute with you all again.
You'll have to choose an instrument yourself soon, Salone; you know
you're late in doing so."
Salone, as per her custom, simply nodded and began moving toward the steps. Sylvester rushed forward and took hold of her hand.
"Yes, Mama," he said clearly and purposefully, looking from Susanna to Salone as he said it. Salone looked back at him as though she'd entirely misunderstood what he stopped her for, and with a quiet sigh, he let her go, trundling behind her like a weary dog.
"Leave her be, Sly; she knows exactly what she's not doing," Susanna said simply. "And I know why she's not doing it. It's time that your father and I accept her exactly as she is, and prepare to defend her against those who don't. We're late in doing that, as you and Amadelle have quite recently shown me."
Sly quietly nodded. Susanna raised her hand in a vague gesture of dismissal, and with a small bow, Sly hustled up the stairway behind his younger sister.
Sarai watched her siblings tuck themselves into the room she shared with Salone, then moved to the chair her mother was sitting in to drape herself over the back of it. "Mama, I think Salone should learn the harp. If she does, she might get a position as a musician of the court, and she'd never have to speak or move."
"Well, that's an idea," Susanna nodded, trying her best to playact serious thought. "But I do so worry about getting her to take up the learning of an instrument she can't move by herself- organistrums, harps, those terrifying-looking harpsichord... things. If she has to ask someone else to move an instrument for or with her, it's very likely the thing will never move at all."
"That's true," Sarai mused as she stood straight, not offended at all at the shooting down of her idea. "Well, I'll keep thinking. And listening, in case she mentions something. Or looks at something for a long time."
Susanna smiled brightly. "That's good- only, be careful not to crowd her, or she'll notice that you're trying to notice something about her. Don't be sneaky, just observant, alright? Promise me?"
"Promise!" Sarai enthused, kissing her mother's cheek and bounding quickly upstairs.
Susanna watched Sarai go upstairs patiently, and waited until she had actually begun playing the lute to speak again. "Now, Iordi," she began, shifting herself in Stephen's chair, "I can't imagine what that man must have had for you to put you in such a state."
Iordyn shook his head with a woeful half-smile. "No, it's... it's everyone... I... I just can't take it anymore. I remember how Mi'ishaen has been treated, how I treated her; it haunts me now. Her cousin saying what he did, it's like when Ser Voyonov said I'd hurt him, only worse. Mi'ishaen did not return to face judgment because of me; she returned despite me. And I haven't done her any favours since."
"You don't know that," Susanna said flatly, crossing her arms under her sore breasts. "And you certainly can't think she simply turned herself in without any divine guidance whatsoever."
"I don't doubt that something moved her spirit, but what makes it so that I had to have been involved? Lathander forgive me, but for just a moment, I believed it. I did; I believed that of course she never could have repented of her actions on her own, and of course I was the example of divine grace, because she couldn't possibly have heard Lathander, or any other benevolent god, for herself. But Mi'ishaen hums along with that morning orison that Silveredge sings- the one that, thanks to Battlemage Ranclyffe's daughter, we know likely belongs to the Raven Queen adherents. And when Aleksei speaks his... parables, or whatever they are... he knows Mi'ishaen's listening. He doesn't speak as though... well, as though he's wasting his time. Like I did, like Garimond did, like nearly everyone did- aside from a single Tiefling priest, every lawful person here around her has acted as though Mi'ishaen were a waste of their time, so she... well. Now I'm sorry. Now. When it's too late. Perhaps far, far too late; years late, a whole lifetime late. That's what her cousin meant."
"If you've forgotten, you were the one who argued for the existence of this shop," Susanna noted with a touch of concern. "I wish I'd been by when that man said whatever he did, because I don't understand what you're telling me at all right now, and I suspect I should send Saul or Sly to find him and bring him back here to apologize to you."
Iordyn barked out a short, sour laugh and rubbed a hand over his forehead. "No, that's- no. He has nothing to apologize for, trust me. He said that some people are sorry for his cousin naturally, and some people are sorry after she repays their poor opinions of her to them. And I am in that latter camp. I sat in that miserable, dark, bare cell when she was coerced into an untrue confession, and in my silence, my hesitation to protest her treatment, I was just as responsible as if I had committed the abuse myself. In the eyes of the law, Mi'ishaen is a criminal, but she doesn't deserve to be treated like a lost cause. As though she were trash, and utterly beyond genuine redemption. And it's a mistake I've made before- pretending to minister to people with a disdainful heart. I, like every other Raibeart child, spent hours in Lathander's temple. I went to Arabel, became an acolyte. But I changed not one soul, not one. Not the nature-sprite worshipping villagers on the Arabel outskirts, not the women who took coin for sex in Marsember, and certainly not that mouthy, bitter Tiefling criminal."
"I am well out of my depth," Susanna admitted with a slight frown. "Go upstairs and bring Iona down to sit with us; perhaps he will be able to help you through this doubt you're feeling."
Iordyn turned sideways in Susanna's chair and leaned forward to plead his case with his elbows on his knees. "No, listen to me; it's not doubt, it's... and Iona's the same. No, actually, he's worse. The lady from Delzimmer who came here- the way he spoke of her, and her servants. But again, I was silent. I simply fled the encounter as fast as I could; turned tail like... like Hophni."
Susanna's eyes grew wide, and Iordyn sat back with a deep sigh as he turned himself straight in the chair again.
"That coward's blood cries out my own cowardice to me," Iordyn continued in a near whisper. "It mocks my every prayer until I can no longer dare to make a sound. And in my silence, I hear too much. I cover my eyes, but I see it everywhere. It's in every word, every posture, every action- it's insidious; it seeps, and reeks, like shoddy foundations atop a midden. The market, the taverns, even in temple- did you notice that the one and only time Ser Voyonov allowed us to take him to temple with us, that at least two or three people were staring at him throughout the entire service? Adults, not children. They openly gawked at him as though they were at a circus, and then at us, because to them, he was a wild animal that we oughtn't to have allowed out of a pen. And have you seen that every time Silveredge walks with us in the market, no one talks directly to her? Instead, they speak to us to speak to her, as though she were stupid, or deaf, and...and she lets it happen, because she's accustomed to be treated as though she were some lesser creature... as though she were a thing, a belonging... a flesh golem, without sense of her own self. And she's knowingly tolerant of being treated exactly the way she was when she was a... well. I'm chained, now. Lathander has chained to them by the blood I shed; has forced me to see... and now... I can't see anything else. What do I say, and to whom? Where do I start? Ser Voyonov just claimed that I preach to others with my words and my deeds, unlike some priests, and I-"
"And you're doing it, Iordi," Susanna cut in. She reached a hand over to Iordyn and placed it gently on one of his. "You've done it, rather. You've made your sermon, and won your first bewildered convert- that's me, if you weren't sure. You started with me, and I'm grateful to all that's good for that. Now that you've spoken all of what you've felt and seen aloud, it will be easier for you to express all of it again, which you will. First to Iona, then to Stephen, and if we all feel it necessary, with the children. You will teach us what you've seen and felt, and we will learn. As much as I prefer Mother Chauntea to either Lathander or Tyr, I do believe plainly in their power to correct any hidden evil in any and all of us. With these strange temperatures and field-stripping rains, it seems that some one of the gods, or perhaps all of them, demand that we be purified. I wonder if perhaps Iona's warning to the temple in Marsember was for us as well, and out of all of us in this house, you alone have truly begun to discern it."
Iordyn gave a half-hearted grunt that couldn't quite be mistaken for affirmation and looked away from his sister in law. Susanna squeezed his hand viciously in response. With a small grunt of surprise at her grip, Iordyn refocused on her, and she spoke again.
"Remember, Iordi, when you were very young? When you missed and missed, but took up your bow and heeded your sister's advice without complaint until you'd improved? That is your nature; that is what the epithet is describing. You are not 'the Virtuous' because you're already perfectly upright; you're 'the Virtous' because once you have been convicted, you don't put up objections, or choose to ignore the urging of Lathander. You simply begin at once to work out how to justify yourself to the higher demands. If others were the same, Iona wouldn't have to preach as many 'beware the coming damnation' sermons."
The owner of the house upon which Mi'ishaen worked all her alchemy welcomed Aleksei and Seyashen with just about as much warmth as Sylvester and Iordyn had been able to muster. Again Seyashen turned down offers of food and drink, claiming that he'd eaten as soon as he'd arrived in the city.
"What you are saying to that person cannot be true, unless maybe you are not telling me what is true when you are first seeing me," Aleksei said, as the two ascended the staircase that led to the roof. "I am living with Bahlzair long enough to maybe not be feeling so much offense when others are lying to me just a little bit."
"I don't know how the court mage got away with that brainworm nonsense," Seyashen smiled up at the Dragonborn when the two had reached the top of the stairs. "If any one of the counselors had tried to double talk you, you'd have proven your sanity immediately."
"It is as I am saying- this is many years of living with Bahlzair," Aleksei shrugged. "At first, I am very simple. I am too loud, and do not listen or look very well. But the trying to prevent him from hurting as many people as he is wanting to hurt is very slowly solving this problems for me."
"So I guess little pickpockets in side alleys aren't big enough problems?" Mi'ishaen asked from all the way across the roof. "All threats have to be lethal for you to be bothered?"
Seyashen looked at the fruits of weeks of of her unsupervised, uncontrolled work and was absolutely dumbfounded. Just behind him, Iaden focused on the sound of his beloved sister's voice, and physically manifested.
"Both of us are not having to notice that problem in the same time," Aleksei shrugged. "I am not thief; I am soldier. I am speaking to Sakoda when you are not doing good speaking, and you are speaking to thief when I am choosing not to do bad speaking."
"Oh, push off, the pair of you, and let me focus," Mi'ishaen scoffed, turning back around to finish the tea satchel upon which she had been working. "I have to finish-"
"No, no, no, no, I'm not going anywhere," Seyashen said, finally finding his voice. "This... this is... this is amazing. You had so little training-"
"I didn't have a lot of formal training," Mi'ishaen corrected. "I've broken into plenty of alchemy shops since Kragal; I know what I'm doing."
"Well, obviously," Seyashen laughed. "I didn't come to criticize you; I'm just as bad at alchemy as I am at divination. Laugh if you want, but most of my herbal skills come from the Dragonborn camp. That's why I know sadly little about soothing or healing mixtures, but more than anyone but an assassin would want to know about brewing poison."
"Yikes; how long did they string you up and stick things in your mouth?" Mi'ishaen asked. She finished tying off the satchels and began packing them into a small woven basket at her right elbow.
"I am thinking they are doing this because they are thinking to take Bahlzair's poison away from him," Aleksei sighed gustily. "I am telling them that it is in his whole body, but they are not believing me."
"Ah... no, they wouldn't have believed that. Anyone who looks at those scars around his jaws takes a different guess at what's going on there. There are poison ducts planted under his tongue, which- when I saw them- led me to suspect that most of his mouth is either in constant pain, or is numb," Seyashen explained.
"I have literally never seen that dark Elf eat, I can tell you that," Mi'ishaen mentioned offhandedly, still packing the basket. "What I wonder is how-"
"Probably a victim of simple curiosity. The subject of a very vicious experiment that may have been performed without the courtesy of a sleep spell or any kind of knock out potion, based on how jagged those cuts are. I never got a chance to try to figure out which creature's poison he has- there are plenty to choose from, in the Underdark. But I suspected that ingesting whatever it is in small quantities, as he has likely done day in and day out for however many years he's been alive, had probably had profoundly negative effects on his ability both to reason and be reasoned with. Of course, Mikhail didn't believe me any more than the rest of his camp believed you, Aleksei- not without having Ima and Zasha string him up and stick things in his mouth- which didn't work out well."
"Ima pulled the knife first," Mi'ishaen shot immediately.
"Yes, but he is killing both of them," Aleksei said thoughtfully. "He is not always planning well, but I am never doubting if he is all of himself. I am never even thinking to ask him if maybe he is not now feeling as once he is feeling before becoming poison."
Seyashen smiled over his shoulder at Aleksei. "From what I've heard back in Urmlaspyr, you know plenty of other things about that Drow, ser, but I didn't come all the way to this rooftop to talk about that. Isha, your tutor would be proud, I'm sure, but aren't you going to come greet me properly?"
Mi'ishaen made a face, and stuffed the last few satchels into the basket as slowly as she could, knowing that she was merely delaying her inevitable reaction.
Madam Iti'idre? Proud? Iaden scoffed. Out to pasture and graze with that.
"Okay, she wouldn't be proud, but she would have to at least admit that this is very good work," Seyashen argued, not minding that he was speaking aloud to someone that neither of the other two people on the rooftop could see. "All of it's obviously from memory, first of all, it's not as though Isha could simply pick up a tome and sort out the instructions. Further, work of this complexity and quality can be expected of third or fourth year apprentices, but you said she-"
Aleksei didn't bother looking around for whoever Seyashen was speaking to.
Mi'ishaen finally turned around and forced a pained smile with stinging eyes. "I guess he's here, huh?" she asked.
Seyashen remembered himself, and rubbed at the back of one of horn stumps. "Yes, he is."
"Okay."
Mi'ishaen brought the basket and sat down at the low work table in the middle of the roof. When no one else moved for a few awkward moments, she motioned for Seyashen to join her.
"It is looking to me like recess is over," Aleksei said, giving a small nod. "It is my privilege to speak with you, Cousin Yashenka. I will see you when you return for dinner, Mishka."
"Maybe we'll eat out tonight. Like when we first got to Urmlaspyr, but better, right?" Mi'ishaen suggested as brightly as she could.
"I will begin counting to see how much coin it will take to get us good place to celebrate all the things that are wanting celebrating... and to lament any few things that are wanting lament," Aleksei agreed, purposefully barely acknowleging the way Mi'ishaen's vocal tone had ever so slightly changed. "Maybe Rasha will be coming to help me do this counting."
"She's not getting back before sundown; you know that," Mi'ishaen volleyed as she watched the Dragonborn disappear back into the doorway that led into the stairs. When she received no response, she shrugged and focused on her cousin. "She leaves her purse home so nobody robs her while she's working, and he actually has it, but he acts like there's a ward on it that keeps him out of it until she's sitting right next to him. The pair of them are just..."
"I'll buy dinner, if you're wanting coin," Seyashen said firmly. "But what work would have Silveredge out so late? Has she decided to take up her old trade again?"
"She wasn't some regular prostitute; she was enslaved," Mi'ishaen explained pointedly, putting down the tea basket and getting up to choose some herbs that had been tied off upside down to dry. "She's a merc now; does some caravan guarding with a bunch of useless novices. They make her train to all hours when she gets back from the actual job too, the flipping idiots, like they never heard of exhaustion. They stand around and watch her, and they don't even pay her extra for being entertaining. I dunno how she stands it- hand me that dish?"
Seyashen watched as his cousin brought back some promising looking sprigs of flowers and herbs that he couldn't identify, then looked over to his left and handed over the dish she'd indicated. "Speaking of mercenary companies, I'm told you got mixed up in some interesting business."
"Yeah, I keep my hands busy," Mi'ishaen replied easily. "Hells, where's the mor- nevermind; there it is."
No kidding, you little pickpocket, Iaden crabbed with a smirk.
"Too busy to respond to my last letter?" Seyashen prodded, watching Mi'ishaen begin to expertly separate the items she was preparing to grind from those that would be simply snapped into smaller bits. "I'm sure you received it, as Silveredge sent me a... ahem... rather emotional reply."
"She told me she wanted to write you back," Mi'ishaen admitted sheepishly. "I guess more like she asked me if she could... I told her she can always do whatever she wants, and... I guess she did."
Are you embarrassed? Of being in love? Or being loved? Iaden asked earnestly, as though Mi'ishaen could have heard him. Has it been so long since you've been the giver or the receiver of such tender feelings that you can't bear to speak of them as bluntly and clearly as you do of everything else?
Seyashen rubbed the back of his horn stumps again, feeling as though he should actually communicate Iaden's questions, even though they were rhetorical. "It's a very touching letter, she... was very grateful. For your choice. And, of course, the strong influence that Iaden had in it."
And just like that, Mi'ishaen's emotional dam broke utterly. She turned and pitched herself into Seyashen's chest, sobbing like a child. Iaden turned his back to the scene at first, then thought better of it and resolutely turned himself back around, forcing himself to witness the agony that had only grown deeper and wider in the years that separated him from the land of the living.
"I hated it," Mi'ishaen gasped nearly a minute of nothing but tears. "I hated leaving. I wanted to stay so, so much!"
"I know," Seyashen managed, again stripped of most of his power of speech.
"I'm tired of living and living and living and I don't have anything, and I can't just... I can't just stop," Mi'ishaen cried. "Sometimes I just want everything to just stop. It's too hard; I can't do it. I can't!"
"Trust me, I very much understand that feeling," Seyashen soothed, remembering the nights in which he'd used just enough of his power to summon a whisper of his father's weary spirit, unable to fully face his abilities. "But, I don't think you're quite right about not having anything. You have me. You'll always have me; I think it's the work of some one of the gods that we even found each other, considering how far we'd both gone from where we're each from. I think you might consider that proof that there are gods."
"Shut up about the stupid gods," Mi'ishaen spat.
Iaden had to smirk, however miserably. She'll forgive the gods when she stops thinking her life is a series of punishments, and not a second before.
Seyashen absorbed Iaden's words without responding to them, and took a few moments more of a pause before he spoke again. "I know you have a solid, devoted friend in Aleksei, for whatever that's worth. And I know for sure that Silveredge is achingly in love with you. According to what she wrote, and I hope I'm not spoiling a surprise, that woman intends to be your wife."
Mi'ishaen bolted up, eyes still filled with tears and nose still leaking snot, and stared at her cousin. "She what?"
That's done it, Iaden smiled. Bloody pageant prancer. Don't drag it out; tell her what you know.
"Silveredge offered to make Iaden an ancestral shrine because she was so grateful that he, as she put it, returned you to her trembling arms." Seyashen fumbled around in his outer cloak to make sure that the letter nestled within hadn't been marred by Mi'ishaen's emotional storm, then remembered that he'd tucked it into a long leather hip purse most recently reserved for heated needles. "Ah- anyway, ancestral shrines, according to the old Shadar-kai traditions that I've been told of, can only be located in the home of someone who is blood-related to those ancestors. And this woman, who is just traditional enough to want to keep this custom in the first place, has offered your brother an ancestral shrine, which means that she intends to make a home with and for you, a home in which the strongest, best, and bravest departed spirits of your blood-related family are venerated instead of her own."
Mi'ishaen pushed her arm against her nose and rubbed the heel of her hands at her eyes. "A shrine to my family? To Ade?"
"Yes," Seyashen began, this time going for the letter in earnest. "I can read it to you if you-"
"No, no, no, wait; I- maybe I shouldn't know yet," Mi'ishaen said, sniffing. "She didn't tell me she was gonna say that. She read a lot of it, but not that, and... I would've remembered that, so. Maybe she wasn't going to tell me yet."
"Ah, I've ruined it then," Seyashen said, despite being not at all sorry. The spectral form of Iaden raised an eyebrow at the shamelessness.
"Push off; you didn't," Mi'ishaen shot back, just as intolerant of Seyashen's nonsense as her brother. "When she... I mean, she kind of said... you know, before... and, it wasn't direct, but nothing she says is ever direct, and... I did kind of tell her a lot about Ade. And she tells me about her sisters. But none of that wife giving up their family shit; if Ade gets a shrine, then her sisters do, too. Especially her littlest one. She didn't even get a chance."
Seyashen hummed a distant understanding, thinking of the finer points of traditional Shadar-kai ancestor worship, and purposefully deciding not to explain them in that very moment.
"He's here, right?" Mi'ishaen asked, finally picking up the bottom of her borrowed dress to wipe her nose on.
"Hmm?" Seyashen asked, jarred back to the present moment. "Yes. Why do you not have an apron?"
Mi'ishaen shrugged the question off. "Ade, so, Silveredge. That's... I called her that; that's not her name. It's what her name means, but. It's really Jyklahaimra. Ceubel Jyklahaimra pas-Naja. She has a dynasty name, it's Shuun-Cziao... I think... I might be adding a sound, or leaving one out. She only told me that part once. I don't even know where the dynasty name comes from; she hasn't explained that yet. She thinks it's all so hard, but it's not. I mean, Maelbrathyr. And Lucien-Azaroth, you know? You get used to saying names like that, other ones are cake, right?"
The spectral form of Iaden sat down to listen, and Seyashen held up a hand.
"I think I can do this for you. It... I'm not proficient. The Master Inquisitor just began teaching me. But obviously, my link to Iaden is... stronger than it would be to most spirits, so. I'd like to try."
"Try what?" Mi'ishaen asked, wiping her nose again.
Seyashen took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and opened his spirit to Iaden.
Come on, hop in.
What do you mean, "hop in"? Iaden charged. You're not a cart.
Yes, I am, Seyashen smiled. I'm a madcart. Which will make far more sense to you once you get in. Now, bear in mind that I'm older than you were when you died, and much weaker than you have ever been in any part of your life... or unlife. So you'll definitely want to get out of here eventually. Just come here and sit down. Fit your body where mine is as best you can. I'll do the rest.
Mi'ishaen, on the outside of the encounter, only saw Seyashen painfully contort his face and twist slightly for a few moments. Not wanting to ruin whatever it was that he was doing, she put her hands under her butt and mashed her lips between her teeth. When Seyashen opened his eyes, the normally bright golden orbs were instead a strange, burned amber.
"That was... really awkward, and... I'm not sure what it was supposed to do," Iaden said. And then he realized that he could hear his cousin speaking. And then he realized that his cousin had been saying his words aloud. He felt thicker and heavier in ways to which he had become unaccustomed, and he tried to look at himself, only to see Seyashen.
The realization broke upon him slowly.
"Oh... oh gods, I think... ahhh, it's possession! I'm possessing him! Oh hells, he didn't tell me this is what he was going to do! Ahh! Ahhhhh!" Iaden began trying to find some way to pick or pull the flesh off himself, but only managed to get his hands and arms wound up in the long black cloak and robes that he would never choose to wear.
Mi'ishaen, who at first watched with wide, still-red eyes, finally hunched over and rolled onto her side with laughter.
"Hey, hey, stop that; this is serious!" Iaden hollered, entirely unnerved by his words coming out in pitchy howls from his cousin's mouth.
Calm down, I'm right here; I'm just letting you borrow the cart, Seyashen soothed from somewhere in the back corner of his own mind. It's only partial possession. If my voice is that terrifying, just use my body to give her a hug. Remember when you wanted to give her a hug, and you couldn't? Well, try it again.
Iaden didn't answer. He instead sat still and focused on calming down for a few moments, taking deep breaths and slowly unwinding the hands and arms that had been loaned to him. Once successfully freed, he reached over, with the too-slender, too-weak hands and arms of his mage cousin, and sat his sister up by her shoulders. She stared straight into his eyes without saying anything.
"Because I want to hug you, that's why," he said flatly.
Mi'ishaen nodded, closed her eyes, and rested her head on what looked like her cousin's chest, knowing that both of her relatives were doing something strange and amazing for her.
"Most people would say that you have so much to live for," Iaden sighed. "Hells, Yasha just said it, basically. But I can tell you this; that day, you had nothing to die for. Not yet. Dad died for Mama. Mama died for herself. I died for the empire. But you? If you had let yourself stay in that fake Kragal, what would it have been for? For our family? For me? Don't do me any favours like that; I don't want them. I'm doing fine in the hells; I work there. Noc'mala and I go around ripping the consciousness out of the most powerful old lords so that useless little necroprancers can't call them up to figure out the secrets to this-or-that damned potion, or how to sustain this-or-that portal straight down to the Big Man in Charge, or whatever other infernal plane there is to want to go to. It's nice to have my sense of self and a responsibility; it's almost like I got a reward from somebody. But I've only seen Dad in a vision out of this idiot's mind. I haven't seen Mom at all. So we're not having a reunion on the other side, just waiting for you to join us. That's not how it works. I can't speak for Mom and Dad; I don't know what they want. But I know what I want is that, when you do die, that there's a reason. Whatever that reason is. A well planned heist gone wrong, an adventure to a new land that just didn't make it, maybe even the woman you love, like Dad. You have his flare for the dramatic; I could see you dying for that Shadar-kai girl. But it can't just be because you're tired of this life and want to get to an afterlife that I can personally tell you isn't as you dream it is. And it certainly can't be because of me, because you and I- we might not ever see each other in the afterlife. So this... this feels like a reward too, this... weird shit that Yasha's doing right now. It might be as close as we get, ever again. I hate to say that, but... I'm your big brother. It's always my job to get you to understand the stuff that neither of us want you to."
"You're going to do it again, aren't you?" Mi'ishaen sighed miserably, shifting ever so slightly in the embrace so that she could hear more clearly.
"Yup," Iaden agreed. "To be honest, Madam Iti'idre would kind of be a little impressed, yeah. But this is a delaying tactic. You're tired; I get it. But you'll leave this plane for some other one soon enough; don't rush it. And certainly don't just knowingly let yourself drift toward it. Go see healers when you have to go see healers. Hold on to what you have here, however little it is, and make whatever pries you loose from it, work to do that prying. Don't just let go. Don't ever just let go. You want to do something for me, do that. Make death work hard as fuck to catch up to you."
"Did it have to work hard for you?" Mi'ishaen asked in a small, choked voice.
"They didn't tell you, did they?" Iaden in Seyashen groaned. "No, of course they wouldn't."
"I was told it was an ambush," Mi'ishaen offered. "Said you probably went quickly."
"Well, the first part's true. The Dragonborn shot through most of us while we were bathing or taking a piss, that's how off guard we were. They'd taken out our scouts like we took theirs out- with little kids. But not the same way, because they tried to get the kids back to the Dragonborn side of the no-combat zone between us, all but one. One skeptical motherfucker killed the kid who came to him on sight, just ran the little one through. Came back trembling, just falling apart; crying while he told us what he'd seen and done. No one believed him- 'No, Dragonborn wouldn't do that, send out little ones to trap scouts like that; that's crazy,' we said. 'That's something we would do!' We laughed about it, actually. Thought the guy was battle mad, that he was seeing things. We took him and liquored him up, got ready to send him home. But the Dragonborn archers started tearing us up before we even got him on a horse. I still had my armor on, so that volley didn't take me all the way out; it just wounded me. I downed a healing potion, got my gear, formed up behind the fourth in command- the first was on leave, and we'd lost our other two commanders in a matter of minutes- and charged. We fought hard and broke the infantry line, but there weren't enough of us left to force a full Dragonborn retreat. The commander figured that we got ambushed so that the settlements behind us could get burned and salted, and barked out that we had to prevent that at every cost. So we broke formation, invoked balefire, and scorched the field. It was a mess; the Dragonborn weren't prepared for it. They started scattering- I don't think they thought to bring counterspelling mages, and we were just indescriminately casting balefire everywhere we could, even if it meant that we were accidentally burning each other. The people who saw the battlefield afterward probably looked at the carnage and couldn't make heads or tails of why our bodies were all spread out and burned up. Anyway, I got five balefire volleys out before I got smashed by a knight. Kinda no good way to block a ball of spikes coming from a mounted Dragonborn while weilding a two handed sword with one hand and trying to finish an offensive spell with the off hand."
Mi'ishaen puffed quietly. "Five whole volleys of balefire? Imagine failing at an ambush so hard that you give the enemy enough time to scatter you with what's supposed to be a baby's spell."
"It's a baby's spell for us," Iaden said. "Some Tieflings can't do it. They darken things instead- I can't explain it; ask Yasha."
Mi'ishaen quietly sifted through her memories for a few moments. "You know, the more I find out about other types of Tieflings, the more I understand why that winged Elf was so intent on studying me- fighting, magic reactions, whatever. There was a- okay. So, Silveredge and I. Silveredge's owner got hung in a town that I was casing, and she didn't leave... I don't know why not. But we... um... met each other, and she decided to just... I dunno, hang around. And we got ambushed ourselves, by some Eladrin who had been using kobolds as servants, or captives, or whatever, and they were trying to get this Avariel- that's a winged Elf- to boil down some alchemical something that would give them the powers innate to a Dragonborn, or a Tiefling, or a Drow. It took Aleksei leading a kobold revolt and slaughtering a bunch of Elves, and Bahlzair casting some crazy spell that literally brought the place down around us, to get us out. And by the time we got out, I don't actually know how long it really was, the four of us were in a 'we' kind of situation."
Iaden laughed gently, in a tone that fit both himself and Seyashen perfectly. "That's madness. Write us more about that; I want to hear it. The whole sad tale. Of how you managed to get into a 'we' situation with a Dragonborn and a pair of people whose races we didn't even know were real when we were little."
"You can ask Seyashen for everything after that point, just about," Mi'ishaen noted. "We practically walked into the crazy cult Dragonborn camp a day after getting out of the clutches of those Elves, and he was there when we got there."
Iaden in Seyashen squeezed his little sister for a moment with excitement. "Oh, OH, have you heard the story of how he just walked into their camp, figuring they'd kill him or die trying? Hang on, hang on; how does this... whatever this is... how do we stop? Because you've got to tell her that."
I either put you out or I get too tired to sustain the link, which... I'm definitely rapidly becoming too tired to sustain the link, Seyashen answered wearily. I don't want to pass out before you say goodbye properly, so-
"Understood," Iaden nodded. "Whatever spell this is, is taking a toll on him, so I'm going to... I guess let him let me out... magic bullshit, ugh."
"I know," Mi'ishaen commiserated, dramatically rolling her eyes. "Silveredge loves the stuff."
"Well, there had to be something off about her," Iaden shrugged. "Here, c'mere, you."
Iaden through Seyashen squeezed tightly again in a final hug goodbye.
"Don't forget that I love you- I loved you then, and still do now. Yasha's silly mage self loves you. And that Shadar-kai girl loves you. A lot. Let it happen. Let us love you, in all the different ways, and from all the directions we're doing it from. Don't just bug out on us."
Mi'ishaen closed her eyes and hugged Seyashen's frame even more tightly. "I love you too, Ade. I promise I won't... do that."
The unusual power with which Seyashen's body was able to hold Mi'ishaen faded a bit, and Mi'ishaen let go. When she sat back and looked up, she noticed the tired look in Seyashen's very natural-looking gold eyes.
"Man, you weren't kidding; I have some rainwater in a covered pot on the other side of the roof, so I can make a tea if you-"
"Don't worry about that," Seyashen breathed. "I'll be fine in about a half an hour. Is there a safe spot to nap somewhere up here?"
Mi'ishaen jabbed her thumb over her shoulder. "Sure; just lay down by the tall work table over there, and I'll finish making these cooling powders. You know how to make a-? Nevermind, you don't look like you could even make it back there. Just lay down right here and nap, and I'll tell you later."
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