Title: Ravel's Tale
Author: pinkparanoia
Disclaimer: Nothing in the Planescape: Torment universe belongs to me, except the things springing directly from my head. Not in a literal Athena-from-Zeus way, just the metaphorical way, because… ew.
Summary: The first of a hundred one-shots on the Torment universe. Not all of them are directly connected to the characters, so think Ps:T inspired.
The Brothel of Slaking Lusts is a strange place, in a place where there are many strange and undreamed things. I was a planewalker once, and settled here in Sigil most of all because this seemed to me to be the suppository for all things strange and undreamed of elsewhere. Here can be found the cleanest and the dirtiest, the most heavenly and the most devilish, consorting together. This is not a plane of neutrality, but rather a place of clashing and reconciling; the Lady does not allow anything to harm her abode.
One of the treasures of Sigil is this brothel, where lusts not of the body, but of the mind can be sated. There are debates, there is conversation, games, scientific or historical analysis, emotional counseling, whatever could be wished. It draws beings from all over, seeking the company of these beautiful and enigmatic girls.
Each has their own strengths, and their own weaknesses, as does everyone, but my favorite courtesan has always been Yves Tale-Chaser, a sweet and wise girl. Much of her popularity could be due to her great beauty, for she has long blonde hair that falls down her back in a heavy fall and soft, soothing features, but she is a skilled storyteller, and will trade a story for a story. Too old to desire flesh, I still desire entertainment, and joy, and life; Yves, without ever forcing me to move my aching joints or risk my pounding heart, is quite able to transport me.
I have heard, occasionally, that she is forced into tale-trading. Apparently, she will never be free until she is told a specific story, though I don't know what it is. A tale of the multiverse's ending? Its beginning? Her own story? It matters little, as long as she is able and willing to converse with me now.
On this visit we settle into comfortable chairs, she curled up with a steaming mug of hot chocolate and I with my daily medical cordial. "Well my dear, shall you start, or shall I?"
Yves smiles. "I can read it in your face! You have a treasure for me today. Please, you start."
What a precious girl indeed. "You know me too well child. I do indeed have something I hope you will find new. I just found it in old memoirs, and though it sounds more myth than anything else, I am inclined to believe it at least partially true.
"I shall tell you a story, then, of one of the most evil and cruel ladies in all the multiverse, and one accounting of how she became so. This is the story of Ravel, Grey Hag of Oniros:
"There were once three sisters that grew up in a beautiful kingdom filled with life. The valleys were always green with plentiful grazing, and the sweetest fruit in all of the planes fell from the trees every season. The kingdom was peaceful and happy, and everyone doted on and adored their kind and generous princesses.
The eldest was beautiful, with long red hair that was as vibrant as fire. She was a healer and a teacher, a wise stewardess of the land and the innocent.
The middle sister was even more beautiful, with hair the color of ripe chestnuts and eyes of burnished copper. She was a judge of the people, and helped keep order in the kingdom.
The youngest and most beautiful of the sisters was everywhere known as the best and the sweetest woman in the land. She knew the arts of magic, and used them sparingly; with her use, magic was used to help improve the work of the people, rather than supplanting it altogether and breeding idleness and sloth.
But one day, for no apparent reason, a darkness started filling the land. First it invaded the hearts of the people, and then infected the rivers and the lakes, and then the very soil itself turned black and foul. Thousands died, until all of the kingdom but a very small sliver was swallowed up by it. Aching for their home, the sisters walked to the very edge of the darkness, until it lapped at their feet, dark and deep and waiting to engulf them.
The first sister went up to the waters and said, In the ways of old, a trade! I give up my tongue to you, so that the kingdom may be healed. And with a flash of light, her mouth melted off, and into the sea of darkness, which changed not at all, moving neither more forward nor backwards
The second sister came forward, and said, I give you my eyes, that the people may be renewed, and able to see with eyes unclouded. And they too slid out of their sockets, until the princess' face was horrible to look at.
The youngest came out, silver-blonde hair lively and gleaming even in the dim light, and said I give up my heart, that such blackness would learn mercy, and leave our kingdom in peace. And her eyes emptied of love, and her face grew still and scornful.
The blackness flowed back, repulsed. The older two sisters, still capable of feeling hope and love, drew in breath, waiting to see their old home. As the dark drew back and finally disappeared, light came out again, and spread across the entire land dimly.
There, in front of their eyes, the entire land lay, gray and wasted. The deal had been broken. Scattered about the land were bones, which turned into dust; all their beloved people, dead and gone. The trees and fields were dead, a dry and dusky grey, stumpy and twisted now instead of rich and glowing.
Though the eldest had no tongue to cry out with, she screamed, a wordless wail. Though the middle child had no eyes, she stared with empty sockets in horror, able to feel the desolation around her in the very air. Though the youngest had no heart, she could feel hate for everything good that been taken away.
With a scream loud enough to shatter the nearest trees, she gathered up every scrap of magic she had, and restored them all to their former glory. Her magic was so filled with evil, however, that their eyes became milky and demonic, their voices harsh, and their hearts black.
No more could they see good in the world, or speak kindly, or feel love. In their bitterness, they made of their wasted kingdom a new place, now known as the Grey Wastes, the No Man's Land of the hells. And the princesses became the three Hags of the Waste, persecuting any trespasser in their deathly and desolated home.
The youngest kept her skill with magic, and became the most evil and feared of the three, now known as Ravel, one of the cruelest and most dangerous and most skilled sorceresses of the planes.
What became of the darkness that first invaded their kingdom, no one knows. Some say the sisters took it into their own hearts, and that there it shall always remain."
"And that is my tale. I hope it pleased you, though I cannot imagine it to be literally true. It was simply an old fairytale told by a frightened people, most likely."
Yves smiled, happy as always to find something new to her. "True or not, it is indeed a tale of value and worth. I shall treasure it."
"And in return, my lady?"
"And in return, I shall tell you one that I treasure myself, a tale from my own life, though its significance is much more unclear. It is a tale related, in no small way, to the youngest sister of your own story.
One night, an unusual man came to the Brothel, trying to slake a lust none of us could help him with. He came with four companions, each unique in their own way, though none so strange as their leader.
A tiefling girl, fiery and protective; a floating skull with a scathing tongue but a loyal heart; a chaotic modron, rare indeed; and a githerazi, ancient and worn, with a heart I could not read.
The man was the strangest of all, however, with skin so scarred that it was gray, and intense eyes and a sharp mind. He was a warrior, but he was better with words than with weapons, though he was an incredible fighter. One by one, he aided each of those residing here. For myself, he did something I had given up as impossible.
He was scarred, and some would call him ugly, but there was an intensity to him, one that allowed him to accomplish things held impossible by lesser men. He was wiser than the wisest of us, and smarter than the smartest. He told me things I had never before heard, and that I doubt I will ever hear again.
I would have been happy for him to stay with us, and his companions too, for they were all truly individual, but he was after something very specific. He desired the companionship and advice of our mistress, the founder of this brothel, a succubus known to us as Fall-From-Grace. And of course he finally won the loyalty of our mistress, because he could do anything, though I don't know exactly how. She left us to travel the planes with him, a member of his party.
Several years later, she came back to us, with only the tiefling beside her. The rest were dead or departed, I know not which. The tiefling talked only of him, and my mistress would only speak of Ravel.
Ravel, as you know, was famed for her skill in magic, and many sought her out for teaching. The price was the correct answer to that famous question, posed to any foolish enough to seek her out, always the same: What can change the nature of a man? And never, in all her years of asking, had Ravel found an answer that satisfied her.
When the Nameless One came to her, having passed though many obstacles to reach her, Ravel got her answer, finally - and with it, her death. At the time, my mistress compared it to a bird, being released from a cage. She said that love built bars too high to breach, and a life filled with too many unanswerable questions. There was no answer for Ravel that existed outside of that man, because she loved him so, since the first time she had seen him, standing proud and vital in the midst of the Waste.
Life's answers should not lie in another, Fall-From-Grace said. But I am a storyteller whose destiny lies completely in a tale that can only be told to me by someone else. I wonder, sometimes, if there can be any true answers found without the aid of others.
Grace herself was trapped, though not in the same way that Ravel was. I don't know what chains held her, though she has promised to tell me one day. Even without her full story, though, I knew enough.
I know she fancied herself free, Grace, but she was continually restless after coming back from her travels with him, and could not settle down in the very brothel she created. She left a few months after telling me Ravel's end, and has not come back. No one knows where she has gone, though the tiefling girl, Annah, followed her shortly after."
After a long period of silence, she met my eyes. "And that is the end of my tale. I hope it was a fair trade."
"If it was not, Yves, the fault is mine, I'm afraid. A small truth is worth any amount of speculation."
Her hands ran along her chair, nervously rubbing the edges with her perfect hands, her dusky blonde hair trailing over the wooden arms. "Perhaps."
"And do you know what Ravel's final answer was?"
Yves paused her in her fidgeting then, and said, "I was not told the answer, no. But the nameless, scarred man told me many stories of his own, perhaps all the stories he had; I know his search was bittersweet, filled with regrets and torment. I cannot imagine it was a happy one.
"But I also know, that whether the fulfillment of my destiny lies in a comedy, or a tragedy, I will be free. I hope he found what he was looking for, even if it only ended badly."