Enough.

Sand had been squinting over the experimental spellbook of Belannen for the better part of day, and a headache was starting to form. His eyes had been protesting for hours, and not even the strongest of his potions was soothing them anymore. Which meant it was time to put Balennen's puzzles aside for a time, and... well, his alchemy bench was well-stocked and required no attention currently; brewing would not help either with the on-coming headache or his strained eyes, and neither would finding something to read. That left very few options, most of them unattractive; he sighed as the decision presented itself. Another evening's meal taken at the Sunken Flagon, then, among the unpleasant smells of bad ale and unwashed innkeeper. At least sniping at Duncan would take the edge off his frustration with Balennen's grimoire.

His shop locked and warded behind him, Sand paused and sniffed the air. Not something many would willingly do in the Docks, but between his sharp nose and sharper brain, the scents were noted, catalogued and conclusions drawn almost instantaneously. Greycloak patrols about. The sharp tang of blood, mingled with a mangy dog. A ship docked, not long ago.

His nose wrinkled in distaste. Quite strong, now, the mingled scents of a group that had passed along the streets a short while ago. Went into the Sunken Flagon, it would seem. A sweaty male dwarf. Female, trees and the bitterness of the Mere of Dead Men. Female, an unpleasant whiff of brimstone.

Female, pinesmoke and jasmine. No. Not that scent. Surely he was fooling himself.

Sand sniffed again, more deeply, trying to keep calm. Pinesmoke and jasmine, with faint overlays of the sea, and of the Mere. The sea-smell didn't go deep, and the Harbourman influence was new, but the core of it – of her – was as familiar, as impossible to mistake as his own scent. His hands started to shake, until he realised and steadied them; an uncharacteristically warm smile, tentative and tender, appeared on his face. She came back, he thought, and fought down the urge to do something stupid. Sweet Mother Mystra, just one hint of her scent, and already he was thinking – no, be honest, feeling - like an adolescent. He wiped the smile off his face, and started running over possible opening lines – the bard had always appreciated his wit, and would surely prefer something cool and scathing to the incoherent, joyful words that were all that immediately sprang to mind.

Sand ran his fingers through his hair, took a deep breath, and sauntered over to the Sunken Flagon, hands tucked nonchalantly in the pockets of his robes. He pushed open the door, idly noted the dwarf, the druid, the tiefling – that would match the scents on the street - and then he saw her, and all his carefully-planned words were knocked out of his head again.

A slight woman in caster's robes stood talking to Duncan, her back to the door. A wealth of unruly brown hair spilled down her back, its top layers bleached to gold. Sand knew that hair; he could feel, stronger than memory, its weight and silk in his hands, the scent of pinesmoke and jasmine trapped in its strands. He heard her voice, losing the words in the sheer pleasure of its sound, just the same, low and sweet. He took a step forward, and then Duncan said her name.

Esmerelle.

Esmerelle, Sand repeated silently. You came back.

"... don't pay that eel Sand any coin in advance," Duncan said. Not likely to get a better opportunity for an entrance than that.

"Ah... it seems I have arrived just in time to deflect the usual barrage of slander from the local innkeeper," Sand said, permitting a smirk to crease his mouth. She hadn't turned around, but then, she wouldn't have. That would hardly have been playing the game.

"Sand," Duncan said flatly.

"Yes, it is good to see you're still sober enough to recognise me, Duncan – past the stale beer, vinegar, faint sweat, failed aspirations, unwashed tunic... I thought perhaps you'd already had one tankard too many for the day." He crossed the floor. She still hadn't moved, but the scent of her thickened his throat and brought the next words out a little awkwardly. Her hair hung around her face like a curtain as he came to her side. "Your guest... has a faint Harbourman scent about her. I thought Duncan was keeping company too good for him," he said to her. "I see I was right."

She chuckled – and how familiar was that sound? – and pushed her hair off her face, turning to smile at him.

And she wasn't Esmerelle.

No denying the power of the resemblance. The woman looked so much like Esmerelle, when he'd first met her – the hair, the voice, the scent – but even as his eyes searched her face, and the pit of his stomach lurched with such disappointment that he felt physically sick, there was no way of fooling himself that it was her. Her features were a little sharper than Esmerelle's heart-shaped face, and instead of the warm, roguish brown eyes he remembered so well, the stranger's eyes were a pale blue. She regarded him with amusement and curiosity – the expression even reminded him of Esmerelle – and then he realised the silence had stretched out far too long.

Well, at least he retained enough self-control to cloak his emotions. "I heard my name mentioned... and, oddly enough, almost in a tone that suggested I could help."

"This here's kin," Duncan said.

Sand raised his eyebrows, and looked at the woman again, noting this time the strong sense of arcane power that radiated from her, the small bat that clung to the front of her robes, and saw not only her likeness to Esmerelle, but her distinct lack of any to Duncan. He said as much.

"No, you wouldn't," she said. "Duncan is my foster-father's half-brother."

Sand took a moment to disentangle the genealogy. "Ah, I see. Kin, but not blood-kin, if I may speak loosely."

"You may indeed," the woman said, and both tone and wording were exactly those Esmerelle would have chosen. In addition to the deep shock of disappointment, the pending headache chose that moment to descend on him.

He was never quite sure, afterwards, how he'd gotten through the conversation that followed. More trading of insults with Duncan – well, that part he could have done that in his sleep – an attempted scrying on the two shards of silver and their violent reaction, the discussion on how the girl could get into Blacklake to see Aldanon by joining the Watch or Moire's thugs – she didn't look too happy at either prospect – and finally, an excuse to make a graceful exit.

"I'm certain you can find your own way into trouble from here. I shall return to my lonely merchant existence," Sand said, and could have cursed. To his own ears, that had sounded entirely too bitter. Duncan hadn't picked up on it – well, he wouldn't expect it of the worthless drunk – but the girl was looking at him again, a slight query in her eyes. He hastened to soften it. "Should you have need of my expertise, simply ask, my dear..."

"Angharad," she supplied, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ears. Her small, delicately- pointed ears.

He was frozen for a moment. "Angharad," he nodded, finally. "Duncan," and left the Flagon.

Back in the safety of his shop – headache, nausea, heartache and all – Sand blindly swallowed down the few remaining potions he had in stock that would ameliorate the first two problems, and sat down in front of the fire to wallow in the third.

Gods, he thought he'd buried it, finally got the better of it and managed to forget her. Instead, all it took was a slip of a half-elf girl who smelt of pine wood burnt under the stars, and of jasmine, to make him so pathetically willing to believe she'd come back to him. Nearly twenty-four years since he'd last seen her face – a mere handful of time, really – but it hadn't felt that way. He lost himself in memories...

A warm night, the moonlight drifting down through the trees of the Duskwood. A laughing discussion, not the first they've had. "No, no, you're confusing your pantheons again. Angharradh was the one who...

"Angharradh," she said, rolling the name in her mouth. "That's got a good ring to it."

"I'm sure the goddess is ecstatic that a human bard approves of the sound of her name. I shall so inform her next time I pray to her, and then she will surely shower me with blessings."

She gave him a sideways look. "Just what sort of blessings does this goddess provide?"

Not her usual sort of question, and not her usual sort of look, either. "Ah, well, if I remember correctly –" and then his words were lost against her lips, and his thoughts drowned in pinesmoke and jasmine. After a time, they pulled apart from each other.

"I think I'll stick with Sune," the bard said, and then...

... and then his brain woke up (he had always had a low tolerance for self pity) and started putting pieces together. He could practically hear the solid clicking of fact placed on fact, forming a solid chain of reasoning. Each step could have been a coincidence, but not when they were placed together.

First: The girl was so exactly like Esmerelle, there had to be a blood link there.

Second: Duncan had used that name when talking to her. Either he or the girl knew Esmerelle. Easy to discreetly pump Duncan for information, if you waited until he was drunk enough to talk and forget what he had been saying, but not too drunk to pass out. One-third through a tankard should do it.

Third: The girl was evidently a half-elf, or to use a more relevant phrasing in this context, half-human.

Fourth: Her name was Angharad. An uncommon name, particularly borne by one not of full elven blood.

First conclusion: On balance, it seemed likely that the half-elf was Esmerelle's daughter.

He would have liked to stop there and adjust to that, but he was drawn onward by a grouping of other facts.

Fifth: The girl had power. Magic could be wild talent, but it was more often than not inherited.

Sixth: The girl was a half-human, or to use a more relevant phrasing in this context, half-elf.

Seventh: If Sand was any judge of the maturation rate of half-elves, she was about twenty-three years old.

Eighth: Her eyes were pale blue, and, now he thought about it, really rather familiar.

Second conclusion: On balance, it seemed likely that the half-elf was his daughter.

The conclusion arrived in his head, and he mentally stared at it for a while.

No. Aberration of logic. Unacceptable conclusion. Redo from start.

Better yet, wait for more information, and then rethink it.

Sand pinched the bridge of his nose, commanded his brain to stop thinking – which signally failed, as usual – and distracted himself with Balennen's spellbook.

Or tried to.