Selûne was shining brightly this night, her tears streaming with a majestic sorrow as they cast their light upon the city he had loved.
Loved, indicating past tense.
This was the city that had taken him in as a lost child, becoming the only home he'd ever know. While the urban way of living was known for chewing up and spitting out those who naively thought it a better life, it had cared for and nurtured him. He'd been lucky, of course, he knew that. Many were not. Yet it had been in Neverwinter he'd found his calling, drawn to Tyr's light.
But it was also Neverwinter that caused his downfall.
His fall from grace, as it were, was not in the eyes of his god. Tyr had not abandoned him. It was the city herself, the Jewel of the North, who had brought him up and done right by him his entire life. Yet still that one moment, one mistake, cost him everything. He had been jealously cast aside by the city he loved because he had dared to love another.
Of course he had considered that it had been for the best. His lady love had not been for him. She was another's, and that would forever remain his shame. He had come to terms with this fact, allowing the years to heal his shattered heart. Nevertheless there was another thing, a deeper pain he had thought he would never be able to leave behind.
Neverwinter had betrayed him.
It was that betrayal that had set him on the path he now walked. It had taken him through the mountains surrounding Old Owl Well, and there he had done his god's work. Alone at first, then joined by many more, he had tried to purge the darkness of chaos from one small part of the realms. It was not much of a task for a paladin, barely worth mentioning in the face of the far greater feats performed in the name of Tyr. But he had always thought that even though he had been rejected by the city and her people, he could still do right by them. He could stand in the halls of Tyr upon the time of his death and recount his deeds, however minor, with pride in the knowledge that he had done the right thing. They had hurt him, but he had forgiven them.
That is what he so desperately wanted, needed, to believe.
Yet while he had been alone in the mountains he had always known that deep down he could not forgive them so easily. The wound to his soul went far too deep for that. In the darkest moments of the night he had considered the possibility of never knowing how to forgive her, the city that had both made and destroyed him.
But then, oh, then it gave him something far more wonderful than he could ever have imagined.
It gave him a chance.
It gave him her.
He had been drawn to her the moment they met. Not love or blind adoration, but a deep bond of kinship none the less. She forged such bonds so easily, this unknown knight of Neverwinter. The diversity of her companions spoke of her ability to hold them all together despite their differences. They followed her not out of debt or obligation, but out of loyalty (even the sorceress, who professed otherwise). There was something about her that inspired such feelings in people, some destiny that called to them. He had been unable to refuse it.
And so here he was in Neverwinter, the city he had loved. Gazing at the jumble of rooftops bathed in Selûne's light, he was filled with a sense of peace he had not known since the time he'd first set eyes upon the city. He could see Neverwinter anew, thanks to her. Perhaps it was an offering of peace, leading him to her in some round-about fashion that only the gods could comprehend. In all his years of solitude, he had never dared even to dream of such an opportunity. She would lead, and by Tyr, he would follow her to the ends of the realms and beyond.
And he felt sure that, come journey's end, he would have found the forgiveness he sought in his heart.