A/N: Here it is: the final installment to Tossed Coin. It was particularly difficult to set up the scenes and images in here, so I'd appreciate the feedback on the results. I've never been in so much pressure writing an ending! (laughs) I hope I managed to pull it off, and to offer a not-so-terrible ending. We will see. Meet you again after the chapter, in another note. Please, read, review and enjoy.
o O o
Act X
o O o
Valerie woke up with a start, soaked in sweat and breathing hard.
It had become a constant in the last few tendays.
She kept having the same dream – or rather, remembering the same memory, she should say. There were slight variations and sometimes she did not quite recall the setting, but the essence did never change. And afterwards, when she lay on her comfortable room, the bed sheets tossed around and tangled about her legs, the vision would linger like the worst possible nightmare to haunt her nights until exhaustion took hold on her once more.
Before it started, everything had been fine. She had felt so sure of herself, so confident. So righteous, she thought with a laugh that sounded too close to a sob. She had pushed on, determined to forget, and then he had come back.
They had met casually on the outskirts of Sharessia, where the scant passers-by would not interrupt them, and she had been naive enough to greet him with a smile.
He hadn't smiled back, though. He had leaned back against a tree, observing her from a distance. And then he had told her that she must know the truth, that surely that was what she was looking for.
Of course, she had said yes. She had played right into his hands.
His voice was the one thing she always remembered after her dreams.
He had talked with a perfect monotone, as if he was discussing the weather or some other equally uninteresting field. He had explained drow Houses and society in no uncertain terms. He had told her that the best a houseless male could do was to sell himself to the best deal offered: whatever little position, whatever security such a male could find came strictly from the capricious demands of the female who had taken an interest. Access to laboratories? Education? Training? Everything came with a heavy price.
"He never told you, but he paid dearly."
The female who found Mjirn had liked him. Very much so. The mage was so useful, so pliant, how could she not enjoy him? That was why the Mistress had wanted to hurt her. Because she had feared her pet would be spirited away, out of her clutches and into the surface by a woman who disregarded race, status, worth.
"Humans are so below drow, and yet she grew jealous of you: no Mistress enjoys sharing her possessions."
The demon Valerie saw? It had never been meant for Mjirn. He had not called it forth. He lacked the training and the inclination to learn how to do such a thing. Paying a little bit of attention, anyone with the slightest knowledge would have discovered that the bindings, the invocation, had been prepared by a priestess.
"Did you truly not feel the divine energies at work?"
The Glabrezu had been called forth by the Mistress, and it had been just for her: for Valerie. The drow female had gone to great lengths to secure success, she had even planted a suggestion into the woman's mind to make sure that she came to Mithuth following an urge hard to place. It would have been the perfect revenge: turn her worship into a weapon, break everything that was holy for a Sharessan, and break her. The one and only reason the female had not succeeded? Mjirn. The mage had stood between Valerie and her fate.
"He took your place."
The Mistress would not have killed Mjirn, not when he was so useful and so pliant. But she had allowed him to suffer in her stead because it had seemed to be amusing. Entertaining. Something new, something the Llothite could not understand and thus something that fascinated her. She had allowed her precious mage to become the victim and had watched with complete detachment, feeling nothing but her own pleasure at the sight.
"We drow have no word for love and no use for its concept. However, even a dark elf is able to feel some form of twisted affection."
And then, there had been the aftermath. As Valerie had been told, drow males learned never to lie to priestesses. They twisted the truth instead. When she had gotten Mjirn's confession in her room at the inn, even if she had bothered to cast a spell, the statement 'I wanted to be there' would have resounded with the power of absolute truth. Mjirn had wanted to be with the demon, to be part of the soiree, because it had been the way to keep her safe. Protected. Clean. The mage had choked on the darkness and evil of the demon so that Valerie could turn her back and be free of the taint, of the perversion.
"He begged to be raped for you."
Mjirn had known, from the very beginning, that she would not be strong enough to endure the abuse.
"I think he loved you."
That night, several tendays ago, Valerie had cried. She still did, every other night, whenever she revisited her dream.
"Do you want to know the best part?"
That night, several tendays ago, he had merely smiled wider. Any trace of apathy had been long gone from his tone as he educated her further in her own foolishness.
"How you turned away in disgust."
She had been a child: she had not understood why he had been so cruel, why he enjoyed her distress, why he told her.
He had laughed.
"Your Mjirn killed our Mistress, you know," he had said, conversationally. "It was the best way to ensure your safety, I figure. He also managed to destroy several years' worth of careful planning on my part. I had reached a position, do you not understand? I was the Patron of her House, the Weapon Master. I was respected. Nearly all other males and even several females had to bow to me. And he took it all away."
She had asked how she could trust his word.
"He went to great lengths to spare you the suffering. He lied to you so you would feel no remorse. As he nullified my efforts, so I destroy his."
A shrug. Her spell, ringing clear with the sound of honesty. Amir, turning his back on her, never to return to her life. Amir, leaving her alone under the suddenly cold sun, with the echo of her own words:
"Out."
Valerie ran her hands through her short hair and stood up to grab a pitcher of water. She knew sleep would elude her, even though it was still early: the noise from the lower floor of the inn filtered up to her room through the floor planks and the open window, but she was in no condition to join the festivities. It had been a good while since she had enjoyed the company of strangers.
After death, that drow bitch had won, she thought with a bitter grin. How long had it been since she had properly honoured Sharess? At first, she had been too busy to indulge in frivolous intercourse, trying to find Mjirn. She wasn't quite sure what she wanted to tell the drow, but she had spent days stalking his usual hunting grounds. She had enquired after him. She had even rounded her friends up for a scouting trip to Mithuth.
It had been as if he had vanished. In the end, she had given up the prospect of ever seeing that soft, red-orange look again, but by that point her nightmares were so deeply entrenched in her daily life that she was left in no mood to celebrate the joys of intimacy.
She drank greedily, hoping to wash her mouth of the taste of her own unshed tears, and then the wooden cup slipped from her fingers when someone knocked on her door.
"Wrong room!" she called out, swallowing a curse.
"Right room!" Merrick's voice called right back, sounding slightly out of breath. "I got your elf!"
As if the words had been some kind of spell, Valerie jumped the distance to the door and wrenched it open.
"Where?" she asked, a hint of desperation in her voice.
She didn't ask whether it was a joke. Merrick had been with her from the beginning and she knew that, even though he might not be the best person all around, he would not play with her hopes.
"Merchant Hall. You know how me and some other fellows are trying to put together some sort of magic guild? There was a meeting tonight, and a drow delegation came. It's about an agreement."
Valerie knew Merrick and a few other casters of various ilk were vying for more weight in the Merchant Council, and that they wanted their interests represented. She had heard him bitching about securing support to the idea, but she could care less about the particular agreement.
"This delegation, they had Mjirn with them?"
"Well... yes, you could say that. Sort of."
She didn't wait any longer. The woman bolted out of her room and towards the stairs.
"Hey!," Merrick shouted after her and even tried to catch up with her strides. "Don't run off like that! I warn you, it's going to be a damn shocking sight!"
Valerie never replied. She had already had her fill on sights, and she didn't care. She wanted to reach the Merchant Hall before the drow returned to Mithuth and took Mjirn away from her again. She would not let herself be shocked by anything, not when her own inability to assimilate what she saw had caused the whole mess.
"At least you should put some clothes on," Merrick muttered to her retreating back before heading down to the main room for a tankard of ale.
And, out into the night, leaving behind her a trail of astonished stares and drooling mouths, a barefooted Valerie ran on, her nightshirt flapping about her, spurred on by her determination not to fail Mjirn again: she must be on time, she must not let the drow use him as an object again...
o O o
Inside the Merchant Hall, there were six drow suffering from various degrees of boredom, tiredness and raw tension. The project they had come to address was ambitious, and it was in their best interest to secure the open welcome of their proposal: to build a facility for mages and casters that would be safe and would provide excellent resources.
In other words, to build an Arcanist Guild and to call the shots on it.
The idea was simple: negotiating with Haven's authorities the adequate authorizations needed to clean, rebuild and improve Chauntea's Hold should be easy, since the Underground and its present condition were currently considered a hazard to the community.
However, there were always complications. What did the drow stand to win with this seemingly philanthropic offer? Much, really: a presence on the surface, easier exposure to trade, an assimilation that would grant them better business deals. It all could be translated into influence, and influence was power: the one currency the drow dealt with.
Of course, the dark elves could not say that much, and therein lay the trap. Painstakingly slowly, they spent hours in a reserved chamber of the Hall, first winning over the casters themselves and then arguing with their representative over every minute point of the agreement: who owned what, what were the rights and the obligations, who would be the Head of the Arcanists, the Master of Coin, the Heads of Schools, how many seats of power there would be, which treatises would be signed... And the list went on and on.
The drow were starting to feel the passage of time when the representative decided to call it a night - he was a human who should be sleeping in the small hours of the night, he said, garnering the stares full of content of the drow guards.
Right, one young soldier thought. Because we have nothing better to do three hours before sunrise except to stand here and look at you.
He snorted and his captain, a stern female who had at least four inches on him, shot him a dirty look that sobered him up instantly.
And then, just as the wizened representative from Haven stood up, the door to the chamber burst open and a woman in her nightclothes stood there, panting out of breath.
Valerie was conscious of every pair of eyes fixated on her, but she didn't pay them any heed: she scanned the dark skinned attendants, looking for him and then... then she froze.
When Merrick had warned her, she hadn't thought of this. She hadn't even recognized Mjirn until he turned to look at her, mildly bewildered at the intrusion.
He was easily the shortest figure in the room, even counting the other four males, but still he towered over the other presences without trying. It reminded her of that one time, in her room: the way he carried himself had changed even more since then. His back was straight, his stance sure, and he no longer wore the soft, comfortable and indistinct clothing she had grown used to: the rich black robes were heavily embroidered with iridescent thread, ornate mithril bracers decorated his forearms and his boots were polished to a high sheen.
His gaze fell levelly on her, and she found the same warm kindness kindling the depths of his eyes when he looked in hers. She wasn't reassured: she felt inadequate.
"The public meeting was over a good while ago, miss," the representative said into the uncomfortable silence, clearing his throat.
"She came at my personal request," Mjirn interrupted before Valerie had time to embarrass herself any further. "I trust my use of this Chamber is not untoward."
The words were polite as ever, but there was an edge of command behind his tone that the priestess hadn't heard before, and she shivered as the other man nodded and left, followed by his own entourage.
Stepping aside, Valerie let them pass and then it was just her and the drow. The silence stretched for a few heartbeats, until she thought she was going to crack, and then Mjirn turned to the female drow.
"Wait outside," he ordered. "Secure the room. We are not to be disturbed."
Valerie's jaw nearly dropped as she witnessed shy, tame Mjirn issue the set of instructions, and she was even more surprised when the female nodded with a curt bow and turned to bark in an incomprehensible language to the other four dark elves.
The group didn't waste a moment before leaving the Hall, closing the door behind them and leaving the pair alone. And, when she was presented with the chance, she found that words failed her.
"You are hurt," he said at length.
It was true. Her feet were dirty from the unceremonious run and she had gained a cut somewhere along the way. But it was unimportant. What mattered was him, not herself: How had he coped? Was he alright? What had they done to him?
"What's that fancy thread?" she croaked instead, nodding to his embroidery.
Mjirn lifted an eyebrow, surprised, and she wanted nothing more than to slap herself. Where had that come from? It was obviously none of her business and even if she was curious, it was not important...
"Drider silk," he said, a small smile in his tone.
"It looks expensive." Sweet Sharess, her tongue was just running off without her. She could not prevent herself from blurting out ridiculous things. Of course, she had jumped out of bed and crossed half the town just to be inane about his wardrobe.
"It is expensive."
"So why in the nine hells are you wearing it?"
She winced as soon as the words were out. As if she hadn't been unfair enough already... She started to stammer an apology, but Mjirn's low chuckle interrupted her. The drow shook his head and pushed away from the table, taking his cloak with him.
"No, wait. We... I need to talk to you. Please."
"I am not going anywhere," he replied, reaching up to wrap his cloak around her shoulders instead. "Forgive my presumption, but I believe the night will not agree with your choice of clothes."
"Or lack thereof," Valerie snorted, holding tight the heavy piwafwi.
"Indeed," he guided her to one of the chairs, gently, as if she was a crystal figure about to break.
She had to admit that it must seem like her sanity was on the verge of breaking. And when a strangled cry forced its way out of nowhere and she threw her arms about his neck, she guessed that she had, in fact, gone crazy.
For a long, precarious moment, the two of them were about to topple over and she felt him tense in reflex, as if ready to fight. But then, his arms came to her waist and they managed to remain standing, the chair rattling and Mjirn pinned against the table as he offered whatever comfort he could.
It made Valerie laugh and cry at the same time, how even after everything he accepted her as if he had never expected better, as if she had not failed him. Sharess, she must seem a lunatic!
"Sorry about that," she said sheepishly when she calmed down.
"It is not a problem. Are you well?"
"You think I'm loony, huh?"
"No. I think your pallor does not look healthy, your eyes are not suited to bags, and it is too early for you to have been asleep. And I distinctly remember you to weigh more."
She laughed, just a little.
"Yeah, well, I've been..." she bit back her words, sighed, ran her hands through her hair. "I don't want to talk about me. We should be talking about... I should be asking you."
"I am fine. You do not need to worry."
"You can't be fine! After..." she looked away, took two steps away from him, glanced up once more. "Amir told me everything."
"I am fine. And I know," he replied, leaning back against the table.
"You... do?"
"He was kind enough to enlighten me."
"Why would he do that?"
Mjirn stared at her levelly, as if judging whether she did require an answer, and then shrugged.
"There was no point in delivering a blow if I was not aware of the existing wound."
"Oh. Mjirn, you must be careful with that one. He's evil. He really is..."
"He shall not pose a threat in the future. But I am sorry that you had to suffer for my rivalry with him."
"I won't lie, he has given me nightmares," she took a deep breath. "But I'm glad I learned what I did. So that I can... make amends."
There was a moment of silence and then Valerie asked:
"When you say he will not be a threat..."
"He is dead, yes."
"You killed him? He was an excellent fighter, how did you manage to cast fast enough?"
"He was a great Weapon Master and took down three guards before I disintegrated him."
"Wait. Guards? You set a bunch of guards on him?"
Mjirn arched a brow, smiled.
"You were not expecting me to confront him alone in the open, I hope?"
"No, but I didn't know there was a city guard in Mithuth. I didn't know the place had laws to protect!"
"It does not. It was a House Guard."
Mjirn fingered a small silver brooch pinned to his robes, and Valerie walked closer again to examine the intricate embroidery, a dead look coming to her eyes.
"I wanted you to leave that hole. It was never your place to begin with. You deserve the kindness and... if there's a drow who should be welcome to come up into the light, that's you. I thought, since your Mistress was dead, you could escape. That I could help you to find your real home. And now... you are their prisoner once more?"
It was Mjirn's turn to look away. For the first time since the conversation had started, he looked unsure - the male she had known first. With tentative fingers, he reached up to cup the side of her face, brushing her hair out of her eyes when she didn't flinch away.
"I harbour no love for the Dancing Lady nor for her creed, but I would have accepted her surface and its burning sun if you had asked me."
"I am asking you now."
"I cannot."
"It is not fair!" she exploded, an angry tear making its way down her cheek. "You should be free!"
He swallowed.
"I am free. Valerie, my place... it is not under the sun. My home is in Mithuth. I have... ideas. Projects. There are things I have always dreamed to do, and as part of House Teken'tlar I can pursue these avenues."
"Another female has claimed you in that hell."
"No. I have not been claimed. I have been... accepted. The House is different from any other: Mithuth is an outpost, after all, and the power structure is still young. Most factions are striving groups tied under the power of a single figure, and that is why Teken'tlar could rise to prominence. With their influence behind my moves, I can make a change. I cannot turn my back on that."
"What is Teken'tlar then? The biggest bully or something like that?"
"A House that understands the value of merits and cooperation. Anything else would be too complex to explain now, and ultimately pointless."
"You could find influence here, too," she pleaded. She had not expected this situation: in her mind, the difficult thing was to get his forgiveness, not to get him to abandon a society he despised. "You were in the guild meeting: I am sure we could talk to Merrick and find someone to take you as apprentice and..."
She fell silent when his fingers touched her lips and he smiled.
"Apprentice? I am Mithuth's First House Wizard and Head of the future Arcanist Guild."
"Your dream."
"Yes."
She felt her hopes crumbling, and realized that she cared for him much more than she had thought she did.
"I can't take that from you, I guess," she said. Then, she clung to him, their differences in height and weight and race overlooked as the tears she had held at bay overwhelmed her. "I wish it weren't like this."
He held her, letting her soak his hair, and dared to smile into her shoulder. He remembered something she had said to him, once, when they had just met.
"It doesn't need to be like this, Valerie," he said, softly.
"You've chosen the Underdark."
"Over the Surface," he sighed, held out his hand, hesitatingly. "I already belonged to the Underdark when we met."
She stepped away from his embrace, stared at his hand, then up into those red-orange eyes. They were warm and open for her – she knew on instinct that no one else was afforded the sight into his soul.
He knew what love was, better than she did.
Obsidian black and peach white, she threaded her fingers through his. The contrast was beautiful. It felt right, and she smiled.
Later, seven figures would climb into the boat towards Mithuth under the last rays of the moon.
Into the darkness, away from the light.
o O o
The End
o O o
A/N: What a trip... this story has been amazing to write, and I can't thank you all enough for being with me every step of the way. I just hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. Also, this story might be over but another tale is coming up: To Kill the Moonlight, the continuation to To Catch the Moonlight, will be up tomorrow under Games - Dungeons and Dragons. It's another story of dark elves, of strife, of choices. I hope to meet you again in there.
Meanwhile, let me say it again: thank you for your support to A Tossed Coin.