Jessi: I don't want people killing me for that cliff-hanger last chapter… You all seemed to take it too well… Anyway, please don't hate me for what I do now to Chel. (Hides under the desk)

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Chel's chest didn't move… but he never had to breathe at all…

He couldn't be…

There was no pulse in his wrist or his neck… but he lived on magic and his heart had never had to beat…

It wasn't possible…

Vale refused to believe it. Even as she knelt at the immortal's side, mechanically checking for heartbeat and breath, her mind rejected the idea again and again…

But when Tiamet moaned in agony and huge shimmering tears fell from his eyes, she knew it to be true. No matter how much she wished that it wasn't.

Chelevva Pendragon was dead.

He lay on his stomach, head resting on the ground on its side. Frost outlined the Cupid's bow lips and clung to his long lashes, making them sparkle in the summoned globes of light. His skin was covered in a shroud of ice. His hair was frozen where it had lain, even the few strands that had escaped from the rest to hang before his face.

Icy blood crunched beneath Vale's fists as she slammed them against the ground. The young cleric screamed, her blue eyes welling up with tears.

"This is your fault!" the shrieking voice echoed through the cavern. Though it did not cause Vale to stir from Chel's side, one of Tiamet's heads swung in that direction.

"All your fault!" screamed the white-haired female. She raised her hands, raw magic crackling along her skin and hair. Her golden eyes blazed like tiny suns

The former deity did not reply. Her gaze flickered between the frozen body of her child and the equally still form of her mate. The only movement on the male god was the steady fall of tears from his eyes. As they fell across the wounds that decorated his gold-and-platinum hide the shimmering droplets glowed and vanished, leaving behind smooth, whole scales. The deity wept curative holy water.

Vale was stroking Chel's long hair, her tears freezing when they fell onto his skin and the cold seeping through her clothes and numbing her fingers, but she was unmindful of such things.

"Did you not hear me?" shrieked the emaciated creature, "It was your fault, you weakened him and he couldn't fight back against Sjach!" when she still got no response, she howled in fury and brought her fists smashing down onto the blue-and-silver hide, "He'll rot for an eternity in the Beyond and it's all because of you!"

Kereska screamed in pain, the magic cracking scales, causing blood to seep out from beneath them and she whirled around, attacking out of reflex.

"Enough!"

Both females froze, their bodies responding to the magic in the deity's command instantly.

Tiamet got to his feet,

"It is no one's fault but Sjach's," his voice was steady and firm, but the tears of holy water still fell from his eyes, "He used Chelevva in such a fashion and paid the price for it."

Behind him Vale gently coasted a hand along the open wound on Chel's back.

"Sesha… your mother did not realise what she was doing and Chelevva brought her here of his own free will," at Tiamet's words the white-haired immortal jerked her head up in surprise. The dragon deity smiled at it, "My daughter, did you think I would not know you? Those eyes… and you called Chelevva your brother."

Sesha lowered her head, saying nothing. Finally she drifted over to Chel's ice-covered form, kneeling beside it quietly.

The male deity padded over to his mate, leaning against her and wrapping one wing around her trembling form. Hitching her shroud up over her face to surreptitiously wash the tears from her cheeks, Sesha reached out with her other hand to touch Chelevva's face.

She screamed and jerked her hand back as though it had been burnt. Her eyes widened,

"…I see now… Brother, you are…" she glanced at her hand with its own covering of frost, the appendage seeming less real somehow. She turned, raising her other hand to clutch her cowl close.

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"He is not dead!" all three beings turned towards Sesha, their eyes filled now with confusion as well as sorrow, "His soul has left his body but it is still living! Sjach dragged it with him into the Beyond!"

Kereska gasped,

"But no deity can live there! He'd succumb to it and-" she bit off the end of the sentence, not willing to think of her child in pain. Tiamet unfurled his wing from around his mate and was at Chel's side in an instance, reaching for him.

A skeletal hand stopped him,

"If you were to go after him, then you would die."

"But I cannot leave Chelevva there!"

Sesha nodded, something that might have been a smile forming on her face, half-hidden by her shroud,

"I know this. This is why I shall go," the shroud fell away from her head, settling about her shoulders, "I am already dead Father, a spirit plucked from the Beyond by my former master. I will go back and I will sleep forever."

"I- I will be going as well," Kereska joined her daughter by the still form of her child, "It was my fault that he was able to do this to Chelevva, after all," seeing that her mate was about to protest she shushed him, "I banished Sjach to the Beyond long ago my love, but I did not follow to destroy him once and for all… I was afraid to die. Please, allow me to do this for Chelevva!"

The male deity did not respond at first and the dragoness turned to avoid his gaze. But finally he replied,

"Kerrie… Don't ask me to do this. I- I've missed you, so much."

"I'm already dead, my love," said the blue-and-silver dragoness, echoing her daughter's words, "Tiamat killed me a long time ago," she leant it close, her nose touching one of Tiamet's, "I'm here at the expense of Chelevva's strength. Do not let me stay at the cost of his life."

He was silent for several heartbeats. Finally he flung himself at Kereska, wrapping his wings around her body. He withdrew slowly, more tears of holy water brimming in his jewel-like eyes.

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Across Faerun, Tiamet's clerics felt their eyes sting with tears and their hearts ache with sorrow. Those with mates felt a great urge to hold them close.

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Vale watched all of this filled with mixed emotions. There was hope that Chel might be saved but she was filled with the powerful agony of her deity.

Sesha turned her head to look at her and the voice of the female immortal filled the cleric's mind,

I know that you are the mate of my brother. Your memories, Vale felt a feather-light presence in her mind as the memories she spoke of were gently studied. Sesha sighed (but it was not a sad noise) as she felt the powerful love that the mortal had for her brother, they are so… I wonder if things were different… she smiled sadly and Vale saw a glimpse of what the golden creature could have been, I gave you a gift to help you in the times ahead… and they will be hard. You will not see the effects of my work for some time, but you will know it. For the pain I have caused my brother, I will repay him by protecting the one he loves.

Vale looked down at her guardian's still features. The white-haired female continued,

I must ask that you protect him when the time comes. Give him your unconditional love. It will be a shield and a refuge for him. Love him, because I never had the chance to love or to live.

Sesha bowed slightly,

"Fare well."

Then she and Kereska were gone.

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Jessi: (Still under the desk) Why am I so cruel to Chel?