Collect Some Dragon Scales
- "Peri, sister. Come with me. I have Cespenar's pancakes as well..." Sarevok put his arm on Peri's shoulder, as she still leaned on her sword, her eyes hollow.
- "Do you want Imoen as well?" he asked, as Peri lifted her head. Peri nodded.
- "There will be another challenge," Peri addressed the group as they walked past them and Sarevok discreetly nodded at Imoen. "But we will rest a bit before it... all right?"
Everyone nodded profusely.
- "Peri, take your time. No sense to go unprepared," Sarade said. "Talk a little with your siblings. It seems you need it."
- "The solar said so too," Peri said as they walked to a private spot. They made themselves comfortable. Sarevok started to sharpen the point of Peri's sword with his whetstone, looking her in the eye. Imoen devoured pancakes with gusto, but kept looking at Peri.
- "Your weariness is increasing rapidly, sister. The battles have been hard, true... but it is nothing new to you. This is about something else," Sarevok stated, his golden eyes never leaving Peri's.
- "Yes... for so long now... so long! Don't get me wrong, I like fighting, perhaps too much, and I like the life on the road. I like how you can find something even more surreal than the previous event you were involved in if you make no plans and just go wherever the whim takes you. But this I don't like. Always the same thing happening, every opponent going through a variant of the same motions, thinking himself so original... it is like a puppet play where there are only a few options I can take, a few ways the puppetmaster can pull my strings. Now I'm supposed to convey surprise, now outrage, now triumph... I'm so tired of it! So TIRED! And if there is something I don't want to be, it is to be some flaming hero! I don't want any stupid statues of me or anyone thinking that I am noble or generous or anything. When I ride into a town I want them to think that there is another anonymous sword for hire, not the hero who will save the Realms as we know it! I don't feel like a hero, I don't think like a hero. Heroes get all the stupid, pompous lines in Immy's knight novels. I'd rather be the villain because villain says smarter things, but I'm too queasy about torture and killing innocents sort of thing," Peri ranted, stopping to inhale.
- "I wasn't, in my time, as you well know," Sarevok said grimly. "And now I have to spend the rest of my life knowing it. But still, heroism is not really the issue, is it. The lack of options, I fear, is getting to you, sister. You got a role you don't want. And I don't blame you the least."
- "It is not that I have anything against being a hero," Imoen started tentatively, "but I also understand that it gets to you. That you can't just turn your back and go about your life. But why don't you take it like Korgan? You like fighting, just like he does. He is happy because he gets to really test his mettle against these foes. These are among the toughest dudes in whole the Realms. Take it as a challenge, sis!"
Peri smiled a bit.
- "There's a way to look at it," she acknowledged. "We have already offed a dragon, so perhaps it is a perfect timing to fight a half-one with a lot of Bhaal essence."
Sarevok gave Imoen an appreciative look. She had managed to provide Peri with a point of view that would ease her weariness and her distaste of pomp and heroism.
- "Let's assume we manage to slay this Abazigal," Sarevok said. "I still have the feeling we are playing into someone's lap, nice and easy."
- "Yes... then there is me and this Balthazar left of the known powerful Bhaalspawn. I wonder what he wants," Peri said, frowning. "He didn't move against me, and Keldy said he didn't sense evil from him. But then, he might be able to conceal it. And also, Keldy's evil-radar is for uncomplicated situations like recognizing a Loviatar-worshipping child-eating human-sacrificing serial-torturer. Sometimes it just isn't that simple."
- "I sense something vaguely familiar in that Melissan woman, and she definitely gives me bad vibrations," Sarevok said. "But I don't feel Bhaal essence in her... what could she be doing in all this?"
- "I take it you believe that story about a protector just as much as I do," Peri said dryly.
- "Those two must be at the heart of the issue. But how? If Balthazar is out to take Bhaal's power, he is not going the most obvious way about it. He could play the others against each other, naturally, hoping to remain the last one..."
- "Why don't we go and talk with him again, then?" Imoen asked.
- "Little sister, he is locked in that monastery, and a frontal assault in there would be pointless. Even if we managed to slaughter all the monks, he would fight us, and we wouldn't know any more than we do now if we killed him," Sarevok explained.
- "Perhaps this Abazigal would listen to reason," Peri said, and laughed joylessly. "Why does it sound like a bad joke in my own ears."
Sarevok hugged her shoulders from behind.
- "At least you will be able to fight an epic battle. Perhaps collect some dragon scales for Cespenar to forge an armor..." he said. "And he is out to kill you... beloved sister, let's show him that we, children of Bhaal, can not be stopped!"
Peri turned around and hugged Sarevok back, resting her head against the broad chest.
- "Bro... with you by my side I never completely despair. Immy, you come here as well."
She did, and joined them, her pink head and slender body so small in between the two warriors.
Sarevok felt again a powerful mixture of unearned joy and love, and guilt, the fuel of his new life.
