Jelena and Peri watched the waves, the moonshine reflecting on them. Peri felt a strange mixture of deep peace and melancholy that gripped her chest, hurting and feeling oddly pleasant at the same time. She sang an old ballad Gorion had sometimes sung to her when there was a full moon.
When I was born it was dark night
only the moon was shining
My mother didn't know the light
or care about my whining
Still she is just as dead and gone
as was my father all along
Pale moon, sad moon, you crying Selune
Shed tears for them a few
Thinking of the highest cost
of living life a-rolling
Thinking of all friends I've lost
no bells for them were tolling
As they were lost in final sleep
where undertaker can not be
Pale moon, sad moon, you crying Selune
Shed tears for them a few
I always was a rolling stone
Can't stay for long in places
Still I have had my share of love
Still can recall their faces
For some of the I caused grief
Too much for them to bear
Pale moon, sad moon, you crying Selune
Shed tears for them a few
Now I am older than my years
and hope to find salvation
Too much of life is blood and tears
Too little elevation
I don't know how to carry on
Don't know where I could find a home
Pale moon, sad moon, you crying Selune
Shed tears for me a few
- "Sad song, Peri. Do you feel that way?" Jelena asked.
- "Yes and no," Peri replied. "I am starting to realize what it means to be immortal and how much grief there is in my wake. But also, I am happy. I have a family and I am traveling with them. Immy and Sarevok are safe and I can share their company - the Bhaal business is over with. I don't mind melancholy now and then. It feels better than constant sappy happiness."
- "Peri... I really appreciate it that you have taken this mission as your own. I know you want to go to Kara-Tur as soon as possible... and that being a do-gooder is not the role you want in life."
- "Sometimes you just can't turn your back. I think this was meant to be. I couldn't very well live with myself if I didn't help those kids. Those people are so vile that it makes me ill. I see it more like I can't solve all the problems of the world and don't particularly care to try. But this was there for a reason. How were those kids in there?"
Jelena sighed.
- "Physically they will be alright pretty soon. I healed them, and as they have been slightly undernourished, they should get better soon when they get better food and pure water. But as for their emotional state... they have been abducted from their homes, taken to the stinking, dark ship and caravans... raped, seen their friends die and cast aside..." she shook her head and sobbed.
Peri cursed silently, clenching her fists.
- "Don't YOU ever want to kill them? Of course not the kids, but all those people who would do such a thing. Don't you just see red and feel this hot tingling inside of you?"
- "Sometimes I feel something like that," Jelena said. "But I have never cared much for violence. I more readily think of helping the victims."
- "I'm just the other way around," Peri said. "Helping and nurturing makes me feel helpless, when I have this rage rushing inside of me."
- "I was tempted to hurt that lord," Jelena said. "And at the planes I killed a man with my bare hands..."
Peri was impressed.
- "Wow! Tell me!"
- "Well... a long story. Let's just say that I overreacted a bit, given the circumstances. Come, girl. Let's go navigate so that we don't end up back to Westgate."
