Guidance
You could ask many people to describe her and you would get many answers… enchanting, alluring, a tease, an element... A beauty – that was all it amounted to, a simple, shallow word. She was so much more.
But it was a good start, he would give them that.
She called herself Ruby… laughing. She was a Garnet the next town over, and Beryl the next. Among the human villagers her slim elven figure, her natural elegance, her voice, a song even in a simple sentence, stood out like a gemstone on a dusty road filled with pebbles. Of course she was well aware of he stir she was causing and spared no effort to both accentuate her beauty and the eccentricity of her antics. She went through admirers – farmers, smiths, simple people, like through a box of sweets and left them all unfulfilled, for the next person, next place, next name.
But her looks weren't what got him finally, he would have handled that. It was her talent that sealed his fate – that of a moth, lost at the sight of flame. Elven magic evoked by her songs, so elegant and perfect in their simplicity – to hear her cast with a folk tune he must have heard over a thousand times in his life, but never found worthy of a focus. And so ancient and deep… Carrying a melancholy of a race that much more older than humanity. He cried for the first time in his adult life, when she breathed life into the strings of her harp and shared a song of the People.
Well… he wasn't an adult for all that long though. A year ago he left his home village and moved into Morusk, a small town, to become a mage's apprentice. He was brighter than his peers… at least his father insisted he was, and was the youngest of all siblings. Thus his fated has been decided for him, again, he didn't protest. He would learn to be a weather mage and come back to help on the farm. All family decided it was an excellent idea.
So he studied, did quite well – if master Oak, a good, though slightly senile mage, could be believed. Didn't slack off and helped with cleaning and farmwork in his free time. The only leisure he allowed himself was an occasional night in tavern, sometimes welcoming a traveling bard. That was where he met Ruby. Also where he dared himself to buy her an ale, and after a pint or four more, ended up in the room she rented. And where, in the morning after, he listened how she told him – sang to him – about a life outside this vale. About Waterdeep and Silverymoon, the lost city of Myth Drannor, about planes of existence other than this one. He listened, enthralled.
Ruby was capriciousness personified. In the next couple of days he forgot all about his studies, trying to pry from her the secrets of her magic and listening attentively to every word she uttered. In exchange she demanded to take part in a heist to steal apples from an orchard – something he hadn't done in years – and used him as a distraction when pick-pocketing from a merchant. By then he should have realized she was trouble. Pranks and childish antics were one thing, but stealing money she didn't even need, just for fun, that was quite different. Unfortunately he was far too gone… The very thought of making her pout at him and leave… No, he did his best to distract Gerimund, when the elf was checking out the contents of his purse.
By the end of the week he was convinced nothing he did so far in life amounted to anything and was very ready to leave. He had to see the world! And with his life so pitiably short compared to hers, he had no time to spare.
The letter she left on his nightstand was quite a shock. He knew she left those to her lovers after moving on, she told him as much, but that didn't mean… She wasn't meant to treat him that way! He wasn't like the others, he didn't want to stay here! He would gladly come with her, instead of remaining here, a pebble on the road…
Three years passed, until he saw her again. His teacher passed away before concluding his teachings and no other mages were close enough to reach. He reluctantly accepted the duties of a local weather mage, knowing full well, he had neither knowledge, nor experience for the job. His dreams of traveling were put on hold. The hurt of being abandoned so easily lessened with time, he even looked back at the memories fondly every now and then, while hurrying to another farmer, to make him a list of promises he couldn't keep.
A storm entered his life, rearranged his very soul to her liking, and left. Now he was left knowing that there were bigger things, but he would never be a part of them.
The quite literal storm fell, when he was halfway to mage's tower. Tower, bah. More of a repurposed rat-filled mill. This evening the gods seemed to decide to amuse themselves by trying to drown all the mortals beneath them. Well… the farmer asked for rain. He got one.
He reached his home completely soaked. Muttering curses under his breath, he noticed he forgot to lock the door. And opened them to an unexpected visitor.
"Gorion. I need your help" Ruby pleaded. She looked nothing like he remembered.
On his couch laid a sunken ghost, thin, white and weak. Her eyes, once brilliant gemstones were now dark, shadowed and haunted. And the worst part, there was barely a speck of life in them.
He came in immediately, thought a moment and locked the door tightly. The tower had one, half-broken enchantment to protect it from vaguely defined 'evil'. He didn't even know how exactly it worked, but activated it nonetheless. Then he moved to his unexpected guest.
"Do you… have something… to eat?" she wheezed.
"Yes, of course!" he could barely see her in the stormy darkness, but could see she was as soaked as he was. He moved to light the fireplace, trekked mud on the carped, cursed and began to do everything at once. All he had to eat was porridge so after tossing his cloak and shoes in the corner, he began to warm it up. He had a couple of potions in the cupboard, he remembered, hopefully they didn't go stale. By the time he returned after much struggle, with a blanket, a potion and a bowl of warm food, she was asleep. Or unconscious. He moved to see which one and discovered that though wet and with fever she wasn't wounded. And very visibly pregnant.
Through the day and the next, he did his best to nurse her to health. There was no cleric in town right now, she was making rounds in the neighboring villages, but he could send for her. Ruby insisted he didn't. Between deep unconsciousness and hectic nightmares, when she screamed and cursed, the elf was barely aware where she was, but in those lucid moments, each time, she begged and made him swear, that no one would find out she was there. That they would find her. Hurt her. Hurt her baby.
He didn't know who they were. He did his best to make her feel better, but was no healer. The potions didn't work, the food and herbs could only make her that much better. The pregnancy was still early… fourth or fifth month, he would guess, were she human. Elf biology was a mystery to him. He tried to reinforce the tower and prepare, if someone was to attack, but he was no warrior either. He didn't know if he could trust anyone. He didn't know if there was a real danger, or just a feverish dream of a very ill woman. But every time he saw the terror in her face, pure and overwhelming, he believed.
On the third day it stopped to matter however. Ruby didn't wake up. Her fever was still high, but the elf wouldn't stir. She and her baby were dying. He could either risk the attack and get a healer or watch them till the end. There was no way she could get better on her own. His 'efforts' were insufficient. So he chose the former.
He didn't want to leave her for a second longer than necessary, but the temple was on the other side of town. He decided to ask a neighbor's boy to fetch a healer, explaining very carefully to the adolescent, that the secrecy was of utmost importance. Then he waited. And waited. And waited.
Priestess Magda came only before dusk, huffing and complaining about being called like that, with no information and little time to prepare. She changed her tune completely, seeing her patient. He did his best to scare her into discretion, spinning a tale of secret magic organization and unknown dangers. He half-believed them himself at this point. Magda didn't think twice before using her god given gifts – finally a useful kind of magic, and he breathed a sigh of relief, seeing some color returning to Ruby's face, an earthly glow on elf's complexion. It was the right choice, taking that risk, he knew then. He did good.
Magda promised to return in the morning with more supplies, leaving Ruby asleep, but finally without fever. She would sleep for the next full day, the priestess promised. With the stress finally over, he fell asleep on an armchair by the bed.
When he woke up the doors were wide open, the lock busted from the outside. And Ruby was gone.
He asked around town and found out that the boy he asked for help blabbed about the elf he saw in his tower to anyone who'd listen. Then he heard about a group of tree women who traveled from south and returned there soon after. He took a quarterstaff, packed what he thought he'd need on the road and left, never looking back.
The women were spoken about in the next village also – they were there yesterday. And the next – two days ago. They bought horses and a carriage. In the next village, no one knew what he was talking about, no one passed there in weeks. He could admit defeat, go back home and slowly forget all that happened. Instead he picked the road again and started to look further for any clues. He searched and found more evil he thought existed in this world, he found allies when he least expected them and and he found more power he thougth he was capable of wielding. And in the end, after years of searching, he found Ruby again.
A pale ghost, haunting the dark forests far from his home village, the elven woman didn't curse him for betraying his trust and bringing death upon her, gave no reproach he honestly knew he deserved. Maybe if he waited longer, maybe if he went himself to get the healer…
"Find my daughter… My dar..." were her last words, before she faded to nothing, a spirit lost away from Arvandor.
"I'll find her. I swear" he answered.
Tonight everything changed, even before the first group of travelers came through the gates. Gates that remained closed for the forever before tonight. She noticed the changes immediately. The temple was her world, her kingdom, and she was a benevolent queen. She visited every nook and cranny of the completely desolated priest quarters weekly, made rounds on the overgrown garden with poisonous plants and courtly greeted every spider, allowing it to build it's webbed palaces on her lands. She danced with the wind whistling through the cracks in the crumbling roof and made pacts with rats to eat other rats.
She was a bit of a freak of nature, unlike the rats, the spiders and the bugs. The only other like her was mother, but she was bigger, had the keys to the gates outside and back doors also, and only lived in the main hall with the altar. Mother, when was there, spent her days praying to the fire on the altar – the only fire in the temple, and singing. But she learned to steal away pieces of fire with dry sticks from the garden. She also tried to sing, but it was hard. And kept trying but never made her own fires, only had the stolen pieces that vanished when left alone for too long.
Every now and then there were others, coming from outside. The back door would open to them, only for a moment, and then close again. Others like mother, but not exactly. Their skin was dark black and thick, and covered them completely, their faces somewhere inside. And they had no hair! She observed them from the shadows. Sometimes mother would go into the temple to look for her to show her to the others. Sometimes she would manage to catch her.
She'd be released as soon as the others went away. Mother didn't care a whole lot about her, just kept her alive. There was always water in the small fountain in the courtyard – mother pulled it from the well – and sometimes there was food from the outside. She would like to go outside as well, but wasn't allowed. She could, the garden in the back was fenced, but there were holes that used to be big enough for her, or she could dig under… but there were dogs. Dogs were breathing fire and she got burned a few times, trying to outrun them. She tried to bribe them with enemy rats, or scare them with her own fire, or throw rocks at them from the distance, but so far nothing worked. The dogs were persistent and indestructible.
Mother had a special stone, that let her pass the dogs. It had a symbol, the same as on the altar. Round with two holes, carved at the bottom. She tried to steal the stone once. Mother shrieked, kicked her, and for the first time since forever, beat her. Not too much, but enough so she wouldn't try again. She didn't try again.
The others had the very same symbol. The next time she would try with them. But nobody came for a very long time. She got bored with the rats and started to learn more of mother songs. At first she took great care so mother wouldn't hear her. She'd sing each morning, noon and at sunset, rising hands to the altar and the fire. Sometimes mother would bring bigger rats with longer ears and let their blood drip on the altar and only then sing. She copied the song the best she could, perched on the stairs to the quarters or on beams under the roof, staring into the fire as if it held a mastery of its own creation. She was always off and began trying louder. Mother must have heard her sometimes, but never reacted in any way.
And then everything changed.
First, mother grew and extra skin, black like the others, and stopped smelling like the temple. She brought a really big rat with horns, as big as her, and bled it dry on the altar, letting red trace a path though the main hall. Then mother began to kill spiders, and destroyed a nest where her child slept. Mother took everything she could find and burned it before the entrance to the temple.
She watched through the window as all her treasures burned. The dogs gathered around the pyre, barking, clearly rejoicing in this misery. She quickly forgot about it though, noticing new others coming from the woods.
Two others came, with a small other in their arms. The small other maybe wasn't an other. It was like her, just one skin, though bundled up inside a cloth, like mother wore, before growing a black skin. One of the others took a black skin from her head and pulled it down, shockingly showing a head with hair, just like mother's, though shorter. She settled in the shadows, lurking, as the group settled in the quarters. One other took care of the small one. The second helped mother empty the temple. Make place for more others, she realized.
And more came. Each day a group, then two, then ten and they were full. Each came with a bundle with a small one. Some small ones could walk themselves, some were almost as big as others, but without black skins. Black skins came off often, she noticed next. She spied on them fervently, to look how much more they could shed. No one saw her in the shadows, or they ignored her. She even found one of the small ones, unattended. She came closer and touched it's squishy face. Yes, it had a skin almost exactly like her, but whiter. A tiny hand closed around her finger and it's eyes opened, pretty gleaming eyes. She grinned at it, but she didn't fall into it's liking and a small face scrunched up like a wet paper. Then it wailed horribly. She fled into the darkness before anyone noticed her misdeed.
And then mother caught her, threw her into water and hurt her terribly with a hard rough thing and bubbly water, until she didn't smell like the temple either. She was forced into a cloth like mother's. It had a symbol on it! Would it be enough to go past the dogs? She wondered. There was no time to check, because mother took her to the main chamber.
It was filled with others, back in black skins, the place was crawling with them as with cockroaches. They were small ones too, and there she was pulled to the front. The fire that was there since forever was different, crimson like rat's blood. She struggled a little, scared to go among the others, but the cloth protected her and they parted before her and mother, letting them stand by the fire. Good. This was her home, her kingdom. If spiders spread like that without her permission, she would burn all their webs with fire. She imagined she could do something similar with the black others.
Mother stopped them by the fire in a direct row leading to it, now a small bonfire anymore, but big, like, to the very roof. In the opposite row she saw a dark-skinned boy, as tall as her, scowling at the others. And a clean, beautiful girl, all thin and with eyes like shiny gemstones mother kept where she thought no one would find them.
The sun set and they all began to sing. She felt her heart rise, as she recognized the song. She didn't know the others could sing, and forgave them all their trespassing immediately. Her voice joined them and she felt mother's hands squeeze her shoulders. When they finished mother said a word, a word she very seldom used to describe her, her spawn, her child. A name. She knew she made her mother happy.
A new chant began, one she tried to join also and then the third. For the first time she felt not as a whole, but as a part of something bigger. It made her heart soar. The pretty girl in the other row now glared at her too. There was no one to be proud of her, just two dark others, holding her shoulders.
Then a red haired woman in clothes stopped between the rows and approached the fire, holding one of the smallest bundles. Tears were streaming down her face, a wide smile of relief gracing her lips. She lifted up the small one she held, the chant rose to a crescendo, a name in the crowd, name she was told was father's, echoing, breaking through the melody. It became a chaos more than a chant and in this rising moment the woman threw the bundle into the flames.
The chant died with a gasp, as if strangled. Silence was deafening. She felt as if somebody yanked the ground from under her feet. The small one… was fine, wasn't it?
The quiet moment lasted but a second. Suddenly the fire exploded with gold and the black crowd erupted with cheers. She heard her mother screaming in rapture, nails digging into her shoulders. The small one was gone. And they were laughing, not viciously, but overjoyed, like she would be, if she ever outsmarted dogs.
Another small one war brought to the altar.
Older ones began to fight, the angry boy nearby bit black one's hand, but did no visible harm to the hard second skin. The smallest ones just cried. She stood there frozen, mother whispering to her new, unknown words.
Hungry flames were swallowing children one by one, sometimes releasing sparks of pure gold, sometimes erupting with them and sometimes silent. Mother pushed her forward next and she stepped up, completely lost in what she was seeing. There was but one more child before her in line, a black one holding it tightly in his arms. She recognized it, it was the squishy one she touched earlier, a small, smallest, small one. In a fire, in a flash, she saw what would happen next if she did nothing.
The priest yelped when she sprung from mother's grasp and bit into his calf, hard. The second skin didn't reach there, where the knee bent, she saw earlier and now targeted that spot. In his surprise he dropped what he held. She was waiting for that. She caught the wailing bundle and darted to the corner, into the dark. There was a hole in the wall, there they'd be safe, in her kingdom, protected by her loyal rats and spiders. They could hide there for years, so close, just few more steps…
Her movements slowed to a crawl, when a yellow glow reached and caught her. The hole moved from just a step away to alike behind the fence and dogs – completely unreachable. She tried to hide the small one in her arms, get it lost in a tangle of two skinny elbows.
A crack of whip split the air. She cried out when live fire licked her back, hurt, and fell awkwardly on a side, trying to protect the still crying small one.
Mother was furious, like when she tried to steal her symbol. Now she stood over two children, whip in her hand, as raging as the flames. This time a punishment would be much worse than just a beating. The others made a circle around them, cutting away all chances of escape. The hole in the wall disappeared among thick black legs. Some newcomers pushed forward to see everything better. She squeezed the small bundle tighter. She wanted to introduce it to the rats, show her all the best tunnels and catacombs, make her a princess in her kingdom. The baby could be – could have been – her new best treasure, to make up for the ones that were burned. Mother lifted up the whip. At least they wouldn't go alone now, into the fire that hurt when touched. She closed her eyes. It was little, but at least that.
A loud wail of the faithful surprised her enough to open them again. Mother stood like she did just a second ago, arm high, face angry, tension twisting her posture like a cord. But her skin wasn't brown anymore, her clothes soft cloth. She was gray and hard as her symbol made of stone, unable to pass any more judgment. Mother was dead. Petrified.
"Aiiieeee!" she half-screamed half-growled at the sight and as if freed by her voice all hell broke loose in the main chamber. The latecomers opened hideouts in their dark skins and drew their weapons and spells, and stones with weird, different symbols. The priests were greater in numbers, but no dark god answered their prayers anymore. If they drew their weapons and stood together, there was a chance they could push back the attackers. But they didn't even try. Pushed to the wall, they focused on the only thing that would please their lord… on murdering all of his children.
Her kingdom was drowned in a civil war of spells and blood and screams, fighting for domination, outshouting even her small one's cries. The older children managed to break free and escape to the garden, where the dogs guarded all holes in the fence. But perhaps some of them could outrun them. Or maybe, if the latecomers managed to get in, there were no more dogs.
She saw a rat escape into a hole she was very intent on using. There was a chance, if she managed to crawl there, but she was still so slow and hurt and bleeding. Maybe if she managed to push the small one into the hole, the rats would take care and play with it, as they did with her. She just needed to crawl close enough, inch by inch. The small one was in despair and the shouts were dying out. She tried to produce the same cooing noises she heard the black ones used on the small ones to make them quiet. The newcomers were winning.
Pale light of full moon made it through a fresh hole in the ceiling, the first one to make it inside this dark temple. There were stars tonight so bright it hurt and not a single cloud to obscure it. The light pointed at the only two children left alive in a place meant to be their slaughterhouse and a priestess that was to be their death. A stray spell or maybe a too wide swing of a mace found the petrified woman and now she was missing half of her face. The carnage on the floor remained in the shadows.
In a final silence that was to fall today a thump of heavy boots echoed like a delayed sentence, finally approaching. The spell that made her so slow finally ceased it's claim, but it was too late. The man stopped between them and their freedom. The small one fell quiet at last, exhausted. She was very tired too, and unhappy. She stood up, bared her teeth. She had little chance when attacking from the front, but she'd be damned if she didn't take at least a bite.
The man had hair that was a bit black and a bit gray. He wore clothes and had fire in his hands earlier, but now put it out. He stood towering over her.
"Don't be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you" he used words and she knew the meaning of some of them, but not all. She barked at him, trying to scare him away, like dogs scared her. The small one stirred but she hugged it closer and cooed at it, careful not to take her eyes from the newcomer.
"You can't speak..." the man's face wrinkled, caught by surprise by the sounds she was emitting. He knelt before her and stretched out his open hand. She snarled at it, but could do little else. She only had strength for one attack, her legs were all wobbly and her back hurt so much. She wanted to go to mother, like always when she got seriously hurt. But mother was dead, dead like the dogs and rats and others on the floor.
Her lip began to tremble. She wanted mother. And if the man wasn't going to attack… She made a step forward and another and… She stepped into his arms with her small one, crying and getting snot all over his clothes. He patted her head and said solemnly.
"My name is Gorion. No harm will come to you while under my care, this I swear you. You can trust me. Daria."
And she did.
Now that she opened her mind, called to the essence inside her, many more memories both her own and her foster father's, woke inside, a result so much different than the expected transformation into the Slayer. Singing Bhaal's anthems, so baby Imoen would fall asleep in her crib and Gorion gently but firmly insisting on a different lullaby. The sage trying to teach her to talk and read, and failing. Then him spending long sleepless nights pondering, when Oghma's priest explained to him that her mind needed to be set back with spells, so she could learn those skills. That loss of memory was the only way she could learn. Him, taking away many of her first memories, a difficult choice, but giving her skills and love she never had before. And then the world of books, an entire Candlekeep filled with them. Arguing with Reevor, smuggling rats from his warehouse and enchanting cats to leave her pets alone. Playing in the sun all day and learning to make little fires flicker on her fingertips.
After two decades in Candlekeep, not even faded memories remained from her life in Bhaal's Temple. Gorion loved her more than any of her true parents did.
But he was wrong. He spent most of his life looking for Ruby's daughter, but she was not the one, not the child he swore to protect. The sage never saw the other elf in the temple, a girl that clearly inherited her mother's beautiful features. The one that managed to escape and somehow, years later found her way to Suldanessellar and became a priestess, never learning about her true heritage. At last Daria understood what her vision in Tradesmeet meant. It was a sliver of a chance, a present that never came to be, an 'if'. Two sisters falling living a life so alike, shaped by the same destiny, falling in love with the same man. A cosmic improbability. The memory that would be, if Gorion found the right child.
Sarevok was also there, if she was right about the identity of the dark skinned boy. Each of the three could become the Gorion's Ward, the axis of Alaundo's prophecy. That was the only moment any choice existed in that matter, and her father chose who to save. The rest was a path set in stone, a path she was still chained to, it's end uncertain. His choice was a feral child of a priestess maddened by solitude, a sun elf that barely ever saw the sun. Maybe he realized his mistake as she grew up? After all she looked nothing like Ruby… Or maybe he believed to the very end. He fulfilled the oath he made to Daria though. Sarevok returned and killed the man who didn't save him, but she was protected. And her mother…
The woman who wanted to do nothing more than spawn a vessel for her god's essence, so he would return. Who kept her safe and secluded, fed and healthy. Who was going to kill her…
"Of murder and death, the last, my lord, I call your name, oh holy Bhaal..." Daria chanted the words from her earliest memories, an anthem her mother sang in the evenings. It meant nothing now, Bhaal was dead and so was her mother, there was no one to appreciate how well she remembered the words and how little meaning was behind them. But for the longest time those songs and her mother were the only things she knew. She mourned Gorion, she cried over Alveola… the one that would bear her name, were the world a more just place. But she never, not even as a child, said farewells to her mother, the first person she ever loved, no matter how hollow and unrequired this feeling was.
The song ended. She wiped tears from her face. Her entire party surrounded her with various shades of worry on their faces. She was back. The time was flowing again. And she just sang out an entire praise in Bhaal's name out loud, judging from Xan's terrified expression.
Imoen put a hand on her shoulder, looking into her face, head tilted to the side. Good, old Imoen, how much she had grown since she was a little baby Daria could fit in her arms. The only one that escaped that dark place unscathed. Sarevok, Alveola, others… they could have taken Daria's place, become Gorion's Ward, but not Imoen. Imoen always was Daria's.
"You there, sis?" the pink-head squeezed her shoulder. And yelped, when she was suddenly caught in a strong embrace.
The little baby with a playful gleam in her eye… A good thing from a bad place. Imoen smiled.
"Yea, I love you too, alright? But Saradush is just over there and we were wondering if you got us a plan of action. Wasn't expecting praying to Bhaal though."
"Keep going. I need one more vision."
Daria was not going to let her die.
A/N: I always hated how Gorion's letter in BG1 and Throne of Bhaal showed character's mother as a completely different person. Here's my take on it, both versions can be true, in a way. What do you think?
