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Chapter 6: Never Alone
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Sitting on her bed at the Five Flagons, Brynn sighed in dismay as she fingered the hole in her tunic before she flipped it over to examine the frayed edges left from when the Warden had sliced it apart. Add to that damage all the blood stains and it was readily apparent that the tunic was a total loss. It wouldn't have been that bad if her only other tunic hadn't been slimed, charred and covered with troll's blood earlier that afternoon. Essentially she was shirtless. Thankfully Yoshimo had been kind enough to lend her one of his tunics. It was so big on her slight frame that she felt like swimming in fabric, and even laced all the way up the neck line dropped low enough that she worried about bending over. Still, it was the thought that counted, and besides, Brynn didn't really care if her hands disappeared up her sleeves and she looked like she was wearing a ten-man tent, what mattered was that she had something to wear at all.
There was a knock at the door, soft and polite.
"Who is it?" Brynn called out.
From the other side of the door came Jaheira's voice. "May I come in?"
Brynn sighed again. She really didn't want to talk to Jaheira, but only because she knew the older woman would somehow convince her to join back up with the others again. Brynn had been anticipating this confrontation ever since Jaheira had shown up that afternoon, and she knew that she could only delay so long.
"Come in, the door's unlocked," Brynn said at last.
Jaheira entered the room and sat down opposite Brynn. "So," she said, "I take it you will be trying to leave us behind again."
Brynn nodded slowly. "And I take it you're going to try and convince me not to."
"You are correct," Jaheira agreed.
Brynn spoke quickly, not wanting to let Jaheira get her argument out first. "Listen, Jaheira, I admit that there are times when I need you and Minsc and everyone else, but you saw what happened to today, you know that's the sort of thing that happens around me. Every moment you're with me you're in danger, and I... I just can't deal with the thought that I might get another one of you killed..."
Jaheira held up a hand. "You have done nothing to get anyone killed, Brynn."
Brynn shook her head. "You know as well as I do that if you and Minsc had never followed me from Baldur's Gate Khalid and Dynaheir would still..."
"No!" Jaheira said sharply. "No, you cannot take the blame for their deaths and place it on your own shoulders." She swallowed hard. "Irenicus killed my beloved Khalid, not you Brynn, and Irenicus killed Dynaheir. Neither Minsc nor I blame you for their deaths, and you should not blame yourself either."
"I'm cursed, Jaheira. I am a curse," Brynn returned emphatically. "I've failed both you and Minsc and... and I won't let you get hurt anymore just because of me!"
"You are being a fool!" Jaheira snapped. "If you are curse, and by association so am I so be it! I choose to stay by your side, I choose to, Brynn, just as Yoshimo did. If I die because of that choice it is my own fault, not yours. Minsc and Aerie and Nalia choose to stay with you too, and even that priest, Ano-something-or-other..."
"Anomen," Brynn supplied.
"Yes him, and the bard Haer'Dalis as well," Jaheira continued. "We all choose to stay with you, despite your 'curse', the bard because of it." Jaheira stood up and placed her hands on Brynn's shoulders. "Brynn you cannot just turn us away. I promised Gorion I would protect, and guide and serve you, and because I believed in you I vowed again to keep that promise. And Minsc... do you know how you hurt him by turning him away? He believes that you think him unworthy because he failed Dynaheir."
"That's not true!" Brynn protested. "I just wanted to keep him safe."
"But to him it seems that you are just pushing him away because he failed," Jaheira pointed out. "Aerie and Nalia were placed in your care, and now they do not know where to turn. They depend on your wisdom and leadership to guide them."
"That's the first time you've ever said that I'm wise," Brynn said with a bitter little chuckle. They depended on her...
"But I mean every word of it," Jaheira said firmly. "When you are not being a stubborn fool you are very wise. Brynn, we need you, and you admitted that you need us as much. Cursed or not, Brynn, we cannot just go our separate ways."
Brynn bit her lip, anxious. As usual Jaheira was right, and not only that she made sense. There was no argument that Brynn could make to counter the druid's that she could put her true feelings behind. She wanted her friends around her, she had never wanted to be away from them to begin with, but she thought it was for the best, for their protection. She was afraid though, that her friends would be hurt or killed because of her selfishness in keeping them near. But if they knew the danger, if they wanted to come with her despite the darkness that chased at her heels, then there was little she could do to stop them.
"All right," she said, "come with me if you want. Just... just stay alive, all right? I don't want to lose anymore of my friends, not for any reason."
Jaheira smiled and squeezed Brynn's shoulder. "Thank you," she said. "I will go down and tell the others. Come and join us in the common room if you like."
"No, I'd rather just stay up here, I'm kind of tired," Brynn replied. "Tell everyone that... that I'm glad to have them back."
"It would be better coming from you," Jaheira reminded her.
"I know," Brynn said softly, "I'm just feeling a little out of it."
"As you wish," Jaheira said, a little reproach creeping into her voice. She turned and left the room, and Brynn found herself alone again.
She lay back on her bed and closed her eyes. She had felt alone since the day Gorion had died, and no matter how close she was, no matter how crowded the room, she always felt isolated, as if she stuck out like a rock amidst a never-ending ocean of water. She knew it was partly her fault, she cut herself off from the others, covered her true feelings with a mask of optimism and hid all her doubts deep down where no one would ever find them. It was part of being a leader, but it also meant that she had no one to help her shoulder the burden of her fears and concerns. It meant that there was no one she could depend on to protect her. She rolled over and pressed her face into her pillow, willing herself to be strong, if only because her friends need her to be.
***
For a while Yoshimo listened as the others sipped their ale or wine or whatever and talked about various things, but he remained silent. He felt like he was apart from them, he had always felt out of place in the west. His features marked him as an outsider, and while he had been at least above average height in Kara-Tur even many of the women in Amn stood a few inches taller than him. He stuck out like an elf at an orcish celebration. And meanwhile, Haer'Dalis, a tiefling who went through life surrounded by an aura of wrongness and a head of bizarre bluish hair, fit in like one of the family. Even if he had been as tall as Minsc, with pale hair and eyes, customs and culture still would have set him apart. By the standards of the society he had been born in western culture seemed barbaric and crude, though he had learned never to judge anything in the west by the standards of Kara-Tur. Half the things Anomen had said that day would have earned him honor duels in Kara-Tur, and if directed at the wrong person, a swift trip to the executioner. And so while the knight-hopeful prattled on about honor and nobility Yoshimo sat silent and wondered if Anomen knew how his arrogant, self-righteous bragging would sound to the ears of a Samurai who knew true honor.
It didn't take long for Yoshimo to get tired of sitting in the common room. His ears buzzed with the muted hum of conversations from other tables and the more immediate giggling noises Aerie and Nalia made as Haer'Dalis flirted with them shamelessly. No wonder Brynn had decided to get some rest instead of coming down to join the rest of the group.
"It is getting late, and my eyelids are growing heavy," he said, pushing his chair away from the table, "so I think I will bid you goodnight and see you in the morning." He didn't give anyone the chance to protest -not that he thought that anyone would- and quickly retreated up the stairs.
The upper floors of the Five Flagons were quiet compared with the common room. A little noise drifted in from below the floorboards, but otherwise it was silent. The quiet was a relief to Yoshimo, an oasis of peace in the middle of a swirling morass of chaos. He found a window that led out onto the roof, and climbed out. A wind from the north blew cool air across his face, and he sat down on the wooden shingles to enjoy the breeze.
Night was the only time he ever felt at home. No matter where he was the city lights always seemed the same from a dark rooftop, and until dawn at least he could pretend that he had never left the cities of Kara-Tur. He looked around his lofty perch, unconsciously noting the various buildings that looked like good targets for a little late night exploring. After all, the faster Brynn got the money together to pay the Shadow Thieves for their help the sooner he could deliver her to Irenicus and the faster he could forget about her. A part of him wanted to delay, to keep her close for as long as he could, but what good what that do him? Eventually he would have to turn her over to Irenicus, that or die, and the more time he had to get attached to her the more difficult it would be to betray her. As it was the mere thought of letting Irenicus get his filthy hands on her made him feel ill, or angry, or both. What she would do when she found out he was a traitor wasn't something he could think about without his insides twisting up. He could almost see the revulsion and accusation in her eyes already.
"I'm sorry," he whispered into the darkness.
"What for?"
Yoshimo nearly jumped out of his skin. He had not been expecting a reply. He turned, and saw Brynn leaning out the window he had climbed through. She joined him on the roof, sitting next to him with her legs pulled up to her chest.
"What are you sorry for?" Brynn asked again.
"Nothing," he replied, "nothing that concerns anyone here at least."
"Oh," Brynn said. "So what are you doing up here?"
"Enjoying the night," he said. "And you?"
"I heard you thumping around up here and I wondered what was going on." Brynn smiled a little, her face lit by the light coming through the window. The effect was enchanting. "Something the matter, or are you just tired of being around all the loud people downstairs?"
"The latter," Yoshimo said. "Anomen's incessant bragging was getting on my nerves." It wasn't that much of a lie at least.
Brynn chuckled. "You should be nicer to him, you know. He means well, and he's not such a bad fellow. I'm sure if you got to know him you'd like him more."
"Or I would want to kill him," Yoshimo replied with a shrug.
Brynn elbowed him gently. "Come on, be nice to him, as a favor to me."
Why did that make him want to hurt the fool priest even more? Maybe Haer'Dalis was right and he was jealous of the attention Anomen paid to Brynn, and more to the point Brynn's response to that attention. She really seemed to like it. "Perhaps," was all he said.
"I don't see why the two of you can't get along better," Brynn continued. She shivered and edged a little closer to him, probably because the wind was making her cold.
"Oh?" Yoshimo asked archly. "Perhaps it is his arrogance, or his judgmental hypocrisy, or his self-righteousness." Or perhaps because he was always trying to sidle up to Brynn and engage her in witty conversation.
Brynn sighed. "I give up," she said. "Still, you could at least pretend to be nice to him. There's no reason to egg him on."
Of course there was, if he angered Anomen enough perhaps he could get the fool to challenge him to a duel of honor. Then he could dispatch the priest without having to feel guilty about it. It wouldn't work, Brynn would stop them before such a duel ever got off the ground, but it was still nice to daydream.
"As you wish," was what he said.
"Thank you," Brynn replied. "It's bad enough I have to worry about keeping you guys safe from attackers and my own aura of death and misery, I don't need to have to worry about keeping you safe from one another." She sounded a little bitter and troubled.
"As I said before, I can worry about myself," Yoshimo reminded her. "And I think that perhaps Jaheira, Minsc and the bard are similarly capable. Aerie and Nalia are hopelessly naive, though, and you should take care that Anomen does not collect too many enemies with his stupidity and clumsiness."
Brynn was quiet for a long time and Yoshimo began to wonder if he had said something wrong. At last she spoke up, her voice soft, "Are you so sure? Sometimes I wonder if I can do what little I have to in order to keep even Minsc and Jaheira and you safe. I wish they didn't need me so much. Then I could leave them behind again without feeling like I failed them somehow." She sighed. "Damned if I do damned if I don't, if you know what I mean."
"Not quite," Yoshimo said.
Brynn exhaled slowly and said, "Never mind then, it's complicated. Let's just say that if I left now to keep them all from getting hurt I'd probably end up doing more harm than good." She turned shifted a little and when he looked over at her she was staring up at the sky. He followed her gaze and they sat there for a moment, their eyes turned toward the starlit heavens. A shooting star swept across the sky before vanishing into the dark again.
"Make a wish," Brynn said.
"Pardon?" Yoshimo asked.
"When you see a shooting star you make a wish," she explained. "But don't tell me or it won't come true."
Well thinking of a wish was easy enough. All he wanted was to stay like this forever, with her by his side watching the stars, but he knew that it was a hopeless wish. A hopeless and dangerous wish. Never get too close, he reminded himself. It was a little pointless to think of that at this juncture, but it helped him keep his head on straight.
"Did you do it?" she asked after a moment.
He nodded, "Yes, and you?"
"Yes," Brynn said. She sighed, sounding as if all the tension and worry she had been feeling a moment ago had left her. "I would stay out here like this forever if I could," she told him, unwittingly echoing his wish with her words. She leaned her head against his shoulder, sending a little shock through him from head to toe. "It's so peaceful out here, so quiet and relaxing."
"Indeed it is," Yoshimo said, all the while thinking that he would probably find running through a madman's dungeon more relaxing than having her leaning against him like she was. It strained his determination to have her so close, her cheek resting on his shoulder, her hair brushing against the back of his hand, the warmth of her lithe form pressed against his arm. It was maddening. For a moment he thought that perhaps, just this once, he could say to hell with the rules and wrap his arms around her and forget Irenicus and the geas that bound him to serve the evil mage. That was what his heart wanted, but he knew better. Nothing could ever happen, it couldn't be helped.
"You know," Brynn murmured, "sometimes I feel so alone, even when I'm surrounded by a room full of people, but whenever I talk with you I feel like I'm never alone. You're a great friend like that, you know."
A great friend... "Thank you," Yoshimo said forcing his words past the lump in his throat.
"I'm glad I came out here," Brynn continued. "I was feeling pretty rotten earlier, but talking to you helped." She stood up. "I'm going to bed. You should come in soon, this breeze is cold and you might catch something."
"I will," he assured her. It wasn't like he could feel the cold though, his whole right side burned where she had been touching him.
"I'll see you in the morning down in the common room, we need to get everyone together and make some plans."
"I will be there," he said.
"Good night."
Yoshimo forced a smile. "Good night," he replied.
Brynn smiled briefly and ducked back through the window, disappearing as quickly as she had come.
Letting out the breath he had not even known he had been holding Yoshimo turned his eyes upward again just in time to see another shooting star flash across the sky. He closed his eyes and made another wish.
Let me be strong.
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To Be Continued
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