6. Inn Sanity
9 FLAMERULE 2200 NASHKEL - THE NASHKEL INN
Onyx, Anomen, Minsc, and Valygar occupied the larger front room of the suite. Only Valygar was actually in it at the moment. Minsc and Onyx were downstairs at the moment clobbering some off-duty Flaming Fist guards at armwrestling, while Jaheira was cheering them on from the bar while sipping Firewine.
Valygar would surely otherwise have been with them - though not as strong as the other two, he had a knack for armwrestling with clever and agile leveraging - except that he had stayed in the room to write a letter. Properly decoded, it read:
Dear Nalia,
I am addressing this letter to the residence of Eroanne and hopefully it finds you. We gain upon those that we pursue, have dispatched two squads of slavers already, and I would say our quest goes well except that one of our party, whom you do not know, has been captured, if not already killed. This but adds to the resolve of those who remain as we continue our quest.
Despite the hopefully-temporary loss, I feel we shall succeed. As you must have seen during your continued adventures with three of my current companions, their skills have only grown since I last was alongside you and them in that vampiress's lair, as I'm sure yours must have, impressive though they already were then, contrary to your modesty on the matter. My two other remaining companions, whom I had not before met, too are most capable.
As such, I believe and hope I shall return soon. If you do decide to venture with your friends to Candlekeep, it is as well, for afterwards I plan to go with some of my companions there very briefly (or perhaps not as briefly should I find you there). I would say that I was fortunate that I got to cross paths with you again so soon after your victory, except that it was part and parcel of me choosing to intercept your group myself. And similarly, I am looking forward to seeing you again after this quest, and despite my love of adventure and belief in the mission, that thought motivates me towards its swift completion.
Yours, V
Meanwhile, back downstairs, Onyx and Minsc had defeated every willing and able patron of the tavern in armwrestling, and so now only one challenge remained....each other. Onyx, though slightly weaker than Minsc when they had met, had been enhanced several times over his adventures, and was now much greater in sheer strength. On the other hand, Minsc was still taller and had longer arms, giving him a leverage advantage, not to mention the chance of a berserk rage fueling his muscles when most needed. Onyx dared not "cheat" and call upon holy might to win the match with ease, although in such a casual setting it still would have been an amusing practical joke.
Patrons backed away, fearing that, despite the friendly bond between the paladin and the ranger - who had first met just outside this very inn long ago - there were inadvertent chances that the table itself might break or someone might go flying across the room. Minsc and Onyx were hunched over opposite sides of the table, right elbows planted squarely on the wood, left hands behind backs, right hands clasped tight but motionless, four brave volunteers holding the fists in place. Jaheira had moved up from the bar to the next table, and was watching intently her warrior comrades, both of whom had scarcely left her side since their meetings at the Friendly Arm Inn or in this very town of Nashkel so long ago. She felt a mix of joy and pride for the strength and eagerness of her longtime warrior comrades, and some motherly disgust at their somewhat juvenile machismo.
"Okay," a fifth volunteer shouted from Jaheira's table, "One...two....three!!"
The other four volunteers hastily let go of the clasped hands and jumped back, and not a moment too soon, for in the first moments of the duel, their hands oscillated to each side a few times before locking back in an upright. Onyx concentrated hard and began to push Minsc's huge arm downwards.
"What should be do, Boo?" Minsc cried to his hamster companion. "We cannot lose to our very good evil-skull-cracking friend!" Boo leapt out of Minsc's pocket and, rather and squeak in his master's ear, began to nip it. "No Boo no! You know that makes Minsc very angry. Ow! Quit it! I am getting VERY ANGRY BOO! BAD BOO! BAD! ARRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!!"
"Sweet Torm!" Onyx gasped as Minsc's face went red and he began frothing at the mouth while managing to push Onyx's arm back the other way and soon regaining the advantage. Onyx struggled, soon going only inches above the table. He concentrated harder, his face reddening, and began to slowly push his way back up as Minsc's berserk rage gradually lost steam. At last they were locked again, but then Boo crawled up on top of Minsc's bald head and began dancing on it.
"No Boo no! No dancing! Bad hamster!" Minsc screamed, but didn't quite fly into another rage. Boo let out a disappointed squeak, then a more frightened one as Onyx pushed Minsc's arm to within an inch of the table, and quickly scurried back down into Minsc's clothing again. Within moments, a much higher-pitched squeak could be heard, followed by another than sounded more like Boo's.
"No Boo! Do not get frisky with Bebe again! Bad Boo! Bad! Oh no! Stop that Boo! Surely our room has a nice little hamster-hole in the wall you could use! STOP IT BOO STOP IT NO BAD FRISKY HAMSTERS YOU MAKE MINSC VERY ANGRY BLARRRRGH!!!!!!"
"Bane's buttocks!" Onyx shouted as Minsc went into another rage and pushed their arms back up, but this time the paladin managed to keep his arm upright.
They struggled and both leaned in, putting more weight behind their arms. Much of this weight was being pressed through their elbows onto the table though, that is to see, perhaps a ton of force being thrust into an area the size of two adjacent elbows. Unfortunately, this just happened to over a knot in one of the boards making up the surface of the table. Slight cracks began to radiate out from the knot across the wood, and some of the other patrons wisely took steps back, fearing the worst. Others outright cringed behind the bar or even jumped out of windows or dashed down halls. At last the table groaned and cracked, and the two grimacing warriors, staring into each others' eyes and seemingly oblivious to the table's failing integrity, plunged their elbows through the table and, falling toward, cracked heads and fell onto the table, smashing it with both their bodies.
This is turn sent table legs and boards flying about the room into people and drinks. A few pieces flew toward Jaheira, who caught them with lightning reflexes - otherwise it would have been most unfortunate - for Minsc and Onyx, that is. Boo and Bebe went flying out of Minsc's pocket, flying through the air together in a most embarrassing position, and landing in Jaheira's wine goblet. Rather than squeaking with fright, they simply began to lounge against the edge of it and purr, as if in their own miniature champagne bath. Unfortunately for them, Jaheira was none too pleased at this new development and spilled them out onto her table. She then set her goblet down and, fuming with her hands on her hips, grabbed both men on the floor by their collars and yanked them up to their feet, thanks both to her anger and her belt of stone giant strength.
"WHAT WERE YOU OAFS THINKING!" she scolded them, putting her hands back on her hips. "You could have hurt someone, even yourselves! And look at all the damaged you've caused."
"Well, yeah," Onyx grimaced sheepishly while Minsc scooped up Boo (and, reluctantly, Bebe), "But the patrons I think found this the most entertaining of all." The patrons, coming out from their various hiding places, were starting to chuckle and toast to the entertaining spectacle and the strength of their new friends. "I'll reimburse the keep for it, thought, of course, though I suspect it's probably helped his business."
"You betcher," laughed a farmer, "Why, we ain't seen such a show in here since that cleric...hey, weren't you the three that killed that cleric in here 'bouts a year ago? War's that lil lass an' the half-elfer man wot wuz with ya?"
"Tarnesh deserved a royal butt-kicking for trying to hunt down Onmmmmmmf," Minsc declared while Jaheira put her hand over his mouth.
"Do I have to remind you show-off barbarians," she hissed under her breath, "That are supposed to be keeping a low profile? Now you've gotten us recognized..."
"Three cheers fer tha Heroes of the Nashkel Mines!" the farmer lifted his mug of mead and the other patrons followed. "Hip hip, hooray! Hip hip, hooray! Hip hip, hooray!"
Minsc and Onyx were trying to not quite confirm this while also not looking ungrateful while Jaheira grabbed them by the ears and led them back to their room, fuming the whole way. She slammed the door behind her angrily, causing even the usually stoic and calm Valygar to jump out of his seat and nearly spill his ink well over his just-finished letter. He sheepishly tried to fold it up before anyone took an interest in its contents, and luckily for him, the other three were busy scolding or getting scolded.
"You.....morons!!!" she shouted at them. "Don't EVER do anything like that again! There could have been assassins in the crowd just waiting for you get off guard like that! Not to mention you could have easily impaled someone - like me - with a flying table leg. Or even hurt each other; I don't care how tough you each think you are. Look at yourselves - a paladin and a ranger, acting like careless swashbucklers or mindless barbarians! You're supposed to be protecting people and their farms, not endangering them and destroying their property for your own childish amusement! You should both be ashamed!"
"Minsc is sorry, Jaheira," Minsc hung his head in shame, "Minsc gets carried away sometimes but means no harm. Boo also reprimands him for just outbursts."
"I...know, Minsc, just be more careful in the future, perhaps play outdoors, as it were, big ranger?" Jaheira softened. She turned to face Onyx and Minsc sat down on a sofa, furrowing his brow and muttering to Boo. Valygar, taking a glaring cue from Jaheira, patted his ranger friend on the shoulder and took him back downstairs for a few rounds.
"And you," Jaheira's eyes narrowed as Onyx faced her alone, "He can hardly help it, bless his soul, but you, despite current appearances, are no idiot-paladin, like most of your kind, and should definitely know better. You're supposed to be keeping as low a profile as Sir Big Hero of Nashkel, Baldur's Gate, Trademeet, Suldanesellar, Amkethran, The World, whatever can, you're supposed to be a leading-by-example paladin, you're supposed to be treading lightly since between Blackrazor and your bloodline you're already controversial enough among the Order, you're..."
"...a fool for having endangered you," Onyx finished for her. "I'm sorry. Truly. I had no idea the match would literally explode like that. I should be wise enough to anticipate such things though, and I am, so there's no excuse."
Jaheira's jaw dropped open, speechless.
"Of course I'm not going to fight you," Onyx read her thoughts and continued calmly, "You're right."
"Say that again," she said, trying to appear stern as if demanding verbal retribution.
"You're right," Onyx repeated warmly, knowing she just loved to hear it. "You're right, Jaheira."
Jaheira scowled inwardly. Why the hell did he always have to make her melt like that? She was always getting angry at him, but recently it had become hard to stay that way whenever she actually talked to him.
Jaheira tried with mixed success to muster sternness. "Just be careful, okay? I guess I still feel a little overprotective of my old charge."
Onyx gave a humored smile.
"I know, I know, it seems weird, what with you having changed since we met from a wandering squire in splint mail to a powerful warrior blazing a trail of destruction through the heart of evil."
"No, it makes sense," Onyx smiled at the flattery, "Everyone needs companions. I can't imagine going solo. Though I certainly admire the few and the proud adventures who do."
"Like Jarek?" Jaheira furrowed her brow. "Onyx, you...one of the few things that has been eating at me that I HAVEN'T complained about much is your cavalier attitude toward all this."
"They don't call us cavaliers for nothing."
"That's not funny, Onyx. I'm serious. Fearlessness is not always an advantage, you know. You don't ever act like we might all be killed the next day, even though we probably should have been a hundred times by now. You're acting like this is all some sort of big game. Some big game where you never lose, or you can go back and try again every time you make a mistake."
"You know, what if we are just characters in a world like that? Funny thing is, if that were the case, we wouldn't ever know it. Some power might, but we'd never get to see what might have been." They suddenly got strange looks and looked around, as if distrusting everything they saw as an illusion that wasn't real..
"What might have been....actually, Onyx, it can be tapped into. I believe it can be seen."
Onyx furrowed his brow. She wasn't joking, was she? "How do you mean, Jaheira?"
"It's not confirmed, but there was a druid once, Arundel of Kuldahar, who thought he'd found out how to do such a thing."
"Wasn't he killed almost a century ago by the demon Belhefit?"
"The same. Before he died, he tapped into something, and he passed the knowledge to another, the druid Glaedra."
"One of the Heroes of Icewind Dale? The warrior who became a druid under Arundel's wing, only to have to avenge him soon after?"
"Yes. I learned this secret from her before you were even born, but didn't have the power to use it."
"And you suspect you do now?"
"I don't know, Onyx."
"There's only one way to find out, Jaheira."
She sighed and smiled. "You always were curious, even for a human. Very well. Close your eyes and try to clear your mind of recent memories, put yourself in the past. Choose a decision in the past. Go back to it. Fill your senses with your surroundings at that moment. Let my voice slip into the back of your mind."
Onyx closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Jaheira's words were soothing, and he could feel her casting some enchanting magic over him, and he let himself be consumed. His mind went back to some of his earliest memories, and he didn't even notice Jaheira's fingers splay across his cheek.
**********
"Wake up, sleepyhead!"
"Immy? Is that you?"
"You betcha On! Wake up! It's time for recess."
Onyx lifted his head off his desk. The last few students were pouring out of the classroom in the library, headed downstairs to one of the courtyards for recess.
"I can't believe ya slept through the entire class!" Imoen giggled. "Yer lucky you were sitting behind Grom! Ol' Tutor Tethtoril couldn't see that ya had your head down!" Grom, a half-orc kid, was one of their new classmates, and the only one taller than Onyx.
"It wasn't luck, sis," Onyx smiled sleepily, "I convinced him to sit in front of me when he first moved here last month, so that I could sleep in class like this!"
"And they call me a troublemaker!" Imoen laughed. "Well, when they catch me that is, heh heh. C'mon, let's get out to recess."
Onyx stood up and began to walk out of the room, holding hands with Imoen who was skipping alongside him and singing.
The two walked out of the front doors of the library. The students were playing or just resting about in the field beside the library and inside the inner wall. They both walked over to where Grom and some of the others were starting to pick teams for football. The corridor of grass between one side of the library and the inner wall was perfect for the game, if a little narrow and producing the tendency for players to get tackled into the brick walls.
"There you are heh heh!" Grom laughed. "Your team's gonna lose anyway!"
"Maybe, if your game is getting as good as your common," Onyx smiled at his new friend's grammar. Only a few weeks ago it would have been 'there you be, your team lose anyway!'
"Then it must stink!" laughed another kid, Xzar. "'gonna' isn't a word, you stupid barbarian! You are both imbeciles!"
Grom clenched his fists and bared his tusks, but didn't pounce on Xzar. That too, Onyx noticed, he probably would have done a few weeks ago. Instead, Grom merely shouted, "Go away Xzar! You are always picked last anyway! No one actually wants you on their team!"
"Now," Onyx sighed, "There's still room. I'll pick ya, X. You're actually pretty darn agile. Just try to actually pass to your teammates instead of trying to run the ball the whole way yourself."
"Bah," Xzar sighed. "A fool's game! Shove your pigskin!" he walked away, fuming.
"C'mon, let's play already!" Imoen groaned. Grom and Onyx began selecting teammates, and soon the game was in full swing.
Imoen was a receiver on Onyx's team, and made half their touchdowns with her knack for catching the ball every time and feigning out of the way of charging would-be tacklers. "Missed me, missed me, nya nya nya nya!" she stuck out her tongue as Grom lunged to tackle her and she leapt over his arms and kept running. She made it to the end of the library, spiked the ball in the flowers, and did a crazy little victory dance.
"Rocks!" Grom cursed as Tethtoril blew the end-of-recess whistle, for his team was now behind and had thus lost. He trudged reluctantly back toward the doors of the library while Imoen bounded ahead, still dancing, and inside.
"Hey, what was that?" Onyx's ear perked up. "It was like a shout or scream or something."
He disappeared around the side of the library, and Grom moved to follow, but just then Tethtoril looked in his direction and the half-orc boy fumed and turned back toward the door again, acting like he was the only one. Tethtoril closed the doors behind them. His classroom would prove a total of three students short though.
Onyx ran out the gate of the inner walls and toward a pen with a few cows and some haystacks; he thought the scream had come from about there.
Onyx picked up a book lying in the grass. The History of Halruaa. Phlydia's book. Did she lose it again? Strange place to drop it though...
Suddenly another scream was heard. Behind the haystacks! Onyx ran around the side of the pen. There, on a lower mound of haystacks hidden between the keep walls and the taller stacks, was a truly bizarre sight. Phyldia was crying. Near her, Xzar was holding her cat Nisbit in one hand while clutching a dagger in the other.
"No, that's your only choice, pretty Phyldia," Xzar grinned before he noticed the newcomer, "You can play doctor with me, or I can play surgeon with your cat.....What? What are you doing here?"
"I demand to know what's going on!" Onyx shouted.
"It's terrible!" Phyldia cried. "He says if I don't take off my dress, he's going to kill Nisbit!"
"Xzar, you will desist this instant!" Onyx demanded and took a step forward, but stopped when Xzar moved the dagger closer to the cat.
"No, football-head, YOU will desist," Xzar sneered and held the dagger even closer.
"Yeah okay," Onyx bluffed, but while acting like he was turning around, actually wound up and tossed the book at Xzar and beaned him across the forehead.
"Yeoch!" Xzar screamed. Onyx used the distraction to lunge. He grabbed Xzar's dagger-arm wrist with one arm and punched him in the face with the other. Xzar dropped Nisbit, who of course landed on his feet and scurried behind Phyldia. Onyx tightened his grip and the dagger fell from Xzar's grasp, then spun Xzar around and chickenwinged him, twisting his arm around against his back and holding him helpless.
"Nisbit! Nisbit! You're okay!" Phyldia scooped up her cat. "Oh, thank you, Onyx!" she bounded over and pecked him on the cheek.
"Here's your book, too," Onyx picked it up with his free hand and shook off the bits of dirt. "Sorry I wasn't here sooner."
"I'm okay," Phyldia sighed with great relief and brushed back her hair, "I hope Xzar's learned his lesson."
"Yes," Xzar cried, "I'm so sorry! Ow, my arm!"
"I think you're just saying that," Onyx sneered. "I already tried to be nice to you, Xzar, and look what you did!"
"We can tell the monks and they'll punish him," Phyldia said. "We should just go there."
"They're soft," Onyx scowled.
Xzar began sobbing hysterically.
"Onyx...should we..." Phyldia looked compassionately at Xzar. "They'll put him alone with his thoughts for awhile and I'm sure he'll realize what he did was wrong."
"No, Phyldia, solitary's not much of a punishment for this bookworm. He'll do this again, that's unacceptable. I can't put you at that risk."
Phlydia's eyes moistened. "For me? Oh...oh, I just don't know! Maybe you're right. Just don't hurt him too much."
"Okay," Onyx smirked. He let go of Xzar and spun him around. While Xzar spun to face him again, Onyx pulled back and smashed his fist into Xzar's temple. Xzar went reeling back and the back of his head cracked against the stone wall of the keep. He fell to the ground and hit his forehead on a rock, then lay there unconscious but breathing.
Phyldia looked pale and clutched Onyx's arm. "I hope we did the right thing...let's just go." They walked back to the library.
After a few minutes, Xzar's eyes popped open. Sparks and colors floated across his eyes and through his mind. His temple, forehead, and the back of his skull were all throbbing and it felt like his mind was going to explode. He looked around but everything seemed different, twisted. He could hear voices laughing and wailing even though no one was there. Then he could see things there. He saw images of demons and pink elephants dancing on the haystacks and flying through the air. Menacing faces appeared in the clouds and laughed down at him. It seemed like every insect in the grass was snickering. Even the cows on the other side of the haystacks seemed to be talking.
"All the voices!" he clutched the sides of his heads. "All the shapes and colors!'
Xzar watched an ant crawl by on the grass. "Kill me kill me!" Xzar heard it sing. He looked up at the sky. "Kill it kill it!" the faces laughed. Xzar squashed the bug with his finger.
A chicken went by, pecking for worms. "Dissect me!" it clucked. "Yes, open it up!" other voices in his head called. Xzar picked up his dagger. He stabbed the chicken repeatedly. He kept on stabbing and then opened it up and began cutting out organs and rearranging them.
"I am become death!" the future necromancer laughed, "Destroyer of worlds! Hee hee hee hee hee!"
*******
"Okay," Onyx smirked. He let go of Xzar and spun him around. Before Xzar could scamper away, Onyx gripped him firmly by both shoulders. "Look, X," he sighed, "You can't do things like this. Look at how scared you made Phyldia. Look, she's crying."
"It's not fair!" Xzar sobbed. "No one likes me! I never liked football, I just want to read books, but then no one will like me and that's not fair!"
"That's not true, Xzar," Onyx replied calmly. "You just have to be nice to people. Look at Grom - no one liked him at first. Why? Because he was mean. But now most people like him, right?"
"Yeah...well he's still mean to me. And some people still don't like him cuz he's a half-orc."
"Yes, but if you start being nice to him I guarantee he'll be nice back. And yeah, some people are just going to be mean for stupid reasons, be because he's a half-orc or you're a bookworm. You just have to ignore them like he does now."
"Fine, I'll try."
"And you can NEVER do anything like what you did here again, okay? This is NOT the way to get girls to like you and it's very, very mean."
"But they don't like me anyway."
"But that wouldn't justify this. Nothing does. And if you're nice instead of mean, some will. You'll see."
"Okay."
"Apologize to Phyldia. Promise you'll never do anything like this again - because it's wrong - and also because you'll answer to me if you do."
"I'm sorry Phyldia," sighed the future healer. "It was wrong. I won't do it again, even if Onyx wouldn't kick my ass."
Phyldia smiled. "I believe you, X. Let's get back to class."
**********
"I'm glad you don't think guard shift in pairs is paranoid like the others," Jaheira smiled, sitting on a log.
"Well," Onyx furled his lips, "Now that the Shade Lord is gone, these hills should be plenty safe; but four hours is plenty to memorize my spells."
"You barely wanted to camp at all. It seems like you never get tired."
"I know I've been driving us pretty hard, but everyone's handling it pretty well; we're a pretty hardy party."
"...except for weak little Aerie," Jaheira frowned. "She really just can't keep up with the rest of us. You have noticed, haven't you?"
"Well, yeah...if it weren't for her I probably would have just pressed on through the night to Athkatla. But I've been running us several days between rests for awhile now."
"As you should. I want Imoen back as much as you do. Aerie's slowing us down, Onyx."
"A little. But her spellcasting is amazing, and it's growing."
"It's decent, yes, but Nalia's is better."
"We need a cleric. I'm not slighting your healing abilities at all, Jaheira, but we do."
"I was sufficient for you in our Sword Coast travels. Why not now? What exactly are your reasons?"
"Well, the Sword Coast wasn't teeming with vampires, liches, and demons."
"What about that Helmite fellow we met at the Coronet?"
"What was his name? Annoyman or something? Frankly, he struck me as a buffoon. And you can't say we didn't give him a chance. But even against those bumbling slavers, both his reflexes and his wit left something to be desired."
"And you wouldn't be saying that for personal reasons?"
"If you mean his ridiculously puritanical attitude, that was an annoying but ancillary concern. I freely admit I've never liked much the dogma of Helm, but he was trustworthy and so it didn't make or break him."
"That's not what I meant by personal reasons," Jaheira shot a suggestive glance at the tent Aerie and Nalia shared. Further away in the next tent, the loud snores of a Kara-Turan and a Rashemanian pierced the otherwise-serene night.
"As I already said, we need her spellcasting power. I know she seems like a drag now, but she's growing stronger - both in abilities in character - and I believe will prove a great asset. The kinds of foes we're going to be facing will take much more than just our sword arms. But that's what I admire about you, Jaheira - your command of both."
Jaheira smiled smugly. "Is that it?"
"Of course not."
"Then that wouldn't be the only reason you nearly got yourself killed the last time we camped."
"I had too, Jaheira. They had a knife at your throat. I knew I'd be taking an arrow through the chest but I couldn't let them harm you."
Jaheira's eyes began to moisten but she tried to maintain a stern countenance. "Even though I could probably have been raised, but you surely couldn't?"
Onyx looked down as if with embarrassment. "Yes...it was irrational, I suppose, but...I just felt I had to."
"Paladinic altruism?" Jaheira suggested, knowing otherwise.
"That wasn't what I was thinking...I wish I could say it was just a calculated risk. Gambling on my own toughness is what I have to do in this kind of life. But this was just an impulse."
Jaheira began to let her face soften. "Onyx, do you know how rare the protective fierceness you displayed was?"
"Sadly, yes."
"And it's not just the bandits. It's whenever we fight Onyx, whether I'm at the front line with you or not. It's strange, I used to abhor the idea of wanting or needing - or giving - any sort of help or defending or anything. Well, mostly I still do. But...with you, I've started to like it. And I love getting your back too," she grinned openly.
Onyx smiled. "Yeah, I know what you mean. It's almost...fun." Jaheira's face lit up for an instant but then fell slightly. She hung her head to the side, looking away but leaning slightly closer. "I mean," Onyx continued, "It's more than just fun...it's..." he shook his head slightly side to side, as if either fishing for the right word or knowing but deciding whether to say it.
"It's..?" Jaheira whispered as Onyx finished shaking his head and left it cocked to the other side as Jaheira's was. A gust of wind picked up a loose strand of Jaheira's hair and it caught around Onyx's ear.
"It's..." Onyx whispered. Their faces were inches apart, but they hung their lids low and looked past each other at the ground.
Finally, each knowing what they wanted to say, they met each other's gaze. "Romantic." they whispered in unison. As they sounded the final consonant, they left their lips pursed and began to move the last inch toward each other.
"Ahhhhh!" came a shrill scream from the tent. "No, please, not my wings, they'll heal, please no, no!" The voice melted into anguished sobbing. Onyx and Jaheira snapped apart, fuming and chagrined. Onyx's expression melted to worry and he glanced at the tent, but Jaheira gnashed her teeth and wrung her hands with furious, frustrated anger, her face reddening and her scowl demonic.
"You're dreaming again," came Nalia's exasperated sigh from within their tent. "Go back to sleep."
"I c-cant," Aerie sobbed softly, "I'll just have the same nightmare again."
She rustled around for a minute and then popped out of the tent in a hastily thrown on robe.
"Oh," she smiled innocently at the two guards as she walked over the log at sat down next to Onyx. "I just had the most terrible nightmare!"
You knew we could hear you, Jaheira thought. And wasn't your timing ever so convenient.
"Yes, we heard," Onyx told her softly with compassion but a hind of exasperation, "Sounded awful."
"It was! It was the same nightmare, the night when they cut off my wings! They strapped me down and I was crying, there were the men with rusty saws, and pacing around them - I only saw him for an instant - the blue-haired elf in the mask. 'Careful now, my good fellows. We musn't damage this lovely creature...well, any more than is rendered necessary by the task at hand. Truly a pity, yes, it encumbers my heart like so many suits of crude, heavy chainmail. Pity she's not just a few years older. Patience, patience.' "
"Just try to go back to sleep, child," Jaheira fumed.
"I can't, I'll have the nightmare again," Aerie whined.
"Think of something else; something happier," Onyx suggested. "You need your rest. You need to get all your spells memorized."
"I already did," Aerie smiled.
"Wow, all of them?" Onyx asked. "Because you sure know a lot these days." Jaheira rolled her eyes.
"Yep!" Aerie grinned proudly. "I feel pretty rested, actually." She looked up at the night sky. "Oh look at the positions of the stars," she said before she had hardly actually looked at them, "Your guard is beyond up, Jaheira. Gotta memorize your spells too, ya know."
"I'm fine, child," Jaheira glared.
"Well, she has a point," Onyx opined, earning a glare from Jaheira and a smile from Aerie, "Who knows what will meet us on the road tomorrow."
"I suppose," Jaheira sighed. "Well, I believe Minsc is up for the next shift," she said pointedly. Without waiting for a response, she walked over to the far tent and kicked the side. "Get up, lughead," she barked at Minsc.
"Where are we, Boo? Last Minsc remembers, we were walking through candy cane forests and lollipop groves and...ah, it was just a dream! And Jaheira so kindly woke us up! Now we must stand guard against evil things which go bump in the night!" A shuffling sound was heard and Minsc popped out of the tent.
"Alright!" Lilacor cheered from his back. "Time for some action!!....What, gnolls aren't attacking the camp, it's just guard duty? Boooooooring!!!!!!"
"Well, now that two thirds of the party is awake," Onyx chuckled, "Perhaps you two should be catching some rest."
Jaheira opened her mouth to object but a yawn escaped. She scolded herself, now knowing she was defeated. "Very well," she sighed, "You should return to sleep and thing happy things, Aerie, like Onyx says. You're always the first one to get fatigued on our travels and so you should definitely be getting the most sleep."
"It does not matter!" Minsc proclaimed. "Minsc can carry his witch tomorrow!"
Jaheira 'accidentally' stepped on his foot while Aerie giggled, "Thanks! Or Onyx could."
"Well, yes," Onyx began, "But you need your mind focused too."
"Exactly," Jaheira smiled. "Come on, child."
"Aw, okay," Aerie sighed. She and Jaheira trudged back to their respective tents, leaving Onyx and Minsc armwrestling on the log.
*********
"Just try to go back to sleep, child," Jaheira fumed.
"I can't, I'll have the nightmare again," Aerie whined.
"Think of something else; something happier," Onyx demanded. "You need your rest. You need to get all your spells memorized."
"I already did," Aerie smiled.
"Yes, but you need your rest. Back to sleep with you, now!"
"But..." Aerie whimpered. She looked up at the night sky. "Oh look at the positions of the stars," she said urgently before she had hardly actually looked at them, "Your guard is beyond up, Jaheira. Gotta memorize your spells too, ya know."
"It'll be up soon," Onyx stated, "You need your rest, Aerie. I don't want you slowing us up again. To bed. Now!"
"Oh, alright, Onyx," Aerie sighed. She turned around, biting her lip, and trudged back into her tent.
"Wow," Jaheira smiled, "You're usually so soft with her."
"Enough about her," Onyx dismissed and slid closer to Jaheira gain and turned toward her again. "Now, where were we..."
**********
Onyx stumbled back, pulling his cheek away from Jaheira's hand. "What the..." he clasped the sides of his head. "By the tenders of Tyr!" He nearly tripped over himself and clutched a nearby table. "Why did you show me that?"
"You showed yourself that," Jaheira insisted. "How could I have showed you your own childhood?"
"For the first one, sure," Onyx breathed heavily, "Only I could choose a different path. But the second one, I felt you there, too, I could see through your eyes and mine."
"It was you who chose the different path."
"You led me back to the juncture!"
"My own thoughts might have influenced the memories you gravitated to," Jaheira admitted. "But you made the decision at the fork. You and you alone. I had a destiny. As I told you once before, not all our coins land on their edges."
"There is no fate!" Onyx screamed and pounded the table. "Every mortal can turn over their own coin! It is only believing in inevitability that makes it seem so!" He slumped down in a chair. So did Jaheira, angry at herself for letting another of their long-running arguments resurface.
Onyx slumped forward on the table and put his head in his arms, fuming. He pulled Aerie's handkerchief out of his sleeve and gripped it, his knuckles whitening.
"It's okay, Onyx," Jaheira whispered soothingly and walked over to him. "You have done no wrong. It was only a memory. You have done nothing wrong."
"I have had wrong thoughts," he sighed angrily.
"No, you merely remembered thoughts you had or might have had long ago. It is different. You have been true."
"Ah, you're right. Still, it is too sharp an edge for my liking."
"But you have said yourself you believed there could be no evil in knowledge."
"Yes, you're right. It is a great gift that you have and I'm sure it shall have good uses."
"You know, Onyx, my power will only grow. The power to see further down the roads not taken."
"Again, I admire your powers, Jaheira. But for now, let us rest. We shall have a long day and likely a fierce fight tomorrow."
Jaheira glanced at the door to the back room she and Arra were theoretically sharing. "Yes, we should. But...ah...might I stay out here with you? I'd rather not...disturb Arra."
Onyx glanced around. They'd come back up from the armwrestling, and then Minsc and Valygar had gone back downstairs. Hadn't Anomen been downstairs the whole time? Onyx tried to remember the crowd. No, he hadn't been, had he...
**********
"So there I was, finally being admitted to the Order - as a squire, but it was the proudest day of my life nonetheless - well, until I became a full knight just a few weeks ago I suppose - and of course my father didn't show up. I felt crushed and disappointed, but truly, I knew by then not to expect anything from him?"
"Aww. Yeah, after everything else, that's about the best you could hope for. I'm glad he didn't show up raving drunk or something."
"Heh, actually, then halfway through the ceremony that's just what he did."
"By Mystra! Unbelievable! That must have been so embarrassing, Ano."
"Oh, it was, my lady, it was. There we were, up at the altar, and he barges in through the front doors and begins screaming at what a failure I am, how if I couldn't hack at as a businessman I'll never hack it in the Order, etc. He was slobbering drunk and knocked over several candles on his way up the pews, nearly started a fire."
"Oh, that's terrible! Didn't they do something?"
"Yeah, two paladins grabbed him pretty quickly. And Father Optus was there that day, actually, he came to my defense. 'Actually, he has already proven himself more than worthy of the Order,' he yelled calmly but firmly at my father. 'And furthermore, we have the fact that he doesn't take after you to thank for it. Sirs Erdrick and Wallace, escort Mr. Delryn out, please.' So the two paladins did."
"Wow. I'm really sorry...but at least it must have been nice to have the Order stick up for you."
"Yeah, I was mortified at the time, but later I took some comfort in that fact."
"Well you seem to have turned out fine all the same," Arra grinned and tousled his curly hair.
"Thank you, kind lady," Anomen smiled.
"Aw, just Arra, please."
"As you wish, Arra. So, enough about me. If it's not classified or some such, what about you? We've been on the quest for days now and I've learned almost nothing."
"Well, I usually play it close to the chest, but I'll let you peek, so to speak." She muffled a giggle as Anomen blushed. "I was born to elves - well, heh heh, obviously - in the High Forest, along the Unicorn Run, just north of Secomber actually."
"Near the foot of the Star Mounts, then?"
Arra smiled. "You know your northern geography well. Yes, in fact a little too close for the liking of some. Had raiding griffins swooping down every now and then. That's how I started my warrior training, actually. Defending the village from divebombing griffins with a polearm. When I was...a little older...I moved to Secomber to become the apprentice of the wizard Amanitas."
"The same one who aided the Heroes of the Savage Frontier?" Anomen's eyebrows arched. Amanitas was a human. He realized that he now knew Arra's age to within a generation or two - then he almost-sheepishly realized that Arra had deliberately thrown this out to give him a hint. He held his tongue, though fiercely curious. Not that it truly mattered, but still he was curious.
"Yes," Arra suppressed a grin as she saw upon Anomen's face everything that was going through his mind.
"And your thieving skills?" Anomen's voice had no hint of the disdain that he usually glazed that term with.
"Those were just borne of my various childhood mischiefs among the elves. Hide-n-go-seek, breaking into the schoolhouse for some lighthearted vandal pranks, that sort of thing." Anomen's jaw dropped but he didn't scold. "Hey, it was just kid-fun. Not unlike the beginnings of your pal Imoen, judging from the stories Onyx tells."
"Hmm, actually your sprightly demeanor did remind me of her a bit."
"Oh?" Arra pestered him with faux-indignation. "So I just make you think of another girl, then?"
Anomen, needless to say, fell for this and got extremely flustered. "No no! Um, actually it was more the other way around; when I would happen to think of Imoen it would remind me of you?"
"Ah, so you've been daydreaming of Imoen then, have you?" Arra was wearing a mask of jealously which Anomen thoroughly fell for.
"No, not at all, I just mean when Onyx mentions her, I'll think of her momentarily, and that reminds me of you."
"Ah," Arra looked satisfied and her mind was spinning trying to twist that into an opportunity to act offended. Not coming up with one, she decided to try a different route. "He does talk about his sister and fiancé quite a lot, actually."
Anomen nodded, "I can't get him to shut up. Even talking about flails and swords and axes - which normally he can't shut up about - doesn't work anymore."
"So...you mentioned your sister a few times, but otherwise I haven't noticed you talking about anyone in particular." Arra, of course, knew the answer well enough.
"Well, that's because there IS no one in particular."
"I find that surprising," Arra said, truly enough. Well, other than the fact that she had guessed it already.
"Thank you, my lady."
"Arra," she said gently.
"Ah, sorry."
"It's fine...actually, I kinda like that better now that I think about it. My lady it is."
"As you wish, A- my lady."
"Aw," Arra smiled happily, leaned in slightly, and closer her eyes. Okay you dolt, she thought, now you have to make a frikkin move for once. These knights-in-shining-armor types are supposed to be so manly, why do they act so repressed? It's ludicrous. Truly ludicrous.
About damn time! she thought when she could sense Anomen's face just in front of hers. Well? You're gonna have to initiate this one. I'm not doing everything for you, Sir Pristine. I mean really, quit griping about your friend Onyx once in a while and take a hint from him. Judging from the type Aerie is, it's *obvious* he made the moves there, why can't you here? I think I'm being obvious enough, even for a handsome fighter of modest intellect like yourself. Why...
Arra's inner monologue was halted when she felt, in one instant, Anomen's hand cup the back of her head and his lips press over hers. Finally! Oh my god, he's actually a decent kisser. Who'd have known, I was beginning to think squire-boy here didn't even know about the birds and the bees. I'd have hardly guessed he'd hit puberty if it hadn't been for that cute goatee and - ah, there we go, about time you did something with that other hand...
Meanwhile, sticking out of Jaheira's pack on the floor, Belm was in its sheath. "Wow," the scimitar thought, "What are they...what the? How come my blacksmith never told me about these things? I'm not some little butter knife anymore, you know!..Ooh, that looks nice!.Hey, maybe I shoulda taken Lile up on his offer...darn it, Jaheira, if you're gonna stay in the outer room with Minsc's stuff, come get your pack!"
9 FLAMERULE 2200 NASHKEL - THE NASHKEL INN
Onyx, Anomen, Minsc, and Valygar occupied the larger front room of the suite. Only Valygar was actually in it at the moment. Minsc and Onyx were downstairs at the moment clobbering some off-duty Flaming Fist guards at armwrestling, while Jaheira was cheering them on from the bar while sipping Firewine.
Valygar would surely otherwise have been with them - though not as strong as the other two, he had a knack for armwrestling with clever and agile leveraging - except that he had stayed in the room to write a letter. Properly decoded, it read:
Dear Nalia,
I am addressing this letter to the residence of Eroanne and hopefully it finds you. We gain upon those that we pursue, have dispatched two squads of slavers already, and I would say our quest goes well except that one of our party, whom you do not know, has been captured, if not already killed. This but adds to the resolve of those who remain as we continue our quest.
Despite the hopefully-temporary loss, I feel we shall succeed. As you must have seen during your continued adventures with three of my current companions, their skills have only grown since I last was alongside you and them in that vampiress's lair, as I'm sure yours must have, impressive though they already were then, contrary to your modesty on the matter. My two other remaining companions, whom I had not before met, too are most capable.
As such, I believe and hope I shall return soon. If you do decide to venture with your friends to Candlekeep, it is as well, for afterwards I plan to go with some of my companions there very briefly (or perhaps not as briefly should I find you there). I would say that I was fortunate that I got to cross paths with you again so soon after your victory, except that it was part and parcel of me choosing to intercept your group myself. And similarly, I am looking forward to seeing you again after this quest, and despite my love of adventure and belief in the mission, that thought motivates me towards its swift completion.
Yours, V
Meanwhile, back downstairs, Onyx and Minsc had defeated every willing and able patron of the tavern in armwrestling, and so now only one challenge remained....each other. Onyx, though slightly weaker than Minsc when they had met, had been enhanced several times over his adventures, and was now much greater in sheer strength. On the other hand, Minsc was still taller and had longer arms, giving him a leverage advantage, not to mention the chance of a berserk rage fueling his muscles when most needed. Onyx dared not "cheat" and call upon holy might to win the match with ease, although in such a casual setting it still would have been an amusing practical joke.
Patrons backed away, fearing that, despite the friendly bond between the paladin and the ranger - who had first met just outside this very inn long ago - there were inadvertent chances that the table itself might break or someone might go flying across the room. Minsc and Onyx were hunched over opposite sides of the table, right elbows planted squarely on the wood, left hands behind backs, right hands clasped tight but motionless, four brave volunteers holding the fists in place. Jaheira had moved up from the bar to the next table, and was watching intently her warrior comrades, both of whom had scarcely left her side since their meetings at the Friendly Arm Inn or in this very town of Nashkel so long ago. She felt a mix of joy and pride for the strength and eagerness of her longtime warrior comrades, and some motherly disgust at their somewhat juvenile machismo.
"Okay," a fifth volunteer shouted from Jaheira's table, "One...two....three!!"
The other four volunteers hastily let go of the clasped hands and jumped back, and not a moment too soon, for in the first moments of the duel, their hands oscillated to each side a few times before locking back in an upright. Onyx concentrated hard and began to push Minsc's huge arm downwards.
"What should be do, Boo?" Minsc cried to his hamster companion. "We cannot lose to our very good evil-skull-cracking friend!" Boo leapt out of Minsc's pocket and, rather and squeak in his master's ear, began to nip it. "No Boo no! You know that makes Minsc very angry. Ow! Quit it! I am getting VERY ANGRY BOO! BAD BOO! BAD! ARRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!!"
"Sweet Torm!" Onyx gasped as Minsc's face went red and he began frothing at the mouth while managing to push Onyx's arm back the other way and soon regaining the advantage. Onyx struggled, soon going only inches above the table. He concentrated harder, his face reddening, and began to slowly push his way back up as Minsc's berserk rage gradually lost steam. At last they were locked again, but then Boo crawled up on top of Minsc's bald head and began dancing on it.
"No Boo no! No dancing! Bad hamster!" Minsc screamed, but didn't quite fly into another rage. Boo let out a disappointed squeak, then a more frightened one as Onyx pushed Minsc's arm to within an inch of the table, and quickly scurried back down into Minsc's clothing again. Within moments, a much higher-pitched squeak could be heard, followed by another than sounded more like Boo's.
"No Boo! Do not get frisky with Bebe again! Bad Boo! Bad! Oh no! Stop that Boo! Surely our room has a nice little hamster-hole in the wall you could use! STOP IT BOO STOP IT NO BAD FRISKY HAMSTERS YOU MAKE MINSC VERY ANGRY BLARRRRGH!!!!!!"
"Bane's buttocks!" Onyx shouted as Minsc went into another rage and pushed their arms back up, but this time the paladin managed to keep his arm upright.
They struggled and both leaned in, putting more weight behind their arms. Much of this weight was being pressed through their elbows onto the table though, that is to see, perhaps a ton of force being thrust into an area the size of two adjacent elbows. Unfortunately, this just happened to over a knot in one of the boards making up the surface of the table. Slight cracks began to radiate out from the knot across the wood, and some of the other patrons wisely took steps back, fearing the worst. Others outright cringed behind the bar or even jumped out of windows or dashed down halls. At last the table groaned and cracked, and the two grimacing warriors, staring into each others' eyes and seemingly oblivious to the table's failing integrity, plunged their elbows through the table and, falling toward, cracked heads and fell onto the table, smashing it with both their bodies.
This is turn sent table legs and boards flying about the room into people and drinks. A few pieces flew toward Jaheira, who caught them with lightning reflexes - otherwise it would have been most unfortunate - for Minsc and Onyx, that is. Boo and Bebe went flying out of Minsc's pocket, flying through the air together in a most embarrassing position, and landing in Jaheira's wine goblet. Rather than squeaking with fright, they simply began to lounge against the edge of it and purr, as if in their own miniature champagne bath. Unfortunately for them, Jaheira was none too pleased at this new development and spilled them out onto her table. She then set her goblet down and, fuming with her hands on her hips, grabbed both men on the floor by their collars and yanked them up to their feet, thanks both to her anger and her belt of stone giant strength.
"WHAT WERE YOU OAFS THINKING!" she scolded them, putting her hands back on her hips. "You could have hurt someone, even yourselves! And look at all the damaged you've caused."
"Well, yeah," Onyx grimaced sheepishly while Minsc scooped up Boo (and, reluctantly, Bebe), "But the patrons I think found this the most entertaining of all." The patrons, coming out from their various hiding places, were starting to chuckle and toast to the entertaining spectacle and the strength of their new friends. "I'll reimburse the keep for it, thought, of course, though I suspect it's probably helped his business."
"You betcher," laughed a farmer, "Why, we ain't seen such a show in here since that cleric...hey, weren't you the three that killed that cleric in here 'bouts a year ago? War's that lil lass an' the half-elfer man wot wuz with ya?"
"Tarnesh deserved a royal butt-kicking for trying to hunt down Onmmmmmmf," Minsc declared while Jaheira put her hand over his mouth.
"Do I have to remind you show-off barbarians," she hissed under her breath, "That are supposed to be keeping a low profile? Now you've gotten us recognized..."
"Three cheers fer tha Heroes of the Nashkel Mines!" the farmer lifted his mug of mead and the other patrons followed. "Hip hip, hooray! Hip hip, hooray! Hip hip, hooray!"
Minsc and Onyx were trying to not quite confirm this while also not looking ungrateful while Jaheira grabbed them by the ears and led them back to their room, fuming the whole way. She slammed the door behind her angrily, causing even the usually stoic and calm Valygar to jump out of his seat and nearly spill his ink well over his just-finished letter. He sheepishly tried to fold it up before anyone took an interest in its contents, and luckily for him, the other three were busy scolding or getting scolded.
"You.....morons!!!" she shouted at them. "Don't EVER do anything like that again! There could have been assassins in the crowd just waiting for you get off guard like that! Not to mention you could have easily impaled someone - like me - with a flying table leg. Or even hurt each other; I don't care how tough you each think you are. Look at yourselves - a paladin and a ranger, acting like careless swashbucklers or mindless barbarians! You're supposed to be protecting people and their farms, not endangering them and destroying their property for your own childish amusement! You should both be ashamed!"
"Minsc is sorry, Jaheira," Minsc hung his head in shame, "Minsc gets carried away sometimes but means no harm. Boo also reprimands him for just outbursts."
"I...know, Minsc, just be more careful in the future, perhaps play outdoors, as it were, big ranger?" Jaheira softened. She turned to face Onyx and Minsc sat down on a sofa, furrowing his brow and muttering to Boo. Valygar, taking a glaring cue from Jaheira, patted his ranger friend on the shoulder and took him back downstairs for a few rounds.
"And you," Jaheira's eyes narrowed as Onyx faced her alone, "He can hardly help it, bless his soul, but you, despite current appearances, are no idiot-paladin, like most of your kind, and should definitely know better. You're supposed to be keeping as low a profile as Sir Big Hero of Nashkel, Baldur's Gate, Trademeet, Suldanesellar, Amkethran, The World, whatever can, you're supposed to be a leading-by-example paladin, you're supposed to be treading lightly since between Blackrazor and your bloodline you're already controversial enough among the Order, you're..."
"...a fool for having endangered you," Onyx finished for her. "I'm sorry. Truly. I had no idea the match would literally explode like that. I should be wise enough to anticipate such things though, and I am, so there's no excuse."
Jaheira's jaw dropped open, speechless.
"Of course I'm not going to fight you," Onyx read her thoughts and continued calmly, "You're right."
"Say that again," she said, trying to appear stern as if demanding verbal retribution.
"You're right," Onyx repeated warmly, knowing she just loved to hear it. "You're right, Jaheira."
Jaheira scowled inwardly. Why the hell did he always have to make her melt like that? She was always getting angry at him, but recently it had become hard to stay that way whenever she actually talked to him.
Jaheira tried with mixed success to muster sternness. "Just be careful, okay? I guess I still feel a little overprotective of my old charge."
Onyx gave a humored smile.
"I know, I know, it seems weird, what with you having changed since we met from a wandering squire in splint mail to a powerful warrior blazing a trail of destruction through the heart of evil."
"No, it makes sense," Onyx smiled at the flattery, "Everyone needs companions. I can't imagine going solo. Though I certainly admire the few and the proud adventures who do."
"Like Jarek?" Jaheira furrowed her brow. "Onyx, you...one of the few things that has been eating at me that I HAVEN'T complained about much is your cavalier attitude toward all this."
"They don't call us cavaliers for nothing."
"That's not funny, Onyx. I'm serious. Fearlessness is not always an advantage, you know. You don't ever act like we might all be killed the next day, even though we probably should have been a hundred times by now. You're acting like this is all some sort of big game. Some big game where you never lose, or you can go back and try again every time you make a mistake."
"You know, what if we are just characters in a world like that? Funny thing is, if that were the case, we wouldn't ever know it. Some power might, but we'd never get to see what might have been." They suddenly got strange looks and looked around, as if distrusting everything they saw as an illusion that wasn't real..
"What might have been....actually, Onyx, it can be tapped into. I believe it can be seen."
Onyx furrowed his brow. She wasn't joking, was she? "How do you mean, Jaheira?"
"It's not confirmed, but there was a druid once, Arundel of Kuldahar, who thought he'd found out how to do such a thing."
"Wasn't he killed almost a century ago by the demon Belhefit?"
"The same. Before he died, he tapped into something, and he passed the knowledge to another, the druid Glaedra."
"One of the Heroes of Icewind Dale? The warrior who became a druid under Arundel's wing, only to have to avenge him soon after?"
"Yes. I learned this secret from her before you were even born, but didn't have the power to use it."
"And you suspect you do now?"
"I don't know, Onyx."
"There's only one way to find out, Jaheira."
She sighed and smiled. "You always were curious, even for a human. Very well. Close your eyes and try to clear your mind of recent memories, put yourself in the past. Choose a decision in the past. Go back to it. Fill your senses with your surroundings at that moment. Let my voice slip into the back of your mind."
Onyx closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Jaheira's words were soothing, and he could feel her casting some enchanting magic over him, and he let himself be consumed. His mind went back to some of his earliest memories, and he didn't even notice Jaheira's fingers splay across his cheek.
**********
"Wake up, sleepyhead!"
"Immy? Is that you?"
"You betcha On! Wake up! It's time for recess."
Onyx lifted his head off his desk. The last few students were pouring out of the classroom in the library, headed downstairs to one of the courtyards for recess.
"I can't believe ya slept through the entire class!" Imoen giggled. "Yer lucky you were sitting behind Grom! Ol' Tutor Tethtoril couldn't see that ya had your head down!" Grom, a half-orc kid, was one of their new classmates, and the only one taller than Onyx.
"It wasn't luck, sis," Onyx smiled sleepily, "I convinced him to sit in front of me when he first moved here last month, so that I could sleep in class like this!"
"And they call me a troublemaker!" Imoen laughed. "Well, when they catch me that is, heh heh. C'mon, let's get out to recess."
Onyx stood up and began to walk out of the room, holding hands with Imoen who was skipping alongside him and singing.
The two walked out of the front doors of the library. The students were playing or just resting about in the field beside the library and inside the inner wall. They both walked over to where Grom and some of the others were starting to pick teams for football. The corridor of grass between one side of the library and the inner wall was perfect for the game, if a little narrow and producing the tendency for players to get tackled into the brick walls.
"There you are heh heh!" Grom laughed. "Your team's gonna lose anyway!"
"Maybe, if your game is getting as good as your common," Onyx smiled at his new friend's grammar. Only a few weeks ago it would have been 'there you be, your team lose anyway!'
"Then it must stink!" laughed another kid, Xzar. "'gonna' isn't a word, you stupid barbarian! You are both imbeciles!"
Grom clenched his fists and bared his tusks, but didn't pounce on Xzar. That too, Onyx noticed, he probably would have done a few weeks ago. Instead, Grom merely shouted, "Go away Xzar! You are always picked last anyway! No one actually wants you on their team!"
"Now," Onyx sighed, "There's still room. I'll pick ya, X. You're actually pretty darn agile. Just try to actually pass to your teammates instead of trying to run the ball the whole way yourself."
"Bah," Xzar sighed. "A fool's game! Shove your pigskin!" he walked away, fuming.
"C'mon, let's play already!" Imoen groaned. Grom and Onyx began selecting teammates, and soon the game was in full swing.
Imoen was a receiver on Onyx's team, and made half their touchdowns with her knack for catching the ball every time and feigning out of the way of charging would-be tacklers. "Missed me, missed me, nya nya nya nya!" she stuck out her tongue as Grom lunged to tackle her and she leapt over his arms and kept running. She made it to the end of the library, spiked the ball in the flowers, and did a crazy little victory dance.
"Rocks!" Grom cursed as Tethtoril blew the end-of-recess whistle, for his team was now behind and had thus lost. He trudged reluctantly back toward the doors of the library while Imoen bounded ahead, still dancing, and inside.
"Hey, what was that?" Onyx's ear perked up. "It was like a shout or scream or something."
He disappeared around the side of the library, and Grom moved to follow, but just then Tethtoril looked in his direction and the half-orc boy fumed and turned back toward the door again, acting like he was the only one. Tethtoril closed the doors behind them. His classroom would prove a total of three students short though.
Onyx ran out the gate of the inner walls and toward a pen with a few cows and some haystacks; he thought the scream had come from about there.
Onyx picked up a book lying in the grass. The History of Halruaa. Phlydia's book. Did she lose it again? Strange place to drop it though...
Suddenly another scream was heard. Behind the haystacks! Onyx ran around the side of the pen. There, on a lower mound of haystacks hidden between the keep walls and the taller stacks, was a truly bizarre sight. Phyldia was crying. Near her, Xzar was holding her cat Nisbit in one hand while clutching a dagger in the other.
"No, that's your only choice, pretty Phyldia," Xzar grinned before he noticed the newcomer, "You can play doctor with me, or I can play surgeon with your cat.....What? What are you doing here?"
"I demand to know what's going on!" Onyx shouted.
"It's terrible!" Phyldia cried. "He says if I don't take off my dress, he's going to kill Nisbit!"
"Xzar, you will desist this instant!" Onyx demanded and took a step forward, but stopped when Xzar moved the dagger closer to the cat.
"No, football-head, YOU will desist," Xzar sneered and held the dagger even closer.
"Yeah okay," Onyx bluffed, but while acting like he was turning around, actually wound up and tossed the book at Xzar and beaned him across the forehead.
"Yeoch!" Xzar screamed. Onyx used the distraction to lunge. He grabbed Xzar's dagger-arm wrist with one arm and punched him in the face with the other. Xzar dropped Nisbit, who of course landed on his feet and scurried behind Phyldia. Onyx tightened his grip and the dagger fell from Xzar's grasp, then spun Xzar around and chickenwinged him, twisting his arm around against his back and holding him helpless.
"Nisbit! Nisbit! You're okay!" Phyldia scooped up her cat. "Oh, thank you, Onyx!" she bounded over and pecked him on the cheek.
"Here's your book, too," Onyx picked it up with his free hand and shook off the bits of dirt. "Sorry I wasn't here sooner."
"I'm okay," Phyldia sighed with great relief and brushed back her hair, "I hope Xzar's learned his lesson."
"Yes," Xzar cried, "I'm so sorry! Ow, my arm!"
"I think you're just saying that," Onyx sneered. "I already tried to be nice to you, Xzar, and look what you did!"
"We can tell the monks and they'll punish him," Phyldia said. "We should just go there."
"They're soft," Onyx scowled.
Xzar began sobbing hysterically.
"Onyx...should we..." Phyldia looked compassionately at Xzar. "They'll put him alone with his thoughts for awhile and I'm sure he'll realize what he did was wrong."
"No, Phyldia, solitary's not much of a punishment for this bookworm. He'll do this again, that's unacceptable. I can't put you at that risk."
Phlydia's eyes moistened. "For me? Oh...oh, I just don't know! Maybe you're right. Just don't hurt him too much."
"Okay," Onyx smirked. He let go of Xzar and spun him around. While Xzar spun to face him again, Onyx pulled back and smashed his fist into Xzar's temple. Xzar went reeling back and the back of his head cracked against the stone wall of the keep. He fell to the ground and hit his forehead on a rock, then lay there unconscious but breathing.
Phyldia looked pale and clutched Onyx's arm. "I hope we did the right thing...let's just go." They walked back to the library.
After a few minutes, Xzar's eyes popped open. Sparks and colors floated across his eyes and through his mind. His temple, forehead, and the back of his skull were all throbbing and it felt like his mind was going to explode. He looked around but everything seemed different, twisted. He could hear voices laughing and wailing even though no one was there. Then he could see things there. He saw images of demons and pink elephants dancing on the haystacks and flying through the air. Menacing faces appeared in the clouds and laughed down at him. It seemed like every insect in the grass was snickering. Even the cows on the other side of the haystacks seemed to be talking.
"All the voices!" he clutched the sides of his heads. "All the shapes and colors!'
Xzar watched an ant crawl by on the grass. "Kill me kill me!" Xzar heard it sing. He looked up at the sky. "Kill it kill it!" the faces laughed. Xzar squashed the bug with his finger.
A chicken went by, pecking for worms. "Dissect me!" it clucked. "Yes, open it up!" other voices in his head called. Xzar picked up his dagger. He stabbed the chicken repeatedly. He kept on stabbing and then opened it up and began cutting out organs and rearranging them.
"I am become death!" the future necromancer laughed, "Destroyer of worlds! Hee hee hee hee hee!"
*******
"Okay," Onyx smirked. He let go of Xzar and spun him around. Before Xzar could scamper away, Onyx gripped him firmly by both shoulders. "Look, X," he sighed, "You can't do things like this. Look at how scared you made Phyldia. Look, she's crying."
"It's not fair!" Xzar sobbed. "No one likes me! I never liked football, I just want to read books, but then no one will like me and that's not fair!"
"That's not true, Xzar," Onyx replied calmly. "You just have to be nice to people. Look at Grom - no one liked him at first. Why? Because he was mean. But now most people like him, right?"
"Yeah...well he's still mean to me. And some people still don't like him cuz he's a half-orc."
"Yes, but if you start being nice to him I guarantee he'll be nice back. And yeah, some people are just going to be mean for stupid reasons, be because he's a half-orc or you're a bookworm. You just have to ignore them like he does now."
"Fine, I'll try."
"And you can NEVER do anything like what you did here again, okay? This is NOT the way to get girls to like you and it's very, very mean."
"But they don't like me anyway."
"But that wouldn't justify this. Nothing does. And if you're nice instead of mean, some will. You'll see."
"Okay."
"Apologize to Phyldia. Promise you'll never do anything like this again - because it's wrong - and also because you'll answer to me if you do."
"I'm sorry Phyldia," sighed the future healer. "It was wrong. I won't do it again, even if Onyx wouldn't kick my ass."
Phyldia smiled. "I believe you, X. Let's get back to class."
**********
"I'm glad you don't think guard shift in pairs is paranoid like the others," Jaheira smiled, sitting on a log.
"Well," Onyx furled his lips, "Now that the Shade Lord is gone, these hills should be plenty safe; but four hours is plenty to memorize my spells."
"You barely wanted to camp at all. It seems like you never get tired."
"I know I've been driving us pretty hard, but everyone's handling it pretty well; we're a pretty hardy party."
"...except for weak little Aerie," Jaheira frowned. "She really just can't keep up with the rest of us. You have noticed, haven't you?"
"Well, yeah...if it weren't for her I probably would have just pressed on through the night to Athkatla. But I've been running us several days between rests for awhile now."
"As you should. I want Imoen back as much as you do. Aerie's slowing us down, Onyx."
"A little. But her spellcasting is amazing, and it's growing."
"It's decent, yes, but Nalia's is better."
"We need a cleric. I'm not slighting your healing abilities at all, Jaheira, but we do."
"I was sufficient for you in our Sword Coast travels. Why not now? What exactly are your reasons?"
"Well, the Sword Coast wasn't teeming with vampires, liches, and demons."
"What about that Helmite fellow we met at the Coronet?"
"What was his name? Annoyman or something? Frankly, he struck me as a buffoon. And you can't say we didn't give him a chance. But even against those bumbling slavers, both his reflexes and his wit left something to be desired."
"And you wouldn't be saying that for personal reasons?"
"If you mean his ridiculously puritanical attitude, that was an annoying but ancillary concern. I freely admit I've never liked much the dogma of Helm, but he was trustworthy and so it didn't make or break him."
"That's not what I meant by personal reasons," Jaheira shot a suggestive glance at the tent Aerie and Nalia shared. Further away in the next tent, the loud snores of a Kara-Turan and a Rashemanian pierced the otherwise-serene night.
"As I already said, we need her spellcasting power. I know she seems like a drag now, but she's growing stronger - both in abilities in character - and I believe will prove a great asset. The kinds of foes we're going to be facing will take much more than just our sword arms. But that's what I admire about you, Jaheira - your command of both."
Jaheira smiled smugly. "Is that it?"
"Of course not."
"Then that wouldn't be the only reason you nearly got yourself killed the last time we camped."
"I had too, Jaheira. They had a knife at your throat. I knew I'd be taking an arrow through the chest but I couldn't let them harm you."
Jaheira's eyes began to moisten but she tried to maintain a stern countenance. "Even though I could probably have been raised, but you surely couldn't?"
Onyx looked down as if with embarrassment. "Yes...it was irrational, I suppose, but...I just felt I had to."
"Paladinic altruism?" Jaheira suggested, knowing otherwise.
"That wasn't what I was thinking...I wish I could say it was just a calculated risk. Gambling on my own toughness is what I have to do in this kind of life. But this was just an impulse."
Jaheira began to let her face soften. "Onyx, do you know how rare the protective fierceness you displayed was?"
"Sadly, yes."
"And it's not just the bandits. It's whenever we fight Onyx, whether I'm at the front line with you or not. It's strange, I used to abhor the idea of wanting or needing - or giving - any sort of help or defending or anything. Well, mostly I still do. But...with you, I've started to like it. And I love getting your back too," she grinned openly.
Onyx smiled. "Yeah, I know what you mean. It's almost...fun." Jaheira's face lit up for an instant but then fell slightly. She hung her head to the side, looking away but leaning slightly closer. "I mean," Onyx continued, "It's more than just fun...it's..." he shook his head slightly side to side, as if either fishing for the right word or knowing but deciding whether to say it.
"It's..?" Jaheira whispered as Onyx finished shaking his head and left it cocked to the other side as Jaheira's was. A gust of wind picked up a loose strand of Jaheira's hair and it caught around Onyx's ear.
"It's..." Onyx whispered. Their faces were inches apart, but they hung their lids low and looked past each other at the ground.
Finally, each knowing what they wanted to say, they met each other's gaze. "Romantic." they whispered in unison. As they sounded the final consonant, they left their lips pursed and began to move the last inch toward each other.
"Ahhhhh!" came a shrill scream from the tent. "No, please, not my wings, they'll heal, please no, no!" The voice melted into anguished sobbing. Onyx and Jaheira snapped apart, fuming and chagrined. Onyx's expression melted to worry and he glanced at the tent, but Jaheira gnashed her teeth and wrung her hands with furious, frustrated anger, her face reddening and her scowl demonic.
"You're dreaming again," came Nalia's exasperated sigh from within their tent. "Go back to sleep."
"I c-cant," Aerie sobbed softly, "I'll just have the same nightmare again."
She rustled around for a minute and then popped out of the tent in a hastily thrown on robe.
"Oh," she smiled innocently at the two guards as she walked over the log at sat down next to Onyx. "I just had the most terrible nightmare!"
You knew we could hear you, Jaheira thought. And wasn't your timing ever so convenient.
"Yes, we heard," Onyx told her softly with compassion but a hind of exasperation, "Sounded awful."
"It was! It was the same nightmare, the night when they cut off my wings! They strapped me down and I was crying, there were the men with rusty saws, and pacing around them - I only saw him for an instant - the blue-haired elf in the mask. 'Careful now, my good fellows. We musn't damage this lovely creature...well, any more than is rendered necessary by the task at hand. Truly a pity, yes, it encumbers my heart like so many suits of crude, heavy chainmail. Pity she's not just a few years older. Patience, patience.' "
"Just try to go back to sleep, child," Jaheira fumed.
"I can't, I'll have the nightmare again," Aerie whined.
"Think of something else; something happier," Onyx suggested. "You need your rest. You need to get all your spells memorized."
"I already did," Aerie smiled.
"Wow, all of them?" Onyx asked. "Because you sure know a lot these days." Jaheira rolled her eyes.
"Yep!" Aerie grinned proudly. "I feel pretty rested, actually." She looked up at the night sky. "Oh look at the positions of the stars," she said before she had hardly actually looked at them, "Your guard is beyond up, Jaheira. Gotta memorize your spells too, ya know."
"I'm fine, child," Jaheira glared.
"Well, she has a point," Onyx opined, earning a glare from Jaheira and a smile from Aerie, "Who knows what will meet us on the road tomorrow."
"I suppose," Jaheira sighed. "Well, I believe Minsc is up for the next shift," she said pointedly. Without waiting for a response, she walked over to the far tent and kicked the side. "Get up, lughead," she barked at Minsc.
"Where are we, Boo? Last Minsc remembers, we were walking through candy cane forests and lollipop groves and...ah, it was just a dream! And Jaheira so kindly woke us up! Now we must stand guard against evil things which go bump in the night!" A shuffling sound was heard and Minsc popped out of the tent.
"Alright!" Lilacor cheered from his back. "Time for some action!!....What, gnolls aren't attacking the camp, it's just guard duty? Boooooooring!!!!!!"
"Well, now that two thirds of the party is awake," Onyx chuckled, "Perhaps you two should be catching some rest."
Jaheira opened her mouth to object but a yawn escaped. She scolded herself, now knowing she was defeated. "Very well," she sighed, "You should return to sleep and thing happy things, Aerie, like Onyx says. You're always the first one to get fatigued on our travels and so you should definitely be getting the most sleep."
"It does not matter!" Minsc proclaimed. "Minsc can carry his witch tomorrow!"
Jaheira 'accidentally' stepped on his foot while Aerie giggled, "Thanks! Or Onyx could."
"Well, yes," Onyx began, "But you need your mind focused too."
"Exactly," Jaheira smiled. "Come on, child."
"Aw, okay," Aerie sighed. She and Jaheira trudged back to their respective tents, leaving Onyx and Minsc armwrestling on the log.
*********
"Just try to go back to sleep, child," Jaheira fumed.
"I can't, I'll have the nightmare again," Aerie whined.
"Think of something else; something happier," Onyx demanded. "You need your rest. You need to get all your spells memorized."
"I already did," Aerie smiled.
"Yes, but you need your rest. Back to sleep with you, now!"
"But..." Aerie whimpered. She looked up at the night sky. "Oh look at the positions of the stars," she said urgently before she had hardly actually looked at them, "Your guard is beyond up, Jaheira. Gotta memorize your spells too, ya know."
"It'll be up soon," Onyx stated, "You need your rest, Aerie. I don't want you slowing us up again. To bed. Now!"
"Oh, alright, Onyx," Aerie sighed. She turned around, biting her lip, and trudged back into her tent.
"Wow," Jaheira smiled, "You're usually so soft with her."
"Enough about her," Onyx dismissed and slid closer to Jaheira gain and turned toward her again. "Now, where were we..."
**********
Onyx stumbled back, pulling his cheek away from Jaheira's hand. "What the..." he clasped the sides of his head. "By the tenders of Tyr!" He nearly tripped over himself and clutched a nearby table. "Why did you show me that?"
"You showed yourself that," Jaheira insisted. "How could I have showed you your own childhood?"
"For the first one, sure," Onyx breathed heavily, "Only I could choose a different path. But the second one, I felt you there, too, I could see through your eyes and mine."
"It was you who chose the different path."
"You led me back to the juncture!"
"My own thoughts might have influenced the memories you gravitated to," Jaheira admitted. "But you made the decision at the fork. You and you alone. I had a destiny. As I told you once before, not all our coins land on their edges."
"There is no fate!" Onyx screamed and pounded the table. "Every mortal can turn over their own coin! It is only believing in inevitability that makes it seem so!" He slumped down in a chair. So did Jaheira, angry at herself for letting another of their long-running arguments resurface.
Onyx slumped forward on the table and put his head in his arms, fuming. He pulled Aerie's handkerchief out of his sleeve and gripped it, his knuckles whitening.
"It's okay, Onyx," Jaheira whispered soothingly and walked over to him. "You have done no wrong. It was only a memory. You have done nothing wrong."
"I have had wrong thoughts," he sighed angrily.
"No, you merely remembered thoughts you had or might have had long ago. It is different. You have been true."
"Ah, you're right. Still, it is too sharp an edge for my liking."
"But you have said yourself you believed there could be no evil in knowledge."
"Yes, you're right. It is a great gift that you have and I'm sure it shall have good uses."
"You know, Onyx, my power will only grow. The power to see further down the roads not taken."
"Again, I admire your powers, Jaheira. But for now, let us rest. We shall have a long day and likely a fierce fight tomorrow."
Jaheira glanced at the door to the back room she and Arra were theoretically sharing. "Yes, we should. But...ah...might I stay out here with you? I'd rather not...disturb Arra."
Onyx glanced around. They'd come back up from the armwrestling, and then Minsc and Valygar had gone back downstairs. Hadn't Anomen been downstairs the whole time? Onyx tried to remember the crowd. No, he hadn't been, had he...
**********
"So there I was, finally being admitted to the Order - as a squire, but it was the proudest day of my life nonetheless - well, until I became a full knight just a few weeks ago I suppose - and of course my father didn't show up. I felt crushed and disappointed, but truly, I knew by then not to expect anything from him?"
"Aww. Yeah, after everything else, that's about the best you could hope for. I'm glad he didn't show up raving drunk or something."
"Heh, actually, then halfway through the ceremony that's just what he did."
"By Mystra! Unbelievable! That must have been so embarrassing, Ano."
"Oh, it was, my lady, it was. There we were, up at the altar, and he barges in through the front doors and begins screaming at what a failure I am, how if I couldn't hack at as a businessman I'll never hack it in the Order, etc. He was slobbering drunk and knocked over several candles on his way up the pews, nearly started a fire."
"Oh, that's terrible! Didn't they do something?"
"Yeah, two paladins grabbed him pretty quickly. And Father Optus was there that day, actually, he came to my defense. 'Actually, he has already proven himself more than worthy of the Order,' he yelled calmly but firmly at my father. 'And furthermore, we have the fact that he doesn't take after you to thank for it. Sirs Erdrick and Wallace, escort Mr. Delryn out, please.' So the two paladins did."
"Wow. I'm really sorry...but at least it must have been nice to have the Order stick up for you."
"Yeah, I was mortified at the time, but later I took some comfort in that fact."
"Well you seem to have turned out fine all the same," Arra grinned and tousled his curly hair.
"Thank you, kind lady," Anomen smiled.
"Aw, just Arra, please."
"As you wish, Arra. So, enough about me. If it's not classified or some such, what about you? We've been on the quest for days now and I've learned almost nothing."
"Well, I usually play it close to the chest, but I'll let you peek, so to speak." She muffled a giggle as Anomen blushed. "I was born to elves - well, heh heh, obviously - in the High Forest, along the Unicorn Run, just north of Secomber actually."
"Near the foot of the Star Mounts, then?"
Arra smiled. "You know your northern geography well. Yes, in fact a little too close for the liking of some. Had raiding griffins swooping down every now and then. That's how I started my warrior training, actually. Defending the village from divebombing griffins with a polearm. When I was...a little older...I moved to Secomber to become the apprentice of the wizard Amanitas."
"The same one who aided the Heroes of the Savage Frontier?" Anomen's eyebrows arched. Amanitas was a human. He realized that he now knew Arra's age to within a generation or two - then he almost-sheepishly realized that Arra had deliberately thrown this out to give him a hint. He held his tongue, though fiercely curious. Not that it truly mattered, but still he was curious.
"Yes," Arra suppressed a grin as she saw upon Anomen's face everything that was going through his mind.
"And your thieving skills?" Anomen's voice had no hint of the disdain that he usually glazed that term with.
"Those were just borne of my various childhood mischiefs among the elves. Hide-n-go-seek, breaking into the schoolhouse for some lighthearted vandal pranks, that sort of thing." Anomen's jaw dropped but he didn't scold. "Hey, it was just kid-fun. Not unlike the beginnings of your pal Imoen, judging from the stories Onyx tells."
"Hmm, actually your sprightly demeanor did remind me of her a bit."
"Oh?" Arra pestered him with faux-indignation. "So I just make you think of another girl, then?"
Anomen, needless to say, fell for this and got extremely flustered. "No no! Um, actually it was more the other way around; when I would happen to think of Imoen it would remind me of you?"
"Ah, so you've been daydreaming of Imoen then, have you?" Arra was wearing a mask of jealously which Anomen thoroughly fell for.
"No, not at all, I just mean when Onyx mentions her, I'll think of her momentarily, and that reminds me of you."
"Ah," Arra looked satisfied and her mind was spinning trying to twist that into an opportunity to act offended. Not coming up with one, she decided to try a different route. "He does talk about his sister and fiancé quite a lot, actually."
Anomen nodded, "I can't get him to shut up. Even talking about flails and swords and axes - which normally he can't shut up about - doesn't work anymore."
"So...you mentioned your sister a few times, but otherwise I haven't noticed you talking about anyone in particular." Arra, of course, knew the answer well enough.
"Well, that's because there IS no one in particular."
"I find that surprising," Arra said, truly enough. Well, other than the fact that she had guessed it already.
"Thank you, my lady."
"Arra," she said gently.
"Ah, sorry."
"It's fine...actually, I kinda like that better now that I think about it. My lady it is."
"As you wish, A- my lady."
"Aw," Arra smiled happily, leaned in slightly, and closer her eyes. Okay you dolt, she thought, now you have to make a frikkin move for once. These knights-in-shining-armor types are supposed to be so manly, why do they act so repressed? It's ludicrous. Truly ludicrous.
About damn time! she thought when she could sense Anomen's face just in front of hers. Well? You're gonna have to initiate this one. I'm not doing everything for you, Sir Pristine. I mean really, quit griping about your friend Onyx once in a while and take a hint from him. Judging from the type Aerie is, it's *obvious* he made the moves there, why can't you here? I think I'm being obvious enough, even for a handsome fighter of modest intellect like yourself. Why...
Arra's inner monologue was halted when she felt, in one instant, Anomen's hand cup the back of her head and his lips press over hers. Finally! Oh my god, he's actually a decent kisser. Who'd have known, I was beginning to think squire-boy here didn't even know about the birds and the bees. I'd have hardly guessed he'd hit puberty if it hadn't been for that cute goatee and - ah, there we go, about time you did something with that other hand...
Meanwhile, sticking out of Jaheira's pack on the floor, Belm was in its sheath. "Wow," the scimitar thought, "What are they...what the? How come my blacksmith never told me about these things? I'm not some little butter knife anymore, you know!..Ooh, that looks nice!.Hey, maybe I shoulda taken Lile up on his offer...darn it, Jaheira, if you're gonna stay in the outer room with Minsc's stuff, come get your pack!"