Disclaimer: Nothing familiar belongs to me. I'm not making any money off of this, just having a bit of fun.

Long After

He watched as she entered the tavern. Everyone did, her presence drew them all like moths to a flame. An apt analogy, he thought, as she was just as likely to cause destruction. Most of them watched for her lithe form, rare but infectious laugh, and sheer force of personality. He watched because he wanted to know. He wanted to know if her hand still always rested just above the blade on her leg, unconsciously, schooled by long periods of constant violence. He'd had a part in creating that habit in her, and was absurdly proud of it, even as he felt disgust over his former self. He wanted to know if she still held her head slightly lowered, peering upwards through thick lashes as she spoke to someone, giving a false air of inattention. If she still pulled slightly to the right when tired, a reflection of the scars left by a mad wizard's attention. If she still woke at night with a little gasp, inaudible unless one was also plagued by nightmares, or more frequently, unable to sleep at all. If she still, no matter the cost, would rather save a man, any man, than kill him. And, barring that possibility, if she could still kill with that cold efficiency that had terrified those who had called themselves her friends. Had terrified everyone but him.

She moved unerringly toward his table, though he hadn't seen her look at him even once. Not that he would, he supposed. If she hadn't wanted to be noticed, he wouldn't have seen her at all. Wordlessly, she took a seat, brilliant green eyes studying him for several moments. He couldn't read her expression any more, and he felt that loss keenly. "You're a hard woman to find," he said finally, after the silence had lingered long enough to become uncomfortable.

"Most people," she replied, her tone dry, "would take that as a hint. You, however, seem inclined to do absolutely everything the hard way."

"One of my better traits." The corners of his lips quirked up into a half smile. "It's served me well enough thus far."

"Indeed. What is it you wanted, exactly."

"To talk." He gave her a long, searching look. "I'd heard you'd vanished from the Realms."

"For a while. I needed to be left alone. After..." She let the word trail off, hoping he wouldn't need an explanation. He didn't, but pressed on anyway.

"After what?"

"The Throne. Melissan. All of it." She smiled bitterly. "For every person who thought me a hero, there was another who hated me. And I didn't want to deal with any of them. With the assassins, the glory seekers, or the fools who decided that they, too, had a right to me."

"And so you left?"

She nodded slightly. "I travelled. Long enough and far enough that people began to forget. One of the perks of being elven...it's not so long a stretch, from our perspective. And I've been around. I've kept in touch with some. You vanished yourself..."

"For a while." He smirked slightly, purposely mirroring her words. "I needed to be left alone."

"Yes, well, you deserved the hatred."

"Indeed." His voice was soft, thick with self-loathing.

"I'm sorry, that was..."

"No," he cut in. "You're right. I deserved it, and more. What I did, what I was..."

"Was not so unlike the others."

"You believe it was the blood, then?"

"Maybe..." She sounded uncertain. It had been a long time since he'd heard her sound uncertain, since the first of their confrontations.

"But you didn't turn out as we did."

"Prophetical saviour, and all that." She sounded bitter. He didn't blame her, she'd been pulled one way and then another by the prophets, the fates, and the idiots who followed both blindly.

"And Imoen?"

"Is...Imoen." As though that explained everything. Perhaps, to her, it did.

"And you're you." He paused for a moment, thinking. "In that plane, in the Abyss...we fought something that was meant to be you, if you had lived my life. Do you think..."

"That I would have turned out that way, if I really had lived your life?" She smiled gently. "No. Nor would you have become me, had you lived mine. We're not the same person, you and I. So while we would have become different people than we both are now, we wouldn't have necessarily made the same choices as one another. Who knows...perhaps we'd both be dead, and Melissan or one of the Five ascended. There is, after all, no such thing as fate...not if we're to have any true choice in life."

"Now there's a terrifying thought..."

"I know. I dream about it sometimes. It's enough to make me wish sleep was unnecessary."

"So, you still have nightmares." That was one of his questions answered. He supposed she'd have to, after what she'd lived through.

She nodded slightly. "Yes. Often. They're not the same as they were, though. No dead gods or mad mages playing with my mind. They're just...normal." She laughed sharply. "As much as that term can apply to such as you and I."

"Do you ever regret it?" he asked quietly. "Remaining mortal, I mean."

"Sometimes. When I think of the things I could have done, the changes for the better..."

"So why did you do it?" He hadn't dared ask before. No one had. And then she'd vanished, and there hadn't been another chance.

"Because I couldn't trust that I wouldn't become corrupted by the power. I'd lost myself more than once to it, when it was only a fraction of Bhaal's essence." She shuddered, remembering the slick slip into darkness that characterised her transformations into the Slayer. "With all of it... Well, I didn't want to lose myself for good. And I didn't want the power, really, or feel I deserved it. Besides, if I'm destined to become a god, I will."

"I thought you didn't believe in fate."

She grinned. "I don't."

"You said something to the Solar, just before we were sent back. What was it?"

"Ask me again after I die." She hesitated, pinning him with her gaze once more. "My turn for a question."

"Ask it."

"Why did you want me to meet you here?"

He sighed heavily. "I'm dying. I wanted to know, before I did."

"To know what?"

"Everything. About who you are, now. About who you were then."

She raised an eyebrow, the only indication of her surprise at his reply. "And do you?"

"No." He smiled wearily. "But it's enough."

"Good." She stood, drawing her cloak around her lean frame. "Goodbye, brother. I do not think we'll meet again."

The old man watched as she walked away, her strides pulling her slightly to the right. Her hand rested on her thigh, just above the hilt of the blade he knew she carried there. The rest of the tavern's patrons watched as well, hardly daring to breathe. And then she was gone, and the room seemed suddenly empty for her passing, and at the same time lighter, as though a shadow had lifted.

Sarevok had his answers. As much as she had changed, she was still Airleas. Still the woman he had created, and the one who had created him. He drained his tankard and stood, and then he, too, was gone into the darkness.