"If you are wrong…" The matron of Streeka'Xukuth hissed in warning, narrowing her pale eyes down at Kirisstind, who was prostrated before her archaic throne.
"I'm not, I promise you!" The drowess countered firmly, turning a fiery stare up at her adoptive matriarch, "And neither is Nieznevartvosk. If you cannot trust the very eyes of your own counsel, than what can you trust?" At this, the matron's hand slammed down onto the armrest, a quick breath escaping her throat.
"No one!" She roared, and Kirisstind bared her teeth, "And especially not you. Not yet, anyway." She added after a moment of reflection. With a sneer so twisted it rivaled the loathsomeness of Kirisstind's disfigured visage, she bent forward in her seat and raised a slender finger. "You listen to me, noamuth. Whatever act of insubordination you committed that got you that scar will not be reproduced in my house, is that clear?" She warned, her voice low, "I am Queen here, Kirisstind, and I will not tolerate any outbursts or impudence on the part of any of my underlings. And that, my dear new daughter, includes you. Do I make myself clear?" She raised an eyebrow, her nostrils flaring with each breath. Kirisstind stared long and hard at her new mother before inclining her head.
"Understood, matron." She grumbled and let a few moments pass before pressing on with her intended plot. "As I was saying, then, matron…about my sister." She kept her gaze to the floor but could still hear the matron shift irritably in her seat. "Nieznevartvosk has caught sight of her through his agents in the West. Perhaps she is still with the illithids; there is still time—" She urged, her voice rising once more.
"Time for what?" The matron barked. "Time for you to run out and chase her down?" She made a crude noise and eyed the top of Kirisstind's head. She frowned, annoyed at the young rogue's persistence, and annoyed at herself for acknowledging the problem with missing siblings and having to do something about it. Why couldn't things be simple for her? Why did there always have to be loose ends and missing chapters and recurring ghosts? Just when she thought she had rid the house of one of its larger blemishes, along came a new one…
"Yes…actually." Kirisstind replied brightly, snapping the matron from her contemplations. "I could speak with Niez—" She started, but was once again brutally cut off.
"Can't you just request to have her killed from here? I mean really…" The matron argued. "You're wasting my time, now." Kirisstind frowned.
"I could…"
"Then why don't you?"
"Because well, you see…"
"What? What is it?"
"When last I informed myself, Rose had been moved around—"
"And?"
"And well…she may not be there any longer. She may be dead…or…moved…somewhere."
"For the love of Lloth…"
"I don't know how these things work, dammit! But apparently there are other drow with her, and there's something in relation to them all that concerns an artifact – a rose of sorts. I don't know." At this the matron was stunned. She sat back and stared at the wall a moment, obviously rifling through something in her mind. Then, she returned her gaze to the expectant Kirisstind and breathed a single word.
"Dil'andau." Kirisstind blinked idly.
"What about him?" She droned. What did any of this have to do with her new freak-of-a-brother? The matron sighed a great sigh and rolled her eyes, her hands moving to cradle her forehead.
"I sent my son out to find the Kyrashar Rose." She explained at length. "I was hoping he'd just get lost and die out on his own, but apparently he found some friends – including your sister and some illithids." She shook her head and dropped her hands to her lap. "What are the odds that they're all dead? I mean, really…the illithids can't possibly have use for a couple dirty, emaciated, ill-wise drow, can they?" She nodded to herself, trying to convince herself that her son and the problematic new sibling were indeed dead. "Maybe they're already dead and we're just worrying ourselves over nothing…" Kirisstind made a face at the daydreaming matron.
"I don't know about your son, but I honestly don't think my sister is such a quick-fix." She waited for some acknowledgement from the matron, got none, then continued flatly. "I want to make sure Rose is dead. I can't sleep at night wondering when she'll come back and finish what she started." The scar across her face seemed to sting right then. "I want to find her. I will arrange to have her detained – whether by the illithids or by any other means necessary depending on circumstance – and then I will go to her and finish her off myself." She grinned wickedly at her decision and looked to the matron, who had returned to the present and was staring at her thoughtfully. "And if your son is there when I find Rose, then I'll just have to hit two birds with one stone, now won't I?"
"Oh?" The matron cooed, amused suddenly. "And just how do you plan on finding Rose if she's not with the illithids?" She batted her lashes patronizingly. Hell, if the woman wanted to go off into the wilds and chase down a potential threat and a house nuisance, then why should she be stopped? It's not like Kirisstind had been much help to House Streeka'Xukuth since her adoption, what with her interminable obsession with Rose… Kirisstind shrugged.
"Do you have a map?" She asked. The matron grinned widely.
"No." She answered and Kirisstind's face fell. "I gave the only one I had to Dil'andau when he left." She chuckled, "But I'll see what I can do…"
***
"We are so going in circles." Dil'andau moaned, plopping down beside his bedroll; he pointed to a moldy rock nearby, "See?! I remember that rock! We've been here before." He stared hard at the rock, eyes narrowed, and then turned an angry glare over at Zojikoe, who was fussing over a rock in his boot. The mage glared back at him and opened his mouth to retort, but a small white head poked out from behind him and spoke first.
"How can you tell that rock from the one in your head?" Mezzen quipped defensively and immediately disappeared back behind Zoe as soon as Dil made a move towards him.
"Jam it, Dil!" Ka cried, appearing above the warrior and promptly dropping her backside down onto him, pinning him to the ground, "Just leave him." She frowned over at her brother and hoped he understood the look she was giving him. Beneath her, Dil squirmed.
The group had spent the last day wandering almost aimlessly through the tunnels just beyond the illithid city in hopes of finding the trail to the elusive Ice Caves. Unlike before, the tunnels intersected now, fanning out into a multitude of directions that could technically all be followed in order to reach a general northward location. However, the tunnels were a great deal more confusing now then ever before, and even Zojikoe's photographic memory seemed to be failing them. The young mage continued to lead the group, but was no longer chatty – his attention centered entirely on the maze of pathways he was digging himself deeper into.
Rose sat down atop her own blankets and stifled a yawn. "I'm sure we can trust Zojikoe to take us to where we want to go." She opted, opening her arms to Mezzen, who hurried over to her and settled down in her lap.
"Yeah, 'cause that got us far last time!" Dil'andau cried out angrily, leaning to the side to look past Ka, who remained perched atop him. He made a gesture at Zoe and made a face. "Stupid moron got us all enslaved! What next, champ? Rabid halflings?!" He gritted his teeth.
"What's a halfling?" Came Mezzen's predictable inquiry. The boy knew nothing. Nothing.
"Shut up." Dil snapped at the boy instantly. Ever since he saw the adorable little runt, he hated him – with a passion.
"Don't say that to him." Rose scolded, hugging the boy closer to her. She moved to get her panther as backup, but Ka signaled her and patted Dil's knee with a grin.
"Never mind, I got him." The psion assured her lightly. Rose narrowed her eyes at Dil and called her cat to her nonetheless.
"I know where we're going." Zojikoe said quietly, finally pulling his boot back on and settling down on his blankets. He gave Dil an evil stare. "I just got confused with the forks in the tunnels is all. We're on-track now and we'll be out of this mess by tomorrow night, I swear it." He looked over at Rose, unable to further take Dil's unimpressed look without feeling the urge to throttle him. The man had a gift for making him look bad. There was a moment of silence, and then Dil's vice piped up again.
"That still doesn't explain this freaking rock!" He went on, pointing vaguely in the direction the familiar rock had been in. Ka sighed.
"Who cares, Dil'andau?" Zoe snapped, "It's a rock. You probably saw fifty of them in the last ten minutes and you just think you've seen this one before because you feel like pissing me off right now!" He pried his eyes from the lovely image of Rose and Mezzen and looked over at his sister and her pet sword-biscuit. Dil'andau frowned, drew in a breath, and violently shoved Ka off of him.
"What's the matter, champ? Feeling the stress?" He teased with a mocking pout, "Little pansy trying to look good in front of his little maggot?"
"What's a—" Mezzen started, but Rose instantly quieted him by cupping her hand over his mouth. With a quick gesture, she motioned for her pet panther to go towards Dil'andau. Dil shot the kid an evil glare and looked to Zoe.
"You really have no idea where we're going!" He accused, his voice rising. Beside him, Ka was on all fours.
"You're being loud! Shut up!" The psion growled angrily.
"You shut up!" Dil whined back at her and moved towards Zojikoe. "Why didn't you just say that you have no clue where we're going and that we're all gonna end up—" He went on, eyeing the panther that was quickly closing in on him. Zoe shuffled backwards at once.
"Like you know any more than I do!" He cried childishly, tripping in his bedroll and falling onto his backside. The second he fell back, Dil was upon him.
"Damn right I do!" The warrior argued, ineffectively trying to get his hands around the writhing mage's neck.
"Do not!"
"Do so!"
"Do not!"
"Do so!"
Rose's panther sprung into action then, knocking Dil off of Zojikoe and perching itself atop him as Ka had earlier. Zoe took a few breaths and brushed himself off, hauling himself back up to a sitting position.
"Ha! Told you!" He cried triumphantly over at his half-buried nemesis. He flashed Rose a smile but she didn't return it. In fact, she looked terribly unimpressed; in her arms, Mezzen was staring at the Dil-and-Slayer pile. Zoe's grin disappeared, "As if you'd know more about the way to go than I do…HA! That's bullshit" He cried. There came a rustling sound, and a groan, and then Dil'andau's muffled voice cracked the silence.
"Oh yeah?! So where'd I get the map, then?!" He cried just as triumphantly as Zoe had earlier. The whole crew looked over in the direction Mezzen was looking and there, from beneath the panther, clenched in Dil's upraised hand, was a piece of old parchment paper. Silence fell.
"You've got to be kidding me." Ka said at last. As if in reply to her, Mezzen climbed off of Rose and scrambled over to Slayer; he reached up and gingerly plucked the piece of paper from Dil's hand (which was immediately followed by a loud 'Hey!') and examined it.
"Yup. It's a map." The boy declared with finality. He looked up at Zoe and grinned, holding up the map for him to see. "See?" He pressed. There came another silence as everyone examined the map with their own eyes. It was indeed another map, much like the one they had lost weeks before.
"Hey…" Dil called from beneath Slayer, breaking the silence. "…someone wanna take the cat off? Rose? Anyone?"
Rose's eyes flashed over in Dil's direction; she looked to the map, and back again. In her mind, all she could see was the inside of the illithid closet she had been locked in. She looked over at Zoe; the mage was staring at the map, his mouth open, his mind surely reeling in memory of all the guilt he felt over a situation that hadn't been his fault. She looked back to the map, and then to Dil'andau.
And then something snapped.
"GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" The priestess screeched, at the top of her lungs, as she tore off her bedroll and lunged at Dil, scaring her cat off in the process. The scream startled everyone, causing them to draw back and away from her path, as she fell upon Dil'andau in a flurry of white hair and dark robes.
Ka watched the scene somewhat idly, and immediately made a bee-line for Mezzen as soon as the wild Rose had zoomed by. She reached the boy, who had climbed onto Zoe for protection and was watching the scrape with wide eyes, and snatched the map from his tiny hand. She inspected the map more closely, and frowned to find that on this version of the map, the Caverns of Thought were marked properly; whereas on the map her matron had given her, the same spot had been marked as being the Ice caves. So in reality, Zojikoe had indeed led them correctly – it was just the map that was erroneously marked.
Surprise, surprise…
"Well shit." Ka mused, staring at the map and shaking her head. Beside her, Zojikoe made a 'hmph' noise.
"I guess Irialishae really did want to kill you after all." He commented dryly, then added, "That must suck." Ka looked over at him and gave him a dull look. Zoe grinned.
"Goddess fuck my eye Lloth!" Dil's panicked scream rose up from the scuffle a few feet away. Zoe and Ka looked up from the map and Mezzen gasped.
"Watch your mouth! The kid, the kid!" Zojikoe scolded, but remained passive. Beside him, Ka darted off towards the fight in a flash of red.
"Hang on, Dil!" She cried and threw herself on top of Rose, tackling her off Dil'andau and crashing off to the side a few feet away. The crazed priestess turned on Ka then and began clawing at her as she had done to Dil.
"Rose! Wait! Sweet mother of spiders!" Zoe cried, getting into the action at long last, dropping Mezzen instantly and darting after the two tangled females. He jumped over Dil, who was desperately trying to claw his way out of attack range, and threw himself at Rose and Ka.
"Let go!" He growled, yanking on Rose's hands, "Let go let go let go let go!" He pried the priestess' fingers, one by one, out of Ka's hair and pulled her bodily away from her scrambling sister. He pulled her backwards until he tripped over the rock the Dil'andau was so certain he'd seen before and fell onto his backside for the second time in that evening. Rose collapsed against him and he held her in a death grip until her breathing returned to normal.
A few feet away, Ka crawled over to Dil, who was on his back and panting, Slayer pacing around him warily. She leaned over the warrior's face and peered down at him. He had a cut lip, a bloody nose and was bleeding from a few sets of perfect little half-moon-shaped cuts over his neck and face. Ka frowned and held up the map before his eyes.
"Why didn't you tell us you had this when you lost mine the first time?" She asked suspiciously. Dil swallowed thickly and looked to the side.
"I forgot I had it." He admitted quietly.
Ka watched his face for a moment, waiting for him to look at her again, but instead, he continued to stare off to the side. When he narrowed his eyes at something, Ka followed his gaze. Not twenty feet away, Mezzen was standing still as a board, staring at what appeared to be another of the large Underdark birds that Ka had seen earlier during her trip. The huge creature was absurdly colorful and comical in its manner and appearance. Though Ka had seen one before, Mezzen obviously had not. And the boy was hyperventilating.
Dil chuckled. "Stupid kid." He made a face. "It's a bird for Lloth's sake."
Ka stared at the boy a moment, unsure of what to do. She looked over her shoulder at Zoe and Rose and was happy to see that Rose hadn't attacked her brother as she had attacked her. Feeling quite useless and rather stupid, she cleared her throat and called out to her companions.
"Um…Zoe?" She tried and thumbed back at the Mezzen. "Your kid is freaking out." She added a lopsided grin to the declaration and hoped for the best.
Zoe whipped around, along with a suddenly very-sober Rose, to look at Mezzen. "Crap!" He cried and jumped to his feet, pulling Rose with him. He hurried towards the boy with Rose in tow and shooed the large bird away when he got within range.
"Relax, Mezzen." Rose soothed as Zoe knelt down before the boy and forced him to make eye-contact with him. "It's okay…it's just a bird. It's okay." She held the boy firmly in place and Zoe coached Mezzen to mimic his breathing.
Opposite them, Dil pushed himself to a sitting position, his eyes still on Mezzen and the little scene unfolding itself before him. "Wow." He mused more to himself then to Ka, "If he's going to do that every time he sees something new, I'm going to stab myself with a fork. Multiple times." Beside him, Ka chuckled.
"You do that." She said quaintly. Dil flopped back down.