Through Fire

It was shaming how easily Minsc forgave her, when she apologized for almost ripping his arm out, the second time she took the Slayer's form. She tried to talk to him as privately as possible, especially away from Sarevok's ears. The berserker laughed at her, as if it was but a small misunderstanding, common among friends. Jaheira wasn't any better, scoffing at her heartfelt apology for all the terrible, hurtful things she said, even berating her for dragging out such an ancient history. Imoen hugged her, as if being half-scared to death was something she was grateful for. Daria desperately needed someone to be at least slightly angry with her, a just punishment for a month of abuse she forced on her friends. For now she sat by a small fire she enchanted, gathering courage to apologize to Xan. So far a small panic attack stopped her every time she tried to get up and find him.

"Can I join you?" It seemed she didn't need to get up after all, for the elf in question found her. She nodded quickly and he took a sit on the opposite side of the swirling white fire. "I wanted to thank you for summoning me here, with the others."

"It wasn't actually my choice." His expression didn't shift one bit, but she felt he was disappointed. "It seems the spirit summoned people whose fates are still linked to mine. Valygar wasn't included in this list, but Imoen says he was fine the last time she saw him. Hopefully he won't miss her too much."

"Then I am happy for that fate… Daria, I…"

"No, Xan… I need to apologize to you first" she interrupted forcing a smile. "Gods know, I did some terrible things since Spellhold and I just need someone to listen to my ramblings before I lose my mind… Again."

"Given how I acted, I don't think you should be the one apologizing…" It was rational that he should want to talk to her, straighten things out after their last conversation, but now the he came near an unwanted memory of her warmth by his side and the gently rocking of the deck of Galante bit like a viper, poisoning his heart with regret. "But I will listen to you, always."

Daria's brow furrowed as she searched her memory for all she wanted to apologize for, but then her eyes found his again, over the low fire. For stealing, first.

"Remember, when we were in Ust Natha and slipped up… I didn't act… 'drow' enough and Phaere noticed something was wrong? She thought it was the pressure showing. She ordered one of her slaves to serve me and…"

"I remember" Xan interrupted, more harshly than he intended to.

"I… I stole your spellbook when you were sleeping and copied all the spells you didn't want me to know about, when you were teaching me before. Including the false memory spell. When we first arrived in the city, I thought we needed a contingency plan, should something go awry and only you had spells strong enough to break through dark elves' inborn resistance to magic. It didn't even occur to me to ask you, I just took them. One of those spells saved me that day, but I know that's no excuse. I'm sorry."

Xan felt his muscles relaxing. The filth never touched her. Good. He cleared his throat.

"What's important is that you are unhurt. If I were foolish enough to let something that… unthinkable happen to you, because of my reluctance to share my magic… If you had asked me and I said no… I dread to even think about it. No, I am completely content with the fact that you took them." Somehow he was entirely certain, that he would leave her to the same fate she helped him avoid mere hours later, he was that much of a fool. But he'd never have to find out. For that he was more grateful than he could find the words to describe.

"And I'm sorry that I hit you" Daria continued, her eyes on him in a mute plea for forgiveness. "I was so focused on maintaining pretenses of a drow female that I… I just acted it out. But it was all real. And I'm sorry."

He remembered the slap quite clearly, as well as her words, to never touch her again. Those words still haunted him.

He sighed. Deeply.

"Those pretenses and an incredible luck, were the only reasons we left Underdark alive. You don't have to apologize for that either. But." He cut her off, seeing she had many more apologies prepared. If this was the moment to admit to all the sins they committed against each other, then he had a fair share of his. Including an old one, he should have cleared with her long time ago. Who knew, maybe it would give some clarity to the nature of the strained and angst-ridden remnant of a relationship they had.

"I should have said something long time ago. Actually, I should have said something the very next day, I don't know why I didn't… No, that's a lie, I know exactly why…"

"Xan…" she whispered. Right. He was getting off track. He pursed his lips trying to find the right words. Finally, he just threw the words out, trying to cast them out of his mind. "I kissed you that night in Umar Hills." Daria's eyes widened. That she didn't expect. "You were… more than free of your divinations already and I was supposed to just take you to your room. I helped you up the stairs and got you to bed without major problems, but then… I don't know how it happened! I swear I was sober!" He risked a glance at her and couldn't believe what he saw. Her lips were twitching between a smile and a frown, like she was trying to keep her face straight, but couldn't. She was laughing at him!

"This is serious, Daria!" He couldn't help but feel humiliated, as she started giggling. That secret caused him more than one sleepless night, spent dreading what would happen if she ever found out and trying not to imagine, what would happen if he stayed. "That was not some light peck on a cheek! You were completely inebriated and to be assaulted like that…" He stopped yelling when he finally notices that her eyes were shining too much, for mirth to be a source of her laughter. Tears were rolling down his former best friend's cheeks, as she fought to compose herself. Her heart was still breaking and there was only one cause.

"I'm sorry" Xan apologized. Sincerely.

"I-I thought I said something wrong about your parents, or you saw my scars, or…" she could speak again, albeit a little breathily. With a sleeve of her robes she quickly wiped her tears, as if there was any chance he hadn't seen them. "As it is… I forgive you for making an attempt on my virtue" she stated officially.

Seldarine, she was insufferable. After all this time she could still make him blush with just a few words.

"I suppose we're even then? No, we're not" he answered himself. "But at least now you know, you have nothing to apologize for. As for all the rest… I don't think I should be forgiven for abandoning you in your hour of need. I honestly don't think I deserve it. So…"

"Xan, I forgive you" she stopped him before he finished. "You did what any sane person would, seeing… Well, let's just agree that Slayer isn't pretty."

"And yet I should not behave like any 'sane' person. Run away, what? Maybe grab a pitchfork and find the nearest mob?" Xan sighed. "You are you. You have always been you, no matter what Irenicus or your father did to you."

"Xan, stop. You say that now, but only because we managed to recover my spirit in time. Your hindsight is perfect. Only back then none of us, including me, knew if I would turn back, if I'd stay coherent, if I wouldn't wake up in the night and murder you all or not! I walked into the Spellhold fully expecting to die – all my visions showed so. If I hadn't expected to just drop dead, maybe I'd have handled it better. If you knew I could get whole again, you'd react differently. Now it's just empty speculation. We should have acted better, but did what we could."

So she was walking to her death that day, fully aware. Xan looked at his friend for a long moment. He wanted to hold her. He needed to… to try to squeeze all the pain and misfortune out of her body. A futile attempt he couldn't even make. He hung his head.

"I should have known you needed me. And if not that, I should have hoped. I didn't and for that I am forever in your debt." He got up to leave.

Sorrow that filled her eyes in one moment stopped him dead in his tracks.

"Xan… I took your chance for happiness away." He felt his heart stop at these words. The topic he was circling around seemed to have caught up to them. She was talking about herself, wasn't she? There was no other chance of happiness he saw for himself, but it wasn't her that took it away.

"I see many possible futures" she blinked the tears away, looking up, into the emerald sky. "Some are good, most bad, but I rarely see more than a glimpse… A foretelling. No cause, no context, just a moment. It makes it possible to avoid, but… impossibly hard to make true."

"Daria…" This time it was his turn to stop her from veering off to dark thoughts.

"I saw a moment like that. A good future, where you seemed so happy. And I broke it. I did something wrong and the future took a different turn. I can't fix this. It… It wasn't intentional." That was what she was trying to tell herself. That jealousy in itself couldn't destroy a future like that. That she did everything she could to make it happen.

"Tell me everything" Xan asked. He wanted to reach to her, take her hand, but the fire between them helped keeping those urges in check. Good, because he knew he wouldn't be able to stop at just her hand. He wanted to hold her, bury her in his arms just one more time, take her breath away. But there were other ways he could make her feel better and he'd do well to choose them, rather than look for an excuse to fulfill his own selfish desires.

"I really don't think it will help if…" she started to fumble with words, but again he stopped her, gently interrupting.

"Daria, I know you." He looked into the fire reflected in her violet eyes. The pain in his chest showed no signs of subduing anytime soon. "I know that because your gift you see us get injured or die every day, see horrors and tragedies we don't, all for the sole purpose of saving us from having to live through them. Daria, you cannot keep it all inside. Sooner or later, it will drive you mad."

The diviner watched him with her big sad eyes and he felt his own despair weighting him down like a blanket made of rocks. Finally, she seemed to have come to a decision. She shifted her legs to hug her knees, as if this could shield her from all the tragedy that followed her, and began.

"Long time ago, in the Trademeet Druid Grove, I had a vision of you. It was just a few seconds, barely enough to look around, a strange fleeting moment. But what I did saw… It was enough. For as long as I'd known you I have never seen you so… happy." For a second there was warmth in her eyes that wasn't a reflection of the fire, but quickly she pressed her face to her knees. "You were with someone." He could barely make out her voice.

"By 'being with someone' do you mean…" he cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Yes." She muttered, still hidden.

"Oh."

"I didn't know the woman, but since you said that you've never been there before, I assumed it was the future. And then, when I woke up in Suldanessellar, I saw her. It was the priestess from the Rillifane temple, she looked just as I remembered. I thought you two already… But you left, when I thought you would stay with her and the assassin attacked – she went after her first. Xan… she died…"

"And you thought..."

"She was your love, a light in your future. That's why I never really believed, when you told me you loved me. It was just for a while, a pleasant moment." He had no right to, he knew, but Xan couldn't help the deep hurt those words left him with. And maybe he would have said something to show he was offended, if only he hadn't treated her exactly as one would a momentary attraction. Left at the first sight of trouble. "That's why you didn't hurt me that deeply. I will be alright. But you..."

He sighed heavily. His hand made it halfway to her face, to wipe the tears from her eyes, before he realized that moving it any further would only result in a burn.

"I know what I did wrong. I assumed too quickly, that you were already a pair. If I insisted you stay, maybe there was a way you would have stopped the assassin."

"Daria, stop. Please." He sighed again, from the bottom of his heavy heart. There it was, clear as a day, her greatest vice and the main source of all her troubles, her most defining feature. No matter if she had just lost a man she considered her father and was chased away from her home, spent months in a dark dungeon with only her pain as a constant companion, or was spiritually eviscerated by a repulsive madman – the very moment someone asked for her help, be it a lost miner's wife, a noblewoman who lost her keep, a follower of Eilistraee in a city ruled by Lloth… a captive enchanter – she would swallow her pain, open her heart and give it all she had. This selfless, at times masochistic, caring must have been the single most unfortunate attitude a Bhaalspawn could be born with.

And if that alone didn't doom her enough, she mastered divinations, an ability that put the world squarely at her shoulders. For her friends, her family, no future was good enough. Every misery, every missed opportunity was her fault. That meant she would feel guilty, unless she examined every possible outcome of every imaginable situation and not only nothing bad happened throughout the entirety of their lives – every choice she made must have resulted in the best possible outcome.

Which was, needless to say, impossible.

"Why do you punish yourself so?" he asked.

"Because I failed you." There was so much anguish in her voice it took all of his will not to ignore this cursed fire he did his best to keep between them.

"Daria. Mellonamin… Both my parents had the gift of foresight yet neither chose the path of a diviner. I always knew why, but only now I understand it fully. You are not a god, Daria, at least not yet. You cannot force the world to bend to your will, no matter how hard you try."

"But that was important!" she almost screamed at him.

"No, it wasn't" Xan's voice didn't change. "It was one possible moment among milliards others. For all we know it if you never saw it, it wouldn't come to be anyway. Now it means nothing. A good woman died, devoted to her god and temple, but neither of us knew her very well."

"…but if she was meant to be the one for you…" Her voice was so quiet he barely heard her. I took him a moment to realize what she meant.

"Daria, what you say is foolish and you don't even realize how much. A bond between elves is not some passing infatuation, that strikes you when you see a pair of eyes you like, a handsome face or an attractive figure. It's not that if she wore a different dress or said a few more words, I would have fallen for her and the future would be as you saw it. A bond is mystical, it's a connection… It's not even about being alike or sharing interests. If she were… If we were meant for each other, I would have noticed her blindfolded in a thick fog." A hopeless romantic in him was showing, but what other words could he use to describe something that she neither saw or felt? There was nothing to compare it to, not in the human world she grew up in. "It's a merciless force that draws two people together ignoring all protests and reasoning. It's love that doesn't wither or fade, clings to you even if nothing else does. It's saying 'I will never let you go' and meaning it. Do you understand?" he looked at her, even despite he knew his eyes shone too much for him to mean it as a simple question.

"Because when you love somebody, you can't abandon them, no matter how bad things seem…" she answered showing she understood him, just not the way he'd like.

"Yes" he had to agree, feeling himself settle back in the dark mists of despair. Daria didn't seem happy with her own answer either. "So she couldn't have been my bondmate. I… well. A possible short happiness perhaps, but..."

"Do you hate me?" she asked. After all this time, how could she still ask? Was she expecting him to be disappointed, or angry at her, for costing him one impossible path? Because it was impossible, of that he was certain. His heart was beyond the point where he could love anyone else.

"No, I don't. You held this burden long enough, mellonamin. Please don't, not anymore…" Tears that once again filled her eyes, but it was not yet relief and he wrecked his mind to find something light to tell her, something that could lift her spirit.

"Xan…" her sigh was his name and before he could stop her, she reached to him through the fire.

"Daria!" He sprung to his feet faster than he though possible and – the moment etching itself on his memory as if burned in – grabbed her hand, pulling it away from the blaze.

"Don't worry, it's harmless." Her palm closed around his, the touch of her skin filling his mind like a first breath after almost drowning, and guided their intertwined hands back to the fire. The element spat angry sparks at them and surrounded their hands, but did nothing else. It was pleasantly warm, far from painful. Xan watched the flames licking their unprotected skin, dancing around them. "Too good an illusion, huh? It helps me remember… I don't really know what. I guess it reminds me that there's always a danger."

Few sparks settled on her sleeve. He wanted to hold her so badly, to forget everything that happened up to this point, everything he had done to push her away and just close her in his arms, feel her warmth, breathe her scent… Mustering all his strength he let go of her hand.

"Talk about what you see. To me, Imoen, Jaheira… Solaufein. This is too great a burden to shoulder alone. You try to assume control over something mortals normally can't as much as perceive. The Bhaalspawn wars will not be just a small skirmish we could hope to avoid. I fear Faerun had not seen anything like it yet…"

In a split second her eyes overflowed with silver, dwarfing the small campfire and drawing the attention of everyone in the pocket plane.

"That which hath passed is ne'er truly gone,

History repeats, though mortals choose not to see.

War and bloodshed are not new to the Realms,

A God that once hath been may be once again."

He moved closer to her, not touching, but hovering around her, should she faint after that intense foresight. But when the silver faded from her eyes she didn't as much as waver. She looked at him completely alien and for once, he had no idea what was going through her mind.

"The last" she spoke, her voice no longer the changed echo that read the verses of the prophecy, but not yet her own. "This will be my last battle. Xan, I need your help, but if you stay, it will be to till the end. I fear this is your last chance to stay clear of this conflict. Will you stay or leave?"

He already abandoned the false hope for having anything to say in this matter. He could struggle as much as he wanted, but he could not leave her behind. That's why he did the only thing he could.

Xan knelt, bowing his head before his doom.

"Until I draw my last breath or this war ends, I will stay by your side and protect you. This I swear."

"Thank you for being here. Even after everything… Xan, I am truly honored by your friendship."

The smile he gave her was weak even by his standards, but it was a smile.