Mischief

The beginning was innocent enough. His tea was 'enriched' with sennea leaves, a known laxative. He had to ask for a cure spell from Jaheira in the middle of a battle with corrupted guards. Then nude pictures of richly endowed women poured out of his spellbook when he was asked to assist a local wizard in locating a lost son of Saradush noblewoman. Everybody saw as they scattered on the ground. Gooseberry was lured into his pack with a handful of crumbs, nearly giving him a heart-attack when he reached inside for one of the components. Xan would mutter 'Imoen…' or just sigh deeply, wipe the sneeze-inducing fur off, but think nothing of it. It was just the way one specific pink-head dealt with stress in her life.

Finding his robes in the morning, all died bright pink, was a touch more annoying, but also… impressive. After all, he wore a small cottage's worth in amulets and protective charms in them. To write a stable curse, that not only made it through his protections, but also stuck to enchanted fabric was no small feat. She was getting good at slipping spells under defenses – a deadly tool against enemy casters. He wore the eye-piercing outfit for an hour before dispelling it, commenting each of Imoen's sly grins with a heavy sigh. The mischievous mage deserved something for the hard work she put in and besides, dispelling it instantly would only encourage her to create a more lasting spell, whereas reusing the same joke so soon was definitely out of question. Knowing her talent and zeal for all things unpractical, she could possibly succeed in a permanent curse. And Xan liked those robes.

Also, a smile was shining in Daria's eyes each time she would glance at him, no matter how hard she tried to keep her face straight. And pink or purple, he was doomed because of that smile.

The pranks didn't end on the third day in Saradush and by now Xan couldn't help but notice that the pink-head was more than usually selective with her targets. When one of his scrolls exploded with a yipping confetti he was sure. All the jokes were played on him and only when Daria was present. Apparently, Imoen was taking revenge for her sister.

"Xan… Amin mela lle…" He turned to see her big violet eyes, looking deeply into his, a sparkle of silver hidden in their depths. He hugged her closer, feeling her warmth burning through his side. The sea breeze on a ship could be quite cold compared to the sultry atmosphere of Athkatla, especially in the evenings, but right now he could not be more comfortable.

Just because he was able to, he leaned closer, tip of his nose touching hers lightly, his hands circled around her form slowly stroking her back. Her gorgeous eyes half-closed and her lips parted on their own accord. Under his palms he felt her breath quicken, her scent of jasmine capturing him completely. Their scent, today – she shared her favorite tea. But he could never smell so sweetly.

Just a breath further he moved to taste her lips, savoring this sweetness, softly teasing and then deepening the kiss. He took his time, tasting the passing seconds, minutes… When they parted at last, Daria was melting in his embrace, making him feel strangely… accomplished.

"Xan…" she sighed. Her eyes were shining like stars over the sea. They were friends just a month ago. Kissing her like that should feel awkward and strange. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.

"Yes, melamin. I love you too" he lied, not the first time today, fully content.

This morning was as bitter as the previous, and the one before that. There was never a single memory that haunted his reverie to that degree, but Daria always was persistent. It was time to start the day, but Seldarine knew, he'd be happier staying in bed.

This time he was greeted by a butt painted on his spellbook. Imoen got into his room again during the night. Enough was enough. He took the defaced tome and marched to the third room in the hall.

He entered barely bothering to knock. Daria wasn't there fortunately. She shared the room with her sister, but apparently was already out in the early hours of the morning. Or maybe haven't returned yet, from late night work. They haven't really talked since they got here, busy dodging fireballs and putting up extra shields over the city, one after another, just to let the warriors operate in relative safety, rescuing citizens sand looking for a way into the palace. After they finished base defenses, only one in ten catapult missiles was getting through, and severely weakened at that. A small but success. The lord of the castle was unreachable. Nothing suggested he knew or cared about the ruin and the starvation among his own defenders.

Imoen in a fluffy robe greeted him with a perfectly innocent smile.

"Why, hey there, Xan! It's good to see you on this lovely day!" A light tremor sent a spray of dust from the ceiling when a fireball hit nearby. None of the two blinked, used to it already.

Xan threw his book at the pesky thief.

"Oh, a new field of study? It suits you!" her smile grew wider. Xan sighed.

"Whatever you want to say to me, girl, please, just use words. Otherwise you'd be better off keeping it shut. I don't like that gleam in your eye."

"Aw, Xan! Since when did I ever have a gleam in my eye?" she laughed like a friend would, after hearing a polite joke.

"Since the day you were born I'll wager" he muttered under breath.

"Well, you didn't think I'd make it easy for you, or did you?"

"Make what easy?"

"Crawling back to my sister. Do not look so flabbergasted, Xan! I can see the way you look at her, even if she can't. My sis may see into the future and past, but gosh, when something's right under her nose… Good thing she noticed Solaufein. Have you seen the way they look at each other?"

"You are trying to upset me and rater crudely. What happened to you Imoen? You were never that vicious before."

"What did you expect would happen? That the good, old Imoen would help you win her sister's favor back? That I would give some golden advice, that would let you just sweep her off her feet, after what you had done? I tried that, remember? I told you she loved you, that she's hurting, but did you listen? Nooo, good sir! Elves from Evereska are too important and always know everything best!" He threw the book back at him. 'You are an ass' the massage was now clear.

He turned his head and did his best to ignore her. Stating this conversation was clearly a mistake.

"So what's the plan?" the pink thief kept drilling, jumping on his path before he could leave. "If you want, you could ask her to study spells together, or say you want to teach her some more elven. Or was it done before? Helping her though her visions perhaps? Well, if all fails you can just fall to your knees and beg her to take you back… No, wait. She did that too. You are going to have a hard time topping that!"

No. He did that. He watched her beg on her knees not to leave her, to help her and yet he still told her 'no'. Now he felt bile rise in his throat at the very memory. He just wanted to forget about it, it was past, done. Gone.

"Enough. Imoen. You got your point across" He wished shame could burn, because he deserved at least a scar for that night. He wished he could make it never happen. He wished to go back and slap some sense into himself. Have one more try. Ha! Pathetic. Past wouldn't be forgotten that easily. "I… will stay away."

"Good. That was what I wanted to hear. She deserves someone that won't abandon her at first sign of trouble. And that's not you" Imoen only told him what he already knew.

If this day could get any worse… He thought, before realizing gods liked to treat such thoughts as a challenge.

Sewers stunk like a symphony composed with but the vilest and strongest odors human race could emit, either by themselves or with unnatural help. The native smells of results of human metabolism intertwined with sulphur, tar and many other flammable substances produced to fend off attackers wishing to invade the tunnels under the city. This was one of the two possible routes to the palace – that, and an old prison. Obviously no one wanted to clear this particular path, so they had to draw straws – for a healer, a warrior and a mage. Daria cheated. She didn't even have the decency to hide the silver spark in her eyes.

'Well, I wanted a punishment' Xan pondered to himself. 'This certainly qualifies.' Crawling through the sewers for humiliating the woman he loved. Yes, there was a certain poetic justice to it. As poetic as you could possibly call sewage.

Jaheira drew the short straw for a healer, but Anomen gallantly offered to take her place. Usually the druidess would scoff at such an offer, but it gave her and opportunity to keep an eye out on Daria. She was in an overprotective mode since they entered the besieged city, watching for the signs of divination burn-out in her ward, but so far none came. Also, the diviner took to being shadowed constantly surprisingly well. Old prison was supposedly trapped, and so Imoen went with her sister. Lucky for him, he'd get some respite at least from pranks. Minsc was the last of their team. And that meant…

"Hurry up, wretches! Or do you like the smell and want to stay here all day?" That meant Sarevok was with them. And somehow, the former Bhaalspawn got it into his head, that he was the leader in absence of Daria.

"Call me a wretch one more time, scum!" sir Anomen the Suave used his silver tongue to lower the tension rising in the group since the first breath of foul air.

"Or what, priestling? Are you going to 'watch me' to death?"

"Helm help me, I will do much more than that!"

"And what, you would let my dear sister's sacrifice go to waste by killing me?"

"What sacrifice?" sir Anomen barked.

"Ah, that's right, you don't know. Very well then, tell me that, sir knight. When the Time of Troubles was upon the mortal world and the gods were sent down, what did yours do?"

"Helm the Everwatching was tasked with guarding…!"

"Yes. He just stood back and watched. Maybe you should do the same."

Another bout of shadows and fiends erupted from under the sewage, putting this truly pointless argument on hold. Anomen took a defensive stance. Sarevok charged ahead without looking back. Xan put on yet another defensive spell and sighed. Was it even worth it? They were here because of an idle gossip of a tipsy barmaid. Daria supported it, true, but there was more than little doubt in her voice. It could be that she was afraid of confronting her brother… not of losing to him, no. More of wining – they could very well kill the general that was, at first at least, the main defendant of Saradush's citizens. But those scruples were irrational, that he knew well. Gromnir was a tyrant, plain and simple. In three days they already spent in the city, he heard enough stories from the starving citizens to the disorganized militia to be sure of that. Not to mention, that the supposed leader locked himself in the citadel and even his personal guard had been thinned out due to half-orc's paranoid behavior, resulting in an execution far more often than exile into the main city. They all saw bodies dangling from the towers. The fact that the only person in Saradush honestly concerned with Bhaalspawn's fate didn't wish him well either, no matter how diplomatically she tried to put it, did him no further favors. Though it was an oddity. Doubts Daria voiced about Melissan seemed unsupported for now though.

Not to get him wrong, Xan didn't trust Melissan either. There was something fundamentally wrong with a person who devoted her life to protecting all Children of Bhaal. He was desperately in love with one and yet he'd still think twice about trusting any of her siblings. Of course he'd never say they should all die, but saying they were all completely innocent was equally nonsensical. That in his eyes made Melissan either a naive idiot, a madwoman or a liar.

He sighed deeply. For the last two years, they always, unmistakably landed in the middle of a biggest conflict in the region. The war between Baldur's Gate and Amn, Irenicus' assault on Suldanessellar, now the Bhaalspawn Wars… He saw more war in those two years he knew Daria, than in two centuries he didn't, and this disaster of a war was shaping up to become the worst of the lot. How much longer could he go like that? How much could Daria? They were getting stronger, richer, more powerful, but those were surprisingly superficial changes. What they lost was far grater that what they gained.

"We are doomed" Xan couldn't help but know. This little team could barely handle each other without casualties, not to mention actual monsters that hived under the dying city. They were going to die a sad smelly death and Xan would be first to go, a mage without a proper cover from the front row fighters. Just his luck.

"I think the other group has their share of troubles too" the last addition to their group moved back from the dust left by the fallen fiend. He moved well in the shadows. The tunnels were probably more of a preference to him than the surface. The smell wasn't that great up there either and at least he was used to confined spaces. But a drow was truly not Xan's ideal of a stabilizing factor in any group.

"And how would you know that?" the enchanter asked with a sigh.

"Just a general feeling." A general feeling that let the drow cast spells with Daria as if they practiced together for years, their magic moving, flowing together as a one being. A feeling that let him sense she was in trouble from another side of the city. A feeling that made her protect him – from the sun she loved, from any monster she expected to find in the old prison, from all the people and the entire world should the need arise. Yes, Xan knew the feeling. Saw it before, at least.

All he felt was that he was drowning in a sea of excrement, forgotten, lonely and utterly doomed. Just another day of a worthless existence, leading exactly nowhere.

'I can stop this' a treacherous thought came unbidden. Daria cared, too much for her own good. Time and time again she had shown, for her friends she would do everything. And she still called him a friend. All he had to do, was to tell her exactly how hard getting up in the morning had became, how searingly painful it was to watch her walk beside Solaufein, how his heart couldn't stop fluttering in his chest, like a sparrow with a broken wing, eager to be free but unable to. It wouldn't even be hard, the words were ready, overflowing on the tip of his tongue…

And the she would do everything she could to ease his pain, make him feel at least a little better. Even avoid the drow, stopping their bond from forming completely. It would only be a delay, such things could never be halted for long, but perhaps a little of her attention would allow him to dream about something else than that kiss on Galante. Give him more time to prepare for the inevitable, maybe even…

Seldarine, what was happening to him? Even thinking like that was unacceptable and yet he indulged the thought of playing with her heart yet again, as if it was her fault, that he couldn't hold her, kiss her, take rest in her arms. Why couldn't he just accept they were done? At this point he should be running out of lows to sink into. Were it not for the siege, he'd probably be planning running away again, just picking up his gear and taking off in the middle of the night like a thief. After all... staying wasn't getting any easier and seven against a world didn't sound any more absurd than eight against the world.

"Listen up here, Sarevok – was it?" the drow approached the warrior with a smile. Xan could already see the two as excellent comrades. A scion of a murderous race and a Child of Bhaal sans Bhaal's essence. "If you keep running off like you do the moment an enemy appears somebody is going to get hurt. Spellcasters – me among them – need reliable cover to use magic. If we know we have time, we're able to use more complex and powerful spells."

"That sounds more like your problem than mine" Sarevok laughed.

Knife's edge pressing to his jugular artery stopped this laugh. Former Bhaalspawn narrowed his eyes.

"You are correct. This is my problem. That's why I will solve it. Fall back in line or I will take your place."

Xan almost enjoyed seeing Sarevok backed to a wall like that. And the drow wasn't joking. He must have killed his share of other males trying to claim his position in warrior's society. A share of innocents also. Right now though, looking from his race's perspective, he was at the top of the command chain, favored by the female leader. And clearly knew how to take an advantage like that.

Xan sighed. Did Daria truly know, what she's gotten herself into? He doubted that fiercely.

"I see no reason for any more conflict in this group" the drow backed away, still the same friendly smile on his face. Sarevok's scowl didn't waver. "Truly, such disagreements would only end in death."

"And what would the true leader of this group say to such misfortune?"

"I think Daria knows, it's sometimes best to cut your loses." And with that nothing civil was accomplished. Xan sighed.

The drow looked at him for a moment, as if waiting to see if he too would try to oppose his leadership. He wouldn't.

"Very well. Now with that out of the way, we should..." he moved ahead, stepping on a rune hidden in the waste.

"Watch out."It gave Xan no small amount of satisfaction to kick the drow out of the way of an incoming spell, right into the… muck. Disintegration hit him straight on, an.. popped, easily thwarted by a Necklace of Form Stability, not even triggering the extra counter-spell enchanter had squirreled away. Xan brushed off his cloak, preparing for another fight, as new batch of shadow fiends came, drawn by the sound of a sprung trap. The drow needed to put more care into his defenses if he was planning to lead. His inborn resistance to magic wasn't called an immunity for a reason. Daria certainly wouldn't be happy if anything bad happened to him.

The drow crawled out of the muck, wiping his face to see. Xan did his best not to smile. At least Imoen's ways weren't rubbing off on him that much.

"Thank you. I was… careless." The drow drew his sword, but started with his own stoneskins and spells. He did not curse, not threaten him, already showing far more restraint than Viconia ever did. Sarevok and Anomen stood together. Daria's mad half-brother at least waited half a second before rushing blindly at the enemies.

"You're welcome" Xan answered as neutrally as he managed. He needed to put extra care from now on, not to be 'rescued' into a sewer himself. If Imoen was here, he'd already be swimming in goo.

The time he had left to live – however short it was – he decided to give for Daria's sake. Whether that meant killing her siblings, trudging through human waste or protecting a drow she cared for, he would do it. Maybe he'd survive this war. Maybe even the next, that would inevitably follow. But he sincerely doubted that when the time come for him to join his ancestors in the Moonblade, he'd feel anything but how pointless his entire life was.