Disclaimer: I don't own Neverwinter Nights 2 or the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. Those belong to Obsidian et al and Wizards of the Coast.

Sweetest in the Gale

Fair and Foul

There were a few things that Wyl Mossfeld was absolutely certain of. The sun rose in the east, West Harbor was a muck-filled hole (someday, he and his brothers had sworn every year, they'd make their way to Neverwinter and their fortunes there, like Lorne and Cormick had), and he and his brothers were the best fighters in the little swamp town.

Though, he thought as he watched the Lannons and the Misfits pound on each other with the flimsy little clubs Merring had provided, Starling wasn't too far behind them. A good fighter, he'd give Starling that. But - and there was a smirk pulling at his lips that he had to cover with a hand to make sure Merring didn't start in on him - Starling was too easily distracted. You'd think he would've learned with his brother's match against Cormick years ago, but Starling's head was about as thick as the layers of peat moss around the edge of town.

Rose Lannon swung her club down in an overhand strike that would've gotten a lecture from Georg, missing Amie Fern by a mile as the little blonde danced back. Webb whooped from beside him, and Wyl rubbed at his ear and shot a look at his brother. Fine, so Webb fancied the old wizard's apprentice. He didn't have to scream it to the Realms in his bloody ear, thanks. Webb offered an apologetic little smile, ducking his head sheepishly. Wyl just rolled his eyes and went back to watching the match. Fern was pretty enough, he supposed, but she was a tomboy who didn't even notice men half the time - too interested in magic, but that was probably because she lived with that cranky old bat, Tarmas. Besides, she followed Starling and Elly Kendrick around like some kind of blood-fly, and that got old. Quick.

Elly…ah, there she was. Ducking under Randal's attempted strike to her shoulder, replying to that with several quicker strikes that she'd probably picked up from whoever had taught her to fight. Or that could've been from observation - he'd swear to seeing her up a tree, quill and parchment in hand, watching during militia drills.

Rose went down, Randal bowed out, and Starling was trotting back over to Merring with an arm around each girl. There was a moment of green-eyed envy, and Wyl turned his back with a loud snort. They'd get Merring to heal them up, maybe they'd go around to the rest of the events - Wyl was going to stay far away from the archery competition, thanks; Elly's foster father scared him on some level he didn't want to think about - but eventually they'd come back for the inevitable. Wyl and his brothers were the only team left in contention besides them, after all, and if they didn't show by the end of the day then Wyl was going to hunt them down himself. No way he was going to let their fair chance at a fourth straight year as Brawl champs go because Elly, Starling, and Fern chickened out.

Ward grunted and nudged him, and Wyl looked up to see Elly's pretty blue eyes looking back at him. While a goofy grin may have been West Harbor standard around Elly from men their age, he smothered it behind a smirk and lazy drawl. "Well, brothers, look what we've got here. The wizard's pet 'prentice, our friend from the militia, and Cormick the Second."

Elly rolled her eyes, but Starling and Fern were spitting like wet cats. "Stow it, Mossfeld," Fern said. "You're not smart enough to be funny."

"Sharp little tongue the orphan brat has, don't she?" Wyl said with a smile that felt like more of a snarl on his face. "'Course, seems it's usually spent licking Starling and Kendrick's backsides. It's always been just too bad that those demons didn't burn you up with your parents, isn't it?"

That, on half a moment's reflection and the way Elly was standing, was a bad thing to say. Wyl Mossfeld was not the sort to be intimidated by any woman other than his mother and maybe Retta Starling. On a bad day. But Elyssia Kendrick was coming pretty close. "Lay off, Wyl, she never did anything to you."

"That one? 'Course not, a good stiff wind would knock her over."

Elly smiled sweetly and batted her eyelashes. "Only if it came from your backside."

There was a quick flame of heat in his cheeks. Partly from the insult - not too bad, but not one of her better selections - partly because of Starling and Fern not even bothering to smother their laughter, and partly -

"Shut up, Webb!"

His brother bit down on his lips and started examining the clouds, though Wyl was sure he'd dropped a wink back at Fern.

"You ready?"

Wyl adjusted his grip on the club. "What say we sweeten the deal a bit? A wager, ten gold."

"We can't do that," Starling squawked, "Brother Merring said no bets."

"I'm sorry, Mossfeld," Elly's voice was still that sugar-sweet, "but I don't think I trust you to pay up."

He caught her eyes with his, let the smallest hint of a smile slip through before he shrugged. "Fine. Let's settle this in the ring."

Wyl dropped the tankard of Harvest Mead in front of Elly, smiling at the way she almost pounced at it. Reminded him of a cat sometimes - it was a wonder she didn't worship Sharess instead of Lliira. "Don't see why you couldn't go get your own," he said as he plopped down next to her.

The tip of a dainty pink tongue ran over her upper lip, wiping away the last vestiges of foam that the mead had left behind. "You remember last year?"

"Right, Fern's performance on top of the Starling loft. Still like your voice better."

"Amie sings like a drunk hog even when she's sober. I'll take that as a compliment, though. Lazlo won't let any of the three of us near the stuff this year - not from his hands, don't worry."

"Manipulative little sneak."

"You like me anyway."

Wyl rolled his eyes, but smiled slightly and took one of her hands in his. "Gods know why."

Elly just laughed, then stood up and tugged him into the crowd of dancers.

Hells, hells, hells.

And the day had started so nicely, too.

Wyl pressed his hand against the hole in his side, wincing at the pressure and leaning heavily against one of the fence posts where the Heftiest Hog had been judged earlier that day. He could just see Lewy Jons's corpse out of the corner of his eye (that runt of a pig was still at his side) even though his vision was starting to go a little black around the edges and spotty at times, even though he was trying his damnedest not to look.

"Lyssi! Over here!"

Starling?

Yeah, that was Starling bending down over him with a roll of bandages, and that was Elly and Fern sprinting over behind him. Funny how he hadn't realized Fern could run that fast in a dress.

"Wyl? Wyl, let me move your hand."

Had he been pressing down that hard? And she looked so worried - he didn't want her to look worried, he wanted her to smile, she was always so pretty when she smiled. He opened his mouth to tell Elly that, but what came out was his worries about Ward.

"We found him earlier," Elly said softly. "Healed him, too. He's back in the fighting."

"'S good," Wyl said. "Means well, you know that, right?"

"Yeah. We know. I've got some herbs from Brother Merring - they should help."

"M'kay…" Then he was wincing and hissing in pain, Starling's arms like iron bars against his shoulders as Elly packed what kind of looked like moss into the gut wound he'd gotten from one of the little gray dwarves. But…after the first pain of packing the moss in, he felt…better. "Starling, lemme up. Where's Georg?"

Starling moved his arm, even held out a hand to help Wyl lever himself to his feet. "The wheat field - we're rounding up as many of the militia as we can."

"Got it. I'll meet you there." He would've turned to go in that next instant, but Elly had grabbed his collar and pulled him down into most searing kiss she'd ever laid on him.

"Be careful," she whispered, her breath ghosting over his lips in a way that gave him some fuel for some very naughty dreams if they lived through this.

"You too."

She let him go with a cheeky smile and an "aren't I always?" kind of wink, long legs eating up ground to Fern and Starling.

He didn't waste time watching her leave, just headed for the Starling's wheat field as fast as his legs could take him.

The next time he saw Elly for more than a blood-streaked second was when she and Starling came out of the swamp, both of them covered in dried green and red streaks of blood and talking to Elly's father. Well, more accurate was that Starling was practically snarling at Elly's father while the elf looked like some kind of statue and Elly looked ready to just fall over. Didn't surprise him - his da had told him often enough that dealing with Daeghun Farlong tried anybody's nerves, and he knew for a hard fact that he'd seen Fern, still as she'd never been, in the morass of dead Harbormen.

Starling stormed away from the Farlongs, running out of steam not too far away from where he was standing around being fairly useless. Merring had ordered him out of the way what felt like hours ago, and Georg looked like he was still trying to get everything into his head. Hells, Wyl was still trying to get everything into his head.

Well, if Wyl was useless on his own and Starling didn't look like he'd be much use at the moment, might as well be useless together. Maybe he'd find out what was going on and if that damned rumor…

"Wyl, what do you want?"

He shrugged, crossed his arms over his chest, and jerked his chin in the direction of Daeghun and Elly. "What's going on over there?"

Starling snorted. "Daeghun… He ordered us off into the old ruins to get something for him. Don't ask me what, I don't think I can say without him or Lyssi killing me."

"The old ruins? Aren't those -"

"Full of lizard men? Swamp beetles, too."

"Sweet Chauntea… Just you and Elly? Is the elf mad?"

"I don't know. Not even Lyssi gets him, and he's her dad."

"Hells… You were just with her, right? Maybe you know."

"Know what, Wyl?"

"I heard someone say that Elly's bound for Neverwinter. Tomorrow at the latest. That true?"

"WHAT?"

Both Wyl and Starling flinched at the shriek, and Wyl wondered again why Elly wasn't adorning some festhall somewhere; she even screeched like a cat. "I think," Starling said, "she just found out. Hey, Wyl... You two are kind of sweet on each other, aren't you?"

Wyl spared a look at Starling. "Kind of?"

"Answer the question, would you?"

"…I'm gonna ask her to marry me, Midsummer next. But if she's been sent off to Neverwinter…"

"Not going to happen. I get it. I'd congratulate you, otherwise."

Wyl's head whipped around so quickly he thought he heard something in his neck crack. One corner of Starling's mouth twitched up, and he shrugged.

"Don't let it go to your head, Mossfeld; I'd congratulate anyone who could pin her down. Besides, aren't you guys always saying you're going to go up to Neverwinter with Galen's caravan one of these years?"

"Not until after this is cleared up and rebuilt."

"Right."

They stood in silence for a few minutes, Starling watching the ground, Wyl watching Elly flit around between people and the ever-growing leather satchel bumping against her hip. "Hey. Wyl."

"Yeah?"

"You know the best way out to the road is down past the field, right? The old gate?"

"Yeah. So?"

"So, if you want to make sure Elly leaves with a send-off to remember, maybe you might want to hang around there for a while."

"I might. I might not go easy on you in practice."

"Yeah, right. Orlen's hogs'll fly first, no potions or spells."

"I hoped I'd see you before I left."

A shrug. "Starling said you might be passing through this way."

"Bevil. Told you. You two are feeling well, aren't you? No big hits to the head earlier?"

"Ha. Ha."

"I'm glad, though…that you're here."

"I can't let my girl go off to the big city without saying goodbye, can I?"

"'Your girl' would've gotten her father to hunt you down if you did."

He shuddered. "Manipulative little sneak."

"You like me anyway."

"I love you anyway." He pulled a ring out of his pocket, dull copper and reflecting the faintest traces of moonlight and firefly light and the wear on it marking it as a good few years old. "I was planning to give this to you on Midsummer. Ask you then."

One hand went up over her mouth, big blue eyes grew to the size of dinner plates and started to gloss over in a way that meant tears might follow. "You," she finally said around a watery laugh, "have really lousy timing."

He shrugged again, took the hand that wasn't covering her mouth in his. "Not like any of us planned for everything to go to the Abyss. Or…"

"Yeah."

"Wear it? So you don't forget."

The hand dropped to one of the belts around her waist, and her smile was still a little shaky. "Wyl, I couldn't forget you or the Harbor if I tried. I'll never get the smell of peat out of my hair, either."

She let him slide the ring on her finger, though, and she leaned up to kiss him. It was so different from the last time they thought they'd never see each other again. That was adrenaline and fire and passion. This is softer. Gentle and sweet and very much "goodbye" as much as they didn't want it to be. "I'll," her breath caught in her throat for a moment before she cleared it, "I'll come back. As soon as I can."

"Or I'll see you in Neverwinter. With my brothers."

"The Sunken Flagon. In the Docks."

"Right."

They stood in the circle of each other's arms for a long moment, her silent tears soaking his shirt and his nose buried in her hair, memorizing the scent of her one more time. But it came to an end all too soon, and he watched her walk away into the swamp.

And he wondered if that would really be the last time he saw Elly.