Title: Not Yet by Lightning

Chapter: Seven

Author: Jade Sabre

Notes: I'm not entirely satisfied with this chapter, and never really have been; I couldn't figure out which POV to tell it from, and I have trouble with one of the POVs to begin with, and so it still feels a bit muddled to me. So for that, I apologize.

As always, thanks for the reviews!

Disclaimer: I don't own Neverwinter Nights, or any of its sequels or expansions, or any of the characters contained herein, aside from my PC, who was created on a Bioware engine and thus probably therefore partially belongs to them too.

7

Laura sat on a bench in a darkened side chapel and stared at a statue of Tyr. The statue seemed to stare back, right over her head, unwilling to acknowledge her presence. She didn't care much for the artistic style, anyway; something about his features seemed blurry, indistinct, as if the sculptor was afraid to define his lord too clearly. For what? Fear of invoking his presence? Wasn't that the point of the statue in the first place?

Furthermore, the god's one hand was drawn into a fist against his chest, while his handless arm was extended. No offer of mercy, here. If you could reach out and hold on, maybe he'd help you. If not, then you clearly didn't deserve to be there. At least, that was what this whole Trial by Combat thing seemed to be about. If you were meant to win—if you were justified—then Tyr would help you. And if not…

Laura was justified. She, in fact, considered herself to be beyond justification. She was utterly guiltless. And yet she still had to fight, though there was nothing about her worth fighting for. Oh, she was annoyed that she had had to join the Neverwinter nobility and traipse all over the northern Sword Coast, but the only harm was to her reputation, which didn't bother her at all. She only worried what it would do to people's perception of her god.

Now there was something to fight for. For Hoar, against those who distrusted his strength. For Ember, massacred for the sake of trapping the kalach-cha. For the innocent dead whose home had been chosen as a battleground simply because it was there.

She held her hands in front of her, recognizing their telltale shaking and willing herself to be calm. She had to save her strength for the battle ahead. It would come; it always came; and she had no doubt in her mind. Pain and anger. These were her greatest weapons.

Somehow, she doubted these were the sorts of meditations the Tyrrans had in mind.

"My lady?"

As if he had known her thoughts, Casavir stepped into the chapel. His normally placid face was tight, though otherwise unexpressive.

"Casavir," she said.

Some of the tightness eased. "I do not wish to disturb you from your meditations—"

"I am sure Tyr does not mind," she said, matching his formality with a hint of a smile in an effort to help him feel at ease.

"And you?"

She shrugged. "I do not know where to focus my thoughts."

"Ah." He stepped closer, drawing into the flickering candlelight. He looked around the room and said, "I have been here many times before."

"Is the Trial so often invoked in Neverwinter?" she asked, intrigued. "It seemed from Sand's description to be nigh obsolete."

"It mostly is, in the legal system," he said. "But there are other trials, and not all of them physical. This is a place to meditate on all things, to ask for strength and clear judgment."

She glanced back at the statue, trying to imagine generosity in those distantly gazing eyes. After another moment he said, "You are not comfortable here."

"No," she said. "While Lorne is probably slumbering, untroubled—"

"Tyr will send him nightmares."

"Perhaps, but this is not about justice," she said, resting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. Thinking of Lorne as her enemy made her head ache as much from the absurdity of it as from the pain in her heart. "If this was about justice someone should have smote him long ago—"

"Justice comes through the law—"

"Then the law should condemn him!" She raised her head to look at him and said wearily, "But the law has failed, Casavir. And where the law fails, my creed begins."

"A creed of revenge." He did little to disguise the darkness in his voice. "With no room for proper punishment, or justice, or mercy—"

"Mercy. Justice." She snorted. "You yourself are walking proof that the two are contradictory."

"How so, my lady?" He added the epithet to attempt some semblance of lightness—he hadn't come here to argue theology, he had come to offer his assistance. She was obviously pained over her upcoming trial, and something in him wanted to reach out and soothe her, reassure her. He didn't know what to do, aside from offer his beliefs, but she had her own to sustain her. He didn't know what he could do—he'd come to offer action because he was no good with speaking (how does one put their soul into words?), but somehow he had ended up talking anyway.

She brushed through his cobwebbed attempt at formality with one word. "You," she said, and he nearly took a step back at the force in her quiet voice, "constantly lamenting that you have lost your sense of justice when all you did was act on it, and seeking death over a forgiveness you do not believe you will receive."

"I—"

"You don't. You don't believe."

He bit off an angry retort, his shoulders sagging, his face haggard and…old. The words of Yaisog echoed in her mind: It is said no blade can harm him, and he embraces battle like one who wishes to die. "No. Perhaps I do not. And perhaps I have good reason not to. The strength of my belief…" He trailed off, and she thought he looked a far cry from the warrior she had first met, the one enflamed with a purpose and—she knew now—a death wish even the orcs could see. And he had given up both to follow her, and this was the result. "Sometimes, I wonder if…"

"You'll fall?" His haggard lines set into stone in his face, and she shrugged. "If you continue acting like you think you are going to fall, then you will fall, Casavir. You know that even better than I. But I wonder if…" She studied him, his eyes downcast, keeping to the shadowed edges of the candlelight, a man lurking, lost and uncertain, at the edge of despair.

She repeated, "If you keep acting like you are going to fall, then you will fall. But—not from any specific action on your part. You will fall from your inaction, your indecisiveness. Your faith is strong," she said, willing him to look up, "and you know that. Believe, and act on your belief, and everything else will follow. The strength will be there; it is always there. All you must do is act."

He looked up at last, looking up a woman at once too young to have had a crisis of faith and too wise not to know what it was like to doubt. His throat tight, he could only nod, and in return she gifted him with a small smile, not encouraging, but…present. And in that moment he realized the ice around his heart had melted, and the puddle that remained evaporated as if a ray of sunlight had broken through the clouds of his despair, dispelling his doubt.

To offset the sudden painful revelation that her smile made him breathless, he said, "I know you do not need a champion, particularly one of justice. But…" because it was easier to express gratitude through the act of offering.

"Thank you," she said, because she knew she should be grateful, "but I have to do this. For Ember."

He nodded. "You know the rules of combat?"

"Yes," she said, "but any advice you have to offer would be welcome."

"Do not yield," was the first thing out of his mouth. "Use whatever resources are available to him. Do not yield, for he will not hesitate to kill you."

"I am not planning on yielding," she said. "I plan to strike his skull with my mace and beat him until his head is nothing more than a bloody, broken shell on the ground."

He swallowed at this, and said quietly, "If you think that will help."

"It is all I can offer them."

There was another pause, longer, in which he tried to disguise the fact that he was staring at her and she wondered what he thought of what he saw. Finally, he reached into a pack on his belt and pulled out a flask. "Please, take this."

She reached out a hand, and he reluctantly stepped forward to give it to her. She could almost see him tense as her bare fingers brushed against his gloved ones, taking the flask and turning it over, inspecting the strange golden sheen on its outer shell. "The water inside has been blessed—it contains healing properties. It was given to me, long ago, but you have more need of it now than I ever will."

"Thank you," she said again, more slowly, not daring to raise her eyes to his face.

Silence reigned while she persisted in not looking at him and he didn't move a muscle. Finally he said, in a constricted voice, "Good luck, my lady."

She looked up then, met his gaze, saw the strength of his fear and worry, and smiled gently. "Thank you, Casavir."

He bowed, and when he straightened there was a steely, fortified tinge to the lines of his face. She nodded once, and he left her, still absentmindedly holding the flask. She turned her gaze back to the statue, her mind wandering for a moment, before she closed her eyes and drew inward, focusing her mind on her prayer for strength.