1369, Marpenoth 17
Anomen and Brindhal, during their time together, had developed a habit of going off from the rest of the group under the pretense of picking flowers. No one had believed them to start with, and after several weeks the excuse was stale and their activities were generally politely ignored. Jaheira had always frowned upon flower picking anyway, politely but firmly reminding her young charges that plants needed their blooms more than people did. Still, every few days or so in the warmer months, Anomen and Brindhal would disappear into the meadows to get some time alone away from the rest of the group. They would be gone for a couple of hours, and return suddenly with pollen in their hair and a small bouquet or two to pass around.
Suldanesselar had been particular good for flowers when they arrived, and the elves had been given advanced warning of their off-time activities, so as not to disturb them. When they arrived in their room they found a good supply of nararoot and cassil sitting on a bedside table – a gift from Jaheira. At the time Anomen had been irritated – the druid's gift was rather forward, and although the herbs were often useful to their off-time activities, the pair certainly did more than the druid's gift implied. Brindhal, however, simply laughed it off.
"Well, they're ours," she had said, amusedly looking at the bundled wraps of herbs. "We might as well use them." So they did, among the halcyon weeks spent in the elven city following the defeat of Irenicus, before setting off to adventures unknown
"What do you think?" Brindhal asked, as she placed a daisy chain over her short dark hair. The Watcher laughed and looked down at his own hands, which were worrying the stems of some colorful wildflowers – poppies and buttercups which grew wild in the nearby hills.
"Lovely, my lady," he answered honestly, putting the flowers aside. "Come here."
"Mmm, what for?" the paladin asked, smiling at him coyly from the patch of clover she'd been sitting in. Anomen gave her a serious look and her smile subsided a little – she stood up and, trampling the flowers underfoot – kneeled next to him. "You look... Anomen, what's the matter?"
Anomen wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her to him. "Nothing," he replied, burying his face into the fabric of her blue tunic. "I'm simply painting a picture."
Brindhal laughed, and he could hear it rumble through her stomach. "A picture of what, Sir Knight?"
"Of you, of course," Anomen answered, releasing her, and looking up into her eyes. "To be specific, of us."
"Oh, now you're being ridiculous." Although the words were harsh, they were spoken gently and there was a trace of a smile on the darker woman's face.
"I'm but a man, my lady. Allow me my flights of fancy, hm?"
Anomen's comments were meant lightly, but a heaviness had fallen over the the two knights and they faced one another uncertainly for a few moments, their dark eyes searching each other's face. It was Brindhal that looked away first, with a slight flush that crept onto her dark cheeks.
"In a tenday," she murmured, fidgeting with the daisy chain. "We'll, um... we'll leave Suldanesselar at the start of summer."
"To where?" he asked quite seriously, watching the yellow petals flutter in the air as they fell from his lover's dark hair onto his tunic. The watcher had been expecting this conversation for some time now - he'd hoped to get her plans out of her sooner, but Brindhal tended to take her time with things.
"Maztica. There are rumours of some truly awful things... truly, skies are looking awful," Brindhal said quietly, plucking petals off of his clothing. She held them up into the breeze that seemed to permeate the late spring air and watched as they floated up and away. To Anomen, the young knight next to him seemed goddess-like, backlit by the sun and covered in the late spring's blossoms. Except…
Something wasn't right.
Anomen wrinkled his brows in languid confusion. This wasn't how the memory of that conversation happened; this was most definitely off. "What did you say, my love?" he asked, frowning.
Brindhal leaned in close to him, and Anomen could smell the scent of the wild roses and mown hay on her, and feel her cotton tunic against his hands. Although the paladin was not a strikingly beautiful woman, she had an earthy charm that the Helmite found quite appealing, and when she brushed her lips against his cheek and then against the lobe of his ear, he closed his eyes and sighed in content. Off or not, the dream was close enough.
"I said," she murmured provocatively into his ear, "that we're docking, you thrice-damned bilgerat…"
"– and damn it all...! Helmite!" An angry voice called, rousing him from his sleep. He sat up suddenly as a large, barrel-chested man – the captain of Gilded Summer – burst into his room and pointed an accusatory finger at him. "Out with ye, we're dockin' in fifteen minutes an' the clouds ain't going ta wait for ye to get yer arse out of bed!"
"Wha—?" Anomen murmured sleepily, turning over to face the open door. The jolt of his awakening had dulled the lines between reality and his slightly off-kilter dream world, and he was foggy-headed.
"Get out there an' help wit' tha cargo or I'll be tossing ye off tha sides!" the portly man bellowed, slamming the door behind him. Anomen blinked in the darkness of his quarters for a moment before clambering off of his bunk, hastily throwing on clothing, and joining the sailors upstairs.
The captain hadn't lied – the skies above were the color of charcoal and arcing lightning between clouds and sea. Around him the sailors were frantically securing cargo and adjusting the sails, with the captain – stationed above once more – shouting orders. Anomen watched as the old seaman grabbed the ear of a younger man and pushed him towards the others, and for a brief moment, the Helmite contemplated sneaking below decks before the storm broke all around them. Unfortunately, the captain had spotted him and had other ideas.
"Helmite!" he called, motioning him over vigorously. Anomen swallowed the rising bile in his throat as he crossed the deck to stand at the old man's side, dodging the busy sailors. Around him the ship was swaying violently and he inwardly admired the balance of the other men – the priest felt ill every few steps and despite the long journey, a tolerance for seasickness had never quite developed. Standing on a raised portion of the deck, the captain calmly surveyed the scene around the ship and the weather's impending turmoil.
"If the Bitch Queen ain't spared us today, I'll be a sahuagin," he said loudly, followed by, "Look there! Just in the nick of time!"
The weathered man gestured to the starboard side of the ship and Anomen turned his head – there, after almost five tendays of roiling sea and azure skies, was land. Rich, green land, so unlike Amn that Anomen was momentarily taken aback with the intensity of the colors in this part of the world. For a brief moment in time, the entire world consisted of Anomen, the sea, and the verdant land ahead.
The moment hadn't been lost on the captain, either. "Maztica's a beaut, ain't she?" the man sighed rapturously as the first fat drops fell from the sky above. There was a series of thumps as many of the sailors scrambled below. "'S too bad ye won't be seein' Helmsport. That'd be a sight fer ye."
"What's the matter with Helmsport?" Anomen asked, putting a hand up to block the approaching curtain of rain. The landscape was growing nearer now, and he could make out the waving tops of palms and other trees, their leaves shimmering in the late summer rain.
"Plague, if ye can believe that! Me priestie got a Sending tha other day, tellin' us ta stay away!" he responded, gesturing to a man standing near the sails, with the sigil of Shaundakul emblazoned on lightweight robes. "Tha weather's made the sea so bad in those parts we couldn't pass anyway, even if there weren't no plague."
"The weather?" Anomen asked, raising his voice at the approach of the storm. "Where are we going, then?"
"'Ta a nearby place, just a few miles northwesterly of… ah, Hells…"
"North of where?" Anomen pressed, missing the captain's words in the clatter of the rain.
All around them the sky opened up, drenching everyone on deck to the bone. The captain, forgetting the conversation, flung a couple of creative curses towards the heavens then turned his attentions towards the sailors below – Anomen had gotten used to his tempestuous moods and short attention span, and shrugged it off as just another quirk of the ship, like the creaking wooden sides and stubborn doors. "Anchors down, lads! We'll wait 'til this is over ta get out the rowboats, aye?" He turned to Anomen, and inclined his head towards the men hauling the anchor – a not-so-subtle hint which the Helmite easily picked up on.
In spite of his nausea, the priest began to sprint away from the captain to help with preparations to drop the anchor. There was a palpable feeling of excitement in the air around him, and it was infectious – he felt invigorated, almost reborn in the gale, and wanted to bottle this feeling and enjoy it later, when the time came – and it would come, he was sure – that he regretted his decision to leave Faerun.
On land stood two figures loitering near a well that were engaged in a most curious and unique conversation. The villagers, seeing a storm coming, avoided them as they sprinted away to escape the wind and rain. These two strangers seemed almost unearthly, though, with their apparent disregard for the elements – one of them was as dry as a bone, while the other was soaked and didn't much seem to care. The first, an older man, was sitting on his haunches and surveying the road before them. The other, a young woman with long, coarse plaits and deep brown eyes, placidly stood next to him and held a large, water-bearing jug which was busily overflowing and sloshing in the rain.
"THY TIMING IS OFF," The old man said in a clipped voice to the dark-eyed woman, who looked both annoyed and worried at the same time. "THOU SAID HE WOULD BE HERE BY THIS TIME. IT SEEMS THOU HAST MISJUDGED."
"I didn't anticipate Umberlee opening the bloody Elemental Plane of Water on us," the woman replied back equally brusquely, sparing a glance at a retreating figure running away from the gale before turning her eyes back to the road. "If we're not careful, one of the villagers will hear us."
"LET THEM TRY," the man murmured, flicking a spot of mud from his knee. "SINCE YE HAVE BROUGHT ME SO FAR AWAY TO WITNESS, THOUGH, I SHALL ASK THEE AGAIN: ARE YE SURE ABOUT THIS?"
"I'm sure about this one, yes," the girl responded, hefting the jug and pointing to where the ship was anchoring in the distance. "Just as I was sure about the last two. You're jealous because he's yours, aren't you?" She smiled a little at her joke, which the old man studiously ignored. The Lord of Watchers was as dour as always, and the rain wasn't helping his mortal joints in the least.
"THAT IS NOT THE ISSUE. I FEEL THAT YE ARE LETTING THINE PERSONAL MATTERS INTERFERE WITH THINE DECISIONS," he answered bluntly. "DELRYN IS A GOOD MAN, AS WERE THE OTHERS. I ASK THEE AGAIN, THOUGH, AS ONCE YE HAVE CHOSEN, YE CANNOT GO BACK. PERHAPS... T'WOULD BE FOR THE BEST IF THOU WERE TO WAIT AWHILE TO SEE HOW HIS FATES PLAY OUT"
"Midnight didn't wait long and I shan't either," was her only response as she poured out some of the rainwater from the jug. The excess water splashed cold against the old man's bare feet, and he grimaced at his arthritis.
The Lord Helm sighed and sprang up, feeling the creak of old human joints and regretting his decision to accompany his young charge. "MIDNIGHT DID NOT HAVE MUCH CHOICE," he pushed. "I WAS HOPING THOU WOULD BE MORE LIKE... DENIER IN THY DECISION MAKING."
His companion laughed, splashing more water from the jug in her arms as she began to walk down the muddy path towards the beach. "Recall: Deneir's original choices had long since died by the time he got around to picking," Brindhal retorted, a smile coming to her dark face. "I'd personally rather be a Midnight than a Denier. Trust me, brother, I know what I'm doing."
"IF YE INSIST," Helm called dubiously, walking quickly to catch up. "I DO NOT NECESSARILY AGREE WITH THY DECISION, BUT IF YE THINK 'TIS FOR THE BEST..."
"Your mortality has made you cantankerous, did you know that?"
"HUSH GIRL. I CANNOT HEAR THEE OVER UMBERLEE'S TANTRUMS," was the God's terse reply to her comment.
Despite her banter, the goddess was nervous – or at least as close to nervous as she had been recent memory. It had been a more than a year since her ascension and she had spent the better part of it waiting for moments such as these. Watching Viconia's hidden-but-secretly-pleased haughtiness and Imoen's merriment at their reunitings, though, were light fare compared to this, a most auspicious of meetings. This was to be her third Chosen, and as the saying always went, the third time's a charm…
"REPEAT NOT THE BLASPHEMY OF TYMORANS AND MASKITES, CHILD," Helm chided. Brindhal bit her lip, both in embarrassment and in an effort to keep from laughing.
The two gods walked along in the rain, ignoring the storm breaking all around them.
Elsewhere, inland, the Helmites were safely ensconced in their Fortresses and the Ilmateri passed out hot milk and mashed cornmeal under leaky roofs. On the ship, the sailors and priests heaved and sweated in an attempt to keep the vessel afloat.
"Heave, my boys!" the captain called to his crew from the sails. "Put your backs inta it! Ten lashes to the first one what shirks his duty to the Summer and her crew!"
"We watch because Helm bades us Vigilance and Ditifulness," a steely-haired priest called, holding a glass of wine aloft. "Our unblinking eye is a pale imitation of His own…"
"… and bades us to relieve the suffering of the weak, helpless and the hopeless, for we are the salve to the blows of the world and the poultice to ease the illness man inflicts upon his fellow brothers. Whilst these cords bind thy wrists, thou shalt never waver," finished a yellow-haired woman to her clergy, breaking open a loaf and passing the halves to either side.
"It's almost time," Brindhal called to her companion over the wind and the rain. Ahead, for Brindhal, lay her path and Anomen's and the road for the Helmite's salvation. In front of the two Gods was the beach and its shifting sands, and the turbulent ocean spread out as far as the eye could see.