General disclaimer: I own nothing, even Maiyn generally decides her own path.

-----------------------

Finding the Way Home

-----------------------

Nalia didn't try and talk to Coran until they'd left the city. It was mainly because she was unsure what to say -- recent events had seemed to sweep the control of her life away from her and left her as if balancing precariously on a ledge. To one side was a careful and quiet retreat to what would now be the safety of her keep, secured as her rightful home, at least, by fulfilling the stuffy old laws that the country demanded from its nobles. There, she could sit around all day, just as she would have before, had she been left to take Isaea as a husband instead... but in that scenario, she couldn't help but feel she'd have known her husband a bit more.

Her other option was to stay by Coran's side as he... well, she wasn't really sure. The time spent at the Order had been difficult for her. She had attended the funeral of his old friend because Coran had requested her company -- he had been visibly shaken when the news of his fellow elf's demise had been allowed to sink in, but the event had been tense and strained. The girl, Maiyn, was not how Nalia had begun to imagine her -- instead of the cool-headed, capable girl, that she'd somehow envisioned as being responsible for taming the lively thief she was travelling with, she'd found someone who appeared to be irrational, distant and cold. The ranger hadn't even spoken to Nalia, though she knew that was hardly unsurprising -- it seemed as if even her current companions had the same complaint during their time in Athkatla.

As for whatever relationship the girl had once had with Coran... Nalia wasn't sure where it was going now. She was aware that their contact had been minimal; though after hearing what the other group had endured from the pretty young thief, Imoen,

she thought she understood. Terrible stresses had been suffered by all involved over the past few weeks, and if Coran had expected the perfect reunion with a hero's welcome to the fold... well, he had been destined to be sorely disappointed.

His male pride obviously was not expecting such a dent, and he was taking it hard. She agreed with his decision to not aid Xzar's attempts to bring Montaron back to life, and couldn't, for the life of her, understand why Maiyn would want to do such a thing; especially not when several of her companions had voiced such similar concerns, and even determinedly refused to join her in such a venture. But still the girl stuck to her plans, and now her group had been split. And Coran... Coran was worried about her. Nalia could see it in his manner, in the unusually tense way he rode Patch; something had to be said.

Before long they slowed their mounts to a leisurely pace for a slight rest and she cleared her throat, preparing to speak. Before she had the chance to, though, Coran raised his hand.

"No, I do not know what I intend to do," he said, sounding weary. She raised an eyebrow at him and he shrugged to her. "That's what you were going to ask, was it not?"

"No, it was not," she said, slightly indignantly. "I was going to ask you what you were thinking."

He stared at her blankly. "What I am thinking?"

She shook her head. "What you were thinking to just leave them like this. You've chased them across Amn for... how long? Weeks? Months? And because there is no immediate happy ending, you slip away, your tail between your legs in defeat?"

The elf reined his horse to a halt and glared at her. She felt herself flushing.

"You think I'm sulking?" he asked, his voice mirroring his air of disbelief. "You think I'm doing this, going back to your Keep rather than accompanying them, because I'm somehow offended by how it has all turned out?"

"I don't know!" she exclaimed. "You've barely said two words to me since we found them in the depths of that dark and miserable crypt!"

"I'm sorry," he said curtly. "I had other things on my mind."

She sighed. "I know. I just don't understand why you're walking away from all of this so easily."

"Don't tell me you want to aid Montaron's resurrection?"

"Well, no-"

"And Xan, my ever pleasant elven kin, made his feelings quite clear on his travel arrangements."

"Well, he was a bit-"

"So what other choice do I have?"

There was silence for a few moments. "Follow her," Nalia said quietly. "You've resolved nothing, and you don't have to be involved with Xzar. Do you think he'll even stay with her if he gets what he wants, or if the process somehow fails?"

Coran seemed to tense slightly. "I can only hope it works."

She tried not to look horrified, but was acutely aware she was failing. She didn't even have to ask him to explain himself.

"You saw Xzar before, when we faced the Shadow Dragon -- he wasn't as he is now. There must be something... Montaron's presence, I can only assume, that changes him, though that doesn't explain why he'd want the halfling back. But, somehow, getting him back is important to Xzar. I don't think he'd be the kind of man who would accept failure."

Nalia nodded. "She's not travelling alone with him," she pointed out gently. "The others will be with her."

"That's the only comfort I have," he admitted miserably. "And she has them; she doesn't need me."

Nalia snorted as he trotted off, wheeling her horse around to keep up. "That's a lie," she stated. "The night in the crypt, when she was injured... When she saw it was you, her face seemed to light up for a second. No matter how she acted after that, the realisation you were there... it meant something to her."

"Then why didn't she say something?"

"She had a lot of other things to deal with."

Coran rubbed the bridge of his nose absent-mindedly. "I don't know," he sighed. "She's... she wasn't the Maiyn I remembered."

"And are you the Coran she once knew?" the girl asked gently.

He gave her a strange look. "I think so."

"Maybe you think you are," Nalia shrugged, "but she thinks you've changed."

"And maybe she thinks she's the same, inside, but I can see she's changed?"

"Something like that." There was another silence.

"She didn't want to talk, and we had a lot we needed to broach. Maybe... maybe the time just wasn't right."

"When will it be right if you keep running away from each other?" She saw Coran flinch slightly at her words. "You cannot deny you want to make things right between you both," she continued, "so why do we not head towards Imnesvale and try to meet them somewhere in its vicinity?"

He gave her a slightly surprised look. "I don't understand why you would be wishing me to do that," he said. "Especially since we-"

"That was a practical arrangement," she said hastily, interrupting him, unwilling to let her own feelings become involved in the whole issue. "And one which you did not mention to her, nor any of her companions."

He scowled slightly. "It's not something to idly drop into the conversation, is it? 'Hello, it's been such a long time! I've missed you all, but here -- meet my new wife!'"

Nalia bit her lip, fighting back the urge to say one of the several responses that had quickly formed in her mind.

"But of course," Coran continued, "it was something I should tell her. Just like there were plenty of things she should have been telling me."

Nalia raised an eyebrow. "Like what?" she asked. "Surely the others filled you in on their travels? The girl, Imoen, was very helpful for bringing me-"

"Not her travels, exactly," replied the elf bitterly. "More the aspect of her personal life."

Nalia frowned slightly. "What do you mean?" He let out a long sigh then lapsed into a silence that lasted as their horses slowly made their way down a rocky hill towards a fast flowing river, and until she leaned over and nudged him. This seemed to startle him into noticing her again, and he repeated his sigh.

"Do you remember the day we saw Aran?" he asked.

Nalia rolled her eyes slightly. "How could I forget? You threatened the Shadowmaster, in his own room, no less, and somehow managed to survive."

"Luck is always with the romantics," he replied lightly, a faraway expression in his eyes for a second before he seemed to compose himself. "But still, that night, when we retired to our rooms..."

"Coran..." Nalia fidgeted uneasily; she wasn't sure she wanted to hear what she thought he was about to say. He didn't appear to hear her.

"Until that point, I'd felt Maiyn with me -- only vaguely, though. While we were underneath the temples of Athkatla, there was a point where I stumbled, felt dizzy -- I blamed being underground."

Nalia nodded.

"It wasn't anything to do with where I was," he explained. "It was a surge of adrenaline -- faint, admittedly, but powerful in other ways -- so strong in my senses that I almost could feel a battle around me. After that, the morning before we went to meet Keldorn at his home, I was wrestled from my reverie by a similar sensation. This one was worse, much worse -- it would have been the day they faced the dragon with Ajantis. It was then that I really knew the feelings were from her."

"You mentioned this before, when we left the city after they'd left on the ship. I thought... I thought you'd dealt with it." She couldn't hide the accusing tone from her voice and he gave her an apologetic look.

"I would like to say I never meant to hide anything from you," he said, somewhat sorrowfully. "The truth be told... I have been less than truthful with you from the start. But, as I was saying... the night after we met Aran, I felt similar sensations, only worse -- I had experienced nothing similar to it before, except the pain I felt when I woke up from my slumber in Baldur's Gate. And when it passed, the link I had with her was gone."

Nalia let out a slight gasp, momentarily distracted from his admission of secrecy towards her. "Was that when her soul was taken, do you think?" she asked quietly.

He shrugged. "It... would make sense, I suppose. I didn't think of it at the time, suspecting... fearing it might have been her death, instead. I don't know. But after that there was nothing from her, nothing at all."

She reached out, gently patting his arm. "You can't blame her for that," she said pragmatically. "That was beyond her control -- she didn't deliberately break the link she had with you."

"No," he said, laughing slightly. There was no humour in it. "No, she didn't. I don't even think she knew there was a bond. After all, if she had... if she'd known I was to share her experience with her strongest emotions, would she really have taken another to bed?"

Nalia gave him a pained look and he snorted, shaking his head as he pushed Patch into a canter. It took the young girl several moments to spur her own horse into pursuing, but the elf kept ahead of her, making his intention to cease the conversation quite apparent.

-----------------------

It was well into the afternoon by the time Coran brought Patch to a halt, the creature snorting in frustration at being pushed to the limit so unnecessarily. Nalia hesitantly dismounted beside him, also allowing her horse to drink from the nearby stream and rest for a while, as Coran stalked off to sit down on a fallen log, idly glaring into the forest that lay ahead of them. His course hadn't altered at all; still they were heading towards her home, and not towards the Umar Hills, further to the north. Part of her was relieved by this, but the larger part -- the logical, sensible side -- knew that he was just being foolishly stubborn. And so, with a deep breath, she moved over to sit beside him.

"Explain to me how you have been less than truthful to me," she said quietly.

Instantly his posture changed -- no longer did he seem aggressively poised; rather, he shifted to face her slightly, his face tilted to one side, almost as if with concern. His eyes glinted softly as he gave her a sad look, but she stayed silent, waiting for him to speak. It took some time.

"I have told you of my travels with Maiyn, when we were in the Sword Coast," he said. She noticed for the first time in a long while how lilting his voice was, how gently spoken he could be. "I told you little of my life before then -- and I avoided mentioning some of the discoveries I made while I was in her company."

Nearby, Patch snorted and moved away from the water to graze. Nuila's mount did likewise, and the two thieves watched them. Coran's voice started up again slowly.

"The woman caring for me, Brielbara... she had been my lover, before I met Maiyn. Not too long before, either, though I might not have realised how recent she had been without Namara's presence."

"Namara?"

"Namara is her baby girl. Our baby girl. She was less than a season old when I found out, cursed to die by Brielbara's husband. Strangely enough, he was not happy to learn of his wife's infidelity. And you can stop looking so concerned; Namara is fine, thanks in no small part to Maiyn and her insistence that we helped to find the cure, regardless of my own dithering foolishness."

"You're a father? But... you can't be..."

"My dear Nalia..." Coran sighed. "I'm what? Five? Six times older than you? I don't even know for sure that there is only Namara! Before Maiyn, women were... well, frequent. Often married, never for long."

Nalia gaped at him.

"I lived to enjoy what there was, and I enjoyed it. Why that changed… why I changed, I have no idea. But I did, and it made me a better person... I think. I changed because of her, don't you see? And she repaid me by leaving me, then giving herself to someone else."

Nalia tried to swallow, but her throat had gone terribly dry. With rather shaky legs, she stood up, precariously making her way to the saddlebag on her horse's saddle, trembling hands drawing the waterskin from it. She took a long drink, wishing it contained something slightly stronger to settle her nerves. It was a long time before she turned back to look at the elf.

"Were you ever going to tell me any of this?"

"Of course," he said, looking slightly hurt. "When the time was right."

"'When the time was right'," she echoed bitterly. "And when was that, Coran? Obviously not before you secured my lands for yourself through marriage."

He recoiled from her words as if she'd slapped him. "Nalia? You... you don't really think that. I know you don't -- your words are nothing but anger."

She clenched her teeth, forcing herself to calm down slightly. How dare he suddenly tell me all this! Had she meant nothing to him before, to have had him hiding so much -- so many important things? "I think we should go on," she said coldly, replacing the bottle into the pouch and briskly remounting her horse. She had already set off by the time Coran had managed to catch the skittish Patch, paying little attention for his cries for her to wait.

-----------------------

Darkness fell before they reached they saw the Keep, silhouetted against the moonlit sky in the distance. He'd tried to talk to her on several occasions, but each time she'd snapped back at him frostily, asking for a little time to think about things. In the end he'd given up, it seemed, and there had been an uncomfortable silence between them for over an hour. There was still something on her mind, however; something she had to bring up.

"When we were investigating the Reynald and his men, for Ajantis," she said suddenly. "The nights I spent with you... you allowed that because you wanted to get back at her, didn't you?"

"No... no," he said, seemingly distraught by her accusation. "Whatever you think of me from all I've said today -- whatever you think of me as a person now... please believe me when I say that I care for you very much. You are important to me."

"But you couldn't tell me any of this before?"

He sighed. "No. No, it was easier to avoid the topics. And avoidance of any responsibility is seemingly what I am best at."

She regarded him curiously; he wasn't being sarcastic or irritable; instead he was quite melancholy, and he looked tired. She frowned.

"Did you really not realise how I felt for you?" she asked.

"Do you want an honest answer? I was confused -- you stayed with me at night, you let me kiss you and be with you... but that was it."

She felt her temper flaring slightly. "And there was supposed to be more, I expect? A girl cannot possibly like you without throwing herself into your bed and giving you her body? Is that how it is?"

To her surprise, he merely shrugged. "That's how it used to be. Then it got complicated. Maiyn... she wouldn't lie with me, not for a long time. By then I found myself caring about her very well-being more than the eventual physical aspect. With you... I assumed..."

"What? That I'd be an easy conquest, so young and naive and innocent that I'd just fall helplessly into your arms and allow you to take whatever you wanted?"

"No, Nalia."

"Then what?"

"I don't know," he replied helplessly. "I thought you were just as confused as I was."

She sighed slightly. "I was. So much had happened, so much scared me. But when it came to you... I trusted you. I... I think I-"

"Lady Nalia?"

She stopped abruptly at the voice, peering into the darkness to find the source. Eventually she located it -- one of the De Arnise soldiers -- an experienced tracker and scout by the name of Jenk -- had approached them quietly. He smiled when he realised his suspicions were true. "It is good to see you again, my Lord, Lady," he remarked, bowing his head respectfully. Nalia forced herself to smile at him.

"It is good to be home again," she said warmly, trying to retain her happy appearance. "How have things been?"

"Quiet, milady," he replied. "We have still been seeing strange activity towards the Roenall lands, but have no reason to suspect it will have any impact upon us yet."

She nodded, frowning slightly -- her priorities changed suddenly, and she became aware of the world outside her feelings. The men and women on her land, the people who trusted her, who relied on her for their own security. Their needs were greater than her own personal squabbles. "I want you to ensure the border between our lands and those of the Roenalls are always patrolled," she said firmly, causing the young man to nod. "Lord Roenall recently attempted to abduct me and force me into a situation that I did not wish, and I fear his retaliation may come sooner rather than later. We must be prepared."

"I'll make sure the very best of your men are watching for any aggression," Jenk said solemnly. "For now, I would advise you to make haste to the safety of the Keep as it approaches the witching hour. Good night to you both."

"Good night, Jenk," she said, watching as the man slipped away into the shadows of the nearby forest. Her heart felt slightly lighter knowing that her borders would be watched, her men would be vigilant. Anything Isaea had planned would likely be foiled in any case, as Ajantis had been preparing to take the case against him to the court, almost guaranteeing his imminent arrest. Her lands would soon be free of the threat that had hung over them since her father's death -- the marriage she'd let herself be pulled into had been unnecessary. Slowly she turned to Coran; it was time to put her foolish notions aside, and to salvage what she could from the friendship that had been so quick to spoil. Some things could be dealt with later.

"Answer me one thing," she said quietly. He nodded to her. "You still love this Maiyn, despite your recent encounter with her?"

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath. She felt as if her heart was in her mouth, and when he slowly began to nod, it was as if it had been wrenched from her very body. She bit her lip, forcing herself to remain calm, to not give into the emotions pulling at her. "Then we'll rest here briefly, tonight, and tomorrow we'll head to Imnesvale. If nothing else, we can visit Valygar. But you must try to sort things out with her -- for you, for her, and... and for me."

Understanding seemed to shine from his eyes as he looked at her. "I'm sorry," was all he said, but she rode on, determined to make it back to her home, back to the privacy of her room before she gave into the tears threatening to fall.

-----------------------

Edwina seemed strangely happy to ride with them the following morning, having pressed Coran for all the details she could get from him regarding their trip back to the city. He was fairly vague, mentioning only the outline of the meeting with Maiyn, but Nalia had noticed the Red Wizardess' attention becoming slightly peaked by this one simple fact. She didn't have time to mention it, though -- the elf was preoccupied with getting ready, seemingly lost in his own thoughts as he focussed on packing. Nalia found herself caught in meetings with both the Major Domo, and Captain Arat and Reynald, discussing the issues surrounding the safety of the lands in her further absence and briefing them of Isaea's recent actions. None were very pleased to discover that their Lady's safety had been compromised, though all were relieved to hear that evidence would be brought against him to the courts in Athkatla. They assured her that they would remain guarded until they knew that he had been apprehended, however.

Before long they were walking across the drawbridge, leading their horses towards the small path that would lead them to the north, almost directly to the Umar Hills. Nalia had only just finished chiding Edwina for causing so much problems within the guard -- before they even left, she'd used most of her memorised dispel magics and all her scrolls, just reversing the effects the gender-changed mage had caused in the first place. Her home could not be defended by squirrels and rabbits, after all. The red-robed Thayvian had merely rolled her eyes.

"(Simian. As if I care what she thinks.)"

Nalia rolled her eyes in frustration, moving away to sort out the bags on her saddle and prepare to mount. She didn't notice Coran manoeuvre himself behind her on Patch, but caught his low voice as he spoke to her, his tone almost accusing.

"You did not tell them of our marriage."

She stared at him defiantly, but sighed as he trotted off; his gaze had been cool, but not unfriendly, and she knew he had a point. Perhaps some things couldn't be dealt with later