6.

A/N: Want to thank everyone who reads and favorites—appreciate the reviews and PMs very much! Continued gratitude and pots of coffee to my husband, the best beta in the world, who, again, served up some invaluable insights into the male brain that I really needed in order to untangle Valen's psychology in this chapter, and with whom I can talk Realmslore for hours.

She is browsing the weaponsmith Rizolvir's offering for this week, enjoying the forge heat and listening to the thin, all-sinew drow lecturing his apprentice about the advantages of quenching this way or another when someone suddenly speaks up behind her.

"I wonder when you have time to sleep. You are everywhere these days, I am told."

Adele spins around, and stares into Valen's face with mild annoyance.

"I did know you were there, you know," she says, hands on hips, chin up belligerently. "You might be quiet enough, but unfortunately for you, the aura…"

"Yes, I know." Valen nods, stepping around her so he too can take a look the pair of daggers she was admiring on Rizolvir's 'new and special' table. "One of the reasons I can find you this easily in the tenday market crowd is keeping track of just how much my skin itches. When it gets to when I would really, really want to shuck off all the clothes and scratch until I bleed, I just look up, and there you are!"

"You are joking, sir." Adele stares at him, not quite sure if she should believe anything he just said because, for Torm's sake, if that's true, why didn't he say something before?

"Already forgot my name, hm?" He grimaces as the skin around his eyes twitches. "And no, I don't."

"But…" Adele's thoughts are chasing each other in her head wildly. "I am sorry…how do you stand it? Me, I mean, if I make you so…uncomfortable?" She feels annoyed and embarrassed at the same time: this is obviously one of those things that should be covered in basic training, yet none of her teachers mentioned how outsiders might react to paladin auras. A potentially dangerous omission, this definitely should be included in my report… "The proximity when we're on a mission…Gods, no wonder you avoid me when we're back!" she blurts out finally, and then bites her lips as he sighs and shakes his head.

"Blazes and demonflames, Lady, must you take everything so seriously?" Adele notes yet again that even out of armor he commands the space around him, as if he wears those winged pauldrons and heavy breastplate all the time, so much that they became invisible parts of him.

Or maybe he's simply admired that much, part of her mind idly supplies, as the crowd around them clears to a respectful distance and the last of Rizolvir's browsing crowd departs the shop. If you are being honest with yourself, even you appreciate just how wide those shoulders are…

"So you were joking after all," she says quickly, unable to control the light blush spreading on her cheeks now. "It's not nice to treat a battle-worn and tired paladin like that, you know."

"Right. She might smite me after all, and then I really will be in trouble." Valen grins; Adele has to reluctantly agree that their fragile trust since the illithid city's destruction seems to be holding up very well.

So it really doesn't occur to her not to continue the banter in the same manner as if they were old comrades. She misses that most of all from her Tantras days: as a Special Envoy she can hardly form friendships with those she works with. During her Neverwinter assignment, fresh out of novitiate, she kept a careful distance from everyone and did everything by the book; after that she got a bit too busy, and… well, since Master Drogan she simply learned to keep her inner self carefully guarded.

She misses it, though: the comradeship, the sense of belonging. In her brutally honest moments she needs to admit that Lith Myh'athar's outsider general has a lot more common with her than she cared to admit at first.

And that's why she decides that this might as well be worth a shot.

"Oh, I don't know." She raises an eyebrow and smiles slowly. "If I smite you, you just might itch even more. And there might be a few ladies around who may be interested in seeing you…how did you say it?" She pronounces the phrase carefully, drawing little quotation marks in the air with her fingers. "'Shuck off' some clothes…?"

I win, she thinks with barely contained triumph as she sees the spreading red on Valen's cheeks, and hears his low laughter.

"All right, you got me," he says when he stops chuckling and Adele feels a faint regret that he did so. "But I must say, I never in my life would have thought that a paladin can be this… wicked, Adele."

"Gah." She waves a hand in the air expensively. "You call this wicked? Remind me to tell you one day the story of what we did in my third year as a novice to Father Marloin involving a dozen frogs, three buckets and an innovatively used Ray of Frost wand."

"Can't wait." Valen's eyes twinkle. "You were right; I perhaps…exaggerated the negative effects of your proximity."

"But it's still there, right?" she asks, and can't help but feel a bit sad.

"Yes, but you know what they say?" Valen leans closer to the table where Rizolvir displayed the daggers and one of his fingers traces the finely etched runes a hair's breadth from the slightly longer blade in the air. "You were looking at these for Nathyrra?"

"Hmm?" Adele says absently as she admires a pair of vambraces next to it. "No, what do they say? And yes."

"Well, at least where I'm from they say to heal a dog bite you need the dog's hair." Valen pulls out his money pouch and throws it to Rizolvir. "A great choice; she needs a new pair, definitely."

"Dog's bite?" Adele blinks: they are carrying out two separate conversations at once it seems, and although it is strangely enjoyable, the last exchange throws her a bit.

"Sorry, forgot there for a moment that you're from the Prime, not Sigil." Valen grabs the daggers and slides them in their sheaths displayed next to them. "It was merely an old saying that was applicable for the situation." He turns and looks at her expectantly. "If you want me to itch less, I need to get more used to your aura. Therefore, more time in your company. Have you eaten today?"

"I'm…what?" Adele feels her head spinning a bit, and lifts a hand. "Hold the horses just a tiny bit, sir: did you just get that pair of daggers I intended to purchase for our mutual friend and paid for them, casually told me where you came from and asked me out to dinner, all in the same breath?"

"What can I say…? I live dangerously, Lady." Valen bows. "Since you insist on formalities so much, I shall try to adapt." He holds out an arm. "There's a place not far from here that does unbelievable things to rothe flank steak."

"Anything that improves on rothe meat is a miracle of the third degree." Adele mutters and finds herself accepting the offered arm with ease. "Let me guess: mushroom sauce with rothe milk cream?"

Valen shudders.

"Ye gods and little fishes, nothing of the sort!" He glances at her amusedly as they leave Rizolvir's shop; Adele waves good bye to the smith and he bows in return deep enough that she feels oddly embarrassed. "That would be far too sophisticated for Lith My'athar, I'm afraid. No, they merely sear the everloving Abyss out of it and add the drow version of Hell." He smiles at Adele's expression and clarifies. "It's called s'riirc'nacha. Don't ask what it's made of it you want to sleep ever again, but it is…let's just say it's a uniquely fiery concoction that I could compare to many things, but most of those would deeply hurt your gentle sensibilities."

"Oh?" Adele lifts an eyebrow. "I have gentle sensibilities?"

"Lady, with all due respect, I will not tell you how similar hot sauces are called where I'm coming from." Valen shakes his head; locks of his red hair flutter around his face and Adele has to resist the urge to stop and smooth them back behind his elegantly upswept ears.

The urge to touch him persists all the way to the little eatery they end up at. It serves two types of food only: a noodle soup with four different types of fungi Adele eyes with deep distrust, and the meat dish Valen was talking about, consisting of small strips of rothe meat seared over high heat on the open stove and then piled on a plate precariously high. The s'riirc'nacha, served in a bowl, is bright red, and when she bites down on her first forkful of meat seasoned with it, she feels like her mouth, nose and throat just had been scrubbed down with something approaching the consistency of molten steel.

"Isn't it wonderful?" Valen says, as he takes another bite, then another… Adele stares at him through her tears. "Want more hot sauce?"

"Gods, Valen…" she manages to choke out after a second or two, "…what manner of creature are you? No, I had enough of hot sauce, thank you… Do you see these in my eyes?" She points at her face. "They are called tears. "

Valen leans back on his chair.

"I bet you can breathe really well now, though, "he says, and as he smiles, Adele suddenly isn't sure whether she's flushed from the heat of the sauce, or from something else. "Sorry, Lady, I couldn't resist."

"Imp," she huffs, but spears another piece of meat on her fork, shaking her head. "Insufferable imp," she amends, just to be precise, but she's smiling through her pain.

"Wrong family of fiends." Valen shakes his head, spooning another dose of liquid pain on his meat. "What kind of paladin are you, mixing it up like that?"

"Obviously insane." Adele murmurs, casting about with eyes full of even more tears as she finishes her second piece of meat and waves a hand. "Drink? Please." She adds, because, after all, paladins are always polite.

Almost always; and even when their mouth is on fire.

"Oh, definitely." Valen says, and lifts a little bottle that looks suspiciously simple, the liquid in it almost colorless. "I need to test a theory."

"Torm save us, sir, what's that?" she asks, only slightly disturbed by the ease with which they start to treat each other like old comrades on a very, very intense campaign. "I shudder to think where you got it from."

"Trust, Lady, trust." Valen clicks his tongue, then slowly pours into the two tiny cups their surly drow server left on their table earlier. "I thought we've established a…rapport already."

"A rapport, sure." Adele turns the little cup between her fingers. "I'm just curious to know if you want to make me drunk." She looks up at him. "Because, you know, in that case I need to make you aware of one of the less-known facts about paladins."

"Oh?" One pale red eyebrow, slightly cocked. "Are you telling me you hold your drink…wickedly well?"

"No." Adele stretches her legs under the table more comfortably, because this is going to be a long night. "Just don't get hangovers."

"Ever?" That sounds way too much like a challenge, complete with both eyebrows waggling, and Adele never in her life ran from one.

"Ever-ever," she says, enunciating clearly, and lifts one of the cups from the table. "And paladins don't lie." And now it's her turn to cock an eyebrow. "Are you in, then?"

"Wouldn't think about disappointing a lady." Still locking eyes with him, Valen lifts his own cup. "Do you play drinking games if you're a holy warrior?"

Adele scoffs.

"Drinking games? Drinking games are for amateurs…we had drinking events. We had this huge tankard shaped like a boot at the Tantras Temple, where I got my mantle…it was part of the unofficial investiture ceremony for every newly minted knight. We sat around the table at the end of the festivities, and kept up the drinking with the older knights. The boot you couldn't put on the table, because, well, who puts a boot on the table in polite company…so it stayed in hand all the time, passed from one to the other, constantly refilled." She takes a sip from her cup and breathes deeply. "Good times."

"Mmmm." Valen nods and follows her example with the drink. "Tantras, then? Is that where you're from?"

"Oh. That kind of a game." Adele allows a slow smile, because really, she hasn't felt this relaxed in quite a long time, and nods. "City by The Dragon Reach, way east from here on the surface, of course. Born and raised, chosen for Torm, attending the Temple novice training then consecrated. I've left when His Excellency transferred the mantle of Special Errant Envoy Plenipotentiary on me and sent me to Neverwinter." Another sip. "But that's another story. Your turn: so you're from the Planes? From Sigil, right?"

"I see you are well educated, Lady," he says, with a slight frown between his brows. "Are you familiar with the City, then?"

"Purely academic knowledge, I'm afraid." Adele shakes her head. "I was a voracious reader, and… the library of the Temple of Torm's Coming prides itself on containing a wide array of tomes."

"Sigil, City of Doors." Valen pours to both of them again. "Supposed center of the multiverse, hovering on top of the Spire, ruled by The Lady of Pain: you know all that, then?"

"Yes…but I've never met anyone from there." Adele drinks. "What is it like?"

"Dark. Crowded. Full of razorvine, the rain is often toxic, the streets are muddy, dangerous and trod by beings of every manner imaginable, from planetars of Celestia to devils of the Nine Hells." He grimaces. "I miss it."

"You can't go back, then?" Adele asks cautiously: there's something there that her fine-tuned senses are warning her about.

"One day, perhaps." His smile is full of sorrow. "How about you, now? Tantras holds your family as well as the memories of you becoming who you are?"

"They are still there, yes." Adele swirls her drink. "My father serves in the Tantras Navy: he's actually the subcommander of the fleet. It is small, but with the backing of the Tormtar, it dominates the middle of Dragon's Reach. My mother comes from a large merchant family in the city, and I have an older brother and a younger sister. In our neck of the woods, the middle child usually leaves home by tradition, the oldest inherits the family business, the youngest stays home to make sure the parents are cared for when they get old." She grins. "My sister hates it, and already ran away three times. The talks my mother insisted I had to have with her when last time I was there…" She shrugs. "We're very traditional, and very boring. I try to send letters whenever I can as I travel a lot, and they would expect me to be home for each Midwinter to hang the wreaths and play with my brother's children: he already has four. Me being a Martyr's Progeny, the family is keen on replenishing the numbers, just in case the talent runs in the family…"

"I'm sorry?" Valen breaks in, clearly intrigued. "Progeny of what?"

"My apologies; you being a planewalker complicates this game somewhat. It's a term applied to Tormtar who were too young at a very special time of our history. In my case, I was eleven." Adele says and her face clouds a bit as she remembers. "Next round, I'll explain. Am I allowed to ask about your family now?"

There's a just a moment of hesitation the other side of the table.

"Nothing as such." Valen says finally; he empties his cup completely this time and refills without pause. "I'm not going to insult your intelligence by asking whether you know what my particular subset of outsiders is called."

"The horns-and-tails bit was kind of a giveaway." She makes a face. "But I thought we already established that you being a tiefling doesn't bother me."

"I'll miss you when you're gone, woman of brains," Valen suddenly says fondly, and Adele's eyes widen a bit at that. He sees it, and lifts a hand almost immediately, hastening to add. "My apologies, Lady, that was…"

"No, it's fine, fine," she says quickly, then tilts her head to a side and probes a bit deeper. "What's this with the 'when you're gone' bit, though, sir? It's not that I can even move from Lith My'athar and environs until the Valsharess is defeated: you know my geas wouldn't let me even if I…wanted to go? Which I don't."

"Good." He nods emphatically, and Adele's trying to convince herself that her heart sped up just because of the drinks. "I'm glad to hear that." He clears his throat. "At any rate, back to your question. Otherwise I'd lose and I never do." Adele huffs, but he waves it away imperiously. "Just watch," he says, and swallows his drink in one gulp. His voice breaks a little as he continues. "So since you know where little tieflings come from, I'll not bother with educating you about cambions, which is what my father was. Luckily I've never met him, and this is not the place to entertain you with my suspicions about his identity. My mother was fully human, though."

"Sorry," Adele would need to be completely numb not to feel the pain in Valen's voice. "Not all paladins are insensitive jerks, sir. I imagine it was hard growing up like that."

"You can say that." He drinks again, blue eyes cloudy with memories. "And yes, you and I are probably outliers in our respective groups." He shudders. "Especially me. Using big words like that, instead of just smashing through rows of devils and eating their hearts straight from their chests on the battlefield, gulping their blood as a chaser afterwards." He grabs hold of Adele's hand; the grip is surprisingly strong. "The Seer's washed-up pet tiefling: I came a long way. If I told you that what I just said about devils and their hearts isn't just a figure of speech, paladin, would you still stay here and keep up drinking?"

"By Torm's name: you were in the Blood War." Adele breathes, unsteadily; the pleasant haze of alcohol dissipates fast and her limbs are cold. She is familiar with the term and the vague issues that surround the endless carnage between devils and demons raging across the Planes, as the specialized training that was hers included lectures from the order's most experienced demon hunters on the subject. She suddenly understands his incredible prowess in battle, his bouts of sudden and explosive ferocity that leave shattered skulls and broken body parts behind him as he stalks their opponents, the way he looks just before they enter the fray with the little flames of red in his eyes he thinks he can hide when she's not looking…

"You told me: You are/What you do/When it counts." Valen quotes, leaning closer across the table: she can smell the alcohol on his breath. "So what do you think I am, if I tell you I did things in that war that would curdle your blood and make your eyes bleed and sanity fray around the very edges of your reason? If I told you that until The Seer claimed me, I was nothing but one part of a mindless, frenzied horde of unspeakable terror to serve an insane cause in a war that spans hundreds of planes and thousands of centuries?"

Adele is about to open her mouth to answer, but he kicks his chair back, stands up suddenly, and throws a few pieces of silver on the table.

"Don't say anything, paladin, that you might regret later when you're sober." His tail swishing wildly, he straightens, and it's Lith My'athar's general again standing there, with a weight of pain in his eyes that makes Adele dizzy. "This was a mistake, and for that I apologize—I should have never asked you to do this. You are a human. By definition, it is right and proper for you to empathize with other beings. It is humanity's great strength, and its great weakness." Those red flashes in his eyes are there again, the ones she only ever saw in the midst of battle before. "I am part fiend. By definition, it is right and proper for me to engage in madness and slaughter. Most halfbreeds of my lineage go homicidally insane. That is to say, they simply act according to their proper nature. But saying that me being a tiefling doesn't matter is also a mistake, Adele. Do not ever let it cease to bother you."

He indicates the coins on the table.

"I clearly lost; the tab is paid, as custom dictates. I'll see you in the morning in the strategy room for our next planning session. The Chasm of the Eye Tyrants is our next target: rest up."

And then he's gone, and Adele is staring after him, cup in hand, a dozen things she could have said but didn't swirling in her mind.

Her jaw is unconsciously clenched… and she's cold again.