Tension fills every single muscle in her body, knotting sinew and pinching nerves. Armor clanks sharply as she strips it off in a fury and leaves it strewn across the floor. Sometimes, her sister is more than she can stand. Sometimes, she wishes there is more she can do to protect her daughter. Galen says she is fine at the Academy, or at least as well as can be expected with the normal trials and tribulations that face her there. But now it is the end of the day, and nothing has gone smoothly. Assassins, demon lords, politics within and without the House. Were it not for the youthful vigor of elvenkind, she would be as wizened and careworn as some surface hag just from the anxiety. Is this how her mother felt when each of her own daughters left the House to be trained? It explains the silver in the Matron's hair.
A faint warmth passes over her ebony skin as she runs a cantrip across her body to remove dirt and untangle the knots in her hair. Unfortunately, it does nothing for her muscles. She's been clenching her jaw again, almost hard enough to crack a tooth.
To the outside world, she is ever angry and uncaring, as cruel and callous as any female drow. She is evil, weaving tangled webs of honeyed lies and false promises just to secure her own position and even advance through the ranks of the wicked. It is a reputation she embraces heartily, knowing the cost should it ever falter. It is one too high to ever pay. Some days, she forgets where the mask ends and her own true face begins. Once upon a time, there was no difference. But that seems a lifetime ago. She has changed, the world has changed. And in many ways, she has simply grown up.
She scrutinizes her face in the mirror, seeing hints of exhaustion in her flint eyes. The fevered, protective rage that has driven her through the day is starting to trickle away. She looks the same as she did thirty years ago, still young and harsh and lovely. It is the eyes that have aged. They are wiser now, collected even when she seems to be barely holding herself back from violence. This is what evil looks like to the world.
And yet...
The door opens quietly and she hears familiar footsteps. They are not soft and quiet like a drow's, clunking like a dwarf's, or a mere whisper of sound like Cessair's. Only Galen walks with that certain, methodical, soldier's tread. "You're tense," he says softly, hands settling on her shoulders. She wants to snap at him for the obvious statement, but then she feels his thumbs moving in slow circles to work out the knots. She sighs and relaxes a little, slowly feeling the aches start to evaporate.
Eventually, she knows, age will take him from her. She isn't certain how she will handle not having him in her life. Will it make her bitter and angry again? Will she shatter like glass? Or will she simply accept and make her peace with it before moving on? Time has already etched lines in his face and greyed his hair and beard. The thought sometimes makes something in her chest clench unpleasantly under the icy hand of that certain, marching, inescapable dread.
Long ago, she would have thrown a lover too old or too slow or too weak away. She remembers treating males as if disposable, tossing them away the moment she grew bored or tired of them. Sometimes she was cruel and other times she was simply indifferent. She was never gentle and neither were they, each expecting to get the most out of the encounter at the other's expense. It was a battle in an overarching war between genders. None of them would have offered to tend to her simply for the contentment it brought them. There was no such warmth in the world of the drow that she had seen, other than that stolen by true lovers as much as they existed here in the darkness.
She wants to purr as he places a kiss behind one pointed ear. It isn't excitement or a desire to leap into bed. For now, she is content to bask in the warmth of his presence and just be held. It is an alien emotion, but one that she has grown comfortable with over the course of around thirty years. She makes a murmuring sound without words and he pulls her tight against his broad chest.
"Love you," Galen says in his surface tongue because he can never find the right words in drow. She doesn't say it back and never has, but he knows anyway. It's obvious in the soft way she looks at him sometimes when no one else is watching, the way she still lays her legs across his lap and reads, the way she heals his wounds in battle before her own.
"I know."
And that is enough for both of them.
She knows some people have figured out that occasionally Galen is in her room as something other than a careful bodyguard. They think of him as a toy and wonder why she hasn't cast him off too. It is beyond them to even imagine something close to the truth. No one is terribly surprised: she is still young enough and the young are wont to sample new things.
It's more than that, of course. The invisible line she once thought should never be crossed has been erased by the weakening of her own defenses. Now she is here, lying in the bed with her head on his chest, almost lost in the feeling of his hand stroking her hair and the steady beat of his heart under her cheek. There are no expectations and no fears. There is no past and no future. Simply a moment in time with just the two of them where all the parts of daily life that drive her to distraction fall away. For a little while she is not a priestess of the Spider Queen, not a Matron's daughter, not a noble of Menzoberranzan. She is just Lirayne.
Everything with Galen is gentle and soothing, and that has made all the difference.
A thousand schemes ruled the City of Spiders in a vast, interconnecting web. Nothing happened without a reason. And, as Ilamin had learned, nothing came without a cost. The aasimar stood stiff in the accursed woman's office. He was still dressed in all back with a mask over his face and a polymorph spell concealing his true nature under the face of a drow.
Drisinil smiled faintly, sensing his discomfort. "You seem to be having difficulties," she said calmly and completely friendly. It only put him more on edge along with the fact that he couldn't detect anything of her nature with magic. "Perhaps I can render assistance."
"And why would you do that?" he said. He had been invited and against his better judgment, he'd gone. They were having absolutely no luck with House Duskryn. The best of their number, Arsinoe, was dead now after having tried to strike down the accursed tiefling, epitome of the evil they faced. And now here he was, speaking to the daughter of Arach-Tinilith's mistress.
Drisinil pulled off a pendant and tossed it to him. Kenafin's only surviving number had rather poetically created the circumstances for her own problem. It was a gift that kept on giving, as far as the priestess of Lloth was concerned. "Because of this."
He caught it easily and cautiously opened up his hand. There, in glimmering silver, was the symbol of Eilistraee. He had heard tell of the dark elves who sought to escape or even overthrow Lloth in the name of light. But he had not supposed he would ever meet one. And for Drisinil Baenre to be amongst their number…. "You?" he sputtered out, looking up so quickly he almost gave himself whiplash.
"Do you see anyone else in this room?" she said with a genuine smile. She couldn't help finding all this delightful. "I help you, you help me. I can tell you where what you really want is, and you can remove a little problem of mine."
"What problem?" Ilamin said suspiciously, frowning.
"One of the agents of the Church investigating you is Alystin Druu'giir. She knows about that little secret you're holding in your hand. I need her to die or I will, and she's already in your way," Drisinil explained more grimly, sitting down. She loved playing a part like this, swaying someone subtly to do what she wanted to do. Whether they succeeded or not with Duskryn was hardly her problem and if she could get rid of Kenafin in the process, so much the better.
Ilamin frowned deeply, running his thumb across the engraved image of a long-haired dancer holding a sword aloft. "And in return, what do we receive?"
"I tell you where the girl you're looking for is, Llolfaen Duskryn," Drisinil said.
"You would allow her to die?" Ilamin said suspiciously. That didn't sound good.
"She's one of Lloth's chosen. That makes her an enemy. Her death is regrettable, but necessary for the continued safety of the Dark Maiden's followers. And apparently the whole of the Upper Realms," Drisinil said sincerely. That was the key: sincerity. Once she'd learned to fake that, she'd had it made.
The disguised aasimar tossed the pendant back. "We have an accord, then," he said quietly, not certain whether or not he really trusted the woman he was talking to. On the other hand, they had been unable to locate the girl on their own. She was not with her House, nor apparently anywhere else in the city of Menzoberranzan that they had been permitted to enter. And the death of a Church agent was not such a problem, really. Just another enemy. "Show me where the girl may be found."
"She is here at the Academy, which is why you've been unable to find her in your search," Drisinil said. She motioned for him to approach the mirror near where she was standing and then let her fingers ghost over the reflective surface with a murmured incantation. The room's reflection in the glass swam for a minute, then vanished. It was replaced by the image of a girl trying to pour over books while half asleep, brushing her long white hair back out of her grey eyes. "This is Llolfaen. Now you have a face to put to your name. Her room is in the west halls. I cannot guide you there for risk of being implicated, but I can give you a charm that will lead you there."
"If you would be so kind?" he said, still committing the girl's face to memory. "I will send two of my men to see this threat removed. The demons will not have their victory today."
Drisinil held out a pendant. Instead of dangling straight down as normal, it was hovering diagonally, indicating what he thought was west. "Then this will guide them. Remember, Alystin Druu'giir." Yvonnel had been right: her business with House Kenafin would remain unfinished until there were none of them left.
Ilamin gave her a hard look with his blue eyes. "Of course I will remember," he said sternly. "We have an agreement."
Her smile seemed to brighten slightly. "I hope you honor it as I have," she said simply. "Now please, go take care of your business. I will ensure the Academy guards are not in the area and will be delayed."