"He jumped onto the stone ledge in one swift movement and surveyed the valley spread out before him: lifeless, ash-colored land, with its smooth as a table surface occasionally cut by geometrically even cliffs. "Too perfect in shape to believe in the naturalness of their origin," the commander quietly concluded. He turned around; his loyal soldiers, tired and anxious, looked at him bewilderedly. Their gazes were moving from behind his back to the ink-black whirlpools wandering in the sky, gathering to spew rains of blood droplets, eyeballs, and thorny poisonous toads on their heads… or maybe something worse. The encounter with such a wealth of demonic anomalies caught the army by surprise and sowed seeds of fear and confusion in their souls. Action was needed… and it had to be lightning fast."
Tavienne turns the page, swaying in joyful anticipation, causing the crook leaning against the tree to almost hit her head. She clears her throat, closes her eyes for a moment — just like the commander, who is about to deliver a speech — takes a breath…
"The demons thirst to break our spirit. To scare us. To make us drop our weapons on the tainted ground, shrink in horror, and allow ourselves to be slaughtered like cattle," she continues reading, raising her fist to the sky following the commander: azure in her world and leaden in his, "but we'll not retreat!.."
The border separating their universes thins. Two personalities — two souls - intertwine, breathing the air through one chest, and speak with a shared passion in their voices until the words run out: about countless battles endured, relying only on a fleeting chance of success; about brothers and sisters in arms destined not to see even this pale dawn; about ancestors whose blood forever soaks the ground beneath their feet; about families left behind — for whom it is worth pushing forward, sparing neither enemy nor oneself. The army grows louder — they hear it together; a wave of approving cheers passes through them — in honor of both; inspiration spreads warmth through their veins, seizes their spirits, and intoxicates their minds with anticipation. Anticipation of trials. And victories — against all odds.
"And among them," Tavienne says on a satisfied exhale and slowly closes the book without interrupting the tale: particularly pleasing passages are involuntarily memorized by her, "she looked at him: an unrecognized queen in modest knightly armor and the Chosen One, hidden among common people. It was then, listening as if to a song, to his voice full of fire, admiring the wind-blown tangled dark hair and seeing insane fearlessness in his eyes as black as a raven's, she first found herself thinking that she couldn't tear her gaze away from him. And she had no idea yet that he, an ordinary mortal man, would become the most painful thorn that would make her heart bleed, her soul renounce the will of a goddess, and her mind struggle in agony… end of chapter".
Poppy looked at her perplexed, blinking with her yellow eyes, and only responding with confused "baa".
"Everything will be fine! Of course, she almost kills the commander, but if everything ended badly, would I start rereading?" Tavienne ruffles the curly head comfortably settled on her thigh. Poppy bleated once again, this time clearly disapproving, to which Tavienne responded offendedly: "No, I didn't fall in love with him!.. Well, maybe just a little. And so what? What's wrong with falling a little bit in love with a handsome noble gentleman?"
She puts the book in her bag, stretches, gently rests her hand on Poppy's head, and leans back against the tree, once being a pair of pear seeds from far-away lands dropped here by some miracle many years ago, and now lonely growing in the middle of a field. Following Ieriyn, other stars awaken, gathering in a fanciful constellation: here appears the daring Swordsman, whom people will see as Tempus, the lord of battles and god of desperate bravos, and elves — as the knight Auranum, ascended to the stars for faithful service by Corellon himself; there peeks out the sly Unicorn — her protector — preparing to look after those born at the end of summer and in the first month of autumn; and higher — so high that one has to tilt his head way up to see — shines the Circle of Mystra: it is said that Lady of Mysteries herself lives at its center, gazing at mortals from the spire of her ghostly tower.
"Is it warm there among the stars? Do gods ever freeze?" Tavienne thinks. "They probably do. They are living beings, after all…"
Off to the side, gruffly and severe like a cantankerous old soldier, gray Fang barked, tugging at an ear stump — one of the skirmishes with wolves didn't pass for the once reckless pup without a trace; the sheeps, voicing loud indignation in response, huddle tightly together, gathering to march towards the horizon — where at the junction of the reddening sky and endless summer greenery, silhouettes of low stone houses were visible. In the window of one of them — her own — a light flickers: no doubt, mom is bustling in the kitchen, one hand endlessly freeing the hem of her dress from the mischievous hands of little Carrie, and the other placing plates on the table — seven, like in the constellation of the Sisters.
It's time to go home.
Tavienne rises from the ground, dusts herself off, kicks her staff up with her foot to catch it in the air and gently nudges Poppy towards the herd with a kind "let's go, lazybones". A faint breeze rustles her hastily braided hair, causing a light strand to fly into her face — twice, thrice: as if a frisky and curious creature decided to tag along to engage in play.
And something inside — unnamed but so close and natural, inseparable from soul and heart — yearns to play within her.
The melodious singing of the first nocturnal birds, bleating of the herd, dog, and some remote shouts from the village — all drown in the gentle voice of the wind, singing in her ears with a hundred voices: a lonely rustle of leaves, a whisper of boundless grassy carpet, the rolling of tiny earth particles. Tavienne impatiently unfastens the straps on her ankles covered with rare scales, grabs her sandals, straightens her arms, whirls around, laughs merrily — feeling united with the world around her and with the inner power joyfully responding to her call like a sometimes unpredictably wild but still tamed beast. The scent of thyme and pine gives way to aromas of dry sand and warming heat — so foreign to the north but intimately familiar to her for reasons hidden in the impenetrable mystery of her ancestry; scorching but painless energy flows through her veins like a stream, driving prickly coolness away from her skin and bursting out from her palms in a multitude of tiny sparks whose fate is to flare up, soar, and then disappear into the fabric of the night cloak.
And somewhere many miles away — where the air is saturated with salt and the cries of seagulls mingling with the song of the surf dissolve the hum of a city forever left behind — a lone wanderer shivers from the touch of the breeze and hides their neck behind the collar of their robe, raising weary eyes to the sky. And catches themselves thinking that the stars are particularly bright today.