"A number of bad poets have quipped that Cania is as cold as the heart of its lord. The fact that his citadel is warm and inviting apparently escaped them."

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Guide to Hell, Chris Pramas

"Alright." Alfira sighs her disappointment and scratches through a crooked line scribbled across the top of her parchment - Zevlor tilts his head but cannot make it out. "Maybe it wasn't love at first sight, precisely," she concedes, "but you definitely trusted Tav right away. The next day, when she was gone, and the druids kept trying to herd us to the gate, you just ... took it in stride. You knewshe was going to come back and save us, didn't you?"

Zevlor's cragged brows contract in surprise.

"Did it truly seem that way?" He huffs a small, self-conscious laugh. "I'm afraid the truth is far less flattering."

On the contrary, Zevlor's stomach was in knots as he stood on the ramparts, squinting into the predawn light as if what he saw might be a trick of its muddled indigo rays. He dug sleep from his eyes with the palm of his hand; shook loose, limp hair behind his horns - there had been no time to tie it back. The vision did not change. Four of the previous day's strangers were rushing away from the grove they had saved, and even at a distance there was no mistaking the pale blue tail trapped once more under a too-small cuirass and twitching helplessly as its owner ran.

Tav had left. No explanation, no report, no farewell. If the guard on duty at the gate when she opened it had not sent someone to wake him, it would have been hours before Zevlor knew she was gone. He had bolted from his bedroll as soon as he understood the message and pelted from his chamber, still in soft kit and boots, but arrived only in time to see her and her companions round the corner of the environs and sprint away. The knot of panic in his stomach cinched abruptly into anger - at himself, for trusting her; at her, for making him trust her; at the gods, whose lust for his misery seemed to know no bounds - then collapsed in a tangle of disappointment and dismay. He had hung his last fragile hope on Tav in spite of everything recent experience had taught him, and now … now that hope was disappearing into the dark trees with those four silhouettes.

Four.

Zevlor blinked; then leaned perilously out over the wooden railing, inspecting the fading figures - the githyanki, both elves, and Tav. One of their number was missing - the purple-robed magic user. Nor did he see the Blade of Frontiers. Giving the spot where the swishing tail had disappeared one last forlorn glance, he pushed off the railing, turned, and sped down the embankment as fast as his knees would let him, ignoring the writhing mass in his stomach until he had more information, until he knew for sure…

The new arrivals had set up their camp along the cliffs on the grove's far side - the first line of defense against further harpy attacks, Tav had convinced the druids; though how Zevlor, whose charismatic rhetoric was rusty at best, planned to talk his way past the inner grove's guards to reach it, he had no idea. And, mercifully, did not need one. Rounding the corner past the snoring oxen at a paced half-run, he heard his name stage-whispered from somewhere behind him -

"Zevlor!"

— and skidded to a halt, head whipping around. The Blade of Frontiers, currently bladeless and dressed only in his own fraying camp clothes, was climbing the wooden steps to Asharak's makeshift salle. Zevlor nearly tripped over his boots in his rush to change direction.

"What's happened?" he barked at Wyll as soon as he reached him, voice hoarse with the dregs of sleep. "I saw Tav leave with some of the others."

"Yes, they did," Will agreed, gracious even in the face of the older man's less-than-civil greeting. "Tav thinks she's found something. Something that might give your people leverage to negotiate a longer stay. I'm not sure where she's gone, but she promised to be back as soon as she can, and in the meantime she's asked us to stall."

"Stall?"

"Stall the druids. Keep them distracted as long as we can so they can't force you all out."

Confusion and doubt joined the ranks of conflicting emotions eating away at Zevlor's stomach lining.

"Did Tav speak to Kagha?" he asked, scrambling for solid facts.

"I don't think so," Wyll admitted, and, catching sight of Zevlor's grimace, hurried on. "I went with her before dawn to the inner grove, but the guard said Kagha was sleeping - meditating, I mean - and he didn't want to wake her. Tav talked him into letting her wait in some little room they've got down there and I went back to camp. She turned up a bit later all excited, but said there was no time to explain. Just that she might have found out something important about Kagha and needed to follow it up right away. A few of the others went with her, but she asked me and Gale - he's the wizard - to stay and help you play for time."

A silence of several tense seconds marked Wyll's explanation complete, but Zevlor, now vaguely nauseous, required several more before he felt up to voicing his thoughts. Or thought, rather. Presently, he had only the one.

"And you believe she really will come back?"

"I think so." Wyll nodded decisively. "I watched her at the gate yesterday, and against the harpies after. She's quite good in a fight, and she's got plenty of backup."

Zevlor watched it dawn across the young man's open, honest face that he might have misinterpreted the question. He frowned, brow furrowed in solemn contemplation, then rearranged his features into something clearly meant to reassure.

"And I'm sure she wouldn't purposefully stay away. All she's done since she got here is help people, even when she didn't have to. And she doesn't seem the type to leave her friends behind. Don't worry. You can trust her."

The young hero's words brimmed with all the confidence of youth, and a faith in people not yet broken by betrayals or worn away by time - a faith Zevlor no longer shared. They rang in his head like a vicious taunt - Don't worry. You can trust her. - as he offered Wyll a mumbled, grudging thanks, then turned and dragged his boots back across wooden planks, then packed earth, then uneven rock, on his way to his secluded chamber. Don't worry. You can trust her. They beat like a war drum against his skull as he stumbled through his morning ablutions - don't worry you can trust her - and vibrated through his limbs as he tugged on his armor, fingers fumbling the smooth, brass buttons, threadbare ties, and worn clasps.

Don't worry. It had been an almost effortless order to follow the night before, when Tav had issued it. But whatever spell the young woman had woven around his anxieties had unraveled in her absence, leaving Zevlor's confidence in her mysterious plan as riddled with cracks and structurally unsound as any of Elturel's bridges once infernal chains had ripped their foundations away.

Plucking up a comb and small scrap of twine from his trunk, Zevlor pulled the top of his hair back in three swift strokes and fastened it tightly behind his throbbing head.

You can trust her. He had done that, too. And she had left him - left them all. With good intentions, perhaps, but good intentions would not save his people when her plan, whatever it was, almost certainly failed.

Muscle memory guided Zevlor's hands through the motions of folding up his bedroll and tucking it into a corner of his trunk, his mind still racing mercilessly round and round - don't worry you can trust her. It added his books to the trunk automatically, his notes, his maps, the gauntlets he could no longer use, and his battle-worn sword. It brushed his thumb absently along the pommel where a name and an oath had once been reverently etched…

…and Zevlor came to himself abruptly.

He dropped the blade into the trunk as if it had burned his bare hands. He slammed the trunk closed, locked it, turned his back on it - he'd send someone to fetch it later and load it onto a cart - and left the chamber without sparing it another glance. He re-entered the hollow now stirring to wary life and set his shoulders against his next grim task: informing the camp. They were out of time. They had no choice left but the road and whatever death it offered. Any moment now, the druids would march from the heart of the grove to force them all to the gate, and their last faint hope had left them on some unknown errand because of course she had. Because this world, for all its sun and clean water and green, growing things, was simply another layer of the Hells: where gods and leaders sacrificed their followers for their own agenda and allies abandoned each other on a whim. And if they could not be trusted - the whole holy city of Elturel and everyone in it - how could this unknown Tav?

It was a rhetorical question, but it haunted Zevlor for the rest of the morning; a morning that, for all the dread it promised at its end, seemed quite content to drag on for an age.

The entire camp, from Tilses to Doni the silent child, had apparently been struck by some endemic torpor. They moved as if swimming through grease, packed and repacked belongings painstakingly, dragged barrels and boxes to the gate at an ogre's slow shuffle, and everything that could conceivably be dropped or spilled inevitably was. Zevlor, watching them closely, could not decide if this was a natural byproduct of the camp's collective misery or whether the Blade of Frontiers had perhaps spread word among the tieflings to stall. Whichever it was, even Wyll could not reasonably be blamed for the scorching sun's inexplicably glacial pace. It, too, crawled lazily across the sky as if interested to see whether fortune would favour the refugees a second time.

Which it would not, Zevlor reminded himself sternly, brushing sweat from his forehead's furrowed lines and shooting the sun a resentful glare. He, at least, would not be slowed. He stomped in and out of the hollow, issuing orders, mediating bouts of in-fighting and spats between edgy tieflings and equally irate druids, carting more than his share of supplies, ignoring the complaints of his back and knees, and ticking them off his list as they were packed. Everything he could, in short, to keep himself distracted; keep his thoughts from spiraling towards that unanswerable question and his feet from wandering to the ramparts in some vain, un-killable hope of seeing Tav. Who would not come, Zevlor told himself again and again. Not in time, anyway. Whatever god or fate had set itself against them would not allow it. He repeated the words in his head like a mantra, hardening his heart to a block of solid ice, that hardships and betrayals and setbacks and disappointments would no longer be able to break.

Until, for the second time in two days, a sudden shouting from the bridge caught his attention, and the unmistakable creaking of the gate made him lift his head. It had barely left the ground before a figure darted under it, and Zevlor, balanced on a cart, counting arrows, dropped the one in his hand.

It looked like an un-glazed sculpture of a tiefling as it passed from the shadow of the ramparts into the mid-day light, coated from its wild mass of hair to the tip of its low-swishing tail in thick, dark mud that had hardened and baked in the sun. The other figures coming up the slope behind it fared no better, and all four reeked of fens - Zevlor could smell them all the way down the path. But it was unmistakably, impossibly Tav and her companions, and the careful construction of icy indifference in Zevlor's chest rattled his ribs as it shuddered and cracked.

He tried to clamber off the cart as the party approached - Tav at a tired run, the others with far less enthusiasm - but tripped on the arrow he had dropped and caught his knee hard on the wood as he went down. He barely registered the pain. His body felt numb and detached. Then Tav was racing past him, not catching his or any of the other surrounding tieflings' curious eyes, barking orders at her companions - "Shadowheart, find Wyll and Gale and tell them to meet us in the inner grove, then go rest up at camp," - in a voice that brokered no argument, and the steady, purposeful fire in it melted the last of Zevlor's bitter frost. Tav had returned, just as she promised, and in the echo of her voice he felt a hint of yesterday's confidence return. It warmed his numb, clumsy limbs, and he pulled himself up and over the side of the cart in one fluid motion to join the ranks of refugees trailing the party into the hollow.

The next hour passed in a blur not unlike pitched battle. The refugees, still barred from the inner grove, congregated on the stone steps above it in a tense and whispering mass. Zevlor, standing at their fore, could not remember afterwards how he got there, or much else of the wait, except the druids' damned chanting, and the eyes of the guards darting between the mob before them and the stone door behind, clearly every bit as anxious as he for something to emerge from their inner sanctum and put the stalemate to an end.

And, after what felt like both an eternity and no time at all, it did.

The Blade of Frontiers came through first, closely followed by the githyanki, both with blood on their still-drawn blades. The wizard, Gale, and the pale elf trotted behind them, the former chatting animatedly to the latter who scowled as he clutched a stitch in his side. Last came Tav, limping heavily, her mud-caked skin now flecked with red. But she was also smiling - the constrained, beatific smile of a victor determined not to gloat - as she paused just past the stone doorway and held out a hand to help a final figure stumble reluctantly through. It was Kagha.

Where eerie, lilting chanting had been only seconds before, there was suddenly silence. Then the druids were all speaking at once. The jumble of outraged cries - of "Kagha!" and "What's happened?" - were underpinned by a few vindicated mutters and one or two low animal growls, and all were cut off as quickly as they started by the interim first druid's raised and trembling hand. A second small gesture, and the guards before Zevlor stepped back leaving an open path through the rustling grass that a third hand motion, this one from Tav, indicated he should follow. Zevlor took a step forward, and, when no one stopped him, another, then another; the surreality of it all lending him an almost drunk-like confidence as he stopped a few paces before the filthy tiefling and the pale archdruid.

Kagha looked younger than he remembered, as if the shame discolouring her face had somehow reduced her to a small child. She stole a glance at Tav, who raised her mud-crusted eyebrows in encouragement, then took a shaky breath and pressed her hands to her chest as she addressed Zevlor at last.

"My … my humblest apologies," said Kagha, the words clumsy with nerves, and Zevlor's jaw fell slack. Whatever he had expected, it was not that. "For my actions," she continued. "All of them. I - I have behaved inexcusably. And I can only hope that I … that you … can ... forgive me. And that one day, Halsin will return, so I may ... I may properly atone. In the meantime," - an echo of authority peeked through the archdruid's voice now apologies were complete and orders could be issued - "your people are welcome to stay. For as long as you need. And we will continue to provide you whatever aid we can."

She looked again to Tav, as if for confirmation. Tav nodded once. Apparently, there was nothing more that needed to be said. Kagha bowed, excused herself, and hurried back to her cave, without waiting for Zevlor's forgiveness.

"Which was just as well," Zevlor finishes, lifting his ale to his lips. "Had I been able to find my tongue in time, I'm not entirely sure I would have granted it."

"She was a shadow druid, wasn't she?" queries Alfira. "That was the rumour that was going round, then."

"Rumours are bound to be true on occasion."

Zevlor's words are echoed by the interior of his almost empty tankard. He sets it down, wondering if its impolite to ask for a second. He knows he'll need another before the interview is over, but by the thoughtful look on her face, the bard isn't ready to move the story on just yet.

"It doesn't really matter, I suppose," Alfira muses. "Probably none of this will make more than a line or two in the lay, but… did Tav ever tell you how she found out about them? Or what she said to Kagha that made her change her mind?"

"How she discovered the Shadow Druids' influence," - Zevlor's lips twitch as he recounts it - "was a note hidden in Kagha's private things which Tav took the liberty of searching."

Alfira laughs out loud.

"How she managed to persuade Kagha from that dark path, however…" Zevlor's smile fades and is replaced by the thoughtful scrunch of his brow he often wears when contemplating Tav's strange powers of influence. "Well … that's just Tav, isn't it?" he concludes. "Always talking people off ledges, out of graves they dug themselves. I understand it better now, but, I confess, I had trouble believing it of Kagha when Tav explained it at the time."

"At the time?"

"Later that night."

"Oh…" Lights flicker on again behind Alfira's ochre eyes. "I see… so would thathave been when—"

"I'm afraid not," Zevlor cuts her off firmly, amused to watch her overeager face dissolve into disappointment once more. "I found Tav later, yes, but, I promise you, all we did that night was talk."

Which is the truth, though Zevlor declines to mention exactly howhe found her...

On her knees. Bent at the waist. Clad only in wholly inadequate smallclothes and pulling a comb through her long, soaking hair. Her head was bowed under the gentle stream of water spilling from the cliffs where she and her companions had made their scrap-tent camp. Which was why she had not heard his approach, Zevlor reasoned later, but for a few blissful seconds - the shortest of the day - he was unburdened by rational thought. His senses were reduced to vision, his purpose to admiring every inch of visible skin: freshly cleaned and glistening, smooth and fine as if fashioned from wisteria silk.

Then Tav turned her head.

He wasn't sure which of them exclaimed first, or if either of their incoherent sounds of surprise and embarrassment contained any real words. Tav jumped to her feet, slipped on wet rock, and flung out a hand to steady herself, then threw it hastily back across her chest. But not before the dying light had granted Zevlor an unobstructed view of unexpectedly generous curves that once again rendered him momentarily thoughtless, voiceless, and breathless; a single set of appreciative eyes.

"Sorry!" Tav blurted absurdly, and her voice awoke the thinking part of Zevlor's brain - he snapped his eyes shut, then turned on the spot for good measure, spewing apologies.

"No, no, I'm sorry, I ... I apologise, I should have known you - I mean, I should not have come unannounced, it was only -" He was babbling when he ought to be leaving, but it seemed crucial to explain, lest she think the worst. "I didn't see you after the confrontation with Kagha, and you weren't with the others at supper. And I - I wanted..."

What? To thank her? Demand answers of her? Apologise for not trusting her? Beg for her help yet again? All were relevant and necessary, but not, Zevlor knew, why it had felt so urgent to find her as soon as he could get away. He had wanted, needed, to see her - though he had never dreamed to see quite so much. After a morning spent convincing himself Tav could not possibly return, it had seemed essential, somehow, for Zevlor to see her for himself to be positive she had.

"I was going to come down and find you in a bit myself." Tav's voice was muffled by movement and the rustle of fabric. "I just wanted to wash the mud and blood and … swamp off first."

"Of course," Zevlor agreed, nodding fervently though his back was still to her, relieved to be let off with such a mild rebuke. "I apologise," he said again. "I'll meet you in the hollow whenever you're - whenever you prefer."

"Wait!"

He froze, one boot raised —

"I'm nearly ready, I just need another minute. I'll walk down with you if you'll wait for me."

— and lowered it again, too shaken to disobey. He cleared his throat for no reason, shifted his weight for the same, crossed his arms behind his back for something to do with them and fixed his eyes determinedly forward. But the cove Zevlor had admired on the walk up the cliffs, with its sparkling, twilit waves lapping peacefully against soft sand, now seemed a lackluster view. And the tumbling chorus of the waterfall behind him was not loud enough to mask the sounds of cloth and clasps, or distract him from the images they conjured...

"Alright. I'm decent."

Zevlor, suddenly aware his tail was swaying tastelessly, wrestled it still before sucking in a steadying breath and shuffling cautiously around. Tav was bent again, this time safely ensconced in Bex's old corset and dress, tugging leather slippers on with one hand and tucking wet wayward curls back into the bun she had tied high on her head with the other. She looked up as Zevlor turned. He thought her expression more amused than offended, but her cheeks were still a noticeably stormy shade.

"I apologise," Zevlor repeated, lost for anything else to say.

Tav straightened, somewhat lopsidedly, and waved it away.

"It's alright," she said, taking a stilted step towards him, and Zevlor, abruptly distracted, realised she was making a concerted effort not to limp. "I apologise - for running off this morning without explaining. I didn't want to wake you, but I was worried I wouldn't make it back in time if I didn't leave right away.

"It's alright," she repeated, this time in response to Zevlor's eyes, flicking compulsively to her injured leg despite his best efforts to discipline them forward. She smoothed her skirts down as if checking they were there, her cheekbones now plum with heat. "It's just a twist," she said dismissively. "Shadowheart will heal it later, once she's had a bit of food and rest. Shall we?"

And, gathering layers of patched skirt in one hand, she hobbled briskly past him with all the dignity she could scrounge.

Zevlor, more unsettled by this minor injury than his own faux pas, though unsure why, wondered if it was appropriate to offer Tav his arm as they traversed the pathless cliffs. A glance at her still-flushed face, and an unbidden vision of her kneeling nearly-naked by the water, and he decided it was not. He stationed himself, instead, slightly behind her and an arm's length away - where she did not have to look at him but he could still reach her should she stumble on the uneven rock. But if the ignominious memory of mere minutes before haunted Tav as they walked together, she gave no obvious sign. She turned her head once, ensuring he followed, then launched without prompting into the story of her day; the details of which were extraordinary enough to corral Zevlor's unbridled thoughts. Her light-fingered discovery of Kagha's treachery and her journey through the hidden swamp took the entire cliffside trek to relate, and Tav had just reached her confrontation with the shadow druids in the grove's inner sanctum when they ducked under the low-hung archway and passed into the now hushed and moon-shrouded heart of the grove.

Zevlor swept a distrustful eye across the empty grass, still half-expecting to be hit over the head by a staff or rushed by a bear, and listened with equal scepticism to the end of Tav's account. He found Kagha's sudden re-conversion highly suspect, but felt it would be churlish to argue.

"Ilmater's ashes," was his only mild remark as Tav paused for breath before starting up the shallow stone stairs. "I never thought she would actually see reason. That must have been quite the speech."

"To be honest," Tav admitted with a wince, her limp more pronounced as they climbed, "I prefer a good speech to a sword wherever possible. Swords have never been my forte."

But this, Zevlor could not let stand.

"You're being modest. But you forget - I've seen you fight."

"What, against the goblins?" Tav scoffed. "That's hardly a proper example. I had the high ground and the element of surprise on my side, not to mention numbers. Had I been facing a line of goblins alone on the ground, I'd have been lost. Unless I could have talked them out of it, I suppose," she added with a small self-conscious laugh.

"I'd have put better odds on talking goblins down than Kagha," said Zevlor wryly.

Tav laughed for real at this. She shot Zevlor an appreciative glance over her shoulder, inspiring a surge of inexplicable pride. His knees barely twinged as he climbed the final step, and they took the packed earth path to the hollow at a more companionable proximity and livelier pace.

The sounds, then the sights, of a much more cheerful supper than the one of the night before greeted them as they reached the edge of the salle. The refugees, united under the twin banners of relief at their stay of expulsion and curiousity about their saviours, mingled together near the flames of Orka's cookpot, venturing questions and snatching at the strangers' answers like dogs thrown dinner scraps. Tav stopped, leaning her weight on a homemade pell, and appraised the gathering from above. Zevlor watched her eyes flick from Guex, who could be heard badgering the Blade of Frontiers for sword handling tips, to the swarm of children slinking through the shadows behind unsuspecting pockets purloining small treasures and unattended bits of food. The orange torchlight seemed more merry than menacing tonight, granting the fond affection in Tav's face as she watched them a dancing, golden glow. And Zevlor doubted there would be a more auspicious time...

"Speaking of goblins..." he said tentatively. "I know it's not right, considering what you've done for us already, but … I'm afraid I have more to ask."

"Oh?"

Tav cocked her head at him. A few drying spirals of blue-black curl shifted with the movement, and Zevlor noticed for the first time her short horns were oddly flat at the tip, as if filed down. He touched his own unconsciously, then shook his head, dismissing the observation and giving his attention to the task at hand.

"You've bought us some time here," he explained, "but the goblins are still massing out there. I know Wyll has suggested we wait until one or both of you have completed your other quests, but, quite frankly, that could take some time. And, practically, we'd need an army of our own to escort us safely all the way to Baldur's Gate. And while I don't doubt your abilities-" he added tactfully, "you're no army."

Tav's lips twitched. She shifted her weight on the pell to face Zevlor directly.

"I take it you have an alternate plan?"

"Perhaps," he agreed, his own mouth stretching in a weak attempt at responsive smile. "Goblins are ill-disciplined. It's unlike them to organize so cleverly. Somebody must be leading them, bringing discipline to their ranks. If you can take out that leadership, I believe they'll scatter."

"Take out the goblin leadership," she repeated, as if confirming a command. Zevlor held his breath. He needn't have. "Well, I don't see why we can't try," Tav decided after half a second's thought. "We're headed that direction anyway - the goblin camp is the last place Halsin was known to be. If he's alive, we'll need to get him out, and I don't imagine we'll manage that without a little bloodshed. We'll find out who's in charge while we're there and add them to the list."

In anyone else's voice, thought Zevlor, it would have sounded arrogant, or foolish, or both; in Tav's, it became a simple statement of fact - solid, immovable, ridiculous to disbelieve. Her confidence was catching. That same comfortable assurance Zevlor remembered from the night before began to trickle again through his veins, warming his skin from the inside. This time, however, he was not so ready to let it go. He wet his lips, an idea forming...

"Our scouts have been observing the goblins for several tendays now," he said in tones he hoped to Torm sounded nonchalant. "The information we've gathered might help you, if you'd like to take a look. I've written up their notes, made a few provisional maps..."

"Oh, yes, please!" Tav pushed off the pell. "It would be helpful to get a sense of what I'm walking into."

And if the enthusiasm in her voice might conceivably be feigned, Zevlor did not think she possessed the same masterful control of her tail. It wagged behind her like a puppy's the entire walk to his secluded chamber, and Zevlor found himself smiling - really, genuinely smiling; an almost forgotten sensation - every time it collided with his.

"So, once the two of you were alone, in your private room, after Tav had saved us all two days in a row, what did you 'just talk' about?"

Zevlor gives Alfira a level look across the table.

"Military strategy," he says straight-faced. "Infiltration and extermination, with an emphasis on swarm maneouvres effective against large numbers, urban terrain warfare, and goblin-specific tactics".

Which, under the influence of the old half-bottle of Ashaba Dusk Zevlor found forgotten on a shelf, devolved naturally into recitations of notable battles in his past, his other experiences as a Hellrider, and, finally, stories of Elturel itself. His throat began to itch after an hour, but Tav continued to ply him with questions - for someone who considered swords second to speeches, she showed a surprising interest in military careers; or his, at least - and he could not bear to disappoint her, or do anything that might make her leave. A thread of anxiety had already wound itself lightly around his stomach again; an echo of that morning's unpleasant state, and one he feared would grow once Tav was gone. He dreaded a second unraveling of the warm cocoon of confidence her voice and presence, her questions and comments, her friendship and assistance - when he'd had so little of either for so long - had woven around him.

So he kept talking. Tav's tail perked again at the discovery he was a paladin, but something, perhaps the cloud that passed across his face at the mention, kept her from asking any more. Nor, to Zevlor's relief, did she press him for details of the descent into Avernus, but let him paint her a picture of Elturel as he preferred to remember it: a city of spotless streets, grand bridges, awe-some buildings, and holy air, where any one of any race could walk without fear, a place even the gods themselves felt honoured to call home. Pure, perfect, and pristine …

… like bare wisteria skin, glistening wet and reflecting twilight.

Zevlor choked. The wine he had just swallowed to wet his throat swelled back up it abruptly. He spluttered, and set the bottle hastily down on the stone slab he used for a makeshift desk - and where Tav was currently perched to take the weight off her injured leg.

"Are you alright?" she asked, half-amused, half-concerned.

He waved his assent with one hand, still coughing into his other, afraid to meet her eyes; sure she would see reflected in them the memory he'd all but forgotten over the last few hours and now could not dismiss from his mind. It was the alcohol, he decided, though he'd barely had a glass' worth. He must be out of practice, or his tolerance was weakening with age. Zevlor cleared his throat, straightened, and pushed the bottle across the stone desk, safely away from him. Which Tav apparently took as a sign.

"Well," she said, sounding awkward for the first time all evening, "this has been … well, more than helpful, honestly, it's been grand. But I've got another early start tomorrow. Or today, I suppose it is now."

A rustle of skirts and a thump of soft leather heralded Tav's slide from the stone slab to the ground. The thread of panic in Zevlor's stomach tightened. He looked up. And perhaps she read the desperation in his face, because -

"Don't worry," she said with a wry half-smile. "I'll be sure to say a proper goodbye this time. And I'll keep you updated on whatever happens with the goblins, so I'm sure we'll see each other again soon enough."

Don't worry. And in Tav's voice, it was a command that felt within Zevlor's grasp. It was like balm on a burn and campfire against a bitter wind, all at once, and it brought something visceral to life in Zevlor's chest: an idea, an urge, an instinct, fueled to a frenzy by the weak alcohol in his veins. To do something for her, offer her something to prove his gratitude, evidence his new fragile trust. He cast his eyes and thoughts wildly around the spartan chamber, and alighted on his still-packed trunk.

"Wait," he said before Tav could limp more than one step forward. "Before you go."

And Zevlor strode to the trunk, unlocked it, and retrieved from the bottom a bundle of clinking white gold and steel.

"Left over from my soldiering days," he explained as he turned, presenting the gauntlets to a frozen and expressionless Tav. "It isn't much," - a pointless modesty; even in the candlelight, the armor emitted a soft, holy glow - " But they were blessed in the High Cathedral. They may be some help against creatures like goblins."

Zevlor held the gauntlets, the most valuable things he owned, out to Tav with none of the hesitation she herself showed in accepting. She kept them at arm's length, as if afraid to breathe on them, lifting them up and tilting her head to examine the exquisite craftsmanship from every angle. Satisfaction engulfed Zevlor for a moment, then his brain emerged from the zealous cloud to remind him of Tav's whip-thin rapier with its equally slender handle, which, he realised with a gut-punch of embarrassment, she would never be able to wield with her custom dexterity while encumbered by bulky plate.

"If you have no use for them, one of your companions might," he amended quickly. "Or you can always sell them if you need."

Tav's eyes snapped to his, an ocean of horrified blue.

"These are far too precious to sell! They're really too precious to give away. But..." Her gaze darted from the gift in her outstretched hands to Zevlor's face and back again, then she gathered the gauntlets safely to her chest. "I appreciate them. I'm absolutely sure they'll be useful to us. Thank you."

Still juggling self-consciousness and fervor, Zevlor added, "I'm sorry I cannot do more," and the memory of his last apology to Tav, and everything that proceeded it, flitted again across his mind and burned against his cheeks. Mercifully, Tav did not seem to notice.

"You do plenty," she said firmly, looking up into his face. "You've kept these people alive and together ... for so long and through so much. You've made a family of them. They trust you. And that is no mean feat." Her shoulders twitched. Zevlor, brain awash in sensation, wondered distantly if she meant to reach for his arm. Her hands full of armor, however, Tav smiled instead and finished, "You're doing a good job here, Zevlor," which had a remarkably similar effect.

Warmth ignited in his limbs like liquid fire. Places in Zevlor's body that had not felt for some time, felt now. He watched Tav leave, light-headed and heavy-limbed, and it hit him like a blow to his chest in full plate armor: that the tiefling who had saved his people, with whom he had talked so companionably, so effortlessly for so long, and the young woman whose gloriously bare body kept dancing across his vision were one and the same.

"And ... that was it ... nothing else happened that night?" Alfira demands shamelessly, but Zevlor stands his ground.

Whatever indulgence he might have permitted himself that night alone in his bedroll remembering Tav's wet skin in the twilight had no place in Alfira's song.