A Night Like This

The small house far outside the city, with its flowers and animals, had come far sooner than either of us could have expected. A gift from Wyll, an old Ravengard estate; occupied seasonally for hunting, or as an escape from politics. The first night they had done little but remove the stern visage of Duke Ravengard from the many walls upon which he hung, staring ever grimly, even from beyond the grave. Shadowheart had been quick to admonish Wyll as, "Awfully eager to be rid of us, shipping us away to the country so we don't get in his way." Wyll had promised that this wasn't the reason, but if it was, I couldn't blame him, there was little place for us in the courts of Baldur's Gate, neither of us were politicians, nor had we any aspirations to power, the great noise of the city's rotten heart would have driven us mad, more than any tadpole had managed to. Neither could we have slipped into the thrum of the city, we were too well known by now, our faces plastered on the broadsheets, and any life we'd ever had here before dead or changed beyond recognition. Even if we could have slipped back into the niches we'd so recently left empty, or perhaps taken on new lives, return to being simply another face among the crowds, carried through streets and avenues till we were spat out on some street corner, in a brand new city, reborn before us, I don't think either of us would have. We knew, before we'd ever spoken of it, perhaps even before we'd truly thought about it, that a quiet life with one another would be better than any other that fate could have offered us. So we'd left the city we'd so recently saved, to a life we'd spent so many nights building together, constructing a future out of hushed whispers, and promises written in the squeeze of a hand and the kiss of a cheek. Even when we hadn't dreamed it would ever appear before us, we had been moving toward it, ever returning to a future we'd live a hundred times over, always returning to a home we were yet to see. Yet now we slept within its walls, danced in its arms, and on this night, lay among its flowers in the warm summer air, staring at the moon, one hand in another. A perfect silence, a great exhale, the song of the river which twists through the field, the dance of wind through the trees, our home, long awaiting us, exhaled with us. Shadowheart shifted beside me, rustling the grass, her hair brushing against my cheek, laying herself upon my shoulder, breath on my neck. Eyes taken from the sky, closed, tucked beneath my jaw. Her hair shined bright enough in the fullness of Selune's light to see the furrow of her brow, the crease of her mouth. Whatever was bothering her, I would have to wait- A tiny exhale of breath. cold upon my skin. -but not long. "Have I ever truly chosen anything?" Wait. Her eyes are open now, staring straight across my chest, out into eternity. "When I saved the Nightsong, defied Shar, threw away everything i'd ever know, did I choose that?" I wrap an arm around her waist, lightly, the softest touch. Silence. One second. Two. She expects a response. "Of course you did, what else-" She sits up quickly, my hand dropping away, looking down at me, a perfect eclipse, a crown of radiant light, her face swallowed in darkness. "This life, with you, here, it's all I could've ever wanted" Her voice is terse, angry. "When I lived in the House of Grief I never would have wanted this, let alone dreamt of it" Yet. Her anger is far away, directed elsewhere, far away from here, here where her features swim in and out of penumbral shadow. "But you rescued me, and I hated you, in all your self righteous glory." She had lifted herself higher, straighter, I could do little but lift a hand to shield my eyes from her growing radiance "You were a danger to my mission, to all that had ever mattered to me, you could take it all away" she pauses. "and you did nothing but trust me. I thought you were ridiculous, an idiot with an ego to match. I still do." This had been her attempt to reduce tension. Her tone had not changed. Her posture had not shifted. "I thought it was a ploy to take the few secrets I had been allowed to remember. But it wasn't, was it? you're just... " I seized my chance. "Stupid" There. the flash of a moonlit smile. "I was going to say ridiculous, but I already said that didn't I?" The wave finally breaks, crashes, falls back upon my shoulder. "You did, but it's still true the second time around" She had returned to staring across my chest, her voice falling back to its steady rhythm. "By the time we got to Moonrise, I almost actually believed it." "Could've fooled me." Silence. An unwanted comment. Though, in the moonlight, I thought I saw the flash of a smile. "And there we found my greatest wish. A chance to finally prove my devotion to Lady Shar. All i'd ever wanted, all i'd ever dreamt of, right infront of me. All I had to do was let you go" She lifts her head to look at me. "Though I have no doubt you would have stuck with me if i'd let you, enamored and enraptued as you were. But to the Lady of Loss, would that not have been the greatest show of my devotion? To ignore all that I wanted, to do what I needed to avoid pain, as I have my whole life. To steal away as we slept outside the Shadowfell, to slit a throat on my way out, to plunge Lady Shar's spear into the Nightsong, to be her champion, to win her glory." She shrinks beside me, pulling herself closer, smaller. I twist to wrap both arms around her, still only the lightest touch. "But when we stood before her, when she had promised me a different future, I couldn't picture it, I saw only endless darkness; my life had been nothing but devotion to Shar, Till that moment I hadn't dared consider anything as possible. Yet, there had been no choice at all, I was lost to her the moment you freed me. Even then, I could do nothing but choose you." There it was, a conclusion appearing as suddenly as its origin. "I could feel it, your trust, your belief in me, all other choices fell away." Her mouth straightens. "So did I truly choose? Tav, I- Have I ever chosen anything?" A shake, dismissing whatever thought had begun to take root "I'm sorry. My whole life has been decided for me, it's been so long since I chose anything, it's hard to remember what it feels like" I squeezed her in my arms. "You chose yourself Shadowheart. you spared The Nightsong. I trust you because you're worthy of trust. You could have plunged that spear through her heart and I would've believed it the right thing to do. love comes easier to you than hate. I meant what I said when I found your parents, you don't need me to tell you the difference between right and wrong. You've always known" "If you hadn't come along i'd be-" "A mindflayer" "-A dark Justiciar in the service of Shar, her champion. Yet." She falters. "Never truly having her love, never having done enough. But I wouldn't have known any different, I would be content, in a way. There was kindness in the punishment of failing her. Certainty. Inevitability. I wouldn't have know anything was missing. But, perhaps I always did. Perhaps I knew I'd never really be worthy of her love" She turns into my embrace, burrowing her face in my chest. "Nor do I think i'll ever feel worthy of your love" "Ah, but that you actually have" I feel her smile into my chest "Mm, Tell me more about how kind and wonderful I am, if i'm to have an ego to match yours, we have some catching up to do" Now she changes the topic, growing embarrassed, I have at best a few sentences before this topic is dropped until it next bursts from her "You'll learn what it feels like to choose yourself, how it's at the same time the hardest, and easiest decision you'll ever make" She rolls me onto my back, thighs either side of mine, her hair again radiant in the light of Selune. "Yet, I'd always choose you, oh noble Paladin of Ilmatar" she leans down, pressing her lips into mine. Holding, pressing deeper, another smile. Release. "Tell me more of the nobility in suffering for what is right." Another kiss, deeper yet "For justice for ourselves and for others" Again. Deeper. A dirty trick that would definitely work. Grass digs at my back, the sound of the river drowned out by blood rushing to my ears. She sits up, Triumphant. Smug. "Come now lover, you know me well enough to know how selfish I can be, i'm sure i'll have no trouble learning" A hand run through my hair. Defeat. Brace for the coup de grace. A terrible flash of purple light, a weight lifting from me, falling, writhing in the grass, clutching her hand. Screaming. I dive, broken out of any remaining romantic haze, fingers finding the gap between her back and the cool earth. Hands cut by dry brittle grass as they fought their way through, dirt underneath the fingernails, the wine so carelessly kicked over, spilling the last of it to drown the earth. Nothing mattered but getting her away, far away from now. Brush away the grass, lift her up, above the silence of the night, held tight, screaming still, across the small yard, fall through the threhshold of their small home, into whatever room entered my vision first, brush aside the remainders of dinner, place her onto the table, gently, quickly. She's stopped screaming. Now she gasps raggedly, desperately, for air. Hand still clasped around the other, nails digging in, blood dripping down her wrist, as if to release it would allow the pain again its foothold. Take her hand, gently remove it from the other, squeeze once in silent assurance. Turn the palm over, examine it closely, run a finger across its surface. Find nothing. "Tav- It's back- I knew- She wouldn't let go so easy- My parents-" Breathing still ragged, choking on own desperation for any explanation. "You're okay? It's stopped now?" "I think so." A pause, she fumbles on the table, sitting, hunched over, pale, shaking. I hand her a half-empty glass of wine, one of the few things that had remained on the table, not now scattered across the floor. "I saw her. I saw her again." Her voice grim, steady, hollow. "Shar?" I took her hand in mine, placing the other on her back, allowing her weight to fall on me. "Her. The Mother Superior. Both. I should've known. I should've known it wouldn't be so easy. They wouldn't let their pet project simply escape. To turn a selunite child is one thing, but to bring me back into the fold? I shudder to think" "I should've cut her throat there when we had the chance, infront of her goddess, surrounded by the corpses of her cloister. I had thought it would only be giving her what she so badly wanted." "Perhaps. but we didn't, did we? And now it seems it's become our problem" She shivers. "And we may yet have to" the blood on her arm dry now, splotches of it marking the wood of the table. "Why must it be so difficult to know who to kill? I don't know how you manage." "Is this the first time it's returned?" "I would've told you if it wasn't. Not that I would've been able to hide it" She holds her palm, gently massaging it with her thumb "But this, this was worse somehow. This was more than a punishment for turning from her teachings, this was a threat, a promise of retribution. To take away everything. To remind me of what it means to be loved only in loss" "We'll figure this out, we'll send word to Gale and Aylin tomorrow, see if they know of anything, even if only a way to relieve the pain" "Easy for you to say, you're not the one with the goddess of loss speaking to you through your nervous system. Besides, maybe that was all she had to say" "You and I both know better than to hope for that" A smile, the moon escaping from eclipse "well, next time she can hopefully at least pick a less inconvenient time" "So now pain ruins the mood? You've changed your tu-" She fixes me with a glare i've seen a hundred times, but remains no less effective. With this sure sign of her recovery, I lift her from where she sits on the table, her body still trembling in my grasp. Carrying her across the hall to the bedroom, sweet summer air through the open windows "I'm beginning to feel like I'll never be truly done suffering" "Your fear is what she wants, to take away all you've fought for. For you to remember loss as the only constant, to know it as comfort, safety, the only way to love or be loved" "Perhaps it is" I lift the sheets, laying her down "And yet, here we are" I lay myself down beside her, little care for the grass still clinging to our clothes "I trust you'll find a way to reconcile that view with me not going anywhere" "You know me so well"