Not having to wonder how to manage any of those things frees her to think about others. Why does he toy with me? Why not? It fills a few moments of an endless existence.
Vigny looks back up at Fafenheir, difficult as it is to do. She still doesn't understand his questions, but it doesn't matter. Please or displease the linnorm, it all ends the same. "Of course I know pain. All people do. There is nothing special about it, or my own. There is nothing vicious about me. You're just turning over stones looking for maggots, but you won't find any. You don't actually know me at all."
The woman kisses you gently on the forehead, tingling like it was kissed by frost.
"Come north to Kalsgard. I shall find you, my precious daughter. You need not worry about that. If only I could come to you now," she says. "Rest. We will be together soon," she soothes as she strokes your hair, sending you drifting into sleep.
The glass falls, but instead of the expected shattering, it falls into your double's hand without a drop spilled.
"It vould be a shame to vaste zee vine," she says before taking a sip and listening to your question.
"Emi, Emi, Emi, You just can't ask a girl that kind of question. Especially vhen you are a fery good spell veafer. Vho knows vhat shenanigans you vould cause."
She takes another sip of wine and grins wickedly.
"But, you do like to break de vebs ov propriety, no? Fery vell, I shall tell you, it is Emiliana Fasilescu," she answers with a chuckle.
"It is a cruel world," the voice says. You feel a chill in the air, but unlike the clammy cold of the caves, there's life and vitality to it. Silently, a pair of bare feet that glow like the moon step in front of you. A dress of pure white falls across them just behind the toes when they stop, then covers them as their owner kneels before you and cups your chin in delicate hands that move your face to look into the pale white face of a ghostly young woman. Around her neck is a medallion that shows a shield with a slash across it and a stylized dragon circling around the boss, much like the medallion you found on the ground.
"Your mother loved you very much, Jerukh. She would not want you to be alone. No more than she wanted to leave you, but death comes for all mortals, and we have little say in when."
For a long moment, it feels as if the world had stilled. The woman gives you the time you need to mourn, to grieve, and waits patiently for you to do so. No matter how long it takes, she waits.
"Perhaps," Fafnheir replies, still amused, and growing more so as he continues. "Or perhaps it is you who does not know yourself." He reaches up and touches two fingers, frigid cold and searing hot at once, to your forehead. "How brave are you, child? Are you willing to face your worst nightmare?"
no, not anger... I won’t win with anger... she’s lying, she must be, so our deal’s off... unless... could she be a piece of my own mind turned against me? If she is...
”Interesting...” she answers raising an eyebrow, ”If you are me, if your true name is mine, then ve are fully ekvals...” As she claims those final words, she envisions the chair vanishing beneath her rival self and the infinite expanse around them shrinking back into the Rusty Dragon as her opponent falls, and she wills it to be so...
Jerukh nod at the ethereal girl's words, his eyes moist and expression sad.
The alchemist closes his eyes, focussing on his mother's distant memory as he feels calmness and closure draw around him.
After a time, he knows not how long, Jerukh rises and wipes his eyes dry.
He looks to the girl;
"Who are you? Why do you heal me so when life and others have failed?"
"I don't know, I'm not even sure what my worst nightmare might be. But I'm brave enough to tell you that I don't think you know either, and I'd be a fool to tell you even if I did know."
I'll take your challenge, if that's what you're suggesting. Go ahead and take your best guess. If I do face it, you'll go away and let me be in peace."
Vigny has no idea if she can do it, and doesn't know if the linnorm would keep his word if she did. But you play the hand you're dealt.
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The look of shock on your double's face as her chair disappears is rather comical. She falls on her rear with an "oof," and a moment later, she's splashed with wine and the glass shatters into a thousand tiny shards.
"No. Y-you can't do that!" Her face twists in furious denial as your conversation partner finally loses composure.
"I cannot say, cousin," the woman says with a sad smile, "Perhaps it was time for you to heal? Perhaps it was because I know what you've been through, Many of our clan do. We are guardians, protectors of the weak, and for that we are often called to lay down our lives for others. Just as your mother was, just as I was, and just as you might be someday."
She holds out a hand to you, offering help in getting back to your feet.
"May Desna's stars guide you, even as you use Sarenrae's rays to heal," she says, the scene around you beginning to fade.
"Oh child. Poor, foolish child," he coos, "I never said I was accepting bargains."
White-hot pain flares to life as he shoves deep into your skull and deep into your mind. Walls that you've built around memories, old and painful are toppled with frightening ease by the linnorm. Images fade and swirl in your vision. You feel as if you're falling. Then, you are on a road south of the Grungir forest, looking down from a crest on a caravan heading your way. Among those in the wagons, you see your mother, your father, and you as you were those years ago on that day. In the back of your mind, Fafnheir howls with laughter.
Jerukh slowly rises taking her hand as he takes in her words and the stillness around them;
Cousin.
Kin.
He nods and smiles awkwardly as the sense of both belonging and renewed purpose stir within him;
"Thank you c-cousin. You are allowed me to realise that which is lost, and shown me that which is found. I will honour all who came before me in my own time, and my actions."
"We are all of humble origins." the young bard growls back, emboldened by the shrinking shadows.
"It is not that, that determined our value, But what we become from there!" now standing, Randal draws his bow and stares forward. "You know this to be true, that is why there is fear behind your eyes" he continues as an arrow finds its way to his other hand.
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"I should have known better than to agree," you double complains as she picks herself up. "Who says there's anything to gain? This is in your head after all," the double answers sourly. "Perhaps I'm just your humility trying to take you down a peg or two. Maybe I'm some spark of self-doubt. Or maybe I just wanted to mess with your head to see what happened. Take your pick."
"That is all we can ever ask," the young woman says. She wraps her arms around your shoulders, then she is gone as you drift into a deep, dreamless sleep.
The shadows recede, leaving you and the grizzled mercenary. He sneers defiantly, one last time, before an arrow from your bow steals it from his face.
You find yourself somewhere else now, a large hall filled with giant copper kettles and the smell of brewing liquor. A walkway runs along the top of the kettles and large windows let in light that filters through the dusty air.
"Fine day, don't ya think," an old man says as he pulls out a sample of the mash to examine. A neatly trimmed beard of silver covers his chin and jaw and the matching hair is closely cropped, much like how soldiers keep their hair. He focuses on the mash, sniffing it and tasting it.
Still shaken by the tavern encounter, Randal is slow to respond to the old man. The smells of fermentation and the man's calm demeanour finally reduce Randals heart rate.
"Where is this place? And what are you making?"
She smiles as her doppelgänger shrinks, sprouts butterfly wings and transforms into a faerie dragon. ”So, if this is all in my head it must be a dream, no? Praise the Tender of Dreams for gifing me the adfantage! But if you are part of me I must hafe gifen you cause to rebel... I hafe been fery serious since Ameiko fell ill, and I vas sick before that... vhat can I do to appease my feyish nature? How can I let you out?”
"Always quick with the questions, eh?" The old man laughs as he moves on to the next kettle. "You're in Cayden's Well, lad. As for what I'm making, I figured that'd be obvious. I'm making the holy water."
The man tests the mash in this kettle and shakes his head as he mutters to himself. He moves on to the next on in line before he speaks up again.
"So lad, you know what want, are you going to reach out and grab it?"
The little dragon pouts as you speak to it, but slowly it grows more thoughtful.
"Smile more," it says, "don't let things get you down. It'll all work out in the end."
As it speaks, you feel a soft, warm weight on your chest, just over your heart.
"It's not that simple." Randal replies.
"What the others have, loyalties, family, trust. They don't just give those things to you because you want them." Randal sighs as he thinks back.
"They make you earn them, over years. And they seldom tolerate shortcomings. There is no forgiveness in people anymore"
She stays where she is. That is the past, and it can't be changed.
"You're wrong. This is a gift. To see them again, my mother and father, is sad. But it is also beautiful. I have already faced this, and I'm stronger now for it. There is nothing about this that I fear."
"Are you always so quick to judge?" The old starts to open the hatch in teh massive kettle, but stops as something crosses his mind. "Lad, why don't you tell me your name and come up here. An old man could use a young strapping lad like you."
"It's a deal," another voice, this one a bubbly melodic voice that sounds more like a chuckle than anything else. As you stroke the tattoo you feel something soft, warm, and scaly?
As you wake and look down, you see a small little dragon with vibrant butterfly wings that shift hue even as you watch curled on your chest just over the large butterfly tattoo. It's small chest rises and falls with a whistling snore.
"Is it," Fafnheir's voice asks.
Even as he speaks, it begins. A hail of arrows kills a cousin who's name you can no longer recall and several of the men sent to guard the caravan. Before anyone else can act, they charge from the trees. A few are cut down, brief flashes of hope before the raiders swarm over the defenders and tear them to shreds as you watch. Amid the chaos you can see you and your mother and father, miraculously untouched. The three of you run for the woods, obviously planning on hiding in the thick vegetation and gloom of the forest. For a moment, it appears that they will make it, but it is not to be. The fighting has mostly died down by now and enough of the raiders are able to pursue that the catch them.
Your vision shifts in a sudden, dizzying blur as you are among the raiders now. Blood, ruptured organs, and death fill the air with a sickly stench as you see your mother, father, and younger self shoved into the ring around the leader. The looks on the raiders' faces are those of anger and anticipation. Furs and hides lay scattered around where they were thrown form wagons. You'd been on your way to trade for goods that the town needed, and had little that the raiders could use without time spent either trading them or fashioning them into clothes and other items they needed.
"Please," your father begs, "please, let the woman and the child go, they are no threat to you." His eyes are wide and his tone wavers as he speaks. So scrawny he seemed even next to the half-starved men of the Nolands.
"Please," the leader asked as he sneers. His tone is a mocking condemnation of your father's weakness. A sharp smack brings a chuckle of amusement as your father's head snaps to the side with the backhanded blow the leader gives your father. Blood flies from his mouth and splatters the ground. "Please?" the leader's tone grows incredulous and angry, though a vicious smile is still on his face and gleaming in his eyes. "We don't talk to weaklings. I think we'll cut out that tongue of yours for that."
The other raiders howl with glee. An angry, red current flows under the surface. They are desperate, that much is clear to you, and their desperation was made all the worse by the disappoint of their finds this time. You can see your mother weeping, you remember now, the hot tears soaking your hair and your own tears. You remember the stench of anger, of desperate rage, of death, and of blood. You remember that awful, gut-wrenching stench.
"No, I think we'll show you the price of weakness instead," the leader says, snapping you from the memories pouring through you now. His voice is calm, almost sweet and caring. His smile, though, reveals the lie.
"Kill the girl."
The command sends a shiver through the band before they hoot and holler in savage joy. Rough hands pull you as your and your mother scream for each other and in denial while your father bellows in impotence. Your mother, desperate and mad with fear and fury manages to throw off the men holding her and rushes for you. She only has time to wrap her arms about you and turn to protect you with her body before you feel her jerk and jerk again. Hot, scalding blood flows over you, and you can feel the chill touch of steel on your side where the blade or head of a spear had sliced your clothing, but hadn't cut into your skin.
The men shout and complain now that their entertainment for the evening is gone. Some suggest taking it while the bodies were warm. All the while your father howls in rage and grief. Soon enough, you can hear and see the raiders torturing him. For hours they keep it up until the sun is setting and they leave his corpse on spear for the crows to eat. Someone whimpers in fear, softly, but still loud enough to be heard, and it's only as you hear and see a raider's boots that you realize it was you that was whimpering.
"The girl's alive!"
"Bring it. We can make some coin selling to a slaver, or if worse comes to worse, we eat it," the leader replies as the raider pulls you out from under your long dead mother. Blood covers you and your clothing, thick and sticky, though where it had been on your face it now itches. You don't reach up to scratch. You don't do anything that the raiders don't tell you. Fear, a dull, aching fear, takes hold as you wonder if you'll make it out alive, or be slaughtered like your mother or father.
"Ah, such delicious pain," Fafnheir says as the memories fade from view, but remain, sharp and clear in your mind. Once again you are in the depths of an ancient forest with Fafnheir in his demi-human guise before you. "You have forgotten that you'd never really dealt with their deaths. Oh yes, you told yourself that you had gotten past them, that you had dealt with the grief, but have you really? Did you? Or did you bottle it away and let it fester into this fine vintage. I have given you a gift tonight, Vigny. I have given you clarity. You won't be forgetting these memories again."
Fafnheir laughs as he stands, laughs to loudly, your feel as if your head will burst from it. The laughter goes on and on even as the horrible memories of that day go through your head over and over again in perfect detail.
"I would try again if I thought it would yield a different result" he replies as he climbs up to help.
"I am Randal. Who are you?"
Emi looks groggily at the tiny, multi-colored dragon nested into the cave created by her shirt and her cleavage. Confused, she takes in her surroundings... Spivey, the cemetery, her friends...
well, hello little friend... I see you’ve made yourself at home... this can’t be a coincidence, but your voice sounded different at the end, I wonder who you are exactly...
The Varisian dancer slides one hand under her head and with the first two fingers on her other hand she gently strokes the dragon’s long graceful neck. She lays like this until the others awake.
"Nobody important, just an old man looking for some company. Call me Cade if you need a name," the old man says. He motions for you to join him. He opens the kettle and pulls out some of the mash, which is rather disgusting now that you take a look at it.
"Pretty bad, eh? I don't know anyone that'd want to even look at this stuff, much less drink it," Cade comments with a chuckle. "But form this we get ale, or beer, or wine, or any number of drinks." he tests the mash before pouring the rest back.
"So, do these people trust you," he asks as he goes to the next kettle.
The tiny dragon smiles as it shifts a little to get more of its neck and back stroked as well. It lets out a contented sigh with a puff of smoke that changes colors as it rises and dissipates.
they trust her....they know her.. she is one of them. Family....if she can....
Returning to the now, Randal answers the rest of the question. "Wine and ales are a Fine finished product....I am still mash."
The old man chuckles at your self-deprecation.
"Ah, but you're still not beyond saving," he says. "So, some of them trust you. I say you're halfway there then. People make mistakes and sometimes they fail due to things beyond their control. I'd think that good people wouldn't hold that against you."
The man turns to you, leaning against the rail and smiles. "So, Randal Cupshot, what will you do?"
Before you can answer the question, the scene fades and you find yourself waking up in the camp you and the others made in Brinewall's cemetery.
You all wake up to find Spivey looking over you from a branch of a nearby tree. Even from a distance it's clear the little caretaker of the small shrine is haggard and close to dead on her wings. Curiously, there's a new addition to your troupe, a small, white-scaled dragon with butterfly wings that continually shift through many bright and vibrant colors laying curled up on Emi's chest.
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Taking full advantage of the chanca to stare at Emi, Randal chuckles and says "I see not newcomers recieve the same welcome"
He tries tp shake off last nights dream, but has some difficulty as it tumbles around in his brain, unwilling to go.
”I see not all newcomers recieve the same welcome..."
”Some newcomers are cuter than others,” Emi teases, ”and less in need of safing.”
The graceful Varisian sits up slowly in an effort to allow the dragon to remain asleep, but she quickly forgets that endeavor when she notices the state that their guardian is in. She gasps and calls out, ”Spifey, vhat happened? Are you okay?”
The little dragon gives a yelp as Emi startles it awake, though as it takes everything in, it keeps quiet and watches things unfold.. Spivey blinks blearily before she sees that you are awake and well.
"Sorry," she says as she half-floats, half-drops from her perch to stand among you. Closer up, it looks as if she'd stayed up several nights with no sleep, not just one.
"I tried," she starts to explain, her voice fraying at the edges, "But they were too much for me. There were three of them, and I tried. I really did, but... I'm sorry. I don't know how bad it was. I tried to keep them from making your dreams nightmares and getting into your heads."
Vigny doesn't get up after she wakes. She feels like crap, tired and miserable from bad sleep and her dreams. She does hear the others talking about a 'new arrival', and peeks out a little from under her blanket to see what's going on.
Figures. Emi gets a lizard, or whatever that is, pet. I just get a s@@!ty linnorm head trip hangover.
Jerukh rises, somewhat bleary eyed but focused.
As the alchemist spots the scaly newcomer, he eyes his own bedding spot with a curious eye, then checks over his own pouches and clothing - as if searching for something...
Checking to see if that stylized medallion was real or just a dream figment.
Indeed, in one of the pouches, there's a silver medallion much like the one you found in your dreams.
"Yes, I hafe," Emi answers with a little smile, "and ve'll all meet her soon enough, but first ve should check on Spifey... perhaps heal her, if ve're able..."
Gently cradling the dragon with one hand so it doesn't fall, she rises to her feet and hurries over to their protector.
Jerukh retrieves something from one of his belt pouches and despite the highly unusual sight of Emi's new dragon, stands staring at the object with eyes full of emotion...
The healing magic helps a little, but it's clear that her wounds are mental and emotional, not physical.
"Thanks, I feel a little better now," she says before sitting on a tombstone. "What will you do now?"
With a wry smile, Randal clarifies the conditions of their first meeting.
"I had things well in hand. I'm sure Bugwart and I would have come to some sort of agreement." Turning his attention to our tiny host, "Thank you for looking over us. You are most kind."
He produces some brightly colored paper from a fold in his jacket and folds it into an intricate, ornate flower, placing it near Emi as a little nest should the dragon want to relocate.
After all the bustling makes it impossible to rest any more, Vigny sits up in her blankets. To be blunt, she looks like crap. She's extra, dead fish pale, with dark crescents under her eyes.
"Spivy, you said there were three of them... Who, or what, were they?"
"One is a fiend, that much I am certain of, but I can only tell you that the other two are followers of some dark god. I cannot tell you which one, though," Spivey says as the others wake and fuss over her.
"I think I'll be okay. If they come after me, I'll have to flee, but I can do that readily enough," she reassures them. "all of you walk the darker path I fear."
Seeing a lull in the conversation, the little dragon, who'd been admiring Randal's gift flits up to sit next to the weary little azata.
"My, it seems that you have made some strong enemies, but might I ask, who are Ameiko and Reiko? Are they sisters? And what's going on here? I had thought hummin's slept in strange caves they make for themselves," he asks in a disorienting, rapid manner. He looks about, sensing the stares and huffs indignantly. "Oh, I see, You must be thinking, 'O, how can such a marvelous creature as this not be omniscient?' Well, it is the larger of my kind that like to perpetuate such rumors."
”Ve do usually sleep inside our own kind of cafes, yes” Emi adds with a chuckle, ”ve call them homes vhen they stay in vun place, and vagons vhen they mofe around vith us... but Soli is right- right now ve all vant to know vhat your name is, little friend?”
"Oh, My apologies. I've been terribly rude! I am Dewi the Untitled! It isn't often I find myself in such fair and lovely company," the tiny dragon introduces himself with a graceful bow.
The little dragon lizard is sparkly and interesting, but Vigny crawls back under her blanket. It seems like everyone else will be busy chatting with it for a while, so she tries to sleep a little more.
Jerukh wryly smiles at Soliana's comment as they are introduced to the little dragon.
He hails the creature from further back, not wishing to ruin its perception of fair and lovely company with his brutish countenance.
"Greetings Dewi. I am Jerukh."
The alchemist then returns to the object in his palm... with a nod he affixes the object - a silvered medallion to the his scarf.
"Well met Jerukh!" Dewi gives the alchemist a bow before returning his attention to Soliana. "But that's the fun of it! I can't tell you how many elves and humans have gone mad trying to think through that one."
"Ha! That would be quite the trick," Dewi chortles as he flits over to Emi's shoulder, "but no, I was wandering about when I felt something akin to the fey, a few somethings actually. Emi here just had the strongest ties to the First World."