Iscandü aka Gaius's page

"By the by, you might also be interested to learn–"

"My elder brother hmm?" Iscandü smiled and brushed a tear from Amhranai's tattooed cheek, slowly shaking his head. "No, I rather doubt the two of you would get along very well. He is far too stoic and legalistic for your liking. Now his wife on the other hand... I can imagine you would find a sympathetic soul in her, albeit your indifference to the arts would suit you to her service about as well as your fashion sense would to a royal ball. That she would be more moved to commemorate someone's life than improving it might also be vexatious to a woman of your inclinations."

"Besides, how many other Valar could trust one of their clergy to be so brass as to be unabashedly frank when conversant? 'Tis the same for your fair Princess you know. As much as a despot hoards their sycophants, an effective suzerain is more selective. To them a guileless advisor possessed of both wisdom and sufficient courage to be frank is invaluable." Eyes bright, the dreaming god mussed Amhranai's black locks and gave her a pat on the back. "Given the high hopes my muse has for her, I can only presume your vivacious tormentress endeavors to be the latter. Although for the love of peace, please don something with suitable sartorial flair for your friend's coronation ceremony or it shall be nag, nag, nag!"

For several moments, an awkward silence, punctuated only by the sound of battle engulfed the tower before Iscandü started. "You... are still here...? Ah yes, you were inquiring as to this brouhaha."

With a long sigh, the god sat down once more patting a spot beside him. "Now personally, I see no compelling reason to fight fairly — neither red nor scaly do either. Unfortunately, there are certain... restrictions imposed upon those who are Vala that impede our involvement in worldly affairs — restrictions that outsiders have their ways around. That's where all of you mortals come in, actually..."

"By now you have no doubt apprehended an new verve within you, hmm? I hesitate to name mastermind behind such an investment," he said, gazing at his fingernails, "but it was rather *ahem* unexpected, wouldn't you agree?"

"Now regrettably, the entities with whom we find ourselves contesting do not dream. Given their propensity for deceiving friend and foe alike, deducing their aims solely from their mortal servants is likewise fraught with questionable results. I can tell you that their ultimate goals stand in opposition and that a quaint little mystery cult has begun to propagate throughout your surrogate homeland in just the past few months, coinciding with the appearance of this." He indicated the tower with a flourish of the wrist.

"Another point of interest is that your former jungle queen had been possessed of unshakable nightmares for several years prior to her... forced retirement. The unifying theme was that of being a helpless marionette on invisible strings — she had also developed a deathly apprehension of wasps..."

"Do you know why mortals awake from drunkenness in pain and regret?" He nodded to Charelle. "It's the same reason I make a point not to revel in the same locale over-long. Over-indulgence in elation without contrast skews ones perspective as surely as too much sobriety without laughter. She used to be my Faerie Queen's favorite... so passionate... so very passionate..."

With a sigh, he continued, "Unfortunately, even the best wine fails to thrill after a while and once one has tasted all that exists, most will lust for something new. That's where the one in red came in. Just like a growing adolescent who is no longer content with the warm bed and loving household in which they were reared, the arch lillend began to consort with a bad crowd. Sadly, not every wayward child responds favorably when their mother or their elder sister tries to rein them in. Ultimately, she took after the child of our first queen and got herself disowned."

"Unfortunately for the prodigal daughter, her statuesque new friend had only cultivated their relationship out of the desire to raid her house's liquor cabinet, so-to-speak. What ensued when the ousted lillend wept to her friend was about like this:" he waved a hand to Avoreen as she suddenly broke off a joint attack on Súmalya in an attempt stab Charelle in the back. "Regrettably, one failing of those possessed by great force of personality is that they tend towards pridefulness. Rather than seeking to make amends, the arch lillend ransacked the mansion, made a mess of things, and ran away from home with what friends she still had whereupon, like many a beautiful young girl possessed of more emotion than rationality, she fell under the sway of a new master content to exploit her for all she was worth."

"As for the other one," he nodded to Avoreen, "she disappeared for some time, no doubt testing the locks on someone else's home before it occurred to her to try the old trick of leaving a baby in a basket to see who would pick her up. Thankfully, your trouble-seeking friend had the wherewithal to snip the black thread she found trailing from the blanket."

"Hence, this." He stamped his foot on the floor causing, unbeknownst to Amhranai, Lureene twitch as she felt something akin to a bug-bite on her neck from some unseen source. Looking rather annoyed, Iscandü frowned at Amhranai and said, "Please assure me you shan't recollect enough of our rendezvous to attribute all of these tiresome analogies to me."

Iscandü sat upon the surprisingly warm marble floor, listening to Amhranai's vexation as he watched every feint, parry, and riposte of the beauties outside. It was only once she had turned her attention to others, head hung in resignation, that he set down his empty goblet and approached. With compassion in his grey eyes, The Dreamer put his arms around his disciple in a fatherly hug, softly reciting a poem.

“Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all,—
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a large and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.”

"Always liked that poem," he admitted, "though I cannot lay claim to it myself. Another world, another dream..."

Pulling back from Amhranai, hands on her shoulders, he said, "If I make light of your woes, it is only so you do not dwell on them and become bitter. The Fates can manipulate the threads of a mortals life only so much for their is a great weight set upon them — I believe you know it as Free Will."

"You cannot keep others from laughing at your fate, but if you can learn to laugh at it yourself, you shall never want for mirth." Pausing for a moment, he added, "That's why I look so young for my age, you know."

Iscandü gave her an encouraging squeeze on the shoulder before turning towards the scene outside the tower. "As for the purpose behind your nocturnal abduction, I thought you might like to see first-hand the trouble with which your new acquaintances contend. Not that I would want to be a knight any more than you, mind, but this is the reason your skein became intertwined with those of your Princess."

"As for why my beloved Muse fights alone?" There was a twinkle in Iscandü's eyes as he flashed Amhranai a mischievous grin and produced a spyglass which he held up for her. "Who said that she fights alone?"

When Amhranai gazed thru the glass, she found that far away, observing the very same battle from a pavilion on the shores of Oceanus were Wingilmë, Alissariel, Lureene, and Sasha. As she wondered at the meaning of it, Lureene looked up as if she felt Amhranai's eyes upon her, at which point the god promptly recovered his relic. "My wife touts the virtues of beauty, then scolds me that it's impolite to stare — you can't win. Oh, and this tower is the inner soul of the pouty one with the wings. Well, part of her soul anyway."

Iscandü waved a hand dismissively at Amhranai's quibbles, seemingly unfazed by her familiar manner. "No pain, no gain, that is the conventional wisdom to which you prescribe, is it not? Entertaining as that is for those of us lounging about the balcony, have you ever considered reading a good tragedy? I hear learning from the mistakes of others is all the rage amongst gnomes these days..."

"As for 'all the time in the world'?" Iscandü shrugged his shoulders, swirling the ambrosia in his goblet before inhaling its bouquet. "Merely a turn of phrase... an inside joke regarding the condition of longevity-rich races such as elves and fey. Amhranai, you really should spend more time amongst your own kind — if only so you don't lose perspective. I know, I know... you and that masochistic streak of yours, but just have faith for once. Even a millennium is far too long a while to stress oneself over every ill and quarrel you stumble across."

"Trust me," he said before draining his goblet and raising a hand toward the racket that so concerned Amhranai, "trouble will come without you having to look for it. Although I must admit, there's a certain thrill in causing a stir of your own. The trick is not to get yourself wrapped up in it. That shapely young friend of yours could teach you a thing or two I imagine... she's also quite adept and the trouble thing too."

With a wink, Iscandü stopped talking for a few moments and rose from his seat to walk with his priestess to the edge of the woods. There, far across the Elysian Fields, above Oceanus, three winged beings strove against one another in the vicinity of an impossibly tall tower. "Hmm... I suppose even the eyes of an eagle would be hard-pressed from this far. Let's find better seats..."

Before Amhranai could so much as object or assent, a snap of the fingers found the two atop the tower, wispy clouds swirling about them. An odd feeling, like déjà vu, washed over her, but the Vala's prattle kept the priestess from concentrating upon it. "Now the clouds wreathing the summit here were a bit of 'artistic license' on my part — a privacy screen if you will."

Indeed, as the King of the Faeries continued to speak, Amhranai found that she could see thru the clouds well enough to witness a battle between three women of surpassing beauty. Just from the past day's events alone she could identify the giant, red-winged succubus as Avoreen, the flying serpent-woman with the iridescent black wings as Charelle, and the elegant dancer with the blue and violet butterfly wings as Iscandü's own wife, Súmalya.

"Ah, I see the wife has found herself involved in yet another cat-fight. You really should be thankful for your unassuming countenance, you know. It takes very nearly an act of gods for two beautiful women to be friends for any length of time — a testament to your amply-endowed cousin that she coexists with the other two so well. Quite the diplomat really..."

Sighing, The Dreamer sat upon the marble floor and apologized, "I would offer you a seat, but this is your friend's home, not mine, and the little minx is about as well-versed in domestic hospitality as you are in fine couture."

When at last her patron had stopped his incessant monologue, the sensation Amhranai had felt upon first appearing in the tower finally became clear. The place somehow felt like Lureene!

At last, the priestess realized that she heard his words not in the rough dialect of the Dafari tribe, but the graceful tongue of the Faerie Court. With a smile, 'Azubuike' sat down upon a moss-covered stone and took up a pair of intricate wooden goblets into which he poured a golden nectar from a flower that suddenly spouted by his side.

Looking upon the cleric with eyes like shifting clouds, the man said, "We have all the time in the world, o' taciturn daughter of mine. Humor your dear father by sharing a draught, won't you?"

Yet even as he held out the goblet, his features slowly refining into those of a handsome man with tapering ears and distinguished features, Amhranai could hear in the distance beyond her deity's glade what sounded like the clash of titans. Was there a battle taking place?