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oathkeeper-of-tarth · 3 months ago

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Moon-chosen, Moon-guided - Part III

Fandom: Baldur’s Gate 3 Characters: Dame Aylin/Isobel Thorm, with guest appearances by Jaheira, Shadowheart, Halsin, Ketheric and Balthazar Length: ~27000 words Rating: M, for canon-typical violence and sexual content, along with mild body horror

It's been a minute, hasn't it? Please enjoy this absolute monster, longer than the previous two parts of the fic combined. I just had a great many things I wanted to address, bits and pieces I wanted to explore, and many loose ends I wanted to tie up.

This part spans the post-game - or how I've decided to envision it for these two, at least. Features yet more hurt/comfort and dealing with trauma, including the two classics of Isobel's back-from-the-dead issues and Aylin's apparent immunity to the idea of self-preservation, but also much building and rebuilding, some dinners (romantic and otherwise), some important discoveries being made and villains being thwarted, a lot of love, and a whole lot of feelings.

Summary:

There is a part of Aylin still in that cage. There is a part of you still in that grave. From that night of your coming-of-age ritual when you astounded all of Reithwin with the uncanny speed of your return from the woods, to your desperate flight away from your own grave, one thing has remained true. The guidance was granted, no matter the harshness or difficulty of the path. But it has always, always been up to you to walk it.

The brilliant, defiant Beacon of Last Light many revere from afar. Isobel Thorm they do not know at all.

Part I Part II

Also on AO3.

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Part III - Everlasting Light - The Future

A battle won; an invasion thwarted.

Days later, you and Aylin lie together in a warm bath in a lovely and, miraculously, mostly untouched inn suite. An endlessly grateful proprietor adamantly rebuffed all your attempts to refuse the accommodation after you cleared a clutch of Absolutists out of it, so you linger in the city well after you thought you would, even when the most pressing crises and celebrations have both been dealt with.

It is in this surprisingly comfortable aftermath and hard-won peace that the two of you discuss plans, both immediate and distant. A future, a life: the first in an array of luxuries you can scarcely believe you have been afforded.

You feel lightheaded from the incense you've been keeping lit around your rooms. The scent mixes headily with the cocktail of smells wafting from the countless little bottles of oils and tinctures - an impressive collection that manifested in the bath chamber when you expressed the slightest interest. The steam rising off the surface of the hot, perfumed water is warm when it hits your skin, and Aylin's solid presence against your back is warmer still. You insist on breathing it all in deeply, in slow, steady, lengthy inhales, Aylin's hand pressing reassurance into your chest as soon as there is even a slight rasp to your voice.

"We can stay until the enclave is back on its feet. They seemed glad enough to have us, and there is a lot of good we could do there, I think," you murmur almost absent-mindedly and lightly trace a line of gold over Aylin's knee and down her thigh, pressed between your left side and the wall of the tub. "Though, of course, who could deny the daughter of the Moonmaiden Herself--"

Aylin makes a small sound at the words and you stop immediately. It is an almost-scoff that contains a touch of all of the messy, knotted-up feelings about the way she gets treated that she has ever confided in you: the flattery of it, and the honour, and the always alienating feeling of being so set apart. For all her acknowledgement of and insistence on her role as a radiant divine emissary, you have had ample chance to see Aylin is not one keen to remain sequestered on a pedestal for very long.

It is another thing you find yourself grateful for. Another segment of the uniquely beautiful and complex marriage of the mundane and the divine that is your beloved. An interplay you would gladly spend the rest of your life (Moonmaiden and all the gods willing, a bit longer this time) trying to truly understand and fully appreciate.

After a moment of contemplation, Aylin rallies and fires back. "Anywhere the Moon shines is the place for Selûne, and so too for Her daughter. And who could deny Her esteemed cleric, Her daughter's beloved, the chosen of Dame Aylin's heart--"

You let out a derisive little snort at "esteemed", at having yourself placed side by side with such lofty company in the age-old adage of the faithful. But you say nothing when Aylin leans over your shoulder with a questioning look. A damp curl of hair sticks to her temple, with another one draped around her collarbone rather enticingly.

The mild distraction of temptation helps you swallow down that particular set of nascent doubts, and you try to turn your thoughts back to practical matters. "I will talk to Shadowheart, see what her plans are. And…" Here you yourself hesitate, a chill coming over you despite the stubborn heat of your surroundings, "and Halsin, who is going back to Reithwin. He asked for our support."

Aylin's hum of acknowledgement vibrates against your back. Yet while the state of your erstwhile home, even uncursed, throws its long shadow over you, it is Karlach's fate that hangs most heavy on Aylin's own heart.

Spread out on the city-turned-battlefield as you all were, you only heard the news afterwards. Karlach, engine molten and about to blow, rushed to Avernus at the last possible moment, without even having a chance to say goodbye to anyone not in her immediate surroundings. Aylin fumed at the unfairness of it all for days, and the thundercloud has lately turned to moroseness.

As you run down the list of your companions, trying to find who would most benefit from your presence, you can pinpoint the exact moment Aylin's thoughts turn to her once again.

"Aylin," you start, but trail off uncertainly. Instead you take her large hand between both of yours, rubbing hopefully soothing circles into the dewy, soap-sudded skin.

"I was not much of a friend to our fierce Karlach," Aylin says, despondent. "She took time and care to comfort me with words of insight and I - I was not there when she won her vengeance against her tormentor. Nor was I there in the aftermath. And neither was I there when she--"

"She'll be back," you rush to reassure in the pause, turning a bit clumsily in order to properly face her. "And she isn't alone this time! Wyll and her, they're a force to be reckoned with. You'll see."

Aylin shakes her head, droplets of water chasing each other down the furrows of her frown. Her eyes trail restlessly over the gently sloshing water your movements have just stirred to life. "I still wish I could--"

You squeeze her hand. "Aylin, my love. One thing at a time. Please. Neither of us are in any fit state to go to the Hells, of all places."

To your surprise, Aylin quickly and quietly acquiesces, sad but calm. Like she's reached some unhappy understanding and seen that raging against it will only help burn her own heart out. "The enclave, then. And Reithwin to follow after. There is much to be done indeed."

She doesn't sound defeated, not exactly, as she reclines back into the water. But it is not spoken in a tone that you are used to hearing from her.

You find Jaheira in the tragically compromised Harper hideout underneath Danthelon's Dancing Axe, where half-hearted attempts were made at scrubbing odd-looking doppelganger blood from the floorboards.

It is completely unsurprising to you that the High Harper seems to know your plans, somehow, after apparently doing nothing but taking one good look at you. Or perhaps, discomfitingly, she simply knows you and so knew what your decisions would be before you even made them.

"After we left, chasing an army back to Baldur's Gate, I left a small contingent of Harpers on cleanup duty around Moonrise," she begins without preamble, almost as a response to your quiet greeting. "Just to make sure nothing was left to come after us right after we turned our backs on it, you understand."

You nod, and she waves at a pile of paper, parchment, and what can only be termed scraps littering one of the several desks pushed against the walls of the cellar.

"Their scouting reports - take them. There is indeed much to be done there. You and your paladin will have your work cut out for you, when you get around to it. Halsin and his company as well, for all that the curse is finally broken. My Harpers got a start on some of it, but thanks to Orin's machinations I've had to pull everyone back here. Our numbers are… lacking, to say the least."

You wince at that stinging, burning little coal of guilt that you seem to have swallowed, that reignites in your gut every so often. None of this would have happened if you hadn't… And then, after storming the Towers and the long, costly battle against Ketheric, to have ever-pragmatic Jaheira dedicate what little agents she had left to Reithwin - it makes you feel indebted, almost.

"We are going back to the enclave, first," you point out and choose not to deny anything. "Aylin and I. They could use our help rebuilding, as could the city, and honestly, we could use the rest, and the change. We've taken a few days here to recover, but…"

"I would tell you to take your time before tackling Reithwin and all it entails," Jaheira smiles that sharp smile again, "but I know you well enough by now to understand you will not be idle for very long. I remember fearing you'd storm off into the shadows and straight to Moonrise Towers to confront your father with some righteously blazing moonlight whenever the scouts returned with a particularly grim report."

A wince, again, at the reminder that Jaheira, apparently, knew that little tidbit all along, too.

"And your Aylin, hah! Even worse, that one. A matching pair indeed."

What a thought - two beings, so vastly different, yet so utterly meant for each other. It feels good to think, to turn it over and over in your mind: no matter the foul circumstances of your return and the stain they have left on you, you and Aylin belong together, and it is so plain and clear and true for everyone to see.

"You are… staying here?" You ask tentatively, basking in the unexpected warmth and probably completely unintentional encouragement, leafing through some of the documents on the top of the loose stacks.

Jaheira smiles wryly, then opens her arms as if trying to encompass the whole of the Gate. "It is my city, after all. My home, I shudder to say, but finally admit. It is what it is, and it is mine, just as that place is yours."

The memory of a golden little nugget of camp chatter comes to you then, reinforced by a fascinating detail you noticed during the preparations for the city's defence. Your lips curl into a smirk, and you cannot resist. "I wonder what Astele would think, to hear you say that."

Jaheira harrumphs. "I know her followers are gifted diviners, but I didn't know Selûne had taken gossip into her portfolio." Then she sighs, shaking her head. "Nine-Fingers Keene is handling her turf as well as can be expected - she's lost many people as well. Their efforts and contributions to the cleanup are… valuable."

"I'm sure they are," you agree diplomatically, then straighten out the various documents and start putting them away in a satchel.

"Thank you, Jaheira, for all of this. And… for everything."

She merely nods. There is a catch in your throat when you turn to finally say goodbye the best way you know how. "May the Moonmaiden guide and protect you. In- in all that you choose to do."

"She has already given me a great deal, through you, even when my own decisions may have been lacking," Jaheira replies, stepping out of her report-laden nook at last and coming to stand before you. "But you have given me a great deal of yourself, as well, Isobel. I will not forget it, and neither should you."

A hand on your shoulder, a little less awkwardly rusty than that time in Moonrise. "If you ever get bored of the country life and frolicking around with that impressive angel of yours, remember the Harpers could always use someone of your calibre."

You laugh. "I'll keep it in mind."

You cross paths with Shadowheart once more before your departure - and, apparently, hers. She is bound for Waterdeep, she says, the House of the Moon. The two of you take the chance to turn a practical outing for procuring alchemical supplies into an extended farewell.

The late morning sun plays around both of you as you walk down streets that are slowly regaining their bustle. It is almost as bright as the glow of the mace Shadowheart is so fond of using in battle. An appropriate blessing for new beginnings, indeed.

"I have many things I wish to see, and many questions I will have to find answers to myself," Shadowheart elaborates with an air of determination, as you pass by lines of hawkers who seem unconcerned that most of their wares are displayed on crumbling masonry and the odd nautiloid fragment. "And my parents… I wish to learn about them, where they came from, the beliefs they held so dearly - I thought it would be a good place to start."

Her words call to mind the warm silver shade of a mother you can barely remember leading you by the hand, and the vague impressions of an awe-inspiring dome looming so high above you it might have reached the Moon itself.

"I have no doubt it will be," you reply softly. "Aylin and I are bound elsewhere, I'm afraid. But we will certainly visit there eventually - I'm surprised they haven't called for her already. Perhaps one day we will see you there."

Your smile is genuine, and so is hers; pure warmth, no cutting undertone or hidden edge to it anymore.

"Oh, Aylin told me of an excellent inn to visit while I'm there. She said she spent quite some time based in Waterdeep, a long time ago - I had no idea."

You wonder, with a private smirk, just how detailed Aylin's recommendation truly was, and if among tidbits such as fine ales and excellent rabbit stew she deigned to include originally founded and run by Selûne Herself. That part of your beloved's - of your Goddess' - life is certainly somewhat of a curiosity, and you quietly decide to let Shadowheart have fun learning of it on her own. It rankles just a bit that Shadowheart's a long time ago was only a little while before you and Aylin met.

As you round a corner and the cracked stained-glass dome of Sorcerous Sundries comes into view, Shadowheart lets out a chortle. "Can you imagine though, her and Gale having to get along within the boundaries of one poor city?"

You cannot help a wince at the thought. "I'm sure Aylin doesn't hold all wizards in contempt. It's just--"

"--the excessively, unwisely ambitious ones?" She cuts in breezily.

"What is Gale up to, nowadays?" You ask with only traces of a grimace and a feeble prod at moving the conversation to a slightly different path.

"Trawling the river for any trace of Mystra's priceless artefact, last I heard. What he plans to do with it once he finds it, well," Shadowheart squares her shoulders, tilts her chin up, and puts on her best Aylin impression, "that will be up to him."

"Well learned," you grin, but it fades quickly when you see Shadowheart has grown serious.

"I hope, for his sake, he chooses well," she says, quietly enough that it is a bit hard to catch her words over the din of the city. "Whatever… whatever that ends up being. It's not exactly obvious, sometimes."

You remember Aylin's eyes growing distant, her voice so very low and soft, when she spoke of what exactly she'd ended up doing, that nasty little Sharran you'd bickered with and dismissed at Last Light. When she laid a merciful hand on my shoulder - the first friendly touch in a century that broke the infernal cage, I… that feeling of falling, of release. It is indescribable.

Thinking of it all still makes your throat catch, and so you take a moment to speak again. "And I thank you again that, for Aylin's sake, and for mine, but most of all for yours, you did."

"Are we going to be thanking each other for the rest of our lives?" It's said lightly, jokingly, almost dismissively. But, upon actually meeting Shadowheart's eyes, it is easy to tell there is a vast array of feelings brewing there. You realise the two of you have stopped walking, and are currently blocking the better part of a nondescript Lower City stairway - hardly an appropriate setting for sharing a moment of sincerity.

You decide you don't particularly care. You throw your arms around her, and she takes less than a heartbeat to hug you back. "Absolutely. If that is what it takes," you mumble into her shoulder, "and then I'll find a way to pester you from Argentil, after."

Moonmaiden, keep your watchful gaze on her, you think as the glint of Shadowheart's little moon-pendant catches your eye, jostled out of its hiding place by your movements, and you do not care if the prayer is redundant or the protection already promised. Do not let anyone steal another moment of her future again.

The attack comes a mere tenday and a half after you and Aylin arrive. It happens at night, in that pleasantly busy hour just after midnight when a Selûnite enclave is, by nature and by tradition, at its most active and lively. The fact the intruders did not know this, the surprise in their eyes when they do not, in fact, fall upon easy, confused, sleep-addled prey, speaks volumes about their lack of leadership and preparation.

Most in the ill-formed ranks around you as you rush to the defence are wearing now-familiar Absolutist garb, but many of them are adorned with Myrkulite triangles and bone fragments, their ash-painted faces peeking out from under deep hoods or behind skull-like masks. Some of them come puppeteering undead contingents - a few shambling skeletons at most, nothing that doesn't collapse into a pile the moment you call down some light and call out a prayer. Even if there is a rasp in your throat and a stubborn chill gripping you at the sight of them, they prove rather less than a challenge.

"Selûne, Moonmother," you hear the familiar invocation just behind you, from that cherished voice you'd once resigned yourself to never hearing again. Though you cannot help but focus on the subtle shift in it, the lowering, the slight gravelly quality it did not have before.

The silver flame flares up next to you, and it almost feels like it will burn you with its intensity. You have never been so much as singed by it. You are used to cradling its like in your own hands, cupping it and using it to warm and to purify - and flinging it at foes. But now, for a moment, you feel the sting of fear at it, at its ferocity.

"In Your name."

One attacker falls before Aylin, reduced to ash in a beam of moonlight before he even has a chance to scream. The next one parries the first blow she aims at him, then tries but fails to entirely evade the second, just as radiant. His cries echo in your ears well after he has died.

The third one to make towards her goes down just as swiftly - but not without exacting a price. Their putrid Myrkulite flail, on a final desperate backswing as they fall, smashes into Aylin's jaw from below with enough force to snap her head backwards and knock her helmet off. Horrified, you watch it describe a glistening arc and disappear into motes of moonlight at the apex.

A blow like that could have easily felled a man, and yet it does not come even close to stopping Aylin; it barely sends her into a stumble, eyes blazing. She recovers her slipping grip on her sword within a heartbeat, rolls her shoulders and her neck with a crack and an annoyed growl.

You step forward and call out her name, pale silver healing magic coalescing around your fingertips, but Aylin has already dashed-flown out of your reach, into the thick of the battle, growl turning into a roar of fury. Dazzling moonlight follows her, enveloping, wherever she goes, and holy fire scorches the ground in her wake. It is one of those moments when she becomes so clearly divine, unstoppable, disregarding whatever might dare tie her to a worldly, mundane, merely human existence.

All of this you behold from a distance, forcing yourself to focus on the blessings, the protective spells, and whatever healing is immediately required around you. You do not manage to catch up with Aylin until the battle has dwindled down into nothing, the invaders reduced to a few stragglers surrendering or failing to flee.

She is surrounded by fallen foes. Her bloodied sword is still out, silver flames stubbornly licking up its blade. As you step closer, it is painfully obvious even your allies are giving her a wide berth.

"Aylin," you call out tenderly, softly, voice barely rising above her laboured breathing. She draws a final, loud, slightly wheezing and unpleasant-sounding breath before turning to you with a proud tilt of her head that does end in a wince, despite her best efforts. In one movement she blinks the moonlight out of her eyes and flicks her sword free of gore to sheathe it.

Rich, silver-flecked blood is smeared across the lower half of her face, generously mixed with a splash of deep red you know is not hers. It hides most of the damage, and your gut churns at the sight of the beloved face subjected to such violence.

Aylin crouches down without protest when you tug on her arm and gazes up at you almost expectantly, the look of doe-eyed trust a ridiculous contrast to the warlike countenance of barely a second ago.

It is a matter of mere moments to heal her injuries, to encourage and tease the bone and cartilage all back into place, as if nothing had ever happened. She doesn't so much as twitch, even as some rather ghastly re-stitching happens before your eyes and under your touch. You release a breath you weren't even aware you were holding, and forge ahead with a well-worn sentiment: "You shouldn't be so careless with yourself, Aylin."

"The vagaries of battle. It is nothing," she says, back on her feet before you can even begin to protest. One of her hands keeps almost lazily feeling along her freshly-mended jawline and up to her nose, making an even bigger bloody mess of her face. "The fight was soundly won - my Mother's faithful have been kept safe. The rest is a mere trifle. I've had far worse than this."

The frustration in you mounts at this dismissal, and you try to wipe away the worst of the mess coating your gloves. "That does not mean you should… should invite more harm."

"Come, Isobel, what is the worst such a gutless miscreant could ever do to Dame Aylin?" She grins, tone mocking, arms wide as if presenting herself. "Kill her, perhaps?" At this, to your horror, she laughs. "If this was their finest attempt, I pity them, truly."

Her teeth, where her wryly curled lips show them, are tinged both blood-red and glistening silver. The smallest of gold lines has curled beneath her chin where the spikes of the flail must have broken skin - and you know it to be new, for you know every single one, have made it an almost holy duty to map them and memorise them, no matter their staggering number.

"Aylin, that's not--" you begin, but find yourself bereft of words. Instead you shake your head, look away, and let your hands curl into fists. It feels like you had this argument a dozen times a century ago, and like you've had it a thousand times since your reunion.

In the immediate grim aftermath, you tend to the wounded, and then the dead. The losses on your side number blessedly few - the attackers were desperate, ill-equipped and ill-prepared, and certainly not counting on Aylin being here. There is some damage to a few of the buildings, some broken windows, a handful of attempts at setting fires; nothing unmanageable. You offer up a quick, almost furtive prayer of gratitude that you were guided back here in time.

As a pyre mounts and you help sort through the dead foes in a mostly futile quest to identify them, you are faced with an unpleasant reminder that not all in the cult of the Absolute and the army surrounding it were tadpoled True Souls. That you and all of the allies you have made would likely be rooting out remnants for many years to come.

You do not broach the subject again until much later that night, almost before dawn, when the time finally comes to attempt to get some rest.

Sleep is, of course, elusive. The rush of battle and danger has only had so much time to settle down, and in your case all that has welled up to replace it is concern and sadness.

You do not very often have theological discussions with Aylin, though it is… tempting, to say the least. But there is something so heart-rending in the way she spoke of herself today that it draws your thoughts in a very particular direction, down a swirling whirlpool that refuses to let go of you even as you twist yourself and your sheets into a tangled mess.

Being the living sword of the Goddess who most praises and holds up free will and choice - how does that truly work? Did she herself ever have a choice, Selûne's own aasimar daughter, silver-blooded and divine of flesh, so very purpose-made?

Was a different path ever even offered to her?

And you feel, deep within, around that wellspring from which your loyalty and faith all derive - you feel that there must have been. That there must be. That Aylin, stubborn and wrought of pure determination as she is, adamantly refuses to consider it. But you know, as surely as you know your Goddess's name and the prayers you've recited since childhood that have so often been answered, that if Aylin wished to stop, Selûne would not be the one standing between her and that choice. It would only ever be Aylin herself.

Oh, you love her for it, you truly do - her fierce sense of justice, her passion for her duty, her unflinching pursuit of goodness, her endless, glorious drive - but you love all that she is, and that is not all that she is.

She is a luminous and terrifying weapon and protector both, but she is also a person, and you fear she is more loath to admit to the latter than she has ever been, now that she needs to most, all in her utterly understandable rush to reclaim what was torn from her over the past century.

What will you do, Aylin? You want to pull her face down to yours and ask. Will you allow yourself more than this?

With me?

Instead, you merely turn to look at her, wide awake and sitting against the headboard next to you, unnervingly still in the face of your tossing and turning. She meets your gaze quietly, and for a moment you imagine she almost looks guilty.

The silence stretches taut, until you finally break it with a very simple question. "What did She ask of you, that night?"

Aylin blinks at you, clearly having expected something else, and says nothing.

So you elaborate, scrambling up rather inelegantly to rest against the headboard yourself. "During the last full moon, at that beautiful clearing. What was the important divine mission Selûne called you away to convey?"

As the words sink in, Aylin seems almost bashful. Both her hands are busy toying with the soft edge of a fur-lined blanket, once folded at the foot of your bed in case of a mid-night chill. "I am… to stay at your side."

"And?" You prompt, very pointedly. You have intuited some of it, of course - you were there, even if not completely part of the conversation, the holy communion. But Aylin is stubborn, and so are you.

"And rest, and… shore up a bulwark. Isobel, I--"

Even as she trails off into a long pause, you stay silent, this time, because you can see clearly that she understands why you've brought this up. You pry one of her hands off of the blanket and hold it between yours instead.

"I will try," she offers, finally, and you hate that it sounds so much like she is admitting a defeat. But then she frowns, and a bit of steel creeps back into her voice and bearing. "I must."

The members of the enclave hang on Aylin's every word, and she, in turn, instructs them to defer to you.

As you advise and direct the various efforts - where to take the wounded, which repairs to prioritise, which avenue of trade for essential supplies to pursue - you find yourself reaching deep into that well of a governor's daughter's education, where the Moonmaiden's clerical teachings prove not enough. Aylin remains by your side throughout, and her eyes quite noticeably refuse to leave you, filled to the brim with naked adoration and admiration. To call it flattering feels like a woeful understatement.

She is very intrinsically charismatic, of course, and a force of nature to boot. But you know Aylin much prefers to fill the role of a vanguard rather than a general. A knight-errant travelling the realms to perform great deeds in her mother's name, an emissary charged with doling out blessings and protection - and punishment.

But she is also clearly fond of being a strong pair of arms when building materials needed to be hauled or when fields needed to be worked. And then that same pair, now armed with exquisite tenderness, helping to transport the injured and the infirm and herd unruly children. So much of Aylin seems to be blossoming before your very eyes now that she is striving to give herself permission, in a matter of days: gentleness, and care, and helpfulness, and diligence, and thoughtfulness, and all the other parts of her that withered unused in the Shadowfell for so long.

The casual touches between the two of you are endless, the constant stream of tiny reassurances for the both of you that you are alive, that all of this is indeed real. You do not go half an hour without a hand brushed against a shoulder; a kiss pressed to your temple in passing; an arm wrapped around your waist lightly but insistently as you stand; a warm, wide palm against the back of your neck, tracing down, then resting on the small of your back as you speak.

You've also noticed a habit she seems to have picked up, reserved for when her hands happen to be free of you. If there is something soft nearby - a blanket, young grass, a cushion, and, on one memorable occasion, a surprisingly agreeable cat - Aylin will press her palms against it, keep it in her hands and fiddle with it, touch it over and over again seemingly without thought.

You do wonder if she's even aware she does it. It is rather endearing and never fails to cause a warm bloom in your chest whenever you notice; it is also heartbreaking and makes your chest swell with the drive to protect, protect, protect.

All of which amounts to your heart feeling ready to burst when, one afternoon that's been judged to be too warm for any strenuous outdoor work, Aylin musters up the courage to ask you for a very old favour. It has taken her a while, for reasons you shudder to think of and hate to know; months of completely understandable reticence to once again indulge in what you would be prepared to call one of the heights of intimacy.

"My wings," Aylin states, then stops. Clears her throat. Fidgets with something she's holding in her hands - the edge of a brush, and something you cannot quite make out. "If you would… I would like it if you would kindly assist me…"

You graciously spare her the trouble of spelling out the rest of the request, because you know exactly what she wants. In no time at all you sit on the bed in your chemise, she in front of you in only some of her underthings, as you get started on preening, cleaning, and generally pampering Aylin's wings. She is tense, at first, as you feared she would be - but your own nerves at the thought you might not remember how to do this right disperse near-immediately, you apply yourself diligently, and she is melting into your touch within minutes. The undercurrent of desperate eagerness to replace grim memories and sensations with something far more pleasant is a new addition to the proceedings you do your best to disregard.

Vanes, fluffy down, stray pin feathers coming in to replace feathers lost in the battle against the Absolute - you work through them all with unparalleled care. Aylin has procured a gentle, sweet-smelling oil to smooth over the topmost feathers, and to spread on and between her shoulder blades. You have some limited experience with falconry, acquired when a travelling delegation from Cormyr spent a few months in Reithwin - and this is nothing like the care for plumage they instructed you in. In fact, you are fairly sure none of this is truly, strictly necessary. But it became a treasured indulgence for you both anyway, a long time ago, and you value this unique chance to spoil Aylin rotten. When you are rewarded with a low hum of satisfaction from her, you feel a swell of pride, as well as deep-set reassurance that she does not mind your cold hands at all.

It does take considerable time and effort, and it gives you ample chance to muse about the odd in-between nature of the wings themselves: a magical sign of Aylin's divine parentage that she can manifest and dismiss at will, while also being very real and physical, a part of her just as much as any other limb. She has spoken to you of the rare occasions of encountering other aasimar in her travels and finding some understanding, but also finding so much that set her apart even there - and being met with envy and pity both. Another singularity of your darling, straddling the borders of several worlds.

The two of you are mostly quiet throughout, save for when you murmur quick questions to gauge Aylin's comfort and she encourages you to carry on. But as the afternoon draws ever onwards, this is not all she seems to be keen on, if her increasingly eagerly roaming hands and glances over her shoulder at you are any indication. She manages to sit still until you are almost done; or until merely trailing fingers down your calves becomes too little for her, and then she turns in your arms to kiss you, rather insistently.

"Aylin. Are you sure?"

She buries her head between your neck and shoulder and breathes against your skin. "My love, my sweetest, brightest light of my heart. Isobel. Your touch… nothing else can calm the raging storm. The furor. Please."

"How could I ever deny you, when you ask so nicely?" You tease lightly, reaching over to put away the brushes and oil containers. Aylin insists on making it all far harder than it needs to be by nipping at your neck and refusing to let go of you. "My darling, a veritable poet."

You smirk at her squirming as you pry her off and urge her to lie down, stilling her movements - all of that sheer strength and latent power - with but one slight press against her hips. That determination burns in you again: nothing but a loving, gentle touch for her now. Cherishing. Tenderness and care.

It is a special relief every time a piece of you comes back to you so readily: a firm press with the flat of your tongue, and Aylin is lost in an exhilaratingly familiar way. To find the unchanged between the two of you has become something of a fixation. A century of darkness has stolen many things with it, but some things persist. Like the feel of Aylin and the taste of her and the little sounds she makes and the way she throws her head back in delight.

She manages an almost petulant whine in the back of her throat, thighs shivering against your feather-light touch as you move away. Her breathing is still strained, great loud gasps, and it is a special, private delight to see her so undone. You kiss up one of the golden lines as it bisects her stomach, snakes up her chest and neck, until you reach her lips.

"Let me…" Aylin mumbles through the kiss.

You stop her surge forward with the gentlest touch of your hand to her chest, shaking your head. Instead you lie down against her and bask in the wondrous feeling of simply existing together spilling like warm honey all over your insides.

Your hair is a mess from where her fingers had been curling in it, running through it, but you only care enough to smooth it back from tickling and sticking to your face. The afternoon sun is balmy enough to have you kicking away the covers as you fall into a comfortable, utterly lazy doze.

Every so often, a kiss is pressed to your face - forehead, cheeks, lips. Large, calloused fingers carefully trace your features. Soft murmurs only half-meant for your ears reach you; mostly meant just for Aylin herself. Precious, beloved, cherished - she names you all of this and more, and then - safe, at my side, alive, alive, alive. A hand cups your cheek and another comes to rest on your chest, feeling the beat of your heart.

"No sleep?" You mutter, barely awake, to Aylin who is hovering over you. She looks blatantly enraptured, even as you squint through sleep-caked eyes.

"I do not feel like closing my eyes to your beauty. More entrancing and delightful than any dream could ever hope to be. Isobel."

The way she says your name, with a note of reverence mixed into the sheer longing, never fails to make your heart clench with deep, almost painful feeling. None of the beautiful, startlingly poetic epithets for you that she so likes conjuring up can quite compare to the simple adoration she imbues those few syllables with.

The setting sun paints the room and all of her in glittering gold. And for all that she is made of and meant for her divine mother's moonlight, Aylin bathed in sunlight is always a breathtaking sight to behold.

"Mmmm," you hum, stretching languidly. "Look at that. I've been sent an angel."

"That you have," she responds, just as softly, smiling so very tenderly. "Yours, Isobel. Forever."

When a message comes from Halsin and the contingent of druids that travelled ahead, you know your inevitable return to Reithwin draws near.

The land is already healing rapidly; after a century of futile attempts, it is a wonder to behold, they claim. The road has been cleared of the remnants of a marching and pillaging army and secured to the best of their ability. The first of the refugees have already started to come upriver, eager to work the land and build homes.

The satchel with Jaheira's reports awaits, stashed in the corner of the small living quarters you and Aylin have grown so comfortable in.

When she returns from one of her errands to find you sitting on the bed, pointedly frowning in the corner's general direction, Aylin's question is simple and succinct.

"When do we depart?"

You deliberately avoided it all the first time, only briefly visiting the throne room after the Harpers took over. Now, however, the long shadow of Moonrise Towers looms inescapable, and its fate has been left up to your judgement.

Climbing through the ravaged library and seeing the defilement of yet another one of your erstwhile sanctuaries is just as painful as you anticipated. But it is nothing compared to what you find when you make it all the way up to your old rooms.

The bones of a dog, in Absolutist regalia.

You fall to your knees next to them. Undamaged, painstakingly reassembled into this macabre display - you can see the shape of her in there, still, your Squire. It almost seems like she simply laid down to sleep before withering away. The last dregs of magic wafting from the awful pile feel horrifyingly familiar and just as sickening as the thought that Squire died for you, was brought back an undead mockery, then died again. Surely, surely no more horrors were needed here, on your father's seemingly endless tally?

But then, the niggling thought comes: if you yourself were not undone like this, upon Ketheric's - Myrkul's - defeat, then perhaps you are not so far gone, unfixable, wrong?

Aylin's hand upon your shoulder rouses you from your stupor, and you realise you have no idea how long you've been here, if you've given her cause to worry. You know only that your legs have grown numb, your knees hurt, and you feel very cold.

Her voice is unusually quiet, like the respectful and solemn whisper of one attending a funeral. "Let me take her and remove these foul accoutrements from her. Then we can lay her to rest wherever you wish."

The tears on your face have dried into sticky tracks that make your skin pull when you sniff. You grimace and nod, wordless.

Aylin takes your hand, helping you to stand up, and you turn to leave immediately. Moonrise Towers you deem to be a hollowed-out, unsalvageable husk, and you resolve to inform Halsin as soon as possible.

You have run up and down these stairs, snuck around these landings and rooms - as a precocious child, as a wilful teenager, and long into adulthood. It has ever been your domain. You have died here.

You do not want to spend another moment here.

It is far more convenient this way, you say to yourself. Everything you need is easily accessible from the inn that is once again to serve as your base of operations, and your home - for there is hardly another liveable structure readily available in the region. Jaheira even left you with all the keys. You're certainly not going to impose on the refugees, and you do not think the druids would be a very good option.

So Last Light it is.

Aylin performs amusingly mundane little tasks and lounges on the bed while you spend evenings going through the Harpers' documents. You imagine, fleetingly, how easy it would have been to do all you did here with her at your side. How damned close she was the entire time. How he lied to your face and called it love, called you family--

Your very first night back, you took the bust from your room - insisted on hauling it down all the stairs personally, no matter how long and how many coughing fits it took - and left it in the cellar. There is very little you want to ask him anymore. Papa, father, Ketheric - whoever he might have been. The burden of undoing his grim work is more than enough evidence of his presence and the shadow he has cast over the life and unlife he has saddled you with.

Instead you bring up some of the relics and remnants of clandestine worship stashed in the cellar by a handful of brave souls. You didn't have a chance to visit this part of Last Light, in all the chaos and revelations that happened around Ketheric's defeat, around the curse being lifted. The discovery of a hidden Selûnite shrine just underneath where you had set up your own makeshift altar felt fitting, but hardly an emergency. And then - the Absolute conspiracy revealed, the city, everything else… it was, sadly, set aside.

In this mostly quiet aftermath, now that the time has come to start picking up the pieces, you begin there. It is a veritable treasure trove, though it pains you to think how many paid with their lives for it. The Harper reports paint a vivid picture for you despite their brusque, businesslike delivery: the faithful, doomed pillars that the brothers Morfred and Halfred chose to be, and a Selûnite resistance that ended in death, sulphur, and hellfire. Was it worth it? you want to ask them, even as you know, with a certainty that seems to reach to your very marrow, you would have done the same. That all the free will and choice and fear in the world could not keep you from opposing the darkness.

Aylin, as if feeling your eyes upon her, looks up from what must once have been a lovely silver chalice that she is attempting to polish back to glory with great determination. When she meets your rather intense gaze with her own questioning one, you merely shake your head and go back to your reading.

One cannot rip out the foundations of a building and expect it to remain standing, states your home's architect himself in faded ink on century-old paper, and you nod along, poring over his words, committing them to memory. It is the least you can do.

There is good masonry still to be found in those parts of Moonrise that have not been burrowed through completely and infested with illithid flesh; excellently-hewn stone that will make for fine homes, laid anew as a foundation for many lives. A far better way to attempt to dry Selûne's tears than a tall, proud tower, you think.

Once you have exhausted the cellar, you follow the trail towards the Mason's Guild, Aylin stalwart but silent at your side. Neither of you had much chance to truly observe the remnants of the town proper, either before or after the lifting of the curse - you, fleeing your grave and your grave-hollowed father, and Aylin, rocketing towards her promised reckoning. The sunlight now lays bare so much of the truth of what was done to Reithwin, and though you can see where good work has begun, where dead vines have been pulled away and burned, paths and roads cleared, and so many old, old bones laid to rest, there is such a staggering, overwhelming amount still left to do.

Your mental tally of the houses and their state of disrepair grinds to a halt as you realise the presence at your back is gone.

"Aylin?" You call out, looking all around you to find where she's suddenly disappeared off to - only to spot her already at the grand gates and remnants of arches that mark the entrance to your destination.

There is something heartwrenching about the way Aylin kneels down and picks up shattered pieces of a statue of her own mother, the way she fits them together in her hands as if she can will them back into wholeness and splendour.

As her fingers gently and reverently trace a marble cheek, you remember, unbidden, an inconsolable young girl doing the same. Still small enough that her grieving father had to lift her, holding her to his chest with such desperation, in order for her to reach the carved likeness of her mother, sleeping forever in the cool, incense-sodden air of the mausoleum.

You decide there and then to have one of the statues made part of the restoration efforts. Your Lady returned to her rightful place in the heart of Reithwin, as you pour your all into rebuilding life from rubble and ruin.

It feels more and more like the right thing to do, as you go on. As the two of you continue to pick up the pieces, chasing down the various loose ends from Jaheira's reports, an increasingly detailed portrait emerges of Selûne's soft, guiding, subtle touch; of the faithful clinging to her teachings that there is always hope and light to be found in the darkness, that they themselves will be found and led to a safe path; of terror, oppression, and torments inflicted upon them by Ketheric Thorm and his Dark Justiciars - and, chillingly, their own neighbours, friends, loved ones. Defeat after defeat, attempt after attempt, in an almost-cycle of waning far more than waxing. Culminating in hastily dug Selûnite graves right in front of the entrance to the Thorm family mausoleum - a place at whose twisted, burst-open gates you yourself choose not to linger very long.

Final casualties of the war on the side of the Harpers and druids, or later additions sent to combat the shadow curse, to perhaps try and find Aylin - impossible to tell. But whatever they were, would this be reassuring evidence that the Moonmaiden did care, that Aylin's mother did try to reach her - or merely fodder for more guilt and anger, that people she was sent to protect instead died in her name?

Your thoughts are interrupted when Aylin finishes paying her respects and comes back down the uneven cobbled path to the graveyard entrance, ducking under branches of trees that are still crooked and gnarled, but now sporting rich canopies of leaves for the afternoon sun to dapple. She takes your hand without a word and leads the two of you away.

"They are safe in my Mother's halls, righteous champions all, savouring their justly earned respite," Aylin finally speaks up when you are halfway across the wide town square, and the inadvertent reminder of your own oddly lacking afterlife makes you shiver.

Then, a barkeep and a brewer who claimed to be Ketheric's son, Jaheira's notes say. But you know for a fact you never had a brother.

Or did you?

An acquaintance, a distant relative bearing the family name - but there were so very many. And the Waning Moon had never been one of your preferred haunts, in life. Doubly so now, as you need to put a cloth over your face to even be able to approach its entrance; so strong and unbearably foul is the miasma that wafts from it in all directions.

A poisoner, a murderer, an informant, a rat; one who knew Ketheric's secret, who knew both Aylin and where she was, what had been done to her. One of the first real clues to her whereabouts - to her existence - Shadowheart and the others had found.

Your blood? Ketheric's? How? And why kept so hidden, secret? Would you have wanted such a man for a brother?

You scour the ruins of your former life and realise you will never know.

Aylin may have been granted a respite, but there could be none for you.

Taking stock of the lands destroyed by the curse or ravaged by your father's armies only serves to spur your determination - a century or a month ago makes little difference in your mind. What you caused in death, you would repair in life, all of it - you vow this with the ardour befitting a paladin.

"You are not to blame," Aylin repeats and repeats, and you understand, of course. And understand that she is correct - you hardly chose to die and drive your own father to… this. It is a patently ridiculous thought. But still, the weight presses down on you, and ignites all of those instincts that make you so potent a healer.

And besides - there was no other Thorm left standing, was there?

After you've worn yourself down to the bone yet another day, you return to your rooms long after night has fallen to find Aylin waiting for you, perched very formally on one of the chairs, another one set very conspicuously right across from her. She's lit candles everywhere, you notice. There is a basket of fresh fruit on the table next to her - one of the druids' doing, no doubt - a few slices of bread, and a small plate of cheese.

Aylin looks deathly serious when she nudges the chair in front of her with a foot, angling it towards you. Her eyes pointedly refuse to leave yours. So you sigh and sit down, surrendering to whatever this is about to become.

Instead of launching into a passionate tirade, however, Aylin uncrosses her arms, reaches over, and puts the plate in front of you. Then, after a moment, she grabs the bread and a small bunch of grapes from the bowl - dark, rich purple, and you recognise them as your namesake and favourite as their sweet smell hits you - setting them before you just as expectantly.

Only once you've taken a few bites of each does Aylin seem satisfied. She takes a deep breath, pulls her chair closer to you, faces you, and begins. "My darling, allow me, for a moment, to cast your own words back at you. You are no tool or instrument either, to be used until nothing of use is left."

Those blue-silver eyes bore into you, as if looking through and into you. You curse yourself for letting yourself underestimate, or forget, just how insightful and attentive Aylin could be. "I see how you blame yourself for things you had no part in, and how you endeavour to take on all of my own burdens besides." Then she smiles, with the slightest twist to it, and inclines her head in a gentle mockery of defeat. "And though I might be capable of great feats indeed, dissuading you from striving for a cause you have taken to heart will never number among them."

"Aylin," you begin, awkwardly, after conquering a stubborn mouthful of bread and cheese - a wonderful dark rye, still a bit warm, and a lightly smoked cheddar you've always been particularly partial to, and where did she even get these?

But Aylin shakes her head and presses on. "Nor would I wish to," she draws even closer, all trace and pretence of strictness gone from her as she nuzzles against your cheek and presses a kiss there, "my fearsome, brilliant Isobel."

You blush at the praise, clear your throat, and feel quite ill-equipped for the turn the conversation has taken, the lengths Aylin seems to have gone to set this all up.

"And so, though my Mother has been clear in Her instructions for me - as have you in your intent to see them followed through, my love - I believe taking care to ensure a more even sharing of burdens is in order. Would you not agree?"

"I will try," you reply at last, feeling only slightly chastised and mostly just very cared for, very loved, and far warmer than the single barely-aglow fireplace warranted. "I must," you add, not quite sure if you meant it as a wry little jest or not.

Aylin pulls her chair as close to yours as its wooden frame allows, until the two of you are sitting thigh to thigh and one of her arms is comfortably around you.

"Will you have something?" You ask, a bit embarrassed you only thought to do so after almost half the plate was already gone.

She shakes her head. "I took my evening repast with the others downstairs. It was a pleasant enough affair, even as deprived as I was of my favourite company. No, this is all for you, and it is more than well-deserved."

Your appetite has been quite lacking since your unpleasant return from the grave. But for once you happily eat your fill, buoyed by the light, simple fare that is an enticing combination of some of your personal favourites, and Aylin's steady and undeniably proud presence at your side.

"How did you even manage to get any of this?" You ask when you are done, head resting on Aylin's shoulder, feeling both pleasantly full and lighter than you have in a long while. "When? I do not think anyone even noticed you were gone, or they would have told me."

Aylin chuckles, and you feel it reverberate against you, so very reassuringly familiar. "What use my wings, if not to fly off on a whim to spoil my beloved?"

You laugh at that, turning to press your face against her chest. "Magnificent, resplendent Dame Aylin. If only the world knew how sweet she was, too. Thank you."

"Sweetness…" Aylin starts, slow and thoughtful, then trails off. You can tell you've inadvertently prompted something she's been pondering for a while, so you rest your palm against her thigh and rub small circles with your thumb, and let her wrangle her thoughts into words in her own time.

"For a while, after our reunion, I thought - I feared - that perhaps the old taste of happiness had grown too heady and sweet for Dame Aylin. That after a century so starkly bereft of it, instead of indulging, I would have to deprive myself of it and grow slowly reaccustomed to it, lest it make me ill."

She pushes you away from her shoulder gently, turning so she can fully look at you, and tilting your chin up with two achingly tender fingers. "But I know, now, I was wrong to fear it. And I know you should not fear it, either."

"We have nothing to fear," you state with immense resolve rushing from a wellspring you aren't sure you can name. And while you know this cannot possibly be true even after the defeat of so many foes and villains and schemers, it feels like the truth, for at least this one calm night in a simple candle-lit room.

The dinner is only slightly awkward, as far as these affairs have gone in the past. The most notable thing about it is that your father, it seems, has learned from last time.

First of all, Balthazar isn't here - wasn't invited, or had to beg off due to some undoubtedly important business. What your father sees in that man and why he holds his advice in such high esteem is quite beyond you. It is an amusing thought, however, that he, too, might have suffered from the horrible awkwardness and simply invented an excuse for this occasion.

Second - oh, Lady Arianella Bormul had been lovely, the very picture of elegance and rather breathtaking grace. With a crown of curls you felt a stab of envy over, and a perfectly cut gown that accentuated every curve of her and every dark blush shade of her skin. Carrying herself like a queen in the dining room, but perfectly polite and amicable in the conversations you two were inevitably forced into afterwards, with intriguing flashes of a cutting wit. But you shared so very little. And she was beautiful like a work of art whose objective qualities everyone agreed upon, you included, but that just were not to your personal taste.

Now you wonder just how obvious you'd made it.

As your father shoots you pointed glances from across the table and over a deliberately placed carafe of wine, you allow yourself, briefly, an entire slew of unkind thoughts. About how maybe things would be different if your mother were still here. About how much easier it would be if you had siblings, so that the entire future of Reithwin and the Thorm family and your father's heart didn't rest on your shoulders. About how selfish you truly would like to be.

Then you shove it all back down and smile at the guests around the table, and offer your opinion about the most excellent skills of your local mason's guild and their potential for expansion.

The young Lady Jana Whitburn is strategically sat right across from you, as her father and yours conduct the important conversations on venison and marble and slate trade that this visit was ostensibly arranged for. She is tall and broad and clad in a marvellously fetching brocade suit of dark green. Her mother, rather obviously focused on you since their arrival in what is clearly a tactical division of duties agreed upon in advance, talks about Jana's successes in the tournament arenas across the Coast and her pending performance in Waterdeep's Field of Triumph. She herself, in a pleasantly deep yet melodic voice, mentions being interested in jousting, as a means of keeping her riding skills sharp while she is not out and about keeping her family's lands safe. Tilts her head at you with a winning smile at the conclusion of one adventurous story or other, the sharp cut of her chiselled jaw accentuated in perfect candlelight. You smile back, and poke half-heartedly at your tasteless dessert.

Later, you take her for a walk in Reithwin's small but well-kept gardens. She very gallantly offers you her arm, and you take it. Your father and her parents beam, and you contain your sigh. But when you look up at your companion, you are slightly surprised to notice that there is something brewing behind her eyes as well.

As soon as you are out of eyesight and earshot, you stop, take your hand off her arm and turn to face her.

"My apologies, Lady Whitburn…"

She almost winces when you address her, and shakes her head as if she is trying to physically shake off the formality and the trailing remnants of the dinner atmosphere. "Jana, please, Lady Thorm."

"Jana, then," you smile your most agreeable smile, "and so I must be Isobel, no?"

"Of course, Isobel," she smiles back, but it is clearly strained, and you feel nothing so much as pity.

"Listen, Jana, I…" You hesitate, struggling to put your words into polite, inoffensive shape.

All this does is highlight the lack of Aylin, the lack of the connection and utterly natural understanding between the two of you. The ease. Even when there was supposed to be some fundamental and unbridgeable rift between you, according to your father.

"I'm afraid my father has misled you and your family - not out of any desire to harm, nor with ill intent. But, you see, I… I already have a lovely woman courting me. Well, rather further along than mere courting, I would say…"

To your surprise, Jana bursts into laughter, light and clear, and you are spared the embarrassment of elaborating further.

"Isobel, you cannot believe what a relief that is for me to hear."

You pause, a bit taken aback by the enthusiasm of her response. "Oh?"

"I'm afraid I count myself taken as well. Now, make no mistake, you are perfectly charming, and a delight in conversation. But," she waves a dismissive hand, "the heart wants what it wants and all that."

"That it does," you agree, and this time your smile is genuine. A tension you had gotten so used to seems to melt away from your shoulders, and the two of you resume your stroll among the gardener's latest offerings. "My father, well… he's a shrewd man. You and my Aylin would get along splendidly, I think. You seem very much alike in many ways."

"As would you and my Iona. She is training to be a cleric too, an acolyte of Ilmater. I swear, the realms have never seen a more patient and kind creature. Whenever I visit her at the temple I take a moment to observe her finishing her rounds - the way she all but glows with compassion is--" Jana halts both her words and her steps, slightly embarrassed, as if she has only now caught herself in her charmingly lovestruck enthusing. "Ah, but I've gone off on a tangent, haven't I?"

You cannot help but smile at the sight of someone so utterly, beautifully enamoured. It is, after all, a feeling you happily know all too well.

"Please," you gesture at a bench behind some conveniently tall rose bushes - one of your favourite spots. "Don't stop on my account. Though, of course, now I can't help but wonder… what is your family's objection to the match? If you don't mind me asking," you add hastily.

Jana gives a wry smile as she takes a seat. "My parents would prefer someone of much higher birth for me."

"I think mine would prefer I set my sights lower," you chuckle ruefully.

Jana's interest seems to be piqued. "Is that so? I've heard some… rumours, since our arrival. I've been wondering about, well, what kernel of truth spawned them."

"Have you, now?" You arch an eyebrow, allow a bit of bite into your tone. "You've barely been here a day - I wouldn't have taken you for a gossipmonger."

"You'll have to forgive my natural curiosity," her grin is as easily charming as it was during the dinner, but now, in the unexpectedly pleasant atmosphere of friendly understanding, you allow yourself to fully appreciate it, and to grin back. "But you must admit it's a bit unusual, Isobel. A celestial paramour… I suppose your father wants you to look lower than the very moon in the sky?"

Her dramatic gesture in the general direction of said moon earns her a giggle, which she seems to take as encouragement.

"Is it true she single-handedly took on a score of Nightcloaks and won?"

You think back over the many rousing tales of victory Aylin has shared with you, and when nothing rings a bell you realise she must be talking about the raid last summer.

"You mean here, when the Sharrans dared to attack Reithwin?" It's hard to contain your amusement at her eager nod. "Well, it wasn't exactly single-handed and there were no Nightcloaks among the Sharran forces, but I can confirm she was certainly impressive."

You decide to leave out the part about Aylin dying and coming back right before your eyes. It is something you've yet to discuss with her, more than a full year later. Something you've no idea how to bring up, and something that inspires in you feelings you cannot quite define.

Something you know you will have to confront, one day.

For now, you sit on a secluded bench and shirk familial duties with a fellow highborn daughter. The two of you trade stories for the rest of the evening, and by the end of it you feel like you've known both Jana Whitburn and Iona Bluewater for years, and find yourself rather invested in the future of their relationship. In turn, you hope to have painted a picture of an Isobel who is more than just General Thorm's daughter, and of an Aylin who is something besides her divine silver bloodline.

You part amicably when the time comes, even promise to write to one another. Later on, the leave-takings complete, both of you having played your respective parts well enough to buy yourselves some very brief reprieve, you go to retreat to your room. Every stair you climb still seems to drop your heart that much deeper into a listless moroseness.

The air in your room is heavy and stale after the garden's freshness, so you decide to take your brooding out to your balcony. You may have won a friend today, but your father will be in a dour mood when he finds out his attempt has once again fallen through. And then how long until he plans another? Or turns to something else? No, this was simply untenable--

A gleaming Aylin alights on the balcony and pulls you into an embrace in a single, elegant movement, and it is like the Moon rising to dispel the dark of a cloudy night.

The first thing you notice as you are subjected to one kiss after another is that your beloved seems to be of a rather amorous disposition. You still wear your jewels and your finest silver-blue gown, the picture-perfect lady. But with the way Aylin's hands are wandering you sense this might not be the case for very long.

You place a hand on her chest, the metal pleasantly cool against your palm, and she stops, looking at you both questioningly and with blatant yearning.

Which should be ridiculous. You were barely apart for a day! You've gone longer without seeing each other when Aylin flew away on some divinely ordained quest or mission or another. But the feelings you read on her face are a perfect reflection of your own, and you are sick of the very thought of denying them. Instead, you throw your arms around her and draw her close once more.

"I missed you," you murmur the truth into her neck, just above the edge of her gorget, into that bit of unearthly pale skin that is always so conveniently available for you to kiss.

"I have dutifully stayed away, exactly as you bade me to," Aylin doesn't sound too disgruntled, and for that you find yourself both grateful and relieved. "But your guests are gone at long last, and so I consider my duty done."

You suppress a scowl at the bitterness that rises in you - because yes, you did pull Aylin aside and request, against the palpable wishes of every fibre of your being, that she not show herself around Moonrise today. All in the ultimately futile pursuit of appeasing your father, in a way so shallow and childish and stupidly obviously temporary that you feel a flare of anger - disgust, even - at yourself for not standing your ground. For going along with it all in the first place. But the slight yet audible disdain Aylin puts on the word guests is too conspicuous, too intriguing, and so your curiosity trumps your rising guilt.

"Do you have something against the Whitburn family?" Surely, if there was something objectionable about them, your father wouldn't have invited them the way he did. Aylin would have warned you of anything sinister. But then, suddenly, a different, more darkly amusing flavour of thought arises. "Or do you merely not like Lady Jana Whitburn?"

Aylin huffs, tilts her head with an unconvincing nonchalance. "She seems a fine woman. A knight with several deeds to her name - in particular some courageous outings against a local Cyricist offshoot, very recently. I hear she conducted herself with utmost skill and bravery."

"You've looked into her, I see?" You ask teasingly. Aylin's frown alone is an entire hundred-page novel. "Aylin. Are you jealous?"

The tinge of possessiveness in the way she holds you against her chest is clear to you now. You also find you have no complaint to give.

"I cannot help but feel this latest attempted match is… rather shrewdly targeted. Do you not find it so? Why, I would near take it as a slight."

With some reluctance, you pull away the slightest bit in order to face her properly.

"Aylin, look at me," you tilt her chin up, make her meet your eyes, reaching over to smooth the thundercloud away from her brow. "Forget about it, about them. I would have none but you - you know this by now, I hope. Only you."

Forever, you dearly wish you could say, sometimes. Your fingers trace down her cheek and to her lips as you watch her ire pour back into fervour.

"Isobel, I swear, from the moment our eyes met, I--"

You interrupt her with a kiss - she is too striking and too beautiful and too achingly, passionately devoted not to.

The entire situation is a problem to solve, and a mounting one. You can tell by your own rising annoyance and resentment each time the subject comes up that you cannot entertain your father's attempts at denying your relationship for much longer. But you can sense in both your and Aylin's current moods that any discussion will be anything but productive.

You break apart, but stay close enough for you to whisper against her mouth. "Why don't we stop wasting time, and instead of wallowing in misery, you take me to bed."

A different frown creases her brow now as she inclines her head towards the door you left ajar behind you. "Your bed? Here?"

You glance back as well, almost drawn in and through the imposing towers of Moonrise and all it represents.

"Yes," you reply with little hesitation. You decide then and there to be done with this farce. No more flying away to stay at Last Light, or utterly unsubtle attempts at sneaking off, slinking back before dawn only to present yourself downstairs come morning, unacknowledged but fooling nobody. There are other methods in your arsenal besides pointless subterfuge. "And tomorrow - if you wish to join us, of course - I would like to invite you to breakfast. Where you will sit at my side."

Where you belong, you swallow back, keeping your mock-proclamation formal. Where the world should and will acknowledge you belong.

Aylin's smirk reassures you she understands fully how you intend to play this. "How could I decline my lady's invitation?"

You tilt your chin up, the picture of a lady issuing a decree, even as your lips curl into a smile. "Despite any slights, intended or not, and protests from my family, it is an honour to have you here. I will see that it is better demonstrated, as it should have been from the start."

Or perhaps it would be better to say how it was at the start, before Ketheric Thorm's welcome for Selûne's emissary cooled down to an icy, formal tolerance - of course, exactly as your and Aylin's relationship blossomed, decidedly informal, regardless.

Aylin's mouth is hot on your neck as she effortlessly lifts you up and carries you inside. You feel her grin through her kisses. "I think, Isobel, you'll find the honour is all mine. And so is having you. Here or anywhere else."

You cannot help but laugh, taking her face between both your hands and peppering it with kisses in return, always delighted by her utter lack of both subtlety and hesitation.

Once Aylin plants you on the bed and herself between your thighs, your dress lost to some darkened corner and her gauntlets lost to the aether, she leaves little room for thought or speech. Relentless and utterly driven, she refuses to stop until your legs are jelly, your head is void of all concerns, and your heels have all but left dents in her backplate.

Her face both glows and glistens when she rests her cheek against your stomach at long last, alight with some private amusement and sheer pride. You thread your hands through her hair and catch your breath, and for a little while simply bask in her presence.

She stretches out a bit, unfolds her wings just enough to let fluffed-up, ruffled feathers settle back into place, and you sigh at the sight. So magnificent in her devotion, your angel.

Aylin next makes a show of licking at her fingers with a pleased smirk, then her lips for good measure. "I may not have been invited to the evening's festivities, but my darling, ever caring, ever thoughtful, provides bountiful nourishment nonetheless. It is the height of honour, to have such a delight saved for me alone."

You flush and squirm, and would like to state something rather precise and factual about moon cycles and the workings of your mortal body. "Aylin!" You throw an arm over your burning face instead. "Gods, you say such things…"

"But you take such delight in it when I do," she replies, tilting her head faux-innocently.

"I adore it. I adore you. Come here and I'll show you just how much."

This is what prompts her to finally take a moment to dismiss her armour, bringing her next to you in a heartbeat. You take another precious few seconds to marvel at how perfectly she fits into your arms, like she was made to be there, instead of for any divine mission.

You spend the night curled around each other in a too-small bed, both of you choosing to be utterly brazen.

Inevitably, as though waiting for the two of you to settle into something resembling the beginnings of a bearable enough routine - if not exactly comfort and peace - there is a shift in the air.

It starts rather inconspicuously. Jaheira sends her regards - still busy with her city - along with a warning that Reithwin should prepare to receive a significant number of new hopeful residents, as word about the lifting of the shadow curse keeps spreading amongst the many displaced. This bit of news calls for a proper war council meeting with Halsin, and so you convene on the large balcony of Last Light that offers the best view across the quiet water, towards the town.

"I think, for the most part, we are well-equipped to receive these people; to house them, feed them - our progress has been good," Halsin states, clearly proud, but still visibly held back by some worry. "There is something very particular that concerns me, however."

You have an awful, growing suspicion you know what it is that troubles him, but you wait for him to continue. A small, selfish part of you hopes it is something mundane and simple to solve, like a question of drinking water purification or field irrigation.

"The Gauntlet of Shar," Halsin says grimly, and your heart sinks in time with Aylin's expression. "The entrance to the Shadowfell. We cannot leave all of that right underneath us, not now when more and more civilians are coming. With children, at that. These people have already been through far more than their fair share."

It is a perfectly correct statement and perfectly reasonable argument. It also has Aylin near vibrating with tension where she sits, gripping the armrest of her poor chair so hard you can hear it strain under her fingers.

"I will do it," you pipe up when the silence stretches on for too long, and two heavy gazes come to rest on you immediately. "I am… the best qualified, I should think, if what we need to do is purify and seal some grim den of Shar's. And the most responsible. For… for the lands, and for… everything."

"I would argue against that claim, my darling, but I readily admit I have no great desire to see that place again," Aylin grumbles next to you, frowning and glaring at some far-off scene you cannot see. Then, she reaches for your hand. "Thank you. I am not foolish enough not to see what you are doing for me, Isobel. And--" She makes a choked sound in the back of her throat, discomfort and frustration sheer and evident, "and though my pride chafes sorely, I am truly grateful." She raises the hand in her hold to a kiss.

You muster up your best brave smile and pull her hand back towards you, kissing it in turn in the finest courtly gesture you are capable of. "I promised you well-earned protection, didn't I? A shield to your sword, always."

"You will not go alone," Halsin promises. "I will come with you and support you with all I have and all the Oak Father sees fit to grant me. Send for me as soon as you are ready, and we shall meet at the mausoleum. The source of the century-long stain on this land will be cut off once and for all."

The mausoleum.

Your breath stutters, catches for a moment. The shadows feel like they are drawing closer, suddenly, though you would have sworn there were hardly any to be found in the bright mid-morning light.

While it is not the long, seemingly inescapable reach of Shar's curse, something heavy and oppressive still blankets all of Reithwin with the sun setting. Just as the reality of what you are preparing to do settles in your bones.

As the night comes and drags on, the rot you've been stalwartly and by now almost casually beating back clenches in a vice-grip around your heart. All of your joints seem to lock up in an aching stiffness, and the fit of coughing and chills and shivers sprung upon you simply refuses to subside.

Aylin is awake next to you throughout, the concern and sadness and blatant fear on her face enough to make your heart shatter, if it weren't for the feeling of it being constricted and crushed already.

"Isobel, I- I will ask. I will pray for this mercy, at least. I will ask again."

She sees the question in your eyes, even as you can't quite manage to speak it.

"When you died," Aylin begins, haltingly, her painful clarification, "I prayed to my Mother, begged Her to bring you back to me. But She could not. When I was imprisoned, I begged Her to save me but… but She could not, in the Shadowfell, so far from Her light."

There was a far longer hesitation there, and despite your every breath requiring concentrated effort, you can read her, your Aylin, your angel, like an open book. Selûne, Moonmaiden, Lady of Silver known to always answer Her devoted, did not reply.

"A third time," Aylin insists. "I would beg Her a third time, for surely now, with this, She can… She can…"

What Selûne can do, you wish you knew yourself. But the growing desperation in Aylin's eyes as you gasp for breath after breath terrifies you. Instead of facing her, you stumble to your feet and move outside to stand in the sliver of moonlight coming through the clouds. There you manage, finally, to draw a proper breath.

You are on your balcony. At your little altar. And for a horrible, sinking moment, it feels like nothing has changed since your endless vigil. Like the past few months have been a strange, fleeting dream, and now the time has come for you to return to your customary nightmare.

Aylin refused to hear any of it, when it spilled out of you, on the road to Baldur's Gate: your fears, your doubt, your certainty of inadequacy and of unfixable taintedness. Instead, she devoted herself in her most resolute, stubborn, and indomitable fashion to pouring waves and waves of silver healing magic, of precious, potent moonlit blessings all over you - and she has continued to do so ever since.

This time is no different. You feel her warm, solid presence against your back, her hands aglow around you, holding you up. "You said you feared my Mother could not want you for hers - you could not be more wrong, Isobel. She has not given up on you - do you see? And neither will I."

Eventually, when even the impressive well of Aylin's light flickers a bit and sweat beads on her gold-laced brow, you breathe - deep, steady, finally calmed.

"I should spirit you away from this place," Aylin mutters, anger scraping in her words. "You should not need to bear its taint again."

"Aylin, I don't-" you wince as your voice rasps unpleasantly. "I don't think it's like that. I do not think that would truly help."

"A pilgrimage, perhaps? Do you remember," she pauses for a moment, pain flooding her features. "Do you remember the plans we made, just before you died? To glorious Waterdeep, and all the way past Neverwinter… There is much to be discovered in the realms, and much that could help you be rid of what ails you."

You shake your head, hand pressing against your sternum. You fear, or know, that the answer is far simpler, even as Aylin looks rather sceptical. "I do not think it is a curse, to be purified and removed by ritual or some elaborate spell. I think it is just… something I will have to live with. As I have been - as you have been helping me do."

Live. One of you marked in gold, glistening for all the world to bear witness. The other in inky black - unseen, insidious, on the inside.

You think of it every time you feel as cold as a corpse, when your fingers tingle and lack circulation, let down by a heart that had forgotten its purpose; when a careless movement makes your joints pop and resound with the crackling of cartilage that had long disintegrated before being hastily reformed; when your lungs so often prove unused to housing the breath of life once more; when the rotting remnants of your old, long-dead self roil around within you, never properly cleared out by whatever rebuilt you.

You bear some scars yourself. There is a little cut on your left cheek right beneath your eye from a childhood accident you can't remember and only know of from stories. A notch on your right knee came from a sharp rock that had hidden beneath the surface of the river one unusually hot summer. Embarrassingly, a pale line on your right palm speaks of a training mishap while wielding your own spear.

The story of a life - but no trace of your death. You looked, traced fingers around where you would have sworn the blade had pierced through your ribcage. Tried to find the laceration through which blood flooded, flowed out, in those brief glimpses of it you can still remember. You strain to gaze through the misty veils of memory that keep undulating, hiding and revealing in turn. But there is nothing to be found. Pristine, untouched skin. Like it never happened.

Like your home was destroyed on even more of a whim of fate than it had been. It is maddening.

Aylin is quiet for a long while, and you continue your careful inhaling and exhaling against her, the unique and familiar smell of her serving as a balm. It is as if her very presence keeps purifying the air around you, and so also within you, stubbornly beating back and subduing any reaching remnant of shadow and rot. You feel certain it must be some inherent property of her divine being, or some ability finely trained paladins are wont to exhibit, or both. But as she holds you in her arms, so careful and gentle and endlessly patient, even as you know her first drive is to act and do and rush ever onwards, you feel like crediting something else for your relief, as well. The sheer lightness that floods you at the soft words spoken in between kisses pressed to the top of your head only strengthens that belief.

"Then whatever comfort I can keep bringing you, I will. I swear it."

The chill of the mausoleum assaults you the moment you step foot over its threshold. But the warm hum of Aylin's protection keeps the worst of it at bay; a blessing she draped over you like the softest, finest blanket, when she pressed her lips against your forehead in a very adamantly temporary farewell.

The last time you were here you scarcely had a chance to take any of it in, beyond the most immediate and most foul desecration. All of the bone effigies have been cleared away in the meantime, and you make another note to thank Jaheira.

Now, it feels…

You pause, and look, and breathe, and ponder, as the little motes of moonlight you are using to light your and Halsin's way dance all around.

It feels like an old, dusty, unmaintained mausoleum full of the sadly forgotten dead. With none but you left to mourn them, a century displaced.

"Let us move on," you state, resolute, and Halsin nods his agreement. The two of you make the very short journey from the entrance quickly enough, with only a brief pause for you to bow your head and mutter a quick prayer at your mother's mercifully untouched resting place.

And then it is there, right before you, gaping open.

You do not know what you expected to feel, confronted with your own grave, your own name carved into its stone. But you step towards it all the same, and you do not stumble or hesitate.

You lean forward and look inside, trepidation rising, tension locking your icy hands around the matching cold marble. But there is no pull. No familiarity. No feeling that you will be swallowed whole and returned to where you should have remained.

There is nothing.

Stone, scant remnants of long-rotted funerary accoutrements, melted wax from overturned candles. And your breath, echoing loudly in the quiet. That is all.

Halsin places a hand on your back, solid, warm, reassuring. Alive.

Just as you are.

Light slays darkness - you run your fingers over the fine carving, well-maintained, clean, untouched, so unlike the rest of the mausoleum - Here lies Isobel Thorm.

How had Aylin put it? The very Moon, full to bursting, cried over the beautiful, heartrending ceremony. And here you are, the Moon-touched girl born as the full face of her Goddess climbed the sky, buried much the same.

And then, another conversation comes to mind in the contemplative quiet, along with bits and pieces of decidedly non-Selûnite scripture. Shrink not so from death, grave-touched cleric, Withers had said in that weighty, fateful way of his.

An empty grave is just that - nothing more, and nothing less. But for every grave there is the sacred hand that reaches from it, say the faithful of the far-fallen pretender-god Myrkul, whose power - what little of it he yet maintains - comes from making people fear death, and him.

And so it becomes quite simple, somehow, in that moment, to straighten your back and steel yourself and say no. To say, I will not be an anchor for you, nor conduit, nor vessel, nor any way for you to extend your vile grasp. You may have taken all of my father, but you cannot have any of me.

"Death has its stubborn claws in me still," you admit - to Halsin, to the ghosts around you, to yourself. You are surprised to feel the fist around your heart and the ice in your chest loosen, here of all places. "But its grip is perhaps not as tight as I feared. Nor so unshakeable."

The way to the pool-portal is quick enough and well-documented, and the temple itself is already quite thoroughly scoured both by the efforts of Shadowheart's party and Aylin's blazing escape. Perhaps most importantly, it has been abandoned as useless by Shar herself.

The entire place is strikingly empty, but with none of the horribly penetrating and overwhelming void and absence of Shar's touch. Some insects scurry about, and you spy a few dead rats, but little else. The quiet is utter - but also utterly ordinary - and you feel like you and Halsin could be scouting any of the many vast caverns carved into the mountains of the Sword Coast. The two of you stop here and there, pausing for Halsin to coax some mushrooms and plants into faster growth, helping them be more thorough in their consuming and reclamation of the miserable remnants.

The air of mundane abandonment is lost once you reach your destination: the chamber where would-be Dark Justiciars performed their final prayers and contemplations before descending the carved stone steps into a pool. Here, overseen by a looming statue of the Nightmother herself, they would sharpen their knives and swords and axes and arrow-points along with their own resolve to viciously murder a restrained prisoner in their lady's domain. The depraved birthplace of an entire army.

Spill the blood of Selûne and rise a warrior of Shar, proclaims an incongruously finely-carved plaque beneath your feet. Any trace of fear is washed away by a violent wave of anger roiling in your gut. Seeing it all framed as an act so willful, so very deliberate, obliterates any thought you might have harboured of pitying those caught up in Shar's insidious manipulations who chose to go through with it.

The water before you is clear as a pane of glass and perfectly calm, and you can imagine it being so thick and viscous that diving headfirst into it would do little to disturb it. Even with all other traces of otherworldly power gone from this place, there remains an ominous pull to it. You shake your head and blink to regain your focus, then get started on closing off this particular grim chapter of history for good.

You have brought wine - perfectly aged vintage from the cellars of Moonrise that somehow survived - and milk, to pour into and out of freshly restored silver vessels, to consecrate and seal. Halsin hands over what he has been carrying, then plants himself a watchful but respectful distance behind you to allow you to work unimpeded.

As you murmur your prayers, only a few drops each of pearl-white and blood-red suffice to spread and run through the pool entire, rendering it dull and opaque and completely inert.

You kneel down on the first of the steps, hands resting palms up in front of you, and close your eyes. The cool liquid soaks your robes but does nothing to chill you or harm you.

"Hear me, Moonmaiden," you begin, and instantly, before your mouth has even closed around the last syllable, you know you are heard.

It comes naturally as breathing: to envision your own body as if it were made of transparent crystal - no murky core or stain of corruption in sight, merely a precisely-cut focus for a moonbeam to hit, for the light to fracture and meld and overlap and build in power. Then, feeling the silver dance all over your skin, you picture it collecting in a great sphere of radiance surrounding you, and you drive it outwards, on and on and on, further away and far more bright and searing than you had ever made it while protecting the Harpers. You push and pull and push again even farther, until it has washed over and burnt away the residue of ancient corruption lying thick upon every inch of the Gauntlet, the temple complex, the forge, and everything Shar's lost, misguided faithful ever dared build here.

The channelling is easier than it has ever felt, the moonlight rushing through you in a great surge, as if it - as if Your Lady - was just waiting to unleash upon this place. You are a perfect, unmatched conduit, and, for a moment, it is difficult to think you might ever need to stop and be anything else.

Until a soft, caring hand alights on your shoulder; deep concern communicated in nothing but the slightest, briefest touch.

You blink the glare out of your eyes and come back to yourself.

Before you have a chance to entirely settle back into the burden of a mortal body, into the reality of strained breaths and aching knees and sodden boots, a tendril of the milky water reaches out and wraps around your spear where it lies forgotten beside you on the ground.

You manage an awed little oh as the weapon transforms before you, with an insistent glow you've had the honour of seeing only a handful of times, during the grandest Full Moon ceremonies. The scrounged-up but passable replacement for the long-lost and much-loved spear your father once had made for you is gone. It has been spun into a wonder of keenly sharpened, finely-wrought silver filigree mounted upon a beautiful pale ashwood shaft, with alternating phases of the moon depicted down its entire length. The light recedes from it, but doesn't leave it completely, instead dancing over it in a perfectly periodic ebb and flow.

"Thank you, My Lady," you murmur, reaching over to close a tentative hand around it to an overwhelming sensation of approval. There is both a lightness and heft to the spear, and you stand up effortlessly. You grab it in both hands, turn it this way and that, and feel almost as if another pair of hands is on it alongside yours, guiding your movements, making sure your intent with it is followed through and you strike true.

"It is done," Halsin says with grim finality, and all your senses agree. The thinned, barely-there barrier between this place and the Shadowfell - what your father and Shar once tore to shreds and used to destroy so much - has been made into a reinforced wall.

"And yet I can't help but feel… help me, Isobel." Halsin frowns, strains to focus on something unseen around you, then wrinkles his nose as if there is a stench in the air. "Someone was here before us. Your Goddess will help us see if what I fear is true."

With small shreds of your awareness still not brought back all the way to the material plane, with the way moonlit residue still seems to be simmering just under your skin, it takes no effort at all to unmoor a bit more of yourself. You simply extend your senses over the room, peek at your surroundings through lowered lashes, with eyes carefully unfocused, and follow the easily-missed trail. It is something in turns dark and sickly-green that seems to start at the pool and lead out of the chamber, to the elevator platform. Blurry, mostly obscured, unidentifiable - but undeniably foul, and worryingly fresh.

"It is as you feared," you tell Halsin, rubbing at your eyes to refocus them. "Something came out through here, recently at that - but I cannot tell what. Whatever it is, whatever farewell gift Shar has chosen to honour us with, we will have to hunt it down."

You wonder, perhaps, if this is what you have just been armed for.

Last remnants of rotted flesh and writhing worms and bone picked clean. Polished; gleaming, somehow, in utter, utter darkness.

There is nothing else. Wherever you look, nothing but perfect inky depths and the dome of a bone-white cathedral, looming, long-promised.

Your fingertips are grey and bloodless, like your hands have been dipped in the ritual ash of a funeral pyre. And as you stand, your feet are already lost to your sight in the swirling darkness, held in place by means you cannot recognise or see. You cannot lift them, you cannot even attempt a step. But you can look down, head bowed, and so you do.

All of you, sloughing off and disappearing, skin first, then muscle and sinew and fat, blood but a distant thought, all perfectly painless, sensationless, until nothing but bone is left.

You gasp awake - and continue gasping, for the air simply refuses to reach your lungs. Ribs straining and chest heaving, all of it working in perfectly synced motion to achieve nothing at all.

It is just a nightmare. It need not mean anything.

All it is is the last, futile attempts of a dead god to keep a foothold in the realms, to keep a hold of you, and through you whatever else he can reach.

You will not fear him, and he will not have you.

You breathe.

You are not the only one plagued by nightmares.

The horrors Aylin slowly confides in you when it is your turn to hold her close after a sudden, painful awakening would be enough to supply several lifetimes. To hear her describe the feeling of knives and cruel unidentifiable implements cutting through skin and flesh, dismantling, picking apart a joint, snapping bone when this was not enough…

You try to hide your wincing from her and push down the bile that rises in the back of your throat, as burning and sour as your surging anger. To do such things to anyone is monstrous. To do such things to Aylin…

Instead of finishing that thought, you hold her all the more tightly to you, as close as you can manage, and murmur promises of protection into her skin.

"I have been angry," Aylin confirms after one such night, slowly and carefully and painstakingly turning over every word before voicing it, eyes fixated on the ceiling above your bed as it grows grey with the coming dawn, "and I am afraid. Some of the rage undoubtedly stems from the fear." She takes a long, shuddering breath and turns to look at you, and you inch closer to her on your pillow. "It is not shameful to admit this, not to you."

"Of course it isn't," you rush to reassure, feeling a swell of pride, even as she still phrases it as if it were a question.

"And so, I… I would confide in you, my dearest Isobel, what haunts me the most. What my unconscious mind has decided it should foist upon me, night after night, poisoning the very idea of sleep."

"I'm listening, Aylin," you murmur, tracing her cheek with a barely-there brush of fingertips. "I'm here."

She leans into the touch, chasing it, until you cup her face and she can press a kiss into your palm. It takes her a little while to muster up the will to continue. "If another one were to come seeking me..."

If or when? Gods, you hope it isn't when.

"Seeking to harness the Nightsong," she almost spits it out, imbuing the word with such disgust it is palpable. "If they were to threaten you, my love… how could I…"

You want to cut short any lines of thought in this direction; you want to rage and make her promise, make her swear never to even entertain notions of bargaining or - gods forbid - surrender, not on your behalf. But you realise before you even have the chance to begin how futile it would be, for you would do the very same for her.

A shield, your mind rings out. And you wonder, for a moment, if it is truly your notion, or if it has been spoken to you.

But it is the segment of a thought that has been percolating in your mind, in and out the back of it, twining in between plans for rebuilding and thinking of avenues of investigation to follow up on what you and Halsin discovered.

The soul cage.

If some two-bit wizard with the right connections got his hands on enough knowledge of it, enough knowledge of Aylin to be able to implement it, who else might try?

And so, in the midst of all the still-nascent restoration efforts set into motion, you write to Rolan. You ask him for Lorroakan's notes on the soul cage, on the grim research he scrounged up, or wheedled out of, or stole from Balthazar.

They are in your hands within a day; a thick stack of parchment and paper of several clearly different provenances, along with an overly wordy but surprisingly sincere and encouraging letter from Rolan himself.

'Best to start with Ramazith's original foundations,' he writes at the end.

The steps of the binding, broadly outlined in figure 5f, must be performed strictly sequentially. Note that establishing the precise requisite sequence hinges on extrapolation from several facts of the nature and extent of the subjugation sought.

At first, the disgust and rage that boil up at the very sight of the words make it hard to even read, let alone comprehend any of it. But you push through, and instead of focusing on the wretched ideas presented, you think of how thoroughly you will be able to dismantle them.

If a creature thus bound should die via any means, the soul (or its equivalent) is prevented from moving on, and remains anchored within the limits of the constructed glyph.

Glyph modifications to adjust the amount of awareness the creature within will be permitted follow.

Then, as you move into the more technical parts, it is the very strange writing style that acts as a barrier; a slew of peculiarities of wizards and those who devoted their lives to the arcane arts. At least three of whom seem to have contributed - albeit unwillingly or unwittingly - to the collection before you.

Thus prevented from traversing the planes and arriving at the City of Judgement, whatever power the soul itself contains (and might, under normal circumstances, provide a god as a successful petitioner) is instead left to the caster to utilise as they see fit.

After what feels like days of bashing your head against incomprehensible arcane walls and magic frustratingly unlike everything you've studied all your life, you arrange with Rolan to work together with you to pick it all apart and find some weakness, devise some countermeasure. Anything to help Aylin rest at least a little easier. Anything to help you protect her. For good.

Even when you are gone.

In theory, such a binding could last indefinitely and with very little maintenance, assuming the initial construction was properly done. If the soul-matter is of sufficient density and quality, the author suggests, in lieu of a standard phylactery, the application of just such a soul cage, i.e. connecting oneself to a bound creature of appropriate power. An illustration comparing the different flows of lifeforce exchange that can be made possible by altering the outermost circular barrier is given in fig. 47.

You'd accrued a considerable amount of book-learning, when your father was loath to have you leave Reithwin for other, more lengthy and strenuous modes of clerical training. The library at Moonrise was mostly your mother's material and private, but the House of Healing had a library that was the envy of the region, once, and you spent many a day and night lost in it. A spare room in Last Light converted to something of a study is nothing in comparison, of course, but it is what you've got.

You and Rolan think, and talk, and discuss, shooting messages and sendings back and forth - so very academically, so gloriously detached from the horror you are studying. And then, finally, comes a breakthrough - or rather a dawning understanding of one basic underlying principle - and it finally starts just making sense.

You draw the outer outline of a magic circle on the floor, moving to scribe the first rune along its rim, your mind already on the second and third and fourth and the particular order the glyphs need to be applied in in order to properly interlock, to apply their effects on the very essence of a soul.

It is, in some of its theoretical underpinnings, not that far removed from the revivification magics you yourself trained in--

Then you freeze as you realise what you are doing and the chalk drops from suddenly nerveless fingers. You rush to cover the thing with a dusty tarp lying nearby, and lock the door on your way out of the room. Leaning against it on the outside, deep breaths catch in your still-protesting lungs.

For three days after that, you try to come up with avenues that do not include replicating the soul cage itself. But there are none. Rolan agrees. Magic, he says, is ultimately an empirical art.

It takes you another day to dredge up the courage, to settle within your own self what you are going to do, and what this means you are going to ask Aylin to tolerate. Aylin, who you have yet to consult - even truly inform of your efforts. Aylin, who has so stoically borne your dour mood these past few days, who has not pried, even when worry has creased her brow and clouded her beloved, handsome face.

It all tastes so bitter, suddenly - you are doing this for her, presumably, yet you haven't even asked her? No, no, no, it is all wrong - making choices for her, deciding things about both your lives without even the courtesy of telling her--

You are your father's daughter after all, Isobel, a nasty little voice pipes up and bile crawls up the back of your throat, as you twist and turn and sleep not a wink.

The very next morning you sit Aylin down in the improvised study in order to do your best to explain your efforts and your reasons to her, the necessity of it all, all too well aware of the tinge of desperation that colours your voice.

Once you are done, you are not quite sure what to expect from her, which is an unusual occurrence within the span of your relationship. But it is certainly a relief to see Aylin in some mode of acquiescence to start with, once she finally starts to speak.

"I knew in great detail and intimacy every rock and pebble and scuff on the ground of that miserable, minuscule place. I studied every rune and line of that accursed circle, burned into my eyes, in hopes I could devise a way to break it."

Her breaths are deep, steady, and very deliberate. Her gaze isn't upon you, or on anything in the room, really. Rather, it is focused on somewhere far away, somewhere deep below.

"There was nothing else, Isobel. For a hundred years. Sorrow, that you were gone, and rage, at… him. Them. Dreams you would be returned to me, and bloody schemes of vengeance. Nothing else. No moon, no light, no respite or mercy. For a hundred years it was mine to suffer, to bear the indignities and the pain, and to wait."

She sounds ashamed, almost. Like the proud Dame Aylin was forced to bear the sting of defeat unlike any she had ever known, and even now she despises the very thought of it: "Never, in a hundred years, did I find any weakness in my bonds that I could exploit." She looks up at you then, eyes shimmering with the barest traces of hope mixed with trepidation. "But perhaps… perhaps together, we can."

"I'm afraid it's cruelly simple, really," you manage, at last. "We cannot work to comprehend something that just isn't there. Well, we can, to an extent - we can theorise all we want, but it will never be certain, complete understanding. This is… this is the only way to make sure. To make failsafes, contingencies… and to test them."

She bears it all very stoically, though you see her throat working, and it is impossible to miss the twitch and curling of her hands into fists, kept very carefully still in her lap up until the moment you finally move the covering away and reveal the nascent research.

Wordless, Aylin rises from her seat and walks over to the beginnings of the circle. She takes one deep breath and steps into it before you can even react, her entire being a picture of near-vibrating tightness. She turns to face you, gazes at you almost imploringly. "I trust you, Isobel, above all others in this world. If you believe this is what it will take, then this is what we will do."

You cannot speak through the tears and tightness in your throat at the incredible display of love and trust. It burns even more painfully bright and heavy in your chest as she steps outside once more and you see the shiver in her, the discomfort at the very sight of the runes on the floor, even feeble and unfinished.

You throw the tarp back over it, take Aylin's arm, all but drag her away, unprotesting, and lock the study door behind you again.

Then, you spend the rest of the day very determinedly pampering her and cherishing her in whatever way occurs to you or her, no matter how whimsical or how demanding, until spells and cages and imprisonment are the furthest thing from her mind.

From refugees displaced by the many Absolutist attacks in the region to the still-wandering people of Elturel, from druids drawn to a recovering land that needs their fostering to simple fortune-seekers, more and more people arrive and start building and rebuilding lives around Reithwin. As numbers grow and swell, an increasing amount of your time is in turn spent acting as the local healer. Addressing everything from work-related injuries and accidents to simple aches and pains and illnesses, giving out blessings, even handling mild druidic and magical mishaps - it is standard, simple fare you find you've missed quite a bit. A lot of it harks back to what drew you so strongly to clerical training in the first place, a century and a half past.

There are a handful of acolytes and trainees in Reithwin now, working by your side, but no other clerics. You are particularly grateful for the few adherents of Ilmater who have travelled from the Open Hand Temple after the gruesome events that transpired there. They speak openly of seeking to disabuse anyone and everyone of the notion they harbour any misgivings towards the refugees of the Absolute crisis. They tell you, also, of simply going where they feel their calling would be most needed.

Something you would, perhaps, finally get to fully understand and experience yourself. One day, you promise yourself, when Reithwin is back on its feet.

This is not the striking, dramatic, awe-inspiring work of the favoured of a goddess, of a divine conduit that is the only hope of an entire region. But it is deeply fulfilling and rewarding all the same.

Healing, rest, relief, from your hand, to many.

It is the least you can do.

You make camp to the east of Reithwin, close to the now clearly marked entrance to the bowels of the Grymforge. It is still warm and dry, the very last dregs of a long summer, and so bedding down under the stars is a rather charming prospect. The thought lifts even Aylin's spirits somewhat, freshly returned from her airborne scouting of Moonhaven to follow up on one of Jaheira's reports.

Her quick investigation found no traces of any recent activity. There is nothing left there, it turns out, but age-old devastation that it hurts to hear her describe: the odd serenity in the utter, utter quiet of the dilapidated temple that was once a grand and beautiful place of worship; the small pockets of ruins that the goblins didn't quite get to during their occupation - but that the Sharrans had. Aylin is uncharacteristically subdued after witnessing the sheer petty desecration of a place and a community she once knew, with no new knowledge to show for her efforts.

You've ranged just a bit too far, it seems. Reithwin, again, is the wellspring and cradle of whatever this new-old threat is to be, and where you should be refocusing your efforts.

As the sun sinks below the western hills, you coax a small fire to life, sheltered in between two mostly collapsed walls of what was once a quaint farmhouse. The home of a beekeeping family, surrounded by thickly, perennially flowering meadows that had ever been a joy to behold and walk through. Reithwin's main suppliers of rich, golden honey; a treasure all its own. Coming here to acquire candles - something no temple or altar could ever, apparently, have enough of - had always ranked among your favourite errands, with the sweetest side benefits by far.

You speak up to interrupt Aylin's restless pacing, just as much as your own rush of memory of when you saw this place last, whole and alive. "I'll keep watch for a while. You should get some rest after all the flying you've been doing."

Aylin agrees only somewhat begrudgingly, which serves to confirm to you just how tired she must be. She partially dismisses her armour, but does not move to go to the bedroll. Instead, she sits next to you propped up against the still sun-warm stone, sinks lower, and lays her head on your shoulder.

"I would prefer to take my respite right here," she mumbles, a small smile finally making its way to her lips, and you offer no protest.

You summon motes of moonlight, letting them swirl and dance around you both in the darkening twilight. Aylin presses her smile against your neck and turns it into a kiss before settling back down.

What starts as a peaceful, restful night under the stars is sadly not destined to remain so.

Were it not for a pale beam cast by the face of Selûne just barely peeking out above the horizon, the scouting party would have entirely escaped your notice, outfitted in dark leathers and grim webbed sigils professing them as Lolth-sworn. But you - your fire, your silvery spells, your beloved's gleaming armour and countenance - do not stand a chance of escaping theirs.

"Aylin," you nudge her off of you and out of her shallow doze. The sight of her blinking away sleepy confusion would be endearing and one to be savoured, were the danger not far too immediate.

You hear the telltale thwang of a crossbow firing before you can do much else. The bolt hits your shoulder, so very close to where Aylin was resting mere moments ago, and the burn almost immediately coursing through your arm lets you know it was definitely poisoned.

A flash of light blinds you as soon as you cry out in pain, and then Aylin is gone. The roar of her fury echoes and reverberates among the stone ruins. You blink rapidly, eyes watering, until you can see again at least somewhat.

It is difficult to concentrate with the rising throbbing in your head and the burn in your lungs, and you have always been far more proficient in healing others than yourself. But you still manage a simple restoration spell through grit teeth, forcing the poison to wear off within moments. The bolt, however, is lodged far too deep, scraping against bone, and the wound itself you leave for later. Instead, you look around, a sense of foreboding flooding you even as the adrenaline carries you through pain and the beginnings of blood loss.

You are just in time to witness Aylin burying her moonlight-inflamed greatsword in the gut of the last drow scout - the others either dead or fleeing. Then, before you manage to stumble to your feet and make your way over, she flings him to the ground. She pulls out the sword with a horrifying sound and equally horrifying cry from the man, and replaces it with her boot. "How dare you raise your hand against--"

"Aylin. Aylin! Stop," you stagger over to her, lift your uninjured arm and place what you hope is a calming hand on her shuddering back. "I'm fine. I'm going to be fine."

"They shot you, Isobel," she retorts without looking at you, boot still pressing down, and the ensuing scream makes you cringe. "Assaulting my beloved. Defiling my Mother's temple. I would know what madness possessed them to make them believe this was a course of action leading to anything but express and painful ruin by the hand of Dame Aylin."

"A- a scout. I don't-- they said to find… necromancer…" The man gurgles incoherences, at death's door.

"Leave him, Aylin. Please." You pull on her arm, but you might as well be trying to move a mountain for all the effect it has. Her breathing is still loud and heaving, her eyes blazing in the dark with licks of silver moonlight, fists clenched and bloodied - you don't quite know what from, and you are not sure you want to.

You love a weapon, Isobel; a creature of unyielding steel and divine retribution. Yet you think you can make of her a woman, docile and pliant, by your will and paltry affections alone.

Old, ancient, long-resolved doubts, barked at you in your father's voice - how dare they creep back into your mind, when so much still remains lost to you?

"I do not need any more horrors committed in my name," you snap, surprised by your own anger. Then you close your eyes, and take a deep breath. With the adrenaline wearing off in the relative quiet, your shoulder is starting to turn to agony. "Forget about him, Aylin. Help me instead," more softly, still hanging heavily onto her arm, "please."

"Very well," Aylin relents after a long, long moment, stepping away from the ill-fated scout. Dismissing him with a wave of her hand sends droplets of blood arcing through the air. "Flee, if you even can. Run to your mistresses and tell them you tried trifling with Dame Aylin, restored to glory."

Glory. The word rattles around in your mind as the man hastily drags himself away from you, fishes out and drains a potion, then stumbles off into the darkness. Aylin is terrifying, awe inspiring, breathtaking and, indeed, glorious, all at once. But her edges are sharper, more ragged, and you do not know--

You sink to the floor at her feet, past caring that your robes are getting stained with blood - both yours and not. Aylin, you note, seems to be completely unharmed as she quickly kneels down next to you.

But her hands are shaking as they hover around the shaft of the bolt, in a state of indecision you have never seen your beloved in. The familiar silver-blue light starts forming around her hands, then sputters out. "Isobel, I…"

"Shhh," you manage, somehow, even though your shoulder and arm throb with waves of agony. And what a position to be in, the one wounded trying to soothe your would-be caretaker. "Calm, now, Aylin. It will be alright, just… focus."

"I- I've…" She clenches her hands into fists, then stops to gulp down deep breaths. Some haze is lifting from her visibly, leaving her wracked with guilt, face absolutely anguished. "Isobel… I should have looked to you first, taken care to-- you could have…"

"I'm going to be fine, Aylin, just…"

But it is not reaching her at all, her distress persistent. "Instead, I raged off… like… like a rabid dog! I… this is not…"

You cut her off by half-falling and half-leaning forward to place your foreheads together, and for a few precious moments all the two of you do is breathe.

Hours later, approaching dawn, you rest against Aylin, your back to her front, her legs to either side of you and her arms around you as if she is trying to form a bulwark out of her own flesh. You haven't bothered to pull your robes back up over your shoulders after the bolt was removed and your wounds healed. Instead, you choose to focus on the feeling of the fresh nighttime breeze on your skin on one side, and the pleasantly cool press of Aylin's armour on the other.

Neither of you have slept. After Aylin's garbled, half-sobbed proclamation that she cannot lose you like this again you haven't spoken, either.

The two of you gaze at the sky, watch as Selûne makes her slow way on her well-known heavenly route across the heavens.

"Necromancer, he said," you speak up after a very long silence, breaking the tension like throwing a pebble into a dark, still lake. "It makes some sense, I suppose, that there would be some activity from that ilk when so many have died. And I'd wager all the Myrkulite regalia at the enclave attack was no accident, either."

Aylin hums, visibly grateful, eager to think and speak of anything other than the real crux of the night's events. "Here, however?" Then her face twists in disgust. "I know of only one who claimed that title. Ketheric's worm-eaten lapdog. And he has, thankfully, been disposed of. Perhaps one of his lackeys has survived by slinking under a rock, and now seeks, like all vermin, to crawl back out and continue to harm."

You twist a bit to see her better, and cast your thoughts back over endless Harper reports - and the familiar, if initially surprising, name you saw mentioned over and over. "Balthazar? What happened to him? Did you defeat him when you stormed Moonrise?"

"Ha!" Aylin exclaims, "would that I had! The wretch was sent careening into the bowels of Shar's domain when Shadowheart and her allies came to find me in my prison. He put up some resistance, hiding behind puppeteered bones as is his cowardly wont, but stood no chance against their combined might. My one regret is I did not get to take part in ending him."

"He died - in your prison? In the Shadowfell?" A horrible sense of foreboding is mounting in you, and your mind immediately turns to the image of you and Halsin at the ominous pool, at Shar's long-standing, freshly sealed portal, at the sickly - necromantic - nature of that trail you found. Something made it out through here…

"If one could call what that monstrosity was doing living, then yes, he died. I do not think Shar had much use, or much affection, for him."

"I think--" you swallow back the rot with some difficulty, your breathing suddenly shallow and the furthest thing from natural and effortless. "I think it's him. Before we sealed the entrance, he must have… He escaped, somehow."

"Well then," Aylin's hand lets go of your knee and tightens into a fist. "Perhaps I shall get my wish after all."

The last time you saw Aylin, before that streak breaking across a shadow-cursed sky, is a memory slowly floating up through murky waters.

It starts like this: being peppered with kisses, half-asleep still in the grey light of a nondescript dawn.

"I must away," Aylin says softly, sounding almost apologetic as she untangles herself from the soft covers and your clumsy attempts at sleep-addled clinging. "I will not be half a tenday, my darling. It is only Moonhaven."

It is not unusual for her to be called away. Your days will be full of duties and welcome distractions, while the nights will be lonely; but it will all pass in a blink and she will be by your side quickly enough, with a new tale to share while cuddled in front of your fireplace. And then, soon, so very soon, you will leave with her and write your own.

Parting words with your father ring bitter still, but you know it is necessary. For both your sake and his. Perhaps he will see it too; perhaps the frosty avoidance of the past day will melt into something more amicable by the time you and Aylin depart.

You mumble a sleepy string of sweet, heartfelt words of love and smile into another kiss. Already your fingers brush against armour instead of warm skin and slip clumsily, dreamily into soft feathers.

"I will see you soon, beloved Isobel," Aylin murmurs finally, tearing herself away with evident effort and one last kiss upon your hand which she then lays softly back upon your pillow.

You sink back into sleep.

It is the last conversation you have with her for a century.

With the work in your improvised little infirmary finished for the day, you find Aylin in the room you have both taken to calling the study, frowning at a set of papers strewn about the desk before her. One of them bears a rough sketch of what you immediately recognise as the operating theatre and long patient-housing wings of the House of Healing. She sits with her back very deliberately turned to the corner filled with soul cage-related paraphernalia.

"There is another waiting to be recovered and put to rest," Aylin begins when you drape an arm over her shoulders and press a kiss to her temple to announce your presence.

"In the House of Healing?" You can't help your grimace at the very thought of it, the sheer twisted perversion of what that place of preservation of life had been made into - though you keep indulging your reticence and have yet to witness it yourself. "I would imagine there would be many there, sadly."

Aylin nods, then taps a bit of parchment to her left. "This one… Olam, his name was. The Harpers found him in the morgue and retrieved his journal, but got drawn into a long conflict with a swarm of undead before much else could be done. Some of them almost fell to poison-laden traps." Her mouth pulls down as if she is remembering something particular, and particularly unpleasant. "A note was made of it after the retreat, but they did not have a chance to return. He was one of their own, from the time of the first war, hiding there to escape the shadows as well as seeking a way to combat them."

Aylin nudges towards you several of the papers on the table, and the acid-singed leather-bound little volume that must be the aforementioned journal.

'All beings should walk free of fear', I was taught, read the final words on the page it is open to. Oh, if only were I granted such a fine fate.

A noble sentiment, to be sure, and a heart-wrenching statement to leave this world with. But there is still something more there that Aylin is not telling you. You step around the chair, put both your hands on her shoulders, face her, and wait.

She licks dry lips, sighs, and lifts one hand to trace your cheek. "He was an aasimar," Aylin says finally. Then grits her teeth. "It is why it took him so very long to succumb. I would not have him linger in that foul place. And - you must admit, my love, if we are to find a necromancer, a morgue is a fitting place to start."

"Of course," you agree immediately, turning your hold on Aylin into a tight embrace. The idea brings you no joy - but purifying a defiled hospital morgue feels like exactly the kind of blow to the long pale hand of death you wish to deal. "We will go at first light."

The first sign that something is very wrong is that the door the Harpers supposedly beat a hasty retreat through is locked, and Aylin has to invest a considerable amount of effort to smash it open.

The foul smell hits you as soon as the splintered wood hits the ground. Rot. Cadavers.

(Your tomb. The mausoleum. The horror of waking up in it--)

You put a hand over your nose and mouth and steel yourself, make to step forward and hasten this grim duty somewhat, but Aylin extends an arm to hold you back. When you look up at her questioningly, you see her face is set in an expression of deep abhorrence, her nose wrinkled and her eyes watering. She blinks and a blaze of silver washes over them.

"Be wary," Aylin says, followed by a disgusted sniff. "There are undead about."

You send motes of light out into the chamber before you, and your heart sinks at the sight they reveal.

The large hall, the one the Harpers were supposed to have cleared out, is filled to the brim with shambling corpses. Their full number is hard to grasp, as more shadows seem to be milling about in the miasmic fog, further away than your pale silver moonlight reaches.

Their variety, too, is staggering. What was once an armoured Absolutist soldier and a large tiefling in burnt scraps of bloodstained Bhaalist vestments take notice of you first, and their disintegration in the moonbeam you call down is enough to alert the others. Several drow in yet-unfaded Underdark armour rush to attack you, but their sluggardly movements make their strikes easy to avoid, and they burn in the swirling vortex of your conjured guardian moon sprites.

Then, a duergar, whose handaxe splinters as Aylin bears down with her sword. Half a gnoll, dragging itself towards you along one of the gutters cut into the stone floor, filled with stale blood - until it meets its second end at your spear-tip. Finally, horrifyingly, a few Dark Justiciars - though there is not much to them beyond skeletons propping up ancient, rusty armour. Aylin takes one's head off in a single swing as soon as it hobbles close to her.

You are a third of the way into the room when doubt starts creeping into your mind. Though none of your foes so far have proven much of a challenge, there are just so many. Any retreat you might wish to make will be severely hampered by there being very little of the floor left free to walk on. At least you've noticed no poisonous traps so far, but that might be more of a downside--

Suddenly, all movement around you stops, your assailants freezing in place. Perfectly in sync, as if… commanded.

And then comes a cavalcade of mismatched body parts in visibly different states of decay, stitched together to form the vague suggestion of a hulking humanoid. Its master strolls into view right next to it, staying well within the reach of its protective shadow. He saunters around his miserable creations with the casual, relaxed air of joining an evening council session with your father.

Balthazar. A rather distasteful man who'd wormed his way into your father's confidence not long before your death. Far from the only disagreeable ambitious creature to ever attempt to do so, really - merely the last in a long line - but an unusually successful one. You have long suspected - and felt the gnaw of doubt and guilt despite yourself - that the growing distance between you and your father, your increasingly frequent and public disagreements, your grand or petty rebellions all, helped create a perfect storm and served as an excellent in for him. And then your death - a tailor-made opportunity. An easy angle for anyone to work and ultimately nudge what could have at worst been a lonely, bitter old man off a monstrous precipice.

Balthazar was a shrewd politician who never failed to raise your hackles within the span of but a few soft-spoken words. You also never cared much for his occasional displays of highly esoteric knowledge, the extreme vagueness and reticence whenever attention was called to the matter of his history, nor the blatant interest and almost surgical curiosity he exhibited whenever the subject of Aylin happened to come up.

Jaheira's reports about him are gruesome, and Aylin's stories even more so, but for all the talk of necromancy and flesh golems and Myrkul worship, you never imagined the sleazy man from your memories looking like this. Symbols flayed into his skin and cut into his greying flesh, one of his hands larger and lighter-coloured than the other, with stitches showing from underneath a ruined sleeve. Fragments of skull and bone decorate the ragged remnants of his robes, shaping familiar Myrkulite emblems. His blood-red eyes seem to almost glow with delight from underneath his hood when his gaze alights on Aylin. You shiver.

"I see not even Shar could bear your putrid stench for long, necromancer," Aylin calls out, loud and mocking, though you can tell her heart is not truly in it. Instead, her focus is on you. She keeps shooting you concerned glances and then, with a more determined mien, stepping away, putting more and more distance between the two of you. Drawing attention. You want to scream for her to stop.

"Now, now, Aylin - we had some wonderful times, you and I, during our little getaway." The sight of his decaying grin makes your insides churn, and the sound of each of his words clawing up his throat like something unpleasantly moist makes your skin crawl. But it does not distract you from following the casual gestures with which he is raising the corpses around him once again. He frowns when he reaches one that Aylin has left with neither arms nor head. "Though I do see a bit of discipline wouldn't come amiss. Another lesson is long overdue, I think, to teach you the proper manners and respect your absent mother has so tragically left you without."

You wince. The words visibly hit home, and Aylin's teeth grit in fury, in time with the tightening of her hands on the hilt of her sword. "It is you who will be taught respect, maggot-ridden cur," she growls. "For my Mother, whom you insult with every undeserved breath you draw. For me, who will be the one to end you, abomination."

"Please, Aylin," Balthazar waves a dismissive hand, his countenance exuding mock-disappointment. "Not even you can be so dull, so uncomprehending. I have accomplished what so many dream of: I have no end. Not even Shar could snuff me out in the very heart of her domain. The two of us - so alike in so many ways."

Aylin barks out a laugh, forced and mirthless but brimming with scorn. "I wager our petty Mistress of Pain merely did not deign to try. What reason has she to care if a common graverobber be dead or undead?" She throws her arms wide, voice growing even louder, resounding against the high, vaulted ceiling of the morgue. "Ho, would that fierce Karlach had taken your head off instead of that arm, and spared me the grating sound of your voice!"

"It would have mattered little. Though your guests did indeed cause me quite a setback," Balthazar admits. "That fiery brute with the axe cost me a perfectly serviceable dominant hand." He flexes the visibly mismatched limb, the grey skin that still retains some of its golden lustre bulging oddly along the seams.

"I've taken the liberty of borrowing from your kin, over there," he points to a dais behind him, upon which you see another body laid out - and little else, through the dim shadow shroud. The unlucky Olam, you suppose - ill-fated even in death. "He will not be needing it anymore, after all. And it would be such a shame to waste good material, especially when divine-touched flesh is in such woefully short supply these days. Did I say kin?" He tilts his head, contemplative, and raises a pointed eyebrow at Aylin. "Not quite so close a bond, perhaps. His lineage seems to have stemmed from one of the Morninglord's retinue."

The derisive way he says that makes Aylin's scowl turn into a growl of simmering rage, but he seems to pay it no heed. It is like he is used to this, like this back-and-forth has been going on for untold ages, and the implications make your own blood start to boil. Still, you make use of both of their distracted states to position yourself further along Balthazar's flank, behind most of his minions. Your spear is wonderfully light and eager in your hands.

"He could never hold a candle to you, of course, Aylin. The finest specimen to be had in all the realms - perhaps I should be thanking your mother! Such a pity you still so stubbornly dismiss the honour I bestowed upon you, and all the breathtaking work I did."

"Honour?" Aylin roars, eyes blazing. "What would a wretch like you know of honour? Striking from behind my back, concocting a lie to lure me into a coward's trap? Never in a hundred years having the courage to truly face me, but taunting and assaulting and mauling me, outnumbered, restrained, chained--" Her bared teeth turn from a vicious threat to a wild grin. "Were there truly no spines to be found in any of the tombs you plundered, Balthazar?"

Something about that particular tirade does seem to hit a nerve - though you doubt any of his still truly function - and Balthazar adjusts his tone and bearing, attempting to cut the conversation short. "Come now, enough of this pointless bickering. There are higher purposes you can serve. I am prepared to look past your ingratitude - both of you."

The sudden acknowledgement of your presence throws you off, and you look to Aylin, trying to coordinate a strike, or an escape, or anything at all. "Aylin--"

"Ah, the prodigal daughter speaks!" Balthazar exclaims, his attention fully on you now. "For a moment I feared I had made an error - unlikely though that may be - while tinkering with your vocal apparatus."

You feel overwhelming nausea as the thought of those hands working on you blooms in your mind: gathering up whatever remained after a century in the grave, splicing together, reassembling - is everything that makes you up now even yours to begin with? Of course it would have been him, performing whatever disgusting, profane rituals his god required. Your father, you imagine, drove him off before you awoke - coveting all of you for himself even then.

"What did you do to me?" You blurt out, awkwardly pointing your spear in his general direction.

He seems entirely unperturbed by the weapon. "Very little past what the general required and demanded, regrettably. But rest assured, you would not be here without my intervention. So I reiterate: gratitude would, in fact, be in order."

Another horrifying, revolting thought rears its ugly head as you struggle to breathe and grip the spear in shaking hands: you as one of his creatures, finally here where you belong, among your kindred.

For a brief, breathless moment, you rather desperately want there to be some simple explanation, and some simple fix for everything that continues to ail you. A spell component missed, perhaps, a ritual not-quite-correctly finished, an incantation misspoken. But of course there isn't. There is only this vile man, his vile god, and the villain your father turned into, who let them do unspeakable things to you. To Aylin.

And there is the two of you left to live and grapple with it all - and ready to erase their blight from the face of the earth. It shocks you, for a moment, how well the sudden desire and determination to destroy this creature focuses and sharpens you. You look over to urge Aylin to action.

But then Balthazar speaks again - words that slip your comprehension entirely, as there is something about the intonation, the simple sound and shape of them, that makes your head swim and the ground shift beneath your feet.

Because you remember, as if a page is being turned back in your mind, allowing you to finally read it: when you lay cold and dying a century ago, choking on painful, blood-wet, shallow gasps for the air that wouldn't come, the only sounds left for you to hear were scattered words to dismiss meddling accomplices, followed by grim incantations intoned in that unmistakable voice. And then the stretch of endless, soundless dark.

"It was you," you speak the realisation softly, blinking away the puzzle pieces, using your spear to prop yourself up and stop yourself from collapsing on the ground. "You helped them. You helped them get in to kill me."

Balthazar seems only slightly surprised at your words as he regards you with eerie calm. "A necessary step. A bit of encouragement, you understand, to make the general more receptive. A convenient little… inciting incident."

What did you and your god whisper into his ear? What putrefaction did you work so hard to fill Shar's void with, even as she was still busy hollowing it out?

A green glow in the corner of your eye as another corpse rises behind you at Balthazar's command. A now-familiar segment of a glyph, necrotic in nature, that he repurposed, redesigned to chain together, interlock, form a prison.

It all slots into place with such grim clarity. Your soul, released in death, that never made it to the City of Judgement - because it was captured. An anchor. A cage. So like Aylin's. A precursor, a modification, an evolution - it matters little, now. Readily available for being pulled back to some sort of life, whenever the time was right, whenever Ketheric, despairing, took the deal and Myrkul's word was given - but not a moment before.

"And then you trapped me."

Aylin gapes at you. Balthazar regards you with mild interest.

"Well, of course. It would hardly have been very effective if your father could have simply procured some diamonds and brought you back, would it? Or if Aylin here could have just begged mother dearest to intervene. No, we couldn't have that - and so, a simple yet ingenious precaution."

This man, grinning so proudly at you, and all his co-conspirators - Sharran or Myrkulite, alive or undead or even divine themselves - chose to reduce your entire self, your entire life, your very soul, to a piece in the game they were playing. You, Isobel Thorm, everything you ever were or could have been, everything you ever did or could have done, were utterly immaterial. It was your oh-so-convenient connections to the two people they were truly concerned with that sealed your fate.

The anger you feel surging in you at this realisation might just rival Aylin's most potent displays of divine fury.

Aylin, who, you note, is merely a few steps away from Balthazar, his flesh golem all that stands between them.

Aylin, who dispatches the golem in one utterly enraged swing, smiting it into nonexistence in a strike so violent it makes even Balthazar stagger backwards, breaking his mask of infuriatingly superior calm.

Her eyes turn towards him.

"No, Aylin," you stop her, miraculously, with a mere hand half-raised. The wild silver blaze of her remains in place, and you hear her drawing in great breaths to keep it under control, the leather of her gauntlets creaking as her hands clench around the grip of her sword. But there she stays. The show of trust infuses you with a heady mix of both love and courage.

This is not what she needs: another tormentor crushed by her hand, one more fragment of an endless mass of those who would do her harm. You want her to know, viscerally, that she can be protected, too. And you want to take back a little something of yourself, as well.

"He is mine to judge," you state imperiously. You tilt up your head and steel your spine and try not to think of the man you learned this from.

"As the sole heir to the holding of Reithwin, final scion of the house of Thorm, lady of Moonrise Towers, I sentence you to death for crimes against its people, in life and unlife, for desecration of burial sites," the rotten thing writhes in your gut, sudden and violent in its struggle against light, and it feels like it will climb up to choke you, "and murder. As a blessed cleric of Selûne, Moonmaiden, Our Lady of Silver, for crimes against Her devoted, against those in Her holy service, and against Her very bloodline, my sentence is the same, with Her as my witness."

Moonlight burns next to you and reinforces, bolsters, fills you with determination to overcome any clinging shadow.

Balthazar chuckles, a sickening, decay-filled sound from what he decided could pass for a throat.

"Here I was, recuperating, regrouping after the inconveniences your meddling adventurer friends caused me. On the cusp of taking back what is mine," he throws Aylin a disgustingly covetous look. "I readily confess, I spared the little village healer no thought whatsoever - her apparent pinnacle was tending to cuts and bruises on her peasantry, wasted dregs of flesh and blood even my idiot acolytes would find insufficient. But I think I'll keep the two of you together after all," the eyes flash towards you, looking over you with a sickening combination of hunger and fascination at a pinned insect. "I did not get as thorough a look at you as I would have wanted after you were brought back - a most unusual, intriguing resurrection, well worthy of study. A pity General Thorm had other priorities."

He claps his hands together. "A matched set! Won't that be quite the charming accomplishment?"

You barely hear Aylin's roar of fury over the roaring in your own ears. A third attempt on Aylin's freedom in barely as many months? You simply refuse to allow this. By the time the last of the moonfire fades from your fingers, the necromancer is gone - mostly. A burnt husk smokes at your feet, and then you take your spear and stab into it for good measure. All of his creations have collapsed around you, puppets with cut strings.

Aylin stares at you, eyes wide and glowing silver to match the flames licking up her sword - but she hasn't moved.

As you try and fail to steady your own breaths and stifle your burning, scratching cough, you step back from your grim handiwork to observe it, and the realisation slowly dawns. "It will not be enough," you murmur. Then, a thought bringing with it growing horror and growing hope combined. Souls. Imprisonment. A cage that nothing, neither a god-child nor a necromancer well on his way to lichdom, can escape. "But I know what will."

Aylin listens, and when you break into a run, breath wheezing sickly, she follows.

It does not take long for him to return.

You know his intentions; you know he will come for you. But still, you send out a warning to Halsin, and via him to everyone in Reithwin, to stay indoors and remain wary, until the matter is settled once and for all.

Aylin waits, poised and alert at the door to your rooms, thrumming with tension. You light candles and torches as the late summer night slowly begins to fall, as shadows lengthen, and keep a moonbeam trained upon the place as if it were a beacon. Huddled in the corner, on all fours on the floor amidst scattered research, you finish another modified rune for the circle, then another. You are so very close.

He arrives as soon as the sun is fully gone.

"My personal interests and projects aside," Balthazar's voice comes from outside in the hallway, just beyond the door. Continuing your conversation as if the interruption had been a group of servants bringing in refreshments, and not you striking him down with holy fire. "We do find ourselves with a convenient little power vacuum. My lord Myrkul may have lost his Chosen but he has his eye on this place yet. Shar, meanwhile, is off licking her wounds. And Selûne… ever so slow to respond. Meddling only now, is she? I hear sometimes it takes a century for her to make a move."

Aylin steps forward, so much like in the morgue. This time, at least, this is what you both agreed upon. You let out a long, slow, calming breath through your nose, and wrestle your focus back down, trying to keep it on your work.

"Silence," Aylin barks, her slow, heavy steps resounding through the floorboards. "You and your general took my armour, and my sword, and my wings, and my Mother, and my very name from me. Imprisoned me, body and soul, and inflicted torments untold, deaths beyond counting. Only for that would I judge you beyond clemency. But to have taken Isobel away from me--"

Her voice shakes on those final words in a way you've never heard before, even at the heights of emotion.

"You would reduce the daughter of Selûne, her paladin, her sword, to a caged beast for slaughter?" Aylin takes another step forward, sword at the ready. "Then slaughter you shall have indeed."

"My, my. Stuck on the gory revenge fantasies, even now?" Balthazar tuts. "Poor, limited girl."

Whatever high opinion he has of himself and his self-proclaimed genius, it is all too easy for Aylin to keep his attention away from you. For just long enough.

"Aylin, now!" You cry as you complete the inscription, moving away from the corner, and she springs forward into action.

Instead of raising her sword aloft for a glorious smite, Aylin casts it aside. She tackles the necromancer who barely makes it up to her chin, grapples him, pulling him towards where both of you know the circle now only waiting for its trigger-rune lies ready.

But then Balthazar sees it too, and you take the widening of his eyes to mean he understands what you have prepared for him. He stops his struggling immediately, aware he stands no chance of overpowering his mighty adversary that way, and instead mutters some incantation under his breath. Conjured from beneath the rags of his cloak come long claws and spears and scythes of sharp, vicious bone. With impeccable familiarity and accuracy, each of them hits a weak point in Aylin's armour, and punches through.

"Aylin!" You are already halfway to her side, curative energy coalescing in your hand, the circle and the necromancer and the plan you concocted utterly immaterial.

Aylin cries out in pain, hunches over and staggers, but does not release her grip and does not stop. "Stay away!" She all but orders in your direction. You want to argue with her so badly when she glares sternly at you, preempting any attempt at assistance and healing, then growls, "on my word. As planned."

It is one of the hardest things you've ever had to do: containing yourself and letting her struggle on before you - but you will not squander her suffering and her effort. A wet trail of silver-flecked blood has formed between the door and the magic circle by the time she's finally reached it. Aylin almost falls into it with a pain-filled groan. "Now, Isobel!"

You launch yourself forward to play your part as quickly as possible, desperate to cut this agony short, but then you freeze in your tracks.

Balthazar is in the circle now, yes - but so is Aylin. And you see her struggle, briefly, against the points and shards impaling her - and fail. She slumps over, defeated, then meets your gaze.

"Do it, Isobel," she begs through grit, bloodstained teeth. "Please."

The trust, again. In her eyes. Burning.

You step forward, scribe a final line on the floor between you, and activate the circle. You see the shudder rush through both of them as the soul cage takes effect, but Aylin is the one horribly familiar with the sensation, and thus the one to quickly recover.

She pulls the claws and bone from herself, rips at herself with such force in her movements it makes you wince and cover your mouth. Then she shoves the writhing mass of Balthazar to the floor, bloodied gauntlets tightening around his throat until they sink into the bloated corpse-flesh.

The moonlight you and Aylin both call down with loud, ragged, pleading voices pours over her but does not touch her. The necromancer beneath her hands it reduces to dust, then a black residue upon the floorboards you wish was not so familiar. And then, finally, not even that is left.

Only after he is well and truly gone do you realise Aylin is still screaming.

You rush forward and throw your arms around her and let all of the healing you've been holding back surge over her, into her.

The circle dissipates instantly. Its power washes over you, rushing out in a great gust and sending paper and parchment flying, blanketing the room like so much snowfall.

Aylin buries her face in your shoulder and lets out great, heaving sob-gasps for breath. A potent mingling of horror, pain, rage, and relief, all in one - there is nothing for you to do but hold her tightly and run a hand through her hair, until the storm subsides.

Your arms are filled with Aylin as you wish so ardently for nothing but the ability to envelop and hold and protect her being entire, while in your mind a dam seems to have broken, allowing understanding to flood - or perhaps this is what a bard would call inspiration. You twist and turn searing-bright arcane runes as their residual glow around you fades, rearrange sigils in your mind's eye, and grasp the beginnings of the well-hidden fatal flaw and weakness of it all, underpinning the very concept of magical imprisonment and allowing for the escape clause of the one friendly touch, one mercy granted. It will take more work and thought and extrapolation on your part in the coming days, certainly, but there it lies - the start of a shield for you to craft, a blessing to arm your beloved with. To ensure there are no chains she cannot break.

What the masons hid and salvaged a century ago proves to be just enough for your purposes. You have the statue of Selûne repaired with gold inlays along cracks and seams, filling in what scant stone is missing. Silver would have been the more common, obvious choice, considering the subject goddess, of course. The craftsman asks you so many times if you are sure, and if you would not still want some pearl and alabaster, encrusted with iolites, and perhaps some touches of indigo, or cobalt.

"Why not silver?" He exclaims, confoundedly, after you have turned down the suggestions one by one, and you just barely manage to stifle a laugh - you would never be able to explain the reasons behind your mirth to him. The effort prompts from you a brief cough instead, and you lift your handkerchief to your mouth - one of a lovely little set Aylin recently had made for you, embroidered with both of your initials and a design of tiny sparkling stars.

Aylin's joyful guffaw from so long ago, from another lifetime for both of you, echoes in your ears. It is a delight to remember hearing; an even bigger delight to know you will provoke it once again. And again, and again, and again, for as long as you are given.

But now you have a statement to make and enough clout to ensure this one indulgence, so marble and gold the statue stays. The rest of your share of whatever earnings the adventuring party decided were rightfully yours, and the Absolute cult's ill-gotten gains you found squirrelled away all around Moonrise, you aim towards the restoration efforts.

You don't tell Aylin any details. She knows only that the scaffolding in the main town square hides work related to removing a Sharran hideaway and the old statue of Ketheric Thorm - worn stone that was more like the father you remembered from a hundred years ago than the man who drew you from the grave mere months past ever could have been. Once the work is done, you arrange with the head craftsman to wait and remove the scaffolding on a day you know Aylin will be away on some business for her mother, and to do so only after she has left.

As soon as she returns, you take her by the hand as if for one of your customary late-day strolls timed around moonrise, and subtly lead the way. In the mild chill of the autumn evening, you draw close to her, and she happily takes you under her arm as you walk, letting you leech away at her endless fount of warmth.

It takes a while for the two of you to reach the square even though the distance is negligible; your pace is leisurely, and you indulge in telling each other of your day in great detail, discussing everything and nothing. The second her eyes alight on the new centrepiece, Aylin's words flounder on her lips mid-syllable and her boots scrape to a stop on the freshly laid cobblestones.

She is as still as the statue. You let go of her, make a small retreat of barely half a pace. For a moment you fear you've overstepped; that in wanting to praise and encourage healing, you've instead dug pointed claws into her heart and dredged up a sea of horrid memories, and enshrined them in stone forever.

But then you see her lips curl into a smile, even as her eyes grow visibly misty with tears. "My beloved has decided to call attention to the family resemblance, I see," it is phrased as a light joke, but the catch and slight rasp in her voice betray her.

You nod, and keep your hands folded demurely in front of you. You itch to hold her, caress her, reassure her with your presence - but you wish to give her a moment, as well. So instead, you deliver a speech that isn't exactly practised, but that you've certainly given much thought to. "A monument to resilience I found fitting. We do not wish to hide the past, all that happened to this place. What was done to it, to its people. But nor do we live and die by the past alone."

Aylin steps up to the statue, all the way up to the plinth, and reaches towards it. You watch hands cut through with lambent gold slowly trail along matching lines laid deep in the marble.

"There will be a future for Reithwin, we've made sure of that. And a future for you, as well. Here, if you want it," the courage seems to be leaving you, and your voice falters when you least want it to. "With… with me."

"Isobel…" Aylin sounds breathless, awed, in a way you can't quite recall seeing before, though some dear memories come close. Like the first time you told her you loved her in so many words - an entirely unassuming day at an entirely unassuming spot by the river, in the middle of what could and would have been one of many similar perfectly enjoyable and perfectly unremarkable outings. Aylin, wide-eyed and beautifully open and vulnerable, stricken, almost, by your simple but endlessly heartfelt statement. A rare sight, reserved only for you.

The very thought floods you with fresh resolve. You step closer to her once more. "When duty calls you away, when your Mother sends for you, I would go with you. I would offer my aid, whatever gifts I have been given. I do not care about the danger - I am not leaving your side. I am not letting you face it alone, ever again, for as long as I am able. But here, perhaps, we might also have… a home. Somewhere to come back to, always, no matter how far the road takes us."

A life, resounds your mind, insistently. We will live. I will live.

"Isobel," she takes your hand and raises it for a kiss. "Fair Isobel, wise Isobel," Aylin shakes her head with a tender little smile, as if she is loath to leave your name off her lips for very long. "True and only love of my eternal life. It would be my greatest honour."

Aylin drops to her knees before you, and you are startled, for the briefest moment - but her air is solemn, special.

"I swear to you in turn," she speaks her words with such great and pure intent, without proclaiming or shouting, but in a way that simply compels one to listen. "My devotion, undying and untarnishable. The Moon may wax and wane in Her eternal cycle, but my love will not, my ardour will not, my adoration will not. The full strength of my mighty resolve and all the fervour I can muster. For you, my Isobel."

It is yours, then, to draw her back up, and seal her lovely oath with a kiss, followed by another, and another. And though it has been months, you are flooded, again, with the sense of wonder and incandescent joy at the miracle of having her returned to you - and if it prompts a few tears to escape, well, what harm in them? Your heart feels like it will burst with immense feeling.

Love, pure and simple and worth everything.

#baldur's gate 3 #isobel thorm #dame aylin #aylin x isobel #fanfiction #bg3 #oathkeeper writes things #my fic #and there you have it #hope it was worth the wait #but i guess when isobel thorm demands a novel what you do is... you write one #also... picture some lovely ascii art of 'in this house we hate and absolutely do not appreciate myrkul'#big thanks to everyone reading and everyone who's stuck around #comments are of course welcome be they keymashes or otherwise. much love

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