Abelard - Chapter 14 - Abelard - Father sets him down for 'The Talk'

The city of Lusterlin, light lit by the half full moon above, was truly a beautiful place.

Abelard paused, briefly, at his favorite viewing spot on the bridge, the reflection of the moon's glow visible on the Lustre river below. The same spot he had accidentally startled the moon gazing Darkling.... Was it truly only weeks ago? It seemed a lifetime!

Reaching into his pouch, the young Half-Elf drew out the Puckerberry scone that Bitta had made that afternoon for whatever Halflings called the 17th meal of the day. Seventh Lunch? Fourth Tea? Practice Pre-Dinner 3?

From the small pouch at his belt he also withdrew one of Trillium's amazing Goodberries. "Why, when you could get all the nourishment needed in one little berry, did the others seem SO intent on eating for hours and hours"?, he thought to himself.

Poking the Goodberry into the scone and, setting it along the railing where the Darkling had disappeared, Abelard spoke to the night shadows. "Eat well, my friend. I thank you again for your fine gift and hope the foods have been fair in trade.", he said as his hands moved to run at the beautiful carved Ivory Cameo pendant of an Elven Woman hanging at his neck.

Looking at the scone offering, and the river below, a frown crawls its way onto Abelard's face. With the ghostly activity on the rise along the water... No... Surely the Fey would not prove susceptible to such things! "I hope that you are well, my Fey Friend.", he says with a pat at the stonework. "Enjoy!"

Abelard completed his crossing of the bridge with no further otherworldly visitations, and made it to the far bank. The merchants' guildhouse, one of the largest buildings in Lusterlin, overlooks the river from this side, beckoning visitors to the high-end shops of the Arcade before the road leads to the civil section of town where City Hall and the military quarters are located.

But, ignoring the lure of the market, Abelard made a left just at the end of the bridge, and followed the cobblestone avenue along the shore of the River Lustra, as it heads towards the Kingfisher's Cup, (The tavern with a reputation for attracting adventurers of the rowdy and dangerous sort), and then finally rounding out at the river's mouth at the pirate-themed establishment named Treasure & Lace.

Lively music spilled forth from the scandalous theater, and voluminous light flew in a frenzy of color out the stained-glass windows meant to tease but provide no real glimpse of the goings-on inside. The second-level balcony, complete with blastpowder cannons, the latest invention only recently discovered and exported from Za, and a full ship's mast complete with crow's nest flying the skull and bones was 'manned' by off-duty performers languidly leaning over the railings, drinks in hand, cat-calling at Abelard as he came into view.

"Oooooh, looks like fresh young chicken is on the menu to-NIGHT, child," one performer called to another. She was dressed like a fox, twirling a long boa made of chicken feathers.

"Tsk, you are always on the prowl, Miss Vixen Tolóuse-it. Git yourself on up outta that hen house and make yourself useful. Surely somewhere there's a deck you can swab.", replied Miss Tolóuse-it's foil, a long-horn minotaur from Mykros, bullishly robust in frame, wearing a tightly-strapped shiny black corset overflowing with enormous udders, paired with matching assless chaps. For tail freedom, of course.

Vixen gave the minotaur a theatrical look of death. "Swabbing YOUR deck would be short work, Miss Blowda Horn!" She sniffed in mock effrontery, and waved again to Abelard.

Mind awash in thought of what to say, & what not to say, to Shayvanna, nonetheless reached deep within himself and summoned forth a smiling, happy face to show the world. He'd decided that the Treasure & Lace would only see this gleeful Mask of an Abelard, as it was a place built for laughter, frivolity, and joy. "I've been told I taste like a lot of things before, ladies, but chicken is not one of them.", the smiling Abelard barked back with a mock courtly bow. "Would the Lady Shavonna be in residence tonight? I find myself hungry for some... dark meat!", he finished with a wink and a wave.

"Oooooooo!", Vixen and Blowda glanced at each other, clearly surprised and impressed by this response from someone they had underestimated. "Mmmmm, this boy don't mess AROUND, child," Vixen advised her horned co-star, who nods in agreement, chewing her cud thoughtfully.

Vixen the leaned over the railing, chicken-feather boa hanging down tantalizingly. "If you want to be seeing the Dark Diva herself, the Lady of Graces with a Thousand Faces, THE Damsel of Delight in the Heat of the Night... you're gonna have to get past Mo'thanna Handful at the ticket booth, darlin'. But the price of admission is cheap at half the price. Come in and make yourself comfortable, child. We've got the treasure to suit your pleasure!", she finished as the two posed and pranced and waved him in.

Abelard applauded in pleasure. "To best Mo'thanna and still have the stamina to do battle with the Lady Shayvanna is more than this mere mortal could fathom. I suppose I will just have to throw myself at the mercy of her... courts!", he said, hands held wide before him, with a deep, overly flourished bow and headed to the wide front doors. "Ladies, I bid you a most decadent evening!"

*

The front doors to Treasure & Lace opened to Abelard's presence as if by magic. But, as he now knew, it was actually just the two always alert half-orc bodyguards on the inside, opening the way to the front lobby.

The lobby was sectioned off by velvet ropes set up to help form a line, but, unlike his previous visits, there was nobody waiting & the young Warlock was able to walk right up to the reception desk where a tall, overflowing performer looked up as he entered. She was wearing a tight fighting gold lamé dress, adorned with random jewel-like sequins. Her bustier made of wood, squared-off and bound in iron like a coffer. A small padlock hung deep down in front, where her gilded bosom spilled out abundantly. As the finishing touch of the outfit turned tableau, her hair was twirled around in sparkles, forming a peak where a small red dragon perched, guarding her... treasures..

"Abelard, DARLING," Mo'Thanna Handful squealed as she recognized him. "It's been MONTHS. Shayvanna's been worried sick about you, child. But my my MY, it seems like you've been working out! You've gotten so buff since that last time Mo'Thanna saw you. Why, I dare say you'd be strong enough now to plunder my treasure chest!" Mo'thanna called as she playfully jutted out her bustier in Abelard's direction.

Abelard quickly checked himself to make sure his boisterous and happy mask was still set tight and wide. "Mothanna, my dear. I can say, with absolute surety, that no man has ever been happier to be back in your..... graces!", he began, surprised himself at how truly he actually meant it. The Treasure & Lace, for all its outlandishness, had been a place of solace, if not actual peace, for the young Warlock.

"At times I thought I'd surely never be back to see your insides,", he replied with a grin and a wave around the lobby. "Tell me, my dear. Is The Lady Shayvanna engaged this evening? Or available to spend time with an old.... friend?", he asked carefully, still not sure exactly how much of Shay's dealings Mothanna knows about and not eager to give away another's secrets.

"I'm right here, handsome," spoke a soft, resonant, voice from the corner of the room. As Abelard turned to look, he saw the drow elf Shay emerge from the shadows. Shay was not dressed up as a performer tonight. His simple black leathers were functional, rather than showy, and his natural pale white hair pulled back neatly and tied into a simple top knot.

"My girls spotted you heading this way," Shay confided with a smile. "But alone? People will begin talking about you, Abelard. Of course, that's why most people come here. Come in. We can catch up in the back room."

The slender drow pulled back the curtain with a smile. Incense and music and laughter spill out from the club's interior. "Welcome back, handsome," he said. "We missed you."

**

As always, Abelard's brain had to do it's tiny contortion to turn the frivolous and boisterous 'Lady Shayvanna' into 'Shay, the adventurer'. It was so easy to fall prey to the trap of seeing such foppery as weakness... something inside Abelard noted for the future. "I... You have no idea, Shay. None. But, boy, are you about to!" And, in a lower whisper, covered by leaning in close adoringly, "Let me know when it is safe to speak truths.", Abelard responded.

Shay glanced up at Abelard and gave the warlock a wink with his exotic drow-eyes of red gold, much more noticeable now that the distraction of the performer's foppery was stripped away. He motioned, and then followed Abelard into the performance area. The half-elf could quickly tell it was a slow night. Up on the center stage there was a winged bird-person, singing in a flower costume with an enormous collar made of giant rose petals. She was singing her heart out, reasonably on key, to a crowd of only a handful of patrons tonight, some of whom were already slumped over and passed out at their tables. Shay clucked a bit and shakes his head. "Thank goodness she gets to practice when customers aren't watching. Miss Bournda Flock needs the work!" The two stepped towards the back of the club, where heavy drapes sectioned off the private area behind the bar. Shay nodded at the barboy, a stocky young dwarf with oiled muscles wearing a harness who acknowledged the nod and returned his attention to the rest of the room to serve drinks and guard the back room's privacy.

The sound of Bournda's warbling song was muffled by the heavy curtains as Shay headed over to the long reclining chair and motioned for Abelard to have a seat. A tall silver ewer of cold water rested on one of the side tables, along with a pair of stem glasses. Shay poured one for Abelard and one for himself. "Now then," the drow says finally. "Tell me of these truths."

Abelard eyed the curtained off room carefully as he accepted his glass, doing his best to confirm the relative privacy and/or risks about, then nodded. The back room of Treasure & Lace had obviously been designed with discretion in mind. The two windows that face the harbor are of stained glass, allowing no one to see through. The walls of the area are all draped with heavy, ostentatious fabrics--presumably as showy and outlandish decor, but, perceiving the lack of echoes, Abelard realized they function extremely well to dampen sound. There are stairs to the side leading to the upper and lower levels, but they were open and visible, making any attempt to sneak close enough to listen in difficult. Remembering the scrying sensor that the party perceived out on the road, Abelard scrutinized the air for any such distortion... and found none.

Taking a deep breath, Abelard gathered himself and attempted to put his whirling thoughts into some sort of order. How to possibly explain the goings on of the last few weeks that have been months to someone who was not there and likely never has seen anything of its like?

"Ok... Boy...Where to begin. Shay... It's been quite a bizarre couple of weeks. I say weeks, because, to us, we were only gone for weeks, but Months passed for everyone else because we were hopping around planes and Feywild. We..." Abelard stopped himself even before seeing the puzzled expression on Shay's face, realizing he was starting off poorly and rambling.

"Wait... No... Too much. Too soon. Ok. Let's start with the time sensitive. And please, tell me if I am asking too much."

"We have recently returned, after a brief trip that I'm not sure I can explain even if I was required to... Which is all the more disconcerting because I am certainly about to be ordered to in court in three days."

Abelard recounted the broad strokes of what he believed important. (The 'visit' to Twinkleblinks tower and all its clockwork corruption. The sorceress Shai Lu waiting at the top. Planar travel and time loss. Cultists, both in the tower and here in Lusterlin city. Shai Lu. Far Realm dangers. IX pulling himself ever closer. Shai Lu, Orc warband encountered and eliminated. Aberration. Shai Lu. The suddenness of the unexpected pending court case. Witnesses for the prosecution being called. Shai Lu, etc.)

He then went into greater detail about the summons to court, the Duboche's believing it to be just a formality, but the 'feeling' that there is more to it... Because there is ALWAYS more to it. All this, he provides as a background for his ask, knowing it skirts the lines of betraying confidences, if not blatantly overstepping them.

Abelard paused, taking a sip of fresh cold water from the cup, then barreled into the awkward request. "I know you and your ladies are well connected. I've seen the people coming and going from the place. Do you have any dealings with the Count's court? Any means by which you can learn more about what the trial will be like? Who is acting as prosecution? Anything about Lord Sterben, a Lord & Doctor who seems to be the one pressing the investigation. Seeing as the court is calling witnessed to travel to Lusterlin, and our previous dealings with individuals able to charm and influence others, I'm concerned that this trial is not as cut and dry 'formality only' as we are being led to believe."

Abelard chuckled wryly, "Call me paranoid, but I believe that there is a more than an even chance that we are being set up, and the case was rigged against us from the start. I guess I'm asking if you have any way of learning anything that may confirm my suspicions that the smart thing to do here is to just run?"

Shay listened quietly and attentively to the rush of information Abelard poured out, ending with his ask of the drow proprietor. Only when the half-elf had finished, and Abelard allowed himself to begin breathing normally again, did he respond. "These twisted plots you speak of remind me of the matron mothers in Adz'erbajj and the tangled webs of deceit they weave. I learned well from them, there is indeed always something more to it. If you are paranoid, child, it's because you are finally clear-eyed about just how many people in this world wouldn't think twice about putting you in your grave for half a copper. Or worse, using you for their own gain without you even realizing it. This is why I left the Webbed City twenty years ago. But the skills I learned there have served me well in the Lands Above, too."

Shay leaned back languidly on the reclining chair, running his delicate dark fingers over the smooth satin fabric of the upholstery. Somehow a stiletto ends up in his hand, plucked from some secret space between the cushions. "The unexpected is a source of power, Abelard," Shay demonstrated. "So at least half of winning the game is in managing expectations."

Using the thin blade as a pointer, the drow gestured to the other side of the curtain where Bournda (thankfully) had finished her number to muffled random applause. Someone in the audience made a lewd joke about how you get down off an Aarakocra that fell even flatter than Bournda's notes. "My girls and I are just trying to make a living, bringing some fun and excitement into peoples' lives," explained the erstwhile madam. "And to be successful, we must be masters of discretion just as much as we are masters of performance. If our aristocratic patrons thought we cared about their precious secrets, much less shared them with others, our well might run dry. So what you are asking runs against everything this house publicly stands for."

Shay glanced left and right with a sly grin. "Which means we only do it for a price, child."

Abelard nodded. "I know what I ask skirts possible boundaries, and I'd not want you to risk yourselves prying. Or... I guess I did ask for exactly that, but safely? You are correct. I am looking for more particular answers than might simply float by. Very well. What price would you ask? If i can pay it without risking the others, I shall."

Shay shrugged disinterestedly. "If we limit the conversation to common coin, I suspect our talk will be short. But if you can pay with the currency used among aristocrats, then we can do business, child." The drow paused, then explained to a baffled, still Politically innocent, Abelard. "Favors, my boy. Influence. We could use your help as well. If you will be at Court, you will have access that me and my girls do not."

Abelard nodded immediately, lost in the intricacies of Political Intrigue. "Well.. Yes, of course. I fully planned on sharing anything I learned with you, Shay. Why, how else could I be assured you know what to look, or listen, for? But, do you mean more than overheard gossip? Did you intend something other?"

Shay smiled knowingly as Abelard asked if the drow intended something other. "The artists of this city are suffering under the oppression of the human gods, Abelard. Just two weeks ago it was decreed that patrons may only commission artwork and songs of subject matter that follows iconography established by the church of the Annulae. But while their priests influence the Count, according to their custom it is the sovereign who decides and enforces the laws."

"The Count is one of the most difficult kind of people I've ever had to deal with in a city like this--an upstanding, direct, and honest man with no secrets to keep nor appetite for excess. It's incredibly frustrating, because it means there is almost nothing with which to apply leverage on him. However, there is one who does influence him... his wife, Her Excellency, the Contessa Astrid St. Germaine. She is more reticent, more of a mystery, and rarely leaves the chateau. But if we can find a way to influence her in proxy, we may be able to convince the Count to steer this city in a more balanced direction.", she continued, walking Abelard through the line of thought to its conclusion.

"I could not get an invitation to Court if I tried, child. But you... you and your friends... you dine with the War Mage, and you've been summoned to the Chateau at the request of the Count himself. I also happen to know you were the ones who returned a very special painting to him. This is a once in a lifetime chance to make a change for the better in this town. The prophet Mystikos warned us all that the legal fetters of Lectus would continue to tighten and squeeze the lifeblood out of us all unless it was countered. So far his forecast was right on the money. Please, will you help us? Will you help all of us who do not fit into their restricted, judgmental plan of who is allowed to even be themselves any more?"

"Of course!", Abelard replied without the slightest hesitation. "I hate what the Church is doing here. It has to stop! But, since we are on trial for the Murder of a Peer of the Realm at the moment, I'm not sure how well I can help at the moment. But help us get out of this predicament, and I am one hundred percent behind doing everything we can to lessen the Church's hold, and breathe back some life into this town!", he vowed.

Shay's exotic red-gold eyes hold Abelard's gaze for a bit before the drow lets out a sigh. "You're a charmer and a negotiator all right, my boy. If your life had been different, you might have found a place for yourself here, at home with the rest of the stars cast out from the heavens. You need to know I trust no one. Not even you. Growing up in the Webbed City, trust was the path to a quick death. But something about you gets me... that close."

Seeming to shake his head clear, Shay continued, "If you attend upon His Excellency at Court and use that opportunity to do your utmost to sway the Contessa to our side--to the extent that you can-- I will call on my network to see what they can find out about this trial. About this Lord Doctor Sterben fellow. And about this Shai-Lu sorceress you kept mentioning. I will arm you--to the extent that I can--with the information you need to undermine your opposition and emerge victorious." Shay held the point of his stiletto against the palm of his delicate elven-boned hand. The sleek weapon seems all the more cruel and jagged to be threatening such refined beauty. "Do we have a deal, my boy?"

Abelard, eager to show he is no stranger to the advantages of surprise, summoned forth his own pact weapon to hand, in the shaping it to appear as an exact matching stiletto. "We do, Shay, we do indeed."

Shay nodded, "I myself tend to prefer smaller, more concealable cutlery, just to see the look in their eyes when I bring another blade out," Shay muses while waiting for the warlock. "Why, in one of my stops up here they even gave me the nickname, 'Sword of Terror,' can you imagine?"

Not noting the shocked stillness from Abelard, Shay continued, "Though admittedly I was freshly escaped from Adz'erbajj then, and I probably did seem terrifying and bloodthirsty to the townsfolk there at first. Starved and wounded as I was, that fear might have been the only reason they didn't kill me on the spot."

**

About to press the stiletto into his palm, Abelard froze, brain halted mid-thought & skin going shock white. The blade, forgotten, fell from his hand, dissipating before it hit the carpet. And the Half Elf stared... Simply stared, jaw dropped, forgetting to breathe, at the drow proprietor.

"Backing out of the deal already, handsome?" Shay said, seeming a bit puzzled and put off by Abelard's reaction. "You really won't find a better offer, but of course you're welcome to try."

Abelard tried to talk, his mouth dry, and his wits abandoned. "I... You... I..."

The young half elf then stopped and composed himself, not oblivious to what a poor showing of a response he is making. Nor of, suddenly, how important making a good impression had become. "No. I will not back out on the deal, Shay. But....

How do I..."

Schooling himself to calm, wanting... No… NEEDING, to get this right, Abelard took one long deep breath, gazing directly into the eyes of Shay, before continuing. "I don't believe, in our discussions, I have formally introduced myself, other than as Abelard. I am Abelard Agnarrson, formerly of Trollansby Village. My mother is.... was... was Sharlee Lyrsdotter."

"I... I think you knew her."

****

As Abelard watched, a cold and terrible expression slithered across Shay's exquisitely shaped facial features. The drow's breathing did not change in the slightest, but he suddenly stared at Abelard with all the intensity of a duel to the death, and raised the stiletto to point unflinchingly right at the young warlock's heart, inches away.

"Who. Sent. You.", Shay demanded, cold and dispassionately. It was less of a question and more of a statement. "You will tell me which house you serve. Which of the matron mothers sucked that information out of Lolth's spidery tits and sent you after me. Who informed you of that name. Of that place. I will give you a clean death for your answer, and save you from the Drider curse, but only if you confess all. Now."

The words, though each one hit him with menacing power, were nothing more than whispers, eerily discordant against the muffled sounds of frivolity out in the main club. Abelard realized that, while Shayvonna may play the part of a floozy nightclub proprietor, this creature, this Shay, with a knife pointed at his throat now was for centuries a survivor of the most brutal civilization known in the Below.

For a moment, Abelard felt a sick panic and dread wash over him, prickling his scalp and sending a terrifying chill down his spine. Every fiber of the young Warlock's being told him to run... flee... get the fuck away from the imminent death that is mere inches away from the half-elf. But Abelard knew that to turn his back on the drow, even to look away, would be the end of his life. It dawned on Abelard as he swallowed and held himself in place, pulling back from sudden horror that perhaps... perhaps ‘Sword of Terror’ was not so misplaced a nickname after all.

"It's last call, spy," Shay concluded with narrowed eyes. "Who. Sent. You?"

"Shay.", Abelard said, all emotion removed from the words, and his entire focus on getting the information through Shay's long fortified defenses. "I speak truth. I had only recently come to learn that my lineage is more... complex... than I was led to believe. My father was an Elf, this I knew all my life. And that his name, given by the village on his arrival, was Agnarr. But what I recently learned, due to some surprising mid combat ability revelations, was that he was no ordinary Elf, but a Dark Elf."

Abelard ticks off facts as if reading from a list, monotone and robotic, unmoving but for his mouth and the rise and fall of his breathing. "I also had believed him dead, but have recently learned that he is very much alive, and is here in the area, or was months ago."

"Through some investigating, it has come to my attention that I most likely have actually met, or seen, my Father here in Lusterlin, though he was disguised in some magical means. So, one of the reasons I came here this night was... I had planned to ask, once the time sensitive court questions had been dealt with,, if you knew of any other Dark elves in the area? Where I might find them? I had not even considered that you might... That we... I can't believe..."

Suddenly, emotions ruptured past the dam Abelard had been holding back, and the child inside poured forth. "Why did you leave? Why are you here? Why didn't you come back? Why did Mother let me think you were dead? I have so many questions! Wait... spiders have tits?"

"LIAR!!!", Yelled Shay in response, arm tensed like a coiled steel spring, ready to strike.

Abelard saw a cold fury simmering up to a boiling point in the drow. The smooth, dove-grey color of his cheeks spots with violet, and anger made Shay's red-golden eyes glisten. Abelard could almost taste his imminent death, so potently visible was the Dark Elf's wrath. "They're all dead, you idiot! You must be incompetent to have missed something like that in your research. But they're gone. Every last one of them. There's nothing you can do to hurt them any more. At least they're safe from all your damned plots and schemes! And you can't use them to hurt me or coerce me to come back Below. And you..."

"And you..."

A look of agony cracked through Shay's fiercely armored expression as he realizes the impossible. "AH Eilistraee have mercy, you're telling the truth, aren't you?" Shay shook his head in wonder, processing the encounter, and with a distracting flourish, slid the stiletto home into a discreet pocket in the folds of his black leathers. Even with eyes drawn to the motion, Abelard was unable to see just where it went. The drow then looked at Abelard, "You really are my boy then! Sharlee... never told me. I suspected of course. But I was being hunted. My presence put her... put you all... in danger. I had to leave to protect her. The old me had to die, and I had to become somebody else." Shay then looked critically at Abelard. "Wait a second. It's not even been twenty years. How can I have a son so old? And taller than I am? You should still be playing with fungus dolls."

Abelard swallowed, brain spinning, still trying to turn the words he had heard into reality. "You really are Agnarr? It's true? I thought you dead. Like everyone else. They all died. But I lived. I ran, and I lived. It was a Giant, you know? A Giant that was responsible."

It was Shay's turn to chuckle wryly, and Gods if Abelard couldn't hear himself in that chuckle. "Agnarr. Yes, that's what they called me. They couldn't pronounce my real name. But Sharlee saved me, took me in, nursed me back to health. My stay there was brief, but sweet, and free from the slavery to Lolth below. And then the raiding party came up from Adz'erbajj, and I fought by the villagers' side."

"We pushed them back, but I knew they would keep coming for me if I stayed. The people of Trollandsby had been so good to me, took care of me in spite of where I came from. They... deserved a better fate than to be collateral damage or leverage for House Vyl'undir. And so I left. I left and made sure my 'family' knew it. I led them away, and then I disappeared, recreated myself and made a place for myself here. A shelter for myself and all those who were not safe or welcome at home."

Shay smiled at Abelard, genuinely and deeply. "I have a son. And he's a handsome devil. Just like his father!" Shay laughed and pulled the warlock in for a hug.

Abelard, folded himself into that hug, mind still reeling from the discovery, nonetheless is eager to explore this new connection. This new bond. This new.... weakness? "I. It's... My father's alive. I can't wait to tell the others!"

He pulled back from the hug, holding Shay at arm’s length with a grip given strength by fear, and staring into his eyes, "No! Shai-Lu! She cannot know. She will harm you or use you against me... Like she has Jorunn!"

"She is evil, and just appears whenever she chooses. She watches us constantly and we can't... Wait. You! You are protected from scrying magics. How? How does one do that?"

Shay regarded his son proudly for knowing this fact about him. He reaches below the thick, protective collar of his black leathers, and brought out a small nondescript medallion. "I took this with me from Adz'erbajj," he confided. "It shields me from all scrying and divinations. Else, Matron Mother Verzan of House Vyl'undir would have found me long ago. This Shai-Lu of yours cannot find me, except by more traditional means. But that is a game I excel in, child."

Abelard studied the medallion, but found no clues upon it to help him in his circumstances. "Well, it is good to know that such things exist to aim for. Perhaps someday I can find one as well. They don't happen to have them just lying around for the taking down in Adz'erbajj?", he mused. "And even better to know you are protected. I... I would not gain you only to lose you!"

There was a pause of silence... Affable, shared, enjoyed silence, before Abelard continued. "Matron Mother Verzan? I've read some little of Dark Elves. The women run the cities, yes? This Verzan is after you still? Two decades later? And... I still don't know your name. What was your birth name?"

Shay ran a hand along Abelard's cheek, a hint of sadness softening his expression. "I know all too well what it is to lose those you love, child. To a drow, decades pass like minutes to those of you with mortal blood. The insult my departure caused to Matron Mother Verzan will have caused her to appear weak in the eyes of the other Houses, perhaps earning the displeasure of Lolth herself. She will never forget. Never cease to hunt me down until one or the other of us is dead, or worse." The dark elf regained his composure in one single instant and tucked the medallion back under his clothes. "As for my birth name, that belongs to someone else, not the person I am today. You know me as Shay, or Shay'Vanna. That is my name now. That is who I am today."

Abelard nodded, respecting Shay's wishes, but unwilling to not press to learn what he could, especially if these Drow could one day pose a threat to his newfound father. "Vyl'Undir... I would know more." *Snort* "I would know EVERYTHING! But I have left my companions without word of where I went. Should they find me missing, they can be.... disruptive. I had best return to the Tor." Abelard stared at Shay a moment longer, trying to memorize his every feature and mannerism in a moment. "I have not forgotten our bargain,... Shay... and I will do everything in my power to see it fulfilled. More so than ever. Heh... Blood Oath indeed!"

"... Hopefully I can see it fulfilled not from the inside of a jail cell."

"I've escaped worse," Shay winked. "Now go back to your friends. I have some investigations to look into."

Abelard's return to the tower was uneventful... Which was a good thing, because he could not remember a single moment of it, so lost in thought he was.

***