hognecker

	Lumalia slowly ran her hand over Linus’s forehead as he twitched and moaned in his sleep.  The nightmares were back, she thought sadly.  Linus was tormented by visions of his early career, and the horrors he had endured in that time.  Most of them were in the form of vivid flashbacks of his battle against Yeenoghu in Conyberry.

	It came back to him on random nights.  There was no pattern to it; it just returned, as soon as he fell asleep, while his mind sank into the depths of dreaming.

	That night, Linus had begun thrashing and whimpering almost as soon as he had bedded down.  The night had been perfect, too, Lumalia thought sadly.  They had dined well together, thanks to Winter, the house cook, and her gift for mixing spices and vegetables.  They had made sweet love in the moonlight, entwined in the bliss of each other.  They had changed the bedclothes, Linus had had a sip of wine before settling down to read, and then he had fallen asleep and begun suffering at once.

	Her presence calmed him.  When his mind was wracked with pain, he could shelter it in the same divine channel she used to communicate with Mystra every night.  Normally, she would do so at the end of the night, right before sunrise, but now, as she did every time her husband was trapped in his traumatic snaps, she set herself to sleep at once.


	When she awoke, he was still beside her.  The sheets were coiled up around his legs, but his jaw was slack, his fingers relaxed, and his brow was dry.  She had kept him safe, and now he would sleep soundly until morning.

	She gingerly disentangled the sheets from him and spread them out, then pulled them up to his chin.  He didn’t shift as she kissed him and rose.  He didn’t need her to stay by his side.  He would be fine, and when he awoke, his burden would be naught but a fading memory of discomfort.

	It was truly bizarre.  She was a being of the heavens, and yet here she was, cradling a mortal man of far greater power than herself.  She was putting on armor and sparring with peasants who were becoming used to her presence, when most mortals who saw her did so because she was about to kill them.  She was lying with a man and looking forward to having children, despite most angels having never even felt the impulse to do either.

	It was no mere distraction from her eternal life, either.  As she sprang from the railing and took to flight, her mind whirled.  This was no diversion.  This was a mission from Mystra and the place her heart belonged, yet it was a selfish pursuit, and she was not using Mystra’s authority to get what she wanted.  It was so odd.  Most Celestials couldn’t wait to return to their home planes when they left them, or at least didn’t feel the urge to linger when they were free to.  Yet both Mystra and her own soul commanded her to stay, and she did, and she was happy.  It was the last thing she had expected to happen to had after Axiopistos had found her in that cave in Elysium, over a year ago.


	As Lumalia flew over the village, a hand waved at her from the rooftop of a farmhouse.  The building, attached to a stable and a walled-off farm, belonged to Halaven, his wife, and their daughter Mossi.

	Mossi waved urgently as Lumalia flew overhead.  The angel slowed and spiraled down, until she came to a halt on the rooftop beside the girl.  “Good evening, Mossi.  Why are you still up?”

	Mossi clutched her hands together.  “Miss, I’m scared!” she announced.  “There’s a monster outside the walls!”

	The farm’s walls were thick, eight-feet-high affairs of piled boulders and tree trunks.  From ground level, none could have seen over them, but from the rooftop, Lumalia could follow Mossi’s pointing finger.  Sure enough, there was… something moving slowly past the wall, heading south, towards the village stockade.

	“Goodness.  I could check on it, Mossi,” Lumalia soothed.  “I’ll see if there’s something wrong, alright?”

	“Oh please, please!” Mossi said nervously.  “My parents said I was seeing things, but I knew there was something!”

	Lumalia took the girl’s hand and pressed her own free one to Mossi’s forehead.  “Hush, little one, I’ll make sure things are alright,” she said quietly.  “Be safe here.”

	She released the girl and took off, soaring silently over the fields of green plants.  When she approached the wall, though, she slowed and smiled in recognition.  “Greybone, what are you doing up this late?”

	To a nine-year-old girl, Greybone the Druid probably did look quite frightening.  Standing seven feet tall, with blood-red cheeks and nose, and dark grey-pink skin, the firbolg druid certainly didn’t fit in with the village.  Then, neither did the winged, glowing, golden Lumalia.  “Ah, m’Lady, I twer findin’,” the firbolg said.  He had a distinct mélange of languages in his voice, although Lumalia could understand him well enough.  “Was a hognecker treadin’ the fenwater.”

	Lumalia came to alight on the walltop and sat down, looking down at the firbolg.  She didn’t know him well, but Linus did, and paid the druid a tidy sum to use his magic to repulse smaller vermin from the village.  “There was a monster in the Stump Bog?” she asked.

	The elderly firbolg nodded.  “Ah, aye, the hognecker twer stompin’ delliach, toward the road.”

	“I’m sorry, but I don’t know what a hognecker is,” Lumalia said.

	The firbolg tapped his jaw for a moment.  The giantkin was a clever and worldly sort, too old to be angry, in his words, and a loner who dwelled in the woodlands to the north of the village.  He regrew trees after the locals took them for timber, and Linus had trusted him to keep the village free of vermin in exchange for a huge donation to the temple of Chauntea at Goldenfields in the druid’s name.  He tilted his fishing hat back and looked shrewdly up at the angel.  “A hognecker, m’Lady, is kin the stinkiest warthog ye ever missaw, and taller than orchardtrees.  A horrid stink, and bad milk, and eyes like a stone-snake.”

	With a horrid smell, nasty milk, and paralyzing eyes, it could only be one thing.  “A Catoblepas, then,” Lumalia said at once.  “Do you think it’s headed this way?”  Catoblepases were ruinous to plant life, and could easily kill a whole farm just by standing near it.

	The firbolg nodded.  “Aye, was just trackin’ here up to the delliach when I saw yer Lady swoopin on the dark.”

	Lumalia cracked her knuckles and rose.  “Shall we?”

	The firbolg’s eyebrows went up.  “The Lady’ll fight?  In this dark?  Hogneckers’ll see ye glow in the darkness, if ye’ll pardon.”

	She rolled her shoulders and cast her spell, and suddenly her evening clothes were armor, and her empty hands clutched a shield and flaming sword.  “It will make no difference, brave druid.”  She hopped down and landed beside him, with only the faintest noise despite her increased weight.  She smiled beneficently up at the taller man.  “And if you were willing to come up here and intercept it alone before it troubled Rassalantar, it’s either no threat to two of us, or you’re brave enough to deserve my help, no?”

	The firbolg blushed in the darkness, waving his hand indistinctly.  “Ah, m’Lady, there be no a time for the highword,” he mumbled.  “I’ll not trouble the Lady, I can handle a hognecker.”

	“Then two will make it swifter, no?” she asked.  “Besides, I promised Mossi I would help.  Now, where is it?”


	The hognecker, a Catoblepas indeed, was slowly ambling away from the fen, snorting near the ground.  When the dirt beneath it suddenly turned to mud, it honked and stumbled.  The great reeking monster flailed for a moment.  Its mace-like tail and shaggy brown hair swung about as it tried to regain balance.

	Its thrashing increased in urgency as a sudden light intruded on its vision.  It looked up and saw a swooping, golden bird that shone faintly from cracks in between its feathers.  It was flying in so quickly.  The foul creature managed to free one side and rose up onto the ground.

	Then the bird hit, and the Catoblepas rumbled in shock and pain.  Lumalia slammed into its flank with the force of a falling tree.  The creature bellowed as it was suddenly impaled and on fire.  Its misery ended quickly.  A dart of bright green fire leaped from the pommel of the burning sword, ran up the length of the edge of the sword, and exploded inside the Catoblepas’s flank.

	“It is not in my nature to prolong suffering,” Lumalia said quietly.  “Be dispensed from this life.”  She ripped the blade laterally, slashing through its heart.  It reeled back, its struggles diminishing as it did, but Lumalia was not done.  She slapped both hands against its bleeding flanks and cast Burning Hands at an enhanced level, and the entire creature vanished in a torrent of whirling orange flame.


	Greybone looked down at the display from the top of the hill that led down to the Stump Bog.  The angel hadn’t needed him to so much as hold her skirts, much less fight.

	Below, Lumalia was pouring on the Burning Hands, again and again and again, until the plant-killing taint of the creature was gone, and it and the dirt beneath it were cracked glass.


	She walked slowly back up to the firbolg, dismissing her blade, wings, and armor as she did, until she was nothing but a woman in simple cloth tunic and evening dress with sandals, with golden skin and hair, and eyes that shone in the dark like stars.  “And there we have it,” she said calmly.

	The firbolg slowly shook his shaggy head.  “The Lady didn’t need the hand of Greybones, don’t be givin’ him highwords,” he chuckled.  “May as well have brought ye a herald!”

	Lumalia tilted her head.  “Yet I would not have known it was here had you not informed me, good druid.  Thank you.”  She turned to the village once more.  “Now, I need to say goodnight to little Mossi.  Would you walk me there?”

	The two set off.  Greybone hesitated a moment before stating his mind.  “Lady… if the Lady doesn’t pay a moment… did ye have to kill the hognecker?”

	“I felt I did.  Those creatures can foul plants and kill with their tails, can they not?” she asked.

	Greybone rolled his shoulders uncomfortably.  “So aye, the hogneckers can kill.  So can the Lady, seems.”

	Lumalia nodded, accepting the point.  “Yet none demand my death when I grow near the children and the farms, it’s true.  Was there a better resolution?”

	Greybone coughed.  “Twas just to turn the hognecker around, m’Lady, back to the fenwater.  Give it a spook and turn it away.  Twas not to kill it.”

	Lumalia paused.  “Oh.  Well.  All right, then.  I’ll keep that in mind.”  She sighed and resumed walking.  “I suppose that’s what I get for rushing in,” she said sadly.  “My fault.”

	The druid conspicuously did not answer.


	Mossi fidgeted at the back gate of the farmstead, waiting nervously, until she saw the angel approach.  She shrank back when she saw the towering firbolg beside her, but didn’t close the gate.

	Lumalia knelt before the girl.  “All is well, Mossi,” she said.  “It’s safe to rest.”

	Mossi curtseyed, relieved.  “All right, then.  Thank you, Mistress Lumalia.”  She squinted up through the darkness at the druid.  “Is this…”

	“This is Greybone, a druid who works nearby,” Lumalia said.  Greybone tipped his hat.  “He was on the lookout for monsters.”

	“Oh.  All right.”  Mossi bowed again.

	“Now, you go to bed, you hear, Mossi?  I need you bright and attentive in tomorrow’s class,” Lumalia said playfully.  “Sleep well.”

	“Yes, ma’am.  Good night,” Mossi said.  She closed the gate and scurried away.


	As Lumalia walked Greybone back to the little wooded area where he made his home, she was thinking over the ‘battle’ again and again.  She had never, not once in the first thousand years of her life, gotten into a completely unnecessary battle in the heavens nor on the Prime.  She had been here for six months now, and killed an unsuspecting animal that was just harmful and annoying.  That was an unhappy thought.

	“Ye still’r awhirl,” Greybone suddenly said.

	She winced.  “Yes.  I don’t know… I shouldn’t have assumed killing the beast was needed.  They’re quite hostile to people, true, but no threat to me.”

	Greybone nodded slowly.  “I suppose that much be aweighted my failure,” he admitted.  “Should’ve warned ye.”

	“Perhaps, but I still did the deed.”

	“Well, m’Lady, don’t be whirlin’ too much about it,” Greybone said.  “Hogneckers’r fel beasts no matter the hazard; no good to be stompin’ near honest folk, harmless or no.  Have a think, but not too many, aye?”

	Lumalia half-smiled.  “Indeed?  Very well.”


	When Linus awoke that morning, he felt something a bit off.  The room was faintly glowing, and it wasn’t light from the rising sun, nor from his wife’s wings and eyes alone.  He rubbed his eyes and looked about, and saw Lumalia sitting in a low-back chair in the corner, one designed to accommodate her wings.  She was holding a glowing holy symbol of Mystra in her hands, her good one.  She had several, and this one was special to her.  It had a phial of holy water in the middle, and served as her divination focus.

	Linus sat up.  “Good morning,” he said.

	She didn’t look up, but she smiled.  “Good morning, love.  Did the nightmares keep you?”

	“Nope, they vanished.  Like always.  Thank you,” he said.  He had felt his dreaming mind sweep into the corridor of psychic communion she opened to the Dweomerheart the night before.  “Are you alright?”

	Her smile vanished.  “No, my love, I am not alright,” she said quietly.

	She had nothing on her body but a frown, and her holy symbol in her hand.  She was almost always naked around the house, since she preferred not keeping anything between her self and the world, just as she had in Elysium.  Its casual nature had long since stopped being enticing to Linus, who barely noticed any more.  It did make her look a bit more vulnerable when she was in a poor mood, though.

	“Let me know the instant I can help,” Linus said seriously.

	She was silent for a moment, then unceremoniously dropped the holy symbol onto a side table and walked over to him.  He looked up at her where she loomed over him at the bedside, waiting for her to say anything.  Then, she silently pushed him onto his back, crawled over him, and settled down beside him, spooning his shorter body and wrapping her arms tight around his midsection.

	Linus felt alarm creep up his spine.  He had never seen her like that.  “Lumalia?” he asked quietly.  He closed his hands over hers.  “What’s wrong?”

	She buried her face in his neck.  “A second.”

	“Very well.”

	They lay there for a moment, then he felt her wiggle a bit.  She spread her upper wing and extend it over then two of them like the world’s softest blanket.  “Linus, I tried to help somebody last night, and I made a fool of myself.”

	“You… uh, start from the beginning,” Linus said.

	She sighed, sending a wave of tickles over his neat-shorn hair.  “All right.”  She squeezed him and lowered her voice to barely above a whisper.  “You know Mossi Greenborough?”

	“Halaeven’s kid?”

	“Yes.  She saw a monster last night…”


	The two of them lay there, motionless, until Lumalia was done telling her tale.  After taking a moment to digest it all, Linus disentangled from his wife, lifted her wing an inch to roll over, and then snugged back against her.  He wrapped his arms around her lower back and held her close to himself, from knees to collar.  He pressed his forehead to hers and spoke as softly as he could.  “I’m here, love,” he said in Celestial.  “I’m sorry you’ve been tossing and turning over this.”

	She snuggled up against his warm body and closed her eyes.  “Thank you.”

	“It also sounds like perhaps you’re a bit more worried over this than you need to be,” he said.  “Catoblepases are a menace to farming communities like this one.  Greybone was right to worry.”

	“I didn’t need to kill it!” Lumalia protested unhappily.  She fixed her glittering gold eyes on her husband’s flat brown ones.  “I shouldn’t have jumped right to lethal force.  I could have just flapped my wings and shouted.”

	Linus blinked uncomfortably.  He wasn’t used to this kind of heart-to-heart.  He had spent the past twelve years on his own, right up until being committed to the Ark.  “I… I mean, yes, you could have, but this way it won’t come back,” he said awkwardly.

	She sighed faintly.  “I deserve feeling this way.  My first fight in seven hundred years, I just reverted to my old training without being flexible.  And of course, I dragged Greybone into it.”

	“I mean, angels are usually only sent to fight in the Prime if there’s a fiend or an Aberrant loose, right?  Or, a… a Vampire Lord or something else,” Linus said, scrambling for words.  “So… it’s just what you’re used to doing here, right?”

	She sighed.  “Or some other Negative Planar Energy wielder, yes.  Mummy Lords, Necromasters, that sort.”

	“Right.  You were just doing what you were trained to do,” Linus said.  “Don’t get too angry.  Trust me, you’re not the first person I know who had trouble putting their circumstances ahead of their training.”  He cleared his throat and scooted back an inch from her face.  “I mean, I went and killed things in the desert and the Underdark for ten years.  I’ve been there, love, I know what you’re feeling.”

	Her eyes softened.  “Yes.  Yes, you do, don’t you?”  Linus’s eyes widened as hers grew a bit misty.  “You do.  Of course.  Of course.”  She sniffled.  “How do you deal with the feelings of regret for being so… quick on the sheath?”

	He shrugged.  “I internalize it, then I share it with the people who understand.”

	“Like me.  Hah.”  Lumalia leaned forward and kissed him, light and gentle.  “I love you, Linus.  I love you… so much,” she whispered against his lips.  “I love you.”

	He relaxed and returned it.  It had been a genuine surprise to the romantically-inexperienced Paladin that there were so many gradients of kissing.  Growing up totally deprived of meaningful contact outside of fighting, the year he had lived with Lumalia in the Ark and the village had introduced him to a world of physical subtext and nuance for which he had been totally unprepared.  This, he had learned, was a simple gesture of comfort and unity from her; a silent, unmoving kiss with no pressure nor sexual desire behind it.

	She flexed her wings once and sat up, breaking the kiss.  She stood up on the bed and stretched out every limb and feather, popping audibly from sitting in the chair for hours.  “Well!  All right.  I feel better, my love,” she said, switching back to Celestial.  “So much better.  It’s worth lugging that gigantic soul of yours around to feel so relieved.”

	He laughed and stood beside her.  He tucked his hands under her bottom while she reached for the ceiling and lifted an inch.  She fell with a whoop and bounced on the bed.  “Hah!  As if you could lift it,” he said boastfully.  He hopped off the bed and made for the shower.  “We’ll have to race if we want to make it to the sparring field in time this morning,” he called over his shoulder.

	She beamed at his backside as it vanished into the shower.  “Right.”  She hurried after him.  She didn’t know how he always made her feel better, but he hadn’t let her down yet.