cool off

	The four elves watched as her outline slowly vanished.  The smoke turned from silver to black.  The fire lost its fey tinge, and suddenly they were just four sleepy, half-or-fully naked people around a bonfire with swords and wet eyes.

	None moved for a while as they scanned the surface of the moon Selunê for any more sign of their Dark Mistress, but she was gone, and she wasn’t coming back.  Luanea sniffled and wiped away tears.  Kyria slowly rose and banished her flames.

	“I see,” Verashon finally said.

	“Yeah.”  Doshellas felt grief and relief stab him deep, and turned away from the others.  “I need to go do something.”

	Luanea turned to the scorched spot on the grass and stared into its depths, her mind whirring.  Verashon walked up beside her and wrapped warm arms around her bare stomach.  “Luanea?” he asked softly.

	“Yes.”

	He closed his eyes and pressed his lips to the crown of her head.  “I love you.”

	She gripped his hands with her own, and her silver sword fell noiselessly to the ground.  “I love you,” she whispered.  “Oh, Dancer, my heart…”

	“She saw us,” he said quietly.  “She danced with us.  She blessed us.”

	Kyria half-heartedly pulled on her clothes and wobbled off back to the main camp.  She had to pause and lean against a tree at one point, but she made it.  She walked in and squinted at the non-elves.  Axio was sitting with his back to Anholme’s flank, lost in thought.  Cavria was emerging from behind the cargo cart, barefoot and grinning from ear to ear.  Linus was lying on his back beside the fire, eyes half-shut, holy symbol in hand.  Suivi was sitting cross-legged beside a plate of half-eaten bread, both hands on the back of his head, looking strangely at the flames.

	“Guess I don’t need to ask if you saw her,” the little wizard mumbled.

	“How could we not?” Linus whispered.  “They must have seen her from the Moonshaes to Thay.”

	“I’ve never felt so alive,” Cavria said quietly.  “She knew.  She knew.”

	“Yeah.”  Suivi shuddered.  “She knew everything.  Forever.”

	Axio just nodded.  “Linus?”

	“Hmm?”

	“Does that answer your question?”

	Linus half-smiled.  “Perfectly.”

	“Thinking of jumping ship?” Cavria teased.  “You were enraptured.”

	The human Paladin beamed up into the starry sky.  “Not on your life.  I’m just asking Torm to protect her.”

	Kyria snorted.  “Think our Lady needs some divine knight’s help?”

	“Eilistraee did kind of die in the Spider Queen War,” Axio pointed out.

	The dark elf shrugged.  “True.  Think Torm’s listening?”

	“Who cares?” Linus asked.  He closed his eyes, and his smile didn’t fade.  “I don’t.  Torm doesn’t feel the need to check in on us like naughty children when we’re errant, and he doesn’t show us a dance routine when he’s pleased.  One thing he does do is have an infallible sense of good and bad, and I think he knows nobody that good doesn’t deserve his friendship.”

	“That’s cute.”  Kyria sat down beside him, belatedly noting that he had the same skin, hair, and eye color that she did.  “You have a funny way of explaining the relationships between the gods.”

	“And if I’m wrong, I am quite certain that they will correct me,” Linus said.  “I took two heads off of Tiamat with strikes my God enriched.  When I die the second, final death, I’m sure I’ll have a chance to have my questions answered.”


	Doshellas stumbled through the underbrush until he was out of sight of the clearing, then fell to his knees and vomited.  He heaved and felt tears drop from his face to the carpet of pine needles below.

	He was forgiven.  No, he hadn’t needed it.  He had never needed it.  She didn’t love him less.  She called him son.  She loved him, after all he had done.  After all that had been done to him.  She would catch him when the darkness finally overwhelmed him.

	Relief curdled his joints, and he fell sideways onto the bare ground, bawling.  It was all right.  Everything was all right.  The shocks of adrenaline, bitter fear, and desperate, frightened hope faded in his arms like the poison barbs of his slavemistress’s lash had finally fallen out, and he could move again.  It was like an arm waking up after falling asleep, or a knife getting pulled out of a wound, and the infected blood spilling away.  It hurt so much, but he had never felt less afraid.  Eventually, his sobs faded, and he lay still on the floor of the forest, unconscious from his shocks.  He would have tranced had he thought to, but he was too far gone.  The forest kept him, as it always did, and he slept through all the night.


	Luanea nearly tore the clothes off her husband as he pulled her to the ground.  The brilliant light of the moon spilled over their night-black bodies as she desperately kissed him.  Tears moistened her face in joy.

	She was no fool, of course.  She suspected that the goddess’s words about her flesh bearing the seed of the salvation of the drow didn’t imply that her husband would impregnate her that very night, but as she had turned to look into his eyes after their declaration of mutual love, they had come to the same conclusion about their proper course of action for the rest of the night.  Suddenly, it was the most natural, correct, and appropriate thing to do, and so they had wordlessly kissed, with such passion that Luanea had nearly fallen on her backside from the suddenness of it all.

	The drow priestess’ clothing wasn’t minimal for any sexual reason, despite what chuckling tavern-goers imagined.  It was to show off the attempt of the mortal women to mirror the divine beauty of their goddesses, whether the kind and regal ones like Sehanine or Hanali, or the evil ones like Lolth.  It was mere convenience that there was so little for her to remove with shaking hands.

	Her husband loomed over her in the darkness, shaking a bit himself.  His brown eyes practically glowed in her darkvision.  Normally, they enjoyed a bit of fond play before they had sex, but neither saw the need, looking at Luanea’s current state.

	She whimpered his name in helpless, unconditional love, and he whispered hers back, and the two of them made love with such abandon and passion that both suspected Sharess was helping.  Bursts of light seemed to flicker across Luanea’s eyes as she wordlessly cried out, thanking him, the Dancer, and anybody else who had a hand in keeping their hearts madly in love.


	The others looked over at where Linus lay on the ground.  “You’ve died?” Cavria asked.

	“A Cult of the Dragon Assassin cut my throat,” Linus said matter-of-factly.  “Laeral Silverhand paid for my raising.”  He opened his eyes again.  “I was part of a large band of adventurers who took down a cult of drow that had conquered Phandelver, and when we took our payment south to find new contracts, we ran afoul of the Cult of the Dragon, too.  Over time, we crossed blades with them again and again, until at last we partook of the assault against the Well of Dragons itself.  My friends Eve, Grim, Willem, Zeke, and Ander and I managed to kill the exiled Red Wizards of Thay that were guiding the ritual to summon Tiamat’s physical body to the Prime.  To make sure we couldn’t stop them, a group of assassins riding red dragons attacked Waterdeep to kill off as many adventurers and soldiers in the city as they could.”

	Axio stared.  “That was you?”

	“You were there?”

	“I was defending the Church from the cultists at the time,” Axio said.  “A whole boatload of kobolds attacked the rectory.”  His face twisted.  “I was too young to join the final assault, they said.”

	“It was surprisingly easy, really.  The entire Council of Waterdeep’s collective military and half the Lord’s Alliance besides were assaulting the place with teleporting troops,” Linus said.  “The eleven spellcasters inside needed to die before the ritual would stop.”  He grinned fiercely in his recollection of the final battle.  “Two of the scaly bitch’s heads made it through before Anders and I killed the last of them, and the portal chopped the heads right off.”

	Cavria looked up from her dinner and gaped.  “You killed Tiamat?” she demanded.

	Linus shrugged from the ground.  “Well, ‘killed,’” he said, making quotation marks with his fingers.  “She’s essence-locked in her prison in Avernus for displeasing Asmodeus.”  He didn’t notice how Cavria recoiled at that name.  “Even if we had cut all five off, she’s just going to re-form eternally in the prison so Asmodeus can torture her when he gets bored.”  He smirked.  “But she can’t escape without the Mask of the Queen of Five, and I gave that to Laeral.”

	“Wow.  Here I thought killing the fifth-in-command of the Cult of Hate was impressive,” Axio chuckled.

	“I thought that was you,” Linus remarked.  “All the gossipers talked about was your… uh…”

	“Hm?”

	Linus coughed.  “Uh, your eyes.  Guess they don’t see many Aasimar in the city, huh?”

	Axio sighed, but there was no sting in it.  “No, no, it’s just… well.  I didn’t always look like this.”

	Linus nodded.  “Yup.  Wings next, right?  Then the skin?”

	Axio looked up.  “What?”

	“I’ve seen it before.  You’re channeling Ryaire, right?  The more you do that, the more angelic traits you manifest.”  Linus blinked and looked around as he noticed the others staring.  “Uh… oh, Gods, Axio, please tell me that wasn’t a secret,” he said nervously.

	“No… no, it’s not a secret,” Axio said, “but how did you know?”

	Linus shrugged uncomfortably, then sat up and set his holy symbol back around his neck.  “Well, I mean, I’ve lived in Waterdeep and Rassalantar my whole life,” he said.  “Sometimes plane-touched people come to the ruins of Rassalantar Keep to contact their planar ancestor, if they want to channel their power directly.  I see it all the time when they come through the rest stop where I was born.”

	“What’s so special about the Keep?” Kyria asked.  She suddenly made a face and got back up, walking past him as he spoke.

	“There’s a planar crystal there,” Linus said.  “It doesn’t work as a portal focus anymore, but it can be used as the material focus for Contact Planar Entity or Contact Other Plane.”  He looked over at Kyria.  “You alright?”

	She sighed.  “Yeah, I just hear Luanea praying again, and I don’t want to listen in, be all voyeur.  You know.”  Under her breath, she continued “Wow, Luanea, keep it in your pants, girl,” just for her own mollification.  She was happily generous with her own sex, as most Eilistraeeans were, but she felt distinctly uncomfortable at listening to people in mid-coitus if she wasn’t an invited participant.  As she would have put it, she was a slut, not a voyeur.