Visions

	The four remaining travelers sat around the fire cooking, while the others walked into the woods.  When the light of the campfire was gone behind them, Luanea looked up and smiled at the beautiful moon overhead.  “This will do,” she said.

	The group came to a halt in a clearing.  Verashon shucked his jacket, and the others followed suit, until Doshellas and Verashon were down to their smallclothes, while Luanea wore her priestly fibers, and Kyria just wore the night sky.  She used her new cantrip, Create Bonfire, and a flickering green and brown light emerged in the middle of the clearing.  Verashon and Doshellas bent their knees in reverence, and inclined their heads to Luanea.  Kyria dropped to both knees and spread her arms, closing her eyes, and turning her face to the fire she had lit.

	Luanea began to dance, slowly spinning on her heel, letting the feather-light fabric slowly trail behind her hips.  She murmured a lyrical prayer, and to her delight, the smoke from the fire began to turn silver.  Eilistraee was listening.

	She sang in Old Eladrin, the language the elven peoples had all spoken when they had left the Feywild over twenty thousand years ago.  It had morphed into Sylvan, Elvish, Eladrin, and Sildëyuir over time, but the Gods of the Seldarine never forgot it.

	Her beautiful voice filled the clearing, and even over the cracking of their own fire, the non-elves perked up their ears and heard it.  Fathom and Noble looked over into the distance, as if they were listening to the words.

	Luanea released her conscious mind and simply moved to the music she had committed perfectly to memory as a child.  The lyrics spilled from her lips in time, and the smoke moved.  The coils of silver smoke spun around her, and as she sang, Kyria rose to join her.

	The two women slowly danced around the flame, which glinted off the silvered bastard sword Luanea carried in her hands.  Despite Kyria’s closed eyes, she moved in complete confidence.  She knew Luanea would never hurt her.

	Fathom slowly walked off towards the music, feeling the mixture of Celestial and fey magic compel him forward.  Noble sat upright and watched, not comprehending, but enchanted nonetheless.

	The murmurs turned into words, as Luanea spoke aloud, and her voice was as rich and deep as ever, but to the men, it sounded like silver and magic.  Verashon felt his heart surge with love, pride, and religious fervor, as his wife channeled his goddess.

	“Lady stars and caves below,
	Bathe us all in your heaven’s glow
	Show us deep and shining light
	And save us from the endless night
	Gift us knowledge of our past
	Keep our silvered hearts steadfast
	Take from us the fear of death
	Whisper your guidance on your breath”

	Luanea saw the stag wander through the clearing and kneel beside the circle, watching in silence.  She smiled, and turned her eyes heavenward.  The alternating seven-eight stanzas filled the clearing with her beautiful singing voice.

	“From deep Ysgard you send rhyme
	Flow across our lips in night-time
	We show the dark silver-steel
	With your love, to ourselves conceal
	Until mind of Lolth reveal
	Corellon’s wounded heart will heal
	When death takes us to your side
	Our souls from death you gently guide”

	At that, the men rose, and joined in the dance as one.  Verashon drew a sword from his discarded things, while Doshellas stood across from Kyria with no armaments.  Luanea turned to the fire once more and gasped in delight; the smoke was now moving independent of her, but wasn’t mirroring her.  Luanea wondered to herself if she could possibly be so lucky as to channel Eilistraee directly on her first night of the journey.  She started the final verse with a pounding heart.

	“We serve your aims to the end
	When bonds of family you mend
	In Arvandor shall we dance
	And back to Svartalfheim advance
	Give to us strength resist
	Dance before the fire in our midst
	Hear us sing our endless love
	And give the same back from above”

	Luanea fell quiet.  All three others stopped dancing, and Fathom looked up into the night sky.  Luanea looked too, and her hands flew to her mouth.  Silhouetted in the moon, she saw a very tall, impossibly beautiful woman.  Her silver hair was the color of the moon behind her, spinning and coiling in the light that spilled all around her, making it seem like she was a part of the light itself, and casting brilliant beams of fey illumination over the circle.  The Celestial stag bowed its head, and Kyria fell to her knees.  Doshellas looked up at her with hopeful, desperate eyes.  Verashon linked his fingers over his belt buckle and looked up at her, knowing full well she was listening to his heart.

	“Lady, thank you,” Luanea whispered.  Eilistraee had not stopped dancing when she had stopped singing, and her outline was all they could see.  Each elf felt their hearts lurch in their chests as her face turned to them, and the darkness of her face broke.  Each one saw dots of purple where her eyes should be, and a curl of light from her smile.

	None heard the same thing when her eyes met theirs.  Kyria heard a voice of pure music in her mind.  “Your soul is not bound to mine, little one, but you follow me regardless.  You shall know no end to joy, if only you keep to my course.”

	Doshellas heard a voice of very soft, caring speech.  “There is nothing to forgive, my blessed son, and know that no shadow hides you so deep I cannot catch you when you fall.”

	Verashon heard a clarion voice of strength under a veil of feminine calm.  “You are the wall against which the darkness breaks, sweet boy, and in the lee of which my children shall shelter.”

	Luanea heard a voice of warmth, caring, and love that rendered her knees weak.  “Daughter, your power shall light the darkness as few can, and in your flesh shall be sown the seed of a new world.”


	Linus slowly rose to his feet and stared in total shock.  A Paladin he may have been, but his bond to Torm had always been a cold and clinical one, of pure pragmatism and little love.  He had never resented it for an instant, as he knew how many millions needed his God’s attention, but that just made the stark sight they viewed all the more shocking.  He had never seen a god in person, not even in his brief death.  He had thought he wouldn’t, until he stood before Kelemvor at the end of it all.  He raised his hands and knelt, staring into the light of a goddess.  Not his, but divine nonetheless, and as good as a Dark Seldarine could be.  For the barest instant, he thought her eyes met his, and he thought he heard a faint, loving laugh in his mind.

	Suivi crumpled.  He had stood in Ryaire’s presence, but that had been through the filter of a dream: unreal and strange on waking.  Now, a goddess was literally staring at him.  Her eyes didn’t leave his, and for five minutes of hesitant, shaking torture, she didn’t break eye contact with him.  Finally, he saw her teeth glint in a smile, and a sense of relief and something else he couldn’t identify flooded into his heart.  He collapsed onto his hands and knees, and he would have sworn he felt a hand on his cheek.

	Cavria met the goddess’s eyes when she completed an arc of her turning dance, and they shared a spontaneous smile.  The High Succubus Prototype felt elation in her mind as she suddenly understood, and while the others couldn’t see it while they stared spellbound at the sight of Eilistraee’s naked form in the moon – literally spellbound, for Suivi – she pulled the amulet off and danced along.

	Axio simply rose and watched her twirl and arch in the light of the moon.  He saw her kick her one leg back until they formed a straight line from the top of the white disk to the bottom, then slowly pirouette until she was spinning on one heel like an ice skater.  When her eyes met his, he clasped his hands over his heart and nodded towards the circle of the dancing fey on the other side of the trees, without blinking his stone gaze once.  Her smile for him was solemn and stern, and when he returned her judgment without hesitation or doubt, she offered him the tiniest spark of true, innocent happiness in her expression.  He felt trust emerge in his mind, before all other emotions, and understood that it wasn’t her trust towards him he was feeling.  His gemstone eyes teared up, and he bowed his head.