Forsaken by Shadows 68: Consequences of Heroism

Dreder

As a reward for saving the day and not actually dying, Dreder was allowed to sleep in. Which, all things considered, was a pretty pathetic reward. Especially as little by little, the rest of Bregan D'Aerthe trickled into the barracks and clambered into their hammocks, tucking in to slumber the long cycle of patrol away.

A reward was hardly a reward if everyone else got to do it, too, but whatever. Dreder had been far too exhausted to complain. That could wait until the morning.

Er, afternoon.

White Light?

Whatever.

Sleep now, complain later. That had been his intention, at least. Blissful oblivion until the ache in his shoulders and soreness in his gut went away. Magical healing covered a multitude of pains, but there were some things only a proper rest could assuage.

So why in the abyss was someone calling his name?

"Get up, Ti'glath, I know you're awake."

Dreder tensed as the voice hissed in his ear, his good hand darting for the hook apparatus he kept tucked safely under the lumpy sack of feathers beneath his head that passed for a pillow.

A hand caught his wrist just as his fingers closed around the metal cylinder. "Don't be an idiot. I wouldn't be stupid enough to wake you up if I was a threat. Open your Lolthdamned eyes."

Dreder's groan came out more as a growl, but his fog-shrouded brain finally recognized the tenor of the voice speaking to him.

Guldax? Oh, they had better not be sending him out on another patrol.

He shook his wrist free and opened his eyes to narrow slits. "Shove off. I'm sleeping off my heroism."

The hammock rocked and Dreder braced himself, fully expecting Guldax to turn him out. After a moment, however, the tension in the fabric eased.

"There's a woman here to see you."

"A woman?" Dreder exclaimed, suddenly wide awake.

An angry chorus of shushing noises emanated from the other occupied hammocks, but Dreder hardly noticed as he rolled out of his own and landed deftly on his feet.

"Who?"

"You'll have to get dressed and go see," Guldax said.

The squad leader himself was still regaled in his adamantine armor, despite having been up just as late as Dreder, and far more active. Guldax's squad had been one of those that joined the Launite soldiers on their joint assault in the vague direction the wearied Torafein thought he remembered traversing from.

Dreder himself had been told to stay back, along with Riz and his faerie girl, but he hadn't minded one bit. So far as he was concerned, he had done enough already. Besides, it had allowed him the opportunity to linger in the gatehouse, eavesdropping on the planning process. Tactics and Strategy had always been his favorite class, and watching the workings of the assault come together from the command perspective had been fascinating. The Launites might be weak-minded and backwards in their philosophy, but they understood the art of war like any proper drow.

Not even Riz's sulking could ruin the experience, as ten full Launite patrols merged with five of Bregan D'Aerthe's to create a force nearly a hundred strong. All to hunt down the Tear siblings and rescue their missing priestess.

Too bad the operation had been a failure. All that the soldiers had returned with were grim expressions and the half-charred corpse of the woman they'd meant to save. The Tear's had somehow evaded capture, burning the priestess and their supplies in one epic blaze, leaving nothing left to resurrect.

But that was last night's problem, an event he personally had no emotional investment in, save for the wound in his pride in having let Toloruel get away. A mystery which would probably haunt him for the rest of his centuries, but didn't seem particularly troubling when there was a woman here to see him.

He hoped it was one very specific woman.

Guldax wandered off as Dreder rushed through the act of making himself presentable, opting to leave his shaggy hair down in lieu of fighting it back into a tail. He hated the way it felt on his neck, but it took far too long to secure it with one hand and he sure as the abyss wasn't about to ask anyone for help with that. With a quick comb through, he gathered up the azurite he'd collected and made his way above deck.

Only to discover that it was not Ti'yana waiting for him.

The weight of Dreder's disappointment could have sunk the whole boat, as he stared at the faerie woman who stood speaking to Kalos. A stranger, ghostly white, with hair that was some shade of fair, currently difficult to discern in the rich blue light of Launa's mornings.

She was handing a basket over to Kalos, from which wafted the rich scent of fresh baked bread, and Kalos actually smiled at her. Not his usual twisted smirk or mocking sneer. A real, happy smile.

It vanished as Dreder approached.

"What's that?" Dreder asked, jerking his head to the basket.

"None of your concern." Kalos said, then glanced sidelong at the woman. "You sure about this, Tsari? He's not quite housebroken yet."

Dreder bared his teeth, but the woman just looked at him, her face reminiscent of stone. It reminded him of someone, but he couldn't quite place who.

"Yes," she said, in the same strange accent faeries from the surface spoke with. Like Riz's girl.

Dreder winced as a phantom pain arced across his middle.

"I have a great deal of experience with recalcitrant drow. Especially of the male variety."

"Alright," Kalos said, sounding unconvinced. "Dreder, this is Tsaria Xarrin."

Xarrin?

Dreder blinked, suddenly recognizing that stone expression. The same one Ardyn had fixed him with while they patrolled together, which he'd mistaken for an inheritance from his father. Apparently, he came by it twice honestly.

Wow. The rumors really were true, as if Ardyn's complexion hadn't been proof enough. Torafein Xarrin really had procreated with a faerie.

What was the Common word they used around here? Married?

"Pleasure to meet you," Dreder said slowly, his attention already wandering back to his hammock. Hopefully whatever this was would be over soon.

The woman regarded him with heavy eyes. "You are the boy who saved my son and my husband?"

"Uh, yeah," Dreder said, shifting his weight from side to side.

"You will come with me." She beckoned him forward.

"What?" Dreder's attention snapped back into focus. "Why?"

"For breakfast," Tsaria replied. "And lunch and supper, if you so desire. I have a great deal of gratitude to lavish upon you. Unfortunately food is the best I have to offer."

"Uhh..." Dreder glanced at Kalos for some sort of cue on how to respond. This was... weird. Gratitude? He'd just done his job. The only gratitude he wanted was bragging rights and a heap of gold.

Kalos, unsurprisingly, was entirely unhelpful. He just shrugged, indicating the choice was up to Dreder.

Dreder frowned, considering carefully. All he really wanted to do was sleep, if Ti'yana wasn't involved. His aforementioned intention to whine that he wasn't being recognized enough was an afternoon plan. And though he'd spent several tendays in this strange city, he still found himself suspicious of the motivations of faeries.

But... she was inviting him to her home. Where Torafein was. And all the questions Dreder had been storing up for his old mentor, the ones he'd had to smother whilst dragging his half-rotted corpse back to the city, came whispering back.

This could be an opportunity he might not get again.

"Alright," Dreder said. "I'll come."

"Wonderful." Nothing in her face echoed the sentiment. She simply nodded to Kalos, turned on her heel, and gestured for Dreder to follow her. "This way."

***

The journey to the Xarrin house took Dreder deeper into Launa than he had ever been, close enough to the city's central heart that he glimpsed the grand turrets of their fancy temple, which was entirely different from what he had been picturing. All the chapels to Lolth he had seen were spider shaped. He just assumed this Eilistraee-lady would have a cat-shaped temple.

He was both relieved and disappointed to find out he'd assumed wrong. It would have been funny. But deities weren't meant to be funny.

Tsaria led him to a house reminiscent of a drow manor, a real drow manor, albeit on a much smaller scale. Unlike the common style of the outer city, where the houses were square with walls made from layered blocks of quarried rock, this house was carved from the natural stalagmites. An elegant, hollowed out, two story tower, with abstract engravings cut into the sediment around the windows and doors.

It had the feel of an antique, like the more powerful, more established family manors in Menzoberranzan. All it was missing was the decorative faerie fire and the fortifications. Must have been part of the original colony that had first settled in this cavern, before the Launites appropriated their ruins.

"Please, make yourself at home," the faerie woman told him as she pushed the door in—it wasn't even locked—and slipped off her shoes. "Breakfast won't take long too long to—"

Through a door to their left came a clatter, a thump, and a girlish whine, and Tsaria's hands went to her hips in a posture Dreder understood too well. She wore the same look his own mother had worn whenever he did something particularly vexing.

So, always.

"Sabraena Ray'el! I better not walk in there and find you've been climbing on counters again!"

Footsteps heralded the perpetrator's arrival seconds before her form appeared in the doorway.

A girl.

A little girl.

Okay, maybe little was an overstatement. She was probably halfway to her maturing years, with the same light-grey skin and soft features as Ardyn, her orange eyes wide beneath a mop of messy white hair.

"I wasn't climbing counters, Mama," she said. "Honest! I was practicing my levi—" She fell silent as her gaze shifted to Dreder, her slender shoulders stiffening. "Hi... Who are you?"

Tsaria sighed and folded her arms. "Sabraena, this is Dreder Ti'glath. The elf responsible for bringing your father home."

The effect of that simple statement was astonishing. The little girl squeaked, clapping her hands to her mouth and bouncing on the balls of her feet. Dreder barely had enough time to brace before she rushed forward, throwing her arms around his middle.

"What the—" he cut off just before the oath fell from his lips, shooting Tsaria a horrified look as his face flushed in a most un-warrior-esque blush.

"Thank you for saving my Da," the child said, though the sound came out muffled as she pressed her face into his shirt, not terribly far off from where he'd been lethally stabbed the night before.

Dreder didn't move, every muscle in his body tensed against the unwanted invasion of his personal space.

Tsaria just smiled, a look which relaxed her features. She didn't seem at all in a hurry to respond to Dreder's silent pleading to rein in her wild beast. She moved leisurely and placed a hand on her daughter's shoulder, which finally triggered a release of the dreadful embrace.

"Come, 'Braena. I need your help whipping up a hero's feast." She winked at Dreder, which was about as horrifying as the child's hug. "Make yourself at home," she said, indicating the sitting room beyond. "I'm sure Ardyn will be down soon. He's never been good at sleeping in."

Dreder just nodded, regretting his acceptance of the invitation to come here. No one told him children and hugs would be involved. Just food, and a hopeful opportunity to get some answers to questions he'd long been haunted by.

Was this the consequences of heroism? Undeserved praise and uncomfortable attention? He'd only been doing what Launa paid him a fortune to do. Nothing special.

They left him, and he released a breath, taking stock of his surroundings.

While the exterior of the home was the image of drow work at its finest, the interior was anything but. Plush armchairs of vibrant coloring dotted the room, overstuffed for comfort rather than designed for elegance and power. Dreder edged closer to inspect the papers littering the low rectangular table in the center of the room and found them covered in sloppy drawings, likely the work of the little girl whose assault he had just weathered.

Strange to think that Torafein, his harsh mentor in the art of slaughtering, lived this way. In clutter and comfort.

Too restless to sit, Dreder wandered to inspect the real artwork framed on the wall, and discovered what could only be a study in the changes of facial anatomy over the years, with Ardyn and Sabraena as their main subject. He snickered at one particular drawing of a much younger Ardyn, his cheeks rounded and eyes large, clutching the stuffed doll of a fluffy, plump animal with small ears Dreder didn't recognize.

Some of the portraits included Tsaria with the children, and there was an elven couple Dreder didn't recognize, but none contained Torafein. In fact, the more he explored the room, the less convinced he became that Torafein actually lived here. Maybe this was just where he kept his woman and children, while he stayed in a proper military dorm, or something.

"Do you like rocks?"

Dreder nearly jumped out of his skin, spinning away from a portrait of Tsaria's daughter to find the flesh-and-blood version staring up at him, her messy hair tucked behind her ears as if she'd tried to hastily tame it.

"Uhh... what?"

"Rocks," Sabraena said, rolling back on her heels. "I have a stunning collection! Do you wanna see it?"

Dreder glanced around the room, but they were alone. No one to rescue him this time. "Aren't you supposed to be helping your mother?"

"I was," she said, then held up an index finger. "But I burned myself so Mama told me to go do something else. She didn't specify what."

The burn was barely more than a slight discoloration on her skin, and Dreder hadn't heard her cry out in pain. Hardly a wound worth reassignment of duty. Something about her excuse seemed suspicious, but what was he supposed to do? Call her a liar and demand she go away?

Actually, that wasn't a bad idea.

"My Da brings me back a new crystal everytime he goes away," Sabraena continued. "And he goes away a lot. So I have lots of pretty rocks! Well, actually, some are minerals. But most people don't bother to learn the difference." She wrinkled her nose. "Anyway, wanna see them?"

Dreder could think of few things that interested him less, but something about her big, earnest eyes paralyzed him. He'd never seen a shade of red so light, like the citrus fruits his mother had spent a fortune importing. They were shining and imploring, and just the thought of telling her no filled him with inexplicable shame.

So, reluctantly, he grunted. "Sure."

She squealed again and dashed off, up a set of curving stairs that would take her higher into the stalagmite. Dreder barely had time to settle on the settee before she came dashing back with a small wooden chest in her hands.

"Okay," she said, skidding to a halt and plopping on the settee beside him. She all but slammed the chest down on her terrible drawings, flipping the lid open to reveal her treasure.

And treasure it was, as he beheld the splendor of color and natural facets of gemstones in the raw. Dreder wasn't cultured enough to recognize all of them, but he knew wealth when he saw it.

"This is the one Da gave me when I was born," Sabraena said, holding up a bowl-shaped stone which had been cut in half, revealing a tiny mountain range of orange crystals. "'Cause of my eyes. Mama says it took him two tendays to find it. Citrine."

Find it? Had Torafein taken the time to find all these, rather than purchase them in the market? Dreder's hand strayed to the lump in his pocket, where his azurite waited until he could pass it off to its intended owner. Maybe Ti'yana would understand the significance, after all.

"And this one he gave me when he left for his tour. I was only two, so I don't remember getting it." She offered him a chunk of deep blue rock. "Lapis Lazuli."

Tour?

"And then this one I got when I was three. I kinda remember it?"

Dreder didn't need her help identifying the amethyst she passed off to him, of a similar style and texture as the citrine, only a deep, deep violet, fading in places to a lighter lavender.

Kind of like the color of Riz's girl's eyes.

Another phantom pain arced across his middle, laced with a coating of guilt, and he set the stone aside quickly. That was the second time she'd come to mind since he'd woken, and both times made his no-longer-existant wound twinge. What was up with that?

"I remember getting the rest. Traveling to see Da was my favorite part of the year."

"What?" Dreder asked, not sure he caught all that she was saying as she put a bloodred stone in his hand.

"I said our annual trip to visit Da was my favorite part of the year," she repeated. "We only got to spend a few days with him in the safe house. And Mama was always so stressed, 'cause she said"—Sabraena made a severe face, lowering her voice and adopting her mother's accent—"It's dangerous, 'Braena. We could lose our lives if anyone knows we exist." She shrugged. "That's jasper, by the way."

"Right," Dreder said, but his head was spinning, re-examining his memories of the last six years. The Torafein who lived there, vicious and cruel, was difficult to reconcile with the Torafein that Sabraena described, who loved a faerie and collected minerals for his abominable offspring.

And she claimed he snuck away to see them for a few days each year? How? When? Dreder remembered Torafein as a constant presence, a looming threat whose approval he had desperately wanted to win, because Torafein was supposed to be the best. And if the best fighter in the city approved of Dreder, then who else's opinion mattered? Certainly not his mother's...

Yet it was Riz who Torafein had saved in that levitated-battle. Riz and his faerie girl, and not Dreder.

Why was Riz so special?

Something acidic dripped down his heart, making Dreder's stomach churn. He set the red stone aside and rested his chin on his hook. "So where's your... Da... now?" The paternal title tasted weird and foreign on his tongue.

Sabraena's natural glow dampened considerably as her shoulders sagged and she looked away. "Resting. I actually haven't seen him yet, 'cause he's not always safe to be around when he's resting."

Oh? Dreder cocked an eyebrow. "Why's that?"

"'Cause he gets bad dreams, and has a hard time telling the difference when he first wakes up."

Dreder frowned. He'd heard of elves who got dream-terrors, but it was a shameful thing, wasn't it? A sign of weakness of mind. Was it not enough that the elf Dreder had aspired to imitate turned out to be a deviant? Was he truly weak in mind as well?

Then again, the evidence of weakness sat before him, showing off her rock collection.

"Mama said he probably didn't have time to find me a crystal this time since he got so badly hurt," the little girl went on. "But that's okay." She dug her bare toe into the rug. "I don't really need the crystals. I'm really just glad he came home. I hope he stays this time. I like having him here."

She raised her big, unusual eyes to Dreder's, and the emotion in them was too much for the mercenary to handle. Like fire reigniting the cold bricks of charcoal he'd buried in the ashes of what these Launites called a heart, only the feeling that burst back to life was shame.

Shame? He'd never struggled with guilt before he was a hero. Wasn't doing good things supposed to make him feel good? That's what Solaurin and Riz kept telling him. Yet all he got was interrupted sleep and an inescapable sense of being haunted by lavender eyes.

Lavender eyes that had absolutely nothing to do with the little girl sitting in front of them, but somehow he'd linked them. As if innocence was contagious.

Another twinge of pain seared across his nonexistent wound. This was starting to become a real problem.

Movement fluttered in his periphery, and Dreder sat up, glad for the distraction that freed him from Sabraena's fire-eyes, and all the torment he beheld there.

The girl turned to see what had caught his attention, and went stiff as well.

Ardyn seemed to have materialized at the bottom of the stairs, watching them with a blank expression, arms crossed over his chest. He didn't react when their gazes fell upon him, like an eerie, lifeless statue.

"Uh... Morning?" Dreder said, growing less comfortable by the second, a feeling he masked by tossing his arm over the back of the settee and lounging back in an attempt to exude nonchalance.

"Blue light," Ardyn said, though it was hard to say if he meant it as a correction or as a truncated greeting, the way Dreder had used morning. The words seemed to animate him, and he strode to join them in the sitting room.

"How're you feeling, Ardyn?" Sabraena asked, in a shockingly soothing voice. She'd certainly never used that sweet tone in the time Dreder had known her, all less than an hour of it.

"Better," Ardyn said, as if he'd actually suffered some terrible wound that required recovering from. All Ardyn had gotten was a dagger in the leg, and Riz's girl had patched that up right quick. And he'd been the first to leave the late night operations, taking his father home well before the action got underway. What did he have to feel better about?

Yet as he took the armchair across from the settee, Dreder noted he appeared haggard and worn, his eyes—a proper drow crimson—made even more red by bloodshot veins.

"Sabraena," Ardyn said, "Why don't you go see if Mom needs help in the kitchen?"

Mom? Dreder made a face. His mother would have whipped him raw if he'd dared to call her anything like that.

Sabraena's face scrunched up as well. "She already kicked me out once."

Ah, yes. There was the tone Dreder had catalogued as hers. Petulant with a dash of whine.

"Try again," Ardyn said, arching an eyebrow.

"Ughhh." So much for gentle doting sister. Sabraena's eyes rolled so far back in her head she probably glimpsed her skull. "You just want to get rid of me."

But she hopped up to do as she was told, as if her brother had some semblance of authority over her, despite being male.

The moment she vanished into the kitchen, Dreder whipped his attention back to Ardyn. "She does what you tell her?" he asked, unable to mask his surprise.

"On rare occasions," Ardyn grunted. "Usually there's more complaining involved. She's just being nice because..." He trailed off, his eyes slipping to the rug, before he shrugged off whatever he was going to say. "I'm sure you understand. You strike me as the type to rebel against your sisters."

"That'd be a good way to get beaten, if I had any sisters."

Ardyn blinked, cocking his head as his gaze returned from their journey to the rug. "No sisters?"

"No siblings," Dreder clarified. "I'm my mother's first and only. Or was, I guess, since she disowned me." Or, would have disowned Dreder, had he given her the chance to. But he wasn't dumb enough to have risked that.

And yet, for the first time, he found himself wondering how that confrontation would have gone. Kind of a shame he never found out. What if they had reconciled? What if...

Oh.

Oh no.

Where was this sentiment coming from? Was this city infecting him!?

"It doesn't matter," Dreder said, maybe a bit too forcefully, as he tried to quell the panic rising in his chest. "She'll make more."

Ardyn frowned, his thoughtful expression more threatening than a brandished sword. The last thing Dreder wanted to discuss was his tragic past, of which everyone in Launa seemed to tout like a medal of honor. No, no. They weren't going to make a faerie lover out of him. Not like they had with Riz.

Kicking his feet out and crossing his ankles, Dreder painted on his usual arrogant smirk. If he acted like himself, he would remain himself, right? "You don't seem surprised to see me here."

Mercifully, Ardyn followed the change of subject without further prompting. "Heh." He gave a wry smile. "I knew while I was holding your guts in that my mother would be cooking for you if you lived. It's what she does."

"She cooks?"

"She feeds people."

When Dreder just looked at him, Ardyn shrugged, crossing his arms again. "It's subtle, but it's different. She was up all night baking. Probably made enough sweetbread to fill your whole garrison."

"Hmpf. Wasted her time, then," Dreder scoffed. "Those cave crawlers don't know the difference between a diamond and a lump of coal. They're not going to thank her for her efforts."

"Maybe not," Ardyn said. "But that's not really the point, is it? It's not about receiving gratitude, it's about expressing it. Mom celebrates with food. And grieves with it, too." Again, his gaze fell away. "It gave her something to do. Not one of us could sleep, not after..."

Something strange happened to his voice. It went from smooth and slightly accented to garbled, like it got trampled by a mortar and pestle. "Not after we heard about Crysla..."

Dear Dark Seldarine, was Ardyn crying? He pitched forward, cradling his face in his hands and Dreder was very, very uncomfortable. An elf with the braun of a Xarrin had no business weeping over a dead soldier.

Dreder didn't know where to look. The smiling portraits on the wall seemed to condemn him, and the gemstones left on the table just reminded him of the little girl with her big hopeful eyes, which had somehow inevitably led themselves to Riz's girl, who's mental visage seemed to command the tides of guilt.

He must have been drugged. Or enchanted. Or something. These feelings Dreder was feeling were supposed to have been killed off in his childhood.

"I'm sorry," Ardyn said after a moment, sitting back up. "I know you don't care. It's just that... Crysla was a family friend. She used to watch me when I was little. I'm just... we're all grieving her loss."

Grieving her loss.

The concept was so foreign Dreder wasn't sure he entirely understood the full meaning of it. He fought back the impulse to squirm under the gloam-drow's gaze, though there was a tension in his muscles that made it hard to pull off the relaxed act.

"You're right, I don't care," Dreder said. Blunt and violent. Like a drow ought to be.

And it worked. Ardyn stiffened, and Dreder's discomfort eased some. This, at last, was behavior he was used to.

"It's not personal," Dreder went on, finding his feet again. "Soldiers die. Sometimes it's unfortunate, but that's the world we live in."

Yes, that look in Ardyn's eyes was normal. Familiar. Hostile. Dreder could handle hostile. He basked in Ardyn's hate.

But then Ardyn's expression changed. His features softened and his eyes filled with an emotion infinitely worse than grief. A look no drow should ever wear, nor receive.

Pity.

"Is there no one in this world you would mourn if they were to die? No one at all?"

Scat. "I just told you," Dreder said, fidgeting as he crossed his arms. "It might be unfortunate, but it's natural."

"Huh."

Huh? Huh what? Anger seared in his gut, and Dreder's eyes flashed as he glared at Ardyn, though he couldn't for the life of him identify why he was so mad. The opinions of a gloam-drow were irrelevant. Who cared what he thought of Dreder's perspective? Ardyn was the weird one in this scenario.

"I just thought you fancied yourself in love with Ti'yana," Ardyn said. "Since you went through all that effort to find her a crystal. But if you wouldn't grieve her loss, then I guess you're just like the rest of her scorned would-be lovers."

That... that was a low blow. Dreder snarled, his fingers flexing for his knife, though he didn't actually draw it. How dare this half-faerie judge his thoughts and feelings based on an arbitrary scenario? Dreder wasn't like Ti'yana's past suitors. He wasn't like anyone else. He was special, and what he felt for Ti'yana was special.

Yet she hadn't come to mind when asked about whom he would mourn if they were gone. She, like Riz, his favored friend he'd once tried to kill, were both on the list of unfortunate losses.

Why did that realization make him feel like scat? This must be that faerie girl's fault. There was something in her healing that had altered his thinking.

"Ardyn!"

He jumped as Sabraena made her appearance, bouncing on the balls of her feet in the kitchen entryway.

"Mama says it's time to come eat."

Dreder rose, in desperate need of a distraction before he assaulted Ardyn just because, and Ardyn rose with him. His stupid face appeared completely oblivious to the turmoil he'd set loose inside of Dreder, which made it all the more tempting to punch him.

Instead Dreder strode briskly toward the scent of fresh bread and seared meat.

Tsaria flitted about a zuhrkwood table just on the other side of the wall that separated the kitchen from the living area, adorning it with plates and silverware. She smiled kindly at Dreder. "Have a seat, dear. Ardyn, would you fetch the glasses and the orange cider?"

"Yes, Mama," Ardyn murmured, breaking off from Dreder to do as he was told.

Dreder sat at the table, uncomfortably alone as the Xarrin family put the last touches on assembling breakfast, before mercifully Sabraena plopped onto the bench beside him.

"I'll show you the rest of my rock collection after breakfast," she told him, grabbing a golden biscuit from a basket and reaching across him for a sauce pitcher. "I haven't even shown you my favorites yet."

"Right...." Dreder said, though he was already calculating how long he had to suffer through this encounter before he could justify leaving. Even he understood the merit of manners sometimes.

"I have this really pretty tourmaline, it's pink and green and—ack!"

Sabraena's words cut off with a shrill squawk and the pitcher she'd been tipping over her biscuit fell from her hand with a clatter, her attention wrapt on the kitchen doorway where, at long lost, her father had appeared.

Somehow, he looked worse than when Dreder'd found him at the bottom of the crevasse, though he was clean and groomed. Yet his fine clothing hung off his frame like laundry hung out to dry, and his shorn hair only served to accentuate how gaunt his face had become.

All activity in the kitchen ceased, and a long, taut silence stretched, before Torafein finally broke.

"Well?" he grumbled."What are you all staring at?"

He moved into the room, not with the lethal grace Dreder had come to expect, but with an awkward limp. His eyes roved over Dreder, but like Ardyn, he didn't seem remotely surprised to find a mercenary sitting at his kitchen table. Instead, his attention lingered on his daughter.

Sabraena sat stiff and rigid at Dreder's side, her eyes wide and... yes. And filling with tears. She trembled slightly, and Dreder didn't blame her. He'd probably live in fear, too, if Torafein was his father. All that talk of hoping he'd be staying home must have been a front.

Yet when Torafein stopped and held out his arms to her, a strangled sound escaped her chest. She flung herself from the bench and into his waiting arms, burying her face in his shoulder as he knelt to match her height.

"What'd they do to you, Da?" she sobbed, yes, sobbed! Over a man. Her father.

A relation Dreder had never known for himself. His paranoid mother had a habit of poisoning her lovers. Dreder's own father had been dead before he was born.

"I'm alright, 'Braena. Just need a few weeks of your mother's cooking."

Sabraena pulled back, her small hands braced on his shoulders as she glared at him. "And this?" She ran her fingers through his cropped hair. "How am I supposed to braid this?"

He let her braid his hair?

Yet as if that revelation wasn't enough, Torafein's marble expression crumbled under a smile. The biggest, broadest, realest smile Dreder had ever seen, and it was all for Sabraena. Every mental crate Dreder had put his teacher in shattered as this new facet of the elf stood before him, grinning at his daughter.

"It will grow back. Stop worrying, child. I appear worse than I am. See? I can still do this." He swept her up over his shoulder, and she squealed and laughed, pounding his back with tiny fists.

Of all the weird, outlandish, horrifying experiences Dreder had faced in his life, especially in the last hour, this was, by far, the worst. He'd accepted paternal affection in Solaurin. Solaurin was eccentric. But Torafein?

No, no, this wasn't right. Torafein was a killer. One of Menzoberranzan's best soldiers. He'd taken Dreder's natural talent and honed it into perfection. He'd been the one to teach Dreder that his breaking points were just the beginning of his potential. There was absolutely no way the sword master was the same elf who hoisted a giggling child over his shoulder as he crossed to his woman—his wife—and kissed her cheek.

Any semblance of an appetite Dreder might have had was gone. He needed to get out of here. This was all too weird, too strange, and it was doing something to him. Altering his brain chemistry.

He didn't belong with these people, celebrating their reunion. He wasn't a hero. He was a sellsword.

"He's always been better with Sabraena."

For the umpteenth time that morning, Dreder jumped. Was he losing his edge? How did Ardyn and Sabraena keep sneaking up on him? "What?"

Ardyn, who had taken a seat at the far end of the table, nodded to where Torafein finally set Sabraena down. With a gentle shove, he sent the child back to the table, while his wife gave him a severe look that didn't quite match the mood of everyone else.

"I don't know if it's because she's a girl or just because he worked out all his mistakes on me," the gloam-drow said, "but he's better with her. And I'm glad, for her sake."

"Da's in trouble," Sabraena said in a sing-song voice as she scampered back to the bench beside Dreder. "Mama wants him back in bed. "

Indeed, the older elves were having a whispered argument, and Dreder felt some semblance of hope. Maybe it would turn into a fight, and he could escape in the confusion.

"I don't blame her," Ardyn said. There was a dark, troubled look in his expression. "He needs to recover his strength. Stubborn old man." Then his eyes fell onto Sabraena's sauce-saturated plate. "Aw, 'Brae. You wasted the syrup."

"Nuh-uh," the child said. "I just need more biscuits to sop it up."

Enough was enough. If Dreder had to endure any more of this, he would go mad. He stood abruptly, and almost collapsed again under the weight of the guilt that slammed into him as all attention landed on him.

"I'm sorry," Dreder said, words that hardly ever fell from his lips. "I have just remembered, there's something I have to do."

And he fled from the kitchen, ignoring the little girl's voice that chased him, calling his name. He fled into the streets, where, at last, he could breathe a little easier, pretending that he was back in Menzoberranzan for just a moment as the stalagmite houses grew up around him.

This city, these people, were devouring him. He set a hand on his stomach, where Toloruel's blade had nearly ended his existence, and swore he could still feel the pain. And of course, with the pain, came lavender eyes. Lavender eyes that belonged to a broken, gasping, bleeding woman, who clutched at a sword in the same place as Dreder's own wound had been. A wound that his actions had caused, albeit indirectly.

Riz's girl. Mazira.

He set off down the street, determined to outrun the echoing whispers that he was a fraud. If this was what it meant to be a hero, Dreder couldn't wait to get back to being a villain.

Disclaimer: Forsaken by Shadows is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.