A new start

[LuxA]

Kelar stood on the deck of The Mermaid with one foot up on a crate, eager eyes locked on the port they were approaching. After nearly a month at sea she smelled ripe, had lice and yearned for a bed that didn’t rock. She squinted at the late morning light. The crew was shouting and doing all the things that ship crews do, working as one to bring the ship in safely. She was a a passenger and could as such appreciate the beauty of the view and the finality over the last hundreds of meters of the long journey with no responsibilities. The sun cast a glittering street of light over the water, leading their way towards the docks. ”Avanthyr,” someone called behind her in loud conversation.

She had known for a month that they were headed here. She had known for two days that they would arrive today. But to feel the ship come to a slow halt, and see them anchor it, and to take her first steps on the shore... that was like feeling a door slam shut behind her. It was euphoric. She stared down at the solid planks beneath her for a moment. She was there, alive! She had her satchel over her shoulder and her boots took her over old wood with water clucking underneath. Everyone minded their own business and didn’t give a damn about her.

She felt more free than ever before in her life. All the old problems... they were all behind her. Family, destiny, guild - all of it. She had tied the knot back in Waterdeep as tight as she could. A month at sea was a very long journey to settle a percieved score.

She inhaled deeply the familiar sea air, imagining the lush greenery beyond the port, livid eyes closing for a moment. She could carve out whatever life she wanted here. Nobody knew her. Almost nobody, anyway. But that was a different story. They weren’t exactly people she was looking to avoid.

With a grin, auburn-haired Kelar Lyonstongue headed off in search for an inn to get that long desired bath.

[LuxA]

Kelar watched her brother’s armoured self walk away. She slowed her steps, letting the distance grow between them. The sky glowed warmly at his back; the sun had just sunk below the sea’s surface. She waited until he was out of sight before she turned towards the ocean. The height of the keep stairs gave her a marvellous view. For a minute or two she allowed herself to take it in and listen to the cries of seagulls and the distant whisper of the waves. Her thoughts churned.

Things had not turned out as she had hoped. In fact, one could argue that they had turned out rather badly. While finding both her brothers walking and talking, she couldn’t quite say she found them both alive and well. And while they had achieved a standing far beyond what she had expected, that standing was entirely different from what she had thought Landristin would pursue. To see him a ... not even a servant of Colibrus, one of his vampires, had shocked her. It was so far from where he had been, from the brother she had known and his plans with the world. She felt as though she had walked right into something beyond her capabilities to both comprehend and to avoid. She would never admit it to a living soul, or an undead one for that matter, but it frightened her. She hadn’t quite the self awareness to accept it consciously but she wanted out.

While her eyes usually portrayed a casual or even flippant state of mind they now witnessed of an uncomfortable worry. She allowed herself to stand in silence for a while until the discomfort passed. Her fists unclenched and her arms fell from being crossed. She pulled her hood up to cover her hair as she usually wore it and strode down the path and out of Sestra.

[LuxA]

Bearing and bloodlines

The sound of the lock clicking shut cut the silence. The gloom of the inn room enveloped her and the seconds ticked past. She waited for some measure of calm and comfort to return to her; she had expected it would once she was alone, but it didn't.

She remained standing there right by the door for many long moments, raising one hand to rest against it and then leaning in with her head as well. She heard someone walk past on the other side of the door, footsteps approaching, passing and fading away, another small intrusion on her solitude.

”...nothing but their bloodlines left ...”

The words echoed in her mind. She had discarded them when she had heard them, but they wouldn’t leave her. There was nothing she could discard them with. Where she was, what she was wearing, the very room she was in seemed only to underline them.

It was as though that scornful mistress of fate spoke again through her very surroundings: You’re here, now, little lady Lyonstongue. You think you’re too good for this? Think again. ... And even if you were, the joke would be on you.

She leaned in heavier against the door, pressing her eyes shut. Her forehead twisted uncomfortably against the wood. Muffled sounds from downstairs drifted up through the building; talk, laughter; people being inappropriately happy.

She thought of the mansion in Waterdeep. The corridors, the tapestries, the carpets: she knew it inside out and conjuring it in her mind was easy. But it was empty, lacking depth and detail. For a moment she tried to hold onto it and make the images clearer, feeling an intense longing, but it felt so hollow that she pushed it aside with resentment. She had none of it left. Perhaps she could return one day... sometime further down the line. Return to the life she had had, the good life with the good food and drinks and the fine clothing and the socialising... though she knew it wouldn’t be that easy. It would be a different life, even if she could return. What would her father’s widow have done with the place in her absence? It would never be the same life again. A different life, perhaps just as good or even better than the one before, but that was never certain, and she couldn’t feel any enthusiasm. She knew that some changes left things changed forever.


She pushed away from the door, a little bit more forcefully than she had intended, automatically taking a step back to keep her balance. She stood still for a second, feeling the skin of her forehead complain against the treatment it had endured, and listened again to the sounds of the others in the building. All these sounds of other people... she hadn’t yet gotten used to them. They made her sleep poorly and constantly reminded her she wasn’t at home. At home, she could have had hours in silence almost anywhere in the house, if she had so desired. Here she was forced to share space with others at all hours of the day.

Home...

She suddenly moved, striding across the room with purpose. She reached her fingers behind the wardrobe on one side, moving to slowly and carefully pull it out, cautious to make as little noise as possible. After coaxing it out about an inch she reached her hand into the dark space behind it. Her fingers found the object she was looking for but it was wedged too hard still. One more tug on the wardrobe with another soft scrape against the floor made it yield and she withdrew a small pouch, soft and heavy. Her main pack was tucked under the bed; if someone searched her room she could stand losing that, but not this.

She moved over to the desk, lay the pouch down and reached for the matches. A fierce light sizzled into being and she blinked, letting it live on a candle before waving the match dead. She sunk into the seat. The pouch itself was made of coarse linen and not very eyecatching, but the content she withdrew was deep purple velvet. After unwrapping several layers of it a large oval gold medallion came into sight. The light struck it beautifully and made it gleam – a lion in profile, mouth open to reveal a split tongue. The family seal. It had been her father’s. He had worn it every day as part of his attire, to mark him as Head of House.

She let the chain run between her fingers and the light move over the etched beast. It was dead and cold, not alive at all as it had seemed in her childhood. She had seen it dance with her father’s movements, the light striking it from every direction, and she had thought that it was beautiful, the most important piece of jewellery she had ever seen. She had resented her brother that he was the one destined to wear it and not her. It had seemed to her that if it became hers it would grant her a near magical ability to accomplish anything.
Now her heart felt heavy holding it. It had never been alive, and the one who had made it come to life was dead.

The other item in the pouch hadn’t been wrapped. It was a wax seal bearing her family’s crest. She didn’t pay it any attention.

Tilting the medallion to let light strike it from different angles, a thought came back to her that she had had several times since she arrived in Sundren: did he still count as alive? or was she the heir now? She wasn't going to ask, for obvious reasons, but a thought was sent to the Waterdhavian laws. She didn’t expect them to have special clauses regarding undeath.

When she was done gazing at it she wrapped it up again, just as carefully as before, and returned it to where it had been hidden. With it she also hid her doubts and her brooding. There was no sense in dwelling. Shaking her head, bitter irritation following the hollow wake from her thoughts, she pushed the wardrobe back.