Coraline: A Second Shade from the Past
It's beginning to seem as if all our former travelling companions have found their way south. First Kivan; now, Quayle. He's running the circus here in Waukeen's Promenade – so we found out after releasing it from the clutches of a deluded illusionist. Quayle has... mellowed, unexpectedly, since we parted ways. Part of it may be due to Aerie, his apprentice after a fashion, though he treats her more as an adopted niece. She's travelling in our company now.
Aerie... she looks so fresh-faced and innocent, it is hard to believe she has lived through all the loss and suffering of her tale: kidnapped by slavers, exhibited in a cage as a curiosity, her wings brutally sawed off when they atrophied. Yet live through it she did, and she has survived – and survived so beautifully too, with the light of hope still in her eyes, mixed in equal parts with the steel of determination.
They call me the Hero of Baldur's Gate, but truly, her strength of will puts me to shame, especially when I consider how the slightest of incidents can feel like a hammer blow to my heart...
Yes, perhaps it's past time I confessed. Today, as we left the circus, we passed a squabbling human couple, obviously husband and wife. Kivan glanced after them, shaking his head, but then I heard him mutter, 'Yet I envy them.'
Is there anything which does not remind him of Deheriana? Sunsets are smeared with her blood, and the wind sings with her voice, and he cannot so much as see a man and a woman together without being reminded of what he has lost...
Oh, Morninglord help me, I sound so... bitter. And who am I to blame him, after all? While I was travelling from Baldur's Gate, every leaf-rustle was his footfall, and the sound of running water instantly brought to mind the rushing spring at High Hedge.
Aerie... she looks so fresh-faced and innocent, it is hard to believe she has lived through all the loss and suffering of her tale: kidnapped by slavers, exhibited in a cage as a curiosity, her wings brutally sawed off when they atrophied. Yet live through it she did, and she has survived – and survived so beautifully too, with the light of hope still in her eyes, mixed in equal parts with the steel of determination.
They call me the Hero of Baldur's Gate, but truly, her strength of will puts me to shame, especially when I consider how the slightest of incidents can feel like a hammer blow to my heart...
Yes, perhaps it's past time I confessed. Today, as we left the circus, we passed a squabbling human couple, obviously husband and wife. Kivan glanced after them, shaking his head, but then I heard him mutter, 'Yet I envy them.'
Is there anything which does not remind him of Deheriana? Sunsets are smeared with her blood, and the wind sings with her voice, and he cannot so much as see a man and a woman together without being reminded of what he has lost...
Oh, Morninglord help me, I sound so... bitter. And who am I to blame him, after all? While I was travelling from Baldur's Gate, every leaf-rustle was his footfall, and the sound of running water instantly brought to mind the rushing spring at High Hedge.