Xandilif stood and backed up a step, 'OH fecking hell she is definitely a Witch now...'
Gwyndolith muttered, 'Well isn't that great...' as Catalinna rolled down her sleeve
Xandilif says, 'Well..yes and no...overall, as much as they chap my thighs, they are good for the world at large usually...and you might get Red back, but like you said, she will be...different. I don’t totally get it...Rian understands it better, she has dealt with them more..”
Cat smiled, 'Yup.. I'm adorable.'
Xandilif nodded, 'See...different'
Nethrida agreed, 'Very different...'
Catalinna reached for her mug and started to drink again, “Nah.. adorable..” This time she said it slower and louder.
Xandilif smiled, 'Though she does drink like Red did...'
Gwyndolith looked conflicted "I... It's not so different... But the cryptic talk... Is going to get real annoying."
Xandilif shook her head, 'Well then put on your big girl pants cause any time she gets witchy, out will come the goddamn riddles. You ask a witch what time it is she will say "It is all times in all places..."'
Gwyndolith snapped, 'Wooow who would've guessed? Anyway... It won't be your problem soon hm?'
Xandilif stared hard at Gwyn. "Damn right
Gwyndolith glared back at Lif "You go on your picture perfect journey with your newly cleansed little friend..."
“Thanks, i will Idiot. We are goin fishing...and to settle old promises.' Xandilif smiled.
Nethrida clapped her hands, 'ENOUGH. The two of you achieve nothing with those snide quips.'
Catalinna just observed for now and seemed to be thoroughly amused
Nethrida crossed her arms and frowned a little. "Certainly this all was to be expected given what happened...It has only been a few days... Even I'm still trying to come to grips about what happened...And Cat went through a great deal more intense ordeal than I did...'
Catalinna shook her head, "Still in the room..."
Xandilif looked back to Neth..."I wish we knew WHAT she went through...might make things clearer…” She turned to Cat. “Hmmm...what do you remember about the Ninny....umm..Sablelinna?'
Cat thought for a minute, 'She's the one those men took away in a box, hm?'
Gwyndolith frowned, 'Correct.'
Nethrida looked a little sad as well for a moment but regains her composure quickly.
Cat shrugged. 'What do you want to know about her, hm? She lived... she died.'
Gwyndolith threw Cat a hard look "Don't... Don't start speaking like Moyna."
Catalinna shrugged and took another sip of her drink. "What do you think I am, hm? Some kind of witch?" She winks.
Nethrida says, 'Oh? You aren’t? Such cryptic responses for one who isn’t a witch.'
Cat look another drink, 'What does it matter what I say of the lass, hm? She served her purpose as we all do.'
Nethrida crossed her arms and frowned at Cat "Your unwillingness to answer implies you and... Whoever it is that's in your head viewed Sable as little more than sacrificial chattel. She was a person, an individual... One who evidently suffered greatly at the clutches of the enemy.'
Cat closed her eyes, her voice growing hard, 'I view her as the one that murdered me.'
Gwyndolith kicked a chair over causing everyone to jump. "If I hear one more person say that it was someone's purpose to die, I swear…."
Nethrida calmed herself and continued, 'So her suffering means nothing to you?'
Gwyndolith glared across the room "Is it my 'purpose' to just endlessly suffer?!"
Nethrida sighed, 'Of course not. Our purpose is what -we- make of it! Our choices are what define us. Not some grand scheme or plan set in motion by some nebulous force. I could -choose- to ignore what that spirit said to me. Or what happened with the Lord of Fire. But I won’t. I will find out what those words meant. And how it was the Lord's blade shattered when it clashed with mine.
Xandilif held her hands up for a moment, 'Purpose is a big messy word...fate might be better? Destiny?'
Gwyndolith had had enough, 'You can take your purposes and your fates and shove them up your asses.'
Xandilif smirked, '...says the one who just made an oath to an undying Priestess of the Tribute....'
Gwyndolith wanted to scream, 'Out of necessity!'
Catalinna grinned at all of them as Xandilif shrugged dismissively, 'Whatever'
Gwyndolith fumed, 'Quite frankly I didn't feel like dying for someone else’s goal.'
Xandilif just smiled, 'Quite frankly when push comes to shove, you won't have much choice, lateborn.'
'Then have them die for yours, hm?' Cat’s sudden words brought Gwyn up short.
Gwyndolith grimaced and shook her head "Guess I'm stuck with Moyna number two..."
Catalinna quirks a brow at Gwyn. "Hm?"
Nethrida frowned, “Now with the Brand gone I doubt that oath means much. Wouldn’t they first have to rebrand Finch or some other unfortunate soul?' She pointed towards the room where Finch had vanished with Nik "And I know for certain that you would never allow that to happen to her again, Lif... That any of us... Or rather... Most of us... Would never allow that. Act all smug and detached all you want, Champion but I've seen how you dote after Finch.'
Gwyndolith sneered, 'It's the only thing she cares about...'
Catalinna took another sip and then turned her gaze to Neth. "Many with a hard exterior have it to protect their soft insides, hm?"
Xandilif laughed, 'Nah, I care about a couple things other than Babygirl. Grog...kittens...snowflakes on the tip of my nose....As for the brand....no...that will not return, at least not on Finchley. Once a glamour like that is broken, it is broken.'
Nethrida looked at Cat, utterly bewildered over the fact that she understood what she meant, and simply nodded "Yes" and then snapped back to Lif. "So we've no need to concern ourselves with this... Aganalu's immediate return?"
Xandilif looked unsure, 'Immediate?....I doubt it.'
Nethrida nodded, 'It was my understanding Finch had carried that mark her entire life, yes? Can it be implanted into an adult, or must it be passed into an infant?'
Cat took another drink, 'The vessel has been passed to many throughout the years...'
Gwyndolith had had about enough of Cat speaking like that and just stared at the ground "I just wanted my sister back..."
Xandilif looked at Gwyn. "Make up your feckin mind..it used to be you just wanted your children back, now your sister? Sounds pretty damn careless to me, whaddya do, forget them in a tavern somewhere? We gonna have to search booth to booth?'
Nethrida frowned, 'Lif, enough.'
Gwyndolith didn’t even look at the elf, just staring at Cat.
Xandilif shrugged to Neth...but shuts up for the moment
Catalinna chuckled as she stood and stretched. "There's more arguin' in here than there was in that other room."
Nethrida pursed her lips and furrowed her brow. She let out a slow exhale and nodded. "Well... Regardless... She will not trouble us in the immediate future."
Xandilif rubbed her chin, 'That is not the only method something like Aganalu has to be reborn...that was just the one they used at the time. My guess would be, like the Witch says, in this future, Idiot here changed the past. Aganalu jumped lanes. I would estimate someone ELSE is now the Cenotaph in place of Finchly, and always has been as of now.'
Nethrida looked a little troubled. "So killing her in Fornost amounted to nothing?"
Xandilif shrugged, 'It saved Finchley, and might have ended Aganalu, except she had an oath that could preserve her. But where, and inside who? No way to tell yet. Experience teaches me, however, we ain’t seen the last of that red hooded bitch yet.'
Nethrida rubbed her forehead for a moment and nods. "Right... Right... No point guessing then..." but ends up nodding with Lif "I would agree with you there...But now we know she can be beaten.'
Xandilif nodded gravely, 'Anybody can be beaten...depending what you are willing to lose to do it.'
-
The discussion ended there, with each going their separate ways. Gwyn went off to brood on her losses and discuss Cat’s situation with Dar, while Cat herself fell into a fitful sleep filled with dreams of women and blood and a marsh filled with dark importance, watched over by the valiant Nethrida who after the time in Fornost, did not want to be alone. Xandilif however, sought solitude.
Dawn was beginning to outline the simple buildings of Trestlebridge with gold as the elven champion stepped out onto the mighty Trestlespan, the heavy wooden planks seeming solid and eternal under her boots. She easily climbing up onto the side of the bridge to sit on the rail and look down at the mighty river so far below. The bridge and the streets beyond were deserted at this hour…even the bridge sentries were nodding off leaning on their spear and Xandilif was alone in the solitude she had intended to find.
Solitude.
Once it had been all she knew, but these last few months had become rare indeed. Most of the time, she had travelled alone going from task to task for her betters. When she had been on campaign or missions with other soldiers, she kept to herself, no longer comfortable with the easy camaraderie of those who fight and face death together. She had known too much of that in her days….of the camaraderie, of the fighting….and of the death.
Now, she was part of something greater then herself…several different somethings. Destinies had entwined as stories mingled…and burdens were shared as well as taken.
She ran a hand through her short, uneven hair and cursed to herself. “Xanderian…this is all Rian’s fault….” It had always been her concern for her usually useless sister that drew her out of her own company…first into Mirkwood, then into Mordor. Xanderian the Monk always needed rescuing. Only this last time, Rian had not been alone, and Xandilif found herself sucked into a company of misfits, of fighters and fools and thieves…and of heroes. As soon as she got wind of that lot she should have turned tail and gone back to Mordor. Mordor was simple, Mordor was black and white. She could understand Mordor. She could not understand this bunch of idiots…and why she stayed.
Eduwiges, so earnest and so angry who had never failed to miss a chance to commit gleeful suicide. Addiela, dishwater boring save for the fire in her eyes and a strange fascination with raising the dead. Nethrida, the very picture of the stalwart knight with a 4 foot stick up her arse. Calidis, at first glance just Rian’s flavor of the month despite all her years and learning save for her stubborn affection, and the pulsing blue gem at her throat. Ryn, another creature of rage and spit who seemed to be hurtling towards some doom, ANY doom. Elsa, a typical Rohan hausfrau in training save for the fact that her entire past seemed to have been a lie and that she was bound into a world of hurt. Catalinna and her little crew of lunatics, but she had no damn idea what to make of any of them yet. Why did she care so damn much if they all lived or died. They were all walking dust anyway, except for Calidis.
And then there was Finchley.
How the hell did she explain Finchley?
She couldn’t, she had given up trying. Finchley defied easy answers. Just when you thought you had her figured, she would change on you.
Who was she now, since Aganalu was gone? Was she changed? Was she damaged?That was something Lif intended to find out.
Lif shouldn’t care, really…yet the last idiot in the Pony who leered at them and called Finch Lif’s “Girlfriend” ended up with an arm broken in three places and a beer mug rammed into an uncomfortable place…sideways.
Lif cared, she had done all of this just to save the girl and would do more still….and now she intended to keep a promise made the first day they met, when Finch was certain the strange elf hated her without realizing that hatred was how Xandilif showed love.
They were setting off soon to go to Evendim, just the two of them, to pay debts…. to throw flower petals into the lake to say thank you to an ageless nature spirit and good bye once and for all to a little girl who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Simple. What could possibly go wrong?
Xandilif hopped down off the rail and walked back towards the boarding house. One hand going up to grip the hilt of SilverWand. The cold feel of the sword made her remember that long fall, and the pain…and the lich who had been waiting for her.
She knew the lich was still waiting for her. Maybe it was time to pay some debts to HIM as well.
