Imoen laughed and applauded. Dili had just finished acting out a one-girl skit of “Little Red Riding Hood”, using her shapeshifting ability to take all the parts, and everyone except Dradeel (naturally) had come to watch. Even some of their Cowled keepers had drifted in. It had been almost a tenday now since Imoen had come to herself, and she was beginning to feel almost at home here in Spellhold. Almost. The walls were familiar grey stone, Lonk’s cooking wasn’t half bad, and she could at least look out at the blessed light of day, even if Wanev hadn’t decided to allow her outside yet. A frown flitted over her face. She still wanted to get away, though. HE was still down there, somewhere in the bowels of the earth under her feet. She brushed the thought away with determination. She had to pull herself together first, rebuild who she used to be as much as possible.

Thank Mystra for Dradeel. She thought back to the first afternoon she had ventured out of her cell. After she’d bathed--- and no matter how spartan the facility, that had undoubtedly been the best bath she’d ever had in her life--- Dili had hovered around her, insisting on showing her everything. For lack of anything else to do, Imoen had let herself be dragged from room to room. She’d begun to feel stronger as time went on, listening to the girl’s happy chatter. Last of all, Dili had taken her into the library, which had been deserted except for one hunched figure scribbling away at a table on the far side of the room.

Dili had looked up at her mischievously. “Shhhh,” the little girl had said, and crept off on her hands and knees, hiding behind a sofa at the far end of the room. Suddenly, a soft “Arf! Arf!” could be heard. The robed figure jumped smoothly out of its chair and onto the table, crouching into a defensive posture.

“You! Do I know you? No, I don't know anyone!” it cried. “Back! Bad dog! Play dead!” it added, stretching its arm out commandingly.

Imoen’s jaw dropped. Him? Here? It couldn’t be! “Dradeel?” she whispered tentatively. “Is that really you?” She was afraid it was just another hallucination… that Irenicus was suddenly going to leap out and do something dreadful….

The elf stared wildly at her. “No more tests! No more questions! No more! Back! Bad dog!”

It was real, it had to be! Imoen went and dragged Dili out from her hiding place. “Dili, say you’re sorry,” she said, giving the girl a little shake. “That was really mean. You don’t want me to tell Lonk, do you?”

The little girl pouted. “No,” she said, scraping her toe on the floor. “But it gets so boring here, and it’s so easy to get him to do that. He’s funny.”

“Well, you don’t know why he feels that way about dogs, and I do. I won’t tell this once, but don’t let me catch you doing it again,” she said, feeling as if these common-sense words were coming out of another lifetime. Or out of Tisha’s mouth….

She dropped Dili’s arm and walked back towards the elf, raising her hands placatingly. “Dradeel, do you remember me at all? We met some months ago. You were on an island then, a nasty place, and my sister and I helped you leave all the bad doggies behind.”

He blinked, and stared at her hard. “I-Imoen?” he said questioningly.

She nodded. “Yes, Imoen.”

He leapt off the table, and she was frightened that he was going to attack them, but instead he swept her into his arms. “You’re real!” he cried. “I can touch you! Oh, at last, someone who knows I am telling the truth, that it was not all an invention of a diseased mind! Wanev will not believe me, he says that I just can’t tell the difference between my fantasies and reality any more, that I was shipwrecked, perhaps, but no more….”

His joyful recognition buoyed her own spirits, and she spent a few blissful moments savoring the physical contact with another being. Dradeel had been somewhat emaciated when she last saw him, but there was nothing of that about his frame now. He was stronger, his golden hair no longer bleached white by the sun, and no one would ever guess that he was over five hundred years old.

They had spent a good hour talking, so deeply engrossed in their conversation that they missed the dinner gong, and Lonk himself and one of the warders had come looking for them. Lonk gave a long whistle when he saw them. “Well, now there’s one for the record books. The Wolfman and Sleeping Beauty having a gossipfest! Wanev’s going to be interested to hear about this. I’ve never seen him talk like this to anyone.”

Imoen had looked up at the gnome. “Dradeel and I are old friends,” she’d said defensively.

Lonk quirked an eyebrow. “He told you his name? Wow, that’s pretty good going, girlie.”

Imoen got a mite irritated. “Look, Lonk, he didn’t have to tell me, I already knew it. Like I said, we’ve met before.”

“Sure, girlie, whatever,” Lonk said placatingly, “but do you think you can stop gabbing long enough to come get your vittles? I’m locking up the scullery in half an hour; you ain’t et by then, you’re going hungry until tomorrow.”

Imoen bit back an angry response to the gnome’s obvious doubt, and she and Dradeel followed the others meekly to the dining hall, then to their cells. When she awoke in the night, drenched with sweat from another remembrance of agony, she was somehow a little comforted to know that the elf was just down the hall and around the corner….

Imoen gave Dili a hug for her efforts and bantered a bit with some of the warders before leaving. She’d found that the Cowlies were pretty easy to twist round her fingers, as long as she didn’t cross certain bounds. A few smiles and pleadings had got her some better clothes, a brush, and other such small necessities, but she knew better than to try to use her wiles to buy her way out. She’d also wound up playing a lot with Dili, because nobody else in the place seemed to have a clue how to deal with a child except Aphril, and that poor woman was never sure exactly what plane she was on at any given moment. Besides, playing with Dili always made her feel better.

But right now she was eager to get back to Dradeel, who somehow had turned into her shield against all the horrors locked in her memory. Maybe it was because he was always so happy to see her; it was hard to resist anyone who greeted you so eagerly. She found that her spirits rose higher and higher the longer she stayed in his presence; his joy in her company seemed to feed her own, until she could forget all the bad parts of the past.

She entered the library and searched for his golden mop of hair. Where was he? He was always here, reading or writing in his journal, but she didn’t see him at any of the tables. She heard a faint noise, and turned to see him sprawled out on one of the couches, fast asleep and slightly snoring. Aphril was sitting in the window seat, but now she got up and drifted over in her usual aimless manner.

“He… went to see Wanev today,” the other woman said breathily. “It’s hard for us all, those days. Your turn is soon… you are Patient Thirty, so you go on the last day of the month. Mine… is tomorrow. I don’t like it, he will try to make me see again….” She bolted from the room.

Imoen stared after her. This didn’t sound good…. She turned her attention back to the elf. His skin was paler than it should be. Silently she drew an ottoman up and sat beside him, suddenly frightened. Oh, wow, what had they done to him? Poor Dradeel, he’d been at the mercy of everything and everyone for so long. She sat there awkwardly. Tisha would know what to do… Tisha always seemed to know what to say when people were sad. They were diametric opposites in that, she knew. Tisha was the perfect person to have around when things were bad, but her sister didn’t find it easy to let loose and party, have a rockin’ good time at a celebration. Whereas she herself could be the life and soul of the party, but avoided downer events like the plague. But she was worried about Dradeel, and--- well, what would Tisha do? Hold his hand, maybe? Just sit with him until he woke up? Yeah, that sounded about right. Nothing flashy.

So Imoen sat as the afternoon waned into dusk, watching an exhausted elf sleep and half-wondering if she had gone mad herself. Near dinnertime Dradeel woke with a start. “There were evil dogs, there were!” he cried wildly, then lay back with a sigh of relief as he caught sight of her. “Oh, Imoen, I am so glad you’re still here,” he said. “I thought you might have stopped being real too….”

“Nah,” she said, leaning forward to give him a hug in her relief. “Who’d invent anybody as frivolous as me?”

“Well,” Dradeel murmured sleepily, “I think you’d make a pretty nice dream to look forward to….”

The dinner gong sounded, but Imoen barely heard it. Why did her heart flutter so? You idiot, you’re locked in a mental hospital with an elf more than twenty times your own age, and you’re letting your hormones loose on an impossible dream? “Get a grip,” she whispered to herself. “Okay, so you’ve secretly wanted the Wolfman since you met him way back… but this is too dorky for words!”

“I heard that,” Dradeel said, eyes fluttering open again.

Imoen did the natural thing. She slapped him and ran out of the room, cursing at the top of her lungs.