Gorion looked out the window of his study in Candlekeep and couldn't help but smile...

It had snowed all night, covering all of Candlekeep with a thick blanket of white, and in the middle of what used to be the garden in spring, two happy young girls were playing. Imoen, having just turned seven, was playing with Laska... Oh, that would be Fey.

Gorion smiled briefly. Laska had apparently gone through a phase where she didn't like her own name anymore, so she adopted the name Fey, the first part of her True Elven Name. In fact, her sister's hotheaded reaction to being called Laska had caused the younger Imoen to constantly ridicule her elven sibling, giving her the name 'Big-Ears', a reference to Laska's... Fey's pointed ears, which were large for her age, and thus a bit floppy.

At the moment though, the two giggling children were involved in throwing a heavy barrage of snowballs at each other. So far, Imoen seemed to be winning. Gorion smiled again, amazed that Laska was actually ten years older than Imoen, but was still the same size as her younger sister, though more delicate of limbs.

Still, Laska had caused her quota of worries. He remembered going for a stroll and seeing that Laska was halfway to scaling up the highest tower of Candlekeep... her reason for risking her life? 'It was there...'. And then there was the time Laska had tried to escape from Candlekeep by clutching under a leaving cart. She had actually made it outside but gave herself away after yelping when the cart rode through a puddle.

Still smiling, he strolled back to his desk where all kinds of documentation was lying. Imoen, the small human girl, had been found scrounging the streets of BG by Annarallia Elfblade, a Harper friend of his who knew of him and his promise to Laska's mother Leilani. Leilani's rape had always weighed heavily on his mind, and Annarallia had discovered that this young girl, called Imoen, had been conceived and abandoned under similar circumstances. Her mother had been overpowered and raped by a strange creature, and had died in childbirth, causing baby Imoen to go from one household to another until she ended up alone in the streets.

By that time, this type of rape had been increasing at an alarming rate. Reports of such incidents had been coming in from all over the Sword Coast, from Icewind Dale to Calimport, and in the archives of Candlekeep, he had found a few rare accounts of these occurances from no less than two hundred ago. In the great majority of cases the mothers of the children born from this union, for there were always children, had died in childbirth, so all things considered, Leilani had been very, very lucky.

To Gorion's everlasting relief, Annarallia had managed to smuggle Imoen out of the city and deliver her to Gorion's care before a group of Harpers send to investigate could collect the girl. He shuddered to think what that young fool Galvarey would have subjected the poor girl to if he had been allowed to take her to the nearest hold.

In the meantime, he had tests of his own to run. He had taken clippings of hair from both girls, and had been preparing for a complex spell. Recanting the final words, both clippings exploded in a small fire. Wisps of purple, arid smoke rose from the now-charred hairclippings.

Gorion nodded. So far, that smoke told him several things : The girls definitely had been sired by the same creature... that creature was quite powerful, and definitely not friendly. Other than that, he didn't learn anything new... and there were still countless texts to pour over. So far, his studies had taken over fifteen years, and all he had learned was that something cataclysmic was about to take place, but he still didn't know how his precious charges, and hundreds of children across the Sword Coast, were involved.

Glancing over his shoulder, he noticed the hot chocolate he had put on the stove for his daughters had finally reached a serviceable temperature. Thinking they'd might like a hot cup, Gorion temporarily left his research behind to bring Laska and Imoen some hot chocolate.

"I killed you!"

"Now, I killed you, Imoen!"

"I hit you in the head with a snowball, you're dead... blood gushing in the snow, brains all over the place!"

"Nu-huh!"

"Uh-uh!"

"Well, I hit you in the liver!"

"HAH! That's not deadly!"

"I'm gonna throw this snowball at you!"

"I'd like to see you try..."

"Girls," Gorion said while he opened the door, but he immediately found himself in the middle of a massive snowball-fight. Round white projectiles exploded against his grey robes before the girls realized they were not hitting each other, but their father.

"Ah," Laska gulped. "S-sorry dad... Imoen and were just... Imoen?" Looking around, she found she and Gorion were the only ones left standing in the white blanket of snow. "Figures..."

"Don't worry girls," Gorion smiled. "I'm not angry. I was just bringing you these two cups of hot chocolate. Remember, keep yourself warm."

"Hot cocoa?!" the voice of Imoen sounded from her refuge... the trashcan. A head covered with reddish-brown hair filled with potato-peels emerged from under the lid.

"Funny how you wanted me to take the fall, Im," Laska muttered.

"I was... just playing hide and seek! And your big ears didn't even hear me hide in that metal can," Imoen said while the two girls took the two steaming mugs of cocoa and took some heavy draughts.

"Remember, Laska," Gorion said, but caught himself, "um, Fey, you still haven't given me your homework."

"Aw, homework?" Laska pouted. "Not when snow's out..."

"Seriously, Imoen handed in her paper on the history of Baldur's Gate yesterday, and made only three spelling errors," Gorion said while Imoen beamed proudly while hearing Gorion's words.

"I... I..." Laska stammered. "A gnome took it!"

"What?" Gorion said.

"Yeah!" Laska said. "I had it all finished and laid it out on the table at the inn when I was doing my chores, but then some strange little gnome who was telling all kinds of silly stories and took it with him when he left."

"I find that rather unlikely," Gorion nodded.

"It's true, I swear! He's called Count Turnipsome, and he said he needed my report on Baldur's Gate history to save the Realms, or something, so I let him take it."

"Come again?" Gorion asked.

"Yeah, he said he'd cast some spells on it to make it look really old and sell it in Baldur's Gate..."

"Liar, liar, pants on fire!" Imoen sang.

"Imoen, shut up!"

"No, YOU shut up!"

"You shut up!"

"Girls, girls, I..." Gorion suddenly swallowed his words. Something... he felt something in the very core of his being, like an approaching storm. A mage such as he was carefully attuned to the web of magic... and he felt this web actually being dismantled... Baffled, he felt his magic being slowly stripped from him...

Oddly, he wasn't the only one to notice. While the girls bickered, sounds of panic could be heard from the normally stoic monks of Oghma... Something was happening... something that would have terrible consequences for the world...

Suddenly, a blood-red glow engulfed the two girls. Panic gripped Gorion's heart as he saw the two girls, now unconscious, engulfed in the middle of two red balls of energy. Magic crackled in the air. Imoen's ball of energy glowed only briefly, but then extinguished, freeing the dazed girl.

Laska's prison, however, burned infinitely more brighter than Imoen's one did, scorching and melting the snow below it. Finally, after an eternity of powerless watching, Gorion found that Laska was released too.

The two girls were none the worse for wear. In fact, they hadn't even noticed. So, they continued their bickering as if their world was still the same... but Gorion knew it was not. He knew he must have looked pale, but it was because of his loathing... with pain in his heart, he knew what purpose his charges, and all the other children held... they were receptacles... nothing more than receptacles for some sort of power.

"Imoen?" Laska asked as she entered their room in the highest tower of Candlekeep. The young elf had been scared to go there ever since she had taken giddy revenge this morning by stuffing snow down the neck of Imoen's parka... the two had then played on, and Laska had never realized that it might had made Imoen very sick indeed... and it did.

In the midday, Imoen had started coughing... one hour later, she was confined to her bed with a hot waterbottle lying on her stomach.

"Hey, Laska," Imoen said, and Laska didn't even protest that she wanted to be called 'Fey' from now on. Truth be told, she was happy that Imoen was talking with her at all, since it was she who had made her ill. "Are you crying?" Imoen asked.

"I," Laska sniffed while tears ran over her cheeks. "Can I come in?"

"H-how are you doing, Imoen?" the tear-filled Laska asked when she sat next to Imoen on her bed.

"Oh, fine," Imoen said. "My nose is a little runny, and my throat hurts a little. But not playing in the snow hurts the most."

A look of pain crossed Laska's features. "It's my fault. I made you sick..."

"No, come on," Imoen smiled. "You couldn't know."

"Hey," Laska said. "I'm gonna stay inside too to keep you company. I'll read you some stories!"

"Great!"

"A-are you mad at me?" Laska gulped. It was the question she didn't dare to ask.

"I love you, Im," Laska said, taking Imoen in a firm embrace.

"Love you too, big-ears," Imoen replied, returning the hug. "Nothing can ever get between us. Sisters forever..."