Jump to content


II. Like Father, Like Son


  • Please log in to reply
No replies to this topic

#1 Guest_Oryx_*

Posted 12 November 2002 - 05:25 PM

II. Like Father, Like Son



In crystal avariel-elven chainmail, necessarily quiet but ludicrously light on the giant-strong cavalier, Onyx crept deeper into the white dragon's cave, holding the Dragon Shield and Dragonslayer sword at the ready. His son Eryx crept beside him, sword and shield in his hands, as did several other young warriors. Their swords and shields were the crystal weapons of the avariel, and these swords had been shaped and enchanted specifically towards the slaying of wyrms. Onyx's daughter Sky and her friend Luna crept behind them, similarly equipped except with maces. Like Sky's mother Aerie, they were each studying both divine and arcane magic, but unlike her, they trained in martial combat as well.

"Now," whispered Onyx, "when Sky and Luna cast resist fire and cold upon you, remember that you will still not be impervious to the beast’s icy breath, so be careful. Now how do you strike at it?”

"Against the direction of the scales, to get under them," answered the bored young warriors in unison. They were excited by the prospect of their first real dragon kill, but found Onyx's remedial pointers tedious.

"Good," Onyx answered, seeing their impatience. "Sky and Luna, you know what to cast. Everyone else, charging stance." They leaned forward to run at its belly as Sky and Luna cast resist cold, haste, and defensive harmony upon them all. Then each girl fired a delayed blast fireball in front of the dragon's face. Perfect aim, Luna smirked to herself. As soon as it wakes, it'll bump right into them and get torched. They each then cast a live fireball straight at its nose, and they burst, burning and waking the white dragon. Sure enough, its head popped forward and set off the delayed ones. Screaming horribly as its cold flesh burned and the fireballs scattered, Onyx began the first of three shakes of his sword, but after only the first, Eryx charged ahead without them. Ignoring the slight fire damage, he plunged his sword deep into the dragon's exposed belly. It had grown fat on inept adventurers, and Eryx touched but didn't pierce its heart. Onyx cursed as he and the rest charged at the belly. The dragon was already very much aware of them and its claws and jaws moved in. Onyx leapt up and knocked aside its head with Dragonslayer and the other warriors managed to catch its claws on their shields while stabbing at its belly. Luna cast a scorching jet of flame in its face and it screamed, blindly blasting her with icy breath. She ran aside while still sending flames from her fingers to its face and all but avoided the breath. Sky called a flamestrike down on its body, catching its wings on fire. Finally, Eryx used his great strength to push his sword through the dragon's heart, and it gave a dying wail.

Aerie approached from the mouth of their cave. She had been watching this all, impatiently drumming her fingers on Crom Faeyr and thinking, just let me have at it with a few incendiary clouds or a magical fire dragon blasts of my own. But no, her cavalier husband and their son had to bother with brute force even as their daughter and Luna practically cremated it for them. Under the guise of giving the warriors some real monster experience of course, but she knew how much he enjoyed charging in like that. Onyx walked back to her, cleaning off Dragonslayer, and hugged her happily.

Watching their son shearing and claiming some white dragon scales triumphantly, Aerie gripped Onyx's arm. "Like father, like son," she beamed.

"It seems thus," Onyx agreed. His thoughts turned then to his own father. Bhaal. Like father, like son indeed. His other arm reached down and gripped the hilt of Blackrazor.

Years ago, following Irenicus into hell to vanquish him, Onyx had come across this evil sword. Its power had tempted him, but a djinni had bade him give it up to pass the test of Greed. He could have slain the djinni, but the paladin took the noble path and returned it. As he did, he hungered for it still, and bade his sister Imoen pickpocket it back again. None sensed a change in Onyx's aura that day, and his actions had been righteous sense, but when he wielded it in combat, absorbing the strength and life of his enemies like a vampire, his thoughts were not always pure. Hunger. Power. Domination. Wield me and have it all, Onyx. None shall stand in your path and live. And none had. But such thoughts stayed caged in Onyx's mind. He knew he understood, better than the other straight-and-narrow knights who found his use of Blackrazor controversial, that sometimes the path of good meant using - manipulating - reversing - evil power. It is not always best destroyed immediately, but used to turn on other evils, that twice the wrong might be undone. For that was the eternal difference between good and evil. Good stood by good. But evil was the enemy of both good and evil. In many a battle had he seen demons tear their foes and each other apart while leaving he and his good companions alone. This is our advantage, Onyx knew. This is why good shall prevail. We shall stand together and turn evil upon itself, away from the innocent and beloved and good, consuming only itself. It took a strong heart to wield evil, to be tempted not by power for the sake of power, but to use power only for the sake of justice. Onyx knew he had such a heart.

***

"You should not have rushed in," Onyx chastised his son that afternoon.

"The dragon would have been upon us! We all should have rushed," his son countered.

"A valid point - despite the fireballs - but one that is best made in advance with words, not surprises."

"Better late than never! I scarcely got blistered! I know about how you and Minsc would immunize yourselves to fire and rush in while aunt Immy and mother would incinerate your foes!"

Onyx chuckled and softened. His son was as charismatic as he sometimes. "You know, before we had the best gear, we'd run in only partially resistant and just take the damage. No guts, no glory. Well, we always had your mother and Jaheira to heal us up afterwards, so I guess it wasn't so bad. Those were the days." At his careless thought and mention of Jaheira, he detected Aerie's aura growing red from the next room. Eryx detected it too and snickered as Onyx tried to move his thoughts on. He grew faux stern and said, "When you run your own army or adventuring company, such will be your choices. For now, you must do as I say, young squire."

"How come you didn't take me on that last battle with the demons and druids anyway? I would have killed a hundred!" As he saw his father about to give him another lecture on pride, Eryx began to realize the futility of this path. Wisdom and charisma kicked in and he thought up a cleverer approach before his father could speak. "So, were there a lot of druids? Was...JAHEIRA there?" He winked at Onyx.

"Uh, no, I haven't seen ever since the Coin of Bhaal war, before you were born, um, you know," Onyx stammered as he watched Aerie's aura brighten further and felt her senses peering at him and then their son. Oh by Torm, he thought. Not the Coin of Bhaal war. Whatever you do don't let Aerie sense you thinking of the last time you saw Jaheira and she telepathically showed you your alternate future with her. "So, uh yeah, there were thousands of druids and maybe a hundred demons. You should have watched your mother and aunt and Nalia take them out of the sky with huge evocations. Bam, boom, wow." He filled his mind with very positive thoughts of Aerie and relaxed as he saw her aura soften.

"Wow," Eryx mocked. "But don't those druids have some powerful spells too? You always loved talking about the amazing spells JAHEIRA would cast. Like NATURE'S BEAUTY. I bet you really loved that one, father!"

"You know we cavaliers can't be charmed like that!" Onyx shouted and practically squeezed his goblet handle in two - he'd done it a few times - as Aerie's aura burst into flames. Both men could start to feel magical tingling from the next room.

"Hey father, about that fire resistance, I think now might be a good time to have a lot! We cavaliers aren't totally resistant! Did you memorize resist fire last night? Or were you busy dreaming of JAHEIRA again?"

Both ran for cover as a huge illusionary fireball sailed into the room. It burst harmlessly into a mirage of flames and both breathed a sigh of relief.

Returning to their chairs, father and son exchanged nervous looks and muffled chuckles.

"Now seriously, son, you are becoming a great warrior indeed, and I more than understand your impatience - for me, twenty years in stuffy Candlekeep attacking nothing but training dummies and skittish kobolds was quite boring. But you have had a number of adventures yet with your family or friends in spite of ever-tedious knightly training. But you must learn more control and discipline. Even as you become your own leader, they will serve you well as you engage friends and foes. And it is more than just a cool head - it takes great strength of heart to balance great power and the temptations that come with it."

"Many are the tales of your struggle, father. Always have you held fast Still many, even among mother's people and the Radiant Heart, whisper slanders and lies. Even as you try to protect those you love. Even as I have had to!"

"I know to what you refer. I understand why you destroyed the first boy who came at Luna. It galls me too that me that it is gossiped of still. Your initiative, aside from protecting her, served as a great example and prevented her - indeed, many others, your own sister perhaps - from bearing much future wrong, I am sure. You made the first the last. But sometimes, son, in a society with rigid laws - this avariel society, or our human one below - we must find the path which best reconciles law and good - I know, son, they do not always perfectly align. Always a paladin must walk such a careful path. It is thus that our profession is entrusted with responsibilities of such gravity. You didn't have to slay the boy - I know, they resurrected him anyway - merely beating him up a little could have spared you much trouble and annoyance while protecting Luna just as well.”

"The scheming nobility should have been made to see the righteousness in it! And what about you, father? You scold me for how I defended the woman I love, even though no harm ever came to her - but I know you what you did. Revenge for what you couldn't protect. No, I don't blame you for anything father, what happened to mother was before your time - but I heard the rumor of what you did when you found those responsible. And I don't blame you father. I would do the same. Revenge is second only to protection. Indeed, revenge is protection against future wrongs, a warning to all!"

"You sound like me speaking before the Radiant Heart," Onyx chuckled. "The event of which you speak I will now explain. It was immediately following our defeat of Melissan. There was much to be done then, but I had sworn to myself to do this first, even though paradoxically it meant leaving your mother for a short while - in good care, with Nalia, Jaheira and aunt Immy. Minsc and I met back up with Valygar and the two rangers helped me track down the old circus crew. The ones who had - bought - bought, curse it, an abomination! - your mother. With a little information from the new circus ringleader, your "great-uncle" Quayle, we tracked the old ones down - and found them still in the same foul business. We ended that, by Torm, we found them and freed their new circus’s "attractions" and were going to kill them. But we needed information from them too - we had to find the slavers themselves, the capturers and sellers as well as the buyers, we had to kill them all." Onyx's face was set in an intense stare that walked the thin line, the narrow overlap, between resolute righteousness and furious wrath. “They’re slavers, by Torm! You know that after our marriage Aerie and I set about trying to annihilate slavery from Faerun and - outside of the Underdark - have nearly succeeded. It is moral beyond doubt.”

"I understand father. It would have been justified as revenge alone, but it was more than that. Your wrath saved thousands more from enslavement. You did what had to be done."

"You are right on all fronts, son. And what had to be done was find the slave-suppliers of those foul showmen. Where they were now, their ringleader would not say. So we did what had to be done. I don't think Minsc really understood - he's good through and through, but these more complicated things escape him - but Valygar, he's a stalker, you know. A hunter and interrogator. He does the things that need to be done. Then and now. As a lone ranger, as my comrade-in-arms, as Chief Inspector. You know how foul the City of Coin used to be - I can't even count how many times Chancellor Nalia would have been assassinated if he hadn't hunted down the right information and the scum in time to prevent it. He's done it for his reformed nation and for Nalia, as well as for my causes. He helped me rescue Aerie from vampirism and rain vengeance upon Bodhi, and he was determined to help me in this final avenging of your mother as well. When we had what he needed from the ringleader, we slew him quickly and used the information to track down and smite the slavers as well. They all did horrible, horrible things to your mother - no, son, not that, thank Torm - but horrible things, as you know. I wasn’t there at the right time and place to prevent it. Nor was any other good soul. It had to be avenged." Onyx was tightly clenching his fists and jaw, fuming.

"I know father, I'm glad you did," Eryx offered. "I'm sure mother was too. The same thing happened to Luna's father, and you know he was sold to worse than a circus. What you did avenged him and prevented the need to avenge a thousand more."

Onyx sighed. "You are becoming wise. Remember always to wield wrath and destruction for the sake of the innocent and beloved - never for its own sake. Recall this when you face your next foe - be it man or beast."

***

That evening, Luna sat waiting for Eryx in her foster parents' garden. A priest and a wizard, they had taken her in and raised her to be avariel. But she was more than that. She was half drow.

She had come to Paradise as a young girl, after living with the surface elves for a time. Once her wings had started to function, the wood elves realized she belonged among their avariel cousins, and the avariel ambassador to Suldanesellar had mercifully taken her to Paradise and found her a foster home. According to her adopted parents, she had been delivered as a newborn to the surface elves by her avariel father. Like Aerie, his wings had been atrophied and amputated from years of slavery. In fact, the two had been captured on the same raid. Aerie was the luckier one - Luna's father had been sold to the drow. There he became the slave of the drow woman Verania deVir and the recipient of all her bitterness towards land and air elves. After subjecting him to years of unspeakable tortures, she found herself impregnated. Horrified at the thought of being ostracized - and mutilated - for giving birth to a freak, Verania fled the Underdark with her slave and a group of Shar-worshipping religious exiles, all led out by her sister Viconia. She gave birth soon after and abandoned the father and daughter in the woods. Luna's father carried her without rest until finding surface elves. He told them of his story but, weak from starvation and torture, died within hours. And thus, passing from him to them to the ambassador to her foster parents, Luna's knew her own past. She remembered nothing of her mother or father, and little even of the surface elves. Once she came to Paradise, the avariel children had ostracized her, although they quickly stopped insulting her openly thanks to Eryx’s tendency to beat up those who did. She did have a few close friends such as Sky. Though she often disdained the little angel girls, sometimes she envied them, fair and golden. She had the skin and hair of the drow, and her wings her not like those of a soft white dove, but like those of the blackest raven.

Eryx swooped down and landed with a crunch on the stones of the garden. He was the tallest, strongest, and she thought handsomest of the young men of Paradise. It was not surprising, given that he was part human, and the son of Onyx at that. He was more human than half-elven - he had the avariel’s wings and translucent blonde hair, but little else elven, not even the signature ears. And he certainly had the stature of a man. He carried it smoothly now, but it was not always thus. As he had grown heavy in muscle and bone, he had struggled to maintain full use of his wings, and they had had to grow stronger still. Flying avariel warriors never wore anything heavier than elven chain, but the disciplined boy had practiced suiting himself in full plate mail and flapping his wings furiously for hours a day until he could lift himself and do flips and twists in the air, and fly as fast as any. He had to beat his wings more rapidly and could not glide as far between flaps, but he had his father's godlike stamina and could still traverse greater distances aloft than the others.

His wings were huge and he could not turn quite as tightly, however. Most avariel would consider large wings a liability, with wider turns and more target area. Not Eryx. Like a dragon, the young cavalier was known to wing buffet his opponents in both practice and combat, knocking them back and crushing armor and bones. His wings had taken many a slice or puncture, but thick and muscular, they withstood far more than the typical avariel wing while maintaining lift, and like his father, he regenerated most wounds within minutes. He had recently had fashioned a suit of full plate armor which also covered the wings with tight avariel elven chain. She shivered at the thought of his crystal-studded wing buffet now. Then she smirked with fiendish curiosity.

In one smooth movement, his landing became a kneel at her feet. "I am most ashamed, for I have gathered for you, my love, that which I feel is yet unworthy, as it pales in comparison to you. I had meant it to rival, but I have been rapidly learning that a search for such a thing - or person - is futile. Indeed it seems no such thing exists, as I suspected from the start." With that he flipped each hand and drew two handfuls of flowers out of nowhere. In is right hand were a white-golden type that crew on the highest, sunniest outcroppings of rocks. In his left, a blue-silver type that grew in the mountain caves, the darkest places of all, where no light reached.

Initially she giggled and blushed at his overly knightly mannerisms, flattered and pleased. Then a flash of boredom and disgust washed over her. Cut the fluff and grab me now, fool. She blinked her eyes and the feeling flickered past.

"They are beautiful, love," she cooed. "Thank you. Now come sit by me," she demanded. "You must have spent all day to find these, they don't grow in the same places." She blinked.

"Too bad you didn't spend that time with me, though."

"Indeed, if only I could find one single place that houses their different appearances and scents. Ah, but then I realized, I have."

She giggled and then bit her tongue. Hurry up.

"I love you, Luna, and I love what you are. It's everything I ever wanted, and it's only you. You know I like coming to see you at night. The way the moonlight catches you your silvery hair. And I can't tell where the night ends and your skin begins." She brushed her hair self-consciously and smiled. No, cut it out, I know why you like coming at night, so get to it already.

His finger glided through the night air and then onto her cheek. Without a further word, he kissed her. She kissed back, first with restraint, then without.




0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users

Skin Designed By Evanescence at IBSkin.com