Hi to all. It's been awhile since I've been around! Between a case of writer's block, a bad Internet connection and work troubles, I've had little time or desire to write. I'm hoping to get some time soon to catch up on some of the tales I've missed.
In the meantime, here's Renai's latest. Comments/critiques welcome. And everyone say "Happy Birthday" to me (July 17). I'm 29!! Huzzah! 
***
Do you remember yesterday?
Do you remember what I was like down?
I feel that madness come my way
I must drink to the vicious clowns.
-- Griffin Silver
Someone is crying, and she wonders if it is her. Her face is wet, and certainly she has reason to, pinned as she is to the table by the spike through her palm. But she has not wept since the first scar was drawn across her jaw by the bad man's blade, all those years ago. Had her mother not found her and pushed him at the critical moment, the knife would have opened her throat instead of painting the indelible silver line across her jaw. Father had saved her, but he could not save Mother, and on that day she learned that her father could not fix everything and that her tears would not solve anything. Yet someone is crying, and still she wonders if it is her. It will leave a new scar, this act by the Shattered One The hammer is heavy in her hand, and when she brings it up to strike, she is no longer the one sitting at the table. Imoen sits in her place, pinned to the table with the iron spike through her palm. She strikes not at the spike but at Imoen's head. She cannot stop the swing. She cannot fix everything or solve anything. The first scar burns, and when the hammer shatters Imoen's face she cannot look away.
Renai jerked awake with a loud gasp, her heart beating too fast and her eyes wide as she tried all at once to remember and forget. In the dim moonlight streaming in from the keep's arrowslits, Renai's elven nightvision picked out four shapes lying near her and one crouched by the doorway. Drawing a shaking hand across her face, she discovered her cheeks were slick with sweat. Strands of her hair plastered her face, and her sweat-soaked, sleeveless linen dress clung to her body like a second skin.
No tears, but she hadn't expected to find any. Not really.
Quiet sobs from the figure by the door still punctuated the darkness. Nalia, Renai realized as she shook off the nightmare's lingering anxieties. Of course, who else would it be? It's her natural state. If she weren't weeping, then I'd have to wonder if she were alive. Nalia's eyes had not lost their red rims since they had arrived at the keep, and everything they encountered brought on a new fit of facile tears. Not for the first time, Renai thoroughly wished Nalia had stayed at the guard's camp. At least she knows her way around this place. And she has the key to all the doors. Hah. So much for those lockpicking skills she bragged about.
Her backpack was right next to Nalia, and Renai wanted to change out of her wet dress. What harm would it do to give the girl a word, since she was going over there anyway? Quietly, she rose from the damp and heavy blanket and tiptoed around the others until she was by Nalia's side.
"Nalia," she whispered. Gasping loudly, the girl cringed away from Renai and fell backward onto the floor. "Hush, it's only me!" Renai hissed in exasperation.
"You startled me. I had no idea ... did I wake you?" Nalia awkwardly pulled herself back into a sitting position. "You startled me."
"You said that already." Renai muttered. She felt around the satchels and found her own, turning a shoulder to Nalia so she could sift through it. "But it's all right. You didn't wake me up."
Loud, watery sniffling answered her, and Renai knew what was expected. She was supposed to ask, "What's wrong, Nalia?" But she didn't want to. She didn't want to be Nalia's friend. She didn't want to be a shoulder for Nalia to weep on. But the more Nalia gulped and sniffled and stared, the greater the social pull until Renai sighed. "All right. All right. What's wrong, Nalia? Do you want to talk about it?"
"I don't want to be a bother," she whimpered.
A narrow escape. Thank Tymora. "All righ..."
"Why doesn't anyone like me?" Nalia blurted out over Renai's answer. "Everyone's so mean to me. Why is everyone so mean to me?"
Caught off guard by the question, Renai could only blink at Nalia. "That's why you're crying?"
Nalia nodded, more tears spilling from her puffy eyes. Dry clothes forgotten, Renai sat down hard beside her satchel. Her home is invaded by monsters, most of the people she knows are dead, her father is missing, and she's crying because we've yelled at her? But she supposed it was somewhat valid. Exasperated with Nalia's constant whining, Renai spoke to her mostly in monosyllabic grunts to keep herself from screaming at her to shut up. When it was determined that in every battle, Nalia cowered behind Anomen and did little to help, Jaheira gave her a severe tongue lashing. Yoshimo and Anomen ignored her as best they could.
But a small pain in her head began to throb in time with a vein in her forehead as Nalia continued. "I don't understand it. I try and I try, and they're still so mean to me!. You can tell me, Ren, what it is, can't you? Don't they realize what I've done for others like them? Who wouldn't..."
Ren?! Renai closed her dropped jaw with a loud snap and through gritted teeth growled, "Oh, I don't know, Nalia. My guess is that people tend to get mad at those who almost get them killed."
"What are you talking about?" Nalia looked genuinly surprised. "I didn't do anything!"
"No, you didn't," Renai said sarcastically. "You didn't say anything about trolls until Jaheira almost got her face torn off by one. You didn't say anything about mages and monsters. And you didn't help us out at all."
"I didn't say anything because you wouldn't have come if I told you about the trolls. Everyone else refused after I told them about the trolls. What else could I do? No one would help me when I told them to help me! You're supposed to help me! I'm a lady and I'm in distress!"
"Nalia, you don't demand help, you ask! Gods, what is it with you Amnian nobles? That's not the way to act toward ... oh, what's the use?" Renai shook her head. "Never mind. I'm not your mother. It's not my place to teach you how to act." She shrugged and resumed her search through her bag.
"How dare you speak to me in such a manner?" Nalia gasped, and for once Renai could not hear tears or a sob in her voice, only honest anger. "Who do you think you are! You're nothing but a half-bred, shoeless mercenary without a copper to your name! A ragged street rat without a home. You're nothing!"
"That may be." Renai glared hard at Nalia. "But I'm all you've got. I'm the one who's here saving your keep, you irritating little snot!"
Nalia dropped her eyes and looked away, then with a sob buried her face in her hands. Her palms muffled her snuffles.
Renai grimaced, again not wanting to ask but again she couldn't help it. "Oh, Ilmater give me strength ... what is it now?"
After a few blubbery sobs, Nalia wailed, "You hate me!"
"What are you talking about? I don't hate you!"
"You're just saying that to be nice! You hate me!"
"I'm not! You twit, stop crying, you'll wake everyone up! Gods! Stop wailing, I like you fine, all right?" It was a lie, but a small one. She didn't hate Nalia. Not really.
After several gasping hiccups, Nalia finally managed a few deep breaths, got herself under some control and whimpered, "It's hard." When Renai did not respond, she kept going. "I just want to be like ... like my mother. She always helped everyone. Everyone loved her. I do the same things she did! But no one likes me! I keep trying, and it's so hard!"
Renai rubbed at the throbbing vein in her forehead. All I wanted was to change my dress. That's all. Why did I ever talk to her? How did I get into a discussion about popularity? "Why do you care if anyone likes you? What does it matter?"
"It matters. Everyone wants to be liked. Don't you?" Nalia pulled a handkerchief out of her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes.
"I never think about it. I like people because of who they are and the way they act, not because of their status or money. And I expect most people to judge me the same way. It seems to work."
"How do you know how to treat anyone if you don't pay attention to their status? That's how the world is." Nalia blew her nose more noisily that Renai would have expected.
"If that's the way you see it, then you'll always have that problem. If you treat everyone like they're less than you, then of course they'll get mad. Nobody likes that."
"But you are less than me. I'm a de'Arnise."
"Just think about what I've told you, all right?"
Nalia did not answer. As if taking the sudden silence as a cue to begin their day, the others began to stir. Renai turned her back on Nalia for the last time to quickly change. From the bag she removed a short, sleeveless, red linen dress, nearly identical to the white one she wore. The fresh linen was cool against her skin, and it seemed almost a shame to spoil it by covering it with the studded-leather dress that now served as her armor.
"I'll think on what you've said," Nalia said quietly as Renai shhrugged into the tight bodice and adjusted the short skirt. Renai could not read her expression, but she could see some of the puffiness on her face was fading. No more tears.
Renai finished dressing as Nalia walked away to stare out at the courtyard from the arrowslit. That's what I always tell Jaheira when I have no intention of thinking about what she's said, she thought. I wonder if Nalia means the same thing.
From the way Yoshimo and Anomen avoided her gaze as they passed her, Renai suspected that not only had they heard the entire conversation, but they probably had watched her change. She laughed quietly. No matter; she had bigger worries at the moment than who had seen her bosoms.
"I would say that your efforts were a waste of your time. And my sleep," Jaheira whispered as they started again through the keep. Nalia tagged along at the party's rear, her face still expressionless.
"You know what Alaundo would say in this situation, don't you?" Renai said.
"No, I would not know. What?"
Renai opened her mouth to answer, but closed it with a small laugh. "Hells, I don't know either. But I'm sure he has a saying that's perfect." They grinned at one another as Jaheira joined Yoshimo at the party's lead, leaving Renai in the middle with Anomen.
For a time, he walked by her side. Although she noticed the sidelong glances he gave her, she tried to ignore him and concentrate on the work at hand. Then, with a glance behind him to make sure Nalia was not in earshot, Anomen leaned toward her and said softly, "I did not mean to eavesdrop on your conversation with the Lady Nalia earlier, my lady, but ..."
"Close quarters and all. I understand. Did we wake you?"
"No, my lady," he said earnestly. "But I feel I must explain that your approach with the Lady Nalia was perhaps not the proper one."
Renai arched an eyebrow and looked up at him. "Excuse me?"
In a lecturing tone, Anomen replied, "You should know that it's best to discuss sensitive issues with one's social betters with a gentler hand. So as not to offend. It's just not proper."
"Not proper." The vein pounded in her forehead again, and the irritation from her conversation with Nalia was stoked once again.
"I mean no disrespect to you, of course."
"Of course."
"But you can see what would happen if everyone felt they could speak to nobility as they pleased. You seem to be on your way to better things, and perhaps someday will find your place among the flowers of society. I only with to assist you in finding your graces."
"My graces." Repeating his words were all she could manage in the face of his conceit. From the look on his face, she knew he honestly thought he was being helpful. Gods save me from nobility. Why is it that nobles rarely are ever noble? Through clenched teeth, she managed to say, "I'll certainly think on what you've said."
"I'm glad to hear that, my lady." His smug expression at her seeming acquiesence made her grip her bow hard so she wouldn't beat him with it.
"I'll certainly try your way next, wonder boy," she growled. "I'll be sure to insult everyone I come across anytime I speak to them. I can see how it's worked wonders for Nalia. And for you, squire." She quickened her pace to leave him.
"What? How could you ... well I never..." she heard Anomen gasp behind her in insulted shock.
"Don't worry," she spat over her shoulder. "With that attitude, I'm sure you never will."
As she passed them, she shook a quivering finger at both Yoshimo and Jaheira. "Not a word out of either of you," she snapped.
"Not to worry, meian," Yoshimo replied. "I think you've had quite enough conversation for this morning."
***
"Nalia?" Renai fidgeted as she waited for Nalia to reply. But Nalia only stood still as a statue, clutching her the Flail of the Ages and staring at her father's body on the dungeon slab.
After battling their way through the keep, they confronted Torgal, the leader of the trolls and yuan-ti that had taken the keep. To everyone's surprise, Nalia cast several spells at him, and she turned out to be quite handy with throwing darts. The fatal shot had been hers.
But finding her father's body behind Torgal had taken the joy at liberating the keep from them.
Renai touched Nalia's arm to get her attention. The girl looked up at her with dead eyes but still said nothing. "Nalia," she repeated, "I want to say ... I'm ... I want to tell you ... " For the first time in her life, she felt at a loss for words, and her tongue tied under Nalia's lost, tearless gaze. "I'm sorry about your father. I ... I promised you I'd rescue him, and I failed. I'm sorry. I am." Uncertain what to say next, Renai let the awkward silence hang between them.
Finally, Nalia said softly, "Eight days."
"What?"
"Do you know how long I was in that stupid tavern in Athkatla?" Nalia looked away from Renai, down at the shining flail in her hands. Her father's flail. "Eight days. Eight days of demanding help and getting no response. Eight days of weeping and screaming at everyone, while my father and his guards fought for their lives."
Renai hesitantly put her hands on Nalia's shoulders. "You can't blame yourself ..."
"I can!" Nalia broke away from Renai and swung the flail slightly in frustration. It swooped near Renai's knee and almost took it off. "I can, it is my fault. If I had just been pleasant, if I had asked for help instead of being a shrew, I could have come back immediately. I could have helped, and my father wouldn't be lying there dead. So you see, it is my fault. It's all my fault." Tears again began to flow down Nalia's face, but she did not sob or weep as Renai was so used to seeing. These were genuine tears of sorrow, and Renai felt her heart break a little for this girl she had never really liked. Until now.
"Come now," she whispered, taking Nalia into her arms, and Nalia fell readily into her embrace. Her head spun slightly as she willed herself not to remember Gorion. Not to acknowledge that she and Nalia now had something in common. "Come now, you cannot blame yourself, you can't."
"I can! If I had been kind, like you said, if I had done like you told me ... "
"Hush, none of that. None of that at all. You did your best, and you have no way of knowing that would have made a difference. So don't." Nalia's sobs wracked her body with great heaving shudders. She was beyond hearing any more words, so Renai held the girl tightly and crooned wordlessly to her.
Still, she thought, You cannot blame yourself for your own ignorance. Don't. Just don't. Blaming yourself doesn't help him, and not blaming yourself won't hurt him. He's dead, and you have to move on.
She did not know if her thoughts were meant for Nalia or herself. She did not want to know. And in the back of her mind, she heard her own voice screaming at her and she could not push it away. Remember, it said, this is where I started from."
