Opening Night – Blackbox Theater in Gehenna

“It was in that moment, when I told Sour Puss what I was, for the first time in my life I felt like I woke up,” the Changeling says, pausing between words as she thinks about exactly how to phrase it. There was no longer a script, no preconceived words to lay out her life as she lived it. “And all I could think to ask was, what’s the point of it? If I have known all along that I am a god in mortal skin, then why have I allowed myself to be subjugated and exploited? The thought should be an empowering one. No one can stand in my way, for I am a god,” she declares overdramatically, only to stop with a neutral expression and breathe as she stares off into nothing.

The Changeling steps to the back of the stage to grab a stool to bring center forward and sits with one foot on the stage while the other rests on one of the cross-bars. With her hands on her knees, she leans into her shoulders and looks forward into the darkness to address the silence. Because there was no one in the audience like she’d imagined. She was alone on stage in the black-box theater in Gehenna. It is for that reason alone that she is finally able to stop pretending. There’s no inflection in her voice as she speaks. No passion. She’s just sitting still at the point where it all started.

“Apathy,” she says after a pause. “That constant questioning of the point of it all. I medicate to bring myself up to that sensation instead of giving up and giving in. Because, if I am a god, I have no idea what I’m doing and the fact that I’m here doing this proves it.”

She takes a deep breath as she thinks of all the ways she could make things more interesting. But she didn’t see the point when no one was listening.

“When I told Sour Puss what I was, his first question was to ask why I hadn’t pulled out my divine dick and started waving it around, laying down the law against those who might oppose me,” she says, chewing the inside of her cheek. “He didn’t mean it in a way that made me feel like he was questioning the validity of the statement. He just didn’t understand how an Old One in mortal skin could stand to be subjugated. Conquered. Vanquished. Defeated. Walked all over,” she says, shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders. “However, you want to put it. I have all the words I could ever need to describe it because, in my head, I sound like I’m whining. Astaroth’s lesson on repeat in my mind. Sometimes we are wronged – by circumstance or by others – and sometimes we only feel like we have. But when we dwell on the slight, be it real or imagined, to the exclusion of all else but the wrongdoing, we will eventually lose the sympathy of everyone. I understand this. Very well. From both sides of the coin. Because, I’ve whined to myself so much about it, I don’t care anymore.”

The Changeling pauses as she absorbs her own words and smiles a little. She knows that it wouldn’t be the last time to do it. She’d have to remind herself to let it go, again and again, in those moments in the future when she stopped moving. It was going to be rough, doing it alone. But, she could do it. Because she’d done it before.

“Maybe that’s why I made myself the villain,” she says, looking at her hands before crossing her arms tightly over her chest as she leans forward. “Because no matter how good I want to be, I’ll never be good enough to be a Light deity. The best I could hope for is neutral. Just evil enough to say, ‘fuck you, people.’ I have tried to be selfless to the detriment of self and, to be honest, I got no fulfillment out of it. The more I gave, the less I got back. Shittier still, the more people expected. Even if I am a god, I’m in mortal skin, which means I’m not a god any more when you think about it. I just have the brain of one. Sure, the power is there, but I can’t use it without sacrificing myself. So, at what point do I stand up and say, ‘yeah, it’s worth it.’ It’s worth me forfeiting the whole fucking game and starting all over. Honestly, that’s only if I get insanely lucky. So, in the name of true villainy, I say, ‘fuck this shit, I’m out’,” she says with a shrug and tilts her head down again in thought.

“If what I say always sounds like bullshit, then no one will believe it,” she says, taking a deep breath in preparation to say, “fuck it. I need help and I have no idea what I’m doing. I got as far as I could to figure things out but, when I woke up, I remembered something fucking important. There is another like me out in the world. I know what I have to do, which path I should walk. I even have an idea on how to get it done. This should be the point where my partner comes in and translates everything that I’ve been saying. But, he’s not here. Because he gave up.”

The Changeling gives the emptiness a rueful smile and shakes her head with a roll of her eyes.

“It’s ok. Honestly, I don’t blame him. With as long as it has taken me to pull my head out of my ass, wake the fuck up, and own what I am, I would have given up myself if I were him,” she says, adding absently, “Points of Order.”

The Changeling stands from the stool and starts to pace slowly. The idea of following that thread of thought is tempting, but it scares her. What if they do exist in the world? What if what she has said gets back to them? Suddenly she stops and takes a deep breath as she realizes she said it herself. If they were to find out what she did there on that stage, what she said, then it would be their choice to believe her or not. Their choice would seal her fate as either being crazy or a god. Without know their choice, she would always have doubts. All she could do was prepare for the worst. Embrace that she is just a mortal with a mental illness and move on with the breakdown as a philosophical discussion. Pose her divinity as simply a theory and accept that no one will ever believe it.

“For this exercise, we’ll call my other half Order. Order, I know, is probably a Changeling like me who identifies as male because of their masculine energy. But, knowing myself the way that I do, Order probably flips back and forth between male and female depending on the situation at hand. There are times when I feel more male than female, but I identify as she because it feels natural. I can’t connect with myself when I’m in a male body because it doesn’t feel natural to me no matter how good I am at it. I like being female if I’m perfectly honest. And if every trait that has ever attracted me to someone if a reflection of Order, then I know they are dominant and I know they are male. That’s it. Nothing sexual about it. Just the two of us finding a balance. I have to practice continuous self-control to the point where I’m afraid to move without someone there I can hand the reigns to. In my defense, I was left unsupervised has always been my excuse for all the shit that I’ve caused. Does that mean I need a babysitter? No. I just need a common-sense check so I don’t blame myself for everything that goes wrong. When I start feeling guilty for everything that could be linked back to something I’ve done, I need someone to remind me I don’t always have to apologize for it. If I do something on purpose, I won’t apologize, but when it’s by accident I feel bad for it. The real trouble starts when I try to make amends for everything I feel was some wrongdoing. I go overboard and flip the fuck out on myself for screwing things up. If Order was here, he’d either tell me I’m overreacting or help me deal with it. Which means, he understands how to deal with people.

“When wondering what to do next, I’m not going to lie, I’ve just about gotten to the point where I’d rather say fuck it and become a hermit,” she says, chewing her cheek. “Which means Order is probably popular and sociable because I’m borderline feral. I don’t know how to make friends on my own. Most people go to taverns and shit to meet people. Unless I have a friend with me, I’m on edge constantly. I can’t relax unless I medicated and I honestly don’t like medicating in public. The only time I ever make friends is with the help of Divine Intervention. Even then I have to be careful not to screw it up by talking too much. I know that I’m awkward and that I’m intense when I’m nervous. The worst part is the fact that I expect their rejection. I’m not nervous that a new person will want nothing to do with me. I expect that and accept it as the truth before they know me. When they do, I start to get nervous and I wonder if they’ll like me or not. If they seem like they do, I start getting scared and start questioning motives. Depending on the nature of the person in question, I either start feeling too eager or too combative. So, the only way I can interact with new people is to start robotically. That probably means that Order starts ostentatiously. He presents himself to the stage of life with a flourishing bow and a little dance for the audience.

“That’s why I believe Sour Puss is right,” she says with a shrug. “I was never a Bard. According to his theory, I’m an Artificer. Which makes sense, given my skillset and experience. Which makes me wonder if the Bard in me comes from Order. I can picture what a good showman looks like so easily I can emulate it when I need to, take charge of the room and direction the attention of those that are listening. I can handle heckling, too, like a pro. Because I’m used to it. There is nothing an audience member can say to me that I haven’t said to myself a thousand times in the mirror. Does that mean I want to put myself on display? Not in the slightest. I’d rather stay in my workshop tinkering with magical items. Which, by the way, now that I think about it, I can pretty much guarantee that Order is a snake-oil salesman. A total con-artist easily hiding in polite society as an honest gentleman. The reason I say this is because the only pride I have is in my work. I will not sell countified items, nor will I ever endorse such behavior. I have to identify every item that comes into the shop to protect my integrity as a businesswoman. So, if I start making my items like the Artificers do so I can sell them, you can be damned sure I’m going to be fighting an uphill battle trying to prove I am trustworthy.

“Also,” she says looking up at the ceiling. “Order, if you’re listening, you are a bastard,” she says before looking out at the empty chairs. “He stole all of the luck and prosperity for himself to the point where even Beshaba pitied me enough to step in and curb my misfortune. All the more reason to get lost in the Prime System. Another point of Order, as it were, is if I can’t get rid of that nagging hope that he’s out there waiting and there is a point to all of this beyond his amusement, then he no longer believes it. He gave up hope and the need for fulfillment, not to spare himself pain, but so I could feel it. I want to get rid of my hope because it causes me endless pain when I don’t. But I can’t. Because I’m too selfish. Hope is the only thing that makes me feel better; it allows me to daydream and escape my reality. The pain only comes when I have to wake up and I realize it wasn’t real. I’d like to think that it’s when I wake up that he feels it. The hope, like an imaginary friend you had as a child whispering in your ear when you don’t know you need them.

“And on that thread of thought, if Order does believe that my presence in his life was either a ghost or imaginary, then he must have invented me when he was thirteen years old, which for a Changeling is an adult, but for a human is immature and since the word is human-dominated I truly mean both. Raging hormones and crass fucking humor in a body that others describe as curvy, anyone? Dick and fart jokes get me every time. I hate myself for how humorous I find puns. They make my soul hurt which tickles me because I remember I have one. What’s even worse than that is the fact that they derail my entire thought process. Case and point, Firbolg Bob. I call him the Thought Slayer. Sometimes, it’s good because he pulls me out of a spiral by doing something goofy and making me laugh. Most of the time, I have to stay away to concentrate. Imagine for a moment, being bent over your desk suddenly by a Firbolg as he declares at the top of his lungs, ‘Begone, thoughts!’ Let that image sink in and tell me you would be able to resist laughing in the situation. But to do what needs to be done, I really can’t have the Thought Slayer around. If he does it too much, I’m pretty much useless productivity-wise for a while. That’s why I say Order must have the work-ethics of Lucifer. The no sex rule is there to help me separate myself from distractions while I’m working. Which, I have no issues with it because it was my rule, to begin with.

“The only time I deal in smut is when I am experiencing pain due to sexual frustration,” she says, shaking her head. “I barely have the motivation to get out of bed, let alone keep up with my hormones regularly. I usually end up letting it build-up until I can’t take it anymore and start researching smut. And, I am so tired of dating. All the angsty bullshit games. The constant questioning of does he or doesn’t he. Being afraid to just be myself because I’m afraid of being heartbroken again. Which, I guarantee means that, if meeting me would be the best thing for him, it would be the worst for his reputation. In a lot of different ways. If it gets back to him that there is some looney in Gehenna ranting about him, then he’ll have to choose which matters most; himself or his reputation. I know I would rather choose myself over what everyone thinks and be happy with him. As pissed as I am for all the shit he’s put me through by imagining me, I’m more pissed about the fact that he not here for me to forgive him. I don’t know what he would think if he could see me as I am. The fact that he’s kept me in the dark for so long is what hurts. So, making him face the light, will be the point where it hurts him so much, he’ll turn away from it,” she says with a sad smile as she realizes the truth in that statement. “And if it is by word of mouth that he discovers I’m here, he’ll be swayed by popular opinion and label me a crazy person. Probably boost his reputation in the process with sympathy he’d gain from it, too. So, with so much to gain and nothing to lose, there is no way he would do it.”

The Changeling shrugs and takes a breath.

“I love him, but he’s a bit of a coward,” she says. “And honestly, that’s ok with me. I can be brave enough for both of us and face the work ahead on my own. I’ll let him stay where ever he is and be happy without me. When I get happy, I get easily distracted anyway. I’m more productive, on my own, in the apathy. And, I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me.”

The Changeling sits chewing her bottom lip, coming to grips with the reality of it.

“I might be able to take a break, stay in the Feywild for a bit. There’s enough distraction there that I could get lost for a while, maybe come up with a new Divergent Persona that feels a bit better than Lilly. But I feel like he’s there and, to be honest, knowing that makes me not want to. The longer I stay in Gehenna, the harder it is to find motivation. The only motivation I find in the Hells is fighting for freedom. I’ll never be welcomed past the Celestial gates, so my only choice left without the Feywild is the Prime System. All I have to do is tie up a few loose ends. Which brings us back to the point we left off in the story of my time in the Feywild. I had just dropped the bomb on poor Sour Puss that he was hosting an Old One disguised as a mortal. I’ll spare you the dialogue, even though it’s important. It’s important to me, just not to the story.

“He and I spent the better part of the night discussing things like life and philosophy, figuring out how much of myself is learned behaviors and what isn’t. He let me wander around in the ‘don’t go in there, it’s weird’ part of my brain after I opened my internal box labeled ‘the geometry is wrong’ while discussing portal jumping. I figured out what I needed to do if I were to embrace being a god and see where it led. I enjoyed myself so much that even though I was exhausted, I was excited. I didn’t want to close my eyes and rest because of what I might miss. It took him dragging me back to the bedroom where I woke up initially and laying down with me to finally get me to sleep. If I could have, at that point, just stayed there in that moment, I would have in a heartbeat. I was happy, which was how I knew it was temporary. As was evident by what happened the next morning.”

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The sound of sweet humming filtered through the wall of the bedroom in the farmhouse, pulling Lilly from her dreams in the early morning light. Blinking slowly and inhaling through her nose, she lifted her head from Sour Puss’s chest and looked around. He was still deep in sleep, barely reacting as she shifted to sneak out of bed without waking him. Silently closing the door behind her, Lilly turned to the main area of the room to see a beautiful human woman with porcelain skin and long, strawberry blond hair milling around in the kitchen as she sang to herself. Lilly’s first clue that something wasn’t right was the fact that nothing the woman touched seemed to move. Her second was that she looked familiar.

“Oh, hello,” the woman said, turning to see Lilly and giving her a kind, warm smile.

“Morning,” Lilly said as she came closer, her hand going to her hip instinctually before she remembered her weapons were in the bedroom where they’d been left after the fight with the hags. “May I ask what you’re doing here?”

“This is my home,” the woman said as if it were obvious. “Are you a friend of my husband?”

“We share a mutual friend,” Lilly said, clenching her teeth as she moved to the table. “I came to help clean up the farm a bit.”

“Oh,” the woman said, smiling brightly. “Then, I thank you.”

“Mhmm,” Lilly said, her stomach in knots. “You’re welcome,” she added, trying to be polite as her eyes drifted down to the woman’s swollen belly. “May I ask when you’re due?”

The woman’s hand fluttered to her stomach as her expression turned to one of joyful contentment and she beamed proudly at Lilly.

“Any time now,” the woman said. “It’s a boy,” she said, holding her finger to her lips. “Don’t tell my husband,” she whispered, “but Anzora told me the first day I knew I was pregnant.”

“Congratulations,” Lilly said, wanting to throw up but trying her best to hide it. It wasn’t the woman’s fault. “You must be so excited.”

“Excited?” Sour Puss said from the doorway to the bedroom, making Lilly turn around. “About what?” he asked, frowning at her. “Who are you talking to?”

Lilly looked back at the empty kitchen and let out a shaky breath.

“No one,” she told him and put her elbows on the table to cover her face with her hand.

Rage and disgust coursed through her, making her body shake.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, coming over to kneel next to her chair.

Lilly turned in her seat and traced the edge of his face with her fingertips.

“I have to go,” she said after a moment and stood, stepping around him to get her weapons from the bedroom.

“What?” he asked with a frown. “What happened? What’s going on?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said through clenched teeth as she buckled her belts around her waist and returned her dagger holster to her thigh.

“Try me,” he said, blocking her exit as she tried to leave.

“I need my bag,” she said flatly, but he refused to budge.

“I’m not letting you leave until you calm down and tell me what’s going on,” he said firmly.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Beldor should be back soon. You’ll be able to go home and forget I was ever here.”

“Excuse me?” he asked confusion warring with irritation in his eyes.

“Take care of them,” she said, ducking around him and shoving her way through the door.

“Lilly, stop,” he said, his hand landing on her shoulder but she shrugged him off.

“I don’t belong here!” she bellowed as she rounded on him. “Don’t you get it? I never did,” she said through her teeth trying to calm down.

“What are you talking about?” he snapped, grabbing her by the shoulders and forcing her to look him in the eye. “Talk to me.”

Lilly shook her head with a mirthless chuckle.

“Did you know the male that lived here before?” she asked and he shook his head.

“He left the Feywild when I was a kid,” he said. “Anzora rarely spoke of him.”

“His wife was pregnant,” she told him, backing away and sitting back down as her sight went misty and her gut tightened. “I don’t know if she died in childbirth of if something happened to her, but she and the baby were lost. And it broke him. He never recovered.”

“How do you know?” he asked gently.

“I see ghosts now and then,” she said. “My presence attracts them. I saw his wife in the kitchen,” she admitted, shaking her head. “She didn’t realize she was dead.”

“How do you know he never recovered?” he asked again.

“She was beautiful,” Lilly said. “She would have been a good mother.”

“Lilly,” he said.

“Unlike the Doppelganger who stole her face to seduce the Changeling who mourned her,” she added. “She must have pushed her way into his head and took his wife’s shape to trap him. I knew she was sick. I knew she was selfish. I knew she was controlling and abusive, but this is disgusting.”

“Lilly, please,” he said, putting his hands on her knees.

“I recognized her instantly,” she said. “Considering she looked exactly like my mother’s Divergent Persona. He always wanted a boy,” she said absently. “I thought he didn’t want me because I was female. But, as it turns out, he didn’t want me because I wasn’t the right child. He stayed away because I reminded him of what he’d lost and could never get back. I always asked myself, why would he have married my mother, especially so quickly after they met. Now, I get it. He didn’t follow us to the Hells to be close to his family. He was already there emotionally. So why not physically?”

“Anzora’s friend,” he started.

“Is my father,” she finished. “A broken male who lost his heart with the death of his wife and his son. Preyed upon and made to suffer for the rest of his life by my mother. Being here, in this house, is an insult to the memory of the woman who died. I can’t stay here.”

He didn’t say anything in response, just pulled her from her chair into his lap and held her tight as the tears fell. Old wounds she’d forgotten ripped themselves open and she couldn’t hold back the pain of her heart shattering. The reason she’d stayed in Malsheem, before Bob, before Nymlss, was because she couldn’t stomach leaving her father behind with her mother. She’d felt like she owed him for staying with her. Seeing his late wife made her feel like a fool. She’d had the chance to escape in her youth, but she’d stayed for someone who didn’t want to be saved.

“He made his choice,” Sour Puss said after the tears had faded. “As poor as it was, there is one thing I am thankful came out of it,” he added, lifting her head to look at him. “I don’t think your presence here is an insult to her either. If it had been, she would have been vengeful and you know it.”

“Then why is my first instinct to run away?” she asked weakly.

“Because it hurts,” he suggested.

Looking around at the cozy little farmhouse, she could see a simple life and the love that could have been and it broke her heart. It pissed her off more than anything when she thought of how her life had been a perversion of it. The wife he’d loved, the son he’d wanted, lost and replaced by a nightmarish version of it. If Lilly had been born there, to the ghost in the kitchen, she would have had two loving parents. Instead, she’d felt like an orphan. She’d never admitted it out loud, afraid anyone who heard it would say she was blowing it out of proportion. Knowing that she was just a pawn in her mother’s sick game and that her father’s distance from her was because of his pain didn’t make her feel justified in the sensation. All it did was make her wonder if she’d caused it.

“What if the reason she died was because of some cosmic bullshit to make sure I was born?” she asked after a while.

“Don’t,” he said firmly, framing her face with hands and holding her there. “The Changeling whose life you took over was already born by the time you got to her. This isn’t your fault. None of it is. So, don’t even start blaming yourself for it. Did you actively choose your parents?” he asked and she shook her head.

“I chose the Changeling because she was already touched by the Traveler,” she said.

“See,” he said and after a moment she nodded. “Now, promise me you won’t run away anymore. Not from here. And not from me,” he added firmly.

“Why are you so insistent on me staying?” she asked, hating herself for it. “Is it because I’m a god?” she asked afraid of the answer.

“It’s because you’re my friend,” he said. “So, as far as I am concerned, you’re stuck with me. Got it?” he asked and she nodded weakly. “Now, come on.”

“Where are we going?” she asked as she stood from his lap and watched him stand up.

“We’re getting out of the house and going for a walk,” he told her, taking her by the hand and leading her out the front door.

They walked in silence for a while until they reached the edge of the forest and he cleared his throat before bringing the hand he still held to his lips briefly.

“You feeling any better?” he asked when she looked up at him.

“Not really,” she admitted with a mirthless chuckle.

“What’s on your mind, other than the obvious?” he asked, lifting a low hanging branch for her to step under it as she stepped up onto a large root system.

“The obvious,” she said with a shrug.

“You can think of it this way,” he offered, “there’s no reason for you to go back. You could stay here and not look back. You said yourself that you don’t have to worry about your debt with Asmodeus until after you die, which won’t be for a very long time.”

“You don’t know that,” she said.

“Even if it isn’t, as an Old One, are you going to submit to punishment?” he asked.

“It’s what’s fair,” she said. “A debt is a debt.”

“Bullshit,” he said, making her look at him. “You didn’t choose to go to the Hells. You never bargained for anything. Sure, your tattoo gives you poison immunity so I can see paying for that. But the cost of living? That’s just a greedy businessman trying to squeeze you for every copper you can give.”

“Fair,” she said, shaking her head with a chuckle. “But I still have to go back.”

“Why?” he asked. “I mean, seriously. Fuck your parents. Forget them. Stay here.”

“As gross as they are, they’re still my family,” she pointed out.

“No, they’re your blood. There’s a difference. Your family is who you choose it to be,” he said.

“What about your siblings?” she asked and he looked away briefly. “You were adopted.”

“What do I have a message board on my forehead?” he asked, shaking his head.

“Sorry,” she said. “Really. I don’t mean to keep doing that.”

“Now, it’s ok,” he said with a breath. “It helps. But, yeah. There was a sickness that hit the enclave my parents and I were living in when I was younger. The enclave I live with now is the ones that brought Anzora to us. She saved my life, but couldn’t help my parents. Fast forward about twenty years, I was out adventuring and came across a trio of Changelings that were orphaned after a raid on a thieves’ guild took their parents. The party I was with didn’t understand why I was so protective of them. So, I left them and brought the kids home. When Anzora heard them call me Big Brother, she adopted them, too.”

“The best Big Brother in the world, I’m sure,” she said with a smile.

“I try,” he said sarcastically and she laughed. “We’ve been together for about ten years. Fuk just had her maturity celebration. That’s why I allowed her to come with us when Anzora asked for my help fixing the farm. Leax and Nook are twins. They reached maturity about five years back and have been training with me on how to use magic since. Leax wants to go exploring, but Nook is more of a homebody. Leax has talent, especially with his Beastshape. But Nook is having trouble. He has issues reading the spells and understanding how to cast properly.”

“Sounds familiar,” she said. “Take it from a natural caster that hasn’t been trained but can figure it out, learning traditional spells can be frustrating.”

“It would be nice to have someone who can help him,” he said with an implied “hint, hint.”

“That’s going to take a lot of magical theory discussions between the two of us to pull off,” she said. “I have no issues having those conversations, but I’m just giving you fair warning.”

“Are you kidding? Anzora would be thrilled,” he said. “She’s the resident midwife, but she also teaches Feywild History. She’s been after me to be a teacher but I don’t have the patience.”

“You know, that reminds me of something that’s been bothering me, though,” she said.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Anzora,” she said. “Why is a Noble Eladrin living with a Changeling enclave?”

“Ah,” he said, “that. Yeah, it’s a little weird. But the way she explained it to me was that she got this vision that she needed to be there. She’d been living there for almost fifty years before she adopted me. I thought it was the Traveler who decided to give her a vision quest, but she told me she didn’t worship him at the time. She just kept dreaming about it and decided to find it.”

“Huh,” she said and chewed the inside of her lip.

“What?” he asked.

“Has she ever had blackouts that you know of?” she asked.

“How did you know that?” he asked with a frown.

“That makes sense,” she said without answering.

“What does?” he asked.

“You remember the portal I told you about? The one that killed the Changeling I took over?” she asked instead of answering and he nodded. “The Traveler told me it was originally supposed to go to the Feywild but it got rerouted to Gehenna before she fell through it.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Chaotic shift in circumstances,” she said regretfully. “She was already fated to die that day, I made sure of it before I agreed with the Traveler’s offer. She was going to fall from too high up and land on her head regardless. Even the Traveler couldn’t prevent that. But he did offer up one of his vessels for me to take over to walk as a mortal. When he took back his essence from her so that I could absorb her soul into mine, it caused a chaotic shift in circumstances. My only saving grace was the fact that Lucifer found me and brought me back to his fortress. But it does make me wonder. If I’d grown up in the Feywild instead, would you and I have met or been friends?”

“I like to think so,” he said after thinking about it. “I don’t think either of us would have turned out the same way, though.”

“How so?” she asked.

“We would have been happy,” he said.

“You sure about that?” she asked and he nodded. “Wow, you are trying to sell me on just forgetting the Hells and staying here, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he said with a chuckle. “But I mean it, too.”

“I’m coming back, you know,” she said. “I already told Beldor I’d move in with him.”

“Good,” he said after a pause.

“You don’t sound happy about it,” she said.

“I was kind of hoping to convince you to come to the enclave, be around others like us for a change instead of the fiends,” he said. “But if you’d rather live with the elf, I’m not going to complain.”

“You mean your nephew, right?” she asked with a smirk and let out a sharp bark of laughter as she watched his brain seize. “You seriously never realized that?”

“He’s four hundred years older than me,” he said. “And I barely saw him growing up.”

“Uncle Sour Puss,” she said snickering.

“You know what?” he asked and then picked her up over his shoulder, making her squeak in protest. “Where’s a lake when you need one?”

“Shithead,” she said with a chuckle and wiggling her weight until she put her back on her feet.

They continued to walk and chat about random things for quite some time before she noticed their path was looping back around towards the farmhouse. By the time they returned, Beldor had arrived, hugging her tightly and thanking her between comments that he was glad she was alright as Sour Puss unloaded a few more supplies for home-repairs. After the cart was emptied and they went back inside, they sat down together and hammered out a plan to get things done there while she was in the Hells. She felt bad that was leaving with so much work, but Sour Puss agreed to stay for a bit to give him a hand until she got back.

“I have to head back in the morning to get a few things from home,” he said, “but I can go and get back pretty quick if I just take the horse and leave my cart here.”

“Would you mind if I went with you?” she asked. “I was hoping to talk to Anzora and, if nothing else, I can head to Citadel Umbra afterward on my own.”

“I don’t mind at all if you don’t mind sharing a horse,” he said.

“We’ve already shared a bed,” she pointed out and he snorted a laugh at Beldor’s shocked expression.

“Damn, girl, you work fast,” Beldor said and she swatted him in the arm.

“Fucker,” she said with a laugh. “We just slept, asshole.”

“Uh-huh,” he said with a smile. “Sure.”

“Oh, my gods,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I’m so done with you,” she added as she got up from her chair. “I’m going to bed.”

“I’ll be back in a few,” Sour Puss said with a smirk, wagging his eyebrows at her.

Instead of responding, she just shook her head and went into the bedroom.