Chapter Text
Rhodeia’s legs tremble as she crosses the common room. The weight of the floorboards feels unreal beneath her bare feet, flat and cool against every burst blister. The smooth texture of lacquered timber is a stranger to her now; stranger still is the fabric of the rug that lies like a river coursing between its hardwood banks. Neither hot nor cold, neither scratchy nor soft, but decidedly not scorching rock. Her toes flex, testing the feel, and breathes air so light it feels cold, leaving her shivering.
Scratch noses her fingers with a thin whine. “Are you well, friend?”
Rhodeia strokes the fur between his ears. The words are harder to say than she expects, thorns dragging up the inside of her throat. “I will be.”
Mooncolour sits behind some hastily-erected dividers in a little nest of blankets and cushions. Arabella perches beside her, the two of them talking. All the pot plants from the common area—and several from Jaheira and Halsin’s personal collections—dot the floor nearby, their occupants grown well beyond the constraints of their clay vessels. Overhead, an illusory forest canopy rustles with branches that sway as Arabella twists her hands this way and that. All the windows are open, but the breeze that rustles through the common area is wild and whispering of green things. When Rhodeia steps forward, she startles at the soft scents of moss and mulch.
Arabella stops chattering—in Celestial, Rhodeia realises—and grins at Rhodeia. “Hey, you! Look what Gale showed me!”
She throws out her hands, and a chorus of cicadas chirp to life, joined by the lighter tones of birdsong. Both Scratch and Smallclaw jerk, their heads swivelling as they search for the source of the noise. Arabella’s grin only widens; with a flourish worthy of Gale himself, ghostly leaves drift down from the canopy, disappearing in tiny puffs when they touch heads and shoulders and the decorative end table against the wall.
Rhodeia smiles, and it aches. “Very well done. For a moment, I thought I was back in Ardeep Forest.”
Lifting her hands, her own magic folds into the shapes of a half-dozen royalplume butterflies that flutter out of her palms to dance among the branches.
Arabella grins. “Not bad, but I can do better! Watch this!”
With another flick of her hands—yes, that’s definitely one of Gale’s casting gestures—syrupy amber sunbeams drift through the canopy for the butterflies to play in, their wings glowing with richer colours than the stained glass of any chapel.
Mooncolour’s neck arches as she looks up. Her ears flick back, eyes shining with something between wistfulness and grief. She releases a sighing breath. “You have great talent, young one. The forests will part for you, should you so ask.”
“One day, I’m gonna make ‘em move. I just know it.”
“That I don’t doubt,” Rhodeia says as Mooncolour blows out an indulgent horse-sigh, and their eyes meet.
Under the light of Toril’s sun, Mooncolour all but glows. Here, there is no unholy red to rob her celestial splendour from her—not Avernus’s lightless skies or its earth or even a speck of blood is left to defile her. Someone has rubbed the grime from her coat, leaving it a gleaming lunar white that darkens to antique silver on her feathery fetlocks. Yet even now she seems somehow muted; a bustling city inn is no more a home for her than the Hells, and her neck droops with a lethargy deeper than mere exhaustion.
“I’m sorry,” Rhodeia says.
“As am I,” Mooncolour replies.
Rhodeia wraps her arms around the unicorn’s neck, burying her face in the warmth of her silvered coat. Mooncolour rests her head on Rhodeia’s shoulder, and the seconds slip by with the phantom rustling of leaves as she breathes in moss and the spring-sweet scent of celestial power.
At last, Rhodeia eases back, one hand on Mooncolour’s neck as she peers at her flank. What was a red-gaping wound is now a thin jagged line running some ten inches where the hairs on her coat haven’t properly grown back.
“Arabella,” Rhodeia says, impressed. “This is marvellous work.”
“It was easy!” the girl crows. “You were right that nature magic grows. I can feel it sprouting up inside me a little more every day. Don’t worry, I’ve been practising just like you said.”
Mooncolour gently lips at Rhodeia’s shoulder. “What of you? Halsin said you near died.”
A strange shiver runs through her. Nothing hurts; there is no phantom pain in her chest, nor does she feel compelled to glance down and ensure no talons burst through her skin. No, she floats in a poppy-tonic absence of feeling, as if she might simply slide out of her skin and see herself sitting quietly on the Elfsong’s floor.
Mooncolour nudges her shoulder again. Drawing in a breath, Rhodeia tries to focus on her hands flexing in her lap. She can’t feel either of them, now. “Nearly.”
Mooncolour watches her, so terribly sad, and then lowers her broken horn to Rhodeia’s brow. A tiredness she hasn’t even noticed lifts away from her bones, like silt settling on a slow-moving riverbed, now stirred up by a diving bird. Like grave dust shaking away. She still feels distant from herself, somehow, but the exhaustion is gone as if it never was.
“It was a near thing.” Rhodeia forces herself to look at Mooncolour. “As was your rescue of Karlach. I… don’t have the words to thank you.”
“I hoped to find her sooner, so she could sway you from that terrible path.”
Rhodeia’s shoulders slump. “Most wise of you.”
“Of course I am wise,” Mooncolour says, tossing her mane.
Rhodeia gives her a watery smile, and it’s a pain that she welcomes. “I did miss you.”
—
Karlach reaches the top of the stairs with a big basket of apples and a promise of more chow on the way. Winding her tail around the door handle, she pushes it open to discover there isn’t a portal waiting on the other side to drop her back into Avernus, which is nice. Scanning the room, her engine stutters when she can’t see Rhodeia.
No—
A moment later, she spots a flash of pale mauve. There’s Rhodeia, draped over the unicorn’s back with her eyes closed.
“She asleep?” Karlach whispers as she approaches. Or tries to whisper, at any rate. Her engine’s still going a mile a minute, and she can smell charred reeds.
“Like a candle in a gale,” Arabella replies. Her mouth wobbles. “That’s what Pops would say.”
Poor kid. Poor Locke and Komira. It’s like looking in a mirror in some ways.
“Wise man.” Karlach claps her on the shoulder, then addresses the unicorn. “You look like a stack of gold. Or silver, I I should say.” Putting down the basket of apples in front of her, she continues, “Mooncolour—it’s Mooncolour, right? I can never thank you enough for what you did. Really.”
The stories say unicorns are bastions of purity. That they can take one look and know if a soul is good or evil. As Mooncolour’s golden gaze falls on Karlach, she finds her tail coiling around her knees. This isn’t just a unicorn, but a unicorn that’s seen the Hells—and all the motherfuckers in them—firsthand. Firsthoof.
“Rhodeia spoke of you,” Mooncolour says at last. “Of your enslavement. Your freedom. What she would give for you to stay free.” She looks away, head drooping. “I know what it is like to lose years in the fires of the First Hell.”
Karlach’s throat goes tight as she realises there’s no judgement to be found in the unicorn. Just a sadness that speaks to something in Karlach’s own soul. She rests a hand on Mooncolour’s withers. “Me, too. But you have the rest of your life ahead of you, here in Faerûn.” Nudging the basket towards her, she adds, “And I know how good a proper meal tastes once you’re free of Avernus.”
With all the delicacy of a patriar’s firstborn daughter, Mooncolour takes an apple between her teeth. She bites down with a glorious crunch, only to slow as she chews. Her jaw works experimentally for a few moments before she makes an uncertain, shuddering nicker, eyes falling half-closed.
“Good, yeah?”
Karlach doesn’t know if unicorns can cry, but Mooncolour’s expression is somehow so vulnerable she wants to pick up her axe to protect her. To give her this moment to be weak. Safe.
“It has been so long…” Mooncolour murmurs. Grieving and awed in the same breath.
Karlach knows that feeling.
“Here. These are all yours.” She pushes the basket closer.
Mooncolour jumps at her voice, as if she forgot anyone was with her. Those ears swivel in all directions while one eye turns in Karlach’s direction. “Thank you.”
“‘S the least I could do. Really.” Karlach looks to her flank. “How’re you feeling?”
“The child carries the first touch of spring within her. I will scar, but I will walk. I will gallop through sunlit glades again. That is enough.” Her head lowers, and Karlach has seen enough eyes go for her horns that she can spot the exact moment the unicorn looks up at ‘em. Her feathery tail moves in agitated little swishes, and then she says quietly, “In truth, my horn troubles me more.”
Judging by the break’s sharp edges, this is new. Karlach hums in sympathy.
“It’s rough. I’m not going to say it isn’t. To lose a part of yourself with no way to get it back... well, I’m assuming unicorn horns are like tief horns in that regard. The lighter weight’s going to take a while to get used to, as well as how much safe clearance you’ve got around your head now.” Softer, Karlach continues, “But you’re still you, and you’re still alive. One day you’ll be able to enjoy it again. Sooner rather than later, with some luck and good mates.”
“One day…” Mooncolour repeats. “Two words that have burned brighter than the north star in that wretched heat…”
“Hope keeps you going,” Karlach says. The words still come easily after all this time. Without feeling.
Mooncolour tosses her head. “Hope is the fury that forces you to stand again and lash your hooves. How dare they chain me so! How dare they warp my power for their own ends!” She snorts, then her head lowers. Quieter, but no less adamant: “I will not allow them to claim victory over me. I refuse.”
Karlach pauses. Hope has always been coloured with blue skies and a nice breeze, believing in the next sunrise coming over the horizon. A feeling that eroded away in the violent sameness of endless day after endless day until one day it was gone. But this—for hope to be the dawn of a new day and the fire burning in the dark? It itches at her.
Karlach’s eyes travel back to Mooncolour. “If I’ve only got one horn, does this make me an honorary unicorn?”
Mooncolour’s eye rolls towards her, surveying her for a long, silent moment. At last, she says, “It does.” With a twist of her long neck, she taps her horn against Karlach’s in a shower of golden sparkles.
Karlach grins. “Aw, no fair! My horn can’t do that.”
Mooncolour tosses her mane with a smug little whinny. Rhodeia shifts against her, twitching, but the unicorn gets there before Karlach can to nuzzle her hair. She settles again, breaths evening out.
“Thank you,” Karlach says softly. “For being with her.”
Somehow, Mooncolour looks tired. She heaves a sigh, lowering her head to nuzzle Rhodeia’s hair again. “Perhaps I am not worthy of that praise. I failed to stop her from agreeing to that devil’s abominable deal—”
“What?!” Arabella shouts.
Rhodeia startles awake, magic crackling in her hands. A little tendril of magic twines up her wrist in the pattern of tree bark. “What’s happening?”
“We were speaking of you,” Mooncolour informs her primly. Her tail swishes. “And your infernal contract.”
“You made a deal with a devil?” Arabella cries, outraged. “How could you be so stupid?”
Rhodeia’s eyes travel to Karlach.
Oh, fuck.
The engine whirs in her chest, hot enough for the old flames to dance down her arms. “What, for even a second, made you think I’d want you to risk your soul for me?”
“Well,” Rhodeia says with that same fucking measured tone she always has, “it was Bel or Tiamat.”
Every thought in Karlach’s head stops. “What.”
Now Rhodeia frowns. “I refused, you know. Bel offered a contract and I refused. Tiamat offered an alliance and I refused.” Beside her, Mooncolour snorts, ears flattening, and Rhodeia rests a hand on her neck without seeming to even notice what she’s doing. Too far away, lost in the plane below. “Zariel was coming. She received word I’d been sighted, and I could only watch as her flying fortress closed in. Then all of a sudden, it turned in another direction. I knew. I knew.” Her gaze lowers, throat bobbing as she swallows. “We tried to break the seals on Uzizachor’s prison, Mooncolour and I. We couldn’t.”
Karlach closes her eyes. “Fuck me.”
“I knew Bel was going to cheat me.” There’s an edge to Rhodeia’s voice, begging for understanding. Karlach can’t look at her. “I closed every loophole I could find. When I freed Uzizachor, it tried to kill me on the spot. And I thought that was it. That was the catch…”
“Darling.” Karlach wills her voice to remain steady. “That’s Bel, one of the most powerful archdevils in Avernus.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because it sure as fuck doesn’t seem like it!”
Karlach only realises her voice has raised when Rhodeia flinches. Eyes downcast, she hunches into herself. “Please don’t be angry with me.”
“I’m angry because I love you.” Karlach takes her face in both hands, forcing her to look up. “Do you hear me? I love you, even when your brains are leaking from your ears.”
Rhodeia’s face might as well be glass. Brittle, hiding nothing, and impossibly fragile. Her fingers curl around Karlach’s wrist. She murmurs, “Am I forgiven?”
“Not on your—” The last word—life—chokes in Karlach’s throat. She presses her forehead to Rhodeia’s and counts the warm breaths fanning against her mouth. At last, she manages, “You’re here with me, and that’s what matters. And if you try really, really hard, I might forgive you one day.”
Rhodeia’s fingers tighten reflexively on her wrist, matching her little hitching exhale. The rage doesn’t die down, exactly, so much as love rises to swallow it, leaving Karlach to drown in soft touches and their shared breaths.
The click of a nearby door makes both of them flinch, and Karlach half-shoves Rhodeia behind her until she spies Wyll stepping out of his room.
“Oi!” Karlach lights up. “Get your arse over here!” To Mooncolour, she adds, “Have you talked to Wyll? He’s my best friend. Funny story how we met, but you won’t find a better man—or a better monster hunter—anywhere.”
Once Wyll gets into range, she grabs his hand and pulls him down beside her, their horns knocking together. He peers up at the ceiling-that’s-not-a-ceiling, one hand raised to catch a falling leaf that bursts into golden dust when it lands in his palm.
Arabella bounces in her seat. “I did that! Isn’t it cool?”
“I never thought I’d see a forest inside the city. Or smell one. Marvellous work, Arabella.” Leaning forward, his voice lowers in a conspiratorial whisper, “You didn’t hear this from me, but you might be stronger than our own Gale.”
The girl grins fiercely. “You bet I am!”
Wyll turns to Karlach. His good humour fades as he searches her face, his fingers tightening on hers. So she pokes her tongue out at him, and gets the satisfaction of seeing that smile come right back. “You look better.” To Mooncolour, he adds, “As do you, I’m glad to see. I’ve encountered many monsters in my travels, but few creatures of such light.” He presses a fist to his heart in salute. “The Blade of Avernus, at your service.”
“Of Avernus?” Mooncolour repeats.
“For too long, fiends have freely terrorised the Sword Coast. I will take the hunt to them, where they can be slain.” Sobering, he adds, “There are others trapped as you were. As Karlach was. I can free them, and bleed every fiend I find in the process.”
“If we had more such as you in the Great Ride…” Mooncolour murmurs. Then she snorts and lifts her head. “Slay them all, with my blessing.”
Not long after, another door creaks open. Gale comes out with Tara wound tight around his shoulders. Her wings spread like a feathery shield while her eyes dart about for any threats. After the fall he took in Drevdal Fortress, Karlach can’t blame her. The man’s still walking like he’s got one foot in the Fugue Plane, but his smile is real enough when he lays eyes on them.
“Gale!” Rhodeia calls in delight, and he sits down in the open space near her.
Karlach leans over to squeeze his knee. “You doing all right, wiz?”
His eyes darken, just a little. “Rather better than I was yesterday, as I’m sure we can all agree. Tara is as strict a nurse as she is scholar, don’t you worry.”
“Were I so strict, Mr Dekarios,” Tara says primly, “I’d hold you still and remove that awful thing from your chin.”
Gale runs a hand over his beard, eyes crinkling. “Try and I’ll find out if tressym feathers make good quills.”
“Hmph!”
Karlach’s gaze slides sideways to Wyll to find him watching her back, just as sly-like, and the two of them burst into snickers like they’re at the back of a schoolroom. Rhodeia is suddenly fascinated by the ceiling while Arabella pulls on Gale’s sleeve to get him to teach her something else, and all’s well in the world. If only just for now.
With a single knock, the door to the common area kicks open. Lakrissa stands on the threshold with a huge platter and a huger grin. “Anyone order a heroes’ feast?”