Why?

That is the question that I must sit here and answer myself. Did I act rashly? Most likely. Do I regret it? That is a question that is entirely too soon to formulate an answer.

For where I was, I was the equivelant of a Matron Mother of the first house of a city. A jub that I never wantedm nor was I qualified for. I have a brilliant, wonderful son, and I was the wife and love of my addiction. That in and of itself, shoiuld have made the little issue of being unqualified to do something, worthwhile to try and overcome. That, however, managed to make me miserable.

I do not have the right temperment to rule a people in Ellistraee's name. It came to a point after so long of not feeling Her tears on my face, that I started to question whether or not I was still entitled to the dance. Where I was and with what I was doing, I could not show compassion, I could not be unjudging, I could not bring others to her light because technically she didn't send her smile there. The moon that was overhead did not show the goodness that I know the Maiden is. Slowly it corrupted my heart, and my song.

I will gregret what my decision will cause the people to whom I've become a cruel mother figure. I can only hope that they understand that it was slowly taking not just years, but decades and centuries from my life. Something that I have already fought to call my own for so long that I am unwilling to sacrafice that much of it, even for the benefit of many. Perhaps I am selfish, but I have been selfless for so much of my life (and not all by choice!) that I felt that perhaps maybe I deserve something small for myself.

Now, none of this that I have mentioned so far starts to answer the why, nor have I exactly stated the what.

This might very well be either the best, or wrost diecision I have ever made in my life. Regardless, it accomplished , I believe at least, something that I have striven for almost my entire life. I am finally my own elf. By asking one final boon of Matron Gia, to lend me what was needed to block the bond between Thaydin and myself, I had, in essence, eliminated the final tie that kept me formally attached to House Navere. Of course, as well, eliminating the only thing remaining that guarenteed my safety within Rivvin Che'el and the compound itself.

This fact was made painfully apparant when Matron Navere allowed her personal house guards to do what they wished with me, and leave me somewhere to die.

I don't blame her or the guards for what they did to me. We have been dancing this dance for so long, that eventually this would have come to this. If Valkryn hadn't been taken by the elg'caress, perhaps it would not have been so bad. However with a touch of luck, this will have been the last time I will have to deal with her.

Well it is pretty obvious that this had not, in fact, killed me. SO what had happened? Really I had taken a gamble and tossed the sava dice. Not that regardless of what happened I would not have recieved the necessary help, but what happened managed to answer many questions that I just found out that I had to ask.

I recently came back in contact with the Barimen family, well part of it that had remained with Lazarus after Amara started walking a separate path. First I happened to meet up with the old wolf himself. Really, that meeting in and of itself was unremarkable except establishing that he and I still considered me part of the pack, the family. With Ameliah lost to chaos, this was questionable. Shortly he made me aware of a few issues he was having that perhaps, I might be able to help with. One of thse things was that his foster son, and my nest mate of sorts, Adric, had pulled himself away from the family with the exception of Chakar and Cian, and there only speaking to them in the official sense.

Considering the fact that I felt the exact same way, though I had the presence of mind eough to find out the truth as soon as an oppertunity presented itself, I would be a good candidate to speak with him. That, and the levely facct that he would be more likely to talk to me, sine I am more removed from the family; almost the same kind of attachment Adric has himself. As much as I didn't think that he would speak with me, I agreed. Apparantly, the wolf knew something that I didn't.

Between one of the twins getting in touch with him, and his tracking me down, it only took a few days, but we discovered that if we were going to have this discussion thatwe had to have it would have to happen in a place where certain distractions couldn't come into play. We borrowed the Barimen estate.

I will admit here and now that during that meeting that, in a sense, I wasn't completely honest about my range of emotions. Now, this isn't to say that I lied about them, I knew that Adric was much too -shall I say emotionally delicate- for that not to backfire on me when (not if; when) he found out about it. I exaggerated my emotions from how I would have reacted had i been myself to elicit certain reactions from him.

That might have been wrong of me, especially since another miscalculation (seems I have been making a lot of them lately) made all of that irrelevant.

He kept acting like I was going to gut him flat out right there. Then again, I had more than my fair share of knives on me, so I can't really blame him. I was getting sick of it, I almost always am harmless unless I am in one of my moods, and nowhere in the conversation had I gotten to that point. Therefore, since he was expecting me to put my blades to use, I did. No, I didn't stab him, but I feinted chucking one at him, getting a very sore wrist when he shifted to his metalic state to protect himself and grabbed my wrist.

My previous meetings with him, prior to the whole idea that the Barimen family split in two, has always been personal and intimate. Each learning much about the other. Neither ever afraid of the other, and that in and of itself was why this meeting had become so awkward. He was acting like my entire intent had been to bite his nose off. As much as I probably would have tried if he continued to be afraid of me, it was ludricrous that he would think that. He was one of a very select fewthat I would sleep without a blade under my pillow as there was the chance that, if I had a nightmare, that I would have diced him. In fact, he had been the one that I have been most vulnerable around, without blades and naked, more times than I can recall. Only slightly less so than Thaydin himself, and that before bonding.

After Adric realized that I never had a blade in my hand to begin with, I simply told him to react to what I have done. I have been a blind fool not to have the slightest clue of what his reaction was going to be -he kissed me-.

Let me say that he had many oppertunities in the past to let me know his heart. Most of them would have been more oppertune than the one he had taken. Before the bonds first with Amy then with Thay might have been nice, less complicated for certain. Of course, in retrospect, my blindness was due to needing to be smacked in the face with such things to realize it. In my mind, no approach means no feeling. Adric hadn't had a reason to react before now that I dared him in a manner of speaking.

This brings me back to my decision to block the bond I have with Thaydin. I'm still not certain as to the wy, but then again I can answer the why then. I am under the impression that this is actually something that I decided to do a while ago. This apparantly was something that I needed to do. THe difference between then and now is enough that my connection to Thaydin, and in turn the Oasis, was preventing me from doing what I needed to do, that I needed to be free of ties so that I was capable of reacting myself. Despite everything, I am a child of the Prime Material plane, and in that lies my heart and my life. WIthout being here, like I said before, I was miserable. Needless to say something needed to be done.

Another thing I am realizing is that perhaps there has been something lacking in my life. Almost everything I have ever done had been planned. I know that would sound laughable to most who know me, but whenever I had a choice in the thing I weighed things against hte others before doing it. Certain decisions must be lieved with for many years, and I always looked to the long term implications of my actions. I am starting to realize that in doing so, I had been limiting the scope of my experiences insomuch that I haven't been living my life to the fullest.

It has been many years since I sat in a tavern and enjoyed the bustle there. My flute and tales are in desparate need of being polished. It has been much too long since I simply enjoyed myself for the sake of enjoyment. I need to find again just what it was that had made my first years on the surface so enjoyable. There used to be many things that made me break out in song, just for the sake of doing so. Siyo, that is what I must do again.

Now what does any of this have to do with the once lost foster son of the old wolf? Really it is quite simple when it is looked at from a certain angle. He showed me what I had been doing wrong by answering the new questions I had.

As I laid there, braely concious and stripped of most of my hide, I tossed the sava dice. This manifested itself in a desparate call to just about the only person alive that would pick it off the wind, since I was too weak to do so properly. That call was picked up by my son and apparantly excuituted perfectly, as far as I have been able to discern. With that information, Visus had anaged to contact Adric through something that was given to me, and I had left with him when I went to Navere, as I was certain that it would have been taken from me. Good thing that I did.

The dual spiders came face up when Adric, armed with the information I managed to depart, plucked me from the badlands in which I had been deposited, and subsequentially nearly burt himself out on trying to fix me fully himself. This act opened him up to me much the same as a spring opens up to a lake, or the sun opens to the sky at the begining of a new day.

He was willing to risk everything simply to protect me, without much more than a glimmer that it would do him any good to do so. Despite the fact that I do not know exactly where things might go with him, where my mind (or heart for that matter) lies in regards to him. Perhaps he, with that kiss I wasn't expecting, also tossed the dice with me.

Of course the next task will be attempting to quell the pack from retaliation, as least so far that the children of Navere, the only ones from the house that I would be quite cross if they were harmed. This includes the youngest whom I have yet to meet. Thy are, it seems, of a different stock than their kin, and therefore are innocent. Not that what was done to me was anything other than the payment of a favor. I hold no ill will though, I know if misfortune smiles once again upon me and leads me again to Navere, that the sava pieces will no longer be in the old familiar configuration.

All that notwithstanding, for the time being -and not just because currently my physical faculties require me to do so- I will remain where I am now, as a daughter of House Barimen and figure out just exactly where things stand within myself with Adric. Right now, he is the source of my security and my enlightenment. I can only hope he reamains as patient as he already proved himself to be and perhaps understand that regardless, I will once again find myself uncomfortable with formal titles. Even those that I seem to take on myself.

Until then, I will scry within myself to find out what figures will show on the dice and enjoy myself until then.

To thine own self be true.

Crossroads

There are times that I sit here and wonder if its all worth it... If there is a point to it all? No, I am not regretting that I still breathe, but that I still care. I sit with a nerverending workload in front of me, not to mention the rasing of my beloved son, and if that wasn't time consuming enough, the life that I refuse to let go of still hearkens me to be that which I once was.

Am I still that same elf that would drop everything just to help a freind> Am I still the same one that has the same odd sense of what family is and will put that above all? Am I still an elf that has a cause to hearald? Or has that all been lost under a mountain of detachment and duty? Am I meant to be nailed down thusly? Do I even understand what happiness can be anymore, or is that now lost?

There are things now swarming around me that bring me to these questions and threaten exactly what I have been striving for these last years. I find myself wondering if I have come to yet another end> The start of another lifetime perhaps, or maybe I stare blessed oblivion before me.

Valkryn is alive and not under the elg'caress's dominion.

That alone has be staring right at the wrong end of a mage's fireball trying to decide whether to let it hit head on, or leap from the way and sort through the pieces later. Maybe I should just run, hide from it and let what happens happen. He did afterall steal my son and any fate that comes to him that is of ill fortune would be well deserved. I already know that if he crosses paths with Thaydin, that only one of them would walk away from it. It's obvious that the Weapons Master that we knew is long lost to us for the time being, and it is doubtful that he will return as he once was. The question then would be which one is the more desireable. If either is desireable as the true question is whether or not he is still fit to live. Of course, sanity for Valkryn would be desireable if Thaydin were to take his life for his crimes. What better justice for him to repent for his sins when he takes his last breath. Then there is the realization that Thaydin, the father of my son, might not survive the meeting.

Can I survive what is happening? This in and of itself I don't know. Do I pull away and just wait and see what happens? Perhaps, that is more wise; aloof detachment, as regardless of what happens, this will be an end of some sort.

But what of my oasis, my family? Was I a fool to think that I, a rothe, could be content in my life? As I look at the past, I wonder if forever, for me, takes on a different meaning. That it is, in truth, at least so far as my perspective, a few short years. Perhaps the fates have some sort of vendetta against me for cheating them of something.

I stare at the cruel face of oblivion yet again. Yet perhaps this time I have a crutch that will carry me through, that will allow me to grab at a few of the fraying strands before they fall, inexplictedly, out of reach. Then again, that could just be another delusion to cling to desparately.

Yet I sit here and ask myself do I care?

I am a beacon of malady for those who get close to me. I will do what I may to make amends, pray to the Maiden for the best and brace myself for the worse. The fact that the worst comes is inevitable really as it happens time and time again. Many ends... few beginnings.

I stand at a crossroads, one road leads to contentment and the other to tragedy. I know not which way the will will blow me but I already now, both raods lead through chaos and I am ill prepared.

---- Fair Ellistraee, goddess of bright night, guardian of the dance and whimsical melodies; lead your child's steps through the chaos before her so that she may once again see the smile on your face and reflect it upon the planes; for there are many who are without the sacred gifts of the hunt, the dance, and the song. Guide and guard her way through the stroms ahead. Protect her smile and teach her that which she needs to learn for she is still yet a lost child, afraid in the strom. This is all I ask so that I might once again lead those astray to the safety under the stars........

May the gods have mercy on us all.

Life Vs. Death

Dead – That is the state that many thought of me in the months that followed Visus’s birth. Was this intentional? Of course not. I couldn’t do that to my family and friends. I didn’t realize that when Valkryn and Siona aided the droppleganger, that they ensured that it would continue to look like me even after it died.

That really shouldn’t have surprised me considering I am certain that Valkryn was attempting to ensnare Andrew the Green in a grand scheme that would have had him tried and convicted of my murder. Honestly, I highly doubt that Drew would be capable, even in his wildest nightmares, of being able to do so. Of course, Valkryn wouldn’t have done such a thing unless he was certain it could be done. I am thankful to find out that it was all for naught.

Some would wonder, why I would do such a thing. Why I would go along with something that put my son, my little brother, and myself in such a precarious situation. Especially, knowing that Gia wished to obtain my son for House Navere as a prince of the house. The simplest of explanations is to ask a person what kind of mood would they be to resist, when they are seven seasons pregnant and bigger, almost literally, than a house. Then again, nothing in my life is ever that simple.

There are a few things that I know about the way things work around me. The first of these is House Navere itself. Whether Matron Navere likes the thought of this or not, I am a member of the house. If for no other reason than the fact that she kills me, she kills her brother Thaydin. That’s the die I rolled when I became his bonded wife. At the time it situated the means of which to protect me. Would I have done it anyway? Yes, eventually, I would have. I have said it before, and I will say it again. My husband is my addiction. I know that with him it is the same, even if he wouldn’t use the same words.

Secondly, for some reason, without even that fact alone, even now that Valkryn is considered dead (of course he would probably consider himself dead if he is battling Lolth in the Deamonweb Pits), I honestly don’t think that Gia would do a thing to me. I think if I had stayed within the confines of Navere with Visus, that he would never have been taken, truly, from me to begin with. Yes, he would have been weaned to know Lolth, not something I would have denied him despite the fact that I despise the elg’caress and so does his father.

As much as I would much prefer the priestesses of Navere to stay out of the boy’s life, which would be something I could have lived with if Thaydin could have agreed to it. I do see his point. Gia now has three children, and Visus is our first. He is going to be a very interesting little one to watch growing up, and we would much prefer to do such under our own power, and not necessary that which Gia would put him though. As we see it, she has already destroyed at least one child through neglect, another through pushing entirely too hard down a path that we are not certain the young woman wishes to go. Neither Valas nor Elora wishes much to do with House Navere now that they are almost old enough to come to their own conclusions.

Of course that doesn’t even start to touch the will of Drew. I honestly do not think that he could, in any reconnaissance of faith in his beloved Mystra, ever kill a soul that he thought had even the sprinkling of goodness in them. I don’t know how many arguments he and I have gotten in over the past few years concerning Gia’s “cuddliness”. Not that I would go so far as to say she needs to meet the sharp end of a blade with her heart, but she is far from cuddly. He even had the audacity to become a blood-doll to a local vampire and argued against doing what was necessary to kill her, and this is after, this vampire, R, tried to kill our sister Marquie on several occasions.

I swear, I’ll never understand the boy, though I can rest assured at night, that no matter how perturbed he might be with me, that I will never have to worry about waking with a blade in my back. If anyone I have reason to fear, it would be Marquie. I wouldn’t like to believe that she would be capable of doing such a thing, but she has told me on several occasions that she continues to have dreams in which I will find my death at the end of her sword. She, much like myself, has managed to lose just about everything she ever cared about with the death of her mate Zodiac, and of her “stepfather” Valkryn. With her, I can completely sympathize, and I would hardly blame her if her visions do actually come true. After my little stint of death, I’m already surprised it hasn’t occurred already. If any of my friends, she has the most reason to despise me. I defended Zodiac when she first met him, thinking that he could be good for her, and he betrayed her. I was to be a source of comfort for her, and I allowed her to believe me dead. I was her beacon of strength and I fell from my pedestal. As I said, if my life ended at her hands, I would absolutely deserve it, if only for being one of the biggest disappointments in her life.

Regardless, many things occurred not as they should have and I was dead, Iberra was pulled down ontop of itself, and my little family found an oasis of sorts to protect what is ours.

If this is what being dead is like, I would much prefer to live until the gods are no more, and my last breath must be ripped from my body on the sheer fact that, someone cannot possibly live to be that old.

Of course there is the irony of ironies that it was my addiction that caused my death. Through the droppleganger’s eyes, I watched my husband kill me in cold hatred. I’m not sure if he knows if I watched or not, but I for certain know he knows that I felt the cold satisfaction of destroying that fallacy that looked like me. How hard is it to imagine late at night in the deepest darkest death, to fantasize that it was actually me he wished to kill. It wouldn’t be difficult for me to think that he could despise how little I have gained him by becoming his wife. I strive daily not to be a burden to him, albeit a pleasant one, in his eyes, to not be something that would be better off dead. I am quite pleased to know that when he looks at me, all he sees is the spitfire little elf that he fell in love with, and not the rothe, and hell-spawn faerie he was raised to see me as. The day he forgets that, is the day that I can start counting the seconds I have left to live, if not by his hands, but by my own breaking heart.

Perhaps somewhere, deep down inside, I knew that those I knew in the Highlands of Scotland would think me dead. A part of me hoped that it would be so. Maybe, just maybe. It would have been easier to just walk away from what I have grown to know and love. It would be easier to forget it all as I had to in my insanity at the fall of NaVire and the dissolution of Camelot Reborn. I highly doubt that my spirit would be able to handle such a fallacy as being truth, despite how well I might be able to delude myself. How quick was it, after Drew miraculously managed to track me down through the planes, before I found myself sneaking back to the Highlands to look in on those I knew?

I have to be a complete idiot to allow such things as the strings of my heart to decide where my next steps will take me. That is the reason why my “death” has been so hard on me. I, once again, had been backed into a corner doing something I do not wish to do, all because it was the best thing to do for others. It is the reason why my affairs are not still within the Highlands. It is why Visus will grow up not quite understanding just what home is. Is that something even his mother understands?

Many times over the course of my life, I have said to others, “I don’t want the job” and I end up doing exactly that. I come to question my strength of mind when it comes to past that I do end up doing the job anyways. Then again it could be argued that such things are pushed upon me because I actually have the strength of mind to do it and it is somewhere in the stars for me to do so. Again I find myself in such a place as that. I have people looking up at me, a simple rothe, a silly stinking faerie that doesn’t have the presence of mind to own herself, let alone rule a people as a leader. I sit here wondering, if they are idiots, or if the biggest fool is myself in being unable to see what they can.
Then there are the times, I still sit and wonder why the gods even bother to grace me with life’s breath at all. They must know something that I just simply cannot fathom.

3 Deities

Dying light in the sole heartbeat of the moon
Shrouded light sings of the blessed hope of sun
The maiden dances to the swish of steel
The song plays and the night has begun

Lost twilight of a thousand shattered memories
Destitute dreams screamed on the lips of the dead
The laughing man lost in a veil of darkness
It is the beginning of the end

Pitch buring in the blackness of light
Delight lost in a pool of arachnid tainted blood
Dark chaos embodied caught in her own web
It is not over it is not done

Blessed curse

It is said, that the Elvish "sacrament" of bonding, the purest and most permanant version of marriage, -love- in its most elaborate form, is a double edged sword. Both a blessing and a curse to those combined by the ancient rites. Oh! Ellistraee, help me, how true that is! However it is this far more simple form that most races, well at least those who will never see a century worth of days, that cause them so much of the nine hells. That alone, in and of itself that is, just about as complex, forthe amount of years that the parties have to ponder such things.

These beings, I don't think, could ever begin to fathom the meaning of the phrase "forever and beyond" in its proper scope, nor do even the children of the long lived, though not to such a grevious error. I have to laugh, while in a visit in a village, somewhere or another on the surface, when I listen to a child of maybe four or five winters of age (and I am a poor judge of age), clutching a mother's skirts and complaining that what might take perhaps an hour, fetching foodstuffs for the day and what not, that it takes "FOREVER". That same hour, to someone of my years, not that I am all that old in Elvish measures, is but a blink of the eye. I spend at least an hour greeting the Maiden's face when she rises at nightfall, debating whose parchment would look better against my script for the poem I am currently writing, to decide whether to walk or run that day. An hour is so different to people in regards to their totality and because of such, the always young, those short lived, cannot grip the concept of a century, a millenia, let alone forever.

But that is rather irrelevant to the blessed curse that is love, which is actually what I write of and not the sacred bonding. This is something that will capture the minds of just about everyone in one form or another, whether or good nature or of ill. Love, actually, regardless of what I might say, I believe is a postive force. Something that will drive the vilest of hearts to deeds of great selflessness and sacrafice, the mild mannered to commit actions of sheer jealousy.

Now how can I go about still saying that this is such a good force of things predating even nature? That's simple, as it has the roots in the purest of intentions. It is each individual who has caused it to warp into something so devistatingly ugly, that there are many who sit and pray to the gods themselves that it will never happen to them. Wishing that they are never so blind, as to never see what is in front of their noses. It is these individuals that I pity far beyond any others.

On the other hand, I also pity those who do understand, even minutely, the meaning of love. A paradox I know, but it is those individuals that will know the most infinate pain in their lifetimes. "The one that loves you most, hurts you the worse" it is said, and I cannot find anything to prove this to the contrary. Though I am still trying to understand why people, myself included, doesn't do everything possible to avoid that feeling of love. This absolute pain, and bliss.

As I sit and take the time to collect my thoughts in my journal, I think of my husband and what he means to me. Of course I am never -truely- alone anymore. He is always right with me, even if he is far away. Does this help me any? No. Again that blessed curse. Its not the same, as much as he is now part of me, I need him around to complete me.

Is this something I will ever understand? Probably not.

If you wish to lose your husband....

It seems that the easiest way to have a mate, husband, whatever dissappear is to get pregnant. I don't know if this is a new phenomena or not, but everywhere I look, there are women who are going about without the father of their kids, their husbands, and are pregnant. Currently, I am one of them, and I have been guilty of the same with Ameliah.

Now, why could this be? Actually there's a good number of reasons, the first of which would be the dramatic and usually explosive mood swings a woman goes through while carrying. Unfortunately, since Thaydin isn't around, my adoptive little brother Andrew has been getting the brunt of it. Not everyone is as lucky to have someone so understanding of things.

It could also be that they have to come to grips with the entire idea of becoming a father themselves. Us women, unfortunately, do not have the ability -magic aside- to get away with the constant reminder that shortly they will have all manner of extra responsibility. I imagine that the entire idea of it being of a kind of a mini case of needing to sow their wild oats. Something that is taken away from the pregnant woman the moment she knows.

There's also the concept of not being able to deal with change. A baby being brought into the homestead requires the father to have to change his activities as much as it does the mother. Much too often, because of this, the fathers are more and more often not sticking around for their offspring's childhood. This leads to a lot of resentment from the child. The Maiden only knows, I have already been a bit of a victem of this as well in that my nest children can only -just- forgive me for not being there. Mostly, because it now has been only maybe a year or perhaps two since I last saw their birth mother. I cannot be so fortunate as to forgive myself for it.

Really, I guess I just sat to write this because I miss my husband. I do get to see him when he's nearby, but that's not enough. It doesn't replace him when I go to sleep upset because I broke something now that I'm getting clumsy. It doesn't replace his hand helping me when I feel I can't get from one place to another fast enough. It doesn't hush those who look at me and stare, wondering what kind of whore I am for having a child out of wedlock since they haven't seen me ever with my husband.

I imagine this really should be just the lament of a young wife who is with child who misses her husband sorely while he takes one last sourjorn before he needs to take on another role and place a few others to the side.

Please come home soon, elder boy who is not elderboy.

Friend vs Abbil

Can there possibly be another word in the languages of the surface and that of the Drow that mean almost the same thing, but have such different connotations as the word friend and its Drowian counterpart abbil? Well if there is, its ssinssrigg when using the definition love.

For those who do not understand the Drow, this will seem quite the forign concept as most races understand the true meaning of friendship, even those of evil ilk. The drow, however, are such loners. In a sense all are an assissin of sorts. Nindyn vel'uss kyorl nind ratha thalra elghinn dal lil alust, is pratically a proverb that means "Those who watch their backs meet death from the front". What does that really mean for a surface dweller? Not too terribly much as they would just simply brush such aside and ignore it as a non truth. Then the Drow embrace it as a way of life.

This phrase ends up ruling most of what the Drow percieve as truth. They live their lives fearful of everyone around them, expecting even thier closest relations to eliminate their threats to becoming a ruler of their little section of the world. There is no other way to do such there without death, without destruction, without killing those between them and the top. There is no room for such concepts of family, love, friendship, compassion. Such things mean death in the world of Har'oloth. And they think themselves the stronger for it.

I find that this fact alone is what limits their abilities, makes the weaker. How is it that such a devistating race, cannot seem to find any large stronghold in the night above? Well that is until they change their basic tennants and, well become more like the rivvil and the iblith that they so despise.

Now is this wrong? Not exactly. At least in the world in which they live. The harsh reality of the Underdark that makes certain that only the strongest can survive. Where they kill their young if they have a deformity of any kind. A place where those who are not completely faithful to their wicked elg'caress goddess.

Whereas the humans, and the other at least somewhat goodly races will embrace their family, encourage and bolster friendship. Where such a term is regarded with such reverence and, at times is as irrevocable as a tie of blood. A good thing actually that most would embrace happily and look forward to rewarding and continuing. Something that causes even the most reasoning of beings to go and do something without thinking first when their friend is in trouble.

If such happened in the world of the Drow, in Ched Nasad or Menzoberrazan perhaps, the abbil would sit there at laugh at the stupidity of the other unless that other was indespensable to them for their further persuits. The one that was in danger and saved would have to sit back and figure out what it was exactly that the rescuer wanted from them. Defiantely not a situation in which it is advisable to be in.

Now, those who know me know that I use the term abbil as a means of denoting close friendship with another. Is it that I am looking for greater gain? Well yeah I am, but not in the same manner in which the Drow would. I look for enrichment from my abbil's I look to find things in which I would be improved by. And perhaps something of myself to give to them in return. Be it music, a smile, advice, knowledge or simply someone to listen. For me the term abbil is much more than a two way street, a way of turning my back on what I have been taught my entire live in Har'oloth. My way of adding some meaning to just that term.

Devious of me? Definately. Potentially harmful? Maybe, but at least I do explain that as much as I am not Drow, I can think like them, and I do go out of my way to TRY to not be like them. Though it is hard sometimes, and it is my abbil's that have been there time and again to try to pull me from that cestpit in which I know entirely too well. I have saved them from the vileness of Har'oloth, and in turn they save me from it.

A much rewarding experience if ever I experienced one.

Elvish sadness

Ever wonder why Elves always seem to sad? It is becasue they will. Over the course of their lifetimes see the rise and fall of everything they could ever love, and then they must endure without it..... until even they have become a tale on the tip of a bard's tongue. I have seen the fall of homes, of citites and of Kingdoms, along with the birth and passage of many that I have found means to call dear. And it seems that those that I could cling to through to a rivvil would seem eterinity. I almost as a rule do not. As do the rest of our kin, even if it is a forest that they love. The world around us changes completely. And so do we along with it. Though whether it is for salvation or for destruction in the end, that is for the gods to sort out becasue regardless I am still mortal. There are things going on in the passing of the ages than any of us can come to fathom. I can only hope that in the end it becomes a joke as we were the one with the puppet master's strings all along.

Family

Family.

Such a simple thing to a lot of people, but something that is almost completely a non-existance in all my years. Well at least until now.

Sure, over the years I had those that I considered family, but only much more recently really. It wasn't until I left Ched Nasad that I Started understanding just what that might mean. In the realm of Camelot Reborn, I learned further by gaining God-children, a completely rivvil concept, but there, it seemed that all the beings followed along with it and so did I. By the Maiden, I was even wean mother to Valas during those times.

Did I regret it then? No. It enriched me as a person and for the sake of being with the children, it was quite enjoyable as well.

Now it seems that I have more family than anyone can deal with. Valas was lost and is now found. I now have a husband and a child on the way. A mate that has been lost to me, her children have come to see their blood Mother and Father, with me being their heart mother and my mate their birth mother. (trust me I am still confused by it all) And it seems that even more family is comming out of the shadows to give me a call.

Is this a bad thing? Not necessairily, though I will fully admit that I am quite overwhelmed by it as well. I have been a nobody in the eyes of the world for so long and now, now... I have more roles to more people than I know what to do with them. I am honestly afraid of whether or not I will actually be able to do for all these souls, what they expect of me and if not exceed them as well.

In that as well it seems that I have been able to make even closer friends as well than I have been able to in the past. A very odd feeling let me assure you. One risked his own life because he knew I was in danger knowing the foe and I already knew where. I did what I could to keep him out of it but sometimes rivvil don't understand the meaning of "let me deal with it its too dangerous for you" a frustrating but admirable trait. Another followed me straight into the Underdark when I was brought back there and really, would rather not have. Turns out he had been in a cell just a few doors down from me the entire time and I didn't know it. He tried to escape when he realized I had managed to get out and even still he is creating his own presence in Har'oloth and no matter what he says, I know it is only because of me.

Will I ever be able to return their kindness? I hope so in all honesty. Though now it is getting to the point that I will have more places to call home than a denzien that resides on more than one plane. Oh wait a minute, I rather already do.

All I can do is pray to the gods for guidance and the strength to have so many ties that bind, so many ways my heart can be torn. Something, I haven't known before.

I am both estatic, and scared out of my wits.