_{by jaymamma.}

The Swim.

Dare pulled tightly on the rope to make sure it was secure around my waste. Droop squeezed my leg.

“Its ok I will be fine.” I said.

The others were quiet, somber even.

I stepped into the water. 

I looked back and smiled. 

“Don’t worry I won’t drown.”

    I dove in and patted the jar of air secured at my waist. I could swim just fine.I just didn’t favor having to brush the tangles out of my hair after. Ugh, and I was going to have to fix my makeup …again.

    I swam and swam. Then like a air bubble popping on the surface of the water, a stream of memories bubbled to the surface of my mind. 

    I was a girl again. Innocent unassuming. I must have been six maybe seven. Eli had been battered by rain for days. The nearby brook threatened to become a raging river, fed as it was from the mountains looming nearby. The townsfolk were doing whatever they could to minimize the damage. Sandbags, trenches, but as water does it still found its way.

    We, my father and I stood on the stairs to the central town hall as the water raced down the main thoroughfare. I didn’t feel afraid, more impatient that we would be forced to wait it out there, and I couldn’t return to the manor.

    Then I saw him rolling in the water unable to right himself to swim. A stallion white with brown splotches, not quite full-grown. The other villagers just watched him wash by. I could not. My father tried to grab me but I was too quick. I leapt after it not then knowing how to swim myself. I managed somehow rolling amidst the current to grasp the reigns. My slight weight was just what he needed. It leveled him out, helped him find his balance and he found his feet. He made straight for a way out of the water and up the stairs of one of the shops in town. Still holding the reigns I was drawn to safety myself. 

I looked up the way to see my father but he was no longer there. A few moments later he washed up on the steps with me and the stallion. He hugged me tightly tighter than he ever had I cold barely breathe.

“Don’t ever do anything like that again.”

“I can’t breathe I whispered

He laughed and let go.

I think, he said “We should teach you how to swim.

    The years flashed by. He taught me whenever he was free. Controlling my breath, not to ever panic, to move gracefully. Good memories. It made me sad that I forgot such things. Life had been so full of promise, possibility.

If not for Them.

    My lungs were beginning to scream. I did not panic, I moved gracefully. I controlled myself and focused on the green light ahead.

I cast darkness on myself hoping to hide my arrival, or at least make it difficult for them to murder me before the others could arrive. 

I thought back to Ultorin. “I have made it. I gave him a rough estimate of the distance. 

Just then a tug of the rope pulled me back wards and I smacked my head on a nub of stone much like the other side. 

The fishmen looked around but still didn’t seem to notice me. 

Fucking Dare. I swam to the side strategizing. The others surfaced quietly. I thought to Ultorin.

See that darker patch that is me I’m going to crash into their side, hit them from your side.

We did. They didn’t see us coming. We slammed into them from both sides and…. wait did mystic just turn into a god damned crocodile. 

Why the hell hadn’t I thought of that before. More importantly why didn’t she.

Ultorin whispered back in my head.

“She says you looked like you wanted to swim it, says it seemed like it would make you feel better.

I could’nt be mad at that, unfortunately. She was being thoughtful. She knew me well like a sister should.

“Ill tell her that”

“NO, god damn it get out of my head Ulton”

“It’s Ultorin”

“I know”

“Why do you hate me is it because of the ring I gave it back—“

“I don’t hate you and I’m over the ring, maybe I didn’t appreciate your gawking at my chest”

“Oh please you appreciate any gawking of anything on your body coming from anywhere”

I smiled in the dark and inside my mind so he could see.

“Touché, glad to finally have you with me”

He was beginning to understand me. Enough to make me value his presence all the more. A psychic blade hit my target in the throat setting it up for me to finish it.

His work with those things certainly helped his case.

It was a massacre. Four of them were dead.

God I loved this group of fellow miscreants. Dare and his simple mind was just a beast in combat. Takes hits for days and just  doesn’t drop. Mercarri was just amazing. I would always question the story behind the shit hammer. Still, healer extrordaneur. Mystic never ceased to amaze me with her wit, and power. Droop was like the goblin son I never had. Both his growth and that ofhis spell craft and tinkering were just beginning to show us the tip of their potential. Ultorin was a rocky start but now I realized I was becoming fond of him as well. Nazzeth floated above. His power was interesting and only made us stronger. On him I hadn’t yet decided. 

Just then he whispered in my head with his own telepathic ability.

“No, I am using Ultorin’s connection I was waiting for your compliments to stop, so I could tell you if you hurt them I can hit them harder.

“Wait you could hear all that?”

“Yes sister” Mystic responded We all did. We are glad you care and enough to think of how much you care in the middle of combat”

So embarrassing. 

“HA I’m in your head Lil” Dare replied “I bet it is embarrassing.”

I growled and wiped my thoughts clean. I wished I hadn’t thought all of that. Dam telepathy. 

I rushed the Dias in my anger and crashed into what was clearly a fishman of the mage variety.

God I hated Mages.

Me too Ultorin responded.”

“Holy fuck can you turn it off?”

“Not for like two or three more hours”

I secretly hoped the Fishman would kill me and end my torture.

“Nah” dare replied. ” I totally heard that too not a secret”

the three on the stone dais with their creepy statue remained. 

Wait, what the hell was on Mystic’s crocodile back.

Again inside my head I got a response. 

“Its a laser, she is a crocodile with a laser cannon on her freaking head” Droop giggled and then snorted excitedly.

Sigh.

I slashed left then right breaking through the guard of the mage fishman then into his friend.

“Damaged” 

Nazzeth hit them with a spell I had long since outgrown. His use however gave me a new respect for it. Maybe I should revisit its uses and application.

“I appreciate that” he replied.

Half Victory

It was a day. I had gained a happy memory. It somwehow seemed inconsequential now. 

Had I just made the complete swim the first time. Maybe, we could have saved her from the gruesome fate she had endured. The fishmen had made meals of her friends, and used her to incubate their young. It was a horrible way to die. My skin crawled with thought of the bulbous tadpolesque beasts swimming about me taking bites of me as they got hungry. Until finally, thankfully I bled out. 

After dispatching the fish bastards we found her corpse covered in those swimming tadpole abominations. We stomped them flat. Disgusting. Nazzeth did not score points. First thing he did at the sight of the body was lift her ring for himself. He didn’t know of its significance to her surviving friend so that was fine if not in bad taste. When asked about it thought he kept quiet and should have handed it over then. When I nudged him to return it he did. Ultorin cringed at the whole ordeal. 

I held the box of ashes we had come for. I had done what Lillian had asked of us. Still it felt as a defeat. I told the others to go ahead, I needed a moment.

I had done what I could with what I knew at the time. I would leave it at that. I had not saved her life, but I had saved the lives of others that would have victimized by those creatures. Victory would not always feel warm and fuzzy. I knew better. I put up my knees and put my face in them and hugged them tightly. I sat there for a long moment. There was a ripple in the water and I immeditely was at the ready with Cursebringer in hand. The surface broke it wasn’t a fishman or a sea monster. It was a male elf a naked male elf, Oh, it was Reinwald.

He looked down and shurgged as he left the water. “I was in the bath and poof I was here. Not that I’m complaining.

I laughed and looked down. “I am not either”. 

He looked at me for a moment. My eyes were a little wet and not from the water. He summoned a robe and donned it. 

Curious.

“I am a hex tailor remember. What happened were you crying?”

I punched him in the shoulder.

“NO” he grabbed my arm and pulled me into an embrace. I did not want it but I did not fight it” I heard whispers form down the cave. Mercarri then poked her head around.

“No she’s ok Mystic she just summoned a hexdick I think”

“Wait, what?” mystic said. She then poked around the corner as well.

“Oh, I see.” Lets give them a moment then.

Reinwald looked towards their voices but they had already ducked back into the cave.

He looked at me and smirked.

“A hex dick?” 

I rolled my eyes.

“That’s an interesting way to put it.”

He sat in the sand and gently pulled me down next to him and put his arm around me.

“So, tell me what has you upset beautiful”

“That is far from how I feel right now”

“Lilvari doesn’t feel beautiful, and I think the apocalypse is upon us”

I punched him again lightly maybe affectionately in appreciation for his ability of lightening a mood. 

I leaned against him. Not unlike a wounded little girl telling her daddy how she had done something wrong. Sad. Pathetic even. It did not feel bad though, quite the opposite.

“Chin up Lovely. All we can do is our best in a horrid world on a horrible plane. No matter how many innocents your enemies kill before you get them they will kill no more after. You are protecting the future for so many common folk, mothers fathers, sons daughters. Protecting them so that what happened to people like us dosen’t have to happen to them. 

I realized then to my shame, that he clearly knew of me and my past but I knew not of his”

“I looked him in the eye “What happened to you Reinwald” 

He smiled the looked away. “Tis nothing but dust in the wind”

My mind clicked and stuck in place for a moment like a jolt of lightning had blasted me in the skull. Why? Why was that phrase familiar? Where had I heard it before?

I looked at him for a long moment.

“Do, did I know you?”

Just then Dare yelled down the cave. “Put your Dick away Lilvari we are rolling out.”

“When next we meet we will talk about it further, I was kind of hurt you didn’t recognize me, but I know your memories are a little unreliable”

“Wait, don’t go don’t -“

II was alone. My mind was a swim. I couldn’t specifically remember him, but I know where I knew him from. From Eli.

“Seriously Lil sex don’t take that long you’d think a whore could get through it quicker so she could get to the next-

I whipped two eldritch blasts down the cave. 

He didn’t make any more comments. Mystic strode in like she does.

She always could tell when I was in my odd mental states. 

She took my arm and helped me up. folded her arm within mine and led me out of that horrible cave. I rested my aching mind on her shoulder as she did. Within a moment Droop held onto my leg on the other side.