“Broda said dinner will be ready in a little while, would you like some while we wait?” Venna said as she offered to fill a glass of wine for each of us.
“I’d love that,” I replied, and took the glass when she filled it for me.
“Tási?” Venna prompted when the halfling hesitated.
“Um, no thanks,” Tási finally answered.
“Ha! She had a bit much last night, Venna,” Broda chimed in. “I’m not sure she wants to be lugged up the stairs again.”
“It’s only elven wine, Tási,” I softly teased. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
Tási reflexively reached for her collar and I glared at her before she could adjust it back to its usual position. She reluctantly let her hands fall back to her sides under my intense stare, and then surprised me by accepting Venna’s offer.
“Maybe I don’t mind as much as you think,” Tási whispered back to me as she took a sip from her glass.
Broda’s stew was soon served, and we enjoyed our meal along with more of the elven wine while Broda poured herself a mug of ale from the keg Khorim had left behind. We discussed the various things we had done that day, and I informed Broda and Venna of the progress I had noted all around the valley. After cleaning up, we retired to our rooms far earlier than the night before.
“Do you think it would help Venna if you put her to sleep again like you did last night?” Tási surprised me by asking as we were getting ready for bed.
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “I kind of caught her off guard, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted me to do it again.”
“Well, as long as you come back to me once she’s asleep, I won’t be upset,” Tási offered.
“Are you sure?”
“No, so you better go now,” she prompted me.
I took Tási up on her offer before she could change her mind and left our room quickly. When I knocked on Venna’s door, she once again bid me to enter, and when I did, I found her already in bed.
“Two nights in a row,” Venna exclaimed in mock surprise. “To what do I owe this honor?”
“Not to what, but to whom,” I replied. “Tási sent me here to see if you wanted me to help you get to sleep.”
“Tási? I’m surprised,” Venna responded. “She was obviously upset with you this morning, and I assumed that I was the cause of that.”
“You were, but we settled that issue,” I told her honestly as I sat next to her on the bed.
“Tási and I have grown much closer,” I confessed. “And while you and I will always have a special relationship, I need to be more considerate about how we engage in that relationship. I can’t simply flout it in her face like I did last night.”
Venna’s smile at my admission caught me off guard. I’d expected her to be angry or offended, but she clearly wasn’t feeling either of those emotions. Thankfully, my confused look prompted her to explain.
“Congratulations,” she offered me. “That’s exactly how I feel about you and me regarding Stel. He may know about us, but I don’t make our… liaisons too obvious.”
“Are you saying Tási and I are… married?”
“That, or close enough that it doesn’t really make any difference.”
Venna wasn’t aware that Tási’s water spirit had bonded with me, but I couldn’t help but think that the bond had been the catalyst for the change in our relationship. We had both fallen under its influence, and Tási’s jealousy and my own declaration of devotion in response were ample evidence of how much our relationship had changed since that bond had been forged.
“I really need to think about this,” I finally muttered.
“Yes, you do,” Venna smiled back at me, clearly amused by my sudden confusion.
“Now, why exactly are you here again?” Venna teased.
“I… I was going to see if you wanted me to help you fall asleep,” I replied uncertainly.
“And if I do, will you still be here in the morning?” She continued to prod at me.
“No,” my shoulders slumped as I told her. “I would only stay long enough to make sure you’re alright.”
“Thank you for the offer,” Venna said as she finally let me off the hook. “But I think I’ll let you go for the night.”
I rose from the bed and made it only halfway to the door before Venna plunged the dagger in my back.
“I’ll have to talk to Tási sometime,” she said in words that dripped with honey. “I decided that I do like the way you put me to sleep last night. I’ll have to work out some sort of arrangement with your wife and see if she’ll let me borrow you from time to time.”
My steps ground to a halt and I tried to come up with some sort of reply, but my mind was a jumble of confused thoughts and emotions, and all I could do was resume my slow, silent march out of Venna’s room. As I climbed back up the stairs, I considered what Venna had said, and despite my reluctance to accept her conclusion, I realized that she was right.
“That was fast,” Tási commented as I closed the door behind me.
“Venna said she didn’t need my help tonight,” I replied as I slowly made my way across the room and crawled into bed.
“Your clearly upset,” Tási observed. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I replied. “But she said some things to me that I really need to think about.”
“What did she say to you?” Tási sat up and asked as a hint of anger crept into her voice. “If she’s back to that jealous, hateful shit again, I will go down there right now and take care it.”
“No, nothing like that,” I assured her. “Actually, quite the opposite.”
It took me a while to explain everything Venna had said to Tási. While it had been a short conversation, I needed quite a bit of time to muddle my way through the heavy emotions that Venna’s words had stirred up inside me. While I loved Tási with all my heart, the nature of our growing commitment had snuck up on me. Venna’s clear recognition of it, and the sudden revelation of it to me, had caught me unaware.
“She really said that?” Tási asked incredulously. “Venna called me your wife?”
I nodded my head slowly in response as I stared away blankly, still trying to come to terms with that very concept.
“How do you feel about that, Tási?” I finally asked her. Even though I hadn’t come to terms with it myself, I wanted to know what she thought of the situation.
“I haven’t been completely honest with you,” Tási said as she slumped back against the headboard. “There was more to the message my mother left for me than I told you.”
“I don’t care about that, Tási,” I told her. I tried to look into her eyes as I spoke to her, but she turned away and refused to meet my gaze.
“You need to know,” she whispered. “I have to tell you now, before it goes any further.”
“We didn’t meet by accident, Dreya,” Tási explained as she continued looking away from me. “My mother didn’t give birth to me by random chance. The water spirits sensed your coming, and they created me so that I could help you on their behalf. I bonded you without permission, Dreya, and that bond is what has drawn you to me so closely. Your feelings for me are not real, not entirely. I never meant to, but I have manipulated you into loving me.”
“This is a very familiar conversation for me, Tási,” I replied as I gently turned her face towards me. “I’ve had ones very much like this with Venna.”
Tási finally picked her head up, and I saw the pain and confusion in her eyes.
“Your influence on me is very much like my influence on you, and everyone else for that matter,” I began to explain to her. “Once I recognized it, I struggled with the implications for a while. I thought that I was exploiting people, turning them into mindless servants, but that was never the case. What I realized—what Venna made me realize—was that my influence was a much subtler thing than that. It was never about manipulation, it was always about giving people the strength, the courage, to do the right thing.
To do what they truly wanted to do but needed some extra motivation or incentive. I never made anyone do anything they didn’t want to do, I only lent them the strength or resolve they needed to do what was already in their heart.”
“That is all you have done to me, Tási,” I said as I held her gaze. “And I have very likely done the same to you in return.”
“Nothing has happened between us that I didn’t want to happen,” I finished with a gentle kiss on her lips. “I’m only sorry that it took someone else to make me realize how much I love you.”
Tási leaned into me, resting her head against my chest and I held her tight while she clung to me in return. Even though she wasn’t trying to feed her emotions into me, they still leaked through our bond, and I experienced not only her love, but also the jumble of happiness and her sense of reprieve as they churned inside her.
She needed no additional words from me; they were only shapeless, hollow things. So instead of offering her useless words, I searched deep within myself and gathered together all my feelings for her. I pulled my love, admiration, respect, desire, and so much more into the brightest orb I had ever made. When it was finished, I peeled away the bare traces of harshness that clung to the outside of the orb and channeled the brilliant ball of ethereal light slowly into Tási’s body.
Tási was still lying on me, clinging onto me almost desperately. With such close contact, the orb that I sent entered her easily, and instantly flooded her with every scintilla of my profound feelings for her. In response to its presence, I felt Tási’s body relax as the tension that had been seizing her muscles finally released her from its grip. Her own emotions came to me even more intensely through the link that the orb created between us, and we shared them openly and freely for a long while, until there was nothing left for us to reveal to each other.
The orb had served its purpose, so I released my hold on it and it slowly dissolved into nothingness as it trailed its way back to me. When the last traces of the orb finally dissipated, I turned my head to look at Tási and found her eyes staring back at me.
“I have shown you everything,” I whispered to her softly. “You have no reason to doubt that what I feel for you is real. No matter how we think of things or what terms we use, I am yours, and you are mine.”
Tási smiled and tilted her head up to give me a soft kiss before she settled down to lie against me again. I wrapped my arms around her in turn, and we fell asleep together a short while later.
Tási was gone when I woke up, and I figured that she was probably downstairs making breakfast like she usually did when she got up early. So, I slipped into Melía’s Armor and threw the Quiver on my back before I headed downstairs in anticipation of a good meal. But when I entered the common room, there were no smells of cooking in the air, there was only a platter of cold biscuits sitting on the table between Tási and Venna. Broda was nowhere to be seen, and the two women immediately stopped their conversation as soon as I entered the room.
“What’s going on?” I asked with obvious suspicion in my voice.
“We were just settling a few things,” Tási replied with a smirk that Stel would have been proud of.
“I told you that I would speak to Tási about borrowing you,” Venna added with her own conspiratorial smile. “We have just finished that conversation.”
“And?” I prompted when neither chose to elaborate.
“While Stel is away, you can visit Venna anytime you chose to help her sleep,” Tási informed me. “But you cannot stay the night. Not while I’m here under the same roof.”
“For my part, I promised not to abuse the trust that Tási has placed in me,” Venna added. “If I’m doing well, and I don’t really need you, I’m going to send you back to her.”
“As for any other… interactions you choose to have,” Tási continued tactfully. “They will be discreet. I don’t want to know about them, and I certainly don’t want to hear about them. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yes, I do,” I replied numbly as I sat down beside her.
It was all a bit surreal to me—my relationship with the two of them had always been a very casual and informal affair, but with the previous night’s acknowledgement of just how serious things had become between Tási and me, the balance of that equation had suddenly shifted. Although Tási accepted that Venna was a part of my life, she was setting strict parameters around us. Part of me chafed at the restrictions, but deep inside, I knew that she was right. Our relationship had crossed into new territory, and I needed to take her feelings into account more than I ever had before.
“I will come see you each night while Stel is away,” I said as I turned to Venna. “If you need me, I’ll stay with you until you’re better, or I can put you to sleep.”
“Outside of that,” I said as I took Tási’s hand in mine and gazed into her eyes, “I will be considerate of your feelings in all my interactions.”
Tási nodded slowly and smiled back at me as I told her what she needed to hear. Then, she added something that took me completely by surprise.
“I know you,” she said softly as she stared deep into my eyes. “Better than you know yourself in some ways. Venna will not be the only one. There will be others that are drawn to you. I have known this for some time now, and it hasn’t been easy, but I think that I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that you will never be mine completely.”
“You cannot prevent this from happening, Dreya,” Tási held up her hand when I tried to object. “Nothing you can do will stop the people you need, or who need you, from seeking you out. And you will come to love some of them in return. All I ask is that you honor what we have by being discreet. I know that I cannot have you for myself, but at least let me have the illusion.”
I didn’t know how to respond to what Tási said. Her words shook me, yet not only did I feel her conviction, but I also felt the truth of them as well. Just like the night before when Venna had confronted me with a truth I hadn’t recognized, Tási’s declaration stunned me, but once I heard it, I couldn’t deny it either.
“How?” I uttered in confusion. “How could you possibly know this?”
“I don’t know,” Tási still managed to smile at me. “I think that it came to me when you… woke my water spirit.”
I glanced at Venna when Tási hesitated, and she was simply staring at us open-mouthed, clearly as taken aback by Tási’s revelations as I was. But it was Venna’s mere presence that had caused Tási to fumble her words, to say something different than what she truly meant. But her deceptive words were only intended to mislead Venna, not me, and I knew what she was really telling me. It had been the bond that I had forged with her water spirit that had given her this insight. And knowing just how strong and true that bond was, I couldn’t doubt her intuition.
“I’m sorry,” was all I could say to the two of them. “I never intended any of this. At least not this way. Both of you deserve better than this.”
“You think I would trade even half of you for anyone else?” Tási rebuked me harshly. “Listen to me. I’m not settling for you. This is not a compromise. You are mine. I’m just accepting the fact that you need other people in your life, and more importantly, they will need you in theirs.”
“What I sensed from you is not the need to merely romp from bed to bed, Dreya,” Tási continued. “The people who come to you will need you. They will need your love, your comfort, or something else greater than a simple physical connection. Your relationships will not be tawdry flings or affairs—there will be substance and meaning to them, whether you are aware of it or not. I am willing to accept this because I understand how important you will be to them. I’m not settling for something less, Dreya, I’m accepting you for who you are.”
I was glad that I was sitting down when Tási made her second revelation; otherwise, the floor might have been my resting place for a while. But again, despite my reluctance to accept the information, once she had spoken the words, I couldn’t deny the tru
th that they held.
“She’s right,” Venna uttered in a stunned whisper. “I never made the connection before, but it’s so clear to me now. When I almost failed my quest, you saved me. My faith was flagging, and you restored it. Your friendship brought a sense of joy and purpose to my life that was missing, and when we finally…” Venna hesitated and glanced at Tási before she continued, “became physical, it made me feel different. Like something that had been missing was suddenly returned to me and I was finally whole again.”
I nodded as Venna spoke and I heard the conviction in her voice. I hadn’t realized just how much our relationship had affected her, and when she told me, I was simply overwhelmed by it.
“This is what I mean, Dreya,” Tási smiled at me. “You will change people’s lives. Turn them around and fix what is broken inside them. For most, they will only need your friendship, or even just to get to know you. Your influence is that strong. But there will be others, those who are in more dire need, who will require more from you—a more profound connection. You will heal them, Dreya, as you have healed my friend, Venna.”
“I need some time to think about this,” I finally muttered after a while. “It’s all just too much. I’m going upstairs, can you please make my rounds for me today, so I can have some time alone?”
“I understand,” Tási said as she rose from her chair. “Venna and I will see to everything for you. We can use the time together, since there is still a great deal left for us to discuss.”
It didn’t seem that Venna knew there was anything left to discuss between them, because when Tási took her by the hand and led her outside, Venna’s face was a mask of confusion. But with the two of them gone, and the house to myself, I wandered upstairs to lay on my bed and consider all that Tási had said. Or, at least that was my intention. Unfortunately, when I entered my room, the bed was already occupied.
“Hello again,” Nentai greeted me with a smile as she stood up. “I was watching you. That was some conversation you just had.”
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