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Wyll looked up into the darkness. Not night. Just darkness. It was all darkness here. Despite the glowing fungus and the torches and the campfire, it was a heavy, oppressive gloom that weighed down upon him. They were lucky to be travelling with a drow who knew the land, even though he seemed strangely on edge since descending into the depths, but it still left Wyll far from his comfort zone. He had spent a long time relying on himself. His own skills and his knowledge. It was difficult to follow where someone else led.
He was crouched at the edge of their camp, a goblet of dark red wine in one hand. The scent was thick in his nostrils and burning down this throat. His neck was sore, and his head felt heavy. It was heavy. The horns atop his head still felt alien and were exhausting to bear, curling up either side of him. The ridges in his flesh rubbed against his clothing and caught in uncomfortable ways. This was his body now though. He would simply need to get used to it. There was no going back.
Footsteps behind him caught his attention. He stood from his perch on the rocks where he had been crouched and turned. An eyebrow raised as his eyes fell upon their latest addition – not one he would have necessarily chosen, but no one had gotten much of a choice in the matter. The Loviatan from the goblin camp, still wearing his profane robes, fresh blood on his skin and clothing glistening in the soft blue light of the nearby mushrooms.
“Greetings, child,” the man said. His tone was amiable, as it always seemed to be. His veneer of warmth thick and impenetrable. Despite that, Wyll did not trust him. He knew the stories of Loviatar’s followers. They were difficult to forget with the man’s bruised and scarred flesh laid bare.
“Evening,” he said, keeping his own usual tone. “What brings you this way, priest?”
Abdirak remained quiet a moment, pacing closer, eyes drawn to the landscape of the underdark beyond. After the silence dragged on almost too long, he said: “It is quite beautiful, is it not?”
Wyll let his gaze drift out to the cavern, keeping the man in his peripheral vision. He liked to think the best of people, but he still could not bring himself to fully let his guard down around Abdirak.
“It is indeed,” Wyll agreed. “Truly a cave of wonders, as it were. A strange place for you to find yourself though.”
A small smile quirked at the corner of Abdirak’s mouth. “I go where my Lady bids me. Not entirely unlike you, I imagine.”
Wyll bristled slightly at the subtle jab, though perhaps he had deserved it. Instead, he should just be forthright, rather than probing with indirect questions. “Is that why you’re with us? Because your god told you to follow us? Or is there something else?”
“I travel with you because I was offered a place among your troupe, though Her will certainly affected my decision to say yes. It presented me with a unique opportunity.”
“I suppose it isn’t every day one gets to travel with a band of tadpole infected adventurers.” Wyll’s voice was bubbling with his gentle good humour.
The Loviatan chuckled softly. “It is not every day that one such as myself gets to travel with anyone at all. I must say, it has been rather pleasant to have company.”
Wyll’s glance flicked back to the man and felt a twinge of guilt. He may have followed an evil god, but he was still a man. “I suppose the path you walk is a lonely one.”
“You would know something about that, would you not?” He looked over to Wyll, and suddenly the warlock felt under scrutiny. “I have observed the way you interact with your companions. I have met many like you before.”
The words felt like a slight, and yet Wyll suspected there was something to them beneath the surface. “That doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “After all, I’m hardly an exceptional person. Just another blade in the constant work of protecting the innocents of the sword coast.”
Abdirak chuckled again, amused at something. “That was not what I meant, child. I meant that you choose a lonely path a little more...” He took a moment to ponder his words. “ Actively than I do. The loneliness of a Loviatan is an effect of our greater calling. Yours is a choice, one which you work hard to maintain.”
Wyll tilted his head, confused and only making himself irritated as the vast weight of his skull shifted with the motion. “I have surrounded myself with like-minded souls and companions.”
“You have, dear warlock, indeed you have. And what a companion you are, with your kind heart and warm way. These people are lucky to have you among them. You wear their burdens and share in their troubles. You offer your sword and your heart to them.”
“And yet you seem to think that I choose loneliness,” Wyll scoffed, tipping his goblet to Abdirak before taking another quaff. “An interesting claim.”
Abdirak smiled at him with teeth. “Loneliness need only be a one-way street. You walk your own heart into your companions, but you will not let them walk into yours.”
“I think perhaps you’re seeing what you want to see,” Wyll replied. “I’m an open book, with many tales to tell.”
“Tales, I am sure,” Abdirak said. “Tales are shallow. Sometimes there are more important things to reveal.”
Wyll looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “What do mean?”
“I mean that your father was taken,” Abdirak said, and Wyll’s back stiffened, standing a little taller. “Your body changed. Your mind violated. And yet I have barely heard a word of complaint.”
“There’s little use in complaining about what we can’t change,” Wyll said, confused as to why this was being asked of him.
“No, but it can be healing to bear the soul. Loviatans believe in releasing our agonies, singing them loudly to Her. We embrace the pain and so we are not overwhelmed by it.”
“So, I’ve heard. Quite literally,” he said with an amused lilt. The man’s evening penance , as he liked to call it, was a constant nuisance. “I’m still not sure what your point is.”
“Oh, nothing,” Abdirak said, eyes cast out over the scenery again. “Merely an observation. That release is not only helpful, but freeing. Through it, we become stronger.”
“You think I should what, exactly?” Wyll asked. He spread his arms grandly, feeling the slosh of the wine in his cup. “Open the bank vault of my feelings? Friend, I think you’re worrying over nothing.” Though Wyll wasn’t convinced that was exactly what was happening here. Loviatans had reputations for tricking their way into peoples’ trust just so they were in a better place to strike later.
“I do not think anything, nor do I make suggestions. Merely observations. In your predicament, you must make use of all the tools at your disposal.” Without any change in his tone or expression, the priest added: “You had a difficult relationship with your father, did you not?”
Wyll looked to him sharply. “What did you say?”
Abdirak turned his head just enough to meet Wyll’s gaze, silver eyes glinting in the light. “Your father. It was just you and him.”
Wyll frowned at him, mouth slightly ajar. “How did you-”
“If there is one thing I know well, it is an...” He took a moment, glancing off wistfully to ponder his words. “...untraditional family. My methods of unburdening may not be to your tastes, but that is not the only way to avail oneself of their ills. There is little in this life that can support one like a family.”
Wyll raised an eyebrow, his trademark smile well in place. Was this his ploy? To conjure up feelings of despair based upon his poor relationship with his father? “I’m afraid you’ll need to try a little harder if you wish to use words as a scourge against me.”
Abdirak chuckled lightly. “That was not my intent. Why do you think I mention the tools at your disposal?” The man spoke with his hands, one curling before him as he mentioned tools, an extra lilt in his voice as he spoke of them.
Wyll found his brow furrowing just slightly. With a faint smirk, Abdirak turned, facing the camp, and nodding to a small circle of their companions around the fire. Their voices were nothing but faint burbles at this distance.
“When I say family, dear warlock, I did not mean your father. Sometimes, a family is stumbled across in the most unlikely of places.”
Wyll’s eyes narrowed and his brow softened. If this was a trick, he could not see how. Trying to get himself into Wyll’s good graces would be one thing, but this? Surely it would do better for Abdirak to attempt to isolate him rather than build his connections.
“Sometimes it is the ones whom we meet through circumstance who are the ones we are bound to.” Wyll was listening now, really listening, as Abdirak carried on. “I know not who you worship, child, but I do know what a gift from a god looks like.” Abdirak’s eyes were suddenly hard, the lines of his face more pronounced in the seriousness of his expression. For all that he had been doing his amiable priest act, his scarred face was fearsome when he chose to make it so. “Do not squander it.”
And like that, the priest’s smile returned and the bright twinkle returned to his eyes. “It’s getting rather late. I think I shall attend to my evening prayers. Goodnight, dear warlock.” Abdirak bowed his head and left.
Wyll watched him go until he had disappeared inside his tent. The warlock looked back out to the underdark, mind whirring. As much as he would not like to admit it, he had many burdens upon his shoulders, a crushing weight he could feel grinding him down and down. His pact. The tadpole. His transformation. And now his father, as complicated as that was. As soon as he had been freed from the nautiloid, he became the Blade of Frontiers again. There were innocents—children—who needed him. They needed him to be strong. His companions needed him to be strong.
Since he was seventeen, being strong was all he knew how to be.
After a while lost in his thoughts, he made his way the short distance back to the campfire and sat. Everyone else had left, either sleeping or doing whatever it was elves did. At least he thought they had. There was a movement from the corner of his eye and he snapped his head round to see Elorin. Somehow the drow managed to look both more and less at home since they had been in the underdark. The thick smell of herbs hung around him.
“How goes your evening brewing?” Wyll asked.
“Well enough,” their resident alchemist said, nodding. He was quiet a moment, clearly considering asking the gently probing questions as he always did. Asking Wyll how he was. If he needed anything. If there was anything he could do. For all the tales Wyll had heard of drow, this one made him question them all. Perhaps the priest was right, and it was time to stop keeping people at arm’s length.
“I’ve been thinking a lot,” Wyll said without prompting. “About my father.”
Elorin blinked at him, the surprise on his face fleeting. He was quick to hide it. “Oh?” It was clear he wasn’t sure what to say. All of his previous attempts to let Wyll unburden himself had been gently but clearly steered away.
“Yes. It’s... it’s been difficult. His abduction. Gods only know what’s happened to him. We weren’t... on the best of terms.”
“It can be difficult to care so for those we have complicated relationships with.” Elorin watched him with blood red eyes. “If you’re ready to talk about it, I am here.”
Wyll smiled at him, before looking to the fire and spreading his arms up dramatically, a story teller ready to set the scene. “Imagine it, a seventeen-year-old Wyll...”
And he began, letting his heart pour out. Over the course of the next hour, he talked more about himself than he had in a lifetime. Oh, he talked often, sharing stories and actions, and yet this was different. He spoke on his heart. His love. His pain. His fear. And he was met with kindness and understanding in return. And when he looked at Elorin, and thought of Shadowheart and Gale and Karlach and, yes, even Lae’zel, he had a realisation. These people had become more than travelling companions. More than amiable acquaintances. And now, he realised, the potential to be more than friends.
The priest was correct. A family could be made, and the foundations had already been dug. It was time to start filling them in.