Work Text:
Arilda held the small scrapbook in her hands, carefully placing another small photo onto it's well worn pages. "Almost done, I can't wait to show Lae'zy."
Arilda stopped as she looked at the next photo, before she placed it in her book, her chronicle of love, despair, adventure, and triumphs. "I'll never forget you.. my friends, I'll see you again someday." Arilda looked out her window, staring at the stars in the night sky, the window reflecting the somber, but matured face. She barely remembers the girl in some of these photos, her anxious and frightened expression had been replaced. Replaced with a pair of hopeful eyes and a comforting smile.
She looked amongst the stars, standing at the window of her astral home. "I hope they are okay.." She whispers to her self, remembering the merry and disparate band that used to travel across the sword coast with her and her wife. The fiery and vivacious githyanki Lae'zel. "How is your scrapbooking tonight Arilda?" Lae'zel entered the room, her casual attire was the new normal for the former warrior. She had hung up her silver sword, choosing instead the life of a loving wife and mother.
"It's going pretty good Lae'zy, I was just.. thinking of them." Arilda looked down at the photo in her hand, as Lae'zel looked over Arilda's shoulder, placing her hands on the small bump in Arilda'a stomach. Lae'zel's eyes saw the 4 of them, her and Arilda, alongside their former travelling companions Morgan and Karlach. "Them.. missing them tonight are you?" Lae'zel says, her lips grazing against Arilda's face, a small kiss being placed on her partner's pale blue cheek.
"I guess so.. I just wish it could have went differently, and that they could have had the time, like us. They always wanted to be parents too." Lae'zel looks down again at the photo, even in still image, the vibrant smiles of Morgan and Karlach showed so much about who they were as people. Karlach's easy, carefree smile, a smile that a woman with her condition shouldn't have had. Something about Karlach always calmed them all down, Lae'zel used to call it ignorance, but she had come to miss that carefree innocence. Arilda shed a tear, as she looked again into the eyes of Morgan Sweeney, one a normal shade of pale yellow, the other a sickly sight, a dark yellow iris surrounded in a sea of black.
Arilda was taken aback by her friend's appearance at one point, but she realized that much like herself, you can't define someone by their heritage. Morgan took to being the leader of the group, a quick wit and a caring. cautious demeanor always did much to calm the anxiety ridden Githyanki. "Goodbye my friends." Arilda kissed the picture, her tears flowing more freely now that she goes to place the photo in her precious scrapbook.
"Love, their bodies may have left us, but we can always remember them, in a way." Lae'zel holds her wife's face close to her own, as the two gith look out into the sea of stars around their astral home, lost in time and space. "While we are here, we can see them." Lae'zel points to the stars around. "I used to think that they were tiny creches, ruled under Vlaakith's dominion. I think better now, When two people burn so bright as those two, surely the gods themselves deem them worthy of immortality." Lae'zel points to two stars, both burning brightly and closely together.
"There they are, it could very well be, I refuse to believe that a life ends at the passing of the body. You taught me that, my bruise. My little moon, you take the brightness, the rage that was in my heart. I once burned as the sun, my light sure to burn out fast under Vlaakith's oppressive black hole of a gaze. You, my little moon, you eclipsed that fire and gave me new life, life worth living, not in service to a false god. A life in service to us, to a bond unbreakable, and a love that will grow." Lae'zel gently takes Arilda's hands, looking now at her wife. Arilda wearing a flowing blue gown, as the bump in her stomach is clear now.
"My Moon, a star shall be born under us, We will raise them up, and give them the love that was always deserved to us. Give them all the happiness that our two neighboring stars, Morgan and Karlach should have spent an eternity enjoying. Finish your book my love, and prepare yourself, it's time to go back. Some of our friends may be gone, but the ones who remain will be thrilled to see you like this, how you always wanted."
Arilda has a steady stream of tears pouring down her face, as she moves her hands to her stomach, "Gale said he would make it so, I still can't believe it. A life growing inside me.. it's all I ever wanted." Arilda takes Lae'zel in her arms. The couple share a kiss, as the two bright burning stars amongst a sea of stars in the astral plane. Look down upon them.