Chapter Text
At the edge of the Astral Sea, where the luminous colors of the stars began to fade into the dark of Wildspace, a figure began to form made of the darkest points between the stars. It pulled together slowly and deliberately as it followed the sound of a prayer so desperate it could not be ignored. A being barely clinging to life repeating ad-nauseum a single call that thrummed like an echo through space. It was practically on the shadowy figure's doorstep, and a god, a goddess, could hardly refuse to even peek outside its domain to see what the fuss was about.
The points of darkness started to take shape as it neared the wreckage of two ships. The form of a woman as large as the whole of space emerged, she danced through the debris, and picked apart the gruesome scene in search of the one that called to her. The one that belonged to her.
A Nautiloid floated broken in half, dead Ithillids drifted, frozen in space. The figure, a goddess now fully present, turned her nose at them. They were all dead, and even if one had lived to pray to her she was unlikely to heed such a call. She applauded the might it took to shatter the vessel and destroy the crew as she moved forward.
Bits of the story became clearer as the floating wreckage took on the shape of a huge black galleon. Dead crew drifted past her, an odd but standard array of Wildspacers. The remains of a juvenile treant, large, but not as impressive as some could get on a vessel like this, charred black from battle. There was a bit of main deck where a half-orc woman lay protectively over the smaller body of a Thri-kreen child. The tattered blue and purple flag of a merchant's crest floated like a ghost just above them. The goddess moved it gently over the bodies, but it was not a kindness. The flag was merely in her way.
The rest of the story really did not matter to her. The crew of the galleon were set upon by Ithillid pirates, and it no longer mattered what cargo the galleon had been carrying or why. All that mattered was who had survived. The call from someone who was praying just to her and no other god, earnest and full of anguish. She could practically taste the devotion on her lips.
A small listless asteroid sat covered in debris. The goddess peeled away a few layers of wood, revealing a Spelljammer Helm and a woman, an Astral Elf, that was attached to the metal arms, and pinned helplessly beneath it. The black galleon's navigator barely clung to life and the prayer, the call, was practically deafening there. The goddess righted the helm, and then began to shrink, taking the form of The Night Dancer, lithe, seductive, and cunning.
"Please…please…please…I can't…I can't…take it…take it all…please…Shar…I can't," the words were a bare whisper escaping the woman's mouth, constant and repeating.
"Do you want to live," Shar asked, and moved a pale hand over the woman's bloodied brow. She felt it now more clearly. This woman had been touched by the Shadowfell, by her domain and power.
No. The answer came as a thought.
The Night Dancer smiled and straddled the woman's lap causing her to gasp sharply in pain, Shar pressed her forehead to the other woman's. She shut her dark eyes for a moment and then said, "Can you still feel it? You were trapped here in the helm." She wiped away the tears streaming down the woman's remaining eye. "Your power was out of control once they died. That's how you destroyed the other ship."
The woman's breath hitched and the prayer continued, barely audible.
"I like being right. The magic in a helm can be extremely dangerous if you lose control of it. You felt every hit along the whole of your body, and every death is seared into your heart and mind like a brand. And, now… Now, you're begging me to end it for you." Shar looked into the woman's dark eye and kissed her brow. "I can help you. I will help you… but- I think your price, Arelia Nova... I think the cost of this dark miracle is… your life. You must live for me, become completely mine."
"I can't…I can't keep it…I can't keep them," Arelia muttered, sobbing and beginning to lose consciousness.
Shar, goddess of the dark moon, of loss, of pain, and regret, whispered into the dying woman's ear, "No, and you shan't. Live for me, darling girl. Live for me and I'll take it all away. Love me alone, and I promise you, you'll never feel this again."
There was a slight nod, followed by a tearful, "Yes. Yes, for you Dark Lady. Take this heart from me and it will always be yours."
The goddess almost laughed, but instead kissed the woman full on the lips. She connected to the woman's memories. There was a lot to sort through, this woman, Arelia Nova, she had lived a long time. An Astral Elf with nearly a millennia of memories, joys, loves, family, and so, so much loss.
Shar couldn't take everything of course. She could change it if need be, but memory manipulation didn't always stick, and she wanted to ensure there was little chance any prying deity (like her sister) might try and "fix" her charge. There were things that were tied to this woman's skills, her personality. She sifted through it all and walked with her charge in the palace of her own memory. Beheld the woman away from the wreckage.
Arelia Nova was beautiful, with eyes dark as the night, and skin a pale purple that hinted at a lineage that had mixed with humans at some point. She had constellations of silver freckles dancing across her nose and cheeks. Long black hair with loose curls, not uncommon, but striking in the ways it fitted into Shar's general sense of aesthetics.
Oh, yes, this woman had always been hers.
Shar took Arelia's hand and began to step through the memories. She was met with slight resistance.
"You don't get a say, darling," the goddess chided, "in any of this. It's going to hurt, of course, but you are so pretty when you cry. And, soon, you won't feel a thing, as I take it all away."
The goddess watched Arelia's early years with boredom. There wasn't anything there worth keeping, except that she did get a glimpse of the woman's power as it had begun. It had come from Shar's own realm, the Shadowfell. It slipped through a crack and caught the girl as she played in the shadows.
Arguments with parents and kin led Arelia away from her ancestral home and into life as a sailor. Into a life exploring and racing through the vast and endless Astral Sea, and Wildspace. Wildspace where a younger Arelia discovered the best out of life.
Shar smiled and pulled Arelia close to her, "Shall we dance?"
They danced through centuries of sailing through space, of Arelia taking lovers, finding family, losing lovers, losing family. A long life balanced with gain and loss, and loss, and loss, and-
"Please," Arelia whispered, new tears streamed down her face. "Please take it away."
"Patience, pet," the Night Dancer cooed against the woman's neck after dipping her backwards. "One last place to dance through and we'll be done. Do you even remember where we started?"
Shar pulled Arelia up, and the elf looked towards the spot where they had begun. Endless darkness stretched back from where they had stood. Before them only the barest sliver of light remained.
They danced onward through the last thirty years of Arelia Nova's life.
Arelia took a commission as Quartermaster on a black galleon called The Darkstar. It was a merchant vessel, but well armed, and tightly run. The captain, a half-orc named Captain Lavinia Brokenspear, quickly caught Arelia's fancy. A courtship of sly glances, incidental caresses, mutual praise, until there was no way for either woman to suppress the passion they held for each other.
Shar huffed in irritation. "You do have a type, don't you." She looked over at Arelia who slid to the ground sobbing, and rolled her eyes. "Yes, you certainly have a type, darling. You like them strong, but kind and gentle. I certainly can't begrudge you, the muscles on that woman are quite titillating, but why is she different from any of your other lovers?"
"Is she different," Arelia asked half defiant, but mostly because she could not remember the others.
The Mistress of Loss knelt down beside the elf, put her hands on the woman's shoulders and made her watch the memories. "Of course she was different, love. She was the only one you actually married."
The beautiful scene of a wedding moved before them, the crew and brides dressed smartly in their uniforms. The happiness was never once marred or broken during the day. They lived twenty years in bliss, and then of course there was-
"No! Please! I don't- I can't-"
"You have to watch," Shar held the woman's head in a godly grip to keep her from looking away. "Let's see the little one."
Arelia and the crew of the Darkstar found a ship of Thri-kreen that was set adrift. They thought everyone was dead, but they found an egg with life inside. From there the memories of ten years played out as a young Thri-kreen grew and learned, and called Arelia mother.
"So…sweet," the goddess said with disdain. "You'd adopted children before of course. The little one-"
"Zero," Arelia cut in. "He wanted to be called Zero."
"Yes. He was the only one you watched grow from an infant. The love wasn't any different, it's the echoes of him from being stuck in the helm. Everything is amplified within you, especially the loss." Shar extended a hand to the woman and picked her up. "I have a daughter," Shar mentioned offhandedly, "She keeps coming back to life, and it's dreadfully annoying. "
The memories faded and the woman and the goddess were left in the dark. Shar looked into Arelia's lifeless eyes. The woman stood stock still, frozen, but not dead.
"Now, I get to rebuild you how I want you," the goddess said. "I think, for safety's sake I'll take full charge of your magic. You shall favor death and the dead." She walked around the woman. "And, you can keep your attraction to big strong women, but now I think you'll want them a little cold, and a little mean. Just because you can only love me, doesn't mean I can't let you have a little fun. Maybe if I'm bored I'll find you for a little turn around the bed chamber." There was a little pause where Shar made other little adjustments to the woman's mind before she kissed Arelia awake and asked, "What's your name, pet?"
The woman blinked, dead eyed and empty, "Eris…Eris Darkstar."
Shar smirked and held out her hand. "Like I said, I couldn't quite take all of it. And, now, you live."
Eris Darkstar took the Night Dancer's hand and followed her through the Astral Sea until the goddess left her in Wildspace, at a dock on a floating refuge called the Rock of Bral.