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Ya gotta die sometime.”
Arilda moans to herself as she lays on her death bed, her cough is raspy, truly a death gasp she thinks, it's the sign of the end, the last vestiges of her fragile life fading away.
She’s always been fragile, always been tainted, since she was a young hatchling at her crèche. Her mother would scold her for not being a proper “child of gith.” Her sister Astryx would abuse her and even burn her face. Years later and her mother is dead and her sister visits for brunch every Tuesday.
She cares not for any of this sentimentality though, she just cares for what will become of her precious Lae’zel and La’ria. Lae'zel, her beloved wife, her rock, who has seen her at her ugliest, at her lowest, and smiled, told her she was beautiful, scars and all.
La’ria, the child, Arilda’s baby she fought so hard to have. She has so many years ahead of her.. Arilda ponders, perhaps it's fitting for her daughter to grow up without her, she’s always been afraid that she would turn out much like Arilda herself. She feels her chest heave, the chills envelop her body, it's time to go, to shuffle off this mortal coil and onto the next.
“AH-CHOOEY!”
She sneezes as Lae’zel walks in with a bowl of soup.
“Chk, I told you not to play in a mud puddle, especially not in the rain, have you no sense, my bruise?” Lae’zel puts the dining tray next to the bed, Arilda’s short arms reaching desperately for the soup.
“It is too hot for you, wait a moment and you can consume it in its entirety.” Arilda moans in frustration. “Lae’zy, I’ll be dead by then! Gimme the soup!” She moans, her nose already running.
Lae’zel brings a handkerchief to her wife’s nose, wiping. “Now blow.” Arilda snatches the handkerchief, “I can blow myself! Now let me eat my soup, it's my last meal after all..”
Lae’zel frowns. “Chk, I don’t find your attempt at humor amusing, you are nowhere near expiring, and I’d prefer to not speak of a possibility of that.” Arilda looks up, seeing the hurt on Lae’zel’s face. “Lae’zy, I didn’t mean..”
They hear a knock on the front door and a small voice squealing. “Auntie Astryx!” It seems that Arilda’s sister has arrived.
Lae’zel looks away, still hurt from Arilda’s display, and goes to see the guest in their house. A tall githyanki woman, with dark skin like charcoal, hair that falls across her body like waves of black and red, and wearing her usual attire, a red top with a black skirt, and a pair of tall black boots, coming halfway up her long legs.
She looks dangerous, she looks unneeded, at least in Lae’zel’s view of the situation. “So.. you’re here.” Lae’zel states, having no interest in hiding her annoyance with Astryx’s presence.
“Why of course I am, my dear sister in law, do you think I would allow Arilda to suffer with only you to look after her?” Astryx speaks with a drawl, eager to irritate Lae’zel. “Now, show me the poor dear, let her big sister ensure she has all she needs.”
Lae’zel snaps back. “She always has all she needs, I make sure of it, and she has done just fine without you here.” The venom drips from Lae’zel’s voice as she tenses, ready for a fight.
“Auntie? Mommy? Are you two fighting?” La’ria asked, her eyes big and lip quivering.
The scene dissipates in a moment, Lae’zel’s eyes softening as she kneels down to comfort her daughter. “No my precious, mother was just about to smack an istik if they can’t mind their tongue in my house.”
Lae’zel smiles up at Astryx. “Now La’ria what do we do to Istiks?”
La’ria thinks for a moment. “We bop em!” She roars, before running out the front door. “I’m gonna go catch bugs with Liza, don't wait up!”
The pair watch her go, both with a smile on their face, as soon as they look back at each other, those smiles evaporate. “If you must remain then you can help me in the kitchen, Arilda needs constant nourishment, beverages, candies, entertainment, and she shall have all she needs.” Lae’zel commands, marching to the kitchen of the small house.
Astryx follows slowly, examining the decor; it was cozy, nothing like the cold mansion she and Minthara shared in Menzoberranzan. “Hmm” She pauses seeing a drawing on the floor, the thin parchment must belong to La’ria, for upon it was drawn her, her friend Liza, and four women, two clearly meant to be her mothers, and two meant to be Astryx and Minthara.
“She’s quite fond of you, I will concede, that is the only reason I tolerate the person who brought such harm to my love as a child. She may have allowed you back into her life, but I will never trust you, are we clear?” Lae’zel stands in the archway of the kitchen, her eyes full of a passion that Astryx most often saw in her own wife, Minthara.
“Crystal, now lead the way.” Astryx smiles, and follows behind Lae’zel. The tense quiet is broken by a small bell ringing from Arilda’s room. Lae’zel’s ears perk, her senses sharp as she bounds from the room in a dead sprint. “I’m coming love!”
Astryx follows, finding Lae’zel bent over the bed, petting Arilda on the head, comforting her. “Is the pillow adequately equipped for your skull now?” She asks, as Arilda coughs and moans. “Lae’zy a little to the left please!?”
She dramatically coughs again. “Oh hello sister, it’s.. it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen you.” She speaks, the faux persona drops, and the pillow slips into the background as the two sisters stare at each other, their relationship still mending as Astryx tries to make amends for her actions while a bhaalspawn.
Astryx sits on the side of the bed, Arilda only slightly flinching as she reaches out to touch her face. “I’m here for you little sis, anything you need, I’ll provide it.” She smiles, her hand lingering over the burn marks she had inflicted all those years ago on Arilda.
“Thanks, I’m a lucky girl, to have both of you here to help such a poor sick girl like me.” She slips back into the act, playing up her own illness for sympathy and for the joy of being waited on. “My throat tickles Asty, can I have a hot cocoa?” Astryx smiles, it used to be a horrific sight, the precursor to some new torment, but now it provides comfort, shows love.
The two sisters-in-law return to the kitchen, brewing the hot cocoa with some chocolate powder from the pantry, and some milk. Lae’zel speaks first, her voice soft and cautious. “I misjudged you I think, I saw how she looked at you, how you looked at her.. she loves you, needs you. I still won’t forgive you..but I can learn to move on, if Arilda can.”
Astryx feels a small tear drip down her dark skin. “That’s all I want.. truly, just a chance to make good.” She receives numerous chances over the next half hour, as the sound of Arilda’s small bell becomes something like clockwork, sounding every few minutes as she invents new needs, new wants, she enjoys the power of her little bell, and it shows.
The two women take a breath, finding solace in the respite, the calm before the storm as they await the impending tinkle of the bell, the tolling of another desire. It never comes, instead they see Arilda slowly make her way down the hallway, a pep in her step.
“I think I’m on the mend!” She smiles, the herbs that Astryx had slipped into her cocoa finally helping Arilda. Astryx smirks, relieved to be done with bell duty for a time. “It's a miracle!” She exclaims with faux surprise. Lae’zel was already bounding to Arilda, inspecting every inch of her wife.
“She seems to have improved.. perhaps your company isn’t so awful, it has healed my wife, your mere presence perking her up.” Lae’zel gave a rare smile as the three women come together.
Astryx stares at Arilda, thinking back to their days as children, before the urges, before the pain. She remembers a winter, it was bitterly cold in their Faerunian crèche, and Arilda had caught some manner of illness. The kiithraak, their mother, felt that she was a lost cause, that she would not survive. Astryx felt otherwise, spending her days at her sister’s side, nursing her back to health, watching her little chest rise and fall every evening. Praying to Vlaakith that it would keep beating.
She smiles at the woman her sister is now, a mother, a wife, she mourns for the life they may have had if the urges had never appeared. Still, Astryx cherishes the present, the long road to redemption, all leading to a moment like this, the three women smiling and laughing, enjoying life. Full of love and light, even as Arilda struggles with another illness.
“She’s always been prone to catching things like this, ever since we were little.” Astryx states, as Lae’zel speaks up. “She would stay healthier if she refrained from collecting items from the ground, and from insisting on tasting everything she thinks may be tasty.” Arilda’s cheeks turn red, before she lets out another loud.
“AH-CHOOEY!”
She sneezes again, this time covering Lae’zel and Astryx. “Oh.. umm.. oops?” She smiles, as the two women gave very differing reactions. Astryx looks mortified, running to find a towel. While Lae’zel stands tall and proud. “Weakling, a simple germ will never overcome my immune system. It’s as sharp as I am.” Arilda gives her a thumbs up, and a knock comes on the front door again.
Arilda opens it to see her daughter, returned from her excursion with Liza.
“Mommies! I caught so many bugs today.” She smiles proudly. Arilda looks mildly concerned. “Umm, where did you put them baby?”
La’ria realizes her blunder and goes quiet. Doing a zipping motion across her lips. “Lae’zel she has sealed them, can you get them back open?” She asks, with genuine concern.
“La’ria.. Gale’s wife Charyl, Liza’s mother.. is she soon to scream?”
La’ria nods proudly, having deposited her findings of the day into their neighbor’s jewelry drawer. “You crazy child.” The three laugh, as Lae’zel elicits a small cough, her eyes going big. “Tsk’va it cannot be!”
Astryx returns to the room bell in hand, giving it to Lae’zel. “Here we go again.” She drawls, a look of amusement in her pale eyes.
The four of them laugh once again, happy as a family, with all the flaws of any family, yet they were truly, joyously, happy.