Welcome to Gaia! ::

She smiled. They were getting closer to their destination now. "That sounds sweet. But how did you become changlings? All in a pack like that? Usually a shape shifter is alone in their ablities." She thought about that question long and hard. Continue to become a priestess? To what? Fianlly, she shook her head. "No. I don't know what life that would have elad me down, but I don't care to re-visit it. I have enough problems to work out."

She pointed ahead. "See that glow? That's Lostagrace meilikki told me about. Somehwere to the west should be a set of tunnles in the cavern wall, just beyond the forest."

"Indeed, I know that."

He placed the amulate around her, and she found herself still with shock. Never had it occured to her to try and look at herself...and now she did...for the first time in her life. She could see herself, as she stood and watched Tarthiel..how strange oit was to watch herself...

She did not know what to say to his vent, and she wished dearly that she had some words to comfort. "Destruction has followed you in a most frightening way. And as you watch for it it happens again, and you beleive it proves them right. That perhaps you are this chosen on of Lloth, her Son of Chaos. I am not so different. They come and see me, expecting some miracle cure, and I hand them information that usually ruins their lives. Is it so different if they are dead, or simply dead inside? I spread hope to those who have not yet seen me, and then I destroy it when they fianlly make that journey."

"If you were being pushed by some higher deity, then I'd be able tos ee you perfectly clear. I'd know every step you were about to take, every decisions. And yet here I stand, not able to see past what has already past."

She reached out, placed a hand on either side of his cheek, turned his face to look at hers. "I noticed. It simply hurt my feelings that you did not finish your sentence the way you had started it." She had to tilt her head up too lok at him, or, to see herself looking at him. There was a tremor in her voice now. "Forgive me, Kimmuriel, if I seem shocked. No one has loved an Oracle in a very, very long time."

"Did you think I would not return your love?" Touching his face was like seeing him, and to her delicate fingers it might as well have painted a picture there for her.

"No, never that... I know people and how they will act... Its just... We can't... Love each other." The drow said with a rather intent and distasteful sounding voice. The gravity of his words weighed heavily on his breath, a twirled with an uncanny note within his voice which seemed to be lacking in every other moment he spoke. Warhammer would have called it 'truth'.

"My feelings for you, and yours for me, can not excede the way things are now, for now." The drow was hestitent for good reasons, six thousand pounds of fire was resting just above his head, and he did not wish to see the Oracle burned.

"Someone else has claimed me, and for the last several hundred years has activily killed everyone who has come even remotely close to me. She lets me have my pawns, and lets me keep my minions, but should one see to deeply into my heart, I often am left to gathering the dust with a box no bigger than my palm."

"Besides, a few locales would throw a hissy fit if they knew that we shared a bond."

"How obvious was I? Out of curiousity." The gravity of his voice shifted, any person close to Tarathiel would know that he was watching his tone at every moment, and could change it on a whim, even from one side of a spectrum to another without a loss in beat, his emotions appeared the same way to untrained eyes and ears. Deep within his mind and heart, emotions rested, but to conceil these from the ever present and watchful eyes of the many psions and wizards of his homeland, Tarathiel had trained his body to conceal everything within a lie, lies were lies, truth was lie, truth's truth were lies, and now, he had to turn his love into a lie. Not a pleasent circumstance nor duty, but sometimes if you really cherished something, you had to protect it, much as a foolish elfish general had tought him five hundred years before.

His eyes did bore into her orbs, invisible tears lining his soul and wreaking havoc on his 'true' self.

I just have to kill her. "Well... You see, being a demi-god has a few down sides, as well as perks. My hair is a valuable material component for various things, as well as makes a wonderful offering to the various temples... On top of that, since I was twelver or so, how ever long ago that was, I was a prized male possession. My sister won the rights to me somehow. So, technically, legally speaking, I am already 'married' to use the common human phrase. Since my people don't practice that type of union... Its complex..."

She's probably enjoying the pain in Meilikki's... "So..."

"I think you are pretty."

Aella rolled her eyes. "Obviously, you've not been in a lot of forests." She grabbed the stuttering girls arm. "Come on, I'm anxious to get this hunt underway."

She smiled. "When was Tarathiel one to ever follow the law?"

She blushed a deep shade of red, suddenly feeling anyything but pretty. Her hands fisted in her skirt, "Pretty is good." She hadnt been expecting that at all.

"I think you are handsome. The oppritive word being think, since I really don't know wht you look like. These amulates are vuge at best." Okay, lets take a differnt troute. "But I like the sound of your voice as it passes over your lips, the sound of your hair as it rustles when you walk." Here hearing was more accute than a normale human's. "I know it's you by the sound of your walk." She was blushing harder now, her somewhat nervous composure making her speak more than she might have.

She smiled. "Once in a while, they let some sound through."

"When I 'saw' the reaction I recieved after declining your 'services' in trade for a second question." She furrowed her eyebrows. She kept answering his questions.

"Oh, I don't doubt it. Seeing as I know it already. Expensive indeed." Her blush receded as she became more comfortable. "You have been...concerned for me?"

"We have a few hours? I would have thought it less time than that." She shrugged. "What is there for me to do? rest is out of the question, since sleep has abandoned me. Dinner is ruined, the chores are done. You're the only thing left to occupy my time. And what do you mean by 'jerk'?"

"I adore spiders." She smiled, thinking of her giants. She actually missed them, they were good comapny.

"Dance? No..I've ah...never had annyone to show me how." She smiled though. "are you offering?"

She laughed a bit. "A dwarf? The hieght difference must have been awkward. But then agian, if you were drunk, maybe you didn't notice." The small smile seemed a perminate thing after that.

She lat her head against his shoulder, it felt good to be this close. "Isn't there supposed to be steps involved? Or twirling? Tanundra mentioned something called 'dipping' once. Eca and Ton were...well dancers I suppose. Maybe I should ask him for lessons."

The fire was warm, and despite the rather emotional talk they had just shared, she felt calmed now. "Either way. I like it."

"I did see Talon. I rather enjoyed it."

And would you look at that, she got her wish. A twirl. Well that was rather nice. A little odd to place her blindness so fully int he hands of anoyther, and yet so refreshing. The petticoats in her dress fanned out, and continued to twirl around her legs even she had stoped.

She chuckled, "I will be happy to help you practice. I think you'll always know where to find me." There was supposed to be music; but the crackling of the fire, Tarathiel's heartbeat, and the innumerable sounds of swishing clothes and feet were quite pleasing. "How much time do we have left?"