| Merian |Merian poses this to Nildaru as they are cleaning up from their most recent battle: “Why did you kill her? She was defenseless. There was nothing she could do against us. Is this what the prince’s ways have taught you?”
Merian now looks to the rest of the group: “why didn’t any of you do something or speak up? I remember not long ago when we were in a similar situation and Legion had defeated an enemy and wished to retrieve information, but after doing so wished to kill them. Idris and Puki had no problem chastising him for his bloodthirsty ways and I wonder why this time was any different. Idris said that it wasn’t our way. Is it the fact that it was a drow? That drow deserve to be killed? Except for the ‘good ones’?” gaze now turning back to Nildaru
“There are ways we could have dealt with her without bloodshed.” Merian continued. “There is a difference between killing in battle to defend yourself from harm and premeditated murder. I wish to know where and when these exceptions to the ‘way we do things’ will come up.”
| Legion |Legion had found a suitable chair among the wreckage and sat now, leaning against the wall, pondering what they had found so far in this “stash house”.
Hearing Merian poses these questions to the group, Legion watched everyone’s reactions closely and met Merian‘s gaze when she looked his way as the holy warrior turned to each of them, waiting for an answer.
Such an honest, lovely creature… Legion thought to himself. Such purity and conviction…. He sighed quietly, growing accustomed to the dank, moist air of this place. … but… such naivete… still so young…
“You are right, Merian… I said nothing. Did it surprise you that I was silent?” Looking down at his hands, a spark of light grew in Legion‘s palm and hovered there, sparkling and dancing while Legion continued: “I know now my arrival in this… reality… (Legion paused as the word left his lips) was not just chance. I am here to correct a mistake I made… long ago… but the lives of only a few in my travels have meant anything to me… really.”
Legion snapped his hand shut and the spark disappeared. Standing now, leaning heavily on his staff after the battle with the drow, he addressed everyone. “YOU are the few I would protect. YOU are the few that I know will shape this reality for the better.” Looking behind him, into the room where the corpses lay, “It is not those I would mourn, nor will I give much thought to them again. They are pebbles on the road WE travel on the way to our goals. What preconceived notions I had of their motivations matter not at all, but I have known men and women, beings of all backgrounds and stigmas, and few of them… very few have ever surprised me. Would this one have been different? No, I think not.”
Legion turned to Merian then, and his echoing voice lower now, “I carry with me a silent curse, my dear. You see, to my eyes, you are all very young. Few may match your prowess in battle, but I fear there are fewer still who will be able to answer the questions you’ve asked of them now. In a way, I envy you.”
His glance turned again, back over his shoulder, to the rest of the companions: “We are all products of our past, whether we are willing to admit it or not. I do not ask that you forgive mine, but perhaps in time, you may come to understand it.”
| Kindra |Kindra laments to herself, “was this a mistake joining the Hildes? The words of Puki were not of a wiseman, but of the wicked. Perhaps this is the reason for not being king dwarf. Is it the wrong for me to think it the ok that Nildaru kills the prisoners of war because she is the drow? Idris does not appear brave unless he is killing the something. Legion, such a poor fellow. Despite his the long age, does not the appear any wiser than the young Merrian… it the seems his pain blinds him, or he truly is the unredeemable.” Kindra turns to Merrian and says, “There is the saying, i’ve heard. Never meet your heroes. For you will be the disappointed.”
| Nidalru |As Nidalru calmly wipes the Drow blood from her dagger she turns and focuses her gaze at Merian, “Do you really believe this has anything to do with the Prince or the Drow… hmm… you must be more naive than you look”. She quickly shifts her focus towards Kindra “And no it is not wrong of you to think that what I did to our enemy was OK” Nidalru quipped while cracking a slight smirk. “But it is not because she was a Drow that I granted her her fate, it is because she was our enemy” Nidalru once again gazes towards Merian “and if you have made an enemy of a Drow, well… heh… there is only one way to convince them otherwise!” As Nidalru speaks those final words her gaze turns to a smile and with a playful wink of the eye she turns her focus away from Merian back to the mundane task of cleaning the Drow blood from her dagger.
