FemslashHistorian: Femslash Fic History & Recs

Aylin curses herself for ever granting them this moment, as she parries a long, wicked-looking spear and dodges a dagger aimed for her briefly exposed side. She knows agents of her aunt are always on her trail, and she knows they are craven assassins all, substituting eerily accurate knowledge of Aylin's movements for true skill and valour in battle. Never facing her head on in a fair fight, in a true contest of mettle. With them it is always some scheme, some ambush, some poison-dipped blade lurking in the shadows.

And now they, and their loathsome mistress, would try to take away even this.

For Aylin has grown into her limbs and her stature; has honed her abilities; has mastered both the sword and her wings; has become ready, she believes, to take up duty and title and the full weight of her grand legacy - and she let her mother know as much.

Selûne spoke back to her in words brimming with pride, promising her a knighting ceremony, a formal naming, and accoutrements befitting her station. But her aunt, as always, tries to deny them everything.

Hence this. A well-prepared trap sprung upon her when she is by nature at her lowest, in an attempt to prevent Aylin from reaching the House of the Moon for her own celebration.

It is just as well, perhaps. The indignant rage is potent fuel for sword-work, and two of the six would-be assassins lie dead at her feet already. Two more engage her in close-range combat, while two skulk around further away and pepper her with bolts both magical and mundane.

A dark spell-streak only just misses her, singeing a few feathers off her right wing instead of taking her head clean off. Aylin knows she cannot die; has been told as much many times. But she has yet to test the true extent of that gift - and she is not particularly eager for the occasion.

The spear-wielder is the next to fall, but, in her attempts to push their impaled bulk off her sword, Aylin leaves her flank exposed. From right behind her, the nimble Sharran armed with a dagger gleefully takes this opportunity. The simple tunic and travel cloak Aylin is wearing do little to protect her from the blow, and the shallow slice across her ribs burns more than it should.

One of the mages moves closer the moment she staggers, both hands aglow with an ill-boding miasma. The other she has completely lost sight of, which, when dealing with Sharrans, is cause for particular concern.

The dagger flashes before her in a feint, making once more for her flank and then slinking back. Tendrils of shadow emerge around her feet and try to entangle and trip her. A purple-fletched crossbow bolt sinks into the dirt right where she was standing a split second ago.

Suddenly, in the midst of the chaos of fierce combat, Aylin feels her mother's embrace around her, and the poison-coated dagger cutting towards her neck instead bounces off a gorget. The assassin stumbles, shielding their eyes as their weapon clatters to the ground. Moonlight burns away all lingering traces of shadow-magic.

The remaining Sharrans do not last particularly long after that.

Aylin sheathes her sword to press both her hands against her side - against cool, burnished, freshly-formed steel - and heal herself. The weakness of the spreading venom is gone at once, as is the sting of the cut. The pause she takes to marvel at the intricate filigree and run her newly gauntleted fingers over it in wonder is far longer than a simple regaining of breath.

Some few dazed minutes later, as she approaches a woodland pool to wash off her assailants' blood, Aylin catches sight of herself, and, for a long, long moment, simply stares. 

For all that her mother's teachings speak of free will and choice, with the insistence that, even in the face of divine guidance, a path still had to be walked by the one choosing it, Aylin feels like she has known her purpose all her life. Enveloped in the Moonmaiden's silver, accented with gold and cobalt blue, she looks the part beyond any doubt. The sheer strength of the feeling of rightness that floods her almost startles her, and makes her sit back on her haunches.

Even the joints of her wings are armoured - Aylin notices as she stretches them out then folds them behind herself. A marvellous detail, speaking volumes about the care taken in the devising and crafting of the suit, and all for her.

The lakeshore mud doesn't even attempt to stick to her greaves when she stands up, as if knowing nothing can possibly dull the shine. The dark storm-clouds gathering on the horizon do little to dim Aylin's mood or weaken her resolve, as she leaves her foes where they lie in the ruins of their failure and takes to the skies.

But the rain, when it comes, is fierce and icy, falling in great, cutting sheets. The winds grow so strong and buffet Aylin so ferociously that even she, in all her proud stubbornness, must at the last oblige them and land, setting up in the protective mouth of a shallow cave. A small pause in her journey, but still frustrating - she'd been making such good time, too!

The fight - and then the flight - must have taken more out of her than she'd been ready to admit, for when she is all but plucked out of her humble campsite it jars her out of a shallow and utterly unplanned doze.

Aylin blinks back into full awareness in a grand hall of pale marble, empty save for the imposing figure of a tall silver-haired and silver-clad woman - a figure she recognises immediately. She stumbles only a little as she drops to her knees, head bowed in utmost reverence, eyes cast down and focused on the way her armour and wings are dripping rain onto the nacreous floor tiles beneath her. Then she starts, realises her oversight, and pulls her helm off her head - surprised and fascinated, for a moment, to see it disappear into motes of moonlight as soon as she sets it aside.

"Aylin," a calm, deep, familiar voice sounds right next to her, though she heard no approach. Gentle but insistent hands pull her up to her feet. "None of that now."

Her mother looks at her, cups her face and tilts her chin this way and that, then waves a hand. The slow drip-drip-drip stops, and Aylin feels suddenly perfectly dry and warm and comfortable. Another quiet hum, with a press of fingers against Aylin's cheek, and a bruise she was not even aware of fades into nothing, as does the twinge of an ache she'd stubbornly ignored.

"There," Selûne says, finally satisfied, and lets her hand fall back to her side.

A silence stretches between them, weighty but not uncomfortable. They are occupied enough with simply looking at each other, content to take in the other's presence. Not in a dream, or a vision, or an echo, or a guiding whisper in Aylin's ear. Nor through the connection of prayer and ritual - as solid or as tenuous as the fullness of the moon's current phase.

Aylin is the first one to speak up. "Why—" but she lapses back into the silence she isn't sure why she broke as questions crowd her mind.

Why did you summon me to Waterdeep? Why did you bring me here? Why now? And a particularly small and guilty Why not before?

But Selûne seems to grasp at least some of these, or perhaps Aylin has inadvertently spoken them to her. A rueful smile stretches her dusky skin, highlighting the subtle luminescence of her visage.

"I wanted to celebrate you in a way I felt you deserved and hoped you would enjoy. I wanted to see you acknowledged as you should be, by those you are to live amongst, and who you tell me you wish to protect. But I suppose we shall settle for marking the occasion here, instead. And I shall have you for myself, even if for a little while, before I return you to the world. Nobody can deny us that." 

Aylin nods, opting for dutiful when all else seems in danger of turning overwhelming. "When?" Is her simple question.

"Whenever you wish, or feel ready. There are quarters prepared for you, to stay for as long as you need. I also I wanted you to rest - for you to allow yourself rest, and thought, and deliberation." There is a quiet intensity in her words Aylin finds she cannot even begin to argue with. "I have heard your words, and I agree with your assessment of yourself. I have watched you grow into a fine woman and shape yourself into a fine warrior. Still, this should be a decision made with a clear head and a calm heart. So I would ask you once more, is this what you want? Is this who you want to be?"

"More than anything," Aylin feels the words burst out as if of their own accord, then swallows, breathes in, pulling herself back. "I have never wanted anything else. It is— it is like—" she clenches a fist against her chest, "a fire, a drive. A need to act. I cannot stand idly by. I cannot allow injustice to go unrighted. I will not."

Selûne inclines her head and seems to acquiesce, with an expression Aylin cannot quite read. There is admiration in there, and deep affection, to be sure, but there is also an age-old, incomprehensible sorrow that has always seemed to haunt her mother, even in statues and frescoes.

"Shall I take an oath?" Aylin asks, but it is too insistent to be a question.

"In time. I would still prepare a proper ceremony for you."

All at once, Aylin is seized by something - not fear, no, but a grip is tightening around her heart. "No," she blurts out, cheeks and eyes burning silver under her mother's questioning look. "No, I…" There is no need, she wants to say, but that is not quite it, either. "I would make it now, and to you alone." Then, meeting her mother's ancient gaze, she, rarest of wonders, falters. "Of course, if you think a ceremony is required, I will—"

"Aylin," Selûne smiles at her, still tinged with sadness, but shining down upon her with an intense, bright love and unmistakable pride. "I wanted to celebrate you, as I said, for I feel it is well-deserved. That is all. But know that it will be however you wish."

Then, sterner, somehow taller, the goddess proclaims: "Speak then, daughter, and I will listen, and all the heavens shall be our witness."

The vaulted ceiling above them disappears into a dome of stars. Aylin feels like she could drift away into the endless ocean of them, with clusters dancing around the full moon that now crowns her mother. The fine scale mail she wears - so like Aylin's own, now - catches and reflects and multiplies the light. It is difficult to tell where the woman ends and the firmament begins.

But the potency of her resolve pulls Aylin back into herself. She kneels, bows her head again, takes out her sword, and lays it across her bent knee. When she speaks, her voice is clear and strong. "I would enter your service, Moonmaiden, Lady of Silver, She who brightens the deepest night."

"And I gladly accept," the Moon Herself replies, glowing and glorious. "Now, tell me, and speak true. What would you be?"

Aylin's grip on the hilt tightens with a creak of leather - she has thought of this so many times, spent so many nights wondering, pondering, making sense of her own purpose and place in this and all worlds.

"I would be your sword. To cut through darkness, and to destroy those who would spread it." She does not avert her gaze this time, but lifts her chin proudly and faces her mother's luminous countenance head on, allowing that familiar blaze never quite under her conscious control to slip into her eyes. "With your blessing, I swear it. No evil shall go unchallenged under my eye and within my reach, and no wrong unavenged. I shall be an extension of your arm and your wrath made manifest, and the instrument of your justice, as inevitable as the rising of the tide, in all the Realms and beyond."

The smile Selûne gives in response is steely. "Rise, then, Dame Aylin Silverblood, and take up your mantle."

The weight and warmth of a literal mantle come to rest on Aylin's shoulders as she stands up tall, summoned out of thin air on the goddess' word. A starry thing, midnight blue, with golden trim - it is a perfect match for her armour, draping precisely and elegantly over spaces for her wings. It is also heavy, glorious, and silky to the touch, woven of something pure and fine that Aylin does not recognise.

"Perfect," Selûne's hand comes to rest upon her shoulder, fingers lightly tracing a bit of intricate embroidery, eyes alight with familiarity. "You will forgive your mother this small indulgence as well, I trust. I was planning to present you with the armour I'd had made for you, for this special occasion. But keeping you from hurt is more important than symbolism and ceremony." She sounds almost rueful, with an edge of anger. Hated, hateful Shar must spoil even this goes unsaid but not unheard.

Then she once more shifts closer to being contained within the form of a simple woman, and takes one of Aylin's hands between her own. "Come, my dear, let us retire to somewhere more comfortable, and let us speak in peace, at length, as mother and daughter should."

When she pulls on her hand, Aylin follows. It is oddly disorienting to walk down the long corridors of a place she knows from dreams and visions but has never been to before. The emptiness feels conspicuous - a brief glimpse of a Shard's bright blue mane as they turn a corner the only sign of company - but then Aylin remembers she herself wished for privacy, and she supposes her mother's palace and realm are fulfilling her request.

She pauses at a particularly polished silver-mirror wall, when she catches sight of how very regal her marble countenance seems, accentuated by the rich shades of her grand outfit. Selûne comes to a stop beside her and regards the reflection of both of them appreciatively. Amidst the curves and dips of their brows and cheeks and the outlines of their jaws and chins, an unmistakable resemblance arises.

"Look at you," her mother says, as tall as her, far less broad, but far more imposing in her sheer presence. The silvered lines that crease her face as she smiles almost appear to be shining with joy, as her hands come to rest on Aylin's shoulders. "My dearest light. My greatest pride. How gloriously resplendent you are."

Selûne presses a kiss to Aylin's temple, her eyes awash with melancholy once more.

-

It is said that when grief and loss struck their most grievous blow, the very Moon stepped down from the heavens and held Her daughter as she wept. The tears She cried Herself were so abundant, Her pull on the tide so strong, the sea rose to climb upriver and reached deep inland along the path of the Chionthar.

-

Aylin, ever gallant, drapes the cloak across Isobel's shoulders the first time she sees her shivering with the cold of slowly creeping winter, and from then on insistently fails to remember to take it back, no matter Isobel's many attempts to remind her.

The last time she sees it is the darkest day of her life. The ragged slash splitting it down the middle and the bloodstains marring the embroidered stars dance before her eyes even when she forces them closed. Even when it is gone, pulled out of her arms and taken away, together with Isobel.

She is not welcome at the funeral - this has been made loudly and abundantly clear by a man seemingly determined to claim all the grief in the world as his and his alone. There was almost an altercation between them in the sorrow-soaked entry hall of Moonrise.

Aylin has half a mind to simply burst into the ceremony anyway, to demand her rightful place in the proceedings and fight for it as hard as necessary, but a small part of her whispers Isobel doesn't deserve this. Let her own funeral, at least, be about her.

Unless, of course - another part pipes up, bitter with resentment and almost wry - Ketheric continues to make it about himself. But when Aylin thinks of the blame so blatant in his pointed glares at her, it feels so very hard not to share it, and the weight of failure and defeat pulls her down into moroseness once more.

And so, as all of Reithwin seems to be pouring down to the grounds before the Thorm family mausoleum in a great meandering and miserable river, Aylin perches on the very edge of the open crown of Moonrise's tallest tower, and watches quietly from a distance. Hunched over, arms around her knees, wings folded tightly against her back as if to make herself smaller. She does not have it in her to pray, nor can she think of words beautiful enough to be worthy of being spoken in tribute to Isobel.

But she is not alone. The soft rain that starts to drizzle out of no clouds at all is just as silver as the tears on her face in the light of the moon.

Eventually, when the mourners have dispersed and long hours have trudged on by, Aylin, still unmoving, falls into an exhausted sleep, and dreams. The crescent moon cradles her and rocks her to soothe her, a pair of silvery arms wound tight around her, a pair of hands brushing through her ruffled feathers and braiding her messy hair. A hum sounds in the back of her mind, subtle but ever-present - a lullaby.

When Aylin wakes, the sun has long since risen. She takes brief stock of herself and the very real ties woven into her hair, and finally picks herself up to prepare to march on against the heavy weight of grief, to find the culprits behind this most hideous crime and end them without mercy. The silver thread that she knows she can always tug on stays wound tight around her heart, providing the comforting certainty of a response that always, always comes.

Until the jaws of darkness snap shut around her.

What follows is a century of pain and loneliness and a silence she never thought possible from a mother she should never have been able to lose, with the mockery of her most hated foes as her only company.

Moon-child, how does your mother love you?

Does she weave you laurels before you've earned them?

Does she cover your eyes and whisper sweet lies in your ear?

Will she shed a tear when we slay you?

Or will she, from her perch on high, not notice at all?

On and on and on, their words and their knives cut the same.

-

It is said that when Her daughter was at long last freed, the Moon Herself wept once more - but this time for joy. The night sky She painted with showers of light to announce her return to the world. Witnessed by every temple along the Coast and beyond, a portent of great victory and great jubilation.

As the light rained down, all it touched was sanctified in Her name. Swords and ploughshares and compasses and prayer books all. From devoted peasant to inquisitive acolyte to honoured silverstar, all of Her people flocked outside in droves, not yet knowing what they were celebrating, but sharing in the triumph.

-

The first time Aylin clearly hears her mother's voice after a century or more, she is not struck by relief or joy.

Instead, she startles and feels her heart stutter in her rib cage and her hair stand on end - because of how similar it sounds to the voice of her principal tormentor. The content of the words, the loving and gentle cadence - those are nothing at all like the horrors whispered into her ear throughout her captivity, the salt rubbed so very carefully into her wounds. But it still causes her to shiver involuntarily, and it makes her so very angry, that Shar would dare leave stains on even this.

Her mother, it seems, takes note and offers sombre understanding - but it has always been hers to see and know. For that evening, at least, she keeps her presence felt, but her words quiet.

"I missed you," Aylin says, softly, knowing with such beautiful certainty that this time she is not murmuring to herself. Sitting cross-legged at the edge of a brook in a forest, somewhere off the road to Baldur's Gate; it is no formal prayer, no knight knelt upon one knee, answering to her goddess. No official consultation between deity and emissary.

Aylin is stripped of her armour, and though this time it is voluntary, she feels its stark absence. Some small, discontent movement, some mostly-contained shudder does not go unnoticed, for a warmth drapes over her as if in response.

The moonlight lies thick on her like a blanket, comfortingly heavy and soft against her shoulders, brushing against her cheeks and jaw. There are no clouds to mar her longed-for view of the heavens. A tear from the sky kisses her forehead in a droplet of silver, and vanishes into mist just as quickly as it appeared.

An owl hoots somewhere in the thick forest behind her. A wolf's howl echoes in the distance. Isobel is safe asleep but a few paces back towards camp - safe and whole and gloriously, wondrously alive. Aylin breathes deeply, and, for a moment, alone-but-not, feels content.

-

It is said that the Moon is twice-blessed: with a dear daughter and with a worthy champion. A treasure so great She could not keep her to Herself, and bestowed the blessing of her, in turn, upon the world and all Her faithful.

-

In Waterdeep, near the docks, there is a tavern. An unassuming place, unusually quiet and pleasantly subdued in the midst of the vivid rowdiness of the district.

During the century and a half since its founding, before her own century of imprisonment, Aylin was called here many times, for a wide variety of reasons. She has saved it from Sharran plots and mundane threats both, and helped in rebuilding it when protection failed. She has celebrated here, taken respite and refuge here, and been welcomed every time.

It is, after all, her mother's.

But she has never before had a chance to bring Isobel with her.

So it makes sense to Aylin to suggest they visit, as part of their travels, now that all immediate crises have been averted and both their freedoms regained. They are in the immediate area, after all - and sneaking out of the House of the Moon and away from honour and ceremony, even if for an evening, seems an attractive prospect. She does not question the thought or its provenance at all.

What Aylin is certainly not expecting is for it to be empty of patrons on such a pleasant evening as this. She pauses and looks over behind her upon entering, just to make sure that the door was indeed unlocked and the sign indeed proclaimed the tavern open. 

Nor is she expecting the figure behind the bar, nothing at all like the last proprietor of Selûne's Smile Aylin had worked with. For the last quarter-hour winding their way through narrow harbourside streets, she'd half-prepared to meet someone new and explain, once again, who she truly was, and why the backroom was not, in fact, off limits to her.

Short, plump, grey-haired, with a kindly lined face, the woman looks up from her busywork just before Aylin enters and steps forward, as if knowing she was coming.

Aylin has never met this particular person in her life. Aylin knows exactly who she is.

Isobel, it seems, knows - or realises - as well. She gasps and all but throws herself to her knees.

"My Lady," she whispers, awed, not daring to look up. Aylin stands, blinking, unmoored, as the woman tuts kindly and steps hastily forward.

"None of that, now," she takes Isobel by the hand and pulls her up, and Aylin is struck once again by the familiarity-but-not of it all. "I most certainly did not come here for my very own daughter-in-law to bow and scrape to me, goodness."

Her eyes are like living silver coals set deep in her weathered face, sparkling with clear mirth and deep, deep, unfathomable feeling. She holds Isobel's astounded gaze, then pats her hand and lets it go. "Save it for the temples and the rituals, darling girl. And please, call me Luna. Now, you," she turns to Aylin, tilting her head up almost comically in order to face her, arms wide. "Come here."

Aylin manages the few steps forward, then crumples into her waiting arms. "Oh, how I've missed you," she hears, spoken into her hair.

"And I you," Aylin whispers into a shoulder of rough-spun wool, and notices it already stained with her tears. A small, work-roughened hand cradles the back of her head, and combs gently through her hair with perfect rhythm, like the rising and falling of the tides.

"You'll make me weep with joy, you will," Luna chuckles wetly, still holding her close. "I may be diminished like this, but the tears might still cause a miracle. There are easier ways, you know, for us to get dear Isobel a fine enchanted trinket."

Isobel still looks shocked, ramrod straight, gloved hands clasped nervously around each other in a death-grip. "I-I couldn't possibly—"

Luna takes pity on her, and lets Aylin go with only a bit of reluctance. Then she steps forward and opens her arms, and ushers Isobel into an embrace in turn - much more easily and comfortably, with someone who doesn't tower over her.

There is the briefest, most fleeting moment of someone else being in her place - not alongside Luna, but impossibly occupying the very same space. A woman Aylin has never met, but has seen loving depictions of gracing many walls in Moonrise.

Luna whispers something into Isobel's ear, then lets her go. Isobel, Aylin thinks, who has not felt a mother's embrace since childhood. 

Isobel, who seems intent on regaining something resembling composure, and who attempts to excuse herself, dabbing frustratedly at the tears that are ruining her finely lined eyes. In the presence of her goddess, no less, whose holy symbol she had marked in permanent ink upon her very face - Aylin wants to laugh at the wonder and absurdity of it all.

"Mother," she manages, shoulders shaking with mirth and tears and gods knew what besides, "I am delighted to introduce you to Isobel, my beloved, most treasured mate."

Luna smiles, bright and wide. "I would say we've met, but, well, it is an honour and a pleasure to have a proper introduction."

"The honour is all mine, I assure you, my lady— madam Luna," Isobel still seems shaken and awed and only mildly terrified, but slips so proficiently into elegant manners and a small, refined bow that Aylin beams with pride.

Mother or no, it is surreal to have a goddess bid you take off your heavy travelling cloak, to set out a table for the three of you, to have her putter around the kitchen and place before you a plate of small tea cakes, lovingly crescent-shaped.

But in the midst of all of this, a horrible thought occurs to Aylin, and a chill runs down her spine. It is entirely unsuited to the pleasant surroundings and warm, welcoming atmosphere suffusing the place, but she must speak it.

"Mother. What if Shar—"

"Let us not speak of her now, and spoil our joy on her account, when for once she isn't even trying herself," Luna cuts her off and waves an almost casual hand, but she knows - of course she does, goddess that she is - what Aylin meant. The unspoken truth behind it, the endless pursuit they endure at her cruel hands. "She is busy licking her wounds, brooding. We are safe, can indulge in a bit less worry, at least for a night. We all deserve as much, do we not?"

Aylin knows this well: Selûne does not frequently take shape like this, work with as direct an approach. Her avatars and embodiments, when she creates them, roam elsewhere, out of her scheming sister's ever-reaching grasp.

"Still— why? Why come here, like this?" Aylin dares ask, as if she, so used to being fearless, fears the possible answers.

"For you, Aylin," Luna replies simply. "You are not just divine, and you are not merely celestial. You are a woman of flesh and blood, as silvered as they might be. And so you deserve, I think, the comfort of flesh and blood, and a mother's love so expressed and unmistakable, even if for a little while."

She reaches up and traces a gold line that cuts through Aylin's cheek with a knobby thumb, anger rising - not aimed at her, no, never her. But the wrath as old as the universe itself is still a frightening sight to see, couched in that kindly, unassuming face. A moment later she wanes into sadness, dimming before their eyes.

"I will never forgive my sister for what she put you through. But I will never forgive myself for allowing it to happen, either. It is the greatest grief of any mother, that she cannot shield her children from all harm."

Aylin recalls the night-black points of a cruel, obsidian-headed spear, and swallows around a lump in her throat. Isobel's hand winds itself around hers, small but insistently present in wordless reassurance, and Aylin, for a moment, indulges in feeling so very thoroughly loved.

But there is still a gnawing, maddeningly insistent question in the back of her mind, and she allows herself to finally speak it, though it tastes bitter. "Why, then? Why did you allow it?"

"So much had transpired," Luna continues, acknowledging the interjection with a pained furrowing of her brows. Standing, she is about eye-level with Aylin, who is seated. "The very world split apart, and more besides. I was weak, and I could not interfere - I tell you this not as an excuse, but as the plain truth. The few agents I sent, tried to guide to you, were misled and fell, and you were lost in shadows so dark they hid you even from me. Both of you, stolen from me."

The anger, rising once more, turns the diminutive woman into something else, almost like the superposition of a reflection in a clear pond. Hair not grey, but bright silver; blue scale and drapery instead of a brown woollen dress and apron. A fierce scowl full of ancient rage and sorrow both on her face. But Aylin blinks, and it is all gone, and something within her unfurls as well.

"Still, it is as we all know: the light may be dimmed, but it cannot ever be extinguished. And it shall always wax in power once more," Luna states this certainty, this cornerstone of their faith, so simply that she makes it enchanting. "At least for the moment we have peace, and safety, and time enough to talk and reflect and understand. Sorely needed, I should think."

"We were planning to stay the evening, I believe, though not exactly the night. Of course, you are right, and it would be an unimaginable honour as well as a necessity, but…" Isobel begins rather pragmatically and diplomatically, brow furrowed in concern. Aylin is well aware what she means, that they promised their presence at several rituals and in some fairly distant enclaves, later. She is also utterly enamoured with how perfectly respectful but uncowed Isobel is acting.

Luna seems to notice this as well, judging by the merry twinkle in her eyes. "Oh, I know you, shining, dutiful flames that you both are - you would rush onward immediately, until all wrongs in the world were righted by your hands. My sword and my shield."

A loud flapping of wings sounds right outside one of the inn's windows, accompanied by a series of long hoots as a pair of snow-white owls disappear into the darkening night sky.

"Don't mind them," Luna says when she sees the both of them startle. "They are merely going off to let the Head Priestess know where you are."

"Better to avoid dealing with an overeager search party, I suppose," Isobel approves with that half-smile Aylin is prepared to name the most charming thing on Toril, and that she still cannot quite believe she is getting to witness again. So she pulls her chair closer to Isobel's and winds an arm around her shoulders.

Luna inclines her head in a little nod, then stands very still for a moment, simply facing the two of them and taking in the sight of them. "You have made me so proud," she says, more quietly, more solemnly. "The both of you. So strong, and so wise. I could not have wished for greater champions, for brighter stars in my sky, nor for a dearer daughter. Know that you have my blessing, always. But now I bid you rest, and spare some time for indulging an old woman, as well as yourselves."

Aylin shakes her head and smiles, preparing to stomp down on some of her restlessness and let herself be coddled, to luxuriate in the odd mundanity of it all - and looks sidelong at Isobel who shrugs with a bemused smile of her own.