Something that I think is so interesting about the balance folks after Lucretia erased their memories is that the people they met and loved on Faerun don’t know about a huge part of their lives.
Specifically, I am thinking about Julia, who marries a man who is kind, and brave, and ALWAYS sticks up for the little person. But she also marries a man who seems to have appeared out of the ether. He has no family to speak of, not living anyway, and so he takes to hers. He talks about his childhood as if it were a century ago, not a decade or two. When he arrives at the Hammer and Tongs he says he has no experience in woodwork, but he takes to it like a duck to water (one of his favorite animals, coincidentally. That along with bears. And dogs. He really loves a lot, her husband.)
And there are moments, brief though they are, where his eyes drift off and she swears she doesn’t recognize the man she’s looking at. They go to the beach and they see a washed-up jellyfish and he cries, but not loudly or with any feeling. Tears slip out unconsciously. When she asks him if he’s okay he nods, wipes his eyes, and makes a joke. He meets a handsome elf in town with a funny voice and he asks him where Loop ran off to. He gets flustered and apologizes, and looks shaken for the rest of the day. After the rebellion, he attempts to start coaching a local children’s sports team, but he breaks down when they win their first game.
The most obvious one though comes on the night before the rebellion. They are sitting around a table together in the dim candlelight. The others have fallen asleep in their chairs or meandered back to their own workshops. But Magnus is up, sharpening his favorite ax, and she is up looking at the mapped out battle strategy one more time.
He puts his hand gently over hers where it rests on the map. “Jules, it’s late. We have been over this plan, like, a million times. You need to rest.”
“Well what about you, Mr. Ax Man? When are you gonna rest?” she fires back at him. He looks confused like he didn’t even consider sleeping.
“Well, that’s different. I need to get my weapons in order, I need to stay on high alert, and after this, I have to practice so that when the time comes, I can protect you.”
“Then who protects you? We’re in this together, you know. It’s okay to ask for help.” When she says that, his hand shrinks back from hers and his eyes cloud. He looks nothing like her father’s jovial apprentice.
“No,” he says. “If I don’t take the hit then you will. Then you’ll be gone, too. Don’t make me lose you. I don’t think I can handle it if I lose you too-” his breath comes in labored gasps, his words drifting away from anything understandable into more of a rush of concern. She grasps at his hand and squeezes until he can breathe normally again.
She loves him. And she knows his heart. But sometimes she feels she doesn’t know her husband, not really. Sometimes she feels he doesn’t know himself.