Two watchmen escorted Aerie from the courtroom back down several flights of stairs to a holding cell.
“Don’t try anything,” the one on her right - a stout, square jawed woman with arms like hammers - said as they marched through the corridors. “Maybe you’re something in all the other places you’ve been, but this is Waterdeep; you can’t swing a dead cat in this town without hitting some wizard or adventurer.”
“Why a dead cat?” Aerie wondered out loud. “Who’s swinging cats around at all?”
“Actually,” the spotty boy on her left interjected, “it refers to a type of whip used on ships, called a cat o’ nine tails.”
“Thank you, Derin. You keep up the reading. Even at my age you can always learn something new.”
“I will,” he enthused, “I’ve actually been reading about you, and the children of Bhaal.”
Aerie frowned, having no idea who wrote these books or what sources they used. Certainly none of the authors ever spoke to her, since if they had she’d have told them she’d spent enough of her life being gawked at and prodded by strangers. “I’m sorry,” was what she sighed, “bet that was really boring.”
“Not at all. The book I’m reading says that you were captured by slavers then sold and put in a cage in a circus.”
“That much is true,” there were some finer details missing. Like how the whole process of being captured then taken hundreds of miles to a strange land she didn’t know and any defiance swiftly and brutally punished all served to shock her into conformity and obedience. But there was no need or will on her part to get into all that. It was all a long time ago now. Right now the courtroom experience had left her feeling drained and she really just wanted to lie down for a while.
“And you once wrestled Viconia De’Vir in a swamp?”
Aerie halted, turning her neck to blink at him. “What books are you reading?”
“Is that not-?”
“That never happened, no,” men and their fantasies, she thought. Although she had to admit to being slightly curious about one thing. “Did I win?”
“You, um, won second place.”
“Figures,” she exhaled. Even though not true that was probably accurate. Unfortunately. “Tell me I at least get to keep my clothes in this clearly very well researched historical document?”
“Errr,” Derin droned like wind slowly being released from a bagpipe.
“I don’t actually want to know.”
Blessedly the door to her cell creaked open, the other escort stepping back from it to release the restraints around the prisoner. “Guess you just can’t enough of bars, eh?”
“Oh,” Aerie said truthfully as she felt the blood return to her fingertips, “compared to my old cage, this is like the royal room at the inn.”
“If it’s any consolation,” the female guard told her as she entered the bare room, “I wish you’d castrated that prick.”
“Thank you, Olga,” Aerie returned a small smile as she went to lie down.
“You know,” Derin astutely observed, “you’re really not much like you are in the books.”
“Well,” she said, curling up fetally on the shelf that served as a bed with her back to the door, “that was all a long time ago. When I might have still cared what other people thought of me.”
“Real life heroes are rarely what you expect, lad,” Olga said. “Did you know Drizzt Do’Urden actually has a terrible stammer? Can hardly even say his own name.”
“That much is not true,” Aerie shook her head, “at least not the stammering part.”
“Right,” the watchmen exchanged a pitying glance, “you know, if you hadn’t pushed it just that little bit too far in there, you’d have probably gotten away with just a slap on the wrist.”
“Yeah,” when she had been a very young adventurer, she’d been surrounded by people all bigger, stronger, faster, and all far more experienced than her. So when she fought she always gave it everything, even when she knew she would lose; she just had to prove she could be as tough as everyone else. “I suppose I never really learned to hold back. I’m sorry. I’m tired. I would just like to sleep now.”
“I thought elves didn’t sleep.”
“It’s a common misconception,” Aerie sighed, wondering if she was ever going to be left alone. But she couldn’t really be offended by innocent curiosity. “We sleep when we’re children. Most have learned to reverie by the time they’re adults, but I was… in a cage. That’s why I can’t stay in places like Suldanessellar; I’m not elf enough for them.” It was a good thing she didn’t care, or not having ever found a place she felt like she truly belonged might have made her feel a bit down. “Anyway,” she yawned, “I like sleep. It lets me dream about a world not full of pompous buffleheads.”
She tried to settle in, but then it started to bother her that she could still feel a draft coming from the door. What were they waiting for out there? Was she going to have to close it herself, just as she was getting comfortable? She sat up, seeing that the watchmen had been handed a letter by a tired looking messenger.
“Apparently,” Derin read, “someone has paid your bail.”
“Who?” Aerie squinted, racking her head. She didn’t know anyone in Waterdeep. She didn’t know a lot of people anywhere to be honest. She wasn’t exactly a socialite; preferred museums, libraries, and quiet nights under the stars. Maybe the Candlekeep monks really wanted their books back, otherwise she couldn’t think of anyone.
“Don’t know,” Derin shrugged, “but they want you to meet them upstairs. Come on.”
