“Hey,” a young woman’s voice gently urged, “wake up, you.”
Aerie pressed her eyelids together, head still throbbing and not sure where she was. She remembered falling - that must have triggered her featherfall, and she’d splashed down in the river which carried her for a while. Then she must have somehow crawled out and lain down next to this log on a stony bank.
“You really look like you need a hug,” the voice said.
Aerie slid back to sit up straight, frantic tingling throughout her skull, pain shooting, well, everywhere. She tried to focus on something nearby; a solitary speckled flower growing among the rocks. “Waxflower,” she weakly mumbled, “there… there used to be a little girl who would bring them to me in my cage - I think she thought they cheered me up. Then one day she just stopped visiting... don’t know why. I suppose she just outgrew me.”
“Are you just going to keep ignoring me? Because I can be a lot louder, you know.”
“You,” Aerie sighed, “you’re not really here. I just hit my head and you’re a memory that fell out.”
“You can believe that if you want. It’s true we can’t touch, and I don’t really look like this anymore. But last night I was having a little wander around the astral plane when this crazy elf necromancer somehow found me. ‘Poor thing is in such a rut,’ she said, ‘and its ruining my artistic vision’.”
That did almost sound plausible. Aerie lifted her head to take in the figure kneeling in front of her; dark leather jerkin, neck length red hair, scar over her right eye, a face that wore a perpetual quirky grin. Aerie couldn’t decide if she was real, but it had been so long since she had seen her like this and not a shade in the dimly lit theater of her memory. She reached out, fingers hovering over the specter’s cheek, unable to touch and yet she did feel her. “Imoen…”
“It’s me.”
“H-how,” Aerie realized it didn’t really matter to her right now if she was real or a symptom of a concussion; she had wanted to talk like this for so long. Yet now that she could wasn’t sure what to say. “How are you?”
“Oh, you know,” Imoen sat next to her by the log, “slowly dying. Got to be honest with you, kid - it’s kind of a bummer.”
“There must be something we-”
“Just let me worry about that. What happened to you? Are you okay?”
“Not really,” Aerie exhaled, “I just had my butt kicked.”
“Awww… do you want me to kiss you better?”
That would have been nice, but, “it’s hardly the first time I’ve lost a fight. My body and my pride - such as it is - will heal.”
“You’ve always had a knack for throwing yourself in harm’s way. I remember Jaheira always telling you off for it.”
“Have you seen her? I-is she-”
“Jaheira has all the Harpers to look after her. But you,” Imoen sighed, “why are you still so alone?”
“T-that’s,” Aerie’s brow furrowed, unable to find a succinct answer. “Thats not straightforward.”
Imoen’s gaze drifted to Aerie’s wrist, to the pink owlbear tied around it. “You kept that thing, huh?”
Aerie lifted her arm, touching it as she quietly answered, “I couldn’t let it go.”
“Oh Aerie,” Imoen rolled her eyes, “you’re just too sentimental for your own good.” She squeezed one of her cheeks with her lips the way she always did when she was trying to puzzle something out. They sat a moment, just watching the specks of moonlight dance over the river.
“What’s it like,” Aerie asked, “growing old?” She didn’t know if it was a strange or perhaps even rude question to ask a human, but it something she could never experience and she knew that Imoen - real or not - would understand her, even if she decided to turn the answer into a joke.
“Frustrating, some times; not being able to do all the things I once could. Even getting out of bed these days is something I have to really work up to. But there’s upsides; like now when I pinch stuff instead of everyone calling me a criminal, I am now ‘a character’.”
“I always thought you were a character,” Aerie assured her.
“That’s so sweet. Thank you.”
“You know, if you needed help, I could-”
Imoen’s weary sigh was that of someone who had already talked to death this topic. “It’s kind of you, but we both know if I made you stay here to nurse me you’d soon grow restless - maybe even start resenting me - and I never want that. It’s just your nature, Aerie; you need to fly. Figuratively speaking, at least.”
But Aerie adamantly shook her head, insisting, “I need my friend.”
“There’s no easy solution to you, is there?” Imoen reached out as if trying to stroke her, “gotta keep moving, but can’t be alone. You’re such a-”
“Mess?” Aerie sagged back down knowing it to be true; she couldn’t untangle herself either. “Yeah.”
“So, you still haven’t told me; who the hell is Lucretious and why’s she interrupting my naps?”
“She wants to produce a puppet show about my life.”
“A puppet show? Will I be in it?”
“I would have thought so,” Aerie said, although not really knowing at all what Lucretious’ plans were. “You know the time I spent with Minsc, and you, and everyone - it wasn’t just an adventure to me. I-it,” she struggled, a solitary tear rolling down her cheek, “it was the time I was reborn. You all helped me so much,” she sniffed as if trying to suck the water back into her eyes. “I’m sorry… I-I thought I’d have become stronger than this.”
“It’s okay to not be okay. Feeling everything like you do; that’s also your nature. You just sit and tell Aunty Imoen all about it.”
Aerie’s head flopped to one side, close to Imoen’s shoulder who leaned hers over it. “I lost Minsc. I should have stayed with him, made sure he made it home.”
“It’s not like he was a child, and without you he’d have been lost long before. You gave him a purpose again, then a new one when you told him to find other young heroes that needed him. You should really listen to your own advice more.”
“I tried. For a long time I tried, b-but…”
“What happened?”
There was a door in Aerie’s mind that she kept locked and chained, but keeping it like that had become so exhausting. Maybe it was time. She shakily sighed, “I was just wandering when I came upon a village. Someone there must have known who I was as everyone came out to greet me, all with smiles and gifts; I’ve never been so welcomed anywhere. The children made me cards and gave me cookies and cakes. They were all so happy to see a hero. T-they all thought that, finally, someone had come to save them from their curse.”
“Curse?”
“People were slowly losing themselves, turning into monsters. So I did what I always do and tried my best to help. I found the source, but… it was too late. Everyone in the village had already been afflicted. All I could do was stop it spreading. So, I performed a ritual to seal that village away. Forever.”
“I know you. I know if there were any possible other way you’d have done everything you could to find it. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I know,” Aerie wept, fingers jabbing at her heart, “but, knowing doesn’t change anything here.”
“Well,” Imoen nodded understandingly, “I’d leave that bit out of the puppet show.”
Aerie snorted, smiling, “yeah.”
“Feel any better, now you’ve gotten it out in the open?”
Now she wasn’t expending energy on keeping that door shut, she did feel a tiny bit lighter. “A little.”
“Guess I’m good at this. Who knew? Certainly not old puffguts; he always said I just drove everyone crazy.”
“Oh, you drive me crazy most of the time too. But you have your moments.”
“Well while I’m on roll let me impart some more wisdom; a big heart can be wounded easily, so I know it can seem like the best thing to do is keep your distance from anything that might. But your big heart can also make you resilient, because even when it’s darkest, even when you’re at your lowest, if you look you’ll see all the good that there is.”
The little girl who brought her flowers, the Dwarf in Waterdeep who hadn’t take advantage of her when he easily could have, Thyn’s dumb jokes… maybe Aerie had been lucky, but she had found that even at her most despairing there were little moments like those to assure her that the world wasn’t lost. That there were things in it worth protecting. Worth fighting for. Thyn… Aerie lifted her head as if she heard something calling, although there was no sound nearby but the running water.
“Hey,” Imoen said, “while I’ve been busy doing nothing, I thought of a new joke; why do rogues wear leather?”
Aerie sighed, pretending not to know. “Why?”
“It’s made of hide.”
Softly smiling and with a slow shake of the head Aerie informed her, “that’s an old joke.”
“Is it? Hmm... My memory’s not what it was. Pretty sure I’m the one who invented it though.”
“Sure you did,” Aerie kept smiling and looked again at the river, the silvery moonlight dancing and flickering. The stars glittered, the air was cool, the night so tranquil. “I wish I could stay here forever, but…”
“You gotta fly?”
“Figuratively speaking,” Aerie pursed her lips as she glanced about, not seeing an obvious path out of the ravine. “Or actually, maybe not.”
“Just one more thing before you do,” Imoen asked, a quirk at the corner of her lips, “a little favor.”
“Of course,” Aerie shuffled on her knees to face her, “anything.”
“To all the future generations that you meet, just pass on this from me; be kind, have fun, and above all, don’t be buffleheads.”
“I’ll try. And I’ll tell them that you’re the second wisest person I ever met.”
Imoen winked, “kick some butt for me, will ya kid?”
“I will.”
“And, if you ever get a chance to visit, can you bring some cinnamon cookies?”
“Of course,” Aerie stood up with a grin, preparing to run and jump, but only getting a few steps before biting her lip, feeling she might never get another chance to say these words; “Imoen, I never told you I-”
Gone.
She was gone.
Aerie stood alone on the riverbank, wondering if she had ever really been there. One day, maybe, she’d find out. First there were people here and now that needed her, and she hadn’t been broken by Vortigan yet; she was getting a rematch.
