Child of the Iron City
Seventh Day of the Fifth Month 293 AC
You answer evenly and without haste, with care to every syllable spoken. "It is a nice port city called Sorcerer's Deep, sitting on a lagoon with crystal-clear water, the land slowly rising towards the mountains. The sky is rarely clouded, the fresh breeze of the sea ever present, and the flames of the sun shine warmly upon it. A wonderful place to call my home."
The air falls unnaturally still, that you almost hear the heartbeats of all present, two of which you imagine are thumping to a more urgent rhythm than before.
"Well... that's not the strangest thing I've heard or seen today," Yrten declares, the deadpan only wavering slightly on the first word.
Siduri by contrast is clearly deep in thought, far too much so to maintain her facade of cool collected interest. She did not seem precisely fearful, though, not even wholly out of balance, but more like she had been presented with the last line of a difficult riddle and was now attempting to put it all together.
When it becomes clear she will not be speaking up until her inner musings have run their course you turn fully to the captain and continue: "I would like you to recall what you said about keeping secrets to be kept getting told them. Also recall what I said about the Sultan's mood after his recent... misfortune. You would do well to keep this knowledge quiet."
"A fair bargain if ever I heard one, and an easy one to keep at that," Yrten replies. "It's common knowledge that dragons are creatures of the Wild, and the Realm of Balance is about the last place..."
"As in many cases 'common knowledge' is wrong," Siduri finally speaks up at last. "Dragons of crimson coat are born of Fire, just as those whose scales are green are kin to the Deep Earth." She quietly slides something across the table. As Ser Richard catches it, you see that it is a small talisman wrought of a single green dragonscale bound in gold, likely taken from one of the devils. "Dragons were born as instruments of domination over a realm where all the elements mingled freely, as they in turn could mingle their blood with each other and even with... 'lesser' races."
You meet her gaze with curiosity, but also a small measure of trepidation. You are not sure how much of your history you are comfortable sharing... and how much her guesswork is about to make it moot.
Siduri taps her horns with a knowing smile: "These come with all manner of misfortunes, some of which can be dealt with while others as inseparable as my own shadow, but do you know what the best part about them is?"
"That no one considers the
other side of your heritage too deeply?" Dany guesses, her thoughts obviously running alongside yours on the matter.
"You shared a rather personal history with me, so let me then reciprocate in a rather less succinct manner, but first a question just for... fun: how old do you think I am?"
"Thou art cruel to ask that, my lady," Waymar interjects surprisingly before you can speak. "It would be sheerest folly to guess, though none can deny your beauty." As he finishes the young Valeman blushes, denting the effect, though Tyene at least smiles in wholehearted approval at the answer he gave.
"That's very sweet, but I promise you I was not seeking compliments," Siduri laughs. "For nine-hundred-ninety-nine years I dwelt in black-spired Dis, not quite one of the damned but knowing that their fate was only one misstep away. For you see, my kindred had come from far away indeed in my great-grandfather's time, from a ruined land of dying magic. Only a desperate bargain with the Dispater 'saved' my great-grandfather and his two children, my grandmother and grandfather respectively. I imagine all here know enough about what manner of salvation devils offer to guess that their fate was a dark one, but perhaps because of my divided nature the bargain lay more lightly upon my shoulders. Through cunning sorcery and I will admit no small measure of luck I escaped not only the Iron City, but Hell itself."
"Though you left some allies behind," Tyene guessed.
"There are those who will still speak with me, imps and other lesser fiends, but also sages and exiles who dwell at the sufferance of the Lord of the Second and for his amusement, or at least so he
thinks. True immortals have this fascinating capacity of those of us who live under the empire of time, often to their ruin."
"Am I so assume whoever told you about Zathir's ship passing this way is in some beyond betraying that fact?" you ask, giving your words the slightest edge.
"Nothing we told you was untrue," the mage hastens to explain. "The prisoner did send out dreams begging for rescue, but there is a reason we were able to find the ship so swiftly, or indeed how I knew we would have to act quickly before the mad oracle called in more of his cabal to aid him. To answer the question you actually posed,
kaelos... yes, I trust the one who sold me that information to keep himself safe, even against the wrath of Dispater. Hag's blood may not do much for one's looks, but it does bequeath upon the mage a truly astonishing ability to slip nooses. My contact had already crossed into the Depths of the Endless Ocean by the time he made the bargain."
"What is Valyria to you?" you ask, tiring of this game even as you admire her skill at it.
"The home I might have had were it not dust and ashes," she replies. "I would like to think my parents would have lain together regardless of where my mother would have found herself. Considering their different natures their relationship was surprisingly honest, even happy by certain measures."
"Your father was a half-blood fiend, not a full baatezu?" Dany only half-asks. One does not find joy in the arms of a devil save when it is an illusion meant to twist the knife in deeper, but one less bound to Hell's dark fate might have been more fortunate, at least for a time.
"My father was...
a good man. He died, pressing the dagger in deeper himself when I could not do it that I might pay the ferryman my passage across the Styx in his blood," Siduri replies, her eyes looking briefly not to any present but through you to some distant nightmare. "He said that at least in this manner some part of him and of mother might be free. Tell me, oh dragonlord, did I share enough secrets to know thine name?"
What do you reply?
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OOC: Growing up in Dis does not give one a trusting disposition, but Siduri is clearly willing to at least take a chance on you.
