Seemings and Shades
Sixth Day of the First Month 293 AC
As he looked about the busy street in the realm farther from the lands of men than the moon and stars above, Malarys Vanor had to admit, to himself if no other, a shred of resentment at his own skills. Trained for long years in the art of detecting and unveiling magical falsehood, he could not gaze upon the seemings that changed the path from cobbles to winding bare earth beneath the canopy of some nameless jungle, stepping stones above a cloud-strewn emptiness or a thousand other shapes as pleased the conjurers who had set up shop nearby.
His companions of course held no such reticence for they were willing to live and even trust in dreams. Young they were if not precisely in the manner that most mortal children would understand it. First the girl, Daenerys, who had reforged her soul after the manner of a dragon. She sought out secrets and trinkets of arcane worth with uncanny tenacity. Even the way she attacked the odd shape-changing confection she had bought from an alchemist's shop a few streets back had an almost feline quality about it.
Beside her stepped the boy who held shadows as his kin, carefully hiding his own secret heritage with just as much care as he glanced around for those of others. Still Malarys had caught what the boy had not, suspicious looks warded by fanciful illusions. After all, those whose skill lay in deception must needs have some skill in the matter. Better than he would have seen in Valyria and its lands where demon-kin were not merely distrusted but hunted, lest they serve as catspaws for their progenitors.
And then of course there was...
"Over here, come see!" The girl who was no girl hollered as she ran back down the busy street, thankfully without tripping either by accident or with a purpose. "They've got a path to the Feywild. We can..."
"No," Daenerys cut her off. "We are not going into another world, not even just for a look and I don't care what is offered if we do."
"One wonders if this passage is regulated," Malarys mused aloud.
As he had expected the little gremlin threw him a dark look and instantly started arguing against contacting the authorities, something he had no actual intention of doing, reasoning that the lords of this place would hardly be ones to need
his help keeping order. Thankfully the rule about tricksters being difficult to trick did not always hold true.
On they walked past conical buildings made to look like colorful tents and shops that seemed to be giant frogs ready swallow the customer. At the last of these Daenerys relented and bought her servitor a whistle that could charm small beasts into performing simple tasks, a tool that would bring about a great deal of gleeful havoc in the name of some inhuman notion of 'fairness' no doubt.
"Wait!" Maelor shouted from where he had fallen slightly behind. There was an odd note of urgency in his voice. "Can we go somewhere private to talk?"
No sign of possession or compulsion, the thought was instant and practically unbidden, the fruit of the priest's training long ago in lost Essaria. For now he kept his peace, though he marshaled his arguments against rash action as best he could.
The four unlikely companions ducked into an alley where the glittering illusions frayed with the works of lesser sorcerers, revealing the worn stone bellow. There the girl Daenerys worked her strange dream-begotten powers to weave protections against far-sight and foresight about them. Any who would peer into the space now would see naught but impenetrable grey mist.
"Alright, what's this about?" the young sorceress asked.
"Yeah, what happened?" the fey echoed the question excitedly.
Rather than answering, the boy shifted uneasily as from his cloak emerged a creature of a kind Malarys was quite sure had not come with him. Some manner of dragon-kin, lustrous black save for its ivory horns, trailing shadows from its half-open mouth. The only things that marked it as something other than a dragon... or at least the ones Malarys knew were the presence of only two feet and the sharp cunning in its gaze.
"A drake," Daenerys said, obviously recognizing the thing. She sounded wary but not alarmed, though Malarys kept a spell of slumber in mind just the same. Even pests could be troublesome under the wrong circumstances.
What followed was a conversation in the tantalizing Old Tongue of power that was oft spoken in these strange lands. Malarys caught only two words from the dragon-kin's hissing words: 'Master' and 'Escape.' An escaped slave of some sort, then... The mage priest cursed his luck, knowing how irrational his company could be in such matters.
"A mage summoned it to bind as a familiar, but it fled and sought a kindred spirit," Daenerys explained. "It's intrigued by Maelor and wished to accompany him."
Already Malarys could see the flaw in the notion. "Ask it how long ago it fled... and what it has been doing in the meantime."
"It's been living off its would-be master's supplies," came the reply, causing Glyra to burst in to giggles which only redoubled at the reminder of the explanation. It seems the man had been too embarrassed to go to the authorities about the thefts.
"It seems to me like it was never bound proper-like, so it can't belong..." the fey began.
"It was, however, a proper
thief," Malarys cut off the spurious reasoning before it could catch root. Then seeing that the others would not simply drive the thing away out of some sense of kinship or fairness he added quickly. "Let us seek out this mage, settle accounts with him, if it is not too much to bear, then be on our way. It would be a decent measure of its trustworthiness too. Let us see if it values our company over its petty acts of vengeance."
After a moment Daenerys took his counsel with a nod of thanks even. The girl was not quite as headlong as she would perhaps wish to be.
The 'drake' hissed at him, guessing where the words of caution had first come from. Truth be told it looked about as impressive as a creature only sightly larger than a house-cat could manage. Dark mist dripped from its jaws as it half opened its wings, in a show of intimidation. Then with mercurial swiftness it furled itself back around the boy's shoulders and hissed something softly, an agreement.
"I think she likes you," Maelor said.
"Wonderful," Malarys sighed as he accompanied the others out of the warding mists.
OOC: Just to be clear this is not a familiar for Maelor. Not only does he not have the class feature, the drake really does not like to be bound. Think of it more as a cohort.
