Conversation Space III.

[powersthatbe]

A poured concrete floor and cinder block walls are lit by a single bare light bulb hanging overhead. Shackles dangle from brackets on every side, and the chair in the center of the room is clearly an electric chair. A tall glass sits on top of a stool made of what looks like pure gold - but the liquid inside it is almost definitely blood.

Comments

[adastraea]

"I will try," she says quietly. "Should I not be dead..."

She trails off, shaking her head. "Synodiporia," she says. "The Mystic Journey. That is what we are playing. We play for many different reasons and one alone: the World. As for myself, I wish to restore balance, which we have sorely missed since the loss of Temperance."

[naturaltwohands]

Should I not be dead.

Drizzt's head jerks back up and he stares at her, listening quietly with widened eyes as he continues to speak. Her reason fits with his own world view, his own need to help the world be more balanced, if only in some small way with his blades. At least he knows her reasons, now

"I, too, wish to restore balance," Drizzt agrees; his throat is still tight, and he has to blink back tears, trying to fight back the emotions of just thinking about his father's death. "... What will happen to me if I--we--fail before the final match?"

[adastraea]

"You ought to be safe," she says. "Even should you fall out of ambit. A Traveler still, but we do what we may to keep you and these fleshly bodies of yours safe while on Jaunt."

[naturaltwohands]

"Thank you."

That's certainly a relief, because it would destroy his father if he were to perish partway through the matches. Wait--

"Then our bodies on Jaunts are not our true ones physically altered?" Drizzt's eyes are wide again, and he's truly distracted from the grief of possibilities that could have overwhelmed him; but a moment later, he can't help but laugh. "That explains my hair!"

Which is unfortunately in a sad, sad shape now, being orange on the upper layers and orange-splotched underneath. But it was so much nicer in the last Jaunt. Drizzt remembered how happy it had made his father, and how hilariously disappointed he was when it was back to normal afterwards. Which reminds him of something else that he now needs to know. One thing that bothered him deeply and altered his worldview of himself.

"Is there a reason, though, you made me look younger?" Drizzt asks, suddenly curious, realizing he might get an answer to that one. "It was embarrassing at times."

[adastraea]

She cannot look at him, not exactly, for her eyes are bandaged, but there's certainly the sensation of looking.

"You are an adolescent, Drizzt Do'Urden."

[naturaltwohands]

"I am." Drizzt can't help but frown at her look and cross his arms, and he makes an incredibly valiant (and successful) effort to not pout, making a grumpy noise at the back of his throat. "But not so young. Not that young."

Except that he is, and the fact that he complains that he isn't only adds to the truth. Drizzt is a drow, and drow are like all elves in that the growth of their bodies comes well before their minds' truly mature. He's been ignoring that now for decades, refusing to understand it, because that would mean that so many in the world back home had wished to hate and murder a child. And that he was an orphan like Catti-brie, but without a Bruenor to take him in. Except the fact he was RIGHT THERE, DRIZZT, YOU DUMB BUTT. Drizzt cannot bear those truths, even now.

The only reasons he admits he's not fully grown at all now are because his father finds such great happiness in the fact he may have a childhood and that it is truly wonderful, as much as it's embarrassing to admit, to have a parent that's so protective and loving of him.

[adastraea]

"Nearly so."

He's doubling down on this, and I'm laughing DRIZZT

[naturaltwohands]

Drizzt stares at her for a very long moment, a mixture of shock and annoyance on his face. "Nearly?" He uncrosses his arms and looks down at his body. "But my true body is clearly far older. An adult's! I clearly cannot be that young of an adolescent. Can I even be considered a child at all?"

Except an adult wouldn't suddenly drop all other threads of an incredibly important conversation to claim they aren't a child.

Re: He's doubling down on this, and I'm laughing DRIZZT

[adastraea]

"There are species who reach physical maturity earlier than mental."

[naturaltwohands]

He goes quiet again, the bluster taken out of his argument. What can one say against the truth? Drizzt knows he was physically mature before mentally, but he assumed that he was far further along by now. But to be that young? Truly?

"It seems impossible for me to be that young," Drizzt insists, shaking his head. "Can I truly be that young?"

[adastraea]

"Yes," she says, simply.

[naturaltwohands]

Drizzt is quiet again before he grumbles a quiet, "Damn."

At least he's not outright refusing to believe it, and a thought makes him shake his head with a helpless laugh.

"My dear friend Bruenor would be so disappointed to know he missed the opportunity to adopt me as well. He has a habit of adopting children that aren't dwarves."

[adastraea]

"Should you see him again, you may tell him of your true age," she says.

[naturaltwohands]

"When I see him again, it will be with my father at my side," Drizzt can't help but smile lightly even through his annoyance at the truth. "So he will only be able to grumble about the past and nothing more. The two of them would be fast friends."

Drizzt refused to believe that it would go any other way.

[adastraea]

"I hope it may be so," Justice says.

[naturaltwohands]

"As do I."

Drizzt pauses for a moment, not really sure where to go from there. What exactly do you ask—ah.

"I am a follower of Mielikki back home," Drizzt tilts his head slightly. "Will that be an issue here?"

[adastraea]

"No," Justice says. "We wish embodiment of our archetypes more than worship."

[naturaltwohands]

"Then there will be no issue," Drizzt pauses for a moment, and then quirks a bit of a smile. "I suppose I should ask--you do not represent drow 'Justice', correct?"

You know, the one where they murder the entire House if they fail to murder the nobles of the House they were attacking. Drizzt knows that she likely does not, but it's always good to be doubly sure.

[adastraea]

"I am all Justice," she says, simply. "But... not all of what is done in my name is truly Just."

[naturaltwohands]

Well, that's a way to wipe a smile off Drizzt's face. He stares at her for a long moment as his sympathy grows. To be all Justice, including Justice like that....

"I am sorry that I said it in jest, not realizing it was true," Drizzt apologizes, bowing low to her. "I only hope that through my actions here, I can balance the actions of my kindred. Are you akin to a goddess in that you witness all forms of Justice carried out in your name?"

[adastraea]

"Akin? Yes. Perhaps. But more. I experience all Justice."

[naturaltwohands]

"Experience it? How?" Drizzt tries to push his mind back to the idea of a good Justice, not wanting to think of how much "drow justice" she has seen enacted on Houses that had failed at raiding another.

[adastraea]

"It is how I am," she says. "I would show you, but I do not think it would bode well for you. Mortals are not made to experience that which Arcana are."

[naturaltwohands]

"There are many things that mortals are not made to comprehend," Drizzt states with a bit of a weak chuckle. "Perhaps you can attempt to describe it and not shatter my mind?"

[adastraea]

"I am there when the slave is freed. I am there when her son is hanged for a crime he did not commit. I am there when the so-called witch is crushed to death by the rocks that have been piled upon him for his refusal to give false confession: 'More weight,' he says. I am there when the death-dealer testifies behind bulletproof glass and when his body too is hanged, the only death sentence this fledgling nation has ever known. I am there with every mob that ever hungered for change. I am the sharp blade that cuts to the heart of things. I am the beacon of golden light for those who seek the truth. I am Justice and Injustice both, for we are both thesis and antithesis and I am here, Drizzt Do'Urden, to ask you to be my sword and scale. May you show me in my better self."