**Author's note - this takes place just before Legends**
It had snowed all day in Palanthas. The streets, normally teeming with citizens bustling from shop to shop or tavern to tavern, were ice-covered and empty. Though the snow had stopped falling in heavy flurries as the sun set, a miserable frozen drizzle still floated through the night air, chilling the few late-night travelers and dampening what small cheerful noise managed to drift beyond the walls of the city's tavern district. Yuletide, coming soon - the next day, in fact - seemed forgotten in the bluish midnight haze of ice and frost.
All throughout the city the people slept, content that by morning the freezing rain and snow would have ceased, allowing the holiday celebration to proceed unhindered. Fireplaces were lit in every house, but few candles burned in the windows this night.
One of the few lights still lit in the city of Palanthas went unseen by the snow-sleepy populace. The only souls to view the tiny flame flickering from the window of the Tower of High Sorcery were the undead haunts of the Shoikan Grove - and those spirits were uncaring.
The rooms of the Master of the Tower were, to say the least, comfortable. A stark contrast to his laboratory - a place in which every dangerous magical object was to be placed precisely, a realm of mysterious shadows with creeping, slithering creatures lurking in every corner and shelves upon shelves of darkly bound, coldly magical volumes - the private apartment of the archmage was well lit and warm. Every room had a rich, reassuring feel; the wooden furniture was a dark, warm wood polished smooth by fastidious apprentices, and thick, soft rugs covered the stone floor. Tapestries and curtains covered the stone walls, and fires burned in hearths in every room. True, at every turn there sat a desk, with quills and paper waiting, or a shelf of thick, forbidding spellbooks, but in the glow of the fire, even these felt soothing - the feel of precious possessions that have been well-loved.
Exotic fruits, breads, cheeses, and a bottle of chilled, dark red wine lay on a table in the Master's bedchamber, and a book lay open upon his desk, but it was not to these the black robe wizard went. Not this night.
The magi stood, holding a candle in one thin, golden hand, staring out into the frosty night. Clouds blew angrily over the night sky; one moment Solinari's light would pierce the mist and the city would seem to glow with a radiant, calming luminosity, only to be replaced with Lunitari's bloody sheen a moment later. The stars themselves seemed mercurial, twinkling behind the clouds.
A cold wind gusted through the window into the chambers, causing the fire to crackle with new energy. Raistlin's robes billowed out behind him, into his bedchamber, in an arc of black velvet; his hood fell back from his face. He absently pulled his robes closer around him, but he didn't move away from the window. His robes kept him safe from the snow; his magic melted away the cold. Instead, he turned his golden eyes - eyes glowing warmly in the flickering light of his solitary candle - to the stars.
"Yuletide," he murmured softly, his voice whispering and low. He stared up at the sky, watching the black clouds race across the moons and, sighing so quietly it was almost imperceptible, he looked back down at the silent town. The entire city of Palanthas lay below him, quiet as the sleet fell in swirls to gather in soft white blankets across the rooftops.
He stood for a long moment, looking down at the city. "Yultide Eve," he said aloud, finally. "The eve when, it is said, even the gods themselves come together to celebrate another year's passing. Foolish sentiment," he whispered, his lip curling. "I'm certain the gods have more important matters to attend to than exchanging gifts and becoming drunk on yuletide wine." Smiling silently, he began to turn away from the window, to resume his studies. He, too, had more important matters to attend to.
Suddenly, from somewhere - a household that had not yet gone to sleep, perhaps - the sounds of laughter drifted up through the night air, to Raistlin's ears. He paused, looking down again at the slumbering city. Nothing stirred in the streets. The snow fell without a sound; all was quiet, sleeping - waiting. Families spent the night warm, together. Children slept, content and secure; lovers lay in each other's arms, staring into the fire, or perhaps watching the snow whirl and drift through the winter air, just as Raistlin was...
The sardonic smile faded, and the glow in his eyes disappeared as another icy gust of wind blew into the room, extinguishing the candle's feeble flame. A shiver wracked Raistlin's thin body, and he huddled into his robes. His magic no longer seemed to warm him; his robes, made of the thickest velvet, couldn't keep out the cold. He pulled his hood up over his head and, shivering again, he closed the shutters and bolted them against the night.
He turned and padded silently across the room to the fireplace, his robes whispering at his heels. He deftly picked up the bottle and poured some of the wine into a crystal goblet. Setting the bottle back down, he absently spun his glass between two long, thin fingers, watching the wine shimmer ruby red in the firelight. Silvanesti wine, aged with elven patience and then brought, chilled, to Palanthas for the enjoyment of the Master of the Tower - the best wine money could buy.
Raistlin stood suddenly, raised the glass in front of him in a grim mockery of a toast. "Merry Yuletide," he said softly, pain and irony full in his voice. Closing his eyes, he drained his glass, refilled it absently, and sat back down in his chair. Sighing, he set the full glass aside undrunk. He didn't open his eyes - he knew all too well what he would find if he did: his luxuriously appointed room, filled with precious magical tomes and rich furnishings; his room - empty.
A gust of cold air suddenly whirled through the room. Raistlin's hood was blown back from his face; his white hair streamed out behind him as his robes whipped around his wrists and ankles. The pages of Raistlin's open spellbooks fluttered wildly. The fire sputtered once and, in a crackle of sparks, went out.
The wind died.
Raistlin tensed, stood up quickly in the darkness, his hands still gripping the wooden arms of the chair. He stared around him in the dark, his eyes quickly moving from the vague silhouettes of the chairs and his bed to the gray outline of the shuttered window. He murmured a word of command to call his staff, and then, a moment later, whispered more loudly, "Shirak!"
Brilliant light streamed from the crystal ball in the dragon's claw atop Raistlin's most prized possession - the staff of Magius. Raistlin was blinded by the brilliance, and he cursed to himself, belatedly shielding his eyes with the back of one hand. After a moment, he impatiently forced open his eyes, his hand sliding automatically to the pouch of spell components always at his belt.
The room lay empty before him. Sheets of parchment littered the floor, and the curtains along the walls still swayed in the wind. Raistlin's eyes flew to the far wall, to the window... to the shutters, still closed and barred. His thin fingers clenched around his staff, the knuckles whitening. Slowly, his pulse racing, his breathing painfully quick, Raistlin turned towards the doorway.
Standing just inside the room - the door was still closed, in fact never opened - was a woman clothed all in white. Raven hair streaming down her shoulders, she stood with her hands folded before her. A soft white light emanated from the platinum medallion suspended from the silver chain around her neck. Her eyes - a deep, warm brown - stared straight into the darkness, unblinking. Raistlin realized, suddenly, that neither the incongruously bright light of the Staff of Magius nor the darkness beyond the circle of the staff's light bothered her, nor would it ever; she was blind. To Raistlin's mild surprise, she stood calmly, self-possessed, unafraid.
Raistlin stood a moment in silence, taken aback by her strange, luminescent beauty and sudden, startling appearance in his bedchamber after midnight. Something about her seemed out of place, something seemed... wrong about her, but he pushed the feeling aside.
"Revered Daughter," Raistlin said, his voice a hiss, the pain of a moment before gone - hidden behind the surface of his golden, mirror-like eyes. His judgment of the cleric's position was a guess; he had never bothered to keep himself updated on the comings and goings of those not concerned with magic. But it was an easy assumption - judging by the quality of her robes and the obvious worth of the medallion she wore, he knew she must be a cleric of Paladine, and a cleric of quite some importance at that.
Her sightless stare moved to him, staring uncannily into his own golden eyes. Raistlin, who had intimidated so many others with his own piercing, mirrored gaze, felt uncomfortable under her stare. The Master of the Tower quelled the sudden impulse to bow his head and shuffle his feet nervously as he would have as a child had he met a full-ranking archmagus.
"Raistlin Majere," the cleric murmured softly. She nodded her head in greeting, or perhaps in affirmation of her own words.
Perhaps it was something in her voice, or the way her shoulders bent ever so slightly as she said the name, but Raistlin's uneasiness faded. Raising his head slightly, Raistlin arched an eyebrow. He smoothly stepped around a chair, coming a to stand a mere foot in front of her. She had taken him by surprise with her sudden entrance and disarming poise, but he had recovered now, and this was a game Raistlin had played many, many times before - played and won.
"Have we met, Revered Daughter?" he asked, a wry smile playing across his lips.
To his mild irritation, the cleric smiled in return - a smile not of sarcasm or challenge, but of... what? Raistlin wondered. Longing...?
"Have we met?" she repeated. Her voice was soft and calm, but a deep sadness tinged every word. "Oh yes, Raistlin, we've met. We've met a hundred times, a thousand - every time I close my eyes..." she trailed off into a whisper. Aching emotions filled her blind eyes.
Something painful gripped Raistlin's heart as she spoke, something in the way she held herself, the way her blind eyes stared at him - no, into him. Something stirred emotions within the archmage's soul he'd thought long dead.
"What is your name?" Raistlin asked softly, after a pause. The wry tone had faded from his voice, and now he spoke quietly, almost in wonder. He realized, suddenly, what it was that he saw in her that tore open the wounds on his own soul. Tonight, of all nights, he knew only too well what pained her - loneliness. She shook her head, her hair falling across her face. Her smooth, white hands trembled, and so did her voice when she spoke after a long, emotion-laden pause.
"I've been through this conversation too many times to count," she murmured, almost to herself, "imagining what I would say. I was so certain-" Her voice broke and hesitated a moment before she went on. "I was so sure that, if only I could get the words right, I could change your mind, change what happened, before it was too late, before you..." Her voice died again and she stopped. Like ice on a frozen pond, her composure shattered. She shuddered once and her head bowed, her eyes closed. Her hands - shaking - went to cover her face. A sob wracked her entire body.
Before he thought, Raistlin was beside her, the staff standing, still lit, in the center of the room - forgotten by its master, if only for a moment. Raistlin put one arm around the cleric's shoulders and gently brushed her hair from her face. He held her smaller hands clasped securely in one of his own, surprisingly strong, thin hands. As though a switch had been flipped, years of pain and anguish melted away. Raistlin was the strong one here; for once, someone was leaning on him. He smoothed the tears from the cleric's cheeks, murmuring soft nonsense to her as he would to comfort a child. He held her close to him until the sobs stopped, marveling at how smooth the skin of her face was when he brushed the tears away, at how soft her hair was against his face as he held her...
After a moment, she pulled away from him very slightly, far enough to turn her face up and fix her strangely piercing gaze on Raistlin. Her eyes still glistened with tears. For a moment, Raistlin was keenly aware of the softness of his velvet robes, of the scent of rose petals and cloying, sweet decay drifting lightly through the air. One hand rested at the small of her back, pulling her close again, as the other held her shoulders, tangled in her long, dark hair. As she leaned against him, fleeting, fevered thoughts of what he and this suddenly appeared, beautiful woman might...
As if sensing his thoughts, she shivered once, bowed her head, and said nothing. It was if the spell broke.
Raistlin stiffened suddenly and let her go. His hands - burning with the magic in his blood - had frightened her, he realized - or perhaps it was simply the fact that he'd held her... He of all people, a black robed archmage, holding a cleric of Paladine! Anger filled him suddenly, irrational anger at himself, and he reflexively grabbed his staff. "Dulak," he murmured angrily. He tossed the staff aside as its glow went out, plunging the room into darkness. He sat back down in his chair, his back to her, his hands shaking ever so slightly as he clutched the arms of his expensive chair. It took him a moment to master himself to speak; he would not have his voice tremble now.
"I'm sure you won't mind the dark," he said caustically, "and I'm just as sure you won't have any trouble finding your way out." He stared straight ahead into the darkness, waiting to hear the sound of a door opening and her footsteps retreating down the hallway.
Raistlin heard only silence, the sound of his own breathing - rattling slightly in his chest, as always, slowing painfully as he regained control of himself. He swallowed, clenching his fists, the anger seething inside of him. His nails cut viciously into the palms of his hands. The pain was comforting, almost - familiar. This pain he knew; the emotions the cleric had pulled from him were a different, far more agonizing type of pain. The kind of pain he'd known as a child, when his brother had...
He felt, suddenly, two small, cool, delicate hands resting lightly on top of both of his own.
"Please, don't," her voice whispered.
Raistlin gasped in surprise; he hadn't heard her move, much less cross the room to stand directly in front of him. His throat closed at the unexpected, ragged breath and he choked, his lungs heaving fruitlessly. The archmage felt the fit coming, and he took in one desperate breath before the coughing overtook him. He doubled over in the chair, acid and blood rising in his throat and his body shook, wracked with every cough. Brilliant flashes of light danced before his eyes in the darkness.
He felt the cleric's hands move from his hands to his shoulders; she was trying to help him, he knew, and the thought made him feel strangely, irrationally guilty.
"Nothing... you can do..." he managed to gasp out in between the coughs that shook his thin frame. His hands clenched around the arms of the chair, knuckles whitening with each spasm. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, and the lights before his eyes grew brighter, almost blinding him. He hadn't had a fit this bad since his days as a red robe, Raistlin thought, a surge of panic rising within him. He heard the cleric's voice: the words of a prayer, he realized bitterly. The dancing lights began to spin, and he felt his consciousness slipping...
Just as Raistlin was losing his grip on awareness, a white light enveloped him. The coughing stopped. He took a tentative, shallow breath, and then another, deep and thankful. Closing his eyes to the sudden brightness, Raistlin blindly took a bit of cloth from his pocket and hastily wiped the blood from his lips, replacing it before... before what? he demanded of himself in irritation. Before this blind cleric sees the stains?
He straightened reflexively in his chair and opened his eyes. Before him knelt the cleric, her medallion glowing with a soft, warm white light that seemed to illuminate only the two of them, leaving Raistlin's books, his scrolls, and the rest of his luxury-bathed apartments in darkness. Her hands were clasped before her in prayer. As if sensing his eyes on her, she raised her head and looked up at him.
"Raistlin..." she whispered, almost reverently. Tears filled her eyes for the second time that evening. She stood gracefully, never taking her gaze from his. Slowly, wonderingly, she reached out a hand and brushed his cheek with her fingertips.
"Raistlin," she repeated.
Suddenly, Raistlin realized what it was that had been bothering him ever since she had appeared. She was beautiful. Truly, utterly beautiful! She did not wither and crumble to dust before his eyes! She was no elf - beautiful for a moment but doomed to die in his sight as did all the others, albeit more slowly. This beautiful, dark-haired cleric did not age and fade away as did all the others. She did not die! Raistlin stared at her wordlessly, his golden eyes open wide in amazement; for one of the very few times in his life, he was incapable of speech.
Raistlin caught her wrist before she could pull away, staring intently into her eyes. "Your sight is restored," he declared in a dangerous, low voice, "And so is my health!" He let go abruptly, pushing her away from him, and shook his head in frustration at the calm statement on her face. "I breathe freely for the first time in years - years, Revered Daughter! You cannot know what that means. And you - you do not die!" He reached for his staff, clutching it to him almost defensively. "This cannot be!"
Pain passed over the cleric's eyes again, this time crossed with regret. She shook her head. "No, it cannot - not for any length of time." She sighed, almost as if in apology. She stepped forward, placing herself directly in front of him again, filling his gaze with her own dark, hurt-filled eyes.
"I have been given a gift, Raistlin," she said quietly. "A gift from Paladine." Her hand went to the softly glowing medallion hanging around her neck. "I know it won't last. It can't last, of course. But...while it does..." Her voice trailed away. She stared at him, as if expecting an answer to an unstated question.
Raistlin's eyes narrowed, he shook his head. "This makes no sense!" he snapped in irritation. "How did you get here? Who are you?"
The cleric put a finger to his lips, shook her head.
"Not now, Raistlin. Not...yet. Soon enough you'll know me. You will come to me... against all odds." She sighed a very small, wistful sigh. "Against all odds," she repeated softly.
"That explains nothing." Raistlin turned away from her with an angry gesture with one hand, folding his hands in the sleeves of his robes.
There was silence for a moment, as the cleric again came to stand in front of the archmage. She took his hands in hers, lacing their fingers together. They stood in silence for a moment, one filled with the fiery regret of love wasted, the other the icy pain of love never given, never returned.
"I know now," the cleric whispered, "that there is nothing I can say to move you from your chosen path." She closed her eyes. Her head bowed, her shining black hair falling across her face. She seemed about to lose her nerve and simply shrivel away into silence; not quite understanding why he was doing it, Raistlin put an arm around her, supporting her, his other hand still clasped tightly in hers.
She trembled and after a moment, looked up at him.
"I'm so very sorry, Raistlin," she murmured. A single tear slid down her cheek.
Raistlin slowly reached up and brushed away the tear.
"Whatever for, Revered Daughter?" he asked gently.
She laughed then, a laugh full of bitter pain and longing. She wrapped her arms around him and, standing up on her tiptoes, she tilted her head back and kissed him full on the lips, melting against him. Raistlin found himself kissing her back, his hands tracing over her back, tangling in her hair, passion making up for what he lacked in experience. Sudden passion filled him, confusion and loneliness replaced by the warmth of the kiss.
After a long moment, she pulled away from him.
"I have to go," she whispered, her voice breaking. "My time is almost up." She backed away from him, and as she did, Raistlin could see that, by the light of her glowing medallion, the milky haze of blindness was already returning to her eyes.
Raistlin took a step forward, reaching towards her.
"Please, just tell me your name!" he said quickly, fighting back the his body's impulse to cough as the spider webs and blood returned gradually to his lungs. "Where can I find you?"
"I never left you, Raistlin," she murmured. The glow of the medallion began to fade.
Raistlin shook his head helplessly. "Don't go," he whispered, his voice breaking. "Please, don't leave me!"
She laughed again, the same heart-rending, hurt-filled laugh. "I said those very same words, so many years ago..." she trailed off.
"Merry Yuletide, Raistlin," she whispered. The glow of the medallion faded away and disappeared.
Raistlin stood alone in the silence. Though no door had opened, this time he knew she was truly gone. For an instant, he closed his eyes. He could feel the ghost of her lips against his, could feel her warmth, could feel the loneliness and pain fade, for just an instant...
After a long moment, Raistlin pulled the hood of his robes back up over his head. He sat back down in one of his comfortable, expensive chairs and picked up his fine crystal glass - still full, as he'd left it. Raistlin drank the deep red wine slowly, tasting it for the first time in years, staring into the darkness.
"Merry Yuletide, Revered Daughter," he murmured.
It had snowed all day in Palanthas. The streets, normally teeming with citizens bustling from shop to shop or tavern to tavern, were ice-covered and empty. Though the snow had stopped falling in heavy flurries as the sun set, a miserable frozen drizzle still floated through the night air, chilling the few late-night travelers and dampening what small cheerful noise managed to drift beyond the walls of the city's tavern district. Yuletide, coming soon - the next day, in fact - seemed forgotten in the bluish midnight haze of ice and frost.
All throughout the city the people slept, content that by morning the freezing rain and snow would have ceased, allowing the holiday celebration to proceed unhindered. Fireplaces were lit in every house, but few candles burned in the windows this night.
One of the few lights still lit in the city of Palanthas went unseen by the snow-sleepy populace. The only souls to view the tiny flame flickering from the window of the Tower of High Sorcery were the undead haunts of the Shoikan Grove - and those spirits were uncaring.
The rooms of the Master of the Tower were, to say the least, comfortable. A stark contrast to his laboratory - a place in which every dangerous magical object was to be placed precisely, a realm of mysterious shadows with creeping, slithering creatures lurking in every corner and shelves upon shelves of darkly bound, coldly magical volumes - the private apartment of the archmage was well lit and warm. Every room had a rich, reassuring feel; the wooden furniture was a dark, warm wood polished smooth by fastidious apprentices, and thick, soft rugs covered the stone floor. Tapestries and curtains covered the stone walls, and fires burned in hearths in every room. True, at every turn there sat a desk, with quills and paper waiting, or a shelf of thick, forbidding spellbooks, but in the glow of the fire, even these felt soothing - the feel of precious possessions that have been well-loved.
Exotic fruits, breads, cheeses, and a bottle of chilled, dark red wine lay on a table in the Master's bedchamber, and a book lay open upon his desk, but it was not to these the black robe wizard went. Not this night.
The magi stood, holding a candle in one thin, golden hand, staring out into the frosty night. Clouds blew angrily over the night sky; one moment Solinari's light would pierce the mist and the city would seem to glow with a radiant, calming luminosity, only to be replaced with Lunitari's bloody sheen a moment later. The stars themselves seemed mercurial, twinkling behind the clouds.
A cold wind gusted through the window into the chambers, causing the fire to crackle with new energy. Raistlin's robes billowed out behind him, into his bedchamber, in an arc of black velvet; his hood fell back from his face. He absently pulled his robes closer around him, but he didn't move away from the window. His robes kept him safe from the snow; his magic melted away the cold. Instead, he turned his golden eyes - eyes glowing warmly in the flickering light of his solitary candle - to the stars.
"Yuletide," he murmured softly, his voice whispering and low. He stared up at the sky, watching the black clouds race across the moons and, sighing so quietly it was almost imperceptible, he looked back down at the silent town. The entire city of Palanthas lay below him, quiet as the sleet fell in swirls to gather in soft white blankets across the rooftops.
He stood for a long moment, looking down at the city. "Yultide Eve," he said aloud, finally. "The eve when, it is said, even the gods themselves come together to celebrate another year's passing. Foolish sentiment," he whispered, his lip curling. "I'm certain the gods have more important matters to attend to than exchanging gifts and becoming drunk on yuletide wine." Smiling silently, he began to turn away from the window, to resume his studies. He, too, had more important matters to attend to.
Suddenly, from somewhere - a household that had not yet gone to sleep, perhaps - the sounds of laughter drifted up through the night air, to Raistlin's ears. He paused, looking down again at the slumbering city. Nothing stirred in the streets. The snow fell without a sound; all was quiet, sleeping - waiting. Families spent the night warm, together. Children slept, content and secure; lovers lay in each other's arms, staring into the fire, or perhaps watching the snow whirl and drift through the winter air, just as Raistlin was...
The sardonic smile faded, and the glow in his eyes disappeared as another icy gust of wind blew into the room, extinguishing the candle's feeble flame. A shiver wracked Raistlin's thin body, and he huddled into his robes. His magic no longer seemed to warm him; his robes, made of the thickest velvet, couldn't keep out the cold. He pulled his hood up over his head and, shivering again, he closed the shutters and bolted them against the night.
He turned and padded silently across the room to the fireplace, his robes whispering at his heels. He deftly picked up the bottle and poured some of the wine into a crystal goblet. Setting the bottle back down, he absently spun his glass between two long, thin fingers, watching the wine shimmer ruby red in the firelight. Silvanesti wine, aged with elven patience and then brought, chilled, to Palanthas for the enjoyment of the Master of the Tower - the best wine money could buy.
Raistlin stood suddenly, raised the glass in front of him in a grim mockery of a toast. "Merry Yuletide," he said softly, pain and irony full in his voice. Closing his eyes, he drained his glass, refilled it absently, and sat back down in his chair. Sighing, he set the full glass aside undrunk. He didn't open his eyes - he knew all too well what he would find if he did: his luxuriously appointed room, filled with precious magical tomes and rich furnishings; his room - empty.
A gust of cold air suddenly whirled through the room. Raistlin's hood was blown back from his face; his white hair streamed out behind him as his robes whipped around his wrists and ankles. The pages of Raistlin's open spellbooks fluttered wildly. The fire sputtered once and, in a crackle of sparks, went out.
The wind died.
Raistlin tensed, stood up quickly in the darkness, his hands still gripping the wooden arms of the chair. He stared around him in the dark, his eyes quickly moving from the vague silhouettes of the chairs and his bed to the gray outline of the shuttered window. He murmured a word of command to call his staff, and then, a moment later, whispered more loudly, "Shirak!"
Brilliant light streamed from the crystal ball in the dragon's claw atop Raistlin's most prized possession - the staff of Magius. Raistlin was blinded by the brilliance, and he cursed to himself, belatedly shielding his eyes with the back of one hand. After a moment, he impatiently forced open his eyes, his hand sliding automatically to the pouch of spell components always at his belt.
The room lay empty before him. Sheets of parchment littered the floor, and the curtains along the walls still swayed in the wind. Raistlin's eyes flew to the far wall, to the window... to the shutters, still closed and barred. His thin fingers clenched around his staff, the knuckles whitening. Slowly, his pulse racing, his breathing painfully quick, Raistlin turned towards the doorway.
Standing just inside the room - the door was still closed, in fact never opened - was a woman clothed all in white. Raven hair streaming down her shoulders, she stood with her hands folded before her. A soft white light emanated from the platinum medallion suspended from the silver chain around her neck. Her eyes - a deep, warm brown - stared straight into the darkness, unblinking. Raistlin realized, suddenly, that neither the incongruously bright light of the Staff of Magius nor the darkness beyond the circle of the staff's light bothered her, nor would it ever; she was blind. To Raistlin's mild surprise, she stood calmly, self-possessed, unafraid.
Raistlin stood a moment in silence, taken aback by her strange, luminescent beauty and sudden, startling appearance in his bedchamber after midnight. Something about her seemed out of place, something seemed... wrong about her, but he pushed the feeling aside.
"Revered Daughter," Raistlin said, his voice a hiss, the pain of a moment before gone - hidden behind the surface of his golden, mirror-like eyes. His judgment of the cleric's position was a guess; he had never bothered to keep himself updated on the comings and goings of those not concerned with magic. But it was an easy assumption - judging by the quality of her robes and the obvious worth of the medallion she wore, he knew she must be a cleric of Paladine, and a cleric of quite some importance at that.
Her sightless stare moved to him, staring uncannily into his own golden eyes. Raistlin, who had intimidated so many others with his own piercing, mirrored gaze, felt uncomfortable under her stare. The Master of the Tower quelled the sudden impulse to bow his head and shuffle his feet nervously as he would have as a child had he met a full-ranking archmagus.
"Raistlin Majere," the cleric murmured softly. She nodded her head in greeting, or perhaps in affirmation of her own words.
Perhaps it was something in her voice, or the way her shoulders bent ever so slightly as she said the name, but Raistlin's uneasiness faded. Raising his head slightly, Raistlin arched an eyebrow. He smoothly stepped around a chair, coming a to stand a mere foot in front of her. She had taken him by surprise with her sudden entrance and disarming poise, but he had recovered now, and this was a game Raistlin had played many, many times before - played and won.
"Have we met, Revered Daughter?" he asked, a wry smile playing across his lips.
To his mild irritation, the cleric smiled in return - a smile not of sarcasm or challenge, but of... what? Raistlin wondered. Longing...?
"Have we met?" she repeated. Her voice was soft and calm, but a deep sadness tinged every word. "Oh yes, Raistlin, we've met. We've met a hundred times, a thousand - every time I close my eyes..." she trailed off into a whisper. Aching emotions filled her blind eyes.
Something painful gripped Raistlin's heart as she spoke, something in the way she held herself, the way her blind eyes stared at him - no, into him. Something stirred emotions within the archmage's soul he'd thought long dead.
"What is your name?" Raistlin asked softly, after a pause. The wry tone had faded from his voice, and now he spoke quietly, almost in wonder. He realized, suddenly, what it was that he saw in her that tore open the wounds on his own soul. Tonight, of all nights, he knew only too well what pained her - loneliness. She shook her head, her hair falling across her face. Her smooth, white hands trembled, and so did her voice when she spoke after a long, emotion-laden pause.
"I've been through this conversation too many times to count," she murmured, almost to herself, "imagining what I would say. I was so certain-" Her voice broke and hesitated a moment before she went on. "I was so sure that, if only I could get the words right, I could change your mind, change what happened, before it was too late, before you..." Her voice died again and she stopped. Like ice on a frozen pond, her composure shattered. She shuddered once and her head bowed, her eyes closed. Her hands - shaking - went to cover her face. A sob wracked her entire body.
Before he thought, Raistlin was beside her, the staff standing, still lit, in the center of the room - forgotten by its master, if only for a moment. Raistlin put one arm around the cleric's shoulders and gently brushed her hair from her face. He held her smaller hands clasped securely in one of his own, surprisingly strong, thin hands. As though a switch had been flipped, years of pain and anguish melted away. Raistlin was the strong one here; for once, someone was leaning on him. He smoothed the tears from the cleric's cheeks, murmuring soft nonsense to her as he would to comfort a child. He held her close to him until the sobs stopped, marveling at how smooth the skin of her face was when he brushed the tears away, at how soft her hair was against his face as he held her...
After a moment, she pulled away from him very slightly, far enough to turn her face up and fix her strangely piercing gaze on Raistlin. Her eyes still glistened with tears. For a moment, Raistlin was keenly aware of the softness of his velvet robes, of the scent of rose petals and cloying, sweet decay drifting lightly through the air. One hand rested at the small of her back, pulling her close again, as the other held her shoulders, tangled in her long, dark hair. As she leaned against him, fleeting, fevered thoughts of what he and this suddenly appeared, beautiful woman might...
As if sensing his thoughts, she shivered once, bowed her head, and said nothing. It was if the spell broke.
Raistlin stiffened suddenly and let her go. His hands - burning with the magic in his blood - had frightened her, he realized - or perhaps it was simply the fact that he'd held her... He of all people, a black robed archmage, holding a cleric of Paladine! Anger filled him suddenly, irrational anger at himself, and he reflexively grabbed his staff. "Dulak," he murmured angrily. He tossed the staff aside as its glow went out, plunging the room into darkness. He sat back down in his chair, his back to her, his hands shaking ever so slightly as he clutched the arms of his expensive chair. It took him a moment to master himself to speak; he would not have his voice tremble now.
"I'm sure you won't mind the dark," he said caustically, "and I'm just as sure you won't have any trouble finding your way out." He stared straight ahead into the darkness, waiting to hear the sound of a door opening and her footsteps retreating down the hallway.
Raistlin heard only silence, the sound of his own breathing - rattling slightly in his chest, as always, slowing painfully as he regained control of himself. He swallowed, clenching his fists, the anger seething inside of him. His nails cut viciously into the palms of his hands. The pain was comforting, almost - familiar. This pain he knew; the emotions the cleric had pulled from him were a different, far more agonizing type of pain. The kind of pain he'd known as a child, when his brother had...
He felt, suddenly, two small, cool, delicate hands resting lightly on top of both of his own.
"Please, don't," her voice whispered.
Raistlin gasped in surprise; he hadn't heard her move, much less cross the room to stand directly in front of him. His throat closed at the unexpected, ragged breath and he choked, his lungs heaving fruitlessly. The archmage felt the fit coming, and he took in one desperate breath before the coughing overtook him. He doubled over in the chair, acid and blood rising in his throat and his body shook, wracked with every cough. Brilliant flashes of light danced before his eyes in the darkness.
He felt the cleric's hands move from his hands to his shoulders; she was trying to help him, he knew, and the thought made him feel strangely, irrationally guilty.
"Nothing... you can do..." he managed to gasp out in between the coughs that shook his thin frame. His hands clenched around the arms of the chair, knuckles whitening with each spasm. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, and the lights before his eyes grew brighter, almost blinding him. He hadn't had a fit this bad since his days as a red robe, Raistlin thought, a surge of panic rising within him. He heard the cleric's voice: the words of a prayer, he realized bitterly. The dancing lights began to spin, and he felt his consciousness slipping...
Just as Raistlin was losing his grip on awareness, a white light enveloped him. The coughing stopped. He took a tentative, shallow breath, and then another, deep and thankful. Closing his eyes to the sudden brightness, Raistlin blindly took a bit of cloth from his pocket and hastily wiped the blood from his lips, replacing it before... before what? he demanded of himself in irritation. Before this blind cleric sees the stains?
He straightened reflexively in his chair and opened his eyes. Before him knelt the cleric, her medallion glowing with a soft, warm white light that seemed to illuminate only the two of them, leaving Raistlin's books, his scrolls, and the rest of his luxury-bathed apartments in darkness. Her hands were clasped before her in prayer. As if sensing his eyes on her, she raised her head and looked up at him.
"Raistlin..." she whispered, almost reverently. Tears filled her eyes for the second time that evening. She stood gracefully, never taking her gaze from his. Slowly, wonderingly, she reached out a hand and brushed his cheek with her fingertips.
"Raistlin," she repeated.
Suddenly, Raistlin realized what it was that had been bothering him ever since she had appeared. She was beautiful. Truly, utterly beautiful! She did not wither and crumble to dust before his eyes! She was no elf - beautiful for a moment but doomed to die in his sight as did all the others, albeit more slowly. This beautiful, dark-haired cleric did not age and fade away as did all the others. She did not die! Raistlin stared at her wordlessly, his golden eyes open wide in amazement; for one of the very few times in his life, he was incapable of speech.
Raistlin caught her wrist before she could pull away, staring intently into her eyes. "Your sight is restored," he declared in a dangerous, low voice, "And so is my health!" He let go abruptly, pushing her away from him, and shook his head in frustration at the calm statement on her face. "I breathe freely for the first time in years - years, Revered Daughter! You cannot know what that means. And you - you do not die!" He reached for his staff, clutching it to him almost defensively. "This cannot be!"
Pain passed over the cleric's eyes again, this time crossed with regret. She shook her head. "No, it cannot - not for any length of time." She sighed, almost as if in apology. She stepped forward, placing herself directly in front of him again, filling his gaze with her own dark, hurt-filled eyes.
"I have been given a gift, Raistlin," she said quietly. "A gift from Paladine." Her hand went to the softly glowing medallion hanging around her neck. "I know it won't last. It can't last, of course. But...while it does..." Her voice trailed away. She stared at him, as if expecting an answer to an unstated question.
Raistlin's eyes narrowed, he shook his head. "This makes no sense!" he snapped in irritation. "How did you get here? Who are you?"
The cleric put a finger to his lips, shook her head.
"Not now, Raistlin. Not...yet. Soon enough you'll know me. You will come to me... against all odds." She sighed a very small, wistful sigh. "Against all odds," she repeated softly.
"That explains nothing." Raistlin turned away from her with an angry gesture with one hand, folding his hands in the sleeves of his robes.
There was silence for a moment, as the cleric again came to stand in front of the archmage. She took his hands in hers, lacing their fingers together. They stood in silence for a moment, one filled with the fiery regret of love wasted, the other the icy pain of love never given, never returned.
"I know now," the cleric whispered, "that there is nothing I can say to move you from your chosen path." She closed her eyes. Her head bowed, her shining black hair falling across her face. She seemed about to lose her nerve and simply shrivel away into silence; not quite understanding why he was doing it, Raistlin put an arm around her, supporting her, his other hand still clasped tightly in hers.
She trembled and after a moment, looked up at him.
"I'm so very sorry, Raistlin," she murmured. A single tear slid down her cheek.
Raistlin slowly reached up and brushed away the tear.
"Whatever for, Revered Daughter?" he asked gently.
She laughed then, a laugh full of bitter pain and longing. She wrapped her arms around him and, standing up on her tiptoes, she tilted her head back and kissed him full on the lips, melting against him. Raistlin found himself kissing her back, his hands tracing over her back, tangling in her hair, passion making up for what he lacked in experience. Sudden passion filled him, confusion and loneliness replaced by the warmth of the kiss.
After a long moment, she pulled away from him.
"I have to go," she whispered, her voice breaking. "My time is almost up." She backed away from him, and as she did, Raistlin could see that, by the light of her glowing medallion, the milky haze of blindness was already returning to her eyes.
Raistlin took a step forward, reaching towards her.
"Please, just tell me your name!" he said quickly, fighting back the his body's impulse to cough as the spider webs and blood returned gradually to his lungs. "Where can I find you?"
"I never left you, Raistlin," she murmured. The glow of the medallion began to fade.
Raistlin shook his head helplessly. "Don't go," he whispered, his voice breaking. "Please, don't leave me!"
She laughed again, the same heart-rending, hurt-filled laugh. "I said those very same words, so many years ago..." she trailed off.
"Merry Yuletide, Raistlin," she whispered. The glow of the medallion faded away and disappeared.
Raistlin stood alone in the silence. Though no door had opened, this time he knew she was truly gone. For an instant, he closed his eyes. He could feel the ghost of her lips against his, could feel her warmth, could feel the loneliness and pain fade, for just an instant...
After a long moment, Raistlin pulled the hood of his robes back up over his head. He sat back down in one of his comfortable, expensive chairs and picked up his fine crystal glass - still full, as he'd left it. Raistlin drank the deep red wine slowly, tasting it for the first time in years, staring into the darkness.
"Merry Yuletide, Revered Daughter," he murmured.