A paladin. A drow elf paladin. The very concept was impossible and fascinating simply because it was so very strange.
But then, as some pointed out, Pewter himself was most definitely strange and seemed to attract oddness.
Sinda noticed that the number of birds in the trees had begun increasing in number, cats slinking through the underbrush, and the insects (one thing about the surface world she'd come to take immediate dislike with) had gone quiet or left the area. She knew what that meant.
The large silver cat that turned into a dragon, or the dragon who frequently wore the shape of a large cat, was trying to sneak up on her.
She wasn't sure which the creature was. The dragons she was familiar with were arrogant, vicious, and did all sorts of horrible things to anyone unlucky enough to cross their path. Pewter was not like that, so perhaps he was indeed a cat-beast shapechanger who could take the form of a dragon. She was too polite to ask.
She'd had to look up the phrase once Pewter had declared her to be his friend. She'd never had one and friendship among the drow was a decidedly different thing.
So she had a friend in this surface world. She had to admit it was nice. The adventurers who were to meet her were late, and having someone to talk to made this all a lot more tolerable.
Elven hearing picked up the sound of an approach that was of something larger than a breadbasket. She ducked and rolled and came up to hug her friend. This hugging stuff felt nice too, though she'd had to look THAT up as she had thought it merely a wrestling move until Pewter had put a name to it.
WHANG!
Sinda went back down, her head having impacted a bundle strapped across her friend's back.
"Are you okay?" asked the silver cat.
"Just a bit of a headache," said the dark elf, rubbing the point of impact. "What's that?"
"Some stuff I found," said Pewter. One of the old dragons had passed their Twilight and flown off two days ago. Pewter didn't understand the use of the phrase "Well, now I can die because I've truly seen everything." Old Kemorivax (there was also a Young Kemorivax) had been 1200 years old and everyone agreed that sort of thing happened, but Pewter had never heard of dragon Twilight before then and was still sorting it out. It was a private thing, and not spoken of to non-dragons, so he couldn't share this with his friend.
Heck, he was still trying to figure out why a portion of Old Kemorivax' hoard had ended up in his own care! There was some of this stuff which his parents had pointed out would be nice to give out if he ever found a friend among the shorter lived species. Pewter had inwardly chuckled at that. They didn't know he already had such a friend!
His parents watched from a tree, noting that subtlety was wasted on the young. They'd wanted to see this friendship last a bit longer than a year, and all the dragons knew the high attrition rate among beginning adventurers.
Sinda gasped as she drew the Sword out. In her mind this was no mere sword but a Sword. "It's beautiful."
"I was hoping you'd like it," said Pewter. His friend's natural claws and teeth hadn't seemed very impressive but then that's why they made these fake claws-on-a-stick, wasn't it?
"It's for me?" Sinda asked, facing her feline friend and feeling unfamiliar emotions and reactions within her.
"Yeah," said Pewter, happy that his new friend was happy. It wasn't like he could use the thing.
Sinda took a few experimental passes with the weapon, feeling tight in the throat and wet around the eyes. It was easier to focus on something else right now. Except her vision was getting all blurry and her knees felt weak.
Pewter wondered why she was crying. Had he done something wrong?
"Thank you, my friend, I don't know how I can repay you," said Sinda in a choked voice.
A "chipmunk" commented to a nearby "fox" that when she had a weapon in her hand she wasn't quite as prone to tripping over her own shadow as without.
"This symbol here," said Sinda, tapping an engraved symbol about two fingers up the blade's length. "Do you know what this is?"
"No," admitted Pewter.
"It's the symbol of a god of the surface world," said Sinda. "It helps me to make a choice that I had been putting off. I will choose as my patron deity the god whose mark is here, for my texts mention that this is a god counted among the more beneficial."
Several birds and squirrels nodded to each other, the consensus had been that the new paladin was likely sorting things of that sort out. Hence finding an appropriate weapon - it wouldn't do to be too obvious but having a humanoid friend was perfectly acceptable for a young silver. It was almost a coming of age thing.
"That one is?" asked Pewter, curious. He knew of Bahamut, of course. Any non-draconic ones he hadn't heard much of at all. Of course, for all he knew it was that symbol. He hadn't looked at it too closely.
"This," said Sinda, "is the symbol of:"
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(Posted Wed, 14 Apr 2004 10:22)
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