Sandrene and Rahal

Sandrene is consumed by Xengral and arrives at the moment of the death of her protge, Rahal, who died saving the party at the Fae Glen.

[RAHAL]

"Why are you here? If it really is you. And how? I-I just saw you leave! The person wearing your skin, anyway."

[SANDRENE]

“I... came a long way to see you, but now that I’m here, I sense we don’t have as much time as I’d hoped.”

You’re hungry, and there’s a morsel right there you’d like nothing more than to engulf. It doesn’t matter that what’s inside of it is larger than you. Instinct doesn’t tell you to become big; only that you’ll keep up this timeless dance for as long as your form has the strength to sing in biological symphony. This has always been a celebration.

[RAHAL]

“Are you senile, you old bat? Get out or this will all have been for nothing!”

[SANDRENE]

“You... weren't thinking of your mother, were you?"

[RAHAL]

“What?”

[SANDRENE]

"Moments ago. I... I'm sorry. I never thought that I could— that you also felt..."

[RAHAL]

“...”

[SANDRENE]

"... and that I'd always look away. Before you could catch me watching you, like I have been.” The woman’s face is ruddy, the lines less apparent as she musters the courage to make eye contact at last, which the panicked gremling drops almost immediately.

[RAHAL]

"Ugh! Not like any of that matters now... judging by the fact that you're here, I've failed— we must both be goners." In a gesture that shocks her out of her shell, Sandrene’s hand, feeling more real than anything the blighted glen has offered thus far, cups her by the chin and guides her back to her opalescent gaze, inexplicably filled with hope.

[SANDRENE]

“No. It’s precisely because of what you and Tully did that any of us have a chance at this all.” The air itself grows denser around the two as the core rapidly expands, and as if to reinforce the space around them, the vines atop the half elf’s head unconsciously lurch forward to push back something invisible to the senses.

[SANDRENE]

“Listen… I know you barely remember her and you’ve said you couldn't care less many times before, but your parents didn't leave you because there was anything wrong with you. Our crew is... unique. Gremlings are known for wrecking airships, not keeping them afloat. Many of the older folk who wrested control of the Opulence did so out of desperation, they didn't see the merit in staying aboard especially after all their needs were met by our supply line. I can't explain why they left you, exactly, but if I had to hazard a guess they did so because they thought you needed new horizons and opportunities more than you needed them."

[RAHAL]

"I said it then and I'll say it again. I don't care what those smooth-brained fossils think. As far as I'm concerned they died centuries before I could ever meet them. The only one whose opinion matters is me. Mine and..." She stops herself before she says too much. Just as she does, the earth beneath their feet shakes and the topsoil lifts from the edge of the clearing right up to where the light dims and Sandrene's leaves fan out from burgeoning arms shooting up behind her head now, swelling to almost the same size as her body, dirt and debris from their home's wreckage swirling around them as it's all sucked into the glow of annihilation. The wyrm must hatch; the mouth must feed. Life and death mirror each other's steps in perfect cadence.

[RAHAL]

"Uh, h-hey... if this really is it, I'm glad. That you're, you know... here. Even if you are an illusion or whatever."

[SANDRENE]

"I'm proud of you, Rach'al. You've always been smart— sometimes too smart, but I didn't expect you'd have a kind, clever heart to boot. You did everything right, but you neglected to take one thing into account..."

[SANDRENE]

"The Opulence is not your ship. Your crew is waiting for you on board the Decadence."

[RAHAL]

The gremling's blank face flushes peach at the revelation, "The Deca… you read my diary?!"

[SANDRENE]

"Shoulda made arcane encryption your niche if you really wanted to keep me out!"

[RAHAL]

"I can't Friggin' believe you!" She screams half in outrage, but this isn't snarl her mouth is contorted in as she launches herself to pummel Sandrene's eroded armor. Before she knows it her arms are wrapped around the latter's hips in what started as a grapple. Have they always been this low?

[RAHAL]

"I'd... never want to shut you out."

[SANDRENE]

The skin on the half-elf's hands is seemingly lifting in places, sprouting additional sprigs, some already adorned with leaves of their own. The development of the limbs atop her head appears more advanced now, as branches thicker than a bull’s horns lift up and away from the boughs a distance double her height now, yet her face appears closer and more youthful than her first mate has ever seen it. There’s no question in her mind now that her captain, her guardian is shrinking before the gremling’s very eyes... but something about this feels more familiar than to her than it does strange. Standing a head above her, the young lady moves to drape her arms around her first mate, who can do little more than stand in stunned silence she hadn’t experienced since before she could remember. Almost as if watching herself in a dream, her ape-like tail resumes swaying as her captain’s fingers comb through her rosy locks, bringing her face forward into a bosom which was seldom seen or acknowledged.

"You know, I hardly knew my mom, either. I mean, she technically raised me but her ways were inscrutible, alien to even the high elves of Ria'Tal'Uth. It wasn't until we met the Pathtender right here that some of it started to fall into place. One of the things she taught me that stuck in my mind is about a certain type of tree from back where she was raised; when it grew too large for its roots to support itself any longer it'd fall and produce what's know as a nurse log from which new trees of its kind will grow. 'Casondr,' she said, 'When I die a world will be nourished from the sugars in my skin. This is not the tragedy those who cling most strongly to parchment would attest; with time a small piece of me will accompany every being who breathes and we will meet again at the end of all things.' The courtyard of the last star as she called it. For some reason, I consider it to be the most human thing I've ever heard her say, and for a just a moment it made sense how someone like me came to be."

"Rach'al, heed my last order as your captain: Take care of your sisters... and more importantly, let them take care of you. Grow... but not all at once, y'hear?”

[RAHAL]

As though attempting to squeeze a camel through an eye of a needle, space bears down around them hard, light filling the gaps between the metallic foliage which had been rushing to provide them a buffer. Despite this, she manages to make out Sandrene’s face smiling serenely one last time before her vision goes white and she can no longer tell where one body begins and the other ends.