Musings by Xora

* A moment of quiet reflection for Xora *

Still on the surface with the companions Drogan teamed me up with. We are fighting for some demigod who... Whatever! Anyway, it is fun to fight giants and stuff with such good friends.

I really like this party, though I sometimes feel I am using them. After all, why am I following Lady Philippa except for the fact that she lets me move through these lands safely? Because she resembles mother? She does, and this helps me a lot. I think I'd be lost without a strong female authority. But is that why? Mother is dead, not only dead but fallen, mutated and unresurectably dead, I can't make her come back!

We actually fought two dragons recently. Blue surface dragons. We were victorious – the death touch I only heard of at the academy actually works on a dragon! My old teachers would be proud. I wonder if they still live? T'kash is probably still alive– nothing could kill him. Not even an ork rebellion and a collapsing cave. Speaking of orks, we fought one of those, too. A real hero, Matron Glavil would have drooled at the breeding potential. To full of melodrama for her taste, tough. Still, he was tougher than even the dragons – I think the Mother saved us there, because I have these strange memories of dying and coming back to fight again. The fight as it is remembered was actually quite easy and quick! No matter, he wanted to die, and we obliged him. One of the strangest missions of fulfillment I have had yet!

The Mother is still with me. I speak to her of the caress of the wind and the harshness of the human tongue. We share every new experience in this inhospitable world. I think she secretly longs to experience it again, the world she gave up to bring us into the security of the underdark. She really needs me, because I am young and fresh and not jaded with a heart of stone like most of her priestesses. And of course I need her - she is the reason I live, feel, and love. Recently, I felt as if the mother was all around me, even in this hostileplace. Maybe she is greater than the drow think, maybe she lives on the surface, too? She may just have cut off a part of herself to be her face towards us, you know!

I have recently recovered my ability to weave web dresses. People around here are not used to having girls running around naked – which is fun, because it increases the shock value. But I think it's even more fun if you only do it occasionally – the shock becomes even greater. With the new dresses I can make, my skin no longer grates under the rough leathers of the surface, so I don't have to strip just to avoid scarring myself. And Fade's compliments make me all warm inside.

I am still at a loss about Fade. I do want her, but she's so fragile I can't really do more than play with her right now. And I sometimes wonder, do I only want her because it is the thing to do, because she's the one closest to me in station, and it would be a notch in the old score card? I hate it when I think like we did at home! Anyway, I think she needs appreciation, she seems to get little enough of that out of her life, so I flirt lazily with her to make her feel good. Thereseems to be so much potential to bring out of that girl - her mind is so pretty, and her body too!

She told us her brother was killed by drow, so I offered to be her sister. Then we talked some of home, but I didn't say much – I think she’d die if she learned I killed my real sister! Best keep things quiet – I don't think I'll ever need to kill Fade like I killed Zhauren.

They boys are all what you could expect from males brought up without the guidance of strong women. Though Philippa keeps them in line (mostly), they are not really comfortable with their roles.

The new mageling, Viglundr, is especially bad in this regard. On the other hand, he's clever, powerful, and a good advisor. He's expressed an interest in the underdark – maybe I should bring him down there some day? I wonder if he's a good lover? How it would shock the drow to turn up among them with a human house wizard and consort! I'm not even sure I want to go back, but if I do, this wouldbe a good way. And I'm certainly powerful enough to establish my own house now - I long to have children again.

Terjon is the same big fluffy guy he's always been. I've been using him shamelessly for warmth and comfort, but he doesn't seem to mind. I wonder if I am to him what he wants Philippa to be, but which he can't have? I certainly don't mind his fantasies as long as he doesn't mind mine.

Cal is a wonderfully bigoted elf-slave with too much slack in his chains. Right now it is fun to see him wrestle with his preconceptions, he's as rigid as any matron. I guess I should play up to the evil drow archetype for him to make him live out his inner self, but playing around is more fun.

We met a new elf, Lavar something, who seems more like slave material... eh... more pliable and soft-spoken. I was quite smitten with him, and I think Fade was too. Could sharing him as a lover be a way to become intimate with her? Whoa - I told myself to stop thinking like that! Best to stop thinking alltogether...

* Xora goes back to her usual hectic self *