Chapter Text
As Eegan began to get a full handle on his faculties, Dani found her mind wandering. She wondered if Kyana decided to just rip the babdage off and tell VR-LA before dinner instead of after. She wondered if she should talk to Finbar before the hypothetical group meeting. She wondered about some modifications she could make to the Per Aspera's engine to get it to run just right.
"Thinking of world domination plans without me?" Eegan nudged her shoulder. The left side, where Kyana was.
"Maybe I'm thinking of ways to outfit my ship with idiot repellant." She shot back.
"Well then how would you ever get on?"
Dani baffed him with one of the pillows and he and Roy laughed.
- -
Finbar was still in the middle of making dinner, before Elyse spoke on just how little Kyana was.
"Thank you, Rosemary." She said to one of the pixies doing his level best to bring over a ladle that was far too heavy for one pixie to carry. Finbar smiled to himself, Elyse had always been most of the pixies' favorite out of everyone he'd dated.
"Mustard, what have we talked about asking permission?" Finbar raised an eyebrow and the rogue pixie in question froze trying to open a jar that Elyse most certainly had not asked for. Mustard fluttered dejectedly back over and sat down on the emptiest shelf where little Paprika was preoccupied playing with some pixie sized extra dough scraps Elyse and Finbar had given them.
"I still don't understand how you function with... So Much." Elyse said.
"Oh it ain't as much as all that. Sometimes things get a little piled up, but it's all sorted back out eventually."
"Yeah no, I don't think that's how it works. The whole point is that things don't pile up."
"You know you can't control that."
"No, but I can get it under control and then when shit outside my control keeps happening, I already have a handle on things. You on the other hand have one hand perpetually off the wheel."
"Well most spelljammers actually don't have wheels for their helms."
Elyse flicked water at him and he laughed softly. A smile crept into the corner of her mouth and he might have this same conversation again and again and never complain if it ended with a smile from her.
- -
VR-LA felt so intensely the wall between himself and the memories he did not have access to. Finbar told him such florid stories about each mark from VR-LA and Dani coming in one by one, and it was only now staring into Kyana's eyes and fully recognizing them for the first time that VR-LA realized exactly how badly he wanted for himself those stories of watching her mark take shape.
It really did hurt... having your first memory of someone so important be them disappearing from you.
"Get... rid of..." She didn't want him. Even before she knew him, she decided she didn't want him.
Stop being ridiculous, you know she didn't know that's what she was doing. She learned soulmarks correspond to people last week.
Suddenly her reactions in those conversations made a lot more sense.
"You... how long have you known?"
"Since I saw it on Finbar's arm, after we got out of Acheron."
"I... why didn't you tell me?"
Tears welled up in her eyes and VR-LA moved to wipe them away immediately before stopping short. Kyana sniffled and clutched her arms tighter.
"You said it felt like dying. And I... I didn't know what... what to do with myself when I found out. I didn't know what to say, I didn't know what was right because I... I didn't think... for the longest time I didn't think this thing I hated about my life was... was another person. And how do you just say that to someone? How do you tell someone that one of the worst things that ever happened to them was the last straw and made you do something stupid and horrible and... that you almost got yourself and three other people killed because you were impatient and miserable?"
The tears dripped one after another down her cheeks and VR-LA didn't hesitate a second time, kneeling down so Kyana was a bit above him as he held her face as gently as he could and brushed the tears from her cheeks.
"Kyana... I... I won't deny, it is a bit chilling to know my... incident had such a negative effect on you it resulted in... all of this. But I... Kyana, you might just be the first comfort I ever knew. Your mark is something so beautiful and so close to me. When I found out it was connected to a real person who actually existed, I... all I wanted was to find you and be close to you."
"But... but I did it on purpose..."
"You were literally told everything about me was a vice, Kyana, frankly I'm surprised you don't fucking hate me."
He wasn't sure where that came from inside of him. He hoped it wasn't too caustic. The way Kyana looked at him, he wasn't sure...
"How could I hate you? You... you saved me. You've saved me so many times, I... I didn't want to look. When the new mark came in, I didn't wanna look because it was so big and so much, but then I saw it changed everything on my arm and... and I couldn't think of the vices like hard rules anymore, because it had changed, it changed and that meant I wasn't trapped forever and if I wasn't trapped forever it meant... It meant I could have something that belonged to me. It meant my own life belonged to me."
"Oh Kyana..."
"I... I found out about soul mates and... I didn't want to belong to other people, I don't want to belong to anybody... and... Having people belong to me... it's scary. It's so scary, VR-LA. Being told someone belongs to you."
"I know. It's a heavy thing. I... I wish I knew how whoever I was before coped with it. If they coped with it."
"You shouldn't be anchored to someone like me... I'm not..."
"Enough?"
"No. I'm not. I'm not... easy enough, I... You don't deserve someone like me."
"... I don't think I do, but not in the way you're clearly thinking."
Kyana recognized what he meant impressively quickly. "... You can't mean that. I... I know you waited for me, but... I'm not..."
"I don't think anyone can deserve someone like you, Kyana. Do people deserve stars? Or sunlight? Do people deserve when they find a treasure hidden somewhere?"
"But... but I hurt you. You said it felt like dying."
"You were in distress. You were being lied to."
"That shouldn't matter, it was a stupid thing to do, I shouldn't have done it."
"... You said three other people. Should I be apologizing to the other two when you find them that my amnesia was so inconveniently timed?"
"Wh- no, no you... they would never blame you."
"How can you be sure? I mean, maybe I lost my memories by being impatient and irresponsible and stupid."
"No! No, and even if you were, they... they'd still love you. They love you, they're your family."
VR-LA blinked. "You... talk like..." With a zapping sensation it clicked. "You said... you told Dani..?"
Kyana nodded. "I... I didn't have to tell Finbar. He figured it out when he picked me up from the police station."
"The what?"
"I... didn't wanna tell you. He found me there in Brass because I wasn't supposed to be running and causing a scene in the city."
VR-LA felt something like a furnace flaring in the back of his mind at the thought they would take Kyana into custody over something like that. How dare they?
"And... they asked to see my soul mark for the report. He covered for me enough that they didn't think I had more than one, but..." She held up her left arm. "His is this one."
VR-LA took a moment to properly digest everything.
"So... You found out about Finbar yesterday... and me after Acheron... what about Dani?"
"The Feywild. When Finbar showed everyone his mark for her."
"I see... We all know now, then?"
Kyana nodded. Her face was the kind of neutral-adjacent people will get to when they're emotionally exhausted and there's not much left to be done. VR-LA rose back to his feet.
"Might you like some time alone before dinner?"
She nodded again. But before VR-LA fully turned to leave, she darted through the space between them to give him a tight hug.
"Thank you..." She whispered. VR-LA brought up a hand to pat her head gently.
"Always."
- -
The perogies were the best thing Kyana had ever tasted in her life. Elyse actually made the spicy taste good! Kyana didn't realize that was a real thing!
"Tell me, how did you and Elyse meet?" Hira asked Finbar at one juncture. "I know, of course, you belong to the same guild, but I simply have to know the details."
"Well, we actually met before joining the guild." Finbar said.
"He was drifting out in the Astral Sea and had to be scavenged up onto the Whipped Crown a bit before I got there." Elyse picked up.
"You were out in the ocean too??" Kyana turned to Finbar who gave her a smile.
"I had a lot goin' on before joining y'all."
"Oohhhh tell me everything!" Hira beamed. Kyana caught how Evrynn smiled fondly at Hira's side before taking another polite little bite of his food.
Dani and Eegan were way more reserved than Kyana expected out of the two of them. Dani was sat between Kyana and Eegan, who was sandwiched between the other fire genasi, and they sat further from Hira than any of the other guests. Kyana remembered the comment Hira made about the cities in the elemental plane of air putting Brass to shame and wondered if there was some kind of collective grudge going on there. She hoped that wasn't the case, it would be unfortunate if her crew had to avoid Hira due to something like that.
From the other section of the table, VR-LA caught Dani's eye and they had one of their usual silent conversations. VR-LA did his best to make it clear he was thinking of what Kyana pulled him aside for shortly before, and when Dani caught it, she raised her eyebrows to confirm they were thinking of the same thing. VR-LA nodded to her and glanced away bashfully for a moment. When his eyes linked up with hers again, he wasn't sure if words properly encapsulated the thing he was trying to convey. He just needed Dani to be on the same page as him. About Kyana, about what he and Dani could work towards for her. Hoping she meant the same amount to Dani as she did to VR-LA. Dani gave him a quarter of a smile that so plainly said 'Yes, you idiot' and rolled her eyes. Then she returned to devouring her food with the minimum required amount of table manners.
The dinner went on without a hitch, and Hira actually went and invited everyone to stay the night. The demiplane had more than enough guest rooms, somehow, and even though Eegan had enough of his bearings back to pick up and leave, he was particularly content with the idea. Dani pouted at the prospect of leaving Plug and the ship at the docks overnight, but Eegan managed to talk her into setting up a sleeping bag in the same room he and Roy were staying in.
"You never sleep with us anymore, you're always off-plane." He gave her these big round puppydog eyes and Dani rolled hers.
"What makes you think I don't wanna share a room with my own soulmates and leave you two to get up to whatever business you two get up to when you're alone?"
"Oh my god, shut up!" Roy's dreads flared with embarrassment at the half of an insinuation. Dani knew they weren't currently like that, but she took every single opportunity to tease them about it. It was too entertaining not to. Unfortunately Eegan was too singleminded about her sleeping over to properly react.
"You're with Finbar and VR-LA all the time, maybe we're doing them a favor giving them a break from you."
"And Kyana?"
"Yeah, she could probably use a break from you too," Eegan did not catch one scrap of the implication. "She's had you nonstop for over two weeks."
Roy squinted and looked between Dani and Kyana who was busy asking VR-LA about the rules for staying over at other people's houses. Dani elected to ignore that.
"Well maybe I got used to having my own room on the ship and I don't wanna go back to bunking with you chucklefucks."
"Aw, c'mon, you know you love us."
"I would sell you to the Potentate Incandescent for one corn chip."
"You would not."
"You're right. I'd want at least a hoagie for Roy."
The three of them heckled their way all the way to the room, and Dani elected to roll out her trusty shitty little sleeping bag.
As she settled in, staring at the texture of the shag carpet strewn across her section of the room, Roy knelt down beside her. Eegan was occupying the bathroom, which Dani suspected would be the only times he got without Roy next to him for the next week.
"Is she the third one?" Roy asked her. "Is that what she wanted to apologize over?"
Dani kept her eyes on the carpet.
"Yeah."
"... Do you forgive her?"
That got her to look up.
"You don't even know what fucking caused it."
"I know it hurt you. Badly. I know how bad it hurts."
"Yeah well why're you acting like it's her fucking fault?"
"Because she sure fucking acts like it is, and I told her when she was being cagey about it that I would forgive her if you did. So I need to know."
Something stung in Dani's chest. She didn't like this version of Roy. She didn't like him acting older. He was supposed to be 14 for forever. He shouldn't have an expression like that on his face. Especially not over her.
"There's nothing to forgive. She's alive now, she just nearly wasn't for a second there."
"... Okay." Roy took a turn staring at the carpet and Dani joined him. "... I'm scared, Dani... We both are. You're our favorite person."
"Aren't you supposed to be eachother's favorite person?"
"We're not eachother's favorite, we're soulmates."
Dani's brow scrunched. Roy heard the incredulity radiating off of her. A soft humming echoed from the bathroom and Dani was struck with how long it'd been since she heard Eegan singing. How she almost never heard it again.
"It's... different than 'favorite'. You pick your favorites. You don't pick your soulmates. Eegan's a piece of me 'cause... there's not any universe I can imagine where he's not the shape I wanna fit inside of some way. Maybe that's just 'cause I don't have as good an imagination as he does, but... it's different. We didn't pick eachother, we found eachother. But... you, we picked. Eegan and I have our thing, and we're a unit now, like... like we can't just... come loose. And you're our favorite. You're our family. And you got hurt and neither of us could do anything. So... so somebody you're supposed to belong to more than you belong to us... who's supposed to slot into your soul the way we're slotted together- coming in saying it wasn't just some freak accident when she hurt you, it was fully her fault... I know you just said there's nothing to forgive, but... I don't like it. I don't think I like you having so many people who can hurt you that bad."
The sting in Dani's chest knotted into a ball.
"... You used to think it was cool."
"Well, yeah, but... what if you never sleep with us again after tonight? What if this is the last time and none of us know it? You... we can't just keep you to ourselves. You're cool and all the marks you have were cool and you were just our Dani... but now..."
The only sound was the muffled noise of the faucet.
"I... thought about them less and less. The more time I spent with you two." Every word drained her like she was shoving aside the stone sealing a crypt. "They were... one of the only good things in my life. And then for once I... had good things right in front of me. Now... I have them and... yeah. I'm not... going back. To how things were before."
"... They better take good care of you."
Dani huffed.
"You worry about your own soulmate, you're the ones still living with Oto."
Roy made the same sound all three of them made whenever the clusterfuck of Things surrounding that relationship were brought up.
- -
Kyana woke in the night, or at least she figured that's what time it was with how still and quiet the demiplane was. Smoothing her hands through the blankets (she had no idea fabric could be this soft, gods, she could just do this for forever maybe) Kyana... felt the weight in the back of her skull. They all knew now. All that was left was... everyone talking and finding out what their match rings for her looked like...
It wasn't... scary... but...
If she was being honest, she would've liked to belong only to herself for a little bit longer.
Kyana was used to this type of quiet feeling dank and rumbling and heavy. In Hira's demiplane, it was gentle and airy and the kind of still you could dance through.
An idea came to her. If this was her last night officially being exclusive to herself, she should... do something. Stand up. Walk out the door.
Her steps were hushed and expert as she crept through the halls, marvelling at the collection that encompassed Hira's entire home. She heard the beating heart of the god they'd retrieved on her very first proper mission with the crew as she approached the grand hall. It thrummed through her, shaking loose the lingering anxieties over the coming day. She walked up to the door to the demiplane, and it occurred to her she might get locked out if she walked outside.
She paused, her hand on the handle, and decided worst case scenario she could go back to the Per Aspera to get some sleep and loop back to the others early hoping they don't freak out.
Immediately the bustle of the city washed over her like a rush of leaves in the wind. It dashed across her chest and swirled about her arms. She looked out at the band of lights above her head from the buildings on the opposite side of the ring pierced by the spear of mountain Sigil orbited. Like stars.
Kyana had no place to wander to, so she went on for some time just staring at the shapes of everything, hearing the sounds of life and civilization and night time as they pressed into her ears like flowers pushed into a waiting hand, breathing the air she never knew existed until a week ago and change.
She heard a heavy clunking clinking sound around a corner and rounded it curiously.
Ione was cornered.
"Look, I get you definitely don't wanna go back." The drow speaking to her rested a hand on the leg of a giant mechanical spider with its gaze fixed on Ione who was only half succeeding at keeping herself stoic and her breathing steady. "But the situation as I hear it, they seem to need all hands on deck."
Kyana felt sick.
"I... why would you help them?" Ione's voice trembled around the edges.
"What's that supposed to mean?" She said it calmly and conversationally, as she'd been before, but there was an edge in there now.
"You... you don't know what they do? Why the cenobium is above a hole to the Underdark?"
That got the woman to pause.
"You think they're planning on double crossing me?"
"I..." Ione's eyes darted nervously and that's when she spotted Kyana. She didn't have time to hide the recognition and in an instant the woman cornering her turned to Kyana.
"... You know her?" Her gaze and her tone were calm and considering. Kyana wasn't sure how to feel.
"Yeah, we... we've known eachother a while."
"Really? Well, I'm here to get her back to where she's lost from. So if you wanna see her again after this, you should probably check there."
With her left hand, she reached out and grabbed Ione's, but before she could continue whatever her plan was, both of them winced and she dropped it. Ione's face took on a look of confusion and concern as she immediately went to cover up her hand. The woman fixing to kidnap her gasped and seemed to stop breathing as she looked at her hand in pure shock. The spider that was with her shuffled on its legs, looking between the two of them in a slight agitation.
Ione locked eyes with Kyana and years of training for silent teamwork gave her more than enough basis to know what to do. They darted off in different directions, Ione climbing up a wall and disappearing one way while Kyana looped around the long way to where she figured Ione might come back out. The woman's much less calm cry of 'Hold it!' faded quickly.
Ione was curled up in a ball against a wall when Kyana finally triangulated where she was. Her hair was entirely undone and her clothes were rumpled and clinging. She looked physically a little bit better than the last time Kyana saw her, so that was something.
"We've got to stop running into eachother." Kyana said. Ione chuffed out a not-a-laugh and cautiously brought herself to her feet.
"I... I think that spider that was with her can track things. Track me. You don't want..." Ione trailed off, holding the hand the woman grabbed to her chest. Kyana scrunched her eyebrows. She had... a thought. Of what'd phased her so sharply.
"Was that a v- a mark?"
Ione blinked and looked at Kyana like she'd asked if Ione was proficient at wielding omelettes as a weapon.
"I- you remember what I told you. About the marks?"
Ione glanced down, then back up at Kyana.
"I... they're not supposed to appear on your-- we have bigger things to- I have bigger things to worry about. Look, just. She's gonna find you and then she'll probably force us both back there if you don't just go."
She did have a point.
"But Ione, you don't-"
"Kyana, are you done with me or not?!"
That knocked the wind out of her sails.
"Please, I... if you're gonna leave me, just leave me. You can't keep... you can't keep acting like this, you can't keep doing these things, you can't keep going ahead of me then looping back like it's nothing."
"I..." What had she done? What was Ione talking about? It didn't fit. "... Okay. Guess I'll just avoid you next time you're being kidnapped."
Ione pressed her lips together and turned away.
"... Please. Stay with your friends."
Why did so many of the things she said sound like a hopeless prayer?
She disappeared around a corner again. Kyana took a step back, turned, and went in the other direction.
It only took her another block to cross paths with the drow again. Something about the look in her eye pinned Kyana in place as she made a beeline for her.
"You are going to tell me what the fuck is up with you two and wherever it is you come from." She said, somehow managing to strike an exact fusion between all business and simmering frenzy.
"And... I should believe giving you more information about Ione and me is a good idea because...?"
"Because she belongs to me before she belongs to them and I am not hunting down my soulmate just to give her up to people neither of us like or trust."
Kyana blinked.
"Big attitude change there."
"Just tell me what you know."
"... She doesn't know who you are. What you are."
"What?"
"She doesn't know- neither of us knew about soulmates before... last week? Two? Three weeks ago? I was in the feywild for a little there, everyone else has been out here a little longer technically."
"What do you mean neither of you know about soulmates?"
"Well, I do now, but... but I couldn't really give her a lot of details the last time we met, it was... I don't think she's figured it out while running. She doesn't know what the ring means. And I don't know how much she's gonna trust whatever you tell her about it."
The frenzy died down and most of her professional demeanor deflated.
"Where the fuck did you two come from?"
"According to my soulmate: A mindflayer cult." What a thing to say. 'My soulmate'. A strange dose of giddiness added into the blend of emotions running rampant through Kyana.
The woman who was most certainly Ione's soulmate balked.
"Yeah, that's the reaction everyone's had so far. I just... know they're bad. And they sent her after me first, and..." A bitter chuckle burbled up Kyana's throat. "I went and did it again, how do I keep endangering other people's soulmates, fuck."
"I mean, everyone is someone's soulmate, kid. I don't think you gotta be too hung up on that."
"Easy for the mercenary to say."
"Touche. Why aren't you with her?"
"I..." Kyana looked away. "She told me to leave. She didn't want me getting taken back with her and she... didn't want me around in general anyway. After everything."
The woman looked at her a moment longer.
"Well. I'll figure out something to tell her. Probably won't be much use to try and corner her about it. And there's always telling them I found her dead, but then they might want a body."
"I... please take care of her?" Kyana locked eyes with Ione's soulmate, all pleading and reliance. "Please, she... she needs someone... to be good to her. And I- I can't do it. Not the way things are. But if anyone can, it should be you."
Ione's soulmate stared down at her with soft astonishment. Then she smiled and gave Kyana a pat on the head.
"I'll do my best for her. I was already going to anyway."
Kyana nodded, and as the woman turned away, she realized,
"What's your name? I... I'm Kyana."
She turned over her shoulder and made one of those two fingered wave gestures.
"Cressida. See you around?"
"Hope so..."
Kyana watched Cressida breeze down the road and around another corner, carrying all of Kyana's feelings for Ione with her. This had to be a good thing. It just had to.
I hope so...