Chapter Text
Situated away from most main roads along the Sword Coast, the sleepy village of Tarrin’s Hearth gets the occasional traveler passing through — usually lost ones, if Mairead Cotter is honest with herself. Her job at the inn has often been to break the news to the dismayed traveler that they took the wrong road twenty miles back, before pointedly telling them that they could always rent a room for the night.
This month has been slow, however. Most of the inn has been empty, save for a traveling bard who took up “creative” residence in their “quaint countryside,” and two rival traders with enough tension between them that Mairead and her wife reckon they will either fight each other or fuck each other. The staff took bets — Mairead was on the side that they would do both.
She is smugly counting up her winnings one evening when a stranger soundlessly appears at her counter.
“Oh! Hells!” she exclaims. “Apologies — milord?”
She takes in his elegant, elven armor draped in a heavy, embroidered cloak. And, perched atop it all, is an exquisitely handsome face. It wears an amused smile quirked beneath piercing red eyes and silver curls.
Oh boy, Mairead thinks to herself. Lydia’s going to get a kick out of this…
“How may I help you?” she smiles, although the elf’s very presence is disconcertingly arresting. She almost can’t look into his piercing gaze without her heart thudding, just like she’s a shy schoolgirl again…
“A room, if you please,” the elf’s dulcet voice is music to her ears.
“Very good, milord,” she smiles. “Lucky for you we have our Duchal Suite available, which will be…”
“…that will do,” the elf nods as he moves past her up the stairs. “And I am so grateful for your generous hospitality.”
Mairead blinks. “Oh, actually milord, it will be…”
She loses focus for a moment.
“A gift,” she smiles warmly. “Enjoy your stay here at Tarrin’s Hearth, milord.”
It’s a quiet night, according to Bertrand yawning at the end of his shift. And it’s a quiet day that follows… at first.
Mairead is in the kitchen kneading her famous sourdough when her wife, Lydia, comes bursting in — eyes wild.
“Miri!” she gasps breathlessly. “The—the church. It’s…!”
The two women crowd around the window, before rushing outside to where almost the entire village is assembled, gawking towards the forest where black smoke rises high in the sky along the horizon. Within it crackles lightning — green and foreboding, to say the least.
“Oh gods,” Mairead whispers, floury hands over her mouth. “There it goes… after all this time…”
Lydia wraps her arms around her. “At least we have our memories, climbing all over that thing,” she murmurs. Mairead smiles sadly.
“Hells, now I wonder how we’ll ever get word to…”
She never finishes her sentence, trailing off as she looks up in alarm.
Ash begins to fall from the sky — green and icy cold. It patters upon the inn’s awning, but Mairead and Lydia watch in horror as other villagers begin to scream. As the ash settles upon them, people begin to dissolve before each others’ eyes, skin charring and flaking green as their bones burn bright. But the dying don’t collapse to the ground; rather, they float back into the sky along the path of the smoke in an aurora of pure necrotic energy.
Some villagers manage to shelter inside wherever they can. They huddle there for hours before they dare to peek out their windows. Here at the dawn of a new day, there is no more green lightning or ash — just a haze of black smoke dispersing from the ruins of a forgotten church.
Mairead and Lydia stay close to each other for days afterwards, fearful of losing sight of the other. Rites are performed for the dead, but little remains of them — just empty clothing, discarded jewelry, and the echoes of their screams in the villagers’ ears.
It’s days before anyone dares approach the foundations of the burnt down church — a mysterious place that has been avoided for centuries. No one remembers why, just that it wasn’t worth the risk to enter its grounds. They all just felt in their souls that they shouldn’t. It was just the way things were.
…except for Lydia and Mairead, before they came back with a friend.
They remember him fondly. They wonder why he hasn’t visited in such a long time, like he used to.
But that is a thought for another day. For now, Mairead and Lydia take careful inventory of their kitchen as they prepare to serve the survivors who have become orphans, widows, and widowers. Naturally, in the chaos even Mairead’s carefully-maintained ledger becomes a mess. But one thing is for certain:
The elf never checks out of the inn.