Early on a late-winter eve, the Eldathyn grove in the Reaching Woods bore witness to an unusual visit indeed: A pair of soaking wet drow, garbed only in whatever magic protected them from the winter's chill, materialized as if by teleportation in a moonlit clearing by the pond in the northern part of the grove.
One of the two women had been there before, upon the end of the Godswar: Though she did not bear even the distinctive sapphire ring that made her so identifiable
on her last visit, and she exuded a certain determination not present before, her face and voice would surely be recognizable to the shrine's guardians. Upon arrival, she would have immediately dried both of them off with a few quick cantrips, all the while trying to calm and cajole her companion into embracing her new circumstances.
Her companion... Built like a warrior and acting as such, one did not need to see her scars to recognize her troubled past, nor did they need to know about drow to understand her deep discomfort. Were it not for some of the words she spoke, the Eilistraeen fighter's mannerisms could have been mistaken for those of a Lolthite, kidnapped from a festhall deep in the Underdark. Yet her poorly-veiled anxiety did not seem to stem from the sorceress herself, and her blatant outrage at whatever trick brought her there did not seem tainted by malice.
Upon convincing her companion to, if not accept, then at least resign herself to the situation she'd been dragged into, the sorceress would slowly start to sing: A wordless tune, with but a few notes, yet those who listened closer could at first have felt a sense of uncertainty and melancholy woven into the very fabric of her ethereal melody. Though she was no trained singer, she seemed to pour her soul into the song, and it was not by words alone that she invited the fighter to share her voice.
Circling around her, dancing likewise not through training but only her feelings and natural grace, she occasionally tugged at her hands, spinning her in kind; though the other woman remained hesitant at first, she eventually surrendered to this impromptu ritual, grudgingly contributing a harsher, darker feeling to the melody as the night dragged on. Yet the sorceress, already having overcome her own worries and sorrows by that point, only took this as an added incentive to release her hopes and joys into their shared song: Whatever fears or sufferings she had endured in the past seemed gone, drowned out by a growing certainty, a distillation of all that she is and shall ever be.
As they tired and their limbs grew sluggish, the two dancers eventually left the same way they arrived, teleporting out whence they came. Although she did not seem to have had as powerful an impact on her companion as she'd hoped, the sorceress' scheme seemed to have had an unexpected side effect, and her newfound self-certainty did not leave the grove any quicker than she did...
