Bodies and Minds
Malifain sat near Lilithia, looking to Celaine in question. They had been discussing a body-switch, to allow Lilithia to go and find Solani as Drizzt searched for the herbs to save her body. Without a doubt, Lilithia had agreed.
“Let me, Malifain.” She fought stubbornly, coughing black ooze up onto her lips. Malifain shook his head again, frustrated with her.
“And what of your body, and mine, if you are killed?” he asked, looking from her to Celaine. Celaine shook her head and shrugged, not able to explain before Lilithia cut in again.
“If I die, your body will again switch with mine. There is another way, though the magical taxation might kill a lesser mage.” Lilithia dared mention, sighing. “Cadderly can help. Summon Cadderly magically, he can transfer my conscious into Malifain’s and my body will become moot.” She rasped, turning over to sleep. Malifain shook his head again, questioning this wisdom as he stood, tucking the drow elfess in as she slumbered. He and Celaine turned and left the cottage after garnering the supplies they would need to call for Cadderly.
“I can’t let her do this,” he hissed, frowning with Lilithia’s ultimatum squarely on his shoulders. “Her father would be angered if he came back to find a living dead body.”
Celaine only nodded, wanting to be done with her task.
“I can’t do this alone.” She stiffly reminded him, his eyes glazing over as he begasn to think of loopholes on the grounds why Lilithia couldn’t borrow his body. He found nothing, and then he saw, as Lilithia intruded upon him, that she meant not only to borrow his body, she was going to use it as her own!
“Well Lolth be damned and Mielikki be proud…” he muttered as she began to impart visions of her previous feats. He chuckled at her prowess s she slipped away again, perhaps taking off that amulet to better sleep. Or perhaps silently probing his thoughts.
Are you ever concerned she’ll see something in there she does nto like, Malifain?” Celaine asked, putting the finishin touches on the inter-planar gate as he shook his head.
“Merely she’ll find something she likes too much.” He lamented, sighing. Celaine smiled, chanting softly and soon, before them, the puddle of silver that was the inter-planar gate splashed forth, an no doubt, another one in Cadderly’s private chambers. Celaine looked to Malifain, and for neither had seen cadderly, Malifain would speak for Lilithia.
“Cadderly, sir, we have with us a friend of your friend. Drizzt Do’Urden’s daughter has fallen ill and he is now out on the path to get her a cure, but we need use of her body. She is conscious, but is too weak to help us hunt the would-be murderer down.” He explained, his face not hiding the concerns. Cadderly nodded and gestured to the pool.
“Is it thick enough to walk through?” he asked, looking to the woman beside Malifain.
“Oh, pardon, I am Celaine and this is Malifain Sachereil and yes, it should be stable.” Celaine quickly spurted, stepping back and trying to develop her concentration. Gate-stepping was a tricky task, and exhausting too. Cadderly stepped through, and the puddle dried up suddenly, cutting off a sliver of his pant leg.
“Oops.” Celaine whispered, blushing and apologising. Cadderly waved off the apologies, turning directly to Malifain.
“I have waited for so long to hear from the ranger again, and his is the daughter I am seeing?” he asked with a courteous smile. Malifain nodded and showed the priest in, sitting beside the bed as he talked quietly with the ailing elfess. Soon, both had nodded their agreement, Lilithia providing the whereabouts of all her weapons, and then her magical items as well. Cadderly prepared the herbs right there in the room, for Malifain and Celaine to watch. Cadderly rolled Lilithia over, clasping her hand with Malifain’s as he sat beside the bed on a wood chair, then tying them together with spider’s silk. He motioned Celaine over, and Cadderly guiding her, began the chant that would permit Lilithia to fully take over Malifain’s body. After fifteen minutes, they left the room, so the other two could discuss privately their goals. Lilithia’s body breathed slower now, coughing less and never moving. But Malifain jerked as Lilithia spread her being into the corners of his mind. She cursed him silently, for they only heard each other’s thoughts, nothing more, and he had not lowered one wall of anger to let her see what lay beneath it.
“Malifain, for the sake of the gods…” she asked, pressing again. It was givign him a headache, but if it did, so be it. She didn’t need to know his fears.
“N… no…” he grunted, shifting on the floor. Lilithia was too wise, too impatient for such a fight, and he fought her smile as she consciously took over his nerves, imparting feelings on his body the way she had learned in Menzoberranzan.
He felt light like a feather, all his body displaced of time and cares. He was warm, so warm he wanted to take off his clothing, and so he did at her bidding. And then, a trick of the mind, Lilithia’s bare body appearred before him, encircling his and teasing it with kisses across his jaw, but nothing more.
“Malifain, Malfain…” she chided in mental whispers, “Now come, come to my bed my sweet rose.”
Malifain obeyed. Without knowing it, he remembered ending up on the bed, Lilithia’s visual thoughts of her body entwined around his, above his. As her lips met his, the sensation was more than real, but as they made love, something went terribly wrong.
To him at least.
At last, she slipped past the wall, lowered by his lust and excitement, and now she looked upon those thoughts as he thrashed in the bed. Her visual thoughts of her own body had dissapated, he’d realized, right as she bored through. He began to growl as she sauntered into that all-private grouping of thoughts.
“You… you fiend…” he growled, only making her force him still with magical chants. She could feel the immense, overwhelming hatred, the jealousy and the grief at Solanil injuring her. So her assumptions were right, he observed, as she let him see her thoughts more clearly in the clouded interior of his mind. She backed away, pushing her own hatred and jealousy of Celaine into that small corner and then she did something purely miraculous.
She obliterated all that hatred.
“Now,” she whispered, releasing his body and willing him to dress, “Trust me as you would trust yourself, Malifain, for if we are not working and thinking as one, we will die… as one.”
Malifain nodded, though he knew she was thought-speaking to him. As he strapped on her belt of weapons, along with her amulet and her timeless leather wrist bracers, he smiled, feeling weightless without the guilt and the hate. Cadderly and Celaine had re-entered to check on them, and they saw the twinkle of golden and violet behind Malifain’s blue eyes. But silently, Lilithia reminded Malifain this was only the beginning.
