Thomas Reid - The Gossamer Plain

"Then why bother living at all?" Aliisza asked, desperate. She did not want to feel those emotions. They terrified her. "How does making myself vulnerable change anything? It only makes it worse!"

"Ah, it would seem to from the outside looking in," Tauran answered. "But you know differently now. Don't you?"

"No," Aliisza said, trying to mean it. But she didn't. "I don't want to care!" she protested, knowing her words were false.

She did care. She cared about Lizel, admired the girl's courage, determination even in the face of so much adversity. She envied the young woman's convictions. Most of all, she craved the bond that girl would have with her child. Aliisza wanted that. She wanted to love her son.

Aliisza wanted her son to love her in return.

"Ask anyone," Tauran said as the alu's thoughts came full circle. "Anyone who has ever loved and lost will tell you it's still worth it. Despite the pain, the vulnerability, the joy that comes with caring cannot be diminished. In truth, you cannot have one without the other."

"It's still selfish," Aliisza said, sagging to the ground at the deva's feet. It was too much. "You still pursue it to please yourself."

"Of course," Tauran replied, settling beside her. "I serve Tyr for the sense of satisfaction I feel. You wish for your son to love you because you want the good feelings it brings. No one who looks openly and honestly inside themselves could claim otherwise."

"Then how is that better than serving yourself?" the half-fiend demanded, tears welling up in her eyes. "How can you mark one as good and the other, evil? I see no difference."

"Yes, you do," the angel said. "You know you do."

Aliisza tried to shake her head, tried to tell her counterpart that it was all the same, but she knew otherwise. In goodness, there was boon for all.

And in that moment, in that instant when she finally grasped how wonderful kindness and compassion could be, how it built and reverberated among all living things instead of destroying them, she felt ashamed. Her entire life had been nothing more than an endless series of terrible acts, all designed to bring her satisfaction at the expense of others.

She leaned close to Tauran, reached out for him. The angel took her in his arms, hugged her close. She pressed herself against him and sobbed.

For a long time, they remained like that. Aliisza simply let the grief wash through her, scouring away all of her shame and guilt. The catharsis was profound, immediate. Somehow, the angel was drawing her taint from her, and she felt clean, new, alive for the first time. The energy Tauran gave off didn't pain her anymore. It fed her, nourished her body and spirit together.

At last, they drew apart. Tauran peered into Aliisza's eyes, as though searching for something there. She smiled at him, a grin that grew. She knew it showed her affection for the angel, her appreciation for all that he had done to bring her to that moment.

"I am whole," she said, and she reached up and caressed the deva's cheek.

He was so beautiful, she realized. Not just physically, though there was that. No, his inner strength, his convictions shone from within. She would have envied that if she didn't understand how he could share it with her. What she once would have wanted to wrest from him for her own use, she instead craved that he share with her. For in sharing it, it became even more bountiful, limitless.

"I have a surprise for you," the angel said, standing. He reached down and pulled Aliisza to her feet. "It's time."

The alu looked at her friend, confused. "Time for what?" she asked.

"To meet him," Tauran replied.

Aliisza's heart leaped into her throat. Her son! It was time to meet her child.

"N-no," she stammered, afraid. "I–I cannot."

"Why?" Tauran asked, genuinely puzzled. "You want to love him, and he you."

"Yes, but…" How could she explain it? she thought. How could she make sense of it herself? "I'm afraid," she said at last, raising her arms helplessly.

"Of what?"

"That he will not love me," she replied, and the tears welled up again. "That he will look upon his mother and know all the terrible things she has done, and he will turn away."

"That is possible," the deva said.

Aliisza looked at him, taken aback. His words surprised her. She had expected the angel to try to dismiss her fears, make her believe that all would be fine.

"You cannot predict, nor can you control, what is in another's heart," Tauran explained. "You can only give of yourself and see if something good comes in return."

"The risk…" Aliisza began, knowing it would always be there.

"Is worth the reward," the angel finished for her. "Without one, you cannot truly have the other."

Aliisza took a deep breath. "I know," she admitted. "But I am still afraid."

"Look how close you are, though," Tauran said. "Look what you've come through to achieve this. To turn away now would be tragic."

Aliisza thought through everything that had happened to her. Her struggle had been monumental, and through it all, the only thing that had ultimately mattered to her was to see her child born, and grow, and be happy. In a way, she had already sacrificed everything on his behalf. She knew then that it didn't matter what he thought of her. She had already given him everything she had.

"Take me to him," Aliisza said, mustering her conviction. "I want to see what he has become."

Tauran smiled and took her hand. "I don't need to," he said. "He's been here, with us, the whole time."

Aliisza felt a lump form in her throat. Here? All this time? He's watched me! Saw me laid open, bare, all of my failures! Oh, by the gods, no!

Tauran tugged at the half-fiend, gently pulled her along to the far side of the garden.

There, in the shadows, Aliisza could see a form. He was sitting on a bench, his face masked in darkness.

Her son.

He was larger than she expected, an adult. Much time had passed since his birth. Tauran had warned of it, but the impact didn't truly hit her until just then.

I've missed his childhood, she lamented. I wonder how much he will look like me, how much he will resemble Kaanyr. Thinking of the cambion made her pause a second time. Kaanyr. What will he think? What will he do?

As they approached, her son stood. He wore a simple white tunic and leggings, very similar to the clothing many of the inhabitants of the House donned. He was not as tall as Aliisza would have expected, given Kaanyr's stature. But he was graceful.

He stepped into the soft light of the moon, and Aliisza realized she didn't even know his name, but the thought that she ought to ask Tauran that question vanished the moment she saw his face.

Ghost white hair, shorn short, framed an aquiline face the color of a dusky evening sky.

The garnet eyes of Pharaun Mizzrym's progeny stared back at Aliisza.

Aliisza felt the world shudder around her. So many emotions, so many thoughts hit her all at once. A part of her mind thought it was a trick. Tauran had brought some imposter to her, some half-drow that could not possibly be her son, in order to trick her, to test her somehow. But peering at that face, with its slightly arched eyebrows and high, delicate cheekbones, she knew it was her son.

Hers and Pharaun's.

All that time, she had believed she carried Kaanyr Vhok's whelp within her. It was the only outcome she had considered, and when the error of her thinking made itself clear, she wanted to kick herself for her own foolish shortsightedness.

More emotion flooded through her. It began with a tingling, a feeling of something pressing against the back of her skull, at the base. Some dam that was on the verge of bursting hovered there.

And it was gone, and a torrent of memories hit her.