sigelphoenix

Title: Further Conversations With Drannor
Characters: Nexus, Drannor
Word Count: ~1600
Summary: What it says. Less "story," and more "I wrote about Nexus and Drannor talking until I didn't want to write about Nexus and Drannor talking anymore."
Notes: This takes place after the Dragon Coast adventure, and before the team hears the news from Waterdeep.

Nexus and Drannor have a lot of conversations during their nightly sparring, their psychic forms talking and fighting inside Nexus' mind while its physical body remains in an elven trance.

This night, there is a lot to talk about. There have been a number of revelations, here in Tzeiir, not least of which is the discovery of who has been behind all the carnage and turmoil plaguing Faerun.

"So," Nexus says, not quite sure where to start.

"So," Drannor echoes.

"Garagos."

"Yes."

"I don't know much about him," Nexus admits, pulling out Unfettered and moving into a battle stance. "I know he fought Tempus to be the god of war, and Tempus won, but later he gave Garagos some other god-things to do and they sort of worked together. But I really like Tempus, and I don't like Garagos."

Drannor shrugs, unsheathing his own long, thin blade. "You don't have to like a god just because they're related to your patron deity. I imagine you're not a strong supporter of the Red Knight, for instance."

The nexi shrugs back. "I liked Lady Bloodhawk, and she was the Red Knight once. But not as much as Anora likes either of them."

Drannor tilts his head slightly to one side, closing his eyes. A blindfold appears over his face out of nowhere - as usual, Nexus' guide manipulates the psychic landscape with ease. "I doubt you would want to be in the army of either one, for one thing."

Nexus shakes its head a lot, knowing that Drannor can hear the very air move with its motion. When he takes this stance, his hearing is supernaturally sharp. "I don't think that would go well."

A smile touches Drannor's mouth, and then that's the last thing that Nexus sees clearly as the elf flies forward in a blur of motion. He lands a blow on Nexus - a weak one that does little physical damage, but the attack shakes up Nexus' mind, and it is unable to move for several seconds. The elven blade strikes several times during those seconds, and then Drannor pulls back as Nexus regains its equilibrium and starts fighting back.

"That technique works on you often, Nexus. We must sharpen your mind more, so you can resist it." They trade blows for awhile, neither gaining much ground - Drannor hits more often, but when Nexus connects, it's more effective. "You know, when I first met you I wouldn't have guessed that you disliked Garagos."

"Really?" Nexus plants its feet and hauls back in a massive swing that cuts through its teacher's armor.

Drannor staggers back a bit, putting up his guard to keep Nexus back; it pauses to hear his answer. "Yes. When I met you, you didn't fight like this - powerful, but ... calm. A sort of slow, but inexorable, force. I think of you as a mountain, you know. And so do you."

"I do?"

"Our appearance on this astral plane is a projection of our minds; we can shape it according to our thoughts, the way I do when I want to change my body to train you in a different area. You haven't learned to do this consciously, so you always appear the same way - the way you think of yourself." Drannor gestures downward. "Look."

Nexus does. Its feet are ... well, they're a lot bigger than normal. In the physical world, its feet are quite small, not like humanoid feet with toes; its legs just sort of flatten out and stop. But here, its legs expand, starting at the knee, in cone-like formations that really do look like little wood and adamantine mountains. "Huh." It lifts one mountain-foot and looks at it. "I guess that makes sense. I do concentrate a lot on standing very firm and being hard to move."

"Yes." Drannor gives the upturned mountain-foot a poke with the tip of his sword. "A follower of Garagos wouldn't be a mountain. They'd be powerful, yes, but the mountain would be ... a volcano. And they would be the lava."

Another one of those metaphors, Nexus thinks. The teachers it knows seem to like them rather a lot. It turns the idea over in its mind, evaluating how much it teaches him. "That's a pretty good metaphor," it says.

"I try," Drannor says dryly.

"So you thought I was lava-like at first?"

"Well, yes," he replies. "The first time I saw you fight, you were full of rage, tearing apart gnolls in the High Forest. And then you decapitated one and wore its head as a necklace."

"Oh. Right." Nexus thinks back on the unpleasant memory. "Well, I did want very much to kill that gnoll. I thought it had killed Vilda. And then it badly injured Lyson. So maybe I was being more like Garagos than Tempus."

"Mm." Drannor nods thoughtfully. "But what Garagos does is inflict violence for the sake of violence - he revels in carnage. That's not why you fight."

"No, definitely not," Nexus agrees. "I don't want to go around hurting people just for fun. And it would be wrong to kill people for no reason. But sometimes, in war, people who are fighting each other ..." It trails off, thinking, and tries again. "A priest of Tempus told me that Tempus gave Garagos control over things like carnage because somebody had to take care of them, even if Tempus didn't like them. Those things happen during war. Especially if someone almost kills a couple of your best friends."

"But what if that violence catches someone who doesn't deserve it? Carnage can be turned on innocent people." The blindfold disappears from Drannor's eyes, and he turns his piercing gaze on the nexi.

"No, I don't want that," Nexus responds. "I only want to fight and kill people who want to fight and kill me. I think war is useful sometimes, but it's dangerous, so it should only involve people who choose to be involved - not bystanders or slaves who are forced to be soldiers. That's why I hate what Garagos is doing, attacking cities with innocent people in them." It shrugs. "But if someone chooses to attack me, I'll fight them. And if they hurt people I care about, I'll get mad and might be very violent. I'm not always violent, but it happens sometimes."

"Hmm, but Nexus, just because that's the way things are doesn't mean it's good."

The adamantine and wood head nods vigorously. This is something teacher and student very much agree on.

After a thoughtful silence, Nexus speaks up. "I definitely don't want to be a Garagos very often. I want to be a Tempus, someone who uses war when it's the best tool. But if I'm fighting someone, and they do something very bad, and I get angry and want to hurt them ... well, I can't pretend I'm not angry. I don't like pretending that I'm not feeling something when I feel it. Even if it's not pleasant, I want to experience it so I can think about it and learn."

Drannor raises a questioning eyebrow. "Do you feel the same way about Beshaba? If it were possible, I wish she didn't have to be around -" his voice drops reflexively and he looks around, as if afraid the goddess might hear him - "and we didn't have to have bad luck, just like I wish we didn't have to have carnage. But I suppose you're willing to keep them both?"

"I guess. I don't like having bad luck, but it is something new to learn about. Sometimes when things don't happen the way I want them to, it's more interesting." It shakes its head. "If Garagos was doing what he normally does, I wouldn't want him to die. Since he's doing all these evil things now, then we have to kill him or stop him another way. I wish he could somehow get fixed, though, and go back to doing what he was supposed to do."

"Hm," Drannor mutters. "Hmmm. You've given me a lot to think about, Nexus. The way you think is very different from what I'm used to."

"I hear that a lot," it says. Then it asks, "If you don't want to talk about this anymore, can you tell me something else about how I look?" It holds its arms out to invite its teacher's description.

Drannor chuckles a little. "Sure. You know that you're quite shiny, Nexus?"

"Hm. I do like being shiny."

"I suppose you don't realize just how much dirt you accumulate on your metal parts with all of your traveling and fighting. But also," he narrows his eyes thoughtfully. "I can see myself reflected very clearly on you. Like a mirror, almost ... nothing distorted, nothing hidden."

"Oh." It looks down at a metal part on its arm. "I can see myself reflected, too."

"Yes, quite clearly."

Nexus nods. "You've given me something to think about, too, Drannor. Thank you."

"And you know what else?"

"What else?" Nexus replies, eager to hear more.

"You're smiling. You probably forget that you don't smile, in the physical world."

Nexus' hand lifts reflexively to its face. It does feel a smile, a curve of its wooden mouth that should be impossible in real life. As its fingers linger, the shape of its mouth continues to change, relaxing into the slightly open shape of surprise.

It looks up at its teacher, who is smiling back. He is looking rather fondly at it.

"This is neat. What else? Are my eyes still made of fire?"

Drannor clears his throat. "I think we should get back to training, Nexus." He shifts into another stance, the one that makes Nexus miss a lot, and beckons with his sword.

"Oh. Okay then."