Tristan Thalavar - Inheritance

[Obsidian Sea]

When nightfall comes, and the pale and impotent sun that shines over Westgate gives way to stars and a scornful moon, the long, graduating cobbled streets of the city are bedecked with the lights of torches. As the daylight dissolves, the true nature of an unkind city becomes truer yet. Perhaps Westgate is so-called because it provides a pathway and a mirroring for the Sword Coast cities, yet if such a theory was ever true, the city has since disintegrated to be a morbid deviation from this original ideal.

The majority of the population of Westgate does not measure up to the cosmopolitan expectation that one might have for a city of its size. What one is greeted with, contrarily, is a workforce sodden with drink; acquainted with and indulging in every vice; riddled with diseases of both social and physical connotation. Ever-alert must one be for the rogues and crooks of the city. Such characters are identified by their unseemly visages: the man with an overlarge nose; or he with eyes that are uncomfortably close together, lurking in deep sockets beneath knitted eyebrows; sloping foreheads and jawlines that rest on unhappy angles. These are the physiognomical truths of immoral men.

The grand illusion of dark Westgate however, is that of splendour. At the top of the city stands the multiple aristocratic estates, hidden behind walls that act as a physical barrier between the nobility and the degenerate masses that are but a stone’s throw away. Within these estates are characters that are not taken with the physical and medical maladies of the citizenry which they feign to represent.

Athagdal; Bleth; Cormaeril; Guldar; Malavhan; Ssemm; Thalavar; Thorsar; Urdo; and Vhammos. These are the names of the ruling nobles of the city, who form an oligarchical committee in the interests of furthering the worldly trading strength of the city. Like a net the city catches the exotic and extraordinary aspects of Faerûn and pins them within its towering walls; walls sometimes so high that they might deny the passage of the sun's rays. The uneasy truce between these noble families is nothing more than a front which distracts from the political manoeuvrings that occur behind the scenes, as each noble family attempts to extend its influence beyond that of its competitors – by means fair or foul.

They might have masqueraded under some visage of virtue, but the smokescreen was translucent. Standing in the pane of the south-facing window of his chambers, looking out onto the torch-lit city of Westgate, Tristan Thalavar thought these things of the city that was – and had forever been – his home. Castle Thalavar resided on the northeast of the city, adjacent to the salt sea that was The Inner Sea. It was elevated on a steep slope of the city that kept it at a distance from the unruly antics of the dockhands and sailors that worked beneath. It was one of the most impressive estates in Westgate – in size and space at least – and the Thalavar family’s star had been rising again in recent years. One motif of the city’s history had always been that the rise of one family inevitably meant the decline of another, and one might suppose Tristan Thalavar would be as happy as his parents, the lord and lady of Castle Thalavar, to know of the waning fortunes of the Athgadal estate. He did not care.

Tristan stared mutely out upon the shanty streets of Westgate. He could hear the screams of a woman: she was being harassed, or mugged. His heart sank somewhat at the sound, though he should be used to it by now. While life within Castle Thalavar was not all that another might think it to be, Tristan could at least be grateful that by right of his birth he was not exposed to the noxious influence of the common folk. He resembled in his aesthetic the healthy, proper appearance of a male – in fact, he exceeded it, for it was a true fact that he had the aspect of majesty in his features. Though lord and lady Thalavar were by no means becoming visages, their only child’s physical characteristics were a great matter of pride, and also one of envy insofar as the rival noble families of the city were concerned. Tristan’s appearance was taken as a sign of his worthiness to rule the Thalavar estate and unnerved the competing noble families, who did not see the same majesty in the faces of their children.

In this there was some comfort, but there was an undeniable lethargy in the life of an heir that made Tristan restless. The day’s cycles were constant, and within the safety of the estate there was an unshakable routine that bred monotony. The servants of the family did not think so, for it was enough for them to be kept separate from the burgeoning population of the city beyond the district of the nobles. Nor did Tristan’s parents think so, for they carried the family name and duties with impeccable pride. Tristan seemed to be alone in his vexations.

He brought himself away from the window and drew the velvet fabric of the curtains to a close behind him. Being bred and beget to the world of Westar privilege, the things that seemed so illustrious; so grandiose about Westgate from beyond its walls had become disappointingly mundane and flavourless to Tristan Thalavar.

----

"One track mind like a goldfish,
Stuck inside my petri dish,
I can't breathe and I can't smile,
This better be worth my while."

[Obsidian Sea]

Leona Thalavar moved back and forth before the open fireplace of the drawing room. Her suede slippers made no sound upon the long-fringed purple rug. The frippery of the rug was dominated by the embroidered green feather that glided across its centre - the insignia of the Thalavar household. Leona Thalavar had married Tristan’s father, Donalden IV, and quickly appropriated herself to the role of lady of the house, for she had the carriage of nobility in her gait and the elegance of style in her wardrobe that commanded deference from those around her. Tristan’s nose took the same shape as his mother’s; small yet not narrow to the point of roguishness. He also possessed her impeccable cheekbones that brought aplomb to other facial features in even the weariest hours.

The roaring heat of the fire seemed to draw all moisture from the room, and any feeling of maternity Leona might have shown for Tristan was abated by a stony gaze. Leona held her paces, standing directly between Tristan and the tongues of fire behind the grate. From where they were born upon the framed stag's antlers adorning the wall, gnarled shadowy patterns reached out towards Tristan like blackened vines of a rose bush.

“You are soon to be of an age, son, where you shall be expected to assume more responsibility about the affairs of this family. Twenty and twenty-one are but the lattermost number apart in years. It is time for you to apply yourself better to this family and to your duty. You are the heir to Castle Thalavar. It is time to act upon the education you have received within these walls, and think towards the future of this family.”

Tristan was unable to heave his heart into his mouth long enough to profess false happiness or sincere despair at the lesson. He had wondered before what it must be like to have a mother of maternal disposition, but he was not ignorant about the reality of his situation and rarely dwelt on the matter. Leona Thalavar was the woman that she was, and the success and satisfaction of her life thus far had given little reason for her to want to amend any aspect of it.

“The name of this family is dear, my son,” began Leona with a dulcet tone to her voice, that Tristan had witnessed before as an injudicious yet effective weapon, able and ready to create turncoats of the people whose ears were graced with it. She made her way to sit next to him upon the chaise-long. Tristan knew that his mother would yield nothing to him or anyone else at any cost to the name to which she was wed.

“In my true heart I know that you are forged of the same steel as your father. You will be as he is: proud; authoritative; imperturbable. In time, you shall see that your nature shall be challenged only by your merit. You are a Thalavar.”

Leona smiled upon her son, searching for recognition of these statements in his empty irises: she had gesticulated in the right degree to make her words land, but being disconnected so from her heart - and from his - Tristan was unmoved. In a further effort, Tristan's mother cupped him chin in one hand with a caressing quality in her touch, as though his face was more valuable than Kara-Turan silks; and indeed, was it not? Her touch enervated him. A faux-maternal smile quickly reset to the favoured expression: a mask of aristocratic stoicism. She moved to gaze upon the fireplace, casting her words like afterthoughts towards the son that remained still in her wake.

“To that end,” Leona continued, the dulcet tone quite evaporated in the heat of the fire that curtained her, “Your father and I have decided that you shall undertake further training with Devarnen and attend the library with greater frequency than you presently do. This you shall do, with pride in the name that you carry and which gives you the privilege to do so. Your heart, young and untender, will find a home in this estate. Trust in this as you strive to do your father and I proud.”

Tristan could say nothing. Ravens with stones around their legs flew more freely.

“You may retire to your chambers now.”

----

"I know you only want to own me,
And that's the kind of love you show me."

[Obsidian Sea]

The prominence of the Thalavar family in recent generations gave Tristan access to a grand library, housing some of the most popular works produced upon the Sword Coast and the Dragon Coast, as well as some works further afield. These were luxuries that would never grace the homes of another. Westgate’s centrality in trading circles allowed the educated therein to become shrewd collectors of literature from many regions of Faerûn, although in matters of Arcana it was dwarfed by the academies of adjacent countries.

Tristan had on occasion wondered why Westgate did not sponsor any Arcane academies of its own: there were a wealth of temples and religions sponsored in the city, and no shortage of money. He had finally come to the conclusion that magic was too observable as a means of getting things done. In Westgate, the nobility favoured cloak and dagger deals, political manoeuvring and – Tristan had no doubt – quiet criminal activity to get the job done. A known magic-user would draw far too much attention to a noble house, and for all the wrong reasons.

These were the idle musings Tristan often had when he was sentenced to the library for private study. He had little interest in researching the histories of the Westgate families. Privileged, yes, but he was rarely grateful for the fact, for he knew the forcible manner in which his family intended the knowledge he was granted to be deployed, and Tristan had little option but to comply.

Presently, the young master of the estate was researching the known history of the Guldar noble family. Their house insignia was that of a black hawk, and they were one of the oldest and most constant of Westgate’s noble families insofar as their power and influence was concerned. Traditionally, the Guldars worshipped Bane above the other Westar patron deities, although the recent upheaval among the pantheon had scattered the former tyrant God’s followers and caused the Guldar family some cause for concern. Tristan wondered how much it all mattered: he was certain most of the Westar noble families – including his own – had given some worship to Bane over the generations. Bane was dead now. Who cared? The pantheon of Gods never seemed to take any action in human affairs: even they probably didn’t truly care.

The Thalavar family had a taut relationship with the Guldars. Learning about it was an excessively dull exercise. Tristan’s parents counted the Malavhan, Thorsar and Vhammos families among their aristocratic allies at present. Any noble house that was trending as an influence in Westgate above the other noble houses tended to polarise opinion, and the Guldars were displeased to see their old rivals, the Thalavars, taking prominence again alongside the Vhammos family. In such instances, the obvious responses of the peripheral noble families were sabotage or sycophancy, and it seemed the Guldar house were opting for the former.

Tristan wondered what the implications of such a decision might be for himself. He was the heir to the Thalavar estate. The studies Tristan had undertaken thus far had informed him that all of the noble estates in Westgate had prior dealings with two of the notorious factions of the city: The Fire Knives, and The Night Masks – the latter holding more significance with the wealthy. Both roguish organisations handled shady political affairs for the noble families for the right sum of money, and it was only under exceptional circumstances or cases of extreme loyalty that either group would refuse to take action against a noble house’s competitors. It sickened Tristan to watch his parents and their so-called allies carry themselves with righteous grace, knowing that they would willingly have business with these factions. The hypocrisy of it all was so tiresome. Now however, he was more concerned with what other families might be discussing with these groups, and what the consequences of such dealings might be for his safety. Thudding the heavy tome before him closed, he replaced it delicately in its place upon the bookshelf, passing a hand back over his tousled locks of brown hair. Using discretion, the young master of the castle went in search of a tome more befitting to his interests.

----

"It's summer time and I hang on the vine,
They're going to make me into sweet red wine,
Hanging around like the fruit on a tree,
Waiting to be picked, come on cut me free."

[Obsidian Sea]

Tristan did not hold the sport of duelling in high esteem: it was like everything else in his life in that regard. His teacher was a firm, disciplined man who had been loyally in the service of the Thalavar family for years. Devarnen was his name, and he hailed from somewhere upon the Sword Coast. Tristan had not listened well enough to remember precisely where anymore. Years of teaching others had stiffened Devarnen’s demeanour and he was impatient and easily frustrated by setbacks with his pupils. The Thalavar family had always excelled among the Westgate elite for their participation and triumphs in duelling contests, and a skilful engagement with the art of swordplay was expected of Tristan, just as it had been of all his forefathers.

His regular lessons were of little use to Tristan: apathy hindered his progress more than a fundamental inability to participate. Try as he might to stir and spurn Tristan with encouragements and disciplinary technique, Devarnen was the same as everybody else employed in Castle Thalavar in their deference to the young master. His status was confirmed, even if his capacity to uphold it was only legitimised by birth and appearance. In Westgate, that was enough.

Leona Thalavar came through the high, arched oaken doors of the training hall, her posture erect and authoritative and her hands clasped firmly beneath her bosom. Today, Tristan’s mother wore a floor-length gown of deepest green, the corset of which was painfully tight. The dress bloomed beneath the waist. Devarnen stayed his rapier upon the lady’s entry, bowing deeply before her.

“Lady Thalavar.”

“How does my son fare, Devarnen?”

The swordsman cleared his throat apprehensively. Tristan understood implicitly. These men and women secured their future by showing him deference, but their survival was dictated at the whim of the present master and mistress of Castle Thalavar. Leona ushered Devarnen to the far side of the chamber with the subtle tip of her hand in the due direction. Both departed Tristan with solemn utterances under their breath.

Tristan hefted the rapier carelessly into his hand as he was left alone. A part of him yearned to care more about the discipline of duelling – not out of any desire for personal improvement, but in the interest of lessening his mother’s disapproval. As it was, he could not pull himself out of his disinterested mentality, and presently he only wanted to be extricated from the misery that the training hall invited. He wanted to swim.

After a brief exchange of words, Leona and Devarnen both turned back to look across the room at Tristan. The action seemed almost predatory; hostile, as they rounded back to approach the weakest member of the herd. And what was he to the Thalavar family but a weak member of the herd? A chance to retain power in future generations, of course, but he knew he was showing little promise for it.

Leona crossed the threshold once again, her head held high. The lines on her visage that make-up could not conceal revealed displeasure. She did not make eye-contact, nor exchange one word with Tristan as she exited the hall, flanked by two guards that had been awaiting her by the entrance. Devarnen crossed the chamber towards Tristan, drawing his rapier.

“Alright, young master, raise your blade – let’s go again.”

----

"Ever since I can remember,
Life was like a tipping scale,
Like an abacus I played with,
Counting every win and fail."

[Obsidian Sea]

At the end of his lessons, Tristan walked back from the training hall to his bedroom. It was situated above the training hall and on the opposite wing of Castle Thalavar. These final steps back to the solitude of his bedroom felt like the longest, as seems often to be the case for desperate men in dire situations.

Tristan eventually came around the final corner in the corridor that would lead him to his room, and there did he spot something to his discomfort: stationed outside his bedroom was a young stranger, equipped in armour that matched that of the other guards employed at Castle Thalavar. He held the shaft of his halberd erect in his left hand when he saw Tristan coming. Tristan approached.

“Young master, I am Daleson, a serving guard for your – for the Thalavar family. Your parents wish me to escort you to your lessons and await you outside your room tonight and hereafter. A personal guard, if you will.”

Daleson bowed low to Tristan as he said this, and he was obviously rather newly-employed by the family. He looked apologetic as he explained the purpose of his position. Tristan understood the instruction. His parents wanted to place more scrutiny upon him. But why? Tristan inspected the person before him – not much older than he was – and deemed him shrinking enough in demeanour and presence that he could quite easily be a messenger to the lady of the house, updating her of Tristan’s progress on a daily basis. On the other hand, the little-acknowledged presence of The Night Masks within the city might also suggest that Tristan’s parents wished to heighten security around their only son: was he the target of assassination at the desires of another noble family? The Guldars, as he had suspected?

Tristan was not sure which scenario would be most dissatisfying for him nor which one was more likely. One never knew in Westgate just how safe one truly was. Again, he focused his hazel eyes upon the docile Daleson. Daleson’s facial features and bearing was telling of his kind and serving demeanour. Tristan put a lot of purchase by physiognomy when it came to understanding the motivations and attitudes of others. It did not seem to him as though this unassuming man would be confidant to any of the secrets Tristan’s parents harboured. Without a word of consideration for his new personal guard, Tristan passed into his chambers to mull over the implications of this new addition to his daily routine.

----

"Don't want to talk anymore,
I'm obsessed with silence.
I go home and I lock my door,
I can hear the sirens."

[Obsidian Sea]

His mother having retired to the boudoir in preparation for a late dinner outside of the castle, and his father absent on business with the noble house of Athagdal and that of Urdo also, Tristan walked the halls of Castle Thalavar, his carriage more erect than usual. In their absence, he was the highest authority of the estate: under the weight of his parents’ scrutiny he felt much less potent as a figure of authority in the castle, despite the deference all others showed him. Their expectations absent for the evening, Tristan rediscovered what independence always managed to do for his sense of superiority, however fleeting it would be. He supposed it was hereditary in the bloodline of the Thalavar’s to feel this nobility: he did find pleasure in watching the serving people humble themselves as he walked by.

Passing into his chambers, Tristan issued Daleson close the doors after him and let no one approach: not even Daleson was to disturb him. Westgate was the city of social surveillance.

Tristan closed the curtains to eclipse the moon. The young inheritor crossed the bedroom, passing his fingers along the smooth and artisan curves in the wooden columns of his poster bed: elven embellishment, he had been informed, although he questioned the likelihood that the craftsman would have any contact with elven art. Anything could be acquired in Westgate, if one had the influence and wealth to make it happen. But authenticity, Tristan thought, was the rarest substance both in Westgate’s products and its people.

He lit every candle in his room. Jasmine noir. Soothing, magical, and melancholic. The smell permeated every fabric it touched.

Coming to the floor-length mirror adjacent to his bed, the young noble stopped and studied the image that he made in it. He always knew as he passed down the corridors that the servants and guards humbled themselves not only out of respect, but also out of a peculiar kind of intimidation: Tristan was the very vision of an aristocrat, and few people knew how best to proceed when under the full gaze of his striking features. His high cheekbones were pronounced and accommodated focus to a pair of hazel eyes alluringly rested into their sockets, peeking out of the gentle shadows cast down upon them by his well-defined and perfectly shaped eyebrows. He had finely-curved scarlet lips that invoked desire in many a young maiden. In addition, Tristan’s hair was thick and rested whatever way he desired to set it, and he was grateful that his nose was boyishly unobtrusive, imposing no aesthetic displeasure on his unanimously handsome and wealthy features. Tristan did not have the strong jaw and rugged-set face of a farming lad, and it would be unbefitting to his station if he did. Rather, the perfect unity of each of his perfections loaned him an aspect of the androgynous; a universality to his beauty that does not ask nor expect distinction between the gender of his beholders.

Tristan pulled back his pleated dark green robe, adorned with purple frippery around the cuffs and buttoning. Dropping the fine raiment to the floor, he pulled off the linen tunic underneath to look upon his smooth torso in the mirror: he was slim, but overtime he had toned his body through mandatory and voluntary exercise. Modesty and humility were Ilmateri virtues, and they did not service Tristan in the exercise of self-reflection: even Tristan would not deny that he was beautiful. In this regard – even if it were only this one – he had met and exceeded the expectations of his parents. The mirror was fit to break with the effort of attempting to replicate him.

And though Tristan could not deny his physical allure, it was not in this that he took the greatest pride. Having taken his tunic and robe from the floor and hanged them up in his armoire, Tristan climbed towards the centre of his bed. He surveyed his chamber to ensure that the door had definitely been closed, and he had definitely drawn the curtains fully. He was definitely alone.

He smiled for the first time all day, and opened up his right palm delicately. Tristan uttered the sounds which he himself could not entirely comprehend, and – there in the dark isolation of his bedroom – Tristan looked on with quiet felicity as sparks begin to flicker and exist, encircling his palm and travelling up his fingers and around his wrist. In this he could take pride. Tristan told no one of the magic. It was the one part of him that was not his parents to control, or to claim ownership of. More than the pale imitation that the mirror showed, this was him.

After a time of watching the lightning dance, Tristan had lulled restlessness. The smell that filled his room intoxicated him with the desire for sleep. Snuffing out every candle, the young Sorcerer reclined into his bed and let it conquer him.

----

"I wish I wasn’t such a narcissist,
I wish I didn’t really kiss
The mirror when I’m on my own,
Oh God, I’m gonna die alone.
Adolescence didn't make sense,
A little loss of innocence."

[Obsidian Sea]

Castle Thalavar was the kind of place where one would utterly lose themselves were they to be so foolish as to try and go about it without the formality of binding themselves to their hosts. No hallway nor antechamber had sympathy for those that crossed through them; they offered no clear clue of where next one ought to go. Narrow staircases towards the edges of the great manor would paradoxically lead you down from one floor and through a shaded, poorly-lit hallway only for you to discover that you were right at the top of the very same staircase again.

It was in 1042 Dale Reckoning; The Year of the Reaching Beacon, that one vestibule had been added to the western wing of the house and lavishly spoiled to impress visiting Cormyreans who had bloomed in national spirit with the crowning of Azoun II. This vestibule led into a spacious dining chamber, which neither Giant nor Dragon would have purpose to construct, and which served the purpose of making guests feel small in comparison to the old money excellence of the Thalavars.

And was it not a job well done? Who questioned their affluence? There were none bold, not one, once they stepped within the domain of the Thalavars.

Tristan Thalavar walked an old corridor, his steps muffled upon the long rug of green feather embroidery. He trod upon the very insignia of his house tonight. He held the candle forth which enchanted the frames of many portraits to reach down as shadows and clutch at the architecture itself, as though to claim ownership once again.

But his ancestors were dead.

Every step was slow and cautious. Those that did not believe in ghosts might think again were they to walk the most antiquated halls of Castle Thalavar. This bright nimbus of candelight might be the first in a decade that awoke the dust that made a lair here.

Some of these paintings were historical indeed. Looking upon a series of three, Tristan deduced without looking upon the plaques beneath them that they were the work of Pre-Sembian brotherhoods of artists. There was a quality of old excellence to the frippery of these portraits that was nothing if not human suggestion of acquaintance with Elves in a bygone era. Long were these men's shapes upon the wall, disgraced by torn wallpaper and chipping metallic frames. More embarrassing still were the portraits taken in the setting of Castle Thalavar in days gone by, when these aged hallways were replete with the dressings of wealth and sophistication. How the content of these pieces was mocked by the context in which they had been hanged.

Tristan Thalavar could feel no sense of dignity or purpose swelling up in his breast as he looked upon these men, who felt so anonymous and superfluous. In their time they might have been great, but the passage of time had transposed eminence to insignificance; majesty to baseness. How loud in one's ears the arguments of Westgate's scientific philosophers would ring if this hidden wing of the castle could be filled with sound.

Progressing down the corridor, Tristan was stepping back in time with wild variations: some steps marked the passing of decades, and others were the mark of a few mere years that some forefathers had ruled. Perhaps they had been assassinated? No such information would be available to him even if he cared to go searching for it, for if these men had ruled for months; for years; or for decades, it mattered not. They had all been forgotten. They meant nothing.

The young inheritor could not see the bottom of the staircase down which he had descended at the beginning of the hallway any longer, for darkness and silent space filled the distance between he and it. Presently, Tristan had come to stand before a hanging that - to his dry entertainment - was concealed beneath a green baize. How it humoured his mentality to see it: for if all one could feel was an underwhelmed sense of detachment from these forgotten figures, no portrait demonstrated the appropriateness of that sentiment more than the one whose gambit at eternity had been thwarted by the hanging of coarse woollen cloth.

Yet the concealment of this piece was more interesting to Tristan than the abortive declarations that every other portrait in the corridor made. He held the nimbus of light up to the cloth, and the fingers of his other hand reached out, moving aside the dust and the years that had cleaved the distance between art and its audience.

Drawing back the cloth was like righteous rebellion. The draw of the huge baize created double shadows, and all the other shadows of the hallway erupted and fled, thereafter fighting to reclaim their places in the candle's vision. The candle itself battled effortfully not to die as the cloth pushed a heavy wind down over it and its wielder. Tristan's eyelids did not flicker, nor his body tense. Clutched still for a moment in his fingertips as it died upon the floor, the baize was cast aside lazily; an afterthought in the wake of revelation.

Tristan Thalavar's hazel gaze set upon a man who gazed back. Broad shoulders and a barrel chest that defined the man's torso reminded Tristan more of his father than his own father did. Prominence had been brought to every feature: no artist of the modern day could replicate this portrait. A lurid lightness upon dated garments made them a supple understatement, as though the intention of their depiction had been to mock the fashions of the person who looked upon them centuries later. Every shade of brown and yellow lived within the portrait, and so wide and tall were the dimensions of it that Tristan could not view it altogether. Justice - if ever such a thing existed - bore down upon the young heir to Castle Thalavar from the deep blue eyes of the man in the portrait, as blue as the deepest hues that colour The Sea of Fallen Stars adjacent. A hard mouth, lips parted by only a hair's width, looked as though it would form the truest sounds of Law.

An unconscionable amount of time had been spent perfecting the touches of perfect white that were in the portrait. A pearl broach was on the breast of the man, and Tristan could see a pearl bracelet peeking out of the sleeve of his left arm. Over his eyes, Tristan momentarily lost all control as they flickered quickly between one accessory and the other, unable to choose which he should first attend.

Cautiously, Tristan stepped back across the corridor's width, giving his eyes more command to take in the entirety of the portrait, which was cast in an ageless frame of perfect bronze. Distance gave him control over the sight that was before him, for his eyes were choosing upon which aspects of the portrait he ought to look, rather than expecting the portrait to wait for his address. It was so like and yet so unlike what a man can be as he sits by a long window that overlooks the sea, as this man did. Had he been querulous with the artist at the portrait's completion when he discovered how much of the space of the canvas he had to share with the oceanic backdrop? Or had that been by design? Somehow it did not diminish him, nor make a servant out of the sea.

Tristan let time pass, looking upon the portrait.

"Master?"

He heard the disembodied voice of Daleson reaching through the corridor. Tristan had commanded his guard to await him at the top of the staircase, and come no closer. With unbecoming agility, he harnessed a storm in his gut, abruptly filled with fury at Daleson's interruption: Daleson would feel his wrath in the form of a terrifying silence.

Tristan regarded the portrait a final time. He did not recognise the man in the picture at all.

He crossed back towards the staircase, returning back through the years until he was keeping a brisk pace ahead of Daleson, ascending up the staircase into the possessive pull of the present.

----

"I'm forever chasing after time,
But everybody dies,
If I could buy forever at a price,
I would buy it twice."

[Obsidian Sea]

On an unexciting afternoon one month later, Tristan moved from his poster bed to drape himself across the Shou divan sofa that sat beneath the window-panelled on the easternmost wall of his bedroom. Pulling back the curtain and opening the window, the faint odour of the salty Inner Sea air drifted in to inhabit the room and all of its expensive finery. The jeers and bellows of the river port workers reverbed across the ramshackle tenements of the city proper and scaled the walls of Castle Thalavar to meet the open window.

Tristan took a certain vivification from the scent of seaspray. The lucid noon’s fragrant breath was a welcome relief from the asphyxiating confines of Castle Thalavar, but it was a passing phase and he became accustomed to the smells of the sea very quickly: he felt incurably taken with indifference, and utter resignation of what his life was and what it was to become. With a weary sigh, he braced himself upon the back of the divan improperly and looked out upon the city to which his allegiance was thrown as an edict of his birth. Tristan was disenfranchised. Frankly, he did not care for the fates of the feuding families, or for the travails of the working backbone of the city. It all meant so little to him. Yet even as he buffered his body upon the antique divan, Tristan knew that all the exotic and expensive inclusions of the castle’s décor could not sustain his shrinking heart from the despair of familial captivity.

Prepared to drag himself away from the window again, it was as though in a small tryst of fate that Tristan’s eyes clapped accidentally upon something in the distance. Upon the slanted shanty roof of a home some way off into the distance, the young noble spotted a slate-gray korat cat. Across the wide and busy city, the cat seemed to acknowledge Tristan’s presence, for it too fixed itself to the spot and reciprocated his stare. Thin, resolved and regal, the cat’s tail swayed delicately in the maritime breeze. Tristan thought that the cat must have once belonged to the Urdo family on the north-western side of the noble estates, or perhaps it still did – they were known to keep that particular breed. But the korat’s eyes bore into him with such tenacious confidence that he quickly became certain that the cat had extricated itself from its owners, dissatisfied with the domesticity to which it had been confined. Adherent to this suggested narrative, the proud korat seemed to bore of Tristan, and in a moment’s notice abandoned their silent dialogue, prowling across the rooftop and leaping out of sight to some new setting.

The encounter gave Tristan a moment’s pause, and then, cautiously, he backed away from the window to the floor-length mirror adorning the wall adjacent to his bed. In the mirror, Tristan wondered what it was he should find. His prepossessing features – gracious and aristocratic – would be the envy of any noble: he wore the finest garments money could afford, and had no equal among the heirs to the city’s many noble estates where appearance was concerned. All of beauty's finest materials had been spent upon him, and yet Tristan could not shrug off a perception of abortive futility in light of his encounter with the korat cat of moments previous: how unshackled, unapologetic, and elegant the feline had been – and how completely its steely gaze published these qualities for its competitors and fellows alike to see.

In contrast, as he looked for a gleam in his own eyes, all that Tristan could see was the futility of youth without life. No glimmer of assertive defiance characterised his being.

He pulled back the curtain to occlude the sun, and returned to his bed unhappy.

----

"Are you satisfied with an average life?
Do I need to lie to make my way in life?
Are you satisfied with an easy ride?
Once you cross the line will you be satisfied?"

[Obsidian Sea]

A rippling shadow cleaved through the water, sending wistful songs across the surface of the pool. The organic fluidity with which Tristan Thalavar moved in the water was hypnotic; for lovers of the sport, his likeness in the water was nothing short of erotic. With the soft sweep of his limbs upon them, he pulled back the waters, which, like obsequious virgins, made way for his passing. The mosaics of the pool and on the walls felt like cheap imitations of grandeur comparative to the young heir's shape underneath the water. A duelist, scholar, or diplomat he might not be, but somehow when he swam, he glided with the ease that birds do upon the wind.

In that liquid embrace, there was only the present. A young Sorcerer; a young heir; a young man, he did not have to worry about the future, nor fear the pursuit of the past, for they had no power to affix his form in this element. It was, amidst the sea of ennui which typified the offers that Castle Thalavar made to Tristan, a sea of absolute, carnal contentment.

Rising up from his occlusion, Tristan was not wanting for oxygen in his lungs. Suffocating in the faux-domesticity of this castle, sometimes the urge to swim took him so completely that it felt as though he breathed the water, and it was, rather, that every moment spent upon the land which asphyxiated him.

Beads of water settled atop his hair like glittering pearls. The sheen of it enhanced the lustrous red of his lips. Tristan was no adonis, but his slim figure was toned from the water. He felt the eyes of Castle Thalavar's attendants settling with anxious obsession upon his being. Tristan feigned ignorance of their desires - and each of them had their desires, be they woman or man. In his body and his bearing, the young heir of the estate had captured the aspect of the androgynous. His beauty knew no boundary. No love of a husband could make a woman blind to him; and men blind to all other men discovered that the veil placed over their eyes was easily lifted, and they were unsettled to discover desire in the form of Tristan Thalavar. And he greatly enjoyed feeding their illness. Tristan coursed through the veins of the innocent, and took the privilege of their hearts without taxation of effort, or appreciation. With keen cruelty, he arched the small of his back forward away from the wall of the pool, becoming a swan upon the water, glittering like a diamond from the dew, and they watched him.

Tristan was ready to slip back beneath the water. He sucked upon his upper lip for a brief, deliberated moment. It was his choice to spend the moment thus, allowing each and every attendant to enjoy the privilege of their surveillance. Shortly thereafter, he slipped back into the water, becoming imperceptible as anything but an undulating shadow, and a prince of the water.

----

"I know I've got a big ego,
I really don't know why its such a big deal, though."

[Obsidian Sea]

Castle Thalavar was lit up, and from beyond the walls of the estate the peasantry might catch the tell-tale sounds of the grand banquet that was being orchestrated therein. Tensions had fast arisen between the Athagdal and Vhammos families. It had become a sickening tradition that when the competition between the noble families came to a fore, the masquerade would be reset with a 'informal' gathering of all the noble families at one estate. This time, the duty fell upon the Thalavars. The first and second drawing rooms and the dining area were veritable hornets nests, brimming with tensions unspoken between the ten noble families.

The calendar had passed along towards The Drawing Down, and Tristan Thalavar had a false feeling. Such a sentiment was inspired by the occasion, but it began with the changing of the month. It was well-documented in the literature of the west that The Drawing Down is the foremost time of malevolence and odd misfortunes: the most ambitious entities of existence are, after all, the cruelest, and so as one year was dying to give way to the next, it followed suit that the bad spirits of the Realms would reflect with disappointment upon their triumphs of the year, and act with conviction in the final chapter to make good on their schemes, and ruin those of the rest. This was the month of unease, and despite their flatteries and best efforts, the nobility that graced Castle Thalavar that night were personifications of the month's qualities.

But Tristan, being born of the first month of the year, Deepwinter, shared with it a sense of oneness even in the social heat of the occasion. The Thalavar family had gone to great expense to bedeck the public areas with candlelight (the cost was to them a mere trifle). From every angle, being between the beholder and some candle, a circle of opalised light shone like a halo around Tristan's hair, magnifying an angelic excellence about him. It was fact, and nothing less, that Tristan was the most valuable presence among the crowd. Such was the tenacity of his impeccability, and the universal perception of the perfect consummation of the nineteen years of growth in him that even among the most fierce, silent enemies of the Thalavar family, Tristan was not deniable. They could not, with bitterness, transpose his perfection to hideousness, and that only fanned the flames of their envy and despise the better.

Among those of the other sex that swanned throughout the public chambers of Castle Thalavar that evening, there was no ornament nor a portrait that had as much beauty as the son of the host family. There was not a young maiden among the gathered that had less than a vested interest in acquiring the attention of man. Even the youngest widows of the banquet reduced themselves to baser creatures, making little secret of their interest in the bachelor, depraving their dignity in the eyes of masculine familial relations, and all others. Going from one room to the other, the halos of candlelight pursued Tristan, determined never to leave the head-shadow. The chink of glasses and the gargling, gulping sound of copious volumes of wine being transferred from one vessel to the next were small sonic distractions on which the observers could occasionally throw their attention to maintain a token facade of indifference, which none - not even themselves - purchased. The string concerto that pressed out from the staircase of the estate's main foyer did the opposite, enhancing the passage of the young heir. What gave Tristan more value was his indifference: he spoke with many guests in the most polite and appropriate way that he could, his energy never much expended to show an interest, and when it was with this same quality that he spoke to prospective young ladies, it was clear to others of their gender to see the moment when her hopes had been dashed, and her heart broken, discovering that she could not bring the redness to his cheek, or a fervor to the gesturing of his arms and hands. The ladies who lay in wait until the later stages of the evening to bring themselves before Tristan felt all the more passionately for him for knowing the rising count of shattered heart fragments upon which he was treading, for there is a contagion in human sentiment which makes us masochists in the race to earn more than we are fit for, and this is doubly so among women.

Leona Thalavar wore a black silk crepe dress, embossed by velvet green and a Dragon's hoard of petticoats that, although they might have weighed another woman down like plate mail, enhanced the figure of the matriarch and forced the guests to part and grant her passage when she wished it. Black silk crepe was a necessity for Leona, for news had come that her uncle in Cormyr had passed away, and it was custom that the women of wealth would wear only black silk crepe for three tendays after the death of senior male relations. Leona was subtly defying these traditions in velvet green, one of the primary colours of the Thalavar family. She knew well enough that only two tendays and seven evenings had passed since her uncle's excruciating illness had claimed him.

The primal choreography of predatory animals circling their prey and detecting their opportunities is thought of too much: an analysis of the ability of Westgate nobility to negotiate a crowd and manipulate the room quickly puts the natural order to shame. A city of constant surveillance, an understanding of who to watch and who is watching you in Westgate is crucial. Behaviour and interaction is constantly being monitored by one source or another in the midst of these public gatherings. As though he had the power to divine, Tristan turned his eyes to meet those of his mother precisely when she expected him to. Across the swathes of merino wool, silk, and taffeta, the pair held dialogue, and began to correspond to one another's movements, crossing the drawing room as though locked in some unholy hypnosis. In these intense moments of lens communication, Tristan fought hard to keep his secrets undercover. Sometimes the doubt crept upon him that his mother knew him too well, and no doubt she thought she did, but he battled off her ability to sense others with a brave resolve for deceit the likes of which he could only have inherited from she herself. Yet, certainly, the lead in this strange pavane belonged to Leona, who pulled him across the room to meet her pleasure.

Passing through a crowd of nobles and wider family relatives that occupied the drawing room in a spectrum of fashions, finally the Thalavars converged on a sort of clearing near the middle of the room where a young maiden stood flanked by her father, Estron Athagdal. Noticing the approach of Tristan and his parents, the young girl looked up to greet him. She was blonde, and wore her hair in a braided up-do that emphasised her gentleness and virginity. Her eyes were complimented with striking cosmetic effects that gave her an almost Elven pointedness to their shape, but that did not belie a forwardness of gait that made her ill-at-ease in the gothic surroundings of Castle Thalavar. To Tristan, it seemed as though she would be most in glory in some golden green field somewhere, gaining in spirit and substance from the natural backdrop or a bundle of wheats to bring the glow of her hair out. This was mildly interesting to him, having had little exposure to anything of a strongly rural sentiment, though it worked to disadvantage her sense of pure nobility.

Tristan came to stand before her, and whatever beauty the girl had was evidently exceeded by Tristan as they were compared in such close proximity. The Athagdal maiden was transfixed upon his countenance, and when their parents were dead and gone, and they no more needed to show those figures deference, it would be his will that would take ascendancy between them. This did not very much excite Tristan, and his mother had raised him well at least insofar as teaching him that women have an excess of resources upon which they will draw, unapologetically, if it would threaten them too greatly not to.

“Tristan,” Leona Thalavar began, rising in her bosom, “This is the daughter of Lord Athagdal, Aketta.”

----

"Women and men, we are the same,
But love will always be a game.
We give and take a little more,
Eternal game of tug and war."