[Avrie Eventide Drega]

With her vision intertwined with Venn's, Avrie saw the ara in colorform for the first time. It was a strange and startling realization since she'd never saw it as most folks had in layers of color. It enfolded around her far more richly than she'd ever anticipated. And rather than Venn disturbing the sacred space of the forge with his presence, he seemed welcome within it, blending more powerfully with it than she'd have anticipated. The magic of the forge with its multitude of colors and tones wrapped around the pair, and it was then and there Avrie truly understood what it meant to forge a soulblade. Venn's soul was heavy with unanswered questions and sorrows, and standing apart from him yet anchoring him, she understood that here within the room, he would have to face things that he normally would have no ability or need to. With each step, there would be testing and tearing down. He was layer upon layer, and the forge itself.. the process... was going to unmake him as neatly as he built up his weapon.

She shivered in fear and hesitated in her song a moment, before picking it back up. He could fail here, and fail easily. Looking into ones own soul.. into ones weaknesses wasn't an easy task nor one most men could deal readily with. Avrie realized, in that moment, this was one of the toughest spiritual tasks Venn would have to deal with. She was glad, grateful even, that he wouldn't be alone. And, as the bard brought her focus back into the room and onto the Paladin himself, the forge heaved as its magic surged and fed itself into the fire and into the metal melting upon it. The impurities were being burned off, providing Venn with the whole strong metal he needed to forge his blade. But it had a dual purpose too... the fires not only were designed to burn off the impurities of the metal, but of the man forging it as well. As this realization struck her, it was too late to cry a warning. White light surged from the forge and the metal on it, and engulfed them both.

It whisked them away to some other place, some other time. It was a location Avrie had never seen before. Venn disappeared, replaced by a small dejected boy. She could hear the heartbreak and confusion in him over a slight she wasn't aware of. He needed comforting over something, and was looking for.... she wasn't sure who or what. His sadness was in his song though, and as tangible as words. Avrie saw the door, and the boys hesitation. When the boy spoke to her, she nodded and responded with a voice she reserved for those smaller people in the world.

Crouching, she reached out, touched the boys silver hair kindly and smiled at him. "It's okay to be frightened. Sometimes its good for us. But I am here with you and we are together. We are here to see what makes this woman so sad that she cries. I think she might be your mother. So we need to be quiet and gentle and go bravely into the room to see what she sorrows for. It's something you've been worried about Vhinn'dreja. Go on in. I'll be right here behind you if you need me." Avrie realized suddenly as the name spilled from her lips who the boy was. It should have been obvious, but the transition was so abrupt it left her dazed. The bardess realized as she indeed did trail the boy as they both walked into the room.

The woman was beautiful, not not in a soft delicate way Avrie might have thought Venn's mother to be. No, she wasn't that at all. She was small of frame, but her body was corded with muscles that whispered of past pursuits and tremendous physical strength and discipline. As the pair slipped into the small room, Avrie saw that the woman had a great gleaming black sword laying across her lap. The weapon wasn't a man's blade at all. It was thin and deadly, lightly weighted as if for a woman. It's length was etched with strange foreign runes that the bardess didn't recognize. And the woman spoke to it, gently, her hand tracing its length. With Avrie's vision still in that half state, still listening to the song as well as the visual, the girl heard the blade answer back... just an echo of sentience, but there regardless. Though the blade itself was a dark thing, oozing an ill will, what which was trapped within it wasn't. The woman, Venn's mother, ignored their presence as if she could not see them. Avrie watched the boy for his reaction. Was this a memory? Was this something new? It seemed so real.. so there in the present.

The youth slipped forward and curious as children are, his small hand reached out, wanting to stroke what it was his mother stroked. As soon as small pale fingers kissed with the pale blue of his half-blood touched the black gleaming length, power reached out and erupted over the two of them sweeping them back into the woman's memory. Trapped, they could do nothing but watch helplessly. A memory within a memory crested over them, washing them even further back into the past. Avrie crouched down, gathering the boy to her, imprisoning him in her arms as she watched with what became unfolding horror. Venn could still see what transpired, but he couldn't run, couldn't scream. The bardess held him too tightly imprisoned in her protective arms, anchoring him to that spot. Her fear washed over him even as his own rose up and constricted his throat, preventing him from screaming.

It was another forge, much like The Starlight... only darker. Fire raged on the forge as a woman labored. It was the same woman who cried over the blade across her lap. Younger, her hair was plastered wetly against her scalp, escaping its carefully bundled and bound length at the name of her neck. Muscles bulged as she put the final touches on the blade with a fine hammer, readying it for its final quenching. At this point it was only a blade, a long wicked tang protruding from its upper form, waiting for its hilt. But it would be quenched first, and the hilt forged later, added on and secured by the tang. The woman thrust it back into the fire, and turned to the others present. Beyond her, two robed figures held another between them...one who struggled. It was a woman as well, one identical to Venn's mother. Their faces were mirror images of the other, and though she was firmly held by the two acolytes, the pair crouched on the floor across the scene could clearly see what transpired. A fifth figure, separate from the two acolytes, their prisoner, and the smithing woman materialized. He was tall, sinister, and stared at Venn's mother like a man lost in the desert stared at iced water. "I don't want to do this. Don't continue with this, you've won. You have me..." The woman said, eyes on the man. He only laughed, his features wholly concealed by the folds of his robe and its cowl that hid his features. "I'm just beginning with you. Just barely beginning...." And with that, he gestured. The two acolytes forced the woman between them over to the man, and as he stepped aside, a black slab of stone etched with more symbols was revealed barely glowing in the forge's light. They forced her down upon her back on the slab, then slit her thread-bare robe from neck to hem baring her body. Her form was revealed, and Venn's mother, her face torturous, turned away. The figure laughed again, and once the woman was bound thoroughly by her ams and legs, the acolytes retreated, slipping from the room.

Avrie tightened her arms around the boy, feeling his tension, and his need to either fight or flee. They fated to witness this, somehow, for her friend to travel full circle and come into full awareness. Avrie's heart broke for the boy, and for the woman in the scene. It was obvious the figure had some hold over the woman... both of them. And Avrie, being a twin herself, realized all at once the woman on the alter was the sister... the identical sister.. of the woman forging the sword.

The woman turned, tears on her cheeks, and gripped the tang of the blade, lifting it from the forge fires, freeing its red-hot length. She moved, carrying it with her, over to the figure stretched on what could only be called an alter. The woman was bound but not gagged, and they could clearly hear her sobs. She was trying to reach for her sister. When she couldn't, and her sister did nothing, the burning blade between them.... she whispered softly... so softly the boy paladin and the bardess almost missed it. "I forgive you Kiari Dun... and if you do this thing, do it right. I want to be able to protect you the whole of your life. Even if it is just from yourself...." With that, the girls voice broke and the twin looming over her blinked once more. She took a deep ragged breath, and the man in the robe behind her unleashed his power. Magic swirled in the room, the ara in motion and the vis of the chamber so incredibly high those present knew something was about to happen. "Do it. Do it now." He said, and Kiari moved, her actions setting her sister screaming. She plunged the red hot blade into the whole torso of the girls form, sheathing and quenching it a final time in life, and releasing it therein. The smell of burning flesh and power filled the room. Black light flared, and the screaming girl simply vanished. In her place, a gleaming perfectly formed sword lay on the alter... its black length etched with runes. Kiari sank to her knees, crumpling under the pressure of what she'd just done. As she fell, the ritual's completion taking the last of her strength, her sister's name played across her lips...."Linari, oh Gods... Linari"..... The robed figure crossed the room, his animosity all but tangible as he scoped up the crumpled smith and tossed her onto the alter with the blade. He looked disgusted a moment... both the bardess and the boy paladin getting a brief but telling look at his face... and he spoke once more. "Kiari, you disappoint me... that was far too easy... far far too easy." With that, he turned and marched out of the chamber. The limp girl, completely unconscious, curled about the newly formed blade on its alter, seeking comfort or protection... the observers uncertain as to which.

The power, though of what sort Avrie was uncertain, swirled around them and once more they were back in the small room with Venn's mother, her sobs filling the air. Avrie released the boy and stood up, dazed by what she'd just witnessed. She couldn't imagine what drove the woman before the pair to do what she'd done, nor could Avrie ever imagine sacrificing her own twin in such a way. The bardess laid a hand on the boys shoulder as something astonishing happened. The woman before them, sobbing, looked up and straight at them. Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to speak...