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Once again, Morwyn found herself unable to sleep and was pacing about in her tiny ship cabin, or at least she was attempting to. Following her refusal to share her space with Lionar, the living ship had decided to split the space between them and the transformation process really hadn’t left her with a lot of room to pace about in. She had rationalised at the time that it wasn’t a problem for her. After all, she didn’t sleep like the others as the elven reverie only required her to have enough room to sit comfortably and meditate.
Hothar or as he was at that time, Hoagee, however, had decided to leave her bed in situ anyway but that meant the space left between the furnishing and the door was barely a foot at most. It left her awkwardly stepping about the enclosed space, dramatically spinning on her heels, almost twirling as she contemplated her evening’s reading: the latest report from the city of Starlight.
She had not long ago finished reading the magical book that was connected to the vast fae library. The newest entries provided a large amount of information about the Princess’ mother, the High Queen and while Morwyn suspected that most of it wouldn’t be considered new information to the Princess herself, it certainly was enlightening on elements of the Queen’s magical abilities.
Of course, in her own retelling back to the Princess, she would likely leave out the more salacious bits of gossip like the Queen’s ‘dramas’ within the court that didn’t seem particularly useful. It only really served to smear the reputation of Her Royal Highness and Morwyn didn’t want to damage the relationship between Her Majesty and her daughter any more than it already had been over the course of their travels.
Some of it however, had shed some perspective on her own current moral conundrum.
It had made her reconsider the events at their previous stop at Lady Chan’s enclave where Morwyn had decided to enquire as to Terrapin’s whereabouts, hoping that maybe and most certainly naively, that the druidess and the rest of Lady Penelope’s crew had somehow managed to ‘fix’ the problem with the out of control coral that she herself had inadvertently caused in an attempt to save the party from certain doom.
She wasn’t entirely convinced that she hadn’t been successful in that regard even with Stan indicating that he might have used a boon. Certainly her efforts had contributed to the immediate cessation of the battle she thought.
However, instead of confirming that Lady Penelope’s crew had indeed been successful, Lady Chan had offered whispers of Terrapin’s distress at Morwyn’s constant need for secrecy and awkward verbal dancing around their relationship to other members of the crew. Almost immediately and as if ignoring entirely what Lady Chan had actually said, even in that moment, Morwyn had panicked at hearing another person so casually referencing their relationship with the Princess, Stan and Neorath in close proximity.
Now that she actually had taken the time to reflect, she winced at the thought of causing Terrapin pain.
She had initially thought it was necessary. After all, It had been Morwyn’s view that court protocols dictated that in general, having a relationship with someone considered a criminal, or at the very least a pirate would not be considered a suitable partner for someone of her social standing, a noble by birth.
Something niggled at her as she worked through that particular problem, almost like a stray piece of magic drifting out of the weave and into her mind. Had that element of their relationship always bothered her? When she reflected back on all that had passed between them, it seemed to her as if she had been more focused on Terrapin being a pirate rather than her own birthright, when they had first begun their ‘liaison’. It definitely felt to her as if something changed between then and now.
She felt the desire to tug at that thread and allowed her divination magic to flow through her as she often did during a rest period to give her brief glimpses of key moments in the stream of time. While it typically worked on future events (the most useful aspect of her skill seemed to be in observing critical moments in the battle before they happened), she supposed that it wouldn’t hurt to try and direct the power to the past.
But nothing useful appeared before her. The images were a blur and instead all her magic, or possibly just her own memories, returned to her was a previous vision she had received when the boat had previously shifted between the realms. She once again saw herself as a child, dirty and dressed in rags, wiping tears from her eyes. A wholly unfamiliar vision that she hadn’t understood the first time she saw it either.
Perhaps she would need someone to cause her some mental anguish to gain a better insight into it. She made a mental note to herself to ask a member of the crew to attempt it at the next opportunity.
That thought reminded her of Meridian’s unfortunate departure from the crew. He had been rather good at that task.
Putting that one problem aside, she also considered the fact that Terrapin was human. How would they even manage with the relative lifespans in future years? Maybe Terrapin had the ability to extend her lifespan similar to the Queen herself given her druidic magics? The Queen of course had the advantage of being a near enough immortal dryad however.
This stream of consciousness made Morwyn pause again and ask herself another question? Was she really considering that what she had with Terrapin was a long term relationship?
A preposterous notion.
Maybe.
Morwyn scrunched her face, ever unsure of herself. Instead she decided to lay out the information available to her.
To address the first problem, if Morwyn considered that even a fraction of what was written in the magical book was true then it appeared that even the Queen herself seemed not to adhere to social norms of monogamy in her relationship with the Low Father (not that he seemed interested either in doing so). It also seemed Her Majesty had no qualms with mixing with pirates either. She recalled from earlier encounters with Lady Penelope, how the pirate captain had implied that she too in the past had entered into some sort of relationship with the High Queen.
On the second point, well there was now a strong possibility that her own father was now a human, reincarnated by the Queen following his murder at the hands of Meridian’s brother and that he had also been involved with Her Majesty in a romantic capacity at some point. Perhaps a relationship with someone from a short lived race was not necessarily outside of the realms of possibility after all.
Besides if it was good enough for the Queen, then surely it was good enough for her?
Still she didn’t relish the thought of the crew’s reaction at having to explain any more than necessary. Morwyn was entirely ill equipped to talk about her own feelings, given that during her last conversation with Terrapin, she nearly managed to cause a fight between the overly protective Amazonian and Neorath, whose only mistake had been to volunteer to accompany her. Thank the gods, he had somehow managed to somehow smooth over the conversation by indicating that insulting Morwyn was actually a method of activating her divination magic.
What Neorath had said hadn’t been untrue, it just wasn’t strictly relevant to the conversation they’d been having.
There was also the other inconvenience of appearing hypocritical to the Princess, after all being absolutely adamant that she shouldn’t have an arranged marriage with El Captaine due in part to his status as one of the most powerful pirates in Faerun. In reality, it wasn’t just his occupation that concerned her, Morwyn just didn’t trust the man as far as she could blast him with a magic missile and was concerned that he might mistreat the Princess should any marriage come to pass.
She would simply have to impress on the Princess that when choosing a prospective partner, whoever that might end up being, it was vital that she be able to trust and be honest with that person.
A crippling sense of irony dawned on her. Gods, she was terrible at this.