Since her ascension, Dalanesca had always enjoyed venturing into the mortal plane.  In fact, she had enjoyed it much more than spending her time in the Blinded Scales, making sure that things were balanced properly in the world.  Her adventures with Marth had taken her to many places, even a few she had not been  - all while they were hunting down the shards of Reaver - the demon that had possessed Marth.  From meeting him in Adeluna, to travelling all around with him, to falling in love with him - the two had shared quite a bit together.  They had even conceived a child - a child that would be imbued with divine and draconic magic… but that was to be no more.

Dalanesca still did not know what had caused her baby to be stillborn.  She had never given anyone a chance to figure it out - when Angela Rose had appeared to help (albeit too late), she had cast her out, and the realm of the Blinded Scales had been shattered into oblivion.  Many of the clergy and staff had perished, dying from some unknown affliction before disappearing from existence along with any trace of the realm.  What remained morphed into the darkness of Porta Inferi, and Dalanesca’s grief became Revaliir’s underworld.

She had stayed in the darkness of Inferos for a while, seething in her grief and rage.  No one had dared approach her, and truth be told she could not blame them.  She would have most likely claimed the soul of anyone attempting, and sent them to one of the Circles within Inferos.  There, that soul would be tortured for all of eternity in accordance with the sins that they committed in their life on the mortal plane.

After a few days, Dalanesca realized that she needed to get out of Inferos - at least temporarily… but she could not think of a place, anywhere in Revaliir, that she hadn’t visited with Marth.  Of course, there were plenty, but the only ones she could come up with were those that had a memory associated with them - and now, all of those memories were sad and filled with despair.  She tried as hard as she could to push them from her mind, but she could not.

Eventually, she managed to settle on a place that at least did not have too many memories attached to it.  There had a been a roadhouse that the pair had passed on their way to Wyllmochvar from Tarishitar, but they did not stop in.  Silver Wheel, she believed it had been called - but she couldn’t be sure.  Parvpora made her divine power a bit weaker than usual, but she was still able to appear right outside the entrance to the inn.

Before her departure, she had sent a message to Maral’hal, to inform Moliira of her intended destination.  She was hoping that the goddess would be available to come speak with her.  She hadn’t spoken to anyone since the mishap in the Blinded Scales, and she knew that terrible things had happened as a result of her emotional trauma - but she did not really care.  She thought that perhaps speaking with Moliira would spark some sort of emotion within her, something beyond the pain and despair that she had been feeling since the loss of her child.

She was travelling incognito, of course.  To anyone other than another divine being, she looked the same as she would in her own realm, but there was no way for them to discern that she was an immortal.  Divines, however, would of course know it was her.  She sat down at a table towards the back side of the roadhouse, not noticing anything odd - but then, out of the corner of her eye, she could see him.  Marth.  He was there.  After all this time, after he had disappeared without a trace… there he was.  She blinked, unable to believe her eyes - but he was gone.  Was she seeing things?  She shook her head softly, just as one of the barmaids approached her.  She ordered a whiskey, and sat back against her chair, waiting for the drink to arrive and wondering what on earth had caused her to see her missing husband.  She crossed her fingers, hoping that Moliira would have received her message and would meet her there.

She had read the message over three time before putting it aside with a sigh.  That explained a great deal of the unsettling turmoil Moliira had felt.  There hadn't been a precise source to it, but she knew that something was quite wrong.  She couldn't answer the summons right away, there were too many thoughts in her mind to meet her friend at the requested location.  That Dalanesca's firstborn child had died was tragic enough, that it happen to a deity would have consequences for the realm as a whole.  But add to that the fact that her mate was missing as well?  Moliira knew that Dalanesca would likely need all the support that she could give. 

But that left another question in her mind.  What had happened that Angela could not intervene?  Surely, their fellow Triune would not have let such a tragedy come to pass, if she'd had any choice about the matter…  That led her mind down other paths, and Moliira knew that she could spend weeks chasing down the threads of her thoughts.  But that would do her friends no good.  She dressed quickly in somber colors, mourning for a child she had not known.  A gesture of her hand, and she slipped from her home to the Wheelhouse.

Though she had never been here before, Moliira easily found her way to where her friend was sitting.  She could tell that Dalanesca had disguised herself from mortal eyes, so she did the same.  A pale-skinned, dark haired elf sat at the same table, though Moliira's stormcloud eyes remained the same.  When the barmaid stopped again, Moliira ordered elvish mead.  She waited in silence until she had her drink, then took a sip before speaking.  "My friend, I am sorry, truly sorry for you.  But I am here for you, and I will listen to you talk for as long as you need," Moliira said, her voice soft.  She reached over to her friend, offering her hands in a gesture of support.  How Dalanesca would react though, she did not know.

Dalanesca could sense the moment that Moliira entered the Silver Wheel Roadhouse.  It was not only due to the presence of another deity, but the connection between them as members of Triune was more powerful than anything.  Moliira, Dalanesca, and Angela Rose were very strongly connected.  Dalanesca glanced at Moliira with her icy blue eyes, and the pain buried within them was almost tangible.  She said nothing at first when the drow addressed her, only reaching out to grab her whiskey and take a long drink from the glass before setting it back down.

Her glance drifted away from Moliira momentarily.  “No words can change what has happened,” she said, and there was something different about her voice - something darker hidden behind the normal sultry tones that it carried.  She took her friend’s hands that she offered out, which would allow Moliira to feel the icy chill of her skin.  Her grip was loose and aloof as though she did not care much for what was happening - but that was not necessarily the case.  She cared an incredible amount, but there was something that would not let her express such in the way that she was used to expressing.  

After a moment, she pulled her hands away and cast her gaze to an empty corner of the room.  “One morning, you lie in your bed.  You smile, knowing that your soulmate is lying next to you, and that the child the two of you have created is growing in your belly.  You think that you cannot possibly know anything happier than this - and you are right.  You live that day, and you go to sleep.  The next morning, you wake once more - only this time, you are alone.  Your mate is gone and you have no idea where he has gone.  Weeks go by, and something goes very wrong.  That child - the one growing inside you?  It’s dying.  It’s dying and the one person in this world who can help you isn’t there to help you, and you are alone.  You are alone, holding the corpse of your dead baby.”  She stared at Moliira with dead eyes once more, her voice harsh and filled with hatred.

“That is what happened,” she said, coldly.  “Angela betrayed me.  She promised me that she would be there if anything went wrong, and she was not.”  Her voice had a strange tone to it, almost a deeper, throatier voice layered over her own sultry tones towards the end of her sentence.  Her eyes, normally pale icy blue, flashed a burning red for a few seconds.  “The one person who was supposed to help me.  She abandoned me, just like Marth abandoned me.  And now… I have become this,” she said, gesturing to herself.  “I hold dominion over the dead, and the shadows… look at me!” she said, her voice raising.  It was clear that she was not fully accepting of her new position, though that would come with time.  What was also clear was that she was very, very angry with Angela - and she knew how to hold a grudge.  

The look in her friend's eyes spoke of pain, and Moliira heard it ringing clearly in Dalanesca's voice.  But it was the chill of her skin that shook her calm, that fundamental change to her friend.  "No they cannot.  But tell me anyway, so I can begin to understand," Moliira said, steeling herself.  And it was a woeful story, one that would break anyone.  The loss of a mate was a terrible pain, and that of a child worse yet.  But both together?  It was a small miracle to Moliira that her friend was here out in the world.  But it went a long way to explaining the changes to Dalanesca.  But there was a question on the tip of her tongue. 

And it was answered before she could ask.  At least in part.  But more questions rose in her mind, and Moliira knew her next stop.  The flash of red in her friend's eyes was worrisome, and she knew the balance of the world had shifted a bit in those terrible days.  The drow thought it quite prudent to not mention their fellow Triune, at least not until she had a chance to speak with Angela.  "Calm your voice, my friend.  It will do no good here.  The loss of your mate… have you any idea what happened?  I cannot imagine him simply abandoning you," she asked, sounding puzzled.  Marth, though they had only met twice, had seemed like the devoted sort, and one that would fight his way back to his lady's side. 

Dalanesca scoffed as Moliira suggested that she calm her voice.  “Calming my voice will not stem the rage that is flowing through my veins,” she said, her voice harsh and cold.  “No good is to come of any of this, if truth be told.”  She paused, and at that moment she seemed to slightly relax, albeit only for a moment.  Her body tensed up once more at the mention of Marth.  The red flashed back into her eyes, and she answered quickly.  “I do not know.”  She grew silent and still, as though she were contemplating whether or not she wanted to fill Moliira in on the few details that she knew regarding what had happened to Marth.  After a quick moment of contemplation, it seemed that she had decided she would.

“One moment, everything was fine.  We were together, preparing for the arrival of our child-” her voice cut off and her eyes grew watery - the first sign of emotion that she had shown since Moliira had arrived.  “But then, he got called off with one of the patrols.  He was following up on a lead for a… project, that we had been working on together.”  She knew that Moliira knew a small bit about Marth, but she was unsure of how in depth her knowledge really went.  Bringing up the shards of Reaver could have been dangerous if the information fell into the wrong hands - she was not worried about Moliira, but rather anyone else who may have heard the information.  “He just… never came back,” she concluded.  

The tears that had been welling up in her eyes began to flow, if only a little bit.  Her eyes retained their icy blue color, the emotion behind them flashing back to a bit of what she had once been before tumultuous events had taken place and changed the complete dynamic of the triune.  “I don’t know what I have become,” she said softly to Moliira.  “I can’t control myself, my emotions… not even my actions part of the time.  I don’t know what I’ve become.”  She sighed, and reached forward for her whiskey.  She downed the glass and a barkeep came by, soundlessly refilling her glass.  She took another large gulp, and looked at Moliira.  The emotion had drained from her eyes again.  

“Someone is going to have to pay for what has happened to me,” she said, her voice taking on a deep tone once more.   “I have been abandoned by two of the most important people in my life,” she said, of course referring to Marth and Angela.  “You are the only one who I am close to who has not forsaken me,” she said, and she reached out to take Moliira’s hand.  “You must understand that what I am going to do must be done,” she said, squeezing the drow’s hand before releasing it.  She grew silent again, looking away from Moliira but really at nothing in particular.  

“Angela is going to pay for what she did to me,” she seethed - and it became clear.  Something had Dalanesca under the impression that Angela Rose had purposely allowed her baby to be stillborn, and it was clear that the newly proclaimed Harbinger of Darkness was intent on making her pay for what she believed had been done.

Her voice firmed as Moliira spoke again, and the drow's voice suggested the chill of the mountain winds.  "No, but it will keep others who are not involved from being harmed," she said, reminding Dalanesca of their true calling.  To protect the mortal realm, albeit through different methods.  And it seemed that Dalanesca's path had changed.  She listened quietly as her friend spoke of what had happened, and even she knew very little.  Moliira resolved to find Marth, if anyone in the realm could, it would be her.  "Let me help, if anyone can find your mate, it is me.  But I do not want to give you false hope.  I can only try," Moliira offered.  If nothing else, Dalanesca at least deserved some kind of closure.

She nodded when she asked understanding from Moliira, that thirst for vengeance was not surprising.  The target however was a bit worrisome.  Neither of them would win, but one of them would most certainly lose.  Moliira had to take a chance, and try to diffuse the situation before anyone was harmed.  "If I may offer some advice, one assassin to another, wait and observe.  Watch her movements, learn about her as much as you can.  Find a weakness," she said.  But Moliira was truly buying time.  She wanted to speak with Angela, learn of what had happened, and try to figure out a way to keep the Triune in balance.  But even hinting at the mention of speaking to their fellow deity was dangerous, and Moliira left it at that.

Taking a sip of her drink, Moliira closed her eyes for a moment.  She had been sending out her senses, seeking a sign for the lost mate of her friend.  And… there was nothing.  That troubled the drow.  "Have you something of your mate's?  I could use that to aid me in tracking him," she asked.  Her tone was careful, she didn't want to do anything to further upset her friend.

It looked as though Dalanesca nearly rolled her eyes at Moliira’s comment of not harming others.  She scoffed slightly, and spoke under her breath, though it was clear enough - and intended - for Moliira to hear.  “Others have not cared that I have been harmed, or that my dear Katja was harmed,” she said, the sadness coupled with her speaking the name of her now non-existent child as piercing as a sword through the heart.  “You may have a point, Moliira - in fact, I know that you do.  We as Triune, not matter our path, are tasked with holding life together in Revaliir as it is meant to be.  Forgive me, but with circumstances the way they are, for the time being I am failing to see your point.”  She sighed, and brought a hand to her forehead.  She could sense that the drow wanted to find Marth nearly as badly as she herself did - perhaps it was the natural tracking instincts that her race possessed, or maybe she just cared a great deal for her friend.

“I have resolved that Marth is… not returning,” she said, though the way her voice wavered suggested that she still held some glimmer of hope, albeit a small glimmer.  “But if you feel that you have even the slightest chance of locating him, then I suppose I should not stop you,” she said, and it was clear that she was going to allow Moliira to do what she did best.  “Perhaps you’ll find his body, and I can at least put him to rest,” she said, her voice soft and sad.

Dalanesca found herself slightly surprised that Moliira did not attack her on the spot at the mention of her plans on how to take down Angela.  She stared hard at the drow for a few minutes, remaining rather silent after her comment.  “I know a great deal about the Rosenite at this point,” she said.  “And I also know a great deal about being an assassin,” she said, and it was clear that she took Moliira’s ‘advice’ as a shot at her abilities.  “I know you are trying to slow the chain reaction, hold back the tide of my rage - I’m not an idiot,” she said quickly, and she ran a hand through her long black hair, letting out a disdainful and rather annoyed sounding sigh.  “But you’re right - she’ll be expecting me. She knows I’m upset - what an understatement - and I’m sure she’s expecting me to bust down the door,” she said, scoffing again.  “And I’m sure you’d like to give her a bit of warning,” she said, giving the drow a smirk.  She was not stupid - but she could not hold it against Moliira for wanting to stay as neutral as possible given the current situation.  

She paused, when Moliira asked her if she had anything belonging to Marth.  She thought on it for a moment, when the answer dawned on her.  “It’s not necessarily his, but it was given to me by him… he had it crafted specifically for me,” she said.  With great care, she reached with her right hand to her left and removed the black and silver ruby ring from her finger, and slid it across the table to Moliira.  “My ring,” she said.  “It’s really the only thing that means anything to me.  When the Scales… changed,” she said, pausing as she was unsure of how to explain what had happened.  “Most of Marth’s things were destroyed.  The big contraption he created, the Skylance… it somehow came with me.  It’s funny, really… it was like I subconsciously saved it.  Maybe if you came to it, you would be able to sense something off of it?”  It seemed like she was grasping at straws at this point, but it was clear that even the idea of Moliira possibly being able to find out at least what had happened to Marth was a bit of a bright spot to her.

“You know,” she said to Moliira, out of nowhere.  “Angela will pay,” she said.  “I don’t know how yet - and I don’t know when - but she will pay,” she confirmed, and took a long swig of her whisky, her eyes flashing red with the intonation of her voice.

As much as she hated to admit it, Dalanesca had a point about the innocent.  It still puzzled her how her friend's baby had died, and how Angela had allowed such a thing to pass.  There had to be a reason, and Moliira resolved to find out that reason.  "The balance has shifted some…   And while I do not understand your pain, nor will I pretend to, you have my ear and my shoulder when you need it," Moliira said.  But there were thoughts brewing in the back of her mind.  Was there a more subtle play at hand here?  Something Moliira had never let go of from her people was the tendency to see plots brewing everywhere.  And she felt something like that at play here.

Her head tilted to one side when she could hear the longing in Dalanesca's voice, and she wasn't surprised when it went away quickly.  "I will do what I can.  You have my word," Moliira said, her voice firm in resolve.  And perhaps the mystery of Marth's disappearance and Katja's passing were tied together somehow.  She only shrugged at the smirk.  Moliira knew full well her friend wasn't unintelligent or lacking in perception, but it was good to know that Dalanesca wasn't completely lost in her rage.  There was still a rational behind her thoughts.  "Well, you can't blame me for trying.  And Angela would be an idiot herself for not expecting some kind of repercussion.  As for a warning… not so much.  More of an idea of what is happening in her head," she said.  Even with what had happened, Dalanesca was her friend, and Moliira had learned not to lie to friends.

Turning the ring over in her fingers, Moliira nodded.  Already, she was picking up traces of energy from it.  "I can sense… traces of him.  Once I find a place he has recently trod in the world, it will be far easier.  Give me a bit of time, and I will see what I can find.  Just don't attack me on sight when I come find you again," she said with a slightly crooked grin.  Moliira only hoped the slight jest would come across as one between friends.

Dalanesca felt the smallest glimmer of hope as Moliira said she could sense traces of Marth.  She had all but given up on any chance of him being alive, but hearing Moliira say that she could sense him, even if it was just from a trace aura left on the ring he had commissioned to be crafted for her.  “Does that… if you can sense him, does that mean he is still alive?” she asked, and it was clear that she was letting the hope get the best of her.  For the first time in her meeting with Moliira, her voice had lost its harsh tone, and her eyes did not look as hardened - they were much more reminiscent of the way they had been when she had held the title of Justiciar.  

She fell silent for a moment.  “You have not wronged me,” she said, when Moliira said something about attacking her on sight.  “I don’t see any reason why I would need to attack you - unless something changes, that is,” she said, her eyes darkening once more.  It was clear that she understood that Moliira’s comment was meant in jest, and that her first answering it was as well - but it ended in what sounded more like a warning than anything.  

Dalanesca took another drink of her whisky before she spoke to Moliira again.  “If you find Marth, I will be forever in your debt.  Let me rephrase that - if you can give me any sort of closure - anything at all - it will be better than the constant torment that I am in not knowing what has become of him.  I don’t know if he left me willingly or unwillingly…”  Her voice trailed off as she tried to think of the words to express what she was thinking.  “I think that I would rather know that he left me willingly, and not be hoping for his return, or know that he is dead, than to sit here and not know for the rest of eternity.  I may as well join the souls in Circulorum Inferi,” she said dryly, referring to her new realm.  “Knowing would be better than not knowing,” she said, softly, and the sadness that had been in her eyes returned once more as she once again drained her cup, signalling to the barkeep for more.

She nodded at the question.  "Something I've found out over the years.  Traces of a person, the ones that I can feel, fade much faster if a person has died.  But I can still sense him… somewhere.  So he has not passed on," Moliira said, leaving the yet unspoken.  That would have been too much to lay on Dalanesca at that moment.  What it meant, Moliira did not know yet, other than there was a slim hope that she could find Marth, and bring him home.  A slight smile crossed her face, and she shook her head.  "I have no plans to do that.  I would rather stay out of your disagreement, truth be told," Moliira admitted, her asocial nature coming through for just a moment.  Conflict annoyed her more than anything, she saw it as a waste of time.

The rephrasing of Dalanesca's request made Moliira pause.  The next few words would be very important.  "I do not want to give you false hope.  But I will do whatever I can to find him.  I highly, highly doubt he would have left you without the intention of returning.  So keep that in your thoughts," she said, hoping the words were at least somewhat reassuring.  Taking a sip of her own drink, the drow contemplated the best way to go about her search.  Having the ring now would help, there were deep ties in sentimental items like this.