Finding Peace

It had been a long time since Nym smelled sea air, and with the scent came a flood of memories from what seemed like another lifetime. She shifted on Nesme’s bare back, feeling uncertain of her decision to return to Baldur’s Gate. As she’d gotten better at riding over the years, she’d found the saddle cumbersome and soon traded it and the saddlebags for a bag of holding and small backpack for Pipper when he grew tired of running alongside the horse. Nym’s hair is long, as it was in her childhood, and she pays it little heed as it dances messily in the wind. Her garb is that of the High Forest elves in shades of subdued greens and browns. She looks a bit out of place riding bareback along the coastal road, but that is of little importance to her. Nym’s various scars have lightened over time so as to be barely noticeable, except the ever present slave brand of Thay that she keeps carefully covered once again as she had in her childhood.

Her mind wandered back to Llewellyn and that last time she’d seen her old friends in Baldur’s Gate. A slight frown darkened her otherwise lovely face, and she impatiently brushed her light brown hair away from her eyes. After the explosion at the Druid temple at Llewellyn, the Influence, as she’d taken to calling the not-Illuvean creature who still haunted her dreams, no longer whispered to her in the dark places of her mind. Her hair slowly returned to her natural brown after that, and she had returned home to her father in the High Forest to mend her many wounds.

For two years, she hadn’t left the forest at all. Any errands to Silverymoon or the other nearby cities were completed by Ollin alone while Nym continued to reconnect herself with… well, herself. After too many tragedies, too many dark turns, and too many deaths, many at her hands, she wasn’t ready for the world. Her heart slowly healed in the forest, and she remembered what it was like to laugh with true joy. Her anger at the Druids of the Sword Coast faded, and she rarely thought of the destruction of Waterdeep, Iron Keep and Caer Corwell. So many of the remaining Druids had fled into the High Forest, she had to decide to fight or forgive. She chose forgive and forget. Nym focused on healing herbs and improving her wild magic abilities. She found herself quite content with life.

During her third year in the spring, Nym finally felt some degree of wanderlust and took over making supplies and sales trips to the nearby cities and villages for her father. Nesme was happy for the chance to run after being in the forest so long. After her third trip into Silverymoon on her own, Nym worked up the courage to contact her childhood friends. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but she kept her expectations for a reunion low since her life and their deaths had created such a void in their friendships. On her fifth trip to Silverymoon, Rahm, her elf friend who also hailed from the High Forest, found her in the market while she was bartering for exotic herbs she’d learned of in her travels. Their conversation was awkward at first as they tried to reestablish their relationship, but they soon fell into a new rhythm. Having been 28 at the time of their imprisonment in Thay, still young for an elf, Rahm didn’t find Nym’s sudden age difference nearly as jarring as the others. In fact, he assured her, he was pleased that they were much closer in age now. Rahm took a position at the Lady’s College, and Nym teased him about being a boring elf. Their friendship became easy, and Nym was happy to have at least one of her childhood friends back in her life. Throughout the spring and summer, slowly her other childhood friends, all now between 17 and 20, began joining Rahm for his visits with Nym. A few years past their resurrections, Nym’s sudden age difference didn’t seem to matter as much to them.

In the early fall when the leaves were just beginning to change, during one of her business trips to Silverymoon, Rahm re-introduced her to a man Nym never thought she would see again: Illuvaen. She hadn’t known how to respond to seeing him outside of the dream plane, and after her experiences with the Influence, she was hesitant at first to speak with him. He, however, was overjoyed to see Nym again. His plane had collapsed for reasons unknown, and he and some from the dream plane had somehow managed to escape here. Nym slowly warmed up to him, and by the end of fall, Illuvaen was making trips to the High Forest to see her. She had told him everything she’s been through and done, and it seemed to make him care for her more. In spite of herself and her better judgement, she found herself falling in love again with yet another dashing half elf. Illuvaen kissed her for the second time since they’d first met in midwinter on the south bank of the River Rauvin outside of Everlund. Illuvaen had wanted to travel with her to Baldur’s Gate, but Nym assured him she was more than capable of handling herself.

Nym’s hand fell to her pocket as she felt the outline of two speaking stones she now carried; one for her father and one for Illuvaen. Nym’s mind wandered back to her current task. As of late, prices for her exotic herbs had become unreasonably high in Silverymoon, and another herbalist had given her a name of a contact in Baldur’s Gate who sold the herbs at a lower, but still high, price. As she neared the city, she noted that it looked much healthier than when she’d last seen it. She swung down from Nesme’s back and let Pipper out of his pouch. As she walked into the town, the animals followed behind her. Nym found that her contact’s directions were accurate, and she soon found herself at the correct shop. She motioned for Nesme and Pipper to wait outside, and as she opened the shop door, she pulled the crumpled paper out of her breast pocket: Odin's Fine Provisions and Sporting Goods.