...finds responsibility knocking at her door

Aliara led the cluster of priestesses bearing Mish'li's body. She wasn't sure where they were going until, quite suddenly, she found herself at her own door. "Inside!" she barked, and the litter-bearers carried their burden in. It made sense: the room was clean and brightly lit, and there was fresh water.

"What does she need?" Aliara asked. She didn't know much about healing beyond basic first aid, but she found that she couldn't peel herself away from Mish'li just yet. There was too much going on, too many big problems that she didn't have answers to. This, at least, was an immediate crisis, and the benefit of an immediate crisis was that it focused the mind.

"Somewhere soft," one of the priestesses said. "And warm. She must be kept warm."

"Clean bandages," another chimed in. "Boiling water."

"Don't you all have, I don't know, magic or something?" Aliara asked. "This all sounds like field medic stuff."

The lead priestess turned to face her. Her face was solemn within her hooded robe. There was a fresh cut on her cheek, and one of her eyes was swollen shut, but she exuded a calm dignity. "We have arts, yes. We will use them. But they work best when accompanying traditional treatment. Our prayers will prevent the dark one's poison from rotting her soul, but we also have to clean her wounds to keep them from getting infected."

Aliara nodded. That was what she wanted: a clear goal, a statement of purpose.

There were bandages stored... somewhere, Aliara knew. Maybe in the armory? She was about to leave when she hesitated. She'd packed some bandages in her bag, she remembered. Her escape bag. They were close at hand. She paused for a moment, then turned around. Right now, what Mish'li needed was more important. She could always repack the bag later, once the crisis had passed.

She handed the priestesses the bandages, which had been woven from drider silk and treated with some salve by Jez'ria. It made them smell faintly piney. The drow had placed Mish'li in Aliara's hammock, which barely sank at all under her weight. She seemed so tiny and frail. It's cold in here, Aliara thought, and reached back into her bag for a folded blanket. Together with the healers, she swaddled Mish'li from the waist down. The priestess mumbled something and her head lolled to one side. Her breath whistled softly.

That done, she began to stack tinder in her firepit. It was a cunning thing, a bowl-shaped depression on the floor. Aliara had expected a fire underground to fill her room with smoke, but hidden flues in the walls and ceiling sucked it away. The tinder was made from dried fungus, a particularly thick brick-like specimen that burned like wood. Aliara stacked a few pieces, then struck at her flint. Yellow-orange light filled the room. She stepped back from the fire she'd made and looked down with a satisfied expression on her face. A heavy metal tripod stood over the fire, and Aliara took her copper cauldron off its hook and filled it from the pool.

By then, the healers had begun to change Mish'li's dressings. The smell of them was appalling, as though the flesh beneath had rotted and burned all at once. Aliara had seen some horrific injuries in her career, but this gave her pause. It was all too easy to remember the happy, smiling Mish'li they'd met in the City, the woman who had risked everything to save two strangers' lives.

She found herself having to step outside. With no immediate task in front of her, she was dwelling on everything that had happened recently, and that wasn't healthy. She ducked out to get a breath of fresh air and almost ran into Lil'esh.

"Aliara." The drow looked her square in the eyes and spoke with quiet urgency. "We need to talk."

"So talk." Aliara crossed her arms and leaned back. She could tell that Lil'esh was about to ask for something, and she even had an idea of what it might be, but she wanted to hear the other woman say it.

"I was wondering. Were you still thinking about... what we talked about earlier? About leaving?"

Aliara hesitated before shaking her head. "Not right now. Maybe once things are more settled."

"Well, good." Lil'esh's didn't even bother trying to hide her relief. "The situation with the drow is delicate. Mish'li was leading them, but she's indisposed. Is she..."

"She's in there," Aliara said, nodding towards her door. "I wouldn't go in there if I were you. It's not pleasant right now."

"Will she live?"

Aliara shrugged.

"Well, without her, there's a vacuum. Drow don't like a vacuum. They want someone to fill it."

Aliara said nothing, but looked Lil'esh up and down. Her gaze said everything she wanted to say.

"I can't lead them!" Lil'esh gestured to herself. "I'm a name, Aliara. A noble. My sister, too... she's alright for now, but she might need help later. If they put me in charge, some other noble will feel slighted. They might feel threatened."

Aliara scoffed. "You think they'll act against you here? Now? After all they've been through?" She paused, remembering her time among the drow. "Maybe. You people really are--"

"Stop it!" Lil'esh snapped. Aliara was so surprised she shut up. "Just stop it! I know, you have great reasons to hate the drow! So do lots of people! So do I! But they're my people, and they're suffering, so can you just keep your comments to yourself?"

Aliara bit back the first three replies which popped into her head, none of which would have endeared her to Lil'esh. She could tell the other woman was wound up tight, and she wasn't looking for a fight right now. Instead, she said, "I'm sorry," and to her surprise she found she meant it. "So you need someone to be in charge, and it can't be you. And of course you come to the most logical alternative: the surface-dweller and former ****."

Lil'esh held her hands up in a gesture of supplication. "Please, Aliara. They love Teysa. They all thought she was going to save them. Seeing her like that put a shock into them. But you were with Teysa during the Visitation. You were touched by Mother Lolth herself, weren't you?"

Aliara's hand went to her breast. All at once she felt like she had swallowed a stone. With effort, she nodded.

"They'll trust you. They'll follow you. Right now, they just need some reason to hope. Can you give them that?"

"I don't see too much reason, myself," Aliara said. But she nodded. "Fine. But I don't do speeches. Deal?"

"Deal." Lil'esh extended a hand, and after a moment's hesitation, Aliara shook it. "I'm doing this because of Teysa, understand? It's what she would have-- it's what she wants."

"I'm sure it is," Lil'esh agreed.

"Where are they staying?"

"I put them in the rooms near the granary. It's a temporary solution, though. There just isn't enough space for everyone."

"Take me there," Aliara said. She wasn't going to give a speech, she told herself. She didn't do speeches.