The Planeswalker Tavern
A tall elven woman in jet-black platemail walked slowly over to one of the bar’s windows and looked out. Her long black hair was tied back in a ponytail, and her piercing green eyes surveyed the scene outside. She could see through the grimy glass a side street in Sigil. A tiefling wandered by, their tail whipping back and forth in the harsh wind that blew outside. In the tavern, it was warm; the blazing fire in the fireplace heated the entire place nicely. Only a few stray breezes found their way through the occasional crack in the wall. It was a pretty soundly built building, for Sigil anyway, which wasn’t saying much. Still, it was warm, and for the last 5 months of Kitara’s life, it had been home. She sighed at the thought, and stared out the window morosely.
Sigil, the City of Doors. More commonly known as The Cage. Sigil had a door to every damn place in the multiverse, but the trick was finding them. Kitara was beginning to understand why it was called The Cage more everyday. She felt trapped in this strange city. She looked up, at the skyline of Sigil, which just stretched up above her head. Sigil was shaped like a huge donut, or a tire, with the city all set along on the inside rim of it. It rather gave the impression that you were always at the bottom of a very large valley. Of course, if you looked too far to the left or right, you would see either nothing, or the Spire on which Sigil rested, stretching all the way down to the ground. Technically, Sigil’s doughnut was parallel to the ground, but if you thought about that too hard, you’d start to fall that way. Sigil was a place based on belief. If you believe something hard enough, it just might happen. So the best advice for primes, like Kitara, was to keep your head about you, and try not to look over the edge for too long. Kitara had gotten used to the Cage pretty quickly. She understood the dark of it, that knowledge was power, but so was a good sword. So she did her best to learn everything she could about Sigil, and the rest of the planes as well, and kept her swords sharp, and at her side.
“Bally weather…” she swore. After 5 months in Sigil, Kitara had adopted a bit of a Sigilian accent, mostly without realizing it. She understood most of the cant that she heard on the streets, and could use about half of it correctly. Those who had known her long would have seen the first signs of the cynicism that most planars wore etching itself across her face. ‘Born with a sneer” was what they called it, and the first hints of a perpetual sneer hung around her face when she was thinking about something. The Cage changes a person, especially when they know they are stuck there.
Kitara had been traveling with her sister, Chrysania, having a great time adventuring around and seeing what there was to see in the multiverse. They had found their way to Sigil, and they thought, a portal back home again. But, they ended up in a strange world, one that was completely cut off from all other worlds. And on their way back from that fine mess, somewhere along the way, Kitara lost Chrysania. Kitara had made it through the gate to Sigil, but Chrysania had apparently been taken somewhere else. Kitara had searched Sigil for a long time, hoping to find some trace of her sister. But she had still found none, and she did not know of a single gate that would lead her to her home world. Finally, she had decided she had to set up at least some roots here in Sigil, tenuous though they may be.
She had won this tavern in a game of strength, from a baatzu who apparently had little in the way of brains. But, unlike tanaari, baatzu keep their word, which was the only reason Kitara had agreed to the deal in the first place. So Kitara got complete ownership of a tavern called The Planeswalker. She had also inherited its barkeep; a rather odd elven man who Kitara thought was headed for the Gatehouse at times. His name was Drinin A’nar, and while though he was a likeable enough chap, he tended to pass out behind the bar at odd times, and drank far too much. He also rarely did little else but polish the bar, incessantly. Kitara figured that he’d probably had a rough time of it at the hands of the fiends, and was rather surprised that he wasn’t completely mad, or worse.. But, he could mix drinks with the best of them, and his twin katana’s were blades that he wielded with the familiar ease of one who has been carrying weapons their entire life. Kitara knew little about him, where he had come from, or why he was here in Sigil. She was fairly sure he was from the same world as she was, Toril, because he seemed to know an awful lot about the same places she knew of, but she could never get a word out of him about his past.
She turned from the window and looked into the back bedroom where she could see one of Drinin’s legs, as he lay asleep on the bed. She supposed she considered him a friend. She knew she would do anything she could for him, but wasn’t too sure if he thought of her as a friend as well. He wouldn’t be awake for another three hours or so. It was very early morning, as Kitara always liked to get up before everyone else, and just be alone for a while. She felt sometimes like she was about to go mad, when the tavern was filled with people, and there was nothing but noise around her. The biggest thing she hated about Sigil was that there was no place to go that was quiet. She always loved taking walks in the jungle when she was a child, and listening to only the sounds of the animals around her. This constant rush of people unnerved her slightly.
She slumped down in a chair and sighed heavily. She missed her sister terribly. These five months was the longest they had ever been separated in their entire lives. They had been born only hours apart from each other, and had been together ever since. Without Chrysania, she felt as if there was a great hole in her, like half of her soul had been ripped away. She thought back to what her uncle had once said, while watching the two children play. “There are not two little girls there, but one spirit in two bodies.”
She had to agree, that Goldfeather was probably right. With Chrysania around, she felt whole. She wondered if Chrysania felt the same way as well.
“And I… want to thank you… for giving me the best day of my life…” she sung quietly to herself. It was an old elven tune, simple, yet beautiful. The best days of her life had been spent with Chrysania by her side. She couldn’t imagine having a good day without Chrysania around to share it with. And Kitara worried so about her. Chrysania had a horrible aversion to pain of any sort, and Kitara had always stepped in and took the punishment while Chrysania had casted her spells at whatever they were fighting. She still remembered the time she had failed to catch the trolls that were ambushing Chrysania, and they had ripped into her before Kitara could kill them. Chrysania was not mortally wounded, but she was wounded badly, and her screams had torn at Kitara’s heart terribly. After she had poured a few healing potions down Chrysania’s throat, and she was healed enough to regain her strength, Chrysania had turned away from Kitara, and didn’t want anyone to be near her. Kitara had never felt so horrible in her life. She would gladly give her life so that her sister would not be harmed.
Kitara buried her face in her hands again at the memory of her failure to protect her sister. Chrysania was so much smaller than Kitara, so much more fragile. Kitara was built like her ancestors, who had stood well over 6 feet tall, and had bodies as thick as trees. Chrysania, well, she was built like a typical silver elf, small, light, and not exceedingly strong. She always felt she had to protect her sister, but she knew Chrysania resented anyone trying to coddle her, so she tried not to be obvious about it. She didn’t even know if Chrysania knew how much she wanted to protect her.
As they had gotten older, Kitara had found there were things she had to hide from Chrysania, like her feeling of always wanting to protect her. She hated this, and wished that things could be as free as they had been when they were children. But then, she remembered even then, she had wanted to protect Chrysania, and had on more than one occasion split the lip of another little child who had been teasing Chrysania or saying mean things about her.
And then, she remembered how she had felt when Chrysania had been making jokes about the handsome man that had come to visit their home once. He had turned out to be a blue dragon, polymorphed, but Kitara still remembered how it hurt to hear Chrysania showing interest in a man, and that Kitara would not always be the first person in Chrysania’s life. She knew that one day, Chrysania would probably fall in love and get married, and Kitara wouldn’t be able to always be with her. Those feelings she had locked away deep inside her, however, and forced herself to joke and tease Chrysania about having a crush on a dragon.
Her father was the only one who knew what she locked away deep within. He could look at a person, and tell what their deepest fear was. He could easily tell the innermost secrets of his own daughter. She had watched him search through her soul, and she had let him, knowing she could not hide anything from him, and that he would not judge her on what he found. He had wanted to ask her about it then, but she had torn herself away and ran, ignoring his calls for her to come back. She had run and stayed away from home for nearly a week, until the pain of being away from Chrysania had been too much. She had told her family that she had gotten lost in the woods, but her father knew she was lying. He had not said anything however, and the matter had been left to rest.
Now it had been 5 months she had been away from her sister. She knew it was probably unhealthy to be so attached to a person, but she could not help it.
“Oh, Chrysania…” she stood up and looked out the window again, resting her head against the cool glass. “Where in the Multiverse are you?”
There was a thumping from upstairs, and another young elven man tromped down the stairs. He was younger than Drinin, and such a regular here that Kitara usually let him sleep in a room for free. He tended to buy other customers very expensive drinks that were very bad for organic beings. She suspected he did this mostly to laugh at their antics, both has they drank the stuff, and then as they attempted to regain their feet afterward. His name was Dayel, and he was a sylvan elf, like Kitara, but from a different world entirely. He had a rather similar build to Kitara’s, tall, and well built. She had run into him somewhere in the Grand Bazaar, and he had pretty much followed her home like a lost puppy dog. He was, she supposed, her boyfriend, as she would sometimes kiss him, and she felt rather relaxed around him, but she knew she didn’t love him. She was fairly sure he viewed their relationship in the same casual way, because he had disappeared for a couple months, and didn’t offer much explanation as to where he had been when he returned. Kitara quite honestly wouldn’t have cared had he wandered in with six other girls on his arm. She didn’t want to sleep with him; she only wanted a bit of closeness and companionship when she was feeling really low. That, and someone who could carry her to her bed when she passed out from too much wine.
“Hiya Kit!” Dayel said rather cheerily. He bounded down the steps and came over to where she was still looking out the window. “See any fiends today?”
Kitara just shook her head. She wasn’t even sure she wanted Dayel’s constant cheerfulness around her today.
“Hey, what’s wrong Kit?” Dayel asked, coming up behind her and putting an arm around her waist.
“Oh, nothing.” Kitara pushed herself out of his embrace and headed over to the kitchen behind the bar. “I’ll just start making breakfast.”
“Hey, come on Kit. I’m not as dense as all that.” He followed her, and took her hand off the cabinet handle and held it. “You’ve been worrying about your sister, haven’t you?”
Kitara could only nod. She resolutely held her tears back. She wasn’t going to break down like this every time a sad thought crossed her mind.
Dayel said nothing, and just hugged her for a moment. “You know, if she’s half as stubborn as you are, she’ll be fine. And anyway, don’t you have some sort of bond or another with her? You would know if she was hurt, or in trouble.”
“But what if she is too far away from me for me to feel it?” Kitara asked.
“I don’t think there is such a thing as being too far away. Bonds like that, formed by elves, well, there’s nothing that can break them, and no amount of distance that can blur them.”
Kitara shrugged. ‘I suppose you are right.” She sighed and continued taking out the things to make breakfast. “You wanna wake Drinin up? He can cook a whole lot better than I can.”
Dayel peered into the back bedroom. “I dunno if I wanna do that,” he said, “Drinin looks pretty well out of it. We might have to prop him up on a barstool today. He drank way too much last night.”
Kitara sighed. “Damn him anyway. Bloody useless sod! How the hell can he bartend when half the time he’s drunker than the patrons?” She kicked a cabinet door shut.
Dayel just shrugged. “He does all right, actually. He doesn’t spill anything, even when he’s bubbed till the pitcher’s empty.” Dayel grinned. “And he’s the only other person in the Cage that can make Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters, besides that one down at the Sensate Hall. So you have to give him that.”
Kitara sighed. “True, true. I still remember the last one I made…” her eyes drifted over to a large black blast mark on the floor and far wall of the room.
“You see! Now, let him sleep, I’ll make food.”
Kitara just nodded. She didn’t actually dislike Drinin, he was an excellent bartender and he didn’t really drink much until after most of the patrons had retired for the night. She would never get rid of him, that she knew, but she had to fuss about something now and then.
The day passed fairly uneventfully. Drinin eventually stumbled out of bed, made faces at what Dayel had made for breakfast, and set about making something rather more edible than the rubber eggs which Dayel had come up with. Kitara was so lost in thought that she hadn’t even noticed what she was eating.
The usual crowd of people started trickling in around the middle of the day, and more came in once it started to get quite a bit darker in Sigil. When it was fairly well bustling, Kitara felt the same old pressure to get away from all the noise. The only thing she had found that worked, aside from smashing herself in the head with a mallet, was to get good and drunk. Which she did, and proceeded to stay drunk until well into the night. Then she found herself fairly sober, and talking to the only patron left in the bar, a human woman who was from Ysgard. Kitara was telling her all about her own civilization of Amazons, which her mother was from. About in the middle of it, she started to get rather depressed, thinking of her home, and excused herself. After the human woman had finished her drink and left, Kitara stood behind the bar, looking at the empty bottle of wine she had drank that night. Cursing, she flung it away from her. It crashed against the far wall, and shattered. Kitara growled, angry at herself for losing her temper and still feeling like an angry bull about ready to snap and charge something.
She walked over to the window again, staring out once more. She thought about breaking out all the tavern’s windows, one by one. Standing there, she thought better of it, as glass was fairly expensive, even here in the Cage. She looked up, and imagined she could see a moon’s light through the haze that permeated Sigil. There was no moon anywhere of course, but she tried her best to believe there was, and soon, she thought she could see a very very faint halo up in the smog.
”Oh Chrysania? What am I going to do without you?”
She balled up her fists, trying not to snap and break everything around her.
“I don’t know how I can, I really don’t. I guess I’m not as strong as I thought I was. I hope you are doing better than I am, cause I’m not doing too well.”
She looked at the dirty, grimy window for a long moment, then turned and walked away. She stopped in the middle of the room and let out a strangling half sob.
“Damnit Chrys!” she cried, as she flung a lightning bolt through the window, taking out the glass and a good portion of the wall around it. “I love you!”
She stared at the hole she had made, and broke down and cried.