Few souls truly look upon the stars. They see the twinkling of the innumerable multitudes of blinking, twinkling dots of light that pierce that blanket of night. Those in cities are too often blinded by the lantern lights and oil lamp glimmer to see that every dot in that beautifully wondrous night sky has a place. Elred and Melaine Tanithil saw the stars. Two lovers lost in one another's eyes, each finding their own place in the world, and who could fault them if that place was in eachothers arms?
Naturally, as the son and daughter of merchants, both showing talent and promise in the family businesses, this union became convenient for both families. Elred’s elven sensibilities and level head allowed for carefully crafted business goals, trade deals, and a keen eye helped when inspecting customers. Melaine, maiden name Keating, with her bull-headed personality coupled with a charismatic pull made her a fearsome trader in the Kingdom of Cormyr. The two made their wealth easily and settled in the small village of White Sands where Melaine’s father served as mayor.
While Elred continued to travel between the cities within the Kingdom of Cormyr before returning home to his family. In their first year, Elred and Melaine became mother and father to a beautiful half-elven daughter named Sinon. While the circumstances of this young girl’s birth is somewhat odd, the true nature of the events leading up to her appearance are quite peculiar. Sinon was born on an especially clear night with a massive blood-red harvest moon dominating the sky. The harvest moon, while not in any way unnatural, began the journey through fate of our heroine.
Sinon’s childhood was a quiet one. She spent much of her time following her grandfather through the village, listening to him talk to the townsfolk, and sitting in a corner of his office reading the titles of the books on his shelf. Her grandfather, the mayor of White Sands, had only assumed the position until they had found a suitable replacement when the last mayor vanished in the night with a bag of gold from the taxes, despite this event happening some years ago, he simply has yet to step down.
Although young, Sinon was rather brilliant and especially gifted at speaking. The latter fact, having always been a point of argument from her parents about who she more closely took after, often landed Sinon in some mischievous trouble of some sort. When Sinon was old enough to read, her face had become nearly permanently glued to the pages of any piece of literature she could get her hands on. She read like a thirsty man drinks, desperately. Still, when she played with friends, she played to exhaustion. When her grandfather asked her to help with work, she did her share and a half.
It was shortly after her eighth year that Sinon found her love for the starry night sky. With her eyes buried in books during the day and lifted to the night sky after the sun had set, Sinon grew and studied the stars. Life in a small village is always quiet, moreso in a desert, and when the young grow tired of the quiet, they all do the same thing. Sinon knew she wanted to study the stars, study the arcane of the universe, to learn magic, but when you have no talent for magic, you simply learn your trade.
When Sinon came of age, she accompanied her father on his trade route. She learned of life on the road, the different cities and people, and even that in life safety is never guaranteed. During the first full moon of their trip, the dreams began. Horrific nightmares, scenes of gorey violence, scenes of chaos and destruction, a shadowy figure standing amidst the flames of some vast city. She could not scream, could not run, and as she would watch the shadowy figure raise its arms, her eyes followed its clawed hands. Her eyes watched in horror as the stars fell to the land around that shadow, massive globes of fire and light crashing into the world.
Her father could do nothing to help as his daughter sat up each morning and wept. Each day, they traveled and traded, each night she watched the stars and the world die. Five days passed, the lack of sleep was starting to wear on Sinon’s mind, she would hear voices murmuring around her, feel the gaze of some dark entity, and smell the metallic scent of blood. That night, she slept and dreamed again, but this time, when she did not scream, knowing that no one would hear her, the shadow turned to look at her. The shadowy figure’s face was completely blank, it had no mouth, it had not nose, no eyebrows, no hair, but it had eyes. Two unblinking eyes filled with hatred, filled with hunger; two eyes as white as the sand dunes around her village. Sinon’s stomach turned, her body lurching forward, and as she woke, she vomited up that evening’s dinner.
After that, she would only dream of the face. It was silent, it made no movement, it made no stars fall, and yet still she was horrified. Just before her dream ended though, a voice would boom and speak only a single word. The first night, “Moon”. The second night, “shards”. The third night, “stars”. The fourth night, “clarity”. The fifth night, “infestation”. The last night, “destruction”.
Sinon wrote each word carefully in her journal, looking over them in the moonlight. Each word seemed as if it held some dark power, some frightening meaning, and shimmered in the moon’s rays. From that night, the terrors that plagued Sinon’s dreams had fled. It was as if the road had made those horrible visions and then taken them away. Some challenge for her, or at least that was the assumption her father, Elred, made of the dreams. He knew that something more was happening, but as fathers do, he wished to protect his eldest daughter. Sinon continued to write in her journal, but avoided writing near the words from her dreams. Instead, each day, she would trace the ink stained letters with her finger, memorizing the curve and movement of each word.
It was in the afternoon of the last day of the last week of their first month on the road that Elred warned his daughter of the thing all traders dreaded the most. Subtle hints along the trail, the feeling of eyes on their wagon, and the smell of bloodthirst. Bandits were afoot. When Elred reached a slow point in the road with rougher terrain than he would have preferred, the first arrow struck the wagon’s wheel as a warning. The second struck near Elred’s foot, the third arrow striking the ground just in front of the wagon’s horses causing them to rear up and stamp back away from the sudden obstacle. As Elred calmed the horses, the bandits moved in.
Sinon sat silent, her eyes staring in wide-eyed fright at the dirty, unwashed, hungry faces of the armed bandits. Some were human, one had an orcish look, and each looked as though they would kill at the drop of a hat. Elred sat on his spot on the wagon with a look of regal calm. His eyes slowly moved from one bandit to another, inspecting each would-be villain's equipment before nodding to the one he assumed was the leader, a man with a large axe and an equally large beard that any dwarf would envy.
The bearded bandit barked his command at Elred and Sinon, demanding they step down from the wagon, and Elred nodded. Turning to his daughter, the elven merchant quietly spoke to her to assuage her fears. “Do as they say, but protect yourself if they try to harm you”.
As he said this, he nudged his elbow inconspicuously against Sinon’s belt where he had instructed her to hide his dagger. With that, Elred stepped from the wagon, Sinon following him as the bandits moved in closer. Some swarmed the wagon, tearing what valuables they could away from their holds. Two rather large bandits stood imposingly over the two travellers, the dumber and fatter of the two licking his lips as he stared at Sinon’s figure. With a quick pull of Sinon’s wrist, the bandit let out a loud guffaw as he practically shouted, “I think I’m going to have a go at the girlie here! It’s been a while since I’ve been with anyone.”
Elred attempted to step forward, to step between Sinon and the brutish man, but was intercepted by a heavy strike from the butt of a crossbow. Sinon struggled a bit, knowing there was no way she would be able to wrench herself from the bandits grip, but made sure that he would not have an easy time of his deed. The bandit dragged Sinon by the arm towards a small crop of dead trees that had made for a convenient waiting spot prior to the ambush. His heavy arm tugging her forward and tossing her against one of the tree trunks. Her mind racing, wondering when she would be able to take her chance with the dagger, wondering if it would strike home where it needed to, and then it could only think of the smell of the bandit as he closed the distance between them.
It was a horrid smell, the smell of sweat and mud, the smell of smoke and furs and rotten food and blood. It filled Sinon’s mind as she felt the man’s large hand grope at her body. The hot stench of the man’s breath burned her eyes as he sniffed at her like a dog, and when Sinon closed her eyes to shut out the world, the shadowy figure from her dreams stood there before her. Eyes bright and glittering like twin bonfires in the night. Their gaze was hot and unbearable, but the voice that touched her ears was cold. Cold as the snow that dotted the mountains in winter, “Kill him, kill this beast and I will save you and your father.”
“Do it. Kill him. Before he kills you.”
“Kill the filth that sullies you.”
“Stab the beast that paws at your body.”
“Slaughter this man and I will give you the power to keep your enemies in fear.”
“Yes, just like that.”
A wide and sharp-toothed jagged grin crossed the blank face from a mouth that did not exist. A mouth that had never been where it appeared, the skin ripping apart as the teeth appeared from some unseen jaw. Sinon ripped her eyes open to see the fresh blood pouring rivulets from the man’s neck. Her dagger in hand, drenched in the hot red liquid that had once given the bandit life and reason to live. With a gurgle, the man clutched at his neck, urgently trying to keep his blood from flowing out of his body and failing miserably. With a heavy and dull thud, the bandit's lifeless body fell to the dirt.
A moment passed, Sinon stared at her blood soaked hand, her dagger’s bloody blade twinkling in the sunlight, and then her lips twitched. It sounded like music, like some sort of beautiful note being sung by a celestial being, and yet, deep down, Sinon knew that she was laughing. She was no longer in control, no longer scared or angry, no longer happy or sad. She felt nothing, her world slowly growing black, the shadows consuming her vision, and then there was darkness.
To say Sinon slept would’ve been closer to an outright lie. Her father watched over her motionless body for two days as they traveled towards the nearest city that Elred had allies in. Part of him was frightened of what might have happened to his daughter, another was frightened of what his daughter might do when she woke up. On the third day, Elred took Sinon to Athkatla where she laid in an inn bed for another day before waking.
The story Elred relay to his daughter was akin to some campfire horror that old men told to young children to keep them quiet and in their beds at night. Those that Sinon didn’t kill, ran screaming down the road, and those that didn’t run, quickly met much the same fate as their lost comrades. Sinon could hardly believe what her father was telling her, and yet worse, she could still hear the soft murmurs of something in her mind; flashes of that monstrous grin filling her vision with each blink.
The two agreed that it was a berserker's madness, battle rage that overcame Sinon’s senses, and they made a promise that one makes with family members and fellow soldiers; they would never tell another soul about the incident. The bodies would be gone, wolves or some other wild beast would see to that, those that would tell the story would be ridiculed or called crazy, and the story of the half-elf girl drenched in blood would be forgotten. Elred dipped into the profits of what goods he could sell in Waukeen’s Promenade to pay for the inn and bought Sinon a book to keep her occupied.
They both returned home, both with big smiles, laughing at memories of the drunken halfling that ran naked out in front of their wagon. Melaine and Ophelia both greeted them with warm hugs. Over dinner, they shared a quick glance, but said nothing.
When Sinon returned to helping her grandfather with his work, she kept her eyes glued to the titles on his bookshelf. Always scanning for an answer to her problem and settling her decision on an older leather bound tome titled, “Common Maladies of the Spellcaster”.
Cover-to-cover, page-after-page, and finally, a hint. The possibility existed, although naturally an extremely slim possibility, that Sinon had become the target of a demon or devil. Sadly, the book itself treated this particular affliction with much higher levels of levity than Sinon felt the subject deserved. Tucking the book back into the shelf, now Sinon had a much greater need for the books she loved so much, the books she had found solace in.
The next full moon left Sinon weak and restless, left bedridden by fever and her ears filled with ceaseless screaming from the voice that had plagued her dreams and urged her to take her first life. She knew that if she could not end the torment she’d either be driven mad or die, both options were far from ideal. Finally, when Sinon was able to rest, she dreamt.
Standing over her, caressing her sweat-drenched brow was a winged woman of unmatched beauty, a woman whose fiery red hair was parted to show two black horns growing from her skull. Before Sinon could speak, before she could move, the woman quieted her with a supremely soft finger on her lips.
“Hush little one, you’ve been through so much.”
The winged woman stood and spread her leathery wings, stretching them out before reaching for a clay jug on the floor beside her. Sinon quickly took in her surroundings and recognized them as her room in her house, the jug placed there by her mother in case she grew thirsty, and her mouth was dry as the sand outside. The woman lifted the jug to Sinon’s lips and let her drink her fill as she spoke her piece, her voice melodic and calming in the girl’s mind.
“You’ve been dealt a terrible fate. Someone has cursed you to be a pawn in some game that you mortals have no reason for being involved in.”
She paused for a moment and set the jug back onto the floor next to her before turning her gaze to Sinon’s soft blue eyes, “Now, I can’t take back what that demon did to you, but we can break his hold on you. All you need to do is form a pact with me.”
The dream ended, Sinon woke to find darkness blanketing her room, and soft murmuring from the kitchen. Lifting herself from the bed, she felt a sting of pain across her left forearm and watched as the image of a three tailed scourge rose from her arm as a scar. She could feel that there was some power inside her, something that had been there and was just now opening up. Deep in the back of Sinon’s mind, some thought came crawling forward, quiet and yet still ringing true. The pact had been sealed.
After that night, Sinon convinced her parents to allow her to leave the village and travel to study magic in Waterdeep. While farther away from home than Athkatla, in Waterdeep Sinon knew she’d find much more opportunity to apprentice herself to a wizard or even to join the academy. With some reluctance, Elred and Melaine both gave their blessing, after a quick goodbye to her sister Ophelia and her grandfather, the town watched her leave.
The way was slow, but eventually, Sinon approached the gates of Waterdeep and found herself a room, a job, and some prospects to her magical studies. It was only a week or two before a grey-haired old man, a wizard named Vin Zesqoska, took interest in her and apprenticed her to his tutelage. Months of failures, small sparks of fire popping from her fingertips, and still Sinon was nowhere closer to becoming a wizard than when she first started. In spite of these setbacks, she learned as much about the stars and Astronomy as Zesqoska could manage, and when she had exhausted his limited expertise in the subject, he helped her get permission to sit in on lectures and borrow more advanced Astronomy texts.
Each full moon, the winged woman came to her, teaching the girl a small part of her power. Teaching her to harness the ability within Sinon’s soul. Each new moon, a nightmare of the grinning face haunted her. Zesqoska sat and waited patiently as she recounted her dreams over breakfast. After the first occurrence of this dream session, Zeqoska knew that he could not teach Sinon for she already had a teacher. Instead, he gave her a place to eat and sleep and practice her magics.
Two years in Waterdeep, three primers on the stars written by Sinon’s passionate drive, another one on the Astral Sea, and more than a handful of reviews, critiques, and articles for mistakes others had made in their books on the subject. She had become nearly obsessed with the sea of stars, her small room in Zesqoska’s home had slowly begun to fill with star charts, sketches of the night sky, and stacks of tomes on the subject. Zesqoska did little to discourage her, in fact, Sinon had become his new favorite lecturer on any subject that the old man wished to know.
In all that time, Zesqoska simply watched in awe as Sinon’s power grew. Watched as she was able to conjure power that few had ever seen. Still, he taught her what he knew that whatever benefactor the girl had would not. Zesqoska instilled in her the laws of magic, the morality of arcanists, and some of the more esoteric notions on proper magic use. Both Sinon and her teacher grew close, each enjoying one another's company, and neither could have asked for a better master or apprentice.
It wasn’t long before the dreams began to grow more frequent, but her progress slowed to a crawl. No longer would she wake up with more power, instead, she would wake up with fresh bruises and cuts from the training with her patron. The journal in which she had written the words from her dream, now filled with drawings and notations of the movement of the stars and various arcane markings, had become a treasured object to Sinon. Just as Sinon began to grow comfortable with her everyday life, after another year had passed, the dreams ceased with one final message, “Go North, beyond the Spine of the World, to Icewind Dale. The stars and your fate await you there.”
