Alone Together

When Rowan hits the masked intruder with a bolt of lightning, she aims for the mask. The mask, with its too-wide grin, seems to leer at her as it shatters. She watches as the masked assailant turns into dissipating smoke.
 
The people around her are quiet for a moment, and then everyone jumps back into action. Rowan grabs the familiar looking dagger, Eli disables a poison trap, and together they wake up Shiro. Rowan would be lying if she said she wasn’t paranoid. She makes sure to remove any memory spells on Shiro, or any kind of geas. He’s untouched, but Rowan knows firsthand that you can never be too careful.
 
Rowan keeps that in mind as she slips the dagger into Eli’s backpack, figuring that she’ll get more use out of it. What use does Rowan have for a dagger, when she could strike down things with lightening? And who better to give it to than Eli?
 
Eli, who has been a protector from the day Rowan met her. Eli, who tried her best to help Rowan with the orphaned owlbear cubs (even though she was technically hired to kill them). The tiefling who found Rowan in a cage at a bandit camp and freed her. The paladin who was afraid to let Rowan out of her sight. Eli, who was kind and sweet. She made Rowan want to be a better person.
 
Yes, Eli was trustworthy. Rowan had known her for less than a year but she felt as though they understood each other. They both understood what it was to be left behind, and how important it was to stay together. Eli was the first person (besides Lydia) who had stayed around Rowan for such a long period of time. All the others had left for things that were bigger and better than Rowan’s company. Even now, Eli still chose to keep Rowan close in her own country. She could’ve abandoned Rowan at the gates, but she didn’t.
 
She’s standing in front of Rowan, carrying out orders and taking charge of the situation. Rowan is quiet and blends into the background as best she can, circling back to the shattered mask in the hall. She picks it up and mends it, watching the cracks disappear until she holds the thing in her hand. She’s preparing to slip it into her bag when she feels something is different.
 
Put it on. Put it on. Put it on. Put it on. Put it on. Put it on. Put it on. Put it on. Put it on. Put it on.
 
Rowan recoils and nearly drops it, turning to Eli, Severim, Tai, and Takoda. They must see the alarm on her face, and start asking her what’s wrong.
 
She opens her mouth to answer, and—
 
Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine.
 
Why wouldn’t it be?
 
Everything is so fine, in fact, that Rowan releases her grip on something in her hand. She drops the mask and feels an icy horror chill her bones. She feels colder still when her new acquaintances insist on holding it, even after seeing how it’s affected other people. She’s relieved when Eli doesn’t volunteer to do so, and feels worried for Sevrim and Tai as they attempt to destroy it.
 
Rowan is drained, as though the mask leeched something out of her. She’s tired and she can’t even feel properly anxious because Tai has cast some sort of spell that muffles everyone’s emotions. People are talking at once, overlapping voices that are suddenly silenced by Nyx’s telepathy. Except Nyx is so much louder than before and it hurts Rowan’s head. Her lungs feel tight and she’s put her hands over her ears to block out some of the chaos. She’s forgotten how loud people can be sometimes. Each time she starts to feel anxious, Tai’s damned spell twines itself tighter around her and pulls her down. The feeling is fuzzy and blurred, making it manageable for Rowan to calm herself.
 
Rowan focuses on the one constant that she’s had, picking Eli’s confident voice from the crowd and listening to only her. The thrum of compulsion still lingers, but Rowan understands that she has to stay. She’s not allowed to leave her party behind. Rowan is a cleric and she is to stay with people as long as they need her healing, her company. That is her purpose.
 
Rowan’s eyes flit between party members, and she almost says a prayer to the goddess she never believed in. She hopes these people will choose to stay longer than her previous friends. She’s already beginning to trust them, and it would be a shame if they left so soon.
 
Rowan is tired of being left behind, but at least this time she isn’t alone.