Her outward appearances aside, Catti-brie was not a simple one-year-old child, and could not be. She had been studying the ways of arcane magic when the falling strands of Mystra’s Weave had assailed her in her previous life, and her time in Iruladoon, dancing and singing to the song of Mielikki, had given her greater insights into the magic she had previously known, and had also, of course, taught her how to call for the divine magic of the goddess who had come to hold her so close. Such skills required practice and repetition, as surely as the movements a warrior might make to defend and thrust forth his weapon.
The little girl watched her parents carefully. Niraj left the tent, and Kavita was busy repairing some weapons-how ironic it was for Catti-brie to see the woman glancing around nervously, then calling upon some magic of her own to help her in mending the blade of a curving sword.
Ironic, because her child was doing the same thing in the corner of the same room. Catti-brie held each of the polished stones close to her breast and whispered into them, imbuing them with symbols that only she could see with an enchantment she had cast upon herself. These invisible markings turned the stones into a sort of oracle, and the child began casting them forth, silently asking questions.
With the stones providing guidance.
She studied one answer for a long while, not really trusting what her magically enhanced eyes were telling her. It seemed too dangerous.
She collected the stones and asked again, then tossed them out before her. The same response was given.
Catti-brie nodded. She would find a way.
That very night, her parents asleep across the room, Catti-brie cast an enchantment around the room, one designed to compel sleep. A bluish mist curled around her left arm with the magical enactment, but while it startled Catti-brie, she did not fear it. She slippib and quietly padded out of the tent on little bare feet.
The camp was asleep. Somewhere out on the dusty plain, a wolf howled and was answered.
The little girl was not afraid-certainly she did not feel threatened by any of Mielikki’s animal children. She moved past the tents and out into the wastes, following the path the oracle stones had shown to her.
That night, in a secret and sheltered clearing, she planted her first garden shrine to the goddess. She returned to the place often, always at night, and when the t and not to Icewind Dale.. Fed to onribe moved on, as was their way, the girl created another garden shrine, and another after that. In these sanctified places, hidden amongst the rocks, Catti-brie found Mielikki more keenly, and was taught about the land, this land.
A land that had been, not so long ago, a great desert.
A land that would be, not so long hence, a desert once more.
The Year of the First Circle (1468 DR) Netheril
Soaking wet from the downpour, her hair still muddy from being thrown by Tahnood into the mud pit, five-year-old Catti-brie stood defensively in front of her fallen mother, her eyes glowing fiercely, the blue strands of magic wafting out of the sleeves of her torn sarong like living serpents.
She noted the boots of the Netherese assassin, smoke wafting from them. Her lightning bolt had jolted the man violently into the air, so abruptly and powerfully that he had left his shoes behind!
She shivered, humbled and overwhelmed by the power she had created-nay, not created, she realized, but by the power she had been allowed to access through the magic of her spellscar.
She wanted to turn back and enact more healing magic on Kavita, but she didn’t dare. Not yet. The immediate threat was no more, obviously, for the two Netherese assassins were surely dead, their smoking, lifeless husks lying motionless, the entire front section of the tent torn away behind them.
She prepared another spell, reaching up once more to the thunderstorm she had earlier conjured, ready to pull more lightning from it to vanquish any new enemies that might appear. The view of the encampment lay open before her now, the flashes of lightning above showing the tents and baskets and piled supplies in stark detail.
“Ruqiah!” Niraj cried, sliding into view and skidding to a stop in the mud just outside the opening. He danced around, turning circles, clearly overwhelmed as he surveyed the scene. “Kavita!”
Catti-brie waved her arms, dissipating the streams of magical blue energy, as Niraj stumbled in, scrambling past the Netherese bodies, half-running, half-diving to get to his daughter and wife.
Other Desai appeared outside, rushing around the corners of nearby tents.
Catti-brie wasn’t sure what to do. How could she begin to explain this scene before her? What might the tribal elders think, and what danger would she be creating for them all, given her secret identity?
All of those questions swirled around in her thoughts, slamming at her sensibilities, demanding immediate action. The woman kept her wits and used her decades of experience, forcing herself to remember the primary question: what would a five-year-old girl do?
She began to wail.
Niraj wrapped her in a hug, but pulled her down with him as he fell over Kavita. The woman stirred as he touched her. “Assassins,” she whispered. “What happened? My Kavita!”
Other members of the tribe milled around the destroyed entryway, shaking their heads and mumbling.
“Girl, what is this?” one man called to Ruqiah. He picked up a smoking boot, staring incredulously.
“They hurt Ma,” the child blurted. Between sniffles she continued, “They wanted gold. They said they would hurt me if I didn’t get it.”
“What gold?” Niraj asked, and he helped Kavita turOh, aye, again the time wandering of lonely world!
groaning and dropping a hand over her bloody wound-bloody, Niraj noted, but not bleeding.
Ruqiah shrugged and began to cry again. “The thunder hit them,” she said innocently, pointing to the sky and wearing an expression to show that she did not understand.
“The blessing of the storm is twofold this night,” remarked one of the women outside.
“Netherese,” a man inspecting the smaller body said. “Netherese thieves.”
“N’asr take them, then,” declared another, referring to the merciless god of the dead.
“He laughs with At’ar in their coupling,” a woman said. “Or perhaps he was sated enough for this one moment to take the time to kill these dogs!”
Kavita sat up then, although Niraj tried to keep her still. The gentle Bedine woman stared at her daughter intently.
“What is it?” Niraj whispered to her, but she hushed him and shook her head. She brought her hand down her back to the wound, and continued to simply stare at Ruqiah.
And more particularly, at her little hands, Catti-brie realized, for they were covered in Kavita’s blood from when she had healed the wound. She brought them down to her sides sheepishly and cried all the louder.
“Search the camp!” one large man ordered. “There may be other assassins about.”
Catti-brie had to sort it all out quickly, she knew, for the questions would only grow about what had actually happened, particularly when Kavita’s wound was more carefully inspected. The little girl put her head against Niraj’s shoulder, and very close to Kavita’s face.
“I will explain everything when we are alone,” she said, in a somber tone no girl her age would ever use, and her parents stared at her all the more incredulously and wide-eyed then.
Niraj grabbed her hard at the elbow. “Ruqiah? What do you know?”
Catti-brie looked at him with sympathy, fully aware that she was about to shatter his conceptions of the world around him, and worse, those conceptions that he held for his beloved family.