Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

The what seemed to be a knight seated on a mighty warhorse, turned around for one last look at Baldur's Gate, the water next to it, and to a certain ship in distance. The wind rose from behind him and the banner on his lance snapped smartly. His armor shone like as if it had just been polished, catching dawn's light, and casting a bright golden glow around him. Chain mail stuck out from underneath his protective plate, his forearms and hands protected by steel gauntlets.

As tresses of his golden hair caught the sun's first rays, they glimmered as vibrantly as the armor the man was wearing. His glacier blue eyes peered in the distance before he put the helmet he was holding under his arm back on. He pushed the helmet visor down, obscuring his face. The white golden headgear with a plume dancing along with his banner, covered his entire head.
Armored fingers closed around the reins and moments later the glint silhouette of the Dawn warrior standing atop the high ledge was gone.

Later on he would be spotted on the road north towards Waterdeep.


Saul dug his heels deep into the side of his mount, and sped down the path, not stopping anymore to look back. He did however do something he hadn't done in a long time.

Under his helmet... tears silently rolled down his cheeks...

...

Saul held up his hand and waved once at Captain Thatcher as he left the Twilight Rose, a perpetual warm smile lingering on his face while his mind drifted a moment off to elsewhere...

Farmers of Beregost had gathered around their agricultural equipment, and around a man who had returned to their midst. Saul Aurora, now featuring a sunbright cloak of the Order of the Aster, had taken up a role as Guardian of the Morning Song temple. But he had never forgotten the fieldworkers around, and the workers had not forgotten about him. Although he wasn't a priest really anymore, he had accepted with pleasure the invitation to preach and to bless their land.


"Life... is something that seems to befall upon us,
but above anything else... it is how we respond on it.

Just like our lord Lathander sends forth his light,
so that we will not wander from the task at hand.

A task without His light is a dream, a fantasy,
but a task without one’s commitment can turn into nightmare.

Let what hinders your task become your task,
as a difficult path leads to a beautiful life..."

The knight leaned forward in the saddle and patted the horse’s neck. The elegant, white stallion tossed his head, his beautiful mane flowing along his silken neck. From his high-strung steed the rider lifted his glacier blue eyes and looked down the path that lead towards the farms and small cottages just outside Beregost. He marvelled at how that single, monotonous trial widened and merged into a colorful flower-dotted road, the part up ahead a sunny, open patch in the forest. Sunlight filtered through the trees, highlighting the still present autumn leaves on the ground, fauna and flora all around triggered by the message nature brings, warmth, growth, light…


Spring had arrived, and all around the fields in the distance trees budded with fresh leaves and wool-like blossom. Everything looked new and different, even the kids he knew around. Their faces were bright and filled with happiness, their voices spilling laughter and their shouts infecting the surroundings with joy. Some even seemed to have shot up several inches during the bit of time he had been away. The smile already upon his expression broadened and easily worked its way across his face and into his eyes, filling them with warmth.

He just got back from Waterdeep where he finally had managed to sell his parental home that has been empty ever since he came to this region. Copper street number five now was owned by a blacksmith and his family, and once more the fireplace was filled with warmth there, even though its comfort was delivered to another family than the Aurora’s. But past was past, his parents were no more, and neither was the one woman he had ever married in his life. They were in the light now and he had to move on, without ever allowing them to escape from his memories.

A house… was just a house, taking hands and labor to build it. His gaze shifted to one particular cottage in the distance, featuring such an amazing flower garden that it stood out against all the rest. Only a heart truly can build a home, and is the happiest when it finds peace in that place. Then, he perceived something, or rather a someone who made him feel like heaven, solid, warm and everlasting. Myla… just as refreshing as spring, as brilliant as those playing childrens’ hearts, and definitely the person he wanted to build a home with… was waiting. Had she noticed him? He couldn’t tell. Only one way to find out.

Under a sky of azure blue that hung overhead, the armored man in shiny armor tapped his horse’s flanks, and steered his mount along the wide bridle path in the direction of that one particular place in his existence that had become important...

Saul held the infant up with her little head in the first light of the sun. The parents and a few villagers stood around him, and somewhere in the back with a child at every hand stood Myla. The Lathandrite smiled as he glanced at the ring upon her finger before he addressed the people. The temple and their faces were cast in the golden light of dawn, his eyes shimmered like arctic crystals.

“Children... are precious in every way as they are the light in every home and view things with perfect clarity. They can teach adults what they have lost long ago, like for instance showing us how to be happy without having a reason…,” he snickered faintly,”... And also how to fight tireless for something.”

Soft chuckling rose up from those gathered.


“They are like flowers, all different, and wherever they bloom… so does hope. Let them bloom so they are not afraid for the darkness and closed off. Allow yourself to be surrounded by a magnificent garden, as what is in it is key to creativity…” his cheeks glowed some when he sensed Myla’s eyes on him as he preached about reproduction,”... as well as to a new and bright future. Help them become successful human beings, and never cease loving them remorselessly. They’re not a dream, but the start of a string of endless possibilities.”


He lowered the infant and handed her back to her mother. “Go in peace, and never forget how precious you are,” he murmured softly as he wiped some fine wisps of hair on the child’s forehead aside. “Welcome in the light, Cinadra.”

The Lathandrite known as Saul Aurora who had taken up a role as Guardian for the Morning Song, also was often seen on the land around Beregost.

One day he was found amidst farmlands and their respective farmers. His voice was not loud but carried clearly over the entire field as the mist that drifts away slowly with the impending dawn, leaving nothing but dew in the grass and corn.


"The days are getting colder and darker,
but that doesn't mean our hearts can't be warm and bright.
Even the smallest display of love is more precious than a diamond,
and the warm and the radiant will be like Lathander's light.

Attracted by the promise of warmth,
not money and not power,
as a brother, as a sister,
and not from somewhere up a tower.

As darkness comes, so will a warm heart.
mark this season as the advent of charity and compassion,
help your fellow man, and turn it into an art.

And if this very day isn't a fulfillment of your goals -or- needs,
then let it be a promise for another day, another dawn,
and don't let it be overgrown with weeds..."

Saul sat outside in the garden of the theatre, the sun washing the place with a golden glow. Aside from birdsong up ahead in the trees, it was so silent it was as if the grass seemed to whisper. Saul's gaze was upon the sky though, his hand over a text in book spread open in his lap.

-After the storm-

Some get nervous or are afraid of the storm,
but isn’t it often when in sorrow such feeling masters us?

Think how some learn how to sail their ship during such,
or how others see it as the sky descending to the earth,
providing it with life, sometimes torrential, sometimes flooding.

In some cases you just have to bow your head to nature,
say a prayer, listen to the wind screaming, the air howling,
and raindrops crumple to the ground.

After all… isn’t it :
the greater the storm, the brighter the rainbow after?

Upon overhearing stones crunching under a pair of boots, the Aasimar's gaze shifted to the gravel path behind him. And with birds that twittered in the low bushes on both sides, he rose from the bench and awaited his lady's arrival with the kind of smile that could warm the very soul.

He held his hand out to Freya in an almost formal greeting, but were one to look closer and be sensitive to it, they would likely perceive the flip-flops in man's aura...

Like it were a beneficial shower of rain, dawn’s light, first stretching to the heavens, poured through the branches over the pair, and brought warmth to arms and bodies. What had been seemingly without shape, now was clearly outlined as Lathander’s light swept over the surrounding evergreen land like muted wind, raising moisture from the soil in a brief, steamy fog. The longest of nights had passed, and now, each new day, much... much earlier, the rosy-red fingers of dawn turned to gold. The spring sky put on that kind of face where the only possible response was to remain silent, just as it was supposed to be with a many-splendored event.

As rays of light raced over the land, neither able to defeat the other, sweet songbirds began performing a concert that elicited feelings of joy and happiness to any humans and local fauna present. The shallow valley below brightened with both light as well as music. Saul’s broad shoulders were mantled with light as he sat up, and then his whole body came up out the darkness that was a stack of cloaks and blankets, and stood on the new shore of the day just by the edge of the valley. He gazed out over the spectacle before he turned back to look down at the woman still asleep. Sometimes, when he was looking at her, he had a hard time to believe she was real, and this was exactly one of those moments.

And he wasn’t just considering her physique, or shapes and curves, but he also had come to compare her with nature. Her eyes, now still closed, looked like water in sunshine, and her hair framing her cheekbones, flowed like a pristine, enthralling river down her shoulders. Not a trickle, but a stream that moved listlessly across the underlying surface, adorning said porcelain-like and now seemingly glowing curves. Just like the awakening nature, she was fresh in appearance, and breathtaking to all who had the privilege to see her like this. It made Saul’s heart beat like as if he had climbed a steep hill in order to behold a promising view. He was aware of the several, deep mental breaths he had to take during each occassion where he witnessed her in this state.

He also realized that these little trips with her to this spot in nature were his treasure, a sanctuary from the sometimes busy hubbub of life. The locals flowers on her chest looked even more real, like as if some artist had painted them on her body in order for them to never wither, their perfume, carried by the sultry breeze even more hard to believe. And then it struck him,... it -dawned- on him why he was fascinated by this entire fantastical picture that was as if from a children’s book,... with a princess at its center. It was glorious. Silently he thanked Lathander for the hunch before he went to lay down again. Saul cherised the woman he had taken in his arms once more,... with a mysterious, and slightly excited smile hovering on his lips...