The woman had taken her leave and Velentham found himself staring up at the cottage as the hour grew late. The shadows beneath the trees were already rapidly growing darker and the fireflies came out en masse, reflecting in the grove what was on display high in the heavens. He looked down at the sound of footsteps - careless steps - and saw heading in his direction the same beggar with whom he had spoken not long ago. "Hello neighbor," he called, blowing out an exhale of smoke. He went through the sticks faster than any mortal he knew, and were he of their kind, they might have already killed him by now.
"Ah... hello again."
"Finding your days well?"
"Well.. things could be better. But, I suppose they could be worse, too."
"How much worse could this place possibly be?"
"The way things are going lately? I'm not sure I want to know."
Velentham looked to the wrists of the man, desperately keeping his wretching at bay. How could Sanria honestly have enjoyed the company of this weak and pathetic human being? "Still haven't found a way to get those off, eh?"
"Whoever made them knew what they were doing."
Velentham slid from the tree and levitated toward Thasmudyan. "What keeps you from just... chopping off your hands and having someone regrow them for you?"
"They are.. a trap for life energy. I'm a bit concerned that if I were to just chop off my hands, the bracelets would draw the life energy out of me."
"And you couldn't, say, find someone able to put a shield around them to stop them from sucking you dry?" Though he could have, Velentham would not allow himself to bother offering.
"If I knew someone who could, I might be able to try that."
"And if you die?"
"So what? I've been dead before."
"Have you now?"
"Maybe I'd die for good if I died this time, because of these bracelets. I doubt it, though. My essence would just reform in the Lifestream and I'd be sent back here again."
This mention of the lifestream pricked the ears of Velentham and the plan in his mind began to slither about, each tongue flick a spark of thought. He set the man at ease, listening to his pathetic snivelings of how Sanria had gone and married Gilean, left him alone, left him to father a child by the half- naked woman on his own. Just the thought of the beggar touching flesh to flesh with Sanria made him riled, but he kept the man talking while the thoughts flicked into life.
"What is it you *do* exactly?" Velentham asked, turning the self-depreciating thoughts on the man. "Amble around looking like a beggar for your own fun and games?"
"Apparently I... take care of a kid now."
"You're a nanny!" Velentham grinned. "That's nice. You could be with the woman you love and having a family. You just... choose not to."
"How could I, exactly? She doesn't want to be with me."
"You get him out of the picture without her knowing about you getting him out of the picture."
"Maybe I'd be tempted... if I actually had a way to do that."
"I mean... quite possibly you could... say... take Gilean with you into that lifestream and stick him there? What if he just... couldn't get out in time?"
"But.. that would kill him. I can't kill people."
"The circumstance would just be... unfavorable. And... just like you and I... he can't die. But he wouldn't come back with any recollections..."
Velentham's mind raced with the possibility and he worked hard to keep the smile off his face, to keep his innermost thoughts hidden. If he could set the two mortals after the same man, one of them would have to succeed. Either way, Gilean would die, and he would be sent back to Elysium. Once there, the tribunal would send him back to Toril for being a traitor, his punishment exacted once more - to be a mortal with no recollection of his past lives. No recollection meant he wouldn't be in the way, he wouldn't remember Sanria, and Velentham could finally claim what he'd waited so long to call his own.
"A victory for us both," Velentham said, having explained Gilean's Celestial nature. "And you wouldn't have to kill anyone. Just... lead him into circumstances he'd have to resolve."
"So all I'd have to do is... get out of these bracelets.. find Gilean.. and take him to the lifestream and leave him there. And do all of this without Sanria knowing."
"Whether or not she knows... I'd handle making sure she'd never remember."
"This plan of yours... it has many potential points of failure."
"Only if you are weak. You see, this plan of "ours" is simple in its beauty. You have the power to lead Gilean to the lifestream, I have the power to make Sanria forget."
"But what if he escapes?"
"You catch your fly with honey... he won't escape because, you see, you'll need to make him realize it's his idea. When he willingly goes... he is not a prisoner. And if it is his idea, well, even if Sanria knows, she couldn't blame you. Gilean took a risk."
"This all sounds... well, I don't know. Like it's wrong, somehow. But if it gets Sanria back to me..."
"That's all that matters. There is nothing in your way but yourself."
Like a rose in the summer heat, the idea blossomed on the face of the beggar, albeit skeptically at first. Velentham could barely contain the flood of joy that tingled through his body and under his skin as the beggar walked away. He summoned to his side a pen and parchment and hastily wrote to the naked savage, warning her not to interfere in the placement of the pawn they both required to play out both of their desires. He would not only reward the savage with her original form, he would wipe out all memory of Sanria from both of them. The half-naked one would have her lover to herself, the beggar would remember nothing, his cousin would be relieved of every memory of Velentham and Sanria, and he would at long last pull into his arms the love of his life. If there were failure points in the plan, Velentham could not see them through the vision of the entire success he was convinced would soon be his.
Velentham walked close to the cottage and lit a cigarette. There, in the window, was the woman he loved. He kept himself in the shadows, only putting out his cigarette when she looked right at him. Were it not for the shadows, he would have been revealed to her completely. She closed the curtains and Velentham's grin broadened. Their destiny was inevitable.
