Chapter Text
“What prompted you to depart from Menzoberranzan all the way to Moonrise Towers so abruptly? It must have been hundreds of thousands of miles!” The wizard had asked Minthara once. It was by all means an expected question. After all, the party had chosen to rescue her from a fate worse than death; it was only natural they wondered why it had been required in the first place.
“Because I believed in the Absolute’s lies—that they were weak and their tower pregnable—and false belief makes one vulnerable to the will of those inclined to wield it,” Minthara responded without much thinking. And it had been true, even though it was not the full truth.
But ‘truth’ was relative, in Minthara’s experience. In practice a ‘truth’ could be anything someone wished it to be, as long as they were willing to delude themselves or had enough power to enforce it on others until it replaced reality. It was how she had survived in the City of Spiders all her life: by accepting that absurd life as her truth. Why? Because it was easy and convenient. There was no use in going against the grain, no matter how romanticized the concept was here on the surface, when petty rebellion would lose you more of what little you had. There was no ‘perfect’ in survival; there was only ‘preferable,’ and so that was what Minthara strove for.
And her life as a daughter of House Baenre was ‘preferable’ to the numerous fates she could have been dealt instead.
Gale accepted the answer graciously, remarking idly on how piteous it was that belief could lead to such tragedies, ignoring the presence of a devout Sharran and a recently disgraced Gith to his side. The irony earned him a chuckle from Minthara, one which instantly lit up those gratingly fetching eyes of his.
In hindsight it had been so glaringly obvious, yet Minthara did not have the privilege of knowing. She waded through misty dreams, trusting her own two feet to lead her out of its twisted labyrinth. It would, in due time.