As I anticipated, I shared the hilltop that morning with the half-elven cleric I had seen here so many times before. She did not face East to greet the rising sun, like so many others of her faction, and as I would for my own reasons, but knelt looking over the town below us, her hands clasped in prayer. I shook my head.
“Why do you pray to a dead god?” I asked.
She did not move or open her eyes. “A better question; why do you insist on interrupting me?”
“Pardon my intrusion,” I said to her. “I only find it puzzling that you continue to pray to a god that is not part of this world. Why have you not taken to the worship of Lathlander? Or Torm, for that matter? Your god is either dead or does not care to respond to you.”
“Re,” she sighed. “Gods don’t die, it’s not their way. You of all…people…should know that.”
“So,” I rested my hand on my chin. “Perhaps your god is being punished, as I am?”
“Or, ‘perhaps’ Tyr is not as brash and foolish as you are.” She made a few motions in the air and then pushed to her feet. “You still have a lot to learn about being a mortal, don’t you?”
There were times in the past where I would have killed her with a thought for that remark, but she was right. I chuckled to myself. “Indeed, I do. Your Tyr cannot hear you here, but go on, Paris. Continue to pray to your lost god. One of you is bound to come around eventually.”
“Of the two of us,” she said, in a voice that told me she was not amused. “I don’t believe that you should be lecturing me about hanging on to my past. You’re certainly not here to praise the Morning Lord.”
“No, that is true,” I said calmly. “I will continue to greet the blessed sun as I greeted my father every morning. Though it is not he that I greet now, I do feel some connection to this new sun and the life and warmth it gives this world. One day, when I have learned the lesson set before me, I will return home and see his shining face again.”
“And I will continue to worship my deity,” Paris said. “As I have done from the moment I arrived here.”
“Is it difficult to keep your faith?” I asked. The sun began to turn the morning sky a bright orange in the East.
“At times it is…frustrating,” Paris frowned. “Tyr was here, I know he was. The signs are everywhere, and yet Tyr himself is nowhere to be found. I can only hope that, if I am diligent, my god will hear my prayers and return to this land. He is needed so badly here.”
“I see,” I felt a burning at the base of my skull. Guilt was still new to me. “I…apologize. I am still learning to see things as others see them. At times, I wish I had your dedication.” The blessed sun had just begun to peek over the horizon, throwing a dazzling display of light on the forest and the mountain beyond.
“Thank you for that,” her eyes shifted down. “I appreciate it.”
We stood there in silence for a long while as the sunlight finally began to fall upon our faces. “Perhaps your god will return yet.”
Paris sighed wearily. “We shall see.”