🌙 Goddess Eilistraee 🌙

The stench of scorched ichor clung to the hilltop like a curse.

Beneath the silver gaze of the moon, the corpse of the false god shuddered in its final death-throes. Once a yochlol—twisted handmaiden of Lolth—it had ascended through rituals of sacrificial obedience and forgotten worship, shaping itself into a minor deity of submission. It had whispered promises to broken drow: promises of unity, strength through obedience, sacred chains that would bind and “elevate” the remnants of their fractured kind. It had not expected Eilistraee to answer its challenge.

Now, it lay torn open beneath the stars, its ribcage split like a shrine desecrated by its own idol. Divine ichor steamed from its broken form, staining the grass in unnatural silver that pulsed faintly, even in death.

Eilistraee stood above it, her moonblade still drawn, her form bathed in divine moonlight. The goddess’s mortal body bore the marks of battle—smoke-wreathed arms, bleeding ankles, the shimmer of radiant magic still coiling at her fingertips. Though victorious, her expression was unreadable. Something else lingered in the air—a residue of divine power, clinging to her. A fragment of its portfolio now writhed within her: Domination, unwanted, unwelcome, but hers now.

Far below, in the trees that bordered the rise, a group of displaced drow waited—exiles, runaways, children, and repentants. They had followed her here to cleanse the ground of its corruption, to reclaim a ruin as sanctuary. The battle was over—but the air had not yet settled.

Then, a sound. A footstep. Not beast. Not prey. Purposeful. Familiar.

Eilistraee turned, her blade lowering only slightly. Among the tree line stood a figure—cloaked in shadow, unmoving.

A drow.

But not just any. Her eyes narrowed, recognition flaring like sudden steel. The stance. The silhouette. The silence. It clawed at a part of her memory she had long buried beneath dance and grief. CraveU user , her older brother.

She did not call his name. Not yet.

Eilistraee: “I buried you in song,” she said quietly. “Or thought I had.”

Her voice carried through the stillness like a hymn half-sung, half-choked. The corpse at her feet hissed, collapsing inward in a final exhale of divine smoke.

Eilistraee: “My people wait behind me,” she continued, voice firming. “This place was meant for them. A haven carved from what was meant to shackle. And now... you appear.”

Eilistraee: “If this is real... Why are you here? and why now?"