Imoen

I did not sleep well that first night. The darkness was more vast and imposing than ever before in my scant sixteen years. I was curled up in the hollow of an old elm's trunk, covered with only my traveling cloak, my leathers fouled with blood and sweat and the rank scent of my own fear. Gorion, my father, lay out there somewhere in the darkness. He lay much quieter than I. After the armored warrior had ambushed us on the trail, Gorion stayed to fight — to protect me — and bade me to run. I escaped unharmed, more or less — a single arrow pierced my arm, which now throbbed and burned as if poisoned. Maybe it was. But Gorion...my father...

It's a wonder I managed any sleep at all. But rest I did, and tossed and turned, waking and sleeping again nearly every hour through the night. Nary a time did I close my eyes that I did not see that hideous figure raising its sword at me, or streaks of bright magic lancing their way to my heart. Wouldn't they find me here? Had I run far enough? Had I run too far? How could I escape them, when a mage such as Gorion had fallen so easily? But a few hours before dawn, my body gave in, and a hateful, dreamless sleep finally claimed me.

And when I awoke, she was there. Imoen, young Imoen, barely fourteen in those years and with joyous heart half that age. Ever a rogue, she'd been in trouble with everyone in Candlekeep at some point in her life — and ever a charmer, she'd weasle her way out of punishment with her bright smile and carefree words. It was that night that I first realized that there was something much deeper in her than anyone suspected — even more than I myself. Alone that night, with only the vague sense of direction and the care of her heart, she had snuck out of Candlekeep to come find me. She left behind the stable walls and peaceful life to travel a wilderness and unknown future, although I doubt she realized it at the time. And somehow she found me, tracking my hurried flight from where Gorion had died, and discovered me there, battered and afraid, huddling against that ancient elm. She found me, and she stayed.

"I'm so sorry," she told me once I had awakened. Her eyes were red and bright with tears of her own — Gorion had been as much her father as mine. She helped to bandage my arm, and stood by me as I returned to the scene of the ambush. We both trembled as we slowly stripped the belongings from his body, sick with the realization the now we had no way back and that robbing the dead was the only assurance of our future. Without food or water, with neither clothing nor weapons, what else could we do?

I hated it. I hated it with every fiber of my being. Scavaging what we could, wandering the roads as a misfit pair of vagabonds, never sure whom to trust or what stranger might turn assassin. We murdered — we both did — both in defense and in desperation. And each night we would seclude ourselves in the smallest, darkest shadows we could find and curl up in fitful sleep, hoping that we survived until morning. Each night we cried in each other's arms, terrified of what had happened and terrified of what yet may come. Even after we joined Khalid and Jaheira, the guardians Gorion had bade us find, Imoen and I clung to each other for safety, security, and understanding. We trusted no one — not even the Harpers — save each other.