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Probably.

Twilight's grin widened.

When Twilight found her, Taslin was sitting alone, in a chamber far from the others. Wrapped in a grimlock cloak, her acid-eaten armor removed, the priestess sat with knees pulled up to her chin. She was on the edge of a chasm in a great chamber where many sewer passages met. The place probably smelled foul centuries before, when waste flowed through the sewers, but the cool emptiness of the deep underground had replaced it. Only a slight mustiness hinted at the filth that filled these halls in an era long dead.

As though the priestess sensed her, Taslin spoke as Twilight crept up behind her. "You would have loved Asson as well, had you known him as I did-as he was once."

"He was not always such a noble old man?" Twilight sat and pulled her knees to her chest, as Taslin did.

"He was not always so old, as humans measure the years," said Taslin. "Asson lay in my arms for fifty summers and fifty winters. I knew that our parting would come one day. I have dreaded the moment of loss, but not the leave-taking itself."

"You did not fear to lose your lover, then," said Twilight.

"Not a fear that I would lose him-that fate I knew to be inevitable," the priestess said. "Rather an acceptance of the truth and a choice to see past it."

"See past death?" Twilight kicked a stone off the edge of the chasm, watching it disappear into the darkness. Hollowness spread through her. "You'd have to be dead."

"Endings and leave-takings are of this life, just as meetings and beginnings," said Taslin. "To fear losing what you love is to abandon loving it here and now. To fear losing one you know you will lose makes less sense still."

"Life to be lived in the moment… I've heard it before. The life of a human."

"The life of an elf Taslin corrected. "You are young, and do not understand what it is to live as we do. To know the joy of every moment, to release love of the past and fear of the future."

Twilight looked at her. "No." She meant to be firm, but her voice betrayed the slightest tremble. What was this she felt? And what did Taslin know of her?

The priestess met her gaze. "Asson and I knew many years of happiness together. And while they endured, each of us loved to the fullest, knowing that our time together would end. And now those years have ended, and I can be content, knowing that he rests. It has been the same for the four lovers I have known-all of them human."

Twilight raised a brow at that. She looked into the chasm- its beckoning darkness comforted her. Or at least so she told herself.

"I lost a lover once," she said. "His name was Neveren. He died in my arms. I understand how you feel."

Taslin sighed. "You know what the greatest irony is? If we could recover his bones, by Corellon's grace, he could be restored to me."

Twilight's gaze snapped to her. "You have that power?" she said, stunned. "Why not use it? Would Asson not answer?"

"He would return if I called him," said Taslin. "But I would not call."

"You do not grieve for him?" Twilight reached out and laid her hand, ever so lightly, on Taslin's shoulder.

The priestess closed her eyes gently. "I do, in my heart," she said. "But I…" She trailed off, her eyes soft. Her hand reached for Twilight's.

Twilight eluded Taslin's touch and brushed a lock of her golden hair away. With techniques long practiced, Twilight ran her fingers through Taslin's golden hair and over her shoulders and neck. She felt the tension in the sun elf's body-sensed the vibrations in the priestess's bones that spoke of buried grief. Twilight shifted, leaning against Taslin's back, and stroked her hair gently. She told herself to stop, but that self didn't listen.

"Sometimes," whispered Twilight, knowing the words, "grief can-cannot…"

Then, inexplicably, she stumbled. She couldn't say it- couldn't speak that lie. Who was this priestess, who had such power over her? Was this Erevan's doing?

In a matter of heartbeats, tears began to fall down Taslin's cheeks, through the acid-etched