Vimil lay in the small, cramped cabin he had been given as accomodations, staring at the ceiling in the semi-darkness. He was tired...well past the point of exhaustion. Weeks of poor sleep and anxiety were catching up with him. He needed to think!
Unfortunately, planning had never been his strong suit. It just wasn't his nature. He spent most of his life living on instinct, acting without thought and dealing with the consequences as best he could. He and Sherela had been perfectly matched in that respect, each simply rolling with the other's fanciful side until Vimil's wanderlust caught up with him.
He had wanted to leave, and she had wanted to go with him. Their ultimate odd conjunction was wonderful and fascinating to him in the same way pretty lights fascinated a small child. It was something to marvel over before moving on to the next distraction, forgotten until it caught his attention again.
He had been happy that way for the most part, playing the rake and chasing pretty things, whether they were clothes and gems, seashells and feathers, or intriguing eyes and shy smiles.
Responsibility did not suit him. And yet...
And yet he felt responsible for this small band aboard a githyanki spelljammer deep in the Astral Sea. True, they had been free to refuse the trip as Lalette had. Still, none of them would be here if not for him. He felt responsibe for Zilvai, whose talents had opened the door that brought them here. He felt responsible for for Marx, whom Vimil had invited out of his own insecurity.
If he had some responsibility to those two, it paled next to the ocean of debt he owed Mir. "Mir the Quixotic" he had named her to the Lady ap Almax, and it fit her. She reminded him of Sherela sometimes, though Mir was far more focused than the dryad could ever hope to be. We'll get out of here somehow, Mir, he thought.
He even felt oddly responsible for Dom, the mage who had followed unbidden and without Vimil's knowledge. That seemed strangest of all to him. Yet without Vimil, the man he had sought for so long would no doubt be somewhere in Sigil, entertaining himself with his innuendo and wit.
Dom had called Vimil their leader. That still sat uneasily with him. The last time Vimil had been responsible for five people, his trusted friend had betrayed them, the Rose Gate had fallen, and Drazzim Dar had fallen into the Abyss.
He remembered another time, though...a time when he had been responsible not just for five people, or five thousand, but millions of souls. The memories were distant, distorted, and not his own, but they were becoming clearer since arriving in this plane. The memories were strange to him for their order and discipline, so unlike Vimil's usual experience.
He yawned jaw-crackingly, stretching until his arms touched both sides of his tiny quarters. I should have taken Vara up on her offer, he thought. He would have, he knew, if he had seen her before this ill-fated venture had begun. When he had finally found her, or rather, when she had found him, there was no time left. He was not sure why he had refused in the first place, except that the woman alarmed him. She had been so ready to cut Zilvai on that first day, so brittle and close to the edge, he was not sure he could trust her to be so near while he slept a magically-induced slumber.
Rolling onto his side, he thought about his conversation with the Tongue of Zerthimon's captain.
He had asked about the spelljammer's name, the oddly blank crewmen, and the rather ominous name given to this part of the Astral Sea. Over the very last bit of Vimil's pineapple juice, offered as a gift of passage, they had talked about the odd golem, where it had been found, and what its strange message might mean.
He had even told the captain about the zerth. He had not meant to. It had simply tumbled out while they were sharing tales. The Captain's silence afterwards worried Vimil. He had been escorted to this room shortly thereafter, and he wondered if his slip had doomed his entire party to a terrible fate.
A fool's errand... he thought again.
Still awake, he dreamed of open spaces, of sun and sky, and of a woman he should have known but didn't.
A Mind Adrift
