What Happened After - Kailiana and Eldthor - Kay's perspective
As they discussed before returning to Sandpoint and at the Rusty Dragon, Kay and Eldthor went with the group to check in on Fort Rannick first thing after getting settled into their rooms and resting for a couple of days.
On the way there, Kay talked with Illian about teaching her to fight with two weapons… after she had the baby, of course. He wondered why she wanted to learn now, and she told him that she always felt she was holding the team back and she should have been stronger if she just concentrated on one thing or the other. But she supposed that her mother’s fears about “wanderlust” weren’t entirely wrong, even though she feels like she can settle down now and start a family, she wasn’t ever really able to settle into one thing or the other and be just a sorceress or concentrate on her sword and stealth skills. She had to try to do both. But she wants to be stronger in the future because she just can’t trust that everything is over, and she’s got more to protect now. She was sure Illian would understand where she was coming from.
The group worked out an arrangement with Lyrie and Dwyn’s friends who had moved there to manage the day-to-day operations of the Fort. Then Kay and Eldthor returned to Sandpoint to find a more permanent winter home, and possibly a storefront to sell Kay’s bows and potions, though her potions are rather limited given her spell list.
They found an available space, close to Nellah’s alchemy shop, with an apartment large enough for a small to medium family above the store and, as it turned out, not a moment too soon. The night they moved into their new home, Eldthor found himself running to the Rusty Dragon to find Sam because Kay’s water broke. He’d delivered kids and calves in his time, but not babies and he didn’t want to start with this one.
As it turned out it wasn’t one, but two. Kay gave birth to twins, Kiara Eldthorsdóttir , who was born first, and Ellian Eldthorson, who came fifteen minutes later, on the next day, after the moon had crossed the midpoint of the sky on a full moon night. Both babies were born with a shock of auburn hair, but Kiara’s hair color quickly changed to a darker chestnut color, still with a red tint, but more of brown with red highlights. Though in the summer it turned redder the more time she spent in the sun. Ellian’s hair stayed the same color as his mother’s. He was the smaller of the two children at birth and continued to be smaller, growing more slowly than his more active sister.
They also built a cabin in the forest near Fort Rannick to live in during the summer, though Kay spent a good amount of time going back and forth between Sandpoint and the Fort area to keep the stock supplied in the shop and make sure things were running smoothly with the people she'd hired to work the shop for the summer. She learned the Teleport spell, letting go of the Life Bubble spell in order to learn it, so she could travel back and forth easily.
Kaliana did indeed learn to fight with two weapons, so she could put her two rapiers to good use if the need arose, and it did on more occasions than either she or Eldthor preferred, frankly. People were often coming to the remaining members of the Company of the Rusty Dragon with problems, usually small but sometimes larger, and Kay and Eldthor would usually accept requests from their neighbors, sending the kids to stay with Nellah, Aunt Dothan (if she was around), Aunt Dwyn, or one of their other friends who were in the area. Eventually, they added a third child to the family, Dotty, five years younger than the twins and the only one to not have red hair at all. She’s the spitting image of her father, actually.
Kay expanded her knowledge to wonderous items and weapon and armor enhancements, but the spell knowledge required was too costly to be practical when she was no longer actively adventuring, so she never put the knowledge to use in her business other than to enhance her bows with a wand that she bought that had the spell she needed. She could always add thunderstaff to any weapon as well and she got some customers requesting that. The city authorities complained a bit about her selection of potions shortly after she opened her shop, suggesting that she was selling things that were too dangerous, such as Storm Step potions. She calmed them down by convincing them that her customers were smart enough to not use products bought at her shop to cause trouble in her town because, after all, did they think any of the petty criminals around here could really handle it if she got mad at them?
So, they settled into a relatively peaceful life. As the kids got older, Kiara developed into a strong, agile girl with an aptitude for similar skills that her mother had in her youth, but she also enjoyed learning tracking and survival skills from her father. However, she was always annoyed when her parents accepted requests from people to help them with their problems, especially since she noticed that most of the time they didn’t get much in the form of payment for what they did. She grumbled to her brother about how they were just a couple of do-gooders who never noticed how everyone took advantage of them.
Ellian, on the other hand, clearly had inherited his mother’s elemental blood and began to display signs of being a sorcerer in his preteen years. He was still thin and not very strong at all, but if he focused on magic, unlike his mother, he had potential. At least Kay thought so.
Dotty was a free-spirited girl who, like her namesake, loved music and, like her mother, loved to dance. All of the children loved music, actually. Kiara had a wonderful singing voice and Ellian learned to play the harp from Aunt Dothan. Dotty, though, played multiple instruments, sang, danced, and was starting to write music. Whether she would pursue those gifts in the same way Dothan had or be a free-spirited, roguish type of girl when she grew up was anyone’s guess. She also loved to spend time out in the forest with her father, so who knows where her path may lie.
And Kay and Eldthor made sure to always be at the Rusty Dragon on a particular date, every year, to meet with their closest friends and catch up on their lives, as well as on any news about potential problems... because...
The main thing that stayed in the back of Kay’s mind, at all times, was the feeling that the other shoe could drop at any time. There were other Rune Lords out there. They all could have nefarious plans to return and rule over the land they used to call Thassilonia. What happens if someone like our band of misfits isn’t there next time?
[For kicks:
Kiara: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hdfcjeswvzbrv ... a.pdf?dl=0 (Who I may play, regardless of whether I play her as Kay and Eldthor's daughter or just a coincidental other young fighter with the same name...)
Ellian: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wub162d7srazx ... n.pdf?dl=0
Dotty: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8lo7tcq3vt89z ... y.pdf?dl=0
]