About Reth & Mai'ek
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Full Name : Rethian Valdiir (Reh-th-ee-anne)
Nickname : Reth Age : 194 Species : Elven (High Elf) Height : 6'3" Gender : Male Pronouns : he/him Sexuality : Demi/Bisexual Partner : Mai'ek Power : (Barbarian) Enhanced strength, Rage, Danger sense, Fast movement, Feral instincts Job : Works as a temple guard for the Moon Druid Temple |
Full Name : Mai'ek Zauth (May-eh-k)
Nickname : Mai, Starlight (By Reth) Age : 118 Species : Elven (Dark Elf) Height : 5'6" Gender : Genderfluid Pronouns : They/Them Sexuality : Demi/Bisexual Partner : Rethian Power : (Druid) Starry Form, Cosmic Omen, Star Magic. (Mai'ek is Star-Blessed which is the cause of his glowing blue eyes and facial markings) Job : Archdruid at the Moon Druid Temple |
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Background
Reth and Mai’ek’s story began not with friendship, but with a contract.
Reth was a sellsword of few words and even fewer smiles—a broad-shouldered high elf barbarian whose reputation for ending problems with a single swing of his axe had earned him steady work across Astaria. When he accepted the job of guarding a traveling druid on a circuit of distant groves, he expected tedium at best: long roads, quiet nights, and a scholar too buried in plants and stars to be worth conversation. His charge, a soft-spoken drow named Mai’ek, appeared to confirm all his assumptions.
Mai’ek carried themselves with serene composure, their silvery hair always perfectly in place, their blue eyes constantly drawn skyward. They moved with the deliberate care of someone used to listening to the whispers of nature, not the clamor of cities or the bark of mercenaries. They thanked Reth for his service when they set out, then spent most of the first week lost in their journals and charts, recording the growth of rare mosses or the changing patterns of the stars.
Reth told himself he preferred it that way. Talking had never been his strength; action was simpler. But as the days passed—through the misty High Forest, across the windswept moors of the Silver Marches—he found his eyes straying to the druid more often than to the treeline. Mai’ek’s quiet persistence intrigued him. They greeted every sunrise with a small smile, every curious bird with a patient nod. When they paused to commune with an ancient oak or kneel by a star-lit pool, the air around them seemed to hum with a calm Reth had never known.
Curiosity, that old enemy of stoic warriors, eventually won. He began with practical questions:
“Why map the stars if they’re always the same?”
“Why risk the roads when you could stay in one grove?”
Mai’ek answered each one with gentle patience, their voice like cool water over stone. They spoke of constellations that shifted with the seasons, of the Star Druids who believed the heavens held songs of guidance, of their own dream of one day seeing every night sky across the surface world. “I was born to darkness,” they admitted one evening beside a crackling fire. “The Underdark teaches you to fear the open sky. But I always imagined it as freedom.”
That confession lodged itself in Reth’s chest like a seed. He found himself asking more—about Mai’ek’s childhood beneath miles of stone, the dangers they’d braved to reach the surface, the loneliness of being a drow in a land that mistrusted their kind. Each answer chipped away at the walls he’d built around his own heart.
One night, under a blanket of glittering stars above the Fields of the Dead, Reth awoke to find Mai’ek seated on a boulder, head tilted back, eyes reflecting the constellations. They were sketching a new chart, lips moving in silent calculation. The sight of them—small, radiant, utterly absorbed—stirred something raw and unexpected. For the first time, Reth felt a pull stronger than duty: a fierce, aching need to protect not just their body, but the light they carried.
By the time their journey brought them back to the Star Grove, the change in him was undeniable. Reth lingered when he should have left, his axe resting idle as he searched for the right words. At last, beneath the silver glow of the moon, he spoke. “I took this job for coin,” he admitted, voice rough as gravel. “But somewhere along the road…it stopped being a job. I don’t just want to guard you, Mai’ek. I want to stay.”
Mai’ek looked up at him, moonlight painting their dark skin with a soft sheen. For a heartbeat, silence stretched like the space between stars. Then they reached out, placing a slender hand over his scarred knuckles. “I hoped you’d say that,” they whispered. “The grove always needs guardians. And…I would like to keep learning your constellations too.”
Reth accepted, not as a mercenary, but as something far more dangerous to his once-untouchable heart: a companion, a protector, and perhaps, in time, a lover. Together they walked beneath the endless sky, a barbarian and a druid who had each found their own kind of freedom in the other.
Reth was a sellsword of few words and even fewer smiles—a broad-shouldered high elf barbarian whose reputation for ending problems with a single swing of his axe had earned him steady work across Astaria. When he accepted the job of guarding a traveling druid on a circuit of distant groves, he expected tedium at best: long roads, quiet nights, and a scholar too buried in plants and stars to be worth conversation. His charge, a soft-spoken drow named Mai’ek, appeared to confirm all his assumptions.
Mai’ek carried themselves with serene composure, their silvery hair always perfectly in place, their blue eyes constantly drawn skyward. They moved with the deliberate care of someone used to listening to the whispers of nature, not the clamor of cities or the bark of mercenaries. They thanked Reth for his service when they set out, then spent most of the first week lost in their journals and charts, recording the growth of rare mosses or the changing patterns of the stars.
Reth told himself he preferred it that way. Talking had never been his strength; action was simpler. But as the days passed—through the misty High Forest, across the windswept moors of the Silver Marches—he found his eyes straying to the druid more often than to the treeline. Mai’ek’s quiet persistence intrigued him. They greeted every sunrise with a small smile, every curious bird with a patient nod. When they paused to commune with an ancient oak or kneel by a star-lit pool, the air around them seemed to hum with a calm Reth had never known.
Curiosity, that old enemy of stoic warriors, eventually won. He began with practical questions:
“Why map the stars if they’re always the same?”
“Why risk the roads when you could stay in one grove?”
Mai’ek answered each one with gentle patience, their voice like cool water over stone. They spoke of constellations that shifted with the seasons, of the Star Druids who believed the heavens held songs of guidance, of their own dream of one day seeing every night sky across the surface world. “I was born to darkness,” they admitted one evening beside a crackling fire. “The Underdark teaches you to fear the open sky. But I always imagined it as freedom.”
That confession lodged itself in Reth’s chest like a seed. He found himself asking more—about Mai’ek’s childhood beneath miles of stone, the dangers they’d braved to reach the surface, the loneliness of being a drow in a land that mistrusted their kind. Each answer chipped away at the walls he’d built around his own heart.
One night, under a blanket of glittering stars above the Fields of the Dead, Reth awoke to find Mai’ek seated on a boulder, head tilted back, eyes reflecting the constellations. They were sketching a new chart, lips moving in silent calculation. The sight of them—small, radiant, utterly absorbed—stirred something raw and unexpected. For the first time, Reth felt a pull stronger than duty: a fierce, aching need to protect not just their body, but the light they carried.
By the time their journey brought them back to the Star Grove, the change in him was undeniable. Reth lingered when he should have left, his axe resting idle as he searched for the right words. At last, beneath the silver glow of the moon, he spoke. “I took this job for coin,” he admitted, voice rough as gravel. “But somewhere along the road…it stopped being a job. I don’t just want to guard you, Mai’ek. I want to stay.”
Mai’ek looked up at him, moonlight painting their dark skin with a soft sheen. For a heartbeat, silence stretched like the space between stars. Then they reached out, placing a slender hand over his scarred knuckles. “I hoped you’d say that,” they whispered. “The grove always needs guardians. And…I would like to keep learning your constellations too.”
Reth accepted, not as a mercenary, but as something far more dangerous to his once-untouchable heart: a companion, a protector, and perhaps, in time, a lover. Together they walked beneath the endless sky, a barbarian and a druid who had each found their own kind of freedom in the other.
