#maneha

[lidsel]

Before Baldur's Gate 3 had a big buff red barbarian lady Pillars of Eternity had a big buff blue barbarian lady. And I think they would actually really get along, this is a friendly match.

[valensolo12]

Pillars of Eternity journal. Part 6?!!? Finishing the main story and starting the White March

I finished the game and then remembered... the DLC exists sigh (jk i do like it, its just. i can't stop without doing the whole thing!!)

im 63% sure next one is gonna be the last!! then it's just binding the pages and doing a little cover for the whole thing 😈

[starlightcleric]

Running with the girl squad + Kana. He gets to be an honorary member.

Unfortunately I can't replace him with Devil for party composition reasons; my character is a Rogue, and Kana's Ancient Memory is the main source of this team's healing.

[mangojournals]

Sol is so cute . I'm so excited to read about her journey

OMG SO-I YU IS SO PRETTY ALSO HER ART SKILLS!! TALENTED

The character designs GOD SHE IS HANDSOME AF

[a-drama-addict]

gay ass ranger gives her cape to a machine that doesn't feel temperatures 'in case she gets cold' (not pictured sagani creeping up to give yasha a thick ass fur clad jacket and boots)

[risualto]

Brighthollow

Title: Brighthollow Summary: After returning from the White March, Pallegina finds herself ill despite her best efforts. The people she fell in with out of necessity are far more accommodating about the whole ordeal than she could expect, especially when her subconscious sees fit to remind her of her place in the world whether she accepts it or not. Warnings: depictions of cold-like illness, minor spoilers for Pallegina's personal quest in Pillars of Eternity. Notes: For @holdinglines for the Secret St. Waidwen Exchange. Also available on AO3 here, where I posted it in early January when it became obvious that I'd lost access to my tumblr entirely. Luckily, I'm back now, and a friend as well as the event admin were kind enough to send the link to the fic to its recipient for me...but I still wanted to post it properly.

The very moment the lock thunked into place behind her, Pallegina raised a hand to her breastplate, and exhaled.  Her chest rattled through the simple motion, and only the threat of how it would snag on more air if she began to swear held her tongue.

There was sweat pooling beneath her underclothes, despite how cold she felt, but the very thought of the amount of effort it would take to remove her armor right now made her head swim.  She pushed away from the wall (when had she leaned against it? or closed her eyes?) and made her way to the bed.  Perhaps to sit down, away from all the noise and the chaos, would help.  There was work to be done tomorrow, and if everyone else was wont to ignore their duties by drinking and celebrating, then surely there was space for this much.

Drinking and celebrating.  Pallegina wanted to snort.  Whyever for?  If surviving bullshit of those children which called themselves divine were worthy of a party, she would never have spent a day sober.  And yet, duty persisted.

Behind her resting eyelids, there was a path.  At first made of gravel and dirt that crunched beneath her greaves.  The sound was too hollow, and it ached in her very core.  Between one blink and the next, Pallegina found that she had turned with the wind.  The suns lay behind her, and her shadow stretched like a river of spilt paint into the distance.  There was birdsong, thudding against her chest like icy rain.

She spit on the ground and turned her back, facing into the sun.  The silhouettes of ancient elms, with branches like claws, were at least a certainty.  There was no freedom to be found with the wind.  Only free falling.

Her throat burned, somewhere else, but Pallegina swallowed it down, as always, as ever, when there was a mission underfoot.

Despite it all, as she approached those trees, the chirping did not fade. If she listened closely, sometimes the sounds spelled her own name.  It made her stomach tangle like yarn at a cat’s mercy.  The wind around her changed, brushing her cheek.  Had the ice of the White March somehow followed them back to Caed Nua?  Was that why she was so cold?  Or was it the absence of her feathers, the down a bird ought to have—another punishment for refusing to play to Hylea’s tune?

(“—got it, but if I end up run through for tryin’a help, it’ll be on you t’ explain.”

“I’d do it myself, but I don’t wear…”

“’S a miracle it ain’t you who’s sick, bein’ honest…”)

The icy wind washed deeper and deeper under Pallegina’s skin, and when she looked down again, she found no earth, no gravel, no stone or brick, but a current of air that swept her aside.  She retched, but—of course.  There was nothing.

Pallegina refused to feel sad.  No visions, no nightmares, no divine guilt trips could make her regret her choice to turn away from the curse of her birth.  Her only regret was that she could not divorce from it more.

Despite the wind, as she let her tongue sweep out to her lips, she found them wet.  There was plenty of sustenance without that damned chime.

(“Don’t know where you found it…”

“—peared out of thin air.  But it’s real enough I’d use it for the kids; checked myself.”

“Should…Maneha?”

“Let her sleep.  Wake up to good news.”)

The wind in the Dyrwood smelled ripe.  Pallegina preferred the metal tang of the Republics.

She walked, or flew, or drifted, or just was there, until she could swear the bells should be ringing to wake her any second.  But there was no sound, besides the wind, and a distant creaking of wood.  Was she late to her post?

The utter shame of the thought had her shooting up, throwing the covers off with a clumsiness that barely befit a child, much less a paladin of the Brotherhood.  The room was—newly constructed, but foreign, and Pallegina did not remember falling asleep in it.  Much less in a bed, and certainly not tucked in so tightly that she was practically swaddled.  The curtains of the room were closed, but the light that spilled under them was pale and dim.  Moonlight.

There was a knot in her throat, and swallowing around it felt like choking on broken glass.  A hacking cough forced its way out as her body tried in vain to scratch out the obstruction.

“Oh!  Oh, that sounds awful!”  A hand landed squarely in the middle of her back, which Pallegina had not meant to expose but did, curled forward as she had to cough.  She batted the hand away as fast as it had come, and despite the arm she touched being much thicker than her own, it smartly obeyed and pulled away. 

In the throes of—well, that, Pallegina had failed even to register someone in the room.  But the large body and deep, painfully cheery voice left her unsurprised to see Kana’s face furrowed in confusion.  It only made sense, of course.  She was in Caed Nua, not the Republics.  Twenty-six, not nineteen.

“Here,” said Kana, somehow still smiling despite the furrow of his brow.  It made for a very odd expression, which Pallegina thought very unflattering.

It took her far too long to notice that he was offering a mug to her.  Water.

“’gracima,” she croaked, voice cracking over the first vowel.  The water was cold enough to make her shiver, but Pallegina could feel through the ceramic that it was not actually cold.  A fever, then.  But how had Kana known?  And, more importantly— “How did you get in here, aimico?”

Kana smiled, the way he often did at bandits unfortunate enough to try and rob them.  “Maneha let me in.  She was so worried when she found you, you know…”

He kept talking.  Pallegina knew he did.  She could feel the bass of his voice, ever a little too loud, vibrate the back of her skull.  Grating, and yet comfortably familiar.  So much so that she could not make out the words.  There was a rhythm to the way the chanter spoke, perhaps as much a habit as her own posture, and it was…heavy, against her sore chest.  But gentle.

Pallegina did not remember closing her eyes, but she did remember waking to an argument that sounded far away.  Two rough voices, but one that was warm like mulled wine, that rose and fell like the waves, and another that was hoarse as if half-scorched away by smoke. 

The room was still dark, and Pallegina was too tired even to feel shame at admitting to the fatigue.  She sighed, coughed, and slept, and this time, there was no wind in the darkness.

(“—no healer.  Pained though I am to admit it, your—our—best option is D—”

“Even if he would help, Aloth, she wouldn’t…”

“…y need th’ coxfither!  I, ah.  Suppose not.  …not be magic, but Edér swears it’ll help.”

“Next time she’s up…”)

Somewhere, someone must have put up a wind chime.  Pallegina was glad it sounded nothing like her dreams from childhood, but it still made her skin prickle unpleasantly.

Or maybe that was the fever.

There was that brush of wind against her cheek again, but this time, Pallegina managed to open her eyes to spy it.  Blue, and beads, and an arm pulling away.  Sharp brown eyes, crinkled with stress at the corners.

“Morning, sunshine,” said Maneha.

Pallegina scowled.  She looked to the window, where there was still no sunlight.  “A funny idea you have of morning,” she rasped.

“Well, you’re awake.  That’s good enough.”  Maneha reached for something on the bedside table.  “The farmboy and the wizard made you some broth.  Feel up to trying it?”

Pallegina tried to push herself up, shoulders tense as stone to hide the tremors she felt at just moving her own body.  She swore under her breath.  “How do they know I am sick?  I left dinner before…”  A cough interrupted her, but she didn’t turn her face away from Maneha fast enough to miss the look of shock.

The aumaua was much more composed when Pallegina finally cleared her throat to the point that she could breathe.  So relaxed that Pallegina felt her next words like a knife in the back.  “That was almost five days ago.”

“Five—canc—”  Pallegina sat up straighter, and held her breath until her cheeks hurt to keep from coughing again.

Maneha continued as if she was talking about the weather, and passed the bowl of broth.  “Got a bit hairy those first few nights, we think.  Sagani finally managed to get your fever down, though even she’s not sure how she did it.  You remember anything?”

Pallegina racked her memory, but all that came to mind was the haze of her dream, and the wind.  And…ah.  She recalled Kana, faintly, having been in this room.  “Nothing clearly,” she said, and took the bowl.

The broth was lukewarm, but it was…pleasant.  Pallegina was hardly the type to notice flavors on a good day, but this seemed particularly bland, and yet it was easy to drink.  As it settled in her stomach, there was a faint burning feeling inside her, akin to washing out a wound.  Or stepping inside after being out in the cold.

“Has the Watcher made it to Eir Glanfath yet, then?” Pallegina asked when she was done.  Her voice sounded a bit less like a stranger’s now, and she straightened her shoulders to match.

Maneha only laughed.  “No one’s made it anywhere, sunshine.  Not with you sick as a dog.”

Pallegina blinked.  “You joke.  That is no reason to wait.”

“Good enough for us around here, it seems.”  Maneha tapped her cheek with the backs of two knuckles, with the same sort of lov—gentle reproach that one might use to scold a beloved pet.

That faint burning sensation from the broth had settled in her chest, now.  Persistent.

“Tell them I am sorry, then,” she ordered, looking away.

Maneha chuckled, taking the empty bowl.  “I’ll tell them tomorrow,” she said.  “Or you’ll have a swarm of worried friends in here, midnight be damned.”

“Per complanca.  Then, I have not recovered.  I will be ill and keep my peace,” Pallegina said, rolling her eyes and ignoring the way it still made her stomach roll.

“Until morning, at least,” said Maneha.  “But…maybe not this morning, hm?”

“Hm.”  Pallegina laid down again, still turned away.  Her cheeks were warm, too.  It was an unfamiliar thing in this still-unfamiliar place, to be waited on.  Waited for.  Wanted enough.  “Ne, I will be ready.”  The path the ducs set before her was not one that would wait, nor one that would carry her forward on its own like the wind.  It was one she must walk.  But while the hollow in her chest had been filled by her love for the Republics, enough to sustain her soul, Pallegina supposed it would not hurt to indulge, for now, in having a little more.

[valentineveils]

i think she hates his ass [the his being vicious]

[faerune]

white march stop giving me another weird stinky old man (derogatory) i have my Boys kana, aloth, and eder and i refuse to let them leave the party

[voicesofeternity]

Aloth: I feel...off.

Durance: Been poisoned.

Edér: Not to alarm you, but I'm slowly dying of poison.

Grieving Mother: Fire fills my veins!

Hiravias: Urgh...my head is spinning. Stand clear, I think I'm gonna vomit—(retches)

Kana: I've been poisoned!

Maneha: Watch your shoes—I'm gonna be sick.

Sagani: Ugh...feels like I ate bad seal meat.

Zahua: My veins blacken!

[rlainarin]

Batyr and Aloth are a comedy duo. they're both eternally Kermit Scruncht at each other.

but also after five times in a row of Aloth getting knocked out and hearing "We need to take better care of Aloth!" you just go ok. somebody loves his squishy wizard.

[dragonologist-writings]

Title: Dreams of the Past Fandom: Pillars of Eternity Rating: G Status: One-Shot Characters: Iovara, Inquisitor/Watcher Rudi, Maneha Ships: Iovara/Inquisitor Additional Notes: Angst, Awakened Memories, Quiet Bonding Word Count: 800 Summary: Memories of love and betrayal bleed into the Watcher's dreams.

Femslash February #12: Crab Blossom (stop, you need to rest)

read below or here on ao3

“You need to get some sleep,” you say, as you lean down to wrap your arms around your lover’s shoulders.

Iovara sighs and rubs at her eyes, granting a bleary look to the candle on her desk which has burned itself down to a stub. “What time is it?”

“Late. You shouldn’t keep pushing yourself like this. You need rest, else you keel over in the middle of a sermon.”

“Speeches, not sermons. And nobody’s keeling over,” Iovara insists, but her words are not so convincing when paired with the visible exhaustion which lines her features and leaves deep shadows beneath her eyes. A kiss pressed against her check makes her smile, however, and she finally sets down her quill.

“You have a point, as always. But these missives are important-”

“And they will still be here in the morning. Let yourself have a few moments of peace.” Iovara opens her mouth to protest, but you place a finger against her lips. “I’m sure you have a very impressive argument ready, but consider this: we’re both just mortal women, and mortals like us need to sleep.”

“Ever the voice of reason,” Iovara murmurs, but it’s clear she’s relenting as she melts into your touch. “Very well, very well. But only if you come with me.”

“Naturally.”

Iovara rises from her desk, sliding a hand along your arm with a gentle, gliding touch. You pause to blow out the candle- you must resist the urge to topple the thing right onto Iovara’s missives, to turn those wretched words to ash before they spread their poison further out into the world- and then follow her to bed.

You were correct in your assessment of Iovara’s mental state; she falls asleep the minute her head hits the pillow. You watch her a while, smoothing the inky black hair from her face and marveling at the will of this woman you have loved for so long. Even asleep, the effects of Iovara’s mission are clear; her face is pale and drawn, and stress has brought streaks of silver to that lovely raven hair of hers.

Iovara has always been so tenacious, so bright, so unmovable once she seizes upon an idea that she believes in. It’s an admirable trait, and an inspiring one…until she seizes upon ideas that are dangerous. Dangerous and hedonistic and wrong.

You loved Iovara, once. You love her still. But you are tenacious, too, and all the love in the world cannot sway you from doing what is right. Even if you have to do some very wrong things in the process.

Tomorrow, you will suggest to Iovara that Creitum become your next destination. You already know she will trust you enough to agree.

You lean close and press another kiss to Iovara’s cheek, then settle down into bed at her side. Thoughts of the future which await you both plague your mind for some time still, until the gentle rhythm of Iovara’s breathing lulls you to sleep.

Rudi wakes from her sleep with a gasp and lurches out of her bedroll. There’s a twisting weight in her stomach, and for a second she’s sure she’s going to be sick.

But no. It’s not a real sickness. It’s just memories. Again.

Sol is sniffing at her with concern, but Rudi waves the lion away, giving him a quick scratch behind the ears to let him know she’s fine. But there’s no chance of getting any more sleep tonight, so she pulls her boots on and rummages around in her sack until she finds the half-full bottle of brandy she’d bought off an innkeeper two towns back. Prize in hand, she sits down by the dying fire and takes a long swig, and tries very hard not to think about anything at all.

She must be doing a pretty good job of it, actually, because she doesn’t notice Maneha is awake until the amaua woman takes the seat beside her.

“Bad dreams?”

There’s a note of understanding in Maneha’s tone, which is the only thing that keeps Rudi from flinching away and denying everything. She still doesn’t know how to actually talk about this stuff- how can she, when she can’t even tell the good dreams from the bad ones anymore?- so she just gives a stiff nod and says, “Yeah. You?”

“Not the worst. But yeah. Still pretty bad.” Maneha holds out a waiting hand, and Rudi passes the brandy over without another word.

And it works. The two of them, sitting like this, ignoring their dreams in tandem until the sun climbs up above the horizon. By the time their other companions are waking, Rudi has almost forgotten the feel of Iovara’s trusting body, warm and soft against her own.

Almost. Not completely. But enough to shake off the shadow of her former self and carry on for one more day.

[returnofismasm]

Pillars of Eternity folks:

In case we find out tomorrow, where in the timeline do you think Avowed will be set?

My thought is concurrent with Deadfire, to avoid having to deal with any consequences from Deadfire's endgame, though I suppose the plot of Avowed could be the result of Deadfire's ending.

[herearedragons]

damn I completely forgot to share my answer.

anyway my candidate is Kana because I feel like he fits a lot of the same boxes the Watcher does. he's a foreigner who came to the Dyrwood seeking something. he already has a reason to go to Caed Nua, so his personal goals are tied to Maerwald, and adding an Awakening to that could be fun. he's already beefing with the Leaden Key. his whole thing is striving to uncover the past to build a better future. he represents truth and history and hope. also he has that somewhat insecure-but-optimistic attitude that would make him fit right in as a protagonist, I think. AND he idolizes the Engwithans just a little and it would be fun to see how experiencing their darker side firsthand would affect him

found myself thinking about an AU where there's no custom Watcher, and one of the companions gets the Awakening and Watcher powers instead. kind of like BG3 origins I guess, in the sense that a companion can take Tav's place in the story

anyway. with that in mind

[compsum]

survey for statistics of the situation did not find others

[a-drama-addict]

pillars is so heavily on the mind i miss my pal pallegina