#i mean. she is ALSO my tav !! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

blackjackkent · 5 months

Text

The city is hovering on the edge between summer and autumn, and the night has just the slightest hint of a chill on the air as Hector climbs the stairs to the balcony of the Singing Lute Inn, where Karlach told him to meet her.

She's already seated at the table; he can see her fidgeting nervously as he approaches, and her head snaps up, startled, at the sound of his footsteps. Then the nerves are wiped from her face as she grins brightly.

"Hi. Hi! You made it!" she says eagerly. Leaning forward, she pushes back the chair next to her at the table; her eyes run over him from head to foot, drinking in the sight of him in this place so far from camp or combat. "You look nice," she murmurs.

Hector has been nothing but excited to come out and spend this time with her, ever since she suggested the idea - but now, to his own surprise, he feels a pleasantly warm, bashful feeling settle into his chest and realizes he is blushing a little.

Their relationship has been rather backwards and jumbled, he reflects. Months of hoping, wishing, pining after someone he could not even touch, let alone have... and then the collapse, barely over the course of a day, into passionate love - which was new enough for him, when it happened. This, a more traditional romantic moment, is perhaps even more unfamiliar to him now. But unlike so many of the things he has faced that were new and terrifying... this is new and joyful, because it is with her. He is safe, with her eyes on him, no matter what.

"So do you," he murmurs, looking back appreciatively, and he is gratified to see a similar dark flush rise in her cheeks as well at the compliment.

"Thank you," she answers with a bright smile. Shifting nervously in her seat, she picks up the menu hastily and peruses it with an intense studiousness.

"Hmm. Baldurian seafood stew. No thank you..." She peers at him over the top of the sheet. "What do you think you'll have?"

He is conscious of the surreal feeling that they are performing a play for each other, each of them trying to sort out what "acting normal" entails, with a little warm thrill as they successfully hit each beat in the scene. "The grilled rothe ribs sound good," he says with a slight smile.

She grins with an air of relief. "Just what I had in mind," she agrees. She waves eagerly at the innkeeper, a broad and rather surly orc gentleman. "Two of the rothe ribs, please," she says firmly. "And two glasses of..." She pauses, looks questioningly at Hector.

"Wine," Hector puts in, pointing at the item on the menu.

"And two glasses of wine," Karlach finishes, and nods with satisfaction.

As the bartender stalks off, she leans forward, resting her elbows on the edge of the table. Her eyes narrow, taking on a playful air as she starts to relax into the moment.

"So... you're an adventurer, right? How's that going?"

Hector grins, mildly bemused. "You've been by my side for a lot of it, you know," he points out.

She gives him an gentle nudge in the shoulder. "I know, but this is our *first date*, remember?" she says conspiratorially. "Tonight, you're a mystery to me."

His eyebrows lift in understanding, and he opens his mouth to try and answer in kind, continue the conceit of them being strangers to each other... but then he stops, and grins sheepishly. He's neither actor, liar, nor orator at the best of times, and if he is honest, he is finding the way she is looking at him... distracting.

"I'm not sure I can pretend I don't already love you," he says ruefully.

She hesitates, then laughs, shaking her head. "It's all I can do to keep my hands to myself anyway," she answers, and snorts softly. "We're terrible at this."

He reaches out, puts a hand on hers on the table, grinning at her slight discomfiture. "Want to get out of here?" he says teasingly.

Her eyes widen and her face flashes through a mix of eagerness and determination in rapid succession. "No! ...Yes-- No. We came to have a nice date, and that's what we're going to do." She crosses her arms over her chest and looks at him with a stubborn smirk. "Go on. Date me. I dare you."

Hector laughs softly. "You're right. So... erm... where did you grow up?" he tries, after a moment's thought, trying to determine what he might ask her if he had never met her before, if the scent and warmth of her were still things he had yet to experience. This is still not his strong suit - but he will make the effort if it will make her happy.

She brightens up excitedly and settles back into the moment with only a little awkwardness.

"Right here in Baldur's Gate, more or less," she says, gesturing out to the view of the city below them. "My folks are long gone now. But they raised me in the Outer City. Dad was a porter in town, mum did laundry." She smiles nostalgically. "Still think of her when I smell clean sheets. We were poorer than dirt, but my gods we had fun."

He leans back in his seat, just enjoying listening to the sound of her voice, her excitement, her happiness at being back in the city, all washing over him. He's heard some of this from her before - but not all of it. Perhaps this 'pretending to be strangers' bit has even more merit than he expected.

"What about you?" she asks him curiously.

(A/N: The three options here are "much like yours," "i don't like to talk about my past," and "I'm from baldur's gate too, I wonder if we crossed paths"; none of these are actually relevant to Hector's experience of growing up at the monastery. So we're going to skip over this line. XD )

He has told her some things about his life among the monks of Silverlight before - but fairly little about his childhood there. He finds himself starting to talk about it now, though. He has no real stories of joy and excitement like those she describes, and on some level he has started to realize just how barren his life was in these particular regards until he met her... but there were good memories too. He ends up telling her a little about the lessons he received - how he started being trained as a scribe before they discovered his fascination with the ancient tomes and texts of their historical library...

She listens with rapt fascination, just as he had listened to her, a slight, blissful smile on her face.

It's hard to say how long they sit there, caught in the conversation, trading stories back and forth; both of them have started to relax into this 'first date' conceit and Hector feels his cheeks starting to hurt from smiling. They're only interrupted by the eventual arrival of their food... which is wrong.

Two plates of seafood stew land on the table in front of them, along with the two glasses of wine. Karlach looks down at the plate with an air of some disappointment - but is met with a curse from the irritable innkeeper who stalks away when she tries to ask for a change.

Hector can see her struggling to mask the disappointment at the meal not quite going as planned, and she forces a smile back onto her face.

"Worst guy I ever met," she mutters wryly. "How about a toast?"

But, frazzled, she moves too fast, and the wine glass slips from her fingers as she goes to lift it, sending a spray of pale purple across the table - and over her lap. "Oh, SHIT," she snaps, and Hector can hear her voice crack.

Frowning, he reaches out and takes her hand in both of his. He can feel the increased heat of the engine in her palm and knows it for a sign of her agitation, and his thumbs drift over her knuckles gently, soothingly. "We can use my glass," he says mildly, and reaches to lift it between them. "To us."

He can see her relax, his voice and touch pushing away the frustration in favor of something warmer. She smiles slightly, nods agreement as he makes the toast, and her eyes track his intensely. The conceit of the first date is gone abruptly, and he sees the full depth of feeling in her eyes, everything they have built together in the months that he has been hers.

"May we live every day as if it were our last," she says softly. "'Cause you never know when your last will come." Before he can respond, she pushes up from her chair and leans across the table to press her lips against his fiercely.

As always, the oblique reference to how little time they have left makes his heart twist in his chest -- but now it is his turn to push that down and away. It has no place here. This moment is for her - for them - to feel, just for a little while, like they can say anything, do anything... like just for one night they are not trapped in the raging river of fate that is dragging them along.

Just for tonight, he thinks, and kisses her deeply, one hand sliding into her hair. Just for tonight... we have all of time ahead of us...

-----

It must be nearly two in the morning, he reflects vaguely sometime later, as he peers out at the curve of the moon and its position slowly descending towards the west. He's barely been aware of the passage of time; the last few hours have been some of the happiest of his life. Just like she promised... no monsters, no fights, no fears, just them, together, talking about whatever comes to mind, each sentence punctuated by a brush of fingertips against a hand or a cheek, a stolen kiss, a sip of wine...

And of course, the seafood stew, which really is dreadful, but certainly filling.

Karlach leans back in her chair with a heavy, contented sigh. "That was great," she mumbles, and flicks a glance at Hector with a slow smile. "The food and the company."

They've both had a little too much wine, really. Hector's lips have been fixed in a permanent, slightly giddy grin for at least the last hour. All the dark thoughts are far behind him now and he feels as if he is simply drifting, content to be near her, and has been forever, and will be forever still.

"Lovely having a normal evening amid the chaos..." he says quietly.

She smiles wryly. "Whatever do you mean? We're just two normal people... living normal lives... very, very normally."

But she can't maintain the facade again; her voice cracks just a little, and she reaches out abruptly, putting her hand over his on the table.

He stirs slightly, the happy buzz fading as he registers something serious and sad coming into her eyes.

"I know I can't stay forever," she says quietly. There's no attempt at jocular humor this time, no wry deflection or avoidance. Her voice is soft and flat, full of love and full of grief. "Here. With you. In fact, I feel like..." She swallows. "Like I don't have long left at all."

His face spasms with a failed effort to contain the fear that floods through him at those words. Every moment he knows it is on the horizon, and yet hearing her speak of it directly, as something looming even closer than before, feels like a dagger through his heart.

Her hand tightens around his, pulling him a little closer to her. "We've been through so much," she goes on. "And the worst is yet to come. I have every reason to feel terrified, hopeless... like giving up." She draws a breath and lets it out slowly, visibly struggling to keep composure long enough to finish speaking. "But to be here, with you, in the city I love, in this world I love so much... it's all I could really ask for."

She reaches out, cups her hand against his cheek, running her thumb along the edge of his beard. It's an affectionate gesture, of course, but it also serves to pull his face towards her, to nudge open his eyes so they meet hers squarely. "You hear me?" she says, suddenly fierce, her voice cracking again as the emotion starts to overwhelm her. "*You're* all I could ever ask for. I love you... and I know that whatever else this city will throw at us, we can handle it."

He is listening with such fervent attention that he feels a muscle start to ache in his neck. And though his instinct, whenever this topic comes up, is to recoil into grief... this time he forces himself only to listen, to let her words flow through him and strengthen him.

Maybe it will end. But it meant something. It meant everything. It will always have meant everything...

He will have that to hold onto, when the pain eventually finds him. As it will, no matter how hard he tries to look away.

"I love you too," he whispers unsteadily, looking back into her eyes, his gaze heavy with all the love he feels for her. In almost every other moment, he is so careful with what he shows, how he controls himself... but not here. There is nothing hidden, not from her.

She smiles, kisses him again, slow and deep, then rests her forehead against his. "Come on," she murmurs. "There's something I want to show you upstairs."

He has to take a moment and breathe several times before he trusts himself to speak. "What is it?" he asks.

She laughs, only a little shakily. "I rented us a room for the whole night. Just the two of us -- alone, finally."

In spite of the emotional strain of the conversation, he feels a flicker of eager warmth go all through him, and she grins at the expression on his face.

"After you," he says, and pushes himself unsteadily to his feet.

-----

He has only ever experienced their lovemaking in camp. And he had never had anything to complain of. She has always been more wonderful than he would have words to describe, no matter where they are. He wouldn't have thought to ask for more even if it had been an option.

But this... gods. A soft bed and her warmth all over him, the same hungry eagerness that has marked their previous encounters, and yet... slow.

They had claimed to each other that they were going slow, that first night back in the shadowlands - but it wasn't really. It was rushed and desperate, full of need and urgency - both from desire and from the necessary limitations of sex in a camp full of other people.

This... this is slow. They have all night, and no one to bother them, nothing to distract. He is free to take his time, explore every part of her as she explores him. And the look in her eyes as their bodies meld together is something he will never forget if he were to live to be a thousand years old.

He loves her... he loves her... he loves her... and he can feel her on the edge of slipping away from him, but he will carry this with him into the darkness when she is gone.

He loves her and he is losing her and he does not know what he will do without her.

But they have this.

They have this...

#bjk plays baldur's gate 3 #hector carlisle #karlach x tav #long post #AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH #ok the cute followed by the feelsy... my heart was not prepared for this scene #and this took me like two hours to write because hector is having SO MANY EMOTIONS #and so am i #i am honestly so pleased with how this conversation went because ultimately it was a simple direct speech from her that he needed to hear #he needed to hear her not laugh or brush it off or avoid the topic #and he in turn needed to give her the gift of letting her tell him what she did and let it mean something without all the baggage #also this was one of the most sweet and soft sex scenes i have ever seen in a video game #and it makes me sad i can't screenshot more of it here without risking getting the post flagged XD #anyway it's 1am and i'm a mess #idk if there are like good and bad times to post this stuff but this probably counts as bad XD #also this post is enormous so y'know. never let it be said i don't give bang for the buck content-wise lol

15 notes · View notes

astralprisms · 4 months

Text

Wrote a little prompt fic courtesy of @bg3wips flowers prompt list on twt. I can't remember the first time Xa'rok used Dissonant Whispers, and their signature weapon came later, but the first time they used the illithid powers was memorable, relevant, and came with a fun interaction perk, so.

Thistle - the first time they used their signature weapon or spell.

The din of unsheathed weaponry rings around them in a cascade of echoes. Goblins shift on their feet as bowstrings creak with impatient tension. One of the goblins spits, loud and wet, and the glob of it lands just shy of Karlach's fur-lined boot.

“Prick,” she mutters before burying her fist into the abdomen of the troll that towers to her right.

The troll looks caught off guard, either by the attack connecting or the fact that it actually felt the blow, but it doesn't have time to ponder the discrepancy further before Karlach whoops and follows that strike up with another, the air around her fists crackling in her wake.

Xa'rok spares a seconds-long glance at the staggering troll before their eyes fix on the maelstrom of goblins thickly clustered in the center of camp. They are no natural-born tactician, but they are gith. In the end, it amounts to one and the same.

They take stock of their enemies in increments, grouping the threats by severity, weapon, and proximity. They can see the tell-tale regalia of the goblin priesthood peeking out from the doorway of a rampart wall. And the two humans they met in the woods north of the Grove, the ones who first called them True Soul.

The parasite squirms in Xa'rok's skull. Something sparks to life behind their eyes and they blink as the feeling washes over them. Power.

One of the goblins in the cluster at the center of camp shifts on his crouched haunches, the crossbow in his hands aimed with deadly accuracy. Xa'rok takes one feinted step forward and calls upon the pulse of magic in their blood, blurring out of existence at the front steps and re-appearing at the epicenter of the crowd, hand already reaching for their sword.

But by the time they materialize the squirming in their skull has become a buzzing that filters down into their sword arm, and as they bring both hands to their face to shake it free, Xa'rok finds a new course of action: for their vision has gone dark around the edges, blurred as if they are still in between one place and the next. Their feet have left the ground, and the buzzing has become a hum, a wellspring, a gaping hungry maw. The only thing restraining it is their own will.

Once realized, they let it go.

Reality shifts. A blip in their vision. An expulsion of force with the ring of psionic detonation. It tears through their mind and out.

The goblins drop around them like flies. Bryanna and Andrick stare in twin horror until their eyes go blank, and they, too, collapse into the shadow of their rampart hideaway.

A pleased, honeyed voice sluices through Xa'rok's slowly-reconnecting thoughts. Good. Again.

#BG3WIPS #tav #githyanki tav #tav: xa'rok #my writing #prompts #true to githyanki form to discover a new kink in the midst of battle #but also: what a fucking introduction to the fun of these powers. goblin camp who? they wiped 80% of them in one action+bonus action combo #I love you misty step the light of my life misty step #repulsor is a close runner up I still make frequent use of it even nearing the endgame #hard to beat an aoe expulsion attack that's basically shouting FUCK OFF really loud in psionic #sorry for all the friendly fire damage my party has sustained along the way #this is why Xa'rok has access to (3) misty steps #also of relevance: karlach is an open-hand monk and alert means she's always up first in combat. xa'rok generally ends up following her.

5 notes · View notes