#protect this tiefling at all costs

[snarkspawn]

walking into cazador's lair like

[audiovideomeowart]

My friends teifling. her name is babbella or babbi for short she’s a Aberrant mind sorcerer. She drinks to much for her own good!

[olderthannetfic]

More tales of D&D DMs having to deal with antis: an anti (different one from last time) in a Discord D&D group I'm in objected to an aasimar (not mine) and a tiefling getting together because they've historically been enemies. They aren't in the homebrew setting we're using, a country where criminals and outcasts of other nations fled to get a chance for a better life. There is no animosity between people born in that country. Their immigrants grandparents, maybe.

But this anti WANTS it to be a thing. She wants to argue it's like a white person and a black person falling in love. Which the DM is okay with. He's in his 50s, not his 500s. He's not against interracial marriage. "It's a power imbalance!" was of course her go-to. "WTF" was his reaction, quite literally. He was so baffled. Firstly he pointed out that D&D doesn't have an equivalent to US history. Tieflings were never subject to being enslaved and sold like objects. Secondly he pointed out that all human beings IRL have a right to be together regardless of race. Thirdly he pointed out that treating a race like they're too weak to date is, to put it bluntly, incredibly racist and borderline eugenics.

She has left the Discord server. It was probably because no one agreed with her. If it was in-character objections that'd be fine. It wasn't. The DM is still in shock.

"I can't believe I had to argue today in D&D that black people and white people are equal!" he typed, and all I could think is, protect him from the rest of internet fandom at all costs. "My fucking parents know that and they're ACTUAL BOOMERS!"

I love him. He is a treasure. She tried to dress up her bullshit in progressive language and he saw right through it. 10/10, best DM I've ever had.

--

[grigori77]

Reasons to LOVE Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves

It's brand new in cinemas, so there are still plenty who ain't seen it, so if you're among 'em best skip this and just GO SEE IT, it's SO well worth it, genuinely it's one of the best new movies I've seen so far this year. Hope you love it as much as I did!

So, yeah, there you go - SPOILER WARNING, FOLKS!!! If you don't wanna get spoiled, RUN!!!

Still here? Okay, here we go then ...

This really is, UNAPOLOGETICALLY, a comedy. I mean yeah, this is a classic fantasy action adventure in the Willow, Krull or Ladyhawke mold, but it is also very enthusiastically POKING FUN at the classic conventions of the genre ... albeit CLEARLY done with great affection and love for the material, as only the best lampoons can be. So this is more The Princess Bride or Galaxy Quest than Your Highness or Spaceballs ...

Chris Pine is ALWAYS at his best when he's being FUNNY, so he is PERFECT here. Edgin is most definitely a bit of a douchebag, but he's the sweetest, most lovable douchebag you'll ever encounter.

Holga. Literally just EVERYTHING about Holga. She's my favourite character in this, this REALLY IS the best role that Michelle Rodriguez has EVER HAD, if you ask me. She's a total badass, a truly AMAZING FIGHTER, but I love that despite her dour demeanour she's actually quite sweet, gentle and really a great innocent in many ways. She's an absolute cinammon roll and must be protected at all costs.

OH MY GODS!!! All the easter eggs, SO MANY easter eggs ... FAR too many to count throughout, all the references and nods and winks to the game itself, all the spells and races and creatures and stuff ... but I love how the movie NEVER beats you over the head pointing any of it out, it just lets you enjoy it. So the proper fans will get a huge kick out of spotting it all, but casual viewers will just enjoy it as rich worldbuilding colour and flavour.

Seriously though, it's a D&D fan's DREAM!!! Not just the mimic, or the owlbear, or the gelatinous cube! SO MUCH to spot ...

Justice Smith's Simon gets THE CLEVEREST and best introduction in the film, I love the theatre scene, he's SO BAD at this while also simulataneously being really great. Totally sums up this gloriously clunky hot mess of a sorcerer ...

the opening is GENIUS, totally sets the movie up as it means to go on - the parole hearing is a brilliant comedic take on the scene-setting infodump which is brilliantly carried through in the way the movie delivers exposition in a fun way or just lets you absorb it through what's happening in each scene. This is the perfect, TEXTBOOK way to do it.

"That is one pudgy dragon!" LOL

Doric. Just EVERYTHING about Doric. Sophia Lillis' tiefling druid is a wonderful diminutive little action hero, so fiesty and capable. I love her. It's just a shame she's not primary coloured, I'd have loved it even more if she'd been blue, or red ...

The Wildshape Escape! XD Yeah, I love that, that's THE BEST set-piece in the whole movie, definitely, when Doric gets cught out spying and has to shapeshift on the fly to get away, and it all plays out in one immersive single shot that just leaves your heart in your mouth ...

Oh, the Speak With The Dead montage, that is comedy GOLD. Funniest scene in the whole movie. And with added payoff at the end! XD

Rege-Jean Page's Xenk Yendar. Oh boy, that paladin is something else. I love how LITERAL he is, he's like Drax in GOTG but much more intelligent. Y'know when Holga says: "You're not a lot of fun, are you?" to him? She's so wrong. I just wish there was more of him in this ...

The heist! Oh, the heist! So good ... the portal trick, it's great, love the way they did that, and then that HILARIOUS bard illusion distraction - Pine skipping the song like a broken record was just chef's kiss!

That wonderful wibbly-wobbly illusory reality thing whenever Simon tries to atune to the Helm ... wow, that is some spectacularly trippy shit. Granted, twice is fine for terms of pacing, but I could've done with a few more scenes of that, it's fascinating.

Hugh Grant really has just become a MASTER at playing smarmy, slimy duplicitous gits now, hasn't he? Forge is a reprehensible prick and I love it.

I love how they made Bradley Cooper a halfling for his cameo. They're never gonna let him live down the fact that he's now probably best known for playing a two-foot-tall talking racoon so forever after he will be a Short King.

Wow, Daisy Head's Sofina is a CRACKING villain, she's just SO CREEPY!!! I love how coolly menacing she is, a brilliant dark necromantic wizard that just makes your skin crawl. Especially at the end ... IS SHE a lich? Is that what they were doing there?

That whole big action climax, the showdown in the city centre is FIRE!!! It's so amazing, so brilliantly dynamic, with EVEN MORE great easter eggs! Simon and Sofina having an insanely awesome "arm wrestling" bout with Mage Hand versus Earthen Grasp (I think that's the spell, couldn't be sure), oh my gods! So cool ... and then the way they neutralised the threat! Brilliant.

Chloe Coleman's Kira is an absolutely adorable delight, and I think she's ENTIRELY JUSTIFIED in how pissed she is at Edgin for abandoning her. It makes the payoff when they finally make up so much better.

And that resurrection scene at the end? Yeah, sure, I saw that coming a mile off, but it was so well done, and they played it so well, that it was still SUCH a powerful scene even so. Just perfect.

Seriously, they just did this whole thing SO PERFECTLY. It's visually STUNNING, really it just looks AMAZING, and the action sequences are BRILLIANT but always feel entirely necessary for the story, which is how you want to do it. Best of all, though, is THE PACING!!! This is such a quick, breezy film, it just barrels along at a spectacular clip, so it never drags. Mark Kermode is right, even though this is two and a quarter hours long it doesn't FEEL LIKE IT, it feels like a super-trim 90-minute movie.

And it ties everything off nice and neat, too. Sure, there are definitely possibilities for the future, going forward if they make more, but if the movie DOES tank then it's fine, because this really does do a great job about feeling self-contained and telling its own complete story, so if we DON'T get more it won't be too big a disappointment ...

[chaoticlicense]

Leaving It All Behind

Summary: During the victory celebration, you seek out Zevlor to tell him of your intention to leave behind the life you once knew.

Word Count: 1266

Tags: SFW, Zevlor, Elf Reader, AFAB Reader, Zevlor x Elf Reader, Zevlor x AFAB Reader, OC Based Reader, Non-Tav Reader, Second Person POV, Fluff, Cuteness

AO3

You find him at the edge of camp, standing barefoot where the sand meets the water. His boots have been discarded, placed neatly behind him against the rocks. Gentle waves lap against his bare feet, toes digging into the soft, wet sand. Zevlor’s head is turned to the sky when you approach, molten eyes watching the stars. There’s a small smile on his lips as he slowly turns his head from left to right, taking it all in. The celebration is still ongoing around you, tieflings and fellow druids (those who stood by the tieflings against Kagha) alike share in wine, ale and laughter. But you find yourself drawn to their leader who stands isolated from the rest. 

As you come to stand at his side, you turn your head to the sky and join him in stargazing. The two of you gaze at the night sky for a while in comfortable silence until Zevlor turns his attention to you. 

“Beautiful, aren’t they?” he asks.

Oblivious to the way his eyes soften as he takes you in, you nod in agreement. 

“Yes, they are. You must have missed the sight of them during your time in Avernus,” you muse. “I imagine there are no stars in the Hells.”

Zevlor hums. “None at all, I’m afraid. None like the ones here, at least.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you see the tiefling smile a little, molten eyes studying you. 

“In truth,” he continues, “There was a time when I thought I would never see the stars again.”

Then, a warm, calloused hand grazes your own and your heart flutters. 

You hadn’t known Zevlor for long, but from the moment he led his people to the Grove, you felt an undeniable connection between the two of you. As he came to Halsin seeking protection, seeking shelter against the chaos of the world around him, you knew in some way that you were destined to help him. Much to your fellow Druids’ dismay, you were always eager to help those in need no matter the cost. A flaw, Kagha said, a weakness. She turned her back on the tieflings the moment Halsin left in search of the Nightsong, but not you. 

You defied her will by showing them kindness when no one else would. You rose early, before dawn, to hunt and gather food for them to ensure they remained full. The first time you brought venison already skinned and portioned to Zevlor, he stood before you speechless. In all your years, you had never watched someone as composed as he come close to tears. 

He had taken the meat and the pelts with endless thanks that spanned days later. 

And so you continued to support him and his people, supplying them with whatever the needed, regardless of Kagha’s cruelty towards you for it. This support led to a great deal of time spent with the older tiefling, time that brought you closer together. Close enough that you can’t help the warmth flooding through you at the slightest touch.

“Shouldn’t you be celebrating?” Zevlor asks after a while.

“Hm?”

“I thought you’d want to partake in the festivities after a well deserved victory.”

With a shrug, you fold your arms across your chest.

“I’ve had my fill for the evening. Too much wine and I’ll end up wildshaping into an owlbear, scaring off my newfound friends,” you say with a laugh. 

Zevlor smiles at this. “That would be quite a sight.”

“For you, perhaps. But not, I think, for the rest of the camp.”

“You never know.”

Shaking your head, you hold his gaze as you share a moment of laughter.

“I have to ask,” he begins. “If you are done with the celebrations, why seek me out tonight? There are plenty of others more deserving of your attention than I.”

You’re not sure if you should be offended or flattered by his words. If not for the gentle tone of his voice, you might have wondered whether he enjoyed your company or wanted you to leave him be.  

“Are you trying to get rid of me, Zevlor?” you tease. 

The corner of his eyes wrinkle as he shakes his head and reaches a hand towards your face. He takes a strand of loose hair fallen from your updo and tucks it neatly behind your pointed ear. 

“I would never do such a thing,” he says softly. “I just wanted to know why you’d spend your evening with an old tiefling like me when there is far more merriment to be had with the others.”

“You’re hardly old, Zevlor. Do you have any idea how old I am?”

“I wouldn’t dare to guess for fear of insulting you,” he laughs.

Rolling your eyes, you bump your shoulder against his playfully. 

“Regardless, how I choose to spend my time and who I choose to spend my time with is my business. And tonight, I choose to spend my time with you. That is to say, if you’ll have me?”

Zevlor’s hand moves from your ear, fingers gently brushing against your cheek before his arm falls to his side once more. 

“I most certainly will. In fact, I have come to welcome your company these past days.”

Heat floods your cheeks and you pray to Silvanus that he doesn’t notice. 

“That is…a relief to hear, truly,” you say, a little breathless. “Then what I came to say to you will be much easier.”

His brows raise, interest piqued. “Oh?”

“I’ve decided that I want to come with you to Baldur’s Gate. I want to join you and your people and help you navigate the way forward. I know it won’t be easy but I know the path better than most. I can help you.”

“But…what about the Grove? What about your people?” 

“They were never my people. Halsin brought me to the Emerald Grove when I was just an elfling. A child, in truth. A child who became as much of an outsider as any who came across them. If it weren’t for Halsin’s kindness, I would have been cast out by Kagha and her ilk.”

Your voice spits venom as you speak her name. The elf in question never truly accepted you into the Grove the way Halsin did. She could sense something in you that she distrusted. Something that drove her to all but ignore you these past several decades. In doing so, in showing her distrust, she brought about the same feeling in the others. Few of the other Druids trusted you after that. 

“No,” you continue. “The Grove was never my home, and its people were never my people. I have wanted to leave it behind for some time but there was never a chance to do so before now. Before you. I have never felt more…wanted than I have by you, Zevlor. You and your people have shown me more kindness in the past tenday than the Druids have in the past ten years. The least I can do is repay you by helping you on your journey to the city.”

Zevlor is quiet. His eyes bore into your own as he considers your words. The flames of his irises seem to burn into you with such ferocity you think you might catch fire. Then he reaches for your hand. Fingers lace with yours as he pulls you a little closer. 

“You don’t have to do this, you know?”

Sighing, relieved, you nod. “I know. That’s why I want to.”

“Then you will be the most welcome company on the journey ahead of us.”

All written content belongs to ©chaoticlicense // you do not have permission to use any of my works // do not repost or modify/edit // all content is written for adults by an adult // any characters unless stated otherwise, belong to their rightful owners.

[nightmarist]

Spoiler-ish? My cousin beat the game (I'm in act 3 but have some spoilers). This is his stat screenshot from endgame and we figured he was Oath of Devotion based on the buffs. His unnamed tiefling companions are listed as Hellriders, but he remains an exile. I have opinions on what broke his oath and how. But I did wonder if him leading the tieflings out of Avernus was his "last mission for Helm." I suspect being a Hellrider would have shielded him from being ousted (minus the broken oath, and his own sense decency). And the fact he brings two (veteran-looking) tiefling Hellriders implies that the Hellriders didn't push out all their tieflings.

The losing faith leads to losing your paladin status theory holds water, but I'm using something else in my fanfic.

Oooh thanks!

I haven’t actually reached endgame I’ve been avoiding it for like a month ORZ so I wasn’t sure if there was anything extra when the allies come to aid you.

Devotion was my initial assumption for my fic <3 although I do have certain things I’m writing for his oath restoration/replacement 👀

Elturel as a city exiled tieflings, but the Hellrider status of them could be up in the air or even depend on who you ask in Elturel vs Baldur’s Gate, which is a potentially interesting political tension: You have “tiefling’s don’t belong in Elturel” clashing with “Hellriders are for Life”

I assume the Riders, if at least tiefling Riders, would still consider themselves such, even begrudgingly with prejudice. I mean, the ones you have here plus Tilses is a Hellrider tiefling in the grove and looks young compared to Zevlor. There were some Riders who went to Baldur’s Gate prior to the Descent as well. Even if they don’t live in Elturel I suppose they have a sense of duty to continue to protect with a Hellrider pride.

Zevlor is an interesting case as the only one we see who is specifically stated as exiled.

The idea of the tiefling journey being his final mission I think adds weight to his desperation/devotion! It’s very “My final duty and final act as a Hellrider is to protect my people” and it could very well cost him his life (which is part of the point of rider final missions) so that probably has a lot to do with why he doesn’t bother including himself in future plans.

:’)

Not all Paladins are guided by or bound to gods or faith, its the Oath that’s important, but Zevlor is tied to Helm as a Rider.

He does mention Ilmater once or twice in lines, but I think that’s just a Faerûnian thing to acknowledge gods when cursing/talking about their domain, not necessarily being devoted.

His Oath may not necessarily be tied to Helm either but the Narrator implies the loss of both are connected, if not losing faith could have been the catalyst for breaking his Oath or vice versa then at least the loss of both tied to the Descent and/or tiefling exile.

I love this sad goat man

[andthekitchensinkao3]

WiP Wednesday

Thank you for the tags @lokimobius @kcscribbler and @thosegayoldmen 😘🥰

So, remember that post I uploaded like... this morning, about the Lokius/BG3 brainrot being real? And five minutes later, I had IDEAS?

I give you, the first draft of a fairytale prologue. Because now I have the whole thing plotted out in my head, start to finish - and NOTE TO SELF: it's gonna be A ONE-OFF FIC, not a bajillion chapters.

~***~

Once upon a time, there lived an elven lord who wanted for nothing. His wife was formidable, a warrior in her own right, and gifted with magic. They’d fought together, side by side, as long as they’d known each other. He was her blade; she was his shield. They lived for each other. They fought for justice and honour, and for a time they were happy.

But when they had their firstborn, she was fulfilled in ways her husband could not be. The lord secretly wanted more than the quietude of domestic life and a political position away from the battlefield. He longed for knowledge, and through it, power.

That longing brought him to one of the Nine Layers of Hell, where he fought all manner of demons. Wading through the darkest depths in search of enlightenment.

What he found was not knowledge. It was not power, the way he’d anticipated.

What he found was a newborn tiefling, with dark blue skin and the most vivid, orange eyes, and within the elven lord something…stirred. Compassion, for a hornéd Hellspawn.

He brought the child back home to his lady wife, whose heart swelled for the baby. She would love him forever, like one of her own. The lord dismayed. They could never raise a tiefling child. Even under their protection, he would never be safe from harm.

So it was that they took the baby to an old woman who lived in the marshlands to the south, for she was as old as time, and knowledgeable of the old magics that governed the wilderness.

“Please,” the lord begged the hag. “Make this child invisible to those who would hurt him.”

“Shield him,” begged the lady. “In ways I cannot.”

“Let him grow up as part of our family. He has no one else but us.”

The hag considered their words, and plucked the baby from its new mother’s arms. She weighed and measured him by the scope of her eye, from the tips of his black horns to the tip of his dusty blue tail. “I’ll do as you ask, my lord. Transform the boy indefinitely, in your image. He'll want for nothing, raised as an elf in such a wealthy household. Money. Status. Power.”

“In exchange for your left eye,” said the hag to the lord. “I’ll give him the prettiest face in all the land, and let him keep his innate abilities.”

The thieving parents were pleased, having thought a bargain with a bog witch would come at greater cost.

“But,” said the hag, one finger raised in warning. “My magic does not extend to the child's future offspring. Blood, like truth, will out. One way or the other.”

The lord turned to his lady wife, distraught. “Such can never come to pass. Devilspawn grandchildren bearing my name? No. The boy shall never know love,” he told the hag. “You must make it so, and he'll never want to marry.”

“No!” Said the would-be-mother. “He must know love, for that is what brought him to us.”

The hag considered this, and made her final verdict. “I promise you this: no matter the love you pour into him, it shall never be enough. Until one day, when he shall be seen for what he truly is, and neither man nor woman shall love the devil in him.”

[xalygatorx]

Unbound | Chapter 17, "Get Up"

Áine Ts'sambra—a wayward half-drow bard with a painful past—has her world upended when she's snatched up by a Nautiloid ship and furnished with a tadpole to the brain. In her journey to remove the infestation before it can turn her and her newfound companions illithid, she not only finds that their solution has more layers to parse through than she can count, but that a particular vampire in her party does as well.

Unbound is an ongoing generally SFW medium-burn romance based in the world of Baldur's Gate 3 between Astarion and a female OC. Any NSFW content will be marked in the Warnings section. Contains angst, fluff, explorations of trauma, spice, graphic fantasy violence, and a guaranteed happy ending.

For anything additional on what to expect (and not expect), check the preface post.

Summary: Already weakened from their fight with the duergar and subsequently Glut as well to protect Spaw’s circle, the party encounters their most monstrous enemy yet in the Underdark while they seek a place to rest. On their last legs and fighting for their lives, Áine reawakens an old power within herself to save them all at a cost. Astarion, mortally wounded and terrified for Áine, scraps with his allies as they try to help him. The group finds a safe spot to make camp and focus on recovering. An old acquaintance returns to Áine.

Pairing: Astarion x Fem!OC

Warnings: Graphic fantasy violence (appropriate for canon, but described in detail); blood; descriptions of pain and injury (seeing it on others and feeling it); grief; trauma and descriptions of trauma, panic, and anxiety responses; angst; comfort/hurt; close calls for canon characters; no one dies but I do love to toe that line, besties; suggestive dialogue and content; lightly proofread

Word Count: 9.3k

Listening to: Destroyer - Of Monsters and Men

“I knew that fucking mushroom was going to be trouble!”

“Seemed like a fun guy at first.”

“Karlach,” Wyll warned through a snicker at Gale’s joke, “he didn’t mean it.” More likely it was Wyll who didn’t mean what he was saying because Gale had gone all-in on that one.

Karlach was halfway between laughing and barbecuing their wizard. “Gods, I hate you both,” she seethed, her flames calming in time with her chuckling. “Affectionately.”

“Chk,” Lae’zel grumbled. “There is no overlap in love and rage.”

“There is when it comes to dealing with their puns, Lae,” Karlach noted, adjusting the straps of her pack. “Gods, I need a nap and away from these two… Áine!” Up ahead, the bard paused and glanced over her shoulder at the tiefling barbarian. “How long until we camp?!”

“Soon,” Áine called back, taking stock of their party while she was half-turned. They were all tired and battered—the duergar had proven a tough fight, especially when their plan to take them by surprise had failed and one of the slavers had raised a small army of zombified corpses to fight on their behalf. Gale had helped to minimize the damage by destroying the rope ladders connecting the wooden platforms and funneling them into a singular nearby path, but they’d still taken a beating. 

And then there was Glut. They’d no sooner finished one fight before another was started and they’d had to kill the clanless myconid, who’d attacked them as soon as Áine refused to betray Spaw’s confidence.

They’d meant to take a more straightforward path back to Spaw’s circle, but the path had led them in a more roundabout route than intended and they were now more fatigued than ever. At least the path forward was clear—the Selûnite outpost was just up ahead and with a couple of short climbs, they’d be back near its crumbling walls and able to retrace their familiar path from its gates, back to their old camp.

“What do we think?” Áine asked no one in particular. “Keep going until we’re back to the circle?”

“The outpost is just there,” Shadowheart pointed out, unable to keep the wrinkle from her nose when she gazed upon the outpost again. Áine resisted rolling her eyes. “I don’t recall the circle being too far from where we ran into those minotaurs, do you?”

Áine shook her head. “Not too far, no. And we are likely the safest there while we recover.”

“It sounds as though our best option is to make our way back in full,” Halsin supplied, supportive of their conjectures in his reaffirming way. He cast a glance across the others, his features a little grave as he took in the smattering of split lips, bruises, and limps. “Anyone opposed?”

Silence stretched and Áine drew in a deep breath and nodded to herself. She looked to her side, meeting Astarion’s eyes as she said, “We keep moving then.” He nodded once, equally roughed up but ready to settle down somewhere he felt safe enough to meditate and heal. He walked along just behind Áine as she approached a rocky incline and said, “If anyone starts to feel otherwise, please say something, alright?”

There was a collective murmur of agreement as the group fell into step behind her. Áine set her jaw and prepared for her body to protest as she scaled the craggy outcrop. It echoed its ongoing soreness with renewed fervor, but she made it to the top just fine. Her shoulder was even cooperating for once and it made her a little more optimistic about their journey back.

She was so focused on assessing her condition that she didn’t notice the statue she’d risen beside until it nearly scared her out of her skin. Áine hopped back, prepared for a fight until she realized it was merely stone. On closer inspection, she saw that it was a life-sized statue of a drow in mercenary garb. 

On even closer inspection, she realized it had once been a drow. It wasn’t stone-carved, it was a petrified elf. “What in the Hells…,” she murmured, her fingertips tracing along its arm.

“A statue?” Gale asked, stepping to the other side of the petrified drow and lightly knocking against its shoulder. 

“Not always, I don’t think,” Áine murmured, her eyes shifting further down the path and seeing more of the same. She raised her voice slightly as she ordered the party, “On your guard.”

“Always,” Lae’zel murmured in confirmation, her hand resting against the hilt of her sword as her reptilian eyes traced the eerie plateau.

Áine neared another of the petrified drow mercenaries, noting that this one was unmasked. The look of unbridled terror on his face, frozen into eternity, sent a chill down her spine. There was no telling when this had happened exactly, but every survival instinct she had urged her not to linger. “Let’s hurry up t—”

She was cut off by an unnatural rumble through the ground beneath her feet. Áine steadied herself, glancing toward her friends also struggling to keep their footing. “Another bulette?” Wyll wondered aloud. It did seem the most likely based on their experiences so far, but Áine’s urge to hasten away intensified nonetheless.

“I don’t want to find out, let’s go,” Áine said, turning around to step back down to the plateau and get to the break in the outpost wall. She didn’t manage more than the turn before she looked up and saw precisely what had created this purgatorial statue garden they stood amongst.

Spines rippling with every undulation of its ghastly tentacles, the monster that had upset the earth in its uprising lifted into the air and opened its singular, enormous yellow eye. Its pupil spasmed and adjusted, skittering between them for just seconds until its mouth opened on a scream, the expression splitting its nightmarish face in twain.

“RUN!” Karlach shouted, jarring them all from their varied states of panicked freezing. 

Bolts of light shot from the ends of the spectator’s appendages, barely missing Áine and Gale, but hitting Shadowheart and Halsin. The bolts paralyzed them, rooting them in place with only their eyes able to move. Any plan to retreat was shelved then and those still able to move turned to fight.

Gale was the quickest to react, unleashing a fireball at the creature and hitting it squarely in the eye. It screeched and flung an appendage at him, sending him sprawling against a nearby outcrop. He clutched his side, rivulets of blood weaving from beneath his hair and across his temple as he shot more fire at the creature. “Ardē!”

Arrows sliced the air from Astarion’s bow, finding purchase in the creature’s leathery skin and the jelly of its eye. Lae’zel surged forward, sword in hand, only pausing along the way to free Shadowheart from her paralysis. The cleric looked jarred but nodded to the githyanki in thanks as she quickly dredged up what healing magic she had left, spreading it across the group. 

After Halsin was also cured of his paralysis, Wyll concentrated his final dregs of power to unleash bolts of red eldrich energy upon the beast, unsheathing his rapier when he felt his strength draining from the effort to little avail. Nearby, Karlach screamed wrath into her veins, aflame as she took her battleaxe into the fray and hacked at one of the spectator’s tentacles.

Their confidence was momentary. Fleeting, even, as their preexisting injuries screamed back to life, worsened or accompanied by new ones with every bite, every hit, and every bolt the monster threw their way. They were reminded that they’d meant to retreat, only fighting out of necessity, when the spectator took a chunk from Halsin’s broad, blackened shoulder with its needly teeth and flung him into the dirt near Gale. 

The appendages ignited anew with bolts of what they first thought would be another paralysis spell but instead found purchase on the petrified drow. Reinvigorated from stasis, the mercenaries were propelled into the spectator’s defense and caught the party’s blades with their own. 

Astarion’s attention diverted to sinking arrows into the resurrected drow, finding his shots counting for more against the smaller enemies descending upon their companions. He was unloading an ice-imbued arrow into a mercenary nearing Áine’s flank when the spectator unleashed a new wave of paralysis that caught him in its turning tide. The arrow had found its target, loosed just before the light struck him. 

His crimson eyes froze wide as the spectator descended upon him, shredding his torso and right arm with its teeth. He was left unable to scream his agony as his blood poured from the gaping wounds, his undead body barred from beginning any sort of healing process until he could move again. 

Cold blood waterfalled from his slashes as the spectator ravaged their frozen, bloodied friends, only Karlach, Lae’zel, and Áine left mobile. He felt his body growing colder, his mind growing fuzzier and number, sending him back in time to when this was his normal state of mind, bloodless and barely alive. If he could have shuddered, his body would’ve made him. Instead, he remained frozen in time, his struggle against the enchantment rooting him in place weakening with every second he continued to bleed.

It occurred to him that only seconds had gone by, seconds that felt like eons, when he heard Áine scream his name. With effort, he focused on her. Unfortunately, so did their foe. As the creature turned on her, suddenly bleeding out in his paralysis wasn’t his worst fate. 

Watching this thing kill the woman he adored and being unable to save her was.

Áine had been working off adrenaline and horror ever since the monstrosity hovering over them had hurled Gale to the ground. Each time one of them was paralyzed, it was a race with just her battered legs and her swords to fend it off one of her defenseless friends before it killed them in their stasis. Suddenly it was just herself, Lae’zel, and Karlach left moving. The drow were all dispatched save two. Áine had rushed to help when she saw Karlach roll with one of the resurrected elves over the edge of their plateau and disappear, only stumbling to a stop when the one Lae’zel had been fighting threw the injured gith against a rock and came at her instead.

An arrow had sliced the air and punctured his side, a sweep of ice blossoming beneath the drow’s feet that immediately sent him down on his face. Áine’s mistake had been to assume that was enough in her desperation to get her blades back into the monster assaulting her friends, her vision tunneled into protecting her loved ones as she’d slid on the ice herself and fallen on the drow’s upturned blade. 

The possessed mercenary thrust up into her when she slipped and Áine gasped, muffling a low whine of pain as she stabbed her scimitar into his neck, effectively finishing him off. She looked down at the long, spindly dagger he’d plunged into her stomach and her fingers twitched, aching to pull it out despite knowing she shouldn’t. She felt a familiar tickle of drow poison spreading through her, but her resistance was such that pulling the dagger out and letting her wound bleed more freely was the larger danger. 

The keening of stripping metal and tearing of flesh broke her bemusement and she whirled, tracing the spectator and seeing amongst its multitudes of teeth—

“Astarion!”

Gods above, there was so much blood. All around her, but leaking without pause from his pale body, his armor shredded where he spurted red. This can’t be the end…

Her vision shifted as her wounds and her panic at seeing her lover and her friends so horrifically mangled sank into her mind. She didn’t see the spectator change course. She wasn’t even sure she would have cared if she had. Perhaps she would have felt relief that it turned its attention away from Astarion onto her. Maybe he could get away.

Áine’s eyes rose to meet the spectator’s gaze, her features taut with defiance as she stabbed both her scimitars into its dripping, lacerated sclera. It responded with an unearthly shriek and a hurl of its tentacles that slammed her like a ragdoll into a nearby stalagmite with a hard crack.

The scream in Astarion’s throat was half-loosed when the paralysis finally wore off, but the condition’s fade sent him immediately tumbling to the ground, into puddles of his own blood. Shaking, he raised himself on his elbows, his nails digging and scraping against the plateau gravel as he tried to drag himself forward. The sensation brutalized his mind with intrusive flashbacks—the scratching and clawing against a stone crypt lid, painstakingly picking dirt out of the ridges after seizing against the dungeon floor for hours after being whipped, beaten, and carved into. He ignored them, unwilling to let his last thoughts be those long wretched years. If anything would be his and his alone, it would be his death.

“No, you can’t die,” he gritted out, his voice barely managing above a murmur as he clawed the dirt in a daze, desperately trying to get to Áine. What would he even do when he got there? 

She was slumped in a heap on the ground next to the rock she’d hit, her shiny pearl locks bathed red and pooled around her face. A dagger he hadn’t even seen pierce her stomach was buried to the hilt and poked past her arm folded beside her. The spectator made a breathy noise that almost sounded like a laugh and the odious air flowing from its jaws stirred Áine’s hair. It was the only movement Astarion saw from her. 

He snarled, one of his palms slipping in blood and sending him to the ground again. “Get up, damn you!” he growled, but his voice cracked in desperation.

Áine, barely lucid, slowly tilted her head, looking through hair stained red at Astarion. Around them, the paralysis was slowly wearing off the few it affected, Shadowheart included, but the damage was so great and the situation so hopeless that the freed immediately collapsed beneath both. Áine’s vision blurred and she heard Astarion plead with her as if through a long, narrow hallway, his words clear but far away.

Subconsciously, she extended her arm, reaching for him despite knowing neither of them could make the crawl. She winced at the simple movement, her body rending around every injury. She could feel her pulse, an irregular burning around the dagger buried in her belly. Get up, she growled inwardly, her mind’s voice sounding a mix of hers, Astarion’s, and voices from her past, not all of them fond. 

Shaking, she withdrew her outstretched hand and planted it against the ground, her bicep straining as she tried to do as he asked. The hilt of the dagger clacked against the dirt, sending a new shock of pain through her body and she shuddered, a hiss escaping between clenched teeth. Áine managed to push herself up just enough to turn towards the lingering spectator, her body vibrating with the effort while her legs remained buckled beneath her. A cough wracked her body and a spatter of blood projected from her parted lips.

The spectator blinked slowly, its lids hitting the hilts of her blades still sheathed in its eye. It seemed undeterred, its gigantic, slobbering tongue slipping over the surface of its teeth as it stared at her and then began to advance again.

She heard her name croaked again from the vampire lying nearby, too weak to even sit up despite trying desperately to. She could hear his hands splashing against the gore he crawled through, too drained to find purchase on the slickened cave floor. 

Áine’s mind remained addled with her own urgent demands to her body, her memories surfacing in a mingling of voices. Astarion’s, Shadowheart’s, the illithids’, even her father’s. Was this what people meant when they spoke of one’s life flashing before their eyes? Was she dying? 

No. No, she wouldn’t die. None of them would. An old voice resonated in her, reminding her, and her mind traced the contours of that voice with recognition, finding within it a buried ancient power she’d long refused, ignored until it faded into ether and the bearer of that voice left her too. Áine, for the sake of her new family, would embrace them both now.

She shoved herself up once more on one shaking, bleeding arm and with the last of her might extended her other hand toward the looming creature, its bared teeth littered with scraps of their flesh and smears of their blood. Its maw split open, still hungry, still eager to strip every scrap of her skin, every ounce of her defiance off her bones. 

A deadly silence fell over them all until all that could be heard was the crackle of building power around Áine’s hand, a building flush of emerald light blaring from her fingertips and the slits of her half-hooded eyes as, in the quiet that also extinguished the vocal clamor in her mind, one final word caressed her conscience with a tone of recognition. 

“Oathbreaker.”

The crack that split the air was deafening and, for a second, scattered conscious members of the party feared that Gale’s orb had detonated. A blinding, sickly green light erupted from Áine’s hand. When the light cleared, the spectator lay in steaming slices of viscera across the cavern floor. 

When the ringing in Astarion’s ears faded, he heard Áine collapse, unmoving against the rocks. No, was the only word he could think with any clarity and it grew repetitious and feral as his terror and fading condition mingled. No no no no no no no no no no no—

Something touched him and he snarled, swiping backward with one blood-covered hand. He heard Shadowheart mutter at him to stop moving as she dodged around him and turned him over to assess his damage while looking half-dead herself. 

“Don’t touch me!” Astarion hissed, attempting to shove her hands away from his destroyed armor but finding himself too weak to win the battle of wills. The realization just made him further lose his composure.

“Hold still!” she snapped, prying apart what she could of his scrapped armor to get at the deep wounds beneath. Shadowheart caught Astarion’s wrists, drawing another angry snarl from the vampire spawn fighting against her aid. “Wyll, help me!”

Wyll’s face appeared in Astarion’s vision and the Blade took hold of his wrists from Shadowheart, pinning his arms above his head and away from her work. Astarion’s anger bordered on panic. There were too many hands on him and he was too weak to rid himself of any of them. He hissed and growled, still struggling despite knowing somewhere in the back of his mind that they were trying to help him. All he could think of was getting them off him and Ái—

“Go help her,” Astarion gritted, snapping at Wyll’s arm when it came within reach. The Blade held fast, avoiding his fangs and maintaining his bruising hold on the vampire’s arms. Seething, Astarion shouted at Shadowheart, “Go to Áine and get off me!”

“You are dying, Astarion,” Shadowheart finally snapped, near-black bruises under her eyes as she forced her remaining magic through her fingertips as they pressed into his torso. 

“So is she,” he tried to snarl back, but the words came out with a panicked whine. He twisted desperately to try and see past Wyll to where Áine had collapsed. He got a vantage point just as Halsin and Lae’zel stooped to peel her limp body off the floor. “Bleeding Hells, Áine!”

“Halsin will help her until I can, but you’re in more dire shape than she is and she will never forgive either of us if you die,” Shadowheart gritted, finding Astarion even harder to hold in place now that he’d seen Áine. 

“I don’t care!” Astarion spat, his eyes rolling back in his head as his vision blurred sideways again. “I don’t care, just help her—please—”

Shadowheart felt panic lance through her as Astarion started to lose his focus. At least when he was fighting her, she knew he was lucid, but he was drifting again and she could only assume the worst. “Shit,” she snapped, holding his face as his head started to roll sideways. “Stay with me. Astarion!”

Wyll looked at her, panic in his eyes that only flared further when she pulled one of Astarion’s daggers from his belt. “What are you doing?”

“He needs blood,” Shadowheart said under her breath, her features contorted in pain from her own injuries. 

“Let me,” Wyll quickly said, holding out his hand. Astarion was half-conscious and had stilled his struggle in his delirium. “I’m in more of a condition to do so.”

Shadowheart hesitated, but he was right and they both knew it. She hesitated, handing him the dagger and switching her hands down to Astarion’s wrists. Wyll sliced his palm with a quick wince and held his dripping hand over Astarion’s mouth, squeezing the wound. There was a moment of uneasy stillness before Astarion’s entire body seized, almost succeeding in bucking Shadowheart off him as he lunged up toward the source of the blood. Wyll jolted but held his ground as Shadowheart wrestled the drained vampire back down onto his back. 

“That’s enough,” Shadowheart said as she saw Astarion’s pupils begin to react more normally when shadows passed over them. “That will help and we’ll still be able to cart him to wherever we set up if he fusses again.”

Wyll retracted his hand, starting to scout a makeshift bandage when he felt Shadowheart’s fingertips against his, a gentle light cascading from the touch to knit his cut closed. Wyll looked up, meeting Shadowheart’s tired but grateful gaze. “Thank you.”

Realizing they were lingering, the two quickly retracted their hands and set back to work on getting Astarion into a stable enough state to move him. Astarion had grown slightly more aware with some fresh blood returned to his system, but he felt dissociated from himself. When his eyes did wander, they tried to follow Halsin’s hulking form as he struggled to find Áine again. 

He couldn’t stop thinking about the way her head had lolled on her neck when they’d picked her up, not an ounce of fight left in her. Furthest from his mind at that moment was what she’d done to save them all. He didn’t care as long as it meant she’d saved herself, too.

It made very little sense to Áine, when she awoke, that she was still alive. It simply didn’t add up. Not the way she felt her eyes open in such a familiar corporeal sense, not the warm hands she felt resting against her stomach, and not the way her persistent, stubborn heart still thudded in her chest. 

But her eyes did open. So who was she to argue?

Past the fringe of her lashes, she saw a blur of dancing blue light, a shimmer of iridescent motes. When her amber eyes focused, she saw the bioluminescent spores for what they were, aglow as they wove in through the flap of her tent from outside. Their song thrummed gently against her aching head and seemed to settle among her bruises and cuts, their faint warmth second to the touch against her waist.

Gingerly, Áine turned her head to regard the cleric hunched over her. Shadowheart’s focus was solely on the wound she was pulling together in Áine’s gut, the dagger that had made it set aside near her medical pouch. The pouch was dotted with blood as if the dagger, coated in the substance, had been thrown down in a hurry. The shadows under the cleric’s eyes were nearly black against her ashen skin and while her hands appeared still against Áine’s flesh, she could feel the faint tremble in them through the wound they covered.

Áine tried to speak but found her throat dry as a bone. Shadowheart heard the little sound she made at least and her eyes flickered to the bard under her care. “Welcome back,” Shadowheart murmured, an attempt at humor.

“Did you have to revive me?” Áine asked, managing to find her voice this time but just barely.

“No,” Shadowheart said, the glow fading from her palms as she removed her hands to reveal a fresh scar where the drow’s dagger had run Áine through. “But it was close. Not just for you.”

“Is everyone—?”

“Don’t stress yourself and undo my work,” Shadowheart scolded Áine as she tried to sit up too quickly. “Everyone is alive. We’re back in the circle. We’re safe…” She gave Áine a peculiar look. “Thanks to you.”

Áine let out a shaky sigh of relief to hear the others were all alright. She parsed back through what she could remember before blacking out, but it was scattered. More vividly than what she’d done specifically, she remembered that whisper in her mind, the familiar gravelly voice as vivid in memory as in life. “Oathbreaker.” 

At least it had worked.

Áine glanced at Shadowheart’s imploring eyes, feeling bare under the other woman’s scrutiny. She focused on the shadows beneath her eyes again and the bruises and cuts she could see scattered across her uncovered skin. “You should rest, too,” she informed the cleric. When Shadowheart grimaced, Áine insisted, “Seriously. You’ve done more than enough. Take care of yourself for a while. Please?”

“Fine, fine,” Shadowheart mumbled, waving Áine off as she gathered her things back into her pouch. She plucked up the bloodied dagger with a sneer of resentment. “I’m going to rid us of this unless you want it for some reason.”

“I’ve had enough of it, thanks,” Áine murmured.

Shadowheart nodded but didn’t yet budge from Áine’s side. She broke her troubled silence just as Áine was about to insist again that she go get some rest. “You know… Whatever you were before we met, before you were a bard, it’s okay,” she said, catching Áine off-guard. “It won’t change anything, even if you feel it might.”

Áine frowned. “I’m not so sure.”

Shadowheart nodded, meeting Áine’s eyes. “I understand. And I can’t speak for everyone, of course. But I can relate in a way. I felt the same fear when I hadn’t yet told you I was a Sharran. And, for whatever that’s worth in relation to what you’re dealing with, that ended up okay.”

“It’s different. You’re not riddled with shame for it,” Áine said, trying to gentle her curt tone. “But I understand your meaning. And I’ll take it to heart.”

“That’s all I ask,” Shadowheart said, patting Áine’s hand. “That and for you to check on Astarion when you feel ready to get up and around again. Not that you wouldn’t regardless, but—”

“Is he alright?” Áine asked with renewed urgency. Memories of his torso slashed apart, his panicked frozen eyes, and how he’d tried to drag himself to her flashed through her mind.

“He is,” Shadowheart hastened to reassure her. “He wouldn’t be if you hadn’t done what you did. None of us would be, I don’t think. But he made it very difficult to save him and I’m worried I didn’t find all his injuries before he ran me off.”

“Ran you off?” Áine repeated.

“It took me and Wyll to stabilize him on that cliff so we could move him,” Shadowheart told her. “He was fighting us nearly the entire time and telling us not to touch him.” Áine’s heart stung. “And yelling at us to go help you instead. Then when we finally got back and I took you over from Halsin, we had to all but cram him into his tent for him to leave your side and actually rest. Succeeding that, he wouldn’t let anyone in to finish cleaning up his wounds and—”

Shadowheart was becoming more and more impassioned and blustering as she recounted it, only pausing when Áine rested her hand against the cleric’s arm. “I’ll go.” Shadowheart was frustrated and Áine could see it, but she only got this flustered when she was also worried.

“Right. Thank you,” Shadowheart said breathily through a sigh as she ran a hand across her forehead. Her palms and fingertips were speckled with blood she’d missed between patients and her nails were crusted with dirt and grime. She looked like she could pass out at any moment and it was finally that fatigue hitting that encouraged her to follow Áine’s advice. “I think I’ve said it before,” she said as she turned to leave, “but I can’t remember in my current headspace if I’ve said it aloud to you… I was wrong about him.”

Áine adjusted to her side so she could push herself into a seated position. “How so?”

“I told you a while back that I doubted his intentions with you,” Shadowheart explained. “And I still sort of did, even after he asked me about your shoulder. But I was wrong. He loves you. Dearly.”

Áine blushed and the color got mixed in with the bruises splotching her skin. “I wouldn’t go that far, but—”

“Oh, I would,” Shadowheart insisted. “You should see the way he looks at you, especially when he thinks no one’s paying him any mind. Then you wouldn’t be able to argue with me.”

“I’m sure I’d still find a way,” Áine mused, gathering her hair into a low side-ponytail and noting with some alarm how streaked with blood her hair was. She wasn’t sure what she expected, but she supposed she’d just forgotten both how much she’d bled and how much blood she’d fallen into in general during the fight.

“Hm. Probably,” Shadowheart hummed. “Take it easy tonight.”

“I will,” Áine assured her, watching her leave before slowly staggering to her feet. She ducked through her tent door as well, her eyes finding the cleric and watching her progress back to her tent. 

Shadowheart started to deviate toward Halsin, who was working on closing a wound on Gale’s scalp. She hesitated and glanced furtively back as she felt Áine’s eyes on her. Áine gave her a scolding look that put Shadowheart back on a path to her tent, not satisfied until the cleric was in her tent with the bit of canvas falling back into place behind her. 

Satisfied, Áine scoped out the camp, noting Halsin and Gale again but not resting until she also scoped out Wyll, Karlach, and Lae’zel. The last she’d seen of Karlach, the tiefling had been scrapping with one of the drow mercenaries and it had taken both of them over a ledge, but at a glance, she seemed the most intact of all of them. 

Wyll looked more or less just a bit bruised with a few treated cuts to his name and he was assisting Karlach in checking a wound on Lae’zel’s head. Lae’zel had only agreed to Karlach evaluating her wounds, as she saw a sister-in-arms in the tiefling and felt less scrutinized by a fellow warrior. However, Karlach couldn’t touch Lae’zel without setting the young githyanki ablaze, so Wyll was permitted to be Karlach’s hands, carefully moving Lae’zel’s bloodied hair so they could check the damage.

From Áine’s vantage point, they looked like they were doing well to take care of each other, which meant she could feel zero qualms about going to see Astarion and likely staying there for the rest of the night thereafter if he let her. They’d been cohabitating since he’d confided in her just a couple of nights back, but she’d never seen him in such a state of injury and figured there was a chance he preferred to weather those conditions alone. 

Meeting her comrades’ gazes as she passed them to get to his tent door, she exchanged smiles and reassuring looks with each, her heart full and her head light with relief that everyone, somehow against their odds, had survived another night. As put-together as she seemed on the surface though, her mind hadn’t stopped racing along with her heart since she remembered how badly wounded Astarion was before she fainted. Neither slowed until she was able to peek through the door of his tent and confirm he was inside, alive and in a deep reverie.

Áine held a hand against her aching heart, a sigh easing from her chest and relaxing her frame. He was okay.

Astarion lay on his bedroll, his fingers curled into small circles for his meditation and his skin littered with cuts and bruises. Shadows bloomed as dark as Shadowheart’s under his closed eyes, standing out against his porcelain pallor, dark petals against snow. He was without a shirt, either of his choosing or something Shadowheart and Wyll had managed to do when they’d fought to stabilize him. His pants remained but they were tattered from the battle, slashed through in several places. 

To Áine’s relief, the wounds she remembered pouring blood to stone looked well on their way to healing. His chest rose and fell with even breaths despite not needing to breathe. She was glad he did anyway—it reassured her in times like this.

Her gaze shifted down to a small bowl of water and a cloth near the bedroll, the bowl half spilled across the dirt beside it. A relic of Shadowheart’s scrap with him, she supposed. Áine shook her head as she carefully sank to her knees beside him and submerged the cloth in the lukewarm water, wringing it over the basin. Didn’t he understand that whatever vigil he may have kept in or outside her tent would have done her no good at all if it hindered his healing? 

She smirked softly as she supposed he probably hadn’t thought that far at all. He rarely could think more than two steps ahead into a plan at any given time.

Áine started with his arms, carefully wiping away the remnants of blood Shadowheart had been unable to get to and Astarion had likely left in favor of tending to his pain and exhaustion. She took her time to be thorough, humming the melody to “Lilac & Gooseberries” under her breath while she worked, musing over how she could change more of the lyrics to suit his fine qualities. When she felt a sliver of her bardic abilities touch upon the tune, she allowed them to flow in, giving the strokes she made with the cloth a touch of magic to help along his recovery.  

She sighed again, soft and more sad this time. My poor boy, she thought, locating his essential oils near one of the pillows she’d brought from her tent and adding a couple of drops to the basin before she began cleaning the blood from his chest and neck. He was okay and she knew that. He’d go hunt and be better in a day’s time and he was already most assuredly more healed up than she was. She just kept thinking back to the look on his face after she’d gone down, and kept hearing that crack in his voice as he’d begged her to get back up. 

It was possible, she thought while she featherlight cleansed his neck, face, and ears, that she may not have found it within herself to reawaken that old, unexplored power had she not felt compelled to push through for him. She was giving up before hearing his voice. She’d felt herself buckle, delirious with pain and fatigue, and flood with despair at seeing her friends so broken. At seeing him so broken, too. She’d started to lose hope.

A star in the Underdark, indeed, she thought, thinking she was perhaps still a little delirious with pain when she noted the sappiness of her own musings. She felt herself smile even though it aggravated the split in her lip. Áine drew her lower lip between her teeth, fidgeting with the healing cut while she moved on to Astarion’s hair, meticulously smoothing the red tints from his silver strands.

She didn’t notice he was conscious until a few minutes after he first opened his eyes, too focused on tending to his curls. When her eyes met his, she found them already on her bearing a mix of emotions, some of which she couldn’t quite translate. One almost looked like anger.

Áine’s lips curled in the beginnings of a smile that fell away when he suddenly bolted upright. They stared at each other—Astarion agitated and Áine bewildered—until Áine’s gaze once more traced the dark shadows beneath his scarlet eyes and held out her wrist. Astarion looked between her confused expression and the vein she offered him before scowling as if insulted and swatting her arm away. 

More flummoxed than before, Áine’s eyes narrowed and she parted her lips to speak, but he lunged forward and swallowed her words, his hand catching around the back of her neck as he angled her head and kissed her hard. She made a small noise of complaint against his lips, bracing her hands against his chest when he crowded her with his body. 

Regardless of his reasoning, Áine was uncomfortable and her wounds were aching as he pulled her closer and she slapped his cheek with as much force as he’d swatted her wrist away. It was enough to jar him and he withdrew, looking at her with shock that had mirrored hers just moments ago. 

“Cut it out,” Áine mumbled once her mouth was free, the split on her lower lip feeling like it might bleed again. “Astarion, stop,” she said emphatically when he yanked her closer by her belt, slapping his hands away from the buckle.

His eyes, somehow far away and yet present enough to react, flashed with hurt. “I…,” he faltered, his empty hands hovering with nothing to touch as he tried to reroute his reactions. “Darling, I’m sorry, I just need to be close to you.”

“Then come here and be close to me, my love,” Áine suggested simply and with a patience beyond her years. She guided him to her and folded him in her arms, one of her hands moving to cradle his face as he buried his head against her chest. “Is this better?”

“Yes,” he murmured almost too softly for her to hear. She felt his tears trickle over her hand before she heard them in his voice. “I thought I’d lost you.”

Áine felt her faint frustration with him melt away along with the presentation of his poor coping mechanisms that had caused it in the first place. “You didn’t.”

Astarion craned his head back to look at her, his ear still pressed to her heart. His eyes were rimmed in red. “But I almost did,” he argued in a whisper, a quiet crack in his voice.

“And I almost lost you,” Áine murmured, sniffing against her own tears that threatened to come. “But I didn’t. We didn’t. We’re both alive and on the mend.”

“I don’t think you understand, dearheart,” he said, clearly very shaken. “I can never feel like that again.”

Áine frowned, smoothing her thumb against his tear-dappled cheekbone. “We will,” she told him honestly, not liking it any more than he did. “Probably several times before this is over.”

“Well, that’s…,” he paused, drawing a shaking breath. “That’s shit.”

The bard offered him a smile dipped in nothing but understanding and sympathy. “That’s life.”

Astarion scoffed. “There has to be something I can do,” he seemed to muse exclusively to himself. “If at the source of the tadpoles’ creation, we can sort what controls the cult, the parasites, even the Absolute, too, then—”

“Astarion,” Áine admonished him, her tone flat and unyielding. He stopped and looked at her, his expression pleading. “Power doesn’t make you safe. In fact, it often does the opposite.”

“Darling, I need the means to protect you,” he murmured through clenched teeth as he sat up from her arms, his hands moving to cradle her face. “To protect myself, to protect both of us.”

“I don’t need protecting,” she told him, her hands resting over his and holding them to her cheeks. Áine turned her head just enough to kiss the inside of his wrist. “This is the risk we take in—,” she sighed, kicking her anxiety aside, “in loving each other. Especially in our present circumstances.”

“Well, I hate it,” he snapped, his tone severe even as he stroked her face as carefully as if she were made of glass. 

Áine raised a brow at him. A mostly teasing challenge. “You want out?”

“No!” Astarion muttered, tensing with embarrassment at how quickly he’d shot down the notion.

Áine tried to contain her smile but failed utterly. “Good. I don’t either.”

Astarion finally smiled a little and the sight eased the tightness in Áine’s chest. “Good,” he echoed. “May I kiss you now?”

“Depends why you want to,” Áine said. “Is it still old motions?”

“No,” he assured her, still occasionally blown away by how much of him she truly saw. It was becoming less jarring every time. “I just want to kiss you.”

“Then please do,” Áine said with a smile, giggling when her face was immediately peppered with kisses. He relished the sound of her delight before pressing his lips to hers again, his fearful urgency gone and replaced with a gentle savoring that did perfectly well to coax them both back into their bed for the remainder of their rest. 

Áine fell asleep in Astarion’s arms, a thing that was now common practice for them but felt much more significant and rare when they’d even for a moment questioned the possibility that they’d ever have this again. 

She woke to a faint tugging on her ponytail and when her eyes fluttered open, she saw the cloth she’d been using to clean the blood off Astarion being used to gently wipe down her hair. Áine watched him work for a moment, admiring his hands, before she traced the line of his arm up to his face. He briefly met her eyes to smile at her before he focused back on his task of painstakingly smoothing every reddened layer from her white locks. 

“Good ‘morning’,” he said, using the term loosely as it was just as dark outside as when they’d finally settled in. 

“Hello, love,” Áine mumbled, leaning her cheek against his shoulder. She noticed the water in the basin had darkened, which told her he’d managed to sort through more of her hair than she first realized. “How did you manage to do all this without waking me sooner?”

Astarion smirked. “Roguish stealth and dexterity, my dear,” he answered simply. “I’m afraid though that because of the oils you added to the basin last night, you’ll smell like me now.”

Áine laughed. “I probably already did.”

“Because you’re mine,” he grumbled as he leaned in to kiss her temple, reaching over her to wet the cloth again and wring it out. 

The bard smirked. “Am I now? And what am I to you exactly?”

She’d never seen Astarion get so immediately flustered. His hand froze against the basin and nearly caught the edge and knocked it sideways until he steadied himself. He cleared his throat so hard he had to turn into his sleeve to cough. Were he not low on blood, she was sure he’d be a cherry red. “Well, I…,” he mumbled, realizing she was waiting for an answer. Astarion made an impatient noise in his throat, “Oh I don’t know! But isn’t it nice? Not to know?”

Áine snorted. “Is it?” She hadn’t expected this response, but it was an interesting one.

Astarion groaned and gestured vaguely when words didn’t immediately come to him. “Well, you’re not a victim. Not a target. Not just one-night-it’s-better-to-forget,” he listed off, seeming to find it difficult to look her in the eyes lest she see the vulnerability there. As if she hadn’t seen it before. “But then… Whatever in the world could you be?”

“Is this a test?” Áine asked, raising an eyebrow.

He sighed loudly as he brought the cloth back to her hair, working on the last few streaks so he could have a secondary reason to not look at her expression. “Well, what would you call this?”

“You mean what would I call us?” Áine bartered.

Astarion bit down a small, schoolboyish smile. “I do still like the sound of that,” he mumbled. Áine melted a little. What a silly man this was. She leaned up and kissed him, a smile curling her lips as she felt him melt into her. When they parted, he tenderly added, “And I do rather like that, you know.”

Áine smiled. “I know,” she murmured, nuzzling his cheek. “I do, too.”

He hummed, ducking his head to brush noses with her. “Thank you, by the way,” he murmured. Before she could ask what for, he bridged the gap and told her, “For snapping me out of my habits. For not taking advantage. For being patient with me.”

Áine’s gaze softened. “No need to thank me,” she told him, her voice a gentle lull. “Thank you for telling me what you needed and letting me help.”

Astarion’s stare became unfathomable and it was mesmerizing for Áine to simply watch the way his features shifted. He swallowed, but the motion looked difficult. “No need to thank me, dearest,” he murmured finally, nodding a little to himself after as he reaffirmed that this was something he could do, something reasonably expected. Something healthy. Something real.

“I would call us partners, for what it’s worth,” Áine answered him at last as he set the cloth back in its bowl. “And I’d also call us late to breakfast based on that aroma coming in.”

Astarion smirked. “You’re late to breakfast, dear,” he corrected her as he rolled the word “partners” around in his mind, testing it against his tongue without moving his mouth. Equal standing, level field, two halves of a whole. He snorted softly as Áine got up to get ready to leave their tent. Cute. He wasn’t entirely sure whether the word crossed his mind in response to her answer or to just watching her get up and around, but he supposed either could’ve been the case.

The couple ducked out of their tent and Áine’s eyes went straight for the campfire, smiling when she saw their friends gathering around to eat yet another hearty meal Gale had somehow scraped together from their supply bags. She was about to apologize for their tardiness when she heard Astarion ask over her shoulder, “Who is that?”

Áine faltered and looked up at him, following his gaze toward where Withers was set up. Her stomach dropped, but she also wasn’t sure why she was surprised. She’d reawakened the dormant powers of her broken oath, why wouldn’t he show up again?

Standing adjacent to Withers was an ornate phantasm of a knight, fully ensconced in spotless bronze armor cloaked in blackened patina. Fierce, fiery eyes of vibrant orange glowed through the slits in the helmet, plumes of necrotic energy flaking from the orange aura to lick at his plating as he leaned against his enormous greatsword. His angry eyes were already resting on Áine by the time she registered his presence.

Astarion expected her to gawk at least, as he was. Or be perturbed by the intruder in their camp space, even if Withers for whatever reason didn’t seem to be. What he didn’t expect was what she actually said. 

“An old friend, I suppose,” Áine said, sounding more exasperated than appropriately horrified. It reminded him of how she’d reacted to Withers showing up in their camp as well, excluding when he’d intentionally or unintentionally jumpscared her of course. “I’ll be back in a moment or two.”

Her tone told him well enough that she wanted to speak to him alone, but he felt the urge to insist he accompany her as that innate protectiveness swelled in his chest. Ah how the tables have turned from the original “plan,” he mused, glancing down at her as she walked toward the knight. She was half the strange apparition’s size and yet strode with all the confidence of someone who towered three feet above him. Not for the first time, Astarion found his nerves easing a little at the sight and thinking, That’s my girl.

Áine drew in a deep breath as she crossed the thatch in the myconids’ circle, offering the knight a half-smile as she stopped in front of him. “Hello again,” she greeted him almost sheepishly.

“I have been waiting for you,” the knight informed her, the familiar voice stirring memories that brought her both pain and comfort. Gravelly and thickly accented, but shockingly kind. In more than a few ways, the strange soul who’d saved her in that first year of freedom. Until he’d realized she wanted nothing to do with the power her broken oath granted her and needed to make his way elsewhere to souls who needed his guidance more. At least, that’s what she’d assumed when one day she’d found him gone. “I felt your call rise again. Your broken chains echoed as they shuddered.”

She nodded slowly, still hesitant to accept this part of herself. It felt like a trap, retaining any remnant of her past and the creed that bound it. Even the shattered pieces. “I have people to protect now. I did it for them,” she said softly.

“A noble cause,” he acknowledged. “Just like the first time. I trust you still remember why you abandoned your oath?”

“Every moment of every hour,” Áine said, her throat tightening as her mind shoved the memories back down where she always held them fast. “I… I’ll never forget.”

“Good,” the knight decreed. “To know the reason for your fall, to remember it, is to know the shape of things to come. Your undoing should remain a source of comfort. For all oathbroken who have realized they are far better to choose their own path…but especially for you, Áine Ts’sambra.”

“Forgo my bloodname,” she ordered on a shaken breath. “My kin lie with my oath.”

“Your kin are alive and continue to spread their ill at Moonrise Towers under order of their master,” the knight said. “But you already suspected that.”

Áine’s blood ran cold. She had, but it was something different to hear it. She felt bile burn her throat as she asked with a forced even tone, “And my father?”

“Aye,” the knight confirmed, inclining his incorporeal armored head. “No less would be expected.”

She gave a flippant shrug of one shoulder. “I dunno. Rather hoped he might’ve died, I suppose.”

“Are you sure?” he challenged her.

“Are you suggesting I miss him?” she hissed in an effort to keep her voice low. “That I would ever forgive him?”

“No such thing,” the knight said. “But even now, the shadows gather around you. They have been with you since you ran. They sense the cracks in your armor and they yearn to be used. To be inflicted. Your power reawakens reborn. It is your path to pave, lass.”

Áine pursed her lips and glanced toward her feet. She knew what he implied. And he wasn’t wrong. While her fractured heart and broken mind reeled in terror at returning to those sickly lands knowing that the ones she’d fled still lived, some part of her looked upon this and saw opportunity. Closure. She’d always sworn to kill him, any of them, if they came after her, and some dark part of her welcomed that possibility as it drew ever closer.

“Will you be with us again now?” she asked, turning her gaze back up to his flame-made eyes. “Or is this just my ‘welcome back’ party?”

“You were not ready when first we met,” the knight said, his tone almost gentle. “You accepted this power out of fear of your family, out of fear of your weakness. You now know your way, but we reunite so I may show you how you might reach it if you have need of my teachings.”

Áine nodded. “Well, you are welcome in our camp, if you care for my permission,” she said, drawing a breath. “And I feel as if I owe you an apology. Not for resisting my power, but for how I treated you for most of our time together. I wasn’t myself.”

The knight actually chuckled. “You were young. Tortured. And too kind for your own good. Still seem to be.”

Áine smirked, a guilty press to her lips. “I suppose that’s something I’ll never shake.”

“See that you don’t,” the knight advised. “It is a rare thing and you possess the strength to protect that kindness rather than be taken advantage of for it.”

“Thanks for the pep talk,” Áine said, adjusting her ponytail and tracing her fingertips over the wet strands Astarion had cleansed the blood from just earlier. She glanced at Withers. “Hope you don’t mind a roommate.”

“Thou art as ever far too keen to seem amusing,” Withers informed her.

“Did you just say I’m not funny?” Áine balked. “You know what, nevermind. I’m done with both of you for a while.” When she turned to walk to the fire, the two strange figures exchanged a glance behind her back.

Áine joined Astarion’s side and served herself a bowl of porridge from the pot hanging over the fire, plunking a dab of honey into it from a jar nearby. She was surprised there was any left given how fond Halsin was of the stuff. As she stirred the honey into her breakfast, she cast another glance back at the stalwart knight. It was so strange to see him again, but also strangely reassuring. As frightening as it was for aspects of her past to be coming full circle, it felt overdue. She only hoped she proved herself in the end.

“Áine, did you hear me?”

“Hm? What?” she piped up, following the source of the voice back to Gale. “Sorry.”

“No need!” he hastened to say. “I was just curious about our, uh, new guest.”

“Do you know them? Or it?” Wyll pressed warily.

Áine deliberated for a moment before she shrugged and went back to eating her food, relaxing when she felt Astarion’s hand trace up her back. He was starting to get a little too attuned to when she was stressed. Or perhaps that was okay. Perhaps that was something she needed like he needed certain things from her. 

“Just another member of the ‘Undead Peepaw Corner’,” she said, speaking a little more loudly so she could be sure Withers would hear her. “He’s fine.”

The group shared glances, save for Karlach who was fully focused on shoveling her breakfast into her mouth. Lae’zel also seemed generally unbothered, her trust in Áine enough for her to not push further.

“There has to be more to it than that,” Wyll asserted, earning surprised glances from Shadowheart and Gale for the suspicion in his tone. 

Áine glanced at Wyll and set her spoon in her bowl to scratch the owlbear cub’s head when it ambled over to her side. “I mean, you’re welcome to go ask him yourself.”

Wyll glanced toward Withers and the knight before pulling a face and thinking better of striking up that particular conversation.

Next chapter: Chapter 18, "Bard Dance"

[medra-gonbites]

HE WILL BE BEST MAN AT OUR WEDDING!

*minor spoilers*

So, during my second playthrough I was romancing Gale but slept with Astarion at the Tiefling party because well frankly he asked and Gale had no dialogue option showing he was upset so I was like, don't mind if I do. I was still on the fence about who to choose as a love interest at that moment as well.

Then comes Act II, Astarion needs help checking out his scars so I help him out, then later ask to sleep with me again which I decline cause I'm really getting attached to Gale and this second proposal does feel a bit off, not sure why (well now I know why!).

Anyways comes the confession scene where I realise what is going on and what Astarion has been through and I'm like omg that poor baby, massive regret about having slept with him in Act I and a massive urge to protect him at all cost so I choose the option to tell him he needs a friend not a lover (which I really think is true, I will die on this hill, (eventhough I'll prolly try to romance him in another playthrough...)).

All of this to say, in my head canon Astarion is bestie with my Tav and I'll 100% kick everyone's ass that want to bother him. Gale starts to unload poetry and love on me in the middle of the street and my boi is standing behind with such an endearing look on his face. He is so happy for us: he will be my best man at the wedding where he will make a speech and totally mentioned we porked.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Ps: yes it's a picture of my screen, my current set up doent allow me to make screenshot (dont ask) sorry for the bottom tier image quality.

[katsitsiyo]

Here’s another piece I comm’d @/hettikovacs (on twt! tysm! 🥰) to do for me! This one’s another piece of my dnd/bg3!DHr AU that I’m loving just thinking about right now.

Hermione’s my precious multiclass wizard/cleric tiefling. I’ll protect her at all costs. 🥰🩷🥹

[wellen-katze]

Honestly I didn't think too much about Rolan at first, but your comic with him and Lia and Cal had me start paying more attention to him, and then really appreciating him in Act 2. Adore the recent comic with Gale too, I really admire your portrayal of the characters! You're not afraid to show their flaws but you also show them in such a sympathetic way too!

Thank you, I'm glad that my comic has awakened your interest in the character of rolan!! It's true, he seems like an unimportant side character at first, but even this character is incredibly well written and has a lot of interesting depth that you only realize when you pay attention to the details. All of his motivations can be traced back to his past as an orphan on the streets and actually explains his entire behavior. Why he seems so gruff and arrogant, why Lia and Cal are so important to him, why he protected the Tiefling orphans despite this and not Cal and Lia, why he wants to be a good mage at all costs and why it was Lorroakan of all people that he sought out. Simply great!

[dreamingofthewild]

Oc Meme

Thank you for tagging me @messiahzzz

B A S I C S

- Full name: Octavia Shayra Bintalzari

- Gender: Female

- Sexuality: Heteroromantic Pansexual

(Meaning she's sexually attracted to all genders, but mostly romantically attracted towards men or masculine presenting people. She only gets romantic feelings for females or female presenting people after a deep emotional connection or bond has been established).

- Pronouns: She/her

O T H E R

- Family: She has an ex-husband (arranged marriage) and a deceased long-term girlfriend (a tiefling Paladin who was also her dream guardian).

Father: A human sultan (estranged)

Mother: Politician (estranged)

Siblings: Three sisters (estranged)

- Birthplace: Calimport, Calimshan

- Job: Mercenary/ Vigilante Knight

- Phobias: Claustrophobia, Aquaphobia, Coulrophobia

- Guilty pleasures: People watching, drinking, climbing roofs to see cities from a height (especially at night), walking barefoot, experimenting in the kitchen.

- Hobbies: Playing the lute, drawing, lance board, adventuring, archery, writing, swimming.

M O R A L S

- Alignment: Chaotic Neutral/ Chaotic Good

- Sins: Lust

- Virtues: Honesty, courage, compassion, integrity, liberality, reliability, humility, preserverence, unity.

T H I S O R T H A T

- Introvert / Extrovert/ Ambivert

- Organized / Disorganized

- Close-minded / Open-minded

- Calm / Anxious / Restless

- Disagreeable / Agreeable / In between

- Cautious / Reckless / In between

- Patient / Impatient / In between

- Outspoken / Reserved / In between

- Leader / Follower / Flexible

- Empathetic / Unempathetic / In between

- Optimist / Pessimist / Realist

- Traditional / Modern / In between

- Hard-working / Lazy

R E L A T I O N S H I P S

-OTP: Gale/ Ocatavia

-Acceptable ships: Octavia/ Wyll is also acceptable. She likes and admires Wyll, but it is Gale who won her heart.

Octavia/ Shadowheart is also acceptable.

-OT3: None. She enjoys casual relationships, but when she falls in love with someone, she is monogamous.

-BROTP:

Astarion/ Octavia - Oh boy, they hated each other on Act 1. Octavia saw right through his lies and was frustrated that he wasn't truthful about anything. But when he opened up she realised that they have things in common, and she swore to protect him at all costs.

Karlach/ Octavia - Best friends from day one Karlach lights up every room. Octavia admires her opmitism, and their morals align perfectly.

-NoTP: Octavia/Halsin (She sees him as a parental figure)

Octavia/Lae'zel (they don't see eye to eye (I like Lae'zel personally, but failed to get good approval from her in this playthrough))

Tags: @klkirbles @elspethdekarios @hotnerdywizard @an-excellent-choice @the-real-housewives-of-waterdeep @sparquesblr (your excuse to info dump about seleia if you wish)

I just scrolled through my following and followers list for people who I was interested in learning about/posted their Tavs. Do not feel obliged to participate, I am happy to remove your Tag if you would like 😊

And if I didn't tag you, feel free to participate! I love reading about people's OCs. With any pairing.

Also, I know nothing of DND. So it may be a but loose lore wise.

Edit: I forgot to add the photos, duh

[cheeserwinkle]

Half-finish (I only have to draw her a cape, but it's.. I'm too lazy..) my main tav, Vic.

She is Ilmater cliric, but it's not really her calling. Vic studies theology and explores other cultures and pantheons, but this is not taken seriously by her mother, for pity.

She has problems with socialization and is silent all the time, but if you ask her something about foreign cultures or gods, she won't shut up xD

Vic loves children and protects them at all costs. That's why egg from crèche Y'llek divides her life into before and after. She takes great care of him and thinks of him as her son.. and this in a way starts her thorny path to a gith future, lol.

Her partner is Voss. In the first act she pestered him to give an interview when he came to the camp (he had to make a lot of effort not to kill this brazen creature), and.. well, he was not particularly sure that she would survive the Shadow-Cursed land. And a kind of romantic line begins to develop closer to the third act, when Vic forces him to sit still and accept his fate of suffering humiliation because he is cared (healing) for by an inferior being. Surprisingly, an interesting conversation emerges.

I have a silly hedcanon that tiefling has different legs depending on their variety. Hooves or something. Specifically, Vic has rat legs.

[daandova]

valvari's canon timeline ( and additional notes )

ages 0-14: found by haldir while investigating a cult of glasya, valvari lived through a catastrophic culling event that left her parents and their compatriots within the cult dead. she's brought home to auryen where the couple agree to raise her themselves in the museum. (this museum is located in summerset isle, the two high elves home.) the years growing up are spent in normal childhood lessons and then lessons more specific to the running and curating of the museum. val stays home with auryen while haldir travels to gather anything his partner finds that would be of interest. this is when val learns skills in restoration of old oddities, building exhibits and organizing events.

ages 14-24: fully coming into her own, a growing valvari has troubles dealing with mood swings brought on by age and a mounting anger neither father knows what to do with. it's agreed that in order to give her a better outlet, she travel with haldir where she can channel her rage into fights that naturally arise when adventuring. here there's freedom on where she can go, for instance they can be anywhere in tamriel or faerun or thedas. most of the time during this decade is nothing more than training and traveling with her father.

it all comes to a halt when val is 24. while searching through a tomb for a relic, val grabbed onto the oddity without taking the time to listen to the caution her father was advising. the item was cursed and started to suck the life from the tiefling, the veins in her arm that held to it starting to turn black. without any regard, haldir shoved his daughter away and grabbed onto the relic in order to divert the curse that was now loose. costing him his life. sensing something was wrong, auryen cast a doorway spell, finding the aftermath of the chaos, and dragging his daughter to the safety of the museum.

ages 24-25: after burying her father, val locks herself away in her room to deal with her grief. wrought with guilt, convinced it was her fault, val gathers books of protection spells and rites, and begins carving sigils in to her skin in an attempt to keep something like this from happening again. auryen once again finds her on the floor, bleeding out. wanting to keep the scars, val is set on healing naturally and stays in her room under a guards protection until her wounds are mostly closed.

ages 25-26: giving her a simple task to get out of the house, auryen sets val out to start adventuring for him on her own, with the support of a hired group. halfway through getting the requested relic, the group decides they could make more money by keeping it themselves and selling it to the highest bidder, so they leave val for dead after throwing her off the top of a cliff. once again, auryen has to take his broken daughter home.

ages 26-33: the events of skyrim take place. auryen having bought land in solitude and built the shell of their new museum, he sends val to start scouting the country and gathering things of interest. due to my play style, all the major quests pretty much happen in tandem with each other, but for basic "timeline" purposes they are as follows:

main quest begins when val is sent to helgen after hearing rumors of a dragon attack -> the companions -> the college -> the thieves guild -> dragonborn -> the dark brotherhood -> dawnguard -> end of main quest

also a few general notes that are more important than tiny details amongst the timeline

as far as the companions go, val does not become a part of the circle. more so just a trusted outsider due to her newer title as dragonborn and once she explains what she's doing in skyrim in the first place. specific secrets can be kept from her, inner workings and rituals can be kept from her, but she will agree to aid in hunting down the silver hand if the companions are willing to let her borrow wuuthrad once it's completed so she can make a replica.

similarly, she doesn't officially join the thieves guild or the college, it's more along the lines of collaborating and assisting. she does nothing for the blades. she does not engage in the war.

the only guild she actually initiates into is the dark brotherhood and that's simply due to a moment of weakness because of her waning energy and confidence (a lot of it due to miraaks taunting and death) and the mounting pressures of alduin. by the time the brotherhood gets a hold of her, she's fully addicted to skooma, is barely sleeping and is struggling to keep up with nightmares she has whenever traveling to solstheim. it's no wonder she's able to be convinced to kill an emperor. once she escapes from the ship at the end of the quest and near drowns, paarthurnax actually descends from the throat and picks her up from shore, dropping her back off at jorrvaskr, wordlessly returning to the greybeards. when everything is said and done she'll renounce sithis and allow nazir and cicero to take over the brotherhood. (she'll keep in contact but purely out of business)

battling alduin in sovngarde takes days in real time. it feels like only hours to her. but any companion she takes who has to wait in tamriel for her will be waiting multiple days for her to return.

ages 33+: any other high fantasy verse goes here (such as bg3, dragon age, general fantasy) or any continuation of elder scrolls. once alduin is defeated and her general purpose is completed, val will just continue on adventuring as she originally intended. this can mean continuing to build up the museum in skyrim, or traveling to different "realms", but my point is, as stated before, the events of skyrim do always happen to her, no matter what crossover we're writing in. they may become generalized or not, depending upon your knowledge of either world.

[blackjackkent]

Rakha's conversation with Kagha is... interesting.

"Go on. Say it. You think I'm a monster."

"Monster? Too kind. A demon, more like."

The most interesting thing about this is that the drabble I wrote yesterday has Rakha considering that term as applied to herself.

And her determination was that she believes (or at least very much wants to believe) that she herself is not a monster, though perhaps the "beast" Urge is. She is coming to draw a distinction in her own behavior between the unreasoning violence of the "beast" and the violence she is capable of by choice. That one conversation with Lae'zel early on has turned out to be pretty fundamental to how she views herself right now - attack with purpose.

And so her opinion of Kagha is similarly nuanced. After all, Kagha ultimately let the girl go. And her actions were, at least in theory, not out of cruelty for its own sake, but in service of her grove. Does she like Kagha, or think that threatening Arabella with a snake was a productive choice? Not really. But "monster" is a loaded term for Rakha right now.

"You're protecting your own," she says. "Sometimes cruelty is required." Maybe not the particular cruelty Kagha ended up choosing, but still...

(A/N: Wyll disapproves. The only option I had that would make him not disapprove was to say "Only a monster would threaten a child" which, like. Seems unlikely for Rakha to say at this point. She would threaten a child, if it seemed likely to accomplish something necessary. XD Wyll's influence is already starting to rub off on Rakha somewhat but it is very early days still. Lae'zel approved though so there's that.)

Kagha looks at her with mild curiosity and some surprise. "First you urge grace. Then you speak truth," she says coolly. "You've surprised me twice over. A shame the grace period ends. The viper's fangs have been bared. She must guard her brood." She shrugs. "No matter. I took back the Idol of Silvanus and the rite has resumed. We will seal the grove. Free from harm. Free of intruders."

Rakha feels more than usually aware of Wyll's eyes digging into her back, and changes the subject abruptly away from these matters of morality. "This rite must be born of powerful magic."

"The Rite of Thorns," Kagha says gravely. "It is the Treefather's gift, that none come to harm. When we speak the final prayer, the Great Vine will sprout forth. The grove will be cloaked in bramble and thorn. No one enters. No one leaves. Sanctuary." She scowls. "None of this can happen while outlanders infect us. Silvanus demands that we choke them out."

Rakha raises an eyebrow thoughtfully. She has to admit to a certain amount of interest in the magic as Kagha describes it. A tremendous amount of power must be involved; she could already feel it prickling on her skin as they walked through the grove outside. When the Rite is complete, there will be quite a show, that much is certain.

As for the refugees... the beast in her head, of course, thrills to the idea of their bodies stretched bloody on the road, but Rakha herself takes no particular pleasure in their fate. And Kagha, she decides, is unpleasant, regardless of whether or not she deserves other monikers.

"You'd leave them to die on the road," she says. It isn't a question, just a statement of fact.

Kagha stiffens. "I am First Druid now," she says pointedly. "I protect the circle - whatever the cost." She looks at Rakha appraisingly for a moment. "You showed great mettle at the gate - the mettle of a skilled sword for hire. I want you to provide your services to the tiefling leader - Zevlor, he's called. Offer to guide the outlanders out of the grove. I'm sure they'll reward you well." Her eyes harden. "They're to be gone before final prayer. If they are not... the viper must strike."

Rakha considers this in silence. It's an idea, certainly. If their path towards Lae'zel's creche takes them in the same direction, there is no reason why not. And should the refugees be attacked, it would be an easy way to sate the beast for a time, in tearing the attackers apart.

Certainly I am ready to finish our business here and be gone...

"Then it seems I'd best speak to Zevlor," she says slowly.

"You will do more than speak," Kagha says sharply. "This tale ends but one way - with the outlander rot clenased and the grove forever shrouded."

-----

"Damnable woman," Wyll mutters bitterly as they turn to walk away. "And what was that nonsense about cruelty is sometimes required? You yourself saw the child had to be out of her grasp."

"The girl did not need to die. But cruelty is sometimes required," Rakha says. "Or do you regret the blade you put through the goblin's chest?"

"That's not the same thing," he says hotly. "And you know it."

"I know very little," Rakha says flatly. "We will speak to Zevlor. If he requires assistance and our routes coincide... well." She shrugs. "I suspect the druids will face a greater punishment, when the Rite is complete."

He squints. "What do you mean?"

"They will all be trapped in here with Kagha."

Lae'zel snorts sharply and Wyll gives a startled laugh. "Hah. True enough. Thank the gods for small comforts."

[bakuliwrites]

So, I've been in the midst of planning for a longer BG3 fic featuring my Tav, Orlando (a Tiefling with a deep sea aesthetic), and her questline, were she to have one. However, my brain is in a bit of a fog right now and all I've really been able to write for it are a series of letters between her and Gortash. Also, Gortash storyline spoilers. TW: toxic relationship, slightly suggestive

For some context, I wrote up a post about them here. Otherwise, here are the final letters they sent one another before Orlando was captured by the mindflayers and tadpoled. Orlando doesn't have any idea what Gortash is up to, other than he's rising in the political sphere. She's not sure how, but she has some suspicions. Note: They write in code to one another and Gortash signs his letters as EF because Orlando knew him mostly as his surname Flymm when they were young

Orlando to Gortash:

My Cherished E,

I grow weary of you dodging my questions. You act as if you are doing me a favor by sparing me the dirty details of your work. You are not a martyr, and I am not a little girl trapped in a pond in the dank basement of a devil’s lair. I can handle whatever it is you have done. I have my own skeletons in the closet, as you well know. Over the years, you have shown me yours piece by piece, rib by rib, vertebrae by vertebrae. Can you not simply rip the wool from my eyes? I don’t care what it costs me. I suffer more in the dark. 

You speak of our future together as if it is set in stone, yet when I ask to come see you, you deny me. You push me away, E. And then draw me back in, time and again, with promises of tomorrow. You say your furtiveness is for my protection. But I think you are afraid of something. Of me, E? Of me leaving? I won’t make promises I can’t keep, but can’t you at least grant me the respect of knowledge? Can’t you tell me what “grand plan” you have that’s to guarantee our future? 

Sometimes I wonder if, perhaps, you are ashamed of us. Of where we came from, who we used to be. Would I be a detriment to your campaign? Were I to show up in the midst of your glory, would I disrupt the delicate balance you’ve built? You run from the past, as do I, but I’m tired of it. 

E, as always- as it has been since our youth and as it shall always be- my heart is yours. But if our path is to be one paved in secrecy and withholding, I will need to reevaluate where we stand with one another. It is painful for me to write this, but I have shed too many tears to remain reticent over the matter.

Yours Eternally,

OM

Gortash's Response:

My Abyssal Angel,

You wound me. If you would indulge me for a moment- imagine me, sitting at the desk in my office, bathed in fading candlelight, head hung in defeat as I pour over the letters you’ve sent me these last several months. Imagine the heavy sigh that escapes my lips as my eyes sweep over the closing of your last communication. Can you not hear the very ache of my heart when I read your cutting words? To imply that I have some ulterior motive for keeping my work from you wounds my very soul. My secrecy is your safety. My discretion, your protection.

Nothing has changed, my dearest. There is, and forever shall be, a place for you at my side. As there always has been. We are equals. My plans have always included space for you. But I “martyr” myself (as you put it) not just for you, but for my campaign. What if our letters were to be intercepted? What if our code were to be broken? What then? All would fall to ruin. I would have nothing to give you. But if you are going to be so insistent upon knowing the nitty-gritty details, then it seems I can no longer hide them from you. Come to me in Baldur’s Gate, quick as you can, and I will divulge everything. Let me prove to you that it is not shame I feel. I work only to protect you. 

But I must warn you- what you learn will irrevocably alter the nature of our relationship. If you are ready for this, then by all means, come to me. Allow me to show you the fruits of my labor. Perhaps, when you partake in their glitz and glamor, you will understand why I have done what I have. Or perhaps not. Maybe you will find an underlying bitterness to their saccharine taste. Either way, come to me. Allow me to hold you one last time as the man you’ve known since our youth, before you meet the one I have become. 

As it has been since our youth- as it shall always be- my heart is forfeit to you, O. I await your reply with bated breath. 

Yours with Fervor,

EF

Orlando's Response:

My Cherished E,

I wrote my last missive to you in a bout of sorrow and anger. I was upset. It was a hastily written, ill thought out rambling that should not have made it past the privacy of my diary.

E, what knowledge could you impart unto me that would so vastly alter my feelings for you? Even so, I will accept what you have to say. I will come to you in Baldur’s Gate, post haste. I can wait no longer. Too many years we have spent apart. It feels as if ages of the world have fallen away while we have sat idle. My heart yearns for yours. The sea bore me away from you. It is the sea that will carry me back. Share with me the strife you have faced in my absence. Share with me the secrets that weigh heaviest on your mind. I will listen with patience. 

In a tenday, wait for me upon the docks. I will appear to you there, by the light of the stars, and you can make me yours. For however long that might be. One night or forever, I don’t care. I simply cannot live this way anymore. 

Yours Eternally,

OM

Gortash’s Response:

My Abyssal Angel,

You need not apologize for voicing your concerns. In fact, I find your combativeness refreshing. A stark change from the Devil’s Dutiful Daughter act you once put on for that oaf, Raphael. You have changed, blossomed in your years since our captivity. We’ve both grown so very much.

I look forward to seeing more of that fire in you when you arrive in Baldur’s Gate. You have embers in you, O. Unleash them. Let them blaze as bright as I know they can. I can feel them straining against the confines of your lungs. Breathe your fire, my darling. Set the world alight with me.

We are not tools. We are not pawns or playthings or trinkets to display. As I said before, you will always have a place at my side, a part to play in my work. Soon you will see what part that is. And soon, you will be by my side. For good, if that is what you should want. Our union would be good not only for the two of us, but for the world.

I know you do not keep up with news in Baldur’s Gate, but I know you are aware that I have been rising in the ranks these last several years (hence the secrecy). I now have every reason to believe that I will be crowned Archduke soon enough. I should like it if you are there for my coronation. Date, to be determined. It may be a few weeks, yet. If you can stay in Baldur’s Gate that long, I can promise you a most thrilling visit.

But enough shop talk. All will be illuminated once you arrive. Hopefully, by then, I’ll be more than I am now.

With Adoration,

EF

P.S. I have come to understand that the throne in the audience chamber of Wyrm’s Rock is padded. My imagination runs rampant, my darling. Already I can feel the lick of your newfound flame on my lips…