Thinking about Enemies With Benefits Eddie and Reader who just do it all their lives. That’s it.
Enemies who fuck on the regular, and get stuck with each other after accidentally getting knocked up (bonus points, young parents above 18 y/o). Enemies who fuck and also co-parent. Enemies who fuck and co-parent, who also date other people but it NEVER EVER works out from sabotage to just matters of life. Enemies who fuck and also co-parent and move to live nearby each other (for the sake of the kids—turns into more than one eventually). Enemies who fuck and also co-parent, but Eddie has made it as a rockstar and still he pays more attention to his enemy and mother of his kids, than any singer, model or groupie. Enemies who fuck, co-parent, live near each other and Reader makes it as an actress (former drama kid, hence why she’s got no problem butting heads and holding her own against Eddie) but pays more attention to her enemy and the father of her kids, than she does other actors, directors and entrepreneurs.
And they just stay messy to the grave, but they share joint plots so they can be together (and argue) forever because death never got the chance to part them due to the lack of rings.
It’d be so messy and toxic and somehow becomes heavily romanticized by the public (a la Brando and Moreno, Annie Oakley and Frank Butler ‘Annie Get Your Gun’) because they’re enemies with benefits who genuinely are in love with each other, have been all these years, and hate it so much they fight it all their lives.
idk, i think it’s neat ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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All right, upstairs to see Isobel!
Rakha isn't really sure what to expect here. Jaheira described Isobel as a Selunite - which means she is in direct opposition to Shadowheart's religion. Rakha, for her own part, knows nothing about either faith beyond the corrupted temple and shattered fortress she has already passed through, and neither brought her personally much comfort.
The woman in question is out on the balcony - and Rakha's whole mind seems to split apart at what she sees there.
At first she is conscious only of the light. Rakha stares, her jaw dropping open slightly; a soft 'oh' escapes her, almost inaudible.
It's beautiful.
This is not arcane magic like Rakha's own, but divine - like Shadowheart's in some ways, although Shadowheart has never made anything glow so brightly. This is the nexus focus of the force protecting the inn - a silvery energy that shimmers like a bubble of mercury atop the surface of the Weave. Rakha can feel the strain where it butts up against the curse of the darkness outside, pushes it back - a thousand little skirmishes between dark and light. And all of the power centers within the body and mind of the woman on the balcony.
Her eyes are glowing with that pale light. Around her stand several mirrors, all reflecting and amplifying the energy. A bowl of milk, almost silvery itself in the moonlight, sits on the table before her surrounded by candles. She gathers together some of that moonlight magic, maneuvering it between her fingers with expert precision. Beneath the movements, Rakha can see how she is drawing together the Weave itself, folding it over and over into a tight ball of magical energy, which she then flings outward towards the shield around them. The protective field shudders with the impact of the ball of light, then stabilizes, steadier than before.
Rakha stares, hungry and eager, at that rippling pale glow. Her own magic feels calmer and quieter within her where that light touches her.
But there is no true peace for her - not while the beast lives in her mind.
It is awake with startling suddenness, growling low and full of rage. Whatever pleasure the glowing magic brings Rakha, it elicits equal fury in the beast. Kill her. Snuff out the light. Shatter the mirrors. Kill her. KILL HER! She is the fulcrum. Kill her and they will all die screaming...
Rakha does not want to kill her. Rakha does not want the light snuffed out. But for a moment, the beast has utter control, and she sees with devastating clarity an image of the Selunite's head knocked from her body, a clean snap of the spine and tearing of flesh, and blood pouring into the bowl of milk, staining it red...
"I didn't realize I had an audience." Isobel has turned to look at her.
Rakha sucks in a sharp breath, squeezes her eyes closed. She can feel the beast straining to take control of her muscles as it did when it killed the squirrel back at the grove. As it did when Alfira died and she woke with the bard's blood on her hands.
Kill her.
No.
KILL HER.
No.
Isobel pushes past Rakha and between her other companions, back into the bedroom behind them. "The True Soul who's going to save us all," she goes on as she moves, unaware of the hideous battle being waged within Rakha's mind. "I'm Isobel. Pleased to meet you."
Rakha's movements are stiff, unsteady, as she turns and follows the other woman inside. Slowly she manages to open her eyes and rasp out a ragged answer. "Word gets around fast," she mutters.
"Small inn," Isobel answers with a flash of humor.
She peers at Rakha appraisingly for a moment before going on. "We've been waiting, hoping against hope, for someone like you. Free from the Absolute's influence yet able to walk among cultists. It's almost too good to be true." Again the slight flicker of a smile. "But I'd be a poor cleric indeed not to avail myself of a blessing when I see one."
She tilts her head questioningly. "Let me guess. Jaheira's sent you to beg a protection spell off her favorite cleric."
Before Rakha can respond, there's another burst of that silver magic. The light flares around Isobel's hands, then bursts forward to engulf Rakha and her companions.
Rakha lets out a soft groan - half pleasure, half pain. The pleasure is for herself; the close touch of the magic is soothing and cool, melding with her own power and the Weave around her in a gentle communing wave. The pain is for the beast, which howls in her head at the contact, trying fruitlessly to push it back and away, to leave her in the razor-sharp darkness.
Narrator: The blessing falls uneasily over your tainted body. You can't help but dream: to kill her would destroy all of Last Light. You yearn for it so deeply...
She has not felt the beast so hungry in many weeks. Not since Alfira. Is it something about Isobel herself that it wants dead so badly? Or is it simply the fact that Isobel's death would mean so many others would also die?
Whatever it is, she finds herself trembling with the effort not to lash out. Attack with purpose. With purpose... There is no purpose here. Please... please...
Kill her... growls the beast, implacable as steel.
She can hear a soft hiss behind her as Shadowheart's wound flares - Shar's punishment for their use of Selunite magic.
"Perfect," Isobel says. "It'll make you immune to the lesser effects of the Shadow Curse, which will get you closer to the Towers. But there are places it won't help - places where the curse is darker. Stronger. The cultists are able to traverse even the deepest shadows, though. I don't know how - the Harpers are trying to figure it out."
(A/N: Whoops, I forgot we haven't gotten the moonlantern from Kar'niss bc we came in through the Underdark. We'll have to be sure to go do that.)
"Selunite magic," Shadowheart mutters bitterly. "Dark Lady forgive me."
"Good nose," Isobel answers coolly. "Like a nasty little terrier."
She doesn't know it, but that sentence comes very close to getting her killed. Rakha is struggling desperately with the beast in her head - and Isobel's rudeness towards Rakha's own companion almost tips the balance. The beast seizes on the flash of frustration the comment elicits, sinks its teeth in, and howls.
KILL HER!
"Thank you," Rakha rasps out. She needs to get out of this room before the beast manages to get hold of her blade. "Now I must... take my leave..."
Isobel looks at her for a moment, clearly trying to divine why she sounds so strained. Then she nods. "Good luck. And may the Moonmaiden protect you. While you're busy in the Towers, I'll be sure to-- wait. Do you hear that?"
A heavy thump, somewhere above them. A rushing sound of wind beneath the beating of wings. A flash, bone-deep, through Rakha's body, the sense of the dark corruption pushing through the moonlight shield.
Isobel's expression draws tight with sudden fear. "Something is wrong..."
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"What does it mean to carry on a legacy? Is it simply taking pride in following the steps of those before you? Are you living up to the history, or surpassing it?"
"Against those with no emotion, blasphemous beings with nothing at their core, those with something to fight for, something in their hearts, should always be able to triumph...they should always be able to...they should..."
"I had plenty to fight for. My allies, my own pride, but most importantly to prove myself to those who trained me, who made me who I am today. My father who first taught me how to hunt and fight, my comrades who train and push me forward, but most of all the man who gifted me this blade and his teachings. His own legacy, crystalized. Out of everyone on this star, he chose me, he gave me the final push I needed to follow my heart."
"And I failed. When the others gave the order to retreat and regroup I stayed. Even as I could feel my body becoming bloodied and bruised my heart refused. To turn back now would be to turn my back on all those whose legacy I follow. And now, part of that legacy is shattered. Broken. Defeated."
"Was I truly...the right choice?"
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