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britishassistant · 6 months

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The Villainous Paranoiac is Suing for Character Defamation

Vil’s agent is a competent woman.

There’s no way she would have kept her position if she wasn’t. A minor he may’ve been, but even when he was starting out, Vil Schoenheit knew better than to allow someone slothful or greedy to manage his talent and performances.

His father helped him weed out those burdened by these vices, even trusting his son’s judgement on those who tried to play on the long relationships his father had built with them, until Vil’s current agent was the last one left standing.

She was a protege of Vil’s father’s manager, one who already had experience managing older talent, but also a rather scrupulous set of morals concerning children.

Vil has always suspected this may have something to do with all the younger siblings and cousins she sometimes mentions. He’s not going to risk their professional relationship to confirm it though.

She calls him every morning to give him the rundown on his projects for the day, as well as any news that could be pertinent to him.

This morning, like many other mornings before it, she says, “You’re being scouted for several roles by a number of notable studios. Warui Bros. and Reynard Studios are still keeping the roles of the rival open—“

“Pass.” Vil states as he finishes daubing on his primer. “As I’ve said the last two times.”

“Well,” There’s the sound of nails tap-tap-tapping away on her tablet. “Akareiju Studios has a role they’ve requested you specifically for a new movie—!“

“With everything I’ve got on my plate?” He says dismissively. “Hardly. Send my—“

“You’d be the male lead.” She says.

Vil pauses for a moment, sponge hovering over his skin.

“It’s a movie adaptation of a light novel that’s been popular online lately,” She rattles off with her usual efficiency. “Lost Princess: Entangled with my Graceful Family. The premise is simple—Karatsumori Megami, a middle schooler mourning the death of her mother, discovers she is actually the kidnapped youngest daughter of a powerful family, and is whisked away to a life of luxury. Along the way she must adapt to the pressures of her new lifestyle, open up the hearts of her long lost siblings, befriend others at her new elite school, and thwart the bullying of her twisted, cruel stepsister, proving that she is worthy of her place in the family. The author of the novel has agreed to personally work on the screenplay alongside the producers.”

Vil is careful not to pull a face as he sweeps the foundation brush over his cheeks. Trite, as plots went, but that was what audiences enjoyed. Something uncomplicated for them to leave feeling satisfied as though the accomplishments of the fictional characters were their own.

“The role of the male lead in this film is filled by the female lead’s eldest brother.” She continues. “Gracey Enji, heir to the Gracey Corporation. Described as a princely, serious high schooler, burdened with the expectations of inheriting his father’s role as CEO and pushing aside his feelings to better protect the interests of his younger siblings from afar. He’s the one with the most faith in the female lead and does his best to help her out overtly and covertly, but doesn’t actually let his guard down until she recognizes his efforts and vows to support him.”

Vil tilts his head to the side, considering his own face.

Not this look, certainly, it’s too glamorous, too Vil Schoenheit.

But some more subdued makeup colors, while still tinted to enhance his natural features, a severe, almost-too-finely-tailored cut to his clothes, maybe a pair of glasses to emphasize the image of a hard-working professional…

Yes, he could see himself donning the mantle of “Gracey Enji” well.

But there’s still one quibble that needs to be dealt with before he can get too invested.

“Who else will be part of the cast?” His attempts to make the question sound light and careless fall slightly flat. “Anyone I know?”

She hems and haws, the clicking of her fingers flying over her tablet screen audible through the phone.

“Neige LeBlanche has been approached,” His agent says. “For a brief cameo during the funeral scene as the heroine’s childhood friend.”

A slow smirk spreads over Vil’s face.

“Send me the script. I’ll have a read-through.”

***

Idia’s been over the hype about LoPri since before it even got off the ground.

He heard about it through one of the threads he frequents on Dreddit, a recommendation from a well-known user whose opinion he’s kind wishy-washy on.

He tried it, found the writing bland, the characterization muddy yet restrictive, and really couldn’t vibe with the undertones of “nuclear family by blood is the best and only real family, any kids born outside of a conventional marriage are inherently thieving irredeemable scumbags”.

What kind of message is that in this day and age?? Even the gods had more liberated family relations than that. Idia will be the first to burn the world down for Ortho, but this depiction of siblings kind of pisses him off, a tiny bit.

Unfortunately, even though he’s written it off as barely-above-garbage-tier, all the normies online have jumped on the hype train to sing its praises.

He’d usually just avoid the fandom, block and move on, but it’s like a fungus. It keeps popping up, even in places that should be safe! Places that should be sacred!

MrLeotaGracey: how can you not read LoPri

MrLeotaGracey: were you born in a barn???

cLoThO115: ???

MrLeotaGracey: smh

MrLeotaGracey: leota-chan and megami-chan are the most beautiful in existence

littollethegurl: no one was talking about lopri tho??

MrLeotaGracey: literally actual goddesses

MrLeotaGracey: if premo has any brains theyll do a tribute for LoPri

MrLeotaGracey: its just common sense for a dying idol group like this lol

PreMo5Evrr: dude wtf

Places like the message board for Precipice Moirai!!

Idia sighs despondently.

What is the world coming to, that stans like this can come into a nice chat like this and begin trash talking like they own the place? True, this guy is more virulent than the average fan, but the fact that he can’t read the atmosphere is just depressing.

And some users are getting triggered, which will lead to them getting banned unless someone does something.

Gloomurai: lol imagine god defending a ln thats the embodiment of mid

Gloomurai: imo cant relate

MrLeotaGracey: kys

MrLeotaGracey: fucking virgin whore

MrLeotaGracey: cringe loser cunts who cant understand how amazing LoPri is dont deserve rights

And any second now…

*MrLeotaGracey was banned by Mod Rougelike105*

“Another thread saved. Thank you for your services, Mod-sshi.” Sure they won’t be able to see the little salute he’s giving them, but he’s in his room! There’s no one to judge him here.

Idia stretches with a sigh. It’s not much, but whacking LoPri trolls is honest work.

Ah, Muscle Red’s signed on!

Idia eagerly turns his mind to much more welcome matters, like smashing mobs, defeating bosses, and collecting loot with his best friend online.

***

Bella DeNiâmerée is a tolerable enough writer, though her penchant for constant similes leaves something to be desired.

Vil’s just glad the other screenwriters have toned down the worst of her literary foibles.

The rest of the cast and crew are pleasant, professional, and enjoyable to work with. There are a few roles that haven’t been filled yet—the kind elder sister, one or two of the heroine’s quirky friends, the villainess—but overall read-throughs have been productive and helped him gain a better understanding of the role he is to play.

And he is the male lead. Someone who will stand in the spotlight all the way to the end, a proud protector of this happy little family.

Great Seven, what an intoxicating feeling it is.

He’s read source material a few times by now, to understand the odd, tech-punk world that the story is based in.

It seems like it’s almost a carbon copy of Twisted Wonderland, but without the magic. Some of the terminology, like “Instagram”, “Siri”, or “motorcycle” is a little confusing, but overall it’s easy to understand his character’s motivations.

Maybe it’s because of however many times he’s been made to take up the role himself, but Vil seems incapable of not feeling…something for the villainess.

And yes, more often than not that something is exasperation or disappointment, but the point still stands.

A bastard child singled out from the others for her resemblance to her mother, the kidnapper who’d been raising the heroine as her own. Constantly striving to be recognized, to outdo the legitimate children through any means, returning their ire with blunt, cutting barbs.

And with the arrival of the heroine, the villainess seeks to oust the one aiming to usurp her place with a tenacity that is almost reminiscent of the Beautiful Queen’s own.

And yet she resorts to such ugly means to accomplish her end—bullying, cheating, even arranging for the heroine to be kidnapped! Of course, all this results in is her getting exposed at the heroine’s middle school graduation, rejecting her forgiveness and stomping off to disownment in defeat.

Vil despairs of her choices, even as he privately sympathizes with her motives.

Really, if Gracey “Yuu” Fuyuhime has just focused on proving her suitability over her uncultured sister rather than trying to drag her down out of fear, she would still be an uncontested member of the family. The levels she let herself sink to, those were her downfall.

Vil himself certainly would never fall to those depths.

Still, the new school year will start soon. Vil’s third year at Night Raven College, his last year as dorm head.

He’s going to do his upmost to ensure it’s one that everybody will remember and recognize him for.

***

There’s some commotion going on at the entrance ceremony.

Idia watches the feed from his tablet with some vague interest. One of the firsties has been outed by the mirror as having no magic in their soul, and now the familiar they brought along has set Kalim-sshi on fire.

Boy, is he glad he’s not there in person. Fs in chat for Kalim-sshi.

Still, he thinks as his fingers fly over his keyboard, his tablet taking a picture of the trouble-making first year and setting up an image search. It’d be troublesome if some magicless scrub tried to wrangle a monster to sneak in to orientation, hoping they could coast by to get in to NRC.

Still, a background check and confirmation of their status emailed to the headmaster should clean the situation up.

Though, isn’t it too much that he has to do all this for the headmaster? He really needs some kind of compensation. Perhaps an exemption from all of Vargus’ classes? Extra budget for Ignihyde? Maybe even some new specs for Ortho—!

A jingle erupts from Idia’s speakers. A match!

He chuckles to himself as he taps on the link his search has brought up. Honestly, if someone was going to break in to NRC, they should know better than to leave traces of themself all over the net, like some cheesy villain—

The image that has popped up is an illustration from a light novel. The closeup of a face filled with resentment and distrust, the kind of expression to send shivers down anyone’s spine. Overgrown bangs casting the eyes in shadow for that extra bit of menace.

The header at the top of the screen proclaims this image to be page 39 of Lost Princess. The introduction of the villainess.

Eh?

Eh??

***

The first year with the out of control familiar is shouting at Crowley.

“—and, as I’ve been trying to tell you, I do not want to be here. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know where I am. And honestly?! I’ve half a mind to press charges against you and your sham of an institution for abduction of a minor!!”

Crowley squawks some insulted response as Vil rolls his eyes. Honestly, who did this magicless potato think they were?

Even if they did have a vaguely familiar face, it’s disappointing to see they’re ignorant of the best school in Twisted Wonderland. Though, maybe this dearth of knowledge is why they thought bringing a familiar they couldn’t control to Night Raven College was a good idea.

“Pomefiore, this way.” He calls. “Rook, if you could take the lead?”

He needs to keep an eye on that poison apple who’s now going to be under his care. Make sure he doesn’t do anything foolish, like try to escape.

As he glances behind him, he can see the headmaster and the magicless potato asking something else of the Dark Mirror. The potato is growing more and more agitated.

Oh well. It’s hardly his concern. He turns to follow—

“Kyoto? Tokyo?! Japan?! Do those mean nothing to you?!”

Vil feels himself stop despite his every intention.

He stares at the teenager who’s thrown their hood back, desperation in every inch of their frame.

The teenager who is the spitting image of the villainess in the light novel he’s the lead in the movie of.

Who has just name dropped the fantasy land said light novel takes place in.

What the fuck.

#twisted wonderland #twst #vil schoenheit #idia shroud #twisted wonderland yuu #twst yuu #villainous paranoiac yuu #vil & idia in reverse isekai land #gracey fuyuhime #gracey leota #gracey enji #gracey megami #karatsumori megami

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britishassistant · 7 months

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Considerations on Remodeling a Wizard’s Tower

Gale Dekarios would not consider himself an inexperienced man by any means.

He was a wizarding prodigy, able to stun his elders and betters with his knowledge of the Weave. He was Mystra’s lover, diligently taught by her in all forms of magic and pleasure there were to be had. He was carrier of the Orb of Karsus, which ensured he knew the pain of loss, the terror of death, the price of his folly more intimately than any teacher should. He was Tara’s friend, and by this point a minor expert on the care and keeping of tressym.

So no, Gale of Waterdeep would not ever deign to call himself inexperienced. Not with all that went on in the thirty four years he had under his belt!

Yet, for all this knowledge and experience, Gale never quite realized that he’d truly never had friends who weren’t tressym before.

They’re emptying the Last Light tavern of what little alcohol it has left, getting progressively drunker on a mixture of spirits and the rush of victory.

Lae’zel’s remedy for Shadowheart’s crisis of faith was apparently by challenging her to a drinking competition, one that the rest of their motley crew and the few patrons left at the bar quickly got involved in. Gale himself has gracefully bowed out, feeling himself dancing on the edge between pleasantly squiffy and absolutely wankered.

Shadowheart is doing her level best to match Lae’zel cup for cup next to him, red-rimmed eyes on her rival/frenemy/whatever-label-people-are-using-these-days. Lae’zel is actually smirking back as she teeters slightly in place, the same one she wears when she’s fighting some strong opponent.

Gale sets his head on his hands and lets himself grin as he stares.

Shadowheart deserved a well-earned break after all she’s been through. And while Gale would normally prescribe a tenday of good food, good wine, and good company, he finds himself wondering what sort of haven he’d create for her if they were back in Waterdeep.

Nothing explicitly religious, mind you, no need to upset the poor woman more than she already had been. Soft furnishings dyed in indigo and purple and lavender, in a nod to her excellent taste in color, were a must. Rows of bookshelves, stretching to the ceiling and filled to the brim, in a nod to her terrible taste in fiction, were also important. A canopy bed covered with gauzy silks. A vanity, perhaps. And all in some sort of dark wood, like the end tables. Scattered tastefully throughout the room and large enough that any one could become easily an alter to some form of deity if one so chose, but also nondenominational enough that they didn’t need to be! Sometimes an end table was just a good place to set things down. Shadowheart seemed like she’d appreciate those.

It’d also be good to have somewhere to put all the night orchids, in fine vases to make her smile like when they passed that field—except what if they wilted? Small pots of them instead then, perhaps built into the wall as scones or enchanted to look like vases? And surely it wasn’t beyond Gale to work out how to get the soil to water itself somehow. Something to think about.

Lae’zel, on the other hand, would hardly be so taken with flowers. No, the trick with her room would be to work out how to recreate an environment she could relax in, truly relax. There’s no place like home after all, so how could Gale bring a little bit of crèche K’llir to the material plane? Crafting elements from the astral plane is child’s play for him, but perhaps drawing some elements from that crèche they visited would be viable? Like as not he’ll need to ask her for the specifics, but a small part of him is stomping its feet that that will ruin the surprise.

A training ground would be hard to go wrong with, though. Lae’zel prides herself on keeping her skills sharp, and far from just providing a well-maintained, well-stocked arena, Gale can certainly give her something a little more sophisticated. Moving suits of armor or magic constructs for opponents, all tweaked slightly so they can provide her with a variety of challenges.

His eyes slide over to Wyll, who has been gamely trying to keep up with the amount of alcohol the two women and Astarion are putting away. It’s clearly having less of an effect on the vampire than it is on the man, given Astarion’s teasing has only gotten more verbose while Wyll has resorted to a graceful (and succinct) middle finger.

Wyll would also enjoy a training ground, he knows. Something to keep his skills sharp, but perhaps more styled after the forests and caves of the Sword Coast, the biomes he’s used to hunting in. But for his personal quarters, Gale’s thinking something a little more civilized—he’s noticed the way Wyll rubs his lower back after sleeping rough. Still themed after his tastes, his experiences on the frontier, but all the necessary creature comforts. A fine four poster in deep brown oak. A full carafe of port. Comfortable chairs that could be sunk into for a quiet night by the fire.

A large tub would certainly help ease any aches and pains reaped from Wyll’s constant heroics. Porcelain, of course, surrounded by all the bath salts and oils he could wish to use. Gale’s an old hat now at ensuring a tub like that fills itself with water when needed that always feels—just—right.

By contrast, he thinks Astarion would quite like a conservatory. Somewhere he can warm himself in the sun for hours like he used to up above, lounging on one particular rock as he sewed or read or sharpened his daggers. Yes, yes, a bright conservatory filled with the finest pillows and furnishings Astarion deserved to lounge on, all the indulgence and luxury he projects so effortlessly but hasn’t had the chance to enjoy. Squat bookshelves that don’t impede the sun’s light. A fully stocked liquor cabinet set up in an armoire. A small door off to some equally extravagant sleeping quarters in one corner.

And if he loses his immunity to the sun with the tadpole, well. Gale wasn’t the finest wizard in Waterdeep for nothing. If devils could create the Companion to orbit Elturel, who is to say that Gale could not create something similar yet safer so Astarion could enjoy its warmth in peace?

Speaking of, his eyes turn to the two tieflings of the group. Karlach has one arm slung around Astarion’s shoulders and appears to be egging Yuu across the table into singing some kind of raunchy drinking song. Yuu, in the spirit of contrariness and probably more alcohol than they can handle, has instead begun to croon a low, soft melody, practically a lullaby.

They would probably love a music room, he reflects, something acoustically-inclined to give them the space to practice all those instruments they’ve been accumulating, encourage them to raise their voice in song like they so rarely do. A large, airy chamber would be best to help them transmit the Weave into melody like they’ve been learning to. Cupboards stocked full of resins and other such things they may need to clean and maintain the tools of their trade. Perhaps an inviting seating area, to host whatever teachers they might need to finish their studies and be appointed an official Bard of the College of Lore.

The desk, of course, would be essential. Filled with drawers, quills, inkwells and charcoal, and of course the many, many reams of blank parchment that their constant scribbling on the road suggested were more a necessity than a luxury. He’d probably need to invent a new charm just to keep them even halfway stocked.

Karlach, on the other hand, seemed like she would be happier with more rustic surroundings than the others. Not that she didn’t deserve to be showered in luxury like all the others, but from what Gale had seen it didn’t seem to interest her that much—as evidenced by her continual championing the merits of a good beer over more expensive spirits. Simple but comfortable, that’s the name of the game. A bed that looked like it could be found in a tavern but would be the rival of any noble’s feather bed. Overstuffed armchairs to sink into. Wide windows so she could gaze over the landscape. Even a few barrels of her favorite tipple to tap into if she felt like it.

Interesting textures, that would be the pièce de résistance for Karlach’s room. Fascinating tactility to skim her fingers over, trace the grooves of, dig her nails into, even pick at. If he has to make the entire affair fireproof, then so be it. It’s hardly a chore if it makes her happy.

“What are you grinning at?”

Gale blinks back into himself to see Astarion raising an arch eyebrow.

He smiles wider, letting the beer buzzing through his system warm his cheeks. “Nothing, nothing, really. Just.”

He glances around at everyone again.

Lae’zel and Shadowheart attempting to carry on a highly slurred argument. Karlach is lazily conducting Yuu’s soft “but just tonight, maybe I’ll rest in peace~” with her empty tankard. Wyll has taken the opportunity to set his head on the table and begun listing gently into Shadowheart’s side.

His cheeks almost hurt as he meets Astarion’s gaze again. “Enjoying the view.”

Astarion takes him in with a considering tilt of the head.

“Darling, you’re sozzled.”

Gale throws back his head and laughs. “Ha! Well. Aren’t we all?”

“Hm.” Astarion eyes where Lae’zel has begun to murmur into his collarbone. Wyll’s feet have found their way into his lap, and the vampire is much less enchanted with the Blade of Frontier’s boots. “Well! I’m sure I can prevail upon you to use that lovely, powerful magic of yours to help corral all these lightweights to bed, no?”

Gale hums. He’s warm and comfortable, Shadowheart is nuzzling into his side, and Wyll’s head is pillowed on her lap.

“Gale?”

Yuu mumbles nonsense as they curl into him, nestling under Gale’s chin as they trail off into incoherence. They let out a little huff as Shadowheart slips and starts using their back as a headrest but settle within a moment.

“Gale.”

Karlach has less begun to lean on Astarion than slump on him, her head pillowed on his curls. Her eyes are shut, and her breathing is deepening in a way that promises snores.

“Gale. Do not leave me like this.” Astarion orders with what might be a smidge of desperation.

Gale leans back against the wall, exhaling and closing his eyes.

“Gale!”

His tower could use some remodeling, he reflects as he rearranges Yuu so they’re not stabbing him in the throat with their horns.

Places to keep his people near and dear to him.

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britishassistant · 1 year

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Soul Searching (Is Harder If You Have Different Maps)

Leona (dream sharing) - Yuu (first words)

It’s been on your wrist for as long as you can remember.

A short paragraph in neat, flowing handwriting, forming one of the oddest sentences you’ve ever read.

Your half-siblings gave you no end of grief about it once the Words Resolved, at least one of them leaking it whenever you moved up a year in school so everybody always knew.

Your father ordered you to keep it covered at all times, then ignored it and you from then on. Just another way you were a stain on the family name.

One of the good things about leaving was at least it became your own.

You buy a new cover, the nicest you can afford with your meager funds. Not because you’re ashamed of it, but because for the first time in your life you could control who knew about it. It was yours, no one else’s.

Still. You really can’t imagine what sort of first encounter you’ll have with your soulmate that results in what’s on your wrist.

Maybe they have a pet? A dog or a cat?

Conversely, even though your meeting requires you to (you hope not seriously) potentially hurt an animal, you find yourself becoming hyper-aware of them. Always keeping a healthy distance between them and yourself.

It helps when you wake up in a coffin after dreaming about (maybe living through?) your gruesome death via monster to a talking, fire-breathing tanuki trying to steal your clothes.

You don’t think stepping on it would improve your situation any.

You’re distracted, is the thing.

You’ve somehow been transported to another world, forced to live in a should-be-condemned building, made a groundskeeper, watched as Grim the monster-tanuki burnt a statue and broke a chandelier with the help of a cocky feckless asshole and a dumbass wannabe honor student, had your ribs broken by a nightmarish ink-like monster that you still can’t find any information on, defeated that monster by somehow getting Grim, the feckless asshole and dumbass honor student to cooperate with your improvised plan, made a two-in-one student and a prefect, hosted Ace in your ramshackle dorm when he pissed off his dorm leader, had a weird dream about a queen and some cards you barely remember, tried to get Grim to attend classes, somehow got shanghai’d into making a mont blanc to appease the same dorm leader who Ace somehow belatedly realized was his soulmate, and—!

Look, it’s been a long two days, alright?

So maybe, when Grim dashes off the path to go steal some random fruit you’ve never seen before, you’re more concerned with catching him than watching where you’re going.

With your luck, Grim’ll end up rolling around in poison ivy. The magical equivalent of poison ivy. Which he’ll transfer to you first thing, but he won’t be affected by because he’s got fur.

You stumble as something… round and thin disrupts your footing by being inconveniently beneath your sole.

“Ow!”

Maybe it was a hose? A greenhouse this big has got to have some sort of sprinkler system, after all. Hopefully you haven’t bent it or anything.

Also since when was Grim’s voice that deep?

“Oi. You’ve got some nerve, stepping on someone’s tail without saying anything.”

Oh.

Oh, come on.

At least he’s good looking, the treacherous part of your brain whispers as a boy so tall and broad he can only really be called a man stands and pins you in place with a glare. With all the ways this could’ve turned out, you really got lucky with this one, didn’t you?

The rest of you mentally screams at it to shut up, because holy shit, this guy has animal ears and a tail and there is no way in hell you could’ve predicted this in a million years.

“Fnah? Are you the custodian here?” Because naturally, Grim would decide now’s the best time to abandon his quest for food. “You look like a rude guy, y’know?”

The guy who said the words on your wrist (your soulmate, your soulmate, he’s your soulmate!) curls his lip. “I may have been in the middle of a shitty nap, but you went and walked on my tail. I can’t just let you get away with that.”

You’re the one who left your tail lying where anyone can step on it…is what you want to say, but for some reason the words won’t come out your mouth.

He tilts his head. “You…aren’t you that herbivore the mirror said can’t use magic? Hmm…”

He seizes your tie and the front of your shirt in a fist, and you discover that being lifted by your clothes? Is something that can and does happen in the reality you now inhabit. You’re hauled up until you’re dangling just below your soulmate’s eye level, getting an unwitting closeup of his collarbone and down his shirt.

You try and will yourself to stop staring.

He leans forwards and his nose twitches as he inhales repeatedly. Is he…is he smelling you?!

“I-I bathe daily!” You splutter out.

You immediately want to find a wall and slam your head into it. The first words you say to your soulmate, what he’ll have been judging your character by right up until this moment, and this is what you come up with? “I bathe daily”? No wonder your soulmate’s wearing gloves.

Your father was right to disown you.

“Ha. I really can’t smell a spark of magic on you.” Your soulmate drawls, one of his ears flickering. “I don’t really feel like taking on an opponent that can’t resist…but it’s not like I, Leona-sama can let you just walk away after stepping on my tail, right?”

You have a sinking feeling in your stomach. “Wh-mmfph?!”

It’s hard to finish your sentence around the hand that this guy has just shoved into your mouth.

“Now,” You can feel his glove-clad fingers poking and prodding at one of your canines with intent. “I was having a shitty dream, and got woken up so rudely that it’s pissed me off. I think a tooth is a fair trade for that, right?”

Oh fuck no.

You think you can hear Grim babbling about running away somewhere around this guy’s ankles, while your legs windmill uselessly in midair.

The hand that’s not trying to fruitlessly pull at his wrist scrabbles for sharpened pencil in your pants pocket. You rip it out and brandish it as menacingly as you can.

“Hoh?” He still looks amused, damn him. “And what are you planning on doing with that, herbivore?”

“Ay’ll ta’e y’r othe’ eye ‘f y’dun ge’ y’r ‘and ou’ a ma mouf!” You threaten with as much bravado as you can muster.

Judging by the way his grin widens, it’s much less effective than you were hoping it would be.

He opens his mouth—

“Leona-san!”

And just like that, it’s like someone’s flicked off a light switch. His eyes go flat, his ears droop, his mouth thins into an annoyed scowl.

He also drops you.

You land hard on your tailbone on the stone path, coughing and gagging from the sudden removal of his entire hand from your mouth.

“Minion!” Grim pounces on your stomach, which does not help with how winded you are. “Are you okay? Did he take all yer teeth?”

You shake your head, trying to wordlessly convey that you’re mostly unharmed.

“Leona-San, there you are.” Another boy with ears and a tail and dyed blond hair comes strolling up the path. “I’ve been sent to get you for your remedi—ah? Don’t tell me you’ve traumatized another firstie again already.”

Again?

“Already?!” Grim squeaks.

The guy who is apparently the other half of your soul turns his head to shoot you a dangerous smirk.

You scoop up Grim and run for your life.

You’re panting by the time you reach the outside of the greenhouse where Ace and Deuce are waiting.

“Ah, Prefect, Grim, we found some…hey, what happened to you?” Deuce asks, taking in the sight of you, bent almost double as you try to get your breath back.

“Th-there was a really rude custodian sleeping in there!” Grim bursts out. “He was super scary!”

“Custodian?” Ace tilts his head. “What are you talking about?”

“I just met my soulmate.” You sing-song quietly.

“Wha-seriously?!” Ace’s face begins quirking in an astonished grin. “Both of us in the same day! Damn, what are those odds?”

“Congratulations, Prefect!” Deuce says, clapping you on the shoulder. “Who is he? What’s he like?”

“He was going to rip my teeth out.” You say brightly, unable to get the sing-song out of your voice.

There’s a moment of uncomfortable silence.

“Hah?” Ace says blankly. “Wait, seriously?! This isn’t some kinda joke?! And I thought what the dorm head did to me was bad.”

“Maybe it’ll get better?” Deuce, the kind, naive sap, suggests.

It does not get better.

Turns out that the weird dreams about the Queen and the cards and the little girl? Get followed up by Dorm Head Rosehearts overblotting and becoming the same kind of monster that broke your ribs.

You leave that encounter with a torn ligament in your ankle, and another dream of that monster murdering you brutally.

(Except this time, Ace, Deuce, and Trey are trying to fight it and dying to it alongside you, and before its teeth close around your head, you glimpse that the beast’s front paws are actually a grasping, disturbing pair of hands…

You wake in a cold sweat, body shaking and fingers numb around charcoal you don’t remember buying as you try to sketch out the monstrosity, as if confining it to paper will lessen its threat.)

Despite your terror, life goes on. You’re lulled into a routine of going to class, corralling Grim, trying not to die when bits of your Dorm collapse suddenly, making repairs, dealing with your ghostly roommates, hanging out with Ace and Deuce, and doing homework when you find the time.

And then your soulmate decides the best way to prepare for a sports tournament is by maiming the competition.

Your bad feeling from the dreams returning, this time with a Lion rather than a Queen, is only intensified when the headmaster threatens you and bribes Grim into investigating the “accidents”.

Even if he says “The Prefect is so diligent at note-taking I’m sure it’ll be a cinch~” isn’t pushing this kind of thing onto you really way too carefree for an adult?!

The only good thing about this investigation is you, Grim, Deuce, and Cater-senpai get a front seat to Ace’s corny flirtations at Riddle-senpai, and Riddle-senpai’s flustered reactions to him. It’s nice to see they’re getting along well.

It becomes readily apparent from your interviews that the only dorm to be entirely unaffected is Savannaclaw. Even if there are strong players from other dorms who haven’t been injured, they’re usually the type whose…personality quirks have provided them with a defense against the fates that befell their weaker dorm-mates.

Savannaclaw is the only one with all players in fighting form. That, combined with Jack Howl’s certainty that he won’t have an accident when rebuffing Grim’s offer of protection…

Of course, this is when three upperclassmen decide that it’s time to circle you, Ace, Deuce and Cater. Their threats are almost laughably cliche, but when they’ve got the muscle to back it up…

“What’s all this yapping for? Annoying.”

All the muscles in your back lock up.

“Dorm Head Kingscholar!” One of the upperclassmen barks as the jerk who might match your soul strides towards your group followed by the dyed blond guy who took Grim’s sandwich.

Well, at least that gives you a complete name to put to the face. Not that you wanted one.

He looks…? He’s slouching like he hasn’t a care in the world, like he’s the one with all the power here but it’s. Off, somehow. Not quite the casual ease he had when messing with you in the Botanical Gardens, no matter how hard he’s trying to seem otherwise.

“Aren’t you the herbivore who stepped on my tail?” Dorm Head Leona Kingscholar asks rhetorically, prompting his riled up dorm mates to turn towards you, teeth bared.

Your jaw clenches. “And you’re the creep with the tooth fetish. How’ve your naps been lately? I hope karma isn’t making your nightmares too unbearable.”

That gets his eyes narrowing at you, a growl rumbling from his chest and dumb tail swishing as his groupies’ snarls ratchet up a notch.

You can’t say you aren’t grateful for the way Ace and Deuce step in front of you, Grim hissing from the safety of your shoulders, like they could actually do anything if your soulmate decided to assault you again.

The impromptu game of Magift that he challenges the investigation team to certainly feels like one, a beat down dressed up in the guise of a “friendly match” with how often your boys are getting body checked out of the way and the sparks of white hot magic coming from the disk that even have you ducking for cover. There’s no way that this can be safe. It’s as if they’re hoping to take all of you out of commission if they injure you badly enough here.

It takes Jack Howl intervening for you all to have the pretext to escape without any major injuries. You should be following Cater’s speedy retreat, it would be the smart move…

But something stops you in your tracks, leaves you gnawing at your thumbnail as you watch the Dorm Head of Savannaclaw.

All this—the dreams, the plotting for control over something that’s usually left to chance, the weary dorm head you suspect is behind it all, it’s pricking at your brain, drawing comparisons between what happened a few weeks ago with Riddle-senpai. Which is ridiculous, Crowley told you that Overblot is rare and that Riddle’s case was the first time there’s been a major outbreak in decades, but—

Well. You didn’t survive the last 15 years by having the luxury to write connections like this off as mere coincidence.

Which leads to your next quandary: do you attempt to say something? Leona Kingscholar may be a bastard, but you are still his soulmate, even if he doesn’t act like it. The idea of him ending up as one of those monsters that Riddle-senpai became…it makes your fingers go cold and bile rise in your throat. But how—?

He catches your eye.

“See something you like, herbivore?”

You can feel your expression fall flat. “Hardly. A fool on an errand is never an impressive sight. Except, perhaps, for seeing how deep he can dig himself.”

“Hn. I feel like I could say the same whenever I see you.” Kingscholar-senpai retorts, the same damn amusement on his face again as he saunters over to you. Like he’s enjoying himself.

You have to take a breath to keep from gritting your teeth, letting him see how much he’s riling you up, even as he starts reaching towards your face. “Listen. If I could offer some advice? I would tread carefully, if I were you. The path you’re going down with all this, this, you may not like where you end up. If you do, more power to you, but…I wouldn’t want to see you biting off more than you can chew.”

“Even if I knew what you were talking about herbivore,” His grin curls wider when he pinches you chin between his fingers. “Which I don’t, what makes you think that someone like you has any right to tell me what to do? Even among lions there are limits to arrogance, you know.”

You can feel blood rush to your cheeks are indignation flares hot in your gut. Why this little—!

You pull your face out of his hand and turn sharply on your heel, striding off after your friends as his laughter echoes in your ears.

Fine. Fine! It seems that you’re going to have to take Ace’s approach to the problem. Try and put a stop to whatever mayhem Leona Kingscholar is causing before he can reach overblot status. Your soulmate, your responsibility.

You’re just hoping you’ll be slightly more successful this time than you all were with Riddle.

So you end up in the infirmary again.

Jumping off of a set of collapsing bleachers while your soulmate’s Unique Magic eats a hole into your side during his overblot doesn’t make you a better Magift player, surprisingly.

Though you were mostly sitting on the sidelines and shouting directions to Grim, Ace and Deuce until the disk came flying at the back of your head.

At least you’re not alone here though.

In the bed next to yours is Kingscholar-senpai, with Buchie-senpai in the one on his other side.

Your thoughts are still fixed on what Kingscholar-senpai was saying before his overblot, his anger at his powerlessness and his despair at being unable to change anything due to something as immutable as birth.

You’re wondering whether it would be good to talk to him about it once everyone else has left, to tell him a bit about yourself and where you come from, just enough to let him know you understand, even if you don’t condone sabotaging sports tournaments or overblots. Except no, Buchie-senpai will still be here too, the last thing he wants to be subject to is the pair of soulmates who are responsible for his injuries getting mushy when he can’t escape. Maybe this kind of conversation is a bit too heavy to have while you’re both still trying to heal, so perhaps it would be better to ask him to meet you alone once you’re both out of the infirmary?

And then a tiny, excitable angel of a child scurries into the room, looking for Leona-oji-tan, and your soulmate’s hands come up to stabilize the boy when he clambers onto his stomach.

His gloves are off.

There are a limited number of areas where your soulmate’s words can appear, and all of them are localized to the arms, hands, and neck. The lowest anyone has ever had words appear outside of these areas was over the breastbone, and the studies you’ve read showed that this was purely because the poor girl’s soulmate was giving an extremely long and impassioned speech on women’s right to suffrage that took up her neck and both of her arms besides.

Leo—Kingscholar’s overblot form didn’t exactly leave much to the imagination, and it makes sense, given that he hadn’t shown any reaction to your first words to him, but with the inky blot over his hands, you had thought, you had hoped—!

Your words aren’t there. At all.

It’s unrequited.

Of course it is. Of course.

It’s you, after all.

You spend a few days moping once you get out of the infirmary.

It’s not helped by the fact that the dream of the monster that kills you is back with a vengeance, tearing apart Riddle, Cater, and Buchie-senpai before shaking out its leonine fur as it prepares to pounce—!

(You hate how the drawing is getting more detailed.)

And that’s not even mentioning the other dream where you heard knocking from the inside of your mirror…

Between the stresses of the dreams, exhaustion from the crutches you need while the injury on your thigh and hip heals, and the new revelation about your soul’s other half…well, is it any surprise you don’t feel as energetic as before? You’re dealing with enough as it is. Between school and navigating your broken down excuse of a dorm, it’s a wonder you can get out of bed in the morning, much less socialize.

Kingscholar-san sends Jack bearing a brand new uniform to Ramshackle, only one size too big. It takes everything you have to smile and thank him without the annoying waver your voice has taken on lately.

It only ends when you look up one morning to see Grim nudge his tuna can back towards you, a worried frown on his furry little face.

“I dun’ need it.” He insists. “You eat, minion. You need ta build up yer strength and fill yer tummy, you’ve been all droopy and sad and not eatin’! What kinda great magician would I be if I couldn’t look after one a’ my minions? So be grateful, fgnah!”

You try and tell him that you’re fine, you’ve got your rice and egg, but he refuses to budge until you’ve choked down a little under half of the can.

You’re not sure whether it was the shock of greedy, selfish Grim insisting you take his food or how unpleasant eating the oily, unseasoned cat-food-level tuna was, but after you clean your teeth you give yourself a long, hard look in the mirror.

You…well, let’s be honest.

You look like shit. Tired and in pain, yes, but more than that you look like you did when you were floundering on your own for the first time at 14. Alone and directionless and reeling from loss.

You look like you’ve given up.

That more than anything else, makes you scoff in disgust. Really? Of all the things you’ve lived through, all the letdowns you’ve experienced, this is what beats you? A guy? One you don’t even know very well, and is under no obligations towards you besides? Are you seriously making yourself miserable over the hope of a possibility that’s been crushed?

As if.

You didn’t let your middle school graduation break you. You didn’t let your disownment break you. You are not going to lose yourself over an unrequited soulmate.

You’re trying to get back to your world, after all. And sure, you may be leaving a piece of your soul here, and it will hurt, but you’ll live. You’ll move on. You’ll survive.

You slap your cheeks twice.

At lunch, you announce, “I’m going to need some help carrying paint and wood back to my dorm after classes today.”

Ace and Deuce stare at you as you continue, “It’s seriously a pain to try and guess where I can put my crutches that won’t send them through the floors again. Even the ghosts are getting tired of all the holes. Plus, it’s just, really filthy, you know? If it’s going to take the headmaster this long to send me back, I’d rather live somewhere that isn’t going to fall down on me and Grim in our sleep or give us tetanus.”

You feel your smile begin to falter slightly as the silence continues.

“Freaking finally, fgnah!” Grim cheers through a mouthful of your curry. “It’s about time Ramshackle got an upgrade to reflect the majesty of the Great Genius Grim!”

“O-of course, Prefect!” Deuce, angel that he is, puffs out his chest. “I’d be glad to help out!”

“I’m not carrying jack shit.” Ace says, little shit that he is. “But try asking Jack or Riddle or Trey-senpai with that face—it’s so pathetic they’ll probably do anything you ask.”

You kick him in the shins, out of principle.

And then it turns out that Ace, Deuce, and Grim have all gone and sold their souls to the dorm head of Octavinelle in exchange for academic success.

Because, lest you forget, your closest friends and associates are absolute morons.

At least they had the decency to wait until you’d been off the crutches for two weeks and finals were done before springing this onto you.

(You should have known when you woke on the last day of exams to dreams of mermaids and shipwrecks, but you were so busy trying to track down who this figure could possibly be, trying to uncover something, anything more about overblot in the texts that are overdue for the library to update your wall that—!

But that’s hardly an excuse. You should have known.)

Crowley once again commands you to investigate the Octavinelle Dorm Head, with the understanding that your meager allowance for food will be jeopardized if not.

Azul Ashengrotto, as you and Jack discover while following him around, is for all appearances a model student, if a bit of a kiss-up. He is careful to never do anything untoward where the public can see.

Azul Ashengrotto is a boy with what romantics call “a threefold soul”. The one in his body is partnered with the two inside the twins, who only leave his side to slink up to you with promises of deals that will solve all of your problems.

Azul Ashengrotto will only consent to freeing all the students if you sign a contract with him. Three days to steal a photograph from a museum in the Coral Sea, or you join Grim, Ace and Deuce in servitude.

It’s not the first time you’ve signed a contract with every fiber of your being screaming “NO”, but hopefully this will be the last.

And, just to add insult to injury, what Azul Ashengrotto wants as collateral more than anything else? Is your dorm that you and your friends spent the past months making downright hospitable as a way to distract from your soulmate issues.

You think you’re meant to be grateful that those twins let you grab what few changes of clothes you could before throwing you and Grim out.

You are grateful to Jack for offering you a room in Savannaclaw so you don’t need to squeeze into a bed with Ace and Deuce in a four student room, even if that means you’ll definitely come into contact with the person you’ve been avoiding since his overblot.

This gratitude lasts for about as long as it takes Kingscholar-san to open his mouth.

“They can’t stay here.” He grumbles, looking almost as weary as before his overblot. “The empty rooms have been dumping grounds for stuff from the other students—even if they’re used to living in that decrepit wreck, trying to sleep in one of those rooms would be impossible.”

“Hey! Don’t insult our dorm!” Grim protests, hackles raised. “It’s really, really nice now, fgnah!”

“I don’t care.” Kingscholar-san replies.

“Senpai.” Jack groans.

“Ah, I’ve got it.” Buchie-senpai says with a grin you’re really learning to dislike. “We’ll put them in Leona’s room.”

“Do you want me to sew your mouth shut?!” Kingscholar-san growls as you loudly proclaim, “HELL NO.”

“Eh? But Prefect, Leona’s digs would be waaay comfier than any old dusty room.” Buchie-senpai wheedles. “Plus Leona-san is used to having servants sleep in his room as a prince, so this’ll be just like home, right? Plus this way the Prefect and Grim can earn their keep by helping look after him. It’s a win-win!”

There’s a weird interest in Kingscholar-san’s eyes that sends a shiver down your spine (no, stop, stop that, it’s unrequited, he’s not, he doesn’t), before his growl increases in volume. “Ruggie, you—!”

“Right, thanks for the offer Jack but we’re just going to share with Ace or Deuce in Heartslaybul, so…” Back up slowly, very slowly, eyes on them, don’t run.

“Oi.”

You don’t entirely mean to freeze in place at the sound, but your pesky survival instincts have other plans.

Kingscholar-san attempts to cover his scowl with a nonchalant expression. “Well, if you’re truly intent on running away with your tails between your legs, I can’t stop you. After all, only the strong are welcome in Savannaclaw, even if it’s only for three days. But if you’re really sure…oi, you lot! Get out here!”

From the depths of the dorm, three upperclassmen come trooping out. The same three, you note to your displeasure, who tried to waylay the Investigation Team last time.

“Ah! It’s the prey that got away last time! It came back all on its own!” The biggest one crows.

“If you want to stay, you’ll need to prove yourself. Otherwise these three will have the pleasure of escorting you to Heartslaybul.” Kingscholar’s smug look really shouldn’t set your blood ablaze by now. “After all, such delicate, weak herbivores who got taken advantage of need to be looked after so they don’t get gobbled up late at night, right?”

“Who’re you callin’ weak?!” Grim hisses, back arched.

“Aw, does the kitty cat have claws?” The one with floppy ears simpers. “Better have me carry ‘im for you, little prince, otherwise you’ll get aaaall scratched up!”

The three of them cackle like this is the funniest thing they’ve heard all day.

You feel your lip curl.

Fine. Fine! These brats want a piece of you so bad? You’ll show them precisely why the headmaster appointed you “Beast Tamer”.

Grim gave up his fire magic to Azul, so the only real magical support you’ll have against these guys is Jack. But from what you remember from Magift, these upperclassmen are only really good at coordinating when Kingscholar-san is keeping them in line. When they’re on their own…

“Jack, think you can distract the big one until I’m ready?” You ask. “Grim, give the one with the smallest ears the runaround. Pretend he’s Ace and you stole his lunch again.”

“Can do, Prefect.” Jack growls, while the upperclassman with small ears claps a hand over them and yells, “SHUT UP!! THEY AIN'T SMALL, YA BASTARD!!”

“Nah, they’re tiny!!” Grim cackles, darting away like a tiny streak of grey wind, prompting the guy you’ve given a complex to roar and give chase. The biggest one is having similar problems hitting the equally quick Jack, which leaves you in careful position to deal with…

“I’ll make you eat those words!!” The third upperclassman vows as he aims for you with his magic pen.

The last one has the floppy ears of a prey animal rather than a predator. At a guess you’d say some kind of impala or oxen, something with horns. Which means that unlike the other two, who probably rely on their ancestor’s habits of intimidation and claws to inform how they fight, this one is much more used to—

“HIIIYAAAH—!” Charging at threats headfirst.

You skip to the side to avoid the spell he slings at you and hook out your foot to snag one of his.

“Hah!” The punk leaps over your leg. “You gotta try haaaraaaauuowhOAAAAAGH!!”

There’s a large splash as he drops into the pool of water behind you.

You make a show of peering down. “Oh my. Is that much blood normal?”

“GOTAMA!!” The biggest upperclassman shoves past Jack with ease while the one with small ears gives up on chasing Grim, the pair of them rushing to the water’s edge in an attempt to see if their buddy is alright. It’s almost sweet.

Though you’d think with their more sensitive senses, these beastmen would recognize a lie when they hear one.

You catch Grim’s eye and draw an english “m” with your finger. He beams.

All it takes from him is a running leap at the nearest punk to sending him sprawling into the pool on top of his buddy with a scream. Grim spring-boards off of the last one to complete the set and lands safely in your outstretched arms.

You cuddle him to you as he cheers. “Yeah!! Take that, fgnah!”

Jack huffs, looking disapproving even as his tail swishes from side to side. “That was sneaky, Prefect.”

You give him a cheeky “v” with your fingers and a grin, “Well, underhanded tactics are still strength, after all. Right, Kingscholar-san?”

“Don’t go putting words in my mouth, herbivore.” He says that, but his eyes are raking over you, as if seeing you in a new light. As if you’ve impressed him, somehow.

Bad for your heart, that.

It’s possible you may have gotten caught up in their pace and forgotten what this grudge match was for.

“You’re gonna fry in that.” Comes the unwelcome commentary from Kingscholar-san’s bed. “It gets colder at night, but not that cold.”

You clutch at your discount Night Raven College hoodie. Sure it’s big and bulky, but. “Then I’ll deal with it. It’s comfy.”

He rolls over, away from the futon where you and Grim are bunking. You think you hear a mutter of “annoying”.

Grim sticks out his tongue. You do too.

“I heard that.”

You’d almost hoped that being away from Ramshackle would mean the dreams don’t come again.

And for one night, you’re proven right.

It’s the second night, after you’ve gone to bed with advice churning in your brain about destroying the contracts rather than attempting to complete the task Azul had set you, that’s the when they come for you.

You blink awake in the quiet dark of the room, a thin layer of sweat clinging to you.

“Another deal…?” You mutter sleepily to yourself, scrunching your eyes shut. “Guess even mermaids don’t know any better than dealing with octopi…”

There’s a sudden rustle of fabric.

You open your eyes to find Kingscholar-san about half an inch away from your face.

“Are you dreaming about weird twisted versions of the Great Seven?” He demands.

Your mouth goes dry.

“TOO CLOSE!”

He lets you shove his face away until you can sit up before grabbing your wrist and yanking it off.

“Answer the question.” He snarls, grip tightening until the leather of your cover begins to creak under your hoodie.

“I—what?!” You try and parse his nonsensical demands. “No, I just—that was one of the weird dreams I’ve been getting. There was a small fish mermaid, and eels, and this octopus lady who had a contract she was making the little mermaid sign to…I don’t know, go on land, I think? But it’s only recently it’s been mermaids, before that it was lions and then it was queens and cards, and…what’s that look?”

He’s staring intently at you, ears forward and pupils so much larger than they are in the day.

“The Witch of the Sea.” He says, so low that you almost have to strain your ears to hear him. “That’s who the mermaid was making a deal with. The Witch of the Sea, whose benevolence is the basis for Octavinelle House.”

You feel yourself waking up so quickly it’s like caffeine has been injected straight into your veins.

“Then the, the previous two sets of dreams?” You ask, hardly daring to believe your luck.

“The Queen of Hearts, of Heartslaybul.” His eyes dart away from you. “And…the King of the Beasts. For Savannaclaw.”

You gape at him.

You need your notebook, you need to write this all down, this, this is—!

“How’d you not even know who they were?” There’s stifled amusement in Kingscholar-san’s voice as you tear through your clothes from yesterday at the end of your futon, trying to find it.

“I only started hearing about them when I arrived here this year, forgive me if I can’t identify them on sight yet.” You retort, finally finding the little spiral notebook in the pocket of your blazer.

Something long and thin tickles beneath your chin, something fluffy at the end flicking your cheek.

You rear away from it, falling backwards.

You hit something warm and solid and upright, rather than the quickly cooling sheets of your futon. Your position puts you in the ideal position to look up and see Kingscholar-san smirking down at you as you’re caged between his chest and knees.

Oh Seven help you, this is too dangerous.

“I won’t say this isn’t a surprise.” He starts, as the fluffy thing comes back to flick your chin again. His tail. “But it’s not. Hm. There are worse people in this school who could be my soulmate than you, I guess.”

Ice slides down your spine.

“Who,” You rasp as you push yourself up and away. “Who the hell told you?!”

Grim hasn’t been away from you long enough to say anything to Kingscholar, either with you or serving in the Monstro Lounge. Ace may have teased you about it before the Magift Tournament, but after, he clammed up and would always change the subject when someone tried to ask you about it. Deuce is the same, though that doesn’t mean he didn’t blurt something out on accident. Maybe Jack? But no, Jack didn’t know, and even if he did he’s the kind of guy whose moral compass would never—

“What?” Kingscholar-san’s face is a mask of confusion. “You just—”

“And if this is some,” You can feel your face twist as you spit it out, heart pounding double time with hurt. “Pity thing, trying to make the poor, arrogant Prefect feel better because it’s unrequited, then I’d like you to stop, right now. I don’t need to be pandered to, not about something like this.”

His eyebrows lower until he’s giving you a steely glare, and his voice has gone cold. “The hell does that mean?”

“Don’t play dumb.” You snap, one hand coming to rub the wrist where your cover lies. “I have your Words, but you don’t have mine anywhere on you. Your dorm uniform is sleeveless, and I’ve seen you without gloves.”

Rather than looking away from you, shame-faced, or admitting to you straight that it was all one big game, to see how he can toy with the person who’s devoted to him but not the other way around, Kingscholar-san says something that leaves you aghast.

“Words? What kind of bullshit are you spouting now?”

You yank up your hoodie sleeve and attack the fastenings on your cover with a ferocity you didn’t know you had, letting it land on a sleeping Grim with a thwap as you shove the underside of your wrist into his face.

He blinks, pushing it back, eyes flicking back and forth as he reads your Words. “What? When did you get this…?”

“I’ve had this since I was four years old!” You cry. “The first Words my soulmate will ever say to me, the way I’ll know who he is, and trust me, if I could have gotten them to Resolve as something else, I would.”

His mouth works soundlessly for a moment, before he says, “That’s not. Soulmates don’t have that.”

You scoff, incredulous. Of all the lame excuses…! “Yes. They do.”

“No, they don’t.” He insists, glaring. “Not in this world.”

“Then why,” You are half a second from either tearing your hair out or punching him in the face and only the gods and the Seven know which. “Does everyone here wear long sleeves or gloves?!”

That actually stops him up short for a second, before he pinches the bridge of his nose.

“They are part of the uniform.” He stresses, speaking slowly and loudly like he thinks you’re stupid. “But let me guess, in your world, everyone wears them to cover up that.”

“What other reason is there?!” You fling your arms out to the side. “And don’t you dare try to tell me that soulmates don’t exist in this world or whatever, I’ve been hanging around Ace and Riddle for long enough, I know this world has them!”

“Yeah,” He’s scowling at you, and the fact that he still looks hot like this is pissing you off even more. “But here, soulmates find each other by sharing dreams. Like the ones I’ve had to put up with ever since the start of the school year.”

You freeze mid-retort.

So many things start clicking into place. How Ace wasn’t sure Riddle was his soulmate until the morning after their confrontation over the tart. Why Deuce has so many questions about the meaning of gold in dreams when you’re all meant to be studying in private. The dumb jokes Ace makes about Riddle “keeping him up at night” that have the dorm head turning red and beheading him.

“But why didn’t anyone tell me?” Escapes you in a plaintive murmur.

“I dunno. Why didn’t you tell me that you knew what we were from the moment we met?” Kingscholar-san snipes back.

You scoff, “Oh right, when was I meant to tell you again? When you had your hand in my mouth? Oh! Or maybe it was while telling me that I had arrogance that surpassed even a lion’s when I was worrying about you?”

He face twists into a snarl. “After the overblot then! We were in the infirmary for three days together!”

“And I thought I’d just discovered that my soul bond was unrequited!” You insist, feeling your teeth grit. “I couldn’t put that on you! Not then and certainly not now!”

“And why not?!”

“Because, of all the people in this stupid, insane, dysfunctional, twisted world, you’re the one who shouldn’t have to settle for second-best!” You only realize you’re yelling after the words leave your mouth.

Kingscholar-senpai is staring at you, ears almost flat against his head.

Grim is also staring at you, from where he’s hiding under the covers.

“It’s just…You deserve first prize when it comes to stuff like this.” You finish lamely. “You shouldn’t have to settle for me if you don’t need to.”

Your cheeks are burning, your head is spinning. Why, oh why did you say something so, so melodramatic and stupid?!

“Uh…” There’s a haphazard knock on the doorframe. Buchie-senpai looks incredibly awkward as he continues. “Sorry to interrupt, but, uh. Morning practice?”

“Morning practice! Right!” You have never been happier for an escape. ��I-uh-Grim and I need to get ready!”

You scoop Grim up, ignoring his cry of, “But I’m cozy!”

“Herbivore, wait—!”

You aren’t afraid to say you run as fast as your legs can physically take you.

“Please tell me you and Riddle have each others’ Words.” You beg Ace when you meet up with him, Deuce and Jack.

Ace has the audacity to blink at you, bewildered. “Wh-words? Prefect, what the hell are you talking about?”

You take a moment to hide your face in your hands and scream.

That day’s attempts to discover a way to destroy the contract are almost a complete failure.

It’s only thanks to running into Tsunotaro the gargoyle enthusiast outside of Ramshackle that you can add the “almost”.

His words about statuary and forms not matching up to function are bouncing around your head even as you make your slow way back to Savannaclaw. It feels like it should be significant in some way, but how—

“Where the hell have you been?”

Geh.

You’d forgot that coming back here means dealing with him.

“I went to Ramshackle out of habit.” You say breezily, proud of yourself for how you can project nonchalance into your tone. “Ended up talking to a friend who gave me some advice about the situation.”

Kingscholar-san stares at you for a moment, before turning over with a scoff. Dismissing your existence.

Maybe it’s like Vanrouge-senpai said. Leona Kingscholar isn’t the type to expend the energy fighting for what he sees as lost causes.

You huff at the painful twinge in your chest from that thought. You’re over him, you’re over him, you didn’t pour all the blood and sweat into repairing Ramshackle to not be over him by now.

Instead you begin to clean under Buchie-senpai’s instructions, picking up the mess strewing the room—and keeping Grim from pocketing your apparently-not-so-unrequited-soulmate’s valuables along the way.

Which leads to an argument where Buchie-senpai nags Kingscholar-san to hide his valuable before they get stolen, only for your soulmate to retort that he’d like to meet the person who had the guts to steal from him, which makes sense because if he’s truly that confident in his ability to stop a thief, why would—!

“THAT’S IT!”

It finally clicks.

“…vore? Herbivore. Yuu.”

“Hm?” You shake a little, coming back to yourself from where your mind is racing. “Sorry, what is it?”

“You just shouted really loudly, fgnah!” Grim protests. “Made all my fur stand up…”

“Grim.” You kneel down, putting your hands on his little shoulders. “If the contracts really are invincible and untouchable, why does Azul need a safe?”

Grim stares at you, little eyebrows furrowed. “…Because he needs them protected?”

Behind you, Kingscholar-senpai begins to laugh. “Now I see. You’ve thought of something pretty interesting, haven’t you?”

“Eh, so that’s how it is…” Buchie-senpai rubs his chin. “But still, you’re forgetting a pretty big obstacle if you wanna exploit this.”

“Those eel bastards!” Grim spits, hackles raising again. “They chased us around so much today, and made me work so hard in the Lounge…if I had my fire magic, I’d make sushi outta them, y’know!”

“No, sushi isn’t cooked.” Buchie-senpai interjects.

“If only the Leech twins weren’t there…” The gears in your head are turning, a plan forming before your very eyes.

“I’m going to stop you right there.”

You look up to see Kingscholar-senpai frowning. “I’ve got a general idea of what you’re thinking, but let me say right now that I absolutely will not help. I’m not getting involved with troublesome things, and the only thing more troublesome that you is that octopunk. Count me out.”

You can’t deny the hurt that twinges in your chest as he lies back down and turns away from you, even as Grim puffs up at your feet, looking a second away from hissing.

You catch Buchie-senpai facepalming out of the corner of your eye.

That, of all things, is what inspires you to stand and march around the bed until you’re in front of Kingscholar’s face.

“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.” You declare, folding your arms across your chest.

“Hah?” At least that gets him sitting up.

You tick it off on your fingers. “The easy way is you decide to be nice to your poor, unfortunate soulmate and agree to help us out with my plan. I might even give you a reward for it.”

He shoots you a disinterested look. “And the hard way?”

You smirk at him.

You wish what few hours of sleep you do get aren’t plagued by the dreams.

But no. Instead you’re treated to a montage of the Witch of the Seas actively sabotaging the mermaid until she has the girl’s kingly father in a position to trade everything for his daughter.

“So she was after everything from the start…” You mutter as you feel yourself wake up more.

“Hn.” Comes the grunt from the bed above you. “…How can you look so well-rested after what you did last night. ‘S insulting.”

You smile innocently. “You were the one who wanted it the hard way, senpai.”

There’s a series of noises above you that have you sitting up, frowning in concern. You can’t have him choke to death yet, you’ve got a plan to implement!

Although that reminds you, as you take a seat on the edge of the bed and he watches you warily, that there’s something you need to get through to him before you part ways.

“Whatever you do today,” You warn. “Do not agitate Ashengrotto-senpai. No boasting, no bragging, no giving false hope, nothing that could drag his mental state down. Just destroy the contracts quietly and leave. We do not need another overblot on our hands.”

Kingscholar-senpai groans. “Quit nagging herbivore. I know what I’m doing.”

Which is funny really, because this?

This situation right here, where Ashengrotto-senpai is in the middle of overblotting, screaming about how he’s not going back to being a “lame ink-squirting crybaby”?

This does not look like Leona knows what he’s doing.

You attempt to communicate this to him through gaze alone before beginning to rally everyone plus Jade and Floyd to take Azul down.

At least this overblot is a bit better than Kingscholar-senpai’s in that it seems to be fuel more by lashing out at the nearest targets rather than coldly calculating which targets are the best to attack in its quest to murder everyone.

Unfortunately, as you dart forward to drag Floyd-senpai back when he won’t get out of the line of fire himself, that includes you as well.

In a heartbeat, one of the phantom’s tentacles curls around your arm and shoulder.

It yanks.

You don’t have the breath in your lungs to scream.

It begins dragging you towards where Ashengrotto-senpai is waiting, trident at the ready—!

“King’s Roar!”

Sand, floating away in the water around you, as the phantom thrashes in agony, the disintegrating tentacle threatening the rest of the body before Ashengrotto-senpai lops it off.

An arm snags you about the waist, pulling you tight to Kingscholar-senpai’s side even as it’s careful not to jostle where your shoulder’s been dislocated.

He doesn’t let you go until the fight’s over.

You go to bed in your Ramshackle Dorm that night, uneasy.

Sure, you resolved the issue with Ashengrotto-senpai and now know the truth about this world’s soulmates, much to Ace and Floyd-senpai’s teasing, but Kingscholar-senpai sloped off without a word once he’d taken you to the infirmary again. You still don’t know where you stand with him, if there’s anything you could still make of this or if that ship has sailed, if he has any idea why these dreams are coming to you or even what they are. You just! You don’t know. You don’t know if he knows either.

The dreams are waiting for you the moment you close your eyes.

The first one isn’t so bad, if a little unsettling. Your mirror glowing and an odd voice resounding from its depths doesn’t even ping your weirdness sensor too much anymore, sadly.

But then you shift, dropping deeper into sleep.

And come face to face with the monster again.

It’s head is maned with large, grasping tentacles, and Floyd-senpai lies several paces behind it, already torn in two, mismatched eyes staring at you accusingly.

Jack and Leona are the only two between you and it, and you try to remember how it’s gone other nights, how you can possibly beat it or hold it off long enough to make an opening for all of you to escape.

A sweep of a tentacle and Jack meets the same fate as Floyd-senpai. Torn to bits as if he’s a discarded toy.

Leona shoves you behind him, away from him his mouth forming the word “RUN!”

You scream as the teeth close around his chest, shaking him like a rag doll before tossing him away.

You stumble to his corpse, begging him to get up, look at you, anything, Leona, don’t leave you, not like this, please—!

You can’t even bring yourself to run even as the grasping hands close around you.

You wake.

You’re coated in sweat. Your dislocated shoulder aches.

You ignore it all as you lurch from the bed, non dominant hand grabbing the charcoal as you tug out the paper from under the bed with a foot.

You have to—you can’t let—if you can just—!

A sob is trapped in your throat.

You sit up the rest of the night, staring at the monstrosity forming before your eyes.

Even when the light under the curtains turns from black to dark blue, you do not. Take your gaze. Off of it.

It doesn’t really surprise you when you hear a thunderous pounding on the door downstairs.

Startle you? Yes.

But you can guess who it is with almost comical ease.

You shoot a wary glance at the drawing, but. You already took your eyes off it. If it was going to do anything, it would’ve done so by now.

The pounding starts up again.

You groan as you get to your feet, wanting to itch at your shoulder under the sling as you troop down the cold stairs. “M coming, ‘m coming.”

You yank open the door to see Kingscholar-senpai standing there.

He doesn’t look like he’s slept either.

“It is,” You inform him gravely. “Not even five in the morning. Why are you here.”

He snorts as he steps past you into the building. “Don’t ask questions we both know the answer to.”

You sigh as you shut and lock the door behind him.

“Huh.” He says as he heads up the stairs. “It’s less…run-down than I was expecting.”

“Thanks.” You retort, your verbal filter not quite as awake as you are. “Fixing it up was my project to get over an unrequited soulmate.”

He gives you an unamused stare.

“…Sorry.” You rub the back of your head. “I promise I’m not actually trying to start a fight every time we talk. It’s just…”

“Hn.” He grins at you for some reason. “Ruggie says I have that effect on people. That it’s my ‘winning personality.’”

After a moment, you smile back. “Well, I suppose that’s one way to put it.”

He looks around your room with interest.

Right up until he notices your wall by the door. “King’s balls!”

“Shh!” You hush. “Grim’s still sleeping!”

You both pause for a moment, listening hard. Grim smacks his lips in his sleep and rolls over onto his tummy, his paws coming up to cover his ears.

“Honestly,” Kingscholar-senpai huffs. “Warn me before you show me all. All this.”

You look at your wall, the names of your friends and their connections to recent overblots, the dreams, and any literature which could contribute to your understanding of these events all neatly connected with pushpins and red thread.

“It’s not that bad.” You say, limply.

He raises an eyebrow in your direction. “Sure. Why’d you have all this anyway? Seems…excessive.”

You scrub a fist over your eyes, exhaustion setting in. “I just…these dreams. They feel way too real to be just dreams, right? And you said that they’re of twisted versions of the myths of the Great Seven, which somehow connect to the dorm that has something going on. Usually by reflecting the actions of the one about to overblot. So if I can understand them, maybe, maybe get ahead of them somehow…”

You scratch at your sling. Kingscholar-senpai catches your hand, and you smile weakly at him. “These kinds of dreams didn’t start until after the first overblot. The monster in the Dwarf Mines that was so far gone that it didn’t even have a person attached anymore. And then there’s…you know.”

You gesture to where the drawing sits on the floor.

Kingscholar-senpai actually lets out a small snarl at the sight of it.

“If it were just a stress dream, something my subconscious is coming up with to process all this, this stuff I’m going through, that’d be ine.” You ramble, feeling slightly feverish. “But that dream only ever comes the night after an overblot, not, not more frequently like a normal stress dream. I’m scared that it’s somehow trying to tell me that this…thing is coming. And, and I’m getting more and more injured with every overblot, so unless I can find a way to counteract them, stop them, I’m not sure I can save—I’ll—!”

To your horror, there are hot tears sliding down your cheeks. You try to mop them up on your hoodie, sniffing hard. “…Sorry.”

“Right.”

You look up to see him standing there, with his arms crossed over his chest. “Where do we start?”

You blink.

“Huh…?”

Leona-senpai gives you an unimpressed look. “Don’t be stupid. Admittedly, if you tried to tell me about this without the dreams, I’d’ve told the crow to get you a therapist. Maybe stop pushing all his duties onto a first year, let alone the one who doesn’t have magic, before you have a mental breakdown.”

“Gee, thanks.” You say, voice flat, but a smile is trying to quirk the corners of your mouth.

“But we do share the dreams.” He scruffs a hand through his bangs, gaze flickering over your wall before landing on you. “And as much as I’d love to wash my hands of this and say it’s someone else’s problem, this stuff is targeting my soulmate. And how could I say I’m the dorm head of Savannaclaw if I just stood aside and let my soulmate get preyed on without helping you fight back?”

Leona-senpai almost seems shy as he suddenly avoids your gaze. “The King of the Beasts wouldn’t. He defended his lioness and cubs to the last. It’s only natural I’d do the same for you.”

You can’t quite help the watery laugh that escapes you at that.

“Oi.”

At the sight of his ears going flat, you raise your hands. “Sorry! Sorry, I’m not, not mocking you or anything, it’s just. I don’t think I knew how much I needed to hear someone say that. To hear you say that.”

Pride is still an annoyingly good look on him. You find you like it more when it’s paired with the soft smile he’s favoring you with now.

“As for where to start…” You gnaw at your thumbnail. “Ah, right. We’ve talked about the dreams about the Great Seven, and of the, that, but what about the mirror dreams? What did you make of them?”

“Mirror dreams?” Ah, his expression of confusion. An old friend which is wearing out its welcome.

“Yeah, you know? The dreams where that mirror is glowing? And there’s knocking from behind it, and tonight there was a weird voice saying something that I couldn’t make out.” He still is staring at you, blank-faced. “It happened before the monster dream…?”

“Yuu,” You can’t even enjoy the shiver that goes through you from hearing him say your name with how serious he sounds. “I haven’t had any dreams like that.”

But then…that means….

You both glance over at the mirror.

The laugh you let out is more than a bit hysterical. You fold forward until you hit his chest.

“Fi-figures.” You hiccup, trying to keep what little composure you can. “Even on top of all of this, there’s always something, right? No rest for the wicked.”

His heartbeat is reassuring at least, as is the low growl that’s rumbling through him and into you.

“Fuck this.”

You yelp as an arm sweeps under your legs. You find yourself grabbing at his sleep shirt as he marches over to the bed and clambers onto it, arranging himself and you so that he forms a wall between you and the mirror.

“Le-Leona-senpai! Wh-what are?” It’s hard to remember to keep your volume down. Grim snuffles behind him and lets out another snore.

“We haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a day.” He says as he arranges you to his liking, his tail coiling around your leg. “And we’re both too tired to deal with this bullshit. Whatever it is, it can wait until morning. Maybe even later.”

“B-but-?!” You protest, even as your eyes feel heavy.

“Sleep.” His voice rumbles beneath your ear, and his arm is warm around you, coaxing your muscles to relax of their own accord.

Well, with an order like that, you can hardly disobey, can you?

#twisted wonderland #twst #villainous paranoiac yuu #leona kingscholar #twst leona #different soulmates method au #twisted wonderland yuu #twst yuu #leona x yuu #soulmates #first words #dream sharing #yuu has an identity crisis over being a latent furry #slowest of slow burns #my god this thing is a monster

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britishassistant · 25 days

Text

Setting The Tempo

You are exhausted.

Turns out, falling through the cracked floor into a crypt is not the way you wanted to spend this morning. Nor is attempting to fight the treasure hunters who decided to kill first, ask questions never. Especially once you realized that the people with you are only highly skilled at fighting solo.

You shudder at the memory of seeing the firebolt leave Gale’s fingers and hit the grease covered floor. Which you all were standing on.

Even now, your clothes smell faintly of char.

And then, after somehow finishing off your attackers, the four of you have spent the rest of the day entirely lost inside this place.

It’s all very well to know every square inch of the place is trapped and all the doors are locked when you have nothing to disarm or unlock them with. And the one door you did manage to unlock? With the one set of tools you found that didn’t immediately break inside the lock? Led to a room of skeletons that decided being dead was less fun than trying to get you to join their number.

You don’t even know what set them off! Astarion was just leaning against a wall, lost his footing for a moment, and then you were facing a horde of undead!

You all got as far away from that room as you physically could before setting up camp.

At least the room you’ve found is somewhat spacious. Enough that everyone can set up their tents a fair distance from each other and still have room to spare. You’ve circled the perimeter a few times, and found no hidden entrances or enemies that could take you off guard. A few small antechamers, but they only open onto the main room. All is made of that same thick stone keeping you trapped here, so unless an orthon escaped the Hells and is hiding somewhere in the bowels of this place and decides to engage in some recreational wall flattening, you should be able to rest unmolested.

Ha ha. Ha.

By the gods, you wish you were hyperbolizing.

You duck behind a pillar to tug on something a little more comfortable than the leather jerkin you’ve been stuck in for the last forty eight hours.

You’d sworn you’d never forgive Trappola for making you announce yourself as “Saer Daisy Fluffington the Third” at the last inn to receive this pack of supplies. You’d doubled down once you’d seen the “bard appropriate attire” he’d selected.

Right now though, when you’re pulling on a cotton shirt and pants that feel as light and fluffy as clouds compared to your battered armor? Shoes worn to softness that ease the blisters on your feet? Not to mention fresh undergarments?

You wouldn’t be opposed to committing murder if the ginger punk needed you to, is all you’re saying.

You try and give your armor and boots a rudimentary wash with the carafe of water you’ve scavenged. The leather and cloth doesn’t look too much cleaner by the time you’re through, but hopefully it’ll mean some of the smoke smell dissipates once it dries.

You spot Gale standing by the fire. Maybe he knows some of those cantrips that make cleaning easier? Prestidigitation, perhaps? Worst he can say is no, or that he’s all out of energy for the day.

You amble over, mouth opening—

“Go to Hell.”

You stiffen on instinct, your lip curling. “And a good evening to you too.”

Gale lets out a wry laugh.

“Glad to know you’re a good sport.”

You’re really not sure what in your tone communicated that to him, but you’re not going to start a fight after everything you’ve been through today.

He resumes staring at the fire, a solemn set to his brow.

“‘Go to Hell.’ An everyday expression. So trivial it’s almost meaningless. But we’ve been to Hell. It’s real. And it isn’t trivial.”

You say nothing.

“Devils, dragons, mind flayers— they used to be abstracts. Pictures on a piece of paper.” Gale mutters. “What a difference a day makes. Now we have tadpoles slithering through our heads like carnivorous foeti.”

He looks to you, beseeching. “That’s not abstract.”

Perhaps you should take a gentle touch. Be the soothing reassurance he so clearly wants you to be.

But you’re tired and you’re sore and you’d rather say what you’re actually thinking for once before you go mad.

“Abstract or not, by now it’s kind of academic.” You spread your hands wide. “Brooding will get us nowhere. Action will.”

The wizard’s brow furrows, and his head tilts slightly to the right.

“The ballet of flames invites reflection. But, you’re right. Let’s be up with the lark—find a healer before the wee one gets hungry.” He smiles at you.

You nod. “Best plan I’ve heard all day. Good night, Gale.”

He preens slightly at that, preparing to turn away and head to his tent.

“Oh, and Gale?”

“Hm?” He looks back at you.

“Next time, I’d advise against using that line on anyone who lived through the Descent of Elturel.” You lean in, conspiratorial. “Hardly the most pleasant associations.”

The wizard actually blanches, a wave of emotion sweeping across his face.

You give him a tight smile as you turn, making a beeline for the stone door to the antechamber you’d noticed earlier.

A large hand clamps down around your elbow, jerking you to a stop.

“What were you two talking about?” Shadowheart asks, with feigned nonchalance that belies the steel in her grip.

“What do you mean?” You reply.

“You, and Gale.” Her hold tightens as you try to gently pull away. You can feel how much stronger she is than you.

How easily she could wrench your arm from its socket, if she so chose.

“We were just discussing next steps.” Your jaw is clenched as you smile. “It’s important we’re all on the same page, after all.”

“I see.” She tilts her head forward, exhaling slightly through her nose. Then she says, “I’d be careful with Gale. All wizards care about power, and there’s very little they won’t do to get it.”

You can’t help the small snort that escapes you. “I was hardly confiding in him. Besides, he’s as involved in this as we are. No harm in just talking.”

“So am I.” She holds up her free hand, as if to soothe you. “If we’re to survive, we need to trust each other.”

“Really.” You eye her hand on your arm. Pointedly.

“Yes, really.” Shadowheart breezes onward, “You seem reliable. I think you know how important it is that we find someone who can cure us. Best to focus on that.”

“Why, how bizarre!” You exclaim in mock astonishment. “Gale was just saying the exact same thing! It’s almost as though the others in this camp have the same priorities we do.”

She scowls at you, doing that odd little exhale again. “Just—! Mind who you associate with. It may come back to bite you, if you’re careless.”

“Fine. Now, if it pleases you,” You say in your most sickeningly sweet voice. “I’m afraid I must excuse myself to climb inside a tomb, curl into a little ball, and gibber my merry way into madness so that we can set out at first light in a timely manner. If I’ve your permission?”

Shadowheart’s lip curls but she lets your arm go, dismissing you with a toss of her braid as she makes her way back to her tent.

You pull a face at her back, then when you notice Astarion smirking at you, stick your tongue out at him too for good measure.

Finally, you heave open the door to the tiny antechamber you discovered earlier, pulling it shut behind you.

You spare a moment to go around the room, lighting the dust-covered torches.

Then you crouch down in a corner behind a sarcophagus, and try to scream into your hands as quietly as possible.

After a guilty two minutes of indulging in that luxury, you bite your tongue to force yourself silent.

That’s quite enough of that. You won’t get anywhere if you keep just reacting like you have so far, or let yourself get overwhelmed by it all. You need to get your brain to stop panicking and think.

Action over brooding.

It’s the only way you’ll survive.

Okay. So.

1. You have a mind flayer tadpole in your head.

2. You are trapped in a set of dark and musty ruins with three strange adults.

3. All of these adults, over the course of the short time you’ve known them, have shown a remarkable capacity for violence with very little provocation. They’re certainly more capable in combat than you, with your purloined crossbow and flute.

4. These strangers are all also implanted with a mind flayer tadpole, just like you. Though, you will admit, their survival and your own is…odd.

5. All the kidnapped thralls on that ship, many instantly killed in the crash, if not by the creepy little brains on legs after the fact. And yet you and these three adults somehow survive? How? Why you? Why them?

6. One of whom begged you to let her out of her pod, only to grow cold when she realized you weren’t alone. The other two who both admitted they were watching you as you tried to escape. If it’s a coincidence, it’s an odd one. But they all seemed to be as unknown to each other as they are to you. Unless they’re not?

7. They could all be in cahoots! And spies for the Order of the Companion or the Hellriders! You don’t know! You don’t know anything about these people!!

8. You can’t sleep because if you sleep one of them will try to kill you or the others or tie you up and use you in some creepy evil deity summoning ritual or send you back to Avernus again or they’ll turn into a mind flayer and suck out your brain or you’ll turn into a mind flayer and—

9. you can’t breathe

10. You can’t breathe.

11. You’re panicking too much. You can’t breathe. This is all a big fuss over nothing. You can’t breathe. Your thoughts are going into a corkscrew. You can’t breathe, you need to get ahold of yourself, you can’t breathe, you need to do something, you can’t breathe you need help you can’t breathe you need you can’t breathe you need—!

You lurch forward, seizing a discarded piece of masonry and dragging it into your lap.

You try to focus on the cold weight crushing your legs and stomach, try to recapture that distant memory of your heart slowing, of your mind clearing, of feeling safe.

Instead, you just feel like you’re hugging a rock as you struggle for air.

Alone.

You only drop off when your body finally succumbs to exhaustion.

Your sleep is fitful and brief, and you wake in the wee hours of the morning.

In the cold dark before dawn, you feel deep embarrassment at your histrionics last night.

So what if these adults could easily kill you? You used to manage violent thugs just like them on a daily basis. Just because you don’t have the shield of a desk doesn’t mean this has to be any different.

Hells, the fiasco that was the fight yesterday is proof enough none of them knew each other prior to this. So they’re likely to be as confused and panicked as you are. Maybe even more.

You can work with that. The Descent taught you that you excel under pressure, rallying disparate arseholes together around the common cause of ‘not dying horribly’.

And if they really are plotting together to capture you and return you to Elturel…

Well.

You now have an illithid tadpole in your head. You haven’t lived this long without learning how to leverage what little you’re given to your advantage.

First things first, you need to list the facts, set some actionable goals. Properly, this time.

First, escape this ruin. There was a locked door past all the trapped sarcophagi which might be promising if you can get to it. If you can’t disarm the traps, can you get around them somehow?

Second, find a healer/other specialist who can extract this parasite. Your alien warrior was adamant it could be done once you all reached the material plane. It’s up to you now to find out how.

Third, ensure the three violent adults don’t kill you, kill each other, or run off. They may be dangerous, but you’ve a much higher chance of surviving with them than without. Even if that means navigating the volatile group tensions that have already begun to spark.

Fourth, and only to be enacted once you’re all safely cured, is to extract yourself from these weirdos as swiftly as you can with the least amount of bad feeling possible. From there, you can make your way to Baldur’s Gate.

If you can meet up with the group of tiefling refugees you heard about on the way or once you’re in the city, so much the better.

Your original plans aren’t ruined. You’re still going to become a bard. You’re just taking a—a detour, is all. Yes.

You’re doing this.

You’ve got to.

Of course, to that end, you need to make sure they don’t abandon you at the next sign of trouble. Given that they seem to attract fights like vinegar attracts flies, you can admit that a noncombatant who isn’t even a bard yet is more of a hinderance than a help.

So you need to make yourself useful. If not liked, then tolerated. Someone who can give them all what they want most, or at least facilitate matters in their favor. Trade an attentive ear and problem-solving for protection.

Your journal is still in your pack, but you still have half a pot of ink and a quill that’s mostly intact. Once you stop to make camp again, it’ll be easy enough to dedicate three pages to your current companions’ quirks and preferences.

You’re already thinking of semi-discrete titles for each of them as you heave yourself up and stumble over to the door, limbs stiff from a night on the cobbles.

“Wizard of Waterdeep” is nice and alliterative, easy for you to associate with Gale. You deeply appreciate how easy he’s made it for you.

Astarion…hasn’t actually told you what his profession is yet, so until you can ask him and come up with something catchy, “The Pale Elf” will have to do.

Shadowheart…is tricker still. You know she’s a cleric, but you don’t know of what deity, or much else about her. “The Conniving Cleric” is far too heavy-handed. “Lady of Faith”, perhaps? Or maybe—?

“Wha’re you stomping ‘round for?!” Comes the grumpy voice from the tent of the woman in question as you poke your head around the door. “‘S dark. ‘S still night. ‘S sacred. Lemme sleep.”

You sidle out and back over to your pack as quietly as you can while whispering, “Sorry, sorry!”

There’s a grumpy noise and a muttered oath against you that you can only partially make out.

Fuck it.

“Daughter of Darkness” it is.

#baldurs gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate iii #bg3 #tw panic attack #panick attack #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #bg3 gale #shadowheart #bg3 shadowheart #astarion #barely but he’s here #bg3 tav #villainous paranoiac yuu #ace trappola #based on my playthrough #where Gale made everyone fall into the crypt and then I had to long rest there because I got lost and fought too many guys #yuu has a bad time

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britishassistant · 6 months

Text

Gale’s Excellent Adventure

It is just Gale’s luck that the first time he leaves his tower in a year, he is immediately kidnapped by mindflayers.

He opens his eyes to find himself staring at one of the ghastly, squid-like creatures inserting one of its spawn into the pupil of a young tiefling next to him.

It turns back to the pool of liquid which houses its tadpoles—!

And then a thunderous blow rocks the vessel.

The mindflayer looks up in what Gale might suppose passes as panic for these creatures, then drifts out of the room at speed.

It doesn’t return.

Well, Gale reflects with a sense of mild anticlimax. He supposes that this is a net win for him! It’s good that the creatures haven’t had the chance to implant their spawn in him yet. Really, it is.

It just.

Feels a little like he’s been left out, is all.

And then the nautiloid splits apart as it plummets from the sky.

Thank My—the Gods it’s over Faerûn when it does. Even Gale doesn’t fancy his chances in Avernus.

However, in trying to save himself by reawakening an old teleportation point, he does manage to get himself lodged in a waypoint between the Weave and the Material Plane.

A little embarrassing, perhaps, but overall he’s thankful that he has all his faculties about him and his powers at his command to turn to this little inconvenience. Imagine if he’d gotten into this conundrum with a mindflayer tadpole on the brain as well! He can’t imagine that would be in any way conducive to problem solving.

It’s just as well, really. It is.

He’s most of the way to freeing himself when he senses something approach.

And well. He could do it without outside help, but where’s the sense in burning spell spots when some good old fashioned elbow grease can do the trick?

Desperately hoping it’s not another squirrel, Gale sticks his arm out the widening hole and waggles it around. “Hello? A hand, anyone?”

Something slaps it sharply.

This is good! he thinks as he yelps. That felt more like the fingers of a sentient being taking the piss rather than an owlbear about to maul him.

“Perhaps I should have clarified. A helping hand? Please?”

After a few awkward moments of waving his hand around in mid-air, he feels a warm, small pair endowed with sharp, sharp nails (Ow!) catch onto his wrist and start pulling.

He tries to lean into the pull, not entirely sure what else he can do other than shout encouragement as he gradually feels himself slipping back to the Material Plane.

His ejection may not be the most graceful, but at least he doesn’t lose his lunch like a novice.

A young tiefling stares up at him, flanked by a half-elf and a pale elf.

The same young tiefling, he notes, whom he had witnessed being infected with mindflayer spawn back on the nautiloid.

Ah. Well. Hm.

“Erm. Hello!” His mouth babbles without his full consent. “I’m Gale, of Waterdeep. Apologies, I’m usually better at this.”

“At introductions?” The young tiefling replies, one eyebrow raised.

He can’t quite help the sharp, nervous bark of laughter at that. “Sarcasm! Wonderful, wonderful stuff. Erm, no, but ah. Say, you were on the Nautiloid as well, weren’t you? I think I saw you receiving a rather, erm. Unwelcome insertion into the ocular region.”

The young tiefling grimaces slightly, eyes watchful and wary where they peek out from under an overgrown fringe.

“Oh, goody, we’ve found another one.” The pale, foppish elf pipes up. “Do you want to start on embroidering matching doublets or shall I?”

The half-elf in the purple tunic rolls her eyes. “Honestly, I wish we’d left you to the boars.”

The elf leans towards her, fluttering his eyelashes. “And deprive yourself of this face? Darling, you couldn’t.”

“Try me.” The half-elf snorts, before turning her gaze back to Gale. “But, my condolences for your experiences on that ship. I know I hardly found it pleasant.”

“Hm.” The tiefling hums, shifting their weight. Gale abruptly notices that they’re missing the tail usually sported by their kind and then has to make himself stop noticing. Tara will have his hide if he’s rude to the poor soon-to-be-mindflayer.

“While I couldn’t have phrased it any more repellently myself, it’s…good to meet another who’s survived that process.” They say, choosing their words carefully. “I don’t suppose you’ve any special information on what’s happening to us, or how to remove the damn things from our heads?”

Wait.

Hang on.

Do they think that Gale also has…?

Well. It’s understandable really. He was on the mindflayer ship, ergo he should be infected with a mindflayer parasite. A simple assumption. A correct one, had circumstances been a little different.

Gale is suddenly aware that he has two choices before him.

He can admit to the misunderstanding, apologize for it even. Send these lovely, if sadly infected people on their way to quest for a cure. Find the nearest center of civilization and see about preparing the components of a teleportation spell to get back to his tower. Go to his quarters, have a stiff drink or several, and wait for Tara to return with some more magical items to feed the orb while trying not to think about them. Never leave again until something thoroughly mundane and unremarkable bumps him off, leveling the Sword Coast along with his corpse. Perhaps a fish bone in his throat. Or tripping on the stairs.

Or…

Or.

“This insertee, we speak of, this parasite?” Gale says, trying to strike a balance between serious and glib. “Are you aware that after a period of excruciating gestation it will turn us into mindflayers?”

The tiefling snorts. “I am. Though the timing seems subject to debate. I saw a woman transform on the ship within seconds. That’s not normal, is it?”

Gale blinks, feeling his throat dry. Seconds? That’s…

“No, it most decidedly is not. Ceremorphosis usually takes place over seven days, altering the victim’s body to suit its new host. Hopefully that…anomaly was just a byproduct of proximity to the nautiloid and its nurseries, though that‘s hardly been documented in any studies on the subject…could it be that the creatures have…?”

“Quite.” The pale elf interrupts, “But what would you prescribe for dealing with our new guests?”

Gale shrugs. “You don’t happen to be cleric by any chance, do you? A doctor? Surgeon? Uncannily adroit with a knitting needle?”

The elf lets out a sultry titter of a laugh. “Only in matters of the heart, darling. I’m afraid I’m rather hopeless at all else.”

“And you seem to know enough about our condition to realize it is beyond most clerics’ skills.” The half-elf says sternly.

Gale gives his most charming smile. “Most, no doubt. But I find myself hoping that I may be in the presence of the few. You don’t happen to be one of them?”

The half-elf’s lips twist, and she shakes her head. When he looks to the young tiefling (they can’t be more than seventeen, poor thing), they shrug.

“Hardly. I was going to ask you the same question.”

“We’re most certainly going to need a skilled healer,” Gale lies. “And soon too. How about we lend each other a helping hand once more, and look for a healer together?”

The three of them share a wary glance.

Gale tries not to look too hopeful.

He does feel a bit of a scoundrel, lying to obviously sick people like this. It’s just—! He’s an archmage, one of Mystra’s former chosen. Surely if anyone can help these poor people find the aid they need, it’ll be him? If nothing else, he can provide knowledge, protection in battle, moral support? Maybe even study their condition a bit, see if there’s any truth to what the tiefling said about that instantaneous transformation. For three mindflayer infectees, they all look and sound remarkably lucid, nary a damp brow or the haze of fever among them. And—

And, damn it all, but Gale’s been miserable up in his tower. Not that Tara isn’t fine company, but Mystra was his entire world. And with her gone, he’s felt. Lost. Purposeless. And that’s even without the orb burning within him. This, this is the chance to get away from all that. To have a real adventure, a proper one. Something to take his mind off things.

And he likes these people. He’s known them less than fifteen minutes, and maybe it’s the loneliness of a full year with only a tressym talking, but Gale feels as though he could bond with these folk, given half the chance. The pale elf is charmingly witty, the half-elf seems rather sweet beneath her cold exterior, and the tiefling rather puts him in mind of Tara when she was younger. He wants to get to know them all. He thinks he’d like to be their friend.

The tiefling lets out a small sigh, drawing him back to the present.

“Sounds like a plan. You’re welcome to join us, if you wish.”

“Most excellent!” Gale has to clear his throat slightly at the force of his excitement. “A parasite shared is a parasite halved. Or something to that effect.”

The tiefling raises an eyebrow at him, while the elf quirks a sardonic grin.

Gale feels his smile waver slightly before he rallies. “Oh! But before you think you’re about to embark on a journey with most ill-mannered a man: thank you, for pulling me out of that stone. It was an act of foresighted kindness, I assure you, for I have the feeling ample opportunities will present themselves for me to return the favor.”

“I’ll hold you to it,” The tiefling says, a small smile finally gracing their face. “I’m Yuu, of Elturel.”

At his blink, the pale elf exhales a laugh. “I know, I know, I had the exact same reaction darling. Strange names people give themselves around those parts, though of course it’s hardly a patch on Shadowheart.”

“Astarion.” The half-elf, presumably Shadowheart grits out.

“Alright, that’s enough.” Yuu claps their hands. “Tadpoles out first, then we can have all the debates about names we want. Let’s move.”

“But darling, even you must admit…!”

Gale grins as he follows, and tries not to feel too guilty.

#baldurs gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 au #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #astarion #shadowheart #bg3 tav #bg3 oc #yuu #villainous paranoiac yuu #tiefling bard #Gale is Uninfected AU #Gale lies for fun and profit

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britishassistant · 4 months

Note

Do you think Villianous Paranoiac Yuu would be more an anti-hero or anti-villian? Because while they claim to be a villain, Their end goals end up mostly being good deeds.

I do think Villainous Paranoiac Yuu would actually be much more on the hero spectrum than on the villain!

But I also firmly believe that if you ever actually told them that, they would throw the biggest hissy fit.

Because no!! They’re villainous!!! They’re evil!!!! They’re the most vicious, conniving bastard this side of the mirror!!!! So what if they keep the monster cat they were perpetually annoyed by around and look after him?! They have to!!! They’ll lose what little standing they have this side of the mirror as a “two in one student” otherwise!! So what if they put up with the braincell duo and all the other assholes who insist on hanging out with them they’ve accumulated while solving overblots?! They’re evil, not bad at networking!! So what if they work hard to stop the overblots themselves?!! It’s a matter of life and death for them, plus they’re being the villain by crushing those guys’ dreams!!!

They have to be evil!! They have to be villainous!!! They have to be the source of all the problems of those around them!!!!

(Because if they’re not, why did they spend so much time growing up learning that they were?)

#twisted wonderland #twst #supervillain au #twst yuu #twisted wonderland yuu #villainous paranoiac yuu #this is why its v fun to set them against #bg3 #because they think they’re SO big and bad #the scribe of Night Raven #the bastard of the Gracey #but then someone like Zevlor says ‘murder Kagha’#and all of a sudden they’re like ‘hold up what’#auntie ethel wants a baby and suddenly they find they’re not okay with that!!#its NONE of their business and Mayrina wants them to butt out but they have decided it is more villainous to kill the hag anyway!!

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britishassistant · 3 months

Text

It’s dark and dank down in the hag’s lair.

The infernal engine cuts through some of it, but it’s still enough to niggle at Karlach, feeding into her rage alongside the righteous fury of seeing this scared young mum cower while the hag wears her face and the ire of “we have had to run through an ABSOLUTE SHITHOLE to get here, and the bitch is still not dead?!”

She can see Wyll hanging back by Mayrina, eldritch blast crackling in one hand with his rapier at the ready in the other. Gale has magic missile humming at his fingertips, mage armor humming around him. Yuu is drawing the hag’s attention away from her, mockery as vicious as the spear they’re still getting the hang of.

The hag screeches as Karlach’s axe cleaves into her fleeing back, vanishing in a puff of rancid smoke.

But when the three dopplegangers reappear, something’s different. They’re all chanting, a language that Karlach doesn’t know but sets her teeth on edge the same way a devil or demon around does.

Gale yells something, but it’s drowned out by the chanting reaching a crescendo, the hags all shrieking in unison before the illusions burst.

The next thing Karlach knows, Yuu has vanished from her periphery, and the hag is cooing at something in her grasp.

“Well, aren’t you just the sweetest little morsel, petal?” Floats over to where Karlach is, the saccharine sweet poison in the words somehow piercing the too-hot rush of her fury. “Now, hold still for Auntie…”

There’s a frightened child’s scream.

Karlach’s already hazy vision goes red.

Next thing she knows, she’s staring down at a pulped mess where the hag used to be, her rage broken by exhaustion more than anything else.

When she twists around, she sees Wyll curled around a small child, the pair of them staring up at her.

The only ways she can tell they’re a tiefling is the bruise pink face peeking out from under a wimple pulled too tight against their little head and horns. Gloves cover their hands, not even their feet peep out from under the hem of their long, undyed dress.

Looking at the kid, Karlach gets the weirdest sense that someone has tried really, really hard to make them as unlike themself as possible. Something in her gut squirms.

This teeny tiny version of their leader gazes up at her, mouth hanging open. Excitement, of all things, dancing in their eyes.

“Are you my Mummy?!” They ask.

“Uh.” Karlach says blankly.

Wyll’s lips are pressed together as he wheezes on an exhale.

Behind her, Gale begins coughing as though he’s choked on his own spit.

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #bg3 tav #karlach cliffgate #karlach #wyll ravengard #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #villainous paranoiac yuu #yuu #auntie ethel #de aging #because baby yuu imprinting on karlach would not leave me alone #Ethel is fey and so probably has access to spells like this #ur enemy too strong? de age them and eat them baby!#strong new hag guaranteed!

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britishassistant · 2 months

Text

The Letter Kills (Unless We Do First)

Astarion wakes to warmth and brightness for the first time in centuries.

The syrup slow lassitude of waking with the sun on his face transitions unkindly to panic once he remembers why he has not felt this sensation in so long.

He flinches, trying to find shadows, find cover, but.

But he isn’t burning.

But the sun feels as gentle as an unwary lover’s caress.

But he cannot feel his master.

The laugh that escapes him is a hideous combination of a cackle and a whoop. Something vicious and victorious that his master would never have allowed.

But Cazador isn’t here, he thinks gleefully. He has no way to tell Astarion what’s not allowed. No way to punish him for doing what he shouldn’t.

No way to ever make him go back.

As if on cue to dampen this marvelous revelation, there is a disgusting sensation of squirming along his optic nerve.

He shudders, resisting the growing urge to claw wildly at his face.

Ah. Right. That.

A twinge in his stomach reminds him that there is also the not inconsiderable matter of finding something to eat.

Well. One of these he can remedy much more easily than the other.

Astarion sets off down the beach, more than ready to select his first meal to celebrate freedom…

Only to hide behind a large rock when he spots the cleric he declined to save aboard the Nautiloid hammering on an ancient wood door.

She’s certainly looking no worse for wear despite being left for dead! …Though the way she’s just snapped that lockpick clean in two and thrown it to the floor to stomp on what remains of the poor tool suggests she may be feeling slightly frustrated.

He watches as the cleric points a finger at the glinting metal, and it bursts into too bright flames.

…He has decided to find another route inland.

One that steers clear of the young woman with lingering anger issues.

But it’s hardly his fault, he declares in the privacy of his own mind as he sneaks past several more of those brains on legs. There simply wasn’t time to begin picking through every last room to save stragglers, not when the ship could have gone down and killed them all anyway.

Besides, it won him points with that warrior to follow her orders and press ahead and given she was his only source of protection, who was he to jeopardize that?

Although, he considers as he emerges on the other side of the wreckage into fresh air, she’s nowhere to be found. Escaped, dead, who’s to say? Though it is a shame to lose such a convenient defender—if he’d fluttered his eyelashes, he could have had a convenient shield against Cazador for however long her interest held.

There’s another one of those pods further down the path, and a set of booted footprints making sticky pink tracks away from it.

Astarion smiles to himself. Perhaps his luck hasn’t run totally dry yet.

He straightens out of a crouch, makes sure gravel crunches slightly under his feet as he walks. This is one introduction where it may be better to announce his presence first.

Not that the pod’s occupant seems to be at all aware of the courtesy he’s extending for them.

The slight figure seems entirely absorbed in trying to scan the horizon from their position perched on a tree’s roots near the edge of a cliff, muttering something indistinct.

From behind, he spots the tips of a pair of horns jutting upwards. A tiefling then. But one without the tail that usually curls from their backsides.

Well, he can work with that. Astarion’s a dab hand at cooing over scars while reassuring their bearers that it doesn’t change how he thinks of them, not one bit. And in all honesty, it didn’t.

Not when they were going to be meals for Cazador by the end of the night regardless.

He begins picking his way through the undergrowth, putting on his most guileless expression. “Oh thank heavens—you are another survivor of the crash, aren’t you?”

The first thought he has on the tiefling whirling around to face him is that they’re young. A teenager, at most.

It’s the only way to explain those genuinely atrocious fashion choices.

The, to be charitable, mop of dark hair that hides most of their face is heavily contrasted against the jester-like costume they wear, ruff and brown patterned doublet and bright blue striped sleeves. He half expects to see small golden bells attached to the toes of their boots.

The only credit he can give them is the bright blue sleeves set off the bruise pink of their skin nicely.

And they’re holding a lyre! He’s traded a trained warrior for a wandering minstrel. And a poorly dressed one at that.

How splendid.

Their mouth twists into something wary, a hint of pomposity in the jaw that reminds him of the noble he’d tempted back to Cazador, gods, was it only yesterday?

“Who wants to know?”

He holds up his hands, the picture of innocence. “I swear I mean no harm—I was held captive on that ship, just like you.”

“…Except, that’s not quite true.” The teenager says, considering. “After all, I was kept locked in that pod for the entirety of that ill-fated flight, while you…I saw you. Running about the ship, unmonitored and unhindered.”

They tilt their head, corvid-like. Their eyes burn uncanny blue against black. “Odd, to say the least. Where’s your frie—nnghk?!”

There is a vicious twisting inside his skull, sharp and stabbing and—

Your hand aches with how tightly you grip the quill while the mercenary screams at you, sword a hairsbreadth from your face. Others leer at you over her shoulders, hunger in their eyes.

Your expression is placid. Your words are your only defense, so weild them. You will not show weakness. You will not die here. You refuse—!

He returns to himself with an throughly unpleasant jolt.

The teenager is slumped against the tree, one hand to their head. “What, what was…?”

“It’s the tadpoles.” He explains. “On the ship, when I was freed by that, that kind warrior, it happened with her too. I’ve been looking for her since I woke up among the wreckage, but you’re the first person I’ve come across.”

He can see their guard lowering, so he moves in closer, softens his tone. “I’ll be the first to admit I’ve no idea how we can get these parasites under control, let alone rid ourselves of them. But I suspect we’ll have far better chances finding answers together than either of us would apart. And I’ll admit, travelling in the company of someone like yourself…well. It certainly couldn’t be unpleasant.”

He gives them his coy grin, the one charming enough to inspire confidence in even the most curmudgeonly morsel.

He never had to consider the difference between sunlight and candlelight when employing it before.

The eerie blue eyes widen.

The tiefling immediately shifts back and away, holding up the lyre like they intend to hit him with it.

“How—What in the hells are you?!” They hiss. “What, is Szarr employing dhampir now?!”

If the blood still flowed in his veins, he would swear it would freeze at those words.

“How do you know that name.” His voice is slow, deliberate.

A counterpoint to his mind whirling, trying to figure out how quickly he can kill this tiefling or if it would be best to just run.

They scoff, lyre at the ready. “Oh don’t give me that. I had to get kidnapped by mind flayers to escape the last one he set to take me! You’d think a, a vampire would have better things to do than hunt down a scribe over some letters!”

It feels like time ought to grind to a halt. Birdsong stop, the wind fall dead, flames on the Nautiloid pause, that sort of thing.

In reality, all of these continue as usual even as two pieces click into place in his head.

“…Letters.” He says, his own voice sounding distant. “The ones with the wax raven seal? Holding keys in its talons?”

“…Yes?” The teenager actually lowers the instrument. “Wait, how do you know what it looks li—?”

Astarion punches them in the face.

They cry out, holding their cheek for a moment of glorious stupefaction.

Then, with a demonic howl, they lunge for his hair and yank.

What follows is an admittedly pathetic brawl, the pair of them tumbling to the ground in a flurry of wild, often severely mistimed blows. He tries to bite them, only for his fangs to snag on the folds of that stupid starched ruff around their throat. He then yells in outrage when their teeth close over his hand. A swift knee between their legs takes care of that issue, but it does mean he’s unprepared for the elbow to his nose.

He’s not sure how many minutes the two of them scuffle like that before they somehow roll apart, groaning and muffling curses.

He can smell where the blood has burst their veins under their skin. He is aching in ways that for the first time in centuries don’t come from lovemaking or torture.

He is resolutely ignoring the side of him that’s oddly satisfied.

“What,” The tiefling pants. “the fuck is wrong with you?!”

“Do you know,” He grits out. “What he would do to us, every, single, time, he got one of those fucking letters?!”

“No!” The teenager has the gall to sit up and glare at him. “Surprisingly enough, I have no gods-be-damned idea what you’re talking about, given that you forwent the convenient explanation and just hit me!”

Astarion leans forward, “Well, my darling, those letters made my all powerful vampiric master very cross whenever they darkened his desk these past four years. So cross in fact, he would forgo having me or the other spawn in his thrall go out to bring him meals. All the rage your letters inflicted on him, he would take out on us in ways you couldn’t even dream of.”

They’re looking discomforted.

Good.

“Have you ever been flensed? Slowly, mind you. Peeling off only the most delicate pieces of your flesh one. By. One. That was what he would do once the worst of his black mood had passed, and we would weep with the relief it gave us. Can you imagine what must have come before that? The kinds of unique torment I had to endure? And all because of those damned letters which you authored—!”

“I didn’t.” They interrupt.

He can’t help the hysterically angry laugh that escapes him. “I’m sorry, you just admitted that you—!”

“—No, I wrote them.” They claim with an odd amount of vehemence. “It was my employer who authored every last belittlement and affront and humiliation in those letters, and then read them over to ensure I’d transcribed his dictation correctly. Who’d cut what little I earned or make me work through the night if I ever tried to soften any blows, and who’d have me write out the whole thing again and again and again until he was bloody satisfied!”

Their laugh is almost as bitter as his own as they reminisce. “Oh, but he’d never fire me. No, he’s far too gracious a man for that. He’d just let the vampire patriar he pissed off hunt me down instead.”

Astarion blinks, frowning hard.

“That’s all very well, but it hardly makes much difference to me, does it?” He snaps. “Cazador still took it out on me and my ‘brothers and sisters’, regardless of who created them. And he’ll be trying to hunt me down with far more resources than he’d ever expend on you, so.”

They’re quiet for several moments.

Astarion almost wants to throw a fistful of soil at them, punch them again, just so they fucking say something.

“I am sorry.” They state. “That I couldn’t do anything. But I think that you did—you do have the right of it.”

“Oh?” He inserts as much mockery as he feels they deserve into the word. “I usually do darling, but you’ll have to be more specific than that.”

“If I tried to turn you over to him, I’d be dead before I open my mouth, if I’m very, very lucky.” Their creepy eyes meet his as they bluntly continue. “If you tried to turn me over to him, it sounds like what he’d do to you in return’s be worse than death.”

He chuckles without humor. “Such a very tame way of putting it.”

“As far as I see it, we both share two goals. One,” A clawed finger goes up. “To negate these tadpoles by any means we can find before they eat us. Two,” A second joins the first. “To evade Cazador Szarr until he loses interest or we come by a means of permanently destroying him.”

Oh.

Now he’s interested.

“And I understand if you’d rather slit my throat than work with me,” The teenager says stiffly. “But I’d bet that alone we each last three days before we’re captured, and that’s if Tymora decides to weight the dice in our favor. The only way either of us are making it though this is together. After all, you’ve had to endure Szarr’s company for however long and I’ve worked for a guild that specializes in doing things that are morally grey at best. Together, we—“

There’s the crunching of gravel.

Astarion is up in a moment, hand of the hilt of his dagger. Next to him the tiefling stands, brandishing their retrieved lyre like it’s going to do anything.

He gives them an incredulous side eye.

They stick their tongue out at him.

“Is everything alright? I thought I heard…?” The cleric Astarion had been hoping to avoid crests the hill.

Her face falls into a glower. “Oh. It’s you.”

He forces his face into a relieved beam. “You’re—you’re alive! Oh thank all the gods above and below, I was so worried—!”

“Oh please,” She scoffs. “Don’t strain yourself. You left me to die up there quite happily with your little gith—augh!“

That horrendous squirming against the inside of his skull is as unwelcome as it is familiar.

Anger, beginning to simmer like bile in the pit of her stomach.

Bitterness, at herself, at that useless fop of an elf, but most of all at that damned toady gith bitch who is the entire reason she was left behind, to die alone and far from her Lady’s embrace, just like the rest of—!

The jerk as the connection is severed is considerably more painful than the previous two instances.

Well, he thinks as he shakes off the afterimages. It seems that little miss cleric here has some secrets in that head of hers she doesn’t want anyone seeing.

Now, how to—?

“It seems I must apologize for my older brother here.” Comes the voice of the tiefling at his side. “I wish I could say he’s usually better company, but that would be lying.”

what.

No, seriously.

What??

The cleric stares between the two of them, suspicion clear on her face. “Brother? But…you’re…?”

The teenager shrugs, slinging the lyre over their shoulder. “Mother dearest decided a deal with a devil was the best way to stave off crow’s feet. Of course, the jig was up when my horns started growing in. Father was furious, divorced her straight away, sent she and I back to her family in Elturel to avoid the scandal.”

There’s a nudge in his mind. A voice murmurs quietly. “Play along.”

He fakes a laugh so he can take a moment to goggle at the audacity of this child.

“I hardly think this poor woman needs to hear all of our sordid family history…”

Fuck. He doesn’t know their name. How is he meant to sell this if he doesn’t know their name. Fuck!

“For the last time, Brother, it’s Yuu now.” The tiefling groans, rolling their eyes. They mutter conspiratorially to the cleric. “It’s been a month, and he still hasn’t got it quite right yet.”

“Hah! As if you weren’t switching it every three days or so, saying ‘oh Brother Astarion, I can’t decide!’ in every letter.” He extemporizes, offense only partly feigned. “I’m not a mind reader, Yuu dear. I need to be kept abreast of changes to be aware of them.”

“Wh—I do not sound like that!” They squawk in affected outrage. “There! Do you see what I have to put up with?!”

To his surprise, the cleric’s mouth quirks into a smirk. “Hm. My condolence on your relations then.”

The tiefling huffs slightly, scuffing the dirt with their boot. “Well. He can be irritating, but he’s not entirely awful. I suppose.”

It’s his turn to roll his eyes. “Such high praise, how will I ever contain myself? See if I come after you next time you get kidnapped.”

“Well I—“

“As charming as this is.” The cleric cuts in. “We only have a limited period to deal with these parasites before they turn us into mind flayers. It would be better not to waste it bickering, wouldn’t you agree?”

Astarion takes it as his cue to duck his head sheepishly. “Of course—you are quite right.”

“Would it be alright if we travelled with you, lady?” The tiefling suggests. “It seems you’re more knowledgeable about this than we, and it might be easier to look for a healer if we’re able to support one another.”

The cleric frowns, but less severely than Astarion would have suspected. Considering, rather than an outright rejection.

He decides to try weighting the scales a bit.

“If it makes any difference at all, I would like you to know how deeply sorry I am.” He hangs his head as if in contrition, looking up at her through his lashes. “I was fixated on finding my fool of a sibling here, but that was hardly an excuse to ignore your suffering. I would dearly appreciate the chance to make up this wrong to you, in any way I can.”

Her breath catches. A slight flush rises to the cleric’s cheeks.

He knows he has her, even before she brusquely says. “Well, it’s only practical. We should get moving inland before nightfall. Work out where we are and if there are healers nearby, at the least.”

“Fantastic!” The teenager declares. “We’ll be in your care, miss…?”

“Shadowheart.”

It takes everything in Astarion’s power to not undo all his hard work by laughing at the name.

The cleric turns and begins walking at a brisk pace.

As the two of them follow, the tailless tiefling whispers, “A cleric will be good to have if we get the chance to kill Szarr, no?”

Astarion feels a smirk curling his lips, cruel and exhilarating.

“For once, my dear, we are perfectly in agreement.”

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 #bg3 au #au #baldurs gate astarion #astarion ancunin #astarion #shadowheart #bg3 shadowheart #bg3 tav #yuu #villainous paranoiac yuu #fake sibling relationship #astarion punches a teenager #Shadowheart is not immune to the rizz

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britishassistant · 1 month

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The Villainous Paranoiac Sues For Character Defamation (1.5)

“Nii-san?!”

The lump in Idia Shroud’s bed lets out a pitiful groan.

“Nii-san, are you alright?! Are you hungry?! Sick?!” Ortho demands. “Hold on, I’ll do a scan to see what’s wrong!”

A pale, long fingered hand emerges from beneath the covers. It points languidly.

“…sekai…”

“Eh?” The android crowds closer to the bed. “What is it Nii-san? Your computer? Did something bad happen in one of your games? To Precipice Morai? Did an anime get cancelled?”

“…Isekai…”

“Isekai?” The android asks, confused. “Nii-san, what—?”

“I CAN’T ACCEPT THAT A REAL LIFE ISEKAI WOULD COME FROM SUCH A LAME LIGHT NOVEL!!”

It’s with this impassioned cry that Idia Shroud throws off his duvet, hair flaring wildly.

“After all, there are so many worlds that would be so much more likely to be real?! A tech punk world like LoPri just violates several laws of physics, not to mention thaumaturgy?? Plus the characters are so bland and uninspiring, how is it meant to enrich the blackened hearts of this Wonderland if they’re real?! At least if they were from Hyrule or Laputa or Exandria, they could teach us valuable life lessons that would lead to world improvement!”

His fist hits the mattress. “But no! And on top of that, this happens at the same time as they’re leaking that a LoPri movie is in the works?! That’s so cheap!! It’s like an awful marketing tactic that takes your cherished childhood hopes and dreams and crushes them for a few wads of madol!! I can’t believe—”

“Nii-san, wait!” Ortho begs. “What do you mean, there’s been a real life isekai? The sensors you installed should have noticed a large amount of energy coming from something like a world-crossing event.”

Idia jabs an accusatory finger at his computer screen, where the illustration and photo are posed side by side. “Apparently, not if they hijack Night Raven’s carriages to get here!”

Ortho’s optic sensors dilate and contract as his facial recognition software runs.

“…It’s a match.” He says. “Barring the 4% deviations from differing mediums, this person looks almost exactly like the illustrations from Lost Princess. And the Dark Mirror reported they’re entirely magicless…”

Idia jumps when the facsimile of his younger brother appears in his space. “Nii-san, what should we do?! If she really is from this other world, she’s a criminal, isn’t she? Should STYX take her into preventative custody??”

“Eh—Calm down, Ortho.” The elder Shroud says sternly, as if he hadn’t been in near hysterics only a moment ago. “It’s illegal to lock people up if they haven’t done anything wrong yet.”

“But Nii-san—!”

“Besides, as a bad guy she’s like, seriously wimpy.” It takes a moment or two of flailing in the bedclothes before Idia’s phone is retrieved. “See? According to the wiki, even the worst stuff she does is thanks to abusing her rich family’s power and money. Without that, she’s as pathetic as some hero who’s had all his strength sucked out. Even more harmless than a level one slime.”

Ortho’s synthetic brow furrows. “I guess…”

“Heh. Some of those LoPri simps online might even say that this is divine retribution. Getting banished to a world where she’s worth less than nothing.” Idia slumps, flicking through his apps idly. “Ah, the fates are cruel. Why’d I have to be inflicted with this?”

“I will monitor the villainess, Nii-san.” Ortho announces. “If she attempts to partake in any criminal behavior, it will be reported to the authorities, so Nii-san’s daily school life may continue unimpeded.”

“Eh? Well, uh.” Idia’s attention fights with the gacha he’s just opened, but ultimately surrenders to the colorful world within. “Only if it’s a low priority thing, okay?”

“Roger!”

#twisted wonderland #twst #idia shroud #twisted wonderland idia #twst idia #ortho shroud #twst ortho #twisted wonderland ortho #twst yuu #villainous paranoiac yuu #suing for character defamation #isekai #reverse isekai #kind of?

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britishassistant · 5 months

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Gale’s Excellent Adventure (2)

Gale thinks that things are going well so far!

They’ve met and recruited a githyanki warrior—the first Gale’s ever seen outside of illuminations in scholarly texts!—and a rather dashing warlock who answers to the moniker “The Blade of the Frontiers”.

The fellow was hunting a war-devil, who turned out to be an unaccountably lovely tiefling with an infernal engine in her chest as well as a mindflayer tadpole on the brain.

He is looking forward to learning more about this exotic trio over the course of their travels together. And he’s learned so much more about his current companions too!

He now knows that Shadowheart is a cleric of a deity she will not name, but one that prizes secrecy and an intimate knowledge of torture and interrogation tactics among its followers.

(He’s relatively certain it’s not Mystra. Relatively. Almost probably.)

That Astarion channels the innate cruelty and ruthlessness of his profession into being very skilled at stabbing people in the vitals and relieving them of any valuables they possessed.

(Also he contains a puckish glee for “odd” names. He was in stitches over “Wyll-with-a-Y” for hours.)

That Yuu has yet to receive any formal training as a bard or a combatant, but improvises with what few cantrips they do know to devastating effect.

(They’re trading him magical items for lessons on the Weave. Gale’s surprised at how he enjoys it.)

There’s been a few…fractious moments between certain individuals who shall remain nameless, but he’s certain everyone will be fast friends soon enough! They’re all in this together, bonded over getting rid of the mindflayer tadpoles.

And best of all, no one’s noticed a thing.

He’s been patient, and observant, and has learned enough by now to mimic the spasms the others get when their tadpoles are…tadpoling. Their mental communications are harder to fake, but nothing a sneaky “detect thoughts” can’t fix.

Yes, he’s blended in splendidly, if he does say so himself.

***

“Gale? Can I have a word?”

“Hm?” He looks round, drawn out of his musings by one of his new friends. “Ah, Shadowheart! How can I be of help?”

She glances around, taking in Karlach debating with Lae’zel, Astarion needling Yuu while they’re trying to hold a conversation with Wyll.

“It’s a bit of a…personal matter.” She leans in. “Would you mind if we took this somewhere more private?”

Oh. Oh!

Well, this is a little awkward. Gale knows he’s handsome man and a capable wizard. It’s only natural that, in such close proximity for so long, someone would fall in love with him sooner or later.

Still, he reflects as they arrive in the ruins behind the camp. His dedicated monogamy to Mystra does mean that he has little to no idea how to let someone down gently or ask if he can get to know them a little better first before committing fully. She certainly provided no example—swept in with power and a whirlwind romance only to just vanish into the night and never respond to his sendings or prayers. Oh hells, how is he going to—

“I know you don’t have a tadpole, Gale.” Shadowheart announces gravely.

Gale promptly chokes on his own spit.

“Wh-wh-what?!” He splutters. “What are you—how—that’s—!”

“Really?” She tilts her head at him, a cross between sardonic and pitying. “That’s all it takes for you to break? Gale, I made one statement. Do I need to teach you how to lie so the others don’t unmask you so easily?”

“I don’t know what—?” He tries to lie, but she folds her arms, stare growing even more unimpressed. “Alright, alright, but not so loud! How in Mystra’s name did you find out?”

“It really wasn’t that difficult.” She shrugs.

He lets out a little snort, kicking a twig. “Spare my feelings, why don’t you.”

Shadowheart sighs, taking pity on his pouting. “Fine. It started in the Druid sanctum. When we happened upon the druidess menacing the tiefling child, the rest of us were treated to a…rather unpleasant vision. Involving a much smaller Yuu, an elven beauty, and attempted horn removal.”

He feels as though he cricks something in his neck, whipping around to face her. “I’m sorry, there was what?”

“It doesn’t matter,” She dismisses, far too casually in his humble opinion. “What matters is that, given that Astarion and myself were both effectively deaf, dumb, and blind thanks to the tadpoles forcing us to view that charming little scene, how were you able to remain aware enough to keep Yuu from impulsively murdering that druid?”

He thinks of how he’d had to lunge when he noticed the tailless tiefling tugging free the spear they’d scavenged, the way the teenager had turned to him with glassy-eyed incomprehension before they shuddered back into themselves as if shaking off lingering night terrors.

“The pieces fell into place from there easily enough.” Shadowheart continues, meandering as she talks. “You react a moment too late if something the tadpoles do affects us physically. And you respond like a normal person ought to when confronted with other instances of the parasite that we’ve come across.”

“I see.” Gale mutters. Then, fiddling at his sleeves slightly. “A normal person, as opposed to…?”

Shadowheart’s face creases into a disgusted grimace. “An abiding compulsion from our guests to find more of the little monsters and slurp them down as if they’re a bowl of your fine stew.”

“Ah. Urgh.” Gale can’t keep his own nose from wrinkling.

The two of them marinate in companionably disgusted silence for a few moments.

“…And now?” Gale asks, unable to bear the silence any longer. “Is this where you announce to hither, thither and yon that I’m a fraud? Or did you have some personal retribution planned for my disseminations before proceeding with my banishment?”

A soft, sweet smile curves Shadowheart’s lips. Even with the mischievous twinkle in her eyes, it’s one of Gale’s favorite expressions of hers.

“Well, I wouldn’t say we need to go as far as all that. You’ve been a fine companion, Gale, even without the tadpole. I feel the tenor of this group would drop dramatically if you left us. The quality of our meals certainly would.”

A single ember of hope sparks into a quivering flame in his chest. “So then—!”

“But,” She holds up a finger to interrupt him. “I will require something in return. A guarantee, of sorts. I’m hardly Lady Popularity, after all, and if the others discover I’ve been lying for you then things could get quite sticky for me, you understand?”

He dithers for a moment, before letting himself nod. “Anything. I’ll do anything—ah, short of harming or endangering our fellow companions. Or myself. Or you.”

She tosses him a sardonic look. “Gale, would I ever?”

He elects not to answer that.

“I need you to keep an eye out for something.” Shadowheart says. “It’s a…keepsake of mine. I had it with me on the Nautiloid, but when I woke up afterwards, it was gone.”

“Oh. Oh dear.” Gale frowns, considering. “Well, I’m happy to aid however I can. What does it look like?”

She kneels down and, picking up a twig, sketches a vague dodecahedron with strange, angular characters decorating its surface. “It’s a little smaller than a fist, and black with orange markings. It is vital I get it back, it—! It means a lot to someone very important to me. Someone I’d hoped to reunite with in Baldur’s Gate.”

And call him a soft touch, but Gale’s always been partial to grand romantic gestures of devotion. “Alright. I’ll keep a keen eye out for it, don’t you worry. Might even dust off some of the old divination textbooks to see if scrying would be of any use!”

“Thank you, Gale.” Shadowheart smiles, verdant eyes sparkling with warmth like sunlight dappled through tree leaves. “You’re an excellent friend.”

It may be a little embarrassing, but that praise warms the cockles of Gale’s heart for the rest of the evening and well past noon the next day.

That warmth quickly goes tepid when it turns out the keepsake is in the custody of their intrepid leader, so revealed when the teenager pulls it out, bold as brass, to ask him if he can identify whether or not it is some form of communication device.

They at least heed his urging to return it to Shadowheart, even if they grumble slightly about the spies for the Order of the Companion as they do so. Shadowheart is rightfully indignant, but willing to forgive. His secret is safe. Gale is content that all is right with the world.

Which is when they all discover that Yuu literally, physically cannot give up the artefact.

***

“Wizard.”

“Gah!” He can’t help jumping.

“Ah, Lae, Lae’zel! You startled me. Can I help with anything?”

She scowls at him. Or possibly just looks at him neutrally. Perhaps even favorably! He’s never quite been able to tell.

Being too intimidated to maintain eye contact may have something to do with it.

“Follow me.” Lae’zel orders.

As with most of her orders, Gale obeys mostly without question.

Mostly.

“Rather, rather unusual for you to summon me, isn’t it? Not that I don’t enjoy conversing with you, far from it! I’ve always found it highly, ah, enlightening to learn more about githyanki philosophy and custom, particularly in matters of—!”

He finds himself transfixed by a pair of golden eyes staring into his soul and by a finger pressing to his lips.

“Cease this prattle.” She snaps. “You are no yank begging for mercy from a varsh. I have matters of import to discuss, so be silent and listen.”

Despite his usual difficulties with the task, Gale finds himself shrinking mutely back into the tree she has him effectively pinioned against.

A gleam of approval enters her gaze.

He chooses to interpret the removal of her finger as a proverbial carrot to incentivize his behavior.

“I know of your deception, wizard.” Lae’zel pronounces. “That you merely pretend to be afflicted with the parasite the rest of us suffer.”

His blood turns to ice.

“Ha. Hahaha!” He laughs, nonchalantly, like Shadowheart’s taught him. “That is. That is a. Funny joke, Lae’zel! Truly, you are the comedic backbone of this camp!”

Her expression does not change.

Gale tries desperately to concentrate on maintaining the illusion of mirth.

He fails.

“What gave it away?” He asks wearily, recognizing a thorough routing when he sees it.

“It was simple for one such as I.” She declares. “Of all who fell sweating and diminished under the tadpole’s machinations, you alone were flush with health. The gi even used this a proof to keep me from purging the camp.”

“Gi?”

Lae’zel rolls her eyes. “Gi, student in Common. The tailless one requested my instruction in combat, so they would not perish as they almost did aboard the Nautiloid. But that is irrelevant to the matter at hand. Which is that the next morn, you again were the sole member of this sorry band who did not immediately come forward with talk of a figure in golden armor in your dreams, telling us to utilize the tadpole.”

“Ah.” Gale had personally thought his improvisation when Yuu had consulted him, cobbled together from elements he’d overheard from the others, had been rather inspired all things considered. “Might there be anything I could do to convince you to not evict me from camp?”

Lae’zel crosses her arms. “And risk losing what is a blessing from Vlaa’kith herself? Do not be foolish!”

“Erm?” Says Gale.

“I would make you my ally, wizard.” She announces. “As the only one free of ghaik infection, you alone are free of their trickery and deceptions. You alone see things as they truly are, instead of what the parasite would have us believe them be.”

He considers this with a sense that is not quite dread, but is not far off in how it looms over him, makes his breath short under its scale. The anticipation of a burden to bear, perhaps.

“I…suppose so.”

“Do not suppose, know. That is what wizards claim to be their domain, is it not?” She challenges, a cocky bent to her smirk that makes Gale want dearly to rise to it. To prove himself worthy, somehow.

“Very well. And what would this alliance entail?” He queries.

“I would have you as my touchstone. To assure me of what is real and what is mere fabrication.” Lae’zel asserts, in the manner of a commander dispensing orders. “And, should the ghaik infection progress beyond this, aid me in ending the misery of the others and myself.”

Gale does not choke this time, but it’s a near thing.

“You what?!” He squawks. “Lae’zel, you can’t be serious!”

“And why not?!” She fires back. “You, above all others, know the danger of the ghaik! You know what will happen if we are allowed to transform! I will not permit it!!”

“Yes, well, but—! Lae’zel, you asked me to act as touchstone for you.” He implores, seeking out her gaze. “Then let me. This is madness speaking, Lae’zel, the purest folly. Losing you, or any of the others, that could in no way make the world a safer place. If anything—!”

He pounces on this new line of reasoning that has just dawned on him. “If anything, isn’t it far more likely that this is one of the tadpole’s insidious commands?”

Her eyes snap to him, alert as any bird of prey. “Explain.”

“Well, consider it,” Gale proposes, warming to his topic. “When we came upon those Absolute fellows with tadpoles in their heads, we didn’t join up with their cause, did we? In fact, Yuu deliberately orchestrated their demise while fighting that owlbear, so even their corpses couldn’t give a clear account of their killers. Maybe the tadpoles have realized you all have far more, erm, vigor and vim than they can contend with? Thus leading to them attempting to encourage you to terminate yourselves or each other to keep you from growing too powerful, opposing whatever their plans may be?”

He can see the cogs turning in her head as she gives his words due consideration. “Hrm…that would explain why Shadowheart is so irascible, and unwilling to allow the gi to return the aretfact to my people.”

He privately considers that this may have more to do with the fact that Shadowheart is still very determined to gift the artefact to her beloved in Baldur’s Gate and that she just greatly dislikes Lae’zel, but decides discretion is the better part of valor in this case.

“To think that the tadpole could even use the training of crèche K’llir against me…” Lae’zel shakes her head, disquieted. “Already this alliance bears fruit. I will keep your secret, wizard, and keep you appraised of when the parasite attempts its trickery again.”

Gale sags as the tension he’s amassed over the course of this conversation escapes him all at once. “R-right, erm, of course. Please, please do.”

She nods to him and strides off back to camp.

He waits until she’s out of sight before letting himself sink against the base of the tree in exhaustion.

Well all’s well that ends well, he supposes. And if that means Lae’zel occasionally comes to him to complain about certain habits of their companions that inspire murderous rage in her, and it turns into a bit of a gossip session…

Well, it’s certainly better than the alternative.

***

“Care for a drink, Gale?”

It’s late, and most of the camp is curled up in their bedrolls and tucked away in their tents. He had presumed that the only ones left awake were himself, pouring over a rather interesting volume of Fringe Philosophy, and that dog which followed Yuu back from goodness knows where in the woods.

The frowsy canine has been eyeing his boots with intent, he just knows it.

He finds himself for once welcomely mistaken when he looks up to see Wyll proffering one of the bottles of Ithbank that also returned with the scouting party.

“Ooh, don’t mind if I do.” He puts the book to the side, scooching to make space for his new companion in libations on the log.

Wyll takes a seat next to him, muscled thigh bulging where it presses against Gale’s own.

Gale tries in vain to focus instead on the gratifyingly full cup the Blade of Frontiers passes him. The wine itself tastes tart and dry as it goes down.

“Oh, that hits the spot.” Gale sighs happily. “My deepest thanks, good sir. I must admit I did not realize how sorely I needed this.”

“Ah, think nothing of it.” Wyll replies modestly.

The pair of them sup together in convivial silence.

It’s when Gale is refilling Wyll’s cup for the third time that he ventures, tentatively, “Gale? You would consider us friends, correct?”

A horrible, prickling feeling starts up the back of Gale’s neck.

“Of course. I hardly know of a situation where somebody could fight alongside you and not look upon our relationship with a considerable degree of amicability.” He responds, wetting his lips. Then, with a slight undertone of suspicion, “Why?”

“As if we are friends, like you and I have agreed.” Wyll goes on doggedly, somehow managing to give an entreating gaze with one eye hell-red-on-black and the other made of stone. “Then it would be right and proper of me to let you know of certain deductions I have made about your person. Correct?”

Oh, for the love of Mystra—!

“Out with it, then.” He mutters gloomily, seizing the bottle for a generous pour. “What, when, where, why, how?”

Wyll takes the bottle with a measure of trepidation, lips softly pursed in deliberation before he sets it down in the grass between them.

“Well, you remember the phase spiders. In the well?”

Gale lets out a piteous moan. “Please don’t remind me.”

“You were trying to cast magic missile on one of them, but its vermin-riddled servant was coming up behind you.” Wyll continues, “And no matter how Yuu and I tried to connect with your tadpole to warn you, it was as though we couldn’t reach it. As though it wasn’t there in the first place. And then Karlach shoved you.”

“And then Karlach shoved me.” He repeats numbly. The burn where her elbow got his ribs healed without a trace after one potion.

The memory of her horrified screaming when the arachnids swarmed her and somehow didn’t immediately meet a fiery demise will take a much heavier draught to recover from.

He groans, taking a too big swig from his goblet.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting something then, in exchange for not running me out of camp at first light.” He states, the wine making his inhibitions loose and speech spill freely. “Some arcane knowledge your patron has failed to provide? The retrieval of a family heirloom? Counsel from a former archmage?”

“What? No, I—!”

A muffled snort interrupts Wyll’s passionate rebuke. After watching the dog settle itself again by the fire with bated breath, Gale is drawn back to his drinking partner’s earnestness.

“I require counsel for…” Wyll pauses, considering. “A lot of things in my life right now. But. But more than that, I would be forever grateful for a friendly ear. Someone to commiserate with, without needing to plan and solve things that are beyond help.”

Gale swirls his cup and watches the small whirlpool of red.

“Hm. They are a bit of a doer, aren’t they?”

Wyll does not even ask who he means, just groans in a way Gale can sympathize with. “I—Yuu’s very capable, and Helm preserve me but I like them, but do they ever switch off?!“

“I”, Gale confides in his most conspiratorial tones, “Once saw them pull out that journal of theirs after speaking with Lae’zel and begin scribbling down a detailed synopsis of the conversation they’d just held. While we were inside the hag’s lair.”

Wyll stares at him, eyes bulging. He lets slip a bark of laughter he instantly muffles by clapping a hand over his mouth.

Gale can’t help the surge of pleased satisfaction that courses through him.

“Gods above, but that cannot be healthy. Leading every excursion out of camp, acting as arbiter within it, recording everything, concocting alchemicals, training with you and Lae’zel…” Wyll scrubs a hand over his head, frowning in annoyance when he bumps the horns sprouting from his brow. “I’m growing worried that we’ll wake one morning to find them expired in their bedroll from exhaustion.”

“They’re young.” Gale soothes, taking perhaps a larger gulp of his Ithbank than he originally intended. “Driven. I was much the same at their age, impatient to prove myself worthy to those who equaled me in skill but surpassed me in age. I think with some time and guidance from those in our company they ought to calm down somewhat, mark my words.”

Wyll sighs heavily and lists gently into Gale’s side, solid and warm. “I hope so, for all our sakes. But by the gods, I’m twenty four. I’m too young to be feeling old.”

Gale, in his mid thirties, does not comment on how old that particular comment makes him feel.

“Ah, be that as it may…” He trails off, scratching at the rim of the cup with his nail. “I hate to press, but can I be assured of your discretion in this matter?”

The fond smile that rewards this query near takes his breath away.

“Don’t worry, my friend.” Wyll squeezes his shoulder firmly. “I won’t tell a soul, I swear on mine and my father’s lives.”

Gale is unable to do much more than nod dumbly, soon deciding to turn in before he does anything too daring for sobriety.

It doesn’t keep Wyll from sharing that soft, secretly fond smile with him as they journey onwards, or share conversation in the evenings.

He’s certain it can’t be good for his heart.

***

“Oh, Gale darling~”

It’s almost pavlovian, how Gale’s shoulders hunch guiltily at the affectionate address.

“Astarion. How can I help you?”

“I’ve a sudden and uncontrollable craving for your company. Quite irresistable, I’m afraid. Come,” The pale elf beckons. “Won’t you walk with me?”

It’s a trap. It’s so obviously a trap that Gale would be fool to fall for it.

Astarion tilts his head, peering up at him from under his eyelashes.

Gale falls into step with the weary resignation of a sentenced man making his way to the gallows. Still, the walk is almost nice, getting to gaze upon nature in all its splendor as Astarion somehow manages to make nattering on about everything and nothing sound compelling and engaging.

Right up until he says, “…though that pales in comparison to what I heard you and Wyll talking about the other night, darling.”

All of the muscles in his body lock up like someone had enchanted him by mistake in place of their chest of valuables.

He sighs. “I don’t supposed I could convince you that I’ve no worldly clue what you’re talking about?”

“Hmm, maybe.” Astarion hums. “But then I began thinking about you seemed blissfully unburdened with flashbacks from the Descent when the little bard was conversing with our devil friend. Also the incident with the grease—”

“Yes, well, we don’t need to get into that.” Gale grumbles, wishing he knew how to craft a draught that represses those memories of his early tactical errors.

“Of course, I’m never one to kiss and tell.” Astarion places a hand on his chest, faux innocence practically leaking from every fiber of his being. “But, I might need to ask for a small favour in return. To ensure it stays just between us.”

Gale nods for him to divulge his demand.

“Well, first things first.” The pale elf backs him up against a tree in embrace that has blood rushing furiously to his cheeks. “I should probably let you in on my little secret. I just so happen to be what some colloquially refer to as a vampire.”

“Oh. You’re a vampire?” Gale repeats dumbly. Then, as several key details suddenly slot into place. “Oh fuck, you’re a vampire.”

The newly outed vampire has the audacity to roll his eyes. “Please, I’m a spawn, darling. No need to fret about my turning you. And while I’ve been getting by on animals, I need something more…potent to unleash my full potential.”

His nose, oddly cool now Gale takes note of it, skims over his carotid artery. “And you, my dear, have them all beat for potency.”

The proximity and near-intimacy of it is making Gale’s head spin, which is why he doesn’t think about any potential downsides, until Astarion’s pleased hum after his fangs sink in turns to a muffled sound of incredulity.

“Gale.” It takes him a moment to blink back into himself to register he’s being spoken to. “What the fuck is wrong with your blood?”

“Ah. Well.” He scuffs some of the leaves underfoot with the toe of his boot. “You recall the camp meeting I called last week about the orb of dread Netherese magic in my chest?”

“The what—?!”

“..re you there? Astari—!”

Gale jolts as Astarion springs away from him, the pair of them staring wildly at the unofficial leader of their merry troupe, who looks as mortified as Gale feels. “—Oookay, I did. Not mean to walk in on. You two?”

“You could sound less surprised, darling.” Astarion pouts silkily, not an errant drop of red to be seen.

“I’ll admit it wasn’t who my gold was on,” Yuu mumbles, almost too softly to hear. Gale can’t help but wonder what they mean by that as they raise their voice with a little cough.

“Look, I don’t care if you two want to sneak off and, and give each other hickeys—”

He can feel his cheeks warm violently at the implication. “That’s—!”

“I know, I know, completely none of my business, but.” Yuu comes to an abrupt stop. “Wait. Gale, are you—are you bleeding?”

Gale suddenly realizes the warm slide down his neck that he’d taken for nervous sweat is in fact a substance of the more sanguine variety.

“Erm.” He tries. “No?”

Astarion stares at him, eyes round with disbelief.

“Are you fucking joking?!” He demands, in the same breath as Yuu exhales, “Oh fuck, you’re a vampire. How the fuck did I miss that?!”

“Now, now hold on a moment!” Gale, sensing imminent disaster, steps between them. “Yes, he may be a vampire, but he’s hardly some, some bloodthirsty beast like the tawdry excuses for literature we’ve been scavenging would have us believe! It isn’t like we’ve been waking up to any one of us drunk dry during the night, is it? All five of us, yet Astarion has had the near, near deific self control to hold out until this very evening before requesting—quite politely, if I may add!—if I would find sympathy for his plight and contribute to his welfare so that he can continue to aid us to the best of his ability. As he has done thus far without acknowledgement of his sacrifices.”

Yuu raises an eyebrow at him. “And you agreed?”

He spreads his arms helplessly. “I—How could I not?”

Yuu glances warily between him and the vampire. They pinch the bridge of their nose and let out a sigh.

“If we arrange a voluntary feeding schedule, would that help, Astarion?”

For a moment, the vampire just stares at the two of them, mouth agape.

Slowly, he nods.

“We’ll go over exact amounts and who’ll be participating later.” Yuu announces brusquely. “I need to gently break the news to the others first. Give me an hour, and I should have everyone on the same page.”

“Thank you,” Gale clasps his hands in their direction. “Your foresight is invaluable, as always. You won’t regret this, I promise.”

The would-be bard raises a blithe hand in acknowledgement as they crunch through the leaves back to camp.

“I’m genuinely unsure whether I should kiss you or kill you.”

He blinks at Astarion. “Erm? W-Well, I��d rather. Rather the former than the latter if it’s on the table. Though please don’t take it as an obligation of some kind! I never had any intentions of indebting you to me.”

“Please.” Astarion drawls as he slinks over, looping his arms once more around Gale’s neck. “How could I let such a…gallant defense go unrewarded? And our little bard did say we have an hour, after all…”

“Oh!” Gale says. Then. “O-ohh…”

And, as a gentleman of discretion and valor, he will draw the curtain on the scene there.

***

“Hey, soldier!”

Karlach falls into step next to him as they trudge through the Underdark. Up ahead, he can faintly make out Astarion and Yuu quietly conferring about whether their crossbow or his bow would be more suitable for removing the red glowing mushrooms that litter their path to the wizard’s tower.

“So,” She says, waggling her eyebrows at him saucily. “You and Fangs, eh?”

“Fangs?” He repeats, confused.

“Astarion,” She clarifies. “Even with the donation system and all that, he seems to be sweetest on you. You two a thing at all?”

“Ha! Ah, I’m not sure.” Gale demurs. “On the one hand, even if I have to disagree with your definition of “sweetest”, he has been the perfect gentleman when he’s not busy driving me round the bend. On the other, he apparently managed to tune out all of my explanations about the Netherese orb currently residing in my chest. Claims he was too distracted by my boots, of all things.”

“They are nice boots,” Karlach observes, which does make Gale preen. “Was a bit more taken with you kneeling while pressing Yuu’s hand to your chest, m’self.”

“That was for practical demonstration.” He stresses, cheeks flushing with the belated embarrassment that’s dogged him since about fifteen minutes afterwards. “I could hardly expect you all to take me seriously without proof.”

“Right, and your proof usually involves you getting on your knees, does it?” At his indignant splutter, Karlach lets out a laugh that’s no less lovely for how it resembles a bray rather than bells tinkling. “Joking, I’m joking Gale. Though, if you’re not with Fangs, would you instead say that you’d been involved with Shadowheart? Since the tenday before last? Loudly?”

“Shadowheart? What in—” Gale suddenly notices how his conversation partner’s eyes keep darting to the tailless tiefling a few meters away from them, recalls their comment from the evening Astarion’s secret had been revealed. It all clicks.

“Wait. You aren’t—are you betting on my love life?!” He demands, scandalized.

Karlach shrugs, tip of her tongue caught between the teeth of her unrepentant grin.

“Well, we’ve gotta do something for entertainment, don’t we? The others keep circling around you like they’re wargs and you’re a set of deep rothé ribs! And who can blame them? You’re a catch.”

Gale is for once extremely glad he can blame Karlach’s ambient temperature for the way his face suddenly and inexplicably feels burning hot.

“That’s—! I’m afraid you’ve the entirely wrong end of the staff if that’s your line of thinking.” He says stiffly. “None of them have any truly amorous interest in me, just discussing something. Something private.”

“Oh.” Karlach frowns for a moment.

Then she says, “What, did they work out you don’t have a tadpole as well?”

You’d think, after the fifth time such a revelation was made, Gale would be sufficiently prepared to not have a physical reaction to it.

You would be wrong.

“How?!” The words, meant to sound dignified if resigned, emerge with more of a trimming of petulant whine.

“Known ever since I met you.” She devastates cheerfully. “Got prowling around the Gate from Fangs, dragon’s fire from Lae’zel, training in the dark from Shadowheart, talking down mercs from Yuu, hunting me from Wyll, but from you? Nothing.”

“Ah.” He acknowledges. Then, “So, is that what happens every time you all meet someone new with a tadpole? You get a concentrated history of their past exploits through communication between the parasites?”

Karlach’s mouth twists as she considers. “Hm, I don’t think so? You can still keep secrets, else we’d have all known about Astarion a lot sooner. And the cult leaders woulda had us all killed the moment we walked in. It’s more like…snippets of that person? I’m not sure if it’s bits and bobs about them that are more like you or just what they think about themselves.”

“Fascinating,” Gale breathes. He’ll admit, given all the subterfuge he’s had to go through, he’s only been able to glean piecemeal information about the affliction.

After all, it’s hardly like he could just wander up to the others and ask them about it off-hand. Could he?

“Probably for the best you don’t have it, on the whole.” She stretches, toned muscles standing in stark relief with every movement. “Aside from the whole mindflayer-y thing, you at least didn’t have to deal with Yuu’s hangover in your head.”

Gale winces in commiseration. A lot of people had been plying their erstwhile leader with alcohol at the tiefling party, to the point where they ended up passed out in their bedroll halfway through the evening. From the way they still looked bleary after Shadowheart and Halsin cast Lesser Restoration on them the next morn, Gale would bet all his gold and then some that they’ve very little experience drinking so heavily, if any.

Still, he drums his fingers against his leg as he considers how best to broach this next bit.

“Although…you do understand if I ask that you not repeat this, please? Given that not quite everyone is…aware.”

“Course.” Karlach says, tapping the side of her nose. “Mum’s the word, eh?”

“Quite.” Gale wrings his hands together. He opens and closes his mouth. “And you don’t…want anything?”

Karlach tilts her head. “How’d you mean?”

“You know.” Gale makes a frittering notion with his hands. “Something to buy your silence, or what have you?”

“What?!” She looks askance at him, snorting in a way he finds unreasonably attractive. “What’s the point in that? You don’t want me to tell, so I won’t. Simple as that.”

He can’t help smiling broadly at her, at the way the flames licking off her skin reflect in the vents protruding from her shoulder, off the dancing humor in her eyes.

They both turn to observe their companions are taking potshots at the mushrooms and cheering when one of their projectiles manages to set off a chain reaction.

“Actually, there is something.”

Ah. Damn.

He tenses despite himself. “And what would that be?”

“When I get Dammon to fix my engine proper so I don’t burn anymore,” She decrees with the regality of a queen. “You’ve got to give me a big hug. A proper one. If you want to, ‘course.”

The sudden release of nerves is almost euphoric.

“I’ll hold you to that.” He vows.

#baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 #bg3 #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #karlach #wyll ravengard #astarion #shadowheart #lae'zel #villainous paranoiac yuu #bloodweave #very shippy #yuu #tiefling bard #the reckoning #will be coming in the next part #it got too long for this one

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britishassistant · 1 year

Text

Soul Searching (Is Harder If You Have Different Maps)

Riddle (meeting timer) - Yuu (heartbeat match)

When you’re escorted back into the Hall filled with floating coffins and at least four hundred people all turn to stare at you, your heart makes an odd skip-flutter-ker-thump.

You’ve had many, many anxious responses to crowds of strangers scrutinizing you throughout your life.

That was not one of them.

Well. Great. Wonderful! You’ve somehow ended up at a school for magicians after dreaming about (maybe actually?) dying to a, a monster, and nearly being barbecued by a talking, fire-breathing tanuki. Of course you’d meet your soulmate here as well! In a crowded room where you have zero idea which of the many, many people it is! Sure! Why not?

It’s almost enough to distract you from the talking magic mirror telling you that you have no magic and that Japan apparently doesn’t exist.

You’re so busy trying to find a way home, then defeating ghosts, then trying to catch Ace, then Grim, trying to get the magistone, not dying to the weird ink monster, then trying to keep Grim in line and make him attend classes, that you all but forget about your soulmate conundrum.

Until you’re at lunch with Ace, Deuce, Clover-senpai, and Diamond-senpai, and Ace complains, “What the hell crawled up his ass and died? Seriously the dorm head’s as narrow minded and strict as they come—he bit my head off for eating just one slice of tart!”

Clover-senpai and Diamond-senpai trade a Look.

“You know Ace-Chan, everyone’s fighting a battle that you can’t see!” Diamond-senpai chirps. “Plus Riddle really, really likes eating the first slice, so…”

“He can be a bit…” Clover-senpai trails off, dropping a hand to his wrist. His thumb smoothes over the fabric there. “But he’s also dealing with some…personal issues on top of all of his responsibilities, so try to be understanding, okay?”

Your mind is racing at the sight of Clover-senpai’s hand on his pulse, wondering, half-hoping, half-dreading—!

“What did his Timer drop off or something?” Ace scoffs, lifting his arm and twisting his hand so his sleeve slides down. “Because, newsflash! He’s not the only one to have his Timer reach Zero at the entrance ceremony! I’m pretty sure most of our year did!”

Deuce is also saying something, disagreeing you think, but you can’t concentrate at the sight of what Ace has exposed.

On his wrist, right over his pulse, is an ornate clock face. It looks like a weird cross between a tattoo and an actual stopwatch, if stopwatches had intricate detailing, five hands, and mostly Roman numerals except for a O replacing the 12.

“What is that?” You breathe, peering closer at it.

Ace gives you a bewildered stare. As do Deuce, Diamond-senpai, and Clover-senpai. And Grim.

“…That’s his Timer, Prefect.” Deuce says, at last. At your confused look, he continues, “You know, how you find your soulmate? It counts down until…yeah.”

“It counts down until you meet your soulmate?” You ask, equally unnerved by the concept and the Looks you’re receiving.

“Usually it’s until you and your soulmate lock eyes.” Clover-senpai says tactfully. “But yes, that is the general gist.”

“That sounds…” You try to digest this. “…that sounds awful. Like, how does the clock know when you’re meant to meet, let alone who? Is it watching you? Is it sentient somehow? And you don’t even get any explicit confirmation when you do meet? How do you know it’s actually your soulmate? Is it just picking the most convenient placeholder? How do you not go mad second-guessing everything?”

There’s an unsatisfactory silence from the boys around you.

“I—wh—?” Clover-senpai’s glasses have gone slightly askew. “Prefect, do you not have a…?”

You tug your sleeves down a bit, showing off your bare wrists. “That’s not how soulmates work where I’m from.”

Your heartbeat picks up.

“Wait, wait, time-out for a hot sec.” Diamond-senpai holds up his hands to make a t-shape. “You said that’s not how soulmates work where you’re from. But you do have soulmates?”

You nod. “Well, yeah.”

The idea of a place existing where people don’t…well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

“So how do you find them?” Deuce asks. “If your world doesn’t have Timers.”

“Our heartbeats.” You rest your fingers over where your pulse is growing faster, trying to take deep breaths and think calming thoughts. “When you lock eyes with your soulmate, your heart begins beating in time with theirs. You’ll feel their joy and fear and love until the day you both die. Though it’s hardly a failsafe method either…”

“Whoa.” Grim gasps, a tiny paw resting on his own chest.

“…That is creepy as all hell.” Ace says with a shudder.

“No it’s not!” You protest, scandalized, heartbeat quickening yet again in spite of your efforts.

“No, you look at somebody and one of your organs gets a signal to begin acting like it’s not even in your freaking body anymore!” Ace argues. “And, oh yeah, it’s the one that kind of controls whether you live or die.”

“Oh, and I suppose some creepy voyeuristic watch embedded into your skin is so much better.” You retort.

Ace opens his mouth, ready to fire back—and freezes. You notice his face paling, his expression going from irritated to terrified.

Your heart is pounding like you’re running for your life again.

You slowly twist around on the bench.

Dorm Head Rosehearts is standing behind you.

“Off With Your Head!”

The benches for the cafeteria tables should have backrests, you reflect from your new position on the floor. It’d make it much harder for undignified, flailing backwards falls to happen when surprise collars are magick’d onto your person.

Dorm Head Rosehearts doesn’t even explain what you’ve done to merit this punishment.

Just storms out of the cafeteria, you and your racing heart in prime position to view his (tall) (sharp) (step on meNO) heels clicking away from you on the tile.

Ace and Deuce help you struggle back upright in time to see Diamond-senpai and Clover-senpai exchange another Look.

You’ve got a sinking feeling that’s only partially inspired by their plan for you and Ace to “make it up to Riddle” by baking him a Mont Blanc.

So the Mont Blanc tart doesn’t go well.

The probably-not-custodian of the greenhouse laughs you out of the building when he sees the collar around your neck. Grim eats far more raw chestnuts than can possibly be good for him, even after saying they “taste bad”. Ace almost puts in oyster sauce because he’s not entirely convinced Clover-senpai was messing with him. You give Deuce an existential crisis over unfertilized eggs.

And that’s before you even get to the Unbirthday Party.

At the sight of you, Dorm Head Rosehearts’ lips thin. But he continues directing the Unbirthday Party as though nothing’s happened, so you take it as win.

That is, until the tart is presented.

It could be you imagining things, but you’d swear for a moment that after you and Ace present the Mont Blanc that his eyes flicker to you and his expression is almost…pleased?

Things go downhill from there.

Rules are quoted. The tart is rejected because of a particularly idiotic one. The words “idiot” and “tyrant” may get thrown around, though in fairness you didn’t mean to say it out loud at first. You all end up with collars and exiled from the Unbirthday Party in disgrace.

The attempted duel doesn’t go well either.

As it turns out, even with the plan you, Ace and Deuce tentatively workshopped to try to subvert his insane levels of magic power won’t work if he’s too fast for them to even put it into action.

Your pulse remains calm and steady throughout the entire “battle”.

“Huh.” Dorm Head Rosehearts says brightly. “It didn’t even take five seconds. And you thought you could challenge me with those skills. Aren’t you embarrassed?”

His expression darkens as he folds his arms across his chest. “This just proves that rule violators are always in the wrong. Just as mother said.”

When you were little, you’d often wonder about what your soulmate would be like. Whether they would make your family like you more, make every day more bearable to the point of being fun, or if they would just like you for you, giving you the chance to escape together.

You never thought it would be possible for you to experience such intense feelings of dislike towards the boy you’re (at least 80%) sure is your soulmate.

Admittedly, most of it is towards his mother, and the fact that he had to develop this mindset to survive in the first place. You can even sympathize with that, hold it as a potential point of rapport between you, though the two of you diverged in your coping mechanisms. But the collar that’s hanging heavy around your neck and the way he insists on flaunting his presumed superiority over those he’s beaten leaves a bitter, ugly feeling in your stomach.

You’re brought out of your musings by Deuce proclaiming, “You’re right that rules should be followed. But enforcing absurd ones left and right makes you a tyrant!”

“Ha?” The sneer on Dorm Head Rosehearts’ face has no right to make your blood boil like it does. “Rule breaking has consequences. And in this dorm, I am the rules. Those who refuse to obey don’t have the right to complain when I take their heads!”

You can’t keep your scoff inside any more. “You don’t get to do whatever you want because ‘it’s the rules!’ That’s the kind of logic a child uses.”

Especially, you think to yourself, as that mindset will only go so far before a bigger fish comes along and the “rules” change to benefit them instead.

You learned that the hard way.

“A child’s logic? I could say much the same of how you choose to behave.” He turns to you, eyes thinning as a cruel smirk grows. “If you can’t even follow a simple rule, just what was your education like? You were probably born of parents that can barely use magic, if at all, and didn’t receive much in terms of schooling before coming here. Not worth anyone’s time to correct, because how can you nurture talent in the talentless? You’re utterly inadequate.”

It doesn’t hurt.

You tell yourself it doesn’t hurt. Even as your nails bite into your palms. You’ve been told this before. You’ve been told worse before. It doesn’t hurt, coming from him. It doesn’t.

“Someone magicless like you.” He hisses, venemous, “Could never hope to pretend to be partnered to a soul like mine.”

There’s a sharp, fierce pain in your chest.

You suck in a breath, because this doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t, you’ve had worse, you have, you’ve spent your meager life getting rejected, not being enough, who cares if the other half of your soul does it too, you, you can’t—!

“SHUT THE HELL UP!!”

You don’t quite understand what you’re seeing at first, too caught up in the sensation of a slow tearing of your very being.

A flash of black uniform, ginger hair. Your soulmate stumbling, nearly falling from the force of the blow that’s snapped his head to the side.

Grim cheering on what is admittedly a beautiful right hook while the rest of the dorm screams about Ace punching out the dorm head.

“Aah, I don’t give a shit. About the dorm leader, about the duel, about your sad upbringing, none of it.” Ace growls, shaking out his fist. “Kids aren’t their parents’ trophies, and a kid’s achievements don’t define their parent’s worth, but you refuse to get that. I finally understand that the reason you’re such a bastard isn’t just your parents’ fault! It’s because you push away anyone who could tell you what you’re doing is wrong! This whole situation is your own damn fault! You’d even fuck over your own soulmate, just because you’re still scared of the impossible standards your mom set! ‘Mama this’, ‘mama that’, try thinking for yourself for once! You’re no leader, you’re just a baby who’s good at magic!”

“You—You don’t know anything…You don’t know anything about me!” The way your heart is pounding in your chest is making you slightly worried about his blood pressure.

“Like anyone could, with that attitude.” Ace backs up until he’s level with you and Deuce again, slinging one arm round your shoulders. “I do know that even the Prefect deserves better than a whiny baby tyrant.”

“Ace!” Deuce hisses, admonishing, in the same breath as you mutter, “Even?”

“ENOUGH, ENOUGH, ENOUGH!! SHUT UP!!” Rosehearts howls, and oh, you’re not sure people are meant to go that red in the face. Especially not when he’s leveling a magic pen at the four of you. “My mother was in the right! That means that I AM DEFINITELY IN THE RIGHT!!”

“Riddle, calm down. The duel is already over!” Clover-senpai barks.

“Th-that’s right!” The useless bird of a headmaster finally steps between you. “It’s as Mr. Clover says. The challenger is disqualified for his outburst! Continuing to escalate will violate school regulations!”

Which is when the egg hits the side of Dorm Head Rosehearts’ face.

To say it’s horrifying to watch your soulmate turn into the same kind of monster that broke your ribs and nearly killed you in the Dwarf Mines is an understatement.

It’s like a nightmare come to life. You watch as the foul, inky substance—blot— swallows Riddle Rosehearts whole, a grotesque shadowy thing looming behind him and almost puppeting his movements.

You feel the thorns from the rose trees bite into you. It’d be stupid to pretend you didn’t, that you were so consumed with devotion to the other half of your soul that all physical aches and pains seemed to vanish. No, you definitely feel it when an extra-thorny briar wraps around your ankle, hoists you into the air, digging in and tearing before Trey-senpai can vanish it with Doodle Suit. At least one of Cater-senpai’s copies catches you before you hit the ground.

But even with all the powerful magic flying around, and your injuries that you’re certain will put you back in the nurse’s office again, you can’t deny that you throw yourself headfirst into coordinating Ace, Deuce, and Grim against the overblot, yelling out directions even as Crowley, Trey-senpai, and Cater-senpai tried to get you to run, before the latter two stopped fussing and started helping.

Especially as through the entire battle, you notice that your shared heartbeat is gradually slowing, as if the life is being leeched away with every pump.

Your soulmate may not like you. He may hate you. The moment Riddle Rosehearts comes to his senses, he might reject the bond anyway, cast you asunder. And it will hurt. Of course it will. But it’ll at least be him doing it.

You’re not going to lie down and die quietly to the monster eating through his magic and life any more than you’re going to let it take him.

It’s kinda weird to see him cry.

Dorm Head Rosehearts has spent all the time you’ve known him (which is admittedly only a few days) being this indomitable force terrorizing Heartslaybul dorm. Prone to flying off the handle, yes, but you’ve come to expect anger and yelling more than tears and apologies.

It makes you feel weirdly disarmed, wishing you had a tissue or a handkerchief to offer or something.

Still. It’s better than kneeling there, waiting for his eyes to open with one hand pressed to your chest so you’ll know if his heart’s still beating.

You’re almost glad when Ace yells, “‘I’M SORRY’ CAN’T FIX THIS MESS!! THERES NO WAY IM JUST GONNA FORGIVE YOU LIKE THAT!!”

Even though most of you wanted to forgive him the moment the waterworks started, having Ace complain about all the stuff you’ve gone through and wrangle a tart in return helps settle the part of you that’s still sore and aching from the rejection you received.

You and Dorm Head Rosehearts are told to go straight to the nurse’s office, as you suspected. Trey-senpai is all but carrying Riddle, while what you think is one of Cater-senpai’s clones supports your weight and helps you hop down the path out of Heartslaybul and towards the mirror that will lead into the school.

You leave Grim with Deuce, Ace, and what you think is the real Cater-senpai to help clean up, with strict instructions not to let your monster-cat-tanuki eat any more of the lawn.

For most of the journey, you’re turning over the information you’ve learned almost feverishly. So, what you fought was called an ‘overblot’, and it happens when a magician reaches a certain threshold of magic use or stress. So was the monster you, Ace, Deuce and Grim fought in the mine also a person at one point? It produced the same black rock that Grim ate off the ground then too. Was there anything left of the original person at all that could’ve been saved? But when it happened to Dorm Head Rosehearts, it was killing him, you could feel it. So what—?

“I, I am sorry.”

You blink, momentarily stunned.

Dorm Head Rosehearts—no, Rosehearts-senpai?—is staring at you in earnest as he says this. You think you see his gaze flicker down to your bleeding ankle, your blank wrists, but it’s on your face again by the time you blink.

“I’m sorry for what I said, before…before.” He actually hangs his head. “It, it wasn’t appropriate for me to say, and, and it was. Untrue. And cruel. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I want you to know that I regret it. I always will.”

“Riddle…” Trey-senpai’s getting the coddling look in his eye again.

Cater-senpai’s copy stares meaningfully at you. If he weren’t supporting your weight right now, you think he’d give you an elbow nudge.

“Well.” Your breath hitches as a misplaced hop jars your ankle again. “I’d like to say that I’ve heard worse, but. It did…it did hurt. Coming from you.”

“O-oh.” Rosehearts-senpai—no, Riddle-senpai’s shoulders round, as though you’ve added a weight to them. If you’re being emotionally honest with each other, you’ve earned given-name status, you think. “That’s…that’s fair.”

You all get a little further down the hall, before you blurt. “I, I’m sorry too. For calling you, you know. An idiot. At the Unbirthday party. It was uncalled for.”

You hear Riddle-senpai make a small huff that you think might be a laugh. “But not a tyrant?”

“Well if the shoe fits…” You shrug before catching a glimpse of his indignant face. “I’m kidding. But, I will let you know if you start getting, you know. Like that. Again. We all will.”

“That’s fair.” His voice sounds much quieter than before. “Thank you.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you catch Cater-senpai making a gagging motion to Trey-senpai who rolls his eyes in response.

Your motley band continue down the echoing stone corridors.

“Sakura mochi.”

Riddle-senpai twists to look at you past Trey. “I beg your pardon?”

“My favorite food is sakura mochi.” You say, keeping your eyes forward as you limp towards the nurse’s office.

“I’m not going to ask you to make it like Ace, because I don’t know how and I’m not sure you even have all the ingredients here. But if we’re…” You make a gesture that’s as inexplicable to you as it must be to your audience. “…going to try doing…this, whatever this is, it’ll be better to start with a clean slate. Or, well. As clean as we can make it. So. My favorite food is sakura mochi. What’s yours?”

There’s a long silence.

You’re kicking yourself, opening you mouth to say that he can forget about it, he doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to—

“Strawberry tart.”

His voice sounds small, almost timid.

You snicker a little. “Really? No wonder you got so mad when Ace ate your slice then.”

“Well,” He shrugs, leaning more against Trey-senpai. “A lot happened that day. Someone desecrated the statue of the Queen of Hearts. I tried to go and talk to the magicless person who made my Timer Zero out, but they were nowhere to be found and Headmaster Crowley told me he was preparing to expel them, along with two first years from Heartslaybul for breaking a chandelier. And then one of the second years forgot his pink while feeding the flamingoes, and Crewel-Sensei gave us more homework because Floyd Leech played up in Alchemy, and Draconia-san didn’t show up to the Dorm Heads’ meeting again, and—and then I went for a midnight snack.”

You let out an undignified snort. “You know that doesn’t excuse everything that came after, right?”

“I know that!” Riddle-senpai shouldn’t be so pretty when he blushes. It’ll be no good for you whatsoever. “Now. Now I know that. It was just. It was a long day.”

“It sounds like it. Still. At least you’ll get to have another one soon. With all of us, this time.”

You smile at him, heart pounding.

And, miracle of miracles, he smiles back.

#twisted wonderland #twst #villainous paranoiac yuu #riddle rosehearts #twst riddle #twst yuu #twisted wonderland yuu #riddle x yuu #soulmates #different soulmates method au #soulmate timer #matching heartbeats #in which riddle responds to finding his soulmate #by writing them a letter telling them to get out of his school

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britishassistant · 4 months

Text

Gale’s Excellent Adventure (3)

Once upon a time, the sight of Elminster strolling into his general vicinity would be cause enough itself for gladness and joy.

Now though, as Gale watches the wizard follow the scouting party into their camp among the strange red-leaved trees, he’d do anything to ensure the man vanished into thin air as he’s so fond of doing whenever the tab comes due.

“Elminster? What are you doing here?” He hears himself ask.

“The very same, Gale.” His old friend scolds. “And a fair bit miffed he is too, finding himself forced to expose his best pair of boots to so many miles of country road on your behalf. Why, if your young friend hadn’t lead me here, I’d be wandering still.”

Yuu ducks their head as they mumble a reply, skin slightly too dark and too vivid a pink to really show them blushing. It dawns on Gale that they might be starstruck.

The already short wick of his patience is rapidly dwindling with every passing moment.

“Yes, yes, yes, be that as it may, you said you’ve come here on my behalf, did you not? For what purpose?”

“I was bid to spare neither time nor my own self to find you.” The older wizard intones. “She sent me, Gale. You know of whom I speak.”

He can’t feel his fingertips or toes. There’s a feeling weighing down the pit of his stomach, but he’s unable to tell if it is elation or despair.

“But why?!” He hears his own voice demand. “Out with it Elminster, tell me!”

“Young man, has your time away from Waterdeep washed away your decorum as well as your patience?!” The scolding tone is a familiar but unwelcome reminder of Gale’s mentoree days, usually when he’d forgotten to take proper precautions. “Nigh a tenday I’ve gone without honest fare worthy of the name—drank naught but what the sky entitled my thirst! Why, some bread, cheese, and a cup of wine would appear unto me a feast! Surely you won’t begrudge me a mite of rest and respite before I get ‘out with it’?”

“We can always share a meal afterwards.” Yuu offers diplomatically. “Gale’s cooking is excellent, and it’s always best to enjoy the small pleasures only once all business has been cleared out of the way.”

Elminster inclines his head, a grandfatherly smile on his face. “And a great kindness that would be, my child. Even now, I do treasure my fond memories of his culinary talents! See Gale? Even in these barren parts, the art of hospitality can beget inspired new acts if only one keeps up the practice.”

“Oh, for the love of…” He mutters, rolling his eyes.

“Fine, fine!” Elminster raises his hands, a twinkle Gale does not trust in his eyes. “I’ll turn a deaf ear to the clarion calls with which my scorned stomach beseeches me. Graver matters are at hand. Plenty to digest, after all. A good deal to stew over, if you will. Words ladled with import should be savored so as to better absorb their meaning, wouldn’t you agree?”

And there goes the last of Gale’s patience. “Elminster!”

A shadow comes over Elminster’s face, dropping the facade of genial old man he enjoys donning to delight the unwary.

After hemming and hawing for a moment, the older wizard sighs. “Gale, m’boy, I’ve come to address a most pressing matter. So I shall speak plainly, without any of the frills that usually ornament my speech.”

Gale feels his throat go dry. There’s a sudden warmth at his side, and he looks down to see Yuu glancing up at him, concern writ in their brow.

“I’m here on behalf of Mystra. The message and charge I bring you are hers.” Elminster says, slowly.

“Wait, so you’re here as an actual, divine messenger?” Yuu pipes up. “Is this usual for you, Master Elminster?”

“Oh yes,” Gale adds, leaning in conspiratorially. “After all, it would hardly do for Mystra to ever deign to dirty her delicate feet on these roads. What if she gained a callus?”

He feels rather proud of Yuu’s surprised snort of laughter, and of Elminster’s disapproving stare at the two of them.

“You know where you went wrong, Gale. We needn’t dwell on that here and now. But even so, you are to be given a chance at redemption.”

He can hardly believe it, his heart soaring. “Mystra is considering forgiveness?”

Elminster sucks in his teeth. “She is considering what she considers forgiveness. Mystra knows well of your misadventures, and how they have brought you into contact with that more dire of evils, the Absolute. Given that she is forbidden from interceding herself by Lord Ao, she feels it is imperative that, given you have provided yourself with the perfect subterfuge through misrepresentation, you ought to obtain absolution through ensuring this threat is annihilated in such a way that is nigh unutterable in its thoroughness. In such a way that only you are capable of unleashing.”

Gale’s not sure he can feel his limbs. His head feels somehow light, floaty.

“I beg your pardon?” Yuu asks, voice gone low and dangerous.

“Mystra wants me to detonate the orb in my chest to end the Absolute.” Comes his voice, as though from far away.

“I, I understood that bit, although I will say my informed and final response is fuck that and fuck Mystra all the way to Amn.” There’s a flare of warmth and slight pinching around part of him that Gale determines is his hand once he focuses. “But what in all the hells does ‘subterfuge through misrepresentation’ mean?”

Somehow, impossibly, Gale feels his blood run even colder.

“While I know not your reasons for doing so, Mystra has judged that you have done well to pass yourself off as infected, to integrate yourself with these fine adventurers who were key to uncovering this cult’s machinations.” Elminster continues, condemning him almost gently. “But she decrees it is time to end the theatrics, Gale. You have placed yourself into the prime position to destroy the Absolute, and earn Mystra’s forgiveness. I have been instructed to gift you the means to do so.”

The feeling of the orb’s grasping hunger suddenly diminishing as if muffled does nothing to soothe the looming dread he feels hanging over his head.

“Gale, what’s—this is. What he’s saying is all nonsense, isn’t it?” Yuu beseeches, horror evident in their tone. “Isn’t it?”

Gale opens his mouth, to tell a lie, to explain himself—!

Under the teenager’s piercing gaze, he finds it closing without a sound. His shoulders slump.

A myriad of emotions flash across their face as they stumble away from him, each slipping away like quicksilver before he can identify what they could possibly be.

They bury their head in their hands and let out a short, slightly despairing scream.

“Yuu?” Comes Shadowheart’s worried query, like she and everyone else haven’t been eavesdropping from the first word. “Is everything all right?”

“Right.” Yuu states, pinching the bridge of their nose. “Right. Raise your hand if you knew that Gale does not have an illithid tadpole in his head.”

There’s a moment of silence.

“What?!” Astarion laughs, only a tad too high-pitched. “Why darling, that’s patently ridiculous!”

“Yes,” Shadowheart cuts in quickly, a conciliatory smile on her lips. “If he didn’t, we’d have all noticed in a matter of days, right?”

“R-right!” Wyll confirms. “And besides, Gale’s been nothing but a loyal and faithful companion to us for our entire journey thus far.”

“Too right!” Karlach agrees. “He didn’t even eat that many boots, really!”

“The wizard is integral to this camp.” Lae’zel insists. “Even with the ghaik tadpole, losing him would be the gravest error a fool could make.”

“So all of you then.” Yuu concludes with a fold of their arms.

“Every last one of you knew Gale was uninfected, and yet none of you saw fit to tell me, even when you knew we would be bringing him face to face with the Absolute’s forces? Knew what could have happened to him, if Minthara, or Priestess Gut, or the duergar had worked out he was uninfected?”

There is a long, uncomfortable silence.

“Well—!” Wyll starts.

“And don’t say we would’ve been able to protect him, because how could we properly arrange that if not everyone knew he needed it?!” Yuu blinks furiously, voice growing strained. “Gods, it’s just—! What did I do that—?! You do know I care about all of your wellbeings, right?!”

He blinks at them, discomforted at the not unfamiliar feeling of being chastened.

Karlach murmurs, “Course we do, soldier. Course.”

“Then in that vein,” Yuu jerks themself upright, advancing on Elminster so quickly it gives Gale whiplash. “Master Aumar, you would say that a great deal of your current notoriety and positive reception among the general public of Faerûn is contingent on the stories various bards, including the renowned Volothamp Geddarm, have spread about your magical prowess, yes?”

Gale is unsure that they should be calling the man who attempted amateur eye surgery on them “renowned”.

At any rate, Elminster humors them by nodding along. “Well, I would owe a certain part of my acclaim to Volo and others of his ilk, yes.”

“So you would agree that if, all of a sudden, those stories suddenly took a turn that cast you as a villain, a, a reviled cad whose deeds even devils frowned upon, your current existence and reputation would become much harder to maintain?” Their head is cocked to the side like some sort of demented corvid, eyes blazing coldly. “Or, for example’s sake, the existence and reputation of a goddess who may not thrive on faith but would certainly be diminished from her current station by a lack of it? By people renouncing their worship, tearing down her temples, that sort of thing?”

Elminster, Gale notes with a certain amount of trepidation, is no longer smiling. “Take heed of your words, young one. What are you implying?

“Nothing, really. Just, it’d be an awful shame if Mystra’s cult became as accursed as that of Bhaal or Bane.” Yuu murmurs silkily. “And let me assure you, Master Aumar. If anything happens to Gale of Waterdeep, I will personally ensure that Mystra is ripped from the Weave so I can hunt her down like the dog she is.”

Gale can’t quite hear what Elminster says in response to that. His heart is beating too loudly in his ears.

Yuu tilts their head. “You were the one to pronounce us god-killers. You don’t get to be surprised when we say we’ll fulfill the role you’ve given us. But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. All those in favor of telling Gale’s miserable ex to sod off?”

“Aye.” Wyll’s voice startles him as the Blade of Frontiers appears at his side.

“Aye.” Shadowheart steps out of nowhere to flank his other side, mace in hand.

“Fuck yeah.” Karalch snarls, looming in a way that promises barely contained violence.

“If this so-called goddess cannot recognize the intelligence and guile of one of her most exalted paramours, then she is far from worthy of the title.” Lae’zel decrees, one hand on the hilt of her greatsword.

“Well,” Astarion heaves a dramatic sigh. “It would be such a waste of a perfectly good cult. And a perfectly good Gale too, I suppose.”

He can’t help rolling his eyes, even as he has to blink away the sudden wetness springing to them.

“My child, I have no wish to place Gale in harm’s way,” Elminster soothes. “He is a dear friend, and nothing would make me happier than to see him whole, happy, and freed of the orb. But as Mystra’s chosen, I have the duty to deliver whatever missives she demands. The obligation to see them through, however, is something I am happily liberated from.”

Yuu’s hackles are still raised, so Gale attempts to clear the frog in his throat and sets a hand on their arm. “Thank you, Elminster. Even with this sorry news, I’m, I’m glad that it was you who I received it from.”

Elminster thankfully has the grace to nod to him. “I see I have throughly worn out my welcome, so I will take my leave of you all now, with the hope that a day may come when we are able to break bread together as promised. However, before I go, take heed of these words.”

He stares off into the distance, like he used to when tracing out certain threads in the Weave to form the most beautiful patterns Gale had ever seen. “Like moons make swell and wane nescient seas, so too do the sky-strewn gods ordain the fates of mortal days. And yet—a notion born of lonely hours—come ebb, come flow, come all that is beyond the breadth of our dominion: be a moon unto yourself.”

Yuu squints at him. “…Yeah, no, I’m sorry, but I’m training to be a bard and I can’t even make any sense of that.”

Elminster chuckles. “Then perhaps I shall leave the twists and turns of phrasing to storysingers like yourself and Volothamp. Farewell, my friends. May we meet again under more favorable circumstances.”

And with that, his old friend vanishes into thin air.

The rest of the camp stays gathered around him for several moments, which does nothing to help his runny nose or inconveniently leaking eyes.

Gradually though, the rigid, battle-ready postures slump slightly, weight shifting from foot to foot and back again.

Karlach, bravest of them all, decides to take the plunge. “Yuu—”

“Don’t.” The teenager’s voice cracks like a whip as they pull themselves away from the group, shoulders still tense and trembling despite the absence of danger. “Not. Not right now. Just.”

“Come now darling, be reasonable.” Astarion coaxes, feigned impatience thinly veiling what Gale realizes might be genuine worry. “After all, this is hardly the first time any of us have kept secrets from you before, is it? Water under the bridge, surely.”

The glare they give in response to that particular pacification is enough to have even Gale flinching back slightly.

Then the tailless tiefling buries their face in their hands with a harsh exhale.

“Give. Give me five minutes.” They say, not looking at him. “Just. Just give me that and I’ll be. I’ll be better, I promise.”

Without waiting for an answer, they stride off between the trees, small form vanishing into the gloom.

“I feel I may be missing something.” Comes the deep voice of the druid from behind them.

“Hardly.” Pipes up a voice from around about hip height. “It’s rather simple altogether.”

Gale looks down to see that gnome Yuu is inordinately fond of frowning hard up at them all.

“After all, should you discover that your dear friend has been going behind your back and maintaining all sorts of deceptions and consorting with those who can only mean him ill, well. I should think that one has every right to feel a sense of, of betrayal when those sorts of things happen.”

“Can we kill him?” Astarion hisses, not quite quietly enough. “Please, can we? I’ll be ever so quick, I promise.”

“Yes, because that’s precisely the way to get back into their good books!” Shadowheart retorts. “Why not just murder Scratch or Munch too while we’re at it?”

“Nonsense. The dog is of great strategic value, and the cub has the potential to grow to be a strong ally.” Lae’zel dismisses. “The gnome is an acceptable loss.”

“Wh—I can hear you plotting my demise!” Barcus Wroot squawks.

“Nobody is murdering anybody.” Wyll decrees firmly, ignoring Astarion’s irritated click of the tongue. “But, it may be best if I to go after them. Make sure they don’t wander too far into the curse and get hurt.”

“You sure?” Karlach asks doubtfully. “They don’t exactly look like they want company. Might be better to let ‘em vent, yeah?”

“I’d rather ensure they’re alive to be cross at me than hollowed out by the shadow curse and left to rot.” Wyll insists.

“While that is a wise course of action.” Halsin rumbles, setting one hand on Wyll’s shoulder. “I am not so sure that it would be best for you to undertake it, my friend. This issue is one that must be treated at the root, rather than merely balming the symptoms.”

He pins Gale in place with an intent gaze. “What did you seek to obtain by feigning infection, Gale of Waterdeep?”

His mouth is dry as his tongue uselessly attempts to wet his lips.

“I wanted to help. I longed for the chance, amidst all my folly, to prove that surely I could do something good, for once?” The words croak out of him, shame a blazing bonfire in his gut as they escape. “I just—! I couldn’t bring myself to go back to my tower and lock myself away again. A stronger man, a wiser man would have. Alas, I am neither.”

He waits for the recrimination, for the disgust at his pathetic display. For the demand, finally, that he take his leave now that he is of use no longer.

Instead, he feels a large hand come to cup his arm and squeeze.

Halsin’s eyes are kind when Gale looks up at them. An oak inviting shelter in place of thorns warning intruders away. “I believe that, should you explain all of this to our young friend, you will find you have more of both qualities than you credit yourself for.”

It only takes half a minute or so of walking before Gale comes upon a raised, dilapidated shack that is miraculously within the light of the torches they set up at the perimeter.

The wood creaks under his boots as he climbs the steps, then passes through the empty doorframe.

His eyes pick out a faint glow of light through the worn boards of the walls, which he’s able to use to pick his way towards a doorway and peek through it.

What greets him is a ruined bedroom, the remnants of some family’s lives and furniture, and a small fire struggling valiantly in what’s left of a hearth. A strange, lumpy figure is silhouetted by the flames.

“Yuu? Is that—” He gets close enough for the figure to resolve itself into three. “—ah. May I inquire as to why you’ve embarked on a new career as a bedroll?”

Scratch gives a little whuff where he’s lying across Yuu’s chest, unable to move much from where the owlbear cub has its head pillowed on his back, the rest of it gently crushing Yuu’s legs.

“Helps.” Comes the small reply. “The, the weight. Keeps me here. Makes my thoughts stop corkscrewing my brain.”

“Huh.” Gale considers this. “So, if we gave you a particularly heavy rock—”

“Doesn’t work as well.” Yuu says. “Maybe if it were in a backpack? But being soft and fuzzy is part of it, I think. One of my friends from Night Raven, a druid. He’d wildshape and do this because he worked out it helped. Stop me going off the deep end during the Descent.”

“Hm.” Gale has never found the Descent of Elturel into the Hells a pleasant topic to contemplate by any means, but he’s only recently developed the visceral hostility he feels towards the event with every reminder that Yuu was one of its unfortunate survivors.

They must misinterpret his vocalization, as their eyes dart to him, blue irises glowing eerily against black sclera.

“Well,” They clear their throat as they begin to shift upright, nudging at Scratch and gently displacing Munch the owlbear with a displeased chirrup. “I suppose it’s been near enough to five minutes—”

“Actually, I was wondering if I might, might join you?” Gale’s words trip over themselves in his haste to get them out. “I feel as though I. No, I unequivocally owe you an explanation. An apology, at the very least.”

They pause in the act of sitting up with a weary sigh while one hand pinches divots into the bridge of their nose. “Gale, you don’t—! I’m not going to abandon you out here, or impose some ridiculous punishment, or whatever it is you think will happen if I’m not pacified—”

“That, This isn’t about making excuses for myself!” He insists, perhaps a trifle too heatedly for the tone he’s trying to set.

Watching the teenager tense, staring up at him warily with a protective hand on Scratch’s back, that leaves a foul taste on the back of his tongue.

With a few grunts as his knees protest their ill-treatment, he sinks down to a seated position next to them on the hard, uneven floor. He has no idea how they could stomach lying on it with two animals atop them.

“I didn’t come here to beg clemency in hopes of lessening any retribution.” He does his best to keep his voice soft and level, intent to soothe. “I came to apologize because I took advantage of a misunderstanding to mislead you, even as I imposed upon your trust and aid. You did not and do not deserve that, and I would like to make this wrong right by whatever means you deem fit.”

The tiefling stares at him in silence for several moments.

Munch the owlbear decides to live up to his name by taking small, cautious nips at the laces of his boots.

“You get a furrow in your brow,” They say abruptly. “And you tilt your head to the right slightly whenever I say or do something you disapprove of.”

Gale can only blink at the non-sequiter.

“Shadowheart tilts her head forward and exhales through her nose,” They continue, “But Lae’zel rolls her eyes and clicks her tongue. Astarion does this sneer with his left eyebrow arched, Wyll scrunches his nose like there’s a bad smell, and Karlach scoffs and crosses her arms right over left instead of left over right.”

“That…is oddly specific.” Gale declares, reduced to stating the obvious. He tries to covertly tug his laces away from Munch’s beak without getting bitten himself.

Yuu shrugs, fingers carding carefully through the fur of the dog in their lap. “I notice. I’ve always had to. We keep seeing so many others who don’t make it, who become gnoll food, prey for the Absolute, or orge food, or Hells, Nadira survived the Grove and then got tortured to death by Gith!”

Gale searches his memory, but is unable to match a face to the name. “Sorry, who was…?”

“The lady we saved from the bugbear, with the soul coin. The one Shadowheart didn’t like.” Yuu clips out. “Point is, she’s dead, and I have no worldly clue if the others from the Grove are as well, and the only reason I can parse as to how I’m somehow not is that all of you are with me. And given that I have unfortunately grown rather attached to the lot of you, if there is anything I can do to ensure that we stay together, that we survive whatever Moonrise Towers and the cult will throw at us, I’ll do it.”

Tremors wrack their frame as they speak, words pouring faster and faster as if escaping a dam.

“And I thought I had it under control. I thought I knew how to keep everyone happy so they wouldn’t get fed up with the kid who isn’t even a real bard and just fuck off. I actually thought, ‘hey, maybe this time I’ll be able to keep all my people safe!’ And then it turns out you weren’t hiding what I thought you were, and everyone else was in on it too, and to top it all off a fucking goddess has ordained your demise, as if I could have seen that coming.”

Their shoulders round as they slump in on themselves, curling around Scratch while the hound noses at them, letting out a soft whine.

“I’m scared.” Gale has to lean in to catch the whisper of the words. “I’m so, so scared. I barely know what to do, and even if we’re, we’re fine now, I can’t stop thinking about what would happen if we weren’t. About what could happen so we aren’t. And I’m so tired.”

Gale will be the first to confess he’s never truly had much experience with offering comfort. Tara, his mother, and Mystra all were far too indomitable to need soothing from him, for all that the former two seemed to exist in a permanent state of mild worry about his wellbeing and exploits. And though he has obtained some trifling experience on his travels of late, he still feels very much a dilettante rather than an expert. All the more so when an overeager owlbear cub has decided his subtle attempts to extricate himself must be precursor to a marvelous game of tug of war, and has been in the process of removing one of his boots from his person.

But it feels right to reach an arm around Yuu’s shoulders and tug them into leaning against his side, his other arm coming up to encircle them in a loose embrace.

There’s a tense moment.

“What are you doing?” Comes an honestly bewildered voice in the vicinity of his shoulder.

“Ah,” His fleeting confidence begins making its way to the door. “Hugging you?”

“Huh. Why?”

“Seemed the thing to do. Best way to express my sentiments, though I’ll admit I’m out of practice.”

Then he feels the weight of their head settle slightly more firmly on his shoulder, body shifting closer to him, horns poking his chin.

“S nice.” Their voice is small.

Gale rests his chin out the crown of their head, exhaling.

If their shoulders begin to hitch under his hands, and if he feels the fabric over his own begin to grow ever so slightly damp, well.

He won’t be the one to tell.

As touching as the moment is, however, it becomes rather difficult to maintain once Munch’s tugging at his boot starts to feel like it’ll take his ankle off along with it.

“Augh, ow, ow, stopit, OW!”

Yuu pulls back to look. “Ah—no, see, pulling’ll only encourage him, hunting instincts, can’t help them. C’mere Munch! Come on!”

At the sight of the teenager’s outstretched and wiggling fingers, the owlbear finally releases Gale with an excited hoot, near bowling him over in its eagerness to shove its head into Yuu’s hand.

They snort out a laugh as they pet between the tufted ear feathers. “There we are, there’s my fine fellow, this is what you were after all along, wasn’t it? Yes, yes, you’d like more, wouldn’t you? Your wish is my command, mi’lord Munch.”

Gale can only sit back and huff out a chuckle as Scratch, who had admittedly been quite patient during up until this point, began whuffing and pushing himself into Yuu’s space for petting himself, forcing them to split their attention and hands between both animals.

He reaches out and tries to mimic their scratching motions on the owlbear’s forehead.

Munch lets out a pleased coo, butting his head insistently into Gale’s hand instead.

Yuu hums, a soft smile playing over their face. “He’s saying that he won’t bite you anymore, no matter how delicious you smell. You’re a friend now.”

“Well, if it saves my poor boots, I’m glad to be.” He jokes, his tone softening to sincerity as their laughter fades away. “I’d enjoy getting to be a better friend to you, as well. You needn’t shoulder all this on your own, Yuu. We aren’t about to, to vanish the moment something goes wrong. I mean, look at Lae’zel! You asked her to turn on Vlaa’kith—!”

“That was different!” They try to argue. “She would’ve died in that machine, and if we’d given up the artefact—!”

“But she trusted in you, trusted in all of us enough to turn her back on everything she’d known and believed without question, because of the flaws we helped bring to light.” He takes a hand away to tap their chest, returning it to the owlbear at the disgruntled grumble. “Karlach’s only hale and hearty because you convinced Wyll and us that there had to be more than meets the eye to the situation, and lo and behold! Halsin, Barcus, the tieflings in the grove, the druids, the gnomes, the myconids, that rather unpleasant pregnant woman, all of them owe us their lives because you convinced us to intervene, and you could not have done so were you not someone worthy of the faith we placed in you. Someone we would need to be most foolish indeed to abandon, and I, for one, pride myself too much on my intelligence to ever submit to being a such a thing and would strongly discourage it in anyone else.”

There’s a moment of quiet as Gale lets them digest his impassioned tirade.

“You know what would really convince me of the truth of all this?” The gaze they meet his with is all steely conviction, forged in the fires of their journey thus far. “If you would swear to me that you wouldn’t blow yourself up to destroy the Absolute, or for any other reason.”

He can’t keep eye contact, dropping his face to scrub one hand over it and through his beard. “I—! It’s hardly that simple, Yuu, you cannot tell me that should it grant us the opportunity to rid the world of the Absolute for good—!”

“—It wouldn’t be worth it.” They retort, head held high. “A world without you in it, Gale of Waterdeep, is hardly one that merits saving. It comes far too high at the cost. And if you’d like me to, I will march back to camp right now and ask all the others to tell you exactly the same, since you’re so keen on doubting my word.”

The lump is back in his throat, and he nearly forgets the point he wants to argue. That he must argue.

“It’s not that I’m doubting any word of yours, but, but why? I’m hardly anyone—maybe I was worthy once, while Mystra favored me, but that does no credit to my name now, especially not with the long list of fraud to add to my person! I’m not even infected, for pity’s sake! Like as not I wouldn’t even be here if I had simply told you the truth from the outset!”

“Gale. You’re a talented wizard with whose knowledge of illithids is only outclassed by Lae’zel.” Yuu says, tone flat. “Who is a devotee of a people whose entire culture is dedicated to destroying them. If I’d known you were uninfected when we first met, I’d have given you all the gold in my pockets to keep you with us, and then some. Even more so once I worked out what a kind and loyal man you are.”

“Oh.” Gale replies. “Hm.”

“The offer doesn’t stand now though.” They take no small amount of glee in informing him. “You’re trapped by the cute owlbear and all of our friends loving you. Such a shame. Should have taken it when you had the chance.”

He rolls his eyes for the second time that night, elbowing the giggling teenager. “Be serious, you.”

As their mirth subsides, the two of them stare into the struggling fire, the animals accompanying them slipping off into dozes with the weak crackles from the hearth.

“I cannot swear to never activate the orb.” Gale starts hesitantly. “That would be far too reckless and irresponsible of me, regardless of what anyone says given the threat we face. But. But I will swear only to consider it as a final resort. Only if all other options have been exhausted, and there seems to be no light out of the darkness we find ourselves in.”

“And that’s the best I’m going to get?” Yuu asks. At his nod, they exhale heavily, jaw set. “Fine. But only after all other options have been tried and failed. And I do mean all of them, no matter how…unpleasant. Do you so swear?”

He holds up his hand, solemn. “On the Weave itself, I swear. May it recognize and enforce my vow.”

There’s a slight tingling in his vocal cords, his fingers, around the newly muffled orb in his chest. Magic taking his words and binding them tight as any promise ring.

Yuu smiles shakily at him.

“Well. We’d best be getting back to camp then. Need all our heads together if we’re going to think our way out of this.”

“Right,” Taking the hand they proffer to pull him up as he steadies himself on aching knees, Gale smiles back. He feels lighter when he follows them out of the cabin than he has since he woke aboard the Nautiloid.

“Excellent. Lead on.”

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