She didn't want to be here.
But what other choice did Keiko have? The Underdark was the safest way forward. Maybe not for her, specifically, but certainly for the rest of their party. If she was the only one lost down here, captured and dragged back into Lolth's grasp or worse, the Absolute's thrall... well. Better to lose a single adventurer than an entire quest to save all of Faerun.
Objectively, that was the truth. It was why, despite all her reservations, Keiko had agreed to brave the Underdark again to begin with. Yet she couldn't stop her thoughts from endlessly spiraling, nor her hands from trembling as they polished Phalar Aluve over and over again, long beyond the point where it finally regained its original luster. It didn't matter how tired she was tonight, how much the lack of rest might hold her back tomorrow; if she didn't distract herself now, she might completely lose it down here.
Even trapped in the pits of her own fear, Keiko heard footsteps coming her way - one with a cadence that matched their biggest, brightest companion - long before she saw them. Only once Karlach spoke did she look up, however, watching in silence as the other woman lowered herself down to sit nearby.
"All elves can choose whether to trance or sleep. Even drow," Keiko murmured as she refocused on her longsword, the unspoken question answered on trained instinct. Not that the experience was the same for all of them, that was. Keiko had only heard in passing of what surface elves experienced: Past lives, past memories. Controllable, pleasant, rejuvenating.
For drow, though? There was darkness. Absence. That wasn't always a bad thing, on the nights that she longed to forget the most, when the nightmares that unpredictably plagued mortal sleep were too much to chance bearing in exchange for a night's worth of true escape. But even a drow's reverie took some peace to find, and even a modicum of peace was hard to come by lately - tonight, more so than ever. Not that her attempts at mortal sleep had fared much better, either.
Somehow, though, Keiko doubted that information on the sleep patterns of elves was what Karlach really came over for. It only took a few breaths longer to be proven right.
Are you alright? Keiko's hands stilled, her throat tightening around those three little words. When was the last time she had been asked that while in this sort of state, by someone who really meant it? By a friend who wasn't looking for another weakness to exploit, another reason to make her life a living hell?
She still didn't know what to do, sometimes, with all of this fiery woman's strange kindness.
At least she could believe by now that Karlach meant it. That here, between just the two of them, honesty wouldn't come back to bite her with sharpened teeth. So, with a sigh, Keiko set Phalar Aluve back in its sheath. Curling in on herself once her lap was free, she drew one knee up to her chest and rested both her hands atop it, her gaze dropping down to the grass and dirt underfoot.
"...No," she confessed after a long, silent moment. "No, I -"
And just like that, her throat closed right back up. Much as Keiko longed to be honest, it was difficult to fight a near-century of conditioning contrariwise. But she wasn't there any more, and it wasn't another matron who was asking.
In the end, when she chanced a glance back Karlach's way, it was the raw, unbridled concern shining in ember-bright eyes that finally worked to loosen her tongue.
"Just by virtue of being down here, we are closing in on Lolth's territory. And she is nothing if not territorial." Though they may have camped on myconid ground tonight, drow lurked around every corner in the Underdark. Drow who could know her face, her name; who could ambush them in the night and drag her back screaming.
With a humorless chuckle, Keiko tilted her head back, letting her rapidly blinking eyes trace over the warm, gentle slopes of giant mushrooms overheard. The action did just enough to ground herself - to give another well-needed reminder that no matter how unnervingly familiar this place felt, they were not in Menzoberranzan tonight - that she was able to bare her scars a little more. "I still haven't told any of you, have I? The reason why I ended up on the surface at all."
