fae

[faeriiefire]

Welcome ✶

Hi, hello ~~~ 24 ⟡ she/her ⟡

You may call me Fae. I am a fellow BG3 enthusiast, and rpg appreciator. I like to explore stories through VP, with some fanfic on the side! (tho I have yet to officially publish anything ... ) Meet the party!

Tag ⟡ Build ⟡ Infodump ⟡ Durgeqotd ⟡ Evil's Ascent

Tag ⟡ Build

Tag ⟡ Build

AO3

[faeriiefire]

Self-Indulgent Sun Mon ⟡

Tysm for the tags @saylofwaterdeep @the-shadowfell-darkroom @bladesingerlily @deianestormborn @arlynx @optimisticgrey ♥️✨ lovely to delve into your works!

I am always so bad with these wip tags. 😆 I know BG3 content is to be expected but I have a different piece for you today. Neither fanfic nor VP. This is a self-indulgent tag right? So here’s some personal writing to chew on.

A bit of a preface: At the present moment, I am gravitating to writing stories that deal with both grief and identity. Though not grand in magnitude, they are the current harmonies in my daily life at this age. Growing older, adult things continue to arise, and I am still figuring out where I fit in amongst it all. I share this, not to garner attention or sympathy, but in the hopes that it may resonate with someone who needs it. (You're entirely welcome to call it cringe too, I do.)

Preservation

Some days it is hard to feel like a person. When the days meld together into one, you are forgetting something. You are always forgetting something. Small details, big ones, lost in an engulfing bog. It is impossible to wade through. The mud squelches around the boundaries of your boots. Sinking in. Possessive and unwilling to let go. You feel them there — the important details — resting near your feet. Solid matter slumbering, suffocating in the peat. They are present and yet they remain unreachable. Taunting. Trying only consumes you. The more you stumble, the more you falter. The more you fight, the tighter it holds. Now you are waist deep. It is not quite a drowning, but rather a slow burial. A gradual absorption into the landscape between existence and erasure. You wonder if it is better to just give in. Help has only offered you so much, too little. Should you succumb to the marsh? Should you lay yourself to rest like an ancient offering? An unmarked, water-logged grave that others will never visit. To be exhumed only in a distant millennium, when peat becomes fuel. No longer individual, you have become sediment. Time compresses you into resource. Time, which you have failed to find the structure and shape of, slips away from you. Your bygone struggle repurposed for another’s indifferent profit. Perhaps. Perhaps it is easier to be forgotten. Does memory maketh a person?

Will just leave this as an OPEN TAG again for anyone who may have writing they’d like to share!

[preciouslittle-bhaalbabe]

@swordmaid made a portrait of my tragic bbg Esme and I cannot stop staring at this holy shit

[cursed-nyxan]

Refugees.

Here's a bigger project I've been working on for a while. The tiefling refugees are all pretty close to my heart, so I wanted to give them the love they deserve. A few of them are still missing, but I'm already planning another set for the kids!

Unfortunately, I can't add as many tags as there are characters, so feel free to tag your favorite underrated tiefling!

Oooookay, sorry for playing the boomer. I figured I need to leave the tags here. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go bury myself out of sheer shame.

@wasteful-sam @heytheresunflower @starlit-serpent @thecampjuicebox @miauzuli @scoldingdarjeeling @faircatch2025 @deianestormborn @onlytavs @optimisticgrey @foxyannon @alrendriablaze @dr4gonwriter @facetheworldbitch @purpleasters-inseptember @monrayne @perpetualmaladaptivedaydream @zigloo @mogruith @crowwolf @thepalelawyer @shewolfofvilnius

[vasiliquemort]

Delicious and Torturous Friend

I am absolutely mad from love, turned into liquid and evaporated into air - in every way it's an understatement to say that @deianestormborn is beautiful beyond all measures, gentle and glorious beyond comprehension, sweet as a dew and precious like the moon herself and she turns me completely breathless and aching from adoration.

Sweet gentle friend, today all winds sing for you and all stars woke up just to look at you. And me, myself, I'm breathing and still holding on here through life at the very least to stand in your light and witness you thoroughly<зз

[molabuddy]

really specific trope i like that i feel like can only be explained in a diagram

[tinyhorror]

my son.. (frames from this video)

*.✧✶ twitter | insta | bluesky | inprnt | redbubble ✶✧.*

[hell-alka]

Redemption🌹

[wild-surge]

[fireflyeyes]

Velvet Arcanum: a 70's rockstar AU fic inspired by the film Almost Famous.

Pairing: Gale x Named Tav Rating: E for explicit smut Status: Complete

Summary:

Velvet Arcanum: 70s rock glamour, celestial prints, and enough ego to fill an airship. Jessica Miller is on the road with the biggest band in the Realms to write an expose on the "real" Gale Dekarios. But the deeper she goes into the hazy, sandalwood scented world of the Arcane Dreams tour, the more she realizes that "the truth" is a dangerous thing to find— especially when it starts looking back at you with tired, intelligent eyes.

Read it on AO3 HERE

[7pleiades7]

Young Naiad, (Detail), (c. 1912), by Paul Émile Chabas (French, 1869 – 1937)

[deianestormborn]

Tenday of Deia | Day Ten x Everyone

Link to the post that started it all. | Day One. | Day Two. | Day Three. | Day Four. | Day Five. | Day Six. | Day Seven. | Day Eight. | Day Nine.

Location is from the Snapshots mod by @rdekarios. Here we are, at the last day. Tomorrow I turn 27, and my girl turns... well, somewhere between 29 and 31. I want to say thank you. I know this was not interesting for everyone, but whoever followed along and appreciated the little stories or my VPs, I want you to know it meant everything to me. First thing, I think I improved my VP quality during this little event. Second, it got me to do something every single day, which was both a little nervewrecking and fun. Third, and most important one, it brought some joy to a rather depressing day for me.

Thank you for celebrating Deia with me. And by that extension, thank you for brightening my mood. Thank you to every kind soul that was there for me, especially in private. I'm glad to have met you all. And I'm glad I stumbled upon this game. Every companion means something to me, and I know Deia is in good hands now. Enjoy the last little snippet for a while, m?

By the tenth night, Deia has become suspicious of kindness. This is inconvenient, because kindness has been following her around for nine days with increasing organization, and most of it has Gale’s handwriting somewhere near the center. At first, she expects another note. A burst of blue light. A folded invitation. A line written in his careful hand, trying and failing to sound casual while clearly carrying the weight of three revised drafts. Instead, Karlach finds her after dinner and seizes both her hands.

“Come on.”

Deia looks down at their joined fingers, then up at her face.

“Is this abduction?”

“Group abduction.”

“That sounds worse.”

“It’s better. More witnesses.”

“Historically, witnesses have rarely improved a crime.”

Karlach beams.

“You’ll love it.”

Behind her, Wyll appears with the kind of expression that suggests he has been instructed to look innocent and has committed too fully to the role. Deia narrows her eyes.

“You too?”

“I am merely here to ensure you reach the destination with dignity.”

“Ah. So yes.”

“Yes,” he says, smiling. “Very much yes.”

They lead her toward the camp’s outer clearing, where lanterns and hovering lights have been strung between branches. The night is deep and gentle, the grass silvered by moonlight and star-glow. Someone has arranged tables with food and wine. Someone has placed cushions around the fire. Someone has brought too many candles, which points toward Gale with damning certainty. Someone brought the cake too, of course, as promised. Everyone is there.

Shadowheart sits near the table with a cup already in hand, wearing the serene look of a woman prepared to deny emotional involvement in any and all proceedings. Lae’zel stands beside her with her arms crossed, posture severe, though the githyanki clasp in Deia’s hair catches her eye and earns the faintest tilt of approval. Halsin tends the fire with easy calm. Astarion lounges near the edge of the light, dressed sharply enough to imply an insult toward everyone else’s effort. Scratch rests near his feet. The owlbear cub is half beneath the table, investigating a plate of pastries with criminal focus. And Gale stands a little apart from the others, watching Deia arrive. Deia slows. Karlach squeezes her hands once before letting go.

“Happy chosen birthday,” she says softly.

Deia’s throat tightens without permission.

“It is not midnight yet.”

“We know,” Wyll says. “That is why we are staying until it is.”

Astarion raises his cup.

“Some of us under protest.”

“You arrived first,” Shadowheart says.

“I wanted the best seat.”

“You chose the darkest corner.”

“Exactly.”

Deia looks around at them, at the lights, the food, the waiting fire, the faces turned toward her with varying levels of openness and discomfort. Her chest feels strangely crowded. Too much warmth. Too many hands reaching without demanding she call it a debt. Gale comes to her side. He does not touch her immediately. His eyes move over her face, reading with that careful devotion she has come to know too well.

“All right?” he asks quietly.

Deia lifts a brow.

“You have staged another event.”

“I contributed to a collective effort.”

“You made charts.”

“Only two for this one.”

“Gale.”

“One was an seating arrangement that Astarion immediately ruined.”

“I improved it,” Astarion calls.

“You moved your chair behind a tree.”

“Yes. Better.”

Deia laughs despite herself. Gale’s smile warms. He rests his hand at the small of her back, familiar and steady, then leans closer to murmur.

“Stay as long as you wish. Leave whenever you need. Tonight is yours.”

The words settle her more than she expects. She looks at him for a moment, then nods. The evening begins with food, which means it also begins with argument. Karlach insists the fried pastries are better with honey. Wyll argues for cinnamon. Shadowheart claims both are acceptable if the wine is good enough. Astarion says the wine is passable in the tone of someone who has already drunk two cups. Halsin quietly rescues a bowl from the owlbear cub. Lae’zel declares the pastries structurally weak and eats four. Deia watches them all with her chin propped on her hand.

“You are staring,” Gale says beside her.

“I am observing.”

“With the expression you wear when trying to decide whether something is dangerous.”

“It is.”

He glances across the camp, where Karlach is laughing so hard she nearly knocks over Wyll’s cup.

“The pastries?”

“The affection.”

Gale’s expression softens.

Deia points a warning finger at him.

“Do not become poetic.”

“I would never.”

“You absolutely would.”

“I am exercising heroic restraint.”

“Continue.”

He presses a kiss to her temple and says nothing more. For a while, the night is easy. That alone feels miraculous. They talk over one another. They eat too much. Scratch performs a solemn parade around the fire with the ribboned stick from his day and receives applause from Karlach, Wyll, and Halsin. Astarion refuses to clap until Deia looks at him, at which point he sighs and gives three slow, insulting claps that Scratch accepts with pride. The owlbear cub attempts to sit on Lae’zel’s foot. Lae’zel looks down at him, then allows it with the air of a commander permitting troops to rest. Eventually, Wyll produces his lute. Deia eyes it.

“I know that look.”

“What look?”

“The look of a man about to request entertainment.”

“I would never be so crude,” Wyll says. “I was about to offer accompaniment.”

“Worse.”

Karlach leans forward.

“Come on, Dee. One song.”

Shadowheart lifts her cup.

“Only if she wants.”

Astarion tilts his head.

“Naturally. Though if she does want, I would prefer something with taste.”

Deia smiles sweetly.

“I know several funeral dirges.”

“For me? How touching.”

Halsin settles back near the fire.

“The night would welcome music.”

Lae’zel looks toward Deia.

“Your previous performances have been acceptable.”

Deia turns to Gale.

“Is that a compliment?”

“One of the highest she offers, I believe.”

Lae’zel does not deny it. Deia takes the lute from Wyll in the end, because she is weak to an audience that pretends it is not begging. She plays first for mockery, something bright and quick enough to make Karlach clap along. Then something old from Wyll’s book, the elven words still imperfect on her tongue but more familiar than they were ten days ago. Wyll joins her softly. His voice steadies the places where hers hesitates. Astarion watches without appearing to watch. Shadowheart looks into her cup and smiles. Halsin closes his eyes. Gale does not look away from Deia once.

The night inches toward midnight. Deia notices the others growing restless. Not restless from boredom. Restless from conspiracy. Karlach keeps glancing at Wyll. Wyll keeps glancing at Gale. Shadowheart looks smug. Astarion looks far too innocent. Halsin rises once and returns with something long and wrapped in dark cloth. Lae’zel moves closer to the fire as if taking her place in a ceremony. Deia stops mid-tune.

“What did you do?”

Gale says nothing. That is the most suspicious part. Deia looks at him. He only smiles.

“Gale.”

“Yes, my love?”

“What did you do?”

His eyes soften.

“Less than you think.”

Halsin steps forward and lays the wrapped object across the table. The camp quiets. For a heartbeat, Deia remains seated with Wyll’s lute across her lap, her fingers still resting lightly over the strings. Then she stands. The cloth is dark, almost black, tied with a thin silver cord. Deia unties it slowly. The cord slips loose. The fabric parts. A violin lies beneath.

The body is white crystal, shaped with impossible delicacy, yet its presence has weight and purpose. A faint blue sheen moves beneath the surface when the firelight touches it, like winter sky trapped in glass. Black accents curl along the edges and neck, sleek as ink. The strings shimmer pale, silvered and fine, while the bow rests beside it, dark-polished and balanced with a small crystal setting at its frog. For several breaths, Deia does not move. The instrument catches the light from every direction and returns it changed. Moon. Fire. Stars. Shadow. All of it held in one impossible shape. Deia’s voice comes softly.

“What is this?”

“A collective gift,” Wyll says.

She looks around at them. Karlach has both hands pressed over her mouth, practically vibrating. Shadowheart watches with feigned indifference that convinces no one. Astarion swirls his wine, eyes too sharp to be bored. Halsin’s expression is warm. Lae’zel stands straight as a blade. Gale watches Deia with his whole heart plain upon his face.

“You all…”

“Yes,” Shadowheart says. “Unfortunately.”

Karlach drops her hands.

“We all helped.”

Deia looks back down at the violin. Wyll steps closer first.

“I found the maker. Or rather, I found the maker’s daughter, who had inherited the old designs. The shape is based on elven crystalcraft.”

“A nightmare to commission,” Astarion adds. “Half the artisans in this city have no sense of drama.”

“You stole the black crystal,” Shadowheart says.

“I sourced it.”

“You stole it.”

“From a man with three indoor fountains and a portrait of himself as a winged lion. I would argue I restored balance to the world.”

Deia’s mouth twitches, but her eyes stay bright. Shadowheart nods toward the instrument.

“The moonstone inlay was my choice.”

“Purely aesthetic?” Deia asks.

“Obviously.”

“Obviously.”

Halsin gestures to the bow.

“The wood comes from a fallen branch. Old, well-seasoned. The tree had already given it up.”

“I tested the balance. It is acceptable.” Lae’zel says.

“High praise,” Gale murmurs.

Lae’zel gives him a look.

“It could crack a skull if required.”

Wyll winces slightly.

“Preferably, it will sing before it does that.”

Karlach steps forward, eyes shining.

“I helped pay for it. And I carried it. And I didn’t drop it once.”

“That last part was repeatedly emphasized,” Astarion says.

“Because it matters.”

“It does,” Deia says quietly.

Karlach beams. Gale is the last to speak.

“The enchantment is mine,” he says. “Only resonance. Nothing that directs your magic. Nothing that interferes.”

His voice lowers, meant for her even though everyone hears it.

“It will answer what you give it.”

Deia reaches toward the violin, then stops just above it. Her fingers tremble. Gale sees. So does everyone else. Nobody says a word. That may be the kindest thing they do all night. Finally, Deia lifts the violin. It is cool beneath her hand, then warmer almost at once, as if it recognizes the shape of being held. The crystal feels sturdier than it looks. The instrument fits against her shoulder with startling ease. As though it has been waiting for the right body to complete it. She draws the bow up. Pauses.

“This is too much,” she says.

Lae’zel answers immediately.

“It is exactly enough.”

Deia looks at her. Lae’zel’s expression does not soften, but her gaze does.

“Accept the weapon.”

“It is a violin.”

“It may yet prove otherwise.”

A startled laugh breaks from Deia, and some of the pressure in her chest breaks with it. She settles the instrument beneath her chin. The first note is delicate. Clear. It rises through the camp like blue light drawn across water. Everyone stills. Even the owlbear cub stops chewing. Scratch lifts his head, ears perked, as the note trembles and opens into another.

Deia tests the strings at first, finding them carefully, learning their temper. The violin answers with a voice unlike any instrument she has played. Crystal-bright, but warm at the center. A second resonance hums beneath each note, faint and draconic, less heard than felt in the ribs.

Then the song begins. It is not one she knows. It gathers as she plays. A kitchen rhythm first, soft and quick, knife on board, soup hissing, Wyll’s voice beneath an old elven tale. The melody turns, and suddenly there is tavern heat, Karlach’s laugh, the stamp of dancing feet, a fiddle somewhere too loud and perfect. A darker phrase slips in after that, sly and silver, moving between gravestones with wine on its breath and a stolen dagger at its hip. Astarion looks away. Deia sees. She keeps playing.

The song widens into summer. Grass, candles, wild roses, a tree old enough to remember silence before sorrow. Then water follows, warm pools beneath moonlight, a fountain pouring silver beneath a goddess who finally feels less like a threat than a witness. The melody sharpens suddenly, blade-bright, bells in a ruined field, breath in cold dawn, the clean strike of steel against steel. Lae’zel’s chin lifts.

Then, impossibly, joy tumbles in. A stick thrown through grass. Scratch’s bright bark. The owlbear cub’s triumphant crash. Laughter knocked loose from a body that had forgotten how harmless a fall could be. Gale’s hand curls around his cup. The song changes again. Violet sky. Candles on stone. Ink in a garden book. Soil notes. Wisteria. Morning sun. A promise written in practical lines and trembling margins. Deia’s bow slows. Her eyes find Gale. His expression is open, aching, undone by the sound of himself made into music.

Then she plays all of them together. The melody rises, stronger now, threaded with every day they have given her. Wyll’s stories. Karlach’s arms. Astarion’s careful silence. Halsin’s flowers. Shadowheart’s chosen moonlight. Lae’zel’s fierce recognition. Scratch and the cub’s simple joy. Gale’s impossible, mortal, stubborn love. Midnight arrives while she is playing. No bell announces it. No spell marks it. The camp seems to know. The fire dips low, then flares brighter. The candles answer in little gold shivers. The stars lean close. Deia holds the final note until it thins into silence. For a long moment, nobody speaks. Then Karlach whispers.

“Happy birthday, Dee.”

The words break something gently. Wyll raises his cup.

“To Deia.”

Halsin follows.

“To the life she chose.”

Shadowheart lifts hers.

“And to the people fortunate enough to be chosen with it.”

Astarion sighs, though his voice is softer than his face pretends.

“To our aggressively beloved menace.”

Lae’zel raises her cup with battlefield gravity.

“To the day she claimed.”

Gale is last. He stands close enough that Deia can feel his warmth at her side.

“To the woman who made a home of all of us,” he says.

Deia lowers the violin. Her eyes sting. She looks at them. All of them. This impossible gathering of sharp edges and soft underbellies, heroes and liars and exiles and survivors, all standing in the firelight with cups raised to a birthday that no one had recorded, so they built one instead. A laugh catches in her throat, shaky and disbelieving.

“You are all terrible,” she says.

Astarion raises his cup higher.

“And yet?”

Deia looks down at the violin in her hands. White crystal. Blue sheen. Black accents. A voice given to her by every strange, stubborn creature who has loved her into this circle. Her mouth curves.

“And yet,” she says.

Karlach cheers first. Of course she does. Then the others join, some laughing, some clapping, Astarion with great suffering and Shadowheart with a smile she barely tries to hide. Scratch barks. The owlbear cub roars in miniature, pleased by the noise and unaware of its cause.

Deia lifts the violin again. This time, the song is faster. Brighter. It catches Karlach by the hands and drags her into motion. Wyll joins her, laughing when she spins too eagerly and nearly pulls him off balance. Halsin claps the rhythm. Shadowheart pretends she will remain seated for all of three breaths before Karlach drags her up too. Lae’zel refuses to dance, then performs three steps with such alarming precision that everyone wisely decides to call it a tactical maneuver. Astarion complains about the lack of refinement and then moves with infuriating grace when Deia deliberately changes the tempo to lure him in.

Gale stands beside her through it all. He watches the others dance. Watches the firelight catch on the gifts of the tenday. Watches Deia play with her hair falling around her face and her eyes bright, the crystal violin tucked beneath her chin as if it has always belonged there. When the song ends, she is breathless. Gale steps close.

“You made it sing beautifully,” he says.

His hand settles at her waist. She leans into him, only slightly. Enough. The celebration continues past midnight. Long past it. There is more wine. More music. A second round of pastries. An argument about whether Lae’zel dancing counts as dancing. Astarion steals the last piece of fruit from Karlach and nearly starts a diplomatic incident. Shadowheart falls asleep briefly against the side of Halsin’s chair and threatens everyone upon waking. Scratch curls at Deia’s feet. The owlbear cub eventually collapses beneath the table, full of crumbs and victory.

At some point, Deia sits with the crystal violin across her lap, one hand resting lightly over its strings. Gale sits beside her. Wyll on her other side. Karlach pressed close behind them, warm as a hearth. Shadowheart nearby. Astarion in the shadows, near enough to be included and far enough to pretend otherwise. Halsin tending the fire. Lae’zel standing watch with her cup in hand, though her eyes are calm.

Deia looks around. The night has grown quiet around the edges. The chosen birthday is here. It does not feel like a date on a calendar. It feels like this: crumbs on a table, candlewax on stone, laughter still lingering in the air, a white crystal violin warm beneath her fingers, and every person she loves close enough to hear her breathe. For once, Deia does not wonder whether she has earned it. She simply stays. And when Gale takes her hand under the table, she lets him. The fire burns down slowly. The stars remain. The song, once played, does not leave.

[knightofbhaal]

CHAPTER TWO - THE TENDER YEARS

VP (and Carmen) by the illustrious @doomedlamb

CONTENT WARNINGS: None, somehow.

READ CHAPTER ONE HERE.

In the ensuing weeks, Syryth keeps his distance from his new partner. Sarevok impresses upon him that Carmen is important, that they bear the same responsibility, and Syryth won’t hear it. She is years late to claim her birthright, and thus years behind in training. He doesn’t know what to make of her temperament, which is often sinister, quiet, and not precisely inviting. When she speaks up, she can be deeply arrogant. She’s always commanding, ordering attendants and followers as if she had always had a place here. When faced with an audience outside of the inner sanctum, Carmen carries herself like she is already being worshipped.

The veneer of Syryth’s distaste for her is admittedly thin. When she commands another, something within Syryth feels compelled to listen. Occasionally, her particularly cruel orders sent a shock of static down to his fingers, where he itches to unsheathe his sword– to strike the recipient, that is. It’s a feeling that his conscious mind doesn’t metabolize as jealousy, but it is jealousy nonetheless.

His walls seem to crumble at the lightest tap. He trails around her like a curious animal, in glimpses between his duties. He begins to suggest that they can take their meetings with Sarevok together, then their meals, and eventually their prayers. 

And then there is the first hunt. As they strike out together, they seem to align not just in thoughts but in their bodies, responding to each other’s movements on a cellular level. Syryth and Carmen stalk dark alleys like twin currents commanding a river of carnage. Their blades move as if they share the same hand. Their bodies never stumble. With the smallest glance or touch, they move into place on either side of a victim. They know who steps forward and who stays behind. What was meant to be a meager handful of sacrifices becomes a giddy, childlike slaughtering spree, lacking the usual care that at least Syryth would take to choose those souls no one would miss. Their muscles tremble with adrenaline and ecstasy, minds filled with a dizzying fog of their Father’s approval. 

As the sun begins to rise, Carmen leans back against a stone wall, and Syryth falls to his knees. Somehow, she knows she isn’t having a vision alone. In a field of endless, hazy red, they watch a hand, at once a stranger’s and intimately familiar, claw a single drop of blood from its body. It hangs in the air, scarlet and shimmering, until the other hand comes to split it into two. The blood swirls and swells, blooming into viscera that wraps itself with ropelike muscle, then ribbons of taut skin. One drop, one soul, two forms. They don’t need to watch the full transformation of this gnarled flesh into mortal bodies to understand what they see. 

They move into the same chambers within a day.

— — —

Their joined room has to be newly made, by Sceleritas’ insistence, and he babbles incessantly about how lovely it is to see them get along. Two opulent beds are placed in it, on the back wall but truly as the centrepiece. No expense is spared; it is subtly gold-laced and less subtly bedecked with tailor-made furniture and fixtures. And it becomes their sanctuary.

Syryth takes to chatter and endearments. He has a playful side, often leaning over to face her and battering her with questions, promises.

I often feel like the smaller piece of what we are, and I believe this means you’re destined to consume me.

I would wade neck-deep across an ocean of flame if you had left a single earring on the other side.

When I die, would you hold the blade? I dream of it, you know. 

Carmen is less inclined to talk, and perhaps less initially convinced of a grand destiny, but she grows fond of her brother’s strange devotion, if only internally.

They bathe together. Syryth takes special pleasure in scrubbing the day’s waste from her body, buffing her heels and cleaning her nails, and most especially brushing her hair. He enjoys the ability to make her sigh when his hands are scratching her scalp or working the tension from her muscles. 

Carmen’s head feels cottony when she looks at Syryth. She finds it difficult to answer his questions at times, and finds herself ignoring him frequently in her overwhelm. His efforts to pledge himself to her only increase when she gets distant, which further fuels her nerves and confusion. There is something she feels, perhaps many things, and she feels she’d need the hands of several people to pick whatever it is apart. 

Syryth is nothing if not patient. He believes that one day, only they will exist, and he will belong to her utterly, and she will acknowledge him in all the ways he craves to be acknowledged, including punishment for his faults. His soul is hers, and they have the lifetimes of generations of mortals for fate to embrace them. So he lives in service without reward, save the ability to make her crack a smile and permission to be close to her. 

It feels lucky for Carmen that they’re not together all the time. As leaders-to-be, Carmen takes a more active role in regular slaughter, while Syryth is mostly in charge of making connections. The space he jokingly calls his war room is kept meticulously with endless lists and notes on contacts, constant flows of schemes in the works, and enough diagrams to fill a small museum. He has a scale model of Baldur’s Gate, although it doesn’t see much use. His plans are detailed, to say the least— always a contingency plan for every contingency plan, and a chain of dominos that, if toppled, would fall far from the cult. He floats all of his plans past Carmen, and always includes her in the big ones— especially if there is to be a massacre. 

Carmen has more of a face within the cult itself, demanding more active worship and keeping those subjects who get the privilege of witnessing her from getting too high on themselves. Her innate bloodlust combined with her training as a soldier gives her a gift for training ranks of new killers, who can efficiently and discreetly spill blood for their lord. 

Eighty years pass in this dance of closeness, a proximity to each other far more powerful than their ties to any other person or thing on the mortal plane, but a proximity that never spills over into something that’s spoken aloud or explored more deeply.

One thing, however, is immutably true: the Cult of Bhaal hasn’t enjoyed the level of power or influence they’ve given it in centuries. 

Taglist: @wasteful-sam @cornamentado @faeriiefire

[optimisticgrey]

Self-indulgent Sunday

I was tagged by @kt-catt @@rdekarios @lilhumanoid @litsenn @oursusanellen @thepalelawyer @tynithia @faeriiefire @lolthwoven @bladesingerlily for WIPs and last lines written. Thank you dears! 🫶

Parts Part one, two, three, four, five, six

He smirked—small, brief, the first warmth she had seen in him all evening, not the warmth he usually offered her but warmer than the careful distance he had maintained since she walked through the study door, as though she had managed to bridge some narrow fraction of the chasm she had created.

"I cannot claim to be entirely unfamiliar with the feeling," he added, and she understood what it cost him to admit it. "But what I fail to grasp—what I genuinely cannot reconcile—is why you would lie to me about it. Why would you not trust me enough to share this with me?"

Celeste sighed. "I love you. You are an Archmage. A Professor at the Blackstaff Academy. You take lunch with the Blackstaff herself and dinner with the social echelon of Waterdeep—"

"As do you."

"As your wife, yes. The woman beside you." She turned the glass slowly. "When we came to Waterdeep, I had nothing to my name but a heritage I didn't want. No past, no identity, no memories I could reliably trust. Not even a last name—you gave me yours."

For a brief moment, a smile crossed his face, and Celeste considered carefully how much truth he would be able to stomach, and how quickly.

"Do you remember," she asked, her voice dropping, watching the firelight catch in the rum's dark surface, "the first night I played the Yawning Portal?"

"I do."

"We had wandered a great deal in those weeks, you had shown me the city, your favorite spots, the restaurants, the bakeries and vendors you love—"

"I remember," Gale stated, harder than before, and she heard what lay beneath it: that it was a good memory, a fond one, and that revisiting it tonight was complicated.

"I noticed we were being followed. We were both slightly drunk, just enough for me to be entertaining when I performed, and you hadn't noticed. I was absolutely certain, but you were enjoying yourself so thoroughly that when I asked whether you had noticed anything—"

"I declined!" Gale sat forward abruptly, the memory surfacing with enough force to animate him despite himself. "We were on our way home, finding—" He took a breath and fought back a smirk with visible effort. "Indulging in alleyways. You asked if I had noticed something, and I declined."

Celeste managed a small smile, glad he was willing to go there with her, even now. "Yes. You declined. And I tried to let it go, and we had other things on our minds that night. But I could not shake the feeling. So when you left for the Academy the next morning, I followed, at a distance. It was just a feeling that something might be wrong."

"And you concluded I was incapable of handling it?" The warmth the memory had briefly restored evaporated instantly, replaced by sharp offense. "I was Mystra's Chosen, Celeste. I have—"

"I am aware, Gale," she said gently. "I did not think you would be attacked in broad daylight and be unable to defend yourself. I was concerned. This was a new city, and I did not yet know its patterns." She sighed. "I would have done it differently, with hindsight. But it was not distrust. It was—if I am being completely honest—also thrilling. I admit that freely. It was thrilling to follow a thread and see where it led."

Gale sighed with the resignation of a man defeated by a truth he recognized in himself. "Though I do not particularly enjoy admitting it... I am familiar with the feeling."

Celeste nodded, drank, then offered a small smile. His eyes softened, fractionally.

"And? Had I been followed?"

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[rosenmourn]

A Wizard's Folly

"If these heights should bring my fall, Let me be your own Icarian carrion"

[elfiramore]

[bananiii-0]