Beautiful art by @lindayss 😍
Meet my first Tav, Angharad. She's a flirtatious bard who knows how to work a room and organize a camp of misfit toys. While this image is set in a much more refined space, it's inspired by a moment from my very first fic, Head Games. (Fic rated E for explicit smut, non-consent, violence, some gore).
An excerpt from chapter 6 (Snippet rated M for mature for some blue language):
She chuckles, a soft, melodic sound, and returns to her writing, the scratch of her quill a steady counterpoint to the distant chaos of the Underdark.
The tent, for all its coziness, is a frail barrier against the oppressive world outside. The air hums with the muffled roars of unseen beasts, the skittering claws of lurking creatures scraping across stone, and the eerie buzz of bioluminescent fungi that paint the cavern walls in sickly blues and greens. Glowing spores drift lazily beyond the tent’s flaps, casting fleeting, ghostly light through the fabric. The ground beneath pulses faintly, as if alive, while inexplicable whispers thread through the stillness—remnants of lost souls or the Underdark’s own malevolent voice–you can’t be sure.
This eternal, suffocating darkness gnaws at you, a mirror to the centuries you spent under Cazador’s heel: an endless parade of horrors where pain was your only constant. Yet, you’d choose a brutal end from a hook horror’s claws or a minotaur’s horns over that cursed eternity any night of the tenday.
“Did Robert get to plow the fair maid with his large hoe yet?” Angharad stirs you from the abyss of memory. She’s sitting up now, cross-legged beside you, her warmth a tether to the present.
Drumming your fingers on the book’s cover, you squint at her, a smirk tugging at your lips. “Is that what you want, Angharad? To be the fair maiden plowed by an excessively large… hoe?”
“Now that is absurd. I want to be the cambion with the obscenely large red prick, plowing Robert before I claim his soul.” Her finger bops your nose, and you swallow hard, fighting the vivid image that flares in your mind, threatening to unravel your restraint.
Deep breath.
Her fingers drift to your hair, tracing the sensitive tip of your ear. You snatch her hand, a soft growl rumbling in your chest. “And what are you trying to start here, darling? I thought we had an agreement.”
Her hand cups her chin, and she speaks through her fingers, half-laughing. “I’m finding I’m rather terrible at following my own rules.” She presses her palm over her mouth, as if to trap further confessions, her eyes dancing with defiance.
Rolling your eyes, you deadpan, “Yes, I’m discovering that.” With a sigh, you return to the book, though the words blur beneath the weight of her presence.
