This week, I've been mostly playing BG3 and I can't stop making new characters. I started wondering what would happen if all my tadfools hung out, and one thing led to another and -
A Nautiloid in Hell
It was raining in Rivington, and Emily picked her way carefully along the path to avoid the bigger puddles. The late afternoon was warm, and she didn't mind the kind of rain that came in fat, heavy drops. It plastered her pale hair to her face and stuck her robe to her back, but soon she would be home and she could change her clothes and stoke the fire in the grate before she started cooking the fish she had bought from the monger on Wyrm's Crossing. She reached the door of the cottage she shared with her ailing mother and wiped her boots on the mat before opening the door.
"I'm home!" Emily called, nudging the door shut behind her with her elbow as she kicked off her boots.
"Thank goodness," her mother answered from her armchair, without looking up from her knitting. "The fire needs tending."
Emily smiled and kissed her forehead. "Of course, mother."
She heaved another log into the grate and went to her bedroom to change while she waited for it to catch, and when she returned in a warm woolen jumper, she found it already roaring again. Her mother put down her knitting to talk with her while she took pans down from the wall and started on dinner.
Emily told her about her day at the Temple of the Open Hand, praying to Ilmater for the sick and the dying. Her mother managed to hold her tongue until the heads were boiling in a pot of water and Emily was carefully slicing fillets from the rest of the fish, but in the end she couldn't resist.
"Have you inquired at Sorcerous Sundries yet?" she asked.
Emily shook her head and tried not to sigh. "Not today," she said, without looking up from the fish. "I don't think it's a good idea. I'm not a wizard."
"You don't need to be to work there," her mother pointed out. "And you would make a fine librarian."
Emily melted a little lard in the pan over the fire and then laid the fish in it once it started to bubble. "I'm happy where I am," she said.
"At the temple? I know, dear, I know." She folded her hands in her lap and Emily tried not to notice the tremor in them. Her mother never mentioned their desperate need for more coin, but sometimes she wished she would - it'd make her selfishness harder to indulge.
"Maybe tomorrow," she said.
"Maybe tomorrow."
They ate together quietly. The next day, everything changed.
-
Emily awoke to a throbbing pain behind her right eye that sapped her strength and rendered her memory hazy. She had no idea where she was, beyond the fact that she was trapped in what felt horribly like a glass specimen jar. Something grey and chitinous supported her body, and beyond the glass she could see the impression of a cavernous room. A fire crackled, close and large enough that she could feel the heat against her body even though she couldn't see the flames themselves. She tried hammering on the glass, but it was an inch thick and resolute, and she gave up before she bruised herself.
There was no way out.
She had been in the Wide, the lower city market in Baldur's Gate, looking for fresh bread. The sky had cracked open overhead and something great and terrible had blotted out the sun. The memories rushed back to her in a flood of fear and panic: trying to run and getting shoved down by the crowds, people bursting into clouds of ash around her, and then the icy chill of something dark and cold against the back of her neck. She had time to think 'mind flayers', and then she was gone.
Something under Emily's pod jolted, and she felt the entire ship rock to the side with a groaning sound that almost seemed alive. The coffin lid hissed, and the acrid smell of sulphur and oil filled her nose - so thick she felt as though she could bite down on it. Emily shoved against the glass one more time and was so relieved when it slid up and away from her that she forgot about the poisonous reek of the air for a moment. She stumbled forwards on unsteady legs and fell out of the pod.
The vessel was in bad shape. A hole gaped in the wall, so large that Emily was nervous of falling out of it if she got too close. Outside, she could see swirling red storm clouds and jagged obsidian pillars floating a hundred feet above the ground. Her blood ran cold and her mouth turned dry. She had read enough about the Blood War to know where she was: Avernus. The Hells.
A flurry of fire and wings burned past the hole in the window and Emily felt the ship shudder again in response. It was under attack, and she was stuck on board. At the very least she wanted to find somewhere to hide before the hellions tore any more holes in the walls. Turning, Emily started towards the part of the room that looked most like an exit - a vile, twisted sphincter in the opposite wall - and made it halfway there before the glimmer of pearlescent orange eyes stopped her in her tracks. The mind flayer stared up at her from the floor, unblinking. The four thick tentacles that spewed from where a humanoid mouth would be were still. Its probing digits were limp. Dead. She breathed a sigh of relief, and was about to hurry on when she saw the other body - not a mind flayer, but an elf, dressed for the city in a fine, colourful doublet, sprawled awkwardly on their back. Emily could see from the rise and fall of their chest that they were still alive, and for the first time in twenty-five years she considered deserting her duty as a cleric of Ilmater. It would be so much easier to leave this stranger to the mercy of the Hells and leave. Instead, Emily steeled herself and picked her way gingerly to their side. The ground around them was slick with some foul bile that made her retch, but she kneeled by their head and carefully shook their shoulders until they stirred.
"Please wake up," she whispered. Her voice wouldn't be audible over the wind rushing in through the hole, but she still didn't dare risk speaking too loudly.
The elf moaned and lifted their head.
"Careful," Emily cautioned, trying to stop them rushing to their feet. "I think you hit your head."
"Something happened to my head alright," the elf grumbled as they sat up. Emily noticed too late the rapier on the ground next to them, and before she could react it was back in the elf's hand. She half expected an attack, but none came.
"Do you know what happened?" she ventured, once she had helped the elf to their feet.
The elf gestured at a shattered basin the size of her cottage fireplace. The briny bile on the floor oozed from it. "I touched something that didn't want to be touched," they explained.
"I meant about how we got here," Emily clarified.
"Not a clue," the elf said, their eyes searching the ground for something. "You don't see a violin around here do you? I had it when I woke up."
Emily stared at them blankly for a moment. "You're worried about a musical instrument? Now?"
"Aha! There you are," the elf said, picking up their violin from the floor and brushing it off against their sleeve. It didn't do much to clean off the brine and silvery mind flayer blood, but they seemed satisfied. "This is much more than a mere instrument," they said as they fiddled with the tuning pegs. "It's my muse, my weapon, and my most loyal companion." They gave Emily a deep bow, accompanied by a flourish on the newly tuned instrument. "Mellephora Lallorē, artisan extraordinaire and bard of consummate ability."
"Uh… Emily. Of Rivington."
Mellephora paused for a moment, as if they expected more, and then nodded politely. "Baldur's Gate," they said, with a touch of their hand to their chest. "Now, Emily of Rivington, I believe it's time we - ah!"
Something lurched in Emily's head and suddenly she was looking at herself from the outside - from Mellephora's eyes. Thoughts flickered in her mind and it took her a moment to realise they weren't her own: whatever had joined them was giving her a peek into Mellephora's brain. Their confidence was an act they dearly wanted to believe. When they looked at Emily, the phrase 'lost pup' drifted through their mind. And then, as abruptly as it had started, the connection ceased.
"Hells," Mellephora gasped, clutching at their head. Emily felt like her brain was going to burst, and she was acutely aware of a sensation like something wriggling behind her eye.
"Gods, what was that?" she managed to hiss through the pain.
Mellephora groaned and straightened up. "Must be the parasite."
"Parasite?"
Mellephora paused. "The mind flayers… how can I put this delicately? - they put vile little worms in our heads, I'm afraid."
Emily reeled in horror and disgust. "What? Why?"
Mellephora opened their mouth to reply, but was cut short by another violent rumble as something below them exploded.
"Suffice it to say, we don't want them there. Now, I think we should leave."
Emily nodded, and Mellphora strode towards the sphincter-like door, which peeled open as they approached. If Emily didn't know better from her trip behind the elf's eyes, she would be convinced by their sure steps and confident air. She hurried after them.
-
With their new companion trailing behind them, Mellephora advanced deeper into the nautiloid and tried to keep their mind off the tadpole in their head, but it proved easier said than done. Stepping through the next strange organic door, Mellephora and Emily found a huge section of the hull blasted away by fire and claws, and through the damage they could see what was laying siege to the vessel: red dragons, ridden by wiry humanoid figures Mellephora couldn't make out properly. They were squinting into the distance when Emily cried out a warning. Mellephora's gaze shot up in time to see a blur of armour soaring overhead, and a second later there was a sword point an inch from their eye.
"Abominations!" a voice hissed from behind the sword, and Mellephora lifted their eyes to look at her. "This is your end!"
Her green skin and pointed ears made her look almost like a fellow - if slightly serrated - wood-elf, but her flat, bat-like nose and the strange reptilian look of her eyes made it clear she was something else entirely. Before any of them could speak, their minds collided.
A red dragon. A silver sword. Gaik thralls. Planes beyond reckoning and battles through alien landscapes. A wood-elf and a human. A tadpole.
Mellephora felt themselves spat out of the stranger's mind and blinked away the pain rattling in their brain.
"Tsk'va, you are no thralls," the woman said, recovering much faster from the bout of pain than Mellephora or Emily. "Vlaakith blesses me this day! Together, we might survive."
"Vlaakith?" Emily said, more than a trace of uncertainty in her voice. "You're githyanki?"
"I am your only chance of survival," the stranger answered. "Come, we must fight together."
"Fight?" Emily asked, all but quaking in her boots.
The githyanki gestured. The sphincter bulkhead ahead had been torn through and inside a dozen imps tore at the flesh of a dead Mind Flayer and a barely-living thrall as he tried to fight them off. "They are between us and our freedom," she said, and then set off at a run. "Htak'a!" she cried as she plunged into the fray.
"We're not going to follow her, are we?" Emily asked. Her wet blue eyes were wide with fear, but it was the only way forward.
"Just keep your head down. Find a weapon too, if you can."
"Oh Gods," Emily whispered, but Mellephora didn't give her time to panic and ran after the githyanki.
-
Emily had never seen combat before, and within seconds she hoped never to see it again. The githyanki's sword cleaved an imp almost perfectly in half while strange blue and white strands of magic swirled around Mellephora's violin as they played, stopping only to insult a creature with such ferocity that it keeled over and died. The imps and their cambion masters had carved their way through the organic hull, leaving great tears and welts that oozed blood onto the floor. Emily stayed as close as she could to what remained of the walls as the fight raged, hoping she could go unnoticed. While she was cowering, a flicker of movement ahead caught her eye: she was sure something had just flitted across the balcony above her, but when she looked there was nobody there.
The snarl of an imp forced her to look back at the carnage, and she realised with horror that one of the creatures had spotted her and decide she was to be its next victim. The githyanki took a swing at it, but it swept out of the way of her blade with a swish of bat-like wings and then it was bearing down on Emily, scimitar raised and teeth bared. It was too late to scream, and she wouldn't give the hellion the satisfaction of hearing her fear. Instead, she closed her eyes and tried to find peace in the embrace of Ilmater. Death did not come. Instead, Emily heard a wet thud and and the imp wailing - a sound that was more pathetic than frightening. She risked a peek out of one eye and quickly wished she hadn't - the creature was reeling and whining, fingers grasping uselessly at a dagger that had pierced through its forehead. Emily didn't have to wonder for long how it had got there: with a flurry of dark cloth a figure dropped down from the balcony above and landed, blade first, on the top of the imp's head. It died with a wet gurgle and sunk to the bloody floor, the last flutter of its wings bringing her saviour gently to the ground.
Shin marched down the corridors of the Sion towards the brig, and wondered for the hundredth time what it was that drew her to the insufferable Mandalorian apprentice. There was something nameless that took over whenever she was near, and her control slipped. Her Master insisted on control at all times - discipline above all else. He told her they walked a dark path, but they were to be the masters of their own fate. Emotion was a tool to be manipulated, like a lightsaber was, to achieve their ends. Anger and pain fueled her powers in a battle, giving her focus when she needed it most, but Baylan had trained her to shut them off when she no longer needed them.
But this wasn't anger, or pain.
When she fought Wren, this feeling made her weaker. Her strikes fell short and she found herself giving her openings just to see what she would do with them, and worse still neglecting her own opportunities to end her. On Lothal she had toyed with her, trying to learn her approaches and feel out her strengths. Her final blow had been rushed, and now she felt torn in two: one half wished her strike had been true, and the Mandalorian had been felled. The other wanted something else that frightened her more than the streaking blue of hyperspace outside the viewports.
She arrived at the brig before she had control of her swirling thoughts again and touched the button on the wall. The metal slats in the upside-down triangle window slid open and there she was: lying on the metal bed, one knee raised and her cuffed wrists behind her head. Her elbow was in the way so Shin couldn't see her face, just the set of her jaw and the point of her chin.
"You're back," the Mandalorian said pointedly without looking around.
The prisoner had only been aboard the Sion a few hours and Shin had already stopped by the brig three times. She said nothing.
Wren sighed and resettled herself, and Shin watched the movement of her body as she rocked her shoulders to find some fleeting comfort against the featureless metal. She looked different without her armour. They had left her the greaves and knee pads, but the rest of her gear had been confiscated. Shin had taken it to her room. The beskar fascinated her - blaster bolts and even saber strikes left the metal unscarred, and even Wren's lurid paint seemed indelible. She had taken the pauldron marked with the Rebel Alliance insignia and carried it in a pocket under her robes, for reasons she couldn't explain other than liking the weight of it.
"You're still not going to say anything?" Wren asked. Her frustration was obvious, but Shin could feel it powerfully in the Force. There was anger at her confinement, of course, but beyond that something else festered: an irritation, directed exclusively at Shin. The Mandalorian wanted something from her, and it spoke to that unnamed feeling that sapped her strength around her. Shin cut herself off from Wren's presence.
"No," Shin said, which made her captive smile and shake her head.
"Fine," she said, and sat up.
The movement was smooth and easy, and now she faced the door with her forearms propped on her wide-spread knees. Her eyes locked with Shin's and slowly Wren's held tilted a little to the side. There was a little gold in her brown eyes, Shin thought, and not just reflected from Elsbeth's gaudy plated walls. They caught the light with a gleam of something like amusement - or maybe expectation.
"Why do you keep coming here?" Her voice was so soft that Shin wondered if she even meant her to hear it.
"I'm watching you," Shin answered.
Wren nodded, feigning thoughtfulness in a way that made Shin want to reach out and choke her. "I am dangerous," she said.
She stood, quickly, and Shin had to stop herself taking a physical step back from the door. She swallowed, and the Mandalorian gave her an infuriating half-smile to let her know that she had noticed.
"If you're going to be watching," she said, stepping into the centre of the tiny cell, "I might as well put on a show."
Shin stared as Wren lowered herself to her knees and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and setting her shoulders. As she breathed in slowly, she tilted her head back and Shin's eyes flickered down to the delicate curve of her neck, and then back up quickly before her captive opened her eyes and saw her transgression. The Mandalorian held the breath for a moment before letting it out and lowering her chin to her chest.
Then she leaped to her feet.
Shin admired the speed and precision of her movements. There was no trace of the Force, just the kind of raw physical prowess an experienced fighter could wield. With her feet back under her, Wren struck out to her side with both fists and a sharp hai! If Shin had been standing there, the blow would have struck her solar plexus and knocked her off her feet. The Mandalorian swiveled in place and then ran two steps up the wall, spinning at the top of her climb into a roundhouse kick that would have broken Shin's nose. She landed in a tight, effortlessly controlled roll that led into a jump to the opposite wall. Shin watched her take a single step this time and backflip so close to the ceiling she half-hoped she'd hit her head on it. Instead, the Mandalorian's boots gently scuffed Elsbeth's perfect golden ceiling and then came down hard on her imaginary opponent.
Shin didn't think this was a Jedi form. Her Master had certainly never taught her anything like this - Wren had incredible athletic fluidity, but there was force and violence in her every movement. Each one was calculated to cause damage, disarm, knock down, or kill an opponent. No, this was Mandalorian combat, something specifically developed to fight multiple armed opponents while restrained. A lost art, Shin was sure.
Wren landed neatly from another leap, one leg curled beneath her and the other extended into an almost balletic point, with her still locked-together hands pressed to the floor. Shin was confused to find that she was disappointed she wasn't sweating, and didn't know why. She realised she had noticed when she started sweating during their duel on Seatos, and remembered the way it had slicked her hair.
I liked her hair longer, she thought, and then froze. Where did that thought come from? What did it mean? Why would she have an opinion on Sabine's hair? When it was longer she could have grabbed it once that helmet had been stripped from her. When it was longer the orange dye at the ends had flickered like fire in the clash of their blades.
Wren eased herself slowly back to her feet. Shin watched helplessly as her long, supple leg straightened. She felt too hot in her robes suddenly, and her body ached with a demand she did not know how to satisfy. The cell was too small to justify it, but the Mandalorian turned anyway to step over to the bed with her back to Shin.
"Enjoying yourself?" she asked, with a look over her shoulder.
"What?" Shin's voice was hoarse, but she refused to give the prisoner the satisfaction of clearing her throat.
Wren smiled and sat down to face her again, sitting with back straight against the rear wall this time. "Te Ara be te Mirci't," she explained.
Shin recognised Mando'a from her studies, but she hadn't heard it spoken by a native. It was guttural, but in Wren's voice it sounded like silk sheets and red wine. She shook her head to dislodge that thought, but the more those infuriating golden brown eyes bored into her the harder it was to look away.
"It means the Way of the Prisoner," Wren translated for her. She lifted one leg and rested the ankle on her other knee. Shin recognised her relaxed posture and knew if she wasn't restrained her arms would be folded in challenge. "It's not exactly practical - Mandalorians are expected to fight to the death, after all. It's mostly used as a performance." She pushed her chin forwards. "Often at bonding ceremonies."
Shin glared at her smirk and felt something stir inside her. Her head throbbed and her hands shook. What was this woman doing to her? Suddenly, all she could think about was getting away from her. She was still watching her with that confusing, irritated and expectant look in her eye when Shin closed the shutters and turned away from the brig. The first thing she did when she reached her room was to toss her cloak over the pile of Mandalorian armour so she couldn't imagine Wren smirking at her from behind that helmet.
-
"Karabast," Sabine cursed under her breath when Shin hurried away, and then stood up. She wished there was room to pace in her cell, but it was half the size of her room on Ahsoka's ship. Thinking of her made her feel guilty. Whatever there was between her and that strange creature with the piercing blue eyes, she knew Ahsoka wouldn't approve. They had argued before about Sabine's proclivity for intimacy drawing her away from the Jedi path, but she knew Ahsoka's heart had never been in it - by her own admission Kanan had been more Jedi than her, and he and Hera had a son. This was different - Shin was undoubtedly their enemy, but Sabine couldn't help the blossoming affection she had for her, and she knew Shin felt the same.
Her connection to the Force was tenuous at the best of times. Ahsoka had explained that what she had thought of as her instincts - prickles at the back of her neck, the surety of where a blaster bolt would strike, the ominous or peaceful feelings she got around people - were actually ripples in the Force. Sabine hadn't been able to harness or direct them very well yet, but if she focused she could occasionally feel something. And what she felt from Shin was confusion, fear, sheer panic, and lust. Not that she needed the Force to tell her that, it had been in every swing of her blade on Seatos: the violence inherent to desire. Sabine wondered if Shin could ever be honest with her feelings without a laser sword in her hands.
She sat cross legged on the floor. Ahsoka would want her to use this time to meditate, so she did her best not to think about how Shin had come at her with that fiery blade like she wanted to mount her head as a trophy. Or maybe she just wanted to mount her. Sabine had fought that sort of battle before, and she wanted the sweet taste of victory over Shin maybe even more than she wanted to get off this ship. Her hands drifted from between her ankles to her lap as she remembered fighting Shin in the forest. Those wild swings she took, the fire in her eyes, and all that fear and panic and the desperate need for Sabine to put her on her back and pin her there until -
Sabine sighed. Fantasising again. Another subject she had argued about with Ahsoka, though mercifully not about rolling on the ground with beautiful, deadly bounty hunters. The cuffs didn't help. She put her hands firmly back between her ankles and tried harder to clear her mind. Shin would stay away for a little while, like she had with her last visits, and she could play with her food then.
origamiaround
romaincrisis
andulkaphoto
ellievsbear
discoholicmusic
2087
snowghoul
stormborns
