Your story must come with a lot of scars. Though she had still been listening as Karlach spoke, those words finally drew Keiko's full attention back down. Carefully, her eyes roved over the scars littering Karlach's body. The webs of raised flesh, vents embedded in her shoulders, broken horn and tattooed words; a terrible story carved into her entire being. A life lived loudly, for better or worse.
Keiko's skin, on the other hand, remained pristine. For all she'd endured across a span of time much longer than Karlach had even been alive to witness, not a single sign of it showed on the outside. Appearances were to be maintained in Menzoberranzan, after all, and although her existence had practically been considered an affront to her gender, she was still a woman of high enough birth for her appearance to matter.
Lost in her own memory as she was, it was hard to focus until she was directly asked another question. Keiko forced herself to meet Karlach's gaze then on trained instinct, nodding in affirmation before dropping her eyes back down to that glowing, pulsing, infernal heart. Even if Karlach did burn her, she could take it, but...
It was a relief, if she was honest, to be handled with care for once.
When Karlach finally agreed to hear her story, Keiko inhaled sharply, one hand rising to tap against the center of her own chest. Though she had brought up the matter first, it was difficult, finally speaking into reality everything that she'd learned so perfectly to suppress in order to survive. It would be so much easier to fall back on the tadpole, let it show Karlach the worst of it all instead - but Karlach, of all people, didn't deserve to be put through any more horrors than she already had been.
So, slowly, unsteadily, Keiko began.
"I was born in Menzoberranzan. Everyone there worships Lolth under the threat of death, or worse, if caught doing otherwise." It was one of the first life lessons Keiko had ever learned - the hard way, as nearly every one was in that city. "I never... never condoned their ways of life, but there was little I could do about it if I wanted to survive. Just by refusing to be as brutal as my peers, I was already a target since I was young, but once I came of age and decided I wanted to attend Sorcere... Becoming a wizard is considered a man's place down there, you see."
Eyes rising for a brief second, Keiko shot Karlach a sardonic smile, before dropping both her expression and her gaze once more. "In the eyes of the matrons and priestesses, I was demeaning myself. Though I was ultimately allowed to attend, that was not a choice let slide without... reminders, that I had chosen to place myself beneath them - and what, exactly, that place entitled them to do."
Hopefully, that painted a clear enough picture for tonight. Fingers fisting around the textured linen of her sleep shirt, Keiko took a deep breath before moving on.
"Life continued on like that for decades, until I stumbled upon scriptures by accident. Teachings of Eilistraee, Lolth's daughter, hidden deep in the recesses of Sorcere's library. All I ever did is read, and dare to think for myself, yet still -" Keiko cut herself off with a near-hysterical laugh and a shake of her head, one hand reaching out blindly for Phalar Aluve. Mindlessly, she drew the sword closer to her, curling herself around the only tie to her people's singular good deity that she now had, the only real silver lining of this terrible trip back down into the dark. "Any secret kept in Menzoberranzan can only last for so long. Once I was discovered, I didn't stick around to find out what Lolth would have done to me - but I've never heard of an Eilistraeean who stayed and survived to tell the tale."
