Coco's BG3 Bakery

Tip. Tap. Tip. Tap.

The bundle stirs and once again groans begrudgingly at the foreign sounds that have suddenly become all-too grating, grasping at a well-worn blanket before violently pulling it over the splayed mess of brown hair that has become entwined in the chaotic heap of pillows, pelts, and blankets and letting forth an unintelligible slew of words.

“Oh come on! You have to get up, we agreed to be up and out by midday! Gale even made you extra eggs this morning,” the voice says with a hint of enticement upon the mention of eggs. The bundle mumbles another slew of words lost beneath the layers of blankets as a shuffle of footsteps on gravel and dirt approaches. Gravel and dirt. The bundle shifts uncomfortably patting the hard ground beneath their blankets as the fog of sleep begins to dissipate and the mental cogs begin to turn slowly towards an uncomfortable realization. “I’m on the ground….I AM ON THE GROUND. Why am I on the ground?!”

There’s a sensation of panic bubbling up within her bowels and threatening to boil over.

Tip. Tap. Tip. Tap.

The fine hairs on her body begin to stand skyward and her eyes shoot open underneath what she now realizes is not her blanket and this is most certainly not her bed. Her heart is racing and her breathing begins to escalate as her mind floods with thoughts. Was she kidnapped? Is she being trafficked? Did someone break into her apartment and is now suddenly holding her hostage at an unknown location and is using her for ransom? In the midst of her spiral, the forgotten footsteps have suddenly stopped.

An irritated huff.

 It’s mere feet away and she’s trapped under an unknown blanket without anything to defend herself and there’s a stranger in her vicinity. She curls up ready to flip over and run as fast as she can.

“Okay since you’re not getting up on your own, I’m coming in! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

There’s a rustle and suddenly, the warmth and comfort of the pelts and blankets is gone and staring down at her is a giant red woman with golden eyes and horns. Horns. There’s a moment of confusion as the blanket that was violently tossed from her body settles off to her right before a scream of terror escapes her lungs.

“OH MY GOD THIS IS A DREAM” she screams as she scurries on all fours beneath the giant red woman with horns and golden eyes, her hands grasping for purchase on coarse dirt and rocks before she is able to bolt upright and face the woman who is now staring at her confused with both hands raised before her to indicate non-threat.

“It’s okay Soldier, it’s just me, Karlach. Sorry to startle you but I suppose you were having a bad dream. It’s okay, you’re safe” she coos softly, her bellowing voice dropped to a gentle lull as she crouches over and slowly approaches.

“By the gods! What the sweet hells is all this ruckus?” an irate voice calls from behind.

Slowly removing her eyes from the woman in front of her, in a frozen state she cautiously turns her head and torso in a singular languid twist and sets her sights upon a man in a loosely ruffled white shirt with eyes as red as rubies and delicate white strands of hair curling around a set of pointed ears.

Pointed ears?

Pointed ears.

POINTED. EARS.

She halts her movement. Her breath stills before suddenly her body grows limp and the sky turns black behind her eyes. The last thing she remembers is an ache deep within her skull and a flash light on a screen.

••••••

“Oh no! Is she going to be okay?!”

“Karlach, what the hells did you do!”

“I didn’t do a think Fangs, I swear it! I just went to wake her up and then she-“

“Make some space!” a woman commands. “Tav can you hear me? Can you wiggle your fingers to let me know you’re okay?” the soft feminine voice says from above her as a sudden flood of comforting warmth undulates in waves over her body. Her head and shoulders have a dull ache that is slowly subsiding as the warmth passes over her body and she carefully opens her eyes, her blurred vision becoming clearer as the seconds pass.

“What…what happened?” she asks, blinking, her eyes remaining fixated on the sky above. Her mind feels fuzzy and her fingers and toes feel numb.

“I was about to ask you the same thing. We all heard you scream and the next thing I know, I hear Karlach and Astarion calling for me and you’re on the ground collapsed.”

She shoots upwards and her head nearly makes contact with the head of a woman with green eyes and black hair whose hands were glowing. Glowing.

Hazel eyes dart back and forth as her heart hammers inside her ribcage and her chest begins to heave. “Wher-what, h-how? This can’t be real, there’s no god forsaken way this is real. Is this my voice? WHY DO I HAVE AN ACCENT?!” She can hear the words spill from her lips but the voice sounds foreign and her tongue is contorting against her teeth in an unfamiliar manner. She begins to mutter words under her breath and no matter how hard she tries, they don’t come out the way she intends them to. Her o’s are long and her a’s are hollow. This isn’t her voice. Hazel eyes are blown wide like a deer in the face of death and she can feel herself spiraling into a panic attack, chest tightening as her breathing begins to increase rapidly.

“Tav, I need you to breathe for me” the woman with green eyes and black hair says.

Tav?

Who’s Tav?

Unmanicured hands grasp at an all-too-loose linen shirt before they begin to pat over a chest that doesn’t feel like hers with calloused hands covered in fresh bruises and scratches that surely do not belong to her. Kicking her legs and rocking into a standing position, her eyes dart around her. Her chest is heaving. There’s a river, a lake, ruins, tents with knick-knacks and mirrors. Mirrors. She breaks out into a sprint toward a mirror resting upon a table at a red tent. What she sees suctions the breath from her already compressed lungs: glowing hazel eyes, a dainty pointed nose, light freckles dusting her cheeks, and beneath a messily braided mop of chestnut hair, two slightly pointed ears.

“Oh no…oh gods…OH GODS” she says in horror, her hands patting and touching at the expanse of her face and pinching the pointed tips of foreign ears that were somehow attached to her face.

“Tav, are you quite alright? Wyll, Laezel, and I have just returned from scouting ahead and we heard you yelling?” a man with warm brown eyes, dark brown hair peppered with grey, and a finely trimmed beard says placing down a basket of various plants.

“Gale…YOU’RE GALE!” she practically yells, her body leaning backwards onto the damaged wooden table. He tilts his head befuddled, his brow knotting itself deeply as he eyes her suspiciously.

“The one and only but I feel as though I have clearly missed out on an event that I might need to be privy to. Shadowheart, can you please enlighten me on why our resident leader is looking at me as if I had already sprouted tentacles?”

“While I would like to say it’s the tadpoles, your guess is as good as mine to be quite frank with you.”

“Hmm intriguing…” he trails off, crossing his arms in front of his chest and resting his chin between a thumb and finger as he glances over and evaluates Tav, who looks like a hare corner by a predator.

“Oh come now Gale, Tav looks terrified. Maybe we should give her some space for a moment?” a man with dark skin, massive curled horns, and mismatched eyes says.

Gale exhales before stepping back, firmly crossing both arms and shifting his weight to a leg before he tilts his head quizzically. “Yes I suppose you’re right Wyll,” he acknowledged “and apologies Tav! I merely am concerned since you seem quite…alarmed.”

She closes her eyes and takes deep, focused breaths. In, one, two, three, out, one, two, three. Her heart beat slows to a calm flutter.

Suddenly, the sound of scraping metal rings out from her left. “Her mind is slipping and she is but mere moments away from losing herself to madness! Move out of the way before she turns into a ghaik!”

Wyll races to move towards the woman with green skin whose eyes are set in a murderous rage “Laezel she’s not turning this has to be something-“

No sooner than he steps in front of her to speak, she is shoving him to the side with her forearm and quickly encroaching on Tav’s heaving form slouched against the wooden side table. Just as Tav finally succeeds in bringing her breathing into a normal rhythm she looks up and no sooner than she does, it’s as if time slows. A blade is swinging downward toward her body and whether it be by chance, instinct, or pure fear, as she puts her hands out in front of her, a buzzing sensation wells from within her palms and two mysterious words tumble from her lips: dolor.

In a flash of radiant red light, she feels the air part from her hands and a thunderous echo radiate across the cliffs behind her, a flock of birds cawing and screeching fearfully departing in droves from a nearby treeline. There’s a palpable vibration slowly fading from her hands and as she opens her eyes and unclenches her jaw, a shocked silence washes over Tav.

There before her and everyone in the camp lies the groaning form of Laezel blown some distance away, her sword cocked off to the corner a significant length from her hands. Tav looks to her hands in awe and then again at Laezel, who appears disoriented grasping at her head and wobbling to a very unsteady standing position.

“ISTIK HOW DARE YOU! I am saving you from misery!” Laezel shouts, her voice rasping. However her angry yelling falls upon deaf ears as Tav is lost staring at her hands and the buzzing electricity she feels sprinkling into her fingertip from her palms. She just did magic. SHE. JUST. DID. MAGIC. Tav is vibrating out of her skin.

“Oh my god I did magic…I DID MAGIC!” she yells in excitement before her mind switches to Laezel’s form being held back by a pleading Wyll and a Karlach who had rushed over whilst her mind was in limbo. It then hits her that she just blasted Laezel directly in the chest and the excitement once again turns to fear and panic, her voice stammering “OH GOD I’M SO SORRY! I-I-I don’t know how I did that I didn’t mean to hurt you like that!” Tav is power walking to Laezel to apologize profusely before Gale clears his throat to interject.

“Tav while that was a fantastic Eldritch Blast, I do believe we all best avoid further animosity first thing in the morning before we head to the Goblin Camp. Our energies are best spent on actual enemies, not each other.”

Astarion huffs and clicks his tongue at Gale’s commentary, crossing his arms dramatically “Oh dear old Gale, aren’t you simply just the biggest spoilsport. And here I was getting my hopes up for a little fight to the death first thing in the morning.”

“Hmm I must side with Astarion on this. It really would have made for a fine show and one less headache down the road” Shadowheart admonishes, a single brow quirked and her lips pursed in displeasure. Laezel clicks her tongue and growls low in response, shaking off Wyll and Karlach before stomping over to get her sword.

“I really am sorry. I honestly don’t know how I did that,” Tav says, her hands together at her front, eyes downcast. Her mind is reeling. Should she tell them the truth or should she lie and try to pretend? Pretending would have been great but she knows she’s already blown her cover with some of the things she had said as well as her panic attack moments earlier. Internally Tav weighs her options in silence as her companions begin to bicker amongst themselves. She considers her current predicament and comes to the conclusion that perhaps the truth would be less stressful for her to endure than lie and keeping up false pretenses, especially knowing that she is capable of accidental explosive magic in moments of intense emotion.

In one, out two, Tav breaths until she can finally look towards the band of misfits before her. She’s thinking about how to form words and tell these people her identity however, before she can recall even her real name, a pain strikes the side of her temple, forcing her to the ground with her head in her hands. The shock subsides and before she even opens her mouth to speak, the pain strikes her down again with equal ferocity. Her skull is pounding behind closed eyes and gritted teeth.

No one speaks, but a concerned Gale is immediately at her side, a hand on her back as he kneels down beside her. As he is about to speak, Tav waves her hand to shush him and suddenly it’s as if a celestial nebula crashes through her mind, memories exploding and overwhelming her senses. She sees flashes of books, a home, a grey sky beneath steel wings, illuminated letters clicking under her fingertips, a hall of statues and paintings. No sooner than the images collide and implode upon one another in her mind, her body stills, the pain fades, and the images cease.