Thinking about how Shadowheart is so thirsty, y'know? She flirts with Karlach and Wyll, pines after Shar, has an incredibly homoerotic dynamic with Lae'zel, dreams about Halsin, and, if prompted, is enthusiastically polyamarous.
All of this is all well and good from a horny standpoint, but I think it also illustrates something important about Shadowheart's personality: No matter how prickly she tries to present herself, she's a lover at her core.
She loves life, even when she attempts to mask this love behind cold violence. She loves cute animals and pretty flowers. She loves her parents, even as she struggles to remember them. She loves her goddess (In her own, fucked up way). She loves trashy romance chapbooks and good wine. She loves her friends, even when they annoy her. She loves herself, after a fashion, and loves her body, loves other people's bodies. Even before fully abandoning Shar, as a partner she's caring, affectionate, even a little girlish and goofy behind the veneer of brooding mysteries.
And these things manifest even after being raised in Shar's cloister, after several decades of trauma and memory wipes. So strong is Shadowheart's love that Viconia literally has to erase her multiple times to build a colder, more callous acolyte. So strong is her love that even when mind wiped and personally guided by the hand of the Lady of Sorrows, she still harbors doubts about the thing that tells her to abandon her love.
It's the love of and for her companions, and the gnawing feeling of absence where her she knows her other loves should be, that ultimately leads her away from Shar. Her first priority after enduring timeless torments in the Shadowfell is affirming her love to a romanced player character. If her parents survive, she abandons what would have almost certainly been a life of fame, fortune, and power to care for them on a cozy farmstead, surrounding herself with the things and people that she loves. And if it comes up, she sees any proposed nonmonogamy not as an indictment of her partner's loyalty or their bond with her, but as a chance for them to spread and share and revel in the love that she holds so dear.
It's no wonder Viconia and Shar were so desperate to control her, to turn her away from Selûne. This is a woman whose love burns so brightly that even the goddess of darkness and loss failed to snuff out her light.
