SHADOWS FOR EYES

Mukuro Avarice shouldn't be too surprised that Shadowheart was, at the very least, tolerant of her presence given how little Shadowheart did holding her tongue。 It was a trait that the song dragon greatly appreciated, seeing that Mukuro Avarice had a similar speaking manner and Shadowheart was one of the few people that Mukuro Avarice felt like she got along with the best。 

When the cat seemed to agree to the name choice, the smile on the dragon's lips pulled into a larger grin。

「Thank you~ I'm glad you like it,」 the comment was directed to both Shadowheart and the cat。

She watches as the feline attempts nudge her head beneath Mukuro's chin, all fluff and affection.

「That's fair,」 Mukuro Avarice hums softly, she'd probably similarly answer that question, 「I'm just curious is all, and a bit nosy if I'm honest。」 She gives a small shrug as she answers his question, she was truly just curious about his age。Seeing as Mukuro Avarice never really got to meet with other dragons who acted friendly towards her ( and that she was friendly back ) 。

Knowledge, no matter how insignifant or unimportant it seemed to someone, was something that Mukuro Avarice desired deeply。

It makes him intriguing. It makes him dangerous. It makes Astarion wonder if someone dropped him in the woods for a couple hundred years to see what emerges. 

It makes him, sometimes, feel like he’s looking in a bloodsoaked mirror. His face may be gone, but the anguish and the hunger and the pain are all right there. 

He makes no apology, serves up no excuse, for what had come before, how he had dreamed among the echoes of broken flesh and viscera, at once here and gone. He knows no other way.

"I haven't considered appearances." There is a silence that is, perhaps, his realization supplying him an answer. "You mean yourself."

It seems Narxix accepts this at face value - or at least takes Astarion at his word on the matter. The conversation brings to mind the Thayan book. How instinct had bidden him to keep it. How he hadn't. How the desire to relinquish it had come so easily at Astarion's mere request. He finds himself turning over the mystery of his own actions as much as he does the contents of the pages.

“ Fine, fine. I won’t pry, my dear. Even if you are hoarding all the interesting things to yourself. ”

He doesn’t mention his own little book related project. The necromancy tome remains stubborn about its secrets, though he’s certain that it holds something important to him. Why else would all those voices tease him with it?

Best to put that out of his mind, though. It won’t do to be sullen and morose when he’s trying to ensure his survival. Shadowheart is keen enough to see through most of his ruses. And she will let him know exactly how pathetic his attempts are if he fails.

"Finders keepers." But not far behind is her gratitude, pleasantly surprised he doesn't press the issue. "Thank you. It's appreciated."

Lifting the goblet to her lips, the scent is what hits her first. The fact that it doesn't carry a bitter bite is promising. The taste proves to be far more acceptable than many of the meals they manage to scrape together.

"Not terrible. See for yourself," she notices, holding the cup on offer to him. "I suppose it does more for me than it does for you."

{ ♪ } -- Her chest warmed at the kind words. Part of her was shocked that Shadowheart ever seemed cold to her. It was understandable now that she had more information, but it was hard to fathom the woman being anything but the kinder soul she saw now. Still, she gently tapped her feet against the ground.

"That's fair. I know that she and Shar supposedly had quite the battle. Everlasting, is what I've heard. With Shar trying to bring about endless darkness and Selûne trying to maintain the balance. It seems like such an overused trope, honestly... The battle of darkness and light. But, we've seen things that prove these deities are as real as anything else... So, it makes me curious."

Humming thoughtfully, she gave her hand a gentle squeeze. It couldn't possibly be easy to spend what you could remember of your life hating a deity, only to find out that you once followed that exact deity and the people you'd been taught by had spirited you away from your family. But, complicated feelings would take time to sort out, and the cleric was happy to sit by her side while she did so.

"Oh, it's just part of the territory once you're my friend! Spoiling the people I care about is my favorite thing in the world! Once I have access to my family's jewelry shop again, I love to take the gems they can't use and give them to those around me."

If she hadn't been so thoroughly entangled, she might have seen the obvious sooner. And now, after so long, she can barely begin to understand where her role and her family's begins and ends. All she knows now is that she must find them, no matter the cost. It helps that she has pleasant company who is of the same mind.

"As real as real can be, believe me. I've felt Shar's presence. Heard her voice. Witnessed her power." Her wrath. Her punishment. A thousand flames burning from the inside out, condemning Shadowheart's defiance. "I can't imagine the Moonmaiden's followers feel any differently. I don't know what we'll find at Baldur's Gate, but maybe when all this is done, we can learn a bit about Selûne first-hand."

Without hesitation, Shadowheart lends her considerable strength to lift Bella to her feet. Gently, of course. It won't do to repay her courtesy with a wrenched arm.

The Song Dragon didn't bother hiding how excited she was with the cat in her arms。 There's a soft smile on her lips as she gently pets the cat。

「I do? Thank you,」 it was quite the compliment, granted, Mukuro Avarice didn't really know what or rather how she came across as, but to hear that she seemed quite personable that made her really happy to hear。

「A name?」 she repeats the question, her own head tilting in thought, 「what about Biscuit? 」

Considering the feline lounging in Mukuro's arms, Shadowheart finds her opinion is wholly unneeded when the newly named Biscuit begins to purr in loud, resonating contentment.

If he even has any to begin with.

There’s an appalling thought, having a mark that doesn’t respond to anything. Narxix seems to take cold as a fish to new heights–perhaps cold as a shark that’s scented blood. 

He can't know with any certainty. May never know again. Instinct is all the whispers to him, that the way Astarion speaks to him now is new. Different.

How very much he wishes this were true. Astarion is aware he can be difficult, aware that he has lied and manipulated her in the past. It’s difficult to feel like a beacon of hope as he continues to wade through the mire of his own past. This is precisely why he feels kinship with Portia. 

The two of them have been over his past transactions before. At the moment, he’s too terrified of pointing out how no, he really hasn’t done anything to be of help. He isn’t some cleric who can wave their mace around and heal Portia of her affliction. Has no esoteric arcane knowledge that could come in useful. He hasn’t studied the hells for similar patterns.

He has been a creature of instinct. His will has been subsumed by someone, something else. He goes so far as to think the two of them understand each other better than anyone else in their merry little band of misfits. 

But he understands. It will have to be enough. 

“ I made you a promise last night. Despite what everyone may think, my word does mean something. Especially when it comes to you, my dear. ”

He moves to snare her hand between his own, quick as a cat chasing a beautiful songbird. His grip may be cold, but he wishes it to be reassuring. He applies the barest hint of pressure. 

“ I could’ve lost control and killed you the night you offered me your blood, ” he admits, trying and failing to ignore memories of the way his throat ached, his stomach a gnawing void demanding to be filled. It’s ghostly now after having his fill of the people hells bent on killing them. However, it serves as a reminder that he’s just as much at fault. 

So many hooks and claws and tethers unseen, writhing beneath her skin. She has ridden off the vitality of panic, the fine edge of gnashing and fleeing, for so long she cannot say when it begins. Her lungs ache for the breath she now greedily drinks, head bowed and her grasp tightening around his. Grounded. Anchored.

"This isn't about a petty tally of promises kept or broken, Astarion." Her voice is now a steadier thing. Clearer. Present. "No one would have blamed you if it was too much. I wouldn't have blamed you. A sense of self-preservation is the rational response."

But it is the exact reason Portia doesn't depart at first light herself, to leave them all to carry out the journey without her. She promised. Swore it to their faces to see this through to the end. For him, that means unraveling Cazador's plans and putrid flesh alike. Whatever she may be, whoever she has been, she can leave no one here to their fates, least of all Astarion.

Astarion, who is very much right. He could have left her a drained, hollow husk. Might have been tempted to do just that. Never had she known wariness or fear then. The serpentine quiet coiled in wait, reassuring that though he could have tried, she is and has been the only danger here. That she understood him and felt an enduring kinship. Still does, no matter how her hand yearns to twist the dagger.

When her eyes finally open, finding his patiently searching after hers, she is seeing him, truly seeing him, for the first time in hours, and he is a sight most welcome. She can't help the way her attention roams, committing him to fragile memory and checking he is whole and well.

"I don't want to be even. I want something better for us. For you. That's bloody all." There is a frustration, a harrowing wonder, aimed entirely at herself. "It shouldn't have to be this difficult, but I've found the worst way possible to make it just that."

The beat of silence that settles is her watching, bottomless gaze growing darker with a ring of unshed tears. She reaches for him without warning, to take him into her arms.

"I'm sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing in telling you to walk away. That's the last thing I want."

One who, Astarion also recalls, allowed much suffering of the love of his unlife. 

It would be easy to lose that thread in all of the chaos. But Astarion knows what it’s like to be at the mercy of someone else, and no one in his corner. Arkezet has a family who isn’t complete wastes, and still allowed them to languish. 

The muscles in his back tense, bristling as if someone tread over his grave. It feels counterintuitive to pick a fight with a dragon on his own. That, however, hasn’t stopped Astarion before. 

There is a question that remains in this. Why?

Though the answers might be in short supply, it is plain for him to ascertain that there is blame to place, as far as Astarion is concerned, and he would happily unburden it at Vindolanax's feet.

It is nothing compared to his own surprise, the cold wash of it settling over him. It is his turn for his focus to narrow.

"Illithid parasites. When? Tell me you are rid of them." The alternative would change the entire course of this visit. "Why should I have been among them? If you speak so casually of mind flayers, you can only mean the younglings pact-bound to the githyanki. Don't conflate circumstances you understand so little."

“ And you lack the ego portion of it all, love, ” he finishes, returning to those fathomless depths Narxix has in place of eyes. “You haven’t belittled me once for not knowing more than a single spell.”

It is interesting, though, the very subtle change in Narxix at the mention of it being easy. Just when Astarion thinks he has him figured out, he changes it up once more. Well, never let it be said he doesn’t enjoy a challenge. 

"Why would I? You get the job done as you are. I would rather mind my own skills." A breadth of talents far and wide, all in service to - to -

The rush of blood returns to his mind's eye the bodies, the putrid resurgence to a pale facsimile of life, the ravenous maws under his command. Command. Commanded so much more than specters, he -

Shadowheart doesn’t deserve his misplaced ire that has dug its talons deeper than the tadpole’s teeth. She’s been the closest to an ally from all of their companions. And while she seems ambivalent, it’s better than outright hostility. 

If Shadowheart sounds amused, it's because she very much is. The refugees, whose only desires are a bit of safety and security. More than a bit unnecessary. Come to think of it, with voracious parasites playing room mate in their skulls, their own collective desires aren't all that far off.

Maybe Astarion needs a bit of help sussing out individual angles to find the path of least resistance, but she won't be the one to correct him just yet. That would be telling, in the end.

When he returned out of his dragon form, Mukuro Avarice took the time to look at his face more, and when she noticed the scale pattern along his face, she quietly hummed to herself。 She had noticed it before but assumed he was one of those warlocks with dragon blood in them or whatever, but she should have really listened to her gut。

Oh well, hindsight is 20/20 or whatever。

「How old are you then, really?」 She had indeed a lot of questions, but she'd try and be cautious about what questions she asked in fear that he'd turn the question right back to her。

Naturally, it stands to reason she would immediately ask the question he is the least inclined to openly indulge.

The act drops. There’s no playful smile that adorns his features. No come hither tilt to his head. No lazy gestures or drawl to go along with them. At this moment, he is just Astarion, nothing else. His voice is raw, as if he’s been screaming for hours. 

For a moment, he feels as though she’s seen through all of it. Surely this is the reason she doesn’t want to be with him. She sees their future as it is–him, with nothing to offer her but his bruised and battered heart. Then there’s the matter of having a vampire lord who will hunt him forever, someone whose hand he’ll most likely die to. He isn’t charming, or funny, or, gods forbid, stable. 

“ If you want to leave things here… because of me, I won’t stop you. ”

His hands grasp at nothing at his side. The urge to reach out is strong, to find something real and living and breathing and warm beneath his finger tips. A night not so long ago he offered her his hand, and she took it.

“ But if this is because of your fears, don’t. I promised you last night we would find answers to this together. ”

She goes still, stricken by the suggestion. She nearly kills him in his trance, and he thinks he is at fault? That he missteps and blunders and lacks in her eyes? It's unfathomable, bringing with it the deceptive calm at the center of the storm, the winds waiting in the wings to rage and snarl.

"No, you--" Dry. So dry. She tastes stale blood from staler wounds on her tongue. Only hers. For that, she is grateful when it was so nearly his. "You're everything. Everything wonderful in my life. You haven't done a single thing but try to help."

The unspoken lies between them. She has. She is the one who has done it. Might do it again and again. It is a different flavor of cruelty, to expect others to carry on in her company. Their reluctance and vigilance have never been more earned.

"How--"

It catches, a garrote, a snare, a frenetic air rising. Her hands flutter, tremor, find purchase in her own hair to smooth through it over and over, the skin beneath riddled with angry, puckered scars. ( Who are you, what are you, to survive this and so much more? )

"How can you still want this after last night?"

And if Astarion does, how can she say no? To leave him here to shoulder the blame, the bitterness, that was never his to carry? The reason, the resolve ( I love you, I love you, save yourself from me ) crumbles under the weight of his attention. His pleas. His understanding. His own weariness. She can forgive herself no more for his sorrow now than she can for the claws and teeth of hours earlier.

He has to be right. He has to be. There has to be another way. Together.

Among other things. Jaheira has a very storied past, the stuff of many tavern bard’s speculation and creative freedom. Some of it he doesn’t dare repeat for fear of his own hide–especially the more bawdy things he’s heard. None of it he believes for a second, given the person in front of him.

Jaheira is fierce. Strong. Proud. And horribly flawed. A person, like all the rest.

Privately, Jaheira is amused that he thinks her so incapable of falling afoul of harm. What is she, if not mortal? Time and luck, whichever one chooses to believe in, run out all the same. Any she has remaining, she firmly knows lie somewhere between her abilities, her instincts, and the strength and skill of the allies she finds throughout the years.

"Here I am, very much among the living," she agrees. "After my companions went about the fool-hardy business of rituals and bargains. Similar to present company, never knowing when to leave well enough alone."

For a time that felt like a small eternity, she had known the powerlessness, the hunger. She can compare it no other fate. In matters of undeath, it is the source of her vengeance at some turns and her understanding at others.

If she’s offering him monetary recompense, however, far be it from him to not accept. Gingerly, he lifts the velvet pouch and pulls the strings open revealing… cat treats.

Her tail thrashes her impatience up until the moment he relents, placing the prize before her. It is precisely the bounty Tara hopes it will be and much more besides. After a cursory sniff, confirming what her sharp gaze already tells her, she appears pleased with his part in their excavation.

"Now, see your patience rewarded."

Without further explanation, she takes the pouch between her teeth and, with a flap of quiet wings, vanishes on the spot. When she materializes again, her spoils are nowhere to be found. In their place, a golden necklace hangs.