#palecharm

there was irony that could only be attached to his particular kind. irony, in the taking of life to fuel another's. her own mixed feelings on the whole ordeal set aside, she now weighed what she already knew of him with what she had learned the night before, contemplating her emotions and her logic in equal measure and coming up... conflicted. but she couldn't very well judge him; he hadn't asked for this life. would selûne have found pride in her choice to share her blood? would she see it as selfless, even if celeste's reasons had not been entirely as such?

❝ so much of the living is the being unknown. ❞ muses @palecharm.

say, i do not know how to be alive without being known. say, my life was a display case, glass - thin and transparent. say, the unknown is what i seek.

What was he thinking? Investigating Kahga was one thing; a locked chest behind a bookcase practically screamed 'I have secrets' and it hadn't taken more than a day's investigative work to piece together the truth. Unfortunately, the tieflings, upon realizing they had a detective in their midst, begged him to snoop around the goblin's camp. To find out if they had any patrol routes or plans or something the tieflings could use to get the hell out if this Tav and their party failed to scatter their forces.

And Arawn, riding the high of a job well done and agreed. Of course, I can do that, he said. It would be my pleasure.

Right. His fucking pleasure to be hunched over on a ledge watching as a party of eclectic-looking strangers cornered Minthara. Tav's party, probably.

"Dror Ragzlin is throwing a party in the other room," he said to the pale elf, dropping down out of his hiding spot. "You'll want to move quickly before someone alerts him."

 the water wasn't a necessity when a siren had to travel vast expanses of dry lands to reach her destination – she can't say that she wanted to help this fellowship but she had used their protection to her advantage . water wasn't necessary to keep her alive with two feet walking on the land , but she couldn't stop herself when she saw a clear lake near the place they camped for the night . now , with damp hair , and brighter flesh , she sits near the sleeping vampire and silently braids her long locks . he's a loud man , not necessarily his voice but he makes sure to voice whatever comes to his mind sometimes . [ @palecharm ] akina never spoke more than two words , even giving directions about their roads would only consist of a raise of her pale hand , pointing , nodding , shaking her head . . . she pauses momentarily when a rabbit runs from across the lake . her gaze moves toward the man , before suddenly suggesting in a quiet voice that she barely uses . ❛ do you want me to hunt you a rabbit to feed on ? ❜

Asphodel shivers and shakes, curling in on herself as sleep evades her in favor of the bile rising in her throat. Nails digging into the flesh of her arms before finally she jolts up; skin tingling in a way that almost itched. As if beetles or ants were crawling just beneath.

Panic sets in, and immediately she is looking around in a frantic need to know that she hasn't destroyed yet another life. She wrings her fingers. Glancing around the camp, then over the group of her sleeping companions, then back around the camp once more when she found an empty bed. She wasn't the only one unable to sleep, it would seem, and she felt something inside her ease at the thought of not being alone with the darkness inside.

ARRANGED MARRIAGE SENTENCE STARTERS 2.0. ( ACCEPTING )

You had to laugh at that. "What, did you hear the rumours? Like the Boy who cried Beholder? Going with fairytales? I suppose it's a reasonable lesson. Pleasure to finally meet you." The tips of your half-elven ears go red. You're not used to the word: Beauty/Beautiful. It's very uncommon to the point where compliments like that are unheard of. ( You're vile, you're rotten; nothing about you is beautiful. ) "Alkas Caedes, as you probably heard with your descriptions." You reach out, extending your hand out to Astarion as you've heard much about him. Well, you've heard to an extent.

FROM THE DESK OF THE NIGHT WARDEN: SAINT MAUD. no longer accepting.

there is blood in the air. metallic, thick - a scent that the night warden knows intimately; one that astarion knows, too. there is blood on her hands ( and were she one for poetry, minthara might have remarked that her hands were always bloodied. ) all signs of a battle well fought and well won - as if they would ever lose with her blade fighting with them. her movements are fluid, graceful when she wipes her dagger against the leather of her trousers; the blade gleaming cruelly in the silvery light of the stars - slick with blood - and though the night air is cold; the night warden burns hotter than flame - cheeks flushed, her breathing slow. even.

" perhaps i did. " it's not an admission, not a denial either; and a soft chuckle reverberates low in her throat; deep and throaty when she straightens. her smile is all teeth - gleaming cruelly in the pale light of the moon. it's more of a gash, more of a wound than an expression - those red eyes alight with some strange glow. " it is easy to enjoy seeing the life leave the eyes of one's enemy. it is easier yet to enjoy their fear; and perhaps sweeter to do so. "

briefly, her gaze drops to the still warm body at her feet. a now former flaming fist; a thrall bound in service to the absolute. a necessary death - the others, too; the night warden knows there is nothing she would not do in their pursuit of the absolute. nothing she would not do to seize it. minthara baenre is no stranger to violence; she had, after all, been raised to be a soldier from the moment she first drew breath. she knew weaponry as well as she knew the limits of her own body - though the night warden no longer knows who she is, she knows how to kill. something she suspects @palecharm knows, too.

and the night warden remembers. remembers every blade pressed to another's throat; be it in the name of lolth or the absolute - lolth, at least, she believes had been necessary. games for a god to play, but necessary for her own survival. but the absolute had been senseless - a waste of life and resources. perhaps it all had been a waste - perhaps, this, too was one. and where minthara had once taken such joy in battle, she finds her mood soured - her blood cooling as she straightens, swallowing. the doubt gnaws at her. she, at least, can pretend - her bravado is not so obvious, in her eyes, as his - and she can see it on him all the same. it is not lost on her, then, that had fate been different - she would have been in the same position as the soldier at her feet. a necessary death; not even a footnote in the history books.

‘ yes. ’   no. not immediately, at the very least. truth be told, the right idea rarely comes to her straight away and when it does, there’s always a few flaws. through the years it’s become apparent that this is just how life is, take it or leave it  —  it would have been easy to turn away from the grove’s problems, the tiefling’s problems, to carry forward to address the very pressing one wriggling in their respective skulls. but ever since the nautiloid, since coming across astarion and the others and taking up the mantle of a leader that she never intended to be, she found herself seeking the answer to one question:  what would larkin do?

the answer is as simple as it is complicated  —  he would do the right thing. that was something she could usually see eye to eye with him on, in her own way. in this case it meant spending a little extra time to track down a missing person and pass along a message. harmless at its core, but no doubt promising several bumps in the road, if previous experience was anything to go off of. exasperated sigh falls from her lips as she pinches the bridge of her nose  ( gods, I’m starting to mimic his mannerisms, too )  before she turns her attention full stop on astarion.

‘ think of it this way  —  this tanlor fellow has hung around this area for centuries and lived to tell the tale. there’s something valuable we can get out of this, too  —  and we need every advantage we can get. ’   a pause, a weighing of options, a shrug of the shoulders.   ‘ if worse comes to worse, you can keep everything you can fit into your pockets while we’re there. ’