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"I would help you give that fucker a holy-water enema even if we had never touched." She explained in a voice dark with rage that Cazador existed at all. "I am your friend, Astarion. I am more than that, but I am also that and I will always be that. Friends help friends destroy their evil vampiric overlords." |
"But..." His eyes swam with blood-tinged tears. |
"You are worthy. You are worthy of friendship and love and care." Tav placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, before letting her arms fall around his shoulders and hugging him tightly. "Do you regret staying to watch?" |
"No," Tears streaked red down his pale face. "That really was hot. I just don’t know how I feel now." |
"We’ll have to figure out what sort of after care you need, then." Tav mused. |
"What you need to not feel disgust and loathing at your own desires. To feel deserving. Or at least to be cared for through the emotions." Tav explained. "You are mine, aestar, and I will care for you however you need." |
"Oh," He breathed. Aestar, elven for a romantic love. It sounded like paradise, being cared for and kept. "That - that wasn’t undercommon." |
"We don’t have words for love. So I’ve borrowed yours." Tav said softly, raising a hand to stroke his curled silver hair. " I could call you Usst, if you’d rather. Just call you mine. " |
"Either sounds nice. Can we stay like this for a bit?" |
Tav smiled at her love, "Of course." |
The sun was sinking into the west, the sky a blaze of colour. Tav was curled up beside Astarion before the campfire, her head resting on his shoulder while he read to her in a low voice. A tray of crumbs beside her, the remains of dinner. Lae’zel and Halsin were dueling in the rapidly dimming light, longsword versus qu... |
The jingle of chainmail and the sound of approaching voices caught everyone’s attention. Wyll and Shadowheart entered the camp, accompanied by a massive red-skinned tiefling woman with a broken horn. She wore a patchwork of skintight fire-blackened leathers and metal chains, the skin of her sternum pulsing a glowing, f... |
"Oooh, you do have a dog!" The woman exclaimed, rushing to carefully hover over Scratch without touching him. "Hello, boy!" |
Scratch wagged his tail. The tiefling womans tail lashed back and forth as well. |
"Hello," Tav said, getting to her feet and approaching the stranger. |
"And a drow!" The woman exclaimed before turning to Shadowheart. "You really weren’t kidding!" |
Tav blinked for a moment, not sure what to do with the effervescent delight the woman seemed to take in everything. |
"I’m Tav." She finally settled on a polite introduction. |
"Karlach," The woman gave her name in return, sending a significant glance at Wyll. "I, uh... guess I’m the "demon’ this one’s been hunting." |
A cool grip on her wrist drew her backwards into a firm chest. Astarion gathered her in his arms and rested a cheek on top of her head, regarding the tiefling with a detached air contrasted by his show of possession over Tav’s body. |
"Karlach," Shadowheart introduced loudly, pointing to each member of the camp in turn, "This is Scratch, Halsin, Lae’zel and Gale. Tav and her, um, Astarion." |
"I’m your Astarion." an amused voice whispered in her ear. |
"Um - could someone explain what is going on?" Tav asked the camp, ignoring the smirking vampire at her back. "She isn’t a demon." |
"I got this, soldier!" The woman herself volunteered, "I love spinning a good yarn." |
Karlach sat them all down around the fire and told an amazing tale. Growing up on the streets of Baldur’s Gate to a wholesome but impoverished family, her knack for fighting turned into gainful employment as the bodyguard with an up and coming Patriar. Betrayed by that Lord she served and sold into slavery in the hells... |
"So I picked up the same little hitchhiker you all have," Karlach explained, gesturing to her right eye, "and here I am. Infected, but free and I am never going back!" The fire in her body, barely contained already, flared with her statement. |
"Wyll, your connection must have been mistaken about her being a demon." Tav shrugged. "Glad you didn’t kill her." |
Wyll looked hunted, dread twisting his face while he avoided eye contact with everyone. "Yes," He sighed in frustration. "It seems I’ve been deceived." |
"Glad you saw sense, though," Karlach’s hand hovered over the smaller man's shoulder for a moment, "Now, instead of a liability, I’ve got a friend. Friends. Or - I will have soon, anyway." |
"You’ve all been witness to a pantomime, I’m sorry to say." Wyll apologized to the party "And I've played my part all too poorly." |
"What does that mean?" Tav frowned, trying to parse Wyll’s occasionally flowery language. Baldurian royalty, she remembered Shadowheart saying. |
"It means that a reckoning’s coming. And I’ll be the one to pay up." Wyll answered with a flair of drama. "One night soon when we make camp, the veil will be lifted and I’ll pay my penance." |
"Penance?" Tav prompted. |
"Should we be worried?" Astarion asked on top of her own question, a promise in his tone of voice that he wouldn’t worry for Wyll in the least. |
"You’re not in any danger, I promise." Wyll replied to Astarion, but assuring everyone at once. "I can’t say the same about me." |
Not sure what to make of that, Tav was forced to dismiss it for the moment. "Are we all agreed that Karlach will join us?" She asked the group. |
"I like her." Shadowheart said with a far away look in her eyes. "She looks like she could throw me over her shoulder and carry me to safety... should the need arise." |
"I think someone has a crush." Astarion whispered in Tav’s ear. |
A crush? What would that mean for her and Wyll? Would it mean anything? Oh, the three of them would be so beautiful together. |
"It would be great to have some friends!" The tiefling woman enthused, "And hurt some fuckers that need hurting. Now, I saw some bathtubs out there on our way in, I’m gonna go make use of those things, if that’s alright. |
"Can I join you?" Tav asked, "I actually haven’t managed to use them yet myself." |
"Fuck, yeah!" Karlach agreed, "Let’s go. I’ll fill "em up." |
"You should go too, Shadowheart." Astarion encouraged, "There are three tubs." |
Tav turned to question Astarion’s out of character encouragement. They had a quick conversation in the exchange of a smirk and a single raised eyebrow. He admitted wanting to fuck around with Shadowheart and Wyll for the sheer fun of it as well as give Tav a little drama to watch while bathing. She was entirely too exc... |
"I won’t say no to another bath," Shadowheart admitted. |
The three women moved out to the courtyard of Waukeen’s Rest, quickly building a fire in the middle of the three tubs, then getting to work on preparing to bathe. |
"Karlach, how do you get an infernal engine for a heart?" Tav asked, watching the woman put that engine to work filling up three bathtubs faster than Tav had while under a haste spell. |
"High pain tolerance, I guess." Karlach explained. "I didn’t really have a choice, but it does come in handy. Burning really hot lately, though. Wish I could’ve shaken everyone's hands, but that’s out." |
"You can’t touch anyone?" Shadowheart asked,a little crestfallen. |
"Not without roasting them like a chicken." Karlach replied, finishing filling the last tub. "I heard there’s a mechanic around here somewhere that might help me with a tune-up." |
"You must mean Damon, the blacksmith with the Elturel Tiefling refugees," Tav realized. "They’re farther ahead of us on the road now, but I’m sure we can catch up to them after we get healed at the Creche. We’ll get you fixed up." |
"Amazing!" Karlach replied, beginning to strip her clothing away with a casual ease that brought a delightful blush to Shadowheart’s face. "Do you need to heat the water? I could sit in each tub for a bit, maybe? |
Shadowheart laughed, delighted by the idea. "No, you have your tub. Tav...? |
Tav stepped forward, channeling magic into two copper tubs until the water steamed before a thought occurred to her. She touched the third tub, channeling a different magic until frost appeared, webbing across its copper. |
"Fuck. Yes." Karlach groaned, before launching her naked body into the ice-cold bathtub with a hiss of steam. "I love you. I fucking love you." She groaned in pleasure. |
The three women took time to enjoy their baths and scrub the day's dirt from their bodies before settling into conversation again. At Karlach’s prompting, they filled her in on how the party met each other, the nautilus that had torn through the planes, unceremoniously plucking each member from their lives so mind flay... |
Shadowheart explained about Auntie Ethel, the old woman who had offered healing in the Emerald Grove, only to turn out to be a hag with a penchant for kidnapping pregnant women. Tav gave a highly edited explanation of the party's adventures in the goblin camp, focusing far more on how they saved Halsin over any other m... |
As their stories ebbed and quiet returned to the courtyard, Karlach gave a long whistle. "You guys are heroes. I’ve fallen in with heroes. Wow." |
Shadowhart laughed. "Don’t tell Astarion that he’s a hero. He might stab you." |
"He doesn’t stab people for no reason, Shadowheart!" Tav quickly came to the vampire's defense. |
"Doesn’t he, though?" |
"Wait, he stabs people?" Karlach was trying to keep up with the rapid fire conversation of the two friends. |
"Eats them, too." Shadowheart snickered. |
"He’s a vampire."WHAT!?" Karlach paused for a moment, blinking into the night sky, trying to absorb everything she had just heard. "Wait, Tav, isn’t he your...?" |
"My... something. Yes." Tav replied with a laugh. |
"How does that even work?" |
"You’ll hear how eventually," Shadowheart supplied. "The rest of us have." |
"Damn." Karlach gave a low whistle of appreciation while Tav hid her face in her hands. "Get it, girl." |
The night had passed peacefully, unless one counted Gale keeping Karlach up far too late interrogating her about the infernal engine in her heart. The group had rested well and got back on the road when the sun was just a promised glow in the eastern sky. They headed west again, seeking signs of Lae’zels people and her... |
The mountains grew higher and higher around them, the road no longer falling and rising, but winding around rocky outcroppings, often switching back to climb higher still. It took hours to walk a single mile as the crow would fly. |
Halsin was scouting ahead of the group, his wildform powers enabling him to move better in the increasingly rough terrain. Tav and Astarion walked side-by-side though the rest of the group walked in pairs that often changed as the conversation flowed, or ebbed when climbing a particularly steep hill. Though the terrain... |
Karlach had immediately adopted "Fangs’ as Astarion’s nickname, given to him earlier by Wyll, and she called almost everyone else "Soldier’, no doubt a holdover from her decade spent in Hell's army. The Tiefling called Wyll and Shadowheart by their actual names and every time she did, Astarion gave Tav a meaningful nud... |
Astarion and Tav kept up a good natured argument about a plot point in the book they had been reading earlier. The True And Impossible Adventures Of Tenebrux Morrow, Vol. II was a ridiculous adventure novel full of swashbuckling, romance and fighting off dragon hoards. Astarion found it comforting in the way someone do... |
As the sun sunk below the tall peaks before them, Halsin appeared along the trail and quickly changed from his wolf form, directing the party to follow him. He brought them to a small clearing, a box canyon off the trail, large enough for everyone to make camp. The group immediately began getting to work setting up cam... |
A shout from Karlach caught everyone's attention. The Tiefling had dove away from a ring of fire that had suddenly appeared around her. As everyone got to their feet in various stages of preparedness, the ring of fire grew to two meters tall, inky blackness pooling within its center. |
"Hellsfire," Wyll swore. "She’s coming." |
A figure rose from the black depths of the ring, humanoid, a sultry feminine body with leathery bat-wings. Gold coins decorated the bright red hair of her horned head, her skin a gray-blue in the light of the camp fire. She wore a dress that revealed everything, cut incredibly low in the front to show her chest and inc... |
She was a Cambion, a half-devil risen from the depths of Avernus for reasons unknown. She turned fire-glowing eyes on Wyll. |
"Wyll," The Cambion purred, "You’ve been naughty. And you know what happens when you’re naughty." |
"Gods damn it," Karlach cursed, her shoulders slumping. "Anyone but her." |
Tav moved forward, slipping from Astarions grasp and ignoring his whispered admonition to come back. She stood with Wyll, Shadowheart and Karlach before the she-devil. |
"Just who in the Nine Hells are you?" Tav asked, not worried in the least that the creature before her was a cambion. She had seen far worse in Menzoberranzan, this creature was almost pedestrian in comparison, no matter her overly dramatic entrance into the camp. |
"Wyll, you absolute stinker!" The Cambion replied, tutting at the one eyed man, "You kept me a secret? Time to let the hellcat out of the bag." |
With a flourish and the slightest of bows, the Cambion introduced herself to Tav. "Call me Mizora. I’m Wyll’s patron, the fount of his power." |
Tav reached out to hold Shadowhearts hand and the half-elf quickly returned the hold. That Wyll’s powers were most-likely from a pact, Tav had long suspected, but the heroic Blade of Frontiers being demon-sworn was quite the surprise. This Mizora didn’t seem like one to share her toys, either. |
"My pet’s been unruly," Mizora continued, "... and his leash needs a yank ." Her hand reached out and mimed yanking on a leash. Wyll stumbled forward, clutching his neck, as though pulled by a leash for true. He probably was leashed; goodness knows what went into a demon pact. "We had a deal, Wyll. But Karlach’s still... |
"I’ve taken more pleasant shits than you, Mizora, and at least those can be buried after." Karlach insulted the half-devil. Tav wondered just how thin the half-devil’s patience was. They could send her back to the hells easily enough, but that wouldn’t do anything for Wyll. In fact, it might make things worse for him. |
"That’s no kind of talk for a lady." Mizora admonished. "By the way, Karlach, Zariel sends her regards." |
"You told me devils only!" Wyll choked out, still clutching his throat. "She’s a tiefling, not a monster." |
"How precious.The little pupster’s found his bark." Mizora sighed, frustration threading through her voice. She raised a single finger, assuming a condescending, lecturing stance. " Clause G, Section 9: Targets shall be limited to the infernal, the demonic, the heartless, and the soulless . Karlach meets the criteria,... |
"Get to the point. What do you want?" Tav demanded. |
"The point? Oh, yes. Thanks for the reminder." Mizora summoned flames in one hand, then sent them streaking to Wyll. They surrounded him, mimicking the portal that had brought Mizora herself to the camp. A circle of fire with a tar-black center. That tar rose and covered Wyll’s entire body, the flames grew higher, hidi... |
It was over almost before it began. No one in the party having moved more than a foot, seeking to aid Wyll or protect each other from the anger of the hells. The fires dissipated, revealing a greatly-changed Wyll. His skin had turned red as Karlach’s, just as ridged and scarred. His forehead sprouted long, curved horns... |
Mizora took a deeply satisfied breath. "That’s better." she purred. |
Wyll looked down at his body, patting himself all over the place, feeling his new horns. "What the hells have you done?" |
"A promise broken, a price paid." Mizora shrugged. "You know the terms. Get used to the new form, pet - there’s no going back. Some magic, even I can’t undo." |
She smiled, showing sharpened teeth. "Now, let’s see how the Frontiers fare without their precious Blade. Karlach, keep an eye on him, would you? I’ll be keeping mine on you." |
She moved as if to leave, then turned with an afterthought. "Oh, and Wyll? Don’t forget. Our pact still stands. Ta ta!" a tiny wave of her fingers brought forth hells fire once more. Then she was gone. |
Wyll Ravengard, The Blade of Frontiers, Hero of the People, Baldurian Royalty and Demon-pact Warlock stood alone in the crisp night air - a demon. |
No one moved for a moment. Not a sound in the camp except for the Wyll’s harsh breathing. He stared at the spot on the ground where Mizora had disappeared, his body tense with anger. Karlach stared at Wyll. Her fire-licked face a portrait of shock. |
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