mickume/dnd_drow · Datasets at Hugging Face

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She questioned how wise of them it was to leave their close circle of tents when there was a curse preying on every living thing in a radius of about ten kilometers around them.
Probably they had a death wish.
"Ah, they have a death wish. I can smell it," Tav said offhandedly when Shadowheart brought it up to them. "Also, they are fucking."
"Pretty self-destructive of them," Shadowheart said, not even surprised.
"Yup," Tav confirmed.
"How do you know they are fucking, though?" Curiosity got the best of the cleric.
"Oh, I can also smell that," Tav said, not even acknowledging how weird that was. "Also, Gale has been trying to cover the bite mark on his neck for ages. Not that he tastes good, Astarion told me that much. Bomb in the chest, and all that, I guess. So if despite not tasting well they keep disappearing together... well, it must be serious."
"Or the sex must be insanely good."
"Or the sex must be insanely good," Tav echoed in agreement.
"Wow. Romance," Shadowheart said.
"Romance is a waste of time. Completely worthless, it’s just a distraction from what is really deemed important," Lae'zel popped up, cheerful as always.
"Do you even know what we are talking about?" Shadowheart sighed.
"No, and I couldn't care less," Lae'zel's words were sharp as a knife.
Shadowheart was used to dealing with knives.
"Honestly? You could use some romance yourself, Lae'zel. Company would make you some good," Shadowheart said, and Tav shot a "what's wrong with you, do you ALSO have a death wish?" stare at her.
(Tav should know better, everyone around them had a death wish to some degree.)
"Chk, bold of you to make such an idiotic statement when you are lacking in that area, Sharran," Lae'zel scoffed, and before Shadowheart could protest, the githyanki went away.
There was a silence between Tav and the Shar follower. It lasted until the moment Tav opened their big mouth.
"Was that her way of saying you have no bitches?"
"Do you have earplugs around here?" Shadowheart asked.
"Earplugs? No, I don’t think so," Jaheira cocked her head. "Why?"
"Nothing," the Sharran sighed. "Nothing."
Halsin's addition to their little family of freaks was well-received.
"I would climb him like a tree," Tav stated.
"Yep," said everyone else, except Lae'zel and Gale.
"Darling, you should just ask him if you can do it," Astarion shrugged.
"I doubt he would be opposed to the idea," Shadowheart agreed.
"Not that I don’t agree with what is being said, but can we not have this conversation? Please, guys..." Gale interrupted, only to be fully ignored.
"Maybe when we have completely lifted the curse, though," Karlach chimed in. "The man's not out of the woods yet."
"You can still court him," Wyll added. "Just a bit. I believe he has flirted with you several times already, hasn’t he?"
"I support your sexual endeavors, but I don't understand this interest in Tav having sexual intercourse with Halsin," Lae'zel finally said.
"Oh, you aren't interested in Halsin, Lae'zel?" Shadowheart asked.
"I require more time to decide if I'm interested in having sexual intercourse with someone, istik " Lae'zel's thin eyebrows arched. "There are more factors at play."
"Such as...?" Shadowheart continued.
"Why are you interested, Sharran?" Lae'zel retorted. And as Shadowheart asked herself the same question, Astarion said in a mocking tone:
"That's right, why are you interested?"
Just in case the others hadn't heard the question.
"I'm not. I was just curious," Shadowheart was fast to answer.
"Curiosity killed the cat," Gale finally said.
"Oh, you would know that, don't you darling?" Astarion said with a laugh, and earned a bonk on the head from Gale's staff.
This, Shadowheart was thankful, turned the conversation to other matters. However, she couldn't stop feeling Lae'zel's piercing eyes on the back of her neck.
"You are often awake when you shouldn't, Shadowheart," Lae'zel said, and Shadowheart almost jumped out of her bedroll.
(She KNEW Lae’zel was there, she didn’t expect the githyanki to ACTUALLY talk to her.)
It was late. Shadowheart wasn't supposed to be taking watch, and she wasn't. But she was awake anyway. More than two months (maybe even three?) traveling with that party hadn't made her immune to their snores.
She needed silence. Or as much silence as possible.
Shadowheart was tired. So tired she had absolutely no filter.
"Your snores won’t let me sleep," she said, plainly.
"Chk. My snores?" Shadowheart felt the scorn in her voice.
"Everyone’s snores. Except for Tav and Astarion, I guess. You make it impossible for me to sleep," Shadowheart turned towards Lae’zel, still lying down. If the githyanki was going to stab her, might as well see her coming.
However, Lae’zel didn’t seem particularly annoyed. She was... somewhat pensive.
"Astarion also snores," she said after a few seconds. Shadowheart’s eyebrows arched.
"The other day, Sharran. That corrupted tree put him to sleep, remember?" Shadowheart made an affirmative sound. "I guess you didn’t hear it because you weren’t close enough, but he snores when he sleeps."
"Well," Shadowheart said after a few seconds, "then I guess I’m glad he hardly ever sleeps."
Small blessings when said colleague was a high elf.
Shadowheart’s words were followed by a long silence in which Lae’zel was just looking at her, her expression inscrutable. A bit weirded out by Lae’zel’s reaction, the cleric turned in her bedroll again, and slowly faked to fall asleep.
(Maybe if she faked it for long enough she would actually fall asleep. On top of that, she would avoid uncomfortable visual contact with Lae’zel.
"You know," she heard Lae’zel mumble long after their interaction, "maybe there are ways to tire you out enough to ignore the snores."
Freaking Shadowfell.
Shadowheart’s thoughts went to the most obvious, dirty suggestion as a rush of blood went directly to her head. Her voice of reason, though, stopped her brain in its tracks.
"In which world, dear Shadowheart, would Lae’zel be suggesting THAT?’
In any case, Lae’zel had just been talking to herself. Shadowheart was clearly asleep. And knowing Lae’zel, she meant fighting her to the death. Almost death, at least.
Evening her breathing, blanking her mind, Shadowheart managed to push those thoughts away.
(But what if...?)
Shadowheart was awake when Tav started their watch, and then when Wyll did. She didn’t sleep that night, plagued with recurring thoughts featuring a very pretty, very naked githyanki under the moonlight.
She kept pushing them away.
If you didn't take into account the complete rejection of her goddess and everything it entailed, Shadowheart was doing fine.
If you took it into account, however, she was an absolute fucking mess.
She couldn’t even take the time to process it properly, not when the next day they were going to assault the Moonrise Towers. Not when everything might end the next day, for better or for worse.
Tav seemed quite cheerful, given the circumstances. Maybe their murdering instincts were happy because they sensed the bloodbath that was about to happen, even if they weren’t fully aware that that was the reason behind their joy. The rest of the group seemed quite anxious, even Lae’zel. She had sharpened her sword three times in the last couple of hours, and as everyone seemed too restless to even suggesting going to sleep.
(Karlach was drinking booze while staring at the void, Wyll and Gale were already on their sixth cup of mint tea, Astarion was pacing around, tension on every muscle.
Tav was humming a little song while they prepared to go to sleep. Astounding.)
Eventually, though, Karlach fell asleep on top of the already sleeping owlbear, and everyone followed suit. They hadn’t even talked about standing watch. In any case, the Nightsong was most likely already attacking the towers, so the enemy had something else to worry about.
Watches weren’t necessary. Probably. Shadowheart still sat to take watch.
Shadowheart was too troubled to sleep. For once the snores seemed like a distant echo, the voices in her mind were way louder. Too loud. Shaming her. Talking about punishment. Some of them talking about the possibility of redemption.
Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe she could still repent, crawl back to Lady Shar’s embrace, maybe—
"You did the right thing," Shadowheart jumped to her feet and took out her mace at a lightning speed. Turned around, ready to hit whoever had sneaked up on her, just to—
"Lae’zel," the mace stopped at mere centimeters from the githyanki’s head. She hadn’t moved a bit, and she seemed almost amused.
"Tsk’va! Put that away," Shadowheart had spent too much time hearing the githyanki to know she wasn't truly annoyed.
(Keeping up appearances seemed to be a thing the githyanki did a lot.)
Still, and probably precisely because of this, she withdrew the mace.
"Sorry," Shadowheart mumbled. "I didn't know you were that stealthy."
"Admittedly, I'm not. And I wasn't. You were too deep in your own squishy brain to notice me," she affirmed, and Shadowheart knew it was true.
The bit about being distracted, not her brain being squishy. But the cleric really didn't have the strength to fight back at that moment.
"What I said, nevertheless, stands true," Lae'zel continued.
"What?" Was Shadowheart's only response.
"You did right. It takes courage to defy one's god, to acknowledge the truth. I would know. And yet, you did it," she paused for a second, pulling her eyes away. But then, she looked back at Shadowheart, resolution present in her gaze. "Don't doubt yourself for a moment, you are not that weak."
Shadowheart completely blanked at that moment, and then couldn’t do anything else but... laugh.
"Are you laughing at me, ra'stil ?" Lae’zel asked, and Shadowheart almost missed that it was a different word than her usual "istik’ .
(What did that mean?)
"No, I’m not laughing at you. It’s just..." she contained a new laugh. "I think this is the first time you have complimented me."
"That wasn’t a compliment, Sharran" Lae’zel immediately countered.
"Well, it was close enough, you toad," Shadowheart said, and before Lae’zel could keep protesting she kept talking, "thank you."
This visibly shook Lae’zel, which was also quite a funny sight. She took a couple of steps back, as if Shadowheart had actually hit her with the mace.
Then, Shadowheart realized.
"Oh, is this the first time I've thanked you?" She asked, and Lae’zel took another step back. "I’ll take that as a yes."
"You won’t—" But the githyanki stopped herself, inspiring deep through her nose.
That was... new. Or at least new to Shadowheart. Not that she had been paying a lot of attention to Lae’zel lately. Or ever.
(She wasn’t— She didn’t— No.)
"This is pointless," Lae’zel said.
"This conversation. I just came to tell you to go to sleep."

She questioned how wise of them it was to leave their close circle of tents when there was a curse preying on every living thing in a radius of about ten kilometers around them.

Probably they had a death wish.

"Ah, they have a death wish. I can smell it," Tav said offhandedly when Shadowheart brought it up to them. "Also, they are fucking."

"Pretty self-destructive of them," Shadowheart said, not even surprised.

"Yup," Tav confirmed.

"How do you know they are fucking, though?" Curiosity got the best of the cleric.

"Oh, I can also smell that," Tav said, not even acknowledging how weird that was. "Also, Gale has been trying to cover the bite mark on his neck for ages. Not that he tastes good, Astarion told me that much. Bomb in the chest, and all that, I guess. So if despite not tasting well they keep disappearing together... well, it must be serious."

"Or the sex must be insanely good."

"Or the sex must be insanely good," Tav echoed in agreement.

"Wow. Romance," Shadowheart said.

"Romance is a waste of time. Completely worthless, it’s just a distraction from what is really deemed important," Lae'zel popped up, cheerful as always.

"Do you even know what we are talking about?" Shadowheart sighed.

"No, and I couldn't care less," Lae'zel's words were sharp as a knife.

Shadowheart was used to dealing with knives.

"Honestly? You could use some romance yourself, Lae'zel. Company would make you some good," Shadowheart said, and Tav shot a "what's wrong with you, do you ALSO have a death wish?" stare at her.

(Tav should know better, everyone around them had a death wish to some degree.)

"Chk, bold of you to make such an idiotic statement when you are lacking in that area, Sharran," Lae'zel scoffed, and before Shadowheart could protest, the githyanki went away.

There was a silence between Tav and the Shar follower. It lasted until the moment Tav opened their big mouth.

"Was that her way of saying you have no bitches?"

"Do you have earplugs around here?" Shadowheart asked.

"Earplugs? No, I don’t think so," Jaheira cocked her head. "Why?"

"Nothing," the Sharran sighed. "Nothing."

Halsin's addition to their little family of freaks was well-received.

"I would climb him like a tree," Tav stated.

"Yep," said everyone else, except Lae'zel and Gale.

"Darling, you should just ask him if you can do it," Astarion shrugged.

"I doubt he would be opposed to the idea," Shadowheart agreed.

"Not that I don’t agree with what is being said, but can we not have this conversation? Please, guys..." Gale interrupted, only to be fully ignored.

"Maybe when we have completely lifted the curse, though," Karlach chimed in. "The man's not out of the woods yet."

"You can still court him," Wyll added. "Just a bit. I believe he has flirted with you several times already, hasn’t he?"

"I support your sexual endeavors, but I don't understand this interest in Tav having sexual intercourse with Halsin," Lae'zel finally said.

"Oh, you aren't interested in Halsin, Lae'zel?" Shadowheart asked.

"I require more time to decide if I'm interested in having sexual intercourse with someone, istik " Lae'zel's thin eyebrows arched. "There are more factors at play."

"Such as...?" Shadowheart continued.

"Why are you interested, Sharran?" Lae'zel retorted. And as Shadowheart asked herself the same question, Astarion said in a mocking tone:

"That's right, why are you interested?"

Just in case the others hadn't heard the question.

"I'm not. I was just curious," Shadowheart was fast to answer.

"Curiosity killed the cat," Gale finally said.

"Oh, you would know that, don't you darling?" Astarion said with a laugh, and earned a bonk on the head from Gale's staff.

This, Shadowheart was thankful, turned the conversation to other matters. However, she couldn't stop feeling Lae'zel's piercing eyes on the back of her neck.

"You are often awake when you shouldn't, Shadowheart," Lae'zel said, and Shadowheart almost jumped out of her bedroll.

(She KNEW Lae’zel was there, she didn’t expect the githyanki to ACTUALLY talk to her.)

It was late. Shadowheart wasn't supposed to be taking watch, and she wasn't. But she was awake anyway. More than two months (maybe even three?) traveling with that party hadn't made her immune to their snores.

She needed silence. Or as much silence as possible.

Shadowheart was tired. So tired she had absolutely no filter.

"Your snores won’t let me sleep," she said, plainly.

"Chk. My snores?" Shadowheart felt the scorn in her voice.

"Everyone’s snores. Except for Tav and Astarion, I guess. You make it impossible for me to sleep," Shadowheart turned towards Lae’zel, still lying down. If the githyanki was going to stab her, might as well see her coming.

However, Lae’zel didn’t seem particularly annoyed. She was... somewhat pensive.

"Astarion also snores," she said after a few seconds. Shadowheart’s eyebrows arched.

"The other day, Sharran. That corrupted tree put him to sleep, remember?" Shadowheart made an affirmative sound. "I guess you didn’t hear it because you weren’t close enough, but he snores when he sleeps."

"Well," Shadowheart said after a few seconds, "then I guess I’m glad he hardly ever sleeps."

Small blessings when said colleague was a high elf.

Shadowheart’s words were followed by a long silence in which Lae’zel was just looking at her, her expression inscrutable. A bit weirded out by Lae’zel’s reaction, the cleric turned in her bedroll again, and slowly faked to fall asleep.

(Maybe if she faked it for long enough she would actually fall asleep. On top of that, she would avoid uncomfortable visual contact with Lae’zel.

"You know," she heard Lae’zel mumble long after their interaction, "maybe there are ways to tire you out enough to ignore the snores."

Freaking Shadowfell.

Shadowheart’s thoughts went to the most obvious, dirty suggestion as a rush of blood went directly to her head. Her voice of reason, though, stopped her brain in its tracks.

"In which world, dear Shadowheart, would Lae’zel be suggesting THAT?’

In any case, Lae’zel had just been talking to herself. Shadowheart was clearly asleep. And knowing Lae’zel, she meant fighting her to the death. Almost death, at least.

Evening her breathing, blanking her mind, Shadowheart managed to push those thoughts away.

(But what if...?)

Shadowheart was awake when Tav started their watch, and then when Wyll did. She didn’t sleep that night, plagued with recurring thoughts featuring a very pretty, very naked githyanki under the moonlight.

She kept pushing them away.

If you didn't take into account the complete rejection of her goddess and everything it entailed, Shadowheart was doing fine.

If you took it into account, however, she was an absolute fucking mess.

She couldn’t even take the time to process it properly, not when the next day they were going to assault the Moonrise Towers. Not when everything might end the next day, for better or for worse.

Tav seemed quite cheerful, given the circumstances. Maybe their murdering instincts were happy because they sensed the bloodbath that was about to happen, even if they weren’t fully aware that that was the reason behind their joy. The rest of the group seemed quite anxious, even Lae’zel. She had sharpened her sword three times in the last couple of hours, and as everyone seemed too restless to even suggesting going to sleep.

(Karlach was drinking booze while staring at the void, Wyll and Gale were already on their sixth cup of mint tea, Astarion was pacing around, tension on every muscle.

Tav was humming a little song while they prepared to go to sleep. Astounding.)

Eventually, though, Karlach fell asleep on top of the already sleeping owlbear, and everyone followed suit. They hadn’t even talked about standing watch. In any case, the Nightsong was most likely already attacking the towers, so the enemy had something else to worry about.

Watches weren’t necessary. Probably. Shadowheart still sat to take watch.

Shadowheart was too troubled to sleep. For once the snores seemed like a distant echo, the voices in her mind were way louder. Too loud. Shaming her. Talking about punishment. Some of them talking about the possibility of redemption.

Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe she could still repent, crawl back to Lady Shar’s embrace, maybe—

"You did the right thing," Shadowheart jumped to her feet and took out her mace at a lightning speed. Turned around, ready to hit whoever had sneaked up on her, just to—

"Lae’zel," the mace stopped at mere centimeters from the githyanki’s head. She hadn’t moved a bit, and she seemed almost amused.

"Tsk’va! Put that away," Shadowheart had spent too much time hearing the githyanki to know she wasn't truly annoyed.

(Keeping up appearances seemed to be a thing the githyanki did a lot.)

Still, and probably precisely because of this, she withdrew the mace.

"Sorry," Shadowheart mumbled. "I didn't know you were that stealthy."

"Admittedly, I'm not. And I wasn't. You were too deep in your own squishy brain to notice me," she affirmed, and Shadowheart knew it was true.

The bit about being distracted, not her brain being squishy. But the cleric really didn't have the strength to fight back at that moment.

"What I said, nevertheless, stands true," Lae'zel continued.

"What?" Was Shadowheart's only response.

"You did right. It takes courage to defy one's god, to acknowledge the truth. I would know. And yet, you did it," she paused for a second, pulling her eyes away. But then, she looked back at Shadowheart, resolution present in her gaze. "Don't doubt yourself for a moment, you are not that weak."

Shadowheart completely blanked at that moment, and then couldn’t do anything else but... laugh.

"Are you laughing at me, ra'stil ?" Lae’zel asked, and Shadowheart almost missed that it was a different word than her usual "istik’ .

(What did that mean?)

"No, I’m not laughing at you. It’s just..." she contained a new laugh. "I think this is the first time you have complimented me."

"That wasn’t a compliment, Sharran" Lae’zel immediately countered.

"Well, it was close enough, you toad," Shadowheart said, and before Lae’zel could keep protesting she kept talking, "thank you."

This visibly shook Lae’zel, which was also quite a funny sight. She took a couple of steps back, as if Shadowheart had actually hit her with the mace.

Then, Shadowheart realized.

"Oh, is this the first time I've thanked you?" She asked, and Lae’zel took another step back. "I’ll take that as a yes."

"You won’t—" But the githyanki stopped herself, inspiring deep through her nose.

That was... new. Or at least new to Shadowheart. Not that she had been paying a lot of attention to Lae’zel lately. Or ever.

(She wasn’t— She didn’t— No.)

"This is pointless," Lae’zel said.

"This conversation. I just came to tell you to go to sleep."