mickume/dnd_drow · Datasets at Hugging Face

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"Try something else," Tav said, trying her best to keep a straight face.
"Well, what does he want!" Shadowheart threw up her hands. "I don’t know what he might want from me. Blood, perhaps?"
"No," Astarion said, suddenly muted. "No, not that."
Tav felt her face soften at the edges. She brushed her fingertips against his little head very lightly while Shadowheart looked on with mild envy.
"How about the next time we go by Figaro’s, Shadowheart has to buy you the nice shampoo from behind the cabinet," Tav suggested lightly. Then added, quietly, "You’ll make her rather happy, Astarion."
Astarion wavered. He clung tightly to the front of the leather she was wearing over her chest while his ears twitched and swiveled to catch every sound in the room. Shadowheart steeled herself.
"Yes," she said. "The expensive one."
"Fine," Astarion said, "Deal. But don’t squish me and it's only for a moment."
"He says that works. Be careful," Tav said, trying to hide her amusement. Shadowheart lit up from the inside like the moon slipping out from behind the clouds. It was soft and slow, and a crinkle appeared by her eyes. Astonishingly gentle, Shadowheart tugged off her gloves and offered her cupped hands to Astarion where he clung to Tav. Tav held her breath.
Astarion didn’t like touching.
This was kind of a big deal. Tav was one thing, but other people were something else, Bat or No Bat. The transactional nature of the conversation had concerned Tav for a minute, but Astarion had no trouble saying no these days, so she had to trust him to know his own bat-mind.
Astarion crawled into Shadowheart’s hands tentatively.
"Oh by the light of Selune," Shadowheart whispered. "You’re so light."
"It's like he doesn’t weigh anything at all," Tav said, throat tight. She had to lace her hands together and set them against her stomach to stop from snatching him back from Shadowheart’s hands. Shadowheart was many things, but careless was not one of them. There was no reason to have her heart in her throat watching this happen.
Shadowheart cradled him gently in her palms, and did not even try to pet him or bring him to her face the way she clearly wanted to try to do. She brought him up to eye-level.
"I know I’ve been making fun," Shadowheart told him, tone gone soft and serious. "But you’re so soft. You are truly really cute as a bat."
Astarion preened. It looked a lot like chittering with his head tilted up at her.
"Well, I should think so. At least you’re finally admitting I have charm and charisma in spades," he said, arch.
"I think that’s a version of a thank you for the compliment," said Tav.
"You know, you could just say what I’m really saying instead of interpreting my meaning," Astarion chattered at her, annoyed.
"It's easier this way," Tav said, helplessly fond.
Shadowheart basked in the soft feeling of Astarion crawling around in her hand for a moment, and in that moment, Tav could see the girl that Shadowheart had been once. A little girl who liked animals and flowers. A little girl who had been loved and had known how to love back. Someone who wanted simple things and could find a little wonder in a small, delicate creature trusting them enough to touch.
Tav knew she was wearing a small smile she couldn’t fight off.
Shadowheart sighed, shaking herself out of the reverie with a little wobble of her head. She was truly careful as she deposited Astarion back near Tav’s collar, where he crawled back into the safety of her hair.
"Thank you," Shadowheart told him in that soft, serious voice.
"You’re welcome. The things I do for you people," Astarion muttered and crawled out of sight. Tav rather thought he’d gone perhaps a little past his limit for emotionally wrought moments while trapped in an animal form. Her laugh was small and she put her cupped hand over him, holding him gently against her neck.
"He says you’re welcome." Tav took a moment to steady herself, and turned to look across the room.
"Well," said Shadowheart, the business-like snap of her tone putting her composure back into place. "Perhaps we could find a way to do this again. Batstarion could be very useful for scouting out situations."
"I think he does that fine in his normal body," Tav said before Astarion could yell about it again.
"I’ll miss it in an hour," Shadowheart said wistfully before moving off. Tav watched her go, and became increasingly aware of how quiet Astarion had gotten and Minsc looming over her.
"Yes, Minsc," she said, distracted. Astarion was pressed rather tightly to her neck.
"You know, if you need some tips about the care and keeping of small fuzzy creatures in your garments, you can always ask Minsc," said Minsc, eyes bright. "There are a lot of little tricks to keep them safe and out of your underwear. For example, you can sew tiny pockets inside of your armor that is just the right size."
"I will ask if I need any ideas, Minsc," said Tav, firmly. A quiet anxiety had entered her and she needed to get out of here to talk to Astarion alone, and conversations with Minsc could rapidly spiral out of control. "Thank you. I need to check on something, can I talk to you later?"
"Of course!" boomed Minsc, grinning. "Do not mind Minsc. Minsc understands when you need a little alone time to consult your hamster. Bat. Batster?"
Gods. Tav felt a laugh bubble up and swallowed it down, and this time she was more sincere when she told him thank you. She slipped out of the room and to the ladder to the roof relatively unchallenged.
Across the rooftops of Baldur’s Gate, the late afternoon sun shone gold. It caught on the panoply of houses that spilled down the hillside to the shore, and turned the waters beyond the color of fresh summer wheat. She kept one hand over Astarion as she went, and settled on a bench. No one was up here and the view was nice, and she leaned her shoulder against the pole next to her holding up the trellis of flowers overhead.
"Astarion?" she asked quietly. She brushed his little head with a fingertip. "That was a very nice thing you did for Shadowheart."
"I can’t believe how soft I’ve gotten in just the span of a few days," he muttered. "Unbearable. At least I got something good out of it."
Tav’s mouth twitched, then smoothed into something more concerned.
"You’re okay?" she asked quietly. "I was concerned that, well."
"It shouldn’t be for much longer," said Tav. The knot of anxiety had loosened enough to let her breathe. She let her temple thunk against the trellis support. "Gods. I really thought you’d just been disintegrated or apparated or teleported for a second."
The little warm fluff of bat tickled under her chin. The little claws on its wings caught on her pinky-finger and tugged. Tav pressed her lips together to fight off a smile.
"As if it would be that easy to get rid of me," he said, arch. "After all this? Please. I have standards."
"Do those standards include transforming into a literal vampire bat?" she said, unable to resist teasing in her relief.
"I’m a very handsome bat. If a full vampire is supposed to be able to turn into a cloud of these, at the very least, I should be able to handle being one," Astarion told her. He was all arch charm, now, and none of the panicked complaining from earlier. It was hard to tell if he was putting it on to comfort her or genuinely a little less stressed over the whole thing.
Tav gave in to her impulse. She scooped him up in her hands and pressed his little self to her cheek, and shut her eyes at the soft downy texture of his fur. Soft. So soft. She felt something small and ticklish against her cheek, and realized he’d licked her with an infinitely tiny tongue.
"You’re very cute," she agreed. "Please don’t do this by accident again."
"By accident?" he said, wary at her word choice.
"Gale knows Polymorph," she said conversationally.
"No," said Astarion. "Gods, not him. Who knows how insufferable he’d be about it."
"I know Polymorph," she clarified. There was a long beat of silence.
"Tav," he said warily.
"If," she said, her cheek shifting against him as her smile grew. "If we need Batstarion again, I can make it happen. Karlach was right about this being a good form to scout out with, and I can end it at will."
"Not you too," he whined. "I don’t particularly want to be a bat again. I feel very edible. Not in a nice way, more of anything-that-looks-at-me-can-crush-me way."
"If you change your mind, well, it's on the table," she said. It really was too easy to tease him like this.
"You," and she laughed as the bat devolved into anguished chittering.
They settled into companionable silence after a minute or two. Astarion settled again on the soft dip of her collarbone with her hand cupped over him to keep him from being blown away. She quietly petted his head between his large ears with the lightest touch she could manage. It felt nice to just sit and think about absolutely nothing for a while.
The temple a few blocks over started to ring the hour when the spell ended.
Abruptly, her lap was full of five feet nine inches of vampire spawn, who grabbed at her shoulders to stop from sliding straight off to the ground. She grabbed his waist by reflex, and the two of them stared at each other as the sun caught on Astarion’s pale hair to make it glow. Tav just let herself look at him as his startle softened into self-deprecating amusement, his mouth pressed tightly against the urge to twist into a wry line.
"Hi," she said, absently, as she was caught up in the way the shadows played along the lines of his face.
"Oh fucking thank goodness," he said, eyes shutting as he thunked his forehead against her own. "I was starting to worry I was going to have to get my neck snapped by Lae’zel."
"Never," Tav said, fierce enough that he opened one eye to look at her. Amusement played around his mouth. Tav pinched his waist through his shirt, and he scowled and batted at her hand.
"My, so protective," he drawled, but there was something a little delicate in his face. He inhaled, exhaled, and shifted so he was still somehow in her lap - he was taller than her by several inches - but his arms were around her shoulders. He tangled his fingers in her hair and she hummed her approval. "Hm. I notice that, for once, we’re actually alone."
"Hm," she echoed him. "You know, you’re right. Fantastic deduction."
"Nothing but the birds to witness us," he continued, voice starting to sink into his lower chest voice. It buzzed against the shell of her ear. "Just you, me, and the entire city below none the wiser."
"Are you trying to suggest something, Astarion?" she asked him.
"I’m sure you can figure it out," he said, arch. "If you simply consider the circumstances."
"Spell it out for me," she replied, matching his tease. "Preferably with footnotes."
He snorted, for a moment losing the thread of their flirting. It snowballed into laughter that he muffled against her throat. Her pulse jumped.
"Oh, come on," she whined. "It wasn’t that bad."
"It was bad. With footnotes? That’s something you’d say to Gale, not me," he told her. "Pull it together, Tav. You’re a bard, for the god’s sake."
"I use footnotes all the time," she returned. She pressed her nose into the crook of his neck, since it was right there, and breathed in deep. He smelled right, with notes of floral citrus and petrichor, and he was solid. She’d have to work hard to try to hurt him like this. "Could you kiss me? Before I ruin the mood completely?"
"You merely needed to ask," he told her, back into that lower voice register. He sat up enough to use his fingertips to tip her chin towards him. Like this, the kiss was a soft press of him from above like drinking out of a fine goblet, and it felt good. It felt grounding. It went on for a long minute, not pushing for more or pulling away. Just contact. Tav ran her hands up his back, under the way his leather cuirass sat over his shoulders, and he made a soft sound against her.
He pulled back with heavy-lidded eyes focused on her mouth.
"I do like you better like this," she told him. The edge of his mouth twitched.
"I certainly should hope so," he told her, and went back for more.
"Look. It's dark, we can’t see. We need someone small and subtle."
"No. I refuse to follow through with this plan. It was bad enough when it was by accident, I am not doing it on purpose."
"Come on. We need Batstarion."
"Could you stop calling it that!I"

A rush of strange familiarity runs through Tav as he sees the Chosen of Bane, Lord Enver Gortash, for the first time.
The man is flanked by Orin the Red and Ketheric Thorm himself, the very man Tav is here to kill.
Tav quickly gestures for his companions to hide behind a pillar of what can only be described as gore and crouches down, never once taking his eyes off the trio.
For a few seconds, he wonders if he’d seen the man before - Moonrise Towers, perhaps? But then again, why would he have been there? And wouldn’t he have stopped them from almost slaughtering Ketheric if he had the chance? They seem to be allies, after all - Ketheric, him, and Orin, whose captivating white eyes make a shiver of excitement run down Tav’s spine. How he would love to pluck them from her and hold them in the palm of his hand just to inspect them closer.
How he would love to do the same to Gortash.
"Remarkable, truly." There’s a deep voice behind him, one that speaks with authority and confidence. "Of course it’s you. It’s always you when formidable blood is shed."
Astarion, Gale and Shadowheart go eerily quiet in an instant - usually a welcome change from their bickering, but this time, it’s too quiet.
Tav can feel his heart race and the adrenaline from the fight rush through his veins once more at the realization that someone is standing right behind him, his gaze fixated on him as he pockets Ketheric"s Netherstone. Whoever it is can get their own if they want-
It’s the Chosen of Bane himself who stands behind him. Lord Enver Gortash, who watches as Tav strips the fresh corpse of his ally of all its possessions and armor. Lord Enver Gortash, who had casually summoned a huge brain that could wipe them all off the face of the earth in an instant.
But nothing catches Tav more off guard than the fact that the man smiles at him.
Tav shoots up until he’s at eye level with the other. Dark eyes burn into his, and he sees a flicker of... relief in them? Something deep within his chest stirs, but he cannot put his finger on what it is. If he didn’t know any better, he would call it a sense of recognition.
What he is sure about is the fact that the man would make an absolutely beautiful corpse. Tav could definitely make him into his favorite piece of art to date, perfect strokes with a bloody brush.
No. Don’t kill.
Tav startles as the Urge speaks to him. It had never told him not to kill before.
"Lord Gortash," he states, because there isn’t much else on his mind right now. It’s wiped blank but burns, struggles against shackles that lock something away deep.
Gortash laughs, a genuine smile that makes his eyes crinkle following it. "No need to be so formal, dearest."
Tav squints his eyes at the man. Behind him, Gale inhales sharply, and he swears he can hear Astarion’s eloquent now what the fuck did you do this time inside his head.
"What?" He croaks out. His voice is a quiet, pathetic little thing.
Then the other reaches out with a hand decorated in ornate golden talons and places it on Tav’s shoulder, before running it down his arm until he wraps steel-coated fingers around his wrist. Tav can feel the sharp talons on his delicate skin, the cold burning everywhere they touch.

"Try something else," Tav said, trying her best to keep a straight face.

"Well, what does he want!" Shadowheart threw up her hands. "I don’t know what he might want from me. Blood, perhaps?"

"No," Astarion said, suddenly muted. "No, not that."

Tav felt her face soften at the edges. She brushed her fingertips against his little head very lightly while Shadowheart looked on with mild envy.

"How about the next time we go by Figaro’s, Shadowheart has to buy you the nice shampoo from behind the cabinet," Tav suggested lightly. Then added, quietly, "You’ll make her rather happy, Astarion."

Astarion wavered. He clung tightly to the front of the leather she was wearing over her chest while his ears twitched and swiveled to catch every sound in the room. Shadowheart steeled herself.

"Yes," she said. "The expensive one."

"Fine," Astarion said, "Deal. But don’t squish me and it's only for a moment."

"He says that works. Be careful," Tav said, trying to hide her amusement. Shadowheart lit up from the inside like the moon slipping out from behind the clouds. It was soft and slow, and a crinkle appeared by her eyes. Astonishingly gentle, Shadowheart tugged off her gloves and offered her cupped hands to Astarion where he clung to Tav. Tav held her breath.

Astarion didn’t like touching.

This was kind of a big deal. Tav was one thing, but other people were something else, Bat or No Bat. The transactional nature of the conversation had concerned Tav for a minute, but Astarion had no trouble saying no these days, so she had to trust him to know his own bat-mind.

Astarion crawled into Shadowheart’s hands tentatively.

"Oh by the light of Selune," Shadowheart whispered. "You’re so light."

"It's like he doesn’t weigh anything at all," Tav said, throat tight. She had to lace her hands together and set them against her stomach to stop from snatching him back from Shadowheart’s hands. Shadowheart was many things, but careless was not one of them. There was no reason to have her heart in her throat watching this happen.

Shadowheart cradled him gently in her palms, and did not even try to pet him or bring him to her face the way she clearly wanted to try to do. She brought him up to eye-level.

"I know I’ve been making fun," Shadowheart told him, tone gone soft and serious. "But you’re so soft. You are truly really cute as a bat."

Astarion preened. It looked a lot like chittering with his head tilted up at her.

"Well, I should think so. At least you’re finally admitting I have charm and charisma in spades," he said, arch.

"I think that’s a version of a thank you for the compliment," said Tav.

"You know, you could just say what I’m really saying instead of interpreting my meaning," Astarion chattered at her, annoyed.

"It's easier this way," Tav said, helplessly fond.

Shadowheart basked in the soft feeling of Astarion crawling around in her hand for a moment, and in that moment, Tav could see the girl that Shadowheart had been once. A little girl who liked animals and flowers. A little girl who had been loved and had known how to love back. Someone who wanted simple things and could find a little wonder in a small, delicate creature trusting them enough to touch.

Tav knew she was wearing a small smile she couldn’t fight off.

Shadowheart sighed, shaking herself out of the reverie with a little wobble of her head. She was truly careful as she deposited Astarion back near Tav’s collar, where he crawled back into the safety of her hair.

"Thank you," Shadowheart told him in that soft, serious voice.

"You’re welcome. The things I do for you people," Astarion muttered and crawled out of sight. Tav rather thought he’d gone perhaps a little past his limit for emotionally wrought moments while trapped in an animal form. Her laugh was small and she put her cupped hand over him, holding him gently against her neck.

"He says you’re welcome." Tav took a moment to steady herself, and turned to look across the room.

"Well," said Shadowheart, the business-like snap of her tone putting her composure back into place. "Perhaps we could find a way to do this again. Batstarion could be very useful for scouting out situations."

"I think he does that fine in his normal body," Tav said before Astarion could yell about it again.

"I’ll miss it in an hour," Shadowheart said wistfully before moving off. Tav watched her go, and became increasingly aware of how quiet Astarion had gotten and Minsc looming over her.

"Yes, Minsc," she said, distracted. Astarion was pressed rather tightly to her neck.

"You know, if you need some tips about the care and keeping of small fuzzy creatures in your garments, you can always ask Minsc," said Minsc, eyes bright. "There are a lot of little tricks to keep them safe and out of your underwear. For example, you can sew tiny pockets inside of your armor that is just the right size."

"I will ask if I need any ideas, Minsc," said Tav, firmly. A quiet anxiety had entered her and she needed to get out of here to talk to Astarion alone, and conversations with Minsc could rapidly spiral out of control. "Thank you. I need to check on something, can I talk to you later?"

"Of course!" boomed Minsc, grinning. "Do not mind Minsc. Minsc understands when you need a little alone time to consult your hamster. Bat. Batster?"

Gods. Tav felt a laugh bubble up and swallowed it down, and this time she was more sincere when she told him thank you. She slipped out of the room and to the ladder to the roof relatively unchallenged.

Across the rooftops of Baldur’s Gate, the late afternoon sun shone gold. It caught on the panoply of houses that spilled down the hillside to the shore, and turned the waters beyond the color of fresh summer wheat. She kept one hand over Astarion as she went, and settled on a bench. No one was up here and the view was nice, and she leaned her shoulder against the pole next to her holding up the trellis of flowers overhead.

"Astarion?" she asked quietly. She brushed his little head with a fingertip. "That was a very nice thing you did for Shadowheart."

"I can’t believe how soft I’ve gotten in just the span of a few days," he muttered. "Unbearable. At least I got something good out of it."

Tav’s mouth twitched, then smoothed into something more concerned.

"You’re okay?" she asked quietly. "I was concerned that, well."

"It shouldn’t be for much longer," said Tav. The knot of anxiety had loosened enough to let her breathe. She let her temple thunk against the trellis support. "Gods. I really thought you’d just been disintegrated or apparated or teleported for a second."

The little warm fluff of bat tickled under her chin. The little claws on its wings caught on her pinky-finger and tugged. Tav pressed her lips together to fight off a smile.

"As if it would be that easy to get rid of me," he said, arch. "After all this? Please. I have standards."

"Do those standards include transforming into a literal vampire bat?" she said, unable to resist teasing in her relief.

"I’m a very handsome bat. If a full vampire is supposed to be able to turn into a cloud of these, at the very least, I should be able to handle being one," Astarion told her. He was all arch charm, now, and none of the panicked complaining from earlier. It was hard to tell if he was putting it on to comfort her or genuinely a little less stressed over the whole thing.

Tav gave in to her impulse. She scooped him up in her hands and pressed his little self to her cheek, and shut her eyes at the soft downy texture of his fur. Soft. So soft. She felt something small and ticklish against her cheek, and realized he’d licked her with an infinitely tiny tongue.

"You’re very cute," she agreed. "Please don’t do this by accident again."

"By accident?" he said, wary at her word choice.

"Gale knows Polymorph," she said conversationally.

"No," said Astarion. "Gods, not him. Who knows how insufferable he’d be about it."

"I know Polymorph," she clarified. There was a long beat of silence.

"Tav," he said warily.

"If," she said, her cheek shifting against him as her smile grew. "If we need Batstarion again, I can make it happen. Karlach was right about this being a good form to scout out with, and I can end it at will."

"Not you too," he whined. "I don’t particularly want to be a bat again. I feel very edible. Not in a nice way, more of anything-that-looks-at-me-can-crush-me way."

"If you change your mind, well, it's on the table," she said. It really was too easy to tease him like this.

"You," and she laughed as the bat devolved into anguished chittering.

They settled into companionable silence after a minute or two. Astarion settled again on the soft dip of her collarbone with her hand cupped over him to keep him from being blown away. She quietly petted his head between his large ears with the lightest touch she could manage. It felt nice to just sit and think about absolutely nothing for a while.

The temple a few blocks over started to ring the hour when the spell ended.

Abruptly, her lap was full of five feet nine inches of vampire spawn, who grabbed at her shoulders to stop from sliding straight off to the ground. She grabbed his waist by reflex, and the two of them stared at each other as the sun caught on Astarion’s pale hair to make it glow. Tav just let herself look at him as his startle softened into self-deprecating amusement, his mouth pressed tightly against the urge to twist into a wry line.

"Hi," she said, absently, as she was caught up in the way the shadows played along the lines of his face.

"Oh fucking thank goodness," he said, eyes shutting as he thunked his forehead against her own. "I was starting to worry I was going to have to get my neck snapped by Lae’zel."

"Never," Tav said, fierce enough that he opened one eye to look at her. Amusement played around his mouth. Tav pinched his waist through his shirt, and he scowled and batted at her hand.

"My, so protective," he drawled, but there was something a little delicate in his face. He inhaled, exhaled, and shifted so he was still somehow in her lap - he was taller than her by several inches - but his arms were around her shoulders. He tangled his fingers in her hair and she hummed her approval. "Hm. I notice that, for once, we’re actually alone."

"Hm," she echoed him. "You know, you’re right. Fantastic deduction."

"Nothing but the birds to witness us," he continued, voice starting to sink into his lower chest voice. It buzzed against the shell of her ear. "Just you, me, and the entire city below none the wiser."

"Are you trying to suggest something, Astarion?" she asked him.

"I’m sure you can figure it out," he said, arch. "If you simply consider the circumstances."

"Spell it out for me," she replied, matching his tease. "Preferably with footnotes."

He snorted, for a moment losing the thread of their flirting. It snowballed into laughter that he muffled against her throat. Her pulse jumped.

"Oh, come on," she whined. "It wasn’t that bad."

"It was bad. With footnotes? That’s something you’d say to Gale, not me," he told her. "Pull it together, Tav. You’re a bard, for the god’s sake."

"I use footnotes all the time," she returned. She pressed her nose into the crook of his neck, since it was right there, and breathed in deep. He smelled right, with notes of floral citrus and petrichor, and he was solid. She’d have to work hard to try to hurt him like this. "Could you kiss me? Before I ruin the mood completely?"

"You merely needed to ask," he told her, back into that lower voice register. He sat up enough to use his fingertips to tip her chin towards him. Like this, the kiss was a soft press of him from above like drinking out of a fine goblet, and it felt good. It felt grounding. It went on for a long minute, not pushing for more or pulling away. Just contact. Tav ran her hands up his back, under the way his leather cuirass sat over his shoulders, and he made a soft sound against her.

He pulled back with heavy-lidded eyes focused on her mouth.

"I do like you better like this," she told him. The edge of his mouth twitched.

"I certainly should hope so," he told her, and went back for more.

"Look. It's dark, we can’t see. We need someone small and subtle."

"No. I refuse to follow through with this plan. It was bad enough when it was by accident, I am not doing it on purpose."

"Come on. We need Batstarion."

"Could you stop calling it that!I"

A rush of strange familiarity runs through Tav as he sees the Chosen of Bane, Lord Enver Gortash, for the first time.

The man is flanked by Orin the Red and Ketheric Thorm himself, the very man Tav is here to kill.

Tav quickly gestures for his companions to hide behind a pillar of what can only be described as gore and crouches down, never once taking his eyes off the trio.

For a few seconds, he wonders if he’d seen the man before - Moonrise Towers, perhaps? But then again, why would he have been there? And wouldn’t he have stopped them from almost slaughtering Ketheric if he had the chance? They seem to be allies, after all - Ketheric, him, and Orin, whose captivating white eyes make a shiver of excitement run down Tav’s spine. How he would love to pluck them from her and hold them in the palm of his hand just to inspect them closer.

How he would love to do the same to Gortash.

"Remarkable, truly." There’s a deep voice behind him, one that speaks with authority and confidence. "Of course it’s you. It’s always you when formidable blood is shed."

Astarion, Gale and Shadowheart go eerily quiet in an instant - usually a welcome change from their bickering, but this time, it’s too quiet.

Tav can feel his heart race and the adrenaline from the fight rush through his veins once more at the realization that someone is standing right behind him, his gaze fixated on him as he pockets Ketheric"s Netherstone. Whoever it is can get their own if they want-

It’s the Chosen of Bane himself who stands behind him. Lord Enver Gortash, who watches as Tav strips the fresh corpse of his ally of all its possessions and armor. Lord Enver Gortash, who had casually summoned a huge brain that could wipe them all off the face of the earth in an instant.

But nothing catches Tav more off guard than the fact that the man smiles at him.

Tav shoots up until he’s at eye level with the other. Dark eyes burn into his, and he sees a flicker of... relief in them? Something deep within his chest stirs, but he cannot put his finger on what it is. If he didn’t know any better, he would call it a sense of recognition.

What he is sure about is the fact that the man would make an absolutely beautiful corpse. Tav could definitely make him into his favorite piece of art to date, perfect strokes with a bloody brush.

No. Don’t kill.

Tav startles as the Urge speaks to him. It had never told him not to kill before.

"Lord Gortash," he states, because there isn’t much else on his mind right now. It’s wiped blank but burns, struggles against shackles that lock something away deep.

Gortash laughs, a genuine smile that makes his eyes crinkle following it. "No need to be so formal, dearest."

Tav squints his eyes at the man. Behind him, Gale inhales sharply, and he swears he can hear Astarion’s eloquent now what the fuck did you do this time inside his head.

"What?" He croaks out. His voice is a quiet, pathetic little thing.

Then the other reaches out with a hand decorated in ornate golden talons and places it on Tav’s shoulder, before running it down his arm until he wraps steel-coated fingers around his wrist. Tav can feel the sharp talons on his delicate skin, the cold burning everywhere they touch.