A/N: Just a vignette, because I'm replaying BG1, got to chapter 6, and I absolutely love Sarevok's sheer stupid guts in that one!
She looked through the window. "So, which one will you be marrying?"
Spread on the bed-sheets, playing with the deck of cards in his hands – now, the right hand sent the cards, flying, into the left hand; now, the exercise reversed and the small sheets of rice paper returned effortlessly, unconsciously, to their initial position – he frowned. "Silvershield, of course."
Skie Silvershield was a brat. She almost pitied the girl.
Entar really shouldn't have refused the first time, she thought, relieved, when, still frowning, he added, "If that is still necessary, that is. Technically—"
Technically, the office of the Grand Duke was not hereditary, she knew as he launched into one of his favourite tirades. Technically, the Grand Duke was chosen on his, or; more rarely–hers, merits. Technically, Skie Silvershield's brother need not have died, killed as he had been killed as he had travelled in a well-defended caravan, another regrettable casualty of the recent increase in bandit activity, may I offer you, sir, my deepest condolence?
She shifted on the bed, lightly; usually, she found it easy to lie in wait, coiled and relaxed at the same time, like a snake in a bush, awaiting her victim and poised to strike; today, she was restless. "Is the innkeeper here one of your people?"
He laughed; that small, delightful laugh which reminded her again how utterly, completely, hopelessly in love with him she was. "No. Shalak's kindred can look like humans and sound like humans, but they do prefer their flesh raw. I want to be well served. Winthrop will be replaced tomorrow, after we leave."
She still did not like the idea that they should be here at all.
He had had the hard face when he had decided, though; the hard face which meant that she would never learn why it was so important to him to see Rieltar Anchev dead, with his own eyes, and not merely as an item in Shalak's report, but that he had made up his mind and would not change it.
She twitched again; and eyed the grey mass of the great library behind the tavern window. Somewhere there was Rieltar. And Brunos. And it wasn't further than a stone's throw from them to this tavern where he and she were cooped up, in hiding, waiting for the morrow— "I don't want you to be seeing Cythandria anymore," she said, suddenly.
The cruel mouth twitched lightly. "No. You don't," he agreed easily.
"But you will."
"Yes. I will," he replied.
This had been a constant fixture in their conversations for the past two weeks, she realised, suddenly.
"Why?" she asked, hating that she was woeful. "She is using you. You know that."
"Perhaps I'm tired of a woman whose whole idea of perfume boils down to the stench of blood."
It stung more than it should have. "You said when we first met that it was what you liked in me."
"When we first met. Things have changed since then."
They had, she thought as, in what he clearly meant as a conciliatory tone, he said, "Listen. You are the one I have taken here—"
"She is the one to whom you have entrusted your files!"
Another twitch, this time ugly and impatient. "I have told you this before. She didn't say no. It's you who are being difficult. If you ever—"
"No," she interrupted him roughly, disgusted by the possibility.
He shrugged, put away the cards, and, unruffled; because no, she would not have the strength to say no, no more, forever, ever, not ever – sprang to his feet in one fluid motion, the one fluid motion of the trained fighter. "In any case, it will not be long," he announced, following her gaze through the window, to the library. "The pieces are set. The endgame will soon begin."
He smirked, approached the table, and opened the small, ornate box which had been standing on it untouched since the previous evening. "My sibling is coming here," he said, casually, "Zhelimar was not strong enough to stop her. He is dead. They are all dead. She is coming here. I can feel that."
Now, he was talking with the fervent words of the true obsessed, and instantly she missed the cold, callous bastard. Anything was better than this sick, mad drive; insistence—
But he was a half-god, a god-in-birth, wakamiya, she remembered, painfully. His mad energy was what had attracted her arrogance to him, first— The box. The ring.
The ring within the box radiated an aura of protection; small surprise. She turned it round in her fingers, and prodded, carefully, "So, this is your sibling love?"
After the brief moment, he smirked. "As much of it as I can afford."
Immediately, she felt jealous.
She wondered, vaguely, about that other Child, that Child she had last seen scurrying away, escaping like the small, frightened mouse, or the bitch, with the tail tuckered between her legs— Golden eyes glimmered lightly with curiosity. "I wonder how she has changed," he said, his meticulous attention henceforth completely on his nemesis; and she could only think, Hold me, Sarevok.