Ugly Memories
This weather was damnably cold, even with the buffer of a pallet. Seasons did not fluctuate so in the Underdark. She was coiled up tight with her arms fastened across her chest like steel bars and her knees very nearly up against them. She tried to tell herself it was only the cold that made her huddle such, but something else was worrying at the corner of her mind, leaving her unnaturally malcontent.
She felt as if her nails might pierce the skin of her palms. This suggested anger, no? Frustration, at the very least, and yet a word for her displeasure eluded her. The silence of the night stretched long, broken by every tiny little sound of nature: every bird, every rustle of her traveling crew within their tents, every crackle of snow dripping from overladen branches.
"Ajantis."
Had she spoken loud enough to wake him? He didn't move or answer her, and she bit at her lower lip. She was not going to call out a second time, like some mewling-
She heard Ajantis prop himself up, and felt as he shuffled closer to her. He leaned over and negotiated the tail end of his blankets until he'd thrown the corner across her legs. He didn't breach her own blankets, electing to put an arm around her and them both as he settled in against her.
"Are you alright?" he asked her.
What sort of question was that? Why embrace her at all? But then she had solicited the attention. Was this not the same idiot who had once greeted them with righteous platitudes? Yet now Ajantis thought himself clever enough to read her?
She must have taken too long to answer. "Viconia?"
"Why do you think you've permission to touch me?" she snapped. "If you must cling so, then at least be silent about it!"
He was quiet for a moment before aquiesting with a sigh. He didn't say anything, but signed in the Underdark way where she could see: 'Yes, mother.'
'Mother'?! She turned to glance back at him, great orcish thing that he was. He didn't budge, his face pressed into her shoulder. Into her hair. He couldn't have been asleep yet, but his expression was just as serene and careless, and somehow that took all the angry bitterness out of her and left her feeling naught but tired.
Fool. To a drow, 'mother' meant as much as 'lord and master.'
... This was a waste of mental energy when they had quarry to pursue on the morn. She'd rather sleep. Ajantis was, at least, warm and had done as she required of him.
...
The light, quivering notes of a well-muffled lyre signaled that Eldoth had joined her in the party marching line that morning. He'd taught her the word, 'lyre,' just ahead of any practical need for it, entirely so that she might feel informed and therefore pleased with herself. How clever of him.
"I have to ask," the bard pouted.
Of course he did. The moral and sexual inhibitions of paladins were proving so poorly understood by other surface dwellers that they served as a valuable and poetically ironic tool for misdirection and obfuscation. She affected irritation to hide endearment towards the bard; neither of which she actually felt: "Yes, male, what is it now?"
He called the 'angry tone' bluff she'd dutifully supplied him with, but then danced ahead of questioning why she shared a tent with Ajantis. "How exactly are you keeping one-over on poor Shar-Teel? Is she jealous of all the attention you get, or of the attention you're giving them?"
Ooh, this bard. He was a delightful and silver-gilded little asp, knowing just when to show submissiveness and when to be flippant, mean, or sultry. He knew what he could get away with, and how to use it. There was little reason for any woman not to be thrilled with such entertainment. He did credit to his profession, and Viconia would be lying if she said there wasn't a little part of her that relished this sort of well-trained 'handling' provided, of course, she could bloody him a little.
But in another sense, that part of her was gray and faded; she felt cold contempt for the bard. Perhaps she was wiser under Shar's guidance.
Viconia knew what to pretend, and what to 'secretly' be feeling, and where to yield, and where to affect sensations of defeat or victory. It came so easily. Was this all built into her, then, as a sixth sense? A sense of betrayal? Quaint. But lies, risk, and veiled flattery had once factored so heavily into every part of her life—of her culture—that she could scarce be removed from them. Eldoth had been forced to figure everything out on his own, touch-and-go, with every new conquest. Held up against the drow, he was a novice.
A novice not to be underestimated, of course. This particular boy pursued some goal beneath his oiled surface, and if she missed so much as one feint, one theme, one odd yield, she might walk her party straight into a trap. Advantages in upbringing did not preclude her need to work for things.
In any event, his 'jab' at Shar-Teel had a simple answer: "Why can't it be both?" she drawled. "Or why need it be either? When I and my sisters were little, we liked to amuse ourselves prodding the gladiatorial trolls with heated tongs through the bars of their cages. The pain was their due to us as their matrons, and drove them mad; but they could do little to us, and so became that much fiercer when we threw them into combat." How useful it was, coming from a dark and brutal civilization about which people knew nothing; one could twist or make up any story at all to enforce any kind of point one wished, and no one would think to question its authenticity.
"How cruel," Eldoth shuttered his eyes at her.
"Perhaps. As for you, little man," Viconia purred charmingly as she felt about herself for a comb, "take note of what side of the arena you are on: in or out. It doesn't seem to me like you've much a cage between yourself and your troll."
And to make sure he thought she thought she'd won the encounter, she wove just a little of one of Imoen's 'hops' or 'skips' or whatever into her gait as she pulled ahead of him and came up behind Shar-Teel. It looked like she might as well give the fightress some of that much-needed 'attention' the bard had mentioned; so she stole Shar-Teel's helmet and began combing her hair while they walked.
Whatever expression Shar-Teel wore probably looked more stunned and confused than if someone had smashed her in the face with a shield (again); but aside from a small hiccup in her step the fightress didn't protest; not even to stop walking, curse, grab her helmet, throw a punch, or turn around to ask if Viconia had lost her mind. Perhaps she could tell the objective was to set Eldoth to gagging; there was hardly any plan in that vein she wouldn't have immediately approved of.
...
When Coran tapped on his elbow and gave a little chin-jerk towards the rear of the file, Ajantis could not possibly be prepared for what he'd see. He did a double-take on realizing The Party's Spontaneous Hair Care Alliance had finally claimed another vicim. To be fair, it was something of an enigma how Shar-Teel had held out so long whilst everyone from Kivan to Xzar had been getting cosseted by someone. Perhaps her delightful personality had sufficed to keep them all at arm's length for awhile, but when even Viconia had ended up a guileless convert, well! Shouldn't the fightress' routinely disheveled appearance ought to have attracted them like gnats? And with red hair on top of it-
Oh, oh gods.
He turned away and tried to decide whether Shar-Teel was more feminine or more terrifying in plaits, but Viconia surely aimed to be maximizing potential for both: she was tying all that flaming orange off in tiny braids with bright lavender ribbons and that was a mental image he wasn't sure he'd be shaking loose any time soon. Why did Viconia even own ribbons? Was this a strange, trans-cultural elf thing? A woman thing? Shar-Teel only needed a crown of daisies and she'd be the most fearsome creature to ever grace a battlefield. Terrasque would turn and flee from approach!
He smeared a hand over his face, and then glanced over at Coran who was beaming from ear to ear and looked to find this all quite splendid. Gods, there would be no camaraderie there, not unless Ajantis wanted to burst out laughing with him at the insanity of it—No! No, absolutely not, they were not to do that! Shar-Teel would presume it mockery and murder them both on the spot, and, by Helm, he'd deserve it.
Think of anything but Shar-Teel's hair. Anything at all. Trees. Mongeese. The Plague. It would probably be less noticeable once she got her helmet back. No, no, THE PLAGUE, damn it!
...
It was a little known truth that Ajantis was learning to hold his own in conversations against lechers and leeches, and he'd also grown too wise to confront a cleverer man without preparing first. So when the squire started driving stakes for a tent and idly suggested it was Eldoth's turn to collect firewood, Viconia waited attentively to hear how it would all play out.
Eldoth smirked, shrugged, and continued tuning on his lyre as if he hadn't heard anything. Ajantis paused, fixed Eldoth with an apathetic expression, and said: "Mister Krom, either you can collect firewood or Shar-Teel can collect firewood; but if we're to expect her to take over for your turn in the routine, then she'll want to be provided with a good reason. Do I tell her you're simply too feeble to handle the raw physical labor demanded by picking up sticks, or should I resort to informing her you've developed a hangnail?"
Ha! Nothing beat Ajantis' delivery, not when he looked so guileless and dopey and could deliver barbs in such a disinterested deadpan! Such was the use of a well-trained paladin! That's a good little knight, mm? Hehaha! And though Viconia's sides were nearly splitting by the time Eldoth left camp, she decided to capitalize on this bone the Helmite had thrown her and so followed after the bard to accompany him. Not to help, of course, but to supervise whilst he did all the work; and she'd get away with it so long as she made the chore less tedious for him with idle conversation.
Ajantis signed a cute and silent 'you're welcome' after her.
...
"The paladin's no damsel that your wiles should work on him," Viconia teased as she met up with Eldoth at the stream and handed over a single branch. He eyed her tolerantly with half-lidded eyes, and then took the branch with a little, politely thankful nod.
"Never stopped me before," Eldoth assured her, likely cheered by the company. "Though usually that's the sort of type I spirit women away from. Terribly boring to work with. Can't applaud your taste."
Boring, ah, Ajantis could be boring, but only if one failed to enjoy the ironies. "He serves his purpose," she chided, laughing. "A knight a day keeps the mob away and all that."
Eldoth liked this conversation, which was good; it made it less likely he'd balk the group at an inconvenient moment. "And the skirt-chasers, I'm sure. 'Invitation only' I suspect?" She winked. "Who entrusted you to his care, if I might ask? Aegis?"
Mm, whether to give Eldoth ammunition or to retain it. Ajantis still wore a soft scale in his armor about having repeatedly fallen into party brawls with Kagain, and too much prodding at old wounds could shake apart group balance; but Eldoth needed to be kept 'happy' too, and that might involve tossing him a bit of dirt on their paladin. Perhaps not just yet, but she'd wander close enough to let him know there were fish at the bottom of that well: "Oh, I think that was as much for his benefit as it was for mine. The little Knight-Squire has quite a lot to prove to his lauded order back home, and it sometimes manifests as braying like a she-rothe in heat for 'the good of the realm,' sword leading."
"Your gesticulation adds spectacular mental imagery to this story," the bard noted, amused. "And though I thank you for coming out to placate me, ebon vixen, you'll not win me over just yet."
She pouted, and didn't bother to waste this moment wondering whether she was ahead or behind; uncertainty alone might give him a leg up, and that wouldn't do. "Tell me the meaning of 'vixin,' now. You're so good a teacher."
Sounds! A tiny rustle of twigs and grass! She brought her hand back into her cloak and discretely unstrapped her flail. Eldoth noticed, but elected to wait; a second later, a grinning bandit wearing leafy camouflage and holding a bow had eased into the space before them.
"Well, well, this looks promising. Hey kiddos, stop where you are! If you cooperate, no one gets hurt; and if you don't, then you'll both die. Very simple decision, I should hope."
Eldoth and Viconia shared a look, and then the former squinted tiredly at the man and asked: "What is it you want, and who are you again?"
"Oh, wanna make polite do ya? My name is Teyngnan," he jerked his head to the side where a woman spoke words of draconic and lit up her fingertips with fire (how could anyone, after knowing Edwin, possibly take that threat seriously?), "this be my girl, Jemby. And ah, the ugly one is Zekar," he glanced up, to where an unexpectedly graceful hobgoblin was perched in the trees with a full composite longbow drawn on her. "So in sum: hand over all your cash and you'll be unharmed. Pretty sure any gold you got is worth less than your life."
Viconia heaved a great sigh and glared down at her feet. "Ajantis!" she called boredly, and since this didn't sound much like a call-to-arms, no one on the bandit side reacted just yet. Eldoth, not to be out done, sighed: "Shar-Teel!" which was incredibly amusing because it would doubtless get the fightress moving all the same.
Ajantis arrived moments later, sparkling in a full coat of steel platemail which veritably no one in all the Western Heartlands could even imagine owning amid the Iron Crisis. The sight of him put the bandits on edge, but no one yet took action and, to be honest, it was Shar-Teel sneaking up through the shadows that they ought to have been worried about. "Viconia?" the squire asked. "What is this?"
"Well, Ajantis, we are being robbed," Viconia explained heavily. Without lifting a hand she signed 'there is one in the trees.' "Do you want to handle it, or should we? I mean, do keep in mind the bard's an expert in poison and I'm a drow; I just sort of imagined you might want the opportunity to go first, do it all the 'paladiny' way, or something like that."
Teyngan didn't look so cocky or care-free now, but he did know his team had two armed and properly allocated longbows. "Alright, you wanna play hardball?" he asked. "Throw down a purse, or 'Miss Drow' sprouts some fletching from her eye."
Coran took that moment to show up many meters away—and above—where he clasped his legs about a bough, bent himself down to Zekar's level, grabbed the hobgoblin about the mouth to silence him, and and calmly slit his throat with a skinning knife. The stealth-kill would have been conducted excellently and perhaps placed Coran for a second kill if he could hold the body in place while aiming a bow Teyngan's way.
But of course that wouldn't be fair at all to Shar-Teel. The fightress charged out from the brush and charged head-long into striking aside a very startled longbow arrow and a likely-soon-to-be-decapitated Burning Hands.
Sadly, Ajantis' excellent 'shaming the bandits out of banditry' speech never did get to see the light of day; but he did slap a hand across his face and demand of Viconia in an angry whisper: "Why ribbons?! Why purple ribbons!?" Viconia beamed and patted his arm affectionately. He didn't know signed words for these things, or surely he wouldn't have risked being overheard by the ribbon-wearer in question.
Teyngan actually managed to draw out a longsword and ward off Shar-Teel's arm-jarring swings for a few seconds, which bought Jemby enough time to conjure up an overhead wall of wind, foiling Coran's further involvement. Ajantis heaved a pained sigh upon realizing he was needed, and marched his way forward to help his heavily-plaited comrade-at-arms.
But at that point the enemy wizardess must of realized she and Teyngan would be overrun just as soon as her enemies started trying. She pulled the stoppers out of her bag of tricks and when next she cast the words did not sound simple. They sounded familiar, which was rare. Viconia frowned and narrowed her eyes. "I know this spell," she suddenly realized. "Ajantis! It's-"
An explosion of necromantic energy washed over them all as a Horror billowed out from their shadows. It's projections froze an unprepared Ajantis in place and startling Shar-Teel into shrieking out-loud in alarm. Viconia lost sight of all of them, overwhelmed by a gargantuan image of Lolth that loomed over her and around her and advanced on all sides, spiders dripping with poison, flanked by an army of Yuguloths and drow.
"Shar-!"
It was never wise to underestimate one's opponents. The slightest blunder could mean death. Strength did not preclude the need to work. Viconia collapsed backwards to her ass, and then dragged her eyes away and covered her face and prayed furiously into her hands. She had to free one of the forward fighters! She had to dispel this mist from either Shar-Teel or Ajantis or they were all going to die!
Lyre music flowed over the party, tearing through the Horror like raging floodwaters might sweep away blood. Viconia looked up and sucked in a deep breath as the images of Lolth faded. Shar-Teel had apparently powered through the spell effect by some means or another (had Viconia helped? Had Ajantis helped?) and now she was hacking and chopping Teyngan's corpse to bits and pieces, while a reeling paladin and a traumatized enemy mage gaped on.
The music stopped just as fast as it had come. Eldoth grabbed Viconia by the arm and heaved gently her up to her feet. Before Coran or Ajantis could recover, or Shar-Teel could switch targets, he loaded a bolt into his miniature crossbow, lifted it, and fired it straight at Jemby. He wasn't the best shot in the world and missed her head, but Jemby only managed to stagger backwards and gape at them all for a few seconds longer before her eyes rolled up and she collapsed in a foaming heap. Ajantis cringed.
"Are you alright?" the bard asked of the drow.
His voice jarred Viconia back to her senses, and she shoved him off of her arm with a frown.
"Good." Eldoth gave a little smile, calmly put his crossbow away, and then began whistling as he calmly turned about and resumed collecting firewood.
...
Below them, spilled out in the valley that made up Fisherman's Lake, half-ogres were feasting on the remains of displaced miners. A particularly talkative Nashkel-Native-Turned-Fish-Wrangler was reported by Coran to still be breathing, and was allegedly carrying on a conversation with several of the half-ogres who, for the time being, seemed more entertained than hungry.
Half-ogres, dim as they were, had excellent vision and a good vantage point for spotting enemies; and Fisherman's lake was only sparsely populated with trees and otherwise covered in a long grass that disadvantaged shorter folk. As the two least subtle of the party members, Viconia and Ajantis stayed far back and waited for Shar-Teel, Eldoth, and particularly Coran to conduct reconnaissance.
"I am somewhat perplexed," Viconia admitted after a moment.
Ajantis glanced at her, grim-faced. "By what?"
"They are clearly half-human by complexion, so which parent was the ogre? The father? He would have split a human mother asunder—unless ogres simply are not hung proportionately to elves or men—but certainly no pregnancy could have been simple even if she did survive the initial rape. But then neither does it make sense for the ogre to have been the mother, unless she was using the entire man's body as some sort of toy prior to cooking with it."
"Viconia. Must you?"
"What? Are these not entirely valid questions to ask about these supposedly 'evil' hominids? Should we not wonder about their pedigree, personality, and why—exactly—they all seem fit for no lives other than banditry and cannibalism? Has not one of them inherited higher intelligence or wisdom or something even vaguely approximating your scruples concerning honor? For that matter, have we even seen any female ogres? How does one tell them apart from male ogres? Do they have breasts? Is the species patriarchal? Matriarchal? Egalitarian?"
"What is bothering you?" he asked as he came over to stand just beside her, his boots crunching on more of the fallen powder. "You seem torn between extreme good and ill humors, and I have not seen you without your arms crossed and your shoulders rolled in for days."
She shot him a glare. "You have again noticed I am cold. Congratulations."
He blinked at her once, unfazed, and then calmly lifted up his arm above her so that his cloak curved about where she was standing. So tall; irritating how everyone was so tall! Him, most of all! That she should fit under his arm was an insult!
"The cold should shudder to have made an enemy so ruthless as you," the paladin boy agreed. "But something else is on your mind. Earlier, when the mage cast her fear spell, did it show you something?"
"Horror spells do not 'show' things, fool; they are not Illusions or Conjurations, but Necromancy. The magic enters into the body, and stimulates the organs to fear."
"Does it occasionally cause hallucinations?" he asked with a frown. "Because I believe Shar-Teel's reaction may have been atypical. The inclination to fight and the instinct to flee may be of the same coin, but they are on diametrically opposed facings..."
She laughed and and shot him a look she hoped was sufficiently poisonous. "That which is cornered, bites."
Ajantis gave a martyred sigh, filling the air with pearly clouds of warm vapor. He was quiet a moment, arm still raised above her head. "In detailing our traveling group to my superiors in Amn, I stressed that it was a conglomerate of very different factions who had aligned specifically because of the far-reaching effects of this iron crisis. I described the presence of two who were openly mentioned to be Harpers, a Zhentarim agent, a Red Wizard of Thay, a warcleric of Tempus, a Witch of Rasheman, and," his voice soured slightly, "A Graycloak of Everska. My superiors were surprised but thrilled by the inter-factional harmony... which, as I'd hoped, kept them from dismay at such a large collection of wizards..."
"I didn't hear a 'Sharran Drow' in there," she noted, irritable and only half-listening.
"I protect you," he answered. "You are harder to detract attention from."
"And you think the answer is to conceal the truth? Traveling with a daughter of intrigue?" She turned a sneer and a laugh onto him. "Are you truthfully so dim? Is logic the one muscle all paladins stalwartly refuse to exercise?"
"No, and this is getting old. You collapse into absurdly incensed tirades whenever we glimpse the topic of religion together, Viconia, and it gives you away: You fear you will be the thing to drive me from my god's favor, and so whenever you are confronted by the magnitude of your own sins, you you seek to protect me by the only method you know of: pushing me away."
He turned a piercing stare down on her, and Viconia recoiled a step.
"After the episode with the Flaming Fist, it is easy to infer you could well be out distributing alms to paupers and somehow someone could still convince themselves to stake you. I am now taking fewer chances with the biases of well-intentioned men. Before you seek to turn those words on their heads, make sure you have not gravely misunderstood whom I serve: My deity is reputed to hardly speak, much less play loose with privileged information, and what little you know of paladins and their beliefs has been taught to you at the wrong end of a sword.
"Go on and continue to belittle me using whatever excuse pleases you: my faith, my age, my religion, my species, my gender. I will still protect you. But I grow to suspect, Vicona De'Vir, that the thing you need the most protection from is yourself. Yourself, your guilt, your sense of right and wrong, your memories, and the leftover tatters of a multi-century-bridge you forged between your soul and a goddess of spiders.
"If you refuse to trust, and let no one behind your walls—if you refuse help—then may Shar have mercy on your soul, but one day you will end up facing your old mistress alone, and somehow it will have been your own doing."
Ajantis dropped his arm and looked quietly back to the brush and there low-lying trees where their companions had long since disappeared.
AngerLaughterDerisonLoathingDismissalWrynessSmugnessHatredPoutingPlayfulnessYieldingSuggestingSparringRiposteCurseViolenceMockeryBloodTeasingSexualitySensualityBriberyNegotiationWrathLustSilenceBelittlementPowerplayNarrativeNarrativeNarrative—Narrative—Kissmoot—HighPriestess—Yuguloth—Slaughter—Sacrifice—Lies—Truths—Ugliness.
Her boots crunched in the powder. She stepped forward, into him, pushing aside his cloak to make room again. Plate mail would have been sharp-angled and cold to lean against without the buffer of her splint, but the way he turned into her and leaned over and and wrapped both arms tightly about her helped to block out the wind.
There wasn't much to say. Anything at all would have gone too much one way or another, and there was some strange peace upon the precipice for once. After awhile, Viconia did sigh and ask: "Where has your naivety gone, boy?"
"Shar-Teel helped me bury it a few dozen miles to the Southeast." Mailed fingertips passed very gently through her hair, careful not to catch on any of the strands, and filing them gently behind her ear.
"Why do you pretend at liking me, Ajantis? I am not much kinder to you than she, and you do not even have the sexual component with it to soften the edges. Isn't it easier just to do things the old-fashion way...? With the name-calling and race-baiting; shiny swords and shinier honor? Stench of evil and all that?"
"Perhaps. But paladins don't get bonus points for 'easy.'" He glanced around as if to make sure no one holy or straight-laced could overhear and then cocked his head nearer to her. "And—between you and me—the company's a little dry."
Viconia laughed. Too hard. Too long. He chafed her shoulder and back to keep her warm while they waited.
...
Shar-Teel had returned with a grin on her face that promised a battle would soon be joined; but the moment she set eyes on Ajantis and Viconia standing so close together, her good humor nearly evaporated in lieu of a sneer. Viconia caught the change and gave an eye-roll, but it was Ajantis' reaction that actually mattered: he immediately left Viconia's side and hurried up to hear the figress's report.
The 'personal attention' helped, and Viconia shuttered her eyes thoughtfully. Something was wrong with Shar-Teel. The fightress wasn't manipulative enough to be aiming for anything more complex than sex, so either she was lying to them about how 'little' she liked Ajantis, or else she was lying to herself. For all that she cussed him out and swatted at him and called him a boy, it was steadily becoming more and more obvious that Shar-Teel was also demanding shows of fidelity—or, at least, abstinence.
Hmph!
Shar-Teel waved them to follow, but Ajantis took the point as the three of them headed downward. "What is the plan?" a very composed Viconia demanded to be informed.
"We're going around them and creeping up this nice little ridge," Shar-Teel almost grinned but instead sneered at the paladin ahead of her. "We'll slam them on one side and get them all in a pretty line for the elf and the piss-wipe to take shots at.
Viconia elbowed Shar-Teel with a warning glance, and the fightress raised a brow at her. Viconia hinted they should slow down, and Shar-Teel did so that they might speak without Ajantis overhearing. "Shar-Teel, you are being absolutely and disgustingly pathetic."
"Excuse me?" she growled.
Viconia grabbed her arm and pulled her closer to listen. "And ordinarily I wouldn't care, but you are without a doubt the most sensible, straightforward, and refreshingly intense woman I have yet met on this miserably bright surface world of yours. Watching you of all people getting worked up over a man is sad."
Shar-Teel grit her teeth together and snapped up to full posture.
"Just fuck him," Viconia hissed instructively. "What is the problem? The tents? By the gods, Shar-Teel, whose side do you think I'm on!? If this Helmite's overprotective inclinations are the reason he lets me close enough that I might drug him so you can do what you will with him, it shall be justice poetically served! I will do it tonight!"
She'd cut off any rivalry in the bud, surely, and a rebuttal that 'not everyone can get into his tent at night' died before it could ever be formed. Shar-Teel glared at her for a moment and then looked bitterly at the path ahead of them.
"No? Why? You are pacing like a hungry wolf. I have seen Kivan less worked up over ogres. Surely you are aware the boy is interested in you? Which is more than we can say about his attention to any other woman and which very nearly had me wondering if he liked Xan."
"You ain't slept with him?" Wary. Suspicious. Making absolutely sure.
"What? If I were sleeping with that giant fool, it might be the one and only way he'd be able to figure out his only purpose is to stand between me and law-enforcement officials. What about my mechanization was unclear to you?"
The fightress snorted and looked ahead of them without saying anything. As if she'd known Viconia and Ajantis hadn't touched been intimate, but still somehow didn't like seeing them together.
Viconia eyed her suspiciously and then lifted her chin an inch. "You care about him," she learned.
Shar-Teel eyed her much more dangerously than she had at any of the ruder fighting words Viconia had lobbed her way.
"Well then," Viconia did not belittle her. "The only way to deal with that is to convince him he wants to fuck you."
Shar-Teel took in a long breath through her nose, thought about that, and then spit to the side. "Yeah? Not everyone's got your looks, Beaut," the fightress sassed; but it did look and sound as if she felt a little better.
"I heard no complaints from him whilst the two of you were engaged in the horizontal joust next door," Viconia disagreed. "Either time. Whatever moral scruples he has, they bend, and they submit, and they do it just for you."
Grunt.
"Hmm. Well until this is resolved, don't pine like that anywhere that bard can see. Yes. Yes I said 'pine,' don't glare or roll your eyes at me when it's true. Stroke your delicates straight in the middle of the camp for all to see before you ever get caught mooning like that. Ugh."
Shar-Teel made a far more disgusted sound than 'ugh,' thought not at the suggestion. Then she asked: "Let me shiv him. The snake. I can do it quietly someplace only Coran'll find him."
"Later, later," Viconia waved, "Eldoth was very astute in not telling the party who is paying for each job, and we are on a tight time-table. Besides, you remember how Aegis is. He needs to 'leave,' first. Now back to the topic at hand: you need to be having sex."
"Hnh. You offering?" Oh she was definitely in a better mood.
Viconia glanced her up and down, sly and a bit curious. "I don't know, abil; Will it stop your brooding and put you back to sorts?" she groused playfully.
Shar-Teel grinned, a mean sparkle back in her eye, and she hushed Viconia and hurried her along towards the battlefront with a smack on the bottom. "Maybe next time."
...
Shar-Teel had a beautiful purple bruise over one eye that Viconia was half-inclined to let her keep.
"You," the drow accused as she turned the fightress's face gently to the side, "are counting heads against our archer, and I don't see any reason I should waste my valuable energy healing someone who'd take a maul to the face just to beat an arrow to its target."
Shar-Teel tugged her head to the side, spat out a tooth, stuck her tongue through the hole. and then winked cheekily at Viconia and leaned forward with the grin of a satisfied bloodlust. "You don't have ta, Beaut. I've had worse."
Viconia sighed dramatically, but gods this woman was splendid. "Hold still, you incredibly messy woman; I'll fix your nose while I'm at it, and the pain I'll cause you will be my recompense."
"Oh talk dirty some more, Sugar, it's cute on you."
Coran glanced shrewdly from a dismayed Ajantis—who had lost a shield to an overhand axe and very nearly lost his forearm with it, and seemed to be holding a vigil for equipment martyred in the line of duty—to Eldoth, who was wrinkling his nose at the two whilst he dusted his sleeves clean of dust. "I might be shooting an arrow in the dark here, but did anyone give those two 'ideas' recently?" Coran asked.
Eldoth smiled languidly. "Terribly put-out, are you?"
"No I wish to thank whoever in Tymora's name did it; they may have just increased the occupancy of my bedroll to three for a few hours."
Eldoth was very, very disappointed. Ajantis was fortunately too busy patting his dearly departed shield to hear what surely would have killed him outright.
"What?" Coran grinned as he leaned on his longbow. "If a woman like that wants to sleep with a man, he can take it as nothing more than the highest praise to his reputation and skill."
"If a man wants to sleep with a woman like that, his fellow men can take it as nothing more than a sign he is a masochist," Eldoth replied dryly, and then turned off to investigate the camp and likely 'appropriate' anything he knew they could not immediately identify as valuable. Coran watched him go and then went to join Ajantis.
"Should I, em, say a few words?" he asked the paladin.
"What?"
"Ha! Never mind. Between you and me, I think I know who Eldoth got this request from back in Beregost. Good man named Bjornin who stumbled into the Juggler half-dead a few days back. He's from Norheim—Branwen's People—but now that I think of it I think he wears the symbol of Torm."
Ajantis perked up a little. "I somehow missed a Norheimer paladin stumbling into the Jovial Juggler?"
Coran shrugged. "To be fair, I don't miss much. But your party was really having quite the week back there, eh? Hey, look... I realize I'm a late-comer to this game, and it's not exactly reputable or professional of me to join up with an adventuring party and then immediately start sleeping with one of its ladies. Much less someone with Lady De'Vir's temper." He scratched at the back of his head. "But she's a fragrent rose when you get past the thorns, and I'm a bit of a sucker for danger. When we go into Cloakwood, there won't be any turning back. For logistical reasons as well as basic decency, I plan to have everyone's back. Wyvren head or no wyvren head. And I know there are plenty of... manipulative people walking these roads who just want to piggyback briefly on the good luck of adventuring folk, so I guess I just hope not to be that guy to you all. If I am, just let me know."
"Hardly. You apparently saved Minsc from hypothermia within days of meeting us. Can I draw your attention to something else, though? I've notice you hold back to try and pick targets away from Viconia. You don't have to. First of all, she won't notice or take it as as a sign of affection. Secondly it's not needed. She fights defensively, that flail keeps anyone from mistaking her as a soft target, and her splint is enchanted."
The archer sat back on the balls of his heels to consider that. "What do you suggest?"
"Help Shar-Teel spearhead through the front lines. She needs a spotter on her who has a full tactical view of the field. If you can intercept whatever's trying to kill her, she can take out an enemy party like she's dancing. She just... doesn't think defense."
"Duly noted. How does our leader fight?"
"Aegis? She... she struggles not to fall into a martial trance. When she's clear-headed, she and I can almost keep Shar-Teel moving at a clip. When she's not clear-headed, we leave behind a lot of body parts, and then usually Viconia gets huffy about needing to heal flooded lungs and impacted kidneys..."
Coran eyed him for a moment and then grinned and gave a mirthful sound. Ajantis tilted his head to the side inquisitively. The elf laughed. "Oh, I just... never thought I'd end up making many knightly friends. Probably helps we're out in the forest, where expensive things aren't mysteriously ending up in my- well never mind. You know Iam disappointed by one thing: When I first surveyed the camp, I swear there was still a man alive. Give me a moment, would you? I want to count the half-ogre bodies."
"I'll help."
They were halfway through overturning and numbering their fourteenth half-ogre carcass when a polite cough from Eldoth (who was sitting on a high perch, watching and tuning his lyre in a nonchalant fashion that was probably best ceded to him) alerted them something was amiss. Ajantis dropped the body and frowned at him. Eldoth pointed with a foot to the east, where two people had just stumbled into the decimated camp out of the forest.
One of them was a Nashkel Fisherman, who could barely walk but looked happy as a clam. The other was a very confused female half-ogre who looked and probably smelled... disheveled.
Ajantis and Coran looked to one another with raised brows. Then the paladin turned about and raised his hands to his mouth.
"Viconia!"
...
The half-ogress's name was Dixi and she was apparently of mixed feelings towards the whole-scale slaughter of her shield mates. On one hand, she was clearly smitten with the addled fisherman she was leading about by the hand. On the other, she was feeling a mite angry her crew had been killed while she'd been... busy.
No one could conjure up any deep feelings that Dixi really ought to be added to the body-count that evening, and she didn't seem so incredibly dim-witted that she'd attack them outright.
For a moment they stood in stalemate, neither side really sure what to do with one another (but Ajantis rather sure someone ought to do something fast before Eldoth got bored and handled it all for them). Then Shar-Teel went to the camp fire the half-ogres had been using, took a chunk of (gulp) whatever they'd been cooking off the spit, and brought it over for Dixi to eat. As it turned out, a fed Dixi was a much more agreeable Dixi, who confessed she hadn't much liked Lug or Urg or Harkark much anyway.
AT this point the fisherman (whose name was Chelan?) piped up that he had a plan for Dixi: the two of them would go to Nashkel, get married, and become world famous iron miners. This was only absurd if one was highly pessimistic, and the party ended up waving farewell to Dixi and Chelan as the two of them walked (and er, hobbled) their way southeast.
"Well," Viconia dusted her hands off as the rest of their party began to move out. They were headed further east, to where another matter required their attention on the coast.
Ajantis shook his head, hands on his hips. "You were right, they were valid questions."
"I'm always right, you fool."
Ajantis winced. "Don't say that. Do you know who says that? A Thayvian."
"Ugh. Strike it from your memory, immediately. 'I'm always right—male.' How was that?"
"Much better," Ajantis nodded approvingly. "You still look cold. I think you need to entreat your boyfriend, or romantic interest, or 'fling' or—"
"'Sexual services provider?'" she suggested.
"—as you wish it—to hunt you down some rabbits and line your armor with fur."
"Hmm... Is it as simple as asking, do you think, or do I need to be coy about it?"
"Save your wiles for tougher fare." He added with a sign, 'Your elf seems dependable.' She looked unimpressed but of begrudging agreement. 'What of the human...?'
'Him, do not trust,' she signed back quickly, and added that Ajantis was not to let him near their food, nor wind up alone with him, nor stand easily with him at their backs. Drow had single-sign abbreviations for each concept and together they roughly translated to 'be prudent'.
"He bothers you personally?" the squire suspected.
She sniffed. "He reminds me of home."
Ajantis eyed her. 'Poison. I'm safer bait than S-T.'
'Point acknowledged.'
...
Nashkel mines had once more begun producing proper iron, but with the path to the north blocked by bandits, the only way to ship iron to Baldur's Gate was by coastline. A fine plan, except that two days before leaving Beregost, a haggard man and his one remaining daughter had turned up warning Kelddath Ormlyr worgs had overtaken the coastal lighthouse.
Vai had been able to get in contact with an astrologer in the area who would attend to the lighthouse if it was freed, but the Flaming Fist was short-handed to deal with worgs. Somewhat understandable if one knew anything on the subject; worgs had the pelt of a wolf, but they were intelligent and weighed in heavier than the average pony. That was Ajantis' target now: to slay the worgs.
The situation was something of an emergency, which was why Ajantis' group had scarcely rested after dealing with the Half Ogres. Even as they spoke, ships had likely launched from Amn towards Baldur's Gate transporting precious iron, only to be faced with the dilemma of whether to brave the aptly named Shipwrecks Coast alone, or else to turn about and go home and face the possibility of destitution.
The region was suffering. Every tiny thing that went wrong threatened to once more collapse the entire system. How had Aegis' put it? 'Sleeping with too small a blanket.'
Somewhat bitterly, Ajantis wondered why the Flaming Fist hadn't been understaffed on the matter of capturing Viconia DeVir. One supposed Vai had needed to wait a few days...
A thought occurred to Ajantis:
The 'Iron Throne' was a mercantile organization, no? If they were doing well despite the current iron crisis, than their wealth could be used in terms of bribes; and The Flaming Fist had once been a mercenary company.
At present the Fist was overseen by a Duke of Baldur's Gate, whom Ajantis had never met but about whom he'd heard good things. Dukes of Baldur's Gate were mostly proud and independent ex-adventurers, and prized their autonomy; it was unlikely one would be orchestrating the collapse of his own homeland.
On the other hand, how easy it must have been to hear of an drow in Aegis' company and to nudge someone into sending mages to Vai's aid?
Had this yet occurred to Aegis? Or to Xan? He shelved these thoughts away, along with the bitter realization that the Iron Throne's worst mistake may have been to set the bounty on Aegis' head through illegal channels as opposed to legal ones. Bribing an entire band of Flaming Fist Warmages might have seemed prohibitively expensive before Aegis had made a name for herself in Beregost and Nashkel, but the Throne was likely cursing itself for waiting too long. Now sending an arrest warrant to either Kelddath Ormlyr or Berun Ghastkill would do them more harm than good.
Ajantis glanced over at Shar-Teel as they walked, and wondered if it was possible to have a useful conversation with her about the Flaming Fist. A woman might have a better chance at it than he; all the more important he speak with Aegis.
...
"Ajantis."
He blinked groggily rolled over to look at the drowess. She raised a hand and in the gloom signed, 'Come?'
There was a small part of Ajantis that secretly feared Shar-Teel might bulldoze his tent one evening to try and catch him in a compromising position. She'd certainly been shooting glares at him all week just for standing next to Viconia (as if it were somehow odd that he should do so?) But they'd a long distance to walk in the morning, and no one was on guard duty that night; the camp was cold and quiet
If it came to the worst, alas. He shifted his palette over beside Viconia's, and settled down against her. She was warm, and he was starting to suspect this was more about comfort than heat.
"You don't find this intimate?" his cleric asked after a moment.
Her irritable tone embarrassed him just a little, but he countered it with good humor. "My lack of arousal offends you? I suspect I do not have what men would consider a strong libido."
"Nor women," she muttered.
He yawned and glanced at her teasingly. "Did 'mother' make you feel old?"
She turned to stare at him.
"Would you prefer 'auntie' 'cousin' or 'sister'?" he quipped, and was surprised when her face suddenly crinkled as if in pain. "You've had a brother...?"
"Why are cycling through family designations for me?" she demanded angrily
"Well aside from you, Aegis, and the angry red-head, my entire past experience with female role-models amounts to a single wet-nurse," he attempted to soothe with a bit of mirth.
"You say that whilst entangled about me like a lover!?"
Ajantis winced, eyed her bitterly for a moment, and then rolled back from her and draped a forearm over his eyes. "Thank you for clarifying your displeasure, Lady De'Vir. Is that all you need of me this evening?"
"No! No that is not all!" she hissed unhappily, and then abruptly rolled on top of him, where she gave a sharp, pointed rock of her hips that made him jump in alarm. He quickly tried to prop himself up. "You dare withdraw as if in revulsion? As if this were not the normalized truth of what you were just doing!?" She made to straddle him.
"Viconia!" he protested, reaching out to stop her. "I wasn't-!" She tore her hands free of his, seized hold of his shoulders, and shoved him roughly down with a strength he hadn't been entirely cognizant she possessed. His eyes widened and he tried to roll over and get out from underneath her. She clawed into his arms so surely she must have bloodied him, and shoved him back in place again. "Please!" She propped herself above him with a furious, vicious expression. "Please don't. Vic-ah!" She ground herself down into his pelvis, cloth against cloth, heat against heat.
"There," she growled, eyes flaming mercilessly with her 'victory.' "I can feel it. Deny it, when I need but clench to make it move."
He gaped up at her for a moment, and then just as quickly looked off to the side and covered his heated face with a hand.
"That's it? A shy refusal to meet my gaze!?"
He took in a shaky breath, and then spoke calmly. "If you must take this from me, then take it. You are right: I have insufficient will-power to stop you."
Her thighs tightened in some perverse sort of 'punishment,' and he grimaced. "How dare you? As if you neither crave nor are capable of enjoying it?"
"I am positive you can make me do both. When you are done, I will don my armor and return to Amn."
"From here? And leave us all in danger and the region in chaos?" she laughed. "You are melodramatic, boy, but I know-"
"I swear this, Viconia DeVir," he snarled between finger tips, eyes settling on her. "Do not do this to me unless you are sure you want each and every one of its consequences, because innocence in a relationship cannot be reclaimed once it is violated. I cannot so undermine myself so as to risk becoming your play thing; do this, and I will let you. And then I will no longer be fit to remain at your side, defending you, as a Helmite. Do this—I hardly doubt your claims of skill—but then I leave with the dawn."
Viconia eyed him doubtfully and straightened an inch. His gaze was unyielding. "You sound as if you want me to."
"What did you expect temptation to sound like!? I trust you, you have no genuine interest in me whatsoever, and this- this-!" Rather than fight her he pressed both hands back over his face, and his voice shook to scratched whispers as he begged: "Please get off."
So many things a man at her mercy could and should fear. So many agonies, so many motives, so much hate.
Furious, she pushed herself off of him, and dropped with a huff back to her pallet. He cried out in alarm and relief and—something—something which made him spin quickly towards her and wrap both arms around her, and hug her to him like she was a stuffed lamb. He smothered tears into her hair, and tried to collect his breath, and she could smell the salt of tears and feel his heartbeat thunder against her back.
Viconia lifted a hand up over her shoulder, and caught the side of his head. She held him there, and asked: "Little Brother?" He opened his eyes. She didn't turn to him, still angry. "The next time a woman sits on you like that, do not bawl. Throw her off."