Note: After wrapping up these scenes in Nashkel, I will be 'completing' this fiction and starting a new fiction for the bandit camp chapters. I felt it was the best way to break up the story. Anyone with a story alert may want to switch to an author alert or else just keep their eyes open. Half the reason for this is that Khalid, Jaheira, Xzar, and Mintaron ARE this story's synopsis, and they are all apparently leaving for a bit!
"T-told you... T-told you it was too fast! Said I needed t-to take it slower! Warned you I was over-overeat-" a rush of sensation overcame him and ducked his head to vomit again. Vinegar was not as good on the way up as it went down, and neither was fruit, as it turned out. Some of it even came up through the nasal cavities, and that was a whole different level of hell. He choked and sputtered and coughed, and his companion quickly wiped his face with a kerchief.
"You drank a whole bottle of wine in one sitting!" Branwen protested his assessment of where this trouble had come from. "The devil possessed ye? I weren't gone but half an hour!"
Xan moaned pathetically, barely able to steady himself against the side of the inn. Branwen had previously tucked his braid down the back of his robes to keep the hair out of his face. She was holding him upright around the middle with her other hand. He wasn't sure he could stand without her.
"You featherbrained twig of a man," she chastised him, wiping his nose. "I should have known! Should have seen it in your eyes the way you stared at the bottle, should have seen you were wondering what would happen!"
"N-not so loud," he pleaded of her. He wasn't sure he was going to be able to stop vomiting. What if it just kept coming? Could he cough up his own organs? His stomach was starting to clench again. "Brnn-wn-!" he almost begged, although there was little enough she could do. A neutralize poison had already killed the alcohol in his veins before it could bake his brain or his liver, but a body's decision to purge itself of wine and meal wasn't any form of curable ailment.
"Ach, I'm here, I'm here," she told him gently as he vomited out again, and she rubbed firmly over his back to sooth him. He gagged and coughed out bile and spit. "You'll be fine. I promise." The touch was reassuring, especially where the muscles were clenching in the lumbar and beneath the lungs; but at the same time he wanted to vomit even worse. There were tears in his eyes from retching, and his arms shook violently despite the fact that he was now only mildly tipsy.
"I f-feel it," he gagged. "The t-touch, when I try to trance, to sleep, wh-when anyone-!" he grimaced and shuddered, coughing.
Branwen frowned at the back of his head uncertainly. "What?" she asked him worriedly.
"I f-feel, all the... I feel him t-touching m..." Her eyes widened in suprise, "Branwen; I c-can't s-sleep- I ccan barely-!" He lurched hard and vomited yet again.
"Ain't no one touching you but meself," she promised in a lowered voice, pushing the heel of her palm into the muscles of his back as she rubbed soothingly up and down. "And I'll nae hurt you."
He sputtered and gave a weak and breathy cackle, grasping at his face and hair with his fingertips. "I'm a-an enchanter," he whispered, and his voice suggested he was terrified or found something ironic. "An enchanter who's lost h-his mind." And his voice rose to an almost blissful, manic or perhaps terrifyingly anxious peak.
"You've done no such thing," she scolded him. "They'll be ups and downs, right there will, but you've nae lost your mind. And you've got friends to help catch the downs." She felt the muscles in his waist start contracting again, but then still. He gagged slightly all the same.
"F-friends...!" he gasped. "I've... I've known you... l-less than... a week! M-my friend... Nildoen nín! My friend of eight and f-fourty years is d-dead and eaten, with naught b-but the shards of his bones b-buried at in the depths of some unknown p-pit!"
He sagged then, but as Branwen's arm was already around him she caught him. She pulled the frail elf back from the wall, holding him against her as his nausea gave way to grief with a broken wail. He didn't grab at her or push her away, holding his arms pathetically close to his chest and bowing his shoulders. His cyan eyes went cloudy with saline that trickled freely down his face. He sobbed hard and, moments later. Branwen thought she'd never seen a man (or a woman, until recently) bawl so pathetically in her entire life.
Alarmed, she chafed his shoulders reassuringly, uncertain how one ought to calm a person who had trouble with touch. "Hey, hey, Xan," she muttered in dismay before bundling him up in a hug and pulling his face into her shoulder. He cried, but he didn't seem to be shrinking from her touch. This is going to end up with him throwing up on me, she already knew. "It's okay. It's going ta be fine," she promised him. "I know it all seems right screwed up now, and it is! But it'll level out in the end, you'll see."
She held on to him because it didn't seem he could stand under his own power anymore. After a few long an painful minites, the elf moved of his own accord. He moved his arms from the pathetic, defensive place coiled up in front of his chest and eased both of them around her back. He hugged her, lightly at first, weakly, and then tighter. Branwen frowned down at him and sighed. "I got ye, elf. Ain't gonna let ye down; and ain't gonna let no one hurt ye either."
He was well beyond speech.
When Branwen had crossed the river, she entered Nashkel Inn to see Jaheira and Khalid were awake and reminiscing on old times in the common room. Aegis, whom she'd expected to go to the tavern or else start drinking, was nowhere to be found. Dynaheir was enjoying her spellbook in the corner. Khalid glanced up when Branwen entered and then half stood in alarm.
"Xan?" he asked. "W-what happened?"
Branwen grinned wryly down at her burden and shifted Xan's weight; she wasn't the strongest woman in the world, but he also wasn't the heaviest man. "He had too much wine is all, just a wee bit o' indignity," she answered the concerned party. "I'll stay with him to keep an eye on him. Don't worry, he got dizzy before he could lose his clothing or start dancing on the bar."
The elf heaved a weak laugh. "Seldarine for that..." he muttered.
"So. Jaheira and Khalid are leaving the day after tomorrow. And then, after that, you too..." she murmured, tracing her fingers gently up and down the scars over his back.
"Aye," he breathed softly into her sternum. "Good thing, too. Yer kickin' the shit out of me. I think I'm too old for ye, Pink," he teased, nuzzling exhausted into her chest.
She grinned, lowering her head to touch her brow to his crown. "You sure you ain't a dwarf?" she laughed, running her thumb gently over the point of his ear and earning a low, content mumble in exchange. "No; you're bad tempered enough but I hear dwarves have great stamina..."
"If I were a dwarf, ye pink loon, ye wouldn't be screaming to the high heavens for Sune ta save ye each night, now would ye?"
Imoen hummed happily. "I do not scream!" she protested in a laughing whisper. "If I did, I'd surely traumatize Xan."
The halfling smirked half into her skin, opening an eye to peer lazily up at her. "Ye don't scream? Well whatever ya do, 'tsa delight on a man's ears," he rumbled warmly. "Do I need to be rollin' off o' ye or is the weight fine? Cause I'm not sure I can feel my... anything... right now."
"Please rest assured my left boob is quite happy to be your pillow for the evening," she giggled, hugging him to her and kissing his hair. He closed his eyes. "Get some sleep; I hear they've fresh bacon for breakfast tomorrow."
"Ya speaks as lightfoot poetry a'times," he commended her sleepily. "Could be a bard with a tongue like that."
Edwin was up. Though he wasn't moving very quickly, he'd risen a few hours past dawn and ended up looking irritably at the food the bartender supplied. No kitchen wenches in the early morning hours; not till drinking time. Dynaheir looked at where he was standing, and though he bristled slightly when she rose to greet him, he didn't say anything hostile.
"May I help thee?" she asked tactfully.
It had taken Edwin awhile to figure Dynaheir's offer of 'collaboration' out. He hadn't wanted to end up in another situation where her actions had startled him, so he'd taken some time to deduce her motives. It had taken a certain amount of mental wrangling and a fair bit of imagination, but his biggest clue was her repeated assertion that they were not currently enemies.
After their encounter with the ogres, Edwin realized, Dynaheir no longer felt justified in preemptively attacking him. Left declawed, so to speak, the Wychlaran was trying to elude their inevitable violent confrontation by other means.
Of course Edwin had no intention of returning any of Dynaheir's overtures of 'friendship' (if it could be called that in any sense of the term, idealized or otherwise; 'self preservation' would have been more accurate) but watching the witch stumble over herself trying to curry favor was pleasurable. The proper place of the Rashemi people was in service to their racial betters, after all. He'd let her humiliate herself until he had a bit more use of his arm.
"Be my guest, witch," he answered mockingly. "It is nice to have slaves so far from home."
The Rashemi woman lifted a brow. Jaheira wondered if she might not lift up the bowl of grits and simply dump it on Edwin's head. But apparently the woman's good heart won out over petty anger, because she came up with a tolerant sighed and helped him carry his dishes. Surely the gesture was lost on Edwin; his ilk were not the sort to understand or broker for peace, within or without. But Jaheira had noticed and she smiled at the younger woman's restraint. The druid most likely would have covered Edwin in grits and laid him low to teach the snot-nosed man-child a good lesson in respect.
Xan was watching Branwen scarf down her fourth plate of ham, eggs, grits, gravy, and hashed browns; he was still wondering where she managed to actually put it all. He was working out a theory for the trans-dimensional metaphysics of Northeimer appetites when at last she gave a big sigh and wiped her mouth. "Well! That was delightful! You haven't touched your crepes; is something wrong with them?"
Xan looked patiently down at the food, and Branwen shifted slightly. They glanced up as Garrick joined them for breakfast. The bard looked pensive. He appeared to be gazing uncertainly at Branwen.
"Well if you think you're going to throw up again, I'd advise against it," Branwen decided at last. "How you feeling about last night, by the way?"
The bard tensed up in suprise.
Xan was about to deflect the question when he noticed Garrick's face and remembered that the bard and cleric usually roomed together, and that Garrick would know Branwen hadn't slept in her bed last night.
"Nothing happened!" the wizard exclaimed, turning red-faced with embarassment. "I became terribly intoxicated, as I believe you saw, but not in a good way! Branwen helped me purge. Then she took it upon herself to sit in my room and ensure I didn't smother myself in my sleep- nothing else happened!"
The bard sat up straight, a bemused expression on his face. Branwen glanced between them and then looked at her plate. "Well would ye look at that!" she said, picking up her bowl. "I've got no more grits. I should fix that, I should," she said, and got up to get another bowl.
Garrick and Xan watched her go and then looked awkwardly at one another.
"We are not-" Xan hissed at the same time Garrick whispered, "It's fine I-" Then, both seemed to realize this was not the time or place to have this conversation, and they looked around awkwardly for something better to discuss. "We are not at all together," the elf decided to reassure him anyway. Garrick shrugged, and responded with a resigned: "We never will be, I know that."
Xan frowned, wondering at the bard's surrender. Then he decided it was his job to steer the conversation on to kinder subjects. "I'm surprised Aegis is not up yet," he said aloud, though he did lift up one of the crepes and dip it in cream for his consumption. He was feeling... better... He had purged more than wine and dinner the night before. "I didn't think she had it within her to sleep through the dawn."
"Well, has anyone checked on her?" Edwin asked testily, settling down to enjoy his meal. "Or on Imoen, for that matter? I seem to remember someone mentioning the Harpers will be leaving tomorrow, so today would be an ideal time for the Zhents to disappear... And isn't there an incredible bounty on-"
"I hear a Thayvian's voice!" exclaimed the blonde ranger's voice from the hallway. "It sounds like it's misbehaving again!" Aegis entered the common room with a thin tunic, a wince, and apparently no chemise. "It's good to know something stings worse than you talking all day or Jaheira's temper, though."
"Oh good morning, fair leader. Why are you so obviously under-dressed, if I may ask? (I am not entirely certain whether this is a good change or a bad change, actually... Hmm...)"
"The first thing you notice about a woman is her breasts?" asked Jaheia, looking irritably over at the man.
"What else is there to notice, exactly? (Still thinking... Can we convince other women to go about in this state of undress? The tavern wenches, perhaps?)"
"Glad you're alive too, Edwin," Aegis smirked, going to get her food. Khalid stiffened in alarm.
"Aegis, you're b-bleeding!" That drew attention from more than one person. She did indeed have numerous light, washed-out splatters of blood along the back of her tunic.
"Aye," she ranger muttered. "I did mention a sting, didn't I?"
"What h-happened!?"
"Well I wasn't assassinated, if that's what everyone was hoping," she teased, gathering up a plate of food and a bowl of fish heads (the innkeeper was getting used to them and had made the food ahead of time) and then coming over to join the others. There were dark circles under her eyes that suggested Aegis might not have slept the evening before. "Now don't everyone interrupt their eating on my account."
Jaheira leaned over to have a look at her shirt and then shot Aegis a bewildered look, wondering what kind of nonsense could have led to such a state of disarray. "Were you assaulted by a fleet of mice for some reason?" she asked dryly, as Aegis put down plate and bowl each in their respective positions and then sat down to eat.
It was Edwin, not Aegis, who replied. "No; she is apparently letting someone ink her skin," the Thayvian remarked with curious amusement, bringing new information to the breakfasting party members. "Who? (If she says the barbarian, I do believe I will have to recommend we oust her from leadership, as it would mean she had taken leave of her senses... )"
"Xzar," Aegis responded, eating up a big mouthful of food as quite a number of people gave her bewildered looks. She nearly spit out her breakfast laughing. After chewing and swallowing she covered her face and laughed hard. "You've all got to stop looking at me like that when I show some new indication I trust him; I share a bed with the man."
The necromancer in question appeared soon afterwards, humming to himself with a teapot in hand and flitting over to join Aegis at her side. He also looked tired. Before he sat down, however, he leaned over to kiss his lover's brow, and the affection was so chaste it felt utterly bizarre to onlookers. He plopped into his seat, beamed a 'good morning, flesh bags!' to everyone, and then set to dissecting his breakfast while his tea steeped.
"(Mad, they're all mad.) Why do I follow you around again?" Edwin asked. "Oh, yes, I remember," he looked at Dynaheir at his side, "you. Can I kill you yet? (And if not, would you also mind eschewing your underclothing?)"
The whole table tensed when Dynaheir smacked Edwin across the face. The Red Wizard was nearly knocked off his chair. He grabbed at his cheek and then looked at her in surprise. "What the hells was that for!?"
"Thou was... staring at my bosem!" she told him. "Keep thine lecherous eyes to thineself!"
"You miserable wretch of a woman! If you honestly believe I would have a moment's interest in-!"
"Edwin!" came a delighted squee, as a purple thief bounced into the common room (from the kitchen, surprisingly) and threw herself at the injured wizard from behind. "You're up!"
"-gyak!" the Red Wizard was cut off by far too much buoyant thief for one man to handle. Half a man, perhaps, but not one.
"I'm so glad you're feeling better! You should see the carnival at night! I saw a lot of robes on sale! There was a potion's specialist, only I couldn't identify everything! Hey, do you want to go shopping? The pastries are really good here! I've been eating tons of cake and muffins, just like you said not to! Say do you want any? Sprinkles or non? Chocolate? Vanilla?!"
"Get it off of me before I kill someone!" the violated Thayvian hissed desperately, his eyes wide.
"Oh boy," Aegis muttered, standing up. She reached over and hoisted Imoen off the ground (and the wizard) by the scruff of her cloak. She turned and deposited Imoen on the other side of herself. "Okay first of all, you? I don't know what you ate this morning, but you are going to go run it off from here to the Belching Dragon three times and back.
"What!? No! I was baking! It's not my fault the batter's so good! Weee!" The Thayvian, who looked like he'd just successfully avoided having a seizure from embarrassment, lifted up a hand and sputtered something in draconic. The ensuing cloud of bats flew straight at Imoen, who shrieked in alarm and then sprinted out the door "Okay! OKAY! EDWIN!" she screamed as she went. "AEII!"
Aegis sputtered out a laugh, glanced at Edwin, and then turned her gaze to Dynaheir. "And you? Get away from him, are you crazy? Why are you the one sitting next to him?"
The witch huffed, standing up. "He needed help eating."
"There are a lot of people here significantly less dangerous to help him with that task than you," Aegis told her frankly. "Though I'm sure everyone appreciates your help, it's probably best you two aren't in stabbing distance of each other."
Dynaheir grimaced but then nodded and turned to take another place at the table. Edwin watched her go with wide eyes, following her at a dead stare, his arm still outstretched from his last spell. Xan slowly reached up and lowered his arm, and the Thayvian shuddered.
"Well," Aegis sighed, sitting back down. "Why everyone still harps on me for Xzar being crazy is a mystery. Wait. Harps on me. Harp... Pun. Hmm. Please, everyone, do try and successfully manage to get through the rest of breakfast without any more major explosions." Then, when things had settled down for a few moments, she looked at her companion. "How are you enjoying your fish heads?"
Xzar, who had apparently ignored the entire scene going on around him, sucked up one of the eyes and considered the question. "They could use a little more white pepper," he told her. "But the sherry in the broth is a nice touch. Oh, hello, Monty! Good morning! Your lady friend was just chased out the door by a hoard of bats. I don't believe the Thayvian appreciated her hugs half as much as you seem to."
The thief stared at all of them in bafflement. "The hells are ye all able to get up so gods be damned early for? Is like the only one of ye still asleep that barbarian? Ain't no cause for needing so much damn sunlight."
"Minsc is out exercising," Dynaheir explained.
Xzar leaned over as if to whisper to him. "If you need any potions of stamina..." he said slowly and much too loudly. Edwin and Branwen both snickered; the former likely because he was still in a fight-or-flight mode from fending off the perils of the Purple One and hadn't quite come back to his senses yet; and the latter because she could appreciate raunchy humor. Most likely the only reason Aegis didn't laugh was because the joke involved her sister.
"What!? Oh shut yer yap, fool wizard, before I start off me day good by stabbin' ye!"
Before Montaron headed out to do some errands, he shot Xzar a look that the necromancer returned slyly. A small gesture. A fraction inclination of the head. They did not need to speak or even retreat to a quiet place to share their thoughts; they had both been groomed in the same wretched corner of the world, and paranoia was in their blood.
They did not trust Khalid and Jaheira. It was true that Xzar and Montaron were more likely to ambush the Harpers than vice versa, but neither Zhent cared for playing by Aegis' statistics. The way the plan stood now, the Harpers could easily get ahead of them and engineer an ambush, and neither Zhent was willing to risk that no matter its likelihood.
And who would cry over the dead bodies of an assassin and a necromancer? If they died on the road, Aegis would not only be unable to avenge them but she might never even have known they had fallen. What good did vengeance do a dead man, anyway? Hell, the law might even be on the Harpers' side.
They needed to leave first. And since Jaheira and Khalid were scheduled to head out in the morning, that meant the two Zhents would be leaving under cover of night. In fact, Xzar had insisted on extending the tattooing session (when he saw Aegis was willing) through the evening because he knew it would make it easier for him to sleep during the day and rest up for a midnight departure.
The only detail he and Montaron would need to address verbally, thought Xzar, was the question of whether they killed Jaheira on the way out. She was clearly the better-connected and more influential of the two Harpers, and she had started all previous infighting. Montaron wouldn't want to leave that loose end. He would be keen on tying it up.
The necromancer looked to Aegis, watching her face as she spoke with her friends. As much as he might have enjoyed taking Jaheira's life, she was insignificant in the grand scheme of things; especially compared to staying in Aegis' good favor. And he sincerely doubted he could explain away murdering his Little Death's auntie. He would have to unmake Jaheira through more indirect means, and now was not the time.
{Edwin, I'm going to be traumatized by bats for the rest of forever,} the thief whined.
{Good. Never, ever, ever do that again,} the wizard grimaced. {If I wanted a wench touching me, I'd pay for one!}
Dynaheir made a noise of disgust. {You have a gutter mind, Red Wizard.}
"What... language... IS this!?" Aegis exclaimed loudly, and it was probably for the best that she interrupted them.
"As I told you in the caves, it is Mulhorandi," Xzar explained. "The language of Thay and Mulhorand."
"Immy, why are you fluent in Thayvian?" the ranger asked. Branwen was currently applying healing magic to Aegis's back to settle the inflammation from the inking process.
"I'm not fluent! Imoen was still pouting, "and I know lots of stuff you don't! It's not my fault you were never interested in languages! We could have spoken them with eachother!"
"So this is... this is like how you speak drow?" Aegis asked thoughtfully. "Only it actually came in handy for something?" Xan and Garrick were off to the side discussing quietly with one another in a corner. The elf appeared to be sympathetic to whatever it was he was listening to.
"Siyo, rothe, nindol zhah saph lu'oh Usstan telanth ilythiiri!" Imoen proclaimed haughtily, and Xan spun to look at her with a horrified expression on his face, as if someone had just stabbed him.. Imoen burst out laughing.
"Please do not profane my ears!" the elf begged. "Such words are as putrid fire on the soul- terrible pronunciation or not!"
"Her Mulhorandi is also abysmal on the ears, though that is entirely due to the foul butchering of the sounds invovled," Edwin grimaced. "Child, can you not roll your 'r's at all? Can you please at least attempt to? Try it."
Imoen sighed dramatically, putting her tongue to the roof of her mouth. She got a few flicks of the r, but not many, and Edwin made an expression of pain. "Oh shove it!" she complained. "You chased me out the door with bats, your insults are invalid!"
{You were grossly violating my right to my own personal space, much less touching a Red Wizard! In Thay you would have been drawn and quartered for your impudence!}
{We are not in Thay!}
"They have their own language to bicker in; they must be becoming friendly," Garrick remarked casually, and Amon laughed.
"I can speak Mulhorandi as well," Dynaheir told them as Imoen and Edwin traded insults back and forth. "They are hurling childish insults at each other. Despite her protests to the contrary, Imoen is becoming quite fluent." A blush rose in her cheeks. "And now they are being incredibly vulgar."
"Yes, this is a good sign," Aegis agreed with Garrick, who laughed. "A very good sign."
"You are mended," Branwen told her. "If you'd like to go back to the inking, you can. How big is it?"
"He finished it already," Aegis told her with a yawn, explaining the dark circles under her eyes. "Went straight through the night. Well, technically that's not accurate. First there was highly spontaneous sex, and then a long bath, and then he inked it through the night. I don't care how much milk of the poppy he gave me, I was not going to fall asleep. That was a whole new special unique kind of annoying pain"
"How big is it?" Jaheira asked again
"The full back," Aegis answered.
"What is it?" Branwen asked.
Aegis looked up at her and then laughed. "I don't know. He has not let me see yet. But! He let Imoen see so she could approve the design for me. Speaking of which, Xzar, are you going to let me look in a mirror yet?"
Xan slowly covered his face with a hand and shook his head back and forward. Jaheira twitched, and Khalid looked about to speak up. Xzar giggled. "I supposseeee so," the necromancer drawled.
Out of the concerned parties involved, it was Dynaheir who said something first: "You let a man put permanent ink into your skin for hours upon excruciating hours without insisting on seeing the design first or knowing what it could be?"
Aegis shrugged. "Would you believe I didn't really care? It's not like I can see it. Let the wizard tattoo a giant scorpion all over me if that floats his boat. At least that makes me scary. Why?"
The womenfolk (sans Imoen, she was still hurling insults back and forward at Edwin, although the two were now smiling as if they were thoroughly enjoying the game) and Khalid looked at one another in concern. Xan was still mid facepalm.
"Alright. Reveal time," Jaheira muttered, standing up and grabbing Aegis's shoulder to tug her to her feet. The ranger eeped. "Back room, now. I think we all want to see what you've so foolishly let the Zhent do to you."
"Hey!" the necromancer exclaimed, slipping to his feet "No! Why should you see? You are not entitled to see whatever you wish! Be gone with your nasty eyes! She can show you after she's seen it herself if she wishes!"
"It's fine, Xzar," Aegis laughed. Then she tilted her head to the side. "Isn't it?"
The madman winced, fussing in place. "No! I mean- Not Dynaheir! And not Khalid, he's not even a woman! I think. Are you?"
Aegis was surprised and Jaheira narrowed her eyes. "What did you do, madman?" she asked suspiciously, surprised that Xzar would oust the witch specifically from the room.
Dynaheir stiffened. "Is it an enchantment then that he should fear a wizard's eye?" she muttered in alarm. "Tattoo magic! Xan! Help us, we must determine exactly what he has done! I thought perhaps the Thayvian capable of such things, but a Zhent?" Imoen and Edwin had finally noticed something was wrong.
"Everyone!" Aegis protested, but then Jaheira was shoving her down the hallway and Aegis barely had the heart to protest. "Jaheira! Dyna- everyone! HEY!" She set her feet in the ground and stopped moving, not because she was particularly angry but because she saw Xzar was staring to hyperventilate. Imoen had hopped over and was looking confused around at everyone.
"Aegis this is no time to act like a child," the druid snarled at her. "If you had but mentioned this to anyone-!"
"For the sake of the gods, woman, you are not my mother," Aegis told her. "Back off. Xzar, come here."
The necromancer flit through the throng immediately to join her side, looking up at her worriedly. "I do not want the other wizards to see!" he said in a hiss. "Nor the clerics!"
"What did you do?" she asked him.
He squirmed in his own skin. "It is an enchantment," he told her, and Imoen perked up. "Like Dynaheir guessed. I wasn't certain it would work, but it did. I had never done something like it on anything live before, but I still had plenty of practice. "
"What?" the violet girl exclaimed. "But you showed me the design so I could approve of it! It was a symbol of nature, not a spell!"
Xzar shifted uncomfortably. "I didn't want her asking questions of the Rashemi or the Thayvian."
"So you either switched the drawings or otherwise somehow deceived her?" Aegis asked, her voice carrying the weight of her disappointment. "Xzar. I asked you to do one thing for me before I'd say yes... and you lied to us?"
"I... Well. It still looks pretty," he told her.
Jaheira scowled. "Get inside a room so we can have a look at what curse this foolishness has wrought," she told Aegis. "Before I lift your shirt up here and now!"
"You honestly think he'd be wearing this expression on his face if he'd cursed me?" Aegis asked the woman in disbelief. "Xzar, pick one of our wizards. Someone other than yourself. Whomever you pick, that's the only person I'll show the tattoo to."
Her necromancer writhed unhappily. "Imoen," he selected.
"That is not a wizard, Xzar," Aegis reminded him. He pouted, because surely she was. He glanced back at the violet thief, but then said nothing to reveal her secret.
"Xan," the necromancer selected meekly. "But not Jaheira!"
"You slimy little toad," Jaheira muttered. "I should have caved your head in the moment I met you."
"Branwen, then?" Aegis bargained with the necromancer, who seemed to calm down a little and nod.
"Okay," he said, much calmer now that he thought about exactly who would be seeing the marks. "Only those two? I don't mind either of them. I hope you like it anyway, even if it's not what Imoen agreed to."
Aegis lifted a brow at him but then shook her head. "Alright, come on, I've a nice big mirror in the Royal Suite. Xan and Branwen came to her summons. Jaheira watched them go and then she and the majority of the hall turned dark or curious expression on Xzar. He seemed oblivious to them, watching the Royal Suite door.
Blue: Thou may not forgive me for how Aegis part 1 shall end XD.
