Dancing puppets Chapter 5: Words of change, a baldur's gate fanfic

The Change

Warnings: silliness and fluff

What to expect: a little Viconia|Charname content (for no reason, but my love to her), and romantic line evolves, finally.

Nimroth of Thay, I cannot thank you enough for your kind words ) They give me the fuel ) Hope you like this one, too.

They stumbled upon the village in the dark, when the night fell over the mountains, covering the world with thick black velvet veil.

The village was untouched by the war, a scrape of peace and simple life among the chaos and ruins. Perhaps, Reila thought, because no one in their right mind would want to conquer it, as she viewed a dozen gloomy hot caves locals called their home.

They were received by a gray-haired and strict male, the head of the village, whom she tried to convince they were not bandits or robbers, but peaceful travellers fleeing the Saradush massacre. The old man grunted as he reviewed the amount of weapon peaceful travelers carried with them, but they were allowed into the village nevertheless. They placed their bedrolls in a spacious sandstone cave and the headman's wife, a smiley lady, wrinkled and dry as raisins, even offered them tiny honey cakes, so tasty that Reila ate her portion and Viconia's, and threw hungry glances on Jan's barely touched plate.

Numerous grandchildren and grand grandchildren gathered around Jan and Immy, who showed them tricks, and fluttering colourful butterflies and illusory dragons were greeted with children's laughter and squeals. Minsc tried to save Boo from a white, mangy cat, who clearly had no understanding of the difference between ordinary and space hamsters, all hamster species seemed equally tasty to her.

Viconia preferred to set her bedroll on a ledge outside the cave and Sarevok disappeared somewhere immediately after arriving in the village – but for that man Reila was not worried. If he chose to have a tour around the village, it's the villagers she should worry about, not him.

The moon is already high in the sky, yellow, round and sad, as Reila walks out of the cave, carrying the plate with her. There is not a trace of warmth in drow's gaze as Reila puts the bowl with bulgur and carrot next to her, no thanks or no acknowledgement the dinner is welcomed.

She is often asked why she keep this drow in her group, why tolerates her habits, why allows this evil creature with a sharp tongue to travel with her. Reila usually shrugs her shoulders and suggests the questioners to try and fill Viconia's shoes in any battle and draw conclusions after the attempt.

She gets this a lot, of "why do you even..."

Of "the drow are evil creatures", at which she always laughs, because Reila, a good creature, a decent creature, killed, maimed, crippled and burned cities in the amount no drow could ever imagine. Because her good decent magic is a fiery destructive force, a poor instrument for saving kittens. Because Reila brought enough hurt and death everywhere she stepped, and all goods and evils lost their meaning in the process.

They don't know, those questioning people, that having Viconia around is like having a drow auntie, just as terrifying, tender, close and cold as it sounds.

Sometimes Reila puts beautiful trinkets in Viconia's bag, ones that remind her of the night - an owl shaped brooch, an amulet engraved with the symbol of Shar, an onyx ring, polished amethysts, deep purple like the night thunderstorm.

Sometimes it seems to her that Viconia is watching her as she would an unusual exotic beast: a beauty that can be admired from afar, that's most alluring when it is un-domesticated and untamed.

As she would look at a young wild horse, just before the moment it gets a bridle in its mouth.

Viconia will not heal her sunburns or blistered feet, because one who is weak or stupid must bear the consequences himself, but twice Viconia has pulled her out of the grave's firm hand.

Reila gave to Viconia the lich's amulet, that protects even from the most terrible poisons, handed it to the drow without any comment and the drow silently accepted.

Twice Reila killed drow groups, who muttered something about Lolth revenge.

Twice Reila bended her magic to crush the enemies into misshaped forms, not humanoid anymore, into bloodied bundles, into minced meet. She let one of the drow go – without half his arm – and couldn't eat for a week afterwards, as the memory of how this magic felt still lingered in her stomach, wringing it.

The drow seemed to learn their lesson.

Her drow didn't even thank. But Reila wasn't expecting her to.

Having a drow auntie doesn't include warm cuddles, and loyalty and acceptance aren't born from "thank you".

Once Viconia said that if Reila ascended, she would become her first priestess. Reila looked at the drow, feeling she would break something if she heard a word "god" again.

"I once saw dead servants of a dead god. They died and re-birthed and died again, hollow empty shells, but their existence continued, because their god decided so. This is what high priesting means. Why do you people want to do it with yourself?"

"It's us who serve the gods, abbil. They do not forgive or forget, and we serve in hope they will grant."

"I hate the concept of serving."

"I know, Reila. Makes me wonder what could you grant to your servants."

"Rites where you must retell all the stupidest jokes you've heard the past year. Naked drunken dances to all the silly merry songs you know. Solemn vows to never visit temple of any type and obligations to try and best anything bigger than yourself for the fun of it. And love for sweets."

Viconia smiled, in her unique drow manner where iciness coexists with warmth.

"Your cult would shake Faerun to the core, abbil. I volunteer to see it from the first row. Count me yours."

"Why do you still want to do it with yourself? With what you know about gods, how can you still serve one?"

"That's exactly why I would serve you, abbil – I know enough about gods to value the one who hates the concept of serving."

No one but Viconia knows as clearly, what does it mean to be a little leaf, who is flowing by the tide without even remotest control over direction, yet stubbornly calls the process a life.

Sometimes Reila wonders, who are they, the creatures who really have a choice in this world?

Gods, the high and mighty? Flies, who simply don't care?

Reila never pitied her drow. Pity is for a little cute puppy without a home, and Viconia, who once sold her soul without even reading the contact and has no refund option now, whatever god she serves, does not need pity.

Yet sometimes she wishes she would give all homeless puppies a home and find an amulet strong enough to delay Viconia's moment of retribution.

"Do you hope that I can save you from your past if I ascend?"

"No, abbil, I don't. You will be a newborn god, powerless against… Her. My past will come to bite me in the back with poisonous fangs someday, of that I have no doubts. It doesn't make the process of living less desirable, if you are fatalistic enough."

Reila may consider Jan her pills for smile, may take care for Minsc as she would for an overgrown baby, may love Immy with all heart, but Viconia is the only person for whom she will ever cast spells that foul.

"Viconia, I hate promises, but this I swear to you. If I ever happen to acquire a high priestess of any sort, I'll make you dance naked every full moon, surrounded by northern barbarians and singing "come out, ya amnish scum"."

"Will they be naked, too?" her drow auntie purred and Reila laughed.

That's what they both know better than anyone: when all you have is now, make your now bright as fuck. Go and make the moon fall from the sky in bewilderment looking at the crazy shit you're venturing into.

"They are northern barbarians, they will get cold if they dance naked. But I can promise you a lot of tall, muscular and violent."

"Yours in all the rites you will have me to perform, abbil. Especially the naked ones."

They have not discussed the subject since, keeping their silent non-verbal acceptance and loyal distance.

Reila knows, she can count on Viconia in all her options: the one who will accompany her as long as she needs it. The one who will serve her, if that power finally wins. The one who will visit her urn sometimes, until she, too, is an urn.

Viconia knows, she has Reila's hand to try and stop the poisonous fangs from reaching her back.

Reila shivers slightly as the coolness of the air touches her shoulders, as she gets up after giving the drow her plate.

She saw a staircase carved in the cliff, that swirls from one cave entrance to another and leads to the top of the canyon. She took the last plate of honey cakes and healing balm for her shoulders, in hope to sit alone for a while, both to heal her burning shoulders and try to think of nothing.

"Do you regret what you did in Spellhold, Reila?"

For a few moments Reila just blinks, as the drow's deep voice reaches her.

Reila never told Viconia what exactly happened at Spellhold. She never discussed it with anyone, but as others marvelled at Reila's self-control, that kept The Slayer from reappearing, Viconia gave her calm knowing looks that told clearly – the drow knows.

The drow doesn't need to be told to know.

Reila pauses, listening to the crickets and cicadas and unknown night birds talking to each other or the universe in the dark.

"Yes," she says simply.

Viconia stretches, slender, lithe, dark as the night itself, cold and calm, and her voice is uncharacteristically soft.

"Use whatever time you have, abbil. I feel your future is shaping now, it's almost high time."

"I will un-shape it, somehow," Reila grits through clenched teeth. "I am going to find a way to make it dis-shaped to my will. I found enough will to… shackle what I invited in Spellhold, I doubt my future is tougher."

"You will find out, Reila, that it's we who get shackled, when gods grant us with their gifts."

Closeness isn't born from thank you and cuddles.

Closeness is a silent, private thing, a fragile thing that doesn't need acknowledgement.

It simply exists, between one drow auntie and one crazy sorceress who don't have anything but now, and both their past and their future have poisonous fangs.

Still, Reila thinks, you take it all in.

The merry now and the terrifying tomorrow, regret and hope, fatalism and resistance. You drink it all to the bottom, you live whatever time you have.

"Fuck them. I'm not giving up, and so shouldn't you."

"Accepting the inevitable is called wisdom, not giving up, abbil. Someday you will learn that. All of us, gods' puppets, do."

oxoxoxoxoxo

When Reila climbs to the bank of the canyon, she inhales the grassy, dry air and draws a barely perceptible circle of protective spell around her.

No one and nothing can be seen through the thick veil of darkness. She lies down on the ground, feeling the dry hard growth with her burnt shoulders, and looks into the sky.

Reila does not like the night, she prefers bright noise of the day to the soft silence of the night, that chirps with cicadas' voices.

Her thoughts get louder at night, her fears get sharper at night, her visions always come at night.

She doesn't like the night. Nights remind her of oblivion, death and the future.

She hears his steps when he has already crossed her protective circle. The air vibrates a little, but she casted her protection only against animals: they feel and avoid magic.

"Your protective barrier does not work."

Light steps - how he manages to carry his huge body with such dexterous lightness, she could never understand – stop very close to her and she hears him sit down next to her, his hip almost touching her shoulder.

"This is because you are not a donkey, no matter how hard you pretend to be one. I didn't want some hungry lion to eat me, I didn't try to defend myself from humans."

"And that is a mistake, I could have killed you before you even heard me, if I wanted to."

She sighs.

That man is a heaven's gift.

Such a nice way of being a good friend and looking after her he has, when he spent the last few days demonstrating his best asshole shape.

Since the caravan, Sarevok was nothing but temper outbursts, he sneered and showered her with angry remarks for apparently no other reason but the pleasure of the process, fuming for gods know what. Everyone got their share of his niceties - the gnome was unbearable, Boo had an annoying habit to stick his whiskers in Sarevok's business, because of Viconia's habit of preparing poisons and balms in the middle of the camp, everything stank so that it was impossible to sleep, Immy just annoyed him for no reason.

And Reila...

Reila received the worst of it, being a lousy leader who wasn't able to even read a map, and it would have been better if she spent time planning their path, rather than entertaining some black-haired caravaners. It was her fault they strayed gods know where, it was her fault she had an old map, cold night and hot days were her fault, too.

Constant, steady flow of annoyance was punctuated by sudden quiet moments when his dark eyes burned holes in her, and sudden bursts of compassion, when one night he took the backpack from her burned shoulders without a word and carried it for the rest of the way.

Reila was doing everything wrong, and one moment Sarevok walked right next to her, and went far ahead of the group the other, as if drawing bizarre concentric circles.

She told him there were lizard in those mountains, harmless herbivorous creatures that straighten the red crest on their neck at the first sight of any threat and begin to yell.

Their defensive tactics is to scream loudly and menacingly, until the enemy retreats, if only to save their ears.

Reila advised Sarevok to find himself one, they would be best friends and yelling buddies.

Until everything became very still, as suddenly as it began, replaced by a thoughtful silence. Glances stop burning holes in her and started to follow her every move, every smile and every wave of her hand, waiting for something or perhaps choosing a moment.

For what moment, Reila didn't know.

Even Jan wasn't able to get anything other than, "be silent, gnome, if you want to live." Though the gnome tried hard, even Reila was tempted to punch him.

Reila herself preferred not to trouble trouble while it is not troubling her, and did not interrupt his thoughtful silence.

And yet, in annoyance or in silence, time after time, again and again, they return to this point again: the two of us, with mood swings mixed with enjoyable experiences and all-of-a-sudden honest talks.

Us, together.

For a while they sit in silence. Reila does not cast her lights and can guess his mood only by the sound of his breath.

Back at Candlekeep, Winthrop used to own a cat. Who owned whom is an open question, as the cat was foul tempered scratching beast, loud and thin, and Winthrop used to save fish bits for her and forgot how to move, when she condescended to purr on his lap. Reila used to be perplexed, what could possibly be the reason behind taking care of such an embodiment of assholeness in cat form.

Well, she might have a few ideas now.

Perhaps, people are just stupid masochistic beings, her included?

"Are you going to explain what was wrong with you for the last couple of days? Since you look and sound like a person again?" Reila asks, testing the waters.

"I have matters I cannot form decision on, yet," comes the answer that doesn't answer to anything at all, and Reila sighs.

There is a reason she is ready to put up with her drow and that man, too.

A reason why she tends to endure her foul-tempered, disagreeable, prickly creatures, and wish to hear them purr.

She doesn't like to think of that reason.

"And that explains perfectly well, why you have to behave in such an agreeable manner because of it. I must come up with some compensating system for your temper, you know."

"I might think of a few compensating measures," he half smiles.

"You're thinking banalities. I'm thinking about a singing contest with Minsc."

"Do you believe in the concept of starting anew?" he asks all of a sudden, and she can feel him tense as a sprung, as if whatever was boiling in his soul and mind for the past few days, resolved into this question.

Vital, the most important question in the world.

"No," she says simply, not turning to face him. "We are what we are, with all the luggage we have. Do you?"

"And yet you have changed, since Candlekeep. What do you have in common with that trembling little girl, who had no idea what she is doing?"

Everywhere around them is think impregnable darkness as if they were the only people alive in the whole world, surrounded by the sea of cooing cicadas.

A tender, soft sort of loneliness.

"Now I am a powerful being with no whatsoever idea what she is doing. I haven't changed. I just got better garments and a few scars. Do you believe you've changed, then?"

"Maybe. But change must mean new goals, as well."

He stares into the night, speaking more to himself, than to her.

"I've always kept my integrity; my views and my goals were solid and intact. What puzzles me, is the process of change itself, how does one acquire a set of new goals without losing himself?"

How does one change, indeed?

How, when and why one's life shifts, imperceptibly and inevitably?

It seems very easy in the novels, to change. We are born, we live and the life bends and changes us, until we are shaped by it and with it.

How do people change?

How does it happen, when you live day by day, step by step, until someday, somehow, you look back and think - no way I could have been this stupid?

She was an idiotic girl back in Candlekeep. Hot-headed, unwise girl with more dreams then sense. Until life and destiny started to do their job, to mold her like soft clay, until she is the same unwise hot-headed girl with more experience.

Until she is a hot-headed unwise girl with enough power to kill dragons.

Tracing back, she can see her traits in each and every single one of her actions. Her character, her weak and strong spots, her inclinations.

One can say: oh, he has changed so much. He was a monstrosity, a power-hungry evil, an embodiment of all destructive forces of the universe, and now he has changed into something human at last.

One can say that and be mistaken, because he has not.

Or one can say: maybe a harsh, prone to violence, straight and un-empathetic man with a temper that can melt stones can find some new ways to apply both his strengths and weaknesses.

Nothing changes, really, and no one.

We move forward and learn to dance with our scars and graves carved into our heart. We live, here and now, with all our luggage, and regrets, and pains.

We live.

Reila watches the darkness, studies all the shades of the inky sky overhead.

"One doesn't change at all, in my opinion. We can make our life a mess and build it a new, but we have a core and we are stuck with it. I am sorceress. I was born a sweet tooth and I will die one. I'll jest until my lips are dust. You are swordsman. You have a temper that can melt stones and win over your smarts every time. You and I, we both bring destruction to everything we touch. We are what we are, Sarevok."

A bird screams in the distance: local birds sound nothing like gentle nightingales of her home, no, local birds' screams are ugly and loud, as if someone chews off their legs in the dark, as if someone takes their soul out of them alive.

"Your views are fatalistic. They bound a person to their old mistakes, with no hope for reinventing their life or learn from their past."

"I bought myself a burial urn, one doesn't get more fatalistic than that. But, you just think in the wrong frameworks. Look."

She sits up, and, obedient to her finger, neat and even letters appear in front of them. Nouns, adverbs and adjectives, words she quickly writes in the air in two even columns, one by one, illuminating the thick southern night.

A swordsman. A leader. A commander. An apple lover. A strategist.

Smart. Educated. Foul tempered. Passionate. Troubled. Bitter. Harsh. Violent. Unimaginative. Sarcastic. Un-empathetic. Stubborn. Bossy. Controlling. Possessive. Closed.

A sorceress. A jester. A sweet tooth. A book worm.

Hot-headed. Impatient. Imaginative. Windy. Chaotic. Quick. Stubborn. Independent. Talkative. Diplomatic. Destructive. Curious. Caring. Kind. Inattentive.

Full of grieves, pain and regret, a murderer just as much as he is, but she is not writing that.

All what stays, when you are stripped of all the circumstances, a bare, pure core.

All what is truly yours.

The rest is but a landscape.

A foul-tempered, stubborn leader can almost conquer a nation. Can bring sufferings and pain both to himself and those who were not fortunate enough to get in his way.

He can also defeat dragons, lead an army, join a good or an evil cult and bring both to success, fall in love with the dwarven girl (that would be a sight to see, indeed), travel to any corner of the world and thrive or fail.

"Now use the little imagination you have and tell me; do you truly believe these people can have only one set of goals? What could they be doing, if they travelled, say, to Thay?"

"Die of sugar coma, in your case, undoubtedly."

"Or die of less pleasant things, if you call mages' robes skirts often enough," she laughs, trying to reach for her healing balm bottle.

Instead, he takes a bottle and carefully applies the balm to her shoulders.

Time doesn't heal, yet maybe human hands do.

What is the name of the feeling that makes your heart leap when a nasty cat jumps on your knees or a jerk swordsman caresses your shoulders?

Insanity, it is called insanity.

"By every definition of a dress, robes are skirts. And I certainly wouldn't feel threatened by a bunch of men who don't wear pants."

"Someday, I will finally beat some respect for magic wielders into you. Come on, they could gather an army to conquer the biggest local library…"

"Or they could lead a local slave rebellion to conquer the whole Thay, don't set your aspiration as low as one library."

"Or they could just travel through it and find it boring."

His touch is surprisingly tender, caressing as much as helping. Slowly and a bit reluctantly, she writes two more words.

A companion.

A friend.

Such a perfection come flesh their relationship are: when "fuck you" is a declaration of intent rather than an insult, and the man, with whom she shares more attempts to kill each other than open conversations, is now undoubtedly her friend.

It happens, it crawls into you, it grows inside you – and you can never trace the exact moment of change, when did a murderer become a desired bossy apple-lover.

You can know all about the dangers of fire, yet somehow find yourself right in the middle of the burning building.

What is the name of the feeling, that make your face shine from the fires, that dance in your heart, burning out all the better reason?

"These people could... adapt to any given circumstances and thrive," he says quietly.

"They are tough shits, these two. And whatever happens to them, they would still have their core intact. Maybe they don't even need goals, just the process of living."

Dim lights fill the space between them, illuminating his scowling face and the emptiness of the canyon ahead. He looks straight ahead, at the glowing rows of words she used to describe him.

Where there is no murderer, or villain, or monstrosity, or past.

A friend. A foul tempered swordsman. A bossy controlling apple lover.

"It was all simpler before, when I thought you are a weakling I could despise or use. When I thought I knew what I want."

The potion has already absorbed, still he caresses her shoulders and the base of her neck absent-mindedly, draws circles and lines.

"I am a weakling. A weakling who can cast meteor swarms. We don't change, Sarevok. We find new ways of being us. "

She is silent for a while.

It was easier and simpler before. Before she has to remind herself to focus on the conversation instead of a pair of warm hands caressing her shoulders.

Before she wishes, she has never met that man or met him years, decades ago, before all this, in the moment when they were but too persons.

"You overthink this, you know… Go with the flow, we have no other way to live, but being ourselves."

People don't change.

Only circumstances and relationship do.

Perhaps, that is what makes us find new ways of being us.

Murderers, doomed and tainted, all these words cannot overpower the force what makes one human reach for the other, that makes you a person drawn to another person, erasing all the other words.

Reila smiles to Sarevok, a genuine open smile she's not faking. She tilts her head back a bit, so it is now resting on his shoulder.

"Now is the time to tell me I look like an ageing fire salamander, all red and losing skin. This conversation is way underweight with insults. I'm worried you got sick."

He chuckles and Reila thinks this is the closest thing to a smile she has ever seen on his face.

"Dying fire salamander looks like a once magnificent monster, while you're just a freckled victim of your own stupidity."

His hands rest on Reila's shoulders, heavy, human and earthen, and the stars above shine indifferently, so high that not a single moment that two people can share with each other reaches them.

It will disappear, it is doomed to disappear, it will be crushed against the future or swallowed by the past.

And still, it exists. Every moment of closeness, it exists.

What is the name of the feeling that makes you treasure it more than you would any diamond in the world?

"You know what?", she asks, and her eyes shine in the lights of the letters that do not explain or predict, they just describe two persons, whose roads can turn literally everywhere.

And one would still be a jerk and the other would stay utterly insane, but normal people don't discuss how to conquer Thay and die of sugar coma afterwards.

"You made an offer for me, once, and now it is my turn. I offer you a bet you can't beat my high dragon score, ever. I'm way ahead of you, you have no chance of catching up. And you won't get anything from this, except for the fact we will know who really is the toughest motherfucker there is, between us two."

The weight of his hands presses on her shoulders, reminds her that everything what will disappear, what will be forgotten, what it is indifferent to destinies and stars, all this can be merged into one word.

One word that takes your stomach swirl when someone is so close and smells so good, and you know every line and every angle of his face and want to feel it with your lips and fingertips, too.

Perhaps, this word is "stupidity".

"Now, tell me, 'we'll see,' and roll the prospect in your head. Imagine, how would it be like. Yell a bit, if you need to. And then we'll see, when and if I'm alive and not my urn. Deal?"

"I'm not some boy you can taunt into a challenge. I don't want games, Reila."

"It's not a game. Well, of sorts, yet not how you mean it. You want some distant goal? Okay, I offer you one, of my sort. You. Me. Dragons. And something exciting in between."

Sarevok is sitting very still for a moment, then bends lower to her, as if unable to resist something.

His breath is even, as always. He controls his body, his movements and his breath perfectly, but briefly she wonders, if she can make his breath lose its steady rhythm, when…

No, no thinking about that now.

"It's a dangerous thing, to enter into a framework agreement with me without clarifying the details first. And that's not how you strike a deal, Reila. You should dive into the colourful details and describe my benefits to me, if you want me to agree."

"I'm not selling you a horse, I'm offering... perspectives. You need frameworks, that's how your head works, well, I'm offering you one. I don't know all the details of that plan myself, yet. Maybe I want to be your dragon-killing pen-pal."

But that, Reila knows for sure, is a lie, because she knows perfectly well what does she wants.

"Pen-pal? What are you, 8? Get this idea out your head," he looks as if as trying not to laugh, though. "I assure you, under no circumstances I will be your pen-pal."

"I never had a pen pal, mind you. Maybe you're my last resort."

"We'll see, Reila. About you bet and about its prizes, too," he tells her, caressing each word with his low voice.

"We will, someday that is not now," she says merrily, before getting up - not nearly as graciously as him.

The trembling bridge of maybe and perhaps lingers between them, as she walks to the stairs, and "we'll see" echoes so loudly in her ears, even the local birds with ugly voices are quieter.

"It's not a deal, though. I hate deals and promises, they tend to get broken and turn you into a mess. Bets are way more fun." she tells, before finally turning her back to him.

She wipes away all words, but one, before leaving.

A friend.

oxoxoxoxoxo

He stares at the blanc page.

He used to keep a journal for years, as the process of putting his thoughts into words always helped him clear his head.

The thoughts that fled like small fidgeting insects and hid at the corners of the head, gathered in obedient rows and became clearer the moment he put them into words.

But now, he has no words. They won't come, he can't find them.

Where are the words to describe the imperceptible process of change, when you try hard to prop up the pillars of your world until suddenly you realize that they have already collapsed?

Why has he never noticed them shaking?

Why hasn't he been able to track the process until they are already dust?

Somewhere in the corner of his mind, he will always stay bitter. One can learn to not look back or forbid the past to cloud their better judgement, what one cannot achieve is having no past at all. Somewhere in the corner of his mind, there will always be shadows, that lurk and wait for a moment to grasp his throat.

Yet, somehow, this bitterness matters no more than sediment at the bottom of a glass. You drink the glass full of hot spiced wine and you spit bitter sediment from the bottom.

What are the words to describe the moment when the past starts to mean less than present?

That damned woman. Alien, magnetic woman.

Her bet and her bright face pop up in the memory (pen pals! Only that idiotic woman could think of making him an offer to be her pan pal. Someday, he will get all the nonsense out of her head... Or there will two be mad as Cyric persons in the world).

Her colour is soft pink: pink dry lips, full and chapped, bright pink flush on her ears (it's her ears that flush, not her face, quite untypical for the redhead, but nothing is typical in this woman), soft pink fingertips and nipples, white column of her neck with a peach-pink undertone. Her candy queen sister wears pink, but Reila's colour is different – not the irritating eye-sore, but a soft shade that somehow looks just made to be touched and kissed.

And after that line of thought, Sarevok should just sign the loss of his sanity.

He cannot trace a moment, when it all settled firmly in his head: Calimport leisure and dragon lairs, her soft skin and her teasing smiles, crazy shits she can drag him into. A future, winking to him from the next chapters.

New days, new fates, new goals. A future to be figured out, step by step by step.

It's both thrilling and unsettling, to not know your path. To have a life unplanned or unforeseen.

How to put it all into words?

What is the feeling called, that puts your old scars and old cravings into the grave, that buries them and burns them, until they turn to ashes somewhere on the bottom on your heart and do not hurt anymore?

That makes you feel alive and born again, with every path and every road open to you?

That makes your notice colours and shades of another being, and that utterly useless information makes your blood boil?

Early dementia. It is called early dementia.

He writes down a single phrase, perhaps the best to put it all to quill.

He should burn it in the morning. Still, he doesn't, he looks at the phrase he wrote, taking in slow breaths. Gods above must hate him, for that is true, every word and every pulse of his need behind that words.

Gods must hate him, because he imagined that moment far too often and how is he supposed to sleep in that state.

In my dreams, I kiss your cunt*. Your wet, hot cunt, until you moan and scream and state you're mine.

oxoxoxoxoxo

"It's about three days journey north. The old man swears he saw it with his own eyes, the abandoned temple of some evil God."

"Why can't it ever be a kitten farm? Why do all the bad guys have no imagination?"

They started packing at sundown. Reila wanted to leave the moment the round red coin of the sun touches horizon. This land is made of sharp contrasts, without semitones or transitions: it's blazing hot at day and fragile frost cover the dry grass at night; it's day one moment and black, thick night the other, with no twilight in between.

According to the map, they should move up the canyon floor North, then climb up and continue east-north until they reach a river bank with the abandoned temple. The journey will be a torture for her, but had they tried to go under the killing heat of the day, it would be a week, not three days, and Reila feels they should hurry, that the end (of events or of her?) draws near and she must press on until it's high time.

She calls a halt at dawn, and they settle into a small cave where, judging by the smell, someone has recently died.

The journey was a torture, as one could expect from travelling by the rocky canyon, and her feet are throbbing from pain and blistered.

People don't change. She was a weakling in Candlekeep, she is a weakling in Amkethran. Someday, hopefully, she could afford to travel in style, and still be a weakling.

"I'll take the first watch, go have some sleep," Sarevok tells her curtly, as she comes out of the cave, unable to sleep from throbbing pain. "You're in a sorry state without sleep and we might need your spells."

His tone is calm and practical, yet shivers run down Reila's spine.

Sarevok was casual with her through the day, although sometimes she felt shadows of all the maybes tickle her throat, when she caught his eye.

This is how one look at the last sip of the strongest homemade araq, the one at the very bottom of the bottle: when you know for sure it will knock you out, and you try to decide whether you should pity your liver or just take it in and be done with it.

Few people are their right mind, when it comes to this sip. It isn't a choice, really, you will just take a deep breath and a large gulp, and your liver and head will scream at you tomorrow.

And yet, it is always the sweetest.

The ledge on which he sits is very narrow, there is barely enough room for one. She lingers at the entrance for a few moments, then sits beside Sarevok, and it turns out there's room for two.

If these two very are pressed to each other closely.

The two, who for some reason always find themselves close to each other.

"I'll go to sleep in an hour, when I will stop dreaming of being a snake-woman with no feet at all."

"Suit yourself," he answers, still casual, but doesn't try to drive her away.

"You still owe me your story, you know," she tells, tilting her head slightly to look him in the eyes.

"You know my tale well enough."

"I know the storyline, that's different. I don't believe that equals life."

"I'm not eager to relive my former life, Reila. It's not light memories." He sighs sharply, as if preparing for an unpleasant exchange.

But doesn't leave.

"I meant another kind of memories. What was the funniest story that happened to you? Or forget that, you have no sense of humor, only sense of sarcasm. What's the most beautiful place you've seen? The most interesting book you've read, and don't tell Alaundo foretells? Do you know how to ride a horse? What is your most epic battle?"

Sarevok looks at her thoughtfully and seems about to refuse.

But doesn't. He tells her, voice low and quiet so they don't wake everyone, as the sky fades into grey pre-dawn gloom, cold and devoid of any sound.

About the falcon hunt and about the fact he used to study calligraphy.

About the "Art of War", an ancient military text – the title suggests the dullest reading in the world, yet Sarevok makes it sound almost fascinating, a training guide on how to outsmart your opponent, a textbook for almost any competitive activity.

He admits that he struggled with the flowery oriental writing style, gritting his teeth, but if you do somehow survive through the reading, it will prove useful.

He frowns thoughtfully at first, but then he relaxes his expression and looks younger all at once.

He tells her, how he made the Sword of Chaos.

How he had to lead a group of mercenaries for the first time: he was a boy, barely 17, and he had to be a leader for a group of forty-year-old men, loud-mouthed, rude, confident that he was not mature enough to manage them. He tells how all that he knew by that moment turned out to be worthless - because military guides and books on strategy were designed for leading soldiers, disciplined and skillful.

No amount of money helped his group to become more disciplined, and no amount of threats put them in their place: a dozen uneducated swordsmen, they knew for sure that he is but a 17-year-old boy alone with them in the middle of nowhere.

How they disputed his every word, were impudent, rude, and how Sarevok had to invent ways on the go to manage this loud rabble. How they ran through the swamps for more than four hours in order to weather the hangover from their pitiful worthless heads and wean them once and for all to drink until the job was done.

And he had to run along with them and be the first. Run through a swamp, knee-deep in icy water, tearing off his feet from the mud with loud champs, so that he could stand above them and portray rage that they had let the enemy go (nonexistent enemy).

But they learned their lesson.

How he lost his voice on the very first day, and had to learn to sound both quiet and murderous.

How later, when he turned this rabble into a decent group of mercenaries, they tried to teach him how to dance a jig, drunk and shouting that he was the best commander on the Faerun.

"You danced a jig?" Reila presses her forehead against his knee, trying desperately not to laugh.

"No, I was busy with pretty tavern wench."

And for a split second, Reila sees on Sarevok's face a trace of this boy who is long gone, whom no one remembers, a boy who was proud that he turned this scum into mercenaries and enjoyed the attention of a beautiful girl.

The part of his past, that contains no bitterness or pain. That simply was, that can and worth to be remembered.

At some point, his hand slides above hers and stays there.

At some point, Reila leans closer to his side, hard and warm, ribcage vibrating slightly from his voice.

The rising sun is not visible behind the rock cliff, but the sky is painted with delicate peach and pink stripes.

He ends up explaining politics intricacies between Amn and Baldur's gate, and Reila marvels on how different the world can seem, if you are viewing it from a completely alien point of view. How strange, harsh and twisted it seems, his version of the world – competing forces, willing to ripe each other's throats for money and power, when she remembers waterfalls, forests and cities, dragonflies and kobolds, her first fireball (how mighty it seemed back then) and her first kill.

Sarevok tells her about Amn and Tethyr, and it seems like an interesting story from the type of book that she's never bothered to look into: where mysterious organizations bribe kings and magisters, and politics is a type of lace-making, where armies will crush against each other and people will die if you make a wrong knot.

Somehow, she completely misses the moment when her feet stop hurting and the two of them are almost cuddling in an almost tender way and his fingers caress her back, slowly and deliberately.

His face is younger and lighter without the usual frown, that retreated from his face for a brief moment, and Reila knows for sure, why Winthrop sat frozen, unmoving, when his nasty beast of a cat lay on his knees.

What is the name of the feeling that blends in together everything you have in your soul, into a cocktail so dense there is no separating it into components?

When you wish you never met that person, when you are shackled to that person with chains of maybe, which burn and bound your wrists?

"So, about this falcon hunt, do you hunters actually do something or is the bird doing all the job? I don't get why it's called hunt then. It's birdwatching, no?"

"You lack experience. The hardest part is to tame the bird, not the hunt itself."

"So, it's just a show off case? Look at me, I've managed to tame a bird, whose brain literally is the size of a nutshell? You men take pride in strange things."

"You are not the person to joke about sizes, being a bone bag barely visible from earth."

She is centimetres from his face, on which all emotions are merged into one.

What is the feeling called, that makes one's expression a mixture of everything: bitterness and awe, indecision and resolve, need and doubt?

A stupidity. A chance.

All at once, Reila reaches up with her whole body to plant a light kiss on his lips, a shade of a touch, the lightest brush.

She has never liked hints, but no hint burned like this before, burned her throat and belly as if she swallowed a fire salamander.

"Say "we'll see" to that too," she breathes into his lips, before withdrawing.

Yet his reflexes are excellent indeed and a strong arm wraps around her back before she can move away from him. His other hand dives into her hair, pulling her towards him.

A maybe.

An offer that can be accepted or brushed away.

A hint that can be developed or forgotten, with no pressure in it.

A chance that could lead to something unknown, with a potential to be blissful or hurtful or both.

A maybe that begs to be transformed into a yes.

His fingers trail a slow line down her chin and brushes her throat, stopping over her collarbone, while fire salamander in her stomach is spinning and scratching her ribcage. His eyes are darker and Reila can hear how his heartbeat quickens.

He runs his tongue over her bottom lip, a slow, sensual gesture.

A hint of an entirely different sort, that spreads the fire lower, and there's no hope for saving this building from turning to ashes, anymore.

The ledge is narrow, so there's a chance to fall from any sharp movement, so neither of them moves, their quick breaths are mixing up into their breath.

Intense moments are not made for sharp movements. You drink your last and final sip of araq slowly and deliberately, fully aware of what you are doing with yourself.

"Do you fully realize what are you getting yourself into? I'm not a man to tease, Reila. And I told you, I don't want games."

His fingers caress her throat, slide down to her sharp collarbones - his breath is no longer controlled, quick and hot against her lips.

Reila half laughs.

"Do you?" she whispers, as her own hands slide up his back to rest between his shoulder blades. "We'll just go with the flow, you and I. Without clarifying the details."

Reila reaches her hand and pinches his nose, slightly, smiling. Salamander in her chest breathes fire and sparkles are reflected in her eyes. A "yes, but not right now", not maybe anymore.

She likes that moment, when your fingertips brush a doorknob, that leads straight into unknown, and yet you hesitate for a heartbeat to press it and open the door.

Her maybe, her "we'll see" is looking at her with intense black eyes, and there is a yes in them, too.

Their noses are touching slightly and she must remind her of dangers of ledge-falling and of the fact Immy sleeps right behind her back. And she must go to sleep, she can't cast if she hasn't slept for at least 6 hours.

It's hard to care for these things when you're right in the middle of the burning building.

"Someday, " Sarevok purrs, "I will beat some planning capabilities into you and there would be at least a hint of long-term planning behind your actions. Or at least an understanding that your actions have consequences."

"And until that glorious moment, I am not passing my chance to allow some new exciting crap to enter my life. Try that, too. New crap deserves a chance."

"It does, Reila," he breathes out, and sounds more a promise, than a hint.

And it makes her fire salamander do acrobatic stunts right inside her throat.