Astarion is gone from her tent when she wakes. Siobhan sits up with some difficulty. The world has decided to tilt dizzyingly on its axis, a reminder of Astarion's overzealousness and a punishment for letting him gnaw at her throat. The punctures are tender and ache to the touch like a day-old bruise, but the wounds have closed over, thanks to the potion from last night. She manages to splash some cold water over her face, but her lips are numb. It's hard to breathe and not just because of her bloodlessness. Siobhan feels a rather hysterical urge to cry. Instead, she kneads her fist against her chest to chase away the empty, lonely feeling gnawing at her.

She dresses at a glacial pace; her limbs feel leaden and every movement takes a tremendous effort. When she fumbles clumsily with the buckles of her bracers, failing consistently to secure them, she stops, overwhelmed with the desire to give up, lay back down, and close her eyes. Siobhan takes a deep, unsatisfying breath, then another, blinks away the stinging heat prickling in the corners of her eyes, and then nips out of her tent with her bracers in hand.

"Gale?" Siobhan had not considered her appearance before deciding to approach the wizard. It must be shocking by the way his eyebrows fly up his forehead. There's a moment of indecision. Telling her she looks like death warmed over would be gauche even for him. He doesn't comment.

"Can you help me put these on? I can't—" She elects to ignore the way his eyes linger on her throat and holds up her bracers.

"Oh! Of course."

Gale is unpracticed, having never worn armor himself. He manipulates her arms more than strictly necessary, twisting and lifting them to get a better view as he figures out the straps. Wyll would have been a better choice to ask for help, but she'd chosen Gale. Pink dusts across his nose and cheekbones at the prolonged proximity. This is the longest he's touched her maybe except perhaps their hug after the ambush.

"How's that?" He asks. Siobhan nods. It's all she has the energy for.

"Arcane tower today, right?"

She nods again. Gale shifts his weight from one foot to the other. Siobhan takes another unsatisfying breath. The gnawing ache in her chest is back. Gale opens his mouth to speak, but Siobhan turns on her heel and stalks off, "Be ready in five to head out."

There's an overlarge mushroom just outside the perimeter of camp. Siobhan intends to climb it and lay atop its massive cap until it's time to leave but she hasn't the strength to haul herself up. Astarion, as if sensing her dismay, materializes behind her. The ache in her chest intensifies. There's a bounce in his step. Siobhan can't help but feel that Astarion is pleased to see her struggle.

"My, you look a fright. Terribly sorry, darling. Got carried away. I'll be gentler next time."

He doesn't sound sorry, but at least he said it. There had been a time when he wouldn't have apologized at all. She doesn't acknowledge the comment on her appearance. While probably accurate, it's deeply unkind. She would have rather he reacted somewhat like Gale, concerned, shocked even. Astarion is the cause, after all. Siobhan doesn't think it's too much to ask that he care about the state he's left her in.

"Is there a reason you're trying to scale this thing?" Astarion inspects the fungi with interest. He'd hardly given her a passing glance.

"No. Not really." She feels both inside and outside her own body in a way that her brain can only register as generally unpleasant. Other than that, she's numb. Siobhan surreptitiously pinches the skin on the crook of her arm as hard as she can. The pain cuts through the fog.

Astarion bores of the mushroom and turns to face her. Before he even speaks, Siobhan knows he plans to be horrible to her.

"You and Gale looked rather cozy this morning."

"Oh . . . okay." Siobhan doesn't feel intelligent enough at the moment to parse Astarion's intentions. The skin around his eyes tightens.

"Do you often play the damsel? Or just for bumbling cunt-struck wizards?"

Siobhan blinks uncomprehendingly. Astarion's answering smile is nasty.

"You'd think Gale would be clever enough to know you don't need help putting on armor you've worn for decades, but I suppose not. I'll admit, you pulled it off splendidly if the way he blushed is anything to go by. But I thought you weren't going to indulge his infatuation?"

"I couldn't get the buckles."

Her lack of engagement looks like it frustrates him. Siobhan finds it difficult to feel anything at all. She pinches herself again and wonders how many more times she can before it bruises. Astarion doesn't notice.

"Are the others ready?" She asks.

"How should I know? I'm here with you, aren't I?"

Siobhan takes another breath. She feels oxygen-starved— claustrophobic. There's no green down here except for the rare toxic glow of bitterbangs. She misses grass, and trees, and air that doesn't smell of earth and decay. This land is not of her, and she is not of it. A flash of panic closes around her throat along with the desperate need to get out— to surface and see something other than bioluminescent mushrooms and dark.

The feeling fades. She releases the bit of skin trapped between her thumb and forefinger.

"Are you coming with us?"

Astarion sniffs, "It's not like I have anything better to do."

Siobhan doesn't know if she would rather he had said no. Both his coming and not coming feel equally intolerable. Thinking about it exhausts her. She wishes time would stop for a week or two so she could sleep.

"Okay."

"Don't look so enthused; you'll strain yourself." Astarion is properly annoyed now. Siobhan doesn't mean to irritate him, but recently it seems it's all she's able to do.

"Sorry." She can't tell if she means it. Probably.

"What is the matter with you? I know you aren't known for your verbosity, but you're hardly this monosyllabic."

What is she supposed to say to that? Sorry I've been so short with you, Astarion. It's just that my sister might be in the clutches of a band of lunatics, and everyone is looking to me to lead, but I have no idea what I'm doing; we're no closer to getting these worms out of our heads than before, I haven't seen the sun in a week, and I feel like shit because you nearly drained me dry last night. Oh, also, you've been an absolute boor to me ever since I gave you that blasted drawing, and it's rather hurt my feelings.

Siobhan settles with, "I'm tired," as it's about all she can manage at the moment.

"You're tired?" Astarion's frown borders on a pout and Siobhan gets the sense she's being mocked.

"You drank a lot last night."

"I said I was sorry, didn't I?" Has Astarion always been this combative? Siobhan doesn't think so but maybe she's misremembering things. Rose-colored glasses and all.

"Yeah, you did. Thank you." Why does she keep indulging him? "We should get back. The others must be waiting for us."

She walks away before he has a chance to say anything else. Astarion quietly follows a beat later.


For having been abandoned well over a decade ago, the tower is exceptionally well-defended. Three arcane turrets outside the tower proper, two more as soon as you walk through the front door, and five automatons feel excessive. A blast knocks Siobhan off her feet the moment they're in range. She's distracted. Astarion had been chattering in her ear from the moment they left. The tepidity of her replies only seemed to make it worse. It's a stroke of luck that Gale's elemental affinity is to lightning. The air stinks of ozone and Siobhan's flyaway hairs stand on end with the leftover static, but the turrets are rendered inert.

"Are you alright?" Taking Gale's outstretched hand does nothing to soothe Astarion's rancor, but what is she supposed to do? Spurn Gale just for his sake? Maybe if he had offered to help her up first. Or at all. His mean-spirited giggle at seeing her knocked ass over teakettle chafes.

"I'm fine." Her deliberate avoidance of Astarion's gaze is pointed. Shadowheart makes a snide comment about lovers' quarrels that has Gale flushing scarlet. Siobhan doesn't acknowledge it, so no one presses the subject. United in their endeavor not to get involved.

Exploring the tower doesn't take long. There's an alchemy lab in the basement, but the equipment has been rendered into useless piles of shattered glass. Siobhan can guess at the culprit by the copious droppings left behind. Apparently, members of the order Rodentia hold a disdain for glassware—a shame. Siobhan would have put it to good use. The former inhabitant's research notes are all weathered beyond comprehension. Her ingredient stores reduced to compost. Lenore had taken no special precautions to preserve them. She had obviously not anticipated her prolonged absence. Aside from the sought-out flora still thriving in their garden beds, there's not much else left of value.

There is, however, the copy of The Roads to Darkness, which Siobhan keeps. Lenore's fixation with the play makes something stir in the pit of her stomach. As does the construct on the fourth floor, Bernard, who hugs her when prompted with the line: The silence stretches on - I'm all alone. / Please, can I hold your hands for just a while. The image of the reclusive scholar, alone in her tower, desperate for comfort, plagues Siobhan. When they split up to do a final sweep of the tower before departing, Siobhan returns to recite the line again. Bernard's embrace is cold.

Instead of teleporting straight back to the Myconid colony, they double back and take a detour to clear out the group of duergar stationed on the beach of the Ebonlake. They afford the slavers no mercy. Gekh Coal reveals that the Ironhand Gnomes were transported to the Grymforge the day prior. Siobhan makes note of the docked boat for later and slits his throat. Gale chalks the runic array on the interior wall of a ransacked fishing hut.

At the Myconid colony, Sovereign Spaw names her Peacebringer and then asks her to bring him the head of True Soul Nere. Astarion bristles at the request. Siobhan tells the sovereign she'll think about it. They still need to find a way to travel safely to Moonrise. According to Halsin, torches and light cantrips will suffice in the areas where the shadow curse is weakest. But the closer they get to the Towers themselves, the stronger the curse becomes. As much as she would like to help Spaw avenge his people, they still need Nere. At least until they discover how the cultists have been protecting themselves against the curse.

Siobhan visits Omeluum alone, timmask spores and tongues of madness in hand, while the others set up camp.

"You've returned. I take it you were successful?"

The samples float out of their pouch, suspended in space psionically. The worm behind Siobhan's eye wriggles at Omeluum's casual display, thinking itself amongst friends. Unfortunately for her unwanted guest, the academic's allegiance belongs wholly to the pursuit of knowledge. The price of Omeluum's assistance is a detailed description of her capture on the nautiloid, which she provides dispassionately. While Volo might have bemoaned her colorless retelling of an otherwise thrilling ordeal, Omeluum appreciates the precision. The illithid learned early on in his tenure that mortals have an unfortunate tendency to embellish. His colleagues find his writing dry and tedious. But no one can accuse his accounts of being unreliable.

Siobhan shakes her head. It takes her a moment to realize she inadvertently tuned into Omeluum's thoughts. If not for his momentary digression to his colleagues' questionable record-keeping practices, she may not have noticed.

"These are fine specimens. It won't take me long to brew them to their proper potency. Return in a few hours." Omeluum does not comment on her intrusion, and Siobhan wonders if he considers it an intrusion at all. The privacy of one's thoughts must be little more than a novelty to a former member of a hive mind.

She makes it halfway to camp before coming to an abrupt halt. Behind her, an irate green Myconid puffs, ejecting a cloud of spores against her back as it narrowly misses colliding with her. Siobhan mutters a hasty apology and steps off the worn dirt path to let it pass. The Myconid's parting grumbles echo in her skull in the form of a series of throbbing base notes interrupted by high warbles. Siobhan doesn't speak bioelectric but gets the drift. 'Watch where you're going' sounds the same in every language.

Siobhan gingerly drags a hand along the back of her neck, which, to her disgust, comes back stained yellow and slightly sticky. She needs to find a better way to deal with unpleasant thoughts. Freezing at inopportune times will inevitably have graver consequences than being sneezed on by a sentient mushroom. But the realization that going back to camp meant another hour of enduring Astarion's spiteful company had stopped her in her tracks, dread pooling in her stomach.

Her mind flits to Faolan for a split-second and she quickly pushes the thought away with a stab of guilt. She would never do Astarion the disservice of comparing him to that swine. As much as he could be a bastard, he would never do that. He's not—

But no. That's not why Astarion brought Faolan to mind. The other times Siobhan had experienced that dizzying dread was when she would go back to her nossë's camp. Where she knew Faolan was waiting. Waiting to spit daggers and poison that only she could see. Oily double-entendres designed to embarrass and goad her.

What are you going to do? Tell them? You wouldn't dare.

Threats aren't what's keeping her in line this time. It's hope. A dreadful hope that things will go back to the way they were. She misses her friend.

"Hello! We were wondering where you'd gone off to. Oh dear, met the wrong end of a mushroom?" Gale is exceedingly chipper for someone who has likewise been deprived of the sun for over a week. Then again, the wizard had lived the past year isolated in his tower, waiting to die with only a tressym for company. Even a sunless sojourn into the Underdark is less miserable than that- at least when one's not saddled with coddling the ego of a mercurial vampire.

Siobhan sneezes. "Something like that."

"You ought to wash that off," Gale circles her with a grimace, "Karlach backed into a Myconid the other day and the spores knocked her out for half an hour. They seem to take after their non-sentient cousins in that respect— myriad properties. Who knows what side effects these spores will have?"

"I think it's affecting my sense of balance." She promptly pitches sideways, falling into a cluster of knee-high mushrooms, which illustrates her point nicely.

"Don't help me up. Delivery by inhalation is more likely than contact, but now would be a bad time to test it. Neither of us will make it back if we're both in this state." The ground beneath her feels as if it's slipped ninety degrees, now a wall at her side instead of the floor. The sensation of falling but not falling disorients her further.

"What, and leave you here? Don't be ridiculous." Gale tucks himself under her arm and helps her up. The world spins and Siobhan shuts her eyes.

"If I vomit on you, it's your fault."

"Consider me warned." Gale has a pleasant chuckle, a warm tenor that vibrates in his chest.

He leads her to the cataract they had discovered tucked away from the bustle of the village. It is fed by the subterranean river whose source they have yet to encounter. Decades of erosion have created a shallow pool at the base of the cataract that pours off into a stream that runs in the direction of the behemoth sussur tree. The water is ice cold, but a bath is a bath.

Siobhan lies prone as Gale helps undo the buckles of her cuirass and bracers. Sitting up and doing it herself is beyond her capabilities at the moment, but she manages to shimmy out of her armor unaided. Now dressed in just her clothes, Siobhan finds that the spores have sunk down her back, mixing with her sweat into a paste, making the cotton stick to her skin.

Desperate to take it off, she sits up, leans against a wide stalagmite, and shoots Gale a look. He blinks at her and then flushes vermillion.

"Oh, of course, um." He faces the other direction but stays within range. It wouldn't do to walk away only to find he'd let their leader drown in a pool only two feet deep just to preserve her modesty.

The shirt comes off, then her boots and trousers. Siobhan's confidence evaporates as she makes it to the edge of the water. Gale won't let her drown, but inhaling a lungful of water just for him to help her bathe anyway seems unnecessary.

"Gale?"

"Hmm?"

"Can you help me? The floor's on the ceiling."

Hesitation.

"You're sure?"

"It's nothing you haven't seen before, I promise."

She doesn't remember until too late that there is, in fact, something Gale has not seen before— decades of self-harm carved into her skin. Instead of the lurch of horror and shame she expects to feel at having Gale see what she's done to herself, Siobhan feels a numb sort of nothingness. To Gale's credit, the man says nothing about it. Doesn't stare at the scars. Nor does he leer at her body in that covetous way Faolan always had. Astarion only looks at her when he thinks she wants to be looked at. Gale looks at her the way he always does. Cautious and quietly fond.

Siobhan looks away.

There's a rustle of clothing and Gale's robes join hers in a heap on the floor. He eases them into the water. As expected, it's freezing, but with Gale sitting at her back, his warmth pressing against her, it's not so bad. The cold helps her focus. The world more stable on its axis. Gale gently splashes palmfuls of water against her skin and rubs away the ick, washing it away as she works on her arms. Once she's done, he tilts her down to the water briefly to wash the ends of her hair. It's been some time since she's cut it, the length just above her shoulders now.

"There, all gone . . ." Gale mutters, hands resting on her shoulders. Scholar's hands. Uncalloused and soft. She leans into his touch. Neither of them moves to get out.

"Siobhan?"

"Hmm?"

"Is everything okay?"

Siobhan takes a deep breath but it catches in her throat, heat rushing to her cheeks and eyes stinging. She doesn't realize she's started pinching the inside of her arm again until Gale gently pries her hand free. He rubs soothing circles with his thumb over the bruised skin.

The silence stretches on - I'm all alone. Please, can I hold your hands for just a while?

"Can you just hold me for a bit? I don't want to go back yet."