Eirina came to with another headache.

"Ugh," she moaned, pressing her hands down on either side of her. She was laying on something soft, flat on her back. Cracking her eyes open, she saw the soft light of dawn filtering through the wreckage around her. The pain radiating through her skull was an excellent indication that she was, in fact, alive. "How in the hells did I survive that?" Giving up a prayer to Selune, she rolled to her side, realizing that she was laying on sand, having landed so gently that there was no evidence that she had landed any harder than a feather hitting the earth. Rolling onto her knees, she took stock of her injuries. There was a couple of sore spots from where debris had hit her, but the only noticeable injuries she could find was the squirming sensation of the worm in her skull. She stopped looking at her own injuries and started surveying her surroundings. The sound of water running and the feel of the sand, she was on a beach or a shoreline somewhere. Getting up, Eirina stumbled out of the burning wreckage to see Shadowheart laying on the beach not far from where she landed. Running over to the other woman, she dropped down to look at her injuries. The item Shadowheart had retrieved was discarded on the ground a couple inches from her, but Eirina was more concerned that the Sharran had a pulse. Watching Shadowheart's chest rise and fall, Eirina breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't have any allies out here and the kinship she found from the two women on the ship made her feel like she stood a chance with whatever adventure lay ahead of her.
Coughing, Eirina watched Shadowheart's eyes open slowly, the palest of green that were flecked with tiny motes of gold and yellow looked up at Eirina before slowly sitting up.

"You're alive. I'm alive. How is this possible...?" Shadowheart picked up the artifact with a practiced slight of her hand as she stood in a fluid motion, more fluid than someone who had just been thrown out of a flying ship should have.

"I was hoping you might know that," Eirina was at just as much as a loss, not sure how her body wasn't bloody and mangled from the crash.

"I remember the ship," Shadowheart spoke slowly, as if clinging to each memory, "I remember falling... then nothing."

"Do you have any idea where we are?" Eirina had traveled a lot of the sword coast, but the part of the land was unfamiliar to her. She could travel for centuries and still not cover every inch of the coast even if she wanted to.

"No..." Shadowheart's voice trailed before she continued, having looked around them at the smoldering remains of the mind flayer's vessel, "I don't recognize this place. But anything's an improvement on where we just came from." Eirina gave her a smile.

"Yes," she agreed, "anything is an improvement compared to waking in that nightmare."

"First things first," Shadowheart's tone took on a business like quality, "we need supplies, shelter, and most of all, a healer." Eirina felt a sense of ease when she realized that this woman wasn't a pampered cleric from a closed off cloister: she would not be afraid to get dirty and do what it takes to survive. "We might have escaped, but we still have these little monsters in our heads."

"Ugh," Eirina groaned, more aware of the twisting and writhing of her tadpole now that Shadowheart was mentioning it, "if I don't think about it, I can sort of forget that it's there." Then she paused, thinking carefully about Shadowheart's words. "We? I take it to mean that you want to stay together?" Eirina knew what Shadowheart was, and a flicker of fear was there that Shadowheart would wait for Eirina's guard to be down before she killed her.

"We need each other," Shadowheart's voice was earnest and honest, "and we both know what's at stake. Shadowheart blushed, "I can't think of better company."
Eirina felt the heat on her own skin, "Alright," she cleared her throat, "let's get moving."

"One thing," Shadowheart raised her hand, stopping Eirina from moving, "just before we go. I wanted to thank you again, for freeing me. It would've been all too easy for you to run right past my pod, but you didn't. I'll remember that." She gestured up the debris filled path, "Lead the way."

"Since we're traveling together, we should probably deal with the dragon in the room," Eirina was taking a risk. A huge risk. But nothing venture, nothing gained. If they didn't address their religious differences amicably, then the next dagger being used would likely be the one Shadowheart would drive into her back.
The black haired woman in front of Eirina tilted her head curiously, "And what dragon would that be? The one that has tadpoles in our heads or the one that a cleric of Selune owns a life debt of a cleric of Shar?" Ah, so Shadowheart had figured it out too.

"I wouldn't say you owe me a life debt," Eirina ducked her head and blushed, "but I would prefer to have you as an ally and friend rather than be a right of passage for you to become an elite in the eyes of Shar." She watched as Shadowheart's eyes narrowed. There was something there, something she wanted as Eirina acknowledged the dark right of passage. Every Selunite knew that Sharran acolytes would kill one of their number to ascend to some dark, secretive order. Beyond that, there was never really any cause for a Selunite and a Sharran to be in any kind of proximity.

"You have my word," Shadowheart look pained, "I will not kill you without appropriate reason," she pointed to her own eye, "should these things cause us to turn, your neck will be the first I slit, followed by my own." A gasp of pain emitted from Shadowheart and a black wound on the back of her hand flared violently. Eirina had seen pain, sometimes crippling pain that would drop even the fiercest of warriors. Even that pain paled compared to the pulse that ripped through Shadowheart for a split second.

"Are you okay?!" It took everything in Eirina to stop from reaching for Shadowheart's hand to offer healing. Even the soft light from the moon maiden would not be appreciated upon a dark wound like that.

"I'm fine. It's nothing." Shadowheart bit out, sighing as the last vestiges of pain ebbed away, "let's get going." Eirina nodded and the two of them started making their way out of the burning wreckage of the mind flayer's ship, checking each body for signs of life as they moved down the beach.
Eirina was sick of the sight of death after they found the fifth poor fisherman. The ship looked to have crashed into a fishing village on the edge of the coast, wiping out every last man, woman, and child living there. The two of them acknowledged that there was little they could do save for piling the bodies on the edge of the river and burning them.

It was late afternoon when they finished with their task, working in near silence as they carted body after body to the pyre. Eirina had to stop at one point as she picked up the body of an infant that died when the ship impacted on the ground. Shadowheart had just left her to grieve, clutching the cold, broken body to her chest. By the time the last villager had been found, Eirina and Shadowheart raised their voices in prayer. Eyes meeting on either side of the bloody pile of bodies, sacred flames arcing from their finger tips, their prayers met in a call and answer, as if they had been formed as if from the sisters they worshiped. Shadowheart prayed for the darkness to wrap the souls in comfort while Eirina intoned for the moon's light to guide the next steps of the soul's path. The smell of burning flesh was sickening and the two women stumbled up the hill, away from the pyre, watching as their combined holy flames engulfed the now forgotten village. Eirina felt a gentle brushing against the back of her hand. Looking down, she saw that Shadowheart and her had drifted close enough that the edges of their fingers touched. Taking a breath and looking up at Shadowheart from their hands, Eirina slowly threaded her fingers into Shadowheart's, feeling the pressure of a flinch as another wave of pain wracked Shadowheart. The two stood overlooking the last of the remains until the sun was starting to set.

"We did a good thing," Eirina said as they dropped their hands and turned to make their way through the hills, "but we should keep looking for survivors."

"And a place to camp," Shadowheart plucked a plant from the edge of the cliff and shoved it into her pack. They would forage anything useful as they traveled, who knows what lay ahead.

Shadowheart didn't know how to feel about Eirina. She was a Selunite, the chosen of her Lady's wretched sister. But this was an ally. And shew owed the red head. Eirina could have left her in that pod, on that ship. Instead she had stood toe to toe with a githyanki warrior and not even flinched. That sort of courage deserved respect, no matter who it came from. And deep down, Shadowheart didn't see the activities on the beach, the burning of the bodies, as a waste of time. Giving the dead the dignity of not rotting out in the elements was a small thing. Most followers of Shar would have left the bodies to rot, letting the beasts feast on the carrion. But the pain in her hand didn't stop her from hauling body after body to the pyre that Eirina had started. Even when the elf had dropped to her knees sobbing with a child in her arms, Shadowheart had just kept at this task. It felt like a sense of closure. They had crashed the ship. It had been Eirina that had connected the transponder and pulled. The guilt the other woman must feel for pulling it at that exact moment must be eating away at her. A few second earlier and they might have missed the village. A few seconds later and they would have careened into the side of the mountain and no one had survived.

Not that Eirina would have had any control over when or where the ship when down, they just needed to get out of the hells before one of those blasted dragons ripped the ship out of the sky.
So she helped in quiet companionship as Eirina saw to the final journey of the dead. Yet when they both began the rights of prayer, something that should be so wrong felt so right. This woman was her enemy, her god was the enemy of the Night singer. Yet their prayers joined the way sisters would join hands and dance in the moonlight. The pain ripped through Shadowheart again. Normally the wound wasn't this active, but burning the bodies in tandem with a cleric of Selune was offending the dark lady more than usual.

As they stood and watched the fire burn, Shadowheart shifted her hand, wanting some kind of connection with a living being after handling the dead for several hours. this was a soul numbing task, but one that left a sense of peace when it was done. She held back her shock of surprise when she felt Eirina's fingers weave in with her own. Just holding hands was such a simple act, but it meant more than Shadowheart could put into words. When the pain ripped through her again, she did her best to hold the cry of pain and the flinch back. Just the simple act of compassion from Eirina was more than Shadowheart probably deserved, she was the only one of her group that had survived retrieving the artifact. But she was loath to drop the connection.

When the moment ended, Shadowheart looked around at the pile of equipment they had salvaged as they had collected the bodies. There was a fair bit of fresh water, but little of the food was salvageable. They had found enough coin that if they were able to find a settlement they would be able to provision themselves enough to get to Baldur's Gate. And she needed to get home as soon as possible.

"Help! Over here!" A male voice, a sweet tenor with a hint of panic, called down to them from on the other side of a burned out chunk of ship's hull. Before either woman could respond, a couple of claw footed brains leapt out at them and charged in their direction. Already exhausted, Eirina flinched as she threw a dagger into the one closest to her, a shouted spell from Shadowheart blasting into the other one. A quick look at the corpses showed that neither one was Us, who had a very bright and distinct vein snaking around it's little body. Relieved that it wasn't her little companion, Eirina picked her way towards the now shouting voice."Hurry! One of those brain things! I have it cornered," the pale man was better dressed than Eirina or Shadowheart, the rich silk of his clothing barely touched from the crash of the ship. He must have been on it like them, since he certainly wasn't a humble fisherman like all the other bodies. And he was hale and hearty enough to have claimed to have cornered an intellect devourer. "There, in the grass. You can kill it, can't you? Like you killed the others."

"Where?" Eirina stepped forward, palming a short sword with one hand and holding the other hand out in case the cornered brain was Us. A huge boar let out a squeal and ran from the cluster of bushes next to where they were standing. It wasn't a brain, he had lied. A shuffle of cloth and a glint of steel in the waning afternoon light caught Eirina's attention. She turned to see a pair of sleek daggers in his hands, his red eyes piercing hers. And that's when she recognized him. Those were the same eyes staring at her when she had vowed to land the ship. And those eyes were now looking at her with murderous intent.