#005. ━━ 🗡 ⮞ queue.

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* 𝐆𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐃𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐍𝐒  asked for a starter.  RAHETA & SHADOWHEART.  ( based off of swordcoasted's shadowheart playlist. )  BRITTLE - ICON FOR HIRE.

sterling white hair.  absent-minded from all that she thought she knew, looking at her reflection was harder than anything she had ever done before. instead, she looks at herself with every last drop of curiosity and confusion that had been burnt out of her all those years ago. kill the nightsong, she had been told, but instead she - and raheta - had agreed not to. to liberate dame aylin, to disgrace lady shar. she doesn't notice raheta coming up behind her until she does, seeing her reflection in the mirror.

their conversation is brief, and they go back and forth. raheta asks something simultaneously probing and comforting. shadowheart keeps up the wall she's kept around the sorcerer. cold, and malicious, and intending, despite how badly a piece of her wants the comforts of the others. she closes her eyes, refusing to look at herself anymore. " i don't know what more there is to say, " she says after being prompted to speak again. " everything i have known for so long has been a lie, and i am waiting... waiting for the dream to end and i am woken up again in lady shar's arms. but instead, i have a weapon from selune, and bright white hair. i suppose there is no going back from this. that the shadowheart you know is gone. just another tragic misfit... someone else's problem. " / @gildedthrns

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tags.

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* 𝐃𝐖𝐄𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐑  asked for a starter.  STRAHD & NESTA.  ( based off of swordcoasted's nesta d'angelis playlist. )  HEAVEN SAYS - GAMEPLAYAH.

HEAVEN SAYS ,  " YOU ARE IN DANGER. "  the bloody fingertips, the carnage around her - as nesta returns from this vision of viscera, she looks up, on her hands and knees in front of a grand staircase. her gaze rises, up, up, up, like the heat in the room. crimson of sanguine fury and crimson of archaic tapestry blend into several forms in her mind, and all of it smells too heavy of iron and sulfur. iron. sulfur. just as she has known all this time, just as she has ever been. the warring forces in her mind clash once more, and she cries out, bloodstained hands staining pearl-white hair.

the creature above her is more powerful and dangerous than she knows how to deal with. he is like the elders of her people, elongated in age but expontenially in wisdom. they are dangerous people to be around, insatiable and demanding more and more of those who have come after. she rises to her feet, not trembling, instead summoning her rapier to her hand again. she must have answers. she must know what is happening to her.

NOW SPELL ANSWER.    ( F-R-E-E-D-O-M. )   WRONG, TRY AGAIN: NOW SPELL MANKIND.    ( D-I-S-E-A-S-E. )    WRONG, TRY AGAIN: NOW SPELL ANSWER.    ( V-I-O-L-E-N-C-E. )   WRONG, TRY AGAIN: NOW SPELL SINNER.   ( F-R-I-E-N-D-S. )

WRONG : THE CORRECT ANSWER IS [ Y O U . ]

" what happened to me? " she calls up to the vampiric lord, gripping the weapon. " WHAT HAVE I DONE? " / @dweomerr

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* 𝐒𝐓𝐗𝐑𝐌𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐃 asked, ❛ you look like you've got something to say. ❜  CERYS & SEIRA.

perhaps she had grown used to this. perhaps it simply came with the territory, looking so soft and being so bright. perhaps she wanted to get a word in edgewise around the other wizards, but being spoken over enough times put her long to rest. seira was kind about it, catching her every word and her suggestions on the transmutative properties of different materials. while all of the men in the room bickered about what would be best, cerys already knew the answer, and grew more and more despondent with each chance she thought she had.

" no, " she says, loud enough only for him to hear - not like the loudmouthed scholars would quieten down enough to make her audible, though. " no, i think i'm alright. " pink eyes droop, sad and tired, and she looks down at her feet, touching her big toes together as she thought about her next move. it would be good for the people of baldur's gate if they saw this through, and yet, at the rate they were going, the society of brilliance would keep them in this room for hours. she takes seira's hand in hers, interlocking their fingers, and beings to pull him out the door.

" come on, " she says, her eyes determined. " we're doing this ourselves. " / @stxrmstained

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* 𝐋𝐔𝐌𝐎𝐈𝐑𝐄 asked for a starter.  OLEANDER & NESTA.  ( based off of swordcoasted's nesta d'angelis playlist. )  CHOKEHOLD CHERRY PYTHON - ASHNIKKO

inhale. exhale. in the nose, and then out the mouth. the stench of blood surrounds her, her vision unclouded, her mind open to the will of the great being of the outer realms. murder for the sake of justice is divine, and she is divinity in mortal form, that much she knows. that much has been told to her since the day she took her last breath of mortality and her first of the occult. if sparing the damned makes her the bigger person, then let her be small. she wipes the blood from her face, once more, and turns to look at her travelling party, stepping over the viscera.

" live a villain, die an icon, " she laughs, shaking the blood out of her boot. " you were quite impressive, new friend. and yet you swear you are not connected to the great old ones at all. what about your hypnosis, your manipulation of the mind? it's so familiar, and yet... not. " / @lumoire

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" what do i disagree with? " wyll asks, shocked and appalled that the other would ask such a thing. his eyes blink owlishly at her, wondering if he was going to take the time to respond to each grievance individually or just identify the most recent. after wondering how much time he was willing to devote to this, and to someone who fundamentally disagreed with him on how to do things, he settles on 'not much', and gestures to the space behind him.

" the tricking and persuading the goblins, i can understand. even toying with them for a bit, i'm willing to deal with. but the sadistic violence? lighting that creature on fire? come now, raheta, i expected more from you - and i expected you, if i'm to quote you, to know me a little better than that than to assume i would be okay with this. a devil? siding with a devil after all they have done to me, done to karlach? not only that, siding with a cambion? toying with orin, when she knows she could pick off any one of us in a matter of seconds when your back is turned?! "

he crosses his arms over his chest; his own anger stems from betrayal, from frustration - from the expectation that maybe he did think he knew his travelling companion, and is learning moreso by the day that he does not. his jaw sets, his hands raised. " if your choices involve setting more undeserving beings on fire and playing cat-and-mouse with the meatsuit-wearing-creatures that want to kill us, count me out. take astarion and lae'zel with you, for all i care; leave me at camp to guard it, so that i don't have to bear witness to the nonsense i know i cannot talk you out of. "

a sharp eyebrow raised, curiousity sparking at the tone of his voice. what was it this time, she wondered. but there it was. a questioning of decisions, a questioning of her actions. sure, their actions more often than not led to misunderstandings. and this one was a rather large one, she wagered.

" tell me, wyll. what exactly is it that you disagree with? i have supported you in breaking your pact with mizora. sure, maybe i've lit a few people on fire who possibly didn't deserve it. but i only stated i'd back orin and gortash to get on their good sides. i only sided with raphael to get the stupid hammer. i've only played along with this 'true soul' business to get us the information we need, and then decimated them from the inside out. "

honestly, the naivety of some people.

" i have no intention of actually following through with any of it. first, i'm going to free myself from this contract with raphael, then i intend to free orpheus, destroy the elder brain and the crown and go about the rest of my elongated life doing whatever the hell i want. hells, i've even shot down most of our friends with doing something incredibly wreckless and damaging in order to help them. "

there was a sigh, that irritated look in their eyes fading to a look of slight sadness. " honestly, i thought we understood each other a little bit better than that. you'll have to tag along more to see that most of the 'decisions made in poor choice' are often me blowing smoke up peoples asses to get us a leg up around here. "

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* 𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐄   asked for a starter.   WYLL & KARLACH.  ( inspired by swordcoasted's wyll ravengard playlist. )   FADE IN/FADE OUT - NOTHING MORE.

perhaps it would have been better if he had put her out of her misery.  maybe it would have been better for them both.  he sits there, happy, watching her dance about the camp, and he knows what is going to come. he knows what devil-thing zariel has had put into her heart, and he can't help but wonder how much more she has left. it seems with each passing day, they are dealing with more and more of the unknown. gale, and the orb.  astarion, and the sun.  shadowheart, and her goddess.  wyll, and mizora.  karlach, and her heart. still, she is dancing, and he is smiling, clapping along to some tune that a tiefling bard is pushing through their camp this late at night. he is happy - of course he is - for he is with friends. but the horns on his head are heavy.  and he is not yet strong enough to carry them.

but she is.  and when she turns to him, and gestures with her arm for him to join, he does so - rising from his feet and moving to take the place of a smaller tiefling woman who is enjoying the heat and the laughs of their infernal friend. she saunters away, off to find some place here or there to mingle with, but as they step into beat together, dancing in ways clashingly different and yet perfectly synergetic, wyll laughs, looking up at his friend.  "  you look like you're having a great time.  " / @illithide

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* 𝐖𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐃 said : ❛ here, give this a try and tell me what you think. ❜  ( from an assortment of dialogue prompts. no longer accepting. )  /  gale & cerys.

the vial in front of her is swirling and purple - like the mage in front of her. cerys is nowhere near as sensitive to the weave as he is, but she does have the ability to read auras, and gale's has always been purple. regal, proud. brave, despite his own fears. it shimmers and glows, twists and turns inside the vial, and as she looks up at her fellow wizard, she smiles, rosy cheeks glowing with excitement. " ohhh, tryin' our hand at a fair bit of transmutation, are we, gale of waterdeep? " she calls him his full title as a bout of teasing affection - she wants him to know that before being this resplendant wizard, he is her friend. 

still, she moves from her spot in front of her bedroll ( cerys has no tent as the others do; she has never had the ability to get one, and they are not in a position to stop and shop for something comfortable. she trances only for four hours anyways, so what's the harm in having only a bedroll and the comforts of one very warm puppy and one very warm owlbear cub next to the fire? she moves from her sit to her knees, and then her knees to a rise, coming in much shorter than him. they almost look comedic standing next to each other, and the downs the entire thing in one hatch. ( she trusts gale not to poison her. )

she smacks her lips a couple of times, looking up. " suspension of allsberry... mugroot salts... and oil of newt's eye. mm! that right there is a well-brewed cure for night terrors. " and then, after a pause, she lets her face fall into a look of concern. " wait, are you brewing this for yourself? or someone in our camp, maybe? " / @weavewilled

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she chuckles. when she first met gale, she thought him a charmer - someone whose waterdhavian roots led to a high charisma and a sharp tongue. in the weeks they've been travelling companions, nesta has found that he's not necessarily charismatic so much as he's confident, confident in his craft, in himself, and in the people he's travelling with. it's refreshing - nesta was raised around unconfident people, people who looked to her, a child, for wisdom and intellect. gale doesn't ask for any of that - in fact, more often than not, it's nesta who's looking to his booklearned-ness for answers to things when her patron is silent in her head.

speaking of her patron, yog'sogoth likes him pretty well, which is a bonus.

" thank you, " she says earnestly, sipping her own wine. she is sure to keep her friends within line-of-sight (until inevitably she sees wyll be dragged off with lae'zel, pulling a face of astonishment from the usually-charismatic warlock). " this is... this... merriment, i should say, is not something i'm used to. the culture of my people was very... pious, if you can say that. it's quite nice being a part of the party rather than its recipient. and... the tieflings look happy. halsin and the druids do, too. i hope they can all find what they need in baldur's gate. "

another sip. the tadpole moves behind her eye; yog'sogoth grumbles in response. " ...and i hope we do, too. "

wine, good company, the occasional dance ⸻ it's a livelier and merrier night than many of the ones in recent memory, made all the sweeter by the knowledge of the good deeds that brought it about. Gale gives his own goblet a swirl, watching the wine in it slosh gently before discreetly, quickly, glancing over in the direction of the blonde tiefling Nesta's pointed out. Something halfway between a scoff and a chuckle leaves him. “ Is she now. ”

perhaps she'll work up the courage to approach him, perhaps she won't; Gale doesn't know what he'd prefer, even though as he thinks about it, he knows he'd much rather she didn't. Unless it's for a dance, really, and even then he may have his reservations; he'd rather not risk good fortune turning sour and causing him to turn left - footed twice over. “ As much as I appreciate your offer, I think I'll pass; I have good enough company already as it is. And if she offers to dance, I'd rather not risk a case of two left feet returning. ” He looks over to Nesta now. “ You look content enough you could burst. A heartening, I'll admit. ”