#Belxari

[pickle-inspector]

sometimes you draw your ascended D&D character floating in a void

[allenvooreef]

ArtFight 2022 | Fifth attack

Belxari for @pickle-inspector

[sleepyspoonie]

dice palette for @pickle-inspector‘s Tiefling bard/warlock, Belxari!

if i had even a SINGLE set of red dice they’d be in here, but tragically, i do not

there’s two different ways i’d go with this if i had the appropriate dice:

keep the chessex golden glitter dice and add the gamescience ruby dice (x), or swap the chessex golden glitter dice out for the koplow golden glitter dice (x) and add in the chessex red glitter dice (x)

hope you like these!

[pickle-inspector]

heard it was Pride Month or something.

[pickle-inspector]

D&D doodle dump.

[pickle-inspector]

Fictober Day 3 | original fiction | 1335 words cw: violence - vaguely described but technically present

“Now? Now you listen to me?” Chrysa shouted over the rushing wind. Her wings pumped furiously against the turbulence of the storm around them.

“I’ve never been the smartest person,” Belxari shouted back as she clung desperately to the slick scales of her friend’s back. The rain and wind were doing their best to keep her from staying there. She ached horribly, even as her wounds slowly began to heal themselves. “And it sounded like you knew what you were doing.” 

Chrysa dropped suddenly, nearly leaving Belxari behind as she ducked beneath a bolt of lightning. Belxari scrambled to regain her hold, then turned around to see the source of the lightning. For a moment she could not see the very large, very angry blue dragon amid the black clouds, but the lingering traces of lightning at the edges of its mouth and eyes glowed ominously through the gloom.

“There you are,” she whispered grimly to herself. She released her grip with one hand and aimed backwards towards their pursuer, magic crackling at her fingertips.

She immediately began sliding down the length of her friend’s back, and, with a cry of alarm, she hastily changed spells. Her descent was arrested almost instantly as the magic took hold. She breathed a quick sigh of relief, then looked back.

The dragon was already much closer, causing Belxari to curse softly beneath her breath. No longer concerned about sliding into the waiting jaws of an angry dragon, she slowly rose to a kneeling position. She extended both hands and once again began to focus her magic. Five golden beams shot from the fingertips of one hand, surging through the air. Two flew harmlessly beneath it, but the remaining three of them slammed into the dragon, causing it to tumble backwards through the air. It righted itself almost immediately and resumed the chase.

Continuing her assault on the blue dragon, Belxari worked her way back to her place near Chrysa’s neck, struggling to consistently hit the moving target as her own dragon continued to dodge and weave bolts of lightning, both natural and dragon-made. Upon her return, she discovered that Chrysa was still yelling.

“--a salamander before I was ready!”

“Have you been yelling this whole time?” Belxari demanded, sparing a glance in the general direction of Chrysa’s head. She straddled her companion’s neck now, facing backwards to better aim at their enemy. “We can just think our thoughts at each other, you know!”

“The yelling is cathartic!” Chrysa practically screamed at her, easily the angriest she had been so far.

“But not conducive to dodging angry lightning!” Belxari yelled back, returning her focus behind them.

“Stop treating me like I’m six!”

“You’re a dragon; you practically are six!”

“You’re a god; you’re practically an infant!”

“Just focus on flying, you dummy!”

“You’re the dummy!” Chrysa returned, but she did indeed turn her focus to flying, her powerful muscles hurtling them forwards.

Belxari hissed and angrily shoved her soaked hair out of her face. It was promptly back in her way, lashing angrily in the winds. For a moment the urge to just cut it all off consumed her, but she shoved the thought aside. Belxari was growing frustrated. The low visibility in the storm and the constantly shifting positions of both dragons was making it very difficult for her to actually hit her target, which meant he was gaining on them. She had not expected to fight such a powerful foe, so was running low on the magic that would easily turn the tides of the situation. She could continue chipping away at it, but Chrysa could not maintain their flight long enough.

“Can’t fight another day if you don’t live to see it,” she muttered, channeling magic through herself and preparing to unleash it upon her foe.

Her foe decided to blast them with lightning before she could. Belxari screamed Chrysa’s name in warning, but it was not soon enough. The bolt struck them, bright light blinding Belxari and electricity surging painfully through her body. She lost her grip on the spell that was holding her in place, and was instantly flung into the air by the wind.

As she tumbled through the air, she considered briefly, not for the first time, wearing trousers instead of skirts.

Up and down were lost to her, as were Chrysa and the blue dragon. Her ears were ringing too, which was more an nuisance than a real problem, but irritating nonetheless. “Screw this!” she shouted at nobody in particular.

Magic coursed through her being and enveloped her as she cast her spell. There was something wonderful and exhilarating about the experience of casting such powerful magic. It was not entirely dissimilar to defeating powerful enemies with a cantrip, but the feeling was more primal and genuine, fueled by the energies of the world instead of spite.

But spite was also good, she decided with a roar as her wings unfurled.

She rocketed upwards, determined to catch up to the two dragons, and was delighted to find that her task would be simple. The blue had flown past her without realizing the tiefling had been knocked into the air, but Chrysa noticed immediately and circled around to retrieve her friend. They both spotted her at the same time, and their wildly different responses amused Belxari greatly.

The blue dragon halted, uncertain suddenly of his chances. The silver, meanwhile, suddenly became quite certain of her chances and changed course, her new target the blue.

Chrysa and Belxari slammed into the blue together, teeth and claws ripping into his hide. Ice and fire joined the lightning, and in moments the fight had ended.

The storm had calmed to a gentle rain as they landed on the ground. The corpse of the blue was at the center of a crater in the mud nearby. Chrysa examined the body for a moment, then looked up at the enormous golden dragon that stood over her, tasteful red and white accents in places a gold dragon simply shouldn’t be red and white.

“You couldn’t have done that back at his lair?” she panted, frustrated.

“Where would have been the fun in that?”

“That lightning hurt, Belxari.”

The enormous golden dragon stopped smiling, and looked down at her friend. With a breath, she released the spell, and returned to the form of a tiefling. She placed a hand on her friend’s arm with an apologetic look. “Sorry, I--”

She was reminded forcefully that beneath those scales was a lot of muscle. She hit the ground hard, many feet away from where she had been standing seconds before, the air wooshing out of her lungs - it hadn’t needed to be there in the first place, but she had formed a habit of breathing and kept it after becoming a god.

“If you’re going to take a joke suggestion seriously, then at least wait for me to be ready!” Chrysa shouted, her form shrinking down into the form of a dragon-winged young humanoid as she approached the tiefling.

Belxari staggered to her feet and magicked away all the mud that now coated her. She looked apologetically at her friend. “Yeah.... Sorry. I... I got excited. And angry. I’m sorry.”

Chrysa wrapped her arms around Belxari, her draconic strength only somewhat less likely to crush her while in this form. Belxari hesitantly returned the hug. Even after three decades, she was still confused by them when they happened unexpectedly.

“I’m just glad you’re safe,” she breathed into Belxari’s soaking hair. “You’re not indestructible, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Belxari murmured back. The two stood silently in the rain for a moment before Belxari asked, “Hey, you wanna help me pick apart that dragon? I need some more materials to work with.”

Chrysa rolled her eyes and heaved the biggest sigh, and Belxari grinned at her as she walked over to the crater. The young dragon just shook her head and smiled to herself as she turned to follow.

[pickle-inspector]

Fictober Day 22 | original fiction | 700 words  cw: violence - not depicted, but mentioned

“We could have a chance at greatness,” Belxari heard herself say, her voice echoed by something coarse and whispering. Smoke billowed around her and flames lapped at the edges of her clothing. It would not harm her, could not harm her, but it would suffer her wrath if it tried, so it dared not try. She could hear screams of pain and panic just beyond the flames and smoke.

“No, not simply greatness. We could have everything.”

Her form was large, imposing as she slowly walked down the street. She raised her right hand, and the flames on that side of the city grew larger, the screams louder. She raised her left, and devils leaped out from behind her and raced down the streets and between the buildings, and the screams grew louder.

“Everything could be ours to command,” their voices said together. She emerged from a particularly thick cloud of smoke to witness the destruction she had unleashed, was unleashing upon the city. She could hear explosions and rumbling as buildings were destroyed. Glass shattered and tinkled melodiously onto the stone below. Buildings that once stood tall and proud against the skyline of the city, toppled as they collapsed under the weight of the devils that climbed them.

A building beside her remained standing, its glass unbroken, and she saw her reflection. Her already fiendish features enhanced, her hair wild with magic. Upon her grinning face was a bone-white raven skull mask, looming out of the black smoke like an entity born of the chaos around her.

“All it would take is one simple ritual,” the voice rasped, overtaking her own, familiar tones. She reached out a hand to strike down the stone and glass beside her.

There was a loud clattering and banging, and Belxari shot upright at her desk in panic. Her eyes darted wildly about the office space, unfamiliar in her daze. A moment later, a call came from the other side of the other desk.

“Sorry, were you sleeping?” Xelbari sang out. He was making a show of collecting several pans off the floor.

Belxari slipped to the floor, sitting cross-legged behind her desk, and took a deep breath. She shoved her hair back into place, then rubbed at her face with both hands to clear the tears from her cheeks. Xelbari was giving her a moment to compose herself, and she was going to take it. “Yeah, just a quick nap. You make an awful wake-up call.”

“There are significantly worse ways to be woken up.” She heard Xelbari return his “dropped” items to the pocket dimension in which he stored them and begin to shuffle about his side of the office.

Belxari dug a small silver hand mirror from the drawer beside her. She turned to lean against the desk and took another steadying breath, this one somehow more shaky than the last. She hesitated a moment longer before turning it toward herself.

She saw her face. Her eyes were wide with panic, face moist, and hair still a mess, but it was her own face.

She pressed her forehead to the cool glass of the mirror, and took another few moments to calm down. She had no reason to breathe, and there was no fear-induced adrenaline surge to recover from, but the actions were familiar to her, and therefore a comfort.

There was a rustling beside her and the soft clinking of porcelain on the floor beside her. She glanced down to find a mug filled with what she assumed was hot chocolate. Xelbari had sat himself on the floor near her, his back to the side of her desk, a mug of his own cupped in his hands.

They drank their respective drinks in something resembling a comfortable silence. The warmth and company was comforting, and it was a relatively short time before she had calmed down. When she had finished, Xelbari plucked the empty mug from her hands, tapped it against one of her horns, and returned to whatever it was he was doing.

Belxari sat on the floor a moment longer, her fingers absently tracing the edge of the mirror. She would be avoiding sleeping for a while again.

[pickle-inspector]

Fictober Day 8 | original fiction | 1304 words 

“Can you stay?”

“I didn’t come all this way just to leave immediately. How’s she doing?”

“They, ah, they kicked me out a bit ago,” Sylmore Burnett admitted, looking anxiously at a nearby flight of stairs. “She started yelling at me about how it was all my fault and–”

“It is your fault,” Belxari interrupted.

“I suppose.” He could feel his cheeks burning. “At any rate, I got kicked out–”

A pained cry rang through the house, causing them both to look in the direction from which it came. Sylmore’s face paled, but he did not make any motion to go help. Belxari watched the concerned half-elf in silence, then grabbed his arm and began to lead him toward the front door.

“They’ll come get you when it’s time,” she said nonchalantly, waving her free hand dismissively. “In the meantime, there is nothing you can do, so you should... I would say relax, but that’s not going to happen.”

Sylmore said nothing, allowing himself to be led by the young goddess. She chattered away about some nonsense, attempting to provide a distraction for him, but his mind was wholly focused on the events transpiring in an upstairs bedroom in the Burnett estate.

He was no stranger to blood and violence. His youth had been filled with too much of it, and his years with the troupe had been filled with even more. But this was one of the worst things he had ever experienced. Perhaps it was because it was Azaria. Maybe because Azaria was angry about it. Somehow, she was almost never angry, but today...

Another cry reached their ears, and even Belxari faltered at the sound. Her eyes shot up to the window of the room Azaria was in. Sylmore could see her debating flying up on her broom to make sure everything was going well. The tiefling decided against it and swiftly turned her attention back to him.

“She’ll be fine.” She might have been reassuring herself, but he noted the effort she was making.

He smiled at her, half-hearted perhaps, but genuine enough. “Yeah, she will be.”

It was sort of funny that the woman before him was so worried. Surely this was nothing compared to what she had experienced in her life. Her first kill had come when she was barely a teenager, and she had herself nearly been killed many times over.

He shook his head to rid it of those thoughts. He had to focus on something else, something better, something happy. Something significantly less frustrating.

Belxari leaned down to look him in the face. “Hey, man, are you okay?” she asked, concern evident in her voice and expression.

He wasn’t sure when he sat down. The heat of the stone steps leading to the front door seeped through the material of his clothes, as did the heat from Belxari’s hand upon his shoulder. He placed his own hand on hers and offered her an attempt at a smile. “I’m scared,” he said at length. “Dealing with Caius might have been easier.”

Belxari flinched at the name, but remained where she was. “You’ve done this before. You’ll be fine.”

“It’s different this time,” he whispered.

Belxari looked over his head, the movement somewhat more jerky than was typical of her.

“Sir, you’ve been allowed back in the room,” came Porter’s voice behind him.

Sylmore turned to look at the butler, then at Belxari. Porter’s expression was almost professionally neutral.

“I’ll let you have some time together before I come up, if that’s alright with you,” Belxari said. She had a mischievous grin on her face. If he thought he could ever make her stop, he would ask her to; the expression was unsettling most days.

“You’ll definitely stay?”

“Of course,” she said with an inclination of her head toward him. “Family is what I’m all about, Sylmore.”

Sylmore nodded and rose unsteadily to his feet, and followed Porter into the house. This had been his home–legally and emotionally–for a number of years now, but sometimes it still felt foreign to him. Now was one of those times, as the fear in his gut reached up and gripped his heart in its cold fingers.

He reached the door before he expected to, out of breath, having apparently broken into a run. He gripped the door handle, but made no motion to open it for several long moments. He focused on breathing. Opening a door was hardly the most difficult thing he had done, and yet it took all of the strength in him to do so now.

Azaria was propped against several pillows in the bed, blankets piled up beside and on top of her. His wonderful, perfect, exhausted, sweaty, gorgeous wife. She looked at him as he entered, and she smiled. Gods, how did he manage to be so lucky.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she said softly as he sat on the bed beside her.

“I deserved it,” he said, moving a stray strand of hair from her forehead and placing a kiss in its place.

The blankets in Azaria’s arms yawned.

He looked down at the source of the sound, then back to his wife, finally able to smile. The fear was entirely replaced now with excitement. He wasn’t alone; they would do this together. Sylmore searched her eyes for a moment, then reached down and removed some of the blanket that had fallen over his child’s–his daughter’s–face.

For the briefest moment he froze, taking in his first view of his daughter. She had a lot of hair for a newborn, pitch black and sticking straight out like the fluff of a dandelion. He could see crescents of silver peeking out at him as she hovered the border between the waking world and her dreams. He brushed his thumb against the soft red skin of her cheek.

Then he wrapped his family into a hug, kissing Azaria’s temple fervently. “She’s beautiful.”

“She is,” Azaria breathed. After a moment she added, “This will... pose some difficulties.”

“Luckily I have some experience in raising tieflings,” Sylmore said lightly. “She’s going to be amazing.”

Azaria smiled and leaned into her husband, cradling their daughter closer to them both.

After a few moments he chuckled, “We’ll need to invest in earplugs. An infant with Thaumaturgy is a literal headache.”

The couple sat together with their newborn for some time, softly discussing names and whispering loving things among themselves. Eventually, Sylmore asked that someone fetch Belxari. She had been the only one able to travel with the speed necessary to arrive so close to the birth; everyone else would likely arrive over the next few days.

Belxari seemed to be taking the situation rather seriously, Sylmore noted as she knocked gently on the door before peering around it. He had expected her to teleport directly into the room. He waved her over, smiling in amusement. With practiced ease, Belxari slid into the room and padded over to join them.

“Well?”

“It’s a girl,” Azaria whispered, smiling at the goddess as she leaned over Sylmore to look at the infant.

Sylmore felt a sudden surge of pride. He was unsure whether Belxari’s domain ever manifested in a way that could be felt, but in that moment he would have believed it could. It was rough going, but somehow his first “unofficial” daughter had accomplished more than most parents would ever dream for their children.

The temperature dropped noticeably as Belxari backed away from the bed, abject terror on her face.

“Bel, what’s wrong?” Sylmore asked, half-rising from the bed, worried.

She tore her eyes away from the child and looked at Sylmore. She shook her head–or he thought she did, the movement was so small. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. A soft pop punctuated the statement, and Belxari was gone.

[part one] [this is part two] [part three] [part four] [part five] [part six] [(part seven)]

[pickle-inspector]

Belxari is busy, Xelbari told himself as he grasped the desk for support. Plenty of time to get through the door.

Another wave of nausea took him, and it took every ounce of strength he had left to keep on his feet. He was already to the breaking point, which was why this was happening in the first place. The combat at the Edge of Everything was becoming more difficult, the obliterators more powerful than ever, and expending his power there left cracks in his defenses, weaknesses. He could feel the claws trying to wedge themselves through the openings, making them wider to allow It through.

He stumbled forward, his vision hazy as he reached for the door handle that would take him through to his apartment. Belxari would be coming any time. He couldn’t let her see him like this.

He slumped across her desk, the clattering of gems and soft whisper of paper falling together to the ground his only awareness of where he was in the room. He had gone the wrong direction. He curled in on himself as he coughed violently. His body shook with the effort as he spat two black feathers from his mouth, their edges wet with his blood. He attempted to grasp them in his hand, but they trembled so much he couldn’t get a hold of them.

Another wave of pain coursed through him, his back arching involuntarily as he cried out. He collapsed to his knees before the desk, his strength exhausted. His vision, already blurred to uselessness, went white as he felt the claws tear through him, surging for the surface. He fought it back as best he could, but it was too late. The Thing had been gaining in strength even as he had used his up.

“Xelbari?” he heard behind him, his sister’s voice filled with concern. “What’s wrong?”

Even as she spoke, her words were drowned by the blood pounding in his ears. She might have said more, and he thought that perhaps she placed a hand on his shoulder, but his senses were no longer his to command. He felt control of his physical being wrested from him. As the last of it slipped from his grasp, he did the only thing he could.

“Run,” he whispered hoarsely, and then darkness overtook him.

The darkness burned in a way the tiefling was unaccustomed to. It consumed his entire body, trying to eat him from the inside and the outside. He knew it was a metaphysical, mental location he found himself in, but still he yearned to know which direction was up. The part of him that refused to allow this to happen, to accept this loss, struggled to swim toward the surface, if indeed there was one to be breached. But all around him was pitch black and fire and water filled his lungs.

He did not know how long he was trapped in this contradictory void filled with silence and screaming before he heard it. A single voice, a pinpoint of golden light in the distance, reached him. He thought he had imagined it at first.Too small, too soft, the voice reached him.

“Xelbari!”

His name echoed in the darkness, angry, then threatening, then sorrowful, then anguished. The voice simultaneously grew louder and more quiet, closer but weaker. The point of light it originated from did not change in size as Xelbari took faltering steps toward it. His footsteps were slow, agonizing, but he forced his feet to carry him forward. It would not end this way if he could help it.

The world was still fuzzy as he slammed into the invisible barrier before him. He could make out Belxari, her form crumpled against the wall before him, blood running from numerous wounds. He saw a great, clawed hand pressed into her chest, holding her in place. She’d not had the chance to change into her armor, and was wearing the simple outfit she usually wore when doing research. The talon of what should have been his thumb was sunk deep into her shoulder, bright crimson staining the light gray shirt. The angle at which her arm lay suggested that some vital muscles or sinews had been severed, losing her the use of the limb. She had one eye closed against the pain, her teeth bared in a grimace. Her one visible golden eye was focused firmly on him as she hissed something at him.

“Don’t make me wipe you from reality, Xel. Please.”

Xelbari rammed himself against the wall that separated him from his own form. His entire existence was in pain, and he had no real strength with which to fight, but still he tried. He would not lose everything here.

There was a great screeching behind him, and he turned slowly to face his enemy. It was a great avian thing, a raven grown to monstrous size, deformed by hell and twisted by hatred. Xelbari smiled at it, a grimace more than anything really, as he braced himself for impact.

“Oh, hello. Fancy meeting you here,” he said just before the creature swooped in with its beak.

It took it two tries to grab him, but on the second attempt it grabbed him around the middle and plucking him from the ground. It shook him about, seemingly hoping to snap his neck or back with the sudden change in directions, then released him very suddenly, flinging him into the air.

Xelbari was dizzy from the rapid movement combined with the nausea he had felt to begin with. The ground rushed toward him very quickly, He could feel no magic within him in this place, and even if he could he had no way to save himself from his impending collision with the ground.

The monstrous raven had other plans, though. Before the tiefling had landed, it slammed into him, sending him flying sideways into the barrier of his consciousness. There was a wet cracking sound and Xelbari ricocheted to the floor, where he lay in a heap of pain. He struggled for breath and tried to scramble to his feet.

He only succeeded in howling in pain as the creature slammed a taloned foot into him, pinning him to the ground. It screeched an unholy, shrill cry that made Xelbari’s head spin, his vision once again blurring, this time perhaps for good. He tried to look toward the wall, to see how his sister fared against the thing that had consumed his body, but could see nothing but feathers.

The creature kicked him to the side, his body rolling along the ground, leaving a wide trail of blood to mark his passing. The thing looked at him, confident that it had finally defeated the one who had amounted to its jailer. It screeched again, triumphant and proud.

Xelbari slowly struggled to his feet. His world was pain and he wasn’t entirely certain that his form in this place was in one piece, but some spiteful, defiant part of him refused to die lying down. The horrible bird watched in what seemed amusement as the tiefling staggered forward with no weapon, no magic, no plan. He approached the dark beast and placed a trembling, blood-covered hand on its feathery hide.

And a sword pierced him from behind, sinking itself into the beastial form of Asmodeus’ servant. Though the angle seemed impossible, the black blade pierced its chest and the Thing screeched in incredible pain. Its head reared back in a desperate attempt to get away from the source of its misery, but the blade seemed to have latched onto its insides and refused to let it move.

Xelbari watched with exhausted detachment as the beast fell to the ground, a broken and bleeding mess.

Then the wall shattered, and he was pulled from his feet by a great force. He hurtled through empty space and landed with incredible pain in his own body. He groaned and fell to his knees, then slumped into the collapsed form of his sister. Miroku lay on the ground beside them, his blade clean as it always was, though he knew it had been used to strike him down. He could feel her hand on his back, holding him to her as they waited for... something.

“Don’t you dare do that to me ever again,” Belxari said at length, her voice barely more than a breath.

Xelbari looked his sister in the face, then plucked a single black feather from the blood on her cheek. “That’s fair.”

[pickle-inspector]

Still on broken and creepy mode. Belxari this time, with and without some Caius influence.

[pickle-inspector]

Fictober Day 18 | original fiction | 624 words 

“Secrets? I love secrets,” Sylmore Burnett said quietly as he shook out the pajamas he had just retrieved from the closet. He knelt down beside his young daughter to help her with the buttons on her shirt. Her horns were already rather long, and it made getting some of her shirts on and off rather difficult.

Izora watched him work, her belly stuck out toward him to give her a better vantage point. “You have to keep it a secret if I tell you.”

Sylmore Burnett — former member of the Thieves’ Guild in Wolis, founder of a very successful group of thieves, and politician — raised one hand in the air as he pressed the other to his chest. “Only a wretched man would share the secrets of his daughter with another soul. My lips are sealed.”

Izora Burnett — a very bright four-year-old — stuck her tongue out at her father, but did so with a smile.

Sylmore smiled as Izora spun around to facilitate the donning of her pajamas. “What is your secret, Owlette?”

The young tiefling motioned him closer, then wrapped her small hands around his face to direct it where she wanted it. She was standing on her tip-toes to reach, but in his ear she whispered, “I made a friend.”

Sylmore beamed at her and wrapped her in a great hug. The other children were wary of Izora, he knew, so the idea that someone had reached out to her made his heart leap for joy. “That’s wonderful, darling. Who is your friend?”

Izora giggled in his embrace for a moment before shoving him away. “Her name’s Belxari. I call her Auntie sometimes. She’s old, so it made sense. She— Dad?”

Sylmore had gone incredibly pale and stopped moving at his daughter’s words. His blood ran cold as he was overcome with a lot of emotions at once — positive, negative, and some strange intermediate ones. They all churned and bubbled in his stomach leaving him feeling sick.

How dare she.

“When did you meet her?” he asked, his normally calm voice something of a croak.

Izora eyed him with some concern, then shrugged and tugged her pajamas out of his clenched fists. “I don’t know. I was crying and went to hide, and there she was.”

“You were... crying?”

Izora nodded. “She gave me chocolate and we talked some.”

How dare she make it difficult to be mad.

“And you’ve seen her since then?” He hoped the answer would be no.

“Yeah, we talk about magic and dragons and stuff. She sometimes offers to beat up the mean kids for me.”

That sounded like Belxari alright. “And does she?”

“Nah, she just says it to make me feel better. Buttons, dad.”

Sylmore fumbled with the buttons on the back of the girl’s nightshirt, his hands shaking from the force of his raging emotions.

After a moment, she turned partially to look at him, her silver eyes bright. “Are you mad?”

“Of course not,” Sylmore lied, spinning her around and placing his hands on her shoulders. “Why would I be mad?”

“She said you would be.”

He made a mental note to consider the pros and cons of blasting a tiefling goddess with a fireball.

“Do you like her?”

“She’s okay,” Izora said with a shrug.

“If you ever don’t want her around, you tell her, okay? And me,” he told his daughter with a serious expression. “She doesn’t have to stay any longer than you want.”

Izora looked at her father with some curiosity, but ultimately nodded. “You’ll keep it a secret, right?”

Sylmore picked the girl up and held her close — protectively — to his chest as he carried her to her bed. “Of course,” he lied. “As long as you’re happy.”

[part one] [part two] [part three] [this is part four] [part five] [part six] [(part seven)]

[pickle-inspector]

Fictober Day 11 | original fiction | 1102 words

“It’s not always like this,” Belxari chuckled nervously to the visitor that had stumbled into her office. She scooped several magical daggers off the top of her desk and into a drawer. With her other hand she waved at her dress — work clothes rather than her normal godly gown — and the fresh tear-and-snot stains vanished.

“Yes it is,” twelve-year-old Xelbari sang as he opened his door.

“Get out,” Belxari groaned at him.

“I already am!” His too-high-pitched voice floated back to them as the door shut behind him.

Belxari muttered under her breath as she hastily shuffled loose paperwork together, then looked around for where to put it. She didn’t actually have a place for paperwork. She shoved it into the drawer with the daggers.

“Come here, kiddo,” Belxari said, scooping up the toddler that stood beside her and sat her on the desk. She sat in her chair — which required moving a stack of maps first — and pulled it up next to the desk. “Now then, what’s the matter?”

The young tiefling that sat on the desk was red-skinned as Belxari was, though of a somewhat lighter hue. Horns had begun protruding from her forehead, arcing to the side and then upwards at the ends. Her black hair was a curly mess, her horns the only reason it wasn’t falling into her face. Silver eyes stared at her, large from crying and — oh, that was probably fear.

Belxari reached her hand out toward a nearby bookshelf, where a glowing red hand appeared. It reached into a jar, and brought the young child a wrapped chocolate. The girl was hesitant to accept it at first, but after a glance at Belxari, she accepted it and began to meticulously unwrap it.

“Will you tell me why you were crying?” Belxari tried again, hoping the child was placated enough to speak now.

“My friends don’t like me,” the girl admitted with a sniffle before taking a bite of her candy.

“They don’t like you? Well that’s silly of them,” Belxari said, eyebrows furrowed.

“Why is that silly? Dad says I shouldn’t be surprised by it.”

Belxari’s jaw clenched, and it took her just a little too long to reduce her sudden surge of rage to a low boil. “It takes some luck to accidentally wander in here. Only the best people can do that. And Xelbari.”

“This is a tiefling place?” the child asked, looking around with curiosity.

“Hm, perhaps not on purpose, but my brother and I are both tieflings, and this is our office.” Belxari followed the girl’s gaze. She should have been there.

“It’s small.”

“It is only an office.”

“Why is your office in my closet?”

“It’s a magic office. Well, the door is magic. It’s rather complicated.”

She gave Belxari a scrutinizing look, but seemed to accept the answer. “Are you a... polistician? My dad is one. He has a big office too.”

“Sort of,” Belxari said, forcing a chuckle. “I help people. As directly as I can.”

“With magic?”

“Sometimes.”

The child looked at her again, curiosity on her face. “Can you help me?”

Belxari summoned a handkerchief from nowhere and offered it to her as she softly said, “You’ve tears on your face, still. Perhaps I can help you. What do you need help with?”

“Can you make the others like me?”

Belxari could only offer her a sad smile. “Unfortunately not. You cannot force someone to feel a particular way. Not in a lasting manner, anyway.”

“But for a little while?”

“They would be quite displeased after that while is over. They would know they were forced.”

“Oh. That would be worse.”

“Indeed, little one.”

“My dad calls me Owlette.”

“Would you like me to call you that?”

She thought about the question for a moment, her head tilted in a rather dramatic fashion to indicate her deep thought. “Hm, no. It’s his name. You have to think of one yourself.”

“Such as little one?”

“No, you’re short, so I might be taller than you soon.”

“How soon?”

“Next year maybe.”

“That makes sense,” Belxari chuckled. “Another name, then.”

“You have to like me before you can give me a name.”

“I do like you,” Belxari said, struggling to hide the pain in her voice.

“You don’t know my name. You can’t like me.” She spoke with such matter-of-fact manner that Belxari forgot for a moment that she did in fact know the child’s name.

“Do you like me?”

The child thought about the new question. She sucked on the last of her chocolate, her legs swinging as she eyed the older tiefling woman once more. Finally she said, “You’re okay, I guess.”

“I’ll take that,” Belxari said with a grin. She leaned back in her chair. “Would you tell me your name?”

“Are you fey?” the child shot back. It took the goddess so off-guard that she could not hold back a quick laugh.

“No, I’m not of the fey. I am something much worse.”

“Then you don’t get my name.”

Belxari grinned and leaned forward in her chair again. “You are very bright.”

“I know,” she yawned.

“Are you feeling better?”

She nodded.

“Would you like to go back to your room now?”

She shook her head, then thought about it, then nodded.

Belxari lifted the child from her desk and held her close to her body as she maneuvered her way to the door. The young girl curled in tightly, already falling asleep against her. Belxari paused at the door and stroked the girl’s hair a moment. She had missed so much.

She had caused so much.

She grasped the door handle and swung it open. The other side was, as she expected, the young girl’s room. A small private library had been started, several bookshelves already nearly overflowing. With a wave of her hand, one that had slipped to the floor floated back to its place.

She made her way to the bed and placed the young girl on it. Once she had tucked her in, she leaned down and pressed a kiss to the girl’s forehead.

“Goodnight, Izora Burnett. May you have sweet dreams.”

Izora roused somewhat and looked back at her, eyes gleaming ever so slightly in the moon-lit room. “You already know my name.”

Belxari smiled. “It’s a perk of being a fairy godmother.”

“Fairy godmothers aren’t real.”

“No, I suppose not,” Belxari chuckled. “My name is Belxari. I’m... more of an aunt, perhaps.”

“Oh,” Izora mused, then rolled over to allow sleep to embrace her. Drowsily, she whispered, “Goodnight, Aunt Belxari.”

“Goodnight, Izora.”

[part one] [part two] [this is part three] [part four] [part five] [part six] [(part seven)]

[pickle-inspector]

Fictober Day 10 | original fiction | 797 words 

 “Listen, I can’t explain it; you’ll have to trust me.”

“Trust you? I did trust you! I trusted you to stand by me, to stay with us. Instead, you vanish literally the minute you enter the room!”

“Sylmore, I—”

“No! You don’t get to do this to us.”

Belxari was taken aback. Sylmore’s usually calm demeanor had been discarded in favor of yelling. She had very rarely seen him resort to such lows. Those circumstances where he had never ended well for her.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” she began tentatively. “I never have.”

“Well, you did,” Sylmore retorted bluntly. “You had said just minutes before that you would be there, Belxari. And then you weren’t.”

“She– Your daughter–”

“Her name is Izora,” he fairly spat at her.

“I know,” Belxari breathed. This was going much differently than she had hoped. But exactly as she had expected.

“Don’t you dare use her as an excuse for your behavior. It’s been five years.”

He was right. She hated it when he was right. “She’s a tiefling,” she finally said, with none of the usual strength she tried to display.

Sylmore just stared at her. “So what? You’re also a tiefling. Did you become racist against tieflings five years ago and not tell me?”

“No, it—” She looked at her hands in her lap. The red skin of her fingers, sticking out of her fingerless gloves. Her fingernails looked nicer than they had in years, since she was no longer spending so much of her time wielding her longsword. Her gloves showed none of the damage they had endured. Today she wore a simple golden band on her left pinky finger; one without magic, though nobody would be likely to believe her. There wasn’t a reason for it. She had just felt like wearing it. What had happened to her?

“You meant it, then. You really won’t explain yourself.”

“It’s my fault,” she croaked. She refused to meet his gaze, allowing her hair to fall into her face to act as a barrier.

Sylmore was silent for a moment. Eventually, he flatly asked, “What?”

“That she’s a tiefling. It’s.... it’s my fault.”

“What... How is it your fault? How is it anyone’s fault?”

“I don’t.... I don’t know, just... It has to be, right?”

“What?” His voice had shifted from anger now, and was heading quickly into confusion and concern.

“I’m... My power, I don’t– I shouldn’t have been around Azaria. I–”

He walked over to her and knelt beside her, placing his hands over her own. “Belxari, I don’t care that she’s a tiefling.”

She risked looking up at him. She could feel the tears welling up, risking overflowing. Sylmore’s expression was stern, but not entirely unkind.

“I’ve done tieflings before. I’ve raised a far more infuriating tiefling in worse circumstances, and she turned out pretty alright.”

“But if I did– It wasn’t on purpose–”

“Then get yourself under control.” It was a command, not a suggestion or request. “You’ve gotten yourself into a mess that I can’t help you with. You’re playing a dangerous game. When you left, I thought you had made your decision about what side you were playing.”

“I’m on your side.”

“Are you? You had absolutely no contact with us for five years, and then you come back and pretend nothing ever happened. No explanation. You just tried to pick up where we left off. Unfortunately, a lot has changed since then. And I—”

He stopped, looked away. He seemed uncertain whether he wanted to say what was on his mind. Belxari leaned back in her chair and watched him.

“What? You what?”

Sylmore sighed and rose to his feet. “I’m not sure I want you here. You pose too much danger to my family.”

Belxari felt like she had been punched in the gut. The tears were going to come now, but she’d be damned if he was going to see that. “Fine,” was all she could trust herself to say before she teleported out of the Burnett estate.

[part one] [part two] [part three] [part four] [part five] [this is part six] [(part seven)]

[pickle-inspector]

Fictober Day 25 | original fiction | 728 words

“I could really eat something,” Sah moaned, looking at the plates being passed to the guests in the next room.

“You could really eat a lot of somethings,” Belxari said. She had her back to the half-orc, her tongue poking out of her mouth as she attempted to pick the lock of the door. “Just don’t let your stomach give away our presence.”

“Easy enough for you to say. You don’t need as much food to live,” Sah pouted, but did her best to remain inconspicuous. Which primarily consisted of simply standing where she was and hoping nobody would notice any movement in her direction.

“I’m hungry too,” Belxari said with a grunt. One of her tools slipped out of the lock, and she hissed slightly as she caught it, the tip of it jabbing into her palm. She sucked off the droplet of blood that formed, and resumed her work. “Maybe we’ll make our escape through the kitchen.”

“I hope so.” She lapsed into silence for a moment, then said, “How long is this going to take?”

“However long it takes,” Belxari shot back, not looking away from her work. “Gotta make this look good.”

Sah glanced behind her and frowned. “You can’t get it, can you?”

“I’ve got it,” she hissed. “Stop distracting me.”

Sah sighed and returned to her duty of look-out. The hallway was carpeted and a few painting hung on the walls, but was otherwise bare. There were no candles, so the only light source was the candles in the dining room at one end of the hall and the moonlight shining through a set of windows at the other end. She was glad for the lack of light, because she was getting antsy and her movement would be very easy to spot if it were lit well.

It also made it difficult for Belxari to get the lock. Or maybe it didn’t. Sah didn’t really understand how that whole business worked. She usually just broke the door down if she needed in. But they had opted for a stealthy approach to this event, so she was keeping an eye out for guards and stray guests while Belxari worked.

There was a click behind her, and Belxari let out a pleased noise. “We’re in.”

“Go quick. I don’t like this job anyway. I want it over.”

“Yeah, yeah. Come on.”

The pair slid into the room, and Belxari shut the door silently behind them.

They stood in Sah’s office. Her desk had a large stack of paperwork that needed to be looked over, and very little else. A filing cabinet and bookshelf stood behind the desk. There were a few chairs at the edge of the room, but otherwise, there was nothing else in the room.

“You need to learn to decorate,” Belxari said before moving further in. “Where is this thing kept?”

“Aren’t you going to toss the place anyway?”

“Yes, but I need to know where it is so I don’t miss it entirely.” Belxari stood behind the desk and began to inspect the drawers. “We can’t rob you if we don’t take the thing we’re supposed to be stealing.”

“Can’t you make it look more authentic by not knowing where it is?”

Belxari stopped and looked at her friend. “You don’t know where it is, do you?”

Sah looked like she was about to deny it, then shrugged. “I don’t use the office that much, okay? That paperwork has probably been there for weeks.”

“Oh my word,” Belxari breathed, staring at Sah in amazement. “Dragon hoards and favor on the city council are the only reason this place hasn’t been shut down, huh?”

“Basically,” Sah admitted with a shrug.

“Well, better get looking,” Belxari sighed as she pulled out a drawer. “Start with the bookshelf.”

The two made relatively quick work of the office. They found their target paperwork quickly enough and made sure the room looked sufficiently ransacked. Once they were certain the city guard would believe the story they were going to be fed, they left the room through the window.

“I’m still hungry,” Sah complained as they walked down a nearby alley. “We missed supper.”

Belxari looked up at her friend and smiled. “We could go to Xelbari’s,” she said, breaking into a sprint immediately, laughing as she ran. Sah roared in annoyance and chased after her.

[pickle-inspector]

Fictober Day 6 | original fiction | 519 words 

“Yes, I’m aware. Your point?” Some unnamed emotion flitted across the tiefling’s face before vanishing into a sarcastic welcoming motion.

Sylmore knew it was a mistake the second the words had left his mouth, but he could hardly go back and unsay them. He would have to do some damage control before the conversation would be able to go anywhere further.

“My point is,” Sylmore said slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “That you can’t just run around here and do just whatever you want to do anymore. There’s going to be a child around here. What’s the point of having position, wealth, a title, if I can’t keep them safe from...”

“From me?” Belxari offered, her tone mocking.

“From the dangerous circumstances you had to grow up around,” he finished, his tone firm. “You didn’t deserve that. Sah didn’t deserve that. Heck, Ruby didn’t deserve that, and she walked into it knowing full well what she was getting into. I’m not inflicting that life upon my child!”

There was that look again. How he managed to say the same thing twice in as many minutes he was unsure. He was slipping, unsure of where his life was heading. Nothing had ever been certain before, but now that he had the chance at stability, he was more unsure than ever before.

He was scared.

“Listen,” Sylmore sighed, taking a seat in the armchair beside the one in which Belxari sat. “I want you around. Azaria wants you around. We want you there to help us, to be involved. As.... as much as the gods can spare you, that is.”

Belxari turned her gaze toward the fire that ever burned in the study’s fireplace, the flames reflecting in her golden eyes and giving them a molten appearance. There was a hint of gold to the flames themselves, evidence of the magic that kept them burning. It was mildly frustrating that it burned even in the summer, but he had learned to live with it. He certainly couldn’t complain to Belxari about it; she would probably just make them burn hotter if he did.

“The shenanigans just have to be kept in check. That’s all I ask.”

Belxari briefly cast a glare his direction, a look that said, “That is not what you said.” Then she shrugged and rose to her feet. She stretched, the leather of her armor creaking as she did so. He wondered for a moment if she would ever again choose to wear something comfortable rather than battle-ready. Or perhaps that was what she considered comfortable now.

“I’ll see you around,” she yawned. She didn’t need to yawn, or breathe even, but he wasn’t going to point that out.

“Azaria is due next week,” Sylmore reminded her.

“I’ll be here.” She grinned a pointy-toothed smile and fixed him with a look full of mischief. “Whether you want me here or not.”

And she was gone, a soft popping sound the only sign of her going. Sylmore shook his head and resisted the urge to chuckle.

That had gone better than most of their conversations had ever gone.

[this is part one] [part two] [part three] [part four] [part five] [part six] [(part seven)]

[pickle-inspector]

Fictober Day 17 | original fiction | 518 words

“There is just something about him when we discuss the matter,” Belxari mused over her mug of hot chocolate. “They’re all filled with regret about it, but there’s something notable about his grief.”

The witch in the seat across from her took a sip from her own mug, but said nothing, listening intently — probably — to the goddess speak. Her visible eye reflected the fire from the fireplace. The other was hidden beneath a loose eye patch that covered the bulk of the left side of her face. Belxari had never asked about it, and she likely never would.

“They were friends. They were all friends,” Belxari continued after a sip of the spicy cocoa. “It makes sense that maybe some of them were closer than others, right?”

She thought over the moments that had alerted her to... something. A little too much emotion in a statement here, an odd choice of phrasing there. The slightest twitch of his hand when someone accidentally insulted her sacrifice. An expression when he thought nobody was looking. 

Was he upset that she had gone? Or perhaps he was angry that nobody would let the topic drop. That his expressed reluctance to perform the act had been a ruse. She wouldn’t be surprised if he had simply decided she was in the way of some greater scheme he had. 

“I’m overthinking it, right?” she asked, glancing up at the witch. The witch did not respond except to continue to drink from her own mug. “I’ve been known to overthink things on occasion.” There was something to be said for her reaction too, though. The halberd — Time — Ephemera — also acted differently around him. She had openly mocked him in front of the entire Council — his offered test, his intelligence, his scythe of all things.

Perhaps it had to do with her lack of memories. She seemed to know Meyrin well enough. In fact, she acted almost motherly toward the red moon, which was a thing Belxari never thought she would see anyone do. Her interactions with Yumia and Quraura had been practically nonexistent in comparison.

She hadn’t been paying as close attention to the gods other than Lysaro. Their activities had never been as particularly interesting or disruptive to her own plans as Lysaro’s had been. She had an idea of where Meyrin stood on the whole matter, but she had failed to consider Quraura and Yumia. She hadn’t learned as much of them as she should have over the years. Maybe their reactions had just gone unnoticed by her. 

“I’m missing something.”

Or perhaps she wasn’t. She pondered the possibility that it was not missing something so much as hesitancy to recognize what she saw. It was what she had been trying to emphasize over the last few years. Was it possible she had simply missed the signs? His reasons for pulling her away from her friends, perhaps more complex than she had realized? More personal? Protective? Something downright human.

A mischievous grin spread across her face as Belxari chuckled. Maybe he had been soft all along.