#Daeran is both fun to write and also terrifying

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

book club meeting no. 0

for the @owlcatober prompt 3, reading.

Daeran interrupts Mura reading to have a conversation around the books shes been weighing the party down with, and requests for certain types of books

warnings: none! except some dirty humor about illustrated demon summoning books and a joke that's in line with daerans dialog about certain key figures of the crusades.

The vapid aasimar lounges in her doorway, a book in his hands; A book that should be locked in her chest at the foot of her bed. The bed she's currently sitting on, curled over reading one of the books that caught her eye in the library, just before she finally gave way to exhaustion.

‘And pray tell, why do you think you have the right to rifle through my things?’ a tad defensive, but he revels in evoking such emotion.

‘I was hoping that at least one of the books you decided to make us lug around the city after various mutts and malcontenters would make for more interesting reading than the blandness that counts as reading material in this armpit of the city’ a faux outraged turn of his head, ‘you would think a establishment such as a tavern would have interesting material, not this depravity of culture’ a mock look of dismayed understanding, ‘although i do suppose the damn crusaders got here first and practically leached anything interesting out of this place the second they crosses the threshold’

She volleyed back with a desert dry voice ‘what a shame, i left the heretical books illustrated sex rituals in the dungeon with their creators corpses, i thought i should let their ghosts have some entertainment. And given that you occupy so much of your time and derive so much joy from taunting the crusaders that surround us, I thought that sated your appetite for entertainment. I see my mistake now, and shall seek to rectify it in the future’

‘Surely you could have left some for me?’ he pulled off the pleading look well, but not as well as the tiefling. 

‘If we make it out of here alive i'll commission you a personalized version with all the sacrifices being replaced by her majesty’

And there was the sharp grin that was uncomfortably close to the one that fills her dreams.

‘I will hold you to that, as payment for my suffering among these cruel killer of joy’ his dramatics made him more irritating than endearing, but he was plenty of entertainment by himself, and though she didn't suffer much under the practicality of the current crusaders, the urge to laugh in there face and mock them to the end of the earth for their naivete and piousness was one she fought down often, so having the count voice her slander made some petty part of her sing with joy.

‘Your more than welcome to leave, i believe you should be able to walk out the door’ a dramatic point not out of place on a theater stage, but slightly out of place coming from her wrinkled and creased shirt sleeve, and topped by her cracked nail polish and in some cases torn nails. 

Of course the world had conspired against her appearance in front of the one person in the city who would currently care.

His smug and self assured voice cut through her thoughts, ‘Please you would miss my darling personality’ 

Sharpening her tongue, she lowers her hand and dons a smug grin of her own,  ‘I wouldn't miss the severed heads weighing us down- surely they take up more space than a few books’

A thud through the left wall, and a cut off exclamation accompanied by the sound of swiftly moving hair proved that the tiefling and the half elf had both been, at least to some extent, listening in.

Mentally rewinding the conversation revealed no major conflict, indeed the thief would almost certainly appreciate her joke about the queen, although the rapier wielder was another thing altogether, but one on the fence rather than far out in the field on the opposite side.

The healer in front, on the other hand, had become an order of magnitude more insufferable for his small success in her slip up. Although the jokes on him, given the loudest their conversation got was her sharply revealing the source of the severed heads plaguing the groups various storage's.

Wrapping her hand around the spine of the book splayed open on the covers of her bed, she snapped it shut in an attempt to signal an end to the conversation. 

An attempt that works thankfully, with a mere parting shot of ‘i'll hold you to that promise, and make no promise of my own about hiding the source’ as he turned away to his own corner of the tavern.

A grin slowly built up inside before bursting onto her face as she slipped a hand under her pillow and cracked open the sloppily bound, and disconcertingly bloodstained book hidden underneath.

A delightful read, and insight into the warped minds of the cultists they were fighting, even if some of them were, let's say, lacking imagination. Maybe it would even find its way under the pillow of a certain counts chair.

A book club sounds like the perfect idea to promote conversation and bonds between the ragtag group- she couldn't wait to see what books the count managed to find if it did go ahead.