#and slaps a zerthimon themed bandaid on

[gith-zeri]

Affinity

《Pre-Game, drabble, oc Lore,Tw Blood, Tw Vomiting》

Just my ramblings on Khal'ian and Issal's first meeting. Set 5 years prior to the events of baldur's gate 3, Khal'ian is 18, and Issal is 23.

Any purple text indicates Zilvuit's voice and presence. Most of it is written in drow

Just cobbled my thoughts together, not that grand.

Finding refuge in Sshamath didn't absolve Issal from the ghosts of her past. One didn't scorn the first House of Menzoberranzan and hope for a serene life in the same breath.

Assassination attempts were plenty.

 Perhaps by the spider queens meddling hands, cackling as she plucks Issal from one web to another or Fate itself simply deciding that it just hates her in particular.

That causes one of these attempts to lead her into finding solace in a family member once more. Albeit a family of her own choosing, rather than one of blood.

The plot was a simple one, yet very effective in nature.

It was a clever ruse, Issal would admit to it. Disguising a scroll of a plane shift has one of her missing schematics.

Taking into account her newly damaged eye and nerves, she wouldn't have been able to spot the innate differences in handwriting nor feel the magic crackle under her fingertips.

But sending her to a Slaadi riddled rock in Limbo? Tasteless overkill, reeks of Baenre posturing. She wondered what half-baked wizard the Matron ordered to scribe this mess. The enchantment was sloppy and barely holding the seal.

Her pondering was cut short when the scroll disintegrated and she had arrived.

Going into Limbo unprepared, whether on purpose or not, will often end up with the person dead. An individual must know how to enforce their will upon the plane, or else the constant shifting elements will quickly eliminate the body.

The lack of technique on her behalf quickly allowed Limbo to make itself known. Collapsing under her own weight and frantically gasping for air, the plane began to warp her body.

The raw chaos painfully transforms her muscles into volcanic glass, freezing her body in place, bit by bit, the air around her switching between freezing and scorching. The function of breathing turns into an enduring torment.

Heat inhalation began. She felt her lungs fill with liquid, forming severe burns in deep within issues. Her body began to drown itself in its own fluids. She can feel the slurry rapidly creep up her throat, and it's bubbling, boiling.

  She starts to cough up, boiling blood  spewing it from her mouth.

There's so much of it. It's neverending. It just gushes  out of her. And she tries and tries and tries, to stop it. She just as to force it, and force it and force it.

Battling her body to its breaking point, screaming and vomiting even more fluids.

Time starts to not make sense anymore. it feels like days and days and days - stretching on into an infinity.

One convulsion after another; again and again and again and again.

Memories and identities get so intertwined and blurred, her own name becomes foreign to her tongue, and she can no longer hold herself up.

She collapses into a puddle of her own making.

She lays there for what feels like an eternity writhing in pain. She could feel her mind trying to escape her body. but only finding itself falling into a deep recess, ..a familiar web of isolation.

The last time she was this deep into her own subconscious… she was somewhere else, was someone else...

Abruptly, she was yanked down by what could be described as her mirror image. Yet she was distorted somehow, like if she was some rabid cur rather than the pride of house Oussafin.

It was just..wrong..

Her own reflected eyes were boring into her soul, shining, like a piece of lone torchstalk;

Like a singular stalk growing right off the side of a lone road. Looking tempting, as if its only purpose was to hypnotize weary travelers and make them stumble off the well-worn path. Into the jaws of lurking predators hiding within shadows; Jaws salivating, just out of reach.

These eyes are filled with such pride and anger that it reminded her of home.

Home

Kul'gobsula

Oh, how she longed to return home and bask in its horrible splendor. how long has it been since she last laid eyes on her city?

Too long

Naut verve z'lonzic

So much within her has changed since then she's can see it clearly with these eyes, her own eyes.

 Now, she can bear witness to the prodigal daughter that never was, And realize the traitor she'll always be.

Her gazing was interrupted by its voice, her voice, that awful grating voice-

Screaming,

Cri'n,

Hating,

Ssinssriggin,

Starving,

Dro'xunou,

And with that , she's plunged deeper into the recess. Held there tightly, lovingly and spitefully. Wrapped inside an ever expanding web, always dancing to Lolth's melody.

Suffocating her

Us

There's another explosion of agony as Limbo causes her body to twist and shred. The sudden pain gives her ample opportunity to tear at her restraints and crawl upward. But she carries another beside her as well. A piece that has always been with her, but now she can feel them; squirming behind her eyes, always watching.

 Both psyches crash together and explode from the recess, as Limbo itself shrieks for a victor. And both are desperate to unweave themselves from the chaos of it all, flailing to the surface.

 She emerges victorious, managing to break through by the skin of her teeth. 

It's so hard to catch her breath. It feels like her eyes are on fire. Everything blurring, fading in and out.

It's so hazy that it takes her almost a full five minutes to adjust and recognise the shuffling shape of something approaching her.

Was it a man?

No

A boy.

Withstanding this plane couldn't be possible for a healthy adult, let alone a boy, to be floundering about this hellscape. Convinced her mind was finally liquifying into a slurry, Issal weakly gestured the boy closer, fully suspecting that he'd evaporate into the aether. He didn't.

How Concerning

Lu'oh Jivvin

He speaks, asking her something in a language she can not comprehend. she musters up the strength to utter a response in common and looks the boy in the eyes

"Please," she pauses to wheeze again. "Please help me," She croaks, and the weakness in her tone feels revolting, but she never breaks the boy’s gaze. 

Trapping him there, weakly but steadfast.

His eyes were a sweet peach color and oddly calming. She almost wants to pluck them out and cradle them close to her chest.

He asks again timidly, tense and nervous, yet he starts to inch closer. Craning his head to the side, attempting to get a better view of her, how unnerving she must look to him. Laying in her own blood and filth, only moments before screaming at herself like a madwoman.

Dosst naut maglust, dalninil.

She wets her lips again. They taste metallic and are coated thick with bile. She tries to answer the boy again, but

Another round of convulsions stops her.

 The agony that was temporarily forgotten returns with a vengeance inside her lungs.

There's a loud shout. She hears the scrambling of feet in front of her and feels a set of gentle hands trying to coax her onto her feet. 

The boy.

He's propping her upright onto his shoulder, rubbing and tracing symbols on her back, frantically chanting a phrase over and over.

"Ghustil, Ghustil, ra'stil!" Is all she can make out before she's thrown over his shoulder.

She can only whimper weakly.

But he's with her, steadfast through it all.

 Carrying her along firmly and letting her vomit, scream, and bleed all over his back. 

She blacks out.

And awakens in a monastery, bandaged and healed. She learns of the gith and the Tir'su being spoken to her. But most importantly, she learns the name of the boy who saved her.

Khal'ian

Dalninuk