#i'm absolutely adding way more subtext than the game intends :P

[blackjackkent]

After Shadowheart walks away, Aylin and Rakha are left just standing there staring at each other awkwardly.

Aylin's eyes narrow, suddenly attentive, and she leans forward a little. "There you are," she says briskly. "I have awaited you arrival with great anticipation. Come closer."

Rakha has been standing several arms' lengths away from Aylin, and even further from Isobel; even now the beast urge in her head wants them dead, and it is a visceral struggle not to give it the upper hand. There is no way Aylin has not noticed it - either the distance, or the threat.

But she invites Rakha closer anyway. An expression of trust, of friendship? Or a pre-emptive trap?

Rakha shifts warily, her eyes narrowing.

Stay back, ready to defend yourself.

To her surprise - Aylin smiles faintly. "Ho! Surely you cannot fear me," she says, with a distinct note of dry humor. "You who have fought beside me in the war against damned Ketheric Thorm?"

The unspoken message is clear. It is you who threatens, not I. But I am not frightened of you. It is still difficult to tell, though, whether that lack of fear is from trust - or simply because she does not believe Rakha could hurt her.

Rakha hesitates, then nods slowly.

Step closer.

She moves to just within Aylin's reach and then stops again. Her hands clench behind her back as she battles back a low, hungry growl in her head.

Aylin smiles fiercely, her fists clenching, her arms lifting. "Feel my voice rattle your bones as I proclaim our victory!" she cries. "Moonmaiden, Selune, hear me!" Her voice lifts into the trees overhanging the camp, past them into the still-muddled sky. "Ketheric Thorm, traitor, Apostle of Myrkul is dead at last! My mate most high - darling Isobel - is safe and well! Safe and well and returned to my embrace!"

She thumps a gauntleted hand against her chest - then drops her eyes to Rakha's again. There is none of the glowing fire in them that Rakha has seen before - but her gaze is just as intense. "Blessings upon the slayer of the wicked one!"

It takes Rakha a moment to realize that Aylin means her. That she is offering Rakha a blessing.

She does not know how broken I am.

She flinches back a little from the offered gift, looks around curiously, half-expecting some bolt of light to crash down in answer to Aylin's invocation. But nothing happens - neither blessing nor curse.

"Where's the silver light?" she asks cautiously. "The... moon-magic?"

Aylin shakes her head, amused as if at a child's thoughtless question. "Listen to the subtle vibrations of the Moonmaiden thumping within your heart-chambers, friend," she says gravely. "She works her magic there."

Rakha hesitates, focuses inward, feeling around for the vibrations Aylin describes. Certainly she can sense something of Aylin's own magic - the pale shimmer of white-gold light on her skin, over her armor. But if there is any blessing that has penetrated into her own heart... she doesn't feel it. Perhaps it is too subtle for her, or perhaps too drowned out by the beast's growling.

A pity. She would have welcomed Selune's peace if it was to be offered to her. But she knows nothing more of that goddess than any other.

Aylin watches her thoughtfully. "My darling Isobel says we will stay allied at your side," she goes on after a little while - more conversationally, but even in conversation her voice resonates like an invocation. "I am pleased to hear it."

Rakha frowns slightly. She knows, intellectually, that Aylin and Isobel are both powerful allies of the sort that the Guardian told her to gather. But every moment they are in camp is an invitation for Rakha to slip, to kill... for the beast in her head still wants the blood of these Selunites beyond any other.

On the other hand... she suspects Aylin's pleasure at being here is genuine. And it is, in that case, an expression of trust after all - one even more serious than the one Jaheira offered her. Because Aylin, Rakha is quite sure, knows perfectly well that Rakha is violent, dangerous, angry - and she is shrugging it aside.

She smiles faintly - not sure herself if the expression is sincere or sardonic. "There's still a great deal about you I don't know," she says curtly. And you don't know about me.

Aylin quirks up an eyebrow calmly. "Pray, ask, and I will tell."

Rakha considers for a moment. Whether Aylin realizes it or not, this is another peace offering - an invitation to ask and to receive answers. "Are you really Selune's daughter?" she asks.

"Do I not radiate with my mother's brightness? Her glory?" Aylin says promptly. "There can be no doubt. I am of her silvered flesh, her celestial womb!"

Rakha blinks several times as she processes slowly through this sentence. It's like talking to Gale, if Gale were the child of a god instead of an ex-lover. "Would your mother be willing to aid us?" she asks doubtfully. "In the fight against the Dead Three?"

"Why, she already has!" Aylin crows. "She has brought her sword to your side. Dame Aylin! So mighty are her wonders, her great wisdom. Together we will set this fair land free of tyranny and murder."

Another slow blink from Rakha. She knows very little of gods beyond what she has heard from her companions - but this seems a strange interpretation of events. Aylin is here because she was trapped in the Shadowfell for a century. And it was her and her companions that released her, not Selune. If the goddess orchestrated this, it seems a cruel way to have gone about it.

"How did you come to be trapped in the Shadowfell?" she asks slowly.

Aylin's face twists suddenly with anger and grief at the memory. "Mm. Ketheric Thorm," she growls. "Father of my one and only love. Enslaver of Dame Aylin." She laughs bitterly. "Ketheric Thorm never did trust me, even when he worshiped the Moonmaiden. He was threatened by my love for Isobel, by her love for me. When she died - curse the day, the hour! - we each of us mourned bitterly. But Ketheric's pain could be touched by no aid, no boundary."

She leans forward, her jaw working with muted rage. "He turned to wretched Shar, the Lady of Loss, for relief. And she whispered into his ear, poisoning his mind. He and his loathsome advisor, Balthazar, lured me into the Shadowfell, claimed they'd found someone in need of my aid. There they trapped me in their infernal cage."

Her head twitches, a flinch away from an unseen blow. "I was killed, murdered, made dead, over and over and over by Justiciars of every make and kind. I was reborn, for it is my nature. And Ketheric fed upon my immortality all the while."

Her eyes flare suddenly, and her lips curl in a brutal, ferocious smile. "But lo - the brute is dead! And we- we live!"

Memory slaps through Rakha - unbidden flashes first unearthed in that pit below Moonrise. A knife in the hand of Kressa Bonedaughter, stabbing down into Rakha's torso, slicing her open, again, and again, and again. Opening her up, tearing her apart, exploring every inch of her and finding with each moment a new agony to evoke. That mad gleam of possessive ardor in her eyes as she sewed Rakha closed, only for the pleasure of once again ripping her open.

She swallows, squeezes her eyes shut. The beast's rage at Aylin is tangling with something more complicated. Camaraderie? Understanding? Her head aches like there's a knife in it and her heart pumps a steady pulse in her temple.

They have both been tortured, both fought together and destroyed Ketheric and Kressa both. Perhaps, despite the pain, it will be good to fight together again, when they find the others that need killing.

But lo, the brute is dead. And we... we live...