@quiiscnt im taking the opportunity to do 3 😅 so here's #2/3
Send ⭐ for a sample of a new muse I am thinking of writing // accepting
The shop filled with ‘pre-loved’ wares caught her eye. Her heeled boots clicked distinctly on the pavement as she crossed the street towards it, her reflection in the window growing clearer as she approached. Her red cape fluttered behind her, the vibrant colour popping against the dark dress she wore and the drab structures all around. Standing out from the crowd had never bothered Laki, so it was no matter to her that judging stares followed her as she went. Due to her brisk movement, a section of her lavender fringe shifted across her field of vision, she fixed it with a brush of gloved fingertips as she came to a stop.
A little step closer and her image disappeared from the window, allowing her to peer inside the shop. Various items were arranged in a little scene. A worn armchair sat flanked by an old coffee table that was laden with a delicate tea set. Beside them, a scuffed bookshelf housed a scattering of figurines and other knickknacks, while a few old paintings were propped up against the sides. She scanned her eyes over the contents of the shelf, skipping the well preserved and paired items in the search of, well….something she didn’t know yet. Something delightfully strange. Something odd.
Bending her legs, she slowly eased into a crouch to examine the lower items. Her gaze shifted behind the shelf, further into the shop, and her heart skipped. Immediately, she straightened and headed inside the building. Around chairs, tables, displays and racks, she moved over to another bookshelf holding an assortment of pieces. On the lowest shelf, beneath the matched sets of dolls and glassware…there.
She reached forward and picked up the wooden figure with care, a smile growing as she traced the unusual features. It was not the same one from her childhood (she still had that one at home of course), yet she recognised this one as being from the same series. The company had released two lines of similar toys, one made of quality porcelain with expertly painted detailing and well-crafted clothes, and one made of wood and cheaper materials. In her younger years, she’d first had the porcelain dolls, as her parents had spared no expense in her toys (or anything in the house for that matter). Until they lost it all of course.
After that, well…she’d considered herself lucky to have anything to play with at all, and had been touched when her father had humbly presented her with the cheap toy one quiet afternoon. She recalled the way he’d almost seemed to be wincing as he held it out to her, his worry apparent in his explanation of the fact that he’d only been able to get a set that had been returned to the store as damaged. He promised that he would get her a brand new and much better toy once things improved, but she’d assured him what he’d given her was more than she could hope for.
Like her own doll, this one she held now was…unique. Imperfect, as some might say, broken. Whoever had previously owned the figure had attempted to style the woollen hair with some sort of dye and a cut that left the strands half unravelled.
Laki smiled warmly, fingertips caressing the unruly hair. As she smoothed out the scratchy fabric of the toy’s outfit, the shopkeeper approached her. The elderly man gave a disapproving gasp and shook his head, “Oh, I’m sorry Miss, I don’t know where that thing came from. Please, allow me to dispose of it.”
Clutching the doll tightly now, Laki turned her gaze to the man, her smile unchanged.
“I want it. How much is it?”
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one of my favorite little pieces of headcanon I have been rotating around in my mind is that in the graveyard scene in Astarion's romance, there is such a realistic chance for being caught.
i mean, it's in the middle of the Lower City. it's literally in a hotbed of activity (criminal and otherwise), at a place that's frequented by mourners, and zombies, and elements even less savory than that. the security, even if it does relax, probably doesn't stop at night, or at least not for as long as it should.
in my hc, the Mortarch who is patrolling the grounds during the day lives in one of the buildings overlooking the graveyard, and i'm thinking about a possibility where she just... happens to glance out the window on her way back from the bathroom, and catch a not entirely unusual glimpse of a macabre couple. (This is Baldur's Gate. There are most definitely people who are morbid enough to want to make love on top of a grave without any specific inspiration for it, and to be fair, it'd be more concerning if someone's first thought at seeing that was "hm, well hold on now, one of them could be the deceased, and this moment could be a beautifully cathartic metaphor for rebirth".)
in this version, a shout startles them apart, and they have roughly a minute to disentangle themselves from each other and flee before the Mortach would make it down the stairs.
yanking clothes on to make themselves actually presentable isn't really feasible, of course: Astarion can manage to pull his pants up to the point where they're kind of on, if undone still (they were around his knees, the upward motion wasn't the difficult part, it was stuffing himself back in there that proves a futile task), and Iona manages to make a split-second decision and opt for throwing on his shirt (which is at least long enough to pass for a dress on her, if a deeply indecent one, especially with nothing else on), and it's with truly uncontrollable, free laughter bubbling from them (and the rest of whatever clothing they -mainly she- had on clutched in their fists) that they half-run, half-drag each other out the gate.
the city is fairly quiet, of course. it's gone past being late and well into the small hours of the morning, the pink dawn is just about to start licking at the tiled roofs, and even a city as bustling as Baldur's Gate is largely empty, as if asleep.
they run and stumble through the streets chased by the echo of their own giddy laughter bouncing off the walls. they dodge the patrolling guards and Steel Watchers by ducking into side-streets and doorways, pushing and dragging each other up against the wall for playful kisses- a ruffle of his hair, a squeeze of her ass, a thigh drawn up to his waist with a grip just this side of rough, a scratch down his chest and a nibble on an earlobe, they just can't keep their hands off one another for long enough to make it back home.
she bloody well squeals as his hand finds its way under "her" clothes as she runs up the stairs to their rooms (to be fair, her ass was at eye-level, what's a man to do?), and picking that lock should be the easiest thing in the world (the key? who knows. probably fallen out of her pocket and into a sewer somewhere. absolutely not important.), but not with the dirty, airy whispers in his ear and the hot, insistent kisses being mouthed onto his jaw, his neck, his shoulder...
the communal room may have been a mistake in retrospect, but the roof... may offer some privacy. probably. it's more than nothing, at least.
besides, there is scarcely a better way to greet the first golden morning of a free life than... bathed in its light, warm and content, while overlooking a city full of such endless possibilities.
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