#Artemis Entreri is trying to have a Moment here

[thespacelizard]

kiss in the sand

@fluffbruary day 3! and i am returning to my love my life my light my boys with some Jartemis beach-flavoured fluff. Up on AO3 as well here.

In which Jarlaxle and Artemis hit the beach.

Boots on the sand, a familiar tread; a thud and a huff next to him. A smile crooked the corner of Jarlaxle’s mouth, hidden by the hat set over his face to block the sun. “I take it you are finished being cross with me?”

Artemis plucked his hat away and he squinted in the sunlight. Entreri didn’t quite glower at him, just wore his usual faint exasperation at the world, and Jarlaxle in particular.

“No ridiculous disguise today? Are you feeling quite well?”

“Being myself is a disguise.”

Artemis dumped a handful of sand onto his bare stomach. “Do you ever think about what comes out of your mouth before you open it?”

“Frequently, when I am not talking to you.”

Jarlaxle sat up, brushing the sand off—then cleaned off his palm by ruffling Artemis’ hair. Entreri scowled delightfully and batted him away.

“Bothered by a little sand? What a terrible Calishite you are.”

“Says the drow so addicted to sunlight he is half naked on a beach on the surface.”

“It could be worse, abbil.”

“Could it now.”

Jarlaxle bared his teeth obnoxiously. “I could be entirely naked on a beach on the surface.”

Artemis rolled his eyes and made such a show of getting up to leave it could not have more obviously been a front. Jarlaxle grabbed his ankle and dragged him to the ground, the move precipitating a brief wrestling match that ended with him face down, spitting sand, Entreri’s knee in the small of his back.

“You could at least have taken your shirt off first,” he said. Who had put quite so many grains in beach sand? It was wretched. “Maybe put on some oils. It’s like you do not even care about my needs.”

“I don’t.”

“Liar.”

Jarlaxle relaxed for a moment, long enough to try to lull Entreri into a false sense of security, then surged up, twisting, trying to throw Artemis off. It half worked—now at least he was on his back with a hand free. Artemis had the other wrist pinned above his head, and a pleasant little shiver darted up his spine. He reached up, slowing when Entreri flinched away, and brushed his cheek with the back of his hand.

“Are you still cross with me about the dragon thing?”

Artemis sighed, and Jarlaxle made a happy noise when the human dipped his head and kissed him. Warm lips, warm skin beneath his palms, warm sand, warm sun. What better way to waste an afternoon? His hands started wandering of their own accord, and Artemis sat up.

“Public beach,” he pointed out. Jarlaxle ignored him and ran his hands up Artemis’ thighs, thoroughly enjoying having the human straddling him. He lazily rolled his thumbs back and forth at the highest point he could reach; Entreri’s breath hitched. Jarlaxle let his gaze trail up Artemis’ body, slow and hungry.

“I killed a dragon,” he said.

“You helped kill a dragon,” Entreri corrected. He very studiously ignored Jarlaxle’s attentions, as if doing so would make him stop. “I’ve heard them tell it—you did very little.”

“They would have done far worse without my considerable moral support. And financial assistance.”

“So you are buying your victories now, are you? Get your hands off.” Artemis finally slapped his hands away from where Jarlaxle had gotten his belt halfway unbuckled. He started to get up—Jarlaxle dragged him back down into another kiss. Soft lips, stubble scraping his chin, that familiar, welcome annoyance. Entreri sighed into his mouth, all fond frustration.

Jarlaxle behaved himself, and let him go after not nearly long enough; Entreri rolled off of him and flopped down in the sand. The late spring sun threw lovely pools of shadow in the curve of his neck, gilded the hair on his arms. Calling him beautiful was a quick way to a black eye—or worse—but Jarlaxle thought it anyway.

“Will you stay until the carnival is over?” he asked. He retrieved his hat from where it had fallen and set it back on his head. “I’ve so little to do now that the Grand Game has rather neatly wrapped up.”

“You have enough bed warmers.”

“I am bored of acrobats and actresses.” Jarlaxle knelt forwards. He traced along Entreri’s jaw with light fingers. “I’m in the mood for an assassin.”

His fingers brushed over Artemis’ mouth and Entreri bit him. Jarlaxle flicked his nose, getting a palmful of sand in his face for his trouble.

“I’ll stay,” Artemis said, whilst he was cursing and scrubbing sand from his eyes. “If you can promise me, definitively, that there will be no more dragons.”

Jarlaxle put a hand on his heart. “I swear on my life.”

“Not much of an oath.”

“Very much of an oath, you know how highly I value my continued existence.” He sprawled out next to Artemis and set his hat over his face again. “And if there is another dragon, I promise you can have first chance at feeding me to it.”

“I will hold you to that.”

Artemis slid a hand into his. Jarlaxle squeezed it, glad to have it back where he liked it. “Does this mean you will come and stay on the Eyecatcher with me instead of sulking in that awful tavern?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

Jarlaxle grinned. He’d take that as a yes.

#fluffbruary #fluffbruary 2023 #jarlaxle/artemis #jartemis #jarlaxle baenre #artemis entreri #legend of drizzt fanfiction #forgotten realms fanfiction #my fic

[mllelaurel]

My Shard read proceeds apace.

“What in the Nine Hells is a Drizzt?” - The best line of dialogue in the entire series has arrived. All other dialogue can pack up and go home. 

And then, Dwahvel’s like ‘oh yeah, it’s your murder crush. The guy you wouldn’t shut up about for a year. I can’t expect to keep ‘em all straight, you know.’ 

-

Sharlotta’s narrative continues to not impress me. Let her be competent at something she’s supposed to be competent at, instead of being batted around by every guy she interacts with. 

-

Ooop, there’s the part that mentions Kimmuriel and Rai-guy being roommates (Oh my God, they were roommates! ...I am not original.) And I think that’s the same chapter which has one of them just casually refer to the other as a friend in POV. Which I gather is a heck of a thing, given the society they grew up in. 

I’m wondering if part of how the Bregan D’aerthe works. Mostly what we see of it in this book is petty bitch infighting, but I can’t help thinking there’s a certain defiant and - basically queer for its origins - camaraderie to it, without which the troop would have fallen apart a century ago. Caring about others is transgressive, and that transgression is part of the appeal. 

-

I really wish I could do even the most basic animation, because every time Jarlaxle interacts with the Crenshinibon, all I want to do is set it to this clip from Beetlejuice the musical. 

(I found my frequency/Crystals speak to me

What are they saying?

Buy more crystals) [Insert picture of a second tower here]

To be clear, I can’t even draw a satisfying stick figure, let alone animate fuck-all.

-

Oooh, there we go. The Entreri vs. Jarlaxle fight and Jarlaxle and Entreri vs Kimmuriel and Rai-guy when they arrive is genuinely gripping. There’s a really good balance of tension and fun (beat the hell out of your friend vs. throw a giant bird at the guys trying to coup you, GJ Jarlaxle), and I couldn’t help but notice a lot of the stiffness in the writing falls away. I’d wager Bob had fun writing it.  

Okay, let me actually unpack Jarlaxle’s different approaches to the two back-to-back fights, because I think there’s something interesting here. 

You could just make the argument that Jarlaxle is being entirely hosed by the crystal in the first fight. And Crenshinibon is kind of one-track-minded and not very fun. Whereas by the second fight, Artemis has ganked the crystal, not that Jarlaxle knows it. 

But if you take the Cinnabon out of the equation, what you’re left with is, Jarlaxle expects betrayal but doesn’t take it well at all from someone he genuinely likes. As he seems to like Entreri. In contrast, I don’t get the impression he’s close to Rai-guy at all, and while he and Kimmuriel have the potential for closeness, even this early on, they are not there yet. Their betrayal is ‘sigh, intrigue has come upon me. Welp, that was inevitable. But you forget - I love a good challenge!’ Whereas Entreri’s feels like a genuine betrayal. So Jarlaxle goes dead-serious and deadly. 

-

Speaking of potential for closeness, from Kimmuriel and Rai-guy’s conversation immediately after, you can just tell that Kimmuriel gets Jarlaxle, the Bregan D’aerthe, and Menzoberranzan in a way Rai-guy explicitly does not. 

“We have to find them,” Rai-guy said a moment later. “I want Jarlaxle dead. How else might I ever know a reprieve?”

“You are now the leader of a mercenary band of males housed in Menzoberranzan,” Kimmuriel replied. “You will find no reprieve, no break from the constant dangers and matron games. This is the trapping of power, my companion.”

Kimmuriel gets how the sausage is made. And we get our first hint of why he winds up half in charge of Bregan D’aerthe over the years. 

- 

Also speaking of closeness:

“[Entreri] could easily [escape] alone, he knew, and he had the real Crystal Shard, but for some reason he couldn’t quite understand, and didn’t bother even to think about, he turned back and grabbed Jarlaxle again, pulling him behind.”

Entreri, you dense-ass tsundere. 

-

I would also like you all to know that I just retyped both those passages. Because I can’t make copy-paste from an Overdrive e-book work. Faaaaaail. 

#legend of drizzt

[bylightofdawn]

Dungeons & Dragons was hilarious and excellent, turn your brain off and just enjoy the show movie. I went in with semi-low expectations so maybe that's why it exceeded them so much. Lots of fun easter eggs and nods to fans of the tabletop system. I'll discuss some stuff below the cut but I am just gonna put myself on blast here but holy hades....Michelle Rodriguez's barbarian character? I know she was going to be hot because it's Michelle Rodriguez so it's just a given.

But she beefed up for this role and not to call myself out for my subby tendencies but I need a hot barbarian girlfriend who will pin my ass to the wall make me her bottom b*tch and or potentially crush my head between her mountainous thighs. Fuck me running. Hi yes, I am very, very gay for Holga.

Like, she was distracting and making me feel all sorts of ways.

Also, now to be the utterly ridiculous bi that I am, Regé-Jean Page was ALSO unbearably hot in this movie, especially when he was being super competent and just mopping the floor with fools. I never thought a paladin could be that hot. I don't know which god he's sworn to but they obviously imbued him with that smoldering hot holy warrior spiciness. When he cast smite on his sword I was done. Sir, you are already unfairly attractive, how dare you level up in sexiness somehow?

I also kinda high key love he was kinda coded maybe overly serious maybe could be read as autistic? Like I totally read him as autistic which is awesome if that's what they were going for.

Honestly? Everyone in this movie is pretty. Of course they all are.

After the movie, I ended up going to ulta, sorta mentally checked out and bought way too much stuff. So much so I'm like....I need to return some of this. So I guess I'm going back on Sunday. Some of it I thought was on sale but I guess I misread the ads.

And I stopped by the local Vietnamese place and got some pho which was....very good and I have a bahn mi sitting next to me that I should really eat but I'm kinda full from the pho because I always underestimate the portions you get at pho places. It's quite literally pho for days.

EDIT: Somehow I managed to eat that bahn mi but I legit might need to pass out now. I've had a piss poor appetite the past few days thanks to being stressed out and just in bad head space. So I've had like one meal a day the past two days and today I didn't eat at all. Because I was mainly busy. But by the time I got done with eating to say I was famished is an understatement. I think I just made up for the past three days of not eating.

I really need to edit Seeds but I think I might just pass out and go into a food coma instead.

SO MY MAJOR COMPLAINT. We went to the Underdark and didn't SEE A SINGLE DROW??? So my major knowledge of D&D comes from Forgotten Realms. I know the system, have watched some Crit Role. But I just I loved those books and Drizzt to DEATH growing up. And then they introduced Artemis Entreri and Jarlaxle and I was sunk.

I STILL buy a Forgotten Realms book if I know those two are going to be in it. They're like my trashy comfort characters. You will see a predictable pattern in my trashy comfort characters.

I knew I wasn't going to get Drizzt or Jarlaxle because they are FR characters but the moment they mentioned the Underdark I was still screaming in my seat mentally because I thought they'd bring the Drow in somehow.

And they didn't. And I was very, very sad.

Also? If I ever get a black cat somehow, I am naming her Guenhwyvar, that's how much of a FR nerd I am. And literally no one but .5 % of the population will get that reference. Also it's hard enough to get my vet to spell Genji's name right, can you imagine trying to get them to spell Guenhwyvar? FORGET ABOUT IT.

But, eh it's a minor bitch in the grand scheme of things. I was still so stoked to see/hear things like Icewnd Dale and the Spine on the map and Neverwinter and Waterdeep etc.

Also THEY HAD A CAMEO OF THE OLD D&D CARTOON CHARACTERS. SCREAM. I used to that that with my mom as a kid, that was one of those few stark childhood memories I have of watching D&D and Voltron with her.

There was a Mimic which made me squee and a gelatinous cube. Not super deep easter egg shit but enough to make me feel in on the jokes, you know? And freaking displacer beasts.

And some Dragonborn and Aarakocra! Ugh my nerdy heart is full of joy.

Suffice it to say, I loved it. I might go see it again though I also want to go see the Super Mario Movie and maybe John Wick 4. There are way too movies out I want to see.

#dungeons and dragons: honor among thieves #minor spoiler discussions of the movie but mainly just my screaming and squealing over random d&d stuff #hi yes I am a filthy bi and this movie made my ace ass feel stuff

[systlin]

I’ll give Road of the Patriarch one thing; I can completely imagine it as a campaign playing out, because the rogue/assassin trying to have a Moment and kill the corrupt priest who is hinted to be their father as the DM brings their backstory back to fuck them All The Way Up and then the fuckin. Chaotic Neutral bard/swashbuckler’s player decides to go :3 and loose a large murder bird and a pissed off dwarf on a warpig in the middle of your Big Character Moment is so on point.

#Forgotten Realms #Listen #Artemis Entreri is trying to have a Moment here #And Jarlaxle is like #Chaos? #Chaos!

[cerebrobullet]

*slams fist on table* HERE’S MY FUCKING JEDAO ESSAY

alright i am in the middle of reading Hexarchate Stories (i read Glass Cannon first because i was gonna die if i didn’t learn what happened next lmao). BUT ANYWAY i got to the author note where Yoon Ha Lee mentions that originally Jedao was more “hollywood psychopath”, and it got me really thinking why exactly i adore him so much as he is now. because he has still done terrible things willingly. he’s still manipulative, and even in Glass Cannon we see OG Jedao was still being a dick with using Cheris against Kujen. but, beyond that, Jedao comes with... sincerity. And even vulnerability, which, with a character archetype like him, feels so refreshing and exciting. I keep thinking of Artemis Entreri from R.A. Salvatore’s books. For many years I was desperate to find complexity and redemption in him as a character. And he eventually kind of got it?? but like in a super shitty hand wavy way (he plays a flute that “opens his heart” instead of like idk... having a character arc lmao). I remember that, even though Entreri was evil and constantly written to show how bad he was, until he wasn’t, i was always hunting for something deeper in his character. I feel like Jedao is the exact opposite of that experience. Here’s a character who is, from the beginning, described to be evil and treacherous and “crazy” because of what he’s done. I feel like in so many books, that’s exactly the tone they’d stick with. The character would be manipulative and constantly showing how cold they are, etc. But instead, Jedao comes with a bad (deserved) reputation, but also sincerity in what he says and his motives, and at certain points a revealing vulnerability which is not immediately hand waved away and forgotten. God, especially when we get Jedao Two and see just how soft his center is, kjadsf god it fucking kills me man. This are important moments about him as a person, about what he believes in and is fighting his way towards. he kills and assassinates and manipulates people, but he is also terrified of the dark, is trying to dismantle a tyrannical empire, and is still haunted but choices he was forced to make while following orders. none of these are excuses or meant to erase other facts, but just.... facts about him, lain bare for us to use to understand him.  I just- when the carrion bomb is about to go off, he tells Cheris what he can, his fucking voice cracks as he explains he fucked up. I don’t see that as a gambit to get her to save him or anything. He just, gives her everything he has left. Because he cared, because he trusted her more than anyone else he’d ever managed to touch in 400 years. Because she left a light on for him and was a good person. and that’s just KILLER, MAN. IT’S SO GOOD. This is a terrible essay, but i just love the two of them so much. i love the complexity with which they’re painted, especially when i’ve seen so many similar character relationships and dynamics done in such duller colors.

#I HAVE..... A LOT OF BOTTLED UP EMOTIONS #I MUST YELL #MoE thought vomit

[artemis-entreri]

[[ Following up on the title and summary announce, Gizmodo has released the cover for the next Drizzt book, “Relentless”, the conclusion to the Generations Trilogy. Furthermore, the preview teased features not Drizzt, Zaknafein, nor any other drow. Instead, a certain human assassin apparently takes the spotlight, despite the character illustrated on the cover of the book. ]]

[[ Who is this mysterious elf? Presumably, it’s a drow, although the coloring scheme makes that uncertain. I’m guessing it’s Zaknafein, as Drizzt and Jarlaxle have both been featured already, but it’s honestly hard to tell. Zaknafein is described as having short hair earlier in the Generations Trilogy and this character appears to have long hair, but that could just be due to the vague shape definitions in the artwork. It appears that this mysterious figure also has facial hair in the form of a goatee. His armor doesn’t look like anything we’ve seen before, so I’m hoping it is indeed Zaknafein and not something silly like Artemis Entreri turned into a drow. 

Without further ado, the excerpt from “Relentless”: ]] 

Artemis Entreri stood at the edge of the chasm that held the primordial of fire, his jeweled dagger laying loosely atop his open and up-facing palm. He stared at the weapon, hatred in his eyes, but only because that dagger was a reflection on him. He understood that now. He realized now, after his stint in the cocoon of conscience, that his worst crimes were those when he had put this evil weapon to use.

Entreri had killed many foes, both in battle and in secret. He had lived as a hired assassin. Always had he justified his work by telling himself that he had never killed anyone who hadn’t deserved it – the world was a brutal place, after all. He still believed that to some extent, except for this particular weapon. He hadn’t just killed people with this weapon, he had obliterated their souls and stolen whatever afterlife might have awaited them.

How many of his victims had deserved that?

He couldn’t justify it, not ever.

He stood there staring, contemplating, and the biggest question twisting his thoughts in that dark moment was whether he should simply toss the weapon to its destruction or jump in beside it.

A fall, a flash of intense pain, and it would be over.

The man winced. Nay, it was not a fear of death that kept him on that ledge, but the fear now of what awaited him when he crossed that final river.

Perhaps that was the true torture of Sharon, he considered. She had shown him what awaited him, making him fear death more than he hated life.

“Damn it all,” the broken man whispered, his words disappearing under the continual hiss of the dripping water falling to the heat below. “Damn that I was ever born.”

“Once I might have agreed with you,” came an unexpected response, and the assassin spun about to see Catti-brie and Yvonnel walking up behind him.

“There was an Artemis Entreri I thought worthless,” Catti-brie continued. “That is not the man standing before me now.”

“We have already had this discussion,” Yvonnel reminded the man. “You have been given a great gift.”

“A gift,” Entreri echoed with a snort.

“A message, then, and, clearly, a powerful one,” the drow restated, staring at his open hand and the dagger. “You wish to destroy that weapon?”

“Perhaps I’ll drop it in and it will eat the primordial,” Entreri mused.

“Not hardly,” said Yvonnel.

“If you wish, I’ll bring it down for you,” Catti-brie offered. She paused and smiled. “Didn’t you try to do the same with the sword you still carry?” It was a rhetorical question, of course, for Entreri had indeed thrown Charon’s Claw into the chasm, only to have it retrieved by this very same Catti-brie.

Entreri laughed at the reminder. “It would seem that I have been long cursed with evil weapons.”

“Weapons are merely tools,” Yvonnel said. “The intent is in the heart of the wielder, not the blade.”

“One could argue that the dirk Regis carries is equally vile,” Catti-brie reminded. “Or the sword I once carried.”

“The sword that nearly drove you insane, if I recall,” Entreri said dryly.

“Because I was not nearly experienced enough and skilled enough to control the base instincts it teased,” Catti-brie said. “Such is not the case now, as with you and your sword.”

“Is death at the hands of simple iron any less death than that with your dagger?” Yvonnel asked.

“Yes, that is the point,” said Entreri.

Yvonnel looked at him doubtfully.

“The dagger eats the souls of its victims, so they say,” Catti-brie explained.

“And gives to me their physical health,” Entreri added.

“Yes, yes,” Yvonnel said. “This is why Zhindia Melarn was so outraged at the loss of her daughter to your dagger. I remember now. The girl could not be resurrected because of the manner of her death.”

“Because the magic of this dagger obliterated her soul,” Entreri said, and he thought then of simply letting it fall into the pit.

“That cannot be,” Yvonnel replied, giving him pause. He looked at her curiously.

“One cannot ‘obliterate’ a soul,” Yvonnel explained. “Such energy is eternal, beyond the gods, even, and surely beyond the power of a simple dagger.”

“You just said that Zhindia was outraged because…”

“Because her daughter could not be brought back from the afterlife,” said Yvonnel.

“Because she had no afterlife,” Entreri reasoned.

Catti-brie looked to Yvonnel, who was shaking her head.

“If the souls are not destroyed, then is it possible that they have instead, been absorbed and trapped in the dagger?” Catti-brie said. “Is it a phylactery of sorts?”

“That is possible,” said Yvonnel, who looked from Catti-brie to Entreri. “Or perhaps they reside in another person now.”

“In me?”

“You just said that the dagger grants you your victim’s physical health. Perhaps there is more to it.”

Entreri blanched at the thought, and then thought once more that he should accompany the dagger to the fiery maw of the primordial!

“If that is true, either case, then they can be exorcised,” Catti-brie put in. “Set free.”

“Then I should throw the damned thing into the pit,” said Entreri, but Catti-brie was shaking her head.

“I know a better way.” She smiled and nodded, clearly considering a course.

“Do you intend to share?” Entreri asked after a few moments.

“Patience,” Catti-brie said. “Make no final decisions until I have considered our course, I beg. For now, though, I have something else I must see to.” She stepped up past Entreri, pulling him back from the ledge and replacing him on the lip of the chasm.

“I still do not agree,” Yvonnel said. “There must be a safer choice.”

“Maybe, but what time do we have?” Catti-brie replied.

“Then give to me your ring and let me do this.”

Catti-brie shook her head. “You said you would help me. I welcome your enchantments.”

“Do what?” Entreri asked, but they didn’t seem to be listening.

“You risk your child,” Yvonnel said.

“How much do we risk if I do not do this?”

“You don’t even know if the primordial will hear you. nor can you predict its response if it does! It is a creature of long-past millennia. Its way in the world is not ours, is not known to us, more foreign even than the beings we name as gods. Please, child, my experience is vast in such matters. Lend me your ring that I might go and speak with the creature.”

Catti-brie seemed to be considering it, even put the thumb and finger of her other hand upon the ring, as if to pull it off.

“It knows me,” she said at length, speaking as much to herself as to her companions, bolstering herself, obviously, for this task ahead.

“It cares nothing for you or any of us,” Yvonnel countered. “We cannot even know what brings it pleasure, what dreams or desires…”

“It knows me, and I know it,” Catti-brie said with finality, holding up her hand to ward the woman, who was leaning toward her, back. “I’ve been down there before in communion with the creature.”

Yvonnel considered the words, then finally surrendered with a nod. She held up a finger, bidding Catti-brie to pause, then cast a powerful dweomer over Catti-brie, one that the pregnant woman had to accept and allow to take hold upon her. Then Yvonnel began casting more mundane enchantments, throwing wards against heat and flame over Catti-brie, creating magical enhancements upon the woman to bolster her in the face of such a beast as awaited her in the pit.

“Promise me that when this is done, that when we have won the day, you will grant me that ring that I, too, might experience a communion with this most magnificent creature.”

“It’s a damned volcano!” Entreri reminded, but the two women just replied with smiles.

On a sudden thought, Catti-brie took out the onyx figurine of Guenhwyvar and held it out toward Yvonnel. She pulled it back, though, and couldn’t help but shake her head at her instinct. She intended to protect the panther by handing the figurine off, while still going down into the chasm with her child in her womb?

Catti-brie laughed aloud at the seeming absurdity and shook her head, and for a moment, the woman was unsure of…everything!

What was this madness? Why wasn’t she just forcing her friends to teleport to safety, or at least, taking her unborn child to safety, instead of trying to parlay with a god-like being that was more a volcano than anything sentient to which she could relate?

After another moment, though, she sorted it all out. She was doing this because it was what she and her friends, particularly her husband, has always done. She wouldn’t shy in the face of danger, even in the face of danger to her child. No, because the cost was too high. They had to win here, for all the goodly folk of the region, including the child in her womb.

They had to win.

They all needed her to be a part of that.

Catti-brie started to extend her arm once more, but then changed her mind and instead called Guenhwyvar to her side. The grey mist formed into the great panther, and Catti-brie bent low and whispered instructions into the panther’s ear.

Guen leaped away, darting out of the room.

Catti-brie tossed the figurine to Artemis Entreri, not Yvonnel. “If I don’t return, give it to Zaknafein,” she instructed.

The stunned man looked at her.

“Yes,” she said. “I trust you in this. “Do not betray that trust, and do not insult us all in this moment of need by worrying about yourself above others.”

That brought a scowl from Entreri, but one that only lasted a moment, replaced by a helpless laugh and a nod.

“Drizzt believed in you,” Catti-brie told him.

Catti-brie cast her own warding spell, then, and stepped off the cliff.

[[ Ho boy, there’s a lot potentially going on here, and, in my opinion, things don’t look great. 

Rather than easing up on the forced redemption arc that Artemis Entreri is pushed down, Salvatore seems to have elected to charge full speed ahead. As suspected, the "cocoon of conscience" is yet another lazy plot device to introduce "character development" in such a way that makes Idalia's Flute look like a masterpiece idea. For one like Entreri, being entrapped in a device that shows him the horrors of what awaits him in the afterlife wouldn't and shouldn't automatically translate into the development of a conscience about what he's wrought onto others, and the same would apply to any value judgments that would be made in conjunction with that development.

It's heartbreaking to me, because Entreri doesn't even sound like himself anymore. Instead, he's like a wanna-be talking the talk but hardly walking the walk, a Drizzt-clone who has killed the character I fell in love with, put on his skin, and performs a sad mimicry of the assassin. Entreri's being shoved into this mold where he's yet another accessory to the Companions of the Hall.

The one decent thing that this passage does do is suggest that the source of Entreri's longevity is the jeweled dagger rather than Charon's Claw. The tie-in to Claw always felt rather made up on the spot, added in as a cheap source of quick tension-building.

As far as position in the book is concerned, I would guess that this passage takes place in the first third, with enough drama occurring such that everyone would learn of Drizzt's disappearing act, and think him dead (hence Catti-brie's usage of the past tense of "trust" when talking to Entreri). It's very unlikely that Drizzt is indeed dead, but I suppose the chance exists that he is. More and more people are favoring Artemis Entreri over Drizzt, so it might be Salvatore shifting focus to a new protagonist, as he did with Drizzt over Wulfgar in the beginning. Salvatore did hint to a fan that he was far from done with Entreri, however, in my opinion, this is far from a good thing. Boundless was bad enough that some of Salvatore’s most loyal fans questioned if he had indeed written the book, thinking that there’s no way that their beloved author could pen something so horrendous. I feel that this really goes to show how low the quality of Drizzt and his fellows have sank, and perhaps this is the impetus for Salvatore needing to shift gears. As such, I find myself ironically wishing that Drizzt is indeed alive and well and continues to be the focus of these books so that Entreri is spared Salvatore's decaying touch, for that seems to be all he is capable of these days. 

Yet, I will still continue to foolishly hold out hope that it’ll change. ]]

#Artemis Entreri #Drizzt Do'Urden #Forgotten Realms #legend of drizzt #d&d #Catti-brie #Zaknafein Do'Urden #Yvonnel Baenre #Charon's Claw #jeweled dagger #Relentless #Generations Trilogy #Maegera #Gauntylgrym #guenhwyvar #R A Salvatore

[beekeeperofeden]

fic: some tricks of desperation

Spring cleaning!  I'm going through my WIP folder and trying to finally post those fics that have been a paragraph or two away from completion for literal months.  This is the first of the batch. Summary:  Missing scene from Maestro.  Because when you've been captured by drow and can't escape, there's nothing to distract you from hitting your ex-boyfriend/business partner in the face with his bad life choices. Wordcount: 851 (dreamwidth crosspost)

Entreri hadn't spoken to Jarlaxle since the dark elves had captured them. Now, watching a priestess pick through their confiscated weapons on the other side of the lightning, Entreri contemplated just never speaking to Jarlaxle again, period. Yvonnel saw Entreri watching and picked up Charon's Claw with a satisfied smirk, testing the weight with a few careful swings. Her hand tightened on the hilt and her eyes widened for a moment as she glanced between the sword and the cage. Then she settled back into a smirk. "I see why you were so upset to lose this," she said. Entreri felt his limbs freeze of their own accord. Without his prompting, his hands reached out towards the lightning bars and got close enough that the hair on his arms stood up. Then she laughed and he pulled away, falling to his knees with a shuddering intake of breath. "Relax, iblith. I have no use for it. Who would bother with this level of magic to control a mere human?" Her eyes flickered to Jarlaxle, who had been watching the exchange warily, eyes wide. He had one hand half-raised as if he had been ready to pull Artemis away from the lightning. "Other than the obvious, I suppose." She dropped the sword into the bag with a laugh and walked away. Jarlaxle frowned and rested a hand on Entreri's shoulder. Entreri realized that he was shaking and tried to still himself. He felt nauseous. "She has the sword," he croaked. He took in a deep breath. "She has no interest in using it," Jarlaxle reassured him. He ran both hands along Entreri's shoulders soothingly. Entreri recoiled from him, barely missing a brush with the lightning along the edges of their cage. "Yet. She has no interest in using it yet." He crossed his arms, willing his hands to stop trembling. "That will change." Jarlaxle frowned but didn't argue with him. "This is your fault," Entreri said quietly. "If you hadn't taken it out of the volcano—" "—then someone else would have!" Jarlaxle had curled up on the other side of the cage, arms crossed. Something about that seemed strange, but Entreri wasn't sure what. "And you would have been caught unaware." "You made a mistake," Entreri growled. Jarlaxle was silent and the only noise was the crackling of the bars and Dahlia's quiet murmurs. Entreri pulled his legs close to his chest and tried to feel calm. "I have made more than one mistake," Jarlaxle finally said. Artemis looked up, attention caught. Jarlaxle laughed joylessly. "You always overestimate me, my friend." Jarlaxle lay down, arranging his arms behind his head like a pillow. Without his eyepatch and with his bare feet pressed against the stone, he seemed more vulnerable than Entreri had ever seen him before. The side of his face was still bruised from where Dahlia had punched him. "You keep attributing your problems to my malice when you should blame them on my incompetence instead." Artemis was silent. "We will fix this," Jarlaxle said. "'We'?" Entreri asked, his voice dry. "Yes. We've always been more effective working in concert with each other, rather than against each other." "Drizzt is dead or on another plane, Dahlia can barely walk, you don't have any of your tricks or even shoes, and that priestess could make me slit my own throat on a whim." Entreri's voice was thick with disdain. "But I am certain that we'll get out of this if we pretend to be friends again." Jarlaxle winced and turned away. For a while, they only sat and listened.  Entreri tried to count how many guards there were, but it was impossible to differentiate them from behind the white flashes of light. Dahlia's twitch was the only warning before she kicked Jarlaxle in the knee, sending him backward towards the crackling electricity.  Artemis jumped forward to hold her still, but she stopped attacking after that, laying limp and shaking in his arms.

"I don't want you here. Go away."  Then she said something that sounded like elvish.  Then Thayan.  Then in heavily accented drow, "Go elsewhere. Leave."

Only if you're coming with me. From Jarlaxle's sharp glance, Entreri wondered if he'd spoken aloud. "When was the last time you slept?" Jarlaxle asked. He moved slightly out of Dahlia's line of sight, and she seemed to relax. "Sometime before we got to Menzoberranzan." "That's what I thought. You should rest." He nodded at Dahlia. "I'll watch over her." With reluctance, Entreri curled into a ball, keeping one hand curled around Dahlia's. He could feel Jarlaxle settle near his shoulder, still out of Dahlia's line of sight, and start speaking softly in Elvish. Entreri didn't know what was being said, but it sounded soothing and Dahlia seemed to get more calm, so he closed his eyes. Disguising the movement as shifting into a more comfortable posistion on the stone floor, Artemis extended his unoccupied hand and rested it against Jarlaxle's arm. There was a brief hitch in Jarlaxle's voice, but he didn't pull away or stop speaking. They lay like that for some time.

#fic #missing scene

[thespacelizard]

dress up

@fluffbruary day 16! time for some more shenanigans with Jarlaxle and Artemis and Jarlaxle's semi-suicidal urge to play dress-up with Calimshan's grumpiest export. Up on AO3 here.

In which Jarlaxle plays dress-up.

“No.”

“You’ve hardly even looked—”

Artemis picked Jarlaxle up and lifted him bodily from where he stood blocking the door. Always one to make the best of a bad situation, Jarlaxle wrapped his legs tightly around Entreri’s waist and his arms—only slightly less tightly—around his neck.

“Let go.”

“To borrow a phrase from you—no.”

He smiled brightly into Artemis’ glare. The Eyecatcher creaked around them, rolling idly in the slow lull of Deepwater Harbour’s mild tide. Muffled shouts filtered down from abovedecks; his crew, keeping themselves busy. He nudged at Artemis’ cheek with his nose, brushed his lips against his ear.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” he purred, in his most seductive tone—it rarely worked on Artemis, but it was worth a try. He felt Artemis shiver, and had just started working on a persuasive line of kisses along his jaw, when he was all at once flung to the bed. Success, perhaps?

“Goodbye.” Artemis turned for the door. Jarlaxle flung a pillow at him—he snatched it out of the air and threw it right back.

“You are such a spoilsport,” Jarlaxle said, hugging the pillow to his chest.

“And you are a busybody. You have played dress-up with me more than enough since we’ve been in this city.”

“One party! That’s it, that’s all I’ve done, I’ve hardly been breathing down your neck—though gods know you could use someone to do so.”

“One was more than enough.” Artemis threw a glance at the chair where the pile of clothes Jarlaxle has so far failed to get him into still sat. “You are not making me up like one of your sailors. I do have some dignity left.”

“Really? I could have sworn you lost the last of it when that eighteen-year-old wizard backhanded you.”

About half a second after the remark had left his mouth, he was flat on his back with his hands pinned above his head. He squirmed; Artemis tightened his grip. “Is this a threat or a promise? I do so enjoy it when you play rough, abbil.”

Artemis glared at him. “Sometimes I think you want me to stab you—don’t make your obvious joke.” Jarlaxle shut his mouth. Then he opened it again, speaking now with a softer tone, as pleading as Entreri was likely to listen to.

“Just for five minutes? Please?”

Artemis held his gaze for a long moment. Jarlaxle couldn’t quite suppress a shiver—there was always something fatalistically erotic in being the sole subject of Artemis Entreri’s attention. Finally, Artemis sighed, and let him go.

“Five minutes.”

Jarlaxle arranged himself cross-legged and waited very patiently and politely, making absolutely zero suggestive comments as Artemis undressed. Really, he was being exceptionally restrained. Entreri being as efficient as he was, it did not take long before he’d swapped his usual dull, practical attire for that which Jarlaxle had chosen.

Sailor, Artemis had called it—theatrical pirate was more like it; a little Zord, a little Jarlaxle, a lot of tight leather breeches and well-fitting white shirt. Said shirt was open to the navel, Jarlaxle having carefully removed most of the buttons to achieve just such an effect. Artemis stood there, one hand on his hip pushing the long black coat back just so, and Jarlaxle suppressed a little sigh of satisfaction. In his other hand he held a tricorn hat, which he pointed threateningly at Jarlaxle.

“There are limits,” he said. He held out his arms, taking himself in more fully. “I look ridiculous.”

“On the contrary,” Jarlaxle slipped from the bed and crossed to him, not bothering to hide so much as an inch of the hunger in his eyes, “you look delicious.”

He slid his hands over the warm, exposed skin of Artemis’ chest, all solid muscle. He shifted close, pressed a kiss to Artemis’ jaw, then his mouth, and then, whilst Entreri was distracted, plucked the tricorn from his hand and deftly set it atop his head. Artemis bit his lip and shoved him back with a curse.

“Oh, it seems I’ve drawn the ire of the notorious captain Entreri,” Jarlaxle said. He put the back of his hand to his forehead. “Whatever shall I do?”

“Get on your knees and beg for mercy,” Artemis growled.

Jarlaxle dropped to the floor.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

#fluffbruary #fluffbruary 2023 #my fic #jarlaxle/artemis #artemis/jarlaxle #jartemis #legend of drizzt fanfiction #i do now lowkey want to draw artemis in this outfit #maybe i will. then we'll all be winners

[artemis-entreri]

[[ This post contains Part 2 of my review/analysis of the Forgotten Realms/Drizzt novel, Boundless, by R. A. Salvatore. As such, the entirety of this post’s content is OOC. ]]

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Generations: Book 2 | Legend of Drizzt #35 (#32 if not counting The Sellswords)

Publisher: Harper Collins (September 10, 2019)

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Additional Information: Artwork for the cover of Boundless and used above is originally done by Aleks Melnik. This post CONTAINS SPOILERS. Furthermore, this discussion concerns topics that I am very passionate about, and as such, at times I do use strong language. Read and expand the cut at your own discretion.

Contents:

I. Introduction

II. Positives     II.1 Pure Positives     II.2 Muddled Positives

III. Mediocre Writing Style (you are here)     III.1 Bad Descriptions     III.2 Salvatorisms     III.3 Laborious “Action”

IV. Poor Characterization     IV.1 “Maestro”     IV.2 Lieutenant     IV.3 Barbarian     IV.4 “Hero”     IV.5 Mother

V. World Breaks    V.1 Blinders Against the Greater World     V.2 Befuddlement of Earth and Toril     V.3 Self-Inconsistency     V.4 Dungeon Amateur     V.5 Utter Nonsense

VI. Ego Stroking     VI.1 The Ineffable Companions of the Hall     VI.2 Me, Myself, and I

VII. World Breaks     VII.1 No Homo     VII.2 Disrespect of Women     VII.3 Social-normalization     VII.4 Eugenics

VIII. What’s Next    VIII.1 Drizzt Ascends to Godhood    VIII.2 Profane Redemption    VIII.3 Passing the Torch    VIII.4 Don’t Notice Me Senpai

Mediocre Writing Style

I admire some authors for their lyrical phrases, some for their poignant imagery, some for their rapid-fire dialogues, and with so many others, for their ability to show a true mastery of language. I have never felt this way about Salvatore's literature, which will probably never win any awards for its diction if it remains consistent to its current level of quality. Salvatore has his moments, which I've described in the previous section, but sadly, they range from being vastly to overwhelmingly dwarfed by the rote and tedious writing practices he employs. It doesn't help that in addition to the employment of unimaginative diction, Salvatore writes a lot of long and laborious scenes full of words that serve little more than to fill up space. There is so much telling instead of showing, a problem further compounded by the exhausting amount of poorly-chosen anecdotes which he relates that, despite being a nonstop action book, Boundless is very hard to pick back up after putting it down. And, of course, there's the repetition of the same themes, of the same kind of things happening to the same characters, that certainly doesn't help the predictability.

Bad Descriptions

For every good turn of phrase I mentioned earlier, there exists a score of bad ones. If I were to give examples of all of them, with the other things I'd like to discuss, this article would end up being as long as the novel itself, so I'll simply point out the most cringe-worthy ones. 

The metaphor that takes the cake for the worst of the book is, "The horde had come, and now it pounced upon them misshapen humanoid forms, the wretched lesser demons known as manes, shambling out of the brush like an army of humans risen from the dead." Basically, what is happening here is that Salvatore pretty much wrote, "those demons came shambling out like zombies". It doesn't matter how much one dresses up a turd, the most one gets from the effort is a fancier-looking but just as stinky piece of excrement. Furthermore, the dressings that Salvatore uses in this example are flimsy and unsatisfactory in substance, with the vague adjective "wretched" that's as descriptive here as his customary usages of "magnificent"/"fine" and the tedious repetition in "humanoid" and "human". Additionally, it begs the question of why Salvatore specified an army of humans in a world in which the undead of all races would shamble, or, better yet, why not simply say "zombie", for a zombie is a prevalent and known theme in both the Realms and our world. It would've been one of the few ways Salvatore uses a shared concept without incurring a world break like he normally does. 

A close second in the diction mediocrity contest is, "as if Yvonnel's breath, blowing them out, was that of a magical dragon, one designed specifically against the life force of a demon." Why a "magical dragon"? Are there non-magical dragons that breathe magic? Not that there exists a type of dragon in Forgotten Realms lore with a breath weapon that is specifically designed against the life force of a demon. However, as is par for his course, to counteract lore not agreeing with his lazy constructions, Salvatore doesn't bother to research an appropriate in-universe analogy. He completely invents one but doesn't actually develop it, not that doing so would be appropriate in this context, but the creation of it is wholly unnecessary for the sake of a poor analogy. 

Another awful passage is, "with horrid creatures -- half drow and half spider -- all around the drow women and filtering back through the many shadows of the forest. Scores of these horrid mutants milled about..." It's bad enough to use the adjective "horrid" in an empty and vague way, but to do it twice in quick succession makes it seem like Salvatore doesn't know how to describe driders. By itself, a half-drow half-spider creature isn't inherently abominable. There's an increasingly large number of art pieces featuring dark elf arachnid centaurs, with beautiful humanoid faces and torsos attached to streamlined spider bodies that would even give arachnaphobes pause. What makes driders menacing, which Salvatore has described himself in the past, is that they're not these romanticized images of spider centaurs. Their humanoid torsos, rather than looking like they should belong to supermodels, are bloated and misshapen such that they're more reminiscent of the flesh beasts of nightmares. They have vicious mandibles protruding from their cheeks, sometimes multiple insectoid eyes, making their faces look more decidedly non-elven even with pointed ears. Admittedly, the physical appearance of driders has fluctuated through the D&D editions, but it's as though Salvatore couldn't be bothered to look up what their current iteration is. Maybe he did try and couldn't find a definitive answer, in which case he could've approached the drider's description in a more evocative way, for example by describing how the tips of their arachnid legs were sharp like swords digging into the earth, or perhaps by mentioning their aura of menace as they regarded the dwarves whom they towered over with hungry anticipation, as though the shorter folk were their cocooned victims waiting to be devoured. Or, even referencing how the driders came to be, the excruciating transformation process and fall out of favor with their goddess, both of which would've rendered them at least slightly unhinged. 

Some descriptions consist of fewer words, but are just as bad. For instance, Jarlaxle's bracers are at one point described as "magical wrist pouch". This evokes an imagery of literal pouches hanging from around his wrists, dangling like a pair of testicles in the wind, testicles that shoot out magical daggers into Jarlaxle's hands. Another similar example doesn't contain an analogy but is just as bad is, "a smallish man dressed in finery worthy of a noble house. His face was clean-shaven, his hair cut short and neatly trimmed." This description is so ambiguous and features adjectives that have been applied so frequently to other characters that it could have easily been Artemis Entreri, except it is someone quite different (Kimmuriel Oblodra). Putting aside how jarring it is to use "man" to describe male drow, there's a world break here in that drow shouldn't need to be clean-shaven, as they can't really grow facial hair, but at least there's the nice detail that Kimmuriel is apparently short-haired, contrary to what many assume of him to have long hair. Nonetheless, what happened to the usage of the word "short"? Furthermore, why not just state a height for Kimmuriel and put it into his character bible? To be fair, I've speculated that Salvatore doesn't use character bibles, but it's never too late to start. 

Salvatorisms

Boundless sees a return of what I've dubbed “Salvatorisms”, which are clichés and poor sentence structures that Salvatore abuses frequently. In Boundless, there's more than just those Salvatorisms dragging the narrative down. It's disappointing to see a professional author, especially one who'd been working in the field for over three decades, fail to follow a rule taught to amateur writers. Making the New York Times' Bestsellers' list does not make the usage of clichés, such as "merry band of misfits", acceptable. Especially considering how it's not even appropriate in the context that it's used for, namely, describing Bregan D'aerthe. Even though it's a priestess of Lolth who is considering the mercenary band this way, it's so incredibly unlikely that she'd think they were jolly, which the meaning of that cliché specifically includes. 

In Boundless, we also see a return of the “how [character] [action]ed!” sentence construction, after a refreshingly complete lack of any in Timeless. This is one of Salvatore's favorite ways to tell and not show, for stating how a certain thing performs a certain feat doesn't, ironically, actually ever convey how that thing is done. There's a new overused Salvatorism to add to his cliché stable, namely, the “up went”, “down went”, and other similar ways to open a sentence. There's nothing wrong with these kinds of phrases when used sparingly and with variety. As it is, the flavor of the text is quite intolerable, seasoned as it is with an excess of one type of additive. By the same token, in a fight scene between Arathis Hune and Zaknafein, Zaknafein's superior prowess is indicated by the sentence, "Except Zaknafein wasn't there". This sort of device can be effective to convey surprise and the unexpected, again, when used sparingly, but unfortunately, it is yet another one of Salvatore's favorite writing practices. The sentence is hardly even a proper sentence, but is used as its own paragraph.

The telling and not showing approach in Boundless extends beyond the diction. On numerous occasions, it's almost as if Salvatore couldn't be bothered to actually demonstrate how something is true, but instead, just tells us that it's the way it is. One way that he does this is through the usage of rhetorical questions, for instance, "Could anything be more invasive and traumatizing than having your body stolen from your control and turned against you?" I'm not sure if any of his readers can actually answer that question from personal experience. It's almost as though Salvatore did that purposely to minimize the possibility of someone realizing that different strokes exist for different folks and that the most traumatizing scenario for one person could be very different from that of another person. That aside however, a question like this leaves little room for imagination, and is even a bit bullying, for it corners the readers into having to answer "no" even while the scenario painted prior to it was not powerful enough to solidify that impression. 

Another way that Salvatore tells rather than shows is to use empty comparisons that lack a frame of reference. For instance, the reader is to understand Athrogate's strength and resolve through, "A lesser fighter would have fallen away in terror. A less sturdy person would have simply melted before the reeking horror." The problem with these statements is that they don't serve any purpose. They state the obvious, and are a poor attempt at being evocative. They have the same effect as simply stating that Athrogate stood his ground and didn't falter, except being more verbose and less effective. 

It's not just word usage that's repetitive. Boundless sees a continuation of the theme of having the same sort of things happen to the same characters. It's as though each character is a designated target for certain motifs, with those motifs not being applicable to other characters. For instance, Entreri appears to be the go-to target for torture, and after being made the one with the repeated childhood sexual assault, the sexual victimization in Menzoberranzan, the victim of rape by a succubus in Neverwinter and the over seven decades of enslavement, I'm getting very sick of seeing him the victim of yet another long-term grueling experience. Meanwhile, Drizzt is as holier-than-thou and full of sanctimony as he was in Timeless, and it's not a flattering look for him. I'm not sure if Salvatore thinks it is, but it isn't so much character consistency as stubborn obnoxiousness. In Drizzt's journal entry, he writes, "I fear that Zaknafein's transformation will not come in time to earn friendship, even familial love, from Catti-brie or from our child, and in that instance, it will not be in time to earn the love of Drizzt Do'Urden." Drizzt then goes on to state, "But he is my family by blood, and she is my family by choice. I have come to learn that the latter is a stronger bond." While the message that's attempted to be conveyed here is a very important one, the validity of it is harmed by the context. It's very unfair for Zaknafein to be presented as though he were more akin to the other Do'Urdens instead of the unconditionally loving father who didn't hesitate to put himself in harm's way, including dying in excruciating and humiliating ways so that his son could have a chance at freedom. This is yet another scenario in which Salvatore creates unnecessary drama while ignoring facets of his story that have genuine dramatic potential. Zaknafein is not the type of character with whom Drizzt should have to choose between family by blood and family by choice, as he's already shown that Zaknafein is trying his best to adapt to the new world. It is true that there are few opportunities for Drizzt to flaunt his moral beacon in Boundless, but there's nothing wrong with that, and should've just been left as it is, but it's as though Salvatore can't write a Drizzt novel without Drizzt having to be sanctimonious and preachy. It was wholly unnecessary to villainize a non-villainous character to repeat some of the same old tired writing practices. 

Also in the category of repetitive and tired themes, albeit one that doesn't further butcher the characters, is the catching of projectiles in one's cloak. This is a phenomenon that happens so frequently in the Drizzt books that had a reader no knowledge of the purpose of cloaks, they might think that their main purpose is to act as an anti-missile system. Cloaks originally became common because they protected the wearer from inclement weather while allowing access to the wearer's worn possessions. In D&D and other games, it became an additional equipment slot and as such, gained an practical value as well. A cloak without enhancing properties would actually serve as a detriment in a fight, acting as a loose and difficult to control extension of one's body that can be easily grabbed by the opponent, something that's accurately made a point of in The Incredibles. I suppose that there could exist a magical item like a Cloak of Missile Catching, but this isn't what any of Salvatore's characters ever wear. It's difficult to give Salvatore points for coming up with a creative use for what's basically an aesthetic item because it's just so impractical and unrealistic. It doesn't help that he repeats this motif so much that it approaches ego-stroking levels.

The second most major contributing factor to Boundless' tediousness is the obscenely large amount of recollections strewn throughout the book, making them overall more unsightly than the plastic polluting our modern day oceans. In the scenes set during the current timeline, almost at every turn we're given a history of what so-and-so is, or who so-and-so have associations with. These reviews, although brief, make up for their concision with their frequency. I can understand why Salvatore does this, for Timeless wasn't as standalone as he'd hoped, but his attempted method to rectify this fact in Boundless is more distracting than enlightening. Especially considering that much of the reviewed content is along the lines of, "Drizzt, trained in the ways of the monk by Grandmaster Kane", ergo, telling us how awesome Salvatore's protagonists are rather than shedding light into the significant events that shaped what is happening in the current book. When a significant event is mentioned, it is done so in such a cursory way that all a new reader would know is that something happened in the past that relates to what is happening presently, but otherwise it's like explaining different colors to someone who's never had vision before. For instance, "this was a trick Kimmuriel had used before, and very recently with Drizzt in Menzoberranzan, creating a telekinetic barrier that absorbed the power of every strike, magical or physical, holding it in stasis, ready for the magically armored person to release it back." This recap does manage to explain the relevant mechanic, however it also alludes to a very significant event, yet it's unclear what the purpose of it doing so is. The reference to what Drizzt did in Menzoberranzan doesn't say enough to allow anyone who hasn't read Hero to understand, but someone who's read Hero should remember the details of the climax of the book. So much of what Boundless presents is like this, retreads that make the novel tedious to read for those who have been reading, and probably only serve to further confuse those who haven't. Who is Salvatore writing for, then? Those who continue to throw money his way but never pay enough attention to what happens in his books to remember the climaxes? Are these the kinds of people that any author should point to as "proof" of their literary excellence?

Laborious "Action"

The one aspect that drives most of Boundless' tediousness is the sheer amount of long and boring action sequences that are wordy and not much of anything else. Salvatore's action scenes are more reminiscent of IKEA furniture assembly instructions than descriptive imagery, except that IKEA instructions are actually visual enough for one to use in constructing a pragmatic (and sturdy) physical object. Salvatore's action scenes are reminiscent of the type of smut in fanfiction that gives fanfiction a bad name, namely, cut and dried descriptions that are more like making a grocery list than painting a picture. At the very least, Salvatore's action scenes are not too anatomically ridiculous (yet), which makes them slightly better than the kind of fanfiction referenced. 

An example of a grocery list action scene is as follows:

There's so much going wrong in this passage. The inconsistent specificity of each element makes the whole feel like an incongruous collection of parts. Jarlaxle hooking his fingers on a jag in the stone is clear enough, as is flipping over, and rolling his feet can be understood even if vague, but how all of that ties together is as clear as a chunk of obsidian. How Jarlaxle pulled himself around the base of a mound isn't articulated, other than that he did it while keeping his momentum, which is superfluous because any acrobatic maneuver would keep its momentum because momentum is what makes those maneuvers possible. It's like the only basic physics concept that Salvatore understands is gravity, because "he fell with gravity" is one of the few things he doesn't spell out in his action scenes. In any case, specifics like if Jarlaxle went left or right aren't what's needed, but rather, how about some evocative imagery like, "he snapped like a whip around the sharp turn"? I'm not saying that's the correct analogy to use, I honestly don't know, because I have no idea what's supposed to be going on in this passage. The same is true of what's said of Zaknafein, which while a bit better, is still painfully dry. Some of the stuff doesn't make sense, for instance, how did Zaknafein leap on the wide base of the stalagmite? The base of a stalagmite is that which the stone formation grows out of, inside the rock itself, does Salvatore mean that Zaknafein propelled himself off of the side of the stalagmite near its base? The rest of the sequence, it's unclear what Zaknafein is flipping over and running along. Is it still the same stalagmite, or a different stalagmite? All of that is just words words words, except, of course, the one thing that's clear enough: that Drizzt is awesome and so is his dad.

Another grocery list action scene is, "A glance left, a glance right, and off he sprinted, up the side of a stalagmite mound, leaping, spinning, somersaulting, to hit the ground in perfect balance and at a full run." What this scene brings to mind is more along the lines of a Driver's Ed course followed by the Sky Dancer toy from the 90s rather than the agile moves of an acrobat. Again, an excess number of words are used to little effect, and all that's conveyed is, "Zaknafein is awesome". I almost feel like he should be clad in skin-tight black leather and be wearing high-tech sunglasses.

Yet another example of writing that only conveys how awesome Salvatore's characters are is, "the barbarian came to realize that this foe was far more akin to Drizzt or Entreri than to what he'd expect from a pampered Waterdhavian lord. The man's sword worked in a blur, every movement sending it at Wulfgar in a different angle, sometimes a slash, sometimes a stab, sometimes a punch from the hilt." The first sentence in this passage, although not describing any action, tells us a lot more about Wulfgar's opponent than the second sentence, which does actively describe the man's actions, even to a new reader whom wouldn't know about Entreri's history and what makes him what he is. Furthermore, there's a stuttered nature to the second sentence, with the "blur" description disagreeing with the choppy rhythm of the specified attacks. Rather than a blur, the noble's attacks feel more like a predictable pattern of programmed thrusts from an automated training dummy. 

Boundless wouldn't be the first Salvatore book in which I'd wondered if he'd confused himself with his writing. One example of what leads me to think so from this novel is:

What is even going on here? Did Salvatore switch Zaknafein and Jarlaxle's names by accident, intending for Zaknafein to be the one caught by surprise? Zaknafein's "don't wait for us!" suggests that he knows what's going on and has some level of confidence in the circumstances, yet as is demonstrated later in the passage, this is not the case. Indeed, later in the sequence (not shown), Jarlaxle is the one in control, deploying a back-up plan to guarantee their safety amidst the chaos. Yet, it's unlikely for Jarlaxle to scream, and Zaknafein to gasp, so perhaps Salvatore meant what he wrote. It's all too convoluted to tell, however. Further, while its a trifle nit-picky, wouldn't the command to "Let 'em fly, boys!" come before the quarrels were discharged? I mean, these are quarrels that do make things like stalactites explode, both powerfully AND beautifully, but dwarves have a lot of discipline.

Perhaps the most tedious action sequences are Zaknafein's extensive training montages, like the one in chapter four. It takes up literally forty percent of the chapter and proceeds in excruciatingly dry detail. The entirety of it is too long to quote here, but there are a lot of statements like, "hands across his belly to grab the hilts of his swords at his hips, right forearm over left", "he turned his right wrist as that sword came across bringing it vertical in its sweep, then shortening the cut, while the left went across perfectly horizontally, with full follow-through and even a step with the left foot in that direction", "he went to a series of same-hand, same-hip draws, where he brought forth the sword on his left hip with his left hand, right hand for the right", and so on. It's like Salvatore is writing The Dummy's Guide to Drow Swordfighting, as these sentences are more like step by step guide points than flowing combat moves. It's actually worse than that, because more than likely, these moves are more theatrical than actually practical, such that anyone who followed such a guide would indeed be a dummy, and quite a dead one at that if they expected to survive in drow society like that. And there's just so much of it, such that it begs the question of if Salvatore had a word count quota that he had to fill.

Finally, after a refreshing break away from it in Timeless, the standard Salvatore C-rated Hollywood stop motion fight scenes are back. Speaking to many members of the SCA and historical combat re-enacters and fencers, including ones who have read Salvatore's books, have taught me that most of the combat scenes, specifically concerning the usage of swords, are totally wrong. A consensus among the actual martial artists is that there's a lot of slashing when there should be stabbing, and the way that the characters conduct themselves in combat is more akin to sports than martial arts, being particularly evocative of hockey. It isn't surprising that Salvatore's inspiration comes from hockey, that is what he knows after all (more than swordsmanship and D&D anyway), but it seems that rather than improving his knowledge with research, he supplements it with popular themes in movies. Something like, "slowly they closed, though, until they were but a few strides away, when both, as if some silent understanding had passed between them, leaped into the air and roared" feels more like a transcription from a live action sequence, for in reality no purpose is served for two combatants to leap at each other roaring. It's a waste of energy, especially as the two have been aware of each other's prowess for a while and are not easily intimidated. If this scene was something that we were watching rather than reading, the sound effects might enhance the the drama, and while imagined sound effects can do the same for a written scene, something as bland as simply "roaring", just makes the whole scene banal.

#ooc #Boundless #legend of drizzt #Forgotten realms #R A Salvatore #book review #Generations Trilogy #Artemis Entreri #Jarlaxle Baenre #Kimmuriel Oblodra #Yvonnel Baenre #Arathis Hune #Drizzt Do'Urden #Catti-brie #Athrogate #drow #drider

[artemis-entreri]

"Have you eaten?”

“Not yet,” the assassin replied automatically. Then, realizing that he’d been alone, that he should’ve still been alone, Entreri lifted his head just enough that his heavy-lidded eyes could behold the colorfully-clad drow.

He sighed and let his head drop back onto his arms. Although he’d never admit it out loud, the exhausted man was glad that it wasn’t any other voice, for he wasn’t sure that he’d had it in him to snap his head up in time.

“How’d you get in here?” Entreri asked, his voice muffled by his arms. A spice-tinged floral aroma tickled his nose, and he peeked over his arms to behold a ruby-red gaze appraising his own.

“What?” the assassin sighed wearily.

“Answering uninhibitedly, asking obvious questions, general lowered situational awareness...  what’s gotten into you, my abbil?” Jarlaxle tsked.

Entreri groaned and buried his eyes in his arms again, his temple beginning to throb. “Go away.”

The assassin wasn’t surprised to hear the scrape of another chair being pulled up to the table, or the shoving of his arms to the very edge of it until he could just barely still balance his head on top of them. Breathing another deep sigh, he began to gather the scant bit of energy he’d conserved from his brief repose to confront his uninvited guest, when a different smell seized him.

“What--?” the perplexed man looked up, and his vision was immediately obscured by steam. He didn’t think to complain though, for the steam was accompanied by an intoxicating scent, so rich that it energized his limbs far more than his respite did. Entreri pushed himself up to better behold the extravaganza unfolding before his eyes, and as soon as his arms cleared the table, a plate bearing a handsomely roasted leg of boar was pushed to where his head had been a moment before.

“Eat,” his companion ordered, and the assassin didn’t protest. Not bothering to even look at the fork and knife that the drow had set down, Entreri grabbed a protruding piece of bone and tore off a hefty chunk.

The drow watched the crude display with a disapproving frown, but the human just met his gaze and continued to rip off pieces with his teeth. 

“At least make sure you’re getting a balanced meal,” Jarlaxle chided as he reached for the savaged and now much less handsome-looking meat. Before he could pull the plate away even a little, the assassin snapped a hand onto it, glaring at the drow. It wasn’t the dangerous man’s usual deadly glare however, for it reflected the dancing glitter in those ruby eyes that Jarlaxle rolled at him.

The mercenary heaved a great exasperated sigh and pushed a plate of green stuff towards the assassin. That took up the last of the space on his side of the small table. 

“Ah, my abbil, why do you always choose to live in such ignoble places?” Jarlaxle lamented as he stood, lifting a bread from the basket that he’d also procured. Circling to his companion’s side, he started to poke the side of Entreri’s face with the bread, but stopped, and instead sniffed. 

And sniffed. 

And sniffed. 

And continued to sniff while circling the assassin like a hummingbird attacking a delectable flower until Entreri could no longer ignore him.

“What is it now?” the irritated man dropped his mostly-gnawed bone onto the plate.

“When was the last time you’d bathed?”

Entreri threw up both hands. “Oh, for the love of every god in every pantheon--”

The drow skipped out of his view. However, Entreri didn’t need to look, didn’t need to hear the sound of wood scraping against wood to know that Jarlaxle had gone for the tub. The assassin pushed his chair back with a growl and spun to his feet.

“Jarlaxle, I don’t need a bath!”

“I would have to disagree, my abbil,” the mercenary replied without looking up, still engrossed in dragging the tub to the center of the room.

Entreri started to argue, then sighed and shook his head. “I don’t have time for one right now.”

Jarlaxle stopped and straightened. He folded his arms. 

“You haven’t had time for one in a while.”

Entreri conceded with a small nod.

“Just as you haven’t had time to eat. Just as you haven’t had time to sleep -- properly, I mean.”

Discomfort crept over Entreri like spiders under his skin. “Circumstances have been especially pressing,” he tried to explain, but even to his own ears his words sounded like an admission of guilt.

The drow closed to him and began to unlace his shirt. “You’ve been neglecting the wider perspective, my abbil. You might spare some time in foregoing a meal, a bath, a nap, or any other self-tending rituals, but at what cost? For as any poisoner can tell you, the more poison you make, the more gold you make, until you throw back a glass of water that is not.”

Entreri caught both lace ends and held them fast. “Are you Drizzt Do’Urden then, come to lecture me?”

Jarlaxle chuckled but didn’t let go of Entreri’s shirt. “Hardly! Drizzt would not call you ‘abbil’ or try to undress you - or at least, I’d hope he wouldn’t!”

Entreri mock-blanched and covered his mouth. “Wonderful, now you’ve made me ill.”

Jarlaxle laughed again, but this time in triumph, for the assassin’s gesture allowed him to pull the string loose. Capitalizing on his victory, the drow began to peel his companion’s shirt back, but Entreri’s hands were there to deflect his. The mercenary would’ve been happy to push back, but stern gray eyes caught his own, freezing him. 

“Jarlaxle, please, I need to tend to things now.” The assassin’s voice was soft but firm.

The drow’s shoulders drooped with his sigh, and his delicate fingers went to the human’s shirt again. They gracefully re-threaded the string through the lacing holes. 

“Promise me that you’ll take better care of yourself?”

“If I do, will I be spared the intrusions and the threat of forced bathing?”

“Not likely.”

“There’s your answer, then.”

Both chuckled helplessly. It didn’t take long for the sounds of mirth to fade, replaced by a awkward silence.

“I need to go,” Entreri finally said, and Jarlaxle nodded quietly.

“I’ll not be in your way then,” the mercenary said, and headed for the door.

“Wait,” the assassin’s call halted him.

Jarlaxle turned around, one eyebrow raised, his eyes expectant and his smile hopeful.

Entreri’s outstretched finger guided the drow’s gaze to the table. “Don’t forget to clean that up.”

[[ I wanted to write this even though I feel that it is kind of out of character for Artemis, as he’s the type of person to have a solid regiment of self-care, since that’s a necessary part of keeping himself at peak performance. But I wanted to do something about the importance of not neglecting self-care, no matter what things might arise. Even if there seems to be no time to eat, do hygiene stuff, and rest, you need to drop other things to make time for those.

I know that that’s really obvious so I feel silly talking about it, but today I had a poignant brush with how bad things can be if I don’t do the basic things of taking care of myself, like eating. I struggle with chronic major depression and PTSD, and the medications I take cause mild to severe nausea, so eating is something that I don’t enjoy doing. Nonetheless, I force myself to do it, even though eating makes the nausea worse. In any case, I was so crazy busy with work today that I forgot that I hadn’t eaten, and at around early afternoon, I felt so extremely weak and tired that I had to lay down, and didn’t feel like I could get back up afterwards. I decided to eat something even though I doubted it would’ve done much for me, because I felt that shitty. 

Surprisingly, after I’d gotten some food in my stomach, I totally recovered. I mean yeah, the nausea worsened as usual, but having the energy and strength to finish my work was much better than literally being unable to do anything but lay there.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is, there’s a lot of stuff in our lives that deter us from engaging in proper self-care. I know firsthand how difficult it is for one struggling with mental illness to practice self-care, but it’s not any less valid when people feel that they’re too busy to do self-care. I used to be of that second category too, but that’s a totally wrong mindset. 

Anyway, I’ll shut up now and go back to wondering if I should’ve done a different ending in which Jarlaxle bathes Artemis and maybe other stuff happens. o: ]]

#artemis entreri #entreri #jarlaxle #jarlaxle baenre #forgotten realms #legend of drizzt #jartemis #ooc #self-care #fanfiction #slice of life #drizzt #drizzt do'urden

[artemis-entreri]

[[ I didn’t think that I’d be able to write a story again, here, after all that’s happened. I randomly remembered one of the many threads that I did with @jarlaxlebaenre that wouldn’t leave my mind after it came back to me. Before, I’d wanted to make a lot of my threads into fics, and wasn’t able to, but with the continual support of amazing people, I’m finding my footing again and am using this as a good place to start to get back into things. 

Special shout-out to @d-lishtasytheatre who made the art I’m using for the cover of my fic and the original RP thread, which is compiled below. The name of an OC that was involved in another of @jarlaxlebaenre’s threads was changed for the purpose of the fic. Cut for spoilers. ]]

*knock knock*

Entreri opens his door and raises an eyebrow as he beholds the drow before him. “Well played, Jarlaxle. You were the last person that I’d expect to knock at my door,” the assassin greets dryly. “Do tell, how it is that you finally have realized that I do not appreciate your barging in to my space uninvited? Was it the numerous times that I’ve informed you not-so-subtlety of my preferences? Or perhaps the plethora of traps that I’ve laid to dissuade you from your lack of respect for my personal space?”

Jarlaxle does not appear to hear the assassin’s jape as he strolls past the man into the room. Vacantly, he falls into a chair.

Entreri sighs at the mercenary’s characteristic disregard. “Do come in and sit down,” he states sardonically as he closes the door behind them. Fixing Jarlaxle with a wintry stare, the assassin asks, “What are you about now?”

Jarlaxle looks up at the dour human and grins crookedly.

“I was just thinking that I should pay my good friend Artemis a visit!”

Entreri folds his arms before his chest and his lips draw together in a thin line.

Jarlaxle continues to smile charmingly up at the assassin.

Entreri continues to stare icily down at the mercenary.

Jarlaxle’s handsome features twitch slightly under Entreri’s unrelenting glare. The mercenary clears his throat, then asks, “Might I stay with you for a few nights?”

Entreri’s eyes narrow dangerously as he repeats his earlier question, “What are you about?”

Jarlaxle sighs and stops smiling.

“Nothing, my distrustful friend. It is as I’ve said: I need a place to stay for a few nights.”

Entreri eyes the mercenary suspiciously. His voice dripping with sarcasm, the assassin asks, “Inns suddenly too good for your coin?”

Face somber, Jarlaxle replies, “Nay, it has nothing to do with coin. Inns are unable to shelter me from-” he pauses and shudders.

Rarely has the assassin seen the mercenary leader so unnerved. Intrigue chases the annoyance out of his voice as he asks, “From what?”

“Vikarillith,” the mercenary replies with another shudder.

Entreri furrows his brow. The word certainly isn’t Common, and to his knowledge, it isn’t drow either. Shaking his head, he states with exasperation, “You’ll have to elaborate, for unlike your pet psionicist I cannot read your mind.”

Jarlaxle stares at Entreri forlornly.

“Vikarillith is an illithid. I first encountered it in one of my sitting rooms. It then followed me, all the way to my bedroom…” his voice trails off.

The assassin’s arms drop to his sides as his eyes widen in shock. His surprise only lasts a heartbeat though before his features twist into a mask of rage. Seizing the drow by the front of his vest, Entreri shouts in Jarlaxle’s face, “You are hunted by an illithid and you thought it wise to lure it here to me?!”

Jarlaxle smiles weakly as he tries to push Entreri’s hands off of his vest.

“Peace, my abbil. It isn’t what you think.”

Sneering and not releasing his grip, the assassin replies bitingly, "You’re absolutely right. Knowing you, it’s much worse. Let me guess: your underlings are trying to overthrow you again, except this time, they’ve enlisted the help of an illithid.”

Jarlaxle blinks a few times, then bursts into laughter. ”Gods, no, nothing like that.”

The mercenary’s mirth abruptly ends. “At least, not literally.”

Entreri stares incredulously at Jarlaxle as the mercenary’s moods shift more quickly than ice turning to water in dragon’s breath. “Not ‘literally’? What exactly do you mean?” The assassin shakes his head and releases the drow. He falls onto his bed facing his uninvited guest. “No more games, Jarlaxle. Tell me, or leave,” the perplexed man bids.

Jarlaxle heaves a great sigh, then remorsefully replies, “I bedded an illithid. Kimmuriel seems to derive an overt amount of enjoyment from reminding me of the horrors of that experience. I fear that he may go so far as to orchestrate additional meetings between myself and mind flayers. I thought that perhaps your presence near me would dissuade him from seeking me out, given the… mutual dislike you two share.”

Entreri’s expression reflects a mixture of disbelief and disgust. He stares wordlessly at Jarlaxle for several long breaths. Then, wearing a grimace, he lifts one arm and points directly at the door. “Out,” the assassin hisses.

Although he initially reels back in shock at the human’s coldness, the mercenary leader quickly recovers.

“I don’t think so,” Jarlaxle says with a snarl.

Entreri blinks incredulously. His disbelief quickly turns into anger however in the face of the mercenary’s animosity. Sneering, the assassin returns, “That’s not your decision to make.”

Jarlaxle glares at Entreri with the wild eyes of a cornered beast.

“I am not leaving,” he growls as he snaps his wrist, dropping a dagger from his enchanted bracer into his hand.

Entreri’s jaw would have dropped open had he not been clenching it in his anger. He glowers at Jarlaxle for a few more heartbeats before he rises and walks towards the door. Not bothering to look at the drow along the way, the assassin states icily, “As you wish.”

Jarlaxle throws the dagger just to the side of Entreri, so that it will fly past his face and hit the door in front of him.

The dagger whistles past, narrowly avoiding cutting open Entreri’s cheek as it buries its blade deep within the door with a decisive “thunk”. The assassin slowly turns to face the mercenary once more, scowling deeply. Despite knowing that the precision of the throw was no accident, the knowledge does not stymy the angry man’s mounting rage. His weapons fly into his hands as he drops into a defensive crouch, his voice deathly calm when he asks, “Have you gone mad?”

Jarlaxle ignores Entreri’s question and states matter-of-factly, “You are staying with me.” He snaps his wrist again and a new dagger drops into his waiting hand.

While he might normally have felt bewilderment at the strangeness of the Jarlaxle’s assertion, his anger instead causes Entreri to react with defiance. “Is that so?” the assassin sneers as he advances upon the mercenary.

Jarlaxle leaps to his feet and hops onto the chair that he had been sitting in a moment before. He sets one foot on the back of the chair and uses it to kick himself backwards in a somersault. As the chair follows its downward momentum, Jarlaxle kicks it to flip it into the air and sail towards the advancing Entreri.

For all of his agility, the assassin only manages to marginally dodge the chair flying at his face, grimacing as it crashes into the wall. He quickly glances around for a means to retaliate, his gaze settling on the only other piece of movable object in the sparsely furnished room. He alters his course from charging directly at the drow to heading for the table in the center of the room.

Jarlaxle grins, although his expression is more devilish than mirthful, and he cries, “Oh no you don’t!” With that, he sends a stream of daggers towards Entreri.

Entreri dodges the first dagger, deflects the second and picks off the third, but realizes even before the fourth and fifth tear open first his shirt and then his skin that he will inevitably lose, especially within the confined space of the room. Furthermore, it certainly doesn’t help that more than half of Jarlaxle’s flying daggers are illusions, but he has no way of telling the solid apart from the illusory.

He manages to parry his way through the stream of steel to the table, which he flips onto its side. He ducks against what he knows is the temporary shelter provided by the thin sheet of wood. As the continuous chain of daggers thunk against the table’s surface, some deflecting off the edge to bury themselves in the floor beside him, Entreri looks to the nearby bed, an idea forming in his mind.

After some time of barraging Entreri’s makeshift barrier, Jarlaxle pauses, a dagger at the ready. He curiously studies the upturned table, behind which he knows the assassin is hiding. Puzzled by the stillness of the scene, Jarlaxle draws out one of his many wands and carefully approaches the table.

“Do you yield at last, my friend?” he calls.

Instead of answering, Entreri silently sets his blades on the floor. He carefully shifts his weight as Jarlaxle approaches. When he judges the mercenary to be close enough, the assassin lunges for and grabs ahold of the sheets and blankets on the bed, yanking them upwards and sending pillows into the air. He flings the billowing fabrics at the drow and follows in the flowing shadows, ready to throw his weight in a tackle to the floor.

Jarlaxle starts as the wall of fabric suddenly rises before him, and it is all he can do to bring his wand to bear and shoot a glob of sticky goo at the sheets and blankets. The impact drives the mass of fabrics away from encompassing him, but within the chaos he loses sight of Entreri. He drops his dagger to bat aside the obscuring material.

His original plan thwarted, the assassin ducks within the changed trajectory of the falling sheets, retaining his cover. In the same breath, he bounds around the mercenary’s fabric-induced blind spot and tackles the drow to the floor.

“Oof!”

Jarlaxle’s wand flies out of his grasp as Entreri tackles him. He bares his teeth in a growl up at the human pinning him and grabs for the nearest object to hit the human with. His fingers graze something soft and smooth. Hardly caring what it is, he closes his fist on the pillow and swings it with all his might into the side of the assassin’s head.

The impact of the pillow against the side of his head doesn’t hurt. Not really sure why that fact makes him more angry and not caring about his lack of understanding, Entreri snatches up the other nearby pillow and slams it down at Jarlaxle’s face.

Jarlaxle raises his pillow to block Entreri’s attack, then quickly slithers out from underneath the human. Transferring the pillow to one hand, the mercenary swings it at Entreri’s shoulder in a long arch, the motion causing the already frayed stitching to split.

Entreri mirrors Jarlaxle and raises his pillow to block, but even the soft impact of pillow against pillow causes the contents of the drow’s cushion to burst out as the tattered seams give way. A flurry of down, in addition to more inexpensive stuffing material, rains upon the assassin. This shocks the formerly enraged man into stillness. Then, unexpectedly, an irresistible itch asserts itself within his sinuses, and Entreri sneezes.

Jarlaxle does not relinquish the opportunity and uses Entreri’s moment of distraction to snatch away the human’s pillow. Mercilessly, he whacks the assassin repeatedly with the quickly deflating object.

Much to his displeasure, Entreri’s sneezing fit does not ease. The helpless man only halfheartedly raises up his arms to ward off Jarlaxle’s relentless assault, his sneezes coming quicker as the second pillow looses its contents into the air. “Jarlaxle, stop,” the assassin manages to choke out in between gasps for breath before wincing and sneezing again.

“Do you yield?”

Jarlaxle laughs and whacks Entreri a few more times before noticing the human’s increasingly disheartened attempts to thwart his efforts. The mercenary sets down his all but deflated pillowcase and peers at the assassin.

“Are you all right, my friend?”

Entreri nods curtly to Jarlaxle’s second question, futilely trying to suppress a sneeze as he does so. He grimaces again following another irrepressible chain of outbursts, growling in frustration in between. As he blinks away the tears in his bleary eyes, he silently curses the drow for bringing yet another discomfort unto him.

Jarlaxle looks at Entreri suspiciously, unconvinced by his nod. Nonetheless, he shrugs, stands and brushes himself off. Tapping one of his many trinkets, he summons an invisible servitor, which immediately begins to clean up the former pillow stuffing now strewn all about the floor.

Entreri’s sneezing fit subsides as the room is cleared of the down from the torn pillows. The assassin glares sullenly at Jarlaxle before turning his gaze upon his ruined furniture. “You owe me a new table and chair,” he states dryly.

Jarlaxle laughs airily and waves his hand in the air as though Entreri’s words do not matter. He walks over to the assassin’s cot and unloads the contents of one of his many containers of holding. Layers upon layers of soft lush furs pile onto the bed.

Entreri stares at Jarlaxle with a mixture of shock and disbelief. “What in the Nine Hells are you doing? What are those for?” he demands, gesturing to the furs.

Jarlaxle glances askance at Entreri, his expression one of boredom.

“I’m unpacking,” the mercenary replies in a manner that shows he believes that the answer should have been obvious.

“And these,” he adds as he pets the topmost fur lovingly, “Are for making the stiff board that you call a bed more comfortable.”

Entreri watches Jarlaxle with growing incredulity. “Unpacking?” the assassin echoes. A breath later, his eyes widen, and he accuses, “You had this all planned out!” The frustrated man shakes his head.

Jarlaxle shrugs and grins as he pulls out the last of the items, luxurious overstuffed silk pillows. Spreading out the furs over the cot, the mercenary casually asks, “Where are you going to sleep?”

Entreri blinks a few times, unsure if he had heard the drow correctly. Finally concluding that he had, the assassin issues in a low and dangerous growl, “Seriously?”

Jarlaxle snickers to himself at Entreri’s response, but decides all the same that it would be unwise to push the human too much. He spins gracefully about to face the assassin and puts on his most winning smile. Touching one hand to his heart in a grandiose fashion, the flamboyant mercenary proclaims, “Ah, forgive me, my abbil, where are my manners? Although I normally would not endure such hardship, since you honor me by making me your guest, I shall share the bed.”

Entreri’s eyes boggle to such an extent that he is surprised that they do not pop right out of his skull. He opens his mouth several times to reply, but no words come.

Jarlaxle hops into the bed atop the pile of furs and settles comfortably against the headboard. Still beaming charmingly at Entreri, the mercenary pats the space next to him.

Entreri continues staring at Jarlaxle in silent disbelief.

Jarlaxle pats next to himself again, more insistently.

Entreri rigidly turns away and starts for the door.

Jarlaxle levels his wand at the door and shoots a glob of magical green goo to cover the doorknob and part of the jamb, making escape impossible.He throws one of his pillows at Entreri and readies another.

“Surely you do not wish to trigger your sneezing fit again,” the mercenary says innocently.

The glob of goo strikes the door just as Entreri is reaching for the knob. As the assassin slowly turns to fix the mercenary with his steely glare, the oncoming pillow catches him directly in the face. He bristles as he fights to maintain his guise of calm, but inevitably succumbs to his anger at Jarlaxle’s insufferable antics. Letting out a roar, he snatches the pillow from the air and charges the drow, swinging his makeshift weapon with all of his might for the dark elf’s head.

Jarlaxle simply laughs and allows Entreri’s strike to come through unhindered. The surprising amount of force knocks him off balance and onto his side. He continues to laugh while halfheartedly fending off the human’s assault with one hand, the other patting around for a “weapon” to counterattack with.

Entreri swats the other pillows out of the drow’s reach. “No you don’t,” he growls as he relentlessly clouts Jarlaxle with the pillow. The seams inevitably tear under such rough handling, firing plumes of down into the air, but still the assassin does not diminish his attack. His eyes water as he fights against the urge to sneeze, succeeding only partially against the irrepressible itch. Despite his clouded vision, despite the unnatural sounds that he emits as a result of trying and failing to growl away the sneezes, Entreri does not relent, throwing away the limp pillowcase after it fully deflates and snatching up another to continue his onslaught on Jarlaxle.

Jarlaxle continues to laugh as Entreri repeatedly hits him with the pillow. His words muffled and interrupted by the soft thwaps, the mercenary bemoans, “Oh, woe! I am surely done for, for there is no one who can save me - OOF! - from the deadly assassin!”  

That earned him an even more vigorous beating, but Jarlaxle just laughs and lets Entreri play out his energy and rage while holding on to his aching sides. The odd sounds that the human makes in his defiance of his body’s response to the feathery down throws the drow into intense convulsions of laughter the likes of which he has never experienced before.

“Artemis, spare me!” Jarlaxle gasps, “I am dying of laughter!”

In contrast to Jarlaxle, Entreri feels perfectly miserable. His vision has been reduced to little more than a blurry screen and his entire chest aches from the continuous sneezing. Nonetheless, the stubborn man continues to beat the drow until the pillow in his hands, and also the last one of the lot, completely deflates. The assassin manages to squeak out something that vaguely resembles, “Good,” in response to Jarlaxle’s pleas before collapsing on the bed, his chest heaving as he gasps for breath. He curls up and groans, even whimpering a little, as the sneezes continue to rack his body. “Gods damned drow,” Entreri squeaks in between the irrepressible expulsions of air.

“Artemis, stop making that sound,” Jarlaxle gasps as he clutches his abdomen harder and rolls from side to side in his fits of laughter. The pillow assault finally ceases, but it takes a while before the mercenary is able to stop giggling like an elfling. Laying on his back and panting, the pounding of his heart ringing in his ears, Jarlaxle continues to grin as he watches the last of the feathers slowly drift out of his sight.

Finally recovering somewhat, the mercenary props himself up on his elbows and pokes at the assassin. Despite his concern for the human, the drow cannot help but chortle at each squeak and groan emitted by Entreri. He sets a hand on the curled up man’s shoulder.

"I’m afraid that I cannot summon my spectral servant again until tomorrow.”

The settling of the feathers causes the air about Entreri to become more breathable, and his irrepressible urge to sneeze continuously somewhat subsides. He clears the moisture from his eyes with his sleeve and snaps in reply to Jarlaxle, “Clean it up yourself then.”

Jarlaxle blinks at Entreri incredulously, as though the idea of him performing a task as mundane as cleaning was utterly ridiculous.

Despite facing away from the drow, Entreri knows Jarlaxle well enough to correctly interpret the mercenary’s stillness. With a great deal of exasperation the assassin explains, “I can’t do it,” and sneezes again, his body accentuating his point.

Jarlaxle shrugs and looks around. Using his wide-brimmed hat, he sweeps the feathers off of the bed. Hopping to his feet on the down-covered floor, the mercenary continues to sweep with his great hat, though he succeeds more in stirring the feathers into the air again than gathering them.

Entreri takes a deep breath, foolishly thinking that he can start to breathe normally again. He nearly inhales a feather that had been sent into the air by Jarlaxle’s inept attempt at cleaning. His eyes dart about, his panic rising with the returning urge to sneeze as the down is stirred back up into the air. “Jarlaxle, stop!” the hapless man wheezes, “You’re making it worse!”

Jarlaxle pauses mid-sweep and glances at Entreri, then around the room. He straightens and carefully hangs his hat on a bedpost.

“What do you propose I do then, my friend?”

Entreri bites back a string of colorful expletives involving Jarlaxle, the most grotesque demons and devils of the Abyss and the Nine Hells respectively and the most obscene sexual acts. The assassin surveys the room and realizes with dismay that the only area clear of down is the bed upon which he rests. Fighting back another urge to curse, he instead tersely instructs, “Shut up, lay down, and don’t move.”

Jarlaxle can’t help but smile. The circumstances aren’t what he would’ve wished for, but at least he has accomplished his goal of seeking refuge with Entreri while retaining the assassin by his side. He settles comfortably into the bed and folds his hands under his head, grinning nonstop at his victory while he listens to the human’s slowly abating sneezes.

Quickly growing bored in the relative silence, he begins bantering about various trivialities, paying only enough mind to ensure that his words make sense while focusing most of his pondering on his next steps.

Time passes in this fashion and night eventually falls, bringing a pause in his outpouring words. Jarlaxle realizes that he will be able to summon his invisible servitor in a few hours, but decides that Entreri does not need to know this fact. Despite his lack of need for the reverie, he pointedly stretches and yawns, then declares, “I believe that I shall retire for the night. Sweet dreams, my abbil.”

Entreri knew better than to expect Jarlaxle to follow his instructions, especially when they affect the drow’s garrulousness. Still, he wishes that the mercenary would just leave him be. It is already bad enough that he is trapped within his own abode, but the fact that he is confined to the bed, which he has to share with the one who has gotten him into this very predicament, adds layers of insult to his already gravely injured self-respect.

The assassin contents himself with passing the time by imagining the most creative ways to kill the accursed dark elf, taking inspiration from the drow’s own tales. Finally, nightfall brings a respite from Jarlaxle’s verbal barrage, and Entreri subconsciously relaxes. As he does so, chest aches and weariness grip him, and the spent man decides that killing the drow can wait until the next morning. As he settles in to slumber, once again that obnoxiously melodic voice pierces the silence. “Shut up Jarlaxle, lest I change my mind about not murdering you tonight,” Entreri snaps.

Jarlaxle simply grins more widely.

#ooc #Artemis Entreri #Entreri #Jarlaxle #Jarlaxle Baenre #Forgotten Realms #legend of drizzt #the sellswords #fanfiction #thread compilation #Kimmuriel Oblodra #d-lishtastytheatre #jarlaxlebaenre #DOWN AND DIRTY

[beekeeperofeden]

fic: everywhere like mill dust

Another fic from this batch of spring cleaning.  (This has been in some form of draft since last August, y'all.  Shoutout to cohabbitation, who has kindly endured me yelling about it and needing help about a thousand times between then and now.) I posted a link last night, but didn't have time to properly post it here (and fix the em-dashes) until now.

Summary:  Polypuddle hair-braiding in a sunlit meadow.  Artemis/Dahlia/Drizzt/Jarlaxle.  Possibly the most saccharine thing I've ever written. Wordcount: 2086 Dreamwidth crosspost

They had fallen into a pond and were letting themselves and their clothing recover before they went on their way. Cloaks and tunics had been shed and draped over branches to dry in the sun. The four of them lounged in the grass, letting the heat and the light evaporate the riverwater from their skin. Dahlia ignored the mud dripping from her staff and immediately started unbraiding her hair to let it dry faster. Drizzt had flopped onto a sunny patch of grass near the edge of the pond to rest. Artemis was fussing over his dagger, trying to dry it and muttering about rust. Jarlaxle had draped himself over Artemis' shoulders, barely staying out of the way, eyes closed as he drank in the sunlight like a cat. (Artemis had only recently started allowing Jarlaxle to get that close, and Jarlaxle still seemed to be walking the knife-sharp line between proximity and annoyance with uncharacteristic levels of restraint.) Dahlia was halfway through undoing her braid when she looked at Drizzt and cackled. He blinked at her. "Kelp," she said. "Pardon me?" "From the river. You have kelp in your hair." He ran his hands through his hair, trying to find it, but Dahlia sat up and reached forward. "Here, let me." She frowned. "What did you do, tie it in? Get closer, this could take a while." He arranged himself where she had a better view and leaned back. The fingers running through his hair were soothing. From the corner of his eye, he could see Dahlia poke Artemis's foot with her own. "Can you finish unbraiding me? It'll take hours to dry, otherwise." An annoyed huff of air. "That cloth isn't dry, so all you're doing is working water into the grooves of the metal." Drizzt shifted so that he could the others reflected in the pond. Artemis had set aside his dagger and settled behind Dahlia to start untangling the braid with an expression that faintly resembled trepidation. Jarlaxle stretched across the area of grass he had vacated, watching the three of them with a wistful smile. He'd pulled off his boots and was letting his feet dangle off the bank and into the water. "Got one." Dahlia pulled out a strand of green and dropped it on Drizzt's lap. He picked it up and frowned, rolling the green stem between his fingers. "That is not kelp," he said. "That's starwort." Jarlaxle raised an eyebrow and poked at the water with a toe, sending ripples through his reflection. "There is a difference?" "Kelp is only in the ocean." Dahlia huffed and pulled out another strand. Jarlaxle glanced at Artemis, who was concentrating on the red hair in front of him, and opened his mouth to speak. "My friend, you have a—" He half-turned, reaching towards Artemis' head. He'd lost his usual ponytail in the pond and his hair hung in wet locks. "What, another plant?" "No." He reached forward, extricating an iridescent green water-beetle from a strand of Artemis' hair. He leaned forward enough to put his hand in Artemis' line of sight so he could see the beetle skittering across Jarlaxle's fingers, then returned it to the pond with a graceful flick. Jarlaxle absently smoothed out the strand of hair he had disturbed pulling out the beetle. When Artemis glanced at him, but didn't object, he ran his fingers through another strand, gently pulling out tangles and separating it into smaller branches. Meanwhile, the pile of starwort on Drizzt's lap had grown by three pieces. Dahlia seemed to have moved from removing plants to just finger-combing Drizzt's hair. He leaned back, enjoying the sensation and absently fiddling with the starwort. "You seem to have overstated the case for your hair," Artemis said quietly. "It seems fairly dry." "Oh." Dahlia sounded surprised, if somewhat distracted. "I just found another piece of weed, though. Rebraid it for me while I get this out?" Drizzt's fingers stilled. He was worried that the request would shatter the unspoken peace that they'd somehow created. But Artemis shrugged and started separating Dahlia's hair into strands. Drizzt eyed the starwort in his lap, then the pile of Jarlaxle's belongings. His hat was conspicuously absent, apparently lost somewhere downstream. He started weaving the starwort together. There was a cluster of birdsfoot trefoil and another of violets in the grass overlooking the pond. He plucked several blossoms and wove them together with the starwort. Unknownst to him, Jarlaxle was struggling. He'd started braiding Artemis' hair with every expectation of being pushed away. Now that he'd gotten this far, he realized he'd used the basis for the braids that drow nobles used to indicate their rank within the house. Habit, he cursed silently. He hadn't done braids like this for centuries, but his hands had made them anyway. He wasn't sure that he could braid something that wasn't somehow an indicator of drow social ranking. If he was assigning a rank anyway... he glanced forward at Drizzt. Technically, this would have been included in the younger drow's education. But since House Do'Urden's structure had been a bit lacking, perhaps Drizzt wouldn't recognize the pattern that Jarlaxle wanted to use. With a grin, he started braiding. As he reached the end of one of the strands, he noticed Artemis cursing under his breath. The twists he'd been trying to include in Dahlia's hair were rapidly undoing themselves. "Having difficulty, khal'abbil?" Jarlaxle asked in drow. "This isn't something I ever learned to do." "Let me help." He leaned forward, rested his chin on Artemis' shoulder, and stuck the end of the braid in his mouth to stop it from unraveling while his hands demonstrated a pattern that would work in Dahlia's hair. After a couple passes, he handed it back to Artemis, who had learned it as quickly as he learned everything else. Jarlaxle enjoyed a moment of rest, then heard a choking noise ahead of him. Drizzt was turned around and staring at him. Specifically at the braid in his mouth. Drizzt's hands flew through the series of signs. Consort braids? Really? Jarlaxle grinned around the hair and signed back. They seemed appropriate. And they look nice. Drizzt opened his mouth but seemed to lack the words. Entreri tried to turn his head, but went in the wrong direction and tugged the untied braid away from Jarlaxle. "What did you do to him?" he asked as Jarlaxle caught the braid between his fingers and resumed his work. "Nothing." He pressed a light kiss to the nape of Artemis' neck. "I think he's just flustered. Braids look good on you." "I want to see," said Dahlia. She turned, but Artemis' hands were tangled in her hair and he was tugged forward with a growl. She raised an eyebrow. "They're crooked." "I haven't done anyone's hair for a few centuries now," Jarlaxle admitted sheepishly. "I'm rather out of practice." Artemis was still glaring at Jarlaxle. "Turn your head, please," he said. "I need to get the other side." Artemis did not turn his head. Dahlia leaned back and kissed him. "They do look nice, even crooked," she said. Drizzt made another noise that sounded like a creaking hinge, then went back to focusing on whatever he was making in his lap. Artemis sighed as he saw all his work on Dahlia's hair had been shaken out, then went back to it.  This time he started weaving the stems of small blue-and-white flowers in with it.  Jarlaxle scooted a bit closer to the water to be able to reach the hair he hadn't braided yet. Drizzt looked back and untangled his hands from the flowers and starwort. Does he know the terms of this relationship? he asked in sign. "Can you translate?" Dahlia asked Artemis. "No," he said sourly. Jarlaxle laughed. No one but you will recognize the significance, in any case, he responded. He bit his lip. Anything less than this seemed... incomplete. Drizzt nodded, reluctantly ceding the point. Dahlia poked him in the side. "Didn't you mention once that dark elves use braids to mark social class?" she asked. Artemis' shoulders stiffened. Drizzt sighed. "It's a little more complicated than that," he said. "What do they mean?" Jarlaxle winced at the knife's edge in Artemis' voice. Even small things provoked his distrust, these days. Jarlaxle hadn't gotten used to it yet. Drizzt opened his mouth to answer, but paused as Jarlaxle shook his head. Artemis saw the exchange and scowled. "Tell me, or I'm taking them out." Jarlaxle pulled his hands away. "They're the braids used to identify a consort of the head of house," he said. "I suppose the comparable standing on the surface is a lover or paramour." Drizzt frowned slightly. Jarlaxle wasn't technically lying, but he'd used the braids that indicated a highly valued consort, one who had been taken on for their skills and political connections, and who would not be easily discarded. A more accurate translation would have been ­husband, rather than lover. Artemis looked at him, clearly hoping for a more reliable source of information than Jarlaxle. Drizzt coughed. Artemis glared at him. "That is accurate," Drizzt finally said. "Though he's understating a little." Artemis's eyes narrowed as Jarlaxle's widened. "Go on." Drizzt looked at Jarlaxle's stricken expression, then took mercy. "Depending on what the consort brings to their house, the matron may consider them disposable. The braids Jarlaxle used indicate the exact opposite." "So you're broadcasting to anyone who can read these that they should try to use me as a hostage?" Jarlaxle shrugged. "Technically yes, but anyone who can read these will be so offended by seeing a noble's braids on a human that they'll be distracted from the battle." Jarlaxle tugged on one of them softly, making sure it would stay in. "Kimmuriel in particular would be appalled, but that's specifically because it's you." Artemis grinned.  "Very well. They can stay." The patch of flowers he'd been using for Dahlia's hair was bare. He pointed at one next to Jarlaxle's knee.  "I'll need some of those." "What are you doing?" Dahlia asked. This time when she turned, Artemis was ready for her and moved with her head. "You will see when I am done." Since Dahlia was distracted anyway, Drizzt took the opportunity to walk around and lean against Jarlaxle's back.  He wrapped his arms around him in a one-sided hug, being sure not to obstruct Jarlaxle's attempts to tie off the last part of the braids.  Jarlaxle leaned back with a low murmur of contentment. Drizzt placed the starwort-and-flowers wreath on Jarlaxle's head, lightly brushing the tips of his ears with his fingers. "To replace your hat." Jarlaxle looked at his reflection in the water and smiled, tilting it to a slightly jauntier angle. Artemis turned to look.  "It is less offensive than your old hat.  You should get someone to cast a preservation spell on it so it never wilt—" He was cut off by Dahlia—who had managed to get a good look at her braid while he was snarking—spinning and tackling him. "I was removing plants from Drizzt's hair," she said, fingers dancing over the exposed skin of his neck and stomach. "Why would you add plants to mine?" Rather than respond, he squirmed and tried to tickle back, only slightly impeded by trying to avoid defend all points of vulnerability. "You can't trick someone into being married to you," Drizzt said in Jarlaxle's ear.  He could feel as Jarlaxle's shoulders shook with suppressed laughter, though whether at the statement or the intense swearing in front of them was unclear. "Of course I can." Drizzt made an exasperated noise into the back of Jarlaxle's neck, which only provoked more laughter.  Jarlaxle shifted so he could push a lock of Drizzt's hair (now starwort-free) out of his face. "I assume you're happier without being assimilated into the structure of my 'house'?" "Yes."  Drizzt looked forward, to where Artemis was starting to lose the war with Dahlia.  "Although, as far as houses go, this one is not terrible." Jarlaxle poked Dahlia in the side with his foot, distracting her long enough for Artemis to make a break for it. "I believe he's also ticklish behind the knees," he said to Dahlia as she scrambled after him. "Whose side are you on?" Artemis demanded as he was tackled again. Jarlaxle just laughed.  Drizzt dodged as the tickle-fight got closer, and Artemis and Dahlia paused long enough to cooperate in pushing Jarlaxle back into the stream with a splash.

#au: herding cats #fic