Isobel Thorm, icon, godsend, hero, absolute titan, determined to carry the hurt/comfort genre on her STR 12 shoulders. I adore her.
Of course, the catch is that she herself has also Been Through The Horrors but chooses not to acknowledge this in favour of adamantly insisting on being the caretaker (which she is obviously very good at, like... professionally, as a cleric and healer).
And even more than that, caretaker to a person who is a big nigh-unkillable (but very significantly not, as Isobel herself points out, unharmable!) radiant wall of muscle and holy fury so used to being a champion and protector herself, extremely keen to dismiss her own issues as a bit of "paladin's fatigue" and "flights of fancy" and who is on so many levels, some very fundamental to her being, tied into being A Sword.
I guess my point is... fic writer comrades-in-arms, this is what we call a goldmine.
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average geminitay stream is like
(music that vaguely does not fit the vibe)
gem talking about cooking and plants
*video game actually starts*
gem gets distracted
gem gets distracted
gem gets distracted
gem makes a non pg 13 joke
gem gets distracted
gem gets distracted
gem makes a queer joke (optional)
gem gets distracted
winnie makes dog noises
gem gets distracted
gem gets distracted
gem realized she missed 2 hrs worth of notification
gem: okay bye chat!
*doesn't stream for the next 3 weeks*
inspired by this post
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BG3 AU where Wyll's self-sacrifice in saving Baldur's Gate – from cultists of Tiamat, the queen of evil dragons, no less – at great personal cost creates the barest beginnings of a bond to the still-slumbering Ansur. After all, that stymied, accumulated draconic power would have had to dissipate somewhere, and would it not make sense for it to be drawn to the lodestone of a necrotic-energy suffused dracolich?
It would give Ansur a bit of a jolt toward waking, but not enough to bring him to full awareness. The part of him that remained curious, and hopeful, and mourned its lost connection to a bright spark of mortal devotion and nobility – in retrospect, lost to him perhaps even before Balduran’s transformation – latched on to that new path, following it to its end in the brilliant, marred soul of Wyll Ravengard.
After everything, after his father returns to the city, and Wyll... leaves it, he dreams. There’s a different, recognizable creature every time. It starts very small, a little fish in a pond he finds himself sitting by. He is tired and worn from keeping up his mask of careful good cheer, and his body aches from the scuffles it has been forced into. Mizora seems to get some entertainment from sending him after quarry just slightly above his level, or with not enough information to prepare himself adequately. He is learning quickly, but never quite quickly enough, it feels. Here, in this dreamscape, his eye socket still aches, but it is comfortingly empty of the stone that sits within in in the waking world, its chilling weight reminding him always of his mistress’s leash.
He trails his fingers within the pond, and the little fish darts away, a flash of blackened bronze scales. He can’t blame it; he’d hide from himself if he could, too. He says as much to the little creature, and fancies it moves a little closer to the entrance of its little hiding hole. Charmed, and encouraged by the thought that, after all, who else could he possibly speak to about any of this, he settles back against a small outcropping of rock alongside the pool, leaving his fingers bobbing gently in the water, but letting his eyes close and his attention wander.
He tells the little thing about his most recent quest — he likes to call them such sometimes, in the privacy of his own mind, because it lets him pretend that they are anything as glamorous and heroic as the future he dreamed for himself, Before. Even more privately, he draws a mental distinction between the quests he is allowed to take on of his own volition, and the jobs that Mizora sends him on, to further her own unknowable ends. Thus far, they don’t seem to have been anything too horrible, but he fears that such will not always be the case. What can he do about it, however? This was his bargain for the lives of every resident of the Gate, and his own acts at Mizora’s direction have not even come close to outweighing that number.
He is broken from this too-familiar thought spiral by a distinctly unfamiliar – and unexpected – brush of scales against his fingertips. He starts, briefly, but keeps his calm, and merely cracks open his eyes to look down at his little friend. It is poised to dart back into its crevice at the slightest motion, and he smiles down at it, keeping his fingers as still as he can.
“Have no fear — I will make no attempt at you, I swear it. At least one of us ought to be free.”
The little fish makes one last brush against his outstretched hand before darting away again. He fancies it swims with less frantic caution, this time, and counts it a victory enough. When he wakes, soon after, the memory of the strange dream does not fracture apart in the way of most dreams, but seems to tuck itself away, coming to the forefront of his mind only when directly called upon.
[Now with Part 2] [and 3]
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