#if I'm feeling lazy and don't want to figure out the adjective-to-noun from foolish to foolishness

[optiwashere]

if you're doing prompts this week too I might send in one or two more!

with that said, how about some angst, C1 For mintharaheart perhaps? I imagine minthara is used to her lovers dying, just not of old age.

You're so real for this one. Thanks for requesting it! 💜

Also, I apologize in advance.

--- C1. Lifespan differences

It is the weakness of surface-dwellers in her, thought Minthara as she helped Shadowheart from the bed to the small washroom nearby.

The webbed halls of the new House Baenre were not to Shadowheart's liking at first. She struggled to see the beauty in Qu'ellarz'orl as well, the view of the mushroom forest lost to her. That was decades ago by then, though to Minthara that still felt as if it were yesterday.

It is the weakness she's instilled in me that doesn't call on our servants to aid her, Minthara told herself as she gently pulled the shift from Shadowheart's body.

Her hair, once black, now matched Minthara's silver, though its pallor was joined by new wrinkles and lines on Shadowheart's face. Beautiful all of them, like a suit of armor wearing the proud signs of battle.

"Will you warm the water for me?" asked Shadowheart in perfect drowic. She'd learned the tongue easily, and she used it more than any other language now.

"Of course," Minthara said softly, matching Shadowheart's weak grip on her hand.

The clawed tub next to them, its curling edges mimicking a spider's legs, had already been filled with water. Minthara trusted the servants of her House enough to do that much. Even still, she knelt before the bath and dipped a finger into the murky water.

No heat nor acid scorched her skin.

None were so ambitious — so foolish — as to target the Matron Mother's consort, at least. It had happened once, long ago. A failed attempt and a bad one at that. What Matron Mother wasn't accustomed to having her consort's food taste-tested?

Pieces of that traitor's skull still adorned one of Minthara's favorite spider-silk dresses.

With a word of power and flick of her wrist, the heating element underneath the tub lit with gentle flames. While the water heated, Minthara collected the surface soaps and shampoos that Shadowheart preferred without a word.

I should not be the one waiting on her. She is my consort, and I am her Matron Mother. Her superior in all things.

Minthara thought it all to herself as she turned to the sitting Shadowheart next to her. She slipped the sandals from Shadowheart's feet, saying not a word. Gray-green eyes stared down at her, the wrinkles around Shadowheart's mouth more pronounced as she smiled.

"My weakness," Minthara said, the pet name effortlessly flowing off her tongue, "is the water to your liking?"

Shadowheart dipped her fingers in the water. "It's perfect."

"Then allow me to help you in."

It is this weakness, her, that has infected me so.

Nevertheless, Minthara helped Shadowheart into her bath without even a grunt of exertion or a word.

She never called for her servants when it came time to help Shadowheart with the soap. Her fingers fumbled with it so often these days.

It is this infection that will kill me when she leaves me, isn't it?

#bg3 fanfiction #minthara baenre #shadowheart #minthara x shadowheart #my fic #anotheropti prompt fics #I can only say that I'm sorry and that is that and now I must bury my head in work to stop thinking about this #from the Drow of the Underdark the closest word I can find that matches 'weakness' like this would be 'streeaka' #which is more like recklessness #so the pet name would be like 'ussta streeaka' #if I'm feeling lazy and don't want to figure out the adjective-to-noun from foolish to foolishness