Short. Moonrise, Dubhàn — "Distract her with your yearning for Gale."
Disclaimer: Obviously, everything belongs to Larian Studios; Baldur's Gate riffing!
What to expect: snippet just to unwind the writing fingers, nothing fancy, a little tweak on Z'rell's scene at the start of Moonrise Towers explorating; I am trying to do justice to my little wizard, and Dubhàn is NOT amused to be here.
About Dubhàn: they're a Tav, an open-hand monk (a good one, physically; a less good one, mindly, because balance is harder to achieve than you'd think when you're a natural hot-head), and they look like this:
(DUBHÀN - ACT II)
What are you doing here?
You should never have come here.
You’re not an actor. You’re not a charmer. You’re barely anyone, though you continue painfully to be something. In the cold dark devoted air of Moonrise, you are—choked, choking.
Maybe the shadows were better after all.
The shadows you can see, and fight. This labyrinth, it is made of walls you run into, of lines you can’t navigate.
What was Jaheira thinking?
“Z’rell is waiting for you,” someone says—who—a guard, a helmet, eyes ruby’d with Lolth, though Lolth doesn’t reach this landed tower, this towered land. And you are already gone—up the stairs, a buzzing in your ears, a silence in your gut. No space; between the too-closed walls, there is no room to move-shift-hit-and
breathe.
“Dubhàn,” he says very close to your ear, Gale, he says—so close it is barely a sigh. When you meet his dark eyes there is a smile there, a smile for you.
A smile for you.
Him, he—he does navigate. More comfortable here in the snakepit than where the world is free, where the world is wild. To your constant shift, to your constant becoming, becoming-other, becoming-further, he is atemporal and fixed; he weaves symmetry. In Moonrise, symmetry wins. You smile back.
“Ready to shine, magic man?”
“Words, huh? Harder than they look,” he cracks a smirk, a smirk that tries very hard not to be smug.
No matter; you like him a little smug.
“Don’t call me dumb too fast,” you snort. “What are you gonna do when words don’t manage to carry your pack?”
He laughs; incongruous, the sound, and immediately swallowed by the rot-sponges that these walls are; how heartbreaking, that this god-filled, god-forsaken place would silence what should be crystallized.
“T-t-t,” he’s still chatting away, still chatting you up, “you forget telekinesis. Did you think I kept you around for the shoulder power?”
“No,” you push open the door to the upper hall. “For the shoulder gawking, more like,” and above the shoulder gawked at you also throw him a wink, which gets you the win. He has more words, he does, but more flustering too, as chatterboxes are wont to, and ah—on the tripping of his lovely tongue you make the mistake of advancing first.
“Excellent timing, True Soul.”
Shit.
You stop.
You look ahead, you look up.
She’s there, Z’rell, eyes full on you, eyes tunnelled pummelled on you; True Soul, that’s you—that’s not you, and really that’s the crux of the problem here, the crux the crack the flaw.
“No,” he says, very close to your ear, Gale, he says—so close, this time his voice clear and high, advancing before disaster can unfold, a shield of waterlight. “No, Commander Z’rell, I’m the one you—”
“Shut it, human. I’m talking to the drow.”
Eyes full on you, eyes tunnelled pummelled on you; not even a flicker towards him, and scorn so cold you bristle under its breeze. Gale doesn’t bristle, no; he huffs, good-humored, though his tadpole twitches; he bows his head; you bristle twice as strong. One last attempt:
“Well,” he says, all pirouette, “if you’d rather have a discussion with my bodyguard, of course…”
That you can be. That you are.
“Is he always so troublesome, True Soul? You should discipline him.”
You don’t rise to the bait, because it’s not a bait: she’s serious. She’s serious, so you clench your teeth, and dodge the scorching of your own anger; instead, you say, low enough to scrape:
“You wanted me. What is it?”
“I did,” Z’rell purrs. “The goblins, tell me how they suffered. No, better yet: show me.”
You want to say: don’t—but it’s too late, and she’s already parting the curtains of your mind, sliding inside like a robber’s hand, feeling, groping for something she won’t find; leaving behind the shame-slime of insertion, invasion, subjection. You are not—not a subject of this. You are not. You are the master of your face: pulled taut over your features, you feel its tight rigidity, its disciplined unmoving. Mouth, eyes, skin: still and stone.
“They didn’t,” she comes to, spat back, spat out. “Suffer?” A hiss, a threat.
“No,” you hold her gaze, though your mind is still burning with disgust. “I am no one’s dog, Commander. I don’t kill for others.”
“Except for the Absolute herself,” Gale adds, smarter than you, as you smart still.
His hand, not in your mind—here, on your naked shoulder, dry and cool, a weight on your body, a lightness in your soul. You like his hands—always open and dancing, like yours, but not like yours at all—their learnèd choreography, following a pattern you can’t know, graceful, rigid and algebraic—a neat-waltzing to your free-flowing.
Gently, you flow under his palm, and let it slide away; Z’rell is still watching you.
“Right,” she tongue-tips, an inch away from a threat. “And you came here to answer the Absolute’s call. Let’s see what you’re made of, then.”
This time you are ready, standing open so that she won’t leave a trace on the walls of yourself; but not ready enough—not ready to show her proof of your faith; as your minds collide, you grapple, you scramble for purchase—you know what to do, you knew what to do—you can drown anything, you can, that you can, in the power of Ki, in its gravel humming, you can, erase it all, deafen it all—this is what you should have done, this is what you should have invoked: smog and smoke to Z’rell’s mirrors, a force, a fog, but—but, oh, but Gale’s hand was on your shoulder a second ago, Gale’s hand, dry and cool, its dance its grace, skin-to-skin and close enough, not quite, cloth-enough, enough enough, closer you wish, you do—you wish for—Gale’s hand, and its—patterns, patience, power—Gale’s hand, meet-sweet-heat.
What Ki cannot drown, Gale did flood.
“Huh.” Z’rell laughs low. “You have used the wizard well. But the desperate one who would love such a pathetic man must hunger for—”
That’s it.
When your hand grips her throat (FAST)—
When her head hits the wall (HARD)—
FINALLY
She shuts her damn mouth
and gasps.
Under your grasp the strength of her wide-strong body heaves; under your gaze the wrath of her eyes ignites. That, you don’t fear, though. Strength you can tackle. Wrath you can extinguish. When she strains, you give her another shove, and delight in the ugly sound of her skull against stone.
“Have some fucking respect,” you hiss, very close. “Don’t make me strike you down before your Goddess inevitably does. Yes?”
Her hand has found your wrist, scrabbling for release. She sees you now: not the secret parts she shouldn’t touch, not the restraint of Ki, either—but the you of this ugly world, the you you’re willing to give to her, this, this you. You look at her, in that second, and you think: you could kill her there. You could, you think, you think, you think on it. You could, and it would feel good.
Instead you push her back, and step away.
“Well!” In the beat of silence, Gale chuckles, beautifully unfazed as Z’rell pulls herself together, mouth twisted with hatred. “Now that we’ve all been wildly inappropriate with one another…” When you snort, he smiles wider, sparkling. “You had a mission for us?”
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She doesn't know what he likes and can only give things that are acessible to her, city goods and purchases were beyond her. Nothing can be considered cheap, so that didn't help much. Still, the wild fairy of Erinnyes couldn't care much.
Here comes Pahsiv, with a crate on hold like it weighed nothing. "Thoma good thing", "gift for Thoma, Pahsiv!". As for what may be insidee the wooden crate, its only a bunch more of Waterlight Lilies. (Glaciescustodia. A Merry Christmas to u :3)
"!! Whoa!"
Now hasn't someone been busy! Noticing the crate they lofted by his side had immediately struck him from his perch, the book betwixt his fingers closed while the springy Pahsiv introduced a gift today. The initial surprise dwindled into warmed forethought as it clicked to which day it was. Part of him was curious, was it a matter of fairy actually knowing? Or on the other hand, did circumstances decide to bless the wellness of her timing?
The Vision Holder would hardly give it too much thought. For it was the action's intent that mattered, and right now, watching the way she looks proud of her quarry made him instantly want to amuse her. "Well aren't you sweet. Given the weight, this must've taken you a while has it?" Even if their language speak was a touch broken, it hadn't switched Thoma from taking it as any other conversation, he liked for Pahsiv to feel involved.
Plucking up the top of the crate, his lips sparsely dropped at the sheer number of water lillies caught within his sight. 'That's right.. I never told them I had completed the commission. Still, maybe there is a perfect something I can do with these.'
"Pahsiv.. Thank you. Hmhm, I say we gotta put this bounty here to some good use! Not only in setting up some more medicine, did you know there's a thing humans could do involving color?"
"Why don't you sit with me for a little bit? I have an idea of a present for you too."
It wouldn't take long before he sets himself to work. Needle and thread were at the ready, and all of a sudden those hands of his were as lethally swift as lightning. The muscle memory of the act served true for his task as strands of the waterlight were woven into cloth, leading to a 'blessing' of sorts drawn into the scarf, ensuring it wouldn't be soaked through any long journeys through water.
Another modicum would be taken in order to get the actual dye set. By now the process, in particular due to Teyvat's materials, was a lot more easy to set up due to its vibrancy.
Given an hour a good hour into the work, a touch of heating and cooling from his Vision, and plenty of expert wit. Set within his hands would be a shimmering blue scarf, holding an ethereal sort of glow as it's draped within his hands. Silently marveling over the handiwork, it'd be happily given to Pahsiv.
"How do you like it? If you ever want to keep a little warm or have some light be by your side, just keep it tucked around your neck."
@glaciescustodia
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