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Shadowheart huffed for what it seemed to be the hundredth time. She was letting her frustration out the only way she could without being a bother to the others in camp. Must she be so close? She made another disgruntled noise, having trouble completing the task of peeling potatoes for tonight’s dinner.
A heated glare was sent to the source of her headache, but the fire in Shadowheart’s eyes failed to ignite the tiniest spark. Lae’zel was far too busy to indulge in her contempt, focused on her own task of chopping firewoods, or to be more accurate, ripping them apart with her bare hands.
Shadowheart was no perfectionist but seeing what was being done was driving her into a downward spiral, and her head spun at the sight of the firewoods not being evenly split. The noise was also a grate to her ears—the splintering of woods and occasional grunts Lae’zel would emit.
Does the gith not realize how utterly ridiculous she looked?
There was a perfectly unused chopping axe sitting no more than a foot away.
Shadowheart was no idiot. Far from it. She considered herself to be smart, not as smart as Gale but certainly smarter than most people they had come across so far. And whatever Lae’zel was trying to do, it was for a show of dominance, power, and strength, yet all she was doing was only making herself look stupid.
Everything about her was stupid.
Like the sight of her stomach, etched with ripples of muscles resulted from the years of her military training and marred with scars, filled with untold stories of victories and losses. Her biceps flexed, coiling like two snakes in a heat while a thin sheen of sweat layered on top of her skin, glistening under the late afternoon sun like dewdrops in the morning. Her hair was perfectly intact and kempt without a single strand out of place.
Stupid.
Like the sight of her face, perfect and symmetrical with constellations of spots dotted on her face like stars in the sky. Her lips were pink, full, plump with a scar running down on the left corner of her mouth while the dark slop called makeup was smeared across her cheekbones and around her eyes, accentuating the tarnished gold gleaming within them.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
“I don’t think Gale would appreciate what you’ve done to dinner.”
Shadowheart jumped upon hearing a familiar shit-eating voice drawling out from behind. She looked over her shoulder to see Astarion, standing over her, with an equally shit-eating grin on his face. Rolling her eyes, she turned her attention back to her task in hand only to see the potato she'd been peeling the entire time had been greatly reduced in size, smaller than the size of her palm. She scowled, throwing the small piece of potato aside.
It was consumed by the owlbear cub while the pieces on the ground were gobbled up by Scratch.
“Distracted?” Astarion laughed.
"What is it you want, bloodsucker? Can't you see I'm busy?" Shadowheart was tempted to skin him alive as she picked up another potato to peel.
“Oh, don’t worry, it won’t take long. I’ve noticed how hard you’ve been working,” Astarion said, smirking, “by letting your eyes wander that is.”
“My eyes were not wandering.” Shadowheart was peeved at the accusation thrown at her face. “Also, for the record, I wasn’t checking that bat-face freak out.”
“Now, now, no need to get so cross with me. I didn’t mention anything about who you were checking out.” Astarion took in the pleasure to see Shadowheart’s face flustering a bright shade of red. “There’s no need to be embarrassed, my dear. No harm in looking, why, I’ve done a fair share of it.”
“That’s because you’re looking for something to potentially snack on,” Shadowheart accused.
“Is that the best you could do? You’re losing your bite.” He didn’t deny the accusation thrown at his face, continuing to grin at her while he walked around so he could block her view of Lae’zel. Being observant, Astarion noticed the slight change of expression Shadowheart made – one that could be said as annoyed – and saw her shifting ever so slightly to the side as if she was trying to peek over his shoulder. “I see why you’re interested in our frog warrior. She’s a doll, don’t you agree?”
“Be my guest, go try poke the gith with your dagger.”
“Fun as that may be, I’d very much like to stay entirely intact.”
“Good. I wasn’t planning on helping you if you came crawling to me, begging to be fixed.”
“Oh? Are you planning to keep your spells all for yourself?” Astarion smirked. “You desire to be split apart, yes? Like whatever Lae’zel’s doing?”
“Leave,” Shadowheart warned as magic trickled between her fingers, “before I decide to smite you where you stand.”
Astarion took a step back, putting his hands up in a mock surrender. “Try not to take advice from one of those smut novels you read, I couldn’t help but to steal one of your collections and read through a few pages. Even Lae’zel deserves better.” He left with a bounce to his steps, giggling while a potato hurled at his way missed him by several inches.
Shadowheart glared at Astarion’s retreating form, the echoing of his cackle was like a terrible screech to her ears but now he was finally gone… her eyes traveled back only to see Lae’zel was nowhere to be seen, and the unevenly chopped firewoods were piled up in a stack.
Stupid Astarion.