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“If you want something, Sharran, then perhaps you should take it.”
To the half-elf’s credit, she does. The sensation of the kiss is foreign, and soft at first, too soft—but then Shadowheart bites down on Lae’zel’s lower lip, and Lae’zel growls out her approval.
And then all too soon, Shadowheart is withdrawing. Lae’zel finds herself confused. This is normally the point at which she’d be bruising the flesh of her lay.
“That didn’t hurt, did it?” Shadowheart asks.
As if Lae’zel of Crèche K’liir would balk at a little pain. “The pain was worth it,” she says. As she’d told that strange priest, one cannot know pleasure without it. So says Vlaakith.
“I should think so,” Shadowheart says with a smirk that used to annoy Lae’zel. “Let’s head back. If we must.” She stands and begins gathering up the wine glasses, the empty bottles.
Lae’zel helps. And then she leads the way back to camp, because she’ll be damned if she lets Shadowheart lead everything tonight. They part ways to retire to their own tents with a smile and a wave from Shadowheart and an awkward nod from Lae’zel.
Vlaakith weighs heavily on Lae’zel’s mind for too long before she achieves any rest that night. As does Shar.
Shadowheart stands on the precipice of obtaining all that Lae’zel was denied: a place of honor at the right hand of her goddess. Lae’zel bitterly resents her for it, it’s true—but unexpectedly, she also wants the woman who used to vex her so to succeed. There is perhaps no one better equipped to understand Shadowheart’s ambition.
That desire brings with it a heavy sorrow. Because what sort of bond might they forge, when Shar commands her loyalty? Shadowheart will give herself over fully to her goddess. As she should. As Lae’zel desperately wishes she could have.
And even if Shadowheart did find space for Lae’zel in her life afterwards, that resentment would not evaporate. It would devour them both. The woman she has come to respect deserves better than that.
Why did Lae’zel return here? Simply because Shadowheart said she thought herself a different person since meeting Lae’zel, and the shattered pieces of her yearned for something? Because that damned skeleton had criticized her for seeking the company of none? Because in the aftermath of blazing a path from here to Crèche Y’llek, and then wandering about as if in a dream to Moonrise and then to the Gauntlet of Shar, she’d looked around and noticed for the first time that she knew barely anything of those she’d recruited to aid in her search for a cure?
-
“All’s well, I hope…?” Shadowheart asks in the morning.
“Of course,” Lae’zel says brusquely. “Unless something’s the matter?”
“No,” Shadowheart says. “I just wanted to see how you felt after the night we spent together. When we talked…and kissed.”
How happy she looks as she says it. How hopeful. The fragmented ruin of Lae’zel’s heart somehow manages to fracture into smaller pieces still.
“Perhaps we…got carried away,” Lae’zel says carefully.
“Oh.” Shadowheart’s face crumples all at once, and Lae’zel wonders if she’s just severed the only connection she’s made since being kidnapped by the ghaik.
“You are a skilled warrior and a formidable ally. I…have come to value your company,” Lae’zel says, the words feeling strange in her mouth. “I enjoyed last night. But you will not taste my lips again.” Her words are firm in their resolve.
“I see,” Shadowheart says, still looking crestfallen. And then her face hardens. Good. “Well, in that case, I suppose there’s nothing more to be said on the matter.” Her expression softens again, the smallest fraction. “Thank you, anyway. For your company.”
“And yours,” Lae’zel says.
She leaves under the pretense of needing to sharpen her weapon. It’s perfectly sharp already, but she finds the familiar motions soothing. Meditative.
She finds no peace in it this morning. She looks around the camp as if for the first time, and she wants. She wants to win back Vlaakith’s favor. She wants to renounce Vlaakith forever. She wants to throw Shadowheart up against a tree and make her scream in every way. She wants to burn in Karlach’s fire, to make Astarion put his pretty words into action, to feel the Blade’s sting, to make that loquacious wizard utilize his tongue for something worthwhile for once.
She thinks of Minthara, waiting for them back in the Shadow-Cursed Lands. A woman who has lost everything, and who has come out the other side intact. Perhaps she has some guidance to offer Lae’zel. Their passion, she knows, would be brutal and bloody. And maybe even something approaching what Lae’zel needs to loose the scream that’s been trapped in her lungs, ever since she failed her queen and her own people turned against her.
It’s time to carve another path, straight through the forces of the Absolute. To answers, and a cure, and vengeance on the deserving.