Chapter Text
The dark is so familiar to her. It wraps her like a cocoon, shouldering her burdens, floating everything away. Leaving her fully capable for every single one of her duties. To fulfill her Lady’s wishes.
This is not that kind of darkness.
Shadowheart struggles in her prison, hands banging on the walls. She knows it’s no use - the Mind Flayer that placed her here seemed particularly pissed, and the only other living creatures here are those nasty little brains with legs. Wailing for help is beneath her, truly, but she’s desperate.
“Help! Someone help me! Get me out of here!”
A previous amendment. There were other living creatures here. There were gith.
She sees the gith first, at least. Stained with blood - just like the ones who had killed her comrades. But behind her, trailing behind - a rather tall human woman. Her eyes are sharp, calculative, for the moment she looks over at Shadowheart. Then they're wide with surprise at seeing another survivor.
The woman nods her head towards the cage, and the gith rolls her eyes, but after a couple moments of pleading, running a few laps around the room, and finally returning to the prison she’s held in, the human stops. “I think I can get you out,” she says, breathless. “But if this turns you into a Mind Flayer, I’m sorry in advance.”
“What?!”
Shadowheart barely has time to register the words, and her possible last moment alive as a sentient and aware half-elf. She doesn’t get to murmur a quick (apology) prayer to Lady Shar, nor make her peace with her death.
She does get to, however, fall on the floor.
Her hands touch hardened shell, a sensation she is so incredibly relieved to feel that she forgets everything else going wrong at the moment. She was free. She wasn't going to die on the stupid fucking alien ship that kidnapped her. She shakily raises her head, looking up to see the human; she's quick to approach and offer a hand. “I’m Tav.” She’s quick with a smile, too.
Shadowheart, however, is not as quite.
A Selûnite pendant hangs off the neck of her brand new friend.
“Shadowheart,” she says despite herself, but doesn’t take the hand, choosing to pull herself to her feet instead. Her distrusting eyes settle upon the gith instead. She considers, for a brief moment, telling Tav to ditch her, but was a Selûnite really that much better than a gith who would probably try to kill her if she saw the artifact?
No.
It’s not like she has time, to, anyway, because “Lae’zel! Slow down!” has already stalked off, and Tav is quick to chase her. “Are you coming?”
Shadowheart reaches back into her prison, grabbing the artifact and shoving it deep within her pockets. “Yes; let’s go.”
As it turns out, Tav is a paladin - something Shadowheart only realizes when she feels the warmth of bless fill her body during battle. It prickles, settling underneath the surface like an itch that won’t go away. There’s no need for speculation anymore - this is most definitely the Moonwitch’s magic.
Hopefully Lady Shar will forgive her, because she wants to make it off this ship alive.
“Hello?”
The voice is… unfamiliar, yet earnest. A gentle hand taps her shoulder, threatening to tear her from the dark. She keeps her eyes closed for another few seconds, hoping the darkness will return - it doesn’t.
“Oh gods, please don’t be dead,” Tav murmurs, shaking Shadowheart’s shoulders. She finally opens her eyes. A foreign face is inches from hers, brows creased in worry. It’s curious, honestly - this much desperation for another living soul.
“I’m alive.” Shadowheart does take the hand offered to her this time, if only to get into the paladin’s good graces. “And so are you, it seems. Good.” She dusts herself off, tucking the artifact back into her pocket. “Any idea how we survived?”
Tav stares for a few moments. “I was hoping you knew.”
“Right. Well, first things first, we need a healer. There’s fresh water nearby, so there must be some sort of settlement; I say we contact them, see if anyone knows how to get these worms out of our brains.” Shadowheart so easily slips back into instructing others on how to handle crisis situations - she must’ve done this before.
Tav nods. “Right. I’m amazed you know all this stuff - my head’s still groggy.” She picks a direction, seemingly at random, and begins marching, sending Shadowheart right after her.
“Excuse me?” Shadowheart dearly hopes that her new companion isn’t damaged in the brain. It would severely limit her chances of actually living through this if she didn’t have another capable person.
Tav glances back at her, blinking, as if realizing she overstepped. “Sorry - do you not also have amnesia? I wasn’t sure Lae’zel did or not - she was so intense I just didn’t ask questions.” She kicks a rock as she speaks, watching it skip into the water. There’s only a moment’s hesitation before she turns, picking a new direction to travel.
Shadowheart contemplates this. She knows her amnesia isn’t a symptom of her wriggling little brain worm, that’s for sure. Still, she’s not certain that she can be fully honest with Tav - she did just meet a Selûnite , after all. “I doubt that’s from the tadpole.” Her voice comes out a little more sympathetic than she means, but she supposes that’s a good thing. “But amnesia is more common than you’d think.”
Tav whistles. “‘Suppose.” Her footsteps are surprising light for a paladin… almost carefree. Shadowheart supposes that’s what happens to those who weren’t bound by memory nor duty.
Tav attempts multiple times to make small talk. It’s a bit entertaining to Shadowheart, if she’s being completely honest. This strange paladin acts as though nobody’s listened to her for years - which, knowing many paladins, was entirely probable. They had a tendency to annoy.
“You’re not really one for conversation,” Tav says. It’s an off-hand comment, but still, Shadowheart bristles. Tav seems to sense this, and she stops a moment, so suddenly Shadowheart nearly crashes into her. “Not that it’s a bad thing. Do you value privacy?”
“Do you value prying?” Shadowheart counters.
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Well, then.” Shadowheart smirks at Tav. So eager. “Glad we got that out of the way.”
Tav stares at her for a couple more moments before starting to walk again. “Does that mean you won’t tell me about yourself? I’ll go first if that makes you feel better.”
She steps over a log, nearly losing her balance. Her arms go out, and flap, a bit like a bird falling from the nest, but it does little to slow her as she trips. She rights herself. Shadowheart cannot really believe that this is the person she decided to rely on. She should’ve known the only person she can trust is herself.
Shadowheart gingerly steps over the log, sticking a hand down to the graceless human. “You’re a bit clumsy, dear.”
Tav takes it. “For some reason I thought that would work,” she hums, pulling herself to her feet but nearly knocking Shadowheart over in the process.
“Doesn’t look like I need you to share.” Shadowheart’s eyes settle on Tav for a moment, because shit, she had big arms. “I’m learning plenty already.”
For all of her flaws, Tav doesn’t pry further - something Shadowheart appreciates. They walk in near silence for a while - until Tav picks up another stray, and then another, and even Lae’zel comes back.
“You’re starting quite the collection, here,” Shadowheart chuckles. It wasn’t like she was upset about it - Astarion seemed like that bitch, and she could use one of those. Gale, for all of his nerdiness, was apparently a “magical prodigy”, which she supposed was useful (if she ignored his very pompous attitude toward other spellcastors).
Lae’zel was... a formidable fighter. She shifts, feeling the freshly healed scars around her ribs from stealing the artifact. She knew this from experience, at the very least - as well as from Lae’zel’s constant insistence that she would cull any of them from the group if they were weak.
That was all she would say on the subject.
Though Shadowheart didn’t exactly trust Tav, she had to admit, it was nice to let someone else do the talking most of the time. Gave her more time to just think . Despite the impression Shadowheart got of a bumbling fool, Tav was quite a smooth-talker. Especially when it came to calming down fights. This was a trait Shadowheart rather admired; in a way. At the very least, she was glad for it for nothing other than the fact that she’d have to heal people.
After what seemed like hours of walking, Tav slowed, looking at the moon in the sky, not at the beautiful setting sun. Selûnites. She glanced back at the weary group. The tallest of all of them, she could easily survey the whole group - a bit of a bloody mess.
“We should camp here,” she says gingerly, placing her pack down. “There’s fresh water around the bend, plenty of space.”
Everyone else sighs in relief.
Shadowheart is no stranger to setting up her tent. She methodically sets up her tent, her bedroll, everything she needs. It’s calming. Repetitive. Even before this mission, something within her knows she’s done this countless times before. She finishes, awaiting Gale to finish cooking everyone’s meals (“If I had known I’d had to cook for the whole camp, I would’ve known to grab higher quality ingredients,” he had huffed, earning Astarion’s very astute “From who, the refugees or the goblins? Maybe a corpse?”).
Tav returns just in time for dinner, hair still sopping, skin freshly glowing. So that’s where she went, Shadowheart muses. Tav had unpacked with near superhuman speed - that, or she just didn’t have much to begin with.
Despite the fact that all of them are still pretty antsy with each other, Tav ends up dragging (sometimes, almost literally) everyone to eat around the fire. “Reduces the chance that wildlife will find our scraps around our tents and attack” is her defense, but really, Shadowheart thinks she’s just trying to be nosy.
Still, they make pleasant conversation; plans for tomorrow, what they all want to do as soon as they get those damned tadpoles out, the like. Shadowheart almost finds herself enjoying the conversation, but her eyes keep tearing away to her tent. Away from the others. Isolated. Perfectly in the darkness, where she belongs.
Tav’s voice tears her from her thoughts.
“Do any of you guys get like… cravings for violence?”
Cue awkward party eye contact.
Shadowheart glances at Gale, first - he seems the most knowledgeable of them all, so if this had anything to do with the tadpole or some curse, he would certainly know. But he’s silent, eyebrows raised in not quite surprise.
Fine, then. She glances at Astarion, who looks utterly unphased, picking at his fruit, as if this was a normal conversation to have. He catches her staring and smirks, tipping his head at Lae’zel, who has started to speak.
“Every good warrior faces a hunger for blood. You must channel this feeling.” Intense. The perfect word to describe her voice - to describe her in general, if Shadowheart couldn’t use words like “bitch”.
“Is baby having their awakening after their first killing spree?” Astarion coos in a mocking tone. “Just don’t point it at us, sweetness, and I couldn’t care less who you maim. Invite me along, hmm?” He glances around, and something tells Shadowheart there’s much more to his gaze than what meets the eye. He seems to be waiting, watching. As if everyone else’s reaction to this is much more important than the confession in it’s actuality.
Tav shrugs. “Mm, no I’ve been feeling it since I woke up.”
Silence, once again.
Selûnites.
“I haven’t heard of the tadpole giving people murderous urges,” Gale begins, leaning forward to prop his forearms on his knees. “But I suppose, gosh, if ceremorphosis-“
Lae’zel’s hand is on her blade before he can finish speaking, but someone grabs her wrist before she can do untold damage. Shadowheart is somewhat surprised to find out that person is her.
“Tch- let go of me,” Lae’zel snarls, trying to yank her hand away, but Shadowheart stands firm. “I will not stand for a ghaik in our ranks.”
Tav doesn’t look incredibly surprised by everyone’s reactions. She chews on her lower lip, hands out in front of her, turning her bowl in steady circles. “I don’t really feel like a - mind.. flayer,” she muses. She smiles at them all. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Is this your sense of humor?” Shadowheart chuckles dryly, finally letting go of Lae’zel. Her arm is sore with the force she exerted - and for a Selûnite.
Her hand pulses, pain driven like a nail through it. Fuck. The incurable wound, back to bite her again. She grits her teeth, clutching her hand close to her chest to hide from the others just how badly it hurts.
Nobody notices - they’re all too busy chatting up Tav. This both offends and relieves her. Her secret was safe, but she was hoping for some attention, at least.
Pitiful. The words in her mind aren’t hers, but the Mother Superior’s. A petulant child is all you are.
With a start, she realizes someone was watching her - still is, eyes returning to her in between snarky comments and thoughtless answers to the questions of the others.
Tav.
What a strange, strange woman.
Shadowheart dismisses herself, cleaning her silverware, and then herself. It’s a relaxing ritual, to wash the blood from her hands in the small stream near the camp. To run hands through grimy hair, washing it free from dirt and the weight it carries. Here, in the quickly approaching dark, she was clean. Free from her past, only bound by her duty.
She prefers it this way, anyway.
She finishes washing, pulling on her nightclothes and returning to her tent. Tav sits just outside it, eyes trained on the sky.
“Waiting for me?” Shadowheart muses. She stops several feet away. Tav looks up. She scrambles to her feet, backing away from the tent. “Well don’t go running off now, I only just got back.”
“Just thought you might want to hang up your armor.” Tav nods at the metal in her arms. “Didn’t want to intrude, really, but I was concerned.”
“Is a woman not allowed to cleanse herself?” Shadowheart chuckles, but she moves towards her tent. As she finally places the armor away, her limbs finally catch up with her, and she sits, exhausted.
Tav sits next to her, looking desperately as though she wants to stare, but is restraining herself. “You, ah, winced earlier,” she says lightly. Steals a glance at Shadowheart’s hand.
“That I did.”
“I assume you don’t want to… discuss it?” Tav fully turns to face Shadowheart, sitting directly across from her.
“My, aren’t you astute,” Shadowheart chuckles, leaning back on her arms in an attempt to put more distance between them. She needs something to do with her hands, somewhere to hide them. “Could’ve saved us this entire conversation.”
Tav looks at least a bit amused. “Had to try.” She leans back, too, gazing quietly at the night sky again. “You know any constellations?” she asks quietly.
“Of course not,” Shadowheart scoffs. Stars were the Moonmaiden’s . She had never paid much attention to them. “They’re just giant balls of gas. Occasionally planets, but those are just lumps of rock.” She squints. Compared to the city, there were so many more stars out here.
It irks her.
“But they’re pretty,” Tav offers, and points. “That one there? It’s called the soldier. See how it kind of looks like someone’s marching into battle?”
Shadowheart follows her finger, but can’t really pick out which white blobs are supposed to represent what. She keeps searching for something familiar, but the only thing that calls to her is the space between them. The vast darkness, interrupted by these specks of light.
Despite her lack of a response, Tav continues. “This is the great tree - see the roots, the branches. This one is the… bear. I think this one is a teapot, but honestly, it could be just a vase.” She tilts her head, and it slowly dawns on Shadowheart that she has absolutely no idea what she’s talking about.
“You’re making all this up,” she accuses, doing her very best to sound offended. The very corner of Tav’s mouth curls up in a self-satisfied grin. “You sneaky little-“
“Think that’s my cue to leave,” Tav interrupts, standing. She looks down at Shadowheart for a few moments, silver hair shining in the moonlight. “Sleep well. I’m taking first watch.”
“Mmhmm, do try not to get too distracted by the stars. I’d rather live to see tomorrow, if it’s all the same to you,” Shadowheart calls after her.
Tav waves at her as she walks down the slight hill back to the base of camp. “My lady, it couldn’t be further from that to me.”