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Tav was a darling man. He was sharp and studied, not the usual stereotype for sorcerers. He was a tiefling but with dragon blood in him, giving his horns extra weight, and his scales an iridescent garnet look. He was large and beautiful, had a clever wit and a good heart, and half the camp had caught feelings about Tav at one point or another. It was hard not to have feelings about Tav, but Tav was, clearly, besotted with Gale.
The problem was Gale didn’t seem to be picking up on this.
And it was driving Shadowheart mad.
Tav had a lovely voice, a low rumble that vibrated in your own chest, and he teased Gale endlessly for needing to study magic as it was as natural as breathing for Tav, and Gale would tease back on how at least he could learn new magic outside of a very narrow field, and then Tav would say at least he could slap two people with haste with one spell, and then Gale would get this look like he would want to kiss Tav, maybe, but then he didn’t.
This happened on roughly an hourly basis.
Clearly the Lady of Loss was testing her in some fashion. Romance was heavily discouraged amongst Sharrans as needless twaddle that distracted one from their Lady, and sex was similarly frowned upon, though not quite as stigmatized. This was clearly a lesson on why.
But they weren’t Sharran, and so they had no excuse, and if Tav made one more longing glance towards Gale’s unkempt beard, Shadowheart was going to snap.
So, for sanity purposes, Shadowheart turned to the most Sharran thing she could remember:
Torrid gossip.
“Did you see the way Tav was looking at Gale earlier?” Shadowheart asked. She took a sip of her wine to calm her. Wine, at least, was highly tolerated amongst Sharrans. There’d no be surviving each other otherwise.
Wyll took his own sip of wine. “I think half of the Storm Coast has seen the way he looks at Gale.”
“I just don’t see why Gale hasn’t jumped his bones already,” Shadowheart said. “They did what at the party? Simple magic? And that’s it?”
“Some people don’t feel a need to rush things,” Wyll said. “I myself take pleasure in a prolonged courtship where two souls can truly understand each other.”
“Please. There’s not rushing, and there’s squandering what’s in front of you,” Shadowheart said, flicking her hand that wasn’t holding the wine. “At the very least I would have plied Tav with alcohol and conversations, under the starlight.”
Shadowheart had thought exactly how she would have approached Tav once, but that ship had set sail.
Wyll looked thoughtful. “There’s a deep sadness in Gale. I think it’s cast a cloud over his vision. He’s unable to see the beauty in front of him, likely because of the ticking time bomb in his chest.”
“And?” Shadowheart asked dismissively. “We have our own ticking time bombs in our heads.”
Wyll laughed. “Very true, but the point is, I don’t think Gale’s noticed between his sorrow and his loneliness. The mood’s not right for him.”
Wyll might know a thing or two about that. He’d been moody himself at the party, hiding away to drink in private. Shadowheart wasn’t one to judge, even if his new horns were rather rugged. But it wasn’t if he looked handsome or not. That had never been the issue.
It was terrifying to lose control of your body, and that was a thought Shadowheart didn’t think further on because it was blasphemous to.
Shadowheart snorted. “The mood’s not going to be right for some time. I highly doubt the githyanki do have a cure for the tadpoles, and even if they do, they aren’t going to share it with us. And from there it’s into the Shadowlands and fighting this cult of the Absolute.”
“I wonder if it would be possible to set the mood for them then,” Wyll said thoughtfully.
Shadowheart gave a small devious little smile. “Why Wyll. Are you thinking of interfering in our leader’s business?”
Wyll gave her a look of feigned innocence. “Surely there’s no harm in meddling if it leads to something beautiful, right? And Tav seems to struggle by himself to get Gale’s attention. Perhaps he just needs the right moment. And, perhaps, his good dear friends can help him find that right moment.”
Shadowheart took a deeper swig of wine. “Count me in if you need a hand. Anything to stop them from pining over each other for hours on end. What’s the plan? If we found an inn, we could conveniently room them up. I don’t think there’s any hot springs near by for them to bathe in and properly get introduced.”
“Ah I’m not a fan of any business in hot springs anyway,” Wyll said. “I know it’s a small thing, but it’s a cleanliness issue, you know?”
“Well that’s half the fun,” Shadowheart said. “Doing it where you aren’t supposed to.”
A flicker of a ghost of a memory. Was that half the fun?
“Sometimes you need to have the risk of getting caught to get it on,” Shadowheart said.
“I don’t think that’s the case with them,” Wyll said. “They could easily have gotten caught at the tiefling party.”
“Hmmm. Hear me out,” Shadowheart said. “Jealousy. Gale needs to know what he’s missing out on. Tav’s already turned me down, but perhaps if you started flirting with Tav, just a bit, it might get Gale’s attention. You don’t need to worry about splitting them up; Tav’s besotted with Gale. He won’t go for you. But if Gale thinks he might go for you, then maybe he’ll get a move on.”
Wyll pondered it for a moment, taking another sip of wine.
“It’s for the good of the party Wyll,” Shadowheart said.
“Are you sure it will work?” Wyll asked.
“You question my skills?” Shadowheart asked.
“Even in romance novels, this sort of plot only works about half the time,” Wyll said. “And I like Tav, but I don’t like him like that. I would hate to lead him on.”
“Perhaps try something that could be taken either way then?” Shadowheart asked. “I can’t take their dancing around each other anymore.”
Wyll looked thoughtful. “Dancing you say.”
—
Plan Jealousy was shot down immediately. Wyll had offered a dance to Tav, and Tav had rejected him, making it very, very clear he only saw Wyll as a friend in perhaps too much detail. It was a Selûnite type of thing, too much kindness causing unneeded pain. A simple ‘no thank you’ would have done the trick.
“It’s probably for the best,” Wyll said. His voice was easy, but his tail was pressed up against his leg. The tail tended to give away Wyll’s emotions, Shadowheart had noticed. His face was an excellent mask, worthy of Sharran training. He was, embarrassingly, far better at lying than Shadowheart. But the tail’s movements gave Wyll away.
It was probably why he didn’t like it, from one liar to another.
“I haven’t been dancing in a while, and with the added weight of the horns and the damned tail throwing off my balance, I probably would have made a fool of myself.”
They were beautiful horns really. He’d looked a touch too soft before, as if he hadn’t really experienced the world, even with those facial scars, but this Blade of Frontiers had clearly been around and probably wrestled werebears in his free time.
“You’ll have to practice, clearly,” Shadowheart said. “But we can’t give up. Did you hear what Tav said to Gale earlier?”
“What was it this time?” Wyll asked, leaning forward casually, but his tail flicked a few times, like an excited cat.
“It was something like ‘your fingers so deftly pluck the Weave that I sometimes envy magic.’”
“No,” Wyll said, delighted.
“I know, right?” Shadowheart said. “At this rate we can expect Tav to start waxing poetically about Gale’s eyes and the taste of his magic.”
Wyll gave her a knowing look. “’Taste of magic’? Only Miayar Swanfeather wrote about that in his romance novels.”
“You can’t deny it doesn’t make for compelling reading,” Shadowheart said. “’And Lynniel traced the veins of magic in his lover with his tongue, tasting the churning storm that always swirled inside Parolor’s soul, the purest of storm sorcery, to where the slightest touch would leave electricity racing through the blood.’”
“He had a book for every kind of sorcery there is,” Wyll said.
Miayar did. Benefits of being a long-lived elf was having centuries of time to write erotica.
“Though I felt he could have gotten a bit sillier with the wild magic book,” Wyll continued. “I understand wanting to eroticize magic itself, but I’ve met a few wild mages in my time. One of them spent an hour as a table. There’s no shame in bringing some fun into erotica.”
“Absolutely,” Shadowheart said. “He tried too hard to capture the mystique of the wild magic rather than the reality. He could have at least thrown some strange kinks into the book.”
“I know they are just silly fantasy,” Wyll said slowly with a thoughtful look in his good eye, “but in The Shadow’s Caress, there was actually a similar situation to Tav and Gale’s, where-”
“Faestina felt she was unworthy of love!” Shadowheart said quickly. “Yes, of course. And it wasn’t until she was stuck with her love in an extended situation where they were able to talk it out, during the cave in when the shadow magic was taking true root, and she had to guide her love in the dark.”
“A cave-in sounds a little drastic,” Wyll said. “Maybe a closet?”
“Okay, first closet we come across, they are getting trapped in. Or- no, Wyll. The cellar. That cellar back in the apothecary.”
Wyll grinned. “Shadowheart you are a genius.”
—
They had to go back to the village anyway. Tav had decided enough was enough of mountains after everything with the creche, and so they’d be going to the Underdark, especially since Tav had found some interesting rumors for a legendary forge and didn’t want to pass up the chance to sight see on their journey of trying not to get turned into mindflayers.
But Shadowheart wasn’t team leader. Surely Tav had wisdom in there somewhere.
He was in that a stereotypical sorcerer where he didn’t always think things through.
Wyll, her partner in crime, suggested the group split up so they didn’t have to go back here again, and that Karlach, Lae’zel, Halsin, and Astarion could go investigate if there was an entrance to the Underdark at the ruined temple, while they looked around here for potential caves connecting to the Underdark at the ruined village.
It was a simple enough matter. Simply at the cleared out village, Shadowheart suggested they stop for a rest, and she went into the apothecary area, Tav and Gale following along like ducklings.
Which was an odd thought to have. Shadowheart had yet to see ducklings before, and that thought caused ear-splitting pain to shoot from her hand. She breathed through it as always. Clearly her Lady didn’t like her to think about ducks, and she wasn’t going to examine that.
Clearly her Lady knew better than she and why ducks, of all things, were a Bad Thought to have.
Tav hadn’t been there when they found the twin rooms of the cellar, so Shadowheart ‘found’ the cellar again, and Tav who could not help himself nearly dove inside to look for things. There were a number of animal references that could be made but Shadowheart was specifically not making them.
Being a Sharran was confusing sometimes.
Gale, hopeless as ever, followed after Tav, like some kind of unnamed animal.
Shadowheart let the hatch slam shut, and Wyll gave her a thumbs up. It was the perfect crime.
<Everything alright out there?> Tav sent over the tadpoles. He didn’t seem distressed, just mildly curious.
<My hands slipped, and the hatch fell.> She sent back. <And I think it’s locked?>
She rattled the hatch for deniability. <I’m sure it’s fine. You might need to just hold tight. We’ll look for a key.>
And then she sat on it.
Wyll sat down across from her with a smile. “I’m hoping this helps,” he said in a low voice. “Gods knows they need to get their act together.”
“I’m surprised you can be so underhanded,” Shadowheart said teasingly. “Surely such low behavior is beneath the Blade of Frontiers?”
“The Blade of Frontiers? Of course. He would never stoop to this,” Wyll said, a hand over his heart. “But I’ve always been a bit of a scamp, believe it or not. My father spent half my childhood fishing me out of trouble, or trying to get me to actually send the messages I was meant to send, if he wasn’t fishing me out of the ocean itself. I was obsessed with it. I saw a real mermaid once, and I never got over it.”
Shadowheart wondered if she’d seen mermaids once. It wasn’t important. It was the mundanity of this plane. It was an imperfect reflection of the endless dark of Shar’s heaven she offered, where the true nature of the world could be seen and felt.
But would the endless dark of Shar’s heaven have mermaids?
“You were a little messenger as a kid?” Shadowheart asked.
“To help out,” Wyll said. “I ran messages to Sharess’ Caress.”
“The brothel?” Shadowheart asked, raising her eyebrows.
“You remember!” Wyll said.
“Right across from Frago’s Flophouse, yes,” Shadowheart said. “I don’t know why I still know that. I can’t imagine that would be of the highest importance for the mission. Seems odd to send a child to a brothel.”
“I wasn’t aware it was a brothel,” Wyll said. “But they liked me there. My mother used to work there, so they were all fond of me. They’d tell me stories of what she was like, heavily redacted for a small child of course.”
There was a lot being unsaid, a death implied but not stated.
“I don’t have any strange stories about my childhood I can share,” Shadowheart said. “Though I’m looking forward to being done with this mission and getting my memories back. I’m curious who I was as a child. All I can remember is running from a wolf and being saved by Sharrans. It was so big in my mind as a child, that I was convinced it was a werewolf. Looking back as an adult though, I’m sure it was normal. If you hear hoofbeats it’s usually horses and all.”
The only idea she had of a horse was a vague outline, a rough shape, and an idea of a mane.
After a beat, no pain happened. So, according to Shar, horses were fine, but ducks were right out.
Wyll smiled. “Well, usually, yes, but I’ve done enough in my line of work that sometimes it is werewolves after all.”
Shadowheart laughed. “It clearly wasn’t a werewolf, because I’m not a werewolf.”
Did she get bit? She didn’t remember getting bit. Then why would she have that thought?
“That you know of,” Wyll said. “Maybe Shar’s suppressed your werewolf side. Shar hates Selûne the moon goddess, right? There is still a chance you might be a werewolf.”
“I’m sure I’d be much more interesting to you as a werewolf,” Shadowheart teased.
“No matter what you would be interesting to me,” Wyll said.
And Shadowheart didn’t know how to respond to that.
Thankfully, or unthankfully, she got a mental ping from Tav.
<Hey found a secret passageway in the cellar. Lots of necromancy stuff down here. We’re good. We also found an exit, but that’s not as important. There’s so much necromancy stuff.>
—
They decided to cross off ‘trap them in an area’. Tav would just find some lever or secret compartment or cursed tome that screamed in the souls of the damned bound to the thing.
But it apparently made for great light reading between Tav and Gale.
Unfortunately, one would pass the tome to the other, and they’d fumble, and then they’d touch hands, and then they’d blush and look away, and the other would say ‘sorry, mage hands can be rough from the staff callouses’, and that was about when Astarion snapped his own book shut and stormed back into his tent.
So, back to the drawing board.
“What’s next?” Shadowheart asked. Wyll had broken out the fancy wine for their planning.
“Well, we are going into the Underdark. Normally I would suggest huddling for warmth, but they are both spellcasters,” Wyll said. “And the Underdark isn’t great for there being only one bed.”
“Damn,” Shadowheart said. Only one bed was a great way to get people together. The forced proximity made people realize things they wanted about the other’s body after all. “Maybe we had it right the first time, but our approach was wrong.”
“How so?”
“Maybe what they need is… is romantic mood lighting,” Shadowheart said, waving a hand in the air. “They need to be primed to see the passion around them. All we’ve had is death and tadpoles. Hardly the sort of environment that one finds attraction in. The Underdark is a long, long stretch of underground. Maybe we could do dramatic readings of some of the more tender romance novels? Or, hm, do you think tender or smutty would be better suited for getting the two idiots to see each other?”
Wyll stroked his goatee thoughtfully. “Perhaps to stay on the side of caution, a book that’s a good amount of both. So whichever they respond better can be stimulated.”
“Should we stick with Miayar Swanfeather?” Shadowheart asked. “It’s a little on the nose, but they are both dense. Perhaps on the nose is what they need.”
Wyll sat up. “ Far Stranger Attractions Than These. It’s one of his kinkier works, sure, but it goes off on love and lust alike.”
“Lady of Loss take us, you are right,” Shadowheart said. “It’s the perfect setting, but I don’t have it memorized. Do you have a copy?”
“I found one in Volo’s pack,” Wyll said. “He just left his pack behind when he fled after his botched eye surgery on Tav, and there were a lot of romance novels.”
“Fantastic,” Shadowheart said. “I think you should read it. You have a lovely voice, and I think you reading it would put anyone in the mood.”
“Awww, thank you.”
—
At breakfast the following morning, shortly after Gale burned his hand cooking food and Tav tenderly cradled it and cast a minor ice spell on it, and then cradled the hand for a moment longer before pulling away with a half-laugh. After all that, Karlach raised an eyebrow at Shadowheart.
“So,” Karlach said. “You, uh, seem to be spending a lot of time with Wyll.”
Wyll froze.
Okay. She had this. She was a trained Sharran, a master of deception. Quick. What was a plausible reason that would make people not suspect anything?
“We started a book club,” Shadowheart said.
“A. Book club,” Astarion said, raising an eyebrow, over enunciating each word.
“Yes,” Shadowheart said. “Sometimes a girl wants to think about things other than our impending mindflayer transformation.”
“Just the two of you,” Astarion said. “Alone. Together. In your… ‘book club’.”
“We share the same tastes in literature,” Wyll said smoothly. “Books of a more romantic bent.”
“And just, the two of you decided to have this book club by yourselves,” Astarion said flatly. “Without asking anyone else to join?”
Wyll laughed, and he sold the lie so well. “My apologies. We didn’t think anyone else would be interested. It’s not deep academic tomes, and you yourself seem to deride fairy tale romances, but if you are interested, we are going to be traveling through the Underdark soon. We could read a book aloud while we travel to pass the time?”
What a good way to tie in the plan to the conversation. Such a clever tongue he had. My.
“Gods, yes,” Karlach said, and she’d bought the lie at least. “I like walking up on the surface where there’s growing things, but just walking in a featureless cavern? Boring. It’s so boring. We found the Underdark, and it’s just gray and flat, though we think maybe we saw something living in the distance? At least in Avernus fireballs would rain down from the sky, keeping things interesting, yaknow?”
“We could branch out if other people are interested,” Gale said. “There’s some truly fascinating treatises on prolonged curses and what they do to living organisms that are just thrilling reads.”
“I’ll take the smutty literature,” Astarion said.
And so, hours later, deep in the Underdark, Shadowheart held up a light spell for Wyll to read out loud.
He truly did have such a great reading voice. Soothing and expressive, and the way he said the romantic lines had her heart fluttering. If Gale and Tav weren’t in the mood from this there was no helping them.
“Iliric tenderly cupped Avanya’s cheek, pressing their foreheads together,” Wyll read. “’It’s okay’, Iliric said. ‘I see you. You don’t have to be frightened of what you are.’
‘But I am an aberrant thing’ Avanya said. ‘None have ever felt safe with the vision of my true form. All have turned from me. I cannot take heartbreak a second time.’”
Astarion rolled his eyes, but he didn’t know good smut when he heard it.
“’You are my heart, and I will love you in any form you possess,’” Wyll, and Iliric, continued. “’There is no form you have that could frighten me.’”
“Avanya wanted to trust so badly, wanted to trust her lover. Her heart had been broken a hundred times before, but perhaps it was strong enough to withstand one last fall. So she let the truth of her be known. Her eyes dissolved into long tendril stalks, and her skin became as slick as the place between her thighs. Her bones dissolved into cartilage and muscle, and long gills flared up from under her ribs, branching out into the air like petals of cilia.”
Astarion blinked.
“’You are as lovely as ever,’ Iliric said. ‘I swore to you I would taste every form of you, and I would be honored to taste you now.’ Avanya gasped, and she kissed her love, lips splitting into three ways instead of two, her mandible disconnecting like a python. Iliric ran her fingers through Avanya’s gills, and all Avanya could taste was Iliric’s presence, until it filtered through the very air she breathed. Iliric cupped Avanya’s breasts, slick as they were, and Avanya pressed all her tendril stalks to Iliric’s face, and her lower tendril stalks in her nether region became engorged-”
Tav held up a hand.
“Too much?” Wyll asked.
Shame. It was just about to get to the oviposition scene.
“Weirdly,” Tav said after a long pause. “I think I’m fine with it, but all this talk about tendril stalks is making the tadpole in my brain excited. It’s not on my top five sensations I would say.”
“We can change books,” Wyll offered.
“No,” Gale said hurriedly. “No I think I’m good.”
Well, mission party successful then!
That was the power of good trashy smut for you.
—
Things had been going great. They had done a few more dramatic readings of porn, though at one point it had been dark enough that Shadowheart had to walk right next to Wyll, hips bumping together, while he read from the book. Wyll had steadied her by winding his tail around her waist, which was deeply practical Shadowheart would say, very very practical of Wyll to do that.
But then Elminster showed up with the message that Mystra, goddess of the Weave itself, thought that Gale should kill himself for forgiveness.
And-
And it just-
Yes, that’s how reality was. That’s what Shar taught. Hope was an illusion. Her hand flared up three times just thinking about it, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She, instead, focused on thinking through the pain and the images of herself as a scared little child.
There was, unexamined, the niggling fear that maybe she was a bad Sharran. Maybe she hadn’t let go of hope yet. Maybe a true Sharran wouldn’t hope to become a Dark Justiciar. Maybe a true Sharran wouldn’t foster false notions in the minds of their friends.
Maybe it was for the best to put away childish notions of romances and silly smut. And, in another life, she could have. She could have focused instead on the Shadowlands, and the fact that Shar had blessed her.
But Wyll showed up at night.
“Weirdly, I think we should continue,” Wyll said.
“Why?” Shadowheart asked, folding her arms. “I doubt Gale’s in the mood.”
“I think Gale needs to consider what he’ll end up missing,” Wyll said. “He’s in a dangerous mindset, all too willing to seek his own death. Sometimes people need something to cling to to pull themselves from the brink.”
“This sounds personal to you,” Shadowheart said.
“Ah, I like me a good fairy tale,” Wyll said. “I’ve seen a lot of monsters in my line of work. I’ve seen a lot of cruelty.”
And endured some of it too, with that slattern Mizora having abused him.
“I like to believe though that there are good things out there,” Wyll said. “Even if they don’t always happen, the chance that they could can give people the energy to push onward, sometimes onward enough to make their dreams a reality. Hope is the first step to making a better future. You need a goal to crawl towards first. And Gale? Gale needs reminders that there are people here, now, who love him. He needs to see life, and what he could lose by dying.”
It was heresy.
It would be heresy to continue this farce. It would be far better, far more practical to accept Gale’s mission of death.
And she hated the thought of that so much it writhed in her.
“Well the good news about the Shadowlands is it’s magical darkness and cold,” Shadowheart said coyly. “So I think huddling for warmth could work here.”
Wyll grinned, and it caused the ridges on his face to ripple slightly, the skin around his eye wrinkling in delight. “I like the way you think.”
—
Shadowheart let Gale carry one source of light while she carried the other. And, with a little bit of warlock magic, Wyll made the area around him supernaturally colder. It was subtle work, not enough to be obvious, but enough to where Gale had to plaster himself to Tav for warmth.
The downside was it was cold in a radius, but Wyll was running hotter since being turned into a devil, so Shadowheart discretely walked closer to him.
For some reason, Astarion made a disgusted noise.
And it was working. It really was, because later that night when Wyll and Shadowheart were on watch (they always volunteered for watch together these days, easier to make their plans), Tav approached them.
“I need some advice,” Tav said. “About Gale.”
Shadowheart tried not to gloat too obviously where Tav could see, but it was hard not to.
“He’s not picking up what you are putting down?” Wyll asked.
Tav laughed awkwardly. “Oh so you noticed?”
“Everyone’s noticed,” Shadowheart said dryly.
“I hope not,” Tav said. “That’d be embarrassing. But he’s just so talented, and compassionate. And he’s a great cook, and has an excellent mind, and a fine body, and Mystra taught him to hate everything about himself that wasn’t his magic. I don’t know how to convince him I love him. He won’t listen to my words.”
“Then maybe you need to speak a different language,” Wyll said. “Have you tried dance?”
Tav blinked.
“Sometimes, emotions that are hard to express in words can come out through body language,” Wyll said. “And while, in my opinion, the most beautiful dances are ones with mass choreography, when everyone moves together to make temporary living art, there is beauty in the dance between with only two people. When rhythm guides your body with your partner, dancing can also be incredibly intimate with just two souls.”
“Dang,” Tav said. “I guess? I don’t know any dances though. Well, not any for polite company.”
Wyll extended his hands to Tav. “I could show you a simple one that’s known for being very intimate.”
Tav frowned. “It’ll probably be easier for me to remember if I can observe from the outside. Could you dance with Shadowheart instead?”
“I’d be happy to volunteer,” Shadowheart said.
So Wyll bowed to Shadowheart, and they began to dance.
It was strange.
She didn’t know it, not with her conscious mind, but when Wyll swept just so with arm and leg, Shadowheart knew how to move her own body, leg curling just so, arms and hands positioned just so. Posture was important, and she held herself not stiffly but with confidence. They swirled around each other, and then again.
It was a dance where each passing swirl got you a bit closer to the other person. Until Wyll had her hand in his and twirled her. And then, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go, but she twirled him, and he laughed so delightedly at that.
A step closer to each other, and she could feel the body heat radiating off of him, smell just a whiff of jasmine about him. They twirled around each other, and then a step closer still.
If she breathed in hard, filled her lungs, she would be able to touch her flesh to his.
“Oh I see,” Tav said, and Shadowheart blinked.
Right.
This was about Tav and Gale. Right yes she remembered now.
“There’s always little flourishes you can add in,” Wyll said.
He hadn’t moved away. If she reached out she could touch his chest muscles. They were surprisingly well-defined, despite his overall lack of muscle. Maybe he needed to eat more. You saw this sort of thing a lot back in the cloister. Some Sharrans practiced self-deprivation to bring them closer to Shar’s embrace.
“It’s like fiddling,” Wyll said. “You have the base melody, but any good fiddler will add flourishes on the right notes.”
“Maybe a good dance will get him out of his funk,” Tav said. “Thanks!”
And then Tav scuttled back to his tent.
“Well I should, hm, get back to watch,” Shadowheart said.
Wyll just looked at her, and she could feel the back of her neck heat.
—
“So,” Karlach said the following morning. “Book clubs involve a lot of dancing, huh?”
Shit.
They needed to cover for Tav who was, currently, looking very panicked.
“Shadowheart was kind enough to be a willing dance partner,” Wyll said, but his tail was flicking strangely. “I used to love dancing back in the day, but with these horns, and this godsdamned tail, my balance has been shot.”
“No!” Astarion yelled, flinging whatever he was holding into the bushes. “No I’ve had enough of this! Gods, do you have any idea how painful it was watching you two go and simper at each other in corners when you thought no one else was looking. Well I was. I was there! Often! It was excruciatingly painful. You two are nearly as bad as Tav and Gale.”
“What now?” Gale asked.
“I’ll tell you later, love,” Tav said. “My plan’s working.”
What plan?
Regardless, it was easy to point out where Astarion was so clearly wrong. Shadowheart had a hundred retorts on her tongue.
But she was blushing.
“When were you there?” Shadowheart asked.
“I’m a vampire,” Astarion said. “Hiding in the shadows is what I do. I was off trying to catch vermin while you two fluttered over each other.”
And-
“We weren’t simpering,” Shadowheart said. “We were discussing literature.”
“And dancing,” Karlach said. “Uh huh.”
“It started more of a love of bad romance novels,” Wyll said, and his look towards her was unspeakably tender, truly like Lynniel gave Parolor in Storm of the Century. “It’s only recently began to develop into something more.”
Oh was that how he was playing it? Okay she could work with this.
Except.
Was he playing it?
Oh gods was he serious? Was he serious or not? She didn’t know anymore. The dance had thrown her. And she’d be-
Wait was she fine if he was serious? She was supposed to be devoted to Shar, right? She shouldn’t be fine. This was all a ruse. She was a dastardly Sharran with a dastardly ruse to get two of her friends to fall in love so they didn’t hurt as much.
Oh gods she was a terrible Sharran.
“I know we are a prying bunch, especially with the tadpoles,” Wyll continued, like Shadowheart wasn’t having a crisis of faith right here in front of him! “But some things take time to develop, to see if they are truly a good fit.”
“Awwwww,” Karlach said, and she bought the act, if it was an act, completely. “I’m happy for you two.”
“As long as you stop pining I’m fine,” Astarion said. “And, I will point out, we have tadpoles darlings. Some thoughts leak.”
And then Wyll flushed so hard at that.
Oh so he wasn’t lying.
Oh my.
—
The day was long, but they ended up in a small bastion of light, with a handful of surviving refugees and Harpers. And the moment she could, she found a way to corner Wyll in a dark alley, behind the blacksmith forge.
“So was Astarion right?” Shadowheart asked, trying to go for coy yet dismissive, and failing, because she was going to get such a bad grade in Sharran. She’d accepted a blessing from the Moonwitch, and yet even that paled into what was in front of her.
Wyll’s tail coiled and uncoiled, like a cat. “You are a wonderful woman,” Wyll said.
“Flattery is appreciated, but it isn’t an answer,” Shadowheart said. To cover up her lack of composure, she traced a finger up one of his arms, and he shivered, pupil dilating. “Well?”
“You are a delight to be around,” Wyll said. “You bring joy to those around you, and your clever tongue keeps me on my toes. You claim to worship loss, but you worked harder than everyone else to save the tieflings, and you play matchmaker so well. For a tenday now, it hasn’t been for Gale and Tav that I’ve looked forward to conversing with you. I wake at dawn looking forward to your presence, and I rest at night sleeping better knowing you are still there. I am not one for the gods, but around you I can almost understand worship.”
“Well you certainly know how to talk to someone,” Shadowheart said, heart fluttering in her chest. “But, hm, I’m still hearing flattery. What if I want an answer? Something concrete.”
Something solid.
Something Shar couldn’t just tell her was an illusion.
Something strong enough to overcome her disbelief towards everything Selûnites spread.
“I love you,” Wyll said.
It was perhaps silly that those words did mean something. They shouldn’t. It would be easy to say he was deluded, or infatuated, or had built up this fantasy version of Shadowheart he was actually in love with.
But Wyll made it easier to believe in fairy tales. For a second, it was almost as if Shadowheart could look into the sun itself with no problems.
“Good for you that I’m rather fond of you too,” Shadowheart said.
Wyll smiled, half-turning away, tail flicking upwards. “Oh goodness I’m so glad. I feel bad for making fun of Tav and Gale. It turns out it’s harder to confess anything when it’s your own feelings.”
“Weirdly, I understand,” Shadowheart said, nudging against him with her hip. “Love isn’t really a thing for Sharrans, but, I can’t help but want to see how this goes.”
“That you are willing to defy your Lady for me speaks more than any words you could say,” Wyll said, and then he took her hand gently and gave her knuckles a gentleman’s kiss.
“A little defiance! Very small. I’m still a Sharran,” Shadowheart said.
—
In the end, Shadowheart turned her back on Shar. Shar told her that she was nothing without her. Shar told her that Shadowheart was an outcast, forever reviled amongst the Sharrans, nothing more than a worm wriggling in dirt. Less than that, because a worm does not purposefully lie and delude itself into thinking it was anything else.
But Wyll beamed at her and told her he was proud.
“You aren’t nothing,” he said. “You are Shadowheart. And you are one of the bravest women I know, defying a goddess to do the right thing.”
Shadowheart smiled weakly, but maybe this was okay. Maybe she really was just not cut out to be a Sharran. Maybe all the lessons on pain and loss and the extended graded sessions on dishing out and enduring torture were simply justifications for abuse.
Hm. Shadowheart may have made too much fun of Lae’zel.
“Well,” Shadowheart said. “I guess in under a month we’ll see if I’m a werewolf or not.”
Wyll, bless his heart, did perk up a little at that.
“You’ll still love me even if I’m not a werewolf, right?” Shadowheart asked teasingly.
“You are my heart, and I will love you in any form you possess,” Wyll said.
Shadowheart smiled at him, and then she smacked his arm. “That’s from the book!”
Wyll laughed. “It’s still true.”
And Shadowheart laughed as well.