𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐬

𝐢𝐢.

𝐢𝐢. | 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰

She charges her skirt with blackberries, taking turns between devouring the bulbs of sticky, flesh-encircled seed and watching Shadowheart soak herself in the tum of the Chionthar.

Elyra happens to be lost inside the tethers of her own subconscious, the most annoying rival she's had to ward off this noon, not especially concerned with Shadowheart and her self-aggrandizing ways, no, she's accustomed to that.

Generally, Elyra would have a back-and-forth with the cleric, squabbling over who's to bathe first and who's to linger on the banks—weaving clusters of periwinkle and yellow-heart daisies into their cords to keep boredom at bay.

"You're thoroughly pushing it! We've places to be—things to—fuck," Elyra makes the effort to call to Shadowheart until she realizes the brunette can hear her when she gives a self-assured smile, but won't exactly respond to anything that isn't caroling her praises, ignoring the urgency, decidedly. Bugger it all.

Elyra splays herself and her undulating skirts on the bank, edges soused in the water. Keeping watch is almost always assured to be tedious when Shadowheart insists on scrubbing her feet twice-fold for every speck of mud she discovers. It's pointless to argue, she finds. Pointless to fill a cup once it's already full.

Shadowheart's cup has been filled long before they would ever chance to meet. The Church of Shar had seen to that.

A welcome deviation rests in the memory of last night, and just when she thinks herself impervious to Astarion's appeal, he captures her once again as a moth repeatedly comes to flame. Knowing how it burns. How it has a killing potential. Elyra threads her fingers into her scalp, anxious.

My misfortune, as he's said, she muses with a half-smile.

Velvet-like tongue, gorgeous, gorgeous eyes, and Nine Hells—he's proving to have an effect. Elyra can't keep her cards to herself when she drinks. This feels like drinking, unceremonious, coming to her in crests on a shore and trawling her into its fucking shallows.

She can't help thinking whether Shadowheart and company have a clue about what's going on right under their noses. They're not likely to think favorably of he and her jointed—they're just getting used to him, after all—but Elyra can't bring herself to attempt the opposite otherwise. Untangling herself from Astarion seems as impossible as making a haphazard, half-assed effort in tearing Gale away from one of his beloved tomes. A substitute for Mystra herself, surely.

Gods, she needn't make a show of it. Everyone's entitled to their secrets—isn't that what Shadowheart undyingly professes? At least, not when the tadpole still quavers, jubilantly taking a swim about her brain, does she feel as though she affords anything to this motley crew of discontents and zealots.

Elyra turns her attention to Shadowheart as the latter pitches her head back like a whip, droplets pelting down into the rushing, white waters.