divinestrike | Overflow / Open Post

Are you going to make me get everything on my own? Don't make me pout at you. I don't even think that works on you, but don't make me do it, regardless. Maybe, just maybe I wanted your company and didn't want to have to actually say it.

[Something something something, she's going to mutter a retributive word any moment now.]

I am hopelessly susceptible to a good pout and good set of pleading doe-eyes, I’ll have you know. Absolutely rotten about it. Incapable of maintaining steely nerve in the face of.

Which is to say, I’ll gladly accompany you on the shopping excursion and to advise on which proper brews to purchase. It’s the least I could do after sending you out to do all our shopping, too.

So basically things I'm not exactly certain I'm particularly good at. Not that it sounds like I need to be utilising them on you this time. Good to know for the future, however. I'll be certain to practise.

Get your things, meet me outside my tent, and let's go. The others can survive without us for a little, I think. I'm making you carry it all, too.

It was a wonder, truly, that any of them ever managed to strike camp in a hurry. The tents sprawled with more personal decor than strictly necessary, and Gale’s was especially impractical: there were stacks upon stacks of books, little astrolabes and mystical orreries, and somehow he’d continued to cart along a full-sized telescope and hadn’t shattered it yet; sometimes it looked as if he’d taken his Waterdeep study and dragged it onto the road, even soggy boots and damp ground and all.

Quick enough, however, Gale obediently picked his way through the camp, wending past the others and towards the cleric’s corner of camp, as summoned.

“Knock knock,” he said aloud, cheerfully, for lack of being able to rap his knuckles against the flap of Nepione’s tent. Then, continuing on as if their conversation hadn’t paused at all, speaking to the tent wall while the tiefling rustled around inside: “Are you absolutely certain you wouldn’t rather Karlach by your side, for carrying everything? My capabilities as a pack mule are woefully inadequate by comparison; sheer brawn isn’t exactly my forté, while she’s very, very good at it. The woman could probably benchpress you, in a pinch.”

She was the one who told him to get his things together, but somehow it often seemed like she was the one who took more time than needed to get truly ready. As such, she was just finishing getting herself in one piece when he addressed her. Poking her head out first, the rest of her followed shortly after and she drew her hands over her garb, tugging at it gently to make sure it sat on her properly.

"Why are you trying to get out of this," she asked him in a way that sounded less like a question and more like suspicious gentle accusation. "If you don't want to spend time with me, that's all you have to say, Gale."

Although the thought of him benchpressing her was alarmingly amusing. Folding her hands together, her smile was somewhat light and subdued, but seemingly genuine. "I just thought you might want some fresh air and a chance to do something other than... I don't know. Fighting for survival. Talking about tadpoles."

“Oh, that’s, no,” Gale started, mildly mortified, trying to find a way to gracefully backpedal from that accusation. (It was so easy, really, to alarm the man and put him on the back foot.)

“That’s not what I meant— I relish any opportunity to— I mean, a distraction from our perpetual predicament would be welcome.”

Like a nervous tic, his hand reached up and pressed his fingertips against his chest, that tell-tale bruise at the neck of his robes. He knew, intellectually, that the tadpole was squirming and burrowing somewhere behind his eye socket, arrested in stasis as it was; the orb in his chest, however, was a far more present concern. A permanent dull ache, a pain crawling up his neck and down his arm like liquid fire. So. For better or worse, he was well-accustomed to that sense of finding distraction from the blade(s) hanging over their heads.

“I mean only that I’d be a terrible valet, huffing and puffing beside you. But if you don’t mind the shopping excursion taking a bit longer and being a bit more inelegant, then by all means. More time spent with you is lovely. And even better if there’s less hacking and slashing and death and mayhem and survival and tadpoles.”

He was just too easy, but perhaps there was irony in that statement because she wasn't so different. She would have ventured to say, however, that Gale was considerably more charming when he was flustered. At best, Nepione was more inclined to trip over her tongue for a moment or two before simply clamming up, or blatantly likely to simply not address whatever put her in that state to begin with. Denial was such a very powerful tool, at times, if not the most graceful and seamless transition in conversation.

Not that she was a great conversationalist either.

Tilting her head patiently as she watched the way proverbial little hamster feet pittered and pattered their way out of the nonexistent hole he'd dug for himself, she simply observed. He could be so transparent and she suspected he didn't even know about it. For but a moment, she was tempted to address it, but she chose compassion. She'd put him through the wringer enough.

"Stop fretting," she reassured him, lifting a hand and with care, she set a hand to his shoulder, mindful of her claws. "I'm just giving you a hard time. I'm not going to make you carry everything. I have hands." The greater likelihood was that she'd go out of her way to handle everything herself. Asking for help was not something high on her list of priorities.

"If it helps, I'm not in a hurry. It'll be nice to take our time a little. An opportunity for respite?" Her eyebrows rose with some consideration before she continued. "I could use some distractions. You seem like a very fitting one today, I think."

Gale was perpetually a little (or very) high-strung, but it was like her claws plucked that string and loosened some of his permanent tension; that friendly pat made the taut line of his shoulders sag, his nerves relax.

“Respite,” he repeated, as if testing out the word, the sound and shape of it on his tongue. A more grounded, responsible person might have bristled at the suggestion of taking their time — Lae’zel was impatient, kept chivvying them onwards whenever it seemed like they were dallying — but in fact, it sounded heavenly. Their group spent time together on the road, exchanged words when they weren’t almost dying, shared the occasional conversations around the campfire, but real respite had been hard to come by ever since that Nautiloid crashed out of the sky. At the prospect of proper conversation and more time to spend with Nepione one-on-one, getting to know her better —

“Yes, of course. After everything we’ve been through, we do deserve some few comforts, don’t we?”

And so he readjusted his near-empty backpack, slinging it back onto his other shoulder, and flashed Nepione a smile. “To the markets, then?”

And he started walking beside her, making their way out of the camp… only to stop just as suddenly when Scratch came bounding along, nipping at their heels, excited to join them on an Excursion™. The wizard danced along beside Nepione, trying to pull his robes away from the dog’s friendly teeth and blustering, oh no, not today, boy, wait, where’d that dratted ball get to —

"We do, yes."

It was easily said, probably because she sincerely believed it. As much as she could easily lose herself in what she deemed obligatory and responsible, which she did plenty of, she recognised that without proper rest, without a proper, occasional boost to their morale, they weren't going to be to keep going. One could have thought easily of nourishment for the stomach, but nourishment for the mind, the heart, the soul, and the spirit were all just as important.

If not more so.

And when Gale smiled, she wanted very much to do the same, tempted to say that he should do so more often. When the opportunity found him, of course. But before she could do any such thing, her attention was diverted almost immediately onto Scratch who was, in her opinion, certainly one of the very best boys in their camp. Expression bright, she wasted very little time in crouching down, lifting a hand to help steady Gale, for she could just see how things would end up otherwise. The poor wizard just couldn't get a break.

"Oh, aren't you excitable," she grinned at Scratch, though tried to die it down just a touch to something a bit more subdued. A mouthful of sharp tiefling teeth was not usually endearing to anyone. "I wasn't planning to have another body with me today, but let's see what Father Number Two thinks, hm?"

Tilting her head to better eye Gale, she raised her eyebrows. "Or is he here because you have something of his?"

While Nepione steadied him so he wouldn’t tumble arse-over-teakettle, Scratch kept worrying at the hem of his clothes, and he finally had to admit defeat.

“I’d shoved the ball into my bag of holding alongside a few of the others we’d come across. I don’t even know how he could sense that it was there, considering it’s in a pocket dimension. Give me a moment.”

Reshuffling his belongings again, Gale fetched the unassuming little bag and plunged his arm into it, all the way up to his shoulder (a disorienting sight): a look of abstracted concentration crossed his face as he groped around blindly. They picked up so much garbage on the course of their adventures. It was the only way his back wasn’t breaking from all the books he’d shoved in there. While Gale cocked his head and still rummaged around, trying to locate the dog toy, another thought occurred to him:

“Wait, am I Father Number Two? Then who’s Father Number One?” he demanded, brow furrowing in mock suspicion and a little real suspicion as he glanced at Nepione; he was, as ever, perhaps a little too competitive for his own good.

Nepione shook her head at Gale, loosing a quiet laugh before she reached out with her other hand to give Scratch some much-deserved pats. Only the best of pets for the very best of boys. Patiently waiting as Gale reached into some extra-dimensional concept that she could only just barely wrap her mind around, the tiefling eyed him about as expectantly as the dog who simply wanted his toy back, and a good, proper fetching throw, at that.

At his question, she paused just a moment before she was all laughs all over again, stifling the sound against the back of her hand. Of course that was what he got hung up on. Never mind the dog toy. It was because he thought he needed to be Father Number One.

"For the love of Selûne," she began, nipping into her lower lip to keep herself from smiling too grandly. Loosing a breath as she attempted to compose herself, she offered him one more reassuring pat, though he seemed relatively on his feet and he was probably going to stay that way. And if he didn't for some reason, she'd do her best to catch him. "It's nothing so profound. I decided to title us all by the order in which we met. Suffice it to say, Gale, your hand was not first I touched on this little journey of ours. It's only a number. Has no relevant meaning beyond that. Scratch loves all of you unconditionally and equally."

“I only asked out of curiosity, of course,” Gale said, like a liar. “I rather assumed that Father Number One would be Halsin. The man’s good with animals.” The wizard, meanwhile, was decidedly a cat person, but there was still a fond smile on his face as he finally located Scratch’s ball and extracted it from the bag of holding — the dog instantly went berserk with joy, capering around in circles at their feet, before Gale flung the ball and Scratch went haring off after it.

He stood there watching as that puff of white vanished into the bushes. It was impossible not to like the best boy.

After a moment, he leaned over and whispered to the tiefling in a hushed voice, as if they were already sneaking about: “Do we make our escape now before he notices, or bring him with us to go shopping?”

It wasn't until Gale successfully threw the one thing Scratch desperately wanted that she found herself rising. "True. That he is," she admitted with a gentle nod. Calling Halsin 'good' with animals seemed like an understatement, honestly. Probably would have been good with just about anyone he conversed with, but maybe that was what happened after being around for hundreds of years. Or so she would have thought if she didn't know a certain vampire spawn who she decided was not particularly good with people. Animals, to be determined.

"Halsin's an obvious choice, but if I'm following the order, he's not even top three. You do have to remember that he tagged along with us rather late into our ongoing misadventure. Not to say he's any less important, of course."

No such thing there. When Gale leaned in, she shifted just enough to welcome him into her ear, keeping a keen watch on the bushes that Scratch disappeared into. "If we take him, it'll probably be more work. It's not as if we leave him here and he gets lonely. Seriously, he almost knocked you over. Imagine if that happens when we're actually shopping. I don't think you and I need help getting into trouble."

Folding her hands together with a gentler smile, however, she dedicated a touch more attention to the wizard at her side. "But if you really want him to come along, I would never dream of turning you down."

“I could go either way. But it’s true, he has a plethora of people to shower him with love and attention back at camp. And,” Gale raised a finger, musing, “fewer opportunities to be caught in a murderous crossfire. People do have a tendency to and try to kill us while out on the road. Not that I’m saying that’ll happen on our little shopping excursion, but it still pays to be prepared! Which is to say— time to make our escape?”

And so, the pair of them hurried off. Scratch was likely distracted enough now that he’d retrieved his ball, and with so many of their companions nearby to fawn over him (even Shadowheart seemed to be thawing to him, shaggy-haired canine as he was). They moved away from the glade where they’d set up camp, down the road towards the city; where there was a growing stream of people, shabbily-clad refugees, the crowds thickening the closer one got to Rivington and its markets and the walls of Baldur’s Gate looming above the town on its outskirts.

With each step out of the wilderness, Gale’s spine straightened and he seemed to exhale, settling back into his own skin. “I miss big cities,” he admitted after a moment, sauntering along beside Nepione, his gaze caught by those city walls. “Baldur’s Gate is similar enough, and yet Waterdeep is easily ten times the size, if not more. The forest does have its aesthetic merits, but I still admit to preferring a crowd, a bustling district, a busy shop.”

Escape it was with logic in mind, though whilst Gale had an excellent point, Nepione could not help thinking it would be a very nice day, indeed, when they wouldn't have to think about the potential of their lives in mortal peril.

...

As they followed well-trodden pathway, she took in the sights, the sounds, the plethora of people, thought of her younger days in Baldur's Gate and how different her memories were in comparison to what she found the change in times and society. Or perhaps, it was simply a change in circumstance. She'd thought decently about what her days would like after all was said and done and had not yet committed herself to returning to the city she once tentatively referred to as 'home.'

It was, for the first time in a while, a strange thing to experience what... must have been peace. Nothing immediately encouraging them here, there, or elsewhere. Nothing to go raising a weapon at (or a spell, in Gale's case). It was a little odd, actually. A reminder that she didn't always know how to carry herself in the presence of her companions when a situation wasn't staring them in the face.

Thankfully, he filled in the silence for her. As he spoke, she looked over to him, as ever attentive, hanging onto his every word. "I think you just mean to say you're very much a people person. I could see it. Why shouldn't you be? You have a lot of knowledge to share. A big city would give you plenty of ears to fill with it. I didn't realise Waterdeep was so expansive, however. Of course, I've never been. Anything I've really learnt about it has come from you. And books."

“Oh, you can just say it, I love to hear myself talk,” but there was a twinkle in Gale’s eye even as he said it, tongue-in-cheek and self-aware. He knew himself well enough that he could take some teasing on that particular point. “Elminster called me an insufferable chatterbox at times. He once cast the Silence spell just to get some peace and quiet during a research session.”

As they kept walking down the lane — it was a sunny day, startlingly nice weather despite the chaos in the realm, with only the strain on the faces of occasional passersby to show that tensions were high — he eventually offered a gentle correction and admission. “I’m not much of a people person, at the end of the day, actually. I may be able to talk your ear off once you get me going, certainly, but I’m far more comfortable as a homebody shuttered away in my tower, with nothing but a good book and Tara’s company. Perhaps it’s that I enjoy being alone in the crowd: surrounded by people and able to take them in, yet with no expectations of me. But what of you? You grew up here, did you not?”

She couldn't resist laughing. Ah. He caught her, though she never would have said it quite like that. The nice thing about him loving to hear himself talk meant that she didn't have to say as much about herself. Not because she particularly had anything to hide. It was simply that Gale and the others were significantly more interesting. Thirty plus years with herself and she was confident that any magic to do with her was long gone.

Other people, however...
Fascinating.

Tilting her head as he corrected her, Nepione's expression softened. Ah, yes. He'd spoken of his time in his tower away from the burdens of the world. Frankly, the solitude sounded nice. She was certain had she not chosen to take up the desire to travel, she would have been very content to settle in somewhere. Preferably quiet. Without prying eyes and ears.

"Observation, then," she additionally corrected herself. "People watching." And she could get behind that. At his question, she didn't immediately respond, wondering how to put it all. "I spent my younger years in the city," she confirmed for him with a short nod. "I relocated there with a theatre troupe purely by circumstance. At least, I think that's what they were. When I arrived in the city, I was taken in by a family. They raised me, clothed me, fed me, and I stayed with them until I decided to pursue the priesthood."

Gale tilted his head, looking back over. He raised the slight hitch of an eyebrow, recalculating what he knew of her. Relocated, she said, which was such a toothless word for— for what, specifically? There was no good earthly reason a child would need to be taken in by strangers.

Nepione was so good at deflecting and pivoting away from discussing herself that, even now, he was continually discovering that he still knew so little about her.

“Are you still in touch with either of them? Your family — new or old — or the troupe? Would you want to stop by for a visit, once we gain access to the city proper?” He gestured towards those gates and bridges in the distance. These days, their group was still haunting the edges of Rivington, still working on getting past those gate guards and obtaining a pass for access; at least this pause gave them a breather and some time to get their bearings and gather their resources, before they could press deeper into Baldur’s Gate.

He was hungry for it and to be able to dig into Sorcerous Sundries eventually — but found himself re-thinking, now, that others had far more substantial connections to the city and reasons to be there.

It was very sweet of him to ask and for some breaths, she simply gazed at him, as if her eyes could say everything she was declining from outright expressing. She supposed in many ways, she was considerably better with looks than she was with words. When she worded, she was likely to trip over tongue and appear the fool, which was all well and good in some situations, but not as many as she oft found herself to be in.

"No," she began rather simply and for some moments, it seemed as though that was where she meant to leave it. And then she decided he deserved something a little more. With the very same light smile, though perfectly warm and sincere, which was so much nicer than the diplomacy she sometimes felt she had to wield, Nepione shook her head at him, moving her attention onto the way he pointed.

"That is, we don't need to see them. We write, occasionally. That's good enough for me. I'm more interested in taking the rest of you to wherever it may be that you'd like to go. Or need to, as the case might be." Baldur's Gate, in general, was not a leisure trip for her and she didn't want it to be, but she didn't mind taking advantage of the situation to learn just a touch more about those she had been travelling with.

A moment's pause more and she paused for just a breath before she fiddled with her hands. "...It's very kind of you to ask, Gale. I appreciate it."

They’d lulled to a stop by a crossroads while they spoke, waiting for a heavily-laden cart to trundle by. Gale’s hand half-raised, an aborted movement towards her, uncertain of what to do, before he gave in and pressed his fingers against Nepione’s shoulder — echoing her earlier gesture, perhaps. There was something to seeing her look so uncomfortable and diminished, which made him immediately want to reach out and bridge that gap.

“But if we’ve come so far and managed to make our way to the city after so many trials and tribulations, then what’s a little detour? It’s rare enough to come all this way, and—”

(and they didn’t know if they’d survive the next week)

“and, well, you wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity to see them again, if— you know. Unless,” a more mortifying thought had now occurred to him, “unless it’s a sore point and you’d really rather not see them at all. I’m aware not everyone has a copacetic relationship with their family members. Not everyone can be the inimitable Morena Dekarios! So if that’s the case, then, please, you need say no more and I’ll promptly stop shoving my foot in my mouth, post-haste.”

It was a brave thing of him, she suspected, to do such a thing. She understood well enough that she neither provided the opportunity, nor did she necessarily make herself seem available or willing to accept such things. It was always different if she did it. For whatever reason, it was always different if someone else did it. Or maybe she made it different. She could believe that.

The moment he made contact, she was willing to put aside their immediate shopping adventure. Devoting her attention to him, she listened to the way he spoke, carefully trying to take in what he wasn't giving voice to. Or how she thought he might have been skirting around what he truly meant.

Unless...?

Wordlessly, she urged him to continue with the raising of her eyebrows, though she was patient and did not push. On the contrary, listening to him go over all of possibilities right then and there. When he got going, he got going.

After a moment's consideration, she lifted a hand to settle over his and then with some care she removed it, though it wasn't to separate them. Instead, she took his hand between her own, careful of the way she held it. "You're really very cute when you fret," she praised him with her own form of reassurance. Perhaps she was trying to distract him. "I would hesitate to refer to them as family. It's true they took me in, but I wasn't one of their kind and sometimes that was very evident. It was a unique situation, but nothing you need to worry about. Haven't you enough burdens of your own? Brave that you think you should carry mine as well."

Gale’s gaze instinctively flitted down to where her hands curled over his. He didn’t shy away from the touch; felt himself considering it and leaning into it, in fact, having gone without for the entire past year that he’d cooped himself up in his tower. (And that lone word, cute, innocent as it was, made something squirm inside him — not the tadpole, this time! — as if he were a tongue-tied student once more. It was something warmer, some somersaulting twist in his lungs which he hadn’t felt in so long.)

“Friends ought to share each others’ burdens,” is what he finally settled on. “At least, that’s what Tara always told me.”

Yes, this is a man who takes life advice from his cat, what of it.

“An equal partnership, a team. We all do our share to help carry each others’ burdens. Lae’zel with the creche, Shadowheart at the Gauntlet… we’ve all been there for each other, and you should be no exception. And on a personal note, Nepione, I’ve already dropped so much in your lap that the very least I could do is repay the favour. I would frankly be delighted to; it would mean that I’m more than that burden, more than a walking imposition devouring all your magical items.” There was a crinkle at the corner of his eyes; a faint half-smile, self-effacing.

Not for the first time, Tara's wisdom found its way into her life. Somehow very befitting a companion for a man like Gale who had his own plethora of navigational things to say. Although she objectively agreed, something about hearing it was difficult. Maybe because unlike so many situations that she could simply sidestep or distract, she did not feel protected from how gently pointed and truly affectionate such ideas were.

A little sliver of uncertainty parked at the small of her back as she carefully took in all he had to say, as if each was a fragile piece of glass that she thought too precious to be held in hands like hers.

"You were never a burden," she began, as though that was truly the most important thing to address. "You never have been. Not a single one of you." Difficult at times and even dangerous, certainly, but never a burden. Nepione could determine with relative ease that when it came to all of them, she had done precisely as she meant to. She would do it all again, if given the opportunity.

Dropping her gaze onto his hand and the way she held it, the incredibly tender way she dusted thumb along the back, she knew she couldn't say what she really thought. What she really felt. There would never be a time for it and the last thing she wanted to do was to give any of them cause for concern.

"You've all looked to me, yes?" Nepione continued, a small smile tugging at her lips. "From time to time, for support and protection. An ill-placed leadership, even. It's my place to look after all of you. To take care of you where I can. That's where I would like to be. What I've gotten through all of this is so much more than I could even appropriately say. There were never any favours or debts owed, but if there had been, standing here now in this moment, in this time, such things would have been paid back in excess."

“You’re—” Gale found himself struggling to respond for a moment, overwhelmed. Where some might have been skittish and shied away from such kindness, he embraced it like a parched man being handed a glass of water. “Nepione, are you certain you never wanted to continue a career into the bardic arts with a performance troupe? Because you possess the remarkable ability to say exactly the right thing. My own meager poetry scribbling in my tower could never compare. You’re a marvel.”

The wizard was quick and easy with compliments; perhaps a little too flowery and grandiose with them, but it was always earnest, always equally heartfelt. He was accustomed to painting in broad strokes, with bare-faced emotional honesty.

And yet this, this was why they let Nepione handle so much of the public negotiation with strangers: her ability to pluck the heartstrings, appealing to people, managing to persuade them, when Gale suspected he’d just shove his foot in his mouth if he tried, and Lae’zel would likely shove her fist through their face.

“So. Then, consider all talk of debts and ledgers and favours erased. Instead, I’ll implore you to simply allow us to look after you in turn, even if it’s only every so often, even if you prefer not to be perceived. Because after all, I,” a stutter-stop, quickly glazing over that phrasing, “we care for you greatly.”

She wasn't, really. It took almost all of her restraint to proverbially crush down the protest that immediately wanted to propel its way out of her. Maybe she was just genuinely incapable of handling a compliment. Whatever was behind that was certainly a lot to unpack and not a weight she should have been putting onto the courageous shoulders of an ambitious wizard.

Despite not arguing with him and simply letting his words fall where they were inclined to, she suspected her expression—for at least some moments or two—must have given her away. She could have nervously cleared her throat or simply laughed it off, but she didn't do either of those things either. Maybe at the very least, she could don something very humble. Not a dismissal of his generous perception of her, but not a full concession either.

"Sometimes I can say the right thing," she corrected him very gently. "But only sometimes. Perhaps only when it truly counts for something."

For she certainly knew not all of her attempts to use her words had been successful ones. On the contrary, she'd put them through more trouble than they should have as a result of her somewhat stubborn approach to things. There were just some that heartfelt conversation didn't work on, even when it came from someone like Nepione who was too transparent for her own good.

His little self-correction hardly went unnoticed either. Whether that was an indicator of his feelings where she was concerned (for she'd had no plans to ask and thought herself relatively ill-suited for such... things), or whatever else it could have been, she could only speculate. The notion of the former, however, threatened her breath to catch in her throat. Almost imperceptibly, her hands tightened upon his before she carefully lifted it and held it to the consistent thump of her pulse, perhaps a touch quickened by thought and words alike.

"I... would not wish to cause you concern," she admitted, dropping her gaze a bit bashfully, colour dotting along her features. "Or the others." Right. The others. Important to say that part. "I'm not very good at letting others take care of me. Of letting others care for me. About me. At all. I will... try to be better about that." But she would not, could not make him any such promise.

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hauls this into a scene if yr down!

hell y e a

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