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The feeling of a tadpole squirming inside of the brain is not a sensation so easily described. How the Illithid passengers haven't killed their hosts yet, or turned them into mind flayers is an even harder question to answer. And even harder still, is the question of whether or not everyone in their little makeshift camp will survive to see the next sunrise. Or the one after that. Only time will tell, and isn't that a bitch of a truth to swallow.
The past several days have been nothing but chaos and danger at every turn. Once upon a time, Delilah would’ve salivated at the prospect of adventure and daily challenge, but under the current circumstances, she just wanted to be back home where everything made sense. She was tired of having no answers– to the tadpole problem, to finding her way home… and she was also tired because lately a restful trance has proved to be less and less attainable.
First and foremost, Delilah has never been much good at riddles. Always hated them, really. Riddles require patience to find the answers, and patience is not one of her virtues. Puzzles and prophecies are words she despises in equal measure, because gods know she’s had enough of those in her lifetime, so when her dreams come to her in pieces–confusing, jumbled flashes–the growl that rumbles from her chest is only natural.
The sound is angry and unbidden as it reverberates in her throat. Delilah sits upright from her bedroll, and resigns herself to the prospect of a long, sleepless night; It’s not like the lumpy thing was much of a comfort anyway, which may or may not be another reason she finds it so hard to get any rest.
She rubs images of fire and darkness and bloodshed from her weary eyes, trying to make sense of even a sliver of what she’d seen, but to no avail. The last traces of her dream fade away like whispers of smoke through her fingertips, and soon enough she’s unable to recall most of what she’d seen. She reaches towards her necklace for comfort and is reminded that it is no longer in its rightful place around her neck, lost somewhere in the chaos of the fight on the nautiloid or the crash. A wave of fresh anxiety rolls over her in the absence of the pendant. Another frustrated growl threatens to escape her chest but she swallows it down with a heavy exhale through her nose. Delilah can feel a headache building in her temples, and she so desperately wants to blame the tadpole in her head for the pain, but her training in medicine forces her to face the true cause. Stress.
What a laugh , she silently, ruefully, admits to herself. Of course, with everything the last few days have brought, experiencing a little stress makes sense, but they have bigger things to worry about. She has bigger things to worry about. Like removing the mind flayer tadpole from her brain, finding her pendant, and most importantly, getting back to Baldur’s Gate. Whatever it takes.
“Soldier?”
The low, smooth tone comes gently from behind her. Delilah wipes the sweat from her brow on the sleeve of her nightshirt and sniffs before turning to the tiefling.
“Karlach, I didn’t see you there.” She notes the twinge of worry on the horned woman’s face.
“I’m sure you didn’t.” The corner of her lips quirk upwards. “You seemed like you were miles away. Copper for your thoughts?”
“Hm,” Delilah forces a chuckle. “You’d need a lot more than a copper to get in here.” She taps her temple once for good measure, ignoring the dull ache building there. This makes Karlach grin fully, a single staccato laugh bursting from her lips.
“Ha! Witty. I knew I liked you.” She taps the space beside her on the mossy stone, inviting Delilah to come sit. Internally, she grapples with whether or not she’s truly in a talkative mood, but quickly she relents and stands. Better to have a moonlit chat than to ruminate on nothing but nonsense and nightmares she can’t remember. Besides, she supposes there is worse company to be found in camp.
Delilah eases down beside Karlach and much to her surprise, their shoulders are nearly evenly matched like this. She’s not quite as brawny as the infernal warrior is, but a female companion taller than she is certainly is a welcome change. Delilah is used to raising eyebrows as a wood elf of her stature, but the source of her height is not something she’d like to divulge anytime soon, so she silently begs Karlach not to comment on it. Halsin, the massive druid they’d freed from the goblin camp dungeons recently, had joked about the possibility of orcish heritage…perhaps she should start doing the same.
“No chance of you telling me what’s causing the wrinkles in your brow, then?” Karlach looks her way with humor dancing in her eyes.
“Now Karlach, don’t tell me you’ve gone and gotten attached.” She smirks and settles back more comfortably on her hands.
“‘Till you give me a reason not to be.” Karlach shrugs. “When most people are trying to kill you, you start to get fond of anyone that isn’t.”
“Fair enough. Well, I’m not aiming to slit your throat in the night anytime soon if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Much appreciated.” She smiles toothily, and retrieves a bottle from the pack resting down by her boots. Its contents sloshes around when Karlach shimmies it back and forth. “Fancy a drink?”
Delilah hesitates. “I… don’t drink much these days. Prefer to keep sharp, especially all things as of late considered.”
“Ah, come on! You’re not on a watch shift, what’s the harm? Besides, maybe it’ll help soothe you back to sleep.” She raises her eyebrows enticingly.
Delilah’s face remains unchanged, and looks bemused across camp where Gale’s nose is buried in a thick tome. “Ah yes, because our watchman inspires so much confidence.”
Karlach follows her gaze to the oblivious wizard and snorts. “Well then. At least we’ve killed practically every goblin in the nearest vicinity. We shouldn’t have to worry about any late night ambushes for the time being.” She takes a swig from the bottle.
“And when it's not goblins, it's bandits, or gnolls, or fake paladins of Tyr.” She reminds Karlach pointedly.
“Hey, we killed those fuckers too. Easily, might I add. We make a pretty powerful team, you and I.” Karlach grins, offering the bottle again. “I propose a toast.”
“A toast?” Delilah can feel her lips starting to twitch upwards from the tiefling’s enthusiasm. She accepts the bottle with a halfhearted sigh.
“A toast.” She nods. “To Karlach and Delilah…and friends of course. To our continued success in all endeavors, be they bloody or otherwise!” She mimes raising a second bottle of her own to clink. Delilah can’t help but entertain Karlach’s antics. She raises her bottle and tips it forwards.
“Just this once.” She points sternly at Karlach. “Cheers.”
“Fuck yeah.”
The liquid is a little sour, but not as bad as most of what she drank the night of the tiefling party in the grove. It's wine, or some attempt at it at least, but thankfully a little sweeter than she was anticipating. She takes a single sip, then hands the bottle back. “Where’d you find this?”
“Nabbed it off of Volo when he was regaling some of the refugees with his tales of silver dragons and eyewitness accounts of the mind flayer ship crash.”
“Riveting.” Delilah rolls her eyes.
“My thoughts exactly.” Karlach agrees, and drinks deeply from the bottle. She hums with approval from the taste, then fixes Delilah with a curious gaze that can only spell trouble. “Well since you know my story already from all the theatrics with Wyll and Mizora, what’s yours? We’ve fought together, drank together now, but I know next to nothing about you, and I’m sure everyone else is likely to say the same. Your turn, soldier.”
“What makes you think I’m going to tell you the truth?” Delilah raises a single eyebrow, hoping to squash any trace of apprehension in her tone.
“I’m a pretty good judge of character.” She leans back, mirroring Delilah’s posture. “I’d like to think I’d be able to tell if you were.”
“Really? Says the one who’s trusting a warlock sent to murder them after one conversation swearing an alleged truce.”
“Nah, Wyll isn’t going to kill me. Never was.” She states simply.
“How can you be so sure?” Delilah asks with genuine curiosity.
“Because I’d have seen it. It’s all in the eyes, and he didn’t have it in him. Which I’m grateful for, because I really did not want to have to chop his head off.”
Delilah hums, mulling over Karlach’s answer. Suppose she did tell her companion her story. What good would that do? Recount years’ worth of hardship for a pat on the head and an ‘I’m sorry’? She didn’t need sympathy, she needed a way back to Baldur’s Gate. And to find her necklace as soon as possible.
She raises her chin to look up at the moon, hanging bright and yellow overhead. From Karlach’s perspective it must look like she’s pondering the details of her past, but in actuality she’s calculating how long she has left. The crescent is thin, which means she has a couple of weeks, maximum, until the next full moon. Without her pendant, she, or more accurately all of her companions, are absolutely fucked. The magic embedded in the metalwork usually keeps her instincts at bay, but ever since she woke up on that beach she’s been feeling things… more keenly.
She can hear the bubbling stream from down the hillside as though it were right beside her, see the creases in the binding of Gale’s tome from all the way across camp, and smell the scent of undeath rolling off of Astarion in waves from where he trances by the fireside. Nobody else seems to have noticed his vampiric traits yet, but she isn’t going to be the one spilling his secrets when she has one of her own just as delicate. It does make her question her companions’ observation skills however; surely someone must’ve seen the color of his eyes as abnormal, or the points to his teeth?
Perhaps Astarion might be her best bet for a confidant, she realizes, with a secret like that to leverage as a bargaining chip. The thought of blackmailing him doesn’t inspire any particular glee for Delilah, but it does make him possibly the most trustworthy to ask about finding her pendant. She’ll have to speak with him tomorrow, if she can find a moment to get him alone. Shouldn’t be hard with the way he seems to desperately want Delilah to take an interest in him. Maybe he thinks her interest will keep him safe…
“Still with me?” Karlach’s voice floats to the forefront of her mind, drawing her back to the present. Her amber eyes flit back and forth over Delilah’s face, as if searching for something.
“I’m here.” She assures her. “Just… debating on how much to tell you. I haven't really done the whole… friend thing… in quite a while.” That much, at least, was a truth.
“You and me both.” Karlach tips her head.
“Well…” Delilah starts, then decides to offer just enough to satisfy her. Nothing too close, too personal. “I’m from Baldur’s Gate.” A Half truth.
“Me too!” Karlach brightens up, as though she’s won her crusade for Delilah’s secrets. “At least before I got dragged to the hells to be Zariel’s lapdog.”
Delilah, unsure of how to respond, only nods. Karlach brushes it off quickly, steering the conversation back to Delilah. “Well? What was life like in Baldur’s Gate for you? Eager to go back?”
Delilah pauses for a long moment, choosing her words carefully. “I do. Some parts more than others, but if I had to say one way or the other, I’d say I miss it very much. I live in a tavern, actually.” Truth.
“What? What do you mean in a tavern?” Karlach’s brows furrow.
Delilah laughs at her expression. “I guess I should say above it. In the attic.”
“An attic?” Her face sobers up a bit and starts to lean towards pitying, which makes Delilah quickly explain herself.
“It’s better than you think. The attic space…well, there's a lot of room. It’s my loft. I work in the tavern, they give me the space and hot meals in exchange. It’s a good partnership.”
“I suppose that doesn’t sound too bad.” Karlach nods. “ Ugh, what I would do for a warm bed, a home cooked meal, and an ale right about now.” She moans in delight at the thought. Delilah hums in agreement.
“Right then, sounds like quite the little slice of paradise you’ve got going on.” Karlach rights herself and scooches closer to suddenly peer at Delilah’s face. She fights the urge to shove the tiefling back, not wanting to burn her hands off, opting instead to lean slightly away.
“Now wait a minute. Hells, how old are you anyways?” She asks, tone dripping with curiosity.
“Um… I’m forty-six years old.” Lie. She’s actually a hundred and forty-six, but most non-elves can’t tell the difference anyway. At least this means she won’t have to make up stories for years of her life she’d rather not revisit.
“No way,” Karlach gawks just as expected. “You elves, lucky bastards. You look like you’re in your prime, all smooth skin and bright eyes. A vision of youth. I hate you.”
This makes Delilah really laugh, feigning offense with a hand over her heart. “I am in my prime.” You have no idea.
“I hate you even more.” Karlach smiles around the mouth of the wine bottle. “If I weren’t burning hotter than the nine hells I’d be propositioning you right now.”
“Is that so?” Delilah grins. “Maybe in another life. You’re not really my type.” Gods know her life might’ve turned out a lot differently if her taste were someone more like Karlach.
“Not your type, huh? Well now I gotta know. What is your type?”
“Now you’ve stepped over the line.” Delilah chuckles. “That’s for me to know, and for you to wonder.”
“Ah, no! You can’t leave off there! Cruel, that’s what you are. Giving me just a taste and then sealing your lips just when things get interesting. I have to know.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage.” Delilah stands, smiling wickedly at Karlach and brushing off her pants.
“Fine, keep your secrets.” Karlach waves her hand dismissively and reclines back to lay on the stone. Delilah shakes her head, expression almost fond. Almost. As far as traveling companions go, Karlach isn’t the worst and Delilah finds that this chat has been more tolerable than expected. She makes for her bedroll but before she’s more than a few paces away she hears Karlach’s smug tone resounding behind her.
“I’m sure it has nothing to do with someone named Caspian. ”
Delilah’s stomach drops and her veins turn to ice. Her expression falters and she’s rooted in place, unable to move while Karlach barrels on from her sprawled position. “You were saying his name in your sleep. Friend? Lover? Eager to get back to him, I bet. Go on, tell me I’m right.”
Delilah feels bile rising in her throat and the urge to snap Karlach’s bones in between her jaws is so intense that she fears she may transform right here and now. Moon be damned, the wolf has been wounded and begs to be released. Thankfully, there is one sensation that keeps her grounded, and keeps the wolf at bay; even stronger than the urge to maim the tiefling, is the urge to weep.
When Karlach rises again expecting to see a blushing maiden who’s crush has been revealed, she sees instead a maelstrom of hurt and grief in Delilah’s green eyes. She sets her jaw and grinds her teeth so hard they could turn to powder, and Karlach’s demeanor shifts in an instant. “Delilah? Hey, I didn’t mean to–”
“I’m done talking.” She snarls, and she can feel her eyes beginning to water. Cursed tears. She will not weep this night. She must be strong. For herself, and for Caspian, she must always be strong. “Goodnight, Karlach.”
“Delilah, wait I–”
She does not bother to entertain the tiefling any longer, and she stalks back to her bedroll with purpose. She burrows under the thin blanket as if it were a shield that could protect her from the outside world, but the chill of night air seeps through the fabric and reminds her just how vulnerable she is.
No, she asserts. She will be strong and find her way back to Baldur’s Gate, no matter what happens. She has traveled alone before, she can do it again if necessary. Let the dreams come, then. If it is to be fires and darkness in her trance, then so be it. At least she will be one night closer to Caspian. And nothing, not a well-meaning tiefling, not a mind flayer parasite, not a perilous journey to moonrise towers for a healer is going to stop her.