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It was difficult to get close to somebody in the Hells. There it was all about crawling over one another for a promotion to the next rank, sometimes blasting your rival based on nothing more than a slight infraction. The laws of Hell were created to be stumbled over, stretched out wires to catch an ankle. Karlach was not so naive that she didn’t understand this.
She’d first assumed that Florenta was a tiefling like herself, betrayed and sold off like a faulty piece of machinery. But then she’d seen Flo’s human form a purposeless thing in Hell. Even though it made Karlach ache, and not because of the lost connection.
“So, who’s your dad, then?” asked Karlach, as they cooked battlefield remains over a makeshift flame. The meat crackled, reeking of fat and sulphur. Once, Karlach’s favourite food had been mutton chops, when she could get it. The Hells contained nothing as sweet and plump as a fattened ewe, though.
Florenta shrugged. “Dunno,” she said. “Mum died, as they do, and I got punted about to different places. I think I was too…chaotic, even for the infernal, but Zariel graciously took me under her wing.”
Karlach picked up a strip of meat, ignoring the gout of flame that caught onto her fingers. “Maybe it’s her.”
Flo paused for a moment before shaking her head. “Nah, I don’t think so. She used to be an angel. I’m not even sure she has any bits at all.”
Karlach coughed as a lump of gristle lodged itself in throat, and Flo laughed as she thumped her on the back to dislodge it. Karlach liked her.
As a teenager, Karlach had grown very tall very quickly, leaving her gangling and lanky at seven foot. Then her limbs had grown thicker and stronger, apparently making her the perfect subject for all that happened to her since.
In her cambion form, Florenta was about a head taller than Karlach. Rather than having grown lanky and bulky in places, she was just bigger, as if she’d been created on a larger scale, perfectly proportionate. She reminded Karlach of the bigger toys her parents had been able to sometimes get her on birthdays, more ornate and detailed when standing next to the rest.
Like Karlach, she had a lithe tail that whipped back and forth in anticipation on the battlefield, but sat curled around her when they dined together. Her horns were onyx twists that curved backwards, making her seem a little taller, still.
Unlike Karlach, she had large wings of sharp bone and thin, leathery membrane, kept folded between her shoulderblades on downtime, but spread wide like a banner when she fought. Her eyes were sharp and deep amber, and her hair was pale, hanging wild and thick. In battle, the wiry, corded muscle of her limbs flexed and rippled with precision.
She was the most attractive person that Karlach had seen in a long time - not that there was much competition, as most devils weren’t known for their stunning good looks. But, most importantly, Karlach felt like she could safely like her.
They had met in battle: Karlach had been ripping into a demon, her teeth sinking into its shoulder, rage lighting up her blood. Across the field, she saw a woman neatly catch a demon’s thick, fleshy neck in her spined whip. Karlach had watched as the woman had pulled and pulled until the whip sliced through the neck and the grotesque head tumbled to the ground. When she’d noticed Karlach looking, Florenta had winked and smiled with all of her teeth.
Then Florenta approached her afterwards during dinner. She’d been tall against the red sky, pinning Karlach in place with her gaze.
“I really don’t see many like you around here,” she said, dropping into a crouch, neatly folding her wings. She peered at Karlach as Karlach tore a hunk of meat away from her meal with her teeth. Being approached wasn’t unusual, because there was clearly something overwhelmingly mortal about her. Few survived actually trying to lay a hand on her, but she felt inclined to give this woman a moment.
All she did was help herself to some of her meat, sitting down and crossing her long legs.
“What’s your name, then?” Flo had said, nibbling at the meat and grimacing. “I guess Zariel doesn’t feed you. She forgets that mortals need to eat.”
“Karlach.” Karlach wolfed down the rest of the meat. By this point, it had stopped mattering where it came from, as long as she didn’t go hungry. “Sometimes she remembers. Not usually, though. But I take care of myself.”
The woman nodded. “I’m Florenta. But you can call me Flo, or Florenta the Garroter, if you really want to.” Flo wiped some melted fat off of her chops. “You’re the prettiest thing here, Karlach. You know that, right?”
They took to reconvening after battle from then on, and it made something lift inside Karlach. Only a little something, because the Hells themselves were constructed to make everything just a bit worse. But it was something she could have, and Florenta sure was striking.
The eating and the talking led to kissing. And Karlach had never been a stranger to casual encounters in Baldur’s Gate, but when there was nothing else to fall towards, it became even easier.
For a cambion who forced wires through necks, Florenta kissed her sweetly, hands running gently through her hair and over her horns, and sliding over her shoulders and down her back. It was sweet, it was light, it was something other than the cruel drudgery of everything.
“That was nice,” Flo had said, the first time. “I don’t think anyone else in Avernus realises that it’s okay to actually have fun kissing. Except Mizora, maybe, but. Eugh.”
“Mmm,” was all Karlach could say.
The kissing led to sex. They retired to the shadows beneath the crags of rock that spotted the barren landscape. Karlach on her back as Florenta kissed the glow between her breasts and over the scars of her stomach, and then those wire-stringing fingers and that lovely mouth went between her legs. Skin against skin, the flex of battle-honed thighs, and that eventual release of tension and of pleasure. Gods, but Karlach had missed this.
Flo spread her wings to shelter them both and Karlach could believe, for just a moment, that they were anywhere else.