In the gentle morning light of the eighth day of Flamerule, Berghuszt shifted himself and breathed deeply, with a certain satisfaction. There was a slight rustle of cloth next to him, and he first rolled himself onto his side, then briefly disappeared beneath his well-worn, but clean bedcovers.
Halkiaran'lar's radiant red eyes opened wide for a moment, then squinted. She sat herself up in the shared bed, which had been built a few inches shy of being comfortable for two people, and swatted at the lump in the bedcovers.
Berghuszt popped his head out from under the sheets with a wry smirk. "Is that for the nipping that I'm doing now, or for the more... thorough... working I gave you last night, mistress?"
How dare you, you impudent wretch, Halkiaran'lar replied. You lied.
Berghuszt savoured the sensation of the fiery script searing into his neatly scarred chest. "Only as much as you have. Neither of our... ha, ha... deviations, let's say, seemed to bother you last night."
My patron walks between mortal definitions, and I do likewise, Halkiaran'lar huffed. What you are doing, in contrast, is boldly lying.
Berghuszt sat all the way up out of the bed and sighed out a soft chuckle. "Not every wall that cants away from your plumbline is built poorly, m'lady. Here's more 'truth', if you please; the largest reason for my parents' flight from the Underdark, by far eclipsing their own hardships and the misdeeds of the Valsharess, was me."
Halkiaran'lar frowned and hugged her arms around her wiry chest as though she were cold. How were you discovered?
Berghuszt shrugged loosely. "If you mean how I discovered myself, I always knew. If you mean how my father discovered that I was his son, it was in the realization that I couldn't be lured or chased away from his side. I know the very day that realization truly sunk into his spirit. He watched me cut my own hair like his without stopping me. When I'd finished, he quietly adjusted what I'd chosen to wear so that it actually fit me. My mother, at first for love of him more than me- went along with the scheme, twisting it to shame others in the house when they tried to remind her what I 'really' was. Back then I was so young, and my agemates in the family were so numerous, that the 'truth' others believed they knew could be bent and twisted any which way without too much doing."
Halkiaran'lar merely raised an eyebrow at her bedfellow.
"Ah," Berghuszt said, as if Halkiaran'lar's intention had just occcurred to him. "If you mean how those outside the house found out, it was when I was a fresh seventeen years. Some of the faded scars you see now were quite fresh then. I hadn't
toughened back up sufficiently after receiving them, and to make matters
worse, I was wholly unused to being hit in the face or the head. When a boy from another house, who was practicing his hand-to-hand training with me, got me off balance, he took full advantage and kicked me in the back of the head. I fell face first, and broke my nose. The other boy fled the area immediately, which I'm told drew politely faint attention. I laid where I fell until a passing slave picked me up, took me home, and bathed and bandaged me. He sat with me until I came to, then told me that he had every intention of telling his version of the 'truth' about me, in order to shame the entire house into collapse. I'm not sure how he expected me to respond to that, but I didn't take it as a joke. I packed as much as I could carry, and left for the surface at once. My parents caught up with me on the way, with most of the things I'd had to leave behind. If they were afraid of being followed then, or exposed as liars or traitors later, they didn't show it. As far as I know, we weren't even missed by anyone of the house."
"As far as you know", Halkiaran'lar echoed. I'd be very surprised if your parents didn't have to fend off an assassin or twelve. Claiming to know about as big of a scandal as you are... the proof would be worth the lives of quite a few good slaves.
Berghuszt snorted gently. "My mother was excellent with spells of all kinds, and my father was the head of his patrol group. Their only weakness was each other; they were vicious to absolutely everyone else. Any assassin would be a fool to cross either one, let alone both together."
Halkiaran'lar found herself mildly irritated by Berghuszt's obvious sentimentality. If that were true, you'd have long been dead. They were too soft, clearly.
"Yes," Berghuszt replied as he gazed into the middle distance of memory. "I was their first and only child; the cursed fruit of an unusual, passionate love. I like to think that my mother used up all the cruelty in her bones by treating me as any of her station would treat any boy child, first born or not. She yelled and struck me as could be expected, but gave me good night kisses every night. My earliest deception was feigning sleep; when I felt her kiss, I'd drift off with a smile. My father, likewise tender only in secret, gave me proper beatings when I did the foolish things that Human children or surface Elf brats did, not realizing that I would be treated far differently than any of them. Years of harsh words and harsher hands, armed with belts, shoes, kitchen utensils... well. When he lay ill and dying, he admitted that every time he had to act in that way toward me, he imagined that he was taking his revenge on the boy who struck me. Saying everything and doing everything in just the way that he would with that useless, coward welp, instead of me. The two of them never had any other children with each other or anyone else; I've always believed that to be Llolth's revenge against them, along with the sudden negation of my mother's powers as her priestess. I imagine you know what it is to have the spider goddess's face set against you, don't you?"
Halkiaran'lar pursed her lips. My sister was... tenderhearted, as you put it. I was her favourite weapon, sharpened on many an idiot cousin and slow house rival. She finally used me to help her replace our mother, but wasn't strong enough to fend off the vultures when we succeeded. She paid for that weakness with almost every life in House Hun'gyhm, including her own. Llolth defended none of us, but certainly accepted the praise for 'strengthening' the survivors anyway. Of all of us, I alone remain. Llolth has never received any adulation from me, and never will.
"Does it hurt you, that you survived when your sister did not?" Berghuszt asked impetuously. Immediately realizing his impertinence, he scoffed at himself. "Well, that's a slap poorly-earned, isn't it?"
Halkiaran'lar was silent for a long while. Birdsong and the gentle rustling of tree branches could be heard just outside the windows. Who gave you the scars? she finally asked. The question felt more like getting one step too close to a stove than feeling a red-hot branding iron to write on flesh.
"In honesty, both parents," Berghuszt replied. "My father's idea of anesthesia was to make me drink as much hard liquor as I could stand without vomiting. When I'd done that, he knocked me clean out with a rock-hard right hand. The actual work itself, top and bottom, was my mother's doing. It's so clean, which I only realized after being with a few others of my kind, that she had to have done similar proceedures before. She never admitted to anything of the sort, but I still believe that to be true. Are yours the work of your patron?"
No, Halkiaran'lar replied. These, she continued, running her fingers gently over the awful-looking stitch work under her jaw, are from my other sisters, who despised me. No anesthesia needed for a mere boy. It was an experiment, to see if such a proceedure was an acceptable punishment, but it failed, because I lived much longer than they had hoped. Longer than they did, ironically.
"They got what they deserved," Berghuszt scoffed. "If they wanted you dead, they should have put you on a bad border patrol, with sabotaged weapons and armour. Or sent you on a false escort mission. Or they could have even used even basic, inelegant solutions like just plain poisoning your food. And by the by, I've got a high tolerance for poison. Not sure how or why, but it kept my mother from successfully getting rid of me when I first began cutting my hair and changing my appearance. She took it as some kind of sign, I think, but from who or what, I can't guess."
Halkiaran'lar laughed- a rich, deep, thick sound that brought a wide smile to Berghuszt's face. Sabotage, poison, and revenge? You're not as soft as you appear, surface Drow. I should have knifed you weeks ago. Tell me who your patron is.
"When I was younger, no one ever answered my prayers, demons and devils included." Berghuszt shrugged loosely. "These days, I take orders from the build chief on-site on any given day, but that's about as much as I serve anyone, let alone pray, or worship, or make any kind of offerings. If there are gods at all, they don't mind me, so I'm under no obligation whatsoever to mind them."
For a moment, Bahlzair thought of Mi'ishaen, wondering if she and Berghuszt had similar weaknesses. To his surprise, it pleased him to make the comparison, and to think briefly of the sneaky Tiefling brat. Her miserable control of balefire came to mind, prompting another comparison.
Halkiaran'lar gazed at Berghuszt for a while longer, then scoffed. Did you lie about your magickal acumen as well?
"No; I'm honestly terrible-" Berghuszt sat up and held up his left hand. After a bit of squinting and frowning, a dim, grey fire lisped to life at the center of his hand. Within seconds of its appearance, it winked out, and Berghuszt shrugged as a sad smile reappeared on his face. "That's my faerie fire. I received many a beating for it, trust me. I don't know why it is that way, any more than I know why I have a high tolerance for poison. Don't blame my mother or father for that; they each spent ages trying to- my father put it best- 'put an edge on a spoon'."
Perhaps it's your affinity with stone. Halkiaran'lar reached out a single finger of her right hand and traced the spiderweb scars around Berghuszt's chest. There are potions that can change your form. Do you want that?
"My form is as I want it," Berghuszt replied, very gently taking Halkiaran'lar's hand and kissing the back of it. "And I have no interest in changing myself for the comfort of others."
Bahlzair smiled genuinely, recognizing the echo of his own words, and a quiet chuckle escaped him, despite his best efforts.
"Good; I'm glad to at least be a temporary source of amusement," Berghuszt said.
So you know I will leave you, Halkiaran'lar sighed, making herself comfortable under Berghuszt's arm.
"Of course," Berghuszt replied, cuddling Halkiaran'lar closer to his side. "One way or another, everyone does. It is, therefore, important to snatch moments of happiness when it's possible to do so."
What would you do, stonecutter, if I sliced you open like a fish as you slept? Right from here- Halkiaran'lar placed a single, gentle finger right beneath Berghuszt's shallow navel- to here? The finger, tipped down so that the nail caught flesh as it was dragged upward, was joined by its compatriots along the way, so that the sides of Berghuszt's neck soon felt five bright pins of pain.
"Be dead, I suppose," Berghuszt replied with a calm smile. "I'm too surface now to do that whole dance of artful threats thing. My parents whirled around each other's wordplay as though they were the worst of enemies. Shitbasin this, spider whore that, and who's going to cut off whose body parts. Interesting to overhear. Impossible to reproduce. I've never even tried."
You will today, you weak, ignorant cur, Halkiaran'lar urged. What if you found an inconvenient hole in your chest tomorrow?
"Alright, my lady. Just for you." Berghuszt first sighed, then chuckled quietly. "What if you were rather personally introduced to a refining fire?"
Halkiaran'lar scoffed harshly. I doubt that I would ever see such a thing. You, however, could discover the fires about you here, right here in your bed. What then?
"I've discovered, dear my lady," Berghuszt purred with a fanged kindness, "that a certain amount of weight in certain places makes moving certain parts remarkably uncomfortable. Sometimes totally impossible. What would you do if the swelling in your lovely wrists matched that of your darling ankle? Of course, even if your ankles merely matched each other, it would be less than advantageous for you."
It was Halkiaran'lar's turn to laugh. Every so often, useless, houseless, orphan boy, you begin to act like a Drow. I'd be more disgusted with your Human mask if I weren't so damnably interested in how and why you learned to fashion and wear it.
"The 'why' of my social camoflage should be patently obvious," Berghuszt scoffed. "There will never be any such thing as a 'safe' Drow family, but we came close. The ones who weren't uppity, or bitter, or sneaky, or outright evil. The ones who could be trusted- with knowledge, with things, with people. And thus, the ones who could be given jobs. Who could be given access to certain places."
A knowing smirk cut its way across Halkiaran'lar's face. You've known all along.
Berghuszt shook his head- a small movement, accompanied by the gentlest of shrugs. "Not all along, no. I'd be more insulted at being used, if I weren't so damnably interested in why you did it."
Your grasp of magic is abominable enough that 'Why?' absolutely should not be your first question, Halkiaran'lar sniffed.
"You can't put an edge on a spoon," Berghuszt reminded. "My mother tried for over fifty years, to no avail."
You're still alive, so you have time to learn, Halkiaran'lar huffed as she sat up and away from Berghuszt's warm arm. And, you obviously have energy to spare, since you're wasting it trying to parse out the intentions and actions of your betters. From this day, you are my apprentice in all things. I expect my every command to be obeyed without question. And without impertinence, so don't think of something smart to say. Accept the reality that you are far less intelligent than you believe yourself to be.
Berghuszt scoffed quietly and slowly got out of bed. "Unintelligent enough to need to be told to make your breakfast?"
If you cook for only one person, I will assume that you didn't intend to eat yourself, disgusting slug, Halkiaran'lar replied without a moment's delay. And don't get any bright ideas about new or different ingredients.
"Don't worry, my lady," Berghuszt replied. Although his back was turned and he was moving toward the cooking area of the house with purpose, Halkiaran'lar could hear the mocking smile he was wearing in his tone. "We already know that I don't have bright ideas. Any attempt on your life would be made in the most idiot way possible. Which is why it would work- esconced in the high tower of your overwhelming intelligence, you would miss warning signs that any street drunkard could catch. Ah, think of the lovely dissonnance of the combined feelings of embarrassment, insult, and rage you'd feel."
For just a moment, Bahlzair contemplated Berghuszt's attitude, and was reminded of a much younger, mouthier firstboy, far away in Ust Natha. He felt, suddenly and sharply, the loss of a sister who was at once crueler and kinder to him than anyone before or after her had been.
Graz'zt, for his part, kept a silent, watchful distance. Even demons know what mourning is, and that it never truly ends. Like the Shadow King himself, it merely changes form.
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