He had used that word already that day, as they'd been exiting the Sharran cloister. "And you didn't even introduce them to your new girlfriend," he commented, "they," of course, presumably being the parents Shadowheart had just been forced to kill. Lae'zel was fairly certain all three of Shadowheart, Sara, and herself had needed to resist the urge to smack him. None of them had said anything back to him at all. Lae'zel hadn't known how to respond. She thought Shadowheart probably hadn't either.
Nor did she entirely know what to do now. Which had more or less been her situation since the battle against the Sharrans. She was aware that everyone had been expecting her to offer some sort of comfort to her new lover, that this was the custom in relationships such as theirs in Faerun. And she herself very much wanted to help, to make Shadowheart feel better. But she had no idea how to do that.
Even now, it was Karlach who called out, "Oi! Shadowheart! Over here!" and waved at her until she came over. She nudged Wyll, who got up from where he was seated between her and Lae'zel. "Maybe take her hand? That might help," he murmured as he did so, before moving over the seat on her other side Sara had left vacant.
Shadowheart was close enough to see him do it, and she maybe smiled a bit as she sat down next to her lover. Lae'zel, hoping Wyll was right, put her hand out. Shadowheart looked at it for a second, then took it. Her hand was slightly cold, but Lae'zel still felt better, just having a hold on her. "How are you?" she asked, since that seemed a safe question, and also, she wanted to know.
She considered it for a moment, then said, "Well, I'm better than I was earlier this evening. I think I might finally know what I'm doing with myself, at least. That's a comfort."
"It certainly is, when you know that," Lae'zel said. She knew well how much easier her life had become, when she'd had the freeing of Orpheus to focus herself on.
"You are a good guy, now," Minsc told her, from across the table. "I think it must always feel better to be a good guy. I know you must feel terrible that you could not save your parents; that truly is very awful. But you may carry their name with pride for the rest of you life."
"Well, I'm keeping my current name," said Shadowheart. "I said that to Sara; I don't know if she's told you that. But maybe you're not entirely wrong."
"She told us that," said Jaheira. "She didn't tell us much more, but it's okay if you don't want to talk about it yet. Maybe you'll feel even more better after a drink?"
"Maybe just one," said Shadowheart. "I don't know how long I'll stay down here, but I'm afraid I won't be the liveliest of company."
"That's all right," Karlach assured her. "You do know we're all just glad to have you here, Shadowheart."
"You don't have to be anything more than here, as you are, for your friends now," Halsin added. "Those days are over for you."
They all of them knew what to say to her. Even Minsc. Although Wyll just went up to the bar to get her a drink, because he knew which one to get. He got her a mug of Baalor Ale, and when she appeared to enjoy it, Lae'zel noted the name of that drink. At least she might know to get it for her at some point in the future.
Neither of them talked much, as they sat there. They let the others do the talking. At one point Lakrissa came over, and told them a comic story about a pair of patrons she had dealt with that afternoon. Eventually Shadowheart let go of Lae'zel's hand to more easily hold her mug, though she tried to look reassuringly at her as she did so.
When she finished the ale, she said, "I think that's it for me. I'm going upstairs."
"Shall I come with you?" Lae'zel asked. "I have also drunk as much as I wish to drink, and been down here as long as I wish to be."
"Well, if that's true, then absolutely," Shadowheart replied, and she did look pleased.
Still, Lae'zel felt very awkward, and a bit anxious, as they started up the stairs. Surely there were words she was supposed to say here, but she didn't know what they were.
Although she could provide Shadowheart with some immediately practical information: "Sara has said she plans to go after Cazador tomorrow. She has likely just allowed Astarion to feed on her..." Then she drifted off, as they came up to the landing just in time to see Astarion come out of their suite, hastily wiping his mouth clean, and actually looking a bit embarrassed. "What has happened?" Lae'zel called to him.
"I'm afraid I might have just revealed to Gale that Halsin propositioned Sara," he sighed. "I honestly thought she would've told him by now. I suppose she was worried he'd be more inclined to blow himself up if he knew she had an alternative to him. I'm going back downstairs." He hastened past them and downwards.
Lae'zel and Shadowheart looked at each other. "Maybe I had better go restore her immediately," Shadowheart said, and Lae'zel followed her to the double doors.
They both stopped, however, when she first hear Gale's angry voice, then Sara's louder, firmer, "He never would have done that. He made that very clear to me. He just wanted to be an extra lover. I don't think that's at all an unusual thing amoung the druids. Not everyone sees these things the way city folk do. My own tribe had no notion at all about being 'exclusive.' Hells, during our early years together, Morton and I used to laugh with each other about our other sexual partners. Though we did have less of those as time went on."
"Is that really what you want?" Gale now sounded alarmed, as well as angry. "Call me selfish, or old-fashioned, but I cannot agree to that. We dedicate ourselves to one another. I will not have you otherwise."
"And I am perfectly capable of that!" Now Sara sounded angry, too. "I've had to do it for the other relationships I've been in, and I can assure you I was good and faithful in all three of them. I never even cheated on Jack, not even when I had doubts about whether he was faithful. It's you over everyone else for me, and I turned him down, and he accepted that and said he'd never bother me again about it, and I thought the matter could end there, so can't it?"
There was a brief silence then, before they heard Gale still sounding a little put out, but calmed down, sigh, "I suppose I do understand why you didn't tell me. I wish you had, though. I just, I don't...I don't know..."
Another pause, and then Sara, softly, "Gale, you do know it's all right if you're angry with me right now? It's even all right if you've got mixed feelings about me right now. Maybe you felt like you had to try to avoid that with Mystra, but in a relationship like ours? It's perfectly normal for that to happen sometimes."
"It's...I don't want to feel this way," he said, now just sounding frustrated. "Especially not after what happened to you today. I know you haven't been talking about it because things were far worse for Shadowheart, but what that bitch did to you, making you think you'd actually ceremorphized, that's one of the worst things anyone ever has done to you, isn't it? I shouldn't be another problem for you right now. How can you even...and you're just going to accept that?"
"As someone who was married for over a century? Let me assure you, this is hardly the most painful time I've had. I was in love with Adelie every single day I was married to her, but there were days we screamed at each other. Moments where I didn't want to look at her. We did everything we could to make up before the end of the day, but we didn't even have a perfect record there. You've made me happier than I've been in years, Gale. If I make you happy in the same way, it's worth it if we have to have a spat or two."
Gale's response was too soft for them to catch, as were Sara's next words. Then Shadowheart said, "Maybe it can wait until morning. Let's leave them to sort that out by themselves." She turned to head into the other room.
Lae'zel followed her, her mind completely preoccupied by all she'd just learned. She had already seen the level of devotion and investment lovers could make to each other here in Fearun, but she hadn't known they even could, let alone regularly did, have these kinds of complications as well.
It was, possibly, even more disturbing that the thought of Shadowheart causing her this kind of trouble did not at all change what she wanted when it came to her.
They found the room clean and the bed was made. Shadowheart sat down on it, and Lae'zel sat down next to her.
"I was hoping to tell my parents about you," Shadowheart said then. "Tried to figure out exactly how I'd do it, how much I'd say to explain you to them. It would've taken a lot. When, in the end, I only had minutes with them, there wasn't any way they would've understood."
"Then you would have only caused them further distress," said Lae'zel. "You made the better choice by not troubling them with it. If you think I would ever be offended by that, then know that I am not." It was hard for her to even think she should be offended by someone behaving with such basic sense, but she was getting the impression many a Faerunian would've been.
"And of course," Shadowheart continued, "I would've had to talk with you anyway, before I tried to tell them what you are to me, exactly." She stopped then, and looked away, as if that conversation now frightened her.
Lae'zel could guess why that was. "I do not know everything about what it means here," she said, "to be someone's 'lover,' or to be their 'girlfriend.' But I will say that with what details I have seen attached to both those terms so far, I actually do not think I would object at all to them, with regards to the two of us."
Shadowheart turned back towards her, and there was fear, and hope as well. "It's probably only going to be days, you know," she said. "Until we kill Gortash, and free your prince, and destroy the Netherbrain. And I know once that's all done, you'll want to rejoin your people, to be in the fight that's going to happen then. And I think I've got my own plans, now. They're not completely set in stone. I might not even mind going with you initially for a while, or joining you later for a while, or something like that. But I can't devote myself completely to your people's war."
Well, she had just received the warning, that getting involved with someone like this could cause pain. Lae'zel felt it, how it made her heart turn heavy, and angry with her lover, even though her head absolutely understood and respected Shadowheart' words. It was unsettling, to feel two parts of herself as odds with each other like that.
Assess the situation with a clear mind, and with clear facts, she told herself. "Do you have any notion by what you might mean by 'a while'?" she asked.
"Well..." It seemed she hadn't. "Enough time to help them fight, maybe. There'll be things I can do. Maybe even fight with you, a little bit. I really do want to help."
"Help must be welcomed," Lae'zel replied, because that much was easy to know. Then she thought about it, about what awaited her, the way she had a few times already. "But I have also been thinking, especially since I will likely have a child to raise very soon. I do not think I want them to spend them earliest years surrounded by nothing except battle. They will learn to fight, of course, and I will raise them to fight for our people. But I want them to see more than just that, to know more than just that, perhaps not unlike in the way I have known more than that in these pasts weeks and months.
"Any help you need, you can probably get from any of us," said Shadowheart. "If they're your kid, that means we all care about them. So you think maybe, yes, we can still see each other from time to time?"
"At the very least," said Lae'zel, and she wondered and how quickly her heart lightened to hear it. "And for the immediate future, at least, you will always be welcome in my arms, and in my bed, whenever we do. If you want to be there."
"I think I will," said Shadowheart. "I think I feel the same." And she kissed her then, a firm, deep kiss, one made more as a statement, than anything else. Another thing Lae'zel was newly learning to appreciate. "You know," she added, "I don't think I've ever been in a relationship like this either. Seeing what we saw in that cloister, it sure didn't look likely. So I hope you're not going to look to me to know what I'm doing."
"Then neither of us know," said Lae'zel. "But you seemed to more know what to say tonight. I still do not, really."
"Maybe, right now, could you just hold me?" Shadowheart asked. "I'm so lonely, and tired, right now, and I'm still finding it hard to believe...I'm still so angry about it..."
"I know," said Lae'zel, because of course she did. She pulled Shadowheart into her arms, and they lay down on the bed together. They might stay there, she thought, until the others came back upstairs, until Sara and Gale had hopefully gone to bed feeling better about each other. They had eaten much of the food they had plundered from the cloister that day before they'd gone down to the bar, but they'd saved some of the fruit for Shadowheart, so she would have to show her that.
"Also," Shadowheart said, "could you do me one favor? You know that book we found about me, in the dormitory?"
"You still have it with you?" Lae'zel asked.
"I do," she said, "but I don't think I want to read it, at least not for a while. Could you take it? Maybe even read some of it for me? At least if you ever feel ready to? It might be easier for me if someone else knew my history, could answer questions for me, but I won't want that either yet, so there's no hurry. Though if it ever becomes to much for you to read, you can tell me, and then neither of us need open it again if we don't want to."
"I will take that book," said Lae'zel, "and I will read it for you." That was something she could do for this woman she cared for so deeply, a way she could ease her burdens and help with her pain. It was knowledge she was grateful for, a new kind of knowledge for her, and a new kind of gratitude as well.