etraya | un: shadowheart

We can meet in front of the cafe.

Before we do, though, I should ask your qualifications. I'm not asking to have a wound sewn closed or a fever cured. I need someone who can handle more complicated problems.

I know. I can manipulate any living biological matter. As long as you're actually alive, I should be able to help.

[Girl who has forgotten her one emotional limit.]

Edited 2024-07-05 06:38 (UTC)

I'm alive. Unless I've forgotten something rather vital about myself.

I'll meet you in thirty minutes.

[Sure enough, Amy arrives at the cafe pretty shortly after. She doesn't have much to do when there's not an active mission. Very little in the way of actual friends or people she'd want to spend time with.

So she's just here in a black tank top and grey cargo pants, with red tattoos stretching down her arms and reaching down to her hands. A coffee in one hand and a strawberry bagel in another.

She realizes, a few minutes into waiting outside, that she has no idea what this person even looks like.]

[It takes Shadowheart a little while to realize that she also doesn't know who she's looking for. But when she arrives – dressed in armour, ornate spear strapped to her back, white-furred dog with a wagging tail in tow – there's only one person who looks to be waiting, so that's the person she approaches.]

Are you here waiting for someone? [She keeps her query vague, so as not to give her business away to the wrong stranger.]

[The conversation was public. Hardly a secret. She has to remind herself of that to combat the way she immediately feels like she's been put on the spot.

She looks at this woman - a little surprised. Pointed ears, silvery white hair. She looks more like an Earth Aleph disney princess than whatever Amy might have expected from a username like Shadowheart.]

Uh. Yeah. Shadowheart?

Edited 2024-07-12 13:31 (UTC)

[Shadowheart gives the woman a once-over, not so much judging as appraising. It's so difficult to say here; clothing, tattoos, none of it has the same meaning as it might in her world.]

Yes. You're the healer I was speaking with?

Edited (for some reason I thought Shadowheart knew Amy's name 🤦‍♀️) 2024-07-12 19:41 (UTC)

Panacea, yeah.

My name's Amy. By the way.

[Leaving space for Shadowheart to give her own name. Because surely it wouldn't be something as corny and edgy as 'Shadowheart'.

She feels a little self conscious like this, but prison did teach her how to make that insecurity invisible. So she returns the evaluating stare. Pointed ears and everything. There's a lot of what Amy would consider high fantasy around this place.]

Shadowheart.

[Despite it being an out-of-place name even in her own world, and a few people having commented on it, she states it very matter-of-factly, not really thinking anything of it.

And then she moves brusquely along, because as nice as it is to know the name of the person who might go poking around in her head, she's much more concerned with having her problem addressed.]

Have you got any experience removing parasites?

[She blinks, somewhat lost at the implication that Shadowheart is this girl's real name. It helps that she's immediately distracted by more pressing matters.

Did Tattletale say something?

That's the first thought that springs to mind - before she does the basic mental gymnastics to actually think about it. Coincidence. She has treated parasites. Hundreds of them, even. So many she lost count.

It's just one particular parasite that stands out.]

Yes. They tend to be fairly simple, barring a few rare exceptions.

[An ice pick.

There's a knot of dread in her stomach before she continues.]

Where would this parasite be located?

[She watches Amy carefully, sizing her up. Confident, but not blustering. Is there a hint of confusion there? Or concern? Or fear? She can't be sure.]

This one might prove the exception. It's in my head, behind my eye. Protected by rare and powerful magic, and it's quite powerful in its own right. [Slowly, still eyeing Amy closely, she continues:] Will you take it as payment, if you're able to extract it?

[A little test, to see if Amy wants the thing for herself. She's not going to trust anyone who will pull the tadpole out of her head only to try to use it for themselves in some way.]

[Right. Magic. Behind her eye, connected to her brain. That could be a problem. Is she going to do this? She shouldn't - given her track record with brains or worse, parasites. The sight of Khepri drooling, crying and laughing uncontrollably while she went about systematically enslaving every cape she could get in her pincers comes to mind.

She furrows her brow, troubled by the implications and the weight of this and then she can only stare at Shadowheart, utterly baffled.]

Why the fuck would I want your parasite? That's... unsanitary and insanely gross on so many levels. [She shakes her head, scrunches up her nose in disgust.] Even if it offers power, I'm still not even remotely interested. Less so, actually.

Look - magic isn't something we have back home. So I can't say for sure how my abilities will interact with something like this. There's a lot of risks involved here, including brain damage and - well, beyond that I don't really know. There's always risks when dealing with brains, magic parasites are a whole other issue.

Good, [she says smugly.] Just what I'd hoped to hear. I'm not going to trust this thing to anyone who actually wants it.

[The rest of Amy's speech is troubling. She's especially not keen on brain damage. But her other options – maybe making it home, maybe defeating the Absolute, the Absolute's destruction maybe resulting in the destruction of all the tadpoles and her own survival – come with their own dangers and uncertainties.]

There's a lot of risks no matter what course of action I take, including doing nothing. Every day it's in my head is another day I risk it killing me.

[Amy rolls her eyes in pure exasperation.]

Why would I want your parasite if I don't even know what it is? [Self centred much.]

Look - I'm willing to help [She shouldn't have said that, because now she's stuck with it. Brains are... well, modifying brains. That's something that makes her feel stomach feel queasy. She knows that she can do it. She's done it before. But still...] - if you drop this cagey mysterious attitude about it. I can't do anything if I don't actually know what I'm dealing with.

I had to be sure. I'm hardly going to hand the thing over to anyone who offers to get it out of me without at least checking they aren't going to use it for ill.

[The fact that magic doesn't exist in Amy's world suggests that illithids probably don't either.]

But you're right. A healer can't heal without understanding the ailment. [As much as she hates to go into detail, she's a healer herself.]

It's called a mind flayer tadpole. There are creatures in my world that reproduce by inserting their tadpoles into others' heads. The tadpoles eventually turn their hosts into mind flayers in what I'm told is an agonizing and lengthy process, which you can imagine I'm keen to avoid. The one in my head is kept in a sort of stasis, and, as I said, protected by powerful magic.

[It's fair enough. She grunts vaguely in response to the first part, raising a hand to her chin as she thinks on how she's going to address this. It seems like this might be potentially dangerous to both of them. She doesn't know how her powers would interact with otherworldly magic.

If it's an organism, a regular parasite of sorts, she can destroy it very easily. She was able to affect a shard, and that was in and of itself an incredible source of power. But there weren't any protections there.]

If the creatures that reproduce this way turn human hosts into "mindflayers" as you call them, then I can definitely affect them. At least in theory. [She can affect animals too, but mutated humans are a bit easier. It's something she herself could probably try turning Shadowheart into if she were feeling both 1. insanely sadistic and 2. incredibly stupid.]

My only concern is that - if it's kept in stasis by this powerful magic, would tampering with it undo the stasis?

I...

[She tries to think back to everything she's learned about the tadpoles and the magic that protects them. Since waking up on that beach, she and the others have talked to so many people, pursued so many dead ends.

What had the illithid in the Underdark said? It couldn't extract the tadpole without killing the host, she recalls that well enough. And that if the stasis were to be disrupted, the transformation would begin instantly. But she doesn't remember anything about an attempted extraction potentially disrupting the stasis.]

I don't know. Unless I can get home and destroy the thing that controls the tadpoles, it seems my options are to live with a metaphorical sword hanging over my head, or risk dying to get out from under it.

[She doesn't want to do this.

No, that's not true, she really wants to do this. Her shard practically itches at the chance to test her abilities against this hivemind, a hivemind to rival the one her powers orginated from.

But this will have consequences, and once again Amy will walk away with blood on her hands.]

If you die, you'll come back like anyone else, only having lost something. It's pretty vague what that means specifically.

If the stasis fails because I tried to remove it and you transform, I'm not sure that's reversable. I could try but it would be an astronomical undertaking.

And on the other hand, sometimes during events, our powers get blocked. I can't say for certain that it's impossible that the stasis won't be blocked off in an attempt to bring you down to a base human level, thus triggering the transformation. You could talk to Aurora for a guarantee, but I figured I might as well point it out.

I'm not looking to convince you one way or the other. Either way, you'll likely come out of this with regrets.

Edited 2024-08-15 05:23 (UTC)

Perhaps dying isn't such a terrible prospect, [she says with an attempt at flippancy she clearly doesn't feel.] Unless Aurora plans to start lopping off my limbs, I haven't got much of anything to lose.

[There is the dog, of course. She glances over at Scratch, who has thoroughly occupied himself with a large stick, and feels a sudden rush of fear that she doesn't even entirely understand.

No, surely no one would harm him. Surely.]

I suppose it's better to regret a failed attempt than to regret never trying at all. But, [she adds quickly.] If the transformation begins, there is no reversing it. The only course of action at that point will be to kill me before it completes. And hope I come back as myself, I suppose. Maybe Aurora will even be kind, and the thing I'll lose is the worm.

I can restore any limbs you'd lose.

[There's no caveat to that. She just can. She won't share that she sincerely doubts that Aurora or Echo or whoever is at the root of the punishment games they're made to play probably wouldn't take a limb, but rather her powers, her memories...]

Alright. [She made an oath against killing. It was one of her rules. So was modifying brains - and she's already broken it. Broken both. She flexes her hands.] If you start transforming I'll kill you as instantly as possible. Are you ready? This will probably take about a minute.

Just like that? [She raises an eyebrow, impressed.] My, you are powerful. [Shadowheart is capable of fairly powerful healing, but restoring lost limbs is beyond her capabilities.

And besides, a little joke is a good way to hide her nervous she is. For all she knows, she might be about to die. Or turn into an illithid. And she's not sure which is worse.]

Do it.

[She smiles. It's not quite a pleasant smile. There's a hint of pride, a slight flash of madness beneath her demure and crabby exterior.]

Just like that.

[She is powerful. One of the most powerful people in her world, technically, if she wanted to be. She doesn't.]

Okay.

Well. Let's not do it in public at least. Too much room for distraction.

Edited 2024-08-28 09:11 (UTC)

[That look certainly catches Shadowheart's attention. Amy, thus far, has seemed professional, but that look borders on... Well, she might go so far as to say madness.

She'll have to keep an eye on this one.]

I know a spot. Secluded. Down by one of the rivers. Scratch and I spend a lot of our time there.

[She whistles for the dog, who comes bounding over from where he'd wandered off to, and starts to lead the way.

Cute dog.

[In the confines of her own dickhead mind, she remarks on the sheer lack of creativity needed to name a dog "Scratch." But she can be polite. It helps that the dog is actually pretty cute. Not that Amy is any kind of pet person, much more Victoria's thing than hers.

And you remade her skin out of the recycled carcasses of stray cats and dogs. Funny how that works.

She's mostly silent along the rest of the way, a focused and contemplative look in her eyes as she considers what exact she's about to do and how badly it could go. Three times in a row, she'll do exactly what she's asked, three times in a row it could go horribly, horribly wrong.

This is just her fate, apparently, like she isn't doing this all on her own.]

[She makes a vague noise of agreement. Scratch is cute. And a good boy, too.

They arrive at a quiet spot by one of Etraya's rivers, and Scratch runs off on his own once again. This isn't actually the spot she and Scratch usually spend their time, but Shadowheart is hardly going to broadcast her typical whereabouts to someone she only just met. And it's secluded enough to serve the purpose.]

Let's get it over with.

[This is it, then. Shadowheart would hardly style herself an optimist, but it's just possible that she might be free of her unwelcome guest for the first time in what feels like a lifetime.

Or she might die. But 'might' is better odds than 'will,' and at least here death isn't forever.]

un: shadowheart | text

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cw for mentions of past animal death/animal cruelty, body horror/transformation

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