>>5294387>>5294396>>5294431>>5294475>>5294524>>5294525>>5294627>>5294821>>5294825>>5294863>>5294904>>5294980Searing droplets blaze trails down the sides of your face as a long-forgotten pang wells up in your chest. Having suffered over two hundred years of sustained agony, you had long wondered if you were capable of any emotion beyond loathing, yet for a brief moment, you did not resent the fate that had been foisted upon you. The perilous journey that you had undertaken against your will had at first been one of grim necessity, which now gives way to an amorphous desire that defies explanation.
There is a certain mystique, a je ne sais quoi to this foreign culture that you have been exposed to which you find attractive. What else is there to the Realms that you have been missing out on? In just one day, you have partaken of cuisine, amenities, art that had no equivalent in the Underdark, and explored a fantastical tale revolving around song and dragons and frilly dresses. Absentmindedly, you contemplate on what it would be like if you were to try wearing one someday, and imagine taming a dragon of your own...
The gentle tapping of a bare knuckle against the door is all that it takes for reality to seize you by the hair and drag you back into its pitiless embrace. Banishing the juvenile delusions that had taken hold of you for the slightest of moments, you cup your hands, throw warm water over your face, and step out, wrapping a towel around your torso. So quickly have you forgotten that you are a hunted woman, and the hunt shall continue until either you or your pursuers are sent to the afterlife.
You take the Dark Fantasy in hand and remove it from its sheath, maneuvering a hand behind your back as to cleverly conceal it behind your profile - a trick that you adopted after an assassin saw fit to pay you a surprise visit as you were combing your hair some forty years ago. Undoing the locks, you rest a hand on the doorknob and turn it, shifting away from the frame as you gradually pull it open as a precaution in case the party on the other side intends to launch a projectile at you. The relief is palpable when you discover that it is merely the staff come to deliver your evening meal.
