do i not bleed too;
Past-set, right after the Ravenous Hunt, continuing from the events of The Worst is Yet to Come. Basileios, in disguise, helps the wounded Lasair to the place he's been staying at, and they reflect on their respective downward paths.
Bas: 39 gold total
Lasair: 36 gold total
Lasair
Lasair didn't miss how he was selfishly rubbing the whiskey bottle in her face, and she decided that if he was so quick to say she was welcome, then there was no need to thank him, now was there? And his mockery of mage pride, saying he was fine amidst broken squalor - she scoffed, the motion making her second smile split into a leering grin.
"Just the damned ones, you said. What of yourself, then?" She tried to cover up that ugly thing, but her shirt was stained beyond recognition, sticky with foul tar, disgusting. "Insults and horrible hospitality aside, you chose to focus more on a stranger than...." She let one of her slippered feet dangle off the side of the couch and kicked a bottle over. "Well. You simply reek of a self-lashing I've seen before."
"So what is it, then? That you must punish yourself so terribly for." She leaned her cheek against her blackened knuckles. "Death in the family? Town burned down? Something you ruined? Ah, but before you get into it, be a hero and fetch me a wet, clean rag and a change of clothes." She tried to say it as easily as the rest of her needling, but it was hard to smother the edge of deeply defensive discomfort as she looked away. "I don't recall giving a stranger permission to undress me. What would my fiance think."