#salome ( verse: baldur’s gate ) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

feretra · 6 months

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@crookedtouch: ‘ yes, it’s dangerous. that’s why it’s fun. ’

Astarion can’t see her response – the scrunching up of her nose as Salome briefly pauses in her task – but it exists, still. Like terrible adages about trees falling in the woods. And though it may take her a moment to recover, once her left boot finds adequate footing to push her petite form deeper, she is back to work all the same.

It is that very same leg, tapered close given she is wearing a woolen walking skirt in the deepest shade of indigo, which is currently providing the only glimpse he currently has of her at all. The rest of her body laid flat but askew as it is pushed through the narrow cavern of karst. The sandstone sediment penetrating through everything it touches, down to her very skin.

Yes, fun. That was certainly a choice word for it. He’s not the one in a half collapsed tunnel. But thin fingers finally reach after stretching what feels like miles, latching around the chest laying at its backmost wall. She hopes that whatever it is, that it was worth excavating in the first place.

“Pull me out, then it’s your bloody turn t’pick t’lock on this thing.”

#crookedtouch #( rp )#salome ( verse: baldur's gate )#[ me: hey do you guys mind if i write a little less ]#[ also me: does not write and less whoops ]

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feretra · 7 months

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Holding her by the shoulders: we're jewish, we're not scared of the devils. we can fuck them.

"We can, yes —" she begins, though her hands quickly steeple and mimic a gesture of prayer before letting one come to rest on Astarion's chest. "But, mmm... Okay, y'might have got me on this count."

#laceratiio #( rp )#salome ( verse: baldur's gate )#[ this late reply is brought to you by: my computer suddenly dying roflmao ]#[ that said salome admitting this about kills me ]#[ astarion nO ]

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feretra · 9 months

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since it’s kind of important to the plot in da/bg3 verses: this is what salome’s brace looks like, except that hers also has a corset-like component that sits on her hips. if it looks uncomfortable? it is. it took her a solid year of work to master how to walk a second time.

[ if you’re new here: salome’s family tried to marry her off to a random noble over twice her age at seventeen. she, obviously not okay with this, ran away the night before the wedding. after two weeks on the run, some of her cousins found her and dragged her back home, beat her horribly, and salome’s mom thought she’d managed to kill her for embarrassing their family. so they dumped her in the nearest body of water.

except salome is nothing if not exceptionally stubborn and somehow managed to survive this nightmare. unfortunately though, her mom’s sense of anatomy is garbage and the dagger managed to hit her spinal cord. as a result, and because she didn’t have access to any real methods of healing, she’s stuck with permanent weakness in one of her legs. which is why sometimes if you’re just talking with her and walking somewhere and she doesn’t have access to a mount, she can just like… fall into a heap unexpectedly and will need to sit before she can get back up and continue.

but welcome to why salome struggles with trusting people! and even mentioning/being in the same city/anything re: her family will probably send her into a panic. she’s terrified of them.

oh, this is also why i have her doing work that can be primarily accomplished sitting down. hell, even her weapon specialization grants her that ability if needed. ]

#tw abuse #salome ( hc )#salome ( verse: dragon age )#salome ( verse: baldur’s gate )#[ salome is so interesting because she is capable of such great rage ]#[ and all of it is justified usually ]#[ she feels everything very deeply ]#[ and has some other complications that tell me she has a brain injury ]#[ so she came away from that incident completely impaired and very angry ]#[ she’s had opportunities to kind of… get even isnt the right word but expose them maybe? ]#[ and all that anger just immediately disappears and becomes terror ]#[ salome’s mom is like the driving force though she’s who she’s scared of ]

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feretra · 6 months

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@beregosts: " none of us are safe. but i think you know that better than any of us, don't you?

It’s a wretched exceptionalism, she thinks. Standing out to others for not only being the runt of her litter, but because her family wanted her to never know the meaning of peace. Not not, or ever.

“I suppose so,” she murmurs with a quiet timbre, amber eyes summiting upwards. These hands have performed this task hundreds of times before – memorized all the details required – and it does not need her full focus any longer. A strand of sinew wrapped about ring and middle finger to keep tension as Salome pulls tight against fletch and frame of an arrow. The other end wedged haphazardly between patchwork scar knees. “But I try t’not think about what would happen t’me if my safety net fails me. I’d rather be dead, t’be honest.”

#beregosts #( rp )#salome ( verse: baldur's gate )#[ me ( five hundred years later ): howdy ]

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feretra · 8 months

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❛ It’s the humidity. It does that sometimes. ❜ from astarion

“Does it? I would have never guessed.” The acidity of the reply undercut by the clear amusement in her tone. Her Calishite blood all-too-obvious during the stifling heat of the high summer as Salome attempts to tame a mountain of frizz under a thin carmine-colored scarf and is left with… much of the the same, just accessorized. Though at least the coins along its edges provide a subtle song for the tedious work that still lies ahead.

“More importantly, this weather is wretched for camp supplies. Suspect I know t’answer, but,” her hands coming to rest on an assortment of baskets whose contents she’s brought back to her own tent to identify and go through. “Y’any good at fungal identification? I’d prefer t’camp not lose their minds off something like a handful of strawberries gone off.”

#moonlitdelirium #( rp )#salome ( verse: baldur’s gate )#[ she might not but I sure would pay good money to see that tbqh ]#[ also sorry for the delay I am carp lol ]

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feretra · 4 months

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Haarlep, posing seductively: My heart yearns for more of those biscuits you made the other day.

Within the great flow of time, ritual creates routine. Through this simple method, mortal beings learn to measure their lives within minutiae their minds can comprehend. For them, it is the rhotic inside the universe’s own utterances; marking anniversaries great and small, the beginning or end of harvests, and their triumphs or loss. It is a culture-keeper, the harbinger of tradition and rejection, and the inevitable birthing of their ghosts.

Avernus, on the other hand, is hostile to all time, linear or otherwise. Common or deep, solar or lunar: all progression on the plane has eroded just the same as the landscape beneath this demesne. Salome having quickly become a stranger within a land so strange that, without meticulous timekeeping on her part, she would barely know when to grasp into the flow for what she seeks.

But every tenth morning, she rises early and carves out a morning dedicated to tradition. Whether or not it is truly the dawn hours is uncertain, but she has learned not to care anymore. Salome works — with hands that have never shied from being a living gallery of scars and scrapes — to prepare bread and sometimes sweets from her own memory. She could request it to be done for her, but the residents of this House work enough to please the Master.

It’s the redolence of the boudoir that gives away Haarlep first, before they even utter a word. The steel scraper she’d once been dredging across the counter now drawing to a halt under the palms of both hands. Salome’s attention is then granted at last, and what greets her is all the spectacle and wile she has come to expect, even now, and she can’t help but laugh.

“T’biscochos?” Salome inquires, as if she is somehow unaware of the answer. It buys her a fragment of time, however, to mimic the Incubus’ posturing for herself. It is far less convincing or attractive when holding hand towel and donning an apron spectacled by flour, but the momentary confidence it brings has to count for something. “If I were t’spend all morning slavin’ away t’make a whole batch solely for you, mazík, what are y’gonna do for me?”

#contemptim #( rp )#salome ( verse: baldur’s gate )#[ salome out here finding the best puns in every Semitic language I hate her ]#[ mazik = brat but also means devil so like how do you do this ]#[ also they require cognac haarlep no ]#[ also mobile so no icons atm ]

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feretra · 8 months

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❛ You’ve been avoiding me. ❜ banu wont catch a hint u-u

There isn’t enough tea in the entire camp to put her in the proper mood for this.

So, instead, Salome sighs and draws a hand over her face, exasperation more than evident. “Banu, I must ask: who is t’god that has sent y’as a plague onto my name and house?”

#hlfcorpse #( rp )#salome ( verse: baldur’s gate )#[ I… love when they interact. so much. ]#[ it brings me so much joy ]

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feretra · 8 months

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“I am grateful that you spoke to me, during the ritual, and stopping me from making a terrible mistake. But, I keep thinking… before it’s too late, perhaps I should have made use of Cazador’s wretched corpse and turned myself into a real vampire. I still wouldn’t be able to walk in the sun, but I would be stronger, for the both of us.”

They’re just words. A sincere confession. So why does it hit her with all the intensity of a summer squall? Salome’s heart already being bashed to splinters and foundering under the implications.

“Neshama sheli,” she whispers softly. It’s a terrible response and Salome knows it, but there so much that she wants to say and yet none of it is coming together. Let alone in a language he understands. Hands folding over her head — attempting to force herself to concentrate, to make sense of the words in Common — before she pushes herself free of his ottoman and onto the floor and encourages Astarion to join her there.

“If y’had made that choice, or tried t’still somehow make it, y’would cease t’be you. There is nothing worth the price of self-annihilation, do y’understand me?” Still, Salome can empathize with how alluring any power can feel when you’ve been denied the dignity of simply knowing yourself for too long. When every breath that’s taken of your own volition seems to only further expand what appears to be a rapidly growing list of atrocities that you weren’t even aware you were committing until its too late.

And, worst of all, the chase for the whatever, whoever, or wherever that keeps you free. A thought that’s punctuated by a pronounced huff in an attempt to dispel a strand of her own hair as she cards lithe fingers through his. “Y’are my castle, Astarion, and t’battlements are secure. That alone has given me everything.”

#laceratiio #( rp )#salome ( verse: baldur’s gate )#[ i’m gonna lay over in the corner now ]#[ gonna cry a lot ]#[ 🫠🫠🫠 ]#[ can someone console me please ]

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feretra · 8 months

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'Didn't you just say you were going to bed?'

"Mmm, I did," she concedes openly, still working all the while. Bare feet -- minus the complex tattooing, anyway -- elevated upon a stool near to the camp's centermost fire. The rest of her remaining supine upon a bedroll even as Salome's hands loop and knot thread into a series of picots. "Has my word law now, or am I allowed t'be restless from time to time?"

#hlfcorpse #( rp )#salome ( verse: baldur's gate )#[ why is the mental image of banu just standing over her looking down so funny to me ]#[ WHY IS IT SO FUNNY ]#[ she's literally just laying there like 'can't sleep might as well work i guess' ]#[ HE SHOULD BE GRATEFUL SHE COULD BE SLEEPWALKING ]

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feretra · 8 months

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Am I going to finally do it? Make the post about why Salome is Sharran? Maybe.

There’s a part of me that feels I need to preface this with the idea that I greatly dislike how both Selûne and Shar have been conceptualized in multiple materials? It feels such an underutilization to take deities who have existed since time immaterial and just throw them under Shining Beacon of Goodness and Petty Bitch Raven Queen like it seems to be so often played. It’s a very basic and, frankly, mortal interpretation of a long-standing conflict. And seems to ignore a great deal of evidence that — particularly in Shar’s case — showcases very evidently that good mortals can and do work under her spheres and aren’t shunned or forced to do it.

I could spend a great deal of time talking about how I personally have taken the path that most of the Sharran cults in Faerûn are worshipping what I think is a spiteful, petty splinter of an already highly fractured goddess, but I somehow doubt anyone wants to hear my hot theological takes on a fantasy series that is older than I am.

What I will say, is that being dark little gremlins in the shadows really misses the point if you think about what Shar is. If you sit and really wrench your brain on the Dark Moon Heresy and the idea that Selûne and Shar are one in the same and the latter is — once all these very human things are stripped away from her — a manifestation of the primordial abyssal. She is not darkness and loss insomuch as simple, calm nonexistence. Selûne is rupture and chaos and light, none of which is bad, but when both are used in tandem they can create greatness and balance the other.

Shar’s anger with her sister likely and truly stems from Selûne’s hubris to create by her lonesome, not together. And as two halves of a whole, one can argue this throws off the primordial balance. And without her input in process, I imagine Shar can only manipulate and not outright control anything under her sister’s purview. She cannot set the scales back to balance, so give or take several thousands of years? Imagine just how lopsided that scale has gotten?

Does she hate the idea of freedom? I don’t think so, but I do think it makes her bitter, and it is the source of the Loss for which mortals have come to see her. She is a deity that cannot be free or individual, because Shar is neither so long as both halves of her primordial self remain in opposition to each other.

To the larger point, why do I write Salome as a Sharran? Especially if she doesn’t affiliate with any of the clergy, cults, or similar? The real answer is complicated, but —

Salome has always been tied to the primordial dark. It would be strange to sever that connection from her. She is chaotic and yet the stillness at the center of chaos, far removed from petty mortal interpretation. In a way, I think that’s what draws certain characters to her; people who see her and are able to recognize that darkness but realize it isn’t like a night spent in a wood surrounded by hungry wolves. It is instead a calm presence that hopes to be warm embrace during the times you are most in need of it.

There’s a reason Salome’s cardinal motifs are white, night-blooming flowers and wisteria. For why she so often wears white. She’s meant to be a beacon.

There were devils in the winds that night

Walking fire among the hills

And many voices called me out to the cliffs

But you held me safe

Salome is Sharran in the sense that her existence as a naturally inclined healer — not a Dark Cloak, or a cultist, or anything else — sets the balance back slightly onto the scales.

#salome ( hc )#salome ( verse: baldur’s gate )#[ I did it give me a cookie ]

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feretra · 8 months

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umbrella, sender lets receiver under their umbrella.

The deep gloam of the autumn seems to breathe the most life into Salome, even as the wet chill bites straight into the marrow of her bones. It is under these circumstances that Ozus and her find themselves, standing watch on a simple veranda through a downpour. The easily recognizable scent of petrichor permeating the air as a rolling fog begins to settle around their ankles.

What the heavy rain fails to steal, is the resounding clamor of conflict just beyond the visible horizon. A reminder that the metaphorical, gods forsaken war drum truly seems to continue on forever. An almost petulant sigh escaping from between her lips as she realizes what that means.

“So, y’got any good stories from before we met?” Salome asks, extinguishing her cigarette under a running trickle from the roof as she dips under the umbrella Ozus has popped open. All the easier to investigate when you’re not drenched to the bone, even if she practically has to live within their ribcage in order to both fit. “‘Cause this kind of weather always makes me wretchedly sentimental.”

#moonridge #( rp )#salome ( verse: baldur’s gate )#[ two goth kids being goth together ]#[ crushing cans with their platform boots ]#[ I’m so fuckin dumb I’m sorry ]

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feretra · 9 months

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@killngfloor: let me handle it , just go ! (for whomst ever)

Even with the strength behind them, those words remain fuzzy under the hammer of Salome’s heart. The biological threnody of bloodlessness equally as present in her ears as she stumbles over her feet, attempting to put some kind of distance between the creature she’s had the misfortune to encounter and herself.

And this is not even touching on the unexpected presence of the strange man who dwarfs her, even if she barely has the energy to take his advice at all. Nimble fingers coming to cover the shallow wound at her throat, attempting to find a middle ground between a stymieing pressure and the smothering of her own voice. Regardless, as Salome’s back meets the sharp bark of a tree, what rasps out is still hoarse.

“Fuckin’ gnolls —“

#killngfloor #( rp )#salome ( verse: baldur’s gate )#[ maybe. kinda tbd. ]#[ yay tisander time!!! ]

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feretra · 5 months

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@banedictus: don't give away your thoughts. you won't get them back.

Enver knows damned well that she can’t keep her thoughts wholly to herself. A brain denied oxygen and permanently damaged is an impetuous thing that even Salome struggles to control at times, yet it won’t stop him from insisting. These sorts of things are a tenet of the religion to which she converted, after all.

“I don’t give away anything I’m not willing t’stand for. Y’should know that more than anyone.”

And though the sun hangs low on the horizon, there is just enough morning light within their shared quarters that her brace glints as Salome tinkers from her side of the bed. Goes through now memorized motions of daily maintenance – all skills Enver has taken the time to teach – to keep the clunking, laborious movements of being part automata at bay.

Her hands wrapping tight around the steel and gilded appendage as she heaves a sigh and turns to regard him, to determine which mask it is that Enver is wearing, if any. Feet pushing her whole body backward before Salome tangles a hand in her husband’s unruly locks and presses a savage kiss to his temple.

“Now, do y’want me t’make some coffee before your meetings this morning?

#banedictus #( rp )#salome ( verse: baldurs gate )#[ salome: it's a debate day isn't it? yay but first coffee ]

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feretra · 6 months

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the wolf that lopes into salome's field of view is massive, but familiar; it carries itself the same, regal and threatening, it's red gaze boring into her for only a moment. it snorts a distressed, distinctly doggish sound, and crooks its neck to gesture with its head at a following adolescent wolf. if she can understand him, she will hear his voice, clear and gentle, but as if from everywhere and nowhere at once: do something about this, would you? it believes i am its mother.

It looks more like a hellhound than a wolf, at first; that dark and vermillion-eyed beast breaking through the horizon and casting apprehension into Salome’s bones. Even now instinct comes in the form of a minute flutter in the fingers trained for shooting. Begging her – as a shepherdess foremost – to draw an arrow from the quiver at her hip and take aim at a predator.

Just as that decision fully solidifies in her mind, it is driven out by a familiar voice. One that, despite itself, cannot help but feel distressed around its edges.

Though, sure enough, what he says rings true enough when a small, scrappy thing stumbles into view behind this ever strange acquaintance of hers.

“Y'are very lucky. I was about t’shoot you,” Salome remarks, pitching her voice to carry the distance between them. She contemplates that she would still have good reason, him having brought a predator – young or otherwise – directly to her farmstead. Instead, she chooses a kulning less sharp, hopefully more intriguing than distressing to the young animal, and then begins the process of unburdening herself of the headscarf wrapped about her head. The pins her fingers pry free from her thick locks being pushed into the worn wood of a nearby fence post

And, once the pup draws close enough, hands wrap taut in the patterned wool and Salome swoops, scooping the thrashing animal into her arms and bundling it tight.

It’s eyes are almost the same shade as hers. The first of many observations. Another being that it’s lucky and she has the early winter’s slaughter and rations to spare. Once it stops struggling, she finally rights herself with something resembling a smirk threading along her lips, and starts the journey back to her house proper.

“Does Mother Dracula seek t’join me while I determine what t’feed t’baby?”

#cursevist #( rp )#salome ( verse: baldur's gate )#salome ( tbd )#[ either/or but why is this so so funny omg ]#[ i'm sorry just terrifying vampire man and salome ]#[ 'hey mom' ]#[ why is she like this i love her but i hate her ]

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feretra · 7 months

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@banedictus: ignore the staring. they'll get over it.

No, they won’t. Let alone this. Them. If Salome knows one thing about the upper classes, it is that they have time the likes of which few outside of their station can fathom. And, despite all of his confidence, she knows from experience that few things stir their vulgar consternation more than a common-born attempting to climb their rigged system into a position of prestige that they believe belongs to them.

So they will talk, and furiously so. But she surmises Enver already knows all of this, and that the allaying of her long haunted form is hardly why he’s asked. If it was, his hand would have receded by now; aware that his intended partner is reluctant to belie a hint of the nobility she was born into, and yet it remains. The expectation of acceptance all but expected.

The real answer here is simple: this isn’t meant to be scandalous, but censure of his future court. A tacit threat. That Archduke Enver Gortash is ascending to a higher station and that this lost daughter of Athkatla’s Kahinah clan will be reclaiming her own abandoned station with him, at minimum. With the same turn, he is caressing her while making sure to crush what remnants of fear keep her from moving those pieces into place.

“They’re never going t’shut up now.” Salome huffs out something sounding like indignation — she never cared for dancing like this — before taking Enver’s hand and allowing her other to rest upon his bicep.

Waltzes aren’t difficult to improvise. For her current role, it is three core steps backwards that simply have to match his own. Everything else is flourish. You just have to keep moving. When the world is spinning and you have a wretched leg, however, all of this is easier said than done. So she chooses to focus on his eyes as she silently counts her steps. Feels his hand splayed across her back, directing her, as they both move.

“Ata kol kach yafeh,” Salome murmurs, eventually, resting her head against his chest. Simply allowing him to lead them through the rest of the dance. Perceptions be damned.

#banedictus #( rp )#salome ( verse: baldur’s gate )#[ I hate this I hate them they’re so domestic ]#[ meanwhile he’s like a cult leader and salome is like ‘whatever it’s fine’ ]#[ twenty years of being around each other gross 🤮 j/k ]

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feretra · 7 months

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❝ we’re both people who have had to cut our own way through the world. ❞

“Yes, but we shouldn’t of had to—“

It’s a rare slip in a conversation guided by shared experience. When she is otherwise non-privy to details, Salome does not often let the mask slip about how her abuse and abandonment have made her kind. Taught her things about both herself and the world that that strive to make her better than what her parents or the indenturing keepers taught her about others. And these are not untrue statements, or at least not wholly so.

But so rarely does she get to speak plainly on the anger it breeds. The lingering fear that even two decades later, she’ll still be stolen away and stripped of her ability to consent, then sold as little more than silage to the highest bidder for her family’s relentless aspirations. Salome’s knuckles blanching from the force exerted upon the arms of the chair in which she sits before cursing in her mother tongue, crossing her legs, and directing her focus on just about anything else.

“Our families should have loved us. Spoon fed us t’dream that our ambitions were something fucking worthy. Instead, a stray dog on t’street could have expected more kindness.” A flourish of something — an idle gesture of a hand — all an attempt to distract from the growing anger in her voice. “They sold us. Their own blood. And worse still, they’ll imagine y’as a monster when they’re the ones t’have the nerve t’haunt your life when all you want is to be free.”

Salome breathes a sigh that feels like it cuts through her like a dagger, and she hates it. Fingers drawn to her temple as she attempts to make sense of her thoughts. “I’ve made my own way, yes, but I’m fucking tired.”

#banedicti #( rp )#salome ( verse: baldur’s gate )#tw abuse #[ ha ha ha /wow/ ]#[ I didn’t expect this to hurt me so much when I started but here we are I suppose ]#[ salome: every decision I make is influenced by fear and trauma I am exhausted ]#[ it was a mistake making them know each other oops ]

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