Fourth Wall

Eleven: Halsin

The slashes on Chloe's back burned with every breath she took, but there was a strange comfort in it. Each time the pain rang out in her mind, she thought of Abdirak's skilled hand and the praise he'd given her during her beating. She thought of Loviatar, the goddess who would take her pain, would mold it into something new.

After their little session, when Chloe had finally stopped crying, Abdirak offered Chloe a loose shirt instead of her tight-fitting leather bodice and armour.

She had refused, and Astarion and Abdirak had both watched with rapt attention as she had shoved and laced her tender skin back into her clothes with no regard for the superficial wounds on her back. They had both been quiet after that, and Chloe wondered if it had been the first time they had seen a woman so willingly bear pain, and so willingly refuse any help afterward.

"Abdirak," Chloe said with a final sniffle, straightening her spine and carefully donning her typical mask of composure. She turned on her heel, extending her hand to the man who'd just beaten and then cuddled her. Abdirak's expression was one of wary amusement as he slowly shook Chloe's hand. "Chloe," she introduced simply.

"Chloe. A peculiar name for a peculiar woman," Abdirak noted. Chloe shrugged.

"Well that's true enough, I suppose," she muttered with a glance at Astarion, who was giving a slight nod of agreement.

"Chloe. It would be Loviatar's highest blessing to me to cross paths with you again in the future. Have you business here?" Abdirak inquired, and Chloe hoped he couldn't see the way she tensed.

She couldn't exactly say, "Oh, I snuck in here planning to break one of the camp's prisoners out and kill whoever gets in my way. Just got a little distracted by this kinky torture dungeon on accident, I'll be on my way now."

So instead she said, "I was also brought here to aid with interrogation of the prisoners."

The adrenaline from the pain and excitement of Abdirak's punishment made Chloe's mind sharp, her anxieties far from her mind. Lying came naturally to her.

"I was on my way to them, I must have gotten a bit turned around." That part wasn't necessarily a lie. She was on her way to the dungeon, and she didn't know how to get there.

Abdirak gave her simple instructions to get to the place where the prisoners were being held inside the goblin camp. She nodded once before turning to Astarion, whose eyes were dancing with some secret emotion as he watched Chloe speak with Abdirak.

"Perhaps we will meet again," Abdirak offered once again, and Chloe gave him an uncharacteristically shy smile.

"I would like nothing more," she agreed, and Abdirak's mouth twitched into an almost-smile. With that, she and Astarion left the small room to find her party arguing noisily amongst themselves.

Astarion cleared his throat loudly, and all of the party members jumped and looked towards the couple with wide, guilty eyes.

"What the Hells are you all doing? I have never seen such a lack of stealth and subtlety in a group of thieves," Astarion hissed. "Would you like to also tramp through my fine china shop, you oafs?"

Wyll was the first to voice his unhappiness.

"Are you absolutely mad, Chloe? You just willingly let that sadistic fucker beat you? For what?" He exclaimed, his arms spread out dramatically.

Chloe glanced up at Astarion, whose lips were pursed and his eyes trained on Chloe's face.

"I just had to know. I don't see what the big deal is, the whole thing took like thirty minutes, absolute maximum." She tried to explain, but the rest of the group was still staring at her like she had gone completely insane.