Unleash Me

Chapter Two

In what would have been the burgeoning hours of sunrise literally anywhere else that was surfaceside in Faerûn, she found herself crouched at the edge of a rocky overhang in the gloom draped heart of the Shadowlands, staring contemplatively at a group of shadow-cursed Harpers that were patrolling witlessly below.

It wasn’t that the Harpers posed an insurmountable threat to their group — they could make swift mincemeat out of them if they were inclined to do so — but the colourless glowing dome of the Last Light Inn loomed imminently ahead in the darkness. She was becoming decidedly disenchanted with the monotonous hellscape of the Shadowlands with each requisite day spent in its gloom; the promise of of a warm tavern with its hundred crackling braziers and comfortable beds becoming a siren's song that she was all too ready to succumb to.

“Things to do in the Shadowlands,” a sudden, quietly cheerful voice emerged from the darkness behind her, initially startling her but then only making her supress an involuntary smile as the convivial inflections and tones that it held quickly left no doubt as to who had spoken them.

She kept her gaze trained on the shambling group below them as the speaker crept almost silently up beside her, his lithe form adopting an identical crouch to hers as he shifted into a motionless perch at the edge of the outcrop.

“One: leave.”

She could not prevent the reflexive grin that contorted her lips at this, and she shifted her gaze towards Gale just in time to see his eyes slide away from hers with a sparkle.

She regarded him silently for a moment, watching as the clarity afforded by her darkvision allowed her to witness the wizard's easy attractiveness unfettered. In profile, as he was now, the wizard's face was all sculpted angles and sharp, graceful lines — a specific flavour of masculine beauty that had, historically, made her look twice.

Or three times. Or several hundreds. She wasn’t counting.

“Not enjoying the sights, then?” she inquired quietly, and Gale’s gaze flickered back over to hold hers briefly before sliding away and down back to the Harpers once more. He was crouched on the edge of the outcrop, using one of his long arms as a steadying fulcrum that terminated in splayed fingers that pressed against the rock surface.

He cut a very heroic figure, she noted silently, as he stayed perfectly still. The elegant, weighted taper of his shoulders gave way to toned, powerful arms that his tunic barely kept at bay. His back was a pristine line of uncompromising straightness as he held himself upright, lending a composure and elegance to even the most simple of movements.

His head was bowed slightly as he watched the patrol below, his hair falling into his eyes from the gravitational weight. The loose strands cut a pleasing line of soft walnut and rowan tones that aligned perfectly with the dark intensity of his eyebrows, and she found herself wondering, not for the first time, what it would be like to run her fingers through that hair and brush it out of his eyes.

Eyes that were sinfully magnetic shades of cinnamon and deep amber honey.

“I didn’t say that,” Gale murmured, slightly shifting his posture in a such way that he was now directly beside her, their sides almost touching. He kept his gaze trained on the group below them as he continued in an almost absent tone.

“It has its charms, certainly.”

She arched an eyebrow at this, curiosity making her narrow her eyes at him.

“Oh?” she inquired dryly, looking out into the crumbling, oppressive vista that lay below. “What is it that catches your eye, specifically? The rot? The filth? The crushing depression?”