The Heartwood rattler

@Belharra's call for him had been stentorian, jaunty, declarative. asmodeus departed the thick dark wildwood at once, jogging along its sunlit edge until he accosted his companion coming up out of a glen. "what happened?" the basilisk inquired, blinking once at her with colorless eyes as he fell into step with the bard. whatever had occured, she appeared resolute, though she always wore that sort of expression.

Belharra hadn’t regretted a thing the more distance she put between herself and Mal. If anything the more she thought about it the more screwy his behavior was. 

Mal hadn’t even tried to talk her out of leaving! Could you believe that? She had been with him for months while wolves treated Neverwinter like it had a pair of revolving doors. She’d been one of the few, besides Kyr that stuck by him. 

He really must not have needed the numbers. 

Meeting Asmodeus with a wave of her tail, Belharra sighed and smiled. Miss me, did ye? Last she and Asmodeus had spoken, Belharra told him she had one last thing to do before she left with him: break the news to Kyr. Now that she had done that (thread still in progress, status of Kyr’s goodwill towards her: Tentative), there wasn’t much keeping her here. Ye ready?

She certainly was.

"always," asmodeus shot back, keeping pace with her. she hadn't answered his question, but it didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. "was headed back that way," he grunted, turning his path toward the distant tuktu. 

but the east caught his eye; he had only perused it before heading back into the wilderness. "i'm thinking of a number," the serpent grinned. "odd guess means west. even means right. go."

In the heat of the moment Belharra had totally lapsed (or her author had, my b). She swung alongside Asmodeus and gave him a playful nudge. "Well, I was in the woods mindin' my own business when I heard someone try to chase a little lady off of neutral territory." She gave Asmodeus that look - you know, the one that was the Samuel-Jackson equivalent of bad move motherfucker.

And everyone that had been following THE BELHARRA CHRONICLES knew what happened next. She had lipped off some delusional fuckwit, fuckwit left, Chad Mal had tried to argue with her despite her trying to protect him and his lady-friend, and then she'd dropped the F-You bomb she'd been holding to her chest all these weeks and announced she was leaving. "Some big black wolf threatening this girl about the size of a fawn. Mal was there, and heard this big old wolf tell the fawn-girl that she shouldn't be here, that kind of stuff.

Anyway, I showed up and told her to piss off and of course she changed her tune and said something about how she was concerned about this stranger on account of cannibals or somewot. Then she slunk off like she was some good samaritan and not a delusional twit. Bullshit, I tell ye.

Anyway -- ye know Roi Mal," Roi Mal was Belharra's inside joke, Roi  meant King but the only thing Mal was a king of was Complexes and Chads. "He's got this condition, ye see." She looked sorrowful for a second. "He can't see very straight on account of his head bein' wedged so far up his ass.. He was so interested in gettin' this girl's pussy he didn't even bother to have my back like I had his just seconds before. So I told him I was leavin', right then and there.

Didn't even put up a fight, though now that I think about it, I don't think he can think about two things at once and I think he was all wrapped up in how the little lady smelled." Belharra gave a big old shrug. Who the fuck knows. "Anyway, it's water under a tree - fuck numbers, by the way - ye wanna go east, lets go east. I always wanted to see if there was an ocean on the other side."

asmodeus had expected an answer in her usual blatant way, but belharra delivered a tea that all bur burned the snake as he listened. 

first, a villlain to set the tone of belharra's yarn. a large wolf who sauntered and took what she wanted. he had little tolerance for such types, and so blinked his black eyes once. "what a bitch," he muttered resolutely as his traveling companion went on. enter a delicate maid threatened by our aforementioned villain, and then belharra arriving to right the wrong.

thoroughly amused, asmodeus was niched into the role of attentive boy-thing and played along happily, his attention fully given over. a lie, and then roi mal, the joke of which he did not understand, coming about to play pussyhound, effectively pitting his packmate against two strangers on behalf of the second. 

at the doctoral prognosis, asmodeus' wintry features lit with a silent, baleful grin. a savage with a stethoscope. belharra's bedside manner was perfect as far as he was concerned, for the glorified fuck-boy of this tale deserved nothing better. 

"he can suck a dick," the reptile growled, annoyed on her behalf. "let's go see the salt, but we can come back to mess with the little twerp if you want." paws began to pace in that direction. "fuck numbers, huh? if you don't like math we can't be friends," asmodeus announced with a rueful sigh trembling theatrically in his throat.

it was then that belharra revoked his speaking privileges, and thereafter he traveled with her in mocking silence. soon the game was surrendered; he found his tongue to suggest a salacious notion, and streaked away as the bard came after him. 

and so they remained.