down, down by the river

[nimblest]

[In the Underdark, survival is all that matters. Bloody conflicts are all the surface-dwellers know about the lands below. It is what defines their interactions with the races living underground. Nobody pays attention to the reports of desiccated drow. Their deaths may have been gruesome and unusual, even by the Underdark's standards-

(-heads scalped, skin peeled off to reveal bloodied strips of bloody bone to form frightening symbols no one understood, staked to the ground, and even that was not enough, her fingers still twitched-)

-but violence was expected. Violence was daily. Those who didn't know what to look for simply shrugged and went about their way.

Those wiser can smell the stink of Bhaal.

Deep, deep in the twisting and fungal tunnels, a shade watches. She remains still as stone, her blackened gaze following all who come and go. There is someone new who's arrived. Someone who carries the same scent as she does, setting her blood aflame, making her chest ache so badly with the desire to plunge and tear and rip and-

No. She is going to wait. Wait and see. She is going to follow, and she is going to measure the worth of this newcomer.

Perhaps- just perhaps-]

Comments

[abhorrently]

[it's been a while since she's been here. years, actually. she fingers the token the myconids had given her, since she had been returning to their colony first and then heading onwards. compared to the first time she remembers coming down, there's more room to admire the beauty of it all. the elegance of the life there, how even a corpse becomes honored.

but she's not chasing old friends. she's tracking, as she had resolved to do when the immediate problem ended. her Lord had closed his eyes and granted his blessing when she had explained her plans, and she believed she had seen a smile on his lips. now, she hunts. speaks to corpses and lets their last words guide her, the surface dweller who is searching for something she only hints at.

it's at a certain place that she stops, somewhere more obscure and out of the way. the perfect spot to surprise someone with a knife in the throat, and Fever gazes out at the view from where she is. the shadows, the bioluminescence, the rock and what life endures despite. and then, she speaks.]

I know when I'm being watched. You might as well not hide.

[confidence in her movements, in her voice. she fears nothing down here - not the creatures, not the environment, not a blood-kin who sticks to shadows.]