[ this is what it means to be a child of bhaal. how could anyone else possibly know, in all the worlds that exist and all those that don't, that if he would be dead it should be by her hands, that if she is to be killed then it would only mean something worthwhile if it had been done by him. how could anyone understand that the tight grip at her hair and the sharp crackle of pain across her skin is love, even if she would sooner see him throttled under her fingers than walking the fair land of faerûn.

this is how her mother loved her, how her grandfather loved them both, with pain, with wounds, with sharp agony that showed her just how much bhaal loved her, through their own hands. this is how they love each other now, and more besides. ]

Would you place my heart on display? Would you keep my body close? Would you finally understand what it means to make a beautiful corpse?

[ as she says it, orin is already pushing folds of material out of the way to get better access to his skin. her nails are sharp where they dig into his stomach, hard enough to draw blood and feel scraped flesh gathering under her fingernails. orin scratches like she means to reach his organs soon enough, finds his jaw with her mouth and sinks her teeth in enough that the flesh almost breaks between them. ]

Tear me apart and put me back together again, dearest bloodkin, and let us determine who will win this fight of ours tomorrow instead.