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The party took their rest in the room the barbarian clan had been residing in. Apart from the occasional blood stain on the floor, which could be rectified by dragging a sleeping mat over it and forgetting about it, the room was rather cozy. Maria stuffed a blanket into the cracks in the wall where the clan had tunneled in, and before long a magic fire burned in the center of the room.
Anshula’s eyes flicked over the group. Maria sat opposite her; the woman stared into the fire of her creation. Anshula had always found her intense, a little fanatical in her devotion to her goddess - but then again, all priests were like that. Maria at the very least was a little different - unlike the humourless people of the cloth Anshula knew so well, Maria’s stoicism was rudimentary and largely forgotten in the heat of the moment. She wore her emotions on her face like an open book - it made her tolerable, even endearing.
Right now, though, her lips were a thin line, and her eyes unwavering from the flickering flames. Anshula wondered what she was thinking, how exactly she felt about shouting an eldritch god to death. Triumph? Fear? Contemplation? No trace of any of that remained on her features. Perhaps she was simply in shock.
Between Maria and Sori was Adrian. He sat with his legs straight out, arms limp at his sides, gaze fixed on some point in the distance. Anshula still remembered when he used to meditate before rests, legs folded and eyes shut in devoted concentration. Even completely still, there had still been an infectious energy about his person, an inner fire in the way he did, well, everything.
None of that was there anymore. Even the skeletal wings that newly adorned his back (Anshula felt a chill just looking at them) were limp and folded behind him. Sometimes, a strong gust would blow and the long arches of bone would clatter together hollowly.
And then there was Sori, who sat to her right. Anshula was quite sure Sori was the most cowardly, undeservedly smug bitch she’d ever met in her life. Most often there was a tiny smile at the corner of her lips, a little bit of “I’m better than you” in her eyes no matter what the situation was. Anshula had been left to die twice (or was it thrice?) by her, and frankly, sometimes Anshula fantasized about putting a dagger through that pasty throat of hers.
But tonight Sori looked tired. And aged - Anshula had forgotten that the woman was at least a decade her senior. The firelight on her face brought deep shadows into the hollows of her cheeks and the bags beneath her eyes. She recalled Sori’s face when they’d found one of her cronies bleeding out outside the temple, the man whose body now lay in one of the side rooms of the temple’s entrance. Had she known him? Had Sori somehow found friends in the short weeks they’d been in Barovia? Could someone like her even make friends?
To her left, someone shifted. Kasimir. His face was half-hidden by the dim light and the hood of his cloak, but Anshula could still catch some of the grim damage that Zhudun’s coffin had wreaked on his face. His lips were thinned and bloodless, and his skin looked stretched over his cheekbones. He stood, looming over them.
“I’m going to check if anything’s outside.” Despite his looks, he still sounded the same - a deep, quiet voice that spoke Common with a very faint Elvish accent. Maria glanced up and nodded, with Adrian and Sori unmoving. He left the room, his cloak swirling behind him. The door shut with a soft click.
More silence. After a second, Anshula stood and stretched. “I’ll follow him.”
Maria raised her brows. Anshula snorted softly. “I’ll leave room for the Raven Queen, don’t worry. Don’t want any flameskulls to jump him while he’s alone.” She made for the door, then paused. “Oh, Sori.”
Sori looked up at her, still silent.
“There’s a leather bag in my satchel,” Anshula said, opening the door to the hall. “It’s got some dried fruit in it. Have some, if you want.”
Before she could answer (or refuse to answer), Anshula closed the door behind her.
The Amber Temple was lit by perpetually-burning sconces along the walls, with the fire seemingly unaffected by the gusts that occasionally blew through the temple. Anshula poked her head around the corner, where the main door was, and saw a figure standing at the entrance.
She approached, letting her heels click on the stone floor, signalling she wasn’t trying to sneak up on him. Kasimir didn’t move regardless. Anshula stopped several feet away from him.
He surprised her by speaking first. “You didn’t need to come.”
“True enough,” she shrugged, pulling her coat a bit tighter around her. “But I did anyway. I do a lot of things that I don’t need to.”
Silence. Then; “Why did you try to stop me?”
The question threw her. She opened her mouth, and closed it. Slowly, Kasimir turned to her - his hood was down, and the light of the temple threw his features into sharp relief. He had to be old by human standards, and whatever curse had been placed on him made him look like each and every one of his years was worn on his face. The once-exotic silvery sheen of his skin was cadaver-grey, and though he’d already been thin he looked a man starved. It was the look in his eyes that struck her, though - they looked like Strahd’s.
“What’s wrong?” he said softly. “What was it you said earlier? Didn’t you want to offer your help in…” He grinned humorlessly, lips stretching over teeth. “Repopulating the dusk elves?”
“I meant what I said,” Anshula replied impulsively. “Unless whatever that thing did to you took all the essential bits away.”
He watched her for a moment. “I feel no different. I have reason to believe it affected not my body, but my features.”
“You know, as far as ‘curse from a dark god’ goes, if the only drawback from reviving the dead is looking like a revenant? I’d take it,” she half-smiled, coming to stand beside him. “And just for the record, as long as everything works, and you’re not gonna give me grave mold?” She clasped her hands behind her head, looking up at him with a grin. “Offer’s still on.”
She could have sworn there was a hint of red creeping into those grey cheeks. Kasimir looked away, and hunched himself further into his cloak. Yeah, he was blushing. “I suppose it is worth it. If it kept its promise, and Petrina is…” He trailed off.
“Petrina’s your sister?”
“Mm,” he said absently, gazing out at the mountaintop. “I don’t know where the devil took her.”
“Who, Strahd?”
“Yes. Last I remember…” He frowned, his brows creasing. “It may have been his castle.”
“Well, all roads lead to Castle Ravenloft,” said Anshula, though an uneasy feeling was niggling at the back of her mind. “So we kill Strahd, find your sister, and from then on we’re home free from Barovia. Sound good?”
His eyes fell on her, and perhaps it was the lighting or their proximity, but his gaze was significantly softer than it had been before. “Perhaps. It does sound good.”
“See?” Anshula grinned. “So simple we could give a kid the sunblade and they could do it.” She patted the hilt at her hip proudly.
He smiled - a real smile, not a mocking grimace or a wry smirk. Even on his newly-haggard face, it was a sweet expression, and she grinned back.
They went back to watching the snow fall and the wind blow. Kasimir was again, the one to speak up. “Anshula.”
“Hm?”
“Thank you,” Kasimir said quietly. “For your concern.”
Oh my gods he was actually thanking her . Anshula felt her cheeks warm. “Concern, like, what? The salving your burns? Honestly, I was afraid I’d make it worse -”
“I know,” he cut her off, “that by trying to stop me, you wanted to prevent me from suffering the consequences. It was an action done out of kindness.”
She had no idea what to say. Anshula suddenly noticed a very interesting pattern in the marble floor, mapping it with her eyes.
“And I understand that now,” he continued, “even if I have no regrets with the decision I have made.”
Silence, again.
“Well, friends don’t let friends make pacts with elder gods,” Anshula replied quietly.
She regretted the wording of friends almost immediately, but Kasimir said nothing, merely pulling his cloak tighter around himself. They stood there like that for a time, until without a word the both of them turned their back on the night outside and went back to their fire, and their allies.