# [[11.13 Belaryl Horzza|Bel]] and [[Caltiar Kilvarax|Caltiar]] (occurs while [[11.11 Tam]] is sleeping, one of the days after the head is found.) Caltiar was sitting quietly in the courtyard, an hour or two after midnight when a very bored Belaryl came outside. "Why are you awake?" "I am meditating." "So you need less sleep than these lazy humans and cats?" "I sleep as much as I need. But I find meditation rejuvenating as well." Bel tried to think of something to be offended by in that sentence. Then she huffed. "I'm _booored_ Cal." "And yet, I have reason to believe you will survive." "Spar with me." "We may wake the others." "I can fight quiet. I don't think _you_ can fight at all." "You are mistaken in that assumption." "Prove it." Caltiar stood up. "Very well, Some exercise will be healthy, and perhaps some education as well." Bel grinned and her lavender eyes flashed in the moonlight. "_finally_." She grabbed her daggers and then surrounded herself in darkness, letting just her eyes show. "Huh. Ozzie complained that I was cheating when I used darkness." "I am not Osmorn". Cal had grabbed a long oak staff from seemingly nowhere and now stood facing the shadow of Bel. She let the shadow swallow her entirely and ran back away from him toward a wall where she would blend into the shadows more perfectly. Caltiar took one step forward, and then a silent drow descended toward him, daggers leading. Cal instantly dropped to one knee and a hazy quarter-dome of green glimmers appeared above him. Bel hit the shield and sprang back off it like a cat on a hot roof. *"Ay, aray! Ang sakit-sakit naman! Ano ba iyan?"* Bel hissed.[^ow] [^ow]: "Oh, ouch, that's really painful! What is that?" "I do not speak Undercommon" Caltiar said and turned to face Bel as she recomposed herself. "Speak this," Bel growled. Not her best line but she'd just landed on a whole lot of invisible spikes and can be forgiven her lack of eloquence. She dove in low and managed to nick Caltiar's wrist with her blade, then received a solid thwack of his staff across her back, sending her sprawling. But she kept her feet. Breathing hard now she turned to face the dragonborn again. _"Ang daya mo,"_ she growled[^fake] [^fake]: "You faker!" "Again, I do not know what you are saying." he said and before she even started her next run at him he lunged into the shadow surrounding her and gut-checked her with a shoulder, sending her sprawling on her back. Before she could recompose herself Cal's left claws were surrounding her throat. "Submit" he growled. "No" she said and kicked him in the leg. He moved not at all. Then his tail flicked up and slapped her on the cheek. "Submit." "Bite me!" Caltiar leaned down, opened his mouth as wide as it goes and surrounded her entire head with his jaws. After staying in that position for a few moments Belaryl grumbled "I submit." Immediately Caltiar was helping her to her feet with one hand while handing her a couple of goodberries with the other. "I suggest you eat these to restore your lost health." Bel decided, for once, not to argue. Caltiar sat back down in lotus position and watched her as she ate. A moment later she sat down next to him. "Why do you hide that?" "Hide what?" "The fact that you can fight like that." Cal considered silently and then said. "Are you afraid of Osmorn?" "Ozzie? Are you _kidding_? He's just a bard that follows Winter Moon around." "Would it surprise you to learn that he once killed a necromancer at a hundred paces with a single spell?" "What?!?" "Or that on a number of occasions he has used his _dancing item_ ability to use an enemy's fallen comrade as a blunt weapon against that enemy?" "What???" "Osmorn and I share our reasons for cloaking our ability for harm." Caltiar handed Bel a glass of water. "Drink. You may get dehydrated." Only when she took the cup and started drinking from it (after sticking her tongue out at him) did he continue. "A bard is welcome until sundown in most places. His vocation makes him a suspect when anything is stolen or anyone is seduced. So he is Ozzie, the silly, useless backup spell singer." "And you're Cal, the tall, silent, nature loving, dinner-making, roll-baking, doctor dragonborn." Bel said quietly. "So that people don't try to behead you when you're not looking." "Just so. I do not have the luxury of letting my anger show; if I ever do I will be seen as a threat to all good people. But beyond that, I would not _want_ to let my anger show, because it would be a threat to who I am." "What about me?" Bel asked in a small voice. "I fight all the time and laugh about it." Cal sat in silence but put an arm around her. "Do you kill the harmless?" "I have." "Since you have been on the surface?" "....no." "Do you hate those you have killed?" "I was very angry at the squid that hurt Tam'Mara." "But you killed it not because you hated it, but because you love Tamara." ".... huh." Bel shifted so she was leaning on him, hands in her lap. "Do you love Tam'Mara?" "Yes. And I love you, and Winter Moon, and Osmorn, and Captain Andraste and her soldiers as well." "You just go around loving people? Like, all the people?" "If I can." "Would you die for Tam'Mara?" "If it was required to preserve her life." "And for me too? If it was required?" "Yes." Bel grinned impishly. "Would you _live_ for me?" "That would be unwise." "WHAT?" "How long do you think it would be until you found the prospect of having me following you around burdensome?" Bel tried to ignore that but failed after a moment and laughed. "Fair." She flopped on her back and looked up at the stars. "Do you know all their names?" She asked. A moment later she was bathed in a soft blue radiance. She sat up and looked at Caltiar. A constellation shone out from his body. "Most of them," he said. Bel smiled and laid her head on his crossed legs, staring up into the sky that used to terrify her. "Can you teach them to me? While we wait for Tam'Mara and the others to wake up?" "Of course." And he did.