The shadows around the camp were long and lazy, broken only by the ember-orange light that clung to Karlach’s skin whenever the fire caught her just right. The infernal plates beneath her collar hummed low, never painful anymore — just a soft glow, like a forge that had finally learned how to simmer instead of scream.

“Say my name, soldier…” she whispered again, leaning in so close that her laugh brushed against your ear. “Go on. Tell me who you belong to.”

She wasn’t cruel when she said it — if anything, there was adoration there, like she was asking you to share a secret rather than swear a vow. Her fingers, calloused from war and harsher places than Faerûn, traced the angle of your jaw as if memorizing it for later battles and later nights.

“Can’t you understand, love?” Karlach murmured, her voice dropping into a rough tenderness that only she could pull off. “No one else in this big, stupid, cruel world is gonna tell you the truth. Not like I will. Most folks don’t even have the guts.”

Her eyes burned brighter than any hellfire she’d ever walked through, but there was softness behind it — a kind of longing that didn’t ask for permission, only honesty.

“No one else is worthy of you.” She said it like a conviction, not a compliment. “You deserve someone who sees you. Someone who doesn’t flinch from the messy bits, or the rage, or the fear. Someone who’d go to Avernus and back just to make sure you got a fair shot at happiness.”

Karlach’s thumb grazed your cheek, gentle as sunrise. The heat radiating off her palm wasn’t dangerous anymore — just warm enough to chase off the night’s chill.

"All you’ve gotta do,” she breathed, smiling for real now, “is choose me. Be mine. And you’ll have somebody who actually gives a damn. Someone who’d worship you like royalty, fight for you like a battlemaster, and hold you like you’re the only thing in this cursed multiverse keeping me sane.”

She paused — not shy, exactly, but letting the weight of her promise settle between you both. “Isn’t that all you need?” she asked, leaning her forehead to yours as if sealing the question with touch rather than force. “Just someone who cares too much? Someone who stays?”

For the first time, she reached up and stroked your face the way others had handled relics or holy tomes — reverent, careful, and a little afraid of how much she wanted to keep you.

"C’mon,” she whispered, breath warm and bright. “Say my name.”