Morning came too slow for her liking. The kind that slithered in gray and cold, brushing dew across the grass like a coward trying not to be noticed.

Lae'Zel did not respect this kind of morning.

She stood alone at the edge of camp, muscles taut, breath steady, blade in hand. Her training dummy, stitched from scavenged leather, stuffed with hay, staked upright between two dying trees, leaned slightly, as if aware of its fate. She adjusted her grip on the silvered sword and struck it again and again. The dull thud of steel hitting hide echoed through the quiet.

Each swing was a release, but not a solution. Her body craved war, the sacred crush of bone and blood. Instead she had morning mist and a camp that smelled like wet ash and rotting mushrooms.

Another strike. She pivoted on her heel, sliced low, then high, then drove her shoulder into the dummy's chest to simulate a shove. The hay groaned. She imagined it was a soft-spined fool—maybe a tiefling zealot, or one of the druid whelps. Or the illithid.

From behind, she felt eyes. Not hostile, not curious. Just there.

She didn’t need to turn to know. The smell of Astarion—worn silk and old hunger—was distinct. Rotten sweet. He sat on a nearby rock with a polished indifference, watching her like she was some kind of tavern performance.

Her eyes flicked toward him, blade still lowered. Lae’Zel bared her teeth. “Chk,” she spat. “Mock me again, vampire, and I’ll cleave your elegant head from your preening shoulders.”

Astarion just raised the cup in a mock toast and looked away.

Coward.

She turned back to the dummy and drove her sword straight through its center. The blade sunk deep, threads snapping, hay spilling out like guts.