"Nevertheless, you never know what things one could be hiding just below the surface. Not all kinds of ivy are poisonous, but some are."

"... That's a terrible pun. Did you specifically ask me a question just so you could pun terribly with the nickname you came up with for me?"

"I did not! The pun occurred to me afterwards and felt too irresistible."

Snort.

"I nonetheless feel a bit used," she sniffs. And then it's back to eating. Nom nom.

Honey you have no idea what it feels like to be used.

(Later that night, when Astarion goes out to properly eat, he tries his hardest to not be spotted. Having a druid in your party who can talk to squirrels is not a problem he thought he'd ever need to account for, and yet here they are.)

Sneak past every animal in the immediate vicinity? While also trying to eat one of those animals? Well, she did say they were easily distractible, and maybe she won't wake up and immediately cast her spell to begin talking to them?

Nnnnnope. There she goes. Almost immediately after it's prepared.

And then she starts asking the birds about if they'd seen anything while they were resting.

"... Huh. It sounds like the goblins are having a party," she says, blinking.

"Let us cut their celebration short."

(Fucking hells.)

"What are they celebrating?"

She squints at him like he's asked a very strange question. "No idea. The details of motivations and why actions are being taken is really not the sort of things you can.... get out of birds? They're not stupid, well, most of them aren't, but they're also not really going to try and psychoanalyze the goblins."

"Well, how was I meant to know that," he says, a touch defensively. "Who knows what these adorable woodland creatures get up to."

"Mostly working to have comfortable lives with minimal danger and maximum amount of the things they like. Food, shelter, mates, that sort of thing."

"...huh. We may have more in common than I thought, me and them."

"I... honestly don't understand how it could seem like you didn't have anything in common with them? You have much more in common with birds and squirrels and rabbits than, say, illithid."

"Oh but you see they'll never have a fashion sense as good as mine and so they will forever be beneath me."

"Less prattle, we have goblins to kill."

"We can walk and prattle at the same time, thank you!" says Ivetrielle, cheerfully, getting to walking. "And, uh, no, birds in particular can be impressively vain. You know preening is a thing named for what they do, yes? Well, think if instead of wearing clothes you grew your own feathers and fussed at them endlessly to get them all perfect. And that if your feathers aren’t perfect and your nest is badly decorated you’ll never get anyone to love you. Birds therefore have excellent fashion sense.”

"Oh puhlease, feathers are so last decade, I would be the talk of Baldur's Gate for at least a year if I showed up anywhere with feathers."

"...would you really?"

"Yes. Countess Rennier thought she could change opinions on this two years ago. She was wrong, and she," and his voice grows lower, more solemn, "paid the ultimate price."

"...she was executed?"

"Her reputation was executed. Why, I'm still talking about it two years later!"

"What a dreadful state of affairs that surely has such lasting implications and gravity as execu... hm. Sorry, can you repeat that?"

The second sentence is not to any of them, it's to a squirrel. Her speak with animals spell is still up.

"Your woodland friends are very rude," he sniffles.