All additional hands helping with barricades are appreciated.

The sun starts to set, and there's a tense thrum in the air. They probably won't die tonight, but they may die tomorrow?

Well, he's always gotten out of it alive so far, at any rate.

Anyone going for one last pre-death party/drink/roll in the hay?

Wyll is back to teaching the tiefling children to sword fight. 

Shadowheart is praying. 

And around the fire-- Astarion is lounging insouciantly. Gale is reading a book. Karlach is savouring some wine, and Lae'zel is going at her sword with a grindstone. Those last four definitely seem... interruptible. 

Several of the tieflings and druids might also be. Halsin is checking over all the livestock. A purple haired tiefling bard is playing a lute in the halting manner of someone having a fight with a song they are trying to write. A tiefling dressed as a wizard is repeatedly casting fire bolt in much the same way.

He sits by the bard. 

"The goddess of music has abandoned you in your time of need?"

 "Dance upon the stars tonight, smile and pain will fade away."  She strums her lute, and up closer it's obvious that the hesitancy in her voice isn't just not knowing what she's singing next, but brushing up against an emotion that's too hot to touch without the armour of chords.  "Words of mine will change-- no, Become-- ugh." 

She puts down the lute in her lap and turns to him. "She's-- maybe not being as helpful as she could be." 

"Happens to everyone. Want to talk about it?"

"I wouldn't say not to help." She looks down at the lute. "I thought playing would be-- easier isn't the right word. More true? 'Easier' is easier to rhyme than 'true'." 

"You play well."

"You're very kind to say that," she says bashfully.

She picks the lute up and tries again. "Words of mine will turn to ash, when you call the last light down. Moon reminds me of your grace, all the love I can't replace." 

"Writing about something?"

"Lihala. My teacher. My friend." 

He makes a sympathetic listening noise.

"She was singing. Neither of us heard the gnolls coming." She grips the neck of her lute tight, voice thick. "I haven't played since she past." 

"It never really stops hurting."

"I know. And-- she wouldn't want me to swap."

"You have to trust in that whenever you're the last one left alive."

Not that he has any experience with that or anything. 

Ah. Well. That makes sense, and explains why he's so sympathetic.

"She'd want me to keep playing. Follow in her footsteps, if she couldn't do it herself."

"It's natural to grieve, but-- the thing you can do that would make her happy, if she scried you from wherever she ended up, is to grab as much joy as you can with your two greedy little hands and cling to it as hard as you can while the universe tries to wrench it away from you."

She nods. she picks up her lute again, and plays.

It's about grief and loss,  but the tune is hopeful and full of happy memory, and, most importantly, it's confident.

"It's beautiful."

"Thank you. You really did help."