The first thing Tavscarf does, upon awakening on the beach, is reach for his scarf. It’s still not there, and thus, neither is most of his identity.

Frantic scrabbles ensue, along with the sudden steamroller of memory, and he sags, looking at himself, and his surroundings. A pleasant enough beach, but rather spoiled by the smoking hulk of the squid-ship, like a beached Leviathan that someone has tried to clear with a lot of, but not quite enough, dynamite.

"Right, first things first," he says, stripping off the padded outfit that looks like the handiwork of a very narcissistic and solitary tic-tac-toe player. That goes in the inventory. A shirt and pants beneath? Fine. A few experimental tugs at the armor indicate it's not a great source of string, but off to his left in the water is an old fishing net, which is -perfect-.

"Ahhhh," he sighs as he drapes the sodden mesh around his neck. It doesn't show up in screenshots or his inventory, but it's there for him, and that's what matters.

"Right. Waking up on beach, fishing net. Fishing-seafood-squid, re: squid-people," he mutters to himself, as he tugs and reties the fibers of the net, editing it into a personal account of his travels thus far. "Including random sinew from letting Worst Cat out, and chip of chiton from general ship crash. Twist around piece of waterweed for Angry Frog..."

As he edits and works the makeshift scarf around him, he is slowly wandering, wavering, warping and woofing, up the beach, and almost trips over the prone form of Shadowheart Perditamanita Amaranthea (insert several kanji).

"Oh," he says, his voice falling in mourning-- but then brightening to a crow of elation as he sees a motion of her breath-- "--ho! Here now--come now, there's got to be some healing in a bard--"

He drops to his knees and takes her by the shoulders, trying to remember any songs about healing. 'Sexual Healing' springs to mind at once, and he's horrified, but not surprised, at the Bard class. But it's not needed-- apparently a gentle shove is all that's needed to jolt an ally from slumber.

She comes awake, and they scramble, oddly slowly, to their feet.

"You're alive? I'm alive? How is this possible?" she-- Shadowheart, asks.

Tavscarf lets his instinct for conversation take over-- his brain seems half-eaten at the moment, but somewhere, the bits of Bard and the bits of Wisdom click together.

Cleric. She's a cleric. Vague images of healing and sanctimoniousness drop into place, and he comes up with a response that he hopes will be polite and inclusive.

"Clearly, dramatically timed intervention," he says, with a respectful bow of his head, tempered with a weak smile. "Well. Perhaps."

His wariness is warranted. "The divine tend to be less blatantly obvious. Sometimes. Maybe," she concedes weakly, looking at him.

Shadowheart eyes her savior, such as he is. He is a bit taller than she, and a bit older-- but he too is half-elven-- of the Wood sort, which gives him a sort of feral dusky dashingness (in the sense of a slightly increased speed, at least.) His skin is a weathered tan, his hair a mop of dark curls, eyes dark and expressive, showing only concern. His features are classically handsome, but forgettable– it’s the eyes, hair, and expression of hopeful imbecility that stick in the brain.

Not so much like a brother, as a brother's friend who your mother rather wished wasn't around, getting brother into late night hijinks, from which he'd come home smelling of odd substances. Just the sort of brother's friend a little sister might admire... from a distance.

Shadowheart's memories had been wiped away by the forces, dark and powerful, that had shaped her and guided her to this destiny. But she was still herself-- still feared wolves and loved the vanilla-lemon smell of night orchids. Called herself Shadowheart with pride.

And she couldn't help noticing that Tavscarf was attractive. Well, he would be, being a bard. But the brief glimpse she'd got into his mind, on the ship, made her wary. A cacophony of music, light, noise, voices, all pouring past at once like a waterfall. Not exactly the mind of a sane man. But..

"You could have walked right past my pod. But you didn't. I'll remember that."

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Tavscarf didn't have much chance to see what she looked like, back on the ship; the lighting had been less than ideal, and his mind was elsewhere, what there was left of it.

Now he looks her up and down quickly; half-elf, chain mail, a sort of gothic theme going on with onyx cabochons on the silver. He can see she's a cleric, but he doesn't recognize the deity, but then he doesn't really recognize any deity, ever-- it only encourages them.

The gods, in his experience, are just as much a bunch of wankers as the rest of the world, but with more power to back up their wankery. Best avoided. Although, here in a strange place with trouble already brewing, he certainly couldn't afford to turn down any help, holy or otherwise.

He steps a little closer, and meets her gaze-- her eyes are a lost blue, like a tropical shoreline around a dark island. "I couldn't leave you behind," he says simply. "And look at us. You. And I. We've survived."

His dark eyes brighten within their depths, like moonrise at midnight, and a shiver stirs along Shadowheart’s soul’s shoulders, like the touch of wings. "Do you know what that means?" he asks.

"...What?" Shadowheart says, and it's not a girlish squeak, it's a very firm query, dammit.

"We survived," Tavscarf says, as the dawn breaks in his voice and face. "And that means– others might have, too! We've got to look for survivors-- come on!"

He gallumphs down the beach with that Wood Elf speed, reaching the corpse of a mangled fisher, giving him a shake and a frisk, and moving on-- humans and brain-things alike, each is being greeted with a few friendly pats and a "Hello? Hello?" followed by a sad sigh and sometimes a chink of coin.

Shadowheart shakes her head clear and follows after him, wearily picking up the weapons, armor, and other heavy but valuable things he is casually tossing aside in his wake.

“More of those wretched things,” Shadowheart says, as some of the brain-things scuttle through a piece of wreckage.

“Worst Cat?” Tavscarf exclaims hopefully. He’d been sadly checking all the dead brain-things he’d found, but had to admit he couldn’t have identified Worst Cat’s particular pattern of gyri and sulci from any other.

“Here, friend! Pspspsps?” he calls hopefully, and beams as the nearest creature Dashes towards him and stops right at his feet. “Kitty!”

Another follows. “You made a friend?” Tavscarf says hopefully. Then he notices the fight music starting up. “Maybe not.”

“Don’t just stand there, do something!” Shadowheart snaps at him, lunging forward and whacking at one of the things.

“Uhm…” Tavscarf brandishes his flute and tries to remember how this goes, dodging one of the brains and wincing as Shadowheart gets ripped up by the other one. “Let’s try– this?” A quick soothing tune, and the two brain things slump in slumber.

“Aha!” Delighted with himself, Tavscarf riffs off another quick tune, and Shadowheart’s wounds close. “Bard Power! Let’s go! Run, while they’re asleep! Come on!”

He darts forward, unfortunately right into the path of the last of the things, which proceeds to claw him to within an inch of his life. “Ow! Bad kitty!” he admonishes it, bleeding heavily.

Shadowheart rolls her eyes and saves the remains of his stupid hide by blasting the brain to bits, and runs after him, between the sleeping brains. “Are you a coward, or a moron?” she snaps.

The sleeping brains wake, and scuttle after them– Shadowheart turns and stands her ground, and to her surprise, Tavscarf doesn’t keep running, but stays nervously by her. “I just don’t like hurting things,” he says wearily. “But probably both, actually.”

The brains scuttle into a pool of spilled purple ooze– the reek of harsh chemicals rises from the pool, and Shadowheart has an idea, which is good, because she’s out of spell slots. “IGNIS!”

Fire bursts from the ooze and scorches the brains, and a final scuffle of melee leaves Shadowheart standing victorious over the brains, and Tavscarf face-down and bleeding out.

Although she can’t help but think Lady Shar would absolutely understand, even approve, if she just walked off and left the idiot to die, she patches him up enough for him to stand. “You need to learn to do -something- useful, if you’re not going to fight like a normal person,” she scolds him, and he looks abashed, as they make their way along the ravaged coastline.

“How about healing?” Tavscarf offers. “I did that, didn’t I?”

“If you wanted to heal, you should have been a cleric,” she scoffs. They search a ruined wagon and some boxes.

“There’s something down there–” Tavscarf scrambles down the cliff towards the water. “A broken vase or something–” A moment later, his voice echoes up, “Um, could you help me with this? I can’t move this rock and it looks like it wants to be moved…”

“I said we needed supplies, not every stupid piece of junk that we can find,” Shadowheart grumbles, nevertheless clambering down after him, and moving the rock so he can exclaim over a buried and mostly worthless treasure. The little hidden cove is peaceful, or would be.

“Hey! You there!”

“This might be a good spot to camp,” Tavscarf suggests. “I mean, I know we’ve not gone very far, but I for one am still a bit sore.”

“We’re not exactly doing well,” Shadowheart admits.

“Come here!”

“I think I’m starting to hallucinate,” Tavscarf says wearily, sitting down on the treasure chest. “I’m hearing a voice.”

“I need help!”

“It’s coming from above,” Shadowheart says, looking up.

“Maybe it’s your god?” Tavscarf suggests.