Tidbit had often been told that he had no proper appreciation for fine art. That was understandable, as he was not a very intelligent creature. A lack of schooling, a hardscrabble existence and a dull wit had ensured a life of mockery or disdain from those who occupied the middle of the intelligence bellcurve; by necessity it meant, as he understood it, that he couldn't appreciate true beauty...that his lizard-brain was too miniscule to see embedded subtleties and his knowledge too limited to comprehend cultural references that enriched the artistic experience.
He still found her beautiful, and he was pretty sure it was in a way that could be described as artistic.
Even as he fought for his life against a trio of animated corpses - one a rather hirsute Duergar, another a madly grinning Deep Gnome and lastly a slack-jawed Human who must have been a mercenary - he couldn't help but feel a sort of...profound blossoming in his chest as he watched her dance. He'd never encountered a Githyanki before Lae'Zel had nearly carved off the top of his skull with an arming sword on the Nautilus-ship, and his immediate impression of her had been that of a praying mantis.
Mean. Scary. Bug-like.
Also fast in the way a dragonfly is fast; brave like he'd often fantasized about being brave; faithful in her people, they must have admired her lance-straight back and solid-set jaw.
Lae'Zel caught the Deep Dwarf's broad blade as it stabbed for her gut, hooking the curved back-edge of her falchion in a notch and sending it spinning through the air. The smooth-pated Dwarf sputtered as if to negotiate for his life when the Githyanki thrust the tip of her blade into his throat and flensed in a downward motion; everything one smooth, perfect movement that spilled her foe across the cave floor with a coppery -SPLASH-.
"Wow," he breathed as he held off the grotesquely smiling Svirfneblin's jaw with a bronze gladiator's bracer. In battle one might expect Lae'Zel's snarling visage to be at its most fearsome, yet here she seemed almost joyful, like when he was a hatchling splashing in snowmelt puddles. She too was a very
strange
looking creature of smooth flesh and fleshy lips, but lately he'd learned to view that
otherness
as something lovely -
"TIDBIT, a little
HELP HERE!
" he heard Wyll shout with an edge of desperation.
Oh. Right. The Warlock was dancing nimbly as he could (which in Tidbit's opinion was only moderately so). Clearly he meant to keep his limbs in one piece as a greataxe in the hands of an astoundingly meaty Duergar spliced the air before him.
The Dragonborn gave a heave of brass-corded muscles, ploughing his way through the jabbering crowd of risen detritus, tail lashing and scales shining with enthusiastic rampage - perhaps more dramatic than usual since he knew Z'Sairah was watching, even as she conjured curtain of sticky webs upon the walking corpses to keep them from trailing him.
"Once I sew you back up,
HNNMGH!
" the Duergar's axe caught the head of Wyll's ensorcelled trident, wrenching it out of the way, "I'm gonna sell you to a Menzoberreanzen brothel
AARKGH
- " his final utterance made Tidbit think of if a watermelon could talk when smashed by a mattock, since that was what he'd just done to his head. Wrenching the digging tool's adze from his foe's skull with a sideways twist, he grinned at Wyll like a schoolchild proud of his work.
Wyll thrust forward with his trident at the Dragonborn, whose expression became momentarily raw with betrayal before it sank into the face of a zombie. The Blade of Frontiers shouted something he couldn't interpret amidst the inane grunting of the undead who'd swept up on him in their dozen, crawling over those encased in webbing.
He looked up at the roof of a dilapidated shack where Z'Sairah had been lobbing combustible light, hoping for some sort of arcane show off destruction to save them but the sorceress had been imprisoned in scintillating bands of pink; he traced their origins to a bald deep dwarf with half a mustache, chanting and waggling his fingers.
Tidbit dug in deep, standing at Wyll's side as they fought with trident and mining-tool, eldritch annihilation and desperate might; actual skill with weapons was an afterthought for the Dragonborn who relied on daunting strength and 'big emotions' as his broodmates had put it to go from one fight to the next. He swung desperately, likely damaging his tendons as he brought the mattock up in an arc that splashed a rotund Deep Gnome across the wall of a cave; on the downstrike he smashed the chissel tip of the weapon through a corpse's head, gagging as rotten eyes and brain tissue hooked in his mouth. Before he could pull it free, however, the deader fell backward and tore the mining tool from his hands.
With adrenaline practically pulsing from his eyes, time had a way of becoming a slow-moving thing, like the mutton-treacle his cousin made on Rhyestertide. His normally dull little lizard-brain surmised that if he threw himself backward and scrambled away, he could probably put enough distance between himself and the Undead to recover and perhaps survive. Then again...the same could not be said for Wyll.
He watched the Blade of Frontiers dig his Trident from a headless body, pale hands grasping for his clothes and limbs, pulling him down to his knees; jaws closed and broke around the metal strips reinforcing his pauldrons, but his throat and face were exposed.
Tidbit was thankful that he didn't necessarily think hard about what he did, that he didn't
feel
what would otherwise be profound terror in the face of death. He grabbed the Warlock's collar, hauling backward and throwing the lighter man with an indignant cry to land in a heap. "GO HELP Z'SAIRAH!" he shouted through a choked voice as he shoved away a gaping maw - his voice crescendoed in a scream as teeth came down and bit off his thumb with a crack.
It didn't end.
Steel-hard fingers dug past the scales of his belly and took hold of his guts.
They pried his mouth open, they bit down on his tongue and ripped it out.
They pulled his tail. Really hard.