We The Stolen - fangbanger3000 (2024)

Chapter 1: Ridiculous Night, Ridiculous Morning

Chapter Text

Tav was not exactly unfamiliar with waking up someplace strange without a clue in her head as to how she ended up there, but it had been a good long while since the last time it happened. She had quit the blackout drinking shortly after reaching her twenties, as the alcohol seemed to affect her worse than her peers. As if she had used up all of her alcohol tolerance in her teens and now had no tickets for mild hangovers left. Still, she could have sworn she hadn’t overindulged last night, only remembering a few drinks. But then again, isn’t that how it always is?

Nonetheless, something about this particular gap in her mind felt different. Mostly because, as she came to her senses, the first thing she realised was that her skull pounded with the worst headache she had ever experienced. As if someone had mutilated the socket of her eyebrow with a power drill. The second thing she realised was that she was flat on her back in the woods.

A forest? There had been a total of no trees anywhere near the venue last night. Had she fallen asleep on a bus or something? Though, a bus would hardly explain how she ended up in the dirt. Without her shoes, too, she suddenly realised.

Her eyelids felt sticky and dry when she blinked rapidly against the sun, whose sharp rays filtered through the green leaves above her. It was really rather pretty, here, despite the situation.

Tav stretched her sore limbs, her whole body feeling as if someone had put her in a pillowcase and knocked her against the tree trunks. Surprisingly, no feelings of nausea sloshed around in her stomach as she carefully peeled herself off the ground to sit up, taking in her surroundings with one hand clutching her tortured head.

It was a forest, alright.

The anxiety didn’t truly set in until she realised her purse was nowhere to be seen.

Shoot.

Her ID, her money, her keys, her medicine, her phone. Perhaps she had gotten herself into trouble of the more severe calibre this time around. But then again, this was not the biggest town on Earth. If she started walking, she would stumble upon someone who could help her - and who hopefully hadn’t been stupid enough to lose their phone.

Her head reeled in relentless protest when she rose from the ground like a newborn deer. The pain of it was almost enough to send her insides shooting out through her mouth, and for a moment, she considered laying back down in the leaves and waiting it out, but decided against it. Wallowing in the pain would not help. Painkillers would help. And a hot shower, Christ. What she wouldn’t do. The quicker she got home, the better.

And thus Tav rebelled against her screaming skull and wobbly knees and ventured in a random direction, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, entirely convinced that she would be falling asleep in her queen-sized bed tonight, hair freshly washed and braided, sheets scented with her lavender pillow spray.

It took a few hours of walking barefoot through the trees (which were thinning now, at least) before Tav truly understood the severity of her situation. Not only had she not met a single person, but she also slowly came to realise that the trees, flowers, and berry bushes were unlike any she had ever seen before. Panicked sweat started moistening her palms when she realised that she’d used her passport as ID last night and that she might have actually gotten on some f*cking plane and flown to who knows where. A few hours into her walk she had hidden behind a bush from the largest boar she had ever seen, unsure of whether they were as dangerous as Game of Thrones made them seem or not. That’s when she realised that she was most definitely not in her home country anymore. They didn’t have anything that even resembled boars in the wilds.

The soles of her feet had begun to sting now, torn from walking over rocks and pointy sticks and probably someone’s discarded heroin needle, her luck considered. The lacey shirt underneath her apron dress did very little to keep the oncoming chill of night at bay, and her bare legs stung almost as much as her feet from the tiny cuts and scratches made from branches and brambles that were probably (definitely) deadly poisonous.

If she died from poisoning or starvation or from being gored by a boar, she honestly deserved it. The amount of idiocy it took to physically run from a party and somehow end up in a foreign country with nothing to her name was absolutely astronomical and should concern behavioural scientists everywhere.

That’s what you get for being a sore loser, Tav.

The pain in her head was nothing in comparison to the seething, breath-stealing embarrassment that overwhelmed her whenever she accidentally thought of her behaviour the night before. She knew her ex was going to attend the party, and she had mentally prepared herself for it, she had even bought a new dress just for the occasion, and she had been humiliated. What she wasn’t prepared for was her ex stepping into the room looking thoroughly like a movie star, with the prettiest woman Tav had ever seen attached at her hip. This new lover looked like a siren, a succubus, a person too perfect to exist with her long, red hair and her silk dress that clung to every curve of her body. Tav had felt like a f*cking child, no, a stupid little baby crow in comparison. All prickly feathers, beady eyes, and no pizzazz.

And so she had run. Like a school girl who had seen her prom date kiss someone else, she turned on her heel and ran at an embarrassingly low speed from the room. The air outside had felt like cold water sizzling off a hot pan when it hit her, and she had continued to run towards the parking lot and then…

And then nothing. Absolutely nothing. And then she woke up in the forest.

Maybe she’d had some sort of psychotic breakdown and had decided to migrate to a different part of the world to escape ever having to see her beautiful ex-girlfriend’s hands on someone else’s waist ever again. Honestly? In the heat of a moment, it probably wouldn’t be beyond her.

What a ridiculous f*cking party, and what a ridiculous night. And now this? If there was one thing Tav was never rewarded, it was a goddamn break.

The absolute atrocities she would commit for a cigarette right about now.

It had gotten dark, and cold besides. Tav had reached the point where she’d lost her sense of humour and could see herself sitting on the cold ground to sob a little in the near future, or maybe even punch a tree or two. Her toes were numb. Perhaps she would lay down and die here out of pure spite. Her ex would most definitely be shocked by the news that she had disappeared from the party only for her corpse to be found in the woods days later.

Tav stopped dead in her tracks when the remnants of her intuition made the hair on her arms stand on end. In front of her, squinting through the dark, she could make out the shape of something big lying on the ground. Her breath hitched in her throat and her fingers went cold as ice, as if she could stop her very heartbeat to be as quiet as possible.

It took some more squinting with her breath held tight in her lungs, but then she realised that the shape was a boar lying on its side. Perhaps it was the same one she had seen earlier, but she really hoped not, because that was hours ago. There was no way she had been walking in circles the entire day. Right?

Just as she released her breath, her ears picked up on a low slurping sound, as if someone was eating a bowl of noodles nearby. It took another twenty seconds of silent observing until she realised the culprit was the boar. Curiosity set out to kill her when she, as silently as she could, approached the animal to figure out why it was slurping on the ground like that.

She realised three very terrifying things in the span of a very short second.

Firstly, the enormous boar was stone dead.

Secondly, someone was crouching behind the corpse.

And last, but most certainly not least, something moved inside her skull.

Three shocks in a heartbeat nearly took her out. She caught a glimpse of white hair and red eyes peeking at her over the flank of the boar before a long-dormant survival instinct kicked through her and sent her running through the trees. Her numb feet felt like strange stubs of meat as she pounded them into the ground, the cool night air ripping through her lungs, and yet she could not stop. Whatever the f*ck that was, it certainly was none of her business.

She kept running until her legs felt like they would physically give out under her, and only then did she allow herself to cling to the trunk of a tree, obscuring her from view if the crackhead decided to follow her. That’s what that had to be, right? A crazy drug addict or something. And his eyes had certainly not been red, but most definitely a shade of brown. She hadn’t eaten, she had slept on the ground, it was dark, and her head…

Tav searched for explanations for the movement she had felt beneath her forehead, but came up short. She had been hallucinating. A leaf had probably hit her on its way down from the trees above. There simply were no other-

And then Tav’s empty stomach almost turned itself inside out when something very definitively wriggled beneath her brow bone. Forgetting all about the possible psycho behind her, a scream ripped from her throat as she pressed her fingers onto her forehead as if she could get it to stop. It did not stop.

Something was alive inside her skull.

She wasn’t sure what compelled her to look up at that exact moment, but she did, and caught a glimpse of the same man as before perched on one of the branches above her head.

He’sinthef*ckingtreehe’sinthef*ckingtreehe’sinthetreewhatthef*ckohmygod

Another scream escaped her lips as she turned on her heel to sprint in a new direction, as fast as she possibly could, but this one seemed to never end. Running and screaming at the top of your lungs is hard, but unfortunately, Tav was at this moment outside of pedagogical reach. Forgetting everything she had ever learned about survival and self-defense and self-preservation she tumbled through the woods at a speed that surely would cause her to break her ankle if she took a single wrong step.

And then, suddenly, just as she had realised that this would most definitely be how she died, Tav saw light ahead.

With the last bits of her energy, she ignored the acid pumping through her legs and forced her body the last few leagues into the light, where there surely would be people who didn’t climb trees and hide behind dead animals. Her scream was now a hoarse, hollow sound as she became dizzy from the lack of oxygen, and just as her vision began to blur, she crashed through the last brambles separating her and the psycho from what had f*cking better be decent people and their light.

Tav crashed through the bush and onto the ground beyond it, which finally knocked the last bits of air from her lungs.

“By the Gods! Wyll! A banshee!”

Jesus f*ck, was there a banshee here now, too? Give the poor Tav a moment to breathe!

With sounds not unlike those of a dying dog, Tav heaved air and dust into her burning lungs, barely strong enough to push herself up onto her knees to regard the persons whose camp she had barged into. Her hair was in her eyes, and she still had yet to draw a full breath, which gave them time to gather around her like wolves to an elk.

Perhaps she had made a mistake.

“That’s not a banshee, my friends. That’s a scared girl.” A pleasant voice spoke from somewhere behind her, and, still foggy and confused, she turned to see who had spoken.

Whatthef*ckwhatthef*ckwhatthef*ckthisisanightmareithastobewhatthef*ckisgoingon

The man towered over her kneeling position, his height amplified by large horns protruding from his head, one of his eyes glowing red in the dim lighting. Tav opened her mouth and screamed again, falling onto her back as she tried to skitter away from whatever the f*ck was standing in front of her. The back of her head rammed into something hard as rock and hot as lava, and the stink of her own singed hair was sharp in her nose when she looked up into a very red face with literalfirecomingoutofherskinwhatthef*ckpleasewakeuptavwakeupwakeup

A flash of silver to her right made Tav nearly snap her own neck, only to be met with another scream-inducing sight as a sickly green and spotted woman swung a f*cking enormous sword in her direction and-

And nothing.

The world went dark.

Chapter 2: Strangers

Chapter Text

The yellow dandelions look as bright as tiny suns against the darkness of his curly hair. His brown eyes seem to melt like honey in the sun, and right now, freckled and sunkissed, Tav’s adoration for him is boundless.

The boy grins at her, his dimples deepening, as he carefully removes the flower crown from his head to gently place it on hers instead. With an elegant flourish, he jumps to his feet wielding a long stick as if it were a sword.

“Your wish is my command, princess!” He exclaims, his Scottish accent thickening for the act. Tav giggles up at him, the sun creating a halo around his head.

“Why, fair knight, I wish for the reddest apple you can find!” She replies in the most posh way she can, to which he awards her another deep bow before turning to the nearby apple tree.

“Fiend!” He bellows as he charges at the trunk with his stick. “Release your reddest apple at once!”

As graceful as a cat, the boy climbs the lowest branches in search of a worthy apple, landing effortlessly on his feet when the hunt is concluded. Dropping the knee and holding out the apple towards her, he flashes a cat's smile when he jumps away just before her hand closes around the fruit. She can hear how juicy it is when he sinks his teeth into it.

“Hey! Treason!” Tav squeals, though she can’t help but laugh.

“I had to make sure it was not poisoned, my Lady!” He retorts, taking another bite.

Tav woke up as dumbfounded as she had been in the woods when the first thing her eyes met was the inside of a tent. Or, maybe, this was just what a coffin looked like from the inside. Granted, giving her a proper burial did not strike her as something the creatures from her nightmare would care a great deal about. Because it surely had to have been a nightmare, yes? Maybe someone at the party had drugged her. But then again, how did she end up in a tent?

She sat up as silently as she could, already clenching her teeth in anticipation of how her body was sure to creak and ache. At the age of twenty-six, her body was no better than an old, haunted house, and a beating like she took last night was sure to make her feel sixty years older.

To her immense surprise, there was no pain. On the contrary, her joints felt as if they had been oiled, her muscles relaxed, and her skin mended smooth. Carefully, she removed the thick blanket someone had draped across her. She was still wearing her dress, but the fabric felt oddly soft and light as if someone had washed it. Her feet were expertly bandaged.

What the f*ck?

She slowly released the air in her lungs, taking in her surroundings. It was a simple tent, really, with very sparse decor. A few candlesticks and a lot of books were spread about, and the air was alive with a faint scent of chamomile. Not the worst place to wait while her captors undoubtedly prepared the stew she would feature in.

One of them had to have a phone. If they wouldn’t lend it to her willingly, she would take it by force (Tav was fully aware that this was hubris to the highest degree, but do you have a better plan? No, she thought not) or by stealing it.

Arming herself with one of the thick, iron candle holders, she slowly rose to her feet and tiptoed to the tent’s opening, making the stealthiest exit possible. The light outside was dim and blushing, signalling the coming dusk. Had she been knocked out all day? There was no way she could pull that off without walking away with some brain damage or something. The air was chilly and soft like a summer night at home, and in front of her stood several tents spread about the same clearing in the woods as she had stumbled into the night before. No second location, then. Nice.

The only other person she could see was a man sitting in front of a campfire with his back to her. A chill ran down her spine when she realised this was the creep who had chased her in the woods, or at least someone of about the same size with the same bleached, white hair. Looking around, she weighed her options. Clearly, the people whose camp she had trespassed into were friends of his, and she had absolutely no intention of sticking around to meet them. Again. If she could just make it to the tree line, she could-

“Don’t even think about it, darling.”

Tav froze like a deer in headlights. The man by the fire hadn’t moved, his head bowed to focus on whatever was in his hands. His tone had been exceptionally casual as if his words didn’t hide a threat.

Sizing him up, Tav decided that showing any weakness (besides running for her life while screaming and crying, of course) around him was probably not a good idea. Seeming as if she could hurt him just as much as he could hurt her was the best way to go. If someone was acting crazy towards you, you should act even crazier. Or something like that.

“Or what?” she said, thanking every god she had ever heard of when her voice sounded steady and spiced with spite. The man chuckled, an oddly pretty sound that made her think of a purring predator. “Or I’ll have to stop your pretty little heart.”

sh*t.

Oh well, it didn’t seem like she would make it out of here alive anyway, so she might as well give him hell on her way out. “Try it, and I’ll yank out every strand of hair from your head.”

He finally turned to look at her. “You arrogant little-” The moment their eyes met, Tav felt the disgusting, foreign movement at the front of her brain. Wild panic hammered through her body as her pale hands repeatedly hit the glass encasing her in the pod. Her nails broke with each hit, her starved body putting up much less of a fight than it should. She was so godsdamned hungry, her gnawing stomach overshadowing her fear even now. A sudden violent lurch threw her around in the small space and her sight darkened when she hit her head against the side of her alien cage. Her hollow stomach dropped. She was falling-

Entirely against her will, Tav’s body convulsed and she gagged on nothing but air, goosebumps shaking through her in a wave. She still felt the ghost of the black hole in her stomach and struggled to remain standing as the feeling of being in free fall only slowly faded from her. What in the ever-loving f*ck?

The man stared at her with a mildly disgusted look on his face. “Charming.”

Tav didn’t even try to come up with something witty, the shock of what just happened rendering her breathless and dizzy. Those hands had been much, much too pale and too large to be hers. But there was certainly no way…

“What the f*ck did you do to me?” she asked, her fists clenched by her sides, her voice shaking with anger that only thinly masked her terror.

“I haven’t done anything to you yet. But I was hoping I might have a word with you before the others return.” He stood as he said it, walking towards her with his arms slightly out, palms to the sky, every move beckoning her trust. Like absolute hell she would give it to him. His yet hung in the air like a little cloud and made alarm bells erupt in the back of her mind.

“Don’t come any f*cking closer to me. Just let me borrow a phone, and I’ll leave.”

He tutted at her, but he did stop walking. “You’ll sprout tentacles out of your mouth the moment you step away from this camp, but do suit yourself. I’ll sit back and watch the show.”

Tav’s brain just simply couldn’t compute what he just said. What a very specific and very weird thing to say. He was clearly bluffing, and yet, something gave her pause. He rested his hands on his hips, looking her over as if sizing her up. She took a deep breath and pushed past her fear and her intense instinct to run. “Let me borrow a phone.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “A what?”

Fine, if he wanted to play it like that, he could have it his way. “What is this feeling in my head?” She asked instead, changing the subject. She was going to get her hands on a phone in one way or the other.

“I’ll tell you. But I’ll need something in return,” he responded, tilting his head at her.

She clenched her teeth and her fists, hoping he wouldn’t try to have sex with her or rob her or something. “Fine, but tell me first.”

“Darling, you must think I’m simple.”

“Fine. What do you want?”

He sauntered closer to her, still holding out his hands in a non-threatening fashion. Warily, she allowed it, staring into his pasty face in an attempt to stand her ground. She felt her bravery falter just a bit when she realised that she hadn’t been wrong last night; his eyes were, indeed, red as rubies.

“It’s about the… little display you walked in on last night in the woods,” he said, smiling at her as if she had simply stumbled upon him doing something embarrassing. “My dear friends aren’t exactly aware of my… condition. Let’s keep it between us, shall we?”

Tav stared at him. She had absolutely no clue of what he was yapping about, and she certainly had never heard of any condition that compelled people to eat their lunch pack while crouching behind corpses in the dead of night. She wasn’t going to tell him that, though. This was blackmail material. She knew a secret of his. Or he thought she did, at least. That had to be enough. “What dear friends they are, with you keeping something like this from them.” She bluffed.

He smiled at her, but the warmth did not reach his eyes.“Hells forbid a man has secrets,” he clapped his hands together, making her jump. “Now that we’ve reached an understanding, I believe introductions are in order. My name is Astarion.”

She scrunched her nose at him. “Tav.”

“A pleasure.”

“Start talking, please.”

Tav immediately regretted giving Asterix the time of day. He was clearly insane or on drugs or both, and the more he said, the less he made sense. And yet… she had felt something move in her head, on several occasions now. And there was the small matter of whatever had happened when their eyes met, the echo of which she still felt in her body. Still clutching the candle holder, she had been quietly listening to his summary of their situation (which, if it held any merit at all, she had a feeling he was grossly simplifying), but she couldn’t stop herself from asking.

“When you looked at me… I saw something,” she really wasn’t sure how to word it in a way that didn’t make her sound crazy, so she didn’t elaborate. There had been a constant, low humming in her head since her… vision, or whatever, as if she was leaning her head against the window of a bus. Everything was weird. She felt like she was having a miniscule out of body experience, just a few inches of displacement.

To what really shouldn’t be her surprise at this point, Asterix simply nodded in response. “You saw into my head. And I saw into yours. Another… quirk of our affliction.”

Before she could ask anything further, the distant sound of voices made them both turn towards the darkening woods behind them. “Ah,” Asterix exclaimed. “My delightful companions.”

The humming in her head intensified and something soft and cushiony wrapped itself around her brain as the approaching group emerged from the dark. They looked the same as they had last night. Two of them had horns sticking out of their heads, one of them was red, another was green, and a third one was goth,if you can believe it. The last one to enter the clearing could have told her his name was Jesus and she would have fully believed him.

Staring at them as they made their way closer, Tav wondered why she didn’t feel anything. Last night she had almost shat herself at the sight of them, and it wasn’t that they looked less nightmare-ish now. She just wasn’t scared. Her brain hummed so intensely that she was surprised her teeth didn’t chatter. “It’s good to see you up and about!” Jesus said with the most genuine smile she had ever seen. As their eyes met, Tav felt a brief flash of something cold in her chest, making her shiver. In less than a second, it was gone. Odd. “I do apologise. My sleeping spell was a bit more potent than anticipated. I’m usually better at this.”

Sleeping spell? Sleeping spell. Sleeping… spell. Tav was very aware that she should be disturbed by this, but all she could do was stare at him as he came closer, hand extended in front of him “At introductions?” She asked, her voice as dull and monotone as she felt.

He chuckled and shook her hand with all the vigour of a golden retriever. At magic. I’m Gale of Waterdeep.”

Tav stared at him. Her brain didn’t work. Everything in her head was still as if she was underwater. Maybe she was actually lying face down in a ditch on the road home from the party, and this was her dying hallucination. “I’m Tav of New York.” A lie, granted, but Waterdeep sounded made-up. She wasn’t about to give without having received. The others introduced themselves to her. The green one was called Lae’zel and looked like she despised her already, but perhaps it was just how she looked. Tav’s deadpan state was not one to talk. Goth girl claimed to be Shadowheart of all things, and the red, fiery Abby Anderson impersonator was Karlach. The unfortunate man she had screamed at the night before was called Wyll, and for some reason, his soft-spokenness and strangely gallant attitude made her a little less wary of him than the others, despite the enormous horns and the mismatched eyes.

Jesus, who was Gale, cooked up some sort of stew for them all to eat, and they all chatted around her as if none of this was abnormal. As if she wasn’t a stranger in their camp. As if they didn’t all, according to Asterix, have alien larvae in their brains. Tav looked at the stew in her bowl, unable to muster up even a sliver of appetite. She felt hollow and overfilled at the same time. Lukewarm water had replaced the grey matter of her brain.

When she finally laid down to sleep on some sort of mediaeval sleeping bag, her arm was throbbing and bruised from the amount of times she had pinched her skin throughout the night in hopes that she would wake up. Or, at the very least, feel less far away. It hadn’t worked. She didn’t know what to think. Despite the danger of being killed in her sleep or bitten to death by mosquitos or waking up in a hospital bed, she was grateful when sleep mercifully swallowed her up. She would surely feel better in the morning after a solid sleep, even if she woke up in this strange place instead of at home. All she needed was an uninterrupted night to recover, and then she would be fine.

Unfortunately, someone had other plans for her.

Chapter 3: Angels In The Night

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I’m awake.

That was the first thought in Tav’s head when she regained consciousness. With the utmost certainty she knew that the horrendously lively nightmare she’d had was over, and that when she opened her eyes, she would be in her bed. She knew because her brain was as quiet as the space around her, and her thoughts were clear, back in her head where they belonged instead of floating around like a tangle of yarn in space.

But when she opened her eyes, Tav was not in her bed. The sky above her was beautifully bruised in purples and blues, and there were more stars than she had ever seen in her life. It was so beautiful that she lay there, stunned, unwilling to address whatever situation she had woken up in now. She simply watched the stars for a while, imagining their light seeping in through her eyes and brightening the inside of her head.

But she knew she couldn’t stay. Wherever she was, she had to figure out what to do next. Sitting up was a good idea, probably. Baby steps.

Eventually, she rose to her feet and took in her surroundings. She was standing on a rocky island that appeared to be floating through this strange galaxy-looking place, and, noticing with a rush of shock, she was not alone there.

By the edge furthest away from her, a tall man wearing exquisite golden armour stood with his hands behind his back and stared out into the stars, as she herself had done moments ago. Tav really wasn’t sure what to do. She didn’t know if she was dreaming, or if she had been cursed to wake up somewhere weird every time she slept for the rest of her life, or if the man in front of her had ill intentions.

The way she saw it, she had very few options, and so she approached him. “Uhm… hello?”

The knight turned to look at her over his shoulder. He was beautiful, truly beautiful, fairy-tale-prince-beautiful. His olive skin seemed to almost glow with health, and bronze curls framed the sharp features of his statuesque face. When he spoke, even his voice was pretty, deep as a well and clear as ice. It was as if every syllable was carried by notes to a melody Tav couldn’t hear.

“You’re awake. Good. We have much to discuss.”

“Who-” Tav had to clear her throat, “who are you?”

His smile pulled her in. It made her feel warm. Safe.“You may not know me…” he said as he turned around, offering his palm to her. An invitation. When she placed her hand in his, he bowed and pressed a warm, soft kiss to her knuckles. “...But I know you.”

Shivers ran over her skin like water, but not unpleasantly so. The man released her hand and returned to his previous stance before continuing. “I’m your guardian. I’ve saved you before, and now I’m going to save you again.”

Visuals that were not of her own making flashed through Tav’s mind. She saw the man in the shadows of dark alleyways and streets, watching over her when she walked alone in the night. She saw him in the strange woods, shadowed by the trees, protecting her until she awoke. She saw him in the tent she had woken up in, blue light streaming from his hands and into her body, her torn and scraped skin healing in front of her eyes. It seemed he had been with her all along.

“Can you take me home?” The question rushed out of her before she could even think. She should probably thank him, or shake his hand, or tell him her name, or something. She wasn’t even sure where she was.

He didn’t seem to care about her tactlessness, and to her disappointment, he shook his head in response. “No. I’m sorry. I can only interfere so much,”

He seemed genuinely pained by this, as if her misfortune was his own. Suddenly, Tav was overwhelmed by exhaustion, and her legs gave out beneath her. Had it not been for the man’s quick reaction, she would have probably knocked herself out on the floor, but he caught her just in time. Again, it would seem.

“Sit. Rest. Time is not the same here as it is when you’re awake. You may rest as long as you need before you return.” His voice was reassuring, but she barely heard a word. His eyes were beautiful, the most intense mosaic of autumn she had ever seen. She could stare into them forever. Instead, she asked again: “Who are you?”

He towered over her even as he was kneeling. “Like I said, I’m your guardian. Everyone has a guardian, and I am yours.”

Tav furrowed her brows in response. “You mean like… a guardian angel?”

His face looked like the rising sun when he smiled at her. “That is correct, yes.”

She nodded as if this made perfect sense. “If you don’t mind me asking… do you know what’s going on?”

He regarded her with his beautiful head tilted slightly for a long moment. Then, wetting his lips with his tongue (Jesus!), he seemed to make a decision before answering. “The world you know is not the only one that exists. More worlds, more universes than either of us could fathom lay parallel to each other. This is a different universe than the one you were born in.”

Tav blinked, stupidly. He continued. “You were taken by monsters of this one. They go by many names. Ghaik, illithids, mindflayers… in your world, they would have been called aliens. Maybe even demons. The pale one was telling the truth about your kidnapping and the larvae in your brain. It was put there to devour your mind, to transform you. But-” he raised a hand at her wide eyes and skipping heart, “-that won’t happen. I’ll protect you.”

“Can’t you… take it out?"

He shook his head again. “I could, but it would kill you. Your larvae, and its sisters in the heads of the group you’ve found, are altered. You were meant to be controlled, not transformed. Not until much later.”

Tav stared at him as she tried to process the information. “And how is it you’re going to protect me from this?”

He spread his arms like an artist presenting their work. “As I always have. I will subdue the worm, keep you from transforming, and I will keep you safe from yourself. Your emotions are… potent.”

She thought of her lack of fear, the hum in her brain. “You’re the reason why all of this has felt like a dream? Why I’m not scared when that’s objectively what I should be?”

He nodded, looking solemn. “I apologise for altering your mind without your permission. Your fear was strong enough to make you throw yourself into an armed group of strangers with reckless abandon, and I can’t allow you to lose your head in such a way. If you mean to survive this place, you need to think clearly.”

Tav could almost hear the gears spinning in her brain. The idea that parallel universes were real didn’t surprise her as much as it should, but her stomach felt like she was in free fall as the truth of the matter sank in. She would never be home again. She would never seehim again.

She lowered her head to hide the tears forming in her eyes, biting the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper, trying to ground herself. She had absolutely, completely and entirely no clue of how to handle any of this. Her guardian reached out and gently lifted her chin until she met his eyes. “You do not need to grieve. If we find out how the illithids travel across universes, we can find out how to get you home. I will not leave you here, but I need you to be brave. Can you be brave for me, Tav?”

She felt a single tear trickle down her cheek, but she nodded nonetheless. She had no voice to answer him with. Once more he bathed her in sunlight when he smiled, gently wiping away the wet trail with his thumb. “That’s my girl. I know this is a lot to process, but I will help you. I will keep your fear at bay, I will watch your back, and I will show you how to use your powers.”

As if this wasn’t the most confusing and scary situation she had ever experienced, his praise made her blush. Something was seriously wrong with her. If he noticed, he had the grace to not comment on it. “What powers?” She asked him, forcing herself back to the subject at hand. “I don’t have any. I can’t even bring my groceries upstairs to my apartment without being out of breath.”

He smiled, amused. “All thinking creatures have power. In some universes, they just don’t manifest. But they do in this one, and you are free to wield it until you return home. I will show you how.”

Suddenly, his head snapped to the side as if he heard something far away that she couldn’t pick up on. When his gaze returned to her, it was more steel than sunlight. “I will always be with you. You do not need to be afraid, especially not of your allies. Wake now, child. Someone else beckons your attention.”

Tav opened her eyes and shrieked. Or, she tried to, at least, but Asterix was much faster than she was and covered her mouth with his hand before a sound came out. His pale face was floating right in front of hers as he crouched beside her.

“Would you shut up?” He hissed at her as if she was the one being weird. “You’ll wake everyone up!”

Tav sunk her teeth into his palm as hard as she could, and Asterix pulled his hand away with a hiss, not unlike that of a cat.

“You wretch!” He said, looking at the bite where his blood started to pool into the small, tooth-shaped indents.

“‘Wretch’? You’re the one staring at me in my sleep!” She wasn’t sure why she was whispering. The smartest thing would probably have been to scream a little more to wake everyone up, just in case he tried something funny.

“I was trying to wake you up! Hells forbid I do a nice thing, for once.” He muttered, sitting back and crossing his legs while inspecting his new wound. “You’re not rabid, are you?”

She ignored the last part. “In what world is waking someone up in the dead of night a nice thing?”

He met her gaze, some conflict unknown to her raging behind his eyes. “You’re the only person who knows what I am. You saw into my head. You know how it feels to…” he threw his hands in the air, seemingly at a loss for words. Then, something in his face shifted. A shadow fell over his features. He changed tactics.

“Look, you insolent little thing. I’m still stronger and faster than you. You can’t outrun me or fight me off, and you know far too much.”

She tried her best to keep her face in neutral folds. “I wasn’t going to tell anyone.” Which was true, since she had no idea what she would be telling them. Perhaps that he was annoying, but she had a feeling they knew that all too well.

“Now, darling, do you expect me to believe that?” He said, rolling his head around as if this whole situation bored the sh*t out of him. “It would be much, much easier to kill you. The others may not like or trust me, but they trust you less.”

Her guardian had told her not to fear her allies, but that was before Asterix threatened her life. Still, as her anxiety rose, so did the hum in her brain, cancelling it out. The pale man’s threat didn’t seem to concern her guardian very much. When she kept silent, Asterix continued. “I have a proposition for you. Call it… a transaction between friends, if you will.”

She scrunched her nose. “What kind of proposition?”

The shadow on his face had retracted back into whatever dark corner of his brain it had come from, and instead, a charming, flirty smile graced his lips. “You help me and keep your mouth shut, and I let you live.”

A fair deal, as far as deals at the end of a death threat went. “You woke me up in the middle of the night to threaten me into helping you?” She asked, annoyance bleeding through her tone.

“Well… yes,” he said, looking proud of himself.

Tav sighed. “Whatever. Sure, I’ll help you, Asterix.”

“Astarion, if it’s all the same to you,” he said and then stopped himself a small second before clapping his hands together. Around them, the others slept soundly. “This is excellent! May I?”

Tav nodded, still confused (in fact, she had trouble recalling the last time she wasn’t confused), and when Astarion reached for her arm, she didn’t resist. He gently lifted her wrist to his mouth, and then, to her absolute horror, he sank his teeth into her skin.

Chapter 4: Teeth

Chapter Text

Being bitten by a grown man was unfortunately one of the least weird things that had happened to Tav in the last couple of days, but that didn’t dissuade her horror or her confusion. She ripped her arm from Astarion’s grasp and gasped in pain as his unnaturally sharp canines tore across her skin, leaving bloody trails in their wake.

The penny dropped so hard it should have given her a concussion.

Red eyes. Pointy teeth. The whitest skin she’d ever seen. Fast as sh*t. The boar. The f*cking boar. Tav was an idiot.

“You’re…” she gaped at him. “You’re a vampire? ”

He looked at her as if she was utterly insane. “What in the sweet hells did you think this was?”

“I– well, not that!” They both froze when Gale stirred in his sleep, mumbling something to himself. They were being much too loud. Astarion nodded in the direction of the dark woods behind the camp, and Tav, like the idiot she was, followed him in between the trees. When they were out of their sleeping companions’ hearing range, Astarion finally turned to her. Now that she knew, it was so obvious she could have slapped herself. He was so pale he almost reflected the moonlight flitting through the leaves above them, and, if she squinted, there were actual fang marks on his neck. How the others hadn’t realised was beyond her.

“How did you not know? You saw me drinking from the carrion!”

“I don’t even know what carrion is!”

“The pig!”

Tav ran her hands through her hair to stop herself from shouting at him. “I didn’t even know vampires were real! Of course I’m not going to assume you’re drinking the boar!”

“What did you think I was doing?”

“I don’t know, Astarion! Something weird! I thought you were crazy!” A high-pitched, almost manic cackle escaped him as if this was the funniest thing he had ever heard. Tav didn’t give him a chance to speak before she continued. “Does that mean werewolves are real too? And ghosts? And witches and zombies?”

Once again, he stared at her like she was stupid. “Darling, honestly, have you never left your house?”

Her jaw almost unhinged itself from how much she gaped. A gentle hum emerged in the back of her skull, silencing her growing anxiety. It felt almost like a warm, comforting hand on her shoulder. She wasn’t going to freak out. She wasn’t. “I’m not from around here,” was all she could think of responding.

He co*cked a blonde eyebrow at her, clearly waiting for her to continue. When she didn’t, he urged her on, impatient. “Well, go on! Now is no time to be coy.”

Tav hesitated. Could she trust him enough to tell him the truth? Would he even believe her?

Be cautious

Her guardian’s voice startled her as it echoed through her skull, uninvited. Could he hear her thoughts?

I can hear everyone’s thoughts

Sweet Jesus, another thing she had to process. Pushing the task aside for now, she looked back at Astarion as he sat on the ground in front of her. “I have a proposition for you,” she said, mirroring his own words from earlier.

He smirked at her. “Go on.”

“I keep your secret, and I let you drink my blood. You keep my secret, and you watch my back.” She stared into his eyes, refusing to look away. He was indeed both faster and stronger than her, but if she could turn that to her advantage, she was one step further away from immediately dying. Astarion seemed to consider her words for a moment, regarding her. Sizing her up, just like he had that same morning. Perhaps her having secrets of her own had made him reconsider whatever he had decided about her from across the campsite. Hopefully in her favour.

After a moment that seemed to last forever, Astarion finally tutted and presented his hand for shaking. “Alright, we have a deal. But this secret of yours better be worth your life.”

Tav took his hand and shook it, squeezing harder than she needed to. “If it isn’t, I’m sure my blood will be.”

When her guardian spoke again, his tone was laced with amusem*nt.

Impressive

Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. Someone should spay her. Astarion let go of her hand, staring at her expectantly. She wasn’t sure where to even begin.

She had done her best. She saw no reason to open the can of worms containing electricity, politics, modern medicine, and so on, and so she tried to explain her world to him in broader strokes. In truth, she found it was a bleak world to describe. A dying planet full of animals on the brink of extinction; a constant fight between religions with no tangible, concrete proof of any gods; no magic and no magical creatures; humans as the only intelligent beings; vampires, witches, wizards and so on being nothing but myths and folklore. Astarion listened with furrowed brows, forehead creasing.

When she felt she had told him enough, she finally gave him the leverage she would have to trust he’d keep from the others. “I don’t know anything. Half the creatures you people casually talk about, I’ve never seen. Some of them I haven’t even heard of. And I have no skills. If someone jumps out swinging at me, I’m a goner.”

At this, Astarion rolled his eyes. “So you’re asking me to babysit you.”

Tav thought about it for a moment. “Yes. I am. And I will feed you in return.” She sincerely hoped his bloodthirst was bad enough for him to keep his promise. If he needed more motivation… “If you betray me, I’ll tell the others what you are, and I’ll tell them you forced your fangs on me.”

The vampire’s eyes flashed dangerously, a wicked smirk spreading across his pretty mouth. “Oh, I like you, darling. You’ve got fire.”

She fought the smile that attempted to creep onto her face. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Without waiting for her reply, Astarion reached for her arm. “Now, may I? I’m positively starving.”

She gave him her wounded wrist, the scrapes from his fangs still bleeding. His tongue was strangely warm when he gently cleaned the blood off her skin, and to her terrible shame, Tav felt her nipples harden and her heart speed up. It had been a very long time since anyone had touched her, especially with their tongue. Pushing her filthy thoughts aside, she braced herself against the pain as Astarion finally closed his lips around the two puncture marks leading into her veins.

He didn’t have to bite her again, and so it was nearly painless when he started drinking. It seemed as if he attempted to be gentle, at first, but it didn’t last very long. Before she knew it, he was pulling her closer for better access, and with a yelp, she almost fell into his lap. She had never touched him before. The new contact made her head rush with adrenaline, for reasons she couldn't quite explain. This close, he smelled of bergamot and rosemary and something woody and strong. It was intoxicating.He was intoxicating.

A groan rumbled somewhere deep in the vampire’s chest, the sound leaving shivers up her spine. She was starting to feel slightly lightheaded. Her fingertips were tingling.

Enough

“Astarion,” she said, surprised that her voice was barely a whisper. Astarion didn’t react at all but continued drinking from her with ever-building vigour.

“Astarion.” Nothing. “Ast–”

Her voice failed her as she smacked her face into his collarbone, losing her balance. Her body had gone limp, the world swimming before her eyes.

“sh*t,” she heard him mumble. She hadn’t even realised he had stopped drinking. “There there, darling. It’ll pass,” he soothed. He made no effort to push her off of him, but instead moved her head a bit so it was resting on his shoulder instead. Somewhere in the mud of her mind, Tav noted that he was being strangely kind to her. She would have to keep her head cold around him.

The world darkened as her heavy eyelids slid shut. She would feel better if she just slept a little, surely.

“This is a gift, you know,” Astaroin said softly as he cradled her shoulders with his arm, preventing her from falling as she drifted off to sleep. “I won’t forget it.”

Chapter 5: Pomegranate

Chapter Text

Tav awoke from a dreamless sleep to discover that she would rather not have woken at all. Her body was hot and shaky with fever, and nausea coiled around her intestines like a snake strangling its prey. She felt f*cking awful. She wanted to roll up in her sleeping bag and shut out the world, but its fabric was soaked through with her sweat and clung claustrophobically to her. She fought her way out of it and cringed as the cool morning air needled her skin.

What the f*ck?

Maybe she was having some sort of magical flu. Maybe she was dying from a plague. Had she been vaccinated for plagues? She wasn’t sure. Even if she had, it might not work here. For all she knew, the bacteria here were sentient and had magical powers.

“Good morning!” A cheery voice exclaimed behind her, making her jump. Jesus, who was Gale, stood a few feet away with his hands on his hips, blocking out the pale morning sun. The previous night came rushing back to her with a new wave of nausea. The vampire was at fault for this, surely. Granted, she had never seen any movies or shows where being bitten by a vampire resulted in you getting the flu, but-

Her thoughts entirely ceased for a second.

Oh no.

She was turning into a vampire.

“Are you alright? I mean no offence by this, but you look unwell.” She had forgotten to greet him back. For a moment, she considered telling him, because wouldn’t that be the right thing to do? This was a little bit like the whole bitten-by-a-zombie situation, and the right answer to that dilemma was always to tell. Her and Astarion’s deal gave her pause, though. What would stop him from just killing her, or from standing by and watching something else do it?

She decided to bite her tongue. “I’m ill, I think. And, uhm… thank you for letting me stay here.”

He waved her gratitude out of the air like a cloud of smoke.“Pish posh! You’re more than welcome here. What good is a mindflayer tadpole in your brain if it does not bring people together?”

It was a joke, and Tav meant to smile, but another shiver thundered through her body and made her teeth clatter. Jesus f*cking Christ, this was bad. She had to speak to Astarion.

“By the weave, you’re twitching with fever. Perhaps it would be best if you remained in camp for now, yes?” Tav silently nodded and instantly regretted it as her brain felt like it slid back and forth in her skull. The other people emerged from their tents little by little, all seeming refreshed and ready for whatever they were doing that day. Astarion was nowhere to be seen. Tav still hadn’t quite understood what was going on or where they were off to, but she was afraid of opening her mouth to ask. Bile was high in her throat.

She had been zoning out and staring at the lake beside the camp, but the sound of angry voices pulled her back to the shore.

“We cannot let a stranger stay in our camp if she will not talk!” Lae’zel the yellow hissed, gesturing towards Tav as if she was an animal who didn’t understand her. Shadowheart (or whatever her actual name was) stood beside Lae’zel with her arms crossed, staring daggers at Gale and Abby Anderson.

“I agree,” she said, her tone cold. “She could be anyone. We don’t know what she’s capable of or whose side she’s on, and personally, I don’t think she’s ‘ill’. She’s obviously turning.”

Tav stared at the lot, slightly offended at being spoken about as if she was not there. “As much as I relish seeing the two of you agree about a matter, for once, what you’re saying is nonsense. We were all strangers just a few days ago.” Gale stated matter-of-factly. “And, besides, you cannot be certain of that, Shadowheart. We shall keep an eye on her, but that is all. Have I made myself clear?”

Karlach nodded in agreement and said, “Look at the poor thing!” Four heads turned to look at Tav; soaked with sweat, old makeup smeared on her face, her hair a matted nest of grease and hairspray, her body spasming and twitching awfully. She was definitely in no state to be a threat to anyone. At least not yet. “If she starts sprouting tentacles or going grey, it would take us less than a minute to take her out.”

Swallowing hard, Tav finally managed to find her voice. “Just ask me. I’ll tell you anything. Just don’t kick me out. Or kill me. I’m not going to turn.”

Her voice was much smaller than she liked.

“And how could you possibly know that?” Shadowheart snapped, poison in her voice.

A gorgeous knight came to me in my sleep and told me he would prevent me from turning, and also, he has been talking to me in my head ever since were hardly reassuring words, and for a moment, Tav stared back at them with her mouth slightly open.

Tell them

His voice startled her. He couldn’t be serious.

Trust me

Tav wrinkled her nose. “Someone is protecting me. He told me in a dream. I know it wasn’t just a dream because he still talks to me.”

She winced at her own words. She sounded insane. Much to her surprise, the group seemed to relax. “Ah,” Gale exclaimed, “so you have met our dream guardian, too.”

Lae’zel turned and left without another word, and after a beat, Shadowheart followed. Karlach clapped her hands together, which created the tiniest spark of fire. “That’s settled then! Let’s head out.”

Gale lingered by the fire for another moment, looking down at her with what she could only describe as kindness. “You should rest now, but tonight, we should talk. We all have our problems and our secrets here, but we have yet to learn your name.”

He bowed his head as a goodbye, and then he, too, left to get ready to head out to whatever it was they were doing. With everyone distracted by their preparations, Tav quickly and quietly left her spot beside the cold fireplace and ran swiftly to Astarion’s tent. That was her intention, at least. Her shivering muscles and swimming head had other plans, though, and thus she stumbled over her own feet and painfully smacked her knees into the dirt before she managed to scramble her way there.

Praying that he didn’t sleep naked, she ripped the door (if one could call it that) aside and crawled in, dragging dirt and dust with her as she went. She braced her nose for the stink of sleeping man, but all she smelled was the same bergamot as the night before. The scent awakened another memory in her, of fading away as he gently held her. That had surely been a hallucination.

“You little worm!” Astarion’s voice hissed at her from the corner, where the vampire sat perched on a pile of pillows. He looked horrible, his white skin coated in a layer of sweat that somehow looked much nicer and elegant on him than it did on her. His ruby eyes were bloodshot and hollowed.

“f*ck you!” She spat back at him, her seething temper overpowering her survival instinct. “I’m turning into a vampire!”

He looked utterly baffled for a moment before his mask of ice slid back over his features. Instead of answering her, he pulled a dagger from somewhere in the pile of pillows and pointed it at her. “If you have come to finish the job, darling, I would love to see you try.”

Tav let herself fall back until she was sitting as her legs started shaking underneath her. She didn’t want to faint in front of him. “What the f*ck do you mean ‘finish the job’?” she hissed, though the fury in her voice was slightly snuffed by her sitting and her shivering.

“You poisoned me!”

She gaped at his accusation. “I poisoned you? I’m the one with your bat venom in my veins!”

“I’m a spawn, I don’t have any venom.”

“I don’t know what that means!”

He blinked at her, once again looking utterly baffled. “I can’t tell if you’re working against me, or if you’re just simple,” his tone was full of disdain. This man was insufferable.

“I already said I don’t know anything!” She retorted, crossing her arms. She felt dumber by the moment. “What was I supposed to think? You drink my blood until I pass out and then I wake up feeling horrible!”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not feeling fabulous either. There’s something wrong with your blood, I can smell it from here! You smell like some alchemist’s lab, and you taste of it too, and I should have known-”

His voice faded and became background static as Tav had a brain-numbing realisation. Oh my god, I really must be stupid. She smacked her palm to her forehead and groaned. She must have been so preoccupied with the whole dimension-kidnapping thing that she straight-up forgot.

“Jesus Christ, I’m a f*cking idiot,” she mumbled, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Well, yes, that much is obvious,” Astarion responded, and it took all of her remaining willpower to not hurl something at him. But then again, she had poisoned him. She just hadn’t meant to.

“I took medicine every day, back home. My blood was full of it, and now I’m having withdrawals way sooner than I should because you drank almost all of my blood, and you…” she gestured towards his sweating body and dark circles. “I guess you’re having the same side effects I had back when I started taking it. I didn’t mean to poison you.”

He huffed at her, and then quieted for a moment, giving her that searching, regarding look once again. “If it wasn’t because you smell a lot less like you belong in a potion bottle now than you did yesterday, I wouldn’t have believed you. I’m tempted to kill you anyway, mind you.”

Tav gently pressed her fingers into her temples. Astarion would feel better as soon as her blood was out of his system, probably, however long that would take. But she? She would likely be ill for days, which was honestly just so amazing. It’s not like she was very likely to die even if she had been at peak health and in great shape, or anything. “I guess you’ll feel better when-”

“I know how it works!” He snarled at her, and she once again felt fury rise in her stomach. She really shouldn’t have made the proposition she did. Being around him for even the shortest moments was bad for her temper. “Now get out of my sight. You stink, and I don’t want the others to think for a moment that you have any business inside my tent.”

Everyone left except Shadowheart, who had muttered something about someone named Selena. Whoever that was, she didn’t seem keen on going to her house. They needed someone to keep an eye on Tav anyway, she supposed, though they didn’t say as much.

With her camp buddy looking as sullen as always, Tav decided to go to the lake. Figuring that she had no parts that Shadowheart hadn’t seen before, in case she suddenly felt like looking up from whatever she was fiddling with, Tav stripped off her clothes and tried not to think about poisonous frogs and magical leeches. One blood-sucking idiot on her mind was plenty, thank you very much.

The water was cold, but against her feverish body, it was really quite pleasant. She waded out until it reached her waist before she let herself disappear under the surface. The silence down under was welcome until it wasn’t. Silence meant that there were no distractions from her thoughts, and thoughts meant thinking, and thinking meant feeling, and Tav would do anything to not feel. Golden brown eyes flashed through her mind, and she accidentally swallowed a mouthful (lungful, really) of disgusting lake water. At least the coughing kept her occupied.

When she turned, Shadowheart was watching her from the shore, a hand on her hip and another around a tiny bottle. When Tav rose to her feet, Shadowheart didn’t bat an eye. A challenge, then. Tav never backed down from a challenge.

Her shaky legs struggled against the water as she moved towards land. She could always attempt a more proper washing after finding out what the goth wanted. To her credit, Shadowheart’s eyes only briefly fell on her body when she finally stood in front of her and then remained locked on her face. “Enjoying the show?”

Shadowheart huffed. “Cute. I made this for you. It should make you feel a bit better, but it won’t taste like wine.”

She offered the tiny bottle to her. It flowed with a red liquid as thick as syrup.

“What is it?”

“A lethal poison,” she said, but she could hear the smile in her voice. “I’m a cleric. It’s a healing potion. I would have made you a stronger one, but I don’t have the herbs.”

Tav had no idea what a cleric was, but she assumed it was some type of healer. Regardless, what was the worst that could happen? She put the little flask to her lips and threw her head back, opening her throat the way tequila had taught her, trying her best not to taste it. Granted, it flowed a lot slower. When she handed the empty flask back, she made an effort not to pull a face. She had tasted worse, certainly. Shadowheart looked at her with a raised brow. “Impressive.”

“Thanks.” She turned and walked back into the water. She had never bathed like this before, but she figured rubbing the dirt and sweat off her skin was a good start.

“Wait,” Shadowheart said behind her, making her turn. “Catch!”

Tav didn’t catch sh*t. Something round and white plopped into the water right next to her, and when she dove in after it, she could have sworn she heard Shadowheart call her an idiot.

It was a bar of soap. She suddenly liked Shadowheart best.

Whatever the potion had been made of, it worked wonders. Tav still didn’t feel good, but she no longer felt like she was inches away from very physically and very literally falling apart. Every time her thoughts strayed too far, the hum that was quickly becoming familiar would sedate her a little, and it was soothing. It was better than any drug she had ever tried. When the evening came creeping, she had stopped shivering entirely. She would have to bake Shadowheart a cake, were she ever to see an oven again.

She sat around the campfire with the others, stirring her untouched soup with a wooden spoon. The others told Shadowheart about their findings, but Tav couldn’t bring herself to listen. She closed her eyes and dabbled into her thoughts of home until she felt a surge of anxiety followed by the sweet relief of the numbing hum. This dream guardian guy had good stuff up his sleeve.

“So!” Gale clapped his hands together after setting his bowl aside. “You look much improved, my friend. Would you mind telling us… well, anything, I suppose?”

Tav snapped out of her head. They were all looking at her. “Uhm, yes, I do. Thank you, Shadowheart. I, uh-” Had she always sounded this dumb? “What would you like to know?”

“A name would be nice. We can’t keep referring to you as the half-wit,” Astarion spoke for the first time since their return.

Karlach groaned. “No one does that. Just Lae’zel.” Lae’zel said nothing.

Tav couldn’t stop her hands from fidgeting. Of all people with tadpoles in their brains, did she have to get stuck with some of the rudest ones she had ever met? Not that she had the right to complain. She would be dead without them, probably. Instead of anger or hurt, Tav felt only the comfortable buzz of her protector.

“My name is Tav. I don’t remember anything from the spaceship, I uh… I was quite drunk when I was taken. The last thing I remember is leaving the party I was at, and then I woke up in the woods.” Astarion yawned loudly. Tav had begun to hate his stupid, ratty face.

“So, what’s your thing?” Wyll asked after the cheerful chatter about the unfortunate situation of being kidnapped while drunk had died down.

“My thing?”

“Yes!” Gale continued, dipping his small loaf of bread into his soup. “I’m a wizard, of course, as you know, Lae’zel is quite the warrior, Wyll’s a warlock, Shadowheart’s a cleric, Karlach hits very hard, and Astarion…” He trailed off, looking at Mr. Ratface across the fire. “Well, Astarion’s good at sneaking around and stealing things.”

“Excuse me!” Astarion said, clutching pearls he didn’t have. “I’m brilliant with a dagger!”

“I’m sure you're downright bloodthirsty, Astarion,” Tav said, smiling at him through the flames. She thanked this universe for not granting him the power to shoot lasers out of his eyes, because otherwise she would surely be dead. Unfortunately, it seemed she had forgotten who she was dealing with.

“So? What is your thing, darling?”

He knew damn well she had nothing.

Wild magic sorcerer

What?

Tell them you are a wild magic sorcerer. They won’t ask you to demonstrate

She hesitated still. If they wanted to ask her further questions, she would have no answers to give. But her guardian had proven himself to be trustworthy and earnestly protective of her on several occasions now. She really had no other choice than to trust him.

“I’m a wild magic sorceress,” she said, and the immediate reaction exclaimed by everyone present (except Astarion, who merely rolled his eyes) told her that her guardian had been telling the truth.

“Ah!” Gale exclaimed, patting her shoulder in a friendly manner. “The weave is quite hard to master. I understand why you struggle.”

Tav had no idea what he was on about (did she ever?), but she assumed that weave did not mean hair in this context. She nodded solemnly. “It really isn’t, I’ve given up trying. I keep getting into rather nasty accidents.”

Astarion laughed mockingly but otherwise bit his tongue.

“Then it’s probably best that you don’t go around casting spells, soldier. You should stay in our camp when we go places that could be dangerous, even though it would be more fun for you to tag along,” Karlach said, smiling warmly at her.

Okay, so they weren’t so bad. Except Lae’zal and Astarion, the latter whom she wouldn’t miss if he didn’t come back from their daily adventures. They asked her questions about herself and where she came from. She tried to answer as truthfully as she could, but the entire conversation still made her palms sweat. Eventually, when the party began to break up for the night, she felt a light tap on her shoulder.

“Could I steal a moment of your time?” Gale asked. “It is most urgent.”

She nodded, her heart thumping in her chest. A million thoughts ran through her mind. Did he know? Had he seen through her lie?

The others had entered their tents, and so they were alone. He looked at her with an expression so solemn that she became very certain he was about to tell her that aliens weren’t welcome here. “Is there something I can do differently to make my cooking more pleasing to you?”

Tav stared, unable to process his words. It was no wonder Lae’zel and Astarion both thought she was stupid, with all the staring and gaping and zoning out she was doing. "What?”

He shifted on his feet. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve cooked for anyone but myself and my tressym, so I understand that the meals I make might not fall to everyone’s… tastes. And you, my friend, do not seem to like my food.”

Shoot.

“Oh, Gale…” she said, scrambling around for good excuses to give him and coming up awfully short.

“In fact,” he continued, sticking a finger in the air, “I don’t think I have seen you eat anything at all since you came here.”

f*ck.

She had no idea how to even begin to explain. “It’s not your food, Gale, but you’re a sweetheart for asking. Thank you.” She said, hoping it would be enough to sate him and lay the matter to rest. It wasn’t, of course.

“I truly do not mean to invade your privacy, but it seems most unnatural to me that you have gone two days now without eating. How can I be of help?”

Oh, he really was as kind as he looked. Was he getting more handsome by the hour, or was he just being nice to her? “It’s…” she bit her lip and turned from him, looking towards the lake. The moon they had here looked like her own at home, just much bigger. Much closer. Its reflection on the water calmed her a little. “It’s stupid, really. Don’t worry about it.”

“I would not cross your boundaries by trying to interfere, but you cannot stop me from worrying.” His puppy eyes were so big and so brown.

Tav sighed and relented. “Where I’m from, there are these… stories about gods from ancient times. One of them is about a girl who gets stolen away to… the realm of the dead, I guess. And she can leave at any time, but she doesn’t know, and then she accidentally dooms herself by eating a pomegranate.”

“A pomegranate?”

“It’s a fruit. The point is that by eating food from the realm, she trapped herself there. I guess… I guess I’m still hoping I’ll wake up at home. It’s stupid and it’s just an old story, but this has all been… a lot.” She surprised herself with how much she spoke. That was probably more words than she had said in a row since she got here.

Gale had been listening attentively, nodding, encouraging, studying her face as she explained. “Very well,” he finally said. “I understand your predicament, but this is no realm of the dead, far from your home as it may be. Once again; it is not my place to interfere, but I do insist you eat.”

She didn’t know how to respond, so she simply thanked him again.

“Don’t thank me!” He said. “I am but the humble camp cook.” When he started walking towards his tent, he looked at her over his shoulder. "Thank you, for being honest with me. Goodnight, Tav.”

She smiled at him. It was probably the first real smile to grace her lips since two days ago. “Goodnight, Gale.”

Chapter 6: Idiocy

Chapter Text

Tav’s withdrawal symptoms were almost entirely gone in a matter of days. The others kept insisting that she stayed in camp during the day when they were out adventuring, and when they returned one evening looking like they’d fought against an army (something about gnolls, whatever that was), she was even more glad of it than she had been already. The “powers” her guardian had claimed she could wield had yet to show themselves, and so she wouldn’t survive a moment of the things her new buddies faced without eating sh*t instantly. It was almost funny, how at their mercy she was.

Gale was the one she got along with best, followed very closely by Karlach. Lae’zel had yet to grant her a sliver of acknowledgement, which she didn’t resent in the slightest. Even with the others, whom she presumably tolerated, Lae’zel spoke with a tone that probably would have made Tav cry. Wyll and Shadowheart were both pleasant to be around, though their company consisted mostly of silence. It was a comfortable silence, though, so there were no hard feelings there.

But Astarion.

Tav couldn’t recall the last time she had met a person so insufferable, so annoying, and so bitchy. Every word out of his mouth, every co*ck of his eyebrow, every smug smirk on his lips pushed her towards violence. She couldn’t stand the man. And yet, when he came to her a few nights after she accidentally poisoned him, she found that she couldn’t turn him down when he asked for more of her blood.

“How do I smell?” She’d asked, to which he had responded with an insult.

“But,” he’d continued, “not like poison anymore. May I?” Despite the whole assured-mutual-self-destruction thing that basically forced her to feed him, she appreciated him asking. For a second, she wondered whether him holding her as she passed out could have been real, but there was too much evidence against it. His asking for her consent before drinking her f*cking blood didn’t cancel out that he was a c*nt. And so it had happened that he once again had bitten into her wrist and had his fill (thankfully much less than the first time), and Tav had thought intensely of dogsh*t and roadkill while he did it. Her being touch-starved enough to enjoy someone eating her blood was simply too f*cking embarrassing for her to admit to herself.

These events were what eventually led her to wander through a forest while feeling slightly woozy, trying to absorb the sunshine flitting through the trees like a plant. Shadowheart walked a few paces behind her, collecting herbs she could use for her healing potions and whatever else she had cooking inside her tent. Tav had helped her sort through her collection of dried plants and flowers, which was quite busy work for hands as idle as hers, but to her surprise, she actually enjoyed it. It made her feel a little less like a useless squatter.

This morning, Shadowheart had asked her if she would like to come with her to collect herbs. The others had been caught up in a sidetrack and were on a rescue mission for some pregnant lady, so their infiltration of an enemy camp had been slightly delayed. They were to rescue a leader of some other camp nearby, as he was apparently a tadpole expert and could (hopefully) help them get rid of theirs. Tav was in no position to infiltrate anything, so she stayed at camp. She hadn’t left camp at all since she got here, actually, but she didn’t mind. She had always been a homebody. Still, it was quite nice to stroll through the forest. A creek bubbled its merry way through the landscape, the birds sang, and the place looked almost normal. Almost home. Tav walked slowly, relishing the scents and the comfort the familiar surroundings gave her. The ground beneath her feet was soft with moss, silencing her steps as well as Shadowheart’s. Perhaps that’s why Tav hadn’t noticed that she wasn’t behind her anymore.

Turning on the spot and furrowing her brows, she realised that she actually had no idea how far she had walked. Afraid to call out, she crossed her arms across her stomach like a scared child. This was not good. She definitely should be feeling more scared than she was, but her brain hummed, smoothing any fear. The constant numbing of her feelings had started to feel like she was a stone in the creek, soft and smooth, weathered by the stream.

The buzzing was surely the reason why she didn’t startle when a deep voice suddenly cut through the peaceful ambience of the forest.

“They got their fill.”

The anger in his voice was undeniable, even to someone as unobservant as Tav, and it piqued her interest instead of worrying her. Somewhere, very deep inside of her, a tiny voice kept repeating bad bad bad run run run over and over, but the buzz tuned it out. What good had gut feelings ever done her, anyway?

Tav walked towards the voice and emerged from behind a tree to see three people who looked… like humans. Just humans. Two of them stood with their arms crossed in front of them, and a third was crouched over…

“Jesus Christ!”

The words left her mouth before she could stop them. Three heads immediately snapped in her direction, but she scarcely noticed. There were dead people on the ground. There was blood everywhere. Her brain hummed with such intensity that her teeth momentarily chattered, and she bit her tongue. There was blood in her mouth. This was all too f*cking much.

Before she could blink, the crouching man had his face inches from hers. He wasn’t very tall, but still he managed to make her feel like he was towering over her.

“What are you looking at?”

His voice was deep and raspy, and he sounded like some sort of Northern brit. Golden eyes popped into her mind for the smallest moment before she managed to block them out.

“Are you guys human?” The words that fell out of her mouth surprised her. She hadn’t even made up her mind about what to say to get him to back off, but shehad other priorities.

“What’s it to you?” He spat back, seeming entirely unphased by the question.

To her enormous horror, Tav felt the corners of her eyes prickle with tears the exact moment her palms became sweaty. It seemed that if she could not react in her head, her body would do it for her. “I-” her voice broke, and a tear fell. She hurled several insults at herself in her head. She was going to die crying at the hands of some guy after surviving alien kidnappings and vampire bites and withdrawals. How f*cking typical. “I just don’t even know when I last talked to someone who was just a human. Everyone here has fangs or horns or superpowers-” She shut her eyes in an attempt to stop the flow of tears. “I’ve never seen a dead body before and there’s so much blood here and I’mjustreallytiredi’msorrypleasedon’thurtme.”

To her surprise, he looked at her for another second, and then stepped back while pinching the bridge of his nose. “You and me both,” he grumbled with a sigh. She watched as the tension left his shoulders. “Pardon. Been a day.”

Tav’s body flooded with relief. She had to be much less stupid in the future. This time, it seemed she had gotten lucky.

“Do you know who they are?” She asked, gesturing to the corpses on the ground without looking away from his face. Her voice was ridiculously small and brittle.

“They’re my men. We’re adventurers for hire. They were a good crew, too. Good friends.” His eyes were dark and brown and full of grief.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry won’t bring them back. I shoulda known this job was a crock of sh*te.”

“Liam isn’t here,” another voice broke in, belonging to a woman who had been ignoring them up until now.

“He didn’t make it this far. You saw them drag him away.”

Unease made Tav’s hair stand on end. “Who did this?” She asked, praying they would say any other word besides goblins. She knew her allies were powerful in their own ways, but she had never seen them fight, and from the looks of the mangled people on the ground, the goblins were rather vicious. And, of course, the enemy camp they were going to infiltrate was full of goblins. Brimming, even. If they died, she died. And, also, she would miss them a little bit. Except for Astarion. He could die all he wanted.

“A horde of bloody goblins,” the man growled, having the audacity to confirm her fears. sh*t. This was just getting better and better.

“Did you say they took your friend?” She asked, trying to mask her growing panic. She might not feel it in her head, but she could feel it in her body and hear it in her voice.

“Yeah. For his sake, I hope they cut him down quick,” the third guy chimed in. It was his voice she’d heard through the woods, she realised.

“My… crew, I guess, are infiltrating the goblin camp to look for someone. I can ask them to keep an eye out for your friend, if you want?”

The man looked at her silently for a moment. “What’s your name?”

“Tav.”

“Aradin. This is Remira and Barth. If your lads can get Liam outta there, you’ll be the first friend we’ve met since the Gate.”

After exchanging quick farewells, Aradin and his friends headed back to the camp which turned out to be the same one the tadpole expert was the leader of. They had planned to go home, but Tav had convinced them to stay for just a few days to give the others a fighting chance to rescue Liam. If he was still alive, of course.

Dusk had begun to redden the sky once again, and Tav was getting a little bit concerned. She had walked back in the direction she came from, or so she thought, but nothing here looked familiar. Shadowheart was still nowhere to be seen, and it was getting cold.

Idiot idiot idiot idiot you stupid f*cking idiot

A branch snapped behind her, and she turned so fast she lost her balance and toppled over. There was no one to be seen, but she could have sworn-

Another branch. sh*t. Someone, or something was definitely here, and she was lost in the f*cking woods with no way to defend herself. Once again, she found herself thinking that if she died here, she would deserve it.

One moment there was no one, and in the next, she was surrounded. Crawling out of the evening shadows from behind trees and bushes and rocks, creatures she had never seen before but could mistake for nothing else emerged. Goblins.

“This the one talking to them looters?” One of them said in a horribly scratchy voice.

“I seen it with me own eyes!” Another answered.

Panic started bleeding through her guardian’s buzzing. She was very, very, royally f*cked.

She didn’t even dare to fight back when they tied her up. Perhaps she could convince them that she was mute, or that she couldn’t speak their language. Her entire skull felt like it was vibrating. With the edge of some sort of rusty-looking blade pressed against her lower back, Tav was forced to walk towards what would most definitely be a very unpleasant death.

The goblin camp was something straight out of a nightmare. Torches burned on every wall of the old ruins they had invaded, and the place reeked of piss and beer. Everyone was yelling, some guy stood on what looked to be a makeshift stage and sang words Tav didn’t understand, and someone else was running after an animal that looked like a mixture of an owl and a baby bear. Tav felt numb all over when they approached the large doors leading into the ruin, which was guarded by the largest and scariest creature she had ever seen. The club it (he?) was wielding was as long as Tav was tall.

f*ckf*ckf*ckf*ckf*ck

The inside reeked even worse, the pungent stench of burnt flesh making her gag. One of the goblins holding onto the rope that tied her hands together spoke to what looked like a goblin soldier. “Put ‘er in the pits. Spike’ll make ‘er sing when the other birdie dies.”

The pits. That sounded like a true delight. Tav just couldn’t wait to go. She should be scared. She should be very, very scared.

You’ll be fine

Easy for him to say, he sat with his feet up in space while she was being pulled around by her wrists like someone on their way to a guillotine.

“The pits” turned out to be some kind of prison in what looked (and smelled) like a basem*nt. The only light in here came from the torches on the walls, making the whole place look even more like the set of a horror film than it did already. She half expected to see Count Dracula hanging down from the ceiling or something.

“Stuff ‘er in with the bear!” Some terrible little thing that was probably a baby goblin said. Tav could no longer hear anything. A swarm of vigorous bees had taken the place of her brain, and, compliant and quiet as ever, she let herself be pushed into a cell with the biggest f*cking animal she had ever seen in her life.

The bear was enormous. It growled at her, or at the goblins, or both, and the rusted gate slammed shut behind her. Mocking words were thrown her way, but she couldn’t hear them. All she could do was clench her jaw against the buzz of her skull and stare at the bear, who stared back at her as it undoubtedly considered the best way to eat her. Tav could have kicked herself. She was a f*cking idiot. Walking around the forest without paying any mind to her surroundings had been her first mistake, and then continuing to f*cking do it had been her second. She had been stupid and careless twice today, and now she was going to be eaten by a bear because of it.

Chapter 7: The songbirds and the bear

Chapter Text

Tav didn’t remember ever having felt this sort of fear before. She had always been on the flight side of the fight or flight spectrum, but right now, her entire body was on lockdown. If the bear decided to eat her right now, she would do nothing. Even her guardian, though she felt him try, couldn’t calm her down.

Her body was completely paralysed. She felt nothing, and she didn’t move from her spot in front of the gate. She had seen a polar bear in a zoo, once, and felt faint with the size of her. The bear whose cell she had been thrown into was much, much larger. And it was brown. Brown bears were not supposed to be this big.

But the giant didn’t seem particularly hungry. She nearly choked on her own breath when it took a step closer to give her a sniff, but then it turned away from her and went to sit against the wall. Tav couldn’t decide if it was a mercy or not. Was it better to live a few moments longer, in fear, or was it better to get eaten straight away and get it over with? She forced her eyes shut. Her lungs refused to expand all the way. If the bear didn’t get her first, a heart attack surely would. She had to calm herself. She had to think.

Under her breath, she started humming a tune. She wasn’t sure which tune it was, as her thoughts were entirely incoherent, but it eventually shaped up to be something akin to mirrorball by Taylor Swift. She wasn’t a huge fan of her work, usually, but the folklore album was unmatched. Her eyes stayed tightly shut as she hummed. She tried to convince herself she wasn’t where she was. She was somewhere else, somewhere safe, in a place where humming Taylor Swift was not at all unusual.

The bear was silent. She hadn’t heard it move or growl at all. The goblins guarding the cell were too far away to hear her shaky melody. The others were going to infiltrate this camp today. Or tomorrow. She just had to last long enough for them to find her.

It had, of course, been silly of her to think she could stay in her cell in peace (relatively, as the bear seemed wholly uninterested in her, but was a bear after all) until she was rescued by her companions. She didn’t know how much time had passed, but it was enough for her knees to shake and for her voice to have gone raspy. She still hadn’t moved an inch since they locked the door behind her, and now they were unlocking it again.

“Die already, did he?” One of the guards stationed outside the cell barked.

“Boss lady says to give ‘im a break or he’ll be dead before he sings,” a newly arrived goblin responded as he looked up at Tav. “This the new birdie? She don’t look like no thief,”

“Scout said he saw ‘er talking to the looters who got away. Put ‘er on the rack and see what she knows.”

All Tav could do was meekly follow, hoping that whatever the rack was, it was outside. The air in here was downright foul. But, of course, she was sh*t out of luck. The rack turned out to be even closer to the burnt flesh smell, and when they rounded a corner, she saw a literal rack that looked like something out of a BDSM-basem*nt-

Oh f*ck. Oh no.

In the same second she realised what was about to happen, her instincts kickstarted and she fought with everything she had. She thrashed against her bindings, she screamed, she kicked and scratched and pushed. The goblins may have been small, but she was terribly outnumbered. Her screaming and fighting brought her nothing but a whack over the head with the end of the spear that sent her head reeling, and before she knew it, she was strapped up and entirely, completely defenceless.

She was panicking. Really, truly panicking. Those alleged powers of hers would do her very well if they decided to appear now. They didn’t, of course. She looked around frantically, seeking any means of escape. A cage stood in the corner of the room, and a young, blonde man stared at her from behind the bars. He was beaten and bloody and pale, but his eyes were full of pity for her. She had a feeling he knew what was about to happen to her, and wished she hadn’t seen him at all.

Not one of the goblin’s questions registered in her mind. The only thing she could focus on was the table next to the rack, where a display of awful-looking devices was spread out. The goblin didn’t reach for the table when she failed to answer his question, though. Instead, he pulled what looked like a fire poker out of what Tav had thought (and hoped) was only meant to be a light source. Its end glowed white with heat.

The buzzing was back to numb her mind, but it could not numb her body, and when the burning iron was pressed into her thigh, she didn’t recognise her own voice as a scream tore through her. The worst pain Tav had ever felt had been from breaking her leg when she was small. Nobody had ever hit her, she had never been in a fight or a car accident. She had never, ever in her life experienced pain like this.

Go somewhere else

She didn’t know what it meant. She didn’t know what anything meant. The burning steel was pressed into the same spot again, and she nearly retched from how much it hurt. Something odd was happening in her head. Not the buzz, and not the tadpole wiggling, but some other presence in her skull. It was pushing her out.

Go

She didn’t know how, or where, or how. The melted skin on her thigh burnt with such violence that she went blind with it, and she didn’t see the dagger before it was being dragged in a line from her ribs to her knee. She felt her skin part, her dress being ruined, her blood flooding outside instead of inside. She could feel her skin melt. She would have said anything, done anything, but she still didn’t know. She didn’t know what a grove or a druid was.

She hadn’t stolen anything.

She didn’t know anything about the Absolute.

She didn’t know

she didn’t know

she didn’t know please stop please it hurts too much make it stop make it stop

Tav is scribbling furious lines in her journal, her eyes red and swollen from crying. She swears to herself once again that the minute she turns eighteen this spring, she will never speak to her parents again. If she wasn’t so f*cking scared of the entire world and everything in it, she would pack a bag and run away right this very minute.

Her throat is sore from screaming into her pillows. It took every ounce of control she had to not wreck her room or hurt herself or stomp downstairs to scream some more at her parents, but she knew no good would ever come of it. They don’t listen to her, they never have.

She startles when someone knocks on her window. It takes a moment for her, frozen in place, to breathe again and to scramble towards the sound.

She whispers his name in outrage when she pries the window open. “What the f*ck?”

He is crouching on the roof, grinning at her, all dimples and mischief.

“Hello, princess. I’m breaking you out,” he sounds slightly out of breath. The psycho climbed up here.

“I’m not on house arrest!” Tav protests, but she can’t stop herself from smiling back at him. His very presence is making her feel better already.

“Maybe not, but they took your phone, didn’t they? Or are you ignoring my texts for fun?”

She sighs.

“Let me put on my shoes.”

“And a sweater!”

Five minutes later, her heart is beating out of her chest as she hangs from her own roof like an obscene Christmas decoration. Her fingers are made of stone. She can’t get herself to let go.

She feels his hands on her hips.

“I’m literally right here, idiot,” he whisper-shouts. “Just let go. I’ll catch you.”

Tav takes a deep breath before doing as he says. She knows she’s being irrational, but, like she said, she was scared of everything. But he catches her. He always catches her.

She takes her usual spot on the back of his bike, wrapping her arms around his waist when he rides into the night. He never asks what happened, or why she and her parents are fighting. She wants to talk to him about it, but she knows he won’t ask. Not unless she asks him to ask.

They stop at a gas station to purchase some snacks. Tav insists they get beer, but he won’t hear a word of it.

“If you try to buy any alcohol, I’m telling them you’re seventeen,” he threatens, an authoritative finger pointing at her face.

When they get to the hill that leads to their secret spot, Tav hops off and walks beside him instead. The climb is steep and unforgiving, and even though he’d never admit it, Tav knows it’s a struggle for him.

Their secret spot is a half-rotten and entirely forgotten bench that overlooks most of the town. The whole town is ugly and looks like something out of Hard Times, but from the bench, it doesn’t look so bad. Especially not in the dark, when all the little lights in the little houses are shining. It looks almost cosy.

“Ask me what happened,” she says quietly once they’re seated, watching the lights of all the lives being lived down below.

He does, and she tells him. Someone, somehow, found out about her and Leah and told her parents. Her strict, salt-of-the-earth, what’s-next-they-legalise-beasti*al*ty parents. She has a theory that one of her neighbours must have seen them kiss when Leah dropped her off, but otherwise, she’s totally clueless.

He listens attentively. He’s angry, she can tell, but he doesn’t say anything. He just listens. And when she’s done ranting, he puts his arm around her and plants a kiss on her hair, because he knows her better than anyone and knows that underneath her fire, she’s devastated.

“We’re getting out of this piece of sh*t town one day, you and I,” he soothes as she puts her head on his shoulder.

The chamber reappeared to her, and her body stung all over as if she’d been hugged by an enormous jellyfish. Prying open her heavy eyelids, she was met with the terrible sight of her own blood. It was everywhere. Running from her arms, her hands, her legs, her torso. How much blood could a person lose before dying?

Not yet

Tav laughs until her stomach hurts while watching him make a fool of himself on top of the dinner table. He raises his red solo cup in the air and bellows something she doesn’t hear, but the rest of the room cheers with him and erupts in laughter. He has the entire party watching him, as always, but he’s only looking at her. As always.

She saw flames.

A sparrow has made a little nest for herself in the sill of her window. She hadn’t noticed right at first and had freely used her favourite reading spot as always, but today, she had seen something move out of the corner of her eye. She rests her chin on her hands as she looks closely at the little bird. Her beady little eyes take her in, her little head turns this way and that, but she doesn’t flee. Tav carefully removes herself from the window and runs downstairs, slamming through all of the kitchen drawers and cabinets until she finds oats. She always had a soft heart for starving creatures.

The hungry little sweetheart eats the oats straight out of her hand. Perhaps Tav isn’t her first human friend. She doesn’t dare touch her, but she watches her through the window and feeds her every day. Tav swears she sees a warm soul in those bottomless, black eyes.

“Think we can get it to collect trinkets for us?” He asks when she introduces them to each other. She pinches the soft skin on his upper arm until he whines and laughs, but she doesn’t really mean it. She opens the window slowly, and they sit in silence, watching the little bird.

If Tav was still screaming, she couldn’t tell. She could barely walk, barely stand, but her tormentors didn’t seem to care. She was stumbling, blindly, her feet (where were her shoes?) slapping against the stone floor. She slipped more than once. She was aware enough to sense that she was slipping around in her own blood.

Uncaring hands shoved her forward, and what felt like yet another blade poked her in the back every time she dared slow down or trip over her own feet. She was going to be sick. She was going to be sick, and then she was going to die.

There was no way she would survive this. This realisation hit her with the force of a feather. She couldn’t tell if her skull was whirling and buzzing because of her guardian or because they had hit her too hard, but whatever it was, it kept her thoughts almost entirely quiet. Her heart was hammering out of her chest and she was still bleeding, but her mind was still.

They threw her back into the cell with the bear, and she landed on her hands and knees on the cold floor. She didn’t bother looking up. It was going to smell her blood and it was going to eat her. They had probably starved the poor thing. Tav would rather die at the teeth of a bear than at the bite of a blade, anyway. At least the bear would get something out of it.

She retched. Her stomach was empty, but her body didn’t seem to get the memo. Choking on dirt and foul air, her gagging became mixed with sobs. Her body hurt in so many places that she almost felt numb.

The bear growled, deeply and dangerously. Tav felt the need to say something to it, to go out with a witty line, but she came up blank. She felt it circle her. The growl was coming from behind her now. She let herself sink all the way onto the floor, hugging her knees to her chest as her sobs crashed through her like waves to a shore.

It didn’t matter if the others found her. There was no way they would make it in time. She would either be bled dry or eaten by the time they got here, if they got here at all.

The bear’s nose was warm against her skin when it nudged her. She couldn’t stop crying. It nudged her again.

“Didn’t your mom tell you not to play with your food?” She whispered, voice hoarse and weak. The bear (obviously) didn’t respond, but instead nudged her one more time before planting itself in front of the gate. It was a wall between her and the guards outside, and she appreciated the bear’s regard for her privacy. One thing was being killed and eaten, another was to be killed and eaten with an audience.

Astarion had implied that ghosts were real. She hoped he was wrong. She didn’t want to stay in this place a second longer than she had to. She kept waiting for teeth and claws that never came. Eventually, she was too drained to keep crying, but she still couldn’t get herself to move. She was so thirsty and so, so cold.

She held her breath when the bear started moving again. She had no idea if it had been minutes or hours. She was shivering. Her mouth tasted like acid and blood.

But the bear didn’t eat her. Not even a nibble. Instead, it used its enormous front paw to shove her mangled body against its furry flank as it lay down. It curled up around her as if she were its cub.

She smiled against the rough fur. The bear was very warm, and soon, she stopped shivering. She knew she was dead. This was one of those last-minute brain activity things where, instead of her life flashing before her eyes, she dreamed. She buried her fingers in the fur, all the way to its soft undercoat. At least this dream was a warm and sweet one. There were worse ways to die, she supposed.

Tav’s first thought when she woke up was what now? And not in the what’s-the-next-move type of way, but more so in the spirit of who-dareth-disturb-my-slumber. Maybe it was because she very genuinely had not expected to wake up, or maybe it was because she had forgotten where she was. Her bed at home didn’t usually shake and growl beneath her.

She sat up with a lurch, which immediately made her entire body hurt so bad her vision swam for a moment. She didn’t have time to readjust; the bear was growling, and she took that as the politest way a bear could possibly communicate to her that she needed to get the f*ck away from it.

But when she tried to move, the bear shifted and pressed closer to her. She was extremely confused. It took her an embarrassing amount of seconds to realise that the bear wasn’t growling at her, but at someone outside the cell. Whatever business they had in here, they seemed to change their mind and back far enough away for the bear to quiet. It turned its big head to look at her. If she didn’t know any better, she could have sworn its eyes looked solemn.

“I’ve never snuggled a bear before,” she whispered, probably mostly to prove to herself that this was a real thing that was happening.

The bear didn’t answer, but instead nudged her gently. To say Tav was baffled would have been a horrible understatement, but the hum in her brain was back to dulling her emotions to a minimum. Perhaps this had been a circus bear, or perhaps the animals here were smarter than those at home. Or maybe the bears here were vegetarians. Whatever the case, Tav was grateful that she didn’t have to end her days as bear food just yet.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, even though the bear couldn’t understand her. It pressed its warm nose into her hair and exhaled, which would have made her giggle were their surroundings not so dire. Tav had no way to tell what time of day (or night) it was, but she had a feeling she had slept for a long time. Her whole body ached and stung with every movement, her dress was barely holding together, and she was covered in blood. What a pathetic way to go. She thought the upside to dying young was to be a pretty corpse, but alas.

She idled away the hours pressed against the bear’s side. She braided her hair, she collected the pebbles laying around on the floor and tried to balance them on top of each other. She attempted to see to her injuries, but the sight of the open gash on her ribs made her feel faint and sick, so she aborted the mission quite fast. She tied knots in the ripped part of her dress in an attempt to avoid it slipping off her body at the first opportunity.

“If we get out of here,” she whispered into the bear’s ear, knowing that it was a foolish fantasy. “If we get out of here, I’ll find you the biggest pot of honey in the whole world. Do you like honey? Winnie the Pooh likes honey, but he also wears a shirt, and you don’t. Would you like to? I’m sure I can find a bear-sized shirt for you. Or just a normal-sized one, and then I can make my new friend Gale magic it larger. I’m sure he could.”

So, she was losing it a little bit. Wouldn’t you be? At least the bear seemed to enjoy her company and her idle chatter. There wasn’t much else to do.

She might have jinxed herself with that thought, because just an hour or so later, a guard came to collect her.

“If you want to go in’n’ wrestle the beast’s new toy outta its claws, go on!” One of the guards barked, and Tav felt her entire body tense. They were either going to kill her, or put her back on the rack. There were no other options.

“T’wasn’t my idea, was it? Drow’s orders. Says to put ‘er back on the rack,”

No no no no no no no no

Despite the rising vibration in her head, she felt her bear friend snarl and growl. Perhaps it had been down here for long enough to know that those who went to the rack came back hurt.

The goblins argued amongst themselves, but Tav didn’t hear a thing. The bear pushed her deeper into the cell until she was trapped between its flank and the wall. She felt as if she was being squeezed into one of those chairs that “massaged” you by shaking you around.

The lock in the gate clicked and the rusty thing slid open. “Gimme a torch!” The intruder commanded. “Bear’s got its bird all hidden.”

The next sequence of events happened so fast that Tav felt she watched it in slow motion. Her bear friend gave her a final push against the wall, and then it was gone. A hurricane of teeth and claws and ear-shattering roars stormed out of the cell. Tav heard its claws tear through flesh and the sound of blood splattering, but she was frozen in place. There was screaming and howling and shouting, but all she focused on was the sound of her bear. If the goblins killed it, they would come for her next. And she was not opposed to the idea of genuinely grieving her fuzzy friend.

All the sounds except for the howling stopped. The bear came trotting back into the cell, and then it f*cking exploded. Tav was blinded by golden light and she screamed, covering her eyes that had gotten so used to the darkness of the cell. “You have my apologies,” someone said, “I should have intervened sooner.”

Tav opened her eyes with a start, and gaped at the sight. Where her bear friend had stood just a moment before, there was a man.

A very large man.

A very large, very hot man.

Her mouth opened and closed like a fish above water. There were no words she could possibly speak to express any of what was going through her mind.

The man came closer, his hands glowing blue. “Allow me?”

Tav couldn’t think of anything else to do besides nodding. For a moment she thought he was going to grab her by the waist, but his glowing hands stopped an inch from her body.

“Te curo,” he mumbled, and Tav felt her wounds knit together beneath his light. Not all the way, far from it, but she no longer felt like the wrong move could make her bleed out. The sound that came out of her was something between a moan and a gasp, relief coursing through her.

“Oakfather’s blessings to you, friend. I am the druid Halsin,” he said, smiling warmly at her.

She couldn’t seem to form any coherent thoughts. “You-” she stuttered, “you’re a bear!”

He chuckled. “I am a druid.”

Tav stared some more. “But… you were a bear!”

He arched his eyebrows at her. “Am I the first druid you have met?”

She nodded stupidly. “I’m not from around here.”

“I hope I did not scare you. I will be happy to answer any and all questions you may have, but I need to get you away from here first. You are in no shape to fight, and there is blood here I must spill.”

“Blood?”

“I do not relish murder,” he said solemnly, “but the three leaders of this horde are too dangerous to let live. They are planning to raid my grove as we speak, and I have to stop them.”

Tav didn’t think it was possible for her eyes or mouth to open any wider, but she was proven wrong. “You’re him!” She exclaimed, pointing at him as if she was making an accusation. “You’re the tadpole expert!”

Halsin didn’t answer right away, but instead observed her every feature. She felt shy beneath his gaze, which felt stupid with their situation in consideration. “I have studied mindflayer tadpoles, yes, but why are you looking for an expert on the matter?”

Without waiting for her response, one of his hands started glowing again. With closed eyes, he held it out in front of him, tracing it up and down her body without touching her. Tav had a feeling she was being scanned.

“Oakfather preserve you, child.” He said, his eyes opening to reveal what looked like earnest sadness. “You are infected. And there is something else… something alien about you. But you are aware… how can this-”

Some horrible beat was drummed somewhere in the ruins, and they heard the faint echo of shouting. It sounded like the goblins were celebrating something.

Whatever Halsin had been about to say, he shook it out of his head. “We need to leave. The quicker I get you to my grove, the quicker I can return to stop this madness.”

“My frie- my crew was supposed to come looking for you here. If they’re not already here somewhere, they will be soon. They fight a lot better than I do,” Tav said, instinctively taking a step closer to him when some goblin shouted some drunk nonsense much closer to the dungeons than she liked.

“Then it seems we were destined to meet,” he said with a smile that took her breath away. Was he flirting with her? Was she delusional? This surely wasn’t the time or place, but still…

“I’m going to cast a spell on you so you can get out of here unnoticed, and I am going to wildshape into something small so you can carry me with you. You will not be invisible, but people will not be inclined to look at you unless you make them. Can you do that?”

Tav felt weary by the thought alone, but the alternative was much, much worse.

“Okay,” she said meekly. It was worth a try, at least.

Tav was absolutely sick with fear when she walked out of the dungeons. She kept to the walls and snuck from shadow to shadow just as Halsin had told her, and whatever evanseco meant, it worked. No one turned their head or batted an eye when she slipped past them, and with Halsin’s guidance, she quickly found her way to the main doors.

Halsin’s tiny body was warm on her neck, his itty bitty claws digging into whatever was left of her dress’ collar. Tav couldn’t figure out for the life of her how druid magic worked; he weighed less than an orange in the form of a mouse. Where had all the… Halsin gone? She couldn’t wrap her head around it.

Not that she had time for thinking, anyway. She was too busy hesitating in front of the exit.

Halsin’s little nose fussed against her earlobe. Even though she could not speak with him, she understood that he was trying to encourage her to continue.

“We can’t leave,” she whispered, her fear almost strangling her when the realisation hit. “There was another person they were torturing. I can’t leave without him. I won’t. I can’t.”

She hadn’t heard or seen anything unusual in the dungeons. She was certain she would have noticed if they brought in the young man from the cage by the rack, but they hadn’t. He had to still be there. He had to.

With shaking legs and hands, Tav turned to her left and followed the wall until she could hear him scream. The sound made her flinch, and she once again felt Halsin’s nose against her ear. He was trying to calm her down. At least the screaming meant they hadn’t killed the guy.

She reached out to her guardian, but no aid came in return. She understood why. She needed all of her wits about her for this, and she couldn’t concentrate as well if her whole skull was buzzing.

Her heart almost fell out of her ass when she made for the entrance to the rack room. The goblin who had tortured her and his bodyguard (or whatever the f*ck he was) walked out of there, grumbling something about a drink. To her horror, she felt her body freeze at the sight of him. Spike. She should hide. She should run.

But, just as everyone else had, they walked straight past her. Tav tried to swallow the lump in her throat and blink back the tears in her eyes. Now was not the time to freak out. Now was the time to act, preferably before the little monsters came back.

With a deep breath, she steeled herself before hurrying into the rack room.

And what a terrible sight it was. The young man hung stretched to his limit on the rack, his blonde hair almost entirely red with his own blood mist. One of his eyes was badly swollen, and the fingers on his right hand were a terrible shade of blue.

Tav felt Halsin bristle against her neck. “I know,” she whispered. “I know.”

She snuck up beside the poor man, leaning in as close as the rack would allow. His head hung to the side and his breathing was shallow. He had clearly taken more and worse beatings than she had.

“Hey,” she whispered. She was afraid to touch him. “Hey!”

His eyes slid open (the one that wasn’t swollen shut did, at least), and he looked at her with very deep confusion for a second. Then, recognition cleared his expression, and panic kicked it. “What are you doing?” He whispered. “They could be back any moment! Get out of here!”

Tav shook her head. “What’s your name?”

“What? I-”

“Name!”

“L-Liam,”

Just as she’d thought. She nodded, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling. They were running out of time. “Aradin sent me. We’re getting out of here, okay?” A lie, granted, but she needed him to trust her at least a little bit. And fast. Yesterday, preferably.

A single tear slipped out through the swollen lids of his eye.

“Thank the gods,” he whispered. The relief in his voice was enough to make Tav sob, but she didn’t have time for that level of empathy right now.

The moment she realised she had no idea how to get him out of the horrible contraption, mouse-Halsin jumped from her shoulder and landed on his feet as a human. Without a word or a moment of hesitation, he pulled something out of his pocket and began fidgeting with the locks around Liam’s ankles.

“Halsin!” Liam croaked, shock and relief painting his features. Halsin shushed him. It took him no time to break through the locks, and then he paused.

“My magic isn’t strong enough right now to get all three of us out of here, unseen,” he said, brows furrowing. “Go. Liam, you know the route to the grove. Send me aid when you get there. I will stay.”

“No!” Tav protested instantly, panic fluttering in her chest. She was quite convinced she would die the moment he left her side. Before Halsin could respond to her, Liam spoke.

“There’s a breeze coming from across that chasm over there. From somewhere between the rocks. I haven’t felt it, but the fire flickers sometimes.”

Sweet relief. Thank God. And Jesus. And Oakfather, whoever he was.

Halsin gave a short nod before becoming a cat in another show of light. Tav looked over her shoulder nervously, afraid he was going to attract unwanted attention, but it seemed they were in luck. For once. Cat-Halsin slinked ahead into the dark to investigate, and a few moments later, a very small meow sounded from within the shadows. Tav and Liam followed him into the dark.

The breeze turned out to be coming from some kind of tunnel, and by the mercy of absolutely everything, it led to a small cliffside outside of the camp. Out of sight, too. Tav felt tempted to fall to her knees to kiss the dirt and take a bite of the grass, but she contained herself. She could barely believe it. Her eyes stung deliciously in the daylight.

Halsin, human once more, turned to them.

“I’ll carry you to the grove. Liam, how badly are you hurt?”

“Uhm…” Liam said, shifting on his feet as if he had to check. “I think there’s something wrong with my arm, but everything else is skin-deep.”

Halsin nodded curtly.

“You will hold onto our friend here, and she will hold onto me.” His eyes met Tav’s. “If I’m going too fast or one of you gets worse, poke me.”

Before she could respond, he was a bear once more. Even though it had still been him when he was a human and a mouse and a cat, Tav felt a little more warm at the sight of her cell buddy. He crouched down until his belly was pressed to the dirt, and she and Liam got onto his back. She buried her hands in his thick fur again.

As soon as they were settled, Halsin ran.

Tav had been horseback riding a couple of times at summer camp, but horses were a lot less bouncy than bears. Once she had gotten used to his movements, it wasn’t so bad, but Liam was hopeless. His good arm was wrapped around her so tightly she felt the wound on her ribs reopen, and his head kept knocking into the back of hers every couple of minutes. By the time they reached an enormous stone gate hidden beneath vines and probably magic, she felt like she could faint at any moment. The blood from her ribs was dripping off of her foot, her right side completely soaked through.

She scarcely noticed how they got inside the gate. She remembered someone yelling, and she felt Liam sob against her shoulder, and they were crowded immediately when they got inside. Someone lifted both her and Liam gently off of Halsin’s back. Tav noticed that all the hands were very warm, but it could have been that theirs were normal and she was cold from blood loss and hunger. Nonetheless, they left goosebumps all over her skin, and soon she was shivering once more. Halsin was a human again, and then she was being carried somewhere, and she couldn’t see him anymore. She called out for him, but her voice was brittle and tired. Her head swam.

She must have passed out for a moment, because when she opened her eyes again, she was laying down, and Halsin was with her once more. She could hear muffled words that sounded a thousand miles away, and she had to strain to be able to focus on them.

“Missing? Missing how?”

“Dunno, she’s just gone,”

She felt large, warm hands cup her face. “My apprentice healer is missing. I do not have enough magic left in me to heal you, but Aradin and his crew are experienced adventurers. They won’t heal you as prettily as she or I could, but they will get you back on your feet.”

His thumb gently brushed a stray tear from her cheek. “I will be back.” And then he was gone.

Tav swam in and out of consciousness for what could have been seconds or hours. She could hear Liam’s voice, and she could hear Remira’s.

“Thank you for bringing him back,” she heard her say, suddenly close. If she had been a bit more awake and a bit less on the brink of death, she would have wondered about the emotion beneath her words. The way she had talked about him in the woods didn’t give her the impression that they were together.

New hands were on her face. They all just loved touching her face.

“Tav,” the owner of the hands said, “sit up and drink this.”

Aradin. She did as she was told. She tried to, at least, but she couldn’t sit without his assistance. Whatever he was giving her tasted exactly like Shadowheart’s blood-red potion.

“Good,” he praised. “I need to clean and bandage your ribs. Halsin said the gobbos got you good.”

She mumbled something she hoped sounded like go ahead while he eased her back down. His hands were gentle when they cut open her dress, carefully peeling the soaked fabric off the wound. She hissed with the pain of it. It felt like he took off a layer of her skin and she thought she might faint all over again. The cleaning was even worse, if you can believe it. If hand sanitiser didn’t exist here, whatever was on the cloth he was using was probably the closest thing to it. She clenched her teeth and tried her very best to hold in her whimpers, but it was difficult. She had already cried in front of this man, this stranger, once. She didn’t love showing even more weakness.

When he came to the bandaging part, he cut her out of the last shambles of her dress. The bandage needed to reach all the way around her body to stay in place. In the middle of the pain and the haze, she became aware that her torso was completely bare. It almost made her laugh. What a ridiculous thing to notice when she was in the middle of almost dying.

She pried open her tired eyes to see if Aradin was looking. His cheeks were burning red, but to his credit, his eyes were locked on her ribs. The tips of his ears were red, too. An accidental giggle stumbled past her lips.

Maybe the blood loss was making her woozy. Maybe being on the brink of bleeding to death made her a little bit high. Nevertheless, it made him look at her face. “What?”

“You’re blushing.”

“Oh, f*ck off.” Her smile turned into a wince when he tightened the bandage, and then he moved on to expertly attend to her other, lesser injuries. When he reached the burn mark on her thigh, he swore under his breath.

Tav felt kind of like a corpse in a morgue, being prepared to look pretty in her coffin. She lay completely motionless as he carefully cleaned her wounds, washed the blood off her skin, and continually made her drink the healing potion. When he was finished, she felt a lot better, but she also felt as if she was on the edge of falling into a coma.

“Now rest, both of you,” she heard Aradin say.

“Don’t leave,” she squeaked against her will. How utterly, completely pathetic of her. She hoped the thought hadn’t escaped her mouth, that she had simply said it inside her head. She was sh*t out of luck, as always.

“No one’s leaving,” Aradin replied, and Remira continued, her voice hoarse from crying.

“You went outta your way to save one of ours. We’re not going anywhere.”

With a trembling sigh, Tav finally slept.

Chapter 8: Three days and three nights

Chapter Text

For once, Tav was granted an entirely dreamless sleep. There were no loved ones from home to haunt her or monsters to frighten her, and she awoke in the exact same position she had fallen asleep in, feeling as if she had just been brought back from a coma.

Before opening her eyes, she carefully tried to move her body. The pain was immediate and enough to pull a whimper from her lips, but it was not nearly as fierce or sinister as it had been before.

“You’re awake!”

Tav didn’t recognise his voice at first, having only heard it in various states of panic and agony. Opening her eyes, she was delighted to meet Liam’s hazel gaze. He was sitting next to her on the floor, his arm in a sling and a giant smile on his face. Tav looked around a bit, trying to make sense of her surroundings. They were inside an enormous cave, it seemed, stationed on a little wooden platform and tucked away in a corner.

“Do you have any water?” Tav asked, wincing at the sound of her own voice. Her throat felt like she had swallowed sandpaper, and she sounded like a crow.

Liam immediately handed her a flask, and she drank from it greedily while he watched her.

“I was hoping you’d wake up soon so I could thank you,”

Tav felt as if her thirst could never be quenched, and she only reluctantly moved the flask from her mouth. Eyeing the guy up and down, she quickly concluded that he looked much better than she did.

“You’re making me look like a puss*. You were in there longer than I was, and you’re in way better shape.”

He looked startled at her words, but his voice was full of laughter. “Oh, Aradin is gonna like you! Don’t beat yourself up about it, mate. I saw what they did to you, you got much worse than I did. Didn’t seem like they needed to keep you breathing like they did me.”

Tav shuddered at the memory. Whatever her guardian had done to tuck her away in memories like he did, she was grateful. The next time she saw him, she’d make sure to thank him properly. Perhaps she could dream up a gift basket.

“And thank you,” Liam said, carefully reaching for her hand when she sat up. She let him take it, and felt her cheeks flush when he kissed her knuckles. “I owe you my life. You’ll always have a friend in Baldur’s Gate.”

Tav didn’t know what one was supposed to say in such a situation, so she simply smiled at him. He probably wouldn’t have much use of a friend on Earth, if she ever made it back there.

Thankfully, an approaching Aradin came to her rescue. The sight of him brought back the memories of the day before. She had been in terrible shape, covered in her own blood and in dirt and full of holes. He had taken care of her, and he had blushed in the middle of all the horror. The thought almost made her giggle again. She wasn’t naked anymore, thankfully. Someone had put her in a long sleeved shirt and soft trousers which were tied loosely around her waist, and when she pulled the neckline to her nose, she found the scent of musk, iron, and leather. This was Aradin’s shirt.

She didn’t have time to linger at the thought. Aradin was not alone.

“You must be Tav,” the man walking next to him said, bowing his enormous head in greeting. Or, well, his head was quite normal, but the horns protruding from his forehead were massive. Tav tried her best not to startle at his appearance. His eyes burned like tiny fires.

“That would be me, yeah,” she responded quietly. Her eyes sought Aradin’s, which were already on her. He didn’t look phased in the slightest, so she decided she didn’t need to be either.

“I am Zevlor. I owe you my thanks. Had Halsin not returned, my people and I would have been cast out and slaughtered on the road to the city. With the ritual stopped and your friends infiltrating the goblin camp, there just might be hope for us.”

“I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’m happy to help. Or to have helped, I guess.” Tav said honestly, smiling up at him. He returned it in kind.

“We do not have much to give, but if you need anything, come to me. We owe you and your friends a great debt.”

With that, he bowed a quick and quite elegant farewell and left. His eyes lingered on Aradin a bit longer than necessary, but none of them said anything.

“Who was that?” Tav asked, accepting the helping hands Aradin offered her. He held onto her until he was sure she was steady on her feet, and then a little longer than he had to. Or maybe not. Maybe she was just touch-starved and he was handsome. And he smelled quite nice this close.

Pull it together, you whor*.

“Zevlor. He’s the one leading them devils crawling all over this place. Always thought he was a real bastard, but I guess he ain’t so bad.”

Tav looked at him with raised eyebrows. “They’re devils? They don’t seem very… diabolical to me.”

“Nah, they’re tieflings. But their lot come from devils.”

So devils were real here, too. How very interesting and not at all foreboding.

Remira came walking with her hands full of steaming bowls. Tav made a move to take some of them off her hands, but was quickly redirected to the table in the middle of their small campsite.

Liam joined them at the table, too, and soon they were all eating what could be oatmeal, but Tav wasn’t sure and she knew better than to ask. Whatever it was, it needed salt. Eating the food of this place still made her uneasy, but she was past the point of superstitions. She was going to die of some mediaeval wound-fever if she didn’t give her body the nourishment it needed to heal.

The others chatted, but she didn’t have the energy to join them. She was starting to feel as weary as if getting off the floor and onto a chair took as much strength as walking up ten flights of stairs, and she could feel her pulse in her ribs.

A hand gently wrapped around her elbow.

“You should rest,” Aradin said, helping her up from the chair she sat on. Jesus Christ, she felt pathetic. Next thing she knew, she would need to be fed by spoon.

When she was back on her borrowed sleeping bag, Aradin made her drink another healing potion, and she fell asleep almost immediately with the sound of their idle chatter as background noise.

The grove was quiet and dark when she awoke. She felt a lot better than she had when she woke up during the day, which was probably thanks to the goo she had eaten.

Sitting up and looking around, she only saw one tiefling standing nearby on a wooden platform. He was keeping watch, it seemed. The torch by his side was the only lit one she could see from her sleeping bag. It must’ve been quite late at night.

The only light source by their own little platform was the faint glow of an oil lamp on the table. On the makeshift beds around her, Aradin’s crew slept, but their leader wasn’t among them. As quietly as possible, she lifted herself out of her blankets and rolled her shoulders, sighing contently. This was probably the best her body had felt since the rack.

Aradin sat at the table with his back to her, out of armour for the first time since she had met him. It made him look younger, somehow. Or maybe it was the slouch in his shoulders as he concentrated on whatever was on the table in front of him. Regardless, she was all too eager to interrupt him.

Placing herself on the chair on the opposite side of the table, she pulled her knees to her chest as much as her injuries would allow. Wearing his clothes made her feel weirdly vulnerable for reasons she couldn’t really explain. It was oddly… intimate.

“How are you feelin’?” Aradin asked, looking up from what had turned out to be a book.

“Better. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

She looked at him for a while. He looked even more handsome than usual. His brown eyes reflected the flame of the oil lamp and turned his gaze golden, and the flickering light danced in his curls. Tav wanted to run her hands through them.

Tav needed to calm down, actually.

“What’re you lookin’ at this time?”

“You’re very pretty.” She immediately felt her cheeks flush at her own bluntness. Maybe it was because she was still drowsy with sleep, or maybe one of the potions he had made her drink had been some kind of truth serum. Those probably existed here, too.

He made a sound somewhere between a huff and a chuckle. “‘Pretty’? Halsin better come back and take ‘nother look at that head of yours. Seems you hit it.”

He gave her an opportunity to change the subject out of the hole she was digging for herself, and she gratefully took it.

“Where is Halsin, anyway? He told me he would be back.”

“He went back to the goblins. He was going to help your lads kill the leaders of the horde or somethin’ like that.”

Anxiety immediately surged through her for the briefest second, only to be dulled by the hum.

“And they aren’t back yet? sh*t.”

“Aye. I told him to stay, but the old tosser wouldn’t listen.”

A million scenarios of her bear friend and her companions being cut up and stretched out on racks raced through her mind, but the hum didn’t allow her to feel whatever emotions might have accompanied them. Maybe it wasn’t the case. Maybe they were just scheming and being sneaky, or maybe they were taking the leaders out one by one and sleeping in between. That would objectively be stupid, but she’d learned that Gale could only cast so many spells in a day before losing his ability to concentrate, so maybe it wasn’t too far fetched. Maybe. Hopefully. It better not be.

She shook her head as if she could shake the images out of her brain. No matter the state of her companions, there was nothing she could do. If she had any sort of power or combat skills, then maybe. But she didn’t. She needed a distraction.

“What are you reading?” She asked, pressing her nails into her palms. The sting grounded her a little bit.

“A guide to Baldur’s Gate. I was born and raised there, so it ain’t telling me much I don’t already know. Looking for pubs to drink my head off in when I get back, I guess.”

Tav’s interest sparked.

“I know little to nothing about Baldur’s Gate. Can I see that?”

He quietly handed her the book, and she closed it around her finger to keep his spot before opening it on the first page. To her enormous disappointment, it only contained gibberish.

“What the f*ck are these signs?”

“Letters, mate. Don’t tell me you can’t read.”

“I can read, but not this. Are you sure this is English?”

He furrowed his dark brows at her. “English? That some kind of Elvish?”

“English is what we’re speaking right now!”

“We’re speaking the common tongue, sweetheart.”

Tav blushed crimson. Again. “Well, apparently I can speak the common tongue, but I can’t read it. These letters are completely different from– from back home.”

With a small line of consideration between his eyebrows (Tav wanted to smooth it out with her thumb), he took the book from her and looked at it as if he could possibly see what she saw.

“Do you want me to read it to you?”

The offer was so sweet Tav physically felt a cavity forming in one of her teeth. She rearranged herself on her chair until she was comfortable, placing her elbows on the table so she could rest her chin on her hands.

“Yes, please.”

Gun to her head, Tav couldn’t have estimated how long they sat like that. As he read to her, she learned that Baldur’s Gate was quite the place. He narrated about the posh upper city and its poorer, more exotic counterpart; its former and current leaders and its laws, and its equivalent to a police force; Rivington and the haven that could get you anywhere in the world for the right price; Sorcerous Sundries, an enormous magical library (the thought of which made her feel like a child having Santa’s workshop dangled in front of their nose); an entire, illicit world thriving beneath the streets in the sewers and someplace called the Undercity, which wasn’t ominous at all.

She also learned of some of the taverns, partly from what he read, and partly from his own commentary of them. Sharess’ Caress was a brothel and an inn (“you can find all sorts of people there,”), the Elfsong Tavern was for the wealthier folk (“a place full of sh*t wine and plush pillows for people who think themselves betta’ than the rest of us,”), the Blushing Mermaid was raunchy and best avoided if you weren’t looking for trouble (“I saw a group of Zhents grab a man and throw him out a window ‘cause of a card game once,”), but it was cheap. There were so many Tav couldn’t possibly keep track of them all.

“Which one’s your favourite?” She asked, fidgeting with one of the daggers he had left out on the table.

“Used to be Sharess’ because of the price. But it got dodgy as the years went. It’s got types you jus’ don’t mess with if you know what’s good for you. Last I heard they had a devil - don’t look at me like that, an actual devil - stay there for a while.”

“Right. The brothel was your favourite because it was cheap.”

He smirked at her, dark eyes flashing with humour. “I don’t need to pay someone to warm my bed, Tav.”

Of that she was absolutely sure. For the third time that evening, the blood rushed to her face, and she had to force herself not to hide it behind her hands. Did he have to say her name like that?

“What’s your favourite now?” She asked, trying to distract herself as much as him.

“The Mermaid. There’s always cheap ale and trouble to watch.”

Around them, the others started stirring in their sleep. The air had gotten colder and more dewy, the darkness a bit more grey.

“It’s almost morning,” Aradin said, closing his book. “You should get some sleep.”

“You should get some sleep!”

“I’m not the one who nearly died a day ago, tiger. Sleep.”

Tav wanted to argue with him, for some reason, but it was hard to deny the drowsiness that had been settling in her for the past hour.

“Fine. Goodnight, Aradin. Thank you for the lesson.”

“Goodnight, Tav.”

She felt his eyes on her all the way to her sleeping bag.

Tav was absolutely delighted to wake up the morning (it was probably noon) after to find her body in such a good state that she could actually do more than lie down all day. She was alone on their little platform except for Liam, who was so deeply snuggled into his sleeping bag that the only proof of him was the top of his blonde head and his light snore.

The grove was alive around her. Tiefling kids poked about some crates nearby, others were packing, and a bear (which Tav assumed was a person) slept in a particularly sunny corner. Someone nearby was arguing, another was playing some kind of instrument. Had it been this busy yesterday, too? Not that she would have noticed a damn thing even if it kicked her in the face.

Carefully untangling herself from her borrowed blankets, Tav straightened Aradin’s clothes as well as she could and combed through her hair with her fingers. It was matted to hell, but there really wasn’t a lot she could do about it. Ignoring how insecure and ugly it made her feel, she ventured out into the sanctuary for the first time.

She followed her ears to the wooden platform closest to hers (the familiarity with which she regarded the little corner was not lost on her) where a steady rhythm of metal colliding piqued her interest. The closest thing to a blacksmith she had ever seen was the guy who came by their summer camp one year to reattach a lost horseshoe, she had never seen anything that looked like a forge or an anvil or anything… rustic like that. Once she returned home, she probably never would.

The blacksmith’s blacksmith-place turned out to be very unimpressive. It was messy and as makeshift as anything could get, and the tiefling hammering away at something sighed with frustration as if he read her mind.

“I miss my forge.”

He was muttering for his own ears only, clearly, but Tav couldn’t resist her curiosity.

“This isn’t your forge?”

The tiefling turned to look at her, his eyes icy blue and his expression pleasant.

“Hello,” he smiled, “you’re the human Halsin brought in, aren’t you?”

Tav very sincerely hoped word spread fast in here and that the entire population hadn’t seen her beaten, bloody, and crying.

“That would be me! I’m Tav.”

“Dammon.”

He offered a sod-stained hand which she shook without hesitation. His skin was very warm.

“And to answer your question,” he continued, gesturing to the things around them. “No. This isn’t my forge. Mine was formidable. This is…”

“Like a blacksmith travel-kit?”

He chuckled. “Yes.”

Tav took a few steps closer, peeking into the crates on the ground. A very gentle hand on her shoulder pushed her back.

“Watch your step. Walking barefoot in a forge is bad news, no matter how lousy it might be.”

“Oh, sorry!”

“Don’t apologise to me, apologise to your feet.”

He turned from her then, lifting something out of the fire and into a small basin of water next to it. It hissed like crazy.

“I lost my shoes in the goblin camp, I think. Or maybe before then,” she said, almost shouting in her attempt to talk over the sizzling water. Dammon didn’t respond at first, focusing on whatever he was working with. It occurred to Tav that she was probably being rather annoying right now, but if the blacksmith thought so, he was too polite to show it.

“Look in the crate by the steps,” he said over his shoulder. “There are some leather boots that might fit you. Just don’t mention it to anyone, or they’ll all come asking for free gear.”

“You’re giving them to me for free?”

“These are hard times for all of us. Surviving a goblin camp only to die by an infected cut in your foot wouldn’t become you.”

Rummaging through the crate, she found her target. They were a little big on her, but if she could manage to find some thick socks somewhere, they’d be perfect. They were the kind of leather boots you had to tie all the way up, but she couldn’t find it in her to mind.

“Thank you,” she said, hoping her words carried just a sliver of what she felt. He didn’t even know her, and given what else had been in the crate, giving things away for free was no small deal.

Dammon simply smiled at her. He was very handsome. Was everyone here good looking? God help her.

Strutting her new boots, she found herself in an almost cheery mood as she descended further into the grove. She hadn’t had enough brain to notice before, but the closer she got to an enormous stairway leading downwards, the thicker the air became. It almost felt like she was walking directly into a cloud of pollen, one of those mid-spring ones strong enough to taste. She halfway expected her eyes to water or her nose to run, but nothing happened. She rubbed her face with her palms.

“Druidic magic,” a soft voice spoke behind her. “It takes some getting used to, but it stops tickling like that after a while.”

A blue-skinned tiefling with a guitar in one hand sat on a rock nearby. She was absolutely gorgeous, and Tav had no idea how she had walked past her without noticing her.

“How long did it take for you?” Tav said, rubbing her tickling nose.

“I’ll let you know,” she smiled. “I’m Alfira.”

“I’m Tav. You’re not from around here?”

“Tav! What a pretty name. Is it short for something? And no – none of us tieflings are.”

A shadow fell over her face as she spoke, and Tav felt unsure of whether she should prod or not. The tieflings not being locals explained Dammon’s pathetic excuse for a forge.

“Tabitha, but don’t tell anyone. It’s a total old lady name.”

The shadows cleared from Alfira’s face like clouds before the sun. She placed her guitar in her lap and strummed a little melody, short and sweet. Almost as sweet as her voice.

“Tav, Tavie, Tabitha, carries a name from the past,

But her infernal leather boots are bound to last.

Tavie, Tav, Tabitha, an old crone in every song and rhyme

But her face is young, and her boots are…”

The tiefling scrunched her nose in thought. Tav tried her best to refrain from grinning like a goof, but it was nearly impossible. No one had ever written a song about her before.

She cleared her throat. “Sublime?”

Alfira strummed a final note. “Sublime!”

Tav gave a very heartfelt applause, and Alfira bowed with a giggle. When she straightened back up, her eyes were red.

“Sorry,” she said, hiding her face behind her hands. The change in her mood almost gave Tav whiplash. She wasn’t sure what to do.

“Did I upset you?” She tried, looking around to see if anyone had noticed that she had made the sweet girl cry. Maybe clapping meant something offensive here.

“No,” Alfira sniffled. “It’s just… that was the first time I’ve played anything since my teacher…”

She didn’t finish her sentence, but she didn’t have to. Tav may be a little bit dumb in the social skill department, but she wasn’t that dumb. She sat down next to the singer without saying anything, gently placing her hand on her shoulder. They sat in silence for a while as Alfira cried and Tav put two and two together.

Her realisation was a bit late, granted, but she was getting there. And in her defence, she had been very busy trying to not die from her injuries and being in a continuous state of shock and confusion, so she was a bit extra unobservant these days. But the picture was coming together: the tension in the air, the ritual that was supposed to evict the tieflings (according to Zevlor, at least), the unease. Alfira said the tieflings weren’t from here, and Dammon yearned for his forge at home.

It was becoming pretty clear that wherever home was, it was far away and not left behind of their own free will. Perhaps she had more in common with them all than she’d thought.

“I’m sorry for asking,” she spoke softly when Alfira’s tears had ceased. “And it’s totally okay if you don’t want to answer, but I’m not from around here. I don’t know anything. What happened?”

Tav already knew that devils were real here, so the idea of hell really shouldn’t have shocked her as much as it did. The hum returned to her head in a building crescendo as she listened to Alfira’s narration of the events that had led her and the others to the grove. An entire city, pulled into the first layer of hell (there were nine!), a place full of actual devils, demons, hellbeasts, and all sorts of other fiends. The city had returned to the surface, but had evicted its horned residents. They had lost a lot of people. Their situation sounded all too familiar, except for the literal hell part. Her head was spinning by the time Alfira quieted.

“I know it’s of very little comfort to you, but I’m very sorry. I don’t know what else to say.” She admitted honestly. Her hand was still resting on Alfira’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” the singer said, giving her a soft, teary smile. Looking at her made Tav’s heart ache.

With her newfound knowledge, Tav's experience of the grove dramatically changed. She wanted to get to know as many tieflings as she could, and she couldn’t help but glare at the occasional druid passing by. If she had fallen into the hands of them instead of her companions, they likely would have left her to die outside the gate. Had they been normal people at home, she knew damn well who they would have voted for.

She spoke to as many people as she could, imprinting them all in her brain for safekeeping. Rolan, Cal, and Lia had been the ones arguing so loudly earlier, but they were very nice to her. Except for Rolan, who was a little too arrogant for her taste. Be that as it may, as Gale would have said. Ikaron was the tiefling keeping watch over the section of the cave where Aradin’s platform was, and despite his wariness and the way he glared at the humans, his presence was very comforting. Lakrissa was another beautiful woman who had made her genuinely laugh, which had made her ribs ache. Zorru was the first person she had met here that made her feel less weak; he was shaky and nervous and had very clearly experienced more than he could handle, just like she had. She wished she could lend him some of the steady humming inside her, but all she could do was try to be as comforting as she could, assuring him that she, despite being yet another stranger, did not have ill intentions.

When the evening caught up to her, she was positively wrecked. Staggering back to the others, she was a little bit relieved to find Aradin alone with a book in his lap.

“Where are your friends?” She asked as she approached, supporting her weight on the small railing leading up the steps. She needed to stop overestimating her strength.

“Was starting to wonder where you’d wandered off to,” he responded, pulling out the chair next to his. “I dunno where Barth is, but Liam and Remira snuck off somewhere.”

Oh? The best possible thing he could offer her right now was gossip. It would be icing on the cake.

She sat. “Are they f*cking?”

He startled and stared at her for a moment, but then he laughed. These people and their formalities. What was she supposed to say? Art they lovers ? Doeth they indulgeth in the flesh?

“Quite the mouth you’ve got on you. Yes, I reckon they’re f*ckin'.”

Tav lightly clapped her hands and stifled a squeal. “How sweet!”

Aradin looked at her funny, but she ignored it, pulling the book in his lap from him.

“What’s this one, then?” She asked, flitting through the pages. “You should really fix your posture when you read, by the way, or your back is going to hurt when you get old.”

He snatched the book back, placing it on the table and locking it in place with his elbow so she couldn’t steal it again.

“No use in planning for something that won’t happen.”

“Don’t you want to grow old?”

“Course I do, that’s why I went looking for that bloody relic in the first place. It would’ve been enough money to get my mum into the upper city so she could open ‘er shop there. I could quit this stupid life of risking my neck for coin.”

“What about your dad?”

“He’s dead.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

He shook his head at her.

“Don’t be, mate. I was a wee lad when it happened. Don’t remember him.”

He turned from her slightly and started collecting some papers on the table, signaling that the conversation was over. Despite his protest, Tav couldn’t help but feel like she had overstepped. She needed to change the subject, and quick.

“Will you read to me again?” She placed a single finger on the book, which he moved out of her reach with a stern look.

“No. It’s your turn.”

“My turn?”

“You said you weren’t from ‘round here. Tell me about your home.”

Once again, Tav faced the same dilemma she had with Astarion. She wasn’t sure when to begin or to end, what to leave out and what to include. She decided to keep it as vague as she could, but she still wanted to give him something honest. After all, almost all she knew of Faerûn she had learned from him. And he did just tell her about his parents, which was more than any of her companions had offered her.

“In the city I live in,” she said slowly, picking her words with care. “There’s so much light, if you stand in the street in the middle of the night, you can’t see a single star.”

He watched her in a silence that beckoned her to continue.

“We have songs that basically everyone knows, no matter where they’re from or how old they are. And mov– books, too. We’re not as… formal with our food as you are. We don’t always sit down to eat, it’s pretty normal to grab something and eat on the go. Uhm… there’s an entire month of the year where – at least in my area – people go out of their way to be kind to others. You know, donating things to the homeless and not being rude to strangers. Aaaand…”

She tapped her fingers to her chin as if to shake up her thoughts. She wasn’t sure what else to tell him.

“And, in return for your honesty, my parents are alive, but they hate me. I haven’t spoken to them in years.”

He tilted his head, regarding the carefully curated expression on her face. “Why do they hate you?”

“Because I like women.”

“What do you mean? Everyone likes women.”

“Here, maybe. But where I’m from, a lot of people think it’s wrong for people of the same gender to be together.”

“Whot? Why?”

She threw her hands in the air in defeat. “I don’t know. Their god says so, or whatever.”

He scoffed. “Can’t stand religious types.”

“Me neither.”

They were quiet for a moment. Tav felt that if she looked hard enough, she’d be able to see her words being processed inside his head.

“Do you hate them back?” He finally asked, his voice soft.

“I try to.”

“Hm.”

Tav went to bed that night with little to no buzzing in her head. As long as she didn’t think of her companions, her brain remained almost still. Her stomach was full (of goo, but still), her sleeping bag was warm, and her head was filled with nice people that her guardian physically would not let her worry about. She did her best to treasure them instead. Liam was healing well, Remira didn’t look like she was on the verge of tears anymore, and her body was feeling better by the hour. She had even gotten used to the taste of healing potion.

All in all, things weren’t so bad. In fact, it was almost pleasant to be alive.

Her sleep was mercifully deep and dreamless once more. She slept so soundly that the sounds of clamour and fussing didn’t wake her, and neither did the happy exclamations from the few tieflings that were awake.

She didn’t wake before cool, soft hands covered her mouth and gently shook her awake. She blinked at him, groggily, convinced that she must be dreaming.

“Astarion?”

The vampire shushed her, his voice an alluring whisper.

“Still alive, I see. I just hate to be a bother, but I need you.”

She sat up, then, rapidly blinking the sleep out of her eyes. Looking around, the others were still undisturbed. Astarion reeked of blood and burnt skin.

“What? How did you–”

“Shush, darling, before the others come running to say hello.”

“The others? You’re back? All of you?”

“Yes, all our little friends are safe and sound. Now, please. May I?”

Relief the size of a tidal wave ran through her body as if someone had poured cold water over her head. They were back. They hadn’t abandoned her. And they were alive.

But Astarion was hurt. She quickly realised that the stink of blood was his, and that he looked even paler than usual.

“What happened?”

“Those vile little parasites poisoned their blades. I can’t heal. May I?”

She blinked and sunk back onto the bedroll.

“Yes, of course.”

She lifted her arm to offer her wrist to him, but with a single motion as smooth and quick as a cat, he pulled back the collar of Aradin’s shirt and sunk his teeth into her neck.

She gasped, biting her lip hard to keep quiet as goosebumps spread over her skin. She was awfully ticklish there. She closed her eyes as he drank, smiling as a content sigh escaped her. The others were okay, and they were here. Halsin was here. Liam was alive. The tieflings wouldn’t be killed by a horde of goblins. For a single moment, despite the fangs buried in her neck, Tav allowed herself to pretend all was well.

Chapter 9: The taste of butter

Chapter Text

Astarion left her woozy and weak. He had taken almost as much from her as he did the first time, only stopping when she physically pushed him off out of fear of passing out again. He regarded her for a single moment before disappearing back into the shadows without a word, and Tav was left bleeding and cold. He really was an asshole.

She fumbled blindly for the tiny flask Aradin had left next to her sleeping bag, tearing off the cap and swallowing it like a shot of something neat. She felt the skin on her neck close and a little bit of warmth returning to her, but it still wasn’t good. She wasn’t good.

May you choke on your own dick, Astarion.

There was no way she could have gone back to sleep even if she’d wanted to. Her brain was bright and alert, dizziness besides, and her companions were here. Halsin was here.

She wasn’t as stealthy as Astarion in any way, shape or form, but she managed to sneak out of her blankets and into her boots without waking anyone up. The wooden boards creaked beneath her feet when she tiptoed away, and as soon as she had stone and soil beneath her feet, she ran. As well as she could without, like, half of her blood.

Guex, a tiefling guard she had spoken to earlier, pointed her in the direction of her companions without her having to say anything. Thank god. She didn’t have breath in her lungs to form words, anyway.

She stumbled and fell a couple of steps down the staircase, much to the dismay of her ribs. She had to stay down for a moment to catch her breath and not die from pain, and she spent the downtime cursing herself for her clumsiness.

Why was she even this excited to see them again? She barely knew them, and it seemed the majority of them didn’t like her very much. Despite this, she still couldn’t contain herself when she staggered back on her feet and hurried to them.

The first person she saw was the actual tree of a man, towering over all of the others. She wanted to call out to them, but her lungs felt like they had both collapsed, so she settled for heaving for breath like an asthmatic and almost falling over with dizziness.

“My word!” Gale was the first to turn her way, and his face lit up in such a way that Tav could have cried about it. It was nice to know someone cared if she died, now that her actual friends and loved ones at home would be none the wiser. They probably thought she was dead already.

Gale approached her and vigorously shook her hand. “Oh, it is good to see you again, friend.”

Tav didn’t get a chance to catch enough breath for a response before someone grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her away from him. Shadowheart’s hands gripped her shoulders tightly, her green eyes bouncing around on her as if she couldn’t believe what she saw.

“You’re here!” She exclaimed, green eyes wide. “Halsin said– I didn’t dare believe– I’m so sorry!”

Tav stared at her stupidly, confused as ever. “What?”

“I turned my back for a moment and then you were gone! I thought you went back to camp, but you weren’t there, and–”

Tav had already stopped listening. It hadn’t even occurred to her to be angry. She had not for a single moment considered that she could have left her at the mercy of the goblins on purpose, though Shadowheart sure seemed to think she would have. Perhaps Tav was too trusting.

She reassured her as well as she could, ignoring Lae’zel’s scoffing when she did so. There was no doubt in her mind that Lae’zel would have viewed her death alone in the woods as natural selection, and Tav could hardly blame her for it. She would definitely need to stay in camp from now on. Very duly noted.

Astarion entirely ignored her and studied the nails of one of his degloved hands instead of greeting her like the others did. Despite how much she wanted to huff and scoff at him, she decided to return the gesture in kind instead of indulging in his bullsh*t. She’d had a feeling he enjoyed watching her seeth whenever they collided, and she refused to give him the satisfaction.

Despite how pleased most of her companions were to see her again, she felt the exhaustion hanging in the air between them all. Once she had reassured Gale and Karlach that, yes , she was okay, the chatter started dying out. One after the other, the heroes of the hour made a seat for themselves in the soft grass. Weary with blood loss and still sore from her fall, Tav was not at all hesitant to join them.

A couple minutes of tried silence later, Halsin finally finished speaking to some druid with antlers on his helmet and returned to the little group. His eyes lit up when he saw her, causing a surge of butterflies to flutter around in her stomach. He was even better looking than she had remembered. Or, perhaps, blood and dirt just suited him.

She tried to get back on her feet as she approached, but her head spun so violently from dizziness that her sight blackened for a moment, and she quickly sat back down.

“Oakfather preserve you, my friend.” He knelt in front of her, still towering over her even in his position. “How are your wounds?”

Just like in the dungeons, he didn’t let her answer before using his doctor-magic to scan her body. By the end of it, he looked slightly displeased.

“Your body should have regenerated the blood you lost, by now. Have you been eating?”

As he fussed over her, Tav caught Astarion’s gaze over Halsin’s shoulder. His face was entirely devoid of expression, eyes cold and indifferent. She glared at him before returning her attention to her bear friend.

“I’ve never been injured like that before,” she explained, which technically wasn’t a lie. “I lived a pretty… soft life before I came here.”

He nodded thoughtfully, and this time, he didn’t ask before blue light seeped from his palms and lit up the dark grove. Perhaps he knew he did not have to. She stared at his face as he worked, eyes closed in concentration, lips moving slightly as he muttered incantations for her. She felt better by the moment, the throbbing of her ribs entirely ceasing. This man was really something.

With a newfound spring in her step, Tav returned to Aradin’s corner of the cave once dawn started brightening the sky. She didn’t have any things that were her own, and thus had nothing to gather, but just leaving didn’t feel right.

She crouched next to his sleeping bag and gently placed her hands on his shoulders, whispering his name.

He awoke and raised himself up on his elbows so quickly Tav wondered if he ever slept deeply at all. His eyes were clear and alert. Had she not heard him softly snoring just a moment before, she’d never have believed he had just been asleep.

“Whotiseht?” He mumbled, searching her face for signs of danger. His voice was heavy with sleep.

“I’m sorry for waking you up, but my crew is back. I’m going back to their camp. Thank you for everything.”

She leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek.

“The tieflings are having a party at the camp later. You and the others should come.”

Without waiting for his answer (she was very scared he was going to tell her no), she stood back up and walked away as quickly and quietly as she could.

The morning dew had already laid its claim on everything around her as she exited the grove for the first time in days. Shadowheart waited outside, not at all eager to let Tav leave her sight again. They walked to the camp in a comfortable silence, not bothering to spend any energy on talking. The poor goth could barely walk straight. Tav hadn’t asked because they’d all been so wrecked, but she could barely wait to hear what had happened in the goblin camp. More specifically, what had happened to that horrible Spike. She was crossing her fingers for something bloody.

Everyone was asleep in their tents when they reached the camp, and Shadowheart, after lending Tav another bar of soap, was quick to follow their lead. Besides Aradin’s gentle spongebath to get the blood and grime off of her, Tav hadn’t washed at all since before the goblin camp. Her armpits must have been biohazards by now.

She washed her borrowed clothes as thoroughly as she could before getting down to herself. She was almost scared to look at her body, but to her great delight, it looked almost normal. A bit thinner than before, perhaps, but most of the cuts and bruises were gone. Halsin wasn’t known to be an expert healer for nothing, it seemed.

The only place that hadn’t healed as pretty was the gash on her ribs. Tav ran her fingers over it and felt new, fresh scar tissue protruding from her skin. It was raised and knotted, but it was a scar all the same. Her relief was immense and greatly overshadowed the loss of the smoothness that used to be.

One of her companions had at some point looted a few clothes from an abandoned village somewhere nearby, which Tav had refused to wear. The thought of abandoning her clothes from home and putting on something that looked like a fantasy fair costume had been absurd, but now, she rummaged through the camp’s chests in order to find it again. She hadn’t even had the time to grieve her beautiful outfit, bought specifically for the occasion of the party she had scurried from a thousand lifetimes away. Now, that dress had been reduced to bloody ribbons in Aradin’s makeshift camp. Not quite how she would have liked her clothes to end up on his floor.

Her fingers finally closed around the linen fabric of her target. It was a rather simple dress. It was modest, reached her ankles, and was a dusty brown colour. It was absolutely hideous. She might as well have pulled a potato sack on, but it would have to do. For now.

Her hair was f*cking awful. How anyone had managed to look at her at all the past few days was far beyond her understanding. It was matted and dirty (as in there was actual, literal dirt in it) and tangled into so many knots she almost shed a little tear of frustration when she tried to salvage it. The things she would do for conditioner right now were diabolical and deeply unsettling.

She was shivering from the cool lake water by the time she had finger-combed, cursed, and pulled through the mess enough to wash it with the soap. Feeling a little more human, she returned to the shore, put on her newly washed underwear, and laid on a nearby rock as if she were a starfish. The sun had risen a bit higher and had become just a tad warmer, and she decided to lie there until it had fried her crisp. Her companions didn’t seem to be planning on emerging from their tents anytime soon, anyway.

Tav could have sworn she just closed her eyes for a moment, but when she opened them again, the sky above was full of glittering stars. She sat with a start, cool air whispering over her bare skin. But she hadn’t slept into the evening and through the party; she was back in the little piece of outer space her guardian seemed to have reserved just for her and her companions. And she was only wearing her underwear. And her hair was wet. Splendid.

Her guardian sat on a rock with his back to her again, for which she was rather grateful. If he was her guardian angel like he said he was, and had been with her all her life, he had probably seen her shower while protecting her from slipping, or something. But still. This was different.

“I’d love to come say hi,” she called to him. “But you didn’t give me a chance to get dressed.”

His head turned slightly in her direction, but he did not look at her. She was almost disappointed.

“What is your favourite colour?” He asked, voice soft and languishing.

“Ehm… blue. Why?”

He waved his hand through the air, and for a moment, the air around her came alive. Whatever magic he wielded felt completely different from Halsin’s; his was smooth and earthy like a breeze, and this was sharp and warm like calloused hands. Before her eyes, fabric was spun out of thin air and enveloped her body neatly.

“What-”

It was a dress. A beautiful, blue dress with an embroidered corset and a neckline high enough to cover the spot Astarion had bitten. She gasped as she ran her hands over the fabric, which felt cool and oddly smooth beneath her touch. Like a spiderweb, or running water. And it was blue. Blue blue, like the sea on a stormy day.

It was absolutely beautiful.

“It is a gift. Consider it an apology for my inability to save you from the goblins. I did not expect you to get into such trouble so soon.”

Tav twirled on the spot, half expecting the dress to disappear. It didn’t.

“Thank you, this is… how did you do that?”

He turned to her then, his smile as warm and pleasant as she remembered.

“I have my ways.” He gestured to the empty space next to him on the rock, and she sat down. The scent of amber enveloped her, balsamic and warm.

“You have healed well. Good.” He was f*cking breathtaking. “I summoned you here to warn you of what lies ahead. The goblins are one of the least dangerous foes you and your companions will face on this journey, I’m afraid. If you do not learn to wield your powers, you will die.”

She had figured as much, but it still made her stomach drop to hear it put so plainly.

“How do I do that?”

“Give me your hands.”

She did as she was told. His hands were large and smooth as silk when he turned hers back and forth, tracing the lines of her palms and the spaces between her fingers. Tav felt her nipples harden.

Christ.

“Do you feel that?” He asked softly, leaning slightly towards her. She furrowed her brows and forced her eyes from his lips, trying hard to focus on whatever it was he expected her to feel. The only thing she felt was his skin against hers, and yet… there was something. An odd, fluid feeling of pressure beneath her skin. Something foreign. It made her want to shake her hands out.

“The power is already inside you, waiting for you to release it. I will guide you.”

He let go of her hands.

“Tonight is a night of celebration, and I want you to put the future from your mind as well as you can. Tomorrow, we begin.”

Chapter 10: Celebrations

Chapter Text

The day came and went with Tav helping the tieflings however she could. Whether it was moving boxes or organising utensils or keeping the kids calm, she flitted between them and offered any aid she could. Granted, she had little to no skills at all, but the tieflings were very forgiving and happy to tell her things twice. Or thrice. Or more.

Wyll and Karlach were at it, too, lending their strength and their optimism to the refugees wherever needed. Shadowheart, Lae’zel and Astarion were nowhere to be found, and Gale was involved in a deep conversation with Rolan. The sight of the latter made her giggle. They probably had loads in common, those two.

When the evening came around, the tieflings were ready to leave at first light. As soon as whatever duties called had been settled, they wasted no time before heading to their camp. It was strange to see so many people here, filling up every empty space with laughter and chatter. It felt more like home than anything else had, so far. The constant feeling of looming dread on the horizon wasn’t quite so strong with the place full of happy, hopeful people, music, the light from the fire, and (best of all, perhaps) wine.

Tav really did her best to not make a fool of herself, but it was a lot easier said than done. The wine they had here was f*cking disgusting. It really made her appreciate the artificially flavoured options at home, sweetened to hell and back with who knows what. This wine was oddly sour. Like vinegar.

Despite her attempts to talk to all the tieflings she had gotten to know in the past day, her feet lead her to Halsin as if magnetised. As soon as he saw her approach, he offered her a bright smile.

“Go on now!” He said, waving her away when she closed in. “Don’t waste a night like this talking to me. We’ll discuss what comes next tomorrow.”

Tav beamed up at him. “I want to talk to you.”

His gaze averted hers, then, falling on his feet.

“We’ll have plenty of time to talk, I’ll wager. I’m surprised you haven’t had your fill of me yet.”

Maybe the sourness of the wine had masked its strength, or maybe she had drunk more than she thought she had. The comfortable, warming buzz in her blood made her brave. She gently placed her hand on his bicep (it was probably bigger than her head) and looked at him through her lashes.

“I haven’t had nearly enough.”

Her own words made her blush and her heart skip several beats. Her belly was on fire.

The way his voice dropped and octave was not lost on her, and neither was the slight blush on the tips of his ears. “Perhaps I can remedy that…” (Tav’s puss* literally twitched ) “But - that will have to wait until another time. There are many grateful people who would love to spend time with you tonight, I must not keep you all to myself.”

Tav bit her lip and felt triumphant when his eyes flickered to the small movement.

“What a shame. I would have rather liked that.”

She smiled at him one last time before turning on her heel and leaving him there. She couldn’t believe her own boldness, nor her sudden surge of lust. It was the wine. It had to be.

She made a couple of rounds, clapping at Rolan’s pathetic lightshow, dancing with Bex until Danis had to rescue them both from themselves. She even shared a toast with Shadowheart, who was brooding alone by her tent, but who had been kind enough to compliment her dress. She asked Wyll if he was okay when she found him by the river, and he had as kindly and sweetly as possible told her to mind her business and f*ck off. Gale had confided in her about his magical cat, and she had been eager to ask him all about her. What a delightfully normal thing, to have a cat as a pet. Little things like that made this world feel a lot less strange.

She was avoiding a certain corner of the party as if it was shrouded in shadows and invisible to her. Flirting with Halsin was one thing; she didn’t actually expect him to make any moves on her, especially not after the past couple of days. This, however… this was different. And it made her a little bit nervous, if she was to be entirely honest.

Before she could think much more about it, she felt eyes from the other side of the camp tracking her movements. The ruby gaze was insistent in a way that could not be ignored. In a way that didn’t wish to be.

He looked as sullen and bored as ever, pretending he hadn’t been staring at her at all. She rolled her eyes and relented.

“You seriously need to calm down, Astarion.” She said, her voice stern. His head snapped in her direction, but she continued before he had a chance to respond. “You’re having way too much fun right now.”

He scoffed at her. “Think you’re funny, do you?”

She took a deep bow that made the contents of her stomach splash around uncomfortably.

“Your resident jester at your service, your grace.”

“Are you, now? Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

She wrinkled her nose at him and his smouldering face. She was convinced his constant, exaggerated flirting served no other purpose than to annoy and bother everyone around him. He was certainly succeeding.

“Why are you brooding by yourself? Can’t find anyone to torment?” She asked sweetly, her hand fidgeting for a cup she no longer held. Where had she left it? She had no pockets.

“You wound me, darling. I can enjoy a good party at the worst of times, but this... I have a worm in my brain, this wine is disgusting, and I have to endure drunken tiefling shouts and singing. I already regret saving their lives.”

She kicked some dirt into his tent in response to his complaining, to which he made an expression of absolute outrage. “You little-”

“Justshuttup for once, will you?” She slurred, turning her eyes skywards. “You can whine about how sorry your life is tomorrow. Let people enjoy things.”

“I would love to enjoy things myself, you know. All I want is a bit of fun. Is that too much to ask?”

“Knowing you, most definitely.”

He rolled his eyes at her and turned away, but he came back almost immediately. He couldn’t get enough of her, it seemed.

“Don’t be so sour. I like a good time as much as anyone.”

“And what do you define as a good time, Astarion?”

He looked absolutely exasperated for a moment. “By the hells. Sex, my dear. A night of passion.”

Despite her best efforts, Tav couldn’t stop her face from contorting in disgust. A night of passion? This guy had gotten all of his lines from gas station romance paperbacks, it seemed.

“Not with you, just to be clear,” he said, his eyes flickering from her head to her feet and back again. “I mean, can you imagine? Urgh, no.”

Tav tilted her head with furrowed brows. “If you’re trying to reject me, Astarion, save your cold breath. I would never.”

Medieval Ken actually had the grace to look offended, but Tav didn’t stick around to hear whatever catty response he came up with to bite back. Turning on her heel, she walked in the direction of that one forbidden corner of the camp. She had avoided it out of nervousness, yes, but also because of the way her heart stumbled and her stomach surged every time their gazes met. Attention of any intimate kind always made her feel this way, all out of sorts and weirdly giddy. But the wine helped. Liquid courage indeed.

Tav was very, very tired of feeling weak, weird, and alien in the company of their little group. Despite some of them being friendly to her, she’d felt less like a person with each passing day since she arrived here. She needed something, someone to pull her back to earth. Or, well, whatever planet she was on at the moment. And Tav had never been above taking what she needed. Tonight was no different.

Thus she tried to ignore the jitters in her stomach as she walked across the camp to seek out her target of the evening, her heart speeding up at the mere thought.

Just like he had been all night, Aradin was watching her when she approached him. Leaning against one of the tree trunks with a goblet of whatever in his hand, he looked as handsome as always. Even more so, if she were being honest, as his cheeks were flush with whatever he was drinking.

“Took your time, did you?” He drawled, but he didn’t look at all displeased.

“I had hands to shake,” she responded with a shrug. “What are you drinking?”

He wordlessly held out the goblet for her to take, and she swallowed a mouthful of its contents without smelling it first. Had someone told her it was the same stuff he had used to clean her wounds with, she would have believed them entirely with the way it scorched its way through her body. Suddenly, she was very aware of how fast her blood coursed through her veins. She was very warm and very alive, and so was the man in front of her.

“Jesus Christ,” she muttered, returning the goblet with a now shaky hand.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing.”

Aradin nodded in a way that probably meant good-cause-ah-dont-give-ah-shiiite-anyweh, put the goblet on the ground, and reached for her. She melted into his arms with relief, wasting no time before putting her mouth on his. His lips were softer than she had expected, and they tasted like the fiery liquid she still had on her own tongue. There was something else, too. Something sweetly spicy, like cinnamon. He tasted as good as he looked, because of course he did.

He placed a hand on the back of her neck and the other on her waist, tracing the curve of her body, making everything in her tingle. It had been a very, very long time since someone had touched her this way. When she pushed her tongue past his lips, he made a soft, mellow sound, and the fire in her stomach ran south.

The hand on her neck ran through her hair before gently tugging at it, making her gasp into his mouth. He pulled her closer in response, pressing their bodies together and allowing her to wrap her arms around his neck. She felt him harden against her as his other hand explored her body, pausing only briefly to squeeze her hip. Almost dizzy with pent up desire she hadn’t known she was carrying, she hummed against his lips and let her fingers slide through the soft curls at the nape of his neck. He shivered. He was delightful.

Someone cleared their throat behind her. Aradin did not release his grip or allow her to step back when he broke their kiss to see whatever the f*ck whoever the f*ck wanted.

“Outta my face, Barth.”

“Get a bloody room, yeah?”

Aradin turned his face back to hers, their noses almost touching. His smile was intoxicating.

“Would you look at that? If it ain’t the first good idea the lad’s ever had.”

Tav giggled sweetly, a sound entirely out of character for her, and dragged Aradin by the hand towards the woods behind their camp. A tent probably wasn’t a good idea. Not with the sounds she was planning to tease out of him, anyway.

The thought gave her pause. What was she actually planning to do with him? She didn’t know how to take, only how to give. She doubted he would be interested in her spontaneously teaching him what a strap-on was.

But as soon as they had made it far enough into the woods, Aradin gripped her hips and pushed her against a tree, kissing her with a hunger that made her forget about everything else. His scent was herbal and leathery and she wanted it all over her. She wanted him all over her.

It wasn’t until his rough hands started travelling up her thigh beneath her dress that Tav finally got it together.

“Wait,” she mumbled into their kiss, and he pulled back just enough to look into her eyes, moving his hand from under her skirt to her hip instead.

“You wanna head back?” He asked, voice breathless and raspy.

“No, it’s just… I’ve never… oh, don’t look at me like that! I don’t mean never, just… not with a man.”

Resting his hand on the tree she was leaning against, he looked at her with raised brows for a moment. His pupils were huge and made his eyes look much darker than they were. She couldn’t tell if it was from alcohol or lust.

“Well,” he finally said, “do you want to?”

Tav couldn’t help but laugh at him.

“‘Do I want to’?” she mocked as she grabbed the hand resting on her hip and guided it back up her skirt, pushing past her underwear to let him feel how wet he had made her just from f*cking kissing her.

He squeezed his eyes shut and groaned as if he was struggling against himself. “Damn.”

“I just need you to show me what to do, yes?”

Aradin nodded curtly before pulling her into another kiss, even more heated than before. He coated his fingers in her, using her slickness to paint slow circles on her cl*t. Tav whined into his mouth, pleasantly surprised by his skill and a little bit frightened of being the one being touched instead of the other way around.

“Lay down,” he ordered against her lips, “I’ve got to know what a pretty thing like you tastes like.”

His words went straight to the heat between her thighs.

“On your knees, then.”

He broke their kiss and stared at her in disbelief. “Whot? ”

Tav didn’t falter. He was going to be teaching her things tonight, yes, but she had a thing or two she could teach him, too.

“You heard me, Aradin Beno. On your knees.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, looking as if he was fighting an inner battle of the fiercest calibre. Finally, he made a sound not unlike that of a growling animal, and kneeled.

“You’re damn lucky you’re beautiful,” he muttered. He looked f*cking incredible looking up at her like this, even if he did so while scowling. The dissatisfied look on his face vanished the second she slid her dress over her head and threw it over a nearby branch, entirely replaced by what she could only describe as awe. When she went to push down her underwear, his hands were way ahead of her, ripping the fabric when he tore it off.

“So pretty,” he muttered as he traced her slit with a finger, apparently having forgotten the terrible embarrassment of being on his knees. His touch was soft as a feather and made her instinctively push against him, encouraging him to touch her more. Harder. More.

Without another word, his mouth was on her, and Tav was elated. He tongued at her hungrily while his fingers caressed the soft skin around her entrance, teasing her. Tav had to bite down on her lip to keep from moaning much louder than he’d earned. It had been so long.

Aradin was no woman, but he was a munch all the same. What he lacked in skill he more than made up for in enthusiasm, and he quickly adapted to this foreign, submissive position and pulled one of her legs over his shoulder for better access, slowly easing a finger into her. He moaned against her cl*t when she clenched around it, eager for another.

Her head was spinning from alcohol and lust and pleasure, and she was breathing too hard, and she had to steady herself with an arm on the tree behind her and another in his hair. Pulling at his curls to bring him closer to her made him groan against her skin. Christ.

Tav felt her climax coming on embarrassingly fast as soon as he added a second finger, beckoning against all the sweet spots inside her while his mouth worked her cl*t. Her muscles began to tighten, and Aradin seemed all the more eager for it. She swore under her breath. She could barely believe herself, but when he started gently nibbling and sucking on her cl*t, she knew there was no way she could have held on.

When her org*sm hit, she had to stuff her fingers in her mouth to keep from screaming. She writhed against him, and he clung to her like he would die if his tongue wasn’t on her. When the leg she was standing on gave out, he pulled her into his lap and kissed her, letting her taste her own salty sweetness on his tongue. Her head was spinning. Her fingers tingled.

Still twitching from her high, she struggled to unlace Aradin’s trousers. They had magic, shapeshifters, and actual gods here, but inventing the zipper would of course have been way out of line. He pushed away her hands and undid them himself, either from mercy or impatience, Tav didn’t care much. She only ever broke her mouth from his to look at his dick, utterly mesmerised. Of course she had seen one or two or a thousand online, but real life was certainly different. It looked… nice. Maybe the moonlight just suited it.

“Can I touch it?” She whispered as Aradin kissed her neck, and he chuckled against her skin in response.

“Hav’ at it.”

Carefully, she ran her fingers over the length of him, which he rewarded with a stifled gasp. His skin was silky smooth and unbelievably soft, and when she wrapped her hand around him, the tips of her fingers didn’t touch. Lord have mercy.

Aradin covered her hand with his own, showing her how to stroke him in a way he liked. Her pulse was pounding between her legs, her puss* physically aching for him, but there was no way she would give him the satisfaction of telling him that.

Aradin’s hands were on her hips, her chest, her ass, in her hair, all over. He planted wet, needy kisses on her neck and jaw and moaned softly as she touched him, throbbing in her hand.

Tav’s arousal dripped onto his thigh, and he gently sank his teeth into the soft skin on her throat.

“Bloody hells, you’re soaked,” he mumbled, his voice deep and his accent thick.

“I’ve played your game long enough. Lay down and let me f*ck you.”

Her body clenched around nothing in response, and despite her instinctive need to push back, all she could do was give in. He pulled his shirt over his head, baring himself to her completely, and she was almost sick with need as she drank in the sight of his body. His muscles were smooth and defined beneath his tan skin, and his torso was decorated with scars from countless fights. She wanted to kiss them all. She wanted to lick the fine line of hair spreading downwards from his navel. She wanted to bite him, scratch him, make him whimper. She was going to explode, or turn into a werewolf, or scream, or levitate off the ground, or all of the above.

Aradin was on her before she could do any of it, though. Her fingers were tangled in his hair as he kissed her all over, sucking bruises into the skin of her collarbone and hips. When he reached the new, ugly scar on her ribs, he planted the lightest and most gentle of kisses on it before returning to her mouth. Something inside of Tav melted.

She gasped when she felt the tip of his dick rubbing against her entrance, her body so rigid with lust she almost considered begging for it to make him hurry up. Almost.

“Say please,” Aradin taunted, smirking down at her as if he had read her mind.

Oh, f*ck this guy.

“f*ck you.”

His hand closed around her chin, shaking her head gently back and forth. “That’s a fancy way of saying you need it. Tell me, and I’ll give it to you.”

He was lucky she wasn’t a wizard like Gale, because then he most definitely would be a pile of ash right now. Or a frog. Perhaps even a worm.

It brought her physical pain, but Aradin had started sliding his co*ck back and forth between her folds, tapping her cl*t with it ever so often, and so she had no other choice.

“I need it. Please.” Her voice sounded small and pathetic being forced through her clenched teeth. This was not top behaviour.

“Please what?”

“Oh for the love of everything, Aradin, just f*ck me already!”

He smirked once more before kissing her again, and then he carefully eased himself inside of her.

Tav clenched her teeth again and expected pain, for some reason, but there was none. There was an uncomfortable pressure for a few moments, but he went slow, stopping at every inch to kiss her, suck on her neck, or whisper curse words and filth into her ear. It had become very apparent to her that Aradin, despite what others regarded as his enormous attitude problem, was a slu*t. He had to be. There was no other explanation for this level of expertise.

She felt him push against some unexplored spot deep inside her when his hips met the back of her thighs, pushing himself as deep as he could go. A startled moan forced itself from her throat when he slowly pulled back out, upping the speed just a tad when he pushed back in.

“Damn,” he hissed into her hair, “damn you feel good.”

Tav couldn’t answer, so she moaned and pulled him closer, needing his tongue in her mouth. She briefly wondered if this is what it felt like for other women when she f*cked them, and figured that to be the reason why nobody ever seemed to lose her number. Except for Leah, of course. But she refused to think about her right now.

With each thrust, Aradin quickened his pace, and soon she was moaning embarrassingly loud and clawing at his back while their little spot in the woods echoed the sounds of their skin colliding. Aradin was more than a little attentive, making sure to touch every part of her, and when he finally sucked on his fingers and reached down between them to firmly stroke her cl*t, she came almost immediately.

Spasming and twitching around his co*ck, Tav felt her eyes roll back in her skull and couldn’t help but arch her back off the ground, screaming into Aradin’s palm when he covered her mouth with his hand. Waves of pleasure spread from somewhere deep inside her and all the way into her fingertips and toes, the sensation of his continued thrusts overwhelming her.

“f*cking hells,” he growled, lifting her slightly to reach underneath her, wrapping his arms around her waist so their torsos were flush with each other. She didn’t think it possible, but the slight change of angle allowed him even deeper access to her, and she cried out as the overstimulation began to crescendo. His thrusts became sloppier and harder, his moans more voiced, and when Tav grabbed his jaw and licked into his mouth, he trembled and came undone.

With a few last, hard thrusts, he spilled himself inside of her while whispering her name over and over as if it was an incantation, his breath almost cool against her warm, sweaty skin.

They were still for a moment, two hearts pounding, bodies pulsing and warm. Tav was at a loss for words, and so too was Aradin, it seemed, and they allowed themselves a minute of wordless panting. This was the most alive she had felt since she woke up in these very woods.

When she had caught her breath, she clenched around him just to hear him gasp, giggling at his sensitivity. As punishment, he pulled out of her, leaving her feeling empty and deliciously used. Rolling over, he pulled her with him until she rested her head on his chest. None of them said anything for a while.

“Do you think the others heard us?” Tav finally said, her voice hoarse and worn.

“For their sake, I hope so.”

She chuckled and closed her eyes, tuning out the worries for how embarrassing the next day would be. She already felt like the odd one out, constantly humiliated about her own existence. If nothing else, this would show them that someone wanted her.

“Ts’almost a shame,” Aradin mumbled, his finger tracing circles across the skin on her hip. “I should have made you scream my name, make sure all your little friends knew who was making you sound like that.”

Tav felt her nipples harden once more and her blood rush south. She was quiet for a moment, contemplating how much energy she had. f*ck it, why not?

“We could always go again?”

He laughed in response, a hearty and boyish sound that made her want him even more.

“Let’s go, tiger.”

Chapter 11: Tea

Chapter Text

If Tav had kept her eyes shut the next morning, she could almost have convinced herself that she was home. Late morning sun warmed her back and her scalp, and the birds in the trees around them sang as if it was springtime. It felt like one of those April mornings where you had slept with your window open, your sheets were white and clean, you had dreamt sweetly, and spring reared its head for the first time in months.

She had, of course, been laying on a few crumbled blankets on the ground, and not a comfortable bed. Finding twigs entangled in your hair and ants crawling up your leg were good ways to break the illusion.

Her and Aradin had f*cked until they couldn’t keep their eyes open, and when she motioned to leave after waking in the morning, he had pulled her back onto the ground and taken her once more before letting her go. It had been sloppy and sleepy and perfectly lovely, and Tav almost skipped back to camp, barely resisting the urge to sing a little song and dance around as if she were alone in her own kitchen. Despite looking (and probably smelling) like she had spent the night in a foxhole, she felt more like herself than she had since she came here. Her head was entirely still, the buzz silent and tucked away somewhere until she’d inevitably need it next.

Most of the tieflings were gathered and ready to leave, except for a select few who had overindulged and thus overslept. This was how Tav had ended up in her current situation: holding back Alfira’s hair as she hurled into a hollow space between two rocks by the river. Lakrissa was running back and forth between them and their supply sacks, bringing anything the poor thing could possibly need. Her fussing was rather adorable, Tav thought.

Despite the smell of puke in her nose, Tav felt quite at peace as she stroked Alfira’s back in soothing circles. This was familiar to her. She hadn’t thought much about her life at home since her kidnapping, but right now, it didn’t feel as painful as it usually did. She had held her friends’ hair away from their vomiting mouths countless times, and they had done the same for her. All those nights had turned into a haze in hindsight. Tav wasn’t sure where one party ended and another began, or if there even were sober moments between them at all.

She didn’t miss it, she realised. She missed home and what it entailed: wifi, soft beds, a couch, cigarettes (Jesus f*ck did she miss cigarettes), bakeries, cafés. Her eReader. Music. Her best friend. But the constant partying, her mind always foggy with smoke or drinks or drugs? She could do without it. She realised now that she had been living her life in a constant chase of the feeling her guardian provided to her so easily.

While braiding Alfira’s hair, she imagined reaching for the buzzing inside her head. She felt a stirring response, but not enough to numb her. Just enough to let her know that it was still there, should she need it. Should she want it.

And oh, did she want it.

But not this morning.

This morning was okay.

When Alfira felt a little better, Tav returned to her previous task of packing some of the herbs Shadowheart (despite her look of discontent at the party) had sorted for the tieflings to bring with them. They were lighter and easier to carry than the potions they could brew, she’d explained. And if what Halsin had said about the road ahead of them, they would need all the help they could get.

Tav had begged and pleaded with all of her companions to help the tieflings, but they were relentless. Lae’zel had scoffed at her without offering an explanation, and everyone else besides Karlach and Wyll (If her whole group was stuck in a burning building and she could only save two…) were weirdly evasive about it. As if they all had better things to do, tadpole be damned.

It annoyed her endlessly. She had ignored most of them in the following hours, sticking to being useful however she could. Whenever idle, she found herself floating restlessly around Zevlor, following him like a shadow. He had been polite enough to ignore it, but when he took a step back at one point and almost stumbled into her, the conversation was inevitable.

“Do you wish to speak with me, young lady?” He asked, manners shiny and polished as ever.

Tav’s face burned with shame on behalf of her companions. She had decided ahead of time that she would not cry, despite her frustration.

“I want to apologise for my… crew.” She said, wringing her hands behind her back. You couldn’t pay her a bazillion dollars to refer to them as her friends right at this moment.

“I’ve tried to convince them to come with you, but I guess their heroism has its limits. I would have come if I could have been anything but a burden to you.” She bit her cheek hard enough to taste her own blood, but she did not cry.

“You and your friends have done more than enough for us. We would have been dead already if it wasn’t for you. I would not dream of asking for more,” he responded, his fiery eyes kind. Tav didn’t understand how she had found him scary the first time she saw him.

“I know, I know. I just wish… if I had magic like Gale, or skills like Lae’zel does, I would follow you in a heartbeat.”

He placed a warm hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze that momentarily made her yearn for her dad for the first time in years.

“I know. We all know. Thank you.”

If she were to keep her promise and not cry, she would have to leave promptly. She gave him a tight smile and a nod before turning away, swallowing past the lump in her throat. The intensity with which her mood had changed almost gave her a headache. She missed her medicine.

As if he was reading her mind (he probably was), her guardian enveloped her brain in a quiet, soothing buzz. Nothing as severe or mind-numbing as usual, but enough for the fire in her stomach and in the corners of her eyes to calm a bit.

She was so lost in thought she nearly screamed when Halsin suddenly towered over her, managing to stop her feet just moments before her face would have collided with his chest and knocked his mug from his hand.

“Jesus!” She gasped, tilting her head back to look up at him. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.

He smiled warmly at her. “Impressive. I’ve been told I’m hard to overlook.”

Her blood was hot in her cheeks. She had made an absolute fool of herself last night, and then she had slept with Aradin loudly enough for the entire camp to hear. What he mustn’t think of her. She wasn’t sure why she cared.

“Uhm, I’m really sorry about yesterday,” she said, fidgeting behind her back once again. Halsin lifted an eyebrow at her.

“Whatever for?”

“For coming on… strong, I guess.” f*cking hell, she was practically squirming on the spot.

To her immense relief, delight, and absolute horror, Halsin responded with a gentle, private laugh. Just for her.

“There are few things in life that are too strong for me. Had I been in your place, I would have done the same.”

She blinked at him a couple of times, processing his words.

“Are you saying-”

“I’m saying it is not possible for you to leave a bad impression. Not with me. But we have other matters at hand, I’m afraid. And I trust you enjoyed your evening regardless.”

The teasing sparkle in his eyes did absolutely not cushion her as her embarrassment came back swinging. She groaned and buried her head in her hands.

“Please tell me you were watching from behind a tree and that the whole camp didn’t hear us.”

His laugh was deep and booming, reminding her of the form she first met him in.

“I don’t watch without permission, no. But put it from your mind - I prefer sleeping in bear form, and a bear’s hearing is exceptional.”

A very big, very relieved sigh. She couldn’t believe how bold she had felt the night before, crying out for the adventurer without a care in the world. It must have been the wine.

“I hope I am not overstepping,” he continued, bowing his head respectfully. “Of course your choices are entirely your own, but perhaps the time… is not ideal, given the circ*mstances.”

Tav hadn’t a clue of what he was talking about. She was starting to feel like she never did.

“This tea,” he elaborated as he held out the mug to her, “will rid you of any… unwanted consequences of your night.”

Oh.

Oh.

A plan B tea. She should have expected nothing less of a world full of magic, but nevertheless, she was stunned.

“Will it hurt? Will I bleed?” She finally asked after gathering her wits. She had never taken a plan B pill herself, for obvious reasons, but some of her friends had, and their experiences were never pleasant.

Halsin looked at her, baffled. “Of course not.”

She gently took it from his hand and sniffed it. It smelled like the colour green.

“This is so cool,” she said, staring into the clear liquid. “Thank you, Halsin.”

He bowed his head again.

“Of course. Let me know if you’re ever in need of my… services again.”

They smiled at each other before Tav went to sit on her favourite rock by the river, enjoying the sunshine and her pain free plan B tea. What a wonder this world was. To think that you could have a Godzilla of an elf brew you a magic tea instead of shamefully trying to whisper to a pharmacy worker that you needed a plan B pill… these people didn’t know how good they had it.

As she sipped, she found herself humming a tune to a song she couldn’t quite remember. She was having a downright pleasant time, if you can believe it.

Of course, all good things end.

“So,” the worst voice in the world said behind her. “I heard you did the deed.”

Jesus f*cking Christ.

“Go away, Astarion.”

He strutted into her line of sight, looking only slightly more disheveled than usual. Did vampires get hangovers?

“Not that I wanted to hear it, of course, but you and that fool were howling like a pair of dogs all night.”

“Right, and I’m sure you stuffed your pointy ears full of wool instead of listening in.”

He tutted at her as if what she was saying was utterly ridiculous.

“Well of course I listened, darling. I half expected him to have his way with you and leave you wanting, but that shows what I know.”

He picked up a smooth, round stone and skipped it across the lake water before, nimbly as a cat, perching on the rock beside her.

“So tell me, how was it?”

She regarded him suspiciously. He seemed oddly talkative today, getting all close to her completely voluntarily. She couldn’t figure out what ulterior motive could possibly be behind this behaviour, but she didn’t believe he had come over just to gossip with her, either.

Regardless, she decided to indulge him. Perhaps spending time around Aradin and his friends had lowered her guard a little, or perhaps Astarion could prove to be worthy entertainment. Personality besides.

“It was… really good,” she said, pretending for a moment that he was simply one of her friends from home. “I hadn’t tried it before and felt totally out of my element, but it was good. He was good.”

Astarion dramatically covered his mouth with his hand, gasping at her words. “Don’t tell me he was your first! In the dirt in the woods, no less! You filthy devil.”

Tav actually laughed, and she felt just as surprised at the fact as Astarion looked.

“He wasn’t my first first, just my first man. I’m not used to being… uhm, on the receiving end of things, if you know what I mean.”

He clapped his hands together as if this was the best thing he had ever heard. “Oh do I ever, darling. Perhaps you and I have more in common than I thought.”

She huffed at him. “You don’t strike me as a giver.”

“How you wound me! I am a consummate lover!”

The smile his weirdly Shakespearean words teased out in her was almost earnest. A comfortable silence stretched between them as she finished her tea and Astarion sat with his eyes closed, looking like he was trying to absorb the sunlight through his skin. It struck her that his position was unusually vulnerable, the baring of his throat and the peaceful expression on his face entirely out of character. If she wanted to, she could slit his throat right now, and he probably wouldn’t be able to stop her. If slitting a vampire’s throat even killed them.

“How old are you?” She asked him, shaking off her strangely violent thoughts.

“Hm? 239, give or take a couple of years.”

Tav’s jaw almost unhinged.

“What? That’s so old!”

He scoffed at her. “Excuse me? I’m going to be young forever. How old might you be?”

“I’m twenty-six.”

“Oh dear. I keep forgetting how depressingly brief human lives are.”

“As if I would want to live hundreds of years. I’m not even thirty and I’ve seen enough, thank you very much.”

The laugh that erupted from him then was high-pitched and laced with something she could only describe as disdain. Before she could poke him about it and figure out what his problem was, both of their heads snapped in the direction of camp where Halsin and Gale’s voices suddenly raised, cutting through the peaceful quiet.

“Explain yourself!” Halsin said, sounding more animal than human in his rage. Tav sent Astarion a brief puzzled look before they both set off towards the sound.

Halsin towered over Gale who cowered under his gaze, hands raised in what could have looked like surrender if not for the look of fury on his face. Even from afar, Tav could see how hard they both were breathing, and how much Halsin’s hands were shaking.

Their rupturing argument attracted eyes all over camp, tiefling and human alike. As she approached, the worm in her head quivered with the emotions Gale was too distracted to tuck away. She could taste the sharpness of his self righteous anger, the bile of his panic, but also something bitter and warm that made her feel sick. Guilt, unsweetened and raw.

“I did not walk into that chamber with ill intentions, Halsin!” He argued in the elf’s face, his voice only slightly raised now. “She poisoned me! She refused me the antidote!”

“You are a wizard, are you not?” Halsin hissed through clenched teeth. “Surely you had other options than to kill her!”

Tav gasped in disbelief at the exact moment Astarion gasped in amazement. He leaned slightly towards her and whispered behind his hand, apparently having forgotten how much he disliked her.

“It seems the druid found out what happened to his apprentice!”

She side eyed him with an acidity she hoped he could feel. He sounded excited, as if Gale murdering someone was just a bit of everyday drama to spice up his morning.

“You don’t understand!” Gale retorted, throwing his hands around in frustration. “I didn’t have time to think. If it had killed me, if I had died…”

The wizard trailed off, straightening his back and closing his eyes before taking a deep breath. “I am sorry, Halsin. If I could have acted differently, I would have. I felt she left me no choice.”

It felt as if the entire camp held its breath in anticipation of Halsin’s next move. If he attacked, hardly anyone could blame him, but then again - Gale was quite powerful, from what Tav had been told. It was unlikely either of them would walk away from a fight unscathed.

To her immense relief (and Astarion’s immense disappointment, if his scoff was any indication), Halsin stepped back.

“Very well,” he said, but his voice was cold. “You reacted as a cornered animal would, I suppose. But it does not ease the loss you have inflicted on my grove.”

He turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Gale flushed and crestfallen behind him. Tav’s brain couldn’t seem to process any of what had just happened. She had a vague, fuzzy memory of Halsin mentioning his apprentice healer, but she hadn’t thought about her at all since then. That was several days ago, meaning the apprentice had been dead this whole time. And Halsin hadn’t known.

It made her heart ache.

Gale’s guilt and shame almost made her gag with its potency. She took a few stumbling steps back, trying to put distance between them, not understanding what was going on.

The wizard turned on the spot and sent her a look that should have killed her.

“Out!” He shouted, shaking his head as if he was ridding his hair of something unpleasant. Tav took another step back, raising her hands in peace, almost dizzy with confusion. Gale’s emotions were pulled from her mind as if they were a physical pressure in her head that suddenly ceased.

He pointed a very accusing finger at her, his voice was dripping with contempt Tav didn’t at all feel she had earned. “How dare you! Do not ever do that again, not unless I invite you to!”

He didn’t give her a chance to find her words before turning and stomping away, leaving the camp behind. She was completely dumbfounded.

What the f*ck?

Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. How absolutely f*cking humiliating to be scolded by some man in front of everyone. As if she was six years old in the f*cking schoolyard.

“What did you do to the poor magician?” Astarion asked behind her, voice laced with mischief. She could have told him she didn’t do a damn thing, but she had a feeling he wouldn’t believe her. Without answering, she turned and stalked off in the opposite direction from where Gale had gone to brood, huffing and puffing as she went. She couldn’t believe the temper of some of these people. Gale had been one of the nicest ones so far, but shouting at her in front of everyone quite frankly made her wish for the ground to open and swallow him up. All of her new buddy buddies were either secretive, downright mean, or entirely unpredictable. She had just about had enough of them all.

When she reached the edge of the forest, a movement in the corner of her eye made her jump and put up her hands as if her fists could do damage to anyone or anything wishing to ambush her. Thankfully, it was the only person whom she felt she could stand to look at at the moment.

“Easy there, tiger,” Aradin chuckled, raising his palms in surrender.

“You scared the sh*t out of me,” she breathed as she threw her arms around his neck. The relief of his presence really did a swell job of highlighting how taxing her usual company was. Walking on eggshells, having to analyse every word, every gesture, or tolerating being ignored and treated like a child – if she had any sort of power, she wouldn’t have stood for any of it. Aradin was wonderfully simple in comparison.

“Pardon,” he chuckled, palming her lower back. “Just came to kiss you goodbye.”

“You’re leaving? Now?”

“Aye. Zevlor, that bastard, hired me and the others to let his people tag along with us to the Gate. Would’ve said no, but we’re headed that way anyway.”

She caressed the curls at the nape of his neck, allowing herself to get lost in his eyes for a moment and forget about everything else. Her stomach tightened and fluttered at the memory of the night before. If he was leaving, it meant she wouldn’t have a night like that anytime soon.

“I’m glad someone with swords is going with them,” she mumbled, “I tried to convince the others to go, but they’re all being selfish. As if they have something better to do. They all think they’re so f*cking important.”

Aradin kissed her temple. “Can’t blame ‘em. If I was a wizard or somethin’, you’d never see me out here in the arse-end of nowhere.”

His words mirrored her previous thoughts in a way she didn’t like, and so she rolled her eyes and pushed him away from her.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to go and be horrible?”

He smirked and pulled her back to him, gripping the nape of her neck as he kissed her. Despite her annoyance, she couldn’t resist melting into his kiss. He still tasted of cinnamon.

“Look me up if you’re ever in the city, eh?”

Tav smiled and nodded, trying not to dwell on the fact that this was likely the last time she would ever see him. It was enough mourning the loss of the people she had left behind. She couldn’t allow herself the kinds of fondness that would make losing the people here hurt, too. There was only so much she could take.

The atmosphere in the camp that night was less than pleasant. The silent and empty spaces left by the tieflings only amplified the tensions hanging in the air, and none of them seemed eager to approach each other. Especially Gale, who had spent the whole evening inside his tent.

Tav knew better than to wander through the woods, so instead she placed herself on her favourite rock and stared into the dark river. The bad vibes were getting to her. She was more homesick now than she had ever been before. She missed the relative safety of her own world.

And it wasn’t as if she would have stood a chance if someone were to attack her at home, either, but at least she would know what she was dealing with. A gun to the head or a knife to her throat, or some masked murderer with a baseball bat, or something like that. All of it seemed tame and manageable in the face of goblin torturers and magical nukes. She was weak at home, but she was completely defenceless here. Like a baby. Or a kitten. With no claws to speak of.

She felt a repressed anger brewing somewhere inside of her. Anger had never come easily to her, always overshadowed by sadness. But at this moment, she felt it coiling in her stomach like a worm. It made her clench her teeth and her fists.

She had not asked to be here. She had not asked for any of this. She had been nothing but polite and barely secretive at all, and yet, she was being bitten and shouted at and ignored. These people were horrible. She was sick of looking at the pity in their eyes, of seeing exactly what they thought of her written on their faces. Weak. She was ill with it.

Despite her rising temper, sleep did not evade her for long once she finally settled into her sleeping bag. Perhaps she had been more exhausted than she thought, or perhaps her guardian had just as much control over her body as he did her emotions.

She already knew where she was before she opened her eyes, feeling the familiar, cool rock beneath her. The stars were as breathtaking as ever, the sky more red than purple tonight.

Her guardian stood beside her, this time, looking every bit a royal bodyguard as she regarded him from the ground.

“Miss me already?” She asked, but her tone was flat. Her mood was horrible. Everything was horrible and this whole world sucked.

He offered a helping hand to her, which she accepted with a sigh.

“You called for me,” he simply said, “and here I am.”

“I didn’t call for you.”

“You did. What were the words you used? ‘A kitten with no claws to speak of’?”

Tav didn’t respond. It was slowly registering that her guardian could hear all of her thoughts. All of them. Well, at least she hoped he’d enjoyed the show last night.

He withdrew his hand from hers, looking at her with annoyance in his pretty eyes. It was the first unpleasant expression she had ever seen on him, and for some reason, it made her like him a little bit more. He seemed a little less foreign, this way.

“Calm yourself. I do not use my omniscience for such indulgences, thank you very much.” He sounded genuinely offended, and Tav couldn’t help but laugh. Truly laugh. He just might be her favourite person around, if not for Halsin.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping the moisture from the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand. “As you and your omniscience probably know, I’m not having a very good time. In fact, I might even be freaking out.”

He nodded in a very understanding way, placing his hand between her shoulder blades as he urged her to walk with him.

“I understand. And I see your frustration.”

They walked to the edge of the little island in silence. His fingers burnt into her back.

“I have protected you from your powers because they require you to channel your emotions,” he explained. “I feared you were not ready, given the strength of them. You have… very little control, if I may speak freely.”

“That’s what I was taking medicine for at home,” she said honestly. “I’ve been on medication for years. It helps.”

He was quiet for a moment, contemplating. Then, he nodded once more as if she had told him the greatest of wisdoms.

“I will still do what I can to make sure your state is… somewhat similar to the effects of your medicine. But I need you to be able to tap into your feelings when you need them.”

With a wave of his beautiful hands, a small collection of floating rocks made its way to the vast space in front of them. Tav should have gotten used to such magic by now, but she still couldn’t help but marvel at it. The rocks hung completely still mid-air, looking as if they were hung by invisible strings.

Her guardian moved to stand behind her, his chest almost making contact with her back. His proximity gave her goosebumps, but not in a bad way. Something about him made her entire body react as if electrified by a weak current. She searched for the familiar buzz of desire, but she didn’t find any (besides the usual attraction she always felt, of course). Whatever this current was that flowed between them, it was something else. His silky smooth fingertips brushed the backs of her arms.

“Raise your hands,” he said in her ear, voice low. Her heart was pounding in her chest, her breath catching. She did as she was told and immediately felt something shift beneath her skin. Something that grew. She would have panicked if he hadn’t been whispering into her ear.

“Let me show you your claws, little kitten.”

Chapter 12: Ira

Chapter Text

Once upon a time, Tav had eaten a piece of brownie out of the fridge at a party without asking for permission. She had been almost as bored as she was drunk, and, after casting wary looks over her shoulders, she had stolen a piece. It wasn’t even good, thinking back to it. Quite dry. Too long in the oven. But, unfortunately, Tav would probably eat cold fries off the ground like a seagull when drunk, and so she ate the whole thing.

The effects had followed more than a full hour later, which had been long enough for her to forget about the brownie and therefore not at all understand why she was suddenly crawling off the walls. She felt twice her usual size as if she had been swollen and full of water, a drowned corpse washed ashore. She was terrified. Her body was going to burst. The pressure beneath her skin would keep growing and she was going to breach and pop like a balloon. She could feel her insides pushing against the lining of her stomach, eager to escape her, and Oliver hadn’t found her until an eternity later. She had been a wreck, curled up in a ball in the corner of some bedroom, sobbing and pressing her hands against her rebelling intestines in an attempt to stop them from falling out.

Thankfully, she had never felt that pressure again.

Not until now.

She was breathing much too hard. She knew how this went; if she kept heaving like this, she would get dizzy, and then she would get sick, and then the air suddenly wouldn’t enter her lungs well enough, and she would faint. She had been here a million times before, the feelings inside of her much too large to contain.

But her guardian didn’t let her set foot down that familiar path, because of course he didn’t. He had her back. As always. His fingers gently pressed into her scalp, and she could physically feel the buzz flow from him to her, silencing her panic and easing her storm.

“Do not be afraid,” he whispered, his breath hot against her ear. Tav felt as if her veins were alive, moving like worms beneath her skin. She couldn’t hold back her whimper. There were invisible fingers down her throat.

Her guardian made soothing sounds against her hair. The only thing keeping her grounded was his touch, and she had a feeling he knew.

“Focus on the feeling, Tav. It does not move. You move it.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and envisioned her veins to be still. It took a few tries, but eventually they slowed their wiggling, and she breathed a little easier. She was in control. And if she wasn’t, he was. She trusted him.

“Very good,” he praised, moving his fingertips from her head to her shoulders. “Now I need you to be angry.”

Her concentration faltered for a moment. “What?”

He squeezed her shoulders. “Trust me. I will protect you. If it becomes too much, I will take it away.”

“I- I don’t know how to just be angry,” she answered, furrowing her brows.

“But you are angry, are you not? You were stolen away from your home. You were violated. Someone planted a parasite in your brain. Your companions think themselves above your company. The vampire takes and takes and doesn’t give. The wizard shouted at you today, did he not? And you liked him the best of them, too. You have lost more than all of them, and they regard you in the same way they would a wounded animal. Are you not angry?”

Tav was breathing hard again, but not in the same way as before. Hot tears stung in her eyes. Her cheeks burned with shame. She was angry. She was really, really f*cking angry. She deserved none of this. They were the freaks, all of them, but she didn’t judge them, did she? She was nice and polite and did what she could to help all of them. They did not like her, which was what it was, but they didn’t have to be so f*cking rude about it. Lae’zel had yet to even speak to her.

And Tav knew she wasn’t the problem. She had plenty of people who loved her at home. She had Oliver. Until recently, she’d had Leah. She was not the problem. She didn’t deserve this. The others were on a cute little side quest to get their worms removed and then return home, but she had nowhere to go. Her home was gone. The people she loved were gone. And they would never even know what happened to her.

She wasn’t angry.

She was seething.

“Excellent,” her guardian said, his beautiful mouth right next to her ear. “Now focus on it. Move it through you. Feel it.”

She did as she was told and felt the heat of her anger move from where it was burning in her chest to her outstretched fingertips. The sensation made her gasp.

“Perfect. Now repeat after me: ira.”

The word was barely past her lips before her fingertips exploded with light. Bolts of red struck the nearest rock suspended in the air and it shattered into tiny pieces. Had her guardian not been standing so solidly behind her, she would have fallen flat on her back from the sheer force of the blast.

The feeling was indescribable. It felt as if her fingers had sneezed. The relief she felt was intense, almost erotic. She felt she was scratching an itch she had never been able to reach before.

“Oh my god,” she whispered, looking at her hands. Her veins pulsed with red light beneath her skin.

“Not quite,” her guardian answered with a smile in his voice. “Again.”

She did it again, and again, and again. Her anger was newborn and ravenous, starved from the years she had spent denying herself the feeling. It was a bottomless source, impossible to outspend.

When all of the rocks in front of her were destroyed, every muscle in her body was tight with the oddly pleasurable relief. She felt she might finish on the spot if she squeezed her thighs together, and her guardian’s body pressed against hers did not help her situation at all.. When she let her head roll back onto his broad chest, she felt his groan rumble against her back.

“You are magnificent,” he breathed into the side of her neck, voice full of awe. His lips lightly brushed over her skin, making her moan ever so softly. Were there rules against f*cking your guardian angel? She hoped not.

To her immense and devastating disappointment, the pressure of him disappeared as he took several steps away from her, clearing his throat.

“You almost make me forget myself,” he said breathlessly, looking flustered.

“Me? You could have warned me that doing magic would feel so… that!” She retorted.

Her guardian ran a hand through his beautiful curls and took a deep breath. Tav’s body still felt alight with the electric current of her magic. She closed and opened her fists while observing the light beneath her skin, feeling drunk on her new power.

“It only feels like that here,” he said, looking almost apologetic. “It will take a lot less anger when you wake, and in turn, it will feel much less… intense.”

Tav didn’t respond. She was playing with the little red bolts shooting between her fingers when she brought them close enough together. Her magic looked like nothing she had seen before; Halsin’s had been green as the forest and blue as the river, Gale’s had been warm and bright like fire the few times she had seen him use it in camp. Her own looked like red ink being poured into water, snaking and coiling around itself before disappearing into the air like smoke.

“So cool,” she mumbled to herself, watching it dance in the air between her palms.

Her guardian chuckled.

“Be careful how you use it. It will take time for you to master. You can practise here as much as you need, but you should rest soon.”

Tav was only half listening. If these little bolts of hers could smash solid rock to pieces, who knew what else they could do? What else they could break?

She should probably have practised more, but she was eager to wake up the next morning. She refused to feel pathetic anymore. She had power, now, and that meant things were going to change. She would find a way to show her companions that she was their equal (or at least convince them that she was, even if she wasn’t). She would show them. She would show them all.

Chapter 13: Blood Brothers

Chapter Text

The room is pitch black, but for extra safety, the two little humans have hidden themselves beneath the covers of the bed. What they’re doing is wrong, which they know because the people at church say so. This is black magic, dark magic, devil magic.

But it doesn’t feel like devil magic. At best, it feels like a tiny crime worthy of just a little bit of giggling and a pinch of fear.

And God can’t see them when the room is all dark and they’re hiding under the blankets, can he? Jesus might, as their preacher always talks about how he sees all, but both of the kids are convinced they could talk some sense into him before he went prattling.

They should be safe.

Their sitting figures create a little tent on the bed, the duvet just thin enough to let the flashlight shine through it every so often. They sit criss-cross applesauce across from each other, staring into each other’s little faces with diabolical grins on their lips and fear in their eyes. Their hearts are pounding.

On the bed between them is a pocket knife. Tav had slid it off the counter at a gas station and into her pocket while Oliver distracted the clergy, and now they had a weapon.

The big scary world might be his forté, but when it comes to the deep, dark places, Tav is much braver. She’s the one to slice into her palm first, vigorously blinking away the tears of pain that follow.

Even though she loves him as much as any child can love another, Tav knows that her best friend is a wuss. When he presses the knife into his palm, his hands grow moist with sweat, and he can’t bring himself to cut.

So Tav does it. She grabs the knife from him and makes a quick, smooth cut across his palm. She doesn’t go as deep or make it as long as her own, but she doesn’t tell him that. The only thing that matters is the blood.

They both hold their breath when they press their wounded palms together.

Tav woke up with a heavy feeling of loss sitting on her chest. Her guardian immediately reached for her mind to quiet it, but she gently pushed back against his attempt. She hadn’t dreamt of her best friend since her second night here, and it had since dawned on her that she would only ever see his face again in her dreams. She wanted to feel the gap between her ribs where he was supposed to be. She owed him that much.

It was raining today. The droplets tattered onto the roof of the tent she had been sleeping in for the past couple of nights, drowning out any sound the others might be making around the camp. It made her feel entirely alone, which was not unwelcome. This grief was private.

Despite him never having slept in here, the tent smelled faintly of Halsin. He had returned to the goblin camp with Lae’zel, Karlach, Wyll, and Gale, planning to pick up where Aradin left off and find a way to the Underworld. Or something. He rarely ever used his tent as he preferred to sleep outside in wild shape, so he had offered it to her. His scent was an immense comfort. She missed burying her face in his fur, of leeching off his warmth. She missed a lot of things.

And so, hidden away by his tent and by the drumming of the rain, she allowed herself a little cry. Just a little silent sobbing and sniffling as she hugged herself and stared into the fabric above her, feeling her tears trail into her hair. Perhaps indulging in her emotions in moderation was the key to not losing her f*cking head or mind with these things.

It had been almost a week since the tieflings left, and the others had gone out every day to loot the area of valuable stuff, gather information, and do whatever else they did out there. The only thing she had left of the people she felt more at home with than she did her companions was a lute Alfira had given her and the yellowing bruises Aradin had left on her hips. Otherwise, it was as if they had never been there. Once again, Tav felt entirely and completely alone.

She had idled away the hours at camp, sneaking into Astarion’s tent to flip through his books and try to make sense of their alphabet, throwing rocks into the lake, and napping in the shade of the trees. Every once in a while when her companions were paying particularly little attention to her (not that anyone but Halsin paid her any mind, anyway), she would sneak off into the woods and practice her blasts. Her guardian had been right; it didn’t take nearly as much concentration or feel nearly as good, which she was grateful for. It would be quite inconvenient to have to stop and meditate during a fight, and then almost org*sm after every hit.

She was getting better at wielding them. She didn’t keel over backward with every blast, and she felt like her aim was improving. It was also quite noticeable that channeling her emotions into this strange magic made her feel a bit lighter every day, a bit less anchored to the ocean floor.

Perhaps that's why she dared allow herself the small indulgence of a cry. It wasn’t a question of accidentally cracking open a floodgate anymore, but more of letting air out of a balloon. She was in control of her feelings. She was totally nailing this.

When she was done crying, she sat up and straightened out her dress. It was still as perfect and neat as it had been when her guardian spirited it out of thin air, seeming as if it was immune to dirt and other forms of wear. The fabric always felt soft and light on her, never getting in the way no matter what she was doing. It was quite possibly both the prettiest and most comfortable piece of clothing she had ever owned.

Gale had been polite enough to wait a few days before approaching her about it, but he couldn’t bite his tongue for long. He asked her lots of things; where she got it from, what it could do, if there were any other magical treasures in her pack, stuff like that. Tav had thought it odd, but then again, he was a wizard after all. From what she had gathered, wizards were rumoured to be obsessed with trinkets and themselves, which was a stereotype the dear Dekarios seemed to confirm every day she knew him.

She had let him run his hands along her sleeves and touch the fabric of her skirt, which he did quite respectfully with a thoughtful gaze and a line of concentration between his brows.

“It’s like it’s made of pure magic,” he’d said, his eyes almost hungry for this treasure that wasn’t his. “It’s resistant to a lot of things, it would seem. To properly draw any conclusions I would need to blast away at it with all sorts of spells… not while you’re wearing it, of course…”

Tav did realise that he had mostly been mumbling these things to himself while examining the shiny material, but she joked about him trying to get her out of her dress without getting her a drink first anyway. In response, he had chuckled awkwardly and scampered away in quite a hurry. A very odd man indeed.

Tav peeked out of Halsin’s tent to cast a look around the camp, and when she closed the fold behind her, she imagined she was leaving her dream in there, too. A treasure to be saved for later, when she could allow herself to wallow a little more in her grief. She hurried across the camp to Astarion’s tent, cursing as the heavy rain soaked her hair in a matter of seconds. Shadowheart seemed to be hiding away in the dryness of her tent, which was Tav’s luck. Astarion didn’t want anyone to think for even a moment that he liked her enough to have her in his tent, and not only did she respect that, but she also wasn’t very keen on being accused of sleeping with him. These little meetings had to be kept secret for both of their sakes.

She kicked off her boots the moment she got inside and closed up the tent behind her, throwing herself in a pile of pillows in the corner immediately. Astarion laid on his side on his sleeping bag, propped up by his elbow, reading some book. Since the tiefling party, he had been a lot less hostile to her despite their little collision. It seemed as if some of the tension, some of whatever performance he had been doing, had slipped a bit. Tav quite enjoyed the easy silence it allowed.

“Comfortable, are we?” Astarion asked without looking up. Tav nestled herself further into the pillows without responding, sighing contently as his scent enveloped her. She could say a lot of sh*t about Astarion, but she could not be paid to say he didn’t smell amazing.

They ignored each other for a while as he finished whatever he was reading, carefully placing a silken ribbon between the pages to mark his place. There was no need to talk; they both knew the paces by now and had as little love lost between them as before. It was a neat transaction, and it worked for both of them. Granted, it did make Tav feel a little bit used, but if that’s what she had to do to get through the day without him allowing her to die, so be it.

Astarion put away the book before sitting up and scooting closer to her. She offered him her wrist without moving from her comfortable little nest, managing to not even wince when his teeth pierced her skin. She had gotten used to it by now. And besides, he always bit the same place, so her wound never truly closed. It was as if her body had learned not to waste the effort of properly healing it.

She allowed herself to stare at him a little as he drank from her. As always, his eyes were closed, his eyebrows pulled together in bliss. A low, involuntary moan rumbled from deep in his throat. The sounds he made always made her think of what he must sound like in bed, which was entirely against her will, but alas, it still turned her on. The day her sense of judgement overshadowed her desire was the day she invented the cure for cancer, probably.

A shiver ran through her as he forced his teeth from her and licked her wrist clean of blood. His tongue was warm against her skin as her blood ran through his body, bringing him back to life. Somewhat.

“As simple as you are, my dear,” he said, looking at her through his light lashes, “you truly are delicious.”

“I’ll give your compliments to the chef,” she responded, pretending his words didn’t offend her. Knowing that she could blast him to bits gave her a sense of calm and greatly increased her level of patience in regard to his attitude. She knew he had noticed the change despite his lack of commentary; he couldn’t rile her up and piss her off the way he used to.

He could think she was stupid all he wanted. He would figure it out eventually.

Tav hugged her bleeding wrist to her chest, not caring if her dress got smeared. It would clean itself anyway. The rain drummed against the tent, even harder than before, and she found herself dozing off a little. Astarion already seemed like he had forgotten she was there, having returned to his book with his back to her. She felt he owed her a moment of peace in her bed of pillows, and she let her heavy eyelids fall shut.

She dreamt strange dreams about train stations and overcrowded grocery stores where the light was too bright and the aisles too small. She couldn’t find her train or the things she was looking for, and god forbid literally anyone ever would get out of her way. It was a dream so normal and so stale that she almost felt more alien in it than she did in Faerûn.

When she awoke, Astarion was staring at her over the top of his book, unblinking. She rubbed her weary eyes.

“What?”

He didn’t reply for a while, closing the book and looking at the binding as if it was the most interesting thing he had ever seen in his life. For a moment she got incredibly scared that she had farted in her sleep or something.

“For the sake of… gossiping,” he said after a while, looking back at her and saving her from her own fear. “What did you do in your realm?”

Tav sat up, moving her still damp hair out of her face. “I was a full-time student.”

There was no reason to tell him she had flunked out because she would rather spend her time drinking and f*cking girls.

“Of what?”

“Of linguistics. At a university.”

“How terribly dull.”

She threw a pillow at him, which he caught like it was nothing.

“It’s not! What did you do before chauffeuring a worm around?”

He studied his nails. “I was a magistrate before Cazador turned me.”

“What’s a magistrate?”

“A judge.”

Tav scoffed. She had a very hard time imagining Astarion doing anything morally good.

“And what’s a casadoor?”

He looked at her as if she were a beetle to be crushed underfoot.

“Cazador is the name of my former master. Slaver, more like.”

“Master?”

“He made me what I am. Before the worm, I was his slave. Less than that, actually. His puppet.”

“Is he dead?”

“No.”

“We should kill him.”

He looked at her then, really looked at her. Red gaze flitted all over her face, brows furrowed. He was reassessing her. Again.

“Why would you care whether he lives or dies? You hardly enjoy my company.” He said, voice carefully neutral.

“So? That doesn’t mean you should be enslaved. In a world like this, where murder is pretty easy to get away with… I don’t know. I would kill the people who hurt me, if they were here.”

She was talking out of her ass, of course. Much too comfortable after having gotten used to his company, she let her thoughts flow all too freely. She was well aware she probably couldn’t kill anyone when it really came down to it, but the fantasy was a nice one. It had kept her warm on rainy days.

If Astarion saw through her bluff, he had the grace to leave it alone. He looked at her for another moment before finally getting up, gesturing towards the opening of his tent.

“Right. See you later, I’m sure.”

Tav didn’t argue, but instead stepped outside as he held the fold open for her. The rain had ceased, bathing their soaked camp in bright sunshine. It felt as if the essence of spring had been poured over the world.

She turned on the spot, realising too late that she was only inches from his face. It didn’t matter. Silly things like that don’t matter when you dislike each other.

“Come outside with me and enjoy the sunshine.” She demanded, attempting to leave no room for arguing. She didn’t want to be alone at the moment.

“No. Go away,” he responded, turning back into the dark of his tent.

“You’re going to regret that the day we remove these worms and you can’t go outside in daylight anymore,” she whispered, just in case Shadowheart was hiding behind a nearby tree. She knew he could hear her anyway. Vampire hearing, and all that.

To her surprise, he sighed in defeat and turned back to her.

“Fine.” He groaned, pushing past her, into the sun.

How she managed to convince him to take her for a walk after the fiasco with Shadowheart, Tav truly had no clue. Perhaps he’d had enough of her and was planning on killing and dumping her somewhere. If that was the case, he was in for an unpleasant surprise.

He had told her that he and the others had rescued a pregnant woman (much against Astarion’s judgement, as he made sure to emphasise) from some kind of swamp witch, but that they didn’t have time to loot her creepy little house before they were rushing to the goblin camp to stop the raid of the grove.

Tav, who had grown up watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch, thought it sounded like an absolutely splendid idea for a day trip. She was so excited to see the house of an actual witch that she almost bounced along the road to Astarion’s great annoyance (which he also made sure to emphasise)

Unfortunately, the swamp smelled absolutely horrid. A thick fog moved between the weeping willow trees as if it were alive, blocking out some of the delicious sun. Most of the ground was covered in grimy, stinky, putrid water. There were no birds here, only frogs.

“This place sucks,” she declared, scowling and scrunching her poor, tortured nose. Astarion snorted a laugh.

“Well put, my friend.”

He pointed out traps beneath the water that she would have walked straight into if not for him, and shared in her complaints when she expressed how disgusting it was to be wading through this water. Even though he didn’t ask, she told him about how her boots were a present from Dammon. He didn’t even pretend to give a sh*t about what she was saying, but he didn’t dismiss her, either. She didn’t manage to get a proper reaction out of him until she mentioned how handsome he was.

“You know, I never found tieflings particularly enticing,” he confided, “but some of the ones at the grove… like that idiot wizard, for example.”

“Do you think it’s ridged?”

He stopped and smirked at her, his voice sounding as if he couldn’t believe his ears. “What?”

“Oh, come on. There are ridges all over their bodies, from what I’ve been able to tell. It would be weird if it was just smooth!”

“You know, I’ve slept with thousands of people. Tieflings included. I could tell you, if you asked me nicely.”

Tav stopped mid-step and stared at him. Thousands? He was bluffing, surely. Even with 200 years of life, that seemed quite excessive.

“Were you a whor* or something?” She asked, half-joking, which earned her a disdainful scoff. But instead of a catty response, he got a distant look on his face. When he said “in a way,” his voice was oddly mellow and monotone.

Tav decided that whatever this bruise of his was, it was not hers to poke at.

“Well,” she said, jumping from one patch of grass to another. “If I ever see that blacksmith again, I’ll find out for my-”

Astarion yanked her backwards by her waist, stopping her sentence and her jump mid-air. His chest was hard as marble when her back slammed against it, knocking the breath from her lungs.

“Don’t lose your feet, darling.” He said, turning her head with his free hand so her eyes fell directly on what looked like a bear trap in the exact spot her feet would have landed if he hadn’t stopped her.

“Jesus f*ck!” She gasped, clinging to the single arm he was using to hold her above the ground.

“You’re almost gaining more from this arrangement than I am,” he said and threw her over his shoulder as if she was nothing but a sack of feathers. “You wouldn’t make it a single day out here without me.”

“Put me down.”

“Just shut up and stop wiggling. You’re not exactly light, you know.”

The sharpness of his shoulder put uncomfortable pressure on her ribs, and she felt her cheeks go crimson as her blood ran to her head. At least she could stare at his ass from here. It was exceptionally well-shaped.

It didn’t take more than a few minutes for them to reach solid ground, where Astarion immediately dropped her back on her feet. Her hair was all messed up and her ribs would definitely bruise, but she couldn’t get herself to scold him. Losing her feet was not on her list of things she wanted to experience today. And thankfully, none of the others had seen a thing. Being carried like an animal was an embarrassment she could live with.

She couldn’t get herself to thank him either, though. Instead, she turned and regarded the little house in front of them, deciding to carry on rather than to dwell. Stinky air and fog aside, it was really quite cute. The doors were already ajar, beckoning them inside a single large room entirely covered in herbs, plants, and bottles. Despite them having been here more than a week ago, all of the candles were lit, bathing the small house in flickering light. They were probably enchanted, which was something she had learned to think about everything that didn’t make sense. A cow looking at her weird? Probably a magic cow. Random smell of rotten eggs that would disappear as quickly as it came? Probably magic. Candles? Magic.

“Shadowheart’s going to implode if we don’t grab every herb we can carry,” Tav said over her shoulder as she approached the many shelves.

“Who cares? I’m grabbing whatever can be traded for gold.”

There were so many books here. Tav felt momentarily suicidal knowing that she couldn’t read any of them, and that taking them would be a waste. But then again, if she never got home, she would have to learn how to read at some point.

She ended up emptying a chest full of yarn and stuffing it to the brim with herbs, books, potions (labeled ones only, of course), and whatever else she found to be of particular interest. The chest had a handle on each side, and her idea was that they would carry it between them. How she was going to convince Astarion of it, she hadn’t worked out quite yet. She wasn’t a details kind of person.

“Do you know what’s down here?” She called out as she pointed into what looked like a fireplace. The back wall was missing and the coals were cold, and through the hole in the wall she saw an enormous wooden staircase.

“Nothing for you to drag your fat feet through, dear,” Astarion replied absent-mindedly as he rummaged through a jewellery box. For a brief moment, she wondered if he knew her well enough by now to know that his words would only encourage her.

“Last person at the bottom is dog sh*t!” She shouted before absolutely legging it for the stairs. It was very, very dark at the bottom. This was perhaps one of those moments where it would do her some good to stop and give her actions some thought, but alas, she was past the point of denying her own recklessness. She took the creaking steps in long, almost even strides, pinning her tongue to the roof of her mouth in concentration, and then almost pissed herself from shock when Astarion suddenly raced past her at an absolutely inhuman speed with his arms stretched out behind him as if it would somehow make him run even faster. Maybe it did. Maybe that was his secret.

She almost choked when her laughter bubbled up from some hidden place inside of her, much too vigorous for how out of breath she was. She hadn’t expected him to follow her down here, and she had much less expected him to indulge her like this. What a childish, hilariously out-of-character thing for him to do.

Or perhaps she just didn’t know him very well.

When her legs started pumping acid instead of blood, she tripped over a step and practically flew the rest of the way down. She would have absolutely eaten sh*t if Astarion had not been waiting at the bottom, looking triumphant, the perfect prop to break her fall. She half expected him to show off his lightning reflexes and step out of the way just in time, but the last thing she saw before tumbling into him was a look not unlike that of a deer in headlights.

He landed on his back with a thump that sounded as if it knocked all the air out of his lungs, and even if it didn’t, Tav’s full weight landing on top of him definitely finished the job. She heaved for breath like a dog in between her eruptions of laughter that didn’t seem like they would ever stop, clawing for purchase on the smooth dirt floor as she struggled to move away from him. Her entire body was weak with the lack of oxygen.

She didn’t get to collect herself before Astarion had finished looking stunned and was suddenly on top of her, pinning her to the ground by her shoulders.

“You are getting on my last nerve, darling,” he hissed into her face, which finally made her laughter cease. Or not. She was drunk on adrenaline and the knowledge that she could disintegrate him right now if she wanted to, and he would be none the wiser.

“Shut the f*ck up!” She replied, laughing again. “That was fun. You had fun for like, two seconds there. Admit it!”

He scrunched his nose at her before standing up, leaving her groveling on the ground. “Never.”

He proceeded to act all sullen and silent as they explored the relentlessly creepy basem*nt, but Tav could have sworn on her life she saw the hint of a smile on his lips when he thought she wasn’t looking.

There were enough creepy items down there to fill up the prop department of your average horror movie, and all of them gave off absolutely horrible vibes. Tav had never been big on energy or gut feelings or intuition, but the vile magic pulsing off of everything down here was strong enough for even her to feel it.

“Don’t touch anything,” Astarion said, talking quietly as if he was afraid something would hear him. He didn’t have to tell her twice.

Or maybe he did, because when Tav found a selection of wooden masks on a table, she couldn’t help herself. They didn’t feel like the rest of the room did. When she ran her fingers over their rough surface, she felt the unmistakable hum of magic, but it didn’t feel sinister. Not good, either. It was just there in the same way the lit candles had been.

Before her common sense could stop her, she picked up the closest mask and pressed her face into it. She felt it getting stuck to her skin like a magnet to metal, but it was easy to remove. So she put it on again. Nothing seemed to happen at first, but then she turned and looked around the room, and the difference was startling. Every dark corner was visible to her, every shadow as bright as daylight. She could have pointed out every single cobweb in here from where she stood, or counted the bristles on the broom standing against the wall by the stair.

“Woah…” she whispered, looking eagerly around. This must be how it felt to be a hawk. Or a vampire.

“What are you… oh, by the hells. If that mask has some kind of curse on it and you die, I’m leaving you down here.”

She ignored Astarion’s scolding when something deeper into the basem*nt caught her eye. She followed her curiosity into a room where the pathway was made of enormous roots that stretched between islands of dirt. It looked way too f*cking cool. Peter Jackson would have had a field day in here. If she was born in this world, she would have loved to be a hag living in a place like this, earning her keep by selling love potions to fair maidens and making up fortunes and prophecies for people.

And there it was again, snapping at her attention, like someone reflecting light into her eye. It was impossible to ignore, yet Astarion didn’t seem to regard it even for a second. A part of the large, wooden wall was… off. It shimmered a little as if she was looking at it through heat. She called out for her best buddy Astarion to come give her a boost, which he only complied with at the promise of her letting him drink from her neck next time. A promise she probably wouldn’t keep. But she’d deal with that conversation when the moment arose.

The shimmering wall felt like a spiderweb against her fingertips, cold and weirdly soft. Something about it made her hair stand on end. She shouldn’t go through it. She shouldn’t.

“Are you done feeling up the wall? It smells rancid down here.”

She stepped through it.

The beginning of a protest reached her ears, but as soon as she was on the other side, it was dead quiet. She was in yet another underground room, only faintly lit by glowing plants and a shining, very magic-looking circle on the floor. A secret door to a secret something. Neat.

She might have been stupid enough to go in here alone, but she wasn’t stupid enough to explore it without Astarion. Reaching back through the wall, she moved her hand in a beckoning motion and only startled slightly when his cold fingers closed around hers.

“Stop wandering off by yourself like a half-wit,” were the first words out of his mouth when he stood beside her. “You just disappeared into a wall! Anything could have been on the other side.”

“Careful, Astarion. You almost sound like you’re worried about me.” She tried to withdraw her hand, but he strengthened his grip.

“Don’t flatter yourself. I simply hate to see tomorrow’s breakfast getting herself killed.” He pressed a light, brief kiss to her wounded wrist before letting her go and taking a closer look at the glowing circle. Tav stayed behind, for once, hoping the dim lighting and the fugly mask she was wearing could hide some of the blood that had rushed to her cheeks. He totally knew what he was doing. Asshole.

“It’s a fey circle,” he stated, but not in a tone that required any response from her. “I wonder where it goes.”

“Want me to rush ahead and jump in it?”

“Funny. Stay.”

She barked at him and got a stareful of daggers in return before he stepped into the circle and disappeared into thin air.

Well.

Now what?

He could be anywhere, she thought. Maybe this was the witch’s trashcan or toilet. Maybe he was rolling around in a pile of discarded animal bones or sh*t somewhere. Or maybe he had been thrown into a void and was dead. If he was really lucky, perhaps he had been spirited away to a store where he could buy better manners and a sense of humour.

Before she truly got to worry about what to do if he didn’t come back, he blinked into existence in front of her again.

“It leads to the Underdark,” he said, sounding out of breath as he wiped his hands on his clothes. Even from here, she could smell wafts of musty… something coming off of him.

“Isn’t that the place the others were looking for?”

“Yes. I imagine they will be absolutely delighted to hear that our camp pet stumbled on something they have been searching for for days by accident. Now can we please get out of here?”

Tav had started feeling lightheaded and dizzy at that point, so she agreed without trouble. Even the putrid swamp air outside was as welcome as a fresh spring breeze when they finally emerged out of the dark. She hadn’t realised how much like a grave it felt down there until she wasn’t surrounded by four glistening dirt walls.

Astarion convinced her to leave the chest as they would most likely come back for the fey circle anyway, and Karlach or Lae’zel would have a much easier time carrying it than they would. “Besides,” he had added, “I need you focused on not blowing both of us up.”

And so she reluctantly left her little thieve’s stash and her magical mask behind and followed him out into the pale sunlight. It must be much past noon at this point, but the fog had yet to burn away. Perhaps it never did here.

“Ah, fellow wanderers!” A voice suddenly bellowed to her left, and Tav leaped into the air with a scream in the same second Astarion stepped in front of her with his dagger unsheathed. Fight and flight, the riveting duo.

“Calm yourselves! I wish you no harm,” the owner of the voice assured them, holding up his hands in peace. Tav’s heart was hammering like crazy in her chest, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered if she would die of a heart attack before any of the actual monsters of this world got to her. This guy looked like your average hippie, and smelled like one, too. Probably not a monster.

“Who are you?” Astarion asked, hesitantly sheathing his dagger while keeping his stance in front of her like a shield.

Hot.

“And what in every hell is that smell?” Whatever she sensed, Astarion must have been experiencing it by a tenfold. Like a dog smelling toothpaste.

“Powdered iron-vine. An old hunter’s trick - most monsters will think twice before making a meal of me.” The hippie’s smile was quite pleasant. Tav might even have felt inclined to be nice to him if her nostrils had been sewn shut.

“You’re a monster hunter?” Astarion asked, sounding as casual and charming as always, working his magic on the poor guy.

“A monster hunter?” Tav repeated, peeking over Astarion’s shoulder. “What monster are you hunting?”

“Something terrifying, no doubt. Dragon? Cyclops? Kobold?”

“What the f*ck do you mean “dragon”, Astarion? Dragons are actually real? Just flying about?”

“Yes, darling. Quite.”

The hunter had gone perfectly still. He was staring at Astarion with an intensity that made Tav shiver. Her stomach turned.

Get away from him

sh*t. Her hands fumbled for Astarion’s arm, gently pulling at him. If their alien little worms had ever felt inclined to let them speak with each other telepathically, right now would be a great time. Astarion didn’t react to her touch, not even when she dug her nails into the back of his hand as hard as she could.

“So?” Astarion prodded. Had she not spent the past few weeks with him, she wouldn’t have caught the sound of a coiled spring beneath his tone. Whatever Tav and her guardian felt, he did too. “What monster are you hunting, gur?”

The man’s lip twitched into an ugly sneer.

“A vampire spawn, stranger. How curious I should find it wandering in the sunlight.”

The two men moved faster than Tav could process, but she still managed to dig her heels into the dirt and pull Astarion a couple of steps back before he could fully lunge for the man. Her heart was hammering so violently she could scarcely hear anything else.

She knew Astarion would probably win the fight, but there was a chance that he wouldn’t. And then what? The hunter would kill her, too? Or she was left to get lost in the swamp until she died from its stinky fumes or bear traps or land mines? Besides, her guardian had told her to get away from him, and she trusted him more than anyone else. Even Astarion’s abilities, lethal as he was.

“No!” She shouted as firmly as she could, pulling Astarion a few steps backwards, never removing her eyes from the crossbow in the hunter’s hands. “We’re leaving. Peacefully!”

Astarion allowed himself to be pulled again. She didn’t quite understand why he let her.

“I think you should!” The hunter replied. “In fact, I would even encourage it. But the spawn is coming with me.”

Tav didn’t think a single thought. The crossbow was pointed at Astarion faster than she could blink, and even in her inexperienced and slow mind, she knew it would pierce him straight through the chest if he pulled the trigger. Astarion would not have time to dodge or lunge. He was going to be shot. Tav didn’t know if vampires could be killed that way, but she was not about to bet on it.

She didn’t think at all. There was no consideration, no hesitation, no decision. When she stepped in front of Astarion and lifted her hands, her head was entirely empty except for a single word.

Ira.

The hunter’s head exploded in a way Tav had only ever seen people’s heads do if they got shot on TV. A warm spray of blood and brain matter coated her face. Bitter, earthy iron on her tongue. She stared at the hole in his neck where whatever was left of his tongue hung limply down the side, dripping blood. Blood. Blood.

There was blood in her eyes, making her eyelashes stick together.

There was a tooth in the dirt beside her foot.

His brain was in her mouth.

Her magic still pulsed and writhed beneath the skin on her fingers.

Ohmygodohmygodohmygodwhathef*ckwhatthef*ckwhatthef*ck

“Well!” Astarion exclaimed, voice high-pitched and honest. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”

Tav fell to her knees in the mud and retched.

Chapter 14: Bloodwhor*

Chapter Text

An enormous bell jar had been placed over Tav’s head. Every sound came from miles away, everything but her hands a blur of colour. Her brain was vibrating so violently against her skull it had to be visible. No matter how sour the taste of vomit, the earthy iron of brain matter remained in the back of her throat.

Her tears were drying cold on her cheeks. All she could do was stare at the hands at the end of her arms. They were not hers. The red lines of magic had retracted back into their hiding place, but it didn’t change the fact that they didn’t belong to her anymore. Not fully.

How ironic it was. Just as she had been thinking that very same morning she wasn’t capable of killing anyone, no matter how much they had hurt her. And this man… he had done nothing to her. Astarion could have handled him. Or they could have walked in a different direction and not encountered him at all.

Tav had killed someone. She had ended someone’s life. How old had he been? 45? 50? 50 years of memories and hopes and dreams and love. Jesus Christ, love. Somewhere in her mind, silent and secret, she prayed to any God who would listen that he didn’t have family waiting for him at home.

If she thought too much about it she would throw up again.

Cool fingers closed around her jaw, forcing her to look up into crimson eyes. His voice was distant and unclear.

“-happening? Wake up!”

Tav didn’t want to wake up. Tav never wanted to wake up again.

She had no clue how long Astarion let her sit by herself on the ground. At one point he shoved her around until she wasn’t facing the hunter’s body anymore, and then he disappeared. She didn’t know for how long, or if he would come back. A part of her didn’t expect him to.

She felt herself slipping out of the world around her as her guardian attempted to tuck her away like he had done on the rack, but she pushed back. It didn’t matter how little she wanted to feel this. She had to. She deserved to. There was nothing she could do to undo what had just happened, to untaste his grey matter and glue his shattered skull back together. The least she could do was not run from her actions.

Astarion was back, she noted flatly in the back of her mind. She felt his hands on her, one around her shoulders and another beneath her knees. She closed her eyes when he lifted her, his long string of foul curse words almost indistinguishable from the buzz inside her.

A humid and hard floor chilled her to the bone when Astarion put her down. She didn’t open her eyes again until what felt like hours later when Astarion smacked her across the face with such force that she almost fell over. It felt as if she’d had plugs in her ears that suddenly popped.

“Oh, good. My next idea was to poison you.”

She wanted to say something back to him, to point out the slight disappointment in his tone. To tell him off for hitting her. Anything, really, but her words were out of her reach. All she could do was stare at him while fiercely fighting against the tears forming in her eyes.

“By the hells, darling. Have you never killed someone before?”

She shook her head. Against her will, a warm tear trickled down her cheek. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head away from him. This was not the intimidating and epic reveal of her powers she’d envisioned.

Astarion rose to his feet from where he had been crouched in front of her, sighing and throwing his arms in the air. Ever the dramatic. When Tav looked around and took in their surroundings, she realised he had brought her inside the witch’s hut.

“Well, trying to make our way through this deathtrap of a bog in the dark would be foolish. We leave at first light.”

Tav sat and stared into the flames of the fireplace (the actual fireplace, not the basem*nt one) while Astarion gathered whatever he could find around the hut. He brought her some fluffy, light bread and made her a mug of steaming herbal tea that would soothe her and make sleep come easier, if he was to be believed. He found some blankets for her, too. For a moment she thought he’d found it in him to, if not care about her, then at least feel some sort of empathy towards her. He was unusually thoughtful. But the notion faltered when she saw his eyes stutter at the wound on her wrist when she reached to accept the mug.

Of course.

If he gave a little less of a f*ck about her, he’d probably be dead. All he wanted was to keep his blood bank alive.

The thought was violently depressing. But what else did she expect?

He sat cross-legged in front of her, the firelight deepening his features and dancing in his hair like the setting sun on the ocean waves.

“You’re beautiful.” She stated sadly as if his face was to blame for any of this.

“I know.”

His eyes flickered to her wrist again. Perhaps she could get him to drain her into unconsciousness again. What a relief it would be.

“Are you hungry?” She asked softly, searching his face for any reaction, grasping at something she couldn’t put words on. Maybe she wanted him hungry. Maybe she wanted to be needed.

“Always.”

He looked at her wrist again, but she didn’t offer it. Instead, she pulled her hair off her shoulder and exposed her neck to him. His red gaze followed her every movement, breath stilling in his chest.

“Astarion?”

“Yes?”

“Make it hurt, please.”

He only hesitated for a second. Then, he leaned forward and grabbed a fistful of her hair before biting into her neck as if he intended to bite right through it. Tav gasped and pressed her lips together to keep from screaming as shards of ice entered her blood, and this time, the pain did not fade. When her strength failed her and her body started to weaken, he eased her onto her back without letting go, settling himself between her legs as he drank greedily from her.

Hesitant and blinded by pain, Tav reached up to hold onto his shoulders. This felt almost like a hug. Almost. Especially when he leaned in even closer, his chest brushing lightly over her breasts. He moaned against her skin and it sent shivers down her spine.

Tav’s mouth fell open in surprise when he used his knee to push her thighs wider apart, their bodies suddenly flush with each other. He felt almost warm against her as her blood flooded through him, and a faint ghost of desire haunted her body. The hunter’s face intruded into her mind. She tightened her grip on him, digging her nails into his skin through his shirt.

“Harder.”

It was a plea much more than it was a command, but he obeyed her with nothing but another mellow and needy sound. Feeling his body against hers, on top of hers, faded in comparison to it.

Oh yes, she wanted him hungry.

She wanted to be needed.

She needed to be needed.

It didn’t count as self-harm if the pain came from someone else, right? Or to benefit someone else? What purer reason could there be for allowing something to physically hurt you, if not that of feeding a friend?

Not that it mattered. Not really. What mattered was the hurt, and how it served its purpose perfectly. And the hurt grew and grew until it was enough to make tears trickle from the corners of her eyes and into her hair, and the hunter’s face was erased from her mind and replaced with the icy sear of Astarion’s teeth in her flesh. This was her punishment, this was what she deserved. Somewhere inside of her, she felt bad about using Astarion like this, like a blade she wielded against herself, but she also couldn’t fully bring herself to care. Not as long as he cared so little about her.

Despite the pain, she couldn’t help but whimper with desire when she suddenly felt the hardness of his co*ck pressing against her thigh. She didn’t know if he was actually aroused or if it was an effect of her blood coursing through him, but she also found that she didn’t care much. Her hearing was starting to fade, her vision blurring, but she wouldn’t dream of stopping him. Her body reacted to his, opening her legs for him, allowing him closer. He held her even tighter, wrapping her hair further around his fist, grinding his co*ck between her legs, licking and sucking her bleeding wound.

When he finally pulled away, Tav’s hands and feet felt like they were full of TV static, and her head felt strangely light. He looked down at her, their bodies still pressed together, her blood on his lips. His eyes were full of hunger, still. She had a feeling no amount of her blood could ever make him full.

And then he kissed her.

She wasn’t sure what startled her the most - the taste of her blood in his mouth, or the fact that he, Astarion, was kissing her. She was hesitant and confused and slightly grossed out, but Jesus Christ, the man knew how to kiss. He kissed like a woman, all soft lips and wet tongue and pure want. None of the hunger she had seen in his eyes, but want. As if she was something to be savoured instead of devoured.

He grinded against her again, his hand letting go of her hair to reach between her legs. The motion snapped her out of it.

“Wait,” she said against his mouth, ignoring the way her body reacted to the lack of him when he pulled away to look into her eyes.

“What are you doing?” Her voice was pathetic. “You don’t even like me!”

Astarion looked at her as if she was an idiot.

“Darling, two people need not like each other’s company to enjoy each other’s bodies.”

“Okay, but… why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you want to… enjoy me, suddenly? At the party, you were gagging at the thought.”

Astarion sighed deeply and impatiently, running a hand through his perfect curls. He looked entirely lost for a moment, which suited him, she thought. Then his face slipped back into its usual charming smirk.

“Who cares about why?”

He didn’t let her respond before planting another needy kiss on her mouth. Even though she was still confused, body rigid with alarm, she couldn’t quite get herself to push him away.

“Besides,” he whispered, trailing kisses along her jaw and down her neck. “This is what you want, isn’t it? To lose yourself in me? That’s why you asked me to bite you, is it not?” His hand slipped between her thighs, still on top of the dress, touching her through the fabric. She couldn’t answer him. Her mouth simply fell open at the delicious pressure. How did he know? He had seen right through her, and he didn’t seem to mind her using him to forget about her state of mind. It still didn’t sit right with her. Her desire only increased when he licked a trail of blood off of her neck, his tongue warm, breath even warmer. She didn’t know how not to think about how it would feel to have his face between her legs.

“I don’t like you either, you know,” she mewled as his hands explored her, reaching for the hem of her dress. Her voice was far too high and breathy for it to even sound true, even though it was. Astarion was very annoying.

“Mhm,” he hummed, smirking against her collarbone. “Yet I’m certain that if I push this skirt up, I’ll find you wet and yearning for me, won’t I?”

Well, he got her there. But he would never get her to admit it.

Her gut was telling her to stop. It was telling her that something wasn’t as it should be. She considered ignoring it for a moment, to let him do whatever he wanted to her, but she figured this could be a chance to annoy the living hell out of him. After all, no matter how soaked and aching she was, he was rock hard against her and his eyes were full of lust. Rejecting him now… who was she to decline such an opportunity?

“I guess you’ll never know,” she said, pushing his hand away and sitting up, forcing him to move from her as she realised why she couldn’t give in to the moment. He looked genuinely shocked, outrage painting itself across his furrowed brows.

“Are you trying to f*ck me just because I let you drink my blood?” She asked, staring at his sullen face as he sat in front of her.

“Well… yes,” he admitted, quickly raising his hands in peace when she opened her mouth to scold him. “But can you blame me? You’re… you’re my first. I only ever fed on beasts, before you. No one has given me what you have.”

“So?”

“So let me give you something back! You hardly need my protection anymore, if your little display today was anything to go by.”

Tav actually gaped at him, crawling backward a little, putting more distance between them.

“You think I want you to give me sex in exchange for my blood? Oh, Astarion, that is vile.”

With the look on his face, she might as well have struck him. He opened and closed his mouth several times, but he didn’t seem to have a response.

“I have never bought a whor* in my life, and I’m not about to start now. Goodnight.”

She lay on her side with her back to him, anger seething through her system, filling her veins in the place of the blood he had just drank. To think that he thought so little of her, that he would even dare suggest such a thing…

Any feeling of friendship she might have sensed between them during the day vanished like smoke in the air. She angrily ate the bread he had found for her (which was unfortunately really good) before forcing her eyes shut, willing her body to go to sleep. He didn’t make a single sound behind her.

Well. At least he had kept the hunter’s face out of her mind. And the blood in her mouth was her own, this time.

Chapter 15: Sedation

Chapter Text

Tav woke up on the familiar rocky surface of whatever realm her guardian inhabited. She sat with a start and looked around for him, almost able to ignore the mesmerising sky. It was red, this time. Perfect. The sky was red, and her guardian was in for a real piece of her mind.

“I suspect you have something to say,” his voice spoke beside her, making her jump. He was seated a few feet behind her, leaning back on his strong arms that were bared to her for the first time. He wasn’t wearing his armour. He was dressed as if he was a Greek god hanging out around his temple, ready to be fed grapes and wine any minute.

f*cking bastard.

He knew her thoughts. She knew he knew she was violently attracted to him, and now, when she was fully planning on confronting him with an earful, he looked prettier and more exposed than ever.

But that was the that of that. She could hardly demand him to dress up in his own realm, and she refused to let him succeed at what Astarion had tried to do just before. Damn her for thinking with her puss* instead of her head, and damn these beautiful men for seeing right through her.

She shook it off as best as she could. The bone she had to pick with him was far too grave for her to get distracted this way.

“What the f*ck was that?” Her voice shook. “I made someone’s head explode, mister guardian man. What the f*ck!”

He simply looked at her, a solemn expression on his face.

“I told you it would take time for you to master, did I not?”

“You don’t get to make this my fault! I didn’t know something like that would happen!”

He sighed and let his head roll from one shoulder to the other as if her anger was a physical ache in his muscles.

“And what would you have me do, little kitten? You asked for claws. I gave you claws.”

She scrambled to her feet, wanting to be the one to tower over him for once.

“Well, thanks, but I hate them! Take them back!”

He looked up at her. For the first time since she’d met him, his gaze was cold.

“And leave you defenceless? Be reasonable, Tav. What was the alternative? He was going to hurt your vampire, and he would have hurt you too, if you got in his way. Which you insisted on doing, might I add.”

Tav opened and closed her mouth several times before coming to terms with having no response. He wasn’t wrong, she supposed. When he reached a hand up towards her, she didn’t flinch away.

“Come,” he said, “sit with me.”

Tav took his hand and did as he said, feeling dejected and exhausted more than anything. Real exhaustion, tired to the bone.

“I understand your disturbance,” he spoke softly, looking at her with those beautiful eyes. The trace of anger she had just seen was so long gone she could easily have made herself believe she imagined it. “I would have been deeply concerned, had you reacted any differently. Killing is not meant to be easy. But-”

He reached for her hands, then, holding them tightly in his grasp. She let him.

“My dear child, the weight of his death on your shoulders… it speaks of your character, of your goodness. But you need to understand that in a world like this one, there are no pure heroes. There are only survivors. To attempt not to stray from the path of light, to refuse to kill… it is to invite death upon yourself, and upon your friends.

“The line between good and evil is as clear as night and day, in your world. Your laws and the structure of your societies make it so. But here, that line is blurred under the harsh light of reality. You have to kill, or you will be killed. It is the only way. What you did today was show that you have the strength and the power to survive here, and that does not make you evil. Evil is the one who kills for pleasure, not necessity. And, my dear, that is not you.”

Tav closed her eyes to hold back her tears. Her guardian’s thumb rubbed gentle circles into her wrists, attempting to soften the harsh truth behind his words.

Tav didn’t want to change. She didn’t want to become someone capable of taking someone else’s life, but, like so many others, this was a choice that had been stolen from her. And somewhere, deep down, she knew he was right. The hunter would have killed Astarion, and her, too, probably. She could not cower behind morals moulted in a different world.

She drew a shaky breath.

Breathe in. Hold it. Breathe out.

“Okay,” she whispered, opening her eyes and nearly breaking at the care and concern in his. “I understand.”

He nodded. “That’s my girl. You’re the toughest of them all.” He palmed her cheek, wiping a stray tear away with his thumb. “Sleep, now. I will keep the dreams at bay.”

Her guardian was true to his word, as always, and she slept soundly the rest of the night. Come morning, she felt entirely different. As if something inside of her had been settled, or taken away. She decided not to dwell on which. The show had to go on, and whatever had happened to her guilt, she was lighter for it.

Astarion was sitting against one of the open doors of the house, rubbing a cloth across the blades of his daggers. Tav watched him silently from her musty pile of blankets, not ready to face whatever awkwardness there would undoubtedly be between them as the result of the night before.

The memory of how he had kissed her, how his body had felt against hers… as much as she hated to admit it, it certainly was a memory she would treasure. More than once, probably. There was no trace of that seductive, hungry creature now as he concentrated on whatever he was doing. His brow was furrowed, his ruby eyes attentive, fingers full of care. He looked younger like this. Like someone who had never experienced the feeling of dirt under his fingernails.

She half expected him to ignore her in favour of nursing his wounded pride, but to her surprise, he greeted her with a crooked smile as she sat up.

“Good morning, darling. Let’s get out of this hole, shall we?”

She didn’t protest. Gathering their things only took them a minute, and then they were off. Astarion even suggested they bring the chest. Tav was dumbfounded. He was being downright pleasant. Who would have thought?

The walk through the swamp and back to camp was just as nice. Tav was careful to step only where Astarion had already treaded, following him closely, and as soon as they made it to the other side, nature returned to normal. Birdsong, brittle sunshine reaching them through the leaves above, air that didn’t stink of asshole. When she took a deep and exaggerated breath, Astarion gave her a knowing look. As if they had a private joke, just the two of them.

Had she been kidnapped again? Thrown into a parallel universe where Astarion wasn’t such a bitch? Or had he been kidnapped, replaced by an imposter who didn’t know what was what?

Whatever had happened, she didn’t complain despite her unease. His attitude was one less issue for her to deal with.

The others welcomed them back to camp with relief (mostly to see their nimble-fingered rogue again, but Tav was willing to take what she could get), informing them of the newest additions to their camp; in the single day and night Astarion and her had spent in the swamp, they’d managed to pick up a dog, the feathery fluffball Tav had briefly seen at the goblin camp, and… something else. Tav froze mid-step when she saw it, her jaw falling open as she took in the leathery skin clinging to his skull. Astarion quickly leaned towards her and explained in a whisper that the being was an undead (“Like you?” “Oh, hardly!”), which apparently wasn’t such an uncommon thing to run into around these parts. When Karlach came to help them with the chest, their tadpoles wiggled disgustingly in unison as information was exchanged between them. Tav saw the being rise from a tomb, heard his peaceful introduction, and heard how he had offered his powers to aid them.

She approached him warily, unable to stop staring. The closest thing she had ever seen to something like him was in zombie movies, but this guy hardly seemed to be rotting. In fact, he looked dry and brittle, like a mummy. Or a dead mouse behind a fridge.

“Ah,” he said as she approached, his voice echoing against the walls of Tav’s skull. “How curious to see one of thy kind walk among us.”

Tav repressed a shiver as all the hair on her body raised in protest of his presence.

“My kind?”

“Thou are not of this world. Fascinating.”

He didn’t sound fascinated in the slightest.

“How can you tell?” She asked, searching his shrivelled face for any kind of expression, any kind of hint of what he made of her. She came up short.

“I just can.”

They regarded each other in silence for a moment, and Tav felt ferociously awkward. Mr. Skeleton didn’t seem bothered by it at all. Clearing her throat, Tav extended a hand towards him.

“Well, I’m Tav. Nice to meet you!”

The undead stared at her hand, and then her face.

“I shall be here in thy camp for when thou hast need of my services.”

With that as his closing line, he returned to the book he had been holding during their conversation. Tav had been very thoroughly dismissed, but she refused to let it dissuade her. She was going to find out about him. Maybe not today, but eventually. It would benefit her greatly to know who could figure out she came from a different universe by simply looking at her if she were to keep up appearances.

Something about this creature made her feel as if he wasn’t going to expose her true nature, though. Thus, she left him alone. For now.

Tav spent the rest of the afternoon ping-ponging between her fellow travellers, petting the animals, and helping Shadowheart sort through the medicinal supplies and herbs they’d brought back from the swamp. She had come to enjoy her company much more than she thought she would. She never pried, never questioned why Tav didn’t know sh*t about f*ck, and only lightly scolded her when she made mistakes. The silence between them was a familiar and comfortable one. Tav had never been one to think much of comfortable silence before, always the chatterbox, but she found she didn’t have a lot to say these days.

When the night came creeping, Tav had yet to see Gale exit his tent, but she didn’t pay it much mind. According to something Aradin had told her, wizards often preferred solitude. God forbid she robbed a man of his Gale-time.

To the great delight of the butterflies in her stomach, Halsin sat on the ground in front of her (his) tent, carving something out of a block of wood. He looked up when she approached and smiled warmly at her, which made her blush. How ridiculous. She had been laying with Astarion’s tongue in her mouth and his hand between her thighs without this level of embarrassment, but a single smile from this guy, and she was tongue-tied.

“Oakfather preserve you, my girl.”

Good lord. Oakfather preserve her, indeed.

“My favourite bear!” She said, not bothering to hide how crimson his words had made her flush. Something told her he already knew. Something told her he was doing it on purpose. Bastard. Bastards, all of them.

“You honour me,” he replied with another smile, moving slightly out of the way so she could enter the tent if she so pleased. She did not. Instead, she sat on the ground next to him, leaning in to see what he was carving. It looked like something destined to be a duck.

She sat by his side and chatted about a hundred little nothings until she couldn’t stop herself from yawning every other minute. Despite her growing friendship with some of the others, Halsin remained her favourite. If it was because of their shared time in the goblin camp, or because she had a damsel-in-distress-complex she wasn’t aware of, or simply because he was the most mild-tempered out of all of them, she didn’t know. She found he was the easiest to talk to by a mile, which made her gravitate towards him like a moth to a flame. And of course, there was the little fluttery crush blooming in her stomach every time she looked at him.

When Tav finally gave in to the beckoning call of sleep and went to enter the tent, she decided to try her chances one more time. Just in case. If it went wrong, she could always blame Astarion. He was, after all, the one who had riled her up like this in the first place.

“Would you like to come in with me?” She asked before she lost her nerve, holding her breath as she waited for his answer. Despite her pounding heart and blushing cheeks, she held his gaze with all the confidence she could muster. The way his eyes darkened made her entire body stutter, but he didn’t move from his spot.

“I’m afraid I can’t, no matter how much I’d like to,” he said, sounding earnestly regretful. “The journey ahead of us takes up much of my mind these days; I would loathe to give you only part of my attention.”

For f*ck’s sake. Halsin and words. A menace.

A menace who might be able to be persuaded, just a bit. She decided to push her luck just a little further by stepping between his legs and crouching in front of him, which brought her just below his eye level. She kept her balance by lightly placing her hands on his chest and felt heat pool to her core at his sharp inhale.

“I can respect that. But still, I’d settle for a drop of it, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Their faces were just inches apart. His eyes were the warmest brown she had ever seen.

“You…” his voice was as breathy as his face was flushed. “You overestimate my self-control, little bird.”

She grinned at him, leaning in even closer. His breath was warm and sweet as honey on her face.

“Then hold still.”

He didn’t protest or move away when she leaned in, and she placed a light, gentle kiss on the side of his mouth. When she moved back, his eyes were closed, and his breathing had deepened.

“Goodnight, Halsin.”

His eyes opened and looked at her with a yearning that took her breath away, but he made no attempt to stop her when she disappeared into her tent.

She was so going to finger herself about this later.

Tav breathed hard as she matched her hips’ movement to Astarion’s thrusts, savouring the feeling of his co*ck buried so deep inside her she swore she could feel it in her stomach. Her nails dragged raised lines of red across the smooth skin on his back, and when he bit into her breast, she bit him back. The skin of his neck broke beneath her teeth like paper, his sweet, cold blood spurting onto her tongue as if she had bitten into the ripest of fruits. Despite their biting mouths being locked in place, her body still moved on top of him, unhindered, unstoppable. His hands found her hips and used his grip there as leverage to bring her down harder, thrusting into her so violently it felt as if he was trying to break her. When she finally dislodged her teeth from his throat, she looked down at him, moaning at the sight of his usually smug expression being dissolved in bliss.

And then… he wasn’t fully Astarion anymore.

The eyes that met hers were brown, the curls beneath her hands dark. Aradin wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her into the most intimate of embraces, guiding her hips’ movement until she was dragging her cl*t across his pubic bone, whimpering to the sky as she did so. But when she looked down, she realised he didn’t have a dick at all. He was entirely blank, like a doll. And when she looked back to his face, he was Shadowheart, and she was leaning back on her elbows, observing her as her bare and sweaty chest rose and fell with her breaths.

“What–” Tav started, but she didn’t get to finish her question before Shadowheart’s head exploded in a cloud of ruby raindrops and smoke. Tav screamed and tried to move, but it suddenly felt as if her body was underwater, and Shadowheart’s tongue, salivating, rose from the depths of her open neck to lick the tears from her cheeks.

Tav awoke with a jump and half a scream, swinging her arms around, fighting her sleeping bag fiercely. Her elbow made contact with something soft and warm, and the gasp that followed scared her almost as much as her dream had.

“Ow! I come in peace, I swear!”

Tav sat up, fighting to get her hair out of her eyes, her skin damp with cold sweat.

“What the f– Gale?”

Even in the incredibly dim light inside the tent, he looked completely beside himself. She had to blink hard and rub her eyes even harder a few times before she could believe what she saw. He was pale, coated in a thin layer of sweat, his breathing shallow, his hair all out of sorts.

“What’s wrong with you?” She asked with horror, and he shushed her.

“I apologise for rousing you like this, but I assure you, this matter is of utmost importance.” His hands shook as he spoke, his teeth chattering so badly she could hardly hear his whisper. He looked like Jesus more than probably ever, on his way to be crucified, probably.

“Yeah, no sh*t it’s important. You look awful! Have you eaten?”

He winced in pain and gasped for air, taking a moment to even his breathing before answering her.

“That’s just the thing, you see. I have this… condition.” His whisper was almost even, almost steady. Tav responded with a groan and a roll of her tired eyes. Him too, really?

She laid back down and turned her back to him, nuzzling her head back into her pillow. “Do what you want, just don’t leave any marks where the others can see them.”

“I– gosh! What?”

The potency of his outrage pulled her loose from the last few strands of sleep. When she looked at him over her shoulder, he looked absolutely mortified.

Shoot.

Well, there was no explaining her way out of this one. It wasn’t her secret to share.

“Okay, speak then. What is it?”

He still looked puzzled, but whatever his condition was doing to him, it was bad enough to snuff out his curiosity.

“My condition requires me to, every once in a while, consume powerful magical items, or chaos will erupt. I believed I could keep this secret for myself, but we have had little luck regarding finding such artefacts. That is why I come to you. I need your dress. Respectfully.”

His shaking hands fidgeted as he spoke, the movement so unlike him that Tav had no choice but to believe what he was saying.

“You want to eat my dress?” She asked with a lifted brow, quite sincerely attempting to make sense of the situation.

“I don’t want to, I assure you. But I must.”

Tav nodded, but she still hesitated. The longer she wore the dress her guardian gave her, the more she realised that it wasn’t just enchanted to look pretty. It protected her from outside forces, just as Gale had claimed it did. It took her much longer to freeze, and she didn’t burn when she got too close to the bonfire. She needed this dress.

“Gale, I really want to help, but–”

He grabbed her by her shoulders then, pulling her up until she was staring into his eyes.

“Tav,” he said, his voice low and grave. “I cannot express to you how important this is. Hundreds, if not thousands of lives depend on it. Please.”

She blinked at him for a moment.

“I need this dress, Gale. Could I try just giving you a piece of it? Like you said, it’s made of pure magic. If it doesn’t work, you can have it, I swear.”

A lie. She was not going to give him her dress. Not in a million years. But though he was usually quite perceptive, whatever pain he was in seemed to cloud his brain too much to notice her deceit.

“I suppose that’s reasonable,” he said, letting go of her and grabbing the hem of her skirt. “May I?”

She nodded, and he mumbled an incantation under his breath that allowed him to cut a piece of her skirt off as if his finger were a knife. How fascinating. Tav wondered if he could cut through flesh like that. Perhaps it was how he chopped vegetables for his stews.

He lifted the fabric to his chest, and Tav watched his robe absorb it as it disappeared. Blinding magic filled her little tent for a moment, and then it was gone. With a satisfied groan and eyes rolling back in his head (for f*ck’s sake, here she goes again), Gale finally seemed to relax.

“That hit just the spot. How brilliant! I cannot thank you enough.”

Tav was still staring at the spot where the piece of her dress had disappeared. She had hardly expected him to cram the fabric in his mouth, but still…

“May I trust you to keep this between us, Tav?” He asked. Tav sighed. She was going to be carrying three secrets around now, and only one of them was her own. But Gale's cheeks were flush with life, his under-eyes bright, his skin aglow. There were no traces of the pain he had been in just moments before.

“Yes. Of course,” she said. “And you can come back for more… dress, whenever you need it.”

“My lady, I bow to your endless kindness!” He said, bowing as well as he could while crouched on his knees. “I promise you my next visit will not be so… this. Goodnight, my friend.”

“Goodnight, Gale.”

When he closed the entrance to her tent behind him, Tav drew the deepest sigh of her life. Of course, a disease that made Gale eat magic through his chest. Why not? Shadowheart was probably a werewolf. Tomorrow, she would probably wake up to see Wyll flying around the camp like a superhero, Karlach spitting fire, and what else. She pulled her blanket over her head, hiding away from the world. It would be nice to have just a single normal day here.

She should have known that was far too much to ask for.

Chapter 16: Ah-Thran Mystra-Ryl Kantrach-Ao

Chapter Text

“You must know. Surely you must know it was all for you.” Tav’s voice was nothing but a whisper.

“You are too generous to trifle with me. I believe you spoke to my aunt last night, and it has taught me to hope as I had scarcely allowed myself before.” Her hands were folded underneath her chin, her eyes closed, her face kissed by the setting sun.

“If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes have not changed, but one word from you will silence me forever. If, however, your feelings have changed, I would have to tell you, you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you.”

Tav had woken the morning after her generous donation to the resident magic man and realised that she had started to forget things. It wasn’t a lack she had noticed until she woke up from a blurry and incohesive dream with the scent of something familiar still lingering in her nose. She hadn’t been able to place it, which is what had scared her when she finally did. It was coffee. She had dreamt of coffee, and then she had woken up to find she had completely forgotten its existence.

She wasn’t sure why. She had reached for her guardian in her mind to ask if this was his doing, but silence was his only answer. And thus, Tav had sought solitude on a large stone in the woods, and she pretended to pray. She was reciting all of her favourite things about her world, from her default coffee order to her favourite film, touching all of her treasures to make sure they were still there. She wouldn’t pretend to understand the religious devotion she saw in this world, especially in Gale, Halsin, and Lae’zel (and Shadowheart, even though she tried to be sneaky about it for some reason), but the general consensus amongst the others seemed to be that the Gods were real and should be respected. She figured that as long as she seemed to be in prayer, she would be left to her own devices. Worship was sacred here, and everyone respected that. Everyone except–

“Do you usually flirt with your god, or are you feeling particularly warm-blooded today?”

Tav instinctively groaned at the sound of Astarion’s voice, but she didn’t mean it all the way. He had somehow managed to not insult or belittle her once since the swamp, and she was quite enjoying the almost two full days of peace and quiet it had granted her.

She moved aside a little bit so he could sit next to her if he wanted, but he settled for leaning next to her swinging legs, back against the warm stone, face raised to catch the rays of the setting sun. He really was beautiful.

“I don’t believe there are any gods where I’m from,” she stated, squandering a sudden urge to reach out and touch his hair. They were not at that level of friendship, if they were even at any level at all.

“Really? That sounds delightful.”

“Why do you say that? I think having actual deities would be sort of cool.”

“Having no Gods is better than having Gods who won’t hear your prayers.”

His tone was as indifferent as always, but something about it caught her attention, anyway. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, and the most subtle of frowns had curved the corners of his mouth slightly downward and added creases between his eyebrows.

“You used to pray? To which god?”

“Oh, I tried them all. None of them answered.”

What a strange individual he was. She wondered if he dropped these kinds of little, terrible truths on others, or if he had grown to tolerate her enough for them to just be for her. She knew him well enough already to know that he didn’t want her to prod at it. Maybe he just needed to be heard.

Unsure of what to do next, Tav decided to return the favour of his crumbs of honesty. “I wasn’t praying. I was reciting things from home. I think this place is playing tricks on my memory, somehow. I’ve started to forget things that used to be very important to me. Do you think the worm could be doing that?”

He thought for a moment. “Who knows? From what we’ve seen so far, they’re full of surprises. But it could also be the daily mortal peril, you know. I barely remember anything from my life before Cazador.”

“You must remember something, no?”

Astarion sighed deeply and let his head fall back onto the stone. “I remember being a magistrate. I remember being attacked. But I don’t remember what my mother’s voice sounded like, or my own face.”

His tone turned acidic. He might as well have punched her in the heart. This was perhaps one of the saddest things she had ever heard.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, unable to find other words to express how much she felt for him at that moment. She had a feeling he didn’t wish to be pitied, but she pitied him all the same.

“Thank you.”

Tav couldn’t tell if the following silence was tense or if she was embedding it with her own discomfort, but she let it be either way. She half expected Astarion to say something snarky or dismissive or funny, but he didn’t. He simply stared at the sky above them, eyes distant and thoughtful. Tav had an idea.

“I could tell you what I see. If you want me to.”

He looked at her, then. The look in his eyes was perhaps the most earnest one she had ever seen, and even though it shouldn’t have, it caught her off guard. He looked… softer, this way.

Perhaps it was a trick of the light.

“Tell me.” He said firmly, moving from his spot to place himself in front of her. He looked quite small from where she was perched on her stone. She let her eyes wander over each feature; the way his white curls warmed in the rays of the setting sun; how his skin looked fine as marble; his eyes that looked more like rubies now than ever before; the creases around his mouth and eyes when he laughed; the points of his ears. She had to clear her throat before she spoke.

“Your hair always curls perfectly. It always looks… lush. I know girls who would kill to have that kind of hair. Your eyes are strong and piercing, and they look like actual rubies when they catch the sun just right. Your skin is so good. As in, you look edible, and – no, don’t look at me like that! I mean in an entirely non-sexual way. Your smile is always a little smug like you’re hiding something, but you pull it off.”

“How observant you are. Now, just tell me I’m beautiful, and we can call it a day.”

“I mean… you’re not Shadowheart-beautiful, but you’re still good.”

He threw his head back and laughed, with his whole chest, which made Tav laugh too. Sometimes, in these private moments between them, he laughed like he had been holding it in for years.

“How dare you!” He said, clutching his chest that without a doubt contained his fatally wounded heart. “I thought we had something special. Still…” he briefly pressed his knuckles against her knee. “You‘re nice too.”

By the time Tav made it back to the camp, a thick blanket of twilight had blurred the world around her into nuances of black and grey. Astarion had wandered off into the woods to hunt, and so she found herself idle. That was until she saw a faint, blue light coming from Gale’s tent, of course.

He jumped where he sat when she ripped the entrance to his tent open and crawled in without knocking. What looked like a hologram of a woman’s head floated in the palm of his hand. Not at all ominous.

“You startled me,” he said, obviously much more polite than he wanted to be.

“Oh? Why would someone barging into your tent without permission startle you, Gale?”

He huffed at her, but good humour twinkled in his eyes as he snuffed out whatever astral Facetime session he had been doing. The tent was only dark for a second before enchanted candles lit up all around them.

“What’s on your mind?”

Tav grabbed the nearest pillow and made herself comfortable, her habits from Astarion’s tent dying hard. “I think it’s time you and I had a talk.”

“I feared you would think so. I have precious little answers to give.”

“Bold of you to assume that this is about you. Is that a wizard thing, to always want to be the centre of attention?

“Quite. It comes with the territory.”

He was infuriatingly polite in the face of her goading. How very boring. She wasn’t sure why she opened up by mocking him in the first place, as it probably wouldn’t work out in her favour now that she was coming here to ask something of him. She tried to arrange her face in a friendlier expression when she stated her case.

“What I want to talk about is the fact that you shouted at me in front of everyone a couple of days ago, and then you proceeded to not speak to me at all for days, and suddenly you show up all shaking and sweating in my tent in the middle of the night to demand a bite of my dress? What kind of decoration is that?”

“Do you mean decorum?”

“Gale!”

He cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders as if he was about to deliver a speech.

“Right. Your intrusion upon my mind was uncalled for, if I may state the obvious. I usually have an exceptionally disciplined mind, but the second I show even a moment of weakness, you pounce like a cat on a mouse. Forgive me for thinking less of you for it.”

Despite Tav knowing that she wasn’t guilty and that she had intruded on nothing and pounced on even more nothing, his words still stung. Perhaps it was how proficient he was regarding eloquence, to deliver words as gracefully as a poison-filled chocolate would deliver its contents.

“Well,” she said, clearing her throat in much the same manner as he had just a moment ago, “in that case, I will be happy to inform you that I haven’t done anything at all and that whatever you think happened, well… didn’t.”

“You used the tadpole to look into my head. I felt you. I saw it on your face.”

“What do you mean I used the tadpole? I can barely use my own power, what makes you think I can control this worm?”

He regarded her for a moment, eyebrows curved in suspicion. Tav had realised as she spoke that she had very much so done what he was accusing her of; she had felt his guilt and his anger and his shame as clearly as if someone had squeezed a lemon into her mouth, but it hadn’t been on purpose. She didn’t even know she had been doing it.

“If what you say is true, I do apologise. I trust you can see the reason behind my reaction?”

“I guess. But now that we’re on the topic, I have a favour to ask. But I need you to answer some questions first. I promise it’s not about… whatever it is you have going on.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Go on.”

“You’re just a human, right? The magic you have is something you’ve been taught?”

“I’m a wizard of exceptional natural talent who could manipulate the weave from a very young age, but yes, essentially.”

“Right. So that would mean that I - in theory - could learn to manipulate the weave too, right?”

Gale looked at her inquisitively. “As a sorcerer, manipulation of the weave should come to you quite naturally, yes? Though I suppose a wielder of wild magic such as yourself might struggle more with the composition of spells, you are manipulating it all the same.”

Tav took a very deep breath. Gale had proven himself to be both kind and caring on several occasions, and had it not been for his outburst (however reasonable), she might even have found him downright trustworthy. But this… one thing was to admit to lying, another was to tell him everything.

Oh well. If it all went to sh*t, she could just nuke his head off his shoulders. And if it was truly such a bad idea, her guardian angel would surely stop her. Which he did not seem to plan on.

“Yeah, about that… I was lying, actually. I’m not a sorcerer. I’m not from this universe at all. I didn’t lie about being kidnapped, but where I’m from magic isn’t even real. I had no powers before I woke up here.”

She held her breath as she took in his reaction. He was resting his chin on his knuckles as he carefully studied her face, and Tav prepared herself for any reaction she could think of. Except for the reaction he actually had, which was entirely unexpected. His face broke into a grin, and he snapped his fingers at her, making her jump.

“HA!” He exclaimed, eyes alight with pride. “I knew it! I was wondering when you were going to confide in me.”

“Wait, what?”

“Well, it really wasn’t that difficult to figure out. Given your refusal to use magic where others can see it, your worry of being trapped here by pomegranate, your… forgive me, but inadequate knowledge of countless topics… if one cares to look, it is quite obvious.”

Tav was entirely flabbergasted. “You seem very relaxed about this.”

“Oh, please. I was once Mystra’s chosen. I am well aware that there are countless universes well beyond our imagination. And besides, you’re hardly the only foreigner among us. This is Lae’zel’s first time in this realm, too. You must have noticed a certain likeness between the two of you?”

“You have to be joking! I don’t dare look at her half the time, she hates me!”

“She’s a bit sharp around the edges, I suppose, but these lands are as unfamiliar to her as they are to you. Somewhat. Perhaps you could learn a thing or two from each other.”

Tav scoffed at him. The day Lae’zel decided she wanted to learn something from her would likely be the day Queen Elizabeth II pulled up in a Porsche to give her a ride home. But still… perhaps she would be more inclined to regard her as something more than a rat eating up their supplies and getting in the way if she knew the truth about her. She was an unlikely ally, for sure, but Tav was willing to keep an open mind. Though perhaps not quite yet.

“Be that as it may,” he said, waving a hand at how her brows had been raised in doubt. “Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me. Your secret is safe with me. Now, I believe you had a favour to ask of me?”

Tav had to take another deep breath before she could continue. Now came the real test of his kindness, and if he did not pass, she could hardly blame him. Had the roles been reversed, she wasn’t sure how she would react herself.

“When Astarion and I were in the swamp, we ran into a mo- a mercenary, of some kind. He was about to shoot Astarion, and I… I made his head explode.”

She shut her eyes, awaiting his reaction with bated breath. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t blast her out of his tent or yell at her, either, so she interpreted his silence as a sign for her to keep talking.

“I didn’t mean to. These powers that I have, they’re new to me. I didn’t know what it would do. I didn’t think– Jesus, I didn’t think at all, actually. The spell was the only thing in my head.” She dared to peek at him from between her lashes and was relieved to find no loathing in his expression. He was listening attentively, just as he had been when she told him about Persephone, head slightly tilted, eyes bright and alert.

Tav continued. “But you have taught yourself magic. You have learned to manipulate the weave, as you call it. Can you teach me, too? I don’t need to be an expert like you are, I just need to control it, that's all. Please.”

Gale looked very thoughtful for a moment, tapping his cheekbone with a finger while looking askance. He still had yet to say anything, and Tav felt dizzy with the breath she was holding as she waited for his verdict. She was a murderer, now. She had killed someone. And despite not feeling it anymore, she knew she had felt guilty for it when it happened.

“I must admit, I’m not one to take on apprentices, usually. But in this case, I suppose I could make an exception. I can show you how to channel the weave in a controlled manner if you would like me to?”

“Yes!” Tav said all too eagerly, the tension leaving her body with a snap. How delightfully reasonable the resident magician was turning out to be. “I would love to! Thank you!”

He led her outside the tent and a few paces away from camp, perhaps to avoid any prying eyes. Darkness had truly fallen, now, and the sky above them was full of glittering stars.

“First and foremost,” Gale said, turning to her. He looked very handsome in the moonlight. “Show me your magic.”

“What? Gale, I’ll-”

“I trust you can aim it at something that isn’t my head. Go on.”

Tav furrowed her brows before turning from him and facing the river. Just in case. She brought her hands together like she had in her guardian’s realm, aiming all of her concentration on the power she knew resided beneath her skin. She felt it stir in response, but it took another couple of tries before she managed to bring it to her fingers the way she had been shown. This was a lot harder than just simply blasting away at a tree.

The inky, blood-red bolts of magic sparked between her hands, and as if she was rewarded for her efforts, the tension brought upon her body by her concentration eased a little. Featherlight pleasure flowed through her veins, almost making her shiver.

“Here,” she whispered, slowly turning back toward Gale, who stepped closer to inspect the little lightning storm she was holding between her palms.

“Fascinating,” he mumbled, nearing her hands with his own as if it were a candle on a cold winter night. “It looks like eldritch magic, perhaps something infernal. But it feels nothing like any magic I have seen.”

“Or tasted?”

He chuckled. “Or tasted.”

Her powers ebbed and faded, and she dropped her hands to her sides. Faint, red light could still be seen through her pale skin, but it became weaker by the moment.

“I cannot teach you to wield magic that I know nothing of,” he said, gesturing towards her as if she was an obstacle in and of herself, “but I could perhaps teach you to channel the weave for you to use alongside your own magic, as a crutch, or as a safety measure.”

“That sounds good to me.”

“Then follow my lead,” he said, smiling down at her with the warmth only he possessed. He stood beside her at a respectable distance, swung his arms around a bit, and conjured up a purple mist.

“Now you.”

“Wait, that was it? Show me again, but slower.”

He did as she asked, wordlessly, and Tav bit down on her lips in concentration as she watched his every move. The gesture didn’t look all too complicated, and she imitated it as best as she could. She was a lot less elegant with it than him, the movements foreign to her, as if she was performing a dance she had only just seen for the first time. But it worked, all the same. When she stumbled past the final movement, that same, purple mist appeared in the air before her, and she felt… something. Warm and comfortable, like a kind word and a kind touch at the same time. It enveloped her for the briefest moment before disappearing.

“Excellent. Now repeat after me: Ah-Thran Mystra-Ryl Kantrach-Ao.”

Tav did her best, though she was quite certain she messed up the pronunciation a bit, but perhaps her intention was enough, or maybe she was piggybacking off of Gale’s expertise. Either way, the air around her sparkled, and she felt a warm sense of well-being. A faint scent of rosewater wafted through the air, and something tasted sweet on her tongue.

“Very good!” Gale praised. “Now I want you to picture in your mind the concept of harmony. As true as you can.”

She closed her eyes and came up short. There hadn’t been a lot of harmony in her life after her kidnapping, and if she were being honest, not before either. All of her life had been chaos; her education, her relationships, her family, her own head. The only stable point in her life had been Oliver, and she wasn’t sure she could bear to think of him just now. Her mind wandered instead to the morning after the tiefling party. Waking up to sounds and scents so familiar they could have happened outside of her bedroom window at home. The feeling of waking up with someone’s arms around her for the first time in so long. Aradin’s warm skin against her cheek, his otherwise rough fingers gently stroking her hair as she drifted in and out of sleep.

She felt the magic bloom in the air around her before she heard Gale sing her praises.

“You did it!” He exclaimed, voice lowered as if not to disturb her concentration. “You’re channelling the weave! How does it feel?”

An interesting question indeed. It felt very different from her own magic. Hers came from somewhere deep and dark inside of her, fuelled by repressed emotion and pure instinct. It was raw and scalding and burned bright like desire in her veins. This was… soft. It was a presence from the universe, something different from herself, something that ran across her mind like cool water.

“Strange…” she whispered, but she didn’t get to string more words together before she noticed that whatever boundaries were between her mind and Gale’s, they were blurring. It was not the same as it had been with the tadpole. She was not inside of his head. It felt as if they had… met in the middle, somehow.

Gale? She thought, feeling foolish only for a second before he replied.

Yes?

She looked at him then, and his mouth was closed in a pleasant smile, but she had heard his voice all the same.

Why can you hear my thoughts?

The weave connects us, my benighted friend. Would you like to try casting a spell?

I can do that?

Of course you can. Hold out your hand, concentrate on the feeling of the weave, and say Aqua Piove.

Tav did as she was told, and at first, nothing happened. She tried again, but still… no, wait. Something was definitely happening. A weak stream of water pissed out of her pointer finger with all the bravado of a punctured balloon. She looked at Gale, who looked back, and then they both burst into laughter.

“Like I said,” the poor man gasped, grasping his midsection. “It takes time to master. But for an… enthusiastic student such as yourself, I’m sure it will come to you.”

She couldn’t respond to him. Her lungs were collapsing with laughter that bordered on hysterics, and it broke her concentration enough to stop the tinkle of fresh water from her finger. Whatever the intention of that spell was, Tav was pretty sure this wasn’t it. But still, she had conjured up water from thin air. She hoped. The alternative was both too weird and too disgusting to think about.

When they had finally caught their breath and both of their stomachs were sore from laughter, Gale patted her shoulder in a comradely manner before gesturing towards the campfire.

“Have a cup of tea with me, will you? I want to learn more about this power of yours.”

When she and Gale finally headed off to bed, dawn was already stretching its pink arms into the horizon. Tav’s throat was dry from talking for hours with only tea to wet it, but her heart was light. She had given Gale a description of her powers as accurately as she could, and in turn, he dumbed down and minced what he knew of the weave. How he had wielded it so young, how he had become Mystra’s chosen. He told her of Mystra, too, how she was somehow the weave personified. How they had been lovers. How he had been so young when she first approached him, his life felt as if it had no purpose when she abandoned him. How he missed her, and how he did not.

He had asked Tav many questions about her world, most of which she could not answer. Gale was proving to be much smarter than she was with every passing moment, and when he had prompted her to explain electricity and the internet and whatever else she told him about, she could not satisfy his curiosity because she simply was too dumb. To his credit, despite his own arrogance, he did not seem to think less of her for it.

Their conversation had even been so nice and so confidential that she had told him about Leah. About how they grew up together, how her parents hated her for loving another woman, how she had left her for someone better after all they had been through. He squeezed her shoulder when her voice shook, and he laughed with her when she retold how she had run from the party with all the dramatics she could muster. She almost told him of Oliver, too, but then she didn’t. Speaking his name still hurt too much.

She had awoken that morning and considered Gale a strange, unpredictable man, and she went to bed that next dawn with a solid feeling of friendship between them. The wonders of what a good cuppa and magic could do in a night, she supposed.

Tav slept into the wrong side of noon and was only disturbed from her slumber when Astarion pulled open the entrance to her tent and let the sun shine directly on her face. She groaned at him, more beast than person.

“Good morning to you too, darling. Get up, we’re moving.”

Tav allowed herself some more groaning before doing what she was told, straightening out her dress and combing through her hair with her fingers. She exited the tent to find the entire camp in motion. Most of the tents were gone, the makeshift kitchen by the bonfire disassembled, and everyone was on their feet. Everyone except Gale, who raised a mug at her from where he was sitting next to the scorched earth that used to be their fire. She went to him.

“This is your fault.” She stated matter-of-factly as she sat down beside him.

“Hush, you.” He replied with a smile, handing her a cup of her very own. As soon as the scent hit her, she nearly died from shock.

“Is this coffee?” She gaped, staring into the cup, certain her senses were playing tricks on her. It couldn’t be. There was no way.

“The beans are difficult to come by out here. This is my last batch, so savour-” his words cut off the moment he looked at her. “Are you crying?”

Tav scarcely managed to move her cup out of the way before a rogue tear fell into it. Not that she wouldn’t drink it anyway. Someone could probably sh*t in it, and she would still drink it.

“I just love coffee so much,” she whispered, sniffling. Had it been anyone else, she would have seemed crazy. But Gale seemed to quickly make the connection and rubbed her shoulder in comforting circles with a familiarity that made her feel like they had known each other for much longer than they had.

They looked up when Wyll stopped in front of them, hands on his hips and a friendly expression on his face. Tav was grateful she hadn’t gone into full-blown sobbing, and all traces of her crying were erased with the back of her hand.

“Tav,” Wyll said, “Astarion, Lae’zel and I just returned from the swamp. The fey ring by the hag’s home has been destroyed, so the Underdark is not a possibility right now. Lae’zel is insisting we go through the mountain pass to find a creche, so that’s our next move.”

“What about the temple of Selûne?” Gale asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

“We had no luck with that. We’re wasting time picking through the rubble. Or so claims Lae’zel, at least.”

“Woe betide any who tries to argue with her.”

Tav knew she should pay more attention than she was, but she had just taken her first sip of coffee in what… a month? And she was biting the inside of her cheek to not moan or cry or both. The coffee was much darker than she was used to, and it was slightly spiced with something she couldn’t put her finger on. It warmed her from the inside when it reached her empty stomach, which made her shiver with pleasure.

And so it happened that she wasn’t exactly sure what was going on when she had butchered her tent and set off on the dusty road alongside her companions. The sun was too hot for her liking, but she had a spring in her step she hadn’t felt in what seemed like a lifetime. The caffeine surged through her body and gave her an almost irresistible urge to jump into the air and click her heels. Despite the destroyed fey ring and their changed plans, everyone seemed to be in a good mood. Tav even caught Lae’zel looking out over the landscape without disdain on her face as a warm breeze moved through her braids. It seemed none of them had been truly keen on venturing into the Underdark after all.

They had only been walking for about an hour or so before Astarion raised his nose to the air. Tav didn’t understand what he was doing before he turned to her, leaning closer to avoid the others hearing what he whispered.

“There’s blood in the wind. I smell trouble ahead.”

Tav’s entire body went tight as a string. She wasn’t sure her hold on the weave was ready to support her own magic. No, correction: she knew it wasn’t ready. But there was no safe camp to hide away in while the others took care of the dangerous stuff. Not here. She nodded at him silently, already turning what little concentration the sleepless night and the strong coffee had left her to the heat resting beneath her skin.

It only took a couple more minutes of walking before they heard it. Almost like laughter, but not. It was beastly, it was horrifying, and it seemed entirely out of place here.

“Are those hyenas?” Tav asked softly as the whole party stopped to listen. No one answered her, but she felt the light blow of magic as Halsin transformed behind her. The musky scent of her bear enveloped her when he stood by her side.

“They won’t mess with us once they see this giant of a bear,” Wyll said, clapping Halsin on his furred shoulder. Bear-Halsin stuck his nose into Tav’s palm and exhaled warmly, which calmed her just as he had probably intended.

“Be ready,” Astarion said, obviously not convinced that hyenas would be no trouble for them. “You never know around these parts.”

They moved slowly and as silently as their packs and armour would allow them, and soon, the source of the sounds became apparent. They were indeed hyenas, and Astarion had been absolutely right to keep his guard up. The road in front of them was littered with corpses, more than Tav had ever seen in her life. They had been brutalised, all of them, and the culprits lay on their sides, heaving for breath, stomachs swollen with meat.

Tav had to swallow several times to avoid retching. The stench was enough on its own, but something about the way their stomachs stretched… it looked as if they had swallowed a grown man each.

“Sweet hells,” Astarion said from behind his hand, covering his mouth and nose, apparently forgetting to feign breathing.

“What’s wrong with them?” Tav asked, her voice small from nausea. Next to her, Halsin bristled and growled, lifting his paw to strike the nearest Hyena. He was too slow. Tav watched, paralysed, as the hyena screamed and whined in pain when long, dark claws tore through its skin from the inside. Blood flooded from its belly like a popped cyst, and the animal all but exploded in a rain of gore as something much, much too big rose from its depths with an ear-splitting roar.

Chapter 17: Luxuria

Chapter Text

Tav stumbled backwards as the warm spray of hyena guts covered her from head to toe, and with a sound she hadn’t heard since he attacked the goblins, Halsin threw himself in front of her. Tav had never been in an actual fight in her life, and her reactions were much, much slower than those of her companions. She barely had time to raise her hands or reach inwards for a sliver of anger to fuel her powers or even blink before her companions had scattered all around. Every single hyena on the ground exploded one by one just a second before the others got to them, and even though whatever monsters had been hiding inside were obviously newborn, disoriented, and unsure on their feet, they were vicious all the same.

But so were her companions. She had never seen any of them in actual combat before, and the sight was as intimidating as it was breathtaking: Karlach’s very skin looked as if it was on fire as she swung her axe with ease; the strength behind Halsin’s claws sent guts and body parts flying in all directions; Lae’zel was as graceful as a dancer with her sword, cutting through the beasts as if they were made of butter; Wyll’s blade was so thin and sharp Tav couldn’t see it with the speed he swung it with, and the only evidence of his violence was the deep, clean gashes left behind as if he was wielding a scalpel; Shadowheart’s hands glowed with light brighter than Tav could stand to look at; Astarion was a monster, a tornado of blades slipping in and out between them all as a swimmer slips through water. And Gale… Gale had been Mystra’s chosen for a reason. The spells he cast were brutal and incinerating, but they enveloped the others perfectly, never scorching so much as a hair on their heads.

The fight was over in less than a minute. Tav was gaping at them all, hands still hanging uselessly by her sides.

Behind you

“Tav!” Shadowheart called out half a second after her guardian’s warning, and so Tav was already in motion. She spun around and raised her hands, ready, the image of Zevlor and the tieflings on the road without them flashing in her mind for a moment before the rage it triggered rushed to her fingers. The thing coming up behind her was the same kind as the others, but this one was much, much larger, and it was dressed. It wielded a makeshift bow in Its paws (hands?), and it was drawing to aim.

“IRA!”

For a moment, Tav thought her spell had not worked or that she had missed. She had felt the force spring from her hands, felt the tingle of relief in her body, and yet the beastly thing stood entirely still, staring at her. But then, ever so slowly, as if the whole world held its breath, its torso slid from its place and fell to the ground.

She hadn’t made anything explode, this time. She had cut it in half.

“By the triad! I didn’t know you had such tricks up your sleeve, Tav!” Wyll said, looking utterly impressed when she turned to him. She took in their reactions one by one: Astarion only just hid his smirk behind an expression of boredom; Lae’zel looked her in the eyes for the first time since that first night; Shadowheart stared with a single raised brow; Halsin was a bear. And Gale… Gale looked at her as if he had just watched his child take their first steps. He was positively beaming with pride, and it filled the emptiness inside of Tav with a delightful warmth. She was aware that she was supposed to feel something else. She must be feeling something else, right? This was her guardian tuning out the feelings that would otherwise cripple her.

Tav didn’t have time to wonder what feeling this would have risen in her. Fear? Disgust? It could hardly be guilt, could it? Either way, she trusted that it would not have served her any good.

“What the f*ck just happened?” She asked instead, looking from one face to the other.

“These are gnolls,” Gale answered, gesturing towards the corpses on the ground. “Vicious things that are born from the wombs of other animals, such as hyenas. That grown one you ended – remarkable, by the by – is most certainly not the only one in the area.”

“These f*ckers spread like infestations,” Karlach added, shaking blood off her axe. “There are others. If we follow the corpses, we’ll find them.”

Tav turned towards her kill and studied it closer while the others discussed the next steps. The cut she had made was so clean it almost looked fake as if the gnoll hadn’t been alive at all and was made of soft clay instead of meat and guts. She wondered how much it had felt before it died. If the air had felt cool against its exposed intestines.

“Admiring your work, are you?” Astarion had appeared beside her as stealthy as a shadow, but she did not jump like she usually would. She felt sedated. Unafraid. Strong. She wasn’t sure how to put what she was experiencing into words, but she felt that if anyone could understand it, it would be Astarion.

“I want to come with you,” she said, unable to take her eyes off the slack face of her victim.

“What?”

“That’s what you were just talking about, right? With the others? Some of you are going forward to look for the creche, and some of you are going to follow the gnolls. I want to follow the gnolls.”

“Bloodthirsty, are we?”

Tav scoffed at him. He was right, but she wasn’t ready to admit that yet. Not to him, and not to herself. “Oh, come on. I need to practise, don’t I? Or I might blast your head off next time you come slinking in the night.”

Astarion smirked at her. “Hells forbid.”

The others were less keen on the idea. Karlach was all for it, of course, but everyone else hesitated a little when she told them what she wanted.

“Astarion will watch my back, won’t you, Astarion?” She asked sweetly, batting her eyelashes at him. He scowled in return.

“Fine. But if we both die, that’s on you.”

“Let’s go!” Karlach said, grinning at her. “It’s time to get you some proper action, soldier.”

And so Tav, Karlach, Astarion, and Shadowheart followed the trail of blood leading north, and Lae’zel, Gale, Halsin, and Wyll followed the road to where Lae’zel’s fellow gith had been spotted.

Tav’s magic was still thrumming at her fingertips, and her heart was in her throat, but her head was still. She didn’t need the buzz anymore. Not when she had raw, slashing force running in her veins. Who was going to stand up to her? Who was going to defend themselves against power as intangible and destructive as a lightning bolt? For all she knew, she could close her eyes and spin on the spot with her wrath unleashed and kill everyone in her near vicinity. Not that that was an option with her companions around, of course, but still. The thought was intoxicating.

They didn’t have to walk far before they heard the howls and whines of more gnolls. Tav recognised their stink in the air, now, having already smelled them once. They smelled as if someone had shot up a zoo. All beast and blood and charred hair.

Gross.

Shadowheart and Astarion, being the stealthiest of them, took the lead as they snuck closer and closer to the sounds. Not that it had been necessary. Upon first seeing the pack, their little team tensed and froze, but it became apparent rather quickly that the beasts were very focused on something inside the cave they had gathered in front of. They were in hysterics, howling and yapping and snapping their jaws at each other.

“What are they–” Karlach whispered, but she didn’t get to finish the question before someone – or something, for all they knew – inside the cave threw a bottle at the beasts, exploding in a cascade of glass and fire.

“sh*t,” Karlach mumbled, readying her axe. “There are people trapped in there.”

Astarion’s steps were so silent Tav wouldn’t have believed he was moving if she wasn’t watching him as he snuck behind a nearby cliff, intending to climb it to get the upper hand. Although she hadn’t seen it in action, she had been told he was as deadly with his arrows as he was with his daggers, and she could only hope that to be true. He would be guarding her back from up there, so he better be. To her left, Shadowheart melted into the shadows with an ease that could only be magical. Karlach turned to her, a fire that mirrored Tav’s own alight in her eyes.

“Ready, soldier?”

Tav could barely contain herself. She was full of the same feeling as when she and her friends were stuck trying to admit their coats to the wardrobe at a club, and their favourite song was blasting over the dance floor. Anticipation. Excitement. Thrill. Sex, drugs, and dance on the horizon. It didn’t occur to her that this feeling was entirely out of place in their situation, despite how ill the thought of killing had made her just days before. Besides, what else was she supposed to feel? Fear? Ha! As if.

She grinned at Karlach and gave her a curt nod, and then they charged.

It was chaos. They had managed to catch the beasts by surprise, but Tav was still far too slow. She would have been dead in a matter of seconds if not for Astarion, who kept his word with a speed and an accuracy Tav couldn’t wrap her mind around.

Blasts of red shot from her fingers, disintegrating and slashing and blowing up. Each blast made the coil of pleasurable release inside of her grow tighter, and she realised now what she hadn’t been able to sense before. This was not a sexual pleasure, as she had experienced it in her guardian’s realm. This was pure, unbridled relief. It was stepping in a warm shower after crawling from your bed in the winter. It was gulping down cold water at three in the morning. It was realising you had passed your exam. It was victory. Each blast was victory.

Karlach tore through gnolls on her other side, and Shadowheart assisted them both as her spells forced the gnolls to grovel, blinded them, or knocked their weapons from their hands (or were they paws? Tav really couldn’t decide). Every time a gnoll fell near her, Tav assumed it was Astarion’s work, even though she didn’t have time to look for his arrows.

A guttural roar came to her right, and when she turned, she was staring directly into the eyes of the biggest gnoll of them all. When their eyes met, time slowed, and all the noise quieted. Its eyes– no, her eyes were clouded with hunger and foggy with age, and Tav felt as if she could lean forward and fall into the abyss of them. She dared not blink. She watched as the gnoll raised her flail, ready to strike, but she didn’t want to hurt her, did she? She hesitated, faltered, and stilled with her weapon raised.

I don’t think you do, do you? Tav thought as if she could think directly into the mind of the beast. You’re my friend, are you not? Yes, you are! Who’s a good gnoll? You are, Flind, you are!

Flind’s name came to her as easily as rain fell from the sky. She felt what she felt; she wanted to do what Tav told her, she wanted to be commanded.

There is nothing you desire more, is there, Flind? You want me to tell you what to do. You’re waiting for my command. Nothing is more important to you, in your little world, than to make me happy. Isn’t that right?

Flind’s flail arm fell to her side as her jaw went slack.

That’s a good gnoll! You know who isn’t a good gnoll? Your pack. Bads gnolls. Very bad! They make me very upset!

A strange word pushed its way from the very deepest part of Tav’s soul and into her mouth. It made her throat taste of amber as if her guardian himself was pushing it from within her, and so she let it fall past her lips.

“Luxuria,” she said, and in an instance, the noise and chaos around them resumed. Flind turned to look at her packmates, and then she sunk her teeth into the shoulder of the nearest one. Tav didn’t have time to be shocked. She felt the connection between her mind and Flind’s as physically as if someone had tied a thread between their brains, and if she stopped focusing, it would falter.

“What are you doing, soldier? MOVE!” Karlach bellowed behind her as she struck down a gnoll that had it out for her throat. Tav didn’t answer. She didn’t blink. She didn’t breathe. It took every ounce of energy she had to keep her focus, and all she could do was watch as Flind turned on her own, flailing, biting, ripping, tearing. Tav could taste the blood in her mouth, and feel the ruined flesh between her teeth.

Without their leader, the gnolls became confused, less focused. One of them even tried to run, but Astarion shot an arrow through its neck and let it drown in its own blood. One by one, they fell, until only Flind was left. Tav felt her hunger. She felt her ire. She raised her hands to stop Karlach from striking her down. Everyone stood still, watching as Flind and Tav stared at each other.

Good girl! Tav thought, her inner voice slightly worn as if she had sprained her throat. Very, very good gnoll. It is time to rest now, my friend. Go on. Death is as warm and familiar as the womb you clawed your way from. It’s time to go home.

Flind was uncannily silent when she turned away and smacked her head into the rock behind her. She did it again, and again, and again. Tav’s hold on her was slipping. She clenched her fist and imagined that their connection was an actual thread she was holding onto, refusing to let go until she felt Flind’s mind fade. The gnoll didn’t whimper or whine once as she shattered her teeth and crushed her jaw against the stone. She didn’t make a single sound, not even when the sockets of her eyes were crushed to powder and she lost her sight. It was only when the front of her skull cracked like the shell of an egg and spilt her minced brain into the dirt that Tav finally snipped the thread between them. She almost fainted with the lack of air in her lungs, drawing breath in large heaps. Her head spun, the tingle she usually felt in her hands now gathering behind her eyes. Blood was dripping from her nose and into her mouth, but the taste was more pleasant than the filthy blood of the gnolls had been, anyway. Her body was shaking with pleasure, shivers flitting across her skin, knees moments from caving in.

“Remind me to never get on your bad side,” Shadowheart remarked dryly beside her. Tav turned to look at her companions. Karlach looked almost as disgusted as she looked shocked, and Shadowheart looked at her with a tinge of caution. But it was Astarion’s face that threw her off the most. He was staring at her from where he was perched on top of the cliff, and for once, he wasn’t hiding behind a mask of charm or boredom or disdain. His face was full of wonder, of admiration. His eyes were dark with something that could have been desire or jealousy or both. Tav stared back, wiping her bloody nose on her sleeve.

“By the Gods, you’re a sweet sight!” A voice behind her sighed, making her spin so fast she almost ate dirt. She had all but forgotten about the people inside the cave in the heat of battle. A tall, Scandinavian-looking man emerged from the dark, stepping over a dead gnoll. “Are any of my crew still alive out there?”

Tav cleared her throat. “I don’t think so. Just a lot of blood. And guts. Sorry.”

“Damn it,” he said, wiping his brow with the back of a soot-stained hand. “I guess that’s a no.”

A younger man came out behind him, stopping to rest his hands on his knees as he took in the sight of whatever was left of their crew.

“Risen road’s more dangerous than ever. You’re the first friendly face we’ve seen since Elturgard.”

“Elturgard? That’s a long way from here,” Shadowheart repeated, stepping to stand beside Tav as her eyes took in the man in front of them. Astarion reappeared next to them, having silently climbed down from his rock. He looked remarkably clean in comparison to everyone else.

“And the way is longer still,” the man sighed. “We’re headed for Baldur’s Gate. Got some cargo to deliver first, though.”

His accent was rather charming. So was his face. Tav immediately became very aware of how disgusting she was. The beastly smell from the gnolls clung to her skin and her hair, and she probably looked like Carrie on prom night.

“You’re a Zhent,” Shadowheart spoke softly, crossing her arms across her chest. Karlach stopped searching the pockets of the gnolls, hand on her axe once again. Whatever a Zhent was, it could be trouble.

“You know who we are. Very clever. Then you probably also know it’s not smart to interfere with Zhent business.” The man replied, raising his eyebrows at her.

Tav grew impatient. “I don’t know what Zhent business is, but I know we’ve got better things to do. Do you know where we might find more gnolls?”

Her magic was still humming in her head and her hands, waiting to be unleashed. Despite the weariness of her body, she could barely stand still, shifting her weight from one foot to another.

“Easy, soldier. If there are more in the area, we’ll find them. But my dogs are barking. I wouldn’t mind resting soon.” Karlach said, reaching over to carefully pull a piece of bone out of Tav’s hair with her nails to avoid burning her scalp. Her other hand never left the handle of her axe.

“You people seem like you know how to handle yourselves. You should drop by our hideout. You can rest there.” The man said, smiling pleasantly at them. Did his eyes linger on Tav and Shadowheart a bit longer than necessary, or was Tav being delusional?

“Putting our feet up in a Zhentarim hideout?” Astarion said, amusem*nt clear in his voice. “Wonderful. Why not?”

To Tav’s dismay, they didn’t encounter anything that needed to be blasted on their way, but she scarcely cared. She felt high, featherlight, her feet floating inches above the ground, surely. She was strong. She had raw force coursing through her veins so fast her skin hummed with it, and who was going to stand up to her? Who was going to lay a finger on her ever again? How does someone defend themselves from being disintegrated? The answer was simple: it was impossible. For the first time in her life, Tav had a power of her own that didn’t require her to sacrifice pieces of herself for it. The entire world could come at her as much as it wanted to.

She hadn’t even felt a sliver of anxiety when their little group had realised that their destination was on fire. They had run the rest of the way as soon as they realised where the smoke was coming from, but their creche-bound companions had gotten there first. Tav had never seen a real fire before. Not like the one eating away at the little village. She’d stood in the middle of a small courtyard of whatever was left of Waukeen’s Rest, letting her eyes glaze over in the smoke lingering in the air, listening to the crackling fire. Their other companions had managed to save whatever lucky souls had still been alive inside when they got there, but there had been almost as many corpses on the ground as there had been in the wake of the gnolls. Burnt flesh was thick in the air.

After Wyll and Gale had finished talking to what looked like a group of soldiers, they had regrouped and followed the two Zhents through a hatch in some barn that had managed to not get burned to ash. The secret door to their secret hideout was hidden behind a wardrobe. Tav was beginning to understand that whatever or whoever Zhentarim was, they meant serious business.

“Go on ahead of us,” Wyll said as the oldest of the two men gestured for them to crawl into the dark below. “I need to have a word with my companions if you don’t mind.”

And so he told them that the raiders had kidnapped some powerful duke from Baldur’s Gate, and that this powerful duke was his father. The others had mixed reactions of empathy or shock or admiration, but Tav had no idea who Ulder Ravengaard was, and so she didn’t care. She tried to offer Wyll words of support since it was his dad after all, but in the face of her relationship to her own parents, they felt hollow in her mouth. She didn’t mean to be self-absorbed, but it was difficult to draw warmth from a source that had been frozen for so long.

“We need to rescue him. Not just because he’s my father, but because of how much power the cult would suddenly have if they were to control him like all of their other thralls.”

Sounds of agreement. More words. Baldur’s Gate politics. Tav could barely hear them over the thrumming power in her ears, yearning to be spent, straining against the inside of her skin. They were all speaking too slowly, moving too slowly. It made her feel jittery and claustrophobic. She put her hand on Wyll’s shoulder and gave him what she hoped was a comforting squeeze before climbing down the ladder behind the wardrobe, eager to move.

Just a week or two ago, a scene like the one above would have made her feel sick in both her stomach and heart. Now, though? She felt nothing. Nothing but her magic and a strange, dull pain somewhere deep inside her head. Perhaps it was the tadpole burrowing deeper into her grey matter, or perhaps she had strained her mind a little bit when she made Flind kill herself. The why didn’t really matter at the end of the day, did it? What mattered was that her head hurt, and if nothing else, the Zhents owed her a f*cking drink.

And so it happened that, after a brief introduction and thank yous exchanged between herself and a woman named Zarys, she stuck her head in a barrel of water with the promise of wine on the horizon. Her dress had cleaned itself, as usual, but Dammon’s boots were caked in blood and dirt. The little skin left bare by her long sleeves and high neckline was so thickly covered with it that she felt it crack like a mud mask when she moved. She hadn’t been sure where to start, so after cleaning her hands in the barrel Zarys had directed her to, she dunked her entire head underwater.

The silence down here was deafening. All she could hear was the beat of her own heart. Her thoughts were still. Perhaps she had gotten so used to the buzz provided by her guardian that she couldn’t feel it anymore, or maybe there wasn’t enough space in her for feelings and magic at the same time. It was probably for the best.

Someone gently knocked on her barrel in what might have been an attempt to not scare her. She could have told them to spare themselves the effort. Nothing would ever scare her again.

“If you’re trying to drown yourself, there are easier ways, you know,” Shadowheart’s voice spoke when Tav pulled her head back above water.

“Or maybe you could just hold me down by my hair until I stop wiggling?” She suggested, letting her disgusting hair drip murky water into the barrel. Shadowheart chuckled as she pulled a nearby stool over.

“I would rather avoid ending my life banging my head against the wall if it’s all the same to you. Now sit down and lean back, please.”

Tav did as she said, struggling to keep her hair within the barrel as she turned to lean her back against it. She felt Shadowheart’s fingers on her scalp.

“What are you doing?”

“Shut up.”

She did as she was told. The two women didn’t speak as Shadowheart worked on detangling her hair, throwing bits of bone and guts on the ground as she found them in the matted mess. She was humming a tune under her breath as if she was simply peeling carrots or something else entirely domestic.

“You should start braiding it, or something. You’re not taking care of it.”

The gentle scent of chamomile snuck its way into Tav’s nostrils as Shadowheart began foaming her soap bar into her lengths. Tav couldn’t help but close her eyes and enjoy it. It felt almost like being at her hair lady at home, which she hadn’t done in years.

“I don’t know how to braid,” she mumbled, repressing a groan as Shadowheart’s skilled fingers rubbed soapy circles into her scalp. Tav’s body shivered. It had barely been a month since she slept with Aradin, and already she was yearning to be touched again. Perhaps when she wasn’t covered in blood and guts anymore, she could try her luck with Halsin again.

“Come to my tent before we leave in the morning, then. I braid very fast.”

“Had a lot of practice?”

“I… I don’t know.”

Tav furrowed her brows, but she didn’t prod any further. Having someone touch her hair was almost as good as sex, so she wasn’t about to jeopardise an option for a little touch every morning. Especially not from a woman as beautiful as Shadowheart.

She heard Shadowheart mutter the same spell Gale had made her say when he taught her to channel the weave, and cool water rained onto her scalp.

“You’re clean. Somewhat.”

Tav reached back to wring out her hair, which was now soft and scented instead of stiff and matted. It made her feel a little more like a person and a little less of… whatever she had been feeling for the last couple of hours. She turned to Shadowheart with a smile that somehow felt alien on her lips. “Thank you. Can I do you?”

“Buy me a drink first, will you?” Shadowheart teased, but she was already undoing her braid and overtaking Tav’s seat on the stool. Tav did her best to imitate what Shadowheart had done. Since her hair had been braided, it wasn’t in knots like hers had been, but it was caked in blood nonetheless. It felt like silk between her fingers, waist-length and black as night.

“Your hair is beautiful,” she said softly as she rubbed the bar of soap between her hands to make suds.

“I know.” Shadowheart sighed happily, closing her eyes as Tav’s fingers began working on her scalp.

When they had both washed up, Tav did her best to clean her boots in the now-dark water before leaving them out to dry. The stone floors of the enormous cave the Zentharim had their hideout in were cold beneath her bare feet, but the thought of neglecting the boots Dammon had given her made her sad. She had very little left of her tiefling friends.

They made their way to the makeshift drinking area that consisted of boxes, tables, and chairs, and found that some of their companions had already sniffed out the wine. Wyll and Gale both nursed cups between their hands while they talked, and Karlach was chatting with the young Zhent they had rescued from the cave. The older one was there, too, and he turned to them with a smile and a twinkle in his blue eyes when they approached.

The wine they had here was much better than what the tieflings had brought, and within the hour, most of their companions had joined them. Tav thoroughly enjoyed their company when they were drunk. Karlach was a wonderful storyteller; Astarion’s laugh rose several pitches and came to him free of restraint; Gale yapped, accidentally oversharing personal details more than once; Wyll was twice as charming as he usually was; Shadowheart was a lot more talkative. Tav felt her own personality soften, diluted by the drink, the emptiness inside her full of drunk tingles and a delightful buzz. The six of them chatted and laughed and joked and shared stories, and if Tav didn’t know better, she would almost say it felt like they were all friends. But it was not lost on her that this friendliness hadn’t shown itself before she had revealed her powers, and that wasn’t easy to forgive.

“I don’t think I caught your name before, lass,” the older Zhent spoke, slipping into the chair beside her while uncorking a new bottle of wine. A loose strand of hair had pulled itself loose from where it had been held out of his face, and his smile was as devious as it was flirtatious. Tav felt like she could see what he’d looked like when he was her age by that smile alone, and felt that familiar spark inside of her.

“It’s Tav,” she replied, smiling sweetly at him, tilting her head, eyes wide. Two can play this game, old man. “And you?”

“Rugan. The boy’s Olly,” he nodded in the direction of the younger man, who was helping Karlach balance several empty bottles on top of one another.

“Hi, Rugan,” she said, drawing out the last vowel, adding a dash of a giggle to her voice. If Halsin didn’t want to sleep with her, so be it. Perhaps she had other options. Rugan smiled at her and refilled her empty glass and then his own, taking another sip before he spoke again.

“What’s a pretty little thing like you doing, hunting gnolls in the middle of nowhere?” He drawled, words slightly slurred, and Tav knew she had him right where she wanted him.

The hours went by in a blur. They all got a lot more drunk than intended, but it was fine. Everything was fine when you were this boozed, and Tav had been drunk on something other than alcohol already. By the time Wyll began showing off his courtly dance skills and Karlach and Astarion started singing, Tav figured it was time to head to bed. She traced a line across the sleeve of Rugan’s uniform, looking up at him through her lashes. His eyes followed her finger’s movements, the hint of a smirk playing at his mouth.

“Do you people have beds here, or do Zhents hang from the ceiling like bats?”

Rugan barked a laugh that made his eyes crinkle and Tav blush. “We have beds, little lass.”

She leaned in a little further, eyes flitting from his eyes to his lips. “Why don’t you show me where yours is?”

Her heart was beating fast in her chest, her cheeks alight with blood. She was already wet. Alcohol will do that to someone as touch-starved as she was, especially when she had to endure the company of so many attractive people all the time.

Rugan’s eyes were dark with a lust that made Tav shiver. He reached out to trace a line from her bottom lip to her collarbone, sending goosebumps across her skin and a warm wave of desire between her legs.

“I think not, beautiful.”

“What?” Tav must have misheard him.

He pulled away from her, a bratty smirk on his pink lips. The tip of his dick was probably the same colour.

“You’re a bit young for me, lass.” He downed his drink and smacked his glass on the table, rising to his feet, steady despite his drunken state.

“What?” Tav squeaked, outraged. “I’m twenty-six!”

He chuckled, and when she hopped off her chair, he grabbed her by the waist until she had steadied herself.

“You’re young,” he smiled at her, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “And you’re drunk.”

Tav pouted up at him, giving him her biggest, brownest puppy eyes. She knew her cheeks were pink, her lips swollen, her hair clean and nice. She’d seen how he had looked at her earlier. There was simply no way he was rejecting her right now.

Rugan planted a kiss on her cheek. “Look me up when you get your first wrinkle, aye?”

And then he turned and walked away, leaving her high and dry.

She gaped, aghast, shocked and outraged. Befuddled, even. A very drunk Astarion slung an arm around her shoulders, pointing his glass in the direction Rugan had walked off in.

“Whennyouget tired of throwing yourself at every mangy stray we meet, mylove,” he slurred, wavering on his feet, “my offer still stands.”

Jesus Christ. Perhaps going to bed was the best idea, after all.

Chapter 18: Too Sweet

Chapter Text

There was something f*cked up about this wall.

Tav had been standing like this for longer than she’d care to admit, head tilted slightly, eyes squinting at the stone wall in front of her like a dog staring at a TV. She couldn’t put her finger on why she was feeling uneasy, or what exactly she thought she’d seen out of the corner of her eye when she walked past. But there was something. Something. She was certain of it.

As soon as the sun rose above ground, everyone but her, Halsin, and Shadowheart left the hideout to find the gith creche. Halsin didn’t have a tadpole to be purified from, Shadowheart had argued that she would rather just slit her own throat right away instead of letting a creche-full of gith do the job, and Tav had tried to come along, but the others would not let her. She would be too big of a liability if things were to go awry.

“Gnolls are one thing, my friend. Githyanki soldiers are something else entirely.” Gale had said, patting her on the shoulder while leaving. If these githyanki soldiers turned out to be friendly, they would come back for her and Shadowheart. If they came back at all, of course.

Hesitantly, as if the wall would reveal its secrets the minute she averted her gaze, she continued on her way to where Shadowheart had set up her tent for the night. Her hands were occupied by two plates of bread, cheese, and fruits, which was the breakfast the Zhentarim people had graciously bestowed upon them, and even though her curiosity and confusion were nearly unbearable, her hunger was worse.

Sending the weird wall one last glare, she continued on her mission to bond with the resident goth.

“I don’t recall inviting you over,” Shadowheart said when Tav made herself comfortable on the only stool Shadowheart owned. Her tone was irritated, but her eyes shone at her like they had a private joke going. In the few passing weeks Tav had spent with her, she’d realised that Shadowheart wasn’t actually mean, but funny. A peculiar kind of funny, but still.

“I come bearing offerings, priestess.”

She let out a sound Tav never in her life thought she would hear from her lips: a giggle. A cute one, too. She settled on the ground in front of her with one of the plates and started picking through the fruit, tossing a dark grape into the air and catching it with her mouth. She had yet to braid her hair for the day, and the long, luscious lengths flowed down her back in waves. If Tav focused hard enough, she could have sworn she could smell the chamomile of her soap. They ate in the same comfortable silence that had become familiar to them both, and Tav really truly attempted to stay focused on enjoying it. She just couldn’t stop her eyes from glancing in the direction of the wall.

“Looking for your favourite Zhent?” Shadowheart teased, following Tav’s gaze over her shoulder. To her, it probably looked as if Tav was staring out into thin air, which she really should have gotten used to by now. Tav considered telling her about the wall, but then decided not to. Even forming the sentence in her mind made her feel silly.

“Maybe. Too bad I don’t think he’s looking for me,” she replied absent-mindedly. The wall was going to drive her crazy. She felt as if she had a word on the tip of her tongue that she couldn’t remember. Just outside of her mental line of reach. It almost physically hurt.

“Don’t be so timid. I think he’s playing hard to get. I saw the way he was looking at you last night.” Shadowheart set her now-empty plate aside and moved to stand behind the stool Tav had occupied. She raked her fingers through her hair, untangling whatever knots may have occurred throughout the night. It made Tav shiver.

“He was looking at you too, you know.” She said quietly, trying not to reveal how much she enjoyed having her hair played with.

“Maybe. But he’s not my type.”

“Really? Who is?”

Shadowheart started parting her hair into sections, talking around a piece of leather thread she held between her teeth. “Karlach, probably. She looks like she could throw me over her shoulder and carry me to safety. Should the need arise.”

Tav laughed softly. She certainly wasn’t wrong. In truth, Tav was quite oblivious to most things, but she could sense tension between others (and herself, for that matter) like a shark could smell blood. She had seen the way Shadowheart’s emerald eyes lingered on the flex of Karlach’s muscles when she swung her axe, or when she offered to carry the cleric’s pack. Shadowheart was always sharp of tongue and quick with her words, but when talking to Karlach, she was suddenly stumbling. It wasn’t obvious, but Tav understood how to look for it. Call it expertise awarded by a lifetime of being slu*tty.

To her great amusem*nt, Shadowheart seemed quite blind to such things. Karlach was not subtle with it, whatsoever. Her voice dropped an octave when she spoke to Shadowheart. Her golden eyes were glued to her at all times. When Shadowheart combed and shook out her long waves in the morning, Karlach looked as if she was physically restraining herself from reaching out to wrap her burning fist in it. The two women and the pining between them had made for nice entertainment the past three weeks or so. Tav had decided not to poke them with it too much. It’s not like they could touch each other if they wanted to, anyway.

About an hour or so later when she had finished teasing the cleric about her crush and her hair had been wrestled into two snazzy Dutch braids, Tav managed to fool herself into thinking she was on her way to anything but the weird wall. She was on her way back to her tent. She was going to tidy up a little, maybe go look for Halsin. She was going to take their empty plates back to the resident Zhent chef and thank her kindly. She was going to check whether her boots had dried or not. Maybe she was going to sneak into Astarion’s tent to rearrange his books just to cause him a little misery.

Despite all of these good intentions, her feet walked in the direction of the wall. She tried to stop them, truly. But just as she was seeing the inescapable wall draw nearer, her saving grace arrived at the scene. Rugan was carrying a box under his arm and was preoccupied with reading a piece of paper in his free hand, eyebrows furrowed in concentration as his lips formed whatever words were on there. A list, no doubt. Hopefully not a list important enough for him to mind being disturbed by her.

“Hi, Rugan.” She purred, forcing her feet in his direction instead of towards the wall. He looked up at her with a start, but his face softened into a warm smile the moment he realised it was her.

“Morning, lass. Thought you’d be with your crew.”

Tav sauntered over next to him, putting the empty plates on a nearby crate full of mysterious things. She raised herself to her tippy toes to peek at whatever he was carrying, which turned out to be a boring box full of boring vials and boring bottles. They rattled daintily against each other when he carefully sat it down on a makeshift table, and a little waft of charcoal reached her nose.

“My crew is on a suicide mission I have no intention of joining. What is that?” She replied, standing her ground when he turned towards her. Their chests were inches from touching. He didn’t step back, but instead tilted his head slightly as his blue eyes locked onto hers. The proximity made her heart kick in her chest.

“Smart. Even more so if you’d mind your business. Not everyone here is as friendly as me.”

“I wasn’t not minding my business!” She lied, outraged at the absolutely true accusation. “I was looking for you.”

The man huffed as if he didn’t believe her, stepping to the side so he could walk past. Tav stepped in front of him, blocking his path, grinning as his eyebrows raised in irritation.

“Seems to me like you were looking for trouble, little lass.” His voice dropped into his chest, eyes flashing the same way they had been the night before. He wanted her. Just as clearly as she could see it between Shadowheart and Karlach, she could see it in him. Smell it on him, almost. His restraint was pissing her off.

“Well,” she purred, carefully lacing her arms around his neck, keeping her grip loose just in case she was completely misreading him. “Maybe I am.”

To the delight of herself and the fire burning inside her, she felt his arms snake around her waist as he chuckled.

“You’re not giving up, are you?”

“Only if you want me to,” she responded, tracing her finger along the collar of his leather armour, feeling absolutely thrilled when his whole body tensed. “But I don’t think you do.”

His eyes followed her tongue’s movements when it wet her lips, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Tav gasped when he pulled her closer, her body fluttering as if he was already touching her beneath her clothes. “You’re a stubborn little minx, aren’t you?”

He lifted his gaze to search their area of the cave, making sure there were no witnesses, and then he pulled her towards the weird wall by her waist.

This just kept getting more and more interesting.

“C’mere. Be quiet.”

Tav did as she was told. She only gasped a little bit when he pulled her straight through the wall as if it wasn’t even there, her body shuddering with the expectation of magic. There was none. She had come to know the feeling of magic on her skin by now, and this was different. The wall wasn’t made of the Weave, but of something else. As if it was only material in her eyes. Freaky.

It wasn’t for a lack of curiosity that she didn’t look around properly once she got out on the other side, it was simply because Rugan didn’t give her the chance to. He was on her like a wolf pouncing on a lamb, grabbing her by her hair and pulling her head back to gain access to her open mouth. Her insides surged with the beat of her heart, and when he pushed her against a crate, his tongue was already gliding along hers.

All thoughts and all common sense ceased. Tav had been with women much older than her before, and she always enjoyed their expertise and how eager they were to submit to someone so much younger than them. Just from the way he was kissing her, Tav could tell that Rugan did not come here to be topped. And just as she had with Aradin, she allowed herself to be guided, to be led, and she found that she quite enjoyed it.

But that didn’t mean she would shy away from the challenge.

He let out a sharp hiss when she sank her teeth into his bottom lip, but he didn’t pull back. He didn’t relent to her, either, that stubborn old man. Every move she made to touch him or to bend him towards her way of doing things was quickly dismissed. When she tried to kiss him harder, he held her back by her hair, and when she tried to pull him closer, he pushed her back with a firm grip on her hip. He swatted away her hand when she reached for the bulge straining against his trousers, and she made a sound somewhere between a whine and a growl in response. All he did was smirk into their kiss as he continued to tease her. How long was he going to keep this up?

She tried to reach for the laces of his trousers, but he caught her hands and trapped them behind her back. “Behave yourself, lass.”

His tone sent sparks flying everywhere inside of her. Despite his actions, his voice was weighed down by desire, and it was driving her crazy that he wouldn’t let her touch him. Especially because he was touching her all over, and her body came alive beneath his hands in a way she hadn’t felt since her night with Aradin. His fingers gently pinched her hard nipples through the fabric of her dress, they ghosted up her skirt and grabbed at her thighs, starting little fires all across her body. She clung to it like a raft. She wanted him to make her feel, and she wanted to make him feel, too, but the co*cky son of a bitch wouldn’t allow it.

It only took a couple of minutes of his bullying for her to be near hysterical with lust, and Rugan knew it. She was so far gone that she didn’t even protest when he lifted her to sit on the crate and kneeled on the ground in front of her, pushing her dress up so he could plant wet, warm kisses on her inner thighs as his thumbs caressed her skin beneath the edge of her underwear. He never touched anything that truly mattered.

Rugan was a bitch.

It wasn’t until he pulled said underwear off that she realised why she absolutely could not let him do what he was about to do. When the cool cave air brushed against her wetness and he began to lean in, she braced her hands against his shoulders and pushed, barely catching enough breath in her lungs to whisper a stop to him. He stopped, but he didn’t move a bit. His mouth remained inches from her aching puss* as he glared up at her, an inquisitive eyebrow raised.

“I haven’t washed in like… three days!” She said, squeezing her legs together, face blushing crimson. He could probably smell her from there already.

Instead of pulling back, he placed his hands on her knees, prying them apart with the lightest amount of strength that she could have resisted if she wanted to. His pupils were huge with lust, his voice barely anything but a growl. “Even better.”

Oh dear.

Tav hesitantly retracted her hands from his shoulders, leaning back on the crate, unable to take her eyes off his face. Every insecure part of her screamed in protest as he leaned in again, but she bit it all back. If he wanted it dirty, he could have it dirty.

And sweet Christ, did he want it dirty.

He ate her out like she was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted, groaning against her the moment her heady desire soaked his lips. Aradin’s eagerness paled in comparison to what she felt at the mercy of Rugan’s experienced tongue, and he was f*cking relentless. With his fingers inside of her and his tongue persisting at her cl*t, he pushed her from one org*sm into the next, showing no mercy for how she whimpered and squirmed at the overstimulation. By the time he’d had his fill of her, she was shaking and sweaty and entirely beside herself. The f*cker didn’t even seem to be out of breath.

Through the fog of pleasure and exhaustion, Tav reached for him again as he stood up. Rugan caught her hands once more, placing them on his chest instead of on his trousers, much to her displeasure. She pouted up at him, and he smiled warmly in return.

“Look at you,” he said softly, keeping her head steady by gently holding onto her chin. She could smell herself on his fingers. “You beautiful little thing.”

She struggled weakly against his grip on her hands. “Let me…” she pleaded, but he just pressed his lips against her knuckles and shook his head. Tav was as confused as ever, yearning to please in the same way she had been pleased, to syphon his years of experience from him. He could teach her a great many things, she was sure.

But he simply refused. That damned smirk was playing at his mouth when he finally let go of her hands and stood back. “You’re not my type, lass. Too young, and too sweet.”

And with that, he turned on his heel and left without looking back, leaving Tav a heaving mess behind him. She had been diluted like a sugar cube in a teacup. There was no way she was ever going to stand on her own two feet again. She laid back across the crate, letting her head dangle off the edge, allowing herself a few moments of rest. The muscles of her inner thigh were still shaking, and so were her hands. What a prick. A very handsome, very talented prick.

When she had regained some of her composure, she started actually taking in her surroundings. The room behind the weird wall was, to nobody’s surprise and absolutely nobody’s excitement, more cave. It seemed the Zhent were using it as a storage room, dimly lit and full of crates and chests of all shapes and sizes. Pretty disappointing for a hidden room, unless the crates were full of drugs.

On legs that felt much more like rubber than flesh and bone, Tav carefully slid off the crate and pulled her underwear back on. She was going to walk back to her tent, and she was going to take the most severe nap of her life. She would allow nothing to distract her on the way.

Which was her intention, really, but then there was the elevator. Tucked into the back of the room, out of sight, intended to be out of mind, a wooden lift was hiding in the shadows. Of course. There was no way anyone would go through all that trouble with a fake wall and everything just for a boring old storage room. Upon further inspection, Tav found that the elevator seemed to go further into the ground instead of up. This hideout was already well under the surface, what could possibly go deeper than this?

The question had barely touched base in her mind before the light bulb in her head went off. She had precious little knowledge of where was what and what was where in this world, but she had picked up on one thing: the Underdark was right beneath their feet, all the time, miles underground.

Despite the exhaustion still weighing down her limbs, Tav had to fight the urge to run as soon as she passed through the wall. Her heart was hastened with excitement and her stomach was full of nervous jitters, but she knew she’d either fall flat on her face or draw too much attention to herself if she was speeding through the hideout like Satan was at her heels. The walk back to Shadowheart’s tent took thrice as long as usual, because of course it did. When she finally made it, she couldn’t contain her grin as she crouched in front of Shadowheart.

“Gods,” the cleric gasped, stumbling back and dropping the book she had been nursing in her lap. “You look roughed up! Did something happen?”

“You’re not gonna f*cking believe this,” Tav whispered, grabbing her hand. “I think I found a way into the Underdark.”

For the first two weeks or so after arriving in Faerûn, Tav had mistakenly thought the Underdark was called the Underworld. Some subconscious part of her mind substituted what she didn’t know with what she knew, and so she assumed her companions had been referring to a world not unlike the one represented in Greek mythology. She expected the Underdark to be scorched and barren and viciously hot, its fiery landscape only broken by the black waters of the Styx.

She couldn’t have been more wrong. The world unfolding in front of her was everything but barren. From jagged rocks and glistening cave walls, the velvety and eternal darkness this domain undoubtedly was named after was broken as glowing mushrooms and gemstones protruded from every available surface. Their ghostly, ethereal light painted their surroundings with an eerie beauty that stole Tav’s breath away. There was no wind, down here, but the silence was so heavy that sounds from miles away still echoed faintly off the walls around them. The faint skittering of unseen creatures, hiding in the dark. Screeching from animals Tav would rather not have the pleasure of meeting. The soft whisper of a stream.

“I don’t care what others say about the Underdark. It’s beautiful down here.” Shadowheart said, and Tav had to quell the urge to shush her. She would not have dared to speak louder than a whisper, lest the whole army of unknown beasts lurking out there came running.

“We should go back and wait for the others,” Tav said as softly as she could, but Shadowheart shook her pretty head.

“Darkness is my domain. I can keep us hidden as long as we keep to the shadows, which shouldn’t be so difficult here.”

“What’re you thinking?”

“Let’s just have a look around. See what’s ahead.”

It took some chewing on her lip and some gazing between the elevator and the path ahead, but eventually, Tav agreed. Shadowheart cast the same spell on both of them as Halsin had cast on her in the goblin camp, and as soon as she stepped out of the light of the elevator’s torch, she vanished. Had she not reached back into the light to grab Tav’s hand, Tav would have turned on the spot and taken the elevator back up. No thanks.

Hand in hand, the two women stepped softly along the rocky walls, manoeuvring between the crates the Zhentarim had hidden down here. They were undoubtedly full of even more important stuff than whatever had been stashed upstairs, but they had no time to quench their curiosities. Shadowheart’s concentration could only last so long.

The Zhent had planted traps all over the place to keep outsiders away, and Tav would have stepped on all of them if not for Shadowheart’s careful guidance. The Underdark was vastly empty in comparison to the world above. There were no birds here, and they didn’t see a single breathing thing until they had walked for a good twenty minutes. It was of course inevitable, then, that their first encounter would look like something out of a nightmare.

It was yet another creature Tav had only ever heard about in myths. Its bull head was enormous and sat atop endlessly wide human shoulders, and at what seemed to be its full height, the minotaur stood 9 feet tall. The ground beneath them shook with every step it took, and Tav’s hand almost cramped from how hard she was holding onto Shadowheart’s. But the magic veiling them held, and they passed without a trace. The exhaustion that had been lingering in Tav’s limbs was chased away by fiercely hot adrenaline, but her knees and hands still shook with it. Shadowheart’s thumb drew gentle circles on the back of her hand to calm her, but it wasn’t that she was afraid. At least, if she was, she could not feel it. Her body was tired, but her mind was awake and alert and excited by everything around them. But she didn’t know how to explain it, so she let Shadowheart believe what she wanted.

They both held their breath when the minotaur broke into a run, charging at the gates of some old ruin not far from where they were hiding. The sound of its horns colliding with the rusted metal reverberated all around them, and Tav let out a yelp of surprise the creature burst into flames and fell to the ground.

“What the f*ck was that?” She whispered hysterically, grabbing at Shadowheart’s shoulder to steady herself.

“There’s some kind of radiant defence system inside those ruins,” Shadowheart responded quietly, eyes searching the shadows for ways to avoid being burnt to a crisp. She turned to Tav, forcing her to loosen the grip on her shoulder. “Stay here. My magic won’t work if I move too far away, so hide. I’ll see if I can find another way in.”

Tav nodded silently and curled up around her knees in the dirt, barely breathing as she focused on listening to any sign of life around her. Shadowheart vanished almost immediately, and Tav made herself as small as she possibly could. She almost wished Shadowheart had brought her along despite the danger. The waiting game was worse.

She let her thoughts drift back to the room they’d descended from upstairs, to how Rugan had made her come until she nearly died from it, and then denied anything in return. It was bugging her. She felt like she was indebted to him, somehow. And she was more than willing to return the favour, but of course, it could never be so simple.

She missed Aradin, she suddenly realised. She had known him so shortly, and yet he had put more warmth in her bones than any campfire ever could. Maybe it was Rugan’s dismissive behaviour that had her all soft and vulnerable, but she missed being held. Aradin’s arms had been so strong, so warm, so familiar. She wondered where he and the tieflings were now, and if she would ever see any of them again. If nothing else, she hoped they were safe.

“The path is clear,” Shadowheart said right next to her, and Tav was pulled back to reality with such ferocity it triggered a headache.

“You scared me nearly to death!” She whispered, taking the invisible woman’s hand and shuddering as her magic enveloped her.

“I’m sorry,” she replied, not sounding sorry in the slightest.

The old ruins turned out to be a temple to the same deity as the one the goblins had invaded, and it was full of supplies that had probably only avoided being stolen because of the sunshine-shotgun Shadowheart had disarmed.

When Tav was done rummaging through what chests she could open and had her hands full of loot, she found Shadowheart staring up at one of the statues depicting some divine-looking woman.

“Hot.”

Shadowheart turned to her, a sneer on her face. “Hot? This is a temple dedicated to Selûne, that vile moon witch. If you’re done rubbing your hands all over the place, let’s go. Best not to linger.”

Tav was taken aback by the hostility in her tone and the rage with which Shadowheart looked upon the statue. These people and their gods, seriously.

“Why are you cross with a moon witch? Did she smite your family or something?”

Shadowheart scoffed. “She betrayed her sister.”

“Friend of yours?”

Shadowheart looked at her as if she was stupid. “No, Lady Shar isn’t a friend of mine. She is my Goddess.”

When Tav simply stared blankly at her, she continued. “I assume you’ve heard of her?”

sh*t. “Of course I have. But do remind me, just so I’m sure we’re on the same page.”

Shadowheart’s back straightened like a soldier’s. When she spoke, she did so with pride. “My Lady Shar is the Nightsinger. The patron of darkness and loss.”

“Darkness and loss? Those sound like dull things to be the patron of.”

She scoffed. “Only if you lack foresight and imagination. Most fear the dark, like children, because in darkness they see their fears reflected. But Shar teaches us to step beyond fear. Beyond loss. In darkness we do not hide - we act.

“Pain. Hope. The promise of better days. All these are heavy cloaks that bend our backs and burden our hearts. We shed those cloaks. Before Shar, we stand gloriously naked, beyond the vanities of mortals.”

“So you worship a goddess who thinks you should give up hope and bright futures? To just… embrace the void?” Tav inquired, choosing her words carefully. Shadowheart had recited her little speech as if a strict priest was hiding in the nearby shadows, ready to jump out and flog her if she got it wrong. Tav didn’t want to sound like she didn’t take her seriously, even if she didn’t.

“That is a severe simplification, but yes, I suppose. In darkness, there is truth.”

“Huh. That sounds neat. You should tell me some more about it sometime.” Shadowheart looked as if Tav had tased her for a moment, pure shock on her features. She wasn’t sure how she could possibly explain to her that she had been chasing the void her whole life. The drinking, the drugs, the blurry lines between days and weeks and months. She wasn’t sure if she even wanted to, should she find the words. Instead, she managed to free a single finger from her stash of goods and point it up at the statue.

“In the meantime…” she said, letting a flash of red escape her fingertip and reducing the head of the statue to splinters. “...f*ck the moon witch. Let’s head back.”

Shadowheart didn’t answer her, but when she stuffed some of Tav’s loot into her pack and took her hand again, her touch was as soft as a kiss.

Chapter 19: someplace else sometime earlier

Chapter Text

He'd slept in many a strange place o'er his life, but wakin' up draped o'er a branch like a blanket hung out to dry really took the cake. His head was thumpin' and his ribs were sore as all hell, and blast it all, he was parched. He carefully lifted himself from the branch, wincin' as his lungs expanded fully for the first time in what might be hours, unsteady feet findin' purchase on the ground beneath him.

Where the f*ck was he?

His surroundings were entirely unfamiliar. Soft afternoon light danced through the trees above him, birds he didnae recognize (no' that he was a bloody expert) were singin', and the temperature was much milder than what it had been the past few months.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to remember anythin' at all, but it was all a painful blur. He had vague memories of the wet cement smell of a parkin' lot on a rainy evenin'. And there had been a bright light. A big old bright f*ckin' light, and he had felt as if a current was pullin' him underwater. And then he woke up in a tree.

No' his weirdest night, but it was certainly up there.

And now what?

He pulled his phone out of his pocket, groanin' as the shattered mess that used to be his screen came into view. His ribs weren't the only part of him that had taken a beatin', it seemed.

Well, there wasnae a lot else to do, was there? Onwards it was, then.

He walked for an hour or so before he found what looked to be a small town. Everythin' had a very mediaeval look about it. Had he managed to drunkenly wander into an Amish village?

Though, the more he looked, the weirder everythin' got. The wooden sign right at the beginning of town was full of sigils and runes he had never seen before, and as he came to a halt in the middle of a wee town square, what looked like a bloody knight came staggerin' out of a nearby door. Even from several feet away, he could smell the beer on him.

"Oi!" He said, raisin' a hand in the knight's direction. The scale-clad man dropped his helmet onto the cobblestone, cursin' as he bent down to pick it up.

"Whatdyawant?" He slurred as he dusted off the helmet. It had sounded heavy when it hit the ground. A very expensive costume, maybe?

He decided to humour him. "What year is it, ser?"

The knight grunted at him, eyein' his jeans and his sweater suspiciously. Whatever role play was goin' on here, jeans and sweaters clearly didnae count as an outfit suited for the occasion.

"1492 by Dale Reckonin', lad. Hit ya’ head, did ya?"

He scratched the back of his neck before replyin'. "Aye. Erm… where are we?"

The knight looked at him then, actually looked at him for the first time. His brows furrowed, eyes blinkin' against the sunlight. For a moment, it seemed as if he was goin' to break character, but the severity on his face did not make way for anythin' but more suspicion.

"By the Triad, kid. Ya really are in a bad state, eh? Ye’re at Waukeen’s Rest, on the Sword Coast."

Chapter 20: A Lost Little Mouse

Chapter Text

“When we reach the Shadow-cursed Lands, maybe we should just turn our backs and let you find Moonrise Towers in your own time,” Wyll jested, wincing as Gale gently dabbed his bleeding brow with a clean cloth. Tav and Shadowheart had only waited for a few hours before the others returned beaten and bloody, and with no cure for their parasites in sight. Lae’zel had been furious, storming off to a distant corner to beat at some training dummy mercilessly. Just this once, perhaps for the first time in her life, her sense of self-preservation was stronger than her curiosity.

“I wonder what happened,” she muttered to Shadowheart, who was standing beside her at the time, watching the others settle in. She had absolutely no wish to go find out for herself.

“She’s gith. Rage comes to her as naturally as breathing.” She had answered, disdain in her voice. Tav didn’t know how to respond, so she stayed silent.

Astarion had startled her when he returned, his pallid skin discoloured by bruises and gashes. He somehow looked worse than the others, perhaps because of how deeply the bruising contrasted his skin, or perhaps because his body didn’t heal as easily from Halsin and Shadowheart’s healing magic as their un-undead companions did. Either way, he looked as if someone had trapped him in a pillowcase and slammed it around, and when she caught his eyes, they exchanged a small nod. She’d have to stay awake for him tonight, it seemed.

Now, about an hour or so later, they all sat in what was almost a complete circle around a small campfire Gale had put together for cooking. They didn’t want to leech off of the Zhentarim more than they had to, and they had plenty of their own mouths to feed, anyway. So Stew A La Gale it was, and with the day they’d all had, no one complained.

“Why don’t you just use magic to heal him?” Tav asked, resting her chin on her knees as she watched Gale carefully clean Wyll’s face. Lae’zel had yet to return, but besides her, everyone else had gathered to lick their wounds and exchange the events of today.

“Even for a wizard as talented as myself, the Weave should be used with care. I don’t use it to heal minor injuries for the same reasons I don’t use it to conjure us all three meals a day,” Gale explained slowly, his focus now on Wyll’s busted lip. As he spoke, Wyll stared at him with admiration glowing from every pore, but Gale was too concentrated to notice at first. When he finally did, he averted his gaze with a pink little blush to his cheeks.

It turned out that while Tav was busy coming on Rugan’s tongue, her companions had faced off with a Goddess. Like, an actual Goddess who had revealed herself to them and had demanded they enter some artefact Karlach had been carrying around to kill their dream guardian. And then the whole creche had tried to murder them, and then something, and then something else, and then the entire building had been destroyed by an enormous lance wielding what Astarion had described as the full concentrated power of the sun. They had barely escaped with their lives intact.

Despite all this, they still managed to muster up a decent amount of excitement when Tav and Shadowheart shared their own discoveries. Tav had lightly danced around how she had come across the elevator in the first place, and the others hadn’t prodded. Thankfully.

Upon agreeing to rest overnight before they ventured into the Underdark, the group had settled into a state very near relaxation, and it didn’t take long for everyone to retreat into their tents. They all had wounds to mend and things to process if they were to be sharp and strong for tomorrow, and Tav herself was no exception. She had to wait in hers while sitting upright to avoid falling asleep as her eyelids grew heavier and heavier, but eventually, the camp outside fell quiet. She counted 120 seconds in her head before crouching before the opening, very nearly screaming when Astarion was crouched right on the other side.

“Are you always so jumpy?” He asked, crawling past her into her tent. This was new.

“Imagine how sound my reaction would have been if you were a stranger,” she retorted, and Astarion made a noise that sounded like resentful agreement. He made himself comfortable next to her bedroll, offering his hand to her as if he were inviting her to bed. The sparks inside her glowed in response.

No. Absolutely not.

She ignored his hand and got on her back next to him, offering her wrist. He was leaning on his elbow, looking down at her between slow blinks. Even now, bruised in several hues of purple and blue, he was almost too beautiful to comprehend.

His touch was gentle and light as a feather when he traced his fingers up and down her arm before bringing her ever-wounded wrist to his mouth, kissing his own bite mark with tenderness and care. It filled Tav with a yearning so sharp she could barely breathe around it, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the intensity with which his gaze sought hers. She didn’t understand why he kept doing this, why he kept acting like this was anything but a transaction to him. The way he was looking at her, touching her, kissing her skin before sinking his fangs into her… it felt more intimate than what she had done with Rugan previously that day.

She didn’t wince at all when he bit her. She barely ever did anymore. She simply suppressed a shiver and tried to think of something else. Anything else. Anything but the mellow, little sounds he would make after each draught, the way his face went soft with bliss.

f*ck.

Anything else, and quite quickly.

As if Astarion could read her mind, he released her arm from his mouth and simply looked at her with those ruby-red bedroom eyes. Except they didn’t look as heated as they usually did. There was something else in there tonight.

“What?” Tav whispered, breathless without knowing exactly why. A thin trickle of her blood ran from the corner of his mouth down his chin, and without thinking, she reached out and wiped it off with her thumb, and before she could retreat to safety, he caught her hand and licked it clean.

Good lord and Jesus and Mother Mary and who else was in the barn that night. The heat pooled in her stomach and made her c*nt twitch, he might as well have licked her between her legs.

Honestly, what was she thinking?

She wasn’t, actually, and that was the problem. Thinking around Astarion became harder each time he fed from her. And she was certain he knew it, too. He was making it feel like sex on purpose. To what end she wasn’t sure, but he of all their companions was the most cunning in her experience. Except maybe Shadowheart.

“Why are you still doing this?” He asked her, his voice heavy with something she couldn’t quite understand. “Letting me feed on you, I mean. You don’t need my protection, and you’re making the continuous mistake of not sleeping with me. So what is it?"

Tav pursed her lips and stared at the ceiling instead of at his face, where his lips were still painted crimson with her. “Is it so hard to believe that I’m just nice?”

“Darling, I would never think so little of you.”

She thought for a long moment. So long that Astarion started sucking on her wrist again, which gave her shivers. She wasn’t sure how to explain this to a person who seemed to have such little empathy towards others. She was no Mother Teresa herself, mind you, but she had enough heart to feel with others if they really deserved it. She didn’t want to impress upon Astarion that he was deserving of anything from her. It felt like a trap.

“The first time we met… as in really met, after the forest. Do you remember what I said to you?”

“‘Oh gracious Lord Astarion, thou hast my gratitude and eternal devotion for letting me rest in thy camp’?” He mumbled against her wound.

She scoffed and nudged him with her elbow, which made him chuckle in a way that didn’t feel like an act in the slightest.

“No, bozo. I told you I looked inside your head. You were trapped somewhere, like in a glass cage? And you were so hungry I could still feel it hours later. It was horrid.” She looked at him, then, and every trace of laughter and desire and smugness was gone. He looked grave. Troubled. “I just thought… if that’s the way you feel all the time, it must be a terrible way to live. Or to be dead, I guess. And if I were you, I’d hope someone would do for me what I’m doing for you.”

He was quiet for a long time after that. His eyes were on hers, but they were distant. He was somewhere entirely else, her arm hanging inches from his mouth, forgotten. Tav wondered if she had overstepped, if she should have kept the memory to herself. Astarion didn’t seem like someone who would relish being perceived as being weak or afraid of anything, but, against her will, she knew him much better than that. His fear had been almost as strong as his hunger.

“I looked inside of your head too, you know.” His voice was as distant as his expression, revealing just as little. The intensity of his stare made her fidgety.

“What did you see?”

“You. And a boy. You were children. He called you ‘princess’ and cheated you for an apple. Sounded a lot like your adventurer.”

He might as well have kicked her in the face. She’d managed to tuck Oliver away somewhere shadowed and dusty in her mind, and the more the days went by, the less she thought of him. It was what she had to do. She wouldn’t survive otherwise. The thought of him, of home, was enough to bring her to her knees most days. It made her vulnerable, and it made her unfocused.

Having told no one about him was a way for her to defend herself, a way for her to ensure that he was never sprung on her. Astarion had broken that illusion, and she felt her floodgates creak and sigh from the sudden pressure. She sat with a start, pulling her arm from his grip and her pain from his line of sight.

“You should go.” Her tone was colder than she had intended, but she didn’t have enough warmth in her to thaw it. She barely even felt the pinprick of guilt in her stomach when Astarion left without a word, as quickly and quietly as a shadow. Tears burned in the corners of her eyes as a longing so white-hot and sharp she felt it as a physical wound burned through her chest. She had to strangle a sob.

Even though she knew he could hear her thoughts just fine, she whispered into the darkness with her eyes closed and her hands pressing into her chest. “Please. Tuck him away. I miss him too much.”

It was quiet for a moment, but then his answer came. He always answered.

are you certain?

Even the thought of it made her heart twinge in pain and caused her face to crumble. But she couldn’t go on this way. She had known it for a while. “I’m sure. I can’t bear the lack of him any more.”

The effect was almost immediate. It only took the tiniest sliver of a moment before Tav felt the heaviness of sleep pull her beneath the surface of her own consciousness, and she stumbled into the darkness with a sigh of relief. She didn’t even have the heart to feel guilty about it. She was wasting too much energy on keeping him out, too much effort on not thinking about him. She needed that energy, now. She had powers to fuel.

And so she welcomed the forgetful, dreamless embrace of sleep, knowing that she would wake with no memory of the person who meant the world to her.

Everyone was oddly tense on the day they were to depart. Tav observed her companions while nursing a dull headache, noting how even Halsin’s (the biggest man she had ever seen) hands shook slightly as he tied the laces of his pack. She was aware that this should have been foreboding and should have scared her a little, but she was comfortably numb as she packed up what little stuff she had. The foes she had met over ground had been no match for her (except for the goblins, but we don’t talk about the goblins), and she doubted whatever would come at her underground would be much different.

Despite this, she had to suppress a shiver as they crossed through the illusionary wall. The others’ moods were rubbing off on her. As the others loaded their camp stuff onto the elevator, Gale pulled her aside. “Listen,” he said quietly, careful not to let the others hear. “The Underdark is no place for people of the surface in the first place. Much less for someone like you. If it becomes too dangerous, tell me. We can leave at any time and wait for the others above ground.”

How terribly sweet of him.

“Thanks, Gale, but I’ll be fine. I’ll just blast them all to bits!” She wiggled her fingers in the air to demonstrate her point, but he didn’t seem amused.

“Blasting will only get you so far down there, I fear. Keep it in mind, will you? That is all I ask of you.”

Tav waved a dismissive hand at his concern. “Yeah yeah, and the night is dark and full of terrors. Got it.”

This was one of those moments Tav would think about years later, tracing the scars across her face and her throat with her fingers. She would do so absentmindedly, lost in thought, wondering if what happened to her in the Underdark could have been avoided if she had just listened. If she had stayed topside, if she had been less arrogant, if she had convinced Rugan or Aradin to take her with them instead of crawling into danger. If only she had known.

But she hadn’t, and so she fearlessly held her head high as the group descended into the dark. It was just as she remembered it from the day before, almost as breathtaking the second time as it was the first. Perhaps because she had managed to convince herself during the night that she could not possibly have remembered it correctly, that places like this could not possibly exist. Shows her for undermining Faerûn.

Halsin took a shaky, deep breath beside her, and when she turned to look at him, he seemed to be a lifetime away. She didn’t understand how he could possibly be this afraid, but then again, she barely knew him. Perhaps he was afraid of the dark, in which case this place would be rather awful. Without further thought, she reached for his hand and interlaced their fingers, giving him what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze. The smile he gave her could have lit up the entire Underdark.

By Shadowheart’s guidance (Tav wouldn’t have been able to retrace their steps if someone held a gun to her head), they made their way back to the moon witch hideout. Despite its disarmed defence system, the thick stone walls and convenient placement rendered it safe-ish. Safe-ish was enough.

Unfortunately, stone walls did not account for the possibility of some random, theatre-actor-looking man spawning into existence in the middle of their half-risen tents. The moment the stink of rotten eggs caught her nose, Tav turned to assess which of her companions had let such a horrendous one rip and instead came face to face with a complete stranger who seemed to have appeared in an explosion of rotten egg stink and red glitter. As any sane person would, Tav screamed at the top of her lungs, which snapped every head in her near proximity towards her and the stranger.

“My my, what manner of place is this?” The stranger spoke with a dramatic flair. “A path to redemption? Or a road to damnation? Hard to say, for your journey is just beginning. What would suit the occasion? The words to a lullaby, perhaps? The mouse–”

“Who the f*ck are you? Why do you stink like that?”

The man stopped abruptly, looking at her as if she had spat a loogie in his face. He could hardly expect politeness from her when he showed up smelling like an abandoned fridge.

“It looks like a human, but it speaks like a beast. Regardless – well met, I am Raphael.” The man took a bow, which sent another waft of egg stench towards her. She covered her nose with her sleeve and took a step back.

Her companions had gathered at her back by now, weapons drawn.

“I’d know the stink of Avernus anywhere,” Karlach growled, the muscles in her axe-arm flexing (good lord!). “What do you want?”

“You’re paranoid, aren’t you?” Raphael said, entirely unphased by the tension and the threat it contained. “Must be the surroundings. Rather bleak and lonesome, one feels so… exposed. We should have a chat, you and I. But not here. This quaint-” he gestured around at their makeshift, half-risen camp, “-little scene is decidedly too middle of nowhere for my tastes. Come.”

The world around them dissolved in a flurry of red, and suddenly, they were somewhere entirely else. Tav turned on the spot. Everyone was here except Withers, Halsin, and the animals. And Jesus f*cking Christ, that stench…

Ronald (Richard? Robert? sh*t) began babbling away again in his oddly Shakespearean way, but Tav had stopped listening. This wasn’t the first time she had been spirited away by someone weird, and the way things were going, it definitely wouldn’t be her last. She couldn’t let herself freak out every time, could she?

While the man was distracted with rhyming for her companions, Tav took a good look around. The decor in here was rather gothic, all red and gold and drama. A fitting home, if she were one to judge. The food on the table in the middle of the room made her gag despite how good it looked. How could anyone possibly eat in this air? She would rather drink straight from the witch’s swamp.

She walked out through one of the archways leading down a hallway that seemed even more overly decorated than the room she was exiting. She half expected someone to stop her, but no one did. Looking over her shoulder, she pulled a face at their host’s back and made very brief eye contact with Astarion before sneaking away. If the man had something important to say, she was certain her companions would fill her in later.

Tav’s first impression of the place was that it was entirely too big. Everything was huge and obnoxiously maximalist, and on every wall, enormous oil portraits of a tiefling with Ronaldo’s face and wings and an arrogant smirk were hung in elaborate golden frames.

Jesus.

There were no windows, so she had no way to figure out where they were. The hallway was instead full of doors which had Tav’s fingers twitching with curiosity, but they were all locked. How incredibly boring.

“A lost little mouse is running through the House,” their kidnapper’s voice somewhere to her left spoke, and she actually felt her feet take off from the floor from how startled she got. It was a wonder how she kept from screaming her lungs out.

The tiefling from the paintings around her watched from the other side of the only open doorway she could see, wearing… oh, wow. Oh, okay.

Much like his human lookalike, the tiefling continued to speak as if they were all starring in a play. “A thief in the night, greedy and here to take. Why are you here, little thief?”

It took Tav a couple of tries to pull her eyes from his leather lingerie that barely covered anything at all, and another try to get her tongue to obey her thoughts. “Excuse me? I’m not a thief! In fact, I’ve been stolen. Am I interrupting something? You look…”

The tiefling simply tilted his head at her, a playful smile on his lips and a mischievous look in his fiery eyes. “... horny?”

She was no better than a man. ‘Horny’? Really?

He laughed at her then, and it hit her how much he sounded like the theatre guy she had just snuck away from. It was uncanny.

“So Raphael has brought you here for business, I see. That hardly explains how you happened upon little old me, does it?”

Raphael. Right.

“He’s talking to my friends. He was very focused. Didn’t even look at me. And then, well… curiosity killed the cat.”

Tav was battling a war to keep eye contact and not let her eyes drop to the sharp ridges across his abs. So tieflings did have them all over. Interesting.

“Satisfaction just might bring it back. Come closer, little mouse.” He held up a clawed hand as if for a high five, and, hesitantly, Tav approached to place her hand against his. She tried, at least, but it felt as if she was touching the cool surface of a window pane. Something was blocking her from reaching into the room.

Not-quite-Raphael frowned and sighed. “How terribly dull.”

“Who are you?”

“I? I am Harleep, Raphael’s personal incubus, glamoured and transfigured to look just like him. I’m a perfect copy. He only wants to sleep with himself. What’s better than the devil you know, eh?” Harleep said his own name as if it was a gift that had been stowed upon him, gesturing towards his body in a way that reignited those familiar flames in Tav. If Raphael looked like this under all of his clothes, well… perhaps she could stand to hear a poem or two.

“A perfect copy except for the horns?” She pointed out, trying to distract herself from how hot her blood ran in her veins. An incubus. At least she did know what that was, and she would definitely use it to justify how attracted she was to the whole situation. Harleep’s tail whipped around lazily, knocking against the invisible barrier between them, and she couldn’t help but wonder if he would like having it petted.

“A perfect copy. The Master of the House is not what he appears, he merely takes on a more… trustworthy form when he has business to do.”

“So he’s a tiefling.”

“Tiefling?” The incubus threw his head back in a deep, roaring laugh. “Raphael is not a tiefling, pet. He is a cambion.”

“A what?”

“A cambion.”

“A who?”

His seductive expression was replaced by one of genuine intrigue. “You really are a special one, aren’t you?”

Before Tav could ask what he meant, she heard a commotion from the room she’d come from. She could have sworn she heard Karlach’s voice shouting something about ripping out someone’s mocking tongue, but then all noise ceased.

do not tell him anything. i cannot protect you here

Her guardian’s voice caught her off guard, but she didn’t have time to ask him what he meant, either, before the incubus gave a soft chuckle. “Uh-oh, it seems your friends have left without you. Good luck, pet.”

He disappeared into the room beyond, out of her sight. He was bluffing, surely. Astarion had seen her sneak off. They wouldn’t leave without her, surely. She walked as fast as she dared back to the room she came from, stumbling through the archway with her heart in her throat. It only took a second for her to scan the surroundings, and for her stomach to sink.

Her companions were gone.

sh*t. sh*t.

“It always fascinates me so, how the arrogance of humans has remained unscathed by the tides of time. Did you think you could sneak around in my home without my knowledge?”

She spun on the spot, facing what truly could have been Harleep wearing Raphael’s clothes. He really was a perfect copy. Raphael seemed much taller, like this, taller even than his incubus. He made her feel every bit the mouse Harleep had named her.

“God forbid a girl has a look around,” she replied, trying to keep calm. She could always make him explode. That was always an option, of course. The issue at hand was getting out of here.

Raphael grinned at her with sharp teeth, and entered the room in a lazy gait, circling her. He was giving her heebie jeebies.

“Through realms unknown, her kin has spread. To the House of Hope, her journey led. A traveller bold, so far from home, violating my abode, where my secrets roam. A deal awaits, a path to tread, to return whence her journey led.”

Whatever that meant. “Wrap it up, broadway. Send me back, or whatever it is you do.”

He stopped behind her, forcing her to turn around once again to face him. He didn’t seem like the type of guy she’d want to turn her back on. Unless it was for sex. But she couldn’t think about that right now.

“Are you not entertained?” His tone was playful, but she didn’t trust it. Not just because her guardian had told her not to, but because he had the same vibe to him as a cat playing with a mouse. Harleep’s nickname had hardly been made up on a whim. “Well, allow me to cut to the bone, as they say. I know you do not belong here, Tabitha. I can send you home. For a price.”

She would not allow herself to be shaken by him. “Okay, sweet. Do it then.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “Eager, are we?”

“Obviously. What do you want? My savings? My soul? My firstborn? Be my guest.”

stop

When Raphael laughed, he sounded so much like Harleep that Tav had to take a moment to wonder if she was being tricked. Maybe Harleep was just incredibly bored.

“Your soul is spoken for already, I fear. A pity. I would have used it well. What interests me about you is your… patron. You may not be aware, but your misplacement is the least of your problems.”

“Have a thing for the dramatics, do you?”

He laughed again. “Of course. Now, might I address the visitor in that skull of yours?”

Tav blinked and felt a strange sensation of being in free fall for just a moment, and Raphael was gone. Or rather, he was someplace else. Standing in front of the nearby fireplace, hands clasped behind his back, looking slightly irritated. He didn’t look like someone who had moved for a while.

“Wait, what just happened?” She said, mostly to her guardian. She felt slightly dizzy, slightly unsteady on her feet. Silence was the only answer she got.

“Never you mind,” Raphael said, furrowing his brows as he stared into the fire. “The adults were talking. Leave me.”

A swirl of red glitter and dust circled her feet, and she stumbled away from it. “Wait! What about what you said? That you could get me home?”

His gaze found her, then. He looked tired. Angry. “The deal is off. For now. Tell your guardian angel that his favourite puppet cannot run forever.”

With a flourish of his clawed hand, he dispelled Tav from his home, sending her back to the Underdark with more questions than ever.

Chapter 21: Dark and Full of Terrors

Chapter Text

The more Tav got to know her companions, the less she cherished lying to them for any reason. With every laugh and story they shared around the fire and every morning they woke each other up for a new day, it felt less natural for them to not know the truth about her. At this point, she wasn’t sure why she even kept it a secret anymore. She was no longer helpless, and they had all seen what she could do. What threat being a liability would have been to her safety was no longer an issue.

However, breaking the truth to them in the aftermath of their little detour to what had apparently been the literal hells didn’t seem very appropriate. Raphael was a devil, he claimed to want to help them, and being propositioned by a devil was a big deal, and a single normal day in Faerûn was clearly too much to ask for. Tav didn’t think the others would be any calmer if she told them that he had propositioned her, too, and that their guardian had stepped in to somehow make him regret it. A courtesy he hadn’t bestowed upon them. Much to think about.

Another day, then. Another time.

They had fussed over her when she returned, of course, but she just told them that Raphael had caught her wandering about in the hallway and had sent her back. It wasn’t a total lie. After smiling and nodding along as they scolded her for being stupid, she had sought out Gale when the need to unload the truth became too heavy for her.

He had brought her to a hot spring not far from camp, but far enough for them to be out of earshot. Gale was standing thigh-deep in the warm water as he washed a purple robe, and Tav sat by the edge with her feet in, feeling surprisingly relaxed despite it all. She ought to stop being surprised by her own calmness sooner or later.

“He didn’t say what that price would be, of course,” Tav said after having explained her conversation with Raphael. “Our guardian told me not to tell him anything, so I didn’t. Or, well, I did offer him my soul and whatnot, but he said it was already spoken for.”

Gale furrowed his brows as he mercilessly scrubbed a stain from the robe. “Well, I suppose he could have been referring to our infection. Illithids are said to have no souls at all.”

“How can something have no soul?”

“They’re a hivemind.”

Tav wrinkled her nose as her thoughts fluttered around her brain like fat, lazy flies. She was missing something, she knew it. But no matter how hard she strained herself, it remained just out of her reach. “So Raphael basically told me I’m a lost cause?”

“In theory, yes. But devils are proud creatures. Your rendezvous through his house right under his nose probably didn’t please him much.”

She hummed a non-committal response and looked at her toes wiggling underwater. Raphael had offered her a way home, and by instinct, she had offered everything for it. But now that she thought about it… she didn’t really feel much of anything. She hadn’t in the moment, either. No homesickness. No desperation. Nothing. She vaguely remembered the feeling, that painful clutch in her chest, the ice in her stomach. And now? Now she felt nothing. You could have put her in a room with nothing but five empty walls around her and she would be fine just sitting.

Perhaps she should be worried.

But she didn’t have to worry today. Not when she was feeling warm water on her skin for the first time in weeks, and every broken blister and every bit of calloused skin seemed to soften and regain some of what had been taken from her in the last few weeks. She could worry later.

“Later” turned out to be much, much sooner than anticipated. Although the others insisted that she should stay at camp, Tav had insisted on the opposite. The Underdark was beautiful, and if the creatures lurking down here were more vicious than those above ground, all the better. The gnolls had almost been too easy. She needed practice. And besides, how bad could it get if she were surrounded by a group of people who seemed to improve their lethal abilities by the day?

Famous last words, of course.

Karlach, Wyll, Lae’zel, and Shadowheart had gone northwest, and Tav and the others had gone southwest, splitting their efforts to cover more ground. She didn’t know what they were looking for, but she figured the others would let her know if they found it. On the surface, the group usually had at least two people chattering away about something or the other, but the only sounds following them through the rocky, glowing scenery were those of footsteps and quiet breaths. Everyone was tense, but Halsin was most of all. Tav still had a difficult time making sense of it, but she didn’t want to pry.

When they had been walking for an hour or so, Tav nearly tripped and broke her neck when she lost her footing on the ground below. Had it not been for Astarion who had caught her (again) with a hooked arm around her waist, she for sure would have eaten sh*t.

“Watch where you go,” he hissed quietly at her, allowing her to grab onto his arm for support for a moment before pulling away. Now that she was actually looking and not just wandering around lost in thought, Tav felt a little bit stupid for not having seen them in the first place. Impossibly deep and long claw marks were scattered across the earth around them, some of them looking fresher than others.

Bravery and in-the-name-of-practice aside, Tav would rather not meet whatever beast had clawed them.

“I wonder what these grooves are. Territorial markings maybe, but I can’t say for certain.” Gale quietly pondered behind her before shivering, looking around as if he had heard someone far away call his name. Unease suddenly hung thick as fog in the air, her companions shifting from foot to foot, all looking around at something Tav couldn’t sense.

“I feel it too,” Halsin spoke softly. Even from several feet away, Tav could see the hair on his arms stand on end. She started looking about frantically, but it gained her nothing. The world around them was quiet and dark. They were alone. And she didn’t feel a damn thing, besides a cool draft upon her skin. “What is it?”

“Something is throwing the Weave off balance,” Astarion said, catching her off guard. She had never heard him speak of magic before, and yet here he was, hand stretched out in front of him as sparks of fire flickered between his fingers. Tav didn’t know he could do magic at all, but honestly, she had accepted a constant state of not being in the know by now.

The source of the disturbance became clear soon enough as an absolutely enormous, glowing tree came into view. Its branches were thick as logs and all glowed as if the tree itself had veins full of luminous blood, and it was so breathtaking Tav stopped in her tracks to gawk at it. Its leaves looked as if they were made of pure, cold light, slowly falling to the ground like snow, lighting up the entire area. Her throat grew tight with the beauty of it.

“Woah, what is that?” She whispered, almost afraid to blink in case the scenery in front of her would disappear and bathe them in darkness once again.

“By Mystra, that’s a sussur tree. These things drain away one’s magic. ”

They walked a bit further, tentatively, the others less than amused. Tav was absolutely mesmerised. The closer they got, the stronger she felt it; like cool smoke upon her skin, tingly and light.

“We’re sitting ducks here,” Gale said with a voice full of tension. “Best not to linger.” They had to walk so near the trunk of the enormous tree that Tav couldn’t help but reach out and caress the glowing bark with her hand. “How you can stand to touch the damn thing is beyond me.”

She turned and looked at them, then. Their faces portrayed different stages of discomfort, Gale looking downright ill. They all looked… smaller, somehow. As if their magic was a physical aura around them that she hadn’t noticed before, and now that it was gone, they quite accurately embodied the essence of a wet animal otherwise large with fluff.

Tav didn’t share their discomfort. She felt absolutely fine. A little jolly, as it was. She lifted her hand into the air in front of her, bending her fingers in the way she had found conjured her magic with the least effort. The red power glowed through her skin, flowing in her veins until her fingertips were alight with it, and her palm was the resting place for a tiny storm. She looked at her companions again, at their confused and inquisitive expressions, throwing her handful of force from one hand to the other like a ball.

“My magic works fine. Are you sure this tree is what you think–”

Under normal circ*mstances, they would have seen the monster coming much before it reached her, but they had all been distracted by their own distress and by how her powers seemed to surpass whatever laws the Weave bowed to. Had the circ*mstances been normal, the creature would have been disintegrated or frozen or lit on fire by magic faster than the average person could blink. Unfortunately, standing several metres from her and without their magic, her companions could not save her.

It felt like nothing, at first. Something had pushed her lower back, hard, but there was no pain. Not at first. The screech was the worst part, filling her ears with sound so shrill it made her teeth ache. It drowned out all other noise, crashing through the defences her guardian had created for her, piercing the deepest part of her brain. Lowering her head was like running in a dream. Time had slowed. A burning, sharp sensation was spreading from beneath her sternum. Her brain couldn’t process what her eyes were telling her. The hurt didn’t truly start until she reached to touch a finger to her own blood on the enormous, thick hook sticking out of her stomach.

Oh, sh*t.

She was being impaled.

Such a strange realisation to have.

When the monster behind her lifted her off her feet and she felt its hook scrape against her lower ribs, every nerve in her body was ignited with a pain fiercer than anything she had ever felt. The last thing she heard when it flung her off as if she was nothing but a discarded doll was Astarion’s voice.

What a sh*tty way to die.

Chapter 22: Archdruid's Touch

Chapter Text

“NO!”

There are three things you need to know about what happened next. Number one is this: it is absolutely possible to freeze and burn to death at the same time. Number two: if you ever wondered if you could feel the cold air on your entrails as they were ripped from your body, Tav would be able to tell you that yes, you absolutely could. Number three: breaking your head open on a cliff wall hurts astonishingly little when your entire nervous system is being corroded by white-hot waves of ice.

And here’s a secret fourth thing that Tav didn’t believe to be entirely true: as she was flying through the air, Astarion had shouted with such fear and such emotion that, if he had shouted in such a way for anyone else, Tav would have accused him of caring about them.

But she knew better than that. And besides, now was not the time to ponder. She hit the ground with a dull thud that skipped through her bones and out of the hole in her head like a rock skips on water. She wasn’t sure if the world retreated or if she did, but she was aware of a sudden and very large distance between herself and everything else, a shadow at the edges of her vision. The spongy ground beneath her was alight with sussur roots that greedily drank up her warmth, her life. Her blood was hot in her mouth, and with every drop drained from her, she grew colder.

This sucked.

Her body was a cacophony of pain so overwhelming she almost became numb to it, but when she blinked the blood out of her eyes, she forgot about everything else. The crown of the sussur tree glowed with ethereal, divine shades of white and blue. It looked as if glitter could be harvested from it. As if it would sound like a thousand little bells if an impossible wind should disturb it.

“I need to take some samples,” she whispered through unmoving lips, knowing no one would get it. It was a private joke between the tree and her. She hoped she would get to stay here, bathed in the soft light, prancing from branch to branch on ghostly feet. It was not the worst place to die, she supposed.

“Oakfather guide me,” a deep, strained voice said a million lightyears away, getting further still. Tav felt her body sink into the earth as the leaves above grew closer. She was going to fall asleep. Blue sunlight caressed her skin as a lover would, embracing her, warming her cooling flesh. Death was warm.

Death was her insides being scooped out of the dirt and pushed back into her body. Death was the largest hands she had ever felt, God’s hands, the Oakfather himself, putting pressure on the hole in her body and the one in her head. Death was being lifted off the ground like she was when she fell asleep in the car as a child. Nothing hurt anymore. She was tingling all over.

“Get her the hells out of here!” Someone shouted. “And shut that oversized chicken up!”

The tree was running away from her. That had to be it, because it couldn’t possibly be the other way around. She was in no state to run, and yet her little piece of sky made of a thousand cold suns was disappearing out of view. The darkness was returning, catching up to her. Another few steps and she was engulfed. She whimpered.

“Sshh,” the Oakfather said. “Do not yield, little bird. Keep breathing.”

Tav wasn’t sure she was even capable of breathing anymore, but who was she to argue with a god? She took a shuddering breath. It sounded wet and ugly.

“That’s a good lass. You’re tougher than blackwood.”

She closed her eyes against the Underdark. Her own cracked head was brighter than the darkness around her, and she felt it seep in through the places her body had been broken. How she was still alive was a wonder to her.

At some point, she was placed back on the ground, and for a moment she thought she was back beneath the sussur tree. Blue flames danced before eyelids that were far too heavy to lift. The feeling of flowing past the boundaries of her own body stilled a bit. Then, she felt nothing for so long that she wondered in some far, indifferent corner of her mind if she had finally died. If this was all there was, the Oakfather should have left her where he found her.

The first drop of consciousness in her mind felt like a splash of cold water to the face. It wasn’t that she woke up feeling rested or refreshed in any capacity, but after spending what could have been seconds or months in the deepest sleep of her life, reality was cold and shocking to the touch.

And God f*cking damn it, everything was agony. Breathing hurt, swallowing hurt, thinking hurt. Being alive was torture.

But she was alive. Somehow, she was alive.

Her eyelids felt like they had been glued together over her dry eyeballs when she tried to open them, but she pried them up with the rest of her might. She was inside a tent. Again. A gentle snore sounded from her left, but she didn’t dare turn her head with the amount of suffering coursing through her. Lucky for her, Halsin was hard to miss. He sat by her side, head resting on his hand, face peaceful with sleep. Under different circ*mstances, she would have taken the opportunity to admire him and to let him rest, but her situation was rather dire. If her wounds didn’t take her out, the pain might.

Prying her chapped lips apart, she meant to speak his name, but only a pathetic little whimper came out. He jolted awake as if he hadn’t been sleeping at all, eyes alight with relief when he looked at her contorted face.

“Thank Silvanus, I thought we had lost you. Where does it hurt?” His voice sounded rough. He looked tired.

“Errrrryyy….werrrr,” she responded, trying not to move her face too much. It felt as if her insides were full of glass shards.

“Of course,” Halsin said quickly, rubbing his hands together like they were defibrillator paddles before letting them hang in the air right above her torso. She let her eyes slide shut as he began whispering his incantations and his magic glowed through his palms. Like sunlight. A fuzzy memory stirred in her, too far out of her reach for her to fully grasp it. She let it float away without a fight.

Halsin’s magic flowed through her and brought relief wherever it went. She felt her tissue knitting itself together and her entrails scooting back where they belonged, her bones creaking into their right places. She sighed through her broken lips. Relief was sweet.

It felt as if he healed her for an hour. By the time he stopped, his lips were as chapped as hers, and the dark circles under his eyes were even worse than they had been before. Tav hesitantly moved her limbs and found they felt fine. She sat up. Nothing. Or, wait… something. A tiny, tiny something inside of her that felt more like a hungover than anything else.

“Holy sh- Halsin, it’s almost like it never happened!” She said, feeling around on her torso that she wouldn’t have believed had been opened if she didn’t remember it so clearly. She looked at the druid, then, and he gave a small, sleepy smile before drinking deeply from a leather water bottle. Tav thought back to how easily he had stitched up her injuries when he’d returned to the grove, and he had been exhausted from fighting and being held captive then. It was dawning on her that she would not have survived this if Halsin were anyone else.

Halsin sighed with deep contentment, leaning back on his arms and letting his head fall towards his shoulder. “Tell me how you feel.”

“I feel nauseous, like something inside me isn’t quite right. But otherwise, I feel fine. Fine, but gross. How long was I out?” The back of her head was a matted mass of hair stiffened by her blood, but she could no longer find any trace of the wound there.

“A few days, and it will take you a few more to recover fully. Even with magic, healing is exhausting for the body,” he said. “You’ll need to stay in camp.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. Carefully, she let herself fall back onto her bedroll, sighing at the ceiling. She couldn’t feel her fear right now, but she knew it was there. She had glimpsed it for the briefest moment when she was attacked. Heaven rues the day it started spilling through the cracks.

Halsin got onto his knees and reached for the entrance to her tent. “You should try to get some sleep. I’ll be right outside if you need anything.”

“Please don’t go.”

He turned to look at her face, her eyes pleading and watery. She wasn’t ashamed of it. It had been embarrassing to beg Aradin and his friends to stay, and it would have been embarrassing to ask it of anyone else like this. But it wasn’t with Halsin.

He quietly sat back down, crossing his legs and looking at her with gentle eyes. “Of course. Whatever you need.”

If she hadn’t just been gored within a breath of her life, she wouldn’t have been brave enough to ask. But her life seemed stupidly fragile at the moment. “You like me. Yes or no?”

Halsin chuckled. “Yes.”

“And you know I like you. Yes or no?”

“Perhaps.”

“So why won’t you touch me?” She sounded so needy. Gross. Halsin didn’t respond at first, but merely sighed and let his gaze envelop her with a reverence that far surpassed duty. He looked to be at battle with himself, deciding whether to speak his mind or not. In an attempt to encourage him to spill, she reached her hand towards him. He took it and started rubbing delicious circles into her palm with his thumbs.

“The shadow curse grips my mind too tightly. I feel I cannot allow myself to enjoy the beauty of nature’s creations before the balance has been restored. There is… there is too much to be done, too much I should have done in the past hundred years. I am not worthy of you.”

“Not worth- Halsin, that’s not-”

“Please. I decide my own worth. I have done more harm than good since I became archdruid, even though it has not been my intention. There are some things you cannot run from, and there are things that cannot be ignored until they are put right. The curse is one of them. Besides-” he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm. “I would loathe to give you only part of my attention. Perhaps if we manage to remove the curse… perhaps then I can show you how much I like you.”

There was a twinkle in his eye that made him look much younger despite how exhausted he seemed. Tav was blushing in the middle of it all. How stupid to have butterflies fluttering around inside a body that had been so close to dying just two days before. She gave him a smile much shyer than she felt, but she couldn’t help it. Something about the way he looked at her made her flustered. His lips caressing her skin did not help.

“Until then,” he continued, returning her smile. “I will be your ear as you bear your burdens and the arms that protect you if you can shoulder them no more. But I cannot be more than that. Not as long as the curse still reigns.”

It stung, for some reason. Maybe she was in deeper sh*t than she thought. “Thank you. That’s all I can ask of you.”

He kissed her knuckles again before letting go of her hand to rub his eyes. She needed to let him sleep. “Actually, there is one more thing I’d like to ask. If you’re feeling generous.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“Sleep with me, please. Not in that way, just… stay. Sleep.” The idea of being alone with the repressed feelings pressing her skin from the inside, just to drift into a sleep full of nightmares and hooks and blood, was f*cking unbearable. She couldn’t do it alone. She couldn’t.

He hesitated, but not for long. With gentle hands he picked her up into his strong arms as if she were his bride, carrying her outside, into the glowy, uneven dark. It seemed everyone in camp was asleep except Lae’zel, who stood watch on the highest point she could find. She looked beautiful and dangerous as he hands rested on the hilt of her sword, and her watchful eyes searched the landscape below for threats. She didn’t even look their way when they emerged from the tent. It seemed safe to say that she had not been particularly worried about her.

Halsin sat her on the ground, standing tall above her for no more than a moment before disappearing in a flare of golden light. Her heart warmed at the sight of his bear form. It had been her beacon and her fire at the goblin camp, and now it seemed it would come to her rescue again. Halsin carefully laid down beside her and let her cuddle up to his side before curling in around her, enveloping her in warm fur all around. His breathing rumbled through his body, and Jesus, he was so toasty warm Tav immediately felt her eyelids grow heavy. She nestled her face past the rough hairs and into his silky soft undercoat, taking a deep breath of his sweet, animalistic scent. She wasn’t sure when she’d last felt this safe.

When she sank into the arms of sleep, no monsters were waiting for her.

Chapter 23: Truths

Chapter Text

There had been a certain smell hanging onto Astarion’s clothes that day in the swamp where he’d disappeared into the Underdark for a moment. Tav hadn’t been able to place it then besides musty, but now, she realised she hadn’t quite hit the mark. The smell was mould. It smelled of everything wet and cold and organic, as if they were walking through a rotten forest in winter. And Jesus, it was everywhere. She felt her scalp and her skin become humid with it and found traces of it on her clothes as if the air was full of purple flour clouds.

“Eurgh, fungal spores,” Astarion whined to her left, waving his hand through the air as if he could expel its thickness. Tav let someone else respond. Despite her nearly dying, they still didn’t seem to be on speaking terms after she had so unceremoniously evicted him from her tent. Why had she done that again? She really wasn’t sure. Perhaps he’d gotten too close, that damn flirt. Why couldn’t she remember?

“Means we’re getting close,” Wyll said, ever cheerful. While Tav and her part of the crew had been busy almost getting killed by monsters, the rest of their companions had found a colony of friendly mushroom people, which should have surprised Tav much more than it did. The mushroom king had granted them sanctuary on the condition that they killed some dwarfs nearby, which Karlach, Wyll, and Lae’zel had made short work of. Despite how much better Tav was feeling, and with Halsin’s daily healing spells, it took a couple of days for them to be convinced she was well enough to travel. Halsin had even offered that she could ride on his back if she became tired, but there really was no need. Besides the lingering feeling of something being off somewhere deep within, she really, truly felt fine.

And so they’d ended up carrying all of their stuff across the Underdark at the promise of somewhere safer to rest. Too bad no one had mentioned the spores would coat every breath they took. Tav would have worn a mask or something. She had gotten used to it filling her nose and her mouth by the time they’d arrived, but she couldn’t help but cough up what she imagined must look like actual clouds.

The beauty of the colony was almost worth the walk. This was the second most beautiful place she had ever seen. It was as if all pretty things of the Underdark, glowing gems and mushrooms and moths and shimmery air, were concentrated here. As if this place was the womb from which everything bright arose. The mushroom people themselves were enormous and beautiful in their own ethereal way.

They were also a little bit hot, but Tav didn’t tell anyone about that.

The mushrooms had no mouths to speak with, but instead voiced their words telepathically directly into your mind. Their way of communicating with each other was almost as beautiful as their home; a constant, gorgeous hum was shared between them, rising and falling, creating a melody Tav had never heard anything like. It made her feel safe. Surrounded. Its beauty was only topped by that of the sussur tree.

Tav tried not to think about the sussur tree. She didn’t remember much from the attack, her brain struggling to grasp the memories corroded by shock and pain. But she remembered the light. It had been so beckoning, so purifying. Was that what death was like? Could it be true that death was that soft, that peaceful? It was hard to keep off her mind, but she found that if her thoughts lingered on it for too long, a familiar buzz would start churning in the back of her head. A warning from her guardian dearest, no less. She got the message. Forward.

So forward she went. When Gale came to her in the evening with hunger in his eyes and a hand pressed to his chest, she made him cut off a little more of her skirt than he needed. In the morning, she tied it around the lower half of her face to ward off some of the spores, and it helped. With each passing day, she was starting to think more clearly. The hook horror’s poison was a vicious one, but it was being rinsed from her little by little, Halsin had told her. On the third morning in the colony, she rose from his fluffy embrace with a stretch and decided to go exploring.

Not outside the colony’s boundaries, mind you. You couldn’t pay her a million dollars to go out there again.

God, it was dark down here, wasn’t it? It didn’t bother her at first, especially with how well-lit the colony was. But as the hours turned into days (or nights, she could no longer tell) she felt a deep, wintery weariness inside. If Halsin had allowed such a thing, she would happily have catnapped against his side all day. The only thing that seemed to help was chatter. With Scratch and the owlbear cub following her closely, she made her way around to talk to everyone who wanted to lend her a word. The mushroom people were delightfully talkative, and she quickly got over the way they spoke directly into her head. A dwarf woman and her ox (or goat? Ox-goat? Cow?) had been the most interested in the animals, the woman expressing that she often dreamt of having a cat at home. The ox didn’t express much, being an ox and all, but he did let her scratch the coarse fur behind his ears.

She had been looking over the shoulder of her newest friend, Blurg, when her companions returned bloody and beaten. She wasn’t sure how, but she felt their arrival somewhere inside of her. The constant hum that wasn’t her own rose and fell in welcoming notes, and Tav found herself humming along.

“You can attune yourself to their melody?” Blurg asked, prying his attention from the encyclopaedia of plants and herbs he had been showing her.

“Yes. I feel it inside as if it’s in my bones or something.” It was an odd feeling, so unfamiliar in comparison to how her guardian’s powers coursed through her blood. This hum, no, this song felt like vines weaving themselves around her bones, a peaceful visitor as long as she allowed it. Perhaps they were the reason she had felt so few effects of her attack.

“Most interesting! Usually, such talents are wielded by bards and druids, maybe a ranger now and then. Are you certain you are none of these?”

“Quite certain, good sir. I am but a humble sorceress.”

He looked at her inquisitively, but if he detected her lie, he did not prod. She felt the presence of her companions draw nearer by how the song swelled, as if they were a mouse moving beneath a rug.

“Christ! What the hell happened to you?” Was the first thing to blurt out of her mouth when she saw them. They all looked terrible, Astarion and Gale most of all. They were nothing but a group of slouched shoulders and heavy eyelids.

“A bulette happened,” Shadowheart groaned, rubbing a bloodied hand against a dusty cheek. “And then a beholder, and then a less than grateful drow and his friends. I am done.”

“At this point, just rip that damn worm out of my brain,” Karlach said as she rolled her shoulders. “I barely even care what happens.”

Blurg had gone still beside Tav. She side-eyed him inquisitively, trying to work out what his issue was, but he was an honest man, and he didn’t leave her wondering for long.

“I beg your pardon, I don’t mean to pry,” he said, bowing his head respectfully at Karlach. “But I couldn’t help but overhear… a worm in your brain? What kind of worm would that be?”

They all froze and stared. Not at all indiscreet. Karlach looked at Tav with an eyebrow raised, to which Tav gave an affirming nod. She had a good feeling about Blurg. And, even if he turned out to have ill intentions like the githyanki in the crèche, he was just one person against all of them. Telling him wouldn’t do much harm.

And would you look at that? She had been absolutely right. Blurg listened to them with a finger pressed to his mouth and his eyes open wide, not an ounce of judgement to be found in his inquisitive expression.

“It’s a miracle you’re still intact. You must be worried sick!” He said, voice full of genuine concern. “I have a friend who may be able to assist. Omeluum!” Tav looked at her companions with raised brows, finding the same expression across all of their faces. How bloody convenient! Maybe getting infected by mindflayers wasn’t as rare as they’d made it sound.

I hope this is important, Blurg. My zurkhwood samples need constant attention.

Tav flinched as a strange voice suddenly spoke inside her head, which was a feeling she really should have gotten used to by now. A tall, humanoid figure who looked like a mixture of a squid and a man came floating around the corner, and every single one of her companions physically recoiled. Tav didn’t understand why. This was hardly the strangest creature she’d seen here, and so it couldn’t possibly be for them, either. And besides, he was kind of…

Beside her, Lae’zel hissed and drew her sword. “Ghaik!”

“Lae’zel!” Tav scolded, forgetting herself. She had no idea what ghaik meant, but it sure was rude to pull a sword on someone like that. Lae’zel sent her a look much sharper than her blade. “K’chakhi! You would react so placidly in the face of a mindflayer?”

Oh, this was a mindflayer? Tav looked back at Omeluum, bewildered, staring between him and Blurg who had stepped in front of him to shield him from Lae’zel’s wrath.

I have broken free from the elder brain’s yoke. I no longer serve the grand design. I ask that you refrain from violence, while I respect that your opinion of my kind may not change.

Lae’zel made a sound somewhere deep in her throat, aiming her sword at the mindflayer. “Lae’zel!” Tav repeated, firmer this time, too perplexed to worry about whether she would be strangled in her sleep later or not. “Stand down! Relax! If he wanted to… flay our minds, he would have done it by now!”

Lae’zel eyed her up and down out of the corner of her eye, and then, reluctantly, stepped down. The shock threatened to unhinge Tav’s jaw from her face.

Thank you. Why did you summon me, Blurg?

Blurg stepped back a little, but kept his eyes on Lae’zel’s sword that hung tensely by her side. “These adventurers have ilithid tadpoles inside their heads, but they haven’t turned.”

No ceremorphosis? That’s impossible! But intriguing. Are you looking to have it extracted?

Tav’s jaw nearly fell off again. “Wait, you can do that? Just like that? Yes, we would like to have it extracted!”

I will see what can be done. Open your minds to me. Let us see what lurks within.

Tav struggled to focus on what was being said as she watched Omeluum. He was incredibly tall, his orange eyes ablaze with a gem-like flame. His hands were neatly tucked behind his back, and his tentacles hung placid and beard-like from his face. He carried himself quite well. He was also floating a few inches above the ground even as he stood still, which was cool. His clothes looked as if they had been tailored specifically for him, which was also cool. And the way he spoke… so deeply, so eloquently, so pleasantly in her head.

Oh no.

Tav was discovering something terribly controversial about herself.

She caught Astarion’s eye entirely by accident, barely managing not to flinch. It was the first time he had looked at her in days, but there was no contempt to find on his pretty features. He merely tilted his head at her with a smirk so mischievous it would have made Raphael himself shift on his feet. His red gaze flickered from hers to the mindflayer, the smirk spreading even further.

Oh no. How the f*ck did he know?

He shook his head with a grin and turned away, lavishing his attention on what Omeluum was saying instead. Tav’s face was burning so hot with blood that she was almost surprised he didn’t pounce on her to bite her cheeks.

Timmask spores and tongue of madness. Those were plants they had to find. She had caught that much. As they said their goodbyes and turned to leave, Tav felt a hesitating pull at her mind as Omeluum beckoned her to stay.

Forgive my inquisition, but I fear I must ask. There is something unusual about you. You are not from this realm either, are you?

Tav froze like she had been caught mid illicit act. She eyed her companions in her peripheral view and found them all staring at her. sh*t.

I apologise if I have caused any distress. It was not my intention.

“No, that’s okay. It wasn’t a secret.” Which was only like, half a lie. She had simply withheld the truth. She had never claimed to be from Faerûn, technically. “But… is it alright if I tell you about it tomorrow? It’s a long story, and my friends are weary.”

Of course. Rest well.

She stepped away with cheeks blazing even hotter than they had before, seeking no eyes but Gale’s when she and her companions walked towards their camp. He gave her a reassuring nod, which unfortunately didn’t have much of its intended effect. They had barely rounded the corner out of the eyesight of everyone in the colony when Tav’s neck was locked in an iron grip as she was thrown against the wall.

“K’chakhi! The last time a subordinate questioned my judgement, I ate tongue stew that very night!” Tav heard her companions’ exclamations from behind her, but none of them dared move. The sharp bite of Lae’zel’s sword was pressing against her lower back, threatening to pierce.

“Lae’zel, you just discovered you aren’t the only alien in our group, and the first thing you want to do is cut her down?” Gale scolded, but he didn’t move, either. The only one who dared risk either Tav’s spine or facing Lae’zel’s wrath was Shadowheart.

“Let her go. Now.” Her voice was dangerous and quiet. Out of the corner of her eye, Tav saw her hands burn with sacred flames, one palm an inch from Lae’zel’s throat, the other close enough to the back of her head to singe her hair a little.

“Why don’t we all just calm the f*ck down? ” Karlach pleaded, walking a little closer now that Lae’zel was at gunpoint herself. “There’s no reason for this!”

“I won’t say it again, gith,” Shadowheart whispered. Tav tumbled to the ground when the grip on her neck ceased, cheek scraping across the rock.

“Kainyanki!” Lae’zel hissed before stepping back and storming off towards the camp, pushing Karlach aside and barely reacting to the heat. She refused to look back at any of them. Shadowheart extinguished her hands and reached for Tav, gently lending her support as she got off the ground. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” Tav answered, voice only slightly brittle. Her whole body was shaking with adrenaline. One moment of peace, was that really too much to ask?

With a featherlight touch to her scraped cheek, Shadowheart healed the abrasion burning there, and then she grabbed her shaking hand and gave it a squeeze. “Let’s get back to camp. I think it’s time for some truths, don’t you?”

And what a time for truths it was. Tav supposed she could thank the last couple of weeks for how calmly the others reacted to the truth; had they not all been abducted and invaded and teleported to the hells and so on, their tolerance for strangeness might not have been so high.

They had questions, of course. Just like the first time they had been sitting around the fire to listen to her talk of home, except this time, she could actually answer them. And she did, to the best of her ability. The only place where she came up blank was her magic.

“It isn’t the Weave,” Gale said, carefully avoiding telling the others that he’d already known what she just told them. “So what could it be?”

“Your world probably has something akin to the Weave,” Shadowheart suggested, pressing her mug of fire-warmed red wine to her chest.

“Well, if that’s the case, no one has ever discovered it. Or if they have, they’ve kept it to themselves.”

“And you said it was our dream guardian who showed you how to use these powers?” Wyll enquired.

“Yes. He said the power had always been mine, and that all he could do was show me.”

“Can you use it to conjure things up?” Karlach asked around the brim of her own mug.

“I… I don’t know. So far, all I’ve been able to do is destroy things and control that gnoll. Gale showed me how to do a water spell one time, but I was really bad at it, and I was using the Weave.”

When they had run out of questions to ask her, there was only a brief pause before Shadowheart spoke. “I’m a cleric of Shar, mistress of the night.”

And so it went. Karlach and Wyll were the only people who’d either had their secrets exposed already or walked into their group with them on their sleeves. Everyone else had something to confess. Except Halsin, of course. But no one had ever really questioned him in the first place. Gale told them of his relationship with Mystra, about the curse she had bestowed upon him that caused him to consume magic. When inquired about what would happen if he didn’t get it in time, he was evasive, but no one wanted to push. Sitting in a literal circle and sharing their secrets was boundary-crossing enough.

Astarion had been silent the entire time, nursing a cup of wine and staring at whoever was speaking. For someone who yapped as much as he did, he really never said much in convocation. Tav didn’t care. She wasn’t about to rat him out. If he wanted to keep his secret, he could.

Or not.

“Astarion, allow me to address the bat in the room?” Wyll said, smiling pleasantly at the elf. Astarion completely froze for half a second before regaining his composure. “I believe it’s called the elephant in the room, darling.”

“Oh Astaron, honestly.” Shadowheart sighed, rolling her eyes. “It’s quite obvious.”

“Quite bloody obvious, if I may.”

“Shut up, Gale. You’re pale as a ghost, you never eat, your canines are actual fangs, your eyes are red, and you have bite marks on the side of your neck. How exactly did you think we didn’t know?”

Astarion looked at them all, face frozen with shock only half hidden by a mask of indifference. It was only Tav who caught the brief glimmer of panic in his eyes when his gaze met hers.

“Well, since we all already knew,” Tav said as casually as she could. “Is it safe to assume no one has a problem with it?”

“Believe me, if I did, you would already be dead. Permanently, this time.” Wyll said, smiling at Astarion with that Prince Charming smile that could light up a room. Astarion seemed unaffected by it, if not a little offended.

“Well,” he said, scrabbling around for any kind of purchase inside his head. “Technically, I’m a vampire spawn.”

Laughter erupted from all around the fire, and worsened even more when Astarion crossed his arms across his chest and stuck his nose in the air like a sullen little prince. “I didn’t laugh at your secrets!”

“None of us care what you are,” Shadowheart said, laughter still present in her voice. The others shared murmurs of agreement. “But I do have a question: how are you walking in the sun?”

Hesitatingly, Astarion told them of how the parasite seemed to affect his vampirism. How it was changing the rules. The others didn’t prod, and since no one (to their knowledge, anyway) had been unfortunate enough to find his fangs in them, they left it at that. It was all rather anti-climatic, really, which was a welcome change.

They spent hours talking by the fire. Lae’zel did not join. Tav had so many stories to tell of her life back at home, but sometimes, she would trail off mid-sentence and forget what she was talking about. Perhaps the spores were getting to her. The others were patient with her. They were kind. Tav found that she liked them rather a lot. More than she should, given that her goal still was to go home. Though, when she thought about it… she wasn’t exactly sure what she would be going home to. Her life had been dull and hazy. And lonely, despite her rarely being alone.

When they decided to turn in for the night, they were all a little tipsy and hoarse from talking so much. Tav was just about ready to crash against Halsin’s flank when she felt a cold finger on her arm.

“Do you have a moment?”

She could barely believe what she was hearing. Astarion retracted his hand as quickly as it had appeared, his brow furrowed in a way that reflected the uncertainty in his voice. How violently odd for him to be so shy, all of a sudden. As if he hadn’t been eating her out on her wrist for weeks.

“Uhm, sure. Are you alright?” She asked, barely keeping herself from eyeing him up and down for any critical injuries. “Do you need to feed?”

He looked entirely dumbfounded for a moment, blinking at her as if he couldn’t believe his pointy ears. “That offer still stands?”

“Of course it does, what are you talking about?”

“I-” he motioned helplessly with his arms for a moment. “Nevermind. Can I show you something?”

Tav followed him hesitantly as he led her away from the camp, only stopping when they were reaching the threshold of the colony. “Wait, Astarion, I don’t think-”

“Don’t worry. The path is clear.” He left no room for arguments, and they walked in silence for several minutes before they reached a large crack. In one of the rocky walls. Astarion motioned for her to follow him when he crouched down and went through, and with a final glance over her shoulder, she did.

Inside was what seemed to have been a basem*nt, stone floors and walls sanded smooth and decorated with wooden shelves that had been left to rot. The only disturbances of the thick layer of dust covering everything were bootprints leading from where they were standing and up a narrow spiral staircase. They were Astarion’s size, she quickly realised. It couldn’t have been more than a day since he was here last.

Walking up that bloody stair took a million years. It was carved out of stone, of course, and with each step, Tav felt more and more sympathy for whoever had been set to carve it. By the time they reached the top fifteen minutes later, she was out of breath and feeling positively faint. Astarion was fine, of course. Jerk.

“What even is this?” She gasped with her hands on her knees, huffing and puffing in yet another small room of stone.

“An old storage room for drow who were trading with surfacers, I think.” He was feeling around the wall, looking for something Tav couldn’t see. She remained obnoxiously ignorant even when she heard the click of a button and one of the walls slid open in front of them.

The breeze hit her like a knife through the heart, carrying the scents of dewy grass, and a hundred other things Tav hadn’t realised she missed. The sky outside was deeply indigo, a weak glimmer of stars spread across it, shining lesser still the closer they got to the horizon. There was an unmistakable chill in the air as if summer was holding its breath, and sleepy, tentative birdsong sounded from all around.

“Wait, it’s morning?”

“It seems we’ve gotten turned around down there, doesn’t it?” Astarion said quietly, walking out into the twilight. He sat down on a large rock close to the opening, pulling a knee up beneath him to rest his arm on. Tav followed him without invitation, placing herself by his side. Her entire perspective of their time in the Underdark had suddenly changed. How long had they actually been down there? She had the excuse of being knocked out cold for a long time, but the others?

She didn’t voice any of her confusion, though. Astarion was fidgeting with a loose thread on his sleeve. Astarion never fiddled. Whatever he had brought her here for, she sensed it was something important to him, and she was afraid to crush the moment. They sat in silence for a while as the choir of birds around them grew louder. They sounded almost like they did at home.

When the night sky finally relented and became flush with dawn, they’d been sitting in silence for probably half an hour. Tav had forgotten how beautiful sunrises were. Before long, the sky was a mosaic of pinks and purples and the lightest blues, and both she and Astarion were bathed in the golden light of the first morning rays. None of them dared close their eyes, even when the sun became blinding. She physically felt her brain uncloud and her heart lighten with each caress of the light.

It felt very much like when the sun would break through the winter skies after months of grey and grey and grey. That moment when everyone would stop whatever they were doing to close their eyes and suck it in as much as they could, bracing themselves for another two months of grey before spring really got its foot through the crack in the door. It was relief and longing and realising how much you had missed it without knowing.

Tav’s eyes became glassy with tears. “I don’t understand,” she said, not bothering to hide the shake in her voice. “I feel like I haven’t seen the sun in months, but it hasn’t even been a week.”

“The darkness below the surface is different. The sun has never touched any of the places we’ve seen. It robs you quicker than you think.” Astarion’s voice was carefully neutral and indifferent, but he didn’t fool her. Not anymore.

Tav allowed a few stray tears to fall before she wiped her cheeks with her sleeve and tried to relax the best she could, doing her best impression of a photosynthesising plant. Several minutes danced by before Astarion cleared his throat.

“I hadn’t seen the sun in two hundred years when I woke up on that beach. One time, my… Cazador punished me for something I did by sealing me, starving, inside of a dusty tomb, all on my own. For an entire year.”

Tav didn’t dare look at him. She didn’t dare make any move that could possibly break the spell Astarion had been put under to confide in her. But she couldn’t stop her body from tensing and a new lump from forming in her throat.

“A year of silence. Months of scratching my hands raw, trying to carve my way out. More months of not moving at all. Months wishing only for death. When I saw the moon in the sky again… I thought I would never feel such relief again. But it was nothing, nothing to waking up and feeling the sun on my skin.”

With new, stinging tears in her eyes, Tav reached for him with all the care of someone approaching a feral animal and lightly placed her hand on his shoulder. He didn’t flinch away. “I’m so, so sorry, Astarion. I can’t even begin to imagine.”

He didn’t answer her, but he didn’t move from beneath her touch, either. With the same care as before, she placed her temple on his shoulder. Maybe she imagined it, but she could have sworn he shifted into her touch a little. Her insides were clenched into knots at the thought of what he’d been put through. An entire f*cking year. She could barely comprehend it. “I promise you, before I go home, I will do everything I can to make sure he never catches you again.”

Astarion huffed a humourless laugh. “And what are you going to do, exactly?”

She lifted her head with a start, making him look into her eyes. “I’ll kill him.”

He laughed for real, this time. “I mean it, Astarion. I will.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I do. There is a way. There is always a way.”

His eyes flickered between hers. “Thank you. For meaning it. I mean, you can’t, but I know you mean it.”

She put her head back on his shoulder, looking out at the dawn. “Thank you for bringing me here. I didn’t realise how much I’d missed the sun. Which sounds silly now, but-”

“No. I understand.”

When the sun became too sharp, Tav closed her eyes, soaking it in through her skin instead. The morning breeze carried the promise of a new day. She didn’t know much about the gods, but she had a feeling that if she had been born and raised here, she would be a worshipper of whoever was responsible for the dawn.

“I thought you died, you know,” Astarion spoke quietly. “When you were gored by that beast. Halsin said he didn’t know if he could bring you back.”

Tav held her breath as her heart quickened, though she wasn’t sure why. “Were you afraid?”

“Oh don’t flatter yourself, darling. I was merely… disappointed. This is-” he gestured to the space between them. “-well, something.”

A tiny flutter in her heart. This was the kindest thing he had ever said to her. “Careful now, Astarion,” she smiled. “You almost sound like you care about me.”

He chuckled at the sunrise. “Hells forbid.”

Chapter 24: The Vampire Prince

Chapter Text

“Wake up, istik.”

Tav blinked her heavy eyelids until there was a single Lae’zel in front of her face instead of three. For a moment she was convinced she was dreaming. Lae’zel and her hadn’t as much as looked at one another since Lae’zel had pressed her sword against her spine a few days before. It had hit Tav that she should have said something, done something, but she often found that her reactions to… anything, really, were lacking these days. Since the attack, Tav often found herself drifting around a few inches beneath the surface of her own consciousness. There was a distance between her and the world, now. Vaster than before. All she could do was assume it was something bestowed upon her by her guardian, and she really had no other choice but to trust he knew what was best for her.

Lae’zel waking her up in the middle of the night (or whatever it was) was not an exception to this rule. She was probably going to be murdered by an angry gith, now. Oh well. Her entire body vibrated as Halsin growled deeply, tensing protectively around her.

“Calm yourself, druid.” Lae’zel hissed. “I have not come to harm her.”

Tav sat up properly, brushing her wayward hair out of her face. “What is it, Lae’zel? Is everything alright?”

“Chk. I would not come to you if things were not.”

“Right. What is it, then?”

Lae’zel glared at her for a long moment, seeming as if she wasn’t sure how to word her thoughts. She looked… troubled. Conflicted. It was a very strange expression to see painted across her stoic features.

“You…” she said, groaning with frustration. “You vex me.”

“I knew that already, you didn’t have to wake-”

“Silence! Let me speak.” Tav demonstratively pinched her lips shut. “When I first saw you, I thought you weak. Frail. A lamb destined for slaughter. At every turn, you have proven me right.”

Halsin growled again. Tav placed a calming hand on his fuzzy head and remained silent.

“And yet… you persevere. I have seen more of your blood than I have my own, and yet you live. I do not understand it.”

Tav didn’t have an answer. Not one that she’d understand, anyway. Tav wasn’t sure she even understood it herself. She had spent her entire life running away from it, ruining every good thing that ever happened to her, and chased the next high or haze or blackout with tireless vigour. But she still lived. She knew death would put an end to all the things she was running from, but she never reached for it. Not even here. Not in the woods, not in the goblin camp, not at the end of a hook horror’s hook. When searching for a reason why, she came up short.

“You are no warrior,” Lae’zel stated, standing up and reaching a hand towards Tav. “But you have spirit. I mean to test it.”

Tav hesitantly took her hand and was promptly pulled to her feet, stumbling out of Halsin’s warmth and into the cool, humid dark.

“Come,” Lae’zel commanded, letting go of her as soon as she was standing before marching across their camp. Tav sent Halsin a puzzled look and scratched him between the ears before following, her drowsiness evaporating by the second to be replaced by a disquieting curiosity.

He followed them, a couple of paces behind, quietly seating himself at a respectful distance when they stopped just out of their sleeping companions’ earshot. Tav felt his presence like a warm pulse in her mind, a little piece of sanctuary and protection in her peripheral view.

“Chk. The druid seems to have claimed you as his pet.” Lae’zel commented, eyeing the bear with great distaste.

“We get along quite well,” was all Tav could think to answer. Lae’zel unsheathed her sword, letting it hang loosely in her grip, her eyes never leaving Tav’s face as she began to circle her.

Pain.

The flat side of Lae’zel’s sword smacked against the back of her thigh, and her entire leg went numb. She hissed with pain, glaring at the gith, who paid neither her nor her growling bear any mind. “You are witless.”

Another smack, this time against her stomach. “Soft.”

Another. The skin on her lower back stung. “Emotional.”

Tav had nothing to say. She felt she was being tested on a subject she knew nothing about, and every hit of Lae’zel’s sword was a kick to her temper.

“But there is an endurance in you that is rarely found outside of the githyanki race, istik. I believe it can be sharpened.”

“You’re offering to help me? Why?”

“Perhaps I simply want to hit you without being incinerated by the half-elf.” Was that… a joke? Maybe Tav was dreaming after all. Lae’zel grabbed a shortsword from the makeshift rack she usually had by her tent and threw it to her, handle first. Tav’s first instinct was to dodge out of the way, and she cringed at the sound of steel hitting the ground.

“Kainyank. Take it. Try to block my strikes.”

Good f*cking god, swords were heavy. And this was half as long as Lae’zel’s. Tav looked at it, felt the weight of it in her hand. She felt like a fish above water. “Lae’zel, I’m not sure-”

Pain. Got it. Message received.

And of course, Tav was atrocious. She could barely lift the sword over her head, and she dropped it more times than she cared to count. Every time she thought she had a good grip, Lae’zel would aim for her shoulders and upper arms until all the muscles there went numb and her fingers tingled. She was relentless and hadn’t even broken a sweat when Tav was almost keeling over from exhaustion. She was too slow. She physically could not move faster than she did, but she was still too slow.

“Reacting is not good enough,” Lae’zel scolded after Tav had let yet another blow land. “You need to anticipate.”

Tav couldn’t anticipate sh*t. Her mind was reeling, her arms and legs were made of lead. A particularly cruel blow to the back of her knees sent her into the dirt once again, and Halsin growled forebodingly. Tav was heaving for breath and blinking back tears, her fingers cramping around the handle of the stupid sword. “Enough for tonight,” Lae’zel said, taking the sword from her as if she were a child with a toy she wasn’t allowed to play with. “Your dullness would be entertaining, were it not so pathetic. A six-year-old githyanki could beat you in battle with her eyes closed.”

“Giving up, are you?” Tav taunted, wincing with every breath. Her ribs were bruised.

“No. I am going to enjoy ripping this… flaccidity from you.” And with that, she left Tav drenched with sweat and beaten black and blue on the dusty ground.

Her companions had all agreed that it was for the better if they didn’t stay down there for long, but the Underdark was just as brutal as it had been the first day. They kept getting hurt or lost or distracted by one crisis after another. Tav was coming to understand that the Underdark was a miserable place to live, even for those native to its dark corners.

Despite their constant detours and injuries, Lae’zel would come to her every night and press that ridiculous f*cking sword into her hand, and she would beat her to sh*t. Tav did not seem to be improving whatsoever, much to the dismay of every single muscle she had.

“Your gith friend is almost drawing as much of your blood as I am,” Astarion had said one night, assessing how closely her arm resembled the dawn they’d watched together that one morning. Tav’s whole world was blues and purples and yellows. And she had no strength to show for it. Still, a small ember of something long forgotten had ignited somewhere in her, and she refused to quit. She doubted Lae’zel would have let her, either way. Her stubbornness was the only force getting her out of Halsin’s furs in the morning.

That and the fact that Gale had started putting a little extra honey on her porridge in the morning. She didn’t miss sugary snacks as much as she thought she would, but it was as if the honey coated her heart as well as her tongue. It made each sore morning just a tad more bearable. Tav was developing a little routine, as it were. She’d eat breakfast and drink tea with the others, follow Shadowheart to her tent to have her hair braided and chat, and then she would spend her day conjuring her magic or trying to make sense of the written common tongue. Sometimes, if she hadn’t been unbearably sore from the night before, Wyll and Karlach would show her some moves before they left, and she would practise them as well as she could when they set out for the day. In the evening, she would wait for Lae’zel to approach her, and she would be beaten bloody. Then, a quick stop at Astarion’s tent to gossip and make sure he was full, and then, bed. Or, well, Halsin. She hadn’t slept inside their tent since the attack.

Almost two weeks of this had passed when Tav grabbed the shortsword herself while waiting for her nightly lesson. The handle had been wrapped in fabric to ease her blistering palms (much to Lae’zel’s dismay, who insisted she needed the callousness) and it was tinted cobber with her blood. It was disgusting. She was still fidgeting around with it when Lae’zel came over, and Tav could have sworn she saw surprise cross her features for a moment. That night, Tav finally managed to block one of Lae’zel’s strikes. Her entire arm vibrated with the song of steel clashing against steel, and yes, she dropped the sword. Yes, Lae’zel had her on the ground in a matter of seconds. Yes, new bruises were added. But it did not matter. She had f*cking blocked it, and she was delirious with her victory as she lay on her back in the dirt, giggling and whooping into the dark.

And wouldn’t you know it? Lae’zel offered her a hand up. When Tav grabbed it and was pulled to her feet, she saw a flicker of warmth in the warrior’s gaze. A very tiny, itsy bitsy, baby glimmer of reluctant respect. Tav felt as if she could fly.

She was coming to realise that she had a sense of warmth towards everyone in camp, now. Some more than others, of course. Every time she looked at Halsin her heart would skip several beats and her stomach would fill with butterflies. Every touch from him was wonderful. She had never slept as soundly as she did tangled up in him. On her stiffest mornings, he would spend a good while kneading the knots in her shoulders before she presented her haystack of hair to Shadowheart.

Karlach and Wyll were the glue that held together their little camp, really. Somehow they managed to always be in cheery moods no matter what the day had brought them, and when the darkness seemed to close in around Tav, they could always make her smile somehow. Gale and Shadowheart had both become much closer friends to her than Tav had ever thought they would, and it seemed even Lae’zel couldn’t resist her charms for much longer.

Astarion was a strange case. She had gotten close to him through a mutual transaction, and now it seemed she couldn’t quite pull herself away. He still annoyed the hell out of her most of the time, but she couldn’t help but look for him first when the group returned at night, or to look at him when they all shared a laugh to see if he was laughing, too. Every time he moved she was distracted like a dog when their owner gets up from the couch. It was a great nuisance to her. The attraction she felt towards him felt like something that had been forced on her, like a moth to a flame. There was no warmth in her when she looked into his eyes like there was when she looked at Halsin. This was something instinctual.

It was a vampire thing. It had to be. Or a tadpole thing. Or both. Either way, it didn’t change that he was a bitch and had too much attitude for his own good.

She was becoming aware that she was nearing dangerous territory. She was going to leave these people as soon as she could to return to her life of drinking and dancing and f*cking and… and what? There was something else, surely. Something at the tip of her tongue. Anyway, the point was this: these were people she was destined to lose, either because they would all become mindflayers, they would all die, or she would find her way back home. She could not afford to care for them. And yet, she did.

A mistake she felt the error of when they didn’t return. She was idling around at camp, trying to start the fire beneath the fireplace. She would have started the dinner already, but Gale had told her that doing something as domestic as chopping vegetables and seasoning meat helped him unwind after a day of magical combat. And they were running low on supplies. She didn’t want to possibly mess up what little they had left.

But her friends never showed. The darkness down here made it impossible to keep up with the time, but Tav had a feeling that they were far past the usual time of day when they made it back to her. She was fussing around the camp, cleaning things that didn’t need cleaning, counting stuff that didn’t need counting.

Where the f*ck were they?

Dead? Sick of her? Dead? Trapped? Suffocating as we speak? Held hostage? Hit by collective amnesia, leaving Tav for dead? She grew sick with worry, and with no way to check the time, she felt she was losing her mind. Her stomach had been growling for a good long while, so that must mean it was late, right? She circled the camp. She tried to distract herself with the animals. She poked Withers until he told her that he did not know where they were, and no, he could not check his list of dead people. Then she poked him some more until he glared at her with those dead eyes. Dost thou mind? Yes, Withers, actually she did mind. She was a c*nt hair’s length away from losing it.

It must have been hours later when she was sitting by the fire, head resting in her hand, dozing off despite her anxiety. She didn’t hear him come up behind her, because of course she didn’t. Astarion was part man, part shadow.

He cleared his throat behind her and she shot into the air like an arrow, turning on her feet, pulling the shortsword she’d had lying beside her into a somewhat correct stance. The relief she felt when the person at the end of her blade was Astarion and not someone she actually had to fight (her footwork was faulty - Lae’zel would have pushed her right over, had she been here). “Jesus Christ, Astarion, I almost killed you!”

He laughed. It was such a sweet sound when she had been convinced they were all dead and gone just moments before. “I would have loved to see you try, my dear.”

“Where the f*ck is everyone else? Where have you been? I thought something had happened to you!”

“Cute. And rather insulting. There’s some old temple across the lake, occupied by under-dwarves and their slaves. Or well, it was. Of course, the famed Blade of Frontiers insisted we free them all.”

“That’s what you’ve been doing all this time? Freeing slaves?”

Astarion rolled his eyes and sighed, mistaking her disbelief for displeasure. “Believe me, I told them not to waste their time, but noooo. We are camping with heroes, I’m afraid. And so the slaves are free, the duegar are dead, and some drow made a run for it, and it was all terribly dull.”

Tav was tapping her foot on the ground as he spoke. If anyone could make such an eventful day sound so uninteresting and tiresome, Astarion would be the guy. “So what now? Where are the others?”

Astarion looked as if a light was turned back on inside his head. “Oh! Right, I was sent to retrieve you as if I’m some servant they can boss around. The others will come back for the camp on the morrow. There’s some ancient forge over there they wanted to play around in.” He bowed deeply and mockingly for her, offering his hand. “If the fair lady would do my lowly self the great honour of escorting her?”

Tav huffed. “Shut up. Lead the way. Make sure I don’t die.”

They almost made it without running into trouble. Tav scratched the animals goodbye and grabbed a few things she might need overnight, and then they were off. As soon as they left the colony, all chatter between them ceased. Astarion was on high alert, bow and arrow in hand, ready to draw. Tav didn’t dare make a single sound. She did not have the same weightless stealth as he did, but Lae’zel’s relentless bullying seemed to have improved some of her motoric skills already, soreness besides. She did not stumble as much as she usually did, and she did not feel winded after the first hill they had to climb.

They didn’t meet any monsters, people, or scary animals. The Underdark was eerily quiet around them as they made their way through an abandoned and entirely wooden village, and Tav felt as if every breath she drew was loud. She froze when Astarion stopped and held up a hand to signal a pause, gesturing for her to stay where she was. He was peeking around the corner of the house they’d been sneaking along, silent as a ghost. Tav took a few steps back, meaning to give him space if he should need it, and instead ran into perhaps the biggest villains in all of Faerûn: her own two feet. The heel of her boot caught on something no one else would have managed to trip over, and she lost her balance. With the loudest crash she had ever heard, she plummeted through a rotten wood railing that splintered easily at the collision. She was falling. And she was falling for a long time.

She was going to die now. How many times had she thought that very thought since she came here? Somehow she always managed to survive, but no amount of luck could save a human body from a 50-foot drop.

Unless, of course, she conveniently landed on an enormous, spongy pillow. She landed flat on her back and bounced off of something strangely soft and rubbery, flying through the air for another moment before finally hitting the cold, hard ground. She squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation of a pain that never came. In fact… was her soreness disappearing?

She sat up, hesitant and confused as to why she kept lying down. Let’s try that again. She sat up. No, she didn’t. Why didn’t she sit up?

She looked around. She had managed to land in a field of mushrooms she had never seen before. She could barely see anything for how thickly the spores were clouding the air around her, and she just managed to thank herself for her makeshift mask before she remembered she had left it in the camp. She had no mask. She began to laugh.

It was rather funny, wasn’t it? How the spores seemed to enter her nostrils and tickle the grey matter of her brain. Everything was so silly. Mushroom people. Vampires. A worm in her brain. Was the worm laughing, too? Was the worm eating the spores, growing fat with them? Would it bulge out of her head? That would look rather funny. Tav felt a drop of drool fall from her mouth and into the dust as she laughed, entirely incapable of closing her mouth, barely able to breathe between her shrieks of laughter.

She had been kidnapped into a different dimension by hot squid monsters who had put a baby worm in her brain, and now she was falling in love with a huge man who could turn into a bear, and a vampire was using her as a juice box, and there was a wizard with a talking cat, and ha ha ha. Ha! Ha ha ha ha ha! HA HA HA HA HA!

She had approached this all wrong. This was not a crisis. This was a f*cking comedy. A sitcom with no audience. Ha ha ha ha ha! Ha-ha! Or was it? Was there not a laughing track in the background, or was it inside her head? And who are you? Are you the audience? Hello? Is anyone there? This is Tav–

Tav slithered across the ground like a snake, screaming with laughter. Someone was pulling her leg, and not in the British way. She lifted her heavy, spore-filled head and saw a beautiful, beautiful man dragging her across the ground. Actual stars were floating around his head in a beautifully crafted crown, framing his white curls perfectly, making his dark eyes shine. He was looking down at her while covering the lower half of his face with his sleeve, but he wasn’t fooling her. She knew what he was. A prince. A real prince, kidnapping her. No white horse to speak of, unfortunately. She pointed at him and meant to say something, but another shrill shriek of laughter escaped her instead.

“Gods below,” the prince groaned. “I can’t take you anywhere!”

The world was spinning. He was so pretty. The air around them was clear as glass, or was it water? The prince finally let go of her and kneeled beside her. What was the next move? To play dead? Quick, look dead! Or don’t. Her face wasn’t doing what she was telling it to do. How fun!

The prince was speaking to her now, but she couldn’t understand the words he was saying. She squinted at his mouth. Were those fangs! Yes, they were!”

“Your majesty!” She shouted, meaning to point at his mouth, accidentally poking him in the face instead. “I know what you are!”

“Do us both a favour and shut up, please.”

How rude! The rudest prince she ever saw. She wasn’t going to let it stop her. She was going to tell him a piece of her mind. “I’ll say it! Out loud!”

The ceiling was moving again. Her boot was being pulled. Where were they going? He was trying to distract her. “You’re impossibly fast and strong! Your skin is–”

“By the hells, shut up!” His majesty was covering her mouth now, dragging her along, using his free hand to press her to his chest. My my, buy a girl a drink first. She bit into the soft skin and he yelped, but she couldn’t make her jaws let go.

“We ask before we bite, you animal!” He said to her, wrestling his flesh from her mouth. She tasted copper. Gross. Super gross. She had nothing else to put in her mouth to erase the taste. She turned in his grasp and meant to push him away, to escape him, to run away and put something else in her mouth, but his eyes were so pretty. So red, like jewels, or blood, and so sharp in that pale, pretty face! “Your Grace, you have beautiful eyes!”

“By the hells,” he mumbled, wiping his bleeding hand on her dress before he dragged her further towards wherever the f*ck they were going. “She’s positively demented.”

Maybe she should sing a song?

She wrapped her arms around his neck. She was going to serenade this prince with such vigour and talent. “Listen to me, your pointy majesty! You put the boom-boom into my heart, do you understand?”

“Why darling, I didn’t think you cared. Be quiet, or I’ll have to gag you.”

Tav kissed him on the lips and spun out of his arms with all the grace of a swan, daintily pirouetting through the air. Her landing was perfect. Her backup dancers rushed into the scene, getting into position just in time.

She couldn’t see the audience from the glaring stage lights, but she knew the vampire prince was sitting in the front row. She danced for him, she was the swan queen, the snowflake queen, the dancing queen. Only twenty-six. Tambourine. Oh yeeaah!

Her talent made her weightless. She was flying around in the air as if she were in space, upside down, beautiful. A bird. A ballerina.

Take me dancing tonight, vampire prince. I wanna hit that hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii–

Tav blinked rapidly. Her eyes were swollen from tears and her head was aching.

“There you are, chief!” Wyll said. Wyll? Tav rubbed her eyes with hands made of lead, trying to get them to focus. “What… what happened? Where am I?”

“You’re on a beach,” Karlach said. “Thank the Lady of Luck that you ran into those timmasks so close by. You were howling up a storm, soldier.”

She sat up slowly, looking around at her companions. Astarion, Wyll, and Karlach. The rest must’ve been at the forge, still.

“I remember falling, and then… nothing. What happened?”

Astarion’s mouth was a thin line of displeasure. “You snorted a bunch of timmask spores and started acting insane, dear. That’s what happened.”

“Oh sh*t, I’m sorry! I don’t know–”

“Spare me,” he said with the kind of snobbery in his tone only Astarion could manage. “I don’t want to hear your sorries. I just want you to never sing - pardon, shriek at me that I have to wake you up before I go-go again, thank you very much.”

Tav groaned and covered her aching head with her hands. She didn’t remember a single moment of it. The only thing in her head between falling and now was a vague, tan face, looking at her through a foggy window. She shuddered.

“We need to get moving,” Karlach said, grinning down at her. She’d clearly found the entire situation very entertaining, but she was kind enough to not tease her about it just yet. Tav had no doubt she would never hear the end of it, once she’d recovered. Karlach gestured towards a boat bopping on the still, black water behind them. And when Tav said black, she meant black.

“Jesus,” she gasped, gaping at the sea of ink. “There are actual creatures living in that?”

“Yes, and they’re not the friendly type, I assure you, Wyll answered, grabbing her arm as he helped her on her feet. Anxiety stirred in her stomach as Wyll steered her toward the small boat. It looked like the least safe boat she had ever seen, but they didn’t give her a chance to be nervous about it before shoving her in there. She curled up at the bottom of it, concentrating on not looking over the sides. If she pretended the water wasn’t there, it wouldn’t be so bad.

Karlach grabbed the oars and shook out her shoulders, nodding at Wyll to deal with the rudder. “Let’s sail. Now. It’s just a question of time before every crawling thing down here comes running. I wouldn’t be surprised if they heard you in Menzoberranzan.”

Chapter 25: Invidia

Chapter Text

The grymforge was hotter than Satan’s asshole. Everything was warm. The air, the water, the stonework, everything. The stench of blood hung so thickly in the air that Tav was gagging on it before they even made it off the boat, and it certainly did not help how dizzy and confused she still was. Whatever antidote Wyll had forced down her throat had worked wonders, but she was not okay yet. Not fully there.

“Why does it smell like that?” She whimpered, trying to breathe through the sleeve of her dress. Whatever magic usually kept her temperature regulated didn’t stand a chance against the f*cking incubator that was the grymforge.

“Feel how hot the stone is?” Wyll asked, offering his hand to help her step off the boat. Her skin was clammy when she grasped it. “Parts of the floor are made of metal, and they’re even hotter. What you’re smelling is duergar blood being cooked.”

Wonderful. That was certainly knowledge she could have lived a long happy life without knowing. It took less than five minutes for all four of them (except Karlach, who claimed Avernus was even warmer than this) to be entirely drenched in sweat. Sweaty and flushed looked good on Astarion and Wyll. It did not look good on Tav. She grimaced as she pulled a few soaked strands of hair from where they were sticking to her neck. Yuck. She needed Shadowheart to braid her hair, and she needed it yesterday.

The corpses of the duergar had been placed in an uncomfortably large pile in the corner of what had obviously been the primary battleground. The blood was everywhere, and if she looked closely (she really, really tried not to) she could see it bubble in certain places as the scorching metal boiled it. Disgusting.

“Is this like soup to you, Astarion?” She asked, trying to joke away her enormous discomfort.

“You’re disgusting.” He sneered at her, wiping sweat from his brow. “How long do we have to stay here? I’m practically melting!” He and Karlach bickered good-heartedly as they walked Tav through the forge to where the others were gathered at the edge of…

Holy sh*t.

“Oh my god, that’s lava! Real lava!” Tav exclaimed, causing their little crowd to turn towards her. She looked at Astarion and Shadowheart as if they had answers to questions she didn’t know how to ask. No f*cking wonder it was so burning hot here if the whole thing was sitting on a lake of lava.

The others were discussing some fragmented letters they’d found around the Underdark, all somehow related to the forge that was supposed to be here. Tav didn’t even bother to try to listen. Her head was pounding. Her dress clung to her sweat-soaked back. She needed a shower, and she needed it badly. And she needed sleep. Wyll had reassured her that she would feel much better after a few hours of sleep, and with the way Tav’s muscles were aching and with how weary she was feeling, she did not need to be told twice.

Her friends did not have any objections, and as they were quite certain everyone who had previously occupied the ruins was in the pile of corpses, they felt fine leaving her to her own devices. “Don’t fall into the magma,” Gale said sternly, pointing a finger at her as if she was a dog he was commanding to stay. And then they were off.

Tav almost wished she was back at camp still, worrying about the others until she was on the brink of insanity. At least she’d had it nice and cool, though she hadn’t known to appreciate it at the time. The heat from the stone floor had a hard time climbing through the soles of her infernal leather boots, but it reached her feet regardless. She was so tired, but there was no way she was going to relax on a floor the same temperature as a heating pad. She decided to wander around a bit. There had to be somewhere here that was liveable, just a bit. No one could survive under these conditions without losing their mind, surely.

She climbed a hot metal ladder, walked up some stairs, then down some. Pressed her hands against various stone walls to see if they were hiding cool, shadowy places. It was strange. The Underdark had been so cool and damp like the earth beneath a large stone, and less than an hour of sailing away, a world of fire and smoke and ash.

There were corpses all over the place. If not new ones or ones belonging to people who had been killed before her companions even arrived here, they were skeletons, still dressed in the dark armour they fell in. The entire place was foreboding and ominous enough to give her goosebumps despite what had begun to feel like her complete inability to feel anxiety.

And then, relief. At last. Down another set of stairs by the grymforge’s dock, some of the roaring heat finally subsided. Tav breathed a little easier. The place still reeked. She poked around for a bit, pushing open old doors, rummaging through chests and vases and whatever else was lying about. Her friends had picked the place clean, it seemed. A golden plaque on the wall next to an enormous door caught her attention, and with her boot on the wall for leverage, she pulled it to get a better look at it. It was covered in dust, revealing the common tongue written on it only when she rubbed at it with her sleeve. She still couldn’t read, but she wasn’t as clueless as she used to be. Gale didn’t have the patience to teach her something as trivial as the alphabet, but Astarion had spelt out a few words for her from the dozens of books he kept in his tent. Tav climbed the steps of a new stair, gingerly curling up on one of the steps with the plaque in her lap. She traced the sigils with her finger, managing to identify a few, biting her lip in concentration as she attempted to put the words together.

She was stupid for getting distracted like this, really. She should have heard him coming, seen him coming from a mile away. But she was too busy whispering phonetics to herself, stupidly assuming that of course, her companions were right when they told her everyone who had been here was dead. Astarion had even told her as much, though to her defence, that information happened on the other side of her being poisoned by timmasks. The slaves are free, the duergar are dead, and some drow made a run for it. She should have seen him coming.

“Worthless slaves. Heretics. Colnbluth,” Tav’s shock zapped through her and made her drop the plaque, which slid down the stone steps with an awful clatter. “Your meddling has been my ruin!” Some awful, blueish, Legolas-looking man was climbing the stairs two steps at a time, so furious Tav was surprised steam wasn’t coming out of her ears. It probably would have been better to shoot first and ask questions later, but his presence was so unexpected Tav instinctively shot to her feet and turned to run. He was faster than she had anticipated, grabbing a fistful of her hair and throwing her to the ground before she could escape. How silly of him to do such a thing when she had the high ground on a staircase. With what little leverage her tired legs allowed her, she launched herself off the steps and directly into his chest, only just managing not to scream when he almost pulled her with him by her hair when he fell. Tav scrambled backwards up the stairs, widening the space between them as much as she could. And suddenly there were no more steps, but a platform, and Tav stumbled to her knees to run, but there was nowhere to go. She had trapped herself. All there was left to do was shoot.

She turned on the spot as the man advanced on her, but he was still at a considerable distance, and she had a good moment to summon her powers before he’d reach her–

You are in my thrall.

The words echoed from the walls inside of Tav’s skull, and the breath was ripped from her lungs at the same time as she crashed to the floor on her hands and knees. She felt her joints and muscles lock, trapping her in place as if someone had hit a pause button she didn’t know she had. The panic was immediate when she tried to resist and realised that her body was completely out of her control.

“Sit up.”

Nere’s command ripped through her like the lash of a whip, and all she could do was watch as he entered her field of view. The look in his eyes as he approached was absolutely horrifying. “I was so close,” he hissed, dusting off his robes as he finally made it to the platform where Tav was kneeling. She felt like a lamb in a lion’s cage. “I was so close to gaining her favour, and then I was trapped. For days. Then, just as I thought the Absolute had heard my prayers and sent me aid, you people showed up.”

He spat on the ground inches from her and locked her jaw in an iron grip, forcing her to look up at him before slapping her across the face. She could taste her own blood. “And not only are you heretics, disloyal to the Absolute, but you ripped her favour from me a second time. Nere. Does. Not. Fail.” He slapped her again. Tav’s ears were ringing, and she felt tears run down her cheeks, but she couldn’t do anything. She couldn’t even blink. She wanted to tell him that she had no idea who he was, that she had a tadpole too, and that whichever way he was planning on killing her, her friends could and would do ten times worse. She was trying to push her thoughts into his head, trying to reach his tadpole, but her heartbeat was too loud in her ears and her fear was too strong.

And it grew stronger, still, when Nere reached down to roughly fondle her chest, squeezing her breast painfully before he spat on the ground again. “Females. I was taught to bow to you from the moment I took my first breath. But no longer. Now I worship a true goddess. Now you bow to me, you sun-scum c*nt!”

He slapped her again, and her immovable head took the full force of it. She was so afraid she was blind with it, reaching for whatever she could think of inside her head, silently begging her guardian to take away her fear so her thoughts could unfreeze, but she could do nothing. She could do nothing at all.

And she didn’t fully realise what was happening until Nere undid his robe.

No.

No.

She screamed ira so harshly in her mind that her brain stung with it, and she felt the magic flow to her fingertips, but she could not wield it. Utterly, helplessly defenceless.

“Open your mouth, thrall.”

She felt her jaw fall open. If she could, she would have screamed. Her heart was beating so harshly in her chest that it felt like it was about to come loose and escape her. If she conjured up enough of her magic, perhaps she could cause some kind of implosion and kill herself?

Anything, anything, anything but this.

Nere undid the laces of his trousers and put his dirty, dusty thumb into her mouth, using her saliva to wet her lips. There was no lust in his eyes, no desire. It was pure, icy hatred. His spell on her didn’t stop the sobs emerging from deep in her chest and stumbling out of her open mouth. She wanted to close her eyes or to close her damn mouth, but all she could do was let him stare into her soul as he silenced her crying by roughly pushing his co*ck between her lips.

Her mind went entirely blank. Whether it was her guardian or herself, Tav felt how she drifted away, further and further from her body as Nere thrust into her throat until she nearly choked. She heard him groan and mumble all kinds of degrading insults to her, but it was as if she was listening to him from underwater, and she couldn’t make out the words. Her body was a hurricane of fear and disgust, her silent mind the eye of it. And in that quiet, little moment, a new word was forming. It came to her like the first deep breath of air after breaking through the water’s surface.

Invidia.

She could not move, so she could not wield. She couldn’t sling the force magic from her, and she didn’t have enough thought in her mind to make him do her bidding like Flind had done it. But this spell didn’t need wielding nor coherent thought. This spell needed her fear, her disgust, and with all of her tiny might, she vomited those feelings into that single word, repeated over and over in her head until she could hear nothing else.

Invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia invidia

invidia invidia invidia

invidia

inv

i

dia

A thousand miles away, Nere choked on something invisible, and he stumbled back several steps. Tav was still frozen in place with her violated mouth hanging open, but Nere could not enthral her thoughts. Her mind screamed and she felt like her head was about to burst as she repeated the spell over and over, a choir made up only of herself, and Nere’s own spell was turned against him. She stretched her inner voice into his head where her spell was taking root, repeating his own words back to him.

Now, Nere, you are in my thrall.

Nere tumbled down the stairs, landing flat on his back at the bottom of them, but it was not enough to break his concentration. No matter. His spell would cease soon enough.

On your feet, Nere. To the dock, Nere. On your knees, Nere. Where is your Goddess now, Nere?

Nere was screaming because she didn’t make him stop screaming. Each shriek and protest was a bandaid on the wound he had just cut into her.

Put your head into the water, Nere. All the way, Nere. Swallow a mouthful of that dark, dark water, Nere. Breathe it in, Nere. Deep breath, Nere.

Something inside of her was curling up like a burning piece of paper, shrinking into something small and dark and horribly familiar. When Nere’s heart stopped beating, his spell finally broke, and the first thing Tav did was lean forward and throw up all over the floor. Gale’s porridge got in her hair and on her dress and almost drowned her as she hyperventilated her way through the kind of panic she hadn’t felt in ages. Whatever door she had opened to let her fear fuel her magic, it seemed her guardian struggled to close it. Her heart was going to give out. She couldn’t breathe.

She spotted Nere’s limp body hanging over the edge of the dock and threw up again, crawling backwards as she sobbed between shallow breaths, every bit a frightened animal. Her back crashed into some sort of metal lever that was startlingly cold in comparison to everything else, and before Tav understood what was happening, she was being lifted into an ancient elevator shaft. She looked around frantically, searching the iron elevator she had stumbled into for any escape routes, but she found none.

She didn’t feel her guardian the way she usually did. There was no buzzing, no scent of amber, no feeling of him gently nudging her anxiety down. It felt as if her neck snapped, a button was pushed, a light went out. And then she felt nothing.

She breathed evenly as she slowly wiped her cheeks and nose with the back of her sleeve. There was nothing to do for her sweat- and vomit-soaked hair, so she settled on gently pulling it from her face and neck to let it hang slack down her back. Her dress would fix itself. This elevator sure was going for a long time, wasn’t it?

Left that one a little late, didn’t you? She thought pointedly at her guardian, but he did not answer. She hoped he was feeling guilty in a corner of his little space-rock. The elevator rumbled and shook before finally coming to a stop, revealing a dark, chilly corridor. The cold was more than welcome. Tav didn’t think twice before getting on her feet and exiting the little vessel, searching her surroundings with an indifferent curiosity. There were many of the same aesthetic choices here as there had been in the unscathed parts downstairs. This was clearly the same building, except a dozen miles above the forge.

Somewhere ahead of her, a breeze was coming through. She sniffed the air, trying to make out any clues to what was waiting on the other side of whatever opening it was coming in through, but she got nothing. It smelled like snowless winter, which gave her exactly zero ideas. Dead leaves and dirt and muck. Wonderful. A ball.

Tav proceeded through the dark, a hand tracing her path along the wall so she wouldn’t get wayward. The exit didn’t look intentional as it was nothing but a big ol’ crack in the wall, covered in dark, spooky roots and branches that looked like the arms of a creature trying to climb inside. Beyond it was another corridor. Tav couldn’t see the floor for the crazy amount of dark plant growth, but some of the glowing gems and mushrooms from the Underdark below seemed to have made it up here. In the pale blue light, all the shadows were long and dark, and the cool air made her shiver.

Big, wooden double doors separated her from somewhere Nere was not. Her companions weren’t there, either, but poking her nose out a little bit wouldn’t do any harm. She just needed a big gulp of fresh, over-ground air. A breeze would surely chase Nere’s touch from her body and his taste from her mouth. It was all she needed.

She pushed open the doors with the demeanour of a princess leaving her castle, and then she paused and stared. A tiny, hysterical giggle bubbled through her. She had done it again.

Before her, endless darkness. The sky was black as tar and even from here, Tav could see that every plant was dead. It was completely silent, and it smelled of rot. There were no birds, no bugs, no nothing. Tav felt like she was looking at a painting. She didn’t know a lot of things and she did spend most of her time in Faerûn feeling confused, but there was no doubt in her mind right at this moment. These were the Shadow-Cursed Lands. She had to go back and tell the others that she had once again, and quite literally, stumbled upon exactly what they were looking for.

She was much calmer than she should have been when she heard the elevator creak and shudder behind her before descending back into the dark. She walked back to the shaft, looking down as her only way back slowly disappeared from her view.

Well, this wasn’t good.

She looked around for any sort of mechanism she could use to call on it, but the walls were blank. If there were a button or a lever somewhere, she was too dumb to see it. She felt all around the decorative metal frame of the shaft’s entrance, but there was nothing. She touched everything she could, but everything remained still. She drew the deepest sigh of her life.

sh*t.

Chapter 26: meanwhile

Chapter Text

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses-”

If he were being entirely honest with you, he’d never respected all that religious sh*te. It had seemed stupid, irrational, and a bit mad at home. Some old codger sat all comfortably in the skies, watchin’ misery rain on him and his loved ones? No’ really a God he’d want to worship.

But religion was different here. He’d seen it in action, seen actual Gods and Goddesses reach from the skies to lend their divine powers to their followers in battle or when healin’. And now, when the other world-hoppers gathered ‘round to pray to their old man at home, he often found himself joinin’. Jus’ in case.

He sat on his knees at their makeshift altar and mumbled along with the words, but his heart wasn’t fully in it just now. Try as he might, he couldn’t stop thinkin’ about how this wasn’t the first time he’d been on his knees today. The gloves on his hands smelled so strongly of leather that he could smell ‘em even as they were folded in prayer in front of him, which did little to help his wanderin’ mind. There was somethin’ about the smell of leather that grossed him out and riled him up at the same time. Perhaps it was because it always smelled so intentional back home. You didn’t just walk about smellin’ like leather out on the street if you were a normal person. You either worked with leather, deliberately chose a perfume that smelled of it, or you were into some BDSM-sh*t. Those were the only options.

It was different in Faerûn. Here, leather was as common as polyester was in an H&M. It was heady, too. Darker. Deeper. A scent that rubbed off on the skin and overshadowed all traces o’ soap and sweat and musk. Everythin’ was leather. Sometimes it was an improvement; the young man whose co*ck had been down his throat earlier that evenin’ probably hadn’t had a proper bath in weeks, bein’ on the road and all. But he didn’t smell anythin’ but leather as he had swallowed him to the hilt and buried his nose in the crude, curly hair at the base.

The young man had been swearin’ under his breath and had locked his hand around the back of his neck, forcin’ him to stay in place when he tried to pull back.

Bastard.

He’d braced his hands against his hips and pulled back with more force, glarin’ up at said bastard. All he was met with was a crooked, malicious smirk, lust twinklin’ in those bovine eyes.

Pretty bastard, then.

He cleared his throat and tried to shake off the thoughts of the sounds the adventurer had made when he had begun to bop his head, dragging his tongue along his length. He would not let him get away with chokin’ him so easily and had let his bottom teeth lightly graze the sensitive spot right below the head, barely holdin’ back a laugh when the man had inhaled sharply and moved back his hips. He’d pulled his wet co*ck from his mouth and let it smack against his cheek, leavin’ a trail of saliva behind.

“f*ckin’ brat,” the man had hissed at him, grabbin’ a fistful of his hair as leverage before pushin’ himself down his throat again. He was an arse, really, but he’d always had a thing for jocks. This particular merc would definitely have been on the football team if he’d grown up on Earth instead of here, and despite how mouthy he was, he was rather charmin’. He had been extra charmin’ when his eyebrows had knitted together and his mouth had fallen open when he finished, allowin’ himself to be sucked dry of every last drop before wincin’ and pullin’ back.

But this was no time to think about that, now. He probably would never see him again. He didn’t even remember his name. Andreas? Anders? Sod it. It didn’t matter, anyway. He’d left the inn they had met at shortly after he’d swallowed a load of his cum, escorting a large group of tieflings to some city far away. He and his crew were headed in the opposite direction, towards someplace called Elturel.

When the prayer was over, he rose to his feet and sought out Jen. She was sittin’ cross-legged on one of the walls surrounding the inn, reading a copy of Six of Crows that had seen much, much better days. “Hey, Casanova,” she greeted him as he lifted himself up next to her. “Where’d your boyfriend go?”

“On his way to wherever,” he replied, acceptin’ the sh*te rolled cigarette she handed him before lettin’ her light it with the tip of her finger. Most of the world-hoppers had some sort of power goin’ for them that they’d had to learn since they got here. Jen’s was fire. He hadn’t discovered his own yet.

The crudeness of the dry tobacco almost made him cough. He missed Marlboro Reds more than he missed anythin' else. Almost.

“Heard the news?” Jen asked, takin’ a long drag of her own cigarette.

“What’s that?”

“We’re splitting up. Half of us are going to Elturel, the other half of us are going to Baldur’s Gate.”

“The big city, aye?”

“Yeah. But apparently, there’s some kind of sleeping beauty-ass curse we have to go through, so I’m not very happy about where they’ve decided to put me.”

“What about me?”

Jen looked at him in silence for a moment before pullin’ a folded piece of paper from her bra. Charming as ever. She handed it to him, and he unfolded the skin-warmed letter to assess the damage. An official order from their unofficial headquarters, askin’ them to split up to cover more ground and eventually get to the big places. He searched for his name on the lists of who was going where.

And there it was. His name, right beneath a dozen other names, all bein’ sent to Baldur’s Gate.

“Innit their capital or somethin?” He asked, handin’ back the paper before takin’ another drag, tryin’ to ignore the way his heart was pumpin’ in his chest. He’d heard rumours about the curse. It wasn’t a place he’d been eager to see.

“I think so? I don’t think they view it that way, though. It’s gonna be totally cool there, it’s one of the largest cities they have.”

“It’ll only be totally cool if we make it there alive,” he said darkly, which earned him a swat with the back of her hand. “Don’t be such a pessimist, Ollie. At least we’re going there together.”

He faked a smile, starin’ off into the dusk. She was right, at least they were goin’ together. And they’d made it this far, hadn’t they? Faerûn was a tough place, but they’d toughened up to face her. They all had. Those who’d survived, anyway. But still, he couldn’t seem to shake this terrible feelin’ that they were makin’ a mistake.