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"Darling, we’re on the same side. You’re safe as houses with me." |
He smiled and tilted his head. Coquettish. Did that work for him? Did the pretty noble girls fall all over themselves when he batted his eyes at them? He didn’t have a sincere bone in his body. He said the right words, words that would have sounded reassuring in a different voice but not while he smiled at her like tha... |
"You’re a salesman," Tav said. |
"Am I? Should I open a shop? Become one of those traveling merchants with a pack on my back like a mule?" he said. |
"What would you sell?" |
"This was your topic of conversation, you tell me. What would I sell?" |
"I haven’t figured it out yet," Tav said. "I run a shop in a market not too far from the Gray Harbour. When you make that face, you remind me of the callers out in front of the shops trying to entice the shoppers in. You’re selling something." |
The flirtatious little smile settled into something darker. It might have been frightening, it seemed intended to be frightening but it was a relief. It was the first thing she’d seen on his face that seemed truly genuine. He did not like that assessment at all. It made her breathe a little easier to see it. Under all ... |
"What do you sell?" he asked with the flirtatious edge back in his voice. The act reasserted itself over that flicker of honest emotion. He leaned forward and tilted his head. Tav had never been silently called a whore before. She had been called a whore to her face before but always with words. People threw it around ... |
She let her own act slip on that single word. The genial merchant. The blacksmith’s daughter. The cheerful artisan who just wanted to help. Tav had an act too. She wasn’t entirely convinced that letting him stay in the same camp was a good idea. She didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. She let that show on h... |
"When you said you were a guild artisan this morning, did you mean a Thieves Guild?" he asked. |
The smile was firmly in place now. He raised his eyebrows in a question. |
"I’ll trade," Tav told him. |
"Trade, darling?" he asked. |
"One of yours for one of mine." |
"Mine are worth more." |
"Prove it and I’ll give you two." |
He cocked his head and considered that. |
Her chance to find out what secrets Astarion would be willing to trade was interrupted by the arrival of the gregarious wizard. That was a disappointment but Astarion would have just lied to her. Still, the conversation made her feel a little better about sleeping in the same room as him. He was a killer but he had the... |
Gale had come bearing some stolen cheese and half a loaf of bread and for that, he could be forgiven anything. Tav was hungry. She’d already eaten one meal and she was still hungry. |
"Thank all the gods, dead or alive, for the man brings food," Tav intoned as dramatically as possible. |
Gale played along with a flourish and a bow. "I have concluded my great quest and come bearing spoils." |
Tav took her share and turned back to Astarion to offer him his but he had disappeared into the dark without a word. Tav considered calling after him and forcing food on him. He hadn’t eaten at dinner either. After the day they’d had, he needed to eat something. He already had the complexion of someone who had a close ... |
"His loss," she said cheerfully. |
She broke the extra piece in half again and redistributed the crumbly stale bits. Tav turned her attention to Gale’s story which was a bit more long-winded than it needed to be but it was nice to hear someone talk about the normal world. Everything had gotten so weird, so fast. Gale had a cat. Gale wanted a new book. G... |
Listening to him helped her push out thoughts of parasites and skeleton men and books listing long-dead gods and obnoxious pale elves with big secrets. |
Tav had murdered someone for the first time when she was still a teenager. He had deserved it and she had never looked back on that moment with regret. She’d grown up with weapons in hand and knew her way around a blade from the first moment the iron hit the forge until the moment it slid into someone’s body. It wasn’t... |
It was the chaos that scared her. |
A close quarters fight was a battle of wits and speed. You killed them before they killed you. Simple in its own way. Tav was very good at getting people alone where she needed them to be before she started the fight. There was a strategy to location. She wasn’t an assassin, she didn’t kill people for fun or even profi... |
She killed to survive. |
This wasn’t so different. |
This was just an open field in broad sunlight and they’d stumbled into it while people were screaming and waving weapons around. Now she had goblins above her and before her and no guarantees that they weren’t about to be outflanked and attacked from behind. |
She could have slunk away. She was fast enough and far enough back that the goblins were all looking at the gate instead of at her. Not her circus. Not her monkeys. Advice from her father that had served her well. Then one of her monkeys went and got involved in the big top show. Lae’zel ran forward into the fray and t... |
Two days. Tav had know this woman for two days and she was a Githyanki warrior more than capable of handling herself in a fight. Tav could turn and go. She didn’t owe Lae’zel anything. She didn’t owe the yelling people at the gate anything either. |
The hesitation lasted for a moment and then Tav scrambled up the nearest rock, headed for the goblin at the top. Lae’zel was going to take an arrow to the back of the head if she charged into a fight like that with no one watching her back. She wasn’t entirely sure if the other two were on her heels or not. |
One problem at a time. The archer lined up the shot and Tav hit her with a firebolt. She stopped and held her breath but nothing happened. There was a solid thunk behind her as another goblin fell. A mace. Shadowheart had a mace. An arrow shot by her ear, whistling. A scream. A blast of magic. A sharp burn in her arm. ... |
She had never been so grateful to go through a door when the gate rolled up. |
It felt like hours later that she managed to shake everyone off and find a quiet corner tojust sit down and let it wash over her. The emotions ran through her, making her feel shaky. |
"You are not accustomed to battle." |
"Go away, Lae’zel," Tav said. |
"You handled yourself admirably. Pull yourself together." |
"Go away, Lae’zel. This is me pulling myself together. Is there another army at the gates, right now? Right this instant?" Tav asked. |
"No," Lae’zel said. |
"Then go away. It’s getting dark." |
"We should return to camp." |
"I’ll meet you there." |
Lae’zel’s judgmental hum was almost as distinctive as Astarion’s annoyed little exhale. These two? These two were who she had found herself tied up with? This was her circus and these were her monkeys? A terrifying warrior and a man who was shocked by the prospect of sleeping on the ground. Gods damn it all. She wanted... |
"Your first kill is an honour." |
"My first kill was when I was seventeen," Tav said. |
She did not add any details and Lae’zel did not press. It was hard to explain that it hadn’t been the killing but the chaos. It probably wasn’t the most dangerous situation she had ever been in but it felt worse. It had been out of her control. Tav liked things under her control. Of course she did. She was one of the m... |
Lae’zel left her to her brooding. Tav unwound herself slowly. |
There was blood on her clothes and blood on her weapons and even if she couldn’t control anything else, she could control that. |
No one bothered her when she made it back to the camp. She picked up her pack and went looking for the quietest corner. |
Astarion had chosen a back corner for his tent this time. Sometimes he plopped himself down in the middle of everything and watched the others in their comings and goings while he pretended to read a book. Today, he had moved away from everyone. |
Which was annoying because that was exactly what Tav wanted to do and now there was a cranky bastard in the spot she wanted. She considered moving back to the fire side but Gale had been all earnest flattery and she wanted to concentrate. She didn’t want cheerful conversation. She didn’t want questions about tactics or... |
She laid the leather mat and the tools out on the ground near his lamp. |
"What do you want?" he asked. |
"I have weapons to clean, if you don’t take care of them, they’ll lose their edge," she said. "I can do your daggers too. Pass them over." |
"Why there?" he asked. |
"Because you don’t like me," she told him. |
"Who said I don’t like you?" he asked and the flirtatious mask was back up. Fuck. That was worse than Gale being nice. Maybe she could get a spot beside Shadowheart instead. Shadowheart was quiet when she was praying and she was always praying. Tav had been banking on Astarion sitting in this corner because he was sulk... |
"I was hoping for mutual animosity to be a slightly quieter affair," she said. |
She cut him off. "Give me your daggers and read your book and leave me alone. I don’t want you to put on your little show for me. Go flirt with someone who appreciates it, I’ve had enough." |
That particular little noise was eloquent but Tav ignored the implications. She pretended she didn’t hear the unasked questions or musings on who had offended her. She did not defend her annoyance. She laid out the polish and the cleaner and the tool set in a neat little row and then pulled out the weapons she had used... |
Shockingly, Astarion actually did as he was told. |
He laid his blades down next to her row and then retreated back to his tent. He sat with a mug of mystery liquid and the book and did not ask any questions or spew forth any flirtatious nonsense. He let her work. She could feel his attention to flit to her now and again but the longer she didn’t react to him, the longe... |
Once she’d finished her own great sword and the short sword and one of his two daggers, she was starting to feel better. A job done well always helped calm her nerves. She took the last blade, his second dagger, the man fought like a dervish with two blades. He could probably dance too. He didn’t have the footwork trai... |
"There," she said passing him the two blades. He flipped them over in his hands, studying the edge for a moment before he slid them back into place. |
"I don’t hate you," he said. "Just for the record." |
"I didn’t say hate. I said you didn’t like me. It’s fine. You don’t have to like me. You don’t even have to stick around if it bothers you so much when I agree to help someone. Just for the record." |
Sarcasm was childish. She rubbed the bridge of her nose. |
Tav had been in a better mood after cleaning the steel and polishing the edges. Everything needed a good sharpening too but that was a bigger job and it could wait for later. For now, she just needed the blood off of the steel so it didn’t rust or grow curses in the dark. She was in a better mood but not a good mood. S... |
She needed him. She needed all of them. The idea of being on her own with a worm in her head in the middle of the sword coast was terrifying. The way he always seemed to be passing judgment irritated her. The little looks he gave her. The way his tone shifted when she’d done something he thought was foolish. He irritat... |
"Do what you want," Astarion said. |
"It won’t change anything." |
"What’s that supposed to mean?" she asked. |
She sat with her feet crossed on the ground with her tools laid out in front of her. It had been practical for the task. It was hard to clean a great sword when it was balanced on your knee. Now she felt a little like a child at lessons, sitting patiently while the teacher talked. A teacher in an open lace front shirt.... |
"What are you going to do? Personally escort all the little Teifling children down to Baldur’s Gate? Sure, you could do it. Keep them alive on the road. Feed them stale bread and yesterday’s fish. Then what? They’re just more grist for the mill," he trailed off. |
"Those little children you’re so fond of? With their coin tricks and their thievery. They’re just more urchins. Baldur’s Gate will chew them up and spit them out. You’re not changing anything. They can die today. They can die tomorrow. They can die old and bitter and miserable. You can’t change that. We have more press... |
Tav studied him. She’d seen little flashes of who he really was under all the posturing. Little fragments here and there. Usually on a word or a glance. This was the most honesty she had ever seen from him. She met that honesty with her own. |
"Yes?" he repeated. |
"If the last thing I do on this world is save someone’s life, is that so bad?" |
"It’s ridiculous. Are they going to write ballads about you? Is that the plan? Die a heroic death so the poets can sing your praises?" |
"Poets? Which poets? Volo?" |
The comment broke the rising tension of the moment, he cracked a smile. A small one. Not a very nice one but not one that was part of a mask. |
She answered honestly, "It’s not about poets. History can erase me. A blacksmith’s daughter with a bad end. I never expected history to remember me. I’m the eighth child in a cursed family. Nothing good was ever written in the stars for me." |
"So? Why? You’re just a hero? You and the Blade of Frontiers can ride off into the sunset to be all righteous and leave a trail of bodies in your wake? Why do it?" |
"Because no one ever came for me." |
He raised an eyebrow and she considered whether she was strong enough to take him in a fight. If she strangled him and dumped the body, would anyone really care? There was no sarcastic response. Maybe she could get out of that admission without explaining anything. She did not need his commentary. |
Tav packed up her things. Maybe he was right. Maybe it wouldn’t matter. Maybe she should just leave the Druids and the Teiflings to whatever horrors might come. Maybe it was all foolishness. They could go to the crèche, abandon the idea of finding this Halsin. Lae’zel was so sure it was the right answer and it would be... |
She screwed the lids back onto the little vials and carefully put the tools back in their spots in the case and then rolled everything up and stood. Astarion was still watching her. |
"What about you?" she asked. |
"What do you want to spend your last days on this world doing?" she asked. |
"I have people to kill," he said with an elegant shrug and a smile. That wasn’t part of the mask either. Tav nodded once and then turned tail and walked away from him. |
"Why are you sitting there, bleeding?" |
"I got stabbed, darling, it leaves a hole." |
"I noticed. Go see the cleric." |
His lip curled and he tilted his head towards the other side of the camp as though he could see through the trees. |
"She’s not busy," Tav told him. Shadowheart was probably praying. She would consider that busy but she could spare a moment. She had far more healing magic at her disposal than the rest of them and from the looks of the blood stain, he needed it. He didn’t move. |
"Or use one of these," she said rummaging in her bag for a bottle and holding it out. |
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