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tieflingfingers · 2 months ago

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What and who: Thomasin crosses paths with Ilmater. Mizora enacts Wyll's consequences. Wyll, Karlach, Astarion, and Thomasin try to bond, yet squabble. Summary: Wyll is confronted by Mizora and endures a pained transformation. Thomasin tries to contend with her decision-making and comforts Wyll afterward. Wyll can't get past Astarion's probable vampirism and everyone considers their past mistakes. Warning/Content: Re-write of Wyll's Act 1 conflict with body horror undertones. Religious intro/healing injured mouse. Tension and tea brewing shenanigans. Comfort and humor. Part of series/can be read as one-off. Word Count: 8, 056 Ao3 Link

Thomasin’s introduction to doctrine was hard to place. A memory where deities were transparently discussed. She knew not their dogma. Only of their existence. Foreign beings as ubiquitous as blessings strangers utter upon passing.

The young-half-elf found her moral codes through context. Guidance from which was already given. Her own tender palms, her mother’s ethics, and all the effigies baked into a single small Dales town. A village, in some respects. Culture cultivated by generations homesteading, despite looming threats of Zhentarim or the drow.

Farmers worked in tandem with superstition. Men with leathery thumbs pinched acorns in their pockets. Grandmothers hung herbs from doorways. Details of their purpose felt like obscure anecdotes, only peppered with hints of what these objects predict or ward off. The names of beasts seemingly held as much power as the beasts, themselves.

Without someone to sit down and draw a map, Thomasin described faith as complex. Out of reach. Even over her head, which she found clever in its wordplay. Deities were a personal matter brass-bolted in nuance. As intimate to the individual as the community they governed.

So, she grew complacent and asked few questions. It grew into social taboo. Locked away like all the other questions one held their tongue for out of courtesy. Never ask a neighbor the whereabouts of their mischievous wife. Never ask why someone’s flower garden always wilted.

Still, the magic of it all fostered curiosity from a distance.

Perhaps her mother had mystified the gods too far. She had a penchant for romanticizing everything, making lore for what was incompressible or lacked shine. Her life and history. Her friends and lovers. Her recipes and early morning manual labor.

Stones in her shoes. Soot on her face. It broke monotony.

Conversations often evolved into waxing poetic under candlelight. She likened diversity within prayer to a veil. Faith was overhanging. Made of lace so thin that it’s felt on the skin before ever truly witnessed. As ethereal as mist left puddled on window panes after consuming moonlit mornings. Droplets feeding potted flora and mildew, alike.

As long as the ether felt welcoming, her daughter had little reason to fret.

Late in childhood, Thomasin found herself wandering the Dales alone. A year on foot that stretched time into oblivion. No mentors nor parental buffers. The limbo of a lamb wobbling her way through unfamiliar lands on unfamiliar hooves. Although she wasn’t afforded the same care as a babe. Lambs didn’t have to seek protection.

They did not know the tiresome grind of chasing coins. The raw hands of plucking herbs or tossing hay bales in exchange for shelter. Such a term of endearment had liquified into mockery. Creatures of the weak and feeble.

That was, until she discovered a gift. Not a tangible one. The gift of silence. Nights with nothing but time to ponder under the warmth of a woolen skirt. An answer was simple. It was everywhere. The barn over her head, unsteady structures, swayed and creaked amidst twilight hours. They were being kissed by the gentle caress of the veil.

At age sixteen, Thomasin would tell you that the Church of Ilmater found her. That the religious undertones of the lamb was a calling. A clue. That, just maybe, fervent religiosity was born out of more than the desire to appease. The soles of her feet blistered in chapped leather boots. Hide as dry as one’s tongue contemplating whether boiling river water was truly worth the exertion.

The Church of Saint Fanal presented a quaint presence in reality. Nestled amidst a glade, repurposed stone walls were engraved with the tales of a martyred being. Stones that had seen countless seasons. Embraced countless deities. Arched windows consumed in creeping ivy engulfed a bell tower whose ring had been lost for decades.

To her, Ilmater’s humble abode was paramount. Spires towering. Presence palpable.

The narrative of a selfless god stretched its way into the inner halls, lining them with depictions of kneeling priests and cupped hands. Symbols foretold sacrifice that was all but lost on her. Fear became undercut by the scent of incense and fresh herbal bread. The sounds of calming chants and humble shrine offerings.

She’d become a stranger to the village. No one knew her and she knew no one. Yet, she was welcome.

Thomasin reconciled with what religious community could provide.

The young girl wore eagerness upon heavy eyelids and it wasn’t long before the clergy swept her into their soft crimson weave of thread. Sisters of Ilmater were nimble. Their life’s purpose was tending to the forgotten. With no hesitation, they lead the child into their own forms of placation. Meals from their garden and a bedroll packed into canned sleeping quarters.

The church floors were made of flat limestone that buckled from intrusive tree roots. Numerous wood furnishings waned under the slightest weight, but aesthetics weren’t important to their congregation. Mouths were fed. Wounds were healed. Storms never drenched backs. A library cradled the outer edges of their prayer space, where the half-elf spent much of her free time.

To maintain her place, Thomasin first took on menial tasks. She replaced bundles of mint that disguised odors in the clerical ward. Transplanted herbs to sunnier corners and mended tabards with loose plaited hairs in place of thread. Every task, done with graciousness and speed alike.

Clergymen even joked that their young convert zipped around the gardens as though she were an entire hive of bees.

It was no wonder Sister Elowen ebbed into her life.

She was a human whose hair greyed into a powdery neutral not unlike her complexion. Wrinkles sat deep within an expression that favored stoicism after being etched by years of service. The elder had retired from monastic duties. As Ilmater acknowledged the body, he knew of limitation and eventual pleads for rest. Caring for your own ensured you could continue aiding others. And so, her body, still more than willing to give, searched for new avenues.

Now it was mentorship.

Under her care, she could create the greatest pacifistic army Faerun had ever known.

When visitation grew sluggish, Thomasin was challenged with conjuring the weave. The half-elf was never a child of magical prowess. Cantrips had been picked up for the practical use of lighting candles or misting water on hot days. Tapping into magic, in its truest intentional form, meant surpassing some unknown threshold.

Sister Elowen persisted. Pushed, even. Never scolding the youth, but insisting Thomasin remember the goodness in her heart. Goodness that could produce more than a flicker of light. The inner momentum to grant blessings upon something as minute as a bronze coat button.

Thomasin had a need for purpose. She lacked subtlety as those still growing often do. But this proved her an ideal student. A beacon of potential in a youth somehow not jaded from lone travels. She teemed with optimism and empathy.

But, there was one glaring pitfall.

Urgency.

Despite frequent reminders, she had the tendency to treat time as ever fleeting. Even when Sister Elowen echoed words like a script, her apprentice’s spells fizzled at their brightest point. The desire to please was evident. It propelled the half-elf into the bitter fruits of unripe instant gratification. And so, the youth was often found in the gardens alone, where the clergy left her be.

Practice overtook her free time. One day, she focused on the heart. The next, the gut. Then, the spirit. There must've been hundreds of faint vibrations that laid dormant. It was all encouraged. The longer her search, the more her peers commended her dedication. Her mentor, moreso.

Of course, she needed time to contend with their god on her own terms and adopt a personal connection. A message would surely arise from the man, himself. Howling winds. Bushels of spontaneous white roses. Anything.

Then, one evening, as Sister Elowen rounded a bend, a soft squeaking caught her attention. She wandered towards a high open archway that spit out into the chapel gardens. She pressed her shoulder against stone and studied her apprentice.

The teenager had braided her hair in tight clean bundles as were her sleeves. No distractions. She sat with legs tucked beneath her, slouched, and peered into her cupped hands. Within, a field mouse writhed. Wounds punctured in pairs along its tiny body. Feral cats were known to live around the premises.

As she funneled all her concentration on the trembling creature, her own hands trembled as well. If she couldn’t take its suffering away, the least she could do was console it. So, she began to grant her newfound friend an equally feeble tune.

One that shuddered with her own anxieties, but created a foundation. It bloomed from a whisper to a wordless melody. Bright and warm. Blossomed into a lullaby that could allow the mouse to drift into its next phase of being.

Little did she realize, she was conjuring.

It crawled like molasses. Seeped through her muscle tissue. Begged to break down the dam she'd unknowingly cultivated.

Until, the twigs gave with a sudden snap. Every fiber of her was activated. Her joints locked in place as though any movement would diminish the moment. An urge to stop pulsed like the rush in her hands. Yet, promise of a miracle prevented her from letting go.

She couldn’t stop singing.

She shouldn’t.

The half-elf cradled the mouse and watched its ribs splint themselves and reset one by one. Her own fluttering lungs mimicked its pierced organs as they arranged themselves into their proper resting place. It made her gasp for air.

Had her own lungs been plunged by corporeal daggers?

Did a god find her actions traitorous?

Upon exhale, she noticed empathy left her hoarding her breath. Saving it like she did not have permission to indulge. The red splotches across her freckled skin intensified into a crimson blush. Eyes narrowed. She had one life flickering in her care.

Eventually, the note arose once more. Its soft melodic latched onto wildflowers blowing in the breeze. The pressure in her chest tingled throughout her arms, enveloped her bones, and cloaked her shoulders. Invigorating and frightening. Drawing her in with the same sensation she imagined bugs felt when pressed up against lanterns.

As the mouse mended its most dire injuries, she felt something concentrated at her fingertips. Needlepoint jabs pricking from inside. Stimulation prodding as though her own skin was an inconvenience. Each pad became raw like fresh bruises. Blood puddling from within, begging to be freed.

The field mouse’s wounds melded shut in a matter of seconds, stitched by the forces that be. Health beyond what it had before its unfortunate spat. And, as it gathered the courage to leap from her hands, Thomasin involuntarily recoiled. She watched the creature scurry into tall grass.

Now, she was only left with herself.

Sister Elowen knew this was her cue. Quick intervention. Her boots thumped on embedded cobblestones consumed by grass, which gave Thomasin a startle. The first true signs of Ilmater weren’t always soft in their divinity. Tears were bound to taint the experience and she was there to provide the balm. The elder knelt in front of her apprentice and grabbed her pulsing palms into her dry, sun-baked clutches.

First spells were iridescent blessings or soothing guidance. Self-sacrificial magic wasn't until much further down a cleric’s path to holiness. Yet, Thomasin’s veins throbbed in unnatural synchrony. Every tendon aching in the same beat as her trepidation. Her mentor pressed her thumb against a protruding vein running atop Thomasin’s hand, gauging whether she could be of any relief.

Sister Elowen’s voice was plush like down feathers raining from a pillow thrashed by bears.

“Oh blessed martyr father. What a gift you’ve been given. What he's given you,” she praised as though Ilmater sat right beside them.

“I don't know what that was," Thomasin sputtered. Her eyes were still darting in a bout of disassociation. A state she could not recognize. "I don't know what I did. What that was. I don't know. I don't know if that was good. Or right. Or--"

“Shhhh... You did a great thing. A powerful thing. Healing can come at a cost to the individual, but what you are doing is a beautiful act of love.” Sister Elowen squeezed her fiery tendons once more. “Let us ready soaking salts and learn the tales of Heldatha Dhussta. May her story quell your fear, dear child.”

–-

Morning cast its veil over the companions’ campsite. It was the dark stretch of day found in limbo. Sunshine had yet to feed the forests and most creatures remain in an unknowing, uncaring state of rest. Time remained immeasurable by any unit other than the accuracy of one’s biological clock. A time Thomasin was all too attuned to. But why she awoke was the question.

Her eyelids opened with creaking hinges parched of midnight oil. A stinging prevailed. Ached as though she'd never slept at all. She made little movement, aside from the strain of eye muscles, as she sought out fragmented pieces of her night. Only when drow genes adjusted to darkness did she catch a silhouette at the foot of her quilt. A figure peering outside her makeshift tent. Astarion. Something enraptured him.

The half-elf’s reincarnation was gradual. Introduction to her limbs and internal systems. Fingers worming their way through fabrics and cast aside bottles. Fidgets here and there. A body reminding itself it still lived. Usually, such sensation was after destructive benders or wading deep in waters of hedonism. But, she'd had not nearly enough to drink the night before.

Her body, her movements, lethargic and languid, prompted Astarion's ears to twitch. They often emoted before his speech could do the honors. Sprung up like a feline confronted by unexpected guests.

“Ahhhh. Good morning, my dear. You survived our little rendezvous. Can only assume it’s all you dreamt of in your little half human slumber.”

His lips curved at the sight of her collar bone. An old friend. Fine point canines threatened to divulge how exhilarating their transaction had been. Even the tadpole pressed tight in her skull squirmed in recollection. She'd been siphoned like ground water. A memory that'd cause panic, if it weren’t for his cheekbones giving away his graciousness toward the well.

It was bizarre. Familiar. The prying look from patrons in dusky bars. Their ruckus laughter parading alcoholic fumes from their lips, torching thick bristle mustaches. How they fought the gravitational pull towards cleavage whilst maintaining "light-hearted" conversation.

Such weakness always tickled her.

Astarion was of different ilk, but no better.

The elf’s eye contact resumed once his countenance returned. Predictably so. Yet, as she considered reciprocating his good mood, she noticed his body language. How his shoulders hung forward and his voice hushed. Not out of keeping their entanglement a secret, but another defiant act she knew too well. This man was in the midst of eavesdropping.

Was it a petty squabble? Ethics clashing between the Blade and the tiefling? Strangers finding courtesy too demanding of a choice?

Her expression dropped as she honed in. Even the fog of fatigue couldn't muffle commotion transpiring outside. Voices of betrayal. Feminine righteous laughter. Every crescendo popped with fiery punctuation. Unruly flames that were far too turbulent and inconsistent to stem from a simple breakfast roast.

“Wyll’s got a fiendish friend visiting camp. Ravishing, if you ask my opinion.” He snickered with an indulgent ha! at its tail end. “It’s always the most morally upright with the dirtiest secrets, isn’t it?”

“Devils?” she sighed and began crawling toward the entrance to join him. “We've not been here a week. How does- Isn’t he only twenty-four? What could he possibly dance with the devil over?”

“Darling. I cannot imagine you were a sparkling example of perfection at that age. Your decision-making is still… dubious,” he was quick to quip, peering at the hand placing itself atop his shoulder.

The half-elf used him to prop herself and blew a puff of air upon his sensitive ears in retort.

However, as soon as she laid eyes on Wyll outside, jest was null. Conflict difficult to digest. A young man’s just intentions illuminated by a circle of hellfire. Its flames flickered against wind patterns not native to the plane of Faerun. Currents whistled with eerie undertones. Fire rolled and wavered in shades of crimson, copper, and robin’s egg blue. Before Wyll was his inner demon personified.

Thomasin was not surprised by Astarion's willful ignorance in the name of attraction. She’d seen tyrants of her nature. Mizora stood tall. No halo of demise nor unholy wings couldn't deny the intention in her design. High hallowed cheekbones and full lips. Smugness always readied to revel in unearned victory. Otherworld decadence draped in a dark beaded gown undamaged by the elements.

But, alas, glamour couldn't hide one's descent into the garish. It couldn't hide behind the smelted gold pendants that hung from her horns. It couldn't exist without the constant upholding of steel-toe power dynamics.

Mizora was the shiniest coin at the bottom of a charred dead pit.

Wyll had collapsed to his knees before the fiend. Lips pursed and tensed in the shapes of words. Vowels. Consonants. Any vocal means of projecting his resentment. Yet, they remained crushed in the narrow neck of a bottle. Not even elementary disdain came to be. His voice was hoarse and gasped to be heard.

Around his neck was the indentations of a leash nowhere to be seen. An invisible force Mizora yanked at her leisure from her standing height. It was evident this was not the first altercation of its kind. Wyll remained steadfast. Hands flushed against the earth and dirt packed into the space under his fingernails.

His eyes never left her.

It was as though he held onto the belief that self-discipline would be enough godly intervention.

Karlach stood as a bystander, but not of her own volition. She hadn't reveled in a forsaken plan nor pulled the wool over everyone's eyes. This was not companionship between operatives of the hells. She was practicing self-control. Vibrated with it. With the deep seated hatred of knowing brute force could not solve all.

“You told me devils only!” Wyll blared through astringent vocal cords. “Karlach is no monster! She is a tiefling and you knew that!”

“Ah, ah, ah. My pup makes friends and suddenly found his bark. I assumed better of you.”

“I assumed Zariel would turn you into a lemure by now,” Karlach snapped back.

Mizora tilted her head to address Karlach, beaming with the self-assurance of a friend advising another friend. A friend that did not find her peer as impressive or cultured as her. A friend that wore contempt around her wrists like loose jewelry she had to try on.

Wyll wasn’t as lucky.

His humanity was lessened further down the hierarchy and she revoked common decency as she pleased. More important matters birthed from her owned revered thoughts. This was a cambion who had long held dominion over Wyll’s life. It was how she spoke in volumes that never regarded who was in earshot. Spoke with words that cut deeper into Wyll’s resolve.

“Karlach. Now, now. A lady shouldn’t be such a bad influence.” Mizora’s free hand conjured another object, unseen to the natural eye. She pinched pages between two fingers and swept them aside as though a hefty tome floated before her. “Let’s see… Ah! Clause G, Section 9: ‘Targets should be limited to the infernal, the demonic, the heartless, and/or the soulless.’ And… as we know, sweet Karlach, you do not have a heart.”

An answer Karlach did not brace herself for.

An answer that left Karlach's composure dwindling.

Each metal port embedded in her chest spit out their own cherried flames and her nostrils flared. Nails curled deep within her palm, each sharpened to filed points, until they verged on drawing blood. But, she knew how the Hells operated. How Wyll’s principles could be vaporized into a gelatinous blob.

Thomasin, however, knew nothing of these politics. She'd read upon the realm, but experience taught her literature could be hyperbolic. Occasionally fantastical when written by bias hands and carved by mass printing production. Every “How to Defeat Fiends” listicle could be fairytales for all she knew.

Yet, one thing was ostensible. The bodily reaction to fear. Inferiority with little defense. Therefore, against all better judgement, she leapt from her tent.

The half-elf's heroics caused Astarion to gasp. Death for the greater good was nettlesome when he wasn't the thorn. This was an act of impulse. Stupidity. Did she know the great deal of effort he spent on keeping her heart beating? How most in Baldur’s Gate went indefinitely missing under his care?

As he predicted, Thomasin’s spring forward turned to staggering. Her body couldn’t cooperate. She’d only made it a few feet before stumbling to her knees, grinding them into the grass. Her palms felt clammy on the cold earth as it was the only thing keeping her present amidst whirling vision.

The theatrics left Mizora humored.

“Aha! Friends coming out of every corner,” she said, eyeing the half-elf for only a second before establishing she was no threat. Then, she turned back to Wyll. “You humans will truly cavort with anyone. Make up little nicknames and the like. Spending precious time trying to be popular instead of having priorities.”

Thomasin's jaw unhinged to speak behind a curtain of dark hair, only for Wyll to throw his hand up.

“Thomasin, please! Don’t. I’ve broken a pact. This-This is the consequence- you’ve not–”

Without a second thought, the half-elf shriveled inward. Adopted Karlach’s complacency, malaise and all. Stomach acid surged into her throat. It was an upheaving of morals her body was reluctant to suppress.

“What is it that you want?” Wyll asked the cambion through grit teeth.

“Don’t act coy, Wyllyam. A promise broken. A promise paid. No amount of ignorance can save you from repercussions.”

With a swift snap of her fingers, an upheaval of its own erupted. Chaos concentrated on Wyll. His corporeal body never left their sight, but the young hero was being thrust under ritualistic fires of Avernus. His soul thrashed throughout Dis, into Minoarous, and every layer below until shaken down the very core of his existence.

Every nightmare. Every moment of torment. Every aura and essence. It all clung to his skin.

It wasn't long before his biology began to twist in Faerun. Mizora wiped away his chestnut pupil for a shade of flattened black. A blood red pupil skittered from behind his eyelid and into its rightful place.

Cropped up hardened bony trails across his chest in V-formations not unlike many tieflings they’d known before. Ridges trailed along his cheekbones. Fiendish terrain on his youthful structure. Horns splintered skin. Acted as tree trunks sprouting from his forehead, obtrusive, bending upward and inward in ram formation.

Although it wasn't a full bodily transformation, every bit tried to kill his spirit.

No amount of bravery could stifle the cry that left his lips.

Mizora cast her punishment with little mercy, prattling to the others as if coercion was nothing more than a tedious errand. She was his patron and the rightful fount of his abilities. At least, from her accounts. Therefore, this was a necessary reprimanding. A transaction that could’ve been smooth if her ‘pet’ had obeyed.

They had to understand there was only one logical answer.

Shifting him into the same evils he’d spent his days hunting proved several points. In fact, this magical ruling was out of her control. Even if she could find compassion for the human, which she did not, the transformation was inevitable. Hierarchies of archdevils above forced permanent magic upon his humanity. Demoted him to the Man of Frontiers without his precious blade.

Mizora turned her head toward the tiefling as a phantasmal glow faded from her palms.

“Call this a truce, Karlach. At least on my end. Our business is done, but do keep an eye on him!” Shadows rose unprompted from the hem of her dress, intertwined with plumes of smoke, until they became a shroud. Shrieks echoed with voices that bounced about, sounding both near and decades away. “Zariel sends her regards!”

One last shriek pierced her laughter as it trailed into the Hells' gates. And, as quickly as she appeared, she was gone. There was silence now. For only a few seconds, branches swayed with unnatural bends until they could remember their muscle memory. Nature was reconstructing itself into its original state.

Every miniscule sound, rustling and amplified, in an eerie void.

“Gods… Damn her straight back to the hells…” Wyll uttered, catching his breath.

His mortal body was young and resilient, but there was no denying what strain still resided. His natural form had been stretched and molded like putty. His joints refused to decompress as they insisted their doubts over if he was truly safe.

He remained in place, staring at his scarred hands intertwined with vivid blades of green grass.

“I did what was right. And Mizora made me pay for it.”

Thomasin inhaled as the trees did. Gulped enough air to compensate for the stones rattling in her lungs. Fight or flight had no place in solutions. With what she could muster, she crept over on her own hands and knees.

“Wyll…” she whispered.

“Devils, demons, traitors, hypocrites. She told me I’d only be hunting the heartless evil. Not Zariel’s victims.”

“Wyll.”

Thomasin tested the waters and laid her fingertips atop Wyll’s shoulder. A feather light touch to assess his distress. And, to her relief, he did not move away.

There was detachment in his eyes, however. Somber, unfixed, never finding a comfortable patch of grass to land on. Who he was speaking to did not matter. Who was around him did not exist. He was stuck in a loop of explanation. Of lawlessness and the rational. Of hope and ethics.

Good intentions and salvation.

“It’s Mizora who gives me the power to kill an army of hellbeasts and now I’ve been reduced to one. Every thrust of my blade and every spark I create has only been for the good of the Coast.”

“I believe you.”

As she gave him full reign to express his woes, her eyes scanned over the new additions across his skin. The markings and scars. The uprooting of horns calcified into new identity. At the base of them, blood trickled cautiously where flesh accommodated and split like the dried cuticles of a potter. She gently wiped a smudge from his temple.

The accessories of the devil only rested upon him. He was not a newfound visage. He was not a new person. Only an altered one.

“The day I was pacted with Mizora-I haven't regretted that day for a heartbeat. My reason was worth the sacrifice.”

“Wyll,” Thomasin proposed with a delicate tongue. Her thumb was red with his blood, outlining the creases of her fingerprint as if pressed against an ink pad. ”Let us clean you up.”

As his glazed stare met her, it melted into something illuminating. The light still beckoned him. Not every word was a toxicant and not every touch was inflamed. Thomasin was still there. Karlach too. Even, Astarion, who hesitantly approached.

“Oh. Yes. Of course, I should do that.”

Thomasin flashed a smile that couldn't quite reach her eyes. Little could dampen her sensitive nature. Her maternal instincts. She did not rush him, but rather let her hand traverse along his back and rubbed idle circles at the arch of his spine. Tenderness seemed to mollify him.

And so, she turned to the others for assistance.

Karlach and Astarion conversed on their own, aside. Exchanged hushed debate that fizzled into dark comedy and mutual scoffs. They knew that, even if they desired to comfort Wyll, neither had the means to do so. One had yet to navigate the nuance of empathy and the other, a precarious bodily landscape.

Still, to Thomasin's request, the tiefling stood at attention in soldier formation.

The elf, less so. Arms crossed and a perpetual hm? scrolled across his face.

“Karlach, would you grab more kindling to feed a fire? Astarion, gather the tins of tea I have in my tent. In that little pack I’m always rifling through with dangling jade beads.”

“I had not a single clue those were real jade,” Astarion commented, derailing as he often did. “Your taste never fails.”

Thomasin let an incredulous laugh slip through a huff.

“Yes... Very polished. Very pretty. Exactly like you. I’ll- I’ll give you one, just go grab the tins, please .”

That promise alone satisfied the elf. He wandered into her tent to fetch dry goods. As he exited, tin pressed to his chest, a small smooth bead rolled around his pointer finger and thumb. His vision narrowed. He was squinting as though he’d catch an imperfection once the morning light reflected off its curve.

Karlach was already shoving twigs, scorched by her handprint, into a circular stone pit. Atop crumbling charcoal and flaking leaves from the previous night, fresh kindling stacked in disorderly bundles. She prodded for the driest of the bunch, held it tight, and began to hyperventilate. Not from fright, but the pent up energy still alive inside.

The volcano Mizora forcibly corked.

It erupted into an inhibited roar. Heat emanated from the ports embedded in her back, turning her embrace hazardous. Then, what lit up was a mixture of joy and relief across her face. The twig ignited into a small flame, as if responding to her call, and spread into a lively campfire.

The scent of resin wafted in the air and she noticed how burnt wood had a different scent outside of the hells.

For once, this toastiness felt comfortable. Inviting. She let light cast its warm hues against her tempered skin. Revelry was odd. The absence of scourge, moreso. Life’s miniscule victories tasted like buttermilk outside the rictus maw of the damned.

As Astarion settled adjacent from the tiefling, he pocketed his bead for safety and opened the tin with a metallic pop. Karlach handed him a small pot and he began picking out herbs. Twisting bundles, compressing leaves, until they were taut stalks. His eyes would shift intermittently between the water canteen and the floral scented tin.

Assessment wore heavy upon his brow.

But, before he could reach a verdict, he noticed Karlach reach for a damp twig at his feet.

“Watch. It’s like a free spa day at one of those fancy places. The ones with expensive soaps,” she said cheekily, knowing she’d never stepped into a spa before.

Astarion awaited for the chance to craft swift judgement. Regardless of whether the trick was mind-mending or humiliating, either promised a spectacle. It was a simple stick. Wet with morning mist that saturated to the bone.

Hellbeasts could ignite a forest in their sleep, but she was finding the novelty in her engine. She was more than a mundane soldier now and, as expected, the stick couldn’t compete with her rising temperatures. Steam started to trail off in sizzling white clouds. Its bark turned lighter and lighter shades in an instant. From dark umber to ruddy tea to sandy beige.

Before he could make a suggestion, as his pointer finger implied, the wood went up in a flame. Became consumed and devoured like an obsolete torch. She flicked it into the fire and they both grinned as flames leapt in agitation before stabilizing.

“Do you think Mizora would do that to me?” Astarion pressed the tin pot between his thighs, pouring cold river water in from a canteen. Then, thin fingers stripped tea leaves from its stem and wiggled them free. “I suppose asking nicely helps things, doesn’t it?”

“Ahhh, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Trust me, ” Karlach retorted. “Not her kind.”

“Her kind? The ruthless? Temptresses that kill like scorpions eating their lovers after they’ve had their fill?”

“Exactly. Nice to look at until their claws are cozied up around your windpipe.”

She straightened her spine and looked over at Wyll, still hunched. She refrained from letting his sacrificial act bury itself deep in her psyche. It was all too foreign. Friendly faces were few. Infernal beings were not privy to the gift of gab nor selfless acts in the name of sisterhood.

“You say that as though it's not what keeps life interesting,” Astarion insisted.

Karlach snorted.

In the pot, she watched leaves float atop the water’s surface like a mossy cast. Chaotic company was one of many things she could turn a blind eye to. They had tea to make. Although one matter surfaced. Her knowledge of tea was made up of assumption and deduction.

“Do you drink a lot of tea? It feels like elves must have so much spare time to do… this.”

Astarion’s eyes admitted to reactionary habits. The question registered as accusatory before being wiped clean from his face. His lips bent from a defensive gape into one of camaraderie.

“Aha. Of course. I do . We practically invented celebration.” The elf grabbed one last bundle and stripped the stems with a swipe. “It’s how we’ve perfected our techniques of clinking glasses, you should know. Cheers to a bit of survival, yes?”

He tapped on the side of the pot with his nail as though it were a wine glass. Though still strangers, an even stranger affinity sat below the surface. Commonalities they’d yet to vocalize, but did recognize. A fellow seed cracking at the seam.

Once the pot was surrendered to Karlach, its contents began to crop bubbles that broke between spaces of leaves. She continued with a casual approach. Reaching into the fire, she settled the flat bottom of the pot inside a conical recession within the kindling. It plopped into place. No burns nor injury. Nothing more than a recoil. An unwise deftness not unlike fathers flipping grilled meats with calloused hands.

By now, Thomasin was getting Wyll back into his consciousness. His words were coherent. Albeit, reminding her and, by extension, himself, of his good deeds. Repeating how he was not to be phased. Floundering between hellscapes and reality wasn’t to put a dent compared to every other trial he’d encountered in his short life.

Eventually, Wyll found his footing within the forest. They made their way over to Astarion and Karlach. Wyll seemed to default to geniality, almost identical to that given at the grove. His cadence was nonchalant, despite a voice recovering from acute strangulation. Thomasin simply sat beside him, giving the young man an opportunity to slip into whichever front comforted him best.

Warm orange light rolled across the sky as dawn awoke. The sounds of nature commemorated another day and rejoiced under the veil. The four strangers, newfound allies, let their rude awakening hang unspoken for a few moments. No one quite sure what should be acknowledged. If this was time for more than inconsequential stories.

Bubbles simmered. Birds sung. For that short respite, they could play tea party.

Between jutting in to provide opinions on matters like potato dishes, Thomasin kept a close eye on Wyll’s bodily cues. He was grown and perhaps wished to shield himself. All she could do was ensure wounds were dabbed with clean cloth, even when Wyll sucked his teeth at particularly raw splits around his horns.

“Once this heals up, you’ll find yourself quite dashing. A new look for the Blade,” the half-elf said in an attempt to console.

“I’ll be the Blade of Frontiers until I’m on my last leg. One eye didn’t stop me. Luck be damned,” Wyll reassured the group, venom for Mizora still coating his teeth.

“I’d say I stole your luck,” Karlach replied after a brief lull. “...I’ll be honest, I’m still in a ramshackle of emotions over all this. Don’t think I can remember a time someone stuck their neck out for me like that.” She cleared her throat. Her glee appeared strained by how she skirted around deeper vulnerability.

“As I’ve always said, I stand by what is right. Still the Blade of Frontiers. I’ve got a reputation to uphold and no amount of trickery is grounds to kill the innocent.”

“Yeah… You’re a good egg, soldier…”

They both exchanged a knowing smile. Their binds to the wicked left sulfuric tangles they both knew all too well. The lingering trauma and social conundrums that would have to be picked through with patience hands. But, they weren’t defeated. Exhaustion couldn’t take that away from them.

As morning crept into its bloom of peach across the forest, shadows retreated from soft wisps of clouds. They transformed the landscape. As harsh as their awakening had been, the companions were just as surprised to find themselves unwinding.

Astarion debated the names of colors produced by the sunrise. Terracotta versus sandstone. Lavender versus mauve. How referring to every orange hue as “apricot” didn’t do it justice. That it was a shame mid-day blue devoured its pastels. Innocuous, light-hearted, if not strange he was so fixated on the sky.

They sipped on tea from small, crudely pinched ceramic cups.

That was, until, mental clarity barraged Wyll like a trebuchet.

He’d preached his ethics. He had to be direct. If danger was afoot, action was a prerogative and nothing should cloud his judgement now.

Thomasin sat beside him, waving around a wet cloth she’d wrung river water from. Between inquiries, his keen eye for detail surfaced. He watched how the half-elf blanketed her true emotions. Alluring calm and clever bite. However, exhaustion was impossible to conceal once it spilled out like slashed sandbags.

She couldn’t deny the dark tint around her eyes or the faded puncture wounds near the base of her neck.

If Wyll were to keep everyone safe, he had to speak.

“Thomasin,” Wyll suddenly stated, his tone of voice heartier than mere moments before. Not aggressive, but earnest. “Has our friend Astarion here caused you harm? You’ve been bitten by the look of it.” His eyes wandered back to the elf, who was stone still. “I think it’s about time you’ve come clean. Before you’ve put your entire boot firmly in your mouth.”

Karlach sipped on her tea and interjected with an audible hm ! “Ohhhhh. I had my suspicions you were a spawn. All pale and the sort. You wouldn’t be trudging out here with the rest of us if you were full-blooded.”

Tension built upon the dysregulated back of their morning. While Thomasin had her defense, she wished to hear Astarion out. To explain himself. To determine whether her charitable night was actual exploitation.

As much as she remembered his fragile appearance, naivety often left her filling holes others dug for themselves.

But, not every grave was excavated from honest labor.

Astarion slapped his palm flat against the ruffles cascading down his chest. He contemplated his options. Built the grandest defense the jury had ever been gifted. Convincing his case was as much a pastime as his muddied vague memories of being a magistrate. How else could he evade a stake to the chest this long?

It was a natural talent, surely.

And, as Astarion readied himself for the grandest lie he’d told that week, finger risen to punctuate a point of innocence, the half-elf decided to intervene.

“Astarion, you’re acting fidgety,” Thomasin said. “Let us not create fuel for doubts or- lest you throw yourself to the proverbial wolves… I won't plead your innocence, but I will say it was all consensual.”

The half-elf bit the soft innards of her cheek, raising a hand to present evidence that existed from only word of mouth.

The rational part of her knew the optics of his feast. The logical knew that motives were still being extracted. But, the accuracy of her intuition lead to strife as often as it did blessings. And now, her fatigue was catching up. She could not water anxieties or accusations. Well-wishes and benevolent critique were all that was left.

“He approached me in the deep of night, looking worse for wear–”

Astarion chirped up to explain how his appearance was not as poor as she perceived, but was deflected, promptly.

Thomasin remained speaking.

“This looks severe, Astarion. Don’t give us fodder with your slipper tongue,” she said, unearthing a snicker from deep within. She took a second to remember where she was in her explanation and then continued. “I know his sort. The ‘scoundrels’ romping about the city. He promised he’d only fed on small beasts before me. Simple prey- Which was evident by his… approach. But what was I to do? I was not to starve the man.”

“I hope you are sure about this. Not every bloodied mess should be deemed clean with a cocksure grin and cheeky quip,” Wyll retorted, then addressing Astarion once more. “I’ll admit, spawn, your abilities don’t align with the severed heads of spawn before you. You’re basking in the sun with the rest of us, but do you expect me to disregard my instincts? Over one rotten fruit and bizarre circumstance?”

“Hey now!” Astarion interjected with a sense of drama. “Let us not make rash assumptions. ‘Cheeky quips’ are charming, yes, but I do not wish to deceive anyone! Look at the atrocities we’ve been dealing with. Let’s consider how it- simply hadn’t come up naturally- ah, with the druids and Mizora and- oh, gods . The tentacles. Our faces harbor ticking bombs. Is my usual meal of boar while you all sleep a criminal offense?”

“Well… How can we not presume you’d drain us in our beds?” Wyll asked.

Astarion’s speech slowed to a cautious, calculated pace. His hand gestures still swung about like a habit difficult to shake, but it was digging into something deeper. Its shallowest depths, but still along the crumbling dirt where superficiality thrived.

“Listen to me. As much as we've experienced plenty of horrors, one thing is certain. The nautiloid gave me the treasure that is being conveniently lost. You cannot blame me for secrecy when all I’ve known is the traitorous. You all know what that’s like. I think. ”

He threw his head back briefly to arrange his history into palatable pieces.

“Baldur’s Gate is teeming with slavers and unjust power in high places. I’ve not seen the light in decades and killing you all would ruin this paradox of a blessing. Believe me, I am- I was a captive and-and you, yourself, said that you fight against injustices.”

“I guess you can’t be blamed for being cautious. If anything, it's a sign of a good ally,” Karlach said. “The illithids scooped me right out of my prison too. Zariel made me fight under her for the last… ah, ten years? Gods.”

“Agreed. None of us boast clean records. Cautious footing is how we're alive, I imagine,” Thomasin said, wiping the dry sting from her eyes. Incongruent emotions clashed within. Faith in others, moreso. “As much as I distance myself from it, I was shaped by ruffians. Ran with smuggling syndicates as a youth and lived upon their ships until cruelty forced me to flee. Look. Now we've been honest.”

“Honesty. Aha. Maybe it's from my time stuck with the infernal, ” Karlach chimed in, “but I’d like to trust my judgement of others. From what I can tell, our little group seems sound. We can be a team, even.”

Wyll looked around at everyone, chewing on the predicament like sinewy tendons. The greys of morality stopped him in his tracks. Heroism wasn't as storybooks foretold.

“Well, Astarion…” Wyll began, “Secrets are nothing but a threat. Let it be known… if I wanted your well-coiffed head, I would’ve taken it by now. But… I’ve done enough damage acting upon impulse. We don’t need to mess up a good head of curls.” He exhaled audibly through his nose, resettling on a content smile. “I propose a pact, if you will. If your fangs puncture the innocent, the good, or the fearing, I won’t hesitate to drive a stake through your white-pasty chest.”

The wording left them all with an urge to laugh at its sincere, kindly-worded, yet threatening resolve. Astarion’s chuckle leaned more into nervous compliance. But, placating was a specialty of his.

He immediately answered.

“Yes, yes. Of course. Chest stays intact and we rely on transparency. None of us want to be torn asunder and reborn as mind flayers. And I refuse to be a vampiric lord's plaything for the rest of eternity. I mean- You know as much as anyone that one intrusive transformation is more than enough for a lifetime.”

“Couldn’t have said it better, myself. A truce,” Wyll proposed.

“Looks like we can give ourselves a little grace. Being the dregs of society has its perks,” Thomasin teased with self-deprecation. “We cannot flee from our histories. The gods know I’ve tried.” She lifted her cup, tea only half-filled in its already shallow body. “May we never feel safe. May we never improve as people. But we shall distance ourselves from our sins and those that brought them upon us.”

Karlach’s cup rumbled while its contents boiled next to Thomasin’s.

“Aye, cheers to that. To getting the tadpoles out of our brains before they turn into frogs and the pints we’ll drink in the city to celebrate.”

“Aha, cheers. To us, a messy lot in a mess of trouble,” Thomasin proclaimed.

Wyll and Astarion glanced at one another, watching Astarion lift his cup and, inadvertently inviting Wyll to do the same. The human obliged. After constant trials, serendipity was all he could seek.

The rest of their breakfast divided between candid retellings of their lives. Details were finely-tuned and curated. Generalizations and brief synopsis. Where they were plucked from and their general origins. Framing the worst as “mere headaches” and the easiest as “wild, silly tales” as though they sat in a dark, dank tavern bonding over mead.

They were still strangers. Only divulged what they should without risking potential backfire in the coming days. Each had the sense to shield themselves and knew the tightrope walk of opening up. Yet, they could all sense their reality. They were all the downtrodden. They all wished to be free.

Karlach was expressing emotions never allowed in her involuntary service of the Blood War.

Wyll was coming to terms with the winding, unknowing path of life, wishing to save everyone despite the consequences he’d collected.

Astarion was finding footing upon land that wasn’t desecrated by brutality, demands, and famished rats.

Thomasin dreamed of the mundane, carrying the fear that she, one day, would be found and confronted by smugglers of long ago.

If their dispositions and oppressors didn’t sabotage them first, they mind flayers could be next.

But, they still rejoiced.

In theory, they could survive. No one could fault Astarion for his disease, but only his actions onward. Uncertain times benefited from uncertain friends. For now, they were in a phase of reconciliation.

Astarion became trapped under Thomasin’s weight as she finally fell asleep against his shoulder. A position he willingly took, even if his face tried to suggest annoyance. Annoyance he wouldn't find words for when Karlach told him to lighten up. It was as though, in spite of being appreciative, he could only praise Thomasin over trivial means. How her hair shining in the sun and the way her lashes curled were enough to keep her around.

Wyll and Karlach snacked on berries that stained their skin blue. Traded secrets and methods of madness when it came to slaying the infernal. The curvature of axes and stances that provided reliable momentum. They groaned, cackled, and shuffled in their seats to mimic battle.

Conversation that all but left Astarion unenthused until it pivoted into self-care.

Karlach named oils that maintained a healthy scalp as well as shined horns. One of the few staples she'd found in Avernus. Although her knowledge was limited, the prospect of asking other tieflings for recommendations excited her. Which Wyll, still navigating his situation, tried to remain enthusiastic about. He pondered every oil he'd come across and unwittingly began to teach Karlach about each scent's undertone. The sulfuric mask of Avernus covered most soft perfumes.

If they were to tackle a cacophony of troubles, they would take every amenity possible.

It was the simple delights.

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