Chapter Text
Astarion’s ears perk and his solace is shattered as yet another drinking song rings into the tavern. His red eyes skim, glaring at the boisterous tiefling in the center of the commotion. Her dark blue hair drips over damp clothing, contrasting darkly with her bright red skin. The sweet smell of her soap, coupled with her actions, wafts over to where he sits. No one else in the tavern smells as sweet as her freshly washed and perfumed body.
Her sharp, pointed teeth gleam in the firelight on her mad grin. Astarion considers getting closer to taste on the air what type of drink she’s having. Her dark horns curl behind her head, lightening into fashionable blue tips. Her tail thumps loudly on the floor and furniture, swinging joyously as the other patrons scream and sing at the tops of their voices, leaning on each other in their stupor.
From this distance, Astarion can only see bright red pinpricks for her eyes, set at odd from her black sclera. It makes her look even more intimidating than her large biceps. They’re surely as big as his head, and he sighs into his bourbon as a rather high note of the song circles to the rafters. She flings her toned arm out before slamming her fist onto the table. Astarion’s sure the wood has split from the force.
Astarion can’t help but cringe at the uproar from the crowd. His ears ache as if listening to a mass of feral cats needing food. Every new note pounds through his head. He tries to hide the pain in his eardrums with a plaintive smile. He needs this to stop. Needs to cut the head off the snake. There’s no way he can conduct his business otherwise.
He eyes her. She seems fun. He prepares his eyes to be bright, his attitude to be bubbly, his posture pert, and his smile, as ever, simply irresistible.
He saunters over, avoiding exactly two drunkards who have lost their peripheral vision and balance to their tankards, and annoyingly has to circle around the tiefling. She swings her arms up, splashing her drink – thankfully in her hand farther away from Astarion – and turning to face the left side of her adoring crowd. He adjusts accordingly, moving in a swinging turn.
This close to her, he realizes the menacing red only circles her iris. The rest of her eye is a pale shade of gray, and strong lines of liner wrap around her lids and come to points to accentuate their sharpness. She has multiple piercings as well, crawling from her upper ears down to both sides of her nostril.
A quite ghastly looking scar stretches from her left cheek to the bridge of her eyes, and another spiders its way up the right side of her neck. Not that he can see much of it on her throat as, strangely, a collar wraps around the strong muscles. It’s a rather basic one, but runic symbols pulse and glow blue across the dark leather. A pendant is latched to it, also glowing with power.
Owned? Or perhaps just play…
If her size didn’t give it away, her back screamed stories of battle. Like lightning stretching spindles across her skin, the tiefling’s back is adorned with marks.
It takes him aback, for a moment, before he plasters that fake smile again.
Finally she sees him. Her eyes flatter down him. His hair, his eyes, his lips, his body. Astarion knows he’s caught her in his hook. He steps in closer, into her space.
It’s Wyvern Whiskey that she’s drinking, he smells. His stomach rumbles in approval. Her blood would be laced with an incredible intense spice of the poisonous animal’s scale, which gets marinated in the fiery spirit. He can feel his cheeks hollowing against their will, a physiological reaction to his hunger. He’d very much like a taste.
His chest is close to her breast, despite her being a head taller than him. He’s puffing it out as if to press it desperately against her. His hand comes up, hovering as if wanting to lay on her heart. He’s a damsel, and he’s the wyvern. She grins down, predatorily. He knows she’s an easy mark. Not what he usually aims for, but strong and delicious.
“Can I buy you a drink, my dear?” He has to shout but she doesn’t bother lowering her ear to his mouth. Anyone could read those words on another’s lips. Her grin stretches wider. She nods and waves to her drunken choir. They cheer back and Astarion thanks the gods as their horrible clangor simmers back to the brawling dissonance of normal tavern talk.
He waves to the bartender, who understands and nods. He’ll be over in time with two glasses of whatever’s strongest getting served tonight. Astarion steadies himself for heavy wheat and acrid ethanol burning his nostrils and mouth.
She sits across from him at the table he’s held all night. It’s his preferred spot, with easy access to the exits, hardwood seats that bite like home, and a good view of the pool of possible victims: ripe and ready for his master, practically pickling themselves for him.
“Passing through?” He asks. Always better when no one notices someone’s gone. Always better when they’re not well known. This beginning line also couples into ‘who are you traveling with’. May as well get the whole party if they’re stupid enough to be in such small numbers, like a group of four for example. He innocently drags the tips of his fingers over her hand, gliding little drawings and giving her dreamy, but intelligent, eyes. He intends to appear drunk, but never too drunk unless his mark is pushy to get him that way. Leaving space in either direction to be the perfect one-night-stand.
Her bright red irises glitter against the black of her eyes, but she shows restraint. She lets him touch her without reacting more than a loopy smirk.
“Nah, I just don’t make it out much.” She raises what’s left in her tankard to him in toast. “I’m between work at the moment; have the night off!”
Astarion raises his eyebrows like he cares. Smiles as if they’re sharing a secret now.
“Well, you know what that means?” She blinks at him, waiting. “We must celebrate!”
She cheers him, and they down their drinks.
The barkeep, never missing a beat, thumps two new glasses down, swiping away their old ones without a word or care. He knows Astarion’s paid in full and in advance. Astarion could burn the tavern to the ground for all anyone would care. Not that anyone would know: Cazador’s footing the bill.
“And to whom do I have the pleasure?” She asks, giggling at some joke he just said.
“Truth be told, darling, I simply had to stop your singing.”
Her mouth opens in feigned shock, and her body tilts sideways into him. She runs unimaginably hot, and Astarion finds he misses that warmth the moment she rights herself.
“And here I thought I could form a band with all the other bards!”
She almost yells it, and the patrons that have mosied away into their own conversations raise their tankards and scream back in agreement. Astarion looks mortified at the utter buffoonery before him, but sighs heavily to continue the game.
“My dear, if you’re a bard, I’m a goblin.”
She’s laughing. He’s laughing. What more could anyone need? He suggests they call it and her eyes still gleam with intent. She looks drunk. Drunk enough to be unable to use any of, what he assumes are, her fine motor skills. Reaction time delayed. Mind running a sentence and a half behind. She wouldn’t be able to hurt him if push came to shove. It’s easier this way. Safer.
“What’s your name, cupcake?”
His eyes alight and he responds, “I’ll tell you if you let me whisper.” She smiles brightly, lopsidedly, and leans in. “Astarion,” he whispers delicately into her ear. He pauses on the ‘s’, hissing and curling the letters around her, forcing the coolness of his undead lungs to soothe her heat.
She wavers in her seat, realigning herself up. Her gray eyes looking him over hungrily and muttering, “Cyphur.”
For a moment, Astarion doesn’t understand what she means. He looks at her quizzically. Is she asking him to solve a cipher, or is she asking if his name is one? She laughs, full and deep and the tips of his pointed ears burn. He truly hates being caught off guard.
“My name,” she says simply. The glass raises to her full lips and she swallows down the rest of her whiskey. “You going to take me home, or what?”
He blinks. Stares. Then blinks again. A smile curtails his lips and he nods. He forgets how easy it is sometimes. He’s off the hard chair and gifting a pale hand in her direction. She feigns another gasp before she takes it. When she stands, her body sways slightly, and Astarion has to readjust his weight so she doesn’t take him down to the floor. She doesn’t seem to notice and instead laughs and hollers back to the patrons as they walk out. Yells of merriment muffle as the door closes and the pair stumble onto the night-touched street.
“You really are a cupcake, you know that, sweetheart?” She smells his hair and he already knows what she’ll say it smells like:
“Vanilla! You’re a vanilla cake with vanilla frosting, and I can’t wait to put some strawberry in those cheeks.”
Well he hasn’t heard that, exactly, before. He’s more a fan of rosemary, bergamot, and the well aged brandy on his tongue. He grins at the food metaphor, wondering if she’s got a sweet tooth.
“You want to put your strawberries in me or on me?” He giggles, trying to hide his wince at her uproarious laughter.
“Do you think it’s too late to find a store selling whipped cream?”
“Mmm, you’re speaking my language, love.”
He touches her, both subtly and not. He pickpockets her to steal anything Cazador might either throw away or take for himself; checks for weapons while he’s at it. A surprise scroll at an inopportune time can make the difference between life and death. Though, he thinks as his hand slides into the pocket of her leather pants, he rather doubts she has the… capacity to use a scroll if her life depended on it.
He covers it up as flirting, as if he can’t keep his hands off her. A squeeze here, a brush there. And when one is drunk they can’t feel the weight floating out of their bags and pockets. Most modern day adventurers have bags of holding anyways. Why carry anything at all these days? Why risk encumbering oneself? Astarion is sure to avoid packrats and hoarders. Scavenging is not a tasty attribute, he’s found. People who feel the need to steal the silverware tend to be, well, sticky .
And just as he suspected, he thinks he feels a scroll casing in her pants. It’s holstered and small, as if it were a short stick. It must be a very good spell if she’s protecting it like this. Or perhaps she holds all her scrolls in it. It’s smart, he thinks. He’s only ever seen wizards keep their scrolls in folders or old books. He gives it a good pull to see how attached it is, not sure if he’ll be able to remove it.
A shrieking flash of metal slices through the air. The small stick extends as if exploding from a spring trap as the trick weapon morphs into a spear. Astarion doesn’t have time to realize what’s happened, simply feels her too-warm hand on his chest, pushing him roughly away. He stumbles, but isn’t hit.
They cry out together. Him in shock and indignation; Her in pain.
He stills himself in dread, his eyes fixed on her.
Her weapon, now a chain of lacerating blades, with one wing caught embedded in her hand.
“You really shouldn't touch a woman's weapons,” Cyphur grits out. She holds her wrist, hunching over her wound.
“Oh dear,” he responds, trying to keep the hunger from his voice.
She smells even better than he imagined. His throat clenches and his stomach seizes in reaction. Every fiber of his being telling him to push forward, climb her like a godsdamned tree and sink his teeth into her. Take, take, take her for himself. Cazador be damned.
His hands itch. His ears roar. He tries to calm down. Tries to hold his breath against the scent.
He knows he can’t disobey his master even if he wanted to.
The blood drips freely for a few moments before Cyphur covers the wounds with a handkerchief Astarion produces. The lacerations scream with the pressure, and she aches into it.
“I suppose the least I can do is take you to a healer. There’s a temple down the street…” The sound of hunger in his voice is gone, and he sounds bored now. Astarion is grateful for it.
Cyphur shakes her arm, nodding. “It'll bleed through, so I think you're right.” Sighing, she picks up her fallen spear. Jagged metal plates click back into place as her fingers brush against the sigil. Astarion has to see it to believe it. The elongated spear, possibly stretching far past his own height, clicks back into place like the snapping of bones. There’s no seam in the polished wood, perfectly hiding the weapon's increased killing power. And, without missing a beat, it shortens even further to no bigger than a penknife! The deadly metal curls over itself and turns blunt, the flaming halo sigil burns red before disappearing in a whisper. Raising, Cyphur secures the spear back into her pocket and turns.
“The very least,” she repeats.
The pain seems to have cleared her mind, or taken the edge off. She doesn’t sway as harshly, nor does her tail ghost along his curves anymore. He almost misses it, the phantom touches and switches of her appendage. The night seeps in just a bit colder, just a bit more impersonal and distant. It’s all pretend, but he wills himself to believe it when the mood strikes.
A luxurious temple comes into view. It towers in white marble and royal blues, intricate little cinquefoil symbols lining the way up into tall acute arches. The steps easily cover at least four flights. A giant stone figure of Lathander beckons to them just above the entrance, with a brilliant sun lovingly mosaicked in stained glass behind him.
Astarion walks right in, beckoning for Cyphur to follow. She looks wary, but obeys. The steps are old and marbled, and the large door has long been sanded down for any splinters. Upon walking in, they are greeted by a man in an old musty brown cloak.
“What can the morning lord do for thee?”
“We’re in need of service from a Dawnbringer,” Astarion says. His thumb points behind him towards Cyphur. Her aloof smirk makes the priest wary, but she quickly holds up her hand. The make-shift bandage is close to seeping out with her blood.
The priest nods and waves his arm. “This way.”
He deposits Cyphur onto an empty bed, and hurriedly leaves the hall.
After a few minutes in awkward silence, a lithe blonde sweeps to them, doused in sky blue robes, her tan belt and satchels matching immaculately with her fair skin. She rises up a few steps to the side that have been conveniently placed for her height. Once the stunning halfling is at eye height with Cyphur, she can see her breathtaking periwinkle orbs, like the daintiest glass, looking her over with the care and intensity of someone who’s here to carefully and quickly assess and assist.
“May the Morning Lord bless thee, child,” she says. Taking Cyphur’s bandaged hand, she slowly unravels the wrapping. Despite her working against it, the tiefling’s arm begins to shake with exhaustion as the cool air hits the lacerations. Her teeth clench, and her eyes set on the cleric’s robes.
“Ya know, I’ve never met a Dawnbringer cleric before.” She’s trying to distract herself.
“Just ‘Dawnbringer’,” Astarion chimes. His back rests against a stone pillar, his arms crossed as he watches. “‘Dawnbringer cleric’ is like saying ‘cleric cleric’.”
Cyphur rolls her eyes and responds, “Oh clumsy me. Next time I stab myself with my own weapon, I’ll make sure to bring a dictionary.”
Astarion’s gaze melts into a sneer. He wants to bite back how he could have just left her there bleeding on the side of the road for any vagabond to try to pilfer her coin purse. Instead, he turns up his nose and finds a statue of Lathander more interesting than looking at the tiefling. His eyes glaze over instantly and his attention stays on the whirring blanket of noise from the Dawnbringer’s hand.
He shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be worrying himself over a random target that got hurt. He should be out there, finding a new mark to bring back to the castle. If he shows up empty handed… He files that thought away. There’s no reason to worry just yet. He’s got plenty of time before the sun rises to get another vict- to get another target. He kicks himself as he watches the tiefling’s arm finally stop shaking as the wounds heal. He’s caused so much, his mind whispers, why not do a good act every once in a while?
He snorts at that.
Good acts are for would-be heroes and counterfitters. Not for people like him well into their years of servitude. Besides, he challenges, there are no heroes in Baldur’s Gate.
Astarion pulls back to the conversation.
“I’m sorry, my dear, but it appears you may have a scar. I’m seeing residual damaged tissue forming,” the lovely cleric tells Cyphur.
The handsome tiefling sighs, but doesn’t quip or even glance at Astarion. Part of him wishes she did. He’s not sure how well he’ll be able to pull off getting her to the castle if she’s upset and permanently damaged. He could always try knocking her out and dragging her… but that would really depend on how long this will take.
The priest from before pops his head in from a side door after a few minutes. He’s carrying a bowl and a bundle of incense.
“Dawn Mass is in an hour or so if you two would care to join us? Frida, might you be finished by then? I would hate for you to miss today’s sermon.”
Frida’s eyes flutter in her superior medical frustration, but she calls back sweet and calm.
“Of course, we should be done in half that time.”
The priest nods and leaves, not waiting for an answer from either Cyphur or Astarion. The pale elf stares at the spot on the floor the priest has just vacated, a solid steel pipe sinking cold through his chest.
Sunrise is in an hour, but the Dawnbringer won’t be done for half that time.
How did this happen? Did time really get away from him so fast? How long had he been flirting with the tiefling? His eyes glance around. There are no windows here.
He won’t have time to wait, convince Cyphur to come back with him, and still walk the distance to the castle. Not without disintegrating into a pile of ash on the way.
Fuck .
Fuck, he’s so fucked.
“I think I’ll get some fresh air before church,” he manages out on reflex, barely hearing his own words.
His body turns, his feet hurry.
He takes as long as he can to get back to Cazador’s castle. He desperately checks abandoned wagons and wet ditches for passed out drunkards. Anyone who he could grab, or attack, or drag back with him.
But it’s too late for drunkards. It’s too cold for anyone to have passed out outside tonight. The only people he sees are Lathander worshippers, traveling, fully dressed, to morning mass, but no one alone. They’re all moving in packs of three to sometimes as many as twenty. Whole families greet each other. Up to four generations worth of relatives, holding wheat ferns and bowls of fruit for offering.
And his heart swells with terror as the smallest change of the gray sky begins to milk. He’d be damned if he’s going to wait around to see any beams of light over the horizon. Is damned returning empty handed anyways.
Astarion curses.
It’s too late.
He rushes ‘home’.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Dawnbringer was right, there is now a scar decorating Cyphur’s right hand. She considers it, trying to compare it to a shape or animal. Perhaps an X mark, spotted with small strands, like a half-broken spider’s web. The Dawnbringer is apologetic. Cyphur pins her as a bit of a perfectionist and insists it’s fine. She’s just glad the pain is gone.
That seems to brighten the cleric’s demeanor. She smiles for the first time at Cyphur, now her job is done: nearly star-striking the tiefling with her beauty.
Cyphur politely declines attending church. She’s not against it, but she has other plans for her early hours of the day before heading back to ‘work’. The Dawnbringer nods, perhaps looking just a tad put out, but leaves, murmuring sweetly that Cyphur knows where to find them if she ever changes her mind.
The tendons feel a bit stiff as Cyphur tests her fixed hand, but all her fingers close and open as intended. She makes a note to simply coddle it for a few days. Keep an eye out for any issue with it. Perhaps it may even ache before a rain, like her very own druid radar.
When she leaves to join Astarion, however, she finds herself alone on the temple steps. Small crowds of church goers are trickling in past her but from the top she can easily see: No one with white hair in sight, not for a few blocks in any direction. He had simply left?
Strange.
She had thought they’d been getting along. Despite their tension in the temple.
She tries not to feel let down.
She sits for a second on the steps, wondering what she’ll do instead, feeling a little lost. She watches the families pass by. Notes one child in particular that’s chatting loudly about having drawn Lathander a picture that he’s going to leave in offering. The boy’s father explains that crops will grow well this coming farm season because of all the good gifts they’re leaving the sun god.
Cyphur isn’t sure what the rock in her stomach indicates. Just knows she doesn’t like the feeling.
With a huff, she stands, dusts herself off, and opens a portal to another realm. The sun is just barely peeking off the edges of the world. As she slips to her destination, she hears the church bells begin to chime: indicating the start of a new day.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not far away, Astarion has made it out of the frying pan and into the frigid fire of the Szarr Palace. The castle is dank and cold as ever. Dreary, with a draft forever penetrating its patron’s bones, and the slightest seasoning of mold dusting off the carpets and curtains.
He hates it.
Hates it even more knowing how angry his Master will be that he came back empty handed tonight.
He slips through doors three times his size. His soft feet sinking into the thick rugs like mud wishing to drag him through the floor. His stomach twists with anxiety. He glances at one of his “sister’s” darting past a doorway. Thinks of calling out to her. She might know of Cazador’s temper.
But he doesn’t. There’s no point. Cazador always has a temper.
Finally he’s in the room he was to bring the blue haired tiefling to tonight. He waits, alone, counting the seconds until his punishment. Nearly jumps out of his own skin when the door opens.
Cazador Szarr stands there, in all his strength and power. His straight black hair wisps down past his shoulders, and his bright red eyes gleam. His title of patriar does not wash off easily, even while he wears only a pair of leather pants and laced black shirt. Even while he cleans his nails with an absent knife. His eyes alight on Astarion, who immediately throws himself to the floor. He does what Cazador likes best. He begs.
“Please, Master, I- I am sorry, I did not attain someone for you tonight. I-”
But Cazador cuts him off.
“Hm? Oh! No, don’t worry about that, my boy. Tonight’s going to be… a little different.”
Astarion risks a glance up at his face. He’s smiling, pleasantly. Doesn’t seem to notice nor care that there isn’t a warm body to suck dry half-fucked in the bed nearby. He hesitates, waiting for the slightest hint of the violence he knows rages inside his Master.
“Y- yes, Master?”
When Cazador sweeps easily past him, Astarion raises up, still on his knees, turning to face him. Cazador sinks onto the soft bed, patting a spot beside him. Astarion fixes his smile for Cazador as he shuffles over. He decides against making a quip or prattle about nothing. It’s for another time.
“Yes indeed. Tonight we’re going to have a very special time together.” The knife glints in the candlelight. “I want you to take your shirt off and lay down on your stomach, boy.”
Cazador’s fangs are as sharp as his eyes, watching Astarion with the type of greed that could swallow him whole.
“Tonight, I’m going to recite a poem to you.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cyphur perches expertly in the tall tree. Her head throbs with a foreign intruder, and her left eye socket feels the excruciating spasm from the wriggling creature inside it. Her large body is at odds to the delicate roost. A sturdy branch holds her weight easily, and her legs offer a meager groan as she readjusts as she looks around. She spots a rather large stone slab housed between two bouldering out crops, prickling her curiosity. It looks overgrown, unused, but she needs to double check. The footprints in the soft dirt below are congregating somewhere, all of them heading towards that direction.
Further still she sees movement in the brush, as if something large is slinking about the condensed forest. It’s unrefined, whoever it is, because the delicate noises of the undisturbed forest are completely at odds against soft curses and boots slamming onto the ground. She gives them some credit, they are trying to be stealthy. They’re just too far out of their element.
Then, of course, there’s the ominous smoke further still, only visible from the slightly parted leaves above her. She returns to the stone slab in the middle of nowhere, and decides there’s certainly more to it. If that acrid smoke means anything, it’s trouble. And that area is the perfect defensive, and offensive, zone to hold a last stand. She’ll need to find her way there before nightfall.
A palm, scarred from many years before, runs through her hair. It flicks against the ending of the two braids and wind-stricken hair on her right side. She needs to start moving. The sun casts the sky into brilliant blues and reds with its waning. Bark thunks and groans with her weight as she allows her body to fall. Her mass catches on every few branches, her calloused palms stopping her plummeting momentum before any true damage. The oak is strong and tall, having stretched high into the sky. It’s a shame its brothers are fallen and scarred from the Ilithid Nautiloid several yards back.
She begins to wonder how old this forest is, when her eye catches on something.
Cyphur slinks close to the base of the tree, her body hunched and still, as her predatory gaze focuses on the whispering brush. Out of it lurks a strange sight, but one she feels will be familiar with the downed ship. A man with a head full of luscious, white, curling hair steps out. His clothes look aristocratic, noble in nature, same as his stern face. A perfectly manicured brow lifts, and red eyes look about.
He thinks he’s heard something.
Cyphur’s muscles tense.
When he continues slowly, like prey on the verge of attack, Cyphur’s hand travels to her pocket. She retrieves what looks like a penknife, holding a thumb across the flaming halo sigil. The man below comes closer. The mouse waiting to be ambushed by the serpent. If she’s lucky, he’ll have the coin to back up his clothing. He doesn’t look like he can fight, nor does it seem like he’s ever been out of the city. Every bush makes him jumpy, every caw of a raven makes him tense. He doesn’t know that animals go quiet before the moment of strike.
Like how they are now.
The peace of nature is shattered by Cyphur’s large body dropping out of the tree. A metallic crunch of metal on metal couples the whistling in her ears. She grunts, landing so close to the dandy, his puffed sleeve ripples against her skin. The man, an elf, is caught off guard and stumbles back. Cyphur’s momentum goes with him, almost in a roll. The shaft of her spear cuts into his neck, his hands going with it as if to keep himself from choking, and the wind knocks out of him as his back hits the ground hard.
Cyphur’s knees bite into the ground, and her long hair curtains around his face. His red eyes widen in shock, before they turn into slits with his glare.
“Get off me!”
“Not until you say the magic word,” Cyphur singsongs, her mouth full of razors. She grins, sitting back on her legs. The man is so small, she thinks she can squeeze the life out of him with just her thighs. The spear traps both his arms against his neck, his hands pushing against the smooth wood, and her eyes flick upwards as movement drips to her senses. “A friend?”
“Hardly,” the onyx haired woman scoffs. “But I need him alive. Stow that blade, or I’ll show you the strength of real magic words.”
Cyphur’s brow raises at the challenge, but she grins as she considers the woman. Taking the man’s wrists in one hand so he can’t retaliate, Cyphur turns the tip of her spear to the onlooker.
“I saw you on the ship, didn’t I?”
“Both of us, I’m sure. Prisoners, just like I assume you were. Got a hitchhiker as well?”
Cyphur nods and sighs. This is turning into a long day.
“Kill her!” the man demands of his not-friend.
The tiefling looks down at him, giving his wrists a squeeze. ‘Really?’ her expression says. He thrashes a little, but no amount of deadened momentum is getting her large body off him.
Both women go back to ignoring him.
“We could work together, you know?” The darkly dressed woman suggests. Her eyes seek for an olive branch, deciding on: “My name is Shadowheart. This is Astarion.”
Astarion makes a small noise of offense.
But it’s enough for Cyphur. She can see in Shadowheart’s eyes an impression of honesty. Resilience and loyalty.
She lowers her weapon.
“I’m Cyphur. Pleased to meet you.”
Shadowheart quirks a small smile, “The pleasure’s all mine, I’m sure.”
“Are you two done flirting yet?” Astarion complains weakly.
Cyphur holds back a chuckle but gets off him. He makes a great show of dusting off, messing over his clothes and his hair. The women watch him with interest for a few minutes as he walks a bit away, grumbling, then wanders back.
Finally they turn to each other again.
“So do we have a deal? We work together to figure this tadpole thing out?”
Cyphur considers the two of them. Two small, thin, pretty monochrome things. Of course they would need someone like her to keep them safe. Help make the right decisions. Maybe get some iron in them, they’re so anemic looking. And she could use, well, company.
She likes that idea.
“It’s a deal. I could use some companionship. You’ll be like my…” She tries to think of a word for it.
“Companions?” Astarion’s dry sarcasm supplies.
“Exactly.” She grins as Astarion rolls his eyes and Shadowheart supplies a sad smile back. “I saw a possibly hidden grove in that direction. We can reach it by nightfall.”
“Glorious,” Astarion approves. “This may be the start of a beautiful adventure.”