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The quiet always felt wrong. Not unwelcome or unpleasant.. Just...wrong.
Jasira stood at the narrow window of the townhouse Lady Jannath's Estate had loaned them, fingers resting against the warped wood of the frame, watching a street that no longer burned, no sounds of shouting, no smoke curling into the sky and no frantic pounding of boots or steel.
Just a cart rattling lazily over cobblestone. A pair of voices arguing over bread prices. Somewhere, distantly, laughter.
It made her shoulders ache from the tension coiled beneath.
Her body didn’t know what to do with stillness. It kept waiting for the call, the scream, the need. Something to justify the way her muscles held taunt like a drawn bow.
Nothing came.
Behind her, the house was full of sounds of unfamiliar life.
Floorboards creaked. Fabric rustled. A soft, uneven murmur of two voices, low and conspiratorial.
Children.
Jasira exhaled slowly, dragging her gaze from the window as if it might pull her back into motion if she looked too long. She turned.
The townhouse was modest by noble standards well-furnished once, now lived in with a kind of careful disarray. Blankets folded too neatly. Supplies stacked with purpose. Nothing wasted. Nothing quite home yet.
On the floor near the hearth, Arabella sat cross-legged, brow furrowed in fierce concentration over a small cluster of leaves she’d coaxed into growing from a cracked teacup. They trembled faintly under her focus, greener than they had any right to be this far from the wilds.
Across from her, Yenna watched, chin propped in her hands, eyes wide with quiet awe.
“Does it hurt?” Yenna asked softly.
Arabella didn’t look up. “No. Not anymore.”
A pause.
“…Did it, before?”
This time Arabella hesitated. Just for a second.
“…Sometimes.”
Jasira’s chest tightened.
She recognized that answer. The careful trimming of truth, not a lie, but not the whole of it either.
Was that her influence?
Gods.
That thought unsettled her more than any battlefield ever had.
Across the room, Astarion lounged in a high-backed chair that didn’t quite suit him, too plain, too worn but he occupied it like a throne all the same.
One leg draped over the arm. Fingers idly turning a playing card over his knuckles in a slow, practiced rhythm.
He looked… at ease.
Which was precisely why Jasira knew he wasn’t.
His gaze flicked, tracking. Measuring. Counting distances, exits, shadows. Even now. Even here.
The card stilled for a fraction of a second as his eyes passed over the girls.
Something in his expression shifted.
Gone before it could settle into anything Jasira could name.
He resumed the motion, smooth as ever.
“Careful,” he drawled, voice like silk. “At that rate, you’ll have the entire place overgrown by supper. And while I do appreciate a certain… aesthetic, I’d rather not wake up strangled by ivy.”
Arabella rolled her eyes but smiled faintly.
“It’s just a sprout.”
“Yes, well. That’s how it starts,” he said lightly. “First a sprout, then a vine, then suddenly I’m being digested by houseplants. A tragic end, really. Quite poetic.”
Yenna giggled.
The sound seemed to catch him off guard.
He blinked once, like he hadn’t expected it like he wasn’t sure what to do with it now that it was there.
Jasira watched that, quietly.
Catalogued it.
She moved then, crossing the room with the same purposeful grace she’d carried through battlefields and blood. But here, the motion felt… excessive. Too sharp for a space that didn’t demand it.
She slowed herself deliberately before lowering to sit beside the girls.
“How long have you been at it?” she asked Arabella.
“Not long.”
Jasira nodded, studying the small plant.
“You’re pushing too much,” she said gently. “You don’t need to force it to grow faster. Let it breathe.”
Arabella huffed. “I am letting it-”
“You’re not.”
Not unkind. Not soft either.
Just certain.
Arabella frowned… then, reluctantly, eased her focus.
The leaves steadied. Brightened as they unfurled.
“…Oh.”
Jasira allowed herself the faintest smile.
Yenna leaned closer to her side without thinking. Small. Quiet. Seeking warmth she wasn’t sure she was allowed to ask for.
Jasira stilled.
There it was again that pull. That expectation. That need.
She didn’t know what to do with it.
Didn’t know how to be what it required.
Slowly, awkwardly, she rested a hand on Yenna’s back.
Not quite an embrace.
But not nothing.
Yenna relaxed instantly.
Like it was enough.
Jasira let out a quiet breath, she wasn't sure what to do in these soft moments but she tried.
Across the room, the soft flick of cards stopped.
Astarion watched them now, openly. Something unreadable in his gaze. Possessive, perhaps. Protective. Wary. Hungry in a way that had nothing to do with blood.
This little circle forming on the floor, this was not the life he had envisioned.
Not even close.
And yet…
He couldn’t quite bring himself to look away.
“…Well,” he said after a moment, too casually, “if we’re all going to sit about pretending we know how to relax, we might as well do something useful with it.”
Jasira glanced up at him.
His mouth curved, into that sharp and familiar grin that told her he was up to something.
“Tell me,” he continued, flicking the deck into his hand with practiced ease, “do either of you happen to know how to play cards?”
Yenna perked up immediately.
“I know some games.”
“Perfect,” Astarion cut in smoothly, rising. “Then we’ll fix that dreadful gap in your education.”
Arabella tilted her head. “What kind of game?”
His smile sharpened.
“The kind where you learn very quickly whether you’re clever… or simply lucky.”
The table was small. Slightly uneven.
They gathered around it anyway.
Astarion dealt with effortless precision, cards snapping against the wood in clean, controlled motions. A flourish here. A subtle flick there.
Performance, yes.
But also habit.
“Three-Dragon Ante,” he said, sliding the last card into place. “A game of strategy, risk, and most importantly knowing when someone is lying to your face.”
His gaze flicked meaningfully between them.
“Which,” he added lightly, “you’ll find is an invaluable skill.”
Jasira huffed a quiet breath that might have been amusement.
“Are you going to teach them to play,” she asked, “or corrupt them entirely?”
“My dear,” he replied without missing a beat, “I’m doing both.”
At first, it was clumsy.
Arabella overthought every move, brows drawn tight as she tried to anticipate outcomes three steps ahead.
But Yenna....Yenna watched. Listened. Learned.
It didn’t take long.
“…Wait,” she said slowly during one round, eyes narrowing at Astarion’s hand. “You said that was a bad card earlier.”
“It is,” he replied smoothly.
“But you smiled when you got it.”
A beat.
Astarion stilled.
Then, slowly his grin returned. Sharper this time.
“Well now,” he murmured. “Aren’t you a perceptive little thing.”
Yenna beamed.
Arabella blinked between them. “Wait! does that mean-”
“It means,” Astarion said, leaning forward slightly, voice dropping into something conspiratorial, “that the first rule of cards is that the cards themselves matter far less than the person holding them.”
He tapped the table.
“And the second rule…”
A flick of his wrist so quick it was almost invisible and suddenly one of Yenna’s cards had changed.
She gasped.
Jasira’s brow lifted.
“…You cheated,” Arabella accused.
Astarion placed a hand over his chest in mock offense.
“Cheated?” he echoed. “My dear, I prefer to think of it as…creative advantage.”
Yenna giggled again brighter this time.
“Can you teach me that?”
Jasira turned to him, curious despite herself.
For a moment he hesitated, something flickered across his face. Old instincts. Old memories.
Then...
“…Yes,” he said.
Soft. Decided.
“Of course I can.”
The afternoon stretched.
Not into silence.
But into something quieter than chaos.
Cards slid across worn wood. Small victories sparked delighted laughter. Groans followed narrow losses. Astarion’s sharp wit softened at the edges, curling into something almost warm as he guided, corrected, taught.
Jasira watched it all.
Felt it settle, strange and unfamiliar somewhere deep in her chest.
Not peace.
Not yet.
But…
Something like the beginning of it.
Outside, the city carried on.
Inside, for the first time since the world had nearly ended.
They simply did nothing at all....