Starlit Serpent

The kitchen smells of bread, onions, and something Wyll insists is coming along beautifully despite the pot making several ominous noises. Deia stands beside him at the counter, black hair falling loose around her face while she carves uneven slices from a loaf too long for the board beneath it. She has been told three times already that the slices do not need to be perfect. She has ignored this advice with the grim focus of a woman defusing a bomb.

“Bread is not meant to be interrogated,” Wyll says, stirring the pot with one hand.

Deia does not look up.

“Then it should confess faster.”

He laughs, warm and easy, and reaches past her for the salt.

“Gale did say this tenday was meant to be a celebration, not a military campaign.”

“Gale says many things. Most of them have footnotes.”

“That is true.”

Deia’s mouth twitches. For a while, they work like that. Shoulder to shoulder, trading small jokes over the hiss of the fire and the soft scrape of knife against wood. Outside, the camp is still waking. Somewhere beyond the wall, Karlach is laughing at something loudly enough to startle birds from the trees. Somewhere nearer, Astarion complains about being awake before noon with the wounded dignity of a dethroned prince. Wyll glances toward one of the shelves where a few books sit among jars of dried herbs.

“You know,” he says, “this reminds me of a story I loved when I was younger.”

“A story relating to the life-threatening stew?”

“No, no. An elven tale. Very old. At least, that was what the book claimed,” he smiles a little. “A wandering prince disguises himself as a cook in a moonlit court so he can learn why the queen’s youngest daughter refuses to speak.”

Deia pauses with the knife half-buried in bread. Wyll continues, unaware at first.

“It has everything. Secrets, songs, some rather unnecessary weeping beneath silver trees. I thought it terribly romantic at fourteen.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“It was,” his smile grows. “I adored it.”

Deia resumes cutting, though slower now.

“I don’t know many elven stories.”

Wyll looks at her then. She says it casually. Too casually. As if remarking on the weather, or the state of the bread, or the fact that Astarion has probably stolen a pear from the basket and will deny it badly.

“My heritage was never much of a subject,” she adds. “The humans who took me in after the ritualists threw me away were not especially interested in teaching me anything that could not bring coin back to the house.”

She shrugs one shoulder.

“Astarion is the first high elf I have known well enough to call a friend. And he is hardly a reliable cultural ambassador.”

From the next room, Astarion’s voice drifts in.

“I heard that.”

“You were meant to,” Deia calls back.

“That wounds me.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“No,” he agrees. “But I felt it was important to perform injury.”

Wyll smiles, but the expression softens at the edges. The spatula slows in his hand, then stills completely. Deia notices. Her knife stops.

“Wyll.”

“One moment.”

He sets the spatula down, wipes his hand on a cloth, and walks to the shelf. From between a jar of thyme and a stack of folded linen, he draws a book bound in leather, softened at the corners by use. Little ribbons mark several pages. One edge has been repaired with careful thread. Deia eyes it warily as he returns.

“This was one of my favorites,” he says.

She looks from the book to his face.

“Was?”

Wyll holds it out. Deia does not take it. The pot bubbles behind them, forgotten.

“It is a collection,” he says gently. “Stories, songs, old customs, fragments of poetry. Some of it is probably sentimental nonsense. Some of it is beautiful. Some of it, I suspect, is both.”

“Wyll.”

“It comes with no obligation,” his voice stays light, but not careless. “Not even to read it.”

Her fingers curl once around the handle of the knife.

“A gift should not feel like a debt,” he says.

Something in her face changes. Only slightly. A small fracture in the mask, no bigger than a candleflame seen through a keyhole. Then she sets the knife down and takes the book. Carefully. As if it might bruise. The leather rests against her palms. Her thumb moves over the worn cover, over the places where Wyll’s hands must have held it years before hers.

“This is yours,” she says quietly.

“It is yours now.”

“You should not give away favorite things.”

“I disagree,” he smiles. “Favorite things are often improved by being given to the right person.”

Deia looks away too quickly. Wyll, mercifully, pretends not to notice. She opens the book at one of the marked pages. The writing is delicate, the margins filled with tiny notes in a younger Wyll’s hand. There is a song there, written in Common and Elvish both. Deia studies it with narrowed eyes.

“This word,” she says. “What does it mean?”

Wyll leans closer.

“Roughly? Little star. Though the phrase is more affectionate than literal.”

Deia hums. From the doorway, Astarion says:

“Depending on the dialect, it can also imply someone small, luminous, and profoundly irritating.”

Deia does not turn.

“How convenient. A song about you.”

Wyll laughs. Astarion places a hand over his heart.

“Again, wounded.”

Deia’s mouth curves, but her eyes remain on the page. Her thumb rests beneath the Elvish line, not quite touching the ink. The pot gives a violent hiss. All three of them look over. Soup spills onto the stove. Wyll startles.

“Gods, the stew.”

Deia snaps the book shut and points at him.

“Blade of Frontiers. Vanquisher of devils. Defeated by stew.”

“You were meant to be watching it.”

“I was being culturally enriched.”

Astarion sighs from the doorway.

“This is what happens when one allows sincerity near an open flame.”