#liliactrees

It truly brings me an immense joy to transfer the movies playing in my mind at bedtime down to the written page. I mean, the act itself—choosing the right words to convey the tone I want, shaping out the chapters, staring at a blinking cursor—even when it's miserable, I love it. (Even more, once it's finished, the satisfaction at being able to go back to that fic whenever I want—whenever I'm craving that one particular scene, that one particular kiss, that one particular storyline—is absolutely unmatched for me.)

I also am divinely fortunate to be surrounded by dear friends who are also avid writers. @jadesabre301, @eponymous-rose, @perahn, @servantofclio, basically everyone in the movie night group—they are cheerleaders and soundboards and they love the craft as much as I do, and even if I know I'm about to post something that might get two comments if I'm lucky, running a draft by the group & having Perahn recognize and call out a vocative O or a diacritical é or some other silly flourish I'd never dreamed anyone would appreciate is like hoping for a single daisy and getting a bouquet of roses.

All of that is to say: I just love the darn work, and I have people close to me who also love the work, and that does enough of the emotional heavy lifting even on the long projects that I don't have to depend on comments to feel my efforts have been appreciated.

I'm not sure that's particularly useful, but it's true.

3. I struggle with broad narrative structure.

This has been a weakness of mine all the way back to baby's first longfic (Deathsong, Bleach, 2010). Despite the detailed outlines I always draft before beginning a long project, there's always some narrative throughline I fumble without meaning to, and the only way my beta can catch it is if she gets the whole thing at once.

Honestly, I don't think there's a single >30k word fic in my corpus that doesn't have a note from Jade somewhere alerting me to the bones I've forgotten to build.

I want my stories to be good. Not just fun to read, although I do want that too; I mean structurally, from the ground up, I have a vested interest in constructing something narratively sound and coherent and strong. I really want my fics to be well written, at least to my own limits, and I know overarching theme is not one of my strengths.

Therefore, if I want my final product to be the best thing I can make, I need a second set of eyes (Jade's eyes) on the body complete to identify those weak places so I can fix them. If I'm posting as I go, then there's no chance to fix my foundational issues from Chapter 2 when she's only just recognized them in Chapter 6.

(This is also why I so deeply appreciate her editing. When I know my work is flawed, I need that correction over uncritical praise; and it makes her praise more precious when I've earned it with the fixes. And yes, there have been occasions where I didn't make every change she suggested, but I knew thanks to her comments what imperfections I would be permitting to exist, and I decided I could live with them.)

I would rather sacrifice the reward of chapter-by-chapter comments than end up with a fundamentally flawed final fic.

4. Relying on others' actions to motivate me is very unhealthy for me, and I've actively worked to avoid it in my adult life.

I don't think this needs a lot of explanation (like that'll stop me), but I have found over the years that I crave praise. I like winning awards. I like getting good comments on my student evaluations. I like being recognized for my skills and told I did a good job and having all my colleagues go, "ooh, she's so good at what she does."

In fact, I like it enough that I have to avoid it. I haven't opened my student evaluations in over a year because I get addicted to the praise and unreasonably irritated by criticism (especially if I know whatever they're complaining about isn't accurate), and I know the curriculum committee will tell me about any issues anyway. I know my work is good, I really do. I know I'm good at my job, and I know I'm a reasonably proficient writer. I cannot—and must not—depend on others to tell me so to believe it.

@eponymous-rose and I have talked at length about writing now for Veilguard. We both know this is hardly the most popular game in the franchise, and we've had long conversations about why we're choosing to write in its world anyway, which basically boils down to: we want to. We both have stories we want to tell in its flawed, imperfect, compelling world, and we've both come to terms with that likely meaning a low (or even zero) comment count on AO3.

If that comment count is the only metric of success by which I measure, what does it mean when it measures low? If I get one comment on 30k words I bled to write, have I failed? Have I written something of poor quality? Have I wasted my time, done a bad job, hastened the heat death of the universe with my electronic and digital waste?

I can't believe that. I must believe the work itself was worth doing if I've done it to the best of my ability, even if it goes unnoticed in the broader scope of fandom. I have to derive my satisfaction from knowing I have made something out of nothing & polished it as best as I know how. If I become reliant on others' reactions to inspire me to write—if I'm suddenly depending on a comment count becoming n+1 for every chapter before I can begin the next one—then I've surrendered my creative happiness and motivation to the hands of total strangers.

Understand: when I nobly claim that I refuse to write to an algorithm, what I mean is that like an addict, I have to choose over and over to remove myself from the thing that poisons me. I am too susceptible to praise. If I let the dopamine response of comment counts become integral to my writing process, then I risk becoming dependent on it. The only way I know how to prevent that for myself is to remove it from the method altogether.

That does not mean I don't value reader comments; I do, deeply. I have an entire folder of screenshots saved like golden treasures, hoarded up against the bad days. When this Big Bang fic finally comes out, I intend to advertise it to the point of annoyance. I love comments to a probably unhealthy degree. But knowing that about myself means I have to take steps to ensure those comments stay the gifts they are, rather than the payment itself.

I don't want to burn out. I don't want to stop telling stories. And for me, this is the only way I think of to do it. If I want to make something I'm really proud of, something I can go back and reread years later and still love, the writing itself must be the goal, and everything else has to come second to that. I need to know I can survive even if AO3 were to shut down forever tomorrow.

Nothing to be done for it. She shook out the road-grit from her cloak, re-tied her hair more smoothly, and pushed open the door. A man in a starched white shirt leapt to pull it the rest of the way for her—unsettling enough even before he apologized for his lapse in attention—and Tav muttered some generic benediction before fleeing past him. 

The main room was fine, very large and very crowded. On the left side were two dozen tables, crammed with velvet-cushioned chairs and bedecked with platters of steaming fish and cut-crystal wineglasses. On the right was a small dance floor, overcrowded just like the rest of the room with men and women in full evening dress, a small string trio on a corner stage leading them through some swirling dance Tav didn’t know. 

Astarion would be at the bar, she knew. Tav kept her head down as she weaved through the crowd, avoiding the glances of curious diners at her leather armor, her bloodied gloves, the blasted mudstain down her leg. Bloody oozes. Bloody opportunistic looters without a goose’s sense among them, too foolish to understand that what they’d stolen from Sorcerous Sundries might in fact be very, very magical indeed—

There. The crowd parted enough she could make out Astarion’s white hair, and every ounce of tension melted out of her like oil off a hot pan. He was sitting at the bar on the back wall, one leg crossed over the other, his chin on his hand, his whole body turned toward the person sitting beside him. His eyes were lidded and unblinking and beautiful, and Tav wanted nothing more in the world than to walk straight into his arms and bury her face in his chest. 

Astarion’s neighbor said something, leaning towards him, and Astarion laughed. A conspiratorial laugh, low and inviting, and a smile afterwards that seemed full of promises. Tav stumbled to a halt. 

Who—a man. She didn’t know him. A little taller than her, she thought, and an elf, very slim, with tawny hair that fell in a straight sheet down his back. He was dressed in fine robes of orange and gold, and nearly every finger bore a jewel-studded ring. He leaned in towards Astarion again, and though she couldn’t hear the words from here, she could make out enough of his tone to know it was a question. 

Jealousy roared up the back of her throat like bile. Tav recoiled, shocked at her own vitriol—but a second wave crashed over her before the first had waned, and her fingers clenched around the hilt of her rapier. 

How dare he. How dare this man—this stranger—come to this overpriced hothouse of an inn and choose Astarion out of everyone, out of all the wretched jewel-encrusted gentry swirling around them to sink his soft unbloodied hands into—

And just as swiftly as it came, the jealousy vanished.

Why not? 

Why not Astarion? He was clearly the most handsome man in the room, apparently unattached and used to luxury, his fine white curls tumbling over his forehead, his eyes sharp as knives. He was dressed in her favorite black with red trim—the embroidery on this one was more subtle, less garish—and his long, elegant fingers played over the stem of his wineglass with careless grace. Even the silver threading on his shoes shone. He might have stepped down from a painting only moments ago, and she had blood on one cheek and sewer muck caked into the heels of her boots. 

What right did she have, after all? This man might be everything Astarion deserved. Self-assured, wealthy, able to keep him in fine clothes and carriages and company the way he ought to be kept. The diamond on the man’s thumb alone could buy half the Wide, Tav thought; surely someone like that could purchase Astarion safety from the sun. In her experience, the wealthy always knew people, or they knew people who knew people, and if nobody knew anybody then the money could always find someone for them instead. 

To Tav’s horror, her foot took a half-step backwards.  

Better this way, hissed a small voice in the back of her mind, one which sounded remarkably like her long-dead aunt. Better this way, you rotten lead weight. Fucking shackle, what good are you? Let go before you sink him too. 

Her foot took another step backwards, and then Astarion laughed. 

A beautiful sound on the face of it. Not that high giggle he gave when he was being shocking on purpose; not that punch of sound when he was surprised by his own amusement. It was a coaxing, persuasive sort of laugh, very musical, and to Tav’s ears—thin and fragile as a sheet of glass. 

Oh, gods. What was she doing? What was she doing? 

The fear released its hold on her feet as if she’d burst into flame. She strode forward, narrowly displacing a waiter with a tray of expensive-looking liqueurs, and split through a pair of cattily gossiping half-elves with matching feather fascinators. The mud was forgotten. The torn cloak was forgotten. The sideways glances and whispered asides as she passed—nothing at all. 

He loved her. How dare she forget? How dare she think such a precious thing might not be worth fighting for? 

She could practically hear his voice in her head. Little idiot!

She broke through the last of the crowd between them, and Astarion saw her. A shell fell away from his expression, so delicate and perfectly molded she’d hardly noticed it until it vanished, and then a warmth grew in his crimson eyes. Not some great blaze, not a raging fire that leapt from tree to tree; something smaller instead, quiet and very steady, the way one lit a candle at the door to welcome home a weary lover.

His smile was real. She thought she could survive a thousand years on that alone.

”Astarion,” Tav said as she reached him, and then she did what she’d longed to for hours and walked straight into his chest where he sat.

“Hello, darling,” he said to the top of her head, and his cool arm wrapped instantly around her shoulders. She shuddered in relief. “Gods below. Did you know you’re filthy?”

”It hadn’t completely escaped my notice,” she said, her words muffled in his collar. Despite every instinct she had telling her to curl up against him right here and sleep for a week, Tav forced herself to straighten. Astarion’s hand slid to the back of her neck, but he didn’t let her go, and he made no move to displace her from the cradle of his knees. “I see you’re very clean and pressed.”

”Volunteer less often for that nasty rebuilding effort, my dear, and you too can spend your days lounging on satin sheets and reading extremely awful poetry.” 

Tav laughed, and his eyes softened. She said, “I missed you.”

”Yes,” he said, as close as he ever ventured to such admissions in public. The string trio finished one set and began another; his thumb stroked up the line of her neck and down again.

The man beside Astarion abruptly cleared his throat. They both looked over; he lifted a manicured, arrogant brow. “You must excuse me,” the man said with the brassy air of one used to being obeyed. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure.”

”Yes, Astarion, introduce me to your friend.”

Ah, he knew her too well. A wicked gleam flashed though his eyes, gone again before she could blink. “Of course. Good sir, this is the succinctly-named Tav, orphan of this fair city turned recently and disgustingly savior of the same. My love, this is…ah. Alexander.”

”Alahonder,” the man said, now decidedly icy. “My wife is Olara Hhune.” 

“I’m sorry, I’m not familiar,” Tav said, and she pulled her glove off with her teeth before extending her hand to shake. He took it for the briefest moment, his fingers limp as eels. “Have you two lived in Baldur’s Gate long?”

“Yes,” he said curtly. 

Astarion lifted his wineglass swiftly to his lips. Tav let him—his fingers were trembling with laughter against her neck—and rested an idle hand on Astarion’s knee. “How wonderful. You two must love each other very much.” 

Alahonder Hhune, who had one of the most infamously contentious marriages in the city’s history—who had, Tav knew, been thrown twice from his Upper City manse within the last three months by his furious wife—curled his impeccable elven lip. “Of course,” he said, even more glacial than before. Then he seemed to rally, and with a visible effort he gathered together the scraps of his composure and turned back to Astarion. “My dear boy,” he said, all coaxing honey now, “let me find you again later. Alone, I think. We could pick up right where we left off, hmm?”

”Of course,” Astarion said gleefully, and he brushed his free hand through the man’s tawny hair where it framed his face. “Come back tonight, near midnight. Don’t worry. I’ll find you.” 

“Oh,” the man said with a bloom of painfully obvious lust, and without another glance at Tav, he stood in a flourish of orange and gold robes and strode away into the crowd. They parted for him, then closed again behind him like water as if he’d never been. 

Astarion, who was still running his thumb over Tav’s neck, turned her face to his. “Well, hello,” he purred. “What curious timing you have, my dear.”

”Just lucky, I suppose,” she said, unable to keep the stupid smile from her face, and before she could succumb to the doubt she leaned up and kissed him. 

Astarion let out a low, surprised noise that made her wish to instantly spirit them both away to privacy, then slipped his hand into her hair and pulled her mouth properly against his. The kiss wasn’t long, but it was uncharacteristically tender, and when it was over he let out a little sigh that nearly took her to pieces. Against her mouth, he said, “You really are filthy, you know.” 

“And you’re impossible. Alahonder Hhune, really?”

He sat back, looking immensely self-satisfied. ”What can I say, darling? Had you felt a little less altruistic today, I would have been a little less alone, and a little less alluring to unhappily married second-rate oligarchs.”

”You could always—“ she began, but the memory of exactly why he couldn’t follow her to these daytime excursions flung itself hard against her, and she swallowed the rest of the sentence like glass. “Look less beautiful,” she said lamely instead.

Astarion smirked. “My poor little love. Jealous, are we?”

”Yes,” Tav said, defiant now, and she kissed him again. “Don’t leave me for a Hhune.”

”Certainly not. I’ll hold out for at least a Linnacker.”

”Hm. You could do even better.”

Irritation sparked briefly across Astarion’s face. ”I don’t want better,” he said, sharp enough the tiefling behind the bar glanced over at them. “I know you can be painfully dense, my dear, but let’s not pretend you’re amnesiac, too.” 

How stupid, that the more acidic he became the more her heart puddled in her chest. “Fine,” she said, leaning into him, and he wrapped his arm around her once more. “Let’s see it, then.”

Astarion laughed. He flicked out his wrist, then held up an earring: a polished amber pendant wrapped in heavy gold wire. He twisted the earring this way and that for her amusement, the room’s lavish candelabra flickering fire through the facets. Then he rippled his fingers in a little wave, and the earring vanished. 

“Very good.” 

Astarion laughed. “How smug you sound.” 

“I take my wins where I can get them,” Tav said, and she splayed her fingers to reveal three of Alahonder Hhune’s rings arrayed between her knuckles. Framed on either side by gold and rubies, the diamond worth half the Wide gleamed like cold fire.

Astarion’s smile widened toothily. There was delight there, she thought, and a certain novel pride; and under all of it that same slow-burning affection, richer than any basket of diamonds. How wonderful to be the reason for that fanged smile; how precious to feel her own proud delight in turn. That she’d failed to recognize the glassy-eyed mask earlier seemed the height of impossibility, especially against such a clear window into his heart. 

“You're wonderful,” she said at last, secreting the jewels back into the pouch at her waist, and she framed his face in both hands. “I’ve a confession to make.” 

“Oh, do tell.”

”I’ve gotten mud on your trousers.”

”Ah—ugh,” he said, with very real disgust, and he pulled her hands from his cheeks to examine the streak she’d left against his knee. “Why do I put up with you? Honestly.”

”Because you love me,” Tav said.

”Because I love you,” he repeated with tremendous longsuffering, and he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and kissed her carefully on the mouth. “I’ll love you more if you bathe and change.” 

“An easy heart to buy. Don’t you have a date later?”

“Yes, though it won’t be with any Hhunes or Linnackers.” His thumb slid to the vein of her throat and pressed there, carefully. “Dinner and a show, I think.” 

Tav laughed. A few of the patrons nearby cast her a glance, but it was swiftly followed by another whisper of her name and an unexpected summary of her recent erstwhile heroics, and then Tav stopped listening because it didn’t matter anyway, because Astarion was smiling at her and Astarion loved her and that was worth any shade of gossip the city could scrounge up. The strings launched into a sprightly minuet, and a new crop of glittering men and women swept onto the floor in a seamless tide.

”I’m glad you’re here, Astarion,” Tav said, meaning it. “I’m glad I’m here with you.” 

Astarion stood, eyes serious, and looked down at her. “I am, as well,” he said at last, and then he shook off the mood like a cat jumping from a bath. “Come on, let’s go. Before this nauseating sentimentality makes me do something I’ll regret.” 

Tav laughed, and when he put his hand to the small of her back she let him guide her towards the stairs. Halfway up the stairs their fingers brushed; he’d gone for the rings at the same moment she’d reached for his pilfered earring. She laughed again; he snorted, and they settled for taking each other’s hands instead.

—

Oh, gods; oh, Tymora—let fortune find her now above all. Her head pounded white agony; the road swam and swept up to meet her, then dipped away again without warning. Somewhere in the Lower City. She didn’t know where. She lurched past a stack of crates, missed the grab for their steadying edges, and nearly fell. 

Shouts, calls. Someone among them knew her name—shit and shit and hells. She was running precious dear on favors, but her left arm hung limp as gallows rope and the alley had forked into four unsteady paths. She’d have to go to Lady Ague and take the cost full on the chin. How had she gotten so far from the den? She couldn’t remember—

Something crashed to the street beside her foot. A clay shingle, shattered in the fall. Someone was on the roof above her—she could sense them now, though the twilight haze filled her eyes when she tried to look up. A light, quick step. As light as her own, at least when she wasn’t—when she wasn’t—

Her foot came down, but the dirty street failed to meet it where it should. She stumbled, hand outstretched, but before she could plummet nose-first to the cobblestones an arm wrapped around her waist from behind. 

Instinct grappled with vertigo and won. He had a knife at his belt; she snared it and twisted free in the same motion, backing herself against the alley wall. She pressed her shoulders against the cool stone, trying for a modicum of steadiness; he drifted into two images and then one and then two again. 

White, curly hair. Hands empty, outstretched. An arrogant brow. Familiar, though she couldn’t put a name to him. Upper City gentry, surely. Too clean by half.

He was talking to her, though his eyes were trained on the wavering blade. She blinked rapidly, as if that might dampen the ringing in her ears, but she saw his mouth shape her name.

“—trail of blood a mile wide, darling. You should be grateful I’m the only one hunting you tonight, hmm?”

Hunting. The words were a threat, though the voice was coaxing. She sidled a step to her left, towards where she thought the nearest gap between dilapidated homes might be. 

“Now, now, let’s not do anything rash—”

She bolted. Three steps in, both knees turned suddenly to water, and Tav crashed to the ground. Lightning agony cascaded through her left arm; she couldn’t stop the groans. 

“Serves you right,” the man said above her, though he sounded shaken. Cold fingers plucked the knife from her unresisting grip; a careful hand rolled her off her left side onto her back. “There. Be still for me, darling—don’t hit me, be still!”

She went for his eyes again, but he caught her wrist easily and pinned it to her stomach. The world spun crazily behind him, the ramshackle roofs even more lopsided than usual. Her gut churned—

“Fuck,” Tav said, and turned her head just in time to be violently sick. The man said nothing—she felt like he ought to be disgusted—and when she was through he eased her to her back again, a little away from the mess. 

“Are we quite finished then?” he drawled, but the hand he laid on her forehead was blessedly cool. “Not that this hasn’t been charming in its own way, of course, but it turns out I rather prefer you lucid.”

Tav clenched her eyes shut, then opened them again. She tried to force his face into focus; he was bent over her, his white curls familiar, the red eyes familiar, his familiar mouth creased in a worried frown.

“That’s right, darling,” he said, and his voice was coaxing again. “It’s only me. No one at all to worry about, no Fists or Guild or patriars with old grudges. No one’s chasing you but me, love, and you gave me rather express permission to do so. Come now. Fetch the memory out of that worm-riddled brain of yours.” 

A name surfaced, foggy as the docks at dawn. Her tongue was so thick she could barely shape the word. “Astarion.”

“Very good,” he said, and even like this she could see the relief plain in his face. 

Astarion. Lover. Friend. Other names, other images dredged themselves up like the fishing boats she saw sometimes in the river, nets creaking and straining with the haul. 

Fireworks. Felogyr’s shop, and the ambush waiting on the top floor. Fire everywhere. A mage, finger outstretched towards her. A sickly green blast, a jolt of raw agony, and then the plummet backwards into open air. Sky—sunset—sky—brick pavers hurtling up towards her—

“I fell,” she gasped, and groaned again as the movement jolted her arm. 

“Like an exceedingly lovely stone.” She tried to turn her head to look at her shoulder, but Astarion caught her cheek and gently turned her to face him again. “Ah, ah, darling. You’d better not. This is a sight for Shadowheart alone, I think.”

The back of her throat burned with bile. “Hurts.”

”Shattering every bone in your arm does that, I’m afraid.” 

“Head, too.”

“Well, that’s because you’ve cracked your skull on top of everything else.” He said it lightly, but when he showed her his hand, his fingers were tipped with blood, and the lines of his mouth were tight. “You’ll simply have to wait here with me until Shadowheart comes.”

The twilight sky began spinning again behind his head, and she shut her eyes. “Shadowheart.”

“Yes, dear. Silver hair, a tacky fascination with black and purple, deific allegiances which are erratic at best. Heals like a mallet.”

She wasn’t really following the words, but his voice was soothing, musical, and every instinct she had told her to relax back into its wash. There was safety there. Affection. Not the same as the den, which was safe more for only having a defensible entrance and a single exit, but because the voice seemed to genuinely care about her. He didn’t want her hurt. 

Not a Fist. Not a guard. Just someone who would keep her safe or die trying. She was as sure of that as she was that she would never have a left arm again.

“Wake up, darling.”

A sharper tone now. She forced her eyes open—hadn’t realized they’d closed—and Astarion’s face rippled into something like focus. She couldn’t resolve him into one, though, and after a few attempts she gave up and looked towards the Astarion on the right. “What?”

“Eyes on me. Not a request.”

“Mm.”

“Tavish. Look at me.”

Gods, it was hard. His cool hands were on her face again, turning her towards him. The pain in her head had become a throbbing nail at the base of her skull. “Astarion…”

“A little longer. Shadowheart should be nearly here.” His eyes were very red in the twilight, almost glowing with their own light. Or perhaps that was her own infatuation. His brow creased. “What? What is it?”

“I like…hm.” She dragged in a breath and tried again. “I like looking at you.”

His voice gentled. “And I like looking at you, darling. I like it even better when your eyes point the same direction.”

She closed them obligingly, and a moment later cool fingertips began tracing circles on her temples. She wanted to say something, to thank him, but the pain in her arm was becoming a mighty ocean, and she was losing the battle to keep ashore. The fingertips ran down her cheeks, along her throat, back up again to press gently on her forehead. She hummed at that, though the sound was broken.

“Good girl.”

She hummed again from a greater distance. Faintly she heard a precise magical pop at the end of the alley, then more voices. A man’s voice. A woman’s. Two. She could name these, even through the fog: Gale, Shadowheart, Karlach. Also friends. Also safety. She relaxed back into the street.

Someone laid hands on her shoulders, her arm. That hurt—her groan of protest sparked something very rapid and angry from Astarion, and the hands let go—and then Shadowheart’s glowing blue palm covered her eyes.

“Go to sleep,” Shadowheart said, in the curt, direct way she always used when she was worried, and Tav let the tide rise and carry her out to sea.

—

“Wake up, my dear.”

The voice was imperious, demanding. It cut through even the sluggish black water in which Tav comfortably floated. She liked the sound of it very much—wanted to move towards it—but gods, she was so comfortable, so quiet, so still. She thought she could sleep forever if only the voice would leave her alone. And yet—the thought of abandoning it seemed somehow awful. Tragic beyond measure.

“Come on, darling. Time to rise and smell the city’s rank masses.”

Tav let the voice float over her, simply enjoying its pitch and rhythm. There was a brief pause, and a moment later cool fingers pinched her cheek hard enough to sting. The voice snapped, “Wake up!”

“Hells,” Tav gasped, and her eyes shot open.

Two blurry Astarions floated above her, both with the same worried expression that faded behind poorly concealed relief. “It’s abominably rude to keep everyone waiting,” he said instead, and when she blinked he at last deigned to collapse into a single bent figure.

There were walls behind him, she realized. Elfsong walls, with their pleasant tapestries and dark-stained wood paneling. The sky beyond the window was black with night. No alley, no street, no swirling twilight sky. Her left arm ached like a bulette had gotten hold of it, but her head was remarkably clear. “Astarion,” she said, and the rest of the memories abruptly crashed over her like toppling bricks. “Oh, gods. The fireworks shop.”

“Thoroughly destroyed,” Astarion said with satisfaction, but he was forced to curtail any lurid explanations as Shadowheart arrived to unceremoniously displace him. She sat on Tav’s bedside and examined her eyes and ears, the motion of her fingers and toes—sans the left hand, which was splinted shoulder to wrist—and even had her recite a handful of ridiculous phrases which Shadowheart listed off with ironic gravity. Finally, however, she pronounced Tav unlikely to die in the next handful of minutes, and when Wyll called her away to examine some gash on Karlach’s shoulder, Astarion settled back into the chair he’d pulled beside the bed.

“Well!” he said, with affected disinterest. “Here we are at last, alone and reasonably right-headed. Tell me: how prepared are you to bolt from the room this instant?”

“Considering my legs feel like twin jellies, I think it would be a very bad idea indeed.” She scraped a hand over her face, trying to reorganize the disjointed flashes of memory into something coherent. “Astarion…were you running on the roof?”

“You took flight like Zariel herself was after you, my dear. It could hardly be helped, even if you were weaving worse than a brothel-goer on payday.”

“You could have let me run. I wouldn’t have gotten far.”

Astarion gave her a withering look. “Don’t make me regret this.”

“It was only a thought,” Tav said, and she settled back into the pillows. Something warm was glowing in her heart, warming her pleasantly from the inside out, and when Astarion took her good hand she linked her fingers through his immediately. “Why doesn’t my arm hurt anymore?”

“You’re drugged to the gills.”

“That would do it,” Tav agreed, and that glowing warmth spiraled out with comfortable lassitude through every limb. Blinking suddenly seemed a tremendous effort. “Thank you for trying, anyway. For coming after me. I didn’t know who you were the whole time, but I knew you were safe.” She drew his hand up to her cheek and closed her eyes. “Eventually.” 

“Hm,” he said, but his voice was very gentle. “If that was how you made all your escapes, it’s no wonder the Fist had you in Heapside every other week.”

“No,” she sighed, pressing more fully against his cool hand. “I’m very deft. Very slippery…tenth finger, nearly. Every cork and rathole east of Wyrm’s Rock—I know them all. Any other time…any other time, I’d have been hangman’s mercy.”

“You’re talking nonsense again,” he said without much conviction, and she felt fingers trace into her hair at her temple, then slide down to the base of her skull and linger there. “My, my, what a lovely goose egg. Try again, darling. Aim for civilized conversation this time.”

“Nonce.” 

Astarion laughed and let her hair go, though she kept his other hand pillowed beneath her cheek. A few minutes passed quietly, and then through the drifting haze she heard footsteps approach. In a deafening whisper, Karlach asked, “Well, Fangs? How’s she doing? Got three words in a line yet?”

Tav felt Astarion’s fingers twitch in her grip, then deliberately relax again. She knew he was still unpracticed—uneasy—with this sort of open affection, but she couldn’t come down enough from the golden cloud to care, and anyhow, he’d stayed put of his own volition. That it was exactly her preference as well seemed incidental.

“Very nearly,” he drawled from somewhere above her. “Save a profound and unintelligible lapse into cant. I gather her mind has returned. Whatever the worm’s left of it, that is.”

“Good.” The bed shifted mightily as Karlach sat on the edge, and Tav let herself roll an inch or two towards the comforting heat. “Hey, soldier. You awake?”

“Mmph.” 

“Glad to hear it,” Karlach said, and laughed. It was a warm, wonderful laugh, and a moment later Gale’s cheerful baritone danced over her as well. There were words in there, probably, but the effort required to parse them had become suddenly impossible, and Tav was content to recline back into the sound like a feather bed. 

Someone spoke, low and steady. Karlach’s voice, warm as embers. Astarion said something in answer—familiar, aggrieved—and Karlach and Gale laughed again. A good sound. A perfect sound, if she were honest, so beautiful she could drown in the luxury.

She was safe. Of course she was. Gale had a smile in his voice; Karlach was still laughing. Astarion’s thumb stroked against her temple, hidden beneath her hair. They’d never let her fall again.

The gold grew thick around her. Like a ship drawn in at last from the storms, moored safely in the harbor’s shelter, Tav drifted off to sleep.

—