#marigoldfaucet

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.

—