Last Call
Chapter 13: Interlude – The Teddy Bears’ Picnic (Astraea)
(Nightal 4, 1493 - 8.5 Months Old)
Previous Chapter
Read on AO3
Warnings for this chapter: Bear-based violence
Every good little teddy bear Is sure of a treat today There's lots of marvelous things to eat And wonderful games to play Beneath the trees where nobody sees they'll hide and seek as long as they please 'Cause that's the ways the teddy bears have their picnic
If you go down in the woods today, You'd better not go alone It's lovely down in the woods today, But it's safer to stay at home For every bear that ever there was Will gather there for certain because Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic
- Jimmy Kennedy, “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic”
The embroidery hoop in his left hand shakes – a small, consistent tremor, but enough to make his needle miss its mark again. For what is probably the tenth time in as many minutes, Astarion swears under his breath, rubs the spot where the needle had entered the fabric between the still slightly numb but mercifully less-trembly thumb and finger of his right hand until the small hole disappears, and picks up his needle to try again. Needle poised once more over the fabric, he glares down at what progress he’s made adding this border to the silk handkerchief stretched over the hoop.
Little. That’s how much progress he’s made. Very little.
And sloppy at that.
Sure, the too-large and somewhat crooked stitches were fine enough for any two-bit tailor, and probably impressive for someone who’d only been conscious for five days after being eviscerated by a vindictive Cambion, but it wasn’t remotely close to his usual level of skill. And while he didn’t have many things that he took pride in enough to never do less than his best, his embroidery was one of the few where he did.
The embroidery was supposed to be giving him something to entertain himself. Something to keep him occupied since he’s still bed-bound, and likely will be for at least another two tenday if Halsin has anything to say about it. Which, considering he was now effectively Astarion’s personal in-house Healer until he gets back on his feet and isn’t in danger of accidentally pitching down the stairs if the wind blows too hard, the Druid has said quite a lot about it.
Really! You get caught lying on the floor having one teensy, tiny, itty-bitty little seizure after attempting to take a very slow and sneaky unauthorized walk to look out the window ten feet from the bed and see just how much the snow has piled up, and it’s like the world has ended. You’d think he’d eaten a puppy or something, rather than merely attempting an innocent evening constitutional.
Tossing the embroidery hoop next to him on the bed, he leans back into his pillows with a frustrated sigh. At least he still has pillows, plural. After Halsin and Lae’zel had carried him back to the bed, the Druid had tried to remove the second pillow, citing Astarion’s apparent “need” to lay flatter until the extra blood pressing on his brain fucked off back to whatever part of his body it came from. But he’d only just “graduated” yesterday morning to being allowed a second pillow to prop him at the slightest incline, and he’d be damned if he’d give it back now. Thus, in a fit of rebellion, he’d threatened to bite anyone who tried to take it from him, and made good on that threat the moment they reached for it, until both the bear and the Gith had eventually admitted defeat, allowing him to remain in possession of his hard-won feather-stuffed prize.
The problem, as he sees it, is that he is bored. And Astarion had never had to learn how to be bored before.
In the palace, there was always either something he was made to be doing, or something that was being done to him, time not spent in either of those two states being a precious rarity. During their adventure, they spent their days traveling, fighting, and exploring, and their nights around the campfire talking and drinking before retiring for a well-earned rest. After the brain, he and Tav had had to very quickly learn how to set up a house, live like the normal people they definitely were not, and prepare for an impending baby. Then they’d had a baby, and it was literally impossible to be bored with one of those around.
But now he was stuck in Jaheira’s spare room, trapped in this bed that is not nearly as comfortable as the one in his own home, and he is quite possibly slowly going insane.
The persistent headache from the slowly-healing brain bleed makes his eyes hurt too much to concentrate on print to read. The tremor in his hands makes them too shaky for him to do embroidery or write legibly. He isn’t allowed any wine, or even live prey aside from the meals he gets to take directly from Tav and Halsin, lest his uncooperative fingers betray him and set the creature loose into Jaheira’s house. Again. Tav and his friends take turns sitting with him, but conversation can only go so far when his half is limited to “I stayed right here in my sickbed and did absolutely nothing, like a good little vampire.” Most frustrating of all, he isn’t even allowed to have his non-sentient-creature blood in a glass, or even a cup. No, thanks to his inability to hold any open-mouthed vessel still enough to avoid sloshing the contents over the sides, they instead serve his meals to him in glass milk bottles.
With a straw.
The indignity!
He huffs, picking up Astraea’s stuffed bat from next to his pillow where she’s left it again and holding it on his lap, flipping its giant ears down over its eyes and back up again a few times just for something to do with his hands. Halsin had said recovery would take a while, but Astarion didn’t think it would take this long. He’d never had the debatable luxury of convalescing after an injury before. Prior to all the Illithid business, if he had legs that could move, he was simply expected to get up, get back to work, and make do. And even when he couldn’t move under his own power, Cazador could – and usually would – simply command him to do it and his body would obey where his will had failed. While they were traveling, potions and healing magic worked on him, so the most he’d have to lay around injured and miserable was usually no more than a few minutes, sometimes an hour, depending on what resources were available.
Now, though, he was expected to lay here, drowning in boredom, with nothing to do but sleep. And he’d already had enough sleep to last him a century.
A glance at the slight glow around the drawn curtains, and some internal vampiric instinct, tells him that the sun has finally risen enough for the day to officially be considered “begun,” meaning whatever “surprise” Tav had left to orchestrate while he stewed in his own ire should be arriving soon. She’d said it should be here around breakfast time, and he can hear Jord – Jaheira’s older son – moving around the kitchen, helping Gale ready the morning meal while Jaheira gives orders in her usual no-nonsense tone, so it must be any time now. He hasn’t the faintest clue what the surprise might be, but at this point Tav could probably drop a rabid badger on the bed and he’d still be delighted at the novelty of it.
Footsteps on the stairs echo up through the closed door and into his room. Halsin’s, by the sound of them, though quite a bit heavier than usual. Maybe the Druid was tired? Unlikely, considering the man is just as annoyingly cheerful in the mornings as Wyll is. Then again, the bear has also spent the last tenday and a half keeping Astarion alive and functioning, which, admittedly, he could have made a little easier on the man. He had meant to do a better job of sticking to his word from when he’d first woken up, to follow Halsin’s directions and not argue about his treatment, but… well. Perhaps they both should have known that his penchant for being argumentative wasn’t going to make him an ideal patient.
His ear flicks as he picks up the sound of Tav’s footsteps just behind Halsin’s, the pair of them whispering something to each other that he can’t quite catch. They stop just outside his door, and he can hear the sounds of shuffling and shushing, before Tav knocks.
“Are you awake, love? Decent? I’ve got that surprise I mentioned. Think you’re gonna like it.”
He rolls his eyes, mostly fondly, at the fact that it didn’t really matter if he’d been sleeping or not, the volume of her knock and question would’ve been enough to wake the dead regardless. He has a private chuckle at his own joke before calling out, “Yes, I’m awake, my dear. And you should know by now that I’m never decent. But I am clothed, if that’s what you mean.”
Immediately, the door cracks open and Tav pops her head around it, smile wide and eyes bright. “Oh good. I was worried you might’ve decided on having a little nap, and then we’d be in trouble, because I don’t know how much longer Halsin is going to be able to carry this. And you’ll definitely want to be clothed for it.” She carefully slides herself into the room, not allowing the door to open enough for him to see what Halsin is apparently carrying on the other side. She swiftly darts over to him to give him a quick good morning kiss, escaping back to the door before he can get a hand on her to prolong it. Laying a hand on the doorknob, she announces, “Well, my currently-immobile love, since you’ve been mostly well-behaved, I present to you: today’s entertainment, straight from the halls of Ravengard Manor.”
The door swings open to reveal Halsin standing in the doorway, and Astarion can’t stop the way his face lights up and his ears perk forward when he sees Karlach, held by the Druid in a princess-carry with her arms around his neck.
“Heya, Fangs!” she calls, a little more subdued and tired than her normal exuberance, but still smiling brightly as ever. “Shads needs a break from being my round-the-clock nanny and Wyll couldn’t dodge his dad pulling him into a buncha stupid politics stuff today, so I need a babysitter ‘til dinnertime. And since Tavi and Halsin say you’re going just about as stir-crazy as I am, we figured you and I can hang out being bedridden and annoyed together.”
Oh, oh this is a good surprise. Very good. He’d been receiving regular updates on Karlach’s progress after her heart replacement, just as he assumes she’s received the same of him, but he hasn’t actually seen or spoken to her directly since the fight with Mizora, and he has been itching to find out how they’d finished her off. And to see for himself that she’s alive and well, of course.
“Well, my dear,” he says, carefully scooting toward one side of the bed to make room for her, “I can certainly shelter a fellow medical captive. Be my guest.”
“It really is like being in prison again,” Karlach laughs as Halsin carries her the last few feet to the bed, gently setting her next to Astarion while Tav fetches her some pillows of her own. “Twelve days I’ve had this new heart, and they won’t even let me go to the commode by myself. No woman should have to endure being propped up by her friends while she’s takin’ a shit.”
Tav rolls her eyes with a sigh that says this isn’t the first time this particular complaint has come up. “We’ve been over this, Karlach. The other option is letting you faceplant onto the floor, and Shadowheart and Wyll have certainly seen you in much worse condition.”
“Not the point,” Karlach counters, waving a hand weakly at Tav, “there’s just some things a girl should be able to keep private, fall risk or no, and the events of my commode visits are one of ‘em. It’s already bad enough they had me on a bedpan for a tenday, now I’ve got a live audience.”
“Thankfully not a problem I share, though I’ve been relegated to the indignity of spongebaths since we returned from Avernus, so I at least understand the sentiment,” he commiserates.
“Ugh, you’re not kidding! I’d be perfectly capable of washing my own ass if someone would just drop me in the tub, but nooo, it’s all ‘you can’t get the surgery wound wet, Karlach, you’ll get an infection’ and ‘you can barely sit up on your own without passing out, Karlach, you’ll drown.’ Buncha cowards, is what they are.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve gotten the very same. ‘No, Astarion, you can’t use the tub, the last time you tried to sit all the way up, you vomited and we had to clean the sheets.’ As if that were my fault.”
“I’m starting to think that putting the pair of them together was maybe not as good an idea as we thought,” Tav laments to Halsin.
The Druid looks them over with a patient, if tired, smile. “Well, Oakfather willing, they’ll tire each other out and spend most of the day resting, and we won’t return to find they’ve decided to use each other as a crutch to escape out the window and down to the nearest tavern.”
“Don’t give them any ideas,” Tav warns.
“We’ll leave you two to enjoy each other’s company,” Halsin says, interrupting the recital of all the ills that he and Shadowheart, as Astarion’s and Karlach’s personal Healers, have committed. “We’ll return in a little while with breakfast for the both of you. I believe today’s offering is poached eggs and cold porridge with cranberries and Walnuts for you, Karlach, and fresh ox blood for you, Astarion.”
“Poached eggs and porridge again?” Karlach whines, “I just got out of Avernus and survived open heart surgery performed by tinkerer gnomes and a blacksmith, Halsin, your girl’s earned the good stuff.” Turning her best puppy eyes on, she pleads, “Can’t it be runny eggs and bacon, or that egg-sausage-potato hash Gale makes, just this once? I promise I won’t tell Shadowheart.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to stick to the diet you’ve been given until you’re fully healed, my friend. You need lean proteins, healthy fats, fiber, and minimal salt and starches,” Halsin replies, pouring a glass of water from the pitcher on the nightstand and setting it nearer for her. He even manages to sound both sympathetic and apologetic – something Astarion has not gotten when he’s complained about his bottle-and-straw situation – as he follows that up with, “And I am not worried about you telling Shadowheart, even if I were to let you go off-menu. I’m the one that set your diet during your recovery, so I would only be defying my own orders.”
“Fine,” Karlach pouts, crossing her arms over her chest with a wince. “Can we at least compromise on hot porridge with the eggs mixed into it instead of cold? Maybe some of those hot peppers I know Gale keeps hidden with the rest of his seasonings? I’ll even eat the cranberries without complaining this time. It’s cold as a witch’s tit in a brass bra outside, and anyway, cold porridge tastes like wood paste, no matter how many berries you dress it up with.”
Halsin considers for a moment, and much to Astarion’s surprise, concedes. “If you promise to eat everything on the plate, hot porridge is an acceptable alternative.”
“I’ll go let Gale know before he gets too far into the cooking,” Tav says, blowing both Astarion and Karlach a kiss as she heads for the door. “You two be good, I’ve got to run some errands, but I’ll be back in an hour or two,” she calls as she heads downstairs.
“Now hold on just a minute, Druid, that’s unfair,” Astarion argues once he manages to get over his indignance at Halsin’s easy capitulation to Karlach’s request. “You haven’t let me have my way about my meals even once, and all she has to do is say please? I have definitely said please at least once!”
Halsin puts on a serious face, but it’s betrayed by the amused glint in his eyes. “My apologies, Astarion, if you feel I’ve been unfair. What changes would you request to today’s breakfast? I believe we also have sheep’s blood available if you’d prefer it to the ox, though it’s not as fresh.”
“I want…” he scrambles to come up with something. He didn’t actually think he’d get this far. “I want… I want it in a glass. Or a cup. I’m a grown man; the bottle and straw are infantilizing.”
“The bottle and straw are purely to keep you from spilling your meals, as I would prefer that the majority of the blood goes in you rather than on you,” Halsin counters gently, “but if your grip strength has increased and your tremors lessened since last night, then we can certainly see about changing your drinking vessel to something more to your liking.” Astarion only has a moment to look triumphant before Halsin demands the one thing he knows damned well will bring his victory crashing down. “Show me your hands.”
Astarion glares at Halsin for a long moment, before pushing up the overly long sleeves of his too-large, borrowed shirt and holding his hands out for the Druid’s inspection. Try as he might, though, he can’t force away the tremor, and both hands visibly shake. Still, he does his best to play it off, lifting his chin confidently as he says, “See? Hardly anything. I’m practically back to normal.”
Halsin merely raises an eyebrow and holds out the glass of water he’s just poured for Karlach. “Hold this, then. If you can hold it for ten seconds without any spilling, you may pick any glass you like to receive your meals in.”
Astarion’s eyes flick back and forth between the glass and Halsin’s knowing gaze, which he knows isn’t actually smug because the bear doesn’t know how to be smug, but feels that way anyway. After a long moment, he lays his hands back in his lap, ears pinned back in annoyance, and grumbles, “You know I can’t.”
Halsin’s smile is sympathetic, at least, as he sets the glass back on the nightstand and moves around to his side of the bed, lifting Astarion’s hands to rest palms-down atop his own and observing the severity of the tremor in them. “Not yet,” he agrees, “but soon, perhaps. The tremor is already less than it was two days ago. I would expect it to be gone entirely, or nearly so, within a tenday at the rate you’re healing.” He sits down on the side of the bed and turns his palms sideways, thumbs facing up, curling his fingers so that Astarion’s can wrap around them. “Squeeze my fingers as hard as you can for a count of ten.”
Astarion does, and his mood improves slightly as he finds that he can squeeze the Druid’s hands a little harder than he had yesterday, and that he can do it for the full count of ten this time, though the tremor does increase a bit by the end from the effort.
“Very good! Your left hand is still a bit weaker than your right, but that’s to be expected considering the damage done to your wrist. And regardless, it’s still much improved from a few days ago.”
He intentionally does not preen at the Druid’s praise over him performing the simple task of ten seconds of moderately-tight handholding, but it’s a close thing.
“One last trial, if you’ll indulge me,” Halsin says. He sets Astarion’s hands back in his lap and pours a bit of water into one of the emptied bottles on Astarion’s nightstand, swirling it until it colors pink as it catches the remains of any blood clinging to the inside, and holds it out to him. “Try and take a sip from this, if you can.”
Astarion slowly lifts a trembling hand – his right, he doesn’t need to try his left to know that the damage to his carpals in that hand from Mizora stabbing through them still has his grip strength far too weak to hold even the slight weight of the mostly-empty bottle for more than a few seconds – and carefully wraps his fingers around the bottle. It takes more time and focus than he’d like to admit, but he is, eventually, able to bring the bottle to his lips and sip from it with only a small amount of difficulty and a minimal amount of knocking the rim painfully against his teeth.
“Wonderful,” Halsin praises, taking the bottle from him and setting it aside. “Your grip strength and fine motor control have increased enough that I think we can do away with the straw from now on, provided you give my nerves a well-earned rest and don’t trigger another seizure with inadvised wandering.” His mouth is set in a serious line, but the sparkle in his eyes betrays him as he says, “I should like to avoid any more instances of having to learn new Githyanki swears while instructing Lae’zel on how to assist me in safely lifting you from the floor, if it’s all the same to you.”
It’s a small victory, but he’ll take it.
“Yes, yes, I shall stay right here in my cozy borrowed bed and endeavor not to further raise you blood pressure. Will that please you?”
“It would, very much so, thank you,” Halsin says, patting Astarion’s knee as he stands and moves toward the door. He turns back to them, hand on the doorknob as he stands in the doorway. “I will return after a while with breakfast for you both. If you need anything in the meanwhile, please call for me, I will be right downstairs.” His face grows stern as he eyes them both and continues, “Do not leave the bed. Do not do anything strenuous in the bed. And – just to cover all possibilities, since you are both well-practiced in looking for the loophole in any order given – please refrain from doing anything that I might find upsetting. I am an old man, have pity on me.”
“Ay ay, soldier,” Karlach says, giving a little salute.
“I swear that we’ll do our very best,” Astarion follows with a grin, “but that ‘old man’ act won’t work on me, bear. You’re only halfway through your third century, you’re hardly even middle-aged.”
Halsin stares at them both for a moment more, possibly contemplating whatever life choices had led him to becoming the primary Healer for an entire party of people that could only be classified as The Worst Patients in Faerun, because truly all of them were like this. For people who had all spent the majority of their lives fighting like hell to live, collectively they had the self-preservation skills of a group of lemmings. Lae’zel had nearly lost a leg to a lucky hit from that Bulette in the Underdark, and she’d been spitting mad and growling a plethora of Gith curses when Halsin wouldn’t let her get up and have her revenge on it whilst he was in the process of stopping her from actively bleeding to death and attempting to un-shatter her bones.
Halsin opens his mouth, but – clearly deciding to choose his battles and save his energy for more important arguments – just shakes his head with a sigh as he closes the door and heads downstairs.
Astarion and Karlach stay silent for a moment, listening to the Druid’s footsteps retreat down the hall, before looking at each other.
“So…” Karlach says, “can you even actually get out of bed on your own?”
“Oh absolutely not,” he replies, “last night’s illicit little jaunt to the window proved that. I barely made it five feet, and I think I only made it that far because I fell forward instead of backward when the seizure hit. A fact that Lae’zel was sure to remind me of several times as she helped Halsin carry me back to this terminally uncomfortable mattress.”
“Oof, rough,” Karlach says, hissing sympathetically. “I think my record so far is about three steps, and that made my chest hurt bad enough I puked all over Wyll’s feet.”
“We’re quite the pair aren’t we, darling?” he says with a dramatic sigh, “defeated a Netherbrain, and yet here we lie – me felled by a bottom-tier Warlock patron and you by the marvels of medicine and mechanical engineering.”
Karlach winces through a laugh. “A cryin’ shame. But, it’s only temporary. We’ll be back up and kickin’ ass in no time, you’ll see.” Suddenly, her face lights up, “Speaking of kickin’ ass, you wanna see my kickass scar? It’s a gnarly one.”
“How delightfully macabre! Of course I do.”
Karlach undoes the buttons of her shirt, slowly revealing a thick red scar running the length of her sternum. “Cool, right? I made Wyll measure it for me, it’s like eleven inches. Once Dammon and the Ironhands got the new heart made, they had to crack my sternum so they could fully unplug the old heart and replace all the melted internal bits. Isobel ended up having Dame Aylin help her with the healing during because it took ‘em longer than they expected to get all the little fiddly bits inside me replaced, and Shads was still busy helping Jaheira and Halsin with you.” She looks over at Astarion’s chest, the bandages from his own wound showing through the open collar of his shirt. “Come to think of it, we kinda both got the same injury, didn’t we? Only, you know, I volunteered for mine, so it was a little cleaner than yours and didn’t come with a bunch of creepy groping.”
“I suppose we did,” he muses, “though, I must say, as far as scars go, you wear it much better than I would.”
“Yeah, I do, don’t I?” Her eyes sparkle as she gently touches the scar with a finger. “Shadowheart said she could heal it enough to make the scar almost invisible, but I told her not to. All the other scars I got, they’re all about what something did to me, yeah? But this one,” she taps the scar, grin wide, “this one just says, ‘I lived, bitch.’”
His eyes mist up at that, with the joy of seeing his friend – always so bright a light – burning with enthusiasm for life now instead of burning herself out trying to outrun a dying clock. He snakes one trembling hand over to find hers as he says, “You did. And I’m looking forward to seeing the hell you unleash with it.”
Her fingers curl around his, much cooler than before, but still so much warmer than him. “And I couldn’t have done it without you, Fangs. You were the only one who could’ve gotten in that room and found the blueprints we needed. Not to mention you dropped on Mizora from the ceiling like one of those hunting falcons. Coolest shit I ever saw.”
Her smile drops, then, and her eyes grow wet as her voice softens. “When she grabbed you, I really thought we’d be able to get to you before she could do anything too bad to you. Nearly scared the life out of me, seeing her punch her arm through your chest. And the way you screamed when she breathed that hellfire into you,” a shudder passes through her at the memory, “ten years in Avernus, I’ve never heard anything like that.”
A shiver of his own shakes his body. He has more memories of what happened that day than he’d like, but thankfully that particular one ends pretty swiftly after it starts. He assumes he must have passed out within the first few seconds. Small mercies.
“I don’t remember terribly much of what happened from that point on, though I’m told that’s probably for the best. Not really the sort of memories I want swimming around in my psyche to pop up again in my next reverie.”
“Yeah, I’d say skip out on those if you can. I would if I could,” she agrees. “The sounds Tavi was making after you started convulsing, I can still hear ‘em sometimes.” She pulls their clasped hands to rest over her heart, “And then you just went still, not a twitch, not a breath, just laying there, and all I could think was how wrong that was, because you’re always moving. Even in your sleep, you’re never completely still. Nothing anyone did could get you to respond to anything. We didn’t know if you were for real dead or just almost dead, and I’ve never seen Shads so scared or Halsin have to try so hard not to go full bear before.”
A single tear escapes to roll down her cheek as she whispers, “Even Jaheira was shook once we got you through the portal and she started helping the other two try and fix you up. I really thought she was gonna start crying at one point, when she couldn’t even get your ears to do that little twitch they do when something touches ‘em.”
Gods, Halsin had told him that the party had been upset when they’d thought he died, but he hadn’t known it was to this extent. That even Jaheira, the woman who looked Sarevok Anchev in the face and laughed, twice, was scared nearly to tears over him.
“Anyway, I’m saying all that so you know why this time, instead of asking permission like I usually would, I’m just giving you a warning that I’m gonna hug you. Because you and your stupid, pointy, little face are the only reason I’m alive right now, and doing that almost cost you your life, and almost cost us you.”
Before he can even comprehend what she’s saying, Karlach gently – mindful of both their injuries – pulls him into a hug. Not as tight or as enthusiastic as the ones she’d given him and everyone else after Dammon had upgraded her heart and made it possible for her to touch people again, but just as warm, and just as full of genuine affection. He pats her back gently as she sniffles and the shoulder of his shirt starts to grow damp.
“Thank you, Astarion,” she whispers, choked with tears. “I get to live because of you. You literally went to Hell for me, almost died for me, and you didn’t have to do any of that, but I can’t say thank you enough that you did it anyway. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you, but I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to find a way.”
He allows himself to relax into the hug, glad that Karlach can’t see his face, so there’s no way for her to know he’s crying too. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this,” he replies, doing his best to keep his voice from shaking, “but you don’t have to pay me back, Karlach. I didn’t do it for that. I did it for you and Wyll. The only reward I need is getting to see you live your life free from that awful place, darling.”
He pulls back from the hug just enough to look her in the eye, “Though, if you insist, there is one thing I’d like.”
“Yeah?” she says, wiping at her eyes, “What do you want? Gold? Jewels? Got another vampiric asshole I can help you stomp into ash once we’re back in action?”
“Oh, nothing so drastic,” he says with a toothy grin, “simply tell me every gory detail of how you killed Mizora, including the part where Halsin apparently ate her, and I’ll happily call it even. No one’s been kind enough to give me the details as of yet.”
Karlach’s face lights up like the midday sun. “Oh, man, you’re gonna love this!”
── ･✩*₊˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖₊*✩･ ──
Breakfast had arrived before Karlach could really get into her story, but now that they were both settled in with their respective meals – the requested eggs and hot porridge with peppers for her, and a warmed, strawless bottle of ox blood for himself – she continues her tale.
“Honestly the whole thing was pretty fast. So, to start,” Karlach says, taking a bite from her bowl, careful not to upset the tray over her lap as she gestures with her spoon, “what’s the last thing you remember?”
He takes a sip from his bottle as he thinks. “The last thing I remember about my portion of that fight is being melted from the inside out by hellfire,” he muses, “the last thing I remember about any of you was right after Mizora punched through my chest and gave me an up close and personal look at my cold, black, little heart. I assume the roaring I heard was either you hitting a Rage State or our friendly neighborhood Druid going decidedly bear-shaped?”
“Both, actually,” she confirms, mumbling around the bite in her mouth. She swallows the bite and continues, “Honestly thought Halsin had learned how to hit a Rage State himself, he was so pissed off. He’s so kind and patient most of the time, and even when he’s a bear it’s mostly him just doing nice stuff – foraging for snacks, loafing around camp, letting everyone snuggle up to him for warmth – a real teddy bear. You hang out with him enough, you kinda forget that fuck-off huge bear can rip people apart when he wants to.”
“Yes, our Ursine Avenger can be quite aggressive when he has a mind for it.”
“Yeah, well, he definitely had a mind for it this time. Mizora threw you into the wall like a ragdoll right before half a ton of rage-fueled bear hit her like a Stone Giant’s boulder.” She takes another bite of her porridge, free hand gesturing as she speaks. “She’s fast, though, I’ll give her that. Well, was fast. Managed to get some kind of short-range teleport off before he could get a swing in after he tackled her, Dimension Door or something. Popped out from under him and back in a couple dozen feet away, headed for the exit like the coward she is.”
“Of course she ran,” he says with a derisive snort, “you all had her on the back foot. Even Mizora will try to save her own skin over a little revenge, especially if she thought I was already dead. Well, more dead than usual.”
Karlach pulls a face at his joke. Ah. Too soon to for others to find humor in his almost-demise, then.
“We really didn’t have as much of an advantage as you think. I wasn’t kidding when I said Erinyes are terrifying right before everything kicked off. Us even getting one down by the time we were chasing Mizora was a damned miracle.” She taps her spoon against her bowl as she thinks, forming her next words carefully, “Much as I’d’ve liked her to be, I don’t think she was running scared. I think she just figured that last Erinyes and Abishai would be enough to finish us off. One Erinyes with all of us at full power would’ve been a tough fight already. You were out of commission, Tav and Lae’zel were barely standing, Wyll had some weird thing going on with his heart that he didn’t tell us about until later when he collapsed like the noble idiot he is. We were in rough shape.”
“Ah, that arrhythmia, it finally caught up to Wyll then?”
The Look Karlach gives him tells him that was maybe the wrong thing to say. “The what? You knew?”
“Only for a few minutes at most,” he clarifies, hands up in front of him in the hopes that the tremor in them will elicit pity. “And besides, it was Gale’s fault. He must have hit poor Wyll with at least half a dozen Shocking Grasps before Wyll knocked that Dominate spell loose. Blame the Wizard, not me.”
Karlach’s shoulders drop as she sighs, “No, I can’t blame him. He already feels bad enough that he got mind-controlled, can’t have him beating himself up over Wyll’s almost-heart-attack too.” She eyes him sternly, “And don’t you tell him, either. Gale’s your friend, don’t be mean.”
“Fine, I won’t,” he agrees, “anyway, what happened next? Halsin tackles Mizora, Mizora teleports across the room. And then?”
Her eyes light up, “Oh, then, things got really crazy. Halsin and I both bolt for Mizora, not planning on letting her get away. And we’re both fast as hell, yeah? Well, while Shads ran to you and everyone else stayed back to gang up on that last Erinyes and Abishai, Wyll comes barreling past Halsin and me, dead sprint, chasing Mizora like a hound after a hare.” Her breakfast sits forgotten now as her hands get more animated with her story, a few bits of porridge dropping onto the bed as her spoon waves around, “Think he must’ve cast Longstrider on himself or something, because I’ve never seen him move so fast! Once he caught up to her, he just went nuts! Took a flying leap, wrapped himself around her, and just started stabbing with that dagger of his, the fancy one you gave him. Screamed like a banshee the whole time. Not even words, just yelling as he started turning her into Devil-pulp.”
“Oh, good for him!” Astarion says, his praise at the idea of Wyll finally letting loose a little entirely sincere. “I’ve been waiting for him to finally release some of that pent up rage he swears he doesn’t have. I’m sorry I missed it.”
“I said the same thing! He won’t talk about it though. Think he’s embarrassed about turning into more of a wild animal than Halsin was.” She shakes her head in disappointment, but carries on, “Anyway, while Wyll was attached to her back going full feral cat, I caught up next. Managed to get a couple good hits in with my axe, but not as many as I’d’ve liked. Kept having to pull my punches so I wouldn’t hit Wyll on accident – one of our Healers was taking care of you, and the other was a bear, so the last thing we needed was friendly fire.”
Karlach leans over to grab her water glass, taking a long drink from it, before turning back to him. “Now this is where Wyll and I get the shock of our lives. And maybe a bit more respect for Druids, too.” She grabs Astraea’s bat from next to him, holding it up in front of them. “Pretend this is Mizora, okay? So, Wyll’s on her back, legs locked around her middle, one arm wrapped around her neck and holding on to one of her horns, the other just stabbing at anything he can hit while she tries to fend him off, and screaming the whole time. Like this,” and she clamps her left hand around the bat’s back, thumb and pinky under its wings, her other fingers looping over the top of the wings where the bats “shoulders” would be, mimicking a person full-body grappling another from behind. “Now, Mizora, on account of the Ranger-Banshee on her back, keeps moving around like this,” she twists the bat side to side, bobbing it around a few times, “and screaming herself. I keep moving around her, taking swings when I can while also trying not to chop one of Wyll’s legs off. And then, out of nowhere, something big, brown, hairy, and pissed as all hell comes flying in like a herd of rothé and just slams into her full bore like this,” her free hand, palm out and fingers spread, smacks gently against the bat’s face and torso, the hand holding it moving it so it looks like it’s thrown backwards and lands on its back.
“Halsin?” he asks, already knowing it could be no one but their not-always-so-mild-mannered Druid.
“Halsin,” she confirms with a solemn nod.
“So,” she continues, gesturing with the bat, “Halsin, Mizora, and Wyll all go flying at the speed of ‘rage-fueled cave bear to the face.’ Only problem is, Halsin didn’t exactly give any kind of warning for us to get out of the way, so when they land, poor Wyll was trapped underneath Mizora, not screaming any more on account of the fact that Halsin was half-standing on top of Mizora and squishing all the air out of him,” she says, demonstrating their positioning by use the hand wrapped around the bat’s back to hold it on her lap, face-up, her other hand now flexed in a claw and sitting atop its chest to mimic a crouching bear. “Well, partly it was because Halsin squished the breath out of him. The other part was because only most of the bones I heard break when they hit the ground were Mizora’s. A couple were Wyll’s ribs and his collarbone.”
Astarion winces in sympathy. He’d had his ribs and collarbones broken more than enough times to know exactly how miserable of an experience that is. And he hadn’t even had a bear sit on him while it happened.
He takes another sip from his bottle, pushing those thoughts away. “Well, don’t leave me in suspense, what did our bear friend do after knocking Mizora down several pegs and nearly smashing poor Wyll into jelly?” he says, gesturing for her to continue.
Her face splits into a toothy grin, eyes sparkling with vicious glee. The kind that tells him she’s about to share something deliciously violent and gory. The sort of something that only she, himself, and Lae’zel would be able to properly appreciate.
“He roars, loud as fuck. Like, made my ears ring for the next fifteen minutes it was so loud. Right in her face.” The hand that had been on the bat’s chest creeps up towards its head to hover over its little red button eyes, fingers now curled to look like the jaws of a massive creature. Not a difficult task, considering how much larger than the stuffed animal’s head her hand is. “Then, no growl, no warning, nothing, he just, whoomph–” her fingers wrap around the bat’s head, fully enclosing it inside her hand, “bites her head. Her whole head. Like, the entire thing fit inside his mouth. And she screamed for a second, but then there was this sound, like…”
Her brow furrows as she tries to find an accurate description. Astarion doesn’t interrupt, it’s a good story after all, but honestly he doesn’t really need her to describe the sound. He’s witnessed and experienced just about every atrocity that can be done to a body, very likely he’s heard whatever sound she’s–
“You ever heard the sound of a sunmelon hittin’ the cobblestones from high up?”
He stands – reclines – corrected. That was in fact an entirely new sound. Bravo.
His eyebrows nearly hit his hairline as he blinks a few times and says, “I can’t say that I have. I’m imagining, but I don’t think I’m doing it justice.”
She nods, her face arranged in a determined frown as if making sure he truly understands this specific part of the story is the most important thing in the world. Eventually, after a few more seconds of thought, her tail flicking back and forth under the blanket like a snake, she says, “It’s like… imagine a hollow, wet, meaty ‘pop!’ And then she gave one little twitch, then she just stopped moving, all at once. Because he’d crushed her head like a grape. With just his mouth.”
Macabre interest, gleeful disgust, and disappointment for having missed all this war inside him. He can think of a least a dozen things he’d like to say in response to that. What he finally chooses is a cackled, “Hells below, that’s disgusting!” fangs on full display as he laughs and winces in turn, each breath pulling at his still-healing sternum, but unable to stop himself laughing at the visual of Mizora’s head being exploded by the sheer force of an angry bear.
“I know,” Karlach crows, just as delighted as him. “’Course, he and the rest of her were still on top of Wyll, and I guess Halsin must’ve gone a bit too bear for a bit, because he just started eating her, right there. I wasn’t about to interrupt him when he’d just cracked Mizora’s noggin like a walnut in one bite, so I ended up grabbing one of her feet and slowly tugging her out from under him until I’d dragged her about five feet off, Halsin following and taking bites the whole time.” She shakes her head with a rueful smile, as if she were describing the antics of a misbehaving puppy instead of their friend. “Once he was off and having his little snack, I ran over to Wyll and started dumping potion into him ‘til he could sit up again. Then we kinda just sat there and watched Halsin do his thing.”
“Did he eat all of her? He mentioned that he’d found her rather spicy. Gave him indigestion, apparently.”
“Yeah, he did stop to cough once or twice every few bites, so that makes sense. But nah, I think he meant to, but he didn’t get to eat all of her,” she says. “Maybe like a third? S’hard to say, he didn’t exactly start at one end and work his way through. More like gettin’ bites from wherever interested him most, I guess.” She takes the stuffed bat – still clutched in her left hand – and moves it to sit nicely on her lap instead, mindlessly petting its large ears. “He got interrupted after maybe two minutes. Gale came running over, panting and shouting about how you weren’t all the way dead yet and Shadowheart needed help. And I don’t know if this was leftover brain-fry after getting mind-controlled or just the kind of straight up adrenaline-fueled bravery that makes you stupid, but Halsin looked up at him, still chewing some bit of Mizora’s leg, and just huffed and went back to eating, and Gale,” she brings a hand to her mouth, trying and failing to stifle a chorus of snickering giggles, “he slapped a Shocking Grasp right on Halsin’s bare bear ass, and when Halsin whipped around growling right in his face, Gale just pointed over at where you were and yelled ‘Get Elf-shaped, get over there, and heal him, for Weave’s sake, you overgrown, ursine, nuisance!’”
An ugly, indelicate snort of laughter escapes him before he can stop it, “Gale? Gale did that? Gale Dekarios? The same Gale Dekarios who fusses over stray cats and cookpots and thinks dog-earing book pages is tantamount to high treason?”
“The very same,” she confirms. “Shocked Halsin, too. Can’t say I’ve ever seen a bear look chastised before, but he did – put his little bear ears back, grumbled something that was probably an apology if anyone spoke bear, and ran off to start helping Shads with you while Gale stayed to help me get Wyll up and running again.”
“Well, I’m sorry I missed it,” he says, finishing off his bottle of ox blood and carefully setting it on the nightstand. “It certainly sounds far more entertaining than whatever the hells I was experiencing at that moment.”
“Mostly laying around looking dead and scaring the life out of us, from what I saw,” Karlach provides helpfully.
He rolls his eyes. “Yes, so I’ve been informed. Repeatedly. It’s not like I meant to let Mizora turn my insides into lava, you know. The plan was to stab her to death so we could go home, because Avernus is terrible and I hate it there.”
“Well, hate to break it to you, Fangs, but you missed.”
“I am aware, thank you.”
His icy glare does nothing to stop her soft laughter at his expense, and he’s never truly been able to stay mad or even be mad at Karlach – she’s far too annoyingly endearing for that – so it doesn’t take more than a few seconds for his glare to melt into a smile of his own.
After a moment, Karlach moves her tray of mostly-finished breakfast to the nightstand and holds up the stuffed bat again, wiggling him a little so that his wings flap a bit. “Anyway, who’s this? Didn’t think you were the type for cuddly companions. Besides Tav, anyway.”
He rolls his eyes at her again, though with no trace of real irritation. “This,” he says, flipping up one of the bat’s ears that had fallen over its eye, “is Batrick.”
“Batrick?” she says with a grin, eyebrow raised.
“Yes, Batrick,” he sighs, taking the bat into his hands when she offers it to him. “Tav named him. I wanted to call him Cornelius, something befitting such a refined gentleman as himself, but I was outvoted. He’s Astraea’s, I made him when Tav was still expecting. He usually has a bowtie, but it keeps getting lost.”
“Fangs, that is the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard,” she says, giving the bat a little squeeze. “What’s he doing up here with you, instead of down with Mini-Fangs getting dragged into whatever trouble she manages to crawl into?”
“Oh, well, she takes her naps in here with me, and spends her waking hours testing Jaheira’s baby-proofing skills. Spending hours lying in bed with Ada lost its novelty after the second day I was awake, so I’m old news now.” He gives the bat’s ear a little tug, “I’m not actually sure if she leaves him up here on purpose or not. She’s only eight months old, so I doubt she understands enough to do it for my benefit; more likely she just forgets because he’s hard for her to get down the stairs by herself. But I shall take my sacred duty as Keeper of the Bat very seriously either way.”
Karlach doesn’t say anything for a minute, and when he finally looks up at her, her face is… hard to describe. Happy, and… proud? Maybe?
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing, just…” her smile grows a little wider, “it’s sweet. How much you care about her. About all of us, really. I’ve always known you did, you just didn’t know how to show it in the beginning because no one had ever cared about you before to teach you. But now, it’s like… like you glow, all happy and shit. Real happy, not the pretend happy you used to do.” She carefully leans over to gently knock her horn against the top of his head, a private little gesture of love she only ever did with the other six of them who had been on the Nautiloid. “You did good, Fangs. Went and got yourself a whole life, and a real good one at that. It’s made you soft, but good soft. The kind you should’ve been able to be from the start if you’d wanted.”
He feels his ears pin back and burn red as he blushes under her praise. “I am not soft!”
“Yeah, you are,” she says, nudging her horn against his head again. “Early days, you’d hiss at us and stomp off to your tent to brood whenever we invited you to come sit ‘round the campfire at suppertime. Now you babysit stuffed animals to make your little girl smile. Ain’t nothing more marshmallow soft than that.”
Carefully, she slides her arm around his shoulders, and he leans into her warmth, the habit still moving his body before he even thinks about it even after all this time.
“Dadhood’s done you good, Astarion,” she says with a yawn. “Love looks good on you. Keep that.”
Her yawn must be catching, because he lets out one of his own. “I suppose, if you insist,” he murmurs, his eyelids starting to droop.
“I do insist,” she replies, leaning further back into her pillows as she feels him unconsciously tuck himself more firmly against her side. “Ain’t a furnace anymore, but I’m still warmer than most. What do you say we pretend it’s the old days and take a nap, like we’re camped by the fire again?”
“A wonderful plan,” he whispers, voice barely audible as he lets his cheek fall against her shoulder, eyes closed and sleep closing in.
He feels the weight of her head lean against the top of his, and the warmth suffusing him from top to bottom finally coerces him into relaxing fully against her. He just barely registers her tired whisper of “Still such a damned cat” from above him before she follows it up with a soft snore, her gentle breath tickling the tip of his ear and causing it to flick once before he, too, finally drifts off, Astraea’s bat still clutched between them.
