Chapter Text
Merfolk tend to be terribly offended if you call them “sirens” - how dare you. No, they protest, they’ve never drowned an idiot landwalker in their lives. They’re perfectly upswimming, reasonable citizens who only eat fish and perhaps the odd whelk, if it’s been a slow day.
Astarion isn’t one of those good citizens. The difference between a merman and a siren is sharp fangs, the distinct lack of a heartbeat, and a taste for blood. That and the whole singing thing. Though, as his mas – no, now he’ll be able to actually say it out loud: Cazador, damn it, not his patron or his sire or his master. Cazador. That bastard. That still feels strange. Joyous and new, a vicious little thing he cups to his chest.
Wait. Where was he? Oh, yes. The singing. Astarion’s never been much good at it. Almost deaf to a good tune, as Cazador delighted in reminding him. Idiot boy. Tuneless, useless – no wonder you have to debase yourself for them.
Astarion wants to be numb to it, after centuries – that and the salt stinging in his wounds: the perfectly picked-off scales, blood trailing after him in the water as he swims. (Blood he can’t afford to lose. And the last thing he needs is a damn shark. Or, for that matter, a trail anyone can follow. Swimaway slaves are so very out of fashion.)
The wounds are low enough to hide beneath the surface; to pretend to be a pretty little legged thing, just a tad lost, in need of rescue. It doesn’t stop them burning as he twists to get between a couple of walls of rock, to take a shortcut to that one particular cove he likes. He brushes a clump of seaweed at just the wrong angle, and it wraps around his tail, tight against one of the cuts. Distraction is to blame; he’s usually far more agile than this. When he gets up speed, nothing can touch him. Astarion hisses in pain, and ends up twisting to bite it away from himself. His flexibility has always been one of his better traits, even if it is all a little embarrassing.
Soon this won’t be a problem. Soon, land. Land, where Cazador won’t be able to touch him. He’ll crawl for miles if he must. He has enough pearls of transformation that he can run – run and run and run. Legs can’t be that hard, can they? Even the harbour drunks can just about use them.
In the sea, he’s easy to track, but the sea’s magic won’t hold up Above. He can run, and when he runs out of pearls? Well, he can find a nice, friendly lake. Lakes don’t answer to sea-magic. Perhaps a delightfully bijou canal, if he needs to find a woozy, foolish snack when the pubs close. He’s resourceful. The world is… What is it that the legged ones say? Ha! The world is his oyster! No more pain. No more laying himself out like white meat. No more blades under his scales. No more –
Astarion breaks the surface, almost dizzy with the idea of it all; he inhales air sharply, even as his gills sting. He’ll have to get used to that, air. It will be all he can use, no water flowing through him, while he runs. He has some time yet: almost half a night before his master will expect him to return. All he has to do is get to his cache…
In his cove, someone is singing. Not the siren call of one of his “siblings,” or the rowdy chants of drunkards. Not even the tantalising snippets he’s heard from doorways that he could never enter. It’s so close. He can almost touch the words in it.
Astarion has an odd weakness for landwalkers’ music. Foolish of him, but it’s so different. It isn’t clean and perfect like that of his “siblings”; it doesn’t remind him of his inadequacies. It sounds… real. Perhaps it’s their lungs that add that rawness – the way they’re living, breathing, so utterly unaware of the things under the surface that would drag them under and drink them dry. This kind of music has always been a fleeting fascination - no time, there was no time until he had to grab tonight’s unfortunate and go back down to the rushing water, the darkness, the soulless perfection of sirensong. He hoards those snippets of melody close to his chest, the same way he holds those stolen moments where he’s stroked surface fabrics and admired them, the colours never looking the same in the washed-out half-light under the surface. The fools don’t even know what they have.
In the singer’s voice, below the warmth, is just a hint of roughness. Velvet rather than silk. In between it is a plucked… lyre, yes, lyre (he lets stealthily accumulated knowledge float to the forefront of his mind, rather than tucking it down into the place he futilely tries to keep things from Cazador), each note and chord sounding like a drop of water. It's so close. The truly accomplished music is always drifting from doorways, open windows. He so rarely gets to see it, to try and understand just what in its creation makes it so very different. The song winds down the beach, soft and plaintive and… lonely. The word he’s looking for is lonely. It reaches, calls out: like the sea-breeze in his hair. Her voice rises in a high note, sharply lovely, and rather than a painful hook under his ribs, it’s a caress of his cheek and an offered hand. That should be something to flinch from, but… it feels like commiseration. Astarion knows better than most how dangerous a lure can be, and yet…
Beauty is always a thing to crush between your fingers. You batter your own into submission until it’s a curse rather than a blessing. You let others enjoy despoiling it. You pull it down into the dark and let your master drain it dry.
But not tonight. He has half a night. A moment or two to be this kind of man - to admire beauty without killing it, or scrabbling to take it? To be free?
Yes. Yes, he’d like that. It feels like a sign, a celebration of his escape.
Astarion realises the music has already pulled him a way towards the beach. He’s always been good at making himself quiet, small, unobtrusive, and he’s learned through centuries of practise that walkers can’t see like he can in the dark. He can spare a few breaths to see the source of the song, to finally see a lyre played, before he gets back to the business of fleeing. Sinking lower in the water, he follows the song to its source.
Sitting on a rock is… ah. A human, by far the most boringly ordinary species above the surface. Ordinary except for that voice, and the way her fingers travel over the strings without her even looking at them – as if her lyre is a shape she’d know even in sleep, in death, in the silt-ridden murk under the sea. Dark skin shines in the moonlight. Darker lips, with a shine to them; some sort of paint. Long locks of hair, in thick, elegant coils down her back. A deeply average human, in plain, dark clothing; almost nothing to hint at her song’s beauty except for the carefully grown hair, the little dashes of jewellery at her brow and ears. Ah. The sort of unconcerned that he knows is a ruse.
Astarion keeps low and tells himself, just a few moments more. He dares just a little closer, to see the particular way she strikes that interesting little refrain.
She hits a particularly fine note, turns her head to feel it, and squints. Her eyes search the water, as if something’s caught her eye, but it’s not as if she’ll see him from here –
Her eyes land on him, and she freezes. Her fingers stumble on the strings. “Ah… hello?”
Astarion ducks below the surface, silently cursing, and realises: she’s between him and his cache.
That white face disappears, quick as a flash. It could almost have been a trick of the froth on the waves, or Lora’s imagination.
…No. Once you get a sense for these things, it’s hard to shake off; she’s been in a few too many fights where it’s saved her. The glint of a knife, the movement of someone just the wrong way off a stool.
“I’m not about to hurt you,” she says. “Unless you’re about to hurt me.” Idly plucking a string, she adds, “But that’s not the sense I get. ‘Swimming assassins who seem really interested in my lyre technique’ would be a new one for the list.”
For a moment, the silence stretches; there’s nothing but the sound of the sea, and the distant calls from the harbour. Maybe she is going mad.
And then that pale, angular face emerges from the water again, followed by pale, angular shoulders. The swimmer pushes their hair out of their eyes. “Do me a favour, darling.” A posh drawl, like any of the sons from the “better” districts.
Lora squints, taken off-guard and suspecting that’s the point. “That would depend on the favour.”
He barks a laugh at that – louder than she expected, incongruous with the moonlit elegance the rest of him projects. He tilts his head and assesses her, cheekbones sharp as knives in the shadows. “Oh, I like you already. Nothing harmful. It’s extremely helpful, in fact - to me. Would you mind lending a poor Baldurian your coat?”
It explains his embarrassment at being seen, at least. Lora says, “Please tell me you aren’t naked.”
There’s a long pause, and then he adds, “This is me not telling you.” At her face, he adds, pointed as a knife, “Most people go for night swims not expecting to be disturbed.”
Lora looks around the sand. “Where are your clothes?”
He sighs. “You may not be the first person I’ve run into on this beach. Not all of them were quite so… honourable.”
It’s a familiar story: a fop caught on the wrong side of town. An easy mistake, but not one he deserves to hobble home naked because of. It also doesn’t quite add up. None of this does. But she has her lyre, and her sword, and at least if he gets out of the water, she can understand what in the hells is going on. With a sigh of her own, Lora puts aside her lyre and starts to shrug off her coat.
It could be the world’s most elaborate mugging. It could be bait for something worse. But if there’s one thing the journey post-nautiloid taught her, it’s that she’s never been good enough at leaving well alone.
Just for a second, he disappears under the water again. Shit. Calm as the sea is tonight, it can be deceptive. If he’s drowning, Lora doubts she’s strong enough a swimmer to get him out. But then he breaks the surface again, closer to her now, something odd flickering over his face. A grimace, there and then gone so fast she almost wonders if it was there at all. He looks away from her, but she catches the tensing of his shoulders – the barest tremor runs through them. Not just self-consciousness. Pain.
Something here’s wrong. That just confirms it.
“You all right?” Lora asks, unable to help herself, hastening to the water’s edge.
He goes tense as if she’s just pulled a string. “It’s the – cold,” he grits out through white, white teeth, and then he turns his face from her again. “Grey… Grey Harbour is not known for its warmth, darling. I don’t know what possessed me. Would you mind closing your eyes?”
Lora tries to keep her voice easy, the tone that neither scares people off, nor starts a fight. “Like you said, there are a lot of dishonourable types round here. Forgive me.”
He glares at her. “Fine. But try to keep your eyes above the waist, at least.”
“Bard’s honour,” Lora says, a hand to her chest. Then she proffers her coat towards the water, gaze pointedly towards the moon, and the top of his head.
The stranger swims until he climbs to his feet – and falls, landing heavily in the water with a splash. He says something under his breath that sounds unfamiliar, like he’s slipped into another language. He makes it to his knees again, with a frustrated snarl under his breath. Lora keeps a part of her mind careful, but she can’t help herself; he’s suffering. She tosses her coat onto the sand, wades in up to her knees, and offers him a hand up.
A moment’s pause, like he’s considering his options – then he takes it, climbing to his feet.
This close, she expected him to look more ordinary than he had when he was a half-figment of her imagination. She was wrong. In the moonlight, he’s pale as marble, like someone’s misplaced a statue. Those high, fine cheekbones and the point of his jaw almost look carved, too, along with the long taper of his ears. Even soaking as it is, his hair’s only grey – probably a bright white when it’s dry, like the rest of him – and starting to curl up at the ends. His eyes are oddly reflective, dark but almost seeming red, sometimes, when the light hits them just right. A string of pearls, along with another of shells and some kind of shining metal – gold, or something like it – glint against sharp collarbones. Water’s beaded on his eyelashes. Lora’s seen a lot of handsome men, but he’s so handsome he’s almost strange. He almost doesn’t look real.
Lora puts those thoughts hastily aside when he wobbles, and she locks her knees to brace him. Another step. An unsteady one, and she puts an arm round his waist to catch before he can drop again. He glares at her. There it is for the briefest second again, in his eyes: something like suspicion, and resentment, and fear. Fear of her? His jaw works, like he’s suppressing either pain or an insult.
They wade together, though on his end, it’s more of a hobble. Lora keeps the “eyes above the waist” promise, though she’s almost certain now that he’s injured. Badly. She hooks his arm round her shoulder, and just about manages to duck down to get her coat without dislodging him. She catches a glimpse of bony, pale feet and shins with something dark on them –
Blood. That’s definitely blood.
He’s still staring down at himself in something like… fury, a lightning-flash of it across his face, that settles into dismay.
Lora says to him, “Think you can stand?”
He gives her a look like a cat that’s just had its tail stepped on. “Of course.”
Lora raises a brow, but she unwinds herself from him and, after giving him a second, steps back.
He wobbles, just a bit, like he’s on a tightrope. Then he seems to find his balance, chin rising proudly. When she holds out her coat, he takes it, wrapping it around himself and doing up the buttons with swift, long-fingered hands. The coat was down to her knees, but it hits him at the shins; he’s shorter than she expected. Rolling his shoulders, he steels himself – especially when he notices her looking at his shins, his feet.
“What?” Lora says, voice casual, because she suspects blanching will just make him try and flee again. He clearly cares about his appearance; reacting in horror might break him. “I thought the ‘nothing below the waist’ was just when you were naked.”
There are long, deep cuts on his legs. Not just cuts – gouges, where something has taken out bits of flesh. Some are healed, but others not so much. Maybe those could be natural, but… marks like a signet ring. Like someone’s taken hot metal and pressed it into him.
Fuck.
He waits there in her coat, proud and porcelain-pale and straight-backed, sticky darkness below him as his feet bleed onto the sand. She’s amazed he’s still standing.
Lora says, “Am I allowed to ask?”
It’s plain to see on his face, the realisation he can’t lie his way out of this one. But underneath that… something miserably resigned. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
It could be bait, Lora supposes. The fact he needs help, just waiting for a goodhearted soul; the refined, I’m entirely respectable, thank you very much accent; that handsome face. But bait isn’t usually so prickly. Or such a bad liar. Though she can’t blame him for either, considering he must be in enough pain to sink a ship. And that look that crossed his face, like these kinds of wounds are just his life... Like life is an old scar, slightly numb by now.
Something is very, very wrong here. But she knows the look of someone fleeing.
Lora says, “Let me try and heal you?”
He raises a brow. “Interesting. And in return?”
“I don’t feel guilty at letting some toff bleed out?”
That gets a snort from him. “Are you this gentle and understanding with all your patients?”
But still, slowly, he stumbles his way to what was her rock, watching his own feet the whole way, trying to place them on the flattest parts of the sand. Now she doesn’t have to look away, Lora can see there’s something wrong with them. They’re dark with bruising, and there’s the odd way he’s walking, almost ending up on the sides of his feet, but – no. She gets a proper look in the moonlight, and swallows. His ankles sit oddly under the skin. His toes are even worse. Three are – no, four. Four toes broken on each foot, all at angles that make her feel sick.
How do you ask, Has someone taken a hammer to you?
You don’t, if the recipient of the question looks like he’s going to hiss at you. Lora takes her lyre from the sand and plucks a couple of strings; the Weave resonates. From the way he tenses, he clearly feels it too. She can hear it around him, the set of notes just waiting for a resolution. So she provides one, a strummed chord of comfort, of closure.
Light starts at his feet and snakes round his legs; he freezes like he’s never seen it before, jaw tightening, eyes carefully following every strand, especially where they snake up under the coat. He takes a long breath, eyes closing for the barest moment, as if he’s startled by the lack of pain.
It’s not enough. Not nearly enough. The shallowest cuts are gone, but the deep gouges, and his ruined ankles, and gods know what else… Damn it. She bandages cuts and splints sprains, not… this. Lora says, “That’s not got all of it.”
He wriggles his toes, only a twitch in his jaw betraying what must be agony. “Yes, I can see that.” His voice is dry, like she’s the stupid one here – the kind of dry that almost makes you forget someone’s ruined his feet and he’s feeding her a set of desperate lies.
The healing might have been pushing it enough, but Lora tries, “I have a room, in the city.”
The miserable resignation in his eyes strengthens, changes, like someone’s added a note and made a whole new chord. But his lips curl into a smile, and he leans his face on a hand, resting his elbow on his thighs even while that must hurt. “Well. You could just have asked.”
Lora holds her hands up. “No funny business. I’ve just got healing potions, and gauze. And you look like you could use a rest.”
There it is again: the suspicion, and then a wave of pain and exhaustion overtaking it. But he does it in minutiae, behind a raised brow and tight lips. “And what do you want from me?”
“For you not to kill me and steal all my stuff?”
“Hmph. Lead on, then.”
That isn’t a promise. But Lora, despite her smarter instincts, says, “This might be easier if I carry you.” Wow, that’s an impressively appalled expression – as if she might have fleas. But just standing seems to pain him, and walking was more of a failed experiment than anything. She adds, “That all right?”
Hells, she wishes she’d brought Karlach. Karlach even wanted to come! But Lora wanted the quiet. It felt like safety, even if that was just an illusion. It’s hard to practise with so many staring faces; they make you feel like you’re not giving them their money’s worth, even if they haven’t paid you. No boring scales or slipping hands on strings. Those awkward moments, when she’s not fully wearing the persona she adopts on stage, and they see the mistakes, the tiredness… Well, sometimes she’s just so very tired of wearing Tav, Bard.
He somehow manages to sneer close-mouthed. “If we must.”
“Can you carry a lyre?”
He blinks, and it disturbs the careful aloofness: a stone cast into water. He looks at her instrument uncertainly. “I might break it.”
“I trust you,” she lies. “And if you do, we’ll work something out. Here…” She takes it and presses it into those damp white hands, showing him how to get his arm round it, the easiest places. He tenses and eyes her the entire time, but he gets it.
Now comes the hard part.
He should be running. He should be running.
Instead some idiot human is carrying him through the streets like he’s her bride, probably to a trap. Astarion holds tight with one arm round her neck; his other arm half-hugs the lyre, the only beautiful thing in this mess. Typical if he manages to destroy it through his foolish clutching. (Cazador’s whispers about such things echo in his head.) It rests against his new thighs, jostling them; the coat is a thick layer that helps, at least. His legs have the tenderness of a skinned thing, the newness, and then there are careful bladework and gouges, the burns. But the injuries aren’t fresh. Honestly, the pain is so gentle in comparison to his usual that he almost enjoys it.
Even so, stupid. Stupid of him. Of course Cazador and Godey’s handiwork would stay, even on changed flesh. Raphael didn’t mention that, but why would he? He wanted a deal.
Astarion breathes, and focuses. He’s here, Above and being carried into the city, not flayed in the depths of some cave. The sea is growing further and further away in his vision. This is, loath as he is to admit it, faster than his wobbling new steps would have been. And there’s a rash saviour type about to heal his wounds. That’ll certainly make his escape faster, and he can play on her sympathy. Offer her his thanks. And if he can’t get to his cache, she should at least have clothes and gold. Gods, she’s warm; he tries not to shift closer, to show his weakness.
She’s so alive. Tall and broad and strong. That may be the greatest torture of all, far more than a few unpicked scales – having his face in her neck, unable to just bite down. Her heart is thumping, clearly unused to this kind of exertion for this long. It brings the blood closer to her face, and he can almost taste it. She’d be rich and smoky like her music, he’s certain…
Astarion resettles the lyre (and himself), being sure not to drop it. She’d kill him, and that’s the last thing he needs when he’s just found his freedom. He lets his thumb pluck a string, and closes his eyes – even muffled, it travels so differently through air rather than water. Her chest shifts next to him with laughter, unvoiced but there; he wants to glare at her again, but he’s playing the poor sad broken toy, and he has a nose full of dreadlocks.
When she inevitably admits temporary defeat, she sits him as gently as she can on a stone wall – he puts a hand out behind him so he won’t fall, still unused to there being no water to catch him, hugging the lyre to his chest - and she tries to get her breath back.
She says, “Got any requests?”
Astarion snorts. “Not freezing to death, mainly.”
“No, I mean…” She nods at the instrument clutched in his arms. “You seem a fan of the lyre. Any favourite songs?”
“What, are you about to serenade the street?” Astarion didn’t mean it to come out so sharp. He’s meant to be grateful and pretty and malleable. It’s just that he’s rather tired, and his shiny new legs are a failure, and for a bard with such a beautiful voice, the rest of her is deeply irritating.
“I thought it might be a good distraction once we got back.”
As if a few dainty little melodies can distract from two centuries of torture. Besides… I don’t know any. I wasn’t allowed to. No, that’s just pathetic. I doubt you’d know them. Even more standoffish than he’s already been; she wants a grateful victim, not a pissed-off shark. Instead he gives her a smile – his best, with the fangs safely tucked away and a bit of mischief in his eyes. “I’d rather hear yours.”
She just snorts. What, does he look that pathetic? Is she disgusted by his battered limbs? So pity it is, then. Astarion can’t even seduce her properly. He’ll have to play the pitiful little invalid. Hatred for Cazador isn’t new, but now he could choke on it.
They last up the hill – he sneaks looks around them, in one part because he needs to know what’s happening and in one part because it’s a good distraction from the hands on him. They’re perfectly, horribly chaste, one at his waist and her arm under his… knees. He has knees now. The question is, how long will that chasteness last? At least the grimy ones who grope set their stall out early. They don’t pretend you’re safe, and then demand payment.
He tries not to watch the houses grow around them with obvious fascination, from one every so often in the grass to streets and streets. It’s not that he’s a fool. He’s seen enough of them at the harbours. Just never so many. He can’t even see the water anymore, and he tries not to let his chest constrict at that. If he changes back – if she drops him in horror, or disgust – or if she wants to keep him as some sort of pet…
Astarion doesn’t actually know how long a pearl lasts; he was thinking it even as he slipped one under his tongue and felt it dissolve. More than that, he’s perfectly aware that Raphael, whatever the definitely-not-merman is, came because he could smell Astarion’s desperation. There hadn’t been a pretence of another reason. Raphael said, with an eel’s smile, “Call this a… free sample.” There will be a high price to pay, eventually. But what could be higher than two centuries of slavery and torture and defilement? And that’s a problem for future Astarion.
Because if he can’t see water, he’s truly in the city now. Walkers don’t live in caves; they live in dainty little cottages and crumbling brick constructions. So many dark corners, perfect to hide in, nightmares for Cazador and his agents to navigate. They haven’t got pearls of transformation. He tries not to grin into the dull human’s neck at that.
Apparently freedom is brine and cobblestones that look even harder to walk on than sand, and the calls of drunken, unwashed sailors. It wasn't quite what he envisaged, but he'll take it.
They stop once more: the bard sitting him on the edge of a fountain as he finds his balance, still clutching her lyre. She says, bent over with her hands to her knees, “What’s your name?”
“Calder,” he says, easily, and inclines his head. “A pleasure.”
She throws him a glance that says she isn’t even slightly fooled. And then she… doesn’t push it, just presses a hand to her chest and says, “Lora.”
“Lora.” He toys with it on his tongue, drawls it. “Do you often fish handsome men out of the sea, Lora?”
Lora huffs a laugh – smoky and with that hint of roughness, like her singing voice. Surprising, between the gentle face and the wide eyes, and suggestive of more depth than she lets on. “Only when it looks like they need it.”
Astarion clicks his tongue. “I told you. I was going for a perfectly pleasant night swim.”
“And I was trying to practise a new song,” she says, flatly. “I’d only just finished my scales.”
Scales. There are musical scales? Of course there are. That’s delightful. Astarion realises he’s let out a high, graceless laugh when she raises a brow at him. He says, “Apologies, darling. Tonight has just been very odd.”
“Tell me about it.” One of those odd human phrases. The bard – Lora – rolls her shoulders, ducks to pick him up again, and says, “Up you get.”
Astarion rather hopes this is the last lap.
When they’re off again, she adds, “Hells, I know elves are meant to be bird-boned, but you’re light. Had much to eat recently?”
No, and it’s tearing at his stomach, howling at his dry throat. No, and Astarion wishes she hadn’t asked; the reminder’s thoroughly unappreciated. He leans away from her neck, just a little, so he won’t tear her apart with his teeth. “Enough,” he says, lightly.
A considering noise, low in her throat; he wants to eat it, to drink the blood that rushes out with it – damn this. She says, “I think I’ve got some soup left, if you want it.”
Wonderful. Soup that will taste like sand and sea debris. And he won’t eat it anyway, in case it’s poisoned, or drugged. Astarion makes a considering, carefully noncommittal noise of his own.
“Right,” she says, though it sounds more amused than offended. “Your refined palate.”
“Exactly, darling.” He’s still doing a bad job of ingratiating himself. “Though I do appreciate the thought,” he adds, too late.
Lora hums, and then huffs. “Gods, you should’ve got Karlach. She’d be better at this.”
“...Karlach?”
“A friend of mine. She used to be a bodyguard. She could lift both of us without breaking a sweat, then I bet she’d just jog home.”
“... They make women larger than you?”
She laughs hard enough that it’s astonishing she manages to hold onto him. “I’m working out how to take that. She’s probably back at the inn.” It must be obvious how he tenses, because she looks down at him and says, “Look, I said I’d meet my friends back at my room when I’d practised, so there are probably five of them waiting for me. I’ll put you down and you can make your own way home, if you want. Or I can take you to the Ilmater temple. They have some good healers…”
Astarion’s gathered enough about those: lots and lots of people, and records. It’s not as if Cazador won’t have proxies and agents on dry land; the sort who just love records. “No. Thank you.”
Lora nods, carefully unspoken curiosity still in her eyes. “All right. I… haven’t been back in Baldur’s Gate for a while. My friends live in the city - they wanted to see me while I was here.” Interesting. Running to something, or running from? She catches his quizzical eyebrow and says, “Touring.”
Ah. Yes. That’s a thing bards do, isn’t it? Well, it must be. They never seem to play in the same taverns and streets – why should cities be any different? He’s never been allowed to venture far enough to see other bays and cities, but if he had, perhaps he’d have found others like her, plying their trade.
She says, “I’ll do the talking. We’ll leave you to it while you get cleaned up and dressed. And forgive me, but... whoever’s chasing you?”
Astarion tries not to freeze; tries to give her his best I don’t know what you’re talking about expression.
“I think you want more tough fuckers between you and them.”
Tough? Under the water he’d kill you all in a blink. Though at least that might give me time to flee. You have no idea, you naïve –
He stares into those wide, stupidly earnest eyes – she’s taking a stranger back to her room to help him, for all that’s holy, or at least she says she is – and asks, “Five?”
“There’s Lae’zel. She’s githyanki – she used to be in their army.” (Ah. Astarion should probably know what that is, so he nods vaguely.) She says, “She’s incredibly funny, once you realise.”
“Not a riot, then?”
Lora tilts his head, and Astarion glances aside to avoid the rebound bounce of dreadlocks on his forehead. “I think she is. There’s Wyll, he’s an adventurer. One of the ones who’s actually pretty good at it. He likes saving people from beasties.”
As one of said beasties, Astarion does his best not to tense. Marvellous. Though at least he’s getting a step-by-step manipulation guide, not that the poor fool seems to realise it.
“He’s kind. Sillier than he looks. He has surprisingly fancy wine taste – you’d like him.” At Astarion’s little hm, she continues, “Shadowheart’s a damn good healer, but I don’t know if she’ll have turned up. Things have been… busy for her lately. She’s had people to care for. But she’s… arch. A lot like you. She even has white hair.”
That makes him realise his must have dried by now, at least partly; it probably looks a mess. He’d touch it to check, but that means letting go of the lyre.
Lora catches his expression and says, wryly, “You still look good. I’ve got a comb back home, if you want it.”
Astarion responds, sharply, “Your first mistake was suggesting I need the comb.”
She tosses him a brief grin at that. “Of course. There’s Gale – he’s a wizard. One of the best wizards around; he’ll tell you that if I don’t. Incredibly bright. Really funny. He had talent and magic and money… I think it would’ve been easy to turn into an arsehole. He’s got a good heart. He stayed curious about the world. It’s my favourite thing about him, I think.”
Hmm. A lover, perhaps? A friend she wants to be a lover? She certainly sounds rather admiring. So she likes them smart, and sweet. Delightful. Astarion’s doomed on both counts, if it comes to it. Though it just requires a slight adjustment of the mask, he supposes. He can play sweet. Though mostly it’s been a thing to appease dim drunks, not someone who’s watching him just as sharply as he’s watching her. Damn. At least she doesn’t seem put off by arrogance.
He fills in, “And your Karlach.” They’ll be a nightmare to fight, the lot of them, if this goes badly. He can’t even swim – he has no idea how to use these damn legs – stupid of him, him and his damn plans -
“Just Karlach. Though I reckon I know a couple of people who are vying to be hers.”
“She must be quite something.”
“Oh, she is.”
It turns out that was no exaggeration. Lora carries him into a little boarding-house, after sitting him on a wall again as she scrabbles for a key while he wonders how much of a trap this will be exactly, and the first thing he sees is, well…
A nearly seven-foot-tall, bright red tiefling, heavily burned and tattooed, with enough muscle on her and jewellery in her face to fell an ox. “Soldier!” she says, brightly, and her eyes settle on him. “What you got there?” And yes, there are four others behind her, though the tiefling takes up so much space that it was almost possible to miss them: a purple-robed man in an armchair who’s nearly dropped his book from his lap, a white-haired half-elf in the corner giving him a vaguely mistrustful look (she’s right to), a… green, spindly woman with a distinctly odd nose, and a man with braids and a worried expression that says he’s just sighted a damsel in distress.
Lora says, “My lyre.”
“I mean the prettyboy holding it.”
Astarion raises a sharp eyebrow and lies, “The prettyboy’s name is Calder.”
The tiefling looks bashful. “Sorry, mate.” A clawed hand gestures to herself. “Karlach. You all right? Looking a little rough there.”
Astarion sighs, “Have you ever been mugged on a beach? I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“Whoof.”
Lora says from above him, “I said he could get healed and cleaned up here. I think I’ve got some spare clothes.”
The tief- Karlach nods, as if this is the kind of ridiculousness Lora takes part in all the time. “Come on, mate. You look freezing. Think there’s a chair free by the fire.”
Lora says above him, “Can I put you down?”
Astarion nods, busy taking in his surroundings. Four plush chairs, and burning there beyond them… a fire. He can already feel the warmth. It makes sense, now, walkers’ obsession with it – it’s like a soft touch, the kind that actually feels good. Lowered to his feet, he shoots out a hand to catch himself on a railing of some kind – there, steps. He makes his tentative way past said stairs. The floor is… oddly furry. He shifts his feet in it as an experiment; that’s quite pleasant, actually. (And he can tell from the silence and the look of horror on purple-robe’s face that the rooms’ occupants have caught sight of his injuries. That will be something to deal with later; perhaps Astarion can play on their sympathies.) Looking up to Lora, he says, “Your instrument, darling.”
She takes it back with a nod. “Appreciated.”
Astarion wobbles his way towards the fire, getting blood and sand all over Lora’s fine furry floor – at least this one is flatter than the damn beach, or the stone streets – and catching himself on the arm of a chair, then another. He’s nearly to his destination when he leans just a little too far to the right. He’s corrected himself in a moment, but there’s already a dark hand on his arm; he nearly shakes it off by instinct, tensing.
“Sorry. You looked like you were going to eat carpet there.” The man with the braids. “Name’s Wyll.” Taking his hands away, the – Wyll raises them in pointed surrender.
Eat… carpet? Wait. Mouth, carpet. Wyll’s looking downwards. Floor? Ah. To fall. Something like that, anyway. Not that it matters. Astarion lowers himself into the chair nearest the fire, drinking in the heat. Gods, he’s never felt so warm. Is this what it’s like, on the surface? Look, they have candles. Fires, tiny little tamed fires, everywhere. As if it’s simply ordinary, not some great gift.
Wyll says, “I’m surprised they didn’t take your jewellery. It looks expensive.”
Astarion looks up from his lap – the ragged leather of his borrowed coat, the strange pale things that are legs, his legs – but the man’s eyes are guile less. Or pretending to be. “As am I.” It would be nice to hold his hands out to the fire, but that feels too much like admitting weakness. Something icy creeps up his spine; he realises too late that he said “mugged,” didn’t he? There he told Lora his clothes had been stolen while he was swimming. An idiot slip, but it’s been an unusual night. For the barest moment he meets her eyes; she gives him a flat look in response, but doesn’t say anything.
She probably thinks he owes her, now. Gods, he hates that feeling. It just depends in what form she wants to collect on that particular debt. The tiefling thinks he’s pretty, at least. Perhaps the bard wants she and her friends to have him like a party centrepiece –
“Can I take a look at your legs?” says the white-haired woman in the corner.
“Hm?” He waves a hand. “Oh. Of course.” It’s not as if he has any choice in the matter. Wait… a healer. Hm. Squinting, he adds, “I presume you’re Shadowheart. Did your parents name you that?”
She kneels in front of him. “Did yours not teach you when to shut up?”
Astarion barks a laugh, seeking Lora’s eye. “Oh, she’s definitely my favourite.”
Shadowheart glares at him and orders, “Leg.”
Ah. This he can manage, at least. Trying not to kick her, he lifts it, until she takes his foot in her hand. It still feels… wrong, two limbs where one should be, and so horribly unarmoured. Pale and vulnerable and skinned-looking, and that’s all the more obvious when someone touches one. It… Oh, that’s strange. He tenses further as an involuntary snort rises to his throat.
She looks up at him. “Ticklish, are you?”
What-ish? That’s what that is? “I suppose so.”
“This won’t take long.” Shadowheart’s brisk as a cold sea breeze. Not trying to ingratiate, to make him laugh, to put her hands on him more than necessary. She seems to find the whole process as vaguely distasteful as he does. It’s almost custom-designed to put him at ease, the perfect beginning to a trap. Astarion finds he rather likes it anyway.
She mutters something under her breath and the blue glow of magic begins, crawling up along his toes, his ankle, his leg... Astarion has sudden horrifying visions of it reversing even self-inflicted transformation; of turning back right here and her recoiling at scales and fins. Shouts from the others, and swords – cries of having brought a monster back to their meeting place -
“You’re tensing. Stay still.”
“There happens to be a stranger grabbing my foot,” he snaps.
Astarion doesn’t turn back, though he spends the entire time ready to panic, between that and having someone’s hands on him again (no more, there was meant to be no more, he’d be safe). Eventually, his wounds are closed – and then it hits him. Like floating, like dizziness, like… The absence of pain. He hadn’t realised how much pain there was until it left him.
Gods, he hates this feeling. He hates how wonderful it is. It never lasts, and then it’s so much worse when you’re carved into all over again.
He waits for her hands to stray higher, for there to be some snide insinuation – but she lets go of his foot and steps back and says, “I can’t do anything about the sand, of course. Or the blood all over you.”
Across the room, Lora says, “There’s a bath in my room. It’s that door over there.” She points, and oh look, it’s just behind his armchair. Small mercies. “I can get you some water, if you want.”
Still vaguely floating in how good he feels, Astarion’s pulled back to himself by that. Damn. Now he’ll have to walk. And be good at it. This is what he gets for making plans, for trying to be anything more than a broken toy, stupid boy, this is all you ever are –
Well, that’s put paid to the feeling good. He uses the burst of anger to nod, to fold himself up – one foot, two feet, yes, and then you sort of lean into the knees, yes – and stand.
“Are you quite sure you’re all right?” says purple-robe.
Astarion can’t help his irritation; he can’t have made that bad a job of this, can he? Does he really look so pathetic? Useful as it may be, he still hates it. “I’m fine.” He looks to Lora. “And I can summon water. Thank you.” That isn’t too much of a giveaway, is it? Elves on land have their affinities for different schools of magic, so he’s always heard. He’s just an elf. Just a perfectly ordinary elf. One foot, the other… It’s still not quite right, and they’re still looking at him in concern, but he’s getting the hang of this now. Each time, it’s smoother.
He’s almost to the door when it starts. At first he thinks it’s just the warmth of the fire on his calves – but then warmth becomes an ache, bone-deep, and… no. No, no, no.
Astarion grabs the handle of the door. He’s seen the city’s people do this, heading into their dwellings. Turn – no, that’s not it, no, the other way, turn – all their eyes are upon him, he can feel it - his legs are burning and it’s all such horrifying inevitability –
He barrels into the other room and falls against the door, closing it with his shoulder.
It’s not the worst pain he’s endured. Far from it. But it is the most damn inconvenient. He loses his footing a moment later, sliding to the floor with a thump, because he doesn’t truly have toes anymore. They’re lengthening, thinning out –
A knock against the door above him. “You all right?” calls Lora, and he could bite her. Not now, not now. Why are they so endlessly fond of that question?
Staying still is rather difficult when your legs are fusing and he wants to fight the feeling, to stop it, to kick, but any noise might alert her -
“I’m fine!” he grits out, as he feels his scales regrowing. Strange, and more than a small bit nauseating. He manages not to scream, albeit by biting his own tongue; the taste of more blood he can’t afford to lose fills his mouth.
“Are you sure?”
“Do you usually interrupt a man when he’s” - a half-changed monstrosity, a mess of stupid decisions- “naked?” he snarls, and it’s too strained. If she comes in, if she finds this…
The pearls. Astarion grabs for them with shaking hands, but the one thing he’s always received compliments on are his fingers. He unties the string, unthreads one, ties off the string before others can fall. One under the tongue. Just one.
“Sorry,” Lora says. “I’ll leave you to it.” Heavy footsteps – those of someone wearing ugly, practical boots – hasten away.
Astarion doesn’t care. Promises mean little, these days. He puts the pearl in his mouth anyway.
Two. Ten left.
One moment he’s himself, scales shining scarlet in the dim light, tailfins trailing uselessly against carpet, so hopelessly out of place – a fish thrashing, caught without the sea – and then the change takes him again. It’s still unpleasant, the way it was that first time under the water, but he breathes through it. Gods, he can feel his gills closing. For a breath, two, he chokes, airless, certain that this is the way he’ll die (he hasn’t needed to breathe for two hundred years but his body loses sight of that a moment)... There. He drags in a breath through his mouth.
This soft, furry floor is a wonderful thing. It’s certainly gentler than kelp. He lies there, breathless and raw and new, and then crawls for...
What is a bath, exactly?
Lora offered to bring water. Something designed to contain water, then. It makes sense; it must be how walkers clean themselves. And water falls out of flat things. Something… not-flat.
Astarion squints at a large tub, one that could fit even a woman as large as her, if she curled up in it. Around it is an interesting assortment of items: something fluffy-looking, almost like a flower, a sponge like enough he’s seen back underwater, and a small brick of something that smells… He inhales. Pleasant. Fresh. Like the smell he’s caught on one or two of his marks before he’s dragged them under. So it must be rubbed against the skin. Hmm.
The smell drags him unsteadily to his feet, and he wanders over. Bending. Now there’s something to practise. Gods, knees are so stiff compared to the flex of a tail. Tentatively, he rubs the little brick against his arm; the smell intensifies. Not bad. The sticky residue is a tad frustrating, and doesn’t seem to fade. Unless… they remove it with the water? Why make such a fine thing just to rinse it off? He’s always thought from the great miscellany of items that drop into the ocean that land-people must be keen on waste, but this is ridiculous. Or… decadent. Yes. He likes decadent.
Astarion starts with the simplest part of this mystery. He touches his fingers to the inside of the tub, and calls for water. Not from the sea; the sea is Cazador’s, and Astarion’s in no mood to make tracking him any easier. From the inside of his mind, from the cold prickling in the air, from the clouds. It blooms, and in no time at all, the tub is full.
Now for the difficult part. Astarion raises a leg – wobbles – grabs for the edge of the tub, and tries again. There! One foot in. Now the other. He’s fantastic at this, considering he’s only had legs for an hour at most. Of course he is. He knew he would be.
Standing there, he contemplates. Perhaps it is just like this – a leg-bath, and you scrub the rest of you. No, that seems… impractical. He can definitely soak the majority of himself, if he works out how. It’s a tentative journey downwards, but he survives it. The sponge he swipes, because he’s quite used to cleaning himself with those, and they certainly do well with water applied to them. The brick, then? Or is the brick after? Experimentally, he reaches for it and dips it in the water. There, the smell is much stronger now. Ah! If he just rubs it –
It shoots out of his hand.
He takes everything back. The surface is awful.
Astarion’s chasing it across the floor with his hand like it’s a particularly troublesome minnow when he hears soft voices outside. One of them resolves itself as Wyll’s, and it says, “Definitely not mugged.”
Lora knows. This is one of the stupidest ideas she’s ever had, and there have been a few. At least she’s leaving in a few days, so definitely-not-Calder doesn’t know where she truly lives. He’s too polished. The frustration and fury and mistrust, those all seem real – and they can all push you to take advantage of others. She remembers that feeling well.
But he was in so much pain. And all he asked for was a battered coat that’s clearly had most of the monetary value worn out of it.
Lora says, “Of course he wasn’t. But someone’s mistreated him. You saw his legs.”
Lae’zel bares her teeth. “It would be a fine trap. You do so enjoy saving the helpless.”
Shadowheart says, “Some trap. Do you really think he burned ring-marks into his own shins?”
Lae’zel tilts her head. “A small pain for a great reward. If we had something he wanted badly enough…”
“Like what?” Wyll says. “He doesn’t look like a Bhaalist.”
Shadowheart adds, thoughtfully, “That would explain all the self-inflicted wounds.”
“I didn’t mean – “
Pacing, Lora says, “We had a journey back along mostly-abandoned streets in the dark. He had a hundred opportunities to kill me or try something, and he didn’t. And half of that was before he knew I had people waiting for me.”
“Perhaps only because he couldn’t.” Shadowheart.
“Fucking hell,” Karlach interjects, arms crossed and eyes narrow, “tell me you’re not saying we just drop the poor fucker back onto the streets. If I wanted to be dealing with that kind of attitude, I’d be back in the Hells.”
“Of course not,” Wyll says. “He’s lying, but we’ve all had good reasons to lie. Especially if he has a tormentor who’s searching for him.” He gives the room at large a hard stare. “We all know that feeling.”
Gale says, pointing a finger, “I find myself agreeing. If we disqualified allies on the basis of ‘looking shifty and having a mysterious past,’ none of us would have made friends.” He pauses. “I only… There is one thing.” When everyone’s heads turn towards him, he adds, “There’s an interesting sort of magic clinging to him. High elves always have an aura. It’s their attunement to the Weave. It’s sort of like someone’s humming in another room -except far less irritating than I’m sure that sounds. Yet his is unusual. The thread of Weave isn’t one I’m used to. I tried listening – enquiring – and all I felt were... ocean waves. The rain on my face. The currents, and the tides. The Weave is ordinarily in everything, but I just felt water. It reminded me of... Hmm. Do you remember when we had that dispute with those sahuagins?”
Lora snorts. “You’re saying he’s a giant fish?”
“Of course not! I’m saying that he’s been in contact with some powerful sea magic. I’ve been wondering about what happened yesterday. The incident at Ramazith’s Tower.”
Wyll says, drumming fingers on the arm of his chair, “You’re right. Grey Harbour is dangerous at the best of times, but now it’s swimming with magical energy...”
“Bloody Lorroakan,” Gale mutters. “They are meant to be controlled discharges with respect for the surrounding environs, not... spewing of random energies whenever an experiment goes wrong! It’s Weavestuff, not sewage!” He’s hand-waving again. Despite herself, Lora’s missed that sight. A room seems more alive with her friends in it.
Wyll points out, “Not that you should just throw sewage around either.” When he gets a set of stern looks for that, he shrugs. “We have municipal tunnels for a reason.”
Gale freezes, hand in mid-air, and nods reluctantly. “Either way, the point remains that Lorroakan is a rank amateur. And I think his mistake has caused consequences I still need to analyse.” He pauses, and plucks at an invisible string. Tilts his head, and sucks in a breath. “Oh, I don’t like that.”
Lora looks at him. “You feel it too?”
“Mm. That sort of… snag in his aura?”
“That, now you say it. I just couldn’t pin down what it was.”
Gale’s got that vague look in his eye, the one that says he’s seeing the workings of the universe. His voice has gone soft, and purple light is already starting to gather faintly at his fingertips. “Mm. Sea-Weave, as I’m thinking of calling it, is rather harder to get a grip on. Let me work it through.”
Wyll sighs. “I thought he was a vampire at first.” At the silence that falls, he says, “Pale, red-eyed, cold as the grave, never smiles with all his teeth? He keeps tugging his – forgive me, I mean your - coat up round his neck, too. But vampires don’t do water. Even if the harbour’s not running water as such, there’s enough spirit in it to pose them a problem or two. You certainly wouldn’t have felt...” He turns his hand and a wan smile Gale’s way, in acknowledgement. “Sea-Weave. But maybe the spillage changed things.”
Gale snorts. “Well, if the Blade of Frontiers can’t work out what he is...”
“He could be a perfectly ordinary elf. But my beastie-senses are tingling.”
Karlach says, “Look, whatever happened to him, he’s got someone after him. And it’s not like he’s tried to eat us. Wyll, you thought I was a devil before.”
He gives her a soft smile. “You’re right. I’ve been wrong in the past. I like being wrong.”
Lae’zel says, from her perch by the window, keeping an eye on the doors, “You could simply ask him.” There’s a thunk and tinkle from the side alley. “Once you have caught him.”
One. Two. One, two. Onetwoonetwoonetwoonetwo, push off from the heel, there, it’s not like swimming but he’s gathering speed…
Astarion’s stolen clothes stick to his damp skin; the gold he took rattles in his pockets. Some distant part of him thinks that he looks a mess, how are you meant to charm anyone with your hair like seaweed, but the rest of him is too busy cursing to care.
The thing about being a creature of water: sound travels differently. He’s gathered enough to know that he has far better ears than those who walk on land. His hosts clearly hadn’t.
Even so, he has something, another piece of the puzzle. It explains so much. Yesterday. It was yesterday when the tether connecting him to his master snapped. Something had felt different – the water had felt different – but there hadn’t been time to analyse it. He still had to swim to the surface. His master going without food was unconscionable, after all, even while the void in Astarion’s stomach howled.
(The world flies by. No, it’s not as good as swimming, and he’ll never be used to moving this fast while he’s upright, but it’s a start. He’s had two hundred years to watch the form. Jumping! Yes. Perhaps now he can jump, if he puts his mind to it. There’s so little time and so much to learn in it. He dodges a crate some idiot has left in the alley, nearly losing his balance but he has it now. The weight, the way to lean, the way his spine tilts. Graceful, so graceful, and the word is someone taking a lock of his hair between their fingers, whispering in his ear, but damn it, it’s true and it’s his, not just for them.)
Raphael appeared, then, while Astarion was still reeling from the quiet in his head, the lack of those watching eyes behind his own. Raphael offered him the pearls. Astarion knew something was very wrong, but what could be more wrong than Cazador? Of course he offered. And Raphael said, “You’ll be able to walk in the sun now.” Astarion asked if it was because of the pearls, and Raphael simply said, “No.” Without elaborating, of course.
The magic. Simply an opportunity, and Raphael took it. It explains everything.
If only the answer hadn’t come from…
A wizard who’s such a prodigy that he makes the one who broke Cazador’s control look like small fry. A warrior from the Hells, the Blade of fucking Frontiers, and a bard who can call in favours from all of them. Not like Astarion could simply ingratiate himself to them, either; they saw through him almost the moment they saw him.
We’re monsters to them, boy. Do you truly think they will let you stay if they see you? Let you live?
Astarion thinks of crimson scales, of the slightly ragged tailfins where a blade was taken to them, over and over. Touches his neck, where gills should be, the skin smoothed on the surface, where a nose and mouth are apparently enough. Though he’s far from uncertain about that; his lungs are starting to burn.
Astarion gives the street crowds a wide berth and ducks into another alley, where the shadows are longer and the sounds are quieter, and… there. A squeak and a scurry. He feels the feral grin on his face.
Not without my command. Cazador’s voice echoes sharply in his head, but it’s just a memory, not a fresh wound. It still brings a flinch, the full-body terrified nausea.
He sobs when he bites in and the blood fills his mouth. It’s mealy, barely filling. It’s more than he’s had in an eternity. He snarls, “Fuck your command.”
Astarion’s still picking rat out of his teeth when he ducks out of the alley and back into the crowd; he straightens up, as if he has a perfect right to be here. This part he knows well, and he doesn’t need legs to perform. All you have to be is a clueless fop in a district he shouldn’t be visiting. He notices the odd look at his gait, which hasn’t settled in quite yet; barely wobbly, but still not right. Well, then he’s simply a drunk fop. Perfect. An even easier target. Smile, make sure you don’t show your fangs. Squeeze through. “Do excuse me.”
Astarion steps into the next side street with a dagger and a coin purse, neither of which were missed at the time. They might be when their owner gets home and realises. Normally those would go into the stash, but now he keeps them. Ah, a belt! Perhaps that clips – yes. Astarion breaks back into a run, liberated blade and coin clinking as he goes. He’d appreciate having more time to practise with the dagger, but he supposes he’ll have to make do. Steel can’t be so different; a little heavier than shell, the balance will be off, but everything’s so much faster without water in the way. He might do more damage, even. At least he still has claws and teeth, if it comes to it. Walkers are so soft, no scales or shells – perfect to bite into, if he’d ever been allowed.
Gods, the life. No acres of empty water. Walkers live their lives so together: crowds, families, the hubbub. It’s almost too much – no, it is too much. Fascinating, in an odd sort of way. Like schools of fish. Safety in numbers. Ha. That’s never been true, and it certainly isn’t now.
Astarion’s drained a pigeon and he’s running vaguely in the direction of the city’s north beach when he looks over his shoulder and catches movement. Just a hint of it, a crate moving the way it shouldn’t – like it was knocked by someone going past it.
Invisibility spells. Walkers have invisibility spells.
He grabs for his dagger, because he’s free and if it’s one of Cazador’s cronies or some idiot monster hunter, he’ll gut them – he’ll - no, if they know he’s caught them, they’ll make their move – he has to -
His legs are burning. It’s not muscle well-used, the running. It’s the rending ache of bone and tissue that want to reshape themselves.
No. This was meant to be freedom. He’s meant to be free. (He’ll never be free.)
He pelts round a corner – through a crowd. Dodge. Turn. Stumble into someone with a basket. A shout. Ignore it. A dark corner. A dark alley. Beneath his stolen boots, scales are poking through his skin. It’s too soon, far too soon; he swears it was longer last time.
A sample. What did he expect? That Raphael would help him out of the goodness of his heart?
Astarion grabs for the pearls round his neck –
They’re gone.
He snarls instead of sobbing or laughing hysterically, and throws himself into another side-alley. Behind him, a glass bottle rolls – whether from him or the person pursuing him, he doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter. They’re about to see more than they bargained for, unless he can find the pearls in… No, in none of his pockets, nowhere under his shirt or jacket.
Astarion grabs for the wall as he loses his footing, hands scraping against stonework – no, grabs for his boots, as the pain worsens. He’s still scrabbling at them as he falls, shoving them off feet that are barely feet anymore. The pain of landing on stone barely registers. There’s a sound at the mouth of the alley, but he’s already fighting with the laces to his trousers. He has to get these damn things off, he doesn’t know what will happen if he changes with them on and this body can only take so much more mangling –
Astarion kicks them away, and red scales shine in the light. It’s a relief. He hates that he’s here, helpless. He hates the surface, hates Raphael, hates Cazador. But gods, that hurts so much less. At least now he can breathe through it. It’s only pain. If pain could kill him – truly kill him - he’d be long dead by now. And it’s easy enough to let himself drift, the things happening to him distant.
It’s a swift thing, the change: in no time he’s himself again, slumped there, panting, gauzy tailfins catching in filthy puddle-water. Stupid things. So utterly useless here. Like the rest of him.
“Oh.”
She’s there at the mouth of the alley: the bard. Her eyes wide, tracing over the length of him where scales are glinting in the dim light. And there’s a string of pearls around her wrist.