Chapter Text
"Okay," Tav started once everyone had at least a few bites of whatever Gale had managed to cook with what meager ingredients they had managed to scrounge up. "So uh, y'all might have noticed by now that I'm not from around here."
"Chk," came Lae'zel's signature scoff, accompanied by a muttered "you don't say," from Astarion. The rest of the group looked on with faces ranging from excited curiosity and poorly concealed intrigue, to Shadowheart's smug expression, as if she already knew the answer. She doesn't.
"Shit this sounded way more convincing in my head," Tav muttered. "Whatever, I'll get to that in a second, but the short answer is that as far as I can guess I came from a completely different plane of existence, timeline, dimension, whatever you wanna call it." This, as expected, led to a variety of exclamations, hums of deep thought, and of course now Shadowheart looking like she just sucked on a lemon. "Heh, okay maybe that isn't as short of an answer as I made it sound."
As what they said began to sink in, Tav looked around the firepit at their new companions. Gale began to go off on a diatribe of planar shifting, and the implications of Tav's apparent homeland, Wyll looked, for lack of a better word, gobsmacked, and Lae'zel looked bored honestly, which made sense considering that her situation wasn't too far off, at least on the surface. Shadowheart had somehow schooled her face into a blank mask of neutrality, which did little to hide the obvious discomfort of being so off with whatever her initial read on Tav was. Astarion just looked Tav over as if sizing them up, which then again wasn't exactly a new development, so that's comforting at least. Karlach seemed a little miffed, but didn't let it wipe her beaming grin off her face, as if this was just giving them more ammo to rib Tav with.
All things considered, this was going way better than Tav had expected, considering that everyone present had the ability, if not the motivation, to kill Tav in more ways than they were comfortable thinking about. They had; Faerûn is scary.
"Okay okay, Tav is strange and you all guessed wrong, looking at you Shads," which prompted a frankly terrifying glare that was offset by at least a few chuckles from the others. "This next part is uh, a little less fun." There was a beat as everyone refocused their attention. "I'm honestly scared shitless on how y'all will take this, but please, please please please don't kill me?" Okay, note to self, probably not the best lead in. "I know things about each of you, things you haven't told anyone, at least as far as I'm aware. Just wanted to get that out there because I'm going a little insane trying to play it cool and nonchalant and mysterious or whatever."
"Ominous start aside, mate, hate to break it to you but if that's what you were going for you're not doing too hot," Karlach piped up from her side of the fire. "I've only known you for like two days, but I don't think the word nonchalant was even an option in describing you." And okay fine, fair, whatever, maybe Tav had been a bit too excited to meet people that should probably inspire at least a little bit of trepidation, if not outright fear.
Tav screwed up their face as if this was news to them, which it wouldn't have been if they were even a tiny bit more self aware. Shadowheart attempted to bring the conversation back to the topic at hand, looking a bit queasy at the idea of someone knowing her secrets. "What do you mean you know things about us? Who's to say you weren't just snooping around with these tadpoles? It's not like we really know what they are capable of." Tav shrunk a little under the scrutiny, but it's not like they didn't bring this upon themselves.
"Bleh, okay that's actually reasonable, as much as I hate these stupid things." Tav paused for a moment, deep in thought, and trying, to middling success, not to panic. "How about this, I'll say one word for whoever wants to prove that I'm not bullshitting, but also hopefully not air everyone's dirty laundry, fair?" The group seemed to take this with various levels of wariness and discomfort, but Tav could tell the gears were turning. Everyone knew that one way or another, this was going to kinda suck.
After a few reluctant nods to proceed, Tav forced what they hoped was a non-threatening smile onto their face. "So, who's first?" The obvious suspects were expectedly hesitant, while the rest were looking between themselves, daring someone else to speak up. After a few moments, Karlach piped up, "fuck it Soldier, at this point I can't tell if you're pulling my leg, but I might as well hear you out even if none of these sods want to. Lay it on me."
Tav's smile turned genuine then. As much as Karlach could be a bit terrifying when she wanted to be, it was simply impossible not to relax at least a little at her teasing grin and the open look on her face. "Thanks, Karlach, I was honestly hoping you would volunteer first." Tav assumed she was blushing, as much as someone with red skin could blush, but their face started to fall into closer to a grimace. "Bear with me on this, yeah? As much as I don't want to hurt any of you, this is probably going to suck." At that moment, their smile came back, this time softer, as an idea came to them. Tav was prepared to bring something up related to their time in the hells, or maybe even with Gortash, but a simpler solution came to mind just when they needed it.
Karlach looked a bit confused, and the wariness had started to creep in, but she relaxed when she saw the look on Tav's face smooth out. "Alright, do your worst," meeting Tav's eyes, watching them take a breath to settle themselves.
They stared right back for a moment before letting out the breath they didn't realize they were holding before continuing, with a twinkle of some emotion creeping into their eyes.
"Taters."