Chapter Text
Unbalanced
“So,” he said across the fire. “We have an Oathbreaker in our midst now.”
She looked over at him sharply, red eyes flashing. He was playing a dangerous game, but one he thought he could win. “What was your Oath again, darling?” he asked with feigned disinterest, examining his nails.
She looked away, towards the spectral knight standing at the edge of their camp. The faces of the tieflings flashed back in front of her face. It wasn’t as if she’d never killed before, but at the mere behest of a gith she didn’t really even know? She’d only ever tried to uphold her Oath and please Lolth. But she’d made the decision to simply slaughter instead.
She’d doubled over in pain as she felt the Oath break. She didn’t make a sound—she never did in battle—but her face betrayed her. Astarion had looked at her askance, a single eyebrow raised, but no one really knew what had happened until they came back to camp and there stood the knight.
“Does it matter anymore?” she countered with her usual abrupt manner.
“I suppose not,” he conceded. Hm. Maybe he couldn’t win this one. Shift tactics. “Well, I for one applaud you. Why dedicate your life to someone else’s code when you could live for yourself?” He watched her carefully although he maintained his air of indifference. Her responses now framed how he would continue his advances. Reveal, conceal; that was how this game was played.
She looked back over at him, her jaw working. “Have you never had allegiances? Things you believed in? Or have you always danced with chaos?” Her words were venomous but she didn’t really even understand why. It wasn’t as if she’d chosen the Oath in the first place. And she was drow; allegiances came and went like snakes shedding their skin. What had she truly lost?
He was a little taken aback by the intensity behind her words, but he only missed a slight beat before he smiled smoothly. “Perhaps. But before you were born, darling,” he replied with a dismissive wave of his hand.
The tips of her ears colored a little at him calling out her youth. She acknowledged to herself—not him, she’d never admit it to him—that she was inexperienced. Was this just how the world actually worked? She didn’t know much of anything beyond her House and her barracks and her temple. She’d been on leave when she decided to visit the surface and had immediately been snatched up by the mindflayers. She’d barely squinted into a sun she’d never seen before she was on a ship and being ocularly impregnated.
If she was honest, there was nothing for her in the Underdark. Did anyone even notice she was gone? She’d been cast from her House as soon as her sororicidal aunt could, sent to a temple of Lolth, her fate to become a paladin over a cleric decided for her before she was even 60. She involuntarily touched the rose tattoo on the side of her neck. Not even the symbol of her House. Not that this elf across her would know, roses were probably commonplace for him. But she’d panicked when all the other women in the company had gone to be tattooed and brought her along, cajoling her to get something to remember their time as trainees. They’d given pause when she chose the flower instead of her crest but assumed there was a hidden meaning behind it. But there wasn’t. She’d chosen the first thing that came to mind that she could accept as a permanent reminder of the fact that she had nothing.
Astarion watched her intently but kept glancing away to appear detached from the conversation, as if it was meaningless instead of something that could keep him alive. She wouldn’t notice either way; her eyes were unfocused as she rubbed the tattoo. There was something there, he mused. It wasn’t the symbol of any Oath or god he’d seen. It seemed unlikely that a rose was the symbol of a drow House—flowers? For drow? No, it meant something else.
How could he use this? He needed her off-balance, looking for someone to restore it. That was when he’d swoop in, like he always did, and provide the only comfort he knew how. And once he did, she wouldn’t get rid of him. He could build a surprising amount of trust in a single night. That and he was simply good at what he did and she’d want seconds.
She was fairly vulnerable now: oathless, a drow on the surface, harboring a tadpole. But she was resilient; he needed her to be just a little more lost than she was. Then…
“It doesn’t matter,” she said suddenly in response to nothing. Her eyes focused on him again.
He blinked and raised an eyebrow but did not reply. This was not going the way he’d expected from centuries of experience. Either drow as a whole were built differently or just she was.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said again, more confidently, dropping her hand from her neck—such an elegant neck, he noted again. She held her head higher, the noble in her peeking through. She was making peace with things and his window was closing.
“I can live for myself. No more rules. No more tenets, no more stupid book,” she said, pulling something from her pack: a worn book with a leather cover stamped with a spider and some script in drow. She went to toss it in the fire, but Gale suddenly appeared beside her.
“I’ll take that, thank you,” he said, plucking the book from her hands with a glare. He moved quickly from her reach and the fire.
Astarion and Phaera stared at him.
“Ha!” Astarion barked. “It would be like the wizard to save something useless. How long do you think he’s been listening to us?” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Do you think it’s his thing ?”
Phaera looked at him sidelong with a slight smile on her face. And there it was, he thought to himself. The last little thing to unbalance her. And it was that damn wizard stealing her book of tenets.
He smiled back at her, a rakish smile, with his single eyebrow raised. Her ears colored again and her eyes dropped. After a couple of nights sitting around the fire she was starting to accept that she simply didn’t know how to act around a man who was so sure of himself. She was used to the ones that fawned and peaco*cked, seeking the slightest approval from a woman. And he did not seem to be that type.
She stood suddenly. “I, uh, need to get some sleep, it’s been a long day.” Without waiting for a response she turned in the direction of her tent and walked off. She slowed her gait and held her head up after a few steps, trying to appear somewhat regal.
“Of course, darling, we’ll have plenty of time together tomorrow.” He grinned although she couldn’t see it.
Her ears colored deeper and she walked a little faster.
Perfect.
