Chapter Text
Astarion’s new companions in illithid-induced misery are a strange bunch.
They make camp for the first time in an abandoned chapel they stumbled across, close to the beach where the ship had crashed. Although camp is stretching it a bit, since all they have in the way of supplies is what they’ve been able to scrounge up from the remains of the ship or the adventurers they had encountered in the chapel.
They all have bedrolls, at least, and Gale had made a very respectable campfire out of broken crates and a well-placed firebolt.
The treasure-hunters they had so unfortunately been forced to kill didn’t have much in the way of provisions, but there had been enough food for tonight and breakfast tomorrow at least. It’s typical traveller’s fare, some rather dry brown bread, a wedge of cheese each, and some salami, but his companions fall on it as though they had been starving for weeks.
Astarion makes a show of nibbling on some salami, to allay suspicion. There’s nothing actually stopping him from eating solid food, even if he doesn’t get any real nutrition from it, but after 200 years of starvation, his stomach can barely manage more than a few bites.
At least there had been a skin of wine, although sharing it between five of them means getting rat-arsed the way he wants is out of the question. But it’s liquid, and not complete vinegar, so he drinks it with minimal complaining.
The primary function it serves is not so much the imbibing, but the conviviality of passing the skin around their little fire, the excuse it gives everyone to talk.
Not that he learns much: either secrecy is a symptom of the mindflayer worm, or some very strange coincidences are at play.
Shadowheart insists that is her real name, and that she needs to return to Baldur’s Gate as fast as possible for reasons she cannot possibly explain to anyone. Lae’zel considers them all so far beneath her they are barely worth acknowledging, although she’s happy to share lurid descriptions of the horror and agony of mindflayer transformation with almost no prompting.
Gale does a surprisingly convincing impression of someone who’s not hiding things, good enough that it might have fooled even Astarion if he couldn’t hear the way his heart ticked up anxiously whenever anyone asked him about himself or his magic.
Astarion, obviously, is lying about absolutely everything with no shame whatsoever. He wouldn’t be especially heartbroken if he had to kill any of his new friends, but there’s four of them and one of him, and he’d prefer to at least figure out just how far the mindflayer worm’s protections reach before he gets into a fight to the death.
And yet somehow, he’s still more forthcoming than the fifth member of their party. They’re a tiefling sorcerer of indeterminate gender, red eyes that glow in the darkness and patches of white scales on their arms and face that speak to Draconic ancestry, and they claim not to remember a single blessed thing about themselves.
Even asking for a name receives a blank stare, and when Lae’zel pushes the matter, insisting they must remember something, the answer she receives is cryptic at best.
“There is a voice in my mind, an evil whispering thing. It has a name for me, but not one I want to use. I’m trying to be better.”
“Better than what?” Astarion can’t resist asking.
They just shrug. “Better than it. Better than the person I fear I used to be.”
“Well, we have to call you something,” Shadowheart says. “It doesn’t need to be permanent. Pick something.”
“I can’t. I don’t—I don’t remember enough. All I know is that I want to be better than the thing my blood names me.”
“So be Better,” Astarion suggests. “For your name, I mean. It’s no stranger than Shadowheart.”
Shadowheart shoots him a glare across the fire, but Lae’zel speaks before she can formulate a retort. “A good suggestion. Self betterment is a noble goal, even for one such as you.”
“I always heard githyanki had charming manners,” Gale mutters, but the sarcasm flies right over Lae’zel’s head, as it so often seems to. Whether that is due to the language barrier, some peculiarity of githyanki culture, or simply Lae’zel not being the sharpest tooth in the head, Astarion has yet to determine.
“Better.” Their sorcerous companion says it slowly, as though testing it out. “I think I like it.”
Apparently, no one is going to ask about the voices in their head. Astarion certainly isn’t going to be the one to do it, but he’s disappointed no one else seems willing to take the arrow on the group’s behalf.
Possibly like him, they were remembering the smile on the newly-named Better’s face as they brought the butt of their staff down on the head of that trapped Mindflayer, hard enough that there had been chunks of brain mixed in with the blood. Or the way they had paused to sniff the air, as though savouring a fine perfume, when Shadowheart’s sacred flame had burned two of the adventurers they had encountered in these ruins alive.
The list of reasons to be disturbed by Better is worryingly long, for someone Astarion has known all of five hours, and thus far balanced out by nothing but the assurance that they like the idea of self-improvement. As sureties against being beheaded in his sleep, it isn’t particularly reassuring.
Still, he’s spent the last two centuries with a man whose greatest joy in life is torturing him, so by comparison, the risk feels almost negligible. If nothing else, Better at least can’t control his mind to stop him fighting back.
Not how he would have chosen to spend his first day of freedom, or the people he would have chosen to spend it with, but far better (or rather, Better) than the alternative, all things considered.
He had been concerned about how long or how well he could hide what he is among the living, when it’s not something he’s ever tried to do for more than a day or two at most, but Better is on his side there.
Or rather, they’re so deeply deranged that no one has any attention left to pay to him.
It begins with them killing, of all things, a squirrel. It hadn’t been doing anything offensive, or even particularly annoying, but Better had kicked the thing so hard it was dead even before its tiny body hit a tree hard enough to go splat.
When he’d tried to ask, as surreptitiously as he could, what in the nine hells had just happened, there’d been a moment when they seemed to look right through him, mind still caught in whatever dark place the squirrel had sent it.
“Overwhelming violent urges fester in my skull,” they had said, but there had been a distant quality to the words. Bland, as though reporting on the weather, rather than their own murderous bloodlust.
Still, it had only been a squirrel when all’s said and done. Hardly the beginning of a murderous rampage.
But then had come the bard.
A dragonborn had stumbled into their camp that night, wearing nothing but a shirt, shaken and bruised, with a story about being set-upon by goblins. It had all the markings of a scam, but as far as he knows, it hadn’t been.
He says as far as he knows, because he hadn’t actually had a chance to say more than about 4 words to the girl. Better had spoken to her the most, getting her sob story, and her family history, and even a memorable demonstration of dragonborn throat singing.
And then, at some point in the night, apparently in their sleep, if they were to be believed, Better had eviscerated her.
He hadn’t bothered to count the wounds: it was clear from only the most cursory of glances that the kill had been made in a frenzy, the victim stabbed over and over, far beyond what was necessary to end her life. Her belly hadn’t been deliberately sliced open, but the skin had been pierced so many times that it had split like an overripe melon, intestines spilling out onto the ground.
And yet, in the midst of this frenzy, Better had somehow had the control and presence of mind to surround the body with a ring drawn in blood, as though to draw the eye more firmly to the evidence of their crime.
Better had not denied the murder, but nor did they admit to any real memory of it. If their story is to be believed, they had made the attack while sleepwalking, or something very like it, their body moving without their conscious mind’s consent.
Their companions are bafflingly calm about the whole thing, seemingly taking Better’s assertions that they remember nothing of the crime at face value. There had been a little conversation that morning, while Better was away burying the evidence of their crimes (“laying her to rest” Wyll called it, as though it were a kindness and not a way to avoid attracting carrion-eaters into their camp) but the conclusion, almost universally, had been to take them at their word, and, even more baffling, to assume that it was a single incident and not the beginning of a pattern that will get them all killed.
The only thing he can say in favour of the whole bloody and wasteful affair is that he is more than a little reassured as to what reception he will get when he finally admits the truth. Anyone who is happy to sleep within arm's length of a mad sorcerer who commits senseless murders in their sleep is probably someone who would be equally willing to accept a vampire spawn as a travelling companion.
Which is good, because the issue is becoming increasingly pressing.
He had thought, after 200 years of starvation, that even having access to animals larger than rats would be pleasure enough to contain his hungers around his new companions.
He had thought, naively as it turns out, that he had control over himself.
It’s impossible to know whether the cheerful bloodlust exhibited by Lae’zel, Better, and their newest recruit, Karlach, make the cravings worse, or whether killing their enemies is the outlet which allows him to hold out as long as he does.
Either way, by the time they reach the ruins of Moonhaven, the cravings are getting almost unbearable. He can barely string a coherent sentence together, much less carry on a rational conversation, his every waking thought consumed with blood, blood, blood.
The others have begun to notice. Wyll keeps asking him if he’s alright, with disgusting sincerity, and Gale has been dropping unsubtle hints about Shadowheart’s healing abilities.
Only Better has said nothing on the subject, but he’s unclear if that’s out of politeness, a complete lack of understanding of the concept of normal behaviour, or if they simply haven’t noticed.
Time and familiarity have not rendered them any less strange, even putting aside the sleep-murder. Aside from the amnesia, a condition about which Shadowheart seems to know a suspicious amount, there are other gaps in their knowledge. Increasingly, he finds himself wondering whether they have spent the last 30 years as confined as he had. Worse, even, since Cazador had at least let him out for hunts.
They are a Baldurian, that much the party have been able to establish from accent and general knowledge about the city, although they cannot say where in the city they lived. But beyond that, they have no concrete answers as to their preferred food, music, colour, or any other personal detail which Shadowheart seemed to have expected would carry over. Even Gale’s hilariously earnest questions as to their gender or preferred pronouns had been met with a blank stare, so by unspoken agreement the party have begun defaulting to they/them.
The one concrete thing they know, apart from the fact that they’re very good at killing and apparently sometimes do it in their sleep, is that they’re not a dog person, since they view the addition of Scratch to the camp with a kind of quiet bemusement. No actual malice, or signs of fear, but it’s clear they don’t understand why Shadowheart and Karlach dote on the animal.
Anyway, the point is that they’re deeply strange, and more than a little concerning, and the fact that they haven’t found anything odd in Astarion’s behaviour is a surer sign that there is something odd to find than any amount of concern from the others.
So he’s decided. He’s going to do something about it now, while he still has the control and mental faculties to consider the risks, choose a target and make what contingencies are possible.
Lae’zel is obviously out as a potential food source. He doesn’t know if the gith even have an understanding of what vampires are, but if they do, they almost certainly kill them on sight. Wyll is honourable enough that he’d probably at least hear Astarion out if he woke up during the event, but he also has a lifetime of killing monsters under his belt. Karlach’s blood would likely melt him from the inside like lava, even if he somehow managed to get close enough to bite her. Shadowheart wouldn’t hesitate for a moment before slipping a knife between his ribs.
The obvious choice is Gale: he’s both a deep sleeper and a bleeding heart.
And yet…
Better is objectively a terrible choice. They enjoy burning people to death, they sleep lightly and wake often, and they’re not what anyone would call rational.
But they know what it is to be overcome by cravings that take over every thought. They don’t often talk about the voice they hear, but Astarion knows what someone battling their own instincts looks like.
If all goes well, no one will know this ever happened, but if it goes wrong… They’re not the only one who’d be sympathetic, but they’re the only one who might actually understand.
And he will admit, there’s a certain cachet to dragon blood as his first taste of a sentient creature. Let it never be said that Astarion Ancunin does anything by halves.
He has no idea what causes them to wake, just as he was going for the bite.
His footfalls had been ghost-like in their quietness, he only needs to breathe if he wishes to speak, and no animal or sudden gust of wind made any sound which might have roused them.
And yet, just as he is about to sink his teeth into that neck which has been haunting his dreams, they wake, hand going immediately for the dagger they keep under their pillow.
“Shit. It’s not what it looks like, I swear!”
They raise an eyebrow, the scales that line their forehead making a soft sound as they rub together, but they don’t start flinging fireballs, or even raise the knife, so Astarion will at least get a chance to explain himself, for whatever that’s worth.
“I wasn’t going to hurt you, I swear! Not seriously. I just—I just needed, well, blood.”
Inexplicably, that makes them relax. They even set down the knife, although they keep it within easy reach. “A vampire? So that’s why you were so strange about the boar.”
That had not been his finest hour. He’s usually much better under pressure. But in his defence, it had only been the day after they murdered the bard, and everyone had been somewhat on edge.
“I’m not some ravening monster,” he hastens to reassure them. Which is true, apart from all the times it isn’t. “I feed on animals, deer, boar, whatever I can get. But with everything that’s going on—I’m too slow, too weak. We have an insane cult and an army of mindflayers after us, not to mention half the Goblins on the sword coast. If I just had a little blood from a person, rather than only beasts, I could think clearer. Fight better. Please.”
“Why?” they ask, and then before he can respond, “No, I understand the logic in giving you blood. I meant why me? You realise I’m the worst possible option? All those defenceless tieflings the night we passed in the grove. The cultists we’ve fought. Hell, Gale is right there, sleeping like a babe. If you leave the mark somewhere discreet, he’d probably never even notice.”
“Because… because you understand. Don’t you?”
They wave a hand, dismissing the question. “Of course I understand. That’s not the point. I’m not safe to get close to. Not for you. Not for anyone.”
“We have mind-flayer tadpoles in our heads, an insane githyanki in our camp, and a goddess hunting for the artefact that’s keeping us all alive. No parts of our lives are safe!”
This is not how he imagined this conversation going, in any of his musings. Not even in his wholly ridiculous daydreams. He knew Better would be weird about it, because they’re weird about absolutely everything, but he never imagined that their concern would be for him, rather than their own neck.
“Well, if you’re really so against the idea…”
“I didn’t say that.” That denial had been suspiciously fast. “I—fuck, look, obviously I want to allow you this—”
“Obviously,” Astarion echoed, bemused.
“--But how much I want it doesn’t matter. You’re my friend. I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“You want it?”
“You keep repeating everything I say.” They frown. “Am I being strange again?”
“Quite possibly the strangest you’ve ever been, but please don’t let that stop you. You were telling me how desperate you are to feel my fangs in your throat.”
“I don’t see what’s so odd about that, but fine. Yes, I want that. Now that you’ve brought it up, I’m going to be thinking about it almost as much as I think about strangling you to find out whether vampires need air to live, but it’s a terrible idea. I could hurt you. I could kill you!”
“We don’t, and I’m not the one in the most danger here.” It should probably bother him more than it does, the calm admission that they want to kill him, but he’s spent the vast majority of his life around people who want to kill him. Better is at least nice to him, and has thus far shown no intention of acting on those desires. “I—”
Is he really going to admit to this? He’s known them less than a tenday and they’re murderously deranged. All the same—”I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t.” They give him a long, searching look. “You really need this?”
“Yes.”
“Gods above and below. Alright, if you’re sure. But I’m disarming first. And—are you strong enough to hold me down? I’ve got rope in my pack, if not.”
The two of them are more or less of a build, only Better’s horns making them appear taller, and even if they weren’t—”I’m a vampire, and an archer, and you don’t lift anything heavier than a fireball most days.”
“True. Okay, you hold my hands down, then. We can’t do anything about verbal spells, unless you gag me—?”
“No.” He has no idea how much control he’s going to have, and no idea how long it takes to drain a person of their size. He’s going to be wholly reliant on their warning him to know when he’s gone too far. “No gag.”
“Fine, but at least if I can’t use my hands, that eliminates any that relies on somatic elements, and means I can’t strangle you.”
“Which wouldn’t kill me, even if you did.”
“That should probably make the idea less tempting, but nothing else about my mind makes any sense. Why should this be any different?” They push the dagger from under their pillow towards him and begin patting themself down, as though uncertain what weapons they might be carrying.
Quite a number, as it turns out, mostly knives of various kinds, plus a cosh, an odd assortment of spell components, and an emerald-green vial of wyvern toxin.
“How the hell do you sleep like that without stabbing yourself somewhere unfortunate?”
“Practise, I assume. I’ve never thought about it before. What’s the normal amount of weapons to sleep with?”
“In the city, I would say none. Among present company, one or two at most. Now lay back, get comfortable.”
Obediently, they sweep their tail to the side and relax back into the pile of cushions and rolled up blankets they sleep with, as close to lying flat as can reasonably be achieved with those horns, and look up at him expectantly, as though waiting for further instructions.
When he steps closer, they offer their wrists, and he realises that the only way to get close enough to bite while also pinning their hands as requested is going to be to straddle them.
It’s a good deal more intimate than he was planning for, but when he drops to his knees, one leg either side of their calves, to give them plenty of time to understand what’s about to happen and object if they wish, they smile at him, so small it’s barely horrifying at all, and relax back into the cushions.
Shuffling forward enough that his legs are stretched wide over their hips makes him feel like he should be apologising, but since he’s unsure which of them he would be apologising too, he settles for mustering the last vestiges of his control to ask, “You’re sure?”
That gets a real smile, all sharp-teeth and hunger. “Stop stalling.”
Their wrists feel delicate under his hands, and their skin is cool to the touch, a few degrees below that of a normal tiefling thanks to the ice-magic in their veins.
There are no scales on their neck, which makes it appear even more vulnerable than throats always do to a vampire, nothing but blue-white skin and the stark black lines of their tattoo.
Will he be able to taste the ink? They presumably don’t care about the risk of him leaving a scar which will mar the neat lines, or they would have said something, but should he be worried about it contaminating the flavour?
Gods, what a ridiculous thing to be worrying about. Even if it tastes of nothing but soot and nutgall, it will still be blood. This is, at least nominally, about strengthening him, not his own pleasure.
“Is there something wrong?” Better asks. “You’ve been—”
And then he bites.
If they try to finish their sentence, it’s lost under the pounding in his ears, the sound he can’t hold back, low in his throat but far louder than he intended, somewhere between a growl and a moan.
It’s like nothing he’s ever tasted before, nothing he’s ever felt, even the visceral satisfaction of his fangs sinking into yielding flesh overpowered by the rush as hot blood floods his mouth.
It tastes like power. Like freedom. Like everything he’s been missing for 200 years, including vitality, all rolled into one perfect whole.
Distantly, he’s aware of Better making low soft sounds, but everything which isn’t blood and thirst has faded into nothing, so much background noise. The flavour of the blood just keeps improving with every pull, building and building in a perfect crescendo that culminates in a burst of copper-sweetness so intense it’s almost orgasmic.
It’s only after it’s started to fade that he realises the wrists under his hands have gone limp.
He tears his mouth away, presses desperate fingers to their jugular, seeking a pulse, and finding none.
He’s killed them. They let him kill them.
Gods, it had felt so good.
But now he’s in the middle of a camp full of volatile and heavily-armed people, standing over the corpse of their friend, which is… less than ideal. Not to mention the—well, obviously it’s not guilt. That would be ridiculous when they’d known what they were getting themselves into. But he certainly doesn’t feel good about it.
Withers. Withers will know how to fix this.
Desperately hoping no one wakes up and sees him adding grave-robbing to his list of crimes, he pats down Better’s corpse, and, finding no coin purse, goes to search through their tent.
He’s never been inside it before. It’s even more spartan inside than out, but it’s not totally bare. There’s a wooden board beside where the bedroll would be, if they had not decided to sleep beside the fire tonight. (That was probably his downfall).
A couple of words in a language he thinks might be infernal have been scorched into the wood, and what at first appears to be a random selection of small knick-knacks and everyday objects are laid out along its length.
Until it hits him that the lace-edged handkerchief is one of his own, and the strange misshapen lump of metal had been the result of Karlach’s attempt to use her fires to shape metal after she saw one of the druids whittling in the grove. That coin is a githyanki one. The incense smells like Shadowheart’s tent. The piece of amber must be from the supply Gale keeps on hand for conjuring lightning bolts, and the paper twist of rock candy is lifted from whatever pocket Wyll can reliably produce sweets from when there’s a crying child to comfort.
Little pieces of all of them, kept close and displayed like they’re treasures, rather than junk.
It’s rather moving, in a faintly pathetic way.
It’s also not what he’s in here for. Their pack is leaning up against one of the tent poles, and he detects no crackle of energy that would mark a magical trap when he approaches, so he risks opening it.
There are, somehow, even more knives in here, along with a change of clothes, and something that looks disturbingly like a humanoid femur with teeth marks in it.
The coin pouch has sunk to the very bottom, as they are wont to do. It had been agreed (by everyone except him, but his objections had been overruled) that Better should be responsible for the bulk of their funds, both because they rarely get into the thick of the fighting, preferring to launch spells from a safe distance, which makes them unlikely to be robbed during a battle, and because they seem to have almost no grasp of money, and no desire to own physical objects, which makes them unlikely to spend it on impulse buys.
With hands that don’t shake, a fact he finds genuinely surprising, he counts out 200GP, double and triple checking the amount before he heads for where Withers is standing, staring out over the still waters of the lake.
He has to clear his throat to get his attention, those milky eyes focussing on him with unsettling intensity.
“Thou hast the appearance of a rabbit who hears the baying of hounds,” Withers observes, in his usual neutral tone. “Hast thou need of my services?” It shouldn’t be possible for a lich to look that judgemental when they don’t even have eyebrows. “Mayhap a resurrection?”
“Better.”
“What could be better than a return from death’s cold embrace?”
“No, resurrect Better.” Withers is looking worryingly blank. If it turns out Better is somehow immune to his magic, that you need someone’s true name or similar bullshit, Astarion is going to—well, he has no idea. Possibly just slit his own throat with Lae’zel’s sword: it’ll save time.
Just in case the problem is simply that Withers doesn’t know who he means, he points to Better’s corpse, and adds a “Please,” for good measure.
“Art thou sure?”
To his knowledge, Withers has never asked anything of the kind before, and if he didn’t know better, he’d say he almost seems discomforted. He certainly doesn’t look as serenely unbothered as he usually does.
“Is there any particular reason I shouldn’t be?”
“None that may be shared at this time, or in this place,” Withers replies. “Hast thou the necessary payment?”
200 coin feels like far too much to part with, and yet not nearly enough to justify Withers’ willingness to help, but Astarion hands it over, and steps back when instructed.
Withers intones a few words in a language Astarion does not know (and does not care to, because they resonate inside his bones like he’s a plucked harp-string, which is acutely horrifying) and raises his hands. Better appears in a burst of white light before them, whole and alive, although still with blood staining the neck of their shirt.
There’s really no good thing to say in circumstances such as these, but “Welcome back” is at least relatively neutral.
“Hi,” Better says, and then, “Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?!” The words come out high pitched and over-loud, almost a screech, and Astarion forces his voice to be quieter lest they be overheard when he hisses, “I killed you!”
“I know. That was the plan.” They take in his expression. “Was that not the plan?”
“No! No, of course it wasn’t—Gods, you’re impossible sometimes.”
“You said you were starving. A few mouthfuls wouldn’t have been enough to quench your thirst.”
“I was going to find an animal to fill me up afterwards.”
“Oh. Seems a lot of effort to go to when I’ve got plenty of blood just going spare.”
“It wasn’t spare. You were using it, you absolute loon! You—! Gods, I don’t even know why I’m arguing. Of course you were never going to be normal about this!”
“I didn’t mean to upset you.”
And the frustrating thing is, he is upset. It’s ridiculous, there’s no reason for it, they’re crazy but not so crazy that they didn’t understand the consequences when they agreed to it, but that doesn’t actually make him feel any better. “You’ve known me less than a tenday. People don’t willingly lay down their lives for people they’ve only known for a few days!”
“Perhaps. But I’ve also known myself less than a tenday, so it probably seems longer to me than it does to you. I—I know what it is to starve. What it is to spend every moment controlling yourself because there is something primal and hungry inside you. I cannot be fed, but I can at least see that those who fight by my side do not suffer the same fate.”
“How do you manage to sound so much like Wyll at his most righteous, when you’re talking about letting me rip your throat out?”
“You didn’t rip it out. Even I would have remembered that. Two neat little holes, that’s all.” They tip their head to the side, showing off altogether too much vulnerable throat. “Did it scar?”
“No scar. And please stop that. I don’t think we have enough coin on hand to bring you back a second time.”
“Turnabout is fair play,” they say, nonsensically, but they do at least stop presenting their neck to him. “I really didn’t hurt you?”
“You lay there meek as a lamb while I sucked you dry,” Astarion snaps, which isn’t the most tactful thing he’s ever said in his life, but he’s starting to be a little insulted by their unshakeable conviction that they could hurt him, even unarmed and pinned down.
That, for some reason, earns him another of those deeply unsettling genuine smiles. He can’t say for certain how many teeth a tiefling is supposed to have, but he’s almost certain that smile contains too many. “You have such a way with words, Astarion. Do you need to trance tonight?”
“Right now, I feel like I’ll never need to sleep again. It won’t last, but I’ve probably got a couple of days before it wears off completely.”
“Good. Stay on your guard.” They smother a yawn. “Can I borrow something of yours? A shirt or jerkin, something that carries your scent, I don’t care what. Just so I’ll—so I’ll remember we had this conversation, if I wake in the night.”
“And remember not to attack me?”
“I believed I was dreaming when I killed Quill so I doubt it would help with the Urge. I just want the reminder that you are well. That I helped, rather than harmed. It’s a… new feeling.”
“Given you remember nothing before a few nights ago, every feeling is new to you.”
“This is newer. I don’t—I don’t remember my previous life. But all the same, I am certain it did not involve helping anyone.”
It’s a disgustingly Wyll-like sentiment, but it’s dark enough in the camp to hide all but the worst of his scars, and he can’t pretend he isn’t in their debt, however annoyed with them he might be.
He tugs off his shirt, holds it out to them, and does his best not to visibly react when they immediately bring it to their face and inhale.
“Have you changed your cologne?”
“We’re in the middle of a forest. I don’t know where you think I’d be getting cologne from. That’s probably your own blood you’re smelling.”
With the shirt covering the lower half of their face, the smile looks almost normal. “It suits you.”