This must be the furthest I’ve been from Baldur’s Gate over a century… gods… had it really been this long?
Astarion drummed his slender, pale fingers absentmindedly against the worn oak countertop of the bar within Last Light Inn. Jaheira’s High Harpers buzzed around the seated elf as they paced across the inn’s rickety flooring. Here in the Shadow-Cursed Lands, it was as if time stood still – Astarion presumed that if the sky were visible through the realm’s perpetual gloom, it would be near midnight. The passage of time seemed to matter little to the inn’s occupants, as people came and went at seemingly all hours of the day.
We’re almost to Moonrise…
While its eerie, towering spires weren’t visible through the gnarled trees and overgrown foliage that secluded Last Light Inn, Moonrise loomed in Astarion’s mind. The specter of its master, Ketheric Thorm, casted an even longer shadow. For all the victories the little ragtag group of adventurers had hard-won and the enemies they had vanquished, the vampire spawn could not rid himself of the niggling uncertainty that bored into his brain, much like the parasitic tadpole that writhed in his skull.
How are we going to handle this, going to survive whatever lies before us, when we’re still so weak… I’ve come so far, away from Cazador, only to die in such a filthy, decrepit–
“Astarioooon… you ignoring me or something?”
The pale elf’s racing train of thought dissolved as Key’s voice sounded from several feet behind him. The muscles in his shoulders momentarily tensed, but then relaxed – from the sound of her voice, the little elven necromancer calling out to him was intoxicated.
“No, but should I be?”
He offered a rueful smirk as he turned around on the stool to face the petite woman who paced toward him. Her freckled cheeks were flushed an indulgent cherry red, as were the tips of her pointed ears that poked between her soft brown curls.
“I called your name at least… twice, just now, I think,” said Key, her voice a tinny drawl. The lazy smile on her face extended to her voice as she spoke in a drawl. “I’m just… trying to keep you company… so you can keep me company . ‘Cause… the people in here are no fun, all business. Very lame…”
Key placed her hands on the bar’s countertop to steady herself to hop up onto the adjoining stool. Astarion instinctively reached a steady arm to catch his little elven companion, should her notoriously poor reflexes (now dulled further by alcohol) fail her, but she eventually managed to right herself. Folding her arms in a makeshift pillow against the wooden countertop, Key rested her head, peering up at Astarion through lidded, hazy purple eyes. Her gaze roved lazily across his features as he watched her in this state with a sheepish expression.
“…You got a weird look on your face,” she murmured.
Astarion couldn’t help but scoff and quirk an eyebrow at her blunt comment ridiculing him so casually. “You’re really going to walk over here while I’m minding my business and start bullying me about my face, darling?”Key continued, undeterred. “You’re doing it again.”
“Key, you’ll have to be a little more specific than–”
“The corner of your mouth’s doing the twitchy thing.”
The ‘twitchy thing?’ Astarion ceased his thought to raise a hand to touch his mouth, befuddled. “What are you talking about?”
The vampire’s drunken companion mimed said ‘twitchy thing’ with her own face. “You know, that thing you do with the corner of your mouth when you’re nervous. You’ve been doing it since we unloaded our packs, and now…” Key lifted a gloved hand from beneath her head to poke a finger toward her eye. “Your eyelid’s going crazy, too… it’s freaky…”
Another beat of silence passed. Even while intoxicated, Key could read that there was something going on behind his careful mask of haughty indifference.
All Astarion could do was heave a sigh, his facial expressions suddenly steeling for a moment.
“Key… I want to ask you something, and I want you to answer me seriously. No joking around.”
His serious tone caught Key off-guard, breaking through the lull of her drunken, buzzing mind. He had her attention.
“...I’m a little, uh… buzzed, so no promises on not joking around, but… m’kay,” she muttered, peering lazily up at the man through her lashes, her mouth an uncomfortable thin line. “What’s going on? I’m right, aren’t I… something’s bothering you.”
Astarion’s crimson eyes locked onto hers as he swallowed thickly. After a moment of hesitation, he granted her a curt nod.
“Well… I’m not usually one to openly admit when I’m… apprehensive about a situation,” Astarion started, now conscious of his lower lip beginning to twitch, just as Key had said, “but the days to come are wearing on me. Are you not… afraid, Key? How are you able to drink yourself silly and enjoy yourself like this?”
As his words fell upon her booze-flushed ears, Key’s lips twitched into a faint, lopsided smile, her eyes drifting away from his intense stare to the swirling patterns of the wooden bar countertop.
“Besides the fact that I had no idea the drink I had earlier was gonna knock me on my ass,” Key murmured softly, “It’s not like I don’t care… I’m just… glad I’m not doin’ this alone.” Her lips grazed the skin of her arm as she spoke, letting her thoughts hang in the quiet moment she and Astarion shared.
“You know, we’ve come out of a lot of bizarre sh*t alive since you tried to kill me on the beach,” Key said. “We have little squirmy things in our heads… I actually agreed to let that hack of a goblin priestess brand my hand…” Her thought was quickly interrupted by an unceremonious hiccup.
“...And Gale, like, ate a shoe I found in a ditch last week, so he wouldn't explode, or whatever it is he said…”
Astarion rolled his eyes, but learned as he was in the art of deception, he couldn’t hide the trace of amusem*nt in his voice as he replied to her musings.
“Gale surviving the ordeal of… ‘eating’ a boot, as you put it…” He lifted a palm in the air, weighing the idea. “...And infiltrating the lair of Myrkul’s chosen, teeming with crazed cultists…” he lifted his other palm skyward with a facetious lilt to his voice. “Potato, potato, right, Key?”
Key didn’t lift her head to face him, instead electing to idly trace her gloved fingertip across the hard surface she rested on.
“That’s not the point,” said Key. “Not gonna lie, Astarion, but the past couple of months have been… some of the most fun I’ve ever had, ‘cause our circ*mstances just get weirder, and weirder…”
Astarion kept quiet, wondering where she was going with this, though the fact that Key was intoxicated while attempting an existential heart-to-heart conversation wasn’t lost on him.
“Yesterday, I probably should have died when I took a direct Magic Missile to the face,” she chuckled quietly. “Honestly, I have no idea how we’re able to talk to each other right now without making… whatever the hell kind of noise a squid makes… but we’re still here… and that gives me a little bit of hope that somehow, we’re going to walk out of this… because, what have we got to lose?”
Astarion bit back the impulse to snap at Key and correct her, that actually , he had everything to lose, as this journey was the closest he had come to glimpsing freedom for many, many bleak years, and the reins of his own fate seemed to finally be almost within reach. Instead, he settled for slowly lowering his hands into his lap, his fingernails digging into his palms.
“And, Astarion…”
Finally, Key looked back up at the white-haired vampire with an earnest soft smile.
“If there’s anyone who’s going to know how to keep us from being blown sky-high in a tripwire, it’s you… and even if we do get our asses blown sky-high, we’ve got Shadowheart to patch us up, given there’s enough of us left over afterward… and if someone needs to carry us around for a while, we have Karlach…” Her smile spread into a grin.
“Potato, potato… but at the end of the day… we’re the vegetable cart merchants of our own destiny.”
Astarion blinked dumbly for several moments, processing everything Key had just said before a sudden bark of laughter bubbled from his lips.
“How poetic of you, darling. That made just the slightest bit of sense.”
Key snickered, clearly pleased with herself. “Not bad for being buzzed, eh?” She began to hoist herself up off the bar surface, her frame teetering precariously as she rolled her shoulder back, facing her friend.
“I wager the state you’re in right now goes a little beyond being ‘buzzed’,” said Astarion, shifting himself off of his bar stool to stand and steady an arm around Key as she rocked forward in her seat. Gently, he guided her to her feet, and as Key steadied herself against his side, he detected a faint, sweet scent of whiskey on her breath.
“I think it’s time you lie down for a bit. We can’t have you falling and splitting your head open before we even make it to the gates at Moonrise… oh, what a travesty that’d be. Key Aetherbane, feared mage, felled by… darling, what was it you had tonight? A single glass of whiskey? My gods.”
Key peered up at the taller man with that familiar cheeky freckled face he had grown to appreciate, a consistent speck of light in their dire circ*mstances.
“It’s ‘cause I drank on an empty stomach,” she hummed, clinging to Astarion’s arm as her feet began to shuffle in the direction of the party’s quarters.
“Oh, I’m sure it was.”
Taking the journey slowly, the pair exited the room down the creaky, dimly-lit hallway of Last Light Inn, the floorboards groaning under their feet. Astarion’s gaze drifted to Key as she trudged forward – her face appeared tired but contented, her purple eyes lidded, lips set in a soft smile.
Soon, the pair approached one room of the party’s quarters, where Key’s bed was situated. Astarion guided his friend to sit on the edge of the mattress with one hand on her back, the other on her shoulder as he slowly guided his elven friend to recline against the mussed sheets. Key followed his lead, all too happy to flop against the plush mattress.
“Astarion…”
The elven woman’s voice was softer now, just above a whisper as Astarion loomed over her figure. His crimson eyes drifted to her face attentively as she uttered his name.
“I just want you to know… you’re never alone… okay?”
His fingers tensed and froze on the bony tips of Key’s freckled shoulders as she continued in a heady, hazy tone, her alcohol-laden mind succumbing to the allure of the dim, comfortable lighting, the touch of a trusted friend, the cool, soothing pillow beneath her cheek. Her hands shifted to tuck comfortably underneath the pillow in question.
“If your heart hurts, or… if you need to just sit with someone, if you’re worried about something…”
Key’s voice grew fainter still. Her eyes finally flickered closed.
“My door’s always unlocked for you… or, uh… my tent… is always open… you get the picture…”
The vampire’s gaze softened at her words, watching his little friend curling into the sheets of the inn’s creaky bed. He stood there quietly for a moment, his fingers trailing down from her shoulder to rest at his side.
There was so much the vampire spawn wanted to admit to her – the creeping fear of abandonment, the paranoia that with each moment Astarion grudgingly allowed a word of vulnerability to sneak past his lips, he deepened the cloying doubt that whispered directly into his ears:
The closeness that bloomed between them was too good to be true. Surely, at his darkest hour, her fingers would yank the threads of weaknesses that led directly to his heart, or worse – that he, the tainted, manipulative monster he was, would corrupt this flicker of light that had drifted so suddenly into his life…
He shook his head as if to forcibly will the thoughts away. He wanted to believe Key wouldn’t hurt him, that people like her really existed in this transactional world of give-and-take, take take.
For this quiet flicker of a moment, however, Astarion decided he would lie to himself and pretend the fantasy Key was offering was real.
“I’ll look for you, Key.”
