#it’s wyll Wednesday everybody

[steelsartcorner]

nobody took my pen away so the hades-crossover-fever continues. i’m ill

others: the dark urge (OC); minthara (bg3), karlach (bg3), shadowheart (bg3), gale (bg3), halsin (bg3), lae'zel (bg3), astarion (bg3), kotallo (horizon)

[heylittleriotact]

It’s Wednesday, have a very unedited WIP

Echo had retired early for the evening, having had to force herself to bid her companions a good night and remove herself from the sitting room before she said something she was surely bound to regret to any one of the people she had grown to care for more than she wished to admit.

The discussion had been simple enough at first: the coronation of Lord Enver Gortash was to be held the day after tomorrow, and rather forebodingly, an ostentatious black and gold envelope containing an invitation to the event - and the celebratory ball afterwards - had been delivered to their suite at the Elfsong nearly a tenday after their visit to the Gur camp. Gortash knowing of their presence in the city wasn’t surprising, what with the eyes of his Steel Watch patrolling every street in the lower city, but the fact that their exact location had clearly made it to his ears was more troubling than anything. It meant that safety was an illusion - a privilege temporarily granted by a man who was about to have more power and sway than anyone in Baldur’s Gate.

The coronation and the ball were plainly not opportunities to confront Bane’s chosen. By the wording of the invitation, it sounded as though Gortash wished to speak with them - likely to offer a deal or opportunity, or some other such thing like bloody everybody else. All of them had been invited.

Hearing him out wasn’t the point: getting a read on him, finding out what he wanted, and what could be played against him was. There was of course little doubt that he would be making similar assessments of them, but the neutral ground: a very public event guaranteed his behavior as much as theirs.

Karlach was of the mind that a halberd through his midsection could be just as persuasive as well-placed words, so that ruled her out of attending.

Halsin made his thoughts about the city no secret, and politely declined before it was even brought up. Shadowheart said she would rather not, but some of the skills she picked up as a Sharran might come in handy if desperately needed. Jaheira said she had no interest in wearing a ballgown and pretending to give a shit about the games of drunk patriars. Wyll outright refused to entertain the idea of occupying the same room as his father’s jailor and maintaining a facade of civility - Echo couldn’t blame him for that. Lae’zel had been kidnapped by Orin days earlier, so dealing with that was also on the to-do list, and meant that she was off the table too. So that left Shadowheart, Astarion, Gale, and Echo as the four to go.

It seemed like the matter was settled until Shadowheart and Gale exchanged hesitant looks and the wizard ever so cautiously asked Echo, “Do you… do you think you’re up for it?”

Echo felt her temper rise less at the words he said and more at the soft, pitying look on his face. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Gale?” She snapped before she could stop herself, her grip tightening on the arms of the chair she sat on.

The wizard’s hands flew up defensively, “No one is saying you aren’t capable. You’ve come leaps and bounds in a remarkably short time - with credit given where credit is due to an excellent tutor–” he offered her a warm, silly smile, hopeful for a softening that did not happen: her scowl only deepened. “- you’ve picked up spells and skills that would take years of practice in only a short matter of time. I remain steadfastly confident in your abilities. It’s only that…” he sighed and could not look her in the eyes as he said, “it - the ball specifically - is a socially driven affair, and I - I think we - would all prefer to avoid setting you up for failure.”

Echo felt her face redden with anger and shame. “What you’re trying to say is you’re worried I’ll end up shitfaced and fuck everything up.” She leaned forward, blood racing. “Go on, Gale, you can say it, don’t be shy!”

“Echo please,” Shadowheart interjected, looking unnecessarily pained, “no one is saying that. We’re all with you, and we all want you to be healthy–”

“I suppose you’re of the same mind? Better keep me back lest I get drunk and make a fool of myself!” Echo hurled the words at Astarion and immediately felt like shit when he visibly flinched and hurt passed over his face: too far - that was too far. But she felt ganged up on, and if he wasn’t going to stand up for her, he might as well join them…

“Nobody said that, darling,” he said softly, reiterating Shadowheart’s words, his eyes round and shining with reflected firelight.

“It’s not like I haven't been dealing with privileged dicks and snotty ladies since I could walk, but I can definitely see how skills like that would be vastly overshadowed by the actions of a drunken buffoon—“

“Echo, stop–” Astarion squeezed her hand.

“–so don't worry: I completely understand what a liability I am–”

“You’re not a–”

“–I had better just stay here and let you fine people who clearly have their shit together handle everything, and I’ll just make a night of it and diddle myself–”

More eyes were watching the four of them now. An awkwardness permeated the entire room.

“You need to calm down!”

Five words were all it took to set her off fully.

Echo shot to her feet, yanking her hand free from Astarion’s. “I don’t ‘need’ to do anything!” She hissed, unfazed when he met her glare with one of his own. “Goodnight.” She didn’t allow him the retort he surely had ready for her and instead stalked away from the sitting area around the fireplace and off to bed - still his bed… she couldn’t find it in her to sleep anywhere else, no matter how incensed she was.

Hours later when the low murmurings of her companion’s voices faded along with the lights, she felt Astarion slide into the bed alongside her. She was facing the wall, and as she felt his cold form against her pulling her to his chest, she slowed her breathing and kept her eyes closed.

“That worked on me exactly once,” he murmured into her ear sternly. “I won’t be taken in by it again.”

Fuck.

“Are you quite finished being a catty bitch?” He inquired.

She deserved that.

She nodded into the dark.

“I believe there exists a set of words customary for this sort of situation?”

He wasn’t going to let her off easy - and rightly so.

She rolled onto her other side so she was facing him. His elbow was propped on the pillow, his head resting in his hand.

“I’m sorry for… for saying the things I said,” she whispered. “I know you weren’t trying to single me out, but it felt like all three of you were against me - like you knew what was best for me and I was some ignorant, idiot child.”

“That isn’t at all what anyone was trying to imply, darling. For as much as I complain about them, they all seem to think rather highly of you - even despite your association with me—“

“Oh shut it — they like you too.”

“— and,” he pressed on, “they worry about you. Just like I do. Because contrary to what you tell yourself, you do matter to people.”

Echo didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what to say that wasn’t either an admission of thinking she didn’t deserve to matter to anybody, or a denial that their care was well-placed in the first place: for as hotly as she had reacted, she knew that they were right to be concerned.

“You were right, you know,” Astarion said in answer to her silence, “to be pissed off. I should have stood up for you. You haven’t had a drink in days, and I know that you can handle this ridiculous party. I should have said that instead of letting them hen over you the way they did.”

Echo felt tension she didn’t realize she was holding ease from her muscles at his words: he understood more than anyone else why being outnumbered and treated like a pitiful creature was like to raise her ire. He knew her. He listened. Gale and Shadowheart may not be as willfully cruel as her self-obsessed family, but Astarion knew Echo well enough to know that their words - regardless of their well meaning - niggled at wounds scarred over by decades of hiding from them.

“So… I’m sorry too.”

Echo snuggled closer to Astarion and kissed his nose. “Thank you for trusting that I know perfectly well that the drunk girl at a high society party is the one no one takes seriously. I intend to be taken very seriously.”

He pressed a cold kiss to the end of her nose in return and then regarded her with his night-prowling eyes. “Oh? It sounds as though you have something in mind, pet.”

“I do,” she said, cunning mirth dancing in her eyes. “Gortash likely expects us to be an assembled band of societally ignorant nobodies outmatched in any arena where swords and spellcraft aren’t king. He’s got another thing coming and I’m going to make it inescapably clear to him that we are not to be underestimated.”

“And how are you going to do that?” He toyed with a strand of her dark hair between his fingers.

“I’m going to raise the dead.”

Astarion huffed a quiet laugh. “I do love when you speak in foreboding riddles, sweet Echo, but—“ the words died on his lips, his fingers stilling in her hair.

Echo frowned, “What?”

He shushed her sharply, nostrils flaring slightly before his pupils shrunk to pinpricks and he went rigid. Echo felt her pulse quicken at the sight of the fear in his eyes.

“Astarion, wha—?”

“Stay put.” He ordered quietly in a tone that left no room for argument. “No matter what you may hear.” Then he was gone from her side, slinking off into the darkened suite, the dim glint of the dagger in his hand trailing him.