While Fray is not what Right would call a social butterfly, he seems to be outgoing enough. He seems fond enough of pipeleaf and wine. Right has even seen him give dancing a try, on the night Karlach and Gale had decided everyone was too serious and cobbled together a two-man band (with a mage hand on washboard).
This does not at all explain why Fray has spent the bulk of tonight’s celebration backed into various corners, avoiding eye contact, and pretending to be very involved with getting burrs off of Scratch. It would be a mystery, except that it isn’t. The camp is overrun with tieflings. A greater mystery is why he hasn’t left altogether. Maybe he feels too vulnerable, out of his armor and outnumbered ten to one.
Right ponders it as they do their own mingling. Their desire to see and know and snoop seems to grow exponentially when presented with that maddening half-elf. He’s just so contradictory.
They mention as much to Karlach, who laughs. “One to watch, hey? Oh, hold still,” she says, and carefully uses one finger to pluck a dandelion puff from their hair. The heat is like a hearth, and Right burns pleasantly from both it and the ale inside them. Perhaps tonight is the night they get a little bolder. It seems the moment for it. Already they’ve watched a few in twos and threes slip away, and the amount of bawdy singing, suggestive smiles, and bald-faced flirting betrays where the energy of the party is moving. “There we go!” Karlach goes on. “Not a hair singed. Who’s your money on him shacking up with tonight, hm? Gale’s really been chomping at the bit to get at him.”
Right snorts, not just at Gale but at the whole idea of their fearless leader deigning to shack up with anyone in this weird little crew. “Withers,” they say after a moment; Karlach cackles. “What on earth does Gale see in him?”
“Well, you can’t deny that he’s good-looking, and that can be plenty on some nights. But I’ve got a suspicion he’s not got the skill to back it up, if I’m being honest.” They both snicker at that. “What a shame! Quality elf-flesh and nothing to show for it. What’s he up to now?”
“Sad-sacking,” says Right with a roll of their eyes. “Upset he can’t find a high enough horse to look down on us from, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“You think?” Karlach says thoughtfully. “Looks more like a lost pup to me. Not to say he isn’t looking for that horse, mind you, but to my eye, he keeps on seeming as if he’s about to try talking to folk and losing his nerve.”
“As though he’d waste his voice on the likes of us.”
“Ah, it’s a damn shame either way. Seems nice enough apart from the whole zealot thing, you know? Plus,” she adds with a grin, and carefully elbows Right where they are most insulated from the heat, “have you seen the way he looks at me? Can’t say that isn’t pleasant on the old ego, especially with how damn pretty he is himself. Like he’d fall on his sword if I asked!”
Dryly, Right says, “Maybe you should ask him to,” and Karlach laughs again.
“Jealous?” she asks, leaning into Right’s space.
“I might be.”
“Of him, or of me?”
When they sputter on their wine, and make a face, Karlach thumps them on the back with a glove-wrapped hand, roaring with laughter. “Go on,” she says with a sly grin. “You can’t keep your eyes off him, much less hide it. Go see what his problem is, and you can come tell me all about it after. In my tent.”
Right, who had been ready to protest mightily, finds themselves utterly without a response.
A few minutes later, they find themselves without one again when they track down Fray. Can’t keep their eyes off him. Nonsense. All that keeps Right’s eyes on the man is the certain knowledge that he will use any excuse to bury that sword in their back if he thinks he can get away with it.
It’s true enough that he doesn’t look like that man tonight, though. When Right finds him, he looks downright defeated where he sits on a fallen log with his back to the muted crowd of celebrants. Not murderous or angry, just—as Karlach said—lost.
Right sighs to themselves and moves into sight.
Fray doesn’t jump, for whatever that’s worth. When he sees it’s Right, his eyebrows and chin lift slightly in acknowledgement, but nothing more. His sword is nowhere to be seen. “Praying?” Right hazards.
Fray shakes his head. (Right was aware, but it seemed as good as opener as any.) “Tired.”
“Need your shift on watch covered tonight?” they ask, and Fray shakes his head again. Well, fine. There’s no cheering someone who doesn’t want to be cheered. People who look at the world like Fray, in Right’s experience, take any tiny victory they’re forced to see the targets of their disdain enjoy as a chance to wallow in a disgusting sort of mourning for the world at large. Right turns to leave, more than ready to report their findings to Karlach.
They are stopped by the feeling of something grabbing their shirt hem. They look back in time to see him struggling with his words, lips forming the syllables to no avail. Suddenly impatient, Right says, “Well, spit it out.”
Something flashes across Fray’s face, too quick for Right to parse. Anger? Defensiveness?
Hurt?
Before Right can decide, Fray releases their shirt. He makes a shooing motion and turns his back. Right grimaces. “Look, you don’t—”
Fray leaps to his feet and walks away.
There’s a elixir of fire resistance in here somewhere. Right flicks their nimble fingers through the collection of potions again, checking all but one. The one they do not check is obvious enough: an elegant wine bottle, the glass thick and tinted to protect its delicate contents. That one is special. It will be coming with them in a moment, but the elixir is rather more necessary.
Motion catches their eye, there in the little alcove Astarion has his tent set up in. With that shock of white for hair, the vampire is more than a little obvious. (Right has often wondered how on earth he thought he was at all stealthy.) He’s just thrown back his head to pinch the bridge of his nose, looking put-upon, which is his usual expression. And the source of his irritation—
Of course. Fray. Fray, who sits cater-corner to him with a strained but hopeful expression. A drink that looks mostly untouched sits at his feet.
Right becomes as still as a statue, only the tip of their tail twitching in anticipatory schadenfreude. So long as you’re not the one dealing with him, Astarion is always funny.
“—skulking around. I expect you’re looking for sympathy, hm? Can’t imagine why you’d come to me.”
Astarion speaks in common tongue, of course, but Fray’s reply is in the awkward pidgin of thieves’ cant and handcant that he uses with the vampire. Right, ears forever up to learn what they can learn, has figured out most of the hybrid tongue. Not that Fray is aware.
He’s signing now. Right has to fill in some of the details on their own, but it’s not too much a trial. “I don’t need sympathy,” he signs. “It’s just that I’m bored of drunk tieflings.”
“And so you thought you’d come to the only man here who physically cannot get drunk.”
“Can’t you?”
“My dull little half-blood, I cannot be poisoned. Alcohol is a poison. I realize you are terribly sheltered but I should have hoped even you would be able to put together that riddle.”
Fray puzzles over this for a moment, then signs, “Even with the tadpole?”
“What?”
“You said the tadpole breaks some of the vampire rules, didn’t you? It’s why you can be in the sun.”
Astarion stares at him for a good five seconds and then seizes the cup that sits at his feet. He throws it back, seemingly draining it in one go. He licks his lips lasciviously (Right thinks this is the only way he knows how to lick his lips) and studies the cup. “Absolute swill,” he declares. “May as well be straight vinegar. But I suppose we shall see if it comes to bear.”
Fray says something, too low for Right to hear, and a moment later they are discussing something to do with blood. Right loses interest, returning to their search.
Infuriatingly, no matter how many times they examine the bottles, none of them prove to be the elixir Right seeks. Someone else must have grabbed it. Maybe Karlach, they think hopefully. The way she wears her long-neglected libido on her sleeve makes a case for that. But it could just as easily be in someone else’s pockets, and Right would rather not be questioned about why they’re looking for it.
A sharp laugh makes their ears flick back toward Astarion’s tent. The scene has changed: Astarion sits comfortable and sprawled, another glass of something in his hand. It is dark, whatever it is. Not blood, hopefully, but it is Fray. “Not with you! Obviously! Gods, can you imagine?”
Still across from him, Fray sits half-folded in on himself, signing almost too fast for Right to keep up. It might be the dim light, but they would swear his pale face is burning. “—mean it like that. The feeling’s mutual. You’d probably kill me again anyway.”
“Are you still on about that? Yes, I over-indulged. It was the first humanoid blood I’d had in decades. I’m sorry.” Astarion tilts his head archly. “But not sorry enough to pity fuck a man who has all the depth—intellectual, political, social—of a puddle.”
Despite themselves, despite the fact Astarion is not even wrong, Right cannot help wincing on a Fray’s behalf. Astarion is, after all, a predator, and he knows how to go for the throat. Fray himself sits in a stunned silence, eyes wide, clearly hurt and doing a poor job of hiding it. If there was doubt before there is none now: his face is flushed crimson, from nose to ears. He gathers himself enough to sign: “You don’t need to be vicious about it.”
“The man who would slaughter me and every tiefling here without hesitation, telling me not to be vicious,” Astarion says in his haughtiest tone. “Good heavens. You really are pathetic, do you know that? I may be breaking into hives simply looking at you. Go on. Shoo. If you’re so terribly lonely I’m sure Gale would love to lie to you about what a pleasant person you are.”
Fray stands, abrupt and swift, and makes for the crumbling stone walls of the nearby storehouse. Astarion calls after him. “And thank you ever so much for the wine, darling!”
They will regret this, they will regret this, they will regret this.
They’re doing it to impress Karlach, Right tells themselves. It’s flimsy reasoning. It is most certainly constructed under the influence of the booze they’ve had themselves tonight. That’s as good an answer as any.
“Hey.”
Besides, no one else is going to do it.
Fray has slunk further out this time. He’s made no effort to hide his tracks, though, so following him is no issue. He sits on a stone, leaned on his knees, staring over the edge of the cliff that protects the camp from the east. He is precariously close, and gives no response. Right tries again. “Not planning to jump, I hope.” They step around him, peering over the side themselves. “Quite a fall.”
Fray snorts. “What ef—what if I were?”
“It would really ruin the mood of the party.”
Fray flaps a hand at them, rolling his eyes. Seems a good sign, that he’ll quip back. “I saw,” Right goes on, “that Astarion swiped your drink.”
This statement has the immediate effect of making Fray curl further into himself with a muted groan, rubbing at his eyes. He stops long enough to watch Right from between his fingers, clearly expecting this conversation to go poorly. “So,” Right carries on as if he had not, “I wonder if you might be interested in trying some of this.”
They produce the bottle, the same heavy glass vessel they have carefully tended since this mess began. Upon seeing it, Fray’s brow knits. There’s confusion there, and suspicion. “Wine?”
“Amberthroat. Mead.” Right debates how much of their hand they want to reveal, and err on the side of trust. “It’s the reason I’m in this mess, personally. I was out fetching this for someone when I was snatched.” When this produces no response, they add, “I’m told it’s quite good.”
After a long hesitation, Fray nods.
grayscale illustration of Right offering Fray a bottle
The bottle is half gone. It is, as Glee has told Right, quite good. It also has a kick like a mule. It’s sharp and sweet and rich and goes down easy, and Right is taking special care not to let Fray get carried away since he seems unable to hold his liquor. As much as they can, at least.
Right runs their hand across the bottle, smoothing their worries along its surface. It is cold and heavy glass, and it sits that way in their chest, for a moment. Fray has called up a cantrip of one kind or another, making a tiny fire before them. It’s a pleasant hold against the darkness.
“What were you doing, when you got caught?” Right asks. They twirl their fingers in an upwards motion, lightening the question.
Fray follows the motion with his eyes, which themselves are ever so slightly lacking in focus. Lightweight. Or he’s had more than Right thought already this evening. Both seem likely, especially given what Right surmises about his exchange with Astarion. He blinks, slow, and puts down the tin cup Right had brought with them. His hands now free, he makes a sign Right does not at first recognize. He shakes out his hands and does it again, and this time they do: mission.
Then he remembers himself and lets the sign fall away. “Um,” he starts, and straightens. The mead has slowly pulled him down off the rock, and he now sits in the dirt and grass. “Was … outreach,” he says once he recalls how his mouth works. The honeyed kiss of the mead seems to improve his voice. “Trying to, to. Build a temple. What about y—no. You said. The mead. It’s good. Uh. Cozy?”
Right makes a little noise of agreement, eyes not falling from what they can see of his face. They’re still perched on the rock, tail loosely curling around their ankles. “Cozy, yeah. Would’ve gone good with the roast.”
They shift, leaning forward and putting their arms around their knees. Their eyes still haven’t moved. “Lots of temples in Baldur’s Gate, couldn’t find one for yours?”
“No,” Fray says with a shake of his head. “There aren’t any, except at home.”
“And home is … ?”
“Revar Ivae’ath,” Fray says, putting surprising effort into clearly enunciating each syllable. “Little settlement. Five, six days from Baw—Baldur.”
Right scrapes around in their memories, shaking off vocabulary that is rustier than they’d like. “‘Light’s Rest’?” they ask.
Fray looks pleased, nodding. “Grew up there.”
“Never heard of it.” Right is as deadpan as ever, though they mean it as a joke. They’ve fully leaned into their own arms now. Their face is half-buried in the crook of their elbow. Their eyes light the rest of their face, peering at him over their rumpled sleeve. It is hard to tell what they are thinking. “What is it like?”
A complicated thing passes over Fray’s face. He tilts back his head, considering the stars that gleam above. “Quiet,” he says after some thought. “Close. Maybe … fifty souls. Mostly humans, some half-elves. My teacher is halfling, though. One of the founders. Was lucky. She doesn’t take many.” And then, as if in afterthought and with an almost sheepish smile, “Taught me how to be scary even if you’re small.”
Right laughs a blurry, quiet sort of giggle. “Yeah, you didn’t strike me as a city boy,” they say, eyes crinkled above a half-covered smile. “But you did scare the shit out of that ogre!”
“Ogre,” Fray echoes, concentrating through the haze of liquor. His face lights up, and he beams. He does have a right to be proud; not many can stare down an ogre and walk away with all their limbs attached, let alone intimidate it into submission.
Right swirls what’s left of the mead, focusing on the shifting liquid weight. They seem to be balancing the scales of their mind similarly, watching the tiny movements as they weigh their options. It has been quite a while since they had to hesitate so.
“You can be scary, you know.” Their tone becomes more serious, eyes widening again to their resting owl-stare.
At this Fray rolls his shoulders in something approximating a shrug. He’s found a leaf from somewhere in the grass and takes to carefully shredding it. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s useful.” His tone suggests doubt, and he takes another swallow of the dwindling mead in his cup as if to bolster the statement. “So’s your lockpicking. When the picks don’t break,” he adds with lidded eyes and a smirk. “How long have you …?”
Right raises their head, ears pushed forward and still, instead of the constant-swivel twitch they normally have. “I left my good set at home,” they say without a hint of humor. “What you find out here, they’re crude, I don’t have the time or tools to fix them.
“But my set,” there is a clear undertone of pride now.
“Perfect shapes. You want flat faces, but rounded corners just so. Usually every piece should be filed along the sides,” they demonstrate, holding their hand at a horizontal tilt, slowly swiping away from them and tilting their hand until it becomes slightly more vertical, as if scraping to and from exacting angles.
“With the edges sanded down to a curved bevel. You have to be careful filing the concavities on tips, but it’s similar. You want it to have a polished silver outline, even curves, no scratches if you run it on your hoof.
“It’s also a gamble what I’ll even get out here. I’ve been missing a good file for a week now, and the deep hook I have is too deep for most of the shit we find. Gods help us if we come across any ward locks before I find a set of skeleton keys. We’ve been lucky I’ve been able to take my time mostly, too, most of the locks out here have rusted to hell if they’re not broke to begin with. It was almost easier with the fucks in Manorborn, especially with—”
They pause, realizing they are getting into sordid territory. Or, territory that could be considered that way: they didn’t particularly see the problem then and they don’t see it now, but others seem to.
“Anyway,” they say hedging, “ten, fifteen years.”
For the whole of Right’s explanation, Fray has listened with a growing interest and widening eyes. The level of detail they share clearly takes him off-guard. “Oh,” he says a few seconds after they finish, like he’s surprised it’s over. “Then—you’re a locksmith?” The words are colored with something, a certain openness, an eagerness. It is with a mild startle that Right realizes he’s impressed.
They feel a confusing tangle in their chest, and make a confusing tangle of a noncommittal noise about it. They note their own reaction just long enough to decide to examine it later.
“Er, yes, now.” Their ears return to their ever-swiveling. “And whatever else people need a tinker for. Locks, clocks, mending, that sort of thing.”
If Fray notices the stumble in Right’s answer, he makes no sign of it. He’s gotten a look of deep thought on his face, and again mouths words Right cannot hear a time or two before actually venturing to speak them. “Karlach’s infernal engine,” he says slowly. “Said it needs a mecka—mechanic. Wonder if you…? But, but you’d’ve already, if you could,” he finishes, answering his own question. He makes a sound of contemplation and starts to let down his hair. “So much going on. Like everyone’s on a countdown.”
“I’d burn my fingers off trying to do that, and break it besides, then what use would I be?” They snort, looking out across the dark in front of them. “Sometimes I think, I think I’d rather this worm just take me! It keeps getting more complicated.”
They scratch thoughtfully at one of their ears, thumbing repeatedly at the softer hairs that line its base. It is a motion Fray had seen before, after their conversation with the dead mind flayer. Self-soothing.
When they dare look at Fray again they find him watching them with an intent, placid expression. It’s more serious than they strictly think their statement, an outburst of frustration more than anything, warrants. It is not so far removed from the way his face empties just before he flips whatever lever that makes him so frightening even an ogre will have second thoughts crossing him. A kind of tension crawls through the air.
But all that happens is Fray says in a calm, clear voice, “No,” and looks back down.
It takes Right a few seconds, between the word and the alcohol, to formulate a response. “Sorry?”
When Fray looks back up his normal geniality has returned. He almost looks like he has forgotten the remark entirely, but only for a moment. “No,” he repeats. “Won’t let it.”
Like he has any real say in the matter.
“Mm.” Right feels that owl-eyed look on their face again.
He’s an oddity, and one they haven’t quite figured out. They aren’t unaccustomed to folks treating them and their people with distaste, but it’s usually not so active a distaste. It’s sideways glances and turned-down jobs, not swords and broken horns. Even so, he listens when they talk, he asks questions but not unkind ones. His discomfort has a root to it they’d like to know more about.
“Heroic,” is all they can think to say.
At the word, Fray’s face contorts. His loosed hair pools down around his shoulders and he gathers some of it in a vague bundle, raking his fingers through it pensively. “If you like,” he says, avoiding Right’s gaze. “Used to want that. Be a hero. Help people. Still do, I guess. It’s why I accepted the … the gift. I thought … thought it’d let me do that.”
Nonsense words, but then, he is drunk. Right settles for cocking an eyebrow. It’s easy to dismiss this as another adventurer figuring out heroism isn’t a clear path. That’s far from rare, and it might be that, after all, but something about the way he says “gift” hits them wrong. It’s not sarcastic, not even disdainful, but more like he isn’t sure it was, indeed, a gift.
They take a swig directly from the bottle. “You can do whatever you want, you know,” they say. “Well, ’sides the worm thing. I think we all need that taken care of.”
Fray hums in answer, and tries to take a matching pull from his cup. He finds it emptied, peers down into it mournfully, and then holds out his hand to Right for the bottle. Once it’s passed he does the same as they did, straight from the bottle—seemingly unbothered by the fact Right’s lips had been on it a moment ago.
He shakes himself and takes a bracing sort of breath. “Not whatever I want,” he says with a smile that doesn’t quite get to his eyes. “Price of faith. It’s—harder, than I th. Thought. Out here. Never been away from home this long.”
“Revar Ivae’ath,” Right says, and Fray nods. They sigh and shift, trying to find a more comfortable configuration for their legs. “Explains the naivety.”
Fray frowns against the mouth of the bottle. “Not naive.”
“Pfft. Sure you aren’t.” At Fray’s cross look, Right makes a vague gesture of dismissal. “You won’t let the tadpole in my brain turn me into a horrific illithid? You can’t even stop the one in your own head.”
There’s a moment where Fray says nothing, does nothing, staring into the little magic fire.
Then he stands, abruptly, and makes the same gesture Right has seen what feels like a hundred times now. He reaches over his shoulder and grabs a hilt that is not there, until it is. He draws the massive greatsword that by rights he should not be able to wield for its size. A cold dread grips Right, but they find themselves too full of mead to do more than stare. Is this his plan, then? Will he run Right through, ensuring they cannot possibly be subject to ceremorphosis? Part of them is so weary that they consider the idea, unsure if it is unwanted.
The sword flashes in the firelight as it arcs over Fray’s head. Then, with a soft, muffled thud, Fray drives it into the earth. The tip bites deep, forming a solid support for him to rest his hands on when he drops into a practiced kneel. His head bows, his face veiled by his falling hair, but when he speaks Right hears each word, clear and convicted.
“I am a saint of the Great Revealer, who lights my way. Before th, Them, I swear this to you: you will not meet your end while I still breathe.”
There is no whirl of arcane light, no sense that Fray has cast a spell, no detectable shiver of the Weave. Nevertheless, the words, the moment, feels heavy with magic. Right feels something rush down their spine like lightning. They would swear that they see the same shudder move through Fray. When he lifts his head, there is a peace, a gravity, in his face. Right has not seen its like upon him before. His strange orange eyes meet their own lamplight stare; they can’t look away. It is with a faint sense of disbelief that they realize Karlach might have been correct in her teasing.
The world holds its breath, and so does Right, until it becomes too much to bear.
“I think,” they say, weakly, mouth dry, “we’ve both had too much to drink.”
The sincerity in Fray’s expression softens with his smile, but does not wane.
Illustrated by Payne.