Chapter Text
Okay, so I’m the dragon. Big deal.
You still get to be the hero.
You get magic gloves! A fish that talks! You get eyes like flashlights!
What more do you want?
Disguise Self settles over Astrid's skin like a heavy cloak. Some twisted part of her considers, briefly the guise of a tiefling, but dismisses it as too conspicuous. She settles on an half-elf instead, dark-haired and ordinary. She looks down at Wulf for once, he’s clearly delighted to pose as a gnome, standing about a third of his usual height.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
The beer hall echoes with laughter and conversation. It smells like sour ale and overcooked bratwursts and too many sweating bodies. Astrid takes a deep breath, holding it in her lungs.
Wulf brings her an ale, foam floating on top. “Just like old times,” he grins. Astrid sips gratefully.
“This place hasn’t changed a bit,” Wulf says, looking around. Astrid scans the room, and sees - them.
They are all here, the Mighty Nein, the whole ridiculous pack of them. Astrid runs a critical eye over the strange rabble of humanoids. Astrid knows better than to underestimate them, of course, she’s read the reports. But they all looks so...colorful. Unserious. She wonders, not for the first time, if this is some elaborate game of Ikithon’s.
They gaze around the Bierhalle with eager interest and watch Bren carefully, as if he is a glyph of warding that could go off at any moment. Particularly the black-haired halfling, who bears her teeth in a feral way that is not quite smile, not quite snarl, and the blue tiefling. Bren seems unaware of his friends’ scrutiny. He buys pints for the lot of them and herds them towards the dance floor, as if they are merely having a night out together. As if the Archmage of Propaganda and the dogs of the Cerberus Assembly are not breathing down Bren’s neck.
Beside her, Wulf inhales sharply. Astrid jumps at the sound.
“What?” she hisses.
Eadwulf gestures at the spinning couples on the dance floor.
“It’s us,” he says. Astrid narrows her eyes.
The human woman, dark-skinned and sharp-eyed. The half-orc wearing his armor like a second skin. Astrid watches them whirl around the dance floor, the human woman looking up into Bren’s eyes, his head inclined to catch her words, a smile tugging the corner of his mouth.
Astrid feels her heart clench, and for a moment darkness swims behind her eyes. Beer slops over her hand and onto her shoes, spattering the floor. Replaced.
She feels the tankard, suddenly heavy, too heavy, taken gently from her hands.
“You all right?” Wulf asks. He darts a glance towards the dance floor.
“We should go.”
“Nein,” Astrid mutters, “I am myself again. And he is up to something.”
Wulf is right, there are...shades of them, the three poor kids from Blumenthal poor but drunk on their newfound power in Bren’s motley group of new friends. The half-orc shares Eadwulf’s bulk, his grounded demeanor, his searching, steady gaze. The human woman is tense as a bowstring, her eyes dart around the room even as she throws her head back in laughter. Clever and calculating, like Astrid herself. Bren is, of course, Bren.
Or is he? Astrid wonders. Maybe it’s the beer, maybe it’s the torchlight or the music or the passage of too many years, but the man who glides along the dance floor, who calls himself Caleb Widogast, is a stranger to her. The old confidence is replaced by wariness. His angles are sharper, pale skin drawn tight over chin and cheekbones. Everything about him is suddenly strange: his thin smile, his hunched shoulders, his long hair bound at the nape of his neck she remembers kissing that neck . He burns, alight with some inner fire that glitters in his eyes even as it consumes him.
Astrid forces her nails into her palms until they bleed, the bright crescents of pain steadying her. Pain is instructive. Pain is clarifying. Master Ikithon’s voice croons in her head. He has no need of Sending spells. His voice has been there since she was a girl, soothing, guiding, punishing. Good girl. Now, what do you see?
A blur of blue. The tiefling spins like a child in the middle of the floor, dancing like no one was watching. Of course, someone was always watching. Little fool She wonders how this one has survived so long in such deadly company. Perhaps the half-orc who keeps darting furtive glances at her is responsible. But the horned woman’s eyes skip past the half-orc, trained on Bren as he dips the monk of the Cobalt Soul. Interesting
Astrid sees the way the blue one’s face lights up when Bren comes towards her. Sees the look of hope curdle to disappointment as he takes the hand of the half-orc instead of hers. Sees her paste a smile on as she keeps darting glances over her shoulder at Bren while she’s in the half-orc’s arms. Astrid feels the low fire in her belly, the heat of the hunt. The blue tiefling raises her arm gracefully, a small, dull object clenched in her hand.
Smoke fills the room, acrid and stinking. Astrid chokes on it. Stupid, stupid, she thinks to herself, clumsy to not see that coming. She was letting Bren distract her from her work. She thought she had broken that habit.
Eadwulf appears beside her, handkerchief held to his nose.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says, already moving toward the door.
“I’m all right,” Astrid says quickly. She hides a choking cough in her sleeve. Wulf treats her to a full eye-roll.
“Then I’m getting another beer.”
Astrid waves Wulf away and insinuates herself between a group of drinking dwarves, moving closer to the band.
Bren was always an excellent liar, better than Wulf, better than her. He knew the lions’ den he was walking into. He knew the lions within it. He was one of them, after all.
So Astrid watches for what Bren is not doing. He barely looks at the tiefling woman. His eyes skip over her each time the dance brings them towards each other. Strange, considering how he is constantly evaluating everyone else in his party, and in the room. His aquiline nose scrunches unhappily.
The absence of something does not mean it is not there. The more the subject tries to avoid a wound, the deeper it cuts.
When the tiefling stretches onto the tips of her absurd pink shoes to kiss the half-orc’s cheek, Astrid has her answer. For suddenly Bren is beside his green friend once more, pulling him away from the tiefling woman’s blue lips. The move is swift, instinctive, like he can’t help himself.
The heat of the hunt curls in Astrid’s belly. She runs through what she knows of the giddy blue girl, Jester Lavorre. Secret daughter of a famous courtesan. Channels her power from some strange, apostate god. Overfull of sweets and pranks - a glutton and a hedonist. And vain, Astrid thinks, watching her spin about the dance floor with bells tinkling on her horns.
Bren loves her, and here lies his weakness. He knows it too, or he would not spurn her publicly. He thinks to hide Jester from Master Ikithon and Wulf and Astrid herself.
Astrid watches the tiefling, wondering. If the affection went both ways, it could prove very useful indeed. She should feel delighted. She should run to Master Ikithon at once and tell him of this tool to add to his arsenal. And yet… she watches as Bren deliberately does not look at the blue tiefling, and her stomach feels sour.
“More beer?” Eadwulf sticks a foaming stein in front of her nose.
“No,” Astrid mutters. “It turns my stomach.”
“Please yourself,” Wulf shrugs and takes a sip from each. Astrid can’t help it.
“That’s mine!” she half-shrieks, reaching for the stein as Eadwulf holds it high above her head.
And she can’t help but laugh, at the nerve and the foam mustache forming on his upper lip.Then she can’t stop laughing, because it’s been so long, and he looks so stupid, and it feels so good.
In the dark corner of the hall, Bren turns, his sharp eyes scanning the crowd.
The laughter dies in Astrid’s throat, even as Wulf’s eyes harden.
“We must go,” Astrid hisses. Wulf nods and drains the beer.
By the time Bren pushes through the crowd to the bar, they are gone.