Chapter Text
I’d say I’m a pretty tolerant guy.
If I was ever to write a tragic bardic song about myself, it’d start something like, “Edgin the Bard, held quite in regard, a paragon of tolerance, and not of intolerance,” - but better and more poetic.
Me, I put up with a lot. Two years worth of being trapped in a freezing ice cell with only Holga for company - she’s my sister in everything but blood, but she’s also not the biggest conversationalist. As well as digging ice floes and eating nothing but produce for two years, that, I tolerated!
Forge being a smarmy dick for most of the time we worked together - I tolerated that too.
But paladins…?
Now, they are a whole different story.
I got on with a paladin once. Ze name was Wilfaelor, ze were a Half-Elf, and ze were a champion of Branchala; with long red hair, a cap ze wore the wrong way up and a thing for brightly coloured shirts. Now ze knew how to party - though zir idea of partying was more along the lines of putting drunk Dwarves to bed and stopping Fire Genasi from setting things alight after too much ale.
Most paladins, though? Not for me. Something to do with self-righteousness. Or the sticks up their asses.
Which is why I’m not all that happy right now.
“Two hours in I’m going to push him into a pond.” I grumble to Holga, who definitely isn’t listening. “I won’t get on with him! I can’t get on with him.”
She regards me with something like amusement. “Okay,” and goes back to eating.
“He’s such an ass. All he’ll do is look at me judgingly the entire time. And then I’ll feel bad. Even though I’ve done nothing bad. He’ll make me feel bad.”
“Okay.” Holga says, again. This time, she looks even more amused. Her armour rattles as she sets down the hog’s leg and picks up another one.
I can’t seem to stop my ranting. “He just- he just- he drives me crazy. ”
From behind me, a voice. “Who does?”
I turn.
It’s Xenk, looking utterly put together, and wholly unruffled. The irritation I feel within myself blossoms to a point. “Are you kidding?”
It starts, as all things must, with a quest. There’s stirrings in the east. The Red Wizards are assembling, and intel is needed. The Lord of Neverwinter tasks us - as his band of heroes who apparently know how to do things now - to determine what.
The problem is, Simon and Doric are rallying the wood elves against the evil creatures that want to continue Forge’s attack on the Neverwinter Wood. Holga’s training a group of the castle youth in battle tactics, with Kira by her side.
I am the only one free and available to take the quest.
However, my main skills of singing, dancing and being nice to little old ladies is not quite enough - at least according to the Lord of Neverwinter’s advisors, so I need supervision.
Enter Xenk.
Why he’d been taking his leave at the castle is anyone’s guess, but one of the advisors had suggested, and Xenk, with his inability to say no to anyone vulnerable and in need of support, had agreed.
And thus.
I have a supervisor.
In the form of a paladin who drives me crazy.
I’m not even going to last one day.
Back in the present, Holga just laughs and says to Xenk, “Edgin doesn’t want to do this quest with you.”
And Xenk, face unreadable, says, “I gathered that, thanks,” and smiles at her in a way that almost makes me angry. His eyes are so brown, and his face so smug. I’d punch him, but I know for a fact I’d lose.
I went through several trials to become a bard, but this might be the worst of them all.
Bidding Kira farewell hurts me in more ways than one. Partially because I love her and will miss her, but also because she seems fairly taken by Xenk too.
Honestly.
A backbreaking two day ride over mostly rocky hills leaves my ass aching and my thoughts towards Xenk lukewarm. He’s just so nice, that’s the problem. See, I’m also nice. I’m generous, when I want to be. I’m just not nice to the point of obstinance, tightly laced and stuck to a rigid moral code.
My niceness is for people who deserve it.
And I’m not always rescuing Tabaxi out of trees.
“Is he always like this?” A Halfling asks me, as I sit by the horses and watch as Xenk climbs down our second rock outcropping of the trip, Tabaxi kitten held firmly in the curve of one strong arm.
“Like what?”
“Like this. ” The Halfling gestures towards Xenk, who’s now talking animatedly to the Tabaxi parents, one hand on each of their shoulders, face open and kindly.
I move to speak, but then I catch the look in the Halfling’s eyes, and the way he’s biting his lip.
And know he’s fallen under the spell too. He, much like most of the gathered townsfolk, would probably spend his soul for Xenk if he got given the chance.
I sigh. “Yeah, he’s always like this.”
Standing up to get back onto the horse hurts, and I hold back a whimper as the pain spreads across my tailbone and up my back .
Xenk, irritatingly, seems just fine.
There’s a conference of wizards of varying sorts assembling to the east of Neverwinter. Some intelligence from within the walls of the palatial estate suggests that Red Wizards are plotting - or, something like that. If I’m honest, I wasn’t fully listening, there was a lizard climbing up the wall behind the Lord of Neverwinter and I was mostly watching to see if it would fall on him.
However, here I am.
Now, am I good at stealth?
Not really.
However, am I good at getting people to tell me things they wouldn’t tell their parents or their closest confidants?
Yes. It’s just something about my smile.
Xenk however, is not stealthy (at all), is charming (moderately), and good with his sword (but not in the way that matters), so he’s going to act as my bodyguard, I’ve decided. I’m the talent, he’s backing me up.
He voices his disdain for that plan about as soon as he gets the chance, but he does it so nicely that it almost sounds like a compliment. “You do not truly believe that subterfuge is the best course of action? I expected better.”
Of course I think lying is the best course of action. I’m great at lying. I’m even better at pretending to be someone I’m not. In another life, I would have been a great player, in one of those touring theatres. “You think you know a better plan than me?”
“I would never assume such a thing,” says he, voice as smooth as the freshest Waterdeep butter. “But why pretend to be something that you’re not? All that leads to is people wondering who you are, and then that thought will never leave their minds whilst you try to divulge their secrets. That in itself is a risk.”
Irritatingly, he’s right. I cross my arms, grumbling. “Fine. What do you suggest then?”
“Let them not ponder the nature of your being, but rather the nature of your relationship.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Go on.”
“Gossip is currency at any mage gathering, and you’ve made quite a name for yourself of late. One of Neverwinter’s heroes, a famous bard, taking it up with a paladin like myself? That is worthy of gossip, and it works as a distraction.”
It takes me a moment, and when I finally realise, I gawp at him, mouth falling open. “I… would have thought such deception would be against your moral code.”
He smiles. There’s only an edge of deviousness to it. “Love is an entirely different story, especially when the intent behind it is just. Do you agree?”
Damn. Damn. Damn. Irritatingly, he’s right. Again. I hate that he’s found a plan that works better than mine. I throw up my hands. “For Branchala’s sake. Fine.”
“Excellent.” Seemingly not at all concerned by the look on my face, he starts assembling his plan as we walk. “You are Edgin the bard, fascinated by wizardry, madly in love with myself. After freeing Neverwinter…”
As he talks, I only just manage to stop myself from rolling my eyes.