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“It feels strange doesn’t it? Leaving the city”
Astarion nodded, folding another set of clothing neatly and adding it to the piles laid out on the bed. Over the few weeks they had been in Baldur’s Gate they had… happened upon many nicer wares that they had felt it a shame to sell, but now, facing packing it all up, they had both agreed to a cull.
“I wouldn’t mind half as much if we could just take everything. The thought of living out of a pack again? Ugh” Astarion grimaced as he set aside a beautifully embroidered velvet coat into the ‘to sell’ pile.
“Gale was kind enough to leave us those packs with a few enchantments on them to lighten and carry more, we can’t ask for more than that”
“Oh yes, Gale, what ever would we do without”. Red threw a bundled up pair of socks at the back of his head.
“We would be readying ourselves to begin a life in the underdark and you know it”.
Thinking back to their brief adventures down there, Astarion realised why Red was equally as wary of the idea of returning below the surface. The constant dampness to the air, the feeling of never quite shaking the shadows from the corners of the room regardless of how many candles were lit, never mind the constant barrage of beasts that had evolved to rival the Drow’s power. They had set up the camp each night like an altar, left trails of wax everywhere they had been as they had tried to cling to what they remembered light being.
Astarion had been desperate to leave, a new hunger for sunlight and warmth took over much of his thinking as they walked. It felt too comfortable to him. How easy it would be for him to slide off into the darkness there and never return to the world above, to submit to whatever existence it was willing to offer him, but would it be a life? He truly hadn’t been able to contemplate the option for long before it soured his mood. Red hadn’t much enjoyed her time there either, now seeing that there was a life beyond constant warfare and scheming, she had vowed to never return. A Drow above ground was something of a novelty still, never mind one softened by the sun, a hand with fingers weaved together with her lovers wherever she walked.
“The more we get rid of, the more we make and the fewer times we have to find a cave to hide you in and sleep on the ground”
“I suppose I don’t miss the bugs crawling around”
“Or the dust getting into everything”
Astarion folded the final pair of trousers in front of him and placed them in his pack. They were nice, a little too nice to be taking with him on another adventure, but Red had turned a delightful pink when he had worn them last and so into the bag they go. He walked to her on the other side of the bed, slid an arm around her waist and placed a gentle kiss on the tip of her shoulder. She smiled and leaned back into him, hand rubbing up and down his arm.
“Are you excited to leave?” she asked, “or not?”
He hesitated before answering, “I’m… not sure to be honest. For all that I was terrified to come back to Baldur’s Gate, now that Cazador is dead and I have,” he squeezed her waist, “other things to occupy my time it’s started to feel very…cozy. I don’t remember the city before I died, but it feels like mine”
Red turned towards him, placed her hands on his chest and looked up at him with a slightly concerned look on her face.
“I can’t promise anything. I’ve tried to look into every avenue here in the Gate but if you want answers we have to leave”. He smiled down at her.
“While I am endlessly flattered by your concern for my little heart getting broken I know what I’ve signed up for. If we find a solution and I somehow end up back as nothing more than a stunningly handsome Elf that ages before your very eyes then my only concern would be this beautiful face getting wrinkled”. This lightens her mood, pulls a bubbling giggle from her as she buried her head in his shoulder. Astarion wraped both arms around her and began to sway.
“And if we go on an adventure and find that there is nothing that will ever cure me then at least we can agree to have an enormous amount of fun along the way. I don’t remember anything past Rivington”
Red pulled back, shocked, “nothing at all?”
“Not a thing and so why not think of it as a little sightseeing tour as well as a journey to save my soul”.
Another laugh from her and a chaste kiss before she pulled away and closed the buckles of her pack. It was still daylight outside and would be for a few hours more. The room was dark enough with the shutters closed and bedsheets hung over them, but Astarion could see traces of that wonderful lemon light filtering through. He could imagine how warm it must be outside by the colour alone. Gods, how he missed the sun.
“I’m going to go out and get a few things before the market closes. Will you be ready to go when I get back?”. Astarion nodded. She picked up her basket from its place by the door, kissed him on the cheek and latched the door closed behind her.
He wouldn’t admit it out loud, even to her, but there was a dull, gnawing something in his chest that had grown since they had started readying for the trip. She was so quietly sure that he would be cured. He was so quietly sure that the universe had already bestowed far more gifts that he deserved and would certainly not allow another. As he continued to pack their things, the bags and bottles and clothing that smelled now like a shared scent, he allowed himself time to mourn the warm domesticity that had settled over him. Looking around the room at the Elf Song he now saw more than its mahogany walls. He saw the fireplace that she always kept lit to keep him warm, the dresser with its drawers filled with two sets of everything, the dressing table where the brushes and combs he had bought her were always placed in neat lines. In the corner, the bath held many more salacious memories, but also an intimacy that he had never imagined to exist. The first time she had set him in there and washed Cazadors blood from him he had cried so violently as her fingers combed through his hair that he thought his ribs would crack. But after that, he had found that he adored washing her, combing through her hair and her doing the same to him, spending hours in the water just talking about nothing and everything. This room was the first place that they had called home and he would miss it dearly.
Red returned from the market and packed up the last few things as the sun began to set. Poking a head out of the window, she beamed back at him when the coast was clear and they could step out into the streets. It was summer and so night never truly settled over them, a nautical twilight of soft tempered blue that made Astarion feel like it was still daytime.
“Will you miss it here?” he asked her, too embarrassed to admit his earlier musings out loud. He watched as she looked around the room, a soft smile pulling at her mouth. She reached for his hand and gave a squeeze.
“Of course I will. It’s, well, our first little home I suppose”. Red turned after a moment and pulled him alongside out into the streets to begin the long trek to Waterdeep.