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Karlach has no trousers on.
Phyr's mind stutters for a moment. She's sought out Karlach after their most recent battle, and the barbarian is currently sitting next to a stream in only her underclothes from the waist down.
When Phyr circles around her, it becomes apparent why.
"Oh," Phyr says, staring at the gash on Karlach's thigh. It's a messy one, deep, the nearby bandages soaked. "Here." She kneels and reaches toward the injury, but Karlach waves her away.
"I've had worse," the tiefling insists. "You should see to the others first."
"Wyll's the only other one who took a bad blow, and Shadowheart's seeing to him."
Besides, I'm worried most about you.
Phyr tries to shove that thought aside, the same as she squashes down the tremble in her stomach at Karlach's current state of undress. Both are distractions. She can't. Just as she tries not to read more into Karlach's friendliness than is truly there. The woman is amiable with everyone.
Karlach relents. "Okay."
With her palms this close to Karlach's skin, it's like standing next to a blazing fire. Almost too much to bear. But it's a quick job. Closing her eyes, a short and open prayer to Eilistraee, the power of her goddess flowing through her into the wound to seal it shut and knit the muscle back together.
She blinks away the brief dizziness that always happens, the result of brushing the divine.
Karlach's hand flattens against the skin that was gaping open a moment ago, still covered in her own blood. "Dunno if I'll ever get used to that."
"I'd like to say you shouldn't have to. But that doesn't seem to be our fate."
"Not really." Karlach dips a clean bandage into the water and uses it to scrub away the blood dried on her leg. "Come on. Sit with me while I fix the hole that sword put in my trousers?"
A tight flutter in Phyr's chest at the invitation. It doesn't mean anything, Phyr reminds herself. But she nods anyway.
Karlach collects the trousers in question and stands. She strides back through camp, completely unbothered by her lack of clothing and garnering a few bemused stares.
"Not shy, are you?" Phyr teases.
Karlach grins. "If they don't want to admire my arse, then they don't have to look."
Phyr is glad she's walking beside instead of behind, or else she'd be so distracted by the sight she might trip over her own feet. Gods, what's gotten into her? She hasn't felt like this in decades, and that particular situation fell out horribly, in the end.
She couldn't bear it if that happened here.
Reaching her tent, Karlach lifts the flap and gestures Phyr inside. Again, that tremor ripples through her. Invited to a private space. A gesture of trust.
Inside, Karlach fetches a leather punch, needle, and cord. "The blood'll never come out," she grumbles. "Maybe I can find something new, next trader we see. But until then, crusty trousers it is."
"A glamorous life we lead."
Karlach laughs at that. "Height of luxury, huh?" She's silent for a moment, her eyes flicking everywhere except Phyr's face. "I want to say, though. Thank you. For the healing. For being a friend." She breathes out a happy huff of air. "It's been a long time since I had one. Then now… you."
"And Wyll."
Karlach hesitates before giving a quick nod, starting the process of punching holes in the leather along the cut. "Him, too." There's a strange weight in the reply, as if to imply there's something different about his friendship.
No, you're imagining things again.
"I'm always here to help," she says, proud that her voice remains perfectly amiable. Friendly but no more. I can do this.
Another awkward pause.
"So," Karlach says. Is it Phyr's imagination, or does the cheer seem a little forced? "You never told me how you became a cleric?"
This. This is comfortable. Simple conversation. "It's not a very unusual story. Fell out with my mother young. A priest took pity on a street urchin living an unsavory life of crime, especially a fellow drow up here on the surface alone. Took me in, raised me in the temple. I wanted to do more than life as a priestess, staying in one place. So I became a cleric instead."
"I didn't think they taught lockpicking in temples," Karlach says with a smile as she finishes punching holes and threads the needle. "Bet we could share some stories. Both saw some wild shit as kids."
"Oh, I could." Phyr returns the grin, settling her legs more comfortably.
"Maybe tonight? I've got a bottle of Chultan fireswill lying around. If you're feeling brave."
Thump. Phyr's heart, skipping a beat. She should say no. Too close, too dangerous, too painful when Karlach is merely offering camaraderie. "Yes, I'd like that." The words spill out against her will. She closes her eyes, takes a breath. Wonders if Karlach notices and what she thinks of it.
Karlach nods. "Right then. It's a date."
A date.
Just a turn of phrase, nothing more.
"It is."
***
Get a hold of yourself, Phyr thinks. You're 300 years old, for Eilistraee's sake, not fifteen.
Gods, she feels like it, though. Bubbles in her stomach, heart tight, the world bright and shimmering as the sun just finishes setting. The sky fades to violet, stars emerging alongside a gibbous moon.
She ventures outside camp to the spot they'd picked, a rocky outcropping overlooking a shallow ravine, a stream bubbling along its bottom. Their journeys have walked them in circles, and they're not far from where she first met Karlach.
It feels like a decade ago, not weeks. Their lives have been nonstop, with trials and battles and quests taking up every hour save these brief moments of respite.
Karlach is already here, feet dangling without a care over the edge of the rock. "Hey," she says. A bottle rests beside her, already open. "I forgot cups," she adds bashfully. "But fuck, who's keeping up appearances out here, right?"
Which means sharing the bottle. Phyr's lips touching where Karlach's have just been.
She shakes the frisson of anticipation and trepidation that slithers down her spine and sits. Just out of arm's reach, basking in the pleasant warmth on this cool autumn night. Some of summer's insects still linger, chirping their discordant symphony.
"Right," she answers Karlach's almost-question. "We're not living the high society life anyway. We can share."
"Cheers." Karlach hands her the bottle, and Phyr takes a swig. Too much. It burns hotter than Karlach's fire, spice and potent spirits mingling on her tongue. She splutters and coughs. "You weren't lying about being brave, drinking this." But she softens it with a laugh.
Karlach grins. "Never had it?"
"Can't say I have. I usually stick with wine," Phyr admits. Already, a warmth trickles through her chest, and it's not Karlach's presence. The alcohol burning its way through her gullet, her stomach.
Karlach takes her own drink, setting the bottle back between them. Letting Phyr take a moment if she wants. She does, hesitating. If she gets drunk out here, will she say something monumentally stupid?
"So about those stories…" Karlach says.
"What do you want to know?"
"What's the worst trouble you've ever been in?"
She needs a bit of fortification for this one, and takes another gulp of fireswill, fighting the urge for it to come back up. "Got arrested once. Not sneaky enough pickpocketing a noble. Since I was a kid, they let me go after a few days in a cell." She hands the bottle back to Karlach, who carefully avoids brushing skin with her fingertips as she takes it.
Karlach's brow furrows after she takes a sip. "How old were you?"
"Nine."
"That's tough. I'm sorry."
Phyr shrugs, discomfort settling in her gut at the sympathy. She takes the bottle back, and the glass is warm. She tries not to think about Karlach's lips wrapped around the neck of it as she drinks again. "I turned out all right in the end. What about you, back then? Before Gortash?"
"Probably the day my mates and I ended up in a street brawl with some drunks giving us grief. I got a few good licks in, too. The guards broke it up and threatened to haul us all off to Wyrm's Rock. Put the fear in us, but they just marched us all home. This was when my parents were still around, and it wasn't a happy week in the Cliffgate house." Her voice grows wistful, a soft puff of breath. "I didn't know they'd both be gone within five years."
"It sounds like they were good parents."
"They were."
"What's your happiest memory of them?"
Karlach stares up at the stars, drinking again. "I don't think it's one. Just… little things, you know? Family game nights playing cards, or helping make dinner, stirring the soup pot while mum made the bread." She shakes her head. "Gods, I need that drink." Another swig.
Phyr is starting to feel the booze now, a fuzzy warmth tingling through her limbs. Recklessly, she takes the bottle and another gulp.
She loses track of time in the conversation, learning that Karlach hates seafood despite growing up in the Gate, that she loves dogs and always wanted one, but the rules in the city forbade them. They share stories of misadventures, accidental heroics, sillier times, and embarrassing situations. Karlach's smile is easy and her laughter contagious.
More than once, Phyr is glad she can't touch Karlach, or she'd have done something truly idiotic by leaning in for an impulsive kiss, the urge nearly irresistible with her head spinning and the world swaying.
Karlach seems entirely unaffected by the liquor, but she notices Phyr's state, tugging the much-emptier bottle out of her hands. "I think it's time for bed," she says. "I'm going to get some foul looks from Shadowheart the morning when your head is pounding."
"Eh," Phyr mumbles, unbothered. "Nothing a little lesser restoration can't fix."
"Your goddess helps with hangovers?"
Phyr pauses. "Haven't tried? Guess we'll find out."
Karlach stands, her arm twitching like she nearly offers to help Phyr up our of instinct, but it drops back to her side. Phyr makes her way to a standing position, but her feet are unsteady beneath her. Yeah, no more of that fireswill for her.
Karlach watches with concern, eyes burning like embers, flames licking her skin in the moonlight. Her hair is a bit wild tonight, and Phyr wants to smooth it down. Before raking her hands through it and mussing it up again as she tugs Karlach in for a kiss.
"Gods, you're beautiful," she murmurs before she can stop herself. Shit.
"What?" Karlach's question is breathless, a barely-repressed smile dancing at the corner of her lips. Does her gaze flare brighter?
No. Stupid. Phyr shakes her head, regretting the motion when dizziness washes over her. "Nothing. Let's go back."
The smile falters and Karlach blinks. "Yeah. I guess we should."
Phyr wants to say it all. To drunkenly blurt every sordid and besotted thought that flickers through her mind. She nearly does. Only through physically biting her lip as they walk does she hold it in. Her fists clench at her sides, the confession clawing at her guts as it tries to work its way out of her throat.
At Phyr's tent, Karlach hesitates, gripping the bottle in both hands. "I… good night."
The reply is choked, rushed. "Good night." Phyr escapes through the flap and flops into her bedroll, burying her face in what passes for a pillow. A soul-deep heartache clutches her stomach.
It's been half a century since she fell to such infatuation. But the last one passed, over time, and so will this. It's just Karlach's friendly cheer and all those beautiful muscles temporarily scrambling Phyr's brain. It will settle.
It has to.
Thoughts swimming, she closes her eyes and lets restless sleep claim her.