Work Text:
Tav hummed in irritation her gray wrist flicking harshly back and forth against coarse paper, the sketch was wrong. The perspective made the white dog look rather slanted instead of excited, she sighed giving Scratch a quick wave to look to the side focusing on the dog’s dark eyes. Scratch now bored with the activity since Tav’s treat supply dwindled emitted a low whine before wagging his tail happily at a distance call from Shadowheart.
“Wait.” Tav called attempting to draw Scratch back but he was gone, paws skidding across rough stone towards Shadowheart beyond enamoured by the mere thought of her. Tav snickered at him with a shake of her head “The absolute should just use her to draw in new cult members, probably save them the trouble of sticking tadpoles in our heads. They’d have scratch at least…”
”Well I don’t know if I’d follow her that far but the idea of tasting her blood, is oddly tantalising.”
Tav flinched almost drawing her bow before recognising the overly elegant tone of her friend. “I thought you went boar hunting.” She muttered drawing her sketch book close once more as she returned to her half done sketch, muse-less yet determined.
”What miss me already darling?” Astarion drawled coming to rest by the fire on top of his sleeping case, his legs crossed as he looked at her with an unusual amount of interest. His gleaming red gaze transfixed on her movements hidden behind the leather casing of her sketch book.
”Devastatingly, La’zel almost went 10 minutes without threatening to dismember someone, life just isn’t the same without it.” She deadpanned expecting Astarion to quickly follow her deflection onto the other woman except he did not.
”Why were you drawing the… dog” Astarion all but spat the word dog, as if it were acid on his tongue.
”I draw lots of things, dogs included.” Tav answered absent-mindedly it was truly so rare Astarion or anyone in camp probed too much into her actions outside of battle, she hadn’t even registered he was trying to start a conversation.
”Why do you draw lots of things then, pretty pictures aren’t exactly helpful when you have a knife to your throat darling.” Astarion teased.
Tav raised her brow at the sly man “Do you actually want to know?” Her suspicion thinly vailed as she briefly paused in her scribbling.
”Want?” Astarion echoed in a strangely hollow tone that made Tav stop completely as she looked at the man as he seemed to actively contemplate the decision before eventually nodding. “Yes… I want to know” He affirmed in a surprising soft tone.
”Well I…” she contemplated before carefully setting the book back to the first page, a sketch of the crashed Notoloid. “Found this on a fisherman near where I first met Shadowheart” she pointed at a messy figure sketch of the woman, her braids and oddly familiar crest in the centre of her amour as the only distinguishable marker of the woman. A small note next to it reading ‘seems guarded but is rather affective in battle, carries a strange device that she seems rather attached to. Something to do with her faith?’ Next to it a light sketch of the prism she now knew was most definitely not to do with shar’s faith. At least not originally. “It calmed me to take a a moment at first and then as we started meeting you and Gale, keeping notes to remember what you all were saying felt important too.”
”Important?” Astarion inquired listening surprisingly intently, enough so that Tav started to withdraw a little, the light of the fire next to them brighter as she left more room for it to flow.
”I am a druid.” Tav stated “I seek to understand ailments, fauna, flora the world as a whole. To heal. I guess I just liked the idea of leaving a guide behind if we ever find our way out of this.”
Astarion laughed “What a Traveler’s guide to getting mindflayered and shot at?”
Tav snickered a little blushing in embarrassment. “Well that wasn’t the working title.” She sighed “I think a little selfishly… I wanted there to be a beginning so there could be an end. If I wrote of this parasite and made a story of it, then it became more conquest than disease. Conquests usually end with you escaping the beast keeping you trapped don’t they? I suppose it’s silly to dream of escaping a cage that has walls you can’t even see but I wanted to make myself believe it was possible.” Tav reminisced a little on her own ways of trying to keep herself afloat, especially as the group’s unofficial leader of sorts. She needed something to cling to believ- “Wait! I still do think we’ll remove the tadpoles of course.” She added looking up to find the pale elf staring at his shoes a small smile on his face.
”I understand” he said “My mind often did the same those 200 years under Cazadoor” he spat the man’s name his face morphed into a brief flash of disgust before quickly returning to his light apathy. “However darling, I am free now. Free of him. Free to listen to you ramble on about some nonsense. A drow druid of all things whoever thought? not that it’s the craziest thing we’ve come across I suppose.”
Tav almost bristled in offence at the sudden dig and yet she paused, Astarion had actually listened and shown some interest in her. It was odd but not unwelcome, in fact she even felt a little warmed by it, maybe the fire needed kindling or perhaps the pale elf had given her some comfort. Tav snickered retrieving her sketchbook and pencil as she mapped out a pale sketch of a guarded elf.
”Wait a minute does that mean I’m in there?” Astarion suddenly asked and Tav slapped the book shut with a squeak.
”No!” Tav was absolutely not letting the man see she thought he was attractive on her first impressions. Cocky bastard would never let her live it down.