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Greensleeves Chapter Sixteen: Here Comes The Rain Again

Fandom: Baldur's Gate 3 Warnings: Canon-typical violence Wordcount: 4.3k

The party gets into a fight with another pack of gnolls. Xaph and Karlach are worried about Wyll's reaction to his new appearance. Gale is still struggling to sleep

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Xaph gives Wyll his distance. He probably doesn’t want reminders of his new horns. She’s waiting for him to turn around and lash out at her or Karlach - because it’s their fault, because he looks like them now, because they’re closer to the Hells than him - but it doesn’t happen. He walks in the middle of the group, often with Gale. The presence of another human seems to be helping. The tieflings hover nervously behind them, Xaph’s shoulders tensing every time Astarion tries to wheedle a reaction out of the warlock. Shadowheart and Lae’zel stalk in stony silence at the head of the party. They haven’t so much spoken as done nothing but snap at one another since returning to the camp, but it hasn’t yet come to blows. Lae’zel pulls the party to a stop at the base of the hill just past the tollhouse and Shadowheart’s irritation is audible. The tollhouse smells of burning flesh, the white-painted wood of its walls burnt black. Xaph’s not going to ask.

“Bring me the ranger,” Lae’zel says, pointedly turning her back on the half-elf and addressing the men behind her. Xaph skirts around Astarion - as far away from Wyll as possible - to draw level with the githyanki, “More of those beasts, yes? The…gnolls.” She hits the n sound a little harder than she needs to, but when Xaph crouches she can see that she’s right.

“Gnolls,” Xaph nods, “A group of them, going in the same direction we need to go in. Strange…they should have been able to track us, but they didn’t.

“But it’s raining.” Shadowheart points out. Her braid is dripping as she glares at Lae’zel, whose own hair is slick and sticking to her neck.

“That’s redundant. You four came back to us less than an hour ago, and we must be the freshest meat available between Waukeen’s Rest and Soubar, which is my best guess as to where they came from.”

“Soubar?” Shadowheart repeats.

“A settlement on the southeast side of the Boareskyr Bridge. Crawling with a variety of horrors, last I heard,” Wyll answers, “Xaph, what would keep them off our trail?”

“I don’t know. They completely ignored the tollhouse.” She can’t lie, Wyll directly addressing her calms her heartbeat a little. He doesn’t sound angry.

“What if it’s more refugees from Elturel? Stragglers that haven’t made it to the grove?” Wyll asks.

“Then I suppose you’d want to help them.” Astarion rolls his eyes, a gesture that shows he isn’t really annoyed.

“Well, we’re going to the druid grove anyway, right?” Karlach checks, “If there are more refugees the least we can do is get them to safety.”

“A vote?” Gale proposes, “All for following the gnolls?” He raises a hand to be level with his shoulder, joining Wyll and Xaph. Karlach pushes her own hand high into the air, taller than all of them. He’s surprised to see Lae’zel joining their ranks, though she quickly offers an explanation to quell any suspicions of her feeling empathy,

“If we did not, you would all be insufferable.” Her voice is, as ever, full of gravel. Shadowheart seems to be hesitating, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Her hand flexes and her face contorts. Seeing as they already have the majority, Gale closes the vote. Their formation changes a little: Xaph spearheads, following the tracks, flanked by Lae’zel and Wyll. Shadowheart falls back, shaking her hand and saying she’d gotten a cramp from holding her flail too tightly. She frowns Karlach into forming the middle band with Astarion and Gale, leaving her with the dog and the owlbear.

They find bodies some time later. Not tieflings, which indicates that they’re not from Elturel. They’d managed to take down two gnolls before losing their lives. Shadowheart goes to the humans to search them, Gale gravitates towards the rucksacks that are spilling ration packs and scrolls and Karlach follows him. Astarion trails Xaph on her way to inspect the gnoll bodies, but he makes a retching sound when she uses a sharp knife to slice off the creature’s ears.

“The bloody hells are you doing?”

“Hyena cartilage is a common ingredient in speed potions. The earwax is pretty useful too, helps bind the whole thing together.”

“I wish I didn’t ask.” Astarion replies.

“Oh, you really don’t want to know what’s in wizardsbane then.” She folds the ears into a pouch and adds it to a bigger bag of alchemical ingredients, but spares one each for the animals. Scratch isn’t as enthusiastic about the gift as the owlbear, and he lets the cub chew both.

“Well, now I have to.”

“Gremishka tails. You know, the anti-magic cats?”

“Yeuch.” The genuine disgust would make Xaph laugh if she wasn’t so preoccupied with thoughts of Wyll. It’s not long before the party move on, Shadowheart unsatisfied with what she finds on the people’s bodies. Gale distributes a few scrolls, bone chill for Astarion, something called scorching ray for Xaph, and a healing spell for Shadowheart that will bolster the pendant looted from a goblin that casts aid. The rest go to Wyll before the others can see them, and they continue on their way. This isn’t quite the path to Waukeen’s rest, more of an uphill climb. At least Xaph’s leg has healed well enough to manage it. The party walk for at least an hour, covering about three miles by Lae’zel’s estimation, before other lifeforms are sensed. Astarion gets it first, a deep inhale through his nose. Blood. Human, mostly. His nose wrinkles as Xaph and Karlach get the next notes, acid and fire and something distinctly canine. They veer in the direction the elf’s nose leads them, until they find blood daubed on a rock. Human blood, the vampire asserts.

“It’s the symbol of the Absolute.” Shadowheart says, slipping the amulet off over her head and holding it up to the rock to compare. It’s the same image. A blotchy handprint forms a skull, imposed over a triangle. It’s the image the goblins had painted on their shields, on conquered buildings and yes, on amulets like the one Shadowheart now has - though when she wears it she turns it so the symbol isn’t visible. It’s the same image Priestess Gut had been burning into people’s palms.

“Why would the gnolls use that symbol?” Xaph wonders aloud, “They follow Yeenoghu.”

“And the goblins followed Maglubiyet.” Wyll replies.

“True.” Xaph acquiesces. She gestures for someone else to take the lead, flipping a hand signal that she’s taught the group indicating that they should be quiet. She’s on the hunt. Lae’zel’s voice pushes into their heads as the gnolls come into sight. The githyanki takes charge, issuing orders. Astarion is sent scampering around the rock that is currently offering the party shelter, and Wyll is sent after him. Lae’zel pairs herself with Gale and carves a path in the opposite direction, creeping towards gnoll scouts who haven’t noticed them yet. This leaves Shadowheart, Karlach and Xaph on the ground. Xaph squints in concentration, leaning on Lae’zel’s grasp of the mental connection to ask how many? It’s Wyll that answers, and she once again finds comfort in the fact that he’s not ignoring her,

Six gnolls. Two hyenas. Two humans in the cave, maybe more.

Let’s spill some blood, Astarion’s voice shoves in, on board with violence.

Yeah, we’re going to need to have a chat about that enthusiasm.

Oh, hush.

Wyll and Astarion’s voices fade as their telepathic conversation becomes whispers, and Shadowheart and Gale take prevalence. They have a semblance of a plan. Four of the gnolls are in a knot at the mouth of the cave and the two scouts Lae’zel has been edging towards are on slightly higher rocks. The two hyenas are gnawing on a corpse several feet away that shouldn’t be difficult for the rogue to dispatch. Karlach swings her sparkly new greatsword in her hand, expertly swivelling her wrist as she and Shadowheart put distance between themselves and Xaph and find flat stones to climb on. Shadowheart glances back at those of her companions she can see, waiting until they nod and confirm that they’re ready before she acts.

“Aqua pura.” Her voice is like a rush of wind and a splash in a pond at once as a cloud forms above the gnolls and then dissolves entirely into rain that falls on the beasts. Shadowheart’s spell makes an instant puddle underneath them, which only gets bigger as non-magical rain continues to fall. Before the group can break apart, Gale’s voice crackles along everyone’s spines,

“Parure.” Something very small and round is flung towards the gnolls. One of his marbles. Electricity turns the ripples of the new puddle into spikes that leap up and sink into the gnoll’s fur. The creatures hop to try and get away from the sensation, yelping at the surprise. Further away yelps indicate that Astarion and the hyenas have found each other. Humanoid shouts come from the cave, too far away for Xaph to hear over the gnolls, but fire roars at the entrance soon after and she can only hope it’s either them fighting back or a spellcaster offering cover.

When the gnolls start to crawl out of the electrified water, Xaph starts to fire arrows. She murmurs the same incantation again, again, again. Sometimes the spell hits and thickly thorned vines wrap around individual gnolls, and these are the creatures Karlach and Shadowheart zero in on. Sometimes the spell fails but the arrows stick anyway, and sometimes the arrows miss entirely. Luck of the draw. The scouts turn their bows from their visible attackers towards the fighter and wizard they’ve only just noticed. The party get lucky, and one gnoll is fried in the electrified water. When the others, not entangled by conjured vines, get too close, Xaph pulls her battleaxe and starts swinging. The problem with this is that if she loses concentration on her magicked arrows, the thorns will dissolve into the sawdust they came from and her friends will have a much harder time dealing with two gnolls each. One has slipped through Shadowheart and Karlach’s net, and there’s no way Xaph can outrun it. She yells for help, knowing she can’t handle it on her own, but everyone’s hands are full.

It takes the others several minutes to notice her. Wyll sees her first. She’s dropped her battleaxe and is staring up at the beast in front of her. The gnoll is huge, hulking, wearing ragged semblances of clothes and clutching a broken flail made of the bones of her own kin. Both of them are twitching sporadically. Astarion can handle himself, Wyll decides. He rounds the outcropping of rock again to avoid catching anything’s attention. Something is wrong. Something is wrong with his friend and if he pulls attention to that she’ll die. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to see the ranger in front of the gnoll from the angle the barbarian comes from.

“Karlach, no!” Wyll’s voice isn’t loud enough. When Karlach’s sword slashes across the gnoll’s back, the beast roars and reels and rears back. It doesn’t even touch Xaph, but the ranger falls directly backwards when the gnoll turns away from her. Shit. Wyll slides the last few feet along the rain-slicked ground rather than runs, but he’s fast enough that the back of Xaph’s skull knocks awkwardly into his body instead of on the ground. He doesn’t know any healing spells. He doesn’t have any potions. He doesn’t even know what happened. All he knows is that his friend, this tiefling who had been the difference between him murdering Karlach and freeing her, who had kept him on the right path, is entirely unresponsive on the ground. “Shadowheart!”

“What happened?” the cleric asks when she reaches them, out of breath, her flail bloodied.

“I don’t know.” Wyll answers. Shadowheart shifts Xaph off his knees to lie on her side.

“Hold her head.” Wyll follows the order he’s given and is relieved when he feels Xaph’s breath against the heel of his hand. Shadowheart passes her hands up and down Xaph’s body but doesn’t say anything. Coming to a conclusion, she takes a stick of what looks like chalk out of her pouch of supplies.

“What’s that?”

“A quick-snap. It’ll wake her up.” Shadowheart answers curtly. She mumbles words and Wyll’s not sure if they’re incantations or instructions or prayers, and then she breaks the stick in two under Xaph’s nose.

Xaph’s tadpole rolls, and she isn’t entirely sure it doesn’t have some of her brain matter clenched in its jaw as it does so. There are people in her head. Other worms reach out to hers while it thrashes. She doesn’t want anyone in her head. The tadpole nips at the connections and severs them one by one, but that leaves her alone in a cavern of memories that are not her own.

Snap. A sharp vinegary smell rises to Xaph’s nose. It tickles, bringing her to the brink of sneezing. Sight and sound rush back to her together. Wyll’s voice. Balduran’s bones, no. Karlach’s yelling somewhere. Shadowheart’s braid pools into a coil on Xaph’s chest as she leans over the ranger. Smell. Vinegar in her nose, yes, but past that the intoxicatingly fresh scent of rainfall and the zing of lightning. Touch. Hands brace her jaw - to stop her from biting her tongue maybe - and the touch is vaguely familiar. One hand smooths her forehead, warm brown skin that holds swordmaster callouses. Wyll. He doesn’t look at her with the hatred she’d expected, and that’s wrong. He’s concerned, his frown of worry pulling the irritated skin on his face even tighter. He shouldn’t be.

“Get her up, get her out.” Shadowheart issues the order and then the weight of her hair is lifted from Xaph’s chest. Wyll lifts Xaph’s arm and pulls until she’s sitting up, then nudging his shoulder under hers to help her upright the way he had when they’d encountered Raphael. Xaph’s more in control in this case, and manages to take her own weight as he takes her back to the rock marked with the sign of the Absolute. He leans her back against the rock and encourages her to slide down into a sitting position.

“I’m sorry.”

“What happened?” Wyll asks. His fingers press into her neck, counting the beats of her heart. He looks so different. He’s in pain. He’s cursed.

“I’m sorry she did this to you. I’m sorry you look like us now, and I’m so-”

“Xaph. Tell me what happened.” Wyll cuts off her blabbering firmly, blinking hard.

“The gnoll,” Xaph answers, “She had a tadpole. She was in my head. The drow are infecting gnolls at Moonrise Towers, using them as berserkers. It was a fucking warzone in there. I’ve never known anything to try and take control of gnolls, it’s ripping their brains apart.” It had felt like it was ripping her brain in half. She finds Wyll’s arm and holds it, her claws sinking into the padded fabric. He tries to pull away but she doesn’t let him. She says his name. Hells-touched eyes meet hers. “I’m sorry.”

“And what exactly are you apologising for? This,” he gestures at his own horns, “This wasn’t your fault, for standing up for Karlach. It wasn’t her fault, for escaping Zariel. It was my own foolishness. The consequences of my actions. Not yours.” Xaph takes long breaths, but doesn’t relax her grip on Wyll’s arm.

“I’m sorry.” She has to say it again. She would repeat it for hours. He’s too nice for this. He’s too good to be one of them. Hellspawn. Blackblood. People come up with new names for them at an alarming rate. Wyll doesn’t push the apology away this time, but he doesn’t vocally accept it either.

***

Every fifteen minutes of their watch shift that night, Shadowheart points out that there is still light in Gale’s tent. It’s bothering her, apparently. It’s reckless, apparently. Xaph supposes she can see her point in that. It’s the only light for miles. Everyone in the party but Gale can see perfectly well in the dark now that Wyll’s been tief’d. What’s bothering Xaph is that her reading is interrupted every fifteen minutes. She manages to get through the hours without beating her friend about the head with her book. Xaph will allow her some nitpicking, it always seems to put her at ease, and her argument with Lae’zel had reached boiling point at dinner time. Besides, it is odd. Gale’s normally out like…well, a light, as soon as he’s permitted to retreat to his tent, and he was on first watch. Soon enough, Astarion reports for his second shift at guarding, elfin meditation and vampiric nocturnality giving him a natural aptitude for staying awake twice as long as his friends. Shadowheart makes one last comment about the lights in Gale’s tent to make sure that is Xaph’s destination. Xaph tucks her book under her arm and pushes a hand through her hair as she walks towards the tent, her bare feet making quiet swish-pit-pat noises on the dry leaves. He’ll hear her approaching, and her shadow will draw familiar shapes on the blue fabric of the tent, but she kicks a tent pole in lieu of knocking on a door all the same.

“Room service?”

“Finally, I’ve been waiting on those extra pillows for hours.”

Xaph parts the flap of the tent with her tail first, giving him time to tell her he doesn’t want her company, but he encourages her in.

“I don’t think you’ll be suffering from a shortage of pillows any time soon.” She tells him once she’s ducked into the tent. It’s lit by his dancing lights, the little streams burning ice blue and unnaturally bright violet, and they spill colour onto the two main things Gale’s tent contains - cushions and books. Xaph’s been in here a handful of times, but only for a few minutes at a time. She doesn’t know how he carries all this stuff unless his pack is secretly a bag of holding, which she’s pretty sure it isn’t. “May I sit?” she asks, and Gale gestures at a pile of pillows in assent. Xaph takes her assigned place. Most of the cushions are plain squares of cool-toned fabric, but there are some brightly embroidered ones scattered about. She takes one of the latter into her lap, a worn thing with loose orange embroidery her fingers can fiddle with that’s been sat flat over time.

“That’s a Tara cushion.” Gale tells her, his eyes soft with fondness as he smiles at Xaph’s choice.

“Tara?” Xaph repeats, carefully transferring her book from her hands to the cushion.

“My cat. She likes a good cushion she can sink her claws in,” he explains. Xaph hums to acknowledge his words. Yes, this would be an excellent cushion to scratch at, “She has a very definite say in what furniture stays and goes in the tower. Destroys anything that isn’t to her taste.” While Xaph sinks into the soft stuff of the pillows piled in the corner reserved for sleeping, Gale sits ramrod straight in the middle of his tent. It’s a posture that suggests his pain is particularly bad and he’s trying to relieve the spikes of it in his spine. His hands are disconcertingly still. Circles under his eyes show his tiredness, as does the lack of colour in his face and his slow blinks.

“Are you alright? You weren’t injured today, were you?” Xaph asks. She hopes not. Lae’zel had kept him a fair distance away from the combat and had kept the gnoll scouts occupied by herself. He shakes his head.

“What about you? You took a fair tumble.” He’s right, in a way. The gnoll’s tadpole had left her with a splitting headache and she’d stayed by the bloodied rock while Wyll had returned to the fight. Her companions had won and found a pair of Zhents in the cave. The Zhentarim was a mercenary company that sprawled across most of Faerun. Xaph knows the Zhentarim as an organisation - their biggest stronghold is atop a peak of the Sunset Mountains she’d grown up in - and the pair the party had rescued were certainly grateful for their help…in their own way. The party had found allies in this branch of the Zhentarim, at any rate.

“Better,” Xaph says, remembering Gale’s question. His breath hitches when he breathes in a little too deeply, but he doesn’t say anything. “You should be asleep, Mr of Waterdeep.”

“Can’t,” Gale tells her, “Back’s bad…” Xaph listens, patient. Showing weakness does not come easily to the Wizard of Waterdeep. This is trust. “I’ll manage.”

“Can I help? I do owe you some comfort during would-be sleepless nights,” she reminds him. His lips quirk up at the corners when she quotes herself. “What can I do for you, Gale?” He blinks a few times, then shrugs, “I could stay with you for a little while, if you wanted.” Tents are for brief visits. No one shares their sleeping space, the closest they come to it is when multiple people want to sleep outside and set their bedrolls in a square around the firepit. When he looks at her there’s a little uncertainty in the lines of his forehead, at odds with the reflection of his dancing lights. “Not all night, if you didn’t want, but it might help. Just to have someone nearby. You’ve certainly helped me sleep better that way.” Gale thinks on this for several moments. It had worked only the night before, leaving him with dreams of stars and waking with one of Xaph’s legs still lying on top of his.

“That…I think that would be nice.”

“Come and sit with me then, bug,” Xaph tells him, wriggling to make room for him and make sure she’s adequately propped up by the cushions. Gale shuffles over to her and sits beside her, lining his leg up perfectly with hers, “You know, Shadowheart’s going to come in here and strangle you if I don’t tell you to put out the lights,” she adds, “As pretty as they are.” Gale holds up his open palm and slowly closes it into a fist, letting the lights fade rather than disappear all at once so his eyes have time to adjust. With her darkvision, Xaph can see perfectly well, if only in shades of grey. It’s quite different for him. She asks him to describe it for her while she coaxes him into relaxing. It’s slow, trying to find a position to sit in that will be conducive to falling asleep but doesn’t wedge pain between each of his vertebrae. Xaph stays perfectly still, waiting until he’s comfortable before adjusting herself. She makes a point of pressing brief touches to Gale wrist, his elbow, his shoulder, so he isn’t startled when she pushes hair behind his ear. She wants to be able to see him properly. The silver stitches in his hair are bright to her.

“There should be a quilt somewhere to your right.” Gale mumbles. It’s not hard to find, harder not to jostle the wizard as she leans to the side to pick it up and pass it to him. She expects him to simply lay it over his legs but when he unfolds it he makes sure to catch Xaph under it too, warning her so she can pick up her book and her Tara cushion. She thanks him for his consideration, and he says something about being a gentleman. She replies that having a strange tiefling woman in the dark of his tent isn’t quite gentlemanly, and they suspend this banter for a few minutes until their jokes peter out.

“Do you want me to be quiet?” Xaph whispers into the silence. Somehow it feels sudden and heavy.

“You don’t like the quiet.”

“I’m asking you.”

“No, you don’t have to be quiet. Sorry.” The apology is because his chin bumps into her shoulder.

“You’re alright,” Xaph assures him. Her fingers smooth his hair again. She feels more allowed to be in contact with him in the dark. “Relax, Gale.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m here, silly.” Xaph says, almost laughing, then she remembers he can’t see what she can. His hand is scrambling over the quilt but he can only find parts of his own body. Trying to be polite. Xaph takes his hand and pulls it across the cushion to set it on her knee. “There.” Over the fabric of the quilt, Gale’s fingers curl around the side of her leg.

“What are you reading?” He asks, and when she lowers her shoulder she feels his chin there again as though he’s trying to see the words on the cover of the book. It’s a collection of plays. Shakespeare. One of the few books she can afford to carry with her, one of only two or three that don’t pertain to medicine or survival. Precious.

“The Tempest.” Xaph opens the book on the cushion and runs a finger down her page to find the line she was on.

“You could read, if you want.” His fingers move over her knee, drawing nonsense shapes or following a pattern on the quilt.

“Should I start at the beginning?”

“No, go from where you were.” The third time his chin bumps her shoulder he lets it stay there. Xaph reads. Gale relaxes. He puts a little more of his weight on her with each scene, occasionally retracting when pain flares and then starting the process again. She reads and he mumbles along to the lines he knows until his breaths fall out of sync with hers and the hand on her leg stills. Gently, she shifts a little lower so he won’t have such a bad crick in his neck when he wakes. She keeps reading.

#rae's writing #greensleeves #baldur's gate 3 fanfiction #bg3 fic #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 oc #rae's ocs #xaph [tav]#wyll ravengard #karlach #karlach cliffgate #gale of waterdeep #gale dekarios #astarion #astarion ancunin #lae'zel #shadowheart

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