Page 6 of Astarion

With a roar of rage and baffled lust, Boris charged at him. Astarion took to his heels, letting the mist swallow him, and waited. After a moment, the pursuing footsteps slowed. He slipped silently behind his quarry, stood on tiptoes, and murmured, “Catch me if you can,” into the ear with the gold dolphin.

The ensuing chase kept Astarion mildly entertained. The most difficult part was making sure that Boris didn’t lose him entirely. Both the lust and the alcohol were wearing off rapidly, and while the man didn’t seem to have more than two thoughts to rub together, he’d probably lived in Baldur’s Gate long enough to eventually realize that chasing a stranger down unfamiliar streets was a good way to die.

They were most of the way to the park when Boris stopped, looking around him. The fog hadn’t lifted, but it had thinned as they went uphill. Astarion heard the man swear under his breath.

Astarion stepped out of an alley and smiled fetchingly. “Tired so soon?”

Boris huffed. “D’you think I’m stupid?”

“Darling, I think I’ve met smarter fried eggs.”

The man took a step forward, then caught himself. “Enough,” he said, turning around and stomping back in the direction of the dock.

Damnation. I suppose I’ll have to do this the crude way, then.

He slithered into the shadows. A few yards down the street, Boris looked back over his shoulder.

When he turned back, Astarion stepped out of the mist, wrapped his fingers around the gold dolphin, and yanked. Hard.

Boris’s scream bounced off the fog and returned in distorted echoes. Astarion was already running, the bloody trinket clutched in one hand.

He had to slow a little as they reached the narrow street that ran along the park. The cobblestones were smaller and rounder, and the tree that overhung the fence had dropped rotting leaves everywhere, leaving the ground slicker than a politician’s palm.

Boris had no such qualms. The brute slipped and slid but somehow kept his footing, gaining with every stride. Astarion felt hot onion-scented breath on the back of his neck.

“I’ll kill you,” Boris snarled. Astarion ducked sideways and felt something tug at his jacket. Fabric parted with a whisper of sound.

Curses, now I’ll have to sew it. And it’s the embroidered one, too, so I’ll have to make sure all the little roses line up properly.

He dove through the entrance to the park and sprinted across the grass toward the back side of a statue of Mielikki, goddess of the wilderness. The choice had been remarkably optimistic on the part of the designer, but Astarion was more concerned with the chip missing from the stone unicorn’s left hind hoof.

He jabbed a finger into it. Boris had lost him briefly but spotted him again and charged. Blood stained the side of his face, and he was waving a knife that looked able to gut both fish and vampire spawn with equal ease.

A patch of brick at the base of the statue slid soundlessly out of the way.

“This fellow is very eager to meet the master,” Astarion announced, jumping into the concealed stair with both feet.

Bones creaked along the walls behind him. Boris slid to a stop at the top of the stairs, peering into the darkness, like a cat at a mouse hole. He took a single cautious step down.

The skeletons who had been waiting in the dark reached up and seized him.

“Right,” Astarion said, brushing himself off and examining the tear in his jacket with distaste. “I’ll leave you gentlemen to it, then.”

He strode off down the underground hallway toward Szarr Palace, listening to Boris screaming behind him.

Astarion had grown up in the Silver Marches, with parents who were deeply devoted to the land. His mother had a minor druidic talent, and his father had tended a vineyard for nearly three hundred years.

As a child, Astarion was neither particularly good nor particularly bad. “Strange is what he is,” his father muttered. “Strange and lazy. You tell him to do something, and he sits and thinks about whether he wants to do it.”

“He’s thoughtful, that’s all,” said his mother, who spent a great deal of time in wild shape and had perhaps a more malleable outlook as a result. “Thoughtful’s not bad.”

“When my father told me to do something, I jumped up and did it. I didn’t look for loopholes. I told him to go pull weeds in the south field this morning, and when I went out at lunch, he had pulled five dandelions and was taking a nap. And do you know what he said?”

Astarion’s mother wondered silently which wild shape would get her out of this conversation. “What did he say, dear?”

“He said that he’d pulled weeds, like I told him, but I never said to pull all the weeds. Can you believe it? And he looked at me like he’d—Don’t you turn into a snake at me! I know that snakes are deaf!”

“Ssssorry, dear. Thought I sssaw a mousssse.”