chapter one.
along the coast

"Look at you, scribbling away."

Fallon shut the book abruptly and shoved it to the space on the rock she sat cross-legged atop. 

Day's light had begun to filter through the canopy above, though the lack of sleep's tug in Fallon's countenance hinted at a night spent sleepless. This was not a peculiarity for the half-elf. She had honed the skill of sleep, regardless of attempts made in the warmth and glow of a roadside inn or beneath an impossible blanket of stars. After days spent skulking in the shadows, body and mind were left in the restlessness of inaction. There was never a moment to relax in her trade, but Fallon preferred it that way. Forever the waves of her mind's eye churned, better to keep darker thoughts at bay.

Today though she scorned the weight of ill-rest on her mental acuity. She should have heard Marth from a mile away, else sensed the subtle shift of air around her. Perhaps she should have even smelled him, for he still carried the scent of campfire ash in his mess of ebony strands, shared by the curls upon his head and the wiry beard snaking his jaw. Marth was the least adept in the art of whispered footwork, making her folly all the more embarrassing.

She shoved thoughts poisoned by self-criticism aside in place of the more immediate annoyance of interruption. Fallon let her scowl sit unbridled against her features but Marth returned only a grin, sitting beside her on the rock.

"The upper hand for once!" He exclaimed, leaning back beside her. "Just wait until the others hear of this."

"Har har. You'd be lucky if either of them believed you," she retorted. "Only yesterday you mistook a boar for a rock. And need I remind you of the misstep in Wyrm's Crossing?"

"Oh don't, would you? It's too early for me to nurse a migraine."

"One might say it'd be deserved."

"Yes. One might say. I tend to disagree with one."

"More's the folly. Last man who disagreed with me met the end of my blade. After I pilfered his pockets, of course."

A smile bent Fallon's lips, like a thin ray of light breaking the overcast. Clouds pushed aside for a peek at the white crescent row of her teeth, the sliver of scar slashed from brow to cheek wrinkling. Her expression was mirrored in Marth, who was always sought a chance to smile. Such opportunities were growing thinner by the day. They were on borrowed time.

Not two moons ago, their plans had gone awry when on the coast their party had been ambushed and robbed everything but the cloth beneath their armour. 

Fallon had sensed the air amiss, heard the stray snap of a twig, but words of warning fell on deaf ears. An argument had broken out just past noon between Orikas and Dalaia, typical when supplies were rationed to the bone. Their last contract had sent them farther afield than anticipated, Marth's portioning of supplies ill-thought, resulting in the roar of stomachs as twilight dwindled over a broken horizon.

What they had lost was nothing to be scoffed at. After the trial of their previous mission, morale had been badly bruised, made all the more ripe by the subsequent dispersal of their treasury to rebuy lost gear. Work dried up quickly after the incident, the blight of gossip about the group's misstep persevering steady as a bustling stream. Fallon had known criminals of their ilk to lose all steam after such a searing failure and the panic of the group was not lost on her. Still, she held steadfast that with time, talk of their arrival at the city gates in naught but their smallclothes would soon dissipate.

Her patience proved right when she was brought word from a mercantile lord. By then, all four were slobbering at the bit for a spot of action. They were hungry for a victory and the quest was one that could not have come at a better time, or with a better reward attached. The gold they stood to gain was plentiful and the task simple enough. Travel East and return something of great importance. 

"So what exactly do you suppose is an 'Astarion'?" Marth queried, shooting her a look beneath the curl of his lashes. It unnerved Fallon how well placed Marth's inquiries often were, almost like he had plucked the words right from her mind. "Sounds awfully astrological."

"I hadn't given it a thought. Cargo is cargo. All I hope is that it's as simple as he made it sound."

This wasn't entirely true, but the lie slipped from her lips as easy as the task of breathing. Fallon had wondered the same thing, quite a lot in fact, ever since the meeting with Cazador Szarr. It wasn't often that a request was made in such specificity. Most missions involved a misplaced coin purse or a chest of stolen goods. Artefacts, though, were a rare case and rarer still was this particular one's lack of description. 

"A diplomatic answer," Marth commented. "You sure you're feeling alright?"

"Perfectly so," was her reply. It was enunciated with the subtle yet felt movement of a nose scrunch. Thankfully Marth was not looking too hard.

He had cast his eyes to the cave not far behind them, which had been made their temporary shelter. Fallon had not strayed a great distance from the camp, just enough to not be immediately obvious behind the shade of greenery, though evidently the bid for privacy had been in vain. At the entrance there was a stirring, her sight cutting through the low shadow cast by the dim. Her half-brother, Orikas, had risen for the day and was gathering up his bedroll.

Even from a distance, Orikas' golden eyes reflected what little light from the heavens caught them. Their peculiar eyes were one of a handful of similarities shared. Orikas had eyes the colour of coins, lacking the dark disc of pupil. Fallon's own were a palette of two — an iris of hard onyx and the other a misty lavender of a burgeoning sunset. Both stood slight and lean in build, to the betterment of their chosen career path, and possessed chestnut brown hair ringed golden in the sunlight. So too were they marked of a height that may have left one wanting, all the better to not arouse undue suspicion. 

For as many similarities marked the pair, so too did their differences. The siblings were the product of divergent ideals and born of vastly different ilk, best encapsulated by Orikas' shorn cut of hair to better elucidate his pointed ears which Fallon opted to hide. Such was the lingering stain of Virric Mossdreamer upon them both.

Fallon's childhood had been spent scavenging the alleyways of Baldur's Gate, weaned on scarcity of food and harsh conditions. Her mother had spent what few years they had had together in the throes of an incurable illness, one that uniquely afflicted humans and rotted the sufferer from the inside out. Fallen had never known the ignorance of youth, her path carved in the dirt of bitter hardship. Her tutelage was that of mistakes made and the vow to know better next time.

Orikas had had a different destiny. His lineage was that of arcane magic, his mother both a skilled wizard and a student of the linguistics, with her son prepped to follow in her stead. Orikas still retained the tongue of Celestial, Sylvan and Abyssal but his study had been cut short upon the spill of his mother's lifeblood. This event had led their paths to insect, for prior to the death of her mother, Fallon hadn't known the true extent of her father's misdeeds.

As her mind darkened, Fallon snuffed the shadow of paternal thought. She would not dwell, she insisted to herself, as though this very sentiment had not crossed her a million other times. The type to pick at sutures, even as wound festered.

"Suppose we should get started for the day."

Marth's voice pulled her gaze. He had stood, stretching the length of his extremities, enunciating his height. Among the four, he was rivalled only by Dalaia, who came a mere three inches from meeting peak, though she argued her horns should count against the difference. This was among many debates hotly contested around the campfire, instigated by the bubbly yet fierce tiefling.

Nodding, Fallon slipped her journal back into the confines of her pack. They had made good headway, even procuring a lead. A farmer had spotted a man of the very description Cazador Szarr had given them. Cazador's words wormed in her skull now at the recollection.

"He has taken something very important from me. I need it back post-haste. Just state the word to him and he will know. Use force if necessary, but I need it intact."

"Suppose we should."

Fallon slung her backpack over her shoulder and leapt from the surface of the rock with a spring, gliding graceful as a gazelle to the earth below. By her side, she felt Marth's dark eyes, face slipping to familiar reverence. With the druid around, Fallon's self-esteem went well fed. 

She cut ahead of him so as not to betray the smirk upon her lips. Her footsteps were feather light as well-worn leather boots cut a path through the low grass, which dipped into crevices of slate grey rock as she approached the mouth of the cave. 

Orikas was inspecting the scorched leftovers of last night's meal, a fat goose that Fallon had caught and gutted. A lucky find but few and farther between with the approaching coastline. Farmland thinned here, not much else but crustacean wandered the sandy plains that sat in anticipation of their arrival, and Dalaia was famously averse to food plucked from the sea.

"Good morning," Fallon offered to her brother. 

He nodded in her direction as she knelt to begin packing away her bedroll, out near the entrance as she had volunteered first watch the evening past. From her peripherals, she caught movement in the gloom of the cave. Dalaia roused, silhouette of her horns cast above her skull, rounding out before jutting heaven bound. The tiefling yawned loudly, shaking sleep in a full-body tremor.

"Let that be the last time we sleep in a cave!" Her voice echoed raucous against the hard surfaces surrounding her. "I'm all knotted up. Orikas, be sweet and give me a massage."

"I think I'll be good."

"Live a little for once, would you?"

Fallon could hear her petulant eyeroll that followed. Moments later and Dalaia had risen fully, leaning against the wall of the cave. Bright red skin punctuated by a river of straight black hair, horns jutting right above a pair of rich brown eyes, the woman was a sight to behold. Fallon had thought as much when she'd first encountered Dalaia after the tiefling had been thrown out of a pub for instigating a bar fight. She had been neither perpetrator nor victim but the one stoking flames. 

Picking meat from the spit, Orikas didn't bother raising his golden eyes to greet her. He chewed pensively before shaking his head.

"No, don't think I will."

"Y'know what they say about a life unlived, Ori?" He flinched at the nickname but Dalaia continued nonetheless. "Makes for a plain gravestone."

"Should I hope for one desecrated?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm gauging whether or not you've wrestled with the afterlife. Seems like you haven't. Consider mulling that one over the next time you imbibe, I know how you need the wine to take the edge off thought worth having."

Fallon suppressed a groan. They were starting off so early. She remained silent as she stuffed her bedroll into the confines of her pack. Judging by history, there was no need for Fallon to open her mouth. Indeed, Marth hovered nearby. He took a step forward as Dalaia crossed arms against her chest, brawn rippling beneath the cadmium red of her skin.

"Friends! Surely we have better things to discuss than grave sites." He ran a hand through his thicket of curls, laughing nervously. "We make for the coast today. That's exciting!"

At this, Orikas snorted.

"If you consider brine stimulating." He wiped his hands against the supple leather of his armour. "It's fine. I'll sow no more."

"Ori knows when to bow out. It's why he makes for the trees whenever I propose an arm wrestle."

Orikas bit his tongue and Fallon shot him an appreciative glance. The friendliness was not returned but this was no slight. Orikas hardly ever cracked a smile, only showing teeth in the face of penultimate danger. One of the many peculiarities of her brother that Fallon had long grown accustomed to. She rose promptly to her feet before the tide of conversation could turn.

"If you all want to finish up here, I might scout ahead. We can make shorter work of this if we're smart."

"Might? Ok, so you will." Dalaia pouted as she strode from the cover of the cave. "Why do you always get to have the fun? I'm itching for something to actually happen! Been shit out of luck for days. Marth's boar was child's play."

"It wasn't ... It wasn't my boar."

"Coulda fooled me. Fucker beelined right for you." She slapped a hand against Marth's shoulder and he let out a barely disguised grunt. "Oop! Sorry, my strength surpasses even my control."

"Don't mention it."

Fallon cleared her throat. She was empathetic to Dalaia, she was in much the same boat when it came to restlessness. She needed to stretch her legs, and her mind. It hadn't just been the curse of insomnia nor the pending quest that had kept her sleepless. Something else weighed on her mind.

"I promise to make my way back if I encounter any fun. I would never think to deny you," Fallon said. "And if I do, I'll shift you 5% of my earnings for the damage. Hand across my heart."

"That's my girl!"

Just as Fallon left camp, the wind carried Marth's words as a parting remark.

"Why do you insist on believing such obvious lies? Even I could sniff that one a mile away."

His intonation was light, if only to ease the truth. Perhaps she should consider becoming less predictable. Marth was gaining ground on her, though it had took him long enough. Fallon didn't begrudge him, her spite was tightly bundled in her father's nest.

With haste she made for the broken path that snaked the bevelled cliffside. Away from the cover of a fading forest, she kept to the road the farmer had described the previous day, hazarding the well-trodden so as not to arouse suspicion by darting through thin brush. A lone adventurer drew far less suspicion than one with a cohort. Slipping away if trouble befell her was also an easier feat on her own. Her senses attuned to the half-sun and the distant churn of waves, Fallon allowed her mind to turn over what it had begged her to consider the previous evening.

Orikas had disappeared. It had happened two nights ago, after a terrible crash had ripped open the dark's peace, earth beneath them tremoring like a dish upended from the dinner table and left to peter against the ground. In those sickening moments, Fallon had become a statue at the edge of a freshwater pond, having retreated to wash clean. She remembered the ripples in the water, echoing out in ringlets like a clarion call.

When she arrived back at camp, Orikas was gone. As Marth had told it, he had simply taken off into the night, ignoring all urges to stay put. It wasn't until noon of the next day that he returned, refusing to speak of where he had been or why he had left in such determination. Nothing seemed particularly different about him, yet Fallon was sure something was.

Secrets between thieves were not uncommon, neither were ones between the siblings. Though Fallon held Orikas the closest of the three, blood could not ford the river of distrust that came with backgrounds such as theirs. Even still, it bothered her deeply that he had remained tight-lipped on his whereabouts. Such an event begged discussion but Orikas resisted, as was his way.

It had led to a disharmony quiet yet felt, just as they were finding their groove. Fallon couldn't discount the blow this had been to her psyche. For all of her ambivalence to the arguing, she knew how quickly it could reflect on her style of leadership, and of the bonds amongst the party. Remaining in good graces was not born of selfish want, but the genuine bond she felt to each.

For she loved them all, in one way or another, in those words or perhaps more. They were the only stability that Fallon had ever known in her life. For all of their flaws and squabbling, there were no tensions that a job well done and a congratulatory night of drinking could not ease. They needed one another, linked by reliance and the bruises of their former lives, commonality found in rejection and the yearn for glory.

The path levelled out, and here Fallon assessed her surroundings. By her side, the full mercy of the ocean beckoned way down, crashing against the shore. A tempest stirred on by the body of a stiff wind, Fallon inhaled deeply and tasted salt air, the tang of brine and something more.

Blood.

She froze in place, her body recoiled. In front of her, a bend in the road marred with over zealous foliage of a leaning bush. Fallon crouched on her haunches and hugged the corner. Slowly she reached a hand to clear her vision, craning her neck to see what lay ahead.

On the ground, a body stilled of life was splayed against gravel, dust and stone. The figure of a man, portly and weathered, faced away from her. Pooling crimson at his neck was the source of the smell, even angled and at a distance Fallon could see his throat had been slit. She recognised the simple clothes and moss green cap fallen askew as that of the farmer they had spoken to the day before.

Movement behind her, like the slither of a snake in the undergrowth. Before she had time to react, her body met the ground below. Air left her lungs, puffing up as dust stirred beneath her. The initial shock was gone in the blink of an eye, left to meet the weight that bore down on her. She registered it at the same time as she felt the knife at her throat.

Above her, a pallid elf, angled jaw and eyes the colour of the Nine Hells. His hair as pale as wisps of moonlight, lustrous and wind swept. Brows arched as he gazed down at her with the confidence of a man who had won at a rigged game. Furled deep within the blot of pupils, something hearty and true. Hunger. Fear clutched her.

"Well hello there. Aren't you just the sight for sore eyes?" He cooed low beside the shield of dark hair against her ear. "Care to tell me why you were asking the dead man over there so many questions about me?"

The man's voice barely pierced the unsteady beat of her heart's rhythm. Just like that, the hunter had become the hunted.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

AUTHOR'S NOTES

i. i'm obsessed, i'm in deep. i wrote ahead like three chapters. idk this one really hits?? it's always the smaller fandoms that rly get my goat. i'm enjoying sm being able to get a lot more lyrical with the prose, i hope that it isn't too distracting.