Chapter Text
The first two days after Cynda got her brother back, she felt like an excitable, over-eager, almost-sixteen-year-old all over again.
She couldn’t remember a time where she didn’t look up to Tyrus in every way, of course—his kind nature, his sharp mind, his drive for success. Back at that age, her love and admiration manifested as an urge to interrupt his studies for his opinion on her latest knitted piece, or read whatever he was writing out loud over his shoulder until he laughed and swatted her away, or steal a letter or spell component so he would have to spend time chasing her through their small house to get it back. She was far too old for such behavior, Mama chided her even then—but it put a smile on both her and Tyrus’s faces despite the growing hardships and loss of their father, so Cynda didn’t stop. What else could she offer anyone?
Now, the urge manifested like a tickle in her throat, a twinging reminder of everything she so desperately wanted to ask every time she opened her mouth around her brother. Tyrus’s general explanation on the long walk into the Underdark helped tame the nagging curiosity for a couple of hours, only for it to start itching again the moment he and Astarion left them to sleep.
She’d been yawning before—now Cynda laid out a knitted blanket, curled herself into the shelter of Halsin’s chest, and unleashed a thousand thoughts on her lover instead:
“They seem good for each other, though who’s to say, of course; after going through so much perhaps they needed to bond to survive, and it will fade as they heal and relearn themselves—oh, but I hope it doesn’t, don’t you?—I wonder when they first kissed; would their master allow such things between his spawn, or was it kept secret? Tyrus didn’t mention; oh gods, and how did Lord Szarr keep his own vampirism secret in Baldur’s Gate for so long—wasn’t it decades, Astarion said, since he’d been Turned? Whatever policing goes on in that city, surely someone would have noticed an immortal, fanged patriar by now; I wonder if there are any other Szarrs to take over the palace . . .”
“My love, it is well past witching hour,” Halsin murmured after another ten minutes, a smile in his voice as a large hand began to stroke up and down her back. “Even a full-blooded elf such as I needs rest by now.”
“I’m sorry,” Cynda said, and a sudden worry panged in her heart: “How are you feeling? Is it uncomfortable for you, being down here?”
Halsin let out an amused breath. “This hardly matches the comforts or dangers of Menzoberranzan,” he said wryly, nodding at the bare surroundings of the little outcropping of rock they’d been granted. “No, I am at peace—and wish for you to join me. Shall I soothe these buzzing thoughts of yours to rest? Or would a stronger sort of stimulation distract them?”
Cynda’s mind briefly went quiet of its ‘buzzing’ just at hearing the second offer, acutely aware now of how many points of contact there were between their bodies.
But her flirts with exhibitionism ended outside of being audible to the Resistance camp from her tent, or someone happening upon them in the woods—certainly, the idea of Halsin between her thighs in the open expanse of the Underdark was an intriguing one, but not while they were a small shout’s distance away from her older brother.
“Soothe me, I suppose,” Cynda said with a small, put-upon sigh. But drifted off with a smile on her face to the rumbling sound of Halsin’s voice, describing all the plants he’d noticed during their trek down here, coupled with the soft pressure of his hands stroking her back.
Out of all the questions crowding up her throat the next morning, Cynda went with what she thought was a safe, innocent one to start: “So! When did you get the title ‘magus,’ Ty?”
He was knelt in front of Halsin and Cynda, laying out their breakfast courtesy of the living Gur hunters who somehow coexisted with the colony.
Nuts, purplish greens, a strange, bulbous fruit, and flatbread—much of it foreign, but a heartier meal than Cynda would ever expect from the Underdark.
Tyrus’s hand hovered over the basket he’d just set down, his expression blank. He looked more tired even than yesterday, Cynda noticed with a frown, the dark shadows under his eyes deepened.
After an uncomfortable second, Astarion volunteered just behind him, “It’s hard to give a clear answer on that one, right love?” which broke his partner from his frozen state.
Tyrus blinked, leaned back, and offered Cynda a wavering smile. “Sorry—yes, hard to say. It started with Yousen, one of our spawn siblings who lived in the household. Since then, he’s explained that he worked with a magus or two before being Turned, and my abilities seemed on par with them. Plus, he never saw me live in the spawn dormitories, so he assumed I was above him—”
“And you were above him, to be fair,” Astarion cut in, grabbing Tyrus’s hand and tugging him to sit down across from Halsin and Cynda.
“I had different duties and my own rooms, which most didn’t,” Tyrus allowed as he joined Astarion on the ground, then finished, “but once we tracked down the group in the Underdark, it . . . it was that, or master ,” and there was a sharp twist to his mouth around the last word, as if it tasted sour.
Halsin had immediately split the given meal in half, a habit he took on ever since noting he ended up eating an unequal share between them. Which was still unequal, in Cynda’s opinion—despite the muscle she’d gained to wield her mace, there was no competition as to who burnt through the most energy—but she was too distracted to more than give him a chiding look. Silently torn by how much she yearned to know and understand, and yet how little she wished to make Tyrus uncomfortable.
After Cynda ate a few bites, she couldn’t help but inquire just a little further: “So then—because of your mastery over magic, everyone else took to the name? Or do they also find you to be the best leader?”
Tyrus’s shoulders hunched unhappily; he glanced around the little cliff edge they sat on, as if searching for somewhere else to be.
“A reason far less flattering,” he finally muttered, his weary eyes flashing darkly.
“‘The best leader’ . . . some have a skewed perception of what that would look like,” Astarion agreed with a sigh, squeezing Tyrus’s shoulder. “Not that you’re wrong, darling—but I’m afraid those who do look up to your brother and insist on the title tend to for the, well, wrong reasons.”
Cynda didn’t understand. But she felt terrible for the question, by this point—Tyrus’s eyes were trained on the floor, his whole body tensed again, his weary expression twisted with what looked like shame.
“Understood,” she lied anyway, giving a firm nod.
Still, she had to bite her tongue to hold in a thousand more questions—like, what wrong reasons? Or why was Tyrus taking the lead on the Reithwin alliance if he didn’t remember his past and he didn’t want to be a leader?
And why, after a single night, had her brother’s pallor grown so sickly that his dark, dusky skin looked nearly as pale as her half-drowish shade?
“I’ve heard often that those with no desire for power make the best handlers of it,” Halsin said contemplatively. Already finished with his half of breakfast, Cynda noted, leaning back on his hands and seemingly unaware of the tension lingering from the conversation.
But of course he was aware, Cynda knew by now—just because Halsin did not acknowledge a witnessed conflict, did not mean his every word and action was not earnestly thought out to address and resolve it.
“It should be heard more often, of course: those with no desire for something should never be cornered into it,” Halsin went on. Though Tyrus kept his eyes down, Astarion at least seemed to relax, nodding at Halsin’s words. Who then gestured at one of the remaining bulbous-shaped fruits, abruptly changing subject as he asked in a mild tone, “I’ve lived in the Underdark, but never this area—what are these called?”
His question was far better received; the two vampires spent the better part of twenty minutes engaged with them on the less fraught topics of Common vs. Undercommon etymology, Underdark botany, and the many uses of plants as magical components.
Cynda was less the bookish sort, but she knew how to tease—inwardly triumphant when she brought up the sore lack of libraries for Tyrus in the Underdark, which had her brother giving her a flustered, pleased look as he nodded in agreement, and Astarion laughed full and loud at “how little you’ve changed after all, darling.”
At one point, Cynda passed Halsin her remaining piece of flatbread and fruit, ignoring his half-hearted look of protest. She just squeezed his knee, listened to Tyrus talk further of the interesting new spell components he’d found in the Underdark, and silently resolved to ask her long-lost brother an easier question, next time.