Tea, Sometime

Morning came to Lantern Hall whether Ṛṣi’s body was ready for it or not: boards cool under bruised feet, water drawn and put over the fire, the sweep that made his shoulders answer each stroke while last night’s grit gathered at the edges. The altar glow held steady in the dim, and Elisa held steady with it—present, contained, making the Hall feel anchored without speaking.

Ṛṣi took his breathwork where he always did, in the small space his body knew. Stretching. Light maintenance—enough to wake joints without pushing them. Then the Hall again: heat checked, kettle watched, a quick glance to Elisa—anything break overnight?—and a fast audit of the supplies corner.

Cloth. Wraps. Clean rags folded tight. Jars sealed.

His hands were sorting when his mind slid sideways.

A child’s thin wrist—gone as soon as he noticed it. Bread sliding to the edge of a counter as if it had been an accident. The brief brightening in Maeril’s eyes when she gave something away.

His thumb found the red cord and rested there. He let the exhale lengthen until his shoulders eased. The thought thinned.

Late morning and midday took him out into the city with a bowl and a practiced face that asked without words. Doorways. Corners. Small exchanges made without ceremony. People gave him crusts or a copper and, in return, he listened with his eyes as much as his ears: the gray of fatigue, the hitch in a breath, the way a hand guarded a rib even while the mouth said “nothing.”

A dockworker sat on a step with a cut that wouldn’t stop weeping. Ṛṣi rinsed it clean, wrapped with firm, even tension, and asked two questions that mattered.

As he tied off the final turn, the phrase surfaced uninvited—green witch. Bridge talk—Maeril’s smirk behind it.

He didn’t chase it. He kept his eyes on the dockworker’s face. He felt his feet on the stone. He counted one slow breath out.

“You dizzy?” he asked. “Any fever?”

Afternoon pulled him back to Lantern Hall for what never stopped arriving. Intake. Triage. Nursing work that was mostly patience: water, food, clean cloth, checking a fever by touch because there wasn’t time for fuss. He restocked what he’d used, wiped what needed wiping, put every tool back where a tired hand could find it without thinking.

Elisa spoke once—something small, functional, meant for him.

He answered a half-beat late, because for a heartbeat he thought he heard the hawk’s screech again—sharp above lanternlight, a warning note that tightened his chest.

He swallowed. Let the sound pass. “I’ll handle it,” he said, and did.

Dusk cooled the river air and brought people into the yard for controlled rounds: hands wrapped, weapons checked, tempers watched before they turned stupid. Ṛṣi took matches for conditioning and control—sometimes with sailors, sometimes with mercenaries, sometimes with a Flaming Fist man who needed to hit something and came here because consequences still existed under the Hall’s eyes.

Between rounds, sweat cooling on his skin, his attention flicked—unasked—to Maeril’s gaze tracking a crowd without ever looking busy.

He reset his stance. Hands up. Work continued.

Late night meant alleys: routes, sightlines, exits. Walking Brampton and the Lower City, listening more than looking, learning how violence started before it started. Footing. Angles. The quiet change in a voice that meant someone was about to do something stupid.

For three days he did it all the same way: exact, clean, present.

And for three days the drift kept returning—not in floods, not in longing, just in small, persistent intrusions that should have slid off his discipline and didn’t.

Ṛṣi had believed his mind was sealed. He was learning it wasn’t.

Late afternoon emptied Lantern Hall in slow layers. The last bowls had gone out. The soup smell faded down to damp wood and soot. Voices dropped. Chairs settled into their places again. The supplies corner was being put back together from the day—wraps restacked, jars re-corked, clean cloth folded tight.

Ṛṣi stood at the supplies table, wiping a jar’s rim clean before he set the lid and pressed the seal down with his thumb.

Across the room, Elisa knelt at the small sun-altar, hands still, lips moving too softly to carry. Even in prayer she kept the room in the corner of her eye—counting who remained, catching what wasn’t said, ready to turn a person with one gentle question and make them tell the truth in their own words.

He was setting the jar back in place when movement caught at the threshold.

Maeril’s hawk perched on the doorframe as if it belonged there. Its feathers were ash-pale, the edges ghosting to translucence when the light caught them. It held the wood without sound. Eyes fixed into the Hall and did not blink.

Ṛṣi’s hands went still. His attention narrowed—precise. He moved to the doorway and stopped at a respectful distance. The hawk’s head ticked once, small and exact, and a pale strip of paper was bound to its leg.

He reached slowly, not grabbing, and the bird allowed it. The note came free without struggle.

Three lines. Plain hand. No flourishes.

Tea? You know where to find me. —The Green Witch

For a breath, the words sat in his chest heavier than paper should.

His thumb found the red cord and rested there. He let one long exhale empty his chest. The reflex landed him back in his body, back in the Hall, back in the fact of choice.

He folded the note once. Then again. Not hidden. Not crumpled. Made small and kept.

I can’t leave the sick.

He crossed the common room and re-checked a patient’s fever by touch—forehead, then wrist, then the rise and fall of breath. Adjusted a blanket edge so it covered what it needed to cover. Restacked the nearest bandages into a neat column where a hurried hand could grab them.

Then he went to Elisa.

He didn’t offer the note. He didn’t explain. He only met her eyes for a beat, the question clean: “Do you need my hands for anything?”

Elisa’s gaze flicked from him to the hawk on the frame, then back. She read the pull in his posture the way she read a confession—quick, clean, without making it a spectacle. She gave a single, small nod.

She didn’t need him.

He nodded. That was enough.

Cloak on. Staff in hand. The note settled inside his belt wrap where it wouldn’t be lost or damaged. When he stepped out into the evening, the air met him cold and wet, and the Hall’s warmth fell away behind his back.

He walked, and found himself looking forward to it. That was new.

The bridge took him back in the way it always did: press of bodies, steam lifting off pots, river damp rising through the boards. Maeril’s canopy held a small pocket of order—line, bowls, the pot’s steady breath. Her hawk familiar perched on the ridgepole, talons set into wet cloth, head ticking in small, exact turns.

She didn’t rush to him. She finished cleaning—one last wipe, a lid settled, the ladle set down—then met his eyes as if he’d arrived on time. She nodded toward the edge, an invitation without ceremony, and stepped away from the counter only after the last bowl in her hands found its place.

They walked off the bridge. The crowd noise thinned in layers. Boards creaked underfoot. River below. Above the awnings, the hawk’s shadow slid once, then kept pace.

“How long have you been in Baldur’s Gate?” Maeril asked as they walked.

He took a moment. Cut his life down to what was usable. “I was born here. I traveled for about a decade to train, and then came back. You?”

“A few years,” she said. “People see the Abyss in my face and decide where I belong. Usually somewhere else. But here, nobody minds. So I settled. Found a rhythm that worked.”

His eyes flicked to her horns, her green-tinted skin, her yellow eyes—then away. Not to reassure her. Just to keep himself from staring. He’d seen people treated like warnings.

The hawk passed overhead. Her gaze snapped up without thinking, then returned to the path like it had never moved.

“You watch from above?” he asked.

“I keep eyes on the bridge. And on the ones it eats first.” She spoke like it was work. “It also keeps me from being surprised by the wrong things.”

She went quiet for a heartbeat, measuring.

“And then I saw you step in,” she added. “Between a kid and a bad decision. Between a drunk sailor and a crossbow.”

Her head tilted, studying him.

“Looks like it tends to be a habit of yours. Those scars don’t come from one good deed.”

A small huff escaped him—almost a laugh. “Indeed.” His hand went to the back of his head, fingers finding the old knife-cut scar by muscle memory, then dropping. “Some things don’t stop unless someone steps in.”

Maeril smiled, looking ahead. “Most people can’t even stand being inconvenienced for someone else.”

“I’ve learned how to live with it,” he said, as if it were simple. “It’s like your cooking. It’s how I keep people from falling apart.”

“I’d rather cry over onions than cough blood,” she said.

He surprised himself with the grin that followed. “Try my stew. You’ll understand why I choose bruises.”

Her laugh came out warm and quick. “No, thank you. I’d rather stay alive.”

They left the densest part of the bridge behind. Boards gave way to packed earth. The city edge loosened: shacks spaced wider, scrub showing between them, wind gaining room. The hawk kept parallel overhead, patient as a tool.

Ahead, her hut waited: bead and leather strips where a door should have been. Herb bundles hung at the opening like a warning and an invitation at once.

He frowned at the lack of a door.

She said, “Hinges don’t stop anything that matters. Wards do. And flying claws.” Her eyes flicked up toward the beam line, as if the hawk could hear praise. “Some dare. They usually try once. Then regret it.”

She stopped at the threshold without stepping aside. Not blocking him—just refusing to make the choice for him.

“You can turn around. I won’t chase you.”

“You would,” he said, not believing her.

“I would. But I won’t drag you in either.” She gestured toward the hut’s interior and left the space open.

For a moment he tasted the ease of leaving. The clean relief of making it simple by disappearing.

“…All right.”

Ṛṣi stepped through. No flare. No spectacle. The space simply held itself: ordered shelves, jars and bundles, a hearth giving steady heat. Two mismatched stools set where tired bodies could be useful again. The air smelled of dried herbs and clean earth, river damp kept politely outside.

Maeril invited him to sit. He did. Above them, the hawk settled quietly on a beam.

Tea came without ceremony. Simple cups. Steam that smelled of mint and honey.

“Where did you learn to cook?” he asked.

Maeril smiled—at the question, at the fact he’d asked it. “Everyone needs food. It’s an easy way to earn a place when you don’t have one.”

The words sat for a beat. Ṛṣi watched the way her gaze went past him, not far—just enough to touch an old memory.

“I let it become one of my joys,” she continued.

She glanced at her small working desk—notes, paper, scrolls, ink, the quiet clutter of practiced craft.

“It taught me the value of practice and creativity,” she said. “Useful skills for an arcane weaver.”

The fire sank lower. Cups cooled and were warmed again. Maeril spoke about learning magic when she was young—the hunger of it—and then turned the question on him, asking about Lantern Hall like it mattered, like it was more than a place where people went to break.

As they talked, something in him loosened. Ease arrived, then the fear of it. He felt himself start to settle into the warmth of being received, and that familiarity made his stomach tighten.

“I should let you sleep,” he said, bluntly.

“You can leave if you want. But don’t pretend it’s because you’re polite.” Her grin wasn’t cruel. It was accurate. “It’s you trying not to get used to being taken care of.”

His throat tightened. Not shame—recognition. He let it sit there without wrestling it into a story.

“Drink your tea,” she said. “Then decide what you’re actually doing.”

Her mouth twitched, amused at his discomfort without taking advantage of it.

He drank the last of his cold tea, then felt his shoulders drop a fraction. “Should we make more? It’s gone cold.”

She smiled at the indirect agreement and set about warming what she’d prepared earlier.

They held silence while the water heated. He listened to the small sounds—kettle, fire, the bead strips shifting when the wind touched them—and let his body understand that, for once, no one needed anything from him.

Maeril sat back with the warm tea, poured fresh cups, and looked directly at him, soft smile held steady.

“I’m going to say something,” she said, “and you’re not allowed to turn it into philosophy.”

She held his eyes when she spoke next, and he didn’t look away.

“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life only reacting.”

“To what?” His brow furrowed.

“To hunger. To power. To systems that pretend they’re weather.”

The words hit close. Too close to dismiss.

“I want one thing that I choose.” She paused and let the quiet take the weight. “I want to visit Candlekeep’s great library.”

The name landed in the room like a placed stone. She didn’t soften it. She didn’t laugh it off.

“It’s a place built to keep knowledge from rotting,” she said. “It’s quiet on purpose. And I want to stand inside a wall that isn’t fear. But…”

She held the word, looking away, hesitating for a heartbeat. Then she faced him again.

“I don’t want to go alone.”

His gaze dropped to his cup. Thumb on the rim. The reflex to step back, to make it clean by refusing, rose sharp and practiced.

He didn’t move.

“You don’t know me,” he said, and heard how thin it sounded even to him.

“I know.” Her throat worked once. She didn’t reach for him. “But for once, I met someone who doesn’t need things to be easy.”

“Easy isn’t really what I do,” he said, a dry attempt to ease the tension.

Her shoulders dropped a little.

“Men I’ve met before,” she said, “they want the idea. The novelty. The green witch. Then the work shows up. The mud. The crowds. The waiting. And they get tired.”

She gestured at herself—no theatrics, just fact.

“But they do not want this.”

His caution rose in him like a trained muscle. “Want makes people careless.”

“Want makes people alive. Careless is a separate skill.” Her voice sharpened without becoming cruel. “I’m too old for games. I want something real. For once.”

The lantern guttered once. Silence deepened. Ṛṣi heard night birds outside and felt, in his bones, how late it was—how many times he’d used lateness as an excuse to leave.

He set his cup down. The sound was small and final.

The next line came out clean, unperformed. It surprised him—how little armor it carried.

“I’ve been celibate my entire life, you know. I’m a monk.”

She looked back at him. “That’s why I am asking you. Not the monk.”

He bit his lip, trying to contain his laugh. He couldn’t believe how open she was—how daring, and how direct, without making it a performance.

He leaned slightly on the table, toward her, and felt his own want sit in his chest without immediately turning into a problem.

“You know,” he said, “to enter Candlekeep we will need to offer a writing of value. Something they don’t already have.”

Maeril’s face lit with a wide smile, then she turned it into a grin like she refused to let herself linger too long on relief. “I don’t have a rare tome lying around.”

He heard himself before he could retreat. “We make one.”

Maeril’s eyes narrowed in disbelief. “Did you just volunteer to write?”

“It’s not the worst decision I took tonight,” he said, and the laugh that followed was quiet but real.

For a beat they held each other’s gaze. Then both looked away, as if holding it too long would make it fragile.

“Come back tomorrow,” Maeril said. “And bring your neat monk handwriting,” as if to seal their decision into fate.

“Writing’s not neat. My hands do other work.” He turned one hand, showing bruised knuckles like proof.

“That’s fine,” she said. “Candlekeep can suffer a little.”