distance between us (like a river of magpies) | D&D, Taz x Faith

[thecrazyalaskan]

Title: distance between us (like a river of magpies)
Author: fireweed15
Fandom / Setting: Dungeons & Dragons (5e)
Characters / Pairings: Taz'vroth "Taz" Kurjish x Faith; appearances by Iados Voyager, Lorilla "Lola" Nackle, NPCs
Rating: T+
Word Count: 2743
Warnings / Notes: Prompt from @whumpster-dumpster on Tumblr
Summary: Taz cries to cross the river separating him from Faith.

Because if you're gonna write angst, you may as well marry that angst to your favorite piece of Chinese folklore… which is also devastatingly bittersweet ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

★ ★ ★

The tension between the three was palpable, underscored only by the quiet clicks of a set of lockpicks.

"Any chance we could unlock the door a little faster, Iados?" Taz pressed, his hand flexing impatiently around the handle of his sword.

Iados' hands stilled, his eyes closing for a moment. "Taz, buddy," he began, his tone not unlike a parent addressing a petulant child, "if you keep breathing down my neck like that, you're gonna electrocute me."

"It's going to be fine," Lola said diplomatically, a hand on Taz's shoulder. The tips of her fingers glowed a pale purple, and a coolness worked its way through his armor into his tunic and flesh below.

"Look, I appreciate the effort," he said, shrugging off the bard's touch, "but I'll feel better when the objective is complete."

"Helluva way to talk about your girlfriend," Iados commented teasingly, working a third pick into the lock.

Taz could feel his hackles raise slightly. He knew they meant well and teasing was more or less the group's collective love language, not to mention the fact that it was true, but that didn't change the fact that they'd fought their way through a cult to get to this point, to free their abducted companion—

"Got it," Iados announced, the lock clicking as if to underscore the words.

Taz surged forward to be the first through the door. Part of him wanted to say that it was to bear the brunt of any attack that came as they entered the room—but that was a lie, even to his own ears. If there were any cultists left, they would be ill-advised to face the dragonborn wielding the sword that had so easily cut down their fellows. No, his motivation verbalized itself as he shouldered the door open and rushed in to stand in the middle of the room. "Faith?"

The room was little more than storage, seemingly hastily converted into a work room. Piles of tomes from across the spectrum of schools of magic, stacks of parchment and quills still sitting in inkwells sat atop a low worktable. Standing in the middle of the room, seemingly caught off guard by his sudden appearance, was Faith—stripped of her usual dress and even the quarterstaff that served as her guide and arcane focus, but Faith nonetheless.

Praise Bahamut—"You're okay!" He bounded across the room and pulled her into a tight embrace, her feet lifting off the ground. "I was so wor—"

As he held her, he was suddenly taken by the way she held herself. Before, she would wrap her arms around his shoulders and return the embrace, one that felt oddly, miraculously soft despite her oak and iron body; now, she held herself stiff and unmoving in his hold, and the material from which she was constructed was cold and unyielding.

"Faith—" He released her, and she took a few wary steps back. "I don't understand—what's wrong?"

"Do I…" She looked him over, slowly, almost critically. "Do I know you?"

★ ★ ★

By the time they returned to Hero's Nest, it was the darkest hour of the night, which made the grace with which Ell responded to being rolled out of bed by Taz insisting that his skills were needed right goddamn now all the more impressive. Now they stood outside the chambers that served as Faith's workroom and nominal bedroom. "Are you sure you want me to look her over?" Ell asked, not for the first time.

"Positive," Taz replied, nodding once.

"And you realize that none of my healing spells are going to take for Faith?" Ell continued. "Anything like that she needs an artificer—"

"It's not a physical wound," he interrupted. "It's… it's mental."

"…Mental?" Ell ehcoed after a moment.

"Her memories are gone." He'd been practicing this ever since they set on the road back to Hero's Nest, but it made it no less difficult to say. "It's like she's been… it's all been wiped clean. I may as well be talking to a stranger." For all the practice he had, it took everything Taz had emotionally to stop himself there, to not stress to Ell the pain that twinged in his heart when Faith had interacted with Iados and Lola with similar results—a soulless gaze and expression of confusion when they appealed to shared memories and interests.

Ell nodded judiciously as he considered these facts, seemingly weighing his words with extreme care. "Taz, forgive me, but I'm still not sure how I'm the only one who can help."

If Taz was being honest with himself, Ell wasn't qualified to help in this situation—not by a long shot. He wasn't a healer by trade, much less a healer of the mind, and as Ell had observed, Faith needed the skills of an artificer. For the most childish of reasons, he wasn't quite willing to be honest with himself yet. "If this isn't something to appeal to the goddess of wisdom for, what is? I trust Her Holiness to work through you."

Some people could be plied with appeals to their vanity, to their ego—Ell was plied with appeals to his goddess. His expression softened as he dipped his head in a nod of gratitude. "Well, Lady Athena and I can certainly take a look."

A little weight lifted from Taz's heart. "Thank you, Ell."

Ell dipped his head in a slight nod before knocking lightly at the door. "Faith?" he called. "It's Ell—may Taz and I come in?"

Upon hearing a quiet sound in the affirmative, they opened the door and stepped inside. The bed had been pushed into one corner, making room for Faith's research tables and bookshelves and experiments. An armoire stood open along one wall, and she stood in front of it, considering the contents—blouses and skirts and dresses, a small array of boots and caps; more decorative staffs that served as her eyes were lined up, as neatly as swords in an armory, inside the door… She appeared disinterested in all of it, her head canted to the side as she felt the cloth materials between her metallic fingers. She looked over her shoulder as the pair entered. "Good morning."

Taz swallowed hard—why was she greeting them like perfect strangers? Ell seemed unfazed by this, greeting her like an old friend. "Thanks for letting us in so early in the day," he said warmly.

"I don't sleep," she said matter of factly. "Not in the way you two do."

"Of course not," Ell said, rolling with her very literal line of thinking. "But let's get right to the heart of the matter—may we sit?"

Faith nodded once as she indicated the low bench of her worktop and the loose configuration of chairs around it. They'd been untouched ever since she'd gone missing, but now that they were sitting in them again it felt… odd. Like this was a stranger's workroom and bedchambers.

"Thank you," Ell said, loosely folding his hands in his lap. "Now—I'm sure you remember your name?"

"A designation is pointless—" Taz winced at the coldness of her answer. "But… I seem to have been designated 'Faith.'"

"Faith you named yourself," Taz cut in, the words deliberate.

She canted her head. "Why would I do that?"

He sputtered for words for a moment before Ell lifted a hand to smooth things over. "One thing at a time, okay? Cool cool cool—now, Faith. What's your… let's say, earliest memory?"

"Working," she replied simply. "I was a research assistant—"

"For whom?" Once again, Taz couldn't help but interrupt. Maybe if she remembered her awful old master—

"I assume you and your companions know," she said flatly. "You all killed them all on sight."

"It was for a good reason—"

Whatever argument Taz had was interrupted by a knock and the immediate appearance of Iados in the doorframe. "I know I wasn't supposed to interrupt," he said in lieu of a greeting, "but Lola and I have been doing some reading and… you need to see this."

★ ★ ★

Questioning Faith was put on hold as Taz and Ell joined Iados and Lola in the base's main library. Books (handwritten and typeset), letters, manuscripts, spell scrolls—any and all written word was spread out across the heavy wooden tables; candles and paperweights and sheafs of note-taking parchment were interspersed among them.

"What do we have?" Taz asked, looking over the spread of info.

"They're some kind of… purist cult?" Iados said, squinting down at some correspondence. "It's really vague what they are and what they call themselves—"

"The important part is that they don't believe in the sentience of automatons," Lola cut in. "They don't believe automatons have rights in society."

It wasn't the first time he'd heard someone say something so vile about Faith, and Taz forced himself to grip the back of the chair to keep himself in check. "So what was the setup we encountered?" he pressed. "Why was Faith taken?"

"That was a base of operations of some kind," Iados explained. "Their MO looks like it was abducting any stray automatons they could overpower or trick and taking them back to the base for…" He trailed off.

"For what?" Taz prompted, not entirely gently.

"Experimentation," he finished, not meeting Taz's gaze. "They assumed—" He passed a few pages over to him— "that if an automaton could be given sapience, maybe it could be taken away." A brief, awkward pause—"It's like they were trying to murder them from the inside."

He took a deep, steadying breath; when he exhaled, the air smelled briefly of ozone. When he spoke, every word was carefully measured. "Where were the others?"

Lola and Iados exchanged glances. "Faith is the only one who… she didn't respond to their methods," she said slowly.

"Then why is she—" Taz lifted a hand to wordlessly call attention to her. "She has no memory, no personality—and you're telling me she's the only survivor?"

"We're still trying to figure that out," Lola said bracingly. "But the fact that she's not completely soulless or dead is… nothing less than a miracle."

★ ★ ★

This is gonna work.

Taz had been telling himself that for the last day or so, trying to convince himself that this was what was going to work. After a moment of encouragement and reassurance, he lifted a hand to knock on the door.

For a moment, the dead silence wasn't unlike Faith's absence, and the feeling made dread crawl up his spine—the door opened, and Faith stood in the doorway. She'd taken to dressing again (if only because Lola had convinced her to for the sensibilities of the "less understanding"), but it was a small comfort, a little piece regained when so much more had been wiped out.

Hopefully tonight would change that. "Good evening, Faith," he greeted warmly.

"Good evening, Lieutenant," she replied. "You have a question?"

"Yes—more of a… request, really," he began. "I was wondering if you would like to go… stargazing. Tonight. With me."

Faith's head canted slightly as she processed the statement. "Lieutenant, my vision is sub-optimal—" she began.

"I know you have bad eyesight." he interrupted. "I offered tonight because the stars are supposed to be really bright tonight."

For a moment, Faith didn't reply, and Taz could feel himself breaking out in a cold sweat. What if she was so far gone that she didn't even see the appeal of stargazing? What if he couldn't help her remember why this activity, why this date—

"That sounds acceptable." She stepped out of the room and, with a turn of her wrist, produced a key to lock the door. As she turned away from the door, the key slotting back into her wrist, she looked at him. "Please—take me stargazing."

★ ★ ★

In the summer, the Sunshine Inn had tables on the rooftop for open air dining. Normally, the rooftop would be just as busy as the interior, crowded with patrons and perhaps a band or a bard performing; thanks to a favor Taz had been keeping in his back pocket, the rooftop was empty, giving him and Faith a substantial measure of privacy. A server brought up a plate of tapas and a bottle of salmonberry wine before making a tasteful exit, but it remained largely untouched. The rest of the table was covered by star charts and maps, weighted down with unlit candles from other tables.

It would have been the perfect re-creation.

Faith sat primly in her chair, hands folded in her lap and head tilted skyward. From time to time, she lifted a hand and pointed to a stretch of stars to name a constellation. The longer it went on, the more awkward sips of wine Taz forced himself to take. It was like speaking to a stranger—

There! He glanced up and felt a surge of something like gratitude as he pushed his drink to the side and pointed up, tapping Faith's shoulder to get her attention. "There's Vega, and Altair."

She looked up, following where he pointed before nodding. "Yes."

So much for open ended statements… "Do you remember the story about them?" he prompted slowly.

"Many cultures and people have a story about Vega and Altair," she said simply, turning her gaze on him. "Please specify."

Okay. It wasn't entirely like her, but she'd said something similar before. "Let me try to pronounce it right," he said, dipping into one of his most treasured memories. "Niúláng Zhīnǚ ?"

Faith nodded in understanding. "Cowherd and Weaver Girl. Yes."

"Yes…?" he prompted, hoping for something, anything to come loose in her memory—

"I remember the story," she finished.

"Aaaaaand…?" His throat tightened in desperation, making the word end in a pathetic wheeze.

If she had the capability to do so, she would have no doubt simply blinked at him, her expression blank, waiting for elaboration… for input. Like a soulless machine. "They really did try to kill you from the inside," he murmured, feeling something inside him twist and break.

"I don't understand," she said softly.

"I don't think you can anymore," he said, feeling tears stinging his eyes. "Faith, do you remember anything from before those—those bastards got their hands on you?" The mental image of those who had stripped Faith of her hard earned humanity—because, what? She was lesser for being forged rather than born of flesh and blood?—made his blood boil and lightning crackle in his lungs… but the feeling wasn't anger when he looked at her. It was despair. "Don't you remember your friends, your research, me? We're trying—Do you even know why I picked tonight?!"

Faith's blank stare might have been a punch in the face. "Tonight was our first date!" he went on, pacing the spaces between the tables with his hands at the sides of his head, as if trying to recount the memory was causing him physical pain. "I invited you to stargaze with me and you suggested tonight because it was the Magpie Festival and as soon as you told me the story, I knew I was in love with you!"

He wheeled on her, hands dropping to his sides. "I'm trying so hard to get you back, and it feels like…" He dropped to a weary kneel at her feet, hiding his face and weeping into the material of her skirt as if the sight of her without her memories was too much to bear. "Like you're lost."

After a moment, Taz felt a cool iron hand on the back of his head. "…I want to remember," she murmured.

He lifted his head, feeling a surge of embarrassment at the puddle of tears soaking into her skirt—and then a thrill of, mighty Bahamut, hope. "What?"

"I want to remember everything they made me forget," she repeated, looking down at him and ticking things off on her fingers. "I know… our friends look at me sadly when I don't remember them. I know you and I were… I know we were together, and I already somewhat suspected you did all this to try to recover my memories."

"Is it working?" He couldn't help the surge of hope in his voice, nor did he try to hinder it.

"Nothing's coming to mind," she admitted, "but—" Her touch as she laid a hand on his cheek was cool and in its own way, comforting. "I know I want to remember you, and this just makes me want to try."