In truth, he’s hardly blameless: trouble follows him like a shadow— or, no, maybe it precedes him— he doesn’t waste much time mulling it over in detail. He knows he’s spent a little too much time being friendly in local spaces, a man alone with coin in his pocket. An elf. Whatever it is that marks him as an easy target, or a desired one.

But he can run when he needs to, and cut when he has to, and though the first option didn’t pan out he was more than prepared to manage the second when—

Well.

He’d not expected that.

Gallant. Menacing. His unfeeling heart might skip a beat if he actually cared about more than his own neck— which is precisely why he steps backwards into shadow as Fenris strides forward.

“Gladly.”

A half-murmur, easily missed. Maybe intentional. Cutthroats always have friends, and the louder Fenris is, the more a target he makes himself over Astarion.