Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sasha wakes gradually in a Damascus hotel room as sun peeks in through the curtained window. She stretches languorously, bare feet slipping on the fine cotton sheets, feeling the taut pull in her muscles, the steady rise and fall of her own breaths, the rhythm of her own heart. She is alive, rested and whole in a way she had thought lost to her for so long, and she allows herself a few indulgent moments to bask in it.

Her basking is interrupted by a loud thud just outside the door. It’s immediately followed by several more thuds in quick succession moving toward her. Footsteps, fills in the part of Sasha’s mind that’s always on alert, small creature, not bothering with stealth. The knife she keeps under the pillow is in her hand within a blink, and she tenses in preparation.

The door flies open with a bang, and Sasha has just enough time to recognize the tiny blur of grey and green hurtling toward her as Grizzop and tuck the knife away before he barrels into her chest. He’s chanting something in a shrill voice that somehow manages to be both higher pitched than normal (something Sasha hadn’t thought physically possible) and so fast that it sounds like one long word. He’s not wearing his armor, apparently, and Sasha thanks someone for small mercies, at least. One tiny goblin launching himself at top speed is quite enough without the added weight of metal breast plate; she’d really been hoping for a chance to get used to waking up without needing immediately healing.

After a moment, she manages to work out that what Grizzop is saying is her name. Repeatedly. “Sasha Sasha Sasha!” he screeches, giving her shoulders a little shake as if to wake her. (It’s almost cute; not even Hamid could sleep through all this caterwauling.) “Sasha! Sasha! Sasha!”

“Grizzop, what -” Sasha starts. “I almost stabbed you, mate; what are you doing?”

“Get up, get up, time to go, gotta get going!” Grizzop says. There’s a manic gleam in his eyes, and all of his needle-sharp teeth are on display in his broad grin. He’s still shaking her with surprising strength considering the size difference, and the rest of him is practically vibrating with energy. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!”

Patience is not a virtue to which Grizzop normally subscribes, but he usually waits for her to get out of bed before he insists they get going. “What’s gotten into you?” she demands as she lifts him by his armpits, depositing him on the floor beside the bed. For a moment, it looks like he’s going to launch himself at her again, but he just bounces on the balls of his feet, ears quivering. It’s not quite anxiety, but it’s not quite excitement either, and all the little hairs on the back of Sasha’s neck stand up. “Did someone cast a spell on you? I can get Azu -”

“No, no, no,” Grizzop says, his hands a blur as he gesticulates wildly. He rattles along at breakneck speed, and Sasha can barely make out what he’s saying. “Everything’s fine, Sasha; no one did a spell, I just went downstairs to get some breakfast because no one else was up yet and there was coffee and I’ve never had coffee but I wanted to try it, so I tried it and now I’m ZOOM!” He throws his head back and gives a manic cackle that would be proper frightening if Sasha didn’t know him.

Despite the full night’s sleep, her lack of injuries, and her newly alive again body, Sasha can feel a headache forming behind her eyes. She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Okay, can you - can you just slow down a minute?”

“Can’t slow down; gotta go fast!” Grizzop says. He leans forward to tug her wrist. “C’mon, time to go, time to go!”

Sasha lets out a long, heavy sigh. It’s a good job she’s good at hiding things, she thinks as she resigns herself to the task of making sure Grizzop never comes across anything caffeinated ever again (or at least not before she’s awake and dressed). “Do you mind if I get dressed first?” she says, glancing down pointedly first at her nightshirt and then at her jacket and bandoleers, slung over the chair in the corner. “Why don’t you go wake the others?” Azu’s probably already up - paladins, in Sasha’s experience, all seem to wake with the dawn - but Hamid will gladly sleep til noon if they let him, and now that she’s up, they might as well get a move on.

Grizzop pauses for the barest fraction of a second, so quick she’d have missed it if she hadn’t already been watching him. His ears twitch, and then he spins on his heel and dashes out of the room, throwing, “Good idea, will do, bye Sasha!” over his shoulder.

The door swings closed behind him, and something small and fond quirks at the corner of Sasha’s mouth. She gets up to get dressed, straining to listen as she does. Beneath the rustle of fabric and the creak of leather, she can hear a high-pitched shriek, followed by two shrill voices arguing in the next room. It’s a nice hotel and the walls aren’t thin enough for Sasha to make out what they’re saying, but they’re rapidly nearing a pitch only dogs can hear anyway. She’d never particularly cared for Brutor, but subjecting him to those two at full on tea kettle is an act of cruelty beyond even her.

She finishes lacing up her boots and chuckles as a deeper, more resonant voice joins the fray, no doubt drawn by the commotion. The hotel’s other guests will be complaining about the noise soon, and while Sasha is reasonably certain Hamid and Azu can smooth any ruffled feathers, it’s probably better if they’re all gone before then.

Sasha does one last sweep of her room, tucking away her bedtime dagger into its sheath, and she goes to join her friends.