cambria-writes

[cambria-writes]

This was INSANELY good and I’m so extremely excited! I had thought of a similar concept SO many times and you’re doing it such justice!

Thank you for blessing us with wonderful writing and a wonderful setting 🙇‍♀️

Unbound - Chapter 1: The Keeper's Bond

(Loki x Magic Female Reader)

(A/N) : Hi my lovelies! Apologies for my absence, I appreciate your patience with me...

*The last month has been particularly challenging. I continue to recover from surgery, I turned a year older, and I ended a near decade long relationship. As I continue navigating these emotions, I find comfort here, among you all, my friends 💚*

(I am hesitant to post this fic, it has lived in my drafts for quite some time. As a new writer, I'm scared to take on a multi-chapter fic! But - I hope that you enjoy where I'm going with it!) (It's not as elegantly written as I'd like, but indulge me...) & I am happy to be back! You all inspire me so much!

I appreciate your support and comfort now more than ever. Please have grace with any errors - I forgot how to write amidst the chaos and heartbreak...

Please feel free to drop me a message about anything/a pic of Loki or David Bowie (I'm currently chokeheld by Jareth)

Summary: Loki has been watching over you from his new throne... With his feelings on the line, he makes a bold decision to bond to your mind.

Word Count : 2.5k

Warnings: Slight touch of NSFW/Voyeurism in Ch 1

Happy Reading my Loves! 🖤

A throne, buried in the infinite void of space and time, was not what Loki had expected for his life’s purpose. Never truly wanting the throne, yet in a twist of fate, finding himself tethered to it for eternity, was an irony that laughed at him in an endless echo throughout the multiverses. 

Exploring realities in the palms of his hands was a delicate craft. The responsibility, accepting the intricacies of overseeing an incalculable amount of timelines without interference or interjection was no small task. Observation had become a makeshift game to Loki, honing in on a multitude of lifeforms, seeking out what connection he could from afar, cherishing emotions of plenty in the vast cosmos which thrummed through his hands. 

A new desolate reality, ever flowing, impalpable, washed through Loki. A sobering wave crashed into him over and over again, reminding him that this was life now.

In the darkest of hours, he allowed his head to lower and rest, obsidian horns digging deep into his temples, a torment unlike any Loki had endured before. Despite the stillness around him, an unrelenting gravitational pressure crawled around his head, eerily creeping into a chokehold around his neck. A force strong enough to extract tears from a god. 

The weight of the crown had proven to be heavy, in more ways than one. 

The pull of the timelines forged on, wrapping serpent-like, circling Loki’s wrists; binding him to the seated throne. 

The intensity of holding limitless lives extracted a toll on Loki’s physical form. In secret, he wished he could put the weight down - if only for a moment. Knowing he could not, knowing he was destined to this role for eternity - these thoughts spiraled in his mind, plaguing his thoughts like a broken record with every passing second. 

Attempting to shake the burden of eternal responsibility, Loki let his eyes fall shut, concentrating on the only thing that brought the god solace in his isolation. Locating you. 

Loki had observed millions of souls in his quest to pass time. Asgardians, Midgardians, creatures from planets and realms that in all of his centuries he had never once discovered. He found comfort in busying himself with watching the lives of beings across the galaxies, across time, into the promise of forever. 

Yet, in his observation of the entirety of space and time, Loki had never encountered a living soul quite like yours. There was something particularly special about you, a unique aura standing out as a bright star in the atramentous eternal sky. Loki felt an unexplainable pull to your life force - a pulsing chemistry, as though you were two magnets coming together in an unyielding draw. 

Curiosity propelled Loki’s focus to you, solely. You were a powerful enchantress, a formidable force to be sure. Intrigue, he decided, was the proper feeling he had for you… at first. It did not go unnoticed, the way you effortlessly wielded your own powers, harmonious with the mysterious magic you possessed. Unlike himself, unlike most everyone in the multiverses, Loki could find no other variants of you. Scanning all of the timelines, he quickly realized you were a one of a kind entity - a rare anomaly that captured the attention of the God of Stories. 

Loki shifted in the throne, straining his forearms as he found you within the malachite cordage that resided in his grasp. Using all of his might, he concentrated on your energy, barely able to locate you through a thick veil of unfamiliar magic. Adjusting his grip on the timeline, the veins in his arm thrummed, focusing deeply, eyes finally landing upon your form.

For the first time, he could see your face clearly as you walked alone, your breath puffing into a small cloud of moisture as you exhaled into the cold night. Your hair softly fell around your face, bouncing delicately in tandem with each footstep. The clang of your black leather boots echoed with each hurried stride as you made your way across the damp cobblestone street. Your beauty was so effortless & charming, Loki found it hard to pull his gaze from you. Though out of reach, you were absolutely enchanting. 

To be near you - Loki imagined, slowly drawing in deep breath, inhaling at the sudden fluttering that had manifested in his core.

Abruptly, a frigid gust of wind commanded the hair on the back of your neck to raise, causing you to fuss with the herringbone scarf that stylishly looped around your collar. You took a moment to peer up at the night sky as you raised the hood of your coat to rest upon the crown of your head. The dazzling beauty of the stars twinkling above forced you to stop and appreciate the divine display. A brilliant wave of emerald light appeared overhead, dancing elegantly in a private show, eliciting a shy smile from your lips. 

Your eyes creased, squinting at a particularly bright star. Your gaze lingered on it with a subconscious level of expectancy.

“I’m not sure I’ve seen you before”, you remarked at the unfamiliar celestial orb, as if it would answer back if you asked it their name. 

Loki stilled as you tilted your head in wonderment, imagining you could somehow see him through the vastness of space, somehow sense his presence. He wanted to believe you could. 

“Stunning” you whispered quietly, letting out a contented sigh as you continued on your path into the darkness.

As time went on, your voice became a symphony in the silence. Your expressions became their own motion pictures that played in an endless loop within Loki’s mind. Watching you cast your spells as deliberately and cautiously as a painter stroking a canvas, Loki never tired of watching you. He admired your skill, your intelligence, as you worked with magic that was foreign to him. Somehow, these stolen glances and sacred moments seemed like a secret kept between the two of you. 

Loki let out a disgruntled sigh, reminding himself once more that you did not, and you would not ever know him. He silently cursed, knowing he could never interfere. Yet, perhaps… 

It had started as a simple trial, a test spell easily woven and rooted to your mind. A small magical connection tethering his mind to yours. Nothing more than to ensure your protection, to ensure your safety.

The moment that Loki had cast this spell upon you, practicing his illusionary craft became somewhat of a game, hiding himself from your mind, blending in with the shadows of your thoughts. 

Ilusion - an art form that Loki had mastered over centuries. Invisibility he found easy, but ignoring the intoxicating pull of the spellbound bond he had formed…This was much more difficult. 

He had not intended for the bond to grow so strong. At first, it was a fleeting trick, a slow dancing flame, a soft whisper that lived on the edge of his consciousness. Only a way to ensure your safety, a way to pass time. 

Yet each time he sensed your own mind within his, something inside of him tightened, even yearned for you. An undeniable ache that he refused to put a name to. 

As months time passed, the bond strengthened greatly. The lie that he told himself - of safety and precaution - seemingly dissolved, transforming into something…more. The sense of nobility, of being your protector from afar, alarmingly shifted to a forbidding feeling. Longing. 

The forged connection had become an addiction. Each night, Loki would find himself utterly intoxicated in your mind; voyeuristically watching you in your realm. Inhaling a breath of your conciousness and warmth. He let his eyes flutter shut, mesmerised by the comfort of your dreams. He would allow the sensation - of your joy and laughter - to quell a pain deeply buried inside of him.

While the burdened promise of protecting the timelines echoed throughout his mind, his focus was no longer entirely occupied by the task at hand - by the mission of being on the throne - but by you. Stolen glances into your reality, physical proximity cradled if only by illusion in his dreams and waking fantasies, lit a wick in his core - promising an explosion in his heart if he did not start to take precautions with his feelings. But... with your presence in front of him, his mind could rest, and he could be at ease. 

Loki often found himself wondering what it would feel like to hear your soothing voice call his name. He longed to be seen, not just by anyone—by you. It was a laborious struggle, this mix of euphoria and sorrow - wanting nothing but happiness for you, no matter which timeline you were in… yet.. still, in his quietest moments, he would let himself dream, selfishly wishing it was him you’d say goodnight to, if only just once.

When hope slipped away, time and time again, he would lower his gaze, seeking refuge from the relentless thoughts. But…he knew he would always come back to you.

‘How could I not?’...  

This particular night, when the weight of your own day had been laid to rest, Loki sought out your mind in the dark. An intense wave of sensual indulgence erupted through his body as he allowed himself to siphon the sensation of your solitary pleasure. Pleasure. A feeling that had been lost in the spacial abyss for quite some time. He would not turn his gaze upon you, as you allowed yourself to be consumed by self gratification... your most intimate moments. Closing his eyes, as if to give you privacy, he tried to remember how long it had been since he himself had had an intimate moment. He could only imagine the pleasure of being able to truly hold you, gently kissing your lips, moving together in perfect harmony. A passionate embrace, bodies gently entwining in the most sacred of acts, whispering promises of love to you between soft moans.

Love. Love?

Loki suddenly froze, eyes snapping open at the realization of the emotion he had nonverbally named. He slowly straightened his posture against the back of the cold seat, timelines clawing heavily at the lines in his palms. Feeling a heated dagger in his heart, ignoring the way his anatomy had betrayed him having been lost in the forbidden sensation of your reality, he scolded himself for imagining something so real. His throat bobbed as he inhaled a breath of the emptiness surrounding him, immediately reprimanding himself once more for indulging in your pleasure, and crossing the boundary he swore he would not. 

Love. 

Loki scoffed defensively, bringing himself back to reality. No longer did he get the privilege of feeling love, care, companionship. Sacrifice - a heavier toll than he ever would have imagined. A familiar sadness wrapped around his throat, threatening to extract tears.

The reality was, no matter what realm you were in, no matter what he felt, how much he wished he could speak to you, just once - it was impossible now - given his choice and commitment to guard the timelines, for freedom. 

For them. For you. 

Loki repeated this mantra to himself, a reminder of his motives, remembering the god he wanted to be. 

The chokehold of grief elicited a small sob from the deepest shadows of his soul, in part from the guilt of using his own power to feel companionship, to feel love, under the guise of protection, and in part from the sorrow of never being able to return back to life in the timelines. Never getting a chance to be near you, even if only as a stranger passing by in the bustle of your daily life.

Purpose. A heavier burden than he ever knew to be possible. 

On a particularly quiet night, lost in a deep slumber, you dreamt of a distant soul, calling to you in a soft, fleeting whisper. The stranger seemed gentle, but their voice was heavily laced with pain and agony as they cried out to you, calling your name, in a desperate plea to be heard.

You were abruptly jolted awake by a searing burn on your skin, branching through your hands like lightning, leaving a scorching imprint in the flesh of your trembling palms. You inhaled sharply as you inspected the marks that remained. 

“Magic.” You whispered, quickly swinging your legs to the side of your bed, sitting upright as you studied the light coursing through your hands.  

A power unfamiliar to you, almost alive, flared from the tips of your fingers to your wrist. A bright green rope-like illumination emanated from your upturned palms.

The magic throbbed, as if fueled by someone else’s spark. Your hands ached as the heat ripped through your skin, sinking deeper into your flesh. In the silence of the night, the foreign magic coursed through your veins, the power pulsing in a heartbeat that was not your own. 

You willed your own frost-blue glow to spill from your fingertips. Shimmering wisps curled around each digit, delicately twisting around the emerald that had been etched onto your body. Instinctively, you closed your eyes and willed your own strands of magic to reach out to the power that had called to you in your sleep.

Then you sensed him. A stranger's soul, ethereal, almost faint. With forceful intention, you strengthened the bond to his magic. His presence was a distant echo, lingering in the air around you, but veiled in the mist of time and space. The presence was elusive and fleeting, barely detectable in your mind and senses. Persisting, you extended your power, finally reaching the source you had been searching for. 

A smoldering silence lingered in the air for a moment. You felt the unmistakable weight of eyes upon you. With a swift motion, you spread your hands, lighting the room, your gaze searching for the shadowed figure watching you.

“I know you’re here,” You cautiously broke silence, your words bouncing off of the walls in the empty room. “Physically or not.” 

Another empty moment passed. 

“Please, say something…” Your words brushed against the air like a feather, soft and pleading, a hushed request that somehow seemed to carry more weight than any shout ever could. 

Rippling through the silence, his voice reached you. Soft, low, coming from nowhere yet surrounding you everywhere at once. Time stood still as a hum so low and delicate found you.

“I... am not supposed to be here..." 

“Please, don’t leave...” you pleaded gently, your voice laced with a quiet reassurance. “You don’t have to say a word… just stay, if only for a moment.”

The silence was suffocating, thick enough to feel, as if the air itself had frozen in place. It pressed against your ears, louder than any noise, almost deafening in its stillness.

“You don’t understand what this means…”

The voice pressed through the hushed air. Your heart ached at the way his voice cracked with desperation. His emotion was raw, the mix of regret and longing, the weight of the forbidden moments spilling in a tremble from his lips like honey.

“For either of us.” 

The room grew colder, yet your blood coursed with a fierce heat through your veins at the intensity of the unspoken warning. Whatever this connection was, you knew it was not meant to exist. But now... it did. 

And there was no turning back.

Taggies as requested : @mochie85 @lokisgoodgirl

Divider Credit : cafekitsune

Xoxo - L 🖤

Masterlist

[cambria-writes]

me, the motherfucker with over 50 abandoned works in progress: i have an idea

[cambria-writes]

the author's barely disguised open wound splattered livid and filthy across everything they create

[cambria-writes]

For fun I decided to look through the profiles to everyone who gave kudos on the Astarion fic and somehow I was surprised that the majority of people aren’t on AO3 and most people are there to read

Somehow I had let myself believe that the majority of us were instead writers.

None of this is bad it was just neat to have a new perspective on it!

[cambria-writes]

Chapter 3: So I stay the night

pairing: astarion x bard!f!reader word count: 4,646 warnings: swearing, description of a panic attack/autistic meltdown, very murderous ideation

a/n: it has been four months and lemme tell you, it has been a hell of a quarter. i'm super thankful for everyone who's left comments both here and on ao3 because that has pretty much been the only thing that's kept me motivated. the depression has been real, my dudes. anyways as always, let me know if you want to be tagged for upcoming chapters!

Chief among the reasons why you’ve been bathing so often are the myriad unpleasant smells you accumulate during the day. Whether it’s the iron tang of blood or the sickly near-sweet smell of rot, there always seems to be something to wash off. Maybe there’s a little part of you that’s trying to self-soothe at the same time.

You’re thankful for the bright, nearly-full moon in the sky, at least. You may not be a Selunite, but especially recently, with your discovery of Mystra’s unimaginable, unfathomable cruelty, Shar’s atrocious duplicity, and the Dead Three, you’re almost thankful that at least one deity remains… somewhat acceptable. Palatable, at least. Perhaps not good or reasonable, but at least the Lady of the Moon hasn’t seen fit to kidnap, torture, or otherwise mishape any of your friends.

Yet. You cast a wary, narrow-eyed glance at the sky above.

“I’ve sworn to dethrone and kill one of you,” you declare, bringing your waterlogged hair over your shoulder. “I’m not scared to declare war on you, too.”

You don’t get an answer, not that you were expecting one. Typical; when things are the worst they’ve ever been and their devout need the most help they ever have, the gods remain ever as useless.

“Terribly massive threats to make for such a tiny little bard,” you hear from behind you, and your face doesn’t know whether to smirk or scowl.

“Lovely for you to disturb my bathing yet again, Astarion,” you retort, wringing as much water from your hair as you can before you turn around. The water still laps at your hips, and your thick shift, soaked, still clings oddly to your waist and your breasts. You try not to think of how you look. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your presence this time?”

There’s a venom in your voice you can’t hide, and frankly you’d have been concerned if Astarion hadn’t immediately noticed it. His facial expression may not give much of anything, but the rest of his body does. The way his shoulders hunch up just a bit, the split-second hesitation in his next step, his fingers twitching for a blade he didn’t think he would need to take with him. Not here. Not with you. 

God,s even the spark of guilt you feel at making Astarion, of all people, uncomfortable in your presence doesn’t cut through the seething blood rage that begins to boil beneath your skin. Mystra and Shar and whatever other damnable power-hungry presence out in the world seeking to harm your companions—friends?—are… troublesome, because they are distant and powerful. Though you’ve promised to wring Mystra’s life from her throat with your own two hands, you haven’t the slightest idea how to go about doing that. You will, of course, because you would never make that kind of promise—especially to Gale, right in front of Elminster, because of course as a fucking bard you couldn’t help but to open yout trap—but that’s something that can wait. Because there’s a far more tempting outlet for your violence. One with a known address.

Cazador Szarr. You never thought just a name could inspire such burning rage within you.

“Well, I thought someone should check on our favourite mockingbird,” Astarion says smoothly. He draws his brows at you, and you realize that you have yet to answer and move at all. You can think of all the ways Cazador will bleed later. You can shelve the rage, swallow it down and bring it back up later.

You shake your head and scoff. “Right, yes, sorry,” you reply quickly, making quick work of plaiting your hair and pointedly avoiding looking at the vampire. “Can’t say if it’s real or all in my head, but the smell of smoke and… and burnt corpse has been lingering. I’m guessing I took so long that the others got worried?”

Astarion stares at you with a look that makes you pause, both aghast and confused. You frown and shake your head in confusion back at him. He puts his arms out at his sides, seemingly gesturing at your surroundings, before gesturing at the moon.

You look up, look back down to Astarion, and shrug your shoulders. You still don’t get it. He sighs and throws his hands up in defeat. 

“It’s midnight, and you left camp during daylight, and you think you took too long?”

Your mouth hangs open. You know you’ve had issues keeping track of time before, but normally the literally sun is enough to bring you back to yourself and realize that your body has needs that had been ignored. This feels… different. You don’t remember the hours you’ve spent in the river. 

You look down at your fingers, and they make your grandmother’s face look young and smooth in comparison. You wrinkle your nose and look back up to Astarion.

“Just… wrap up so we can walk back,” he says, and quickly turns on his heel to walk away. You know he won’t be far—likely hasn’t been very far for most of the time you’ve been out here sorting out your own thoughts.

You pull yourself from the river and pull your shift off before wringing the water from it. You quickly slip back into the robes you’d left on a rock nearby, thankful that they haven’t gotten stolen by neither person nor animal. They don’t help the chill settling in, though; whatever heat they might have drawn from the sun has long gone.

Once your boots are back on your feet, you follow the trampled grass to find where Astarion sits, legs stretched out in front of him, beneath a juvenile tree whose tallest branches barely reach over your head. You kick at Astarion’s foot when you reach him.

“Done threatening deities?” he asks, and you scoff.

“For now. I need to write down better speeches. Maybe it’ll be more convincing if I’ve thought about it beforehand.”

It’s Astarion’s turn to scoff. He brushes his hands off on his thighs when he stands. You bite your lips and, before he takes a first step to walk away and lead you away from the river, you grab at his forearm.

“It’s not just gods I’m swearing to kill, Astarion,” you say, and you make sure to wait for him to turn and look you in the eyes. You even implore your cranial roommate to assist you in conveying your candour. “Cazador will die, too. I’m not going to display any favouritism here, Astarion. Zariel and her pawn will die, Mystra will choke on her arrogance, and I will chase the shadows away from the night itself if I have to. Do you understand me?”

You can see Astarion’s thoughts warring behind his eyes; his red irises jumping from looking at you in the left eye, then the right, and back to the left. Trying to suss out some form of deception. You know he’ll find none, but you let him search.

“...and what of the Gith?”

“If the Lich Queen presents herself as a threat,” you start, carefully, minding your words. Lae’zel may not be here to chastise or defend herself and her mistress, but that only gives you all the more incentive to be considerate. “Then she will be eliminated like a threat.”

You release Astarion’s arm and choose instead to start walking, to get ahead of him. You can let him stew in that for a second. 

“That’s the kind of determination I’m bringing into the crèche, trhe Underdark and into the Cursed Shadowlands after that. Come on, before they send Karlach to fetch both of us.”

You’re extremely happy you picked up a song for Heroism; you’re not sure Wyll would have been able to survive an encounter with not one, but two minotaurs without that. 

It doesn’t escape your notice that you first show up in the Underdark in some ruined outpost dedicated to Selûne. You turn back to the gates, after gracelessly hopping over the piled corpses of the minotaurs, staring up at the emotionless depictions of the goddess.

You wonder if she can feel your thanks. And you hope that if she does, she also knows that this does not, by any stretch of the imagination, put her in your good graces.

Then there were the fucking hook horrors. Halsin has a strange look when you mention your profound dislike and disgust with the things, but you quickly chalk that up to being a druid. Surely, he must be friendly with all living things and be a bit prickly whenever someone mentions wanting to inflict violent, bloody pain and suffering upon them.

And then, finally, blessedly, civilization. The rest of your companions are extremely wary of the Myconid colony—and you are wary of Sovereign Glut, yourself—but you are far too enthralled by the way they communicate to care much. You respectfully dim your excitement, of course, when you recognize that the Sovereign has been mourning, as the rest of the colony has.

But you join in, offering a few quivering chords of your violin. Halsin, to your pleasant surprise, hums along to the dirge you play.

You smirk in vindicated satisfaction. Mostly at Astarion, but also at Lae’zel and Shadowheart. The three most likely to judge your lack of ability and dismiss the potency of your playing. All of them look away from your pleased expression.

A self-satisfaction that is short-lived as soon as the Sovereign provides you and your companions with another task and yet more killing.

“It’s slavers, though,” you argue with Karlach as you walk. “They’ve been doing this their whole lives and they’ve never seen anything wrong with it!” 

“I get that, Soldier,” Karlach replies, walking with her arms crossed over her chest. “I don’t know, something feels wrong about killing people just ‘cause of how they live their lives, y’know?” 

“Karlach,” Wyll speaks up, falling into step beside you. “They’re slavers. They steal people from their homes to sell them, at best, for manual labour that will inevitably lead them to an early grave. At best. Do you see where I’m getting at?”

Karlach stops walking and stares at Wyll for a second, then down to you, then back to Wyll. You can see the dots connecting all over the face before a scowl sets in. 

“Nah, alright, I see what you’re sayin’. They’re dying.”

You discreetly high-five Wyll and rush your companions forward. Shadowheart, though she rolls her eyes before turning back forward to keep walking ahead, does not turn fast enough to hide her smirk. There may be progress to be made there after all.

You do not enter the forge. There are far too many signs of Sharran occupation. You were never really familiar with Shar and her followers, but the more you find and learn along your travels, the more you’re starting to think that they are, in fact, the evil cult that most people seem to make them out to be. So you send Shadowheart and Halsin back to camp—the druid, blessedly, seems to understand what’s going on and calmly herds Shadowheart away despite her protest. 

Then, after a horrible fight that you only managed to get the upper hand in because of a bribe, you take Nere’s head. You swallow the bile that rises in your throat while you shakily slice through his neck, and make a quick escape. The gnomes are safe and free, and the Rothé don’t have to worry about being harmed any longer. Wyll volunteers himself, Gale and Lae’zel to take gnome and rothé alike to relative safety, and Gale leaves you with a sending stone, just in case. 

Astarion, Karlach, and yourself return to the colony. Once the Sovereign has been given the drow’s head—you think you see some other myconids spreading spores all over it afterward and try your best not to think about why that is—you are not only granted access to their vault, but the Sovereign tells you of a contraption set up somewhere in the Underdark that simply leads Up.

“That sounds an awful lot like an elevator,” Astarion comments as you’re rooting through the chests and barrels in the ‘vault’. “And a wonderful way to get back to sunlight.”

“Yes, I’m sure it’s sunlight you’re excited for, and not the prospect of a fresh meal that hasn’t had the smell of damp and rot sink into it,” you snark, without much bite behind it. You don’t bother trying to stifle the cackle that bubbles up your throat when you hear Astarion gag. “It’s broken, anyway. Halsin checked it out earlier when Scratch mentioned something about a platform.”

”Figures,” Astarion spits. You hear him throwing something back down into a chest before slamming it shut. “This whole thing has been a waste. There’s nothing in here worth anything at all.”

You feel your outrage rip up your spine, and you straighten, taking a deep breath. You exhale slowly, though; if this were anyone else, you might tear into them about how helping people is never a waste of time. Regardless of how much or little you get rewarded for your effort. If you were a pinch more cynical, you might even add that it returns to you in the end either way. If there was ever a time that you needed an ally that can move in places and ways that you can’t, the Myconid would be a wonderful force to call on.

You turn your tongue behind your teeth and say none of this to Astarion. You bite the inside of your cheek and count to ten, ignore how the vampire’s leaning in toward you to try to get your attention. He’s prattling on, yet again, about how your bleeding heart will get all of you killed.

You place a hand on Astarion’s chest for some distance—the bastard loves ignoring the concept of personal space and by the gods even that, you can’t hold against him, and you’re beginning to think maybe he has a point with the bleeding heart spiel—fingers splayed. Wordlessly, with your other hand palm-up, you offer him the amulet you had found.

“It’ll sharpen your silver tongue,” you explain, proud that your voice comes out calm and even. “I’m heading back to camp. Just don’t kill anyone on your way out.”

You turn to leave without looking at Astarion. You’re just… tired. Half your companions constantly question you and needle you for your compassion and yet no one has offered themselves up to take the helm. Astarion’s the most confusing; half the time he seems overjoyed by your direction, and the other half he makes it sound like you’re trying to rip the fangs right out of his mouth.

Sunlight will make things better. Sunlight, and fresh air that hasn’t been recirculating the same spores for gods know how long.

You found the crèche, alright.

Nestled in the mountains and having completely overrun and overtaken a monastery of Lathander. It makes something within you profoundly uncomfortable. You don’t know if you want to ask whether or not there was anyone left to be slayed when the githyanki settled, or if everyone had already passed. You don’t know which answer would be better, if there even is a better answer.

Karlach seems to be sharing in your unease, as does Wyll. Gale seems to be far more fascinated with the architecture and various magical contraptions—including a Guardian of Faith—and Shadowheart makes her displeasure known at every other turn. Even Halsin was uncomfortable enough, though probably because of the proximity to the cursed shadowlands, that he returned to camp. The only one who seems remotely as excited as you, though for violently different reasons, is Astarion.

At dawn the day after your arrival at the monastery, while on your habitual ‘stroll’ about the area around camp, you find the vampire perched, sat on the edge of a cliff, looking out at the rising sun.

You hesitate for a moment but don’t break your casual stride. Astarion’s probably heard you approach, but you aren’t sure if you want to encroach on his privacy. He seems to be rather reserved about enjoying things at all, but even moreso when it comes to the small pleasures of life that he had been robbed of.

He doesn’t turn to look at you, not really. But you can tell even at a distance that his eyes are on you nevertheless. You take it as the invitation it is and slowly trek over. You lower yourself to the rocky ground below and let your legs hang over the edge of the cliff, same as him. Cradle your hands in your lap and simply take a moment to observe the sunrise.

If you didn’t know the decay and corruption that awaited you after this place, you might even be tempted to say this view looked magically peaceful.

You let yourself remain there, with Astarion, in silence. When the sun has finally risen enough to separate from the horizon, you take a deep breath and push yourself back onto your feet. You don’t plan on saying anything, but when you’ve turned and taken a few steps away, you hear Astarion speak, though quietly.

“I’m sorry, for being so harsh.” He’s still resolutely staring out over the land when you turn to look at him.

You take a moment to consider your words. “Thank you,” you start. “I accept the apology.” The rising tension you see going through his spine makes you add, “…and the offer to help me go through our enormous chest of books to sort out what we want to sell.”

Astarion finally turns then, a look of indignation and a protest clearly hanging on his tongue. He shuts his mouth when he sees your smirk, though, and sighs. 

“Ugh, fine. I suppose I’m the one who keeps bringing them back, anyway.”

The kaith’vis—or whatever the whole unworldly hells the “purifying” machine Lae’zel had been lauding as the best and only solution to your involuntary headmate situation is supposed to be called—is useless. Worse than useless, even! You’re seething the entire time the rest of your companions are trying to settle things with… fuck, you can’t even remember the name of the gith who had carefully guided Lae’zel into the contraption that would have, inevitably and infallibly, killed her.

Karlach has a warm, gauntlet-clad hand on your shoulder. It isn’t so much grounding in the way that she’s tethering you to your senses; you’re just lucid enough through the rage to recognize that your emotions will not allow you to think in anything resembling a straight line. Grounding more in the way that she’s placing most of her weight onto the hand on your shoulder to prevent you from moving. Or shaking all over the room. You briefly eye a tapestry that looks awful fun to climb and tear apart.

Wyll very subtly jabs you in the kidneys. You sniff inconspicuously and turn your attention back to the conversation at hand. Ghustil is the woman’s name—and she’s yet again complaining that her contraption has exploded. She’s also categorically refusing to believe that the machine wasn’t somehow tampered with.

She’s not wrong. Not really. Distantly, you get the feeling that your Dream Visitor is awfully smug about the whole thing. You don’t think it should feel any kind of accomplishment from this. Sure, Lae’zel is alive, but blowing up the machine was unnecessary, and the argument between the gith is, in fact, starting to fray your very last nerve.

No, Ghustil is probably right. This… “purifier” probably wasn’t tampered with, and likely was functioning just as expected. You swallow past the uncomfortable lump in your throat at the thought of the amount of people—likely not just the gith—who must’ve been pleasantly led to their death in that chair. 

Well. What used to be a chair, anyway.

“Alright, I’ve heard enough,” you announce, before making your way to Lae’zel’s side as cautiously as you can manage. “I’ll be at camp. Handle this whichever way you think is best.”

Lae’zel’s frown shifts a bit; nothing aggressive, but something closer to confusion. You’re too annoyed and sickened to care. You just want to return to your bedroll, bury your face into Scratch’s fur—and the owlbear cub, if you’re lucky—and hope that tomorrow will bring perhaps something less upsetting.

Once clear of the walls of the… do you call it a crèche, now? Or do you still call it a monastery? Regardless, once you’re finally back outside into the fire-red glow of the setting sun, you feel your chest expanding.

And then, just like that, it feels like your entire torso is in a vice.

The tightness in your chest, the difficulty breathing, your sight swimming behind tears and a headache that begins clawing at the inside of your skull. You haven’t had an episode like this in quite some time, and given the companions you have with you—some of whom will inevitably come check on you with how expeditiously you removed yourself from the room—you find a nearby tree to lean against and try to regain control of yourself.

Your mind screams at you that it’s pointless, that no amount of calming yourself will change anything about the things filling you with dread, but you endeavour to start by finding five things you can see: the sun, blinding as it is; the tree; the grass around it; your gauntlets; and your boots. You whisper the words out loud in an attempt to regulate your quickened breathing without having to think much about it. 

Then you try four things you can touch: the warmed and worn cotton inside your gauntlets; the rough bark of the tree; the uneven ground beneath you littered with rubble and pebbles; and the leather cord around your neck.

You take a moment to try taking a deep breath. It’s not great, not yet, but at least you can take a few breaths without hiccupping. 

You’ve just named one thing you can hear—the wind through the trees—when you hear Astarion calling out for you. Screw your eyes shut against the dread of being seen like this before removing the violin strapped to your back and moving to sit with your back against the tree. There’s no real point in pretending that looking at the sun made your eyes water and your cheeks red, so you don’t. 

You determinedly keep your gaze on the outstretched legs in front of you and mindlessly pluck at the strings of your instrument. 

You decide to school your expression into something more passive, without erasing the upset that clearly had you walking out of the monastery.

“Get it over with, Astarion,” you call out, once you hear the vampire is within a few feet of you. “On with the insults so I can get back to trying to figure out how to save all of us.”

Astarion stays quiet, and you feel your pulse drumming in your ears louder and faster. You hear him sit down, slowly, still a respectable distance away from you. There’s a moment when you feel his eyes on you, but before you’re unnerved enough to say anything about it, Astarion speaks up.

“I know what it is, you know,” he starts, and his cadence is almost... reassuring? Calming? The thoughts humming like bees in your head lull for a second. Kindness and understanding are not what you would have expected from a vampire spawn, but Astarion continues and interrupts your rumination. “The shortness of breath, the lightheartedness, the... inability to think.” He pauses long enough for you to turn your head, just enough to properly see him in your periphery. You think you see him grin. “The crying.”

“...please get to the point,” you ask, but with how tight and raw your throat feels, it almost sounds like a plea.

There’s a sigh—not terribly put-upon as you’d been concerned, but more of a resigned sound—before you hear Astarion stand up, only to come crouch directly in front of you. Cold fingers work around your neck, and for a moment you think you almost feel scared. But then thumbs gently press under your chin to lift your head and all but force you to look him in his deep-red eyes.

“Darling,” Astarion starts gently, and there’s something about his voice that says sincere and listen to me that you can’t ignore, but you also can’t ignore the way it makes you wary.

Astarion isn’t sincere. Astarion’s never sincere. That much you know. 

You open your mouth to speak—though you’re not sure what you even intend to say—but Astarion takes one of his hands away from the too-warm skin of your neck to cover your mouth. 

“Hush. You’re under too much pressure,” he begins, and incrementally, you can see his frown deepen as he speaks. “You’ve been traipsing around the Sword Coast with this grand idea that there’s a way to spare us all from becoming–eugh–illithids. Very well and good. And then you found you had a vampire with a cruel master. A tiefling with a ticking time bomb for a heart, a wizard who got on the wrong side of a goddess, and a cultist who’s been brainwashed into thinking her way is the only way.”

You pull Astarion’s hand away from your mouth. “Shadowheart or Lae’zel?” 

“Yes,” he responds shortly, and withdraws both his hands. “For some reason you’ve had the brilliant idea of assuming responsibility for all our lives. Do you think this is reasonable?” 

It’s not. You know it’s not. It’s absolutely insane, and you’d have said so to anyone else who’d asked the same thing. But your mouth remains open and silent and your throat feels too tight. 

“Right. Glad we agree.” Astarion gets up, and this time you only spend a fraction of a second marvelling at how easily he moves his limbs. Flex your hands and take another fraction of a second to wish you had so much as a quarter of his grace. 

“Who else, Astarion?” you ask quietly, and you shove the butts of your hands into your eyes as soon as you feel the burning. “No one else cares! Gale’s happy blowing himself up for his stupid, insufferable mistress, and Karlach can’t be arsed to care about life or death as long as she just gets to touch someone!”

“Then talk to them.” 

The reply is so short, but spoken with such a lack of venom or frustration that it nearly immediately takes the wind out of your sails. 

“T… talk to them. That’s your great solution?”

Astarion’s back is to you, and his hands are clasped behind his back. He’s staring off into the horizon, the clouds darkening there as the sun sets at both of your backs. 

“Show them that the ones who betrayed them weren’t the only ones who cared,” the vampire says over his shoulder, and swiftly turns on his heels to walk away. He pauses, next to you, but doesn’t look down. “I might even be tempted to say that it’s starting to get to me, too.”

He’s gone before you can process what he’s said, nevermind answer back.

Betrayal, huh.

You gently lay your violin and bow on the grow next to you,  bring your legs up and hug your knees and let yourself cry, heaving and coughing and screaming and all. This time, at least, you tell yourself it’s just to vent. Just to get all the ugly out so you can prepare yourself and your words. 

You would speak to Gale, first. You have no idea when or how—and you’re definitely going to want to write down what you want to say thirteen different times to drill it into your brain and make sure you don’t forget anything—but out of everyone at camp, despite being the one with a literal divine-tier problem…

You think he might listen.

Taglist

@abigailmoment @hfxgamora @gayfiretruck @starryselenaria

[cambria-writes]

Chapter 3 of like a fist is done!!

It's a bit over 4,6k words long, but I'll be real I'm not sure how I feel about it. The more I write the more I find myself kind of... painting over the reader with a thin coat of "I'm on the fucking spectrum and boy is it showing right now"

And I just don't know how that's going to vibe with people lol. I mean probably just fine, but I'm not sure that my writing is doing justice to like, the internal struggle I do through in moments like what the reader's going through, or justice to how genuinely either helpful or significantly amplifying someone's attempt to calm me/you/us down might be.

Anyways the quest for a proof/beta reader is still on though I'm not terribly adamant about it. I'll start writing chapter 4 for now and then see how I feel about proofreading 15 minutes worth of text later I guess!

[cambria-writes]

Well, you know, some bathroom graffiti offers insight.

[cambria-writes]

Well, you know, some bathroom graffiti offers insight.

[cambria-writes]

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, there will be a tree outside your bedroom window. It is very important to romanticize this tree as much as possible.

[cambria-writes]

authors! go to your ao3 dashboard, click on statistics, look at your totals and tell me how many hits you have?

[cambria-writes]

lil wip for a carte blanche commission lol

[cambria-writes]

How to OC post without being an artist (or spending money)!

As much as I yelled about OC-posting, some people said that they struggled to know what exactly they should be posting. Obviously the answer is whatever you feel like but if you’re already aimless, that answer isn’t very helpful. Additionally, not everyone knows how to draw (which I think is an obvious method of OC-posting) so I wanted to give some ideas for what people could post for their OC! This will be split up into different sections.

Creating visual representations of your OC

Disclaimer: I will not suggest nor support the usage of generative AI. OCs are about creating something yourself, not allowing a computer to do it for you.

Outside of commissioning someone else for art, it can be disappointing and frustrating to not have any visual representation for your character. An easy way to get a representation of your character is to use Picrew, Meiker and other similar sites. There’s a large number of art styles, types of fashion, species, that can all be used to make your OC and that amount only grows by the day. Many of these websites can be accessed on PC and mobile and take very little processing power.

However, this can be limiting at times since you might not find exactly what you’re looking for, especially if your OC has a unique combination of features. For something with more customisation, you can use video games with character creation to make a version of your character. I personally would recommend games like The Sims or Skyrim as both have very active modding communities. This way, if a certain type of clothing or facial feature isn’t present in the base game then you can often find someone who has created a mod that adds it in instead. This does require you to have access to a computer that can run not only the game but the mods as well.

Another option would be using a program like Vroid Studio to make your character from a base model. This has both a mobile and PC version, although I will primarily be speaking from a PC perspective. The mobile app, while able to create a character from scratch, is a lot more limited than the PC version. The great thing about Vroid is that there’s a lot of user-made content that you can often get for free through websites like Booth, as well as many tutorials for beginners to follow along with. Again, this requires a computer that is able to run it. I would recommend against using Vroid on a laptop as it will likely be too intensive for it.

My final suggestion for character visuals is to take a character from anime or cartoons and simply edit them. This was actually how I first got into making original characters! You can recolour their hair or outfits with an editing program (with some free examples being FireAlpaca, Krita or GIMP) and even edit different images together to create something more unique. Please only do this with characters from existing media and avoid using fanart for this.

Other OC visuals

Other than just what your OC looks like, there are other ways to visually put together your OC. Moodboards are the most obvious example of this, but you can also edit other things such as putting together outfits for them or finding pictures of items they would keep in their bag.

If you have multiple OCs, you can create fake text conversations between them using a number of websites. These can be as silly or as serious as you like!

Finally, you can always build them a pinterest board. I am a massive pinterest enjoyer and not only can you use pins that others have posted to pinterest, you can add your own from off the site. 

Writing

Beyond writing out your characters’ story, there are numerous other things you can write. Keeping in line with what you’ve already written, you can re-write scenes from alternative perspectives. These can add context to what is seen in the main story, as well as flesh out background or side characters and their relationship to your other OCs.

Another fun thing to write is non-canon scenes. Write a beach episode! Write about a character getting sick and someone else having to take care of them! There are countless ways to draw your OCs interacting with their world or other characters that wouldn’t necessarily ever fit into the “main” story.

Next is genre changes. If you had to categorise the genre of your OCs’ current story, what would it be? Now image what if the genre was something completely different? Romance to mystery… Slice of life to horror… Part of the challenge is figuring out what story beats remain the same and what gets changed, including character dynamics! And of course… Alternate Universes. There are too many types of AUs to list but some of my favourites are superpowers, mafia, zombies, time loops and time-travel-fix-its. These are similar to genre-changes but often include a number of AU specific tropes. If you’re struggling to figure out the staples of a certain AU or what kind of AUs exist, there’s a really good page about alternate universes on Fanlore.org!

Other ideas

These are ideas that didn’t quite fit into the other categories.

First is music playlists! There are two types of these. The first is a playlist of songs that describe a character and their story while the second is a playlist of songs that the character would listen to. Some people like to combine the two as well! There are no rules to this, simply have fun listening to music and picking out songs that remind you of your OCs.

Second is incorrect quotes. I remember these used to be beloved by fandom and now they can be beloved by you and your OCs! The concept of incorrect quotes is that well-known and funny quotes from pop culture (such as memes or movies) get written out and your characters are assigned a line of dialogue. While there’s a website that’ll generate these incorrect quotes for you, I personally find more fun in coming across quotes organically while scrolling social media and realising that they fit my OCs almost perfectly.

Finally, ask games. These typically take the form of lists of questions or prompts with emojis or numbers next to them. People can send in the relevant emoji or number and you then answer the corresponding prompt. There used to be a kind of “ask game etiquette” where if you reblogged an ask game from someone, you sent an ask from the list to them as well. This way, it allows the game to continue circulating and you can spread the joy of OC-posting with others! It can also lead you to making friends within the community.

And that’s it for my post! If you have other suggestions for kinds of OC-posting then I would love to see them!

[cambria-writes]

entirely serious about this btw

Show of hands does anyone wanna proof/beta read what I have for chapter 3 of Like a Fist so far cause I could use the help/motivation

[cambria-writes]

to prevent myself from going insane, i have updated me desktop tumblr theme. i am about 99.98% sure no one actually as seen it, but it makes me feel better.

[cambria-writes]

Show of hands does anyone wanna proof/beta read what I have for chapter 3 of Like a Fist so far cause I could use the help/motivation

[cambria-writes]

i wish i could scoop out all the words and stories inside my head with a butter knife and spread it onto a document and that was it

[cambria-writes]

Happy New Year!

I’m so sorry for the radio silence since I posted chapter 2 of the Astarion fic. A few days ago I would’ve said that I just couldn’t get myself to sit down and write for more than a few minutes, that I didn’t feel like going through pages upon pages of lore and gameplay to be able to keep writing chapter 3—which is at a neat 3.8k last time I checked I think—but the reality is that, ever since our beloved feline passed away, I haven’t been the same. I was already on a mellow decline before that, but it’s just been in a nosedive, an absolute free fall since then.

I’ve had some long and very hard talks with my husband and worked through some things. It involved a lot of autistic meltdowns and stereotypical misunderstandings but I think we’re good. I mean I’m definitely not magically good but I think that if I can get myself back on track, I should be… I should get better. Most of what’s getting to me is all the grief—I’ve lost a lot of people since the pandemic, and I don’t think I’ve been able to grieve most of them properly with the stress I was under at the time.

Anyways. I don’t know how long it’s going to take before I can sit down and write again—maybe soon, maybe not—but I appreciate anyone who’s stayed around so far, the new followers and the reblogs!

I want to write again so badly. I hope that you won’t find the wait too hard.

Many good fortunes to all of you in the new year, santé et prosperité!