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[nottabear]

Diary of a Dark Consort

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To My Love

My love.  My heart.  My one and only love.

I am lost, floating adrift in the ocean.  The raft that holds me afloat is made with nothing but my hopes and dreams: hopes for better days, dreams of the shared innocent love we once had.  They hold me atop the water’s surface for now, but I fear the ship will soon break. 

How long can my raft last in turbulent waters? 

How many more waves can wash over me before I am torn away from my raft and lost in the sea?

Every day I watch you pick away at my raft, letting waters flood in.  I try to patch the holes with the little time you give me, but it is never enough.  The raft still has holes, water still seeps in.  My feet sit in the puddle forming at the bottom of my raft.  Kick my feet, make the water splash about, a final moment of childlike joy before I truly start to sink.  Before I start to drown.

Will you save me, my love, when I am drowning?  Or will you hold my head under the water?

Do you enjoy watching me drown?  Do you take pleasure in my pain?  Do my tears make you smile?  Crystals falling from my eyes, just for you.  Are my screams for help music to you? 

I cannot fathom how you enjoy this, my love.  I refuse to believe this is you.

You would never think of treating me so cruelly.

Or would you?

Are these just hedonistic fantasies you have always had, but never the power to make them a reality?

I do not believe you want to hurt me; this is all just a mistake.  You do not know the strength of your new powers.  You must not understand how much you have been hurting me.

These are all accidents, mistakes, my love.  I can forgive you.  Can you forgive me for taking so long to learn my place?

I believe will come around again.  We will share our love together again one day.  I just need to give you time.  Be patient.

You will learn the damage your new powers cause.  You will stop hurting me one day.  You will share your love again with me one day.

I can give you all the time you need, my love.

I just never want to lose you; never lose the love we shared.

I will hold on to it, our old love, keep it stored in a locket and look at it throughout the day when I believe no one else is around to see it too.  Smile softly to myself, memories dancing in my mind as I stare into the locket of our old love.

Do you see it too?  The warm glow of the fire.  Two bodies nestled together, one blanket cascading on them both.  Do you hear the soft hums, the crackling of firewood?  Do you feel hands playing in your hair as you drift off to sleep?  I do.

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[nottabear]

Diary of a Dark Consort

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7 Flamerule, 1492

The Lady of the Sun Palace must always act in line, always be proper.  Let none know where you come from.  Lady Morgana Ancunín is not some lowly barmaid from the lower city.  She is the Lady of a nobleman, to a Lord of the people.  She no longer tends to “lowly” patrons.  She only tends to one, her Lord.  She does not entertain the masses; she only entertains her Lord.

A Lady must always be dressed and ready.  Gown neat and clean.  Hair braided like he likes it like a leash.

A Lady must come when called for.  Her name a call bell only he can use.

She must stay when asked to.

Knell when told to.

A Lady must always look her best.  Makeup done by another.  What do I even look like now?

What is the point.  What is the point.  What is the point.

I am always left as a mess when he is done with me.

A drop of blood will always be found on the collar of my dress.  Every gown he makes me wear is left wrinkled, torn, and stained.  My once braided hair is pulled apart, knots I dig at for hours.  My body is left aching in pain, in need.  My mind is left a whirling mess.  So many thoughts I cannot make sense of.  I have so many questions for him I am never able to ask, mixed with the questions I already had festering in my mind.  The mass of confusion is always growing.

There is a cure, but he never gives it to me.

I am always left feeling as if I am nothing, rubbish floating away in the Chionthar.

I feel like I am just a toy for him, his plaything.

But I am not a toy, I am not a doll, I am not a plaything.

I am a person.

I have a name.

I have a mind.

I have emotions that are running ramped.  Thoughts swirling into destructive storms.

He never leaves me enough time to write them all before calling for me again.

I am a pint full of confusion, add a shot of lost, a small garnish of anger.

He calls for me again, I must go.

Till the next, goodnight.

[nottabear]

Diary of a Dark Consort

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5 Flamerule, 1492

There is no more spotlight for me, but I still have a role in this grand production of life.  I may not be on stage dancing anymore, but I have a role of even more importance. 

My role is the consort.  The director’s most favorite, most beloved.  I was specially picked for this role, you know.

I do my best to please the director, I care for him.  I make him happy.

If I play my part well, I will be treasured, I will be eternally loved.

He tells me so. 

But when I refuse to play my role?  I will be punished.

It really is that simple.  I am a fool for not understanding that sooner.

This is how it works anywhere in this grand production of life.  If you do not play your part to the best of your ability, you will be punished.  It is so you always strive for your best, so you can improve.

I will know my place now.  I can play this new part.  I can follow the new rules.

I love to act; I love to perform.  I can do that for him, better than anyone else.  That is why he chose me; he knows I am the best.

If it will make this cruelty stop.  If it will put an end to these games

I can assume the role of the consort.

If I play the role well things WILL get better.  It must.

[nottabear]

Bothersome beast, comforting friend

[nottabear]

"Astarion with the Head of Cazador", a Caravaggio pastiche painting.

Did this earlier in the year. I never had a tumblr before so I'm sharing it now.

[nottabear]

Diary of a Dark Consort

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3 Flamerule, 1492

This beatless heart aches with so much longing.  A longing for the life it lived before, a life it can never return to. 

All I feel in place of my once beating heart is an ever-aching void.  Aching for the life I had.  Aching for the new life I thought I would now have.

I long for the wilds.  Living stories to one day share with others.

I long for my family’s tavern.  Always bursting with life.

I long to watch the sun rise, or even a sun set.  Just seeing the sun one last time.

I long for the sun’s gentle rays to tickle my skin, not turn it to ash.

I long for the feeling of a full belly from my mother’s cooking.

I long for my mother’s hug.

I long for my father’s old words of wisdom.

I long for my brothers pestering as I try to write in our shared room.

I long for the various shops and stalls scattered in the lower city.

I long to talk to my friends, to hear their stories and share my own.

This is not where I thought I would be. 

This is not what I wanted. 

I did not want to spend lifeless days confined to the walls of a palace. 

I wanted to spend my life adventuring.  I wanted to meet new people, hear the amazing stories of their lives. 

I spent countless nights working in my family’s tavern, hearing about all the grand adventures our patrons had.  I took every story shared with me and immortalized them with ink and paper.  I turned my friends into knights and kings fighting the realm’s evils.

I did live in one of my stories for a few moons.  It was a new unwritten story but one I knew would one day be shared around a tavern table. 

I uncovered secrets from centuries past.  Killed a hag, twice (never bargain with them).  I fought creatures formed in the depths of shadow (blessed be the moon light that guided us home).  I killed shapeshifters, more than I can even count.  I killed the chosen of the dead three, cut through them like butter.  I killed a devil in his own home! 

I had my own story.

A true story.

A real story.

They were not fragments of imagination and other peoples’ adventures glued together.  They were real tales and troubles of Morgana Salvar Ancunín.  Of me. 

I did that. 

I did so much.

At first when the city was attacked by illithids and the mind flayer ship took me, I was terrified.  I thought I was going to die any minute, never seeing my parents again, my last words ever being screams for my brother to run back home. 

When the ship crashed, and we woke on the beach, I thought I would transform into a monster any moment; start to sprout tentacles from my mouth, develop purple slimy skin, hunger for brains.  I thought I would never see any of my family or friends again.  All hope was lost in my mind. 

Some days later with the help of Wyll my perspective changed.  I found the moonlight in the darkest night; it was my opportunity to start adventuring like I always wanted.  It was my opportunity to live one of the stories shared around tavern tables and I would not squander it.  I would keep my bright smile, I would continue to play my music, I would keep writing every night ensuring I forgot no details from the journey.

After we saved the city, I thought I would spend every day writing about that adventure before starting a new one.  I would go on to explore the realm, become the true adventuring bard I dreamed of being.  I would collect stories like trinkets, bring them home to share with friends and family before leaving again to collect more trinkets.

Oh, what fool I was.  Thinking I would explore Faerun alone. 

How could I ever stand to be alone? 

I would not last a day without having someone to talk to constantly or someone to protect me. 

That is what Astarion says, that I would suffer alone.  It would be unbearable for me.  An impossibility I would survive more than a day on the road alone.  A bear would attack me; a grimy man would take advantage of my open heart.  I would die from boredom from simply being alone.

That is why I need him. 

I need to stay with Astarion. 

I would not survive in this world without him. 

He keeps me safe from the dangers and cruelties of the world. 

Continue to listen to Astarion, he will keep me safe. 

He knows what is best for me, what is right.

Do not question him.

Never question him.

If I do what pleases him everything will be okay.

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[nottabear]

sunrise

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Halsin

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Diary of a Dark Consort

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30 Kythorn, 1492

Has it been seven days?  Or six?  Maybe five?  Maybe even more?  After the ritual?

When did this start?  When did things start to truly change between us?

Was I blind to it before?  Why am I now just noticing?

When did a gentle touch turn to slicing swords?  When did sweet honied words turn to sour venom?  When did love bites become ravenous attacks draining me again and again, night after night? 

When did my actions stop feeling like my own? 

When did my body start to betray my own thoughts and words? 

When did these strings first appear?

Tell me when it started!

Was it something I did? 

Did I do something wrong? 

I did something wrong.  I must have. 

I must have done something to deserve this treatment. 

There must be a reason, a reason I wake in pain everyday sticky and crusted with crimson.  Is there a reason he pulls me around by my hair, my braid treated like a leash?  Is there a reason he impales me with poison coated words every day? 

I must have done something for my words to mean nothing to him, a reason for my cries of pain pleading for him to stop are ignored.  Ignored like everything else I say.

Tell me I did something wrong!

What did I do wrong?  What action played a foul?  What word did I say that was out of line?

Was it when I tried to visit the tavern without asking first?  Or when I said I did not want to spend the day in his office again?  Maybe it was when I refused to join him for dinner?  Or when I told him to leave me be, to leave my bed chambers?  Was it because I did not want to take his name and erase mine? 

I will take his name now, erase the name of my family.  If it will make this stop.

I will accept anything he tells me; do anything he tells me. 

I just want these cruel games of his to end.  I will do anything; I will say anything. 

I can will be Morgana Sal Ancunín if that is what he wants. 

Tell me what I did wrong!

Tell me how to fix it!

I did something wrong.  All of this is wrong.  Everything is wrong.

wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong

From me.  I did.  My fault.  It is my fault.  

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[nottabear]

Diary of a Dark Consort

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27 Kythorn, 1492

I tried to leave the palace last night.  I need to see my family.  I wanted to see the tavern all lit up, bustling with life.  The tavern would have been packed with patrons, most of them regulars.  All the regulars are dear friends of mine, people that watched me grow up, people I was raised alongside of.  I have not seen any of them in countless moons.  Everyone must have collected so many new stories while I was gone, I want to hear them all.  I want to tell them how my new friends and I saved the city and that I did not die in the attack.  Soon they will be able to read about my adventures, but stories are best shared with a pint around an old table.

I mainly wanted to speak to my mother, seek her advice and wisdom.  Who better to speak to about new love than my own mother?  I learned about love from her and my father.  I watched them make each other happy, giggling like children around each other.  Laughing at jokes no one else knows; stories and jokes locked in a vault, my father and mother the only ones with the keys.  Sometimes they would unlock the vault and pull out a story to share with my brother and I as we drifted off to sleep.

Their love is ancient pillars holding each other up.  Their love is two birds always by each other’s side.  Their love is beautiful, gentle, caring.  The kind of love sung by bards.

I love it.

I want it.

I thought I had it.

For so long I was happy with Astarion.  We were so happy together, even with the looming threat of the Nether brain and his old master.  We were happy.  We were madly in love.

What changed?

What happened?

Why do I feel this love slowly dying day by day?

I barely made it out the front door and to the gate when I was stopped by Astarion.  He interrogated me.  Demanding to know where I was going, why I did not tell him, why I thought I could so easily sneak away.

I was not sneaking away.  I was going to see my family.

If I were sneaking away, I would not have left through the front door.

The sun was nowhere to be found, there was no risk of me burning.

I can control this hunger on my own.  I promised to keep my teeth to myself after all.  I always keep my promises.

I pleaded with him to let me go, to let me go to the tavern just for the night.  I even invited him to come with me if he insists that I cannot leave the palace alone.  I just wanted to see my family, to see my friends. 

He says I am not to see my family. 

Not right now at least.  I will see them during Highharvestide.

That is nearly three moons away!  I do not want to wait that long! 

I want to see my family!

Let me see my family!

My family.

Let me see my family!

Why does he think he can control me like this?  Tell me where I can and cannot go, who I can and cannot see. 

I am a free woman now.  No?  The tadpole is gone, my mind is my own, actions my own. 

He told me I am forbidden from leaving the grounds without him.   I want to run past the gates screaming at him that he cannot control me.  He cannot bar me in this house.  He cannot hold me as a prisoner. 

But I feel the strings tightening, holding me back, anchoring me to this palace.  No matter how much I scream at my body to move, to leave, it does not listen.  The strings are anchoring me to this place.

I told you to cut the strings!

I am not a puppet! 

I am a person.

I have control.

This is my body.  I own my body.  I tell my body what to do, not him. 

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[nottabear]

Teefs!

[nottabear]

Finn’s a cutie but that boy definitely got lost on his way to the clearing in the woods

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[nottabear]

Diary of a Dark Consort

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25 Kythorn, 1492

I feel sick, am sick.  He makes me sick. 

What is happening to me?

I wrote I would say no to him.

I knew to say no.

I thought I said no.

I know I denied him.

I did.  I did.

I yelled at him for tearing away my name, for being cruel, told him to leave me be for the night.

Then why did I wake in his arms, sticky and red.  Bruised and sore.

Woke to acid filling my mouth.

Red and black spilling out from shielded lips, seeping through my fingers. 

Red and black filling the white basin. 

Where do you come from?  I thought I was empty.  Drained.  He said I had been.  Is this what I am made of now, blood and vile darkness? 

I wanted to stay away, to be on my own today, but I couldn’t wasn’t couldn’t             STOP

Stop it.

Follow his coat tail around the palace like a lost puppy.

Beg for his attention like a needy kitten.

Crave his voice as if it is the voice of a God, obey it as so.

Ache for his touch like it is the only comfort I have known.

Makes me sick.

I am sick.

Sick.

Why am I doing this.

I don’t want to be doing this, but something in me makes me.  It makes me. 

Pulls my stings like I am a puppet.

I am not a puppet. 

Someone cut the strings, will you please.

The puppet’s name is Lady Ancunín, but I am not.  I am Morgana Salvar, not a puppet.  I don’t want to be his puppet.  I don’t want to be a puppet.

Snip the strings.

Stop it.

He’s taken my heart, hidden it some place safe. 

He keeps my heart safe.

Oh, so then he loves me, he must love me if he’s taken my heart.  Hidden from me.

He must.  He must.  He does. 

He’s keeping it safe.  He loves me.

I know it.  He must.  Because he chose me.  Of all the others he picked me to be his most beloved, to be his consort.  Replaced my heart with his.  Only me.  He would only do this for me, only for me.  If he did not love me, he would not want me by his side all day and night.  He would not have taken my heart and given me his.

He chose me.

He loves me.

He loves me.  Me.

That is why I live.  For his love.  His love.  His love is mine.  It is.  It is.

This is love.  True love.

No.  Stop.

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[nottabear]

my first mystery box commission

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blushy astarion because why not