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strawbattyshortcake · 3 months ago

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Redirect

A Little Death (2/3)

<- 1: Discovery | 2: Redirect

Words: 4912 Summary: Act 1- Part 2. The first fight is over. The Tieflings are safe, Halsin is returned, but a war continues inside and it’s hard to say who’s winning. Astarion’s courtroom skills are rusty and Triel trusts dreams except for when she doesn’t **Content warning for suicidal ideation and attempts at self harm**

The sun is setting as they near the campsite, stopping for one last break to rest their aching feet and for the mortals to put something in their stomachs before they reach the promised party and all the booze that comes with it.

Triel slips away as Shadowheart and Gale rummage through their packs engaged in a good-natured argument over the best treats, as Wyll launches into another retelling of his many exploits, Lae’zel scrutinizing him appreciatively whenever something in his story died.

It wasn’t unusual for the ranger to do this. Triel wanders off, especially into the woods, and inevitably comes back with an armful of mushrooms and bushels of mergrass.

She eats, though, and it’s in his own best interest if his blood supply is well-fed.

Astarion doesn’t have a horse in this race, so he’s not missing out if he leaves the others to squabble over snacks. If he warns her now, there may be something left by the time they return.

Which is how he finds her hideous goat hide armour abandoned neatly in a dry spot by the riverbank. Astarion furrows his brow and raises his gaze along the shore, into the river, and—

Her back is to him, the thin clothes she wears beneath her armour drenched. She’s waded out, waist deep, in the middle of the Chionthar.

He can’t imagine what drow bathing custom would involve a knife. There probably was one, but this certainly wasn’t it. He takes it at first as some deranged attempt at fishing, but she’s just… stopped, tense and frozen mid-river, water rushing around her.

What in the sweet hells is she doing?

He hears her voice but not the words, lost to the roar of the river, but they’re fraught, and she’s not so much immobile as she is held, fighting to move. Something has her.

Stop her! He recognizes the voice from his dreams, but he’s already moving.

Astarion bolts towards Triel, in up to his knees before he really registered the water and feels himself slow. He grits sharpened teeth and pushes harder, sloshing through the river as quickly and quietly as he can, certain that something will drag her down any moment, dimly aware of their dream visitor’s encouragement in the back of his mind.

As he reaches her he sees what he couldn’t from the shore. Triel’dra’s teeth are grit, eyes clenched shut, one hand gripping the side of her head in agony, as she does whenever the tadpole makes itself known.

The knife in her other hand is turned on herself.

She hisses in frustration, arm shaking with effort as some unseen force tries to drive the blade into her heart.

Whatever has her in its grip hasn’t noticed him, and he’s able to grab her from behind, helping brace her arm against the force, trying to wrest the blade from her hand.

“No!” she cries, knuckles pale with the strength of her grip on the weapon. “Let me go.”

“Triel, it’s me. It’s Astarion; I have you. What’s happening?”

The tiny drow writhes in his grasp, impossibly strong, and he can scarcely keep hold of her. He can feel it: the drive of her arm isn’t out, it’s in.

Stop her! Their dream friend insists again. She won’t listen to me.

“Shut up!” Triel says to their unseen ally. She hears it too. It’s the most of anything he’s ever heard in her sombre voice. It’s desperation; she’s pleading. “Let go!”

Triel, who has seemingly no concern for her own safety, who throws herself at fights alone and offers a starving monster her throat each night. Who has been turning to pain and disfiguration for any chance of escape from the parasite in her head. The precipice, the puddle of oh-so-potent wyvern toxin.

The tumblers click into place, the lock slides open. On the sum of the evidence before him, there is only one possible verdict.

“Triel’dra,” he demands, gaping at her, “have you been trying to kill yourself all day?”

“It wont let me,” she snarls, and he understands now why she hasn’t been able to wrench herself free, strong as she is. The tadpole is protecting its host, even from herself, keeping the dagger from her heart, keeping her safe in his grasp and itself by extension. “And she— the dream-duregar, she will not stop shouting—”

“Then listen to her!” Astarion responds, completely baffled. “Is this because that idiot in the grove tried to euthanize you? Because—”

“She is right,” Triel nearly sobs. “Lae’zel was right! You were right. I am a danger, I— if I become a… an illithid, my mind will be— I cannot allow that Astarion, let me go.”

“No,” Astarion snaps, anger fuelling his grip on her as a sudden surge of indignance washes over him. Betrayal. “No, you don’t get to promise— “ he breaks off, biting back the rest of the thought, bile rising. He’d confided in her about Cazador. She had sworn to help him, and he’s surprised how bitter the sting of her abandonment feels, surprised that he’d expected anything more than disappointment. But she’d seemed so sincere, and he’d believed her. More fool him.

To the hells with her: if she wants out, he should leave her to it.

Astarion braces himself against the rocky river bottom and redoubles his effort.

“Damn it, you volunteer us for tiefling resettlement and druid rescue and then leave? Absolutely not!”

He can feel the snared animal of her mind when he reaches out.

She’s not listening.

Triel is in a blind panic he knows all too well, fighting against his grasp, railing against the strange voice in her mind and the worm in her head. He’s tempted to sink his fangs into her neck, for whatever it is in his bite that makes her numb and listless, but squirming like this he may well hit an artery, and she’d want him to.

Nothing Astarion has done can reach her, but there’s one thing he hasn’t tried— the only thing he’s ever been good for, the one thing that’s never failed him.

All he has is a hammer and everyone wants to get nailed.

In his mind’s eye, still linked to hers, Astarion turns Triel in his grasp. Centuries of darkened alleyways make for ample fodder as he conjures the feeling of her hip beneath his one hand, the way his other would slip beneath her jaw and gently tilt, real and intense enough to cut through the static of her desperation.

He kisses her.

The drow goes still in his grasp. Her mind quiets. There’s a sleek plunk as the dagger tumbles from her fingers and slips beneath the waves.

Astarion can feel Triel’s heart pounding through her back against his chest, racing just the way it does when he feeds. He doesn’t need the tether between their minds to know this is where her thoughts drift when he leans in close and brings his lips to her throat. What she wants.

What everyone wants.

Astarion loosens his grip, lets his hands move to rest on her hips. She leans, unconsciously, into his touch. He smiles, a mixture of performance and genuine satisfaction, if not the kind it seems, and leans down to speak softly, just a whisper from the shell of her pointed ear.

“I hope that wasn’t one of the good knives.”

“I took it off of a goblin.”

“Ah,” he replies, still smirking at the quaver in her voice. “No harm, then.”

Triel’dra doesn’t pull away; she rests against him, caught in his embrace, and swallows hard. She cranes her neck, offering, like she’s waiting for him to feed, or perhaps, in hopes of other attentions. If Astarion had anything like scruples, he might call this too easy.

If.

She tries to turn. Perhaps the rocks of the riverbed are slick with algae, perhaps one looses under her foot, but she stumbles, catching herself after a brief dip in deeper water. She’s scarcely a pace away when she rights herself, and when she turns to meet his gaze again, her drow pupils are blown too wide for this light, her cheeks dark with a rush of blood. He can imagine the delicious warmth coming off that flush. He lets his gaze linger on it, on her lips as they part, trying and failing to speak.

Astarion knows this dance all too well, knows just how to fan the flames to make the heat in the scant space between them unbearable.

Dreaded Gloomstalker. Fearsome shadow.

He has her trembling.

“What are you doing out there?”

The tension snaps, the spell broken as they turn towards the voice from the shore, Triel nearly startled back into the water.

Wyll is at the riverside, hands cupped at his mouth to call out to them.

“Some of us,” Astarion calls back, only a sliver of the irritation he’s feeling slipping out in his voice, “don’t want to show up to a party reeking of goblin entrails.”

He has to hide a canary-eating grin as he glances over his shoulder and finds the ranger still frozen, stock still in the rushing water, wide-eyed, colour still high in her cheeks. “Shall we?”

She jumps at being addressed and stiffly nods her head, hastening towards the shore, unable to meet his gaze.

The sense of accomplishment does little to quell the sense of regret as he reaches the shore and drags his sodden armour out of the river. He’s not about to show that in front of Wyll, though, and does his best to saunter rather than squelch his way past the warlock, and to ignore the puddling boot prints he’s leaving in his wake.

Astarion pretends to ignore Triel splashing out a moment later, but listens intently.

“You look… pale,” Wyll says, cautiously. “Did he—?”

“No. No, everything is fine.” Triel’s voice is small and soft, and she says no more about it.

There’s merciless teasing when he sops his way back to the campfire, his armour heavy with river water. “Yes, well,” he snipes back at Shadowheart’s laughter, “running water is something of a novelty for me, and I got carried away.”

It’s still surreal. Without thinking, he had run into a river. Waist-deep in the fucking Chionthar. And he’s fine. It should have burnt like acid, but it had been nothing more than cool and pleasant, the way the setting sun does nothing but warm his skin.

Thankfully, he has no more need for clever retorts and can let the lump in his throat sit until it passes.

The cleric does raise a wry eyebrow when Wyll and Triel return, Triel’s leather armour draped over her arm, drenched herself. She glances back to Astarion, looks between them conspiratorially, but doesn’t comment.

Triel is quiet the rest of the way back to the campsite, but that’s nothing new. Not to the others, at least, who don’t bother to take in her stiff spine and darting eyes. More so than usual, anyway. The drow is always wound like a spring, but this is different.

She is very pointedly Not Looking at Astarion.

At long last, soggy trudging gives way to familiar forest and the distant sound of merriment. The campsite is alight with activity, drink shared freely between jubilant tieflings and druids alike, the bard they’d encountered plucking away at her lute.

Astarion retreats to his tent to peel off his waterlogged clothes, pour the Chionthar out of his boots, and wriggle into something dry… and tight, low cut, and enticing. Not any of the garbage he’s picked up on the road— his own clothes, tonight. He’s on the hunt, and the game’s afoot.

When Astarion emerges back into the night air, it’s easy enough to find a fresh bottle, a grateful tiefling handing it over gladly. He’s not bothered to remember which is which. There’s the old leader, the wizard, and the rest of them, and this is one of the latter. He smiles, takes it politely, but the awestruck look she’s giving him is making his skin crawl. It’s not how he’s used to being stared at, and as he looks around he finds it echoed on all the other faces that catch his eye. Smiles, drinks raised in cheers, all expectant and eager.

He uncorks the wine with his teeth and takes a swig. It’s foul, but he’s far too sober to deal with all this… fawning.

Astarion would have left them in a heartbeat, if he had one of those. It’s the drow they want, her bleeding heart that spared them.

He grimaces as he takes another sip of the wine. There was a time he would have enjoyed it, anything to drown out the taste of rat and roach, but now it’s just sour and corky, falling short of what he’s really craving.

He finally catches sight of her, skulking around the edge of the party, trying to dodge anyone’s notice. She looks as uncomfortable as he feels. She’s come from the direction of the riverbank, where he knows Wyll is off sulking, for whatever reason he thinks he has.

She slinks, one by one, to check in with their companions, and then finally settles beside the massive archdruid observing from the edge of the wood.

Astarion’s mouth twitches, a flicker of irritation.

The old bear is eyeing her like a fresh honeycomb.

Astarion would know that look anywhere— he survived on it for two centuries.

He tries not to watch too conspicuously over the bottle raised to his lips, not to look too intent. It’s the jealousy of a dog with a bone. Something he wants, someone threatening to take it away. But if she’s noticed Halsin’s naked intent, it doesn’t seem to be affecting her— at least not the way that his had.

He has nothing to worry about.

Astarion releases a breath he doesn’t need, feels the tension drain from his shoulders as she finally drifts away from Halsin, and there’s nowhere left to go to but him.

She creeps towards his tent, pauses a respectable distance away and idles like she means to be there. Like she’s waiting for him to chase her away.

“Do you need an invitation, darling? I know the feeling.”

Triel approaches, a meaningful pause before she steps onto one of the rugs that marks the borders of his quarters in their camp. He welcomes her with a playful bow.

“You know,” he muses as she settles awkwardly into his space, “I never pictured myself as a hero. Never thought I’d be the one they’d toast for saving so many lives. And now that I’m here,” he takes another swig of his wine and nearly shudders from the acrid taste. “I hate it. This is awful.”

The drow hums, thoughtfully, not dissenting. “I like celebrations, at home,” she says, looking uneasily out at the crowd. “But they are to celebrate a harvest, or honour a deity. I can simply observe; I am not accustomed to eyes on me, let alone strange ones. It is…” just for an instant her gaze meets his, then drops again, hurriedly. “Overwhelming.”

“Oh, I’ll take the adulation, don’t misunderstand. I’d just prefer for their gratitude to come in a more useful form than… what, a pat on the head and vinegar for wine? Here.”

Triel'dra takes the bottle when he offers it, takes a tentative sip, and considers.

“See what I mean? Awful.”

“I know very little about surface wines.” Is all Triel says as a review, though she’s clearly being diplomatic. Astarion can feel something more she’s not saying as she passes it back. Instead, she watches, brows furrowed, as he takes another gulp and represses another grimace. “If you find it disgusting, why are you drinking it?”

Astarion’s stomach churns as the bitter wine stings his tongue, burns his throat.

Disgust has never stopped him before. It’s a thing to be endured, ignored.

He shrugs, gives her a sly smile instead, pushes down the taste in his mouth and the pit in his belly. “Because this awful plonk is the least awful of the plonk on offer, and tipsy is tipsy. So,” with a nod of his head he indicates towards the nearest of the open crates the tieflings had brought with them. He’s been watching partygoers rummage through it all evening. “What are you having, darling? Red? White?”

He starts for it, and can’t help a smirk when she trails after.

“I have tried a bit of both, I think, since I have been on the surface, but….” she shrugs, peers quizzically into the crate when they stop. He’s seen her take sips, here and there, of the garbage they’ve found in old cellars and the abandoned packs of long-dead travellers, but that kind of swill is hardly going to elicit an appreciation, especially if she’s used to better.

“You know, I’ve heard stories about drow wine. It’s green, isn’t it? I can’t remember the name, heard it in passing from Patriars slumming it in the Lower City, but—”

“Yes,” she snaps.

Astarion raises an eyebrow. It was a brief flicker of impatience, and it seems to have surprised her as much as it had him. Triel’s eyes dart, her shoulders tense and she grabs the first bottle that catches her eye.

“What about this one?” her voice is soft again, but there’s a nervousness in it. An overcorrection.

She’s pulled a bottle of tyche pink from the crate and hands it to him for his appraisal.

He’d proposed red or white and of course she’s found the one that is both and neither. He’s never met someone so contrary who didn’t mean to be.

“Congratulations. You’ve found the plonkiest plonk here.”

Triel shrugs, takes the bottle from his incredulous hands, pulls a knife from her boot to uncork it. “It is a pretty colour.”

She takes a drink, the revolted shudder he expects from the rose abomination never manifesting. She contemplates the bottle as the flavour lingers on her tongue, holds it up to the light of the nearest torch, admires the blush hue that can only really be inferred, ruined by the dark glass of the bottle.

“I didn’t think you liked colour.”

“I do. In small doses.” She smiles to herself, fond and private. “If we decide to take the path through the Underdark, I will show you.” The smile fades in an instant as she catches herself.

More promises she may not be around to keep.

He lets out a patient sigh, and at the subtlest hint of meaning, she intuits to follow him back towards his tent. Does Triel’dra dance? He gets the feeling she’d make an excellent partner.

Though he’s going to have a much better sense of her before the night is through.

Astarion settles into the mess of pillows and carpets he’s hoarded into something like comfortable around his tent. She’s sat with him here before, mending arrows while he darns battle damaged clothing in the grey dawn light while the aethen were still sleeping. She hesitates now, has to be encouraged again, all prey-animal still beneath the heat of the look he gives her.

Her cheeks are flushed well before she starts on the wine, toying with the bottle more than drinking as she sits cross legged beside him. Slowly, the excess tension seeps from her shoulders and high alert sinks back into her usual wariness.

They pass a long moment in silence that may have been comfortable in other circumstances, as cosy as he imagines one can be settled outside, a roaring fire in the distance, the chatter of the crowd that feels almost like home if he closes his eyes. He would let this go on, on another night. Enjoy it, even. But she’s sitting too far away, too tense, too clothed.

Astarion takes a calculated risk.

“I can’t believe you were just going to leave me with these idiots.”

She looks down at the bottle of Pink, swirls the contents anxiously. “I waited until the Nightwarden was dead. You had no more need of me; the task was complete and there was an Archdruid to lead you.”

Astarion pauses, bottle almost to his lips, his eyebrows raised. “The bear? You were going to leave us with the bear? The bear that got himself captured by goblins? That bear?”

She follows his eyeline to the far end of the campfire. Halsin hasn’t moved far from the corner he’d tucked himself into, but he’s now sort of…. Absently bobbing back and forth along with the rhythm of Alfira’s lute, in what might very generously be considered dancing.

Triel turns back to meet his arched eyebrow, unbothered. “Master Halsin has been Archdruid of the Emerald Grove for a century. He is well versed in the nature of this Shadow Curse, and has been studying the haszak parasites. He is well-suited to leadership; I am not.”

Astarion smiles at that, and can’t help a chuckle as he helps himself to another swig of wine. “I’m afraid that isn’t up to you, darling— everyone else here thinks otherwise. You know how it goes: greatness thrust upon them, et cetera, et cetera.”

She needs a drink after that, an uncharacteristically deep draught of her wine that leaves her gasping for air when she finally surfaces. Astarion finds himself laughing again, as she takes a deep breath, reaches for the medallion around her neck like it will help.

“Speaking of everyone. I remember the druid, I remember our little chat, but what’s this about Lae’zel? We don’t have a problem with our dear Gith raider, do we?”

“No, no, nothing like that. I was… unwell, last night. Feverish. Lae’zel saw it, determined that I had run out of time, and…” She trails off, shifts uncomfortably as she searches for words.

“Is Elvish easier, darling?”

She nods. Their morning conversations are paying off; Triel’dra’s elvish is improving. It’s still stilted, still formal, but it flows more easily. Stiff, but no longer liturgical.

“Lae’zel took it upon herself to do what was needed. Except…” She sighs, winces. “It was not just myself. She had decided to kill us all and then herself, end the threat of any of us becoming lithid. I… I convinced her to wait.” She looks guilty when she looks up at him, shying further at the look of vexed horror he’s giving her in return.

Astarion rests his face on his fist if only to keep the reflexive outburst in. She’s like a skittish animal he’s finally coaxed close, and if he startles her now there’s no getting her back. He nods, small restrained gestures to encourage her to continue. Yes, of course, the Githyanki had decided to murder them all in their sleep— nothing alarming about that, of course, of course; do go on.

“In the morning, I felt myself, again. But I know it cannot last forever. I remembered the way my arm acted of its own accord when we found that first infected body, how I salvaged the tadpole against my will. I thought on what I knew of other parasites, how they may change their host’s behaviour to suit their own needs. It occurred to me that Lae’zel may not have been able to carry out the last step of her plan. So… I thought it best to… ” She ducks her head, takes another drink, lets the thought trail off without having to elaborate. Then finally, simply, “As you saw, I could not.” She sits cross legged, focused on her bottle, and briefly her gaze darts up, towards him: nervous. Ashamed.

Of the attempt or the failure?

“Well,” He smiles, letting out a deliberate sigh. Astarion softens his gaze and holds on her until a flicker of her eyes ensures she sees it. “It’s a good thing I arrived when I did.”

Slowly, carefully, Astarion has been closing the distance between them. He’s well and truly into her space now, close enough that she has to look up at him, that he can feel the heat radiating off of her living body. “A beating heart is a terrible thing to waste, darling. We aren’t all so fortunate.”

Drow are rare above ground, even in a city as packed as The Gate. She’s the first he’s really been able to study so closely, and now, curled up together, he can read her all too well. Triel’s expressions reveal little, but her body betrays her. In the dark, the bottomless void of her pupils swallow her pale irises whole, scrounging for even the faintest of light. But here, in the firelight, under a bright moon?

“It would be a shame to lose you— let alone to yourself— so needlessly. And I don’t just mean your blood, sweet as it is. I thought we were rather enjoying each other’s company. In fact…”

Astarion can’t help the smirk he feels forming. He’s close enough to see her pupils blown wide, fixed on his, unable to look away even as another flicker of shame passes through her. She stammers something like an apology.

Whether at their camp by the Chionthar or the Elfsong, he knows how to make a crowd fall away. To make her feel as though there’s nothing outside of this, outside of them. He has her.

“Lovely as this party is, darling, I can think of better ways to spend the evening.”

“Oh?”

“Perhaps, once things have died down, we could slip away somewhere. Just the two of us. Make our own entertainment.”

“I—” She stammers, colour rising in her cheeks. He doesn’t need the tadpole to imagine the nervous uncertainty in her head as she turns her attention very pointedly back to the bottle of Pink. A wicked smile plays upon his lips despite himself and he waits until she raises it to her own.

“Oh, and, to be perfectly clear: I do mean sex. With you.”

Triel sputters helplessly as the drink goes down the wrong way. It’s almost endearing.

“You’ll forgive me, I hope, for being direct. Hints don’t seem to be working, and while I could play coy, if that better appeals to your Underdark sensibilities…” He leans in, tantalizingly close, and she stays frozen. “It feels like something of a waste of time, all things considered.” A flicker of something unreadable crosses her face, and she nods, ever so slightly. An almost involuntary confession. “I’ve been in your head, darling I know what you want. Arkhlavae?” he purrs. “Nor.”

Her eyes are wide, shining in the firelight, mesmerised. “Raggath,” she echoes quietly. “Ssinssrigg.”

“Ssinssrigg. I like the sound of that.” He’d always imagined Drow to be a harsh language, with all the throaty consonants and hissing sybillants but it’s… elegant, from her lips. He can see the roots of Elvish in it, still, however distant. “And you were already so eager to die in my arms...”

She swallows hard.

He’s kept his a voice low purr, her replies are barely a whisper. To any onlookers this is a questionably intimate tete-a-tete but he doesn’t mind staking his claim where others can see. If it keeps them from sniffing around, all the better.

He catches Halsin watching.

That’s right, Druid, eat your great hairy heart out.

The sound of careless footfalls breaks the spell, Triel’dea nearly jumping out of her skin when the herd of baby tieflings approaches in their chaotic glee. “Miss Drow!” The little thief (the particularly audacious one, they’re all thieves) reaches them first. He can see her parents nearby, never taking their eyes off her. He doubts they ever will again.

A pang of something twists in his stomach, but that’s what the wine is for.

Arabella stops before them, rocking excitedly on her heels,as the other tieflings skid to a halt around her. The surly one with the eyepatch is skulking nearby.

Triel had been fond of Arabella, and the little girl had glowed from praise from the hero of the hour. Amid her community panicking and despairing, she’d set out to do something, even if she had been caught. Astarion supposes he has to admire her nerve, if not her skill.

“Miss Drow, Miss Alfira wants to see you. She’s been looking for you all evening.”

Before Triel can protest, she’s being helped to her feed by an ebullient swarm of tiny devilspawn, all chattering at once.

There’s sunmelon, and cheese, and—

—is it true you lost an EYE? Can I see? Mol, look—

—Zevlor says we have to go to bed soon, can you talk to him for us? It’s a party—

Triel’dra manages a glance over her shoulder as the children pull her away towards the celebration, her eyes meeting his.

It’s second nature now, to reach out, to stroke the thread linking his mind to hers. He smiles at her as he shows her the secluded place in the forest they know from morning hunts where he’ll be waiting.

And for a moment, before she severs the connection, Astarion feels the heart racing in her chest as if it were his own.

<- 1: Discovery | 2 : Redirect | 3: TBA ->

#tavstartion #Triel Tav #Triel'dra Helvimtor #astarion x tav #AG writes things #bg3 #tav #tavstarion #astar’dra #A Little Death #Suicidal ideation tw #oh would it be #Shadowspawn #that makes it sound like Shart romance but idk it's cool xD #dividers by saradika-graphics

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strawbattyshortcake · 3 months ago

Text

Discovery

https://archiveofourown.org/works/65751538/chapters/169331683

A Little Death (1/3)

Discovery | Redirect |

Words: 3919 Summary: Act 1- Part 2. The first fight is over. The Tieflings are safe, Halsin is returned, but a war continues inside and it's hard to say who's winning. Astarion's courtroom skills are rusty and Triel trusts dreams except for when she doesn't. **Content warning for suicidal ideation and attempts at self harm**

In Astarion’s defence, it’s difficult to tell when someone is acting strangely when their baseline is… well, Triel’dra.

She’d been jittery when they’d reached the Emerald Grove— not afraid of tieflings, it turns out, just of… people. He’s beginning to get the impression— and he’s been in her head, so he’s fairly confident in his assessment— that this… this party they’ve formed is the first group of new people she’s actually met. That have been aware of her presence without very abruptly ceasing to be, anyway. She’s not sure how to be, hovering around the group like an uneasy shadow, terrifying tieflings as she eavesdrops and then reaches out, well-meaning.

All this to say: Triel’dra had been an unnerving mix of quiet and twitchy under the best of circumstances. It’s impossible to say at the time if something she’s doing is strange, not with the context of everything else she does. It’s only after: pieces falling into place too late, tumblers all finally lined up just right, that he sees them for what they were.

(He used to be good at this, he thinks. Evidence. Working backwards from what he has to what he’s missing.)

Exhibit A:

“First sign of change, and I’ll have to stop that pretty little heart of yours,” Astarion singsonged, playfully morbid. “I am open to suggestions. Knives? Poison? Strangu—”

“—Not poison.” Triel Interrupted. This whole exercise had been a game of hypotheticals, gauging her response. To teasing, to flirtation, to their impending doom, prodding at defences and finding gaps in her armour. Her expression was unreadable, but there was an intensity in her pale eyes.

“Oh? Are you sure?” His grin curled wider. “I can think of some nightshades that are deliciously fatal.”

“Not to me,” the drow insisted. “I have survived poisoning too many times. You will need something far more potent than nightshade.”

A point of pride for a drow, no doubt. He gave her his best winning smile and changed the subject, smoothed over the dreary what-if. “Alright, darling, I don’t doubt your constitution. But this is all worst case scenario. Hopefully it never comes to that, hm?”

She smiled faintly and agreed, but still looked perturbed. He made a mental note to step back from the topic of tentacles.

Exhibit B

It wasn’t a secret that she took the rescue of this Archdruid personally. He was to his people what her mother was to hers, as the frantic acolytes descending immediately into reactionary exclusion were to the rest of the drow druids waiting for Triel in their hidden cauldron back home.

So she’d been… tense, as they made their way through the goblin stronghold, but she’d played her part well enough. Acting, subterfuge, these things didn’t come naturally to her, but with a bit of encouragement she’d tried. The goblins were none too swift, not sharp enough to catch the way she winced every time one called her mistress, the hard swallow before she issued a command, the bile she bit back whenever she played in to their view of her as some depraved torturer and pointed her straight to their prisoners, too stupid to notice the loathing in her eyes was all for them.

Deception may not be her forte, but stealth was. She was content to breeze past them, let them go about their horrible business— the roasted dwarf had given her pause, but she’d controlled herself, let them be, kept on her way. She’d been perfectly content to lure the goblin priestess away to dispatch her quietly.

Which is why it should probably have struck him as odd when she’d reacted as she did to the halfling.

As The Drow with whom they were all ostensibly here, she’d spoken to the woman herself while they waited. It had seemed like a perfectly civil conversation from a distance, unusual only in that Triel had come back empty handed. It wasn’t like her to leave a merchant without at least a few tool kits and an assortment of food she found novel.

(She’d never seen a lemon before and seems to find them endlessly fascinating. The first time they’d found one sitting abandoned in a crate, she’d spent the next long while as they walked puzzling over it, sniffing it, blinking at it like she’d never seen anything that colour. Gale had saved her before she’d taken a bite, the spoilsport.)

But she’d come back, jaw tight, eerie silver eyes distant, and said nothing until they’d rounded a corner and she’d stopped abruptly.

“I… I need to take care of something.” And with that, without another word of explanation, Triel had simply melted into the shadows and she was gone.

Then the screaming started.

The party had hastened around the corner to find her standing over the body of the dead halfling as her cohorts guarding the door drew weapons.

A goblin had gone scurrying across the hall towards a wardrum, one of Triel’s arrows sending him skidding into a bleeding heap before he could summon help, but there were others already alerted by the guards, rushing her.

It hadn’t been much of a fight, all told, but it had been perplexing.

“Do you want to tell us what in all nine hells that was about?” Shadowheart had snapped, a critical eyebrow quirked, as she brushed goblin entrails from her armour.

“I’m sorry I did not handle that more discreetly,” Triel had replied, voice soft, eyes darting to the torches dotting the gloomy hall. “It’s too well-lit in here; I should have known I couldn’t do my best work.”

“Well,” Gale tried to force a smile as he moved to pick over the dead merchant’s wares, a little too eagerly. “I suppose there’s nothing else for it now. Might as well see if there’s anything here we can salvage.”

“Looking for a snack, wizard?”

“You’re one to talk, vampire.”

Triel had stayed where she was, a small grimace on her face as she nudged the dead halfling with her boot. Astarion had smiled, sidled up to her, close enough to keep his voice low and sultry in her ear.

“Darling, if you wanted some of her wares, you needed only say so. A little illusion, a gentle touch, and I could have had anything here in a moment.”

“They’re Zhentarim.” She had said in reply, her disdain evident. He’s still waiting, and she seems surprised when that wasn’t a suitable explanation. “I let them live, they go back to their business. They’re here selling smokepowder because the goblins do not have any prisoners to sell them.”

Shadowheart sighed, clanking over from the pile of wares to snag anything Gale hadn’t yet squirrelled away for lunch. “What were you thinking? You know I’m the one who has to patch you up if you get torn to shreds, right? If we hadn’t noticed, you could have been overrun. You could have been killed, and I’m not hauling your corpse back to camp.”

“I…” Triel had seemed surprised at that, blinking at her for a long moment, shifting uncomfortably under the cleric’s steely gaze. It was irritation born from concern, Astarion could tell. She’d taken to the drow. “I am sorry to have caused problems.”

Shadowheart’s expression softened as she nudged her shoulder. “Just… Warn us next time, alright? No more sneaking off.”

Triel agreed, though Astarion suspected she had no intention of obeying.

Exhibit C:

It wasn’t long after that, rescued cave bear in tow, they’d come across what’s-his-face and his gorey little chapel to Loviatar. He’d seemed harmless enough to their mission, content to stay in his corner and beat himself senseless, completely indifferent to whatever they were up to, but then he’d taken one look at Triel and that had caught his attention.

He’d assumed it was something camp related, initially. She was a drow, so everyone took her at once for leadership, but that hadn’t been it.

“That look in your eyes… something terrible has happened to you.” He said it with a sympathy that bordered on perverse, eyes gleaming in the dim light.

Astarion has always assumed anyone who called themselves godly is full of shit. That he was looking at Triel and passed right over himself and two centuries of suffering just proved it. Though, he had avoided direct eye contact. The human was clearly unhinged.

And with a few brief moments discussing prayer— which sounded more and more like a proposition— Triel was braced against the wall as the human took far, far too much enjoyment pummeling her with a mace.

Though, she may have done it just to spite him. For all his bluster, he couldn’t have been very strong, those bare scarred muscles clearly all for show. Triel had scarcely reacted to each strike. She’d barely let out a gasp, even as the scent of her blood filled the air; the human was visibly disappointed.

He and Shadowheart had at least found it entertaining. (The bear, for his part, was audibly distressed all the while, pacing and groaning and just waiting to take a swipe at the Loviatarite if he went too far).

“Im not healing that, if you’re going to be getting up to that kind of thing.” Shadowheart had teased, smiling as they left in search of the priest’s colleague and his unhappy victim screaming from down the hall.

“What kind of thing?” She’d replied, dead serious and once again confounding. A drow unfamiliar with sadomasochism, would wonders never cease. “My head is… I am feeling unclear, and prayer has always been my way of…. Making sense of things? It is not a kind my gods ask for… but he seemed quite certain and it felt worth a try.”

Astarion had raised an eyebrow. “And was it?”

“No.” Triel’dra had sighed, and then in one swift movement kicked in a door and shot a goblin torturer through the heart.

Exhibit D:

Every night since she’d caught him—- since he had confessed to his affliction— Triel has offered him her throat.

He’d just assumed she enjoyed it.

Exhibit E:

They had rested before confronting this drow Nightwarden, the last name on Halsin’s list. Astarion hadn’t visited her that night.

Loathe as he was to pass up Triel’dra’s exquisite vintage, he’d drunk enough goblin blood the day before to tide him over, and he feared that if he overindulged she may withdraw her generosity.

He’d slept that night. He can’t remember the last time he slept.

Triel always sleeps after he feeds from her. He can feel it, holding her as he drinks, when the twilight state of reverie sinks into something deeper.

He’d felt it himself as he rested that evening. His current project was a sunlit garden. He’d been visualising it each night since he escaped the crash, since he’d seen the sun again. As his mind wandered he imagined each stitch, each thread, where they would go if he had the time and materials. He could feel them beneath his fingertips.

But then it changed, interrupted. Not the mental busywork that he uses to disconnect as he rests, but something new and alien, a dream but not a nightmare of scrabbling at unyielding stone walls or bleeding to death in the street. A visitor.

A horrible sound had roused Astarion, finally. He was waking with the gith and the humans.

Astarion groaned as he pushed himself up from his nest of cushions, stretching as he poked his head out to survey the others.

The irritating shriek and droning was Lae’zel at it again, sharpening her weapons at that blasted wheel. Astarion was amazed she had any steel left, by this point, but it wasn’t worth inciting the gith’s ire, so he had pinched the bridge of his nose, took a breath and tried to ignore the ringing in his oh so keen ears.

The others were milling about the space they’d secured. Gale was fussing over his breakfast as usual, but Shadowheart and Wyll hovered around, in some excitement.

From what he overheard, they’d all had the same visitor, all of them, the same dream. All except…

Triel’dra’s tent was empty. She was not hunched in its cramped shade fixing arrows, or fussing over her familiar, or fixated on crushing down whatever questionable moss and weeds she seemed to find everywhere. Most alarmingly, she wasn’t over to wish him good morning. Not just him, mind you, she made her rounds morning and night to greet each of them, but still, he was sure he wasn’t imagining that she always came to him last in the evening and first in the morning.

He was the only other elf and thus the only one awake at dawn, the nights she tranced, but still.

He’d endeared himself to her, is the point. And she was gone.

Astarion left his tent, mumbling something about stretching his legs, and finally found her on a stone bench with the idiot bard that had followed them back to their camp. She’s laid out flat and he’s standing over her doing…. Something. Whatever it is, suddenly the smell of her blood hits his senses. His nose must have been fooling him, because Triel didn’t seem in distress. As Volo worked away, she had been holding herself as though conscious, but still and quiet.

(see Exhibit C).

The smell of blood was overpowering, and she let out the faintest breath of a strangled scream.

Oh, shit.

Astarion darted over just in time to watch Triel’dra’s right eyeball pop from its socket and squelch into the goblin camp mud.

The bard, icepick still in hand, went as pale as Astarion. His smile quavered and he swallowed hard as Triel painstakingly eased herself to sit, her empty socket weeping blood down her cheek. She turned to Volo to look at him from her remaining eye, expression vacant and lost, voice a hoarse whisper. “Did you get it?”

***

“Lady of Sorrows shield you from yourself; what were you thinking?” Shadowheart muttered bitterly as she deemed the socket clean enough. “Wyll, can you put it in?” Her eyes narrow dangerously at Astarion and Gale beside him, just daring one of them to say anything.

“I mean…” Wyll hesitates, his own stone eye shifting. “I’m hardly an expert. It doesn’t exactly come out? And neither will this, once it’s in.”

But he seemed of all of them the least squeamish, and knelt across from where Triel sat cross legged, still dazed, her freckles dark like ink spots against her pallor. “There,” he said, as with a careful hand he slipped the enchanted prosthetic, which Volo had pressed into her hand before fleeing, into place. It was an almost tender gesture, Astarion noted with some annoyance. “Good as new. Adds character, I think.”

She smiled faintly at Wyll, then turned her gaze to the exasperated cleric.

“Well? Is it working?” Shadowheart demanded.

Astarion raised a hand to get her attention, and she turned to look at him. The new eye is subtly different, a pale blue to her silver. It’s not terrible, just… alien. Wrong. It’s not a drow’s eye. “Here, darling, how many fingers am I holding up?” He raises four fingers on one hand, three on the other, and beside him, invisible, his mage hand is held open.

“Twelve.”

This isn’t funny. There’s still precious blood spilling down Triel’s blanched face, her expression distant and pained, but the look on Shadowheart’s is priceless. “No, no,” he says as he reveals the phantom hand. “She’s right. Not such a bad deal, eh?”

“No… no, I suppose not. If I am more useful this way…” Triel shakes herself out of her stupor and forces herself to her feet, unsteady. “I’m sorry. I just…” She sighs, hangs her head, ashamed. “I wanted to go home.”

Exhibit F:

Nightwarden Minthara was dead, which meant it was time to ransack the room.

Halsin, jubilant, had exploded out of bear and into an elf again, hastening back to his grove. Shadowheart looked over the war table as Gale raided bookshelves. Astarion, meanwhile, was helping himself to the Nightwarden’s very, very useful armour. Gorgeous, too. Murderous cultist lunatic she may have been, but the woman had taste.

It was also enchanted, mercifully, so the (frankly excessive) number of holes their leader had shot into it would sort themselves out soon enough.

And said leader was currently in a corner staring at the floor.

It hadn’t been a corner, exactly, as there wasn’t a wall so much as a sheer drop into a chasm, but Triel was at the precipice, looking straight down, stock still, whatever fury had possessed her in battle abated.

Astarion returned his attention to the task at hand, and tried not to mourn the puddle of blood sunk into the dirt beneath the body. Three arrows, in all, he had to yank free or snap to get the armour off of the dead drow. One through her throat that had undoubtedly done the trick, and then another two Triel had sunk into her for good measure. It was so rare to see a flicker of anything from the ranger that even the brief slip of control had been intriguing.

Astarion had a moment to step back and really admire her handiwork as he carefully peeled away his well-worn padded armour and donned the new (and oh, yes: light, durable, thrumming with magic… it would do nicely.) He smirked a little, surveying the overkill, an eyebrow raised, and called over to her. “Not like you to get heated, darling. What did she say?”

It had been a brief comment, something snide-sounding in drow, and suddenly Triel’s newly mismatched eyes were all cold fury.

Triel’dra didn’t respond, didn’t so much as twitch a pointed ear, so fixated on the chasm. Not when he calls out to her again, and not when he draws closer. She nearly jumped out of her skin when Astarion placed a hand on her shoulder.

“What’s so interesting down there?” he asked when she recovered. He could see well enough in the dark, but not like a drow could. Still could, hopefully.

“Hm? Oh. No, nothing. It is too far even for my eyes. Eye?” She shakes her head, dismissively. “It feels… different,” she says, and from her tone he knows the word she means is wrong. “But my vision seems unchanged— I am sorry, were you calling me just now?” She blinks at him, diverted, as though his earlier attempts have only just begun to register.

“I was only wondering what it was she said to get you so…. Worked up.” His smirk returns. It’s a relief not to have to hide his fangs any longer. “She’s the red-eyed kind, the ones you war with. Some spidery blasphemy against your gods, I take it?”

"Something like that...." She trailed off then inclined her head, puzzled. "You are a High Elf; they are your gods, too."

"Someone ought to have told them that." He didn’t bother hiding the disdain he felt, the scoff that slipped out derisive and bitter. They had been travelling together a long while, by then. She tolerated a Sharran, an apostate should have been of little consequence. “I prayed. Every god I could think of for centuries, and nothing. Though…” He chuckled to himself, darkly, noticing where her eyes kept darting. It was only upon following the nervous line of her gaze that he noted the spindly legs sprouting from the skull over his sternum. “Never did try this Spider Queen. Anyone who inspires that kind of terror must have some power worth petitioning.”

Beside him, Triel stopped, stock still. Even beneath the leather armour, he could see the rigid tension in the drow’s shoulders. “If Lolth answered the prayers of slaves,” she said softly, not looking at him, “Menzobarrozan would fall in a day.”

Astarion’s stomach lurched, his body bracing like he’d been struck. It was only a momentary lapse in his composure but he felt it like a missed step. From the way she was blinking at him, she’d seen it— the stab of white-hot rage. He stamped down the disgust, reigned his expression into his most alluring smile.

There’s no other word for what he was, it was the one he used himself, but it stung, hearing it from her, after all he’d told her. She’d listened as he confided to her about Cazador, about the horror hunting him, and she’d pledged her help, that sickening look of sympathy on her face.

He supposed this is what he got for letting his guard down. Pity, disdain— two sides of the same wretched coin.

It didn’t matter how pathetic she found him, how she looked down on him, if she’s willing to help. He needed her. He needed her on side, needed her devoted to him.

Wretched or not, a gold piece is a gold piece.

Astarion smiled, his finest armour. “Well, I suppose I’ve seen how that ends, haven’t I?” He quips, brightly. “Too many legs and cobwebs everywhere. No, no thank you. No tentacles and no spinnerets either, if I have anything to say about it.”

The others seemed content that they’d found everything of value, and it was time to go. Shadowheart was calling to them from the walkway, Gale flipping through a book he’d found on his way towards the door.

Triel kept her voice quiet as they began towards the other and smiled at him, weakly. It didn’t reach her eyes. “Lolth cares little for her sons; her awful gifts are only for her fiercest daughters. You would not be Eliette. You would be the dead jaluk with the runes carved into his flesh.”

Another hateful twinge threatened Astarion’s smile.

His back ached beneath his stolen armour.

Exhibit G:

There was a mirror in a room off to one side of the hidden place they had made camp. He found Triel there when it was time to head out, their things all stowed and ready to bolt.

Fixating on the change to her appearance, no doubt.

Gods, what he wouldn’t give for the chance to do the same.

But Astarion had smiled, (much better at faking them than she was) and stamped down the rising swell of envy curling in his stomach as he went to retrieve her.

“Come along, darling,” he announced as he threw open the door. “Time to make good our escape—”

He startled her again. Perhaps whatever had happened last night hadn’t been enough rest, because it was as though she were trancing on her feet, not fretting into the mirror as he had expected, but stood before a puddle of seeping green liquid and broken glass: a phial of Wyvern toxin, smashed beneath her.

Astarion raised his eyebrows, gave her a cheeky look that never failed to charm. “So, how goes the first day with the new eye?”

“Poorly,” she admitted with a cringing smile as she sank to her knees beside the noxious splash of venom, carefully dragging a few arrows through and, with a beckoning wave, inviting him to do the same. “I suppose I am still getting used to it.”

Exhibit H:

As they made their way back to their camp in the forest, Triel’dra dismissed her familiar, the silver tabby disappearing with a wisp of grey smoke and an indignant yowl.

He didn’t know she could do that.

Exhibit I:

Triel’dra’s boots and leather armour were laid out neatly on the bank of the Cinothar.

It's only in hindsight, long after the knife is drawn, that Astarion sees what it had meant.

Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

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