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danse--macabre · 1 year ago

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jaheira/astarion headcanons:

he constantly flirts (which is par for the course for astarion), as early as the end of Act 2, but it is just so ineffective. so ineffective. your lies mean nothing pretty boy!

jaheira enjoys rebuffing this and coming up with creative ways to tell him his lines do nothing, lol.

he also constantly winds her up as well. will joke about her being a bare-foot hippie for simply being a druid. has called her 'the great jaheira' and 'the high harper' before ('and what does the high harper think?'), just to annoy. attention-seeking behaviour!

this is admittedly something jaheira will also do. loves to rib him for complaining about the damp, the wet, the cold, the mud, nature in general, walking too much, carrying too much, etc. will call him a soft little baby and an aged old man at the same time.

they are a bickering couple

the fact that astarion couldn't give a shit about nature while jaheira is literally a druid is a running joke and theme when it comes to dunking on each other tbh.

another related running theme: when they finally do hit it off, it's a running joke they never actually have sex in a bed. at camp, in a field, in the dirt, on the floor or against the wall in an abandoned building - but almost never in a bed. (real reason: I did not realise you could rent the elfsong out, sorry. but also astarion does complain about this of course.)

astarion LOVES to try and get jaheira to talk shit. she presents herself as somewhat above it, but jaheira is probably partial some gossip and I think a habit that does begin in the early stages is they will share a bottle of wine and they will start being old judgy queens together

'you're becoming a bad influence,' she'll say, wrinkling her nose, hitting him lightly on the shoulder. 'Was I not already?' She rolls her eyes, walks away. 'All the best things are, darling!' he'll call out, with a cackle, as she walks away.

when jaheira actually turns and gives astarion a genuine and sincere compliment... critical hit, maximum damage, hits the fucking bullseye.

other ways of critically hitting: any gentle caress to his face after a genuine compliment.

lots of genuine arguments as well about adventuring choices. I think one thing that does draw me is that yes, astarion does have people pleasing tendencies but he does tend to be quite vocal about his opinion. I'm fairly sure he and jaheira will clash often BEFORE he becomes super drawn into any kind of romance arc & I think in some ways that's fairly good for him.

astarion thinks the fact that she can turn into a panther and just tear into something is the hottest thing and quite frankly I think he was interested as soon as he saw her do this in the moonrise towers fight.

on jaheira's end... quite frankly if he wasn't a vampire and if they didn't have a job to do she would have just bedded him sooner, he's easy on the eyes and good fun, so why not? It does hit her in the middle of their flirting period that in another universe she wouldn't have hesitated.

when they do hook up jaheira tries to keep it a secret / on the down-low. this lasts about five days LOL.

it's not actually astarion's fault - he can be discreet and respects her wishes - it's just this camp is full of gossip mongers and lae'zel has bat ears. within five days everyone Knows.

at least one person (probably wyll, since he's fairly insightful) thought they'd been hooking up since they hit rivington.

jaheira doesn't realise astarion is slightly older than her until she tries calling him cub.

he laughs her off as a flatterer. she's confused, he tells her to just go on and guess his age. she thinks he's 120 years old.

'Add another century to that darling and you're almost there'. Cue jaheira being slightly stunned and astarion absolutely revelling in it.

I think she will still sometimes refer to him / treat him as if he is younger and he to her as if she is older though. It becomes a running inside joke.

biting: very much off the table when they do finally hook up.

(this does not stop astarion brushing his fangs against her skin to tease her when they hook up. 'Careful. No biting.' 'Oh, I wouldn't dare').

the fact that he is a vampire actually is one of jaheira's concerns and a small point of contention. jaheira has an interesting banter where she explains about a time she killed a spawn quite dramatically - while she's not a 'kill on sight' reckless moralist, she's got no great love for the creatures, and as much as she does come to enjoy the banter and the company, it's tinged with wariness in the first half of Act 3, because Jaheira is slow to trust and quick to suspect

the first bite happens well after cazador is dealt with. honestly I can see it happening on the eve of the final battle. because of jaheira's initial wariness, it becomes a real moment of intimacy and trust. she lets him drink from the arm, rather than the neck, just to maintain more control, has healing and resurrection scrolls prepared (she does not tell him this because she doesn't want to freak him out), etc. But he's able to stop when she asks. After it's over there is a very warm moment, after astarion gives her his sincere, genuine thanks, of her cradling his face and calling him a messy eater (lol)

speaking of Cazador, that's... honestly, it's a Lot given they're having a 'light & breezy' romance and they're still in the casual dalliance stages, have only just started hooking up if at all. jaheira ends up learning about some of the horrific trauma through seeing rather than Astarion telling and I think it'd be a bit mortifying if he weren't so singularly focussed on the goal.

I think Jaheira offers to share a bottle of wine with him the night after. I think he takes up her offer and it's a mix of talking about what happened in his own words (Astarion is actually fairly direct when it comes to talking about traumatic incidents) and also talking about something completely different when it gets too much.

Things definitely do ramp up in the final stretch / final few days before the Battle with the Elder Brain. Lots of post-battle shenanigans with some honest and quite raw moments? It's one of the most intense points of their fling (which increasingly feels NOT like a fling).

But I think Jaheira instinctively draws back after the final battle and tries to walk back some of the intensity and intimacy that developed due to 'it might be our last chance', due to some ingrained fears of intimacy and loss + trying to rationalise it as an impulsive, heat-of-the-moment thing + an expectation that Astarion would just move on anyway (false).

Astarion goes off to become a hero in the spawn ending. He does often return to the gate and they always arrange to meet for a drink. There's a lot of catching up, chatting shit, but also Jaheira increasingly turns to him for advice and to get his perspective on an issue. I think she trusts his viewpoint and when she can get in her head about not being able to save everything or everyone, or a hard choice she has to make, he'll often just go, somewhat bluntly, 'well you did the important thing, didn't you?' and put things in perspective. You killed the bad guy, you stopped the plot, you saved that woman's life. Trust yourself more. (He'll attempt to walk this back with a joke about how he's still a libertine scoundrel; Jaheira will laugh him off)

'You work too hard' is a common complaint of Astarion's. He's right. Jaheira always appreciates hearing it.

I think it's here we might also get touches of Astarion's 'I want to be close without having sex' we see in Act 2. I think there's at least on occasion where they initiate sex, he backs out, she's supportive and they end up cuddling.

Something Jaheira discovers way too late, following the events of the game: he's damned good at giving a massage. 'You didn't think to tell me this while we were sleeping in the dirt?' (Response is something like: 'Oh Jaheira, you wish you'd used me more for my body? My my.')

As said before, the 'I actually have sincere feelings for you' confession comes unexpectedly during the epilogue party, astarion impulsively ends up telling her. Jaheira... has to suddenly deal with the distance she put up like a wall coming crashing down because Astarion is impulsive and bad at holding things in

I think in an interesting mirror to Astarion's request to go slow with sex, Jaheira says she'll need to go slow with intimacy and romance. It's been a while (more than long enough), but she's not really had anything serious since her husband died.

I think as a compromise they maintain long distance for a bit, Astarion continues to adventure, but he'll visit with increasing frequency and for increasingly long periods. Jaheira will, after a while, insist he stay with her and not just in a tavern, and this gradually morphs into him spending months at a time in Baldur's Gate before a lead will pull him in another direction.

Which I think is good for them both. I think Astarion does well from a chance to just develop an identity for himself without being 'a partner' and grow on his own through adventuring. I think it also helps things develop at a pace Jaheira's comfortable with and means Jaheira can set some very concrete boundaries.

As things become serious and Astarion just drops the mask, they're very much 'fondly rib each other in public whenever one of them is even a displays affection, but deeply soft and sweet with each other in private'

Takes them a long while to say anything like 'I love you'.

Personally I can see them doing it after the other gets injured in battle. Berating them for being reckless and then telling them they love them, they're terrified, etc. Quite frankly I can see this happening to them both, but given Jaheira has lost a love before... more meaningful from her mouth.

Astarion is nothing like Khalid and Jaheira is very thankful for this. He's a different thing entirely, but it's not any kind of lesser love either.

#astarion #jaheira #jahstarion #jaheira/astarion #please enjoy these sets of headcanons i wrote at 4am because i was dealing with back pain. most fucking 30s thing ever.#i turn 30 i develop backpain i get obsessed with old queen/old queen. standard.

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