#AND YOU WILL RUUUUEEEE THE DAYYYYY

[whirlybirbs]

the day i write my pre-bg3 astarion fic is the day you all will regret.

picture it: you've died of an epidemic sweeping through the city only a month after marrying one of the city's most influential magistrates. you're heralded as being the beauty of baldur's gate, and your widower will do anything to bring you back — like bringing your exhumed casket to cazador's palace in the middle of a stormy, summer night.

cazador assures your grieving love, yes, yes he can bring you back, of course. but there are unspoken conditions.

when you awake, you're hungry and you're cold and all you can see is the thrumming, fulfilling heat of a feast before you. you dine, you breathe, you ignore the sticky tang of blood that runs down your chin and chest. it is warm, after all.

love is best served alive.

astarion and the others do well to hide their winces. to cazador, it's better than any comedy he's ever seen: he's just had the beauty of baldur's gate fall into his grasp. now, you've gone and drained the life from the one person you've ever truly loved. no easier pawn has been played.

the horror of realizing you've reveled in your love's blood is a sound astarion thinks about often. and so, you're new in the ranks. perhaps it's pity that has astarion burdened. perhaps it's the remembrance of kindness. you haven't had that snuffed out of you quite yet.

you grieve. it cracks him wide open in private. you swear you'll never love again. astarion honors the oath. friends are forged and a hundred years winds away. you've become his one reprieve. as close to sunshine on his skin as he'll ever get again.

[ENTER BRAIN WORMS]