#Consort Gale

[cosmicwahoo]

Thinking about an au where Ascended Astarion and Spawn Gale (AKA The “Bad Ending”) Meet Professor Dekarios and Spawn Astarion (AKA the “good” ending)

Some key pojnts that keep rattling in my head.

In the ascended verse (Bad End) Gale ends up becoming Astarion’s spawn after supporting him to ascend. At first there isnt much difference besides Astarion seeming a bit more unhinged and protective. After the events of the game Astarion takes over the void cazador left and sets up post in cazadors mansion. Soon throughout the years and eons as the rest of the companions pass away. Astarion becomes more and more possesive, keeping gale to himself and taking more and more of gales autonomy away like for instance decorating the palace with sussor blooms to keep gales magic away. Gale feeling that its his fault that astarion is like this lets astarion get away with more and more until Astarion seeing how miserable gale is decides to take away practically all of gales memories. Leaving only the memories as his time as Astarion’s Consort.

Meanwhole in the Free verse (AKA Good end) Astarion and Gale are living their best married life. Gale decides to become a professor at the academy he used to go to and they take frequent trips around the continent, simply adventuring and eventually finding a way to let astarion walk in the sun once more. Astarion and gale help all the spwan in the undergroudn from time to time andThey meet up with the other companions frequently and live a cozy life in gales tower.

Which leaves us where the two worlds clash. One day Ascended! Gale ends up finding his old lab and sets off one of the artifacts in his curiosity, sending him to the free verse, where Free! Gale and Free! Astarion find him in the woods and the story starts from there

But yeah im insane over this. I think ill call this au the Clash! Verse

Ascended Verse Astarion is called Lord Astarion

Ascended Verse Gale is called Consort Gale

Free Verse Astarion is called Emissary Astarion

Free verse Gale is called Professor Dekarios

[quillscales]

Gale's gaze lingered on the standing mirror, frustration mounting at the stark absence of his reflection. He absentmindedly tugged at his sleeve, releasing a heavy sigh. Astarion always prided himself on how they looked; it wouldn't have done well if he had been unkempt, but it was difficult to be sure when he couldn't see himself.

"Resplendent." A voice purred from the doorway.

Gale's eyes flicked towards Astarion. A brief scoff escaped him before he faced the now redundant mirror again. "Hardly," he muttered under his breath.

Astarion strode into the room, uninvited yet unchallenged, and positioned himself behind Gale. Unlike himself, the mirror showed the Vampire Ascendant's reflection, and of course, Astarion looked as gorgeous as ever.

"Oh, my dear, but you are," Astarion whispered, arms encircling Gale's soft waist. "You belong to me, and everything that is mine holds beauty beyond compare." His lips brushed against Gale's jaw. "You are stunning."

[captainlilyuniverseworld]

Series Post

Realized since there are so many part of the series I'd make a master doc for Willingly Unwilling

Series Summary: (Warning Spoilers)

Follows Gale and Astarion's life together post game in which Astarion did the ascenion ritual and Gale agreed to be his dark consort.

The Willingly Unwilling: Gale reflects on his time with Astarion early in their relationship after the vampire lord ascended

Forever and Always: Astarion reminds Gale that the mage will always come back

A Man of His Word: Gale get's kidnapped by Gurs out for revenge. Astarion goes to save him.

Let's Play Pretend: Karlach discovers that maybe her friends aren't as good as they claim to be, and learns that sometimes the best help you can offer is by going along with it.

The Two F's: Gale and Astarion spar and then do a lot more than sparring.

Mother Knows Best: Morena Dekarios comes to visit her son. Even vampire lords can be scared sometimes.

Feel Like Making Love: The first time Gale and Astarion have sex is also the first time they make love.

Three Little Words: Astarion gets injured and Gale confesses his love to his vampire lord.

Never Gonna Give You Up: Gale uses Astarion's need to possess him entirely to try and get over Mystra.

The Reason These Glasses are Tinted: Gale and Astarion attended a charity party at Blackstaff while visiting Waterdeep. Gale learns it's okay to be selfish sometimes.

Only Human: Gale get's sick, Astarion takes care of him and realizes they may not have forever. Yet.

Worth the Wait: Gale asks to fix up the garden and surprises Astarion with a simple question.

Challenge Accepted: Astarion implies that Gale is easy and eager when it comes to their sex life. Gale's ego doesn't take too kindly to that.

[lunian]

I love that in BG3 the biggest implications of marriage in romance routes exist with big sappy romantic guys like Wyll and Gale, where it's pretty obvious when you know them (if you lead to good and peaceful endings)

and then there's Minthara and ascended Astarion.

[thedragonagelesbian]

ohhhh one day I get to write a cyrusXwyll wedding fic......

[youvebeengalindafied]

I’m sure there’s an official version of Fiyero’s last letter somewhere in all the merch content that Universal has spat out over the years, but the version in my head is so much funnier to me than whatever it could possibly be:

Fae -

The Good News: I survived being tortured to death thanks to your spell! Thank you!! ilysm!!

The Bad News: The Grimmerie turned me into that scarecrow you tried to firebomb last week. Whoops.

Anyways, I think it’s time we finally blow this popsicle stand. Here’s the plan:

[overly long and convoluted plan that Elphaba ignores half of]

Step 57: and after the Monkeys finish their full performance of Wizomania for Dorothy & Co, you’ll be able to slip away with Feldspar! Genius right??

Glinda must take the throne, but I will let you decide on whether we tell her of our full plans. All my love to you both.

Yours forever,

Prince Fiyero Tigelaar of the Vinkus, Captain of the Royal Guard of Oz, the Witch’s Consort, High-Honored Friend of Dorothy Gale, and - apparently - a talking scarecrow

P.S. What the hell was with the fire and screaming babe?? Are you doing okay?? You keep threatening to murder a 12 year old, and it’s kinda freaking me out.

P.P.S. Tell Captain Zek I say hi!! Love the face paint btw - great disguise. (Unless you accidentally did turn my whole house guard green, in which case we probably need to talk)

P.P.P.S. did you really threaten to “stuff a mattress” with me?? I’ve been thinking about that for a week…

[saturdaysky]

you lose sight of it, somehow, when you consort with gods: how fragile mortals are, and how precious.

[gale of waterdeep & my pc, mayhew of nowhere in particular]

[thewritetofreespeech]

Can I request headcanons for Astarion, Gale, Wyll, and Halsin celebrating his gn s/o's birthday please?

Astarion

In truth, Astarion has never celebrated a birthday before; or at least one he can remember in the past 200 years.

He of course knows about birthdays and what people usually do. Celebrations at the local taverns on such occasions were easy to pick off just…not the guest of honor. Astarion felt that would be tacky.

His gift would be something small. Memorable. A ring or necklace his love would always wear to think of him. And seeing them wear it make Astarion feel like he in turn finally has something of his own. Ending with a night of passion which, for once, he truly deeply means. Sweet words and all.

Gale

Gale would be planning for your birthday for months. Either in secret, or an attempt at keeping a secret because he’s just so excited.

He creates a new version of his Starlight incantation. One that is more reminiscent of their current living arrangements, but with hints of the forest where he first professed his love for them. A blend of the old and the new, to remember their past & look forward to the future, he said.

Besides the illusions, Gale makes them a very real dinner of their favorite meal and a cake to rival even some of the finest bakers in the Gate or the Deep. He also gives them a journal, hoping that it will be a comfort to them to write down their thoughts but also one day help with the novel on their adventures he’s going to write.

Wyll

Despite not celebrating many birthdays in recent years, Wyll actually loves them. He is of the opinion that every year, surviving, growing, and moving on in the world, should be celebrated.

The day would be spent more for quality time. Taking a (hopefully) peaceful walk. Maybe a little hunting for dinner, if they can’t find a tavern on the way. Gazing up at the stars as night falls, with Wyll pointing out his favorite constellations that are only visible this time of year (and therefore must be a gift for them from the gods themselves).

His gift would be a small blade he had fashioned for them. Naming it ‘the Protector of the Blade’s Heart’ since they are Wyll’s heart and this will protect them. They also get the finest rendition of ‘happy birthday’ an aspiring bard turned adventure his lungs can handle.

+Ascended!Astarion

Once he finds out when their birthday is, never really having asked before as it was of no interest to him until now, Astarion makes great effort to have it be the most memorable birthday ever. Everyone should be celebrating when his consort graced the universe with their beauty, and they should have a party that would dwarf all others in their past; now that they are at his side.

He throws a grand ball every year. Themed, perfectly executed, nobles & dark affiliates from all over come to pay tribute to them across Faerun.

It wasn’t until year’s later that they realize that the date had slowly changed from their birthday to their ‘new birthday’. The day they became a vampire.

First where there was one party, then two, now there is only one again for the new date.

Astarion insists, at first, that it’s just a fluke of scheduling. Too many meetings with his dark horde or aristocracy to make it work. Suddenly they are traveling during their birthday and can’t do the party.

Eventually, Astarion admits that your original birthday is pointless. “Why do you need to remember that when you have been reborn with this new life, my treasure?” And thus Astarion had successfully changed your birthday to your deathday, as it were.

[pursuitseternal]

“The Sixth Day:” packed with literal steam in “Antics of the Newly Ascended”

Ascended Astarion x f!Reader | E | 3.7 K of mist form issues and smut

(Sfw) 🎨 by @mouldering-casket —nsfw version, on ao3 link and their X account.

Summary: You promise him anything if he can just get his powers under control for once… only anything means you are at his loving, demanding mercy as he finally takes you in that way you have been hesitant over…

CW: a$$ play, double penetration, illicit use of Mage Hand, Wet Cat Astarion, bathing foreplay and aftercare.

Previous Ch | ao3 link | Masterlist

💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦

“Astarion, did you get those arrows of dragon slay….”

Your hand pushes the door to your rooms open. Those private rooms that have already seen nearly every hole of yours filled with his cock or fingers or tongue… and your fingers filling all of his too.

You hear mostly silence… just a sort of slow swirling sound.

“I need a moment, my consort,” he speaks to your mind, that voice trying hard to ring with power and purr. But he just sounds… caught.

“Maybe I can help, I told you to check the trunk….”

Shutting the door, you see why he’s using your connection. Why he can’t just talk to you with those sultry, smirking lips.

Why he’s taking so fucking long.

“Mist? Really? We need the Vampire Ascendant in mist form to get the arrows, now?” You laugh as it starts to form a new shape. But only… half of him materializes.

His strapping, leather-bound legs form easily, but the rest of him… does not. A small cloud of mist hovers over his legs as he sways uncomfortably.

“Fucking hells, Astarion…” you grumble, burying your face in both your hands. “All I can do is ask… why.”

“Why, what, my treasure?” His voice still purrs against your mind. “At least my best and most prominent qualities manifest—“

“No,” you hold a hand up just in case. “No, Astairon, I am not going to be railed by only your lower half, before you start insinuating anything even close to that.”

His hips cock to his left. Annoyed. “We won’t know what we’re missing, my darling…”

“For fucks sake, no,” you do smirk back at him. “Don’t make me spank you, mighty Ascendant. Not like you could fight back.”

“Oh… my love. You always know what to say…”

You roll your eyes, over the top dramatically. “We best not keep them waiting, you know. You either figure this out, or I’m getting Gale. We need those arrows if we are going to face Ansur.” And you flop down to sit on the edge of the bed.

He begins to pace, or at least half of him does. “Fine,” he growls. “But… I might need a hand.”

“As long as it’s not pumping your cock below your diapperated torso, I’m fine with that.” You can feel the shiver of desire caress your core, heating down your bond. “Tell you what, my love…”

You stand and cross to him… whatever he is. Sticking your hand into the bubble of mist, you feel it leap to brush your skin, as if he can’t get close enough to you. “You make your whole body reappear immediately, and I’ll let you try that… thing… you’ve been asking for…”

You can’t see his face, but even as he breathes the single word, “Really?” you can picture that ravenous gleam in his narrowed eyes, that cant of his left brow. That look that makes you quiver under the gaze of your predator, knowing you are his next meal.

“Oh… yes,” you purr, reaching a single finger to trace up that line of his chorded thigh, stopping before it disappeared into the mists. “But only if you can….”

Pop.

A slight tingling wave of magic, and suddenly his upper half materializes, arms already wrapping tightly around you, ravenous lips beginning to tear into yours. The beading of his fine jacket presses into your sensible tunic, beads so sharp and refined. Just like him.

“Easy, my love,” you giggle as he begins that caress, that little trickle of lust that always ends with him ravaging you. “We have to get to…”

But a squeal replaces your words, his hand cupping on your mound, fingers already working through the buckskin to press between your folds. The other set of dancing lithe fingers claws hard into the curve of your backside. Friction rubs hard against both, sweeping in tandem and making you pant in an instant. You ride those hands, strong and long and warm as he fucks his fingers against your trousers.

You gasp, not expecting to enjoy the pressure on your ass, the tickle of his pressing touch brushing places yet to be explored….

But with one of his deep and rumbling laughs, he leaves your body, just the cold draft of his haste to cross the room and retrieve those godsforsaken arrows you had mentioned.

“Best not keep them waiting…” he spits your words back at you, that clever, rakish grin on his features as he watches you writhing in place. Knees buckle as you struggle to stand after… all that.

“Seriously…” you grumble again, rolling your own pair of crimson eyes at his game. “I offer you to do what you will with me… and you…” your words end with a frustrated groan as he shoves three arrows in your flapping, gesticulating hands.

“I won’t be giving them any more reason to think me a selfish bastard than I already have, darling…” he gives you that half-lidded, hungry stare that makes your innards melt. “You’ll just have to wait to give me what I want until we return, my consort. We are so close, I can almost taste it.” He lets his pink tongue linger on his last words, wetting his lips, a performative little display meant to leave you in agony.

And fucking hells, doesn’t it just.

In battle, your mind half flits through fantasy after nasty fantasy, no matter how many arrows get fired or bodies hit the ground.

Astarion didn’t fail to keep those scarlet eyes locked into yours every chance he could. His lithe hands brushing your body every time you crept in close to him. Your ass, even through armor, was decidedly his favorite to toy with. Little pats or strokes in passing… even in the midst of bloodshed and battle.

And once that armor is off, once you make it back with your weary party to the Elfsong… you are fair game. You nearly make it up the stairs, the companionship and warmth of a hot meal calling you. Until that Ascendant Lord purrs his excuses from the top of the stairs. He begs their forgiveness, hopes their stomachs enjoy their meals and that their ears don’t heed the noises he’s about to draw from his consort’s mouth.

You hold tight to the railing, shaking your head at the sound of their groans from inside the doors before your love shuts them tight.

Head tilted, eyes narrowed, and lips twisted just so… he races for you, sweeping you over his shoulder like the spoils of war you are. His treasure.

Nothing but the suede of your leathers on your legs and the damp tunic hanging loose from your frame, you feel every drag of his fingers as he grips your thighs. Your world hangs upside down, weightless. At his mercy as he kicks open your doors and carries you into the inner dark. Doors close with another kick, Astarion does not even bother to turn. The heel of his boot collides with wood, a fraction of a second before his palm does the same with your ass cheek.

You squirm on his shoulder, crying in surprise at the ripple of slight pain. “Astarion!” you chastise. But he only laughs as he sets you back on your feet. You smell it in the air, the floral oils and soaps you use for bathing wafting on the steam. Your feet settle on the floor, your body dragging down his front, but you ignore that virile smirk and ravenous gleam in his eyes. Scanning the room, you breathe the scents in the air. A steaming bath… soaps and towels and oils lining all within reach. “Seems a bit much for how I incentivized you earlier to get your head out of your ass…”

“Mmmm,” he purred, hands racing down to cup the full curves of your backside. “Yes…. Get my head out of my ass… so I can finally sink deep into yours.”

Gods, your cheeks ignite, your belly dropping to your toes as if you were falling through the air.

“But, my little love, it’s so much more to me than you finding new ways to trust me,” he whispers, those narrowed, hungry eyes softening just slightly as you turn to meet his gaze. “You have been, ahem,” he clears his throat awkwardly, that veneer of the Ascendant cracking with his sincerity, “been patient with me, keeping my… limitations secret as I learn just what these powers can do for me… for us.”

“So you’re eager to buy my continued silence… and fuck me in the ass?” you taunt in reply, slowly teasing your soiled shirt up from your belly.

“Well…” he gives that silken purr, hands freeing her body of that fabric, “you are my consort, and I’ll never leave you wanting, darling. I’ll wrap you in every luxury, bathe you in the finest oils, make every intimate moment you offer me the most… exquisite union for us both, because…” his velvety voice trails off with a deep throated chuckle. Because I love you, the words simmer in your mind, a caress from his thoughts against yours.

You smile softly, your body on fire, your heart welling with that feeling, even if he is too proud to voice it aloud. “Don’t I feel pampered and spoiled, brimming with anticipation…”

“You’re about to feel a lot more than anticipation brimming inside you, but,” he sighs and pulls off his own shirt in one fluid jerk, “let’s not get too hasty, hmm?”

Before he deigns to slip off his own trousers, his hands tear off your soiled shirt, your trousers freed from your skin in a matter of moments before he sweeps you up and deposits you in that warm and foaming water. Rose scented steam billows around you and permeates your every breath. You close your eyes and sink into the waters completely, letting it cover your head and drench your every inch.

You feel the water surge higher, two long, chorded legs fold to sit beside you. Arms pull you above the water, and you gasp, his body slipping around you, the perfect throne as he shifts you to face him. You feel that telltale prodding against your belly as he slides you closer, your legs brought to wrap firmly around his narrow hips. His eyes seem to devour you. That smirk on his lips that has always made you melt glints at you, his hands shift you just a little higher, fingers teasing around the soft swell of your ass.

You shudder, that molten touch barely sweeping you apart, a little towards that tight and puckered hole. Gasping, you flinch, making him laugh as he steals his hand back between your bodies, returning to all-too-familiar territory. That rumbling laughter in his chest rattles into your frame as his touch braces you closer, nails digging into your lower back.

Those other long, skilled digits take command of your folds, drawing heavy breaths from your mouth as he digs in deeper and toys with your clit as if it’s his favorite plaything. It’s a matter of seconds, a moment of winding tight in the hot water, the heady scent of rose petals in your nose and on your tongue as he drives you without mercy or reprieve towards orgasm. Your head rests on the hard edge of his collarbone, and you wince and shudder as that one hand throws you into the hot release that your body demands.

His name on your lips, you squirm and buck as heat finally explodes inside you, as your slick walls clutch hard in waves. Those warm lips of his suckle on the curves of your ear, rubbing their damp to the bend in your neck. “Now, let me show you my deepest gratitude, my little love, and trust me,” he breathes against your flesh in that velvet voice of his. “I promise you, I know what I’m doing…”

“A little too well at times, Astarion,” you breathlessly laugh in reply, trying hard to raise your head. But his hands rests its weight into your damp mess of hair, keeping you cradled on his shoulder.

“You’ll thank me, someday,” he rasps that deep laugh as he slides your hips to angle just right away from him. Every muscle clenches and shivers as his fingers explore that tight circle, the spoils you’ve offered.

That hand keeps you pinned in place, your ear shoved against his jugular to hear how his heart thumps harder the more he begins to circle around that untouched hole. A moan pours from your lips when he teases that soft and tight skin more, as he begins to dip inside and stretch you out.

Just a little, just playful and light, but already you groan at the new and overwhelming lightning it makes course through your nerves. “Ah!” you whimper with every teasing touch inside you.

“You’re doing so very well, my pet,” his other hand lifts your chin with the warm pads of his fingers. “You’ll take more, like the good girl you are…”

A noise leaves your throat, desperation and trembling fear whimpering in response. But that silken touch only glides another digit into you. Stretching, hot and painful, it makes you recall that first time anything stretched your cunt so full.

“Don’t worry… I’ll protect you… take good care of you… as if you were my own little virginal consort…” Silken touch and velvet voice sends shivers down your spine until your toes curl into themselves.

A third finger enters you, his mouth devours the gasping moan that slips free. His other hand returns to catch that aching clit again, and that water around you suddenly feels ice cool against your skin.

Decimated, shaking, exploding. Your walls clench around nothing and yet you feel yourself bursting full. Fangs bite your bottom lip as you gasp, unable to shut your mouth or swallow or move or…

You taste your blood on your own tongue, the warm pad of his own sweeping to lap and lips closing to suck you clean. Even as you wait for your world to stop tilting so you can recover in his arms, one more gasp rushes from your mouth as he slips from inside you.

He stands and pulls you with him from the waters. Lithe fingers grip yours to guide you safely over the edge. You watch his cock prod prominently through the gap of his towel as he tucks it around his waist, its little jolts as you stare and smile only serve to make you giggle and make you wetter.

Hastily, you dab yourself dry, and that gleam in his own crimson eyes signals the end of his patience. That towel gets ripped from your hands and flung somewhere on the floor behind you. Astarion’s eyes scan over you, so hungry and so smug. Those hips cock, his laugh flexing those ridges of his stomach as he watches you growing more agitated and flustered. Until he beckons you closer with a crook of his finger. Wet feet patter loudly as you rush him, arms wrapping around his neck, pulling that insufferable, conceited smirk into your mouth so you can kiss it off his warm lips.

You notice one of his hands is closed around a small vial, his other pulls the towel he just secured around those etched and narrow hips of his. It flutters to the bed, a heap of white that he guides you towards. He’s delicate for once, laying you with reverent touch on your stomach, putting that little glass bottle between his teeth so he can run all ten of his skilled fingers over your skin with featherlight touch.

Your breath is ragged, head turned so you can glimpse every movement from the corner of your eye. That pointed gaze is fixed where his hands trace up and down your back, sometimes warm and soft, sometimes tickling and scratching his nails up and down your sides. He gives a low, rumbling chuckle as one hand starts to massage the globes of your ass, the other reaches for that bottle of clear oil. The cork pops as he pulls it free with his teeth, its warm slickness pours over your rear. He sweeps it into that seam, suddenly pushing that oil back into that hole, easier than before but just as… nice.

Pleasurable.

He spits the cork out, you hear it bounce quietly across the floor, the light scent of the oil the same as the bath, floral and sweet. Slick noises squelch somewhere behind you, and recognition sends a bolt of desire flooding to your core. He slathers it on his cock, beating, rubbing himself in his fist, even as his other hand teases you apart on his three fingers again.

And that’s when his well-oiled hands lift you to your knees, face still panting into your pillows.

Something cool and light sweeps up your seam, dipping deep into your cunt. You lift your chest just enough to watch from under how that magical touch of a Mage Hand thrusts over and over into your folds.

Finally, you groan, something to clench around. You relish it, that magical touch at last filling you in all the familiar ways. As if your vampire's cold touch has returned. You shiver, blissful and bucking.

Until you feel something warm again prodding just behind that already-filling touch. You know it, it’s blunt and oiled and hot and fleshy. “Breathe my Consort, even if you don’t need to any longer,” he chuckles, rolling his hips to thrust that hardened length up the crease of your ass. “You’re about to need to breathe, so don’t you forget how.”

You obey, the scents of your oils and soaps making your body limp, even as you sense his anticipation. His hand grips just beyond his cock’s head, sweeping more oil to make everything so slick over him, over you. And so hot. You do breathe, that prodding returning inside your ass, pushing inside you bit by agonizing bit. He groans, pausing, giving you the time to loosen, to take him at your leisure. Thank gods that Mage Hand hasn’t lost its charms, still pressing and filling you. And now, as he slides inside just that bit more, you are busting.

That magic touch in your cunt, that pressing pressure just beside it, they rub almost against one another, paper thinness separating them. And that sensation makes you forget to breathe. Especially as he works his way more and more, slowly and carefully.

Ever so skilled, he is. Like someone who has done this dance a thousand times, but with the knowledge and tenderness of one who worships your body. Who adores you.

Slowly, he withdraws, only to slip inside you again. Over and over, he takes his time as he takes you. Over and over, you try to breathe, air hitching every time his cock brushes against that other touch that buries inside your channel.

Never… never before have you been so filled, not with a cock or pleasure or love. To be so used and worshiped, to be touched gently and fucked roughly… to be trusted and to trust, it brings a little sting of tears to your eyes and not just from the suffocating bliss he’s drawing from you now.

You keep yourself panting, face buried in the bed as he slowly buries himself into you deeper, still deliberate and slow. Sometimes, they shove into you in synch, sometimes they piston against each other, opposing forces that fuck you back and forth. A single brush of fingers over your belly to catch your clit in his all too real touch is all you need to explode. So breathtakingly good. You clench around magic, the grind of that wam and hard length pushing you harder into waves and coils of pleasure you didn’t even think your undead body could handle.

Astarion picks up his pace, grunts in his throat, his voice rough and thick with his praises. “So beautiful, my very good girl,” he rasps, that addictive feeling of his hips snapping against your rear, that sound of slapping flesh sending another bout of shivers down your spine. “You lovely, tight thing… so good to me, spoiling me, my love.”

You barely hold yourself up on your knees, that touch inside you slipping out after the last tremors of your orgasm. His breath grows ragged. His fingers claw into your hips. His cock splits you past fullness to another realm of pleasure. Until, for as slowly as he entered you, he slips away.

You groan so loudly, you hear your voice ricochet from the wall. He beats his cock, hips and thighs still braced against your backside as you hear that wet rhythm of his self-pleasure. It takes only another beat for him to push against you with all his strength, to feel ropes of hot cum drip and trail down your back.

“Exquisite…” he sighs, warm touch painting white streaks over your cool skin through the mess he’s made all across your back. “Simply exquisite…” he proclaims proudly, voice rich like velvet and panting with exhaustion.

“Mmm,” you mumble into the bed beneath you, far too boneless to stand, far too pleasantly sore to do much more than lower your aching hips to the bed. “Am I?” you purr back as you barely turn your head.

“Indeed,” he chuckles and rises from the bed, “and you’ll be exquisite forever.” One hand massages your ass cheeks, and you moan and hiss in one unabashed noise. “Now, to clean you up, filthy thing. You really were detectable, you know.”

You giggle into your hand as you raise your head and toss your tangled mess of hair from your eyes. “Just don’t go trapping yourself as a mist too often, I don’t know how frequently my ass can serve as incentive, my love.”

He just cants his brow and flashes his fangs down at you, hovering at your bedside and creeping closer. A shock of magic and a caress of mist as he shifts once…. A pop and rush of power as he shifts back.

Fully this time.

Astarion laughs deeply and pulls you by the hand to your feet. “Seems you’re safe… for now, my darling.”

[pupmkincake2000]

So, I played Baldur's Gate 3 four times (as Gale rpmancing Astarion, as Astarion romancing Gale, as Durge romancing Halsin, as Durge romancing Gale) and here are the conclusions I came to:

Gale is soooo main character/leader coded. I enjoyed playing as Durge, but playing as Gale and watching him through all 4 playthroughs I realized he is better for this role than anyone else. He's smart, intelligent, kind, he has seen some shit in his life, and won't die on the first day after the nautiloid's crash. Yes, physically he may be weaker than many other characters, but with the amount of knowledge and magic power he is capable of a lot things, and he is also sweet and helps those in need (I consider canon the route when the hero does a lot of good things, including saving the Grove, saving prisoners in Moonrise Towers, etc. ) and is ready to give up god powers for the one he loves. He would be a great leader. You may disagree, but I think hes perfect as a main character.

Despite my dislike of Astarion as a character (and my sudden love for Durge x Gale ship), I think Gale's romance with him is the best and most... uncliched? And I just love it so much! It is precisely because they are two halves of the same coin, they have a lot in common and are able to make each other better. Considering that Astarion's best ending is the one in which he, remaining a vampire spawn, becomes either a traveler or happily married to Gale. Just imagine: Astarion will finally have a loving family, a home, a loving husband (and I’m not even surprised that Gale is the only one who proposes marriage to his lover), he will have a happy, well-fed life, he can choose a profession he enjoys or he can travel with Gale when Gale, as a professor, gets his vacation. After all, every Academy has summer holidays, and Gale himself says that sometimes he misses adventure. And I wouldn't mind reading a story about them travelling the world together again.

Ascended Astarion is the worst version of Astarion, no matter what anyone says (I decided to ascend him in my last playthough and oh gods he's so disgusting!). He doesn't love his consort, I will never believe he does, not to mention his consort is nothing but a pet to him. He is also even more narcissistic and manipulative and is just another Cazador, just a bit worse. This is exactly the impression I got. Plus, he is an evil that needs to be eradicated.

I really enjoyed playing as Durge. Moreover, I really like his redemption. This is that very case when redemption actually works and the character can actually start their life anew. But to be honest, I missed Gale's reaction to Durge's revival after Bhaal drained him of all his blood and after Jergal brought him back to life. But probably any romantic character has no reaction to this.

Wild Magic. The best magic ever.

Karlach and Wyll are made for each other. In my first two playthroughs, Karlach either died or became an illithid, but then I managed to send her with Wyll to Averno. The way he asks her to go with him so that she won’t be lonely, the way he later talks at a party about their joint adventures, the way Karlach says that if it weren’t for Wyll, she would never have returned there... all these moments are the best. It's even more than enemies to lovers, it's a full-fledged healthy relationship built on friendship, trust, support… it's amazing. Just think about it: Wyll did this for her sake, he literally agreed to go with her to hell, where the conditions of survival for a human being are very difficult, just so that she would not be lonely and so that she would not die. I want to believe that they will still be able to repair Karlach’s heart and return to Faerun together.

[captainlilyuniverseworld]

Mother Knows Best

Morena Dekarios visits her son in Baldur's Gate and reminds Astarion that mother's know best.

Mother Knows Best

“As…Astarion, I should,” Gale gripped the back of the couch. “I should really get ba…back to work.” 

“Take a break,” Astarion skimmed his fingers along the inside of his thighs. “You have been at it all morning.” 

“I have a dead…deadline,” Gale shivered, feeling the vampire's teeth on his throat. 

Astarion just hummed and worked his way down Gale's body, pushing up the hem of his robe, and nudging his legs apart. Gale covered his mouth with his hand as Astarion kissed the insides of his thighs and teasingly bit him. 

“Gods you are just so soft and supple,” Astarion sighed and wormed his hands under Gale’s ass and squeezed. 

Gale tilted his head back as Astarion continued his teasing. Through the haze he can see one of the thralls, Xana he thinks, and there's someone with them. A woman with a striking resemblance to his mother?

Mother.

“Mother!” Gale sits up and Astarion makes an oomph sound as he's unceremoniously knocked onto the floor. 

“Mother?” 

“Mother,” Gale’s face is on fire and he's trying to fix his robe and his mother is in the doorway. And his mother is here. In Baldur's Gate. In the palace. 

Morena is here.

“You’re here…” he coughed awkwardly into his hand. “Why are you here?” 

“I travel all this way and that's how you greet me?” Morena Dekarios crossed her arms over her chest. 

Gale jumped to his feet and stepped over Astarion as he walked over to her. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I was just caught off guard that’s all. None of your letters mentioned you were coming.” 

“I believe that's why they call it a surprise,” she held her arms open and Gale hugged her. 

He'd forgotten how nice it was to be in her arms. To have her fussing over him before they've even fully parted. She's messing with his hair, smoothing down his robe. Complaining about his beard. 

Are you eating enough? Are you getting enough sleep? You look exhausted Gale. 

“Darling, aren't you going to introduce us?” Astarion had picked himself up off the floor and was sitting on the armrest of the couch. 

“Right, yes, of course,” Gale took her hand. “Mother this is…Astarion. Astarion, this is my mother, Morena Dekarios.” 

“A pleasure to meet you,” Astarion walked over and offered his hand. 

“Mhmm,” she placed her hand in his and he brought it to his lips to kiss the top, looking at her from under his lashes. 

“I was always curious about where my beloved got his good looks,” Astarion continued. “The resemblance is striking.” 

Gale glances between his mother and Astarion. She is unimpressed. She is smiling (polite), cordial (an act), and most clearly not drinking the champagne that is Astarion’s honey words. He tugs at the neck of his robe. 

“It is always nice to see you mother but um…what are you doing here?” Gale asked. 

“What was I supposed to do Gale?” She turns on him, slipping her hand free of Astarion's grasp. “It's been months since I've seen you. Your letters are always the same and then I find out from Evelyn Vezin that you are engaged. Engaged. I am your mother, did you not think it was important to tell me that?”“I…We're not engaged engaged,” he tried. “We are engaged to be engaged?”

Continue Here

[bardic-inspo]

Blood in the Mortar

Pairing: Ascended Astarion x Vampire Bride Tav

Rating: Explicit (Smut!!)

Key Tags: Vampire/Blood Bride Lore, Service Dom Astarion, Sexy Use of Telepathic Bond, Evil Power Couple, Torturing a Captive, Choking, Biting/Blood, Masquerade, PIV, Cunnilingus

Summary:

“I wanted to see you right where you belong,” Astarion whispers, the sound as sheer as the lace he wrecked. “So beautiful on your throne.” It started on Naomi’s knees, this new life of passion and pleasure unbridled. Astarion didn’t know he’d be hers, just as much as she’d be his, when he bit her thrice, bled her dry, and gave her just one drop of his ascended blood.

Cross-posting from my AO3 account. This is my first BG3 smut fic. If you like it, I'd love to know! Click here if you'd prefer to read on AO3.

“To whom can a vampire bare its soul and admit its fears? From whom can it receive consolation for the past, comfort for the present, and hope for the future?...The vampire is drawn emotionally to a mortal and decides, because of the strength of this emotion, to make her his bride…The happiness of the vampire becomes tied up with the prospective bride, and its well-being depends on hers.”

-Van Richten’s Monster Hunter’s Compendium, Vol 1

Astarion twists the stem of his wine glass, idly tilting the contents within. His assorted guests warp in the bulb of it, swaying between rosy red and clear crystal.

A gravelly voice interrupts his game. “Quite the menagerie you’ve gathered here, Lord Ancunín.”

Astarion doesn’t bother to stifle his sigh. There’s no mistaking him as the lord of the house, even masked as he is. Astarion’s ensemble this evening is pitch dark velvet swirled in crimson thread and snaking silver. His mask glimmers in the same shade of scaled metal, set to complement the curve of his cheekbones, with only miniscule, twinkling rubies encrusting the edges. Nothing meant to outshine the searing color of his eyes. The mask might be silver, but it’s a red dragon Astarion embodies for this particular masquerade.

This party’s for more monstrous company, after all.

No expense was spared for the ‘menagerie’. A grand piano, polished to an opalescent white, plays under spectral hands at the heart of the ballroom alongside a string quartet. A starlit Baldur’s Gate glistens outside the windowed east wall, framed in gold drapery to match the shimmering flecks in the white marble floor. Lavish wine and better blood pour freely; his guests have only to lift their empty glasses to have them brimming again.

Even with all the ornate masks, in the shapes of creatures exotic or fierce, none of the fangs in the room are fake. All the titles are, save for his and his consort’s. Astarion’s lip curls with distaste.

This masquerade was meant for nobility of a supernatural stature. Vampires, warlocks, lycanthropes. Those who lead them. But what his doors received were lowly spawn. Servants sent in their masters’ stead to get just a glimpse of the one and only vampire ascendant, and then to scurry back and tell tale of him. Cowards.

There’s only one human here who’s just human.

Astarion offers him a well-practiced shrug of a laugh. “I do hope you don’t feel out of place among us more…colorful sorts. Lord…? Forgive me, what was it again?”

“Isn’t the point of a masquerade not to bother with such trivialities?” The stranger chuckles hastily. “In any case, I am not lord. Only a humble apprentice to the most renowned wizard Waterdeep has to offer.”

Ah, yes. The invitation was sent for the newly named archmage, filling the god-shaped hole Gale left behind in the wake of his own ascension. Astarion’s eyes flit over the lanky, unkempt apprentice who addresses him instead.

His hair hangs in honey blonde waves past his shoulders, like the mane of the beast he seeks to imitate. It’s a lion’s mask the apprentice wears. Perhaps a poor attempt at humor. The effort would’ve been better paid towards penance, and a sheep’s head would’ve suited him far better than the guise of a predator. Anything would’ve been more fitting than the baggy business he calls a shirt.

Astarion clicks his tongue. “That still doesn’t give me a thing to call you.”

“I am Enrik, if it pleases you.”

“No surname?” Astarion asks with an arched brow.

“None of consequence, my lord,” he replies with the uneasy edge Astarion’s entitled to.

“Well, Enrik, I hope you find our masquerade pleasing.”

“It has certainly been enlightening thus far.”

“And how’s that?” Astarion asks brusquely. He never did like wizards.

He doesn’t like the look on this one’s face, either. The lion that should be a sheep surveys the room with a pitying expression, like he’s watching some petty amusement. A zoo. Gods, or a circus. And what would that make him, Astarion the Ascended, if not a clown? Astarion’s fingers tighten on the stem of his glass, an imperceptible change to any eyes not keen enough to catch it.

“Why, it’s been only a year since your ascension,” Enrik says. “You’ve accomplished much in short order. It’s quite remarkable.”

Astarion’s nose twitches. Praise. From cattle. How quaint, and ill-fitting.

His expression abruptly eases. A refined, familiar scent carries to him from across the crowd. A note of lavender, twined with his favored bergamot.

“And you’ve already enthralled some truly magnificent specimens,” Enrik carries on, oblivious. “Take this fine creature, for example. What a pretty thing to have strung along on your leash.”

Astarion feels her before he sees her. She wipes a palm down the sheath of her skirt, smoothing out some infinitesimal wrinkle. The music smooths, too. With that one simple motion, it bends and blends into something deeper, fuller. All of the lesser spawn of Astarion’s making straighten their slouched shoulders.

He feels the tug of her in his head, and then the cool stroke of her hand to his back, the soothing feel of her fingers combing through his hair, and the gentle scrape of her nails against his scalp. It takes a concerted effort to suppress the pleased groan that bubbles in the back of his throat. All this from across the room, without so much as a glance, let alone a touch.

Hello, darling, he thinks, and she hears it just as if he’d spoken aloud. Aren’t you ravishing?

Her skirt is snow-white crepe that clings taut to her shapely hips before fanning out at her feet. It’s the same lovely shade of ivory as her hair, twisted in a braid like a crown around her head, with the rest falling sleek down her back. A black lace bodice sets just off her lilac shoulders, with gloves to match. Floral stitching vees down from her waistline. The same embellishments decorate the skirt’s edges.

His dark consort, his Naomi once-Tavriel-now-Ancunín, weaves leisurely through the partygoers. The thorny prickle of Astarion’s irritation inspires a little lift at the corner of her mouth.

I’ve been called so much worse, she thinks. It sounds suspiciously like a laugh. I think you called me ‘creature’ just yesterday. Should I not have taken it as a compliment?

Astarion’s scowls. He should be grateful to have your name in his mouth. To even set foot in our home. Let alone speak to me like that. Or at all.

But think of how much fun he’s started, she answers, chipper. You were so bored before.

She’s not wrong.

If they’re not the guests you wanted, Naomi continues, cool and calm, then they’re intruders, aren’t they? Whatever should we do with them?

A slow smile steals its way onto his lips. Just when I thought I couldn’t love you more. Miracles never cease.

“Do you know what they call her?” Astarion says aloud, to worse company. “Other than mine, of course.”

“She was the hero of Baldur’s Gate.”

Astarion waves a manicured hand irritably, as if swatting away a stray fly. “One of them, true, but isn’t there another name that comes to mind?”

The man swallows thickly. “The Siren of the Sword Coast.”

"And yet here you are," Astarion sneers, "ready to dash yourself upon the rocks like a little ship blown astray. I can hardly blame you."

His eyes soften, just past the shoulder of Enrik’s gaudy doublet. In the low flutter of candlelight, he spies the sheen of amethysts set among delicate feathers wrought from silver. He'd had the mask made for Naomi with the likeness of a swan in mind.

Still, as pretty as it is, his favorite gleam is those eyes. She still kept the kiss of violet in them, even in death. It mingles with the red in her irises, like a rich, dark wine.

"She is captivating, isn’t she?" Astarion sighs, a faint smile grazing his lips. "My beautiful bride."

“Forgive me my lord, I meant no offense,” Enrik says, eyes down with deference. “I’m merely an admirer of fine things. And a messenger for my fine master.”

“Do your duty, then,” Astarion says tersely, his smile evaporating.

“My master understands that power is the only currency that holds any weight for men of your making. He has much of it to share, if you're likewise inclined.”

Astarion laughs coldly. “And what does your master wish for me to share with him, exactly? I don’t bite just anyone, after all.”

A swallow bobs in Enrik’s throat. “He only means to make mutual use of your shared arsenal. Like you mean to make of his, my lord. He could work wonders with even just one scream. He could bottle it--”

Astarion clenches the wine glass in a chokehold. He could kill this wretched cretin here, now, bare-handed. Or have him drawn and quartered. Or--

No one knows their manners these days, Naomi sighs inside his head. But if you want to play along and see what this archmage would pay, I’ll--

Astarion’s jaw clenches. You won’t be screaming for him, little love.

It earns him an eyeroll. It wouldn’t be like that--

It won’t be at all. Astarions sends his answer with the weight of a stone.

He sips his wine, boring into Enrik with a hard stare. “Don’t you know swans make the most achingly beautiful music?”

Enrik’s eyes dart anxiously over Astarion’s burning ones. “Only just before they die, so the stories go.”

“Before someone does,” Astarion drawls, as the vintage seeps sweetly down his throat. “You see, my beloved, oh, she’s a monster, too. She so does love the taste of blood in her mouth, now that she’s supped of mine.”

Enrik edges back, shoulders hunched small like the prey he is. “I-I’m just a messenger my lord. Killing me after you’ve so graciously offered your hospitality would be the same as breaking a mirror. It would only cast ill luck on you and your house.”

A gloved hand wraps Enrik’s shoulder. He shirks from that delicate grip like it's scalding. At long last, he finds the decency to shut up.

Naomi’s fangs gleam like the bottle in her hand. “More wine?”

The white marble of the ballroom shimmers like freshly fallen snow. All the curtains are drawn back, cinched aside for good measure. Shadow and sunlight slice the floor in slanted strips. Gritty ash piles where the light lies, coils of rope strewn among the gray dust of guests gone for good.

Only one remains.

Sprawled motionless across the floor, Enrik lies nose-to-nose with the knife edge of day and darkness. It’s only a silhouette that keeps him from being swallowed by the glow. Only Astarion’s grace shades him.

The vampire ascendant cuts a sharp shadow before the arched windowpane. Brightness clings, soft as clouds, to his curls, his lean edges, and his jaw. His velvet coat crumples at his heels as if it were nothing more precious than the ash heaped around him. He’s blessedly bare from the waist-up, resplendent in the sunlight while he surveys his domain awash with it.

It calls to mind the man who took Naomi out into the woods all those months and nights ago. What he looked like when she woke and found his back arched, chin tilted skyward. What she’d do, and what little she wouldn’t, to see Astarion slip into bliss every day as easily as slipping out of a coat.

It’s Naomi’s grace that finally rouses their disheveled company. A rolling melody, played on piano, pours from her fingertips and crests with the morning birdsong drifting in. Enrik groans against the grain of it.

At once, the music cuts to quiet. Naomi’s hands hover over the keys, knuckles twitching in faint longing. Then, she turns on the bench and turns her attention towards her restless audience.

“Good morning,” she says brightly.

Enrik squints up at her. His brown eyes leak with the light, even though he’s sheltered from it. They dart across the room, skimming like stones over water, before they sear into Naomi.

“You.”

“Who else were you expecting? You’re in my home.”

Rope binds Enrik’s hands and heels. He tugs at the ties, or tries to. He hasn’t yet figured out it’s all for not.

Naomi stands, her heels clicking staccato to the tile. As she goes, she paints a palm over the piano keys, stroking each octave from root to rise. Music flows freely again all on its own, even when her hand falls away.

She comes to loom over her captive, lips pursed. “I hear you said some very rude things to my husband.”

Enrik folds against the floor, panting for breath.

“You should be so grateful for our hospitality,” she says. “Should have been. That’s all behind us now, isn’t it?”

Feral noise rips from his throat. Like a dog, he lunges, snapping for her ankles. She side-steps into the light, not bothering to flee any farther than an inch. He freezes, ogling the shiny toe of her shoe now parallel to his nose.

“You don’t fear the sun?” he gasps, quivering.

“I need not fear anything.”

Naomi lifts her head, meeting a scarlet stare brimming in equal measures affection and amusement. Sunlights melts over the bare of Astarion’s chest, spurring her tongue to wet her lips. He leans against the glass, head angled back, eyes slitted in satisfaction. A slow smile unfurls on his face.

“You should be grateful, too,” Naomi says with a sneer, “to lay here and not just a little to the left.”

“W-What do you mean? What did you do to me?!” Enrik’s eyes bulge. He squirms in a sudden panic, to no avail.

Naomi tilts her neck to the side and taps at the scar Astarion’s teeth marked her with. Her fingers fan down on her own throat, savoring the shape of that succulent memory. Of the last bite he gave her in life. Of his lips swirling comfort into her skin before sucking her down to the last drop. Of the look on his face, the awe he had, when she next woke.

The faintest leak of breath, soft as down, passes from Astarion’s mouth.

“You--you--! You turned me!” Her hostage sputters. Naomi frowns darkly.

“Oh not me,” Naomi snaps, incredulous. “I’m only a weak little spawn puppet, according to you. According to you, the only good thing I can do is scream. How could I manage to turn you without choking on my own leash?”

She gags for good measure. He doesn’t get the joke. He hasn’t caught on to the other joke yet. Which means she’s safe as can be, even this close. So long as she stands on the other edge of Astarion’s shadow.

Astarion turns. His silhouette twists with his movement. Enrik shrieks like a swine.

“Oh, that wasn’t good at all. You can do better.” Naomi presses out a strained sigh, crouching down to fist a hand in his hair and yank his head upright.

Enrik bares his teeth as if they aren’t dull and flat. “Filthy bitch!”

The insult doesn’t so much as chip Naomi’s serene composure, but it puts a twang in her head, along the invisible string that links her and Astarion. His anger lashes in her mind like a restless tail.

“What a vile little ingrate,” Astarion snarls.

She lets her hostage’s head roll from her palm, cheek smacking the tile. Enrik writhes against his restraints. Naomi clicks her tongue in reproach. I’ve barely even touched you yet.

Green magic threads between her gloved fingers, glittering. She snaps them and says, “Scream.”

And he does. Loud enough to drown out the crescendo coursing from the grand piano. Inside of Enrik’s skull, the song isn’t nearly so sweet. His back jerks up and away from the floor, head bent back, eyes torn wide in terror.

His cries pitch with the slink of Astarion’s shadow stretching nearer. Sunlight clings close behind his heels. Naomi’s fingers flex and the spell recedes.

Her magic leaves Enrik sniveling, inching like a worm away from the slice of light between Astarion’s legs. Astarion huffs softly. With a wave of his hand, a ghostly one apparates behind him and snags the curtains closed.

Astarion’s scent sweeps with his sleeve -- the sweetness of brandy, mingled with the woodsy smell of rosemary. His knuckles gently brush the side of Naomi’s cheek. Instinctively, she leans towards the touch.

“Precious thing,” Astarion chides with a pout. “You’re being far too sweet to him. Here I thought you only had room in your heart for me.”

Naomi inclines her head, eyes narrowing by a hair. “My sire would see me be crueler?”

Astarion’s thumb grazes her lips. At once, she parts for him, teasing the pad of it with her tongue while he toys with the tip of a fang. He presses in, watching his skin bend to near-breaking, as if to test her sharpness. Before any blood’s drawn, he draws his hand down to cradle her chin. His voice is smooth as satin, though his stare is a hardened one.

“Your sire would see you spoken to with the respect you’re owed. And he needs you to kneel, dear one.”

The words are a weight to her shoulder, easing her down. But the heft is a comfort, not a compulsion. He could compel her, if he wanted to.

He hasn’t yet.

One day, she thinks, he will. And he’ll feel the weight of whatever chains he’d wrap her in through the bond that binds them tighter than the tadpole did. He won’t do it without good reason. Naomi doesn’t need a reason to kneel for her lover. That he wishes it is enough.

When her knees meet the ground, she feels the shape of Astarion’s smile pressed against their bond like it’s pressed, wet and wanting, against her mouth. She feels the dainty tug of his teeth coax her lips apart. Tastes the coppery tang of her own blood and the velvet undercurrent of his within her veins. The heat of him, still such a novel thing in his ascended body, bleeds from his skin to hers, fanning the newfound ache between her thighs.

In her mind, and his, his lips pour down her bare shoulders. His fingers fist in the fine fabric of her dress, ripping it to ruin. He leaves none of her untouched. To anyone else’s eye, they’re not even touching.

Naomi’s eyelids flutter. She downs a hard swallow. Good girl, he says, just for her.

To their captive audience, he spares no such kindness. Astarion raises his foot above Enrik’s ankles, letting it dangle for a moment. It drops like a hammer to an anvil. Enrik bucks with a fresh scream and a sickening crack.

“I’d never give a miserable little wretch like you the gift of immortality,” Astarion spits. “You wouldn’t know how to appreciate it.”

Confusion flits between the pain and panic in Enrik’s eyes.

“That’s right,” Astarion seethes. “You’re not a vampire. You aren’t worth my consort’s teeth. Or mine.”

Crunch. Another ankle shatters. Another shriek claws the air. Astarion strolls, leisurely, to Enrik's hands next. He grounds his heel into the pop of fingers breaking beneath his boots. Their hostage heaves a broken sob.

“Sh, sh, sh, oh, it’s all right,” Astarion croons. “I happen to have just the knife for you.”

Astarion crosses back to his coat piled near the window and draws a dagger from its folds. Rhapsody. Cazador’s blade. Naomi hasn’t seen it since they claimed the Crimson Palace for themselves.

Brightness glints off the twined edge, a match for the harsh and singular focus gleaming in Astarion’s gaze.

So that’s what Astarion was smiling about, as he basked by the window. What had him so peacefully quiet and content. Murder was on his mind, even then.

Not the only thing on my mind, little love. She feels the slant of his smirk in her head, as if it ghosted past the hinge of her jaw. There’s no trace of it on Astarion’s stony exterior.

He plucks the crystal wine glass from the sill while he’s there, rotating the stem as he saunters back over. Blood flecks the fine leather of Astarion’s shoes. He plants them on either side of Enrik’s torso. He seizes Enrik’s collar, yanking harshly until he’s kneeling, too.

“Fuck you,” Enrik spits. “Fuck you both! My master will--”

“Darling,” Astarion trills, grip unwavering, “Would you..?”

Magic swirls sticky across Naomi’s tongue. “Ad Lapidē.”

Violet runes blaze to life beneath their captive’s knees, capturing him in perfect stillness. His mouth hangs agape with unspent vitriol. Astarion’s hands recoil, twisting the dagger in one, and the glass in the other.

“Your master,” Astarion sneers with a dark laugh. “Too much of a coward to show his face, so he sends you. His sacrificial lamb, sent to speak to me about sharing my dearest treasure, like he isn’t the scum beneath her shoes. He had to know I wouldn’t hear of it. But he didn’t care enough about you to even taint your blood. That’s right. My lesser spawn sampled you just like they would any cattle. But my beautiful bride hasn’t had one bite, not yet. Not until I was sure you were sweet enough for her palate.”

Astarion strokes Rhapsody down the man’s outstretched neck. The barest streak of blood leaks from the scrape. Astarion’s eyes skate over the ash piles around the room, wistful.

“All it took was a sleeping potion,” he muses. “Just a few drops. Now all of the spawnlings sent by all of my lessers are dust. You’ll wish to join them, before this is done. And you will. When I decide we’re done.”

Naomi’s eyes fasten to the blood beading down Enrik’s pallid throat. Astarion digs in ever-so-gently with Rhapsody’s tip, just enough to start a stream running. He presses the cup beneath it. Slowly, the crystal fills red to the brim. Her mouth waters.

Astarion looks up abruptly, eyes wide and soft as his malice dissolves to fondness. “Darling, you do look famished. Open up for me, dear.”

Naomi’s chin lifts, lips parted. Astarion tilts the glass to meet her with the utmost care.

“I won’t have your grime and sweat on her lips,” Astarion hisses in Enrik’s ear. “Only your blood. You don’t deserve that…” He sucks a sharp breath in. Naomi watches with rapt attention as it stutters through his chest. “...pretty little mouth.”

Blood, rich and smooth as cream, slips across her tongue. Her eyes slip shut with it. With each swallow, syrupy warmth spreads slowly through her chest, down her legs, through arms, to her every inch. Too soon, it’s taken from her. Naomi’s eyes flutter open. She’s taken all of it, already.

“More, my love?” Astarion hums happily. “You only have to ask.”

“More,” she says at once, lips still wet.

Astarion carves. The insolent apprentice bleeds without a sound. Again and again, the cup fills. He tips it to her lips, and Naomi drinks until her eyelids grow heavy.

Her body thrums like it remembers the pulse that used to play through her veins. She’s warmer than a dead woman should be. Even the air itself feels like the kiss of steam tingling against her skin.

It’s then that Naomi feels Astarion’s lips in her head again, sucking little marks down her throat that match the rosy flush heating her cheeks. She pants out of habit, out of instinct, and not of need. Out of want for him to watch what he does to her. As if he doesn’t already know.

One twist of Astarion’s wrist turns the little leak of blood from Enrik’s throat into a fountain. Naomi’s spell dissipates in violet sparks. His body slumps over, lifeless. Blood runs from him in little rivers, rushing to fill the grout lines between the tiles.

Astarion cradles one last glassful in a delicate grip. His face clears of any clouded rage as he gives the glass an experimental swirl. Wordlessly, he tilts the cup to her mouth once more.

Naomi gasps. Wetness paints her chin. It streams down her neck, drips down her sternum and between her breasts, still bound in lace. Astarion drips with it, down to his knees in fluid motion. Somewhere behind him, the wine glass shatters. In her periphery, she sees the shards glitter like frost.

“Oops,” he says, low and shameless.

Barely any blood made it to Naomi’s mouth this time, but she doesn’t mind one bit. Astarion crawls to her, catlike. She’s only spared a moment to admire the lithe muscle flexing through his naked chest before he leans into the hollow of her throat. Silver curls brush soft beneath her chin. And then, she feels the tip of that devilish tongue take a tentative lick of the mess he’s made.

And gods, what a mess she must be. Blood smears from her neck to her navel, near-black on her blue-gray skin. Dark like Astarion’s eyes, with pupils blown wide and hungry. A flare of heat twists low in Naomi’s stomach. Her thighs shift, wet with it.

Thread rips in her ears. Rhapsody drags delicately down her side, scratching faint like a quill. The lace of her gown splits without resistance. There's none to be had against that mouth of his, just as busy as his nimble hands.

Astarion laps, dainty, down the path of her swallow. His coy smile curves with a petal-soft laugh against her collar bone. Naomi laughs, too, breathless as his tongue chases lazily after the spill. Breathless as the day he took the last breath she needed.

Ever since, Astarion’s given her everything she could want, without leaving her wanting for more than a moment. Now, her knees will never grow numb, no matter how long they bend against the marble. The chill of it can’t phase her, either. Even if it could, Astarion’s drawn the curtains wide. When she kneels for him, it’s only ever on sun-soaked stone.

Astarion treasures her. Cherishes her. Lavishes her with love and pleasure and wealth and power. Preserves her like prized silver, polished with such devotion so she’ll never know the tarnish of time. She’s his spawn. His wife.

But above all else, she’s his pride. The very thing that rules him. The only thing that still does.

Naomi wants to be in ruins with him. To be the last pillars of a broken world already so far beyond repair before they were dragged through it. Aeterna amantes. Until the fall of everything.

Until then, this, the low groan he gives her while her fingers stroke red through the plush white of his hair, the heady hum in her blood, the bloom of someone else’s waking color in her cheeks, the way Astarion looks at her like there’s nothing else at all, the way he tears into a dress he paid a fortune for, the hand he knots through her braids to wreck them -- this is everything.

Astarion tosses Rhapsody over his shoulder to join the broken wine glass, just like any other worthless trinket. His deft hands curl into the tears in her bodice and tug. At once, it gives way to his grip. She would, too, were it not so binding. Naomi grounds out a gasp. Her skirt pools at her knees, leaving her bare but for the warmth of Astarion’s roaming hands and the daylight pouring over them both.

“Do you know why I wanted you down here, pet?” He asks softly.

Astarion’s eyes latch to hers while his teeth toy at the curve of her breast. His tongue slicks over to soothe where his fangs grazed her, and then it melts against a pert nipple, taking it in with a lewd suck.

Naomi paws for a coherent thought, but all she finds is a pleading hum. He nips her again, just enough to see her tit tremble from the pull when he draws away. He leaves her nipple glistening and the underside of her breast peppered in pink before moving on to the other.

“To torture me, clearly,” Naomi pants. Her hands still tangle in his hair. Amusement glimmers in his gaze as he plants a chaste kiss to the inside of one of her wrists and sets them both back at her sides.

“Oh no, my sweet. I would never,” he says, chin resting flat against her navel. He looks up at her with wide, doey eyes, full of faux innocence.

He slinks lower, laying a line with his tongue that ends in a kiss just above where her skirts still shield her. He shifts them aside, ripping where he needs, until it’s only one little piece of black lace covering her cunt. Astarion growls against it, nosing at its edges, his back bowed, stomach brushing the floor. His teeth find the waistband and tear that, too.

Hot breath fans across the other mess he made. Naomi wavers on her knees. From that minute motion alone, she can hear how he’s soaked her.

But Astarion doesn’t disprove her theory; he leans back abruptly, straightening up to his knees again. An arm loops slack around her waist as he circles around to her bare back. Naomi’s lips twitch. If this is the game he wants, it’s too soon to beg. The thought inspires another needy flex through her cunt. His other hand slides to cup the heat of it, and Naomi whines. Reflexively, her back arches. Astarion pulls her still.

He catches the side of her jaw, angling her back into a biting kiss. It’s over before she wants it to be, his lips red and glistening with what he stole from her. Without him, her mouth burns from the cut.

“I wanted to see you right where you belong,” he whispers, the sound as sheer as the lace he wrecked. “So beautiful on your throne.”

For a brief moment, he draws away entirely, leaving her with nothing but a lonely chill. And then, his back comes flush to the floor beneath her. His body splays behind her. The heat of his mouth crests against the heat of her cunt, his face fitted between her thighs, his lips hovering so close, but not close enough. His breath alone snags the one halfway through her throat.

“Oh,” her realization comes out quivering.

The tip of his nose nudges, just barely, against her clit, spurring her hips to roll. But all she gets from that mouth is mischief and a quiet snicker. He shifts his cheek, laving a long stroke of his tongue to the tender crux of her inner thigh before sealing it over with a tight suck. When he bites down, he draws out her blood with a rough moan.

Astarion pulls back, his smirk glazed in her, his eyes aflame. “Oh, darling, I’ve barely even touched you yet. And you’re so very wet for me.”

“Touch me, then,” she hisses between her teeth, raking her hands through his perfect curls and fisting them there.

His eyes spear into hers, hard like the way he clenches her ass and pulls her hips down. Even as it sets her on fire, his mouth gives her mercy. Astarion’s tongue melts hot across her cunt, swiping slow and dexterous. Not for the first time, Naomi thinks she might like to die like this.

It’s not so different from how she died. It started on her knees, this new life of passion and pleasure unbridled. Even then, Astarion already knew the shape of her body like he knew his own hands. Every curve, every intimate bend, how to make her speak in noise instead of words. The hidden language behind every whimper she makes, every shiver.

So he knows exactly what he’s doing while his tongue teases gentle circles around her clit. He knows, by the time his timid little laps blend into a needy suck, that she’s so, so sensitive. Astarion’s hungry groan seeps into her slickness. She feels him like a current and clenches again, just as hungry.

Every feeling he gives her gives him an echo back just as strong. Every thought in her head is in his head, too. He eats her cunt and feels fed by her pleasure curling in the tips of his toes. He didn’t know he’d be hers, just as much as she’d be his, when he bit her thrice, bled her dry, and gave her just one drop of blood back.

But Astarion knew her body before she was his bride. Now, he knows her mind. A part of him lives there, as she does in his. As he drags his pale, elegant fingers between her folds, he drags her head through a dozen depravities. Filling her with nothing but thoughts of how he’ll fill her properly.

He could have her against the arched windows lining the east wall, body pressed so pretty to the glass so he can see the imprint of it even after she peels away. She could feel the heat brimming off the sun outside, washing over their empire. He could taste her sunbathed shoulder while he fucks her senseless. His little love, dipped in honey. So what if someone else sees. Later, he’ll see to them not seeing anything ever again.

He could take her here, on the ballroom floor. Pull her down just as she surfaces from the pleasure he’s paid her, and roll her beneath him to bury her in it all over again. Make love on the marble streaked with the blood of their enemies, where hundreds of dignitaries have danced and dined on countless evenings before. But none of them were ever blessed with such a fine feast as he. The stone would be hard and unyielding against her back, and he would be just the same, driving into her, relentless. At least it’s far prettier than the dirt they used to fuck in.

Or--

A new picture snaps from Naomi’s mind to his, with the dip of his tongue to her entrance, a staggering spike of pleasure, and an unbidden whimper.

The piano. Pearly white with jet black keys, so pristine, so gorgeous with blood spilt red down the sides. Naomi poured over the side, ivory hair tinged with crimson, cascading over her bare, bent back. Astarion’s fingers buried in her hips, planting the promise of bruises, his body bucking wildly into her as he finally--

Naomi’s moan hits the high pitch of the ceiling. She grinds, needy, against the pair of fingers he crooks inside of her. His thumb spreads her slickness back and presses to the pucker of her ass.

So eager for me to fill you up. His voice in her head is a caress. Her hips roll with the sound. His thumb dips inside her ass with the motion, and Naomi gasps as she eases into that delicious stretch.

But darling, I haven’t fed all night, Astarion pouts, mouth moving with agonizing slowness as his eyes flutter shut beneath long black lashes. Naomi’s eyelids grow heavy, too, as she’s lost to that lovely, slick click of his lips. A meal like you is meant to be savored.

He fucks her holes leisurely, with the air of someone who knows he’ll be back for more before long. It brings to mind those long, lithe fingers, folded between the pages of a book to mark his place. All it takes is an effortless flex of them to keep her coaxed open like this. Her body draws taut as he leans her over the precipice of her own pleasure.

If you need more, my dear, by all means. Take it.

He growls into their bond like he’s the one devoured. Like he can plead ignorance to how he’s taking her apart with his hands, his mouth. Naomi catches a whine between her teeth. Astarion’s free hand cups her ass, urging her into the thrust her body bends towards. She parts a hand from his hair to brace flat to the floor beside his face, the other knotting anew in his silver curls.

Desperately, she rides against the flat of his tongue, against that long, refined nose, fucking herself back into the curve of his fingers. Every pull of them pulls her under, deeper into her own ecstasy. Her body grips him back like she means to drown him, too. The tip of his tongue flicks her clit in relentless rhythm, starting off a shudder she can’t stop.

“Don’t stop,” she begs within and without, the jerk of her hips growing frantic.

His mouth is mercy. When she comes for him, she’s wreathed in heat, slick with sweat, every nerve in her body alight with the most blissful burn. A strangled cry breaks in her chest. It buries the song now trembling from the piano. Naomi shivers out a sigh, and the keys shiver with her.

Astarion wraps his arms tight to her thighs, anchoring her through the aftershocks. When she stills again, her body throbs with a heady rush of blood, pleasure, want. Every part of her is limp with it, save the pulsing, rigid press in her mind and in his trousers. She’s putty in his hands even as his fingers leave her. Naomi twitches back towards the touch he takes away, body aching with his absence.

Naomi’s knuckles unfurl, stroking soft through the tangles she wrought. What a sight he is, his hair in utter disarray, his mouth a mess of blood and lust and her. An ease settles into his graceful features, not so different from that quiet contentment he wore while leaning into the light by the window. His eyes simmer with it, lips drawn in a soft smile.

Without warning, his grip tightens. Naomi stifles a huff of surprise as she’s taken down, marble kissing smooth to her spine. A pale hand cradles her head, cushioning her fall. In a blink, he’s hovering over her bare body and dipping down to catch her in a fever of a kiss. It’s a needy, sweltering latch of lips, tangy with her own sweetness as much as his.

“Here?” She purrs to the seal of his mouth.

She lets him feel the way the word alone makes her body tense. Waiting. Wanting. Their bond curls with it, crooked and beckoning in his head. The way his fingers bent a few moments before, buried in the heat of her.

A long breath passes out through his nose, his eyes sliding half shut. A smirk tugs at the corner of her mouth. But his cheek turns by just the barest hair, and Naomi’s attention follows after his.

Music flutters, breathy, off the black and white keys. The piano stays a pretty picture of perfection, among the deaths little and large they’ve littered throughout the ballroom.

His teeth trace the angled edge of her ear. Naomi keens with the sting of it as she’s swept from the floor.

“There.”

She’s caught in his kiss again as he carries her. One swipe of his tongue to where he bit her lip before has her quivering. Has her a world away from the one still around them. Vaguely, she’s aware he’s somehow rid her of her gloves and shoes. She hears a dull, wooden clatter, and then a resounding thud. The piano plays on, but it's muted.

Astarion doesn’t bend her over the way she mused. Instead, he seats her on the polished wood of the piano’s closed lid. His hands leave her back to push her knees apart, scoop beneath them, and pull her spread legs to the strain trapped in his trousers.

Naomi grins, her fangs snagging his lower lip as he tries to part from her. Astarion’s answering groan is rough like a scrape of sandpaper. It leaves her mouth raw, tingling, alive with a pulse that plays to the tune of his pleasure. She wants more of that noise. More of the happy purr it pours into her head from his. One drink of that sloppy, slap happy look on his face sates her more than blood ever could.

You’ve given me everything, he told her, once. But now, all she can think is more. Take more. Take everything.

Astarion grinds his hard length against her in answer. The sweet friction makes sweeter music in their mouths as Naomi moans with the motion, too. Still, there’s far too much fabric for her liking.

Astarion’s fingers make fast work of it. He unlaces his pants only enough to free his cock, parts from her only enough to push her back and clamber up after her. Then, he’s on her again like a second skin. Her cunt throbs with the press of his cock, the tip of it wet and seeping against her thigh. She tries to fit a hand between them, to wrap her palm around his girth and feel with her hands, not just her head, how badly he has to have her. Astarion doesn’t leave her space for it.

It’s not his hands that put her flat on her back, against the body of the piano. It’s the sudden swell of his adoration ballooning from his brain to hers. The weight of his affection pins her there beneath him, utterly paralyzed, as the music flows on under both of them. He’s brimming with it, and it washes over her in a wave, a cup overflowing.

His curls hang down in his eyes, wild with the look of a man starved. “You’re going to scream for me, little love,” he says with the slightest slur. The thought smears from him to her, burning in the back of her mind like a pull of liquor. He brushes her snarled hair back until it tumbles over the piano’s edge, white over white. “I’m going to make you. And I want to see that beautiful face when I do.”

“Please,” she starts to say.

But barely any of it makes it past her lips. Astarion never leaves her wanting for more than a moment.

“O-Oh,” she stammers instead, as her soaked cunt splays to his cock sliding home. Astarion pushes out a moan as he pushes into her. He hooks her legs with his arms, folding them up and back.

“That’s my girl,” he pants, forehead heavy against her own. His thumb circles her cheek, a feather-light counterweight to the thickness he seats inside her. He watches her intently, fixated. Hypnotized. “My good, good girl.”

Kisses and praise tumble from between his teeth, down her cheek, to her throat. Naomi’s head rolls back while she relishes the wet, smacking mantra that’s the mess of them. He’s not tender with his tempo. He doesn’t have to be. You could ruin me. I’d let you ruin me, she thinks again.

And how beautiful he is, in ruins with her. No more composure. No more restraint. Sweat streaks his brow as it bends beneath his focus. All there is is the blend of them, the slow rock of the piano underneath them, and the scattered, stranded pieces of a melody left in their wake.

It could break. The thought cracks through her, through them, with the wooden whine of the piano legs taking the shift of their weight. Astarion crushes her worry beneath the thrust of his hips, any notion of it lost to the head of his cock pressing just where it needs to make her see stars.

Naomi bites down on her own lip, grounding herself in fleeting pain and the tang of blood. He’s not even touching her clit; he doesn’t have to. He floods her with how it felt when he did, when his tongue rolled against the swell of it, just the tip of it teasing that sensitive little bud. How she felt to him, so silky and slick in his mouth. How amazing it feels to finally fuck her, to take what’s his and have her take him so, so tightly.

He could ruin her. Snap her like the creaking legs of this instrument, not long for this world. It would be almost as effortless as the way she spreads for him. But instead, Astarion fills her. Every shift prods the crown of his cock against the sweetest spot inside her cunt.

Naomi’s fingers claw into Astarion’s back as he bucks wildly. Tears sear in her eyes. The tell-tale pressure in her pelvis builds near-blinding.

“Scream for me, darling,” he growls against her neck, out loud this time.

Her cunt throbs with his command. But she doesn’t heed it. Astarion lets out a low, steaming hiss.

“I said scream, dear,” Astarion says, his velvet voice edged in warning. The sparks of his indignation spit flinty in her head alongside a flicker of excitement at her defiance.

He wants to feel the rush of her own power with the spasm of her cunt as she comes undone. He wants her magic to spill into him as he spills his seed inside of her. Wants to taste it with the rest of her. If Naomi was nothing to him, she’d still be the siren; it’s not a power Astarion gifted to her. It was hers without him. It is her. And she’s his.

“I might break the glass,” she whispers, wary of anything louder.

“Oh, my love,” Astarion says tenderly, a husk in his throat as his hand wraps loose around her neck. “You can break everything.”

Astarion kills her hesitation. She’s never felt more whole. She feels holy, feeling her own perfect squeeze around his cock, feeling herself fucked in his body and her own. Feeling what she does to the man who already has everything, but will never have enough of her.

When Naomi screams Astarion's name, it’s everything else in the room that shatters.

Glass crashes from the windows. They burst one after another in quick-fire succession. Astarion buckles against her body with the sudden, decisive snap beneath them. His hips jerk, rutting erratically. Warmth spurts into her with every shudder down his spine, every pulse of his cock.

He cuts her cry with his teeth buried in the crook of her neck. Naomi clings to him as her cunt convulses. It’s the bite that takes her apart, knowing he tastes his own name in her throat and thinks--

Mine, mine, mine.

Naomi’s head drops limp. Astarion’s grip on her neck gives way to soft circles stroked against her cheek again. Mine, she thinks, as his ruby eyes watch her keenly, awash in the soft glow only she knows.

Even after Astarion stills, the room spins dizzy from her upside-down view. She blinks it all back into place, but some pieces won’t fit together again so easily. They’re far closer to the floor than when he slipped inside of her. The piano legs splay at odd, splintered angles. The floor glitters with glass like crystalline teeth, ready to bite the heels of any who dare tread their hall.

Astarion slides out, and she shivers with the fade of his warmth. He sits up, his gaze sweeping the shattered windows, his smirk smug and wet with her. “Perhaps all of the Gate heard you. The gardener did for certain.”

Naomi sits up, too, leaning forward and letting his shoulder take her weight. Her forehead comes to rest against his collarbone. She finds an easy smile while relishing the way his heart still hammers his chest. She did that, in multiple senses. Absently, he tucks the hair sticking to her cheeks back behind her ears.

“I guess I’ll have to kill her,” he adds, chipper. “I suppose, for now, we can spare all the others.”

“She’s already dead enough, dear,” Naomi sighs.

A tiny, discordant note of sadness plucks in her chest, among the pleasant haze settling over her. Astarion stiffens against it, as if she reached out and pinched him. She doubts he’d be so eager to slay one of his spawn for the same crime of hearing her come for him.

The gardener is hers, of a sort. Not a vampire -- Naomi can’t make those. Before Naomi sang her awake again, the gardener was just a sad stack of bones collecting dust in a closet. Now, she rattles along to Naomi’s tune, keeping the flowers trimmed to her liking.

“I suppose you’re right,” Astarion murmurs. His expression softens with fondness, the sort that’s rare to surface unless they’re alone, but never fails to make her chest light and fluttery. “Are you tired now, pet?”

“We stayed up all night,” Naomi laughs faintly.

“Hm,” he nods with a pitying frown. “Let me see to you, my treasure. Don’t you move.” His lips curve, coy, as his eyes flicker back to the wrecked windows. “I wouldn’t want you to strain yourself.”

He saunters back to where his coat lays, now tattered. He returns to settle it around her shoulders, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead.

“You’re such a staunch defender of my honor,” Naomi says dryly, even as the leftovers of their lovemaking start to seep down her thigh.

“Ha,” Astarion shakes with a rolling laugh. “I rather think I’m the thief of it. You were quite the heist. It wouldn’t do to have some debaucherous upstart happen by and think they can make off with what’s mine.”

“I wouldn’t let them live through it.”

“Aw,” he clicks his tongue, “you’re such a romantic.”

Astarion leaves her with her legs strewn over the broken piano, relacing his trousers as he goes. Glass crunches beneath his heels. He stops to ring the bell near the door. A few seconds later, it creaks open a hair. She catches his curt commands to the servant she can’t see on the other side.

“...yes, here, in the ballroom. My consort and I wish to take in the view, and see none of you.”

His lesser spawn are quick to make good on their orders. The door swings open once more a short time later, and in floats a claw-foot tub without another soul to be seen. Magic clings, cloudy, beneath the porcelain belly of it. A pleasant, floral scent curls with the steam from the water within. The tub drifts to the heart of the ballroom and settles with a soft thud before the yawning window panes.

Astarion returns to her as her toes touch the ground again. He frowns tightly, eyes narrowing.

“There’s debris scattered everywhere, my sweet,” he says, saccharine even in reproach. “I wouldn’t want to see you hurt.”

Naomi sniffs a laugh, picking her path carefully. “If I can’t handle a little sharpness here and there, it’s a wonder how I’ve managed to handle you.”

“Oh, it’s simple,” Astarion says, catching her wrist with an effortless flourish. “We were made for each other. By each other, really.”

And Astarion’s made up his stubborn mind that she’s not to take another step, it seems. With a soft huff, he sweeps her off her feet all over again, strides to the tub with her legs dangling over his arm, and delicately deposits her there.

Water laps at the tub’s edges, splashing as she situates herself. She shrugs from Astarion’s coat, shucking it away to join all the other debris they don’t have use for. Heat tingles across her skin, like little, loving nips of Astarion’s teeth. Naomi eases back into the burn of it as the sting settles sweetly.

Astarion rids himself of his shoes and trousers. He dips a foot into the tub, bidding her to make way for him with a gentle nudge. The water ripples as he settles in behind her. With a satisfied sigh, she sinks back against his chest and deeper into the furling warmth.

The ballroom overlooks the well-kept gardens behind the estate. The hedges are high enough, only a spyglass might have hope of spotting them both bare. Under Cazador’s reign, the garden was little more than a sprawl of weeds and webbed ivy. Now, fountains babble between the blooms of pink and blue and violet. If she strains, she can catch the weave of music in the trickling flow, like tinkling wind chimes.

A soft breeze tickles her ears, sending gritty glass and ash scattering over their floor. Astarion clenches a soft sponge in his grip, wrings it out, and starts to scrub her skin in slow, deliberate strokes. Naomi’s head tilts back beneath his tender care, every rub taking the tension from shoulders.

She turns after a time, and he starts to wash blood from her front, while she wets her hands and works the redness from the white of his hair. Her fingers linger along the slants of his ears, rubbing delicately, until she catches that satisfied hum in his throat that leaves her lifted, floating on the buoy of his happiness.

The water never cools or clouds; magic still swirls in the steam, even long after they’re free of blood and grime. Astarion rakes hand through her hair, his fingernails digging pleasantly against her scalp.

“You are divine as ever,” he rumbles. “Rest now, pet.”

And she does, slipping soundly into a trance, soaked in sunlight and lavender oil with her lover wrapped around her. Only Astarion sends her to the sort of rest that reaches her soul. His presence is sanctuary.

It’s his disquiet that wakes her suddenly. He still strokes her hair just as gently, but he levels a hard-cut stare out over the garden, his lips set with the same stoniness.

“No one will ever take you from me,” he murmurs, as if to himself.

“As if they ever could,” Naomi whispers back, reaching up to graze the edge of his jaw.

Heavens help the fool who tries. Any who dare to hatch such plots, to harbor such ill will in their Crimson Palace, will find themselves laid to rest with all the others. Their enemies’ gravestones are just bricks in their empire, every one of them laid with blood in the mortar.

Astarion dips his head down, the hint of a smile curling at the corner of his mouth. “I suppose it might be fun to see them try. In the meantime, my love, I’m of a mind to keep you spread for me for the next tenday.”

Naomi laughs. The sound echoes around the otherwise vacant room.

Astarion’s grin only grows, the tips of his fangs sharpening his smile. “Did I say something funny, dear?”

His lips crush down against hers in a kiss consuming.

[thewertsearch]

[Dave] goes underground and discovers gold ruins. Before entering, he's interrupted by Karkat who uses a memo to warn both him and John about their involvement with Terezi and Vriska, telling them the scourge sisters are partaking in a dangerous game of rivalry fueled flirtation which has gotten both him and John killed at least once each.

Initially, I wasn’t sure we’d seen all four of these deaths - but on reflection, I think I can actually list them.

John was manipulated to his death by Terezi, creating Davesprite’s timeline.

He was also killed by Jack, as part of Vriska’s plan to turn him into a god.

Green-Suit Dave was killed as the result of Terezi’s game/experiment.

Red-Suit Dave was killed by DD, who was acting on Vriska’s suggestion to create Bec.

Bro is slain by his own sword, and the body is discovered by Dave later, who can't bring himself to retrieve the sword.

Bro's death is canon - but, at least for now, Davesprite's death is not. Hope is the thing with feathers.

[Dave] then goes on to make all the money needed, to buy all the fraymotifs, which are powerful battle techniques purchased from consorts, and to reach the top of his echeladder.

I’m interested in seeing these Fraymotifs in action – particularly the combined ones that we saw in John’s walkaround.

John appears to be getting a combination attack with each of his co-players. Based on what we know of their respective Aspects, I'll brainstorm some hypothetical techniques that match these names.

Ivories in the Fire [Breath/Time]: I'm picturing John and Dave's combination attack as a time-accelerated hurricane. The main problem with weather manipulation is that it tends to be rather slow; John's storms come out relatively fast, but Dave's help, he can bring them out instantly, firing gales off with the speed and precision of lasers.

Mixolydian Maelstrom [Breath/Light]: A maelstrom of light and wind sounds like something John and Rose would use to distract foes, rather than directly harm them. I think this could be a smoke-and-mirrors technique, summoning strobe lights and clouds of dust to confuse and disrupt large groups of enemies.

Fantasia’s Inhale [Breath/Space]: This sounds like some reality-bending shit. Maybe the Prospit siblings can warp space in a way that synergizes with John's normal fighting style. For example, they could lower the mass of any objects in their vicinity, allowing John's wind to launch much larger objects than normal.

With [Dave’s] massive reserve of grist accumulated in his travels and his more advanced torrenting capabilities, he allows Jade to alchemize some sophisticated equipment right away.

This is a good point that I didn’t catch at the time. The GristTorrent we saw in the comic has an extremely slow download speed, but Jade quickly had millions of grist to spare. Dave had to have a way to speed up the transfer.

[Jade] makes her entry item from the pre-punched card. A tree sprouts from the alchemiter, and a green Bec-shaped pinata dangles from a branch.

Oddly enough, Jade’s entry item spawned the same tree that John’s did. Rose and Dave’s items didn’t have anything in common, so it's just the Prospit siblings whose items share traits.

How typical is this phenomenon? Does it mean anything? With this comic, it's often difficult to tell.

As the clock ticks down to the CRITICAL EVENT, the most important character in Homestuck sits and watches this pandemonium ensue. And then, the second most important character in Homestuck positions a shitty drawing of himself in front of a typewriter and writes this recap.

Gamzee is now more important than Hussie, for whatever that’s worth. What the hell is going on with this guy?

[art-by-ady]

Gale the Voracious Consort 🍷

Will never get over vampire Gale.

[reverieblondie]

A little Dark Prince Rolan opening...

Your trying to recall everything you have ever been told about him...a spellcaster, a monster, a dark figure who can make a kingdom crumble in a single night...

Said to hold access to magic so powerful it even out matches warlocks of the most fearsome devils. A child from the hells...A Dark Prince...

But a prince non the less...

That is where you come in... to be his consort and take him from prince to king all so your parents kingdom could be spared from his conquest. Some say he is frightenly handsome, who has the ability to lead unsuspecting lovers to his shadows where he devours their hearts. Others say he is simply a horrid beast, with glowing eyes that can strip away your soul...and he is the one you will be wed too...

Shadowheart grabs your hand, her green eyes filled with concern. "Tav, do you feel sick? Do you need healing?"

You hold her hand back and fake a smile to ease her, but she sees through it, she knows your concerns... Right as you go to tell her your fine the carriage stops. Wyll opens the door his eyes pained for you.

"We have arrived to his castle...are you ready?"

You let go of Shadowhearts hand and ajust yourself with a final deep breath.

"Ready."

Roles:

Rolan : Dark Prince/wizard

Tav: Princess soon to be consort/sorcerer

Cal: Chancellor

Lia: Grand Diplomat

Shadowheart: Tavs Lady-in-waiting/ cleric

Wyll: Tavs Knight

Lae'zel: Tavs Knight

Karlach: Rolans Royal Enforcer

Zevlor: Rolans General

Gale: Rolans Advisor

Astarion: one of Rolan’s spy’s/assassin’s

Afria: Bard/sent to Tav to be her Lady-in-waiting (Rolan wants her to spy on Tav)

Jaheria: Spymaster

Halsin: Forest Druid and information provider

(still trying to figure out other roles for others, also wrote this super quickly)

[bloodycyrano]

Here's what Team Tadpole would do for you for valentine's day!

Karlach: She would get you the absolute BIGGEST plushie she could find, and chocolates. Post-upgrades, she would cuddle the plushie for a few nights beforehand so it smells like her. She'd probably bring you to a carnival- One that *isn't* infested with shapeshifters this time -and try to take turns winning each other prizes.

Wyll: Wyll Ravengard spares no romantic gesture. He brought you your favorite flowers and decided to take you out dancing! He wanted to finish off the night with a romantic walk on the beach, but Mizora crashed your date, and now the three of you are playing board games because she wouldn't leave- Which Wyll isn't exactly happy about, but he's content as long as he gets to spend time with you.

Gale: Gale would probably make you a home-cooked meal in his tower back at home and absolutely shower you with affection and little magic tricks to dazzle the eyes. He's constantly seeking that approval, so you'd better believe he's going all out.

Halsin: Halsin would take you on a picnic in the prettiest part of the woods he could find, and surprise you with a special wild garden bed of your favorite flowers. He'd also have a whittled duck for you.

Shadowheart: Shadowheart would bring you a single night-blooming flower and a bottle of wine. She'd probably take you somewhere dark and secluded where you could simply spend the night enjoying each other's company, away from the rest of the world.

Astarion: Astarion is happy to do almost anything as long as he's with you. You stopped by his grave to leave flowers- A cute gesture he's likely become accustomed to. Perhaps he takes you out to dinner, or to a play he knows you've been wanting to see, but the real treat is when he takes you back home to cuddle and read together. Horror novels and shocking favorites only.- You wouldn't expect it, but he does voices for the characters if you get him to read out loud. His faked accents are awful, but it's cute.

Ascended Astarion: Awe, you didn't think I'd leave you guys out, did you? So. He's likely to do something flashier. A wine tasting, or maybe take you to get a new outfit tailored to fit you perfectly. It doesn't match anything you'd actually choose to wear, but it paints the perfect picture of the vampire consort trophy spouse he's decided that you are. He keeps setting up little things that you feel are supposed to make you happy, but it's filled with a harsh coldness and an empty stare. You've all but given up hope that the Astarion you know and love is still in there until the night comes to a close, and he brings you home. He's being strangely affectionate and sweet. Cuddly. At first, you take this as a sign of better days - until he won't stop biting you, no matter what you say or do. Eventually, he's taken so much blood that you pass out; and you wake up in your locked chambers alone with a pretty, expensive necklace and roses. No note. It doesn't even matter if roses are your favorite flower or not. He doesn't care.

Lae'zel: She didn't know Valentine's Day was a thing. She can't pronounce it and literally had no idea why everyone was making a big deal about the holiday, etc. She was, however, very surprised when you brought her a gift. She tried to seem uninterested in the whole "mushy, romantic stuff," but you could practically see her heart melt when you made a romantic gesture. You spent the rest of the day together - She probably tried to bring you out hunting or sparring.

Durge: Durge would either give you a mortal heart in a jar or a vial of their own blood, and disturbing poetry they wrote for you. They might try to get you to get matching tattoos with them, but they won't push you if you'd rather not. Aside from that, they might take you to a cemetery or a long lost ruin to bask in the macabre beauty of the space. They'd also bring brownies they made themself.- They were going to pack a picnic, but they didn't want to smother you; and they're really better at baking than they are at cooking.