#and astarion goes to his tent to see him because well. curiousity right

[heph]

Hopeless romantic 💔

[mistystepmoonbeam]

Reborn into BG3: Chapter 6

You're reborn into BG3 with only the memory of your past life. Now you're Tav's companion on his journey, and must learn about yourself as much as your new reality.

Chapter 6: Astarion is hungry, and why would he feed on a strong barbarian when you're right there?

Word count: 2.3K

Whatever took place at the blighted village exhausted the adventurers.  Tav had been able to talk his way around the goblins, but the spiders below the town had given them trouble.  You recall your own time defeating the spider matriarch, and her many, many children.    Between peeling off the webbing and patching up wounds,  they were all ready for rest.  

You and Karlach had bought some supplies to feed the group, and she was a lot more handy making a stew than you thought she would be. 

There was a strange sense of home as you all ate together, without Astarion who took his meal into his tent and claimed he was going right to sleep.  Karlach had booed at him but nobody pressed him to stay longer.  You wonder if tonight is the night he’ll try to feed off Tav.

When the night begins to quiet down and most of the companions go to bed you find you can hear a hum  in the air.  Your ears ring with some kind of energy coming from Tav’s bag.  You eye it by his bedroll, unsure if the hum is coming from there or if it’s a trick of echoes between the trees.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” a voice says in your ear.  You nearly jump out of your skin and turn to Gale, who’s holding up his hands with an apologetic smile.  

“I thought you went to sleep,” you say, hand over your heart.

Tav snickers at your fear, tail flicking in the air.

Gale lets out a small grunt as he sits beside you, one leg bent and the other stretched towards the fire.  “The spiders had quite the item in their cave, whether they knew it or not.”

Tav reaches into his bag and pulls out the amethyst stone you know unlocks the necromancer’s book.  The hum grows, more of an annoyance in your ear than anything.  

“What is it?” you ask.

“I believe it goes into this.”  Gale pulls out the Necromancy of Thay from his own pack.  The gaping mouth, amethyst eyes, all of it the same.  You resist the urge to scoot away, because unlike the stone key, you can’t sense anything from the book.  “Astarion was keen on holding onto this which is why I suspect he’s moping in his tent right now.”

You eye the book.  “You’re not going to open it, are you?”

“Perhaps another time.”  Gale sets the book away, while Tav tosses the amethyst into the air and catches it like a baseball.  Gale scolds, “Once again, please do not do that.”

Tav shrugs but stores the stone back in his bag.  He yawns and looks towards Shadowheart’s tent as if considering something before excusing himself.  Bag in hand, he retreats to his tent.  You look between him and Shadowheart’s tent curiously. 

“I think he’s worried about her,” Gale tells you, drawing your attention back to him.  “It took a lot of her power to heal him from the spiders poison.”

“Ah, right.”  She has looked extra weary upon her return.  “How are you feeling?”

“While I do look forward to a long rest, I wanted to test you.”

“You’re giving me a pop quiz?  But I didn’t even review the syllabus.”

Gale chuckles as he stands.  “If you can sense the power from the stone, then I believe you can manipulate the Weave.  Come.”

You follow Gale towards his tent but he keeps walking until you two are by the river.  With a large moon overhead and fireflies dotting the area you can see better than you thought you should.  

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to do anything,” you say.  There’s an excited twinkle in his eye at the prospect of solving the mystery of your past.  As much as you want it to be true, you can’t picture yourself using magic.  

Gale smiles at you, like he knows something you don’t.  Well, he knows plenty you don’t but it seems like it’s something about you.  

“I’m going to channel the Weave,” he says, “and I want you to close your eyes and tell me what you feel.”

You step up beside him, literally nothing to lose.  “Should I get the staff Tav gave me?”

“No, I just want you.”  Gale lifts his hands to start a spell when he clarifies, “Here.  I just want—need you right here without any conduits.”

You bite your cheek to hide the smile at his stammering, and nod.  With a tilt of your head left and right to stretch your neck, you close your eyes.

“Now, just tell me what you feel.”

You wait for something to happen, a breeze or a sting on your skin, but even the phantom limb is unperturbed by whatever Gale is doing.  You shrug.  “Nothing.”

Gale’s voice is distant when he responds.  “Reach out with your mind.”

Once upon a time you would have asked how to do that, but now you keep quiet and consider trying to move the phantom limb.  It’s right there, a weight on the back of your mind and yet…

You clear your throat, shoulders shifting uncomfortably.  It’s heavier now, even without actually trying to use it.  The cold fear that settles across your chest pierces deeper than anything you’ve ever felt.  Your breath quickens until that cold fear becomes terror wrapped around your heart and you open your eyes, ready to tell Gale you want to stop. But instead of the handsome wizard you find a rotting boar head in front of you, on top of Gale’s body.  Maggots fall from its eye sockets and the mouth hangs open with a broken jaw, fur matted with fresh and dry blood alike.  It squeals at you as if being skewered alive.

The terror bubbles into your throat until it comes out of your mouth as a shriek.

You shoot up from your bedroll, arms blindly shoving at the dark to get the boar-headed Gale away from you and finding nothing but shadows.  You lurch, falling to the side when your hands connect to nothing, heart ablaze with adrenaline as you claw at the blue fabric.  It’s too dark in your tent to see anything but out of habit you scramble for your phone, your nightstand, something, anything to light up this small space and assure you there’s no threat.  

There’s only the bottom of your staff and at the very least you can swing that around to hit anything that might be near you.  And you do swing it.  It connects with nothing.

The hanging crystals and bones clatter together when you stop after three swipes.  Your chest and shoulders rise and fall heavily with each breath, eyes adjusting to the dark.  

You gulp down as much air as possible while trying to calm your body.  You’re not just shivering, you're trembling from the residual fear of the dream.  But it wasn’t that bad.  Really, thinking about it now that you’re awake, it was scary but it wasn’t anything worse than what you’ve had in the past.  And it certainly shouldn’t have had you shrieking in the night.

Speaking of…shouldn’t someone have come running by now?  You listen to the wind blow through the trees but hear nothing else.  No questions about what’s going on, and no Tav rushing to your rescue.  Maybe you hadn’t actually screamed?  You could have sworn…

You aren’t ready to set down your staff, but you’re far too shaky to go back to sleep.  Instead you begin to stand only to see movement out of the corner of your eye.  Your body is much slower to react, even when on high alert, and in a flash there’s a hand over your mouth and your back is pressed against a warm chest, both of you still on the ground and your legs tangled in the blanket.  The intruder's other hand is wrapped around your own on the staff, ensuring you can’t attack.

Your free hand, still healing, fumbles to free your mouth when you hear a whisper, “Shhh, shh, sh.”

“Mstaeeom?”

“No need to wake up the entire camp,” Astarion says.  He snatches the staff from your grip while you’re temporarily stunned and tosses it out of reach.  “And no need to bludgeon me, either.”

You let out a deep sigh through your nose and lay a hand over Astarion’s to reassure yourself it’s him.  You remember his scent, more woodsy than you thought it would be, and your heart rate begins to calm.  When his other arm secures around your middle it reassures you more—the tightness of the hold comforting.

“Are you…are you calming down?” he questions incredulously.

You try to answer but can’t speak clearly with his hand over your mouth.  So you shift and try to look at him over your shoulder, pressing yourself further into his chest as your head struggles to turn.  You can just make out his chin in the dark when he finally releases your mouth.  

“I thought you were Gale with a rotting boar head.”

He squints at you, upper lip curling.  “I’ll assume that was the nightmare that had you assaulting the air.  But…why are you calm?  Shouldn’t you be screaming?  Struggling?  Calling for the others?”

“Why?”  When you attempt to shift forward he doesn’t let you, arm now locked securely around your waist since he’s no longer concerned with you fighting back with the staff. 

“Because I’m attacking you.”

“You are?”  You turn to get a better look at him but he grabs your chin and faces you forward.

He pauses.  “I just need a little of your blood and I’ll be on my way.  We don’t need to make a big thing out of it.”

“Blood?  Shouldn’t you be going for Tav?”

“Why would I go for the bulky barbarian that’s sleeping out in the open when you’re hidden here, weak and ripe for the plucking?”  Astarion begins to shift your head to the right to reveal your neck.  

“That’s a good point,” you mumble.  

His breath fans over your pulse point, but it isn’t some kind of excited or pleasant exhale.  It’s more like disappointment or…exhaustion.  And he doesn’t bite you.

“Um, Astarion,” you say.  

He’s silent.

“If you’re going to drink my blood can you at least do it from the wrist?”

“What?”  His question is just another breath.

“It’ll be easier to conceal marks on the wrist.”

Of all things, Astarion shoves you away.  He’s quick to get on his feet and step away from you while you fumble for balance.  One slender, pale finger points at you.  “What’s your game?”

“Go fish?”

His scowl deepens.  Watching him work through the slew of emotions and questions would be entertaining, if not for your own nagging question; why is he upset by this?  You offered him your blood just like Tav would.  So why didn’t he happily accept and tell you to get comfortable?  Wait.  Why were you so willing to get comfortable and let him potentially kill you?  Let’s lock that thought away until we can find out if therapists exist in this world.

“Sorry,” you say.  “I’m not playing a game…I just trust you.” 

A truly terrible idea.  There’s no guarantee this Astarion is exactly like the game but…

“And I owe you right?” you add.  “Feeding on me will just be like clearing my debt.”

Astarion frowns but considers your words.  “I suppose this means you know what I am.”

You scratch at the spot on your neck he’d been breathing on.  “I might have put it together just now.  And you’re a better fighter when you’ve fed, right?”

“Well I don’t need any more convincing,” Astarion says, voice turned that saccharine tone.  “Why don’t you get comfortable?”

As he kneels beside you you hold up a hand.  “I meant it about the wrist.”

Astarion frowns but nods.  You roll up the sleeve of your shirt, holding your arm towards him.  He sits, one leg bent so his knee faces upwards and the other lays on the ground.  There’s a gentleness as he takes your wrist with both hands, lifting it to his lips.  If you could see perfectly in the dark this might have scared you more, but the most you could make out were his eyes watching your skin and then the opening of his mouth.  

You feel the sting of his fangs, sinking deeper than any wound you’ve had before.  Well, any wrist wound, anyway.  You look away, not wanting to stare despite the morbid fascination with the act.  And you should be…colder, shouldn’t you?  Yes, his fangs do feel like ice is piercing your veins but the rest of you is warm—flushed even.  But then your head begins to swim, mind too big for your skull, and you sway.  

It’s too hot in that little tent.  Too enclosed.  You gulp as the nausea curls in your gut, the blood seeping from your wrist that doesn’t get sucked away by the vampire now dripping down your arm.

“Astarion,” you whimper.  When you try to pull back your arm he keeps you in place, drinking heavily.  

Oh gods, you rolled a one.

“Astarion!” you hiss.  It’s enough to take him out of his trance, finally pulling his fangs out of your wrist.

“Wha-oh, yes,” he mutters.  You watch him wipe the blood on his chin with his thumb and then lick it off.  Had you enough blood in your body and again, the ability to see perfectly in the dark, it might have been lewd.  But you have to lie down in hopes of making the world stop spinning.

“That was…” Astarion begins but changes whatever he was going to say.  “That was wonderful, thank you.  Now, I’m off to find something more…filling.”

You turn your head to him as he steps towards the entrance of your tent.  Just as he’s about to open one flap he turns to you. “Are you…all right?”

You give him a thumbs up with your good hand and a yawn.  “Don’t put any boars in my tent this time.”

Astarion replies, but you’re already asleep and don’t hear anything else the rest of the night.

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