#astandrii

[clefable-time]

WIP WEDNESDAY

New rule for me: I can't post one of these if I haven't added to my doc lmao. Otherwise I'll run out of WIP!

You can read Duets for Ruined Monsters here:

There's only one other writer I follow here ATM so @atsadi-shenanigans and whoever else sees this can go ahead and post a WIP of you'd like :)

He can, from his current position, easily compensate her for her generosity for her discomfort – for her blood. All it will take is a simple trail of the fingers, down between parted, naked thighs – or perhaps up, over her breasts, their sensitivity enhanced by mere millimeters of fabric (they would fit rather nicely in his hands, to use her phrasing.) It would be so easy to disengage and take what he needs while she gets what she wants. The other shoe has to drop at some point; it may as well be now.

“Astarion?”

He’s hurtled from his thoughts immediately, flinching against her body. His hands are not where he left them; one drags dangerously at the hem of her shift. The other splays over her side, fingers trailing over her ribs. She's frozen beneath his touch, heart hammering. Shit. 

“I, er,” he starts. Words, practiced ones, pour into his mouth to the point where he feels the need to swallow. “I just–” he tries again. No, not those. “You–” No, not her, him. He grumbles and hides his face against her shoulder, cursing himself. “How else am I supposed to repay you for this?”

“Repay?” There’s a pause as she processes. Then a sigh – another damned sigh from her. He can’t take the sighing. “I don't need to be repaid–”

“–Of course you do,” he bites (or, he’d like to.) “I'm about to rip into your fucking throat.” He’s quick to note the way she flinches at his tone of voice – how her pulse quickens at the force with which his nails dig into her skin – and tries to steady himself. He takes a breath and tries to find even a shred of peace between his hunger and this… other thing that simmers beneath it. “This way, you'll get something out of it – I get to eat, and you get to pick up where we left off the other night. You scratch my back…” He makes a loose gesture with his hands. “...et cetera.”

“And sex is ‘scratching my back’ for you?” She’s quick to sink her claws into the misstep with his verbiage – damn her. “If you’re looking to keep score, I can list plenty of things you’ve done for me without repayment: you taught me how to use a dagger when I couldn't use my magic in the Underdark; you keep me – all of us, really – from walking headlong into traps; you can break your way into any lock that you can see; you cover my back in battle.” He can feel her swallow against him. “You keep me company; you're my friend.”

He feels a new, terrible, awful, giddy sensation in his stomach. He’s never had a friend before; he’s never had anything like this.

“And here I thought we were more than friends,” he hums, and he moves to drag his lips over her shoulder, sensing even the slightest movement of her body against his – savoring it. “And that we'd partake in all that entails.”

“Astarion,” she growls against him. “Can I not simply care for you?” She roughly turns in his arms to face him properly, brow drawn tight with frustration. “There is no transaction here.”

She brings a hand up to rest on his chest; her slender fingers splay over the timeworn weave of his shirt as she pushes him back into the wall of cushions. There's something refreshing to this, he muses – to the way she touches him (at least, compared to how he's accustomed to being touched.) It's completely alien, unsure, as though she's never once reached out to touch another person before; perhaps she simply doesn't remember what that's like. When her fingertips quest over him, searching for feedback, always prepared to leave his body at a moment’s notice, he's nearly alight with the idea that he's providing her with an equally novel experience.

“I assure you it’s not for lack of want.” Her ears dip when she looks up at him. “I just don’t want to conflate wants and needs when it comes to this.” Her face grows taut – pained. “You do not have to earn this – you deserve to fucking eat.” 

Her eyes are cold steel, a stake that pierces him straight through the chest without the mercy of death. Yet again he's at a loss for what to do – what to say. There is no honeyed line in his repertoire for this situation; what could he say, to someone who so readily shares with him what had been held from his reach for two hundred years? Used to control him? Torture him? 

Who is she to decide what he deserves?

What did he ever do to deserve her?

[clefable-time]

WIP Wednesday

Not a lot of progress made this week - I lost internet for the duration and wanted to avoid wasting data. Tumblr is also being cranky about indented posts, so we're under a read more this week. No tags because I'm shy. Kisses!

As always, you can read chapter one of Duets for Ruined Monsters here:

If Astarion were to weigh the appeal of trancing on a hard, stone floor with that of camping outside among all manner of filth and fauna, he finds he’ll choose the dirt every time. As it turns out, even with the warm and inviting glow of a campfire to compensate, the Sharran temple’s cold, damp, unfeeling architecture is all too familiar for his liking. The protection of a ceiling, while appreciated, provides neither a glimpse of the stars nor the light of the sun; he’s been barely separated from its embrace and already he craves it again, a warm caress on his skin like nothing he’s felt in centuries.

All the same, Cazador never offered a fire – or even a candle – for the sake of his “children’s” comfort, so he savors whatever happens to drop into his clutches.

Perched on a fallen column of marble, his gaze follows the flickering light of the bonfire, cheery oranges and yellows cast over the temple’s morose purple embellishments – “like bruises,” he'd said they were. That earned him a laugh from their leader, quickly met with a glare from the cleric. He absently thumbs at the book in his hands as he turns the memory over in his mind; he curls the corner of a page back and forth in a thinly-veiled attempt to appear occupied, but he pays the passages within no heed. Across the way, the wizard collects an entire market's worth of ingredients in order to rustle up what's sure to be a scrumptious fireside meal – for those of the party who can eat solids, anyway. No such luck for the likes of him.

The wizard and his flock mill about the campsite, abuzz with anxious energy as preparations are made for the expedition ahead. Astarion wordlessly observes as their leader makes her rounds, her long stride light as she moves from tent to tent while the stew pot bubbles away. A spark of amusement flickers in his chest at the way even the broodiest of their companions light up at her presence: the gith looks up from the all-consuming task of sharpening her many blades to praise her ruthlessness in their latest skirmish; the Blade’s charming veneer of a smile broadens just a bit more as he gives her a bow and she returns the gesture; Karlach takes advantage of her newly-repaired infernal engine by yanking her into a back-breaking hug. 

But he is also mindful of how their gazes linger – how they follow along as she canters off to make trite conversation elsewhere. To his relief, she's completely oblivious to how she has them all wrapped around her silver-spangled finger. He can't help but dread the day she discovers she has, well, options.

He retires to his tent early this evening (is it evening? There’s no way to tell out here,) washing out the drunken bellowing that Karlach calls “singing” with a sour swig of wine straight from the bottle. His gut pangs at the notion of socializing while surrounded by food he can't eat – or rather, food he's not allowed to eat.

He clenches his jaw as his body sinks into his pile of pillows, resting the inverted spine of his book atop the bridge of his nose to shield his eyes from the outside world. His stomach twists with a hunger that seeps into his bones like rot – a hollowness he's had the luxury of avoiding these past few weeks. He's endured worse under Cazador – a sentiment hardly worth expressing – but he has grown less accustomed to his hunger with a steady supply of food close at hand. At present, however, there's naught for a vampire spawn to eat under the veil of the shadow curse; even the rats in this wretched place aren't worth the effort of killing, crawling with fungus and disease, and while he can't get sick in a way that matters, he'd rather not go through the trouble.

Hunger isn't the only thing that gnaws at him; with his eyes blocked, his mind is quick to conjure images of kind, sincere, saccharine smiles. The druid’s; the Blade's; even the wizard's. 

It won't be long before she figures out that he doesn’t have anything to offer her in the way of a lover. Perhaps none are as aesthetically pleasing, but certainly there’s someone in camp better suited for her: someone with actual relationship experience; someone who doesn't lie so effortlessly; someone who isn't a damned parasite. She already has that particular role cast at the moment.

[clefable-time]

Snippet S(Mo)nday

(I forgot to post yesterday oops)

As always, you can read chapter one of Duets For Ruined Monsters here:

She tastes of Midwinter. Her blood pools over his flattened tongue like a sweet cherry wine, mulled for hours over a low flame. The heart notes – nutmeg, cinnamon, clove – meld with the expected, acrid tangs of iron and copper. Fresh blood is always a boon to his low body temperature, but hers warms him through in a way that has been lost to time and torture. It spreads down from his palate to his fingers and toes, almost tingling, coaxing more little noises of pleasure from his throat.

Offhandedly, he wonders: when was the last Midwinter he'd partaken in — the last crowded festival square that wasn't just another hunting ground? He swallows, as though it would draw in memories along with her blood, but such fleeting things have been long worn down to nothing by time's relentless tide. 

One.

He drags her scent through his nose after his first mouthful with a forced inhale. The sharp snap of pine boughs dances atop the flavors on his tongue, mingling with the campfire smoke that's settled over her hair as she eagerly watched the wizard prepare her supper (he can smell that too; rich gravy and crusty bread.) At the very edge of her bouquet, he detects the faintest whiff of petrichor — earthy and almost sweet — no doubt a byproduct of the ice and frost she so readily produces. For a moment, he considers taking one of her hands and finding out if that smell is stronger at her palms – at the tips of her fingers (faintly, he recalls that contact with the palms of a stranger or acquaintance is a bit of an elven taboo. He can't remember the particulars — but surely she'd allow him that, right?)

All the same, he finds that he can't get enough of it; it reminds him of the first morning off the nautiloid, of morning dew and dark plumes of smoke. She smells like his freedom.

Two.

He swallows again and draws her closer, eager to flood his senses with more of this – more of her – and the tiny adjustment brings a particular complication to the forefront of his mind.

He's as hard as a gods-damned rock.

As usual, no tags! You see it, you write it!

[clefable-time]

WIP Wednesday

Still plugging away over here - trying to write a little bit each day, but these bits are from earlier in the chapter and are, of course, subject to change. :P

You can read chapter one of Duets For Ruined Monsters here:

His thoughts are abruptly tossed aside when the flap of the tent bursts open and their fearless leader pushes inside. With a huff, she kicks off her boots, and the brief spike of alarm that had clawed across his spine quickly dissipates as he’s reminded that his personal space is now communal. It was her suggestion to connect their tents, offering them a bit more room – as well as saving them the effort of crossing camp to spend time together.

A quiet little fwoomp sounds from her side of the tent as each layer of her clothing is sloughed off like a shed skin. She faces herself towards the canvas wall out of habit, hiding her body from anyone who might happen to catch a glimpse while passing by – a very shy thing, she can be.

“Didn't go well, I take it?” He offers, watching her from the corner of his eye. A solid stripe of gleaming silver runs along the defined curve of her spine, arching and twisting as she undresses with all of the elegance of an artist’s deliberate brushstroke. A spiteful sort of glee sparks in his chest at the realization that this is a sight that blesses his eyes alone; neither the druid nor the Blade nor anyone else has the privilege of witnessing those particular scales glisten. 

“No,” comes her answer, muffled when she pulls a shift – a sheer, frumpy thing – over her head, tousling the waves of her hair in the process. “I doubt I'll be making any progress with her tonight–” She roughly unlaces and shimmies out of her trousers, and he does properly avert his gaze then, per her request. “–and of course, she's taking supper at her tent to avoid me.”

He hums. “Tomorrow, perhaps.”  

She looks over her shoulder at him as she tiptoes delicately out of the pile of clothing, the steep bridge of her nose crinkled by her sneer. “You’re joking.” 

He smirks; of course he is.

Again, I'm shy and new to the fandom, so I don't have anyone to tag. So if you see this, consider yourself tagged!

[clefable-time]

WIP Wednesday (now with smut)

It was going to come to this (ha!) at some point. You can read the first chapter of Duets For Ruined Monsters here:

(it's in italics because it's a flashback)

She was soaked. He could feel it. He would have easily slid into her from this angle, into tight heat. He shifted onto his side and pumped his curled in an easy, steady rhythm he'd used before, on countless others, getting the most physical pleasure he could out of another night to forget. But before long the tension that coiled beneath his skin began to peter out. His hand stilled over his cock and he screwed his eyes shut. Nothing about this was right. He ached — ached in a way that would have been, for a normal person, a simple itch to scratch. His circumstances were far from normal. He tried again — and this time, as his hand began to move at that familiar pace, his imagined partner did not simply lay there against him. Instead, she looked back at him, cold eyes piercing beneath furrowed brows. Even that idea was enough to still his hand again, but the ache only intensified as his mind began to work, rearranging their positions, as her gaze seemed to command. Now, she sat astride him; he could have asked her to, when the moon was high and bright like it was tonight, so he could watch her glitter as she moved, prim and regal in his lap. He could still feel the subtle swell of her breast in his mouth, dainty and sensitive; from here, he'd have had the perfect angle from here to tease her. His free hand trailed over a perked nipple, and he all but moaned imagining her bracing against his chest, clinging to him to counterbalance the graceful swivel of her narrow hips. The grip he had on the base of his cock tightened as she would no doubt have borne down on him, twisting on the path up before slipping back down. Her voice – her rising pitch, her stifled moans – rang in his ears as his fist continued to move. He could practically feel the frantic rhythm of her heart coursing through his veins, leaping and bounding when his own refused to budge. Her thoughts, broadcast to him through a slip of the tadpole, had jumped into him like an arc of electricity, branding him like an iron; they resonated in his mind as his pace increased – as he bucked up into his own hand.  –keep him safe– –keep him mine.  Mine.  Fucking hells. He had already won. 

No tags again - just read and share what you've got working on if you see it!

[clefable-time]

WIP Wednesday

Another week, another WIP. Now that life has normalized, perhaps I'll have time to make actual process instead of posting snippets lmao

You can read chapter one of Duets for Ruined Monsters here:

No tags. Making friends is hard. :P

“So, what are the selections for this evening?”

His musings are brought back to the tent by the hollow tone of her voice. Her pale eyes flick back and forth between his hands – from the book propped open with his thumb to the half-empty bottle of red at his side. 

“Ah, yes,” he drawls, lifting the bottle to check the label. “Tonight we have a fine Turmishan red and…” He flips the book about in his hand to reveal a cover so tattered with time and use that it's become completely illegible. “...a well-loved smut rag that I can't imagine cost more than a copper. Shall I pour you some of the wine?”

“You don't have to keep asking.” She tucks her opal choker into its new home, and he relishes the little shiver of pride that runs through him when he sees his handiwork in her hands – at the care she gives to the thing he made. The project had only taken him a few hours, but he'd agonized a bit in the dark over getting the characters in her name right. The language is practically chicken scratch compared to even Common letters. “I'm always going to decline.”

He clucks his tongue and sets the bottle back down; she’s not missing out, anyway. Good wine is extremely hard to find these days, each sampling he's had less palatable than the last. “I'm only being polite, darling; not one for the taste, are you?”

“No, it’s not that.” Her bare footsteps carry only the softest click of her claws on stone as she pads over to his seat, nestling herself against the cushions not too far away. “Though I do prefer white wines over the red; they tend to be sweeter.” 

A snicker erupts unbidden, unscripted, from his throat. “I should have guessed as much,” he laughs. “Don't think I don't see you sneaking sweet rolls from the wizard’s food stores every night.” 

“I found those in the first place,” she mutters through her teeth, folding her arms. “The very least that I deserve is a finder’s fee.” She rolls over to face him, sagging into the pillows as she moves. His ears pick up a sigh forced from her nose in the quiet. “I don't like to be drunk – that's all. It's harder to think that way.”

His lips draw together, tight as a coin purse. More and more is making sense now, and with each revelation comes another caustic swell of guilt in his stomach. He'd tried offering her some of that swill at the teiflings' “celebration,” thinking it'd make her more amenable to his proposition of her, but she wouldn't take it then, either. He’d just wanted to loosen her up – to make her more willing to follow him away from the festivities – and in doing so he'd tried to circumvent her basest instincts for his own gain. 

And here she is, despite it all, in his – their, he supposes – tent.

[clefable-time]

Snippet Sunday ✂️

Still working on chapter two - you can read the first chapter of Duets For Ruined Monsters here:

[clefable-time]

WIP Wednesday

Finally participating in something like this now that I've made a reminder to do so - god, I've been working on this chapter for like, eight months asdfasdads

You can read chapter one of Duets for Ruined Monsters here.

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He isn't sure whether it's seconds or minutes of silence that pass between them – though he could measure the passage of time by her heartbeats if he truly wanted to. His hunger rushes to the forefront of his mind at the idea, and he swallows it down. 

Just a little longer – he only has to hold out for a little while more. They'll find the damned Nightsong, return to the damned Towers, and then he can drink his fill of cultists and beasts and whatever else happens to step in front of his fangs. He has gone far longer without blood – for an entire year, once – this is nothing. 

“You haven’t been eating.”

He nearly jumps from his own skin. The telltale writhing of the tadpole behind his eye is completely absent; no, she isn’t reading his mind. His discretion must simply be faltering. 

“I’m almost insulted,” she continues. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” Then she laughs – an airy laugh that he quickly identifies as practiced. Her gaze falls to the specimen jars he uses to haul blood from camp to camp, all of them empty and spotted with blackened, congealed residue. “You drained your reserves a while ago, and there's nothing alive out here.” She peeks up at him, cold eyes poking out from beneath the dusky sheet of hair she's flipped to one side of her face. 

He remembers the day she cut it, indiscriminately shearing off chunks with a dull knife until Karlach came by with her razor to even it out. The fuzzy stubble on the back of her scalp rasps over his chest.

“You minx.” He grins, fangs grazing his bottom lip – he’s far more experienced at this game, and he’s more than willing to circle in tandem with her, as warring tom cats will before one makes his decisive pounce. “Trying to change the subject, are we?”

But she simply smiles right back at him – wicked and toothy. “I am.” 

The honesty is enough to catch him off guard, and she capitalizes on even the slightest falter in his expression; she’s the one who pounces.

“I thought we had an arrangement.”

He chews on his cheek. Truthfully, he's loath to be beholden to any single source of food; he has lived that way for two hundred years. Feeding from her was less to keep himself sated (she could never produce enough blood for that – no one could) and more of a way to hold her interest. It was a way to test the limits of the tadpole – how it affected his control over him.

“We did.” He swallows. “Before.” 

Below him, she mouths the word as though it's one of a foreign tongue, feeling out each syllable. Her brow furrows, then, candlelight glinting off of her scales: “What changed?”

His loosened grip on her waist is regained as he flexes his fingers against her, digging into her skin through thin fabric. “You, er,” he says, clearing his throat. “Don't seem to enjoy it like I thought you might have.”

“Enjoy it?” She snorts - she actually snorts at the concept. “Why would I enjoy it?”

She is not stupid (nor is she particularly naive.) She knows the ways of their world and its histories and nuances – but there are gaps in her knowledge, excised from her with her memories, that leave her wanting in very specific areas. She knows how to cast a spell flawlessly but not when she first learned it; she can read the Draconic script on her choker, but can't write or speak the language herself. He'll see the frustration in the crinkle of her nose, in the way her eyes dart back and forth to search for an answer to what should be an easy question only to trip and stutter when the search comes up fruitless.

At moments like this, he is tempted to tease; it would be very easy to do so, and her reactions are endlessly entertaining. But in this specific instance, he feels what he can only describe as relief – his suspicions are correct, and the part of “tawdry vampire lover” can be tossed aside with its accompanying script – but that also leaves him without much else to say.

“There are… some that do,” he says, after taking a moment to formulate. He recalls that drow back at Moonrise – an unsavory woman with putrid-smelling blood. “It is a terribly intimate act, after all – a fearsome monster pressed to your neck, holding your life in his hands. Plenty of those books you enjoy have explored the subject further than that.” He does find an opportunity to tease her then, pulling her closer and dipping his head to nose at her shoulder – to mouth at her neck without biting. She tenses in his fingers, but remains otherwise motionless. Spoilsport. “So, I suppose that such a thing could be... romanticized.” He makes sure to purr that last word along the pointed tip of her ear, and catches her harsh shiver in his arms.

“That’s…” She squints. “...asinine.” 

He comes apart then, barking a laugh – pressing his face into her shift to muffle the noise. 

Her head whips around to glare up into his eyes. “What? Would you find breastfeeding erotic? It's the same principle; it's just eating.”

It takes every remaining ounce of his composure to resist outright howling at such a comparison. “There you go again, darling,” he wheezes out between giggles. “With that obsession of yours.” He blinks away a few tears that well up from the pressure of withheld laughter. “Should I start stuffing my shirt? Is that the secret to gaining your affection?” 

“Shut up,” she hisses. A swift elbow to the ribs paints his newfound mirth red with throbbing pain – but it's well worth the delight he takes from seeing her face scrunch up in frustration, ruffling her scales. “You know what I mean!”

He steadies himself through the stray giggles, nestling his cheek atop her head, his nose buried in her hair. “Is that how you see me? A defenseless babe who requires constant feeding?” 

“You certainly whine enough to play the part convincingly.” She draws her knees to her chest, pinning his hands atop her stomach. “All that I'm saying is that you need to eat, as any one of us does – especially with Thorm and the Absolute and who knows what else waiting for us. We have to be at our best.” She rests back against him, her shoulders collapsing with her breath. “It doesn't have to come from me, but down here, I don't see any other options.”

“There aren't,” he mutters. “I’ve checked.” And checked, and checked, and checked. It was practically torture – a subject with which he is well-acquainted – watching the cleric bleed herself time and time again throughout this maze of a temple, so eager to waste such a precious, delicious resource just to be rewarded with Shar’s next deadly obstacle course. 

Perhaps she has a point about the cleric's priorities.

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Not tagging anyone because I don't really know anyone in the community right now -- kinda starting from scratch with this new blog. If you see this, then consider yourself tagged!