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spacebarbarianweird · 6 months ago

Note

I love the troupe of finding Astarions parents. Can I ask for a request of Tiriel and Alethaine running into an elven woman at a market who looks suspiciously similar to Astarion please? If not that’s totally cool!

Past Grief

Synopsis: There were years when Sylenn Ancunin was happy, but ever since her only son died her life as been all mysery and sorrows. And now she meets a young elf who reminds her of what she lost.

Tags: hurt\comfort, dadstarion, astarion's mother

The fic is set a few months prior The Dhampirs of the Sword Coast

Alethaine's age - 24-years-old

Thanks @themadlu for beta-reading! Thank you for being the fastest reader in the wild west!

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Headcanons

There were years when Sylenn Ancunin was a warrior.

She was a fighter, one of the many protectors of Evereska.

There were years when she was a scholar, diving deep into the secrets of elven history.

There were years when she was a mother and a wife – but those decades disappeared into oblivion, a true curse of elven existence.

It’s all gone.

Her first child – a girl – died when orcs ambushed one of the elven towns. Sylenn was still young and the very idea she could overlive her own children sounded unreal. They were elves, not humans! Their children didn’t die unless mortal danger came for them.

But orcs smashed Sylenn Ancunin’s baby daughter against the wall and the elf would forever remember how she held a lifeless body whose every bone had been broken into tiny pieces.

She got pregnant again – sixty years later. Her husband and Thiramin assured Sylenn everything would be fine. Everything… But three human mages killed him, and her sorrow caused Sylenn to miscarriage. Another rare thing for Tel'Quessir. Still weak and bleeding, she put her heavy armor on and avenged them both, slaughtering the cursed wizards like livestock.

Then, she buried her Thiramin and returned to Evereska, to her home, where at last she was among her own kind.

A century passed, slow and peaceful. She married again – never did she love Caeldrim as much as she did her Thiramin. But he was a good friend and partner, and Sylenn was happy by his side.

The only thing she truly wanted back then was to conceive a child. She wanted to become a mother, she wanted this gift she had been deprived of twice.

Sylenn prayed to all of the elven gods. Corellon, Hanali, Sehanine, Naralis…Each of them.

Until one day, instead of a reverie, she had a dream. A silhouette weaved of light placed a small star in her hands.

The gods gave her a child.

… Now, centuries later, Sylenn fears and waits for those memories when she reveries. The moment the healer placed a newborn boy in her hands.

Astarion. Her little star.

He was born with curled silver hair and when he was a child he resembled a dandelion. Sylenn remembers Astarion was a crybaby, always demanding her attention. He wanted his mother to hold him, to carry him around their house. And, should he have a nightmare or some ghostly shadows of his past lives haunted him, he came straight to her, eyes puffy, lips quivering. Sylenn would lull him back to sleep but rarely carried him back to bed.

The boy had the temper of a human, and Caeldrim joked that some of their ancestors must have bedded a N Tel'Quessir. Sylenn’s son was smart and brave, and if she couldn’t find him anywhere, it meant he was in a library – learning new things, new languages, new facts.

Or he could have been in the hills, if the sun shone brightly. Caeldrim’s mother called her grandson Sunflower – for he sometimes would spend hours just standing in the sun enjoying its warmth.

Sylenn taught Astarion to fight. A longsword. Daggers. All possible weapons. She often took him outside Evereska to show him the world behind the elven realm.

It fascinated him.

Sylenn knew Astarion would leave to see the world soon enough. When she would see him again, he would be an adult – and she wished his childhood would last just a little longer.

It didn’t.

Her baby boy grew up. A beautiful elf whose eyes were green like the hills of Evereska and whose hair was the color of moonlight.

There is another memory Sylenn is afraid to re-live.

The last time she saw Astarion.

He was twenty-four. Fully-grown. Handsome and beautiful, taller than other elves, with hands almost as strong as a human’s.

Astarion was standing in front of her in his traveling armor and Sylenn couldn’t take her eyes off him.

“I will be fine, o’si,” he told her. “Besides, you taught me so well, I could put up with a devil in a fight!”

“Don’t be stupid, Astarion” she tiptoed and kissed his forehead. “Pity, I didn’t finish the circlet I wanted to give you.” She pointed at the unfinished twisted rope-like headwear adorned with a little star.

“You can finish it by the time I get my adult name.” Astarion kissed her cheek.

And he left. Sometimes in her reverie, Sylenn wants to cry and beg her only son to stay. Besides, not all adult elves leave their homes! Some stay where they were born.

Her Astarion disappeared. That wretched city he went to study murdered him and no one could even tell her how it happened.

After eighty years of receiving no message from him, Sylenn left Evereska one last time and traveled to the West.

To find her son’s grave.

They even buried him like a human – and Sylenn wanted to dig the grave with her bare hands. Her son didn’t deserve to rot in the ground but all strength left Sylenn and she spent a day curling in the graveyard until a guardian came to check on her and took her to the inn.

With the years, Sylenn accepted what happened. Besides, there are fates much worse than death.

Her son could have been cursed. Or turned into an undead. At least she knows he sleeps peacefully in his grave and maybe if the gods allow she will meet him in their afterlife.

Sylenn Ancunin never returned to Evereska. She came to Neverwinter, found her youth friend, a gnome paladin, and asked him to give her a place in his adventuring guild.

At least dying in battle is better than rotting in her own misery.

A reeking scent of death lingers over the cave and Sylenn curses. This part of the dungeon disgusts her, and if it wasn’t for her mission she would have already returned to the surface.

“Well, they told us ‘dead or alive’,” the Dragonborn by her side chuckles and points at a dead human prince whose body is torn in two.

“We need to find the map,” Sylenn sits on a boulder. “I am too old to wear armor.”

“You are not old,” the Dragonborn laughs. “You are what, only a millenia?”

Sylenn cringes. Well, is there any difference between being five hundred years old and a millenia?

“Almost,” Sylenn says. The warrior looks at her with awe – and she knows how she looks in his eyes.

A forever young woman with long silver hair and a pair of emerald green eyes. Delicate and thin but in the full set of heavy armor. Other races in Faerun don’t care how old elves are.

“Let’s set up a camp somewhere it doesn’t stink. And where the fuck is Irbis?”

Sylenn decides she isn’t going to take off her armor. Who knows what killed the prince? And they need the map that leads to the secret dungeons of the Dark Elves. The lord of Gauntlgrym won’t be happy if the party comes back empty-handed – and with his dead son’s body.

“He must have found a whore to spend the night with and forgot about us,” Selynn says. She has never liked Irbis – the human man cares only about ale and gold and would sell all of his companions for a good pact with a devil.

“You have a dirty mouth for an elf,” the Dragonborn notices.

“I’ve been through such shit within my lifetime I have every right to swear like a drunken dwarf.”

Whatever the Dragonborn wants to say next is interrupted by loud steps.

“And who am I supposed to talk to?” A young woman demands and her voice echoes through the cave.

“This one” Irbis answers, letting a stranger approach the corpse.

Sylenn turns her head.

She sees a young woman in a black traveling armor. Her long silver hair, so common for Moon elves, is braided.

“This is Alethaine,” Irbis announces. “She is going to talk to that… body. So good I’ve met a necromancer in these lands!”

Alethaine yawns.

“Good morning.”

“It’s almost sunset,” Sylenn says.

“It’s morning when I wake up,” Alethaine bites her lower lip. “Alae, etriel,” she adds in Elven.

Sylenn meets the necromancer’s eyes and feels a wave of uneasiness.

The girl looks like an elf. Pointy ears, slim and delicate body. But there is something off about her, as if she pretended very hard to look like Tel’Quessira.

But wasn't one.

“Oh, and they say all dragonborns look alike!” the Dragonborn laughs. “Look, Sylenn, you could have been sisters!”

“She looks nothing like me!” Sylenn whispers as quietly as she can. Alethaine’s ear twitches and Sylenn realizes the necromancer can perfectly hear her. “Besides, there is something… strange about her!”

“My mother is half human,” Alethaine says looking at the mutilated corpse. “Maybe, this is what bothers you?”

As if there were such a thing as a pure-blooded elf, Sylenn thinks. No, it’s something else about her that makes the old elf shiver.

“We are so lucky to find someone who can talk to the dead!” Irbis announces. “I entered the tavern, no hope to help the cause and that… that young woman was beating a cleric of Lathander with a book.”

“My dad taught me to beat the shit out of perverts who eye me out,” Alethaine casually says. ‘Hope the bastard has a concussion.”

“I think you broke his spine.”

“Even better!” Alethaine sits beside the corpse looking at the body with such tenderness as if it was a child or a cute animal. “Who is going to ask the questions?”

The Dragonborn pushes Sylenn forward and the warrior approaches. No, the body doesn’t disgust her.

It’s the young elf who scares her.

“Only five questions,” Alethaine says, puts her arm to the dead man’s chest, and mutters a spell. The corpse stirs and its eyes glow green.

Sylenn has witnessed death. But necromancy is so unnatural and disgusting that she hates the very idea of the prince's body being violated this way.

“Where is the map?” Sylenn asks.

The corpse is silent.

“You asked it the wrong way,” Alethaine says.

“Where is the map to the Dark Elves’ lair?”

“They burned it.”

“Fuck. Who?”

“The one who killed us,” the corpse says.

“Who killed you? And where is the lair?!”

“I don’t know.”

Alethaine grabs Sylenn’s hand. “You have one question left!”

“Who killed you?!”

“Shadows.”

And the corpse goes silent.

“Very informative,” Ibris mutters.

“You still have to pay me!” Alethaine says. “Ask better questions next time!”

Sylenn pulls away. Everything is lost. They better run to the town and warn than the Dark Elves will probably try to attack them soon enough…

“Watch out!” Ibris yells.

A shadow detaches itself from the walls and pierces the human with its claws. Blood spills on the stones

Sylenn grabs her sword. The whole place bursts with movement. Shadows, screeching and wailing, surround them. The Dragonborn falls and Sylenn knows he is already dead.

“Oh fuck…” Sylenn mutters.

Alethaine jumps on her feet.

“Do something!” Sylenn yells but the shadows surround Alethaine threatening to destroy the young necromancer with necrotic damage.

But instead…The claws don’t hurt her, as if she was an undead. Alethaine looks pissed and angry as if someone spilled her ale in the tavern. She pushes Sylenn away from the shadows and despite all the heavy armor, the elf feels herself thrown away like a kitten.

“OBEY” Alethaine orders. “BEGONE!”

The shadows curl around her. Sylenn thinks the creatures don’t understand why they can’t hurt the weird woman.

Her eyes glow green.

“I SAID, BEGONE!”

The last thing Sylenn remembers is the shadows running right through her.

Sylenn wakes up her head upside down. She notices a narrow pathway below her and also the fact someone is carrying her on their shoulders.

In a full heavy armor set.

“Easy money, easy money,” Alethaine mutters. “You, guys, didn’t even have loot I could scavenge! It seems like these are bad times for adventuring finances, am I right?”

Alethaine carries Sylenn as if she were a child. More than that, her sword and bow were still on her and it seemed like the necromancer couldn’t care less about the weight.

The sun still shines in the skies and Sylenn suppresses the irrational fear the girl is a vampire.

“Since you woke up, etriel, where to go next?”

“I’m Sylenn. Don’t call me etriel, I am not a noble.”

“All right, even better! So, where?”

… Alethaine finds Sylenn’s house when it’s already dark. She opens the door with her leg and the loud slam echoes through the empty streets.

Then, the necromancer gently places the wounded fighter on the bed and stretches like a lazy cat.

“You are wounded,” Alethaine says. “Do you have bandages?”

Sylenn tries to get rid of her armor but can’t. All her body aches and she realizes she has a burning wound on her stomach.

“Stay still,” the necromancer orders and starts to unlace the straps.

“Do you know how to do it?” Sylenn wonders. “Or you only tend the dead?”

“My mother is just like you. Constantly comes home in her armor and it’s just meat and blood under it. I’ve learned to tend wounds at a very early age. Well, she doesn’t wear heavy armor - says it restrains her in a fight”

“So your mother is a berserker?”

“She prefers ‘barbarian’ but yes.”

Sylenn relaxes and allows Alethaine to bandage the wounds. Another wave of fear passes through the elf when she notices how the necromancers lick her lips at the sight of blood”

“What are you?” Sylenn asks.

“What do you mean?”

“You are not an elf but you look like one. Try to act like one. But you can’t lie to the elves, we know you are not one of us. So, I ask you again, Alethaine, what are you?”

Alethaine sits in the armchair looking straight into Sylenn’s eyes. The girl is so fucking pale she could have been a ghost.

Then she opens her mouth.

“What the…” Sylenn elbows. “Are you a vampire?!”

“I am a dhampir. This is much worse! I once bit my dad’s wrists and the flesh wouldn’t regenerate for a month!” Alethaine smiles. “And it’s a little bit offensive considering I saved you.”

Sylenn lies back on the bed. Dhampirs… Half-dead children of vampires. Sylenn thought they were legends.

But one of them sits in front of her.

“I can leave,” Alethaine says.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Stay. You’ve saved me. Be… my guest.”

It’s nice to have someone to talk to. Someone who doesn’t see a five-century-old elven warrior in her. Alethaine speaks in perfect elven and curses like a sailor. Her eyes burn as Sylenn tells her about her own adventures and about elven history. As she concentrates on the stories, her eyes glow red and she bites her right thumb.

By the morning Sylenn finally manages to get into reverie – and this one is bitter again.

Her leg is broken in two and she limps returning home. Hunting has gone wrong and she fell from the hill, snapping her delicate bones.

She mutters curses all the way back and then collapses in the armchair.

Then she realizes she isn’t alone.

Astarion, her Little Star, stands in the center of the room, arms wide open. His eyes are closed and a smile lingers on his pretty face. He is only fourteen and he still retains many of his child features, but Sylenn can already see the adult he is becoming.

He is in the reverie, deep in his own memories – or, maybe, shadows of his past lives. Or ghosts of his future, should he inherit the prophetic gift.

The sun showers his face in its warmth and Sylenn forgets about pain.

Her boy, the gift from the gods.

She just keeps looking at him.

Until the memory fades away.

Sylenn gets up – her wounds are more or less healed. The elf feels dizzy as she goes downstairs.

And sees Alethaine cleaning the set of armor.

“Good morning, Sylenn,” Alethaine bares her fangs. “You’ve slept like a human.”

“You shouldn’t have…”

“No worries, I don’t want to go outside. That dick of a Lathander priest is looking for me anyway. It’s not like I can't run away from a halfling but if I can keep a low profile, I should. Oh…” She looks at Sylenn. “Are you all right?”

Sylenn blinks and realizes she’s been crying. “I… am. Bad memories. And good ones.”

“I can listen if you want,” Alethaine implores.

“How old are you?” Sylenn suddenly asks. “You look rather young for an elf to be on her own.”

“I am twenty-four. I just look… smaller. Because I am a dhampir, you know.”

“Oh, I see… But we rarely let our children go when they are younger than twenty-five. Though, I let mine.”

“I was raised in a human village, and my mother is half a human…And my dad… well, that's a story for another time.”

Sylenn sits down. She rarely talks about her son but for some reason, she feels like she will die if she doesn’t tell her sorrows to that stranger.

“I had a son. Many years ago. He was your age when I let him go and he died fifteen years later. He was my only one. I still see him when I reverie.”

“Oh,” Alethaine says. “I am sorry.”

Both elves are silent. Alethaine looks out the window.

“You know… I sometimes think that if I die, my parents will never know what happened to me. Or they will decades or centuries later.”

Sylenn bitterly smiles. “We elves think we are invincible. But we are not. Death is a rare guest among us, but there is nothing scarier than an elf burying their child. I lost my daughter when she was four, had a miscarriage – and then my son was just killed. Some clerics even thought I was cursed. Though, almost every human has been through the same shit. That corpse you were talking to is the only son of a local ruler. And he will have to bury him.”

Alethaine is silent. Her face resembles a mask and it’s difficult to decipher her emotions.

Then the dhampir stands up and hugs Sylenn burying her face in her chest.

“I am sorry, Sylenn. I am sorry for what has happened to you,” she says and her words are sincere. Sylenn allows tears to flow down her cheeks as she strokes Alethaine’s back.

What are her parents like, Sylenn wonders. Since she is a dhampir, one of them is a vampire. She mentioned her mother, a warrior like Sylenn. But about her father? Do vampires raise their children? Anyway, whoever was responsible for Alethaine’s upbringing did a good job. A necromancer and a dhampir, she saved Sylenn, tended her wounds, and listened to her.

Sylenn makes a mental note to mention Alethaine in her prayers next time. May her parents never have to go through what Sylenn did.

“Well, I suppose I need to flee the town,” Alethaine smiles. “I think I should go to Waterdeep. I can easily mingle with the local weirdos!”

“Thank you, Alethaine,” Sylenn smiles. “I am sorry for being rude”.

“I got used to elves staring at me as if I were a doppelganger.”

“I-I don’t have money to pay you,” Sylenn gets up. “But I want to.”

Sylenn goes to the basement. Turns off the protecting sigils and takes a small chest out of its hiding place.

“I want to give you something,” Sylenn returns to the room. She places the chest on the table and opens it. “When my son said he would leave me with the first snow, I decided to make him a parting gift” Sylenn takes out a circlet. “But I was no artisan and I didn’t finish it. I was supposed to give it to him when he would return to receive his adult name…”

“But he never did,” Alethaine finishes.

“I finished the circlet anyway but I had no one to give it to. I don’t have children, I will never have grandsons and granddaughters. And this thing just lies here reminding me of what I’ve lost.”

Sylenn takes the precious circlet and crowns Alethaine’s head. The circlet fits her perfectly and suits her hair. The small star is placed in the center of her forehead.

“You can’t give it to me,” Alethaine mutters.

“I can. Take it. It’s yours. Things are made to be used. You are a beautiful young woman, wear it. Besides, I don’t think you’ve had a lot of elven adornments.”

Alethaine looks at the mirror and smiles baring her fangs. Sylenn chuckles: maybe this one is half-dead and a necromancer, but a girl is a girl.

“Thank you, Sylenn.”

“But don’t you dare sell it. If you do, I will find you,” Sylenn threatens.

“I wouldn't even think about it!”

Sylenn hugs Alethaine again. “Uluvathae, Alethaine.”

“Uluvathae, Sylenn.”

Alethaine goes outside and soon disappears in the dark.

Sylenn is alone again. Suddenly, she feels like pieces of her sadness have gone, as if Alethaine somehow took them away. Well, Sylenn isn’t old – she has centuries of life ahead.

Maybe it’s too early to bury herself.

She is going back to Evereska. Her husband, Caeldrim must have died already, he was much older than her – so she needs to pay respects to him. And then… Then she will decide what to do next.

Sylenn has the next reverie on the road to the east. She hopes it will be something neutral, something that won’t harm her soul but the memories are merciless to the elf.

Sylenn enters the library. Her mind is preoccupied with the news about Yuan-ti’s attacks on the elven settlements. Fucking serpents need to learn Tel'Quessir had been here before them and will stay when the snake become ashes.

“Thinking of the snakes again, o’si?” Astarion asks.

He is nineteen, still an adolescent, not an adult. He reads a book on human laws and customs and bites his right thumb as it helps him to concentrate.

“Is there something about them in these books of yours?”

“No. Did you know that humans have so many laws about inheritance and burial?” Astarion flips the page. “Listen!”

Sylenn tries not to show that those things sound boring to her. History, that’s where her interests lie. But Astarion is so enchanted with all these articles and small details and many differences between the tribes and cities of humans that she listens.

At least, she can reverie to hear his voice again.

Sylenn wakes up crying again. She looks at the starry sky and sniffs.

Weird, she later thinks that the necromancer, Alethaine, was biting her right thumb the same way Astarion did centuries ago.

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spacebarbarianweird · 4 months ago

Text

In Another Life, We Would Have Been a Family

Synopsis: Tiriel never knew her real father and Kay Dathnyar never knew he had one more daughter. Sylenn Ancunin, Astarion's mother, grieved her son and kept going. But what if one day… Tiriel's dad and Astarion's mum meet?

Tags: Astarion's mother, Tav's father, dadstarion

I really enjoyed writing Sylenn Acnunin in Past Grief so I decided to give her more agency. In this fic you will know about her past and how come she knew Balduran.The fic is set a day prior Dhampirs of the Sword Coast

Alethaine's age - 24 years-old

Thanks @themadlu for beta-reading!

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Headcanons

Kay Dathnyar recently turned 100 years old. Underage by elven standard, he’s been married thrice, fathered five half-elves, and has had seven grandkids and ten great-grandkids.

For the last twenty years, he’s owned a tavern called “The Last Pixie” and is always ready to tell passersby why elves are a done cause.

“We are going extinct anyway,” he says to push anyone drunk enough to leave the tavern. “We need to fuck as many humans as we can and pass some decent bits of elven culture to our half-elven kids. Humans and half-bloods, that’s the future, not us!”

Kay is also proud to say he knows everything about his progeny. Dates of birth, fears and desires, favorite dishes and activities. He is often asked to solve issues between them and proudly takes the role of a wise advisor, but since he is still young, his advice isn’t always rational.

“Do you have any idea how many kids you have?” A tiefling called Birgga asks him. He is older than Kay by a decade and uses it to his advantage.

“I have at least five,” Kay puts a mug of ale in front of him.

“Don’t be ridiculous, none of your wives has made you monogamous. There must be more than five.”

“Nonsense!” he says, noticing his wife, a forty-year-old blacksmith watching.

“Hm, wasn’t it you who slept with a married woman in the Sunset mountains? You are lucky her husband was away! The chieftain would have flayed you alive.”

“Well, even if it happened 80 years ago, I’ve been smart enough not to return there. They would definitely recognize me!”

“It’s difficult not to. Your face was made for mugshots.”

“I doubt they have them in those wild places. Maybe I should have taken that gal with me.”

“Ughm, her and her three sons?”

“The more the better, Birgga. Oh, how can you know? You don’t have children at all. Maybe we should find you a wife. Or do you prefer men?”

“Fuck you, elves, and your bisexuality.”

The tavern is quiet. There haven’t been any visitors for days – people are whispering something about demons and monsters on the roads. Some even talked about the mind flayers' attack on Baldur’s Gate that happened 45 years ago but Kay thinks that’s not really the cause of the stillness.

Still, there have been very few visitors. It's not like Kay needed money (he’s got enough saved in his chests), but the elf dislikes not seeing new faces.

A soft knock at the door snaps him out of his thoughts.

Sylenn Ancunin notices the tavern from a distance.

“The Last Pixie''. The slur is written in both Common and Elven (and also in Infernal) and Sylenn wonders if she should even enter the place. She knows the hostility of N’Tel-Quessira too well and she isn’t in the mood and shape to fight.

She is five centuries old but still wears heavy armor like she did when she was young.

But she doesn't want to. Sylenn is old and bitter even though she looks young.

And she is coming home to Evereska to pay respects to her husband who was much older than her and must have been dead for centuries. And to wither in peace, hoping the Seldarine will have mercy on her.

“Come in, whoever you might be! We barely have guests!”

Sylenn enters the tavern and sees another elf at the bar.

“Welcome to the Last Pixie, etriel. Do you wish for a room or a drink? Or maybe both?” The elf outstretches his right hand to her in the human greeting. “Name’s Kay Dathnyar, I am the proud owner of this place!”

“Owner,” Sylenn looks at him. “Then why did you call this place like that?”

“The Last Pixie? Well, aren’t we all the last of our kind? Here, have a drink.”

Sylenn watches Kay. He is young, underage even. Dark hair, green eyes. Moon elf, like her. But he talks like a human, even his elven words reveal an accent.

One of these young souls who think they can live among humans and not suffer from constant grief.

“Are you an adventurer?” Kay asks.

“I was once,” Sylenn says. “Well, I still am. Sometimes.”

“How much for telling me why the fuck no one wanders these roads?”

“Yeah!” The tiefling adds. “It’s bad for business, you know? And we are peaceful people here, we enjoy ale and meat and would like to keep it this way!”

Sylenn notices three human girls watching her from the stairs. They watch Sylenn with the awe human children have for elves.

“Go to sleep, you, three!” Kay orders.

“But Grandpa!”

“Go to sleep, or I won’t allow you to stay here after sunset! Kids…” He adds when girls disappear upstairs. “They grow so fast! Like, one day they perfectly fit in one arm and the next week you are beating the shit out of their boyfriends!”

“Are they yours?”

“All mine, five children, seven grandkids, and ten great-grandkids. All live in Delimbiyr Vale but mostly here, in Loudwater. Family business.”

Sylenn frowns.

“I am sorry for you.”

“What for?”

“Because they will die. And you will bury them. Every single one of them.”

Birgga makes a disgruntled sound.

“Do you think I am not aware of that? I have buried two of my human wives and soon will become a widower for the third time,” Kay switches to Elven. “I’ve chosen this life.”

“You don’t fully understand. There is nothing worse than burying your own children. My daughter was killed when she was four. And my son… My son died bleeding to death in the streets of Baldur’s Gate. You’ve condemned yourself, Kay Dathnyar.”

“Well, etriel, then I welcome you to the house of the condemned!”

Sylenn decides to get drunk. Ale doesn’t affect her easily and she keeps ordering more till even Birgga starts giving her advice on how to avoid a hangover.

“I have never seen anyone with her constitution drink that much!” Birgga mutters to Kay.

“You know how they say dwarves have the best ale tolerance? It’s a lie. Elves live for centuries and we can drink pure alcohol by the time we are old enough to forget our youth.”

“Well, at least she pays.”

“I am giving her a discount.”

“Why? Kay, since when you are into charity?” Birgga almost hisses.

Sylenn pretends she doesn’t hear them. A young half-elf, who introduced himself as Lym and who has the same black hair as his father, keeps bringing her drinks.

Another shitty thing about being so old.You can’t get drunk.

A weird quirk – Sylenn remembers her grandfather, who was eight hundred when she was born, complaining he can’t drink away his memories. She laughed at him back then but now she suspects she inherited the same trait.

And she wishes she could have shut the memories up.

Her first husband, her thiramin, the love of her whole life, slaughtered by humans like prey. Their daughter, a silver-curled baby, brutally murdered by orcs when she was only four. Sylenn’s friends, aging and dying. Her second husband – Caeldrim. He was so much older than her that everyone thought she was his daughter. A good person, wise and reserved. Sylenn left him to look for their son in Baldur’s Gate, where she found nothing but his grave in the human cemetery. After that, she decided to never return to Evereska.

Maybe it was her fault, after all. She was told not to give her son an adult name right away. A bad sign. But she insisted that the baby boy in her arms must be named Astarion and should he not like it, he would be free to choose another one later.

And he died. Barely forty, a child by elven standards. Murdered and buried, all alone. She shouldn’t have let him go. Maybe later, when he would have been more prepared for the life out there.

“Hey, what’s happening?” Suddenly, Kay rushes to the doors. Sylenn hears distant cries and the sound of something heavy collapsing on wooden buildings. “Lym, get your brothers!”

Sylenn gets up and reaches for her sword and shield.

“Kay, hide everyone inside. It’s not a battle you can win.”

“It’s just an ogre.”

“That's not the point. Tell everyone to hide inside!”

Sylenn quickly fastens the straps of her heavy armor and prepares the shield and sword.

A creature made of stone and wrath is crushing trees and barns. It grabs unfortunate village dwellers, smashing them just for the sake of it, and their lifeless bodies fall on the ground.

Ogremoch.

What in hell is it doing so far from the Earth plane?

“You!” Sylenn yells. “Attack someone who can fight back! Come closer! My sword is eager to pierce your stone flesh!”

“Sylenn, for fuck sake!’ Kay grabs her hand but Sylenn easily sets herself free and the young elf falls down. “Go and protect your family!”

The ogremoch roars and rushes towards her ready to smash the elven warrior with its fist. Sylenn protects herself with her shield, almost breaking the e monster’s arm.

She immediately jumps to her right and keeps her stance.

But before she manages to attack, the monster sweeps her off her feet. Her helmet flies away.

A powerful blow to her chest, which even heavy armor cannot protect her from, knocks the spirit out of the elven warrior. She coughs blood. The world gets blurry around her, and she can’t hear anything but the ringing in her ears.

Astarion must have felt the same, she thinks. When he was beaten to death.

Another blow.

She can feel the beast’s anger. How is she still alive? All thanks to the heavy armor.

Maybe she should just let the orgremoch do what it wants?

Sylenn has been hoping to die in battle. Sure, being murdered by a mindless creature in a village so tiny maps forget to mention it doesn’t sound particularly noble…

But why not?

Sylenn smiles.

“Corellon Larethian, to you I give my soul… Have… Mercy… On… Me,” Sylenn croaks, slipping into oblivion.

A whistle pierces the air. Ogremoch shrieks as a crossbow’s bolt gets stuck in its right eye.

“Fuck off from my property!” Kay Dathnyar recharges.

Ogremoch rushes to the young elf but fails to catch him. Kay helps Sylenn to get off the ground.

“Move!” Sylenn adopted her stance again. “Shoot from a distance!”

With a battle cry, Sylenn Ancunín lunges forward and her sword pierces the stone-like monster’s skin.

Alright, she thinks, as the monster collapses and her own legs wobble.

Not today, I guess.

Kay helps her to stand up and allows hSylenner to lean on him while walking her back to the tavern.

“I would have carried you on my shoulders, but my back wouldn’t thank me.”

“I've already been carried this month like that,” she says. “A dhampir. Alethaine or Athelaine. Carried me from a dungeon as if I weighed no more than a cat.”

“A dhampir?” Kay notices. “Vampires have been breeding like rabbits over the past 40 years, dhampirs are as common as tieflings now!”

“I beg your pardon!” Birgga helps Sylenn to unfasten her armor.

“I tell you, It's like some asshole released a bunch of vampires all at once,” Kay says.

“Hm, about 30 years ago I fucked a woman…” Birgga reminisced.

“Congratulations, you won’t die a virgin.”

“... I fucked a woman and she was so cold and pale, I am sure she was a vampire!”

Sylenn, finally free of her armor, groans. It seems like she hasn’t received any serious damage, but she feels exhausted and weak.

“Kay is right, there have been too many half-undeads and undeads recently. And also monsters and demons. The world’s wheel is in motion again and I doubt these changes will do us any good.”

Suddenly, Sylenn notices there are a bunch of young humans and half elves gathering outside the tavern. Not all look like Kay, so she suspects it’s just village kids.

“Look, it’s her! The elf who killed the monster!”

“Did you see it? She murdered it like Thetir the Dragonslayer!”

“Hey!” Kay notices them. “Leave her be!”

“That’s all right,” Sylenn smiles. “Let them.”

The small crowd of youthlings immediately surround Sylenn.

“How old are you?” A human girl whose nose and eyes resemble Kay’s.

One of the older girls shushes at her.

“I am 517.”

“Wow! It means you are almost as old as Baldur’s Gate!”

Sylenn grabs a mug of ale.

“I was Balduran’s bodyguard in the times when he founded the city.”

A cheer of awe erupts among the kids.

It’s fun to talk to these children. Sylenn has lived so long she’s forgotten her life wasn’t only grief and sorrows.

“... So, Balduran comes to me, angry as a troll, and yells ‘Sylenn! Stop drinking when I am talking to you!’ And I was like, ‘Balduran, with all the respect I don’t feel for you, I cannot take your bullshit seriously when I am sober!’”

“... And then I realized they were sailing west and if I didn’t quit now I would have to spend months watching Balduran and Ansur having their love drama. So, I stood at the aft of the ship, opened my arms, and fell into the sea. And seconds later it came to my mind that, maybe, I shouldn’t have jumped into the open sea in full armor! My grandpa would always tell me: ‘Syl, your brain is capable of only one coherent thought per day, and even then it backfires!’”

“... So, I got right into the evil sorceress's lair and she looked at me, in all her dark magic glory, and said ‘Sylenn Ancunin, I thought you were smarter.’ And my first husband, who she’d taken hostage, stares at her and says: ‘Lady, honestly, you really thought SHE WAS SMART?!’”

“... All right, all right, by the time I got my adult name, I finally learned not to mess with things that were bigger than me. I got a quest from a wood elf. Don’t remember his name, their clan was called Goldenroots or Goldenboughs, for some reason, they’d translated it to Common. And a young elf asked me to look after his father who’d run away with a sword. Their ancestors were Star Elves and they were passing a very particular sword from father to son. I went looking for the old elf and found him dead – he died in the dumbest way! He’d picked a spear which was clearly cursed. I took the sword – a very beautiful one and magical to the point it probably had its own will. Returned it back to the owner and was like ‘Bad news, your father died.’ And this Goldenroot elf chuckled and said ‘Thank gods I don’t have to tolerate his bullshit anymore. I hope he will reincarnate as a drow.’” Family dynamics can be so weird!”

“I am leaving,” Sylenn says to Kay two days later. “I am going East.”

“To Evereska?”

She nods.

“It was nice to meet you, Sylenn.” He smiles.

“The feeling is mutual. Uluvathae, Kay!”

“Wait, these lands are dangerous to walk alone. Follow me.”

Kay takes Sylenn to the horse farm at the edge of the village. A herd of horses with silvery manes grazes peacefully in the grass, and their master, a young man in his twenties, sleeps by the stable.

“They look like horses from Evereska, but they are bigger,” she notices.

“We breed them with regular horses. They are not as fast and smart as their ancestors who let elves ride them, but they are stronger and bigger than the ones humans use. Nim, wake up!”

“Oh, hi Grandpa.” The young man yawns.

“I am our great-grandpa, lazy ass. Give Sylenn Lunar.”

“Are you kidding? Lunar is our best horse! It costs as much as your tavern!”

Kay slaps him on the head.

“My tavern is priceless. Go get Lunar!”

Nim groans and a few minutes later returns with a gorgeous mare.

“Here, she is yours. She will take you to Evereska fast and safely.”

“Kay, I don’t have money to pay you!”

“Nonsense, Sylenn. You saved us. And besides, doomed we are or not, we are both born of Corellon’s blood. But you can repay me,” he adds when Sylenn saddles the horse and takes the reins. “I want you to tell everyone you meet on the road that ‘The Last Pixie’ is the best tavern you’ve ever been to!”

Sylenn laughs hearing the slur.

“No, no, I am serious, Sylenn, I need you to say the name out loud.”

“Alright! ‘The Last Pixie’ owned by Kay Dathnyar is the best tavern you can find!”

The same day, Luskan.

“Do you think they know you are a vampire?” Tiriel points at the guild members, feasting in the big hall. Astarion, as usual, stays inside the library doing the paperwork.

“I am sure they do, but should they want to make a big deal out of it, I will do the same out of their past. For example, our archer is a drow who masks himself as a wood elf. And the genasi-monk is not a monk and is wanted in Neverwinter for cannibalism.”

Tiriel sits beside him and puts her head on his shoulder.

“I love you.”

Astarion chuckles and kisses her cheek, tugging Tiriel closer. “My sweet, I love you, too.”

The same day, Waterdeep.

Alethaine Ancunín puts out the campfire, packs her things, and climbs the hill to see the City of Splendors better.

It looks much bigger and more beautiful than in the pictures.

The young necromancer adjusts the circlet on her head – it was given to her by an elderly elf, Sylenn, a month ago. A reward for saving her from the shadows in the dungeons. She said she’d made it for her deceased son and Alethaine sometimes feels a bit weird wearing it.

But then she sees her own reflection and reminds herself the circlet looks like it was made for her. It suits her silver hair and pitch-black eyes.

Maybe, the dead son of Sylenn looked similar to Alethaine.

“Well, Waterdeep it is,” Alethaine licks her dhampir fangs. “I have a very good feeling about this!”

I won't elaborate on the fact Birgga might be Theris' father. Also, the wood elf Sylenn returned the sword to is Elren Goldenroot's, Alethaine's husband-to-be, grandfather.