#fic: guiding star tormentor mine

[gutterspeak]

Guiding Star, Tormentor Mine

CHAPTER 7 / ? || commander x daeran. ~3k / ~32k total. post act 5 / true aeon ending. let's... get a little weird! :)

stealth update in the wee hours of the morning! another short one since, like last chapter, this scene is pretty intense. and I'm tired of staring at it in my workshop doc begone from me wretched thing

enjoy ♡

Without dropping his spell, Daeran looks over his shoulder. The only thing the Knight Commander of the Fifth Crusade wields now is a thousand-yard stare. He gazes vaguely upwards, towards the eye of the swarm and yet somehow past it, his hands hanging limp at his sides. He’s not fighting badly or ineffectively, like the others. He’s simply not fighting at all. A thousand scathing thoughts flit through Daeran’s head and catch on his tongue. It feels like striking the first match in an explosive chain reaction when he shouts, “Luthais!” And there is no answer. Not even a glance.

READ ON AO3 || from the beginning

[skiitter]

omg the lann fic was so cute, and since you're currently being cornered, why not a lann or daeran fic to either being chosen OR not being chosen :D. Or honestly just a daeran fic about w/e you want

:3 thank u. Let's do Daeran getting chosen because that's what I went with and, more importantly, I too wanna write about everyone's favorite hedonistic aasimar.

Spoilers for Daeran's final companion quest plus some of Act 5!

He is the exception to the rule.

Throughout her time leading the crusade and attempting to close the Worldwound, the Commander has been staunchly on the side of freedom and goodness. She spent a veritable fortune purchasing and subsequently freeing all the slaves from the Fleshmarket. Several demons have come to her with promises of power and success and she's turned them all down without hesitation. In the face of cruelty and abuse, she laughs openly and then proceeds to destroy whatever foul thing dare cage those that should be free. She's a good woman, who cares little for laws and even less for abject evil and will, in the end, lay down her life to save Mendev.

Daeran, of course, would do none of those things unless expressly directed to by said Commander. He's indulgent to the point of self-destruction and cares not for the feelings of anyway save himself. By all rights, she should be disgusted with his complete lack of empathy. Except, she's not and when Liotr and his inquisitors demand the Count's blood, she immolates them where they stand. Desna guides the hand of the Commander but it is with Daeran that her heart lies.

And love, of course, is blind.

There is no question, then, of who she will pick. Lann is kind and moral and a paragon of his people. Any woman would be lucky beyond words to lay claim to his affections. For the Commander, though, that matters little. From the start, it was Daeran that intrigued her, challenged and courted her and, in the end, it was Daeran she chose.

After, when The Other is banished to whatever black void it escaped from, and Lann has made his peace with the nature of their relationship, the Commander retires to bed one night to find the Count there, waiting. He is alight with anxiety and fear. The shackles that held him for over ten years have been stripped away and he is left untethered in the sea of freedom.

The Commander guides him home to port and, ever the lighthouse in a storm, shows him security where he once knew only the threat of annihilation. She brings him low, in her kind and careful way, and in the end he is but a sailor following his captain through the unforgiving dark.

"Guiding star and tormentor mine," he said to her once and it is the heaviest mantle she carries. The heart of another is no banal trinket and she will not wilt beneath the heat of his affections.

"I love you," she says in the quiet of her chambers that night and it is all he can do to but tremble at the power therein.

"Take me with you, no matter where you go," he pleads, pressing his lips upon every inch of skin, holding tight to every tender bit of flesh. "And teach me how to breathe again."

[gutterspeak]

Guiding Star, Tormentor Mine

CHAPTER 5 / ? || commander x daeran. ~4.7k / ~25.5k total. aeon ending spoilers, etcetera etcetera. zero communication skills and relationship dysfunction galore.

a good 65-70% of this was already written as a part of last chapter so unfortunately from here on the irregular updates will continue. I will never change I will never improve this is a promise.

enjoy ♡

“He has a black heart,” Daeran spits. It takes them both by surprise. He’s shaking, he realizes, and he turns to start pacing up the length of the room then back, hands fisted at his sides. “Maybe he doesn’t even have that much,” he continues. “Maybe he possesses no heart at all! If we carved him open and tore his ribs without, do you imagine you could lay your hand on something wet and alive, that you could feel the blood rushing beneath your palm? No. There’s little else in him but his own rot. Putrid dust and hollow fucking lies!” “Shelyn’s locks, Daeran, what has he said to you?” “Ha! Only that it is my sworn and solemn duty to advise him.” Sosiel just stares. “And...?” “And he’s also asked what he might look like with a beard.”

READ ON AO3 || from the beginning

[gutterspeak]

Guiding Star, Tormentor Mine

CHAPTER 6 / ? || commander x daeran. ~3.3k / ~29k total. act 5 spoilers / aeon ending spoilers. just spoilers out the wazoo.

this flashback ended up being quite a bit longer than the other ones I've written so far, so it gets its own chapter. yippee!

I'm sure we'll get back to the cliffhanger from chapter 5... eventually...

enjoy ♡

It was dreadfully quiet. His chest didn’t move. Neither did Daeran’s, for long enough that his lungs began to ache. “I hate you,” he told the corpse at length. He didn’t even dignify that with a post-mortem twitch in response. “Really,” Daeran continued. If his voice shook, there was no one around to hear it. “This– This is vile. Embarrassing. A low so foul it’s taken my breath away. If only you could see it yourself! You look like a skewered pig on a platter with all the trimmings. Ridiculous. At least the pig doesn’t go and spill its guts all over my favorite coat, but you... You...” Daeran sucked in a breath through his teeth. He clenched his hands to fists until they ceased their trembling. “...I hate you,” he said again. Then, he set to work.

READ ON AO3 || from the beginning

[gutterspeak]

Guiding Star, Tormentor Mine

CHAPTER 4 / ? || commander x daeran. ~5.1k / ~20.9k total. aeon ending spoilers, post-game – or is it? the time travel fuckery continues.

it took ten months, and I ended up splitting this chapter into two (the second half of which is still a heavy WIP so who knows when it'll see the light of day...) but! I had a lot of fun with this one, even though it kicked my butt.

enjoy ♡

“You’re coming,” Luthais clips. It is, unmistakably, an order. “Forgive me if I implied there was room to argue. I have questions. I’ve been very patient. I would have you clarify what you’ve left me to puzzle out before whatever catastrophe that befell you comes to pass and I no longer have any use for what you have to say.” The weed in his chest festers into something far worse. It grows thorns, hewing his cage of ribs. It splits him open. It feels like rot. And what else is he to do but smile? Bow at the waist? Accept this steaming pile of shit as he’s accepted every other? Gladly? With open eyes and open arms? The words, bitterly familiar, catch behind Daeran’s teeth. “...Of course, Commander.” A monstrous thought comes to him, unbidden. Would it have been better if you’d died? If you’d shattered to time, as you were meant?

READ ON AO3 || from the beginning

[gutterspeak]

you ever lend your coat to your boyfriend who goes and dies a gruesome death in it. which you immediately give him shit for right after resurrecting him

I see no difference love is love ❤️

[gutterspeak]

hi! I've been taking a bit of a break from tumblr but I'm gonna try to keep peeking in now and again (and resume my queue soon)

have another bit from this flashback that I can't wait to finally be able to post 🙂

[gutterspeak]

this 🤏 close to just posting the next chapter of guiding star and being done with it. but I won't. really want to though

[gutterspeak]

I'm still periodically adding songs but I reckon there's enough to finally post the playlist I've thrown together for guiding star! mostly just for the vibes, there's a lot of instrumentals and game OST tracks on here that just have a mood I think fits the story :]

a little bit of rambling under the cut!

if I could pick my favorite instrumentals off of here that especially encompass the vibe really well, I think it would be Aeterno (and Aeterno II) - Aviators, August Underground - Ethel Cain, and Ascension - Berlinist

as for songs with lyrics... Stalker - IAMX has been a daeran and luthais classic for a while now... it's especially fitting for the premise of the fic I think 👀

Destroyer - Phantogram is another really good one 😌

[gutterspeak]

I've been fighting for my life trying to write this fight scene for weeks and I finally broke down and decided to try to outline it like an actual turn based battle (which is actually helping...) but!

it's always a great look when the guy who can just delete swarms with his kinetic blast is too scared shitless by his vescavor phobia to do anything but this

[gutterspeak]

finally broke down and made a fic playlist for guiding star . for my mental health

I have to fiddle with it still and make it look nice but here's a track from it that might be my final straw and turn me into an animatic artist

[gutterspeak]

next chapter of guiding star will probably take a bit because there are Future Things that I have to Plan For and Outline and start Alluding To even though I already know exactly what's going to happen in the next few scenes since I figured all of THAT out when I was writing chapter 4 (and thinking back on the fact that these 3 chapters were originally supposed to just be 1 is kind of funny, I think I severely underestimated how concise I'm able to be </3)

BUT I am glad I split it up. lets me spend more time with what I want to. but the devil's in the details because I'm starting to hit the point where we move from the biggest issue being bisexual yearning and toxic miscommunication (or just blatant refusal to communicate...) to, oh shit there's actually a plot lol

[gutterspeak]

trying to write this scene I've been working on is pushing me to my limit of characterization believability because I have to figure out how luthais, with his 9 entire charisma, can cook daeran so hard that it makes him want to cry

the answer is turning out to sorta be, "by projecting his own deepest insecurities which just so happen to line up quite nicely with what would hurt most to hear in this moment" aka, largely by accident. (un)lucky 20 on the demoralize check I guess.... 😅