#idk if anyone will read this but its my first bg3 fanfic n i really like it so i shall put this here

[writeywritey-o3o]

Double Trouble

Ascended Astarion fanfic

- Angsty, Reincarnation, beyond saving, tw:suicide

It had been centuries since Astarion and you ruled the world together as The Ascendent and his Favourite Consort. 

It was nice, at first. Never having to go outside, never having to go hungry, and never fearing death. Astarion had given you all the riches he had promised, everything and anything you desired. Outfits, jewellery, sprawling palaces. You had it all, especially with your love always right beside you. Until he wasn’t. 

More often than not, he would go out to run errands, or take over new lands. He would sometimes come back with 1 or more new spawns hanging on his arm, either for the two of you to use or feed on. As much as the unhappy feeling threatens to bubble up inside you when he ignores you for a menial task, you really couldn’t ask for anything more.

Sometimes you try your luck at asking him to make you a true vampire just like he is, but he always reassures you that there is no need to. Not when you had literally hundreds of servants at your beck and call for whatever you could possibly need. You would tell him how much you missed the sunlight on your face, and the hustle bustle of the city at midday. He usually scoffs and tells you that you aren’t missing much. That staying inside and twiddling away with your hobbies is the best you can do, and laments about how he wishes he could stay inside all day, that even though he can't be burned by the sun anymore, the sweltering heat it brings is barely a consolation prize. 

It reached a point where he made sure every corridor of the sprawling palace you lived in had skylights that were unable to be closed. and had you shunned to one of the rooms during the day and would only come to you at night, almost like he was rubbing it in as to how you couldn’t even stand under the sky without assistance while he came and went as he pleased. 

Slowly you grow tired. Traversing the palace with the help of one of your servants no longer became an issue because you never leave your room. He becomes impatient and demanding, throwing more luxuries at you to make you ‘go back to how you were’. You ignore everything until one day he catches you trying to open the blinds in daylight. He went insane and had you chained to the centre of the room. The chains were long enough for you to just barely reach the heavy drapes. He told you that since you wanted to act like a child then he would give you what you wanted, to never leave that room again. 

You still had the servants, and the decadent meals, and the finest dresses and beds in all the land, but you weren’t happy. Every day seemed to go by in a blur, with him coming in at dusk to dine with you silently, and then again at dawn for more of the same. 

Day by day the soft glow of sunlight around the drapes seemed more and more inviting. Everything could be over in one swoop, if you could just break these chains.

A shatter spell could do just fine. 

But you weren’t a spell caster. You trained your whole life to be a heavy hitter, often killing enemies in a single blow. But ever since you became a spawn you’ve neglected your training, becoming weaker over the years. The cuffs on your wrist rub your skin raw, even through the plush and silk he had custom made to ‘not damage his perfect little spawn’.

You decided enough was enough and started to train in the hours he left you alone. You requested libraries worth of books from your servants, all kinds so as not to raise suspicion and began your work. He noticed the difference and yet the silence during meal times remained. 

“Don't you want to know about my day?” he once asked. 

You only replied with a bland repeat of his question, not even bothering to listen to his answer. That infuriated him. He pulled a dagger on you and threatened to cut your pretty throat open and bring you back just to show you how lucky and ungrateful you were being. When your reaction wasn’t up to par, he trashed your room and commanded a few spawn to clean up afterwards. You could hear the screams of the spawn suffering at his hands because of you the rest of the day. 

Soon at long last the day had arrived. Your scroll had been scribed and all you had to do was use it. You had wanted to enact your plan at midday, quietly while he was out. But you realised the sound the spell made would attract people anyway, so you decided on a different plan. 

In the few hours before he would come in at dawn you had grabbed the candelabra in the middle of the dining table you had in the room and set fire to anything and everything you could. Once you were certain people were taking notice, hearing their footsteps nearing the room, you stood as close to the window as you could, setting the spell off, breaking your chains and flinging open the drapes and the windows as the man himself burst through the doors. He paused at the sight of your room, burned and smokey, just barely making out your silhouette by the window. The first rays of the sun broke through the horizon as he ran through the fire to you.

For a moment, you saw the man you fell in love with in his eyes. Astarion. you whisper a final “I Love You” to that man as the sun catches on you. You revel in the pricking of your skin as you feel the sunlight for the first time in centuries, turning you to ash before blowing away into the wind. 

He reached you just a second too late, touching your hand as you crumbled away, leaving only your dress and jewels behind. 

______________________________________________________________________________

you reincarnated into someone else and you are on a quest to take down The Ascendant. 

______________________________________________________________________________

When you opened your eyes for the first time again, you were in a raggedy old bathtub in a barn. Confused and wet. You don't remember anything from those formative years but you knew what mattered. You were loved.

When you were young, The Ascendant came and took over your town. It was fine at first, until people started going missing. Everyone started to live in fear of being the next one to be kidnapped. It wasn't like no one knew where the people had ended up, but no one wanted to find out either. There were a brave few, who ventured far to his palace on their own to take down The Ascendent, but they never returned.

You weren't born a cleric, or even to parents who were clerics. When you were 15 Jergal came to you in a dream. Appointing you his cleric, and honestly, you just went with it. Jergal was a mostly hands-off patron god, letting you learn whatever you please and bestowing you new powers to train up every now and then while you offered up prayers.

You tried to live quietly, keeping your head down and working your days away praying to Jergal and helping at your parents’ apothecary. You never let your anger spill out, not even to your patron god. It wasn't until one of your friend’s little brothers was taken before you lashed out. You and Your friends agreed to form a party and take him down. You prayed to Jergal, asking him for strength to carry this out. He gave you a blessing in the form of a dagger. 

He was a tyrant, a psychopath. The Ascendant had ruled for long enough. With Jergal’s blessing, you and your party set out to train and take down the Ascendant’s forces slowly.

You and your party enter the city at which he resided after a long and gruelling journey, in his hilltop palace looking down on everyone. The city was grey and foggy in the early morning. You find a place to settle in for the night, taking a long, needed rest after your travels. 

The next morning your party agrees to explore the city for supplies and take a few days to prepare before going in to finish your quest and free the world.

Around the city were many many statues of The Ascendant himself. Which was expected from a man with such a big ego, but other than that, there were many statues of a woman. Her eyes were soft and kind, her hair blowing eternally in the wind, she was dressed to the nines looking endlessly regal. Who was she? Your party members comment on the uncanny resemblance between the two of you, but you brush it off.

You and your party sneak into the Ascendant’s palace, snooping around to learn the layout. All of you enter from different places in pairs to cover more ground. You decided to sneak into the only open window, while the other half of your party members sneak in through the servants quarters. 

The open window led to a room that seemed unfit for a palace. It was black and scorched, a big crater centred the room. Everything else was burned. You and your pair looked around. Where the crater was an ornate coffin, labelled with a scratched out name. Opening the coffin revealed a beautiful dress and jewels. It was probably the most expensive thing you’ve ever seen. Snooping around the rest of the room uncovered half burned letters and books. whoever lived here really wanted to learn how to scribe spell scrolls, and with the crater at the centre of the room, you knew what spell they were trying to scribe. Metal bits sprinkled the floor and the letters seemed to be addressed to what seemed to be a long lost lover. 

Exiting the room, you see what you would more expect from a palace. Gleaming marble floors and columns. Portraits of the same beautiful woman you’d seen statues of all around the city. Some of them were even of the woman pictured next to The Ascendant himself. 

Who was she? 

The older portraits of them together pictured them smiling at each other. Were they in love? The portraits with newer frames looked sad. The Ascendant wasn't looking at her anymore, his face became more and more serious, and her expression followed in suit. The newest portrait you saw was the one in the foyer, once you made your way there. The man in the portrait looked like a ghost at this point. His skin was a sickly white, his eyes sunken in and red, his clothes were a dark red and black. This man seemed a far cry from the earlier paintings you saw. Even the last painting that showed him with the woman was at least a bit brighter than this. You skulked around the rest of the palace, killing spawns who witnessed your machinations and meeting up with the rest of your party. 

When you made your way out of the palace, having mapped out the entire thing and learning where the best entrances and exits are, you decided to exit through the window you had entered. The others in your party snooped around the room a little, revealing a smaller frame covered by a leather cloth that seemed too new for the state of the room. It was a sketch. A sketch of The Ascendant and the woman. A caption was scrawled across the corner of the paper “To my dearest friends. Who could be more in love than them.” 

In love. 

The pair of them had been in love.

Now the letters made more sense. The lover was him. He had changed and his lover no longer recognised him. Someone made a comment about how he’d surely been the one to drive her away while all of you snuck out the window. There was a peculiar ache in your heart when you saw that picture, one that you couldn't put into words. It was almost like you were mourning, but over what?

You spent the rest of your preparation time studying the ascendant. his strengths, weaknesses, his history. His name. The more you read about him the more you felt like you knew him. He defeated his master, Cazador, with his party and his lover. He learnt of the runes in his back and took his master’s place and ascended. Becoming who he is now. The city and everywhere else withered in his rule. He only knew how to take, to consume all there was and leave nothing behind. And you had a feeling he did the same to his lover. Who he named his favourite spawn, his favourite consort, yet never his queen. 

A few days later you returned to the palace, all of you prepared to take down the tyrant. All of you decided that you would sneak in through the main gates, killing anyone in your way until you reached him. 

But the gates were open. and the halls were empty. The four of you made your way deeper into the palace, expecting an ambush, all in vain. When the four of you reached the ritual chambers, he was alone. Sitting on a throne atop what seemed like his coffin. You hung back, letting your party go ahead with hits before you went forward to heal them and get a few hits in yourself.

“Did you really think you could come into my house, poke around, and I wouldn't notice?” his voice rang in the room loud and clear, “I'll give the three of you credit, you are brave. But you're not the first to try, and you won't be the last to fail.”

Three? He must have not seen you yet. 

He offered your party to fight them 3 on 1, winner takes all. Your friends sprung into action throwing spells and hitting him one after the other using up spell slots and energy and getting hit in return. Even as he was being hit, he still went on, telling your party how generous he is, how nice, how brave, how considerate, how much he sacrificed to get to this point. As you watched the fight while healing your friends every so often, you notice he didn't really have any defensive advances. He lets himself get hit multiple times, and only shoots back with offensive spells and blows. 

Your party was fading fast, and from your semi hidden position you couldn't heal them up quick enough. At some point you slipped, and all your friends were down. 

“One more is there? Well come out little mouse, take your turn.” you could hear the laugh bubble up his throat, talking down to you, “I'll even let you start real close.”

As egotistic as he sounded, you knew he was weakened. One more spell could do it. One that wouldn’t miss.

You slowly came out of your hiding space. Tentatively walking towards him, making sure not to get too close while quietly preparing the spell you knew would take him out, Shatter. 

When you finally stepped into the light, you let the spell lose from your lips as you watched his own move incomprehensibly. Had he whispered a name? His eyes widened and in a split second the spell hit him, injuring him enough for him to explode into his gaseous form and fly back into his coffin. The floor cratered around where he stood and all was quiet. 

You took a moment to collect yourself, and jumped into healing your companions. Once they were up and walking, the four of you made your way to the coffin beneath the throne and opened it, ready to stake him, to end it all for good. But he wasn't there. 

“If this wasn't his coffin then, where is it?”

“This palace is huge, it would take us days to find his coffin. and by then he would have regenerated. Lets…”

Your companions’ words were lost as you thought to yourself as to where his coffin could be. In the dungeons? His own quarters? On the roof? 

No.

The burnt room. The coffin in the middle of the crater. It had to be that. It was not broken like the floor beneath it. 

You lept to your feet, telling your party you knew where it should be. There were some disagreements however, so all of you agreed to split up. You spent the rest of your spell slots and healing potions healing everyone and you set off. 

Running through the halls hit you with deja vu, but you’d never been in this palace even before coming in to snoop, so what was that? You followed the portraits and reached your destination. You opened the door and stepped inside. The room looked the same as how you left it. 

Carefully you made your way to the crater, a glint caught your eye, coming from a hole between the coffin’s lid and body. 

Pushing the lid off the coffin this time reveals a dark red heart, around it gold wisps of light floated around in the shape of a man. You remembered how he looked at you before you hit him. His eyes looked so familiar for a second you thought you were looking at the sketch of him and his lover. Happy and blissful. It was like all his defences dropped and he didn't even try to counter your spell. His real name slipped from your lips before you could stop it. 

You unsheathed the dagger Jergal gave you after that and positioned it over the heart. It all ends now.

Piercing his heart, the gold whisps dropped away in what sounded like a relieved sigh. The tears running down your face made you uneasy, why were you even crying over a monster. You knelt next to the coffin taking in everything that just happened, all that you learnt in the past few days.

Soon the footsteps of your party neared you. You stood to face them and all of you burst out laughing. It was all over. 

You spent the rest of the day looting the rest of the building before painstakingly filling every crevice of the palace with explosives, with one specifically right above the coffin with your dagger still embedded. 

Your party gave you the pleasure of lighting the first barrel to blow up the whole place. you took a few moments to send a prayer up to your patron god, Jergal. And spent a few moments sitting with unfamiliar feelings of mourning for this building, for the spawns inside that would perish with it, and for the sketch still hung up in the room. Because whoever was in that picture was forever gone, both of them. 

Whispering a cantrip, you put an end to this story, even if you aren't sure when it really started.

Ignis.