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yangcherie · 11 months ago

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i am obsessed with your writing. really. i would love to read your view on a shadowheart trying to win your heart when she realizes that the other companions also want you. be as fluff or smut as you want! (and of course you don't need to write anything you don't want, really, no pressure) 💕🩷

one step ahead

pairing: shadowheart, background cast x gender-neutral!tav (reader.)

content warnings: alcoholic consumption, lightest bit of suggestive. reverse comfort. religious trauma (shar.), pre-selune shart.

author’s note: i don’t quite know. this is the first time i wrote wothout being high so ahm. this might suck. Uh. so sorry, dear... begging the nines for this to flop. praying hands emoji.

Before discovering:

You’re a darling thing – considerate, easy to like.

Shadowheart vies for your heart, confident she’s the only one. The party is big and Farûn even bigger, surely, they will not take this one thing away from her? She doesn’t take it seriously at first, the way they touch you, look at you, speak of you. No, she ignores it, continues to court you with soft flowers and fold and prayers of blessings upon you. You’re a priority to her, first and foremost. The only thing she has besides Shar’s teachings.

You like her. The way she feels about you is nothing if not refreshing, rid of lust. So you laugh with her, thank her so prettily for her gifts. She’s confident.

After discovering:

It comes to her late at night. She is not the only one who gives you flowers and gold and prayers, it seems. What meager she has to offer the others are extravagant with. She begrudgingly stumbles upon the possibility that you might’ve served more as a distraction than a lover, you’ve been challenging her faith and focus.

Have you swayed her? The same way you have seemingly swayed the other ones in the party?

If there’s one thing Shadowheart has discovered about herself, it’s that she does not like to share. But you are not hers. And is then she begins to descend into thoughts she does not like, about how it would feel to stake a claim over you.

You become more of a trial to overcome, something to have a crisis over.

Shadowheart purses her lips, sulking by the fire. She’s alone, thankfully – but the night is not peaceful for her, as it may be for the others slumbering around. The wind bites at her legs and something akin to heartbreak and envy chews at her heart as she stares at your tent. An abandoned, emptied bottle of putrid wine lay on its side near her.

It should be alarming, how quickly she’s taken to a different sort of nightly activity; chasing away her thoughts of you with wine and whisky instead of praying. She’s half-convinced you’re a hidden disciple of Lady Shar, with the way you invoke loss so easily in her. You must be a test of faith – one she is losing.

If she is bound to lose, she will not go down without tooth and nail. She’s opted for trying to sweep you off your feet, bouquets of orchids, opening her heart to you. Unfortunately, for every endeavor, you’ve tugged an endearing smile at. You’ve sung her praises on how darling of a friend she was – and she had been laughed at, patted on the back with sympathy by those in the party.

She wonders if you’ve even paid mind to how her advances have faltered. How she had herself distanced from you.

Shadowheart huffs, petty. Your heart has been something hotly-contested amongst the camp – for fuck’s sake, amongst everyone you cross, from drows and tieflings to cambions and lords alike. She knows it, she sees how those in the party - especially that damned vampire, drink in your bodice. The lilted curve of your smile. The bob of your throat. She sees how they could just maim one another for a chance at you, and she cannot blame them for their hunger – but it does not soothe her misery.

The idiots make it a competition of sorts; how far they could skirt around their affections without being caught — but Astarion seems to be winning. It is no secret to everyone, of the trysts you share with the vampire. It haunts her; how in the absence of light, he leans over you, pins you to the ground and sinks his teeth into the soft, welcoming flesh of your florid neck. He licks and savors the sanguine off of your skin whilst you whimper in pain beneath him.

During those nights, she cannot help but stay up, even long after the vampire has sauntered off, leaving you bloodless, limping. She strains her ears to listen to you breathe stiltedly. What she wouldn’t give for the chance to eat you up, whisper pretty things to you even as you push against her and whimper.

(During those nights, it is where she cannot help but truly resonate with Lady Shar’s teachings. Embittered, speared with loss with the fact you have plenty of beds to warm, hearts to hold – but none are hers.)

In the morning, she alone fusses and casts a light heal over you, brushing over your wounded neck, ignoring how Astarion will make an innuedo of your taste to irritate his fellow, seething companions. She will ignore how you flush.

Shadowheart is not blind – even the most foolish of fools could see she is not the only one to vie for your heart. She kicks around in the dirt, disgruntled, raking a hand through her otherwise pristine hair. You are a ridiculous conundrum, an enigma that puts her faith, her control at a losing trial — a groan is forced out of her. She would kill to have anything else on her mind but you, you, you, you, who has swarmed and consumed much of her waking thoughts.

Damn you. Damn you for all you are. You must be a cambion amongst the likes of Haarlep with the way you’ve ensnared her.

Before the cleric can run off with gritted teeth, however, a weight is settled on her shoulder from behind. Mortification is quick to take over her, a chill like winter in Icewind Dale, or worse, High Ice, crawling on her spine.

“Hey, you.” Your voice softly greets her. You do not wait for her answer, she figures when you decide to sit down on the log and huddle up to her as a comforting anchor, unaware to the flushed grimace on her face.

It is a brief thought that passes; what if the Nightsong Lady was watching her right at this moment? How will she ever explain this in her prayers? Should she beg that the Lady spare you? She gapes like a dehydrated fish on land when you burrow yourself further to her side and meet eyes with her.

You do not know you look how ambrosian you are at this moment. You are warm. You are soft and you are alone. Right in front of her, nestling into her, even – unknowing that she is on the prepice of some circle of hell, one riddled with indecision. Should she swoop you off your feet, profess her affections to you and press her mouth to yours until you’re stupid enough to let her bed you for the night?

Or should she gather you in her jaws and bite voraciously hard enough that you will turn limp? Spare you from what is her maw? The pit of her want she could condemn you to?

(But hers must be more merciful than the rest’s, surely? Would you prefer it to be her that destroys you?)

She is now convinced, you are the greatest trial of forbearance and endurance Shar has thrown her way.

“Shadowheart?” You murmur worriedly, a few seconds later to her silence, the fire casting a sultry, welcoming flush over you. She watches as you reach a hand up to your own face; undoubtedly thinking, why is she staring at you like you’ve burnt down the entirety of Faerûn? Shadowheart swallows, jittery; she cannot bear to tear herself away from your embrace.

“Why... why have you come here? To me?” It is all she manages to wrench out of her dry throat. Her waist trembles when you wrap an arm around it. She wishes to ask more; what are we? What am i to you? What do you want from me? Why are you doing this to me—?

“You looked lonely, was all.” You yawned, something ladened with slumber. She could not fathom the thought that this, whatever you were doing, could be casual to you. Was it an everyday occurence for you to ensconcing with whoever you deemed warm enough? “You could do with some company.”

Company? Does she deserve it? You could be with Karlach or Halsin, right now. Their arms were built to sweep you right off your feet. Or Astarion, surely? Was her company so special to you, you had refused your nightly tryst with him?

No, the rational part of her hisses. You’re thinking too highly of yourself; and what it says is true. She’s nothing more than some elf, one who cannot even string herself together.

It’s an uncomfortable silence – though it seems onesided, with how you flutter and cosy up to her despite how stiff she is. Somewhere in between, she feels a frown on your face pressed to her shoulder. She swallows, a prayer of repentance and a lash against her back is what she deserves. She’s a fool. There is no other but herself to fault if she was to fail the trial you pose.

“Shadowheart,” you mutter, more fiercely, another question on your mouth. She reveres the image of you, with your brows are wrinkled with worry for her. “Are you okay?”

But if the punishment is inevitable, she might as well just enjoy the buildup, right?

The cleric shakes her head, the witty response she has wilting when the instantaneous tightening of your arms around her fills her with the most innocent surge of need she’s ever felt – and her body wraps its arms around you before her mind has a say on it.

“Y-You torment me, you know?” She says, breathy, unnerved. The way you look at her and search her eyes for anything that could give her away has her breathless, and she can’t quit decide if that’s a good thing. It feels dirty, almost as if you’re looking for sin in her. She has plenty to go around.

“Why?” You ask, pushing on.

“You confuse me.” Shadowheart shakes her head, allowing the warmth of your palm to slide on her face. She graces it with her own. Shar cannot be watching, damn her. “So much.”

She continues, clutching onto your fingers, “I cannot be with you, I cannot – but gods,” she chokes, lips quivering once. “you make it so hard to stay away.”

You flush at it, what she means. Shadowheart follows. She wonders if you can hear it, the thrum of her heart, a testament of her sin, her unforgivable wrongdoings. She wonders if you know she’s starting to look at you as more of a salvation then a trial. You feel like it.

“Where is this coming from?” You ask, so gently, so reassured. You even tuck her hair behind her ears and it makes her flush with delight. “What makes you so sure you cannot be with me, hm?”

“Why me?” It clicks to you why she had asked that earlier. You frown, smoothing your thumb over the apple of her supple cheek. Her voice trembles. “You could have anyone you wanted, you know. Soldiers, or dukes. But you, you act like this towards me; and I’m just me.”

She does not say how afraid she feels that she could taint you with sin.

“And I like you for you.” You interject; and the butterflies in her stomach seem to triple, despite her eyes burning with exhaustion. “You are more than enough for me. You are wonderful to me.”

“You’re fine, we’re fine. I want to be with you.”

(She wonders if you mean for the rest of your life or this night only.)

Your words ring in her mind. She wonders if you want her to the same extent she does with you. But whatever — she’ll deal with it in the morning, the talk, the regret, the prayers, her reward and consequences. For now, she will let you soothe down the mess she’s made of her hair and hold her, entangle yourself to her as if to share warmth in place of the dying fire.

She could be enough for you, she could take care to not damage you with what she is. And she’s sure that she deserves this, snugly rocking in your arms, even for a night or two. And maybe you deserve a pretty flower again.

If she cannot have you, she can at the very least make sure you have her.

#shadowheart x reader #bg3 x reader #not my proudest work #i need to hit a smoke to function sad face emoji sigh #hope this flops amen

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