#selûne's masterlist

[pocksprincess]

☾•°•☽ Attack On Titan ☾•°•☽

Porco Galliard -

Stranded Souls (series) ON HIATUS

☾•°•☽ Naruto ☾•°•☽

Obito Uchiha -

Neighbourly (series)

[pursuitseternal]

“A Life for an Unlife:”

Act 1 Astarion x f!Reader | E | 4K

Summary: The Rogue of your group has been a flirt, he’s asked you for a night of passion… but you know there’s more to him than just the vampirism he’s kept secret. After you make a reckless decision in battle, there’s more than a fever’s heat between you as he tends your wounds.

CW: Act 1 AU romance, wound tending, temperature play, hurt/comfort, feelings confessions, first time as pair

📸 by @casualya

Prompt fill for @wtv-my-current-hyperfixation

Ao3 Link | Astarion Masterlist

Goblins. Why did it have to be goblins? So many and all at once, they seemed to come from every nook and cranny in this Selûne forsaken temple. Panting, you scan the carnage, a few echoing clangs of blades still come from across the great big space, the crumbling walls bouncing grunts and metal strikes. Heart racing in your chest, you try to follow it, feet slipping in the slicks of blood as you round the corner.

Astarion snarls, daggers in hand, disarming the Bugbear he has before him. “You’re mine!” he growls, plunging his blade up into its throat. Then he smiles, pulling the knife free, bloodlust shining like glee in his crimson eyes as he turns towards you.

Gods, he’s glorious all spattered in gore, the crimson on his face and in his hair making those matching eyes of his almost glow. He smirks, drawing himself up, hiding the way his chest heaves from exertion. “Like what you see, darling? I could hardly blame you… If I had known it was violence that got you going, maybe I would have asked you to my bed under different…”

His voice continues to purr, even as he saunters slowly towards you. But movement above on the wall catches your eye. “Astarion!” you gasp, staring right at a wounded goblin, his ugly drawstring bow aimed right for your vampire.

Quicker than a breath, he grabs his own bow, reaching for an arrow… only to find his quiver empty. “Bloody hells,” he growls, those hands twitching as he turns. Then you see it, the look of fear in his red eyes. The faintest sound of the goblins bowstring tightening thunders in your ear even at a distance. And those red eyes widen as he braces himself for the shot. His body is already exhausted, bloodied and bruised. And you think with your instinct, with your magic. With your heart.

Magic flares from your hands, your body rushing in the dank dark air of the ruins as you teleport. His place becomes yours, that arrow meant for him, thus, also becomes yours. Pain slices into your chest, numb at first, the shaft in your chest barely registering to your brain. Just an ache and warmth covering your breasts as you begin to bleed.

You hear your name faintly, distorted to your ears, but definitely called from those lips you long to kiss. Astarion yells for healing, cursing for the Cleric to come. The world narrows to the wet ache in your chest and the fading sound of Astarion’s voice in your ear. Suddenly you’re on your back, the sky above you peeking through the broken temple ceiling is so beautiful you think… and the last thing you see is a pair of crimson eyes and a fluff of bloodied silver hair as a face swims into your line of sight.

Then the world goes black.

You wake to a cool wet cloth pressed to your head by a corpse-cold hand.

“Godsdammit,” you hear that silken voice no longer silken cursing above you, “get up, damn you.”

That wet cloth passes down your cheek, the sound of water wringing into a metal pan pierces the haze of your delirium. “Hells damn it, why did you have to use your blasted magic on me, idiot,” the snarl is rough, distant, his handsome face turned away as he curses your selfless stupidity.

Something presses to your lips. A smooth glass bottle neck, the tingling taste of healing potion dripping into your mouth. “My last healing potion,” he mutters, “all because you were a damned fool to take that arrow just to save my sorry hide…”

“…it’s a handsome… hide,” you mutter, lips half-stuck together as you swallow the potion. You’re not even sure he could understand what you said let alone hear it. As you come to, you realize your skin is damp with water and sweat, your body wracked with shivers. Your skin is hot and cool all at once. Fever.

His hand clenches the bottle, those sure fingers shaking as the glistening red liquid dribbles down your chin.

“Hells,” he curses, wiping it away with the calloused pad of this thumb. “You’re awake?” He clears his throat, “I mean… of course you’re awake.” His gaze narrows, flirtatious and self-assured. “With these skilled hands attending you, you’ll be right as rain in no time.” He wrings the towel in the dish to press it to your brow. “Back on your feet and being foolish and selfless in no time.”

A few swipes of cloth, and he tosses it back in the basin. He turns his back, one hand reaching around to press awkwardly behind him, fingers digging through the worn fabric of his shirt. A strange motion, one you think has more to do with his internal dialogue than the one between you. You part your lips, voice dry and rough. “Astarion, I…”

“Save it,” he snips, “I can help tend your wounds, but I can’t fix stupidity. Foolish, selfless hero. Did you not get enough heroics killing goblins? Not enough finding the Archdruid and wiping out a Hobgoblin and a Drow? You just had to save my sorry ass too?”

His voice grows shrill. That collected purr, the one that rumbles deep in his chest and makes your thighs clench, has disappeared. He sounds frantic. Manic.

Afraid.

You never once imagined you’d see a vampire afraid before. You open your mouth once more but he just shakes his head and interjects again. “The gith went to hurry after the fabled Halsin to bring him here to heal you properly. Even Shadowheart’s powers could only do so much.” He grumbles, annoyed and irritated. He’s… sulking. As if he was the one shot.

“The hells is wrong with you?” you manage to grumble through your parched throat.

“You should have let me take that arrow.” He snarls, voice pressed and quiet. “I was the one dumb enough to run out of arrows! I was the one unaware of my surroundings! But no, you had to save me… to make me look like a fool.” He pauses, worked up into a frenzy, chest heaving and everything. “You… you swapped with me…”

You realize it’s a question… of sorts.

Before you can give answer, he shoves a skin of water in your hands. Then he moves to the flap of your tent. “Where’s that gods forsaken Druid? I need healing here! Now!”

You guzzle down the water, feeling it cool on your feverish skin. Sputtering, the noises draw Astarion’s attention back on you. “Fucks sake,” he curses kneeling back down beside you. His fingers feel like ice on your flushed and fevered face as he wipes the trickles of water clean. “You’re a fucking mess, Al becuase you had to play the hero. And see what heroics get you? An arrow in your chest and a fever as you recover. That will show you not to go around caring for others.” Those magnificent silver brows furrow as he turns to get fresh cool water to dampen your sweating face.

He grinds his teeth, that sharp corner of his jaw clenches and unclenches. Even feverish and sweating, you can tell there is so much he is withholding.

Your head swims as you watch him brood. Shivering, your delirium surges as you vaguely watch him turn his head and disappear through the tent flap. Rustling… footsteps… another cool glass bottle presses to your mouth. Another potion trickles down your dry and gasping throat.

“It’s an antidote, in case that arrow was poisoned, and Halsin is on his way. Just… hold on.” He whispers, more to himself than you. “This isn’t what you deserve darling… but me… I would have deserved this. You’re too good to suffer.” He’s definitely muttering to himself now. “Hells, you’re still burning. I need to get you cool, to stem the fever.”

You hear the sloshing of water and force your eyes open, raising a shaking hand to grip his wrist.

“You’re cool,” you breathe. “Your skin is… ice cold…” you pull his hand to your sweating face. The relief is instant, his undead body soaking in the fever-flush of your cheek.

Astarion gives a half-hearted, breathy laugh. “Any excuse to get my shirt off, I see? Though I remember someone not being entirely receptive to previous offers to view what lies beneath all this,” he taunts, a forced air of flattery. But the knit of his brows, the wet shine of his red eyes still betrays his worry. “No matter,” he continues, pulling off that cream ruffled shirt to reveal the hard planes of his body. “Better late than never.”

His fingers flex, peeling the blanket off your chest to reveal your breasts bound in linen. “It’s been some time since my body has been warm, let alone feverish, but I do know we have to keep you cool.” Graceful and stealthy, it almost feels like he sneaks up on you the way his body slides against yours, your chests pressed together. Your belly rises rapidly as you pant. Your fever, no doubt. Yes, that’s why your heart thunders beneath your ribs and why your breath is shaky and quick.

The more his corpse-cold torso presses into the softer flesh of yours, the clearer your head grows. Antidote or healing potion or just the cool comfort of his body… whatever it is, it’s working. You feel your senses steadying and your body ground itself.

But you can’t bring yourself to look into his eyes, settling for letting yourself be cuddled and cooled in his arms.

He holds you carefully, like a figure made of glass. The smooth, cool press of his body blankets you and the fever flush and pain of your wound dissipates. You feel almost back to normal. Except for a new kind of heat roiling in your lower belly.

You try to ignore it, but it only worsens the longer you lay skin-to-skin in Astarion’s arms. You try to force your breathing to even out, to will your heart to slow and your limbs to ease…

As if you were asleep, sneaking this moment in his arms. Something you’ve wanted for a while now, but have been too nervous to attempt. He’s always been too flirty, too cocky, or too seductive. You know there is much more behind his show of confidence than he’s revealed to you. So you close your eyes and listen to the slow thump of his undead heart.

It’s quiet as you rest, Astarion barely shifts, barely breathes as he cools you with his skin. Lost in his own broodings and musings. He rests his head on yours, so much intimacy, you realize he thinks you must be asleep. Then he breaks the silence, his inner dialogue escaping him, you realize with a smile.

His voice is like the whisper of cool silk on your skin, his nose pressing into your temple. “You know, I didn’t care much for you when we first met, and the jury’s still out on your heroic tendencies,” he murmurs into your ear. “I’m only saying this because you’re one foot in the proverbial grave, but… please don’t die. I couldn’t bear to have you die because of me. I couldn’t live with it… or… well, be undead with it…”

He laughs at his own joke, his own best audience with you barely conscious in his embrace.

“What’s a life for an unlife at any rate. You’re the first person to say that you cared whether I lived or died, let alone take action to save my life… or my unlife… oh whatever.”

He frustrates himself, his own words getting the better of him.

And you laugh. It’s faint, just a small giggle. But those keen pointed ears twitch at the sound, the hard planes of his belly feeling your own jiggle with your chuckle.

“Hells,” he curses, raising a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “You’re awake. You… heard all that?”

Slowly, you lift your head, meeting his hesitant and guarded scarlet gaze. He waits, cautious and careful. After all, he’s spent two centuries as a slave, and given all he’s revealed, it’s clear he’s waiting to see if you’re worthy of trust.

You can’t help but mold your lips into a reassuring smile. Your voice is stronger than he anticipated, the light in your eyes brighter and not with fever-glass. He smiles back as you reply. “You’ve borne enough pain in your life, Astarion. I figured it was time someone else could shoulder the burden. Besides,” you groan, wincing as you shift to reveal the bandages on your chest, “you don’t need any more scars…”

He stiffens. “What do you mean?” he blusters, a show of cocky ignorance. And you just calmly reach around to touch his back, riddled with strange scars.

“I saw you bathing last night in the stream. I… don't know what they mean, but I know you didn’t get them in battle.” Your voice trails off as he stiffens.

“It’s a story for another time… a reminder of Cazador, my old master,” he clenches his jaw, a signal that he’s given you all he will tonight. “At any rate those are wounds that have healed, unlike your festering arrow wound.”

You shiver as he pulls you closer against his cool skin. “At least there’s some plus side to being undead,” he teases, “though… I can’t think of many others.”

You give a feeble laugh again. “You… have many things in your favor. Your quick wit, your deceptive charisma, your determination when you finally find something you set your mind to, that is.”

That makes him laugh too, his hands winding to your back and sliding to grip your ass. He pulls you impossibly closer… and… is that his leg pressing between yours?

“You forget so many of my other advantages, darling. My refined good looks, my impeccable hair, my silver tongue… my mighty fangs….” The last attribute he shows off with a cheeky smirk before dragging them over your neck right in that spot where he’s fed a few times from you.

Your breath catches and your head swims again, and you're pretty sure that the antidote has healed you already. Your fever is lessened, and now your body just burns. That ache in your belly moves lower, settling its weight and pain between your thighs.

No, this is a sense of overwhelm, a heady rush of want and heat as he pulls you hard to press your fevered skin to his ice-cold chest.

You murmur his name against the smooth cool expanse of his chest as you bury your face again.

“Speak up, darling. I’d hate to miss a single sweet syllable from your lips.” Chilling fingers press under your chin, lifting you up to meet his guarded gaze. “Now that I’ve got you right where I’ve wanted you, I’ll ask you again. Why did you save me? Why trade your life for mine? A life for a life is no inconsequential trade…”

The air in your lungs burns. “That’s because what I feel for you isn’t… inconsequential.”

There. It’s done. You said it. The words that have burned in your belly and scratched at your throat every time you locked stares with the fucking vampire… you finally let them out. Finally admitting that you do… feel… something.

His chest is still, neither inhaling more exhaling, crimson eyes scanning your face for deceit or sarcasm. But no. You just stare back at him as your lower lip starts to tremble pathetically and your eyes prick with unshed tears. You wait an ungodly amount of time for him to finally exhale. His breath is cool, especially on your sweat-soaked cheek. “Truly? Is that what you learned from all this?” His words are meant to sting, but his voice quivers with stifled emotion. As if he’s trying to be the arrogant arse he usually is.

“Hells,” he winces, “you’re serious about this? His elegant hand gestures to the minimal space between your chests. “About… us?”

It’s all you can do to meet his stare and try not to cry.

“Not a tenday ago, and the very idea of being held in my arms made you cringe,” he teases, brow arched, conceited smirk on his thick lips. “I’d ask what’s changed, but…” he glances to where your bandages still cut into your chest, dried with blood. “Staring death in the face can give you a new perspective…. Like making you want to stare undeath in the face instead.” His brows furrow, his hand absentmindedly traces over his own twin scars.

For a moment, you think he’s being humorous at your expense, but there is only a far off glint of grief and suffering in his eye. You reach your warm palm to cup his cheek, his name a summons on your tongue. “Astarion…”

Your tone is strong, your breathing rapid, and no doubt he smells the hot arousal that has settled in your belly.

His name on your lips is all the encouragement he needs.

That piercing gaze returns, sharp and hungry. “Need I remind you, I offered you a night to escape all this madness and you… refused. So what’ll it be now, darling?” You feel a cool palm inside your thighs, his own leg gently pushing yours apart. And that gaze deepens in intensity, dilating. “Is this it? It’s what you want… isn’t it?”

You can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t even lift your head to reply. And that smooth, chilling hand travels higher up your leg.

“You’re burning up, darling.” Those arrogant, smirking lips press to your pulse point, just a hint of fang points stabbing into the same spot that’s starting to scar from his near-nightly feeding. “And… I don’t think it’s your fever. Far as I know, fevers don’t make one’s cunt this wet and needy…”

A whine slips past your lips, your body shivering again as your legs splay just a bit more.

“Perhaps I should reward you for saving me the trouble of being shot, a little something for you?”

Before he can slide his hand higher into your underthings, you reach to stop him. “Wait,” you hiss, panting with need even as your mind screams at you. “I… I don’t want this to be a transaction. I want to do this because I want you.”

Those red eyes flare wide, his pointed ears dipping and lowering. A flash of vulnerability even as he rolls himself on top of you.

“Of course you want me, there’s nothing more desirable in the world than a vampire…” the words that come from his flat-lined mouth sound bitter.

“No, no,” you insist, running your hands up to brace his face. “I want you because you’re charming and funny, you’re lonely and hurting, and… I want to make it better for you.”

He freezes, body still pinning yours to the ground, hips pushed into your sex, hands stuck at the back of your neck. “A life for a life, you already spared me an arrow, and now… you offer to help me again?” The words are barely audible, incredulous. If it wasn’t for the narrow distance between your mouths already, you would have thought it was just a voice on the wind outside your tent.

But that cool breath that sweeps between your open lips is all the encouragement you need. You pull him the slight distance between you. Just a kiss. Just a press of his full, gaping lips against your pursed ones.

That’s all it takes, as something snaps into place between you. Now, he’s the one feverish with need, the one beginning to sweat as his hands pull your head back, his mouth working ravenously into your kiss, and those trim hips thrusting his hard cock against your sex.

That grind of his clothed body into your underthings makes your pulse gallop, your heart nearly bursting more now than when a goblin arrow lodged itself near it. Your back arches off the ground, his grip turning your head just so, the perfect angle for his fangs. He bites and drinks as the freezing numbness of his fangs soothes your heat. And yet it makes you all the wetter for him. Your underthings are soaked, the fabric clinging to your folds, dragged to the side by his bulge as he dry fucks you and feeds.

“More, Astarion,” you keen as you buck your hips in time with him. And that sloppy, bloodied mouth lifts from your neck. His eyes are black, barely ringed with scarlet as he pants into your face.

“You sure you’re up for this, darling? Because once I start…" His voice is slick from feeding and rough with lust.

All you do is move your shaking hands to his leathers, finding the fastenings to free his pulsing, flushed cock. His lips quirk to one side, that blood-dripping mouth curling into an even hungrier smirk. “I am right glad you’re feeling so… lively after nearly dying,” he tries to smooth his voice back into that silken purr, but his body is wound too tight. His hand reaches to tease your folds and bare your cunt completely beneath him.

You smirk, pressing your parted lips to his. “Lively, but… perhaps I’ll try that little death you’ve offered me…”

Grit teeth and grinning, he presses that blunted tip at your entrance, a few shallow dips to test your wetness before he pushes all the way inside. Those red eyes close once he’s buried to the hilt. Just a breath of a groan or a laugh, you can’t tell which. All you know is that you will do anything in the future just to hear that sound again. For all his bluster and hunger, he pulls back and pushes in so agonizingly slow. For as quickly as he feeds on your blood, he fucks you tenderly, savouring the drag of his cock against your walls.

Grasping at his neck, you feel the dirge tempo of his undead heart quicken slightly, his skin, still cool, warms just a touch as it grows slick with sweat.

“Hells,” he groans with another breathy giggle, “you’re tighter than a Cleric’s tourniquet.” Those hips undulate, hands still threaded into the mess of your hair. “I fear I won’t last long, not with how much I’ve wanted this.”

His tongue licks at the blood that still sticks to his lips and chin. That thrusting pace quickens, and your hips rock faster to match. Fingers slip to find your clit, teasing it, circling it, pinching it even as his own thrusts grow erratic. You whimper and moan in excess until the heat of your fever dissipates, and the wave of hot pleasure floods you in its place. Your curl in on him, legs gripping and shaking around his waist, arms pulling his chest to bear down on yours even harder. You lose where your body ends and his begins, save for the heated flush of your flesh and his cooler, undead body.

He makes that same coveted noise, the one between a gasp and a laugh, and he does it right in your ear as he comes. He claws around you with the same tenacity as you, as if he can’t bear to be separated from you. Not now. Not that you’ve given him so much… life. Nearly your own life… in exchange that he might feel alive for now, and maybe forever with you.

Thank you to @astarionancuntnin and @nyx-knox for reading it over ✨💅✨

[commander-rahrah]

Talking to the Moon

Pairing: Astarion x GN!Reader Word Count: ~5000 (haha.. whoops) Warnings: slightly suggestive for a tiny moment but SFW, swearing, PTSD, trauma, past/implied abuse, fluff, angst, emotional hurt/comfort

archiveofourown: here

masterlist: here

Summary: Set in early Act II. Reader/Tav's origin of their powers is revealed to the party and there is a negative reaction to it. Astarion attempts to comfort reader with his usual routine and provide a "distraction" but gets rejected. He begins to question their own reasoning and feelings, and realizing that he might be feeling something… different.

Note: This is still a GN!Reader/Tav in second perspective with no names or y/n. However, there is some backstory (noble background and a deity) and appearance descriptors (only freckles and hair colour) assigned to the reader/Tav. I really enjoy the dynamic of the moon/stars that I have with my own Tav named Olympia and Astarion and for this particular idea I wrote I felt the backstory was too important to leave out!

I am an avid D&D player and I loooove making OCs (its a problem I have like 30) but this particular backstory and character that this is based off of is very dear to me, so I really hope your enjoy!

.·:¨༺ ༻¨:·..·:¨༺ ༻¨:·..·:¨༺ ༻¨:·..·:¨༺ ༻¨:·..·:¨༺ ༻¨

You were all gathered on the grounds just outside of the Last Light Inn, heading back inside the main doors with Jaheira and Isobel. The safe haven protected from the forces of the Absolute — thanks to you and your companions quick action. The remaining Tieflings and the other inhabitants of the inn still shaken from the sudden attack, but resting safely inside. “I’m thankful you were all here to stop the attack.” The cleric of Selûne said softly. 

Isobel then looked over her shoulder at you, stopping for a moment as she looked you over from head to toe. “And you... I recognize my goddess’s powers within you — but they are so different from mine. Your magic is not born out of devotion for her.”

“What is she talking about?” Shadowheart asked from your side, whipping her head to you so fast her black braid flung out behind her.

You swallowed. You had been dreading this conversation. Fearing the moment it came out. “Yes, I, uh—,” You stumbled over your words, your tongue suddenly heavy in your mouth. “I was blessed by Selûne as a babe.”

Isobel raised her eyebrows, her lips stretching into a slight smile. “A blessing indeed. A drop of Selûne's own powers lives within you. You use it well.”

You bowed your head, your cheeks flushing a bright shade. Embarrassment and chagrin flooding you as every single member of your party turned to face you — varying reactions on all of them.

You eyes were still on your boots as both Isobel and Jaheira bid you a goodnight, telling you of your own rooms upstairs before disappearing amongst the many doors of the inn. The rest of your party quiet — not even Astarion had opened his mouth to fill the silence with a comment or joke.

The voice who broke it was the one you had dreaded the most. Shadowheart’s voice was a harsh whisper, but it still cut you deeply. “I cannot believe you. You’ve been lying to me this whole time!”

You winced, your teeth biting into your cheek, “I wasn’t lying. I just… didn’t tell you.”

“You just didn’t tell me that you are blessed with divine magic from my goddess’ enemy.” The dark-haired cleric scoffed, her nose crinkling so much that the scar across her face shrank considerably.

You thought of all the nights around the campfire sharing soft laughs, the early mornings that you helped braid her hair. This was why you had been avoiding it. You didn't want to lose that. Shadowheart had become a friend, an ally. “I didn’t want to ruin anything, we’ve grown so close and… it’s not like I worship her. I don’t say my prayers to her every night, I was just a babe—“

“Well I do!” She raised her voice, a few passing Harper’s stirring in shock at the outburst before shuffling away. “In Shar’s name. This is unbelievable — I’ve been mere feet away from you this whole time.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But you kept your devotion to Shar a secret and when it did come out all of us have been nothing but accepting.” Your eyebrows were furrowed together in worry. This was going exactly as you had dreaded. You’d hope your friendship would be something she would consider however…

“Alsoooo,” Astarion drawled, “The last time you had a disagreement with one of us, we woke up to you holding a knife to Lae'zel’s neck. Can you really blame them for not bringing it up?” He wagged his fingers at her, a single white brow raised.

Her nostrils flared as she flashed a look to the vampire, before turning back to you. “This is no disagreement. This is wrong, this is against everything my lady stands for."

“Shadowheart, please. You are my friend—“ You began to beg, but the cleric cut you off.

“No. Not anymore. We will continue to travel together to reach Moonrise Towers. We will get rid of these tadpoles and then we are done.” She spat.

“I—,” You choked, unable to think of what else to say. How else to defend yourself. You realized that Shadowheart’s mind was made up, no matter what you said right now.

“Shadowheart,” Astarion cut in again, stepping in front of you almost protectively. “Enough.” His voice a low growl.

Gale and Wyll stepped forward too, concern etched on their face. Karlach’s own features were torn — her eyes flitting between you and Shadowheart with immense worry. Lae'zel remained in the back, her muscular arms crossed over her chest as she observed silently.

The dark haired cleric shook her head, a loud breath escaping her before she stormed off up the stairs. Her armor and weapons clanking loudly as she stormed away.

“Princess, come on!” Karlach shouted after her, starting up the stairs. But she paused for a moment, stretching out to grab your elbow gently. “It’ll be alright giggles, ok? Don’t worry about it.”

You could only nod as you watched the Tiefling chase after her, both of them disappearing upstairs.

“Well, that was hard to watch.“ Wyll murmered, offering you a pained smile.

You waited for the sound of a door slamming above, before turning to head up the stairs yourself. You felt your throat tighten as you fought to keep your tears at bay. "Today was a lot. I think I’m just going to find my room now.” You barely waved goodbye as you took the worn steps two at a time, disappearing from your group without a backwards glance as a few tears broke free.

“Wait, do you need—“ Gale began to trail behind you, his brows knitted together and face pained. 

“Let them be, Gale.” Astarion waved a hand to stop him pursing you up the stairs. “Let them drop the mask for a while. If you go barging in there right away, they will paint a smile on their face and act like everything is fine.”

A look of surprise crossed his face before the wizard let his shoulders slump, “You’re right.”

A sound of delight escaped the vampire, before he cupped his pale fingers around his pointed ear, “I beg your pardon, could you say that again? I didn’t hear you.”

Gale let out a large huff, before he admitted “I said you’re right. I’ll let them be.”

“Oooh, Gale. If you’re trying to woo me, at least buy me dinner first.” Astarion pretended to twirl his hair, before flashing him a wicked grin.

Gale pushed his face into a palm, letting out another exasperated sound. “Gods, save me.”

• • •

You were sat on the bed, your back pressed into the back of the headboard with your knees pressed to your chest. It had been a few hours before the tears had finally stopped, leaving you feeling even more exhausted and drained. You weren’t sure when the news of what lived inside you would come out — but it went exactly as you feared it had. The betrayal and anger on Shadowheart’s face was repeating over and over in your mind. The rest of your party had seemed accepting… but it was hard to tell what exactly they were thinking.

A sudden knock at your door had you scrambling to right yourself, wiping at your damp cheeks and eyes with the back of your hands. You fixed your shirt, and stretched out your legs to look as if you were just relaxing on the bed before letting out, “Come in.”

Your voice sounded much more meek than intended.

Astarion poked his head through the door, a strange combination of both hesitation and curiosity painted across his pale face. “Hello pet,” He purred, lingering in the door way for a moment.

“Astarion, hi.” You sat up a little straighter, surprised to see him. “Come in.”

He shut the door softly behind him, “Feeling any better? Or did Shadowheart come find you for an encore?”

You shook your head, “No, she’s stayed in her room — thank the gods. I don’t think I could handle another moment like that tonight.”

His eyes betrayed him for a moment, glancing to the floor, “Yes, well usually I would say it’s entertaining watching someone else’s drama unfold… but I didn’t enjoy that.”

He swayed over to the bed, sitting on the edge. Not close enough to touch, but you couldn’t help the small fluttering that erupted in your belly as he sat next to you. How casual it seemed, how easy it had become.

You shoved the thought away, instead scrunching your mouth up as you spoke, “I was avoiding it for a reason. I feel terrible... I shouldn't have hidden it for so long.”

“Well, if you were looking for a distraction…” He stretched his hand over to you and drew lazy circles on your knee before dragging it up to your thigh. “I can be of some assistance.” A seductive smile curved his lips, his eyes darkening. 

Your expression crumbled as the crack you had just soothed in your chest starting to form again. “That’s all you see me as, isn’t it?”

“What?” He asked, his hand freezing on your leg.

“Sex. That’s the only way you see me.”

“I—“ His eyes widened with bewilderment, before he blinked at you. “I don’t— I mean.” He continued to stammer, his fanged mouth hanging open in genuine shock.

You let out a sad sigh, your eyebrows furrowing like you were in pain. You were. The ache in your chest was growing tenfold, the familiar feeling of your heart crawling up your throat returning. “I’m not in the mood Astarion. If you want to feed, do it and go.”

He instantly pulled his hand away at your rejection, clutching it to his chest with the other one. He didn’t give an apology, nor did he seem interested in your offer to feed. His red eyes were blinking animatedly, as if confused. Before he bowed his head and got off the bed quickly. Then the sound of the door clicking softly behind him an instant later.

You couldn’t hear his steps in the hall even if you wanted to — so instead you rolled over onto your side, curling your limbs into yourself as you screwed your face up once more and cried.

• • •

Astarion didn’t know what to think. What to do.

No one had ever rejected him before. This is what he did, this is what he was built for. To manipulate. To seduce. 

To play the dazzling, charming distraction. He used to target the lonely, the distressed and upset… it made the hunt so much easier. And Cazador used to praise him for it — he said the miserable and desperate tasted so much better. 

But you weren’t like those easy targets. You weren’t simple, and he should have known better. You were complex and contradictory — not something he appreciated in a target. But something he could appreciate in a fellow person. Things were becoming to muddled, too confusing.

Gods dammit, he had been so foolish. His entire plan could be falling apart now — you sitting up in your room alone mulling everything over. 

But what really bothered him wasn’t the idea of his plan falling apart. That his protection from his old master could be gone by morning, leaving him behind to suffer the consequences.

No, what really bothered him, what he was really afraid of was how upset you’d been. That he was the cause of that.

Astarion's skin felt hot and crawling as he realized he had treated you as others had treated him all these years. Trying to use your desire as a way to override any other feeling. To seduce you into acquiescence, to fool you into thinking you needed only him. It disgusted him, what he’d done. Shame coursed through him and his fingers clenched onto his leather clad knee. 

He was grateful for the little dark attic he had found above the barn — grateful to be away from the prying eyes of the rest of the party. He couldn't explain this to them, he wouldn't. 

A splash of wet splashed onto the back of his hand and he realized he was crying. He'd forgotten he could do that. He'd stopped so many years ago, numbing and willing himself so that none would come. So that despite the pain or hurt he was feeling, his tears would not be there to give Cazador anymore satisfaction. His master didn't need anymore physical evidence of his anguish — his screams and blood and broken body was enough. He had stopped crying years ago. Until tonight. 

Wiping his face, he took a steadying breath he knew he didn't need. And then again for good measure. He wasn't really sure what he was doing, but he stood up with a slightly trembling body.  He needed to fix this. For you. For himself. 

Before he knew it he was back outside of your door, his fist hovering just above the painted wood. His other hand was picking at the seam of the side of his leather pants nervously. His red eyes stared at the little tray of food he'd brought up for you — resting on the hallway table as he waited to see if you would even let him in. A peace offering he'd thought. A way to get his foot in the door before he could… explain. Apologize. 

Chewing his lip, he finally let his knuckles rap on the door. He lingered for a moment, before opening it slightly. The small crack in the door angled enough to reveal you still laid in the bed, your back to the door as you were curled up on the mattress. Guilt flooded through him all over again. 

“Gale, I told you I’m fine—"

He pushed the door open a little more, just enough so that is creaked to get your attention. He only poked his head through, enough for you to see his pale face as you strained your neck to look over your shoulder. 

“Oh. It’s you.”

Astarion swallowed at the sound of your disappointment. It was not something he ever wished to hear again if he could. His lashes fluttered against his cheeks as he looked down, unable to look you in the eye, “Will you let me try again?”

“What?”

He finally looked up, his red eyes round and soft, “Let me try again.”

You gave him a hard to read look, before nodding curtly. 

Astarion grabbed the door, not closing it fully but just enough that the lock bounced softly back. His pale knuckles knocked again gently, before he heard you let out an exasperated breath. “Come in.”

A sheepish, tight lipped smile spread across his face as he stepped fully into the room and looked at you. You were sitting up in the bed now, your arms crossed over yourself with an unimpressed look on your face. He used his foot to close the door quietly as he held his peace offering behind him. 

“I won’t bother you, if you don’t want company. But I noticed you hadn’t eaten. I brought you dinner.” He pulled the tray out from behind his back, showing it to you. 

“Oh.”

“And a glass of wine.” He placed everything carefully onto the nightstand, before backing away towards the door. “It’s disgusting.”

A soft laugh escaped you, “Thank you." You took a small sip of the wine, before twisting your face. “Ugh — you are right, that is disgusting.”

“I’m almost certain I saw those Tiefling children your so fond of mixing it themselves. Pray this is a part time gig and they don’t become bartenders in the future.”

The two of you let snickers out through your noses, before the room turned quiet again. “Thank you for bringing this up. I mean it.”

“You’re very welcome.” He shuffled his feet, unsure if that was a dismissal or not. But he also found himself not wanting to leave. His hands were behind his back, his own fingers intertwining and squeezing tightly. “I’m… I’m sorry for how you were treated today. It wasn’t fair.”

Your eyes flashed down, your brow crinkling. “It’s okay—“

Astarion shook his head profusely, “No, it’s not. You didn’t deserve that. You don’t owe any of us anything — not your story, or … or anything else. What you decide to tell us, what you trust us with... that is your choice.” 

“Thank you. It’s not that I don’t trust you all, I do… I just.”

He cut you off gently, “You don’t owe me an explanation.”

“I know.” Your finger was playing with the rim of the wine glass in mesmerizing circles, over and over. “I do, trust you though.”

His red eyes lifted from your hands, to give you a quizzical look, “Now, why in the heavens would you do that?”

Your laugh was music to his ears. Full and bright. You shrugged, putting the glass back onto the nightstand — abandoning it and the dinner for another moment. “I just do.”

The vampire couldn't stop the purr that escaped his lips, “Hmmm, other members of our merry party would disapprove.”

“Probably. I think they disapprove of most of my interactions with you.” You said quietly, picking at the blanket you were sat upon. 

The room filled with silence for a moment as you thought. “I was just a baby… when it happened. I was born ill — so weak and tired, it was almost like I was a dead. My parents threw all of their power and wealth at every scholar and healer they knew to try and cure me.”

Astarion’s eyebrows shot up as you spoke, joining you carefully on the bed. Much further then his previous visit. His hands settled onto his own lap as he listened. 

“Nothing would work. And with every failed attempt, father become more and more distant. And mother became more and more desperate, hoping for any miracle she could find. She began to pray to any God that would listen, traveling to their shrines and statues. One night, my mother had fallen asleep crying while kneeling next to me. She said she awoke to a breeze and silver light — and the most beautiful woman she had ever seen was standing over us. Her hair was set in long silver waves, a flowing dress cascading over her curves, and a small smile on her lips as she watched the scene of mother and child. 'Selûne?' My mother asked, and the ethereal woman merely smiled again. 'I heard your prayers and felt your tears as if they were mine own. No mother should know the loss of their child.' As I slept, she touched my hair lightly, telling my mother I was pure and good-hearted. Selûne told her that she would help me, but that I would have a calling that would lead me away from my normal life of nobility and comfort. After my mother agreed, a white light shone through the Goddess’ hand, spreading into my hair, into my body and creating an aura around me. My hair turned silvery white, and star-like freckles began to shine all over my skin.” Your fingertips danced across your face, touching the skin that showed the blessing. 

Astarion was gobsmacked, his eyes lingering over your silver hair and the freckles that dusted your nose and cheeks. His mind struggling to keep up with the information. “So, what Isobel said is true… a drop of Selûne's power lives in you?”

You nodded your head weakly, avoiding his stare. 

“Gods… Why tell me this?”

You only offered a soft smile, “I wanted you to know.”

A thousand thoughts were running through his mind — most of them selfish. He'd prayed to the Gods every night for years, asking, begging, willing them to save him. To give him a swift death. Anything. And never received an answer back. But Selûne had for you.

But now that he knew you, he could think of no one else who would deserve it. He couldn't bare to think what the world would have been like if you had been taken away so early. Where he would be now if he hadn't met you on the cliffside after that damn ship. “Well, it seems that you truly are walking poetry, darling. Our little moon shining a light on all of us.”

He swore he saw you bottom lip tremble at the name. 

"Let me tell the others, when I'm ready?" You asked quietly. 

"Of course." 

The room fell into silence again, but it was more comfortable then before. Astarion found himself lost in his thoughts — a confusing melody of haunting memories, and wishful thoughts. 

“You never answered my question before.”

“Hmm?” Your voice had him blinking back to reality, turning his body to look over at you. 

“About… how you see me.” Your eyes were big and vulnerable. They tugged at his heart, at the knot in his stomach that formed with the thought of you.

“Oh," Was all he could get out. 

“I—I just,” Your voice was feint and nervous, your eyes studying the features of his face intently. 

“Don’t ask now.” He blurted, his fingers clenching into a tight fist on his lap. 

“What?”

“Give me time. Please.” He begged gently. 

Your eyes softened, before you nodded in silent understanding. “I can do that.”

Relief flooded him, his fingers relaxing and shoulders drooping. 

You seemed content on letting it drop, instead grabbing the plate of food next to you and balancing it on your knee. “Where is my roommate for the evening?” You asked, before taking a bite. 

“Lae'zel? Oh she deemed the lodgings unacceptable and that she would rather die than join us soft-skinned weaklings in a room. She set up a tent out front in the dirt.”

You finished chewing, before grinning. “That… checks out.”

“So you get a luxurious evening alone. At least one of us does." He feigned a frown, before waving his hands dramatically, "I get to spend the night listening to Gale and Wyll snore.” He rolled his eyes before speaking again. "I will say charming Wyll did volunteer to sleep on the floor so I could have half the bed, bless him.”

“You could stay here if you want. To sleep, I mean.” You offered easily, pushing the food around your plate with the fork as you waited for him to reply. 

He blinked again, caught off guard by your proposal. “Oh, that’s not necessary—“

“Astarion, really? You’ll share with Gale, but not with me?” You teased, a single eyebrow arching. 

He stared at you for a moment, dumbfounded before nodding, “Alright. Eat your dinner. I’ll get my things.” 

• • •

Slinking into his room, Astarion left out a sigh of relief as he realized it was empty. He needed a moment to ground himself and stop his spinning head. He had no idea what today would bring, but this whirlwind of a night was not at all what he had expected. He started grabbing his night clothes he had laid out on the bed in his shared room with Wyll and Gale, stuffing them into his rucksack. 

But he bristled as he heard steps approaching, looking over his shoulder to see  his two fellow male companions enter the room. 

“Ahhh, they you are Astarion. We wondered where you scurried off too.” The wizard spoke, tucking the book he had in his hands into the crook of his arm instead. 

“Oh, I found better company than the likes of you.” He shot back sarcastically — earning an eye roll from Gale. 

“Did you now?” The warlock asked with eyebrows raised, before bending down to his own pack to untie his bedroll from it. 

“Don’t bother with the bed roll tonight, Wyll. You’ll have to keep Gale warm tonight.”

"Where are you off too?" Gale asked, his brows furrowed. 

Wyll studied him carefully, before offering a little smirk to the vampire. “Off to sleep under the stars?”

“Amongst them actually.” Astarion replied, keeping his face perfectly neutral. As if to not give anything away.  

Wyll gave him a knowing look. “You be a gentleman, yeah?”

“Aren’t I always?” He said with a little bow before grabbing his bag and slinking out of the room. 

• • •

Your room was very quiet when he emerged back in it. Your empty dinner plate was sat on the edge of the nightstand, the glass of wine mostly untouched expect for that first single sip. The candles were starting to flicker with their last remaining life, the glow now a deep set orange instead of a bright yellow light. 

You had stepped behind the privacy screen as you changed, only the outline of your figure  could be seen through the sheer material stretched across the wood. He’d seen your naked body before, as you’d seen his — several times by now, actually. But he respected the privacy  — appreciated it actually. There was something quite raw about getting undressed in front of someone like this. Something vulnerable.

Something he wasn’t quite ready for.

Realizing he had been staring at that screen and your outline, he sat his bag down on the dresser and began sorting through his things. He heard the soft pads of your feet across the worn floorboards, before the creak of the bed as you laid in it. He turned around with a fake cough, his own night clothes in his pale hands. “May I?” He jerked his head towards the screen.

You simply nodded, turning on your side away from the screen to face the ajar window instead. 

He changed efficiently, tugging on the delicate breezy nightclothes before padding bare feet to place his folded clothes on top of his rucksack. He swallowed thickly as he turned to survey the room, to the large space you left in the double bed — intended for him. 

"I don't bite." You muttered with your eyes still closed. Like you could sense him hesitating. 

He barked a laugh, before moving to his side. "Cheeky pup." He slid into the bed, savoring the feeling of the soft sheets on his skin, the way the mattress hugged his tired and sore body. He hadn't slept in a real bed in ages, in well — he couldn't remember how long. He thought he had gotten used to the small comfort of his bed roll and tent these past weeks, especially when he compared it to the stone floor of Cazador's dungeon and kennels. But remembering the simple luxury of this room and bed would put his tent to shame once he returned to it. His pale fingertips rubbed the soft fabric covering his body, committing to memory. 

You adjusted yourself next to him, moving your pillow in a way that wafted your scent throughout the room. It made his movements stop, frozen as his senses were overwhelmed by you. You smelled sweet and warm — inviting. And it had nothing to do with the scent of your bouquet that usually clouded his mind. Licking his lips, he forced himself to look away from you — instead looking up at the dark ceiling, as the last flickers of the surviving candle in the room began to fade away. 

"Good night, Astarion." You mumbled into your pillow, your voice already sounding heavy with sleep. 

"Sweet dreams darling." He whispered back. 

You had fallen asleep next to each other before, of course — laid out in that forest or on the sands of a beach after wondering off away from the others to have your way with each other. 

This... this was different. 

He couldn’t will himself to fall into a trance. No matter how hard he tried. Instead he was still staring up at the grays and blacks of the dark ceiling, becoming more and more increasingly aware of your breaths and the thrum of your heartbeat. 

Only once he had heard them slow down, only once he knew you were in a deep sleep, did he chance looking over to you.

Your face was peaceful, serene as you slept. He wasn’t sure if it was actual moonlight trickling in, or just the cleric Isobel’s protective aura that had cast the blueish white light into the room. But either way it was resulted in Selûne’s power, and even in your sleep you were basking in it. The freckles that marked your checks and nose were almost glittering in the light. The silvery white of your hair shimmering. Your soft lips slightly parted as you dreamed.

Gods, you were beautiful.

Astarion closed his eyes as he was suddenly reminded of his times stuck in those wretched dungeons in the palace. Not what torture or pain he had to endure there. No. For once, that was buried away.

No, instead he recalled what he stared at to get him through those never ending sessions of abuse and torment. 

The night sky through those barred windows. 

The stars, somehow still blinking and winking from him through the city smoke and light. 

And the moon. That beacon of light in the black sky — constantly changing its shape and colour. But it was always there when he needed it to be. When he needed to look up, to be somewhere else, to think of something else — the moon was always there.

Shining. Listening. Understanding.

His eyes opened again, staring again at your tranquil face, your slumbering form curled into the soft bed and sheets.

You were so much more than he had bargained for. A companion blessed with a drop of an actual god’s power. He should have been thrilled — that his plans for protection and well-deserved justice on Cazador was even easier to achieve than he first thought. 

No. Instead he realized he was feeling something else. Something… new.

That even though he had missed the sun, longed for it for two hundred years, delighted in the colours it cast the world in it. That even though he could finally enjoy the sun's beam, and bask in the it's warmth and golden glow. Despite all that, he knew that the sun would never understand him like the moon did.

Oh shit.

He had royally fucked up his plan.

Part II: here

[amywritesthings]

the better strategy. / astarion x tav

summary: a hand mirror, no shirt, and one hell of a discovery. (astarion romance canon scene spoilers, remixed with my own flair.)

pairing: astarion x tav (female, she/her) word count: 3.2k tags: manipulation, trauma, astarion's pov, miscommunications, mentions of cazador/spawn abuse, selûne worshipper!tav, sensuality, little kisses // mature for thematic elements

part two. / part four. | masterlist.

PART THREE: THE DISCOVERY.

.

Tav wakes well before Astarion anticipates, which is a problem.

He keeps his promise: he stays with her through the night with his arm around her shoulders, foolishly protecting her from a darkness that painfully calls him home. 

He misses the sun just as badly as she misses the moon. 

(He refuses to entertain two sides of the same coin.)

Upon keeping his promise, Astarion has run into an ironic problem: the threat of wandering eyes have always kept him alert in his surroundings, two steps ahead of anyone in his vicinity to protect himself, but now?

This time, his eyes are the ones to wander. One blink leads to another, until they fall on something... shiny.

Then his brain embarks on a peculiar, intrusive thought: 

The mirror Tav uses to get ready in the morning sits a stone’s throw away from him on a crate acting as a makeshift table. 

And he’s curious.

Curious, because the tadpole has cured just about every other ailment of vampirism — the glowing red eyes, the stench of eternal death, the pesky scorch of the sun.

Maybe he can finally see his own reflection after two hundred some-odd years.

It’s a pipe dream, he realizes, when he carefully lays her down on her bedroll with the care of a lover. It's a pipe dream, but so is living out his days as a free man.

In what precious time he has before the rest of the group stirs, Astarion stalks towards the crate and pokes at the silver handle of the mirror. 

Huh.

No burning flesh. No jolt of pain.

That, too, is something he’s not yet used to — touching things, touching precious things, without burning for it.

Before picking it up by the handle, the vampire sheds his body of his billowing white tunic.

If this is going to work, he wants the grand reveal: of his face, of his body—

Of whatever the fuck Cazador carved into his skin all those years ago.

He’s felt around his back before, touched the edges of what feels like a warped semi-circle of text, but he’s never seen it.

(Shouldn’t he get the whole package of whatever in the hells this tadpole has irrevocably broke in his brain?)

When he picks up the smooth handle of the hand mirror, he stops. Freezes, really. He keeps the mirror's intricate rose-carved art facing upwards, avoiding what's on the other side for a moment longer.

Because he's afraid.

Astarion’s afraid of a lot of things — curing a fraction of his immortal disease hasn’t kept the list from growing.

If anything, it’s only grown longer since he’d stumbled into Tav’s merry band of misfits:

He’s afraid to lose the sun. He’s afraid to be caught. He’s afraid to wake up one morning and see that this merry band, however misfitted they are, will leave him behind.

(That she’ll lose any use for him, the stronger she becomes.)

Finally Astarion turns his arm at the wrist, expecting something hideous and distorted to stare back at him.

He knows his hands are translucent. He knows his body doesn’t hold hair like it used to. He knows he’s littered with over two-centuries' worth of scars.

...nothing.

Astarion squints, hoping that perhaps the nothingness in the mirror is a mistake.

Still nothing.

All he can see is Tav staring back at him.

Tav.

Wait—

“Shit,” he curses with gusto, turning on a heel to hide the mirror — and his entire mangled, carved back — from view as he flashes that forced, toothy grin her way.

Tav looks like she straddles this world and a dream realm with messy clothes and half-lidded eyes. If she’s mad, then typical signs are not present.

Astarion feels like a school boy caught red-handed with something naughty, ashamed when, truly?

“I was going to give it back,” he argues quickly, like being a thief in her own camp is the last thing he wishes Tav to think of him.

(Why the fuck should her opinion matter?)

He then turns smarmy, scrambling to his favorable line of defense: flirtation.

“My dear, are you perhaps — staring at something?”

He rolls a sensual shoulder towards her, hoping his face, his toned body, anything but what lay out of sight distracts her. Although flirting with Tav has always been useless, he sure does try.

She doesn’t look at his face. Instead her gaze is lost somewhere in the space between his throat and sternum.

Then he realizes all too late: flirting with Tav really will be useless, because she’s already seen what he's so desperate to hide.

“Astarion… your back…”

Ah, Hells.

So she did see the whole gnarled picture. 

Tav trails off, seeking a question he knows she’s too afraid to ask. Because Tav is annoyingly good. She doesn’t poke her nose into places where it isn’t wanted.

He could be mean about it, too; make her so upset and embarrassed for staring instead of running back into her tent that she may cry.

In his mind, he has the upper hand in this agonizing moment.

“I thought it would be worth a shot, to see if my… current state of condition would lend itself to perhaps seeing my own reflection,” he chooses instead, playful in tone. He waves his free hand with little care. “It didn’t work, if that’s what you were wondering.”

No, she isn’t wondering that.

She’s wondering the very same thing that’s on his mind: what is that monstrosity on his back? 

At first he assumes Tav doesn’t have the heart to play along. Her inhale is sharp, focused, before she exhales the intensity of her muscles away.

“It must be hard, not seeing your reflection,” she replies instead, surprising him.

“Quite a pain, yes,” he answers.

“Do you miss it?”

“What, preening in the looking glass? Petty vanity?”

The vampire’s eyebrows slide high, before his face falls with undeniable grief.

“Of course I miss it. I’ve never seen this face.”

He notes the way her expression knits in confusion, so he clarifies.

“Not since it grew fangs and my eyes turned red.”

She watches his face, not daring to curve a peek at his back. The wood elf moves in a step closer, paying special attention to his eyes.

She wants to ask. Will she actually—

“What color were your eyes before?” she gently asks, and his stomach sinks.

Beautiful, wonderful, precious Tav — how can his lips be anything but loose around her?

“I..."

He could lie. Say brown, green, blue, whatever color might fit in her image, but he fails his deception for the second time.

"I don’t know,” he admits. “I can’t remember.”

(He'll never admit that he's made it a point to memorize hers. They’re such a brilliant color, magnificent in a way that’s perfectly Tav. No other eye color can compare.)

He's considering a lie, to tell her they have twin eyes, but something peculiar begins to stir with the cleric in front of him: she’s leaning in further, hands behind her back — she always refuses to touch him, which is as infuriating as it is assuaging — but then she… squints.

Stares.

Astarion blinks.

“What in the hells are you doing?” He takes a fraction of a step back, nerves bunched in the center of his throat. “Is there something on my face?”

“Not quite,” Tav corrects, and he loathes the sing-song tone she’s adopted. “I’m no poet, but I could tell you what I see.”

His brain blanks.

He has no retort, no sly flirtation, to toss in retaliation. He’s the one stuck with a translucent blush, left to wonder how someone like her manifested into this cruel, harsh world.

“You would tell me what you see?” he forces to repeat, to make sure he’s heard right. He wants to ask. He shouldn’t. He wants to know. He can’t. “What… do you see?”

He has always been reprimanded for impulse. Centuries haven’t changed that.

Tav takes a moment to study him with no malice.

“White hair. It curls around your ears and bounces when you walk. On the surface, it oftentimes waves in the wind.”

“I wasn’t aware you were a bard in disguise,” he scoffs, waving off such a tender recount.

She isn’t bothered by the jab. She glides closer, hands raising. The vampire’s brow rises.

“Your eyes are red, sure, but you have soft eyelashes. They frame your face wonderfully.”

Astarion playfully tilts his chin, fangs gleaming. “Flattery? Now this I can get behind.”

“It isn’t just flattery, Astarion,” she argues with a softness that devolves to laughter. “You have this… adorable little scar right here—” 

To his surprise, the wood elf runs a fingertip over a scar he got on a particularly bad day luring game to Cazador’s palace, and his entire body runs hot — not because of the memory, but because her touch is featherlight and inviting.

He’s not sure Tav has ever put her hands on him, not in the way he’s defiled her body with his teeth.

Her hands have gripped his arms, but his face…

Why in the Hells does he want to lean into it?

His own hand shoots between them, curling around her wrist to keep her hand there.

Tav must realize what she’s done, because he can feel the muscle tend under his grip.

Astarion leans in, cooing his next question:

“Is this the part when you tell me I’m the most beautiful creature you’ve ever laid eyes on?”

Her eyes widen with shame.

He’s going to ruin this.

Good, he thinks. Feel bad for being kind to me. Remind me that I’m a monster that keeps you up at night. Remember I feed off of your very life source—

“Astarion, you are beautiful.”

As if it’s the most innocent confession at a religious altar.

(She'll never burn like him.)

So many before her have said the same — called him beautiful, gorgeous, sexy — but there is some uncertain way she goes about it that punches the air from his undead lungs.

He can’t do this.

He must upset something, or else he may upset himself.

“You saw the scars on my back, yes?” he murmurs in the finite space between them. Her eyes widen even further. “When you spoke earlier, was that not what you were referring to? Are they beautiful to you, too, or is it just my dashing young face and mouthwatering body?”

The wood elf considers her next words very carefully, but she doesn’t fight his hold on her wrist.

The vampire tilts his chin down, closer, and he can hear the urgent inhale through her nose.

“I saw them, yes," she admits under her breath. "What... may I ask what they are?"

“I haven’t the slightest clue, my sweet,” he replies. “I’ve been tracing them with my fingers for years, trying to read them by touch, but I can’t. They may as well be written in Rashemi.”

“And that’s why you were trying to use my mirror?” 

Oh, Saint Tav. Always so clever.

She tilts her head, hair following her movements. He gets a whiff of her natural perfume — Gods, it’s intoxicating. 

“Because you thought if you could see your reflection, then perhaps you’d see what's on your back without anyone's help?”

He sneers. “It wasn’t like Cazador was ever going to tell me.”

Her expression softens. “He…?”

“Carved them, yes,” he tells her, remaining as flippant as he can muster. “One night, in my first years as his spawn, he was feeling particularly gracious and decided to give me them. A poem for the ages, so that I may never forget my place in this world."

The words taste like ash on his tongue.

"He spent hours drawing his project into my back without sedatives or a healing potion in sight. My reward for being good and quiet was cleaning it up myself — my own blood as a source of food over my usual vermin. It was oh, so generous of my master.”

He expects pity so he can hate her again.

He wants her to feel sorry for him, so that he may return to his normal headspace where Tav isn’t a lingering infection, competing with the godforsaken tadpole in his mind.

Yet her face hardens. The wood elf pulls her arm away from him and, to his surprise, drops to her knees before him in the dirt below. 

“Turn around.”

Well — that’s not what he hoped for.

A slight panic grips at his chest. “What?”

“Turn around,” Tav repeats, then clears her throat. “Please?”

His eyes narrow with innate distrust. “Why?”

Her shoulders slump. A slender finger reaches to the dirt beneath her boot, tapping at it.

“Because I am no bard or artist, but perhaps I can draw what I see for you to read yourself. It isn’t anything I can translate, but perhaps together we can figure something out.” She pauses. “And it’s easy to kick away should the others stir early.”

Astarion’s stomach drops.

She’s protecting him?

But... why?

Astarion reluctantly shuffles his shoe, turning on its heel until he’s trapped staring at the flaps of Tav’s tent. Their tent. 

(The possessiveness does have him smirking to himself, his mind wrapping around something other than what the wood elf is doing behind him. Take that, Ravengard.)

After a few minutes of drawing in the dirt, he can hear Tav huff in frustration.

“I don’t quite understand… what did Cazador tell you this was?”

“Who knows,” Astarion calls over his shoulder, trying to sound unbothered. “A poem? He had a very sick sense of humor.”

She grows silent. He shifts his weight from one leg to another.

“Astarion…”

Her voice is smaller than before. Uncertain.

The vampire cannot help himself. He whips his chin over his shoulder, only to see—

“The hells did you draw?” he asks in a flurry of words, brows furiously furrowed.

Tav doesn’t look up from the crude rendition she’s drawn below. Swirls connect to lines in three distinct circles; a language he’s never read nor spoken in all his near three centuries of living.

It’s just as horrific as he recalls in the moment: his muffled screams, Cazador’s voice relentlessly berating his cries, how the tip of the dagger relentlessly dragged over—

He puffs his bare chest, refusing to landslide.

“Well? What in the hells did he do to me?” 

“I don’t…”

The woman trails off, eyes rising to meet him. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say Tav is furious. He’s never seen her angry, save their encounter with Nere in the Grymforge cave-in.

Yet that anger isn’t directed to him — it’s at the dirt, where his shame, his pain, his past, lay bare.

“I don’t know what this is. I can’t read it. I thought maybe something would click if I drew it myself, but I have never read this language. It could — I don’t know, it could be some type of Infernal?”

“Excuse me? Did you say Infernal?” he repeats with uncensored anxiety.

What the fuck was his master doing with the language of devils?

Cazador was a right bastard, but he was not a devil. Not in the traditional sense, at the very least.

“Shit.” She curses, catching him by surprise.

This is not her burden, so why is she so upset?

“We’ll figure it out. Perhaps I can draw it on paper and find someone to translate,” Tav hurriedly replies as if she’s done something wrong. She stands from the ground, dirt pressed into the knees of her trousers. “Karlach might—” 

“No.”  

Astarion interrupts, shutting down the thought before it can cross her tongue. She freezes, halfway between kneeling and standing at full height.

Meeting her gaze he deflates, shaking his head. 

“No, I… I’m not ready to involve anyone else.” His tongue is as heavy as lead. “Just you.”

Only you, Tav.

He cannot trust anyone else in this camp. He shouldn’t even be trusting her. Yet she has given him her life source, her blood, over a dozen times. She’s confided in her fears, her worries, without expecting payment. She’s provided shelter, weaponry—

Something akin to a home, even if that concept is all but foreign to him at this age.

Her face softens in that way he likes.

“Okay,” she promises. “Just me.”

Someone stirs in a tent at the other end of the camp. Gale opens the entrance of his tent, and Tav is quick: she shoves him back into their shared tent, out of view.

Her boot kicks and slides, erasing the image beneath her feet.

He realizes a beat too late: she’s covering the evidence.

(She’s keeping his secret.)

“Get dressed,” she adds, nodding to the shirt he left draped on her chair. She fixes her own clothes, readying for the breakfast fire.

Except he isn’t ready to let this go.

“...Tav.”

When she turns, the vampire is quick — he catches her wrist once more, tethering himself to her.

Before she can ask, Astarion gently pulls her back into the tent.

He realizes he’s never once called her by her first name.

In all the weeks they’ve traveled together, it’s always been a passing pet name. Flowery words for a wood elf; a body over a person. And now?

The man waits to catch her eye. Slowly, slowly, he raises her wrist to his mouth. His lips purse to press a gentle and chaste kiss to the heartbeat of her inner wrist.

Tav’s lips part, eyelids fluttering in a flurry of flustered surprise. 

Astarion will burn that image into his memory, evermore.

“What you’ve given me these last few weeks,” he begins with purpose. “It is a gift. All of it.”

She relaxes, wrist limp when he presses an additional peck to the skin. Her blood is thrumming with life. Excitement. Anticipation.

His voice is but a murmur.

“I will not forget this.”

There: the wood elf bites her lip, and pride surges through his body. It’s a mannerism he recognizes all too well — he has seen the tell-tale sign on thousands of faceless people, on hundreds of the victims he lured home in dirty taverns and hidden alleyways and plush brothels. 

He knows the script. He knows what he could push.

Yet seeing that look on her of all people stirs a feeling in his belly to the point where he is starving— not for blood, but for her.

To be consumed by something, rather than consume it himself.

He lets her go, his phantom heart beating wildly in his chest. Tav takes a modest step back.

She stares for one more precious minute, chin dropping to an understanding nod, before leaving him to help Gale start the morning fire.

No god has ever answered his prayers.

In the dirt, buried alive, he thought he begged every single one — yet now he fears he missed the one who could have saved him.

(The one who may save him yet.)

.

[shadowfalllen]

Masterlist of my writing

Hi there! I'm Moonwytch on AO3, and I also write under the pseudonym Shadowfallen. I've been obsessed with BG3 ever since it came out, and I still play it often. I fell in love with Shadowheart and her character arc in ways I've never experienced before, and I've written about her more than anyone or anything else. At the moment, all of my writing revolves around her. I mostly write smut/romance with f/f pairings, and sometimes, I explore more plot-heavy themes.

Here is a list of all of my works, with a short description of what they're about:

~Selûnite Shadowheart fics~

Atop Piles of Gold

Your peaceful life in a countryside cottage gets spiced up one night when Shadowheart decides to introduce a little roleplay into your sex life.

Under the Old Apple Tree (co-written with RandomIntrovert)

It's springtime, and Tav and Shadowheart have been toiling away in the garden, but now it's time to take a break under the old apple tree. Things heat up fast.

Great Library Escapade

Sorcerer Tav can't keep their (mage) hands off Shadowheart as they visit the House of the Moon in Waterdeep.

Seed of Light

You and Shadowheart have been trying to have a baby in the cottage; this time, you have Selûne's blessings on your side. Take me like you hate me

Selûnite Tav indulges in the spider meat, becoming mega horny and distracting Shadowheart who takes matters into her own hands before Tav ruins her mission in the Gauntlet of Shar.

Before The Last Brew - on going

A mysterious new barista named Shadowheart arrives in town, turning the mundane everyday life of aspiring author Clara Whitfield upside down. (Modern Coffee Shop AU).

~Dark Justiciar Shadowheart fics~

The Old Yearning

Mother Superior Shadowheart has invited you to share a glass of wine in the cloister, but you have no idea that her feelings for you have taken a very dark and obsessive turn…

Catch Me If You Can (multichapter)

Tav and Dark Justiciar Shadowheart's favorite pastime is playing dangerous games of cat and mouse.

Seed of Darkness (co-written with RandomIntrovert)

Dark Justiciar Shadowheart comes to visit you in the dungeon, and she might have something that will make the pregnancy she has longed for a reality…

The Goddess of Silver and Shadow

The newborn goddess Shadowheart descends upon Baldur's Gate and takes it over. You are chosen as her entertainment for the evening.

In Her Dark Embrace

As the moonless night arrives, you and the rest of the Sharrans, led by Mother Superior Shadowheart, ready yourselves for a Nightfall ritual and the act of wickedness it requires.

To Defy The Gods - on going

Mother Superior Shadowheart has emptied herself of falsehoods and embraced the inevitability of loss. Almost. She can’t let go of Tav, clinging to the last flicker of light within her. But everything is fleeting in the life of a Sharran, and Shar's embrace grows ever tighter. How could she ever even dream of defying Lady Shar? And if she did, how could there be anything after?

If there’s one fic of mine I would recommend above everything else, it would be this epic redemption arc of Dark Justiciar Shadowheart. Click here to see what extra I've shared about it on tumblr.

Artwork of Shadowheart from To Defy The Gods by @cylinderarts

[selunesdreams]

Masterlist (BG3 + Dragon Age)

Baldur's Gate 3:

Forms of Imprisonment (Ongoing) post-tadpole, astarion x original female character

“I’ll be the devil, if that suits you, darling...” He murmurs into her neck. “Let me show you what it is to be godless.”

Astarion searches the Waterdeep library for leads on a rumored daylight ring, only to become captivated by its overnight archivist. Celeste, a descendant of the goddess Selûne, has concealed her divine heritage for years. Now, hunted by Sharrans, she realizes her best hope of survival depends on a deeply traumatized vampire spawn rooming with her former flame, Gale Dekarios. In exchange for protection, Celeste agrees to help free Astarion from an eternity of darkness. OR, where two people who have kept others at arm’s length for their own survival explore the line between “very good friends” and hopeless devotion. For those who enjoy: reluctant allies to friends to lovers to enemies to lovers again, banter, sexual tension, messy slowish burns that become wildfires, exploration of religious trauma and expectation, and maybe a little sacrilegious fantasy. chapter 52/53 (Current word count: 135k) [AO3] | tumblr

Somebody in the Hells Loves You (Ongoing) gale x named tav he’s met before

It’s been nearly a year since anyone has heard from Gale Dekarios. Once a promising mage, he now lives as a recluse, stripped of Mystra’s favor and cursed by netherese magic due to a well-intentioned but catastrophic mistake. For Florence Ashveil, who left Blackstaff Academy years ago after circumstances thwarted her dreams of becoming one of the best and brightest wizards of her generation, the silence has been even longer. But when their paths cross again just as they are abducted by a Nautiloid ship, it seems they’ll have plenty of time to get reacquainted. For those who enjoy: Slow burns, secrets, lovers with baggage, Raphael, the hells/lore, old crushes to friends to lovers, sexual tension, romantic academia, mutual pining, parents that really fucked things up for you. chapter 10/? (Current word count: 34k) [AO3] | tumblr

Dragon Age:

Eating Crow (Ongoing) Lucanis x Antivan Crow Rook/original female character x Spite kind of???

"You know, my room has good choke points, too..."

Born to renowned assassins and raised in the heart of Treviso, Fiammetta De Riva hasn’t known home in a very long time. Orphaned, she was taken under the wing of her cousin, Viago, and quickly ascended through the ranks of the Antivan Crows, only to fall from grace after a grave, but well-intentioned, mistake. Sidelined to be Caterina Dellamorte's live-in assistant, Fiamma's last straw comes in the form of the First Talon's grandson, Illario, who has harbored complicated feelings for her since they were children. Abandoning the life she once knew, Fiamma takes an offer from Varric Tethras to help him hunt down the Dread Wolf. Now living under the alias “Rook,” circumstances force her to return to those she once called family for aid, including Demon of Vyrantium, Lucanis Dellamorte, who might force her to reckon with the legacy she’s abandoned… and bring her dangerously close to the edge. chapter 8/? (Current word count: 29k) [AO3] | tumblr

[grandmother-goblin]

Field Study - Chapter 9

Ao3 - Masterlist

Chapter Summary: Astarion faces the consequence of succumbing to his worst thoughts. Not only that, he realizes he may have done irreparable damage to his relationship with Cas.

Relationships: Astarion x Female!Tav

Rating: Explicit (18+) for eventual smut.

Word Count: 4.7k

Chapter Tags: Blood, injury, Astarion gets stabbed, heated argument, baiting, manipulation, sexual content, mentions of past trauma, healing magic, mention of death, cheating.

Content Warning: Astarion gets into a sexual situation that he realizes too late that he doesn't want to be in, which may be difficult for some to read. Nothing about that situation is described in a ton of detail, and this scene mostly deals with the aftermath.

Light from a single torch illuminated the small chamber the drow had led Astarion to. Wooden benches lined the center of the room and surrounded a broken statue of Selûne seemingly in prayer, all covered in a thick layer of dust.

The drow’s head lolled to the side as he lay slumped against a bench, his eyes permanently shut as dark blood pooled in the deep punctures on the side of his neck. Astarion watched it drip down the smooth gray skin of his chest, but felt no desire to have another taste. A bloody dagger rested in the drow’s open palm; a taunting reminder of how poorly thought out the entire plan was.

Astarion pressed the drow’s discarded shirt against the gash just above his hip. It definitely wasn’t the worst injury he had ever had, but it still stung like a bitch.

He couldn’t even be mad. It was his own foolishness that got him stabbed in the first place.

Next time, Astarion would make sure his prey was unarmed. Or restrained. Or otherwise sufficiently indisposed before he decided to bite them.

But it had all gone wrong so fast. He had been too stuck in his own head. It was like his body wasn’t even his for a few moments. His muscles moved of their own accord, touching the man just right as he whispered sweet nothings. It was all instinctive. The same song and dance he had been performing for Cazador for centuries.

Though in those instances, Cazador had always been the executioner. Astarion just led the victim to the chopping block, but he never actually swung the ax.

When Astarion bit someone in the heat of a battle, he was prepared for a struggle. It was only natural. But with how far his mind had drifted while he was with the drow… he just didn’t think it through. It was like his spirit had moved outside of his body and was watching him make a terrible mistake, powerless to stop it.

Over the course of two centuries, Astarion had lured thousands of beautiful people to their deaths. He did so with a numb detachment. Allowing himself to feel anything else, anything at all, was pointless.

The drow was no different in that regard.

At the same time, the drow was entirely different. Astarion didn’t feel a damn thing for the man, but he played the same seduction game that he always played. Like he still didn’t have a choice. Like Cazador was waiting for him if he failed.

Cas wouldn’t have punished him if he failed… but he had failed her all the same. For entirely different reasons.

Sweat trickled down his brow as nausea churned in his stomach. He had never been forced to seduce the drow, but he did it anyway. It felt like there were no other options. It was the only thing he knew how to do.

Astarion drew the once white shirt from the wound in his side and winced at where the fabric had become so saturated with blood that it had almost turned black. Between applying pressure to the injury and a simple healing potion Cas insisted he kept on his person, the bleeding had slowed, but not enough. Astarion closed his eyes and rested his head against the cool stone wall at his back.

It was just as much Cas’s fault as it was his.

Cas was the one who had asked him to find suitable prey before any fighting started. If she never had come to his tent that night, he wouldn’t be in his predicament.

And if she hadn’t been so damn friendly with Wyll….

Jealousy was a nasty creature. Spiteful and vindictive. After he had seen Wyll’s arm around Cas, he had wanted Cas to see him with the drow. He wanted to give her a taste of her own medicine.

Granted, it probably would have been more effective if he targeted someone he hadn’t planned to kill. Oh well. That didn’t change the fact it had all been a huge mistake.

Astarion spared a glance at his cut. It could have been worse. The blade had pierced just above the outside of his right hip and went clean through. Despite his best efforts, the wound still hadn’t magically closed as he’d expected.

Healing potions worked fast. Some part of him had a sick fascination with watching them work. How torn skin would stitch itself back together, and missing fingernails would suddenly reappear. Most of the time when he used a healing potion, he was watching it undo whatever torture Cazador or Godey had inflicted upon him.

He typically felt marginally better after taking a potion, but something was wrong. Black spots still dotted his vision and a sheen of sweat coated his skin. When he lifted his hand to wipe his brow, his fingers trembled. It somehow felt worse than the time the tadpole had made him sick because he couldn’t blame anyone but himself.

Well. Himself, and the drow for stabbing him.

Dammit. Everything had gone wrong. He should have met up with the rest of the group at least half an hour ago, but instead, he was sitting on the floor in a cold chamber, just waiting for some goblin to unlock the door and finish him off.

Pain lanced through him when he tried to stand, but it was the dizziness and nausea that kept him planted on the ground. Utterly helpless. His dagger, already stained with the drow’s blood, provided scant reassurance. Even though he couldn’t move well with his injury, he could at the very least throw a dagger at anyone who dared walk through that door. The drow had promised that no one would come to this part of the temple, but Astarion wasn’t about to take the man at his word.

As if to remind him he wasn’t completely alone, the tadpole squirmed behind his eye. Astarion pressed the heel of his palm to his eye socket in an attempt to quell the creature. It stilled, but the memory of its movements lingered. But the tadpole gave him an idea…. It was likely that anyone he crossed paths with once he exited the chamber would ask questions about his injury, so maybe he could use the tadpole to—

Astarion swung his head toward the door at the sound of the gentle clicks of metal against metal. A key? Someone picking the lock? It didn’t matter. Wincing, Astarion shuffled to his feet with a dagger clutched in his hand.

Another click, and the door creaked open ever so slowly. Astarion poised the dagger, his heart in his throat. But the person he saw was far from an enemy. From either relief or blood loss, Astarion fell back against the wall and slid down to the floor.

It was Cas.

Thank the gods.

“You have remarkable timing.” Astarion adjusted the blood-soaked shirt against his wound, feeling a bit of his anxiety melt away in spite of the throbbing pain.

Cas’s eyes widened as they darted from his face to the bloodied shirt. “Shit,” she muttered and locked the door behind her.

She yanked off her leather gloves as she crossed the room. Her focus was entirely on him as she knelt down, close enough so he could feel her warmth, and pressed her bare palm to his forehead. Astarion couldn’t help but lean into her touch.

“What happened?” Worry wrinkled her brow, and it almost made him happy to see her concern.

Gods. How pathetic could he possibly be?

As if an answer to his question, dark spots clouded his vision as cold sweat gathered at the nape of his neck. He blinked the spots away and lifted the shirt from his skin. “The drow and I had a bit of a disagreement on dinner plans,” he said through a hiss of pain at the rush of cold air against his wound.

Cas gave the wound a cursory glance, tilting her head this way and that as she tried to get a good look at it in the dim torchlight. Carefully, she replaced the shirt over the bloody mess, her expression distant even as her eyes glittered with some emotion Astarion couldn’t quite place.

Her knuckles brushed his cheek, and for some inexplicable reason, he placed his shaking hand over hers. Like he was afraid she would pull away and leave him to his fate.

“You’re clammy,” she noted, more to herself than to him as she let him lean into her touch. “Were you able to take a healing potion?”

“I was,” he replied and released her hand. “A few minutes ago. Load of good it did me.”

“I gave you one of our stronger ones. It should have—” Cas glanced over her shoulder at the drow, as if she were expecting him to provide some sort of explanation. Her eyes roved over the man’s bare chest, the non-piercing bite marks on his neck, then down to his loosened trouser ties.

For a long moment, Astarion could only hear the quiet beat of her heart. How it quickened, just for a moment, before she released a breath.

As much as he wanted to say something, to defend himself from whatever accusations were running through her mind, he kept his mouth shut. Maybe, just maybe, she would give him the benefit of the doubt. If he spoke up at that moment, it would have drawn her suspicion and made him seem guilty.

There was no denying what he had done. He could only hope that she… wouldn’t notice?

Gods. What the hells had he been thinking?

Cas turned her attention to the dagger in the drow’s palm, the concern on her face replaced by a cool mask of granite. Deliberately avoiding Astarion’s eyes, she picked up the bloody dagger and examined it.

For a split second, he thought she might stab him. With the way his whole body sweated and ached, bile gathering in his throat and dark spots clouding his vision, he almost welcomed the idea.

An ice cold tendril slithered through his gut and snaked its way up to his heart. Astarion had wanted to make her jealous, wanted to give her a taste of her own medicine, but as soon as he saw her face….

Perhaps he could still figure out how to spin the situation in his favor. Or, at the very least, minimize the damage he had done. But he couldn’t even begin thinking of how he would accomplish that.

A wave of nausea washed over him, and he wasn’t sure if it was from his own loss of blood or the loss of warmth in Cas’s gaze.

Cas tapped her finger against a seemingly clean strip of metal where the blade met the hilt, then touched her finger to her thumb like she was testing for consistency. She set the dagger beside the drow’s corpse. “He put some sort of poison on his blade,” she announced matter-of-factly. There wasn’t even a hint of emotion within her voice. “Lucky for you, I always carry a vial of a general antidote.”

Astarion watched as she approached him once again and knelt at his side. “I wouldn’t call myself lucky,” Astarion muttered as Cas continued to avoid his gaze.

Cas only hummed in response and rummaged through her bag. She retrieved a glass tube about the length of his finger filled with a yellow-green liquid and held it out for him to take. “Try to down it in one go. Stuff tastes like bad whiskey mixed with rotten vegetables, but it’s effective.”

“How delightful.” Astarion took the vial and did as he was told. The bitter liquid burned the back of his throat and overpowered the lingering taste of blood. His lips curled and he screwed his eyes shut and he resisted the urge to scrape the taste off his tongue with his teeth. “Gods, this tastes like rotten sewer water.”

Cas pocketed the empty vial and shifted closer to him, her attention back on the bloodied shirt he held against his side. She examined the wound like she had seen injuries like it a million times before. There was no more sympathy or concern in her eyes. Just icy professionalism.

And Astarion hated it. He almost wished she would have yelled at him. At least then he would have something to work with. Or to argue against. Or just a chance to defend himself. With the way she was acting, it was like she had already drawn her own conclusions and nothing he said or did would change that.

When Cas leaned over him to get a better look at the far side of the cut, he caught a whiff of lavender from her hair. It was almost irritating how, despite everything, the scent was a comfort to him. Between what was running through his head and the pain in his body, he just wanted to reach out and hold her. To breathe her in. As if that would make all the pain and anxiety just disappear.

“It looks like a clean cut, so that’s good,” she said before his asinine train of thought could continue and he risked acting on it. “Doesn’t look like he hit anything vital.”

“Since when are you an expert on these things?” he asked just to make conversation. The sound of her voice was a comfort as well….

He was such a bloody fool.

Cas shrugged and placed her right hand flat over his wound, but did not touch it. “I worked with a doctor for a number of years. He taught me quite a bit,” she said. Something about the tone of her words made him think there was more to that statement than she was letting on.

Faint, glowing, green light emanated from her palm and pulsed like a heartbeat. Gentle warmth spread through him, starting where her hand hovered over the wound and trickled outward. As the magic worked its way through his body, his nausea subsided and his vision cleared. There was a numb, tugging sensation around the gash in his side as it stitched itself back together.

Astarion knew Cas had some access to minor healing magic. Most rangers did. But he had never felt it before. It differed from Shadowheart’s magic, slower and sleepier. Perhaps it was just the type of spell, or perhaps it was the fact Cas simply had the luxury of healing him outside of combat.

He closed his eyes and soaked in the relief the spell provided. “So, you were this doctor’s apprentice?” he ventured, somewhat uncomfortable with the silence.

“It started out that way,” Cas replied, her tone almost forcefully light and conversational, like she was trying to hold something back. “I wanted to learn how to treat someone with and without magic, and he happened to be looking for an assistant. We got along well. One thing led to another, and we ended up getting married a few years later.”

Astarion’s eyes shot open. “You were married?” He furrowed his brow as another thought struck him like a knife to the chest. “Are married?”

“Relax,” Cas said. “He was human, and he passed away over fifty years ago. I would never betray someone like that.”

Slowly, she moved her glowing hand away from his side and to the base of his throat. Warm magic tingled against his skin, healing some sort of injury he didn’t realize he had, before she moved to yet another spot on his neck. Her expression flickered, a tick of her jaw and a hardness to her gaze cracking her mask of concentration.

Something in the air shifted, turning heavy and thick under the scrutiny of her gaze. Suddenly, that same healing touch that was so soothing moments ago turned oppressive. Like a mild summer’s day turning humid just before a storm.

“What are you doing, love?” Astarion wrapped his fingers around her wrist, more to get her attention than to pull her away.

“Nothing,” Cas said in a voice that suggested the exact opposite. “I have my healing spell up, so I might as well take care of these. Good thing your prey didn’t bite nearly as hard as you did.” She shrugged and her eyes dipped downward for just a moment. “Unless he got somewhere I can’t see.”

A white hot anger shot through him, powerful and unexpected, heating his face and making his heart pound in his chest. His grip tightened around her slender wrist as he yanked her hand away. The magic glowing in Cas’s palm flickered out between them, leaving only the lonely torchlight to illuminate the hard lines on her usually delicate face.

“Watch your tone,” he said through his teeth. “You’re the one who asked me to hunt. I hunted. No need to get all precious about my methods.”

Cas pressed her lips into a thin line. Her eyes, usually so full of compassion and light, turned as lethal as a blade as she tugged her wrist free from his grasp. “You’re right,” she said, her words clipped.

She retrieved a plain white cloth from her bag and doused it with water from her waterskin. Without looking him in the eye, she offered him the damp rag to clean off the blood and asked, “Are you feeling better? Any pain, lightheadedness, or spots in your vision?”

Great. She was talking to him like he was a bloody patient and not… him. She had always treated him differently than anyone else ever had. With kindness, patience, curiosity, and warmth. Now that it was gone, replaced by cold indifference, the absence made his blood boil.

She was just going to go about her business like nothing ever happened between them? Just like that?

Of course she was. As much as he wanted to believe otherwise, she was just like everybody else. She didn’t care about him, but she didn’t want to share him either.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“I’m fine.” Astarion yanked the rag from Cas’s hand and roughly scrubbed at the blood that lingered where his wound once was. The skin beneath was unblemished like the injury never happened. Like nothing ever happened. Hells, she probably even healed the little love bite she had left on his shoulder, he thought bitterly. “Tell me you’re not honestly mad about this. I did exactly as you asked.”

“You did,” she agreed, infuriatingly. “I didn’t realize that you had to get his dick out in order to drink his blood, but what do I know?”

The drow had done that entirely on his own. Honestly, Astarion hadn’t even noticed until the man was already dead.

It hadn’t gone beyond kissing before Astarion realized he couldn’t do it. He didn’t have to do it. And he didn’t realize it until it was too late. Regret and revulsion had washed over him with every brush of the drow’s mouth over his skin, but Astarion numbly played his role like he always had. Cas didn’t know how bile had bubbled in his stomach as the drow had pulled at Astarion’s belt. Or how every second he hated himself more and more with each passing second.

She didn’t know the intense relief Astarion felt when he finally sunk his fangs into the man’s neck and made him stop.

Cas didn’t know that when his mind drifted away as it always did in those moments, thoughts of her filled his head.

Cas pinched the bridge of her nose and exhaled slowly. “I shouldn’t have said that,” she muttered and pushed herself to her feet. “Let’s get back to the group before they start looking for us.”

If she wanted to move on like the whole shitty situation never happened, who was he to stop her? What did it matter to him if it didn’t matter to her?

But he wanted it to matter to her.

If Astarion had been in a better state of mind, he would have kept his mouth shut. He shouldn’t poke and pry when she was so clearly on edge. But sometimes, emotion overrode common sense.

He wanted to see that thinly veiled semblance of Cas’s control shatter like an expensive vase. Once broken, it would be impossible to repair. He wanted to seep into the cracks of her very being, just like she found her way into every fiber of his soul.

For reasons he didn’t want to dwell on, he needed to see behind the mask. He needed to know that she felt a fraction of the pain he did.

A sardonic chuckle passed his lips as a twinge of anxiety twisted into his gut. “You really are bothered by this, aren’t you?”

“Please don’t talk to me right now.” Without sparing him a glance, Cas gathered his discarded doublet and undershirt from where they laid on the floor and shoved the crumpled ball of clothing into his arms. “I doubt we’d have a productive conversation and we have more pressing things to focus on.”

Astarion barely noticed that his physical pain was completely gone as he pushed himself from the floor, clothes clutched to his chest though he made no move to redress himself. “The man’s dead,” he stated flatly. “Obviously he didn’t mean anything to me. I don’t even know his name.”

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Come now, darling,” he said as if he thought Cas was being completely ridiculous. “Don’t let this little dalliance come between the perfectly good thing we have going. It was nothing. There’s still plenty of me to go around.”

“Stop. Talking.”

“Are you worried after last night?” Another chuckle passed his lips. Not because he found her response funny. He was just being an asshole. “I didn't think you’d get attached so quickly, darling. It was just a bit of fun.”

Cas whirled around, her blunt teeth bared in a snarl. “Then what the fuck was the conversation we had this morning?” Her words were sharp, cutting through the silent chamber like a knife through silk. Hot puffs of her breath heated his skin.

For some sick reason, he wanted to lean down and capture her mouth with his. To taste her fury. To feel her passion. He wanted to soak in that eruption of emotion because it meant she felt something for him.

He would take her anger any day over indifference.

Cas jabbed a finger into his sternum, her eyes locked on his. “You said you wanted me to stay the night. You said you didn’t want to let me go. You said you wanted me. And you’re accusing me of being attached?”

Astarion pressed his lips into a thin line as he felt a muscle in his jaw tick.

She wasn’t wrong.

Getting attached meant opening his heart. It meant begging to be hurt. Part of him thought that bedding someone else would help him realize that Cas was nothing special. That what he felt when he was with Cas was just a byproduct of his newly acquired freedom. That he would feel that way about anyone he got physically intimate with now that Cazador no longer had a hold on him.

Oh, how wrong he was. His night with Cas made him want more, whereas the drow made him briefly consider a life of celibacy.

Cas took a step towards the door, giving him a bit of space. “I was fine with just hooking up,” she said, unable to look at him. “Hells, that’s what I expected. Maybe a friends-with-benefits situation since I know that’s all I’m good for.”

The last part was said with a bitter laugh, and Astarion swore he saw her chin tremble before her face turned to stone once more.

His brow drew together. What the hells did she mean by that? It didn’t make any sense. Briefly, his mind flashed back to how she had disappeared the morning after they had spent the night together. The look of surprise and hesitation on her face when he had told her he had expected her to stay.

“But then you got my hopes up,” she continued before he could even think to address her statement. “You just had to say those sweet things this morning. Things I know you meant because I’m not naïve enough to accept words like that without reading your thoughts. Then you turn around and do this—” she gestured roughly toward the drow “— and have the audacity to act like I did something wrong?”

“You asked me to hunt,” he said again because it was the only lifeline he had. A lifeline that was dangling on by the thinnest of threads. Needing a moment to collect his thoughts, as chaotic as they were, he quickly pulled on his clothing. “You saw me with the drow before you went skipping off with Wyll. What did you think would happen?”

“That you would seduce him to get him alone. Not that you’d actually—” Cas took a deep breath, in through her nose and out through her mouth. Straightening her spine, she took a single step back. “You know what? Nevermind. It’s not important. Let’s forget that last night ever happened.”

“I don’t want to forget it.” The words came out before he could stop himself, and the honesty made him wish he could take them back.

He never wanted to forget it. He didn’t want to forget the way she felt in his arms, the taste of her lips, the scent of lavender and leather on her skin. He didn’t want to forget how their bodies melded together like she was made for him, or how she looked at him like he was more than what Cazador made him. It was the best night he had in recent memory.

Like hell would he pretend it never happened.

“It was a mistake, Astarion,” Cas said with another bitter laugh that made his heart ache. “I should know better by now.”

Astarion closed the distance between them, stepping closer and closer until he had Cas’s back pressed against the door and she had nowhere else to go. “Cas, please.” He moved his hands to her hips and she immediately batted him away. “I’m sorry.”

Something in her gaze softened and she turned her head away from him, giving an unobstructed view of the bite mark she still wore on her neck. A mark she could have so easily healed just moments ago.

But she didn’t.

Those two little puncture wounds marked her as his, and she had to realize that on some level. That alone gave him something to hold on to as his relationship went careening out of his control.

“No, you’re not.” Her words came on a near silent breath. “You’re only sorry because things didn’t work out the way you wanted. If you hadn’t gotten hurt, and I hadn’t been worried enough to look for you…. You wouldn’t have regretted a damn thing because I never would have found out.”

Astarion felt a frown pull at his lips, unbidden, but he couldn’t refute her. She was right. And the fact that she read him so thoroughly caught him off guard. His fingers itched to reach out to her, to touch her. He balled his hands into tight fists at his sides and tried to ignore the pressure building behind his eyes.

No. He hadn’t cried in years, and he wasn’t about to start.

Laying her palm over his collarbone, she applied gentle pressure, just enough to ease him a step back. “Put yourself together and come out to the courtyard when you’re ready,” she said.

Without another word, without even sparing him a glance, Cas disappeared through the door behind her and shut it in his face. Not an angry slam. Just a quiet, deafening, tap of heavy wood against the doorframe.

Astarion pressed his forehead against the door. He took a deep breath.

Then another.

And another.

In and out until the pressure behind his eyes eased and the tension in his shoulders relaxed.

He didn’t know how long he stood there, but no amount of breathing eased the ache in his chest.

---

Beginning

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[ryttu3k]

Current masterlist of BG3 runs

Spoilers for most game ends and outcomes.

Summary

Complete: Custom Tav 1 (Tae, pastel drow druid/cleric, romanced Karlach)

In Process: Dark Urge 1 (Tavias, resist!Durge half-elf sorcerer, romancing Astarion)

Pending: Dark Urge 2 (Sativa; Sativa 1.1, Sativa 1.2, Sativa 2.1, Sativa 2.2), Custom Tav 2 (Sascha), Custom Tav 3 (Etavia), Astarion 1, Astarion 2, Astarion 3, Astarion 4, Karlach 1, Karlach 2, Gale, Wyll, Shadowheart, Lae'zel, unknown respec run

[current spreadsheet]

Complete

Custom Tav 1: Ta'varin 'Tae' Arkenval (see also: here). Chaotic good pastel fluffball. Surface drow, level 11 Circle of the Land Druid, level 1 Cleric of Eilistraee. Romanced Karlach, went to Avernus with her and Wyll.

In Process

Dark Urge 1: Tavias, resisting the Urge. Soft boi, trying his best. Wood half-elf, Draconic Ancestry Sorcerer (Gold/Fire). Romancing Astarion and Halsin.

Pending

Dark Urge 2: Sativa, gives in to the Urge. The first murder will be her softer side. High half-elf, Bard/Storm Sorcerer. Will have Ascended Astarion, Dark Justiciar Shadowheart, Vlaakith-sworn Lae'zel, Would-Be God Gale, Minthara. Jaheira gets sacrificed to Sarevok. Karlach, Wyll, Halsin, and Minsc absent.

Branches twice - both start with hooking up with Minthara then starting a romance with Astarion. Sativa 1.0 stays with Astarion, Sativa 2.0 offers Astarion to Araj, sleeps with him, and they break up, before romancing Minthara. Sativa 1.1 and Sativa 2.1 reject Bhaal and destroy the Brain, Sativa 1.2 and Sativa 2.2 become Chosen of Bhaal and claim the Brain in his name, with all characters ending up thralls.

Custom Tav 2: Sascha Vykos, aasimar and unintended enabler of chaos. Romancing Gale, God end. That's God end, not good end. This is... definitely not a good end.

Custom Tav 3: Etavia. Tiefling Cleric of Selûne, full Enemies to Lovers romance with Shadowheart. Probably a fairly standard 'good' run.

Astarion 1: Romances Gale. Respeccing from Thief to Arcane Trickster after 'channelling the Weave' scene. Soft 'they can fix each other' run.

Astarion 2: Defying devils and diabolists to fall in love instead (Karlach and Wyll). Will end in tragedy because Karlach always dies in a spawn Astarion run, and also Gale is going to sacrifice himself ;_;

Astarion 3: T A D P O L E T I M E . The gods never saved you - the mind flayers did. Siding with (and romancing) the Emperor, using illithid powers and the astral-touched tadpole, and Ascending. Taking over the Netherbrain alongside the Emperor, all others ending up thralls.

Astarion 4: Romances Halsin. Multiclassing into Druid for wildshape shenanigans. Become d i r t w i z a r d.

Karlach 1: Romancing Wyll and Astarion. This time, she lives! Finishes in Avernus with her lovers.

Karlach 2: Romancing Shadowheart and Lae'zel. Chooses to become illithid and ends up staying with her lovers in Faerûn.

Gale: Romancing Astarion. The one where they make each other better instead of making each other worse. Respeccing to Storm Sorcerer (but keep a level in Wizard for scroll learning).

Wyll: Romancing Karlach and Astarion. Finishes in Avernus with his lovers (hopefully). Multiclassing as Bardlock, because fancy dancer.

Shadowheart: Romances Karlach and Lae'zel. Chooses to keep her parents alive, but then has to choose to stay with Karlach, since she also encouraged Wyll to stay with Mizora to save his father...

Lae'zel: Romances Shadowheart and Karlach. Chooses to become illithid to save Orpheus from having to do so, then opts to kill herself rather than live as a mind flayer.

Unknown!: Everyone gets respecced! Origin run or Tav/Durge? If Tav/Durge, play Rogue or someone who learns Knock. Currently thinking: resist!Durge whose Dream Visitor looks like Alfira in an attempt to guilt trip them into doing what the Emperor wants. Arcane Trickster Rogue. Definitely more 'trickster' than straight-out evil, enjoyed causing a bit of chaos, which is very moderated by the brain surgery into the more harmless realm. Gnome? Gnome would be kind of fun. Romance or nah?

[omgkalyppso]

OC Masterlist

If I forget any of them I apologize. Last updated March 10th.

If you open this and regret it you can press J to skip this post on desktop.

Baldur's Gate 3 / D&D:

Étoile - high elf oath of devotion oathbreaker paladin of Auril Borgakh - orc hunter ranger Meabh - wood half-elf assassin rogue dark urge Zavorys - mephistopheles tiefling oath of devotion paladin of Lathander Uleri - deep gnome illusion wizard Upton - bronze dragonborn fighter Voriya - seladrine drow draconic bloodline sorcerer dark urge Cemryt - mephistopheles tiefling bard Aoibhinn - hill / gold dwarf hunter ranger / monk Orboloth - lolth-sworn drow druid dark urge Determination - asmodeus tiefling tempest domain cleric of Selûne Yar'sul - githyanki barbarian Baudelaire - wood half-elf archfey warlock dark urge Arilemn - elven aasimar arcane archer fighter Serenity - high half-elf asmodeus tiefling college of swords bard Naimh - hill / gold dwarf horizon walker ranger Anivine - asmodeus tiefling life domain cleric of Lathander Artie - zariel tiefling oath of ancients paladin Zoltan - bronze dragonborn druid dark urge Namanyla - wood elf oath of ancients paladin, head of Adventurer's Guild in Baldur's Gate Anastasia - human vampire spawn, Leon's branch Jarnarei "Joy" - zariel tiefling, blacksmith clerk, Cal's partner Nephemir - asmodeus tiefling, baker, Lia's lover Vanora - water genasi unholy death knight, Umberlee's Chosen Tybalt - werewolf ranger, Malar's Chosen Gillian - werewolf fighter, Tybalt's wife Zavael'ahn - talosian drow sorcerer, Talos' Chosen Chri'dalto - zariel tiefling great old one warlock Vandren - high elf turned fiend, college of whispers bard Mordeimos "Atonement" - zariel tiefling monk Bedivere - Zevlor's summoned mount Blbxrl - Fimbrul Devil loyal to Mephistopheles in Raphael's service Yakrayat - Rakshasa Demon imprisoned in Avernus Nev - asmodeus tiefling sold soul during Descent Into Avernus Rohn - asmodeus tiefling sold soul during Descent Into Avernus Sozican - white dragon who has an albino drow guise

Fire Emblem:

Fodlan:

Faedolyn - fe3h My Unit / Byleth oc Zoran - Faedolyn's genderfluid brother Avery - few3h My Unit / Shez oc Almanzor - Dimitri's cousin / Rufus' son Josiane - ex or ongoing Rufus lover Lucanus - Dimitri's cousin / Rufus' son Paulette - ex Rufus lover Eugénie - Felix's mother / Rodrigue's wife Évrard - Blaiddyd bastard impersonator / Rufus idolizer Armand - Rodrigue's brother Violaine - Armand's wife Jocelyn - Armand's son Fabrice - Armand's second son Dijana - Faedolyn's mother Balfour - Faedolyn's father Enok - Zoran's father Adrijan - Fae and Zoran's uncle / Dijana's brother Taisiya - Dimitri's mother Imelda - Mercedes & Jeritza's mother / Dimitri's aunt / Taisiya's sister Cocytus - Avery's adoptive mother / Agarthan kidnapper Othello - Avery's father Rosalind - Avery's mother Peregrine - Almanzor's wife Huguette - Peregrine's daughter Apolline - Peregrine's second daughter Rebecca - Claude's mother Régimbald - Lorenz's father Agneth - Lorenz's mother / Ionius IX's sister / Edelgard's aunt Ayane - Lorenz's mother when not Edelgard's cousin Philomène - Évrard's best friend Herschel - Hilda's father Hanna - Hilda's mother Ionius VIII - Ionius IX & Agneth's father Eurybia - Ionius IX & Agneth's mother Serge - Rodrigue's chief of staff Wilmar - Lorenz's chief of staff Olive - Ashe's sister / Oren's twin Oren - Ashe's brother / Olive's twin Luzia - Dedue's sister

Almyra:

Sarim - Claude's brother Sara - Claude's sister Asmaa - Claude's sister Shahid* - Claude's brother Sajad - Claude's brother Rumaisa - Claude's sister Shohreh - Sarim's wife Ami - Sara's (second) husband Yaser - Asmaa's husband Isabelle - Rumaisa's girlfriend Imran - Shahid's partner Samiya - Shahid's wife Hadiya - Shahid's mother Rahim - Claude and siblings' father / King of Almyra Noor - Sarim and Shohreh's daughter Ana - Sarim and Shohreh's second daughter Farid - Sarim and Shohreh's son Ben - Sara and Ami's son Alain - Sara and Ami's second son Tamara - Geralt's childminder Vera - Nader's childminder Miri - Sadaf's childminder

OT5 kids:

Halvard - Lorenz and Hilda's son Lorencia - Lorenz and Hilda's daughter Nader - Claude and Fae's son / Geralt's twin Geralt - Claude and Fae's second son / Nader's twin Sadaf - Claude and Fae's daughter Baldovin - Lorenz and Hilda's second son Diana - Avery and Fae's daughter Simon - Claude and Fae's third son

Fankids:

Blythe - Dimitri and Marianne son Elspeth - Sylvain and Felix daughter Keegan - Caspar and Ashe daughter Fernan - Dedue and Mercedes son Idoya - Dedue and Mercedes daughter in merciesyldue configuration Nicodème - Sylvain and Dedue son in merciesyldue configuration

Ylisse:

Evalynn - fe:a My Unit / Robin oc Morris - prime timeline Morgan Lucy - prime timeline Lucina Miradonna - fe:a My Unit / Robin oc or Plegian oc Noravanna - Miradonna and Vaike daughter

Creatures:

Ghaymah / Honor - Claude's wyvern / cat Haris - Faedolyn's wyvern Unnamed - Hilda's first wyvern (dies in war) Braith - Hilda's second wyvern (dies in war) Unnamed - Hilda's third wyvern Magic - Lorenz's horse / dog Cookies And Cream "Cookie" - Zoran and Jeritza's cat Smoked Peach Skewer "Smokey" - Zoran and Jeritza's cat Justice - Caspar and Ashe kitten Chivalry / Tapeworm - Caspar's kitten Moonlight Knight "Mimi" - Sitri's cat Galahad - Ashe's cat Paladin - Ashe's cat Meatball - Caspar's cat Inferno - Caspar's cat Knives - Caspar's cat Dragon - Nader's cat / Claude's childhood cat Little Monster - Hanna (Hilda's mother)'s cat Noraxia - Holst's cat / wyvern Nidhogg - Holst's cat / wyvern Vigil - Sylvain's horse Lady Caramel de Bushels of Apples - Ferdinand's horse Cinnamon Brambleberry Racer - Sylvain and then Felix's horse

Skyrim:

Meldiara - stealth and bow dunmer dragonborn Wylla - sword and shield imperial dragonborn werewolf Oretia - sword and shield imperial Farknir - nord sorcerer, Meldiara's brother Drynlof - nord sorcerer, Meldiara and Farknir's father Vigdna - nord civilian, Farknir's mother Ninayne - dunmer civilian, Meldiara's mother

Dragon Age:

Aerynne Aeducan - dual sword warrior, Paragon Farasuta Tabris - dual weapon rogue, Warden-Commander Illusen Amell - entropy healer, fugitive Galadriel Cousland - dual weapon rogue, Queen of Fereldan Wylla Brosca - two-handed warrior, Warden-Commander Maeve Mahariel - two-handed warrior, sacrificial lamb Marian Hawke - blue dual weapon rogue Kalyppso Hawke - blue dual weapon rogue Illusen Hawke - purple force mage healer Ursula Hawke - red sword and shield warrior Samaire Cadash - tempest rogue Aneirin Lavellan - assassin rogue Tarren Lavellan - champion warrior Olwen Lavellan - rift mage Mildred Trevelyan - knight-enchanter mage Wylla Cadash - reaver warrior

Mass Effect:

Jolene Shepard - Paragade, colonist, war hero, vanguard Victoria Shepard - Renegade, earth-born, ruthless, adept Celeste Shepard - Paragon, spacer, war hero, engineer Josephine Shepard - Renegon, colonist, war hero, sentinel

FFXIV:

Sawyer - midlander hyur, monk / bard wol Sybille - wildwood elezen, scholar, Sawyer's interpreter Turold - Sawyer's father / Borgakh's husband

Original Setting / Stolen from Setting:

J - vampire jazz pianist from a sci fi future Theo - supernatural investigator Nova - magnetic presence for supernatural creatures

[ollypopwrites]

BG3FicFeb Day 2 (SFW) : Waking up on the ravaged beach.

Rating: T

Warnings: canon-typical violence, mentions of death/dead bodies, language

Summary:

With a gasp she sat up, patting down her body in search of any errant pains, broken bones, or missing limbs. Nothing. It was all accounted for. Even Circe was still wrapped around her neck, unmoved and unbroken. 

She had survived. Now she just had to figure out what to do next. 

Notes: I know I'm posting 3 fics today...leave me be. Masterlist will be up soon-ish.

A strange calm befell Isra.

Before her was a cambion, imps, hell hounds, and a mindflayer. At her side was a Githyanki, and a half-elf woman. Outside were the hells, a place she never wanted to go and was explicitly warned not to go. 

“Get to the controls,” the githyanki, Lae’zel, yelled. 

Fight or flight kicked in quickly. She had come across bandits on the roads and unsavory types in the cities; she knew how to defend herself, but this was somehow different. She had stolen quite a bit from the ship already, including a scimitar and a dagger off of a dead man and then it was all… well it was all hells. 

Just reach the controls. Reach the controls. She reminded herself. 

And when she did, she found herself at a loss. The heat of the hells was gone, but the foreign half-biological machinery was whining and crying as the ship plummeted. So she made it out of the hells, and now she was going to die on a crashing mind-flayer ship. In the afterlife, wherever she went, either Selûne or Eilistraee's domain, she could say she went out trying. And she would die as herself, not a mindflayer.

Isra met the eyes of the creature that had inserted the damned tadpole. It felt like...contempt, anger, but could mindflayers even feel those things? A sharp pain at her temple made her lose consciousness. It drifted in and out, at one point she was aware of the endless fall, but her mind drifted away again until...

The sun was making her skin tingle, prickling with sweat, and she could smell something burning. Blinking open her eyes, she saw a wide open blue sky. Her head hurt, and she tried to make sense of the last thing she remembered. Yellow-amber eyes boring straight into hers: the tadpole, the ship —

With a gasp she sat up, patting down her body in search of any errant pains, broken bones, or missing limbs. Nothing. It was all accounted for. Even Circe was still wrapped around her neck, unmoved and unbroken. 

She had survived. Now she just had to figure out what to do next. 

“Circe…” she murmured. 

With a shiver the snake shook off the metal state and perked her head up. Around them was pure destruction. The ship was in pieces, the smell of burning flesh carried on the wind, and just up ahead she could see bodies littered around. How in the nine hells did she survive that fall? Where was she now? What was she going to do about the mind flayer tadpole in her skull? Wordlessly, expressionless, her animal companion looked into her eyes. 

“We are a bit fucked, my friend.”

[pursuitseternal]

Unholy: a Priestarion fic

Dawnmaster Ancunín x Jenevelle |E| 3.4K

Summary: Before she can be ordained as Mother Superior and Chosen of Selûne, Jenevelle Hallowleaf must past trials by a Dawnmaster of Lathander. Is purpose is nearly secret, and his methods are… unholy.

CW: Massive corruption kink, Never-kidnapped-by-Sharrans Shadowheart, the irony of an undead Dawnmaster of Lathander, vaginal fingering, oral male receiving…

Ao3 link | Masterlist

To be a Chosen was to be alone. To be silent. To be submissive.

To be holy.

Jenevelle knelt on the cold stone, bathed in silvery light from the lanterns and crystals of her chamber. It was a chilling light, one meant to keep her attentive and alert so as not to fall into sloth during her prayers. For the prayers of Selûne’s Chose were the sweetest of all. No lapse in attentiveness would suffice, especially if she wished to be deemed worthy of the title Mother Superior for her Cloister.

It was humble, this small group of buildings that made up the Selûnite convent outside of the Baldur’s Gate. But the woods were always bathed in moonlight, the forests so dense, barely any sunlight breached the foliage. It was a haven of serenity for the Moonmaiden and her most devoted followers. Those most perfect.

Those like Jenevelle Hallowleaf and her bright shining heart. Even from her birth, her parents had known her value, raised her in tradition apart from the world, sparing her the darkness and suffering that was of the enemy. Even sparing her the knowledge of matters of the flesh, keeping her spotless to be an offering to Selûne.

All her life led to this night, the eve she would prove her worth and virtue, to be named the new Mother Superior in the moon’s glow at its descent in the morning light.

Fitting it was one of the Dawnmaster of Lathander that would be her adjudicator and confessor then.

She hadn’t heard his name before, this Dawnmaster Ancunín, and the rest of her order had assured her it was merely because he was unique, an almost secret Dawnmaster, the one they trusted most with flushing out clerics for their impurities and sin.

He was the expert, after all, at least that was the rumor.

“He has arrived,” Mother Isobel Thorm whispered into Jenevelle’s ear, “I have seen the wonders of the Moonmaiden from Moonrise to here, and I must say, you will need to pray with extra fervor, Sister. This Dawnmaster is… not like the others. Be wary, and be mindful of your vows.”

With that, she departed Jenevelle’s cell, leaving her kneeling on the stone floor by the hearth, her silver hair tied up neatly at the crown of her head.

Vows… Jenevelle steadied her resolve. Chastity, Silence, and of most importance, Obedience.

In the silence, she shifted her robe over her shoulders, the neckline just a bit too wide so as to let it slink off the curve of one, baring her pale skin to the moon…

Or to the eyes of the Dawnmaster who entered her cell noiselessly. His voice dripped with honey, smooth as silk and swirling like embers on the night wind. “Why, I feel almost blessed to be in the presence of the Moonmaiden’s Chosen,” he purred, robes of blackest night billowing as he shut the door behind him. A quiet incantation, and a thickness filled the air as he cast Silence. Only then did Jenevelle look up at him.

She wished to the Maiden she hadn’t.

No… no this couldn’t be… she thought, screaming to herself, unwilling to break a single vow. He was… handsome, devilishly so, his deep hood dropping back to reveal a face etched by the heavens themselves, skin like pearls and eyes that glowed crimson, catching the moonlight of her chamber. He was sharp, exacting, and intense, staring down at her with that subtle smile on his twitching lips.

“Do you feel ready, child, to be your Lady’s Chosen?” he asked, to the point. A few steps closer to where she knelt, the image of devotion, and she inhaled his scent. Citrus… and smoke, incense and sandalwood.

Far too sensual to be a simple man with an eye for nothing but his prayer book.

Moonmaiden, why did her mouth start to water… and why did she have to swallow so loudly. Jenevelle caught herself before she so much as considered cursing at the thought. She shifted on her knees, her insides fluttering and warm, her breathing growing ragged like she had just run uphill.

And Jenevelle could only look into his eyes at his queries, her tongue locked at the bottom of her mouth by her vow of silence.

The Dawnmaster tilted his head, chilling fingers gripping her chin to angle her pale face into the moonlight. “Oh yes, that’s right, your Lady demands a vow of silence to help prepare yourself for her merciful light.”

He giggled. High pitched and breathy, short and… gods… humorless.

But why did it still make her smile, her chin yet resting in the cool bed of his grip.

“It’s been some time since I’ve been asked to test a maiden of Selûne, your goddess is far more demanding and stricter than most. But that’s my duty as Advocatus Tenebrae…”

Advocate of Darkness.

Jenevelle might have been young, naive in the ways of the world and devoted to serving on her knees, but her studies had been thorough.

A rare ministry of the Lathanderites, a single priest, bound to test those deemed most chosen in the service of the deities of Light and Dark, of Death and Life.

“I can practically hear the wheels in your brain grinding, little Cleric,” he whispered, even as his voice drew closer, lips pressing against her ear as he bent down. Was… that his thumb on her neck? The single stroke of that thumb pad traced down the vein of her pulse.

A pulse that was rapidly accelerating to a full blown gallop as she felt his breath on her skin, ice cold.

Something in her body screamed to run, a primal instinct like the times she had been in the forest, too close to beasts that could devour her in one gulp…

A predator, hungry for slaughter.

She grunted at the faintest pressure he put around her neck.

Grunting was allowed, surely, she reasoned. Like sneezing or coughing.

But the Dawnmaster only tutted his tongue as he withdrew. “Already such little sounds from your delicate voice box. You’re failing to impress me, Chosen of Selûne. You better stay on your knees if you’re going to withstand my darkness, for it is my vocation to try and break you.”

She shuddered as she met that crimson gaze… as she saw the flash of his fangs behind those smirking, plush lips.

“Ahhhh,” he cooed, “the special little girl has pieced it together.” He gave that damned giggle again. “I don’t need to hear your words to have enough insight and read your thoughts as they run rampant across your pretty face.” His hand strayed from her neck, tracing the arc of her cheek before leaving her skin entirely. Leaving only the residual burn of his corpse cold touch. His tone was mockingly innocent as he widened his eyes and falsely softened his smile into surprise. “A vampire? An undead servant of Lathander? How could it be?”

Fuck, if he didn’t almost read her thoughts word for word. Perceptive arse.

Jenevelle dug her nails into the tops of her thighs where her hands rested, using the pain to offer atonement for such crude cursing.

But those keen red eyes caught that too.

“Now now, darling, don’t be hard on yourself. Being so easy to read only makes my job here all the easier. And that’s what we both want, isn’t it? We want this to be… easy.”

Fuck, the way he purred that last word. As if she were the one that was easy…

“The sooner I break you, the sooner you can go about your much needed preparations and atonement.”

Jenevelle glared at him as if to say: And if I should succeed and resist?

But the Dawnmaster only giggled once more, darker and deeper in his broad chest this time. A sound that made some inner muscle in her lower belly clench and burn.

“Don’t lie to yourself or to me. I know you’re not ready, not pure enough to resist me.” Then he did something that made her gasp aloud, he knelt before her too, his robes of blackest cloth draping over her bare knees where they peaked out from her silver muslin wrap. That cursed hand trailed a finger across her pulse point again, “I can hear every rap of your unbridled pulse…” That cold touch caressed over the fabric of her gown towards her hips, sliding over the naked skin of her knee, her thigh, before he stopped his advances just shy of her hip.

Of where she burned with something… unholy.

“I can smell you, you know…”

Jenevelle shifted on her knees, and suddenly she realized that the burning heat in her belly wasn’t just inside… Her sex was wet, so dripping and so slick from this man’s presence and ghostly touches that it squelched as she moved.

That sweet damp sound only made him give the widest, most fang baring smirk yet.

“Shall we begin, my child?” he whispered, that little epithet only making Jenevelle wriggle more on her knees to squelch her wet thighs louder this time. His thick silver brow arched at the noise, and he gave that bone rattling chuckle again. “Not off to an auspicious start, darling…”

Jenevelle shuddered, shivering as his cool touch swept slowly higher, a soothing balm promised for the burning. She didn’t even notice when or how she parted her knees, letting his fingers creep over the soft plush of her thighs to soothe her ache.

“Mmm, good girl,” he hummed, keeping his frame at a distance to observe and note every twitching reaction. “You’re lucky you know, Selûne likes her chosens extra bright and shiny, which means…” he paused, fingers sinking into her folds as he watched her face silently screw tightly in pleasure, “you’ll have to withstand my darkest desires.” The smirk on his face dripped with sin as he licked his lips, playing his fingers in and out, twisting them and crooking them to draw extra wet and lewd sounds from under that silvery gauze shift. “I do so love my calling, and it’s sweet, innocent darlings like you that I enjoy testing the most.”

Jenevelle bit her tongue until she tasted blood, fixing her gaze on the window slats in her ceiling that let in the moonlight.

She fought every instinct screaming at her to move as his finger played inside, their damp exploration widening her channel, three fingers wide now, pushing her apart.

“Oh, darling, I doubt you’ve ever been wetter. Certainly makes my task easier,” he gave that rolling chuckle again. “How else am I to verify your vow of… chastity?” Those crimson eyes had dilated almost to pitch black now, his lips quirking at random… or was it in time with the rhythm of this hand pushing up into her cunt?

Those wicked fingers thrust and curled, over and over again. Something burned, called forth by his touches and summoned by every wash of his chilling, undead breath as it fanned down her neck. She felt his lips purse and press a kiss beneath her ear, and it took all her strength to keep the moan in her throat locked away.

Then his thumb brushed something hard and aching right at the crest of her sex. A grunt struggled free from her control, her hand splaying back to catch her as she crumbled. Whatever spot that was he circled now set an unholy fire in her body, every limb, every muscle shaking and tightening to a state of pure… ecstasy. Yes. That was it. Ecstasy. Rapture.

This wave of bliss so intense, it stole her breath as she shook on his hand, it was surely divine. A boon given so intensely, her mouth watered, her eyes wept, and her sex flooded with slick….

…slick he began to suck from his lithe and pale digits as he stood once more. Those black robes fluttered, heavy and loud through the strange haze that had swallowed her.

“Can you feel it, my little Chosen? The fire in your veins, the heady intoxication of how your body craves more of my touch?” His voice was soft, dripping… sweet like honey from the comb. His sticky fingers pushed under her chin to force her eyes to meet that crimson stare. “You have proven yourself once chaste,” he chuckled, dark and dangerous, that sharp implication of something lost, never to be reclaimed sent an unholy tremor down her spine.

And gods, did it make her belly coil again so soon.

One cool thumb slipped between her lips, pulling her jaw down. “Now, my duty says to push on,” he chuckled again at his words, “Obedience or silence, that is the sweetest of questions.” He growled, sliding his thumb deeper inside the warm cavern of her mouth, the tang of her own juices still coating it as she unknowingly sucked it. “Or both at once…”

His red eyes flared, smirking down at her, at the way her body responded so automatically and innocently. She’d let him do anything… anything for the sake of testing her light against his darkness. And by the Dawn Lord, would he make certain she was thoroughly tested….

His thumb skated over her teeth, opening that silent mouth for him. “Oh yes, let’s move on to a trial fit for both your vows at once. Think you can keep this tongue occupied with worship in place of those sweet little grunts you’ve been making?” That free hand of his reached for the buttons of his robes, opening just a few at his waist. “Think you can give me your full obedience?”

It was then she noticed that bulge protruding under their billowing lengths. Something long, pale, and hard stuck out from the gap, his hand wrapped around it as he stroked it lazily.

She knew not why, but her heart raced. Her mouth drew more spit that she had to swallow loudly before she choked on it. Of course she had seen animals rutting in season, but this…. This made her whole body hum with an unfamiliar need. A heat that needed to be cooled. And all she could think of was the cool of his touch.

“Never seen a manhood before?” He laughed, fingers gripping around him as he beat up and down… “Further proof of your chastity, I suppose.”

Those green eyes widened as he stepped closer. “Now, keep silent and obey, and perhaps you’ll be a pleasing offering to your Moonmaiden.”

So many questions ticked her brain… what it was, what it would do… and his crimson eyes drank in the sight of her confusion, a wicked smile on his lips. “Oh, if only your queries could be voiced, my little Chosen,” he purred. “I guess you’ll have to go on blind faith and trust me when I command you to open your lips.”

Her body snapped to attention and obeyed, a mind of its own that craved being told just what to do…. Obedience was a virtue after all. And virtues came with so many graces.

Her pink tongue jutted out just a bit, and his hand deftly guided his cock, brushing its weeping head over it. That pearl of precum coated her, her wide eyes wincing at the unusual taste as a little breath left that gaping mouth.

“Hush, child,” he soothed, hand in her silver hair, carding in the loose tendrils until his grip rested as the back of her head. “Show me true obedience, demonstrate for me your silence, and you’ll earn your place as Mother Superior and Chosen of Selûne. Fail and the consequences…” he trailed off for a moment, head rolling back as he slowly thrust his cock deeper into her mouth, “the consequences could be most dire for you and most delicious for me….”

Fingers held fast suddenly in her hair, his hips snapping forward in surprise. And Jenevelle gasped, her voice box rough and strained from neglect as she suddenly mewled. Her hands pressed into his thighs through that wall of black cassock, and it was all she could do to keep her wits about her. He pistoned in and out of her mouth, her lips closing around his cock out of some long suppressed primal instinct.

“Yes, good child,” he groaned, his breathing labored and huffing, “Obey me. Use your tongue, your lips, your throat and please me.”

The floodgates opened, and a deluge of desire consumed her every action, her every thought. She suckled and licked, her throat straining and gagging around his length as he rammed into her mouth over and over again.

It was numbing… hypnotizing, the repetition of his flesh over her tongue and down her throat. The growls and grunts he made as he thrust into her was like a never-ending chant. And her own voice couldn’t help but to give answer—high pitched whines and deep moans summoned with almost every tickle of his cockhead against the back of her throat.

“So needy, so untrained,” he groaned as he slowed a moment, keeping just that bulbous read on the tip of her tongue. “Lick the tip, little Selûnite, and taste the fruits of your obedience.”

Again, she obeyed, savoring the sensations of him between her lips. Her gaze was fixed now up on his face, those glowing red irises boring into her face. His mouth parted in a slack-jawed grin, revealing the glistening points of his teeth.

His fangs.

And for all of her that feared the dark, that should have been repulsed by an undead vampiric Dawnmaster, all that should have forced him away for the heresy of it all… she just grinned and whined and sucked him deep into her mouth again.

“Nine bloody hells,” he groaned, his breath catching as he hissed through those gritted teeth. “Come on, girl, make me come. Make me come now.”

The words barely registered in her lust-hazed brain. Her hands ran to the back of his legs, keeping his body pressed against hers as close as she could handle. Her cheeks hollowed, her throat strained, eyes running with tears as she couldn’t get enough of the feeling. She wanted more, wanted all of that smooth, hard cock in her mouth.

His thrusts slowed, keeping his depth just as persistent as he snarled. His hand held her head tightly, and that thick shaft began to pulse and twitch as something filled her mouth. It was bitter and sweet, thick and oily as she swallowed it, whatever it was that came from him in full, throbbing bursts. Whatever it was of him that was now part of her.

He held still in her mouth, that grip in her hair easing, his breathing rough as he tried to steady it. “Well,” he chuffed, pulling from her slowly, “I haven’t given such a thorough examination for a long while. I must say, you’ve done enough to please your deity and mine…”

Jenevelle gave a long sigh, even as part of her echoed in… disappointment.

“Ah,” he hummed, tilting his head as he caught her chin and bent low to hover just out of reach. “Am I right to see that this… displeases you?”

She nodded her pretty little head in his grip.

“I must say, I concur. Personally, I find myself yet to be totally satisfied by your virtues.” He purred, his thumb stroking her bottom lip, savoring the way it swelled from his aggression. “Perhaps you must suffer the consequences of failure. If I deem you unworthy, then I return in a tenday for another… examination… on behalf of our god and goddess, of course.”

The way his voice dripped with need, the quirk of his own full and smirking lips made her sex clench.

“If you wish to succeed today, say nothing, but if you would rather accept failure… say anything…”

The offer hung heavy in the air. Temptation. Its corruption was already as deep in her belly as his essence that she had swallowed.

Leaning forward, she placed the chastest of kisses on his softening cockhead. “Yes, Dawnmaster,” she whispered.

“Good girl,” came his stilted reply. His fingers left a fire in the wake of his corpse-cold touch. “Until next tenday, then, my child…”

With that, he fixed his robes, replaced his hood, and left with nothing more than the echo of his deep and wicked laughter in the air of her cell.

For my lovely betas/coven sisters @nyx-knox and @marimosalad

And for my lovely degenerate writers @lets-just-daydream and @astarionancuntnin

🎨 📸 by @casualya

[commander-rahrah]

Talking to the Moon: Part II

Pairing: Astarion x GN!Reader Word Count: ~6900 (haha.. whoops again) Warnings: suggestive, swearing, PTSD, trauma, past/implied abuse, fluff, angst, emotional hurt/comfort, death, blood drinking, combat

archiveofourown: here

masterlist: here

part I: here

Summary: Set in Act II (pre-Moonrise Towers), Astarion and Tav/Reader wake up in the Last Light Inn after he makes amends. Astarion begins to realize what he is feeling for Tav/Reader is different then anything he has every felt before, and it is a continuous internal battle for him in more ways than one.

Notes: This is still a GN!Reader/Tav in second perspective with no names or y/n. The backstory established in chapter 1 still continues — Reader/Tav is Selûne blessed; noble with only a few specific appearance descriptors used (silver hair/star like freckles). This update is a combination of like 3 little daily headcannon dreams I had while playing the game the first time, and I felt like they all flowed so well together to create what would be a series of moments for Astarion to realize he was indeed falling for Tav before his confession scene that happens after Moonrise towers!

I hope to write more for this specific pairing, as I want to add even more to the confession scene from Astarion. And also the resolution for Reader and Shadowheart. I know how it all ends in my head, but I am loving writing it out and sharing with you all! ♡♡♡

P.S.: I keep slipping little Shadowheart x Karlach moments in... because I love the idea of them being together. But you can take it however you want to LOL.

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Astarion blinked awake, slowly, peacefully. He couldn’t remember the last time that happened. He usually bolted awake on instinct after finishing his trance.

But this morning he was greeted by a comfortable silence. Stretching his neck, he smiled as he took in your still sleeping form — hair tousled with sleep. One hand clutching your pillow while the other rested near his own, outstretched. Had you held his hand as you were sleeping? He couldn’t recall once he had fallen into his trance.

As if sensing him looking at you, your eyes fluttered open before your lips curved softly at the sight of him.

It made his half-dead heart flutter.

“You talk in your sleep.” You mumbled with a voice still hoarse and drowsy.

“I do? What did I say?” A knot formed in his stomach as he thought of the possibilities — the damning things he could have said.

“It was mostly muttering. You weren’t very coherent… but you sounded afraid. So I…” You flexed your fingers next to his own hand before trailing off.

You had reached out to comfort him whilst he slept. He swallowed as he looked at both of your hands still stretched out to the middle. Before he pulled it back, intertwining it with his other one laying on chest. “Apologies. I’ve never had a bed partner before… You must have slept terribly.”

“No, not at all. I haven’t sleep this well in months actually.” You said as you stretched your arms over your head, starting to sit up on the soft mattress.

Astarion agreed silently in his head. Not that he would admit it so freely out loud.

The pair of you sat in silence for a moment, your bodies still slightly laid across the mattress as you tried to will yourselves to start the day. Occasionally, he could feel you glance over to him. After mustering up some courage, he looked over at you with his red eyes round and vulnerable.

You studied the features of his face for a moment, before your eyebrows crinkled. “You must be starving. You haven’t fed.”

“No… but I’ll be fine. I’m sure some evil cultist will pull a sword on us and I will get to shred their throat.” He let out his nervous laugh, but the burning in his throat was uncomfortable.

“Astarion. You need but ask—“

“I can’t — I couldn’t.” Not after how he had acted last night. The shame that had ripped through him still lingered, his skin turning hot again as he remembered.

Then you were closing the empty space between, shuffling on your knees across the mattress as you got closer to him. “You need it to survive, you can’t help it that you’re—“

“A monster?” His lips curled, before he flashed his face away from you.

Your voice was quiet, laced with an ache he couldn’t understand. “I don’t think you’re a monster. Have I made you feel like one?”

He thought of your face that fateful night when you learned what he truly was. Surprise had flickered across your face, but never fear or hatred. You had quickly turned the tables as you were then calming him down. As if you hadn’t just woken up to him looming over you, fangs bared like a wild animal.

You hadn’t treated him any differently at all. Perhaps you asked a few curious questions and graced him with some teasing with that sharp tongue of yours. But you had believed him and accepted him as he was. Trusted him.

He wanted to hate you for it. For not seeing him as a wild, dangerous creature. For not just treating him like every other person did when they realized what he truly was.

It would be easier — to hate you.

But he couldn’t. He would never.

“No. You haven’t.”

“Astarion,” You grabbed onto his wrist delicately, your touch featherlight and a bit hesitant. “Feed.”

“Alright, if you insist.”

“I do.” You laid back out onto the bed, stretching out your neck for him. He swallowed, already eyeing your pulse point that was beckoning him closer.

His throat bobbed up and down as he pushed his blankets aside and eliminated the lingering space left between you. His fingertips brushed over the puncture wounds that lingered on your neck now — he had committed to always feeding from the same spot, so to avoid further marking your perfect form. His fingers trailed up your jawline, your cheekbones and into your hairline. “You’re too good to me,” He murmured into your skin, pressing a soft kiss on your neck. Surprised by his own intimacy, he pulled back to look you in the eye. “Are you ready?”

You nodded, fisting the sheet you laid on in preparation.

Astarion moved his body half over yours and sunk his teeth in, piercing through the soft flesh until your hot blood rushed into his mouth. He couldn’t help the moan that escaped him as the sweet taste flooded all of his senses.

But he had become better at it — not as frantic as his first time. Not as desperate. One of his hands lingered in your hair, the other wrapping around your waist carefully as he pulled himself closer into you. The thin fabric of your nightclothes let him feel your warm, soft skin beneath.

The thundering of your heart was echoing in his ears and down into his own chest. But your shallow breaths were acting as a timer. He needed to stay aware of you, to not push you or your body too far. He became increasingly aware of your hands tightening in the sheets and toes curling as you let out a whimper. Both pain and pleasure intermixed.

He realized that so often while he had fed from you, the lines got blurred. Lately, you both had been buried deep in each other whilst he was sucking and lapping at your neck — bringing you both into bliss for very different reasons. And though those moments with you did bring him into euphoria, something no one else’s touch or body had done in a century, it still brought that familiar tremble. A single thought that spoiled the high and made him wish he could peel off his skin.

He didn’t want to cross that line today, not if he didn’t have to.

With a gasp, he pulled away from your neck. He lingered close to it for a moment, breathing in your scent once more before licking at the punctures to stop any lingering blood from pooling out. Sitting back up, his tongue went over his lips and teeth cleaning up the red stains. “Are you alright?”

Your voice was a gentle whisper, purposefully calm to reassure him. “Yes. Are you?”

“Feeling better already.” He wiped at the corners of his mouth carefully, before asking, “Do you need — would you like me to make you feel better?”

“It’s nothing that my amulet and a strong cup of tea won’t fix.” You gripped the edge of the bed as you sat up, fingers already clasping at the golden amulet glittering off of your neck — it glowed slightly at your touch. The colour slowly returned to your cheeks, and the open puncture marks closed — leaving behind the purple-red bruises from his mouth and small scars from his fangs.

“Right. But I got mine… do you want yours too?” His pale fingers swirled nervously on his own knee.

“Astarion, this isn’t transactional.” You said with a shake of your head.

No, that couldn’t be. Everything had a cost, everything was an exchange. He knew that, he lived by that.

“What?” A bewildering look crossed his face, his head cocked to the side. He was sure he hadn’t heard you right.

But you said firmly, “I don’t expect anything in return. Not ever.”

“Then why in the heavens do you let me do this!?” He asked exasperatedly, his voice a little louder than he intended.

You took a large breath before staring back into his eyes, your stare and voice unwavering. “Because I care about you. And you told me heartbreaking stories of how you spent years eating rats and bugs. Being tortured and cut into. I may not ever truly know what you went through Astarion… but I understand. So every moment that I spend with you, I want to show you the opposite.”

“Someone will take advantage of that you know. Take advantage of you —that goodness you insist on.” Your blood in his stomach turned sour, as he knew that someone was him.

“I know. They have and they will. But I will not change my mind on this. And despite what you think or expect, I will not treat you like a monster or a thing. You are a person, albeit a complicated one, but aren’t we all.”

He blinked at your sudden outburst, mouth open slightly as his mind scrambled for some witty response, some quick line. But he failed too as you continued your admission.

“I wish you could see yourself how I see you. Not just the drawings I gave to you when you told me you wished to see your reflection…,” Those charcoal drawings of his face were carefully tucked into the pages of a leather book in his pack. His most prized possession. “One day, when you are ready to hear it I will tell you.”

Astarion remained silent. He was gobsmacked, his eyes wide. He felt like he was still processing, his mind sputtering and his heart thundering from your confessions. You cared for him? You understood him? And there was more to hear? Whenever he was ready… whatever that meant.

The only attachment he had planned for was your bodies intertwining in a false passion. Not that it had been very fake as of late… But everything else.

Astarion was suddenly very out of his element.

“Have a left you speechless, my dear? Maybe I should make unprompted speeches more often.” You smirked, though your face flushed a brilliant shade. He had been silent for too long, so you had tried to make things light and airy.

He slipped back into his usual cadence as his face broke into a grin, a dark chuckle escaping him. “So vicious, darling. Maybe I’m rubbing off on you.”

He prayed he wasn’t.

• • •

It was a hard few days in the Shadowlands, searching for a way to break the curse and edging ever closer to Moonrise Towers.

It was brutal here, punishing. Each turn more dangerous than the next.

There were no animals for him to feed on, so Astarion sheepishly continued to accept your offers. And there was no exchange as you promised, except quiet gratitude from him and an even more quiet understanding from you.

It was bewildering and mystifying. He still couldn’t wrap his head around it. Why you would choose to do that for him.

He could understand you jumping to the aid and rescue of the Tiefling children, helpless animals, the young couples desperately in love. They were good, they were pure.

But he was none of those things. He was wretched and broken. He craved violence and vengeance. His touch was a curse for you both. And he had used you, manipulated you. And maybe you knew it.

Yet you were still there.

And the cursed lands kept reminding him of that.

Everywhere they looked he seemed to find pairs. Engraved wedding rings enchanted to protect the other. Skeleton couples laid next to each other in their final moments. Like the pair that died on the rooftop, their boney fingers still intertwined. The handwritten poems cataloging the love they held for each other sat next to them, like they had whispered it to each other before their last breaths. 

You had found the poems first, a soft look on your face as you read it to the group — your tender voice breaking as you neared the end of the last poem, their final declaration of love even in death. Astarion had to look away as you finished it, his half-dead heart thumping in his chest as he heard you speak the proclamation. He wouldn't allow his mind to even start to imagine you saying such things to him. 

Lae’zel’s huffs broke the moment, demanding they get a move on and head back to camp already. The group blinked back to reality, before turning on their heels to go.

You walked ahead of him as the group began to backtrack to camp, tucking the book of poems into your pack with a gentle touch.

Astarion’s thoughts had been consumed by you for sometime now. For longer then he had realized. Perhaps from the moment he met you. He sometimes wondered what about you had kept him so captivated. Why he picked you to feed on, or to be the unsuspecting member of his plan.

He could have picked Wyll — he was noble and honorable, prone to jump into the thick of things to save an innocent or a friend. Loyal to a fault. And he was quite handsome too. Like the princes he dreamed to marry when he was a boy.

But no, it was you he was drawn to. His little moon.

He had realized that he ached for something he had never known, and had never before believed truly existed — that it was only invented to be seen in plays or read in prose and poetry. But now he longed for it with you.

When he was cursed to this life of a bloodsucking monster, of a vampire, he quickly realized that he would always feel hungry. That he could have his fill of blood and still be starving. He could drain this merry party dry and still feel that prick in his throat and pang in his belly.

What he didn’t realize was that the curse Cazador bestowed to him was so much more. Not just an endless bloodlust, not just waking nightmares and endless torment. But that he could long and ache for companionship, attachment, love. But that he would never take it for himself. That he would always be both starving and empty.

Because he knew he didn’t deserve it. Not after the things he’d done, in this life and his old one. Not after what he had become. He didn’t deserve you — someone so good that a literal goddess had blessed you with their power. Someone whose voice turned gentle as their fingers trailed lines of poetry. Someone who would offer themselves up to a monster, just to make them feel whole again.

You deserved someone bright and unbroken. Who could give and receive touch as freely as breathing air. Who knew that true companionship wasn't some fantasy invented for the arts, that love was more then sex and flattery. Who could one day also lay beside you, willing to accept what fate becomes them and turn to bone. Not a half-dead creature like him.

He knew he would cease his foolish plan. He couldn’t use you as bait nor a shield, not anymore. You deserved better than that. What that meant for him… he wasn’t sure.

Perhaps he should confess to his plan too. As a final way to make you understand what a manipulative bastard he truly was. To push you away. It would hurt less than to confess what his heart wished for, but his mind knew he could never have.

The path the group was walking along was overgrown with thorns and vines. A specific darkness plagued the route, and it was barely dulled from the magical glow of the party’s several spells and enchantments. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, his red eyes darting around them — searching.

It happened in an instant — the shadows silent and invisible until it was too late. The creatures appeared with a sudden flash, long curling claws slashing into your side — catching you unawares. Your shout of pain alerted the rest of the party, everyone drawing their weapons quickly.

Astarion went to the enchanted daggers at his side, hurling them through the air with easy precision as they found their target. They boomeranged back to him, sliding into his waiting palms. He had gotten rid of one, but there were way more than usual. Wherever they had stumbled into, it was not good.

“Shit!” Karlach swore loudly as more shadows appeared after the ones they downed. Continuing to converge around you, drawn to your huffs of pain and blood. Your blood, the scent that was usually so sweet in his nose but now had dropped an anchor in his stomach. There was too much of it, much too fast.

“Watch out!” Wyll shouted in warning to the vampire, before sending several of his powerful red blasts soaring out of his hands.

With a glance to his side, the rogue twirled around Lae’zel’s strong, cleaving swing with ease before releasing his daggers once again at the creatures advancing on you. But he threw them a moment too late — their clawed strikes sinking deep into you before the magical daggers ripped through them and back into his hands.

The sound of your knees crashing into paved stones made Astarion's teeth chatter. His heart lurched into his throat, your name choking out of him as he screamed. He had never moved so fast — it almost seemed like he had blinked across the battlefield like Gale so often did.

“RAHHHHH!” The booming roar of Karlach echoed in his ears as she raged from seeing you fall. The rest of the party converging on the remaining shadow creatures attempting to surround your unconscious body, moving in sync with each other with a deadly precision.

Knowing that those creatures were being taken care off, Astarion fell to his knees next to you — his pale hands grabbing onto your shoulders. “Sweetheart, wake up.”

You didn’t stir, your head and limbs shaking loosely as he moved you. He dragged your head onto his lap, before unbuckling the holster on his belt. He tipped the the precious red liquid from the healing potion between your lips. He said your name, running his thumb across your face.

You didn’t stir.

“Darling?”

His red eyes studied you, your face looking lack luster and eyes remaining closed. Your hands laying limply at your side, unmoving. He couldn’t hear the familiar thrum of your heart.

No, no, no, no.

“Astarion?!” Gale shouted, his voice exhausted and strained as he split his concentration just enough to check on you two.

The world tilted as the wizard instead shouted for you. But you couldn’t respond... because you were —

“You can’t die, dammit!”

Suddenly, you were all bathed in a golden light for a moment as Shadowheart brought down a thunderous strike of radiant energy, defeating the remaining shadow creatures as they shrieked in pain. Then the sound of thudding metal and footsteps as the party surged forward to you, panting for breath.

Wyll’s eyes went wide with worry as he saw you unmoving, his hand covering his mouth,“ Are they—?”

Astarion looked up at his party with bleary eyes, his hands trembling as he held your face on his lap. “They won’t wake up. I tried, I gave them a potion and they—“

“Oh gods.” The Blade choked out, his face immediately crumpling.

Gale shook his head, immediately dumping the contents of his side satchel onto the dirt. Scrambling through them, “No, no, we can do more! I’ll have a scroll or, or — Shadowheart!!”

The cleric had remained in the back, her face half covered in shadow. Her nostrils flared as she looked down at you. But she made no move forward.

Astarion’s red eyes pierced through her, before narrowing, “Bring them back.”

She didn’t move, her face blank. “My goddess will not allow it.”

“Princess! What are you talking about?” Karlach tried to grab her hand, but Shadowheart pulled away. “It’s Giggles!

Her black braid swayed back and forth as she shook her head, taking one step back. “She is Shar’s enemy. She is my enemy.”

“I don’t give a fuck about your goddess.” The vampire spat, his lips curling, “Bring. Them. Back.”

“I—" A moment of hesitation as her voice shook and her eyebrows furrowed.

Gale let out a shaky breath, his fingers pushing back his long hair. His brown eyes were shining with fear. “I have no scroll, I—“

“We are running out of time!” Lae’zel finally spoke out, glaring at Shadowheart. “Do something now, istik.”

Astarion voice was deadly, his fangs baring as he shout out. “If you don’t do this. If you let them die— I will hunt you down and become your worst nightmare. I will fucking haunt you! BRING. THEM. BACK.”

“Shadowheart, please.” Karlach whispered, finally getting ahold of the half-elf’s hand.

Conflict flickered across her face, before she stepped forward. She crouched next to you, bowing her head as her hands began to glow with golden light. Her small hands rested on your unmoving chest, before the light disappeared into you.

A loud gasp escaped you as come back to life. Your hands finding purchase in the dirt as your eyes snapped open wide with fear and uncertainty.

Astarion let out a loud breath, tipping his head back with a silent thank you to anything that was listening.

The sigh of relief echoed throughout the entire party. Minus the dark haired cleric, who stood up quietly. Her throat bobbed as a hard to read look crossed her face and she backed away.

“I— what, what happened?” You asked groggily, your eyebrows meeting in the middle from confusion.

“You scared us Giggles.” Karlach sniffed, “Thought we’d lost you for a second there…”

“I… I was gone?” You craned your neck, looking up at Astarion, alarm etching every feature of your face.

He opened his mouth, but no words could come out. Fear and panic still held a tight grasp around his throat.

“For but a moment.” Gale stepped forward, his voice practiced but reassuring. “Shadowheart brought you back.”

Your bottom lip wobbled as you fought instant tears, before you croaked out, “Thank you.”

A quiet grunt is all you got in reply from her.

You sat up gingerly, Astarion grabbing your elbow to steady you. Your blood and the strange ichor from the shadowy creatures was clingy to your clothes. You were shivering — a combination of the cold and from the knowledge that just mere moments ago you had been dead. The vampire had undone the clasp of his cloak and was wrapping it around you before you could say no.

“I think it’s best we head to camp. We will take the paths we know.” Gale spoke up first, gathering the contents of his satchel that he had spilled across the ground.

Karlach took your pack from you, slinging it across her back with ease. “Fangs, help me get them up.”

He rushed to his feet, gently pulling you up with him. You swayed for a moment, but your fingers tightly found his forearm to keep you steady. “Thank you,” You breathed.

Him and Karlach slowed their pace to match your weak steps as you walked between their sides, both of their arms wrapped around your waist. Gale was leading the way with Wyll at his side, his staff a shining beacon as the two kept their heads on a constant swivel. Lae’zel brought up the rear, her sword remained out as her eyes narrowed on the huddled form of Shadowheart. The cleric’s arms were hugging herself as she kept her eyes on her boots.

Astarion couldn’t help but count your heartbeats, the rhythm now steady and thumping like normal. He needed to recommit the sound to memory. If only to drown out the reoccurring one of hearing it stop.

• • •

You were much quieter than usual, the lute you would strum by the campfire abandoned. Your eyes were blank as you stared into the flames, licking and dancing across the logs. You were miles away, your half-full dinner plate forgotten at your feet and now licked clean by the camp dog and owlbear.

Shadowheart and Karlach had almost immediately retired to the latter’s tent — still in there now, speaking in hushed whispers that even Astarion’s elven ears could not pick up. Lae’zel was sitting on her perpetual watch, her sword balanced across her knee as she polished it. Wyll sat closest to the fire, using the warm light to inspect a map of Moonrise Towers you had found today — making marks and notes, strategizing the best way to rescue the lost Tieflings and his father. Gale was dutifully at your side, sharing the log bench and reading quietly — his mage hand holding the book up for him and turning the pages.

Astarion watched from a far, sitting at his own tent. He was not interested in feigning conversation. But he wasn’t interested in his own activities either — the book he had open on his lap had been on the same page since he first sat down. Instead, he was watching you carefully.

The scene from earlier in the day was repeating in his mind, he couldn’t shut it out. Not just the sound of your heart stopping, or the scent of your life blood draining out of you. But how you had clutched to him as you journeyed back to camp. That the trembling in your lip would stop when he looked over to give you reassurance.

You had slipped into a deep shock when you arrived in the familiar comforts of camp, almost instantly dissociating once you breached your group’s makeshift home. Gale had swooped in then, his mother-hen behavior taking over as he ordered you to change while he cooked.

So, the vampire had slipped away. Disappointed to no longer be needed. Wishing he too could dissociate or play healer or anything, something to just stop his racing thoughts and pained heart.

His pointed ears perked as you spoke.

“I’m going to go for a walk along the river.” You said suddenly, breaking the quiet that had been settled around the camp for hours. You braced your hands on your knees as you stood up from the bench.

“Do you need company?” Gale asked from your side, already starting to stand up to join you.

“I’m okay, just going to the dock… to collect my thoughts.” You didn’t notice the hurt in the wizard’s eyes as you rejected him. No, your eyes were searching around the camp, looking for something. Someone.

They settled on Astarion.

He raised a single white eyebrow, your eyes never straying from his. A silent invitation, maybe? To join you on the dock.

You gave the smallest indication, a tilt of your head that anyone else would have missed. Then you were off, heading across the camp before turning toward the tree line closest to the river.

He waited for a moment, as to not make it obvious. Perhaps to spare Gale’s feelings, that you had silently asked him to go, and not the wizard.

“Off to get lucky?” Wyll asked as the vampire marched by.

“Wh—what?” He stuttered, steps faltering as he turned to look at his companion still sat on the dirt by the fire.

“Gonna try your luck with a hunt?” The warlock rephrased, looking up from his stacks of maps and parchment.

“Oh. Yes. That’s it, ‘hunting’.” He waved his hands and did a funny little bow, before turning on his heel. When had he become such a terrible liar?

With a practiced lazy grin, he bid the rest of his companions a quick farewell before following the trail into the tree line as you did.

The docks weren’t far from camp. A few minutes journey down a well-walked dirt path through the sparse woods led him to the quiet river.

You were already sat on the wooden dock, your boots half hazardously tossed behind you and your feet hanging in the water. Your head was tipped back, arms stretched behind you as you seemingly basked in the silence. Astarion made purposeful loud steps, causing the wood planks to creak. To announce himself, to avoid startling you.

You didn’t move, didn’t flinch. Instead you merely opened your mouth to speak, “Hello, Astarion.”

Oh, how he loved it when you said his name like that. Like you had been waiting for only him.

“Darling.” He drawled from behind, standing carefully next to you.

You turned your face so you were now looking up at him instead of the dark sky, “Thank you for knowing I wanted you here. I didn’t want to announce it.“

A smirk quirked his lips, “Good, I can still read you then.”

You looked at him quizzically, “Have you been having difficulty doing that lately?”

“You…, He cleared his throat, “You have been keeping me on my toes, yes.”

A cheeky smile spread across your face, your eyes sparkling with delight. “Oh, you must hate that.”

Yes, he did. He rolled his red eyes at you, “I certainly haven’t been bored since I met you.”

You both let out chuckles, before you patted the spot next to you on the dock. “Sit with me?”

He joined you, removing his own boots and rolling up his pants to sink his legs in the water. But then he paused, his pale feet hovering above the blue water. “What creatures lurk in this river, do we know?”

“Oh, don’t be a scaredy-cat.”

Astarion huffed before placing his feet in. He hissed from the cold temperature, but after a moment it felt refreshing on his tired and sore feet. A relaxed sigh escaped him, and his shoulders lowered slightly.

You both sat in a comfortable silence for a moment. Then he kept glancing at you from the corner of his eye, but was careful to not get caught. “How are you feeling?”

You blinked at the question. “I— I’m not sure how to answer that. Okay, I think. Are you?”

“You scared me today.” He admitted without thinking, his eyebrows furrowed.

“I’m sorry.” You mumbled, your fingers kneading the flesh of your thighs.

“I don’t need you to apologize. I need you to… Just never do that again, ok? I know you did nothing wrong and you were just standing there but don’t ever put yourself in a situation like that again.”

Your brows met in the middle, your mouth turning into a frown. “The path we are on is a dangerous one, Astarion… I can’t—“

“No. Nothing can happen to you. I won’t allow it.” His voice cracked, so he swallowed some of the emotion down. “So stay at the back, behind me, I don’t know. But I will not witness what I did today again, you understand me?”

“Okay,” You submitted with a nod, “It’s all still very hazy for me…”

“It was terrifying. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt like that.” He chewed his inner lip, surprised at the confession that had just hurled out him.

A haggard breath left you, before you abruptly stood up. You started to fumble with the buckle of your pants, staring out into the river as you took it off and tossed it behind you.

He watched you with confusion, “What in the hells are you doing?”

“I want to, I don’t know, feel alive. I need to reset. I can’t get the feeling I had when I came back out of my chest.” Astarion knew that feeling, had felt that feeling. And it still resurfaced sometimes.

You peeled off your shirt next, then your trousers, the clothes falling in a small pile at your feet — until you were suddenly stark naked standing on the edge of the dock.

Astarion did his best to hide his awe at you, standing confidently above him — completely nude and bathed in the dim evening light. You stood there for a moment, your chest rising and falling as you took quick breaths. “Well?”

With a sudden leap you jumped into the water, a joyful yelp escaping you as you splashed into it.

“Have you gone mad?!” He asked after you, holding his hands up in defense of the cold water that splashed from your movements.

“Yes! Join me in my madness.” You said with a loud laugh, the musical sound ringing in his ears. You threw your head back, your bare chest exposed as you flopped backwards and began to float in the water.

He looked at you like you were demented. “Oh, I don’t think so.”

“Astarion, come in. There are no ghouls or creatures. It’s nice.”

He set his jaw, his words coming through his gritted teeth. “I can’t — I haven’t swam in two hundred years.”

“Oh.” You realized, before standing in the water to show him, “It’s like the baths we took near the grove. You can touch the bottom, I’ll help you.”

His red eyes couldn’t resist roaming your wet figure, backlit in the evening light in front of him. Then he snapped his eyes away, turning his nose up, “You’re intolerable.”

“You love it. Now get that stubborn, pale ass in here.”

The vampire huffed as he stood up, “Hmmph, it’s a good thing you’re pretty, you know. Or everyone would reconsider why they condone your behavior.”

You flashed him a smile, before turning around and dunking your head into the water — giving him privacy to undress.

The vampire slid off his clothes, carefully piling them next to yours before staring down into the dark blue water.

Fun. That’s what you were searching for. Just a moment, a thrill. It wasn’t a distraction like what he had tried to do in the Last Light Inn. It was.. an escape. He could do that for you. It was probably one of the few things he could afford you.

“Oh hells,” He hissed through his teeth before jumping in after you.

Even as a cold-blooded creature, the water was a shock to his whole system. He felt goosebumps cover all of his flesh, his muscles drawing taught from shock. But as he surfaced and saw the delight flickering in your eyes, he instantly warmed. “Are you happy now, you wretched little thing?”

You didn’t reply, instead grinning and nodding childishly.

“Good.” He smiled back, “Now, what?” His feet could indeed reach the bottom, he stood in it, the water gently moving over his shoulders and collarbones in the lazy current. It was nice, but foreign — a sensation he was still trying to grow used to after all this time.

You bit your lip and shrugged, beginning to swim in a slow circle around him. Before sending a large splash of water over him.

“My hair!” He cried out, before his eyes narrowed and settled on you. “You minx, you’ll pay for that.”

Another laugh escaped you as you tried to outmaneuver him, your wet arm slipping through his hand as he tried to grab you. So he instead launched a counter wave back at you, splashing water across the back of your head.

“Muahaha!” The vampire let out, his grin spreading across all of his features.

Your smile was contagious, addicting. He could feel strain on his face from his own smile as he laughed with you, the longest a genuine one had been plastered on his face for centuries. The two you played in the shallow river, splashing and shrieking like children. It was liberating, he had never felt more free. Not even the day when he had realized he hadn’t perished from the sun’s attention. This was somehow better.

His wet, pale hand caught your wrist as you went to slide past him in your game of chase. You swallowed slowly, your plump mouth hanging open slightly as he tugged your closer to him — drawing you nearer until you were face to face.

Your eyes were hooded, staring at his mouth. But not possessively, not with the hunger and objectification he was used to. But with longing? How long had you been looking at him like this?

He tilted his head forward, meeting you halfway as yours lips pressed into his carefully. A soft groan escaped you as you felt him kiss you back.

His pale fingers grabbed your naked waist, pulling you into him so your bodies were flush — your chest cold and hard from the water pressed into his own. His fingertips dug into your fleshy side as you deepened the kiss, opening your mouth to him. Your hands trailed up chest, your fingers tips playing with the sensitive skin on the nape of his neck and moving into his hair. Your touch gentle yet firm — it was maddening.

It had been sometime since you’d touched each other like this, but there was something different tonight. Arousal was flooding through him, his lower belly tightening and warming as he hardened against your thigh. Gods, did he want you right now. And not to perform, not his almost ritualistic routine for Cazador’s prey. He just wanted you, needed you for only himself.

As he felt you push into him more, a low moan escaped him.

But then he felt a familiar shiver travel up his spine, disgust — not at you, or him. But at the tainted act. Haunting memories of back alleys and side rooms flooded through him.

Gods dammit.

He had wanted this — to kiss you, to be with you. To indulge for just a moment in you, even though he knew he could never truly have you. A temporary bliss to sate his thoughts of you, his need for you.

Loathing burned through him for ruining the moment. So, instead he tensed his jaw, furrowing his eyebrows as he continued. He could persist, he insisted to himself as his hold on your waist tightened.

You two had barely kissed twice more before you pulled away, completely breathless. You caught your breath, before looking up into his eyes, “I don’t want to go any further tonight, I’m sorry.”

He froze, before his fingers immediately left your waist. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, no! You’re wonderful. Just… a lot happened today, and I’m still overwhelmed I think. I hope you understand.”

He understood more than he could bare to say. “Of course.”

He’d never thought to just ask to stop. He never had the choice, the free will to. If he stopped he would have no prey for his master. Then he would be punished. And the punishment that Cazador would doll out for him was a much worse abuse then enduring the practiced torture he did with his victims. So he had just done it…

But you had asked. You had listened to yourself, and your wants and had stopped. You were vulnerable and honest in a moment of passion. You trusted him to listen.

You trusted him.

“And don’t apologize. Not for that.”

You pecked him on the cheek — your lips incredibly soft, it was only a puff of air across his skin. “We should probably head back — the others might be worried.”

He blinked back to reality, nodding along as different thoughts and memories flooded him. “The others, right.”

You both got dressed quietly, your clothes sticking to your damp skin and hair. You began to walk back towards the forest line, the dirt path leading back to camp looming in front of you.

Astarion glanced over at you, but blinked as he had realized he caught you staring at him. Your cheeks flushed brightly, before you ducked your head.

“Gale told me about what you did for me today.” You said quietly as you walked, your eyes fixed on the trail and hands twirling nervously at your side.

His steps slowed behind you, “Oh.”

You turned to face him, your eyes soft yet wide, “Shadowheart may have cast the spell. But you… you’re the reason why I’m here. Thank you for fighting for me.”

His heart thudded, as he felt an overwhelming urge to go to you. To hold you like he had in the river. His fingers twitched at his side as he instead swallowed and spoke, “Of course. You would have done the same.”

The sounds of the camp began to trickle down the trail, soft chatter by the fire could be heard from here. Surely meaning that any thing said between you now could also be overheard. You seemed to realize this as well as you turned back to him one last time.

“Astarion,” You called back. Every time you said his name, it was like a piece of him that he had long forgotten about came back to life. “I’m very glad I met you.”

He thought of all the moments that led to this one. Dying in that dirty, dark alley. Clawing his way out of his own grave. Two hundred years of misery, and begging, and torture. To the nautiloid and the god damn worm slithering in his head. And then to you — under him with his knife to your throat on the cliffside, flushed and dancing at the Tiefling party, sleeping soundly next to him in the inn. And to now, staring at him with your soft eyes and smile, your sweet laughs and touch still echoing in his ears and across his skin.

Maybe the gods had answered his calls after all — if he had been fated to meet you along.

“So am I,” He smiled back.

Continue to part III here!

[gallows-into-oblivion]

OC masterlist

this is a post that people can refer to if they want to send me asks about my OCs (writing prompts, for example). not that anyone would necessarily do that, but, eh.

if i ever post more than basic biographical information about my OCs, i will link those here.

while i have written other OCs, these are the ones that i've invested actual time into creating and that i feel capable of writing in more depth.

Dragon Age (sorted by world state):

- world state A:

Aster Tabris, he/him, elf. Hero of Ferelden. two-handed warrior. Zevran romance.

Zoran Kader, he/him, dwarf. Warden-Commander of Ferelden. dual wielding rogue.

Augustine Hawke, he/she, human. Champion of Kirkwall. two-handed warrior. Sebastian romance.

- world state B:

Ricardo de Rialto, he/him, human. Grey Warden, Warden-Constable and acting Archivist of Ferelden.

Nikha Brosca, she/her, dwarf. Hero of Ferelden, Warden-Commander of Ferelden. dual wielding warrior.

Blaise Morreau, she/her, elf. First Warden. rogue, archer.

Aislin Hawke, they/them, human. Champion of Kirkwall. two-handed warrior.

Katoh Adaar, they/them, qunari. Herald of Andraste, Inquisitor. mage.

Valéry Lavigne, he/him, human. tailor to the Inquisition, post-Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts. literally just some guy.

- world state C:

Hissra/Anastasia Adaar, they/them*, qunari. Herald of Andraste, Inquisitor, Divine Alexandria (conditional). not a mage. romance: Solas if Divine, Iron Bull if not. *uses she/her pronouns when in the role of Divine.

Baldur's Gate 3:

Aleksandr Greenwood, he/him, tiefling. monk. Lae'zel romance.

Suortaelivae, he/him, half-elf. Dark Urge. war domain cleric of Selûne. Shadowheart romance. he's also Ketheric's ex and the endgame is a poly triad with the three of them.

[amywritesthings]

the better strategy. / astarion x tav

summary: After successfully saving Druid Grove, Astarion has one goal in mind: secure his safety. His strategy? Seduce Tav. But what if that plan goes horribly wrong and he falls for his own game? pairing: astarion x tav (female, she/her) word count: 3.9k tags: tiefling party reimagined, act one spoilers, non-sexual intimacy, astarion's pov, allusions to astarion's past, selûne!tav // mature for thematic elements

part two. / masterlist.

PART ONE: THE ATTEMPT

.

“I can’t help but notice you’re not indulging.”

The minute the conflict within the goblin camp was over, the second the dust settled in the grove and the victory was imminent, Astarion knew precisely the trajectory he would need to take.

Call it his innate instinct — it wouldn’t take many brain cells to understand just who led this group of afflicted tadpole carriers, for better or worse, after such a battle.

At first he assumed Shadowheart would be the one he’d eventually stalk in the daylight, with her mysterious artifact clutched tightly to her chest. The follower of Shar, however, has about as many problems as her braid has sections.

She would not lead this group to triumph.

Lae’zel? Strong, but lacking in people skills.

Karlach? Strong, relatively agreeable, but suffering greatly from her fiery defect.

Wyll? Too many contracts, so little time to absolve them.

Gale? Not a chance in any of the Hells.

Tav, however…

Calm and collected Tav. Skilled and cunning Tav. Diplomatic and equitable Tav.

Brilliant in all shades of red, peppered across her skin in blood spatter — that Tav.

From the beach where he held a knife to her throat all the way to securing a victory for the refugee tieflings at a grove that never deserved her help, he’s watched this elven woman go from a nobody to a savior overnight.

Everyone vies for her attention. Everyone wants her approval.

Even now he witnesses her flutter through the throngs of beggars invading their sleeping space, trying their hands at flattery and praise. 

(Incredible, that her ego hasn’t shot to the heavens with the gods and goddesses themselves.)

So when she finally — finally — stops in front of his tent after her lap around the camp, he knows he must catch her attention.

Keep it. Suffocate it.

He holds an empty goblet for the sake of saving face amongst the traveling tieflings, not quite willing to divulge his little secret so willingly to strangers.

Tav stops walking to stand before him when she catches that he's talking to her. “Am I not?" she challenges, holding up her goblet. "I’m drinking.”

“Not as heavily as others,” he quips, blinking his attention to the downtrodden no-name tiefling to his left still going through the motions of war and loss.

Tav’s eyes follow Astarion’s, resting there on the tiefling for a moment. Astarion blinks back to watch her expression soften — empathy.

(He hates it when she does that.)

“No, I suppose not,” she begins to reason. “That being said, I must admit I was not born with an iron stomach like Gale — or given a gifted singing voice like Alfira — or find myself in the mood to expose my talent of strength like Lae’zel.”

He can see it in his peripheral — Wyll and Gale sharing a bottle of wine, discussing the parameters of magic while crowding a most-eager Alfira as her slender fingers strum well-loved strings. Shadowheart sits quietly to the side of Halsin, nodding her head to the steady stream of tunes, and Karlach whoops and hollers as Lae’zel takes down yet another tiefling opponent in a series of arm wrestling matches.

Astarion hums indifferently. “But you were the one who secured the demise of those leaders. They all should grovel at your feet.”

“I recall seeing a fire bolt or two ignite from your hand,” Tav teases, returning her attention to his face. The licks of light from the fire compliments her complexion so well. “It wasn’t an effort finished alone.”

“It was an opportunity for violence,” he reasons. “I wasn’t about to squander it.”

“Is that so?” she asks, seemingly unconvinced by his removed reasons.

“Besides, fighting and swordplay is all well and good, but you were the one to spin the spider’s web to convince that rigid drow to believe we were rallying to her cause,” he tut-tuts with his tongue. “I didn’t think you had it in you to lie.”

After a brief huff, Tav shakes her head. “Not my best strategy.”

Astarion’s brows slide high. “No? I beg to differ.”

“I just needed to buy more time so no one would get hurt,” Tav explains, and Astarion wants to outwardly groan at her heroics. He doesn't. “I had no interest in aligning myself with someone who wanted to bring so much pain. Zevlor led his people well — they ought to be the ones you praise.”

Gods, he really likes her best when she’s focused on battle. Feral, merciless, bold — not whatever this at the end of the fight. She’ll list the damned stray dog for valor before herself.

Still, Astarion catches himself before he can ruin his own performance and sharply inhales. He puts a knowing smile back on his face, voice smooth like tainted honey nectar.

“You could still stand to take a little credit, my sweet,” Astarion replies, “but if you’re not willing to take it, then allow me to personally pay it forward.”

The dance is as old as time itself. Astarion steps from the makeshift rug of his tent, finding himself in the plush earth beneath their feet. The party rages on around them with copious laughter and impromptu music and sloshing ale, but the vampire hears nothing, sees nothing, smells nothing — except her.

And, if he’s calculated correctly, she only sees him.

Jogging up to him after missions to check in on his opinion as if she truly gives a damn. Glancing back when she’s talking to all sorts of lowly creatures as if his opinion means anything to alter her otherwise fortified decisions.

He tries to goad her into the worst possible ideas — no, this person doesn’t need help; no, this idiot can rightfully get fucked for creating their own problems; no, we’re not accepting a mere thank you for payment of our services.

(It’s any wonder she has any gold in her pockets at all.)

Sometimes she listens. Sometimes she’ll demand payment — though, if he had it his way, Astarion would turn these godforsaken degenerates upside-down and shake them stupid until Tav drains them of every last coin for acting like she’s anything but a saint.

Sometimes she stands up for herself, and Astarion can’t help but giggle when these little leeches scramble to reroute back to her good graces.

If he was a lesser man, if he didn’t know better, then the vampire would have an insane thought behind these random acts of acknowledgement: that she values him.

Somehow, in some way, even after he’s managed to violate her trust, her body, her blood — all for his gain.

For his survival.

Now he’ll offer something similar as a sort of payback for her kindness. Unfortunately, his talents are something of a one-trick pony: take a ride, any ride, and he’ll provide the best bloody night of your life. Cazador all but forced it to be a guarantee.

In the end, offering his body to Tav will secure his position in this merry band of misfits.

It will keep him safe — even if he feels the bile rising in his throat as he prepares himself to bite his lip and play coy to her every desire and whim.

(He can prove she’s just as vile as the rest.)

“Pay it forward?” Tav asks as if she doesn’t already know.

“Everyone appears occupied,” he begins, each word dripping with intention. “I can’t imagine they’ll miss us for a spell.”

His crimson eyes find hers, searching for the answer he needs: desire – for him, for stress relief, for a chance to use a willing body to let go.

“There’s a clearing not far from camp,” he purrs, taking yet another step as he ducks his chin to meet her gaze. “You can see the moon brilliantly. And the trees will catch your pretty little cries, so I implore you to be as loud as you’d like.”

Yet he’s met with widening eyes without a single thought behind them. Her lips part, close, then part again. Astarion waits for the telltale signs he’s memorized for the last agonizing two centuries — quickening of breath, dilated eyes, shifting in her stance.

“I promise it will be a night you shall never forget.”

He smirks with haughty confidence, his swagger undoubtedly catching her eye. He won’t touch her , not yet — it’s always best to make the anticipation —

Wait.

There: her eyes widen a fraction larger, lips parting with a sharp inhale.

Then her nose scrunches as if… amused, and he’s lost the script.

The hells?

“Astarion,” she starts.

“Yes, my dear,” he coos, keeping that seductive air about him.

“I don’t…” Tav gives a small smile, apologetic in nature. “I appreciate what you’re offering. Flattered, even, but I’m not someone who…”

Astarion stops moving forward, taken aback by the hesitance in her voice. For someone so headstrong in their decisions within this group, this is the first he’s seen her so… girlish? Up until now, he’s never seen Tav react to anything without conviction.

He senses a running theme between such an annoyance and the unwavering faith of a cleric.

“Am I meant to use our wiggling little friend to complete that thought for you?” Astarion presses, fluttering his fingers parallel to his temple for dramatic emphasis.

Tav sighs, and he hates it. “It’s hard to find the right words.”

“Then we needn’t use them,” he persuades airily. “That’s what bodies are for.”

Gods, she gives this look — and by now, he knows it well. The same knowing stare she gave that wretched little gnome who dared speak ill of her even after his rescue. The same knowing stare she gave Wyll when he threatened to attack their fiery friend.

The game is up.

Astarion feels… cold. Rejected?

He didn’t wish to sleep with her in the first place, but he’s never been outright denied.

“Is the gaudy wizard that eats magic trousers more your type, then?” He flippantly twists the problem away, raising a brow of feigned disinterest. “Or perhaps it’s the bloodthirsty Githyanki who gets off on smelling sweat.”

Tav snorts, rolling her eyes in a way that makes his stomach churn.

Does she think him a joke? Not attractive? Not worthy of sleeping upon her bedroll?

He runs through a list of grievances the cleric may have with him when she finally finishes the lingering thought: “I’m not someone who deals in one-night trysts.”

Tav explains slowly, cautiously, as if trying to spare his feelings. Astarion would be offended if he wasn’t so confused.

“I recognize many of us are seeing these hours as our final to live. Yet I find no comfort or pleasure in sleeping with someone I barely know.”

“But you know me better than most,” Astarion argues under his breath, jutting his chin back. That isn’t entirely a lie — Tav’s has taken the inner workings of his past, his plight, and the monster itself in stride.

Tav is the one to take a step forward this time, her cup half-drunk from the wine Halsin poured. Suddenly another feeling twists in the vampire’s sated gut: surely she’s letting him down gently because she’s interested in that beast of a man.

(The druid is certainly less jagged around the edges, teeth and all.)

“Not well enough for something like that, though,” she replies, her smile light.

Astarion’s brows knit as he considers his options. His usual form of seduction hadn’t worked. Should he spin a story, a web of lies, to make her think she truly knows him? Should he push a little harder, make promises of delight and pleasure, to—

“I’d like to see this clearing you speak of, to see the moon. Connecting with Selûne would be wonderful to experience with you near,” Tav adds, interrupting his inner monologue, “if you’re still willing to show me.”

Oh.

That’s so…

Odd.

Why does he suddenly feel so out of place and odd?

“I…” Astarion has half a mind to wave her off, to say it’s a massive waste of his night when he could get his quota filled by someone else in this camp. Yet he’s compelled to stay, to stare, as he takes in her expression. “...if that is what you wish.”

Is this a game? Play ignorant, then arrive at the clearing for sex?

He can’t read her. He can’t place her smile into any sinister category. It only widens, bright like the moon above, and she brings her goblet to her lips.

The vampire finds himself watching as her neck bobs with the gulp she takes.

“Shall I see you once everyone rests?” Tav asks, suddenly having the upper hand in a situation that was supposed to be his and his alone.

All the vampire can do is nod, sensible not to say anything that will jeopardize the private meeting, and smiles with a strain when she walks away to talk to the tiefling moping on the edges of the camp.

Of course she talks the sad sack into joining the party.

Of course she fucking does.

.

.

.

.

There’s still a chance she might want him.

All this talk about not wanting to rush things or explore another person could have been for show. She’s the diplomat of this group of imbeciles, lest he forget. She probably couldn’t afford to look interested in him, much less anyone else, so not to cause tension.

No worry — he’ll come prepared, may the cards fall where they must.

Astarion creeps past his tent, shedding his white tunic to hang on a sturdy branch a mere foot’s step away from the clearing in question. His pale skin practically glitters and glistens in the light poking through the treetops, his complexion a stark contrast to the scars and lines of a body that’s only recently belonged to him.

He leaves his trousers on. He’s not a goddamn animal, after all.

“Astarion?” a rushed whisper sounds to his right, so the vampire turns in all his slender glory.

“You came,” he greets, grinning ear to ear with his entendre.

The wood elf stares back at him from a thick cluster of trees, notably confused by the way her brows knit and her nose scrunches. She assesses his vivid nakedness, but doesn’t make a comment — not yet.

Well, she doesn’t particularly look lustful.

Then her attention disappears entirely when she realizes just how clear said clearing is: a damn near perfect circle, where he’s prepared a small blanket held down by sizable rocks he’d found by the river while everyone started heading into their tents for sleep.

To an innocent eye, it’s nothing more than a midnight picnic.

If he had anything to say about it, then it would certainly become that. The only road block is Tav as she nears the makeshift lovebed in the center of the clearing.

“You didn’t have to use your blanket, you know,” she mentions, and Astarion is yet again left sputtering for a suave answer.

How the hells did she know that was his blanket and not that wretched Gale’s?

“It isn’t mine,” he tries — smooth, very smooth.

Tav makes a noise as she sits down on the blanket, head turning as she studies the lack of patterns or love in its weave. 

“I saw this in your tent,” she argues without conviction. “Lae’zel hates blankets. Mine are all accounted for. And Gale—”

“Alright, yes, it’s mine,” Astarion interrupts, peeved she’s more interested in playing detective than commenting on his broad chest.

The vampire awkwardly meets her on the blanket, sitting down with his heels dug into the dirt.

His legs stay in a raised triangle, knees to the sky, while Tav sits tall and crosses her legs under one another. Her slender fingers sit in her lap, annoyingly so, and Astarion stares at them to calculate a way he can smoothly bring them into his.

All he needs is to wriggle his way into this bizarre outing, to find what makes her tick, and he’ll be safe. It’s the only word running through his head at lightning speed.

Safe, be safe, make yourself safe—

Her gasp is light, possible to miss, but it takes him right out of the mantra to look up at Tav. Her smile is practically glowing as the moonlight bathes over her body, generous and… beautiful.

“You’re right,” she murmurs. “This is… beautiful, at this time of night.” Tav pauses, searching the constellations. “It’s so hard to pray, really, at camp. I don’t wish to offend Shadowheart.”

“What does Shadowheart’s approval have anything to do with your praying?” the vampire asks, feeling surreal that this is what her pillow talk has started with. Prayer. Religion.

(He’d gotten himself at least somewhat hard at the sight of how pretty she looked in the midnight air, ready to try his hand again, but now it’s all but softened with flattened disinterest.)

“Well, she worships Shar — the twin sister of my goddess, and they are not friendly.”

“So?”

“So,” Tav explains slowly, dipping her chin to observe him at her side. “I don’t wish Shadowheart to see me as an enemy just because of our differences in worship. But now you’ve shown me a place I could visit where I can properly speak to her — so thank you."

Astarion must look perplexed as all hell, because Tav studies his face, his naked torso, then back to his face again. He sits up straighter, unable to hide his annoyance in his rigid movements.

Tav shifts in her seat as well, but before she can continue her soft little chat about useless goddesses and Shadowheart’s temperamental feelings, Astarion clears his throat.

“Do you mean to tell me we are really not going to…?”

Tav’s lips purse, and Astarion’s gaze drops to them. They’re plush, soft – they wouldn’t be the worst to kiss. Hells, she looks soft. Her neck was delectable; her blood divine. It wouldn’t be the worst lay of his miserable little life.

“Sex,” he bluntly states, slashing straight through the bush instead of beating around it for the one-hundredth time when Tav doesn’t ask. “Are we not having sex tonight?”

Tav rears her head back, pulling away from him with a lean. “I… thought I already said we weren’t, back at the party—”

“Yes, and playing coy is all well and good, but I know you hold a candle for me, darling.” Astarion gestures around to the nothingness that surrounds the clearing. “No one is here to judge. No one is listening. It’s just us, so if you want—”

“I don’t.”

Talk about a sobering response.

The vampire squints, and finally — finally — Tav raises her chin with what can be considered a glare.

It’s cute, he’ll give her that.

“I already told you that I don’t simply sleep with people to do it.”

“And why not?”

“Because it’s never any good when it’s not with someone you care for, now is it?” Tav replies, exasperated by his poking and prodding. “Is this what all of this is for? The blanket, the… lack of a shirt?”

Astarion leans in. “Was it not obvious to you?”

“I thought you were overheated in the night!” she reasons, the blush on her face creeping up her neck to her cheeks. He sees it. He fixates on it. “I thought you were genuinely being my friend.”

Friend.

Oh, that one stings — he hates that it stings, that somehow he’s disappointed in himself for kicking the hornet’s nest when he had mostly been in her good graces up until now.

“If.. that’s all you wanted from me tonight, Astarion,” the wood elf slowly begins, curbing her temper with each word spoken, “then perhaps it’s best I leave—”

“No.”

Before he realizes it, the vampire grabs ahold of her free hand to stop her from pushing to her feet. His pale hand cages her wrist in, anchoring her to this shared spot, and he feels… well, not great.

But he can’t screw this up.

He cannot, under any circumstances, have her hate him.

“I’m sorry.”

The apology feels disgusting on his tongue, because he doesn’t quite mean it. He means a fraction of it, however, and that’s enough to push a genuine tone in his voice. 

“Please, just… sit with me, then.”

He continues to hold her wrist, taking it as a good sign that Tav hasn’t ripped it from his grasp yet. That, or she’s just giving him the nicety treatment she gives to all of her companions.

Slowly the woman lowers back to the blanket, and he realizes a beat too late that she’s turned her palm to face his.

What?

Tav sighs heavily and turns their hands with a delicacy that feels too sacred for an undead such as himself. Astarion’s palm faces the mercy of the moon when his long fingers, one sinful digit at a time, let go of her wrist.

She doesn’t move away.

“Intimacy is a gift so many people crave,” she begins softly. “I know I do. I know all of us do. It’s why we choose to stay together.”

“The bloody tadpoles in our heads are what keep us together,” Astarion flatly argues, but his voice is tighter as her fingers draw against the life line of his palm.

She huffs with a laugh. “That, too.”

She sits her fingertips atop his palm, hovering. A lump forms in his throat.

“I like when physical intimacy is just that — intimate. That’s not to say Lae’zel’s views or your own are wrong, but… just isn’t how it works for me.”

Astarion is immobile. Lost, quite frankly, in the sensation that’s so little yet feels like it could move mountains.

He’s terrified to breathe, to think, as she continues to press her hand gently to his.

“For me?” she continues. “This — knowing you have my back, and I have yours? That you sit here in front of my goddess and allow me a moment to think — that is intimacy.”

He exhales a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, before raising a defeated brow. “And this is pleasurable, for you?”

“Is it not for you?” she returns straight back like a rapid-fire arrow to the gut.

The vampire doesn’t know how to answer that. Yes, this feels… nice, but it also feels wrong. Like he’s holding a lamb before the slaughter.

She is too trusting.

This world, as horrific as it is, will swallow her whole. He will swallow her in a singular gulp, right down the gullet, before she can process his inevitable betrayal.

Yet what does that say about him — holding her hand, allowing her to manipulate his palm at will, in front of a goddess he doesn’t believe in? This is her sanctuary yet he does not burn.

When she returns her gaze back to the moon with the wonder of a person who doesn’t believe in eternal damnation for merely existing, Astarion cannot help but stare.

Not at the moon, no.

At her.

Astarion’s fingers experimentally curl around hers, testing the boundary.

He notices the way she smiles not long after.

It takes a second too late to realize that he is smiling, too. 

Well — shit.

[mistralrunner]

OC Masterlist

Inspired by @spectre-tabris I decided to do an OC masterlist since my OC page of details is in WIP hiatus

BALDUR’S GATE 3

Linthelea Z’hren Veladorn - LG drow lore bard/light cleric, Champion of Eilistraee, romanced Shadowheart Vyn - N deep gnome enchantment wizard, The Dark Urge, romanced Gale Dulaman - CG->CN dwarf blooded water genasi moon druid, Druid Mad Scientist, romanced Gale and Halsin Belnak Easgann - LN dragonborn feylock/wild magic sorcerer, The Lost Abeiran, romanced Lae’zel Kasan’dra - N->NG githyanki monk/Selûne tempest cleric, of Creche Chult, romanced Wyll Remanence - LG zariel tiefling devotion paladin, Avatar of the Zariel-Who-Was, romanced Karlach

ELDER SCROLLS

Nevawren - Skyrim/ESO, N bosmer bard with a giant warhammer/arcanist, The Last Dragonborn, Cryptid of Winterhold Kiskadei - Morrowind, N argonian effectively monk/cleric, Nerevarine, the Tribunal’s End Mynah - Oblivion, N dunmer thief/mage, Hero of Kvatch, the Grey Fox Astrapia - ESO, NG argonian warden, Rootmender, Ku-vastei Whimbrel-ko - ESO, NG khajiit dragonknight, Hero of Summerset, the Moon-Hallowed

PILLARS OF ETERNITY

Sinead - NG human (Natlan) skald chanter, The Watcher, Herald of Berath

DRAGON AGE

Rhovan Mahariel - DAO, LG smol Dalish warrior with a big sword, The Warden, Hero of Ferelden Tamara Hawke - DA2, CG human force mage, Champion of Kirkwall, romanced Fenris Menel Lavellan - DAI, NG Dalish rift mage, The Inquisitor (unfortunately), romanced Cassandra

D&D

Threnody - Dragon Heist Campaign, CN winged tiefling moon druid, Harper Lòchran Mòrcaora - Jungles of Chult Campaign, LG brass dragonborn twilight cleric, Sword Dancer of Eilistraee Cadha Talmhainn - LG dwarf moon druid, Professional Water Inspector Sirocco Shal’evaliir - NG half wood-elf hunter ranger, Book Hunter, Diplomat of the Chaos Trio Moirin Brandearg - N human maestro bard, Acolyte of the Morrigan

[selunesdreams]

Chapter 1: Old Flames Can’t Hold a Candle to New

“So what do you want?” Annoyance resurfaces on her face. “My blood? Sex?” Astarion responds with a snort of laughter. “Even if that were true, rest assured, you would survive the experience.” A smirk forms on his lips, his eyes still exploring her figure. Celeste’s jaw tenses. “What a relief.” He resists the urge to touch her cheek, opting instead to lean closer and murmur almost hypnotically in her ear. “Oh, I would be very gentle with you…” he begins, “the only manipulation you have to fear from me is the kind that would drive you mad with desire…” he purrs. A slight tingle ripples across her skin. She composes herself and brushes it off. “Cute, but no thanks.”

*Reposting after freshly editing chapter 1, currently this fic has 35 chapters, see masterlist here or read on AO3 for more*

Summary: Bored and restless in Gale's tower after their victory over the Netherbrain, Astarion sets his sights on bedding Celeste Delios, an archivist in the Waterdeep library and a former flame from Gale's past.

Celeste, a descendent of the goddess Selûne who has been hunted by Sharrans her entire life, finds herself skeptical of Astarion, but when he seeks her aid in locating a fabled ring that could grant him sunlight, she reluctantly agrees...

Astarion x Original Female Character

Word Count: 3.4k

Content (chapter): descriptions of violence, history of abuse mentioned, language, religion, (d&d/Selûne and Shar, not real), sexual themes. Smut & fluff in later chapters, see AO3 tags or for detailed fic tags and warnings.

Astarion absentmindedly flips through a battered necromancy text at the Castle Waterdeep library, holding his thumb between his teeth. He bristles with frustration, bouncing one leg under the table. Nearly midnight, the moonlight filters through the skylight above.

This has now become a regular occurrence for him.

After the defeat of the Netherbrain and subsequent loss of the tadpole that had granted him immunity to the sun, Astarion had been lodging in Gale Dekarios’ tower, growing accustomed to spending his nights in Waterdeep lurking about the Docks Ward for the past several weeks.

In the beginning, he observed the nightlife from a corner of the Blushing Nymph, a festhall brimming with debauchery. He had hoped to bury his boredom, and perhaps himself, in the company of a stranger, but none of the locals particularly caught his eye.  

He’d never admit it to Gale, but a few nights ago, he took the wizard’s recommendation to peruse Castle Waterdeep’s private library. Astarion had heard whispers in Cazador’s palace of an arcane ring that could allow a vampire to walk in the sun, and if he was going to waste his time playing roommate with Gale and his other companions, he might as well make the most of his spare time. In his search through the stacks, he’d come up empty, thus far, instead finding himself intrigued by something - someone - else entirely.

Tonight, she immerses herself in a tome, her long, ashen hair cascading down her back, intermingling with darker shades of blonde. Her hand rests on her sharp chin as she furrows her brow, jaw clenched, a hint of frustration clear in her focused expression. He’s first noticed her several nights ago and, with nothing better to do, returned to old instincts, watching her from afar, as if stalking prey. His intentions were only slightly questionable. Mostly, he was curious. 

His interest in her hadn’t gone unnoticed. Celestria caught on to the library’s new regular almost immediately. She had spent years with little nighttime company, and his wasn’t a face one soon forgets. Tonight, however, he’d been difficult to ignore. Her concentration wavered under the weight of his intense stare.

“Can I help you?” she asks, annoyed, not looking up from her book. The vampire clears his throat and glances to the side, shaking off a bit of embarrassment from the way she addresses him. Despite his efforts to uphold his charm, he feels unsettled.

“What are you reading? It looks like it has your undivided attention.” He says in a casually flirtatious tone. 

“You know,” she says, still not looking at him, “people typically seek silence, not conversation, in a library.”

Astarion suppresses a twinge of annoyance at her sarcastic remark. Her aura of indifference may be genuine, or perhaps a carefully crafted facade. Regardless, he’s determined to figure her out, unsure if his own curiosity stems from intrigue or a more self-serving motive.

“Are you studying?” he persists, attempting to get through her haughty demeanor. 

“No.” Although she’s not outright rude, her lack of interest in engaging with him is apparent.

Unfortunately for her, Astarion loves to insert himself where he’s not wanted, as long as it’s entertaining. 

“Awful late to be lingering in a private library.” Standing up, he makes his way towards her table, hovering over her. She sighs dramatically and slams her book shut.

“Yet you’re in here, several nights a week, and never during daylight. I’ve seen you around. If you’re trying at all to conceal your nature, you’re doing a piss-poor job of it, vampire.” She gives him a pointed look.  

So she has noticed him.

His curiosity gets the best of him. “Really?” He bends down, extending an arm to lean on the table. 

“Your reading choices aren’t hiding your secret well, either.” She adds, gesturing to his book. Astarion raises an eyebrow and flips it over in his hands before stowing it away behind his back.

Her deduction doesn’t alarm him, particularly because she doesn’t seem to mind his vampirism, just his personality at the moment. 

“I’m a spawn…if we’re being specific.”

She ignores his correction. “How did you even get a pass? There’s no way you’re sneaking past the guards every night.” Astarion grins. 

“I used to be a magistrate back in Baldur’s Gate. I still know how to pull some strings. If anyone asks though, I’m here on behalf of Gale Dekarios’ pass,” he says in a low voice. Her face flashes with recognition and her body language relaxes, but only slightly. 

“Gale? Were you part of that lot that saved Baldur’s Gate with him? Big hero sort?” She doesn’t sound unimpressed, but she’s not in awe of him either, which is a relief. 

“It would be quite a stretch to call me a hero, my dear.” Astarion replies, “It was a tad self-serving as well, if I’m being honest.”

“Oh?” She shows intrigue for the first time in their conversation, rising from her chair and reaching for the tome behind his back. He releases it with a slight scowl and she reshelves it before leaning against a bookcase.

“I wouldn’t say I’m particularly villainous, but I’m far from a paragon of virtue.” Astarion’s eyes rove over her body as he speaks. She searches his face for a moment before extending her hand. 

“Celestria Delios, but Celeste is fine. I’m an archivist here.” Astarion shakes her hand, his lips curling into a sly grin. Her grip is elusive, carefully placed to avoid her hand being squeezed too hard or to allow him to gain any leverage over her. It was a trick he’d used from time to time as well, and it only made her more interesting. 

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Celeste. Astarion.”

“No last name?”

“Not one you need to concern yourself with.” He answers coolly before changing the subject. “So what’s with the…eyes, if you don’t mind my asking? You don’t quite appear…typical.” 

Now that he’s closer, he can see the features of her face - there’s certainly something ethereal about them. Her hair frames the peak of her cheekbones in delicate waves, a strand brushing against the soft cleft of her chin. Her eyes aren’t atypical for a moon elf, a deep, green-blue hue, but the outside edges of her irises have an almost lunar glow to them.

Celeste gives him an apprehensive look and arches her eyebrow. “I’d love to hear your thoughts.”

“I have several guesses,” his voice takes on a playful tone. “Not a fiend or cambion…” he muses, mischeviously making a show of checking her out, as if looking for a tail. She narrows her eyes and pivots.

He pauses for a few moments, watching her intently. “Are you of the Upper Planes?” he continues to gaze at her, trying to gauge any additional clues.

She hesitates. “My mother was, in a sense. I’m…second generation.” Astarion’s eyebrows raise in genuine surprise.

“And your father?”

“Moon elf.”

“Curious,” he murmurs, pushing himself from his leaning position on the table and reaching forward to tuck a strand of her hair aside to observe the soft point of her ears. She flinches a bit but has nowhere to back away.

She tilts her head to the side. “Excuse you.”

“Apologies.” he retracts his hand with an appeasing smile, raising his palms defensively. “Still adjusting to civilization.” He adds innocently. “Is there a reason you’re being so vague, my dear?” 

“For my own good.” She grabs a stack of books off a nearby table, beginning to sort and shelve them. Astarion follows her, keeping the conversation going as she works.

“Is there danger in being open about your origins?” He lowers his voice and his lips curl upwards flirtatiously. “Are you something controversial?” 

“Nothing like that. Just…” she sighs, considering whether she can trust this strange vampire. She knows enough about Gale Dekarios and the company he keeps, however, to deduce Astarion likely poses no immediate danger to her.

“If people knew everything about me, they may seek to exploit my nature. Or hand me over to others who do.”

“So now you hide out in this library? Are you an archivist because you want to avoid interacting with people? Or to hide that… inner light of yours?”

“Perhaps I just like keeping late hours.” She says with a soft grin. Astarion smiles back at her, enjoying the progress he’s making against her tough exterior. 

“Well my dear, whoever these people are that have driven you to hiding in the shadows, I assure you..” he begins, leaning closer to catch her eye once more and softens his voice, “I would never seek to harm or control you.”

“So what do you want?” Annoyance resurfaces on her face. “My blood? Sex?”

Astarion responds with a snort of laughter.

“Even if that were true, rest assured, you would survive the experience.” A smirk forms on his lips, his eyes still exploring her figure.

Celeste’s jaw tenses. “What a relief.”

He resists the urge to touch her cheek, opting instead to lean closer and murmur almost hypnotically in her ear. “Oh, I would be very gentle with you…” he begins, “the only manipulation you have to fear from me is the kind that would drive you mad with desire…” he purrs. A slight tingle ripples across her skin. She composes herself and brushes it off.

“Cute, but no thanks.”

“Is that so?” Astarion leans in and boldly scans her face as if to challenge her. She squints at him.

“Work on your flirting. It’s a bit…desperate.”

He scowls.

She opens a book, checking a few pages before making space on the shelf for it. “What’s your angle here?”

“Come now, why such mistrust? The offer is tempting, isn’t it? You know, I recently encountered a drow alchemist who practically begged for me to drink her blood. Unfortunately…” his voice trails off, nose wrinkling at the memory, “she wasn’t my type.” 

“In that case, you’re looking in the wrong place. Archivists are more interested in studying fascinating subjects than experimenting with them.” She says to him dryly. “Who do you feed on, anyway? I haven’t noticed any mysterious disappearances in Waterdeep lately. Well, any more than the norm.”

“Animals, mostly. Kobolds, bears…” he says, his voice fading away in thought. “There was a time when I was occasionally gifted a foul rat, but now I have a greater selection to choose from. I have to admit that animals have been my primary source of sustenance since I escaped my former master. I’ve had a generous enemy, now and then. And Gale, once. What?”

“Gale?”

“I don’t recommend it.” Astarion says. “Bad side effects.” Celeste lets out a noise that could almost be mistaken as a suppressed laugh. 

“If you’re a spawn, where is your master? I don’t see him lurking about.”

Astarion’s face becomes rigid. “Cazador Szarr,” he begins gruffly. “is dead. Right before that battle in Baldur’s Gate, Gale and some of my… friends,” he pauses, considering the word, not quite used to it, “... helped me kill him before he could kill me. I’m free of him now, to live as I wish.” 

“How terrible. I’m sorry.” Celeste feels a moment of sympathy for him, as if the revelation explains his behavior. She’d sensed all the grandiosity and flirtation was a front to conceal something deeper.

Astarion shrugs, his face once again displaying its usual glamour. “Let’s not dwell on it.”

“Perhaps we have more in common than I thought.” She suggests. Astarion’s expression turns curious once more. 

“In what ways are we similar?”

“Well, for starters,” she bends and picks up her things from the table. “We both seem to be nocturnal.” Winking at him, she saunters off.

Astarion can’t help smiling to himself.

As she walks under the skylight, the moon’s glow illuminates her hair until she disappears into the library’s basement. After considering what she said, he leaves the library and wanders back to Gale’s tower through the Dock Ward. It’s late, but Gale would still be up.

The Dock Ward was notoriously raucous and its stench of rotting fish isn’t particularly appealing to Astarion, but Gale lived close enough to the edge of the Castle Ward that Astarion had to only tolerate the walk there. The immediate vicinity of the tower itself was more pleasant, only a few blocks from the estate of one of the richest men in Waterdeep.

Moreover, Astarion frequently held the privilege of often being the most dangerous thing lurking in the darkness, anyway. 

Gale’s description of his home as a tower had felt like an exaggeration once Astarion had seen it. It wasn’t a small dwelling, but it certainly wasn’t some grand castle-like structure, either. Though Astarion would never reveal it, he found it quite comfortable. His sunlight aversion and insistence on being alone during the day led to his seclusion in the windowless attic. Regardless, he was grateful he didn’t have to make arrangements on his own elsewhere. 

His and Gale’s fellow traveling companions occupied the other guest rooms. After defeating the Absolute, Astarion and Shadowheart returned to Waterdeep with Gale, having nowhere else to go. Minthara and Karlach had gone to Avernus in search of a way to fix Karlach’s infernal engine, a hellish machine that kept her alive but threatened to make her combust on the mortal plane. When they’d come to Waterdeep, triumphant, the two were quite happy to share a room, a development that none of their party found surprising by the way Minthara doted on Karlach during their travels. Shadowheart had the unfortunate fate of sharing a wall with the two of them, but didn’t complain too often. 

Their other companions had moved on, embarking on fresh beginnings. Last Astarion heard, Wyll was in Baldur’s Gate, helping his father, Duke Ravengard, protect and rebuild the city. Lae’zel was gods know where, but seemed fulfilled carrying out her duties amongst the Githyanki. Jaheira and Minsc stayed behind as well, surrounded by Jaheira’s family and her remaining Harpers. Halsin had taken their animal companions, Scratch and an owlbear cub, back to the Grove, happy to escape the city. Gale’s home had effectively become an orphanage for dysfunctional vagabonds. 

Engrossed in a book by the fire, Gale sits with his tressym, Tara, perched beside him as Astarion enters the den. A pang of envy at his friend’s idyllic, quiet life tugs at Astarion as he lingers in the doorway - something he feels he will never quite have, but all the same, isn’t sure he’d enjoy so much. He frequently finds himself restless in Waterdeep, but doesn’t have a clue where else he could go right now. His newfound freedom still overwhelms him. 

He settles in the chair opposite Gale, gracefully crossing one leg over the other. “I believe I met an acquaintance of yours this evening at the library.” 

Gale looks up at him. “Oh?” Astarion nods.

“Her name was Celeste.” A look crosses Gale’s features that Astarion can’t quite identify. “What?” He inquires with a raised eyebrow.

“I knew her. Long ago. Archivist, yes? Weird eyes?” Gale gestures in a circular motion around his face as he asks the question. Astarion dips his chin. 

“That’s the one.”

“Oh, a lovely girl she was,” Tara says dotingly, leaping to the floor and resettling near the fireplace to groom her paws.

“Your cat has met her? How well did you know her?”

“Tressym, dear.” Tara warns.

“We ran in similar circles as teenagers.” He says, clearing his throat and averting his gaze. Astarion notices his discomfort but doesn’t comment on it.

“She was quite elusive with the details of her life.”

As Gale stands up, “Well, she’s quite cautious. I’m only privy to the deeper details of her…heritage because of my relationship with Mystra.” He peruses a nearby shelf as he speaks. He pulls an old book out and dusts it off, handing it to Astarion, who glances at the spine, looking for its title: The Lost Children of the Moon. 

“She’s a Moonborn.” Gale says, “History’s all there. Are you familiar?” With a flick, Astarion turns a few more pages.

“I thought her kind were just stories, honestly.” Astarion responds, reading a paragraph:

It is said that the Moonborn originated from Selûne during her conflicts with her sister Shar, the mistress of the night. Selûne crafted the Moonborn from her shimmering shards and silver essence, fashioning them into celestial servants of the moon. These beings were bestowed with humanoid forms and tasked with safeguarding life and illuminating the darkness.

The book shows a map of Faerûn, illustrating the potential places of Moonborn settlements, one in Waterdeep near the House of the Moon temple, another near Snowdown. There are a few potential locations marked, loosely cited. 

“Who writes these kinds of volumes?” Astarion asks. “This seems like a rare text.” 

Gale grins. “It is. I’m guessing a Moonborn themselves wrote it long ago. It came into my possession during my time with Mystra, entrusted in my care,” he says proudly. 

“Fucking Mystra, again.” Astarion mutters. Though the goddess had removed the threat of the orb from Gale’s chest that made him a walking time bomb, and Gale had disengaged with her, he still reminisced with a distant fondness, no doubt proud he’d once convened with a goddess.

“Celeste was part of the settlement of Moonborn here in Waterdeep.” Gale muses. “Just over a decade ago, when she was a teenager, the Moonborn suffered a devastating attack by the Sharrans. Her entire family died, and as she tells it, she nearly perished with them, but Selûne intervened. How, I’m not sure.”

“So she’s just been wandering her whole life since then, alone?” Astarion asks.

“Not wandering.” Gale responds. “Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure Jaheira and the Harpers took her in for a little while when Celeste was turned away from an orphanage in Baldur’s Gate because of her age. Either way, she ended up back here. She’s been at the library for years. I don’t think she likes her quiet existence, just rather she’s forced into it. Hard to make friends when you have a big secret to keep. Surely you know something about that.”

Astarion listens to Gale but doesn’t engage, distracted by the book in his hands. “She said she’s nocturnal. Can her kind not live in the sunlight?” 

“They can.” Gale answers. “My understanding is that it’s just not preferable. She always found the daytime draining, as I recall. I’ve only ever seen her in the evening or early morning hours.” 

“Is she immortal then, too?” Astarion asks. 

Gale shrugs. “I’m not sure. Both Moonborn and moon elves have long lifespans, and Moonborn stop aging around 28 years. It’s rare to come across even immortal beings who don’t meet their demise within a few centuries.”

“You seem to know…quite a lot about her.” Astarion comments, closing the book and leaning forward. A hint of blush appears on Gale’s cheeks. 

“Like I said, we…knew one another.”

“Oh?” Amusement tinges Astarion’s voice.  

“Yes.” Gale says, looking at the fire. “We, ah...” his voice tapers off. “Before Mystra, Celeste…was my first.”

“She took your virginity?” Astarion lets out a bark of laughter and Gale shoots him a disapproving look.

“It wasn’t anything special. I had no clue what I was doing. She was…nice about it. We were young. I’d rather not dwell on that detail. I’m sure she’s eager to forget about it herself. Mystra had my entire attention soon after.”

Gale walks to the stove and puts on a kettle of hot water. “Perhaps Celeste and Shadowheart would have something to chat about.” He muses.

“So she’s a survivor of tragedy, a chosen of Selûne,” Astarion grins, “and a crush of yours.”

Gale scoffs. “I think I’ve had my lifetime’s fill of immortal and nearly-immortal women. But what’s this about, Astarion? I’ve never known you to be so intrigued by anyone during our travels together.” Gale regards him suspiciously. “Rather, what’s in this for you?”

“Curiosity.” Astarion waves his hand dismissively.

As Gale retreats to his room, Astarion reverts his attention back to the book.

Throughout history, the Moonborn have dedicated themselves to combating nocturnal evils, including deranged lycanthropes and vampires, striving to uphold the sanctity of light and life.

“Well…fuck.” He mumbles to himself.

When the morning sun appears on the horizon over Waterdeep, beginning to cascade through the curtains, Astarion wearily climbs the stairs to the attic. He eases into a trance, eager for night to fall once again.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! If you feel so inclined, ANy interaction/kudos on AO3 or Tumblr means the world to me! You find the full fic on AO3 here! Thank you so much! x