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podcastenthusiast · 1 year ago

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I dunno why I wrote this instead of like a nice lighthearted story about Astarion getting a sunburn or something.

Anyway here's the aftermath of the night Cazador carved the Infernal binding into his back. Lots of sibling interaction.

Pain is a strange thing. Given a long enough span of time, it can become almost pleasurable, or at least a neutral sensation. You feel the hot sharp sting of Cazador's blade cut into your back over and over. But you are disconnected, floating above it all.

You're quiet now, tears running down your cheeks. You loathe giving him the satisfaction of seeing you weep but it is beyond your control at this point--an automatic physical response to prolonged, overwhelming agony.

Your body is motionless under his hands. If you move, he will have to start over again.

"I suppose that will do. You may return to the dormitory, boy."

He sounds vaguely disappointed. A poem, he'd told you. Somehow you have failed as a canvas for his artistic mutilation. Too much avoidable editing, perhaps. You wonder why he didn't simply paralyze you, but you suspect he enjoys finding reasons to punish you. Perhaps this was a punishment? Whatever the cause, if any at all, you are relieved to be spared the kennel.

"Yes, Master," a hollow voice replies. You realize it is your own. Just like the blood on the carpet. You wonder if you will be made to clean it later.

Dismal gray light mocks you through the wondows. Dawn. He spent an entire night engaged in bloody composition, your pale skin vellum for his creative vision.

You stagger, legs shaking, to the room you share with your siblings. It is a miracle you manage the stairs without falling. Or you assume you do; there is a momentary lapse of consciousness and you find yourself curled up tightly in a ball on one of the bottom bunks, your back to the wall as if that could protect the tender flesh from anyone wishing to do you further harm.

Yet even in suffering you aren't afforded any privacy. Your sister's soft voice drifts in like the tide.

"My last mark was an alchemist's apprentice. She... well, I have a healing salve. It's yours, if you'd like. I owe you for stitching up my arm."

She is clever to disguise her kindness, although you both know better.

"You're my favorite, Dal," you say, barely more than a whisper. It hurts to speak. Your throat is so raw from screaming.

"Mhm. I need to assess the damage."

You hear Dalyria stifle a horrified gasp when she sees what he did to you. You feel disgusting. Ashamed.

Always a doctor, you think with admiration. It must be nice to know yourself. Your world has become so small, the person you once were such a distant memory.

The brisk professional detachment in her tone is oddly comforting. With great effort, you maneuver yourself onto your stomach. You are already shirtless, which is fine; just the idea of fabric touching your maimed back, or what's left of it, makes you feel a bit faint.

"Brother... gods..."

Her voice sounds brittle, choked: the air of unshakable physician's confidence is suddenly gone. There is only your little sister here, teetering on the edge of tearful. You can't bear it. You've cried more than enough for yourself tonight already.

"Come now, darling, none of that," you soothe, all false cheer. "No sense letting some--frankly probably mediocre--poetry upset you, hm?"

She's seen you wounded before, obviously. They all have countless times. You wound each other and yourselves, on his orders or sometimes just because you csn, because you're starving or viciously bored, and that's only when the master and that bloody skeleton can't be bothered. Dalyria no doubt contended with worse injuries in her mortal life, too. She can bear the sight of your blood easily enough.

Why, then, is this particular instance so different? What does she see etched on your flesh?

"Tell me, Dal, be my mirror. Is it... Am I hideous?" you ask, terrified to lose the one asset of real value you have anymore.

"Of course not, brother," she says. How bizarre it feels for you, an expert in deception, to be the one lied to. "But...this might be beyond a salve."

"Try," you plead with her, hoping it sounds more like a command. You are desperate for any relief from the waves of nauseating pain breaking over you.

"Okay."

The healing salve is cool against your skin and somewhat numbing, easing your aching muscles, but it is not itself magical. The deep cuts do not mend. You suspect Cazador's blade probably was enchanted to prevent effective healing. He wouldn't want to risk having his hard work undone by a pilfered potion.

"It will scar, I'm afraid," she says, as if you aren't painfully aware of that fact.

"As he intended."

She hums whilst she works. Sometimes you like to imagine there are simple things like that Cazador can't take from you all. But the truth, you know, is that he could if he desired it. Could render you mute, mindless thralls if he didn't relish the sound of your screams.

"Oh hells, what's Astarion done now?"

Great. Petras. There is a voice you wouldn't mind never hearing again. Just when you were beginning to believe you might be able to rest a little.

"Shut up," you snap. Your nerves are frayed. He would be wise not to test your extremely limited patience right now.

But wisdom has never been your brother's strong suit.

"Just saying If you didn't give so much lip maybe the master wouldn't have to beat you too badly. Even dogs can learn that eventually."

"Thank you, Petras, as ever a bastion of wisdom," you say through gritted teeth.

"What did you call me?!"

"Enough, you two! Please don't fight," Dalyria begs, like always.

"I deliver twice the marks he does," Petras insists, which you doubt is true given his everything. He'd have to knock out half of his targets and drag them here. "Still struts about like he fucking owns the place only to roll over for the master--"

"Look at him, brother! His back..."

"I'm right here, you know," you say, but it doesn't matter.

Your siblings fall silent. A heavy silence, tomb-like. He has seen Cazador's masterpiece. Finally something shuts him up.

"Oh. Fuck," Petras breathes after a moment. He's verging dangerously on sympathetic. It's too much.

"Damn it, what?! Haven't you ever seen a man flayed before? Is his poetry really that awful? Gods, it's a tasteless limerick, isn't it."

You laugh, bitter and dry, because otherwise you think you'll fall apart. You wish they would all stop looking at you.

"I don't know," your sister says. "I can't read these symbols. Perhaps Aurelia--"

"Must we show absolutely everyone?" you protest.

"Well, I've never seen anything like it," your idiot brother adds unhelpfully. "Seriously, what did you do? Leon, come look at this!"

Wonderful. You're starting to feel like a sick art exhibition. Exposed. It would be funny were it not tragically happening to you. You don't think your siblings would actually harm you in this vulnerable state, not without a direct order. Well, maybe that oaf Petras.

"Master carved him up like a goose," Petras explains to your newest brother once he, too, has beheld the gruesome spectacle that is your tattered skin.

"Why? I mean, there must be a reason. Did you break a rule? Were you caught reading again?"

"He doesn't need a reason," you remind your brother.

Leon is not stupid; he's just scared. He still believes this torture was justified somehow, the logical consequence of failure or willful disobedience, that any sense can be made of the master's capricious moods. He needs to believe it can't happen to him--or especially not his young daughter. You let go of such silly notions a century before Leon was born.

"What does this mean, then?" he wonders quietly. "For the rest of us?"

Even with your face pressed into the pillow, you know what their expectant silence means. They are looking to you for answers. Guidance. How to protect themselves. You understand the master's cruelty as well as one could, having endured his sadistic whims longer than any of them.

"This hasn't ever happened before," you admit. "I don't know why he did it or what he might be planning next. And no, I didn't disobey. I doubt it means anything at all."

"I know what it means."

Violet, right on cue. Mischievous eyes and that stuffed owlbear clutched to her chest, you're certain.

"What?"

"Astar-ion has been cho-sen," your sister declares. Sings, really. Her voice is sickly sweet. Sugar laced with poison.

"Chosen?" Petras scoffs. "Sure. Perks of being the master's special little bitch--"

You spring up from the mattress completely without thought, like you've been compelled to act, but it is only rage driving you to grab your brother by the throat and pin him roughly against the wardrobe. It all happens so fast Dalyria doesn't even scream.

"Say that again," you snarl. "I dare you."

You recognize the briefest flash of fear in Petras' eyes. Perhaps he has a shred of respect for you after all, deep down. He clearly envies you, the deluded fool.

"Get off me!"

He pushes you away from him and, still weak, you stumble and fall flat on your back. Your vision goes white with seering pain; a wretched keening whine escapes your lips. You don't move to get up. You're not entirely sure you could. Dalyria rushes to your side, wringing her hands.

Violet, standing in the doorway, giggles and takes off running down the hall. Petras storms after her, furious, with Leon trailing uncertainly behind them.

Dalyria sighs--such a profoundly tired sound you feel it resonate in your bones.

"You look like a dying animal," she says affectionately.

"I feel like one."

She offers a hand. Helps you up from the floor.

"Ignore him. Please. At least until you heal," she implores you. "I won't have you undoing my efforts. You shouldn't let Petras get--"

"Under my skin?"

"I was not going to say that," she says, glancing away, sheepish. You don't know how she lures anyone back here when she can't lie to her own family.

"You were."

"Was not."

"Were."

"Not."

"Yes."

"No."

You both switch from Common to Elven, then you trip her up with Orcish.

"You're impossible!" Dalyria pouts. But your sister is smiling. A rare sight indeed. You tuck it away somewhere deep within your dead heart, for safekeeping. "Now please rest. Doctor's orders."

You feel cold. Afraid. Slightly delirious with pain and exhaustion, you ask, "What if I'm dying?"

Her expression softens. She isn't smiling anymore.

"You're not going to die," she says. Then, quieter, as you slip away into a trance: "Death is a mercy not meant for us."

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #astarion #bg3 fanfiction #baldur's gate iii #dalyria is my poor little meow meow #yes she probably murdered a child but she's the best girl around #i haven't actually played the game in two days because i was writing this

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vidumavi · 1 year ago

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If you ever want to elaborate about Berúthiel, please do! Your thoughts are so elegant and interesting

-@outofangband

I do want to talk about Berúthiel i love her so much. Thank you for the ask <3

At first, she's set up to be a fairly ordinary tragedy- a girl is married off into an unhappy marriage to a royal from elsewhere for the sake of political alliance, her only purpose from then on is producing heirs. She hates her husband, she hates the kingdom she was shipped off to where everyone thinks she's strange and foreign. That's a sad story but it's ultimately one among many sad stories like it.

Except somehow, she either genuinely has a gift for sorcery or is cunning enough to make people believe she does (or to play into rumours that already existed). She also decides to lean into her anger rather than try to assimilate or garner people's favour- not an easy thing to commit to, since she's trapped at the mercy of her husband with no means of escape, but she returns everyone's scorn tenfold and builds a reputation that makes people afraid enough to still whisper her name thousands of years later. Maybe they called her evil and a witch from the beginning and she thought I will be ten times worse than you think me and took it as a challenge rather than a reason to grovel. Maybe she set out from the beginning with the plan to make them suffer her presence if she had to suffer theirs, I don't know; I do know that she managed to snatch the one thing from her husband that he needed her for: somehow, through all their years of marriage, there are no heirs, though nobody knows why (cat-based sorcery is suggested). She claws back (ha) an outrageous amount of agency for someone in her position.

(Not even the political alliance plan works out because her husband's successor conquers Umbar where she likely came from 20ish years later. That's another thing: she had to marry into a family she probably knew was a danger to her home)

I think her husband tried to kill her. He has plausible deniability, sure, but I don't think you put someone notoriously hostile to all things ocean on a boat and send her out to sea if you're trying to facilitate a safe journey (sidenote: I think it's interesting how she hated the sea her whole life and then she's put out to sea in what might have been a murder attempt. I like to think there was some foresight involved). Nobody knows for sure what happened to her, except that she was last seen at sea, but she doesn't die in Gondor, that's why i called her a haunting without a ghost: her name (a name that was likely given to her after she moved to Gondor) remains until the 4th age (forever tainting the name of the royal family a little, forever referencing an episode that heavily features Gondor's racism and imperialism (and like, misogyny in general). I think she'd be very uncomfortable for some of them to sincerely think about, which is part of why she's vilified so much) but she herself did escape in the end.

#AND she's a lesbian. and she's probably poisoned some people. and she is my poor little meow meow #there are so few fucked up women in tolkien berúthiel and thuringwethil are holding down the fort almost by themselves </3 #but i will love them all the more for it #i also love YOU thank you for giving me an excuse to ramble about her #berúthiel #in case you are wondering yes i did forget her husbands name which is what he deserves

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