#tav - vane

[stardustspecter]

whats a modern au without a café?

[ladyduellist]

Epistles of Saints & Sinners

Chapter Summary:

Reflections are made on Tav and Astarion's intimate night together before entering the Goblin Camp.

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Story Summary:

When Astarion meets the humble bard, Tav, he soon finds out he's the only one between them that knows they are bound as soulmates through their marks. Deciding it's more trouble than its worth, he refuses to tell her along the course of their journey across Faerûn.

But, unbeknownst to him and their companions, Tav is harboring a gruesome secret that she only thought was nothing more than a traumatized period in her life.

As they both come to face to face with their pasts and presents, will they choose to move forward or let it consume them?

Healing isn’t linear—after all.

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Chapter 7: Beholden

Ao3

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Word Count: 3.8k

Pairing: Astarion x female bard Tav

CW: Blood, Violence, Language, Act 1 Spoilers

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We must follow nature’s course. Whether it be cruel or kind. We cannot interrupt its plan for the world. Their tadpoles connected them in more ways, than a simple acknowledgement of their shared affliction. But, boundaries are toilsome when broken. And creeping upon their coasts, will cost a sacrifice yet to be demanded.

— Halsin, journal entry 1,200

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There was a stir of a song being born. One from the buds of untilled soil thought dead. The words to accompany it were being haphazardly forged on parchment, like random notes written on coffee-stained napkins.

Tav hummed and wrote. Wrote and hummed. It was an all-consuming process that transfixed her until it was completed. And her lucky muse? A wreath of ghostly ringlets framing two eyes of garnet that haunted the pounding organ behind her cage of bones.

♫On your chariot of umbra, You rode up from the world below, And with a kiss of starlight you…um??? Youuuuuu….♫

“Hope I’m not pesterin’ you. Saw you over here by your lonesome,” Karlach interrupted as she approached the lounging minstrel with a lopsided smile and a ‘hair of the dog’ pint in her grasp.

“Mornin.’ Only struggling with this verse,” Tav beamed, tucking a wavy piece of hair behind her ear.

“Something’s different about you, eh?” the fiery tiefling observed, taking a sip from her drink.

Tav placed her quill back into its ink pot and straightened out her music sheets while readjusting her position on the tree stump. A cunning prickling of thorns flushed on her cheeks. “I—no. I don’t believe anything has changed about me.”

But, that wasn’t true. Within a man’s arms she came undone, finding empyrean respite. His fingers worked her like a charm spell until she lost herself in the casted shadows of candlelight. Yet, it wasn’t her moans for him in the night nor the donation of her ichor that she gave willingly that surprised her: it was a piece of her trust.

“Perhaps it is because she engaged in quite the exhaustive venture last evening! Blood loss does have quite the effect on people—or so I’m told,” Astarion cut in. “But, me? I feel wonderful!”

And he did look wonderful. His cheeks were less gaunt. The bags under his eyes were a calmer shade of powdery periwinkle. Eyes appeared sharper, a brighter red. Even the sky blue coloring veins in his arms was more prominently saturated.

All his beauty and dangerous splendor were the reasons sonnets are made along the roadways of mud and intoxicating jasmine blooms. There was thousands of intricately weaved words inserted into poems to describe his ilk, like morning mist drops settled upon the threads of arachnids.

Tav cannot contain the lightness she felt when she saw Astarion. Her wings spread out, each feather hiding fragility under their vanes. Will he catch her slim feet as she flies away?

“Hey-o, you dandy! Ready to go gut some gobs today?”

Tav hushed the acrobats in her stomach. “Good dawn to you, ‘Starion.”

“Karlach. Songbird,” he greeted them equally. “You know I wouldn’t miss out on such a gutting show, however, I did come to check on our leader before we head out.”

Before Tav was able to speak, he had already sailed over to her upon muted silver heeled footsteps. She sat up, suddenly aware that he was bent acutely at his waist—enough to reach out to kindly dust her fresh bite marks.

“How badly does it hurt?” his pale head tilted, curls slipping to the side.

The smell of his freshly applied perfumes addled Tav's mind. His eyes, a clever decadence, held the knowledge of her ecstasies that she snuck to him during an impulsive need.

“Sorer than the wrist. Like a dull muscle ache from a cramp,” the bard congenially answered.

“Nothing you cannot surely triumph over. And how about everything else?” he breathed out.

The vampire does not attempt to mask his meaning or shy from the euphoria he exorcized from her body. He was brazen to ask her in front of their acquaintance.

Heavily did she swallow to control the overflow of her marching chest. “Fine. Everything else is fine.”

“Hmm. You know…” Astarion whispered, a low distraction as she watched the tip of his tongue wet his lips. “I can still taste you on my fingers.”

This fancier of the bloodthirsty arts, has two sets of teeth. One with which to feed; the other with which to claim. For this elven bard, a bargain has been made.

Tav wanted to match him in his torturous tease. To pluck out his devil’s tongue and boil it in a spiritual cleanse.

But, there was fine print that sat on the curled edges of the pages from their pasts, smudged with fingerprints and laced with belladonna. Warnings of holes where their hearts lay; labyrinths of frozen gardens that have no end.

Tav had not forgotten the way their rousing decision ended the night prior—with his fingers covered in her fruit and her lips finding purchase upon his alabaster skin. The vague emptiness that enameled over his touch, apparent through the shadows of his eyes. She had left his tent, with her sex loosened and a continual masturbatory bomb of fears that she had crossed a broken boundary of his that he didn’t yet understand.

“Astarion, there’s something I wanted to ask you about last night.” She attempted to mouth in hushed tones.

“Oh my sweet, you’re not getting mawkish on me now, are you? The only serious thing we need to discuss is when you’ll invite me back for another snack,” Astarion winked suggestively.

The bard continued her well-nigh unresponsive discretion of her features, ignoring Karlach’s pacing behind the pale elf. She stood up, a few inches shy of his natural height, placing her hands on her hips. Her quietness showed her sincerity as she stared into his face.

Astarion looked surprised, as if she had just turned an entire ocean to desert. He avoided entertaining her with any further quips or illusions, instead, blinking several times before abruptly summoning his trained foxy slink back to his face.

“Did you hear that? I think it’s our ghastly duty calling upon us to finally help those Silvanus freaks before they start complaining about ‘the leaves of nature being preserved'," he dramatically retorted as he casually checked the cleanliness of his nails. "It may be wise to think of better songs to regale the goblins with then you did that foul ogre—lest we wind up on the skewer. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Astarion gave the women a mannerful bow before he strode away without paying another peek in Tav’s direction.

Tav remained calm as he left, breathing out a long sigh. They needed to prepare for the assault on the goblins. He was a distraction—not necessarily an unwelcome one—but one with knobby roots twisted along the cloister inside his dried innards. If she didn’t get her shit together, a lot of people would die and their blood would be on her hands.

“I’m sorry about the interruption Karlach, he—”

Karlach took a long gulp of her drink, the ale dripping down onto her chin. Her face lit up—almost literally—with an excited smile. Tav knew immediately that the barbarian was far too astute in situations of sexual vices to not read the interaction that just occurred.

“Oh. My. Gods. That’s why you look like you’re glowing today! You and Astarion?! You fucked him, didn’t you?!”

The songstress's vision widened and her face felt like it would burst into flames, much like the tiefling’s engine. “Hells, Kar. Could you keep your voice down? We just—we kissed. A lot. And he obviously bit my neck to feed afterwards.” She pulled down the collar of her doublet to show her the punctures.

A white lie. Tav wasn’t one to share the details of her romanticisms with others. It was a preference to keep the echoes of intimate reflections as special moments: treasures discovered along the shipwrecks of life.

“Hey, I’m not judging! Astarion is gorgeous! Bit of a sassy grouch sometimes, but if I had my chance with him, I would not hesitate to get all over that.” The red woman made thrusting motions with her hips. “That being said, you don’t look entirely happy about it.”

Tav pursed her mouth, staring off to the right side of Karlach as she collected her thoughts. Her throat tightened as she spoke, delicately attempting to avoid providing any details she knew of the spawn’s past. “You mentioned recently that you sensed Astarion has been through a lot of pain, but I’m unsure where that begins and ends for him. And that concerns me. Karlach, I don’t want to potentially hurt him further. I barely know him and it’s… look, I’m telling you this because I think out of everyone, you will understand.”

Karlach crossed her arms, a caring frown accompanied the orangish calm of her irises. “I won’t pry, but Astarion seems to be fixated on his freedom from that fucker Cazador. Can’t blame him. I am too with my own from Zariel. Fangs can be a real piece of work, but even rotten scoundrels need a gentle hand sometimes. Maybe he hasn’t had that in a long time—if ever.”

The bard blew out the air she’d been holding in. “A gentle hand,” she repeated. “You’re right. Thank you for listening. I want what’s best for Astarion—everyone really—but I’m not sure he even knows what that is just yet.”

“I’ve got your back, Tav. Everyone in camp does too. And shit will work out, alright? We’re truly in this together, as sappy as that sounds.” The tiefling knocked back the rest of her drink, a glint of curiosity in her eyes. “Now, can you at least tell me how it was to kiss him? Please let me live vicariously through you.”

A merry laugh passed through Tav. She curled her index finger near her chin in thought. “Okay. Close your eyes and I’ll describe it to you. Imagine lips: plush, supple, but chilled. Not frozen, but a pleasant degree, like sweetened cool milk soothing your warmed lips. As you press them against his, you can feel your heart quicken and slow at the same time. Your breath’s intertwine with warm and cold temperatures that elicit thoughts you’ve never had. And when your lips start to move? It feels like you’ve both committed the crime of lassoing the sun closer to you as you melt into one another.”

Karlach visibly shuddered, opening her eyes to Tav smiling gently at her. “It’s no wonder you’re a bard. I could almost feel that myself! I suppose we’ve wasted enough time talking about boys for the day—should we get things rumblin’?”

Tav politely nodded and turned around to round up her belongings. Rummaging aimlessly through her satchel, her brow furrowed in annoyance.

“Something the matter?” the tiefling questioned.

“Just something odd. I could have sworn I put it in here before I came to write.”

“Maybe I can help find it. What is it that we’re looking for?”

Lost in confusion, Tav held the purse upside down a final time to see if any items stumbled to the ground. “My cuticle oil.”

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When he woke from his trance in the early morning hours with dried blood cracking in the corners of his mouth, his vampiric nose involuntarily breathed in an alien scent that had seemed to fill his tent overnight. A pink tongue darted out to clean off his mouth, swallowing the red flakes down.

Astarion’s clothes stunk of Tav’s fragrance—she was ever so fond of—having made homes for itself in the islands of stitches on his sleeves and ruffled v-neck. Bodily fluids, now dried on his ornamental pillows, a sexual honeyed musk. He wrapped his tongue around his finger, still tasting the glacé of her sensual defeat and the sour memory of their night together.

He reached for the rags he had used to wipe off her bloodied essence from her upper body, scrunching them up to place under his nostrils. Cock half-hardening, he inhaled without reserve and groaned at the reminder of the effect drinking from thinking creatures had on his hunger.

Under the light of a candle, its single flame licking wicked pathways to Tav's want, he had concealed his guise of disgust behind her shoulder. All he could remember was the act itself—that it happened. That his fingers entered her and he poetically spoke naughty phrases into her ear to anchor her wetness for him.

Trust. Trust. Trust. She gave it to him with the arch of her back into his chest. Just as he predicted. Just as he planned.

However, virtually all of the details of their intimacy—the night—were lost on him. Her face was another among the blur of thousands he seduced over two centuries. Up petticoats and down breeches he searched bodies to steal their pleasures. His cock only thickening out of trained habit or a rare wishful fancy of ravaging apart a neck from any creature without hisses and tails. It meant nothing to him.

Yet, a singular detail did remain. A place he entered beyond the second circle of hell in lust, a circle where it seemed like his death could be undone. A river of lyrics carrying him along a raft of flower-crowned skulls towards the banks of her merciful arms.

During the twilit minutes before he released her, he made the blunder of examining her eyes before their ravenous kiss. What he had seen was acceptance. And it scared the fuck out of him.

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“I am enjoying our walks together, aren't you Gale?” Astarion teased while they walked through the inner sanctum of the temple overtaken by the goblins.

“Um yes, in silence.” Gale leaned in towards him, whiffing his scent, “By the way, I don’t mean to pry, but did you apply more of your aromatic oils than usual? ”

He searched for a quick remark to hand to the wizard. “Only because I knew I’d be in your presence today.”

Half of the vampire’s morning had been dedicated to scrubbing. Crouched over a bucket of soapy water, Astarion had soaked his clothing and rags, ridding them of scents unknown. Of the lingering remnants of her. His skin raw from how hard he attacked his flesh with suds and woven cloth. The final touch? Excessive dabs of his oils in unusual places to cloy any bits leftover of the bard's odor.

“The Priestess is up ahead; I’ll go speak with her. Wait here for a moment,” Tav’s melodious voice spoke reservedly to them.

No-nonsense. That was a part of her Astarion both equally appreciated and despised. Despite her penchant to offer her generosity to all of Faerûn, she pulled her punches. It was a waste of time to her otherwise and could be messy. Efficiency would deliver the most desired outcomes, but gods, he desperately wanted to create mischief at every turn.

Astarion, be nice. Astarion, we don’t need to lockpick EVERY chest. Astarion, leave that ogre and bugbear having intercourse in the barn to fulfill their needs alone. Astarion, don’t have fun. Astarion, let’s save all these idiots!

”Astarion? Please don’t hurt me." Tav's voice echoed in his head, throwing off his equilibrium.

He shook his thoughts away, reflecting back on their encounter with the dream visitor in the prism as they came upon the entrance of camp a short while ago. It wanted to protect them against The Chosen. The Absolute. All their enemies. To give them power. Yes. Power was the most important ability to hold in all aspects. With power, the possibilities were endless. With power, he would have protection. All it would take, would be to manipulate the pretty songbird into aligning with his goals. And judging by how he already managed to pleasure her so soon after they first met, it would be a piece of cake.

Thrum-dub…thrum-dub…thrum-dub.

Pulses? Astarion felt the constellation of his soul mark beating mildly. Tav’s back faced him, her features obscured. Her body was hunched over minimally at the waist, hand at the side of her temple. His eyes narrowed, jaw taunt. Something happened.

Thrum-dub.Thrum-DUB. THRUM-DUB. THRUM. THRUM. DUB.

Faster now. Harder pounds of a pumping bass through the bandwidth of their marks. She was nervous—frightened. The threshold betwixt them was closing in as an invisible rope pulled him closer.

He flinched. Really, he should stay out of her way; he shouldn’t get involved. It was perhaps wicked to not divulge to her the shared marks they possessed, but it would change everything. His plans would become a brittle cascade of a future he sought. He didn’t want to disrupt the plank he had been trying to balance upon since his unintentional escape from Cazador. But, Astarion was aware that he needed her and she needed him.

Besides, what better way to obtain one’s help to a cause—his cause—than a life owed?

“They’re connected. Quickly, we need to do something! If we start attacking, Tav could be in danger.” Gale stepped forward, sweat trickling down the sides of his face.

Light were Astarion’s steps as he snuck upon Tav and Priestess Gut. The creator of his misery appeared stifled, her mouth partly opened with persistent shallow breaths. The tadpoles of the goblin and elf had connected; Tav was fighting to push it out. A dull whimpering snuck out from her throat as if a deer was jerking around in pain.

Astarion seized her elbow, declining his head to press his lips to the opening of her ear canal, nose softly resting against its shell. He whispered in elvish, a language only the two of them would know, steadying his voice firmly. “She won’t see it. Nothing is going to hurt you. I’m here.”

The hex of the worms severed and she was free! Tav’s body slumped downwards, but faithful hands were catching her, grabbing at her arm to wrap around staunch shoulders—wrapping around the illusionary dripping silverlight he exuded.

“When did you…?” her voice broke up in a hoarse mutterings.

Giving her waist a confident squeeze, he smiled sweetly at her. “Hello beautiful. Think you can stand on your own?”

“Urgh...yes, I think so.”

“Splendid. As much as I detest putting you in that wizard’s care, do me a favor and go to him.”

The bard wobbled as she stood on her own, backing away towards Gale. “What do you plan on doing?”

Astarion removed one of his trusted blades from his back. Bringing it to his mouth, he licked the side of it, much like when he smothered his saliva over bitten wounds. “I plan on slicing open the Priestess’s neck. Now stand back, the smell of blood will be in the air soon.”

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Filets of goblin meat were a stark contrast against the erected statues of the temple dedicated to Selûne. Her lifeless face watched the companions as they carved through the vile threats. Ripped sashes of ruby life essence unwound in the drafty camp, splashing the group.

A witness Tav played, as she paid honor to Astarion’s image under the sparks of the wagon wheel chandelier inside the chambers of Dror Ragzlin. He stood soaked in ichor, peering off to his side with a final swoosh of his dagger through the atmosphere, flicking off excess blood. The dance macabre had been sated.

Flags of pure white raised, red fangs and swords embroidered in the middle. The belief of their crusade, a righteous seat upon golden scales. Raise thy sword in the name of murder. Let us pray.

All three leaders: Priestess Gut, the drow Minthara, and Dror Ragzlin—deceased.

“As you can see, ceremorphosis has been halted—as a surprise to all of us. I am not one to tempt fate, but if you cannot heal us, then any guided direction towards someone that could offer assistance would be most appreciated,” Gale explained hastily to the arch druid Halsin they released from the goblin prison.

Halsin casted a yellow glow that coated Gale’s entire body, sensing the mechanisms of the mind flayers. “Illithid tadpoles. Oak Father preserve you all. I’ve studied these for a long time now, without much results. It was the reason I came here, to seek out research. I may not be able to heal you, but I can at least tell you where a mass amount of true souls are going to be infected.”

The druid was large, easily towering over Tav. Almost the size of the bear wild shape they had found him in. Scars upon his wise face, a set of misty tea irises surrounded by reddish brown hair that wafted of autumn leaves and sandalwood.

The bard was stunned. “You mean they aren’t all being captured upon a ship and given the worm as we have?”

“I’m afraid not. Moonrise Towers is a stronghold ruled by a man named Kethric Thorm in the Shadowlands. Innocents go in and true souls—infected—come out. The lands are dangerous. Anyone that steps foot there is at risk for turning into demonic shades,” Halsin spoke in caution. “You have two options to enter: through the Mountain Pass or the Underdark. Both come with their own sets of tribulations. The Underdark specifically is home to a Sharran temple.”

Gale faced Tav, speaking in a muffled shallow. “Shadowheart may be quite interested in hearing about that bit of information.”

Focusing on the fine lines of Gale’s crow’s feet lifting upwards, she nodded. Her eyes swooped down to the strange circular marking in the middle of his chest, the way it seemed like tendrils of smoke sneaking up past his clavicle, to the side of his neck. A part of him, he frequently hesitated to speak on. But, being so close to the human man, she wondered what secrets lay under the surface of his skin.

“I know you’re curious about it—the marking, I mean. But, now isn’t the time to explain. Soon, I promise.” Gale gave her a reassuring compress on her shoulder.

Tav, now quietly embarrassed, turned around, finding two familiar crimson eyes following her. Coveting and dark.

Thousands of flowers sprouted behind her as she went to him. With her tears, she would bathe his feet; with her hair, she would dry them. His armor drenched in blood, dripping onto the new growths left behind, urging petals open.

Thankful for his earlier care with the priestess, her inspirited hand graced the tips of Astarion’s fingers with delicate plumy touches as she briskly clenched hers around them before turning to leave the chambers.

“I owe you my life ‘Starion,” Tav whispered, peering away from him.

He deceitfully smiled. ”I’m sure there will come a time when I will need your help in return.”

[stardustspecter]

collection of bits from (one of) my modern au(s) with a concept of lower magic than canon, cantrips is usually as far as it gets except in particularly learned wizards and favoured clerics (and the surprise when the tiefling that runs the florist cracks out a cleric cantrip)