#that he’s so damn sweet and tender with Tav??

[jollyfang]

Well as of last night I’ve finished my first dark urge run…. And I already miss my tav. 🥺

Like, I know I can just head canon and write fanfic about post campaign stuff but I’m still sad that their game is finished. (I mean, yes, I could start their game over but I’m trying not to do that. Maybe a while down the line I’ll do a replay but not for while). It was so much fun and they’re probably one of my favorite ocs I’ve ever made. So I might be ranting about them for a few days lol

Thinking about posting a few pics of them as they’ve grown throughout the story but I’m undecided. Honestly I could talk about my Tavs till the cows come home so I’ve been trying to stop myself from just going off about them whenever I have the chance cuz I don’t wanna be annoying 😅

[nellyofthevalley]

wedding dress

astarion x fem!tav rating: explicit content: wedding night, marriage/domestic living, sad and sweet, stupidly soft tailor astarion, smut but it's not the focus (cunnilingus, fingering, piv), death. summary: astarion makes tav's wedding dress and looks back on their life together. i don't want to say too much, just read it :)

Hand-making a wedding dress was hard work, but he loved it. He would lose himself in it and insisted that he be the one to craft it because he couldn’t trust anyone else with the task. No other dress could do his love’s beauty justice, but he’d spent years perfecting the arts of tailoring and studying her—he knew better than anyone what was worthy of being draped on her body.

based on this post by @spacebarbarianweird! i hope i did the concept justice. it was a joy and a challenge to write.

i really hated writing the vows lmao don't laugh

read it on ao3 or below the cut

i'll be here

Astarion spent months and months in his study sewing away at the white fabric. All day, all night; the hours passed without notice. Not until Tav would softly knock and enter and put her arms around his neck and shoulders and ask him to retire to their room with a heavy yawn, taking care to avert her eyes from his project.

Hand-making a wedding dress was hard work, but he loved it. He would lose himself in it and insisted that he must be the one to craft it because he couldn’t trust anyone else with the task. No other dress could do his love’s beauty justice, but he’d spent years perfecting the arts of tailoring and studying her—he knew better than anyone what was worthy of being draped on her body.

“Come to bed, love,” she’d say, and he thinks of it often. He remembers exactly how she said it; he remembers her tone, her voice, the way she’d kiss his ear and down his neck to entice him on the nights he was particularly engrossed in his work.

He remembers one evening he’d been in his study since the minute they woke and shared ‘good morning’s, so close to finishing the skirt; she entered quietly and startled him, trailing her hands from his neck down the front of his shirt, begging for him to come to bed with a whispered ‘please’ that he couldn’t say no to.

He finished the line of stitching he was on and set the dress aside, turning his head to look at her and steal a kiss from her plush lips, just as eager to kiss her as he was in the beginnings of their relationship. The passion and desire never faded in the slightest, not after so many decades, and not even when they fought and yelled and cried.

Astarion kissed her over and over again with haste, cupping her cheek; he could hear the blood course through her body and feel the warmth rush to her face, a lovely, irresistible display of her own desire. He rose to his feet and picked her up, her legs draped over his arm and hers around his neck as he carried her to their bedroom.

“Darling, you’ve interrupted my very important work,” he said as he laid her down to the bed and crawled on top of her, trapping her under his weight. “I have a deadline to meet, you know.”

It was only a few weeks until their wedding night. The whole thing was a formality really, they’d been living as if they were married for years—rings and all, but Tav insisted on it. She dreamt of walking down the aisle as a little girl, she said, and Astarion relented despite his protests. But after a few weeks, after he’d started working on the dress, he was just as hellbent on it as she was.

“You’ve been working so hard,” she replied, fingers impatiently tugging at the collar of his shirt.

“For you,” he reminded her. “But now, I’ve lost my focus.”

She managed to unbutton half his shirt before he bent forward to press his mouth to her neck, giving her tender kisses down to her collarbone. He lifted her nightdress, pulling it over her arms and head and continued kissing down her front, slow and damn near torturous, relishing in how her heart raced for him; true power, he thought, was the power to make her plead for more.

“My sweet love,” he purred, finally tugging at the sides of her underwear and guiding them over her legs. “I’m afraid I can’t return to my work until I’ve tasted all of you.”

Never had Astarion felt more alive than on their wedding night.

A very quaint, private affair in the woods with the friends that could make it: Shadowheart, Wyll, Halsin, and a few friends they’d made in the city attended. Gale, honored by Tav’s request, officiated and he’d never seen Astarion looking so… elated, and so regal; the nobility in him blossoming in his white and gold attire, a fine suit and eccentric jabot. Astarion certainly softened during their journey, but here, he was far more than that: he bore a beaming smile that not even a God could wipe from his face and when Tav finally came out with her dress, the dress that he worked on days and nights for months, he watched her, thoroughly enraptured by her, as if the world around them had simply dissipated.

“Beautiful,” he whispered as she approached.

All he saw was her. Gale, the guests, the arch blanketed in flowers and strands of magicked lights were little more than a blur in his peripherals. Astarion lifted a hand to her face and delicately ran his fingertips across her cheek—the touch of her warm glow never lost its appeal—and brushed her lips with his in a modest, affectionate kiss.

“Usually, we save that for the end,” Gale joked.

“No chance in the Hells I’m waiting that long,” Astarion retorted, blithely aware the ordeal would last a mere few minutes. “And where did you find such a perfect, magnificent, finely crafted dress, love?”

It was his best work, and he was sure he’d never set his eyes on anything sweeter than her wearing it.

The bodice top of the dress hugged her waist exquisitely and donned a sweetheart neckline covered in detailed floral embroidery. The skirt was long and composed of layers of netted fabric with more scattered, intricately sewn flowers; it had an almost ethereal, softened look about it as it flowed when she walked. He’d spent weeks alone searching for the finest material with a cost difficult to swallow, but worth every last coin.

She was the embodiment of grace and elegance in it—like royalty, a beauty beyond the imagination.

How they gazed at one another while Gale officiated went unnoticed by not a single person; the vibrancy of their love and devotion radiated off from them as it breathed life into the air, and captivated every guest—every friend.

Astarion hadn’t cried since he killed his master, but a tear gathered at the edge of his eyes as he recited his vows.

You’ve given me something to care for. I choose you. I give you my hand, my love, my soul, and with you, I live again. I’ll always be here, my love.

Tav didn’t share his same composure, she couldn’t stop crying; she wept as she made hers, and through every word, he held her face gently in his palms and wiped them away.

Where you go, I’ll go. Where you stay, I’ll stay.  I give you all my love, my passion, my heart; it beats for you, belongs to you, for eternity.

“Careful not to let your makeup run onto that dress, dear,” he smirked. 

She managed to hold her tears as they exchanged rings—old but new; not the ones they’d been wearing for years as she expected to see, but ones Astarion had saved ever since they found them in the shadow-cursed lands. Tav extended her fingers and looked at hers, a cute little cute little alexandrite gem on a simple golden band.

There was something enticingly dangerous and bittersweet about them with their magical warding bond and tragic tale of the couple who once possessed them.

Astarion insisted she wear the ring of embrace, reminding her of his enhanced healing abilities since being freed of the tadpole and arguing, “My life has flourished with you, now let me protect you with it.”

“You may kiss the bride,” announced Gale, taking a deep breath before continuing, “again.”

Astarion reeled her in with one arm behind her waist and his free palm took one of hers, intertwining their fingers; he brushed his lips against hers, remarkably subdued as he taunted her with a little peck and gentle nip on her bottom lip before sweeping her into a deeper, heated kiss.

When he pulled away and lowered the hand on her back, she heard a sniffle coming from Gale.

“Are you… crying?” Tav asked with a laugh, still resisting her own cry, but when Astarion was the one to walk up to Gale and wipe his tears away, she couldn’t keep from weeping any longer.

They rented a lavish room in the Upper City and joked about becoming part of the snobbish high society for a night on the walk there, drunk on their new life, her new name. It must’ve only been two seconds they were in their room before Astarion swept her into his embrace, taking her by the waist and gently pushing her to the closed door.

“Astarion, wait,” Tav said, giggling as he removed the space between them and pressed his body flush against hers. 

“Darling, I’ve been so patient already,” he argued, his hands meticulously removing the ties and pins keeping her hair perfectly in place. “I’ve been waiting ever since I set my eyes on you in this dress.”

She turned her head and tried to shy away as Astarion kissed the tip of her nose, her cheek, and beside her ear; he continued, “It’s been utterly distracting.”

His cold kisses spread goose flesh through her arms and raised all the tiny hairs at the back of her neck. No matter how many times it’d been, he could always incite her fierce need for him, crumbling her into dust with his carefully crafted words and sweet touch…

“Don’t you know how hard it was for me to focus on reciting my vows for you, when all I could think of was tearing the dress from your body and making you cry for me?”

Astarion knelt and lifted the front of her dress, draping it over his back and disappearing beneath. He hummed with satisfaction in the way Tav’s breath caught when he slipped his fingers under her underwear and kissed her over the dampening fabric. 

“Seems it was hard for you too, wasn’t it?” he teased as he slid the garment down her legs. 

“Oh, shut—ah.”

She wished she could see him—his face on her cunt, wearing that devilish look he had when she glanced down at him, every time, well trained in picking up on every small thing that made her weak between the thighs—but he loved to toy with her and slapped her hands away when she tried to raise her dress with a tsk.

Tav‘s palms tightened against the wall and her legs quivered while Astarion lapped at her cunt like it was every bit as delectable as her blood. He worshiped her with his tongue, tasting every part of her he could reach—and when she started to truly unravel, legs shaking and weak and her mouth unable to keep its quiet, he gripped her hips firmly and swept the very tip of his tongue across her clit. 

“Astarion, I’ll—”

Ah, her protests only encouraged him. Two fingers slowly pushed into her cunt, coated in her fluids; she pawed at the wall like she was trying to rip through it as Astarion licked and sucked and curved his fingers inward. His pace hurried, curling and nudging her inside between thrusts until at last, she threw her head back and cried his name, a sound that paralleled no other, a sound he’d remember for the rest of his life, even thousands of years from now if he survived that long; no one said his name like her, and she said it best when he was on his knees. 

He withdrew his fingers as she clenched and writhed around him, but he refused to waver and set her free, absolutely not, liking to push her and drown himself loving her until she nearly went rabid trying to get him off. He kept his hands firm on her hips, lapping up every last fucking drop of her come and circling her clit until—

“Gods, Astarion, please!”

She hastily lifted her dress and dug her hands and nails into his hair and scalp, clawing at him and pulling him away. 

Astarion just stared at her with a smirk and her come shining all over his face, thoroughly pleased. She was panting, recovering, and she looked like a mess with her hair tousled and her face red and sweaty and it was fucking beautiful. 

“You, my love, my wife,” he started to speak, kindly kissing her thighs before he rose to his feet again, “are divine.”

Before Tav could respond, he cupped her face in both hands and pushed his lips to hers, sharing with her a little taste of the divinity she’d granted him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he broke the kiss, seizing the opportunity to tuck a limb under her knees and pick her up, into his arms.

Astarion carried her to the bed, laying her down carefully and climbing on top of her; she looked so lovely, so perfectly messy with her hair sprawled across the pillow after looking so pristine in its updo. She reached up to remove his jabot as he shrugged off the jacket and quickly worked at the buttons of his shirt, tossing it aside in a hurry; tasting her wasn’t enough, he had to have more, needed to love her in every way he could—it was their wedding night!

He could hardly believe that this day had come at last, that he was married, after centuries of serving his master and being taught how unworthy he was of any sort of kindness, let alone love, something he’d long lost belief in…

The wedding had been her idea from the start, but over time she started to think, though she’d never vocalize it, that he wanted it more than she ever had. It showed, in his excitement when they looked for places to host it, in the countless hours he spent perfecting her dress—he tailored his own attire as well of course, and it came out wonderfully, but he seemed to get through it far sooner and paid more attention to the dress, not a single stitch out of place.

Tav sat up and reached behind her to undo the clasps at the back of the dress, but Astarion grabbed the sides and pulled violently, ripping it at the back and guiding it down, down her stomach and legs and sending it to the floor with his shirt.

“Have you lost your mind? I love that dress! And you spent so much time on it!”

“Darling, every minute I spent working on that dress, I thought of how you’d look on it on this day and how much I’d love tearing it from your body. It suited you perfectly, my love,” he replied, lifting her leg over his shoulder. He showered her with featherlight pecks at her ankle, and continued down, ending with a bruising kiss on her inner thigh that made her squirm. “I could’ve died the moment I saw you in it and lived a happy, satisfied life—it served its purpose, I promise you.”

A few months into their life as newlyweds, after a couple nights tucked away in his study working on another project, Astarion found Tav brushing her hair at the vanity and set a neatly wrapped pink-and-white gift box in front of her.

“Oh? What’s the occasion?” she asked.

“Just open it dear, you’ll see.”

He sat behind her on the stool, legs around hers and pressing his body to her back. As she tugged at the ribbon and unwrapped the box, he wrapped his arms around her and nestled his head into her shoulder, looking ahead to the mirror and attentively watching for her reaction. Tav opened it to find a nightgown, white with familiar embroidery around the edges, short and tight around the waist.

“Is this my wedding dress?”

“Of course it is.”

“You kept it all this time?”

Astarion saw her eyes light up as she held it and turned it over in her hands, admiring how perfectly he’d recreated every thread—the gown looked brand new, as if he’d gotten all new fabric and thread or spent a fortune at a luxury attire shop in the Upper City.

“Much as I enjoyed ripping it apart to unwrap you, I did put a lot of work into it,” he said.

“It’s beautiful, Astarion, just like the first time I saw it.”

Tav sounded like she had to hold back tears just from seeing it, like she’d expected it to be lost forever; he found delight in her surprise, as if he’d gotten away with a crime with how she somehow never noticed or suspected what he was working on in his study.

“Get changed,” he ordered quietly, lips to her ear. “I’ll tear it off you again and again, starting with tonight.”

His hands lingered on her body as she stood and stepped aside, then his gaze remained set on her as she undressed and pulled the gown over her head. He studied how it draped over her breasts and hugged her waist and fuck, he didn’t want to wait another fucking moment; he reached out and pulled her right back, into his lap and into hungry kisses on her neck.

“Astarion,” she murmured, already succumbing to his touch, “you didn’t even allow me a minute to see myself in it…”

“One minute then, love,” he said, and he meant it—one minute.

He lifted her by the waist, standing and pushing her forward until her palms rested on the vanity and she could see her reflection, unseen fingers raising the gown’s hem at her thighs. Tav rotated what little she could in his grasp, carefully pulling at it and observing how well it complemented her figure.

Astarion ran his hands softly along the sides of her hips, her waist, then leaned forward, pressing his hardening length to her backside. In the mirror, he saw how her face flushed, how the thin fabric appeared to magically rise from her body from his hand cupping her breast, how her head tilted back to where his would be as his other clenched around her throat.

“Look at you, I’ve hardly even touched you yet,” he teased, her swallow budging against his grip.

“I thought about this all day,” she choked out, an alluring confession that made it difficult for him to keep what little patience he had left.

“Did you?”

His hand to her neck loosened and let her free as he unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it aside, his feet shuffling and then deftly slipping off his shoes and socks, too. Every sound and every movement, the rustling of fabric and his cock pushing into her all taunted her as arousal grew from within and yearned for what she’d been fantasizing of, now barely out of reach—

“I was waiting for you,” she said quietly, pushing her ass back into him, desperate to feel all his cock against her skin, bare, frustrated at the paltry pieces of fabric still separating them. “For you to be done in your study.”

“Did you see me between your legs?” Astarion whispered, nipping at her ear. “Or did you think of us like this—me bending you over this vanity, fucking you so well that you can’t walk tomorrow?”

Gods, she couldn’t fucking take it anymore, how he dragged it out until she could think of nothing else—then, he lowered the straps and kissed her from shoulder to shoulder before grabbing at the neckline and pulling, throwing the gown down to her feet in one violent motion; a demand, a fervent need to have her. 

“Astarion! Be kinder to it this time,” she warned, but her threats carried little weight as he knew he held her in his hand, wound tightly around his slender fingers for him to contort.

“Absolutely not,” he argued. “My dear, you forget I’ve mastered this craft. I’ll fix it right up, every time.” 

Tav whimpered, grieving the presence of his cock when he stepped back and began unfastening his pants. She turned to face him, guiding him backwards until he met the bed and sat, her following and hovering over him, easing him further back. She finished undressing him, fingers dipping under the waistband of his pants and underwear and sliding them over each limb before crawling forward and taking her seat in his lap.

“Good,” Astarion said as Tav ground her hips against his and slid her cunt along his aching cock, drowning it in the slick dripping between her thighs, and drawing a low growl from his mouth amid his words. “I want to see your face.”

Her palms on his shoulders tensed, nails prodding at his skin and threatening to break it as she adjusted, aligning her body with his and, in disciplined motions made to boil his blood with the rising heat of his impatience, taking in only the head of his cock. The tension among them almost caught flame—each provoking the other until someone broke.

Astarion slid his arms behind her back and covered her mouth with his in a ravenous, needy kiss, tongue laving over the outline of her upper lip—and when she finally lowered and sat, impaling herself on his terribly hard cock that throbbed for her attention, he groaned and bit at her lip just enough to draw blood and coax a hushed yelp from her throat.

“Ah, you—”

“I know,” he acknowledged, tongue swiping across her bloodied lip. “Mm. Saccharine, sweet like honey. Move, my love, let me watch your pretty face come undone for me.”

He kept his arms on her back, tenderly running up and down with a soothing touch that encouraged her as she gathered her strength and rose, hitting a steady rhythm; he kissed her lips, her cheek, the edges of her jaw, anywhere he could—little marks of encouragement, physical expressions of his love, how well she was doing, how good she was for him.

Tav’s thighs tensed as she fucked herself on him, bouncing on his cock with all she had to give while he watched it disappear inside her, transfixed by the sight. He kissed along her collarbone, down her breast, fangs grazing her supple skin. She gasped and braced herself for his bite, but it never came; he garnished her with harsher kisses, promises of bruises in the morning—little blemishes that marked her as his.

He was wholly enveloped by her, body and mind; her tight, wet heat consuming his cock, the view of her parted mouth and half-shut eyes even more ambrosian than he imagined, and he needed more of it, more of her—Gods, just holding back  slightly and allowing her control was testing his limits, he wanted to take her and fucking ruin her.

When her movements slowed and breaths strained, stamina running dry, Astarion trailed his fingers down with a feathery touch down her back, along the curve of her ass, then settled on her hips. His languid movements that of admiration, like she admired the dress—the little dimples in her back, her hip bones poking out, a scar she’d earned from battle that he vividly remembers tending to.

“Give me all of you,” he said, holding tightly and guiding her up to hover at the tip of his cock, eager and beyond pleased to take the lead and fuck her until she couldn’t walk as he vowed earlier. “Your body, your mind—all mine.”

“Astarion, please…”

“Please,” he started, a moan escaping as he harshly brought her body down to his, the slap of her ass on his thighs ringing through his ears, “what, love? Use your words.”

But she threw her head and voiced filthy cries for him instead, incapable of using her words, reduced to a sweaty, whimpering mess from what he was giving her—just his hands on her hips wasn’t enough; he bent his knees for leverage and pushed into her with rough, starving thrusts chasing release. The heavy pants mixed with lascivious moans pouring from her mouth and the scent of their sex and sweat in the air antagonized him, made him thrust into her harder until he couldn’t go any faster or deeper and—

“Don’t—don’t stop,” Tav whined, wet walls of her cunt devouring his cock as she neared the precipice and pulled at his hair and finished, “please, take me, come with me.”

Astarion sank his teeth deep into her neck the instant she said it and drank—she yanked hard on his hair and dug into his skin, her other hand scratching desperately at his back. He was close, so fucking close, he could feel it in her too as her cunt swallowed his cock and he could almost taste it in them both, sucking at her wounds and drawing out more and more blood, rich and thick and rushing past his tongue, then hot and sweet down his famished, dry throat.

He had to force himself to pull away from her neck, exhaling heavily, mourning it; he thrusted up into her once, twice before he broke, release rippling through him—overwhelming every sense, wringing him tight as he held her hips to him and filled her past the brim with come. Tav took his face and tilted upward, smothering him with messy, feral kisses as she came, too, her body writhing over his and constricting around his cock, drawing out all he had until it overflowed and seeped from her slit, dampening the bed below.

“Shit,” she cursed, pushing Astarion—weak and light-headed, as if all the blood he’d taken had simply evaporated—back to the bed and lying on top of him, his spend trickling down her thighs as they uncoupled.

Pale arms wrapped around her and he ran his fingers through her hair with delicate, adoring strokes, kissing the tip of her nose.

As promised, he mended her nightgown the very next day.

After years of blissful domestic living, the pair packed light and set off to travel; see new sights, adventure, reminisce on the journey that brought them together in the first place. The intent was to spend a few years on the road, but outside of the rare trips back home for a short stay, they traveled for decades, caught up in beautiful scenery, mercenary work, and the hope that they might find a cure for the sun or Astarion’s vampirism altogether. 

On one visit home, Tav saw herself in the mirror and decided to stay longer than their typical few days or week long breaks. Surrounded by their things and memories of their younger years, her reflection was a harsh confrontation with the reality of her own mortality.

“I miss home,” she said. “And I love seeing the world with you, I do, but I want to stay here for a while.”

Astarion agreed, and they decided to spend a few years in their home in the city before heading back on the road for a final trip. He returned to tailoring in the evenings and she picked up new hobbies: painting, sketching, gardening, whatever she could get her antsy hands on.

A few years turned into more years and then another decade, and Tav no longer craved adventure again, so they remained at home, back to blissful domestic living. Astarion and Tav both missed the thrills and the pretty views many people would never have the chance to behold, but that time had passed.

“I’m too old for that now,” she said.

She grew vegetables and fruit to cook and bake with and took pride in it, and Astarion wished he could sit with her at the table with a full plate of her handmade food in front of him, too. He started cooking more, asking for her help and seizing these small moments of time together that he’d lose one day.

Tav started to leave the house less and spent more time sitting in the living room sketching, or tucked away in a little corner of Astarion’s study she’d made her own with an easel and paints. She drew and painted his face so many times over that he stopped looking in mirrors hoping that would be the time he finally saw his face; he saw it already, and he saw it through her eyes—he couldn’t ask for more.

Mirrors aren’t much use, but being reflected in someone else’s eyes? Well, I could do worse.

No matter how hard he tried, Astarion couldn’t escape the truth of her mortality. He constantly attempted to push the signs, the symptoms away, and convinced himself they’d find a way.

It was easy to brush off, at first. They started following a more humanlike schedule, awake during the day and asleep during the night. He found himself surprisingly accepting of house confinement; by then, the idea of outings were long forgone—the decades they spent out were enough to satiate his own wanderlust, though if Tav were capable and interested in traveling again, he would’ve done it in an instant.

He would’ve done anything she wanted, without question.

At nights, she made herself tea before bed to help her sleep.  When she started to retire to their room early without tea, citing exhaustion too fierce to want to stand at the stove beside the kettle for so long, Astarion started making it for her.

And he knew something was very, very wrong.

“Love, you’ve been in that bath for hours, I swear,” he said on one rainy evening after returning home and finding her right where he’d left her.

The dark clouds and early sunset permitted him safety beyond the curtains, and he took advantage, walking a few streets over to pick up a hot meal from her favorite restaurant. Tav turned over in the bath to look at him in the doorway; she smiled and lifted her hands from the water, observing her wrinkly, pruned fingers and giggling. 

“I was feeling a bit sore, is all,” she answered. “Don’t you want to get in with me?”

He knelt beside the tub and folded his arms over the rim, meeting her eyes and taking in the sight of her. Tired eyes, tired body, an expression that tried to look happy but something was so clearly missing from it.

“I’m soaked enough from the rain, dear,” he answered. “I brought you dinner, so let’s get you up and dressed, alright? I can bring it to you in bed.”

Astarion helped her out, dressed her and led her to their bed and she looked at him with melancholic eyes that he had to pretend didn’t rend at his heart and soul. After that night, he spent every night helping her with her bath, cooking her dinner (on occasion, picking up dinner from her favorite place again), making her tea, and delivering it all to her in bed on a tray. 

He waited on her hand and foot, in every way he knew how. Tav hated asking for help, always trying to do things on her own, and Astarion had to learn how to offer his aid without troubling her—observe silently and learn what she struggled with or what could grant her another stretch of relaxation.

What hurt most was how much she wanted to spend time in the garden on the sunniest days and he felt useless, unable to help. He took her out when possible, when the clouds covered the sun or sunset started and he could don a heavy, dark cloak, but he was never able to take her out on the brightest, happiest days. As an unspoken rule, Tav never went outside when he couldn’t, at least not farther than a few steps—the few that he could take, if need be.

As her condition worsened, Astarion looked for doctors, healers, anyone; he sought out Halsin and Shadowheart and wrote to Gale all for naught. Nothing helped, and she started to fight him on it.

“Please just stay home,” she requested one time, when he’d come to see her in the study with her journal, telling her he’d found yet another healer only a few days travel away that might be able to help. “I’m done with this. I’ve accepted it, and you should, too.”

Accept this? It was awful enough to accept that she wouldn’t live in immortality with him—but to accept that she’d be gone even earlier than he ever anticipated?

The first time Tav stayed in bed a full day was the most harrowing experience of them all. She hadn’t budged; the fatigue piled on more and more each passing day and those feelings of self-loathing and worthlessness bubbled up until she couldn’t feign the happiness anymore and felt like nothing more than a massive, life-sucking burden.

  Astarion came to their room with her nightly tea and when she heard him walk in, she yelled at him to stay out.

“I don’t want you to see me like this,” she said.

“Don’t say that. Please,” he begged. “I can’t miss a single moment with you.”

He stayed home at her request; he stopped seeking out help and any hope of a cure, and the tradeoff for that was spending every possible fucking second beside her whether she liked it or not.

Tav said nothing, but her face said enough; she refused to look at him, lips quivering and eyes fluttering holding back tears, and it only made it hurt all the more how she despised him seeing her tired and weak.

Astarion knew this day would come, of course he did, but he didn’t expect it to happen so fast. It all happened so fast! They spent decades on the road and even through all the trials and discomforts of mercenary work and harsh nights sleeping in the cold in forests and fields, wherever they could find, she didn’t seem to age a day.

After they returned home for that short stay that turned into an indefinite stay, the years started to feel like days. He didn’t have to look in a mirror to see and feel how he’d not aged—he felt just as young and spry as he did when they met, but every single fucking day, he looked at her and saw how the time wore on her. She was still beautiful, perfect to him, but he saw the light slowly fade from her and it hurt.

Tav resented that it was her choice to come and remain at home. The shame ate at her, constantly creeping on the edge of her mind, telling her that it was her fault they were trapped here in this little house in the city, that maybe if they’d not come back things would be different, or they could have settled somewhere else, somewhere new, or perhaps, if nothing else, she could’ve died more valiantly.

Astarion laid down with her despite her protests, cradling her and brushing off the tears she finally cried until she had none left to cry, and he thought about how she wept as she read her vows on their wedding night.

“I love you,” he swore. “Now and forever.”

with you,

The little house in the city was always their home, even during the decades they spent abroad adventuring, but after she was gone, he couldn’t stand to live in it anymore. He wouldn’t sell it, either; he couldn’t imagine never again having the option to walk in and envision her cooking in the kitchen or painting in her corner of the study. He simply abandoned it and decided to travel the lands once more, alone. 

He went to places they’d already been, remembering things they’d done at each stop—the days they spent huddled in inns or camp, the nights out exploring or heading to their next destination, the battles that almost incited a strange nostalgia for their tadpoled days. Tav adapted to life in the darkness; they still did what they could during the daytime, though options were limited. A cloak worked once sunset was near, but still too dangerous midday. They searched far and wide for remedies, temporary or permanent, and nothing proved fruitful. Even Gale researched when he could. 

Astarion visited him first at his tower in Waterdeep.

Seeing him was a sharp punch in the gut. Of course Tav had aged, but it was gradual, it happened so slowly and yet so quickly; her sickness was the true brutal awakening. But Gale—he hadn’t seen Gale in decades and it was almost a shock, even though he knew better, to see the wizard so… old, so wrinkled.

“Gods, you’ve seen better days,” he said.

“And you’re still seeing your best ones,” Gale replied, but he had it wrong.

Astarion was seeing his worst days, and he questioned whether it was the right time to leave, whether he should’ve stayed behind and waited in their home until he’d worked through it all. But he wasn’t sure when that would be, and he couldn’t tolerate living there anymore with her things on the wall, on the shelves, in their room, all constant little reminders of how he’d never see her again.

It was an endless torment that trailed close behind him on his travels, because as much as Astarion hated seeing all these pieces of her, he didn’t want to let go, either. He left behind much of his own stuff, but carried around that nightgown he’d sewn from her wedding dress.

Gale kept him for a couple weeks until he was ready to move on. It was nice to see a familiar face. That first night, they sat at the table and reminisced of old times for hours and the sweet outweighed the bitter.

Gale didn’t ask about Tav, not until Astarion mentioned her. Perhaps he already knew.

“I buried her,” Astarion said unprompted. “A few weeks ago.”

“She was good for you.”

“Too good, in fact. I never deserved—”

“Stop right there,” Gale interrupted, raising his palm. “She loved you more than anything.”

There was a long pause, a heavy silence in the air as Astarion carefully considered what to say next, as images of their life together ran through his mind like a slideshow. Gods, would he ever escape them?

“I don’t know how to move on.”

“You’ll learn, I assure you. You must. For her sake and yours.”

Months later, he settled at an inn and when he unpacked and came across her nightgown again, he looked it over in his hands and something about it this time was different. Instead of the pain, he saw her wearing the dress at their wedding under the flowered arch and then splayed across their bed in the gown, watching him closely and waiting for him to join her. 

He hardly tranced and spent sunrise to sunset tearing at the seams and separating the fabric. The next day, he drew up new patterns. For the next week, he spent the days in a chair by the fireplace sewing it back together. He pulled extra fabric and thread he saved from when he transformed it into a nightgown, having held on to every single piece of it from the start, and he used nothing new at all, yet the resulting clothing didn’t resemble the dress or the gown one bit, except in color. 

Astarion held it up in the air once he’d finished stitching and to anyone else it must’ve looked like a simple, white shirt—albeit a bit eccentric—but when he held it close to his face, he swore he could smell her again.

For months, he’d searched far and wide for the perfect fabric for the dress, and for more months, he sat in his study and cut and sewed, dreaming of the day he’d finally see her wear it and Gods, when he saw her walk that aisle it was even more beautiful than he ever anticipated.

He was proud of it. More proud than he’d ever been of anything, possibly. 

He thought of how he tore it off her body that night, literally tore it apart at the seams—and then, he remembered the time he pieced it back together into a nightgown and she chastised him for ripping it yet again, but he sewed it back together the next day; he tore it from her countless times and fixed it in the mornings every time, all because she loved it so much.

He wore the shirt everyday. He continued traveling with it and washed it far more carefully than he ever handled any other garment, and eventually, when he was no longer sure where he’d like to go next, he stopped by Gale’s again to stay a few weeks, knowing it might be the last time they met. 

When he told Gale the history of the shirt and received a warm smile of understanding in return, Astarion thought he might be ready to go back home.

always.

Astarion finds their home how he left it, though with a thick layer of dust coating their furniture and possessions. He heads to their room first to unpack his bags. On her nightstand lies an old, dusty book; her journal. He avoided it for so long. 

He wipes off the cover and turns the pages. Scribbles, notes, even quick sketches—of animals, of scenes from the city, of him. He flips through the book until his eyes settle on a page covered in her writing. 

I’m scared. Any healer we speak to says it can’t be cured. That I’ll 

He stops reading and skips to the end, the last page. Shaky, imperfect writing that’s a harsh contrast to the page he just read, but unmistakably hers. Written in her final days, when she became too weak to keep drawing and filling pages with her thoughts and spent the majority of her days in bed.

Love lasts forever, even if the body does not. I’ll always be here, my love.

[naughtybg3confessions]

I know the first time Halsin finally fucks my current Tav (who's been teasing him and challenging his control since the damn party) is going to be something to behold. The first round is of course gonna be sweet and tender, very much a start to a sweet romantic relationship, but after? Oh, that pretty boy ranger is getting absolutely ruined. The smirk is getting wiped right off his face, the snide little comments, and teasing, flirty lines are fucked right out of his mouth, and he's reduced from cocky leader-figure to a quivering mess, far before daybreak: covered in dark hickeys and bruised bite marks, drained and overstimulated, unable to string together a coherent sentence, and clinging onto Halsin while gasping, shivering, and in tears from just how good it feels. You know, the works.

And it's not even as some weird revenge for the tendays of Halsin's self-inflicted frustration, but more as a result of so many fruitless fantasies being finally given an outlet. Like a man that's been willingly fasting for days letting himself finally gorge on his favorite meal. (No wonder he makes sure to mention his sweet tooth, the way that man devours cake. 😏)

Afterwards, all aching joints are massaged lovingly, and gentle healing spells and praises are murmured into Tav's hair as the fingers that were making him whimper just a few minutes before trace and wipe each bite and bruise off his skin as if they weren't even there. (Except for one. A big, full-mouthed love bite right at the juncture of his groin, so he'll still feel it as a reminder of this night with every step he takes the next day.)

[waterdeep-weavemoss]

Elven Poetry

For @crimson-and-lavender 💜 Astarion x Tav. A little bit of cuteness.

Tav walked into the Elfsong tavern and hobbled up to the party’s rented rooms. Astarion lounged on one of the red velvet sofas, long legs stretched out on a footrest, ankles crossed. He was engrossed in a book. Nobody else was here; Minsc, Halsin and Jaheira were at her home gathering supplies, Shadowheart and Gale had wandered off to Sorcerous Sundries with Wyll, and Karlach had insisted on visiting the tiefling refugees. Lae’zel was gods knew where, probably trying to sniff out any gith in the city. Tav was exhausted; her feet ached, her shoulders were sore, and all she wanted to do was soak in a hot bath. But Astarion was here. It would have to wait.

‘Hello, my sweet,’ he said, lifting a hand and throwing her a small smile. He paused, eyes narrowing as he examined her. ‘You’re in pain.’

‘It’s fine,’ she said. She was leaning a little heavily on her cane, true, but other than that she felt as she always did. The heat and tenderness was simply part of her.

‘No,’ he said, raising a brow at her. ‘What do you need?’

She dithered on the spot, cheeks going pink. ‘Well, usually I’d take a bath…’

‘Fine,’ he said, holding out his book. ‘Read to me while I run it for you.’

‘What?’ She set the cane against the wall and hobbled over, taking the hand he offered her for balance.

‘I’m reading this utterly insane fellow,’ he said with a conspiratorial smile, ‘from another dimension. He thinks vampires are real, can you believe?’ He winked, sweeping across the room to fill the bath.

‘I can’t bathe in front of you.’

‘Oh darling don’t be absurd. I’ve seen thousands of bodies in my time, do you really think I care what you look like with your clothes off? Not that I’d say no to you of course. I have taste.’

‘Oh, stop,’ she said. Her eyes scanned the book. ‘Hang on. Is this poetry?’

‘Hm? Yes of course. Now read some to me, damn you.’

She raised her brows in surprise and began to read, putting as much passion into it as she could. Astarion busied himself with drawing the bath but was clearly listening intently, because when she paused nervously he picked it up from memory, the words falling in a silken ribbon of language off his tongue. As she held the book, he moved behind her in a silent question. She nodded, breath catching  a little on the words as he unlaced her armour, plucking the book from her hands so she could divest herself entirely.

‘At the baring of body like winter trees,’ Astarion purred, ‘the sun averts his warming eye, dimming the sky to please his lonely love, gentle as a dove.’

Tav sank into the hot water, watching the vampire close his eyes and lose himself in the wash of words. Her pain began to ease, and only more so when he whispered a curative spell in the guise of poetry. He moved to her, gently soaped her hair and massaged her scalp, all the while reciting. She closed her eyes, feeling more content than she had perhaps ever.

When she was clean, Astarion helped her from the water and bid her sit by the fire, on the floor. She perched on a cushion, and he sat behind her on a velvet chair, so she was nestled between his knees. He combed her hair with soft attentive hands, pulling it into a gentle braid. ‘There you go,’ he murmured finally.

‘You read beautifully.’

‘So do you,’ he said, kissing her temple. ‘We must do this again, love.’

Tags:

@boufsy @owlseeyoulaterpal @lanafofana @amorgansgal

@auroraesmeraldarose @aryancunin @miradelletarot @marlowethebard

@netherese0rb @crimson-and-lavender @reeseykins @medra-gonbites

@roguishcat @weaverofnetheril @galedekarioswifey @hyperfixationstation128 @lastlight-inn

@astarryvamp @feedthepheasants @dabigstinky @dreamingofthewild @ladyofcrowsandcoffee

[pursuitseternal]

“Coaxing:” update for “Our Blood is Thicker,” Astarion x Cordehlia 💞(f!Tav)

Astarion x Cordehlia (Tav) | E | 4.2K of romantic, smutty angst

Summary: Defeating the Orthon means Astarion gets the answer to his scar’s meaning, but thoughts of his lover’s mortality niggle harder than the worms in their brains… solutions hopefully present themselves, and soon.

CW: post-battle blood and bloodlust, manipulative devils, secret Profane Rites revealed, mortality angst, proposals (again… part 2)

Previous Ch | Ao3 link | masterlist

For @marimosalad and the brainworm we share 💞

Chapter 11: Coaxing

🗡️💞🗡️💞🗡️💞🗡️💞🗡️💞🗡️💞🗡️💞🗡️💞🗡️

The air was still as Cordehlia opened her eyes. Not a bird chirp, not a soft rustle of breeze in the morning air or the caress of dew on the tent walls.

All was dead in these Shadow Cursed lands. But she never felt more alive. His hand already swept over her back, tender little strokes between her shoulder blades. His lips already smiled at her before her eyes even fluttered open. “Good morning, my love,” Astarion whispered, placing a slow and gentle kiss on her lips.

She slid herself closer, raising from where she was tucked into his side to lean across the spanse of his chest. “I love you,” she returned his little kiss with one of her own.

“I love you,” he breathed back into her lips. “And I hope you never tire of hearing that for the rest of your life, Cordehlia.”

“Never,” she cupped her hands on either side of his face. Her touch was warm, gentle, sending all the love in her heart straight into his own, undead as it may be. And his heart panged in dread.

She was worn out, right so, he laughed inwardly, watching her rest her sleepy head back on his shoulder, her eyes fluttering back shut. He had put her through her many, varied paces— and she, him.

He felt her living breath tickling over his skin, listened to every beat of that heart in her chest, calm. And alive. His gut twisted, and not in hunger. In fear. In horror. She would hear his words, feel his love for the rest of her life… but what then. What would be in store for him once she…

No, he stopped. He had to refrain from weighing the fact that outliving his mortal love would only be justice for leaving her long ago. Centuries damned to the same grief, the same loss. Only this time, she would be truly gone. And he would only have memories to comfort him.

The insides of his eyes stung, tears pricking them, tears he wished would disappear.

There had to be something he could do… for her if not for him.

To keep her with him. To bind her to his very being. To give himself to her until the sun itself melted.

He had failed her once, despite the haze over those memories… This time, he would never leave her. There had to be a way. No matter the cost.

“What’s the matter?” she murmured against his chest. “I can feel your tension, Astarion.”

“What happens when I lose you, darling…” He lets the question hang in the air. She lets it too, her arms gripping tighter around his middle, letting the gravity and grief of his words settle into her own bones.

“You won’t,” she whispered, turning her head to face him. There was an edge to her gaze, a sharpness of determination. Exacting. Fearsome. Astarion loved it. A glimmer of his Corvus, he suspected.

“My little raven is going to keep even the enemy of death at bay?” he crooned, caressing her cheek, his pride and arousal at those two intimidating words passing through his touch.

Something at the corners of her eyes hardened, something behind her eyes brightened as her breath grew heavier. “Not even death will keep me from you again, now that I’ve found you once more… now that you… love me again.”

Those last words, they were honey on her lips, nectar of the gods. He couldn’t help but press his mouth to her, hungry to suck that sweetness right off them. Noise crescendoed from outside his tent, clattering pans, muted voices—the others waking.

But ahe was in his arms, and they were already roused from sleep and aroused beyond fear. And he would not wait until night once more to feed on her or reward her for that ferocity and possessiveness once more.

That day, his thoughts of dreading her death hung close to his consciousness. Every trial, every fight, he remained at her side, close enough to guard her back and heal her the moment an arrow so much as grazed her tender flesh.

Blood soaked, gore dripping from their armor and pooling at their feel, they finally took stock of their last battle.

Exacting that demand from the devil. His enemy, the Orthon, lay dead on the floor. And every one of her party panted, drained of energy but elated all the same.

It had been grueling, but they survived. He looked at her beside him. They had all survived.

Astarion prodded his red-skin corpse with the toe of his boot. “One payment exchanged for dark knowledge about what that bastard did to my back,” he turned to Cordehlia, her boots deep in muddy viscera. Her eyes searching his face for her hard-earned reward. “Thank you,” he purred, pulling her flush against his body by the curve of her ass.

“Don’t thank us yet,” Wyll shook his head, cleaning his own blade. “Wait and see if the devil holds up his end of the bargain.” He snorted, both eyes narrowed as he looked up at them. “It’ll be a cold day in Avernus if he tells you everything you need to know. Weigh Raphael’s words carefully, elves, or you might end up selling more than your souls…” he stood from his crouching. “…Please, we all love a good romance. Don’t sour it with greed or by being unwary.”

“When have I ever been selfish, Wyll?” Astairon put on that perfectly innocent expression, hand splayed on his chest, brows raised high above his wet, wide eyes.

No one replied, not with words. A chorus of disgruntled groans just fill the dank cavern as they leave. Astarion just clung to Cordehlia’s waist, savoring the say her armored body clashed against his own. “Darling, was it something I said?”

“No, of course not,” she smirked, her voice rife with sarcasm, though she knew it was what he sought.

“Camp has never sounded so good. I’m thoroughly exhausted, my love,” he leaned in to whisper the next bit for her pointed ears alone, “but fret not, I still have enough energy remaining to… celebrate our victory just the two of us.”

“Hmmm,” she purred in reply, easing herself from the way he gripped her tighter. “Let’s see if or when Raphael should reappear. Gods forbid he catches us with our pants down again…”

“I’m sure it would be quite educational for anybody, even a devil…” his laugh tickled her ear, his gauntleted hand raising to smack her backside once made her armor clang.

“I heard that!” Gale called from just in front of them. He didn’t even need to turn around for them to hear his eyes roll.

“I should hope everyone heard that,” the vampire gloated in reply. “You’ll hear a lot more…”

Another chorus of groans deafened the rest of his provocative discussion.

“They’re worse than newlyweds on their honeymoon,” Wyll whispered to their Druid.

Halsin chuckled back, “They’re worse than displacer beasts during mating season.”

“You’re hopeless,” Cordehlia chided, letting herself be caressed and pulled hard against his side regardlessly.

“Actually, for once, I have hope,” Astarion spoke, softer, more assured. Genuine. “And it’s thanks to you, my lovely Cordehlia.”

She froze in her tracks, looking into those sharp lines of his face to see them soft, wide and sincere. All her words dried on her lips, his mouth twitched, the same for him. Her chest felt tight, her stomach fluttering. And all she could do was smile like a fool.

A fool in love.

It was late, and the two elves had sworn, on both sets of pointed ears, they would keep watch in the dark for their fiendish friend… waiting for Raphael to hold his end of their bargain. And while no one believed they wouldn’t be openly rutting while they waited, the rest of the party was too exhausted to truly care what happened between them once their eyes were shut.

The fire crackled, and Cordehlia made certain they were, in fact, not caught with their pants down. Not for a lack of effort and zeal on her vampire’s behalf. But she resisted all his flirtatious attempts, pulling her into his lap to feel just how hard he was for her, breathing on the back of her neck… all in vain for now. He put on a smile, keeping his hands mostly to himself, even if she could see the pronounced bulge through his leathers. But something kept her keen, watchful. Almost as if she could smell the sulfur gathering, the pinpricks of eyes watching from the shadows.

As if the devil was waiting… hoping for more of a show once again. But their love was too precious to be put on display like that. Not for him. No matter how helpful the devil seemed to be.

Finally, once she leaned into Astarion’s shoulder, letting his arm wrap tightly around her, his skilled fingers slowly starting to caress one breast in his palm…. she heard a single footfall close by.

“I was thinking you two would be… vigorously celebrating the Orthon’s defeat by now. I was so hoping to interrupt,” that velvet baritone rippled from over their shoulders.

Astarion stood first, confident and ready to accept his reward. “We have upheld our end of the bargain, devil,” he smirked slightly. Crossed arms and spread legs making him seem all the more confident.

“And I shall uphold mine, little vampling, for those scars on your back tell such a delicious tale of woe, of the lure of power, and the betrayal of… well,” Raphael paused, those hard ridges of his face twisting even more devilishly. “Perhaps I get ahead of myself, it is rather a grim tale. But one that most assuredly defines your destiny.”

The way his eyes shot between them both gave Cordehlia pause. Something was here, something more than just a story or an answer. Something that could bring about both their destinies. “Tell us,” she chimed in, commanding and exacting as ever. “Why Infernal runes for scars? What business does Cazador have with the hells?”

“Oh, it’s more than business, my Lady Corvus, it is a total shift in allegiances and alliances to dominate Faerûn forever. Cazador Szarr is not the only powerful force in Baldur’s Gate, and those scars on your lover’s ivory skin are the last remaining key to unlocking total domination over the undead in this realm….” The devil paused, watching.

Cordehlia caught her love’s face from the corner of her eye, catching his hand in hers. He felt tight, wound like a trap ready to spring. His ears twitched at the sound of power, body rigid to hear it would be his master’s. “Go on, Raphael,” she smiled, “we have little time for half tales and riddles.”

“Then I’ll tell you all, out of my devotion to you, my lovely lady, all about the Rite of Profane Ascension. Long ago, Cazador Szarr made a deal with the archdevil Mephistopheles to gain unlimited power for his kind. All of his spawn and a handful of other souls to be sacrificed in exchange for the rite so deliciously diabolical, so overflowing with an influx of total, dominating power, no Vampire in the world could resist the temptation to take it for themselves.”

She could feel it, the clutch of his hand on hers even tighter, the pull of his own desire, as if his mouth watered to hear the promise of all that power.

“As Vampire Ascendant, all of man’s desires and appetites will be restored. His reflection, his beating heart will be his again. What’s more, he won’t need a tadpole in his skull to walk in the sun, and…” Raphael paused. He changed his stance to one much more… friendly. Familiar. His hands clasped before him, his shoulders bending towards them both. “Should Cazador Szarr gain all this power, he would not make a good ally against the Absolute, against Ketheric or the other conspirators that seek to dominate souls in this world….”

“And this poses a problem for you in your quaint little circle of hell, does it not, Raphael….” Astarion’s interjection, so perceptive and sharp, caught even the devil before them off guard. “That’s why you sought us out from the beginning, isn’t it? Not to heal our tadpoles or take our souls, or to even offer your hollow praise to my beloved?”

Astarion paused, letting go of her hand, striding a step forward with total confidence. A sway, a swagger as he closed the distance on Raphael. “You need me to stop him…” he grinned wickedly, “for your own benefit as much as mine, as much as Cordehlia’s.”

Raphael merely shrugged. “Whatever happens, happens my friends. I just know that by potentially helping you, I may have given aide to the next most powerful Vampire in the realms… all that power, and no one to take it seems like an awful waste…”

The devil’s smile only widened as his eyes fell on Cordehlia. “And, I hear that lovers don’t last when one is undying and the other… well,” he shrugged again. “Just think of all the possibilities a Vampire Lord possesses for… creation, if you catch my meaning.”

It was a stake in his ribs, the tantalizing incentive to make her… his. Forever. The thought stuck, sharp and lodged in his brain like a thorn in his thoughts, his lips pursed silent as the devil finally dispersed.

He was silent as she pulled him into the darkness of his tent. Their tent. And even as she lifted her own tunic, baring her whole body for him, even as her hands began to tug his off that ruinously handsome frame, he just watched with sharp eyes. Quiet but for a few little noises of approval. Cordehlia squinted, stopping for the moment.”What are your thoughts, Astarion? It’s not like you to be so silent for so long.”

His head hung, watching her hands settle his shirt back down. And even that made his stomach twist into unending knots. “It’s… a tantalizing offer, my love.” He finally commented, forcing his voice full of its usual satin.

“It’s not even half of what you deserve, you know…” she whispered. As if she feared the power of her words. “Though… a handful of souls to be sacrifice does seem vague. As long as yours isn’t one of them.”

“Hmmm,” he paused. “It will take some planning, and chaos… and luck.” He grinned at her, eyes scanning the way she sat on her knees, breasts pert and pink and just waiting for him. It made him lick his lips, the words of her approval sinking deeper than his bones. “And most importantly, it will take you by my side.”

She smiled just slightly, brows furrowed in deep thought, and then she opened her mouth. “What did he mean by a vampire lord’s powers of creation?” she asked, hesitant and unsure for once.

Astarion forced himself not to look away, not to look down at the body he worshiped more than any gods. Forcing himself to only gaze straight ahead in those bright silver eyes. Uncertainty stung in his gut at how she might accept such knowledge. “Vampire Lords have the powers to turn the living into the undead. Spawn are made to be slaves, obedient servants in every sense, compelled to follow the slightest whim,” his words sounded from between grit teeth. His own burden and suffering imbued in his tone.

She said nothing, only resting the warm, supple palm of her hand on his bent knee. A small gesture, but one that eased the suffering instantly piqued.

He breathed before continuing. “Vampire Lords can also create other vampires, draining the living of all their blood and then bestowing their own in return. The effect is to create a full-blooded, equally powerful, potentially threatening creature just like themselves. But…” he paused, frozen by her searching gaze. His swallow gagged him. His hand less than steady as he let one of his rest atop where she still touched him. “There is a third creation, equally connected to their maker as if they were a spawn, equally powerful and free as if they were a Vampire Lord or Mistress in their own right.”

Cordehlia shivered, and not from the cold. This seemed so familiar, the way he said so much and yet nothing important. Or at least not the most important parts. The way he had once danced around asking for her hand, her own youth and innocence too sweet to know just what desires ran under his always-pale skin. His veiled questions… his obtuse flirtations… she had no clue what he had intended for her long ago truly until he finally accompanied her down to the stream that day, saying she would be his, one way or another… Until he feigned returning back home, only to be caught watching her down by the river…

When he first sought to make her his bride.

That word stuck in her brain, striking some long forgotten knowledge of vampiric creatures…

“You speak of the Bride,” she breathed.

One brow twitched as it arched, his lips turning softly. Wistfully. “What if… what if I am able to amend my past transgressions? What if…”

Her hand raised, fingers pressing against his moving lips so quickly. “Don’t say it unless you mean it, Astarion,” she whimpered, voice catching in her throat. All the sharpness of a sob beginning. “I won’t survive again if…”

“I do mean it,” he said, mouth moving fast, but his arms moved faster. He was always faster with his body, his words, his thoughts always playing catch-up. He pulled her flush against his body, laying her down on the mess of pillows and blankets beneath them. His poor excuse for a bed. He said nothing more, letting the warmth of her figure flood into him, seeping through the linen of his ruffled shirt and the supple leather of his trousers. “I mean it, Cordehlia Aquilae, my future… bride.”

But she kept still against his side, her face turned to bury into that valley of his chest and stomach. It was only once her tears had pooled in his center did he even realize she was crying. Her hand fisted against her face, hiding her eyes as she finally took a shaking inhale.

“Oh shit,” he held his own breath. “Did I do something wrong? Say something wrong?”

“No,” she instantly turned that tear-streaked face towards him. Her pale skin mottled from crying, even her silver eyes peered through the gathering puffiness. “I’ve… been longing for this for so long. It, it just must be too good to be true.”

“I’m not leaving you this time,” he rasped, trying hard to reassure her with little caresses of his hand in her hair, coaxing her further. Coaxing her closer. “You said… I’ve seen… in the past, my ambitions stole me away.”

She nodded, swallowing so hard, he could feel it against his stomach.

“This time, my darling Cordehlia, I’m taking you with me,” he purred, stroking a single finger under her quivering chin. Beckoning her to his smirking mouth. “Now… I think I’d like to take you now, too. As if you could lie that perfect body against me, expecting me to resist the temptation.” He shook his head as she slid over him. “Tch,” he purred deeper again, crooking a finger in her face to beckon her all the more. “Come here, and don’t make me coax you more, my sweet… my betrothed.”

She shuddered and thrilled, splaying her legs around his hips, letting the smoothness of his leathers slip beneath her folds. “Always so quick to forget your manners, not that you were ever fluent in using it in your vocabulary,” she chided, taking a moment to wipe her last tears with her shoulder.

“What are you going to do, train my tongue to be more endearing, more polite?”

“There are so many ways to coax out a please from your spoiled lips, Ancunìn,” she grinned, feeling that growing swell in his lap hardening.

“And it seems like we will have all of eternity to make me practice my tongue to your heart’s content,” he purred, leaning closer as she braced her arms about his neck. “Won’t you kiss me, after all…” he gave her a piercing, rakish grin, and Cordehlia doubted he would know it was the same that made her stomach flutter for years, for lifetimes. “…you are my intended, my betrothed.”

“And you are mine.” She felt a surge inside her, something fierce, something dark swirling from days of old. A need to protect. To fight for him. Or because of him. “Cazador will die,” she hissed, “All nine hells will freeze over before we let your old master claim any of that power… I won’t allow it, nor will you, my love.”

“Oh, I love when you snap your razor sharp beak, my little raven…” he crooned, hands sweeping down her sides to hook into the bend of her knees. He pulled her hard, clutching her hard as he thrust up into her. “But enough about him…. I’d rather make you spout such sweet little noises, make you cry my name from your lips…”

One hand splayed on his chest, the other gripped his from her leg to guide it, to coax it into the peak of her folds. “If you wish,” she simpered in reply. “I have many an idea of just how you could do that…”

He tilted his head, those silver locks of his shifting ever so slightly. “Well, darling, I’m all pointy ears to hear them…”

A sliver of their past sliced through her memories… “I want you to make me yours.”

“You already are, my love,” he arches a single brow, confusion wrapped tightly in intrigue and burning arousal.

“I’ve always been yours… but never your own, never forever,” she paused, biting her lip in her hesitation.

“That will all change once we rid ourselves of all this,” he pointed behind his back, splayed on the ground as he was. “But do no doubt for a moment that all of this is mine…” He brushed his touch under her chin, racing his touch down to sweep over her breasts, clutching one in his fingers to kneed it gently. His other hand slipped beneath her wet folds, letting the backs of his fingers graze into her as he tugs loose his breeches’ buttons. She shifted just enough to let him out, to flatten his cock fully into her cunt as she glided over its silken hard length. “And this,” he groaned, matching the buck of her hips just perfectly in time to sheathe himself inside her clenching heat, “this is yours… only yours. Whether you’re my bride yet or not, my darling, I’ll have none but you.”

The way her whole body shook on him, around him, it almost undid him right then and there. Her mouth hung slack, her body dipping down to cover him as she bucked and canted her hips. “Say it again… how I’m yours,” she moaned, the red of her hair falling over her shoulders, “how you’ll make me yours forever.”

“You will be mine…” he growled, one hand pulling at the back of her neck to bring her panting lips against his own. “Your delicious mouth, so eager to please, will be mine…” his hand slid to her cheek, sticking his thumb between her slack lips as he hooked it and tugged it against his own. He bit into her lips, just enough of his fang piercing her flesh to bring blood to their mouths.

Her own hunger flared, matching his kiss suck for suck and lick for lick. Hand clutched at the back of her head, he gripped her harshly, pulling her back and dragging his damp fangs over her neck. “This is mine, your blood will always be mine,” he growled, running his tongue over the scars and lingering wounds from his near constant indulgence of her blood.

“Bite,” she sighed, a slight drag of her hips over his length. “Tell me how I taste,” an order, sweetened in the thick tone of her voice.

He waited for no further invitation, sinking in his teeth in time with a buck of hips to sink himself deeper into her arousal.

Both drew a delicious groan from that throat between his lips as he sucked his fill. “Rich, powerful…” he mumbled between swallows of her essence. He could feel her swallow as he did, hear her breathing grow ragged as he feasted on that blood. A swirl of his tongue, he purred again, “Addictive, nourishing…”

That got her going, her hips driving against him blood from her neck dripping on the cream of his shirt. But even that couldn’t rile him. Fingers wound around both breasts, letting his nails drag into their swaying fullness. Making a little whimper of pain-laced pleasure spill from her lips. “All of you, Cordehlia, will be mine.”

Shattering, spasming, she crumpled into his chest, head braced against his own. Every muscle in her sculpted body gripped him, holding him tightly.

Never to lose him again.

Not like last time….

[sorcerous-caress]

If you have the time, could you do a Wyll request with a durge!tav who is waaaaay too selfless to balance out the violent parts of their brain. Like Wyll is about to take a massive hit and tav just pushes him out of the way, taking the damage and bleeding out on the ground but they just offer a smile to Wyll in return. They don't know how to express that it makes them feel less of a monster when they do this stuff.

Into my arms | Wyll

[Angst, comfort, themes of indirect self harm/destructive behaviours, getting better together, Durge Reader, Nb!Reader]

[ part of the Wyll's Week event]

To bleed is to know you have a soul.

Oh, how reassuring it was, the sight of your own life essence escaping your veins. A cleansing shower of red that washes away all of your sins.

All of your father's sins.

To be bathed in your own blood, to bear the scars of every arrow and sword that you dived in front of, it's proof to the world of your innocence.

Your companions, your friends, the people who accepted you for who you are, you can't fail them.

So you closed off your walls, built a fortress of steel and enchanted the bricks to deflect all of your emotions and urges inwards, on yourself instead.

To protect the ones you loved, to spare the world of your cruel heart.

If your brain craves for blood to be spilled, it will be yours. A member to dismember, will come from you.

Wyll was the most vocal out of your other companions about his discontent with your ways of indirect self-flagellation masquerading as selfless kindness, your constant sacrifice of precious parts of you until you hoped nothing will remain.

“I am grateful for you sparing me from that arrow, truly,” Wyll sat down next to you just as Shadowheart bid her goodnight after healing your wounds, “but why put yourself in front of me? Why tempt death constantly by using yourself as a shield for me, for all of us.”

He sees the way you look at him, at all of them. As if they were something precious, as if they were doing you a favour by giving you a decent treatment. A stark contrast to how hollow your gaze becomes whenever you glance at a mirror, face your own reflection with disdain.

You would carve out your own flesh to feed them if you had to, it was written in your soul clear as day. And that notion was far too scary for Wyll's brain to comprehend.

You haven't given him a reply, merely smiled. Too tender and sweet of a smile for someone who's ready to sacrifice their own body for him, for someone who already did countless times.

He isn't blind, he is far too familiar with this kind of overcompensation. The idea that if you let the world punish you enough, drag your limbless form through the mud and dig deep, then maybe just maybe salvation will be an option.

An attempt to balance the scales of fate, the unfair hand you were dealt in this life, the child of a slayer god. Bathed with blood and adorned with carcasses since the day you were born, not that you had any choice in the face of your ever so doting father.

Where is he now? Wyll wonders. Where are any of the gods? When they turned their backs on him that damned night, when he begged on his knees for a devil to deliver what the divine couldn't care to.

They only reared their ugly head when it suited them, and yours seemed to only send you the best of gifts after forcing your own hand to rip something equally as precious from your world.

The campfire flame cackles at both of your miserable states, your joint desperation for approval.

Wyll tries to offer you what he cannot give himself, to be the person he needed most that night.

Reassurance.

“You're not a monster, you don't deserve to bleed just because.” He tells you the word he repeated to himself once before, “you don't have to be strong for us.”

You can be weak

Be weak and drop the weight of the world from your shoulders, be weak and fear death for your life is worth living. 

Be weak and cry when you get hurt, stay down when you fall, hug yourself when you crumble. 

Please be weak.

“Let me have your back, be your sword and shield.” The campfire light reflects off of his horns, he just like you, already paid the price.

The bandage around your waist where the arrow struck is still fresh, you wince as you try to get closer to him. Before you could force your body to move again, Wyll himself closes the distance, leaving his seat and kneeling on the ground in front of you.

“Please.” You see your reflection in his eyes, “promise me you will at least try, depend on me, on all of us.”

The words are dry in your mouth, his lips look especially lovely as he pleads his case.

So many words unspoken, so many thoughts swirl around your brain.

I can handle it.

It's my fate.

It's what I deserve.

I rather die than watch you get hurt.

It claws at my skin every second demanding I give in.

You deserve more than I can afford.

I'm death incarnate.

I should be hurt.

I can't handle it.

Then your mind blinks away, a blank state as you feel his lips, those same lovely lips, kiss your bruised knuckles.

Then, emotions.

You almost forgot you had them, almost forgot you deserved to feel them.

You cup Wyll's face gently with the same hand, hold him tenderly.

“I promise,” you vow, “I will try. For you, I will do anything.”

[sadinasaphrite]

Was I the only one walking around Cazador's Palace like a prospective homeowner at an open house?

"We'll change the spawn dorms into servant quarters, dispose of the cursed body on the ground floor, no I'm not stealing any paintings, we're going to need those for the décor. Does the secret basement dungeon also have a convenient route to the Underdark? Wonderful, I'll take it after aggressive negotiation with the current owner."

Anyway oops here's 2,000 words of male!Tav and Astarion finding a home after the events of BG3.

AO3 Link

* * * * *

“Come home with me.”

“Beg pardon?”

Tav leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching as Astarion looked up from the book he was reading.

“Come home with me,” Tav repeated. “No one’s said anything yet, but I’ve gotten the impression our free room and board may not be free for much longer.”

“Truly? What happened to their unending gratitude for the heroes of Baldur’s Gate?” Astarion scoffed and marked his place before closing the book.

“It seems the Elfsong’s gratitude only extends so far, especially now the celebrations are over and the rebuilding has started. Doubly so when we’re taking up a room that could be used for a paying customer.”

“Well,” Astarion’s smile was sickly sweet and his eyes were sharp, “we’d best not outstay our welcome, then. I’d hate to be an inconvenience to the miserable wretches we risked our necks to save.”

Tav chuckled, unphased by the response, and started packing up their gear.

“We knew it was temporary,” he said, “This was just somewhere convenient to stay while we had Harpers and journalists and the Watch and damn near anyone else north of Candlekeep wanting to talk to us.”

“Still, a week seems hardly long enough to get our feet back under us,” Astarion slid the book into a bag and started packing up his own things. “Surely a month wouldn’t have been unreasonable.”

“I think I’d rather leave than tell the whole damn story of our adventure one more time,” Tav said. He averted his eyes, pretending to focus making sure his clothes were folded just right. “Besides, I have a home here. It isn’t much, but… there’s room for two. I wouldn’t mind if you moved in with me.”

Astarion didn’t reply. The silence rang in his ears until Tav couldn’t bear it and shot Astarion a furtive glance. The vampire spawn stared at him, a pair of gloves in one hand, frozen before he’d finished packing them. His sneer was gone, his mask of smug confidence shattered, looking at Tav with open vulnerability, his crimson eyes wide.

“You’d truly want that?” Astarion broke the silence, his voice soft with the barest trace of uncertainty. “A life in the shadows? No… no sunlight streaming through your windows, empty mirrors on the walls, the scent of death permeating your home?”

Tav set his pack down and closed the distance between them. He cupped Astarion’s face with both hands, caressing along his cheekbones with his thumbs, his skin cool against Tav’s palms.

“An easy price to pay for the pleasure of your company.”

Tav pressed his lips against his love’s, giving him a brief, tender kiss. Astarion relaxed under his touch and reassurances, letting out a soft sigh.

“And don’t be dramatic, you only smell like death when you’re covered in someone else’s blood.”

That startled a laugh out of Astarion, the last of the tension vanishing from his posture as he pulled away.

“Then I will endeavor not to make too much of a mess in the house,” he said. “Lead on, love.”

They gathered up the last of their things, bid their tidings to the Elfsong’s staff, and stepped out into the night. It had been just over a week since the Netherbrain’s defeat. The bodies had been cleared from the streets, but the repairs needed for the extensive property destruction was only beginning. Even at night, the streets were crowded with laborers, masons, carpenters, and brick layers, most still working to clear the rubble, but some starting to rebuild already.

“Where do you live?” Astarion asked, sidestepping a mound of crumbled brick. “And why were we slumming it in the streets when you could have been playing host to our merry band?”

“My humble home would not have fit everyone in our camp,” Tav replied. “I think Minsc alone would have broken my front door off its hinges just by walking inside. I’m also further west than we ever traveled. I’m in the Lower City, but we never had the time to get over in that direction.”

“Hm. A barely acceptable excuse,” Astarion said, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “I suppose you can make it up to me by allowing me to sleep in a bed instead of a bedroll or those rocks they call mattresses at the Elfsong.”

“Dear, you are welcome to my bed whenever your heart desires,” Tav paused, pretending to think. “Though I hope that doesn’t leave me sleeping on the floor too much.”

Astarion laughed, and the sound warmed Tav’s heart. Gods, he loved Astarion’s laugh. All his laughs, in fact. From his snide little snicker, to his sharp fake-it-until-you-make-it guffaw, to this, his honest, joyous laughter that sparkled in the air like starlight.

“That depends on the size and quality of your bed, then,” Astarion said, as if they hadn’t been spending every night of the past week sleeping in each others’ arms.

They bantered and bickered through the streets, only stopping when Tav broke off mid sentence.

“Ah! We’re almost here. Just around the corner of Tailor’s Alley and—”

Tav froze, stopping so abruptly that Astarion nearly walked into him.

“Hm? What is it?” Astarion glanced over at him, but Tav didn’t respond.

Before them stood a row of half-standing brick and stone walls, but nothing more. No rubble, no debris, and certainly no neat row of houses.

“Darling?” Astarion looked at him curiously. “What is it?”

“It… it was right here,” Tav let out a harsh breath. “Why… why is it gone? Why is it… nothing else is cleaned up. Why is this… gone?”

“Tis o’er here?” A dwarf pushing a cart of supplies interjected. “We been workin’ on tis since last month. Damn squid ship destroyed it o’er a moon ago. City ain’t rebuildin’ it yet. In fact, we’re supposed t’take the remainin’ brick for supplies elsewhere.”

Since last month. His home was destroyed in the attack when he’d been first abducted and infected. He’d been homeless for weeks and didn’t even know it. Tav took a few shaky steps toward the crumbling walls that were once his home, but he knew there would be nothing left. A month in the Lower City? Without a lock, a door, or even walls to protect his property from looters? Nothing was left. His every possession now hung off his person in packs or on his back. Everything he owned was gone.

“Yes, thank you,” Astarion sneered when Tav remained silent. “No one asked you to join a private conversation, you can leave now.”

The dwarf shrugged and moved on.

“Tav?” Astarion lowered his voice, gently resting a hand on the small of Tav’s back. “Speak to me, love.”

“It’s gone,” Tav’s voice shook. “My… my home. It… it was right here. And now… gods… my letters, my books, my journals, my—”

Tav’s voice cracked and he swallowed. Fog filled his head, clouding his thoughts like cotton in his ears, crackling with static until it drowned out everything except the horrible knowledge that everything he owned, everything he believed he would come home to, was totally, irreplaceably gone.

“...my mother’s necklace, my childhood lucky charm… it’s gone. It’s all gone.”

He fell silent, staring in shock as his mind went numb, letting the reality of the situation settle into his bones. Astarion rubbed Tav’s back, grounding him, and another realization struck him like lightning.

Gods. Astarion.

“We… Let’s head back to the Elfsong. Dawn’s only a few hours off, and we have to get you inside,” Tav said. “And… and I’ll have more time to… to think. To process. Gods, I was always going to invite you over, we’d have somewhere to live but… what now? What are we going to do now?”

Tav’s voice trembled and his hands shook, all his plans falling around him like… fuck, like the crumbling rubble of his home.

They stood in silence for a long moment before Astarion cleared his throat.

“Well,” Astarion started, fussing with the curl behind his ear before continuing. “I’ve heard on good authority that Cazador’s palace is quite recently vacated.”

“No,” Tav said, more sharply than he intended. “No, I’m not making you go back there.”

Astarion scoffed. “Honestly, love. Do you think I would have suggested it if I couldn’t bear to cross Cazador’s threshold once again? In fact, I don’t think it’s even quite right to call it ‘Cazador’s’ palace anymore. He doesn’t live there, after all.”

A cruel, vindictive gleam lit up Astarion’s eyes.

“In fact, he’s not doing much living or unliving at all.”

The idea rolled around in Tav’s head, like a boulder through the fog, too large to be hidden and giving him something to focus on instead of sinking into the rubble that was once his home. Slowly, his thoughts took shape.

“It has the advantage of already meeting a vampire’s needs…” Tav said slowly.

“Precisely,” Astarion clapped a firm hand on Tav’s shoulder and turned him away from the empty walls, guiding him toward the Upper City. “I knew you’d see it my way. The basement may be a rotting disaster, but the upper floors are all quite presentable. Apart from the ballroom, I suppose, those werewolves will be bloated corpses by now. But we can focus on staying in one of the nice, clean—”

“Ghouls,” Tav interrupted, the fog clearing as he latched onto the idea.

“Pardon?”

“Ghouls,” Tav repeated, “For the mess. We hire some ghouls to clean out the ballroom. They’ll eat what’s left of the corpses, and we can hire someone more respectable to do the rest.”

“More respectable?” Astarion asked, “Such as?”

The boulder in his thoughts was rolling full tilt now, his mind racing as the plan unfolded. The fog was gone and Tav could clearly see the path before them, taking shape and leading them to a new solution.

“Servants, of course. We’ll have the spawn dormitories remodeled into proper servants quarters. I’m certainly not going to upkeep that massive building by myself, and I know you’re not going to.”

“I object to your tone, but you are correct. But paying for a whole staff would be…” Astarion trailed off as he caught up with Tav’s racing thoughts. “We have everything we need. The keys to Cazador’s vaults in the Counting House. His deeds and estate documents will be there.”

“And he was so damn sure he’d become an Ascended all-powerful vampire—” Tav’s eyes gleamed in excitement.

“—he wouldn’t have named an heir,” Astarion finished. “To do so would imply he might fail, and he’d never afford the appearance of weakness! Gods, even those letters we found in his towers implied his only living family is as fucked as he was, and are either dead or ostracized! His fortune, his land, it’s ours for the taking!”

“You won’t even need an invitation to enter! As for the social ramifications, hm…” Tav thought for a moment. “The public doesn’t know he was a vampire, and the spawn won’t be around to talk. It won’t be difficult to label him as yet another member of the Absolute, one more illithid in the mass graves.”

“And any other wrinkles that come up can be ironed out by reminding everyone that we are the gods-damned Heroes of Baldur’s Gate!”

“His library!” Tav straightened as he was struck with the thought. “All his research and rites. We can’t complete the Ascension, but what if we can separate out whatever part of the ritual makes the Ascended vampire immune to sunlight? A smaller rite with a smaller cost?”

“Neither of us are well versed in hellish rites, but we know one of the most brilliant wizards on the Sword Coast, and if you tell Gale I said that I’ll bite you in the ass.”

“And even if Gale can’t help, he’s got contacts all through Waterdeep. Hells, even Elminster himself!”

“Hmm, I’d prefer to avoid that old coot’s attention, if it’s all the same to you,” Astarion said, “but… gods, if there’s a chance…”

“Then we have to take it,” Tav met Astarion’s gaze, his eyes bright. “And I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

“Well then,” Astarion said, holding a hand out to Tav, “shall we claim our new home, dear?”

Tav clasped his hand, fingers entwining.

“Let’s go home.”

[bibooozeta]

Just the tip?

Astarion x Alicent (bard!tav)

Summary: Ali was injured by a goblin arrow, someone had to keep watch over her while the party went on adventuring, and Astarion saw the perfect opportunity to keep working at his plan of seduction. He may find out that he is not the only one who can play, though.

Snippet from Act 1, relationship status = SITUATIONSHIP. They haven’t smashed it yet, but they’re working on it.

English is not my first language!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As her eyelids fluttered open, a scene of unexpected tenderness greeted her. Astarion was there, reading a book while watching over her. His care was evident as she took in the details around her: Clean bandages and a dampened washcloth on the side of her bedroll.

She heard Astarion mutter to himself, "God, this book is awfully boring."

She blinked grogginess and sleep out of her eyes. There was a raspy sensation in her throat as she tried to down her spit through it, and a dull pain from her shoulder. She slit her eye open towards the presence that she knew was his. "Bad read?"

Astarion looked up from the page to meet her gaze. "Ugh, you have no idea. This book is nothing but a poorly written fantasy romance. It would be so much better if these characters used the brain they've been given to get out some of these situations, but instead, they just pine after one another and whine about everything."

He sighed and set the book to the side, crossing his arms over his chest. "I suppose if you like that sort of thing, it might be enjoyable, but I can't stand the melodrama."

"Somehow I find that hard to believe." She smirked up at him, trying and failing to sit up. She winced against the burning sensation in her shoulder. "Ouch. Fucking Goblin assholes."

Astarion gently pushed her back to lie down on the cot. "Don't strain yourself. Your shoulder is still healing." He frowned as he examined her wound, the bandages were still fresh, the stitching holding up well. "You were hit by a poisoned arrow during the fray, it's a miracle it didn't pierce all the way through. We had to get the damn thing out, and the cleric healed most of the venom."

His voice softened as he placed a hand on her forehead. "Get some more rest, I'll keep watch over you."

Ali looked at him dumbfoundedly "Who are you? WHat have you done to the nasty vampire?" She joked, breathing through the pain.

Astarion rolled his eyes lightheartedly. "Oh, aren't you the funniest. I'll have you know, I can be caring and sweet if I want to be." He smirked playfully and leaned in closer, his fangs on display. "But only for those who deserve it, of course. And you, my dear, are dangerously close to slipping to the other side of that fence. So mind your tongue."

"Oh, I'll mind it, alright." She flirted playfully, knowing he could take it without making too much of a deal about it.

Astarion smirked and leaned in closer, hovering just inches away from her face. His red eyes glimmered mischievously, reflecting the flickering light of a nearby flame. "Well, well, aren't we feisty? I can handle a bit of fire, my darling, but let's not get too carried away. You're still recovering from your little injury, after all. It could be quite the scandal if someone else ended up taking care of you in my absence." His gaze lingered on hers for a moment longer before he pulled back with a playful flutter of his lashes.

"Oh you're just awful, you know?" She rolled her eyes. "Where are the others? Is everyone okay?"

Astarion feigned innocence, placing a hand on his chest in mock affront. "Why, I'm appalled that you would even suggest such a thing. You wound me." With a sly grin, he continued, "But to answer your question, the rest of our party is fine. They're busy with some 'urgent matter', so I volunteered to keep watch over you. I couldn't stand the thought of you missing out on my company."

"Which urgent matter? What's more urgent than getting our bran buddies our of our heads?"

Astarion shrugged nonchalantly. "Some nonsense about seeking out a wise hermit or delving into ancient ruins for clues. Honestly, it all sounds like a complete waste of time to me. But you know our beloved companions; they have a tendency to get distracted by shiny objects and grand adventures."

He sighed dramatically, "I, on the other hand, chose to remain by your side. Because I am the most wonderful partner one could hope for."

"How lucky I am." She jabbed at him.

Astarion chuckled, his eyes sparkling. "That's not all, dear, I also happen to be the most handsome amongst us. Which is only a bonus, I assure you."

He grinned charmingly as he added, "But enough about me. You're the one we should be fussing over. How are you feeling? Any more pain? Are you hungry? Thirsty? Do you want some more ointment on that shoulder?"

"I could do with some water. It feels like I chewed on sand."

"Of course," Astarion replied, his voice softening. With a gentle touch, he reached for a nearby container of clean water and brought it to her lips. "There you go," he murmured, guiding the vessel to her mouth. "Take small sips now."

He watched closely as she drank, waiting patiently for her to finish. When the last drop was consumed, he set the container aside, reaching for a cloth instead. "Allow me."

Astarion carefully ran the cloth over her forehead, cool and soothing against her skin.

"Oh, that actually feels nice." She closed her eyes, leaning to his touch. "I'm serious Astarion, are you okay? I wouldn't have pegged you for the caring type."

Astarion's gaze was fixed on her face as she closed her eyes, a thoughtful look crossing his features. "I'm...fine," he responded with hesitation, a touch of uncertainty in his voice. His hands paused their movements for a moment before resuming their tender caress over her forehead. "I just... I wasn't going to let you languish here without someone to look after you. Is it that unusual that I care, even just a little?" The words came out a bit harsher than he intended, a hint of defensiveness in his tone.

"Not what I'm saying. I'm glad you're here with me." She nodded. "I just... I don't want you to think that you... owe me. For, you know... The other night." When she woke up to his watering mouth, extended canines ready to puncture her neck. She was scared at first, but quickly let go of the fear. His tadpole showed something to her, made her feel his excruciating hunger. Blood. Blood. BLOOD. Her stomach was gripped in it, pain and fire, and so she let him drink from her, telling herself it would have made him stronger, but also, no one should ever be that hungry.

Astarion paused briefly, his eyes softening as he met her gaze. For a moment, a hint of vulnerability flickered across his face, as though he were struggling with something internal. But then it was gone, replaced once again by a facade of flippancy.

"That," he said, his tone light and dismissive, "was just business. Nothing more."

Astarion continued tending to her, his hands moving over her face and shoulders with practiced motions. But even as his motions remained steady and soothing, his words belied a complex inner turmoil.

"Business?" She furrowed her brow.

Astarion's gaze flickered briefly back to her, his eyes betraying a flicker of some unspoken emotion. "Yes," he replied in a cool, controlled tone. "A simple exchange for survival. No need to dwell on it further." His words were punctuated with calculated aloofness as if deliberately constructing a barrier around his own feelings. Astarion's hands continued their soothing ministrations over her face and shoulders, maintaining a measured and unperturbed demeanor despite the underlying tension that lingered between them.

"So... You're not here because you want to, but because you think you owe me for letting you drink my blood?" She batted his hand away from her face. "Would you stop?!"

Astarion's gaze sharpened as he withdrew his hands, his expression a blend of irritation and indignation. "Don't be absurd. I'm here because I choose to be. I'm not some puppet bound by feelings of obligation or debt." His tone dripped with a mixture of frustration and condescension, masking whatever complex emotions lay beneath.

"And don't presume to know my motives. I'll do as I please, and if you have a problem with that, I suggest you find someone else to tend to your wounds."

"Then why did you call it business? I let you drink from me because I chose to, not because I expected something in return. My motives are exceptionally clear, you know."

Astarion scoffed, the irritation evident in his voice. "Your motives are crystal clear indeed, darling. You're the epitome of selflessness, aren't you? Letting me drink from you out of the kindness of your heart. I'm touched, truly."

His expression turned sardonic, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "But perhaps the real question is, what did you expect me to do, thank you profusely? Shower you with gratitude for your generous act? Should I bow down and kiss your feet, perhaps?"

"I expected nothing!" She raised her voice, wincing as she pushed herself up into a sitting position. "Astarion, you really need to quit thinking the whole world wants something from you. I gave you my blood because I felt it through the tadpole, okay? The hunger?" She stuttered. "No one should ever feel like that. My guts were on fire, I... Your guts were on fire. You felt like you were gnawing at yourself from the inside, Gods above. I only wanted to help!" She shouted in frustration.

The sharpness in Astarion's expression softened at her words. The façade of aloofness wavered ever so slightly, a flicker of vulnerability slipping through the cracks. His eyes widened imperceptibly as he took in the genuine sincerity in her voice.

For a moment, it seemed as though he was at a loss for words, uncertain how to respond to the unexpected empathy thrown his way. But then, as swiftly as the vulnerability had appeared, it was suppressed, replaced by the familiar mask of charm and wit. "Ah, I see. You're a noble soul, aren't you?"

"I'm your friend. Nothing noble and mighty to my name." She spoke clearly, staring into his red ruby eyes, hoping she could see just how much meaning there was behind her statement.

Astarion's gaze softened, the walls slowly lowering as he considered her words. "Friend, eh? So you're saying you care about me, then?" He crossed his arms, a smirk playing at the corner of his lips. "How... touching."

A beat of silence passed between them, and then he chuckled softly, as if amused by his own reluctance to admit what they both knew. "Well, I suppose... it's not entirely unpleasant to have someone around who doesn't want something from me. Perhaps... this friendship thing isn't entirely without merit, after all."

"That's okay." She took a breath, her previously harsh tone now gone from her voice. "I... I know what it feels like. Like... You're existence only being justified as long as you're worth something. I know. But it doesn't always have to be like that. Some people care, you know? You just have to find the right ones."

Astarion nodded slowly, his eyes darting away for a moment, as though he were still grappling with accepting the possibility that someone might actually care for him without expecting anything in return. His jaw tightened. "I suppose you're right," he murmured, a trace of vulnerability seeping into his words. "It's just... not the most familiar concept, that's all."

He met her gaze once more, a flicker of warmth lighting up his eyes. "But, I must say, your friendship is quite the rare treat. I'll do my best to not ruin it with my charming personality."

"I like your charming personality." She flirted, and the jabbed at him. "Most of the times."

Astarion chuckled softly, his composure fully regained. "Careful, darling," he warned playfully. "You might just find yourself addicted to my charming wit and dashing good looks. It's an easy trap to fall into, after all."

"Oh, wouldn't I know it." She smiled openly at him.

Astarion's grin widened, his eyes glinting with amusement. "Ah, so you're already well-acquainted with the irresistible appeal of my charms? I must confess, I do have that effect on people." His tone was undeniably conceited, but the lightness in his eyes gave away his playful nature.

"Well, considering that you seem hopelessly smitten, I suppose I'll have to grace you with my delightful company more often."

"I'll make sure to keep my schedule quite open for you, then." She grinned.

Astarion smirked, his eyes sparkling with amusement. "Oh, darling, don't you worry about that. I'm quite adept at making an appearance at the most unexpected moments. Consider it a talent of mine." He flashed her a charming grin.

"Besides, as we've already established, you're entirely under my spell. So let's not pretend you could resist my company if you tried. You're a moth to the flame, my dear."

"You are... giving yourself a lot of credit, aren't you?" She hoped she could mask her flushed cheeks.

A smirk danced across Astarion's lips as he noticed the subtle redness in her cheeks. "Ah, my dear, it seems you're attempting to maintain an air of nonchalance. How utterly endearing. But allow me to assure you, it's perfectly natural to be captivated by my undeniable charm and wit."

His tone turned playful, filled with mischievous delight. "And as for credit, I assure you, I'm a seasoned expert in the art of persuasion. After all, who wouldn't be seduced by a rogue such as myself?"

"I'm..." She breathed deeply. "Uh. Is that a vampire thing? Or an... Astarion thing?"

Astarion cocked an eyebrow, an amused glint in his eyes. "Vampire thing? Oh, you mean the charm and seduction? Allow me to clarify, my dear. That's not exclusive to my supernatural nature. No, no. I'm afraid it's an Astarion thing."

He leaned in closer, his voice taking on a seductive lilt. "You see, I don't need the aid of vampiric powers to bewitch and entice. It's simply my natural charm at work."

"You know, some would find the way you act and talk quite ridiculous." She leaned back on her good shoulder. "I don't know how you do it. I've been trying to be like that in every gods damned tavern on the Chiontar. Nothing’s worked until I started playing something."

Astarion chuckled softly, his gaze fixed upon Ali's face. "Ah, my dear, you flatter me. But please, do tell. What, pray tell, were you playing that finally allowed you to showcase your undeniable charm?"

A mischievous glint danced in his eyes. "Perhaps you can demonstrate for me sometimes. I have a certain flair for the dramatic, you know. I could offer some... constructive criticism. Or perhaps even participate in this little charade of yours."

"Oh I don't know, perhaps I've already been demonstrating, and you just haven't realized..." She said in a sultry voice.

Astarion's smirk widened ever so slightly, his eyes glinting with approval. "Ah, I see. You're no amateur when it comes to playing these games, are you?"

His gaze flickered over her, a playful smile playing at the corners of his lips. "Your attempts are quite impressive. But, darling, allow me to assure you, your technique could use a touch of refinement. I can see the potential, but with a bit more finesse and a dash of flamboyance, you could be dazzling every tavern-goer within a mile radius."

"Does it?" She smirked, feigning innocence. She hummed two notes to herself, her shoulder slightly glowing in blue light, warmth spreading through her muscles, easing her discomfort. "Oh, then maybe you could teach me." She crawled down her bedroll on all fours, got closer to him, leaning over and whispering in his pointy ear, "Show me how to seduce you properly. I'm sure you'd have a tip or two for me to wrap around..."

Astarion's eyes widened slightly as Ali's voice dropped to a seductive murmur, her proximity to him sending a tingling feeling down his spine. He couldn't help but chuckle at her boldness. "Oh, my dear, you are a quick study."

He turned towards her, his gaze locked on hers. "But, let me clarify, darling. I think we both know I already find you quite... enticing." He let the words hang in the air for a moment before continuing. "Perhaps I can spare a few tips to further enhance your alluring appeal."

"Really?" She let her eyes sparkle, looking up at him. "Would you teach me?" She smiled and got closer once again to his ear, whispering right against it. "Even more than just the tip?" She then let her face nuzzle the lengthy line of his elven ear, her tongue quickly darting out to give the very point of it a slight lick. She had bedded elves before, she learned very quickly how to please them right. Ears were almost always an erogenous zone for them, and she hoped it worked for him as well, even in his undead form, and judging by the shudder that ran down his spine, she could very well consider herself pleased.

As Ali's tongue darted out to gently trace the very tip of his sensitive elf ear, Astarion jolted, his muscles tensing involuntarily. A low, involuntary groan escaped his lips, betraying his reaction to her touch.

"Gods, woman, you're quite... eager, are you?" he managed to utter, his voice huskier and slightly strained from the sensation. He reached for her chin, gently guiding her face up to meet his gaze, his touch lingering on her jaw. "Well, dear... I suppose I could enlighten you a little further."

"Could you?" She leaned on his face, glancing down at his lips and a bit further. Oh yes, he was clearly enjoying this, judging from the strain in his trousers. She pushed her lips a breath from his, feeling his cold puffs of air escaping them. Was he panting? "Would you teach me how to pleasure you?"

Astarion's breath hitched in his throat as Ali leaned in closer, her lips teasingly close to his. The heady mix of desire and anticipation was nearly overpowering.

"You have a rather... direct approach," he murmured, his voice husky with a hint of both amusement and longing. "But if it pleases you, I suppose it wouldn’t be entirely unpleasant to give you a few pointers."

His own eyes flashed with intrigue before he closed the tiny gap between them, and his lips met hers in a hungry, almost demanding kiss.

Ali responded fervently to the kiss, his cold lips pleasant on her heated skin. She let him lick her lips open, and as she let her hand run up his thigh right towards the place where he needed her touch the most, she felt it: a low grumble, a groan deep into his chest that sent warmth flooding right into her belly. It took all of her strength to act on her original idea. Did he want to play dirty? Fine. She was better at this game than anyone else.

She pulled back, leaving his lips, and let him chase her in the space between them. His eyes were still closed, but she could see the dumb confusion in them once he slit them open. She grinned at him. "You want to teach new tricks to an old dog, Astarion, but there's not much that I haven't learned already." She smiled devishly. "Besides, my calendar seems quite closed for the evening. We'll have to reschedule, I'm afraid." She stood up, ignoring her dampened smalls and relishing in his stunned glance as he looked up at her. "Have a great evening Astarion. Thank you for keeping me company." She turned around and ducked outside her tent.

Astarion's eyes widened with both astonishment and frustration as Ali pulled away from the kiss without warning. The sudden withdrawal left him reeling, his lips still tingling from the unexpected moment of intimacy. He watched, dumbfounded, as she stood up and swiftly excused herself, leaving him alone in her tent.

The shock quickly gave way to a mix of disbelief and irritation. With a frustrated growl, Astarion clenched his fists in a mixture of frustration and arousal. "Oh, you think you're clever, you little vixen, do you?" he muttered to himself, his voice tinged with both admiration and annoyance.

Leaning back against the tent's central pole, Astarion folded his hands behind his head, staring up at the canvas canopy above him and letting out another amused laugh. This would have been harder than he anticipated but she was clearly willing, and he already had her calling him a friend. There was no way he couldn’t get her on his side, and maybe he could get some fun out of it as well. She was clearly no prude, it seemed, but would she fall for him.

"Oh, my dear...," he murmured to himself, a sly chuckle escaping his lips. "It seems I might have underestimated you."

[tehjai]

i feel like i can guess what "exit, pursued by a bear" involves, but also, tell me about it

this is the part of the story where the video game plot is over and ariane's boyfriends get to see HER deconstruction as a trope.

what happens to someone who grew up as a monastic ward when they're abducted and oh by the way their whole monastery got turned into a crater in the opening cutscene but they don't know that because they done got tadpole'd.

what happens when all that is left of everything they knew is some kind of carbon copy of the foe that they ruthlessly slaughtered out of a strong sense of justice? ariane doesn't know and I'm still working on figuring it out.

it's also the part of the story where i grab the Tav/Astarion/Halsin pairing like a Kong toy and shake it around until what I got is a vampire and a monk, together forever, and their druid boyfriend. So all of this psychological gong-show for Ariane gets tempered with lots of sex.

(because, you see, Ariane grew up as a monastic ward. She wasn't cloistered or overly sheltered, she read books and knew about sex and all that stuff but typically monastic wards *never* get laid. and then here comes Vampy McPasteyface and all six metric tons of his charm. this monastic ward is now getting super laid. and then isn't. but then is. did her romance with astarion happen alongside her own sexual awakening? is it the sort of thing that is damn near spiritual for her for some reason? is she now hopping through discovery with a man who is having a re-awakening? is halsin acting as the gardener and tender of this very sweet new love while coming to terms with what he went through? yes.)

anyway yeah it's basically the fic that covers that six month gap between game end and epilogue

[naughtybg3confessions]

I'm finally doing a Shadowheart romance run, and oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my GOD, she's so cute. I've always really liked her and thought she was adorable, but now??? I'm like... seeing a teasing, playful, but also incredibly sweet angle of her that I've not seen in previous runs. She's like both the cutest, sweetest, most affectionate girl in the world, AND a bit of a little shit, and I just. Guys, I've fallen. I've fallen BAD.

I want her and my Tav to have sweet, giggly, tender, missionary-with-the-lights-off sex that neither of them has had before, and I also want her to unleash her mean streak on him, keep dangling exactly what he wants in front of his nose only to snatch it away over and over again, and be his playful, wicked, gentle torturess. I want her to bind his hands, sit on his lap, not let him touch her or move (and stop every time he would), and ride him torturously slow until he's damn near begging and sobbing with need for her.

He may not have known he had a kink for it until now, but the moment she whispers "good boy; now come" in his ear, that man IS going to come with the force of a tidal wave, and he won't even mind if she teases him about it. (It'll take a moment for his ego to return, and when it does, oh, she's going DOWN. Figuratively, because it's actually him going down, under the guise of "helping clean her up" of his own spend, but he's not coming back up until she's come on his tongue at least twice.)