#the chimes at midnight

[amplifyme]

These episodes were magnificent. Wow, wow, wow.

Chimes At Midnight: 

Diana escaping and getting out of dodge (and shoving the driver aside and having to think in the tollbooth-- you’re right, she is chatty once she’s not so locked in her head) but having to surrender was an grippingly incredible segment. Vincent’s dreams and describing Diana to Father (did he have a brief “is this a rebound???” fear on his face or was that just me? It was probably just me XDD)-- her incredible mind, her uniqueness, that she truly understands… oh BOY am I liking where this is going. (Loosely quoted) “She won’t betray Catherine’s memory” is the best setup to a second romance. Also, Father waiting for Vincent to come to him instead of going to Vincent constantly is character growth, I think; and his advice is more understanding and careful and empathetic… more hopeful, really. Gabriel having Diana brought to Vincent’s son’s room is a powerfully manipulative move (and very reminiscent of Cookie in Nan’s AWTN entrusting her with Vincent’s baby No. 2) “There’s nothing unusual there.” “I don’t think he looks anything like you.” “Precisely.” Gabriel always one step ahead, getting an intelligent woman to come exactly to his point while thinking she’s skirting another one. Magnificent writing. THE BABY’S DYING???????????????? (VINCENT’S DREAM.) Gabriel wanting Vincent to save his son is a fascinating dynamic. Diana noticing his shoes (correction: floor tile), hmm. The Helpers and Father and Diana and the pipes (and Father hopes she’s a friend.) Vincent struggling over the news about his son and realizing the truth about their connection and the visions. Diana struggling because they both know Gabriel will kill Vincent and Vincent is willing if it will save his son. Diana talking about the future instead of letting Vincent wrap everything up in a thank you, and him promising to come to her when it’s all done. “Be careful” and letting him go without a fuss (WHAT A STEP UP FROM CATHERINE.) Darted and chained and caged… juuuuuuuuuuust like that episode from S1. Diana sketching Gabriel’s shoe (correction: floor tile) at the booth until she gets an idea and starts to track him. Gabriel just watching Vincent struggle-- transfusion won’t work (iiiiiiiiiiiiiiinteresting.) “Prove him wrong.” (There are just some things you can’t win, that you are incapable of winning, no matter how hard you want to, Gabriel.) Vincent talking to Gabriel through the cameras. “He is beautiful” look at that baby! That is a baby that gets it. (Also, perfect baby casting.) An aside: Vincent’s empathy is mentioned as starting to return, ooooooooooooh. 

Invictus: 

Favorite episode. Hands down. Diana calling Joe. Gabriel taunting Vincent with “Julian”, talking about generations and writing their names (Snow theme coming back) in blood. Standoff in Vincent’s cell and the baby crying more at being separated. The waking nightmares and Gabriel observing Vincent and asking if he sleeps. No transfusion, Gabriel disappointed in his doctor, the baby getting stronger. Bet Gabriel is going to keep Vincent around as the baby touchstone for the rest of Vincent’s life. Buster going straight for Gabriel’s throat. Gabriel throwing out the ring as yet another life on Vincent’s hands (and he can’t verify with a bond so doubly mind-twisting.) Father and his taxi driver posse coming to grab Diana off the street, giving her the backstory, recruiting her to help, Father is going to give Diana Cathy’s gun, FATHER IS GOING TO GIVE DIANA CATHY’S GUN, FATHER IS GOING TO GIVE DIANA CATHY’S GUN, I KNOW WHERE THIS GOES. JAMIE! Full circle from The Outsiders to now amazing. Gabriel and Vincent’s conversation through the cameras. “‘Death shall have no dominion’…. She knew it, even at the end.” Joe loses Diana twice and he’s not happy. HERE COMES FATHER (in his tux.) Floor tile and not shoes, got it (going to correct the above.) Father just wheeling out the Catherine trump card because it will always work. “We could have been great friends. Fire.” WELP, Vincent didn’t flinch; and I shouldn’t be laughing at Gabriel’s antics but they’re clinically theatrical rather than theatrically dramatic (Paracelsus) and I really, really like his style. “Kingdom of shadows”, “It’s our kingdom, remember.” The irony, of course, is that Vincent embodies the aspects of humanity that are worth living for while Gabriel represents a willful desire to toss away those aspects and embrace what he thinks are primal, animalistic. The greater irony, of course, is that Gabriel can’t win on either ground: he can’t beat Vincent on either level because he is deficient of the qualities that make him anything other than a bad man. Ah yes, bringing back the introduction to Gabriel at that other funeral: boys watching their fathers die-- but not pulling the trigger, hoping Vincent will do it himself (Paracelsus but hands off.) Watching through this and jotting my notes down, I am amazed at how many turns Gabriel takes-- I can’t predict him. “He’s going to kill himself”, “No, he won’t die. Death has no meaning for him.” “The only thing he’s afraid of is himself” and “Don’t.” Gabriel seeking control by destroying the qualities Vincent has that are superior to his. Ouroboros, eyyyyyyyy. The ring and veritas and ouroboros, cool stuff. Gabriel’s men tracking Diana through Joe and Joe being led straight to the museum by the posse Below. Diana set up a trap knowing the police were compromised and Joe would have been toast otherwise. Joe just lets the dinosaur thing go (letting Diana have her mysteries now that he trusts her again.) Gabriel switching the tapes from blood, murder, and death to the baby-- “I know how to be merciful.” Gabriel trying to grandstand on “I owe you a life” then twisting the discussion around on the baby’s beauty and leading right up to Catherine’s death. “I’m sorry about Catherine.” WHAT GAME YA PLAYIN’, GABRIEL. “We all make mistakes.” Setting up the doctor’s death, of course-- “Life for a life.” The Paracelsus games are back; but Vincent already lost “everything” but still has something to gain. Also, Gabriel’s demonic face is… incredible work.  

“No.” And Gabriel’s stumped expression. And the doctor died anyway: “I always pay my debts.” Wanting Vincent to kill off the doctor for him-- a life for a life-- is just the mark of how little lack of… anything he has. A life for a life should be on the other person’s terms, not his own. Excellently written. Gabriel becoming obsessed with Vincent while Diana saves Joe’s backside AGAIN is a great back and forth dynamic. “Which of you is the captive here?” (Vincent knowing Gabriel’s name and Gabriel knowing Vincent’s and that ouroboros Gabriel is trying to connect the two of them with, interesting.) Pope just LEFT, done (great speech he missed out on, though. But words are only so useful when you have the time to luxuriate over them.) Father and Diana making battle plans, I love this so much. The police moving in and Diana moving Below (and the practicality of Father warning about rust dust.) Gabriel antsy because his words have lost power and Vincent calls him on it and Gabriel doesn’t like it. Gabriel calling upon destiny to justify his actions and connections and “prove” his likeness to Vincent, and Vincent disproving the destiny Gabriel foists upon him because of the bond Gabriel can’t break no matter how many words or theories he spins. Gabriel talking to anyone who will listen because he has begun losing people who will. “I believe in the power of love….” Nurse leaving so she doesn’t have to see the baby’s death and Gabriel STILL takes me by surprise. Hurry up, Diana. HERE is the one thing that is the same for Gabriel and Vincent: “Perfection must be cherished”-- that pedestalized effect, except Gabriel wants to pin his butterflies in a preservation glass while Vincent wants to watch them float freely, happily around him. KILL HIM DIANA. DO IT, DIANA. NAN SAID YOU DID. DO IT. VINCENT’S FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. YES! DIANA ROBBED GABRIEL FROM THE SATISFACTION OF DEATH ON “HIS” TERMS. YES. YES. YES. (*Ahem*-- ot a bit excited there.) “Your child is crying” and “what kind of a father” all perfectly culminate here, the setup and payoff-- perfection. Diana keeping Vincent grounded by talking so Buster doesn’t pop out is also perfection (even more so because I know she’s going to be an avenging angel.) “Father’s waiting”, perfection, too. Gabriel taunting Diana by using her name to gloat with some false sense of victory on his part; and Diana deciding to "lose" this battle with morality/ethics to win the war. “Not this time, Gabriel. This is Catherine Chandler’s gun.” Perfection. Father waiting and Vincent coming back from exile and Father meeting the baby (who continues to be adorable, of course), AND VINCENT’S FACE AND FATHER’S HAND AND VINCENT’S HAND AND BOTH OF THEM NOW "FULLY" FATHERS and the Naming ceremony and (of course I knew this part because of AWTN) naming him Jacob… I feel something lodged in my throat, gotta clear it a bit, *ahem*. FATHER’S FACE IS TOO HAPPY I CAN’T LOOK AT IT DIRECTLY. Catherine’s face there for a frame. PERFECTION. JUST. INCREDIBLE. 

Hands down, Invictus is the best episode by far. And there’s still two episodes left, wow. 

I gotta tell you, I giggled my way through your entire post. Just because I remember that feeling of giddiness watching these two episodes when they first aired.

Let's discuss!

Diana escaping and getting out of dodge

Girlfriend knows how to take care of herself. A damsel in distress she's not.

Vincent’s dreams and describing Diana to Father (did he have a brief “is this a rebound???” fear on his face or was that just me? It was probably just me XDD)

What I saw on his face was more like "A woman?? Oh, dear God, not another one!" 🤣🤣🤣 But by the time he and Diana are in that cab on the way to Gabe's, she's more than earned his respect. Not to compare unfairly, but it took Cathy a lot longer than that to earn it.

“She won’t betray Catherine’s memory” is the best setup to a second romance.

Isn't it, though?? I love how the writer's room made sure there was a thread running throughout the arc of Diana having great respect and reverence for what Vincent and Catherine shared.

Diana noticing his shoes (correction: floor tile)

Don't feel bad. A lot of folks couldn't figure out why she'd be looking at his shoes until she was in the phone booth sketching the pattern of the floor tile.

Diana talking about the future instead of letting Vincent wrap everything up in a thank you, and him promising to come to her when it’s all done. “Be careful” and letting him go without a fuss (WHAT A STEP UP FROM CATHERINE.)

Nothing to add to this. *chef's kiss*

transfusion won’t work (iiiiiiiiiiiiiiinteresting.)

It's already been established that Vincent's blood type is unique and any transfusion would kill him. Jacob's is the same. I love how Nan elaborated on this in AWTN 3 when Vincent is shot by Lena's husband and we find out Father has been taking blood from V every month to store for emergencies and would be doing the same for Jacob when he was old enough.

An aside: Vincent’s empathy is mentioned as starting to return, ooooooooooooh. 

I think he started to get it back when Jacob was born. It's just not fully back yet, the way he's used to it being, so he may not be recognizing the way it's manifesting itself right now - showing up at the park threshold just as Diana was attacked was not a coincidence. Somehow he knew, even if he didn't realize it.

Oh, my beloved Invictus...

Bet Gabriel is going to keep Vincent around as the baby touchstone for the rest of Vincent’s life.

I'm pretty sure that was his intent once he realized it was Vincent's bond with the child that saved his life. And in if that's the case, Gabriel would want to mold V into the kind of man he wants him to be, just as he wanted to do with the child.

Buster going straight for Gabriel’s throat.

Gonna have to disagree here. That was 100% Vincent. Truthfully, by this time in the arc, there's not a lot of Buster left, at least not in the way he was earlier set up as somehow separate from Vincent. V absolutely had Gabe's number by this point and just wants him dead.

Gabriel throwing out the ring as yet another life on Vincent’s hands (and he can’t verify with a bond so doubly mind-twisting.)

Going to disagree again here. I'm pretty sure when Gabe first tossed the ring on the floor and told him D was dead, V believed it. But I'm convinced as soon as he picked up and held that ring, he knew she was still alive. Especially in the later scene when he's rolling it between thumb and forefinger and he kind of tosses it up and catches it in his fist. Look at his face. He knows she's alive. Like I said, he's on to Gabe by now. "You're the only monster here."

Father is going to give Diana Cathy’s gun, FATHER IS GOING TO GIVE DIANA CATHY’S GUN, FATHER IS GOING TO GIVE DIANA CATHY’S GUN, I KNOW WHERE THIS GOES.

😁😁😁

The irony, of course, is that Vincent embodies the aspects of humanity that are worth living for while Gabriel represents a willful desire to toss away those aspects and embrace what he thinks are primal, animalistic. The greater irony, of course, is that Gabriel can’t win on either ground: he can’t beat Vincent on either level because he is deficient of the qualities that make him anything other than a bad man.

This is perfection. Thank you.

“No.” And Gabriel’s stumped expression. And the doctor died anyway: “I always pay my debts.” Wanting Vincent to kill off the doctor for him-- a life for a life-- is just the mark of how little lack of… anything he has.

Not gonna lie, this is another moment where I stand up and cheer for Vincent. He so badly wanted to kill the doctor, but the best part of who he is knows that he can't - not unless he's willing to become Gabe's weapon. It's just such a transformative moment for Vincent. He's finally achieved a firm grip on Buster.

KILL HIM DIANA. DO IT, DIANA. NAN SAID YOU DID. DO IT. VINCENT’S FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. YES! DIANA ROBBED GABRIEL FROM THE SATISFACTION OF DEATH ON “HIS” TERMS. YES. YES. YES. (*Ahem*-- ot a bit excited there.) “Your child is crying” and “what kind of a father” all perfectly culminate here, the setup and payoff-- perfection. Diana keeping Vincent grounded by talking so Buster doesn’t pop out is also perfection (even more so because I know she’s going to be an avenging angel.)

Again, that's not Buster in that nursery, that's Vincent. And, yes, he's killing mad. But Buster wouldn't have let a little thing like Diana yelling his name stop him. But Vincent the man would respond to her voice. Vincent the man remembers what she said to him in that alley, asking him what kind of father he wants his son to have. Another transformative moment for him.

Re: Diana killing Gabe. GRRM really, really wanted to write an ep. focusing on the ramifications of that and how it might affect her going forward. Sadly, he didn't get the chance to do it. I mean, she absolutely did the right thing for the right reasons, but she still killed an unarmed man and she has her own sense of morality to deal with there - as a human being and as a cop.

AND VINCENT’S FACE AND FATHER’S HAND AND VINCENT’S HAND AND BOTH OF THEM NOW "FULLY" FATHERS

Wasn't that a lovely moment? Vincent is just beaming!

Touching on the darkness in everyone for a moment here, i have to admit there's nothing more satisfyingly to me than those few seconds when Vincent bursts through that nursery door and just swats the hell out of Gabe, causing him to twirl around until he smacks into the door and goes down. I have (and will continue to) watch those few seconds on a loop. Never get tired of it. What does that say about me? 🤣

Oh, and can I add that I love that by the time Diana avenges Cathy's death, she looks like she's been through the spin cycle of a washing machine more than a few times? I just adore her.

The final two episodes are something of a reset. We get a hint of what the show might've become going forward. It's much quieter than the baby arc but is still important as we see Vincent begin to rebuild his life, and how and where Diana will fit into that. It's actually a two-parter. If I had to reduce it to a single theme, I would say it's very much a story of second chances - for several characters.

I look forward to seeing you through to the end. Then you can go back and do it all again, whenever you want to. Because while all stories may end, we can always read (or watch) them again. ❤️

P.S. I managed to get all 3 books of AWTN posted on AO3. So you can revisit those, too.

[fictionz]

I kinda snooze at the thought of TOS novels because that’s not really my era of Star Trek (as of this writing anyway), but I got sucked into these Myriad Universes stories in which various authors explore the “what if?” side of Star Trek. Each story focuses on a different era available to them in the late aughts, from ENT all the way to VOY.

The first entry in the “Echoes and Refractions” anthology, titled “The Chimes at Midnight,” is a TOS movie era novella that certainly had me snoozing at first. It was just kind of recounting what I already know from the movies, except it follows an alternate timeline established in TAS in which Spock died as a kid and an Andorian named Thelin fills the role of Kirk’s XO. It picks up the pace midway through where it diverges into an exploration of what the Genesis device from the second and third movies could really mean for galactic stability.

But the author of this article does a much better job of describing the story’s merits despite the lackluster opening. They point out the critical role Spock plays in Star Trek both in-universe and to the audience, as well as how the World War II memories and fears that the original creators brought with them left out the ultimate question of how far the Federation would go to end the carnage of war. (Something explored a little more in later shows like DS9.)

[theonekierce]

Christmas just wouldn't be christmas!

(some closeup details and version without text under the cut >.<)

[do-you-know-this-dw-story]

the chimes of midnight (audio: 2002)

[thefiresofpompeii]

an essay about Rogue, The Chimes of Midnight, and how i believe all this ties in to the overarching themes of the series EVEN IF the inside-a-tv-show theory proves untrue

“Rogue” named himself after a stock character. he is the archetypal Handsome Rogue because there has to be a Handsome Rogue role in a period drama story set in Austenesque Regency England.

it’s all theatre — smoke and mirrors. just like the war waged against imaginary foes in boom (because there needs to be an Enemy in a wartime story) was theatre; the creation of the Bogeyman in space babies (because there needs to be a Scary Monster in a children’s bedtime story) was theatre; The Woman following Ruby in 73 yards (because there needs to be a Ghost in a folk horror story) was theatre. dot and bubble less so, but it’s wise to note — the dots created the slugs after all. they invented the slugs so that there would be a tangible Creature for the finetimers (and the Doctor) to fear, rather than simply being betrayed by their own technology. because that’s exactly what the false, harmful narratives colonialists tell themselves — stories of taming and conquering a wild Mother Nature and her ferocious beasts — have trained them to expect from the world. the dots were telling a story too, or rather putting on a play.

the penultimate episode of any doctor who series, if not always leading directly into the two-parter finale, will typically begin to tie up loose narrative strands that have stretched across the entire season. at a first impression rogue doesn’t seem to be doing that. but then you take a closer look at the antagonists: creatures that play a role for fun without the slightest regard for those around them. lethal LARPers. cosplayers out to kill. to put it pretentiously, a hyper-realistic theatre of cruelty.

to nobody’s surprise, i’m bringing up my favourite eighth doctor audio drama — the chimes of midnight. edward grove gives every person trapped in the time loop a designated role: the chauffeur, the doctor-detective, the plucky young lady of the house, the lady’s maid, the scullery girl, the housekeeper. they keep playing these roles, over and over, until they begin to forget their original identity, until the part they’re playing takes over their entire sense of self. the servants keep dying over and over because they cannot transcend their roles, because they believe themselves to be “nothing but a scullery maid”. they are reduced to the parts they play in the narrative until they become nothing outside of it, until they become confined to a single location.

the chimes of midnight is set in Edwardian-era England, a time of restrictive, prescriptive class, status and social roles which defined a person’s life and career trajectory — this strict delineation is driven to its logical conclusion and deconstructed under the unnatural conditions of Edward Grove. similarly, rogue is set in a Regency-era mansion — another historical period defined in the popular imagination by its complicated social rules, elegant courtship dynamics, strict class barriers, gossip and elitism. these two doctor who stories don’t have any intentional watsonian connection, but they are deeply linked on a thematic level.

high society is forced theatre. a 24/7 LARP. play your part, put on your costume, don’t interrupt the performance. the audience is waiting. they’re oh so hungry for tragedy.

the biggest part of them all, the most sought-after role, of course, is The Doctor. a standard to live up to. a name to wear like a banner, a pledge, a promise. he has to be like this because this is what he’s like.

the Scullery Maid scrubs the kitchen floor. The Detective searches for clues. the Chauffeur starts up his car. the Duchess hosts a glittering soirée. the Rake hides a secret fling with the Wallflower. the Rogue breaks hearts and broods on the balcony.

and the Doctor? the Doctor dances. “onwards and upwards”. forever in perpetual motion, spinning and spinning and spinning across the stars. never pausing to breathe. never stopping.

p.s.: so, pray tell, what is Ruby Sunday in all this? “The Companion”, of course. smart, funny, sassy, quick-witted, brave, cheeky, curious, self-sacrificial. she almost feels generic because she’s meant to be. she wasn’t born. she was written. an essential part of the story too. circling the Doctor like a satellite forever.

[beans-in-a-toaster]

I know I’m like 22 years late but just listened to The Chimes of Midnight for the first time

ITS GENUINELY ONE OF MY FAVORITE DOCTOR WHO STORIES NOW RAHGGGHHHHHHHHBB

it’s very reminiscent of both Carnival of Monsters and The Doctor’s Wife, which I both love so much and AND Charley Pollard. need I say more.

[romanathree]

i made a drawing for the chimes of midnight :D (this is on my redbubble!! The link is in my bio)

[ID: a digital drawing of Charley Pollard from the Eighth Doctor, Doctor Who audios. Charley has medium length blonde hair, pale skin, wearing a grey dress, white socks and black buckled shoes, and is sitting in an old fashioned pose with her hands tucked into her lap, looking off to the side. Behind her is a large circle with three different manual clock faces showing different times, with a plum pudding off to the side and the outside of the main circle decorated with festive holly berries. End ID]

[storekn1fe]

you're alive. why am i dead if you're still alive?

[nuttersincorporated]

No Strings Attached

As midnight struck, Mickey felt his strings snap and he immediately crumpled to the ground. He tried to get up but only made it as far as his knees before he collapsed again.

Lying on his back, staring up at the stary night sky above, Mickey became aware of a strange whimpering sound. It took him a few moments to realise he was the one making those noises. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

He distantly wondered if he could lie there forever; just stay there until the ground claimed his bones. It seemed so much easier than the alternative. He was so, so tired.

“Mickey!” the voice sounded far away but he recognised it instantly. “Mickey!”

No, he wouldn’t give up. He couldn’t. He wasn’t the only one who’d had his strings cut.

Angry with himself, Mickey scrubbed the tears away. Then he balled his hands into fists and with a great effort of will, pushed himself into a sitting position.

“Mickey, where are you?”

“Min…” he started to answer but that was all he managed before he started coughing. He tried to stop but it only seemed to get worse.

“Mickey!”

She must have heard him because he could hear her running towards him. A moment later and she was there, flower in her hair and worry on her face.

“Oh Mickey!” She dropped to her knees beside him and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly. He continued to cough and she rubbed circles on his back until, at last, his body relaxed and he could breathe properly.

“It’s okay,” she reassured him, still holding him. “It’s going to be okay.”

Mickey hugged her back. He realised he was crying again and made an effort to stop. He opened his mouth and tried to speak for the second time. This time he managed it.

“Minnie.” Mickey stopped. He didn’t recognise his own voice. It was horse from all the coughing but it was more than that.

His eyes widened is shock as realised it was the first word he’d ever spoken. Oh, words had come out of his mouth before but he’d never been the one making the decision to say them.

“Minnie,” he said again. “We’re free.”

[zagreuslives]

Edward Grove Is Alive. We are making him alive.

Drew this in a fever dream while listening to Chimes of Midnight with a 101F temperature

Don’t feel like finishing all the little details of the structure, but I’m VERY proud of all the details in the clock’s face. If I had more time, this would look much better, but here’s some 1/3rd finished art 😂

[bardic-inspo]

Midnight Chimes

Chapter Eight: Creature Comforts

Pairing: Astarion x Cursed! Tav

Next Chapter (Coming Soon!) ✨Full Chapter List ✨BG3 Fic Masterlist ✨

Series Summary:

It’s easier for Astarion to believe Naomi tastes so sweet because she was his first. Easier to ignore the fact that every undead in vague proximity yearns for the same blood that’s sated him night after night. Easier to pretend her music is arcane as any other bard’s, and not divine enough to wake corpses from the dirt. Easier to pretend Naomi is simply a bard, and not something more akin to a siren. One that's slowly realized she's not just another sailor, after all. Easier to bury the fact that he's already stupidly in love with her. Like she wouldn't just raise that out of the ground, too. A curse rears its head. A devil comes calling. Astarion fights for his freedom from Cazador. He and the rest of their merry little band fight to save Tav from the doom she feels she's fated for.

Chapter Preview:

“All I want is a bit of fun,” he huffs, exasperated. “Is that so hard to ask?” Good, she thinks. It wouldn’t do her any good to go believing otherwise. To believe that drivel he pours could’ve come from somewhere earnest, instead of some purple-prosed paperback with the spine bent as often as a whore’s. But it could feel good, to be broken in by him like a tome left too-long untouched. To yield to someone else’s touch again. Better to ache with it after, having been opened and known again, than to ache alone. “You mean sex.”

Chapter CW: SMUTTY SMUT SMUT. NO LONGER EVENTUAL. 100% CONSENSUAL.

✨ Click here if you prefer to read on AO3 ✨

Naomi wakes from a sleep without dreams to find her feet without shoes.

Stiffness lances through her shoulder blades. Gingerly, she shifts from her propped seat against the tree trunk, frowning at the threadbare blanket she finds tucked around her bare toes. She shivers with the chill that nips her neck, shrugging the blanket closer.

Serves her right for falling asleep in a place so stupid. In such sparse clothing, no less. Her nightgown seems far too sheer in the sunlight.

But then, whoever thought to leave her a blanket should’ve thought more about what one measly bit of cloth would do. Absolutely nothing, in these elements. She’d need a half-dozen more layers, at least, to stave off the cold that creeps in on autumn nights.

Sure, the days are warm enough. But only by the grace of a sun that burns as much as it comforts the cold away. The Underdark has its own volatile elementals and fitful lava fields. But not weather beyond ‘dry’ or ‘damp’. Certain reaches of her homeland are said to be cold, but Naomi’s never known them. For most of her life, she’s only known consistent warmth and heady humidity.

Up here, the air’s thinner. Flexible. Ever changing. 

It’s a change, to be so immersed in it. In her prior travels, any inn she came to would offer room to a bard who would work to earn her keep. They hadn’t heard of her, sure. But then, they heard her with a fiddle and forgot whatever qualms they had about welcoming in a strange drow.

In the company of a snapping hearth, from the safety of a window, Naomi had seen the sky heave and sob. Every time a storm rolled through, the heavens stomped their feet like a wailing babe. Water leaked from the clouds like a wrung sponge. Such a messy, miserable ordeal. Snow, at least, sparkles on the way down. But all in all, she’d rather not be soaked in any such nonsense.

Perhaps her companions would think her sheltered. Pampered. Soft.

But none of them know how to weave through bibberbang without breathing it in. Probably, none of them can tell the difference between torchstalk and timmask. Well, maybe Gale can. But no way can he gut a bulette without wasting any of it. He’d probably still make a halfway decent stew out of it, though.

Naomi never knew the comfort of her own room with a featherbed before she’d known the surface. Astarion isn’t so cushy, and not nearly so warm. But his company was comfort enough, it seems, for Naomi to stumble into sleep.

She clears her throat, glancing sideways, but already knowing the elf must be long gone. She must have him to blame for the blanket. And, apparently, the boots.

Tentatively, Naomi reaches for the shoes left in Astarion’s stead. Her fingertips follow the bright blue stitching on the sides, curling into leather that’s been carefully polished free from age and wear. He didn’t find them like this, she’s sure. 

She’s also sure he’s flighty. Dangerous, when the mood strikes him. More because of his tongue than his teeth. He’d sell her to save his own hide if he had to. If they stood in each other’s shoes, and the Gur had come for her, perhaps she’d be in chains right now.

Maybe Astarion’s never known the comfort of having someone watch his back. That, at least, was something Naomi always had back home. Maybe that’s why she finds herself taking her tentative alliance with the vampire to heart. Or why she’ll indulge in his flirtations, even as he plucks the lowest hanging fruit she’s ever heard. 

She feels sorry for him. The notion squirms in her gut. Oh, he’d loathe that. But he’d love that it’s only half the truth.

The other part is that he’s funny. She laughs at him as much as with him. But, still. When he giggles like a fountain, it’s hard to down the sound with a straight face. 

And he’s beautiful. His lips are sly and snide and smirking, but they’re plush, too. And there’s something about the too-perfect set of his snow-white curls that curls her knuckles here and now. She leans her head back against the tree with a soft sigh. Her mind mills with thoughts of raking her fingers in his hair, while that wicked mouth of his melts against her own.

Perhaps all he’s really out for is blood, and her body is just a consolation prize. But it’s nice to feel wanted. Even in some shallow sense.

Naomi slips into her new shoes with a fleeting smile, flexing to feel they fit just right. A little comfort could go a long way. For her and the vampire both.

Wrapping the blanket tightly around her for some semblance of modesty, if not pride, Naomi tiptoes back into the cave where they’ve made camp. The scent of broth swells to her nose, setting her mouth watering. Gale tends to breakfast. Shadowheart, Wyll, and Karlach talk in warm tones that blend with the crackle of the cookfire. Naomi ducks behind the tents, keeping to the fringes until she can safely tuck inside her own. If anyone catches a glimpse of her, they have the decency to keep quiet about it.

Naomi keeps her tent neat and orderly; even while staying in the inns, any urge to sprawl recoiled to the memory of her temple matrons scolding her for not keeping tidy enough in her youth. She’d shared a room with so many others, then. It took some time to be able to trance on her own without their soft chorus of breath swimming in her ears. She’d never known, before, that quiet could be so deafening.

And lonely.

Her pack rests near her tousled bedroll. Naomi eyes the tent’s other occupant warily as she rifles for a change of clothes. Alfira’s lute lurks in the corner where the tent’s drapes of blue-gray canvas loop around the pole holding them aloft.

Gale concluded Alfira’s instrument isn’t cursed after all. After that valiant effort, Naomi hadn’t had the heart to tell him she never learned to play the lute even a little. She can return it to the tieflings today, at least.

Cursed. The notion rolls in her mind, restless like a stormcloud. Restless, like the purpling shadows beneath her eyes. Naomi scowls into her tarnished pocket mirror and stuffs it back into her pack. 

She can’t keep on with so little rest. She needs to trance again, properly. Even if it means another meeting with the devil. Devils deal in contracts more than curses. It makes little difference; they’re all C-words, anyways.

Including that hag.

Dirge singer. Death bringer. Though, the hag could’ve called her ‘sunflower’ and made it sound like she murdered a puppy.

“Ouch!”

Naomi flinches sharply. Her hands retract from her pack on instinct. She turns her palms over, but finds no sign of what stung her. And the crawling necromancy stains that darkened her arms the day before have almost faded entirely. 

Thrrrum.

A sudden chord snaps like a rubberband, strummed harsh and fast and then gone. Naomi hisses, ears aching even as she rubs them.

Thrrrrum. THRRRRUM. 

The sound skewers through her skull. Naomi cowers. 

THRUM, thrum-THRUM, THRR--- 

Swallowing hard, heart hammering, Naomi whips her head towards the lute.

It’s just as lifeless as the girl who used to play it.

Birdsong filters through the camp alongside the crackling fire. The sounds are just as smoky sweet as they were before. As if nothing sour interrupted them at all.

Naomi lets out a tight sigh, massaging the fresh lines forming on her forehead. Those few discordant notes, they sounded familiar. For a split second, she thought she could make something of them. A melody, maybe. She can’t think of how it goes. Her jaw clenches as she braids the loose hair around her face back into her bun.

She trades her tunic for her leather armor, even though it still needs tending, and even though their travels today will take them back to the safety of the Grove. They’ve a habit of stumbling into monsters at every turn, after all. She gathers up the borrowed blanket and sets off to return Astarion’s brief affliction with kindness. 

Well, part of it. She’s keeping the shoes.

She finds him pouring over some moldering text. Even squinting, she can’t make out the title on the cracked leather binding. Astarion doesn’t even lift his head as she hovers. She clears her throat pointedly.

“Good morning, darling,” he murmurs, distant. Reluctantly, he peels his eyes from the fresh page he turns to, wearing a practiced smile that grows smug as he soaks in the sight of her. “You’ve gotten your beauty sleep, I see.”

“Thank you,” she says, holding out the blanket to him. “For this.”

Metal clangs behind her. Naomi stiffens. Gale spews curses as he fumbles with the lid of the stew pot. “Oh, for the love of--”

Astarion scowls at the blanket, and then at her, one elegant eyebrow arched.

“And for these,” she adds, shifting her heel so he can admire his own handiwork. The blue stitching arches bright against the dark leather. She finds herself staring, too. And babbling like a brook to fill the weighty silence. “You picked a nice color. Almost makes me think of--”

She stops short, mouth suddenly dry, eyes flitting back to his face to find him surveying her with a sly smile.

“--home,” she finishes quietly.

He wanted it to, she realizes. Astarion knows how to get what he wants. And he wanted her to think of him and home in the same blink, every morning, as she takes her first step into daylight. 

The sun suits you as well as the stars do, darling. 

He wants to be threaded through her head, inextricable, like the steaming waters she waded into as a child, the songs drifting from the temple, the warmth and wet of the Underdark itself. He means to sink teeth into her memories and add his fangs to the ones she treasures.

Naomi swallows thickly. She wouldn’t mind offering her neck for another night. With the dirt rough beneath her. His body pressing, taut, against her own. She wouldn’t mind it at all, now that she knows where all that blood goes.

Raw heat sweeps her skin, just like the kind that furled from the lake she showed him in her memories. Astarion’s gaze slinks over her, sheer and silky. She feels bare beneath it.

Until he utters some chiding, knowing sound, low in the back of his throat. Then, she feels sweaty. Balmy. Grimy. And sheepish. She shifts her weight between her feet.

It’s more likely, maybe, that he just doesn’t want to owe her anything. She’s helping him flourish, after all. Astarion’s not the sort to be dirtied with debts.

“But of course,” the vampire croons. “We need our fearless leader in tip-top shape, after all.”

“Your leader?” She repeats incredulously.

Astarion turns his head one way, then the other, making a show of looking about. It’s all dramatic effect; his pout of confusion easily reverts to his signature smirk a second later. “Do you see anyone else stepping up, darling? When you open those lovely lips, lovely things seem to happen. Either our enemies fall, or they fall in line.  We’re all inclined to let you keep doing it. Besides, it’s been so much fun to watch.”

She’s fully aware her slack-jawed expression only feeds the gleam in his eye. It’s not the lewdness of his implication that catches her off guard, but the pragmatism of it. The faith in her that he and the others apparently share. 

The goblins were easy to bring to heel; they nearly bent over backwards at the mere sight of a drow, anyway. But even after the incident with Alfira, and her escapade with the hag…her companions still want her to take the reins.

Naomi’s stomach knots. They’ve seen her use her tongue like a whip or a chain, and somewhere along the way, without her even bidding them too, they decided to fall in line as well.

Dimly, she hears Gale falling over his own feet somewhere behind them. Or, maybe he’s choking. Hard to make heads or tails of that strangled, scuffling sound. When she half-turns her cheek, the wizard’s face is ripened red, but he seems no worse for wear. Astarion takes her attention again. 

“And if the shoes fit,” Astarion hums merrily, “well, it’s really all decided then. I do have more of that thread. But it would be better suited if you dyed those leathers we took from that dead drow, first. I imagine they’ll fit you perfectly.”

There wouldn’t be much left to the imagination at all, if she wore what little clothing he spoke of. Much as she might loathe everything else to come from Menzoberranzan, begrudgingly, she knows the garb would look good on her. 

“I’ll see what I can do,” she says evenly, forcing the blanket firmly into his grip.

His lips twitch, but he takes it, cradling his book carefully in one hand, while holding the blanket at arm’s length in the other. He stalks off with it pinched between his fingers, held at bay from his body as if it were sopping. Gale lets out another strained noise that sounds suspiciously like a screaming kettle.

“Are you…all right?” She asks him, eying his unkempt hair. His knuckles must’ve worried it into disarray. The stew bubbles fitfully beneath the wizard’s furrowed brow.

“I am simply stupendous,” he promises, but it sounds pitchy. “Never better!”

The grove opens to them readily, with praise and thanks heaped like confetti upon their heads as they pass the tieflings’ caravan. Wyll and Karlach drink in the accolades, doling out kindness in equal measure, as if serving up helpings of Gale’s nightly stew. The wizard himself struts a little taller as he basks in their gratitude. Even Shadowheart seems moved to the slightest smile -- one she might actually admit to, if pressed.

Astarion’s mouth morphs between a smirk and a sneer. One moment, he hovers near Naomi’s shoulder. The next, she turns to find he’s tucked tail, lurking near the rear of the party like a cat that keeps circling but won’t quite settle.

Naomi finds a stature fitting of a hero-by-happenstance, accepting Zevlor’s coin and offer of camaraderie with the right words and the right thanks. The kind a good person might give, with the kind of performance that a good person might believe. It earns her a sideways glance from Shadowheart and Astarion both.

Naomi doesn’t shy from their scrutiny. They’re the same in this, she’s sure. At least, she’s not so sure she would have spared the effort on the tieflings’ behalf, if the search for a cure steered them elsewhere.

The real prize is a spoiled fruit; Halsin doesn’t have the cure they’d dared to hope for. But he has information. And he makes good on his promise to share it. The burly elf waves a hand in greeting as they approach him at the heart of the Grove.

“I hear there’s to be a celebration this evening,” Halsin says. “Well-deserved, after all your efforts. I hope you relish the chance at revelry. It may be some time before you’re afforded another such night. There is much to be done. And I promised I would help you however I could.”

“You did,” Naomi replies, leaning back to survey the rather sturdy length of him. “We'll make our plans now so we can make merry later.”

“I’m certain a cure for you can be found at Moonrise Towers,” the druid asserts, “but it’s…complicated. The journey, specifically -- it’s extremely perilous. Though, it seems you’re well-accustomed to navigating danger. To get to the Towers, you’ll need to pass through a terrible place -- a cursed place.”

Naomi stifles a sigh. There’s that ‘C’ word again. Cropping up like a stubborn weed. What else did she expect, really?

Halsin tells them of the shadow curse shrouding Moonrise and the surrounding region in darkness and decay. When Naomi wonders aloud how the Absolute’s forces could withstand such conditions, the druid doesn’t have an answer.

“Perhaps it’s the tadpoles,” Astarion muses airily. “Our wriggling friends might shield us from the curse entirely.”

“Only the Absolute’s elites have them,” Gale says with a shake of his head. “Their foot soldiers don’t. They’d need another method to move en masse.”

“You could go overland, along the Risen Road or through the mountains,” Halsin suggests. “But you’ll run into the shadow curse eventually. You could also go under. There is a tunnel in the ruined temple of Selune. It leads to Moonrise Towers through the Underdark.”

Naomi doesn’t meet any of the eyes that snap, at once, to her. She fixes her gaze, instead, to the scenery just past Halsin’s broad shoulders. Even without the tadpole, she knows they all share the same thought.

Wyll gives voice to the question hanging over them. “Is there any chance such a route might carry us near your home? Would you know the way?”

“No,” Naomi answers flatly.

“That’s a shame,” Astarion murmurs beneath his breath, the sound teasing like a breeze near her ear. “Truly. I would’ve liked to have seen it in person.”

Naomi stiffens. She feels his presence prickle along her neck again, even though he’s feet away. A memory of his bite. One bite out of her memories, and he thinks he has her story figured.

“You would’ve seen a pile of rubble,” she says without inflection. “That’s all that’s left of it, now. Boulders and bones.”

“A shame,” he says again, gently enough, her jaw softens slightly.

“But I do know the Underdark,” she says, rolling her shoulders back. “I know what we might find down there. How to navigate underground.”

“And if what we’ve heard from some of the tieflings is true,” Shadowheart adds grimly, “there’s Githyanki along the other route. Strong odds they would’ve had our heads even with Lae’zel in tow. Without her, it’s not a wager I’d like to take.”

One unanimous nod of assent from the others, and it’s decided, even before Halsin tells them further of Ketheric Thorm’s fabled fortress. The mention of her goddess lights Shadowheart like a candle. Before their eyes, the devotee of darkness positively glows.

Naomi wonders, ruefully, if the Sharran will have the same demeanor a few weeks into a moss-and-mushroom diet. Perhaps she’ll need to teach them how to gut a bulette, after all.

“Well, go on! Get in there with them!” Karlach blurts, swaying in time to the lively tune brightening the hollow. Her mug of beer sloshes, spilling over with the overzealous shimmy of her hips.

Naomi winces, back turned to the band as the crowd claps to their rhythm. “I was never good at being that sort of bard,” she shouts above the crescendo.

“What, fun at parties?” Karlach scoffs. “What other kind is there?”

“I’m a riot at a funeral.”

Karlach’s back bows as she glugs, streams seeping from her lips. Naomi watches, briefly fascinated, as the beer sizzles on the surface of Karlach’s broiling skin. It steams off of her in a sweet, wheaty aroma.

“It wassss sssbeautiful,” Karlach murmurs, sobering even as she slurs. “What you did for Lae’zel. Even though she despised you. You sing too pretty to stand around and pout about it!”

Naomi smiles, in spite of herself. “And your mug is too empty for you to still be standing around, talking to me.”

“Fine. Fine,” Karlach heaves an overdrawn sigh, stumbling off reluctantly. “But you’d better break out that fiddle they gave you in our next fight. I wanna hear this riot of yours!”

Flickering silhouettes stutter across the orange glow bathing the clearing. Naomi’s left alone again among so many of Zevlor’s caravan, those they saved from certain death at the goblins’ hands. Song rakes the air alongside fluttering flakes of ash and buffeting laughter. 

Naomi watches the festivities like she would a sunrise; they’re a gorgeous spectacle, to be sure. Something she can see, that can wash over her, but she isn’t part of it, even standing here, adrift in the middle of it. 

Alfira should be. 

She hadn’t wanted to accept the fiddle Zevlor had handed to her in exchange for Alfira’s lute. Well, she’d wanted to accept it. Whether she should have is a moot point now. It stays stowed in her tent for tonight. Still, she thinks of it wistfully.

It’s a beautiful, breakable thing. But it fit like a glove, in her grasp, beneath her chin. In a way that so little has.

“Do you ever tire of denying yourself?”

Naomi offers Astarion a sideways glance. The vampire offers her wine, straight from the bottle. Tentatively, Naomi reaches for it. Their knuckles brush against each other on the neck. The touch is gentle, and yet it feels like flint to steel the way it lingers, sparking, in her fingertips.

Astarion’s eyes shine like the glass in the firelight as she lifts it to her lips for a swig. 

The wine is sharp at first, and then it smooths to velvet on her tongue. Rich. Red. And--

“Awful, isn’t it?” Astarion mutters critically while she hands it back. “Vinegar for wine is hardly a fair consolation prize for all of our blood, sweat, and carnage. I think you deserve something sweeter, hm? A taste of what you’ve been staring at. Perhaps we both do.”

Astarion’s gaze drops, heavy-lidded, to her neck. She’s sure he can see the flush of it, even in the darkness, even by firelight.

 “A little…levity,” he whispers, and it sounds like a promise. “I was right, of course. Those leathers do suit you.”

Naomi swallows, abruptly warm even in such sparse clothing. Astarion’s eyes cut the angle the leather does, down between her breasts, to the lacing at her navel. It would only be one step to close the distance between them, yet, that space weighs her ankles; the notion of moving even an inch feels like wading through waist-high water.

“Yes, I’m tired of it,” she says, eyes peeling back to the party around them. Wistfully, she watches the sway of the bards, their fingers flitting over flute and fiddle. “No, I’m not sure I deserve any different.” She takes a shallow breath, forehead creased, discordant worry whittling in the back of her mind. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten something very important.”

“You have, haven’t you?” He says, head tilted. Naomi blinks up at him wordlessly.

“Pleasure, sweet thing,” he shakes his head, pitying. “I could feel it when I was lost in your neck, you know. You’re positively starved for it? Aren’t you?”

Yes, she thinks at once, an ache panging in her chest. Of course I am. She doesn’t--

“You don’t need to say anything. I already know how you feel,” Astarion rasps, daring the inch closer she couldn’t take herself. His slender hand darts out swift as a dagger. 

Naomi tenses for the touch that doesn't come. His fingertips only ghost over the hairline scar slashed across her nose, tracing its path, but never once grazing it. 

“I know what your last lover left you with,” he says. “And I know better, darling.”

The back of his hand curves down with the column of her neck in a could-be caress. Naomi’s throat bobs, and Astarion’s gaze flits to the motion, fixated. All at once, the fireside is sweltering. 

Intoxicating. The scent of him floods her, crisp and spiced even above the smell of the smoking flames. She hadn’t noticed before, even with her head against his shoulder. But one breath closer, one breath away, and it takes her mind away from anything else.

“I feel it too, you know. This…connection between us,” he says beneath the snap of kindling. 

It feels just as frail, this tentative thread winding them closer. So close, she thinks. He’s so close that, for the first time, she can see his chest is perfectly still without a breath pulled through it.

What might it feel like, to be still for a moment? To lay her ear to his ribs and hear nothing at all? Silence without solitude. Sanctuary without…history.

Pleasure, instead of pain.

He’s so close. He’s so hungry, with the wolfish gleam in his eye, and the edge of fangs in his smirk. But it can’t be a tether he longs for. 

“What do you want Astarion?”

His brow twitches before it settles again. “You know,” he purrs, “I’ve been very good, too. Playing the hero of all things. Hmph.”

“That’s not an answer.” Her snicker sours his expression to a scowl.

“All I want is a bit of fun,” he huffs, exasperated. “Is that so hard to ask?”

Good, she thinks. It wouldn’t do her any good to go believing otherwise. To believe that drivel he pours could’ve come from somewhere earnest, instead of some purple-prosed paperback with the spine bent as often as a whore’s.

But it could feel good, to be broken in by him like a tome left too-long untouched. To yield to someone else’s touch again. Better to ache with it after, having been opened and known again, than to ache alone.

“You mean sex,” she says, his slow-spreading smile a mirror of her own.

“The kind you’ll never forget,” Astarion drawls, voice gaining gravel again. “We could steal away once the others are asleep. Take the night for ourselves and forget all this madness. I know where we can find our own little piece of nowhere.”

Astarion’s eyes are crimson as the wine he hands her. His fingers curl cool, around hers, as she takes his offering a second time. The sip tingles on her tongue, brimming with promise.

The vampire wets his lips. “So what do you say, lover?”

Damp grass tamps down beneath her feet. Naomi shivers, free of the fireside’s warmth, and -- she confirms with one last glance over her shoulder -- free from prying eyes. The night’s crisp, cool, and quiet but for the dull croak of creatures who call the brush their home.

Between the bottle brush pines, she glimpses a sky alive with simmering stars. It’s beautiful. Resplendent. She could stare at those heavens for hours, neck craned upward, her chin in her hands.

Naomi comes to the crest of a small incline. The forest thins. There, across tall grasses, leaned lithe against a tree, she sees him. When she blinks again, the moon, the stars, and the faint blush of the astral sea seeping from beyond are all dull, faded things.

“There you are,” Astarion’s whisper is coarse. He presses from the tree. Naomi can’t quell the hitch in her breath. Moonlight slinks with him, liquid silver cloaked over his bare shoulders.

“I’ve been waiting,” he says, closing their distance with long, lazy strides as her own steps cease. “Waiting since the moment I set eyes on you. Waiting to have you.”

Pristine, moon-bleached curls frame his face. She knew she’d find that knowing smirk on his lips. But the heady lust in his eyes is tempered with a softness so different from the silky way he speaks and stares. Like sand through her fingers, it feels so fleeting.

“You've been waiting to use that line,” she says, but the barb lacks any sting. “And besides, I know it was murder on your mind that first time we met. You don’t have to pretend with me.”

Briefly, his eyes narrow before his expression smooths to match his tone. “Oh darling, all I wanted to do that night was taste you.”

The spiced scent of him swells with her hammering heartbeat. Naomi’s eyes wander, unbidden, to the curve of his lower lip. The barest tips of his fangs dig into the plush of it.

“I think you want to be tasted,” he says with certainty. “I think one bite wasn’t enough.”

“You could be right,” she whispers back, eyes half-lidded.

Gently, he lifts her chin with a pair of his fingers. “I think the night we met could’ve gone something like this.”

The crush of his lips is velvet; his mouth is soft as it catches hers, rougher as he keeps it. She drifts into the kiss, weightless, lost to the slow, deliberate, inevitable way he coaxes her open.

His hand on her hip is a sudden anchor, his fingertips pressing imprints of sweet pressure. She parts for him readily; her legs shift to accommodate the nimble fingers working her free of her laces, her lips allowing his tongue to soothe the ache he made. 

She thinks of those same skilled hands, working open a lock with an expertise that would have earned anyone else calluses. He always pinches the pick so precisely in his grip, the blue veins in his pale wrists flexing with instinct but only the barest effort. With just as much ease, the leathers crumple at her heels and he bears her to the night. 

Abruptly, he parts from her. Naomi pants, chest heaving. As he steps back, she steps forward out of her clothing piled in the dirt. 

Red eyes rake down her body, burning from her neck to her navel like wine down her throat. He dips with fluid motion, doing away with his trousers before he straightens. Her own gaze flits low as anticipation clenches between her legs. Her teeth catch the inside of her cheek, muffling the noise she knows would only grow the girth of his ego.

There’s so very much of him to anticipate.

Strong arms loop around her waist, ending any distance between them with firm pull. She gives to his grip, catching her breath as the chill panes of his chest press cool against her breasts. When his lips have hers again, and his hands weave reckless though her hair, he casts the cold away entirely. At least, she forgets all about it while he’s tugging her hair loose from its bun, and tugging her lower lip between his teeth.

For a moment, she sways dizzy, eyes shut to the world. He’s her gravity. Astarion hitches her legs over his hips, hard grip buried in her ass, and lifts her, spinning her round. 

Her back scrapes rough against the tree bark. It’ll sting in the morning. But his tongue teases at the roof of her mouth and all she can think now is more, more, more.

More of that pleased sound rumbling low in the back of his throat as her hands clutch the nape of his neck. More of that blissful mouth she gasps against. More of his skin smoothing like satin over hers. More of the taste of him taking her mind and emptying it of all else.

Naomi’s fingernails drag tender against his scalp, silver curls threading through her fingers. Astarion tilts his head back into the touch. She takes the opportunity to graze them down the delicate edges of his ears, too, satisfaction stoked by the sound of his ragged snicker.

“Good girl.”

He mutters the praise feather-faint on the heat of her tongue. Any purchase she had falters to the needy, tightening coil of want drawn suddenly taut inside her. As if he said the words to the lips between her thighs instead of those he claims with his own.

Her legs quiver when her feet find the dirt again. Astarion cups her breasts, rolling a pebbled nipple between the pads of his thumb and forefinger. Naomi groans into his open-mouthed kisses, into the exquisite, electric pleasure he plies from her tits. Her heels drag back into the soil, but it's her own needy noises that ground her.

Until the rigid length of him, the only warmth he has, grinds against the meat of her thigh, and her mind blanks but for the answering ache inside her cunt. 

Her footing wavers. She stumbles forward, shoving firm against his hips. Abruptly, Astarion’s eyes fly wide. She smears a kiss and a stifled breath against his collarbone. Then, his grip tightens, and they’re falling together, down into the dirt.

Astarion breaks her landing with a dull huff. Her own snickering snaps the quiet like twigs underfoot. It can’t be helped. And she can’t help but bask in that dazed look he wears as he watches her, laughter and moonlight gleaming in his eyes without a trace of reproach. 

She’s got a perfect view of that gorgeous face, so she can see what it does to that self-assured smirk of his when her trailing hand reaches its destination. Naomi shifts, straddling his thighs, one palm painting over the lean spread of his chest. The other smooths up the side of his leg until she comes to the crux of what she longs for, the inspiration for all the slickness she has waiting for him. Her fingers wrap lithe around his shaft and stroke.

Astarion shudders out a breathy, contented sigh.“I was right about you,” he pants, head lolling back against the ground while his hungry eyes roam her body.

“What’s that?” Naomi asks, her voice saccharine as she tilts her head, the twist of her wrist anything but innocent.

“You are stunning in silver.”

She follows his gaze, turning her attention downward to the curve of her tits, rising with the shape of her own breath in her lungs. Past her collarbone, her dense freckles thin out over the pale twilight shade of her skin, like stars dissolving in daylight. Her lilac-gray pigment fades, too, into ethereal blue by the light of the moon. Every inch of her is alive with it. Even her hair, falling loose and tousled over her shoulders, takes on the shimmer of fresh snowfall.

She swallows, the motion rippling through the flat of her stomach. Last night, Astarion said the daylight suited her. She replied in kind. But tonight, she said to him, you don’t have to pretend with me, and she meant it. He didn’t say it back. Maybe he meant it, anyway. He watches her so intently, now.

Tonight, he says she’s stunning. Tonight, beneath her, he tells the truth. If only for a little while. The daylight suits them fine enough, but they're creatures of the night, the pair of them.

Her breath snags as he sits suddenly upright. The motion shifts her, too. She’s still spread over his lap, but her grip is gone. A cunning smile curls on his mouth. Firm hands press against the small of her back, pulling her flush against the hard ridge of his cock. Every slow rock of his hips sends pleasure stuttering through her stomach. Every thrust across her cunt has him more and more slicked with her.

Naomi’s eyelids flutter. He draws a hand through her hair, tugging back with a gentle hold. Nonsensical noise tumbles from her mouth. Her pulse pangs in her throat, bared to his lips.

“And you’re so very eager,” he says, the words tingling against her neck. “Aren’t you?”

She braces for the bite, for the piercing pain that will yield to delectable numbness in a moment’s time. But there’s no trace of his teeth. Instead, his mouth merely drags delicately along the path of his favorite vein, throbbing just beneath the surface of her skin.

“I’m not the only eager one, it seems,” she says in a husk of what her voice used to be.

“Mm,” Astarion rumbles in reply, “we’ve both waited long enough.”

He pushes hard against her shoulders. Naomi’s back thumps against the gritty dirt. Astarion is smooth marble as he crawls across her, knees bracketing her own. On instinct, her hips lift, straining towards his hardened cock looming, glistening, above her cunt. 

He chides her with a click of his tongue. A forceful palm pins her back down beneath him. But her punishment is short-lived. He threads a hand between them, licks his lips, and dips just one finger between her slick folds.

Breath stammers from her lungs. Astarion circles her clit like circling prey. The black look in his eyes is calculated, distant, and pierces straight through her. Like he hardly sees her at all --  only the dirt beneath her body, the ground he could fuck her into, the little deaths he could bury her with. His wrist flexes with the arch in her back. He buries his soaked finger inside her heat. 

And just like that, he has her curled around it. Naomi’s not sure what language keeps leaving her tongue. It’s known to no one but the two of them. It’s filthy as the wet, clicking rhythm of him playing with her cunt. 

He blinks, brow knitting briefly, and the set of his jaw seems to ease. She catches the flash of his fanged smirk behind her slitted lids before he leans forward and laps at her trembling tits. Naomi’s eyes shut tight as the whole of her squeezes with touch of his tongue against her pert nipple. Her cunt clings, needy, around his finger, but she doesn’t have to beg; he slips in a second, granting her that perfect stretch she so desperately seeks.

“Gods--”

The seal of his mouth breaks abruptly with a lewd pop. Naomi jerks from the ground, bucking to the sharp but fleeting reproach of his fangs against her swollen nipple. He leans higher, nosing at the crook of her neck. His breath sends a shiver across her skin as a low growl seeps between his teeth. 

“The gods aren’t the ones giving you this.”

His knuckles crook inside her cunt, and like she’s any other lock, Naomi’s lips open at his whim.

“Ah--Astar--star--”

“Better,” he snickers darkly, “as in ‘surely you can do better’.”

Somewhere in the feverish flurry of her thoughts, she feels a swell of victory, knowing her critique of his charms left such an imprint on him. A second later, he kills her breathless laughter, swiping his tongue against the slanted edge of her ear. Naomi chokes around the sweetest shudder. It’s his name she mangles in her mouth as she comes hard and sudden, spasming around the pair of fingers he used to turn her to putty in his hands.

Astarion eases back, sitting up on his knees and giving her room to prop her chest with her arms. The look in his eyes is a predatory one as he rubs his cunt-slicked fingers across his lips. A long, steaming sigh leaks out of him.

“My bittersweet treat,”  he drawls, “you’re so very flushed for me.”

“Can’t I treat you, too?” Naomi asks, lashes low as she leans her head to the side, an open invitation to her open neck. Her fingertips trail over the stretch of it, skimming the flare of her collarbone down to the swell of her breast and teasing at the nipple he’d toyed with before.

Surprise floods his face, stoking the grin on hers. It’s too perfect. He’s too perfect. His carefully coiffed hair is riled into picturesque disarray, his eyes rounded wide. He recovers in a blink, grasping her thigh, angling her ankle over his shoulder, and pulling her tightly to him.

“You generous little thing,” he croons, his mouth descending down her leg. He drops to his forearms, sucking a path of fervent kisses along the tender flesh of her inner thigh. “But I’ve only just started, darling,” he pants, his breath furling across her cunt. 

His tongue dips through her folds, mapping the heat of her with languid, deliberate strokes. Like he means to take the spread of her in his mind as much as his mouth. Commit her to muscle memory in the same manner his long, elegant fingers can nock a new arrow without a glance at his hands.

And she thinks, with a cry breaking like glass in her throat, he could have her in pieces just as easily.

The vampire’s yet to let his teeth sink in. Every drop of blood Naomi came to the woods with stays within her veins. But Astarion doesn’t need his fangs to have her in a boneless puddle beneath him; his lips alone have that managed. 

He devours her all the same, drinking in her writhing whimpers as he slips a finger inside again, groaning his approval as she takes another and clenches tightly around him. Sweat flares across her forehead with the forceful fit of her orgasm thrumming through her cunt. 

She chases after her breath, awash in Astarion’s embrace, in the sprinting thunder of her own heartbeat slamming his ribs while he climbs back over her. He strokes away the hair plastered to her cheek, and a lightweight, dizzy feeling flutters in her chest.

Realization snaps with her pulse, the back of her mouth growing suddenly dry. There’s no answering echo pounding back beneath his skin. His heart is silent, his chest cool and soothing to the touch. 

He’s quiet. Not the lonely kind of silence. But a deeper, richer shade of it. The kind of quiet that eases whatever wayward, nuisance of a noise that lurked in the back of her head. She hadn’t even known it was there until she’d known its absence. Until Astarion laid bare against her body, and she heard nothing at all inside his chest.

 It’s…nice.

“Are you still with me, darling?” The vampire searches her face, eyes narrowed by the barest hair, his curls aglow in a moonlit halo.

“Y-yes.”

“But don’t you look dazed,” he muses, putting on a pout that’s all for show. “If you still want me inside of you, you’ll have to say so, lover.”

“I do. Want it,” she answers at once, sparking a keen glint in his eye. She swallows, downing the hoarseness in her throat.

“Then say the words,” he coaxes, hovering taut above her.

Naomi tilts her head back, a sultry smile hanging slack from her swollen lips. “I want you inside me, Astarion. And I want you to have your fill of me while you’re filling me.”

His gaze dulls over, drifting down to her throat, his pupils blown wide. His voice is rich and dark as he whispers roughly, “So be it, my sweet.”

He seals the vow with a chaste kiss and the slow roll of his hips. The head of his cock nudges, warm and thick against her entrance. Instinct and anticipation have her cunt gripping around a panging nothingness. His fangs graze the pattering pulse-point in her neck. 

Naomi doesn’t know she’s held her breath until Astarion sinks into her with cock and fangs both. The exhale bleeds from her body in a heady rush.

“Isn’t that better?” He growls against her ear, the tang of her blood and sex mingling on his breath and in her nose.

Dimly, she’s aware of the prickling punctures in her neck. But then, his mouth soothes them again, sucking with a hard fervor, and she melts into the blend of his cock smacking wet against her cunt. 

Into the blend of blood and sex and sweat that takes her like a tide. Into the crash of lips and hips that has her writhing, riding on a climbing crest of pleasure. Every prod of his cock against that perfect place deep within her cunt drowns her in permeating bliss.

She could fade into that feeling entirely; dissolve into nothing but the crash of her own breath and the length of him wrapped within her. Just when she thinks she might, Astarion peels from her throat. He kisses her with groaned urgency, pulling a moan from her mouth into his. 

She comes apart that way, sealed with him, with a hard, lightning tremor shooting from her cunt through her chest. Astarion grunts, his teeth catching her lip with a sting that sends sparks simmering down through her toes. Her cunt convulses, wringing his cock through his frantic, shuddering thrusts.

Astarion parts from her mouth, face scrunched. He pours into her with a ragged groan. Absently, she strokes the dangling curls from his face, watching, rapt, as his brow trembles with the rest of him.

And then he pours from her, his body spilling into the dirt beside her, his cum seeping from her throbbing cunt. 

Cool, lonely air licks the sweat from her skin. Naomi shivers. 

Then she flinches; a flurry of fabric drops over her in a dark shadow. Gingerly, she takes the blanket, eying the swirling, pristine pattern of the stitching. It’s not the same as the one she woke up with this morning.

Astarion lies on his back next to her, still and silver as a statue.

“We can’t have you cold,” he murmurs faintly, as if miles away, “now, can we?”

A/N: THEY FINALLY FUCKED!! WOO HOO! Naomi: He's not even that good at flirting lol but it is entertaining.

Naomi five minutes later: It would be real stupid of me to think he means any of this lol we're totally just having fun it's casual

Naomi ten minutes later: Where's the cuddles though 🫠 Super excited to share Underdark happenings, lots more Naomi lore, and some Astarion POV about what just happened here next chapter! Divider credit for before and immediately after story text to @firefly-graphics. Divider credit for scene breaks and banner below to @saradika-graphics. *Tag List: @wilteddreamsofbaldursgate, @mancsunite, @marlowethebard,

@ayselluna, @wingsy-keeper-of-songs, @vixstarria

*I'm sorry if I missed you, I'm new this tag list thing! Lmk if you want to be added!

[6-and-7]

Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without itt

[silverfoxstole]

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas…

Chimes of Midnight Doctor and Charley, as requested by @know-it-all-freak !

[thediaryofriversong]

[gxilgramore]

Christmas wouldn't be christmas without ham and cheese toastie and a pumpkin latte

[thefiresofpompeii]

the chimes of midnight part 1-3: fun exciting timey wimey christmas murder mystery

the chimes of midnight part 4: