You Tell Me You Love Me, Like It'll Be the Last Time
Chapter 2
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In which the beginning begins, Astarion is a lying liar who lies (badly), and Phaedra doesn't fall for his bullshit.
The books on your shelf that you never read
The hunting knife you kept by your bed
The flowers you dried and tied up with twine
Suspended from the ceiling
You tell me you love me, like it'll be the last time
Like you're playing out, the end of a storyline
I say I love you too, because it's true
What else am I supposed to do?
Maybe bar the door
When you move to leave
I think you mean what you say
When you say you wanna die
I think you mean what you say
When you say you want to stay alive
Go back to school, go back to sleep
Tell the secret you can't keep
Begin, be done
Break a vow, make a new one
Call me if you need a friend,
or never talk to me again
But please stay
But please stay
But please stay
But please stay
- Lucy Dacus, Please Stay
Phaedra crept through the apartment on silent feet, the bat Karlach had given her as a “congrats on surviving Lae’zel’s self-defense class” gift clutched tightly in her hands as she moved slowly down the hall toward the living room. Drow heritage meant she moved like a ghost – unseen, unheard, her darkvision eliminating the need to turn on any lights that would alert the intruder currently trying to break in through her living room window.
Gods, she knew she shouldn’t have trusted Astarion to pick their apartment. This neighborhood is terrible. They live on the third floor, for crying out loud! Who breaks into an apartment on the third floor?
The lock on the window finally clicks open, and Phaedra quickly tucks herself behind the ugly potted ficus Astarion’s sister had given them when they’d moved in, the stupid giant thing finally serving a purpose beyond dropping leaves all over their carpet just because she forgot to water it for a week or two.
There’s a muffled swear from outside as the window is shoved open, then a hooded figure dressed in black slips through, carefully closing the window behind them before moving slowly toward the couch.
Strange. Why the hell would they close the window? It seemed unlikely that they’d be worried about her heating bill when they were presumably here to steal from her.
But a courteous thief is still a thief, and this particular thief is going to find themself sorely disappointed when they discover that Phaedra and Astarion have nothing worth stealing. And they’re going to find themself just plain sore when they meet the business end of her bat.
Phaedra makes a mental note to try and guess how many ribs she breaks as she squares up, plants her feet in a firm stance, and leans into her swing, aiming for for center-mass just like Lae’zel taught her. Her Gith friend will be disappointed if it’s not at least three.
She does not expect for the thief to dodge at the last second, whirling and catching her bat in their hand before it can connect, loosing another muffled swear as they flinch and favor their right side. Luckily, Lae’zel had covered this situation in the hand-to-hand combat portion of her self-defense class, and Phaedra had always considered herself a good student.
Lesson One – Do not waste energy fighting over a weapon with an opponent who is stronger than you. You are the weapon, act accordingly.
Lesson Two – There is no prize for fighting with honor. Fight to win, or your opponent will.
Lesson Three – Use every available advantage, even those that may be distasteful. Your life is worth more than your pride.
Phaedra lets go of the bat as soon as the thief yanks on it, letting him – she’s pretty sure it’s a guy, the voice sounded masculine – pull it out of her hands, the lack of resistance throwing him off-balance. Then, while he’s distracted, she tackles him. She keeps her body low, shoulder hitting the center of his torso – right in the solar plexus – arms wrapping around his body as she takes him to the ground, bat flying from his hand and clattering across the floor.
She expects the sharp exhale as the breath is knocked from him. She does not expect to see a pair of familiar red eyes staring back at her in shock over the mask covering his face from the nose down, tears welling at the corners. Or to hear a familiar voice cry out in pain, gasping shallowly as she straddles his torso, pinning his arms to the ground and using her bodyweight to hold him still.
“Fuck! Get off, Phae, please,” Astarion croaks, whimpering as her weight shifts over him. “Gods, please, get- get off!”
All the fight drains from Phaedra as she registers his obvious distress, shifting from righteous vengeance to horrified concern as she rolls off him, coming to kneel beside him and gently tugging down the cloth covering her friend and roommate’s face. “Astarion? What the fuck are you doing climbing through the window?! It’s three in the godsdamned morning!”
He somehow manages to look sheepish, despite the pained grunt he releases as he slowly sits up, breaths careful and shallow as he eases off the dark sweatshirt he’s wearing and lets her take it from him. “Hello, darling. I… might have lost my key?”
“Lost your- what are you even doing out at this time of night? You said you were going to bed! You have work in the morning!”
“Well, in my defense,” he wheezes, pressing a hand gingerly to his side, “it is technically morning. And I was technically at work. Sort of.”
“Sort of?” she shouts, knuckles turning white as her fingers dig into the shirt in her hands, “what the fuck do you mean you were sort of at work? You’re a TA! TAs don’t work at three in the morning! And they don’t do it dressed as cat burglars!” Her voice drops, equal parts hurt and angry, “Astarion, what is going on with you? I know we haven’t talked about… that night… but you don’t talk to me about anything anymore, you go sneaking off at all hours, I barely see you because you hide in your room any time I’m out of mine. I thought we were at least friends, still!”
Astarion sighs, careful and shallow, as if each breath risks breaking something fragile, either in his body or between them. Maybe both. “Darling, it’s not what you think.”
“Oh really? Then what is it?” Her tone hardens as she pushes past the lump in her throat, “Because what I’m thinking is that, from where I’m standing, it feels an awful lot like, after six years of friendship, you got your jollies and now you want nothing to do with me.” The way he flinches at her wording, eyes wide and wet, doesn’t make her feel any better. “It’s time to start talking, Astarion. What the fuck is going on?”
Astarion stares at her silently for a moment, then closes his eyes and releases a long, slow breath, face resigned as he reaches behind his head and grabs the neck of his t-shirt, carefully pulling it over his head and tossing it onto the floor.
What little color was left in Phaedra’s face drains away, the sweatshirt she’d been clutching slipping from her fingers in horror at the sight before her.
Astarion’s entire torso is littered with bruises, a canvas of dark, angry blotches – some nearly black they’re so deep – trailing across his stomach, back, and ribs. Ribs that hitch carefully with even the most shallow of his careful breaths. The bruising is particularly heavy on his sides – leading her to believe he has several broken ribs – and along his spine, the mottled canvas trailing down over his hips and continuing past the waistband of his pants where she can’t see.
“Gods below,” Phaedra whispers, one hand reaching out to gently brush the dark spotting coloring his side. “Star… what happened? Who did this to you?” When he doesn’t immediately answer, just shifts his gaze away from her, ears drooping in exhaustion, her jaw clenches in anger. “Astarion. Who. Did. This?”
The silence stretches between them, neither wanting to be the first to give in.
“It’s not just this, is it?” Phaedra asks quietly. “You’ve been acting so strange, lately. You’re not yourself. Like a- like a ghost. There’s more you aren’t telling me, isn’t there?”
“Please don’t make me explain, darling...” Astarion wheezes, sinking painfully slowly back to the floor with a groan, each movement careful and deliberate as he settles to lie flat on their shitty, cheap carpet. “Not right now.”
What remains of Phaedra’s anger deflates. Astarion was never one to willingly admit when he was sick or injured. Last summer she’d had to pick the lock on his bedroom door so she could drag him to Urgent Care because he’d had a raging fever for three days and refused to admit he was sick. He must truly feel awful if he was willing to be so openly vulnerable. She lies down beside him, reaching out to gently brush the hair from his face, fury and heartbreak warring in her chest. "Alright, Star," she says softly, though her fingers tremble slightly. "But we will talk about this. Both the bruises and..." She glances at the wounds on his body, jaw tightening, "and whatever’s been going on with you lately."
Her gaze returns to Astarion’s, studying the way her roommate's breathing hitches with each careful inhale. After a moment's hesitation, she scoots a little closer to him – close enough to offer comfort but not so near as to crowd. "Should I call someone? A doctor, maybe? Or..." She pauses, not sure if she should even suggest her next option, "…or your sister?"
Astarion tenses imperceptibly, his voice coming out small and broken, each word seeming to cost him. "No... I’m alright, darling, truly there’s no need to get anyone else involved. Especially not my sister, she’ll just fret. No, just... stay, if you would. Please."
Phaedra's expression softens further, any remaining traces of anger melting into concern. She shifts closer, careful not to jostle Astarion as she settles beside him. After a moment's hesitation, she gently places her hand where he can reach it if he chooses.
"I'm not going anywhere, Star," she murmurs, "though we might not want to lay here too long, I can’t imagine this floor is doing those injuries any favors." Despite her best efforts, the sad smile on her face doesn't quite mask the worry in her voice.
Astarion's fingers twitch, then slowly inch toward Phaedra's offered hand. She doesn't rush him, simply waiting patiently. She’s waited this long for him, what’s a little while more? When their fingers finally touch, she gives the gentlest of squeezes.
"We'll sit here as long as you need," she says softly. "But afterward, we're going to talk about everything. No more secrets between us, okay?"
Astarion lifts his gaze to meet Phaedra's, pain mingling with something harder in his expression. "No more secrets?" His voice is rough, but steady, "does that go both ways?"
Phaedra stiffens slightly, her fingers twitching in Astarion's grasp. A shadow passes over her face as she processes the challenge in those words.
"I've noticed, you know," Astarion continues softly. "How you barely look at me anymore. The baggy clothes. The distance. You wouldn’t even let me help you when you were sick the other day, wouldn’t let me touch you, just pretended everything was fine. I haven’t been avoiding you, Phaedra; I’ve been giving you the space you so clearly want."
Color rises in Phaedra's pale lavender cheeks, but she doesn't pull her hand away. Instead, her grip tightens. "That's..." she starts, then stops, swallowing hard, "that's different."
"Is it?"
Astarion's question hangs in the air between them, heavy with unspoken hurt.
Phaedra’s free hand moves to fidget nervously with one of her earrings. "I suppose,” she says finally, voice barely above a whisper, "we both have our demons we're running from."
The silence that follows is deep, long. Awkward in a way that silence has never been between them before until recently, the weight of unshared secrets hanging in the air. After some time, Phaedra sighs and rises, Astarion’s hand still in hers, and helps him carefully to his feet. She leads him over to the couch, gently pushes him to sit, then disappears into the bathroom, returning moments later with a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin.
“Here,” she says, handing them to him, “it’s not much, but hopefully it’ll take the edge off.” As he swallows the pills and finishes off the water, she crosses her arms, staring down at her feet, before fixing him with a stern look. “Alright. Now it’s time to talk. Whatever this is, whoever’s done this to you, it can’t continue. This is… this is bad, Astarion. Really bad. It could kill you, and you’re- you’re not allowed to die.”
"Fine, darling. I’m not allowed to die,” Astarion scoffs, pain still lacing his words, “and you're not allowed to keep hiding whatever it is you're hiding from me. You walk around here in baggy clothes like you don't want me to see you. I've heard you being sick, whether you’ll admit to it or not. You’ve lost weight, you hardly sleep; the bags under your eyes practically qualify as carry-on luggage. Something is wrong with you, Phaedra, and you need to tell me what it is."
The rumble of a car’s engine as it drives down the street fills the uncomfortable silence that follows. Phaedra wraps her arms around herself. "I..." Words fail her, and she stares at the floor, avoiding Astarion’s gaze, chewing her bottom lip. "It's complicated."
"Isn't everything?" Astarion presses, leaning forward slightly. "You can't demand my honesty while keeping your own secrets, darling."
Phaedra's shoulders tense, then drop in resignation. She curls into herself, eyes remaining fixed on the floor. "Would you believe me if I said I was trying to protect you? That maybe there are scars I'd rather keep hidden?"
Astarion's eyes soften with a mix of concern and determination. He reaches across the space between them, gently taking Phaedra’s hand and tugging her down to sit next to him on the couch. "I know about the scars," he says quietly, watching her face carefully, "mental and physical. We slept together, darling, and we’ve been friends for years before that. This is more than that. You used to love when I’d hold you while we laid together on the couch to watch tv, now you avoid it like the plague and cringe any time I try, like you don't want me to touch you." Astarion’s voice gentles as he continues, but remains insistent, "You stopped having wine with me when we watch movies. You stopped eating your favorite snacks. You used to do your hair up every day, even if you were staying in, but I don’t think I’ve seen you wear it in anything but that tossed up bun in weeks."
Phaedra’s breath catches, a slight tremor running through her fingers. Her gaze lifts, pink irises finally rising to meet his red, and there's something raw and vulnerable in it that makes Astarion’s chest ache. "I…" Phaedra’s voice wavers slightly, "some things are harder to say than others. But you're right. I’m being a massive hypocrite, aren’t I?" She draws a shaky breath, fingers drumming an anxious rhythm on her leg. "Would you... would you promise me something first?"
"Anything, darling."
A flicker of relief crosses Phaedra’s face, though tension still holds her shoulders rigid. "Promise me you won't..." Her voice catches, and she swallows hard before continuing. "Promise me you won't try to fix this. What I'm about to tell you – I don't need solutions or pity. I just need you to understand." She squeezes Astarion's hand once, eyes searching his face with an intensity that makes his breath catch. The living room feels impossibly quiet save for their shared breathing. "I've been..." Phaedra pauses, her free hand unconsciously moving to press against her middle. "There's been some complications with my anemia. The treatments..." her voice grows softer, "they make me terribly ill sometimes. And I didn't want you to see that – to worry about that – when you're already dealing with so much."
The confession hangs in the air between them, heavy with unspoken implications. Phaedra's grip on Astarion's hand remains steady, though her face has grown even paler.
"That explains why you’ve been looking something like a specter of late, darling," Astarion replies softly, his voice steady despite the weight of the words, "and maybe why you’ve been so tired. But everything else? That's not any anemia symptom I've ever heard of."
The living room falls deadly silent, Phaedra's hand going slack in Astarion's grip, her already pale complexion turning almost ghostly. Her lips part, but no sound emerges.
Phaedra withdraws her hand completely, hands moving to the hem of her oversized sleepshirt, twisting the fabric between her fingers. Her right ear twitches - a nervous tell that betrays her carefully controlled expression. "You..." she starts, then stops, swallowing hard. "You noticed that." It's not a question. Her gaze fixes on a loose thread in the hem of her shirt, deliberately avoiding Astarion's eyes as her fingers pick at it.
Astarion slides off the couch, breath hitching as he crouches carefully in front of her. "I notice everything about you," he responds, his voice gentle but firm. "Just as you notice everything about me."
Phaedra's fingers clutch tighter at the fabric of her shirt. "This isn't... it's not… usually..." Her voice trails off, words deserting her entirely.
"I was under the impression we weren't usual," Astarion says softly, "until all this started happening, anyway." He leans forward slightly, voice gaining strength. "Phaedra, I’ve been watching you live off tea and crackers for weeks. You're tired all the time, you won't let me touch you, I’ve heard you crying at night when you’re alone in your room and think I can’t hear you. This isn’t just anemia complications. Something is wrong."
Phaedra's eyes snap up to meet Astarion's, a mix of fear and defiance flickering across her features. Her fingers twist in the hem of her shirt, the sound of a snapping thread breaking the silence between them. A strangled laugh escapes her, more desperate than amused. "Well, when you put it that way, I sound like a hell of a mess. Maybe I am, I don’t know." Her attempt at levity falls flat, undermined by the tremor in her voice. She draws a shaky breath, one hand rising to fidget with her silver earring, "I've really fucked this up, haven't I?" Her voice breaks slightly, "Nothing’s wrong, necessarily. Depends on how you look at it, I guess. I suppose I thought... if I could just handle it myself... if I could keep it from affecting you..." The silence draws tight between them as Phaedra's composure continues to crack, raw vulnerability bleeding through her carefully constructed mask.
Astarion's voice rises with barely contained fear and frustration, his hands gripping the couch cushions on either side of her. "Handle what, Phaedra?" He feels bad for a moment when she flinches at the intensity in his tone, eyes growing wide, but pushes on. "This is a lot of symptoms that all point to some rather frightening things when I look them up," he continues, his words tumbling out faster, "and it’s been going on for weeks now. It’s scaring the hells out of me, darling."
Phaedra's composure finally shatters completely. Her shoulders shake as she presses both hands against her face, tendrils of her silver hair falling forward like a shield. "I can't..." her voice emerges muffled and broken, "I can't bear to see your face when I say it. I didn’t know how to tell you..." she cuts herself off with a choked sound.
The living room suddenly feels too small, too real, overdue confessions bearing down on them in the dark of the night.
Pain flickers across Astarion's features as he carefully pulls Phaedra forward to lean against him, movements stiff and deliberate, his recent injuries making themselves known quite loudly. One arm wraps around her back, letting her press her face into his shoulder, while his other hand gently takes one of her trembling hands in his.
"Tell me what, darling?" His voice is soft, barely above a whisper. "Please tell me. Because nothing you say can possibly be worse than what I've been imagining."
Phaedra's fingers curl reflexively around Astarion's, even as her other hand remains pressed against her face. A tear slips past her defenses, catching the moon’s glow as it shines through the window. "I'm pregnant," she whispers, the words so quiet they're almost lost in the space between breaths. "And I don't... I can't..." her voice breaks completely, "I don't know what to do."
The confession hangs in the air between them, as delicate and devastating as shattered glass. Phaedra's hand tightens around Astarion's, as if afraid he'll pull away.
His eyes go wide, lips forming a soft oh as, still holding Phaedra's hand, knees weak and body trembling, he slowly slumps fully to the floor, falling back onto his bottom while his legs splay awkwardly. A strange sound escapes him - somewhere between a laugh and a sob - followed by a sharp wince of pain. "Oh that's... that wasn't..." His voice wavers between hysteria and relief. "I thought you were dying, Phaedra!"
She stares down at him in stunned silence for a moment. "Dying?" she repeats incredulously, a slightly hysterical laugh of her own bubbling up, "you thought I was- oh. Oh, Star, no." She slides to the floor beside him, her free hand moving to cup his cheek, "No, no... just... just incredibly pregnant and incredibly terrified."
Their joined hands rest between them, neither willing to let go. Phaedra's thumb brushes away a tear from Astarion's cheek - though whether it's from pain, relief, or overwhelming emotion is impossible to tell. "I suppose," she manages, her voice thick with emotion, "we're both kind of terrible at handling things on our own, aren't we?"
The cheap living room carpet is rough beneath them, but they pay it no mind as their tears slowly subside. This revelation lies between them, transforming the space into something new and fragile. Their hands remain linked, anchoring them both.
"We should..." Astarion's voice is rough with emotion, "we should probably get up. I don’t imagine the floor is good for either of us right now."
Phaedra manages a watery laugh, using her free hand to wipe at her eyes, "Especially not in my condition, I suppose." The words come out tentative, testing. Gauging for a reaction, almost.
They help each other up slowly, mindful of Astarion's injuries and unsteady legs. Without discussion, they gravitate toward the couch - their usual sanctuary. Phaedra settles against one end while Astarion carefully lowers himself onto the cushions.
After a moment's hesitation, he shifts, laying his head in Phaedra's lap - a familiar position that they’d fallen into over the years. Her fingers find their way to Astarion's white curls, stroking gently as her other hand finds the remote, the television flickering to life before them.
"Really, Call the Midwife again?" Astarion scoffs softly, leaning into her touch, tension slowly leaving his shoulders.
"I like it, it’s just the right mix of sappy and dramatic," Phaedra counters, "and you like it too, don’t pretend like you don’t." Her next words are hesitant, “Besides, it’s… topical.”
The familiar rhythm of their evening routine settles over them, though something has shifted - deepened perhaps - in the wake of their shared revelations. On screen, the inhabitants of Nonnatus House go about their work in 1960’s London’s East End, but Astarion's mind wanders to other thoughts. He looks up at Phaedra, causing her hand to still in his hair. When he speaks, his voice is careful, measured. "So, darling, it is... it is mine, right?" His fingers brush across her knuckles, as if to soften the question, "Not that I have any doubts, of course, but I… don’t want to presume you haven’t got other suitors – it was only the once, after all, if a very nice once. Though I suppose it does only take once, but… what I’m trying to say is that I’m just… attempting to figure out how much of an idiot I am."
Phaedra tenses slightly, then lets out a soft, broken laugh. "Yes, you absolute dork," she says, voice thick with emotion. "Of course it's yours. There hasn't been anyone else since..." she trails off, swallowing hard. "Well. Not for a very long while." She sighs, "Though I guess that makes us both idiots, doesn't it? Neither of us exactly thought about... consequences."
The medical drama continues to play in the background, forgotten by both of them as the weight of their shared reality settles around them like a heavy blanket.
"Yes, well, I guess we both deserve to take a lash or two from the Idiot Stick in that case," Astarion murmurs with a weak chuckle, "though I suppose I already did that enough for the both of us." His hand stills for a moment, and he swallows hard before continuing. "...what did you want to do about it? I'll support you, of course, no matter what you choose, darling."
Phaedra's breath hitches, and he curls a little tighter into her lap, his long fingers winding through hers and squeezing gently. "I don't know," she whispers, voice raw with emotion. "I've never... I mean, with everything my father put me through, then Enver… and after Enver… I never thought I'd have the chance to..." she breaks off, drawing a shaky breath. "But now I'm free, and you're here, and I just... I need time to think. To process. Not that that’s done me any good, either, of course. I’ve been ‘thinking and processing’ for nearly two months." Her voice drops to a whisper, the fingers of her free hand resuming their path through his hair. "Just... don't leave me alone with this decision? Please?"
Astarion turns on his side, carefully slipping his arm around her, mindful of his injuries, his other hand squeezing hers again. "Never," he says firmly. "It's your choice, but I'll be here to support you, darling. Whether that's by going to doctors' appointments and holding your hair while you vomit, or driving you to the clinic and taking care of you after, I'm here."
Phaedra’s breath catches, and Astarion feels a few hot tears drop onto his hair. "You mean that?" Her voice is small, almost childlike in its vulnerability, "Even with everything else you're dealing with? With... with how you've been feeling? Because I..." Phaedra continues, her voice trembling, "I think I want... but I'm terrified, Astarion. Of making the wrong choice. Of pushing you away. Of doing this alone. Of becoming like..." She can't finish the sentence, but they both know she means her father.
Astarion shifts carefully, wincing as he scoots himself to lie against the back of the couch and pulls Phaedra down to lie in front of him. Their bodies align naturally, finding spaces to fit together like that’s what they were made for, despite their exhaustion. "You're nothing like him," he says softly, his breath warming Phaedra's ear, "you being afraid to be like him already proves you aren't, darling. And you won't be alone." His arm drapes protectively over Phaedra’s waist. "Even with all my… issues, I'll be here." A pained grunt escapes him as he settles. "Though it might need to be in a horizontal capacity for a day or two."
Phaedra lets out a wet laugh, pressing back against Astarion's chest. "Careful with those bruises, handsome. I'd rather not have you passing out on me again."
"I didn't pass out,” he says, face morphing into a confused frown, “when did I pass out?"
She stiffens slightly in his arms, then turns her head to give Astarion an incredulous look. "Astarion," she says carefully, "you absolutely did. Last month? When I found you in the bathroom after you'd..." her voice catches, softens, "after you'd hurt yourself. There was so much blood, and you were barely conscious when I got you into bed." Her hand finds Astarion's, squeezing tightly. "I thought I was going to have to call an ambulance. I probably should have, but you made me promise not to." Her voice trails off, and she presses closer to him, as if trying to physically anchor him and herself to the present, "That's why I started sleeping in your room. I couldn't... I couldn't stop worrying about you being alone if it happened again."
"Ah.” He clears his throat, the sound almost sheepish. “That was- well... that wasn't me.” At the sight of her raised eyebrow, he rushes to clarify, “That wasn’t me who did that to me, I mean. I'd only just limped into the bathroom a few minutes before you got home, darling." His fingers continue their absent patterns on Phaedra's arm. "I meant to clean up all the blood before you saw, I know you get dizzy at the sight of it."
Phaedra goes completely still in his arms. When she speaks, her voice trembles with barely contained rage. "What do you mean, it 'wasn’t you who did that to you'?" She twists in Astarion's embrace to face him, eyes blazing. "Astarion, are you telling me someone... Gods, it was bad enough when I thought you did it to yourself, but you’re telling me someone else did that to you? And you what, just walked home like that? I know you didn’t take the bus, because someone would’ve called the Flaming Fists. You looked half-dead when I found you in the bathroom!" Her hand comes up to cup Astarion's cheek, the television's glow catching the tears gathering in her eyes, making them shimmer. "And you were going to hide it from me? Clean up the evidence like it was nothing?" her thumb strokes Astarion's cheekbone, "like you were nothing? Star. Astarion. Please. Tell me who hurt you. What happened?"
"It’s not about me being nothing," Astarion murmurs, avoiding Phaedra's intense gaze. "It's about keeping you uninvolved so you don't get hurt, darling."
Phaedra's fingers tighten on Astarion's cheek, not enough to hurt but enough to demand attention, clutching it desperately. “Is- is this him? Cazador? Is he doing this to you?” Her voice drops, face growing serious, "Listen to me very carefully, Astarion. I am already involved. I am carrying your child. I sleep in your bed to keep you safe. I..." her voice breaks. "I love you, you impossible man. And if you think I'm going to stand by while that asshole-" She cuts herself off, taking a deep breath and fixing him with a glare that brooks no argument. "Don't you dare tell me not to be involved. Don't you dare try to protect me by destroying yourself."
Astarion shifts slightly, wincing at the movement, and lets out a strained laugh. "You love me? Wait, no, hold on, we'll come back to that," his fingers pick nervously at a loose string in the couch cushion, "I never said it was him, Phaedra. This isn't about Cazador, he didn't do this." He gives a crooked smile, "You really think he could beat me black and blue like this? At his age? Come now, darling, give me at least some credit."
The joke lands about as well as he had coming through the window, which is to say, not well at all. Phaedra's expression shifts from tender concern to sharp suspicion, jewel-pink eyes narrowing.
"Then who?" she demands, voice low and dangerous. "Because someone did this to you, Astarion, and you're being remarkably cagey about it." Her hand slides from Astarion's cheek to rest protectively over his chest. "Which means either you're protecting them, or..." her eyes widen with sudden understanding, ears pinning back in fear, and her grip on Astarion tightens as she searches his face for answers, "…or you're protecting me from something, someone. Someone dangerous enough that you don't want me anywhere near them."
"It's not him, either, darling, either of them.” Astarion's expression softens, his hand coming up to brush his knuckles across her cheek. “Enver and your father have nothing to do with this," he says gently, brushing a loose strand of silver hair behind her ear. "At least not as far as I know. But it is dangerous, and I didn't want you involved before..." his hand trembles slightly as it moves to settle gently on her hip, "I sure as hell don't want you involved now."
"And what about what I want?" she challenges, catching his trembling hand and bringing it to her lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. "What if I want to be involved? To help protect you the way you've been protecting me? Especially now that I know that you... that we..." she doesn't finish the thought, but her free hand drifts to rest protectively over her still-flat stomach. "We're already in this together, Astarion," she whispers, "whatever - or whoever - is hurting you, they're threatening my family now. And that is one thing I will not take lying down."
Astarion closes his eyes and sighs heavily, running a hand through his hair. "It's my own fault," he admits quietly. "I fucked up, failed a job. I knew what the consequences were if I couldn't pull it off." His voice takes on a distant quality, "I just have to be better next time."
Phaedra's fingers dig into Astarion's shirt with desperate intensity. "A job?" she whispers, horror creeping into her voice, "you mean you're... you’re working for someone who..." Her breath hitches. "No. No, Star, that's not- you can't go back. You can't do another 'job' for someone who-" Her eyes blaze as she pushes herself up on one elbow. "We'll figure something else out. Whatever you need money for, or whatever they're holding over you, we'll find another way. I won't watch you destroy yourself for some- some thug who-" She sniffles, tears spilling freely down her cheeks, "Please, Astarion. Don't make me watch you die."
Astarion's fingers trail softly through Phaedra's hair, a gesture meant to soothe them both. "It's not that simple, darling," he murmurs, voice heavy with resignation. "If I leave, they'll come looking for me. And they will find me." His hand stills. "Or worse, they'll find you. And either way, darling… I’m dead. The contracts are binding – ironclad, trust me. I’ve checked." He swallows hard, trying to keep his voice steady, "I just... I just have to do a couple more, and then my debt's done, and I can walk away."
Her face presses to his chest, a broken sob escaping before she can stop it. "Your debt?" she whispers against Astarion's shirt, "and what about me? What about the debt you’ll owe me if they kill you?" Her fingers clutch desperately at Astarion's hand, "What about our child growing up without their father because you thought you had to protect us by dying for us?" The television casts shifting shadows across their intertwined forms as Phaedra lifts her tear-stained face, "We're not helpless, Star. And you're not alone anymore."
"Then what do we do, darling?” Astarion asks, voice cracking with desperation, “because there is nothing on this earth that would convince me to let you get anywhere near this, especially not now." His fingers tremble against Phaedra's as he holds her hand tighter. "Finishing these jobs is the only way I can guarantee that they don't take everything I care about away from me, the only way I get to live to see another sunrise, and the only way I don’t spend the rest of my miserable life in prison."
Phaedra pushes herself up and cups Astarion's face in both hands. "We get help," she says firmly, thumbs stroking his cheeks. "Professional help. Legal help. A lawyer – someone who specializes in getting people out of situations like this.”
“This is not something a lawyer can help, Phae. Not even the best lawyer in the world,” he sighs. “I meant it when I said this is a do or die situation. Either I do it, or I die. Those are my choices.”
“Those can’t be the only options. There has to be something else we can do.”
“There isn’t, I promise. I’ve seen what happens when people try to circumvent their terms, and I don’t intend to be the next example. No, the only way out of this is for me to survive long enough to finish my contract.” He grimaces, chest twinging as his ribs remind him of his current state. “A task I’m usually very successful at, these last few weeks excluded.”
Phaedra looks him over with a critical eye. “How have you been patching yourself up before this?”
“With the first aid kit, mostly. If we return from a job injured badly enough, there are in-house doctors that they’ll have attend us. But for anything short of immediately life-threatening injury, we’re on our own.”
She takes a deep breath, "I know a doctor. Halsin. He’s discreet. He used to be a therapist – well, technically he still is licensed as a therapist, but he switched to doing clinical work instead a few years ago – but he still takes private patients off the books sometimes, special cases. He was my doctor when I was first trying to escape from Enver, he helped me get free. And with other stuff.” She looks up at him, expression guarded, “I know you said the thing in the bathroom last week wasn’t you trying to… you know. But I…" Her eyes dart away from his face, an air of guilt darkening her eyes, “I may have snooped through your room while you were at work, the day after that. And I found some stuff. Concerning stuff.”
Astarion freezes, expression even more guilty than hers. “Ah. I suppose that would be the, uh, the diary I had hidden under my mattress?”
Phaedra’s tone grows serious, tears threatening again. “Yes, that one. You… you wrote the most awful stuff in there, Star.” Her hand reaches up, stroking his hair back from his face, “Not just low moods, bad feelings, dark thoughts, but- but plans. Very graphic, well-researched, thought-out plans. Dozens of them. That’s not… that’s not the kind of thing we can ignore. Not ever, but especially not now.”
“Right, well, about that…” he murmurs, clearing his throat, ears burning red with embarrassment. "This is going to sound absolutely terrible, darling, but in the interest of the honesty we've apparently decided on in the last 2 hours… none of that was real. I am not now, nor have I ever been, suicidal. Quite the opposite, in fact, I’ve spent the last decade fighting very hard to stay alive. I just..." He swallows hard. "I needed something to keep you from looking for me, if I fucked up badly enough on a job."
Phaedra’s hand stills midway through combing his hair. Her eyes widen, then narrow dangerously, a storm of emotions crossing her face in rapid succession - shock, hurt, anger, and finally settling on a particular brand of protective fury that makes her voice tremble slightly. "You absolute idiot," she hisses, "you thought making me believe you'd killed yourself would be better than me looking for you? That I would just... what? Shrug and move on with my life?" Her hand moves to cup Astarion's cheek, grip perhaps a touch firmer than necessary. "Did you think I wouldn't tear this city apart stone by stone to find you?"
"I knew you would, darling. That's why I did it,” he says, meeting her fierce gaze with one of his own, despite the guilt twisting in his chest. “As awful as it sounds – and I know it is awful – if I failed a job badly enough, to the point I didn't make it back, then yes, I'd rather you be devastated and searching ditches thinking I’d killed myself than involve yourself in this nonsense to get revenge."
Phaedra’s grip on Astarion's face tightens fractionally, her breath catching in a sharp, pained sound. "And now?" she whispers, voice raw with emotion. "Now that I'm carrying your child? Knowing about my past with Enver? With my father? Would you still rather leave me alone with those demons than let me help you? Because I promise you," she growls, each word precise and deadly serious, "if anything happened to you now, there wouldn't be a force in this world that could stop me from hunting down everyone responsible."
Astarion sighs, immediately wincing at the way it pulls at his injured lungs and ribs. "You put me between a rock and a hard place, you know, darling. Because on the one hand, I want you absolutely nowhere near this." His voice softens, fingers trailing gently along Phaedra’s arm, "and on the other, I want to give you everything you ever ask for."
"Then give me your safety," she murmurs, leaning forward to press her forehead against Astarion's. "Give me the chance to protect you the way you've been trying to protect me. Let me introduce you to Halsin, let me help you find a way out of whatever this is.” Her expression softens slightly, though the determined set of her jaw remains, “I refuse to have our child grow up never knowing their father because of your martyr complex.”
Astarion's lips quirk into a half-smile. "I don't have a martyr complex, darling, I have a shitty job," he protests, "but fine, tell me about your doctor friend who happens to also practice clandestine therapy on the side."
Phaedra brightens visibly, "Halsin is... different. He helped me when I first got away from my father, and later he helped me escape Enver. He believed me when I told him everything that was happening, when everyone else just saw the girl who didn’t appreciate the rich, handsome, charismatic man who pulled her from poverty and wanted to marry her and give her the perfect life." Her voice grows quiet as she remembers those last awful years under Enver’s reign of terror, the moonlight catching her silver hair as she tilts her head thoughtfully, “He never pushed, never demanded - just offered a safe space and waited until I was ready to talk. He has this way about him... like an ancient tree that's seen everything but judges nothing.” She huffs a soft laugh, “And he makes this absolutely horrible herbal tea that somehow makes you feel better despite tasting like boiled grass. I think you'd like him. He's clever enough to keep up with your wit, and patient enough to wait out your stubbornness."
"A tree-like doctor who moonlights as a therapist and fills his patients with grass-flavored tea while shepherding them through life’s woes," Astarion muses as he shifts carefully, searching for a more comfortable position. “He certainly sounds… interesting, if nothing else.”
Phaedra’s lips curve into a knowing smile, "’Interesting’ is definitely one word to describe him."
"Well I'll think about the therapy, darling, though I already told you, I'm not actually suicidal." His eyes flick meaningfully to hers, "I was more asking because you said he deals with physical issues too."
Phaedra rolls her eyes, “Yes, he has prescription privileges, if that’s what you’re asking. But, Astarion, whether you're actually suicidal or just criminally self-sacrificing isn't really the point. The point is that you're hurt - physically and otherwise - and Halsin can help with both." Her hand resumes its path combing through his hair, "He's been absolutely invaluable during this..." she gestures vaguely at her middle, "unexpected development. Especially given my... complicated medical history."
Astarion's expression sharpens with concern as he studies Phaedra’s face. "He's who you've been seeing about the baby? And the anemia? And whatever other health issues you're hinting at but aren't telling me?"
Phaedra’s movements still for a moment, eyes meeting Astarion's, something vulnerable flickering in their depths. "Yes," she says softly, "he's been... monitoring everything. The pregnancy, the nutritional issues, the..." she takes a steadying breath, "the lasting effects of Enver's and my father’s... attention." She takes Astarion's hand in both of hers, sighing gently. "There's a lot I haven't told you yet, Star. About my childhood, about my time with Enver, about why I sometimes can't eat certain foods, about the scars you pretend not to notice." Her thumb traces gentle circles on Astarion's palm, "Halsin knows it all. He's helped me work through more than I thought possible." A weak smile tugs at her lips. "And yes, he’s been making sure both me and the baby stay healthy."
"And you're both okay?” Astarion's grip on Phaedra’s hand tightens ever so slightly, his eyes soft with concern. “The baby isn't putting too much stress on you?"
"We're fine, Star, really.” A warm smile lights up Phaedra’s face, genuine affection chasing away some of the shadows in her eyes, “Halsin says everything is progressing normally, despite my peculiarities." She huffs a soft laugh, "Though he did lecture me very thoroughly about proper nutrition and rest. Apparently, surviving on coffee and spite isn't recommended during pregnancy." Her free hand intertwines with his as she continues, "The morning sickness should ease up soon, if I’m lucky. And the supplements he's prescribed are helping with the anemia. I’m about 13 weeks, so the baby’s roughly the size of a lemon. And half of that is their head, so clearly they take after you in that department.”
“Rude,” he retorts, poking her gently in the nose. “I have a perfectly normal-sized head, I’ll have you know.” Curious, he cups his hand, imagining holding something the size of a lemon. “A lemon, though? Really? That big already?”
“So Halsin says. But enough about my health, we’re talking about you."
He rolls his eyes, "Yes, yes, blood inside me good, blood outside me bad, I know, darling. Anyway… this Halsin definitely has prescription privileges? Because if he'll prescribe me some, oh I don’t know, Vicodin or Oxy or something for all this,” he gestures at his bruised and beaten body, “you can call him right now and have him here immediately, and I’ll sing his praises the rest of the night. Or morning, I guess. Whatever time it is."
Phaedra’s elegant features arrange themselves into an expression of fond exasperation. "Of course that's what catches your interest," she scoffs. "Yes, he can prescribe medications, but he is a real doctor, not some back-alley pharmacy, so he'll insist on examining you properly first. And probably try to convince you to try some of his horrible herbal concoctions before reaching for the heavy painkillers." Her free hand brushes against Astarion's chest, feather-light over the bruising, "Though given the state of you, he might just make an exception, especially once I tell him how you've been wheezing." She looks up at him, eyes pleading, pulling him close, "Let me make some calls tomorrow. Please? You don't have to decide anything now, just... let me show you there are options. Other paths. But for tonight, just stay here with me. Let me hold you while we sleep."
“Alright, darling,” Astarion says, acquiescing with a resigned sigh, “we’ll talk about it in the morning.” Slowly, he carefully extracts himself from her hold and stands. “But we’ll be doing any sleeping in the actual bed. You need proper rest, and this couch is doing neither of us any favors." He gently helps Phaedra up from the couch, "Come along, darling," he murmurs, leading them both toward his bedroom.
He lets Phaedra settle onto the bed, pulling back the covers and tucking them around her with tender attention before slipping under the blankets himself. Wrapping his arms around her despite the pain that makes him have to suppress a wheeze, he presses a soft kiss to her forehead. "Get some rest, darling" he whispers, fingers brushing through her hair. "We can sleep in tomorrow. I believe we both have the day off now, considering my current condition."
The moonlight filtering through the window catches the starry white of his hair, making him look almost ethereal. Phaedra sighs softly, wrapping her arms around him as she nestles closer, careful not to put pressure on his injuries.
His hand finds hers in the darkness, fingers intertwining. "I'll figure this out, darling. Somehow." His arms tighten slightly, "Just... stay with me."
"Always," she whispers, pressing a gentle kiss to his jaw. "Now sleep. It’s been a long night. And morning. Both. The sun’ll be up in a couple hours."
The room falls quiet save for their breathing, synchronizing slowly as exhaustion begins to claim them both. Within minutes, he feels hers breathing even out as she drifts off to sleep. "I love you too, you know," he murmurs into her hair, “and I’ll do everything I can to stay. I’ll still be here in the morning, darling, for as long as I have a say in it.” Astarion's thumb traces small, soothing circles on her back until his movements gradually still and he drifts off, following her into sleep’s embrace.
You Tell Me You Love Me, Like It'll Be the Last Time
Chapter 1: Intro
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Summary - Devil's and their deals don't exist. Not in the real world, anyway. Ancient, powerful, magical beings, able to grant you your heart's desire, for the low, low price of your soul? Myths and legend. Everyone knows that.
Everyone except for the desperately unlucky, anyway.
You don't need to find them. They'll find you. It's a simple enough proposition - sign this contract, and whatever it is you want, whatever it is you need, it's yours. No matter how impossible or improbable, they can make it happen. Anything. All you have to do in exchange is finish your contract: A number of jobs to equal the value of what you're given, each more difficult than the last. If you can finish your contract, you're free to go. Part ways, live your life, and never hear from them again. And if you can't? Or are stupid enough to refuse a job? Well, you were already living on borrowed time anyway, weren't you?
I’ve placed this chapter as a sort of “how to understand the world” primer, because for the actual story we’ll just be jumping right in, and being an AU, some stuff is Different.
This is a “Modern with (some) Magic/Real World” AU. What you need to know to understand the world is this: In effect, magic does exist in some facet, but only “low” magic, such as cantrips, some monsters, and ‘magical’ races like Elves, Dwarves, Githyanki, Tieflings, etc. For the sake of my sanity and making things work how I need them, all races have similar lifespans, give or take a decade or two, and age at roughly the same rate, and Elves sleep instead of trancing. As far as societal knowledge goes, the more powerful magics like healing spells, Level 1+ spells, and Infernal beings/magics like Devils and Devil Deals (and thus, Warlocks) are the things of stories and always have been. And while most of these things truly are mythical, some of them are not.
World Setting – This world is a combination of the BG3/Forgotten Realms/D&D world and the real world, so casting Prestidigitation to do the dishes is something some people can do with training, but also there are dishwashers. The internet and cellphones exist, but so do familiars and small magical trinkets. Baldur’s Gate and Waterdeep exist, but so does Cleveland, OH. There is still an Underdark, and Drow society is still largely matriarchal, but they are not slaughtering entire houses for power. Similarly, Githyanki are still a primarily militaristic and merit-based society that is fairly insular, but they are not from the Astral Plane and do not indiscriminately murder non-Gith people.
On the flip side, not everything of a type from BG3 exists in this world. For example, owlbears and unicorns are real animals that live in the woods, but dragons and tarasques exist only in fairytales. Werewolves and other X-thropes are regular people with lives and jobs that happen to have a genetic condition (i.e. you’re born a were-whatever, not made one), but Illithids and Changelings are mythical monsters. As far as anyone has any proof, the Prime Material Plane is the only plane/reality that exists, and other planes (Avernus, the Fae Wild, the Shadowfell, the Astral Sea, etc) are the stuff of myth and legend. I don’t think religion will come up in any meaningful way in this story, but if it does, all real-world religions and all Forgotten Realms/BG3 religions exist, but in a “this is what people of X religion believe, but no one has any proof” way. Clerics are effectively religious leaders, but do not wield any divine magic.
On the subject of Vampires: Vampires occupy a weird spot in the mythology of this story. Similar to how science used to treat black holes before we finally managed to get a picture of one, there is plenty of evidence that vampires used to exist, but no concrete proof, and if they ever did they went extinct at least a millennia ago. There is also plenty of debate about, if vampires did exist, whether or not they would have been able to produce progeny in the form of dhampir, and thus whether there are people with vampiric ancestry in the “23 & Me says one or more of your ancestors got freaky with a Neanderthal” way. People with “classically vampiric” traits exist, but there are other things that can cause paleness/fangs/red eyes/iron-deficiency/etc, and no solid “Vampire Gene” has ever been discovered, so this cannot serve as proof, and thus the subject remains hotly debated in the scientific community.
Character Setting – All the main characters and secondary companions will appear in some form or another, though I don’t know entirely how much “screen time” each will get. The main POV will be a 3rd Person Narrator, with there potentially being chapters or sections of chapters from the POV of Phaedra (Tav) or Astarion.
As for where the story begins, Phaedra and Astarion are roommates and best friends. They met each other (and the other five main companions) in Freshman year of university, and became a fairly tight-knit group after about a year. They all graduated three years ago, so they are all roughly twenty-five. Below is more in-depth character backstory that may or may not end up being mentioned in the main plot, but will inform it. It is not necessary to read this to understand the story, but the information is here for those who like To Know.
Phaedra is, loosely, the Dark Urge. As expected, her familial relationships are not great. Her father, the Rev. Ben Haal, was a religious leader who, twenty years before her birth, came under the delusion that he was meant to be a new god, and that if he had enough descendants, the power of so much of his bloodline existing at once would be what he needed to achieve apotheosis. Thus, as one might expect, he started a cult. He has several wives, dozens of children and grandchildren, and just enough faithful acolytes to keep things running, managing to keep his cult out of the public eye by not having any central compound or gathering location. His ultimate goal is to have as many living descendants as possible, and so Phaedra fled the moment she came of age, unwilling to contribute to his plan by creating more disciples for him. For this she was branded a “heretic” and disowned, leading to a distant and tense relationship with her mother, and a directly hostile relationship with her siblings and father (much to her delight). She met Enver Gortash soon after escaping her family, and was swept up in a whirlwind romance in the first few weeks of university. The relationship quickly turned toxic and controlling – which she unfortunately hid very well – but she was able to break it off and escape after a year and is now hiding from him. Astarion let her stay in his dorm, only knowing that she and Enver had “broken up,” until she eventually confided the full tale of her family’s history and Enver’s abuse. They quickly became very close after that, acting as each other’s support and confidante. Currently she works as a waitress while figuring out what to do with her life.
Astarion was raised primarily by his older sister after their parents died when he was five. Despite her being fifteen years older than him, they were close when he was younger. He was severely ill from the ages of ten to fourteen, but an experimental treatment paid for by an anonymous benefactor resulted in a miraculous recovery. After that, he started to distance himself from his sister and friends. This was also around the time he met Cazador, a rich Baldurian politician who took him under his wing as his “apprentice” since Astarion wanted to be a lawyer and, eventually, work himself into being a district judge. His relationship with his sister is still friendly, if less close than either would like. He did major in law, but had to take a leave of absence for story reasons before he could finish. If asked, he’d say he’s working as a TA during the week (a lie), and to make ends meet, teaching sewing and fiber arts classes for children at the Community Center on weekends (true – much to his chagrin. He both hates and loves that he’s the most popular teacher, especially with the preschoolers).
Fam, how do we feel about an AU? I've got this idea for a "modern with (some) magic" Astarion/Durge AU wherein the world is basically a combo of Faerun and the real world (i.e. phones and the internet and WebMD exist, but also so do Elves and Tieflings and Githyanki. Waterdeep exists, but so does Cleveland. Etc)
Anyway, there would be dadstarion plot, which only adds to the angst, the main source of which is a secret group of mysterious and powerful benefactors that can pull off impossible magic to grant you whatever wish you want/need. Anything. But in exchange, you sign a contract to complete a number of jobs for them, each increasingly more difficult than the last, until you either fulfill your contract and are free to go on with your life, or die trying.
Basically, warlock pacts aren't real except for when they are.
Anyway, I've already written most of chapter 1, but what do we think?
Fam, how do we feel about an AU? I've got this idea for a "modern with (some) magic" Astarion/Durge AU wherein the world is basically a combo of Faerun and the real world (i.e. phones and the internet and WebMD exist, but also so do Elves and Tieflings and Githyanki. Waterdeep exists, but so does Cleveland. Etc)
Anyway, there would be dadstarion plot, which only adds to the angst, the main source of which is a secret group of mysterious and powerful benefactors that can pull off impossible magic to grant you whatever wish you want/need. Anything. But in exchange, you sign a contract to complete a number of jobs for them, each increasingly more difficult than the last, until you either fulfill your contract and are free to go on with your life, or die trying.
Basically, warlock pacts aren't real except for when they are.
Anyway, I've already written most of chapter 1, but what do we think?
Happy (slightly late because it was yesterday) 1st birthday to Last Call, the story that was supposed to be maybe 15k.
Started from the bottom ("oh no oh fuck what if someone actually reads what i wrote i will die) and now we're here (13 chapters, 106k, nearly 5k hits, and not even like 20% done) I guess lol
seriously though thank you to everyone who's still on this crazy ride with me sharing in my brain rot soup, i love and appreciate you all
Chapter 13: Interlude – The Teddy Bears’ Picnic (Astraea)
(Nightal 4, 1493 - 8.5 Months Old)
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Warnings for this chapter: Bear-based violence
Every good little teddy bear
Is sure of a treat today
There's lots of marvelous things to eat
And wonderful games to play
Beneath the trees where nobody sees
they'll hide and seek as long as they please
'Cause that's the ways the teddy bears have their picnic
If you go down in the woods today,
You'd better not go alone
It's lovely down in the woods today,
But it's safer to stay at home
For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain because
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic
- Jimmy Kennedy, “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic”
The embroidery hoop in his left hand shakes – a small, consistent tremor, but enough to make his needle miss its mark again. For what is probably the tenth time in as many minutes, Astarion swears under his breath, rubs the spot where the needle had entered the fabric between the still slightly numb but mercifully less-trembly thumb and finger of his right hand until the small hole disappears, and picks up his needle to try again. Needle poised once more over the fabric, he glares down at what progress he’s made adding this border to the silk handkerchief stretched over the hoop.
Little. That’s how much progress he’s made. Very little.
And sloppy at that.
Sure, the too-large and somewhat crooked stitches were fine enough for any two-bit tailor, and probably impressive for someone who’d only been conscious for five days after being eviscerated by a vindictive Cambion, but it wasn’t remotely close to his usual level of skill. And while he didn’t have many things that he took pride in enough to never do less than his best, his embroidery was one of the few where he did.
The embroidery was supposed to be giving him something to entertain himself. Something to keep him occupied since he’s still bed-bound, and likely will be for at least another two tenday if Halsin has anything to say about it. Which, considering he was now effectively Astarion’s personal in-house Healer until he gets back on his feet and isn’t in danger of accidentally pitching down the stairs if the wind blows too hard, the Druid has said quite a lot about it.
Really! You get caught lying on the floor having one teensy, tiny, itty-bitty little seizure after attempting to take a very slow and sneaky unauthorized walk to look out the window ten feet from the bed and see just how much the snow has piled up, and it’s like the world has ended. You’d think he’d eaten a puppy or something, rather than merely attempting an innocent evening constitutional.
Tossing the embroidery hoop next to him on the bed, he leans back into his pillows with a frustrated sigh. At least he still has pillows, plural. After Halsin and Lae’zel had carried him back to the bed, the Druid had tried to remove the second pillow, citing Astarion’s apparent “need” to lay flatter until the extra blood pressing on his brain fucked off back to whatever part of his body it came from. But he’d only just “graduated” yesterday morning to being allowed a second pillow to prop him at the slightest incline, and he’d be damned if he’d give it back now. Thus, in a fit of rebellion, he’d threatened to bite anyone who tried to take it from him, and made good on that threat the moment they reached for it, until both the bear and the Gith had eventually admitted defeat, allowing him to remain in possession of his hard-won feather-stuffed prize.
The problem, as he sees it, is that he is bored. And Astarion had never had to learn how to be bored before.
In the palace, there was always either something he was made to be doing, or something that was being done to him, time not spent in either of those two states being a precious rarity. During their adventure, they spent their days traveling, fighting, and exploring, and their nights around the campfire talking and drinking before retiring for a well-earned rest. After the brain, he and Tav had had to very quickly learn how to set up a house, live like the normal people they definitely were not, and prepare for an impending baby. Then they’d had a baby, and it was literally impossible to be bored with one of those around.
But now he was stuck in Jaheira’s spare room, trapped in this bed that is not nearly as comfortable as the one in his own home, and he is quite possibly slowly going insane.
The persistent headache from the slowly-healing brain bleed makes his eyes hurt too much to concentrate on print to read. The tremor in his hands makes them too shaky for him to do embroidery or write legibly. He isn’t allowed any wine, or even live prey aside from the meals he gets to take directly from Tav and Halsin, lest his uncooperative fingers betray him and set the creature loose into Jaheira’s house. Again. Tav and his friends take turns sitting with him, but conversation can only go so far when his half is limited to “I stayed right here in my sickbed and did absolutely nothing, like a good little vampire.” Most frustrating of all, he isn’t even allowed to have his non-sentient-creature blood in a glass, or even a cup. No, thanks to his inability to hold any open-mouthed vessel still enough to avoid sloshing the contents over the sides, they instead serve his meals to him in glass milk bottles.
With a straw.
The indignity!
He huffs, picking up Astraea’s stuffed bat from next to his pillow where she’s left it again and holding it on his lap, flipping its giant ears down over its eyes and back up again a few times just for something to do with his hands. Halsin had said recovery would take a while, but Astarion didn’t think it would take this long. He’d never had the debatable luxury of convalescing after an injury before. Prior to all the Illithid business, if he had legs that could move, he was simply expected to get up, get back to work, and make do. And even when he couldn’t move under his own power, Cazador could – and usually would – simply command him to do it and his body would obey where his will had failed. While they were traveling, potions and healing magic worked on him, so the most he’d have to lay around injured and miserable was usually no more than a few minutes, sometimes an hour, depending on what resources were available.
Now, though, he was expected to lay here, drowning in boredom, with nothing to do but sleep. And he’d already had enough sleep to last him a century.
A glance at the slight glow around the drawn curtains, and some internal vampiric instinct, tells him that the sun has finally risen enough for the day to officially be considered “begun,” meaning whatever “surprise” Tav had left to orchestrate while he stewed in his own ire should be arriving soon. She’d said it should be here around breakfast time, and he can hear Jord – Jaheira’s older son – moving around the kitchen, helping Gale ready the morning meal while Jaheira gives orders in her usual no-nonsense tone, so it must be any time now. He hasn’t the faintest clue what the surprise might be, but at this point Tav could probably drop a rabid badger on the bed and he’d still be delighted at the novelty of it.
Footsteps on the stairs echo up through the closed door and into his room. Halsin’s, by the sound of them, though quite a bit heavier than usual. Maybe the Druid was tired? Unlikely, considering the man is just as annoyingly cheerful in the mornings as Wyll is. Then again, the bear has also spent the last tenday and a half keeping Astarion alive and functioning, which, admittedly, he could have made a little easier on the man. He had meant to do a better job of sticking to his word from when he’d first woken up, to follow Halsin’s directions and not argue about his treatment, but… well. Perhaps they both should have known that his penchant for being argumentative wasn’t going to make him an ideal patient.
His ear flicks as he picks up the sound of Tav’s footsteps just behind Halsin’s, the pair of them whispering something to each other that he can’t quite catch. They stop just outside his door, and he can hear the sounds of shuffling and shushing, before Tav knocks.
“Are you awake, love? Decent? I’ve got that surprise I mentioned. Think you’re gonna like it.”
He rolls his eyes, mostly fondly, at the fact that it didn’t really matter if he’d been sleeping or not, the volume of her knock and question would’ve been enough to wake the dead regardless. He has a private chuckle at his own joke before calling out, “Yes, I’m awake, my dear. And you should know by now that I’m never decent. But I am clothed, if that’s what you mean.”
Immediately, the door cracks open and Tav pops her head around it, smile wide and eyes bright. “Oh good. I was worried you might’ve decided on having a little nap, and then we’d be in trouble, because I don’t know how much longer Halsin is going to be able to carry this. And you’ll definitely want to be clothed for it.” She carefully slides herself into the room, not allowing the door to open enough for him to see what Halsin is apparently carrying on the other side. She swiftly darts over to him to give him a quick good morning kiss, escaping back to the door before he can get a hand on her to prolong it. Laying a hand on the doorknob, she announces, “Well, my currently-immobile love, since you’ve been mostly well-behaved, I present to you: today’s entertainment, straight from the halls of Ravengard Manor.”
The door swings open to reveal Halsin standing in the doorway, and Astarion can’t stop the way his face lights up and his ears perk forward when he sees Karlach, held by the Druid in a princess-carry with her arms around his neck.
“Heya, Fangs!” she calls, a little more subdued and tired than her normal exuberance, but still smiling brightly as ever. “Shads needs a break from being my round-the-clock nanny and Wyll couldn’t dodge his dad pulling him into a buncha stupid politics stuff today, so I need a babysitter ‘til dinnertime. And since Tavi and Halsin say you’re going just about as stir-crazy as I am, we figured you and I can hang out being bedridden and annoyed together.”
Oh, oh this is a good surprise. Very good. He’d been receiving regular updates on Karlach’s progress after her heart replacement, just as he assumes she’s received the same of him, but he hasn’t actually seen or spoken to her directly since the fight with Mizora, and he has been itching to find out how they’d finished her off. And to see for himself that she’s alive and well, of course.
“Well, my dear,” he says, carefully scooting toward one side of the bed to make room for her, “I can certainly shelter a fellow medical captive. Be my guest.”
“It really is like being in prison again,” Karlach laughs as Halsin carries her the last few feet to the bed, gently setting her next to Astarion while Tav fetches her some pillows of her own. “Twelve days I’ve had this new heart, and they won’t even let me go to the commode by myself. No woman should have to endure being propped up by her friends while she’s takin’ a shit.”
Tav rolls her eyes with a sigh that says this isn’t the first time this particular complaint has come up. “We’ve been over this, Karlach. The other option is letting you faceplant onto the floor, and Shadowheart and Wyll have certainly seen you in much worse condition.”
“Not the point,” Karlach counters, waving a hand weakly at Tav, “there’s just some things a girl should be able to keep private, fall risk or no, and the events of my commode visits are one of ‘em. It’s already bad enough they had me on a bedpan for a tenday, now I’ve got a live audience.”
“Thankfully not a problem I share, though I’ve been relegated to the indignity of spongebaths since we returned from Avernus, so I at least understand the sentiment,” he commiserates.
“Ugh, you’re not kidding! I’d be perfectly capable of washing my own ass if someone would just drop me in the tub, but nooo, it’s all ‘you can’t get the surgery wound wet, Karlach, you’ll get an infection’ and ‘you can barely sit up on your own without passing out, Karlach, you’ll drown.’ Buncha cowards, is what they are.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve gotten the very same. ‘No, Astarion, you can’t use the tub, the last time you tried to sit all the way up, you vomited and we had to clean the sheets.’ As if that were my fault.”
“I’m starting to think that putting the pair of them together was maybe not as good an idea as we thought,” Tav laments to Halsin.
The Druid looks them over with a patient, if tired, smile. “Well, Oakfather willing, they’ll tire each other out and spend most of the day resting, and we won’t return to find they’ve decided to use each other as a crutch to escape out the window and down to the nearest tavern.”
“Don’t give them any ideas,” Tav warns.
“We’ll leave you two to enjoy each other’s company,” Halsin says, interrupting the recital of all the ills that he and Shadowheart, as Astarion’s and Karlach’s personal Healers, have committed. “We’ll return in a little while with breakfast for the both of you. I believe today’s offering is poached eggs and cold porridge with cranberries and Walnuts for you, Karlach, and fresh ox blood for you, Astarion.”
“Poached eggs and porridge again?” Karlach whines, “I just got out of Avernus and survived open heart surgery performed by tinkerer gnomes and a blacksmith, Halsin, your girl’s earned the good stuff.” Turning her best puppy eyes on, she pleads, “Can’t it be runny eggs and bacon, or that egg-sausage-potato hash Gale makes, just this once? I promise I won’t tell Shadowheart.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to stick to the diet you’ve been given until you’re fully healed, my friend. You need lean proteins, healthy fats, fiber, and minimal salt and starches,” Halsin replies, pouring a glass of water from the pitcher on the nightstand and setting it nearer for her. He even manages to sound both sympathetic and apologetic – something Astarion has not gotten when he’s complained about his bottle-and-straw situation – as he follows that up with, “And I am not worried about you telling Shadowheart, even if I were to let you go off-menu. I’m the one that set your diet during your recovery, so I would only be defying my own orders.”
“Fine,” Karlach pouts, crossing her arms over her chest with a wince. “Can we at least compromise on hot porridge with the eggs mixed into it instead of cold? Maybe some of those hot peppers I know Gale keeps hidden with the rest of his seasonings? I’ll even eat the cranberries without complaining this time. It’s cold as a witch’s tit in a brass bra outside, and anyway, cold porridge tastes like wood paste, no matter how many berries you dress it up with.”
Halsin considers for a moment, and much to Astarion’s surprise, concedes. “If you promise to eat everything on the plate, hot porridge is an acceptable alternative.”
“I’ll go let Gale know before he gets too far into the cooking,” Tav says, blowing both Astarion and Karlach a kiss as she heads for the door. “You two be good, I’ve got to run some errands, but I’ll be back in an hour or two,” she calls as she heads downstairs.
“Now hold on just a minute, Druid, that’s unfair,” Astarion argues once he manages to get over his indignance at Halsin’s easy capitulation to Karlach’s request. “You haven’t let me have my way about my meals even once, and all she has to do is say please? I have definitely said please at least once!”
Halsin puts on a serious face, but it’s betrayed by the amused glint in his eyes. “My apologies, Astarion, if you feel I’ve been unfair. What changes would you request to today’s breakfast? I believe we also have sheep’s blood available if you’d prefer it to the ox, though it’s not as fresh.”
“I want…” he scrambles to come up with something. He didn’t actually think he’d get this far. “I want… I want it in a glass. Or a cup. I’m a grown man; the bottle and straw are infantilizing.”
“The bottle and straw are purely to keep you from spilling your meals, as I would prefer that the majority of the blood goes in you rather than on you,” Halsin counters gently, “but if your grip strength has increased and your tremors lessened since last night, then we can certainly see about changing your drinking vessel to something more to your liking.” Astarion only has a moment to look triumphant before Halsin demands the one thing he knows damned well will bring his victory crashing down. “Show me your hands.”
Astarion glares at Halsin for a long moment, before pushing up the overly long sleeves of his too-large, borrowed shirt and holding his hands out for the Druid’s inspection. Try as he might, though, he can’t force away the tremor, and both hands visibly shake. Still, he does his best to play it off, lifting his chin confidently as he says, “See? Hardly anything. I’m practically back to normal.”
Halsin merely raises an eyebrow and holds out the glass of water he’s just poured for Karlach. “Hold this, then. If you can hold it for ten seconds without any spilling, you may pick any glass you like to receive your meals in.”
Astarion’s eyes flick back and forth between the glass and Halsin’s knowing gaze, which he knows isn’t actually smug because the bear doesn’t know how to be smug, but feels that way anyway. After a long moment, he lays his hands back in his lap, ears pinned back in annoyance, and grumbles, “You know I can’t.”
Halsin’s smile is sympathetic, at least, as he sets the glass back on the nightstand and moves around to his side of the bed, lifting Astarion’s hands to rest palms-down atop his own and observing the severity of the tremor in them. “Not yet,” he agrees, “but soon, perhaps. The tremor is already less than it was two days ago. I would expect it to be gone entirely, or nearly so, within a tenday at the rate you’re healing.” He sits down on the side of the bed and turns his palms sideways, thumbs facing up, curling his fingers so that Astarion’s can wrap around them. “Squeeze my fingers as hard as you can for a count of ten.”
Astarion does, and his mood improves slightly as he finds that he can squeeze the Druid’s hands a little harder than he had yesterday, and that he can do it for the full count of ten this time, though the tremor does increase a bit by the end from the effort.
“Very good! Your left hand is still a bit weaker than your right, but that’s to be expected considering the damage done to your wrist. And regardless, it’s still much improved from a few days ago.”
He intentionally does not preen at the Druid’s praise over him performing the simple task of ten seconds of moderately-tight handholding, but it’s a close thing.
“One last trial, if you’ll indulge me,” Halsin says. He sets Astarion’s hands back in his lap and pours a bit of water into one of the emptied bottles on Astarion’s nightstand, swirling it until it colors pink as it catches the remains of any blood clinging to the inside, and holds it out to him. “Try and take a sip from this, if you can.”
Astarion slowly lifts a trembling hand – his right, he doesn’t need to try his left to know that the damage to his carpals in that hand from Mizora stabbing through them still has his grip strength far too weak to hold even the slight weight of the mostly-empty bottle for more than a few seconds – and carefully wraps his fingers around the bottle. It takes more time and focus than he’d like to admit, but he is, eventually, able to bring the bottle to his lips and sip from it with only a small amount of difficulty and a minimal amount of knocking the rim painfully against his teeth.
“Wonderful,” Halsin praises, taking the bottle from him and setting it aside. “Your grip strength and fine motor control have increased enough that I think we can do away with the straw from now on, provided you give my nerves a well-earned rest and don’t trigger another seizure with inadvised wandering.” His mouth is set in a serious line, but the sparkle in his eyes betrays him as he says, “I should like to avoid any more instances of having to learn new Githyanki swears while instructing Lae’zel on how to assist me in safely lifting you from the floor, if it’s all the same to you.”
It’s a small victory, but he’ll take it.
“Yes, yes, I shall stay right here in my cozy borrowed bed and endeavor not to further raise you blood pressure. Will that please you?”
“It would, very much so, thank you,” Halsin says, patting Astarion’s knee as he stands and moves toward the door. He turns back to them, hand on the doorknob as he stands in the doorway. “I will return after a while with breakfast for you both. If you need anything in the meanwhile, please call for me, I will be right downstairs.” His face grows stern as he eyes them both and continues, “Do not leave the bed. Do not do anything strenuous in the bed. And – just to cover all possibilities, since you are both well-practiced in looking for the loophole in any order given – please refrain from doing anything that I might find upsetting. I am an old man, have pity on me.”
“Ay ay, soldier,” Karlach says, giving a little salute.
“I swear that we’ll do our very best,” Astarion follows with a grin, “but that ‘old man’ act won’t work on me, bear. You’re only halfway through your third century, you’re hardly even middle-aged.”
Halsin stares at them both for a moment more, possibly contemplating whatever life choices had led him to becoming the primary Healer for an entire party of people that could only be classified as The Worst Patients in Faerun, because truly all of them were like this. For people who had all spent the majority of their lives fighting like hell to live, collectively they had the self-preservation skills of a group of lemmings. Lae’zel had nearly lost a leg to a lucky hit from that Bulette in the Underdark, and she’d been spitting mad and growling a plethora of Gith curses when Halsin wouldn’t let her get up and have her revenge on it whilst he was in the process of stopping her from actively bleeding to death and attempting to un-shatter her bones.
Halsin opens his mouth, but – clearly deciding to choose his battles and save his energy for more important arguments – just shakes his head with a sigh as he closes the door and heads downstairs.
Astarion and Karlach stay silent for a moment, listening to the Druid’s footsteps retreat down the hall, before looking at each other.
“So…” Karlach says, “can you even actually get out of bed on your own?”
“Oh absolutely not,” he replies, “last night’s illicit little jaunt to the window proved that. I barely made it five feet, and I think I only made it that far because I fell forward instead of backward when the seizure hit. A fact that Lae’zel was sure to remind me of several times as she helped Halsin carry me back to this terminally uncomfortable mattress.”
“Oof, rough,” Karlach says, hissing sympathetically. “I think my record so far is about three steps, and that made my chest hurt bad enough I puked all over Wyll’s feet.”
“We’re quite the pair aren’t we, darling?” he says with a dramatic sigh, “defeated a Netherbrain, and yet here we lie – me felled by a bottom-tier Warlock patron and you by the marvels of medicine and mechanical engineering.”
Karlach winces through a laugh. “A cryin’ shame. But, it’s only temporary. We’ll be back up and kickin’ ass in no time, you’ll see.” Suddenly, her face lights up, “Speaking of kickin’ ass, you wanna see my kickass scar? It’s a gnarly one.”
“How delightfully macabre! Of course I do.”
Karlach undoes the buttons of her shirt, slowly revealing a thick red scar running the length of her sternum. “Cool, right? I made Wyll measure it for me, it’s like eleven inches. Once Dammon and the Ironhands got the new heart made, they had to crack my sternum so they could fully unplug the old heart and replace all the melted internal bits. Isobel ended up having Dame Aylin help her with the healing during because it took ‘em longer than they expected to get all the little fiddly bits inside me replaced, and Shads was still busy helping Jaheira and Halsin with you.” She looks over at Astarion’s chest, the bandages from his own wound showing through the open collar of his shirt. “Come to think of it, we kinda both got the same injury, didn’t we? Only, you know, I volunteered for mine, so it was a little cleaner than yours and didn’t come with a bunch of creepy groping.”
“I suppose we did,” he muses, “though, I must say, as far as scars go, you wear it much better than I would.”
“Yeah, I do, don’t I?” Her eyes sparkle as she gently touches the scar with a finger. “Shadowheart said she could heal it enough to make the scar almost invisible, but I told her not to. All the other scars I got, they’re all about what something did to me, yeah? But this one,” she taps the scar, grin wide, “this one just says, ‘I lived, bitch.’”
His eyes mist up at that, with the joy of seeing his friend – always so bright a light – burning with enthusiasm for life now instead of burning herself out trying to outrun a dying clock. He snakes one trembling hand over to find hers as he says, “You did. And I’m looking forward to seeing the hell you unleash with it.”
Her fingers curl around his, much cooler than before, but still so much warmer than him. “And I couldn’t have done it without you, Fangs. You were the only one who could’ve gotten in that room and found the blueprints we needed. Not to mention you dropped on Mizora from the ceiling like one of those hunting falcons. Coolest shit I ever saw.”
Her smile drops, then, and her eyes grow wet as her voice softens. “When she grabbed you, I really thought we’d be able to get to you before she could do anything too bad to you. Nearly scared the life out of me, seeing her punch her arm through your chest. And the way you screamed when she breathed that hellfire into you,” a shudder passes through her at the memory, “ten years in Avernus, I’ve never heard anything like that.”
A shiver of his own shakes his body. He has more memories of what happened that day than he’d like, but thankfully that particular one ends pretty swiftly after it starts. He assumes he must have passed out within the first few seconds. Small mercies.
“I don’t remember terribly much of what happened from that point on, though I’m told that’s probably for the best. Not really the sort of memories I want swimming around in my psyche to pop up again in my next reverie.”
“Yeah, I’d say skip out on those if you can. I would if I could,” she agrees. “The sounds Tavi was making after you started convulsing, I can still hear ‘em sometimes.” She pulls their clasped hands to rest over her heart, “And then you just went still, not a twitch, not a breath, just laying there, and all I could think was how wrong that was, because you’re always moving. Even in your sleep, you’re never completely still. Nothing anyone did could get you to respond to anything. We didn’t know if you were for real dead or just almost dead, and I’ve never seen Shads so scared or Halsin have to try so hard not to go full bear before.”
A single tear escapes to roll down her cheek as she whispers, “Even Jaheira was shook once we got you through the portal and she started helping the other two try and fix you up. I really thought she was gonna start crying at one point, when she couldn’t even get your ears to do that little twitch they do when something touches ‘em.”
Gods, Halsin had told him that the party had been upset when they’d thought he died, but he hadn’t known it was to this extent. That even Jaheira, the woman who looked Sarevok Anchev in the face and laughed, twice, was scared nearly to tears over him.
“Anyway, I’m saying all that so you know why this time, instead of asking permission like I usually would, I’m just giving you a warning that I’m gonna hug you. Because you and your stupid, pointy, little face are the only reason I’m alive right now, and doing that almost cost you your life, and almost cost us you.”
Before he can even comprehend what she’s saying, Karlach gently – mindful of both their injuries – pulls him into a hug. Not as tight or as enthusiastic as the ones she’d given him and everyone else after Dammon had upgraded her heart and made it possible for her to touch people again, but just as warm, and just as full of genuine affection. He pats her back gently as she sniffles and the shoulder of his shirt starts to grow damp.
“Thank you, Astarion,” she whispers, choked with tears. “I get to live because of you. You literally went to Hell for me, almost died for me, and you didn’t have to do any of that, but I can’t say thank you enough that you did it anyway. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you, but I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to find a way.”
He allows himself to relax into the hug, glad that Karlach can’t see his face, so there’s no way for her to know he’s crying too. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this,” he replies, doing his best to keep his voice from shaking, “but you don’t have to pay me back, Karlach. I didn’t do it for that. I did it for you and Wyll. The only reward I need is getting to see you live your life free from that awful place, darling.”
He pulls back from the hug just enough to look her in the eye, “Though, if you insist, there is one thing I’d like.”
“Yeah?” she says, wiping at her eyes, “What do you want? Gold? Jewels? Got another vampiric asshole I can help you stomp into ash once we’re back in action?”
“Oh, nothing so drastic,” he says with a toothy grin, “simply tell me every gory detail of how you killed Mizora, including the part where Halsin apparently ate her, and I’ll happily call it even. No one’s been kind enough to give me the details as of yet.”
Karlach’s face lights up like the midday sun. “Oh, man, you’re gonna love this!”
── ･✩*₊˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖₊*✩･ ──
Breakfast had arrived before Karlach could really get into her story, but now that they were both settled in with their respective meals – the requested eggs and hot porridge with peppers for her, and a warmed, strawless bottle of ox blood for himself – she continues her tale.
“Honestly the whole thing was pretty fast. So, to start,” Karlach says, taking a bite from her bowl, careful not to upset the tray over her lap as she gestures with her spoon, “what’s the last thing you remember?”
He takes a sip from his bottle as he thinks. “The last thing I remember about my portion of that fight is being melted from the inside out by hellfire,” he muses, “the last thing I remember about any of you was right after Mizora punched through my chest and gave me an up close and personal look at my cold, black, little heart. I assume the roaring I heard was either you hitting a Rage State or our friendly neighborhood Druid going decidedly bear-shaped?”
“Both, actually,” she confirms, mumbling around the bite in her mouth. She swallows the bite and continues, “Honestly thought Halsin had learned how to hit a Rage State himself, he was so pissed off. He’s so kind and patient most of the time, and even when he’s a bear it’s mostly him just doing nice stuff – foraging for snacks, loafing around camp, letting everyone snuggle up to him for warmth – a real teddy bear. You hang out with him enough, you kinda forget that fuck-off huge bear can rip people apart when he wants to.”
“Yes, our Ursine Avenger can be quite aggressive when he has a mind for it.”
“Yeah, well, he definitely had a mind for it this time. Mizora threw you into the wall like a ragdoll right before half a ton of rage-fueled bear hit her like a Stone Giant’s boulder.” She takes another bite of her porridge, free hand gesturing as she speaks. “She’s fast, though, I’ll give her that. Well, was fast. Managed to get some kind of short-range teleport off before he could get a swing in after he tackled her, Dimension Door or something. Popped out from under him and back in a couple dozen feet away, headed for the exit like the coward she is.”
“Of course she ran,” he says with a derisive snort, “you all had her on the back foot. Even Mizora will try to save her own skin over a little revenge, especially if she thought I was already dead. Well, more dead than usual.”
Karlach pulls a face at his joke. Ah. Too soon to for others to find humor in his almost-demise, then.
“We really didn’t have as much of an advantage as you think. I wasn’t kidding when I said Erinyes are terrifying right before everything kicked off. Us even getting one down by the time we were chasing Mizora was a damned miracle.” She taps her spoon against her bowl as she thinks, forming her next words carefully, “Much as I’d’ve liked her to be, I don’t think she was running scared. I think she just figured that last Erinyes and Abishai would be enough to finish us off. One Erinyes with all of us at full power would’ve been a tough fight already. You were out of commission, Tav and Lae’zel were barely standing, Wyll had some weird thing going on with his heart that he didn’t tell us about until later when he collapsed like the noble idiot he is. We were in rough shape.”
“Ah, that arrhythmia, it finally caught up to Wyll then?”
The Look Karlach gives him tells him that was maybe the wrong thing to say. “The what? You knew?”
“Only for a few minutes at most,” he clarifies, hands up in front of him in the hopes that the tremor in them will elicit pity. “And besides, it was Gale’s fault. He must have hit poor Wyll with at least half a dozen Shocking Grasps before Wyll knocked that Dominate spell loose. Blame the Wizard, not me.”
Karlach’s shoulders drop as she sighs, “No, I can’t blame him. He already feels bad enough that he got mind-controlled, can’t have him beating himself up over Wyll’s almost-heart-attack too.” She eyes him sternly, “And don’t you tell him, either. Gale’s your friend, don’t be mean.”
“Fine, I won’t,” he agrees, “anyway, what happened next? Halsin tackles Mizora, Mizora teleports across the room. And then?”
Her eyes light up, “Oh, then, things got really crazy. Halsin and I both bolt for Mizora, not planning on letting her get away. And we’re both fast as hell, yeah? Well, while Shads ran to you and everyone else stayed back to gang up on that last Erinyes and Abishai, Wyll comes barreling past Halsin and me, dead sprint, chasing Mizora like a hound after a hare.” Her breakfast sits forgotten now as her hands get more animated with her story, a few bits of porridge dropping onto the bed as her spoon waves around, “Think he must’ve cast Longstrider on himself or something, because I’ve never seen him move so fast! Once he caught up to her, he just went nuts! Took a flying leap, wrapped himself around her, and just started stabbing with that dagger of his, the fancy one you gave him. Screamed like a banshee the whole time. Not even words, just yelling as he started turning her into Devil-pulp.”
“Oh, good for him!” Astarion says, his praise at the idea of Wyll finally letting loose a little entirely sincere. “I’ve been waiting for him to finally release some of that pent up rage he swears he doesn’t have. I’m sorry I missed it.”
“I said the same thing! He won’t talk about it though. Think he’s embarrassed about turning into more of a wild animal than Halsin was.” She shakes her head in disappointment, but carries on, “Anyway, while Wyll was attached to her back going full feral cat, I caught up next. Managed to get a couple good hits in with my axe, but not as many as I’d’ve liked. Kept having to pull my punches so I wouldn’t hit Wyll on accident – one of our Healers was taking care of you, and the other was a bear, so the last thing we needed was friendly fire.”
Karlach leans over to grab her water glass, taking a long drink from it, before turning back to him. “Now this is where Wyll and I get the shock of our lives. And maybe a bit more respect for Druids, too.” She grabs Astraea’s bat from next to him, holding it up in front of them. “Pretend this is Mizora, okay? So, Wyll’s on her back, legs locked around her middle, one arm wrapped around her neck and holding on to one of her horns, the other just stabbing at anything he can hit while she tries to fend him off, and screaming the whole time. Like this,” and she clamps her left hand around the bat’s back, thumb and pinky under its wings, her other fingers looping over the top of the wings where the bats “shoulders” would be, mimicking a person full-body grappling another from behind. “Now, Mizora, on account of the Ranger-Banshee on her back, keeps moving around like this,” she twists the bat side to side, bobbing it around a few times, “and screaming herself. I keep moving around her, taking swings when I can while also trying not to chop one of Wyll’s legs off. And then, out of nowhere, something big, brown, hairy, and pissed as all hell comes flying in like a herd of rothé and just slams into her full bore like this,” her free hand, palm out and fingers spread, smacks gently against the bat’s face and torso, the hand holding it moving it so it looks like it’s thrown backwards and lands on its back.
“Halsin?” he asks, already knowing it could be no one but their not-always-so-mild-mannered Druid.
“Halsin,” she confirms with a solemn nod.
“So,” she continues, gesturing with the bat, “Halsin, Mizora, and Wyll all go flying at the speed of ‘rage-fueled cave bear to the face.’ Only problem is, Halsin didn’t exactly give any kind of warning for us to get out of the way, so when they land, poor Wyll was trapped underneath Mizora, not screaming any more on account of the fact that Halsin was half-standing on top of Mizora and squishing all the air out of him,” she says, demonstrating their positioning by use the hand wrapped around the bat’s back to hold it on her lap, face-up, her other hand now flexed in a claw and sitting atop its chest to mimic a crouching bear. “Well, partly it was because Halsin squished the breath out of him. The other part was because only most of the bones I heard break when they hit the ground were Mizora’s. A couple were Wyll’s ribs and his collarbone.”
Astarion winces in sympathy. He’d had his ribs and collarbones broken more than enough times to know exactly how miserable of an experience that is. And he hadn’t even had a bear sit on him while it happened.
He takes another sip from his bottle, pushing those thoughts away. “Well, don’t leave me in suspense, what did our bear friend do after knocking Mizora down several pegs and nearly smashing poor Wyll into jelly?” he says, gesturing for her to continue.
Her face splits into a toothy grin, eyes sparkling with vicious glee. The kind that tells him she’s about to share something deliciously violent and gory. The sort of something that only she, himself, and Lae’zel would be able to properly appreciate.
“He roars, loud as fuck. Like, made my ears ring for the next fifteen minutes it was so loud. Right in her face.” The hand that had been on the bat’s chest creeps up towards its head to hover over its little red button eyes, fingers now curled to look like the jaws of a massive creature. Not a difficult task, considering how much larger than the stuffed animal’s head her hand is. “Then, no growl, no warning, nothing, he just, whoomph–” her fingers wrap around the bat’s head, fully enclosing it inside her hand, “bites her head. Her whole head. Like, the entire thing fit inside his mouth. And she screamed for a second, but then there was this sound, like…”
Her brow furrows as she tries to find an accurate description. Astarion doesn’t interrupt, it’s a good story after all, but honestly he doesn’t really need her to describe the sound. He’s witnessed and experienced just about every atrocity that can be done to a body, very likely he’s heard whatever sound she’s–
“You ever heard the sound of a sunmelon hittin’ the cobblestones from high up?”
He stands – reclines – corrected. That was in fact an entirely new sound. Bravo.
His eyebrows nearly hit his hairline as he blinks a few times and says, “I can’t say that I have. I’m imagining, but I don’t think I’m doing it justice.”
She nods, her face arranged in a determined frown as if making sure he truly understands this specific part of the story is the most important thing in the world. Eventually, after a few more seconds of thought, her tail flicking back and forth under the blanket like a snake, she says, “It’s like… imagine a hollow, wet, meaty ‘pop!’ And then she gave one little twitch, then she just stopped moving, all at once. Because he’d crushed her head like a grape. With just his mouth.”
Macabre interest, gleeful disgust, and disappointment for having missed all this war inside him. He can think of a least a dozen things he’d like to say in response to that. What he finally chooses is a cackled, “Hells below, that’s disgusting!” fangs on full display as he laughs and winces in turn, each breath pulling at his still-healing sternum, but unable to stop himself laughing at the visual of Mizora’s head being exploded by the sheer force of an angry bear.
“I know,” Karlach crows, just as delighted as him. “’Course, he and the rest of her were still on top of Wyll, and I guess Halsin must’ve gone a bit too bear for a bit, because he just started eating her, right there. I wasn’t about to interrupt him when he’d just cracked Mizora’s noggin like a walnut in one bite, so I ended up grabbing one of her feet and slowly tugging her out from under him until I’d dragged her about five feet off, Halsin following and taking bites the whole time.” She shakes her head with a rueful smile, as if she were describing the antics of a misbehaving puppy instead of their friend. “Once he was off and having his little snack, I ran over to Wyll and started dumping potion into him ‘til he could sit up again. Then we kinda just sat there and watched Halsin do his thing.”
“Did he eat all of her? He mentioned that he’d found her rather spicy. Gave him indigestion, apparently.”
“Yeah, he did stop to cough once or twice every few bites, so that makes sense. But nah, I think he meant to, but he didn’t get to eat all of her,” she says. “Maybe like a third? S’hard to say, he didn’t exactly start at one end and work his way through. More like gettin’ bites from wherever interested him most, I guess.” She takes the stuffed bat – still clutched in her left hand – and moves it to sit nicely on her lap instead, mindlessly petting its large ears. “He got interrupted after maybe two minutes. Gale came running over, panting and shouting about how you weren’t all the way dead yet and Shadowheart needed help. And I don’t know if this was leftover brain-fry after getting mind-controlled or just the kind of straight up adrenaline-fueled bravery that makes you stupid, but Halsin looked up at him, still chewing some bit of Mizora’s leg, and just huffed and went back to eating, and Gale,” she brings a hand to her mouth, trying and failing to stifle a chorus of snickering giggles, “he slapped a Shocking Grasp right on Halsin’s bare bear ass, and when Halsin whipped around growling right in his face, Gale just pointed over at where you were and yelled ‘Get Elf-shaped, get over there, and heal him, for Weave’s sake, you overgrown, ursine, nuisance!’”
An ugly, indelicate snort of laughter escapes him before he can stop it, “Gale? Gale did that? Gale Dekarios? The same Gale Dekarios who fusses over stray cats and cookpots and thinks dog-earing book pages is tantamount to high treason?”
“The very same,” she confirms. “Shocked Halsin, too. Can’t say I’ve ever seen a bear look chastised before, but he did – put his little bear ears back, grumbled something that was probably an apology if anyone spoke bear, and ran off to start helping Shads with you while Gale stayed to help me get Wyll up and running again.”
“Well, I’m sorry I missed it,” he says, finishing off his bottle of ox blood and carefully setting it on the nightstand. “It certainly sounds far more entertaining than whatever the hells I was experiencing at that moment.”
“Mostly laying around looking dead and scaring the life out of us, from what I saw,” Karlach provides helpfully.
He rolls his eyes. “Yes, so I’ve been informed. Repeatedly. It’s not like I meant to let Mizora turn my insides into lava, you know. The plan was to stab her to death so we could go home, because Avernus is terrible and I hate it there.”
“Well, hate to break it to you, Fangs, but you missed.”
“I am aware, thank you.”
His icy glare does nothing to stop her soft laughter at his expense, and he’s never truly been able to stay mad or even be mad at Karlach – she’s far too annoyingly endearing for that – so it doesn’t take more than a few seconds for his glare to melt into a smile of his own.
After a moment, Karlach moves her tray of mostly-finished breakfast to the nightstand and holds up the stuffed bat again, wiggling him a little so that his wings flap a bit. “Anyway, who’s this? Didn’t think you were the type for cuddly companions. Besides Tav, anyway.”
He rolls his eyes at her again, though with no trace of real irritation. “This,” he says, flipping up one of the bat’s ears that had fallen over its eye, “is Batrick.”
“Batrick?” she says with a grin, eyebrow raised.
“Yes, Batrick,” he sighs, taking the bat into his hands when she offers it to him. “Tav named him. I wanted to call him Cornelius, something befitting such a refined gentleman as himself, but I was outvoted. He’s Astraea’s, I made him when Tav was still expecting. He usually has a bowtie, but it keeps getting lost.”
“Fangs, that is the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard,” she says, giving the bat a little squeeze. “What’s he doing up here with you, instead of down with Mini-Fangs getting dragged into whatever trouble she manages to crawl into?”
“Oh, well, she takes her naps in here with me, and spends her waking hours testing Jaheira’s baby-proofing skills. Spending hours lying in bed with Ada lost its novelty after the second day I was awake, so I’m old news now.” He gives the bat’s ear a little tug, “I’m not actually sure if she leaves him up here on purpose or not. She’s only eight months old, so I doubt she understands enough to do it for my benefit; more likely she just forgets because he’s hard for her to get down the stairs by herself. But I shall take my sacred duty as Keeper of the Bat very seriously either way.”
Karlach doesn’t say anything for a minute, and when he finally looks up at her, her face is… hard to describe. Happy, and… proud? Maybe?
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing, just…” her smile grows a little wider, “it’s sweet. How much you care about her. About all of us, really. I’ve always known you did, you just didn’t know how to show it in the beginning because no one had ever cared about you before to teach you. But now, it’s like… like you glow, all happy and shit. Real happy, not the pretend happy you used to do.” She carefully leans over to gently knock her horn against the top of his head, a private little gesture of love she only ever did with the other six of them who had been on the Nautiloid. “You did good, Fangs. Went and got yourself a whole life, and a real good one at that. It’s made you soft, but good soft. The kind you should’ve been able to be from the start if you’d wanted.”
He feels his ears pin back and burn red as he blushes under her praise. “I am not soft!”
“Yeah, you are,” she says, nudging her horn against his head again. “Early days, you’d hiss at us and stomp off to your tent to brood whenever we invited you to come sit ‘round the campfire at suppertime. Now you babysit stuffed animals to make your little girl smile. Ain’t nothing more marshmallow soft than that.”
Carefully, she slides her arm around his shoulders, and he leans into her warmth, the habit still moving his body before he even thinks about it even after all this time.
“Dadhood’s done you good, Astarion,” she says with a yawn. “Love looks good on you. Keep that.”
Her yawn must be catching, because he lets out one of his own. “I suppose, if you insist,” he murmurs, his eyelids starting to droop.
“I do insist,” she replies, leaning further back into her pillows as she feels him unconsciously tuck himself more firmly against her side. “Ain’t a furnace anymore, but I’m still warmer than most. What do you say we pretend it’s the old days and take a nap, like we’re camped by the fire again?”
“A wonderful plan,” he whispers, voice barely audible as he lets his cheek fall against her shoulder, eyes closed and sleep closing in.
He feels the weight of her head lean against the top of his, and the warmth suffusing him from top to bottom finally coerces him into relaxing fully against her. He just barely registers her tired whisper of “Still such a damned cat” from above him before she follows it up with a soft snore, her gentle breath tickling the tip of his ear and causing it to flick once before he, too, finally drifts off, Astraea’s bat still clutched between them.
Do y'all want to know what's really the hardest part about writing this story? No, its not coming up with ideas for chapters. Its not the fuck-off huge spreadsheet I made of a timeline of events, canon characters, and OCs, complete with descriptions and backstory details that grows ever larger by the day. Its not even the amount of time I spend staring at my Word document telling myself I used to be an English Major and I definitely know how words work while my brain plays the Crab Rave song as I desperately try to remember the word I want based on vibes alone.
No, no. The true struggle is coming up with equivalent sayings to things like "hit him like a freight train" in a world that does not have trains of any kind. Like, what is the freight train equivalent in Magic Medieval Adventure Land??
my favorite thing about this post is that a handful of people have gone "oh wait! this is tangible proof that i don't need to be embarrassed about leaving a lot of comments!! i'll stop being so ashamed!" YES!! ao3 authors basically universally will die for people who comment spam. we love to see it and we do not find you weird or annoying At All.
think about it this way: we ourselves are weird enough to have spent several hours, days, or Months writing down this story. we are weird enough about the content to do that! why on Earth would we be mean and judgmental toward people who care enough to get excited about reading it?? we shared it Specifically For You To Get Excited About!
Zephyranthes Minuta - a small temperate and tropical wildflower in the Amaryllis family that only blooms after heavy rains, from which they derive their common name: Rain Lilies
“Love is like wildflowers; it’s often found in the most unlikely places.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
This takes place between two chapters of the main story in this series, Last Call
Read on AO3
Mirtul 1, 1494
Astarion stood in the kitchen, arms crossed over his sleepshirt, hip leaned against the counter, watching the storm rage outside the window. It was nearing midnight, and didn’t look like it was going to let up any time soon. These spring storms were something else – the rain had been coming down in sheets for hours, thunder and lightning crashing overhead every minute or so, wind nearly blowing the rain sideways. Amid the wind’s fierce howling, he could hear it slamming the garden gate he’d forgotten to latch closed earlier. He’d been debating for nearly ten minutes on whether it was worth it to keep trying to wait the storm out, or if he should run outside to shut the damned thing, because if it didn’t stop that racket, none of them were getting any sleep tonight.
“I can do it, if you don’t want to,” Tav says. He turns to her, an eyebrow raised. She’s sat at the kitchen table with Astraea, their fussy toddler bouncing in her lap, whining and pulling at Tav’s shirt; reminding him that they wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight regardless of the storm or the gate, because Astraea has some new teeth coming through and won’t settle. Jaheira had given them some medicine that was supposed to help, but getting her to take it had been a battle of wills each time, and was near-impossible once she really started fussing. Thus, they had spent the better part of last night and today taking turns attempting to dose their cranky thirteen-month-old with however much of the medicine they could get into her between her naps and nursing, with mixed success.
“No, I’ll do it,” he sighs, heading for the coat closet by the door, “you’ve got your hands full already, and I don't think she’ll take kindly to trading hands right now. If I’m washed away into the Chionthar, remember me fondly as looking nothing like the drowned rat I am about to become.”
He’s just reaching into the coat closet for his heavier cloak when there’s an insistent knock at the door. He looks to the door, brow furrowed, because who in the world would be knocking on their door at this hour, in this weather? Tav’s already on her feet, Astraea in her arms, peering out of the kitchen entry at their front door. She gives him a questioning look, but he just shrugs in response, because he has no more of a clue who their midnight visitor could be than she does.
Not wanting to take any chances, he shuts the coat closet softly and creeps to the front door, steps light and soundless, and peers through the peephole they’d had installed after one too many nosy neighbors showed up on their porch wanting to “say hello” to the strange couple and their child who only went out at night and rarely joined in on the various community activities that were always going on.
Peering through the peephole, he spots a pair of very familiar horns on top of a handsome, scarred face, and – breathing out a quiet the fuck? – he wrenches the door open.
There on his porch, wrapped in a heavy cloak that’s soaked through from the storm and left him wet and shivering, stands Wyll Ravengard.
For moment, Astarion can’t speak, but once he finds his tongue, he quickly makes up for those lost seconds.
“Wylliam Ravengard, do you have any idea what time it is?!”
Wyll, teeth chattering as he tightens his cloak around himself further, gives him a tired smile in response. “Just past midnight, I think, so prime vampire hours?”
“Yes, and why are you spending them here, on my porch, in the middle of a lightning storm, instead of in your cozy bed at Ravengard Manor, like a good little human?”
At this, Wyll’s smile drops, and he looks down at his feet, looking every inch the chastised child. And if Astarion didn’t have vampiric hearing, he wouldn’t have been able to hear Wyll’s mumbled response over the storm. “I, uh, I need help. Please. I… didn’t know where else to go.”
Astarion’s stern face softens at that, remembering once again how young Wyll is. Only twenty-five. Practically a baby. “And what,” he sighs, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe, “could you possibly need help with that’s worth you walking three hours from the Upper City to my doorstep, through a storm, in the middle of the night?”
“That… would be easier to explain inside,” Wyll responds, teeth chattering a bit from the cold. “Might I come in? Please?”
Wyll’s pleading eyes break Astarion’s stoney façade almost immediately. Parenthood has made him weak to puppy eyes – he used to be able to at least pretend he was more heartless than this.
“Fine, yes, come in, you complete lunatic,” he says, making room for Wyll to pass by him and shutting the door behind them once he’s inside. “But this better be good. Some of us are teething, and some of us didn’t get to go hunting tonight, and everyone’s sleep-deprived about it, so you’ve walked yourself into a den of cranky monsters.”
“I don’t know if ‘good’ is the word I’d use,” Wyll says carefully, moving to stand in front of the fireplace, basking in its heat, though he still hasn’t removed his cloak. “’Interesting,’ maybe. ‘Surprising,’ certainly.”
Tav, who’d managed to get Astraea settled on the floor with her blocks, comes over with some of their towels in her arms. “Off with that cloak, before you catch your death,” she says, setting the towels on the coffee table, hands immediately going to the fastening, “we’ll hang it by the fireplace to dry, and you can explain what possessed you to walk all the way out here when I know you have a carriage.”
“Right, well,” Wyll starts to stammer nervously, back stiff as Tav undoes his cloak, “I didn’t have my carriage tonight, I usually don’t, and then something happened and I just-”
Tav finally gets the clasp undone and sweeps the cloak from Wyll’s shoulders, only to find that he’s in nothing but his breeches and undershirt, his doublet held balled up in his arms, squirming.
“-panicked,” he finishes.
Suddenly words start tumbling out of him like water. “I didn’t know what else to do. I tried Jaheira’s first, but she wasn’t home, and I couldn’t go back to Father’s, not like this. The temples are still overrun with refugees, and she’s so small, and I just…” he turns that pleading face on them again, “I thought you might know how to help?”
Tav and Astarion stare at him, both at a loss for words, Tav still holding Wyll’s dripping cloak. Astarion manages to recover first, shaking his head to clear it and asking, “I’m sorry – she?”
At his question, a tiny squeak arises from the still gently-wiggling doublet in Wyll’s arms, which is miraculously dry considering how wet Wyll himself is.
“Yeah,” Wyll breathes out shakily, lowering the bundle from his chest, “she. I’m pretty sure anyway, I didn’t exactly take the time to check thoroughly. Didn’t seem important, with the rain and everything.”
Astarion and Tav both gasp as Wyll reveals his precious cargo – an absolutely tiny baby Tiefling, sporting medium-brown skin, little bone-white horn buds, and a riotous fluff of dark hair springing out in tight coils. The baby squeaks again, little face bobbing against Wyll’s chest as her tiny tail lashes back and forth in irritation.
“Don’t try telling me that’s yours, Wyll,” Astarion snarks, though his voice has gone uncharacteristically gentle, “you’ve only been out of Avernus five months, and I can personally attest that it takes longer than that to make a baby of any kind. So where did you get it?”
Somewhere in the middle of his sentence, Astarion had reached out, without realizing it, and started gently caressing the baby’s tiny little cheek with a knuckle. When the hells did he become the sort of person that just touches babies on purpose, like some doting grandmother? His baby excluded, of course. She was perfect. Other people’s babies were gross. Or they used to be, anyway.
Ugh, fatherhood really had made him soft.
“I found her,” Wyll says quietly, pulling the baby closer to his chest, as if he’s worried they’ll try to take her from him. “I went to the Blushing Mermaid to have a couple drinks, maybe play some cards – Halsin suggested I needed to get out of the house regularly, get used to being around normal people again, so I go there sometimes. After I left, I was walking home, and I heard a noise in the alley, just barely, over the storm. I- I thought it was a cat, a lost kitten maybe, but when I went to look-” he cuts himself off, taking a deep breath, his eyes flooding with anger and tears as he whispers, “when I went to look, I- I found her. Just… lying there, crying her little lungs out in a box next to the trashcans. Like someone just- just threw her away.”
Tav’s hand flies to her mouth, muffling an Elvish curse as she drops Wyll’s cloak, her own eyes tearing up as she steps closer, investigating the tiny baby.
“I couldn’t just leave her there,” Wyll continues, “it was storming, and she didn’t even have a blanket, not that it would’ve mattered, but still, who just-” he lets out a long breath, “I know there’s still a lot of prejudice against Tieflings, especially when people have a Tiefling baby by surprise, but… they didn’t even take her to a temple. They could’ve taken her to the Stormshore Tabernacle, Vicar Humbletoes accepts surrendered infants, no questions asked, he always has. But they just- just abandoned her, like she didn’t matter.” Wyll’s good eye wells up with tears, “Who does that?”
“Someone who was scared. Someone who panicked, maybe,” Astarion answers, really taking in the tiny child before him. Her non-Tiefling features have an Elfishness to them that makes him suspect at least one of her parents was a High Elf, if not both. Which would explain why she’d ended up in that alley – his people weren’t always kind to children who didn’t arrive looking as expected. “Or someone who’s simply cruel and gave her no other thought beyond how to most easily dispose of her. The world isn’t kind, Wyll, whether you’re a greedy Patriar or a helpless infant.”
Wyll just looks at him sadly. Astarion knows Wyll likes to believe in the goodness of people, but it’s pretty hard to do that when he’s currently holding evidence of just how monstrous they can be.
“Well, just because the world is cruel, doesn’t mean we have to be,” Tav says, reaching for the baby, “give her here, and get yourself dried off. You can borrow a few things from the laundry basket there in the corner, they’re clean.”
Wyll’s hands tighten reflexively around his tiny ward, who’s started squalling as she continues bobbing her face against him, tail lashing angrily. Tav’s voice softens a bit as she takes in the Blade’s protectiveness over this little life he’s found.
“Wyll, you’re soaked to the bone, you need to get into some dry clothes, and she needs to be looked over. I’m no expert, but I can at least make sure there’s nothing major wrong,” Tav says gently, before her mouth twists in a wry smile, “and besides, she’s pushing her mouth against you like that because she’s hungry, and unless that transformation Mizora did to you added a few extra features I’m unaware of, I don’t think you can fulfill that particular need. I’ll give her right back, I promise.”
Wyll’s face turns sheepish, his grip on the baby loosening. “Right, of course. She’s had a long… whole life, I guess, of course she’s hungry,” he says, shifting the doublet-wrapped baby into Tav’s arms. “I’ll just… go change. And then I’ll be right back.”
Wyll doesn’t actually move, though, unable to turn his gaze from the baby in Tav’s arms. Astarion rolls his eyes and gives him a little push. “Grab the black sleepshirt and pants from the basket in the corner, Wyll, they should fit you. There are towels in the bathroom upstairs. Go take a quick bath, warm up, then use the guest room to change. She’s not going anywhere on her own – and we’ve already got one, so we’re certainly not going to take off with her.”
He does manage to get a small laugh out of Wyll at that, some small bit of their friend coming back to himself. “Alright, yeah, you’re right,” he says, running a hand through his braids, “I’m not any use soaked and frozen to the bone, I suppose. I’ll go dry off and change, and be right back as soon as I’m done.”
While Wyll grabs the mentioned clothes from the basket and heads upstairs, Astarion picks up Wyll’s dropped cloak from the floor and hangs it by the fireplace to dry, before grabbing their little emergency medical kit from the kitchen and taking a seat on the couch next to Tav as she lays the baby out on the coffee table.
He passes her the towel Wyll didn’t take with him, watching as she gently dries the baby and checks her over. “So, what’s the verdict on our little midnight intruder?” he asks softly.
“A healthy little girl, as far as I can tell, though it would be better if we had Jaheira or Shadowheart to look her over. She can’t be more than a few hours old, probably left in that alley just a bit before Wyll found her. She wouldn’t have survived long enough for him to hear her, otherwise.” She takes one of the astringents and a wad of cloth bandages from the medical kit and begins dabbing at the base of the baby’s umbilical cord, which is much longer than he remembers Astraea’s being. “This wasn’t an attended birth, I can tell you that, at least,” she sighs, “they cut the cord too long, and they’ve tied it with kitchen twine. Looks like they didn’t even use proper scissors to cut it, just went at it with whatever they had, maybe.”
“Is that a problem? She doesn’t seem to be bothered by it,” he says.
She sighs again, “Only insofar as it’s nearly as long as she is. We can fix it though; I’ll just need you to sacrifice some of your silk embroidery thread. The undyed one, maybe twelve inches. And your sharpest non-magical dagger.”
“On it,” he says, already moving. He unspools the requested amount from the bobbin in his sewing box, deciding to cut it quickly with a fang rather than look for his scissors, then grabs his spare dagger from the top of the coat closet. When he brings them back to Tav, she casts Prestidigitation on them, making sure they’re sterile before she begins.
With nimble fingers, she ties the silk thread around the umbilical cord, much close to the body than the twine sits, then takes the dagger in hand. “Come hold her still for me,” she tells him, “and grab that cloth with the astringent on it. Once I cut the cord, dab at the end. It shouldn’t bleed much, but just keep going until it stops.”
He nods, placing one hand on the child’s chest to hold her still. His hand covers her entire torso and then some, and he wonders briefly if Astraea really used to be this small, before he shakes his head and focuses on the task in front of him, taking the medicine-soaked cloth up in his free hand.
After double checking the silk cord is tied tight enough, Tav takes up the dagger, setting the blade about an inch past where she’s tied the umbilical cord off. Her hands tremble for just a moment, but then, with a swift and decisive flick of her hand, she slices cleanly through it. Astarion dabs the cloth at the newly raw end of the cord, but like Tav predicted, there isn’t much blood to clean away.
“Good job, love,” Astarion says, voice low, “I’ll clean all this away in a moment. What do we do now?”
“Now?” Tav asks, wrapping the baby back in the towel, “now she could use a bath, but food is probably the more pressing concern, so a bath can wait.” She looks over to Astraea, who’s been studiously ignoring all of the commotion around her as she plays with her blocks. “We just have to hope Her Highness doesn’t mind sharing dinner service just this once.”
He sits back on the couch with Tav, pulling one of the throw pillows over and slipping it under her elbow for support as he says, “If she minds, I suppose I’ll just bribe her with one of those wretched little wheels of cheese you keep in the icebox. She’ll spend the rest of the night ignoring us.”
Tav laughs as she unbuttons the top of her shirt, bringing the tiny Tiefling to her chest and encouraging her to nurse. “That’s because our daughter has excellent taste. That cheese is delicious,” she says, maneuvering the little one until she gets the message and latches on. She takes to it immediately, her little shrieks softening to pleased grunts as she takes in what is likely her very first meal, one little fist gently tapping on Tav’s chest as she drinks.
He lets his head rest in his hand, elbow braced on the back of the couch, his other hand gently stroking the baby’s tiny feet and letting her twitching little tail wrap around his wrist. He watches Tav’s face grow wistful as she watches the baby nurse, a soft smile growing on her face. “It’s been a while since I’ve done this with someone this little,” she coos quietly to the baby, “you’re much more polite than my last client. I appreciate the consideration, little one.”
He feels a little stab in his heart, watching her, knowing that he’s the reason they can’t have this again. Now that Astraea’s already a year old, he’s had time to think about it, and he really wouldn’t mind having another one. But he’s a vampire spawn, so having more isn’t possible for them, and that’s his fault. Hells, the first one shouldn’t have been possible. Astraea was a once-in-a-lifetime miracle, and they’d resigned themselves to being grateful for the one little darling they’d somehow managed to make before the tadpoles were gone, taking their gifts with them. They’d considered adoption, briefly, but quickly dropped the idea, knowing full-well that no one was going to let a vampire and a Bhaalspawn adopt a child, Heroes of Baldur’s Gate or no, even when they already had one perfectly healthy and happy child to prove they weren’t complete incompetents.
Tav had assured him that she was happy with their family the way it was. And he believed her, he did. But it was hard to miss the way her eyes sparkled whenever she saw a tiny, new baby out at the market, or how delighted she was when Bex and Danis had offered to let her hold their twin boys, just a week old and so, so small. She’d lit up like the sun.
It stung, not being able to give her that again, when he knew how badly she wanted it. When he wanted it, too.
He lifts his head, letting the hand that was holding it up brush Tav’s bangs from her face instead. “Feeling broody again, my love?” he asks, aiming for a joking tone, but his voice is tinged with just a bit too much sorrow for it to really land.
“A little,” she sighs, leaning into him and resting her head on his shoulder as they watch Wyll’s foundling drink her fill. “But I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I love you, I love our daughter, I love our life. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. I’d be thrilled if we someday found a way to have another, but if we never do, I’ll still be content right here with you.”
He sighs as he leans his head atop hers, packing that dream away with all the other things that will never be. “It would be lovely though, wouldn’t it? Another tiny creature of our own, keeping us awake at all hours, a horrible little beastie just like their sister.”
“It would,” she whispers, “but we’ve already got something good. I’m content, Astarion, I don’t need more than this.”
“I know,” he whispers back, “it’s just nice to think about sometimes, that’s all.”
Footsteps on the stairs herald Wyll’s arrival, and the moment ends, the bitter-sweet mood melting away as they disentangle themselves and sit up.
Wyll starts to say something as he reaches the bottom of the stairs and rounds the couch, but the moment he catches site of Tav mid-feed with the baby, he flushes and turns around to face the wall. “Sorry, sorry!” he stammers, cheeks flushing with embarrassment, “I didn’t realize you’d be- that is, I wasn’t aware of- I mean- gods. I’ll just… stand over here until you’re done, shall I?”
Tav just laughs, making no move to hide or cover herself at their friend’s embarrassment. “It’s fine, Wyll,” she says, “I’m not bothered if you’re not. Besides, it’s kind of literally the entire purpose of having breasts.”
“I would beg to differ on that point, my love. Yours, at least, have many other wonderful qualities,” Astarion chimes in, mostly just to make Wyll blush further, earning him a swat to the chest and a quiet hush, you! from Tav.
Wyll still hasn’t turned around, staring intently at the wall directly opposite of Tav.
“You’re gonna have to get used to seeing breasts doing their job eventually if you’re keeping her, Wyll. You’ll need to hire a wetnurse, she can’t drink cow’s milk,” Tav chides him with a laugh.
Wyll whirls around at that. “Keep her?!” he cries, then realizes he’s looking right at Tav and begins looking quickly around the room, eventually collapsing into the nearby chair, head back, keeping his eyes on the ceiling. “I can’t keep her! She’s a- a- she’s a baby!”
“Yes, that’s usually how they start out,” Astarion snarks at him. “I was under the impression that being the son of the Grand Duke would’ve afforded you a quality education, but if you need instructions on where these come from, I’m sure we could put together a decent curriculum.”
“Very funny, Astarion, thank you,” Wyll snarks back. “I just mean… I’m still living in Father’s manor. Things are still… tense… between us. He wasn’t happy when I chose to go to Avernus with Karlach. He was even less happy when I didn’t immediately want to join him in politics when I got back. He’s still unhappy because we got in an argument the other day after I told him I was looking at houses out here in Rivington, that I wasn’t going to stay in the Upper City.”
“You’re looking for houses in Rivington?” Tav asks, shifting the baby to her other breast now that she’d finished with the first one.
“Yeah. I love my city, but I don’t- I can’t live in the Upper City. I hate it there. Surrounded by Baldur’s Gate’s ‘elite,’ listening to them complain about having to pay the smallest amounts of taxes while there are still hundreds of citizens who are displaced after the Illithid Crisis, not even counting the refugees who came here to escape the Absolute’s armies and then couldn’t leave.” He sighs, “I can’t stand listening to them, and Father thinks I should just be able to bargain and compromise with them, when the compromises are things like ‘I’ll actually pay my taxes this year, and you’ll look the other way when I find new and exciting methods of breaking the law for personal gain.’”
“Sounds like the Upper City, no surprise there,” Astarion chimes in.
“Yes, unfortunately, it does,” Wyll laments. He pauses when he feels a tap on his knee and looks down to see Astraea has pulled herself up to stand, clutching the chair and his pantleg. “Oh, do you want to come sit with Uncle Wyll, Astraea? Come on up, then,” he says, scooping the toddler into his lap. “And I don’t really want to go back to adventuring, not for a long time, if ever. But I also can’t really take living in the city proper where it’s so busy anymore. It’s… too loud. Too many people.” He helps Astraea stand on his lap, holding her still while she tugs at his horns and fiddles with his braids. “I found a place I liked. It needs some work, but the bones are good. It’s a little cottage of sorts, three bedrooms. It’s not too far from here, actually, maybe a five-minute walk. Close enough to the forest that I could hunt game whenever I want, but not so far from town that I can’t go for a pint or two. I’ve got the coin for it, since you guys were kind enough to keep my share of the gold from our adventure safe for me.”
“I know that place,” Astarion says, “it used to have a boar problem. Used to. What’s stopping you from buying it and moving out of Ulder’s place if it’s so perfect and you can afford it?”
“I don’t know,” Wyll sighs, “I guess it’s just… the first time I left, Father was so angry with me. The last time I left, I was disappointing him again. If I leave this time, I wonder if we’ll be able to repair our relationship at all.”
“Wyll,” Astarion says firmly, “have you considered that, if Ulder wants to throw a fit about your perfectly reasonable desire to live your own life instead of being his perfect copy, then it’s entirely his own choice, and the consequences are on him?”
“That’s not-”
“No, no! Listen to me,” Astarion says, getting up from the couch and pacing the room, “we can go round and round all day about the way he treated you when you first signed your pact with Mizora – which was badly, by the way – but my personal feelings about Ulder Ravengard’s beyond lackluster parenting aside, you can’t spend your entire life afraid to live just because daddy might be upset about it.”
“I’m not-”
“Yes you are. You’re literally refusing to buy a house that you want and move out of his hideous mansion – something that you apparently need for your own peace of mind – because you’re worried he’ll throw another Grand Duke-sized tantrum about it, instead of doing what a proper father would and help you get whatever it is you need to be happy! Because that’s what good fathers do – they do shit they hate, because it makes their kids happy!” he paces the length of the room a few more times.
“Astarion-”
“Do you know how much of that hideous Waterdhavian cheese I have personally braved the sun, the rain, and the snow to purchase, simply because Astraea adores it?” he says, turning again and gesturing at his daughter. “I hate the stuff. It smells terribly; I cannot escape it anywhere in this house. She always manages to make a huge mess with it, and she usually manages to get at least some of it on my face, because she wants me to eat it with her.”
He starts pacing faster, his voice rising in pitch as he really gets into his rant, “It is quite possibly one of the worst things she does, and she once puked chocolate iced cream all down the front of me, then topped it off with a diaper explosion, while I had her in the baby sling and couldn’t even clean it up! But do you know what I do? I let her feed me that awful, disgusting cheese, every time, because it makes her happy. And nothing makes me happier than seeing her happy, even if I hate it the whole time. And if one day she asks me to buy her a herd of dairy goats so she can become a cheesemonger, then I will be first in line at the livestock auctions the next morning, and I will suffer as much stinky cheese as she wishes me to endure.” He crosses his arms and glares at Wyll, “And I will do it gladly.”
“My father just wants what’s best-”
He throws his hands up in exasperation, shouting, “Oh hang your father and his wants! He doesn’t want what’s best for you, he wants what’s best for him and the idealized son he keeps in that stupid, shiny head of his. Wyll, when you found this baby, you didn’t even hesitate to put yourself in discomfort, and frankly, danger with how bad that storm is, to make sure she got help. You could have dropped her off at any of the dozens of temples you passed between that alley and here. Why didn’t you?”
“Because… because I trust you guys. I knew you could help, and that you would help, that you wouldn’t turn us away.”
“Exactly. You walked for three hours – six miles – through a lightning storm, to make sure a child you don’t even know, that you have no responsibility for, was taken care of by people you trusted.”
Astarion’s voice gentles as he asks, “When was the last time Ulder did anything like that for you?”
Wyll says nothing, but a single tear streaks down his face, which Astraea pats away, looking concerned at her usually jovial uncle being so upset.
Astarion looks to Tav, for help, but she’s still busy nursing the baby, so fine, he’ll just have to ring some sense into Wyll’s head himself then.
Throwing his head back with a groan, Astarion stomps over to Wyll and sits down hard on the coffee table so that they’re eye to eye. “Wyll,” he says slowly, “you are my friend. I have talked your way out of a Devil’s contract. Twice. I went to Avernus – literal actual hell – for nearly an entire month just to get you out of there, and then I almost died when that same Devil turned my insides into soup. I have guarded your blind spot in countless combats, helped you fight an Undead Dragon, saved every Gnome in that foundry because you asked it, and even let you teach me those annoyingly twee little court dances you’re so fond of just so you would stop wallowing when we were in the Shadowcurse.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, “Could you maybe, just this once, please consider that I’m saying all this because I just might know what I’m talking about and do actually have your best interest at heart?”
“You… you really mean all of that?” Wyll asks quietly.
Astarion drops his face into his hands and screams just a little, just for a second, before composing himself and staring him in the eye. “Yes, Wyll,” he says, “every word. And if you ever bring it up again, I’ll deny it and eat you in your sleep. But, darling, you have spent your entire adult life doing what everyone else wants. Everyone but you. Don’t you think it’s time you do what you want?”
Something seems to dawn over Wyll’s face at that question, breathing new life into his eyes, and he looks lighter than Astarion’s ever seen him as he says, “Yeah. Yeah, maybe it is.”
“Excellent,” Astarion says, a genuine smile starting to form on his face. “So now, tell me: What does Wyll want? Not Wyll Ravengard, the Grand Duke’s son. Not Wyll, Mizora’s Warlock. Not Wyll the Blade of Avernus. Not even Wyll the Courtly High-Society Storybook Prince. Just plain Wyll. Just you.” He taps Wyll on the forehead, right between his horns, “What does he want?”
Wyll hesitates for a moment, his words a bit shaky as he says, “I want to buy that house. To live where it’s quieter.”
“Wonderful,” Astarion encourages, “what else?”
“I want to do something besides politics. I don’t know what, but something else.”
“Good, we’ll workshop it. What else?”
His voice starts to get stronger, more confident. “I want to get married. To someone who loves me for me, not for my station or my political power. Someone who’s never heard the last name ‘Ravengard.’”
“Fate willing. Keep going.”
“I want to keep growing my braids out, maybe a beard, even though Father disapproves.”
“I think that’s an utterly charming look. What next?”
“I want…” his eyes dart over to the baby in Tav’s arms, “…her. I want to keep her. I’ve always wanted children, and I don’t believe in fate, but if I did, this feels like it would be.”
Astarion smiles wide at this final confession. “Then she’s yours. You found her, you cared when no one else did, and you saved her life. Quite literally walked through a storm for her. You’ve been more of a father to her in the last four hours than Ulder has been to you in the last eight years. I’d say you’ve earned the title, don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” Wyll whispers, “yeah, I guess I did.”
Tav rises from the couch with the baby, who had apparently finished her meal a while ago. “Well in that case,” she says softly, settling the baby into Wyll’s arms as Astarion picks up Astraea from his lap, “let me be the first to say – congratulations, Wyll, it’s a girl.”
Wyll tears up instantly, practically melting over the tiny little girl squirming in his arms. The baby chooses this moment to finally open her eyes, and Wyll gasps at the sight – one red eye, one silver-grey, a perfect match to his own eye and the silver prosthesis he’d gotten to replace Mizora’s stone.
“Well, would you look at that,” Astarion breathes, “the family resemblance is kicking in already.”
“Did you think about names while you were up in the bath resolutely not adopting her?” Tav asks, lips quirked in a smile.
“I… I did,” Wyll says. “There are these little flowers that grow all over the gate, but only right after a heavy rainstorm, otherwise you never see them. They’re tiny, so small you’d miss them if you weren’t looking for them. But they’re pretty little things, white or pink or lavender. Rain lilies. I’m sure they have a proper name, but that’s what I’ve always known them as. I couldn’t stop thinking about those flowers while I was walking here, how much she reminded me of them. So… Lily, because she popped up in a rainstorm, like those flowers. And Aurora for her middle name. The same as my mother’s.”
“Well,” Tav says, “not to break up the party, but I think it’s time everyone gets some sleep. You can use the guestroom, Wyll. I’ll get you some of Astraea’s old pajamas to dress Lily in.”
Astarion stands with a groan, stretching as he yawns. “I’ll dig out her bassinet from the closet, and we can put it next to the bed. Astraea slept like a rock in that thing.”
“I think we still have Astraea’s diapers from when she was that little,” Tav continues as they head up the stairs, “but if not, we can make the bigger ones work for one night.”
“I have absolutely no idea how to change a diaper,” Wyll replies with a yawn.
Astarion’s face cracks in a wicked smile, though his voice is soft to avoid waking either of the sleeping children, “Ooh, darling, please say that I can teach him! It’s quite an experience.”
“No, you can go put our daughter to bed, and then get some fresh sheets and a blanket for Wyll,” Tav replies with a smile.
“You never let me have any fun, my love.”
── ･✩*₊˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖₊*✩･ ──
Thirty minutes later, the guest bed has been made up, the bassinet sat next to it, and Lily Aurora Ravengard – now bathed, diapered, and dressed – is sleeping peacefully in it, holding tightly to Wyll’s finger. He’s laid himself on the bed as close the edge as he can, his arm hanging over into the bassinet, just letting her hold onto him, both of them reveling in the connection.
Tav and Astarion linger in the doorway for a moment more, watching their friend experience the same magical moment they’d had themselves just over a year prior.
“If she gets hungry, or if you need anything at all, even just to ask a question, come knock on our door,” Tav says quietly. “We’re light sleepers, we’ll hear you.”
“Thank you guys,” Wyll mumbles sleepily, “really. For everything.”
“You’re welcome, Wyll,” Astarion murmurs. “And… congratulations. You’re going to love her.”
As he shuts the door, he just barely hears Wyll’s sleepy, wonder-filled whisper.
Alrighty, the end of the chapter is winding down, and we're at just under 10k with only a little more to go to close it out. After that, it'll be a quick reread through and editing, then up it goes!
I hope you all like angst, hurt/comfort, and whump, because boy does this chapter have it in spades! I am putting that Elf through A Situation. Several of them, in fact. However, he's taken it like a champ, so he will get a little treat as compensation for his suffering.
And since everyone has waited so nicely while I dealt with too much IRL bullshit to get this chapter done in a timely manner after I went and left you all on a cliffhanger, here's a little treat for you, in the form of some little snippets from the middle of the chapter
Chapter 12: Before the Devil Even Knows You're There, Part 3 (Astraea)
(Uktar 22 - 29, 1493 - 8 Months Old)
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Warnings for this chapter: Graphic and detailed descriptions of severe injuries; Read author's note on AO3 for detailed warnings
“There are certain rules about war. Rule number one is young men die. And rule number two is doctors can't change rule number one.”
If you're going through hell
Keep on moving
Face that fire
Walk right through it
You might get out
Before the devil even knows you're there
- Rodney Atkins, If You're Going Through Hell
Uktar 22
Okay. Okay they might be fucked. Just a little.
They had come prepared for the potential of a fight. They weren’t stupid, after all.
But they had not come prepared to fight one of Zariel’s generals, two Erinyes, three Black Abishai, at least three dozen other lower Infernal beings, and a partridge in a godsdamned pear tree.
And they certainly hadn’t come prepared to do it with their Wizard being mind-controlled and held at metaphorical knifepoint by two creatures who could, with all-likelihood, rip through their party of nine and kill at least two of them before they died themselves.
Fuck shit cock bollocks and damn it all to every hell!
A thought crosses his mind that he used to be better at swearing before they had a baby, but he pushes that aside for now because that is not remotely important, focus, you idiot!
Okay. Breathe. Quietly. He needs a plan. He is not good at plans. He is, in fact, very bad at plans. Planning is distinctly not his job. That’s Tav’s job, or Lae’zel’s when they’re planning combat, sometimes Wyll’s. But they’re all occupied at the moment, so he’ll have to do it himself.
Alright. Survey his enemy, his battlefield, his resources, just like Lae’zel taught them all. What does he know?
What he knows is this:
They are vastly, comically outmatched
In an all-out combat, there is absolutely no way that any of them walk out of here alive.
He promised his daughter that he and Tav would come back very much alive, so point two is moot.
Gale is Charmed, likely Dominate Person, and for all his Wizardly skill, the man is terrible at breaking out of spells if someone manages to get one on him, which means unless someone gives him a good knock to the head to shake the spell loose, they are simultaneously down one powerful ally and up one incredibly dangerous enemy
Wyll is yelling something at Mizora. So is Karlach. He should probably be paying attention to that.
He isn’t.
Because if he knows anything about Devils, it’s that, rather like vampire spawn, they’re nigh unstoppable when competently lead, but they scatter like rats under lamplight if that leadership should fall.
If Mizora goes down, there’s a good chance the rest will scatter to save their own hides.
That makes Mizora his target.
And his target does not, at present, know where he is, or that he’s even there.
Well, that’s just ten things. Eight, if he omits points two and six, which are superfluous.
He’s had longer to-do lists than that, surely?
He can even condense it down into a single task: Kill Mizora. Subtask: Do it before anyone he loves gets eviscerated beyond repair.
Simple!
All he has to do is ignore the teeny tiny little part of his psyche hiding waaay in the back that’s currently shaking in terror and pissing itself, and he’s golden.
The arguing in the center of the room is getting louder, more intense, but he ignores it for now in favor of centering himself. Takes a few deep breaths, tells himself, hey, this won’t even be so bad! You love fighting! Stabbing people you hate is one of your top-3 hobbies! You are good at violence and murder! Your skills and talents are valuable and hold merit, especially when they keep your friends from dying horrible deaths!
He does not – just barely – laugh hysterically at the knowledge that he’s finally implementing Halsin’s suggested self-soothing method of “Words of Self-Affirmation.” This is probably not what the bear meant.
Ignoring the ever-increasing tension in the middle of the room (did Wyll just call Mizora a bitch?! Oh, their little Ranger is all grown up!), he melts further into the shadows, creeping along the edges of the room, trying to find the right angle. Mizora’s too far from him right now, too exposed for anything in melee range, and his bow is good, but even Gontr Mael can’t take Mizora out in one shot. And he’s only going to get one shot, so he has to make it count. He’d armed himself with Crimson Mischief and Bloodthirst for this mission – the swords he’d taken off Orin’s corpse. If the others can keep Mizora occupied, if he can get in melee range without her noticing, a hit from both of those should be enough to take her out, or at least incapacitate her long enough to get one more hit in.
And here, on Mizora’s home plane, her death is permanent.
So is his. On any plane, technically. But that’s just going to have to be a problem for later.
Only one of the two of them is leaving this room in the end. And only one of them made a promise to a little girl who won’t understand that he didn’t choose to break it, should the worst happen.
So, given the chance, he’s going to make damned sure the person walking out of here today is him.
He pulls his cowl up, covering his face and hair until nothing but the shine of his eyes shows through. Red irises flash in the dark, catching the firelight with a predator’s eyeshine for just moment, as he names his prey. Vampires are monsters of the night, creatures of cunning, predators meant to catch and kill intelligent prey. He lets that nature flood his body now, feeling his stealthy crouch deepen, his joints moving that much more smoothly; feral, feline grace falling over him where nervous tremors once held sway. But not anymore.
He has a devil to kill.
The fighting finally breaks out just as he slides into another shadow, a deeper patch of dark, closer to his target. All at once, the air – previously laden only with tense arguing – is filled instead with spells shouted by familiar throats, screeches and screams ringing in Infernal voices, the chilling laughs of the Erinyes, the raging bellows of Karlach and Lae’zel, and the echoing roar of a cave bear.
It’s messy. Fast. And within the first ten seconds, he can tell that they’re already on the back foot.
He moves around the room, one shadow to the next, stealthily picking off the lesser Devils one by one as he reaches them. But it’s not enough.
Shadowheart’s Spirit Guardians are mowing through the Imps and Lemures as she moves, but he can see them flicker as her concentration wavers with every furious hit landed by the two Abishai that are working together to corner her, with every spray of blood she loses as she splits her focus between defending herself and throwing whatever healing spells she can at their comrades. A hard hit to the face finally breaks her concentration completely, her Spirit Guardians flickering once before dying away, bruises blooming black and red over her cheek and eye almost immediately as they begin to swell.
Halsin’s already been knocked out of his Wildshape, one of the Erinyes hitting the bear hard enough to send him flying back and into the stone wall, just ten feet from Astarion’s hiding spot. He hears the bears spine break from the force of the impact, watches as his eyes go dull, before golden light surrounds the Druid and he’s a man once more, on his feet and stumbling back into the fray, tackling the third Abishai and casting Blight on it, the wretched thing screeching in pain and fury six inches from Halsin’s face as the Druid drains the life out of it.
Wyll’s trying to get within melee distance of Gale, trying to get close enough to land a blow and free their friend from the Dominate spell holding him captive. They’re evenly matched, at least, Wyll dodging more than half of Gale’s attacks. But the Wizard has landed enough Shocking Grasps to stop a lesser man’s heart, and their Ranger is looking ragged. Vampiric hearing means Astarion knows the exact moment an arrhythmia starts forming, and the way it makes Wyll gasp for breath that just won’t seem to catch.
Minthara, Lae’zel, and Karlach work together to take on the two Erinyes, but their strength is fading fast against the combined onslaught of the two brutal Furies. For every hit one of them lands, the Erinyes land three in vicious retort. Karlach, already blood-blind in one eye from a gash across her scalp, fails to dodge quickly enough, and one of the Erinyes lands a near-lethal stab through her abdomen, ripping the blade out through her side to free it with a spray of blood, revealing swathes of pulsing pink muscle and yellow fat as she readies another swing. The Erinyes’ next swing nearly decapitates Minthara, who only barely manages to duck under it as she hits her knees next to Karlach in order to cast Lay Hands and knit the hideous wound half-closed. Lae’zel takes a blow to the thigh as she tries to distract them long enough for Minthara and Karlach to get back on their feet. It’s not a killing blow, not yet anyway, but Astarion can see the minute tremble in her leg as the slice that splits the long muscle starts to take its toll, can smell the bright red arterial blood that leaks from underneath the hand she’s pressed to the wound.
They’ve fought too many battles together for him to be fooled by his Gith friend’s furious war cry as she goes in for another swing. Her rage does not cover the fear beginning to dawn in her yellow eyes as she realizes what he already knows – they’re losing.
He kills five more lesser Devils as he moves – Merregons maybe, he doesn’t care – before he lays eyes on Tav. And if his heart hadn’t stopped beating two centuries ago, it would do so right now.
Because Tav is in single combat with Mizora.
She’s beautiful. Fierce. Terrifying in her blood thirst. All the things he knows his love to be.
She’s also bleeding. Badly. He’s thirty feet away and he can smell her blood like he’s standing right next to her. A scent that would normally remind him of comfort, of safety, instead turning his stomach at the sheer volume of it spilling from her veins to wet the floor, forming slick puddles that trip up her usually pristine footwork.
She’s injured. And hopelessly outmatched.
He can’t run to her, can’t help her, not without giving away his position. And if he gives away his position, they’re all fucked. Period.
Which means he can only watch in horror as Mizora gets in a lucky swipe with those razor-sharp claws she was always filing away at when she haunted their camp. Can only bite his hand to muffle his scream of horror as she opens Tav’s belly like a fish at the market. Can only thank his lucky stars that the others’ screams cover his gagging as he retches in his little hidden shadow, hot blood and bile hitting the floor with the same wet smack as Tav’s intestines hitting the ground thirty feet in front of him.
Mizora screeches in fury as a massive, ball of sticky fire slams into her, knocking her away from his stunned love. Some part of his mind recognizes that as one of Gale’s spells – Wyll must’ve finally managed to free him.
Astarion is dead. He does not need to breathe. That does not stop his breath from lodging in his throat regardless as Tav hits her knees in a pool of her own blood and viscera, grasping confusedly at her own innards as if she can put them back. As if that will stop twenty feet of small intestine from spreading across the floor, stop them wiggling hideously like so many fat, pink worms as they pulse with her rapidly-dwindling life force.
He should keep working. He has to keep working, keep moving, keep his target. Three members of their party can cast Revivify. They have scrolls as a back up if they need it. But even the sound of Gale’s shouted spell, the smell of ozone as lightning blazes past within inches of Astarion’s hiding spot, the bubbling hiss of burning skin as the Chain Lightning spell connect with Mizora and both Erinyes, can’t move his eyes from Tav.
Shadowheart and Halsin – bruised, beaten, and barely mobile – slide into place next to Tav just as she fully collapses, Halsin’s massive hands catching her around the shoulders and just barely keeping her from face-planting in her own guts. Through what must be water in his ears for how muffled the world has become, he hears Shadowheart say something about “shock” as Halsin rolls Tav to her back and starts quickly casting Create Water over the spilled intestines to clean them. There’s a choking gasp from Tav, and Shadowheart sobbing for her to “keep breathing, Tav, please,” as Halsin just lifts Tav’s scattered intestines and slips them back into her body. Astarion hears the death-rattle of her last gasp and smells the corpse-scent that floods the air with her exhale, and has to fight to keep himself from screaming hysterically as the scene before him is overlayed with memories of Bhaal’s temple.
That’s twice now. Twice that she’s been killed right in front of him, and he couldn’t do anything to stop it, or even just hold her hand as she faded.
They’ll bring her back. He knows they will. They’re doing it right now, Halsin replacing the organs and Shadowheart closing the wound, quick and messy as all combat healing is. It’s for the best that she’s not alive for this part, really. A blessing to not be able to feel the searing pain of magical healing, the rushed, electrical burning as skin and muscle and ligament and nerve reconnect themselves and do the work of days, weeks, months, in mere seconds. He knows that it’s better this way. But for the moment… for the moment she’s gone. No breath to tickle his ear when they curl up to trance together. No heartbeat for him to feel under his palm when he holds her. No glint of amusement in her eye when she scolds him. Just gone. Left him behind. Alone. Again.
She’ll be back in less than a minute. But for that minute, curled up in his hidden shadow, he weeps.
He pulls himself together right around the time Shadowheart whispers “Vis Medicatrix” and Tav takes her first gasping breath back into life, coughing and swearing as she rolls over to her hands and knees and lets Halsin help her to her feet. Astarion takes just one more moment to make sure she’s truly back up – wobbly on her feet, but face determined and swords held high – before he lets his grief transition into rage, and shifts his focus back to Mizora.
Rage is a familiar emotion. Almost like an old friend. A shelter he’s crawled into countless times over the decades when his only other option was despair, and often it was the only emotion he could afford to allow himself to feel back then. He has a lot of practice feeling rage, putting it into action. And he’s not had reason to feel true, deep, hatred-laced rage in over a year now. But it settles over him easily, like a well-worn coat, when he lays eyes on that blue-skinned she-Devil. In another life, he thinks he might’ve made for a good Barbarian.
With three combatants temporarily sidelined, the stakes have only gotten higher, but with Gale back in action and Astarion having been picking off the fodder as he’s moved around the forge, the number of enemies has reduced significantly. The only real contenders left are one of the Abishai, the two Erinyes – one of which is limping badly and cradling her broken arm to her chest while the other swings her sword – and Mizora herself, who doesn’t seem to have a scratch on her, the bitch.
He'll be rectifying that. Immediately.
Quickly swallowing his last invisibility potion, he uses the sounds of Tav, Halsin, and Shadowheart rejoining the now more-focused fight to cover his whispered “Inveniam Viam” as he Misty Steps to the ceiling, using his Spiderclimb abilities to stick hands-and-feet and observe the battlefield upside down. Not needing to worry about stealth with the roar of combat beneath him echoing around the cavern, he quickly crawls across the ceiling until he’s right above Mizora, who’s too busy trading spells and blows with Wyll and Karlach to look up.
Now’s his chance.
He lifts his hands from the ceiling, palms his swords, and pushes off, allowing himself to freefall the fifty feet down toward his prey. He twists into the fall like a cat, feet down, swords raised and fangs bared, ready to plunge his blades into that Devil bitch and be done with all this.
Breathe in,
hold,
exhale in three,
two,
on-
The force of his body slamming to a full stop as a taloned hand seizes him by the throat and snatches him from the air breaks his Invisibility, sends his offhand sword flying from his grip, and nearly breaks his spine.
The anguish in Tav’s voice as she screams for Mizora to let him go fully breaks his heart.
She’s definitely damaged something, because lightning buzzes up his spinal cord and he can’t feel his toes. Okay. Time for Plan B. If he can flick the stiletto hidden up his left sleeve into his palm, he should have just enough reach to-
Searing burning ripping painpainpain lances through his left wrist and he screams.
“No no, naughty little bat. We won’t be having any of that, will we?” Mizora coos, tracing the tips of the claws on her other hand down his cheek, drawing lines of blood behind them, as she extracts the razor point of her tail from between the bones of his left wrist. He can’t see it, but the wound left behind by her stabbing through it burns, ripped tendons and frayed nerve endings sending panic signals of pain all along his nervous system. He can’t move his hand, the muscles refusing to obey his command as the digits twitch and tremor uselessly.
The room is silent, save for his own harsh breathing, wheezed out under the weight of her hand around his throat. All the combat has stopped. He flicks his eyes to the side for just a moment, just long enough to see the rest of his party standing frozen around them. For a given value of standing, in Lae’zel’s and Tav’s cases, the pair of them leaning heavily on Minthara and Halsin, respectively. The one remaining Erinyes and that last Abishai stand guard between their mistress and his friends, preventing them from making any move to help him. He’s on his own now.
Not that that will prevent the fools from trying.
“Mizora…” Wyll’s voice is still commanding, if audibly exhausted, and that arrhythmia is still fluttering menacingly, practically screaming in Astarion’s ears. He wonders if the Blade knows just how close he is to a cardiac event?
“Hush, pup!” She snaps at him, smile wide and tongue sweet, though the ice in her tone is near-visible. “You threw away your chance to bargain with me, remember? We had something special, you and I, and you tossed it away like yesterday’s bread. So I’m no longer obligated to pretend I’m entertaining your whimpering.” Her fingers tighten around Astarion’s neck, something creaking in his spine, and that numbness in his toes grows bolder, his entire right foot as unfeeling now as if it weren’t there at all.
“But you,” she sneers, hot breath rolling across his face as she pulls his nose to hers, “you weren’t the source of Wyll’s little fits of rebellion, no. Wyll’s always had trouble with authority, just ask his dear, disinterested daddy.” Her fingers tighten further with each word, cutting off an air supply that he thankfully doesn’t need, though that hardly makes it less unpleasant. “But what you did was significantly more infuriating. Taking advantage when I was trapped in that Mindflayer cesspit? That I could almost forgive, that’s just your nature, isn’t it? Taking from anyone and everyone around you. No, when you really became more than just one of the annoying little flies buzzing around my pet was when I brought him a perfectly fair deal to save his father from certain death, and instead, there you went creeping where you didn’t belong, silver tongue whispering in his ear, as if you had any right to interfere!”
He feels more than hears the first soft crunch of his trachea collapsing under her grip, tastes blood in his mouth and on his lips as, good hand grasping at her wrist he wheezes out between small gasps that crackle and burn like their old campfire, “You seem… to have forgotten… that I don’t breathe… bitch…” and readies himself to take a hail-Sehanine swing at her face with his good hand.
“I know you don’t,” she coos, and the cruel delight in her smile sends ice through his veins. “That’s what makes what comes next so much fun. You’re going to be awake for all of it,” she purrs, and tightens her grip until the claws of her fingers meet her thumb on the other side of his neck.
There’s a crack so audible that it echoes off the forge’s stone walls as she crushes one of his cervical vertebrae to dust. At the same time, Tav’s answering sob nearly covers the crunchy, wet pop of his trachea fully collapsing in on itself, and lightning burns down his spinal column, receding just as fast as it came and leaving… nothing in its wake.
He can’t feel anything below his chin. Not even the hand that’s still holding him off the ground by his neck.
He’d be rather more terrified if he wasn’t completely certain that not being able to feel his body was about to be a mercy.
He only regrets that his crushed trachea and unresponsive lungs leave him unable to draw enough breath to make sure his last words are calling Mizora a raging cunt to her face. The blood misting on his breath as he pulls his lips back in a snarl and uses his remaining air to hiss at her will have to be enough.
“There, isn’t that better?” she coos, turning him so that his back is pressed to her chest as they face his friends, one hand still dangling his limp body by his throat, the other petting his hair mockingly, claws cutting blazing lines across his scalp with each stroke. “He’s so much prettier when he’s quiet, wouldn’t you agree?”
He knows he must look a fright, because the rest of the party – even the normally unshakeable Minthara and Lae’zel – look horrified as he faces them. But he’s not worried about that right now. Right now, he only has eyes for Tav. His eyes are one of the few things he can still move, and deep ruby seeks out bright cerulean as he tries his best to communicate with just a look. Don’t cry, he tries to tell her, don’t cry. I’ll be okay. This is fixable. You’ll bring me home, darling. Please don’t cry, my love, not over me.
And either she can’t hear his thoughts, or her tears are too deep for her to see him through, because Halsin’s practically holding her up, her body shaking through near-silent sobs as she takes in the mess that’s been made of him.
But Mizora hasn’t decapitated him, and she hasn’t damaged his heart beyond repair. So this is fixable. It’ll just take time, and a lot of blood, and hurt an ungodly amount the whole time. But he’ll be okay. He promised he would be. And he’s not one to keep promises, normally, but he does for her.
“I had thought about offering you all a deal,” Mizora sneers haughtily, “but frankly, I just don’t like any of you enough to bother.” Her voice drops into a dangerous purr, then. “And you, little spawn,” she continues, and he can tell by the way her free hand is moving that it must be petting his back, a mockery of comfort, “frankly I just don’t think you have the guts for it.”
There’s a wet crack, several of them in rapid succession, and an even wetter, meaty, godsawful sucking sound, and then there’s- there’s an arm. Sticking out of his chest. Blue, underneath the dark blood coating it. Clawed. Mizora’s, presumably. And clutched in that clawed hand, so deep red it’s nearly black, is a chunk of smooth organ meat that looks to be roughly half of his long-stilled heart.
His focus begins to narrow as he stares at it, inky blackness creeping in rapidly from the edges of his vision. His world reduces to flashes of sensory information.
Screams (not his)
Wet gurgling (probably his)
A deafening roar (definitely not his)
The sound of steel-on-steel clashing around him again.
Another hideous, wet, sucking sound that he thanks whatever gods might be listening that he cannot feel the cause of as Mizora retracts her arm from his body and turns him around, his chest pressed to hers.
Disgust and horror flooding his mind as he watches her toss that torn away half of his heart into her mouth and swallow it whole, licking her lips once she finishes.
Pain lancing through his scalp as the hand that’s not clutching him to her grabs his hair and wrenches his head back until he’s looking up at her, her teeth bared in a smug grin.
“A final parting gift for you, spawn,” she whispers conspiratorially. “That silver tongue of yours has gotten you and so many that you care for into a lot of trouble over the long years of your pathetic, worthless life, hasn’t it? Let’s take care of that, and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
His nose wrinkles in disgust at the barely-there pressure of her dry lips as her mouth presses to his.
His eyes flash wide in true, genuine fear as she breathes hellfire into his throat.
And he finds he has just enough air left in his ruined lungs for one last scream to be wrenched from his body as he burns.
── ･✩*₊˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖₊*✩･ ──
Fire
Everything is fire
Around him
On him
In him?
Someone is crying, hands are touching him
And there is fire
── ･✩*₊˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖₊*✩･ ──
Voices
All around him
Crying, arguing, pleading
More hands
He’s had enough hands to last a lifetime
── ･✩*₊˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖₊*✩･ ──
Fire again
Obscuring his vision
The fire moves, brushes his face
soft
smells like… summer and home and… blood?
…hair?
Tav
He tries to call for her, but someone rudely makes a wheezing gurgle that drowns him out instead
── ･✩*₊˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖₊*✩･ ──
More voices
Stressed. Raised. Grieving.
Is someone dying?
He tries to ask, but someone’s stolen his tongue
── ･✩*₊˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖₊*✩･ ──
He dreams of a woman, setting bread dough into proofing bowls on the kitchen counter – not his Amya, though he spends nearly as much time with this woman as he does Amya, because she cares for him most days while Amya and Vava do their very big important grown-up stuff. She’s very tall and he always has to tilt his head waaay back to see her when he tugs on the hem of her skirts, but that’s just because he’s so small. He hopes he’ll be as big as she is someday, and know as much as she does, because she knows everything. Vava says it’s because she has so many books and she reads all the time and because she eats all of the fiddlehead and ramp salad on her plate every suppertime even though it tastes like grass, but Astarion doesn’t think eating the salad makes you know anything except for how much grass tastes yucky.
She smiles at him as she dusts the flour from her hands and sweeps a pile of long, dark auburn ringlets up into a loose bun, silver-grey eyes sparkling as she says something to him. No sound comes from her lips, but he knows she’s asking if they want a story, him and the boy standing next to him tugging at the other side of her skirts. They’re the same age, almost, except Urseus is a little older, but that’s okay because it’s only by a few months and they’re still best friends and Astarion is just as tall as him. They even look alike! Except for how Urseus’ hair is dark and his skin is copper while Astarion looks like Vava, anyway. But otherwise they look just the same. All the grown-ups say so. Which is a good thing to have when you’re best friends!
She takes them both by the hand and leads them to the library, the one with the pile of big comfy cushions under the wide window where they can lay down and see the storm outside while she reads. It’s scary because there’s a lot of loud thunder, but he only gets scared a little because Amya always tells him he’s very brave whenever the little green snakes in the garden frighten her and he picks them up real gentle like I’osu taught him. I’osu told him the little snakes are frightened too, because they’re only babies and they can’t find their way home. So whenever one gets lost in Amya’s roseapples he carries them back to the forest by the house, and he tells them not to wander so far that they get in Amya’s roseapples again because babies aren’t supposed to stray until they’re big and very grown up like Astarion is, and he sets them down in his special secret spot by the stream so they can go find their own Amyas and not be so scared anymore.
The woman asks what story they want, and Astarion asks for the one about the dragons who make the weather – the gold one who makes sunshine and the silver one who makes snow and the bronze one who makes storms. Urseus says he wants that one too, that he likes it because they’re best friends and best friends like the same stuff, and because if she reads about the dragons maybe the bronze one who makes storms will get sleepy and go take a nap and then they can go play outside.
Astarion tries to keep his eyes open to see if the story makes the bronze dragon go take his nap, but he’s very warm and cozy snuggled in the cushions with Urseus under the big patch-blanket that I’osu sewed with all the animals stitched on it in all the thread colors, and his eyes keep closing even when he tries to hold them open with his fingers. He tries really hard to stay awake, his very best, but he falls asleep well before they even get to the end.
── ･✩*₊˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖₊*✩･ ──
“…do you mean……out……ells?......need……go home!”
“I know, but……vrything we had t……finish it!”
“…to focus o…… heart isn’t stabl……ot out of danger ye…”
“…arion? Are you awa…… think he’s……nto shock…”
“Star? Love?......tay with m……leas…”
── ･✩*₊˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖₊*✩･ ──
Searing pain, lightning, every nerve lit up like fireworks
Try to scream, but only rasped whispers escape
“Star? Astarion? Are you with us?”
There’s a Siren calling from somewhere above him. She sounds sad. He doesn’t know why.
“I need you to be still, love, please. I know it hurts, I know. Shadow- Shadow’s trying to get you safe to move. Then we’ll go home.”
A hand on his cheek, another in his hair.
“Just be still, it’s okay, you’re-”
a broken sob interrupts the Siren.
“you’re going to be okay.”
Need to find that voice, it’s like music, calling him home. His Amya used to sing hymns to Sehanine, he thinks
Blazing light burns his brain as he puts his everything into cracking one swollen eye open, but the harsh light is quickly drowned out by a shadow. Not a Siren. An Angel, appearing above him in metallic gold and green, fiery halo circling her head as she weeps
Something small and wet hits his cheek
Since when can Angels see him?
── ･✩*₊˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖₊*✩･ ──
He comes to, just about, with his eyes barely squinted open and a pair of heavy hands holding him in place, gentle pressure pressing his back to the ground.
“Try not to move, my friend,” a warm baritone murmurs from somewhere above and behind his head where he can’t see. Large, warm hands switch from pressing his shoulders to the earth to cradling his neck and jaw, holding it in place. “I know it’s hard, your instinct is to assess and flee, but your spine is broken in four places, and we need to keep it aligned to prevent further damage. Your natural healing factor needs to focus on your heart, and it can’t do that if you keep reinjuring your spine. Just be still, all will be well.”
His body is no longer missing. Which is… good? Maybe? It’s still mostly numb, pins and needles, but he can feel the heat of forge-warmed rock soaking through the material underneath him – a blanket? – and into his back. His armor is gone, as is his shirt, and his body is wracked with tremors, jolts of electricity sparking his nerves with each involuntary twitch as he lays prone, helpless.
A glint of white in the corner of his eye, a familiar braid swinging just past his vision. A voice usually dipped in wry humor, now shaded in fear and dismay. “I- I don’t know how… His heart doesn’t beat, Halsin, I don’t know how to tell if it’s healing or not! What am I supposed to do if we can’t use magic, cut him open and watch it grow back?!”
“If it comes to that, and we have no other option, yes,” that baritone – Halsin, that’s who the voice is – replies, and Astarion thinks he sounded a lot friendlier before he was suggesting vivisection as a viable healing method. His eyes slip closed again as the warmth from the Druid’s hands sinks into his skin. “But for now, rest your hand over his heart. Your spells can’t heal him, but you can feel the hollow space from the missing piece with your magic. It will read as deceased, that’s normal for Undead. Just keep checking it, note how the space changes with time.” Halsin’s voice drops lower, like he doesn’t want someone to hear what he says next, “And note if it doesn’t change at all. We are lucky that she damaged his heart with her hand, not wood, so there’s a chance his body’s natural healing ability can regrow the lost pieces. But it’s not a guarantee, especially with so much other damage and how much blood he’s lost. Even if we could replace the blood at a high enough volume, we need to be prepared for both outcomes.”
Another presence settles at his side, another familiar heartbeat to drum in his head. “Can I…” her voice is soft, hesitant, shaking, “Can I help? With anything?”
“He was awake just a moment ago,” Halsin rumbles, “I suspect he still is, but even if he isn’t he can still hear you. Talk to him, Tav, let him know you’re here. It will help.” Halsin’s voice gains distance, like he’s turned his head away, as he calls out, “Wyll, come hold his head stable for me, please. While Shadowheart’s monitoring his heart’s regrowth, I need to work on assessing and stabilizing what I can of his other injuries. The sooner we have him stable enough to move, the sooner we can leave this place.”
Things just seem to be happening around him today. That’s fine. He’s too tired to care or complain much.
The Druid’s strong, warm hands are replaced by smaller, warmer hands, fingers more lithe but just as strong. Carefully guided into position, Wyll’s palms rest on either side of his jaw, just under his ears, fingers covering the sides of his neck, the tips just brushing his shoulders. Holding firm, but not tight. That’s nice, actually. His neck is sore, and his throat feels like someone’s lodged a stone in it. Holding his own head still would take too much energy.
“Hello, Astarion,” Wyll says in that calm, steady voice he uses for soothing crying orphans and coaxing lost cats out of trees, though notably lacking his usual cheer. “We’ve had quite the dramatic end to the day, but a successful one, thanks to you. Just how you like it, though I sincerely hope this wasn’t your intended outcome, otherwise Tav might put you right back in your sickbed the moment you escape it.”
Ugh. Obviously this wasn’t his plan. He doesn’t actually remember what his plan was, but he knows it wasn’t this. He tries to summon a scoff for that, to let Wyll know how stupid what he just said was, but that stone in his throat stays lodged, letting out only whispered, crackled whines. His attempts to swallow around it is what finally makes him realize it’s not a stone at all, it’s not anything, because his tongue is missing and he should be drooling but there’s nowhere for the drool to come from or go to because his throat is fucking fused closed. The mounting horror of having his best weapon taken from him, of not being able to say no to anything if he needs to, sends his twitching body into a momentary instinctive panic.
Different hands, ones that he knows instantly by the little callouses left on their fingertips by her instruments and how the fingers always fit perfectly between his, press his shoulders back to the ground, stilling his weak flailing. “Shh, shh, it’s okay, love, you’re alright.” One hand moves to his hair, pushing limp, sweat-dampened curls off his forehead. “I know you’re scared, but it’s just us here, no one else. Just us, Wyll, Shadowheart, and Halsin. And you know they’d never hurt you, or let anything happen to you, don’t you?”
It's almost embarrassing how quickly the tension melts from his body at the sound of her voice, at the soft touch of her fingers carding through his hair. He feels like he should be panting, screaming, crying, something, but with his ruined throat and swollen face he can do none of it. He tries – and fails – to open his eyes again, and a soft, hissing gurgle, barely audible, leaks out of what little of his trachea has started to reform, replacing the words he wants to babble at her about how hollow he feels, how his chest aches.
“I know, Star, I know. I’m sure it hurts, and I hope to the gods you don’t remember any of this, but we’ve got you, my love. Just keep being still, keep being strong for me.” And, oh, things must be bad if she’s calling him ‘Star.’ She never calls him that. Not unless she’s scared shitless.
With how close she is – leaning over him, her knees pressed into the hard stone floor just to his side – his slowly-reforming sense of smell can just pick up the stale smell of her dried blood, and the memory of her lying dead, viscera spilled across the floor like rope on the docks, slams back into the forefront of his mind.
His eyes shoot open, vision blurry and tear-filled from both his panic and the blinding light blazing into his retinas, and he feels the burn of new nerves forming as another worried gurgle hisses out of him. Wyll increases his grip with a “Hey, no, you’ve got to stay still, mate,” when Astarion tries to turn his head to look at Tav, to check that she’s really alright.
He just needs to see. Needs to check. Needs to confirm for himself that everything is back where it should be and that she’s okay, that the hand in his hair isn’t a hallucination. Unable to move his head, his eyes frantically cast around, finally landing on a blurry silhouette that he knows is hers by the cloud of ginger around her head. She’s shushing him again, whispering something comforting, no doubt, as she pets his hair, but he can’t focus on that right now. Some effort was clearly made to wash the blood from her hands at some point, though not enough to be called clean, but his eyes are pulled to the tacky, still-drying blood that coats her entire torso and down to her thighs, concentrated most heavily around her middle.
He still can’t really feel his body, moreso he can feel where his body is, that pins-and-needles feeling of a limb fallen asleep, except it’s everything from his shoulders down. He puts every scrap, every drop, of his will into moving his hand from where it lay beside him. It takes forever, the limb slow and clumsy, and he doesn’t so much lift it as he does drag it inch by agonizing inch across the ground toward Tav, hand spasming all the while. But eventually, he manages to just barely brush his twitching fingertips across the front of her shirt where there’s still a massive split in the material. His exhausted, tear-blurred eyes sweep up to connect with Tav’s as a hideous, painful whine whispers out from him, the sound rising at the end in a worried question.
Tell me you’re okay, he wants to scream. Tell me that we’re going home together.
Tav instantly recognizes what he’s asking and carefully lifts his trembling hand, pressing a kiss to his torn knuckles before gently pressing his spasming fingers to her stomach, letting him feel for himself the smooth skin underneath her shirt, whole and healthy. “I’m okay,” she whispers, “Shadowheart and Halsin fixed me up as well as they could while we were in the thick of things, and they gave me another check-up while you were taking your nap. Won’t even have a scar.”
He sags in relief, hearing that. Stops straining against Wyll’s hold and relaxes back against the ground. She’s okay. Alive. Whole. He didn’t lose her. His sigh of relief as he lets his eyes drift closed again is more of a crackling groan than anything, but it’s the thought that counts.
His relief is interrupted by a buzzing in the back of his head, not a sound, but a feeling, slowly creeping its way from the base of his skull down his vertebrae. Each inch gained sets his teeth on edge, his ears twitching in distress as the buzzing becomes more pronounced, more like the zaps he’d gotten from those turrets at that abandoned tower in the Underdark, little arcs of electricity flashing over his skin and leaving raised, stinging blisters wherever they’d landed as he’d stuck his hands inside the turrets and started pulling out pieces to disable them as quickly as possible.
“What is it, Astarion? What’s wrong?” Shadowheart asks him, her hand on his chest in perfect placement to feel how his diaphragm instinctively rises and falls as if he were gasping, as if he were capable of it. There’s lightning under his skin, he wants to yell, that’s what’s fucking wrong. He tries to tell her, but he still can’t speak, or even scream properly. He can feel how his eyes have dilated, doesn’t need a reflection to know his pupils have near-eclipsed his irises, and despite having no tongue or sinuses to speak of, there’s an overwhelming smell of metal in his nose, almost more texture than scent, and he can taste ozone on the ghost of his tongue.
Then, all at once, there’s a loud crack, and a soft, wet pop, and lightning races down his spine and back up into his core, arcing through his solar plexus and feeding back out into every miserable, ruined nerve ending that he has, lighting up his body like a star-map of pain.
He can feel every inch of his body now, and gods does he want the numbness back.
His newly-reconnected spine arches beyond his control, useless fingers and feet scrabbling in the dirt as he writhes, wrenching his head from Wyll’s hold. The pain has him blind, deaf, unable to comprehend the shouting around him, the hands trying to pull him back to the ground.
He feels everything.
And even Cazador’s most vicious flayings couldn’t dream of touching this.
He feels it all, in full effect. Every bruise. Every broken bone. The melted remains of his slowly-reforming esophagus and trachea, solidified together like a lump of magma. The cracks lacing through his skull, the slices winding over his scalp. Every shattered, shifting little bone fragment of what used to be his sternum, each razor-sharp, burrowing their way further, deeper with his every movement, through the flesh surrounding the hole in his chest. The fucking hole in his chest. The wet, sucking mess cutting straight through him, center-mass, like a Bulette had dug its way through his body. His lungs that can’t inflate, even if he could inhale, thanks to the shredded mess Mizora’s claws left. His heart, unbeating as always, barely beginning to rebuild itself past the measly half Mizora had left him with.
He can feel all of it. Keenly aware of every bump, scrape, and bruise, every major, minor, mortal, and catastrophic injury. And by the gods, if those don’t kill him first, the screaming, blazing agony just might.
There’s a strangled, high-pitched keening that he thinks might be coming from him, but as the overwhelming pain causes his eyes to roll back and his teeth to clench so tight they might shatter, as his every muscle tenses and his body surrenders to convulsions, as darkness closes over him and panicked screams rise around him anew, he can only thank whatever god might be listening for finally granting him the mercy of, just this once, not making him be awake for whatever’s happening to him this time.
── ･✩*₊˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖₊*✩･ ──
Somewhere across the void, a single sentence, choked out between shattered sobs by a voice too lovely to cry like that, reaches him, circling his mind briefly before drifting away like silk on the wind.
“Jaheira? Open the– open th-the portal, pl-please… it’s Ast– it’s Astarion… we don’t– don’t th-think he’s gonna m-make it... You have to– have to hurry, please.”
── ･✩*₊˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖₊*✩･ ──
He dreams of sunlight.
Of his first day in the sun in two hundred years, of warmth on his death-cold skin.
Of that first night in the woods, of gorging himself on what felt like endless prey.
Of his first taste of a thinking creature’s blood, of finally feeling satiation for the first time in memory.
Of Tav, laughing by the campfire at his terrible jokes and even worse pickup lines, her eyes sparkling with mirth, neither of them knowing what the future will hold for them.
Of watching the Netherbrain fall in the Chionthar, and realizing that he’d somehow gone from cannon fodder to hero without his notice, that he had actually helped save the world.
Of feeling Astraea kick for the first time, when he first truly understood that there was actually an entire little person in Tav’s belly.
Of holding his daughter for the first time, just minutes old, and weeping over how beautiful she was, unable to name or contain the emotions bubbling out of him.
Of each of her firsts – first smile, first time rolling over, first tooth, crawling, Spiderclimb, first hunt – and how proud he’d felt knowing he’d helped teach her that, had helped make her, that something so unquestionably good could rise from his wretched ashes.
Of Tav, in countless memories, countless days and nights and fierce battles and soft mornings. Of slow-dancing under the stars with her in his arms, the moon watching over them as he held everything that ever mattered.
── ･✩*₊˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖₊*✩･ ──
He dreams he is in a meadow, soft grass and little flowers spilling out around him as he lays in the sun, its gentle rays breathing warmth into his body once more. Little balls of light dance in the air above him, each just small enough to fit in his palm.
There are seven of them, he thinks, buzzing around happily like little bees. They’re playing, brushing against him and flitting away, chasing each other, glowing with the joy of whatever little games it is that little lights create for themselves. He can almost imagine a soft giggle whenever one gives a little flutter as it flits across his outstretched fingers. They scatter and gather and play above him, each a different hue. The dark sapphire one boldly explores on its own, only to circle back and rejoin the chaos again and again. A pair – one bright amethyst, the other deep emerald – orbit each other through every action, as if they can’t bear to be parted. The pink tourmaline dances in little spirals whenever the breeze catches it, pulsing joyfully as if it were humming, even when the wind sends it tumbling off course. The peridot streaks here and there with boundless energy, never still even for a moment, too much to see and do for it to slow down. The deep ruby one is quieter, calmer, more thoughtful of its actions than the others, but no less joyous as it plays. And one little silver moonstone, smaller than the rest, lags behind its cohorts despite its eagerness to follow. But every time it falls behind, one of the other little lights swoops in to help, swirling around it encouragingly until it’s back in the fray with the others.
He knows this spell. Dancing Lights. But who cast it? Certainly not him, and he’s the only one here. He laughs at the ticklish feeling of the pink light bumping into his chin and skittering off, floating just a few feet away, swaying back and forth as if begging him to chase it. One by one, the other lights gather with it, swirling around each other in a riotous little rainbow, beckoning him to come play.
And why shouldn’t he?
He rolls to his feet and gives chase, the lights scattering before him, zipping around him, left and right, circling high and low, staying always just out of reach as he swipes playfully at them. He can feel their joy in each pulse of light, hear their soundless laughs with each flicker, and soon he’s laughing along with them as they play chase among the flowers while the sun watches on.
Far too soon for his liking, he finds himself having grown weary, and he flops down into the grass, rolling to his back with his arms thrown wide and panting between laughs as his breathing slowly calms. He’ll rest here, for now, he thinks. And when that’s through, he and the lights will play chase some more.
The little lights float over to him, swirling up little zephyrs to ruffle his hair, bumping his nose, tickling at his ears and neck. But as his breaths slow, they too must find themselves ready for rest. One by one, the little lights come to settle on his chest, piling together, squirming and switching spots like kittens, until they finally settle and he has a kaleidoscopic pile of the little things resting over his heart, flickering softly as if they were snoring. He lays his hand atop the pile, keeping them settled and safe as they drift off together into sleep.
── ･✩*₊˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖₊*✩･ ──
Uktar ???
When he opens his eyes, it’s dark. For a moment, seeing the two little yellow lights shining before him, he thinks he’s still in the meadow, and wonders why the moon has hidden itself. But as he slowly surfaces from the fog of his mind, his darkvision orients him, and he can see that it’s not two little yellow lights, but instead two big blue eyes blinking curiously up at him from a small, chubby face, the pupils flickering yellow with a predator’s eyeshine every time the light from the candle on the nightstand catches them just right.
“Bah?” whispers the little beast, one tiny hand clutching the blanket where it hangs over the edge of the mattress, the other holding the ear of a stuffed animal in the form of a white bat half as big as she is, her eyes peering up at him hopefully from underneath a wild and untamed mop of white curls, long pointed ears flicking in excitement. She’s too short for him to see anything else of her, but by the way she wobbles, he’d bet her chubby little baby feet are probably on tiptoe just to reach this high.
“Hello, little dove,” he breathes, voice rough, a slow smile curling his lips even as his exhalation draws a small, painful coughing fit from him. “Have you escaped captivity just to come see Ada?”
“Ahh ba-dah,” she replies, in that self-assured, decisive way only babies can manage. Her little hand reaches as far as it can, just past the mattress’s edge, making grabby fingers at him. “Ba-baah nuh?”
He rolls, slowly, carefully, to his side to face her, already feeling the ache in his body and unable to stop himself from releasing a quiet groan. “Do you want to come up here with Ada, darling?” he whispers, wincing at the way his voice rasps harshly from his throat, “I think I’d quite like you to, if you’re amenable.”
Astraea lets out a half-pleading-half-whining little “eeehh!” and pulls at the blanket covering him, waiting for him to pick her up and lay her next to him to cuddle, like he always does when she asks, because he’s a weak, weak man in the face of those big blue eyes and can deny her nothing, not even sleeping in between him and Tav at night when she has her own perfectly nice bed with lovely hand-sewn bedding.
He peels the blanket back and rolls forward without thinking, reaching his arm behind her back to scoop her up out of habit, only for lightning to immediately burn through his chest and leave him whimpering, teary-eyed, for a minute or so before he recovers.
“Oh,” he croaks out, “I think you’ll have to do the heavy lifting and climb up on your own this time, darling. But don’t worry, Ada will keep his hand right here for you to grab.” When she hesitates, he pats the mattress gently, “Come on up, little dove. I know you can. Come cuddle with Ada. He could-” his raspy voice catches, and he swallows renewed tears, happy and relieved ones this time, as his hand quickly brushes them from his eyes. “He could really use it. It’s been far too long, hasn’t it?”
Astraea lifts her bat up, grunting with effort as she pushes it up onto the bed, and he grabs it and sets it nearby to make room for her. After a second more’s hesitation, Astraea’s chubby little face turns determined, and she grabs onto the sheet with both hands, growling in frustration as she tries to scramble up the side of the bed. After a few seconds of struggling, she must remember she can Spiderclimb, because the process suddenly becomes much smoother, and barely a moment later she’s hauling herself up and over onto the mattress, her little body tumbling forward to land right in the dead center of his chest.
He manages not to yelp too loudly as pain sears through his aching sternum, squeezing his eyes shut and breathing through the hurt with pathetic, whining whimpers as she wiggles into place, finally settling curled up in the shelter of his right arm, tucked along his chest with her little ear resting just to the side of his heart. It’s her favorite spot. He knows babies find listening to their parents’ heartbeats soothing, but seeing as he doesn’t have one, he concluded months ago that she’s likely listening to him breathe instead, and that she must have decided she liked that just as well.
“Careful,” he whispers, still wheezing in pain a bit as he tucks her bat beside her, “Ada had an accident, so we must be very gentle with him.”
She blinks those big blue eyes up at him, expression so much like her mother, as the thumb of one hand makes its way into her mouth, and she coos plaintively as her other hand slowly reaches up and pats clumsily, but softly, at his cheek, before resting back atop his chest so her curious fingers can poke at the bandages sticking out of the neck of his nightshirt.
“Thank you, little dove,” he rasps, pressing a kiss to her head and nuzzling into her downy curls, breathing in the sweet scent of her little baby scalp for the first time in far, far too long. “I feel better already. You’re practically a little Healer prodigy. Have you been taking lessons from I’osu while I was away, hm?” He pulls her closer to him, reveling in the warmth of his little star who runs so hot, his own tiny personal sun in her little blue nightgown with the lace trim and the silver stars he’d embroidered around the hem and cuffs. “Tell Ada what you got up to while he and Amme were gone, darling.” He makes sure to keep his voice pitched low as he speaks so only she can hear him, since, from his brief glance around, he’s managed to ascertain that they are definitely in Jaheira’s guest bedroom, and it’s definitely the middle of the night. “Were you good for I’osu? Did you go on any grand adventures? I want to hear all about it.”
She burbles happily around the thumb in her mouth, babbling away in her baby language as he carefully tucks her head up under his chin, making sure to “ooh!” and “aah!” in all the right places even though he can’t understand a damned thing she’s saying. “Oh my, you took over the entire city and installed yourself as Grand Empress, forcing the citizenry to bend the knee and serve your will, lest they fall afoul of your cruel and merciless hand? All by yourself?”
“Gah.”
“Well, my darling, I expected nothing less. I do hope you remembered to set aside a pile of gold and jewels for you adoring Ada whilst you were making your bid for power.”
He doesn’t know how long they stay like that, snuggled together and whispering back and forth in the dark. He doesn’t care to calculate the time, simply reveling in the feeling of finally having his baby back in his arms, while she chatters away as if this night was no different than any of the other nights she’d crawled into his bed to tell him her baby stories.
His ear flicks once, alerting him to movement on the stairs outside the bedroom before he’s even aware of it. He recognizes those steps as they travel carefully through the hall, pausing outside his door, though he can’t say they’re the ones he expected.
“Ah, that’s where she’s gone off to,” Halsin whispers, quietly cracking the door enough to pop his head through and take in the room’s occupants. “I thought she might’ve made her way up here. She’s been trying to get into this room for days. Though I’m more surprised – and pleased, of course – to see you finally awake. And in fine enough spirits to plan city-wide domination with your infant child, at that.” A soft smile spreads across his face as he enters the room fully, shutting the door behind him, and murmurs kindly, “She’s a rather sneaky little thing when she wants to be, though I suppose she comes by it honestly.”
Astarion smiles in return, feeling light for the first time in weeks, “Yes, she very much does,” he whispers, voice still cracked and raspy. “Remind me to tell you about the mouse she caught, when there’s time later.”
“I look forward to it, though I imagine the mouse would tell a very different tale than you will,” Halsin says, some genuine cheer entering his tone as he takes in Astraea, curled up into her Ada’s side and clutching her little bat by the ear, eyeing the Druid suspiciously as he approaches. “I’ll need to check your wounds, if that’s alright. We can do it without dislodging her, if you’d prefer.”
“Fine, yes, go ahead,” Astarion sighs theatrically, which irritates his throat and induces another small coughing fit that jostles his ribs painfully. He doesn’t bother to try and talk his way out of it, too weary and in too much pain to care about putting up any show of resistance. “Fuss over me and manhandle me as you wish, you big bear, I know how much you like doing that.”
“I’ll endeavor to keep the manhandling to a minimum, though I can’t make the same promise regarding the fussing.” Halsin says with a smile, sitting down on the other side of the bed. “To start, tell me how you’re feeling. Does anything hurt?”
“Is ‘everything’ a sufficient answer?”
“As a baseline,” Halsin replies, “but more specifically I’m asking if anything hurts significantly more than the rest of you? Does anything stand out?”
Astarion takes a moment to truly take stock of his body, sighing and letting his weight fully sink back into the pillows that surround him. “My chest, though I imagine that one’s self-explanatory, considering a Devil punched her hand through it and swirled my insides around.”
“An interesting way to phrase that, though not inaccurate, I suppose. What else?”
Astarion just shrugs in response, wincing a bit as the action pulls on sore muscles. “My throat. Neck. Both? I sound like I’ve spent the last two centuries inhaling ten cigars a day, and talking feels like I’m gargling glass. And the back of my neck feels like I’ve been stabbed. Though, once again, self-explanatory thanks to Mizora pulverizing my vertebrae. And my fingers and toes feel… weird. Tingly.”
“That’s to be expected, unfortunately. She did… significant damage to your neck and spine.”
“And what exactly does ‘significant’ mean in the context of someone who can’t be killed in the myriad ways a mortal can?”
Halsin exhales a deep sigh through his nose, eyes closing for a moment to compose himself, and when they reopen, Astarion sees that flicker of gold in his pupils that tells him the Druid is trying very hard to remain person-shaped right now.
“She crushed your trachea when she broke your neck, although ‘shattered’ might be a better word, along with two of your cervical vertebrae. The hellfire…” and there’s that flash of gold in his eyes again, flickering just a bit longer this time, “I don’t know how to describe the damage other than to say that it melted and fused everything from your tongue to your stomach, to such a degree that, were you mortal, I don’t think Shadowheart and I would’ve been able to fix it in time to Revivify you, even with the aid of magic.”
He reaches a gentle hand under Astarion’s neck, fingers feeling carefully at the bones underneath his skin. “The vertebrae are rebuilding themselves nicely, though you’ll likely still experience some stiffness and pain until it’s complete. The tingling feeling should go away soon, it’s just your nerves trying to learn how to communicate with the rest of your body again now that your spinal cord has fully reconnected. There’ll be a small loss from your usual levels of fine motor coordination for a few days, but that should clear on its own as well. Anything else?”
“My left hip feels like it’s… I don’t know how to describe it. Stiff, but wobbly? I can move it, but the bones feel like sandpaper when I do. And my head, same side, just behind my ear. It’s like someone’s lodged an icepick in there, and the headache it’s giving me is less than pleasant. The hearing in that ear is also a bit muffled.”
“Ah, that would be from when Mizora threw you against the wall after the hellfire.” Halsin’s eyes flash gold again, and his gentle, caring smile turns vicious for just a moment. “She needed both hands to defend herself. She was unsuccessful.”
Astarion’s eyebrows nearly hit his hairline. “Oh really? Do tell. Unfortunately, I was otherwise engaged at the time, so I missed the show.”
A low laugh rumbles out of his friend at Astarion’s enthusiasm. “I’ll let Karlach tell you the details tomorrow, but for my part…” the corner of his mouth quirks up just a bit, “I will simply say that the bear ate well, and leave it at that.”
He can’t stop the tired giggle that escapes him at the thought of Halsin eating Mizora in revenge for all her various evils. “Oh, that’s rich. I wish I could’ve seen it.”
Halsin lifts the blankets back and prods carefully at Astarion’s hip, feeling around the socket. The warmth from his hands seeps into Astarion’s perpetually-chilled skin, allowing him to relax the stiff joint just a little more. “’Rich’ is not the word I would use. ‘Excessively spicy,’ maybe. But the indigestion was worth it.” Astarion’s answering laugh turns into a hissed breath through his teeth as the Druid gently takes his leg and bends it at the knee, moving the leg in slow circles to rotate his hip out and back in. “I know it hurts, breathe through it for me, it should feel better when I’m done” he murmurs, eyes watching how Astarion’s hip flexors move, gauging the joint’s stability as Astarion takes measured breaths, his eyes squeezed closed.
Astraea’s thumb leaves her mouth as she makes a questioning noise and looks up at him, her little hand patting at his face. “I’m alright, little dove. Ada’s okay,” Astarion whispers between hissed breaths, capturing her hand and placing a kiss on her fingers, “but thank you for checking, darling.”
Halsin finally quits moving his leg around and tucks it back under the blanket, moving up to feel around the spot on his head instead. “The impact against the wall broke off your femoral head – that’s the ball portion at the top of your leg bone that fits into your hip socket – and damaged the cartilage around it. It’s healing rather nicely though, so I expect you won’t even have a limp once you’re able to get up again.”
“Once I’m able to get up?” Astarion says, wincing as Halsin’s fingers press on a particularly sore spot, “How long exactly am I expected to lie here and suffer through you all coddling me?”
Halsin’s hands freeze in their movements, his face growing uncharacteristically serious as he stares Astarion down. “As long as it takes for you to recover, Astarion. And I do mean as long as it takes. I am well aware that you are of a stubborn and contrary disposition, and that the unfortunate nature of your past means your tolerance threshold for pain is well above anything approaching reason. But you do not understand-” Halsin’s eyes flash gold again, and Astarion is shocked to see a tremor pass through their usually stoic Druid’s hands, “you cannot understand just how truly horrific your injuries were, to such a degree as I have never seen before, and hope to never see again. You cannot grasp how close you came to a true death; one we could not pull you back from. You cannot know the fear and grief Shadowheart and I felt, that Jaheira felt once we got you through the portal, knowing you were dying in our arms and we could do nothing but watch. You did not hear Tav’s cries of anguish when you stilled – cold, silent, unmoving as the stone – and we could not say for certain whether you were still alive enough to be saved, or if you had moved beyond our reach.”
Halsin sighs, and lets his palm rest atop Astarion’s head, suffusing him with warmth again. “So no. As your healer – and more importantly, as your friend – I will not allow your pride to cause you more suffering, nor will I allow your atrophied sense of self-preservation to put you at risk. Not this time.”
Astarion blinks owlishly up at Halsin. He’s never been quite so… touched… at someone effectively grounding him, a grown man, to his room. Or Jaheira’s spare room, as it were. It’s… well it’s rather nice, isn’t it? Not having to push himself and suffer through his injuries, pretending his body doesn’t ache with each movement. And, well… if they can all promise to stop looking at him like he’s made of shattered glass, pieced back together but ready to fall apart again at the slightest touch, he supposes he can endure bedrest and coddling for a little while. If it makes them happy.
Uncomfortable at the scrutiny of Halsin’s intense stare, and at the embarrassing flush of warmth creeping up his ears, he chooses to deflect instead, donning a put-upon expression and sighing. “Fine. I suppose I did just give you leave to fuss over me as you wish. I shall endeavor to keep my complaints to a minimum while you all wait on me hand and foot.” He pokes a finger at Halsin’s chest, “But I draw the line at sponge baths. I’m a grown vampire; I’ll wash myself as soon as someone carries me to the tub, no spectacle necessary.”
Halsin’s answering laugh as he resumes surveying the painful spot on Astarion’s head is low and warm. “I believe that is a compromise I can agree to. And if it comforts you to know, Tav has been the one bathing you while you were resting, with Shadowheart’s assistance. Your modesty, such that it is, has remained intact.” Halsin’s voice gentles further as he says, “It was necessary for us to undress you to treat your injuries, and, regretfully, you were in no state for us to gain your permission before doing so. However, we ensured that only those whose assistance was required were allowed to see or touch you. Namely, myself, Shadowheart, Tav, Jaheira, and, for a short time, Wyll, until he was needed to assist with Karlach instead. We did not and would not allow your body to be a spectacle, my friend.”
Oh. Well that’s… he had just assumed that everyone would have seen him. Emergency situations being as they are, he wouldn’t have liked it, but he would have understood if everyone had gotten an eyeful during that whole fiasco. Honestly, he would’ve assumed it was unavoidable. Would have made jokes about how the others should be tipping him and thanking him for the show, until that uncomfortable feeling in his chest at once again losing control over what happened to his body finally went away, if it ever did. But knowing that they had taken such care, even as he was dying? He didn’t know how to respond to that.
He was grateful, to be sure, but he wasn’t touching that subject with a ten-foot pole right now.
“The pain in your head,” Halsin says, breaking through Astarion’s thoughts, refusing to let the silence become uncomfortable, “is from an intracranial bleed in your temporal lobe and cerebellum, caused by blunt force trauma. Mizora threw you against that wall quite hard, I’m afraid; an injury like this would have killed anyone else in seconds, if not instantly, so it’s no surprise you’re still feeling the lingering effects. The bleeding has slowed significantly from what it was, though, and the swelling has gone down quite a bit, which is a good sign, but the pressure on your brain is still more elevated than I’d like.”
Astarion feels warmth and smells greenery as Halsin begins pulsing a small spell into his skull, and sighs in relief as he feels the pressure in his head lessen some. “I can’t use magic to heal it outright, unfortunately, so I cannot stop the bleed or reduce the blood itself,” Halsin explains, “but blood is composed mostly of just water and proteins, so with a modified Control Water spell, I can persuade it to at least disperse a bit so it’s not all concentrated in one area.” Halsin continues checking over him as he speaks, parting Astarion’s hair to view his scalp in several places, and using a small, conjured light to look in his ears, then having Astarion follow the light with his eyes, lifting his eyelids with a thumb and bringing the light close to check his pupils. Astraea watches his every movement, blue eyes following his hands the way a cat’s follow an unwary mouse, brow furrowed with suspicion and curiosity.
“You’ll likely have headaches until it clears up, and may feel pressure build up behind your eyes if I need to disperse the blood again,” Halsin says. “You may also experience dizzy spells, even while lying down, though they should lessen with time. The swelling in your temporal lobe is responsible for the fuzzy memory and the reduced hearing in your ear, though that should lessen fairly quickly.” His voice grows more serious as he explains further, “The damage to your cerebellum in particular is going to make walking difficult for a while until it heals, as that area of the brain controls gross motor skills. And we’ll need to keep a careful watch for seizures, which is the main reason why I’m keeping you on bedrest until you’re healed. I don’t want to risk you falling and reinjuring yourself. You are to alert me immediately if you begin to experience any nausea, if the pain in your head feels like it’s spreading, if your ear or eye begin bleeding, or if you experience any time skips or new lapses in memory.”
“Yes, yes, alright.”
“I mean it, Astarion. This is not a matter to be brushed off. If you need a guideline for when to call for me, I shall make it simple and give you this: If you would insist that I check on Tav were she experiencing the same symptom, then it is important enough that I should be checking on you.”
Right, he’d literally just promised not five minutes ago that he would take this seriously and not put up a fight as they treated him. He can be sincere for thirty seconds and put the bear’s worries at ease, he supposes. “Okay. Yes. You’re right. I promise I understand the gravity of the situation and will scream your name quite enthusiastically should I begin experiencing any of the symptoms you mentioned, or if anything hurts more than it does right now. Cross whatever portion of my heart has grown back so far and hope to-” he pauses, catching himself, “well, not that, but you know what I mean.”
Some of the tension bleeds away from Halsin’s eyes, his brow relaxing, crow’s feet crinkling as he smiles. “Thank you, my friend. You do not know the relief I feel to hear you say that and mean it.” Halsin pats Astarion’s hand encouragingly, and continues, “Despite your protests, I doubt you will feel up for being on your feet for some time, anyway. With how much work your body is doing to piece itself back together, you will find yourself much more weary than usual until it is finished, and will probably spend many if not all of your rests sleeping rather than trancing. I encourage you to do so whenever the feeling strikes you, the extra rest will be beneficial.”
Sarcasm laces Astarion’s voice as he rolls his eyes. “Wonderful, I look forward to it already.”
“I might as well change your bandages and check that chest wound while I’m here, it’s nearly time anyway,” Halsin says, getting up from the bed, grabbing a small wooden bowl and sponge from atop the dresser nearby, and a leather bag that must contain his medical supplies, if the smell of herbs it exudes is anything to go by. He conjures water into the bowl, mixing in various tinctures and powdered plant bits that Astarion can’t name. After a minute or two, he heats the water with a quick cantrip and brings the bowl, sponge, a roll of cloth bandages, and a pair of sharp scissors back over to the bedside, setting them on the nightstand.
“May I?” he asks, gesturing at Astarion’s chest.
“Yes, go ahead,” Astarion sighs, using his free hand to start opening the front of the shirt he’s wearing. It’s not one of his, so it must be something Halsin’s made. There’s a line of buttons down the front, and he can feel another row going down the back and ties along both sides, granting easy access to any part of his upper body without requiring the shirt to be removed entirely. Clever, if not the most stylish apparel he’s ever worn. “Just don’t expect Her Highness to move,” he says, undoing the last of the front buttons to reveal the rows of bandages wrapping him from collarbone to navel. He looks down at Astraea, curled up in the crook of his arm and giving Halsin a rather impressive stink-eye that he doesn’t need a reflection to know is an exact copy of his own when he makes that particular face. “I think she’s rather determined to stay put.”
“Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary,” Halsin says, leaning over Astarion and pulling lightly at the bandages in multiple spots to make sure they haven’t stuck to his skin anywhere. “She’s welcome to stay right where she is for now, as long as you wish to allow it, though once I’ve removed these and cleaned the wound we’ll have to sit you up for a moment while I re-wrap it.”
He grimaces at the idea of having to sit up. For all his earlier complaining about being bed-bound, he’s not actually keen on the idea of verticality right now. But needs must, and he promised to be a good little patient and give the poor Druid’s nerves a break, so he’ll suffer it nobly in devastatingly beautiful silence.
“There doesn’t appear to be any adhesion,” Halsin says, picking up the scissors from the nightstand, “so I’ll just cut through them along the center and we can slide them out from und-”
Halsin’s explanation is cut short as, the moment he touches the blades of the scissors to the bottom row of bandages, Astraea bares her little baby fangs and lets out a loud, throaty hiss – something which would be a terrifying development were it coming from any other 8-month-old, but considering his daughter’s more unique traits, and how her wild white curls have become mussed into a fluffy cloud around her head, Astarion finds it comes off much more akin to an angry kitten arching its back and puffing up its fur in fury.
Both men freeze, regardless, eyebrows shooting up at this turn of events, neither quite sure what to do next.
“Well that’s a new development,” Astarion says, “she’s never done that before. I imagine I’m probably supposed to scold her, do the responsible parent thing and all that, but I don’t know, it feels… wrong, somehow?”
Halsin, neither retracting the hand holding the scissors nor attempting to continue cutting the bandages, stares back at the girl as her eyes flash between his face and the instrument he holds. “Well, I am no expert, none of my wards are dhampir, and I’ve never cared for an infant one in any capacity, but…”
“But?”
“But having seen you hiss that very same way when you’re feeling defiant or think someone means to harm or take something – or someone– of yours it might be an instinctive response. Children can tell when their parents are ill, infants included, even if they don’t understand what that means. For most children, that usually means they might be extra affectionate or uncharacteristically gentle for their age,” Halsin muses. “But since she’s a dhampir, she might be able to tell that your heart was damaged, and instinct is telling her to intervene when a perceived threat – myself, in this case – appears to mean it further harm, which would explain why she didn’t react when I looked at your other wounds.” He shrugs, massive shoulders lifting minutely in order to not trigger further reaction from Astraea, “She may also simply be feeling protective of you, after not having seen you for the last few tenday.”
Huh. Well that’s… strangely sweet. His little baby, barely two feet tall and not even twenty pounds – was currently bristling her metaphorical hackles, ready and willing to take on the massive bear of a druid looming before her in defense of him. He shouldn’t be surprised, considering he and Tav both were well known amongst their friends for picking fights with beings orders of magnitude larger than themselves when they felt suitably threatened or insulted, much to the others’ collective irritation. He probably should’ve expected Astraea would get a double dose of that particular trait.
As Halsin continues to stand there, not moving a muscle, Astarion feels a vibration along his arm where it rests around Astraea’s back, and a quiet growl rises out of her, waxing and waning like a cat’s purr, and both his and Halsin’s eyebrows raise a little higher at his sweet baby’s ferocious noises. “So, if this is instinct, and scolding isn’t the card to play here… what do we do, oh wise Archdruid?”
“If she’s seeing me as a threat to you, then I may simply need to prove to her that I am not,” Halsin replies. Raising the hand not holding the scissors, palm out in order to appear as non-threatening as possible, Halsin drops his voice into a deeper register, soft and soothing, as he speaks to Astraea. “It’s okay, little sprout. I know this all must seem very frightening, but I promise I mean no harm, I am here to help. You and I have been great friends these last few days, and I think we can continue that. I just need to remove the bandages from your Ada so I can make him feel better. I will not hurt him, I promise.”
Astraea’s growl grows quieter, though it doesn’t stop entirely, and Astarion feels some of the tension coiled in her small body release as her eyes lock on to Halsin’s raised hand, her little ears twitching at his calm voice. “I think it’s working,” Astarion whispers.
“I am glad,” Halsin says, eyes still on Astraea as he inches closer, hand moving slowly toward her. “I am quite large, I know, but I am not so scary, am I, little one? You have no need to fear me, nor fear for your Ada. Why don’t we help him together, hm?”
As Halsin’s hand reaches to take Astraea’s, her ears pin back, and just as his fingers brush hers, Astarion feels her tense beneath his arm again. Before he can warn the Druid, a much louder growl, surprisingly deep for such a little body, rips from his daughter’s throat as she bares her fangs once more and strikes, swift as a viper, sinking her teeth directly into the meat of Halsin’s palm, beneath his thumb. She growls louder as she clamps on, little hands coming up and locking around his massive wrist as much as they’re able.
No one moves, Astraea growling around the hand in her mouth, little body curled in fury, as she stares Halsin down. Halsin, for his part, is now forced to lean over Astarion, bracing his weight on the bed with his other hand, having dropped the scissors, but is staring right back, looking both surprised and amused at the situation he’s found himself in. And Astarion is trapped between them, unable to move even if he wanted to, and not sure how to help.
He decides some levity might be in order.
“Ah,” he chimes in, trying to sound unbothered by the events happening above him, “Jaheira warned us there’d be a ‘bitey stage’ eventually, so I suppose we should’ve expected this. Though I must say, little dove, this does seem a touch overzealous.” He follows that up with that awful nervous titter he can’t help but make when he’s embarrassed, entirely unsure what one is supposed to do when one’s infant child decides to become a feral cat and take a chunk out of one’s healer for daring to attempt treating one’s wounds.
“It’s alright,” Halsin rumbles, still keeping his voice low, and not taking his eyes from the quietly-snarling toddler latched to his hand. “It’s my fault, really. She did warn me, and I ignored her signals.” He directs his next words to Astraea. “Just goes to show that even the oldest oak can still learn something from the smallest acorn, eh, little sprout?”
“Just be glad she hasn’t learned how to use those teeth to supplement the liquid portion of her diet yet. She’s already a ravenous thing when it comes to her usual fare, I can’t imagine you’d like her table manners any more than Tav does.” Halsin actually does laugh at Astarion’s joke this time, then winces as the movement makes Astraea growl louder and bite down even harder, glaring at Halsin with all the anger a baby can muster, which, much to her disgruntlement, only makes Halsin laugh more.
“Oh, she has Tav’s boldness, that is for sure, but that face is all you, my friend,” he says with a chuckle. “You made the very same one when I asked you if you preferred conversing in Tabaxi the first time you hissed at me in anger.”
“Lovely. I’ll remember to be thrilled that she takes after me when she starts eating playground bullies as afternoon snacks,” he scoffs, “but I think we should perhaps discuss the much more immediate and important question of what do we do now? I can’t exactly help, and she doesn’t look like she plans to let go any time soon.”
At this, Halsin’s mouth quirks into a sly grin. “Now,” he says, planting a knee on the bed to bear his weight and free up the use of his other hand, “we employee an ancient, Druidic ritual devised just for situations such as this, passed down from Archdruid to Archdruid throughout the eons in the tradition of our people, called ‘got your nose.’” And Astarion watches as Halsin does, in fact, use his free hand to gently pinch Astraea’s nose shut and whisper “Got your nose, little sprout,” smiling as he stares into her defiant little face and waits.
It takes roughly twelve seconds, Halsin holding Astraea’s nose shut with a devious smile on his face, and Astraea’s face growing redder with each tick of the clock, before she finally reaches her limit and jerks her head back, releasing Halsin’s hand and gasping in a deep breath. The Druid laughs as he retracts his hand from Astraea’s reach, watching as she licks curiously at the few drops of blood that landed on her lips, then glares up at him, releasing an irritated little “Mnehh!” as her face twists in annoyance and betrayal. Unfortunately for Astarion, she chooses to convey her annoyance by swatting him several times to get his attention, right on top of his sore ribs.
“Ow! Ah! Darling!” he croaks, catching her little hand in his, “Remember what we talked about, gentle please.”
Halsin surveys the two punctures in his hand, examining the damage before casting a quick Healing Word and watching the wound stitch itself back together. That done, he catches Astraea around the middle and lifts her up, careful to make sure none of him is within biting-reach. “Those were quite deep, little one,” he coos to her, “no tearing around the edges, and little bruising. A very well-executed bite, I would say.”
Astarion blinks a few times, no longer sure if he’s actually hearing what he’s hearing, or if this has all been an elaborate fever dream. “Halsin,” he says flatly, “are you complimenting my child on her biting technique? Right after you had to pull evasive maneuvers to get her to stop latching onto your hand like a rabid bulldog?”
“Of course I am,” he says cheerfully, strong arms not wavering as he holds Astraea aloft in front of him, despite her wiggling. “She warned me before she bit me, did not bite me excessively when I carelessly ignored those warnings, and did not do more damage than what the situation warranted. She is half vampire, it is in her nature to use her fangs to defend herself, should she feel threatened. And it was my mistake that she felt that way in the first place, even if my actions came from a place of good intention.” He makes a face at Astraea, pulling a small giggle from her, before turning back to Astarion. “She is only little, Astarion, I certainly cannot fault her for being overwhelmed and misreading a situation. She will learn, with time.” He laughs quietly, “Besides, it is not the first time I have been bitten while caring for a patient. Though possibly the first time I have been bitten by someone else on behalf of a patient.”
Tilting his head to gauge Astraea’s mood, Halsin takes a chance and carefully brings her to rest against his chest. “I am sorry that I did not listen or heed your warnings, little sprout. I will endeavor to do better next time.” He tucks her into one elbow and holds his other hand out to her, letting her decide if she would like to touch it, “Might we be friends again?”
Astraea flicks her eyes between Halsin’s face and his offered hand a few times, before slowly placing her hand on the Druid’s palm with a decisive “Buh!” her little fingers spread wide but not even close to reaching the edges of the Druid’s hand.
Astarion can’t help but laugh at that, any worry that Halsin would be angry with the girl swiftly melting away. He should have known, really. If anyone was going to get bitten by a creature and then immediately apologize to it and praise it for following its instincts, it would be Mister “as nature intended.” Particularly if that creature is a fickle 8-month-old half-vampire baby that Astarion is suspecting increasingly more as time goes on would have his hair turned fully white by her fifteenth birthday if it weren’t that way already.
“Now, little one, I still need to attend to your Ada, so let’s make a trade, shall we? You may sit here on the nightstand so you can observe while I refresh his bandages, and I will give you this,” he sets Astraea atop the nightstand, moving the medical supplies to the bed, and pulls something small and loosely wrapped in butcher paper from his pocket, “to entertain yourself.”
Astraea, upon receiving her little prize, immediately squeals excitedly and grabs the object – a small white ball about twice the size of her fist – from the waxed paper and begins gnawing on it.
Once he’s sure Astraea is occupied, Halsin picks up his scissors and moves to begin cutting away the bandages around Astarion’s chest, but makes sure to keep the bulk of his body pressed against the nightstand so Astraea can’t accidentally topple off of it.
As Halsin cuts through the bandages, moving in a straight line from Astarion’s navel toward his collarbone, Astarion relaxes back into the pillows and, noting Astraea’s single-minded focus on the ball, asks, “What in the gods’ names did you give her?”
“That?” Halsin says, not looking up as he snips through the last layer of bandages and begins slipping the remains out from under Astarion. “It is a ball of cheese.”
“Cheese,” Astarion says flatly.
“Yes, cheese,” Halsin confirms, reheating the bowl of water he’d made previously and using the sponge to clean around the wound in Astarion’s chest. “According to Jaheira, Astraea snatched a similar one from her plate during lunch last tenday when she wasn’t looking, and she has been completely enamored with them since.”
Astarion looks to his daughter, watching as she gnaws furiously at the ball of cheese clutched in her little hands with wild abandon, and resigns himself to a life spent sharing a home with women who adore terrible-smelling, expensive dairy products. At least she hasn’t discovered Waterdhavian cheese yet. He probably has at least a few years before Tav introduces her to it and that insufferable smell becomes a staple in his home.
“Is that safe for her to eat?” he asks Halsin. “She only has four teeth, and she’d only just started on mashed carrots not long before we left.”
“It is, as long as she is supervised while she has it,” Halsin tells him, fingers prodding carefully around the hole that still occupies Astarion’s chest. “It is a young cheese, so it’s soft enough that she’s unlikely to choke even if she manages to bite off a larger piece, and it is quite mild, so she shouldn’t experience any digestive troubles.” The Druid begins pulsing magic into the wound to gauge his heart’s regrowth. “It’s actually quite good for her. Children her age should experience a wide variety of flavors and textures to encourage a curious palate, and the fats and proteins are beneficial for brain growth. Allowing her to hold it while she eats also provides her an opportunity to practice her fine motor skills.”
“Well isn’t that delightful, the benefits of stinky cheese are endless, apparently,” Astarion gripes, letting himself sink further into the mattress as Halsin finishes up his examination. He’s really starting to feel that weariness Halsin had mentioned earlier, and even though he’s only been awake maybe thirty minutes, a nap isn’t sounding so terrible right now. “What’s the verdict, doctor? Am I doomed to an eternity as a heartless wretch?”
“Not in the least,” Halsin replies, somehow looking even more annoyingly cheerful than before. “You’re healing quite well. Slowly, yes, but even that is still much better than I’d hoped for. Mizora removed about fifty percent of your heart, and she damaged another five percent. But it’s only been seven days, and yet your healing factor has reversed that damage and managed to regrow your heart back to roughly eighty percent of its normal size. You’re really doing very well.”
Astarion almost chokes in surprise at Halsin’s statement. Seven days?! It’s been seven days?! He doesn’t get more than a second to think on that though, because in the next moment he’s breathing out pained little sounds that are absolutely not pathetic whimpers as the Druid slides a gentle arm under his shoulders and slowly lifts his torso until he’s sitting up. Astarion wobbles dangerously as the promised dizzy spell hits him almost immediately, and Halsin swiftly sits on the bed in front of him, careful not to jostle him too much as he brings a hand up to softly press at the back of Astarion’s neck, slowly pulling him forward to press his face into Halsin’s shoulder.
“Breathe through it, my friend, it will pass,” Halsin murmurs into his ear, “use me as an anchor point.” He guides Astarion’s hands up to clutch around his shoulders, both so he can keep himself upright and to have his arms out of the way as the Druid picks up the roll of clean bandages and begins wrapping them around Astarion’s torso. “Just keep your head on my shoulder, and I will have this finished shortly. Then we can lay you back down and you can rest again,” he murmurs as Astarion’s body trembles with pain and exhaustion and the world swirls around him.
After what might be a minute or several days, Halsin fastens off the end of the bandages, and laying one hand on the back of Astarion’s head and the other flat between his shoulders, Halsin slowly bends forward, lowering Astarion back to the mattress and settling him amongst his pillows once again. Astarion has to spend at least a minute with his eyes squeezed shut against the dizziness that refuses to abate and panting through the pain of moving so much, but both subside after a while, dulling to background noise in the time it takes Halsin to rebutton his shirt and tuck the blanket back around him.
When he finally manages to relax enough to open his eyes again, he sees that Halsin has moved Astraea and her cheese ball back to the bed and was now mixing something else in the wooden bowl. His eyes dilate and his ears twitch as he catches the scent of fresh blood, watching intently as Halsin makes a small cut in his own arm and allows a decent amount of blood to drip into the mixture in the bowl. Once the Druid deems the amount sufficient, he heals the small wound and goes back to stirring the bowl’s contents, which are starting to smell vaguely familiar.
“That’s not the stuff you gave me after the brain is it?” Astarion asks, brow furrowed in thought. “Don’t get me wrong, that stuff was very enjoyable and I was grateful to have it then, but it also made me more than a little out of my mind, and I don’t… I don’t think that’s a good idea right now.” His eyes flick to Astraea, who – having finished up the last remains of her snack – was wiggling her way back under his arm again, settling into her spot along his side, her head on his chest. “Not with her here.”
“It is similar,” Halsin says, “but not quite the same, though I was treating you with that for the first several days. But now that you’ve woken, are aware of your surroundings, and can communicate clearly, it is more beneficial to have your mind clear so you can tell me how you are feeling.” He adds a few more things to the bowl, then begins heating the contents with a cantrip, watching closely to make sure it doesn’t burn. “So, no opium this time, just a few things to prevent infection and reduce inflammation, some more that will promote blood flow to help your circulation, and a healthy dose of willowbark extract to dull your pain. And blood, of course, to act as the spoonful of honey that makes the medicine go down.” He sets the bowl on the table and turns to Astarion, adjusting his pillows and making sure his blanket is pulled up to cover him. “That said, medicine or no, I cannot leave her in here with you unattended. This mixture will not cloud your mind, but even without it, I would bet my eyeteeth that you’ll be asleep within the next ten minutes. With it? I give you three at the most.”
And everything Halsin is saying makes perfect sense, of course it does. The Druid’s right, he’s going to be asleep in the next few minutes whether he wants to or not, he won’t actually know if Astraea’s here or not. And yet at the same time, he can feel his eyes starting to sting as he looks down at his daughter, and then back up to his friend, and great now he’s actually starting to tear up. Wonderful. Some terrifying creature of the night he is.
“But… but I only just got her back,” he pleads. His voice is small and raspy, and he can’t quite keep the tremble out of it, “Can’t I have her for just a little longer? Please? Just until I fall asleep?”
Halsin watches him, his smile kind, but clearly torn between holding Astarion to his promise not to argue about his treatment, and indulging him just this once. Eventually he sighs, ear flicking in fond exasperation, and places a wide hand flat on Astarion’s chest, pulsing some small spell that begins to suffuse him with warmth. “We shall compromise, Astarion. If you will take all of your medicine without complaint, and promise to rest for at least several hours, I will leave Astraea with you and go get Tav to come monitor you. She’ll be rising soon anyway, and she’ll want to come sit with you even if you are asleep.”
“Deal,” Astarion says swiftly, almost before Halsin’s even finished speaking.
“Then let us fulfill the first part of our agreement, and then I’ll go fetch her,” he says, scooping up a gooey pile of bloody plant-mush onto a wooden spoon. “I will place this under your tongue. Try to avoid swallowing it as much as you can. Just let it rest there until it dissolves.” And with that, he places the spoonful in Astarion’s mouth. It doesn’t taste too terribly, mostly thanks to the blood. The flavor is astringent and very medicinal. Grassy, even, which makes him think of salad for some reason. But not bad enough to spit it out. He allows the medicine to rest under his tongue, already feeling himself grow drowsy, though whether that’s the herbs acting more quickly than he expected, or just his own fatigue, he cannot say.
“Thank you, Halsin,” he whispers around the lump under his tongue, voice already slurred with sleep.
“You are most welcome, my friend,” Halsin responds, tucking the blankets a little tighter around Astarion and placing Astraea’s bat beside her, the girl already snoring gently as she rests against her father. “Rest well. I shall send Tav up in a moment, and come check on you again in a few hours. If you need me in the meantime, please do not hesitate to call for me.”
With that, the Druid rises and pads out of the room, footsteps surprisingly quiet as he shuts the door softly behind him and makes his way down the stairs.
Astarion’s eyes close almost as soon as he hears the door click shut.
── ･✩*₊˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖₊*✩･ ──
Uktar 29 (probably)
Astarion wakes to the feeling of vibration in his chest, and along his side and right arm. Eyes still closed, he grumbles and rolls to his side, snuggling closer to the little body burrowed against him. His ear flicks in annoyance at the vibrating sensation, though he also finds it oddly comforting for some reason.
Then he hears the softest, most delicate, muffled snort of laughter. A sound that could only come from one person.
He cracks an eye open, and finds a pair of startlingly blue ones staring right back, barely a foot from his face. Tav’s laying on the other side of the bed, facing him, flyaways forming a frizzy ginger crown around her face as she breaks into a wide grin. Tears begin to fill her eyes as she sniffles and whispers, “Well don’t stop on my account. Personally, I was enjoying the percussion performance.”
He blinks, brow furrowing in confusion and ear flicking again as that vibration returns. What on Toril is she talking about?
He decides he’d best ask that question out loud.
“What on Toril are you talking about, my love?”
“The purring,” she says, as if it were obvious and made perfect sense and wasn’t a completely mad thing for her to say. Her hand reaches over to rub Astraea’s back. “I was wondering if she’d start doing it eventually too, guess we have our answer now.”
He blinks again, a few times, even more confused now than when they started.
“Once again, dearest, what on Toril are you talking about?”
Now it’s Tav’s turn to look confused. “Are… are you serious? Did that knock to the head scramble your brain that much, or do you really not know?”
“Know what?”
“That you purr in your sleep? And so does she now, I guess.”
He stares at her, mouth open. In shock or horror, he’s not sure, but definitely at least one of those. “I do not!” he whispers.
Tav just raises an eyebrow, eyes flicking down to stare at his chest, which is currently vibrating traitorously, and back up to his face, her gaze challenging.
“What– why– when– why didn’t you tell me?? How long has this been happening??”
Tav laughs softly at his surprise, “I thought you knew! You’ve been doing it most nights for a while now. It started not long after we got to the Shadowcursed Lands, a few days after we started sharing a tent. I didn’t question it because I figured, what the hells do I know about vampires? Maybe they just do that.”
“We most certainly do not!”
“I think current evidence would beg to differ, my love.”
He groans and reaches an arm over to grab Tav by the waist, tugging until she scootches over as close as she can get to him, sandwiching Astraea – who is indeed purring away softly against his chest like a little kitten – snugly between them. He tucks his face into Tav’s shoulder, ears flushed red, voice pitched in a muffled whine, “I can’t believe this is happening to me. This is so embarrassing! Since when do vampires purr?”
“Well, Halsin said that bats purr, and since they’re often linked with vampires because True Vampires can shift into them, he thinks the biological similarities–”
“If you finish that sentence, I will bite you.”
“Promise?”
“…Shut up.”
Tav snorts in laughter again, pressing a kiss to his temple as her fingers comb through his messy hair. “Besides, it’s not embarrassing. Frankly, I think it’s cute, and incredibly endearing, that when you’re relaxed enough your body just can’t help but to express how safe and content you feel when we’re together. It’s one of my favorite noises in the world. And now I’m lucky enough to get to hear it twice over.”
“Ugh, you’re disgustingly sappy, you know.”
“I know, and you love that about me.”
“Heavens help me, I do.”
After a few moments, her hands move to his cheeks, pulling his face back from her shoulder so she can press her forehead to his, eyes closed. They stay like that for a while, just breathing each other in, before Tav draws him into a long, slow kiss. His arm wraps tightly around her waist, anchoring her to him.
“Don’t ever do that to me again, you horrible, reckless, infuriatingly brave man,” she whispers fiercely against his lips.
“I won’t, I promise. I’m sorry I scared you,” he whispers back. He feels dampness on his cheeks, and he doesn’t know if it’s from her tears or his. Probably both.
“Don’t apologize, just– just stay with me. Promise me that you’re here, that I have you for forever.”
“I promise. I’m going nowhere. Yours for eternity, my love.”
For the purpose of events in future chapters, what should Astraea's little stuffed bat be named?
Batrick
Batthew
Battholomew
Batthias
Batjamin
Batfrey
Other (leave a thematically-appropriate suggestion in replies)
Voting ended onSep 12, 2025
Personally, I think the name should be a people name, but with the beginning changed to "bat," because I'm dumb and I like puns and Astarion would hate that. That said, I could also see them going with a more "distinguished gentleman" vibe along the lines of "Ronaldo" or "Vincent." Really it just depends on whether you think Tav named it first or Astarion did lol.
I think the stuffie has been referred to in-text as "he" at least once, so I'm leaning towards "traditionally male" names. Here are some pictures of the one i made IRL for inspiration
Alrighty, the end of the chapter is winding down, and we're at just under 10k with only a little more to go to close it out. After that, it'll be a quick reread through and editing, then up it goes!
I hope you all like angst, hurt/comfort, and whump, because boy does this chapter have it in spades! I am putting that Elf through A Situation. Several of them, in fact. However, he's taken it like a champ, so he will get a little treat as compensation for his suffering.
And since everyone has waited so nicely while I dealt with too much IRL bullshit to get this chapter done in a timely manner after I went and left you all on a cliffhanger, here's a little treat for you, in the form of some little snippets from the middle of the chapter
