Rose is a talented transmuter, blessed of four Devil Mothers, but when one of her spells goes wrong, her gods refuse to allow her to fix her mistake. His Majesty's justice exists to protect Vurdion's people from dangerous devils like Rose; she has to escape the witchfinders and break her own curse. If her gods won't help her, and her folk hero mother can't, maybe her father can save her. But the necromancer Dead Myth isn't known for helping witches, and doesn't know he has a daughter.
Acceptable and helpful spoilers
- When I say dark fantasy, I mean in the sense that there's a lot of death and suffering, no SA though, and no SA planned.
- Slow, slow burn. There is romance. It's several books away, sorry.
- A magic system that you will either love or hate.
- A non-zero amount of religious trauma.
- Dysfunctional family, and found family. And a bit of dysfunctional found family.
- There are some het couples in the works, including a fairly obvious central one set up in this first book, but there's really not a ton of heterosexual characters. It's safe to assume any given character is queer, and there will also be queer/poly romance when the series gets around to having any romance at all. Low, low spice though. The spicy stuff goes under a different pen name.
I was so bummed to be too busy with moving to draw more for Halloween so I'm making up for lost time--- only to get an eye infection so I had to squint through blurry painful eyes to finish this painting 😭 One day I'll catch a break...
The forest behind our new house is full of heathers, and it made me think of a broom made of heathers instead of twigs! And then my imagination ran off and now I want to paint a broom sellers with a shop full of crazy brooms made out of unusually materials. Birch tree broom, mushroom broom, mossy broom, etc
What should I call this lil guy? Froat? Caog? Frat? Fat??? 😂
The full hours long art videos, along with HD images and PSD files will be DMed on Dec 5th
Lae'zel probably didn't need a good excuse, or further motivation, to go to war with Shar. But, she is about to get it anyway.
Five years post game, Dark Justiciar/Mother Superior/Chosen of Shar Shadowheart and (with a few notable exceptions) everyone got their bad endings, in that everyone is still alive, but shitty. Lae'zel is thriving though, aside from her relationship.
Read Chapter One on Ao3
or read the rest of Chapter Seventeen below the cut
Lae’zel did snap out of her useless, ignominious state of shock, but not quickly enough. Minthara was right. She should have prepared herself better to face the inevitable, but the sight of Shadowheart injured, nearly beaten already, with blood pouring from her mouth, cruelly pinned shut by She Weeps’ stiletto blade, was simply too much. Her mind had roared, and her body shuddered to a halt, just long enough that their first plan failed. The plan where they simply moved quickly enough to take their way of egress before a real fight started. It was the best case scenario, and Lae’zel let it slip through her fingers because she didn’t like seeing Shadowheart hurt. Pathetic.
Luckily, Minthara had about seven layers of contingency.
Though unfortunately, the next layer was to take the ship. It was Lae’zel’s least favorite of the contingency plans, save one.
She Weeps had cast silence a split second too late to prevent Shadowheart from destroying the portal. Lae’zel could use her ring to conjure another portal, but not for hours. Not unless she was to use her final failsafe and pull herself and the child to the astral. If she did that, she’d be abandoning She Weeps and Minthara, who had helped her get this far—and it would amount to little, Shadowheart and her acolytes would be able to simply follow after her, if they managed to defeat the drow and her shadar-kai company. And that would be more doable if Lae’zel wasn’t here to help. That’s why it would be a last resort. In any case, the silencing spell was currently affecting her too—good thing she barely used magic.
Reaching out, she got a handful of Shadowheart’s hair in one fist and her throat in the other hand, and tried to hold her fast, while also not thinking about how warm and slick her neck felt with the waterfall of blood pouring from the wound on the underside of her jaw.
“Leave her to me!” She Weeps shouted, and that’s when Lae’zel realized that the gith child was running for the upper deck, and Lae’zel was the only one in a position to stop him, the crowded corridor below deck had them stacked on top of each other, impeding movement. The shadar-aki woman twisted thick black cords around Shadowheart’s wrists, her injured hand trembling fiercely as she pulled the cords taut. Satisfied that She Weeps had things in hand, Lae’zel tore herself away, resisting the urge to hurl some threat back their way. She knew Shadowheart could get hurt. No, it was as Minthara had said, she knew that Shadowheart would get hurt. There was simply no avoiding it, but it still made it feel like everything underneath the top layer of her skin was on fire. She took the rickety stairs two at a time and hurled herself onto the upper deck, eyes digging into the winding chaos around her for the gith child.
The upper deck was whirling with blades and shouts, and blasts of shimmering red magic missiles. Just about the only thing that made the battle manageable was that the waters were calm, and the night clear. If there had been even a hint of wind, she imagined that the boat might’ve capsized with the additional friction.
Minthara and three other shadar-kai warriors were beating back the assault, caught off guard, but never truly unprepared, they were putting up an admirable fight. A crash like lightning heralded a vicious strike from Minthara’s flail that sent one acolyte souring clean over the helm and into the mast below.
“YOUR CHARGE IS THERE!” Minthara roared, indicating the far end of the ship, she barely managed to point with her bloodied flail before she was shoved hard and sent sprawling by a big human man in light armor.
Lae’zel had to trust that she and her men could handle themselves, she ran in the direction Minthara had pointed before even turning her eyes towards it, but when she did, she saw him crouched in the dense shadows cast by the sternpost.
She didn’t even turn her head when she heard the first splash. It might’ve been one of theirs or one of Shadowheart’s, thrown over the side. The gith child saw her coming and bolted as soon as their eyes met, then her vision was obscured by the one palm of a mage-hand driving up into her nose. She stumbled backwards, managing to reorient herself around the blow.
A second splash, and she heard Minthara shout something, and her heart sank. That would be the third contingency coming into effect. If they’d already lost enough of their own people that they couldn’t man the ship themselves, Minthara had a strong argument for why they couldn’t simply take Shadowheart’s acolyte’s captive and force them to take the ship back to Baldur’s Gate.
Additionally, Lae’zel had refused to kill everyone, and Minthara had agreed for her own reasons, which left them with the next, dubious layer of contingency.
Lae’zel stopped chasing the gith child, and instead turned to find the nearest acolyte, at the same time that a chorus of wild cries went up around them. All the shadar-kai and Minthara had changed their strategy from trying to subdue and capture their enemies, to simply trying to maim them, as roughly and wildly as they could.
Following suit, Lae’zel identified the same young sorceress who had fled from her earlier that day. She appeared to be a big part of the reason why they were losing the fight, as she let loose a winding gale of magic that almost swept Minthara clean off the ship’s deck. Minthara caught herself on the helm, then struck it with her flail, breaking off a heavy chunk of spiked ironwork that went crashing into the sorceress’ arm.
She flinched and Lae’zel took her chance, the hilt of her sword striking the girl right along her hairline. The dent she left behind in her skull was more than enough to daze her and send her sprawling to her knees. Lae’zel wound up to deal another blow, just in case, but the gith child’s mage hand snatched her sword by the blade and tried to pull her back.
It was just enough, and it was just as well. The contingency after this one was just as bad, but Lae’zel had already resigned herself to having to complete the plan in the most painful way possible. Briefly, she caught Minthara’s eye and saw their Lloth-red glare flash. This was Minthara’s favorite contingency, and the one that Lae’zel strongly suspected she had hoped to contrive, from the beginning.
“Ad Lapidē!” The sorceress shouted and with a groan Lae’zel felt it take over her. Her muscles felt as unyielding as her steel, her back painfully curved in the odd pose that the mage hand had pulled her into. She still had her sword in her grip, but she couldn’t move it—couldn’t move anything. She could only watch, exasperated, teeth ground together as Minthara was subdued, the remaining shadar-kai on deck was run through, and then to seal their defeat, Shadowheart emerged from below deck. She looked bruised, bloodied and furious, but apparently not too delicate to handle She Weeps on her own.
Lae’zel spared Minthara a look. The excited energy that the drow had briefly betrayed was gone, and her expression had chilled to be entirely unreadable. She’d been very confident, earlier, when she predicted that Shadowheart and her acolytes would take prisoners, at least for one night. If they were to be executed in Shar’s name, it would come at dawn, after a night of interrogation.
Shadowheart’s jaw and mouth was now so swollen from her injury that she wouldn’t speak if she didn’t have to. She clutched a torn bit of black fabric (something that looked like it might’ve come off She Weeps) to her face, gesturing to her acolyte’s in a way that must’ve made perfect sense to them, but for Lae’zel. It was a matter of waiting to see if she behaved how Minthara had predicted she would.
The sorceress, once she was properly upright and no longer rattled by battle, took a look around at her allies and offered a meager “vos curo ,” but it was clear that this was not her preferred school of magic, as the relief that washed over Shadowheart and her allies was insufficient.
However, it was enough that Shadowheart was able to speak again, “vos curo,” her own magic was stronger, but still not quite enough to lead to a full recovery for herself and her battered followers. Shadowheart rubbed the bit of cloth over the underside of her jaw again, but the wound appeared to be fading already, the swelling going down. Still, she looked raw and ragged. “Where is he?”
The gith child ran to her, bursting through the dregs of his own mage hand. He looked like he wanted to fling himself at Shadowheart, but hesitated at the last moment, skidding to a stop just beside her and pinning her with a pleading look.
With a shift in her stance and a raise of her eyebrows, Shadowheart reached out and gathered the child to her, letting him hide his face in her skirts. It felt like she was refusing to look directly at Lae’zel. That was fine. But in return, Lae’zel wouldn’t tear her eyes away from them.
She felt the effects of the spell holding her begin to wear off, but it was too late. One of the acolytes already had her by the arms, and forced her to her knees as soon as her muscles worked again.
Minthara had never indicated to her that there would be a need for either of them to speak, so she just planned to watch in silence and see just how insightful this drow really was. It felt ineffectual and cowardly, to just wait, and it took everything in her not to fight, not to just will her body to rise up and take what was her’s.
She needed to trust Minthara. She couldn’t trust herself, nor could she trust the one she loved most.
“Search them.” Shadowheart did still sound like she was in a lot of pain, but she could speak again. That made her too dangerous to try and attack again—not when she was on alert.
How had her acolytes beaten them? They trembled as they searched their captives. The only one of them who didn’t seem injured or rattled by the fight was the sorceress. A well-trained magic user with a great deal of experience could be a formidable opponent. This one looked young, but she’d still tossed them around like dolls. Was it the same girl who had run from Lae’zel earlier in the day? Maybe she’d performed better here because she had to. There was nowhere to run on this vessel.
They had little on them, by design, but Lae’zel had all her psionic artifacts discovered and taken from her, including her precious rings and the cuff that connected her to Scratch. She doubted that they would have any idea how to use any of them, but it still bothered her deeply to have them taken and put with her silver swords and the few items of value that Minthara had. Aside from that, all they had on their was healing potions.
Lots of healing potions.
Minthara spoke up first, “I’d like to submit myself for questioning, before the githyanki.”
One of the acolytes looked as though their instinct was to move to strike her for speaking, but something about the merest shift of Minthara’s weight towards them, jarred them to stillness and the drow extrapolated. “The gith and I have a wager, you see, and I like to set a high bar for endurance.”
“Why wouldn’t we just question you both at once?” Shadowheart countered mildly, handing off the child to the sorceress, she put a whisper in her ear. Around them, the night sky was churning a little, the first drops of rainfall disturbing the otherwise peaceful weather.
“If you have the means to duplicate yourself, then I suppose you could, but this ship needs attention to sail true, does it not?” Minthara’s grin suggested that she was pleased with the minor ways in which they had managed to inhibit the journey. Lae’zel was not. She had been hoping for an outright victory.
“We’ll make due,” said Shadowheart mildly, her face grew pale and stony. Beside her, the sorceress was speaking softly to the gith child, and Lae’zel was starting to become concerned that she knew exactly what that was about. “I know you, don’t I?” Shadowheart said.
Lae’zel didn’t look up at her, so didn’t realize right away that she was speaking to Minthara.
“Perhaps once,” Minthara purred. “I have to admit, I had always hoped that were we to ever find ourselves in this situation, the roles would be reversed. I am curious to know what’s underneath all of this.” Her lips pulled into a cruel smile.
Almost, Lae’zel let out a groan. She ought to have predicted that Minthara would resort to some intentional goading, but she wasn’t so sure about her calculations. Shadowheart was obstinate and withdrawn when she wanted to project disinterest, and Minthara had just challenged her to be disinterested. Lae’zel didn’t want that.
She wanted Shadowheart to feel something.
She wasn’t entirely surprised when Shadowheart turned away from Minthara, refusing to take the bait. Her eyes fell on Lae’zel instead, her expression guarded and furious. She held out a hand towards the gith child, beaconing him to come closer.
Lae’zel’s chest tightened. No, no, no. Not yet. Tend to the wounded first. But the whole crew was still, coiled like snakes, still anticipating the fight they’d won. They must have thought themselves well out of reach on the water, and the sudden attack was even more jarring than they’d intended. Lae’zel ground her teeth. It wasn’t good enough of an advantage to succeed outright. They had fumbled their best shot, and these contingencies felt so much riskier now that Lae’zel was on her knees and unarmed.
“You see her? Who does she look like?” Shadowheart parted the boy’s hair with her fingertips.
“Like me,” said the gith child softly.
“Yes. She feels like you too, on the inside.” Shadowheart couldn’t seem to look at Lae’zel straight on for longer than a heartbeat or two. Lae’zel hoped that was a good sign, that some part of her was still suffering, still connected enough to herself to hurt. “Have you ever hurt your little fingers before?”
The boy nodded.
“How?”
“Shut door. It was an accident,” he grumbled.
“This will not be an accident.” Shadowheart rubbed his little hand in hers, then turned to the sorceress and took her quarterstaff in hand. “Orla. Hold her hand out on the deck.”
Orla nodded, as she bent down to obey, the acolyte holding Lae’zel untwisted her wrists from behind her back so that Orla could flattened her palm against the deck. Lae’zel braced herself as the quarterstaff came down with a violent crack against her fingers. The pain wasn’t immediate, but washed over her in a nauseating wave over the next several seconds.
The gith child flinched, his eyes wide on Lae’zel, looking for a pain reaction, it seemed. She instead offered him a subtle shake of her head.
Children of gith do not show weakness.
“She’s very strong, isn’t she?” Shadowheart asked the boy, who nodded. “Would you like to try?” She offered him the quarterstaff.
“Doesn’t it hurt her?”
“Of course.”
The gith child gripped the quarterstaff, not quite hard enough to stop his hands shaking. His fingers didn’t even wrap all the way around the weapon. Lae’zel could see his eyes moistening, refusing to take in his surroundings or make eye-contact with anyone, just snagged in the air in front of him like he was afraid to close them, but also didn’t want to see anything.
“Be strong.” Lae’zel murmured under her breath in the same moment that Shadowheart said the same thing, much louder. This was not going exactly according to Minthara’s plan, but out of the corner of her eye, Lae’zel could see that the drow was not betraying any concern at all, so Lae’zel wouldn’t either. She would not be the reason that they failed.
The gith child squared up in front of Lae’zel, but continued to hesitate with every small movement. Lifting the staff was difficult, aiming put him off balance, and when he finally brought the rod down, it simply wasn’t hard enough. Even being on the receiving end of the blow, Lae’zel wished he could have struck her harder. She knew from experience that it would be doing her absolutely no favors to start out easy—that would just motivate her torturers to make up for it later.
“Do be serious.” Shadowheart’s careful, practiced demeanor slipped for a moment and Lae’zel caught a glimpse of the person she must become when instructing her acolytes. She checked herself with a slight shake of her head, rubbing at her face. She was still hurt, Lae’zel noted. She needed to heal herself soon. “I know you can hit harder than that,” she said a moment later, more gently.
The gith child was even more drawn out with his second attack, but it landed a lot harder and more firmly against Lae’zel’s hand, and didn’t bounce, but stayed planted against the throbbing limb where it fell.
She managed to catch his wide, troubled eyes, and tried to convey some reassurance. It’s all right. I’m not mad. Do what you have to do.
Either because he understood, and took some reassurance in her look, or because it was just that easy to harden oneself to empathy when faced with encouragement towards cruelty and praise for obedience, the gith child struck a much firmer blow the next time. Lae’zel felt some of the little bones of her hand crack, and then the next blow ground them to pebbles.
Soon, the gith child was relentlessly beating her, until both her hands were swollen and nearly numb with pain and his own hands shook around the staff. Beside him Shadowheart grew stony, neither giving approval, nor instruction. It was like she was a million miles away.
Lae’zels hands were twitching, useless. She doubted there was a single intact bone left in them.
“Enough,” Shadowheart finally stopped the boy, long after his own hands were trembling around the weapon. “You did so well.”
Shadowheart stepped forward, holding out a potion of healing. The ruby liquid glittered under the grey moonlit fog of the rainy night. It was one of the bottles they had taken off Minthara.
For the briefest instant after uncorking the bottle, Shadowheart tipped it, as though about to pour the contents onto Lae’zel’s broken hands. Then, she brought it up to her own lips and drank instead.
Through the buzz of pain, Lae’zel had to suppress the urge to exhale in perfect satisfaction.
Shadowheart chugged, a line of red overflowing from the corners of her perfect lips to draw a slow red ribbon down the vertical valleys of her throat. She faltered, perhaps noticing the taste.
“W-what?” She stumbled back, spitting, but it was too late. They could all see it in her wide, green eyes, the noblestock had taken her. “Is that…?”
“Healing.” Lae’zel purred through her teeth. “We’re healing you.”
Five years ago the Vampire Ascendant Astarion helped save Baldur's Gate. He has everything he ever wanted, and he's miserable.
Isolde is nobody, and has nothing. When given the option to become a vampire spawn, her response gives Astarion a moment of pause; “No. Thank you. I think I’ll just die.”
(Angst and fluff and smut and PLOT)
Check it out on Ao3 from the beginning or jump into chapter twenty-eight below the cut!
During the sleepless hours that followed Vovka’s departure, Isolde fought a number of urges. Mainly, the urge to cry, and the urge to think in spiraling circles, but there was also the desire not to be alone. She found herself padding the dark hallway of the palace, wondering if she would find Astarion in his office, or perhaps at rest, or in meditation.
She tried his room first, softly knocking and just about at the point of turning away when she heard his voice through the door, “What is it?”
His tone was guarded. He didn't want to be bothered. She bit her lip before responding. Maybe she should have stayed in her own room tonight. “It's me.” And she cracked the door.
“I know, I can smell that it's you,” Astarion scoffed, still less inviting than she'd hoped to find him.
In his new, visibly uncomfortable form, he sat on the edge of a bed all piled with ruffled bedsheets that served as his only clothes. His usually perfect hair was mussed around his horns, his wings shading his features, so his pale skin looked especially drained and his red eyes burned with a touch of hellfire, but his expression didn't betray any anger at being disturbed, instead what she discerned there was exhaustion and frustration. His tail slapped the rumpled sheets, quivering, and anxious. He couldn't find a comfortable position to rest, she would guess.
He also looked a little nervous when their eyes met. “Well?” He demanded and she tried not to take it personally, but considered things from his perspective. It wasn't hard to guess the kinds of expectations he had for a lover coming to his room in the night. They hadn't yet discussed it openly, but since his transformation he'd kept his distance from everyone, but especially from her. She had to find a balance between respecting his fairly obvious feelings and his desire to not engage in sex while he was still so uncomfortable with his body, while also demonstrating how much the new form didn't bother her personally. She was unhappy that he was unhappy, but didn't want him any less. She just wasn't sure how to express that without probably making it feel worse for him by virtue of merely bringing it up.
“I’m sorry to intrude upon your solitude,” she started, breath catching nervously as he rolled his eyes at her formal tone, but still, his jaw was clenched. “I can't sleep, and I thought perhaps you couldn't either. Vovka told me the worst story I’ve ever heard in my life earlier, and now I can't stop thinking about it. Not in the way anything could be done to help. Just a thought that won’t leave.”
He softened at this explanation, but there was still a touch of impatience and expectation that she was about to ask for something he’d refuse.
“Would you mind… would you hold me a while?”
“Hold you?” he repeated, doubtful. He clearly didn't believe that was all that she wanted.
“Just hold me,” she stressed. “Perhaps I’ll fall asleep that way.”
With a grunt, he rose up from the bed, the gathered bedsheets spilled around him and his wings arched high. As elegant as a statue in a stately garden he regarded her with those glowing red eyes. “You really see something here that could provide comfort?” His tone was icy, but she sensed weakness in the exhausted way he gestured to himself. “Do be reasonable, sweet thing.”
In her restless state, she weighed the risks of calling his bluff. She thought—or rather hoped, that she sensed a similar desire for companionship in the hell touched vampire. He didn't want to be alone, just as she didn't, but would he be so prideful as to push her away rather than admit it?
She could make it easier for both of them, and just climb in bed with him without another word. He’d allow it, in all likelihood, and she thought that was what he really wanted. She could spare him the humbling experience of admitting that he was lonely.
Then again.
Isolde turned and retreated to the hallway, closing the door softly behind her. She tried not to look back at him anymore directly than the very corner of her eye. It felt awful. She didn't want to leave him alone in there, so obviously in pain. And she didn't want to be alone either. But she couldn't pretend that it didn't hurt, when he was so aloof like this, leaving her to be the only one who could admit need. And besides, maybe she had the measure of him all wrong. Maybe he really didn't want her there.
At some point, she had to stop trying to read him and do what she thought he wanted in spite of what he said; at some point she needed to take him at his word.
Just as she rested in a state of resignation, she heard the door click open, down the hallway, at her back. She stopped and waited for him to approach, and by the time she turned around, she was so deep in the cool shade of him that she nearly brushed right up against his bare chest. He’d left the bundle of bedsheets behind and instead stood totally naked, his perfect pale skin practically glowing under moonlight.
For a moment, she couldn’t read his expression well enough to venture a guess at what he was thinking. His face was a beautiful, sculpted mask shaded by the arcs of his new horns. Then she saw a brush of rage, of regret, and a little of her own need reflected back at her. “I—” but he cut himself off. Her best guess was that he’d almost managed an apology in that moment, but instead, he took her face in his hands and brought her mouth crashing into his.
Immediately, she dropped the blanket she had wrapped around herself, her palms falling flat against his smooth, heaving chest. She’d noticed some prongs and other small vestigial features had grown on him, but didn’t feel anything until she began to knead her fingers more insistently against him, her touch trailing over his ribs and down to his hips, in rhythm with the increasing pressure as he rocked against her, his length hard and hot between her clenching thighs. He groaned as she managed to slip her arms between them during an opening and cupped him in both hands.
For a few moments, he let her play with him, feeling the soft skin of his sack and the throb coursing through his shaft in her firm hands. With satisfaction, she felt his tongue faltering as he ravished her mouth, and a low groan came from the back of his throat as he became too distracted to give more. She’d been waiting for this. She wanted him to do a little receiving again.
But, it seemed Astarion had other ideas. He caught her wrists in his claws and smoothly led her about, practically dancing her into the wall as he turned her around. Molding her back to his chest, he held her with both arms, taking a deep inhale of breath he didn’t need and murmuring into her ear, “this is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
She froze, leaning into the wall and away from him about an inch, but he only moved in, caging her there. “I want to help. To please you. And I don’t want to convince you to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“What makes you think I don’t want it?” And with the hard shaft of his cock pressed between them, Isolde mind tunneled.
She was distracted by the sudden realization that he felt huge. Larger than she remembered, certainly. He’d been inside of her before, and she’d felt full enough, but now there was something intriguing unfamiliar about his cock. She hadn’t gotten a good look at this part of his new form yet. Had even that much changed about him? It was unnerving, in a way, but a little additional girth and the presence of some ribbing and nubs that hadn’t been there before didn’t seem like it was entirely a bad thing.
“I—I don’t know, it’s a little hard—I mean difficult—to think right now.” She confessed.
He chuckled and then she felt her chemise shifting up her leg, as something long and muscular coiled between her legs.
It turned out that the end of his new tail was as suited to delicate, careful movements as his fingers, but much stronger. He wasn’t particularly dexterous with it yet, but managed to trace a fiery line up one thigh. He glided across her entrance and parted her lower lips, to deliberately draw firm circles around her clit. Her hips rocked as waves of warm pleasure bloomed outward from his touch, and the tapered coil of muscle grew slick where it pressed against her entrance, shifting ever so slightly while he worked her through the tension of her thighs. He stripped her chemise off her body and let it drop to the floor.
Even as she gasped at another surge of pleasure radiating from her core, the sound caught in her throat like a sob. So much for giving, rather than receiving. She squeezed her legs around his tail, gentle at first, then firmer, and was rewarded with another wave of pleasure from her core, but then she heard him groan and felt a shudder that ripple through the muscular chest against her back.
Being sinew, and slippery with arousal, his tail could still move between her legs, even as she squeezed as tight as she could. He pressed in between her folds, pulled back, and then moved through them again, more slowly, drawing my hips forward in smooth, swaying motion. His breath hitched, and she felt his chest pounding. He was building too.
It seemed at least a part of his tail was an erogenous zone.
They hadn’t yet experienced each other enough for her to stop being surprised by him, but this time felt different in ways that had to be new to Astarion as well. He was still working her with that same relentless energy, but he didn’t feel so in control as he had before. There was a wildness to his movements and little grunts, and as he rocked his body against her, he was running hot. Waves of pulsing heat pumped through him, and it occurred to her that this had to be an entirely unfamiliar sensation to him.
She clenched her thighs together so tightly that they trembled, but still his tail forced its way through and he gasped. “Oh yes, keep doing that,” he moaned. “Fight it all you like. Move with me.”
His hands gripped her breasts so that his new claws bit her skin, and with a shudder the tip of his tail briefly slipped inside her cunt on the next pull through her legs. She was pretty sure he hadn’t intended to penetrate her yet. She inhaled sharply at the sensation, the sudden stretch, but he only circled around her drenched opening, then he pulled out and skimmed right over the top of her clit.
“You do gasp so sweetly, my dear,” and to demonstrate he put pressure on both handfuls of her breasts, pinching each nipple between his fingers, as his tail flicked at her clit again. “Yes, just like that.” He nipped at her ear, and she was startled to feel that his comparatively conservative little fangs felt longer, and joined by more pointed and razor sharp teeth, but his tongue was still smooth as he stroked where he’d bitten.
“I don’t want to come undone just yet,” he warned.
But, Isolde did want that. He’d brought her close to the edge, only to pull back. Maybe he wasn’t quite used to managing the tail, or he just wanted to torment her a little.
He released her and backed away just long enough for her to turn around and face him, a question on her trembling lips, but she could tell the moment she looked at him that he wasn’t abandoning her. He was far from done with her.
Her clit pulsed from sensation as he leaned the pressure of his hips into her. Astarion’s clawed hands gently massaged their way from her breasts down her wrists to cage her wrists. She felt her blood quickening under his grip. He looked down at her, and with a sensation of warmth, she appreciated that she could still read him just fine, even with the black sclera.
His eyes caressed her, following the soft lines of her own collarbones, down the center of her chest and over her breasts, her stomach. His grip on her wrists grew slack and he traced his claws down the insides of her arms, meeting at the joint of her collarbones and down the front of her chest, all the way to her stomach. And what she read in his eyes was relief and something like hope, something uncertain. She couldn’t stand it so she closed her eyes and kissed him.
The moment she’d seen Astarion, Isolde had been captivated by his beauty, and recognized what a danger it was to the world at large, and to her specifically. He’d always been walking temptation. But, hell-touched, she thought he was still just as devastating. His broad shoulders rounded gently with lean muscles, and his chilly skin tone blended with the bone colored hours and claws, making him look more muted than before, a pale gash in the night. She couldn’t ever remember having noticed collarbones in the past, but became fixated on the soft shape of his and how it contrasted with the planes of his throat leading up to his jaw. His suprasternal notch drew her in, and she wanted to lick every part of him.
For a few heartbeats he just ran his hands lightly over her body, letting her lean into him until he was holding her weight. His tail slid up and down the backs of her legs. Then continued to circle her, stroking its way up to her mouth. The tip parted her lips and met my tongue.
“Suck,” he murmured against her ear.
Isolde tasted herself on him, and tasted him as well, and her mouth began to water. His flesh was savory and salty and had a distinctive scent of smoke that lingered. He wasn’t delving deep into her mouth with his tail, instead filling her just about as much as another tongue.
A strong, thick, insistent tongue that liked being sucked hard. And he did like it, she could tell by the way his entire body trembled against her. She ground her hips, rubbing her clit against him more insistently as her climax grew close again.
“When you come, bite down. Hard.”
That final whisper in her ear was the end of her, and Isolde came all at once. It had felt so difficult to build up to for these last few minutes of pure stimulation, only for her climax to rush over her, absolutely unstoppable. She did bite down, but only managed it for an instant, before her jaw involuntarily dropped open in a blinding, silent moan. It must have been enough, however, because he hissed, all of him clenching in a potent mix of pleasure and pain. And it kept going, for far longer than she was used to. she fought for breath against him, still squirming in the aftershock. But she didn’t feel his release, and when she could see clearly again, the expression on his face was strained, but pleased.
Had he told her to do that so that he wouldn’t come yet? A shock of pain to break through his own building climax? Something like that could just as easily send a man over the edge, but he would know his own body, even if parts of it were new acquaintances.
The tip of his tail had bite marks, but she hadn't broken the skin.
She was still reeling from what had to be the most intense orgasm of her life, but he held her up, and against the wall, so she didn’t have to rely on her weakened legs.
Even now, the tail steadied her before uncoiling from her.
Astarion slipped one knuckle into her entrance, keeping his wicked claws curled in to try and spare her the tapered point, but another finger joined just inside her entrance. “You’re tight,” he kissed the side of her throat.
Because he’d just made her come like an avalanche and now her body was aching where she was hollow, trying to close around nothing.
“I’ll stretch,” she breathed. His increased girth and length would both be a challenge, but she wanted to give it a try, at the very least.
“You could barely take me when I was average size,” He grinned against her soft neck, widening his fingers, smoothly sliding in and out, his thumb finding her clit.
“How dare you,” she fought a laugh. “I did just fine, thank you very much.” The last word was more a gasp.
“Maybe we’ll have more fun if we avoid—”
“You want me to beg?” she guessed.
He didn’t answer right away. His other hand pinched and massaged at one nipple as he started to slowly unfurl and thrust his fingers inside of her, careful not to catch her on his nails. “Maybe.”
She was just barely getting over her post climax sensitivity, and could feel more fluid gushing into his hand, her legs starting to lose their strength again.
His cock slid between her thighs, and he withdrew his fingers, teasing her with the hot hard shaft grinding up against her. She started to spread her legs, but his tail lashed around both of them, pulling the two of them in tighter together. His constricted cock throbbed, getting warmer and slicker through the dripping arousal between her legs. But aside from a small hitch in the back of his throat he didn’t give away any risk of losing his control.
While she panted and whined, he pinned her wrists above her head in both hands, claiming her mouth in a rough and desperate kiss. While his tongue fucked her mouth, his cock was still hard and heavy between her closed thighs, rubbing more frantically to match the undulating rhythm of his searching kisses. Still wrapped around them both, the end of his tail found her clit to tease again. She wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take, and when he finally gave her an opening to breathe she gasped “Need you, inside.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” he warned, his mouth barely came away from her raw lips and she could feel his mocking grin. “On the one hand, it will feel very, very good for me. But for you?”
Her second orgasm came almost entirely without warning, as he continued to thrust in between her trembling legs, rubbing right up against her entrance without penetrating her. The merciless pleasure ripped through. And she didn’t have the foresight to stifle her voice, but instead cried out, a sharp, immodest shriek that surely must have contorted her features. He grunted, wildly picking up speed, thrusting hard and fast, his cock sliding rapidly against her clits and fluttering, empty cunt, as his hands kneaded her breasts. His tail rolled upwards to press down firmly over her lower stomach and caused the climax to hold her a few delicious beats longer, even more intense than before.
He was laughing at her, though she had a feeling that he’d interrupted his own climb to climax again. And was distracting himself as he held very still, letting her fall apart against him, her body somehow both overstimulated and aching for more.
Don’t make me beg. She pinned her tongue between her teeth. That was what he wanted, wasn’t it? He wanted her to beg him to fuck her.
“You’re exquisite,” he shifted, finally, voice a little tight as he continued to fight. “I doubt you can appreciate the effort it’s taking to hold myself back. Every part of your body is perfect. Sweet to taste and soft to touch. Your voice, a song of pure lust,” his hand listed near her throat, and for a moment she could feel the urge to grab and squeeze ripple through the clawed tips of his fingers as he brushed her jugular.
Then his palm rested against the top of her chest instead, dipping down directly over her heart as his forehead came to rest gently against her crown. His horns clicked against the wall behind them. “Thank you, for letting me defile you.”
“Please,” she was prepared to beg if it came down to it, but this one word alone left her feeling a little dazed with lust, especially as he melted against her.
“Of course. I wouldn’t deny you.” That wicked grin was as self satisfied as she'd ever seen on his infernal face. “Are you ready to spread your legs for me?”
Obediently she parted her knees.
“I need to hear you say it. Say what you’ll do. Say what you want me to do.”
“I’ll say whatever you want. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“What is it I want?”
“I’ll spread my legs for you. I’ll stretch for you. I want you.”
The cool shade above them reminded her of his wings. He’d kept them draped at his back before now, but as they arched high and curved over them, she noticed the twitching claws at each apex wriggle, like he was testing their dexterity. Sure enough, he slid his hands down the insides of her arms and let the claws of his wing joints take their place, shackling her wrists above her head and effectively pinning her against the wall. A thrill coursed through her at the same instant that his hands pulled away to ghost her flesh down the sensitive insides of her arms and over her chest. “Is this alright?”
“Yes.” It felt incredible, being trapped in place by him and knowing that he was going to take care of her, that she wouldn’t regret it. “I trust you. I want you inside me. I want your cock.”
“Ask for it.”
“Please, please. Take me, deep. I want to feel you come inside me.”
The head of his cock stroked against her clit as he rocked his hips, agonizingly gentle and slow. She remembered his early inclination toward edging with a moan. It was almost totally ineffective, given how responsive she was to his touch. Almost. She gasped in relief as he hoisted her legs up higher, letting her lock her ankles around his waist.
“I want to feel you come around me.” He dipped two fingers into her entrance again, stretching her, slowly guiding his cock.
“Tell me how you like it,” he started to push inside. His claws settled around her hips, pulling her onto him and sinking, just a few inches, the head barely teasing the rough spot just behind her clit. She felt herself stretching, though he wasn’t anywhere close to deep. A little shock of pain made her hold onto her breath. His nails bit until he stopped, then he released the pressure on his grip and circled his fingertips over the marks. “I can be soft, tender? Do you want me to be gentle with your delicate little cunt?”
A tremor of pleasure washed over her as her entrance settled around the head of his cock, holding him. “This feels really good,” she gasped, “But, I need… I need more.” She shifted my hips just a little, encouraging him to go deeper. “You can hurt me.”
“Or, you’ll tell me to stop, and I’ll stop.”
But, she wasn’t going to. A little pain was what she craved tonight.
Seemingly able to read this in her, his hands caressed their way up her body, and he watched her face carefully as he rested against her throat. He slid against her walls as he began to thrust, taking his time and caressing her channel with his cock for a few languid waves, matching his speed to her moans as she started to roll her hips in time with quick, frantic breathing that pulsed under the pressure of his hands.
“Oh, God!” She gasped as she felt his sack connect with her flesh on each wild trust. He was all the way inside. It didn’t hurt as much as she expected, but there was a deep, satisfying kind of twinge at the sinking point of each thrust. And a stream of incoherent ramblings began to spill out between her gasps and whimpers.
He groaned, shifting his movement so he was grinding against her, more insistent, staying deep, up to the hilt. “So good, taking all of me like this.”
It was too much, all at once, his hands pushing the breath from her throat, the entirety of his cock filling her, dragging over her walls in a relentless beat and then grinding against her clit as well. She was going to come fast, and hard, and it didn’t seem like he planned to edge her again.
Then, his tail wrapped under one knee and he spread her wider with a jerk, breaking her locked ankles apart from each other, his thrusts becoming faster, harder, and his own breathing outpacing hers in nearly pained grunts and gasps as he gripped harder.
He rutted into her, wild, and she came undone with a cry that started deep in her belly. Still, he fucked her through wave after wave of blinding pleasure. Her cunt finally grabbed a hold of him and squeezed, and he shouted, his own completion spilling hot inside of her.
He’d released her, his wings falling back so her arms came to her sides, and she felt the sensation of breath and blood flooding back into her brain as his hands dropped from her neck. Dazed, and with her vision blotched, she threw herself at him, unwilling to let him get even a foot away, and quickly she had her fingers tangled in his hair. She was a trembling mess against him. For a moment he remained upright, then he sank into her, nuzzling her shoulder. His mouth drew a hot, delicious line over her collar-bones. His spent body and drained cock still rolled against her
Nothing was in her head. He had fucked the brains right out of her, and she just clung to him. She knew there were tears rolling from the corners of her eyes again, but this felt different. Amazing. A catharsis she hadn’t realized she needed.
Isolde was more or less standing without danger of collapsing, and could probably walk just fine. Probably.
Astarion wasn’t going to let her though. He gathered her into his arms and carried her back to his room. He laid her out on his bed, but turned the covers away, and looked down at where she was still catching her breath, flat on her back and naked. He looked like he wanted to say something, and she imagined that the idea to try again to apologize had crossed his mind—for being cool with her earlier.
Instead of speaking, he lay beside her, his hands first caressing and then massaging her. He used the new and unfamiliar heat in his hands to warm and sooth her down each arm and leg, over her hips and her stomach, he checked her throat lightly with his fingertips, but he’d been relatively gentle and when he restricted her airway. He moved the moisture from her eyes and just at the moment when she began to feel truly relaxed, almost absent from her body, he pulled the blankets over the top of them both, finally pulling her into his arms as she’d asked.
Barely employable, millennial disaster, and perpetual undergrad Ellie is transported to a fantasy world that is unfortunately more disposed towards war and ecological disaster than elf orgies and pipeweed. She immediately meets the chosen one, destined to defeat the Evil King™, but the BBEG is offering better job security and benefits.
^ the portal fantasy series I self-published while in law school, because law school was a whole time and I needed to hyper-fixate on nonsense to cope. It's very pre-2016 vibes and I am planning a rewrite, but the original version is still available.
Princess In Another Podcast
My friends and I talk about video games, covering important topics like did the Fable games actually do sex scenes better than Witcher 3? Is it okay if I name my first born daughter Bayonetta? (yes and yes)
Trope Town
A discord server where I have my WIPs listed on different channels, with links to the rough drafts so that people can alpha read them and bully me <3 but for real, I am very interested in getting critical feedback, especially as I work on several projects in a genre I don't have a ton of experience with... it's romantasy, I'm trying to get into writing romantasy.
SpaceMonkeySalsa on Ao3
I also write fanfiction. For the last couple of years I've been a bit obsessed with Baldur's Gate 3. Here's my three main fics and their statuses.
God of Ambivalence
I haven't written on this one in a while, because I got a bit discouraged when I discovered Gale's canon fate inside the rock, but I do want to go back to it, because it's fully outlined and I think it's kind great. Basically, Gale "survives" getting maimed by a durge at the beginning of this playthrough. But, flash forward about a hundred years and he's finally freed from a state of Netherese stasis to discover... very little has changed. Oh, except that about a hundred years ago a bunch of adventurers (including someone who ate his hand) saved Baldur's Gate by making a deal with the very devil that Gale had been trying to score an audience with, to help with his orb problem. Now, he's the archdevil Raphael, and a major player in a war in the hells that's raged ever since. And he still wants to talk to Gale.
^Based off of a playthrough with my resisted durge Prisia. She did start off rough by chewing through Gale's wrist, and making a few other mistakes, but she eventually got her act together, fell madly in love with Wyll, defied her father, and helped everyone achieve self-actualization.
Appetites
This was supposed to be a short smut piece about an unromanced and depressed Ascended Astarion, about five years after the game, figuring out that getting everything he wanted hasn't made him happy. It's turned into more of a project about how even the shittiest possible versions of ourselves aren't truly hopeless, and deserve love. The hook would probably be that he inadvertently starts a torrid affair with a woman who he later figures out is the only remaining Gur in the city, after he murdered the absolute shit out of the rest of her family five years ago. Oops.
Her Embrace, Her Tears
This naturally evolves from the above-mentioned idea "even the shittiest possible versions of ourselves aren't truly hopeless, and deserve love" and follows Shadowheart as the Head of Shar's church, and her strained relationship with Lae'zel, who is one of the few characters from this campaign that turned out OK. It crosses with Appetites, sharing a few scenes, though I switch up the POV. The hook here is Shar has a new Chosen, and it's someone with significance to Lae'zel, which finally brings their long-buried issues to a head. Shadowheart begins purging her memories of Lae'zel in an attempt to better serve her goddess. So, really just a vehicle for Lae'zel v. Shadowheart lesbian angst and smut.
future projects:
Bring No One - Same universe as Her Embrace, Her Tears, and Appetites, this one is about Duke Ravenguard who had his heart broken by Gale after they saved the city together. Gale became a god, as one does, and because duty and common sense kept Wyll from joining him in Elysium, they haven't spoken since. Being Duke has kept him busy enough. But, being a god doesn't actually offer the kind of stability one might hope, and when things get very bad for him, Gale needs somewhere to run. Wyll just can't say no to harboring the renegade god in Baldur's Gate, even if it puts his people in danger.
In Her Name - Also in the same universe, Minthara couldn't let Karlach go to hell alone. At first, it felt like nothing more than a futile, foolish romantic gesture, or maybe even a ruse to stay close to her until she could convince her to burn out her light in the pursuit of something great, but it ultimately became a mission to conquer hell, so Karlach can finally know peace.
