My second illustration for the @bg3-winter-big-bang, based on a scene from @ofsilentthings' submission "And Tomorrow I Shall Again Wear Diamonds And Dance". There's so many little details about this picture that I can talk about endlessly, but I'll spare you guys. 😉
hello if you're feeling spooky check out my submission for the BG3 Winter Big Bang event: A Knife in the Dark
Amazing artwork by @asleepyghostwhostaresatyou
Summary: Orin decides to hunt The Dark Urge for sport during a snowstorm outside Moonrise Towers. Set right before Durge is abducted on the Nautiloid, this is a spooky story about Durge trying to escape Orin's plans.
The light should have begun causing him discomfort, he knew. It should have begun making his eyes tear, making it difficult to see. The air should have rapidly grown hotter with every step, until it felt as though he stood next to a burning furnace.
- Legacy of Ash - Chapter 2
- Legacy of Ash - Chapter 2 (AO3)
The second in a series of illustrations for @bg3-winter-big-bang with my partner, @vixstarria 💜
Chapter summary: Astarion tries to right a wrong the best way he knows how
Chapter CW: ✨smut✨ - also see AO3 chapter link for some incredible (and incredibly NSFW) art by the amazing @ghostfire
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Series summary:
A magical storm descends over Baldur’s Gate. The city freezes and vampires roam freely in the daylight, while the raging tempest threatens to tear a rift between the material plane and the domain of a malevolent fey. Holding the key to the storm is the fey’s warlock - the late Cazador Szarr’s sister, Constancia Szarr. Her first order of business on arrival in Baldur’s Gate? Vengeance. “And the escaped spawn that returned to kill Cazador… The one you say has stayed in the city since,” Constancia interrogated her captive. “This ‘Astarion’. Where is he now?”
Pairing: Astarion x Original Female Character
Genre: Angst / Drama / Romance / Horror / Dark comedy if you squint
Rating: Explicit
Chapter word count: 7k
Astarion figured Asmodea had gone to tear his throat out in vengeance, and didn’t even fight back as her fangs pierced his neck - he had told her he would accept anything she did to him, after all. But nothing happened, beyond the bite. It was an alien sensation. No one had done this to him in over two centuries. Asmodea sobbed into his neck as she drank from him, pulling him deeper and deeper into her mind with each gulp. His knees buckled. An impossible spark of hope reignited, reassuring and warming him, and he wrapped his arms around her.
And then his vision swam and darkened, and he was plunged into something Other.
Astarion felt, rather than saw. And what he perceived was Asmodea, his Oddie as he had always known her, all shining light and warmth, suddenly flanked by a figure made of swarming shadows. Its features were hidden from Astarion, as though blurred beyond a veil - he could not make out any detail. What he could see was all barbs and thorns, gnarled appendages, claws and sharp edges. It extended and grew from someplace he could not see, until it grew gargantuan. The figure’s limbs, or what appeared to be limbs, encircled Asmodea protectively. It was protecting her from him, Astarion realised, absurd as that notion was to him. Tendrils shot out, reaching for him, but just as they attacked, Asmodea spoke.
“Hush now, it’s okay.” She wasn’t speaking to him, Astarion realised. “Go back to sleep, poppet.”
The shadows shimmered, dissipated and retreated. The figure gave a final swirl around Asmodea, almost catlike in the way it brushed against her, and finally melted away just as Astarion opened his eyes, in truth now, releasing a breath he had been holding. The shock of the experience had been so profound it pushed all prior concerns out of his mind momentarily.
He found Asmodea looking up at him, wiping blood - his blood - from her mouth.
“Was that..?” he gasped.
She nodded. “They’re gone for the night now, they won’t bother us.” She shut her eyes and licked the remnants of his blood from her fingertips. “You taste like moonlight.”
And then he was pulled in, gently, back into her mind - just her this time, with no outside presence - like being guided into a warm, deep, dark pool.
More was exposed to him the deeper he waded. Her hunger, a sensation familiar to him. Her anger, also an old friend. Her hurt, which he had spent so long trying to suppress within himself, so fresh and raw within her. Scattered pieces of her joy and whimsy, shrunken, wilted and lacking in lustre. And beyond it all, her love for him. Something so precious, now surrounded on all sides by her pain and fury. Trapped so tightly by them that it was fractured.
‘It’s broken,’ she spoke sadly in his mind.
This communication was different from that that which he’d experienced with Amanita. He and Asmodea passed sensations and images, concepts and ideas, alongside regular words. It came so easy, so natural...
‘It’s only damaged,’ he replied. ‘Nothing that can’t be fixed.’
He reached out to soothe, coax away her anger and ache, giving her parts of himself, trying to alleviate the pressure from the love. It helped, but the damage had been done.
‘It will never be the same again, will it?’ she asked. Her raw sincerity twisted a knife in his stomach. Always one to be coy or sarcastic, to tease and play, it was so unlike her to be so utterly bare in her earnestness. Like a small wounded animal that was placing her full trust in him, trust that he wouldn’t harm her further, but would instead help her heal.
‘No, darling, I don’t suppose it will...’ he projected. ‘But it was never meant to be static. Our hearts aren’t made of stone, they’re malleable and flexible, prone to change, to heal, to grow. New branches can emerge and flowers can blossom over old fissures and prunings.’
He felt like a fraud - who did he think he was, talking about change, growth and new beginnings? That had always been Halsin’s realm. All Astarion was good for was death and defilement, no matter how badly he might want it to be otherwise.
‘You are so sure of that, yet I am not even the same person anymore. You don’t know me anymore. I don’t know me anymore...’
‘That only means I will get to know you again. If you will let me...’
“Please...” he whispered aloud. Tears that had been pooling in her eyes slipped free, and he kissed them away, tenderly. “Let me...”
“I want to…” she whispered.
His lips brushed against hers, softly. She returned his kiss, but moments later a flash of her frustrated anger framed in shame flickered through their mental connection, and Asmodea withdrew. She pulled back and hid, as though suddenly finding herself naked and vulnerable. Astarion could not follow, nor did he know how to conceal his own mind from her even if he’d wanted to, and so he simply continued to project his pleading, leaving himself an open book.
Another flash of anger followed, spilling over, or perhaps being exposed to him deliberately - he had no way of telling. Some spiteful part of her that craved to see him beg and grovel.
Well. He wasn’t above it. He wasn’t above very much at all, truth be told. Especially not for her. He just wanted to show her his love, his repentance, the best way he knew how.
He sank to his knees.
They hadn’t been intimate since the encounter in the butler’s office the day of her rescue. Almost as soon as it was over and Asmodea had sobered from her blood-fuelled frenzy, her entire demeanour changed. She looked around them in shock and horror. Recoiled from the pooling blood, looking as though she was about to be sick. Time, which had briefly seemed to stand still for them until then, sped up again. Beyond the locked door, Astarion could hear a ruckus - their companions’ voices and shouts from the servants. Jaheira’s harpers must have also broken into the manor and were causing a commotion. Someone, he thought it was Shadowheart, was searching and calling his name.
Panicked, Asmodea met his eyes with the look of a deer frozen in fright. Someone started pounding on the door. She shrank away from it. Cursing himself, Astarion just lifted her off her feet and carried her away from it all, upstairs into a dark bedroom via a concealed servants’ passage - good thing the entire manor was latticed with them.
They had stayed in the manor since. There was no one else to claim it. Hanzo never returned. Azora and Thalia disappeared shortly after their now former mistress’s death. Most of the servants fled - the ones that has elsewhere to go, anyway. A few cared not who they were serving, and begged to stay, even if just for lodgings. All matters to be resolved later, whenever that ‘later’ came.
Gale and Shadowheart visited Asmodea, briefly, to see if there was anything within their power that could be done. There wasn’t.
Halsin had also seen her, and seemed to have managed to provide some kind of comfort - in any event Asmodea did not immediately send him away.
She had refused to see anyone else until Amanita’s visit this evening. Had not left the manor. Had not been herself.
Asmodea leaned her back against the bedroom door and watched him with narrowed eyes, looking down her nose at him in deliberation.
Astarion began kissing up from her knee, moving up along the high slit of her chemise.
“Please,” he murmured again, against her cool skin. He wasn’t even sure exactly what he was asking for. It didn’t matter. Every moment that she allowed him to remain near her was precious. He nipped at her thigh, and ran his tongue along the edge of the fabric where it met her bare skin.
Another moment of hesitation and some internal struggle, and Asmodea cursed, shut her eyes and threw her head back against the door, and spread her legs further in invitation.
Rejoicing, he slowly made his way further up, lifting the material of her chemise as he went along, until he was at the juncture of her thighs. Above him, Asmodea released a small, shaky sigh, and lifted her leg to hook it over his shoulder, revealing the sight of her pussy, bare and glistening with arousal for him.
Unable to wait another second, Astarion plunged his tongue inside her, inhaling, deeply, as he ravenously delved inside her.
He hummed a moan of relief and pleasure. Her blood may have changed, and her skin may have grown colder, but her scent carried the same musk that had always driven him wild. Make a fortune if this could be distilled, bottled up and sold, he thought somewhere in the back of his mind. He looked up from between her legs in reverence as he continued to spread her open, chasing every trace of her taste on his tongue, breathing her in. He found her grinning. His thoughts were still open to her, he realised. Something told him that she would be blushing, if she was still capable.
Her fingers travelled to tangle in his hair. Astarion hated, hated, anyone messing with his hair, Asmodea being the one exception. Her nails - blunt nails, for she had trimmed her claws - scratched pleasantly at his scalp as he teased the length of her slit with his tongue. But a building need radiated from her, one he didn’t need any mental link to anticipate. He began circling her clit with a wet tongue.
Her fingers moved to his ears, feather-light caresses sending shivers of pleasure down his spine and all through his body. She caressed, mindlessly, along the length of his helix, as she herself dissolved in pleasure. The little minx, Astarion thought, a soft whine escaping him. She knew what this did to elves, though he doubted she truly understood it.
Astarion continued to work his tongue on her, though he himself was becoming lost in pleasure, enveloped in a sweet sensation. Nothing should feel as good as this did - certainly not something as simple as someone lightly stroking his ears. A not-quite-tickle that one didn’t want to ever stop.
It was then he realised that his tongue was mirroring her fingertips’ motions on his ears - circling her clit feather-light with the tip of his tongue, teasing the blood gorged bud with languid caresses, just as she had been doing to him. Or was she repeating his motions..? He could no longer tell. All he knew was, he wanted more. Needed more.
Asmodea was lost in bliss, letting out little cries of pleasure. She whimpered when he suddenly hiked her leg up higher, spreading her open further, and speared his tongue inside her, lapping up more of her juices. She groaned and sank further, rolling her hips against his face, her fingers once again simply tangled in his hair, tightening their grip. A desperate need was emanating from her, running through his mind. A frustration from her now ignored bundle of nerves, and the craving to be filled with more.
‘Is this what my girl wants?’ he projected with his mind, as he continued tongue-fuck her.
“Yes…” she panted.
‘More?’
“Yes,” she repeated, more desperately.
‘Is this where you want me?’ he asked, projecting innocence, withdrawing his tongue and simply lapping at her weeping hole, continuing to ignore her swollen clit.
“Astarion…” she moaned. Hearing his name on her lips again was sweet music to his ears. “Astarion I’m going to murder you…”
Laughing, he rose to his feet. Immediately, her hands grasped for his pants, frantically, blindly unfastening the clasps and ties. His own went to tear the chemise from her body, ripping it in half and letting it fall to the floor - she had been wearing it long enough. Her lips crashed against his, their tongues grappling and clashing. She released a feral growl - a primal sound, a predator’s warning that inspired terror in its prey. It only made him even harder.
Having been freed of the confines of his trousers by her nimble hands, he lifted her, hoisting her up in his arms, and entered her in one rough, impatient motion, to both of their sighs and moans of relief.
How did they always wind up like this, Astarion wondered idly as he thrust inside her. It wasn’t even comfortable, the sound of the door rattling on its hinges probably resonated throughout the entire manor, traumatising any remaining servants, and the bed was right there. But, just as he was about to carry her to the bed, Astarion thought he had a better idea.
“Stick to the wall,” he said breathlessly, continuing to thrust.
“What?!” she let out a giggle.
“You can spiderclimb, do it.”
“I don’t know how, and I don’t know about this teaching methodology of yours,” she managed.
He paused, remaining inside her, and continuing to hold her up by her hips.
“Plant your feet.” She did, unwrapping them from around his hips and placing them against the wall. “Now shift your gravity.”
“Oh is that all? Change gravity?” she laughed. Astarion caught her smiling lips with his own, as though he could taste and share her laughter and momentary mirth.
“If you want me to keep going,” he purred into her ear, punctuating his words with a languid roll of his hips before withdrawing from her almost completely, “you’ll figure it out.”
She made futile sounds of protest and squirmed again him, trying to get more friction. He was unrelenting, continuing to barely touch her. Holding her was becoming increasingly awkward and uncomfortable, however, not to mention the frustration of lingering at her very entrance, and not allowing himself to plunge deeper.
And then she suddenly became lighter in his arms, releasing a small gasp and looking at him wide-eyed. He sank back inside her, to their mutual groan of satisfaction.
“Good girl,” he said, kissing along her jaw, having now released her hips entirely, instead planting his arms on the wall beside her head. “I’ve always known all the best ways to motivate you.”
She bit his lip in response, nicking it with a fang and drawing blood, moaning into his mouth as she licked the droplet with the tip of her tongue, before it healed.
Then the next thing he knew was, she giggled and slid off his cock entirely, crawling further up the wall and leaving him behind.
He caught a stray sensation, a thought that slipped free of her mind - whether by accident, or to lure him, he did not know, or care. A thought of being chased. The excitement of what he would do to her when he caught her. The anticipation of it.
A growl built in his throat, and he tore off what remained of his own clothing, and briskly followed her up the wall. He reached her in no time - she was still trying to figure out how to get onto the ceiling from the wall. He caught her, holding her against him, and carried her further, until they were both upside down and she had affixed herself to the surface once again.
“Did you think you could run?” he whispered darkly. “From me?”
She let out a breathy moan and trembled against him as he kissed down her neck, trailing his fangs along her skin, teasing but not breaking it, until he was at the juncture between her neck and shoulder - a particularly sensitive spot, he knew. Only then he bit down again.
It was a strange and counter-intuitive duality, the blood exchange and its effects. What would under ordinary circumstances be the act of a predator catching and feeding on its prey, was the ultimate act of submission before another vampire. By drinking Asmodea’s blood, Astarion allowed her into his mind, allowed her to feel through him, to control his very being. His mind and all his urges and desires were laid out, bare, before her. There was no hiding. He was faced with all the things that he would normally want to run from. Still, he couldn’t get enough.
“I want to devour you,” he whispered, hoarsely. “All of you.” He continued to nip and bite at her neck, her shoulders as she moaned and writhed against him, her wounds quickly pulling back shut, drawing her further and further in. And yet, he felt incomplete, an unmet craving gnawing at the back of his mind. Her side of the connection was beginning to fade. “Please,” he purred in her ear. This time there was no question of exactly what it was he was begging her for.
She nipped at his bottom lip again, drawing blood. Pleasant, but not enough, not nearly enough - merely a trickle of what he wanted. She continued to skate her lips softly along his jaw and down to his neck. Her cool breath sent shivers of anticipation through him. She let out a dark chuckle, kissing the sensitive flesh just below his ear, but not moving down to where he wanted her and those sharp fangs of hers. He knew this game all too well, had played it himself countless times. To have his own weapons used against him now was so, so, utterly unfair.
“So needy,” she murmured, her tongue darting out to lick him exactly where he wanted to feel more, making him whimper. “What makes you think you deserve it..?”
“I don’t,” he admitted. “But don’t you want to take what’s yours and see what I will do with you for it..?”
Her fangs sank into his neck at last, and she drank deeply.
Her sensations poured into him. Not just her thoughts and emotions - sensations throughout her body reflected back onto him. He felt her arousal, magnified, within himself. A craving between her thighs, at the same time alien yet familiar. The feeling from nipple he had been circling with his thumb, mirrored on his own chest. The urge to simply plunge back inside her was insurmountable, and yet it was his curiosity that took over.
Grabbing and holding her arms over her head with one hand, his other hand snaked down between her legs and explored. His fingers slipped inside and found a sensitive spot inside her, and stroked, roughly, letting the palm of his hand land against her clit with every movement. She groaned something about unfairness, but otherwise just dissolved into moans, her hips jerking against his hand as he continued to draw pleasure out of her with his fingers.
Just as she was on the cusp of falling over the edge, he withdrew his hand, to her whimper of disappointment and loss.
“I could keep you like this for hours, you know,” he smirked.
“Don’t you dare,” said her lips. Her mind, open to him, said something else entirely.
He looked down at his fingers, drenched and coated in her slick.
“And look at this mess you’re making,” he murmured. “What are we going to do with it..?” He began grinding his pelvis again hers, his erection sliding and rubbing against her sensitive little nub. She rolled her hips back against his, grinding against his cock, trying to get more friction, or slip it inside herself again, anything. Her thoughts were half-incoherent with need. “Hmm?” he added.
“What?” she said, realising he was actually expecting an answer, and struggling to maintain any coherency. “The- oh gods… Lick it..?”
“I have a better idea.”
He took some mercy on her (and himself), finally allowing his cock to enter her again, filling her completely. His free, slick-coated hand reached down and behind her, to spread her own wetness around her tight ring of muscles.
She jerked against him, surprised, but with nowhere for her hips to go, she only clung onto him more tightly, moaning as his fingers swirled around her puckered hole. For Astarion, it was unmistakable - pleasure radiated within his own body where his fingers circled hers. And he wanted, he needed-
“More?” he asked breathlessly.
“More,” she said, rolling her hips against him.
“Ask nicely,” Astarion managed, barely containing himself, applying more and more pressure.
“Please,” Asmodea groaned desperately into his ear.
He hesitated, briefly, but there was no way in the hells he’d pause to retrieve and fumble, upside-down, with a vial of oil now - he wasn’t even sure they had any in this manor - her own slick would have to suffice, and he’d have to make do with being more careful and gentle than he would like. This time.
She was all but purring against him, and that settled it. He pushed a finger past her entrance, and then, shortly after, encouraged by her eagerness, another.
It would have felt similar to the sensation of being fingered by a mage hand, but for the added benefit of Asmodea’s pleasure and arousal also coursing through him, amplifying his own. It made him wonder. If the connection between them grew stronger the more blood they exchanged - what would happen if they were to drain each other dry? Would they eventually dissolve in one another..? Meld completely, drowning in ecstasy as they both reflected their pleasure like two mirrors pointed at each other, producing echos of one another ad infinitum..?
Such were Astarion’s thoughts as he pumped his fingers mercilessly into Asmodea’s ass, continuing the rhythmic thrusting with his cock in time with the movement of his hand. He wanted to pose these questions of death by infinite pleasure to her. “Gah… Gods…” panted into her hair was all that came out.
Asmodea’s own mind paid his no heed - barely coherent thoughts escaped her mind and spilled into his with each thrust. Mine… more… thick… sweet… more… stretch… more… rougher… faster… more… Chant-like, they formed a hypnotic backdrop to his own thoughts. She was beginning to keen.
Astarion felt her orgasm coming on in endless, growing waves of pleasure. Building until they developed into a tsunami about to sweep them away. He was in equal parts thrilled and terrified of what was about to come, and with a colossal effort he managed to keep a rein on his own climax, while the tidal wave crashed over her.
He would remember what came next in flashes.
She arched against him, his name spilling from her lips, together with less coherent words and noises he’d never heard her make before. Her entire body thrummed with heat and lightning charges, resonating throughout his as it raged within her. And then something snapped, and they were floating, engulfed in ecstasy, blind with pleasure, all else in the world forgotten.
Another moment, and the wind was knocked out of Astarion as his back collided, painfully, with the floor.
Not floating.
Fallen off the ceiling.
Asmodea’s hips still stuttered against his as he wheezed, final tremors of her orgasm wracking through her body as she lay mounted on him on the floor. Alas, the shock and stupefaction of their crash had driven his own off for an indeterminate time.
“Are you okay?!” Asmodea gasped, looking at him in wide-eyed concern. She seemed to be totally unharmed, certainly nothing worse than a bruised kneecap.
“Perfectly fine,” he managed, gritting his teeth as something that had dislodged in his spine slid, slowly, back into place. “Absolutely worth it,” he grinned more sincerely.
They made it onto the bed at last.
Was everything fine? Were they fine? Astarion didn’t know. Their connection waned again, weakening after the flare that had just blazed between then. And Asmodea seemed to have withdrawn again - he didn’t know how she did it. Likely some warlock trick - she certainly had more experience juggling presences in her mind than he did. Cazador may have had the power to command him, but Astarion’s thoughts had always been an unbreached sanctum.
As for Asmodea, if she was reading his mind - she showed no sign of it. She was, however, wrapped around him from behind, lightly running her fingertips along his skin and nuzzling into him, and that was good enough for the moment.
Earlier, she had cooed, consolingly, in his ear, over his injured (now mended) back. He pretended he didn’t sense the underlying mirth she felt - it was funny, he had to admit. And he was happy to simply enjoy a carefree moment with her again.
She shifted again, and began planting tender kisses along the side of his face. From his temple, down his cheekbone and along his jaw, until she was once again at his neck. The side where he bore Cazador’s scars - they had both, until that moment, taken to the opposite sides of each other’s necks. An unspoken rule.
Astarion released a small, shaky sigh, and leaned further back against her, laying his head on her shoulder, his neck exposed to her. She took the invitation, kissing softly, reverently, over the old bite marks.
Sensitive. They’d always stayed sensitive, and always would. Erogenous, too, evident by the flow of blood that immediately made his cock stiffen again.
“Bite over the scars,” he whispered. “I want you to claim them as yours. Like none of the Szarrs ever existed. Like it was always just you and me.”
“You’re sure?” she murmured against his skin.
“They’re yours. I’m yours.”
She’d bitten over them in play before, back when her teeth were still blunt. Thrilling, but only pretend. But the thought that she could actually break his skin now, could take part of the experience, part of him… Astarion inhaled, sharply, as she ran her tongue over the scars.
“Don’t tease,” he whispered.
She bit. A sharp nip - an icy chill that quickly melted into a pleasant sensation. He groaned and took one of her hands, guiding it down to his neglected erection. She brought her other arm up to his mouth, and he sank his own fangs into her wrist.
Bliss. Utter bliss while she stroked and drank from him.
Her mind was open to him again, and he guided her, subtly, in touching him exactly the way he wanted, until he was moaning softly and rocking his hips, thrusting back into her hand.
She withdrew. Blood continued to flow down the side of his neck. Unconcerned, he continued to rest against her, his eyes shut, humming with pleasure as she licked a trail along his neck. Then she stopped the stroking. It felt like she brought her hand up to his neck and was letting the blood pool in the palm of her hand. He opened his eyes. The next thing he knew, he saw her rubbing his own blood onto his cock, mixing it with the precum that had beaded at the tip.
It was obscene, the lewdness of it, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight. Neither could she. Her breathing growing heavier, she untangled from him and shifted, positioning herself between his thighs, a wicked, hungry, glint in her eyes. A lesser man might have felt a measure of fear at the danger in her gaze. Astarion only spread his legs further, to allow her to do anything she wanted.
She dove down - they were well past any preludes. Her tongue darted out, swirling around the engorged head of his cock, teasing the underside. Savouring the blood that had been rubbed onto it, like the most delectable desert.
This was certainly a novelty - he’d never had his own blood used as icing before. He shut his eyes and sank back against the pillows, sighing with pleasure.
But then she paused and held back, hesitating, unsure about something. A moment of confusion, and he laughed, realising her dilemma.
“Carefully, darling,” he said. “Though I’ll forgive you if you do nick me, this time. After, you can have as much practice as you want, but we’ll discipline you for any mistakes.”
He grinned - he didn’t need to see her to know she had rolled her eyes. To also know, however, that her pussy immediately clenched at the thought - that was something new entirely. He stored the knowledge away for later.
She took him into her mouth, delicately closing her lips around him, continuing to swirl her tongue around the head. She was trying her best, though it almost felt like the shy, tentative movements that might be made by an inexperienced virgin - another thought he found unexpectedly thrilling.
‘How did you manage it with Halsin?’ rang in his mind, for her mouth was very much full.
“I bit into my own inner lip every time,” he answered, punctuating his reply with a gasp as her fangs did graze him, not unpleasantly.
He looked down again.
The image of her between his legs, devilish look in her eyes, flashes of her fangs around his most sensitive parts, shot adrenaline into him. The sight of her fangs grazing the veins on his achingly hard cock drove him mad. He couldn’t take it anymore. This wouldn’t, couldn’t take long, not after everything they’ve done just earlier.
His fingers tangling in the tresses of her hair, he began bucking his hips, thrusting into her mouth. They locked eyes. Moaning around him, she took him deeper, cheeks hollowed as she worked along his length, her hands wandering along his hips and sides. Astarion’s head snapped back again, as she took him yet deeper, her throat now constricting around him, wringing pleasure out of him. Doesn’t need to breathe any longer, a thought flickered in his mind. Of course…
Unrestrained groans of overwhelming pleasure spilled from his lips. He felt himself beginning to twitch, a telltale sign of his impending orgasm. He didn’t know how she managed it with a cock in her mouth, but Asmodea looked smug. He tightened his grip on her hair, gathering it harshly in his fist, and pumped harder into her wicked, sinful mouth, chasing his building orgasm. She only threw him an impudent look and swallowed around him more forcefully.
‘Come for me,’ rang in his mind. ‘I want to taste you, want to feel you spasming on my tongue… Want to feel your hard cock coming undone for me… Come for me…’
Too much. It was entirely too much. Her being able to speak to him while sucking him was foul, unjust, simply the most shameless, dirtiest trick imaginable, and completely, woefully, egregiously too much.
He let out an animalistic groan, and gripped her hair tighter, forcing her head to stay down, as his hips convulsed, jerkily bucking into her, chasing, relenting. Her fangs grazed him again. He didn’t care. It was all inevitable, uncontrollable… Her mouth and the pleasure it brought were inescapable, and he gave in, finding release at last. He erupted, violently, down her throat, shaking and sobbing as it continued to constrict around him. He should have heeded the danger, he realised. Idiot. But he was glad he didn’t.
Asmodea made a surprised noise once she came up for some unneeded air, continuing to suck and swallow around his cock, gently now, until his torrent stopped and he began to come down from the peak he had just ascended.
Astarion looked down again to see her carefully licking him clean before pausing between his legs with a thoughtful expression.
“...What is it?”
“I thought it would taste like ash,” she said. “Or just... different.”
“I’ve told you, anything that comes from a body tastes the way it normally would,” he said pulling her up to lie on top of him.
“I thought maybe you were just being nice,” she said, propping herself up so she could continue to look at him, curiously. An impish grin formed on her face.
“...Oh for hells’ sake, what?”
“So does that mean that vampires can subsist on cum as well as on blood?” Astarion squeezed his eyes shut and sighed, as she continued. “I mean, it’s a way of devouring and absorbing one’s energy, no?”
“Od...” he said, but she went on.
“This whole time you thought you had to suck blood, when you could’ve concentrated on sucking cock instead.”
“That’s it,” Astarion said, throwing Asmodea off himself, as she chortled. “I take it all back. I am reconsidering this entire relationship.”
He sat up on the edge of the bed with a huff, resting his elbows on his knees, agitation writ on his face. He stayed like that for some time, before gradually sinking down with his head in his hands, muttering to himself.
“He fed us rats, often ones that were already dead… We’d catch bugs and suck them dry. I’ve fought Petras for a millipede... Was that alone really enough to maintain us and our faculties..? The sex couldn’t have been bolstering us… Could it..?” Behind him, Asmodea cackled.
They sprawled in a nest of pillows and blankets tossed onto the floor in front of the fireplace. Two vampires, no matter how snugly wrapped in thick covers, could not offer each other an iota of warmth. Astarion missed Asmodea’s body heat - another change to get used to. Still, there were ways around it.
Worn out and exhausted, they lazed in each other’s arms, softly brushing their lips against one another’s in between hushed conversation.
“I wish I didn’t have to share you with that… thing.”
“Too bad,” Asmodea shrugged.
“Doesn’t it bother you, it being there all the time..?”
“They stay out when I ask them to. And they’re unworldly enough that it takes the weirdness out. …I bet Wyll couldn’t even crank one out for fear of Mizora watching,” she grinned.
“Poor bastard,” Astarion chuckled. “But still… It’s like someone is always looking over your shoulder. Or over my shoulder, should we ever share blood again outside of its nap hours.”
“And how do you think I feel..? At least the bloody Emperor is out of there - last year I didn’t have a pot to piss in in my own head, between him, Fuckface, and everyone failing to contain their own tadpole transmissions taking up all the space.”
Laughter and jests turned to more solemn topics.
“We used to joke about this,” Astarion said softly. “Tricking some hapless vampire lord into becoming infatuated with and turning you. Me arriving at the first opportune moment, your knight in shining armor, to kill your sire and rescue you.”
“How very naive of us,” she whispered.
Astarion’s smile faltered as she continued, looking away from him, into the fire.
“I never thought any of that would actually happen, of course,” she said. “I thought... I thought we would have the tavern for a while, with our cozy little place at the top. Then maybe open a theatre, one day. Run with that until we grew bored of it. Then maybe head out on the road again. See more of the world. Sail somewhere, maybe. Maybe have a little accident that would turn out a fucked up, weird little dhampir, somewhere along the line, who knows,” she said, with a wistful smile that made something in Astarion’s chest constrict and tighten. “I’ve never liked kids, but they say you can’t help but love your own.” She shook her head and continued. “Watch all of our friends die, while we’re doing all that. Aside from Halsin and maybe Shadowheart. Then eventually hopefully get eaten by a dragon, so you don’t have to watch me get old and lose all my faculties, while you stay exactly the way you’ve always been and always will be.”
A dry lump had formed in Astarion’s throat. He held his breath, for breathing would have meant risking a sob racking through his body.
“Instead...” Asmodea continued. “Instead, we’re still going to have our tavern. I suppose we may as well move into this mansion, though, it’s not as though anyone else is going to lay claim to it. We can still open a theatre. Can you imagine that? A theatre run by vampires? We need to keep to nighttime hours anyway, it’s only fitting.”
Astarion released the breath he had been holding at the playfulness of her tone - some of the first playfulness that he had heard in her voice since her abduction.
“There is a child, now. It is a full-fledged vampire, not a dhampir, and is, I think, actually older than me - but that certainly covers it being weird and more than a little fucked up,” she added with a smirk. “And I suppose we’ll have to watch all of our friends die after all,” she said, turning onto her side to look Astarion in the eyes. “But all things considered... it’s not so different.”
Astarion laughed and wrapped his arms tighter around her, pulling her against himself.
“Ever the optimist, my love.”
“I try,” she said. “The lack of reflection is going to take time to get used to,” she sighed. “I have a certain aesthetic to maintain, you know. Now I can’t even do my makeup - how will anyone know that I’m mad, possibly dangerous, and they need to stay away from me?” she added, the flippancy in her tone not quite concealing the underlying bitterness.
“I can do it for you, if you like,” Astarion offered.
“You?!”
“Who do you think did Dalyria’s, for decades? And Aurelia’s before that.”
“How did that ever come to be?”
“I liked to collect favours,” he shrugged. “And I took some pleasure in doing something artful and creating something… pretty. Even if it was all for nefarious purposes - them receiving attention they never wanted to begin with,” he sighed.
Another hour passed, Astarion sharing peculiarities of vampiric life - things that had long become second nature to him, which she had not yet had to consider. Eventually she grew solemn and quiet again.
“Do you really believe this can last forever..?” she whispered.
“Oh I’m sure someone will consider it their moral obligation to stake us, eventually, and they might even succeed if we’re not careful… But other than for that… Why not..?”
“When I spoke with Amanita earlier… She said that our love is doomed,” Asmodea said. “That we will grow to resent each other, for such is our nature. That our feelings will become twisted by our pride and base inclinations. You’ve said it yourself, even - that the biggest threat to a vampire is another vampire.”
I’ll wring that damned brat’s neck, Astarion thought.
“Maybe,” he said, nonchalant.
“Maybe?! That’s all you have to say?! You won’t reassure me and tell me that everything is going to be okay?”
“Maybe...” Astarion repeated, “in a thousand years’ time, when an earthquake or volcano, or some other calamity has destroyed Faerun and cast the remaining ruins into pieces, we will be powerful, ancient vampires. Maybe, we will each rule over some shattered piece and wage war against one another, for no reason other than to cull our boredom. You will be known as the Scarlet Queen,” he said, playing with a tress of her hair, “and I will become the Silver Prince, and we will flirt by sending each other our spies’ heads on silver platters. Maybe, we will meet once a decade for a debaucherous romp of such proportions that we will demolish entire estates in the throes of our passion.”
Asmodea chuckled quietly, smiling and running her fingers through Astarion’s dishevelled curls.
“Or perhaps we’ll just drink each other’s blood and fuck forever,” he said abruptly, with a grin. “What in the hells does that twerp know about love?! She hadn’t even reached puberty by the time she was turned.”
Asmodea burst out laughing, and embraced him, laying her head on his chest.
“All I know is, I have a chance at eternity with you,” he whispered. “I will not squander it.”
A new day was dawning. A deep violet stain was beginning to paint over the sky - still harmless and painless to look at, but soon Astarion would need to get up and draw the drapes shut, drawing this night to a close with them. Before he did that, he had to know.
“Do you forgive me..?” Astarion whispered, something in his chest clenching.
“Not yet,” she said.
‘Yet…’ he thought, the knot that had tightened within him beginning to loosen.
“The anger hasn’t gone anywhere, just been set aside,” she continued. “But I think I’m starting to come to terms with the fact that the only thing in this world worse than forgiving you might just be not forgiving you,” she sighed. “But not yet. …Even if you did make some very compelling arguments earlier,” she finished with a shadow of a mischievous smile.
“I’ll take that,” said Astarion. “But… perhaps I could present some further arguments..?” he murmured, his hand snaking up the side of her thigh.
“Arguments..? No, no, my sweet, we’re well past arguments - your case has been heard and decided, and now it’s time to sentence you,” she said, smirking slyly. “I have so many punishments lined up for you.”
“Oh?” Astarion purred, leaning in to kiss up her shoulder, gathering her in his arms to hold her again him. “A chance to atone..? Anything for you, my love.”
“Anything?”
Something in Asmodea’s tone made Astarion give pause and glance at her in worry. Seeing this, her smirk widened into a display of sharp teeth.
There is nothing this little devil can or would want to do to me that I can’t handle, he reassured himself.
“Anything you desire of me,” he said, placing a sultry kiss on her lips - her lips which never quite stopped grinning. “Your wish is my command. How shall I start my penance..?”
She leaned back and met his gaze with a look of pure devilment.
“Show me your poetry,” she said.
Pure, stark terror pierced straight into Astarion’s soul. Shock. Disbelief. Panic.
“But darling…” he managed, squeezing words from his suddenly parched throat. “Surely there is something better, something more enjoyable… Something fun I could do for you instead. It would only offend you further… Cause you more distress. Then you’d never forgive me!” He released a thin, nervous giggle, only to be met with a menacing silence. “…Oh for hells’ sake, can I just chop a hand off instead?!”
He searched her eyes for mercy but found only unrelenting, spiteful glee.
~~~~~
Chapter 16
Thank you for reading! If you liked it, you can find more of my writing here. Leave a comment and you'll make my day. ❤
One of my art pieces for the @bg3-winter-big-bang — I worked with @tragedybunny for this one, illustrating a tender moment with Astarion and his daughter Estelle (and friends) as they remember the beloved Sera. You can read her story here! 💖
'“I am not your wife,” said Jaheira. It hurt to realize.
Khalid’s eyes softened and he shook his head. There was a bowl of peaches sitting on the table between them, and he took one to hand it carefully over to Jaheira. “In—in all universes,” he said, “ev-every last one, I love you.”'
Finally it's here!! I joined a BG3 Big Bang and had the honour to draw for you in every universe by @marigoldbaker !! This fic soo good and I love it so much!!!
