Thank you @gortashsrighthand (you absolute fucking maniac, I love you), and @optimisticgrey (The Bhaalist story you posted gave me CHILLS)
I have been trucking along with the Chapter 18 rewrite for Stealing Moonlight!!! Let me just say, we are cooking with bacon grease, people!! I hope you enjoy my possessive Ascended Astarion as much as I do :3
“Does that frighten you, my sweet?” He asked. Soft. Tender. That infectious charm he possessed woven so thoroughly through his voice that she could never quite tell where the performance ended and the truth began.
She lifted her eyes to look at him.
She tried to keep them away from his lips. Tried very hard, actually, and failed almost immediately- her gaze dropping there before she could stop it. Thinking about the way he’d kissed her last night. The way she’d stopped fighting his advances with a quickness she hadn’t known she possessed, a fact that still embarrassed her to think about. And, by Selûne's moonbeams, she wanted it again. Wanted him again, and again, and again, in ways that hadn’t quieted even slightly. In ways that made the burning reignite low in her belly.
But there was something else beneath all of that wanting.
Fear.
Not of him, exactly. It was more fear of what wanting him so openly might have told him. What impressions it might have given him that she hadn’t intended. What last night might have looked like from his point of view.
Future consort.
He’d spoken those words against her skin once before. Back in her temple, with his hand at her throat, offering her the illusion of having a choice: become his consort or remain his prisoner.
“Something like that,” she said. “More uneasy than anything else, honestly.”
The corner of his mouth curved.
“How adorable.” His thumb dropped from the scab at her lip, tracing down her chin and along her jaw instead. “I’ve seen you stand before a god, Rhiannon. Face against the Elder Brain itself without breaking. Yet here my precious priestess sits, uneasy over a little party.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
He tilted his head, white curls falling over his brow. Waiting.
“It’s the way you said it.” She held his gaze. “Your most prized possession. Your future consort.” The words left her tongue carefully, as if she was setting something sharp and dangerous down between them. “You talk about me as though you’ve already decided my fate. As though I do not get a say in the matter, whatsoever.”
He was quiet for a moment.
But the smile came back. Slow. Unbothered.
“And what if I told you,” he said, his voice dropping low, “that I intend to spent a very long time showing you exactly how precious you are to me? That this palace, this city, and every ounce of power I have means nothing without you by my side?”
“That isn’t what I mean and you know it.”
“Isn’t it?” His fingers slid from her jaw into her hair, tucking a rogue wave back from her face. “You’ll find, my love, that I am very rarely interested in giving you the answer you’re looking for.”
She opened her mouth, a retort on her tongue- until it died.
He leaned in- not far, just enough that she could feel the cold he radiated against her cheek- and the smile became something that made her stomach flip.
“Besides,” he murmured, “I’m not so sure that you’re in any position to object to being wanted, darling.” A pause. “Especially not after last night.”
Heat bloomed across her face in an instant.
“Don’t-”
“Don’t what?” Pure innocence laced through his voice. “I was only going to say that you don’t seem quite so untouchable this morning.” His eyes dropped briefly to her mouth. “Not so pious. Not so righteous. Not so-”
“Astarion.”
She pressed her palm flat against his chest and pushed- not hard, just enough- and he went, pulling back with a soft laugh. An expression of complete and unbothered delight plastered across his face that she was beginning to think he reserved specifically for moments like these when he’d undone her successfully.
“All right, all right.” He conceded with a smile, reaching for his wine glass. “I’ll behave.”
There we go. 650 words for you fanfiction sluts (lovingly) :3 If you haven't yet, please go check out my fic Stealing Moonlight over on AO3! Or not, it's whatever (it'd be pretty cool if you did though) 🥺👉🏻👈🏻
uhhhhhh, let's tag these beautiful people for more self-indulgent whatever-day-it-is posts!! @missfortunetherogue, @thedarksilkpen, @ele-millennial-weirdo, @unovafarm, @et-augury, @alleiramagic, @thelittlewolverine, @aerin67, and @theendofanerror!!
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