you know that post abt would you still love me if i was a worm? thats tavstarion but would you still love me if i was an illithid. thats literally the fic.
about 500 words, rated teen-ish. spoilers for the end of the game but not too bad because my game had actually crashed between the last fight and the epilogue when i wrote this. fully gender neutral tav, second person pov
"What would have happened if I took the Emperor's advice?" you ask.
It's a sudden question, you know. It seems to come from nowhere, the two of you laying on your backs and watching the stars, but it's been bothering you since the Emperor suggested you become an illithid to wield the Netherstones.
"Tentacles, I assume," Astarion hums with amusement. "We'd need to replace your whole wardrobe, too," he adds. "Get everything tailored."
He's smiling up at the stars and he turns that beam to you, but it falls away when you're not smiling back.
"You're serious," he realizes quietly.
You nod in the grass.
He squeezes your hand between you, fingers threaded together sweetly.
"Well," he sighs. "Hand-holding would be a little awkward," he thinks out loud. "And so would kissing."
You frown.
When the Emperor gave you the option to change, you had, for just a moment, considered it. You know the advantages they have, mental and physical, and you'd been tempted by the idea of becoming even more deadly to the brain that threatened you all.
But the disadvantages had talked you out of it — eating brains, the physical change, the dulling of emotions... It just seemed... It seemed like a kind of death, to you. You weren't ready for that.
But you had considered it.
"Love?" Astarion asks, turning onto his side to face you properly. You're taking too long to respond. "What's wrong?"
You turn your gaze back to the stars.
"I don't know," you admit. "I just thought... What if I had changed?"
You shrug against the grass.
"What would happen to us?" you ask, more rhetorically than anything now. "Would we have stayed together after, if I'd had to do it?"
Astarion is silent for a minute beside you.
You're not sure why you're so worried about it, yourself, but you just... Are. What if that had been the only way to defeat the brain? What if the change had been triggered by being so close to it?
The possibility has come and gone, but you wonder.
"Darling," Astarion says, softly, to get your attention. "I didn't know if we were going to stay together once the tadpole was gone," he admits. "Considering I'm, you know, forsaken to never see the sun again," he says with a sad smile.
You turn to look at him and frown.
"That's different," you protest. "You can't help that. It's just part of who you are."
"And if you'd had to become an illithid, for whatever reason, then that would be part of who you are."
You still frown. You see his point, technically, but...
"It's different," you repeat.
"Mm?" he hums. "Being a monster who has to slink through the shadows to survive?"
You open your mouth to rebut that at least you can go into the city together at night with him as he is, but he's kissing you and the words don't seem worth killing the moment.
Maybe it would have been fine. Maybe it wouldn't have.
You push the worry from your mind and let yourself be lost in him.
