His Ace of Spades
excerpt from Astarion's POV of the previous chapter (where boy takes advantage of his disillusioned drow's feelings) where we get a unique perspective on what's really going through his brain.
1.7 k words - flashbacks of life in the palace / mentions of Cazador and past abuse
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Astarion tried to rest. He tried forgetting the tenderness of her touch against his scars - somehow the sensation all he could remember when he barely felt her doing it in the moment. And the ghost of that silly little lullaby she always hummed ran circles across his mind, getting tangled in barbaric twists of fate that he could not stop himself from indulging in imagining.
How many of them would die in Cazador's presence?
How many of them would Cazador gore the final breath from their lungs before Astarion could manage to return the favor to him?
The idea of even Wyll being slaughtered tormented him - if for nothing other than the way he imagined Karlach would lose the momentum of her axe and weep at the loss. Gale, he could probably stomach, but what of Shadowheart? Lae'zel or Karlach? They were not his friends by any stretch of the word, but they'd shared bloodshed in a way he'd never done with anyone else. It was starting to mean something to him and he hadn't anticipated that either.
So he forced himself to watch.
Astarion forced himself to not flinch from the wild musings of his mind as it replayed his own trauma over their likeness.
He imagined Shadowheart being chained to the floor, stripped naked as Cazador carved poetry against her back. The way her lip would tremble and tears would break down the black smudging of her eye makeup but she would not make a sound until Cazador dared tease her that he was through, only for him to start over once more and recarve every inch of broken skin.
He imagined Lae'zel, being forced to watch as his siblings held her by her wrists and flayed off every dark spot across her green flesh with a dull blade. That she too would cry out to absent gods, beg them to divine mercy and be left with only the pain of punishment and the absence of a gods empathy.
How Wyll would be speared through the chest by his own rapier, being drained dry by Cazador himself before he could take his dying breath, barely able to conjure the magic of his patron who would wait expectantly to pull his near dead body into the hells for consumption. And that Karlach would watch - that she would combust - that she would be so consumed with rage and grief that she wouldn't notice Godey cutting the engine from her chest.
And Gale, how they would love to torture that poor sod. How they might impale him through his jaw so that he'd never be able to strike a spell with his tongue even once. How his sibling's mouths would froth when the caught eyes of Halsin as a bear, completely disregarding everything else in an effort to drink of such a rich beast.
And then, he imagined her.
Astarion imagined how much Cazador would favor her resilience. How he would lose sight of Astarion entirely to simply play a bloodied game of war with her like it was simply the hashing of cards about a table. He would recognize her as the ace of spades - the card of death and mortality and he would know that he'd found his match. They would spar, Cazador would dodge and ridicule and spit slander on Astarion's name and he would watch her heart bleed first and know just how to destroy her.
And then Cazador would consider not doing that at all.
No, once he saw in Calypso what Astarion saw within her, he would cherish her suffering as he would cherish Astarion's own. Cazador would run her down until he could grab her by the throat and take her mortal life from her, committing her immortal one to himself.
It would be that moment exactly that Astarion would be able to kill Cazador where he stood - distracted by the song of Calypso's blood and the monster that raged behind those soft eyes.
If he was to be free, he had to be ready to witness their demise. Each and every one.
And he would be free.
Yet the only image he could not force himself to curate in his mind was the last of them. As he'd imagine her, buckled in Cazador's arms as he buried his fangs within her neck, watching her eyes gaze back lazily at Astarion - her arm would always reach towards him in this thought. She would always look for him to save her, even if she'd chose to do exactly what she'd done - because she would. She would run at Cazador, she would offer herself as a trade so that he might have a moment to catch Cazador off guard and he would let her. He would let her but she would still reach out to him even then and -
Astarion's entire body was so rigid he felt as though he was confined to that fucking coffin all over again.
He sat up, shaking his arms as he grabbed a book and tried to wipe away the corruptive fixations. They were nowhere near Baldur's Gate. He had plenty of time to shake away those feelings. To numb himself to their inevitable demise.
As he lifted the flaps of his tent, felt the brush of still air against his face, he heard the flutter of her heart across it and his gaze flickered up.
Her eyes met his through an entanglement of free-flowing locks and his gut wrenched as he stilled and stared back at her a moment. His lips twitched in mechanical response as he relaxed himself down into a cushion.
And then she looked away.
And he just laughed.
He couldn't help it.
She was everywhere. No matter how he tried to distance himself from her, no matter how he tried to simply dream of her death so that he would feel more comfortable without her strange, consuming presence, she always found a way to just appear.
Appear when he felt weak without her.
He watched as her entire body tightened, shielded by the thick swaths of her unkept hair, the scent of water and earth clinging against her skin as the nearly unmovable air barely carried it to him.
He wanted to ask her why she would not just stay gone - but it was a stupid and rather rhetorical question to ask within the confines of their camp and it would illicit some response he wasn't fit to deal with.
It clicked then, that he knew exactly how to deal with her.
The softness of her hurt eyes, the labored anger of her body as it fought for her to be brave enough to serve him backlash for his mood swings but would never betray that sticky little heart.
She was still his, wasn't she?
Even after he'd blown up, she still waited for him to come to her - arm always outstretched towards him.
The problem was that was exactly what he could not stomach - the softness and yearning for more than he was willing to give, yet. . . Astarion pondered quickly and then felt a rabid darkness swell across his chest as his shoulders straightened out and he began to scheme. She would do as he said all the same, regardless of what he returned to her, wouldn't she?
There was only one way to find out.
"Star gazing, are we?"
The moment she'd spoken with Withers in that tomb, he knew with absolute certainty that she would be his prey. How small and defenseless she had sounded as she answered his obscure question of what a mortal life was worth. Astarion had known his answer: none, really. As an immortal, and at that juncture in their journey, he could not fathom the worth of mortality. Mortality was frivolous and fleeting, it mattered not what you did or how you did it because soon it would be over and that was that. However, she'd said the strangest thing in reply to him. "My life seems worth little."
Small and frail, she sounded. Yet he'd just seen her take a fireball to the chest and it only seemed to fuel her strength further. He'd seen her dive from a banister and slay a skeleton while her blood free flowed across her chest in a way that had any other mortal been faced with, they would have been catatonic. There was nothing small or frail about her, but inside she was and that was precisely the kind of prey he enjoyed most.
He would fill her with affirmation and fantasy, that she could be more than she ever saw herself and for once, it would still be manipulation, but it would also be true. He'd never met anyone quite like her and it was as if all those lost prayers that had drifted past the shells of the god's disinterested ears had finally been answered. She was everything he'd needed for two centuries and there she was, on the beach, reeking of loss and isolation and simply waiting for him to swoop in and fill her mind with purpose.
And for the smallest moment, Astarion had been afraid that night. As his steps were silent against the raging of the ocean that lapped near her feet, he saw the sea monster that she was. He'd heard stories, about sirens who took the form of maidens to lure in unsuspecting men, only to devour them whole and sink their corpse into the bottom of the sea - and as she stood there, long dark hair lapping against the wind, hands clinging to her crossed arms as she sighed gently, calling out to the riveting darkness of the sea as her head dropped, he just knew.
He knew in that moment that it would take little to make her his own little monster.
"Waiting for the sun to rise, actually," she finally replied, eyes up at the skyless ceiling of the Underdark, voice tinged with that same self-doubt and delicious lack of self. Astarion ignored the pang in his gut, the small twisting of his own self-doubt as his face dropped into an easy smile - if she too was brave enough to rehash their history, then he would be brave enough to rewrite it, but this time, he would ensure he was the one in control of the narrative. It would not slip back into her hands as it had last time.
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read the rest of the chapter (and it's previous chapter/companion chapter) here!