Astarion x Reader Part 1
Notes: This will not be canon at all. It's just something I dreamt that I needed to write because who doesnt love a good love story.
WARNING: This fic includes attempted su*cide, murder, and more. Read at your own risk.
The morning they send you away feels wrong the moment you wake up. You sense it before you even open your eyes; a heaviness in the air, a pressure in your chest, like your heart is already grieving something your mind hasn’t caught up to. Then you hear it: your mother crying downstairs. Not loud, not dramatic. Just broken. The kind of crying that sounds like someone trying not to be heard, failing anyway.
You lie still for a moment, staring at the ceiling while the truth settles over you. This is the day. There is no more time left to hope for a miracle or pretend someone might change their mind. The village made its choice. You were chosen. And now you must go.
The wedding dress is waiting for you at the foot of the bed. When you touch it, the fabric feels colder than it should, almost stiff under your fingertips. It’s simple and plain, not a dress meant for joy or celebration. You imagine yourself wearing it in the mirror; white, trembling, eyes too wide; and you feel a cold knot form in your stomach. Everything about today feels like walking toward your own grave.
Downstairs, your father is pacing. It’s a restless movement, sharp and uneven, like he can’t find enough air to breathe. He stops when he sees you, and in the dim morning light he looks older than you’ve ever seen him. His eyes are swollen, red, and rimmed. For a heartbeat he just stares at you, and that hurts more than anything; how he drinks in your face as if trying to memorize it, like he won’t ever see it again.
Then he pulls you into his arms. His hug is crushing, desperate, and painful. You feel his breath tremble against your hair.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. His voice breaks on the words. “I’m so, so sorry. If I could take your place; gods, if I could, I would.”
You know he means it. That makes the ache in your chest even sharper.
Your mother stands behind him, holding something wrapped in soft cloth. Her hands shake, and she wipes her face quickly when you turn her way, trying to look brave for you. It doesn’t work. Her smile is thin and fragile, and the tears still gather in her eyes even as she tries to blink them away.
“This… this is for you,” she says in a raw whisper. She unwraps the cloth, revealing a small pearl tiara; its shine dulled from age but still beautiful. “My mother gave it to me on my wedding day. And her mother gave it to her.” She swallows hard, tears spilling over. “I want you to have it. So, you don’t go there with nothing of us.”
When she places it on your head, her fingers tremble so badly that you reach up automatically, steadying her wrists. The moment you touch her, she breaks, silent sobs shaking her whole body. Your father puts an arm around her shoulders, but even he looks like he’s holding himself together by threads.
They help you put on the veil last.
The moment it drops over your face, everything changes.
The world becomes muted, dim. Your parents blur into soft shapes instead of clear faces. Their tears turn into distant glimmers behind the pale fabric. You feel the veil brush your lips every time you exhale, reminding you that you’re no longer just their daughter, you're something being offered. Something being given away.
Outside, the carriage waits. Its dark silhouette looks too large, too final. The horse stamps at the ground impatiently, snorting white breath into the cold air. A guard stands by the open door, avoiding your parents’ eyes like he can’t bear what he’s about to witness.
Your father takes your hands one last time, squeezing tightly enough to hurt.
“Don’t look back,” he says. His voice is a low, choked command. “If you do… I won’t be able to let you go.”
Your mother cups your face through the veil, her palms warm even though her fingers shake. “Be brave,” she whispers. “Please… be brave, my love.”
You want to tell them you’re scared. You want to promise you’ll come home. You want to hold them both and never, ever let go. But your throat locks, and all you can do is nod.
Then you step toward the carriage.
Every step feels like it weighs more than the last. You hear your parents sobbing behind you, but the veil blurs them until they look like ghost,; already gone, already fading from this life you’re being pushed out of.
You climb in. The door shuts. The lantern flickers weakly in the corner.
And as the carriage lurches forward, pulling you away from the only life you’ve ever known, the realization hits you so hard it knocks the breath from your lungs:
You are alone. You are being delivered like an offering. And whatever waits in that castle; whatever monster, whatever master; your life now belongs to him.
The ride is worse than you expect. The carriage lurches and jolts over every uneven stone in the road, and the cold air leaks through every crack in the wooden frame. You pull your thin shawl tighter around your shoulders, but it barely helps. The chill clings to your skin, settling deep into your bones until even your fingers feel stiff. Every time the wheels hit a rut, your teeth nearly click together.
You try to sit still, but your body won’t stop trembling. Some of it is from the cold, most of it is not.
Your mind refuses to quiet. Every thought spirals into another, worse thought. What does a vampire even want with a bride? Will he be waiting at the gate? Will you be dragged inside, or will he speak to you first? Does he kill brides quickly… or slowly?
Your breath fogs the inside of your veil. The fabric shifts with every uneven inhale, brushing your mouth, sticking lightly to your lips. The enclosed space makes everything feel too close, too suffocating. You swear you can smell your own fear, metallic at the back of your throat, like blood you haven’t tasted.
Your anxiety sharpens into something almost physical, a heat under your ribs, a pressure along your spine. You try to steady yourself, but your heartbeat only gets faster. You know you must reek of terror; if vampires can smell blood, can they smell fear too? Would the master of the castle sense you coming before the carriage even arrived?
The thought makes your stomach twist so hard you clutch the front of your dress.
Then the carriage suddenly jerks to a halt.
You slam a hand against the wooden wall to keep from pitching forward. For a moment, the world is silent, except for the distant echo of wind moving through trees. Your heart hammers against your ribs, loud and frantic. The air in the carriage feels colder than before; like the cold here is different, heavier, older.
The soldier’s weight shifts outside; you hear the crunch of gravel under his boots as he climbs down. The carriage rocks slightly as he steps away, and then the door rattles. A breath of icy air rushes in as it swings open.
“Come on,” he says.
You move carefully, your legs stiff from fear and the long ride. When your boots touch the ground, the cold hits you harder, sharp enough to bite through the thin soles and shoot up your legs. You try to pull the veil away from your mouth just so you can breathe properly, but it keeps falling back against your lips.
The soldier doesn’t look at you. He adjusts his gloves, tightens the strap on his cloak, and mutters under his breath, almost too low for you to hear:
“Let’s hope this one lasts.”
Your heart jumps so violently you feel it in your throat. This one. Lasts.
How many before you didn’t?
The soldier clears his throat and steps back, refusing to meet your eyes as if that will absolve him of anything.
You stand there, shaking beneath the veil, staring at the looming shadow of the castle in the distance; tall, ancient, and waiting, while the soldier’s words echo inside your skull like a curse:
Let’s hope this one lives.
The castle rises out of the fog like something carved from a nightmare.
It is far larger than you imagined; so tall it seems to scrape the clouds, its towers jagged and uneven like broken fangs. The stone is dark, almost black, slick with age and rain. Gargoyle statues crouch along the outer walls, their wings curled, claws extended, faces twisted into snarls that look almost alive in the shifting shadows. Ravens perch along the battlements, their feathers ruffling in the cold wind. One lets out a sharp cry that echoes through the valley, a sound that feels like a warning.
The air around the castle is wrong, too still, like even the wind is hesitant to get too close.
You swallow hard, but your throat is too dry. Your breath trembles against the veil again, fogging the fabric into thin, uneven bursts. Your heartbeat is a frantic, painful drum inside your chest, so loud it almost drowns out everything else.
Almost.
Because the gate begins to open.
At first, it’s just a soft groan, but then the ancient iron bars shift and drag, scraping across the stone path with a long, metallic screech. It vibrates in the air, crawls down your spine. You flinch at the sound, hands curling into fists against your dress.
The opening widens slowly; too slowly. Each inch feels like it’s ripping away a layer of your courage. You can’t see anything beyond the gate except darkness. A deeper darkness than the night around you, like the castle itself swallows what little light exists.
Your knees go weak. For a moment, you honestly think you might faint. The cold cuts through your dress, straight through your skin. It settles into your bones like frost. But fainting outside the castle, in the open, seems worse. Vulnerable. Exposed.
So you force yourself to stay upright.
You turn to look behind you instinctively, just to ground yourself, just to see something familiar.
But the carriage is already leaving.
The horses pull away quickly, their hooves striking the ground with a rhythm that sounds almost desperate. The driver doesn’t look back. He doesn’t pause. He doesn’t check on you.
He just goes.
You watch as the carriage grows smaller and smaller, swallowed by mist and distance, until it disappears entirely. Gone. Just like that.
Your stomach drops; there is no going back. No last-minute rescue. No one is coming to save you.
Only the open gate waiting for you to step forward. Only the castle watching with a thousand stone eyes. Only your own breath trembling under the veil.
And the knowledge that you are truly, terrifyingly alone.
The massive wooden doors tower in front of you, each one carved with winding patterns of thorns and serpents. The iron knockers are shaped like demonic faces; horns curling outward, fanged mouths frozen mid snarl, eyes hollow and watching. Their metal is so dark it almost absorbs the faint moonlight, leaving their twisted expressions half hidden and more menacing because of it.
For a moment, nothing happens. Then the doors begin to move.
They open inward with a deep, dragging groan that echoes through the courtyard, vibrating through your ribs. The sound is ancient like something waking up after a long, bitter sleep. Cold wind rushes past your veil as if the castle is exhaling, pulling you toward its open mouth.
Your breath catches as you stare into the entry.
The inside is dim, lit only by scattered candles lining the walls. Their flames flicker, throwing tall, trembling shadows across the black stone floor. The air is heavy with the scent of melted wax and old wood. Gothic arches stretch high above, disappearing into darkness. A grand staircase curves upward, but the landing is swallowed by shadow so thick it looks like ink.
Everything is silent. Unnaturally silent.
You step forward slowly. The moment you cross the threshold, heat washes over you; warm, almost shocking after the hours spent freezing in the carriage. A small gasp slips out before you can stop it, your shoulders loosening as your body finally begins to thaw. The warmth feels luxurious, almost sinful, like stepping into another world entirely.
You pause just inside the doorway, letting the veil fall back against your face as you carefully scan the hall.
No movement. No whisper. Not even the scurry of a mouse.
You expected someone, anyone, to be waiting. A servant. A guard. The vampire himself. Instead, the castle feels empty, like a grand mausoleum that has forgotten the meaning of life.
Your heartbeat begins to slow, relief creeping in cautiously.
At least you aren’t being dragged to an audience with the monster immediately. At least you can breathe for a moment. At least the darkness, for now, is only darkness and not something staring back.
Still, the silence feels alive. As if the walls themselves are listening. As if the castle is aware of your presence the way a predator is aware of its prey.
But nothing moves. No one comes. You are alone again, this time inside the vampire’s den.
The castle feels endless as you wander deeper into its halls. At first, you aren’t trying to explore; you're just trying to find a bathroom. Every hallway looks the same: tall ceilings, dark stone walls, dim candle sconces, and long carpets that swallow the sound of your footsteps. The air smells faintly of old books and melted wax, with a hint of something colder beneath it; like rain on untouched stone.
You turn corners expecting to hear someone, see someone, anything. A servant. A housekeeper. Even a mouse would be some kind of comfort. But the castle remains silent, a vast hollow thing that seems to breathe around you. Each time your footsteps echo, you flinch, thinking it’s someone else.
You eventually find a bathroom; larger than your old bedroom, with a marble tub and silver fixtures that look untouched in years. The sight of it makes your chest tighten; even basic comforts here feel too surreal, too undeserved.
You tell yourself to go back to the entrance, back to something familiar, but you hesitate. The warmth of the castle pulls you in, your fear mingling with something else; curiosity, maybe. This place is nothing like home. Nothing like anywhere you’ve ever seen. The shadows hide corners of impossible beauty and unsettling emptiness, and before you realize it, your feet are carrying you further.
Minutes blur into an hour. An hour bleeds into two. You wander through sitting rooms with velvet couches covered in dust, long corridors lined with ancient portraits whose painted eyes seem to follow you, and balconies overlooking courtyards filled with stone gargoyles half-swallowed by vines. Every room is abandoned, yet every candle is lit. Someone must live here. Someone must move through these halls when you’re not looking.
A shiver crawls up your spine.
At some point you stop, trying to get your bearings, but the castle’s layout makes no sense. Staircases turn in unexpected directions. Hallways loop back into each other. You find yourself passing the same portrait twice without meaning to. The warmth that comforted you when you first stepped inside now feels suffocating, almost too close, like the castle wants you to stay exactly where it wants you.
When you finally reach a new hallway; narrower, quieter, with candles burning lower; you notice something on the floor.
A letter.
Perfectly placed in the center of the rug, as if someone waited for you to walk this exact path.
Your stomach drops as you kneel to pick it up. The envelope is thick, the seal made of deep red wax stamped with some kind of sigil you don’t recognize. Your hands tremble as you break it open.
Inside is a single piece of heavy parchment. Black ink loops across it in elegant, perfect cursive. So graceful it almost looks like calligraphy.
This is your room. Do not leave it past 11pm.
That’s it. No name. No signature. No explanation.
You look at the door beside you; tall, dark, carved with spiraling patterns. It waits silently. Patiently.
A cold pressure grips your lungs.
Someone knew where you were. Someone was watching you wander. Someone wrote this and left it while you were in the hallway.
You slowly turn the handle. The door clicks.
And you can’t shake the feeling that the castle; its master, its shadows, its silence; has just closed its hand around you.
The first night stretches out endlessly, thick with dread that settles into your bones. You sit on the edge of the unfamiliar bed, still wearing the wedding dress that feels more like a shroud than something meant for vows. Your hands twist in your lap, your fingers cold and trembling despite the warmth of the room. Every small sound in the castle makes your muscles tense: the creak of old wood, the flicker of candlelight, the soft shift of air through unseen corridors. You keep your eyes pinned to the door, terrified of the moment it might open and equally terrified that it never will. You try to tell yourself to breathe, to be brave, to accept the reality that somewhere in this castle is the vampire you were given to; your husband in name, a monster in truth; but the fear stays lodged in your throat. Hours crawl by. Your breath fogs the air. You fall asleep upright, still waiting, still listening. He never comes.
When you wake the next morning, sunlight filters weakly through tall windows, casting pale gold across the stone floor. A tray of food sits beside your bed; fresh, hot, arranged neatly as if someone placed it there only minutes before. The steam rising from the soup curls through the air, warm and inviting, a sharp contrast to the cold knot in your stomach. You stare at the tray for long, silent minutes, uncertain if it's safe, uncertain if it's meant for you or simply something done out of habit. But hunger wins, and when you take that first cautious bite, it tastes painfully normal, so normal that it makes your eyes sting. You eat slowly, listening for footsteps in the hall, listening for the vampire who has yet to show himself. He never appears.
The second day passes in heavy silence. You walk to the door several times, hand hovering over the handle, waiting for… something. Someone. A voice. A shadow. Anything. But there is nothing. You pace the room, fold and refold the dress they gave you, talk aloud just to hear a sound that isn’t your heartbeat. Night falls. You wait again. The door stays closed.
A week begins to blur into the next, each day moving slowly through the same pattern of anxious waiting and quiet dread. You whisper to yourself constantly just to keep your voice from sounding foreign, sometimes narrating meaningless tasks like brushing your hair or rearranging the blankets, anything to break the suffocating silence. When you dare to open your door in the early mornings, you only ever find another untouched tray of breakfast waiting outside. When you leave to explore a small corner of the hall, the moment you return, your bed has been made with crisp precision and the room smells faintly of lavender and warm bathwater. Someone is tending to you; bathing you, feeding you, cleaning behind you; but you never hear a single footstep, never catch sight of a hand or shadow moving in the edges of your vision. The castle feels haunted, not by ghosts, but by unseen workers who avoid you as carefully as your husband does.
Days turn into weeks, and then into months. Two full months pass without a single glimpse of the vampire who owns this place. Two months without a voice answering your questions. Two months without another human face or any sign of ordinary life. Hot meals appear without explanation. Baths are drawn with steam filling the air. Your room is kept spotless, with clothing you didn’t know you owned folded neatly in the wardrobe. The castle itself seems to live, but its residents, if they exist, remain hidden like shadows that disperse the moment you turn your head.
Your fear doesn’t vanish; it changes. It sinks deeper, thickening into a profound loneliness that gnaws at you, hollowing out pieces you didn’t think could break. You sit in the small window seat some nights and watch mist roll across the courtyard, wondering if anyone can see you from outside, wondering if anyone remembers you at all. You cry sometimes, quietly, the sound muffled by the blanket you pull over your mouth. Other times, you simply sit in silence with your palm pressed to the cold window glass, whispering questions you know no one will answer. Most nights, you fall asleep with the same thought echoing inside your chest: you are a bride abandoned in a castle full of secrets, living among invisible hands and unseen eyes. And in all this time, two entire months, you have never once met the vampire you were forced to marry.
Sleep eventually claims you, but it is not gentle. It drags you down into a nightmare so vivid it feels real from the first breath. You find yourself running through a forest drowned in moonlight, the trees tall and skeletal, their branches clawing at the sky like fingers. Snow covers the ground in a thick, uneven blanket, and each frantic step sends cold bursts shooting up your legs. Your lungs burn, sharp and raw, fogging the air with every desperate exhale. You don’t know what’s chasing you, you never see it clearly, but you feel it. A presence at your back. Heavy. Powerful. Hunger radiates from it in waves, pressing against your spine, urging you to run faster even as your legs threaten to collapse beneath you. The shadows shift in unnatural ways behind you, twisting and swelling, closing in with a speed that makes your chest seize. Branches whip at your arms. Your feet slip on ice beneath the snow. Your heartbeat becomes an echo that fills the entire forest. When your foot snags on a hidden root, you fall hard onto the cold ground. The impact knocks the breath out of you, and for a moment all you hear is the thundering pulse in your ears. You turn onto your back, breath coming in short white bursts. The shadow looms over you; a vague shape, tall and wolfish and wrong, its breath hot against your cheek. Just as it lunges, its jaws opening wide in a blur of darkness and teeth, you choke on your own scream.
You gasp awake, your whole body jerking upright as if hauled by invisible strings. Sweat clings to your neck and the back of your dress, chilled by the room’s air. Your heartbeat is still frantic, pounding so hard it shakes your ribs. The darkness presses close, and for a second you don’t know where you are; forest or castle, nightmare or reality. Your eyes land on the old clock hanging above the fireplace. The minute hand ticks forward with a soft click.
2:00 a.m.
You rub your face with trembling hands and try to steady your breathing, but the fear clings stubbornly, sitting heavy on your chest. Sleep feels impossible now. The silence of the castle settles around you like thick fog, and you find yourself needing something warm, something to ground you. A drink. Tea, or anything that might remind you of home.
Half-asleep and unable to shake the lingering terror from your dream, you push yourself out of bed. Your legs feel unsteady when they touch the cold stone floor, but you force yourself to stand. The room is dim, shadows pooling in the corners as candles near their last inches of wax. You pull your robe tighter around you and move to the door, fingers brushing the cold metal handle.
You don’t think about the rule: do not leave past 11 p.m. Not in this moment. Not with your heart still racing and the nightmare’s breath still warm on your cheek. You simply need something warm, something familiar, something human.
You open the door and step into the hallway, the air colder out here, the candles stretching long shadows along the floor. Your bare feet pad softly against the rug as you walk, still dazed, still half in the remnants of the dream. The castle is silent, but after two months of emptiness, silence feels normal.
You waltz down the corridor toward the kitchen, the thought of a calming drink pulling you forward.
The closer you get to the kitchen, the more you slow down. At first you think you’re imagining it, the faint melody drifting through the hall, the soft clatter of pans. You blink hard, still groggy, still weighed down by the nightmare clinging to the edges of your mind. But as you step closer, the sounds sharpen. Someone is definitely singing. Light, cheerful humming floats under the door, followed by the rhythmic tap of metal and the scrape of something being stirred.
Your breath catches, and for the first time in two months, hope sparks warm in your chest. You inch toward the doorway, heart thudding not with fear but with anticipation. Maybe, finally ,someone to talk to. Someone real. Someone who can tell you anything about this castle, or even just say good morning. You press your hand to the cool frame and tilt your head, peeking through the small gap between the door and the wall.
What you see almost knocks the air from your lungs.
An older woman; small, round, shouldered, with a flour-smudged apron tied around her waist, dances around the kitchen like she’s lived here her entire life. White hair escapes her bun in soft wisps. She spins lightly on her heel as she sings, sliding a tray of pastries onto the counter, then twirling back to a simmering pot as if this were the coziest cottage in the world instead of a cold, haunted castle.
Your face breaks into a wide grin before you even realize it. Relief floods you so fast it makes your eyes sting. A person. A real person. Someone warm. Someone alive. The loneliness that has been gnawing at you for weeks leaps at the chance for connection.
Without thinking, you push the door open fully.
“Hello!” you exclaim, excitement bursting out of you in one breath.
The woman jumps so violently she drops the pans she was holding. They hit the floor with a startled clang, bouncing once before settling. She whirls around, her red eyes wide and glowing in the candlelight.
Red. Red eyes.
Your grin freezes. Your breath stops cold. Your heart plummets straight into your stomach.
You stare at her, and she stares back, and in the span of a single heartbeat you understand exactly what she is.
A vampire.
Your entire body reacts before your mind can. A hot surge of panic shoots through your limbs, and you stumble backward, instincts screaming at you to run. Your heart slams against your ribs. The stories from the village echo violently in your head; vampires are cold, cruel, heartless, killers, things that must be burned to die. Your pulse thrashes like a trapped animal.
You turn to bolt down the hall;
“Stop! Child, stop!” the woman calls out.
Her voice is firm, urgent, but not cruel. Still, your terrified legs don’t care. You push off the ground to sprint away, but in the blink of an eye she isn’t behind you anymore.
She’s in front of you.
One moment the hall is empty, and the next she stands inches from your face, her hand raised in greeting, her expression bright and delighted like you had just surprised her with flowers rather than nearly given her a heart attack. Her sudden appearance steals the breath from your lungs. She didn’t walk. She didn’t run. She simply wasn’t there… and then she was.
But she’s smiling. A soft, wide, grandmotherly smile that reaches her glowing eyes. Nothing about her posture is threatening. She clasps her hands together like she’s thrilled to see you awake.
“Oh, sweetheart, don’t run off,” she says warmly, ushering you back toward the kitchen with gentle pats to your shoulders. “You’re freezing. Come sit. I’ll make you a warm drink and get you some nice pastries. They’re fresh, I promise.”
You blink at her, confused, breathless, alarmed out of your mind. Everything you were raised to believe about vampires screams at you to flee; monsters, killers, blood, drinkers, but nothing about this woman fits the stories. She’s soft. Warm. Cheerful, even. Her voice reminds you of your late grandmother humming by the hearth, all gentle affection and worn-out patience.
Your heart still races, but another feeling slips into the panic, bewilderment. This is not what you expected. Not what anyone expected.
You look at her again, at her kindly smile, at the way she already moves toward the stove to pour something into a mug.
This vampire is nothing like the monsters from your nightmares.
If anything… She looks like someone who has waited a very long time to finally have someone to cook for.
She does not simply talk, she pours. Words spill from her like water finally released from a dam, rushing over you so quickly you barely have time to take a breath between her sentences. The moment she motions you into a seat at the small wooden table, she sets a warm mug in front of you, then launches into conversation with the ease of someone who hasn’t had a real audience in decades.
“Oh, look at you, poor thing, trembling like a little leaf in winter,” she says, patting your shoulder before bustling back to the counter. “You must be freezing. And thin as a twig! You need proper food. Real food. Not those sad, cold meals they used to serve the brides before you. No, no. Absolutely not! I won’t have it.”
You wrap your fingers around the mug, grateful for the heat. The kitchen; full of soft light and warm smells; feels like the only corner of the castle that isn’t suffocating. Jovana moves with practiced familiarity, humming again under her breath as she shuffles pastries onto a plate. She talks the entire time, barely pausing to inhale.
“My name is Jovana, sweetheart. Jovana Vasilievna, though the last name hasn’t mattered for a very long time.” She turns, smiling brightly at you before sliding another tray into the oven. “I was turned when I was just short of sixty. Sixty! Can you imagine that? Barely any energy in the bones anymore, but apparently someone liked my cooking well enough to want me around forever.”
You blink at her, stunned, not just by the information, but by the lightness in her tone. She speaks about being turned like someone discussing a minor inconvenience, like catching a cold or tripping on a doorstep. She wipes her hands on her apron, continuing her rapid stream of words.
“Oh, I used to bake all the time for my husband and grandson. They loved my pastries more than they loved me, I always said.” Her eyes soften with memory, though no sadness darkens her expression. “But they’re long gone now. Life moves, death comes, and here I stayed, cleaning and cooking for a castle full of shadows and dust.”
You take a small sip of your drink; sweet and warm, tasting faintly of cinnamon, and she claps her hands in delight. “Yes, yes! Drink, drink. I made it the way I used to make it for my grandson when he had nightmares.”
The mention of nightmares makes a tremor crawl up your spine, but Jovana doesn’t notice. She’s already bustling around, scooting pastries toward you, talking as if afraid you might disappear if she stopped.
“You know, I haven’t had anyone to fuss over in so long. Years and years and years. The brides before you…” Her voice lowers, though only slightly. “Well, they never lasted. Most arrived dead already. Imagine that! The villagers throwing corpses at our doorstep and calling it a peace offering. A disgrace. And the few who survived the trip…” She shakes her head, clucking her tongue. “They did themselves in by morning. Terrified out of their wits. Poor souls.”
Your stomach twists at her casual tone. You weren’t prepared for that. Not for death spoken so simply, like something routine.
Jovana continues anyway, oblivious to the way your heart drops into your stomach.
“And then you arrived,” she says brightly, placing a warm pastry in front of you. “Alive, healthy, sweeter than spring honey. I knew the moment I saw you I’d get to bake again. Oh, it’s been years since someone ate my pastries with real appreciation. Go on, take a bite!”
You lift one slowly, your hands still trembling as the scent of butter and sugar fills the air. She watches you expectantly, red eyes glowing softly in the candlelight. There is no malice in her face. No hunger. Just excitement and a grandmotherly eagerness that feels so out of place you don’t know what to do with it.
She talks on, voice warm and rapid, filling every corner of the kitchen.
“Such a blessing you are, sweetheart. You gave this old castle a reason to wake up again.”
Your confusion only deepens. Everything you believed about vampires has been rewritten in the span of a few minutes by a tiny, flour-covered woman who treats you like a beloved grandchild.
You take a shaky bite of the pastry. Warm, soft, sweet. Comforting in a way you didn’t know you needed.
And Jovana beams, as if the simple act of you eating is the greatest compliment she has ever received.
Jovana’s voice becomes a comforting rhythm, rising and falling like a familiar song. She talks about everything; old stories, recipes she perfected decades before her turning, the way the castle used to look when it was new, the creaky pipes in the eastern hallway, the portrait hall that she insists is “absolutely haunted by bad paint choices and nothing else.” Her chatter softens the sharp edges inside your chest, and slowly, you feel yourself ease enough to join in.
You offer small comments at first, tiny hums of agreement, quiet questions, shy smiles, but she lights up every time you speak, as if your words are sunlight she’s been starving for. Soon you’re answering her more freely, telling her little things about your village, about your parents, about your favorite foods and the way you used to help your mother bake bread on winter mornings. Jovana reacts with claps and gasps and delighted praise, the kind only an enthusiastic grandmother can give.
For the first time since arriving at this castle, you feel warm. Not from the tea, not from the pastries, but from being seen. From being spoken to.
Then the world shatters.
A deafening BOOM erupts from the front of the cas tle, the sound of enormous doors slamming open so violently the walls tremble. The candles flicker. Your mug rattles on the table. The shock shoots through you like ice water, your spine stiffening as your heart leaps into your throat.
Jovana freezes mid-sentence. Her expression darkens into a weary grimace, one that tells you this sound is not unusual.
“Oh, stars above,” she mutters. She sets down her towel and wipes her hands quickly on her apron. “He’s back early.”
Your pulse kicks into a rapid, panicked sprint. “Who?” you whisper, though some part of you already knows.
Jovana takes your shoulders in her cool but oddly comforting hands and turns you toward the hallway. “Sweetheart, you need to go. Quickly now.” Her red eyes soften with urgency, not fear for herself, but fear for you. “Master Astarion just returned from hunting, and he’s in a foul mood again. You mustn’t let him see you tonight.”
Master… Astarion.
The word jolts your heart. His name. You finally know his name.
Astarion. It rolls through your mind like a forbidden spell, beautiful and sharp and dangerous.
Despite the fear prickling along your skin, you can’t help the small, private smile that forms. Naming him makes him feel real, no longer a faceless monster lurking in your imagination. Astarion. Your husband in title. Your captor by circumstance. A stranger in every other way, but a stranger whose name now sits warm on your tongue.
You look back at Jovana, grateful and reluctant to leave. “Goodnight,” you tell her softly.
She gives your arm a gentle squeeze. “Goodnight, dear. Hurry now.”
You nod, tucking the warmth of her words into your chest like a fragile treasure, and step out of the kitchen. The hallway stretches before you, dim and shadowed, your footsteps muffled by thick carpet. The castle feels different now; charged, bracing itself, holding its breath.
You begin walking toward your room, heart beating fast, mind repeating his name with every step.
Astarion. Astarion. Astarion.
You don’t hear him yet. You don’t see him yet.
But he is home. And for the first time, you are awake to witness it.
You reach your door with your heart still fluttering from the kitchen,still warmed by Jovana’s kindness, still whispering the name you just learned. Your hand rises to the doorknob, fingertips brushing the cold metal, and you exhale a small breath of relief. You made it. You’ll slip inside, hide beneath your blankets, pretend this night never happened;
A voice slices through the darkness like a blade.
“I told you to stay in your room.”
The words are low, smooth, and terrifyingly close. Every muscle in your body goes rigid. The air catches painfully in your lungs as you turn your head slowly, dread crawling up your spine like cold fingers.
At first, you see nothing but shadow.
Then a faint shimmer; white, almost silver; moves in the dark. A flash of hair. Eyes glowing a deep, dangerous red.
Your knees nearly buckle.
You try to breathe, try to form words, try to explain yourself. “I-I was just-”
But you don’t finish.
In the space of a blink, the shadow becomes a figure. The air shifts, a rush of movement too fast for your eyes to follow, too silent to hear. Suddenly he is there,leaning over you, close enough to steal every bit of air from your lungs. His presence fills the corridor, overwhelming in a way your mind can barely comprehend.
His nose presses against the curve of your throat.
The sensation shocks you still. His breath is warm against your skin, soft and deliberate, sending a violent wave of goosebumps racing down your neck and arms. Your head tilts instinctively, exposing more of your throat before you even realize you’re doing it. Every instinct in your body screams danger, but your limbs refuse to move.
He inhales.
Not a quick breath, but a slow, deep draw that feels intimate in a way you’ve never known, terrifying in a way your body doesn’t understand. Your heart hammers so loudly you’re certain he can hear every frantic beat.
His grip doesn’t touch you, not yet, but his entire body radiates a power that presses against your senses, heavy and ancient. He is tall, tall enough that he has to dip his head to reach your throat. His frame is not bulky, not thin, but balanced, elegant strength hidden beneath dark, travel-worn clothing. Up close, he does not smell of death or rot as the villagers claimed vampires did. He smells like cold wind, like snow-kissed forest, like steel and something darker beneath it all.
When he finally lifts his head, the world tilts.
You find yourself staring directly into the most beautiful face you have ever seen. High cheekbones, sharp jawline, lips parted slightly from the breath he took against your skin. His white hair falls in soft waves, catching the faint torchlight. His red eyes-glowing, hungry, ancient,drag over your face with a mix of irritation and something else you can’t name.
Your breath stops completely.
This is Astarion. The vampire husband you’ve imagined in nightmares for two months. The master of this castle. The reason you were brought here.
And he is looking at you like he could devour you in a heartbeat… and like he might be restraining himself with every ounce of his strength.
He doesn’t move at first. For one suspended moment, he simply watches you; eyes burning through the dim corridor, expression unreadable except for the tension coiled behind it. You can’t breathe. You can’t think. Every inch of your skin remembers the heat of his breath at your throat, the way your body reacted without permission.
Then, with deliberate precision, he straightens.
The shift is subtle, but somehow it feels like the world itself pulls back from him. His posture becomes cold, controlled, every line of him carved from ice instead of flesh. The hunger in his eyes dims, eclipsed by something sharper; annoyance, irritation, or maybe the remnants of restraint that took everything inside him to maintain.
He looks down at you, gaze steady and measured. No warmth. No apology. No humanity.
“Don’t let me see you next time.”
His voice is soft, almost whisper-level, but the command hits you like a physical blow; final, uncompromising, absolute.
Before you can react, before you can breathe his name or stammer an explanation, his form blurs. One second he stands in front of you, towering and terrifying and impossibly beautiful, and in the next, he is gone.
No footsteps. No sound. No trace that he was ever there.
The air around you seems to collapse inward as silence rushes back to fill the space he vacated. Your knees give out for a moment, and your hand shoots to the doorframe to steady yourself. Your heart slams against your ribs in wild, uneven bursts, your throat tight with leftover fear and something you don’t dare name.
You turn slowly, half expecting him to reappear.
But the hallway is empty.
Your blood thunders in your ears as your thoughts race, tangled and breathless. He didn’t kill you. He didn’t even touch you. He spoke to you. He smelled you, leaned over you, hovered like a predator evaluating its prey… and then vanished with nothing more than a warning.
Confusion floods you. Relief. Fear. Curiosity. Something warmer, something more dangerous, buried beneath it all.
You pull in a shaky breath, try to calm the trembling in your hands, and finally push your door open. The room feels different now; smaller, quieter, carrying the faint echo of the vampire whose presence lingered on your skin.
You slip inside and close the door behind you, leaning against it as your pulse struggles to slow.
Astarion. You repeat his name silently, as if saying it will help you understand him.
But all it does is send another shiver down your spine.
He is real. He is beautiful. He is terrifying. And he left you standing there with nothing but a command and a heart that refuses to stop racing.
Sunrise crawls across the sky long before sleep even thinks about touching you.
You lie flat on your back, the blankets pulled halfway up your chest, your eyes fixed on the carved wooden patterns in the ceiling. The first pale strands of morning light leak through the tall curtains, creeping across the floorboards and climbing slowly toward the bed. You watch it move without really seeing it, caught somewhere between thought and numbness.
Your body is still, but your mind refuses to quiet.
Every time you close your eyes, you feel him again; his breath on your neck, the warmth of it sinking through your skin like a brand. You swear you can still sense the ghost of his presence hovering above you, the sharp press of his attention as real as the pounding of your heart. Your chest tightens every time the memory repeats, each replay sending a tremor through your limbs. It’s not fear alone. It’s something else too, something you don’t have the courage to name.
You keep replaying the moment he stepped from the shadows, the flash of white hair catching faint candlelight, the crimson glow of his eyes cutting through the dark as if they saw straight into your bones. The way he moved; too fast for human eyes, too graceful for a predator; races through your mind in loops. And the way he straightened, voice controlled, commanding, as if your presence offended him as much as it warned him.
“Don’t let me see you next time.”
You swallow hard. The words echo again, low and cold, brushing the inside of your skull. He didn’t ask. He ordered. Yet he didn’t harm you. He didn’t even touch you beyond the brief, shocking brush of his breath against your throat.
Your fingers drift to that spot now, brushing lightly as if searching for proof that he’d been there at all.
You should be terrified. You are terrified. But confusion swirls with it, twisting your stomach into knots.
He was monstrous, yet beautiful. Threatening;yet careful. Predatory;yet deliberate.
Nothing about the encounter makes sense, least of all the way your pulse refuses to settle.
Another breath shudders through you.
You blink at the ceiling, exhausted yet wide awake, caught in the haze of sleeplessness that feels like floating just above your own body. Thoughts circle and collide until they collapse into each other; fear tangled with curiosity, anxiety battling with the strange, dangerous fascination pressing quietly against your ribs.
You think about everything. You think about nothing. Your mind is too full and too empty at the same time.
And as the sun finally crests the horizon, filling the room with pale morning warmth, you are still lying there, wide-eyed and trembling, unable to shake the feeling that last night wasn’t just a nightmare or a close call... It was the beginning of something you don’t yet understand.
In the days that follow, something shifts inside the castle; subtle at first, like a change in the air you can’t quite name. You tell yourself you’re imagining it, that your lack of sleep and your restless thoughts are playing tricks on you. But the truth presses quietly at the edges of your awareness:
You see Astarion more. Not up close. Never within reach. But enough to keep your pulse thrumming and your curiosity burning.
It happens the very next night.
You wake before dawn again, unable to keep still, unable to silence the restless energy thrumming under your skin. The hallway calls to you, its shadows no longer entirely frightening. You tell yourself you’re just stretching your legs, maybe getting a glass of water, maybe checking to see if Jovana left pastries out to cool, but your feet take you in the opposite direction of the kitchen, toward the darker wing of the castle.
The wing where you saw him.
You stay close to the wall, steps soft, eyes scanning every flicker of candlelight. And then you see a pale flash, there, at the far end of the hall. A figure turning the corner. A glimmer of white hair catching the firelight. A long, graceful stride.
Your breath catches so sharply it hurts.
You don’t call out. You don’t dare. But you linger, heart racing, waiting to see if he will return. He doesn’t. Still, that single glimpse is enough to keep you awake the rest of the night.
And so begins the habit.
The terrible, thrilling habit.
Each night, you wait a little longer. You listen for the creak of old floorboards, the whisper of movement, the soft, distant thump of a door closing somewhere in the castle. You learn his patterns without meaning to. The hours he stalks the corridors. The sound of his boots occasionally tapping stone when he isn’t trying to be silent. The faint, cold rush of air that follows when he moves too fast for your eyes to track.
Every night, your curiosity pulls you a little further from your room.
Every night, your heart beats a little faster when you think you might see him again.
Jovana notices, of course.
She always notices.
“Oh, sweetheart, don’t you start wandering again,” she scolds lightly as she kneads dough one morning. “Master Astarion has a bad temper and even worse timing. Best not to tangle with him.” She flicks flour off her fingers, her red eyes narrowing in concern. “And best not to be caught where you shouldn’t be.”
You nod, pretending to take the warning to heart.
But you have always been a curious girl. Curious enough to follow soft footsteps down dark halls. Curious enough to ignore the rule about staying in your room. Curious enough to wonder who Astarion is when he thinks no one is watching.
And it becomes clear, night after night, that Astarion is seeing you more too.
Sometimes you feel his gaze before you see him, like a spark on the back of your neck, a tingling awareness running over your skin. You’ll turn a corner, and he’ll be standing at the end of the corridor, half-hidden in shadow, watching you with that unreadable expression. He never speaks to you. He never approaches. He never repeats the warning he gave you that first night.
But he doesn’t vanish instantly either.
Not anymore.
Some nights you’re certain he lingers longer than necessary, as if he’s studying you the same way you study him; quietly, cautiously, from a distance neither of you cross.
The castle feels different in those moments.
Charged. Alive. Like something waiting to awaken.
And with each encounter, each fleeting glimpse, each shared silence in the dim corridors; you feel yourself slipping deeper into something you can’t explain, something that thrums beneath your skin and keeps you up long past the hour you should be safely hidden away.
The library becomes your sanctuary the moment Jovana shows it to you. Vast, warm, filled with the soft smell of old parchment and dust and faded ink, it feels like a world tucked inside the castle’s cold stone walls; a world untouched by fear or shadows. The towering shelves are stuffed with books of every shape and color, their spines worn from generations of hands you cannot imagine. You’ve never seen this many books in your life. Never even dreamed of it.
You trail your fingers along the shelves, the smooth and rough textures brushing your skin in uneven patterns. You choose a book solely for its cover; a deep blue leather bound with gold filigree looping elegantly across the edges. You carry it to the large armchair near the fire and curl up, letting the warmth soak into your chilled fingers. For a moment, you just stare at the first page, heart fluttering with a mixture of excitement and nervousness.
You’ve always wanted to learn how to read. Always imagined what it would be like to hold stories in your hands, to decode the world hidden behind letters your parents never had the chance to teach you. You take a deep breath and begin sounding out the first word. The attempt is clumsy. The letters twist, slide, refuse to form the sounds you try so hard to coax from them. You try again, slower this time, but your tongue refuses to cooperate. After several minutes, you’re still stuck on the same frustrating cluster of letters.
You sigh and try once more.
“Eh… ee… ah…?”
A laugh echoes from behind you.
It’s sharp, rich, and entirely amused.
You jolt so hard the book slips from your hands and thuds onto the floor. Heart pounding, you whip around, eyes wide. He stands between two towering shelves, half-lit by the crackling fire; white hair soft around his face, arms crossed, red eyes gleaming with unmistakable mirth.
Astarion.
His lips are curved in a smirk, the kind that cuts and charms at the same time. “What,” he drawls, voice smooth as silk stretched over steel, “in the hells was that supposed to be?”
Heat floods your face instantly. You scramble to your feet, feeling ridiculous and exposed. He heard every mangled attempt. Every stumble. Every failure. You wish the floor would swallow you whole.
“I;I don’t know how to read,” you admit, voice small, embarrassed. “I never learned.”
He arches a perfectly shaped eyebrow, amused. “Truly? You’ve lived more than two decades, and no one thought to teach you basic literacy? How quaint.”
Your embarrassment twists painfully in your stomach. You look away, cheeks burning hot enough to hurt. “We didn’t have a school,” you murmur. “The village couldn’t afford one. Only the wealthiest families taught their children. Everyone else…” You shrug helplessly, eyes fixed on the fallen book. “We worked. Learned what we could from each other.”
The amusement fades from his eyes in a soft, almost imperceptible shift. Something like realization, or something gentler, crosses his expression.
He moves.
You don’t even see the exact moment he does. One heartbeat he’s across the room; the next he’s standing before you, close enough that the firelight casts warm gold against his pale skin. Without a word, he bends smoothly and picks up the book you dropped, brushing a thumb across its cover as if it were something precious rather than something you mishandled.
When he straightens, he holds the book with elegant ease, his red eyes flicking to yours; not mocking now, not sharp, but curious. Almost contemplative.
“Well,” he says quietly, the teasing gone from his voice, replaced by something more careful. “If you intend to butcher the written word in my presence, the least I can do is intervene.”
You blink up at him, breath caught somewhere between hope and disbelief.
Astarion closes the distance between you until the warmth of the fire mixes with the cool current of air that clings to him.
“Come,” he murmurs, opening the book to the first page. “Let’s start with the basics.”
Astarion tries. Gods, he tries.
At first, he seems almost confident; like he genuinely believes he can fix your illiteracy in an afternoon with nothing more than charm, sharp wit, and a well-worn book. He settles into the chair beside you, one leg crossed over the other, posture refined and elegant as always, and taps the page with a long, pale finger.
“This,” he declares, “is a letter. A very simple letter. A child could manage this.”
You lean closer, nodding earnestly, trying not to look as overwhelmed as you feel. “Okay… so it’s ah… or eh… or;”
He inhales sharply. “No. We’ve been over this. It’s ‘A.’ Just ‘A.’ A.” He repeats the sound with exaggerated clarity, lips forming a perfect shape, red eyes fixed on you like he’s watching a particularly difficult puzzle.
You nod with determination. “A.”
“Good,” he says, though it sounds more like a sigh of relief than praise.
Then he points to the next letter.
You try. You really try.
Within the first hour, his expectations crumble so thoroughly you can practically feel the irritation vibrating off him. He corrects your pronunciation again and again, each time more tightly restrained than the last. His voice never gets loud, but it gets sharper, as if he’s using sarcasm as a shield against impending madness.
“No, no, no. That’s not even close. How are you getting worse? It’s ‘B,’ darling. B.”
You wince. “I’m sorry. I’ve never done this before;”
“I can tell,” he mutters under his breath, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
Twenty minutes later, he drags a hand through his white hair, messing it up; something you didn’t even think was possible; and stares at the page like it personally offended him.
“Unbelievable,” he whispers to himself. “Absolutely unbelievable. How can someone be this charmingly hopeless? This is torture. Literal torture.”
A laugh bubbles up your throat, unexpected and hard to hide. You cover your mouth, eyes shining with amusement and embarrassment.
“It’s not funny,” he snaps.
But the faint twitch at the corner of his lips suggests he knows it is.
You straighten your posture and try again. “Let me... just one more time-‘C’ is… kuh?”
He freezes. For a moment, he looks like he’s genuinely considering throwing himself into the fire.
“Yes,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose again. “Finally. Yes. Kuh. Saints preserve me.”
Another half hour passes. His patience thins until it’s nearly transparent. He slumps back in his chair, staring at the ceiling as if begging the heavens for strength, muttering something about “why me” and “I survived centuries of torment for this.”
Still, he hasn’t walked away. He hasn’t given up. He hasn’t snapped at you to leave.
And that means something.
By the time the first hour ends, Astarion is one strained exhale away from tearing out his own hair, while you are both exhausted and quietly delighted. His frustration never turns cruel. His sarcasm never truly bites. There’s something oddly endearing about the way he struggles; something almost… human.
And despite all his exasperated sighs and muttered curses, he stays right there beside you, flipping to the next page with a resigned flick of his wrist.
“Again,” he murmurs. “Before I perish from sheer, unimaginable frustration.”
Midnight drifts into the library like a slow, heavy tide, the candles shrinking low in their holders as hours blur together in your increasingly tangled attempts to pronounce simple words. Astarion’s posture has devolved from aristocratic elegance into something far more disheveled; one elbow braced on the armrest, forehead resting in his palm, fingers tangled in his white hair as if supporting the weight of his patience. His eyes, usually sharp and alert, now burn with a mixture of exhaustion, disbelief, and a grim sort of determination that suggests he is too stubborn to surrender even to this.
Jovana returns for what must be the fourth or fifth time, gliding into the room with a tray of steaming tea before Astarion can collapse into the nearest bookshelf. She sets it down with a soft clink and gives you a sympathetic smile, then turns her attention to the vampire with the weary affection of someone used to patching him back together.
“Drink,” she orders gently, pushing the delicate porcelain cup into his hand. “Before you melt into the carpet.”
Astarion takes it with a dramatic sigh, lifting it to his lips with a grace that contrasts sharply with the dark circles forming beneath his eyes. “I am being tortured,” he mutters, voice hoarse with overuse. “This must surely violate some ancient law.”
Jovana pats his shoulder. “You’ll survive.”
He snorts without conviction.
You sit cross-legged beside the fire, book open in your lap, hair mussed from leaning forward so many times, cheeks warm with equal parts pride and embarrassment. You sound out another word; slowly, clearly, correctly; and glance up to see Astarion staring at you like someone witnessing a miracle he no longer believed in.
“Yes,” he breathes, pointing weakly at the page. “That’s it. Finally. Only took you… what? Seven hours?”
Despite the sarcasm, there’s something softer beneath his tone, something warmer, something that flickers between his lashes before he hides it behind another sip of tea. He watches you try again, eyes tracking the movement of your lips with focused attention. “Good,” he murmurs after a moment. “Again. Don’t lose it now.”
Your voice is tired. Your throat is raw. But you read the sentence one more time, stumbling only once, and when you finish, you can hardly stop the smile that spreads across your face. You did it. You actually read it.
Astarion slumps back into his chair, closing his eyes as if savoring a victory hard won. “At last,” he groans. “At long, long last. You can read at a level comparable to a small, particularly spirited child.”
Jovana stifles a laugh behind her hand, then refills his tea with the smooth efficiency of a caretaker who has accepted her eternal fate.
Your own smile grows. “So… I did well?” you ask, unable to hide the hopeful note in your voice.
He cracks one crimson eye open and looks at you. Really looks. Exhaustion softens the hard edges of his face, and the firelight paints warm gold across his sharp features. For a moment, there is no mocking, no irritation; just quiet sincerity.
“Yes,” he says, the word surprisingly gentle. “You did.”
It is small praise. Bare praise. But from him, after hours of his near-tearful frustration, it feels like a treasure.
You curl deeper into your chair, clutching the closed book to your chest. Jovana gathers the empty cups and plates, humming to herself as she moves, casting amused glances between the two of you. Astarion rubs his face with both hands, then drags them down with a loud, theatrical groan.
“Never,” he says to no one in particular, “have I worked so hard to accomplish so little.”
But his tone betrays him. He is proud. And you know it.
The next few days slip by in a blur of warm mornings, quiet afternoons, and your utter lack of discipline when it comes to your lessons. Astarion had given you strict instructions; no skipping, no slacking, no undoing all the painfully hard work he put into your kindergarten-level reading. But books were hard and the forest was not, and you had always been more at home in the dirt than in any classroom, real or makeshift.
So, of course, you play hooky.
Every morning after Jovana serves breakfast and Astarion disappears into whatever shadowy corners he haunts during daylight hours, you sneak out into the castle’s sprawling backyard. The seasons have begun to shift; the air carries a crisp bite, and the leaves have begun to burn into shades of red, gold, and amber. Nature feels alive around you, vibrant and whispering, so different from the cold stone hallways you’ve grown used to wandering.
You wander through the overgrown garden beds, humming under your breath as you crouch among the moss and fallen leaves. You aren’t good with books, but foraging has always been second nature. Your fingers glide along familiar stems, brushing soft caps and checking for the fine details your mother taught you long before the council decided you would be a bride for the vampire in the castle.
You find a cluster of mushrooms; plump, brown, speckled beauties, and your whole face lights with delight. You pluck them carefully, inspecting each one, your mind drifting far from the castle, far from fear, far from expectations. Out here, you feel like yourself again. Just a girl in nature. Not a sacrifice. Not a student. Not a possession.
Lost in your thoughts, you don’t feel the shift in the air at first. But then a prickling sensation creeps along your skin-sharp, electric, unmistakable.
The feeling of being watched.
You straighten slowly, heart thudding once in surprise before you turn your head toward the castle. Your eyes scan the tall stone exterior until they land on one of the enormous windows lining the second floor.
And there he is.
Astarion stands behind the glass, framed by thick velvet curtains and dim indoor light. His posture is elegant and stiff, his arms folded loosely across his chest. His expression is impossible to read from this distance, but his eyes; those unmistakable glowing crimson eyes; are locked onto you with predatory focus.
Your breath stutters.
Then something warm blooms inside you.
You smile.
Not a timid one. Not a nervous one.
A bright, wide, genuine smile that comes from someplace uncomplicated; someplace happy. And without thinking, without hesitating, you lift your hand and wave at him enthusiastically, your basket of mushrooms tilting on your hip.
For one impossible second, the world holds its breath.
Astarion does not move. Astarion does not blink. Astarion does not wave back.
But something in his stare changes; just a flicker. A spark. You can’t name it, but it makes your heart flip strangely inside your chest.
You keep smiling anyway, because for the first time since arriving at the castle… you aren’t afraid of him. Not entirely. Not anymore.
The shift in Astarion’s behavior begins slowly, almost imperceptibly, yet distinct enough that you feel it beneath your skin. The day after he caught you foraging in the garden, you return to the library with a children’s reader tucked under your arm and determined focus on your face. You settle into the same armchair beside the fire, letting the warmth chase the lingering chill from your fingers. The room is quiet except for the soft crackle of burning logs, and you begin mouthing each word with the level of concentration usually reserved for sewing delicate fabric or threading small beads.
You do not hear Astarion enter the library. You never hear him when he approaches. What you feel instead is the faint shift in the air, as if the room itself acknowledges his presence before you do. When you lift your eyes, he is already standing several paces away, one hand resting lightly on the back of a nearby chair. His gaze is focused entirely on you. He does not speak, nor does he announce himself in any other way. He simply watches, the firelight reflecting in his crimson eyes with a quiet intensity that makes your breath stall in your chest.
You keep reading. Your voice is soft and slightly shaky, but you continue because stopping feels too vulnerable. Astarion remains still, almost statuesque, and does not offer any corrections or amused commentary as he once did. He only listens. When you glance at him again, he is no longer several paces away. He has moved closer to the bookshelf nearest your chair, his arms folded and his expression unreadable. His posture is tense, but his eyes have lost the cold edge they once carried.
The next day, you find him already in the library when you enter. He stands near the window with a book in his hand, though he does not appear to be reading it. When he notices you, he closes the book and shifts his attention fully to your presence. You take your seat by the fire once more, open your beginner text, and begin reading aloud with slow, deliberate care. Astarion eventually crosses the room and positions himself behind a nearby armchair, leaning against it while he listens. His nearness unsettles you at first, but he does not flinch or show any sign of impatience. He listens as though the simple act of learning to read holds more importance than it should.
By the third day, the pattern has changed again. After you choose your seat and begin practicing, you hear the soft shuffle of clothing and feel a change in the warmth beside you. When you look to your left, Astarion has taken the chair closest to yours. He sits with a controlled posture, hands resting comfortably on the armrests, and his eyes remain fixed on the page as you read. He does not speak, nor does he correct your mistakes. Instead, he listens with a quiet concentration that makes your pulse flutter involuntarily. His presence is cool but no longer distant. For the first time since you arrived at the castle, he feels less like a looming shadow and more like a reluctant companion forced into the orbit of your determination.
Each day, he sits closer than the one before, as if drawn by something he refuses to acknowledge. His shoulders remain tense, his jaw firm, yet he has stopped shielding his expressions behind cold indifference. He allows you to exist beside him without the earlier hostility. He allows himself to observe you without irritation. And somewhere between his silence and your hesitant reading, a fragile, unspoken understanding begins to form.
You do not know what it means. You only know he stays.
Candlelit dinners begin without any official announcement, as though the castle itself decides you have earned something more than isolation and hurried meals delivered in silence. One evening, when you enter the dining hall expecting to eat alone, you stop short. The long table is set with polished silverware, steaming dishes, and rows of candles arranged in delicate clusters that cast golden light across the high vaulted ceiling. At the head of the table sits Astarion.
He does not greet you. He merely lifts his gaze, his crimson eyes reflecting the candlelight, and gestures toward the chair nearest him. You hesitate, unsure if this is a command or an invitation, but the faint lift of his eyebrow suggests impatience rather than malice. You take your seat. Your hands tremble slightly as you adjust your napkin, though you try to hide the movement.
Astarion watches you without blinking. You reach for your fork. He clears his throat quietly, which pulls your attention back to him. You are startled to see him examining the plate in front of him with a faint grimace, as though weighing some private debate. Then, with deliberate calm, he picks up his own fork and spears a small piece of roasted vegetable. He lifts it to his lips, pauses, and then takes the bite.
You stare, too surprised to speak.
He chews slowly, thoughtfully, and swallows with visible discomfort. His expression twists for a moment, and he exhales through his nose like someone trying to avoid offending a host. “The texture is tolerable,” he says, though the tone suggests otherwise. “The taste is… manageable.”
You blink in astonishment. “You do not have to eat,” you remind him carefully. “I know that vampires do not;”
“I am aware,” he interrupts, his voice clipped but not unkind. He folds his hands in his lap for a moment before meeting your gaze again. “However, it seemed rude to sit idly while you ate alone. Mortals find it uncomfortable when the person across from them stares without participating.”
Warmth creeps into your chest because, in his own awkward and reluctant way, he is trying. He is trying for you.
You offer him a small smile, and his eyes flicker at the expression. He quickly looks down at his plate again, as though unnerved by the softness on your face. He tries another bite, struggling not to grimace when the flavor clearly disappoints him. You swallow a laugh and hide your smile behind your cup. He notices anyway.
“This is not amusing,” he mutters. “I am attempting sincerity.”
You set your cup down carefully. “I know,” you reply, your voice gentle. “And I appreciate it.”
His shoulders stiffen, then loosen slightly, as if your gratitude unsettles him more than any threat ever could.
Dinner continues with a quiet rhythm. You eat normally, slowly, savoring the warmth of the food and the comfort of having someone, anyone,share the moment with you. Astarion watches you with a mix of curiosity and concentration, as though memorizing your every movement. Occasionally he forces himself to take another bite from his own plate, each attempt slightly more determined than the last. He drinks from a goblet filled with something darker than wine, though he moves it subtly, almost shyly, as if trying not to remind you of what he truly is.
As the candles burn lower, the room softens with amber light. Astarion leans back in his chair, his expression a blend of contemplation and exhaustion. You meet his eyes one last time, and he holds your gaze without looking away.
It is the first dinner you share. It is the first time he chooses to sit beside you without distance or coldness. It is the first moment that feels strangely, impossibly normal.
And you do not forget it.
As the dinner stretches into the deeper hours of the night, the atmosphere shifts from stiff unfamiliarity into something softer, quieter, and more human than anything you expected from a vampire lord. At first the small talk is hesitant. You answer his questions carefully, unsure which topics might offend him, and he chooses his own responses with the precision of someone who has not held a casual conversation in decades. Yet something about the candlelight, the warmth of the room, and the lingering awareness of his effort makes each exchange feel easier than the last.
He asks about the mushrooms you found earlier in the week, and you explain the difference between edible ones and poisonous ones using gestures that make no logical sense. He listens with the patience of someone decoding an ancient language. When you nearly knock over your cup while demonstrating the size of one particularly large mushroom, he catches it before it tips, his hand moving faster than your eyes can follow. You murmur a flustered “thank you,” and he merely inclines his head, almost regal in the gesture.
Minutes pass. Words become more natural. He even volunteers a comment about the castle garden, mentioning a species of night; blooming flowers that only open under moonlight. You listen with a growing warmth in your chest, amazed that this quiet strand of conversation exists between you at all.
Then, somewhere between stories about baking mishaps with Jovana and your clumsy attempt to pronounce a complicated plant name, your tongue slips. You try to say “phosphorescent foxglove,” something Astarion had mentioned while describing the gardens, but what comes out is a disastrous, tangled mess of syllables that sound nothing like any real word.
You stop. He stops. Silence settles for a heartbeat.
Then he laughs.
The sound is sharp at first, caught in his throat as though it startles him as much as it does you. His hand moves to his chest as if he needs to brace himself. The laugh grows, soft but strained, cracking slightly at the end like something unused for far too long. It is not cold or mocking. It is warm. Genuine. Shockingly human.
Your eyes widen because it is a beautiful sound, yet it carries a painful edge, as though laughter is a muscle he has not exercised in years and is unsure whether it should ache.
He brings a hand to his forehead, still shaking faintly with amusement. “Gods,” he mutters, voice thin with effort, “how did you manage to mutilate every part of that word simultaneously?”
Your cheeks burn with embarrassment, but his laughter is contagious. You bite your lip to hold back your own smile, though it slips out anyway. “Maybe the word is the problem,” you say quietly. “It is far too long.”
He lowers his hand, the corners of his mouth still curved upward. There is a faint shimmer in his eyes, not of hunger or irritation, but of genuine amusement that makes him look profoundly different; lighter, warmer, almost youthful. “The word is perfectly normal,” he replies. “Your tongue, however, is not cooperating with the rest of you.”
The teasing lands more gently than his earlier sarcasm, softened by the lingering remnants of his laugh. He clears his throat, trying to regain composure, but the ghost of that smile remains, stubborn and unmistakable.
For the first time since you arrived, he looks less like the fearsome creature whispered about in village rumors and more like someone who has forgotten what it feels like to be alive, and is relearning it slowly, reluctantly, and unexpectedly through you.
The laughter fades, but the warmth it sparks lingers between you for the rest of the night.
Over the next several days, something unspoken begins to weave itself between the two of you, delicate at first and almost fragile, but undeniably present. It feels like standing near a fire after a long winter; tentative, cautious warmth sinking into your bones before you can fully acknowledge it. The castle’s cold hallways seem softer now, less intimidating, as if the tension that once lived between you and Astarion has started to loosen its hold.
It begins with small, almost accidental moments.
One morning, as you sit beside him in the library practicing your reading, your fingers brush his when you reach for the next page. The contact is light and fleeting, more air than touch, yet it sends a shiver up your arm. You immediately pull back, murmuring an apology, but he does not flinch or withdraw. Instead, his eyes flick to your hand with a curious expression, and his lips twitch, just slightly, before he calmly turns the page for you. That tiny movement, that silent acceptance, lingers with you long after the lesson ends.
A few days later, during another candlelit dinner, you drop your fork for what must be the third time in a row. You duck under the table to retrieve it with a frustrated groan, your hair falling into your face as you reach blindly for the metal. When you resurface, triumphant but out of breath, Astarion raises a single eyebrow and remarks, “At this rate, I fear we may need to childproof the dining room.”
You gape at him for a moment, uncertain whether he is teasing or insulting you. But the faint curve at the corner of his lips, and the small glimmer of mischief in his eyes, tells you everything. It is teasing. Not cruel. Not mocking. Playful.
You roll your eyes at him, and he gives a soft, amused exhale; almost a laugh, but smaller, hidden behind a sip of his goblet.
As the days pass, these moments multiply.
When you walk past him in the hallway, your shoulders sometimes brush. You tell yourself it is an accident each time, but he does nothing to move away, allowing the contact like something he has grown used to.
When you mispronounce a word during your lessons and then glare at the book in mild betrayal, he leans closer with a faint smile and murmurs, “Do not scowl at it, dear, it is already terrified of you.” His voice carries no bite, only amused affection, and the comment makes your cheeks warm in a way you cannot control.
There are times he corrects your reading by tapping the page with the tip of his finger, and his hand hovers just an inch from yours. If you shift even slightly, those fingers brush against your knuckles; light, cool, and strangely intoxicating. He does not pull away when it happens. Instead, his eyes flick to your hand for a heartbeat before he continues reading as though the contact never occurred.
Even Jovana notices the change. She watches the two of you with quiet smiles and knowing glances, humming happily whenever she passes through the library or brings tea to the dining hall. She says nothing aloud, but her approval hangs in the air like a warm blanket.
The hostility Astarion carried when you first arrived fades little by little, replaced by dry humor and subtle wit. His tone softens in your presence. His sarcasm becomes warm instead of sharp. He allows himself to relax when he is near you, even if only slightly. And in those moments, he looks less like a creature hardened by centuries of pain and more like someone rediscovering the concept of gentleness.
You do not know what all these changes mean, not yet. But every brush of fingers, every soft laugh, every tease delivered without cruelty pulls you a little further into his orbit.
And something deep inside you responds; quietly, but undeniably.
The scream tears through the castle like lightning-sharp, violent, and so filled with pain that it shreds through your dreams and drags you violently awake. The sound vibrates through the stone walls, rattling the windows and sending your heart into your throat. For a moment you lie frozen beneath your blankets, breath caught, mind struggling to understand whether the cry was real or imagined. But then another tortured shout echoes; louder, rawer and instinct takes over.
You throw off your covers, scrambling out of bed with trembling legs. Your shawl hangs on the back of a chair, and you grab it on your way out the door, wrapping it tightly around your shoulders as you sprint into the corridor. The castle feels impossibly large in the darkness, every turn and hallway stretching before you like a maze, but the cries guide you with dreadful clarity. Each one is worse than the last, filled with suffering so deep it makes your stomach twist.
You reach the grand hallway near the stairwell and skid to a stop, breath heaving. Astarion is on the ground.
He lies on his side, body curled in a way that looks unnatural, as though every muscle is locked in excruciating tension. Sweat drenches him, soaking through his shirt and plastering white hair to his forehead. His face is contorted in agony; jaw clenched so hard it looks like it might crack, fangs bared, eyes squeezed shut as another cry rips out of him, echoing off the stone walls like a wounded animal.
Jovana kneels beside him, her usually calm face drawn tight with helplessness. She presses a cool cloth to his head, but her hands tremble. Each time Astarion thrashes, she flinches, unable to restrain him. She looks small beside him, worn and terrified in a way you have never seen.
You drop to your knees beside them, your shawl slipping off one shoulder as panic chokes your voice. “What’s wrong? What’s happening? Jovana... what is happening to him?”
Astarion’s hand claws at the floor, fingers digging into the stone hard enough to crack his nails. His breath comes in broken gasps, each one ending in a hoarse grunt of pain. He arches suddenly, almost throwing himself backward, and Jovana grabs him with both arms, trying to keep him from smashing his head against the ground.
“Go to your room!” she cries, looking at you with frantic urgency. “You must not be here, sweetheart. Not now. This is not the time to help.”
You stare at her, horrified. “I’m not leaving him like this.”
“You must,” she insists, her voice breaking as Astarion screams again. “He cannot control anything when he is in this state. He is dangerous. Please! Just go!”
You shake your head fiercely. Every part of you screams to stay, to help, to do anything you can to ease his suffering. You cannot look at the agony twisting his face and simply walk away. “I’m not going,” you say, your voice trembling but steady. “I won’t leave him.”
Jovana tries to protest, but another of Astarion’s tortured cries cuts her off. You shoot to your feet and run down the nearest hallway without waiting for permission. Your pulse races so violently you feel dizzy, but you push through it, sprinting toward the washroom. You gather rags, buckets, and the largest basin you can carry, filling it with cold water until your fingers go numb. You grab every clean cloth you can find, every towel, anything that might help.
The objects clatter loudly as you run back, but you barely feel the weight. All you can think of is the pain in his voice, raw and merciless, and the fear you saw in Jovana’s eyes.
When you return, Astarion is still writhing on the floor, his body shaking with unnatural intensity. Jovana looks up, startled that you came back, but also relieved, in a fragile, desperate way.
You kneel beside him again, dipping a cloth into the cold water before pressing it gently to his burning forehead. His skin feels hotter than fire, slick with sweat and trembling beneath your touch.
“It is all right,” you whisper, though your voice shakes violently. “I am here. I am right here.”
He does not seem to hear you, lost in a storm of agony that you cannot understand. Yet you stay, wiping his face, cooling his skin, catching his hands when he flails too violently. Jovana supports his back to keep him from hurting himself further. Between the two of you, you manage to anchor him; even if only barely.
You do not know what is happening to him. You do not know what could cause a creature like him to break. But you know one thing with absolute certainty:
You will not leave him.
You work through the chaos with trembling hands, forcing yourself to move gently even as your heart pounds hard enough to bruise your ribs. You wring out a fresh cloth, lay it across Astarion’s burning forehead, and smooth the wet strands of hair plastered to his temples. His skin feels fever-hot, his breath broken and uneven as he gasps through another wave of pain. Every time he flinches or arches away, your chest tightens as if someone is pulling a thread straight through your heart. Jovana steadies him from the other side, whispering his name again and again as if it might anchor him to the world.
Between his cries, she leans closer to you, her voice trembling and hushed. “This is the mark, sweetheart,” she murmurs, keeping her hands on his shoulders as his body jerks. “His enslaver carved it into his back with ancient magic. It binds him. Controls him. Sometimes it… lashes out.” She swallows tightly, her red eyes glistening. “The pain consumes him. It tears straight into his spine and bones. There is no real relief. Only waiting for it to pass.”
You stare at Astarion’s contorted face, unable to understand how anyone; especially someone as poised and guarded as he always is; could be reduced to this level of agony. Each scream wounds you in ways you never expected. You press another cool cloth to his cheek, whispering his name even though he cannot hear it. He claws at the floor, knuckles bloody from how tightly he grips the stone, and for a moment you truly think he is going to tear himself apart.
Jovana wipes his face with a shaking hand, her voice a hoarse whisper. “Death would feel like mercy in moments like this,” she admits quietly. “If he were mortal, he would have welcomed the end long ago.”
The confession slices through you. You look at Astarion; this proud, sharp, impossible creature who carries himself with such control and the thought of him suffering like this, alone, for years or centuries, hits you with a force that steals your breath.
Tears slip down your cheeks before you even realize you are crying. You try to blink them away, but they fall anyway; quiet, steady, helpless. You run the cold cloth over his neck again, brushing your thumb beneath the line of his jaw as gently as you can, and you whisper through the tightness in your throat, “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
He does not respond. He can’t.
But you stay beside him, your tears falling onto the stone floor as you hold him through each wave of torment, refusing to let him suffer alone.
The next wave of pain rips through Astarion’s body so violently that Jovana nearly loses hold of him. His back arches sharply, his teeth bared in a silent scream as every muscle spasms at once. You reach forward instinctively; too close, too fast, too trusting. Before Jovana can shout a warning, before you can even register the danger, everything changes.
In a blur of movement, you are no longer kneeling beside him. You are thrown backward so hard the world snaps white for a moment. Your back slams into the cold stone wall with enough force to drive the air from your lungs. Pain shoots through your shoulders, down your spine, and before you can inhale, a cool, iron-strong hand clamps around your throat.
Astarion has you pinned.
Your feet scrape uselessly against the floor as he lifts you half an inch off the ground, his fingers locking around your neck with inhuman strength. The pressure is immediate and crushing. Your windpipe closes beneath his grip. A sharp, instinctive panic flares in your chest, but it is quickly drowned by shock.
His eyes; usually sharp, focused, calculating; are unfocused now, wild, clouded with a mixture of agony and hunger. Sweat drips down his temples. His fangs glint beneath parted lips, and his breath comes in ragged, animalistic pulls. He is not fully present. He is drowning in pain, in instinct, in something far older and darker than reason.
You choke, your fingers wrapping around his wrist, though you do not try to pry him off. Dots begin to dance at the edges of your vision, bright and disorienting. The pressure builds until your head throbs and your ears ring. You cannot breathe. You cannot speak. Yet you do not kick. You do not claw. You do not scream.
“Stop!” Jovana shrieks, her voice breaking as she tries to pull at his arm. “Astarion, stop! Let her go!”
He does not even seem to hear her. His gaze is locked onto yours with a predator’s intensity, yet there is something fractured behind it: pain, confusion, terror, hunger tangled together into something he cannot control. His fingers tighten. A dark fog creeps across your sight as consciousness slips.
You should be terrified. But you are not.
You wince from the lack of air, your throat burning under his grip, but a small, trembling smile still forms on your face. It is faint, strained, but real. You look at him; not with fear, not with anger; but with something that cuts through the haze in his eyes.
Recognition. Understanding. Compassion.
Your vision blurs. A soft ringing fills your ears. You cannot speak, your body weakening rapidly, yet you hold his gaze as steadily as you can and offer that fragile smile.
Something shifts.
Astarion’s eyes widen, the hunger flickering into confusion, then horror. His fingers twitch. His expression breaks open as awareness slams back into him. He looks down at his hand on your throat as if he has never seen it before, as if it belongs to someone else. Then, with a sudden, violent recoil, he jerks away from you as if burned.
You collapse to the stone floor, your knees hitting hard. Air rushes back into your lungs in ragged, wheezing gasps that burn all the way down. You clutch your throat, coughing hoarsely as stars burst behind your eyes.
Jovana is at your side instantly, her hands on your shoulders, her voice trembling with worry. “Sweetheart! Oh, sweetheart, are you all right?”
You nod, or you try to. Your throat is raw, your breaths unsteady, but your voice forces itself out in a broken whisper as you look toward Astarion.
“It... wasn’t his fault,” you rasp.
He stands several feet away now, shaking, his chest heaving, his eyes fixed on his own trembling hands as if trying to understand what he has done. There is no hunger in his gaze anymore. Only horror. Only guilt. Only the crushing weight of a moment he had no control over.
And your hoarse whisper, your forgiveness, hits him harder than any blow ever could.
The days after the attack settle into a painful quiet. Astarion does not approach you in the library. He does not linger in the hallways. He does not sit beside you at dinner or allow his presence to brush yours in the gentle, accidental way he had begun to before that horrible night. When you pass him in the corridor, he turns away sharply, avoiding your eyes. When you speak, he gives no reply. When you enter a room he occupies, he vanishes like smoke.
At first, you believe he is angry with you. Then you fear he is disgusted by himself. Then you worry he simply cannot bear to be near the girl he almost killed.
You tell yourself you understand. You tell yourself you forgive him. You tell yourself it is not his fault.
But it still hurts.
Jovana tries to reassure you, telling you in soft whispers that Astarion’s shame runs deep, deeper than anything his pride can ever mask. You listen, but the ache lingers anyway, heavy and quiet inside your chest.
Eventually exhaustion claims you. Night after night, you fall asleep with your throat still sore from his grip and your mind circling thoughts you cannot resolve. So when morning comes again, you wake slowly, drifting somewhere between sleep and waking, unaware at first that the room feels warmer than usual.
It is the faint weight on the mattress beside you that finally pulls you from sleep.
You shift groggily, blinking against the soft morning light trickling through the curtains. Your hand brushes against something cool and solid. You freeze, your heart thumping once; hard.
When your eyes finally adjust, you turn your head.
Astarion lies beside you.
He is on his side, facing you, one arm loosely draped on the space between your bodies, his white hair scattered messily across the pillow. His face; always so carefully arranged during the day; is unguarded in sleep. The tension that normally sharpens his expression is gone, replaced by something almost painfully peaceful. His brows are relaxed. His lips are soft. For once, he looks his age; not ancient, not haunted, not hardened by centuries of cruelty.
He looks young. He looks safe. He looks… human.
Your breath catches in your throat.
He must have come sometime deep in the night, silently as only he can, slipping beneath your blankets with the weightless grace of a shadow. He is not touching you, not quite, but he is close enough that you feel the faint brush of his cool breath when it falls across your collarbone. He sleeps deeply; so deeply it almost startles you. Vampires rarely sleep heavily unless they feel safe… and they almost never choose to sleep beside someone.
Your throat tightens.
He is not here seeking intimacy, nor demanding anything from you. His posture is small in a way you have never seen; shoulders slightly curled inward, arms tucked close, body angled toward you like someone instinctively reaching for warmth.
You understand in an instant.
He is afraid of himself. He is afraid of hurting you again. And yet, some part of him feels safer near you than away from you.
The realization hits you with a soft, warm ache.
Slowly, carefully,you lift your hand and rest it on the blanket near his, not touching him, just close enough that your presence is unmistakable. As if sensing the shift, his fingers twitch slightly, moving a fraction closer in his sleep until the tips of them brush the back of your hand.
The contact is feather-light. Barely there. But real.
You hardly dare to breathe, afraid that even the smallest sound might shatter this fragile illusion. Your chest aches at the sight. You’ve seen him angry, cruel, distant, but never like this. Never vulnerable. And in that stillness, something inside you softens, unravels.
Then, his fingers twitch. His eyes open slowly, lazily, as though waking from a dream he didn’t want to end. Crimson meets yours, unfocused at first, and then awareness slips in. He blinks, confusion knitting his brows. “You’re awake,” he murmurs, voice husky, quieter than you’ve ever heard it. It’s not a question, more like a confession caught between sleep and shame.
You nod, throat too tight to answer.
He doesn’t move away, not yet. The sunlight paints his skin in gold and rose, and for a heartbeat, you forget that this man, this vampire, has caused you fear, pain, confusion. All you see is someone tired. Someone who’s forgotten what it feels like to rest.
When he finally sits up, he does it slowly, as though every motion hurts. His gaze lingers on you before falling away, heavy with something you can’t name. “I don’t remember the last time someone touched me gently,” he admits, voice breaking slightly at the edges. The words hang in the air like smoke, fragile and raw.
Your breath catches. You can see it in him now, the loneliness, the years of surviving rather than living. It’s in the slump of his shoulders, the hollow beneath his eyes. You don’t think before moving closer, reaching out, fingers brushing his hand. His skin is cold, but when you touch him, he flinches like it burns.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper, pulling back, but his hand catches yours before you can. His grip isn’t firm;just enough to keep you there.
“Don’t be,” he says, eyes searching yours. “It’s just… been a long time since anyone’s tried.”
You want to say something, anything, but the words stick. So you sit there together, hands barely touching, sunlight spilling between your fingers. And for a moment, neither of you feels like a monster.
He sits up, stretching lazily and that’s when he freezes, blinking down at himself. You see it before he remembers: the bare expanse of his chest, pale as marble, traced with faint, silvery scars that disappear over his shoulders and down his back. He reaches instinctively for the discarded shirt on the floor but moves too late. Your eyes have already caught them; the scars.
They aren’t just scars. They’re symbols; intricate, cruel, burned deep into his skin like someone branded him with purpose. The firelight catches on each raised line, and you can’t help the soft gasp that slips past your lips.
He stiffens instantly. The calm vanishes, replaced by shame and something darker. “Don’t look at me,” he says sharply, his voice rougher now, wounded.
But you can’t look away. You rise slowly, moving closer, ignoring the sting in his tone. “Astarion…” you whisper. “Who did this to you?”
He laughs, but it’s empty; bitter. “Who else? My master. My curse. My reminder that even monsters have leashes.”
He turns away, but not fast enough. You reach for him, hesitant, trembling, and your hand lands on his arm. He flinches, every muscle tight as wire, but you don’t pull back. Instead, you circle him, gently, and before he can stop you, you’re standing behind him, tracing the marks that scar his back.
Your fingers are careful, reverent. “You shouldn’t hide them,” you say softly. “They tell your story.”
He breathes out shakily, almost a laugh, almost a sob. “They tell a story of weakness,” he murmurs.
“No,” you correct quietly, brushing his hair from his eyes when he finally turns to face you. “They tell a story of survival.”
He stares at you then, eyes wide, searching. For what, you don’t know; truth, pity, maybe forgiveness. The firelight glows between you, gold against his pale skin, and when you smile, he looks undone.
“I don’t remember,” he says at last, voice breaking slightly, “the last time someone touched me gently.”
Your heart tightens. You step closer, lifting a hand to his cheek, thumb brushing the faint shadow of his jaw. “Then let me remind you,” you whisper.
For a heartbeat, he doesn’t breathe. Then, slowly; like a creature relearning warmth; he leans into your touch. His eyes flutter shut, and in that fragile silence, the air between you feels weightless.
The fire crackles. His laughter, soft, disbelieving, escapes like a sigh. “You’ll ruin me, you know,” he says, a smile ghosting over his lips.
You smile back. “Maybe you needed a little ruining.”
He laughs again, truly this time, and the sound fills the room like sunlight. You sit with him until the fire burns low, your shoulders brushing, your hearts quiet and close. And for the first time since arriving at this cursed castle, you feel something dangerous and beautiful take root.
The next day feels strangely light. The castle, which had always loomed around you like a breathing thing, feels different now, less a prison, more like a secret waiting to be explored. You spend the morning replaying last night in your head, every quiet word, every flicker of warmth in Astarion’s eyes. It shouldn’t have meant as much as it did, but it does. It means everything.
When evening falls, you’re just about to extinguish the last of the candles in your room when there’s a soft knock on your door. The sound is unexpected, delicate, almost uncertain. You open it to find him standing there, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
He looks different tonight. Relaxed, maybe. His usual tension softened by something almost boyish. “I was wondering,” he begins, his tone casual but his eyes give him away, “if you might… indulge me in a midnight stroll.”
You blink, surprised. “Now?”
Astarion’s grin deepens, faint but real. “Unless you have other pressing engagements with your pillow.”
You can’t help but laugh. “You’re asking me to walk in the middle of the night through a haunted castle,” you tease.
“I’m the haunting,” he replies smoothly. “You’ll be safe.”
And just like that, your hesitation dissolves. You nod, grabbing a shawl to throw over your shoulders. “All right then, my haunting. Lead the way.”
The corridors are quiet as you walk side by side. The only sounds are the echo of your footsteps and the soft flicker of torches casting gold light across the stone walls. Outside, through the tall arched windows, the night glows silver under a full moon.
Neither of you speaks at first. It’s comfortable, that silence. The kind of quiet that hums with unspoken things; questions, confessions, the fragile beginnings of trust. When you reach the courtyard, the air greets you with a chill that steals your breath. The garden beyond the castle is blanketed in moonlight, the flowers asleep under frost, the fountain frozen still.
You pause at the center of it all, wrapping your shawl tighter. “I didn’t think vampires took walks for fun,” you say, smiling faintly.
He glances at you, eyes soft. “I don’t. But tonight felt… different.”
“Different how?” you ask.
He hesitates, looking up at the stars. “Lighter, perhaps. Quieter. You do that.”
Your heart stumbles at the words. “I make you quiet?”
He chuckles under his breath. “You make me forget I’m supposed to be anything else.”
For a long time, you stand there together beneath the stars. His hand brushes yours once, twice; never quite holding, never quite letting go. When he finally looks at you again, there’s no hunger in his eyes, no darkness. Just something soft, hesitant, painfully human.
“Thank you,” he says quietly. “For last night. For… seeing me.”
You smile, cheeks warming. “Always.”
And for the first time, he smiles back; truly smiles. Not the smirk you’ve grown used to, not the sharp grin that hides his pain, but a real, unguarded smile. It’s small and fleeting, but it’s enough to make your heart ache.
The two of you walk until the torches burn low, your laughter echoing through the cold air, chasing away the silence of the castle. And for that one night, you forget what you are to him; a bride by sacrifice, a mortal among monsters. You forget everything except the warmth of his presence and the way his eyes, under the moonlight, almost look like home.
The walk back to your room is quiet. Not the kind of silence that’s empty, but the kind that hums softly between two people who don’t quite know what to say. The corridors glow dimly with dying candlelight, the flames flickering as if the castle itself is holding its breath.
You steal a glance at him. His expression is unreadable, but there’s a tension in his jaw, a faint crease between his brows. Not anger. Not worry. Something gentler. Something he doesn’t seem to understand himself.
When you reach your door, you turn to thank him; but the words fade before they reach your lips. He’s standing close now. Too close. The kind of closeness that makes your heart skip. His eyes, those endless crimson depths, search yours as though he’s trying to memorize something; every line of your face, every flicker of emotion.
“This is… goodnight, then?” you whisper, your voice softer than you meant it to be.
“Yes,” he says, but he doesn’t move. His hand twitches at his side, and his breath catches like he’s fighting with himself. “It should be.”
Should be. But isn’t.
The air feels different now. He leans in, slow, hesitant, almost cautious; as if afraid you’ll vanish if he moves too quickly. And then, before you can think, before you can breathe, his lips brush yours.
It’s barely a kiss. Just a trembling press of warmth, shy and uncertain, like something fragile learning to exist. You taste the faintest hint of copper on his breath, something ancient and sad. His hand ghosts up your arm but never grips, never holds, just… lingers.
He pulls back too soon, eyes wide, startled by his own boldness. “I shouldn’t have;” he begins, words stumbling, voice rough.
“Don’t,” you murmur, shaking your head, a faint, breathless smile tugging at your lips. “Don’t apologize.”
Something flickers in his gaze; relief, disbelief, want. He lets out a shaky laugh, low and almost self-mocking. “You’ll think me ridiculous,” he says, his voice quieter now, as if confiding in the dark. “But… would it be terribly strange if I asked to stay? Not for;” he cuts himself off, flustered, rubbing the back of his neck. “Not for that. I just… I don’t remember the last time I felt peace. And when I’m beside you, I;” He stops again, the words collapsing under the weight of sincerity.
You can’t help it, you laugh softly, not unkindly. The sound startles him.
“Peace, huh?” you tease gently. “That’s what you’re calling it?”
His mouth opens like he’s about to protest, but the faintest hint of a smile betrays him. “Yes. Peace,” he says firmly, though his voice still wavers.
You shake your head, still smiling. “All right, Astarion. Stay.”
The relief that crosses his face is almost painful to see. He exhales, long and quiet, and when he finally lies beside you, careful to keep space, to keep boundaries; you feel the mattress dip, the warmth of him close but not too close.
The room goes still. The candles flicker once, twice, then settle into a steady glow. You close your eyes, and somewhere in the hush, you hear him whisper, “Thank you.”
You don’t answer. You don’t need to. The peace he spoke of settles around you both, soft and strange and fragile. And for the first time in a long while, neither of you dreams of monsters.
Spring melted quietly into summer.
Days bled together in soft light and laughter. You’d wake to find him already awake, reading beside the window, sunlight spilling like liquid gold across his pale skin. Sometimes you’d join him, still tangled in sleep, head resting on his shoulder as he read aloud in that careful, deliberate way of his. Other days, you’d drag him outside despite his protests about “too much sun” and “no dignity in grass stains.”
He pretended to hate it. He didn’t.
The gardens became your sanctuary. He’d watch you weave flowers into messy crowns and place them on his head with mock solemnity, and though he rolled his eyes, he never took them off. You learned to dance barefoot in the courtyard, and sometimes; when he thought no one was looking; he'd join you. Just for a song or two.
By autumn, the castle had begun to feel smaller. Warmer. You filled its halls with noise and light, laughter echoing where silence once ruled. He teased you mercilessly, and you gave it right back; sarcasm turning to affection, arguments dissolving into kisses that left your cheeks burning and your heart in chaos.
It wasn’t perfect. He still had his dark nights, the ones where he’d wake trembling, eyes distant and haunted. But now, you were there. A hand reaching for his. A reminder that he wasn’t alone anymore.
You learned his scars by touch, not by pity. He learned your laughter by heart, not by accident.
And somewhere between the falling leaves and the first chill of frost, love; real, steady, terrifying love; took root.
When winter returned, it was quieter than you remembered. Snow pressed against the glass, muffling the world beyond. You found him one night by the window again, hair mussed, a faint smile on his lips as he watched the snowfall.
“You know,” he said softly, “I used to hate winter.”
You moved to stand beside him, wrapping your arms around his waist. “And now?”
He leaned into your touch, eyes still on the snow. “Now it just reminds me that warmth is something you can find again.”
Outside, the world slept under white. Inside, for the first time in years, he didn’t.
The peace didn’t last.
It never really did, not for long.
It began with the howls; low and distant, just beyond the castle’s boundary. Then came the shadows slinking through the snow, creatures with eyes like coals, testing the wards that kept them out. Their snarls echoed through the halls at night, scraping against the edges of your dreams.
At first, you thought it was your imagination. But Astarion knew better. He always did.
He stood at the highest tower for hours, watching the dark tree line below, the tension in his shoulders sharp enough to cut. The faint shimmer of the wards pulsed weakly against the advancing shadows, a trembling line between safety and ruin.
“Cazador’s pets,” he said at last, voice quiet and cold. “He’s found me.”
You stepped closer, heart thudding. “Then we’ll leave;”
“No.” His answer came swift, final. His eyes, once soft, were now carved from stone. “Running won’t stop him. He’ll follow. He’ll never stop following.”
Jovana tried to reason with him, her voice trembling with the weight of centuries. “You don’t have to do this, my boy. The wards will hold;”
“They won’t,” he interrupted, almost gently. “Not forever.”
That night, you found him in the library, the fire long gone cold. He was surrounded by old tomes and map, schematics of Cazador’s domain drawn in charcoal, blood smudges marking his notes. His hair fell loose around his face, shadows curling beneath his eyes.
“I won’t let him touch you,” he said, barely above a whisper, as if confessing something forbidden. “Or Jovana. Or anyone else.”
You wanted to argue, but something in his voice, something ancient and exhausted, stilled your tongue.
He looked up then, the faintest flicker of warmth still lingering in his crimson eyes. “If I kill him,” he said slowly, “it ends. For good.”
You crossed the space between you, pressing your hand over his. “And if it doesn’t?”
His jaw tightened. “Then at least he dies knowing I wasn’t his creature anymore.”
Outside, the wards shimmered once, flickered and dimmed.
Inside, Astarion stood and began to prepare for war.
The night was quieter than it should have been. Too still, too heavy. Even the wind outside seemed to hold its breath as the snow fell in slow, silvery flakes against the windows. The castle felt hollow, emptied of its usual warmth; as though it already knew what was coming.
You found Astarion in his chambers, the candlelight flickering against his bare shoulders as he tightened the leather straps of his armor. It had been centuries since that armor had seen use, and yet it clung to him as though it had been waiting. His movements were precise, methodical; every buckle, every strap, a final ritual.
“You’re really going,” you whispered.
He stilled, his hands falling to his sides. For a long moment, he didn’t turn to you. Then he said softly, “If I don’t, he’ll come for you. For all of us.”
Your throat tightened. “You could stay. We could hide. There are other places.”
He turned then, and the look in his eyes shattered you. That quiet, endless red; filled with sorrow, fear, and something else you’d never dared to name aloud. “You know I can’t.”
You tried to speak again, but your voice broke before words could form. He stepped closer, each slow stride measured and sure, until his gloved hand rose to your cheek. You leaned into it without meaning to, warmth pressing against cold leather.
“I’ve spent two hundred years as someone else’s shadow,” he murmured, his voice shaking despite the calm mask he wore. “I don’t want to die that way. And if I do die;” His hand fell from your cheek to rest over your heart. “; I want this to be the last thing I remember.”
You didn’t think. You simply reached for him, your fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as your lips met his.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t perfect. It was desperate; the kind of kiss that burned with everything unspoken. His hands found your waist, then your back, then your face, as though he couldn’t decide where to touch first, terrified that any part left untouched might vanish when morning came. The world tilted and disappeared until there was nothing but his breath, his taste, the soft tremor in his hands.
When you finally pulled apart, the silence between you was thick and fragile.
He leaned his forehead against yours, his voice a breath. “I’ll come back to you. I swear it.”
“You better,” you whispered, your fingers brushing the scars on his back. “Or I’ll come drag you home myself.”
That earned you the faintest smile; the kind that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Then he kissed you once more, slow this time, memorizing the feel of you.
When he left, the door didn’t make a sound. But the silence that followed echoed louder than any goodbye.
Days had passed since Astarion left, though it felt more like years. The castle was too quiet now; the kind of silence that made every heartbeat sound like a scream. Snow pressed against the windows in thick white sheets, and the fire refused to stay lit for long, no matter how many times you tried.
You sat by the hearth anyway, hands clasped so tightly that your knuckles had turned white. Jovana stood across the room, her back to you as she tended to a pot of tea that neither of you would drink. The old vampire’s face was drawn and pale, her eyes hollowed by something deeper than worry; something closer to despair.
“He’s been gone too long,” you said softly, your voice raw from the tears that had come and gone all day. “He promised he’d come back by now.”
Jovana didn’t answer at first. Her hand trembled as she poured the tea, the liquid spilling slightly over the cup’s edge. “Men like Astarion…” she began, her voice quiet, almost reverent. “They don’t make promises they don’t intend to keep. But some battles are not meant to be won.”
You shook your head, refusing the words before they could sink in. “No. He’ll come back. He always does.”
Jovana turned then, the candlelight painting sharp lines across her face. “I’ve seen that look before,” she whispered, her voice breaking like thin glass. “Hope can be cruel, my dear.”
That shattered something in you. Tears stung your eyes before you could stop them. You pressed your palms against them, as if you could hold everything in; the fear, the love, the ache of waiting for someone who might never walk through those doors again.
The wind outside howled against the stone, and you flinched, glancing toward the darkened windows as if he might appear there; white hair catching moonlight, eyes glowing softly in the snow. But there was nothing. Just darkness.
“I should’ve stopped him,” you whispered. “I should’ve begged harder.”
Jovana crossed the room and knelt beside you, her cold hand finding yours. “You would’ve followed him if he let you,” she said gently. “And he couldn’t bear that. He left to protect you.”
You nodded weakly, but it didn’t help. It didn’t stop the breaking. You leaned against her, shaking, your tears soaking into her old, worn dress. Jovana wrapped her arms around you like a grandmother would, holding you through your grief as if she already knew what was coming.
Outside, the snow fell harder. And somewhere far beyond the castle’s walls, something dark was moving closer.
You wake to the sound of your name being whispered. Not gently, not lovingly, but frantically; a trembling breath breaking against the dark. Your eyes blink open to find Jovana hovering over you, her pale face ghostly in the candlelight. Her hands shake as she grips your shoulder, cold and urgent.
“Up,” she breathes; her voice barely audible. “You must get up. Now.”
Your heart lurches, sluggish with sleep. “Jovana? What’s;”
She hushes you with a trembling hand, eyes darting toward the door. You hear it then; faint, distant sounds that don’t belong to the castle. Something heavy dragging across the floor far below. The echo of footsteps. A low growl that makes your blood run cold.
“What’s happening?” you whisper, swinging your legs out of bed, the cold floor biting at your bare feet. Jovana doesn’t answer. She’s shaking too hard. Her lips move, but words refuse to form.
“Jovana?” you try again, grabbing her arm as panic flares hot in your chest. “Tell me what’s going on!”
Her eyes finally meet yours, and for the first time since you’ve known her, you see true terror there. “They’re here,” she manages, her voice cracking. “We have to go, now.”
She snatches the candle from your bedside table and pulls you toward the door. You stumble after her, your nightgown whispering against the stone floor as you try to keep up. The hallway is darker than you’ve ever seen it, the torches long blown out. Only the weak candlelight flickers between you, throwing trembling shadows on the walls.
“Who’s here?” you demand again, your voice rising despite yourself. “Jovana, who?”
But she doesn’t answer. She can’t. Her breath comes in sharp, ragged gasps, her fear nearly tangible. She pulls you through the twisting corridors you thought you knew so well, though now they feel endless and unfamiliar. Every creak, every echo makes you flinch.
When you finally reach the library, Jovana pushes open the door and gestures wildly to the far wall. “There, behind the shelves,” she says, voice trembling. “There’s a passage. You must go inside.”
You stare at her, frozen. “You’re scaring me.”
She grips your face in both hands, her eyes wet and wild. “Good,” she whispers. “Be scared. But move.”
Your pulse pounds in your ears. You take one step toward the shelves; and that’s when you hear it. The sound of the great castle doors slamming open, so violently the floor seems to quake. The echo crawls up the walls and into your bones.
Jovana’s face drains of what little color remains. “It’s too late,” she breathes.
Jovana steps in front of you before you can even think to move. One trembling arm extends back, barring you from stepping forward, though her whole body quivers like a candle in the wind. The air grows heavy, almost suffocating, the candlelight trembling as if even the flame knows who approaches.
From the dark corridor beyond the library, footsteps echo; deliberate, slow, the sound of a predator that already knows it’s won. Then, out of the shadows, he appears.
Cazador.
His presence alone seems to warp the air around him. His skin is pale as snow, smooth and perfect like marble carved by cruel hands. His crimson eyes glint with mirthless amusement, and when he smiles, it’s all sharpness; a glint of fangs like polished ivory. His dark cloak sways as he moves, regal and effortless, the embodiment of death dressed in velvet.
“Well, well,” he drawls, his voice smooth and venomous, curling like smoke through the room. “It seems my little runaway has been playing house.”
Jovana’s shoulders tighten, though her knees tremble beneath her long skirt. “You’re not welcome here,” she forces out, her voice shaking but steady enough to make you proud.
Cazador laughs, the sound rich and cruel. “Not welcome?” he repeats mockingly, taking a slow step forward. “My dear Jovana, you forget yourself. This castle; these walls, these stones; all of it belongs to me. Including that trembling little mortal you’re so desperate to protect.”
You press a hand to your mouth, stifling a sob. Jovana glances back, eyes wide and wet, whispering, “Stay behind me.”
Cazador tilts his head, regarding her like a wolf watching a dying lamb. “Do you truly think you can stop me, old one? You were always weak. A pity Astarion thought your loyalty worth sparing.”
Something flashes across Jovana’s face; grief, anger, courage. “He was worth it,” she hisses, her voice cracking but fierce. “And she will be too.”
Then, before you can blink, she moves; faster than you thought she could, her body lunging forward in a desperate strike. But Cazador doesn’t even flinch. With the barest flick of his wrist, he sends her flying across the room like a rag doll.
The sound is sickening.
Her body crashes against the marble wall with a crack that makes your stomach turn. She cries out once; a broken, animal sound; before crumpling to the floor, motionless.
“Jovana!” you scream, your voice shattering the stillness. You start to run to her, but a pale hand shoots out, gripping your arm with impossible strength.
“Ah. Ah,” Cazador murmurs, pulling you close until his cold breath ghosts across your cheek. “Not so fast, little bride.”
You try to pull free, but Cazador’s grip tightens, his fingers like iron around your wrist. Panic floods your chest as you struggle, calling out for Jovana; but she doesn’t stir. The library is so still you can hear the trembling of your own breath.
Cazador’s smile widens as he studies your face, eyes tracing every flicker of fear that passes through you. “Such spirit,” he murmurs softly, almost lovingly. “No wonder my wayward fledgling kept you.” His voice darkens, low and dangerous. “You made him forget who he belongs to.”
You shake your head, choking on your own words. “Please-”
He hushes you with a single finger pressed to your lips. “Now, now. None of that. You’ll only make this worse for yourself.”
You can feel it then; the air growing cold, the shadows curling along the edges of the walls, as if the very room bends toward him. You twist and pull again, but his hold doesn’t break. The candlelight flickers violently, throwing monstrous shapes across the shelves as he leans close.
Pain blooms, but not in the way you expect; it’s sharper, colder, something that reaches past the body and digs into your soul. You gasp, the sound echoing in the hollow library, your knees giving way beneath you. Cazador’s whisper follows, smooth and cruel. “There it is,” he breathes. “The sound of surrender.”
The world becomes a blur of shadow and echo.
You don’t know how long you’ve been here; minutes, hours, maybe days. Time has fractured, lost all meaning within the cold walls of the library. The fire has long since died out, and the only light that remains is the faint glimmer of moonlight crawling across the floor, stretching and shrinking as the night drags on.
Cazador speaks, his voice smooth and steady, the kind of voice that might have been beautiful if it didn’t drip with malice. You can’t make out all the words anymore; they slip through the haze that clouds your mind; but you hear fragments: betrayal, weakness, mine.
Sometimes, you think you hear Jovana’s name. Sometimes, Astarion’s.
You drift in and out, your body trembling, your head heavy. The air feels thick, hard to breathe, and every sound comes from far away; the creak of the walls, the slow drip of melting snow from the windowsills, Cazador’s voice humming something soft and ancient, a lullaby twisted into something cruel.
You remember sunlight, or maybe candlelight, the way it once glowed in Astarion’s hair. You remember laughter over wine neither of you could truly enjoy, the warmth of his hand resting over yours, the sound of his voice when he read aloud from your favorite book because you liked the way he said the words.
Those memories feel like they belong to someone else now.
You shiver, though you can no longer feel the cold. You try to open your eyes, but they’re too heavy. The room blurs into streaks of silver and black. The shadows move differently now; less like monsters, more like the sea, rolling gently, carrying you with them.
Somewhere in that haze, you think you hear a door open; faintly, distantly. There’s shouting, the crash of something heavy, the snarl of a voice you know too well.
Astarion.
For the briefest second, you think you see him; the glint of white hair, the flash of red eyes; and relief floods through you so fiercely it almost hurts. You try to call out, but no sound comes.
The cold ebbs away, replaced by a strange, peaceful warmth. The fear dissolves with it.
And then everything fades into silence.
__________________________________________
Astarion's POV:
The snow had begun to fall again by the time he reached the outer gates.
Astarion moved through the forest like a shadow, the cold wind biting at his face, his cloak heavy with frost. Days. Or was it a week? He had hunted for Cazador, chasing every whisper, every phantom trace that led him nowhere. He had started to believe the bastard had fled the region entirely, too cowardly to face him head-on.
He almost smiled at the thought, almost.
But then he reached the gates.
And everything inside him went still.
The scent hit him first; sharp, metallic, unmistakable. Blood. Fresh blood. But beneath it lingered something worse, something that made his chest seize: the faint sweetness of human skin. Her skin.
No.
His mind refused it. It had to be a trick. Cazador was clever; this could be bait, an illusion meant to pull him into madness. But his body didn’t wait for his mind to reason. His feet moved on instinct, faster, harder. In an instant he was running, through the courtyard, through the snow, up the marble steps that led to the doors he had left her behind.
The heavy gates groaned as he slammed them open, the sound echoing through the vast entryway. The smell was stronger now, clinging to the walls, thick in the air. His stomach turned, dread clawing its way up his throat.
“Jovana?” His voice broke the silence, low and shaking. No answer.
He followed the scent down the corridor, every step faster, the quiet halls closing in on him like a tomb. His breath came sharp, uneven. Each turn, each shadow, each flicker of candlelight felt like a threat.
Then, the library doors. Slightly ajar.
The smell was overwhelming now. His fangs ached with hunger he despised, the cruel instinct of what he was. But beneath that hunger was something deeper, rawer, terror.
He pushed the doors open, and the world seemed to collapse in on itself.
The scent hits him like a blade to the gut. Copper. Salt. Human. Her.
Astarion stops breathing. For a heartbeat, two, his mind refuses to understand what his body already knows. His chest tightens, something ancient and animal thrashing inside him, screaming to turn back. To the unknown. But he can’t. He can’t.
He runs.
Doors crash open. The halls blur. He’s moving faster than he has in centuries, faster than the night itself, chasing a scent that’s already beginning to fade. The dread builds with every step, pounding in his veins like war drums. The scent grows stronger, thicker; suffocating; until he stumbles into the great hall and the world ends.
Cazador stands there. And in his arms;
No. No, please, no.
Astarion’s mind shatters.
She looks so small. Pale against Cazador’s crimson, soaked hands. Her eyes half-lidded, lashes trembling as if fighting to stay open. She’s still breathing, she must be, but even as the thought crosses his mind, he knows it’s a lie.
“Ah,” Cazador drawls, his voice silk over rot. “You’re late, my boy.”
Astarion doesn’t move. He can’t. His throat closes around words that never form, his fingers curl into claws, trembling so hard he nearly collapses. The silence in his skull is deafening.
No, no, no, please;
He tries to speak, to bargain, to beg, but all that escapes is a broken, strangled sound. Cazador tilts his head, amused. “All this sentiment. How unbecoming of my spawn.”
The old master’s laughter echoes, sharp and cruel, but Astarion barely hears it. The sound distorts around him, drowning in the pounding of his own heart.
He drops to his knees. His body moves before his mind catches up, reaching out, desperate to touch her, to prove she’s still warm. His hands hover above her face, shaking violently. He can’t bring himself to make contact. If he touches her, it’ll be real.
It is real.
He whispers her name like a confession, voice breaking mid syllable. His vision blurs, but no tears fall; he doesn’t know if he’s even capable of crying anymore. His breath comes out in short, jagged bursts that scrape his throat raw.
She’s gone.
He told himself he would protect her. That this, this life he’d built with her, was something Cazador could never take from him. And yet here she is, limp in another’s arms, his failure painted across the marble floor in blood he can never wash away.
He feels hollow. Like something carved his insides out and left him a shell.
Cazador drops her to the floor as though she’s nothing, her body hitting the stone with a sound that tears through Astarion like lightning. He lunges, too slow, too late, catching her before her head meets the ground. Her hair spills across his arms, soft and weightless. He remembers the way it once caught the moonlight, how she’d laugh when he brushed it behind her ear.
He presses his forehead to hers, whispering things that don’t make sense; promises, apologies, prayers to gods he doesn’t believe in.
“She begged for you,” Cazador says lazily. “Pathetic, really. You’ve always attracted the sentimental ones.”
Astarion doesn’t hear him. Not truly. His mind is a storm of noise, memory and madness and guilt colliding until there’s nothing left but her name. Over and over.
He doesn’t even look up when Cazador disappears. Doesn’t chase him. There’s no point. The hunt is meaningless now.
His fingers tighten around her hand, still warm, still her. He stares at the small scar near her thumb, the one he’d teased her about when she burned herself cooking. He can’t stop looking. If he stops, if he blinks, she’ll vanish like smoke.
And so he stays there, kneeling in a pool of her blood, the castle silent around him, as the first rays of dawn creep through the windows. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t breathe.
For the first time in centuries, Astarion feels truly dead.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been there.
Hours, maybe. The sun has come and gone behind thick clouds, painting the hall in shifting shades of gray. The candles have long since guttered out, but Astarion doesn’t move. He stays where he fell ; on the cold marble floor, her body cradled in his arms like something precious, fragile. His world condensed into that small space between her still lips and his trembling hands.
She should not be this cold.
He brushes his thumb across her cheek again and again, as if the motion might coax warmth back into her skin. He murmurs nonsense, his voice hoarse and low, words meant for her alone; fragments of lullabies, of apologies, of things he never dared say when she was alive.
“I should have been here,” he whispers, his throat raw. “I should have; gods, please.”
The silence answers him. It presses down heavy and unrelenting until he almost chokes on it. The castle, once alive with quiet laughter and the scent of baking bread, feels dead. Empty. A tomb built around them both.
He stares at her hand resting in his palm, so small, so human. There’s dirt beneath her nails from the garden, a faint stain of berry on her fingertip. She’d been alive just hours ago. Laughing. Blushing. Reading aloud badly from that book she’d loved even though she could barely sound out the words.
He presses her hand to his lips, closing his eyes. “You foolish, stubborn thing,” he murmurs against her skin. “You were supposed to be safe here.”
But safety had never been meant for people like him. And now, not for her.
He tries to remember how to breathe. It feels mechanical; air in, air out; but the ache in his chest only deepens. It’s like his ribs are collapsing inward, splintering beneath a grief too large to contain. His throat tightens, and for the first time in centuries, something wet spills down his cheeks.
Tears. Real ones.
They fall onto her hair, glimmering in the faint light, and he hates himself for them. For feeling, for failing, for being alive when she isn’t.
Hours stretch on. At some point Jovana appears, face pale, trembling, but the look in Astarion’s eyes freezes her where she stands. The kind of look that belongs to a man who’s already half-mad. She retreats silently, understanding without words that there’s nothing she can do.
He stays.
When the night deepens again, he leans back against the wall and gathers her closer, as though the act might hide her from the world that stole her away. His voice is barely a breath when he speaks, but the words cut him open all the same.
“I never told you,” he says, the sound breaking on the edges of despair. “I never told you that you were the first thing that made me feel human again.”
The confession hangs there, unanswered.
He rests his forehead against hers, his fangs grazing his lip as he bites down on a sob that wants to tear free. His fingers thread through her hair, careful, reverent; the same way he used to touch her when she read by the fire. The scent of her blood still lingers in the air, faint and wrong. He can’t stand it, but he can’t move away either.
The world outside continues on; wind, snow, the shifting of the moon; but for Astarion, time has stopped. There is only this room, this silence, this unbearable stillness.
Eventually, he feels her growing colder in his arms. The truth sinks in like a blade twisting deep.
And that’s when something inside him breaks. Quietly. Completely.
The part of him that believed he could outrun his master’s curse dies there, with her.
He lifts his head, staring blankly at the ceiling. His expression is empty, his voice no longer shaking, just hollow.
“I’ll burn the world for this,” he says.
Not loud. Not a vow shouted to the heavens. Just a quiet promise spoken to the corpse of the only person who ever saw him as something more than a monster.
Then he presses a kiss to her forehead, soft as snowfall.
And for the first time in his long, cursed existence, Astarion wishes for dawn ; not to survive it, but to finally end.
Astarion gathers you into his arms with a tenderness that shakes, as though even the slightest wrong movement might shatter what little remains of his sanity. The moment your weight settles against him, something inside him buckles, and he pulls you closer,not because he thinks he can save you, not because he believes you will wake, but because letting go is suddenly the most terrifying thing he has ever faced. You feel impossibly light now, far too light, as if the world has already begun to take you away from him, and he clutches you as though he can anchor you here by force of will alone.
He rises to his feet, but the act feels monumental, as though grief itself has wrapped chains around his limbs. Every step toward your room drags at him, carving deeper grooves of devastation into his chest. The castle corridors blur around him, warping under the storm of emotion crashing through him. Rooms he once stalked with pride and cold detachment now feel cavernous and cruel. The shadows cling to him like mourners, and the silence presses against his ears until he can hear nothing but his own uneven breaths.
He was used to loneliness. He was forged in it, sharpened by it, drowned in it for centuries. Loneliness had been the only constant in his twisted, cursed existence. But then you arrived; meek, trembling, unwanted by the world; and somehow you became the antidote to every quiet ache he carried. You were warmth tucked between frozen years, hope whispered into a life that had never known it, softness pressed against a spirit carved into a weapon.
You were the one thing he had not allowed himself to want. The one thing he had not dared to imagine. And now you were cradled in his arms like a fallen star, dimmed before he ever had the chance to truly bask in your light.
As he walks, the memory of your laughter stings like salt on a wound. The echo of your voice flickers through his mind with such clarity that for a heartbeat he almost believes he will hear it again. He remembers the night you leaned your head on his shoulder during a snowfall, giggling when he stiffened in surprise. He remembers the way your fingers brushed through his hair when nightmares clawed at him. He remembers your hesitant smile when he kissed you outside your door, a moment so delicate he had feared breathing would break it.
He remembers everything, and each memory is a blade dragging slowly across his ribs.
By the time he reaches your bedroom door, his strength falters. His knees shake under the crushing weight of reality. He looks down at you, and his vision swims until he cannot see the hallway through his tears. You used to complain about this room being too quiet, too large, too empty. Now the emptiness roars around him like an open grave.
He pushes the door open with his shoulder and steps inside. The air is still, holding the faintest trace of your scent, something soft and warm that once soothed him more effectively than any balm. The room feels colder without you awake inside it. He lays you down on the bed with the reverence of a priest handling sacred relics. His hands linger on your cheek, trembling violently as he brushes his thumb across your skin, memorizing every curve, every softness, every detail he should have adored more fiercely while he had the chance.
A sound breaks from him; raw, hollow, and quiet, as though even grief is afraid to echo too loudly here. He sinks to his knees beside the bed and bows over you. His forehead rests against the mattress, and he grips the sheets so tightly that his knuckles pale. Each breath drags through him like a sob forced through a cracked soul. He has faced centuries of cruelty without shedding a tear, but now the dam bursts. The pain is too large, too sharp, too consuming to hold back anymore.
He whispers your name, and it cracks in his throat. It leaves him like a plea, a confession, an apology, and a curse all at once. He tries to speak again, but no words come. Only silent anguish spills out, heavy enough to bow his spine.
He realizes, with staggering clarity, that you were the only being who ever looked at him and saw something worth saving. You were the first person who offered him kindness with no ulterior motive, no fear, no reverence. You were the only one who touched him gently, who smiled when he entered a room, who sat awake at night simply to watch him breathe because you thought he looked peaceful.
He had not deserved you. And he knows, with a shattering finality, that he will never deserve this grief either, yet it devours him all the same.
He presses his lips to your hand, cold now, and he vows, brokenly, uselessly, to stay with you. Hours pass. The moon drags across the sky. Dawn stains the horizon in shades of pink and gold, colors that once made you gasp in awe as if every sunrise were a gift.
But morning does not touch him. The world continues, indifferent to his suffering.
He remains kneeling there, body curled protectively over you, as though shielding you from the sunrise. As though refusing to let go could somehow undo what has been done.
Astarion, a creature who once believed he could survive anything, now understands the truth:
Without you, he is nothing but a lonely thing again. A battered, broken soul whose last piece of hope has been carved out of him.
The next days blurred into something unrecognizable. He stayed by your side, refusing to leave even when exhaustion dragged at him. He lay beside you, unmoving, barely breathing, as though he were afraid the sound might disturb your rest. The castle grew colder. Snow gathered outside the windows in thick, quiet sheets. But none of it mattered. There was only the bed. Only you. Only the crushing emptiness sitting beside him like a second ghost.
He ran his fingers over your knuckles again and again, whispering things he would never admit aloud if you could hear him. Apologies. Pleas. Secrets he had once sworn he would never share with anyone. He told you that you had made him feel alive. That you had given him something he had never dared hope for; gentleness, warmth, a sense of belonging. You had been a miracle in a life cursed by cruelty, and losing you felt like losing the last piece of his soul.
When anger finally began to burn through the fog of grief, it was slow and relentless, flickering at the edges before it consumed him entirely. His trembling softened. His breathing steadied. The hollow ache behind his ribs hardened into something sharper.
On the morning of the third day, he stood.
Jovana stood in the doorway, weak and bandaged, still pale from her injuries. Her eyes filled with dread as soon as she saw him gathering his cloak.
“Astarion… please,” she whispered, clutching the frame for balance. “Her funeral… you have to be here. She would want... he would want you beside her.”
He paused. For a moment, the mask slipped, and the rawness in his eyes nearly sent him to his knees again. But the anger held him upright. It steadied his shoulders, tightened his jaw.
“I cannot,” he said, voice low and tight. “I cannot watch them lower her into the cold earth while he still breathes. I cannot stand there knowing Cazador still walks free.” He turned his head slightly toward the bed, his voice cracking. “She deserves peace. She deserves safety. She deserves justice.”
Jovana moved toward him as quickly as her body allowed, reaching for his arm. “Then stay until she is laid to rest,” she begged. “Please. You are not thinking clearly. If you go now;”
He gently pulled away, not unkindly, but with an unshakable finality.
“There is nothing left for me to think about,” he murmured. “Grief has stolen that luxury.” He looked back at you one last time, and the sight of you nearly shattered his resolve. “I will not let her be buried while the monster who hunted her lives another night.”
His voice shook as he added, barely above a whisper, “I cannot bear it, Jovana. I cannot bear seeing her lowered into the ground without her killer already rotting beneath it.”
And with that, Astarion stepped out into the cold, the snow catching in his white hair like the ashes of everything he had ever loved.
Through grief, he walked into vengeance.
Through heartbreak, he walked into hell.
And he did so willingly, because losing you had taught him there was nothing left in this world worth fearing more than your absence.
The forest is silent when Astarion arrives, so silent it feels wrong. Not even the wind stirs the branches overhead. Snow lies in untouched sheets across the ground, except for the single figure standing in the center of a clearing, dressed as elegantly as if he were hosting a banquet rather than waiting for war.
Cazador.
He smiles the moment he sees Astarion, a slow, cruel curl of the lips, as if greeting a long, lost pet.
“Well,” Cazador purrs, brushing invisible dust from his immaculate sleeve, “look who finally decided to come home.”
Astarion doesn’t answer. Words are too small for the storm breaking inside him. He steps forward once, then twice, fists trembling at his sides. The snow beneath his boots cracks, the only sound he can hear over the pounding in his head.
You. Your scent still lingers on him. Your blood-faded, faint, but enough to rip open the wound in his chest until he can barely draw breath.
Cazador inhales theatrically. “Ah. You can smell it too, can’t you? The last one. Shame she didn’t last. They rarely do.”
Astarion’s vision fractures. His muscles coil. Every bone in his body feels as if it’s been carved out of lightning.
“Do not,” he whispers, voice shaking, “say a single word about her.”
Cazador laughs. “Why? Because she was special to you? Oh, Astarion. How delightfully pathetic.”
The last thread of control snaps.
Astarion launches forward with such force that the ground bursts beneath him. His shoulder slams into Cazador’s chest, sending them both skidding across the snow. Cazador regains his footing instantly, grabbing Astarion by the jaw and shoving him backward into a tree.
The impact cracks the trunk.
Astarion roars and twists out of his grip, driving his elbow into Cazador’s ribs. The hit lands hard, enough to stagger him, but Cazador only looks amused.
“You’re stronger than before,” Cazador says. “Grief becomes you.”
Astarion doesn’t reply,he’s already swinging. Claws slash through the air, swift as daggers. Cazador dodges easily, retaliating with a strike to Astarion’s throat that sends him gasping to the ground.
Astarion scrambles up, ignoring the pain. Pain is nothing. Pain is irrelevant. Pain is a whisper compared to the scream inside him.
He lunges again, teeth bared.
Cazador catches him mid-charge, fingers digging cruelly into his shoulder as he uses Astarion’s momentum to hurl him across the clearing. Astarion hits the ground and rolls, snow exploding around him.
“Look at you,” Cazador mocks, strolling toward him as though out for a pleasant walk. “Crawling, choking on emotion like a human. Did you really think you could love anything without losing it?”
Astarion’s breath shudders. The words hit harder than the blows.
He forces himself up; slowly, painfully; and wipes the blood from his mouth.
“I didn’t lose her,” he growls. “You stole her.”
“Same thing.”
Astarion charges again. This time he’s faster, fueled by fury so wild it burns through the exhaustion slowing his limbs. He slams into Cazador and they crash into the snow together, grappling violently. Astarion digs his knees into Cazador’s ribs and punches him; once, twice, again; each hit an explosion of anguish.
Cazador snarls and flips him with unnatural strength. He pins Astarion’s arms to the ground, leaning close.
“You were always meant to serve me,” he hisses. “Even now, you’re on your knees.”
Astarion strains beneath him, muscles shaking, but Cazador is stronger, older, merciless.
Until.
Astarion’s gaze flicks upward. A shard of ice hangs from an overhead branch, jagged and heavy.
He twists just enough to break one arm free and grabs Cazador’s wrist. With a sudden surge of strength he didn’t know he still possessed, he uses Cazador’s weight against him and rolls. They flip again, and this time Astarion is on top.
Cazador snarls and thrashes, but Astarion slams him backward, aligning his movement deliberately;
Straight beneath the hanging shard.
Cazador looks up too late.
Astarion drives his knee into his chest, and the branch snaps.
There is a heavy crack as the ice plunges downward and pins Cazador to the ground, freezing him in place long enough for Astarion to drag himself free and stumble back.
Cazador wheezes, eyes blazing with hatred. “You think this will stop me?”
“No,” Astarion whispers, voice ragged. “But it will slow you. Long enough for me to finish this.”
He steps forward. He does not hesitate.
Astarion sank his claws into Cazador’s chest and dragged downward, tearing through fabric and flesh alike. Snow steamed with spilled blood. Cazador buckled, stumbling, breath shuddering. His eyes widened,not with fear, but with dawning realization.
He was losing.
“You…” Cazador spat. “You ungrateful wretch;”
Astarion slammed him against a tree with enough force to shake loose a shower of frost. “You took everything from me,” he snarled. “My life. My freedom. My choices. And now;” His voice cracked. “Now you’ve taken the only good thing I ever had.”
Cazador’s knees buckled, and he slid to the snow, bleeding heavily. The forest went utterly silent, as if waiting for the end.
Astarion stood over him, trembling with rage and heartbreak. “This is for her.”
Cazador smiled.
It was small. Crooked. Blood leaking between his teeth.
And it terrified Astarion.
“Do you think… I didn’t plan for this?” Cazador whispered. “For the day you finally slipped your leash?”
Astarion lunged, but Cazador was faster by a heartbeat, just one. His hand shot up, grabbing Astarion by the jaw with startling strength. Before Astarion could tear free, Cazador wrenched him down, and shoved his wrist into Astarion’s mouth.
Hot, ancient blood flooded his tongue.
Astarion gagged, tried to pull back, but Cazador held him in place with the last of his strength.
“Drink,” he croaked, grin widening, “and… suffer.”
Astarion tore away at last, stumbling backward and spitting, clawing at his tongue, his throat,anything to rid himself of the vile taste. But the blood was already inside him. Metallic fire crawled through his veins, igniting every nerve. His vision blurred, his bones burned, the world tilted.
Cazador collapsed to the snow, laughing weakly, breath rattling.
“With my last breath,” he rasped, “I give you a gift…”
Astarion snarled, “I don’t want anything from you!”
Cazador smiled with his final exhale; thin, wicked, triumphant.
“Now that you’re a fully fledged vampire… you cannot die so easily.” His eyes gleamed with cruel satisfaction. “You will never follow her into the grave.”
And with that, Cazador went still.
Astarion stared, breath shuddering, hands shaking uncontrollably as the blood seared through him, hollowing him out, filling him with a new, unwanted strength. A strength that felt like chains.
He fell to his knees in the snow.
Not victorious. Not free. Just destroyed.
Astarion walked for days without stopping, moving through the forest like a wounded specter who refused to fall. His body screamed with every step, each movement sending lightning, hot pain through his ribs where Cazador’s blows had landed. His vision wavered, fading in and out like a lantern on the edge of extinguishing, yet he pressed forward because the only thing his mind could cling to was you. Every breath he dragged into his lungs hurt, but the thought of you was the only thread pulling him onward. He could not stop. He could not rest. He had to go home, back to the castle where you waited in memory, where the echo of your laughter still lived in the halls even if you no longer walked them.
The trees eventually thinned, their dark silhouettes giving way to the vast clearing where the castle rose out of the winter; dulled earth like a monument to all the things he had dared to hope for. When its towering gates finally came into view, his breath caught. A cold, sharp ache speared through his chest; a deeper agony than any wound Cazador had inflicted. He knew before he saw it. He felt it in the marrow of his bones, in the way the air went still, in the way his legs trembled as if refusing to take him farther.
And then he saw your grave.
The earth was still fresh, the soil dark and unsettled beneath the thin blanket of frost. Your name was carved into the stone with painful care, each letter precise, deliberate, final. Astarion stopped walking. His body locked mid-stride as if the world itself had turned to ice around him. For a long moment he simply stood there, staring, the wind brushing past him in quiet, mournful currents. His throat tightened so violently he had to swallow against the rising ache, but it did nothing to ease the pressure crushing his chest. His heart, whatever fragile thing he had begun to grow with you, shattered with the force of a hammer’s blow.
His knees buckled.
He hit the ground hard, the impact sending a burning jolt through every battered muscle, yet he barely felt it. His hands shook as they pressed into the cold dirt, the world blurring as tears slipped down his cheeks without restraint. He could not breathe. He could not think. All he could do was stare at the stone that marked the end of everything he had ever dared to believe he could have. A whimper escaped him, weak, broken, raw and he bowed his head, unable to hold himself upright beneath the weight of his grief.
With what little strength he had left, he dragged his body forward. His fingers clawed into the snow-kissed soil, pulling himself inch by excruciating inch toward you. Every movement scraped fire through his limbs; his wounds tore open again, warm blood sliding beneath his shirt, but pain no longer mattered. He crawled because it was the only thing he could do. Because he needed to be close to you, even now. Because the idea of not touching the place where you rested felt more unbearable than any agony he had endured.
By the time he reached your grave, his arms shook so violently he could barely hold himself up. He pressed his forehead to the stone with a broken sob, his fingers trembling as they traced your name as if saying it through touch alone might bring you back. His tears fell freely, dripping onto the cold surface, soaking into the soil below. He whispered your name like a prayer, like an apology, like a plea that would never be heard. His voice cracked under the weight of everything he felt; regret twisting with love, anguish tangled with longing, and a hollow, soul-deep ache that consumed everything inside him.
He gathered the earth into his arms as if he could gather you, pulling himself over your grave and curling his body protectively around the fresh mound of soil. His entire frame shook with silent, shattering sobs that tore through him until he thought his chest might split open from the force. The world felt distant, muted, unreal. The only real thing left was this cold earth beneath him, the last place you would ever be, and the crushing truth that you were gone because he had failed to save you.
His newly freed power pulsed faintly in his veins, a cruel reminder of what Cazador had done. He was stronger than he had ever been. He was free. And none of it mattered. Not when the one soul who had treated him with kindness, who had touched him like he was something worth loving, lay beneath the ground he clung to.
“I am too late,” he whispered, the words breaking apart in his throat. “I am too late, my love.”
He stayed like that as snow began to fall. Soft flakes drifted down and clung to his lashes, his hair, his torn clothes. They dusted his back first, then his shoulders, and then slowly began to cover him entirely. He did not move. He did not brush the snow away. He did not even shiver. He welcomed the cold because it brought numbness, and numbness was the closest thing to peace he could imagine. He pressed his forehead harder into the earth, letting it cradle him in its unforgiving stillness.
“I should be with you,” he whispered, voice raw and breaking. “I should have followed you. I should have died instead.”
The wind curled gently around him, lifting the snowflakes into a soft swirl, but he did not look up. He only clung tighter to your grave as if the ground itself anchored him to the world.
“I want to be where you are,” he said, and his voice trembled as if the words cost him pieces of his soul. “Wherever you went… please… let me follow.”
More snow fell. His body grew heavier beneath its weight. His fingers stiffened, but he did not pull them free. He remained pressed against your grave as if trying to merge with the earth through sheer will alone. The world faded slowly to white around him, but he did not care. He hoped the cold would take him. He hoped it would slow his breath and still his heart. He hoped he would drift quietly into whatever afterlife waited beyond this torment and find you standing there, smiling as you used to.
He stayed like that for hours; silent, unmoving, frozen to the ground; willing the snow to bury him beside you so the two of you could be reunited at last.
And if the world forgot him… it would not matter.
He had already lost the only part of it he ever loved.
Note: So, this is only part one. Part two is already in production and will be as angsty as before *insert evil laugh here*. Please let me know if yall liked this :)))











