☽ There's Just No Rest for the Queen of the Dead ☾
@xxnashiraxx
🦇 Ali ⛧ She/Her ⛧ 26 ⛧ INFJ-T ⛧ MX 🦇
Fuck MAGA, Fuck ICE, and Fuck Terfs
18+ MDNI pfp by @ichiro-artosaki of Ofelia from my BG3 isekai fanfic: With Stars to Fill My Dream & header is my VP with friend OCs! 🖤 I write a lot! I also draw! I am now completely sunk in BG3, but I also have Fairy Tail fanfics in my works! 🖤 Working on writing my own book (eventually)! I live in the Pacific Northwest and love nature and all things witchy.
Welcome!! My name is Ali and I like to yap a lot, draw, write, and play music! I am currently buried in BG3, though you'll see some other fandoms cross my blog from time to time! I have a main long-fic for my BG3 durge isekai (I know it sounds confusing but I swear it makes sense) below, as well as some other one-shots set in that fic's universe but not explicitly tied into it or canon (yet or eventually!). Stay awhile! I make stupid jokes and I'll tell you I love you within days of speaking to each other!
๋࣭⭒๋࣭ ⭑ Fics ⭑ ๋࣭⭒๋࣭
✧˖ With Stars to Fill My Dream: Main ongoing long-fic isekai story following the events of the game. Releases as often as I can manage it!! (Twice a month or so!)
A street-smart, musically inclined human girl with a tragic past gets abducted by a nautiloid after her painfully average shift at a retro singing diner. What's worse- putting your all into Olivia Newton-John and Travolta for lousy tips, or getting your guts ripped out by a gnoll? Or worse- getting turned into a hideous humanoid squid?
Ofelia Montez will have to see if she can survive long enough to find out.
✧˖ Act 1
🗡Chapter 1: Chasing Rabbits
🗡Chapter 2: Known Me, Broken By My Master
🗡Chapter 3: But It Was a Trick and the Clock Struck 12
🗡Chapter 4: Behind a Broken Frame
🗡Chapter 5: Close Your Eyes and Hear My Secret
🗡Chapter 6: My Thoughts You Can't Decode
🗡Chapter 7: From Now Our Merge is Eternal
🗡Chapter 8: Born in Blood I'm Not Like You
🗡Chapter 9: Darkness Helps Us All to Shine
🗡Chapter 10: Let the Dystopian Morning Light Pour In
🗡Chapter 11: Try to Keep the Truth From Showing Up
🗡Chapter 12: You Know How Much You Broke Me Apart
🗡Chapter 13: Moving Through the Silence Without Motion
🗡Chapter 14: I've Held On but I Feel a Storm Approaching
🗡Chapter 15: I Cast My Spell of Love on You
🗡Chapter 16: I Could Show You Tonight
✧˖ Act 2
🗡Chapter 17: I Feel Like I'm Leaving Myself Behind
🗡Chapter 18: And It's Bringing Me to You
🗡Chapter 19: Pretty Eyes Now Filled with Pain
🗡Chapter 20: I Wanna Break This Spell That You've Created
🗡Chapter 21: Let Me Change My Words, Show Me Where it Hurts
🗡Chapter 22: We Don't Talk Much, Guess 'Cause Nothing Has Changed
🗡Chapter 23: I'm Done Crying Over Someone Like You
🗡Chapter 24: Why Can't I Let Go of This?
🗡Chapter 25: So Come and Get Your Woman, Pacify Her Rage
🗡Chapter 26: And I Know I Kissed You Before, But I Didn't Do it Right
🗡Chapter 27: Didn't Know the Difference Between Loving and Haunting
🗡Chapter 28: And All This Time You Knew What I Would Put You Through
🗡Chapter 29: Is It Cool if I Hold Your Hand?
🗡Chapter 30: What if She's Fine? It's My Mind That's Wrong?
🗡Chapter 31: Hoping to release in a few weeks!
✧˖ Kinktober 2024: Small collection of fun prompts featuring Astarion and Ofelia from my main fic.
✧˖ Christmas in Baldur's Gate: Set in Act 3 of Ofelia's journey, this can be read as a standalone fic- reading With Stars to Fill My Dream is unnecessary!
✧˖ She's My Collar: A 600+ word fic on Astarion and Ofelia. No need to read the main fic, this is just prose!
✧˖ OC Kiss Week 2025:
♡ Mine: A Raspberry Flush & Blingdenstone Blush (a sweet, 5.9k word fic featuring my Ofelia and Berry's Mavka 💕
♡ @pinkberrytea's: Aromatic 💋 (a beautiful 2.4k word fic written lovingly by Berry featuring her Mavka and my Ofelia)
✧˖ Birthday Gift for @pinkberrytea:
♡ Lilacs & Love Ballads ♡ (a 10k fic about Berry's Mavka and my Ofelia 💗)
✧˖ Birthday Gift for @bby-bel:
๋࣭ ⭑ And I'm Waiting for You to Call ๋࣭ ⭑ (a 13k+ birthday fic of Bel's Darcy and my Ofelia 🩷)
๋࣭⭒๋࣭ ⭑ Lore ⭑ ๋࣭⭒๋࣭
✧˖ With Stars to Fill My Dream Art: My Art: Character Portrait & My Art: Ofelia Portrait WIP) Commission of Astarion and Ofelia Dancing from Chapter 12!, My Art: Spoiler Art of Ofelia (See After Chapter 8!), My Art: Sad Ofelia Portrait, Amazing Art of Ofelia and Alfira as a Promo for Their Tiefling Party Performance by the incredible @bby-bel! GORGEOUS Chapter 13 art of Ofelia in Astarion’s shirt by @bby-bel-art 🥺❤️, Beautiful Ofelia Character Portrait by @bby-bel-art!, Birthday Art of Ofelia by the lovliest @pinkberrytea 💕Commission by @bby-bel-art of Astarion and Ofelia in @caffeinatedmunchkin's fic (below) Stop Me if You've Heard This One- specifically Part 2! 🩸 Pinup art I made of Ofelia!! 💗 My NSFW art of Ofelia and Astarion ❤️ Beautiful Art of Ofelia with Phalar Aluve 🗡 Commission Art Gift from @pinkberrytea of Ofelia 💖 Beautiful Ofelia Portriat by @bby-bel 💗 AMAZING RENDER OF OFELIA AND ASTARION by @khywren 🖤 Pretty Ofelia art by @pinkberrytea 💕 Character Description of Ofelia 💕
✧˖ With Stars to Fill My Dream Gifts: Stop Me if You've Heard This One Part 1, Stop Me if You've Heard This One Part 2 (a lovely, insanely beautiful gift fic from @caffeinatedmunchkin) Now on AO3 here!
✧˖ Ofelia's Playlist: #1 Mitski ,
✧˖ Extra Screenshots: Astarion & Ofelia Meeting, Karlach Meeting, Beautiful Ofelia + Astarion Photoset by @andromedaancunin (also featuring the lovely Andromeda!)💕
✧˖ Ofelia Lore: OC Smash or Pass, OC Insight: What Kind of Love Are You?, OC Patron Saint Game, OC Deep Dive:Ofelia, All About Your Tav/Durge and Their Romantic Interest, 30 Questions Ask 1, 30 Questions Ask 2, OC Tag Game, Your OC as a Flower
✧˖ Extras: Ofelia Moodboard 🖤🩸
✧˖ Future Scene WIPs and Drabble: Potential Future Smut Scene,
Please let me know if you'd like to be added to the new tag list!
I keep forgetting to post this!! My full piece for the Colours of the Gate zine :)) There are some familiar faces in the background, and also some OC cameos lol. This is also available as a print on my inprnt!!
Decided to start one of these thingamajigs to ask my lovely moots some Tumblr-related questions! 🙂
Here goes!
🌟 What's the inspo behind your username?
🌟 How long you've been on Tumblr
🌟 AO3 or Tumblr and why? (or fanfiction.net etc.)
🌟 Which fandom was your first?
🌟 What's your favourite story/art created by you?
🌟 What's your favourite story/art created by someone in your fandom?
Please share with 5 more moots! Let's get to know each other! 💖
btw this is from @goodgirlgonebard 💖 💖
Thank you so much for sending this to me my love!!! And thank you to @anacdoce and @larvatuss for this ask as well!!! I figured I'd combine them all into one!! 🩷
🌟 What's the inspo behind your username?
Nashira is a star in the Capricornus constellation (my star sign!)! I love astronomy and the night sky so when I was coming back to tumblr I really wanted to make sure I picked a name that suited me! The name itself also can mean "bringer of gladness" and I feel like I fit that bill most days 🥰 The xx on each end is just cause I'm an edgelord 😂
🌟 How long you've been on tumblr
I first joined when I was like 13, was on for a year or so and dropped off (i wasn't an active poster or anything!) Rejoined when I was 17 and wrote a bunch of Star Wars yaoi and then disappeared again after a year or so, and jumped back on winter 2023 and haven't left! It's been a wild ride lol, but I'm happy to be here 🩷
🌟 AO3 or Tumblr and why? (or fanfiction.net etc.)
I never knew about fanfiction.net until 2023, lol, and I've been on AO3 for quite a long time! I prefer AO3 for the reading and commenting and organization, but do like tumblr still for finding fic and authors!!!
🌟 Which fandom was your first?
So you know how I said Star Wars yaoi... LOL technically, Star Wars was my first fandom I created fanworks for!!! I started watching it pretty much fresh out of the womb cause of my dad, and from there that choice shaped my future lol. Ironically, today is his death anniversary, and it's nice to remember my roots amidst all of this. Yaoi and dad being gone in one answer. There's a joke in here somewhere 😂
🌟 What's your favorite story/art created by you?
I think it'll always be With Stars to Filll My Dream 🥹 When I started this fic, I hadn't ever finished a fic before. WSTFMD isn't finished yet, but it's come so far and I've maintained my passion for so much longer than any work I’ve ever written and I'm so glad and just proud of myself for still going, even when times have been really hard 🩷
🌟 What's your favorite story/art created by someone in the fandom?
I have so many amazing friends 🥹 Can I Be Good?, @amouseyoucanhold 's incredible Ascended Astarion modern AU fic is passionately and lovingly written and so intimate and smoky 💚 I'm on the edge of my seat each time I sit down to read, and Lark is such a striking and beautiful character that I can't help but get lost in the story as it unfolds around them 💜 @losersmidnights's With Your Boots Beneath My Bed is a deliciously action packed, steamy canon retelling with a beautiful mysterious vaquera with secrets and callbacks to some of the best superhero comics of all time. 💙 @pinkberrytea 's beautiful works from the reader's perspective with Astarion, namely my fave La Petite Mort which is one of my favorite blood drinking fics to THIS DAY. 🤍 @bby-bel 's Death & Romance featuring another isekai'd human (Darcy my love) and one of my favorite Durge's on the planet Kell 🥹 They're such a good duo that leaves you smiling (and also wanting to strangle Astarion a lot, lol) ❤️ @khywren 's wonderful fics, their Kinktober 2024 list being one of the BEST little series I've ever read in my life with each prompt showing how much love and chemistry their Tav Ysera and Astarion have. Taught me so much about smut writing, and made my heart soar with each new situation these two got up to 🩷 @bloodjune 's Until You, a gorgeous, masterful fic set after the events of the game with a slowburn to the third degree that has left me literally breathless on multiple occasions- Effy and Star are so beautifully written and I have NO NOTES. 🩵 Portrait of the Pale Elf by @larvatuss is another incredible fic set after the games events, and it's imagery is akin to reading a work of art- painted so vividly with every single word. Astarion is portrayed so heart achingly well and Selene is such a beautiful character- it's made me look at everything in a new light- thinking about rays of sun dappling a stone column through an early morning mist 🖤 I'm tragically behind on a lot of beautiful works, like In Winter's Silence the Water Lillies Wait by @anacdoce of another post-canon Astarion fic with her beautiful Raven who I'd defend with my life 🥹🖤 as well as Dealbreaker by @goodgirlgonebard and all of her other wonderful fics and works featuring the beautiful Luna and Willow ❤️💚 And all of @hellethil 's lovely works around Astarion and Hellethil- so beautiful and There are so many more I've read over the years that have awed and inspired me, and I'm so lucky to have met so many incredible writers, shouting out @inkymoonbunny, @badbloodwitch, @justabiteofspite, @elinorbard, @verbenaa, @dramatiquechipmunk, @deadly-diminuendo, @deianestormborn, @irondeficienttav, @preciouslittlebhaalbae, @caffeinatedmunchkin, @roguishcat, @bludazey, @kittenintheden, @meeshrox, @alliskit, and so many more 🥹❤️ You all inspire me every single day, and though I'm extremely slow, every bit of your writing always lives on in my heart and I think about it often ❤️
Thank you for this lovely ask, beloveds!!! 🩷🩷 It was a nice way to escape the inside of my mind today 🥹
Thank you @amouseyoucanhold and @xxnashiraxx for tagging me in this. And thank you @optimisticgrey for the link to the template!
Sorry it's been a while. I was having a time. I just wanted to do it regardless because I thought it was interesting. I enjoyed lurking and looking at everyone's.
The song is Summer Child by Conan Gray
Love Aura: Green; "Connected to the heart chakra, it signifies healing, growth, and compassionate service to others. It reflects steady, nurturing, and unconditional love."
Flower: Forget Me Not
Tagging some people with no pressure to do this. Especially if you already did this. @nyx-knox @vividiana @marlowethebard @desperateani
I was tagged in two different tags — an OC-related Pinterest tag by @emmyandthetieflings and a personal Pinterest tag by @xxnashiraxx. sooo I decided to do them both at once 😝 I’ll include instructions for both, and you can pick and choose whichever!
OC-Core: On Pinterest, search “[your OC’s name] core” and show us the first six results!
Vibes: Search for 'my vibe + a color you like' on Pinterest and pick the ones you find the most aesthetic!
So what I did was search "Willow core blue" and picked the results that did not look exactly the same — ex. many of the pictures for Willow were willow trees, and many of the pictures for Luna were moons. go figure.
Willow’s Vibe 🩵🦋
I got so lucky with this somehow. the piano? the rings?? the letter seal and the special tea?? (iykyk) I know this is partially based off of my pin history but how does this relate to “Willow”? my board for her is not called Willow. idk.
Luna’s Vibe 🌿🌙
this works because Luna’s name is impeccably accurate to her character. Luna is a witch, who was named by her mother who was also a witch. lol.
My Vibe 💓
This was fun!! Sorry that I kind of butchered the tags into what I wanted, but I think that made it more enjoyable for me 😅 please feel free to just do one or the other, or to do Amber’s wonky version (you don’t need to call it that).
tagginggg I can never remember who has Pinterest and who doesn’t SORRY but you all have OCs 😘 @purpleasters-inseptember @optimisticgrey @justdebzong @bardic-inspo @pinkberrytea @sorcerousscribe
Originally published July 13, 2024 on AO3 | newly edited! Changed the song, added more description to scenery. Added ! to the chapter title.
Dealbreaker
Ch. 13: What a Treat!
Fic Summary: Willow would have been his consort, but what she really wanted to be was his wife. Either way she would have been his doting partner, picking out paint colors and party favors behind the scenes. She would be anything for him, do anything for him. As long as it was her choice to do it in the end.
The only thing Willow didn’t want to be was his spawn. And months ago, that was the dealbreaker.
Chapter summary: A date at a tavern results in a fight — but not between the lovers.
Song: Please Please Please — Sabrina Carpenter
Fandom: Baldur’s Gate 3 Word count: 2.1K
Pairing: Ascended Astarion x F Tav
Chapter tags: canon-typical violence, mild blood, date fluff
<- previous chapter || AO3 || DB masterlist || next chapter ->
if you would like to be tagged in future tumblr updates of this fic, please comment a “❤️🔥” or see my taglist post here.
Willow
The tavern Willow leads Astarion to is rowdy tonight, just as she thought it would be — the air thick with the smell of smoke and liquor; the room warm with the heat of far too many bodies. Astarion frowns as they make their way through the throng of patrons, and his hand tightens around hers as men push and shove around her. Willow’s heart beats faster.
She takes them to a seat at the bar, rather than trying to find a table. There are several drunken men on the other end, but two seats on the corner will offer them some semblance of privacy while staying inside the raucous center of the tavern. Astarion raises his eyebrows, but he doesn’t protest — he pulls Willow’s stool out for her still, as if they are in a much nicer venue.
“You weren’t kidding,” he mutters as she sits, and Willow laughs as she remembers exactly what she told him on the way here. She said that she was taking him to a tavern a bit less nice than the Elfsong, to lower his expectations, but even that was a bit of an understatement.
The lights within this lower city establishment are even duller than most taverns, likely meant to hide the distinct appearance of stickiness between the splinters on the wooden furniture. Even the bar, usually wiped and cleaned more than anything else at the Elfsong, has a certain sheen to it — and it doesn’t look like a well-oiled piece of wood.
“Thank you,” Willow says with a smile, satisfied with her choice to come here. If anything will test Astarion’s ability to be fun to be around with both of them still fully clothed, it will be this mess of a tavern.
“Welcome,” the man behind the bar greets them, tossing them a paper menu with ripped edges. Astarion takes it into his hands and holds it up to his face, seemingly befuddled by everything they have to offer. “What’re you drinking?”
“A mead, please,” Willow says quickly, without having to think about her answer.
“Your finest mead for her,” Astarion says, slapping the menu back down on the bar with a look of disgust. “And your finest wine. Whatever that is.”
The man’s eyebrow twitches, but all he does is nod before he turns away from them.
“Willow,” Astarion sighs as he turns to face her, pointing a finger at the menu lying in front of them. “We finally get to eat together, and you take me here, of all places?”
Willow laughs, not missing the smirk forming at one corner of his mouth. “This is a peak, human eating experience, Astarion,” she shoots back. “A dingy little tavern! I think you should have some…” she looks down at the menu, glancing over their selection of greasy foods to fill the bellies of their drunken patrons, “potato wedges! Or, even better — poutine,” she suggests, her mouth already watering at the thought. Willow isn’t above getting drunk and eating potatoes.
“This is the best?” He asks, wrinkling his nose.
“Well, no,” Willow admits, “not the best food. It’s an experience I want to give you.” She glances down at his pretty, embroidered jacket — all too nice for this occasion — and shrugs. “If you were my boyfriend in the lower city, before any tadpoles or anything happened, this is where we would have gone out together.”
Willow didn’t grow up in Baldur’s Gate. She was raised in a much smaller village along the Sword Coast, with an absolute lack of sticky little taverns such as this that she could have enjoyed as a teenager — if she enjoyed anything at all as a teenager. Instead, she spent what little spare time she had learning how to play her flute.
“I am not that,” Astarion chuckles, shaking his head at the picture she paints. Still, Willow could almost swear she sees the slightest shade of pink spread across his cheeks; if not for the awful lighting within this tavern. “But I appreciate the thought, Willow.”
She feigns a gasp. “So informal, I even get to hear my own name? Twice in one night?” Willow places a hand over her heart, and Astarion rolls his eyes. “What a treat!”
“Don’t get used to it, beautiful,” he teases, certainly just to watch the way Willow’s face flushes as she turns her attention to the menu in front of them.
She scans the page, pretending to consider her options despite having already decided what to order. “You can pick our venue next time, if you behave yourself this time,” she mutters, trying to distract from the redness of her own cheeks.
“Behave myself?” He argues, just as she thought he would. Teasing him could have been her favorite pastime between fighting off villains and monsters. Astarion is easily worked up, and the quickest way to quiet his frustration with her is to push her up against some hard surface, or simply kiss her as hard as he can.
"How has eating been for you, anyway? Do you like it?" She asks, ignoring his question.
Astarion doesn’t answer right away. The pregnant pause between them is long enough that Willow looks up from the menu to find his eyes already fixed on her, and he shrugs.
“Not as invigorating as you may imagine,” he sighs, with a distinct sound of disappointment in his tone. Willow frowns.
“Really? I’ve always thought I would give my left tit to try coffee again for the first time,” she says, trying to lighten his sudden melancholy.
It works — Astarion gasps, his eyes flitting briefly to the aforementioned part of her body. “You wouldn’t dare,” he hisses, as if he’s truly offended. “I’ve not tried coffee, but it cannot be worth that.”
“You wouldn’t know until you try.”
Astarion chuckles. “I’ve grown accustomed to… other flavors,” he says, tilting his head to indicate the closeness of the bartender. He can’t name his adoration for Willow’s blood here. “Everything else I’ve tried simply hasn’t been as exciting.”
“We’ve got to have you try coffee,” Willow scoffs. “That has to be better than—“
“Not yours,” he interrupts, shaking his head with certainty.
“I— well,” Willow attempts to continue her train of thought, but all ideas of Astarion drinking coffee are quickly replaced with her memories of him indulging in the taste of her blood.
Astarion stares back at her with a humored smirk, and he turns himself on his bar stool enough that his clothed knee grazes her bare thigh beneath the bar. Despite how flustered he has made her, Willow cannot help but feel a warmth in her heart at how normal this entire interaction at the bar has been. This feels like them.
The man behind the counter returns with their drinks: two very average-looking beverages, served in tankards rather than goblets. Astarion takes a sniff of his wine and grimaces.
“We’ll get the poutine, I think,” Willow says, handing the menu back. “With extra cheese.”
“Are the two of ya part of the band of ‘eroes?” The man asks as he writes her order on their ticket for the kitchen, his eyes darting quickly from Willow to Astarion.
“No,” Willow snorts.
“Yes,” Astarion says at the same time, straightening out his back. He looks at Willow with a furrow of his brow, clearly confused as to why she would deny the truth.
“I knew it!” The man says, slapping the top of the bar with delight. Several heads turn in their direction at the sound of it, and Willow’s cheeks begin to heat up with embarrassment. “Your drinks are on the house!” He says, much too loudly, “For the saviors of the Gate!”
His words travel through the small tavern, and a quiet falls over the room as more eyes begin to drift to the two of them at the bar. Astarion seems to relish it, sipping his unsatisfying wine from his mug.
“See?” He says, as if he’s just proven a point. “Why try to hide it?”
As if summoned by Astarion’s question, one of the drunken men sitting down the bar from them chimes in, slurring loudly enough to be heard in the sudden quiet. “Is that the toughest bard in Baldur’s Gate?”
Willow rolls her eyes, lifting her mead to her lips, but his friends continue. “No, she’s the bravest, you nitwit,” another man corrects him, sounding the tiniest bit more sober than the first.
She turns around to get a good look at the men, hoping that if she offers them a smile of acknowledgement, they may leave her and Astarion alone for the rest of the evening. Willow takes in the sight of this group of middle-aged men, all of them dirty and weary from a day of work, just in time to see one of them open his mouth and widen his eyes at her in delight.
“The whore-est bard in Baldur’s Gate, more like,” he shouts, his voice grating as nails on a chalkboard. His friends laugh as if he’s just told the joke of the century, suddenly filling the tavern with sound again, and if every pair of eyes wasn’t on them before, it is now.
Willow attempts to glare, but her cheeks burn with embarrassment. If there’s any one soft spot that man could have hit, he found it — and he found it right in the middle of Willow’s date.
“What did you just say?” Willow’s date himself suddenly speaks up, standing quickly enough that his stool scrapes against the wooden floor. She whips her head back to face him, and finds Astarion furious — his red, devilish eyes showing through tiny slits.
“A little whore,” the man doubles down, continuing to laugh along with his friends. He points a finger at Willow, clearly pleased when she turns her attention back to him. “I’ve heard all about how you prance around the Elfsong with yer… lute,” he says, grasping at his own chest to mimic the heft of Willow’s cleavage. It’s a lame joke, and Willow knows it, but she can’t help feeling self-conscious with so many eyes on her and the chest he’s taunting. She put her breasts practically on display tonight in this dress, but she did it only with Astarion in mind — not this entire tavern.
Astarion is moving before Willow can say anything in response, rounding the bar to lift the drunken man out of his seat by the collar of his shirt. He gasps as his face, already blushing red from the liquor, quickly turns darker with anger.
“What the Hells are you doing?” An older man in the group asks, standing up to confront Astarion. He’s no doubt the largest man in the group; maybe the one most familiar with tavern brawls.
“Astarion!” Willow cries, pulling herself up from her own bar stool. Despite his actions being objectively stupid, it still makes her heart flutter to see her lover stand up for her like this. She’d simply rather not see him kill anyone.
“Apologize to her,” Astarion seethes, not letting go of the man’s collar, “that’s all I ask.”
Willow tries to step forward, but she’s stopped short by one of the drunken men, gripping her shoulder as she passes. She turns to face him, opening her mouth to give him a word of warning, but the words die on her lips as the man plants a clammy slap across her cheek.
She doesn’t think before she acts next. Willow doesn’t register whatever Astarion shouts as he drops the other man to the floor, or what the bartender barks at them. She acts on pure instinct as she punches the offending man square in the jaw, and all Hells break loose.
Blood splatters across the man’s face as the cut on Willow’s hand from Ansur rips open, spilling droplets all over again. The man gasps as warm blood coats his lips, completely unaware that it isn’t his, and his friends shout as they come to his defense.
The entire group — seven or eight besotted men — jump off their stools, fists raised to stop what appears to be a bloodbath already. They have the advantage of numbers, but they’re no match for Willow and Astarion both.
Willow swings at each man who tries to touch her, allowing instinct to control her hands once again as Astarion easily knocks the others to the floor. She watches him swipe his leg underneath one man’s feet, making him fall on the floor, then twist another’s arms behind his back with only one hand. For a moment, it feels as if they’re back on the road together like they once were — fighting off cultists and monsters in the daylight, knowing they would get to hold each other closely when the sun fell.
Until a scream from across the tavern ends the entire fight.
“FLAMING FIST!” An authoritative voice booms from the front door of the tavern, stopping not only the men they’re fighting, but everyone in their tracks. “You’re all under arrest. Let’s go.”
dividers by @cafekitsune | game screenshots & header by me
Thank you for the tag @xxnashiraxx 💜(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ and thank you @optimisticgrey for the template!!!
Lark Promise (✿◡‿◡)
Song is Hold On by Neko Case!!
no pressure tags: @losersmidnights @bum-dragon @bby-bel @hellethil @israfela1 @justdebzong @aristenfromwarsaw @pursuitseternal @bloodjune @alliskit @rubyeyebabybat @pinkberrytea @larvatuss and anyone who would like to do this!!
Happy August. The Dealbreaker smut drought of 2026 will end this month (god willing) 🌵
The first WIP I picked was disgusting, so here is a SFW one from chapter 92. The smut is below the cut 🤍
& the smut! I’m not telling you what chapter it’s from!
I can only show this much & I can only show these paragraphs because everything else would reveal too much of the surprise. If that says anything.
I will continuously return tags to @pursuitseternal and @xxnashiraxx and @nw39 (thank you guys for all sharing stuff 🥹🥹) + I will add @emmyandthetieflings @chaushaus @amoremagnificentbastard @littlehouseofimagination @kimberbohwrites @roguishcat because what are writing moots for if not to demand WIPs. what’s cooking in the smut / fluff / angst department?
As I slowly try to find my pace and place back in, I may truly be able to share something with you to answer to all of your WIP tags:
Shoutout to my taggers @litsenn , @arlynx , @bladesingerlily , @perpetualmaladaptivedaydream , @bloodsol94 , @alrendriablaze , @xxnashiraxx🖤
I have this little piece going to feature Astarion and Aristen - The Durge of @aristenfromwarsaw - So I don't want to give too much away😉
It was the endless maw of Bhaal’s temple - the abysm swallowing everything that came near it and yielding nothing back - just as it had devoured her smile, her heart, and her love when the handsome, gallant half-elf stopped smiling and ceased to be gallant.
Vanished. Without her.
Left her trapped in this darkness, at the mercy of this starving beast.
He turned his back on her and on everything she believed to be true, to feel, to have loved.
At that moment, Bhaal put his hands around her.
Daughter...
The voice, risen from the grave and filled with the blood of all the world's murders, came to her. His words crawled into her ears, every letter smothered with the muffled screams of horror, blackened with the misfortune and depravity of humanity.
And Aristen?
She held out her hand to him.
She turned her back on what had broken her heart and soul, surrendered to her bloody fate and let the dread father take her into his arms - cherished his bloody welcome of hers into this circle of murder.
Even the darkest night could grow even darker.
🪶📜🪶📜🪶📜🪶📜🪶📜🪶📜🪶📜🪶
Please my dear taggers, see it as uno reverse cards if you like to 😊
Here's a little preview of chapter 18th of Portrait of the Pale Elf , "Lady in Black" which will include a little Damian Fallheel pov 💕
Damian Fallheel had been born different from his older brother.
He'd drawn his first breath away from the family estate, in one of the dusty dressing rooms of the Five Flagons Theatre, hidden amongst the racks of puffy petticoats and powdered wigs, his first cries muffled against the silk of a young actress's crinoline.
She was no lady Lorahana Fallheel, but one of the city's prettiest birds. A sylph holding audiences spellbound with her songs. The most celebrated soprano the theatre had ever known. And beneath all the shimmering feathers and tulle of her costume, an elven bard.
The Golden Sparrow, they called her, for she always descended from the rafters on a cloud swing, like a winged creature, her silvery voice carrying far beyond the walls of the old playhouse each night she performed.
And Damian had everything of her, and nothing of his noble father—her flaxen hair, her sun-kissed skin, her gilded eyes, her glittering charm.
Even her ill-tempered nature. Especially her greed.
Her ascent to glory had been no stroke of luck. Had people looked a little closer, they would've seen no songbird at all, but a carrion crow.
Without ever meeting her, Damian had inherited the greater part of himself from that woman.
He wouldn't have minded being a bastard so much, had his parentage not rendered him wholly unfit to be the son of the great Osric Fallheel. The lady of the house, largely indifferent to her husband's indiscretions, had raised him as her own, but the trade, the endless negotiations, the shipping routes, the merchant fleets…No matter how patiently his old father explained them, Damian never understood any of it. Whatever gift his mother had passed down to him made him more susceptible to beauty than to the workings of ledgers.
From a young age, the world seemed to reach for him, to speak to him in ways others did not understand. Voices came in colors and textures. Landscapes and avenues hummed in different keys. The paintings of the grand masters he went to see in secret, tucked away among Gond's marvelous contraptions in the Hall of Wonders, were like concertos, symphonies of violins and pianoforte…At first, it felt like a sickness, a terrible kind of vertigo that always threatened to sweep him off his feet. He perceived the splendor of things with such clarity that it left him reeling, suspended on the precipice of madness. It offered itself to him over and over, and he did not know what to do with it, or how to reconcile the dull shades of his life with those divine visions.
On darker days, he found himself standing on the balcony of his childhood bedroom for a little too long, wondering what it would feel like to take one step forward and finally know silence, the colorless void of death.
When he was of age, he begged to be sent to study the arts, until finally the weary lord relented. He travelled in a caravan with his father's goods, along the Sword Coast, along the Trade Way, until the marvels of Silverymoon were his. In a conservatory run by grand artists and professors alike, he read countless art treatises, spent years at the easel, but it was no use…
He may have had the gaze of a genius, but he did not have the hands to follow.
WIP Wednesday | The Lady Not Listed [Regency Era AU]
tagged by my beloved @optimisticgrey
So, I decided to do something. Something that Hanna did. I want to share my writing with everyone, however, I'm not ready to drop it on Ao3 yet. So I was thinking to split my first chapter in several parts (as it is already broken, really. If you've read something from me before, you know that my chapters are usually divided) and then share it here. Every WIP Wednesday or Self-Indulgent Sunday, I will drop a part that is between 2k to 3k words. Up until the chapter ends, and you, my darlings, may decide if it's worth reading and waiting for. So here we go. First chapter, first part, little less than 3,000 words, something that I wrote for fun at first, and since then developed a whole plot.
High Hall dresses itself for conquest.
Every arch and pillar gleams as though the stone itself wishes to be thought wealthy. Candlelight trembles along gilded mouldings, gathers in the cut crystal of chandeliers, and scatters itself over silk, satin, jewels, polished boots, powdered throats, and every manner of self-satisfaction Baldur’s Gate manages to crowd beneath one roof. Music rises from the far end of the ballroom with an elegance so flawless it borders upon indifference. It does not invite feeling so much as instruct it where to stand. The occasion, if one believes the host, is a celebration.
The Dekarios family has arrived from Waterdeep. This, apparently, is reason enough to summon half the city into a fever of perfume and speculation. The noble houses come first, as they always do, drawn by rank as surely as moths to expensive flame. Then come the wealthy merchants, the old families with new fortunes, the new families with old pretensions, the daughters in pale gowns, the mothers with sharper eyes than any duelist, the fathers pretending not to calculate. The lesser relations, the useful widows, the ambitious cousins, the priests, the patrons, the artists, the mages, and all those curious creatures who belong nowhere in particular but have contrived, by invitation or audacity, to be present all the same.
And beneath them, between them, behind the moving screens of trays and folded linen, go the servants. No one looks at them for long. That, Deia finds, is the great convenience of service. A lady may be studied for the angle of her fan, a gentleman for the width of his smile, but a servant girl can pass within arm’s reach of a secret and be forgotten before the secret finishes drawing breath. She enters by the eastern passage with a tray balanced upon one palm and Lune half a step behind her, carrying folded cloths she does not need and wearing a cap that makes her look both younger and more frightened than she has any right to be.
“Stop staring,” Deia murmurs, without turning her head.
“I’m not staring.”
“You are staring with such devotion the walls may begin to blush.”
Lune swallows a laugh and nearly drops the linens.
“Gods, Deia, look at it. There’s more gold in this corridor than in the counting-house at the docks.”
“Then we must pity the corridor. It has been made vulgar without consent.”
Lune gives her a look from beneath the brim of her servant’s cap.
“You’ll mock gilding itself before the night’s done.”
“Only if it insists upon provoking me.”
They move past two footmen, a harried steward, and a young maid carrying a basket of glassware with both hands clutched white around the handles. No one stops them. No one asks where they have come from. High Hall has imported half its staff for the evening, or so the gossip in the lower passage claims, and where excess reigns, confusion is often mistaken for order. Deia has always thought noble houses safest when overcrowded. Too many people make certainty difficult. Too much noise makes truth shy. A girl can disappear in such a place, if she wishes. Or if someone else wishes it for her. Her fingers tighten upon the tray. Lune notices. Of course she does. Lune has a talent for noticing the things Deia would rather bury under sarcasm and forward motion.
“Not here,” Lune whispers.
Deia’s gaze cuts toward her. Lune lowers her voice further.
“I mean, they would not take anyone here. Not from a ball this grand.”
“No?”
“No one would dare.”
Deia’s mouth curves, not quite into a smile.
“My sweet Lune, daring is seldom in short supply among men convinced consequences were invented for others.”
The words settle between them, unwelcome but familiar. Beyond the corridor, music swells, bright and graceful, while somewhere below stairs a servant girl laughs too quickly at something a footman says. The sound tightens the air. There have been too many missing. Kitchen girls. Laundresses. Tavern maids. Seamstresses. Singers with no patrons and no fathers to make inquiries. Girls who change lodgings often enough that a gap in their absence may be explained away. Girls whose employers mutter about stolen coin, whose landlords shrug over unpaid rent, whose names are written nowhere that matters. The city has a remarkable talent for misplacing women it has never valued.
Lune knows two of them. Deia knows three. That is why they come to High Hall in caps and aprons, with borrowed trays and knives hidden where no gentleman’s gaze is permitted to wander. Not for the dancing. Not for the music. Certainly not for the pleasure of watching wealth perspire beneath chandeliers. There are letters somewhere in this house, according to a girl from the lower kitchens who has seen too much and grown wise enough to be afraid. A certain seal. A certain black ribbon. A list of names passed between gentlemen who speak of charity in public and purchases in private. High Hall, for all its polished marble and excessive floral arrangements, has become a place where whispers converge. And Deia has no intention of leaving empty-handed.
At the turn of the passage, she slips through a half-open door and into a narrow retiring room meant, perhaps, for some lady overcome by heat or humiliation. Lune follows, shuts the door gently, and leans her back against it. For one breath, both listen. Footsteps pass. Voices drift by. No shout comes. No alarm. No steward bursts in to demand their business. Lune exhales so hard she nearly folds over.
“I hate this.”
“You said you wished to see the ballroom.”
“I wished to see it while not committing three separate crimes.”
“Then you should have cultivated duller friendships.”
Deia sets the tray down, reaches behind her neck, and begins undoing the plain outer garment that marks her as staff. The grey cloth falls from her shoulders without ceremony. Beneath it she wears a gown of dark blue silk, almost black where the candlelight fails to touch it. It is not new. A fashionable eye would know so at once. The cut has been altered, the hem mended, the sleeves reworked with patience rather than coin. Yet it fits her figure cleanly, close enough to suggest intention, modest enough to avoid immediate scandal, and severe enough to look less like a plea than a warning. Lune stares. Deia looks down at herself.
“What?”
“You look…” Lune’s mouth twists, searching for a word grand enough and failing cheerfully. “You look like you robbed a widow and made it tasteful.”
“A generous review.”
“You did rob a widow, didn’t you?”
“She was not widowed at the time.”
“Deia.”
“She was also dreadful. Hold still.”
Lune laughs despite herself as Deia steps close and plucks the servant’s cap from her hair. Beneath her own plain covering, Lune has tucked soft brown curls into a knot too nervous to be called elegant. Her gown, when she shrugs free of the outer cloth, is pale green and simpler still, with a ribbon at the waist pressed smooth within an inch of its existence. She looks young. Pretty. Frightened. Too much like the kind of girl the world swallows and then insists has wandered willingly into its mouth. Deia’s fingers slow for the smallest moment as she adjusts one of Lune’s pins. Lune catches her wrist.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re already planning to stab someone on my behalf.”
“I often plan to stab people. You are not as singular as you imagine.”
Lune squeezes her wrist once, quick and fierce, then lets go. Deia turns to the mirror. A narrow crack runs through its lower corner, splitting her reflection from shoulder to hip. Her horns rise dark from the sweep of black hair she now loosens and rearranges with efficient hands. Tieflings are not unheard of in noble houses, particularly not in Baldur’s Gate, where money can soften many prejudices so long as it arrives properly laundered. There are two in the ballroom already, she has been told: one a merchant’s son with lacquered horns and rings enough to blind a saint, another a distant relation to some duchess or other who has learned to smile as though forgiveness were a currency.
Deia’s own horns are not what will betray her. It is everything else. The slight disorder no maid’s hands have corrected. The absence of jewels. The plain gloves. The too-watchful eyes. The scar at her collarbone half-hidden by dark lace. The faint scales near her temples that catch light without asking permission. The manner of a woman who has learned how to stand in beautiful rooms but not how to trust them. She looks good. She does not look refined. That, she suspects, is the difficulty. True refinement requires either long practice or an impressive willingness to lie to oneself. Deia possesses practice in abundance, but little talent for that second art. Lune comes to stand beside her in the mirror.
“We’ll be noticed.”
“Of course we shall.”
“That was not comforting.”
“It was not meant to be. Comfort breeds inaccuracy.”
“Could you try lying, once?”
“I am lying. Look at me.”
Lune looks, and her smile turns smaller. Deia softens before she can stop herself. She reaches up and straightens the ribbon at Lune’s waist.
“Keep to the edges. Do not drink anything you have not watched poured. Do not follow any man into a corridor, even if he speaks sweetly enough to rot your teeth. If we are separated, you go to the kitchens first. If you cannot reach them, the eastern passage. If that is blocked, the courtyard with the orange trees.”
“I remember.”
“Say it.”
“The kitchens. Eastern passage. Orange trees.”
“And if someone touches you?”
Lune’s chin lifts.
“I scream.”
“No.”
Lune blinks. Deia’s eyes hold hers in the mirror.
“You break something first. Then you scream.”
A beat passes. Then Lune nods. Satisfied, Deia takes a pair of little silver pins from her pocket and fixes back the front pieces of her hair so that the dark weight of it falls more neatly over her shoulders. The effect is not quite fashionable. It is not quite improper either. It lives in that precarious country between invitation and insult, where Deia spends much of her life.
“Come,” she says. “Let us go be decorative.”
“Gods save the decorations.”
“No one else will.”
They leave the retiring room as two women transformed by nothing more substantial than posture, silk, and a shared willingness to be mistaken for belonging. The nearer they draw to the ballroom, the more the sound of the assembly gathers itself: violins, laughter, the whisper of skirts, the formal announcement of names, the soft percussion of shoes upon polished floor.
At the threshold, Lune stops. Deia does not blame her. High Hall’s ballroom opens before them like a jewel box constructed by someone with more money than restraint. Tall windows reflect the candlelight until it seems the night itself has been invited indoors and persuaded to wear diamonds. Garlands of white flowers loop from pillar to pillar. The floor shines so brightly one might use it to examine one’s conscience, had conscience been fashionable. Everywhere, people move in circles of rank and desire.
Young ladies stand arranged in delicate clusters, each one a pastel hope with a mother nearby to interpret opportunity. Gentlemen linger with affected ease, speaking of horses, politics, and weather as though these subjects have not been exhausted by every generation before them. Older women watch with the grave intensity of generals. Older men watch the wine.
There are mages too, though they wear their art with varying degrees of taste. Rings glimmer with warding spells. Brooches hold minor enchantments. A few visible familiars perch upon shoulders or chair backs, tolerated so long as they do not shed. Near the upper end of the room, beneath a crest worked in silver thread, the host speaks animatedly with a priest of Mystra whose ceremonial blue robes seem determined to be seen from Waterdeep. Lune’s mouth falls open. Deia sighs.
“Close your mouth. You will catch a husband by accident.”
Lune shuts it at once, then opens it again to laugh.
“Would that be so terrible?”
“In this room? Statistically, yes.”
They move to the side of the assembly, near enough to observe, far enough to avoid immediate scrutiny. Deia accepts a glass of wine from a passing servant with a nod that makes him glance twice, uncertain whether she is above or below him. She enjoys that. Confusion is a small art, and she has cultivated it lovingly. Lune takes her own glass and stares at the chandeliers.
“I never thought I’d see it from this side.”
“This side?”
“The side with the wine.”
“Do not grow sentimental. It is poor wine.”
“You tasted it?”
“I suffered it.”
Lune hides her smile behind the rim of her glass.
“You’d call the heavens badly arranged if you found yourself among them.”
“Only if they hang the stars with such desperation.”
Lune’s shoulders shake. Deia watches the room over the edge of her glass. The laughter. The bowed heads. The fluttering fans. The measured glances exchanged between people who have perfected the art of never saying plainly what they mean to sell. It is not that she despises beauty. Beauty, in honest form, has always undone her a little. Music heard through an open tavern door. A field after rain. The first orange flame caught in a cold hearth. A child asleep with crumbs on her chin. The curve of a good blade. But this is not beauty. This is display.
“It affords me constant astonishment,” Deia says, “that gentlemen should profess such a fancy for assemblies so entirely devoid of necessity.”
Lune laughs outright this time, though she quickly turns it into a cough when a lady nearby glances in their direction.
“You may say so, but plenty find necessity in them.”
“Then they are too easily satisfied.”
“Aye, well, not everyone can be satisfied by lurking in corridors and frightening criminals.”
“I have many interests.”
“Name one that does not involve knives.”
“Wine.”
“You just insulted the wine.”
“I did not claim a lack of standards.”
Lune leans closer, eyes bright despite the lingering tension at their edges.
“You know why they’re all here, don’t you?”
“To impersonate peacocks and obstruct the floor?”
“For the Dekarios family.”
“So I gather from the excessive reverence paid to every person wearing blue.”
“They have come all the way from Waterdeep. The whole family, near enough. Or the important ones, at least.”
“Families are very fond of declaring which of their members matter. It saves strangers the trouble of judging incorrectly.”
Lune ignores that with admirable discipline.
“And Mr. Dekarios is to be here.”
Deia’s gaze does not move from the room.
“How fortunate for Mr. Dekarios.”
“You’ve heard of him, then?”
“I have ears.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is an explanation.”
“Deia.”
She sighs.
“Yes, I have heard of him. Half the city has contrived to speak of little else for three days.”
“Only three? At the tavern it has been five.”
“The tavern has always been ambitious in its sufferings.”
Lune nudges her lightly.
“They say he is handsome.”
“They say many things.”
“And brilliant.”
“A more dangerous accusation.”
“And rich.”
“The least imaginative of virtues.”
“And still unmarried.”
Deia finally looks at her. Lune has the good grace to look only partly guilty.
“No,” Deia says.
“I did not say anything.”
“You inhaled with intention.”
“Well, why not?”
“Because I possess a functioning mind.”
“An inconvenient possession for a woman, I am told.”
“By men who fear competition.”
Lune smiles, then softens her voice.
“I only mean that if he is half so pleasant to look upon as they say, and if he has even a quarter of the fortune, gaining his attention would not be the worst endeavour.”
“For whom?”
“For any woman with sense.”
“Then may she enjoy him.”
“For you, goose.”
Deia stares at her. Lune lifts both brows.
“What? You could do worse than a handsome rich mage from Waterdeep.”
“I could also throw myself into the harbour and achieve dampness more directly.”
“Deia.”
“Please.” Deia turns back to the ballroom, the glass stem cool between her fingers. “The gentleman would not grant me a second glance, much less offer a word of greeting. Moreover, however great his fortune or talent, it matters little if a man of such means possesses no true merit.”
She says it quietly enough that the words are meant for Lune alone. Unfortunately, ballrooms have a strange fondness for betrayal. A hush passes near the great doors, not silence exactly, but a rearrangement of attention. Conversations loosen, then tighten. Fans lift. Spines straighten. A mother in rose silk seizes her daughter’s wrist with such swiftness one might mistake the gesture for rescue. Lune’s eyes widen. Deia does not turn at once. She does not need to. The room already tells her enough. Some presence has entered and is immediately weighed, admired, appraised, desired, envied, and offered up to speculation. The air itself seems to adjust its posture. Lune whispers, with the doomed delight of a girl watching a carriage roll directly toward a puddle,
“I think Mr. Dekarios has arrived.”
Deia takes a slow sip of the poor wine. It has not improved.
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