TW: Suicide mention.

I've caught the BG3 brainrot and it's centered around Ascended!Astarion and Dark Urge in any form.


Who took my fucking boots?

Tav's thoughts ground through slush, bare fists pressed to unfinished stone. On all other sides was a slippery fabric she'd already lost purchase against twice, slamming knees into the ceiling with a stream of curses.

Stop. Think. Try something else.

A spark cast the silk seams in weak, warm light. Desperation wrung the remaining power from her core into Telekinesis wedging the slab aloft. It dragged across in a terrible grinding, leaving just enough space for her to squeeze through before the spell was spent.

The room swam in the light of unnatural sconces. Non-descript murals and shadows and dead-language carvings. A tomb? Something was off, but she knew at least one thing: tombs meant treasure.

Her legs held up for all of a half-second.

Tav closed her eyes tight, allowing a moment's intimacy with the cool floor while drinking in dank air. Echoes of the icy harbor churn she'd surrendered to mere moments ago still held fast, weight and dizziness betraying her limbs with the ghosts of undercurrents.

The Harbor?

Behind her lids the water was still on fire against a sulphuric yellow sky. Distant heat radiated black where brine from fallen illithid vessels coated the sea's surface. Slowly, evidence of the whole ordeal was sinking to the depths for good.

The final chapter of this adventure was closed. They'd survived. They'd won. Everyone who mattered went ahead to rest, to prepare, to celebrate their victory. The city would be rebuilt. Her friends had full futures in The Gate, or otherwise promises of changing the war tides in Avernus and to keep watch on the new lord promising a rapid ascent.

Tav was alone at last. The work was done. She'd done all she could, after all, and all she needed to.

The noose of her Father's ire above, and the water below. The weight of the dagger in her palm. The decision.

She should have been free. She thought she could escape her fate by taking it into her own hands. Yet, here she was, dry and worlds emptier than before. Foolish.

Air fought for passage past acid and the twisting in her gut. Breath raked ichor and old blood from her ribs. When she thought she finally had it under seal, she turned to the side and fully retched.

Finally, the room was still.

Wiping her mouth on her sleeve, she anchored herself using the side of the stone coffin. Still weak. It wasn't the dizziness alone, she'd atrophied.

Tav could see the murals a bit clearer, now. A chest at one end of the room, and an empty basin at the other. This tomb emulated the grandiosity of ancients, but was too empty, too well maintained. And, it had no door or gate.

When she looked to where she'd escaped from, she jumped. From the lid emerged another body. The shadows seemed to make it move, but she now saw it for what it was: a massive sarcophagus.

Rather than an entity at peace like in the graveyards they'd ventured through, it writhed from the marble, limbs tangled from its down. A marble ghost in agony—

No, not quite. The tilt of the chin skyward, parting of the mouth. Like some kind of divine ecstasy.

Discomfort at stumbling across something intimate overshadowed the recognition needling the back of her mind. The figure's head wrenched to the side, features sanitized in the way that reverential statues were. The marks on the neck were freshly swollen. Tav reached to where her own puncture wounds had long healed over, attention turning to the forehead where impressions of gem-like scales had been carved into the figure's pleasure knitted brow.

"Oh."

Was this supposed to be..?

OCTAVIA

Like a switch, she soured from wonder into full criticism. Nipples tastefully peaked from beneath draping fabric, body twisted in a back-breaking nymph-fleeing-on-a-tapestry-like maneuver she'd never be dexterous enough to emulate in real life. Creative liberties were taken.

"You don't approve?"

"Fuck no." Tav snarled, turning to the voice. The space behind was as empty as before.

Now all the dramatic flair that went into this place made sense.

"How heartless. Good masons put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears getting it to my exacting specifications." Turning back, Astarion stood separated from her by the sarcophagus. Smug, and perfectly put together as always. His palm rests on the lid, reminding her of its immodesty. "Well, mostly blood." His mock concern with her opinion gave way to reminiscing fondly over a good meal.

Unbidden images came of a halfling artist turned slave cowering under a crimson gaze while being critiqued over something lethally trivial. Their hands trembling, fighting to not slip the chisel lest it find its way into them instead of their medium. Visuals that would delight her under different circumstances.

Control yourself.

"If you were going to have them use your memories as reference material," she punctuated with a jacking-off motion, "You could have at least had them get the nose right."

"Oh, come now. It looks just like you. Well, I suppose I could have let them have a peek at the real thing— your corpse was keeping rather well."

"Aw, thanks. And you don't look a day over two-hundred-fifty."

His face distorted for just a moment, then smoothed again. He still thought he was above her to let such jabs merit a reaction. It was enough.

"The exit. Now. And I'll consider not experimenting with Fireball in an enclosed space."

"Ha! Now, darling— let's not fight. Really, I wanted to be here right when you woke up, but you've always been impatient." He didn't even flinch, as if knowing she could hardly manage more than a box of matches.

Vampire lord or not, she could still wring his neck.

Tav started around one corner only for Astarion to lean the other way. When she headed one direction, he went the opposite. Circling around the tomb like this was a game.

"What is this, Astarion? Why are you even messing with me right now? We were done."

If he wouldn't tell her the exit, she'd find it on her own. She looked everywhere but down- at something sculpted from memories from his own mind's eye. Another possession to see the end to.

"You were done, and then went and did something stupid. I just took what you were so eager to throw away. Be grateful I kept you somewhere comfortable."

"This was supposed to be comfortable?"

His lip curled.

He didn't respect her enough to remain equals. If vampirism were even something she'd consider, it wasn't going to be on his terms as a slave. She wanted to keep what little freedom she had left. That was the end of it. Or supposed to be.

It was her fault in the first place for helping him. For wanting no fear for him. If power was what it took to make him free, then she'd help him grab it.

Things had ended badly, suffice to say.

"By all means, try to kill yourself again. We'll give this a do-over."

Astarion had promised she'd regret leaving him more than anything. That he should have turned her into a spawn, just to teach her how he could have anything he wanted. It seemed in turn he'd taken her last act of free will, at least.

She couldn't imagine the prick ever sullying his doublet with jumping into the water after her. He'd probably charmed some civilian to fish her up, just to have this bit of fun at her expense later. He turned her after all.

Her hands wavered, sparks of anger fading at the disconnect.

"I didn't think so. We'll blame all this on that sleepy head of yours, hm?" He mistook her processing for giving up, extending a palm over the sarcophagus between them and shifting his tone. Did he mean for her to take it? "We have so much to catch up on. After a bath, of course. I'm afraid you're looking a bit feral for the company I keep nowadays. As much as I missed your bedhead."

He had only extended his hand to gesture at her puke sleeve and semi-transparent funeral gown. "There's another robe in the chest. Unless you'd prefer to walk around in that, but I do recall your preferences being a bit more modest."

"Modest?" Tav gestured to the suggestive stone lid.

"It's art, pet. Change."

Tav fumbled the chest clasp to pull out a whispering dark cloth suggestive of abalone shells overlain by sheer black. There was some magic to it, and some other bits inside, but she ignored them. She'd only just fastened the gown's last tie when she realized she hadn't even thought about resisting or the exit again.

He'd ordered her to change, and she did.

The pale elf was pleased with himself. Every fiber of his being sung with it— he had everything he wanted.