Author's Warning: Be advised this work contains implications/references of torture, abuse, manipulation, alcoholism, murder, and sex. Because, well, Astarion. Nothing is depicted in graphic detail, but these themes are pervasive throughout the work.
The story stands as one, continuous piece but has been divided into three parts for readability. The brunt of the dialogue starts in part 2.
The world teetered on the brink of dawn as Tav awoke, swaddled in the safety of silky-soft sheets. In the dim light of her candlelit room, she blinked the sleep from her eyes, a yawn turning into a back-cracking stretch. A glance towards the bedchamber window revealed nothing but a darkened curtain, still drawn tight across the frame. A glance at the other side of the bed was equally fruitless, showing nothing but a cold, empty space where the form of her resting lover should have been.
Tav frowned. Where was he? Most nights, he'd have returned hours ago, crawled into bed, and buried his face between her shoulder blades. His noiseless homecoming rarely roused her, yet come morning, when she woke, he was always there, an arm draped over her hip, his forehead pressed into her spine. His body would be as still and cold as death, his breathing imperceptible or non-existent. Still, despite the chill of his embrace, his presence was a comfort. A reminder that she wasn't alone.
Tav settled back down against her pillow. Astarion would find his way back soon enough. Until then, she resolved to take full advantage of the stillness of the early morning hours. With a sigh, she closed her eyes once more before letting her mind drift to other matters.
The past month had been a whirlwind, to say the least. The first days after liberating the city from the Mind Flayers' clutches had been spent in a state of stupor. The collective shock of the ordeal had left the whole city a bit dazed, her and her group of newfound friends included. Though they'd won the battle, it had been impossible to celebrate victory when half of Baldur's Gate lay in ruin, the other half littered with corpses. The physical damage would inevitably be long in repairing, and their losses even longer in grieving.
Still, the days after the battle hadn't been spent idle. Once the way to the Upper City had been cleared, her rag-tag group had made their way north of the gate. The Old City's Temple District had fared little better than much of Heapside and Eastway, with its grand cathedrals and halls in ruins. However, large swaths of Manorborn had escaped the worst of the carnage, including her home on the city's western edge. There, they'd all found a safe haven and, for the first time in what had felt like forever, had finally taken a moment to rest.
In the tenday that followed, the group had done what they could to aid the city, with Tav's once-private villa quickly becoming a refuge of sorts. First, it had just been a handful of survivors who'd needed somewhere to stay. Then another. And another. Until before long, just shy of two dozen people, ranging from nobles to paupers, had crowded into every room, making their own accommodations wherever they could. An arrangement, the whole of which Astarion had sardonically deemed a "charity case" on multiple occasions.
Despite her lover's snark, Tav had no reservations about opening her home. With so much of the gate razed, the city's displaced and downtrodden were in desperate need of shelter. The least she could do was provide a safe place to sleep at night and a hot meal in the morning. A bit of stability amongst the chaos, as it were. Anything less would have felt self-serving.
A creak outside the door brought Tav back to the present, her thoughts fading as her ears pricked up. The sound was followed by quiet. It had probably been one of the animals. Scratch, most likely. He'd gotten in the habit of roaming the house in the early morning hours, going door-to-door, tail wagging, eager to greet whoever woke up first.
Still, the sound had put her worries on edge. She'd been so sure it was Astarion outside her door. What if something had happened to him? If he'd been injured, or worse?
Tav quickly shook it off. Astarion was more than capable of taking care of himself. All her worries were, simply put, ridiculous.
But, then again, what hadn't been lately?
Thinking on it, just about everything had been ridiculous. Not just the state of her home, crammed full of dozens of strangers, but everything that had led up to that point. Being abducted by Mind Flayers, meeting her newfound friends, the whole business with the tadpoles, slaughtering a village full of goblins, dismantling a cult, infiltrating a Devil's home in the Hells, freeing a Githyanki prince from his prison in the Astral Plane. The lot of it.
More ridiculous still was the fact that she'd survived any of it! Her, the daughter of a minor noble house, with little martial prowess to speak of. She could barely lift a blade, had next to no aptitude for magic, and her knowledge of the outdoors could scarcely fill a thimble. The whole affair had been nothing short of a miracle, really.
What more, if the mere fact of her survival hadn't been absurd enough. At the end of it all, it had been her, with the stones in the palm of her hand, the very fate of Faerûn resting there. At that moment, more responsibility had rested on her shoulders than she had ever asked for. Yet when the time came, she'd made a decision. The righteous decision.
It could have ended much differently.
It almost had.
The thought lingered for a moment too long, bringing a sudden chill with it. Tav shuddered, forcing it away.
No, there was no use entertaining that morbid temptation. Not when the alternative had turned out so well.
In the end, the Mind Flayers' threat had been neutralized. The tadpole situation had been handled. And Faerûn was safe once more- or, safe- ish, thanks to her and her newfound friends:
Shadowheart, Lae'zel, Gale, Wyll, Karlach, Jahiera, and Astarion.
Gods, Astarion. Even now, he was somehow still at her side despite everything.
In the wake of the Absolute's undoing, she had assumed things between them would naturally fall apart. The rush of victory and purpose would subside, and they would gradually come to realize it would never work out. But he hadn't said a word to the contrary, and he hadn't left. Hadn't even tried. He'd simply...stayed.
Technically, some of the others had stayed with her, too, but with Astarion, it was different. While Gale and Shadowheart spent their nights camped out in the manse's guestrooms and parlor along with the myriad other guests, she and Astarion had contented themselves with sharing a room, a bed, and the occasional bottle of wine.
Still, despite their close quarters and nights spent with arms and legs draped over one another, their relationship had taken a step back from how it had started off. The more intimate physical aspects of it, at least.
Simply put, they hadn't come together in months. Not since the nights they'd shared back in the woods outside the grove. No, those nights, the ones that had been so frenzied and passionate, were a thing of the past.
And in hindsight, a farce at that.
For an instant, Tav recalled the moment she'd learned the truth of their trysts. It wasn't exactly a pleasant memory, but she entertained it all the same.
The evening Astarion had confessed to everything, she had felt like a fool. All those tender moments had been an act. A ruse on his part meant to manipulate her feelings so she wouldn't turn on him. Of course, she'd had suspicions about his motives that first night. It would have been stupid not to, the way he'd so readily offered himself to her. Yet, the moment he'd touched her, kissed her, looked at her like she was the only thing in the world worth having, her foolish heart had chosen to believe it was sincere.
Nevertheless, in the end, a silver lining had shone through. That evening, in a turn of fate, what had been born of deception had ended the night as something real. At the time, it hadn't had a label and hadn't been defined or contained. But it had been…nice.
And that had been all that mattered.
In the weeks following his admission, Tav had begun to notice a gradual change. He had still been as acerbic and self-absorbed as ever, but the barbs didn't seem aimed at her as they had once been. When she'd spoken, he'd begun to actually listen, his face relaxed instead of plastered with his usual, humoring smirk. His eyes, once guarded, had started to soften. His smile had become less predatory and more easy. The little brushes of affection that were once carefully calculated had grown less forced, almost absent-minded. When they'd sat together at camp, huddled around the fire that kept the shadows at bay, sometimes his arm would even slip about her waist, and he'd lean into her neck. In retrospect, that may have had more to do with sanguine hunger than actual affection.
Still, progress had continued, and as the days wore on, Tav began to catch glimpses of what lay beneath his carefully curated facade. A flash of softness here, a hint of vulnerability there. The more she'd gotten to know him, the more she'd liked him - the real him. The one who was a little sweet, a little shy, but still cared far too much about how he came across to everyone, including her.
With the slow slipping of his mask had come a darker side, though. Through the same cracks, she'd seen flickers of bitter anger and loathing. Whispers of pain and the ghosts of old scars. A veiled past haunted him, both in his waking life and his dreams. Or, more accurately, nightmares.
Even so, he hadn't divulged much in the way of details, nor had Tav pried. Instead, she'd simply been there. Present. Ready to listen if and when he'd wanted to talk.
And eventually, he had.
One night, a lifetime ago, he'd slunk to her bedroll next to the fire just after dark. There had been no snide comments, no seduction, no pretense. Just a bottle of wine and an outstretched hand. That night, just outside Rivington's walls, while the others were sound asleep back at camp and the only sounds were the distant crackling of the fire and the occasional hoot of an owl, he'd told her things he'd never spoken of to another soul.
The horrors of the past two centuries had unfolded before her. Not just how he'd been forced to use his body to lure unwitting victims back to his master, but the true horrors. Unspeakable things had been done to him. His body had been beaten, flayed, scarred, and worse. Sometimes, at the whim of his master, he'd been forced to enact those tortures on himself. Other times, he'd been compelled to turn it on others, inflicting on them that same pain and suffering he'd endured. All of it had mortified her.
Astarion hadn't so much as choked on a single word through it all. But then he'd tipped back the rest of the bottle and recounted one last lurid tale. A punishment he'd once received. One so cruel it had made her stomach sick.
A year sealed in a stone tomb. Months spent scratching his fingers raw. Even more months not moving at all. Starving through it all, the hunger and madness eating him from the inside out until he'd wished for nothing but death. All because he'd dared to show mercy against the will of his master. After that, he'd never disobeyed again.
And then Astarion suddenly had nothing more to say. He'd just promptly excused himself, and she had been left sitting there, wide awake for the remainder of the night, wondering what it must have been like to have lived for two hundred years and not have experienced a single good thing.
Retribution hadn't been long in coming, though.
No sooner had they reached Baldur's Gate than the hunt for Cazador had begun. Astarion had been driven with a determination unlike anything she'd ever seen. Outwardly, at least. Inside, he'd been a mess, his nerves frayed to the point of snapping. He'd done his best to hide it behind a thin veneer of biting sarcasm, per usual. But Tav had seen through it. He had been terrified.
In the end, the fated confrontation had been brief. One second, Astarion had been standing there, staring down at the monster who'd enslaved him. The next, his dagger had been plunging into Cazador's heart. Over and over and over again.
Every thrust of his blade had sent a chill down her spine. The slick sound of steel against flesh had nauseated her, each squelch of blood turning her stomach. Then, as quickly as it had begun, sudden silence. A sobering stillness had settled, and over it had come a soft, ragged sob that had threatened to tear her own heart in two. If only for an instant.
The visceral wail that followed shattered it completely.
In the aftermath, as Astarion had stood and faced her, drenched in the gore of that saccharine vengeance, the only thing that struck her had been the look in his eye. An emptiness. He looked…lost. It was like he'd been so broken for so long that now that the last piece had fallen into place and he was free - finally free, he had no idea what to do.
For days afterward, he hadn't smiled. Hadn't cracked jokes. He'd just been…there. Aloof and withdrawn. She'd worried, of course. The others had, too.
Then, one evening, a week later, everything had changed.
He'd come to her in camp, still reserved but more present than she'd seen him in days. Together, they'd stolen off into town under the cover of darkness to a small, overgrown cemetery tucked away behind a crumbling old chapel. One they'd passed by a dozen times on their way into town, never giving it a second thought. There, they'd wandered amongst the grave markers for a time until Astarion had found what he'd wanted to show her. A weathered marble stone, wrapped in ivy, etched with the inscription of his own name.
What happened next was seared into her mind, the memory as sharp and clear as if it were yesterday. There, knelt at his grave, under the light of a waning moon, amidst the crumbling headstones and overgrown weeds, he'd told her he loved her. He'd looked her dead in the eye and said it. He loved her. He loved what they had. And he wanted it all.
With her.
For the first time in so long, a night of passion had been offered after that, should she have been interested. And, oh, she'd been interested. But something had held her back. Truthfully, she'd known he wasn't ready after all the pain, manipulation, and abuse he'd endured. He needed time, and more importantly, he needed to learn to love and forgive himself before he could be with anyone else.
So they'd sat together on the cold, damp ground in quiet contemplation, passing few words between them until the sky grew pale. Then, without a word, he'd taken her by the hand and led her back to camp, his face lighter, a smile on his lips. At that moment, she'd know the simple act of her presence had meant more to him than any amount of sex, blood, or revenge. And the feeling that had bloomed in her chest had been terrifying and exhilarating all at once.
And now, here she was, months later, safe in the refuge of the city they had liberated, laying in the bed they shared together. Still not entirely sure what had come of their relationship, but happy enough to take each day as it came. With the way the world around them had been ripped apart and was being rewritten, it was all they could do.
None of that optimism changed the fact of the current situation, though. The mattress beside her was still empty, and a fresh glance at the window coverings showed the sky was beginning to grow lighter. Dawn would soon be upon them, and the city's bright, unsheltered streets were no place for a vampire spawn. Not unless he wanted to burn.
The disconcerting notion brought one last memory flitting back, one more recent. It was vivid and sudden. Like a vision. The lot of them lingering on the docks beside the Chionthar, with the Elder Brain waterlogged in the harbor and the city afire before them. In the distance, a chorus of cheers rose from the survivors. And beside her was Astarion. Standing there, the wind ruffling his silver hair, looking at her like she was the whole world. Her heart was beating so hard she was sure he could hear it. Then, on the horizon, the first rays of the sun pierced through the roiling smoke, and his face grew ashen, the panic clear on his features.
With a yelp, he bolted, careening for the cargo docks, the sunlight hot on his heels. In an instant, the intoxication of victory evaporated, and she flew after him, pulse pounding in her ears, desperate to catch up. When she did, she found him crouched in the shadow of a stack of crates, quivering in the shade, head bowed and fists clenched.
It had all happened so quickly in reality. Too quickly, and yet, somehow, the vision was slow, lingering, every detail achingly clear. The way he glanced at her with wide, terrified eyes. The fear that was written in every line of his face. How his hands trembled, his alabaster skin blotchy and scalded where the sun had kissed it.
She was beside him, then, urging him deeper into the shadows and pulling him close, wrapping her cloak about the two of them, her back to the sun - his shield as the sky brightened above them. There, the visceral image began to fade from her mind, but Tav could still clearly remember what had come next. In her arms, his trembling had stilled. Her own pulse had slowed. Then, they'd sat like that for what had been hours, huddled in the shadows, the city smoldering behind them, silently praying for the reprieve of the setting sun.
"Tav?"
The soft murmur from the doorway pulled her eyes up, a smile finding its way onto her lips.