Shipwreck
The long-awaited sequel to Cicatrice! Well, long-awaited for me anyway. Come and see the next adventure of Lyric and Astarion; everyone's favorite disaster vampire of Baldur's Gate 3! Rated M for all the most obvious reasons. (Story begins at the start of Act III in the game).
Chapter 1 – That Sinking Feeling
Lyric stared down at the seamless floor planks as more droplets of red blossomed slowly around her toes. The growing puddle of blood reminded her, oddly, of geraniums. Clusters of little swirling, spiral, flowers all congealed together into a bundle of coppery smelling bouquets. People loved geraniums it seemed. Enough that the window boxes and street gardens of her youth were always full of them. Thing was, she hated geraniums. Always had. Like arterial spray in a hanging porch basket.
Willing her eyes to focus in the dim light of the disused bedchamber, she could still make out very little. Hazy more from pain than from the low candlelight, the only objects apparent were those right in front of her. A pile of stained rags on the floor, a bucket, a rolled out set of sharp silver tools, and the four iron-ring anchors holding the chains that bound her to the sturdy post bolted directly to the floor beam.
She spit, a wad of pinkish phlegm splatting onto the wood, and she cursed herself. She felt so stupid. After everything, after all the trials and unbelievable tribulations it had taken her and her allies to reach Baldur's Gate, one unthinking misstep and she had let her guard down just long enough to be snatched clean out of her own bedroll. And by none other than Cazador Szarr.
She had lit the goblin camps ablaze to set the Emerald Grove free. She had traversed the Underdark and triumphed in the hellish fires of the Grymforge. She had walked the lands of the Shadowfell and faced the wrath of the goddess Shar herself before marching on Moonrise Towers to bring down the tyrant, Ketheric Thorm. She had even laid waste to a Mind Flayer colony on the way. And at her side, Lae'zel and Shadowheart had become reluctant friends. Gale and Wyll, so wary of each other at first, could even be occasionally found playing dice with Halsin in the quiet hours of their wilderness camps. Then, they had met Karlach; the undeniable life and love of the party from the moment she had accidentally torched her own tent for the third time while trying to keep Clive, the teddy bear she wouldn't admit to keeping under her pillow, dry. And of course, Astarion. Her beloved, intractable, Astarion. Whose bed she had shared for more nights than she could count at this point; sneaking into his tent at every opportunity only to find him already holding the blankets aloft and smiling into the crook of his elbow.
She held onto those nights now. Held on to the vulnerable words whispered to her in the cool silence of night and in the harsh heat of passion. She knew his fears and regrets, his desperation for something more than a few rounds of mutual amusement. His need to be loved and his utter inability to ask for it. In fact, there were times when she thought he might just take his dagger, physically carve out his own heart, and hand it to her because that would be the less painful option than speaking his thoughts out loud. Then, there had been his confession.
Pacing worriedly back and forth near their campfire one night, she had found him angrily mumbling to himself as he twisted together a few strands of courage to tell her the words he had been dreading to say for nearly a week.
"I had a plan." He said, stifling a mirthless chuckle. "A nice, simple plan. Seduce you. Sleep with you! Manipulate your feelings so you'd never turn on me."
She remembered how her throat had dropped into her stomach, so hard that her weight had immediately shifted into her heels. For a moment, she thought that he was about to break her world in half.
"All you had to do was fall for it." He blurted out. Then he paused; his mouth pursed into a grim line. "And all I had to do was…not…fall for you. And that's where my nice, simple, plan…fell apart."
As chaotic campfire shadows thrashed around him, he had rushed through the rest. Explaining how, for over two centuries, he'd honed his impulses into mindless instincts so that he might lure the prettiest prey back to his master. How he'd performed intimacy on demand, with the techniques and flourishes wielded by only the rarest and most talented courtesans. This was, obviously, so that he would always be assured of his victim's absolute adoration. He explained how, even now, he could sometimes still feel their reverent caresses on his body… grinning and joyful…just before their faces were shattered into pulp.
He'd then looked away from her. Unable to meet her eyes with all of the fires raging between them. Though, to her insights, it became clear that he was expecting rejection. His lie revealed, he anticipated nothing but exile. But Lyric had, in a way, already known this. Well, some of it anyway. The nightmares of the Hecatomb had never left her, and she had always believed that the visions she faced in the bowels of the Elf-Eater that day held greater meaning. So, when she stepped forward to hug him instead, he didn't know how to respond. It was several seconds before she felt the tentative touch of his palms against her back, but it was all too beautiful when he then gently bowed his head onto her shoulder and held her there for as long as he could.
Lyric swallowed hard and grit her teeth as she came back into the present. What must he be thinking now? He would have awoken to find her nowhere, her sleeping place empty, and she'd been missing for days at this point.
Out of habit, she tested her bonds again but found them as taut as before. Her hands were tied wide apart, to a crossbeam attached just a few inches above her head. Her feet were lashed together though and fixed to the post with looped silken cords. A rather ingenious idea from her captor, she had to admit. The more she bled and soaked through with sweat from the strain, the stronger and tighter the cords became. And from this position, he said, he sought to interrogate her. Though, to be honest, she really wasn't sure for what. The vampire lord came and went to torment her as he pleased, but he never asked about Astarion. Not where he was or where he might be. He also never asked her about any of her companions or about the journey they had taken on the road to this very moment. Instead, he just cut her and licked his lips as he watched her bleed.
He was waiting for something; that much she had ascertained. Keeping her. Maybe as bait? Maybe having something to do with the diabolical ritual he was planning? Maybe for some other nefarious purpose? On this note, Cazador was smart and had distinctly avoided giving her any hints or anything substantial she might be able to interpret. Just more red drops on the pristine floorboards and more sickening smacks of bloodless lips. He also made a very obvious show of not feeding from her directly. Rather, he would draw fresh rivulets into a glass goblet while he poked at the barely visible scars of a well-used bite mark low on her neck. Scars which he gleefully mocked her for.
"Ah, I see you're quite used to being someone's little toy, aren't you?" He had said. "He's had so many you know. So many little toys. But he always breaks them. That's what spoiled children do, you see. They break their toys."
Or, "I do miss all the pretty little trinkets like you he used to bring me. Astarion always did have the best taste in shiny baubles."
When we sauntered smugly into the room again that night, he had another jab already aimed for her gut.
"Still no one at the door to call on you for another day, my darling. No knight in shining armor swooping in for the rescue. But don't despair little lovely. I will take care of you."
Swing and a miss. So much so that she actually managed to smirk slightly. It wasn't a knight, nor anyone sporting anything resembling shining armor, that would be coming for her in the end.
"Témalíre." He breathed out her name like he was exhaling smoke. "Témalíre, Song-Maker of the Sword Coast. I know you must be terribly confused about all this, wondering why a lord such as myself would leave you hanging like this for so long. Such bad manners. But it might surprise you to learn that I have been waiting on an answer to a very important invitation."
Though it hurt to do so, Lyric raised her eyes and furrowed her bruised brow. "You can tell me what you want, Cazador, or you can just get on with it. I have no interest in playing your party games."
He smiled at that and tapped playfully at his chin. With his sallow skin and brushed-down black hair, Cazador made for a preternaturally arrogant looking bastard if there ever was one. Paired with razor-sharp cheekbones that rivaled his teeth, and a penchant for extremely expensive and well-tailored clothes, Astarion had been completely accurate in his descriptions. Cazador Szarr was nothing short of a beautiful monster with impeccable etiquette shielded behind a gold-embroidered waistcoat. Rather like someone else she used to know…
"Oh, I am not playing games with you, my dear." He retorted. "I realize that likely sounds laughable to you right now, but I am quite serious. I have no need to play party games, as you put it, because, you see, you are the party. And, in fact, I think it is about time you looked the part. My children will be in shortly to see you properly cleaned up and dressed. Do behave and not give them any trouble, won't you? Otherwise, I promise you that I shall see to your propriety personally. And I don't think either of us would want that. Hmm?"
"We're…" She coughed. "…playing paper dolls now, are we?"
Cazador tilted his head amiably, but mostly so that he would be able to meet her gaze given the somewhat bent posture she was bound in.
"It's going to be such a wonderful soirée tonight. All the most prestigious guests will be in attendance. All of them. And very much one in particular whom I think is going to be exceedingly pleased to see you again. So, do be a good girl, don't make a fuss, and put on your fancy dress."
Then, just as swiftly as he had entered, he was gone.
Lyric sagged against her prison and cursed herself again. This whole thing felt like the worst set-up to an equally bad romance novel. But one where the author was secretly planning on turning it into a gore thriller by the fourth chapter. Imprisoned in a gothic mansion on a hill. Whipped and chained by vampire aristocrats arguing over stables full of brightly clad nobles like they were trading colored candies. And now, some kind of masquerade ball that undoubtedly was going to include a feast of precisely the stereotypical sort that would have all of these brazen undead tee-heeing into their handkerchiefs for a week.
She could hear it now. "Oh, that Cazador! Can you believe it! Trussing a man up like that before stuffing an apple in his mouth and serving him up on a silver platter the size of a dinner table! A feast indeed! Tee hee!" Lyric would have rolled her eyes if her face didn't hurt so much.
Underneath the false humor though, was a growing darkness. The road that they had all taken to this city had been cursed (literally cursed!) and yet somehow, she had overcome that without so much as a shiver of self-doubt. Overcome the hate and loss and soulless destruction. But this…this felt more hopeless than the depths of the Elf-Eater at the center of the Hecatomb. Or even the pits of Shar's oubliette that had held the Nightsong. Somehow, within just a few days, Cazador was managing to drain the fight out of her more relentlessly than the Absolute's forces had ever gotten close to and with what seemed to be barely a fraction of their staggering power. Avatars of Death Gods? Colonies of Mind Flayers? Bring it on! She'd cut down any adversary in her way and howl over their ashes.
Except now.
Now, all she wanted to do was sob and sleep. Maybe forever.
Her vision blurred again, and her mind drifted back to the sound of the wind gently fluttering the side of a canvas tent wall cast a deep blue in the moonlight. Astarion laid back with one arm behind his head as he gazed upwards to where a slice of the starry sky could be seen through the stitching on the roof panel. His other arm was securely wrapped around her as she rested against his chest, running the pad of her thumb over the rise of his hip just beneath the coverlet.
"It's so quiet out here." He remarked absently. "I guess I never really quite appreciated how loud the city was. It all just sort of faded into the background most of the time."
Lyric pressed her cheek to his pectoral and surreptitiously rubbed her ear against his skin to feel more of the smooth warmth beneath her. "Yeah." She finally replied. "It's always a little jarring for me, whenever I'm back in the Gate. I've spent so much time out in the wilds that I forget how distracting it is to hear carts and chatter and whatever's clunking or booming out in the streets at all hours of the day and night. Out here it's just the wind and the trees and the occasional twig snapping as a squirrel screeches by."
He laughed. "Yes. Belligerent little snacks aren't they."
She swatted his forearm but laughed in response all the same. He pressed his nose into her hair.
"Astarion, can I ask you something?"
"Of course, darling."
"When we get to Baldur's Gate, you know I've got your back right? No matter what happens, Cazador isn't going to get you. I don't care how much grandeur he comes sweeping in on. I'll never let him take you from me."
Astarion was strangely quiet then, contemplating the weave of the fabric overhead and the glitter of the stars reflecting off the gold thread in the fringe. "I know." He finally answered but his arm tightened around her all the same. "But I'm not so sure it's me he'll come for first."
She hadn't paid much attention to his words at that moment. Instead, she had already been drifting off into the pleasant, blissful, nothingness of a night's reverie in his arms. Content and sated in ways she prayed would last for all the years yet to come. She was paying attention to them now though. Wide awake, with the bite of cold metal whetting her senses into a furious, deadly, edge.
Cazador might be fond of his riddles and innuendos but the esteemed guest at tonight's banquet could only possibly be one person. The one person who would have been waiting for her, patiently, this whole time. The one person who would have known the sound of her name the moment it reached the voices of the town criers as soon as the Absolute's forces were routed at Moonrise. The one person who could simultaneously parlay with the Chosen of the God of Murder and a vampire lord all at the same time, and then walk confidently into the abattoir that each would have prepared.
Tonight' guest would be none other than Olivet Ingen Ailil.
He was coming. And there was no way to know what he would do. The monsters had already had too much time to plan.
And that plan, as it happened, involved a very flouncy green and pink taffeta dress carried in by a spawn who introduced herself as Dalyria. A dress that was very much of the flirty coquettish type that she wouldn't have been caught dead wearing even when she was girl. It didn't take Lyric long though to notice that the top of the bodice had also been specially modified for her. Rather than a corset designed to lift ample cleavage into an enticing spread, this dress was cut asymmetrically so that it would cover her right breast completely but show the mutilated scar on her left from her collarbone to her waist. Like a framed display, it flaunted the wound that held court over her entire torso, along with the blue vine tattoos that obscured its worst parts. It looked obscene if she was being completely honest. Not in the sense that the dress was lewd or overtly provocative, but in the way that it exposed her, exposed her body, and the degrading story that was carved into it.
Dalyria, a pale, unkempt, woman with red eyes clad in only a simple linen outfit, set the garment down on the end of the unused bed and approached Lyric with a cautious demeanor. When the obedient spawn then waved her hands about nearest to the locks on her wrists, Lyric understood this to mean that she intended to finally let her down. In so far as she would be cooperative in any case.
"Time for a bath, I think."
Lyric wanted nothing more right then than to roast that cheery smile right off her chipper little head. This entire charade was utterly absurd. She had to be smarter than that though. She had to think. What to do? How to prepare? What was her plan?
Unfortunately, only one word came to mind, over and over again. An old word from a long-forgotten sea ballad. Naufragiate; the poet's word that meant 'to shipwreck.' An eventual fate, her grandmother had once told her, of all those who cannot help but sail in dangerous waters.
