Astarion
There were never good times for when trying to work with new people, especially people who seemed very keen on cutting him and survival. Of course survival in this age was one of the most important things, he could understand. But it was harder to follow along and be put in an adventure that he never asked for.
At least it was better than being put to the death. For all of his troubles, and a bad talent for ending up in the worst place possible. He lost his chance at actually changing anything back before the abduction and back before when his home in Waterdeep was well still home to him.
One day maybe soon he could go home again instead of being met with silence, disownment and the hatred of his family.
Maybe soon he could even again call something family.
Astarion was a man who held himself with a certain sharpness, as much as he never wanted to admit it..he was a man who wanted escape. Once under a horrid leash from a master that made him feel less than the spit on the floor. He could at least pick up when there was something he could use to help himself.
Anything was better than the cold, dirty emptiness than being left alone and forgotten again. Even if he still was unable to voice it.
What the tides had brought him were two oddities, a half-elf that draped in mystery with a dark gloomy name to match. It felt uneasy on the tongue as he tried it; loudly enough for this Shadowheart to overheard his musings. He was in his role of looking the part of someone who knew what he was doing.
Even as underneath this was all a grand, old lie.
Then there was that strange, little Halfling that kept up with his longer strides, as he made quite sure to keep at a faster pace. He was never very fond of the shorter, tinier, and weaker races. Deep down they reminded him of him in ways he just could not deal with. They were looked down upon, barely seen and invisible to those of the taller and well honestly better races out there, like the elves.
But both of these two were still his own ticket to getting out of another's hands and maybe perhaps getting at the ability to free him. Astarion was deep within his own head when a deep pulsing glyph in the side of a nearby cliff got his attention.
"Hey you two, there's someone stuck in here!" Reggie with his hands deep within the glyph was pulling onto someone within it, baring his teeth in concentration.
Astarion couldn't believe his eyes, for the fact that this idiot of a Halfling was even troubling himself to try and help this person. Why in all the Nine Hells would he risk anything for no payoff anyways?
Inside his mind, a sharp intenseness of pure unbridled rage sprung out and covered his chest. It was a mockery of giving someone even the slightest bit of help when they would not return it. There was no reward for this.
Reggie only tugged harder, his feet digging through the dusty sand as he fished a brown-haired man out of the glyph and unto the sand at their feet. This man heaved himself up, brushing the dust off his immaculate purple robes and greatly grabbed onto Reggie's hand and shook it.
"Oh by all means thank you, I acclaim you have helped this most humble of wizards with his miscalculation on teleporting mishaps. I must say that I am in your dent and if you would let me introduce myself, the name is Gale Dekarios of Waterdeep!"
Astarion couldn't believe it, a bloody wizard.
Shadowheart though appeared to look surprised, and backed away from the oddly now disappearing glyph that vanished in mere minutes.
"Wait? You're from Waterdeep?!" Reggie exclaimed with a slight squeak of excitement, "I'm from there, how did you ever get out here?"
"Well my good fellow, that is a long and most personal story of which would be best over a nice cup of tea. But for now, how to say this best? Ah-ha, I say are any of you by chance healers, clerics?" Gale barely stopped to take a breath, mostly eyeing Reggie up and down for hint of a healing spell.
"Well he's not much of anything... I don't think I could get these things out of our heads if I tried", Shadowheart pointed out with a disdain that only could be from actual trial and error.
"What she means is that we are all screwed if we don't find a means of saying bye-bye to our little friends" Reggie said, sidelining Astarion attempt at kicking him in the rear.
"But our services aren't coming for free or cheap. If you want we can help you out, but that depends how much you have on you?" A sharp grin held its place on Astarion's pale face.
Before the now very confused and rattled wizard though, Reggie pulled said Elf aside by a force that was greater than his body was. Leaning close to the top of a rock and as close as he could get to Astarion's eyes, he carefully stated a not so very hidden threat, "If you try that or any so called misdeed here sir fancy pants, I will see that you personally are left here!"
The pale elf just yawned a bored yawn, almost attempting to hide his mirth, "And what will you do about me? We need something, and well we only just met you and I!" He darted out of the Halfling's reach, until he was grabbed again by his pants and somehow was now being held closely by his collar of his jacket.
"Unhand me!"
"Why?"
"Unhand me or I will make every day of your living life a nightmare that you never wake up from!"
"Oh more than it is now? Try me!"
"Well I just want something for our niceness".
"My niceness?"
"Yes, why help that sap when he can literally pay you and then be done with him"
Reggie took that moment to make sure to slowly release the pale elf, though oddly he kept on his collar, making Astarion relent a bit, "Why must you make this so hard?"
"You two going to kiss now!" Shadowheart piped up from the cliff. Gale though the poor guy just still looked on confused, but interested in the entertainment before him.
Reggie didn't need to see his own ears turning a deep scarlet red or the fact all of his freckles literally disappeared under the shade of red his whole face was now.
Astarion got up and dropped the angry Halfling onto the ground, and gave a winning laugh, "In his dreams".
"Now boys play nicely!" Shadowheart said while she leapt off a rock she had been leaning on and settled herself near Reggie, "Or we'll have to make sure you get punished"
"If I may be able to inquire…that everybody is just very exhausted and wound up after well..everything that's happened to us all. Why don't we all set up camp and rest for the night". Gale still felt out of place here, but given that it seemed he was in the presence of a scoundrel and a man of morals.
But it seemed like whatever was between this oddball party that they were all a bunch of weirdos. Which meant that this wizard of Waterdeep would fit right in? Or so he hoped to.
Reggie kept an eye on Shadowheart, pouting a lot and hiding his face to no help from the fact she kept casting a gust of wind a few times.
The start of actually making and setting up the camp took a few hours; Astarion couldn't be bothered to do anything except for ordering people around. Shadowheart was working but also making sure to make digs at her new target Reggie.
Gale was attempting to cast any spell he still had to do the work for him, mostly because he was tired from being stuck in rock for a good half a day. While Reggie himself labored on ignoring the teasing of said half-elf who later he was going to prank so hard she would know the force of Reggie!
After what felt like sixteen years, but was really a meager two hours the camp was done up and Gale volunteered to cook anything in their bags and make a hearty meal.
Astarion peered into the distance, staring off at nothing really. He just wanted some peace to himself, and to get a bite to eat. Some blood as he was feeling off since his kidnapping from Baldur's Gate and the heartache of home.
He couldn't take his view though off of that Halfling. What in all of Faerun was his problem? He just simply wanted some payment; it wasn't like he was asking for much. He had never gotten anything or really any kind of help from anyone like that in his own life.
A hard, cold tightness sat dense on his chest, over what lay to rest on his own not beating heart. It was all a game really, a simple tease and toss of his words onto anyone he could get. It wasn't like he wasn't used to this sort of thing.
But it just was about security, if he could just figure out that small oddly strong Halfling maybe he could worm his way into using him for whatever gains in the future?
He needed a gain.
Reggie was peering into the depths of the campfire, spreading out his bare toes close to it, trying to edge away from his own thoughts. But they weren't quiet. Not now in the start of night, he should have broke for camp earlier, but well he felt unease.
It came from a place where he had vowed to protect and defend the innocent, to be a part of the divine and follow in the steps of something he could actually believe in.
But it all fell apart.
What little he held once in a place back home amongst a family that literally left him with little as it was, maybe just maybe he could start over again now. Being disowned for a few crimes he did commit when he was younger didn't do him any favors now. The horrors of those jails though..landed him in a faithless path into the steps of a shrine to Iomedae.
Lying down empty and scarred and barely breathing after up and leaving what was once home. For a long time, during the wake of his father not coming home from a war that raged deeply away from Waterdeep, to his mother becoming a lot more absent and honestly leaving him a lot of heartache when she was around in the first place.
So few held up the rites of the sword and that of a vow and oath along the cold, rubble of a forgotten and broken altar that some ogres had smashed. Reggie was a criminal, and a person who relied on charisma and his own ability to think on his feet.
But the words whispered to him, to always know that without his own heart he was lost, and if he betrayed that heart, he was better off than dead. He remembered his own closed hand, held around a pendant that no longer held any type of light to him. Just the few paired words of a now lost prayer to a goddess that felt betrayed to him.
So lying with his hands behind his head like a makeshift pillow, out in a bedroll that he felt was his whole world, were the four of them.
This night, and guided by the light of the starts, and the sorrow of a loss he could hardly get back know. He saw the bright crimson eyes wandering over to him, and sighed back.
The triggers of his worm in his head wriggling around, eating whatever memories of his goddess were left there… Seeing beyond a doubt that the tides of the past always followed.
Until the one with a natural curiosity stood up and paced over to the almost slumbering form of a Halfling.
"You seem contemplative? What's on your mind darling?"
Reggie flicked his hand towards the sky, barely grumbling back a reply.
"Well if I may say we are all somewhat of a mismatched crew", Astarion said, sitting right between Reggie and the campfire. His eyes narrowing when he saw Shadowheart lingering outside her camp a ways away and mouthing something in their direction.
"What do you want Astarion".
Astarion tensed, not the reaction he was expecting to get. He let himself sit further into a comfy side lean, taking off his shoes and letting himself feel the heat. He always felt so cold.
Reggie turned, tossed aside his annoyance, and seemed to squirm against something lying underneath his back. Astarion took a closer intake, and realized that it was a sword, shattered looking and oddly glowing blue in the dim orange light.
"Not talking then?" Astarion couldn't work against this type of mistrust. So why not try and pry something out then, "You know maybe we could all play the 'hero bit' for a while. But it has never suited me".
"Who says I'm playing hero? I just don't like seeing people be used".
"Well in life some people have to have a bit of grit to be able to live. It is what separates the weak from those who are strong with power" Astarion batted his hand closer to that sword.
"Power doesn't always equal strength, sometimes it just makes those with it angry, horrible..and violent" Astarion could just hear Reggie's high-pitched voice lower, a mix of certain fear and a moment of knowledge. It was strange coming from the one who had threatened him not mere hours ago.
"Power is everything though. Clearly it makes those who hold it be able to break out of a misery they do not deserve. Power darling is what is needed to survive and master the world"
Reggie held fast, his back tensed up as well and his eyes an uneven hazel brown and light green faced the sky, as he held the sword in one still hand. His gaze broken and now trained on the pale elf, barely blinking in the light.
"I don't know what you've lived through to believe that. I know that for one thing, that power can fail you, and even those who say they try to hold it for others can also fail you. It sounds to me..like someone held all of that against you too".
Astarion widely turned aback, his face growing nervous, a faint hint of sorrow and a tug of fragility into him. A lingering sense that this Halfling had hit a mark that he hadn't put up to begin with.
"What do you know of such things? It can only help those who are weak to grow stronger then well.." but he couldn't finish that thought, as his cold fingers gripped into his shirt. A slight panicked sensation washed over his shoulders, making him nudge himself closer to the flames. He was wrong, he didn't know what Astarion had lived through, and that only what had been taken away from him could heal the horrors of going back into a life unscarred of pain.
That is when a warmer feeling came upon his back, just very slightly and enough to draw his attention away from bad thoughts. As Reggie lay his hands slowly and carefully over the back of the now shaking pale elf, Astarion chided himself for letting himself be so..weak.
"Astarion, I don't know you. I don't know what people have said to you. I don't know anything about where you came from either" Reggie took a slow, inward breath of the now warming air, lingering a blanket over the shoulders of a trembling elf, "But whatever you have lived through, no one deserves to be treated so badly they can't even begin to see the sun for what it is".
The pale elf could only dart away, trying to get some sort of control in this situation, only for him to fall over the bedroll placed nearest to his feet, "I am not weak!"
Astarion glared down, breaking his hands off of his color as he didn't even realize he was flicking and messing with it. His stance like a wounded elk trying to desperately find a safe place.
"I am not weak!"
Astarion then felt himself run, even if he was barefoot, he didn't truly care. He just knew that this was not in his own control and he needed an escape. He was not going to look weak and small in the eyes of someone inferior to him.
So he ran into the wilds, and remained there until he could sense that no one was able to see him.
And he sat down trying to just not give into the action of crying.
Cause that never helped him in the past. Why would it help him now?
"Astarion!"
"Astarion! Are you okay?!"
But the brittle sounds of the sandy crunch underneath his now worn boots were all that met his frail ears.
It had been hours, and a search that only Gale and he wanted to do, as their half-elf was eager to sit and stay at the camp. Even then, Gale had come back without so much of a hair on the pale elven man, who not so long ago fled the only shelter they all had.
Reggie was horribly worried. He was the one who triggered Astarion into running away and not feeling safe in the first place. The man probably had been trying to tell him why he viewed power the way other's viewed a house as a means of living.
But for Reggie the night was long, and he was not going to rest until he knew that Astarion was alright and he would apologize.
He faintly could hear the drizzle of rain start up, and his cloak which was left back at the camp was long away from his own location. The oddity though of hearing an odd sucking sensation came from a cliff just jutting up overhead.
It was probably some sort of wild animal though.
"Astarion!"
The continued sounds of something slurping, and off to the side the spatter of what could only be blood came from the north of him. Reggie took up his broken, jagged sword, and jumped close to the tree he was nearest and started climbing.
When he reached the tiptop of the tree though, glowing bloody colored eyes shot back at him.
He breathed in too loud and the creature hissed and spat, oddly the size of a large cat. Reggie felt his grip on his perch falter as he tumbled down.
The creature ran off.
Reggie got up, just as he met the now angry glare of a pale elven man slowly rise off the edge of the hill next to them and walk closer to Reggie. Astarion now full, but still feeling the great drudge of embarrassment and sadness wash over him, stalked faster into Reggie. Barely even noticing that he was going so fast that he knocked the Halfling over.
Both of them rolled along the ground, one trying to desperately use the sharp knife in hand to stab at the smaller one, and the other trying to call to the elf.
"You are not my master! I am not a fool to think that you understand anything about me!" Eyes flashed and the growing of hunger filled his head again, even though he had eaten. It was a small thing, and the hunger and pain he felt was stronger than his own will.
"Astarion, I'm sorry I didn't mean to end up triggering you like that. I should have just let you say what you wanted. Or listened better"
"Shut up, you are the problem with your small, frail little body. I am not the weak one here!"
"Please Astarion, please listen to me. Wherever you are right now, it's not in the past"
Reggie felt the pressure of the knife near his throat, and the elf pressed his own palm up to it, feeling the pulse underneath.
"Astarion, you're not weak. I didn't mean to make you feel so small".
Astarion let his hand feel the pulse back to an artery that was on Reggie's throat that he could sense the blood flowing from.
"Astarion?!"
Then the simply ease of his teeth sinking quickly and quietly into the soft flesh under him, breaking the skin as he pulled in close. He could feel the warmth of Reggie's blood, it felt so good. So warm.
So very filling.
The rush came and went and clawed at his mind, the fogginess of his head going and the fullness of blood came.
That was when Reggie started thrashing at him, clawing at Astarion's face with sharp nails, trying to lure the elf off of him. The struggle though only made him want more from the Halfling.
So he bit harder and further in.
"Astarion..please".
Then he felt himself slowly come up.
Astarion sat firmly in the rain, filled with an ease of what felt in ages of fullness and a sadness of something else inside of him. The pale elf simply gazed his own view, seeing a brighter night around him, but filled with shame.
Reggie barely able to sit up touched his neck where two bite marks lingered and heaved a bit of his shirt off himself. Tying it around the bites, and stared at Astarion with the biggest pair of eyes he had ever seen.
"You're a vampire?!"