A/N: Writing this was a doozy. I'm still not convinced I have Astarion completely right. He intimidates me just as much outside of BG3, as he does in it. Cheers.
"Pain without purpose is a terrible thing, wouldn't you agree?"
Astarion had completed his once over of Sabine's company well before he reached them. The man's face was mapped by craggy fissures and scars, their path continuing to branch down across what was exposed of his torso. Some glistened fresh, whereas most were puckered and discolored from time. Adorned with the proud history of his contrition. One half of his leer covered by a limp swathe of greasy, ashen hair, the rapacity with which he sized up the little half-elf had Astarion lengthening his stride.
He conducted his read with just as much haste, recognizing the smug demeanor of one who knew they had prosperously happened upon their prey. An attitude Astarion knew well. The pale frost of his eyes glimmered, bright and approachable. Stark in contrast to his wicked smile, and the subject at hand.
Two silver wolves, each with their jaws bared and wet with hunger. Each circling the same little lamb.
Sabine stood before him perfectly demure. Hands clasped behind her back, she tilted her head to the side, inquisitiveness assuming control. With an adorable furrow of her brow, she remained quiet for a while, thoughtful in crafting her query.
"Then... why inflict pain on yourself? For what cause?" The trance of her anger lifting to make way for the version of herself he was infinitely better acquainted. "What purpose is there in it for you?"
It's a wonder how that naivety of hers persists, even before the likes of him.
"He's a priest of Loviatar, darling." His presence announced with his clarification, he swept in to take his place over her shoulder. "To them, willing participance of mutilation, self or otherwise, is an intimate practice."
Her posture tensed upon hearing his croon. Customarily, it saw her spinning to face him with a smile, a barrage of questions, or both. But not this time.
Astarion expected no less, yet he found himself frowning all the same. Failing still to shake the unwelcome disappointment that shadowed him that whole day, in the wake of her reticence.
The priest bowed in introduction. "I am Abdirak, a humbly devoted servant to our divine Mistress. Here and now, at your disposal to relieve you of your burdens." He cocked his head at her, a knowing gleam to his roaming eye. "And you are quite burdened, my child, are you not?"
She felt her mouth open, but Astarion's voice sounded. "You needn't worry yourself over her burdens. I see to it they're eased, of that I can assure you."
All touted with his theatrical embellishment, as was typical, Sabine's lip twitched. Uttered low enough that it might go unheard, "you are my burden." seethed from between her teeth.
It did not go unheard. Stinging like a clap to the cheek, and equally as startling, Astarion recoiled some in offense.
The kitten's not yet finished flexing her claws, it seems.
Abdirak's attention was at last drawn to Astarion, properly taking note of him for the first time since his interruption.
Surmising him to be her beau, the pallid high-elf posted behind her, his gaze sharp and attentive from over the top of her head. Beneath the nonchalance of his posture, Abdirak sensed vigilance. Wound tightly and at the the ready to lash forth, like a viper coiled in the brush. Guarding her.
His chapped lips pulled into a small smile of recognition.
"Burdened by a festering, and perhaps, carnal pang," his eye still fixed to Astarion, he chose his words with care, his observation condoling, "left there by a lover?"
The inference tamed her curiosity into skittishness. Sabine blinked. "We're not lovers."
While the correction was spoken softly, she felt compelled to make it all the same.
It was Astarion's turn to stiffen. Hardly the appropriate time, or company, to divulge our personal affairs.
"Well-what she means is that the nature of our relationship is... unconventional." Catching himself conceding, Astarion then snapped, "and private."
Indulging them both with a placative nod, he honed back in on Sabine before lamenting; "These goblins, while willing, have proven... futile. But you," his muted leer was unrelenting as it seized her, "I feel you will be most... receptive to what I might bestow at our Maidens behest."
Astarion's skin prickled in irritation. A piqued groan lodged in his throat.
Her nubility notwithstanding, I'm sure.
"If what you seek is a new addition to your flock, I feel compelled to inform you that you'll find this little lamb particularly indisposed."
"Do you often find yourself this eager to speak on her behalf?" Purely rhetorical, he had dismissed Astarion in favor of Sabine before the words finished dripping from his tongue. "Please, allow me to alleviate your pain. If I may, I can guarantee the experience will be most... absolving."
"And how, exactly, would you go about doing that?" Sabine joined in disregarding Astarion, and it saw him bristling under his collar. "Alleviating my pain, that is."
The priest's expression infuriatingly patient, he contemplated the petite half-elf with the confidence of one well assured of their own success.
Astarion inserted himself between them, his agitated titter bordering on nervous.
"Excuse us for one moment, if you could." Pinching her elbow, he lead her away, far away, from Abdirak's prying. His eyes still trained on the priest, his velvet whisper was strained, and thick with exasperation. "What is it you think that you are doing?"
A flicker of her innocence shone through, however feigned. "Familiarize myself with Loviatar's doctrine," she shrugged, as if obvious, "receive her blessing."
A snort of laughter rippled through his bared fangs, fast and acerbic. It tore through her in a flash of lurid heat, before clotting to a cold, hard knot that yanked at the pit of her stomach. "You needn't try so hard to impress me, darling."
"And you needn't give yourself so much credit." She all but spat. "It might appall you then to learn I seldom act in the interest of earning your approval."
"Oh, love." In a flourish of his lips curling over his fangs, he dipped lower, cerise stare then level with her own. "You'll need to try harder than that."
He saw to impose the little sorceress through his condescension, but she refused to bow to it. She tossed her chin up at him, as if she stood a full foot taller. "Is this not the encore you requested?"
"No, it is not." He almost laughed, either losing his patience to her sarcasm, or having missed it entirely. "Reducing a goblin to pathetic sniveling was a sight. Witnessing you whipped until you're begging for mercy is hardly a comparable performance."
Each held the other's stare, both defiant for entirely different reasons.
Without warning, her clenched jaw softened. She was then looking into him, instead of just at him.
Though Astarion was more than accustomed to her peering at him in that way, the timing was curious. He found more unsettling familiarity in how exposed it made him feel, to which his lack of consent had him all the more resistant to linger. For fear that his discretion had begun to slip, he pivoted.
"All that aside, the only one you should be crying out for, and begging, is me." His hand lifted to twist a lock loosened from her ponytail between his fingers, sickly reminiscent. "Something you did with enthusiasm only a short while ago, if memory serves."
Her palm slid across the sinews in the top of his hand, only to untangle his grasp from her hair, and pluck it away. "A lapse in judgement I intend to rectify."
Without another word, she spun on her heel and ripped away from him. A foreshadow of what was to come. He watched as she marched back to the priest, his upper-lip curling in a glimpse of appreciation. Her insolence aroused him.
That bitter-sweet indulgence was cut short, as Abdirak's voice slithered between them once more.
"It would appear the little lamb has opted to leave your fold in favor of mine." The way he smiled at Sabine suggested graciousness, but Astarion knew better. He ushered the the tiny half-elf towards a full table to his left. "Right this way, dear one."
Astarion's gait was measured as he came forward to join her, just in time to hear the breath catch in her throat. It wasn't until he found himself hovering above her shoulder did he then understand why.
While he eyed the instruments laid before them with disinterest, it felt as though the blood in his veins turned to an icy sludge.
An array of flails lined the surface of the table, all with varying degrees of intimidation. Some single-tail whips, the most prevalent were floggers with full tresses. Leather bound, inlaid with bone, or metal. Astarion spied a crop or two amidst the aggregation. Each and every of his tools faintly stained with blood, Abdirak gestured to them with veneration.
"You'll find all options to be suitable, however, given the baptismal nature of this your first time, I invite you to make the selection."
While she peered at the spread before her, deeply contemplative, Astarion could hear her heart-rate spike. The rapid, thrumming swell within her small chest, steady but insistent. Looming over her shoulder as he was, the decibel was almost maddening.
"I believe my ignorance on the matter inhibits that privilege." Fingers twisting at her middle, Astarion couldn't discern if her sheepishness was due to the sinking reality, or that she had him for an audience. She cleared the hesitation from her throat, and spoke firm and clear. "I defer to you."
Abdirak nodded in understanding, and flashed her such ardent approval it almost had Astarion stepping in between them again. Almost.
Chivalry was still foreign, and no match against his deviance. That internal war raging to exhaustion; the version of himself she at times inspired, and the truth of his nature. Both sides ever opposed, and in that moment, each vied for dominance.
He could have sneered at himself for even just the dalliance with that notion. This isn't chivalry. He swallowed around the thickness in his throat. This is damage control.
Still, he watched the priest like a hawk as he perused his arsenal, splayed hand waving over his collection before halting at his preferred implement. A long black flail with an intricate, braided handle. Buried within the soft leather tails were twin chains. Their heft jingled insidiously as he lifted it, reacquainting himself with the weight of it molding to his palm.
Dangling from the end of each chain were what could only be categorized as charms, and ones that very much resembled flanged mace heads. The edges blunt and nicked from use, their points dulled, it would serve to bruise more than lacerate. But if kept up long enough, if whipped just so, her skin would pull apart as easily as a spiders web' beneath finger-tips.
All Astarion could think of at that moment was her strangled whimpers whenever he bit down on her neck, and the subsequent locking of her body from the pinpricks of pain.
He wasn't sure why. He'd seen her waltz through enough skirmishes at his side, and witnessed first hand how well her dainty frame could absorb moderate blows, only to bounce back just as fast. While it remained true she couldn't withstand as much punishment as Karlach, or Shadowheart, her resilience was nothing to scoff at.
But when he looked at her now, in the wake of the priests flail, he couldn't help but picture her shattering like an icicle the moment it so much as tapped her back. So fragile, and delicate.
A thing to be broken.
She was then instructed to shed her belts, cincher and corset, lest the padding of all those unnecessary layers deprive her of the fullest extent of Loviatars scourge. Abdirak left her to lower the manacles from the wall, adjusting them to her height.
Hands at her waist, her fingers trailed from one set of buckles to the next, moving with the unhurried grace of someone who by his estimations, had not a clue what they were in for. All the while with Astarion breathing down her neck.
His hands hovered above her, but went no further. As if touching her would suddenly see her strung up by her wrists.
A boundary he had felt himself privy to cross so freely so many times prior, it never occurred to him to think before he did it. Cradling the small of her back, cupping her by the elbow. Tracing her cupids bow with his thumb. All things he did so readily. Touching her felt as natural, and earned, as breathing. Yet as he observed the priest and his thinly veiled lechery, he felt frantic.
One silver wolf paced, while the other laid in wait.
"I know to suggest such a thing opposes your very nature, but let's not be rash, darling."
Bundling her cincher and belts with care, she set them down on the table. "Why are you so adverse to this? I expected you to be encouraging most of all."
If anyone is going to defile you, it is to be me, and me alone. And I shall do so for no other higher purpose realized than my own selfish whims.
"Yes, well, pardon the deviation from my character. I suspect it might have something to do with the all too recent accusation of predictability, if you recall?" A quick burst of amusement bubbled through her lips, though it lacked the necessary mirth. Astarion continued, stressing; "I know that I least of all should be calling anyone's piety into question, but he seems a tad too eager for my liking."
"Careful, Astarion. You're quickly surpassing mere predictability, and are well on your way to gallantry."
So dry and biting was her remark that he could scarely believe it came from her lips instead of his own, had he not just heard it in her voice, with his own ears.
"I know you have this insatiability for worldly experience, and it's all rather tedious, but this priest means to thrash you within an inch of your life and hear how prettily you yelp for it, all for the explicit purpose of appeasing Loviatar. Do you understand?" The soliloquy streamed from his tongue in such a fluid, seamless delivery it had the air of being rehersed.
"I do." However unconvincing, Astarion noted she now oozed just as much frustration as he felt. "Now, are you quite finished playing mother hen, or would you like to continue your lecture?"
She was trying to get a rise out of him. And he was astounded to recognize that it was working.
In a last ditch effort, he snatched her by the upper arm and yanked her in closer to him, like a parent corralling an unruly child. At first resistant to his hold, the more she struggled, the more he tightened it.
"I'm feeling unusually noble just now," she stumbled over her toes, but he didn't care. He didn't stop. "And in light of this, I'm inclined to see you spared of the trouble you're so very anxious to jump into. So, hear me when I say;" he surprised them both with how low he growled his warning, leaning his face in closer to hers, "If this infuriating little act of yours is done just to spite me, it will not work."
Her mismatched glare narrowed, before she hushed; "It seems to me it already has."
Their faces not an inch apart from one another's, his hot breath misted against the freckled bridge of her nose. The little sorceress was unflinching, refusing to back down. The tension between them strained to it's limit, as inescapable as the reek of dried blood and pheromones on the stagnant air. Equalled to the bitter potency against the back of his tongue, should he breathe deeply enough.
But Sabine wasn't finished yet.
"What are you so afraid of? That I'll enjoy him more than I have you? That I'll prefer his ministrations to yours?" She sought to challenge him now. "Are you worried, Astarion, that after an experience like this, I'll no longer crave you in the dead of night? That I'll have outgrown you?"
Her adrenaline spluttered over, uncontained, threatening to drag her under. She could have continued. But his crimson eyes were as scathing as she suspected her own might be.
So she left it there. Hanging heavy in the air between them, tender and exposed. The gauntlet was thrown. In his failure to deter her, he now sought to match her, blow for blow.
Astarion hissed through a wicked grin. "Oh little sorceress, I'd love to see you try."
Releasing her arm, she stumbled back to land against her heels with a click that echoed throughout the chamber. It wasn't until he let go did she realize the strength he used to keep her still, her bicep throbbing with the absence of his grip.
When he cut, it was purposeful. Expert. He knew where to press, and to what end.
Sabine cut just to cut. And she cut deep. Her claws had drawn blood, and even that proved unsatisfactory.
Turning her back to him, she tossed her head over her shoulder with an expectant look. Gesturing to the clasps at the small of her back, the words melted from her tongue like honey from the comb. "Would you mind?"
Astarions jaw clenched, the muscle rippling beneath his smooth skin. The final tide of his anger. He snapped his hooded glower to Abdirak, who patiently stood in wait with his hands clasped.
If he had learned anything about the little sorceress in the time he had known her, it was that once her heels dug in, there wasn't much room for persuasion. His silver tongue aside.
She wants to play defiant? She wants to act out? Be my guest.
He'd be there to lick her wounds, and dry her tears at the end.
And she'll be eating out of the palm of my hand for it.
Astarion softened his brow, the corner of his lips drawing back into a simper. Clearing his throat, his hands lifted to undo her buckles with practiced ease. He spoke low, so as to keep his words between them. "There's nothing I can say to dissuade you, then?"
His ear perked to the faint thudding of her quickened heartbeat. She fought to quell her nerves, and forcefully cast away her doubt.
"No." Rolling back her slender shoulders, she gave her best sigh of contentment. Whether it was for his benefit, or her own, that remained unclear.
His agile fingers swept from one buckle to the next, taking his time with each, before the corset then sprang apart in his hands. Deliberate in his ploy to tease her with as much contact as possible, he allowed his hands to languidly graze over her waist and along her back. Dragging the corset, and his roving palms, around her middle as he stripped it from her.
She did her best not to shiver under his touch, but she couldn't hide that from him. She never could. Her abdomen was a sensitivity he exploited without mercy. His scarlet gaze twinkled.
Releasing her, he neatly folded her corset to join her other belongings, his hands colder than usual from the loss of her body heat. Bending to purr against the shell of her ear, she shuddered against the finality of his words. "Don't let him see you flinch, darling."
The Priest beckoned her to the wall, ready to begin.
Sabine said not another word. Nor did she look at him before she parted.
Determination held her head high and her shoulders back, sending the little sorceress heel and toe into the abyss of Abdirak's domain with the utmost elegance.
Taking a step back and resting against his heels, Astarion crossed his arms over his chest. All he could do was watch.
The priest guided her dainty hands through the cuffs, before then tensioning the restraints around her wrists, having to push her bracelets aside as he did so. Arms hoisted up well above her head, the shackles forced her to face the wall.
He was thankful at the very least that she couldn't see the fire alight in his eyes.
The twisted handle of the flogger was soon slotted back into Abdirak's hand, and he gazed at it, like he had been reunited with an old friend. Wasting no more time on formalities, he strode wide around Sabine's vulnerable body, sizing up her posture.
Once in position, he began.
The first few blows were exploratory in nature. Finesse over force, he sought to ease her in, rather than maim.
She lurched forward each time, straining at the cuffs for stabilization, bracing herself for the next. She hissed against the caress of the leather, and the bite of the chains, but offered no more than that.
Abdirak seemed most displeased by her resistance, his insufferable patience nearing it's end.
"To deny the Mistress your humility is to deny yourself the generosity of her grace!" His admonition fervent, he spun his wrist and brought down the flail diagonally against her back. One of the charms, or both, snagged the cotton of her blouse, and upon withdrawal, tore it in a jagged streak from shoulder to hip.
Her bare skin now exposed, and more than a little red from what she had endured thus far, his next strike drew a loud, shrill whine to unspool itself from her throat.
"Yes, yes that's it, child! Let us hear you, let Her hear your sincerity!"
Abdirak's arm was a blur, driving forward and back, casting the brunt of the barbed cat-o-nine tails to her supple flesh, again and again. She writhed, harsh gasps choking out past her lips. Still, she wasn't giving him what he wanted; she was being too reserved.
Abdirak either became sloppy, or vindictive. The tresses of his flogger wailed against the same spot, and did so repeatedly. Seeking to split her open.
She howled up into the high, vaulted ceiling until her throat sounded as raw as she looked. But through it all, she kept erect. Heels planted squarely beneath her. She forbid herself from slumping, even as his vigor increased. Making up in endurance for where she lacked physical strength.
Abdirak demanded her submission, and she refused it.
Astarion felt his brows reach toward his hairline. His features nonplussed, his tongue uncharacteristically still. He was sure once they began he'd have a slew of remarks at the ready to goad her through. Instead, her tenacity rendered him speechless.
The look in Abdirak's eye as he whipped her was hidden from him, but not the adoration that was heavy in his tone. His enthusiasm. He noted the sweat built up at the nape of his neck and matting down his coarse hair, before breaking away to roll down the flexing musculature of his back.
More of that dreaded, uncomfortable familiarity. Only this sensation was posing more of a challenge to ignore.
He had yet to face such conflict within himself. Her fierceness didn't shrink under the punishment, but rather it flourished. Her sounds were melodic. The way her body responded, and by extension, rebounded, left him greatly impressed, despite his warning to the contrary.
And through it all, did weeds of envy sprout in the cracks of his admiration.
Sabine continued to hold on. Just a little bit longer, and then longer still, after every time he thought she might yet crack. But her stamina couldn't shield her from the agony. Loviatar's scourge chipped away at her with every whack, her skin beginning to splinter.
The blunt aches turning to brilliant stings, the shift left her susceptible to the weakness of her flesh. And in that weakness, she sang the most deliciously.
Spiced and aromatic, the headiness of her blood gradually overwhelmed the rancid air. His nostril twitched. He had broken skin.
The next few strikes saw her gasping with more desperation at the end of each. Her body quivering, her back throbbed, warm and slick. Buzzing with sensitivity, she lifted to her tiptoes as strangled cries, each new one louder than the last, were tugged out of her.
The leather began to stick to her. The charms wrenched the gashes wider, and sought to burrow within them. A tingling sensation trickled from the burning at her traps down to her aching hips, followed by a blissful numbness, her body granting her that meager charity. But it wasn't happening fast enough.
The priest rewarded her with proper lacerations, before soothing it over with ravings of her fortitude. Her prowess. Her performance.
Just as Astarion had done with her.
To witness another man in a position he felt was reserved solely for him, and therefore sacrosanct, saw his pupils blown in ferality.
He withheld the right to her submission, as he did the praise thereafter.
He should have been getting a rise out of this, to see her writhe and whimper. And he was. But the rot of possessiveness plagued him still.
He was foolish for not putting his foot down.
A stampede of heels screeched to a halt behind him, pulling him out of his own mind. Interrupting the beginnings of a spiral in which he was ever grateful to evade.
"What in the Nine Hells-!"
He immediately recognized the shrill accusatory chirp belonging to Shadowheart. He jerked his head around to see her front and center, the other's falling in behind her.
Karlach's mouth hung open, and he doubted very much she could shut it if she tried. An embarrassed; "O-oh." stuttered from Wyll. Gale merely blinked in rapid succession, eyes wide. Otherwise stoic, yet aghast all the same. It wasn't often he was at a loss for comments, or criticism.
They alternated between looking at Sabine, and then to Astarion.
A well timed yelp of hers pierced the preceding silence. He lifted his hands in innocence, and for one of the first times in his life, it was deserved.
"Don't look at me. I even tried to stop her." He grimaced at hearing those words on his tongue. However unlikely that sentiment presented, considering the source to be none other than himself, they were true all the same. "She insisted."
Knees beginning to buckle, Sabine snapped her head back to release a throaty groan of defiance. One of the pointed charms snagged into the wavy ends of her ponytail, and ripped out a few hairs as Abdirak yanked the flogger back to his side. Ready to wind up his next strike.
"Let me hear you, dear one!" His voice was ragged with sheer exhilaration. "Only when you release your pride will there be room enough for your penance to be received."
Switching the flogger to his non-dominant hand, the priest demonstrated it was no less proficient. Angling his wrist, he struck out at her in a sideways motion, landing the tails, chains and all, to whip against her rear. So hard, it whistled through the air before it made contact.
It cracked against her. Like a strike of lightning. Sabine jolted as far forward as the bindings would allow, as a loud, listless moan tumbled from her.
Astarion snickered to himself. Cheeky little thing, she did that on purpose.
Coming to join him at his side, the Sharran peered at the scene before her. After a brief beat of observation, she gave voice to the very thought he dared not utter; "I'm... impressed."
He nodded.
One no more taken aback than the other, the two of them continued to behold her, as she harmonized Abdirak's degenerate corner of the sanctum with her suffering.
Astarion's envy of the priest began to recede at long last. In it's stead blossomed pride for the little sorceress. And he was awash with it.
"You're doing magnificently, darling." He at last called out to her, knowing if he was in her place, he'd thrive off of praise. Hearing his voice with his own ears, he sounded no more than an appropriately enthralled spectator, though his admiration was obvious. "The good priest would be remiss not to hold all future acolytes to your standard."
Abdirak gulped air into his burning lungs, combing the mop of hair from his face in a brief reprieve between blows. He seemed to get just as much out of all of this as he claimed Sabine would receive for her willingness.
"Yes indeed. The purity of your cries, how you embrace your agony; an exhibition most worthy of our Maiden's reverence."
The delicate tremors at the start were now replaced by violent shakes that undulated throughout her little body. The priest would draw back with a fervent sneer before then seeing the whip through, increasingly more vicious.
She was beginning to come under the pain, having firmly stayed mounted atop all this time.
Yet even when she allowed herself to be pulled under, she only resurfaced that much more graceful in her determination to prevail.
The moment it promised to nullify her, with a deep grounding breath, she rallied. Time and time again, stilling her body and quieting her mind, before the force of the next blow demanded her attention.
Whenever it did, she was sure to respond with believable theatrics. From delicate whimpers to downright, obscene moans, he couldn't tell if they were for the priest, or if she was trying to put on a show for him.
Occasionally, little broken "p-please"s, would slip out, and Abdirak seemed to like those best of all.
It earned her a lashing so firm it lifted her to her tip-toes. She clawed at the manacles, scrambling to get enough footing to arch up and away from the chains, and tresses. All to no avail.
Once Abdirak stepped to the side to dole his next round, Astarion was given a clearer view. Gore marbled down the length of her body from multiple grooves. He could hardly tell where the bloodied tatters of her blouse ended, and chewed flesh began.
He winched. His own back throbbed in tender empathy.
It was becoming more and more apparent she was beginning to succumb. Her cries growing in their infrequence, and sounding just as tenuous. She slumped forward on weakened ankles, her head lolling forward. The cuffs at her wrists the only thing to suspended her upright, she hung there like a broken toy.
The flail crashed down upon her body like waves to a shoreline. His every strike threatening to pull her under deeper, and for longer. To drag her to the depths of exaltation, the type that could only be conceived through one of Loviatar's most adept.
The priest whipped her once more for good measure, which had Astarion moments from stepping in, despite himself. A strained whimper escaped her, and then nothing.
She had succumbed.
Soon after Abdirak was wound down, as that final strike proved to be the last.
Sabine was still, and silent. Her shallow breaths barely audible. Astarion swallowed hard, the copper sweetness of her blood all he could smell.
Abdirak set down the flogger with care, before returning his attention to her. Approaching her as his own panting had yet to subside, he loosened the bindings of one wrist, and then the other. The moment she was released, she collapsed.
To his credit, he was quick to catch her. Hoisting her limp frame up against his body, her heels shuffled beneath her in search of her footing. His forbearing smile turned nefarious at catching sight of Astarion's watchful stare, hardened with obvious concern.
Abdirk locked eyes with him as he pet her hair. "That was most devout a display, dear one."
Allowing her a moment more to catch her breath, he then slipped his calloused palms around her flushed cheeks, cupping her face. Closing his eyes, he bowed, gently resting his perspiring forehead to hers.
The dulcet murmur of his prayer was hushed, meant for her ears only, as he wove the blessing with his tongue. The blessing she had earned.
Her shredded back still to him, Astarions impatience swelled in a nagging ache from within the seat of his chest. He had allowed the little sorceress her fun. Her disobedience. But the longer the priest held her, the more anxious he grew to pry her away.
As Abdirak's prayer concluded, he carefully spun her around to face her companions, all while coaxing her away from the precipice of unconsciousness.
His hands still around her shoulders, the muscle there seized by spasmodic cramps, she felt herself swaying in place. In an attempt to blink away the murkiness from her bleary vision, the darkness encroaching with every flutter of her lashes, only half of her party was visible. Blurred to distortion, she could make out Gale, Karlach and Wyll only.
She squinted, looking around. Surmising Shadowheart to be close by, she knew Astarion must still be there. But she couldn't see him. The vision in her right eye had been snuffed out completely. It could see only pitch black nothingness.
Her mouth opened to call out for him, but no more than a dry croak was produced, as if she had a mouthful of ash. It was then she felt Abdirak's hands lift from her, casting her forward on two wobbling, unreliable legs.
Her steps criss-crossing in delirium, even the clicks of her heels against the stone echoed her drowsiness. She soldiered through, until she could no longer. Wavering with the threat of unconsciousness, her legs gave out from under her. Though she did not travel far.
Stumbling square into someones chest; it was sturdy and cool to the touch. Her cheek met buttery leather and fine silk, sharply fragrant with bergamot and brandy as she breathed. A familiar chest.
Astarion was most surprised of all that he was there to catch her. Having lunged forward with the first sign of her faltering, he had been at the ready the moment Abdirak let her go, if not sooner.
Holding her to him and careful not to aggravate her wounds, he breathed into her hairline; "that was quite the performance, little sorceress. I rescind my assertion about the legitimacy of this encore."
Sabine's back shrieked. What was left of her blouse caught against her wounds, and pulled, whenever she took too deep a breath. Yet upon hearing his silken crooning, she felt at ease. As much as she tried to fight it, as diligent as she had been in trying to curve it, her body reacted to him. It yearned for him. As if trained by him to do so from just the handful of nights they spent together.
Had she any energy left, she would have resisted it still. Instead, she melted into his embrace. Gulping his lavish musk with labored breaths, as the adrenaline siphoned from her.
Her clothes had cushioned the blows some, but not much. The stinging of her back and hindquarters were now more of a consistent, yet burning, ache. Still trembling, her arms draped across his upper body for purchase, but not a whisper of strength remained in her hands to grab ahold of him properly.
As he cradled her to him, Astarion couldn't help but taunt the priest one final time. "Do you always get such satisfaction out of granting atonement on behalf of your goddess, or are you just especially zealous with the pretty ones?"
Shadowheart remained next to him, gathering the length of Sabine's ponytail off of her back to better assess the severity of the tissue damage. She arched a brow in his direction, but remained silent otherwise.
Having discarded Sabine, Abdirak busied by cleaning her blood from his flogger. He merely chuckled. Enraptured in euphoria as he was, it saw him immune to provocation. The little sorceress well surpassed his expectations, and brought him all the closer to Loviatar for it. His divinity satiated by her performative repentance.
"Lets get her back to camp, shall we?" Shadowheart brushed an errant lock of Sabine's hair off of her sweat-dampened forehead. Ever sororal to the younger half-elf, the smile she cast down on her was as warm as it was patronizing. "Our business here can wait until morning. I'd say she's had enough fun for today."
"My Gods, that was fuckin' brilliant!" Karlach cackled, volunteering herself to collect Sabine's belongings. "You're somethin' else, kid."
Sabine mumbled something unintelligible into Astarion's chest.
His surface level inspection revealed a handful of gashes striping over his shoulder blades, and trailing along the grooves of her ribs. Throbbing and angry, they were all largely superficial.
"Looks as though you'll be left with more than a few bruises." He sighed, the tip of his fang glimpsed through the warmth of his smile. "Never the matter, if you're no good on your back, you'll just have to make do on top."
Though her tone slurred, her words remained clear. "Coming at me with your lines... now of all times," even with unconsciousness nipping at her heels, she was slowly returning to him, "your irreverence is beyond reproach."
His chuckle rumbled the freckled cheek still stuck to his chest. She sagged into it with a small smile of her own, her first of the day. Sincere, but weak. She was fast fading.
Astarion thought to keep going, to further stimulate her responsiveness. To keep her with him.
"And my beauty?" He teased. "What of that?"
A soft groan was her only reply. He smiled.
He couldn't very well carry her in his arms, eyeing her back in its condition. "Bear with me, darling." He announced, before scooping her up to fold over his shoulder. Strewn over him like dead weight, limbs and ponytail dangling, she answered with no more than deep, slumbering breaths.
-
Their campsite was quiet that evening. Nothing but the sound of wind rustling gently through the trees, the distant murmurs from around the fire, and the crickets.
As he spied Shadowheart exiting Sabine's tent, he supposed that time was as good as any. A vial of salve in hand, her head snapped to his direction as he shifted into view, the light of the fire dappling across his chest and face through the shadows.
The stoic half-elf eyed him ruminatively for a moment, looking as though she had something she wanted to say, or perhaps ask. Opting to abandon that course altogether, she instead offered; "she's improving."
Astarion's smile of acknowledgment was tight, and wordless.
Nodding, she took her leave of him, and headed towards the fire. He lingered before the entrance of her tent, first looking over his shoulder to Shadowheart's retreating back, and then to the ornate crystal vial in hand.
He thought she was a thing to be broken. He was proven wrong.
And grateful for it.
Brows drawn, his eye caught sight of her tattered, bloodied clothes crumbled in the dirt, just outside the entrance.
The howl of the flail cutting the air still echoed against the shell of his ear. As did her gasping bleats that answered.
Astarion's chest tightened once more, the heaviness there persisting. Sighing to himself in the humid night air, he saw himself in.
He was invited by a pocket of flickering amber candle light, luring him with it's pleasant, sensual glow. A bouquet of cloves and mint filled her tent, almost strong enough to mask the spice of her blood that lingered beneath.
He was unable to rid his nostrils of her smell ever since the sanctum. Just as the sight of her strung up and whipped greeted him every time he shut his eyes. His palms, and arms alike, throbbed with a decided chill from the absence of her heat, of her body molding into his touch. His every sense invaded by the memory.
Laying prone on a bed of her pillows, turned away from him, her head rested against crossed arms. Her bare body was covered by no more than a diaphanous slip of fabric, nothing too heavy or textured, so as to avoid further irritation to her wounds.
Her breaths soft, she spoke before he had the chance. The battle with unconsciousness a distant memory, her words were sluggish all the same. "Are you still feeling unusually noble?"
He took pause, the corner of his mouth pulling in a wry grin. "Perhaps. Why do you ask?"
"Because I'd like to be spared whatever snide remarks you might have saved about hasty decisions, and regrets, and how often you warn you me of both."
"And here I thought they fell on deaf ears, given you've yet to listen even just one of those times." He clicked his tongue through a cocky smile. "I suppose its beyond your control. Your naivety renders you vulnerable, but your curiosity sees you hungry. Rest assured, little love, I have not come to gloat."
Propping her chin up on her forearms, she stared straight ahead with a quiet sigh. "Then why have you come?"
Though she wasn't looking at his face, he suspected she could feel his simper.
"To dote on you, of course." Punctuated with a pop, as he freed the cork from the tight neck of the vial. He heard her breath catch.
When he wanted, Astarion could move virtually soundless. Commanding silence with as much ease as he did the shadows. But she could hear the rustle of his clothing, his calm breaths, and the clearing of his throat. She didn't know why, but she took comfort in that. In his unequivocal presence, just the two of them, alone in her tent. Even his silence brimmed with amorous anticipation.
He was impossibly gentle, more so than she had ever been willing to credit him for previous, while he handled her. The pillows dipping beneath his weight, he knelt down at her side to first comb her waves off her back. He employed just as much care in pinching the edge of the sheet, peeling it back and folding it neatly at her waist.
Astarion hummed aloud. A far cry from perfect health, Shadowheart had done wonders. Spared from what would have otherwise been a litany of scars, bruises still stained her flesh like splotches of brooding watercolor. Raised welts and newly closed gashes veined across her slender back and narrow waist in a pattern not dissimilar to Abdirak's.
"In fact, I believe an apology is in order for having tried to stop you." Allowing the thick, opalescent liquid to pool in his cupped palm, he rubbed his hands together, coating each thoroughly. "Though in the end, no one was more delighted than I in my failure to do so."
Starting at her shoulders, he swept his touch down over her ribs, and along the protrusion of her shoulder blades. Slick and oily, his cold hands were pure and unadulterated relief to her sore skin, and she leaned into the feeling.
"I suppose I'm far more resilient than you sought to give me credit for." Her tease dripped from the tip of her tongue, headier than either expected to hear.
"So it would seem."
With feather light pressure, he continued down the length of her back, palms placed at either side of her spine. His fingertips palpated the mini peaks and valleys made by her ribs, and the raised welts that crossed over them.
"Well, the good priest was nothing if not thorough. I'll give him that." He mumbled absently, adept in maneuvering her sensitivities. "You did well."
His praise came earnest, unburdened by frivolity or deceptive adornment. His voice was soothing and plain, a welcome change from his usual playful, and at times exaggerated, timbre.
She was too tired to hold up her walls, to shut him out, her physical vulnerabilities aside. So she allowed herself the contented sighs, and sounds of pleasure he drew out of her. She allowed her body to relax under his hands. Yielding to his affection, and how genuine he made it appear.
He tugged the blanket down further and further, as he discovered more welts. It wasn't long before he was dragging the fabric over the swell of her rear, and the extent of them continued on. Only when he uncovered her to the back of her knees did they end, the streaks and bruises stopping mid-thigh.
A long, heavy sigh bled from his grimace. Deepening his voice in a way that roused a familiar, damnable heat between her exposed thighs.
"What am I to do with you." He mused more so to himself, she answered him regardless.
"Keep me out of trouble."
A genuine titter slipped through his lips, and she quietly relished the achievement. "Yes, because that's been a rousing success thus far."
His then palms grazed over her perky rear, and she dug her fingers into her elbows. Though his touch was starkly devoid of personal greed, the contact saw her heart slamming itself against her chest.
Horizontal ridges, and closed gashes streaked over her glutes and the tops of her thighs. The worst of them eased by their dedicated cleric, all that remained was swollen, and angry flesh in dire need of his attention.
Her eyes fluttered shut, her breaths turned shallow as he cupped his hands wide around the tops of her thighs, and massaged the medicinal ointment into them. A hint of burn, it then turned pleasantly chilled. More pleasant still that it was delivered from his hand. "You don't have to volunteer as my keeper, I'll have you know."
"I'd sooner consign myself to a life of chastity." His patronizing was as smarmy as his grin. "Darling, you need me."
She snickered. "I know the same cannot be said for you."
Her words were rooted in surrender. They were too wistful for the intimacy of their setting, for the playfulness he was trying to cultivate. He would have none of it.
"Well now that was a silly thing to say." He softened his voice considerably. "I should think those little punctures on your neck are too fresh for you to have convinced yourself of that."
She grew quiet, and stayed that way. Embarrassment had sunk it's hooks in. She hadn't meant to blurt out something so revealing, least of all to him. But she was exhausted.
He exhausted her.
After waiting for what felt like the appropriate amount of time, he chimed in again, cadence ever coy.
"We make quite the pair. I do my best to keep you safe and sound. As repayment for burdening you, as it were."
Sabine had sucked in a breath, and held it until her lungs burned. You are my burden. She didn't think she'd find herself faced so soon with something she had said so thoughtlessly. Though he brought it back up in jest, she felt an explanation was owed. But she couldn't bring herself to come out with it.
"Astarion, I...," she shook her head with a quiet, lengthy sigh, "What I mean is... I didn't mean to-,"
He waved his hand. "I've had far worse said from far less deserving. If that was your worst then I'd say I got off light, wouldn't you agree?"
"I didn't... do this to spite you. Even if I thought that possible." The weight of that sentiment struck him, the implication sinking to the pit of his gut. He voice became small, so small, he almost had to strain his ear to hear her. "I... I thought you'd enjoy it. All of it."
I told you; you needn't try and impress me.
"Oh I did, a great deal." He recovered with his usual degree of suaveness. "But I, personally, prefer you on the receiving end of my ministrations." He then added, his eye glinting with mischief in the candlelight, "and for you to be a touch more conscious."
If she hadn't already been so lethargic with exhaustion, she would have been reeling. She shook her head, grinning. "Only just."
He smiled. Their banter returned.
Regaining his stride, he tried his luck with pressing her, but only a little. "Tell me, what was the source of all that delicious anger? Make no mistake, that's not a complaint. You're quite provocative when you're that fiery."
She smirked, and the harder she fought it the harder it fought back. Though they weren't facing one another, she suspected he could hear it in her voice all the same.
Gods damn him.
"I feared I was being coddled." Her directness was one attribute of many in which he was becoming well versed. "In fact, had you not interfered so heavily with that priest, I might not have gone through with it in the first place."
He cast her a placative smile, not that she could see. In one effleurage stroke, he worked his hands from her bruised thighs, all the way up her body to her shoulders.
"If we're going to start lying to each other now, you're going to have to become much better at it, I'm afraid." He spoke as if he saw right through her, and had from the start. "You were positively livid well before we set foot in the sanctum. Why?"
Because every night you've come to my tent to toy with me. You've stripped me of all shame, and sense, and just as you have me begging for you with the abandon of a common whore, you leave me. Flat and ashamed. I've never wanted someone so badly, and felt so unworthy to have them all at once.
She cringed. Finding her reality to be as pathetic as it was undesirable, she instead confessed a different part of it. No less truthful, it was infinitely less sour to admit.
"I was angry at how badly I wanted to prove myself to you, to prove I wasn't some... some fragile thing. It seems as if I'm being tested by you, always." She detested how frail the cracking of her voice made her sound, but if for nothing else, it served to credit her sincerity. "I loathe the feeling, I wanted to be free of it." Closing her eyes, she swallowed, before finishing with a whisper. "Now I just feel foolish."
Astarion was quiet for an uncomfortable length of time. She stewed while he kept her waiting, hoping beyond hope that her explanation had sufficed.
His hands had long since left her, but when she felt him drag the sheet back up to cover her, her face burned.
Only he could make a nurturing gesture feel backhanded.
After longer still, and sounding more tired than she felt, all he came up with was, "Well, don't. You've no reason to."
More silence. As stifling and oppressive as the raw heat in her tent. She didn't realize it had gotten so hot and stuffy, and she found herself longing for his cool palms and long, elegant fingers on her once again. To quell the fire that raged against her abused skin from inside, threatening to blister her unless he would just touch her.
She now more closely empathized with Karlach. The need to be touched so fierce it lit a roiling inferno inside of her.
Sabine voiced none of this to Astarion. She laid there, withdrawn and vulnerable to his scrutiny, as the pain he had just eased was screaming once more.
Just as she felt she would combust from the internal pressure, and not a moment sooner, she heard his lips open as he prepared to speak. And she braced herself.
"My respect is earned, and not easily, mind." He chose his wording with as much care as he had tended to her injuries. "But you have it. And not because of how well you handle punishment. But because... Well, you're not one to back down so easily, are you?" He ran his tongue over his teeth, smirking to himself. "In my experience I've found persistence to be tiresome, however... I quite like yours."
Though his usual verbal embellishment was discarded, this was still honeyed poetiscm at it's finest. While he was deceptive by nature, he prided himself on the fact that he seldom, outright lied.
Not when it mattered. Not to someone with even a little importance to him.
He wasn't sure himself if meant those words, at least not as earnestly as he delivered them. But the shadow they cast left room for nothing but doubt.
"One last thing, darling. I didn't have the heart to correct you in front of the priest, being I... respect you, as I do. I find it pertinent to do so now." His eyes boring into the back of her head, he hadn't meant for his request to sound so much like a plea; "look at me."
Cautiously, Sabine did as he said. It held yearning, something she recognized, but refused to believe was genuine. Still, her eyes impossibly wide and meek, she locked them with his own, and waited.
He remained, silent and still. They hadn't seen the other's face, and it was only in that advantage that they found themselves speaking so freely. So unguarded. From the moment he entered her tent, on, their eyes met not once. Until now. Even so, his hesitation conveyed more than he would have liked.
Something he considered to be better left uncommincated.
She watched in an instant as the tenderness in his crimson gaze darkened. Brows, once bowed in surrender, became stern. "We are lovers."
A simple utterance, it was stated with such purpose. Such intensity. Once it was out in the open, his sharp features softened again. Conveying his desire for an understanding between them to be reached, without the need for more to be expressed.
She was still not without her reservations about the nature of their relationship, unconventional as it was. Though if she was able to remind herself that none of it was real, that all he was after was a bit of fun, then just maybe, she could save herself from getting hurt.
Astarion was fire, unpredictable and dangerous. Untamed. Scorching. If she continued to remember that, then perhaps she could indulge in his raw heat, without suffering the burn.
Perhaps she could share in his fun.
She never took her eyes off of him, not for a moment. When she found it within herself to speak, her voice betrayed her, thick with the heartache she was trying to mask. "Good night, Astarion."
"Good night, little sorceress." He swept in to place a kiss to her temple. It was the most tender touch she'd receive from him to date, that whole shared evening included. His tone drenched with such affection, the whole thing almost seemed... real. "Sleep well."
