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ASTARION POV
It just had to be the sewers. Of course it did. It wasn't bad enough that the Bhaal cultists themselves were clearly at a disadvantage when it came to knowing of cleanliness, but they even wallowed beyond the sewers. It just made no sense to him. Amaya had always been clean, well put together, even when dishevelled she had been clean. Then again, maybe the filth was part of the reason she had run? Astarion knew it would have sent him running, that was for certain.
Halsin had never been very good at being in the city – the cut stone and moulded metal made him uneasy in fundamental ways, nature being so stamped out or clinically contained. But as they crept deeper into the bowels of Baldur's Gate, the Druid seemed especially uneasy. And while it wasn't something Astarion considered his responsibility, it was hard to ignore that size of a person being fidgety. None of them had been at ease when Karlach's contacts came back with no way to Gortash, but they had decided as a group to at least attempt a rescue of Amaya all the same. It was that or abandon all hope entirely. And none of them wanted that. So why was the large man so… scattered?
Astarion cleared his throat as he walked alongside the Druid. "Penny for your thoughts?"
"Apologies, have I been showing my unease?"
"A little."
"I see. Apologies."
"I don't seek apologies, Druid, I seek understanding."
"Well it is difficult for me to get it out of my mind. We grow closer to the Bhaal hideout, I am sure of it, but we also have taken nearly two days to get here. I fear… Well that is, I cannot remove it from my mind completely that…"
"Do spit it out, Druid."
Normally the Druid had a warm disposition, an optimism built into the ground beneath his study feet. It amazed Astarion as much as it often irritated him also. To be so sunny. So smiley. At first it had him suspecting darker things of the Druid, that there had to be some awful truth beneath that determined grin. But the more they fought side by side, the more Astarion had found himself seeking that smile out in the darker moments. To know that even when the lights were fluttering to nothing, Halsin could see the sun somehow.
But in that moment, no smile was to be found, only worry pinched between Halsin' strong brows. "In this filthy dark place, to have one cut would be a dangerous situation to find oneself. We must be quick and vigilant when we find our dearest Amne. She will need much medicinal attention I fear. From myself, from Shadowheart, from our potions or anything else we have. I have seen the damage such infections can do to the body, the mind even, and it isn't a pleasant thing to see happening to someone else, let alone to be the one suffering."
The stench of the place suddenly made Astarion's nose wrinkle that little bit more. Yes, filth was everywhere. And they had no reason to suspect Orin and her lot would be meticulous about cleaning their blades. If anything, they would do the opposite. The idea of such filth infecting Amaya was sickening, to the point that the path ahead swum a little for Astarion. Decay had always frightened him, in his own particular way. But all of a sudden he could imagine her laying there, sweating with a fever, her blood darkening her veins like poison. Her eyes bloodshot, wide with delusions of the fever's madness.
Astarion swallowed hard. "I see. So we will have to tend to whatever wounds are still bleeding, and those that are… Well most likely to be…"
"Indeed. Bloodloss will not be the only silent killer waiting to claim her, I fear. But in the fights to come, in order to reach her, I will do my best to reserve some strength for my healing abilities. I will seek out Shadowheart and ask her to do the same. We do not wish to repeat what occurred after fighting the Death God that almost took you."
Astarion gripped the hilt of his dagger. "Amaya wouldn't want any of us to fall in her place though. That also must be kept in mind."
"I… I agree. Though I admit I am surprised to hear you say–"
"My want for her to live cannot outweigh my consideration of what she would also want. She would slap any one of us if we suggested our lives were worth less than hers. We'll be careful, but if it's a choice between saving that ability to cast or saving ourselves, we know which she would tell us to choose." Astarion knew he was right, even if the idea of letting her die instead of himself sent a shock of revulsion through him deeper than any dirt ever could.
"And if we lose her for it?"
Astarion stared at the ground as they continued. "Like I said… She'd just slap us for considering anything else."
"Mm, you are a good man, Astarion. No matter how hard you try to conceal that fact."
He smirked. "This world of ours rarely rewards those with good intentions… It's only recently I've met people who give a damn about it at all."
"And yet you retain the ability to be good. Quite the strength, I would say."
The Druid was kind, very kind. Astarion focused on his boots avoiding the worst looking of the puddles and hoped their intel was correct. If it was, they would be within the Bhaal temple within the hour. And then? Then they could cut down any cultists in their path, any of them trying to impede their rescue.
He held the hilt of his dagger until the metal bit his hand.
Hold on Amaya… Please.
They were far filthier than he dared to fear. The smell of old carrion was sickening as the group tore through the numbers of guards and lingering maniacs, and silenced any that might raise an alarm. Orin would be further in, if she was in at all. But it didn't seem likely she would have gone wandering at a time like this. Not with Amaya in her clutches. Not with her toy available to be played with. But none of the cultists seemed to recognise them, they were simply intruders to be dealt with, not allies of Amaya, not enemies of Orin. Just not meant to be there. Astarion was a little hurt by the lack of fanfare over their daring rescue, but for now it was working in their favour, so he made his peace with it.
And then they heard her scream.
Barely there, a broken wail that split the air to fade to echoes, but they all stopped and they all looked to each other for confirmation. Yes. That had been Amaya. They had heard her in that kind of pain on the battlefield of course, or when waking from a nightmare. But the broken edge of it, the desperation and weariness, that was new. And that was what frightened Astarion the most. But she was still alive. That was what he would take from the splintering notes. Amaya was alive.
Gale set his jaw and muttered something, a spell draping over the whole group, and they all looked a little bolder as they continued down the bloodstained steps. They could do this. They would do this.
And as they came to another corner and Astarion peered round to get a read on the situation, to double check what lay before them, he jolted. Shackled to a wall on the staircase, left in only tatters of a scrap of tunic they'd thrown over her, clinging to her bloodstained, grimey, sweat-slicked skin, was Amaya. Or what was left of her. She was mumbling, shaking her head at the cultists currently looming over her with a rusted blade, rubied blood still dripping from its point. Astarion hadn't even been able to smell her blood over the rest of the place; that was thick the air was with death.
"Get the fuck away from me, pig." Some words broke through her hysteria, her eyes glassy as she glared up at the figure and bared her bloodied teeth. "I get it alright? You've made your fucking point. Don't come any closer, y'hear? I'll tear you apart, you animal! Just leave me alone!"
Astarion glanced back at the group and nodded. They had their chance.
But as he stepped out, readying to pounce, to slice, to free her, a tutting sounded.
Spores erupted in front of Amaya, and pale blind eyes stared up at the group. Orin. She grinned, shook her head and cocked a hip. "I told you silly little heroes what the rules were, and now you do this? You spoil our game? Gortash still lives you little fools, you poultry cattle!"
Astarion stepped out, they were already discovered. "We're not playing your game. Release Amaya now. Your numbers are already dwindled, Orin, your temple's half bloody empty."
Behind Orin, Amaya's form slumped against the stonewall and looked up at the group glassily. Her skin was beaded in sweat, and he could only assume a fever raged within her broken body. But even so, a weak smile pulled on her lips. Until confusion puckered her brow and tears began to trickle down her cheeks. Maybe she didn't believe it to be true. Or maybe Orin had already been playing so many tricks on her mind that Amaya couldn't bring herself to trust it. Regardless, she had seen them, and now she would see them fight for her.
Orin giggled and clicked her fingers. The figure behind her undid the shackles and haphazardly dragged Amaya to her unsteady feet. Orin looked over her shoulder and Amaya winced at even a look from the horrid woman – Astarion tried not to think about all she might have endured in her time with Orin already. Wounds could be healed. Fears, quashed. They could help Amaya find her way back to herself, they just needed to get her out of there.
"Slaughter Kin, why don't you tell these little heroes what you want them to do?"
Amaya trembled and looked at Astarion for a moment, but barely, her eyes wouldn't settle on him for more than a glance. "L-Leave."
Karlach hissed between her bared teeth. "Soldier, you're not bein' abandoned here. I don't care what this bitch has made you think you have to say, we're not leaving you–"
"But you need to." Amaya choked out, wincing again when Orin looked her way. "This is wh-where I'm meant to be. Where I was born into, where I was m-made. I'm sorry. I… I don't know what As… Astarion told you but I should be honest with you all now."
Her voice trembled the whole time, but she seemed to almost choke again entirely on his name. Was that down to his own misdeeds? To his breaking her trust? Or had Orin done something during this horrible time? Had she turned into him and planted sick seeds into Amaya's mind? Even now, as she was speaking and standing, a flush of fever was on her otherwise pallid cheeks, and the sweat continued to dew her brow. She was ill. Very ill. And weak no doubt from exhaustion and bloodloss. On a good day, Orin could mess with someone no doubt, but when they were so weakened and wrung out? There was no telling the damage she might do. Or had done.
Amaya gritted her teeth, more tears falling as she visibly trembled. "I'm Bhaalspawn. This place is where I'm meant to be, it's what I ran from like a selfish fool. I'm poison. I'm not meant to be anywhere but here, not if I want anything good to come of it."
Astarion stared at her, knowing full-well the dark thoughts that led to such self-loathing, to resignation to the sullied shadows you were stuck in. For so long he had considered himself done with the world. To be of no further use or worth than what Cazador allowed, or ordered. That was it. No longer a Magistrate, no longer a High Elf, no longer Astarion and anything that man had once been – instead just a Vampire Spawn. Cazador's pet. Sucking on rancid rats and scuttling between shadows. A canvas stretched out for so many years, countless decades, left to rot in the shadows when unwanted.
The others were very quiet. No doubt they had held their own suspicions thanks to Orin's use of 'Slaughter Kin' and such, but to have it confirmed was something else. Bhaalspawn weren't even supposed to exist anymore, eradicated when the last ploy to resurrect Bhaal was thwarted. And yet, there stood two of them, right in front of them. And they knew the atrocities Orin had done in her 'father's' name, they had seen the evidence themselves. And supposedly, from her own lips, Amaya was the same? How would they react? Astarion had known for much longer, and he had far more personal experience with Amaya to weigh such information against. To him it made no more difference to her, than she had thought him being a Vampire Spawn made to him. She was still brave, still kind, still the type of person to stick her neck out for an ally and defend the weak.
Gale cleared his throat. "Considering I had absolutely no reason to suspect as such until hearing this Orin woman call you 'slaughter kin', I think it's rather well established that you're not what anyone would assume of a Bhaalspawn. You're good in a fight, yes, of course, but you're not vicious. I've never seen you relish a kill."
Orin's nose wrinkled. "A failed spawn perhaps, but she is still of Father's grand design. She is still destined for the crimson way of life, to spread it throughout these sluggish lands and–"
"Not finished." Gale held a hand up and continued. "From what I know of your uh… 'Father' I guess, is that he was afraid of dying and simply scrambled for means to be resurrected. Some interpret this as him going around sowing his uh… 'seed' as it were, with as many mortal women as he could, no matter their race or creed, if it would create life, it would do. Others take that and compound it with him dividing up his soul. So that each newborn would contain some of his divine essence as it were. Some think it was just a shattering of his soul, that found any nearby newborns and he wasn't actually directly involved in their procreation."
Karlach huffed. "Ya getting to a point there, Wizard boy?"
"Yes, yes." Gale smirked. "All that is to say… So what?"
Amaya blinked at him, brows pinched again in confusion.
He dipped his head. "You said you ran from this place, sounds a lot like a rejection of that world to me. That you didn't want to be here, that you chose to escape. Am I correct?"
She sucked a breath in between her teeth. "Yes, but I still have these awful urges. These m-moments where I see the bloodshed I could create, and something inside me wants to do it."
"But you don't." Gale nodded.
Lae'zel stepped forward. "Indeed. Often I have seen you be absurdly merciful more than anything else. Strong, yes. Courageous, indeed. But brutal… rarely. And usually only then after one of us, one of your allies, has been wronged or injured. Only then have I witnessed real frenzy enter your demeanour. You may be Bhaalspawn, like I am Githyanki, but you ran away from this den of mindless murder as I have turned from Vlaakith. You saw the wrongs and acted upon it, just as I. Bhaalspawn, yes, but a crude murder crazed fool who will do anything for another drop of blood? No. That I have not seen, not once."
And Astarion stayed quiet. On one hand of course he wished to be involved, to state his case on why she was worthy of being saved, of being freed from that awful place. But on the other he had no idea where he stood in her mind. He had been an ally, who fought beside her and whom she confided him and he alike with her. They had grown closer, they had become attached and then eventually romantic. But he had lied. He had withheld from her the truth of what she had forgotten, or at least part of it. So either she would see his words as entirely false due to those lies, or she might suspect him of falsely being kind due to their connection. Either way, it was not his time to speak.
She wavered on the spot, looking between them all, finding nothing but warm determination shining back at her. And Astarion made sure he didn't waver when she looked to him, searching for something, and even if he didn't know what, he wouldn't hide. Not that time.
She swallowed hard. "You don't hate me…"
Orin's teeth flashed into view and she turned, blade drawn, aiming to slam it right into Amaya's exposed stomach. But a light had returned to Amaya. A strength. She stepped to the side, grabbed the rusted blade from the figure from before and parried the attack. Clang. It rang out up and down the stone steps, her arm shaking from the effort of holding back the blow, but no contact having been made. She stared at Orin – not glaring, not baring her teeth, just staring with a kind of hollow pity that made Astarion ache.
Amaya shook her head. "You're a d-damn fool, Orin. You know that?"
"Says the slug turning her back on our glorious father who–"
"Who you intend to overthrow. There's no love of him in your heart, whatever the hells is left of it that is." She pushed Orin away, down a couple of steps, panting hard as the exhaustion peeked through the adrenaline no doubt. A slower blink. A heavier breath. But she was still standing, she was baring her teeth now and despite the tears still falling, the fury of Amaya was palpable. "You just hang on the coattails of his teachings and use it as an excuse for your manic doings. Red this. Crrrimson, that. Fuck you. And fuck what you tried to make me believe. H-Hells… You did. I thought you were right. Fuck you. How dare you. It's just gore and violence, there's no beauty in it, no greater purpose. You just enjoy people's pain you sick piece of rancid shit."
Orin's eyes shone with excitement. "You challenge me, Slaughter Kin?"
"No!" Amaya yelled, voice cracking. "I want nothing to do with this place, with father, with any of this horrid shit. That's why I ran, you moron. Why I fled. And you just had to come after me, didn't you? Had to prove yourself to these animals. I was gone. I had left. You had no reason to come for me other than your own ridiculous fears."
"Fears?" Orin laughed shrilly. "You think I fear the sorry likes of you?"
"Yes, because you're so determined to take me out of the equation." Amaya panted and shook her head, brandishing the blade at the figure who also receded a little. "I do not want this place, I do not want a position of power, but you're so paranoid that I might one day, that I might challenge you, that I have to die. You're pathetic."
Orin's eyes blazed and her teeth ground together, the blade shifting in her grip. "You will die in shreds."
"Oh probably." Amaya laughed wearily, smiling over at the group. Her blade still in her hand, but the grip shaky, her body wavering with every forced breath. They had to get to her in one bound, or she'd fall. Still, Amaya grinned and pointed the blade to the group. "But then you're going to have some very angry Heroes on your hands as well. Prepared for that, Orin?"
"Enough!"
And their blades clashed again, ringing out as more Bhaal worshippers seemed to come out of the very stonework and another fight began. Astarion leapt across the last few steps and skidded to Amaya's side, taking out the figure who had been looming before, and had been making a swing for her neck. Amaya struggled with Orin, but managed once again to force her to retreat a couple of important steps.
With that space came a moment for Amaya to clasp his shoulder. "Th-Thank you."
"Darling, save that for when you're healed and free of this place."
"N-No." She swallowed hard and shivered, a sweetness wafting from her that had nothing to do with sugar and everything to do with something deadly. Rot. Poison. Death. Her eyes were bloodshot, her lips so pale and chapped, but still she gave a weak smile. "Even if this is it for m-me, thank you."
He kicked away a cultist and turned to her properly, touching her cheek for a moment. "This is not where you die."
She laughed breathlessly and gestured to her body, littered in so many cuts, and wounds, small ones, bigger ones, all ragged and angry looking. All weeping darkened blood, the veins all around it blackened and spidering across her pale skin. His heart clenched. How was she even standing?
Her laugh came again in a wheeze. "I approve of the optimistic streak, don't get me wrong. B-But don't misplace it either. This is a lot of effort for a bit of forgiveness though."
"What?" He scoffed. "This isn't just for–"
Clang. She parried Orin again and threw herself into the fray proper. Astarion tried to focus on the task at hand, but the scent had been undeniable once he knew the source. The sweetness of decay. Amaya wasn't just ill – she had been poisoned with something truly evil, and it was eating her from the inside. They hadn't long before the shadows took her.
He sliced the throat of another cultist and kicked them down the stairs as the fight descended to the main area below. A podium sat in the middle – a large stone table still stained in puddles of fresh blood. And rage simmered under his skin as he breathed deep and confirmed his suspicions, yet more of Amaya's blood. It had only been a couple of days, but she had been dragged to the hells and back, and been flayed for every inch.
Drawing back his bow he fired at Orin, a little space having been created between her and Amaya at last. And as the arrow struck that slight, pale, body, she shrieked in outrage. He grinned. So often he had been forced to fight for his own survival, to struggle in order to even take another breath and live another day, but now? Now he fought for something else. For someone else.
Amaya made another few skillful strikes at Orin, and finally the villain seemed to be wavering herself. But of course, these things are never simple. Red pulsed across that ghostly skin. Power filled the air. Magic. Something new.
Amaya staggered back with a terrified expression. "You can't!"
But she could, and she did. Orin cackled and threw her arms out, the red enveloping her in arcane symbols as a pulse of magic swamped the room. And as things cleared, no longer was it Orin stood before them, but a beast. A literal beast with shining scaled skin and great pincers.
And a moment later, barely the blink of an eye, the beast moved.
It struck.
And Amaya's slight body was skewered.
"No!" Karlach bellowed. Shadowheart screamed, her radiant flames bursting from her hands. Gale went pale at the sight, his own spells stuttering for a moment. And even Lae'zel looked shocked as she held her greatsword aloft.
Astarion jolted as the next second took hold and the beast screeched, flinging Amaya onto the stone table where she landed limply with a choked cry of her own. She tried to get up. Tried to keep fighting, but her body wouldn't respond, and she was left sprawled as her blood pattered against the stonework.
And Astarion saw red.
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