Chapter Text
Using a bow was simple, right? Aim, pull the string with the arrow, fire. Even an idiot could figure that out.
Mister Blade of Frontiers had handed one to him to replace the one he looted from the goblin corpses in front of the gate. Apparently a surplus from the supplies given to the refugees, with a quick lesson from the man to boot. He would comment, but gaining the attention of a famous monster hunter isn’t on his to-do list for this excursion.
He followed along the back of the party as they investigated the strange noise by the cliffs of the druid grove. On the Blade’s request of course. Singing of some sort that didn’t sound like the bard their other fighter, Gin, had sat down with and wasted more of their time with.
Not a second later, the man is charmed by the harpies nesting down by the beach. He had run ahead to play goody-two-shoes and save the child currently getting preyed upon.
“Astarion!” the Blade calls from his position on the rocks, “Cover me!”
That phrase means entirely nothing for him tactically, other than watching the man run after their teammate now in knee-high waters. But as a harpy begins swooping down he pulls out the bow from his back and—
“Fire.”
There isn’t enough time to process whatever in the Hells that was before he nocks another arrow and shoots the second harpy in the wing who is shrieking at the sight of the other bleeding out within the waters. A stinging feeling fades in his hand as he goes for his dagger to finish it off.
“Relax your fingers.”
Right.
What?
The Blade pierces his rapier into the one grounded by his arrow, allowing for the rest of them to relax now that they’re all defeated.
“Chk! I would have procured you a bow sooner if you had told us of your skill.” Lae’zel prods into him while the others run for the nearly drowned child,
“Oh, I wouldn’t have expected to have found something of quality I could actually use.” he easily lies, “Be glad the Blade over there had the thought to provide me with one in the first place.”
The Blade laughs as he approaches, “Please, just call me Wyll if we’re to be traveling together from now on. The title is nice and all, but my name is much more preferred for a teammate.”
Wyll.
He supposes he’ll have to commit it to memory.
He grits his teeth when his eyes shoot open after a night terror, trying to still his body that hyperventilates on instinct even all these years after he stopped breathing.
Instinct.
That voice he heard was deep and commanding. And he listened.
That wasn’t Cazador. He’s known the bastard’s voice for two hundred years, he can tell the difference by now. Was it the tadpole? He’s not about to go asking around about hearing voices lest Lae’zel thinks it’s a sign of transformation and slaughters him on the spot. Even then, he’s supposed to be keeping up his cover as a simple Upper City magistrate to explain the fumbling around with his weapons.
His mind had felt empty for the first time in centuries, save for the worm in his skull, of course. There was no place for Cazador anymore, a hold he felt ever present since he crawled out of that grave. Dal had theorized it was the compulsion he held upon them, a buzzing in their minds of his rules and commands.
But it isn’t there anymore. Something new has taken its place because of the tadpole.
Call it a stereotype, but nocking an arrow that quick felt almost natural. As is his eyes narrowing on the target, pulling on the bowstring with enough power to fight the tension. He shut his shaking hand tight, opening it up to find nothing of a callous or scar that would have resulted from such training.
Any sign of it was probably flayed or sanded off ages ago.
It’s valuable, whatever this is. Something to make sure they can’t discard him, or whatever idea they have in their heads of what he is. He tries to think back on the voice, something to at least explain this thing that he never discovered in the past two hundred years.
Nothing.
There’s nothing there.
His life must have started in that grave.
They’re hazy, the memories he tries to pull upon prior to Cazador.
He remembers he was a magistrate, and the logical conclusions that knowledge brings when the flashes of the Gur beating him to death come to mind. All the rest of the lies he’s been telling them are on the spot and impressions he gets from schmoozing around the Upper City crowds for ages.
It was early on, when he and his siblings were making conversation out of boredom, that he realized he couldn’t remember anything past his death. Of course he wasn’t going to announce such weakness to anyone, he knows the rest of those wretches are clawing to have something to hold upon him. At least Dal still had the mind for intelligent conversation occasionally.
Did Cazador know him from before? Fraternize with the circles he frequented? Target him specifically?
Questions that he could only think about to stave off the dull boredom laying down in the dormitory begging for his mind to still into a trance. He at least remembers he was young. Thirty—something. Full grown in most of his peers' eyes that weren’t elves. At least that’s the impression he feels from what he’s attempted to draw upon for ages. Old enough to get a full education and respectable employment.
Did he live alone? Was there a family? Servants? A partner?
In the days where all those memories seemed fresher, why in gods name did he think no one was looking for him? People looked for the others—his siblings looking for them as well in their early days. All that tried were taken by Cazador of course.
Then he remembers the grave again. The panic. The blood spilling from his lips as he clawed and punched through wood and dirt.
He was buried. His body too covered in blood and gore to discover the bite marks he’s grazed his fingers over too many times.
“Someone must have loved you enough to bury you under a grave.” Dal had mentioned one year. He had laughed in her face at the time, but it can’t help but haunt him in the years since. Curse that woman.
People thought he was dead, and he is a ghost who stalked the streets.
It is after he sinks his teeth into a goblin in the dead of night that he confirms that Cazador’s rules no longer control him. And he is free.
He hasn’t heard any other voices since that encounter on the beach however, and it irks him. It isn’t the voice of the dream visitor they all share, and shooting the question around, no one’s heard anything similar since.
What is wrong with him?
Perhaps he is simply going crazy, and all of this is in fact, a vivid hallucination or dream. His mind, truly broken after all the abuse it’s received these past two hundred years.
The second he stalks back to camp he realizes that Wyll’s sitting by the dying fire. His new infernal eye seems to be the brightest thing amongst the darkness as his claws rub at the base of his horns.
“Did you manage to go through the firewood that quick?” he exclaims, the dozen or so lies coming to mind to answer Wyll’s question of his actions in the woods he just came out of,
“How was your hunt?” Wyll asks instead,
“Excuse me?”
He plays it off as an absurd question, at least he hopes his expression does with the sharp drop in his own stomach he’s feeling.
“Don’t take me for a fool, Astarion. The charm, the pallid skin, the pointed teeth that peek out when you smile. I know what you are.” Wyll lists off, “Your collar doesn’t hide the bite marks as well as you think.”
His foot shifts to run, just in case, “...Quite the record you’ve collected.”
“You were scared to cross that river the other day. And, by your sudden energy and increase in sour banter I’m presuming you’ve finally fed.”
Ah. He’s fucked.
“J-Just on the local wildlife! And—perhaps a goblin. Promise, I haven’t taken a drop from our group!”
His own practiced smile is weak and faulty with the fear streaming through his veins once again.
“I’ve noticed.” Wyll confirms, “Just keep your fangs out of innocent flesh, and I won’t drive a stake through your pasty-white chest. Deal?”
“...Deal.”
He watches Wyll visibly relax, “Now that’s a pact I can get fully behind.”
That’s…not the reaction he expected. But a welcome one! He’s at least possibly slightly less fucked than a second ago. Now he has to worry about the mob tomorrow when the rest of them wake and Wyll announces the new target on his chest.
“Were you really a magistrate?” Wyll asks, grabbing a stick to prod at the last sparks of the campfire, “How many lies did you spin to hide your true nature?”
“What is this, an interview?”
“I’d like to know what I’m really working with here. You surprised me with your marksmanship earlier.”
He crosses his arms and sits on the unfolded bedroll across from the monster hunter, “I’ve been trained. Probably. My master wasn’t one for arming his spawn.” he spits.
“Probably?”
“I—” his brows furrow at the thought of even telling Wyll about a weakness held close, “Just something from before. And I was a magistrate, give or take two hundred years.”
“...Two hundred years?”
“I always forget humans have such short lifespans.” he says quickly to dodge the topic, “But, believe it or not! I had a life before the whole blood sucking thing.”
Not that he remembers it.
But Wyll looks back toward the dead fire, the camp now only lit by the moon and the spare torches still burning. A hand goes to rub at his neck, nursing an ache of some sort. Probably caused by those dashing horns of his now that he thinks about it.
“So, are the questions over? Or are we still deciding my fate, forevermore?”
“Hm? Given the amount of secrets kept between all of us, yours isn’t the worst to be fair. I’m sure the rest will take it better than staking you the second you reveal yourself.” Wyll gives him a reassuring smile, much to his chagrin,
“Mine isn’t the worst? I’m a blood sucking vampire for gods sake!”
“I…I don’t believe the rest of you would associate with someone knowing there’s a devil just a stone’s throw away.” Wyll states plainly, “Nor when that person became a devil himself a day ago.”
“You’re still the Blade of Frontiers, darling. Though, the horns are quite the plus for my tastes. Such a demanding presence they give, I’d eat you up in a heartbeat I don’t have.”
He flashes Wyll a grin, wider than his practiced ones, just to make sure his fangs are on display.
Not a day later Gale tells them he houses a bomb in his chest that’s been ready to blow up if not for all the magic items he’s been “hoarding”.
The Underdark is as dreary and musty as he assumed it would be. Getting nearly knocked off a cliff and blown up by mushrooms does ghastly things to his overall mood.
As is having to sit around watching Karlach climb the rock wall of the mushroom field just to save some merchant’s dud of a husband. Her own body could set off the gasses of these fungi in a second! Is everyone in this group a massive idiot?!
At least Gale has half the mind to send a mage hand to pluck the mythical mushroom the merchant had talked to them about.
“It can cure about anything.”
Gin’s smarter when he suggests not handing such a valuable item to the merchant with no mentioned reward. Instead the idiot turns over to Shadowheart to ask if the thing would help with her own memory issues in any way.
“You…don’t think it would help?” The man questions, and Shadowheart is firm in her stance.
He doesn’t need glasses to see that she’s fighting through the pain Shar’s inflicting on her.
“No. I-I wouldn’t need it, anyhow.”
Gin frowns. “Are you sure?”
“I admire your…kindness. But, no. I don't need it.”
Shadowheart’s an absolute fool to think her goddess is actually going to do something for her. No matter, as soon as the man’s distracted by arguing with Gale about vegetables again he pockets the mushroom out of his pack.
Just in case.
“Hey - never asked this, but do you got anyone back in the city?”
Karlach’s brought her bowl of food over to where he’s lounging with one of the books Gin handed off to him.
“Rather forward. I like it.” he grins, shutting the book in his lap, “And—no, unless you count the bastard and my, ugh, siblings.”
“I’m taking a guess they’re not blood related.”
“Blood suckers are what they all are.” he scoffs, “Probably sucked the life out of me as well for the last centuries, they were terrible company. Cazador forced us to refer to each other as some fucked up family. Never could figure out the reason why.”
“You can never really figure it out with them.” Karlach sighs, narrowing her own eyes, “They probably get some sick satisfaction out of it.”
Karlach shoves some food in her mouth, and whatever Gin and Gale have cooked up at least seems to be good to her.
“My parents died before I got sold off. At least I got to get them graves with the paycheck the fucker gave me.”
“You know, I have to wonder what they did with mine.” he says absentmindedly,
“Pardon?”
“I assumed they got rid of the thing after I dug out of it—just another hit by grave robbers. That sort of thing.”
Karlach frowns, “I’d think your folks would have kept the tombstone up anyway. Just something to still visit, right?”
“Someone must have loved you enough to bury you under a grave.”
“Did I hit a sore spot? Sorry, fangs.”
Curse Karlach. Curse Dal. Curse the fog he slugs through when he tries to think about what happened before that coffin.
“I haven’t stepped back in a graveyard since I dug out of one.” he realizes with a bitter laugh, “Not like I’d find more victims for Cazador that way.”
“We could go looking for it if we have the time. If we manage to get back to Gate first.”
Karlach gives him one of her smiles, something he’s sneered at behind her back for. Just watching her take in the freedom from the Hells with such joy.
“And what? Pay respects? I’d expect it to be overrun by vines and moss at this point.”
“You really think no one’s been there in the past two hundred years?”
“Yes.” he spits, “I—”
The words catch in his throat before he says too much. But Karlach looks like she’s already begun mourning for him before they even step in Baldur’s Gate itself.
No one’s looked for him, and he cannot remember anyone. That is all he knows.
“Fangs— Astarion, if no one’s going to clean your grave I’ll volunteer to be the first one then.” Karlach tells him, “I’ll put it on my bucket list for getting back to the Gate.”
His instinct is to laugh in her face, to get her out of here so she doesn’t bother with something she shouldn't go looking for.
“You’re kidding me.”
“Nope! You and me. Maybe Wyll if he’s willing to go trawl through all the graveyards in the city. Hey, maybe he’s got some connections that’ll narrow the search!”
She’s genuine in this endeavor, the fool. He’d rather her do something more with the time she has than pity him.
The Shadowlands suck. The darkness sucks, the animals around here suck, the undead suck, and the shadow curse sucks. He just wants to get out of this place already but apparently Gale’s got to blow himself up at Moonrise Towers or something. At least the rest of the party has been vehemently against leveling the entire area into rubble and splatters of their corpses.
Waste of a perfectly good Gale too.
Making of a new camp by the inn has now landed him in the position of organizing the loose things he’s been slipping in his bag for the tendays they’ve trekked over here. And the Noblestalk sits in front of him, unfolded out of the cloth he wrapped it in.
Would its effect cancel itself out like regular food does within his mouth? Wait—how is he even supposed to consume this?
Karlach peeks into his tent, “Whatcha looking at?”
“Would you care to knock?!” he yells, before hiding the mushroom behind him, “...Nothing important.”
“Why are you keeping some moldy lettuce in your tent?”
“Lettuce?”
Karlach peers over his shoulder and gets a closer look at what’s behind him, “Yeah, it’s all blue and shit. Anyway, Gin’s asking if you want to feed on him tonight.”
“Ah—Wyll’s already beat him to the punch. Probably noticed how desolate this place is of blood already. Rather sweet if you ask me.” he grins.
Or, well. Wyll asked him if he could drink enough that his own sleep would go unbothered by terrors again. Perhaps the shadows have scared the Blade out of his wits. Or brought back terrible memories. Either way he wasn’t going to pass up the offer.
“So, what’s with the lettuce?” Karlach asks, slinking into the tent to look upon the fungus,
“First of all, it’s a mushroom.” he states, and there’s a moment of contemplation of even letting Karlach in on this gambit. Her tail is still thumping against the floor of the tent excitedly.
Another second of thought and he relents, “It’s supposed to cure anything. At least that’s the speech that merchant back in the Underdark sold it as.”
Karlach’s eyes widen with the weight that phrase is supposed to have, “You mean curing your vampirism?”
The thought makes him laugh upon it leaving her mouth.
“You think this will cure the curse that’s been haunting me for two hundred years?” he spits, “A mushroom is all it takes to cure the incurable?”
It’s an amusing thought. Cazador having to cross the flaming field of exploding mushrooms instead of dealing with devils. Maybe if he crosses with Dal ever again he’ll mention it to her, at least after she goes through with stealing away Leon’s precious scamp.
“Then…why do you have it?”
Why does he have it?
“…I had a thought of consuming it anyway.” he eventually divulges, “Whether it actually affects my constitution has left to be known.”
What are you trying to cure?
He’s left behind while a few of them scout out what’s left in the shadowed battlefield past the inn and through his boredom he’s gone to inspect the “magic mirror” in the middle of camp. Gale had said there was something about the mirror he couldn’t figure out. Perhaps it was old as the shriveled corpse who brought it to every camp they went to.
“I can see you.” he remarks, looking up towards Wyll standing right behind him, “Unfortunately this mirror isn’t so magic after all.”
Wyll doesn’t look at him however, instead his gaze is locked upon the mirror itself. His widened eyes soon relax into resignation, a soft breath being let through his nose.
Ah. He probably hasn’t looked too hard since Mizora dragged him into the Hells. Let alone into a mirror.
“Fancy a glance?” he asks, standing and making sure to poke his head into Wyll's vision. At least the interruption snaps him out whatever silent spiral the man was about to go upon.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve never seen this face, not since it grew fangs and my eyes turned red.” he tells to draw him in, “Of course I’ve asked others over the years, though the descriptions always seem to slip my mind.”
Do something good for me.
Let him be a hero. Or at least Karlach told him something like that earlier.
Make sure to remind him that he’s still himself.
He doesn’t know why Karlach decided to tell him specifically these directions, unless it was unsaid for everyone else after they all witnessed Wyll get remade in the middle of camp a few tendays back. Does he give off that bad of an impression?
“Do you not remember what color they were before?”
He looks him over, “Well, do you remember yours?”
It stuns Wyll for a second, probably stopping his heart too as his gaze snaps back to the mirror.
“Brown. They were brown.”
“You can see why I’ve forgotten then?” he scoffs, “My whole face is just a dark shape lost to time.”
He’s in the mood to smash the mirror himself if it wasn’t owned by the mysterious necromantic skeleton in camp. Instead he notices Wyll narrows his good eye.
Is he studying him?
“What are you looking at?”
Wyll looks bashful, “Sorry—I’ve noticed when you smile it accentuates with the creases around your mouth.”
“Creases? You tell the eternally young vampire about his creases? You can do better than that.”
“Your hair curls around your ears quite lovingly.”
Wyll’s own smile is genuine, even then he could hear it in his voice.
“This is meant to be flattery, not poetry.” he sighs, gesturing a hand to his face once more, “Do just call me beautiful and we can call it a day.”
“Aren’t you just asking for shallow praise at this point?”
He flashes a smile, “I do tend to settle for what I can get. What were you approaching me for, anyhow?”
Even in this shadow he can spot Wyll’s flush from a mile away.
“I was hoping to invite you to dance. Tonight.”
“What are you doing in my tent!?”
Karlach’s puts her hands up.
“Oops. Honestly I thought you and Wyll were going to dance for longer.“
“That doesn’t explain why you’re in my tent!”
Karlach has her hands back in a bowl ripping apart the Noblestalk.
“I asked Gin if he knew more about the whole mushroom thing, didn’t really give me much info beyond what you told me.” she shrugs, “Though he did say the best way to take them is just to eat them.”
She holds up a part of it to him,
“So uh, you wanna give it a shot?”
He shoves another part of the mushroom down his mouth and remembers to chew this time.
Chewing! He hasn’t done that in forever!
Somehow, it tastes like nothing. It’s another strange point of euphoria that sparks within him. Nothing! Somehow he’s found something he can eat that doesn’t twist his tongue!
“Mate, don’t you think you’re eating a lot too fast?” Karlach asks, looking down at the half eaten bowl of Noblestalk that’s left, “You know when they say that it hits harder when you don’t think you’ve had enough?”
“Darling.” he says mid chew, “I’m hoping to get it as potent as it can—“
“Fire.”
There’s a rush of air when the arrow leaves his hand. A stinging feeling in his other hand as the relief of the string’s tension is gone. A wave of satisfaction just seeing it hit the target head.
“Relax your fingers.”
That deep voice again.
“Correct your form.”
His feet move on his own, a shorter arm bringing the bow up to aim once more. He’s a child in this place he realizes. The man is speaking Elvish. His eyes focus on the far away target, clear in his vision.
“Ready.”
He’s quick to nock another arrow and pull on the string, the strain on his arms is immense.
“Fire.”
The arrow hits on target, and relief swells through his body. His heart beats at a rapid pace, and he can see how blood makes his flesh look warm.
“Good job, Astarion.”
There’s a pat on his back, and he looks up to see another elf. His hair is silvery with a slight curl to it that flows through its length down to his back. The bright sky makes his skin look pale, but it’s full of the warmth of the sun.
His eyes are green and full of pride.
“Go on, tell your mother.”
Father.
The word fills in for him almost automatically. A moment of recognition that comes to mind out of the fog, and it feels all too clear now.
It’s uncomfortable.
This childhood body he’s inhabiting is running back toward a larger home. There’s a woman in an elegant dress sitting inside by the windows and he can make out her expression from this far away.
It is one of love.
He needs to get out of here.
Karlach looks over the vampire, frozen in place.
“Astarion?”
The night air is cool over their skin. Moonlight shining through the trees in the garden. His heart pounds through his chest again, this time almost a flutter. He guides another’s hands behind a gazebo, eyes flickering past the home he saw in the earlier memory.
“Quiet! We’re already in trouble sneaking out, we don’t need anyone else discovering us.”
His own voice is still young and foolish.
The other boy is pretty, beautiful even. But something tells him he’s too poor for his parents to see past that quality.
At this moment he is his sun. His body is full of warmth as they hold their hands together, not before his own strokes the other’s chin and draws him close.
The kiss is messy and frankly bad, of course they don’t know what they’re doing. But all he can focus on is how his heart pounds regularly, the way heat flows into his face and throughout his body.
His stomach is full.
She had panicked and waved Wyll to come over.
“Karlach, what’s going on here?”
“He’s tripping balls, mate.”
He’s thrown into someone leading him through a city’s backstreets. It’s a strange rush going through him as they run.
It’s not a second later he realizes he’s in Baldur’s Gate.
The person’s wearing a nicer shirt than the rest of the vagrants within the inn they decided to lodge in, an outfit trying to pass as much poorer than it leads on. The nervousness tingles within him as they pay for a room for the night and try not to rush up the stairs immediately.
As his feet climb the stairs he realizes he’s wearing the same sort of clothing his lover for the night is. The pants and shoes give off the same sort of hidden money that they’re trying to hide.
It’s a uniform for a boarding school.
They’re idiots, of course, renting a room with clear identifiers of who they are and where they come from. Messily making out before the door’s closed and pushing their bodies against each other without even hitting the bed. Hands comb through his hair, and fingers curl around his locks.
It’s amusing somehow, watching this fumbling. And he feels pleasant at this moment.
It’s clearer than it’s ever been.
“He ate it!?”
“I mean how else were we going to get it in his body?”
Wyll groans, “...I’d rather not drag Shadowheart from her tent for a quick cast of restoration.”
He feels giddy when his eyes open to buttoning a shirt. A rather fancy one.
This is his own room! His own home! He had a closet full of goodies!
Oh, he would love to rob everything in this room right now.
He realizes there’s more weight to this body, so unlike the one he has now after centuries of starvation. Hands that are full of life, full of blood and warmth. His nails are closely filed and aren’t broken and uneven in several places, skin that is delicate and hardly a map of hidden scars.
His body pilots itself to a vanity and he tries to urge the memory to go faster. To wretch control to make sure he’ll be able to examine himself as much as possible, rejoicing when he sits upon the plush stool.
And his hand opens a drawer with a case he pops glasses out of. Unfolding them and adjusting them on his face where everything has a sudden clarity to it now.
What?
His hands comb through his hair in a familiar motion, one that feels almost baked into him now. It’s one of the only things he remembers, he’s managed to keep it to memory for so long is because of how much use it’s been of use to him.
His fingers interlace with the longer locks of his hair and ties it back behind him with a spare ribbon.
What?
His face stares back at him in the mirror. None of the sharp edges that he’s felt around his face are there. Instead his cheeks are rounded, and his skin is warm—
His eyes are brown.
His eyes are brown!
There’s a mole under his eye. Why hasn’t anyone mentioned that before? In two hundred years did anyone notice that part of him? His mind is racing with excitement still. He’s keeping that face committed to his memory, he needs to keep it committed to his memory.
His lips curl into a smile, and he finally sees the creases Wyll talks about.
He kept those.
And then his body picks up a coat that’s all too familiar to him.
“He’s crying.” Wyll motions over to the man’s head in his lap.
Karlach frowns, “Do you think that’s good crying or bad crying?”
This is the day that he dies.
He wants to stop this body from going down the stairs, from opening that door, from heading down that street.
This moment has only been flashes to him over the years. The only thing before the coffin that haunted his trances and made him cry for mercy.
The Gur grab something behind him that he now remembers is his hair.
A cool metal is pressed against his neck, and the weight of the hair tied behind him disappears in a second.
Cut.