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Chapter Text

Karlach has decided she’s going to be happy after her breakdown following Gortash’s death. She’s not gonna focus on her circumstances, but on the time she has left, and she’s gonna use that time real fucking well. She’s gonna love her girlfriend, kick some ass, and enjoy the benefits of rooming on the second floor of a tavern. Good food, good drinks, and an evening of dancing when they can fit it in. Perfect.

Petra is hurting, and she’s the sort who doesn’t know how to hurt. Once she’s in the ground, Petra’s going to isolate herself, and she needs someone to pull her out of the whirlpool she’s flung herself into and give her an ear. Not that Petra is much good at talking about her feelings. She knows Petra talks to Astarion about all of this, but it mostly devolves into the two of them joking around and bickering.

They’re so fucking in love with one another but too dense to see it. At first, she felt a twinge of jealousy, knowing that Petra and Astarion flirted and that he’d asked her to bed. But she understands why Petra turned him down - she wanted something real; not a hollow shell. Along the way, Astarion has grown, and now he may be more able to offer her something real. At the very least, the man has screwed up at his own game and caught feelings.

Bit of a dunce, that one. Best thing is that she knows the two of them are gonna be right dumbasses about their feelings - probably get all mopey about not feeling good enough for one another or some stupid shit like that. Without actually talking about their feelings - just two fools making assumptions instead of having the hard and potentially awkward “do you want my dick inside you monogamously for as long as we both love one another” talk.

She’s tried to talk to Petra about it, but she refuses to admit that she loves Astarion and asked that they pretend they have a future together instead. But they don’t, and she spent all of last night crying alone in their bed, making her peace with the cards she was dealt. She got a damn good love story and many don’t even get that.

Astarion may be willing to listen - he’ll be a grump about it when she tells him she knows he loves Petra; probably deny it too. But, he loves her, and she has another request for him too.

Normally she’d buy someone an ale before springing the “I know you’re in love with my girlfriend and I’m not mad at you” conversation with someone, but on account of the fact that he’s a vampire and she’s not willing to offer her neck to him (like the weenie would ever be able to bite through her skin anyway; he’d burn to a crisp!), drinks are out. But, the rooftop is quiet late at night, and so she asks to meet him there. He arrives, wearing a black suit jacket embroidered with gold thread, and matching trousers; looking every bit the gentleman he isn’t, and reminding her that once she’d have rode him to the Feywilds and back. Petra’s got decent taste - impeccable taste in ladies, of course.

“We gonna screw around with small talk, or should I jump right into it?” she asks Astarion once he sits down. He brought her an ale; overfilled in the mug and it sloshes onto his sleeve as he places it on the table. Grimacing, he shakes his hand, as if ale is grosser than fucking blood. Weird little man. Nice of him to bring her a beer, though.

“Normally you shout inquiries from across the camp - or across the room as it were, so what is so pressing that you insisted upon a private conversation? Or, were you simply longing for my company?” Astarion asks her.

Diving right in it is then. “I pay attention and I know you’re in love with Petra…”

“I am not! Don’t be absurd! She’s my friend and,” he makes a face - a very unconvincing one, “the thought of bedding her is just horrifying. Besides, she loves you and if you’re going to accuse me of…”

If only he had the smarts to realize that by stammering like a jackass he’s laid all his cards out for her to see. He’s got it bad for Petra and it’s kind of cute.

“I’m not accusing you of anything, fangs, save for having kickass taste in women, so shut it and listen,” she barks, and the man is wise enough to shut his perfectly angular face - mostly because he knows she can kick his ass if it came down to it. Yes, he hits hard, but she can actually take a hit and doesn’t whine like a fucking princess when she breaks a nail.

“You love her and that’s fine. She deserves to be loved. After I die I don’t want her to spend her life waiting to find me again in whatever comes. I want her to have something close to home, and you two are good for each other. If the love remains between you two, can you tell her how you feel once she’s ready to love again?”

“Again, I told you…” the man stammers, looking at the door on the other side of the roof. She slams her fist on the table.

“I’m gonna be dead in a month and she loves you too. I want you to be together - but only when she’s ready. You don’t grow old so you can afford to wait on her.”

“We may all be dead or worse in a month anyway,” Astarion says and she scowls at him; she won’t let him weasel out of this. It’s too fucking important.

“Fine. Deny you love her but you’ll smarten up and think of this conversation years from now while you’re pining for her because you’re both gonna be too stubborn to do anything about it until things blow up and you wind up rolling in bed on the obnoxiously plush sheets you insist are ‘necessary’. Want some tips?”

“Absolutely not,” Astarion says quickly.

She wasn’t gonna give him tips anyway - he’s gotta do his own legwork there.

“Be there for her. She’s not gonna want to see anyone - big feelings are tough for her and she’ll hide because hiding is easier. You were brave as shit for dealing with Cazador instead of running, but you had help. Petra’s gonna need that same help to be brave and go out into the world again. Promise me you’ll be the person that drags her out to look at the stars. Promise me that, if she refuses to respond to your letters or see you, you’ll give her a push. You’ll know when she needs it. Even if you never tell her you want to snuggle up to her and use her as a space heater - and I know you want that more than sex even if you try to hide it, buddy, take care of her. For me. Please.”

“I’ll take care of her,” he says quietly, looking away.

“Promise.”

“I promise I’ll take care of Petra.” This time Astarion’s voice breaks and - shit, she’s gone and got him blubbering. Karlach realizes that he must really fucking like her! Well, she knew that already; she figured him out long ago but he’s not the sort to come out and say it. She gets it; he’s seen a whole lot of shit and copes how he can, but he’s doing better, and she’s glad she told him how proud she is of him after he killed Cazador.

“Hey - cheer up. It’s gonna be fine. I mean, not right away and it’s easy for me to say because I’ll be feeding maggots or whatever, but you’ll be fine and Petra will be eventually too. Love her enough for the both of us - she loves us both so you gotta make it good. Understood?”

“I can never be what she deserves; not when she’s had you.”

They’re absolutely going to spend years dancing around their feelings and pining like idiots and she sighs and rubs her eyes. “Ugh; you tit. She’s not gonna want you to replace me; she’s gonna want you because you’re you. But you’re not going to listen to me and you’ll be dumbasses about it. Know I’ll be judging from wherever if you two get extra-dumb about your feelings.”

“I’m sorry. You deserve better than your fate.”

“So do you, fangs,” she says quietly, grabbing her long-forgotten ale and drinking half of it in one go.

These sorts of conversations hurt like shit.

***

Once, Astarion referred to Petra Silverscale as ‘wet behind the ears’. A cute little do-gooder who has no idea how the real world works because she’s spent her entire adult life performing on a stage.

It’s this he thinks about, with dread in his belly, as Petra decides who will make the sacrifice and turn into a mindflayer. Fucking do-gooder.

Karlach’s conversation from two weeks ago ruminates too. He loves Petra - supposedly. He’d scoffed at it but now as he waits, in dread; realizing that he’s to watch her shift into an abomination, he wonders if Karlach might have a point.

“Your majesty, we need you to make the sacrifice,” Petra says, and he wonders if he’s hallucinating. The do-gooder is… making a selfish decision? Choosing herself over a prince?

That she makes that demand of a prince while standing tall and confident is far more appealing than it should be, Astarion thinks.

After watching the prince make the sacrifice Petra refused to make, he approaches her. “You made the right decision,” he murmurs and she looks at him, eyes wide.

“Now I am doubting it,” she says - of course, because if he thinks something is right then it must be wrong. Gods forbid they engage in a little bit of casual self-preservation!

But, Petra tries to be good and likes to help people. If they survive this, she’s liable to feel guilty about the decision she made here today. So, he justifies it for her. “Tactically, it was a smart play. We all know how to fight together - you or Karlach shifting into one of those things alters the dynamic. Let the prince do his thing and when the time comes to restrain the brain, the four of us will watch his back as he does. That’s why you made the decision.”

Petra looks at him and gives him a sad smile. “I did it because I could not stand the idea of sacrificing mine or my beloved’s soul.”

“Also valid, darling. Besides, he was locked away for centuries - they can do without him,” he says with a dismissive wave.

It’s an ugly fight, and more than once he thinks about how utterly stupid he was to allow himself into the fray like this. He’s going to die because of a giant brain, and that’s just embarrassing. Around him, allies fall or are dominated by the brain or the Emperor, and he stabs foes stupid enough to get too close to the prince while he’s casting the spell that will allow them to actually destroy the brain.

A portal opens and before the others can react, he dives in, ready to end this once and for all. Petra flings balls of ice at the brain; her face is bruised and sweat drips down her forehead. His own arms ache from the strain of hours of fighting, and there’s dried blood on the arm of his leather armour that may or may not be his own. Having learned from prior fights, he’s keeping back, relying on his bow instead of his daggers. Karlach is the front line, hacking pieces off the brain and sending them flying in a display as impressive as it is horrifying.

Then the brain retaliates, sinking three platforms around him and Petra screams, scrambling with her hands in the air to catch something - anything, to pull herself up. All of them have been in danger before, but this scream is new; one of someone who hadn’t realized their end was imminent and it’s a dagger in his dead heart.

He dives, reaching for her, knowing it’s impossible to save her, and moments later, a glowing orb appears on the platform beside him. It’s not the first they’ve lost a companion - not even the first he’s lost Petra; a revivify scroll is all that’s needed to bring her back. Well, that, Shadowheart’s careful attention, and a solid night of rest.

Petra can fly, so what killed her? Such a stupid thought as an explosion rocks the brain, sending more chunks flying through the air. The end is close; it’s so fucking close, but what if this is his only chance to save her? What if he kills the brain and he’s unable to find what remains of her afterwards? He hyperventilates at the thought, unable to catch his breath as panic and grief war in his belly. He’s lost her. She’s gone. Unless he saves her and he has what he needs to bring her back.

In a battle for the world, he chooses Petra, and reaches into the side bag at his hip for a scroll that promises to bring her back to him.

“Astarion - finish it! I’ll raise her!” Shadowheart shouts, pulling him out of his thoughts and back into the battle. Karlach’s trident is lodged deep in the brain and seems stuck. If she’s aware that her girlfriend is dead then she’s hiding it perfectly. Orpheus is panting - or whatever the mind flayer equivalent is; spent from the exertion of the day. Shadowheart has never been good at much more than healing or melee combat. It’s him. All his efforts to avoid becoming a big fucking hero and it’s going to be him.

Petra is going to give him so much shit for this, he thinks fondly, hoping she actually has a chance to do so later today. “Don’t fuck it up!” he shouts at Shadowheart as he notches an arrow enchanted with ice by Petra, aims and releases it, forcing his terror that he’ll never see Petra again out of his mind. It flies true and with a shudder, the brain dies, and just as they begin falling, Petra’s eyes snap open and she gasps for air, as if she’d been drowning. She glances around, trying to determine their surroundings, not seeming to realize that they’re falling and about to die.

“Feather fall, darling!” Karlach cries as she somersaults in the air, and he’d snap that she’s just barely been woken from the dead if he weren’t falling too, and would greatly appreciate not being turned to paste on the cobblestone of the city streets.

Petra mutters the incantation and they slow, allowing them to land on their feet, fully intact. Petra collapses immediately and Shadowheart rushes over to heal her. “What happened? Did you forget that you can fly now?”

“Weird magic. Wouldn’t let me,” Petra says, sounding as if she’s out of breath. “How’d I survive it? Feels like I got my ass kicked.”

You didn’t. The words are on his lips, but he cannot bring himself to say it. He cannot admit to her that he’d have chosen her over the world, because he doesn’t know what that means. Does it mean he’s the selfish person obsessed with self-preservation that Petra accused him of being months ago? Or does it mean he’s a lovesick fool who is selfish enough to trade the world for a few more minutes with the woman he loves?

Not that she loves him back. She loves Karlach, and she deserves that love. They’re happy. They talk about cottages outside the city, flowerbeds and adopting a goat. Karlach’s idea, not Petra’s but she goes along with it with a smile, so long as Scratch can join them too. A cat as well, he assumes; whenever they encountered a cat she’d take a potion that allows her to speak with them, and no matter how urgent things were, she’d have a chat with them. A chat and a cuddle, if the cat allowed it.

At first, it was obnoxious; they have tadpoles in their brain, yet she stops to talk to a small animal? It seemed absurd. But, as he grew to know her, it became endearing. She’s a cheerful, talkative person who likes to make friends.

Gods, only she could befriend Yurgir after tricking him into killing himself. She beamed as he referred to her as “little rabbit”, upon agreeing to help them fight for the city. Not terribly surprising - she is capable of miracles and did befriend him in the end, despite their arguing early on. The day he held a knife to her throat, he never imagined she’d become a friend - but friendship was something of a foreign concept to him at the time.

“You took a bad hit but you’re on your feet now,” Karlach says cheerfully, and he looks at her, giving her a nod; grateful she’s content to hide the truth from Petra.

They’ve just barely reunited with the rest of the group on the docks when Karlach’s engine gives out. Karlach falls to her knees, the flames burning hot enough that he can feel the residual heat from metres away. Petra drops in front of Karlach and conjures ice, her hands shaking from the effort of it. “That’s not going to work this time, Petra,” Karlach says, and she nods.

He can’t hear what they say to one another; nor does he try to listen in. At camp he made a habit of eavesdropping on conversations, if only to gather a means to protect himself if seducing Petra didn’t work. Which, it didn’t, but she opted to keep him around anyway, and she’s the first friend he’s ever had. This moment, though? It belongs to Petra and Karlach alone.

Until Wyll intervenes, pleading with Karlach to go to Avernus with him, and he clenches his own fists with anger at the begging during Karlach’s final moments. Karlach was always clear that she wanted to die on her own terms instead of returning to the hells.

Does Wyll know that, though? It occurs to him that this is something Petra told him during one of their talks. The ones that started serious and ended with him attempting to distract her from her impending loss with jokes and bickering.

“Wyll, she’s made her wishes clear. We respect Karlach’s choice,” Petra says with more patience than he could muster, but there’s an edge of fury underneath.

“I can’t watch this,” Wyll stammers, rushing back and pushing away from them, and were his friend not dying in front of him at this very moment, he thinks he might have hit the man for putting his own needs above Petra’s and Karlach’s.

Him? He stays. He owes the two of them that much. Karlach burns and Petra’s brave facade collapses and she wails out her grief, screaming and crying at the top of her lungs. He wanders over and rests a hand on her shoulder, but says nothing. There are no words and she wouldn’t want hollow condolences anyway.

The stench of flesh burning hits and initially he assumes it’s from the ash of Karlach’s remains, but then the pain starts. At first it’s tightness in his face, and then it feels as if someone has branded his flesh. He hates that he knows what that feels like.

“Oh no… oh no,” he whispers, not wanting to make a spectacle when Petra needs care more than him. He’ll scramble; find somewhere to hide until nightfall and hopefully he’ll regenerate and heal the damage, because he’d hate if his face scarred because of this mess. It’d be terribly unfortunate to go through a year of dangerous fights only to wind up maimed because he stood out in the sun.

It’s Petra who leaps into action; Petra who has lost the woman she loves; who has no business taking care of him when he promised Karlach he’d take care of her.

She sobs as she holds his arm, walking in the magically-conjured darkness towards a cave that will remain his sanctuary until the sun sets and the stars rise.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Chapter Text

“Be happy again when you’re ready. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever had,” Karlach whispers to her, just before the flames overwhelm her, stealing away the person she loves most in this world. At first she stares blankly at the pile of ash that was once her love, but then it hits. Karlach is gone. She’s alone. The cruelty of Gortash and Zariel stole away the brightest light this world would ever have.

She screams and cries, cursing the world for taking Karlach from her, and someone places a hand on her shoulder. Then there’s another. Boo scurries over and sits on her knee, and she finds herself surrounded by her friends.

No, family. This group of misfits has become her family. She wishes she could tell this to Karlach; to plan dinner parties for them all, and send Gale magical theories and artifacts she’s encountered, or pick Shadowheart’s brain about the intricacies of healing an injured body, or spar with Lae’zel, who always wins, but has learned to hold back when it’s her with her fists in the air, as if she’s teaching a child to fight.

“Oh no… oh no,” Astarion says; quiet, as if unwilling to disrupt her grief and she turns to find his face burning in the sun and she gasps, pulls out a scroll and casts Darkness over him and dives into the blackened sphere, now free of any sort of light. She flails, seeking him out and when she finds his arm she grasps it. Ten minutes. They have ten minutes to find somewhere safe for him before the spell wears off.

“I’m going to protect you. Nothing’s going to happen. We just need to find you somewhere safe. I promise. I’m going to protect you. We just need to find you somewhere safe,” she babbles through her sobs.

It’s Jaheira who steps in, guiding them by voice to a cave off the beach, walking them through the tight passages until they’re in an area completely devoid of sunlight. She rips off her robe and puts it over Astarion’s head before cutting off the spell and confirming that Jaheira is correct. She removes one of Astarion’s gloves and he makes a fist.

“No burning?”

Instead of responding, he removes her robe from his head, giving her a good look at his ashen face. She hands him a healing potion but he shakes his head. They won’t work on him anymore, she realizes.

She sobs anew, hating herself for failing to consider that without the tadpole he would not be able to be out in the sun. Wyll had said his own powers were draining, didn’t he? Obviously it would be the same for Astarion. She could have lost him too. She can’t lose him. It’d kill her just as surely as a blade to the heart would. Karlach’s death has her bleeding on the floor, as it is.

“I’ll leave the two of you and take the others to the Elfsong Tavern. Petra, I’m sorry for your loss,” Jaheira says and she’s unable to so much as acknowledge her friend’s comment, save for a nod of her head.

“I’m so sorry!” she wails and Astarion wraps his arms around her and pulls her to the cave floor and holds her, allowing her to sob into the leather of his armour. “I’ll do better; I promised to protect you and I’m sorry. I already failed Karlach; I can’t lose you too. Please. I’m sorry. I’ll be better.”

“Petra, hush,” he says, infuriatingly gentle. She wants a smart comment about leaving him out in the sun; she wants him to raise his voice and pout, but he isn’t. He’s being fucking nice and she doesn’t deserve his gentleness. “When the sun sets, we’ll leave the cave and I’ll go back to… life as a creature of the night. I’d have rather had one last chance to feel the sun on my face without the inevitable smoke and ash, but so it goes. You’ll just have to accept that you’ll never see my handsome visage in the sun. Poor you.”

She cries. She cries for Karlach and the future they’ll never get to have. She cries for Astarion because he never got a final sunrise. She cries because she’s exhausted; spent completely from the fight and couldn’t conjure enough ice to cool her love.

After she’s all cried out, Astarion slips into a deep meditation and she sneaks out of the cave, sits in the sand and conjures an ice storm around her; the snow, and sleet whipping against her bare arms and face; her teeth chattering. The effort of it makes her heart palpitate and her head spins, but she manages to remain conscious through the effort. She’s tired. She’s so tired; like she was awoken from the deepest sleep imaginable.

Karlach burned. Her girlfriend burned because she couldn’t keep her cool enough, and so she sits in the freezing cold, wishing she’d tried just a little harder to save her. Ice and snow is in her blood and fuels her magic, yet she still failed her.

She shivers hard enough that her teeth begin chattering and her skin pales, leaving her arms strikingly similar to Astarion’s. Blood runs from open wounds on her arms and face and her head aches from being pelted by balls of ice. The pain feels good. She deserves to hurt.

Still not cold enough. It will never be cold enough. The storm begins to settle so she takes a deep breath, concentrates, and begins the snow anew.

In the distance, she hears her name. Again. And again, almost as if the voice were moving closer to her. Maybe it’s Karlach. Maybe someone killed her and Karlach has come to get her. For a moment she’s excited at the prospect and she embraces the idea of death, but then Astarion’s cold hand grips her arm.

“You need to stop,” he yells over the howling wind.

“I can’t! She needed me to cool her down and I couldn’t! I failed her!”

“She knew that if you couldn’t keep her going, then nothing could! She wouldn’t want you to kill yourself in a storm of your own design!”

She ignores Astarion and he plops himself down right beside her. “Not the way I’d expected to go, but there are worse fates,” he says, obstinate.

“Fuck off! I’m not trying to kill myself!” Even as she says it, she struggles to get the words out over chattering teeth.

“But you will! And you’ll take me with you, because I’m not leaving you.”

What a time for him to show compassion when he spent so long feeling both bitter and frightened of her compassion until she showed enough of it to him that he began to show her the real him. Now, that compassion could kill him and he’s betting that she won’t let him die beside her.

“Stop being a stubborn ass!” she shouts at him and he shakes his head.

“I’ve been tasked by Karlach to be your minder and I promised I’d do her justice - which means tying myself to you when you stupidly insist on offing yourself in a fit of grief! Drop the spell, I’ll pick you up and carry you back to the city, where I’ll mother hen you until you threaten to pluck my eyes out, and I’ll be painfully annoyed with you while I do, especially since I’ll look like a damp cat as I parade you through ruins.”

He’s won this game of chicken because she can’t hurt him. The asshole found the one way to stop her, and that was to threaten to sink alongside her. As soon as she stops concentrating, the storm fades; replaced with the gentle wind and warm summer heat of the coast. The heat burns her frigid cheeks and she wraps her arms around herself. Astarion goes back inside the cave and returns moments later with their bags slung over his shoulder, and wraps her in the robe she gave him hours earlier, and then he lifts her, groaning at the strain of it as he does. He begins walking towards the city, his arms shaking while she shivers uncontrollably.

“You just had to fuck me, didn’t you? You couldn’t leave it well enough alone!” she says bitterly.

“Not tonight; you’re grieving,” he replies, ever the shit he is and she screams in frustration into his chest.

“Anger. Good.”

“You’re such an asshole!”

“So I’ve heard.”

She fumes and shivers until they arrive at an inn that remains standing amidst the carnage. He sets her down. “I need an invitation in,” he murmurs, so she walks inside, finds the inn’s proprietor and brings her outside under the guise of negotiating the cost of a room and maintains conversation until she invites the two of them in to stay; charging a fortune for the privilege.

Jaheira said she’d take the rest of the team somewhere - she wishes she could remember where. But, then again, the others would crowd her, trying to fix what cannot be mended. Astarion is different. Evidently he won’t let her bring herself to harm, but he seems content to allow her to feel whatever she feels, and absorbs her anger without firing it back at her in turn.

Astarion fetches a bucket of warm water and hands her a cloth, allowing her to wash up first, and then he wraps her in what must be half the blankets in this damned inn, and watches as she drinks a healing potion, clucking at her the entire time about how deep the wounds from the ice are and that he’s concerned they’ll scar.

Let them scar, as far as she’s concerned. When she says this he frowns at her, but says nothing more.

“She tasked you to be my minder?” she asks Astarion once grief and rage fade to numbness.

“Yes - she said she knew you would be angry and that you shouldn’t be alone, but that the others would not be able to bear your anger. There was also some nonsense about ‘emotional intimacy’,” he says with a dismissive flick of his hand. “I told her we bicker; there’s no intimacy in our communication but she just looked at me as if I were a foolish child. Would you like to bicker? I can provide scathing commentary on your failure to wear water resistant mascara. We were going into the fight of our lives, darling.”

She wishes she could just set everything aside and bicker with Astarion about the state of her eyelashes, but when she tries, no words come. “I’d like a hug if you’re willing,” she says, defeated, and instantly Astarion burrows beneath the mountain of blankets atop her and wraps his arms around her.

“I’m a little cold,” he says - and he is, but the chill of his body is tempered by the thin white shirt and trousers he’s wearing. “You’re cuddling with a corpse.”

“I’m cuddling with my best friend,” she whispers, because that’s what he is to her. Only Karlach was ever able to truly see how close her and Astarion have become; the others looked to them at face value and perceived their bickering as genuine frustration with one another. That’s a trap she initially fell into with Astarion; she only saw the masks he wore, and it was only with time that she discovered the true depth and meaning behind his actions and thoughts. He didn’t make it easy for her - his life had long taught him that kindness and vulnerability are nothing more than fresh daggers to bury in his back, but the more kindness and understanding she showed him, the more he let her in.

Once, Karlach told her that she loves him. Instead of being angry about it, she encouraged her to rebuild with him if they were ever ready to be together. She scoffed at it - he’s her best friend; they can’t be in love, and pleaded with her to retreat to the little fantasy future they played in, like little fabric dolls in a house of sticks.

“I’d never had a friend before you,” he says, touched, and she realizes that this is the first she’s told him how close she feels to him. She just thought he knew.

“I don’t want to wake up, Astarion. I want to be with her.”

Astarion is quiet, tapping a rhythm on her arm as he ponders her statement. When he speaks, he sounds terribly sad. “You don’t now, but a year; ten years from now, you’ll be happy you endured, because the sun will shine again for you. I’m happy you’re still here, even if you aren’t right now.”

He gives her a small smile. “Besides, who else can I tease about their explosive charisma? Yurgir, darling; you call Yurgir a friend. There’s a line between madness and brilliance and you dance barefoot on it.”

“I’ll search for a cure for you… maybe the sun can shine for you too.”

“Ah; well I heard the sun ages you prematurely anyway,” he says flippantly.

“You’re literally undead. You don’t age and you have infuriatingly perfect pores.”

She’s not sure why that stupid comment is what breaks her, but she bursts into tears again and Astarion rubs her back as she cries. “I know; heartbreaking, isn’t it? We should all hope to have pores as magnificent as mine.”

She laughs. Her girlfriend died today and this asshole managed to get a laugh out of her, and when she curses him out for it, he gives her a sad smile. “Another of Karlach’s requests, my dear.”

“What else did she ask of you?” she asks, hiccuping.

“In time. I’ll share more in time,” he says, hesitating. “Want an arrow you can use when you’re feeling well enough to strike at me?” She doesn’t respond, but she also doesn’t tell him to shut up, so he continues. “I got the final hit on the brain - shot it with an arrow. You made a hero out of me and I’m so very irritated with you for it.”

“I knew you had it in you,” she says, and she’s proud of him. She fell in the fight but trusted that the rest of the team would finish the job, and they did. Admirably.

“Well, my days of heroics are over, I think,” Astarion says.

“Mine too,” Petra says, the tears beginning once more.

He holds her the entire night as she alternates between crying, raging and exchanging stories about Karlach with him. She draws the curtains and hangs a blanket over the window for good measure, and hides away with him during the day, and when night falls, he walks her to Father’s house.

“Where will you go?” she asks him.

“I’ll rent a room of my own until I find a house. Raid the mansion and walk out of the burning building resplendent in fine furs and jewels; a bag full of gold at my side. Figure I’ve earned that much.”

“I could help you. Karlach would have…” she squeezes her eyes shut as she imagines Karlach’s hysterical laughter as she runs through the mansion, setting it ablaze with her body.

She begins sobbing again in the street outside Father’s house. It’s standing; the roof and one of the outer walls are damaged; broken from the force of one of the explosions and the house itself is singed black in parts, but it’s standing. That means Father has to have survived… right?

“It can wait and when I do, I’ll bring you along,” he promises, taking her hand and holding it.

Father rushes out of the house and Astarion lets go of her hand. He’s wearing his silver robes and there’s a gash on his hairline that looks as if it needs the attention of a healer, but otherwise he seems fine. His silver scales have always been darker and more prominent than her own, and they glisten, even under the night sky.

“I’ll write soon. Come stay with me once I’m settled and I’ll take you out dancing,” Astarion says.

She doesn’t want him to go, but when Father embraces her, she watches over her shoulder as Astarion disappears into the night. “Petra, what’s wrong? What happened?”

“Karlach is gone,” she says, and as she dissolves into fresh sobs, Father speaks no words, but he escorts her into the house and puts on the kettle to make them a pot of tea.

If only tea could fix this loss.

Chapter Text

My dear,

I’ve purchased a lovely little house in the lower city and then proceeded to mangle it by blocking all the windows. How are you feeling? I always find a bit of casual arson cheers me up. How about it?

A

It’s a month after losing Karlach and she’s hardly left her childhood bedroom, and the thought of putting on robes, casting spells and looting a house is too much, so she drafts a response, begging him off, only to find that is too draining too.

The letter goes unanswered and every night Scratch sleeps beside her; a constant shadow and she wakes from her nightmares and cries into his white fur while he licks away her tears. Peter visits the house - at first he sits in silence on the bed with her, but after several weeks of this, grows sick of the fact that his presence hasn’t magically fixed the pain of her loss, and begins loudly complaining to Father about her.

“Why can’t she just go outside and sit in the sun?”

Instead of Karlach, Peter’s comment makes her think of Astarion and how he may never feel the sun on his face again. Part of her wants to shout at Peter - to tell him that he cannot know what she’s going through, but she finds she does not have the energy, so she absorbs every criticism he lobs at her through her closed door.

Saving the city doesn’t make her any less worthless than she always was, in her brother’s eyes.

***

Grandfather is a silver dragon and for as long as she can remember, she’s prayed to him for guidance. It’s what Father taught her and her siblings; once she asked why she couldn’t simply write Grandfather, and Father was stern in his response that one does not just write a godlike being.

You don’t get in touch with Grandfather; he gets in touch with you. Father told her that Grandfather has his ways of hearing her prayers; when she asked for elaboration he gave none.

She and Peter spent a summer with him and Grandmother when they turned 18 and was exposed to a man who acts as if the ground turns to solid bars of silver with every one of his steps.

It made her more grateful for her human mother. Grandfather was quick to announce that their ears weren’t pointed enough; too short and too human. “It dirties my legacy” is what Grandfather said.

That’s the first she was taught to feel shame for who she is, and it’s a lesson that was branded into her by Father and Peter over the next two decades.

She prays to Grandfather for strength as she always does when times are dire. She seeks guidance; comfort - anything that will numb the agony of the hole where her heart once was.

Nothing comes.

***

Petra,

Arson. I’m suggesting arson. Would you at least chide me for my menacing ways? Please write back; I’m begging and I despise begging.

A

Two months after that, Father hands her a note that was slid under the front door in the middle of the night. “I’m unsure why your friend did not use the post as anyone else would, or why he thought it appropriate to deliver a letter at midnight,” he says, fuming - or as close to fuming as Father ever gets, and she must admit that Father getting rankled about a late night letter does cheer her up a little.

She unfolds the parchment, finding only two words written on it.

Petra, please.

The others have written, but their letters go unopened, because she cannot bear to read Halsin’s attempts to comfort her by telling her that Karlach has returned to nature, or Gale’s apologies for failing to find a solution, or Wyll’s optimistic descriptions of what he’s been up to.

In a week it will be a year since Karlach died. A year since every important part of her died too.

***

She’s lying in a ball on the bed, trying to drum up the energy to go down and put together a plate of food, when there’s a knocking on the door far different from Father’s gentle tapping, or Peter’s quick, firm knocks. “Petra, you will not ignore me a second longer! I know how to pick locks!”

Astarion. She should have anticipated this - Karlach asked him to take care of her and she’s hidden herself away for a year. With the anniversary coming up, he must feel the burden of responsibility towards her.

Before opening the door, she glances in the mirror; at the faded purple of the ends of her hair, and the silver roots that have grown in over the last year. She can’t remember the last time she brushed her hair, and there are black lines running down from her eyes; the end result of a crying fit after she was stupid enough to try to put on eyeliner.

That was at least a week ago, it occurs to her. She opens the door to find Astarion with his hand fisted, as if he were preparing a fresh onslaught. He looks the same as always; average height for an elf, his thin build, and perfectly styled hair. He’s wearing a suit instead of armour and there’s a bit of colour to his cheeks, revealing he must have put on makeup before heading over here in an attempt to disguise his condition from Father.

He looks her up and down and she feels self-conscious in the fraying white nightgown with the faded pink flowers that she’s wearing… and has been wearing for the last four days.

Scratch, wagging his tail, walks over to greet Astarion, who scratches behind his ears.

“Darling…”

“I don’t want your pity!” she snaps, crossing her arms.

Astarion, instead of flinching away from her, is unyielding. “Where’s your family’s washbasin? And where’s your hair dye?”

She stares at him, speechless, and he gives her a look. “You are a mess and I will clean you up. I won’t have you going out in a state that will leave you self-conscious.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she mutters sourly.

“We have a mansion to loot, a bit of arson to commit, and a dancing date, so yes, you are. Washbasin?”

Obstinate man. She points at the closet next to her bedroom door and he pulls the basin out, carries it into her bedroom and sets it down, gesturing for her to fill it. She mutters the spell that fills it with water and then sticks a hand in, calling for flames to heat it, and it occurs to her that it’s been months since she last cast a spell.

“Hair dye?” She points to the top drawer of her dresser and Astarion walks over and pulls it out, and then reaches for the top buttons of her nightgown. “May I? I won’t look.”

Once she’d have flirted with him; told him he could sneak a peek if he really wanted to, but all she can do now is nod as he undresses her with a gentleness she’s never before seen in him, and then he takes her arm, tenderly helping her into the tub. He rolls up his sleeves, grabs a smaller bucket and dips it into the basin, but she stops him.

“If you’re dealing with my hair, the water needs to be cold. The dye fades otherwise.”

“We’re well beyond that concern,” Astarion says dryly. He washes her hair with warm water, and then he combs it until it’s free of knots. After that, he combs the dye into her hair and ties it up, and while they wait, he washes the rest of her body; his touches still infuriatingly gentle. He’s said little to her, beyond asking for her to lift an arm, or move her head as needed. After he washes the dye out - with cold water, he brings her a towel, looking away as she stands up in the basin, and tracks down a tunic and tights for her to put on.

Now clean and dressed, she sits down and Astarion sits behind her on the bed, separates her hair into three parts, and begins braiding it; his hands practiced at the art. “Why are you braiding my hair?”

“You were in a sorry state when I arrived and pain is no reason to let yourself go. So I’ve taken it upon myself to clean you up.”

“You can’t understand - you don’t know what I lost! I’ve spent a year trying to figure out how I could have saved her and all I can come up with is that I’m not good enough.”

There’s a tug on her hair as Astarion stops and she turns her head to glance at him. “I may not understand your grief, but I know pain. I lived in it. Bathed in it. Don’t. Don’t tell me you’re giving up,” he hisses at her. His attention returns to her hair and he continues braiding it.

“It’s… like I’ll never be happy again. I don’t see the point.”

Astarion wraps a ribbon around the end of her braid, tying it into a bow. “You’ll rebuild, even if it’s only because it was what she wanted for you. You were always so soft with her. It was sickening, really.”

“Don’t like softness?” she teases, grasping wildly for the first light topic she could find so she doesn’t have to continue to talk about the worst thing that’s ever happened to her.

“I dislike witnessing it.”

She turns so she’s sitting face-to-face with Astarion and she looks him over properly for the first time. His white shirt is low-cut - similar to the shirt he often wore at camp, and the sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. His suit jacket is hanging over the chair at her desk. “How did you get into the house? Don’t vampires need to be invited in?”

“I told your father I am a friend of yours. He was most confused when I asked for an invite - bit dim, isn’t he?” She scowls at him - Father is a trusting man; not a dim one. “He seemed relieved when I introduced myself. Said you needed a friend; I didn’t dare break his heart by explaining how I’m liable to make an ugly situation far uglier by goading you into an argument about the merits of putting ourselves on the line for strangers.” Astarion rolls his eyes at the end of the sentence and it makes her smile through the fog of her grief.

“I’d sooner an argument than this. At least I’d feel something other than grief.” An idea comes to her and she brightens. “Feed on me. Bite me.”

“No,” Astarion says, shocking her. He’s always been so excited by the invitation; at the chance to get a meal more satisfying than whatever game he could hunt while they were travelling. “You want me to hurt you and I will not do it.”

He’s serious now; no sarcasm or biting remarks. It’s a sincerity that makes her bristle with discomfort, because it’s so rare for him to be so serious while talking about something other than his history.

With anyone else she’d have begged, but not Astarion. She promised him once that she would always respect his boundaries and that he could always tell her no. “You’ve picked a fine time to not be an ass,” she says, eyes welling up with tears. She wipes them away with her fingers and Astarion stands up, wanders to her dresser, grabs a handkerchief from the pile that Father must have left for her and hands it to her.

“I feel so alone, even with Father. Peter visits home every weekend - he’s my twin brother and he’s a tailor. Astrid has found work as a travelling merchant and is often outside the city; she’s next oldest after Peter and I. Jan is the youngest and he’s been away at school since just before Mother died. He’s the only other one of us with real magical skill. Peter and Astrid can get by, but they aren’t me.”

“I dare say there’s nobody else quite like you,” Astarion says, snorting and she stares at him, trying to figure out if he’s insulting her, complimenting her, or both.

“Sorry.”

“It’d have been wiser to shove a blade through my heart on many occasions, yet you never did - you lovely fool. I’m… grateful, and I’m not the… best company. I don’t have Wyll’s irritating optimism or Gale’s tendency to ramble about whatever magical artifact he’s eating,” she smiles at that, “and none of us can be…”

“Karlach?” She wants him to say her name. She wants to talk about her because if she doesn’t, then she’ll be forgotten and a woman as special as her should have been immortal, even if only in memory.

“I’m here. Now that you’re cleaned up, I’ll leave if you wish, but I think a year wasting away in your father’s house is enough, and it’s time to dance. And, you know, I’ve been very patiently waiting for you because I’d like you by my side while I burn the mansion down. I’m sure there are other beautiful clothes you can pillage from the ruins before it all turns to ash.”

For some reason, the thought of any of the others sitting here with her drives her mad, but Astarion does not. As insufferable as he often was, he does understand pain. “Please don’t leave me,” she whispers. “Can I have a hug?”

She’s hugged him occasionally, and it’s frequently left him surprised when she’s initiated a hug; as if he’s not quite sure what to do with such a gentle gesture, but when she asks him for one he never hesitates before opening his arms to her. She wraps her arms around him and rests her head in the crook of his neck, and she thinks of Karlach, and how warm she’d be; in contrast to Astarion’s cold body and she breaks, sobbing into his shirt, just as she did the day they lost Karlach.

“Petra, she was the best of us and deserved better,” Astarion says softly, instead of complaining about her leaking all over him.

Hearing him call her by name feels more intimate than his regular tendency to resort to “darling” or “my dear” as a crutch; a way to maintain distance.

She wishes he’d call her by name more often.

“I’ll need to leave before the sun rises, but come stay with me. Can’t guarantee it’s more cheery than this room but I’ll get you out of bed every day,” he says, glancing around the brick walls and wooden ceiling of her childhood bedroom. As a child, Mother’s landscape paintings hung on the walls, but after she died, she took them down because looking at them hurt too much. It’s been three years since she last gazed upon Mother’s artwork, and she wonders how hurt Mother would be to know that her daughter shuns her work because she’s too afraid of the pain of loss.

Father’s quiet distance; his formal respect for her desire to hide away in her room hasn’t helped, but Astarion seems as if he’s going to push her to have some fun. To go out dancing with him late in the night or to start performing one of her magic shows once more.

“You’ll let me stay?” she croaks between sobs.

“So long as you don’t complain about blood in the icebox or the boarded up windows. Hazards of rooming with a vampire spawn.”

“I’ll even make sure to refresh the spells keeping your blood cold,” she promises. She wonders how much he hates drinking cold, congealed blood - a necessity when one cannot hunt in the city and relies on obtaining a supply from a butcher.

He doesn’t let go of her until she does, sniffling and wiping at her eyes, now sore from trying to stem the flow of her grief. “You’re a good friend - you know that?”

Astarion scoffs at her. “Don’t spread that around. We’ll be bickering by morning once you’ve finished your,” he gestures at her face, “raining.”

She’s seen him cry twice before - the first time after he killed Cazador after letting go of the promise of power through Ascension, and the second when she hugged him later that night, because she could not take 200 years of pain away from him, but she could stand beside him while he learned to endure the weight of it.

She stands up and walks to her closet and pulls out two picture frames - one hardly larger than her hand, and the other the length of her arm, and brings them over to Astarion. The little one is of a park nearby; the cobblestone path and lilac bushes during the sunrise. The other is the coast during midday, when the sun hangs highest in the sky, and in the distance are the boats that travel in and out of the harbour.

“Yours?” Astarion asks her and she shakes her head.

“Mother’s. Her name was Francis Petra and she was a painter by trade. Commissioned portraits mostly, but landscapes were her favourite. They never sold, though.”

“You were named for your mother,” he says as he stares at the paintings.

“Her last name. She wanted to pass it down, so she gave it to her worst child; the biggest disappointment she ever made.”

“Do I need to scramble and find someone before sunrise to give you a pep talk, reminding you that you saved this damned city? Gods, if you’re a disappointment to your dead mother, then what are your siblings? Bloody gods? Have they unlocked the secret to immortality without the obnoxious sun allergy? Adopted orphans en masse? Rallied an army to save the city? Oh - wait; that last one was you!”

“Are you seriously ranting at me because I’m not being kind enough to myself?”

“Yes!” Astarion says, as if she’s just said something particularly stupid.

She gives him a poke. “You’re not a shapeshifter, are you? You’re never this nice.”

“Well, with your whole,” he gestures up and down at her, “look, biting comments would have been like dunking a kitten in the sink. But, if I must prove my identity to pay you a compliment, do you recall the occasion when you accidentally climaxed while I was drinking from you?”

Her cheeks immediately go pink; she’d done her best to forget that humiliation. “We agreed we’d never speak of that again!” she whispers angrily.

“Yes; well I had not thought I’d ever need to confirm my identity to you, on account of apparently being too nice so there we go. What a lovely journey we’ve travelled tonight. Let’s never go a year without speaking again, hmm?”

“I took these paintings down the day Mother died and this is the first I’ve looked at them,” she says. “I hid what remained of her away because it hurt too much to look at.”

“Where’s Clive?” Astarion asks her, and she finds herself on the verge of tears again, and it’s all because Astarion bothered to remember the name of Karlach’s teddy bear.

“I gave him to Fytz - her friend. She was expecting, and I thought her child might like to have him. I haven’t spoken to her since. Hurts too much. I have her trident, but it’s in a case - don’t want there to be any accidents with my nieces and nephew.”

“And because it still hurts you to look at it.”

Astarion reaches out and taps her chin and looks closely at her face. “That’s why you’re so…”

“So?”

“Sick looking,” Astarion says, cringing, as if he knows that this is dangerous ground to tread on. “You’re not wearing any makeup. I’ve never seen you without makeup before.”

“Well, it’s you all right. How else do I fail to hold up in your endlessly fussy eyes?”

Once she’d have come back at him with a comment about how he’s awfully dead looking. He’s not trying to be mean; he’s trying to distract her the way he knows best, and the way they’ve distracted one another for as long as she’s known him. He huffs at her, but says nothing.

It’s not fair to lash out because she’s hurting. “Sorry,” she says quietly. “That was uncalled for.”

“I’ll make sure you’re stunning before we go out tomorrow. You’ll be glowing - and then you’ll actually be glowing when you help me burn the mansion to the ground. It’ll be grand.”

She stands up and packs a few outfits - knowing she’s unlikely to actually need them since they’ll be raiding the mansion wardrobes tomorrow, and puts on her purple robe for the first time in close to a year. Nestled in the back of her closet is her staff - Cazador’s old staff and a gift from Astarion after he killed the man by her side. It’s heavy; she’ll need to get herself back in shape after spending so long moping in bed, overwhelmed by the pain of her loss.

“There you go; a bit of life in you still,” Astarion says, looking her over. “Shall I wait while you give your father the terrible news that you’re being spirited away by a stranger in the night?”

Father is sitting in the living room on the couch. Beside him is his leather sewing kit, and on his lap are scraps of leather, but instead of working, he seems to be doing little more than fidgeting. His long, silver hair is tidy as always, and when he notices her, his eyes go wide. “You’ve left your room,” he says, and she feels a pang of guilt that this is such a surprise to him. “Your hair is nice.”

“Astarion cleaned me up and he’s invited me to come stay with him for a while. I’ve accepted his offer.”

Astarion has already shown himself to be more adept at dealing with her grief than Father is. Father is too passive; giving her patience when she sometimes needs a hand to pull her from the abyss. It’s funny; Father is going to live a lot longer than she ever will, but Astarion cannot die of old age, so theoretically will live longer than Father ever will. Yet, Father is the one who is passive and content to wait for someone to process instead of actively stepping in and helping.

It hits her: nobody saved Astarion, and he was long-bitter about that. In her, he sees someone in need of rescuing, and he will not watch as she flounders and drowns in her grief. No, her pain is nothing like his, but he’s trying to save her all the same.

The realization makes her eyes well up once again and she blinks them away, not wanting to cry in front of Father.

“He will be kind to you?” Father asks her quietly, and she imagines Astarion fidgeting in the hallway, eavesdropping, because the man has never behaved with discretion for as long as she’s known him.

She hesitates, wondering if it’s kinder to lie to Father, but deciding honesty is best - Father may see more of Astarion after all. “He can be an asshole, honestly. But he’s fun and he… knows what it is to hurt. And if that doesn’t work, we bicker and bickering is a good distraction.”

Why didn’t she explain the realization that she’s just come to? Why is she going for the simplest analysis of the man that her best friend is, instead of explaining that he’ll take care of her the same way she takes care of him?

Father raises a silver eyebrow at her. “I do not understand why you’d keep company that is, as you’d term it, ‘an asshole’. You kept odd company during your travels and that you managed to stop the threat to the city despite befriending such… misfits is nothing short of miraculous.”

What Father means there is that she’s a misfit too. A stage performer who stumbled into saving the Sword Coast; a woman unworthy of the draconic blood that runs through her veins, courtesy of Grandfather. She was always enough for Mother, but never enough for Father or Grandfather, even if Father is too passive to say so with company just outside the door.

“Because he’s funny. He’s loyal to me. And he’s the quickest motherfucker in a fight that I’ve ever seen. He’s not always a… good man, but he’s good to me and I’m proud of who he is, because I’ve seen how far he’s come.”

This, shockingly, does not ease Father’s concern and his brow furrows and he frowns. “He struck me as an odd sort. I’m not sure I approve.”

She will not tell him that Astarion is a vampire spawn because that’s the quickest way to get Peter knocking down Astarion’s door, even though she’s better equipped to defend herself than he is.

“I just… I really need him right now, Father.”

She doesn’t know where that came from and her stomach twists as she realizes there’s no way Astarion didn’t hear her pathetic admission.

“Promise me you’ll be safe. Do I need to speak with him to remind him to treat you with love and kindness?”

Father is a lamb and Astarion a leopard and he’s liable to get himself chewed to shreds - if only metaphorically, if he tries to have that talk with Astarion. “I know how to call him out when he’s being a shit. It’s fine and I promise I’ll be safe. He wouldn’t hurt me.”

“I’m pleased you’re moving out at last,” Father says after a long pause and she winces; Mother was always happy for her company, but Father never liked that she remained at home on account of the fact that she never made enough coin to be able to afford a room of her own in a decent part of the city. He wanted her to grow up and get a practical job; she wanted to chase her dreams on stage. Then, Mother died, and the last defender she had was gone, and the pressure mounted; the reminders that she’s unreliable, poor and not carrying her weight in the family.

He stands up and embraces her tightly. “I liked Karlach a lot and she was good for you. I only met her the one time but I’m still sorry you lost her.”

That’s the first Father has said that to her and she wonders if he truly means it, or if the kind words are merely an attempt to usher her out the door.

After they leave the house, Astarion glances her way, his mouth turning upwards in a feral grin. “So, my dear, I am a shit, as you say?”

She knew he’d be eavesdropping.

“Daddy doesn’t approve of me, does he?” he says, his tone mocking.

“Does anyone approve of you?” she snaps and instead of laughing at her dig, he turns serious.

“Karlach did. I wish I’d told her more because she’d have understood.”

“She’d have shown you such compassion if you’d opened up more. But she understood, you know. She knew you’d gone through horrors beyond imagining and that it’s not easy to share.”

“You’re the only one who knows it all,” Astarion says, mostly to himself as he guides her through the streets of the city, towards his home, which is at the end of a long, cobbled street. It’s a two storey house, with a little flower bed in the front yard that is presently devoid of anything resembling life. The windows are blocked, though from the outside it looks as if he’s merely kept the drapes closed, making him look like a recluse and not a vampire avoiding the rays of the sun.

He hands her a key - apparently his intention has long been to have her come stay with him, and shows her how to remove the wards and traps leading up to the front door. “Not one for company, are you?” she asks him wryly and Astarion chuckles and shakes his head.

“Gale visited last month - he’s worried about you and was about ready to charge into your father’s house himself. I talked him down; figured you’d be terribly annoyed by his brand of ‘help’, but promised to step in myself if none of us heard from you. You’ve really not talked to any of us, have you?”

“Jaheira has visited a couple times,” she says quietly. Jaheira lost her husband long ago and was in a better place to understand what she’s going through than any of the others, and so it was her company she wanted. Jaheira lacks Mother’s softness; she’s a gruff, blunt woman, but sitting with her felt like sitting with a mom and so it was a comfort.

They step into the house to find a long, windowless corridor with a thick, wooden door at the end of it. Astarion shows her how to undo the traps on this door as well, and when he opens it, they enter a sitting room. The furniture is a rich burgundy, the sconces are silver in the shape of a dragon’s head and she chuckles, gesturing to them.

“You never shut up about your heritage so it slipped into my home decorating preferences.”

The floor is a dark oak and there are several bookcases against the walls, though they’re sparsely filled at present.

“I’d rather Jaheira not know where I live. Self-preservation and all that,” Astarion says, and she’s not surprised by the request; she’s made no secret of her disdain and distrust of vampires and gleefully shared a story of sinking one into the cobblestones and watching them burn as the sun rose. Astarion is wise to be uncomfortable around her, though she did promise not to touch him - so long as he remained unascended.

“I wouldn’t reveal that to her or anyone else without your permission,” she promises.

Next, he brings her to the guest bedroom, which features a double bed, a wardrobe, and a large vanity table with a mirror. She stares at it, in shock, as it hits her: he picked this furniture for her. Gale doesn’t need a fucking vanity table, but she sure as shit does to do her makeup. “I’m not sure I deserve your kindness after dropping off the map for a year,” she says.

“Really? You know what - no. We’re not arguing about this, because you are wrong. Blatantly wrong,” Astarion says, and rushes out of the bedroom, returning a few minutes later with a plate covered in melon, cheese, two sweet rolls, and what looks to be a little saucer of hot sauce. She stares at it and giggles.

“What?”

“None of the food on that plate goes together, and it’s very cute,” she says, taking it from him and grabbing a slice of melon. “Thank you.”

“I haven’t eaten food in more than two centuries,” Astarion mutters.

“What was your favourite food? Do you remember?”

Rarely do they speak of his life before he was turned, because he remembers so little of it. “I… recall being fond of the fruit with the little red bits that you need to peel?”

“Pomegranates?”

“They’re lovely. Sometimes I offered a bowl to my lovers and savoured how the juice stained their lips and fingers.” His face falls as he speaks of that memory. “I don’t remember what they taste like.”

“Tart, but with the slightest hint of sweetness.”

Astarion scrunches his face up, and she takes another bite of melon, watching a man who has subsided on blood for two centuries puzzle out the complexity of tart fruit. “What do I taste like?”

“You know, I never thought I’d get that as a legitimate inquiry.”

“Am I sweet? Tart? Spicy?”

“Bold,” Astarion decides on, eventually. “It suits you, because whenever you walk into a room, all eyes are on you. As they should be.”

“Careful; you sound almost jealous that you aren’t the prettiest peacock in the bar.”

After finishing the melon on her plate, she dives into the cheese, smiling to herself at his sweetly incompetent attempt to feed her dinner. More to humour him than anything, she dips a cube of cheese into the saucer of hot sauce.

“You’re loud, my dear. You lack subtlety and can charm the room with a smile. Play your cards right and you’d never need to open your coin purse at the tavern, and all the slobbering fools who lust for you would leave sated, even after you refuse to give them more than a sliver of your attention. I, on the other hand, am subtle. You show people you’re the prettiest one in the room; I know I am.”

“Must irritate you; being friends with someone who is so fucking loud.”

“What do I need to do to pull you from this spiral? It’s really quite bleak and I am fond of you, even if you squawk a little loudly.”

She sets her plate down on the vanity and looks at Astarion. His suit jacket is off once more, and his sleeves unbuttoned and loose. He can’t fix what’s wrong any more than she could fix him. “Just be patient with me?”

Instead of a smart quip of complaint about her current fit of self-loathing, he simply nods, walks over to her and gives her a hug. “I’ll love you for you until you can love yourself once more.”

Gods, he’s being genuine. He just told her he loves her. “Look at you; falling into the trap of loving me,” she says, because she can never be serious and admit that hearing him speak genuinely about how he cares for her means more than anything he’s ever said to her previously.

“Just two suckers swirling in a whirlpool of our own design, darling.”

Chapter Text

“You’re going to look gorgeous once I’m through with you,” Astarion says as he blends her eyeshadow with a soft brush. Her own eyes are closed and she’s trying not to think about the fact that his face is inches from her own - and that he’s doing her makeup by candlelight. When she first met him, he was free to walk in the sun, and she never had to consider how many of the things he enjoys are things he’s had to learn how to do in the dark. Some mornings, while everyone else was drinking their morning coffee, he’d quietly work on an embroidery project in the sun.

What does he miss more: the sun on his face, or the ability to work in natural light? It’s something she’ll find out for herself - in a more limited way, because having a vampire roommate means natural light in the house is completely out of the question, so the only light she’ll have is candlelight, and that which she can conjure herself.

“May I ask why you feel it necessary to get dressed up to blow up the Szarr mansion?”

“Because we’re going to a funeral, my dear,” Astarion says, as if the answer should be obvious.

“Ah, because all funerals begin with looting.”

Astarion pauses and pulls the brush away. “I find the best ones do.”

“You’re a menace - you know that, right?”

“Spoken as if that’s a bad thing,” he says, and she feels him leaning back, as if inspecting his work. “You’re gorgeous.”

She tries to ignore how her heart flutters at the compliment, opens her eyes and leans in close to the vanity mirror. So often when she does her own makeup she sticks to a simple smokey eye, but Astarion lined her upper lids with royal blue eyeliner, and her eyeshadow goes from a soft pink at her tear ducts, to the same rich violet of her hair, and then to eggplant. Above, on her brow, he’s used red - something she’d have never considered doing on her own.

For the first time since Karlach’s death, she feels like she’s alive again. “I love it. Thank you,” she says, and she turns to glimpse at his expression, and it’s not the smug smile he uses when he’s pleased with himself, but something softer. It’s a smile she saw rarely on him - and one reserved for her and Karlach, who had both managed to worm their way into his dead heart and nestle behind the wall he’d built around himself.

Astarion is wearing a beige suit; the jacket has an embroidered bird down the left side of it, and is far finer than anything she’d have worn before storming the mansion last year. He’s given her a black suit (“I’d give you a dress, but burning a house down in a dress is probably a little more danger than you’re looking for in a night out”), and once she’s dressed, he puts a purple pocket square into the breast pocket.

When it comes to personal care, the man is as detailed as they come, she’s noticed, though in every other respect, he tends to look at the broad picture. He’ll throw out an idea and allow others to do the detail work or embrace spontaneity and chaos and suggest they “figure it out as they go”. He offers her his arm, and they walk through the dark streets of Baldur’s Gate towards the tower that will get them into the mansion, and in a strange way, it feels almost like they’re on a date.

They’re not. He’s the best friend she has in this world, and he spent two centuries enduring trauma and horrors beyond her comprehension. That he’s taken her into his home is generous, but she feels guilty; a man with so much pain of his own shouldn’t feel compelled to take her grief on. Especially since her pain is because she lost the most beautiful thing she’s ever had.

The tower is devoid of guards; it’s eerie, and she thinks of the last time they were there, and how Astarion was whispering instructions in her ear, telling her what sort of things she needed to say in order to bypass the charmed guards at the door. Now free of Cazador’s control, what became of those guards? She never thought to ask him, and decides it might be best not to know.

This time, Astarion needs to pick the lock in order to get in - a fact that unsettles her because they definitely did not lock the door behind them as they left this wretched place. Noticing her expression, he says, “I wouldn’t be surprised if some of his pathetic little servants are still squatting in the house - waiting for someone to come and tell them what to do.”

“Will they attack us?” she asks Astarion, figuring there’s a good chance they’ll wind up in a fight because she can’t see the house’s remaining residents lying back and walking away when it becomes clear that they’re there to raze the place.

“If they do, we’ll kill them,” Astarion says, indifferent. “I imagine they’ll have enough collective brainpower to recognize when a fight is lost after we off one or two of them.”

“All right; I follow your lead,” she says as Astarion opens the door, looks inside, and beckons for her to follow him.

“No judgement? No ‘Astarion, we can’t murder the simpletons!’?”

“They stood by while you were being hurt for years, so no judgement. I don’t tend to hold people who hurt you in good favour, nor do I weep for their deaths.”

“Aren’t you sweet?” he says, looking over at her. It’s dark in this wing of the house, so she sends little bursts of flame to the sconces, lighting the candles in them. Too dark for now, but soon things will be far too bright.

It’s the same faded carpet, the same drab curtains; as if this place is a time capsule for three centuries previous. In a less frantic state of mind this time, Astarion points at paintings on the wall, telling her which ones are counterfeits; almost gleeful as he does.

“Any painting of a stiff, pathetic-looking person is probably real - and probably a member of the Szarr family. Cazador had three self-portraits in his quarters.”

She bristles at the casual, almost joking way he says this, her heart aching at the veiled reminder of all he’s been through.

“Pathetic man, wasn’t he?”

Cazador wasn’t the man she’d imagined from Astarion’s descriptions. She’d imagined a huge man - maybe someone Halsin’s size. Truthfully, Cazador struck her as pathetic; someone leaning far too heavily on the powers his condition gave him rather than any other abilities life may have granted him. There was no cleverness to him; just a thirst for power and a fondness for sadism.

Maybe that’s what hurt so much about it for Astarion, though. Realizing that his tormenter was so small and easily killed after two centuries of torture and slavery.

She reaches over, takes his hand and squeezes it. “What sort of person counterfeits paintings, anyway?”

“The pathetic ones, darling. We’ve established this.”

As they wander, Astarion picks the locks of several chests they encounter, handing her several bags of gold and jewels. He places a trunk at the exit and they wander back and forth, filling it with other valuables, and Astarion says he’ll hide the trunk on the grounds and come back for it “when the embers burn away”.

“When we go out dancing, I’m buying your drinks,” he says as she pockets the bags, and then turns his attention to the wardrobe in the guest room they’re plundering.

When they were last here, they were rushed, but tonight they take their time, and Astarion tosses half a dozen outfits for each of them into the bag they brought expressly for this purpose. She doesn’t have a good sense of the value of these clothes but Astarion says that, even though most of the paintings are fake, the jewels and gold are real. He’s looting anything of value and will be a tremendously wealthy man once he’s collected everything off the grounds, she realizes.

“The house has been picked away at a bit - my siblings may have come back and rooted through things,” Astarion says when they wander into a room free of anything of value. “At least one of them has a functioning brain stem.” He says this jokingly but there’s a hint of viciousness to it; he holds little love for his siblings but she doesn’t think he maintains outright loathing for most of them. Petras would be the exception to that rule, but the impression she has is that he feels a mess of resentment and pity for them.

It makes her think of her own complicated relationship with Peter. When you’re constantly told you’re not good enough, it’s hard not to feel resentment for the sibling who has earned that approval. Peter thinks she’s flighty - and maybe she is, and maybe that flightiness is a response to Father’s disapproval. If she can’t make him happy, at least negative attention is still attention, right?

She frowns; it doesn’t do to focus on her own small family dramas when she’s walking through the remains of Astarion’s family home, where he experienced horrors beyond her comprehension.

After leaving the third room they’ve looted, a man rushes the two of them with a coat rack, swinging at Astarion, who ducks almost lazily and presses his knife to the man’s throat. “Ah, ah,” he says, like scolding a child. “By morning this house will be little more than smouldering ash, so I’d recommend scooping up your fellow idiots and fleeing.”

She’s readied a Ray of Frost in her hands in case someone else is hiding and tries to get the drop on them. The man stammers, and Astarion’s grin turns feral as he presses his dagger just a little bit harder against his throat, drawing blood. “Run,” he hisses, and he trips over himself in his attempt to sprint down the hall, falling flat on his face. Astarion chuckles at the display and sheaths his dagger. “Pathetic fool. Didn’t even fight for the place.”

“I mean… you’d have killed him and he knew it.”

“To just lay back and give in - it’s pathetic!” he says, like a cobra spitting venom at an attacker.

She realizes he’s no longer talking about the man who rushed them, and walks over to him and takes his hand once more. “Sometimes living another day means keeping your head down and enduring. You got out, you killed him, and you gave 7,000 people a chance to live a kinder life. I feel no sympathy for any who remain in this house now, but there’s no shame in just trying to survive.”

“I don’t like being back here,” he mutters, not looking at her. “Let’s just finish pillaging the place and then we can burn it.”

The city bell chimes three in the morning by the time they collect all of the valuables Astarion deems worth plundering, and tipped barrels of oil and grease through the house. They’re standing in the foyer and he gestures to her. “Do your thing,” he says, but instead she conjures a ball of flame, asks him to stick his hand out, and helps him control it. Occasionally he casts spells with the help of scrolls, but has told her more than once that magic never came naturally to him, and that his skills in the area are limited at best.

“You’re the one who’ll burn it down,” she says, steadying the flame and stoking the heat of it. “Don’t worry about keeping it going - just throw.”

He tosses the ball of flame across the foyer, hitting the puddles of oil they’d poured on the carpet. Instantly it explodes, sending flames to the curtains and walls. For a second she watches, entranced, but Astarion taps her and they run out of the house, down the tower and sprint far enough away from the blast radius. There’s an explosion moments later, sending a ball of fire high up into the night sky and beside her, Astarion laughs gleefully, and she smiles, grateful to have done this with him.

“It feels good to see you lift another weight off your chest.”

Astarion and her glance at the burning mansion for a moment longer, and then turn to head back to his house to ensure they have more than enough time to get back before the sun rises. It occurs to her that she’ll be sleeping during the day much of the time from now on, because night is when Astarion is up and able to go outside.

There are few refugees out at this late hour, but Astarion tosses them a few pieces of gold or jewellery each when they walk past them. He doesn’t stop to say anything; no well wishes or sympathy, he simply hands over coin looted from the grave of a monster. They speak little until they get back to his house, where he undoes his suit jacket and removes it, leaving him in a thin, white shirt and beige trousers. She does the same, only it leaves her in her bra - the jacket was too tight to wear a shirt underneath.

Astarion, noticing this, removes his own shirt, tossing it onto the couch. “Are you wanting to play cards?” she asks him dryly.

“If we’re going to sit and decompress, I thought it best to have a sense of equality in our respective outfits.” She raises an eyebrow at him. “That, and it’s been so long since you’ve had anything nice to look at. Have you seen anyone but your family and Jaheira over the last year?”

She shakes her head; now that he’s said it aloud, she’s realizing just how depressing that sounds. Astarion sits, slumped in a chair and she lies down on the couch. She’d noticed his tendency to slump and never thought much of it, until Cazador sharply ordered him to stand tall when they were confronting him. And he did; bouncing up like a spring and it broke her heart to watch, because even if the man lost magical control over him, he still had psychological control in that moment.

It’s good to see him lounging in the home he’s made for himself. “So, what have you done with your time over the last year?” she asks him.

“Remarkably little, truth be told. I bought the house, made it into a home, and told myself over and over that I should go to the Underdark to find my siblings. Make sure they haven’t gotten those poor souls killed with their blundering. But, I couldn’t bring myself to leave.”

“Why?”

“After 200 years of slavery, I decided I’ve earned some leisure time,” Astarion says - too quickly, and she realizes that’s not the entire truth, but cannot figure out how to prod him to open up. Once, she’d have been able to, but now, overwhelmed by grief and depression, no words come, so she accepts his comment at face value.

“Sometimes when I considered leaving, I thought about how utterly pesky you are; twisting me into something resembling decent with charisma alone. I’d have settled for a life of luxury without a second thought once.”

They both know that’s not precisely true, and had she not been able to gently steer him in another direction, he’d have transformed himself into a monster, just as Cazador was.

“That’s me; causing ruin with the knowledge that I did the ‘right thing’.” She speaks bitterly, thinking of Karlach and how she refused to ever suggest she return to Avernus. Karlach told her she’d rather die than go back, but what if she weren’t alone? What if she went with her? What if she decided that an imperfect life was better than a short one?

“You want banter and here I am, causing more ruin,” she says, hating herself.

Astarion gets up, sits beside her and pulls her against him. His body is frigid cold but the warmth of the gesture more than makes up for it. “Give yourself a few weeks with me and we’ll be bickering again. I drive you mad and you do the same to me.”

“You burned the house down tonight and here I am making it all about me…”

“I should have gone to you sooner,” Astarion says, cutting her off. “You may be in a better state now if I had. With full offence intended - your father is truly a useless man. Gods; I’d hit him if you weren’t related to him.”

“He thought letting me hide myself away was the right thing to do. He’s always been distant; Karlach thinks it’s because he will outlive all his children and he’s trying to spare himself the grief.”

“That’s not a fucking excuse!” Astarion says, more forcefully than he likely intended, because he softens again instantly. “You knew Karlach’s fate and you gave her your whole heart.”

“And look at me now.”

“Do you regret it?”

She shakes her head without hesitation.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. I knew you’d be better with the privilege of my company and I promised…”

She looks up at his face; at his wide, panicked eyes. “She asked you to take care of me,” she says, repeating what Astarion told her the day Karlach died.

“Was quite insistent on obtaining the promise, in fact.” This isn’t the full truth, but again she is in no shape to push for whatever caused him to panic just now. “You’re here now, and I’ll work my magic on you until you get sick of me and toss me out an open window into the sun.”

He’s joking but the image terrifies her. “No!” she says, clinging more tightly to him. “No. Never. No.”

She bursts into tears at the thought of losing him too, and thinks of the day of the final fight and how the sun burned him.

“Look at the two of us,” Astarion says, giving her a kiss on the top of her head. “Idiots; the both of us. You couldn’t push me out a window if you tried, darling. It would be adorable to watch you try - little noodle arms and all.”

“You’re not very big,” she says through her tears.

“Bigger than you. Quicker. Arguably more beautiful - arguably, and I’d be willing to listen to your claims otherwise. It’s still very cute to watch you try to use a knife as a weapon. Like giving a child a dagger. At least you know which end is the sharp one.”

“Fuck off,” she says, wiping her eyes; self-conscious of his damp chest beneath her tear-stained face.

“You’re not going to lose me too. It’s going to be the other way around one day,” Astarion says, and from the regretful tone in his voice, she realizes that this is something he’s given considerable thought.

Chapter Text

Petra is still asleep when he pulls himself from his morning meditation, lying on the couch with her head resting on his lap. She cried for hours last night, and he felt helpless - angry at Karlach, even, for pressing this onto him. He doesn’t know what to do, so he just sits with her and listens, but is it enough? Did she not have this for a year at her father’s house?

As sorrow made way for exhaustion, she whispered a prayer to her grandfather into his bare chest, pleading for peace and protection for both him and her. She prays to her dragon grandfather; a man who’d rather be a god than family to her, and so by default he cannot stand the man. She deserves so much better than a distant father and grandfather so obsessed with their ancestry that their thumbs are lodged firmly in their asses.

That discussion won’t help her, so he listened to her prayer in silence, vowing to give her the peace she’s pleading for. Her grandfather may not listen but he will.

He reaches over and grabs his latest embroidery project, mentally lamenting that he can no longer work in the sun. A year was just long enough that he’d almost forgotten how tedious it is to work by candlelight. The colours of his project, bright in the sun, are faded and drab in the dark.

There is so little he remembers about his former life prior to being turned, but he does know this hobby was a part of it. Who taught him, though? Was it a parent? Grandparent? He thinks he had an older sister, but cannot remember her name or face. That was a memory that slipped away during his year entombed as punishment for letting a sweet young man escape him. It hurt too much to imagine a family he’d never see again, so he let them go.

Now, free and able to rebuild a life that’s his alone, he wonders if that was the right decision. It was one he needed to make to cope, but part of him wonders how any living relatives might react to discovering he’s alive - or undead, as it were. Would they hug him? Cry? Be thrilled to see him? Or would they try to kill him, forcing him and Petra to fight them off?

He smiles at the realization that he just assumed Petra would be with him. During the two years he’s known her, she’s gently shown him that relationships need not be transactional, and that when she helps him, it’s because she cares for him and wants to help. Seems the lesson has finally stuck.

“I like watching you do that,” Petra croaks, her head still on his lap. “It’s such beautiful, precise work, and it’s quiet work. Most of my hobbies are boisterous, and I like that you enjoy sewing and embroidery. Want me to cast a light for you?”

“So long as it’s not daylight,” he says wryly, and Petra chuckles and casts a glowing ball of light that hovers just over his head. The drab colours become brighter - he’s working in green and gold today, and he thanks her.

“It’s an easy spell and should stick around all day. You didn’t have this…” she trails off, perhaps realizing she’s poking at a possible pain point.

“Utility spells were a waste of power, even if I could cast with any competency.”

Petra sits up, and he finds himself disappointed to lose the weight of her head on his lap, but he ignores it; now is not the time to consider such things. Not when she’s still drowning in her grief and it’s his job to be her tether.

“Now, that’s just stupid. Little things are good for morale, and people who are happy are more productive. Think of how much quicker he could have reached his goals if he’d provided you all with proper food and light to embroider by?”

Petra is grinning at him, and the comment is so absurd; this complaint about Cazador is quite literally the smallest objection he could have ever had about the man, but he bursts out laughing at it. “Easily the most damnable thing about the man,” he jokes.

It feels good to make light of it - not as a defence mechanism, but because Cazador was a tyrant - and not a smart one. No light? What a stupid hill to die on.

“Let me know when you need it and I’ll make sure you have some light.”

The offer itself isn’t the only thing that warms him, but the implication that she’ll be sticking around at the house with him.

“I’m sorry about last night. I feel like I was selfish - I’ve been having a lot of trouble and hid away to avoid burdening my father, and I should have excused myself when the grief became too much. You’re fine - you cracked a joke and nothing is going to happen to you, and I should have realized that without spending half the night crying all over you. Thank you for tolerating me last night and I’ll try to be better.”

He sets his project aside, stands up and offers her his hand. “Teach me what a proper breakfast looks like.”

Petra gives him a funny look but accepts his hand. His kitchen is small - not on purpose; he just did not bother to look at the kitchen with any critical eye because he does not need one. All that mattered to him is that he could block the windows and that there were no cracks in the ceiling that would risk letting light in. He keeps the food he bought for Petra on her own shelf in the ice box, separate from his stock of blood (pig; better than chicken but not as good as cow, he’s discovered), and on a shelf he installed specially for her. She reaches into a basket of eggs and pulls two out, cracks them into a bowl and stirs them with a fork, blending the yellow bit of the egg with the snotty clear bit.

“Eggs are disgusting,” he says, wrinkling his nose.

“Agree to disagree,” Petra says. “Do you have any spices?”

“No? Just the hot sauce.” Why does food need spices?

“Bit of advice for preparing food for mortals: you need to season it. Hot sauce works for eggs but I’ll head to the market today and grab what I need.”

Before cooking the eggs, she grabs some sort of cured meat off the shelf, slices it, and frys it, and then cooks the eggs in the fat that remains in the pan. It’s strange to watch; stranger to think that this would have once been a routine for him every morning. Did he know how to cook? His family was wealthy; his continued desire for a life of comfort makes that clear enough to him, so they may have had a cook on-staff.

“You don’t need to hide away when you’re hurt,” he says when she sits down with her plate and a fork. “Did your father teach you that?”

“He wasn’t exactly the one we ran to when we were injured as a kid. He did try, but when he couldn’t reach me, he left me to wallow in my grief alone.”

For a moment he wonders how such a man could have had a vibrant daughter like Petra before he remembers how Petra has spoken of her late human mother. “What would your mother have done to care for you?” he asks, figuring he can try his best to mimic her mother’s actions.

Petra’s brows furrow as she considers the question. “I think she’d do similar to what you’ve done; she’d clean me up and force me out of the house and back into the world again. She may not take me to rob and burn down a mansion or out dancing, but we’d go to the market, or to a play. She loved plays - but only the ones that had a happy ending. Mother said that there was too much sadness in the world to watch stories that ended sadly.”

Before the tadpole, he spent most nights out - at brothels, at taverns, or prowling the street in search of victims for Cazador. He’s danced nights away with prospective lovers trusting or stupid enough to fall into his trap, but hasn’t since the tadpole pulled him from Cazador’s grasp. Petra loves to dance, and so he will take her to dance tonight, and hope the memories of the past are not too overwhelming.

Or, at least, that he’s able to hide it from her, because he knows if Petra figures out he’s stuck in a flashback, she’ll drop everything to tend to him, and his job now is to take care of her. Scratch comes into the kitchen and wags his tail, so Petra gets up and prepares something for him, and sets it down. He likes the dog - he prefers cats, but now when he interacts with Scratch, he no longer thinks of the past, when catching a dog on the street meant a particularly good meal.

He never could do the same to cats, and he wonders if he had cats before he was turned. Did someone take them in? Or did they starve slowly in his house while he wasted away in that mansion? It’s only a matter of time before Petra brings home a cat for them, and he finds himself hoping she brings home more than one.

While Petra journeys to the market, he spends his day embroidering in more light than he’s had in a year, and enjoys the feeling of contentment.

***

Tonight, with little danger to be had, Petra wears a pink beaded dress that falls to her knees, with a blue shawl. They’re heading to the Elfsong - where he’s known by the bartenders, but so is Petra, and he discovered that, so long as he’s with her, he’s near-invisible, freeing him from the worst of the stern glances he still receives - and likely always will. Fair, he supposes; bartenders can’t respond well to those culling their livelihood, even if he was careful to mostly target those coming in from out of town and not their regulars.

Had he gone for their regulars, he suspects he’d have found himself cornered in an alley at least four decades ago. He might have been able to fight his way out of the mess, but it’d have been ugly.

Petra embraces Alan, the proprietor of the place, as she did upon first returning to the establishment after their months of travel. Alan asks her where she’s been and why she hasn’t come to him to get on the performance schedule, and he bristles, ready to step in to steer the conversation away from such topics, but Petra simply smiles at Alan. “We lost my girlfriend in the fighting, so I’ve not been in a good state. My dear friend has pulled me back into the world of the living.”

Alan glances his way, eyeing him up and down. The man knows that he was one of the people renting the second floor alongside Petra, and seemed to keep his mouth shut; perhaps seeing the calibre of people they’d been travelling with. Now Petra is alone, and she may be one of the heroes of Baldur’s Gate now, but the instinct to protect her must still remain.

“I believe I promised you a drink,” he says, pulling out his coin purse. Petra orders a glass of red wine - he rarely sees her drink anything else and knows she dislikes spirits, and he tips Alan well. A peace offering, perhaps. Still, the man scowls at him, and he notices a dagger at the man’s hip. Smart, for a bartender, and a man Alan’s age has seen more than enough in his life to know when he needs to be fighting.

“You’ll let me know when you’re ready to perform again?” Alan asks Petra, and it hits him that Petra would bring good coin into the establishment. She may have once been a nobody on stage, but now she’s a hero, and people will flock to see her sing or make sculptures out of ice with a single incantation and wave of her hand.

“I will. It may be awhile, but I will return to the stage one day,” Petra promises.

“I can only write sad songs and they don’t have much of a place at a tavern. People start drinking for the wrong reasons,” Petra jokes while waiting for her drink. Wine-in-hand, they sit down at a table - the bard is between sets at the moment, and it’s quiet here, though that will soon change.

“I never paid attention to the music, other than to draw them in if they cared to dance,” he admits. “I couldn’t have told you if the songs were upbeat or not.”

Petra takes a sip of her wine and toys with the stem of the goblet. “My favourite songs are the deceptive ones. The ones with the light beat that are easy to dance to, but if you pay attention - really pay attention to the lyrics, you discover they’re actually profoundly sad. There’s a brilliance to encouraging people to dance to heartache. I never sang to music; I can’t play an instrument, so it’s not something I was ever able to pull off myself, but gods, is it good when someone can.”

“I wrote many songs for Karlach,” Petra says, taking another sip of her drink. “The night before the last fight, she was in a lot of pain and I held her, did my best to cool her off and sang to her until she drifted off to sleep. All of the songs I wrote for her; but I never admitted that they were hers. Stupid, huh? I think she knew, though. She always knew the things I could not say. I wish I’d told her; I wish I’d said that the love we share was so inspiring that it guided me to make beautiful music.”

He hasn’t been able to do much to help her, but he can help her here - and it’s so easy that he has to suppress a chuckle. “Darling, we all knew they were for her. You couldn’t have been more obvious, so actually telling Karlach would have been an insult to her intelligence.”

This seems to cheer Petra up a little and she chuckles, shaking her head. “We weren’t discreet, were we?”

“About as discreet as that ogre and bugbear in the barn, though you sounded far less disgusting than those two did.”

“I still feel bad for killing them, even though they attacked us.”

He doesn’t; it was hilarious.

“I know you think it was funny,” Petra says before he can actually confess to it. “And… maybe it was a little funny, in a ridiculous way. I apologized but they attacked anyway. But it was also really mean to go into the barn in the first place. I was mean to them. Hardly the worst thing I did during our travels.”

“What would you say is the worst thing you did?” he asks, knowing the answer.

“Orpheus. I never told Lae’zel that either Karlach or I could have made the sacrifice instead; cowardly of me, I suppose, but maybe it’s kinder to keep that information from her. That’s what I tell myself so I can sleep at night. Do you regret anything we did?”

“Regrets are for fools,” he says and Petra smirks and lifts her goblet up in a mock toast.

“Ever the charming man, Astarion.”

What he doesn’t tell her is that his own regrets run far deeper than anything they did during their year travelling together. That he sees the frightened faces of the people he preyed upon under Cazador’s orders when he meditates. The fury of the Gur child who was damned to an eternity of torment because he kidnapped her.

Regrets are for fools, and he is a fool.

At this opportune moment, the bard returns to the stage and Petra leaps up and grabs his hand, holding her half-full goblet in the other. She takes the lead when they dance; he’s a good dancer, but tends to stick to the steps, whereas Petra knows the steps but gleefully does away with them. Tonight, he wishes alcohol didn’t leave him with such a terrible stomachache, because a glass or two of wine might help him loosen up, allowing him to keep up with her.

She smiles and twirls and looks more free than he’s seen her - perhaps ever; uncaring that her dance partner couldn’t hope to keep up with her. When she finishes her drink, he takes her goblet and leaves her side just long enough to buy her another and after her third drink, she begins singing along. She’s better than the bard on-stage, but doesn’t seem to realize it. “I’m getting sloppy,” she laughs, as her movements become larger; more exaggerated. Around them, others dance and he’s invisible; just one more person on the dance floor of a tavern. It’s not the sort of invisible he’s used to, when he’d hunt in the shadows. Here, people can see him but… they don’t care. If they notice him at all (doubtful; Petra’s purple hair tends to draw much of the attention), they hardly give him a second glance.

Not an object of desire, not a man on the prowl; just someone dancing with the first and best friend he’s ever had. It feels good.

“Not to worry; I’m sober and will ensure you don’t make an arse of yourself,” he says; sticking to their normal dynamic, because it’s easy, and he doesn’t know how to tell her that watching her is far more interesting than the bard. Even if he did know how, she’s unlikely to appreciate his words. Not now; when her sorrow weighs so heavily.

No, she wants to dance, and so they will dance until the third bell tolls, when his condition will force them to leave so he can retreat to his house. If he must, he’ll hold her upright as she stumbles in the street, and pour her a glass of water, prepared to endure her crankiness mid-day when she wakes up hungover.

“You’re cute when you’re hungover,” he yells over the music and Petra gives him a funny look. “It’s the only time you’re an utter brat and even when you’re grumpy, you’re charming. It’s very annoying.”

“Yes, I see why that would be irritating for a man who's made it his mission to be a brat and a menace at every moment in his life,” Petra fires back without heat.

The stars are dim in the city, even in the middle of the night while they’re walking home, and he longs for the road; where Gale would point out every constellation in the sky, and share stories of how and why they were named as they are. Petra always listened to Gale; enraptured by his words - or at least better at pretending to be than he ever was. The temptation to remind the man that he sounds like a dictionary was sometimes too sweet to turn down.

In truth, he admires Gale’s intelligence. Their interests rarely overlapped; he has little interest in the intricacies of magic, but Gale never complained when he used “big words” the way Wyll did once. Some nights, while the others chatted around the fire, he’d sit back with Gale and they’d silently read their books - Gale’s were always theoretical magic texts, his own varied between history, politics, science and the odd novel.

He would never admit he admires Gale’s intelligence aloud. Can’t let the man’s head grow bigger than it already is.

Petra staggers and laughs when he catches her, and wraps her arms around his waist, and he thinks that if he still had a working heart, it might be racing right about now. She used to ask before touching him; the first she hugged him was after he killed Cazador and he cried on her shoulder back at camp. It was the sort of emotional intimacy that was foreign to him, but that hug brought about a shift between them. Knowing that he would usually accept a hug from her - and that he appreciates it, she began stopping by to give him a hug in the evenings. Always asking for permission first, of course. After he was wounded in the Iron Throne prison break, he spent the night cuddled between Petra and Karlach, who had tasked themselves with keeping him as warm and comfortable as possible until Shadowheart had the energy to finish putting him back together in the morning.

In her desperation to keep him from dying on her properly, she’d removed his armour and clothes, and in the morning, once the worst of the pain had faded away under Shadowheart’s care, she apologized. “I know you’re going to tease me for this; you’re going to have some sarcastic comment about how I should have let you bleed out, but what you want is important and I’m sorry I didn’t ask before removing your clothes.”

Petra had been right: his initial instinct had been to tease her, but, surprising himself, he went in another direction. “You don’t have to ask before touching me, but I like that you do. And, you have blanket permission to strip me if I’m bleeding to death.”

She doesn’t always ask nowadays; she’s figured out that he does genuinely enjoy her friendly touches and has always had a good read of his mood and when to give him space.

He gets her inside the house, resets the wards and traps, and brings her a glass of water. She’s asleep; her sheets askew, so he tucks her in, knowing that she gets cold at night, even if she claims to be used to the cold as a sorcerer from a silver dragon bloodline.

The snoring; her loud snoring that she refuses to acknowledge stops and her eyes flutter open at the movement of the duvet. She looks at him with soft eyes and reaches out; too drunk and she misses, her hand flopping over the side of the bed. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Petra slurs. “Please don’t leave me.”

“This is my house,” he reminds her.

“I wish I could see the sun on your face again. It was so striking, but I can’t. I can’t watch you burn like Karlach did.”

That’s the thing about getting drunk - sometimes you’re a happy drunk and sometimes you’re a sad one. And, sometimes, if you’re particularly unfortunate, you’re both. She’s revealing things nestled deep within her; things that aren’t meant for him to know.

“Go back to sleep,” he tells her, instead of reacting to a confession meant for an empty room.

A single tear rolls down her cheek and onto her pillow. “I see it when I sleep. Her burning. And I see you too. Please don’t leave me alone. Hold me?”

He won’t climb into her bed when she’s drunk and cannot consent, so he leaves the room just long enough to find a chair, and sets it down beside her, sits down and takes her hand. “You’ll accuse me of being creepy come mid-day,” he says flippantly.

“Never,” Petra murmurs, and her voice lowers to a slurred whisper. “‘Ov you too m’fur’that.”

She’s drunk. She can’t know what she was saying, and the exhaustion of the late hour and a night spent dancing means he’s hearing the things he wants to hear, instead of the words slipping from her mouth.

When you’ve had the love of a woman like Karlach, his own love may as well be a pair of worn, broken boots that leave your feet wet and cold in the rain.

Chapter Text

It’s a month before she musters up the courage to return to the house to visit with Father, and when she arrives, Peter is there too, a cup of tea in-hand. He sets it aside, stands up and hugs her. “Father says you’ve moved away with a friend, but could tell me nothing about him.”

Father hugs her too, though his own embrace is looser; almost hesitant. Over the years she’s grown used to the distance of Father’s hugs; the obligatory feeling in them and the lack of warmth. Those who meet him now could come to the conclusion that he’s not a hugger, but she saw the way he always held Mother; as if she’s the only thing in the world that mattered to him. He adored her and there was never any doubt.

As a child she wished Father would hug her with that sort of affection. Now she’s learned not to expect it; that she’s lucky to get a little scrap of affection at all.

She sits in the living room on the couch beside Peter, while Father is in the tall chair on the right side of the room. The chair on the left side of the room and its corresponding ottoman was where Mother always sat. None of them can bear to sit in Mother’s spot; even now it feels as if it still belongs to her.

“Someone I travelled with after escaping the mind flayers,” she says, keeping it casual. Peter was most upset when he learned of the tadpole that once took residence in her brain, so she tends to leave that out nowadays. “After the battle he bought a house, as his prior accommodations were no longer suitable. He’s told me I can stay as long as I like.”

“What is his name? His background? Career? How can we be sure he’s not taking advantage of you in your delicate state?” She bristles at Peter’s language; at the implication that Astarion would ‘take advantage of her in her delicate state’.

“Astarion, he’s a lifelong Baldurian, he’s an elf, and currently he’s taking time off. We all made quite a lot of money and it’s given him time to consider what he wants his life to look like moving forward.”

“Last name? I need your address so I can check in on you. What was his career before your little kidnapping? Does he come from an affluent family? Does he have children? How old is he? Has he been married previously? You are lovers, correct?”

Even though she’s been grown for years, and played a part in saving the city, Peter never sees her as an adult capable of making her own decisions, but as a flighty performer who can hardly rub two coins together, who lives off the generosity of Father. “Please drop it, Peter. He’s good to me - let that be enough.”

“Father,” Peter protests, but Father cuts him off before he can say anything more.

“I’ve met him. He offered to care for your sister during a difficult and vulnerable time, so we will be grateful for his selflessness.”

Selflessness. Apparently caring for her is a burden to be carried. Father doesn’t mean it like that; she knows that, but she wishes he’d choose his words with more care. But, maybe feeling that way is what makes her such a burden.

Astarion is the one who suggested she come visit today - he could not come with her, of course, but told her that maintaining a link to her family might be helpful to her, even if he doesn’t seem to think much of her father. Now that he’s had time to rest and reflect on his life, she wonders if he’s been thinking about his own origins, and wondering if there’s someone out there missing him, even two centuries after his death.

“And if it isn’t selflessness?” Peter hisses, as if she’s not even in the room. “What if he’s taking advantage of her? What if he’s bedding her against her will?”

No. Too far. Too fucking far. She leaps up and wags her finger at Peter. “He would never and fuck you for saying those words aloud. For implying he’s capable of such a wicked thing. Why can’t you just trust me to live my life?”

They don’t talk about intimate matters often, but the impression she gets is that, after all Astarion has been through, he has more interest in emotional intimacy over sex. He doesn’t want to be objectified, and he told her not long ago that he hasn’t taken any lovers in the year they were out of contact and did not ever attempt to woo anyone.

“Because you constantly make mistakes, sister,” Peter somehow says with a straight face and she laughs bitterly, desperately wishing to have the whole crew back together. They were all misfits; people on the very edge of society, and together they saved the fucking city. Most would have regarded them as a joke; their enemies underestimated them constantly, but none of them would treat her like she’s a child who just ran away from home.

It hits her: Gale is a kinder brother than Peter is to her. Wyll, as furious as she is with him still over how he reacted to Karlach’s death, was coming from a place of love and is a better brother. All of them are better to her than her own blood. Yes, she’s made mistakes; she’s flighty and right now she’s drowning in grief, but she does not deserve condescension.

“Father, I won’t be spoken to in this way,” she says calmly, reaching down to grab her cloth tote bag because she’s learned that setting boundaries is useless unless they’re enforced. “If you send a note by pigeon, it will find its way to me, but I will not share a room with my brother until he’s willing to see me as an adult.”

Then, before either of them can speak, she walks out of the living room and out of the house, walking with purpose back to Astarion’s house, where she will be treated with respect and dignity. Past ruins from the fight with the nether brain that remain to this day; former houses and shops now long-abandoned. A few recognize her and wave, and she plasters on a warm smile and acknowledges the greetings before carrying on towards home.

There’s two doors separating the front entrance to the rest of the house; a necessary precaution in the event Astarion happens to be standing somewhere nearby when she opens the door during the day. After removing the wards and disarming the traps, she opens the first door, closes it, renews the wards and traps, and follows the same process for the second door. Astarion wanders out from the kitchen wearing an… apron? “I assumed you’d be gone all afternoon,” he says, and she notices what looks to be bread dough on his right cheek. “I’d hoped to surprise you, but I don’t think it’s going well. How do you cook every day?”

“Practice,” she says, removing her coat and hanging it up in the closet. She wanders into the kitchen, grabs a wet rag and wipes the dough off his cheek for him. Flour coats every surface of the small kitchen, from the counters to the cabinets, and even the floors.

“That was the bag’s fault,” Astarion mumbles, and she looks over and gives him a smile.

“Show me the recipe and we can figure it out together.”

Truthfully, she’s not much for baking, but manages to figure out that Astarion used water that was too cold, which means the yeast never activated. That, and he used too much flour in the dough. “More is better, right? When I’m draining a pig and I hit a new artery, it’s great! A lovely surprise!” Astarion says, with a wave of his hands, and she loves that he’s comparing breadmaking to drinking the blood of a pig.

She laughs, gripping the countertop while Astarion huffs at her. “I’m not laughing at you… well, I am, but only because your perspective on food is adorable. And wrong. There is a limit, and when you’re baking you can’t just experiment unless you really know what you’re doing.”

Gale could experiment, but the man cooks like nobody else she’s ever met. He could open his own tavern and she’d be there waiting every night with her own knife and fork.

“Thank you. This is very sweet - and needed, it turns out.”

“Tell me who needs a new set of air holes,” he says without hesitation, and she takes the wet rag and begins cleaning up the worst of the mess. Astarion grabs one of his own and tackles the countertops.

“I’ll just… never be grown up enough for my brother. He disapproves of my decision to move in with you because I’m ‘too delicate’ to make my own decisions. Then, when Father spoke up in my defence, he said that we should be grateful for your selflessness. As if living with me is a burden to be endured.”

“With relations like that, it’s a wonder you managed to sweet talk anyone, let alone Yurgir. Tell them that story and watch the colour drain from their face.”

She’s told her family few of her stories from her year travelling, because the majority of them would horrify Father and Peter. That particular story might be enough for Peter to suggest she’s completely incapable of caring for herself, and the thought makes her bristle.

“They’re merchants, if you can believe it. Father is a cobbler and Peter is a tailor, and they’re good at it. Just, not as good at family interpersonal stuff, because I don’t fit into the nice little box they expect the granddaughter of a dragon to fit in. But, Father doesn’t either - a lowly cobbler who married a human? Grandfather was aghast. Are we all destined to become our parents? I hope I’m better than that; that I don’t look at people and assume they should fit in some pretty fucking package.”

Astarion goes to the cupboard and pulls out a bottle of wine and pours them each a glass. “It makes you unwell,” she stammers.

“I’ll be fine,” he says, taking a sip before she can protest further. He makes a face. “Vinegar.”

She takes a sip and finds it’s a perfectly inoffensive wine, and realizes that his sense of taste must be an utter disaster.

“Am I a burden to you, Astarion?” she asks him softly, because she doesn’t want to be his burden or anyone else’s. If her company causes difficulties, then she can leave. Maybe… go back on the road and do some travelling.

“Gods no!” he spits out venomously. “Shall we take a drunken stroll to your father’s house after dark? Have a friendly chat about the meaning of friendship and family?”

With Astarion, there’s no doubt this chat would be anything but friendly; that the man would verbally strip Father and whip him raw. And that’s if he’s feeling compassionate - if he’s not, Father would leave that chat half-dead and bleeding unless she asked Astarion to stop.

“I was lonely,” Astarion says, swirling his glass instead of drinking from it. “I’ll deny it if you ever ask me to admit it again, but your company is… appreciated. I’ve been living again since the tadpoling, but there’s living, and then there’s… experiencing all life offers. I may be limited to the night, but with you I’m having fun again. And,” he gives her a wry smile, “travelling with our merry band of lunatics was excellent fun. Not just because of the constant murder, either.”

Wow - what a confession from him.

“Don’t go spreading that around, you understand.”

“I’ll ensure nobody knows you actually like them. Does this mean you like me?” she bats her eyelashes at him, and she expects a scoff or a teasing remark. Instead he looks at her, completely serious.

“More than I’ve ever cared for anyone, darling,” he says softly.

***

“You have two other siblings, do you not?” Astarion asks her the next day while he watches her cook bacon for herself. “I only ever hear about Peter - but he sounds like an ass, so I’m hardly surprised he’s taken up all of the energy you give to your family.”

“Astrid travels a lot and is rarely in the city - she’s a travelling merchant. I think she might have a boyfriend in Waterdeep - Father said something about her having a place to stay while she’s there, and that she’s been spending a lot of time in the city, and has spoken of relocating. Jan is the baby of the family - he’s 23 years younger than me, I think? He was sent off to boarding school when Mother was sick - he didn’t want to go and hasn’t been keeping in touch with Father. So in theory he could hire himself out to perform enchantments, but he’s so young and was so badly hurt by Father’s decision that I can see him going down the same rebellious path I did. ‘So long as you don’t throw your talent away and do stage shows’ is something Peter told Jan after Mother’s funeral.”

“Can I stab him? Only once or twice. Please?” Astarion says. She uses a cloth to pat the fat off the bacon and sits down at their little dinner table with her plate of bacon and eggs. Astarion has a goblet in front of him that he’s been sipping at.

“The conflict comes because I’m like Mother but Peter is rigid. He gets that from Grandfather more than Father - my father was able to compromise and love a human despite the very clear cultural and philosophical differences between their peoples. Peter has this sense of what a person should be like - that because we’re the grandchildren of a dragon, we need to behave with dignity, but his definition of dignity is too narrow for me to ever fit into it. No matter what I do, I’ll always disappoint him.”

“Do Jan and Astrid feel the same way about you?”

“Astrid hero-worships Peter, so she probably does. But Jan was always a free spirit as a child. He loved beautiful things, like Mother and I. He didn’t see me as a sibling when he was little because I was so much older than him - I was more like an aunt than anything, but we’ve always gotten along well. I’m sure that our dynamic would be different now that he’s an adult, but I haven’t seen him in years.”

“Darling, I believe I know a way to win your brother’s approval,” Astarion says, mischief gleaming in his eyes, indicating that whatever he’s about to propose is a bad idea. She sighs, but he continues on, shameless. “Bring me home and introduce me properly. None of the ‘sorry I showed up on your doorstep at bedtime to spirit your daughter away; I work weird hours’ excuses. You reside with a vampire spawn, and I’ll remind your brother that it can always be a little worse, and he’ll be tripping over himself to express his relief that you’re merely a stage performer and not a vile monster.”

“That’s genuinely the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” she says bluntly. “I’m not using you as a shield to try to earn my brother’s love.”

“I’d do it,” Astarion says flippantly.

“No. I’m not putting you in the line of fire, even if you’re unlikely to be hurt by my family. Your safety means too much to me.”

Astarion softens and his smile is almost fond. “You deserve better than the way your brother treats you.”

“I have better. I have Wyll and Gale, but most of all, I have you.”

“Oh darling, I’ll be the most wicked brother you could ever have,” Astarion says, and the comment leaves her feeling deeply unsettled for reasons she can’t discern. It’s a kind comment; genuine in a way that’s rare for him, but something about it just feels… wrong.

***

During her year hiding away, Jaheira visited her every couple of months to check in on her. They never spoke much; she wasn’t ready to talk about Karlach, but Jaheira would sit with her and ignore the fact that she looked like an unkempt mess.

Today, she visits Jaheira’s house and follows Jaheira into her basement sanctuary. Unlike Jaheira, she genuinely enjoys living in Baldur’s Gate; it’s where she grew up and nature has always felt more a novelty than a friend to her, but she appreciates the peace and quiet of the sanctuary, compared to the bustle of the city outside the windows upstairs.

Around Jaheira’s neck is the amulet her husband gave her; she recalls the day they visited the sanctuary and found it hidden away in a display case. She gently pressed Jaheira and encouraged her to wear it instead of letting its magic languish away behind a display case. They talked about Khalid and Jaheira cried.

So did she, because she knew that soon she would know the pain Jaheira lives with. Astarion got Karlach’s attention and they wandered off to speak to the badger that manages Jaheira’s rat spy network so at least her girlfriend missed that breakdown.

Today, she spins the black diamond ring Karlach got for her around her left ring finger and smiles, knowing just how much Khalid’s amulet must mean to Jaheira.

“Once, you asked me to tell you something about Khalid that others do not know. Now, I return that favour,” Jaheira says, and she laughs, because it’s both something she’s aching to talk about and something she dreads, but it’s time. Time to ensure her girlfriend is immortal in memory.

“Karlach kept a running tally of the dangerous mushrooms we ran into when we were travelling the Underdark - what they look like, what their spores did - all of it. I asked her if she was interested in herbalism, and she said she’d never thought about plants before she wound up in the Hells, but on a plane devoid of that sort of life, she longed to see green. The flowers in the Underdark were strange; glowing blue on long, twisted vines, and she cut off a strip of vine and made herself a little flower crown. Only,” her face falls at this part of the memory, “she was still running hot back then. We couldn’t touch, so the flowers burned to ash in moments and her face fell. ‘Forgot about that’, she’d said and despaired over destroying the flowers. We were killing anything that attacked us down there, but it was the loss of those little flowers that hit her hard. I told her we could learn to garden and plant a whole plot of flowers out in the country. I… think we both knew it would never happen, but it was a nice thing to think about.”

Jaheira looks at her, eyes damp; an emotion she only ever saw the one time before now, when she spoke of Khalid and she knows she must be thinking of her husband, and the dreams that died the day he was murdered. Her own dreams never lived; not really; they were little more than carcasses she’d charmed to give herself a fantasy to cope. Dammon had warned them Karlach’s time was short, but still they planned for their future.

“You may be amused to learn that those vines secrete a sap that causes a terrible rash, so it is for the best that they burned. She’d have been itchy for weeks - unless the lot of you figured out how to make the ointment that reverses it. Doubtful; none of you struck me as the outdoors sort.”

“What - you don’t think a stage performer can gather in-depth knowledge of obscure Underdark plants?” she says, mock-offended.

Jaheira smirks at her. “No, I think you’d have relied on healing spells, not realizing that there are ailments that no spell can heal. For those, we have plants.”

If only a plant could have saved Karlach. Her face falls, but just as quickly, she forces herself to remain light. “Did I tell you that I moved in with Astarion? He came and picked me up.”

“Ah, so that is why you came to visit me, cub. He is still afraid of me?” Jaheria speaks her question with a hint of pride and amusement.

“You did have a stake in your pocket when we returned after killing Cazador.”

“And only intended to use it if he’d gone through with that ritual,” Jaheira retorts. “I am glad he pulled you out of your father’s house. You were languishing, though I expect this means our visits will take place here from now on. I doubt he would share his address.” Jaheira speaks bluntly, but there’s no trace of offence or irritation in her observation.

She stares out at the rippling water in the pond, watching as a frog surfaces and swims around. “I like it here. I can pretend I’m better at outdoors stuff than I actually am.”

This makes Jaheira belly laugh and she doubles over, resting her head on her hand. “It is cute that you think my little sanctuary is anything like the outdoors. Speak to Jord if you’d like to learn more about the mushrooms in the Underdark; he let all my plants run wild while I was away because fungi are his specialty. He’d get you set up to grow them, if Astarion decides to tolerate a little mushroom farm in his house - they need no sunlight, you know.”

It’s a nice thought - and Astarion might find some of the poisonous ones useful. But the image of her tending to mushrooms every day makes her chest ache with grief, and she realizes she’s not ready. “In time. For now it’s… too fresh.”

Jaheira gives her an understanding nod, stands up and returns with a bottle of wine and two wooden cups. She pours a glass for each and pushes hers over to her. “To our lost loves - wherever they may be,” Jaheira says and both drain their glasses as if drinking ale on a hot summer day and not a glass of mediocre red wine. Jaheira refills their cups. “I never could look at poetry the same way after Khalid died. I hope you can come to look at flowers and mushrooms with joy and not sorrow one day and that their beauty is not lost to you for good.”

Chapter Text

After the fight with Peter, she sees Father once, and it’s awkward. He doesn’t know what to say, only to admit that he’s relieved someone else has “taken on the duty of caring for you in your grief”, and it occurs to her that Father thinks she’s little more than something broken. A reject of a child, not just because she decided to devote her life to the arts, but because her girlfriend died and she had the audacity to take the loss poorly.

The conversation leaves her thinking about what she’d like her life to look like. She’s started performing at the tavern once a week - a magic show that’s absurdly well attended by people who aren’t interested in seeing her craft animals out of ice, but in seeing one of the heroes of Baldur’s Gate for themselves. Astarion comes along most weeks, hiding away in the back of the room; never volunteering himself as an on-stage participant, but she’ll glance over and see him smiling or laughing, and it feels good to know she’s entertaining him.

Between the coin they collected during their adventures and the rewards they all received for saving the city, she can likely live the rest of her life without working. It’s been good to have time to grieve and consider what she wants her life to look like, but lately there’s been a particular path blazing brightly in her head.

Revenge.

Karlach killed Gortash, but he’s not the only one who wronged her: Zariel is just as responsible for her suffering, and the archdevil remains in Avernus, alive and well while her love is dead. In the early morning, as she lies in bed, she falls asleep fantasizing about killing the woman, knowing that to do so is likely all but impossible. When she wakes, she scribbles notes, reads books about the hells, and tries to remember everything Karlach and Wyll ever said on the subject.

“I’ve been curious what has been holding your attention so intently in the afternoons these last months,” Astarion asks her one day. In the late afternoons they usually sit together in the living room; her with her notebook and him with an embroidery or sewing project, working in content silence with one another. “Are you writing songs again?”

While plotting her vengeance, one thing has always been clear to her: she cannot do this alone. Wyll, who has made it his mission as the Blade of Avernus to kill devils in the hells would almost certainly go along with her plan. Gale, who has returned to his tower in Waterdeep, might be inclined to join. Shadowheart wouldn’t; she’s still in the city, but spends much of her time at the temple of Selune, working on her own recovery. “It helps me stay close to what remains of my parents,” she’d explained to her once.

Astarion? Despite living with him; despite the fact that he’s her best friend, she has no idea how he’ll react. Self-preservation has always been a priority, and travelling with her to the hells flies in the face of that. But, he’s also protective of her and may not be inclined to allow her to go on a suicidal revenge mission without him. Only one way to find out, she supposes, and stands up, walks to the couch and sits down next to him, showing him her notebook full of combat strategies, a rough reproduction of a map she found in a book Astarion had once pocketed at Devil’s Fee, annotated with notes from discussions she can recall with Wyll and Karlach.

“It wasn’t just Gortash who damned Karlach, and the other responsible still walks,” she says while Astarion stares at her notes in silence.

“Just once, darling, I’d rather you did something half-assed, rather than toss your whole ass into the fire. When do we leave?”

“I… I…”

Astarion levels her with a look. “Did you think I’d let you do this without me? Even if I were not terribly fond of you despite my own best judgement, you helped me kill Cazador. It would be poor form not to enable your own revenge mission, and I am nothing if not a gentleman.”

Bullshit; he’s no fucking gentleman, and she chuckles in response. “Maybe it’s stupid.”

“We’re well past ‘maybe’. It’s obscenely stupid to expect to slip into the hells to murder an archdevil in her own domain. Outright suicidal, even. Have you spoken to Yurgir?”

“Not yet; I figured I should talk to Wyll and see if he can get a message over to him.” While the details of Avernus politics are beyond her, she does understand that Wyll has promised not to target Yurgir, so there’s something resembling a ceasefire between the two of them. Perhaps even an alliance.

“Pen pals with an orthon who slept on a bed of corpses. Only you, my dear,” Astarion mumbles. “Wyll would be joining us, but who else? Have you even heard from Lae’zel?”

Once, she received a package from Lae’zel and opened it to find several flat stone slabs, chiselled in gith. Lae’zel provided a translation - a list of Karlach’s achievements in battle. While it’s still too painful to look upon the gift, she brought the slabs to Astarion’s house and finally wrote her a letter a few months ago, thanking her for the kind gesture, and providing her own well-wishes with regards to her mission.

She hasn’t heard back - she didn’t expect to, truthfully. Lae’zel has more important things to be thinking of than a suicidal revenge roadtrip to Avernus.

“Gale would be our fourth,” she says and Astarion winces. She looks at him, confused.

“No healer. Once we’re down, we stay down, unless you’ve suddenly picked up the art from somewhere. Have you considered Halsin? Or…” Astarion shudders, “Jaheira?”

“Jaheira wouldn’t leave her children to join in on my shitty idea of a vacation, and Halsin… truthfully I don’t think he would either. He’d talk to me about the wisdom of forgiveness - or something. The two of them were the smart ones of the lot of us.”

“Excuse me; I am very intelligent,” Astarion says, placing a hand on his chest and giving her an affronted look. “The plan?”

“Slip in, off the bitch, slip out.”

“My, the detail you’ve provided is truly impressive,” Astarion deadpans - rich for a man notorious for never planning anything. “Can she even be killed in her own domain? Have you considered that the best you may be able to do is clean house and off the nobles that clutter up her palace?”

She has - reluctantly.

“This is about the intel we had when we broke into the House of Hope and we still managed to get the hammer and get out.”

“By the grace of my magnificent lockpicking skills and your ability to sweet talk the archivist.”

“Then we do the same thing this time? I’m sure I can talk someone into helping us and you’re very good at breaking into places.”

Astarion sighs, but does not dispute her. “Write Wyll and Gale and see if they’ll come visit so we can come up with a plan that’s more than ‘slip in, off the bitch, slip out’. They’re slightly more adept at planning than the two of us.”

She writes both Gale and Wyll that day, and instead of responding by letter, she receives a projection from Gale of himself three days later. The projection waves at her. “Well met. I am a magical projection of Gale of Waterdeep, here to inform you that Gale has arrived in Bloomridge Park and humbly requests that you leave to pick him up at your earliest convenience.”

She grabs her cloak and lets Astarion know where she’s headed and walks to the park, stopping on the way at the bakery to pick up dinner rolls and chocolate croissants for the walk back. Gale sits on a park bench, his staff leaning against the armrest of it, and there’s a book on his lap. For a moment she watches the man, who is utterly at peace, and realizes she’s forgotten what it’s like to exist without the weight of grief and sorrow looming over her. Then, she realizes she’s being creepy.

“It’s my favourite nerd!” she says, forcing a grin to her face. Gale closes his book, stuffs it into a leather bag at his side, leaps up and accepts her enthusiastic embrace.

“I had not anticipated such a swift arrival from you,” Gale says, as she hands him a croissant. Side-by-side, they walk out of the park, which is about an hours’ walk from Astarion’s house. “Where is our final destination? Are you still cohabitating with your father?”

“No, I moved out close to a year ago now. Astarion talked his way into Father’s house and dragged me off to stay with him and I never left, so you can have the guest bedroom.”

Gale glances at her, his expression unreadable. “We had wondered when the two of you would discover the passion burning between you. Congratulations.”

Oh. Awkward. She flushes pink. “We’re friends, Gale. I’m his roommate. He’s been very good to me through… everything.”

“Ah, well do consider it. You would make a fine couple,” Gale says, and not for the first time, she thinks of Karlach’s attempts to talk to her about the feelings she supposedly has for her best friend.

“We would not,” she says, because he’s been taking care of her after the world broke her into pieces and scattered the remains across the city. There’s so little of her left, and Astarion deserves better than something broken. She won’t hold him back, forcing him to compromise when he could have someone so much better than she is.

“I find the two of you fascinating. Morally, you began here,” Gale holds his hands far apart, “but as you got to know one another - mostly by forcing the rest of us to endure your constant bickering, you met in the middle,” Gale moves his hands closer together. “I’m under the impression you do not realize just how much the two of you have in common - and your feelings for one another are merely one such commonality you share.”

“He’d have said something if he loves me,” she scoffs.

“Again, I point to your commonalities and would respectfully point out that you’ve yet to share your thoughts with him regarding a potential romantic relationship.”

“Because there are no thoughts! We’re roommates!”

They’re entering the market district, and pass Peter’s shop, and she quickly glances away from the newly-repaired window of the shop, fearful that she’ll see her estranged brother through the window, and that he might feel the need to come out and speak to her.

“How often must you repeat this lie to yourself?”

She looks at Gale - he’s well-meaning and she knows he’s trying to help, but she just… can’t contend with all of the thoughts racing through her mind. About Astarion, about the mission she’s about to ask them all to join her on, and the temptation to just say to hells with it all and play house with Astarion for the rest of her life.

But she can’t. She’ll never be able to get a good night’s sleep again if she doesn’t see this through.

“Please drop it, Gale. I’m too broken for him.”

“I’d wager the man who suffered as he did would know a thing or two about tending to the needs of someone who is in pain and it sounds as if he’s already doing so and has been for close to a year,” Gale says and she scowls at him, wagging her finger as she tries to figure out how to chew him out. He raises his hands in surrender. “Consider the matter dropped. I’ll say no more of it.”

Astarion doesn’t embrace Gale when they arrive back at the house - nor did she expect him to; he’s never been as comfortable with physical affection from the others in the way he grew comfortable with her and Karlach, but when he greets him, his tone is genuinely warm, as is the handshake he offers. “Petra went to the market to gather food for the two of you - a task I was quickly relieved of after the first time I attempted to feed her unaided,” Astarion says, and she glances over at Gale, who is trying to sneak his way into the kitchen. Laughing, she gestures to the kitchen and shows him around, excited by the promise of one of Gale’s meals.

Gale prepares some sort of stew for them, and for awhile they talk of mundane things - a festival in Waterdeep that Gale attended with Tara, and the renovations Astarion had done to ensure he would be safe in his house. Eventually, it does turn to the task at hand, and she explains what she’d like to do. Gale’s expression remains static; he runs his spoon along the bottom of his now-empty bowl, the sound of metal along porcelain filling the dining room.

“I’m not terribly surprised that you’ve opted for vengeance, given the magnitude of your loss,” Gale says. “Have you considered that it will not bring you peace? If you look towards Asta…”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Astarion snaps and Gale lifts his hands in surrender for the second time today.

“You served us all during our travels and took on our problems as your own. I would be remiss if I did not extend the same courtesy to you - but I do ask that we go about this smartly, and prepare for the mission instead of our more standard approach.”

As a group, they really did embrace chaos and spontaneity, but part of that was simply because all of their plans went to shit with impressive speed.

“I’m comfortable preparing for the mission and doing our due diligence. I won’t bring my friends to Avernus without having a proper plan in place.” Astarion raises an eyebrow at her.

“So, I have asked you this before, but I’ll repeat: what was House of Hope to you, darling? Because there was no plan, save for ‘Astarion, you need to break into a devil’s archive and steal a hammer’. That is not a plan; that is the pitch for a particularly bad play.”

“Fine, I won’t do it again,” she sighs.

That night, she prays to Grandfather for the wisdom and intelligence to formulate a plan that will allow her to kill Zariel and keep her friends alive.

Nothing comes.

***

This morning, the nightmares are bad, brought upon by hours of discussion the night before. Gale retreated to bed by one am; his own rest schedule is more traditional than the one she and Astarion maintain, which means he’s probably awake to hear her screaming, and saw Astarion rush into her room, closing the door behind him.

He’s wearing trousers and a shirt, though the shirt remains unbuttoned and open. She noticed during their travels that he frequently avoided taking his shirt off entirely around the others, and realized he was uncomfortable showing off his scars. Here at the house, he’ll frequently go without a shirt - especially during the height of summer when their inability to open the windows during the day makes the house stifling hot, but with Gale here, it’s unlikely he’ll maintain that habit.

“Pet?” he says gently, and she wipes her eyes, embarrassed that a simple conversation about the hells brought forth memories of Karlach burning on the dock - and visions of Astarion turning to ash in the evening sun.

“I’m fine,” she says, looking away from him, twisting the end of the duvet with her hand.

“Ah, because I always return to full consciousness screaming when I’m fine.”

“Just once, would you please not be a shit?” she snaps.

“No, because apparently it’s the only way to get through to you!”

If she looks at him she’ll see the ash and she gasps, suddenly unable to draw in a full breath. Astarion sits down on the edge of the bed, takes her hand and places it on his chest. “With me. Breathe with me.” He takes a slow, deep breath that she does her best to mimic, and when the panic loosens its grip on her, the tears begin.

“Yes, I know the startling lack of a heartbeat is truly disconcerting but you don’t need to cry about it.”

“Fuck off,” she says, laughing through her tears in the way only he can pull off.

“This is hard for you,” Astarion says, and she nods.

Gale is definitely going to think they’re lovers now, it occurs to her. “Should I have gone with her? Wyll and I could have killed Zariel with Karlach. It’d have been this exact mission, but my girlfriend would still be here.”

“That’s not what she wanted,” Astarion says; the same thing he always says when she questions whether she should have gone to Avernus with her and Wyll. “She couldn’t sneak for shit anyway.”

She laughs again, wiping her eyes as she remembers Karlach’s attempts to be stealthy and how she always inevitably kicked a stone or a crate, breaking their cover and infuriating Astarion, who is as silent as the dead.

“We’re doing it stealthy, then?”

“It’s the only way I see it working,” Astarion says. “I break us into Zariel’s lair, we disguise ourselves or go invisible, you throw some ice around when we get close enough, and flee. Or - more likely, die.”

The image of Astarion turning to ash returns to her mind and she wonders if she should just forget this whole thing and enjoy a reunion with her friends. “I don’t want you to die,” she says.

“If I’m going to go, it may as well be a good story and you’ll do this with or without me. With me, you’ll actually make it inside before being found out. I’ve seen you try to pick locks and it’s embarrassing, darling.”

“I’m sorry my skills don’t include petty crime. Is it not weird to be a former magistrate who can break into nearly any building in the city?”

“I was rarely allowed the opportunity for philosophical conundrums. It was something I was told I needed by Cazador, so I did it,” Astarion says. “My lessons were taught by the lash of a whip.” He mimics the cracking of a bullwhip with his hand, laughing bitterly. “You’d be amazed how quickly you learn with the threat of a lash looming over you. I was the best at it - Petras never figured it out, but he wasn’t the bright sort. Could hardly sort out left from right. Pretty but hollow, he was. Had I not been with you at the time, he’d have tried to seduce you and given you a good laugh. Gods, it was pathetic to watch him work. Embarrassing, really.”

She’s surprised Cazador would teach such a skill when he regularly had his spawn locked away for their perceived misdeeds and carefully mentions this to Astarion. He frowns at her; and she opens her mouth to apologize, but he says, “you do remember that we encountered many doors without locks, yes? There are always ways to shut someone away and Cazador knew them all.”

It was a stupid question, she supposes.

“Did you like any of your siblings?”

Astarion hesitates and she reminds herself that the dynamic he has with his so-called siblings is far different from that of her siblings. Even if she and Peter are bordering on estranged presently, she still loves him. Or, she thinks she does, at least.

“I pitied them after my escape. Petras and I never got on, and I resented Leon for his position as Cazador’s privileged spawn. He fostered competition and resentment between us all and I never was able to grow past that - not when I was Cazador’s favourite punching bag,” Astarion says, tone thick with bitterness. “To them, I was an easy shield. My screams were the prettiest and so I saved them from further torment.”

“They did listen to you when you told them to take the spawn to the Underdark.”

“I had the most experience with freedom - pathetic, when you stop to consider it. Gods, I can only imagine what’s happening down there. I’d expected to hear something, even if it was from Dal pleading for my help.”

“Would any of them return to the city?”

Astarion shakes his head. “I didn’t tell you, because I didn’t want to worry you, but a few months after the final fight, I sent letters off to Cazador’s…” Astarion grimaces, “contacts, indicating that the man is dead and that the city is now mine. I was subtle,” she wonders just how subtle he was - he’s not known for diplomacy, “but if they have any brain matter whatsoever, they’ll understand that if they step through the gates, I will kill them. I sent a slightly friendlier note to Dal and asked her to tell the others.”

“You’re pretending to be a full vampire to Cazador’s contemporaries,” she realizes and he nods.

“What I am is unheard of; my siblings have little motivation to reveal the truth because that would reveal their true natures as well. I doubt it will reach the vampires Cazador maintained contact with.”

“The other spawn you freed?” she asks, and Astarion frowns once again.

“A mystery. They could sow chaos; it’s such an obnoxious thing when I’m not the one sowing it. I received a note back from one of Cazador’s contacts - a terse congratulations and lamentation that there would be no more fancy soirees,” he says, his tone turning mocking.

“So, do these people frighten you? Is that why you don’t want them in the city?”

He meets her eyes, his own wide and full of sadness and regret. “Too many have disappeared off these streets over the last two centuries because of my siblings and I. No more.”

Astarion has used lies as a cloak around himself for as long as she’s known him, but this might be the first he’s used his sharp, lying tongue in order to protect those around him, at risk of his own well-being.

She lives with him and hopes to remain here long-term. Silently, she promises that no threat that comes at him will ever succeed, and that she will cut down anyone who tries to hurt him. He knows this; she showed him as much over their time travelling together, so she doesn’t need to repeat that vow, and she doubts he would appreciate it, anyhow. Astarion doesn’t want to be protected; he prefers being the protector.

Instead, she takes his hand and squeezes it. “I love the man you are, you know. You whined so much about heroic behaviour, but this? This is downright heroic.”

“Is not,” Astarion huffs, near-flustered. “There’s satisfaction in proclaiming to have control over the city even if it’s untrue. That’s all.”

That he hides away the best of himself and writes off decency as selfishness breaks her heart, and she thinks of Jaheira’s words to him the morning after he killed Cazador.

“Be careful, Astarion. Despite your every effort to the contrary, I am in danger of thinking you might be a good man.”

At the time she was too emotionally spent to realize it, but it hits her now that Jaheira’s words might be the wisest analysis of Astarion that she’s heard.

Chapter Text

When Astarion was young, he often imagined what married life might be like, and he frequently imagined tying himself to a man like Wyll. Handsome, heroic, and with an unshakeable moral compass.

Following two centuries of torment, he’s long-concluded that he was a foolish boy and that life with Wyll would be insufferable. With Wyll now at the house, he’s waiting for the man’s inevitable confrontation with Petra. They never spoke after Karlach’s death; Jaheira rounded them all up, as far as he knows, but he was left hiding in that cave with Petra. The generous part of him acknowledges that they had to have known Petra wouldn’t have wanted to see any of them but him, but the petty part of him is furious that their friends up and left her when she needed support so badly.

It comes on the third day of his visit, shortly after he and Petra get up for the day, just after mid-day. He’s making Petra’s coffee for her - so many foods smell utterly unappetizing to him, but coffee remains pleasant, which leaves him assuming he must have been an absolute fiend about it prior to turning, and Wyll and Gale are sitting in the living room with Petra.

“Petra, I just need to know: why didn’t you go to Avernus with Karlach and I? We’re readying ourselves to go there now - we could have done this two years ago and had our friend and your lover by our sides.”

He grits his teeth, imagining opening Wyll’s belly with the dagger he keeps hidden in the drawer of one of the side tables in the living room, but focuses on warming the milk for Petra’s coffee. She likes sugar - two spoonfuls of it, so he reaches for the sugar bowl and spoons it into her cup. He doesn’t hear Petra’s response - a troubling thing because it means that, instead of getting angry at the interrogation, she’s internalizing it. Deciding she needs him in the living room more than she needs coffee with perfectly warmed milk, he pulls the pot off the stove and pours milk into her cup, and rushes into the room.

“Darling,” he says, handing her the cup. Gale is in the room, silently watching, and his eyes go wide. Petra wraps her hand around the mug, almost like a little hug, and he enjoys watching her take comfort in the warmth of her coffee, because it allows him to imagine that he once did the same thing himself. She’s not dressed for the day yet; she’s wearing a brown robe that falls just above her knees. The cut is low; the subtle shimmer of the silver scales that sparsely cover the top of her breasts catch his eye as the light she conjured floats above her.

“What must I do to get morning coffee from our host?” Gale asks, perturbed.

“There’s coffee in a pot on the stove,” he says irritably, gesturing with his hand over to the kitchen. “Help yourself.”

Gale leaps up and wanders to the kitchen, and from the sound of pans jostling, he assumes the man is also taking it upon himself to make lunch.

“Petra, you could have had her and this mission,” Wyll says, and Petra says nothing, simply staring into the mug in her hands as if it holds every secret in the universe.

“May I?” he says to Petra and she glances over at him and nods, eyes welled up with tears. Normally he’d let her fight her own battles, but in this, he knows she would lie back and bare her belly in surrender; too worn to fight back. He stands up, gets between her and Wyll and hovers over the man.

“Do you have nothing but air between your ears?” he hisses at Wyll. “Can you not remember the first thing Karlach said to us the day we met her is that she would never go back to Avernus? Yet, in her final moments, you tried to goad her into doing that very thing!”

“Astarion, this really doesn’t concern…”

“You’re guilting Petra in our house, so yes, it fucking concerns me,” he snaps. “Not that it is any of your business, but Petra spoke to Karlach about her wishes. Many, many times, but she simply did not feel it necessary to announce Karlach’s final wishes to the entire group! Have you ever stopped to consider that asking that of Karlach under duress, as she was dying was unfair? That, had Petra not defended Karlach and her choice, she might have felt pressured to make a decision she did not truly want? Avernus is not an exotic locale; it’s literally hell!” He takes a deep breath to calm himself. “You know where we’re going better than any of us and we need you, but I won’t let you belittle Petra.”

“Astarion, it’s fine,” Petra says in a tone that implies she is anything but fine. “Wyll and Karlach were close and I get why he’s hurting and asking questions.”

“How many eggs do you all want?” Gale hollers from the kitchen; the air of peacekeeping wafting off of him as strongly as the stench of the orb still buried in his chest.

“Three!” Wyll calls out, but Petra does not respond; instead muttering that she’s going to go back to bed. He follows silently behind her and closes the door to her bedroom.

She removes her robe, tosses it onto the floor and sits on her bed, and hugs her knees to her chest, and he finds himself thinking of his own vengeance, and how, despite dreaming of it for months - no, centuries, obtaining it didn’t make everything better. The pain and scars remained. It wasn’t satisfying in the end, and now that Gale and Wyll are here, Petra’s recovery has taken a backslide; the nightmares have returned and instead of dancing at the tavern with him, she sits on her bed, silent and overwhelmed by her depression.

He should have anticipated this. She sips at her coffee and sets the mug aside and rests her chin on her knees. “I don’t know how to be normal anymore.”

“Your closest friends are a man who asked you for magical shoes to eat, a man who signed a pact with a devil, a woman who once belonged to a cult who stole her as a child, another woman who grew up in a violent cult, a woman sold to slavery in the hells, and an exceptionally beautiful vampire. Normal was never in the cards.”

“You forgot our druid parents and the guy that talks to his hamster,” she says, glancing up at him.

“Ah, yes; how dare you be anything but ordinary and utterly boring.” He gestures to the bed, “may I?”

She nods, so he climbs into bed, wraps his arms around her and pulls her against his chest. “Please don’t become normal. It’s so trite and boring. Darling - Wyll is an idealist. An obnoxious, naive idealist, so he could never acknowledge that sometimes there’s no happy ending. As much as you both wanted it - and we all know how you both wanted it, you were never going to wander off into the sunset and tan yourselves on a beach for the rest of your lives. You made the best of what you had, and you gave a woman who had not known a gentle touch in a decade a year of them. Yes, it was terribly obnoxious to listen to you two get on with things, and you were very intent on cuddling by the fire at every opportunity, but there was something… sweet about it.”

“Astarion says, sounding as if he’s been force fed poison,” Petra teases, which he chooses to take as a good sign.

“Don’t let Wyll’s naivete cloud what you two had, and the kindness and understanding you showed her in the end.”

“You called the house ‘our house’,” Petra says, and before he can stop himself, he kisses the top of her head.

“A slip. You’ve made the house interesting,” he says flippantly.

“Thanks for letting me stay with you. I know I’m not easy to live with, but I can move out whenever you get sick of me.”

He says nothing, but all he can think about is how he wants her with him until the day she dies. But, while he recognizes he can be cruel; he would never be cruel enough to tell a woman mourning her girlfriend that he longs to share the rest of her life. They’re friends - she’s his best friend, and that’s enough. Right?

It’s all he’s ever to get, and he’s just happy to share a home and a piece of her life with him.

***

Wyll plans a route for them to Zariel’s residence - a citadel a good three days’ walk from the landing point of the portal they’ll be using at the Devil’s Fee. Gale obtained the materials needed to open the portal, and Petra has gone to the market to obtain rations for the journey, including a supply of pig’s blood. “I claimed I was making a ton of blood sausage for a party!” she says brightly, a box of casks filled with blood in her arms, and he’s more pleased to see her cheerful than he is about her cleverness in ensuring he has a food source that isn’t her.

They won’t have Shadowheart with them and he would rather not risk her health when she’ll need to be at her best with nobody around to heal her.

Gale has taken on the role of feeding the others, much as he did while they were travelling together, and apparently his food is quite good, but during many meals, Petra simply pushes her food back and forth, acting like she’s eating when she isn’t.

He’s worried about her. When they stormed Szarr Palace, he rushed in, certain he’d be able to stab and impale his way through the entire household, but as soon as he was through those doors, the anxiety creeped in. A terror he hadn’t realized he’d been enduring until it returned after months free of it. He couldn’t think; he could hardly make his body do what he needed of it - all he could think about was killing Cazador and ensuring nobody could hurt him again.

Only, he wasn’t considering how he very nearly hurt himself, and would have, had it not been for Petra. In her and their friends, he found not just allies, but friends. “You’re allowed to need help; you aren’t alone anymore,” Petra had told him once the dust had cleared.

Once, when he and Petra were arguing early on, he called her out for her hypocrisy; her willingness to smile and say sweet words laced with poison to strangers in order to get what they needed. He’s a liar, but so is she; she’s just kind about it and he sees no reason to waste his time being kind to people he’ll never see again.

After that, he saw more similarities between the two of them than just the most surface-level ones. Most notable is Petra’s reluctance to accept help, because that means talking about feelings she’d prefer to smother with a joke.

A quality he knows painfully well.

Her head needs to be clearer in Avernus than his own was at the palace, so after Wyll and Gale go to bed for the night, he pulls out a bottle of brandy he’d bought at the Elfsong one time to keep at the house in case of emergency.

Petra’s emotional health definitely qualifies as an emergency, so he pours them each a shot, and gestures for her to take hers. “We’re going to drink until you’re able to talk about what’s going on like proper, healthy adults.”

“You and I both know we’re shit at being adults,” Petra says, though she reaches for the shot glass.

He takes his own and pounds it back, despairing that it tastes of vinegar, just as most wine or brandy does to him - even the ones Petra claims are good.

“Humour me,” he says, and she downs her own, grimacing. He pours them each another drink.

“You’re going to be so sick,” Petra warns him, and he shrugs; he’s felt worse pain in his life than an upset stomach.

A second shot. Then a third. Knowing enough about alcohol to know to give them a break, he closes the bottle and sets it aside. The light Petra conjured this morning floats above their heads, but the room itself is dim; dark enough that he can see her but can’t make out the colour of her eyes.

They’re a silver blue and nowadays it’s only when they’re sitting close together with a light or lantern nearby that he can make out the colour. Gods, how he misses the sun.

“What’s got you worked up?” Petra asks him, and he scoffs because he’s fine! Perfectly fine!

“Oh, Wyll is obnoxious with his ‘save the innocents’ spiel. Ever regret letting him choose his own path? He could have been a duke! A duke!”

If he had a chance at a title like that, he’d push anyone out of the way and into the mud to obtain it. Except Petra. Probably. Though, if he had the coin of a duke and the mansion of one, she’d probably forgive him almost immediately, given that he could keep her resplendent in the prettiest clothes you could buy in the city. For a moment he allows himself to imagine a life where he’s someone who matters to more than just Petra and their friends; where he has a name and a title and her on his arm as his lover. A useless line of thought…

“That’s not what he wanted, though. I like that he was brave enough to stand up and tell his father the sort of person he wanted to be. It’s a bravery I lack.”

He’s not sure that’s accurate; Petra may not have told her family that she’s going to spend her life as a performer but she did just go out and do it.

Wyll isn’t what’s bothering him; the man’s presence is akin to a side of undercooked green vegetables on a plate. Disappointing but necessary for one’s well being. Or so he’s heard.

But, to talk about this, he’s going to need another drink, so he pours himself one and drinks it, careful to keep the liquid off his tongue as he swallows.

“Pet, killing Zariel won’t heal your wounds; the same as killing Cazador didn’t heal mine, and killing Gortash didn’t heal Karlach’s. You’ve… been unwell. We don’t need to do this now; if you’d like, we can talk to Wyll and Gale and see about taking a trip. Perhaps a visit to the Underdark?”

“You hated the Underdark.”

He did, but Karlach loved it; going on and on about the different mushrooms they encountered and dreaming of returning when life was quiet to collect and categorize them.

“Karlach wanted to visit to study mushrooms,” Petra says, voice breaking. “I’d like to go one day and take that on in her honour.”

He should probably track down the vampires in the Underdark and make sure his siblings haven’t completely made a mess of things. Though, he’s unsure how certain he feels about bringing Petra on a trip to visit a colony full of vampire spawn who may or may not have gotten their thirst under control by now.

Especially when a good thousand of them loathe him and would gleefully rip him apart. And he doesn’t blame them for feeling that way. In fact, if they didn’t feel that way, he’d be questioning their judgement.

“Why don’t we talk to them in the morning and see if they’ll join us?”

Vacationing with people who aren’t Petra sounds only slightly more fun than invading the hells, truthfully, but he’ll do it for her.

“I need Zariel to know that there’s someone out there that won’t tolerate her cruelty. Someone who will stand up and say no more in response to the fact that she keeps slaves and installs infernal machinery in them. It needs to be me.”

Petra pushed him when he insisted he had to undergo the ritual, but, while he’s learned how to say no, telling her that he thinks she’s not in a frame of mind that will do her any favours in Avernus is beyond him. The thought of challenging her; of telling her that he could have his vengeance but she can’t have hers fills him with dread and anxiety; a terror that she’ll decide she’s through with him and leave.

“Then that is what we’ll do, darling,” he says, hating himself with every word.

***

Gale has taken Petra out to Sorcerous Sundries - an errand he thinks little of until Wyll corners him in the living room and asks him to sit down, his expression so dire his first instinct is to ask who kicked the proverbial bucket.

He doesn’t; he’d rather not be told he’s being rude by a little shit in his mid-20s who refers to himself in the third person using his hero nickname.

“Astarion, this is a bad idea. You aren’t a stupid man - you must know it’s a bad idea.”

“Of course I do!” he hisses. “We’ve done plenty of things that are ‘bad ideas’. What’s your point?”

“She listens to you and you can stop this. Talk to her about the pain your own veng…”

“No,” he snaps, wagging a finger at Wyll. “I didn’t let Gale pull that card and you don’t get to either. My feelings are irrelevant so keep them out of your mouth.”

Wyll sighs, closes his eyes and mutters something under his breath. “Astarion, this is a suicide mission.”

“And when haven’t we embarked on a suicide mission? The door is right there - feel free to step out at any time!”

“I won’t abandon her to a miserable death,” Wyll says without hesitation - foolish, idealistic boy. “I’m curious why you aren’t.”

“I owe her a favour.”

“You’ll leap down my throat for saying it, but it’s a lot more than that, and we all know that, save for Petra, who is as blind as you in this matter. If you would just tell her how you feel, perhaps that will be enough for her to choose life instead of walking to her death on a hopeless revenge mission.”

Wyll is wrong about one thing: he’s not blind. He knows how he feels about Petra but he’s also not an asshole who will tell a widowed woman grieving her partner that he loves her.

“You know nothing of my feelings,” he growls at Wyll, who, to his credit, does not flinch away.

“Maybe I don’t, but that’s because you never let anyone but Petra in.”

“Untrue,” he says, stomach twisting with grief as he works the next words out of his mouth. “I let Karlach in too, and if I can stab the woman who killed her then it will ease some of the sting of her loss. Why are you here, Wyll? You’re angry with Petra for respecting her girlfriend’s final wishes and you clearly think she’s an idiot. Why not go gallivanting off into the hells, away from the rest of us?”

“Because you and her saved my father, and so I owe her a favour. And, unlike you, that is the full, honest truth.”

Not the full truth, he notices, as Wyll looks away from him, as liars tend to do. He wants vengeance for Karlach just as much as Petra does, even if he recognizes that doing so is stupid and suicidal.

“You’re enabling her worst characteristics, Astarion. She’s vengeful and impulsive but if you’d just tell her that you love her…” Wyll’s tone takes on a begging tone and gods, does begging sound especially pathetic on him. “I’ve tried talking to her and she won’t listen. Gale has tried too. We’re committed to seeing this through with her, but it’s not a good idea. People have tried to kill Zariel and they wind up as decoration on her walls.”

Vengeance is important, even if it isn’t satisfying. Had Petra taken away his chance to kill Cazador, he’d have been furious with her. He won’t do that to Petra, no matter how bad an idea this is.

“For all your charisma, you cannot see why I’m doing this. You foolish boy,” he says, standing up, because he’s done with this conversation.

“Yeah, you’re doing this out of love, but with just a few words you could live for her instead!” Wyll calls out.

He tells himself that Wyll is a naive idealist inserting his beliefs into a situation that doesn’t warrant them. He owes Petra a great deal and he cannot renege on it. That she has a right to spill the blood that stole her partner from her.

But that little kernel of self-loathing digs into his dead heart because, deep down, he knows that Wyll is right.

Chapter Text

The House of Hope was not a true representation of the flames of Avernus, and the waves of heat that blast you with every gust of air. As soon as the four of them arrive, she conjures a little ice flurry that floats above their heads to take the edge off, but the hot air burns her lungs, making her cough. Gale struggles just as she is, and coughs into his elbow, but Wyll and Astarion seem mostly unaffected.

“Benefits of being undead,” Astarion says when she asks.

“Doing Mizora’s dirty work for as long as I did got me used to it, and now that I’m a devil I don’t notice it much at all,” Wyll says, shrugging.

Around them, everything that’s not red hot is a muddy shade of brown; absent of anything resembling life. Dirt, rock and fire as far as she can see, and the hike to Zariel’s citadel is “three days if we’re fortunate”, according to Wyll.

She remembers the story Karlach told her about being so pent-up that she burned her tent down and blamed it on an imp, but she has to wonder how many tents light up spontaneously with all of the embers flying through the air. She feels as if the simple act of rubbing her hands together would be enough to light her up.

“I’ll keep our waterskins filled,” Gale says, gesturing to the Raindancer rod that’s been a constant by his side since the beginning. With every step, her feet burn through her boots; Avernus’ hot, heavy air stings her nostrils, and she feels a pervading sense of hopelessness that she never felt at the House of Hope.

“Truly, Petra, you bring me to the nicest places,” Astarion says as they begin walking towards their destination. With no sun and no stars, they’re relying on Wyll’s sense of direction to guide them there and she has no sense of just how Wyll is navigating. She has a good sense of direction - with stars, a map and a compass, and here the compass does nothing but spin.

A hoard of imps stumbles upon them, and it feels as if they’re back on their first mission together once more. She and Gale remain back, with Gale focusing on area of effect spells, while she freezes individual imps for Astarion and Wyll to finish off. It’s not quite as it was; Wyll no longer has access to the majority of his magical abilities, so he fights solely with his blade, and in short order, they’re surrounded by the red corpses of their attackers. Astarion’s face and arms are singed, and Gale’s hands are trembling from the exertion of the fight, but otherwise they made it out.

She opens her bag in search of a healing potion but before she can hand it to Astarion, he holds his hand up. “I’ll heal on my own; it’s no matter.” She gives him a funny look, and he elaborates, explaining that vampires regenerate more quickly than the living can, and that this ability was one of the ones suppressed by the tadpole.

“It’s the only one I truly missed, and I’d rather the ability to walk in the sun,” Astarion says. “There are limits, and Cazador revelled in finding them.”

“Gods, your master was an awful man,” Wyll says and Astarion’s laugh is sharp and bitter.

“If only you knew the half of it,” Astarion says, though he doesn’t elaborate. The entire team knew the broad strokes of the story of his slavery, but the ugliest details were reserved for her - and to a lesser extent, Karlach.

“Life as a free man - both from your master and the tadpole, seems as if it’s been kind to you,” Gale observes.

“It has,” Astarion says, without elaborating. Within minutes, the burns on his face fade, leaving behind soot that she wipes away with a cloth dampened with water from her waterskin.

“A waste of effort in the hells,” Astarion murmurs, while leaning into her touch like a cat rubbing against her hand.

“You like to look good. We’re alike in that regard.”

If they’re going to die, he’ll want to leave a beautiful corpse, and as soon as the thought enters her mind, her stomach churns. A beautiful corpse is a terrible consolation prize.

They fight another group of imps, though one hangs back, almost as if watching, and turns invisible, using the chaos of the fight to retreat. “Ever see an imp do that?” Astarion asks the rest of them.

“Normally they’re not bright enough to do more than throw themselves at whatever they’re fighting,” Wyll says, though he doesn’t seem worried; a contrast to Astarion, who is frowning, his body language uneasy.

“You think Zariel has some manner of surveillance in place?” Gale asks Astarion.

“I think the imps are her surveillance. The anomaly? I’m not sure but that was no imp,” Astarion says. “Next time do your…” he waves his fingers in the air, “thing and let us know what you see.”

“Detect magic?” Gale says.

“Obviously?”

“Who else would be trying to spy on us?” Wyll asks the group.

Karlach was the expert on Avernus politics and if Wyll, who hunts down devils here has no idea who might be trying to discern what they’re up to, then none of the rest of them have any hope of doing more than spitballing.

They set up camp - there’s no day or night here, making it difficult to tell how long they’ve been travelling, but when exhaustion hits them all, the four of them set their tents up in a cave. Gale sets wards and a barrier for the camp and Astarion sets traps in the area; the thinking being that if a trap goes off, at least they have a warning that they’ll be in for a nasty fight.

Conversation is minimal - there’s little to talk about, and when she settles into her bedroll all she can think about is that the last time she was camping, she fell asleep in Karlach’s arms.

At that realization, Petra weeps and prays to Grandfather, knowing her prayers will go unheeded. What are prayers anyway, but a personal security blanket?

***

The walls of Zariel’s citadel are a grey molten stone and from a distance, appear to be covered with bones. As they veer closer, Gale squints and focuses on the walls. “Are those… corpses?” Gale asks, with a horror that surprises her more than the revelation that Zariel is the sort to display the dead like trophies.

“Wow - the woman who replaced Karlach’s heart with an engine is barbaric. Who could have guessed?” Astarion says, voice dripping with his trademark sarcasm. The air around the citadel is thick with acrid, black smoke that smells of death and decay, forcing them to hike around in search of a break in the smoke to get a good line of sight.

For two days - or what she’d guess to be two days, they scout the area around the citadel, with Astarion memorizing the guard rotation, and Gale searching for weaknesses in the magical barrier that surrounds it. Wyll, who is best able to fit in amongst Zariel’s inner circle, discovers that the woman will be holding an audience tomorrow. “There’ll be a grand hall, and her inner circle will congregate there,” Wyll explains.

The citadel ceilings come to a sharp point; something only visible when a gust of blisteringly hot wind blows away the worst of the black smoke. Everything is black; devoid of any sort of colour against a sea of red and orange. Instead of metal gates, the entrance is made of the same stone, and after a day of searching, Gale discovered that the entrance is an illusion - and that the doorway changes by the hour.

“Taking tricks from Cazador’s playbook - with slightly more cleverness,” Astarion mutters. They sit in a circle at camp - there’s no fire because it seemed pointless with flames burning all around them. Spontaneous fire erupts from the ground periodically; they have a few seconds’ warning because Wyll taught them to leap out of the way when smoke begins wafting up from the ground.

Five days in this place and she never wants to return. Karlach endured for a decade, with a strength she cannot begin to fathom.

“The floors will run red with noble blood,” Astarion says, grinning. Their plan is to sneak into the grand hall and open fire, causing as much carnage as possible in order to draw Zariel out.

They discuss strategy; Gale’s focus will be area of effect spells, Astarion will pick off those who look killable with a single strike, preventing them from attacking back. Wyll, as a duellist, will keep the guards busy. Her? She’s the heavy hitter and will go after the strongest; those who remain standing after Gale peppers the field of battle with thorns, tentacles and electricity.

Long after Gale and Wyll retreat to their tents, she and Astarion remain up. “You’ll need your strength tomorrow - you should feed on me,” she says, making Astarion snort.

“So do you. Much as I’d prefer to feast on your delicious neck, there will be a buffet for me tomorrow.” She can’t deny that logic. “How are you feeling about this?”

She shrugs and Astarion offers his hand, which she takes, giving it a squeeze, enjoying the coolness of his skin amidst the heat of Avernus. “No matter what happens, you did right by her. You always did.”

Her bottom lip trembles. “I could have pushed the Gondians to find something. There might have been other solutions - if I had the arcane knowledge to know what to look up…”

“Ah, yes. You’ve convinced me; this is entirely your fault for not having advanced knowledge of newly-invented infernal machinery. You’re a monster,” Astarion says, dripping with sarcasm.

“Point taken,” she mutters, wishing he’d just let her blame herself for once. “You should meditate.”

“I’d rather sit with you, given that I’m likely to be properly dead by this time tomorrow instead of a magically animated corpse.”

He says it casually, but the guilt bubbles inside her as she’s reminded again that she’s brought her friends on a suicide mission in the Hells.

“Astarion, I’m sorry. You deserve better than the fate I’ve damned you to.”

“Darling, you’ve already given me a better fate than the one I was resigned to. Lie down. I’ll keep watch for awhile.”

He holds her hand while she’s drifting off and when she wakes hours later, she finds him lying beside her in his own bedroll, deep in meditation, his hand still clutching hers.

***

“Astarion, you’re sure you know how to pick this lock?” Wyll says, eyes darting around them as Astarion works one of the side doors of the citadel. There’s a snap and Astarion curses, reaching into his pocket to pull out a fresh lock pick.

“I could if I didn’t have you whining in my ear,” Astarion hisses under his breath. Wyll rolls his eyes.

“Four minutes until the guard shows up and we have a proper fight on our hands,” Wyll says, drawing his blade.

Another lockpick breaks. “Maybe we can break the door down?” Gale says, as if anyone but Karlach could have managed that. Even if they had the ability, none of them have a bludgeoning weapon and Gale’s Magic Missile won’t be enough to break through the thick steel.

Instead of the bushes you’d see outside any palace in Faerun, there are piles of coal and ash roughly shaped like bushes. The vines on the walls holding the corpses in place are solidified lava. To her horror, some of the corpses aren’t actually corpses, but living trophies, impaled to Zariel’s citadel, though when she attempted to speak to one, discovered they’d been silenced.

Over their time together, she grew familiar with the click of a door unlocking and when she hears it, gives Astarion a pat on the arm.

“Patience is a virtue,” Astarion says, smug.

“Says the man with none whatsoever,” Wyll retorts.

They walk down a dark corridor lit by sparse wall sconces shaped like a female devil. “Narcissistic enough to have sconces made in her image,” Wyll says, disgusted.

“Personally that’s a bit less narcissistic than Raphael, who literally fucks himself,” Astarion says.

“Gets fucked, more like it,” she says, unable to imagine Raphael ever put much work into sex. “Fucking pillow princess.”

“An image for the ages,” Gale says, while Astarion snickers.

“I’m not dying imagining Raphael in bed with himself so can we please talk about literally anything else?” Wyll says and then stops dead in his tracks, lifting his hand. “Invisibility potions now.”

The four of them down a potion and hug the black stone wall. A tall red cambion strolls down the corridor at a leisurely pace, muttering to himself about the catering. She concentrates on her own breathing, willing herself to remain silent.

Through dark, winding corridors they walk, with Astarion guiding them, as the one most familiar with the layout of a citadel - albeit not one in Avernus. They arrive in a servant’s corridor that will take them through to the entrance hall and Astarion picks the lock of the side door they’ll be using.

In the entrance hall are a dozen devils and a dozen more imps. The imps - presumably security, are congregated in a circle close to the wall directly across from them. Gale points at them and she nods.

“I think I can get the two cambions closest to the door,” Astarion whispers, gesturing to two cambions just through the doorway.

Astarion goes in first, slitting their throats from behind, and before anyone else can react, Gale brings down the dozen imps with a conjured lightning storm that, with a flick of his wrist, moves on, striking the three devils closest to the imp corpses.

She focuses her attention on one of two orthons in the room, conjuring a sleet storm that turns the floor into a skating rink. When he falls, she strikes hard with balls of ice that explode when they hit their target. In retaliation, the orthon lobs a bomb at her and Astarion dives for it, grabs it and tosses it back before racing to his next target.

The black marble floors are sticky with blood and the four of them are breathing heavily. She hands out healing potions; Gale in particular took a direct hit from a mace and appears concussed, but his expression moves from vaguely dopey to neutral as the potion does its job. Were circumstances different she’d insist he return to camp and rest, but they don’t have the privilege of rest in the Hells.

Astarion’s own wounds - a scratch below his eye and a stab in the thigh, begin closing before her very eyes and he grins at her. “It’s handy. Not worth the trade offs, though.”

She has burns on her arms and shrapnel embedded in her hip and she winces as it works its way out as the potion heals her. That’s never a good feeling.

The grand stone doors at the front of the room swing open and a woman enters.

“Our target is here,” Astarion snarls, near-high from the rush of battle, and his back leg pivots as he readies himself to strike.

Zariel is a good seven feet tall, with a shaved head and feathered red wings wider than she is tall. Underneath her black armour she wears a tattered skirt dripping with embers, and instead of a left hand, she wears a prosthetic that doubles as a flail. She glides, more than walks over to the four of them, and she forces herself to stand tall, masking her terror with the burning rage that’s fuelled her since the day she lost her girlfriend.

Around them are the corpses of Zariel’s closest followers; battered, broken and drained. If only Mizora had been among them; Wyll deserves his own vengeance as much as she does, but Zariel seems to protect her prized pets and holds them close to her breast.

“Naughty, naughty,” Zariel murmurs, glancing around at the corpses of her subjects, her expression one of cool indifference instead of the rage she expected.

Everything inside her screams to rush the woman; that she needs to feel her blood dripping on her skin, so she sprints towards her, a ball of ice at the ready, shouting out her rage so loudly her voice breaks.

Smirking, Zariel steps out of the way and swings her flail at her; a blow that would have hit were it not for Astarion parrying it with one of his daggers. “You’re not front line!” Astarion hisses at her.

“I am today!” she retorts as Gale casts Mage Armour on her and Wyll closes in, his own blade at the ready.

“Don’t be stupid!” Astarion says, as if he did not do this precise thing when he was after his own vengeance. He takes his own swing at Zariel, and embeds a poison-coated dagger in her chest, his eyes alight with the rush of battle, only for Zariel to laugh cruelly and pull the blade out herself, tossing it aside and off the battlefield. Too quickly, the blood rushing from her wound ceases.

Her own storms of ice and snow, long capable of dropping most anything they’ve encountered, only make Zariel laugh as if she were a child showing off a finger painting. Instead of open wounds from the hail pelting her body, Zariel’s flesh glistens, as if she’d just stepped out of a cool bath. Ice does nothing, she realizes with sinking horror. Wyll’s attacks are treated like mere practice; she engages with him as if for her own amusement, but none of her blows are fatal.

“We’re not touching her!” Gale shouts, speaking the obvious.

“No fucking shit!” Astarion snarls, reaching for a vial of acid. “Wyll, move back!” he calls out in heavily accented Draconic; she’d taught everyone how to speak and understand basic combat instruction in Draconic to give them an edge against their enemies.

Astarion throws the vial as soon as Wyll clears the area around Zariel, and the woman smirks as the acid eats away at her tattered skirt, revealing scorched grey skin that’s bubbled where the acid has touched, but if it pains her, she does not show it.

In desperation, she swings her quarterstaff, making contact with the base of her skull, which makes a terrible thud, but the woman does not fall or even flinch.

Tiring of the fight, Zariel mutters an incantation in Infernal, and immediately her body locks up, paralyzed, but it’s different from Hold Person, because it feels as if her heart is being crushed in her chest, and she cannot draw a breath, no matter how hard she tries to force air into her lungs. She feels light; almost as if she’s floating, separated from her paralyzed body.

Astarion shouts her name but it sounds fuzzy and distant; like he’s speaking to her from across a rushing river. Where is he? Are they fleeing? She hopes they are; she hopes he survives and makes it back home. He doesn’t deserve to die in Avernus like she will.

Just before losing consciousness, it occurs to her that if Zariel even knows why they’re here at her doorstep, she certainly does not care.

Chapter Text

Astarion knows no Infernal, save for that which was cut into his back, but the incantation sounded ominous and Zariel spoke it with glee. Petra freezes and after a moment crumples to the ground and Zariel hovers over her, her flail ready to deliver the death blow.

Wyll says nothing; his expression morose, like a man awaiting execution. His own mind turns, and he comes up with something. “Stop!” he says frantically, palm extended forward.

“I’m not in the habit of taking orders from spawn,” the woman sneers and he forces himself to laugh it off. Build a rapport. Hide pain. Hide fear.

“Hardly satisfying to kill a woman paralyzed on the ground, no?” he says casually. “Would it not be more fun to make it a hunt?”

Not that it improves their chances by much, but the three of them could grab Petra and find a portal to, well, anywhere but here.

“Astarion, what are you doing?” Wyll hisses and he frantically gestures for the man to shut up.

“Why did you come? Why slaughter my subjects? Were the pleasures of your own plane truly so few?”

He doesn’t want to speak for Petra; this conversation is hers to have and yet here he is. “Because she loves Karlach and because of you she is gone,” he says, doing his best to approximate what Petra might have said.

He’s unarmed; his daggers are a good 50 metres from him and so is his bow, so if this woman strikes, there’s nothing he can do to save himself. Petra has begged him not to leave her, and yet he’ll be the first casualty of the four of them because he’s their voice.

“And why are you here?”

“Because I owe her a favour,” he says smoothly.

Zariel steps forward and caresses his cheek with a gloved hand, and he suppresses a shudder at the unwanted touch. “The pretty spawn lies - both to me and to himself.”

He says nothing and the woman’s touch continues, stroking his face as Cazador once did. An approximation of a tender caress with nothing but cruelty behind it. Shame prickles inside him but he does not react outwardly. “I’d kill the rest but I wouldn’t kill you. You’d look so pretty in my bedchamber.”

His stomach turns and he fears he might vomit on her blistered feet.

“We won’t let you touch him!” Gale says sharply - or as sharply as the man can get, which means he sounds like a perturbed school teacher, and he rolls his eyes, because of all the times to stand up for him, Gale chose right now. Foolish man.

Petra would do the same, he thinks with fondness, but these thoughts won’t save her. Instead, he slips into his old outfit and caresses the foul woman’s hand that still rests on his cheek, beginning a dance he knows by heart after centuries of practice. “Why don’t you try to catch us, hmm? Is it not more fun when it’s a game?” he purrs.

“A minute, and then the hunt begins,” Zariel whispers; a surprise because he thought he’d have to put on a bit more of a show than this, but he gestures for Wyll to grab Petra, digs in his side bag for three invisibility potions and a scroll, and hands them out, shoving the scroll at Gale.

“Make her invisible,” he says, pointing to the still-unconscious Petra and he sprints to get his weapons, not bothering to hilt his daggers, because if bloody Gale and his creaky knees can’t manage to maintain a modicum of discretion while they’re sneaking, he’s going to need them right away.

He takes them, not in the direction they came from, but the opposite direction, around the outside wall of the citadel, hiding them behind molten rocks and taking them dangerously close to rivers of lava. “Gale, I need a promise,” he whispers as he gestures for them to continue moving forward. Gale looks at him, his face pale, save for his two black eyes and a nasty cut oozing blood and pus on his cheek, but he nods.

“If we’re caught by Zariel, kill me,” he says, handing Gale a Daylight scroll - something he packed for this very situation to offer himself a relatively quick way out if the future promised to him looked worse than dying in burning agony.

“I couldn’t,” Gale begins to babble and he glares at the man.

“You will,” he says firmly.

“What would Petra think?” Wyll says, holding the unconscious woman in his arms. Wyll says she has a pulse - a weak one, and that she’s in need of a healer with skill beyond anything they’d find in Baldur’s Gate, which means tracking down Halsin at the Emerald Grove, where he’s visiting with several of the children he adopted upon leaving the city to revitalize the shadow-cursed lands.

“She won’t be alive to have an opinion,” he says bluntly.

“I’ll hold onto this for now and give it back to you once we’ve gotten out of this mess,” Gale says, which he realizes is about the best he’ll be able to get from the man for now.

Three days. That’s how long it took them to get to Zariel’s palace in the first place, and he’s not convinced they’ll be able to evade her attack dogs for long enough to escape.

“What do we do?” Wyll says quietly, gesturing at Petra, who was always the primary decision maker. He knows she never enjoyed that role in their group - a lifetime of being told she’s not good enough for the blood running through her veins has left her with a poor self-image, but she was skilled at making decisions. She knew when to take a risk and when it’s better to play it safe.

Wyll seems unwilling to lead and Gale has no expertise in skills that will get them out of Avernus so it’s up to him.

They’re doomed.

“We traverse a large loop around to the portal. We take the stupidest, most hazardous paths possible because they won’t expect that of us,” he says, grateful he had the presence of mind to pack a few potions that will enhance their strength and jumping abilities temporarily because they’ll be leaping off cliffs before the day is out.

“But mostly, we get lucky,” he says, grim. “We’re a few solid shades of fucked presently.”

“There’s another option,” Gale says, gesturing to his chest and he scoffs, because the man is painfully determined to turn himself into a bomb. He thinks to ask why Mystra hasn’t removed the damned thing from Gale’s chest, but realizes just as quickly that this is not the time to have that conversation. It’s more something Petra would ask him about, anyway; she’s the gregarious one; the one their friends all love. The others are certainly friendly to him and he does consider them to be friends, but there’s a distance. Intimate questions about the state of the unstable exploding orb nestled in one’s chest are not on the table for him.

“Are you ever not going to offer up suicide as a plan?”

“Well, if we’re to die anyway, we may as well take a shot at completing what Petra set out to do!” Gale whispers irritably.

He can find no fault in Gale’s analysis and this annoys him for reasons he can’t quite discern.

“This wasn’t how I planned to die,” Wyll says and he rolls his eyes.

“No? You didn’t plan to spend your last moments hunted by an archdevil?”

He removes one of his gloves and places his fingers on Petra’s neck, feeling her pulse, as if he knows what he should be looking for.

“It’s weak. Erratic,” Wyll says, his tone a warning that he’s not ready to hear.

“Then we need to get her to Halsin,” he says, as if this is something simple and not next to impossible in their current circumstances.

Wyll carries Petra past rivers of lava, leaping onto rocks the width of his waist, and he can hardly watch, knowing that one slip and Petra will fall in. Once, he was pushed into lava and he recalls the blistering heat as his skin melted off. Every second felt like an eternity and when the blackness came, he embraced it. Then, he was lying on the ground, his skin covered in burns and blisters that Shadowheart was frantically trying to heal.

Dying that way hurt and he’s in no hurry to repeat it, especially when he wouldn’t get a resurrection this time. You can’t bring back the undead when said undead doesn’t have a tadpole that alters the rules.

They don’t dare sleep; nor do they stop to eat. The soles of his feet burn; is it just him or is it now hotter? Can Zariel turn up the heat, as it were? Inside his boots feels damp and he’s well aware that it’s not sweat causing the dampness.

A few imps fall to their combined efforts, but they’re cornered in a canyon; a near-army of cambions, orthons and imps close in. “Anyone got any new tricks?” he asks Gale and Wyll, who both shake their heads, eyes wide with terror. Every other time things have appeared dire, something has come to shake things up and rescue them, but here in the hells? They’re on their own and their wicks burn low.

“Kill me,” he says to Gale. “I can’t be someone’s slave again. Kill me.”

He’d do it himself, but he isn’t actually capable of casting that particular spell. It’s beyond his (limited) capabilities.

“Astarion…”

“Kill me!” he screams, hating that his final moments will consist of him begging for death.

Gale reaches for the scroll, his mouth twisted with torment but before he can cast it, the air around them cools in the way it always does when Petra casts a powerful ice spell. From the ground up, ice forms before them and he lifts his hand and looks at Gale, hope renewed that they’ve struck gold and found themselves a miracle.

“Not yet. Don’t kill me yet.”

A wall of ice separates them and their would-be captors; ice crystal clear, like a frozen lake in the middle of winter. Ice strong enough to withstand the intolerable heat and fire of the Hells, and above, a strong gust of air from the flapping wings of a silver dragon threatens to knock them prone. He grabs Wyll, steadying him so that he doesn’t fall and risk hurting Petra.

“A dragon? Zariel has a dragon?” Wyll sputters and he stares at the man, speechless. Truly, is it possible for a man to be any more obtuse?

“I believe it is more likely that we have a rescuer, in the form of Petra’s grandfather,” Gale says, showing that at least he has some basic sense.

All he can do is laugh, because just as he’d given up, someone has arrived to shake up the battlefield, though every warning Petra has given him about her grandfather runs through his racing mind. He’s an asshole who has only met each of his four grandchildren once. He takes the form of an elf much of the time and spends his life in a remote town that’s under his protection and, while Petra has never said as much, the impression he’s gotten is that the man enjoys the illusion of running this community - though whether the townsfolk know his true nature or not is a mystery. The man disapproved of Petra’s human mother, and if a human who won the heart of his son fails to meet his standards, Gale and Wyll certainly won’t, and he may be a high elf, but any idiot with eyes can tell he’s a vampire. The lot of them are unlikely to be popular with this man.

“Or Petra does, at least,” Wyll mutters darkly. “Let me do the talking, because you’re not exactly friendly to strangers, Astarion.”

“It may be advantageous for Astarion to speak to the man, given who we are to be dealing with,” Gale says, giving Wyll a look he can’t parse out.

“Or it could damn the three of us,” Wyll retorts.

“Not if Astarion points out very clearly that Petra lives with him,” Gale says, as if the fact that they’re roommates will be enough to save their lives.

The dragon descends, shifting form into an elven man in silver robes shimmering with what looks to be diamonds on the shoulders and breast of the garment. His long silver hair is tied back by a black ribbon, free of any flyaways or tousle that one would normally expect after journeying through the hells, and his face is covered with dark silver scales, and so are his ungloved hands. Around his neck are gold chains and a rainbow of jewels, and he wears a tiara that hums with magic - though what sort he cannot tell. He walks tall; dignified, as if he’s the most important person in Avernus.

“Zariel; I’m here to discuss reparations,” the man says loudly, his booming voice magically enhanced to be audible over the great wall of ice before them.

Before receiving a response, the man turns to look at them for the first time. “Does she live?” he asks, his tone making clear that if she does not, the rest of their lives would be forfeit. He speaks in heavily-accented Common; his words coming out more as a series of hisses, much like when Petra casts in Draconic.

“She does, but needs a healer urgently,” he says because apparently he’s the voice of the group when Petra is out of commission, which strikes him as an especially brain dead decision on Wyll’s part. Horns aside, the man is something resembling cuddly. Him? All teeth.

This addition to the playing board seems to intrigue Zariel, who flies over the ice wall and sets down next to the man, who does not flinch or draw his staff. “Speak, Berrin,” Zariel says, and he wonders how the man has come to be on named terms with an archdevil.

“My granddaughter behaved foolishly; a child throwing a tantrum because a beloved toy was lost,” Astarion bristles at this; it was so much more than that, “and I acknowledge your losses. However, I would point out that she has done you a favour - unknowingly, and I would remind you that killing my granddaughter; a hero of Baldur’s Gate, will cause strife with the material plane; a strife you cannot afford with your blood war.”

“Go on,” Zariel says, her expression unchanging and the man - Berrin, reveals a leather-bound tome with a wave of his hand.

“There are spies in every corner of every realm, and my little whisperers tell me that your subjects are not known for their loyalty. Notes, on every noble house in Avernus, to do with as you will. Ascend those remaining who’ve chosen loyalty, or mask your security breach by burning the rest to the ground. By the time you intervened, my granddaughter’s fumbling ended in the death of every other witness, allowing you to tell the tale as you see fit. You were the one who razed your court; not a mortal half-elf who behaved like a child. Yours, in exchange for her.”

Gale looks over at the two of them with alarm, and Astarion clears his throat. Without looking at him, Berrin says, “your betters are speaking, spawn.”

He flinches, thinking back to Moonrise Towers and how Petra’s dagger was at that drow’s throat as soon as she pushed back on his ‘no’. How she treats him as a person and not an object, but here and now, he’s nothing more than a piece of meat on the negotiating table.

“And what if I have my own spies?”

“You do not,” Berrin says smoothly. “Take your blood from her if you must, but understand the enemy you make. I’ve lived long enough to know how this plays out for you.”

This man speaks of Petra as if she were nothing more than that same meat on the negotiating table and he burns white-hot with anger. Zariel’s calm expression breaks and he notices the fear in the woman’s white eyes. What powers does this man before them have that frighten her so? Zariel was seemingly immune to the bite of Petra’s ice, so Berrin must be an immensely skilled spellcaster using other schools of magic.

“Her for your intel. The other three remain with me,” Zariel says, and his head spins, and his vision goes black as he remembers lying on his back for Cazador; lifetimes of torture and existing in a body that was not his. He can’t. He refuses.

“She’ll kill you for this, Berrin,” he shouts; a desperate play because there’s no charming or manipulating the man before them, because a man who would damn his own granddaughter is not one to be swayed by anything but threats.

This is the man Petra prayed to, he realizes with disgust. He answered her prayers but his help is little more than that from a monkey’s paw.

Berrin gestures with his hand, and a familiar feeling washes over him; as if his mouth were covered by a cool, invisible hand. He’s been silenced and he looks over pathetically at Gale and Wyll, showing a terror he always tried to hide from everyone but Petra.

“I have an idea if you’ll let me borrow your dagger,” Gale says, his tone ominous, and he nods, knowing that if this is the card they have remaining, they’re well and truly fucked.

They’ll be betting on Berrin choosing his life and Petra’s over his pride, and negotiating for the lives of three people he sees as bargaining chips to offer Zariel. Gale loosens his robe, exposing the outline of the orb embedded in his chest and presses the tip of the dagger into his flesh.

“I have a bomb!” Gale calls out, following with an obnoxiously detailed explanation of the nature of the orb in his chest - as if that matters when the words ‘I have a bomb’ usually suffice to draw someone’s attention.

“Us three leave with the dragon and Petra, or I’ll blow a crater in Avernus the size of a city and take you all with me,” Gale says, pressing the tip of the dagger further into his chest, drawing blood.

Perhaps Gale’s negotiating tactic was smarter than he’d given it credit for, he thinks, noticing Zariel flinch, only to cover it and breezily ask Berrin for his counter-offer. He’s still silenced; the feeling fueling the panic swirling inside him as he fights off memories of Cazador and the hell that was his existence before a mind flayer tadpole inadvertently led him down the road to salvation. Not now. His mind needs to be clear, even if this man sees him as nothing more than a spawn whore who could placate Zariel.

“I had not anticipated my granddaughter to keep such stupid company,” Berrin says, and reaches into his robes to pull out a bag that jingles in a manner that suggests it is filled with gold and jewels. “Will this pay for the lives of the idiots? Keep in mind that I’m sparing you from dealing with them - and in the case of the spawn, keeping you from a confrontation with his master, who will want their property returned.”

He’s beginning to think Petra might have undersold just what an ass this man is. It’d be almost admirable if the man wasn’t trying to buy him, Gale and Wyll like they’re toys to be played with.

What will this man’s protection cost them? What if Petra does not survive to offer the three of them her own protection against a dragon who has styled himself a god?

What if Petra does not survive? His stomach sinks at the thought of a life without her walking by his side.

“He’s a free man!” Wyll shouts, and he glares at the man, still unable to speak, because, while he appreciates the defending, it’s a lot less appealing for Zariel to keep him to warm her bed if she thinks someone will come chasing after him.

Zariel stares at Berrin, who reaches into his robes and pulls out another, smaller bag of gold, and plops it into her waiting hand. “I will conjure a portal; call off your minions,” Berrin says.

It’s strange knowing that the lives of him, Wyll and Gale are worth two bags of gold to an archdevil. The spell silencing him lifts as soon as Berrin begins work on the circle; he draws it swiftly, as if by memory. “Did Petra ever tell you that her grandfather has business in the hells?” Wyll mutters to him.

“She only ever met him once so I doubt she knows,” he murmurs back. This will be a juicy topic of discussion once the dust settles. Gale hands him back his dagger with a nod of thanks.

“Turns out threatening to off yourself has its place,” he acknowledges sheepishly.

“Wizard. A healer - where?” Berrin says, because apparently none of them have names any longer. Gale walks over to the man and presumably gives him the location of Emerald Grove. Wyll removes the cloak from around his neck and hands it to him, and he wraps it around his own neck, so he can cover his head and face if it’s daytime when they return.

It won’t protect him long, but it should last long enough to get him into the infirmary with Petra, which is free of sunlight, to his recollection. “Mind taking her?” Wyll says, gesturing to Petra, who is currently lying unconscious at Wyll’s feet, where he placed her once it was clear that the negotiations meant he didn’t have to continue carrying her.

He lifts her, straining at the effort of it, and her head flops against his chest. “Once you’re well, we’re going to have a long talk about scaring the ever-loving shit out of me,” he murmurs softly enough that Wyll and Gale won’t be able to hear, and he kisses the top of her head. As he does, Berrin approaches, raising his eyebrow, and he glares back, challenging him to say something.

“That explains one decision of my granddaughter’s,” Berrin says, voice full of disdain, gesturing to the now-open portal. “You’ll want to cover your face.” Hearing this, Wyll walks up and covers his face with the cloak, places a hand on his arm, and guides him towards the portal.

“Should you not take her given that I’m moving blind?” he says to Wyll.

“She’s safest with you,” Wyll whispers. Occasionally he’s been reminded that Wyll is shrewder than he appears, and has picked up on the same thing he has: Petra’s grandfather is not a safe person for her to be around, and when they arrive at Emerald Grove, she’s going to need protection while she recovers.

The daggers at his hips are heavy with every step; a reminder that they’re there and he’ll use them and what’s left of his cursed life to protect her until his undead body ceases to move.

Chapter Text

Astarion is fully aware that he must look like a mad man, rushing into the grove with his head covered in a cloak, carrying an unconscious woman and shouting for Halsin.

Luckily, the events of the last few years means that its residents have grown somewhat desensitized to lunatic behaviour so Wyll grabs him by the arm and guides him through the grove, towards the infirmary. “Someone pointed us this way,” Wyll explains.

“Well, obviously!”

“Since retiring as archdruid, Halsin has focused primarily on rebuilding the shadow-cursed lands and caring for the children he took in. He seems happier based on the tone of his letters,” Gale says.

“You can remove the cloak,” Wyll says.

“Ah, well I’ll just drop the unconscious woman in my arms, then!” Petra is dead weight and his arms are shaking at the strain of carrying her, but he dare not risk showing it, for fear of her grandfather deciding she’s better off in his cruel care.

“All right, all right - someone is testy,” Wyll mutters, removing the cloak for him. Before he can snap back at Wyll, Halsin rushes into the infirmary and gestures to one of the stone slabs and asks what happened.

“My granddaughter foolishly decided to assassinate Zariel and, as expected, Zariel fought back. I’ve been unable to discern the precise curse cast on her but she’s been unconscious for hours. Name your price and I will ensure you receive it,” Berrin says stiffly.

“I do not charge for my services and even if I did, she is a friend,” Halsin says as he sets her down on the table. He casts some sort of spell - what he learns he doesn’t reveal, but the grave expression on his face paints an ugly picture. “It would be best if you all left.”

Gale and Wyll turn to leave but Petra’s grandfather stands firm. “She is my blood,” he says, as if that matters when he treated her like a piece on a game board in Avernus. There’s no love; her life is just a frayed string holding together the man’s immense pride.

“If he stays then so do I,” he says, glaring at Halsin; a silent challenge.

“Oak Father grant me patience,” Halsin mutters, but seems otherwise content to let the matter rest.

Halsin works in silence, but the air is thick with the tension between him and Berrin. Were the circumstances not what they are, he’d feel almost smug that he’s managed to so thoroughly ruin the day of a damned dragon.

Well, Petra helped, but his very existence by her side seems to insult the man personally.

The blisters and burns on his feet heal as soon as he’s off them, and the rest of his injuries follow suit. While in desperate need of a bath, he’s healthy enough - or as healthy as the undead can get.

Healing was always simple during their journeying together. Shadowheart or Halsin were able to sort out everything that went wrong and even the worst maladies were cured by morning. There was the single night he spent in agony after taking a trident to the gut while they broke prisoners free in the Iron Throne. Even then, he suffered only because of Shadowheart’s exhaustion and the fact that Halsin had been Orin’s hostage at the time. Petra and Karlach slept beside him, and he thinks fondly of that memory; the warmth and safety he felt overwhelms the pain he remembers.

So, when Halsin is still working and the hours tick by, he grows more and more concerned.

“Is this an ‘it would be solved more quickly if we killed her and then revived her’ situation?” he finally asks, ready to pull out the revivify scroll he brought with them in case of an emergency.

“That is not a tactic I’d recommend in this particular instance,” Halsin says, not elaborating.

“Would you tell us something, druid?” Berrin says and Halsin bristles but when he responds, it’s devoid of even the slightest frustration.

“As far as I can tell, her soul has been pulled from her body and transported to another plane of existence. Zariel gave you Petra’s body but may still have all that makes her who she is,” Halsin says.

“Well, ring a bell and call her back, then!” he snaps.

“If only it were that simple.”

“She’s still breathing!” he cries, gesturing at Petra’s unconscious body.

“The healer would have discerned that much, spawn,” Berrin says and he turns and glares at the man.

“I’m doing all I can, but be warned that, even if she is able to make her way back, she may never wake up. Brace yourselves.”

He sits there, marveling at the cruelty of Zariel’s bargain: she gave up her body but not her soul, and they were all fools not to consider this possibility. They had enough dealings with Raphael; why did they take her at her word?

Halsin works for a few hours more, until sweat drops down his forehead and then turns his attention to him. “I’ll see what we have for you. You’ll need to do your own hunting but until…” he trails off, the words not needed.

With Halsin out of the room, he settles in the chair beside Petra’s bed, ignoring Berrin’s glares. The man has met Petra once; he doesn’t get to claim the spot beside her bed.

“Looks like you and I are going to be friends,” he says sarcastically to Berrin, who opts to stand tall, staring at the bed Petra is now lying on.

“Leaving you alive was another of my granddaughter’s mistakes,” Berrin says, making him laugh at the sheer absurdity of the situation. Berrin is almost as likeable as he is!

“She would disagree.”

“And as we’ve established, she has the judgement of a child denied her favourite toy.”

He forces himself to ignore the man and searches his bag for a strip of leather, and once he’s found something appropriate, he divides her bright purple hair into three sections and begins braiding. As he does, he can feel the burn of the other man’s glare.

“Why waste your time doing the hair of an unconscious woman?”

Despite being her grandfather, the man knows nothing about her. It was a mere two days in her company when he figured out that Petra’s hair is a big deal, and that her routine is near-sacred. She loves tending to her hair, and when they were travelling together she rarely left camp without a full face of makeup.

“Because this will keep it from becoming too badly tangled while she’s sick and in bed,” he says coolly.

“Why does that matter? Can she not just chop it off?”

He stares at the man in his bejewelled robes, the chains around his neck, his tiara and the rings on his fingers, and sees a different sort of vanity. Petra loves beautiful clothes, and doing her hair and makeup, but her taste in jewellery is somewhat more subdued. Simple silver studs and rings in her ears, nose, eyebrow, nipples and navel, and occasionally an enchanted tiara. On her left ring finger she wears a black diamond ring Karlach bought her. He glances at her hand, confirming that it remains.

Berrin’s vanity is in his wealth, and the man wears around his neck more coin than he’s ever had in his life - even after a year of adventuring and saving the city, and plundering Cazador’s palace.

He’s unsure if the man is serious or if this is a poor attempt at trolling, but he’s not in the mood to tolerate it, in any case. “You clearly do not know Petra or care to, so allow me to tend to her, and leave us alone.”

“No.”

At least the man has the decency to look at him as he refuses to spare him the misfortune of his company, though he looks at him as if imagining running him through. It’s the sort of look he’s grown used to; one he still receives from the staff at the Elfsong who are familiar with him and his existence prior to freeing himself from Cazador. People tend to be afraid of vampires, and that he’s always with Petra is probably the only reason he’s tolerated at all.

He’s not feeling charitable when faced with a man who would have left him as Zariel’s sex slave.

“I’m not going to bloody drain her! She’s lived with me for a year and we travelled together!”

I care more about her than you do, he thinks, but cannot find the words to express how important she is to him. That she’s the most important person in his life.

Halsin has done what he could, but warned them that she is likely to be unconscious for days - if she ever wakes up. He struggled to bite his tongue there; to keep at raging at the man, because who survives all Petra has… only to die unconscious in a bed because of some weird curse courtesy of the archdevil she tried to kill?

Long ago he gave up on praying to the gods; they never answered him, but sometimes he overheard Petra, in times of great strife, praying to her grandfather, as if he were a god. Maybe to her family he is, and if there’s one thing he’s learned from his time with Petra and their friends, it’s that gods are fallible.

This man before him thinks himself a god, yet makes the mistakes of a mortal.

Also, he’s just a real fucking idiot.

***

Rarely does he leave Petra’s side, and never when her grandfather remains in the infirmary. It’s only when Halsin arrives and encourages him to take a walk that he leaves - but even then, he simply wanders into the library next door, where a male dwarf eyes him as if he were a monster. Rolling his eyes, he steps quietly behind him, sneaks over, waves his arms and says “boo” in a menacing tone, laughing when the young man yelps and bursts into tears.

When the man flees from the library, he laughs harder, saying, “you better run!”. Petra would scold him for it - “that was mean,” she’d say, but she’s not awake to give him shit.

He wishes she was. He’d happily endure being told to stop tormenting the height-challenged druids if it meant hearing her voice. Her cute little merchant class accent, and the way her voice gets lower and breathier when she’s speaking Draconic, and more musical when she’s speaking Elven. His stomach growls and the ache in his belly grows more intense; Halsin has brought him a pint of blood every day but it’s not enough. It’s coagulated and cold and he finds himself shivering by Petra’s bedside because he doesn’t have the warmth of the blood from living animals flowing through him.

During his years of slavery, he was constantly so cold that the tips of his fingers and toes ached unless he caught a dog or rat on the street, because the rats and bugs Cazador gave him were cold and long-dead. He scans the library in search of a history book that may offer insight into where he might find a relic that would allow him to walk in the sun safely, but finds druidic poetry, books about the local herbs and wildlife, and various other odes to the beauty of nature.

Pretty flowers and frolicking deer won’t give him the sun, so he continues on browsing, hoping to find a book of poetry that isn’t written in damned Druidic. Apparently nature’s guardians can’t write flowing verse in Common.

“Astarion?” Gale’s voice pulls him from his thoughts and he mutters a curse under his breath. Why did he go to the library - of course Gale would find him here! The man is practically a travelling library.

“Go and sit with Petra,” he says, not looking at the man; instead focusing on the books on the shelf in front of him as if his life depends on it.

“Halsin had us expelled from the room temporarily in order to perform an examination. He also told her grandfather that he’s going to perform some exercises so that her muscles don’t degrade too much while she’s unconscious. A wise idea.”

He trusts Halsin with her. “Where’s granddaddy?” he sneers, turning to look at Gale for the first time. The man is in a black sweater with no shape whatsoever, and a pair of brown tights, and so badly does he want to drag the man out to a tailor and give him a good talking to for having the audacity to pair a shapeless lumpy black sweater with brown. Who does that? Gale’s black eye has faded to yellow, and the cut on his lip healed to the point where he doubts it will scar. Wyll and Gale each took a health potion, but declined care from Halsin, recognizing that Petra’s injuries were far more pressing.

“Not in the room. The archdruid was the one who kicked him out; the man was arguing with Halsin. Not the friendliest sort, is he?”

“She prayed to him,” he says, stomach sinking. “He’s just like any other who styles themselves a deity; mortals are game pieces and nothing more. She’s his granddaughter and that means nothing.”

With Petra, Wyll and Karlach, he fought an undead dragon, and it was one of their tougher fights. Afterwards Petra cried, in shock over having to kill a dragon and furious at the Emperor’s actions, but unable to voice them on account of the fact that the mind flayer had space in all of their heads. So, she cried bitter tears, and he thinks that was the day she decided for certain that she would side with Orpheus over the Emperor.

She’s the granddaughter of a dragon, and so killing a dragon felt personal. Now, knowing Berrin, he thinks those tears were wasted; her grief unwarranted.

“He doesn’t deserve her worship and she deserves better than his blood,” he says, clenching his fists. “I want him gone. He shouldn’t be here when she is sick, vulnerable and unable to fight for herself!”

“You may have objections to the man, but he is her relative and did save us, no matter how you may dislike that fact,” Gale says and he growls at the man, who does not so much as flinch. Their friends are used to him; used to navigating his fiery moods and dramatic outbursts, and part of him longs for the days when he was able to actually frighten them. Now, even when he’s at his angriest and most vicious, Gale and Wyll fail to react in any way. He wants that reaction; to fill terror in hearts, or at least half-hearted disapproval.

“He abuses her!”

Gale says nothing in response; he’s grateful the man doesn’t disagree at least, even if there’s doubt in his eyes. “When she wakes up, he’s going to be terrible to her; he’s going to make her feel small and worthless and she doesn’t need that. She’s sick. Gods, why is he allowed to stay when he will roll over her as soon as she opens her eyes? What needs to be done to kick him out of this place?”

“Because, as much as you loathe it, the reality is that he is her family, and that gives him the power to make decisions about her care. Now, you may be correct about how the man intends to speak to her if she wakes, but I would counter that with the observation that you remain by her side much of the time and are more than capable of speaking in her defence. I have no doubt you will do so most ardently and viciously.”

“I’ll make him regret learning to speak Common,” he vows. “I’ll cut his heart out of his chest; I’ll…”

“Resorting to violence is unwise against a dragon, and I cannot imagine Petra would want that.”

It’s always so annoying when Gale is right. “Would you let me have my fantasy, damn you?”

Halsin’s apprentice walks into the library and calls for the two of them, and sends Gale in to sit with Petra, but escorts him over to Halsin’s office. “No. I won’t leave her alone with her grandfather. We can talk in the infirmary,” he says, moving to head back over to the infirmary, but the woman follows after him.

“Master Halsin was insistent and said that your friends would be suitable guards in your absence, and that this conversation must remain private,” she says emphatically, and his stomach sinks.

Halsin’s office - or the former office he’s temporarily inhabiting while visiting the Grove, is a small space within the cave system, smelling of stale cannabis, lantern oil and some spice he cannot discern. His desk is old; the finish chipped and the wood nicked from decades, if not a century of use, and Halsin gestures to a wooden chair with a worn blue cushion on top of it. He sits down. “Petra is unable to consent to her treatment, so her family must decide on her care. Her,” Halsin clears his throat, “grandfather has been informed of her condition, and that we can continue to keep her going while we wait for her to return to her body, but a mortal body can only stand so long without hydration. There are spells that help, but they are bandages on a wound and not a cure.”

“Then keep casting them,” he says without hesitation. “Whatever this curse did pulled her from her body, yes? That means she must be looking for it and hopping from plane-to-plane takes time!”

“You live together. How long?”

“A year or so,” he says, unsure why that matters.

“I believe Petra’s wishes would mirror your own, and cohabitating makes your insight on the matter more valuable than her grandfather’s, who she does not know well. Good.”

Once again, he imagines killing Berrin - this time ripping every limb of his out of their sockets and cutting them off with a blunt, rusty knife.

“Don’t listen to a word that man says,” he says. “Have him stripped and escorted out the front door. Set him on fire. Just get him out!”

“He is her family and has a right to be here, unless Petra says otherwise,” Halsin says, as infuriatingly diplomatic as always. That man could stand to let out a bit of rage once in awhile instead of his damned peaceful, patient schtick. “That said, blood is not the determining factor in deciding who will make the final decision regarding her treatment while she is unable.”

“Glad I’m finally recognized as something important,” he says airily, hiding the sting of tears at both the direness of Petra’s condition, and the fact that he’s being recognized as her family. That he’s more family than the damned dragon who would have left her to Zariel.

“Petra used to offer her blood to you in times of strife, and you have not had much to eat these last two days. Would drinking from me help matters?” Halsin gestures to his neck. “I can cast a spell that would reverse the effects of blood loss in minutes.”

He doesn’t want to accept and he’s not sure why. None of the others made the same offer Petra did, but he has frequently fed on their enemies without discomfort, so why is Halsin’s offer so uncomfortable? It’s sustenance, and nothing more, right?

While they have never been together romantically, there was an intimacy in Petra’s generosity; she was placing herself in a vulnerable position and trusting him not to hurt her. She offered him a trust no one else ever had, and he trusts her completely in turn.

It’s not that he doesn’t trust Halsin, but he doesn’t feel that same closeness with him. But, the ache in his belly only grows, and feeding off a humanoid will grant him a few hours free of it, allowing him to be focused entirely on Petra. “Could I feed from one of your wrists and not your neck?” he asks Halsin.

Halsin does not ask why - something he’s grateful for, and he takes several swallows from Halsin’s left wrist; the hot blood warming his frigid cold body and smothering the ache in his stomach. He closes the bite wound with a few swipes of his tongue, and Halsin casts Lesser Restoration, and a minute later, the pallor of blood loss is gone.

“I appreciate the generosity,” he mutters, awkward and unsure how to act after feeding off the man. “What are her chances?”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, regret fills him up, and before Halsin can speak the words from his open mouth, he says, “nevermind. I don’t want to know because she’s strong and she’ll make it back.”

“I hope you’re correct,” Halsin says.

Everything, from the man’s posture, to his grave tone, suggests that he’s a fool for holding such hope. Everything in his past tells him the same, but he can’t give up on her. He refuses.

Chapter Text

She’s sitting on a cliff overlooking Zariel’s palace, unsure of how she arrived here when the last thing she can remember is trying to harm Zariel and getting nowhere. The smoke, which made her lungs ache and her nose sting, feels like nothing. In fact, the skies look almost clear to her.

Recognizing she should try to find her friends, she tries to stand and flee, but finds herself unable to make her legs work. Heart racing, she grasps her calves and tries to force herself to her feet, only to fall like a newborn fawn.

Panicked, she calls out for Astarion, Wyll and Gale, only to be met with the howling wind. Where are they? What happened? She remembers Zariel and there was a spell and now there’s nothing.

“You won’t be able to leave, darling,” she’s told, in a voice she never thought she’d hear again. She turns her head to find Karlach sitting next to her. The flames licking her girlfriend’s skin are gone, and so are the exhaust holes along her collarbone and down her arms. She looks as she might have had Zariel never shoved that infernal engine into her chest.

Avernus. Karlach wound up in Avernus anyway. “Beloved, I’m so sorry,” she whispers, eyes welling up with tears. She could have been here with Karlach. They could have fought their way through Zariel’s army together with Wyll. They could have searched for a solution together and maybe they’d have been able to go home, and buy a little plot of land outside the city and adopted the goat that Karlach so often spoke about when they discussed a future together. A goat, land, and a flowerbed full of the most fragrant flowers the two of them could find.

“I’m just visitin’,” Karlach says cheerily. “Your Ma says hi. Real sweet lady - I see where you got your charm from. You’re lost and you need to find your way home - or move on with me. I’ll bring you to the Fugue Plane - make sure you don’t get lost or taken. Zariel thinks she can steal your soul but she’s wrong. It’s yours and I was tasked with protecting it, and to make sure you get where you need to go.”

She said goodbye to Karlach once and she’s not sure she can do it again but when she says that, Karlach gives her a sad smile. “Astarion is doing better. He’s blossoming and I think you’re helping with that. No matter what, you’ll be leaving someone behind, and I think you’ve got a lot more living to do.”

“I didn’t leave my father’s house for a year after you died.”

Karlach doesn’t react to this and she wonders if she already knew that; if she’s watching from wherever she is. “It hit you hard. I knew it would; I knew you’d hide but that’s why I told Astarion to pull you from the water when the time was right. Good job at the palace,” Karlach lets out a whistle, “some of Zariel’s die-hards are ice sculptures. Damned impressive.”

“You deserved more than a palace floor covered in blood.”

She deserved a life; a chance to develop wrinkles and grey hair. A goat and a farm and a wife. Instead, she burned on a dock after saving the city.

“Dunno; I thought it was a nice gift,” Karlach grins.

“You and Mother are beyond,” she says, staring out at the endless rivers of lava and flames of Avernus. “I could go with you. We’d be together and I could see Mother again.”

“You could. I don’t think you will. You were never the giving up type and you’ve got something you want to see through.”

She stares at Karlach, who grins at her once more. “Your ma told me that when you date men you always go for the pretty ones. Got a real pretty one for a roommate.”

“We’re just friends,” she says and Karlach bursts out laughing, slapping her thigh.

“You’re practically hitched. Smooch him already; Gods it’s torture watching the two of you pining.”

“I can’t walk,” she says, gesturing to her useless legs, and Karlach lifts her up, cradling her in her arms. Her body is warm - not burning hot, and she walks, holding her as if the weight of her is little more than a feather in her hands.

“Turns out when you’re dead, the shit that kills you gets shut off,” Karlach explains. “Tell me where to go and we’ll go.”

“Why can’t I walk?”

“As I said, Zariel thinks your soul belongs to her - you pissed her right the fuck off, so I was sent to make sure you arrived where you decide to be. Took a bit of screwing around but I got here in the end. We got some powerful friends, y’know. You and your body are separated so you gotta track yourself down. Where do I go to find your body?”

She doesn’t know. How could she know? She turns and looks up at Karlach, who grins at her. “Your love burns brightly on the horizon. Point the direction and we’ll walk.”

“I…” If she concentrates, there’s a glow to Karlach so bright that it’s almost blinding so she points at her chest and her girlfriend scoffs at her.

“Not me, you dope!”

She stares for a long while, seeing nothing but flames and smoke on the horizon. Nothing that glows, but far in the distance, there’s a hint of blue - almost like ice. Or the absence of heat.

“He’s undead,” she realizes. “He’s not going to glow; he’s going to be cold.” She points at the blue on the horizon and Karlach leaps into the air, soaring a good 20 metres through the air and landing with a sharp thud. Karlach leaps again and again, moving towards the blue without shifting course, save to avoid pools of lava or fire too large for her to leap over.

“What if Astarion isn’t with my body?” she asks, and in response Karlach only laughs.

“He’ll love you enough for the both of us, darling. Let yourself live again - good and proper, without the obsession with vengeance. It won’t make you happy again, but living will.”

Time seems to stand still here; as they travel she has no sense of how long they’ve been walking for, and she decides she doesn’t want to know whether it’s been minutes, hours or longer. She has Karlach again and she wishes she could have her for life.

“It feels like I’m choosing him over you,” she admits. “And I’m sorry. I want you both.”

“You’re choosing to live. To do good shit for the world and show your pops that you don’t need to be the proper granddaughter of a dragon to be a badass bitch. And yeah, there’s an angsty, bitchy vampire who loves you on the other side, but there’s a lot more for you in life than there is in death, even if you set him aside. Besides, we’ll see each other again, when you die proper. Better not be for a long ass time, though. I want stories from decades of adventures. Your ma wants more stories than you’ve got so make the most of it.”

“How is Mother?” How deeply she misses Mother and wishes she were here to greet her too. But, part of her knows that Mother would be disappointed if she gave up and moved on; she’d never tell her so, and wouldn’t even show it, but Mother was vibrant and alive until she wasn’t.

“She was waiting for me with my parents. Gave me a hug as soon as I was done greeting my mom and dad and thanked me for taking such good care of you. She spends a lot of time watching you and your siblings. Darling, she’s so proud of everything you’ve done.”

“But… but…”

Her tactics weren’t dignified enough. Her career was too unconventional. She’s too poor, too lazy, too flighty. Every argument against her races through her mind.

“She said she was always happy that one of her children turned out like her. Though apparently your little brother is shaping up to be like the two of you - she likes that lots. Been awhile since you’ve seen him, huh?”

“Not since Mother’s funeral,” she says softly, thinking about Jan, who would have turned 19 recently. Just barely a man. She promised Mother she’d take care of him and to do that she needs to live.

“Jan needs me. I don’t even know if he’s still at the boarding school Father sent him off to or if he’s since left but I must be whatever my brother needs me to be.”

“Sounds like your mind is made up.”

“How are your parents?”

“They were sad to see me,” Karlach says softly. “They’d hoped we’d find a miracle fix. Dad wanted to gut Gortash for what he did - never fought a day in his life, but he’d have picked up a blade just to spill his guts on the floor. Woulda been a sight to see.”

“I wish I could have met them.”

“Me too, darling,” Karlach says, her tone sad. They’re quiet for awhile; a comfortable silence, if a sad one, until Karlach breaks it partway up the mountain they’re in the midst of scaling. “Oh! Your ma asked me to let you know that she likes Astarion. Says any person who steps in when you need to be pulled from the river of your own sorrow is good in her books.”

It’s something that means more to her than she might have once expected - she’s so used to disapproval and has long-known that Astarion would never be the sort she could bring home to her family.

Choosing Astarion means giving up Father and Peter at the very least.

“Tell him you love him. Be with him. If you don’t listen to me, listen to your ma. She’s a smart lady,” Karlach says.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,” she says softly, snuggling her head against Karlach’s chest and missing the constant heat she gave off. Her body isn’t even damp from sweat, leaving her wondering if this is some elaborate hallucination or if the plane of existence that they’re on presently is a strange one. She’s not sure if they’re in Avernus any longer.

“I didn’t want to spend the rest of our time hunting for something that may not exist. I like the time we had and how we spent it. I always wanted to have a love like my parents did. They used to dance together in the kitchen, and I got that with you,” Karlach says, her tone shifting to something dreamlike. “It was a sweet dessert after a decade of shit, even if the finale was bittersweet. Lots of great bittersweet things in life, though. Dark chocolate. Kickass coffee. That final kiss we shared on the dock.”

“We really did make the best of it, didn’t we?” she says fondly. They never would have had long enough and lately she’s been so focused on the cruelty of having so little time to live their life together rather than the beauty of that time. As unpleasant as the tadpoling was, so much of her life has changed for the better because of Karlach, Astarion and the rest of their friends.

“It was the fucking best. We may have just had the one date, but we had every day together. I got to wake up next to you for months and I kept you warm at night. Not many have been as lucky as me.”

“You’ll kiss me one last time again?” she asks, and Karlach stops, leans down and she tilts her head up, meeting her lips with her own.

“I’ll give you another before you leave. A dozen more if I have my say,” Karlach promises and she clings to that promise as tightly as she clings to her love, who is carrying her towards safety and back to the man she loves. It’s not the same way she loves Karlach - it never could be and she doesn’t want that. While Karlach burned bright, their love was gentle; like floating in the river on a calm summer day. With Astarion, the passion burns - not enough to hurt, but every sharp word they exchange, and every touch sears her in the best way, making her heart race.

She imagines a world where she could have had them both, and longs for that reality. One where she could fall asleep nestled to her burning hot lover, and her ice cold one; basking in the touch of their naked bodies against hers. Sandwiched between the two of them as they touch her; a caress of her breasts, and a tongue between her legs and she lets out a content sigh.

“Darling?”

“Just imagining a world where I could have loved you both simultaneously.”

“But you do now. You love me - always will, but you love him too. Always did, I reckon.”

It’s not the first Karlach has said it, but it’s the first she hasn’t felt a prickle of shame afterwards; as if loving Astarion as well as her girlfriend made her unfaithful or cruel.

“That’s not what I meant,” she says, smiling, and Karlach laughs.

“I know. Obviously you’re getting your rocks off imagining yourself as the filling of a sandwich that’s both too damned hot and too damned cold. Shame we couldn’t have had fun together, but you’ve got us both. Forever, because I love you. That doesn’t stop because I’m dead.”

“Oh Karlach,” she whispers, aching to have this until the day this plane blinks out of existence. “I won’t be able to leave if you keep saying such things.”

“Leaving me was never going to be easy, but seeing you one last time is the easiest thing I’ve ever done,” Karlach says, resolute.

“I’ll plant flowers in the flowerbeds at Astarion’s house. He’ll grouse about it but wouldn’t stop me - might even secretly like them. Got any requests?”

“Red poppies and purple flowers that match your hair. And something white and delicate. That way all three of us are in the garden and when you look at the garden, you can imagine us all together. And we will be - in a way. Just not the way you’d prefer.”

“I’ll get on it as soon as I’m able to,” she promises.

She doesn’t have a good sense of how time passes in this realm; whether she has had hours or days with Karlach, but when she needs to sleep, it’s in Karlach’s arms. “Don’t you need rest?” she murmurs sleepily.

“Dead, darling. Don’t do nothing but sleep nowadays so I don’t get tired.”

They arrive at the blue figure to find a portal with a person standing in shadow in the middle of it. “You’ll have to go through and you should be waiting on the other side. Or, your body will be.”

Karlach kisses her and she clings to her, because maybe if she doesn’t let her go, she’ll come through the portal too, and will live again in some form.

“Doesn’t work like that,” Karlach says. “I can’t come with you.”

“Why not?” she asks, as if she can will the laws of this plane of existence to change.

“Just not the way it works. I’m dead and I’ve moved on. No spell or wish could bring me back.”

She’s still clinging to Karlach, breathing in the smell of her sweat, which lacks the subtle smell of metal that permeated off her as a result of her infernal engine. “Let me stay with you for awhile longer.”

“Darling, it’s been awhile and your body is weak. You gotta go back,” Karlach says.

Much as she hates it, she knows Karlach must be right. Without any sense of time flowing, days or even weeks may have gone by on the Material Plane.

“I love you. You’ll watch me go through the portal?”

Karlach sets her down next to the portal and helps her slip her hand into it. Whatever spell was keeping her legs still unweaves, slipping off her like a loose nightgown falling to the floor. “Won’t even blink. Love you.”

Once she leaves, she’ll never hear Karlach’s voice again in this life. Never feel her touch or sit beside her, but she was never supposed to have any of that again anyway, and here she is, so Petra tries to look at this as an unexpected gift. A more thorough goodbye than the one life granted them initially.

“Taters,” she says, forcing herself to smile through her sorrow. She cups her girlfriend’s face, memorizing every line, every scar and the feel of her skin beneath her hand. The contrast of her red skin against her own pale hand.

“Taters. Tell Astarion ‘I told you so’ and give him a smooch from me. You’ll know when.”

With tears rolling down her cheeks, she steps through the portal and lands in the infirmary of the Emerald Grove. “Clever,” she murmurs, noticing her body on one of the beds. Glancing down, she runs her hand over her transparent arm and her eyes go wide.

Sitting beside her body is Astarion, who is holding her hand. Now in her normal plane of existence, there’s no longer a blue glow to him, but the bags under his eyes are more prominent than normal and his body is slumped; his eyes half-open, giving her the impression that he hasn’t been getting much rest.

She approaches her body and rests a transparent hand on her chest, and the world starts spinning, not stopping until she’s one with her body once more.

But when she tries to open her eyes; to meet Astarion’s red eyes with her own silver-blue eyes, it’s as if they’ve been sewn shut, and so she resigns herself to rest, allowing herself to be content with the knowledge that she made it back home.

Astarion is her home.

Chapter Text

Consciousness returns to her slowly - first it’s the sound of a blade being sharpened, then a whispered argument. Astarion huffing about something - he’s here, which means he must be, well, not alive, but still undead and not just dead. Her vision is blurry and she blinks, sending shooting pain through her skull.

She tries to sit up, but a cool hand rests flat on her chest. “Darling, no. You gave us quite the scare.”

“Leave us.” She doesn’t recognize the voice at first; it almost sounds like Father, but Father does not speak Common with such a thick accent and she turns her head to find Grandfather sitting by the side of the bed, in bejewelled robes. Every finger has a different ring on them, and his body radiates a power that hums and crackles.

What’s Grandfather doing here? And why isn’t Astarion leaving the room?

“What’re doin’ here?” she mumbles, her dry throat making every word a struggle and she licks her chapped lips, which sting as her dry tongue brushes over them. Astarion presses a glass to her lips and tilts it, helping her to drink.

“You’re at the grove - Halsin was the only one we could think of who might have a chance at fixing what Zariel broke and this is where he was at present. It was a powerful curse and you’ve kept him entertained these last three days, so well done,” Astarion jokes, but his eyes show only sadness.

Three days? She was unconscious for three days?

“Leave,” Grandfather says again, his voice the stern order of a commander. Astarion stands up and sets the glass on the stone table beside her bed.

“He’s quite the sour puss; I’ll warn you of that. Best of luck, darling.”

“You stupid, stupid child,” Grandfather says in a low voice. “You could have started a war between the Sword Coast and Avernus! And for what? One soldier you bedded?”

“Why did you bother to come rescue me? You’ve never answered any of my other prayers” she asks, biting her lip and looking away from Grandfather.

“Had I not made amends for your carelessness, more lives would have been lost, including, potentially, those of my people. One of my agents stationed in Avernus warned me of your intrusion and your plans.”

Agents? Is Grandfather a spymaster now?

“I’d hoped to arrive in time to stop you from confronting Zariel, but it appears you were particularly fortunate in your stumbling - or unfortunate, as it were.”

“Karlach was sold to Zariel! She was not a soldier; she was a slave!” she hisses. “Do you condone slavery?”

“I do not, but I also do not condone blundering in response to unethical actions. Particularly blundering that could have killed millions. You’re a disgrace.”

The reminder that she’s a disappointment is thrown at her so often by Peter that it is no longer a knife to the gut, but the sting of a cat’s scratch.

“Worse, your actions were not yours alone; you roped in others to share in your shame!”

Her head feels heavy and she wishes Grandfather would just let her sleep for another few hours, but he continues on, ruminating on her every failure over the last few months.

Out of the corner of her eye, she notices Astarion playing with one of his daggers - currently he’s poking the point of it into his index finger, drawing a small drop of blood and watching intently. Apparently, to him leaving means sitting on the other side of the infirmary on the floor. Menace.

“Astarion, this is kind of a thing between my grandfather and I…” she says and Astarion looks over at her.

“But darling, I so love gossip.” His face twists into an expression of mock-hurt. “You’d deny me my fireworks?”

She scowls at him but does not push the matter, and he settles back into playing with his dagger while Grandfather lectures her.

“I had half a mind to leave you to Zariel’s mercy but she’d have made you a trophy and that would have been more embarrassing to me. Know that the only reason you and your friends live is because of my mercy.”

“Untrue; Gale had to threaten to detonate the orb in his chest to convince your charming grandfather to bring us along,” Astarion says gleefully, sounding like Astrid used to when she tattled on her and Peter when they were all kids.

“You’d have left my friends?” she says, horrorstruck.

“Their lives are meaningless to me.”

“Oh! Then I suppose the fact that my friends have saved my life countless times means nothing? That they followed me on what you have decried to be a ‘stupid mission’, because I asked it of them? That my friends are loyal people who love me? None of that makes them worthy of life? Because they aren’t yours?” she cries.

“Accurate,” Grandfather says, as if her words weren’t a scathing condemnation of him.

“Fuck you,” she spits out. “I may have screwed up, but at least I’m not a bitter, stubborn asshole who hides away in his mansion, counting his coins day in and day out, dreaming of the days when he was actually needed to defend the town he’s adopted as his. A man who puffs himself up on the desperate prayers of his son and grandchildren; who wants to be needed but not to serve. I go out and bring joy to my community, and people know me for me; not the legend built around me. Nobody knows you; not me and not even your son! You’re so proud to be a dragon but all I see is a waste of flesh.”

Grandfather stands up, looming over her, fists clenched, and she realizes she’s gone too far and if he strikes back at her in retaliation, she’s completely defenceless. Astarion leaps up, daggers still in-hand, and approaches the bed, looking only at Grandfather.

“That’s enough browbeating for today; she’ll still be here tomorrow if you decide to be a big man and torment a woman who cannot stand up for herself,” Astarion says, sneering. “Fuck off.”

“Your master evidently failed to teach you discipline,” Grandfather says quietly and she tries to sit up; to do something to defend Astarion, but Astarion places a hand on her shoulder.

“Let the man speak his poisoned words; it’s been awhile since I’ve been around a man so obsessed with the sound of his own voice. And it’s not even a pretty one. Shame, that.”

“The company you keep slices your reputation to tatters, granddaughter.” Grandfather wanders to the other side of the room, apparently deciding that arguing with Astarion is beneath him. She’s spent; as if she’s just spent a day walking and not an hour lying in bed while Grandfather reminded her how useless she is and that she’s a disappointment to her bloodline.

She will not cry; she refuses to give him the satisfaction of her tears, so she remains stoic; unrelenting in the face of his harsh words, but Astarion’s face is twisted into something resembling grief, and he falls to his knees at the side of the bed, takes her hand in both of his and brings it to his mouth, brushing his soft, cool lips over her knuckles.

“Need a snack?” she jokes and Astarion gives her an irritated look.

“Do you really think I’d feed on you now, when you can hardly lift your head? I’ve got a basic sense of decency and know not to wear you out with lectures and bloodletting!” Astarion says viciously, looking over and glaring at Grandfather once more.

This dynamic is going to be a problem; she can tell that much already.

“The spawn is not your family, yet the healer refuses to have him removed,” Grandfather says.

Astarion is more family to her than Grandfather is, but she’s not stupid enough to say that to the man who saved all their lives - however reluctantly it was.

“His name is ‘Astarion’ and he’s my roommate, so he’s family to me and Halsin knows that.”

“Don’t worry about it. You need rest,” Astarion says, his tone near-panicked. “Are you in pain? I’ll shout for someone to get Halsin.”

“Or you could walk out of the infirmary and over to his office instead of shouting at people,” she croaks, remembering that Halsin’s workspace is in the same cave system the infirmary is, which means it should be safe for him at all hours.

“Not an option, darling,” he says; a baffling response, but he stands up and yells at someone, and Halsin arrives a few minutes later.

“She’s in pain,” Astarion says, practically wringing his hands.

“It’s a lesson,” Grandfather says sourly from the other side of the room. She’s relieved when Astarion ignores Grandfather; that he’s noticed the attempt to provoke him and did not rise to take the bait.

“I’m not in the habit of torturing my patients,” Halsin says, his tone patient, though there is an edge of annoyance to it that she’s never heard before. He offers her a sleeping draught but she looks over at Astarion, who prowls like a feral cat, scowling at Grandfather.

Halsin leans in and whispers, “I’ve made clear to our guest that Astarion is a valued friend - and family to you. No harm will come to him.”

She takes the potion and as she does, she thinks of the draconic blood she was taught to be so proud of. She’s the close ancestor of a dragon; she’s a powerful sorcerer and has all of the skills and promise that any dragon would have.

But, having spent the last two hours in Grandfather’s presence, getting lectured so bitterly just after regaining consciousness from life threatening injuries, and seeing Astarion so wound up by the man, all she can think about is that if this is what it means to be a dragon, she wants nothing more to do with it.

Why are all who style themselves as gods so cruel? Why did the man she prayed to - her family, deny her prayers until acting benefited him? Who will she pray to in times of need? How will she find comfort when times are dire?

“Will you hold my hand?” she mumbles, reaching for Astarion and he stops his prowling, sits on the edge of her bed and takes her hand in his cold one.

“I braided your hair for you, so it won’t be a disaster once you’re mobile. I’ll be here when you wake up. Rest.”

“You know what’s important,” she says, her eyelids growing heavy; it’s easier to comment on this than think about the implications of Astarion’s tenderness. Just how close did she come to perishing? Why is he showing her such care?

“Well, you’ve always been so cranky when you’ve woken up with terrible hair.”

***

Halsin orders her to remain bed-bound for three days following their escape from Avernus, and the first full day she’s awake, she thinks it might be impossible to convince Astarion to leave her bedside, meaning she must endure the heat of her best friend’s glare as he looks directly at Grandfather, who insists on sitting on the other side of the bed. Grandfather, in turn, stares at Astarion as if he were nothing more than a slug.

“I’m not going to drop. Can you two please just… do something else? There’s a library in this cave, so go and read or just sit somewhere that’s not here. Please?”

Grandfather stands up, but does not leave the room, and she realizes that he and Astarion are playing some sort of game of chicken, where one won’t leave until the other leaves first. Given that the only person who has ever been able to change Grandfather’s mind on anything is Grandmother, Astarion is to be the more pliable one of the two of them, so she turns to look at him. “Please. I need a break from worrying that the two of you will wind up brawling at the foot of my bed. Send Gale or Wyll in if you’re worried about leaving me alone.”

“Darling, I don’t brawl,” Astarion says, standing himself up straighter, as if a man who stands tall couldn’t possibly want to pick a fight with an ancient silver dragon in his elf form. She rolls her eyes at him.

“Yes, yes; you’re very dangerous and I have no doubt you could win every fight you get yourself into. Please go to the library?”

“We will depart simultaneously,” Grandfather says stiffly, and she notices Astarion brush his hand along the hilt of the dagger at his hip.

“Don’t kill one another?”

“I see little point dirtying my outfit to kill a creature as pathetic as a vampire spawn,” Grandfather says and she sighs, wishing the man would at least pretend to be diplomatic. He makes Astarion look like a sweet little bunny rabbit.

“Unlike your relation, I do not underestimate my foes,” Astarion says, hand brushing over his dagger once more, and she suppresses the urge to scream, knowing she’s far too weak to justify expending that energy.

“Please stop - both of you. Please,” she says, and at that moment, Gale wanders in, carrying a plate and cheerfully says something about the table of food Halsin has put out for them just outside the room, and suggests Astarion go to the library, where he’ll “find any number of theoretical texts that may be of interest to someone living with his condition”.

They leave and she breathes a sigh of relief. Gale grabs a tray and puts the plate in his hand on it, and sets it on her lap, and then he grabs several pillows to sit her up in bed properly. “Never again will I complain about you and Astarion’s bickering, knowing just how bad things can get when the disdain is real and mutual.”

“I can’t stand it, Gale. I want them both to shut up!”

“While I’m the first to acknowledge that Astarion lacks a basic sense of diplomacy, I must point out that he’s behaving as he is out of a desire to protect you. He does not know your grandfather - none of us do, and his distrust in the man is fair and wise, from what I’ve witnessed.”

“I wouldn’t let Grandfather hurt him.”

“It’s you he worries about, not himself,” Gale says, even though Astarion told her that Gale had to threaten to blow them all up to ensure they were rescued alongside her. Grandfather takes care of his people, and as his granddaughter, she is his kin and always will be. But when she points this out to Gale, he shakes his head.

“You were unconscious and weren’t there to witness his conversation with Zariel. He spoke most critically of you, and, while he leaned heavily on intel provided by his apparent spy ring in the Hells to smooth out the conflict, it became clear to me that you were a willing sacrifice if his attempts failed.”

She hadn’t realized this, and suddenly so much of Astarion’s behaviour makes sense. Grandfather had said he considered leaving her but she hadn’t thought it was anything more than the heated rants of a dragon. Astarion was “playing” with his dagger while Grandfather lectured her - he wasn’t interested in the drama or gossip; he was showing her grandfather that he is a dangerous man and wouldn’t give her up without a fight.

A fight that’d kill him, she realizes, as her stomach sinks. Her eyes well up with tears once more as she realizes once more just how stupid she’s been. “The foolish man - so obsessed with self-preservation, yet he’s willing to pick a fight with a dragon? A fight he’d never hope to win?”

“For you.”

“Yes, and that’s stupid!”

“Love makes you do stupid things,” Gale says, his tone wistful, and his hand brushes over the lines creeping up to his neck from the orb in his chest.

“He shouldn’t love me! Not after I nearly damned you all.”

“I believe I would be remiss if I did not point out that who he loves is his choice and he has clearly decided you are worthy of his affections, even if he refuses to say as much out loud. But, if you pay attention, the signs are there - quite loudly, really. Wyll is likely to be having a similar conversation with Astarion right now.”

“He’s going to love that,” she mutters, and Gale smirks at her.

“We flipped a coin for the right to have this chat with you and I emerged the victor.” He points to the plate, which she’s ignored since he placed it on her lap. “Eat. You were badly wounded, and will be here for a while recovering.”

“How long?” Nobody has said much about her condition, save for Halsin ordering her to remain in bed.

“Few weeks I’d wager. I overheard your grandfather speaking to Halsin and telling him he would remain until your condition stabilizes, but that he’s needed at home, so you are likely to be free of him in a few days. I gather there is bad blood between the two of you.”

“Just continuing my tendency to be the family disappointment,” she mutters bitterly. “You’ll get Astarion home safely?”

Gale gives her a funny look. “I will transport the two of you home once you are ready for travel - why would I leave him here when you are heading to the same destination?”

The grove is not an easy place for him to be - he’s confined to the cave during the day, and there is no light outside in the dark, forcing him to rely solely on his darkvision, meaning the world is restricted to black and white for him at night. “He doesn’t need to stay here with me.”

“Yet, I do not believe you could convince him to be anywhere else, Petra.”

“Thanks for threatening to blow yourself up, by the way. Astarion told me about that and I’m glad you’re all here,” she says and Gale breaks into a grin.

“Astarion was irritated with me when I initially suggested the idea, asking if I ever had any idea that didn’t involve blowing myself up. It was gratifying to be correct, in the end.”

After she’s finished eating, Gale takes her plate and leaves her alone in the infirmary, pondering all she’s learned until she slips into a restless sleep. She wakes to find Astarion next to her, his cold hand on hers, though when she glances down, he pulls away, muttering an apology. “You seemed as if you were having a nightmare and I thought it might help.”

She has no memory of any nightmares, which means she must not have woken up as a result of them. “Where’s Grandfather?”

“I enlisted Halsin’s help and he’s enduring an extended discussion on the challenges of leading small communities. Halsin also agreed to suggest that it is important one remain close to their community, in order to prod the man into going back to wherever he comes from. His presence helps nobody - especially not you.”

“He did save us all,” she says, unwilling to condemn her grandfather entirely, even if he has been behaving ungraciously towards her and her friends.

“And hasn’t bloody shut up about it since!” Astarion seems to catch himself and he softens. “Nevermind. How are you feeling?”

“Restless. Help me up for a walk?”

She’d expected Astarion to agree; to be gleeful at the prospect of helping her break the rules, but he shakes his head. “You are sick, my dear, and I will not contribute to anything that will cause you harm. You are to rest, which means staying in bed.”

“Spoilsport.”

She’s mostly kidding, but Astarion turns stern. “Don’t. Don’t ask me to do something that will hurt you. I won’t do it.”

“Sorry.”

“You didn’t quite give me the scare of my life, but it was close, so you’ll understand that I’m still a little peeved with you.” It’s hard to imagine what happened scaring him just as much as some of the horrors he endured during his two centuries of slavery, but Astarion continues, “it’s not Cazador. Not even the pain that gripped my heart during its final beats, and that’s all I will say on the matter today, because I - and you, are not in any state for this conversation.”

What could possibly have frightened him more than Cazador? A man she knows still haunts Astarion’s worst nightmares. She won’t ask; not when he’s set a boundary, but she notices the tears in his eyes.

“Fuck you for scaring me like that. Fuck you very much, darling.” Two tears fall onto his cheeks and he wipes them away roughly.

“I was so stupid, wasn’t I?” she says softly, the guilt swirling in her gut again. Astarion lets out a shaky breath.

Every inch of her is sore; she feels as if she’s fought a rampaging bear hand-to-hand but she opens her arms, offering a hug, and Astarion accepts, allowing her to pull his head to her chest. She runs her hand through his soft silver hair, and his breathing evens out. “What does it feel like to have a heartbeat?” he asks her, and she ponders how to answer the question, when she’s never known anything else.

“When I’m in a fight, or exerting myself, it races. There can be a rush to it - but sometimes it’s just uncomfortable. Normally you don’t even notice it.”

Only now, she’s very aware that her heart is racing; it feels almost as if it’s about to leap from her chest. Astarion makes no move to sit back up, so she continues playing with his hair.

They’re mostly silent, save for the odd sob into her chest from a man who means more to her than any man in this world ever has, and she doesn’t ask if it’s because he’s mourning his own death two centuries prior, or if he’s trying to cope with the fright she gave him a few days ago.

***

It’s another two days before she’s allowed to leave bed, and Grandfather remains, watching from a distance, leaving her feeling both a child being punished and a prisoner in a cell.

Astarion hovers, alternating between annoyed at their circumstances, and overbearing. “You’re a terrible nurse,” she says to him, and he crosses his arms and glares at her.

“I would not need to act as your nursemaid if you did not find yourself cursed by an archdevil!”

At least by now he’s relaxed enough that he’s raided the grove’s library and spends much of the day reading beside her.

“Yes, but clucking at me to ‘eat every bite’ of my lunch isn’t helping!”

Astarion is still glaring at her but glances over at the other side of the room at her prison warden, who watches the scene silently. He’s worried about her - and he’s hurting but unable to work out his feelings himself, so he’s comforting himself by trying to be useful, she realizes.

“Can you take me out to look at the stars tonight?” she asks him, hoping that giving him a task will get him off her back.

“If Halsin says it is fine,” he says, tone clipped.

Astarion probably feels like a prisoner just as she does; there are few places in the grove where he’s safe, and the infirmary is one of them. In his house there’s no shortage of things to entertain him, and it’s his space - here at the grove, he’s a guest; a reluctant one according to Wyll who told her he’s had to talk down a few residents intent on hunting Astarion.

“What do you want to do when we get home?” she asks gently, in an attempt to distract him.

“Rest in my own bed, without half the community rolling in to look at me like a circus freak show resident,” Astarion says bitterly.

“Want me to talk to Halsin? You don’t need to tolerate that.”

“I already did,” he mutters, and she’s proud of him for standing up for himself. Even during their travel together, she’s not sure he’d have had that conversation.

“What else?” She glances over at Grandfather, who makes no effort to leave to give them privacy for a sensitive conversation. Ass.

“I miss being invisible; standing in the crowd when you sing or do your magic show, and just being another face in the crowd. Here I’m the token vampire; a monster in the dark, and it’s really quite annoying because it’s not as if I can actually act on the things they’d accuse me of. No, I’m stuck with whatever wild animal I can hunt outside the boundaries of the grove, and do you know how hard it is to bring down a bear? Gods, it’s a pain.”

She opens her mouth to suggest a solution, but Astarion continues on his rant. “Everything is covered in dirt - even the linens! Yes, love nature by all means but would it kill them to buy a damned couch? And the clothing! Don’t get me started!”

“Please do,” she says, because this is about the best distraction she can think of to get him to think about something other than her current condition.

Grandfather’s stern expression does not change and she looks over at him. “Can you please lay off? I just want to visit with Astarion without you looming over me.”

“Perhaps I feel you need supervision,” Grandfather - her jailer, says.

“I’m grown and have the right to make my own decisions! Even if they’re shitty ones! I know you feel honour-bound to watch over me but I don’t need it or want it. Please go home. Please let me recover in peace.”

“It is my duty…”

“I don’t want it,” she says emphatically. “I don’t want the care of someone who looks at me like a child. I’m your disappointment; I’m never going to live up to the blood in my veins so let me at least talk to one of the people who accepts me as I am in peace. I won’t bother you with my prayers any longer because I know all I’ll receive is silence in return.”

Astarion stands up, brushes a hand against the dagger at his hip and walks over to Grandfather, who towers over Astarion, forcing him to look up at him. “Petra has made her wishes clear and you need to leave now,” Astarion says - and there’s a subtle tremor in his voice that she catches because she knows him, but otherwise he stands tall; portraying a confidence she knows he doesn’t necessarily feel.

Grandfather says nothing.

“I’m not going to allow you to treat her this way,” Astarion says, though the waver is more prominent in his voice now. “I promised her girlfriend that I’d take care of her and I am. Trust that I’ll honour that promise if you won’t trust me.”

“Would your girlfriend have burned the world for you as you intended to for her?” Grandfather asks, and she hesitates because truthfully she doesn’t know the answer. Karlach could have a temper when really pushed, but she was also more sensible than she is.

Karlach wouldn’t have wanted her to wind up so badly hurt while avenging her - that much she’s realized.

“I suspect you did not know your girlfriend as well as you thought,” Grandfather says softly; his tone subtle mockery and she bristles, shamed.

“Karlach wouldn’t have. But I sure would so don’t test me,” Astarion growls, unsheathing one of his daggers.

“No!” she says loudly, rolling over and forcing herself to her feet. Her knees shake so hard that they’re knocking together and she’s not sure if it’s exertion or fear driving it, but she dives between the two of them, covering Astarion with her body.

“You can’t have him; you can’t have him,” she says and Astarion opens his mouth, only to close it without saying a word.

“Fascinating,” Grandfather says, stepping around the two of them. “I will not rescue you from your own stupidity again, so when you burn the world for one another, you will perish in the flames. Goodbye, Granddaughter. Spawn.”

He leaves the infirmary, and there’s an air of finality to his steps, and she wonders if she’ll ever see the man again, or if he’ll continue to hide away, prioritizing the elven town he’s adopted as his own over his son and grandchildren.

Only once Grandfather has left does Astarion sheath his dagger, and wraps his own arms around her. “You stupid man! He’s a dragon!”

“Who was mocking you! Who spoke specifically to hurt you!”

“Yes, he’s an asshole, but so are you!”

Of course they’re arguing while embracing one another. She forces herself to take a deep breath.

“I don’t want you to put yourself on the line for me just because my grandfather is an ass who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Please don’t do that. I can’t - I couldn’t take it if…”

She can’t even say the words.

“He wouldn’t have touched me. There’s nothing but bluster and bullshit behind his pretty silver scales - he’s handsome but hollow.”

She doesn’t think that’s a correct reading of Grandfather - but she also doesn’t know why Grandfather didn’t freeze Astarion where he stands for drawing a knife on him.

“I want to go home,” she says softly. “Back to our quiet little life where we read side-by-side and you help me cook my dinner, and we go out dancing or wander the night markets after sunset. I know it can’t always be like that - we need to go to the Underdark eventually, but I just want to be normal for a bit.”

All of this makes her feel even more ridiculous for being so driven to spill blood she never possibly could have spilled.

“We have time; years, if you’d like. None of my siblings will be happy to see me and I’d rather spend some time adventuring before embarking on that chore.”

“What did they think of you?” she asks as Astarion slowly walks with her back to her bed, and helps her sit at the edge of it. He sits down next to her.

“A dramatic bitch with a tongue too sharp for my own good - so, same as you.”

“You do realize I love all of that about you, though?”

Love. Her heart races as she speaks the word aloud. She loves him. Why can’t she just tell him that she loves him and not parts of him?

“Fool.”

“I’m not the one who brandished a knife while speaking to my dragon grandfather, darling,” she says, knocking his knee with her own.

“Well, if he hadn’t treated you poorly, I wouldn’t have had to threaten him. You can see why it was his fault, really. Honestly, I’m practically a hero,” he says, gesturing to himself.

“I can’t lose you too,” she says softly.

“You won’t. I’ll stick around until you grow sick of my dramatics, and when you do, you’ll make a graceful exit, and we will maintain a cordial but infrequent correspondence by mail using obnoxious, floral-scented parchment.”

“Why would anyone use floral-scented parchment?” she asks, before realizing that very much isn’t the point. “I mean, that’s not going to happen, and not just because you’re weird about flowers. I… like our little life together. A lot.”

“You make a fine roommate; you’re tidy, charmed the local butcher into saving massive jars of blood for your ‘blood sausage’, and when I’m really behaving myself, allow me to feast on your pretty little neck. I could hardly ask for more.”

Roommate. Her stomach sinks. That’s all he wants, but that’s fine. He’s her best friend and after all he’s endured, maybe he doesn’t want to try to get involved with someone romantically.

Or, maybe he’s just not interested in her, and she can’t blame him.

Chapter Text

Petra remains unsteady on her feet, so after dark, he offers her his arm, and helps her out to the ritual circle, which is now empty at this hour. There’s a stone bench - everything is stone or wood and nothing is comfortable, but Petra cannot stand long without help, so he will endure for her sake.

She seems sad tonight; he wonders if it might be a hangover from her grandfather’s cruel comments earlier. While he recognizes he can be cruel (and some people deserve it, frankly), he would never use someone’s dead partner as a weapon like that. Some things are sacred.

He won’t bring the matter up unless Petra does first, because she was upset with him for defending her and it’s not an argument he feels like repeating.

“Am I an obligation to you?” she asks, not looking at him, but instead staring up at the sky. It’s a cloudy night; most of the stars are hidden away, but he knows the night sky better than he’ll ever know the daytime. They’re facing north and he can pick out a couple of the damned constellations Gale would never shut up about.

“I feel no obligations to anyone,” he says, surprised she does not know this after all the time they’ve known each other.

“Karlach made you promise to take care of me, so if being here feels like an obligation, I could let you off the hook…”

It’s a bad night for her depression, then, which explains why her misery is so all-encompassing.

“Do you think I’d have left you to rot at your father’s house if I didn’t promise Karlach I’d care for you? I made the promise to comfort her in her final days. Gods, darling; I went to the hells for you! Do you realize what fire does? It tends to bloody hurt!”

Sometimes the best way of pulling her free from her thoughts is to point out just how profoundly stupid they are, and this might be the stupidest line of thinking yet.

“Do you think I’d be nursemaid to anyone? Do you imagine me fussing over Gale, pleading with him to eat and giving him sponge baths in bed? I’d sooner take a stroll in the sun.”

“But…”

“Why would I live with you if you were nothing more than an obligation?” he says, cutting her off. “What makes you think you would mean so little to me?”

“Just something my father said once,” Petra mumbles, chastened.

“Well, we’ve established that your grandfather is an asshole and what’s the saying? The apple does not fall far from the tree? Your father never left the tree! Don’t listen to them, Petra. Don’t let them influence how you feel about yourself for another moment because they’re wrong.”

He hates how she’s been taught to hate herself - and he hates how much he can relate to her internal self-loathing because he feels it with every breath he takes too.

“What Grandfather said really hurt. Maybe I didn’t know her,” Petra croaks and he’s tempted to find the man and give him a good stabbing, regardless of Petra’s pleas, because someone who makes her feel like this would probably be improved aerodynamically by a few holes in the gut.

“It’s not exactly a topic of conversation that comes up with a lover. ‘Hi darling, if it were the world or me - what would you choose?’ Your grandfather is terrible at foreplay.”

“Fuck you for saying that because that’s gross,” Petra says, but it’s won him a smile instead of tears so he’ll take it.

“You said you’d choose me over the world,” Petra says.

I already did, he thinks; the shame roiling inside him because he’d have let the elder brain take the city if winning meant losing her for good.

“You’re beautiful - and we’ve seen enough of the world to know how ugly it can be. Easy choice,” he says with a dismissive shrug.

“Glad to know my appearance is what saves me in this scenario,” Petra deadpans.

It’s so much more than that, but he can’t put it into words - and won’t tonight; not after her grandfather has left her thinking so mournfully about her girlfriend. It’s not the right time. There may never be a right time, so this life they share? This is enough. It has to be.

“Pet, come here,” he says, lifting his arm so she can snuggle at his side, and wraps his arm around her shoulders.

“Can we stay here awhile?”

“We have all night,” he says, hoping that she’ll try to get some sleep instead of her constant attempts to maintain their normal sleeping schedule. She yawns, leaning against him like dead weight.

“Sleep,” he says, and it’s unsettling just how quickly she falls asleep, even after the emotional turmoil of their discussion.

How close did they come to losing her? Halsin never said to him, and as he sits on the cold bench, he finds he’s grateful not to know how close the woman whose heart burns as brightly as the sun came to burning out.

***

As the dark begins to fade away, ushering in the light of the morning, he lifts Petra, carrying her bridal-style to the infirmary, where he sets her down on the bed and tucks her in. Berrin approaches, and there’s the sharp point of a dagger at the small of his back. He grins to himself; all that life and the man still hasn’t learned how to use a knife to kill someone.

One thing Berrin and Petra have in common. “A word, spawn.”

“No,” he says, looking only at Petra.

“The knife is a courtesy but if you refuse, I’ll resort to methods you’ll find most unpleasant in order to obtain my audience with you.”

“Petra won’t like that you’re threatening me. Again.”

“She won’t, but you won’t wake her. You think you’re far more complicated than you are.” The point of the dagger digs deeper into his skin and he winces at the bite of it. “Now walk.”

Not wanting to force Petra into another argument with her grandfather, he complies, walking with the man outside the infirmary. Berrin sheathes the dagger and he notices the round diamonds on the hilt. “That’s an especially stupid weapon,” he says, sneering at the man.

“One of my own design.”

“Well, obviously,” he huffs. “No one who knows how to fight with a knife would be caught using such a weapon.”

“Because only gutter rats and monsters are dishonourable enough to fight from shadow?”

Dishonourable? Certainly. But he’s still around despite the best efforts of many so he’ll continue to be a scoundrel, thank you very much.

“Because the second the light hits those pretty jewels, you’ve given your position away,” he says, speaking his words slowly to ensure the particularly stupid person in front of him understands.

There’s a whole list of other problems with the dagger but he’s not in the habit of giving those who threaten him too much help.

“You love her.”

He wants to lie; he wants to laugh and say that their living arrangement is mutually beneficial and nothing more. But he knows enough to know that this man doesn’t toss out accusations unless he already knows the truth.

“Yes,” he says, struggling to hide how the observation has shaken him.

“Her life matters more than yours and always will. Understood?”

He recalls the horror he felt when he learned that Petra is about the age he was when he was turned. His realization that she’s in the prime of her life, just as he was.

What’s happening now remains a mystery but he’s under the impression he may be getting the shovel speech from Petra’s asshole grandfather.

Well, fuck that. He crosses his arms and levels the man with a glare. “The value of my life is not your decision to make. It is mine and it is Petra’s. That’s it.”

Berrin growls at him and he finds himself wondering if this will, in fact, end in a brawl outside the infirmary. Petra wouldn’t want him to start a fight but if the man attacks, he’s not going to roll over and wait for death or mercy.

“Furthermore, you don’t get a say in her life and her decisions. She worships you, but I’d dare say she’d have been better off praying to a pile of rothe shit. You style yourself as a god but you’re mortal; same as her, and it’s pathetic. You are pathetic.”

“Charming.”

“Petra seems to think so,” he says coolly.

“We’ve established that her judgement is poor at best; evidently that trend continues in her love life.”

“No,” he hisses, wagging a finger in his face, making the man scowl, baring his teeth like a rabid dog. “You don’t get to say that. Karlach was the best of us; she was kind, loyal, devoted and fun. She loved Petra enough for a lifetime in the time they had because that’s the only choice they had.”

Berrin raises an eyebrow. “And you?”

His silence reveals his own thoughts on the matter and Berrin says, “you will never be enough for her and you will never be worthy to be more than her shield. The corpse riddled with arrows that she steps over on the road.”

“Luckily she doesn’t give a damn about your opinion of me,” he says, though he can’t deny that the man is correct: he’s not good enough for Petra and never will be.

Berrin looks him in the eye. “Hurt her, and the tortures that haunt your nightmares will be the sweetest dreams you have once I’m through with you.”

Ah. There’s the shovel speech.

“Why not spend time getting to know your family instead of ordering them around and pretending you care by threatening the people who actually give a damn?” He taps his chin with his finger. “Wait; it’s because then they’d know what a deeply foul person you are! You trade on your reputation - you protect your village and apparently have spies everywhere, but all that power and nobody can stand to be in the same room as you. I may be a monster, but Petra chooses my company. She endures yours, Pretender. Now fuck off and let me sit with her in peace.”

“It’s truly shocking you managed to lure as many victims as you did with that mouth of yours,” Berrin says softly; the words hitting harder because they’re a whisper and not a snarl. Berrin steps forward and grabs his upper arm, his nails digging into the skin. He squirms but the man holds him tight, leans in and whispers, “you’ll never be anything more than a pretty predator who fucks for the crumbs your betters offer you. You may be devoted to my granddaughter, but all you’re doing is sniffing for scraps as your master trained you to do.”

Berrin’s grip loosens and he wrenches his arm away, and steps back into the infirmary, fisting and unfisting his hands to try to quell the shaking.

The man’s opinion shouldn’t matter, but the sting of his words lingers.

***

“Berrin departed early this morning,” Halsin says quietly to him. “Between you and me, I’m grateful he’s left.”

“I’m not; it was ever so pleasant to be treated like I’m a puppet and not a person, and even more pleasant to listen to him terrorize his granddaughter,” he says, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“I’ve encountered dragons rarely in my life, and in my experience they can be… fond of themselves, but this took it to another level entirely.”

It’s utterly fascinating to listen to Halsin attempt to speak ill of someone. Like a bunny rabbit trying to throw a punch.

“Given that Petra prayed to him during times of strife, my assumption was that he would be quite different than he turned out to be.”

“She’d told me that he is an ass,” he admits. “I never expected approval from her family but I had rather hoped to be worthy of a name.”

“You’re worth more than he ever could be - to Petra, and to the rest of us.”

He scoffs at Halsin. “Did you hit your head? Smoke something? You’re talking nonsense.”

Halsin gives him the sort of look he often gave them all when he thought he knew better than the idiots he was travelling with, but was polite enough not to say as much. “She has not said it out loud, but I believe if you pay attention you’ll see that, to Petra, you mean the world.”

Petra wakes and he takes her hand, bringing a reassuring smile to his face. “Berrin has left. You need not listen to his venom any longer.”

“He didn’t say goodbye,” Petra says softly and he bites back his first response; a dismissive good riddance. He wants to teach Petra that Berrin’s opinion of her is worth no more than a random stranger’s, but it will take time for her to unlearn a habit she was taught from birth.

“I spoke to him while you were sleeping,” he says and Petra startles, gripping his hand more tightly. “Nothing serious - he asked that I protect you. That’s all.”

Not the full truth, but telling her the full truth would only hurt her, but Petra frowns at him. “He’s never been that gracious. What else did he say?”

He ponders the least objectionable thing the man said during that conversation - it’s hard to decide what might piss Petra off the least. “Oh, the standard ‘you’re a monster and always will be’ lecture. Filthy vampire spawn,” he says, forcing himself to laugh.

“I don’t like the way he treats you.”

“Well, darling, I don’t like the way he treats you, so we are in agreement there.”

“I’m a stain on his legacy, though,” Petra says quietly.

He’s got his work cut out for him.

Chapter Text

Astarion sleeps next to her, even after her release from the infirmary. Halsin set them up on bedrolls in his office, keeping Astarion from risking exposure to the sunlight during the day. Wyll leaves on a cool, rainy day, proclaiming that he needs to get back to his usual line of work, and she embraces him, wondering if she’ll ever see him again. She did, after all, put a massive target on his back by having him by her side when she attacked Zariel’s palace.

It’s a point she brings up to Astarion after the sun sets and the two of them are free to roam outside. Astarion sticks close, his arm bent at the elbow and ready to steady her. Astarion leaves her side just long enough to catch himself a rabbit and she turns her head while he drains the creature. Once exsanguinated, he tosses the corpse into the bushes for another animal to scavenge.

“He was aware of the potential consequences and chose to help, regardless. Besides - he got a chance to kill a bunch of devils, which seems to be what he prefers to do with his time nowadays so if he dies it’s his own fault,” Astarion says, dismissive, but she can’t help but recognize that he does have a point even if he’s making it like an ass. Wyll is a grown man who made his own decision to join her on the mission.

“Can we dance?” she asks Astarion, who is steering her away from the campfire surrounded by members of the community, where someone is playing an upbeat tune on a flute. They’ve occasionally joined the fire, but the stares of the others make him uncomfortable, so lately she’s opted for solitude for the two of them, or the company of Gale and Halsin. “Not by the fire,” she clarifies quickly, seeing him stiffen, “but by the beach - just the two of us?”

“Where the harpies were, you mean?” he says, teasing and she grins and laughs.

“Afraid you’ll be charmed by beautiful monsters?”

“Impossible,” Astarion says, resting a hand on his chest. “I do the charming.”

The full moon sits above the water but they remain high up on the secluded beach, well away from the threat of the water. Astarion offers her his hand and she intertwines their fingers and rests her other hand on his upper arm. They sway to the sound of the wind rustling the leaves.

Astarion dips her and she squeals, grasping tightly to him, and the grin on his face widens, turning almost feral. “I won’t drop you, darling.” He pulls her back up and she wraps her arms around him and rests her head against his shoulder. They continue to sway their hips and for a moment she allows herself to pretend that they are genuinely lovers before deciding that would be unfair. He doesn’t want her and what they have is enough. He hums against her. “I like this.”

“What? The dancing?”

“That too, but the quiet, mostly. I miss travelling and I miss quiet nights by the fire.”

“They were rarely quiet,” she snorts, remembering the arguments between Lae’zel and Shadowheart, as well as her own constant bickering with Astarion. It came to feel like they were a big, chaotic family and she loved it.

…She misses it too, and admits as much to Astarion. “It was nice to travel with Gale and Wyll, even if the mission went to shit.”

“Want to take a trip once you’re well?” Astarion offers and she stares up at the sky; at the millions of stars freckling the black sky and the moon hanging over the calm water.

“I doubt you’d be happy to be stuck with me in a tent for months on end.”

His grip on her tightens briefly before loosening and he steps away from her. “Don’t presume to know how I’d feel or make decisions for me. I’ve had enough of that in my life.”

Her face falls - how stupid of her. “I’m sorry. That was rude of me.”

“It speaks to how much you hate yourself,” Astarion says, turning to her once more, his eyes burning deep into her. “You assume that I find your company a burden and cannot comprehend that, perhaps, I enjoy the time we spend together and that you are the one person I’d willingly share a tent with in the damned Underdark.”

“Do you, really?”

“I went to the Hells for you!”

“Point taken,” she mutters.

“Why can’t you accept that your friends love you and think you’re enough as you are? Why do you constantly put yourself down and assume the worst of yourself?”

“Because it’s easier and you know that’s why because you do the same damned thing!”

“And you call me out about it,” Astarion retorts. “So here we are - two fucking hypocrites, dancing in the dark. Your grandfather is an asshole and so is your father. Your brother too for that matter. Brain dead buffoons who think there’s only one way to live a life. You’ve got scales on your face - very pretty ones, granted, but you aren’t them and you aren’t a dragon. So stop being terrible to yourself because you don’t live up to the expectations of a near-immortal lizard!”

“I mean, calling Grandfather a lizard is a vast over-simplification…”

“He has scales!”

“So do I!”

“Yes, but you also have,” Astarion gestures up and down her body. “Breasts and hair and a cunt.”

“Dragons also have cunts,” she says, like a mature fucking adult.

“Nu-uh,” Astarion says, just as maturely, waving his finger. “Do you know anything about animal anatomy?”

“No? Why do you know about the reproductive organs of lizards?”

“Because I was a slave for 200 damned years and there was only so much to read at the palace. And this is,” he stands up tall; haughty, “not the point of our argument. He doesn’t matter. You’d met him once before now. You were so proud of your career when we first met - you made dinner utensils out of ice by the fire, and you sang so prettily.”

A mask of her own; her rebellion out in the open. A disappointment of a dragon hidden behind a pretty tune and ice sculptures.

“I - think I must have enjoyed music before. The theatre. The very work you do but I could never enjoy it until we met. There are…” Astarion closes his eyes tightly, as if he has a headache that he’s trying to fight off, “things in some of your songs that I recognize, but cannot explain. Not the ones in Common, but the Elvish ones.”

“They’re old folk songs Father taught us when we were little. You probably recognize them.”

When she writes song lyrics, she writes solely in Common, finding it too difficult to compose her own music in either Draconic or Elvish. Her mastery of Draconic was just one more thing Grandfather chided her for; she’s fluent but her “accent is atrocious”. Another failure of hers.

“I wonder if your lizard grandfather,” she sighs; he’s never going to not call Grandfather a lizard because he is a troll who has figured out that it gets under her skin, “has ever listened to a song? Been moved by a play? Enjoyed the talents of a stripper?”

“Menace,” she says, not wanting to imagine Grandfather with a stripper. “I’m sure he has. What’s your point?”

“Those who make the music he likes or who dance naked in the clubs he frequents are artists. Same as you. You and I may be hypocrites, but so is the lizard.”

“You do realize he has primarily taken the form of an elf for at least 1,000 years now, right? That my father has an elven mother?”

“Doesn’t change the fact that when he’s on all fours, he has a cloaca and not a cock.” Astarion grins at her, feral once more.

“Fuck off,” she says waving her hand, and Astarion bursts out laughing.

“Are you really going to let a lizard with a cloaca affect how you feel about yourself?”

“Would you please stop talking about my grandfather’s dick or lack thereof? It’s very obnoxious.”

“Ah, but darling, now you’re angry with me and not at yourself. So, how about this? Next time you allow the lizard to dictate how you feel about yourself, I’ll remind you of what he’s packing in his true form.”

“You are the shittiest man,” she says, laughing; hating that thinking of her grandfather, not as a dragon, but as a lizard is actually minimizing his influence in her mind right now. It’s such a laughably stupid and obnoxious tactic, so of course that means it’s going to work. “Asshole.”

“You love me,” Astarion replies, sugar sweet.

If only he knew just how much she does.

***

There’s a sense of loss that Petra contends with that’s separate from all of the other pain in her life after Grandfather leaves the Grove; making clear that she’s nothing more than a disappointment.

Gale has been looking at her with pity in his eyes; a pity she resents, because the fault was hers and Grandfather’s anger just. Finally, his sympathy becomes too much and she storms away at dinner, leaving the library where they’ve congregated and rushes outside. She wants to be alone.

Footsteps follow; light; the sort that tells her the only reason there’s noise is because Astarion is choosing to make noise. Alarmed, she looks up at the setting sun and turns to see him with a cloak around him, covering the top of his head and thick leather gloves. Above his head, he holds a thick parasol. “Are you fucking stupid?” she hisses at him.

“It’ll be set within the hour so I’m safe enough with…” Astarion gestures around with his free hand. “He always was annoying, wasn’t he? Never shuts up.”

“Gale cares. I’m not mad at him; I just don’t want him to look at me like that.”

“You prayed to him. That damned dragon was the head of your…” Astarion twists his hand in the air, “I suppose religion is a kinder word than cult.”

She snorts; even when he’s trying to be nice he’s an arse because he’s made perfectly clear that he thinks her family is a cult.

…And he might not be wrong.

“He only saved me to spare himself humiliation. He’d have let me burn.”

“In my experience that’s a god in a nutshell. They don’t give a shit unless you can do something for them.” Astarion goes quiet; he hasn’t met her eyes once but he’s been keeping his face to the ground to protect himself from the lingering rays of the setting sun. “I prayed to them all. Pleaded for help. Offered an eternity of fealty if they’d just set me free.” Astarion barks out a bitter laugh. “No god saved me. None listened. It was a tadpole in my brain that did it. He doesn’t deserve your worship. None who think themselves a god do.”

“Who do I pray to when the weight is heavy?” Maybe it’s that sense of loss that’s hurting the most; the comfort of prayer has been stolen away by Grandfather’s rejection.

“A stick on the ground would do more than any of the gods. It’s nothing more than a waste of breath.”

She sighs, rubs her eyes and reminds herself to be patient with him, because he’s trying - and maybe this is better than Gale’s pity.

“It’s a comfort, Astarion. And now it’s gone. What do you do when you need solace when rest refuses to come and your memories are cruel?”

“I talk to you.”

She startles at the answer and takes a step towards him so she’s under his parasol with him. “Me? Why?”

“You listen. The gods don’t. Besides - I don’t need divine intervention. I’ve got something better.”

“A useless disappointment unworthy of the blood in her veins?”

“Stop that.” In a fresh act of obnoxiousness, Astarion flicks her on the nose with his gloved hand as if she were a misbehaving dog. She huffs at him and he grins, all-mischief. “When I told you Cazador was powerful - that killing him was all but impossible, you took it as a challenge. Foolish behaviour, but if I’m desperate enough to need a god to strike something down, I think I’ll call on you. Your,” he wags his fingers, “freezing trick is quite fun. Especially when someone with a hammer breaks them apart, covering the battlefield with bits of frozen meat.”

“You would describe my magic like that.”

“Who needs to waste their breath appealing to gods that see us as nothing more than lanceboard pieces, when we have friends? Fuck religion; my devotion belongs to mortals who’ve earned it.”

“I… I…”

“If you say one more self-loathing word I’ll flick you on the nose again.”

She doesn’t feel worthy of the faith he has in her. Her bottom lip trembles and Astarion embraces her, tucking his face into the crook of her neck to hide it from the lingering sun.

“You fucked up. So what? Think I’m infallible?”

“Fuck no,” she snorts. “Your hair is perfect, though.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

On and on, their dance goes.

***

Halsin embraces her and she thanks him for both his hospitality and for saving her life, before Gale opens the portal back to the house. A handy trick he’s picked up - apparently an ability he had to re-learn after the incident with the Netherese orb. “Now that I know where you live, I can show up in your living room with the flick of a wrist and the murmur of a spell - and your permission, of course,” Gale says, adding on the last bit quickly upon noticing Astarion’s alarmed expression.

The house is just as they’d left it - she’ll have to visit Father to pick up Scratch, but the thought of leaving the house today just feels like too much, so instead she settles herself on the couch while Astarion searches through the cupboards for something suitable for her to eat. “Tell him, Petra,” Gale says.

Something inside her is pushing her to start a garden back at the house; a garden of red poppies, purple flowers and delicate white flowers. It’s an idea that’s been branded onto her soul like a promise, and she doesn’t understand it, but red poppies make her think of Karlach.

Why didn’t she ever get flowers for her love? Karlach loved flowers. The heat of battle and rush of duty often overwhelmed opportunities for romance, but she could have taken a few minutes and stopped at a vendor in the city to buy her a bouquet of flowers. She could have done so every damned day.

She regrets not doing so, but she will fill the garden with her devotion to her lost love and the love that remains beside her. Her love, who does not share her feelings.

“He doesn’t love me back and he’s been through far too much in his life to feel as if he must reject me. It’s better we remain friends.”

Gale gives her a wry smile and pats her on the knee. “I hope that you soon feel as foolish as you sound at this very moment, and that this foolishness follows utmost joy. For both of you.”

Chapter Text

Even a quiet day at home drains her, leaving her head spinning by four in the morning after Gale’s departure and Astarion, who had been reading on the couch next to her, sets his book aside and taps on his lap. “Lie down before you pass out.”

For a moment she hesitates and Astarion huffs at her, so she lies down, shivering when Astarion runs his hands through her hair, and begins braiding it, as he so often does when he feels he needs to be fussing over her.

Tonight, she’s been thinking of Father, and dreading visiting the house; of learning just what Grandfather said to him about her. “Father could have been a dragon, but he chose to be a lamb. I’m not him. I’ll never be him. I will fight and I will claw my way through life instead of lying down and letting it take me. I can’t distance myself from those I love to keep from getting hurt. It’s such a cowardly trait.”

“Once, I would have admired the self-preservation of it,” Astarion admits and she looks up at him. He glances down and meets her eyes, giving her a wry smile. “No longer. It hurts you, and you’re far too good and kind to be hurt by someone who is supposed to be your family.” His smile turns sad, though he doesn’t elaborate. “He’s a fool for keeping you at arm’s length. A pathetic fool.”

“I need to visit him and pick up Scratch, at the very least.”

“Want some company?”

Astarion doesn’t genuinely want to visit with her father - he’s offering as both moral support and so he can speak up in her defence if things go sideways. “I’ll be fine.”

They both know the truth; that she’ll be exhausted and devastated, and it will be up to Astarion to scoop up the broken pieces of her yet again.

Astarion reaches for a bit of leather and ties it around the end of her hair. “Get some sleep.”

With her head resting on his lap, she dozes, waking hours later to find her head where she rested it, and Astarion murmuring under his breath, deep in trance. She adjusts, stretching out her stiff back as best she can on the couch, and come morning, is greeted with a sweet roll and a cup of coffee. She gives Astarion a funny look.

“I asked Gale to place an order at the bakery for me, and it was delivered this morning.” That… doesn’t explain how he got them into the house, given his condition. Before she can open her mouth to panic, he says, “I put on a pair of gloves and groped blindly on my front step until I was able to grab the box. No harm, save for that to my pride.”

“Ah, but your pride is a delicate thing, so are we certain the damage is not fatal?” she teases, taking a bite of the roll, moaning as the strawberry jam hits her tongue. It’s still warm and Astarion reaches over and brushes his finger over the corner of her mouth, clearing away a bit of jam, and sticks his finger in his mouth. He smiles and her heart skips a beat at the gentle intimacy of it.

“It’s sweet - but not as sweet as you.”

“Please don’t make yourself sick,” she says, because if they’re both out of commission, they’re going to be utterly miserable to one another.

“Just a taste, darling. How will you get to your father’s house?”

“Walk?” she says, taking another bite of her roll and washing it down with a sip of coffee. In response, Astarion walks out of the room and returns a minute later with a velvet blue coin purse that he slips into her side bag.

“Enough to pay for a carriage - round trip. Don’t be stupid enough to walk alone in your current state.”

An argument dies on her tongue; he’s not trying to annoy her, he’s worried about her, and maybe he might actually have a point. “I can pay for my own carriage,” she mutters instead.

“Well, perhaps if you tell Daddy that your obnoxious vampire roommate paid for your carriage, he’ll be less inclined to drive a stake through my heart.”

His tone is joking, as it always is when he talks about the prospect of being murdered by her family, but the threat still feels too real in the aftermath of Grandfather’s treatment of him. She shudders, tosses the last of the roll into her mouth, sets her coffee down, and then throws her arms around him. “There is no one, save for Jan, that I would not kill if you needed it of me. That includes Father.”

“So, if it’s me against baby brother, he wins?” Astarion says lightly, holding onto her until she lets go of him.

“Don’t be stupid enough to pick a fight with my little brother and you won’t need to find out,” she says, forcing herself to remain light; to hide that his joke sent images of his dead body burrowing through her broken mind; her heart racing and breath short. He can’t die. She can’t lose him. She loves him. She loves him.

“Go. If you aren’t back before sundown, I’m going to track you down and I’ll be very irritated with you for forcing me out onto the filthy streets in order to be your bloody knight in shining armour.”

Suddenly, she doesn’t want to leave him; something in her is screaming that if she leaves he’ll die and she struggles to grab hold of rational thought once more. He’ll spend his day working on a sewing project and the riskiest thing he might do is risk a stomach ache by pouring himself a glass of wine. Their house is so well secured that it would take an army to break in - or someone as skilled at lockpicking as Astarion is; combined with advanced magical abilities.

“Promise me you won’t die today,” she says, deciding that’s a fair compromise between doing nothing about her fears, and settling down on the couch to spend the day watching him like a hawk, terrified that the undead man she lives with will drop dead on her.

Once, he’d have laughed at her. Made a barbed comment mocking her ridiculousness. She wishes he would, instead of what he actually does: he cups her cheek and brushes a thumb over her silver scales and says, “I promise I won’t die today. I’ll be here waiting when you get home.”

It’s a lot easier to pretend she’s not in love with him when he’s being infuriating; it’s these moments when his walls come down and he’s sweet to her that she longs to sleep beside him even more than she usually does. “You couldn’t say something mean?” she jokes, eyes welling up with tears as they so often do nowadays.

“Would you prefer it?” She laughs weakly in response, a tear escaping and rolling down her cheek. She doesn’t answer; can’t answer. “I won’t mock you for that. Not when your wounds remain raw. One day, but not now.”

It would be so much easier to stay home today and play house with him, but alas, she must go and speak to Father and pick up Scratch.

***

At Father’s house, she has not even knocked on the door when it opens and Father stares at her. Under his steel blue eyes are deep black bags and his long, silver hair is loose instead of tied back, and the ends are tangled. “Petra, you foolish child. What would your mother say to you?”

“Do a better job aiming?” Scratch rushes to her side, his tail wagging hard enough that the back-half of his body is moving along with it, and she reaches down to pet him.

“Do not jest.” Father gestures towards the living room, hovering by her as Astarion has been these last few weeks, ready to catch her if she loses her balance. She sits and Scratch jumps up onto the couch and curls into a ball, resting his head on her thigh and looking up at her.

“He’s not supposed to…” Father says, sighing and waving his hand. “Forget about it. What were you thinking? Zariel? Child, you were taught better than that.”

“Can we please skip the ‘you’re a stupid child and unworthy of your name’ talk? I already received it from Grandfather.”

“He told me you were combative and did not heed his wisdom.”

“Can you… at least ask how I’m feeling or something? Make me feel as if I’m more than the blood in my veins?”

It was too much to hope that this wouldn’t be terribly unpleasant for all involved.

“You’ve lost weight; your skin is near as pale as that vampire’s you insist on living with…”

“Great. Grandfather felt inclined to reveal that secret to you too, huh?” she snaps, and Father gives her a sharp glare.

“He did not need to. It took me moments to realize his true nature, and had I known you would run off to Avernus with him to try to assassinate an arch devil, I would not have allowed you to leave with him. As it was, I only allowed him into the house because you were in desperate straits.”

“I’m a grown woman,” she hisses. “Don’t use Astarion as a scapegoat when the mission was my idea alone. He went to protect me; he had no desire to kill her! I go where I want and live with whoever I want. He’s taken care of me - not just these last few weeks but for the last year, and you don’t need to like him on a personal level, but you need to accept that I do and that he’s good to me.”

“It’s rather more than that, I’m told. Father indicated that you two are lovers,” Father says.

“We’re friends. He’s my roommate,” she says, staring down at the floor, hoping Father doesn’t pick up on how much more she wishes she could have with Astarion.

“You’ve always been a persuasive girl. When you were wee, it amused me how you’d smile so sweetly at the market vendors to win yourself a piece of fruit or a cookie.” Father actually smiles fondly at this. “But you don’t know yourself near as well as you know other people. You don’t know your heart or your feelings. I do not approve of the man - your grandfather spoke of his devotion to you, but also of his conduct with him, and you’d told me that he could be an asshole and your observation is an accurate one. You deserve better than a vampire spawn and I doubt Peter would ever allow him near the children.” She scowls at Father, who does not acknowledge this. “But you are right about one thing: you are a grown-up and you are free to make the decisions you feel are best. My approval has never mattered where your career is concerned, so I could hardly expect it to be a factor in matters of your heart.”

“I just can’t be what you want me to be.” Scratch whimpers and tries to climb onto her lap; she allows this and he tilts his head back and licks her chin. “I won’t go back to Avernus, but I’m going to continue my stage career, I’m going to live with my best friend as long as he’ll have me, and I hope our adventuring days aren’t over. This is who I am, and if Peter won’t let Astarion near the kids, then we will respect that, but I will keep my distance too. He’s important to me and if he’s not welcome, then neither am I.”

The conversation shifts to stilted updates about how Peter and his kids are doing, and when she asks how Jan is, Father says that he’s still at boarding school, but that he has not reached out in a long time. “I get the impression he is experiencing anger with me,” Father says; the damned understatement of the century because Father sent Jan off to a boarding school meant to train young wizards while Mother was dying. He was only 14 - and he’s a draconic sorcerer and not a wizard, so she can only imagine how he’s struggling with the curriculum. She and Gale often talked about theoretical magical topics, and frequently it went over her head, because her skill is innate and not learned, and so is Jan’s.

As the discussion goes on, she realizes she doesn’t want to be here. She doesn’t want to be the disappointment for a moment longer. If Father, Peter and Grandfather cannot accept her as she is, then the best thing for her is to take a step back into the arms of the family that does.

Astarion was right: their opinions shouldn’t matter.

“I think it’s best I distance myself. You held us all at a distance, and it hurts - a lot. I’m grateful that you allowed me to remain at the house while I was trying to get my career sorted out, and then for a year after Karlach died, but I can’t continue on being your shame because it is unhealthy and harming me. Avernus taught me that, if nothing else. Feel free to acknowledge me as your daughter - or not, but I’m going to pack up the paintings Mother did for me, and then I’m going to return to the home I share with Astarion.”

Father looks at her in shocked silence and before he can answer, she walks up the stairs to her old bedroom, and grabs the box containing Mother’s paintings, as well as Karlach’s trident. Neither her or Astarion would ever be able to use it, but perhaps some day they’ll encounter someone who can who is worthy of her love’s strongest weapon.

When she’s back downstairs, Father is standing by the door like a lost puppy, and Scratch, tail wagging, returns to her side, waiting to leave with her. “Can I at least know where you live? So I can… check in on you?”

“No,” she says, stomach churning with nerves as she stands up to a man she’s never before been able to stand up to. “I can’t trust you and Peter not to try to do something stupid where Astarion is concerned and I won’t risk his safety.”

“I would not hurt your roommate, so long as he is not hurting you, even if he is a foul, undead monster,” Father says, sounding hurt.

“Good.” She slips her sandals on and does up the straps at her heels. “Then I will not need to kill you.”

Father gasps at this and she gives him a stern look. “In a fight between the two of you, he wins - and it won’t be because he’s real fucking good at killing. It will be because I will set you alight and watch you burn for trying to hurt him. Warn Peter because this is the only warning I will ever give.”

“Petra…”

“He’s got a soul, Father. You don’t get to know his story or how I know this, but he cares. And when you left me alone in my room to wilt, he took me to his house and has hardly left my side. What’s one more disappointment to add atop the mountain of disappointment that I am if it means having him by my side? You’ll never understand that, and I can’t say I care any longer, Father. Goodbye.”

Head held high, she walks out of Father’s house, tracks down a carriage, and breathes through her increasing panic; shocked that she was bold enough to actually do that. When she returns to the house, Astarion is by the door, and takes the box of paintings from her, watching nervously as she removes her shoes. Scratch greets Astarion, who scratches him behind the ears. “I’m not sure I’ll ever see Father again. He doesn’t approve of you and wasn’t happy with me for Avernus, and I just… can’t continue to live with the constant reminder that I’m not good enough for him and Grandfather. So I won’t. I walked.”

Astarion stares at her. “What does his disapproval of me have to do with it?”

“Everything? You’re important to me and if he refuses to accept that you’re a person, then why would I continue to maintain a close relationship with him?”

His shoulders slump slightly. “Oh, Pet…” he says softly. “I’m not worth that.”

“Shut up,” she says, throwing her arms around him. “I threatened to kill him too.”

“Gods above; maybe I should have gone with you - for the entertainment if nothing else. What did he do to earn such ire?”

“Just making sure he knew what would happen if he ever decided to try anything with you.”

Astarion barks a laugh. “I’m touched, but suspect you’ll be regretting your turn at knighthood within a tenday once you realize you’ve traded your family for me. I’m no prize.”

She doesn’t let him go, even as tears dampen his black shirt. “Let me have this. I chose you. From now on, I’ll always choose you.”

It’s subtle, but his voice breaks as he thanks her, whispering “I won’t forget this,” against the top of her head.

Chapter Text

Despite it being a loss of her choosing, she still mourns the distance she put between herself and most of her family. She sends a letter to Jan, giving him the news but reiterating the promise she made to him after they lost Mother: if he ever needs a place to stay, he can come to her, no questions asked.

When she broached the topic with Astarion, he laughed, seemingly mystified at the idea that her much younger brother would ever want to live with her, but told her that Jan would be welcome, “if he’s the tolerable sort”.

Sometimes, in the morning, just before bed, she realizes what she’s given up and has herself a cry, even if she knows rationally that she’s better off with the family that accepts her. Astarion sits with her every time - he doesn’t always speak; in fact he rarely does, but his presence is appreciated.

“I’ve been trying to wrap my head around your father and grandfather being so set on disapproving of the hero of Baldur’s Gate,” Astarion says, and as she always does when he calls her this, she reminds him that he is also one of the heroes of Baldur’s Gate. “Yes, yes, you made a hero out of me and you’re insufferable about it,” Astarion says with a flick of his hand. “Your father married a human and your grandfather did not approve, yes?”

“Correct.”

“As did your brother.”

“Yes?”

“Your grandfather likes power - he thinks because he’s a dragon,” Astarion’s voice turns mocking, “he is more important that anyone around him. So he uses his approval as a weapon and makes sure the blows of his flail leave scars.”

She’s quiet, unsure how she feels about this accusation from Astarion. “What made you realize that?”

“Cazador,” Astarion says quietly. “Disapproval was a powerful weapon. He may not have ever flogged you or carved up your back, but he did give you the tools you needed to rip yourself to shreds. Your father survived this the same as you, but couldn’t break the cycle, so his disapproval became a weapon. His blows are softer and targeted instead of scattershot everywhere, but you’re the one who gets hit.”

Time and distance from Cazador has been good for Astarion; scars linger and he’ll be recovering for a long while yet, but he stands firmly on his own two feet, free of the fear that plagued him while they were travelling together. Being years removed has apparently given him some perspective.

Never has she considered that her family could be abusive like Cazador. “It’s not the same,” she protests. “He never tortured me! The things you were forced to do for so long…”

“Just because I experienced the full platter of torment doesn’t mean your appetizer isn’t also poisoned, darling, so you can stop undermining your own experiences at any point.”

Between them, there’s sharp tension and she glances around their dark living room, focusing on the little ball of light she conjures for them every afternoon when she wakes for the day. Life without sunlight has been an adjustment, but one she’s been happy to make because it means she has Astarion’s company.

“I’ve never considered…”

“Because you knew nothing else,” Astarion says emphatically. “Your mother was loving and good, but you saw your father’s distance and disapproval as normal. I thought the entire world cruel until you were foolish enough to teach me otherwise instead of staking me. I prayed to every god there is for decades, and no help ever arrived. Nothing, until I was plucked off the streets and a tadpole was shoved through my eye. A death sentence that spared me until you were able to save me. You’re no goddess - you’re an obnoxiously sweet do-gooder with very nice hair, a smart mouth, and an annoyingly optimistic view of humanoids. Better than any of the damned gods I prayed to because you’ve never asked for anything in return, save my knives and my delightful travel commentary.”

“It was fucking delightful.”

“I know, right?” Astarion says, before turning serious, much to her chagrin. “I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to deflect, but… think on it. Consider what your mother would say about what you’re doing with your life instead of letting your father and grandfather’s voices drown your own monologue out. And that’s it. We can go to bed or live dangerously and stay up late…” there’s a hint of mischievous to Astarion’s voice, and she likes that the riskiest thing they’ve done since returning home is risk a terrible morning’s sleep by staying up past sunrise.

The truth is, right now she feels naked; as if Astarion has stripped every layer off of her with the conversation he’s started, and it’s an uncomfortable thing to consider the idea that your father and grandfather were abusive.

Maybe it’s time to do something dangerous. “Can we cuddle, Astarion? Like, hold one another in bed for a while? Nothing more - I just…”

This was a shit idea. Gods, she’s so stupid.

“Why do people sleep beside one another without sex? I do not understand,” Astarion says, flippant, and it hits her that all of the people who used and abused him saw him as a fuck; not someone worthy of tenderness.

“Because sometimes it’s nice to just be close to someone. There’s a vulnerability in sharing a bed and it feels nice,” she says, thinking about Karlach and the limited time they had together. They were intimate, but more often at night they cuddled, basking in a closeness they would never get enough of.

“Would you care to demonstrate?” Astarion says, dismissive but she can always tell when his shield is up by looking into his eyes to see his real feelings, and this morning, his eyes silently plead for her touch.

“Off to bed with us, then.”

Elves do not sleep, but half-elves do, and she finds it fascinating that Astarion has a bed, especially given his disinterest in sex. Perhaps he chooses to meditate in bed?

Astarion’s room has a vanity with a full mirror against one wall; a detail that makes her heart clench as she imagines him staring uselessly into it, hoping to see his reflection looking back at him. Against the wall is a four poster bed; the blood red curtains tied to the dark wooden posts. On the bed are three decorative pillows atop more practical ones with frilly pillowcases matching the floral duvet cover.

She’s caught glimpses of his room before, but this is the first she’s really looked at it and realized that Astarion likes beauty in his space, as well as in what he wears. There’s something tranquil about the placement of the pillows and the perfectly-made bed. “Where’d you get the bed sheets?”

“Night market. I like them, but I’d rather something a little more… ostentatious.”

If he doesn’t think these are ostentatious enough, she can only imagine what he’d actually like. “I can go shopping for you?” she offers, and he smiles at her.

“I’ve pondered making my own. Embroider florals, vines and maybe a couple cute little cats in the corners, just for you.”

He pretends otherwise but he’s fond of cats. Very fond of them and she likes that about him.

She removes her tunic and breeches, but leaves her underwear on, and Astarion does the same. Camp life means she saw all of their companions in various states of undress but this is the first there’s been anything resembling intimacy while undressing in front of him.

Astarion is a slight man - reedy, as if in need of a good meal. Perhaps he was when they first met, after centuries of subsiding on rats. She can count his ribs, even now, and she imagines running a finger down his chest.

In battle, he was lightning quick; able to cross a battlefield on foot in seconds to plunge a dagger into the heart of their enemies. He was silent as the grave; so many they fought never knew their death was coming and it was a skill that terrified as much as impressed her.

Even with her own magical abilities, she never doubted that Astarion could kill her if he ever wanted to.

“Enjoying the view?” Astarion says and she flushes, realizing she was not being subtle at all in her appreciation of his mostly-naked form. That was inappropriate - especially since she’s seeking comfort and not pleasure.

“Uh…” Astarion’s grin only goes wider; a spider who just caught a fly in its web.

“I’ve always been curious, my dear.” He gestures to her nose, where she wears a ring in one nostril and a stud in the other, and then to her nipples, where she wears silver rings, then finally down to her pierced navel. “Are there any that are… just out of view?”

She stares at him, smirking; the weight of their conversation lessening on her shoulders just slightly. “I’m curious what you think? What kind of girl do you think I am?”

They’re still standing on opposite sides of the bed and she’s itching to get into bed and get close to him. Nothing more; not tonight. Maybe not ever.

Astarion walks around the bed and stands before her, reaches out and brushes a tendril of hair out of her face. “I think,” he lowers his voice, “you like to be dangerous, but can’t quite commit to the bit.”

“We’re talking about a fucking clit piercing, asshole,” she laughs.

Once, he’d have responded with a flirtatious challenge. “Prove me wrong,” he’d have purred and once it might have been enough for her to toss her smalls into the fire and allow a man more dangerous than any she’s ever known to ravish her.

Then she discovered the real him; the biting remarks are a shield that protects a traumatized and frightened man. She showed him he doesn’t always need the shield and she wonders if turning him down at the camp party might have been good for him, overall. He didn’t legitimately want her then; he wanted her protection and thought the only value he had was what pleasure his body could give to another.

She’s glad she didn’t sleep with him then. For so many reasons.

Instead, Astarion smirks at her and says, “keep your secrets,” and she finds herself feeling proud of him. They’ve agreed to cuddle in bed but he’s not initiating more than that because he now knows he doesn’t need to.

Astarion turns his attention from her and pulls the duvet down. “I doubt you’ll enjoy cuddling with me,” Astarion says, as if they’ve never fucking cuddled before. He lies his head down on one of the pillows on the bed and beckons to her. She climbs into bed and settles on top of him, wrapping her arms around his torso and resting her head on his chest.

His body is cold - but she’s grown used to that over the time she’s known him. The lack of heartbeat is disconcerting, but he’s dead. It was foolish to expect anything more than silence. She thinks of Karlach’s infernal engine of a heart; how instead of heartbeats she heard ticks and felt pulses of energy as the device churned along, struggling on a plane of existence it was never built to endure. It was meant to tie her to Avernus, but in a way, Karlach’s death freed her, and Petra knows she prefers that to the alternatives.

Long ago she decided she’d carry a lifetime of grief to give Karlach the dignified end to her life that she wanted.

He stiffens at her embrace, but after a short pause, wraps his own arms around her, resting his hands flat on her back.

“Can you feel my body heat?”

“I can.”

“What does it feel like to you?” She assumes it’s bothersome to a man who has been undead for two centuries, but instead Astarion chokes back a sob that leaves her feeling like an intruder to something private and painful.

“It feels like I’m alive once more,” he whispers.

“I can stay the morning?” She tries to hide the desperation; the need for some comfort to keep her from thinking about the family she walked away from, and Astarion’s touch is that precise comfort.

Like that, the switch flips and Astarion is sardonic once more. “You may, and I’ll be terribly creepy, darling, and watch as you sleep. You snore, you know. It was distracting while I was meditating when we were in camp.”

“Do not,” she whines, because Karlach definitely never complained about her snoring.

“But yes, if you think you can bear the chill of sharing a bed with me, you may stay.”

“I’m a silver dragon,” she deadpans and Astarion rolls his eyes.

“That’s what? A week since you last mentioned that? Had your grandfather not been such a tit, I’d have asked him why a draconic bloodline has you feeling so high and mighty. I figured it out, in the end. You’re better than him.”

And so the pendulum swings back and she buries her head into his chest, as if that act alone would be enough to smother the thoughts racing through her mind. “The point is that I’m used to the cold,” she says, muffled.

“Not like this,” Astarion says quietly, so she grabs a handful of duvet and pulls it over the two of them until she’s covered up to her neck.

“Problem solved.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me? We’ve never - and we’ve been friends for a long while but if you wanted to…”

It breaks her heart that his pain and trauma means he thinks he must offer sex in exchange for the tenderness they’re sharing, even if the offer was made so she could show him that cuddling need not be sexual. And, because she’s in need of comfort, and she wonders if she’s selfish; if this is just using him the way he was used for so many years.

“I’d very much like to continue cuddling, if you’re comfortable with that.”

Astarion relaxes at this, and as she closes her eyes, still tucked close to him; confined in a little cocoon of her own making, she chides herself for wanting him as badly as she does.

He’s been through enough. He doesn’t need her.

“Do you like this?” she asks him.

“Oh no; this is just a perfunctory service I provide,” Astarion says - sarcastically she assumes but still she lifts her head to look at him and he rolls his eyes again and pushes her head back down onto his chest and runs his fingers through her hair. “It’s very nice. However, I must insist we trade places when you wake in the afternoon.”

“Sure?” It’s a request that confuses her for a moment until it hits her.

She still has a heartbeat, and recalls how emotional he was at the Grove when she held him like this. How long had it been since he’d rested his head on someone’s chest? Since he’d listened to the comforting thump of life in a lover’s chest?

Astarion would be annoyed if he knew she picked up the need in his otherwise-casual request, so she hides it, and when she wakes in the morning, rolls off of him and opens her own arms. He’s a bit lost in his head, as he often is just after slipping out of his trance, but he lies down on top of her, his cold body making her ticklish, so she squirms and giggles, and runs her own hand through his soft, curly hair, tousled by sleep.

He says nothing, but a whimper escapes his lips; one she ignores, even as it breaks her own heart. His hair smells fresh; vaguely minty and she leans over, pressing a gentle kiss; so gentle she thinks it’s unlikely he’s noticed, on the top of his head. It’s enough, she tells herself.

“I can’t remember the last time someone held me like this. Naked, I mean,” Astarion says, and she remembers it perfectly: the night before the final fight. She never considered that it might be the last time she’d be held by Karlach; they both knew what was coming, but thought they’d have a little more time. Enough time to play house together for at least a few months.

Or - she thought so. Maybe Karlach knew the truth but hid it away to protect the two of them.

“Winter will be here soon and we’ll need to keep a fire going while we rest. It seems prudent to share a bed, does it not? It will save us money on firewood, save the headache of tending to two fires, and we’ll be warmer,” Astarion says casually.

“That’s definitely a smart idea,” she says, just as casually, as if this is nothing more than pragmatism, and not sharing a bed with the man she loves.

“Then it’s settled: we’ll make a date of this every morning until you grow sick of me and find yourself a beautiful girlfriend.”

“Or you find yourself someone?”

“I’m not looking,” Astarion says. “I see no point when there is already perfection in front of me.”

“Yes, yes; you’re very handsome, my dear,” she says, and Astarion looks up at her; his expression the same as it often was when he thought she had just done something particularly naive.

“Yes?”

“Nothing, darling.”

Chapter Text

“Pet, you’ve been so sad these last months. Is it guilt over the mission? Karlach wouldn’t be angry that you failed to kill Zariel,” Astarion says.

It’s mid-afternoon, and she suspects Astarion chose this time to open this conversation deliberately; to give her a chance to escape where he cannot follow if it becomes too much.

The bitterness of her failure has softened in her heart and the grief has become background noise she’s learned to live with. She’s learning to navigate her complicated and painful feelings regarding her family and has accepted that Astarion is more family to her than most of her blood relations. What pains her now is the unrequited love she has for Astarion. She’s trying to move on; trying to tell herself that he’s her best friend and that’s enough.

But it hasn’t been working and she’s miserable. She tells herself they should stop sharing a bed, but it’s a comfort she finds she can’t give up. If that little bit of affection is all she can have, then she should treasure it, right?

“Please talk to me,” Astarion says, stepping closer to her, though she notices he’s careful not to leave her cornered in the living room. How often was he cornered at Szarr Palace; left with nowhere to escape?

“I’m just…” she grasps for a lie; for anything but the truth, “Grandfather’s rejection still hurts.”

Astarion just stares at her, incredulous. “Really? That’s what you go with? Of all the lies you could tell, you went with your asshole grandfather, who threatened all our lives, who I doubt so much as knows my name, and who never once used yours? Darling, I’m a liar, and you need to do better than that. C’mon, try again. Lie to me.”

“I’m not lying,” she lies.

“Would it help to speak to someone else? I can send a note to Shadowheart and she’d meet us at the tavern or you could visit her at her cottage during the day?”

He’s being so damned kind and it’s driving her mad. “Please just… give me shit about something. Mock me. Tell me I’m a naive do-gooder. Whine about my snoring. Something!”

“No,” Astarion says so firmly that it startles her. “Every time we try to talk about our feelings, it dissolves into jokes and maybe this time, we actually need to follow through, because it feels like you’re angry at me and I’d really like to know why!”

Shit. Shit. She’s fucked up. “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at me,” she mumbles. Astarion crosses his arms and taps his foot. “Would you be patient once in your damn life?”

“Well, maybe I’m impatient because I’m worried about you!” he snaps.

“We’ve been through a lot,” she says, as if he isn’t already aware of this. “No, you’ve been through a lot. I’ve… you know. I’ll always grieve her, but lately I’ve been wanting… to start over. And I’ve got… feelings but they’re stupid and wrong and you’re my best friend and I never want to lose that,” a tear rolls down her stupid cheek and she wants to scream in frustration; especially since Astarion is just fucking standing there. “You deserve better than me. You don’t want me and that’s fine. Your romantic life is your business alone - presuming you even want one. And if you don’t, that’s fine too! I’m happy as we are and I’ll never bring this up again. You’re my friend and I love what we have. I’ll never pressure you to be more and I tried to keep it to myself but apparently I’m shit at hiding this sort of thing and I’m sorry, and…”

“Petra? Would you please shut up so I can kiss you?” Astarion says, cutting her off, and her mind goes blank, leaving her feeling as she did the one time an enemy polymorphed her into a sheep. Nothing there but air, as Astarion would say.

She blinks and he smiles wryly at her, though his eyes are damp. He closes the gap between them, takes her face in his hands and kisses her. Something resembling thought returns and she realizes she needs to do more than stand like a garden statue and she wraps her arms around him; a signal he takes to deepen the kiss.

He smells of citrus and there’s a hint of metal on his tongue. Too soon he breaks the kiss and she stares at him.

“Pet? You may speak again,” Astarion says, smug and all she can think of is that she could have been kissing him like that for months. A year, even.

“Would you kiss me again?” she says intelligently.

He does, and this time she runs her fingers through his hair, determined to leave it messy and unkempt by the time they’ve had their fill of one another.

As if that could ever happen. His kisses are intoxicating, like the sweetest wine she’s ever tasted and she could spend the rest of her years here, in his arms.

Maybe she will. Maybe this can be her forever.

His lips leave hers just long enough for her to take a breath and then they’re on her again. And again. And again.

They need to talk about this; about what they are to one another. Their feelings. How long they’ve apparently both been pining for one another.

He kisses her again and her eyes well up with traitorous tears. She’s happy. Why is she crying?

“My love?” Astarion says, breaking away from her and she curses under her breath.

She’s his love and he’s hers. She lets that fact ruminate in her mind. They’re two. They’re tied to one another, but maybe they have been for a long time without realizing it.

“I’m so stupid,” she cries.

“Well, yes, but it’s a good look on you.”

She laughs and wipes her eyes. “Ass.”

“You want this?” he asks her softly.

“More than anything else this world could give me.”

Karlach told her that she loves Astarion and urged her to do something about it when she was ready. Why did she allow herself to become convinced that he wouldn’t want this as much as she does?

Sometimes, in the morning, when she couldn’t sleep, she’d imagine how this would happen. Where they’d kiss. It was always outside the house; some mornings it was in an alleyway as they stumbled home before dawn. Other times it was at the sea shore in the darkest night; the world showing itself in black and white. While recovering at the grove, she once allowed herself to imagine kissing him while dancing by the fire, only to throw the fantasy away. It hurt too much to think about something she’d never have.

Standing in their living room barefoot was never something she considered. Never did she expect feet chilled by the cold of the floorboards. Above them a light moves in slow circles; the magic faded, reminding her she needs to re-cast it for the day.

Once they wake up. Right now it feels as if she’s caught in the sweetest dream she’s had in years.

He kisses her again. Then he kisses both cheeks, lingering on the silver scales on her face. Her forehead. Then her nose, and she giggles. “Was that good for you?” she teases.

“Perfect.”

“Will you kiss me every time we wake? Before we go to bed? And just because?” she asks, voice small, but it feels like she’s clinging to a security blanket. If he says he will, she won’t lose him like she lost Karlach. He’ll just be here to kiss her every day until her own heart gives out and she turns to dust.

“For as long as you’ll have me.”

“Can we go back to bed? Will you hold me as my love and not just as my roommate?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” he murmurs, taking her hand and leading them to their bedroom.

Their bedroom. After returning home from the grove it sort of morphed into their bedroom. She can’t recall the last time she slept in her own bed.

How was she so stupid? How did she think he just wanted the comfort of her affectionate touches, and not that he was eating up her love like a starving man at a buffet?

She’s wearing the sweater she wears around the house when it’s cold; it’s red and loose, and her tights are a tattered old pair that she’d never let anyone but Astarion see her in. He’s dressed similarly, in a loose black shirt; the laces undone, and she recalls she once teased him and told him that he’s allergic to doing his shirt up properly.

His response? “You love it.” He wasn’t wrong.

Astarion grasps the hem of her sweater, pulling it over her head, and she does the same with his shirt. She’s not wearing a bra; she never bothers at home, and he caresses her cheek, down to her neck, and cups her left breast; his touches tender instead of charged. He runs a thumb over her nipple and one of the silver rings she wears. “I think I’ll enjoy playing with these,” he says.

She does the same, running her hand down his body, fingers dancing over his ribs and he shivers at her touch. His hands grasp the waistband of her tights and he pushes them down, and she steps out of them.

Countless times she’s stood in front of him in nothing but her underwear but never has she felt as exposed as she is now.

She removes his own tights, giggling as she always does at the cheeky embroidery on his underwear. They’re tented with an erection she does not acknowledge, and they slide into bed. She moves close to him, adjusting so they’re chest-to-chest, their arms wrapped tightly around one another.

If he notices her own arousal, he says nothing.

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” she asks him and he huffs.

“Gods, I thought I was! We share a bed! I didn’t want to push for more because you’re grieving and to be utterly truthful, I know I can’t live up to Karlach. You’ve had the best there is and I’m a bit of an unfortunate consolation prize.”

She brushes her lips against his. “Silly man. I love Karlach and I always will, but I love you too. I love that you’re a chaotic menace. That you tease me and refuse to let me wallow in my self-loathing for long. That you go with me to my shows and stand against the wall, every bit the proud love that you are; not because that environment appeals to you any longer but because it’s me on-stage.”

She closes her eyes tightly, bracing herself to be as honest with him as he was with her. “I love that you love me as I am. I’m not a disappointment. I’m more than my blood…”

Astarion smiles and a chuckle escapes. “Vampire spawn, darling.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “Don’t you hate puns?”

“Loathe them. Detest them with the fire of the sun.”

“Yet you laughed at my inadvertent pun. I’m telling all our friends.”

Astarion mock-gasps. You wouldn’t dare!”

“My love, who thinks himself above such humour, chuckled while I was attempting to lay bare my soul…” she says dramatically, her tone teasing.

“Fine, fine; I’ll shut up. Get naked for me, darling. Metaphorically. Or literally. This is your bed too and if emotional intimacy is easier with your cunt out, then who am I to judge?”

“Is this your way of asking me to take my underwear off?”

He’s quiet; his erection is pressed against her own pelvis; still unacknowledged. “I’ve never been naked in bed with someone without…”

“Shall we? You can finally find out the mystery of my hidden piercings - or lack thereof.”

He reaches for his own underwear first and only once they’re off does she remove her lacy black underwear, tossing them onto the floor. She sits up, turns to face him, and spreads her legs, revealing the little piercing she got two decades ago in the midst of her days as a stripper, and Astarion laughs and claps his hands.

“Apparently I can commit to the bit,” she says, smug.

“How did you keep that a secret? How did you suppress the smugness that always radiates off of you when you know you’re right?”

“Because I’d rather hoped to have the satisfaction of this exact moment with you.” She closes her legs and plops down beside him, wrapping her arms around him again; her palms flat on his scarred back.

“You don’t try to change me,” she says, serious again. “I can sing and dance and do magic shows and that’s enough for you. I’m enough.”

“You’re more than enough, Pet. ‘Enough’? That’s the bare minimum. Our friends are enough. You’re…”

“You’re being nice,” she says and he kisses her hard.

“Shush. Let me shower you with praise in peace.”

“What am I?”

“Extraordinary.” He doesn’t purr the word as he once might have back when he tried to seduce her; it’s soft. Vulnerable.

“I love you,” she says, kissing the scar on his neck. “I’ve loved you for so long.”

“Dare I ask how long?”

“The day you killed Cazador, Karlach told me that I’m in love with you. I denied it but I think she was right. I - wasn’t ready for a long while but at the grove I knew I wanted this. You said you were happy I’m your roommate so I just thought you didn’t feel the same way so I… just decided to be happy with what we had.”

Astarion groans and rests his forehead on hers. “I said that because I was trying to be happy with what we had. You foolish, gorgeous woman.”

“If I’m a fool, then so are you.”

“Your fool,” he says fondly. “I… love you.”

She closes her eyes and just basks in this for a moment. It took them so long - too long, but they got there.

“Karlach’s laughing at us - wherever she is. Probably doing a fist pump right now too.”

“She knew we’d take our sweet time,” Astarion says and she opens her eyes and looks at him, baffled. “We sat on the rooftop of the Elfsong two weeks before she died and talked - that’s when I promised I’d take care of you, but she also accused me of being in love with you. Didn’t mince words about it.”

“Karlach was nothing if not a straight-shooter.”

“She offered me tips. I declined,” he says wryly and she laughs.

“Yeah, she was absolutely fucking with you.”

“She told me she wanted me to talk to you once it seemed like you were ready - assuming things hadn’t changed between us.”

Her girlfriend tried so hard in her final days to ensure she was taken care of and that she’d find her way back to happiness again eventually. “Not to talk about my dead girlfriend in your arms, but I miss her. Shit, she was a good person. Better than I’ll ever be.”

“She lifted me up and spun me around once. Said I ‘looked like I needed a snuggle’. She was so warm… both body and soul. I think about that hug a lot,” Astarion says, wistful.

“I like that image. It’s cute.”

They spend the afternoon in bed, talking and kissing, and as Astarion runs his hand through her hair, she thinks about how little things have changed from the life they were leading yesterday. Now they kiss and all of their clothes are off.

She laughs, shaking her head and Astarion gives her a funny look.

“We’ve kind of been together for two years without knowing it, haven’t we?”

“Don’t say that; if we ever reveal that to anyone, they’ll never shut up about it.”

She grins at him; that’s not a no, and as close to an acknowledgement as she is likely to get.

“So, who is giving our friends the good news?” she says, leaning in to kiss him.

“We’re not telling them! When we see them next, we’ll behave as we are and torment them until they break and ask if we’re ‘finally lovers’. Then, we’ll lie and fuel ourselves off their collective frustration before slipping off to bed, where I’ll make you scream my name. Really confuse them.”

His eyes gleam with mischief and she cackles at the thought, as she aches with desire.

“No, they’ll just realize you’re trolling them, darling, and settle the betting pool they presumably have going. But do go ahead and invite our friends for a visit.”

“Soon. For now, I’d just like to be together as two.”

***

“I spoke at the grove about how you scared me - that it didn’t quite match the occasion I was most afraid, but close. Can… I tell you?”

Astarion is nervous; fidgeting with his hands and she pats the seat cushion beside her, inviting him to sit with her.

What they have is new, but in many respects little has changed aside from what they call one another. They haven’t been intimate yet - that’s a topic she’s leaving firmly in Astarion’s hands, and they shared a bed and cuddled even before figuring out what they mean to each other.

Really, all that’s changed is that they kiss on the lips now. They still live together, still spend their afternoons and most nights together, but he’s her boyfriend and not her roommate.

“What happened?” she asks him, and Astarion stammers, taking several attempts to get the words out.

“You died, Petra,” Astarion says, tears threatening to spill over his eyes. “The day we fought the brain. The platform you were on disintegrated and you fell. Your soul hovered beside me and the brain was nearly done - a final blow would end it, but instead of firing, I reached for a scroll to bring you back, knowing that chaos would ensue once the brain was down and that your soul may be lost to me. When I had to choose between you and the world, I chose you, and I did not hesitate for a moment.”

Oh. She was exhausted after regaining consciousness; exhausted in a way she’d only felt after being raised from the dead. Like waking from the deepest sleep imaginable… because she had.

“I don’t know if that makes me a hero or a villain. Maybe both. I’m sorry. Petra, I couldn’t leave you, but Shadowheart saw what I was about to do and stopped me. She promised to raise you herself so I could finish the brain off. But I chose you. I chose you.”

“Oh, my love. My foolish, foolish love,” she says, smiling at him, while he stares at her, baffled. “That’s very sweet of you, but even if you’d left me, Withers would have raised me. It’d have been cheaper than a revivify scroll too.”

She gives him a wink, but instead of being amused, Astarion scowls, gesturing angrily with his hands. “…Oh, for….”

“You were panicking. It’s fine; I’m fine,” she says quickly, realizing that she is poking at a pain that hasn’t even begun to heal because he’s continually reopened the wound in his private self-eviscerations. “Please don’t let the guilt linger. That was a hard day for us all.”

“Harder for you.”

“You watched me die too,” she says softly, taking his hands and remembering the day they infiltrated the prison. Astarion wound up badly wounded and she got him out of there - but it was a near-thing and she was terrified he’d die on the ascent up to the surface. Rationally, she knew they could raise him without much of a headache, but watching - not life, but undeath, she supposes, seeping away from him was painful. “The only difference is that you got me back because the damage could be fixed. Karlach’s could not. It haunts you, does it not?”

A tear spills onto his cheek and he nods his head. She cups his face and runs her thumb along his cheek. “Your decision was one of thousands you made that day, and it alone does not make you good or evil. All it means is that you watched someone you love die, and had a way to undo it. And then, you dealt with my own grief with such gentleness, and you saved me from myself, and after watching me die, I’m sure you were devastated by my actions. I’m sorry for the hurt I caused you that day and thank you for saving me from myself. I wasn’t necessarily grateful then, but I am now.”

Karlach was right about her and Astarion, but she was blind for so long, and then she just assumed that he didn’t love her because he never made a move, and she never made a move because she thought he deserved better.

“Well, I nearly made a stupid decision and you talked me off a cliff, and then you did the same. I believe it’s my turn next - though, do I get two stupid decisions on account of Avernus?”

“You volunteered to go with me so you share in the stupid, my dear. Those are just the rules.”

“I don’t think that’s how that works.” Astarion sniffles, and wanders away to grab a handkerchief to wipe his eyes and blow his nose.

“I’m not sure I’m ready for sex. In time, yes, but…” Astarion says once he’s back by her side, and he’s stammering, though his words seem almost rehearsed. He takes a breath and explains the self-loathing he feels when he imagines the two of them together, and how he would like to be with her, but doesn’t yet know how to untangle what intimacy once meant to him with what he wants it to mean between them.

She reaches out and grasps for his hand once more. “We go at your pace. It’s not just sex I’m looking for - I want all of you. I like the little life we’ve built and hope we can continue as we are now, but… being a bit more honest with ourselves about what we mean to one another.”

“I’d like that a lot,” Astarion says, relaxing. “And I would like sex, but I just - need a little time. To get my head wrapped around it. I love you - I know it won’t be like… before, but…”

“As much time as you need,” she says.

“You’re far too nice to me. It makes me want to be nice in return,” Astarion says, affecting a pout.

“Oh, don’t do that. We both know you’re at your best when we’re bantering with one another,” she jokes, and he smiles, leaving her with a sense of triumph.

“You’re quite the little blanket thief in bed. We’ll start the night with an equal share of the duvet and by morning you’re wrapped up like a corpse and I’m freezing,” Astarion says.

“You’re undead, muffin. Being cold is just sort of your thing. Would you rather have a snuggle? Allow me to steal away whatever body heat you can build up by sheer virtue of being under the blanket?”

“Obviously,” Astarion says.

“Well I suppose that is what I shall do,” she says, with sarcastic resignation, because the truth is, cuddling with him is one of her favourite things. She likes the intimacy of it, just as she loved it with Karlach. It means more to her than sex, in a lot of ways. Karlach knew this without having to be told, but she realizes that Astarion probably needs to hear it from her directly.

“Cuddling with you is my favourite,” she admits, turning serious.

“I like it too.”

***

Memories from the three days she spent unconscious and left traversing planes to find her body are scattered; like soft, distant whispers. She recalls Karlach - or a being taking her shape, and that she could not walk on her own.

Karlach must have been her guide. When she wakes in Astarion’s arms at midday, another memory has slipped back to her.

“Tell Astarion ‘I told you so’ and give him a smooch from me. You’ll know when.”

Naked in his arms after a morning of cuddling feels like the right time, so when he slips from his meditation, she leans over and presses a sloppy kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Karlach says ‘I told you so’.”

“Mmh?” he says, sleepily. He rubs his eyes and sits up, the covers bunching around his waist.

“I think Karlach helped me get back to my body and while I was sleeping, a memory of that journey returned to me. She asked me to give you a kiss and to tell her ‘I told you so’.”

“All right.”

In retrospect, maybe she should have let him catch his bearings first. She waits until he’s more alert before asking her follow-up question. “So… I told you so? What did Karlach tell you?”

“Nothing you don’t already know,” Astarion says with a dismissive laugh. “That we love one another. What… do you remember from your journey?”

It’s not something they’ve talked of frequently; it’s a traumatic memory for them both and much of the time they just try to pretend it didn’t happen. At least, to one another.

When the nightmares haunt her, leaving her screaming, the strategy fails. Every time; every damn time, Astarion is there to bring her back to reality and the waking world.

“Very little,” she says, wishing she had more of the final time she had with Karlach - or a being wearing her face. “I hate that I can’t remember it.”

“More may come back in time like it did last night,” Astarion points out, but she thinks about his own experiences with trauma and how much of his life before being turned has slipped away from him. Not long ago he told her that he thought he had an older sister, but that he can’t remember her name or what she looks like.

She offered to see if she could track her down - he told her he remembers his last name but hasn’t told her what it was, but he said he wasn’t ready to dig into his past like that. Maybe one day - or maybe not.

Her last moments with Karlach took place on another plane of existence and they’re little more than grains of sand slipping through her fingers and flying off with the wind.

Chapter Text

Pining over Petra after she lost Karlach had made him feel like even more of a rake than usual - she’d lost her lover and here he was imagining keeping house with her for the rest of her life. Obnoxious domestic bliss that is painfully boring but perfectly lovely.

Rarely, his thoughts drifted to sex. To stripping her and playing with her nipple rings while she rides him until he climaxes so hard he sees stars. Sometimes he could take himself in-hand without the building guilt; the feeling that he’s a monster in the shadows ready to pounce on his prey.

He loves her. He’s loved her for a long time and when he allowed himself the indulgence of imagining their coupling, he tried to remind himself that things are different with her. He may not know how to be in a relationship, but he’s not what he once was.

After Petra moved in with him, he decided she would lead anything romantic and that he’d skip professions of his own love until she initiated such a discussion. A vow he broke as months went on and she grew closer and closer to him. He invited her into his bed to cuddle. They held hands. Embraced. He treated her as he imagined a normal person may treat a lover, only they weren’t lovers in name; only in practice.

In truth, a particularly obnoxious talk with Wyll about love convinced him that it might be time to introduce more intimacy into their relationship; to let her know without words that he loves her and that she can approach him about turning things romantic.

Only, she never did. Months, they slept beside one another, waking in each other’s arms. He’d trace lines down her bare back as her breasts pressed against his own chest. All this time, and she was still so sad - perhaps sadder in some ways than before Avernus.

He hadn’t expected a confession today. He’d assumed her failure in Avernus was what was impacting her mood these last few months; not that she is in love with him and thought he did not share her feelings because he never said a word.

Meanwhile he was practically shouting it from the damned rooftop, he thinks. No matter; they seem to have figured it out.

Well, not the sex part; not yet. He aches for her when they hold one another, and sometimes he thinks it would be so easy to slip inside her sopping wet cunt. But not yet; not when he wants to feel present while they’re together instead of a hundred miles away, following the routine of it by rote.

Use your tongue. If your partner has a clit, make sure they climax first. Stick your cock in. Thrust. Tease another orgasm out using your fingers. Climax. Token cuddling. Cazador.

He shakes his head to remove the image of Cazador taking Petra from his mind. He’s gone. Petra helped him with that. They’d cuddle - Petra may cry because it’ll be the first she’s been intimate with someone since Karlach’s death.

Gods, he might cry too. He wants things to be perfect, but does perfect exist? Can it not be enough if it’s the two of them having a perfectly lovely time enjoying one another’s bodies?

Lying next to Petra while she sleeps initially brought forward feelings of intense self-loathing; reminders that once he’d have damned her to what turns out to be a lifetime in the shadows; a fate that may be worse than death.

(Whether it is or not he’s hardly qualified to say because his own experiences with death have been so unconventional.)

Those feelings are fading; in part because he never had this sort of intimacy. Right now her head is resting on his upper arm and the corner of her mouth is damp with drool. She’s had a good morning of sleep today and he thinks that maybe he should ask her on something resembling a proper date.

It’s dark in their bedroom; without sunlight, he sees the world in shades of grey when Petra hasn’t cast Light in a room. Even the magical light hardly replaces the sun and the colours in their home are more dim than they would be with a bit of natural sunlight in the room. Petra doesn’t need to live like this; he’s aware that, by living with him, she’s choosing a life in the dark, rather than it being forced upon her. She could live in a home where she can open the blinds and get a breeze during the day, yet she’s chosen him instead.

Her eyes flicker open and she looks around, smiling, and then lifts her head off his arm. She grasps his lower arm; her touch warm, like a potholder sitting beneath a hot kettle and she rubs her finger over the veins on his inner arm. “These are sexy,” she murmurs; a statement so baffling that he cannot respond. Really? Of all the things he brings to the table, she’s admiring his arm veins?

“You think me mad.”

“My veins? When you could comment on my devilish smile or my perfect hair, or…”

“You’ll recall that when you asked me to compliment you, I referenced your laugh lines and the curl of your hair around your ears.”

He’s never forgotten it. Countless compliments over the centuries; sweet words lauding his eyes, smile and face, and he cannot remember any of them, save for the void in his soul they filled for a fraction of a moment. Petra’s compliments; her poetic, irritating comments? Tattooed on his dead heart forevermore.

“Ah, so you’re terrible at compliments, then.”

“Or very good at them. You’ll never forget that I really like the veins on your arms.”

She’s got him there and from the wry grin on her face, she knows it.

“Why?”

She continues to run her finger down his arm, her gaze turning soft. “I’m not sure. I just like them and maybe I’ll make it my goal to point out all of the things I love about you in ways that will drive you crazy. Have to get my entertainment somehow.”

“And you call me a menace,” he mock-grumbles.

“What’s your favourite thing about me? You can get your revenge and compliment the silver roots that are visible now because I need to re-dye my hair or something similarly ridiculous.”

His initial instinct is to compliment her hair - it’s Petra’s favorite feature and the bright purple pairs well with the silver scales on her forehead and cheeks. Too easy, though. Maybe her neck? The curve of it, and the softness of her skin and the intoxicating scent of her as he moves in to feed on her…

Too expected. Petra smirks at him, raising an eyebrow.

“When you’ve cast Light in the room and your shirt is off or cut low,” he runs a finger down her chest towards her breasts and the silver scales atop them, “your scales glisten when they catch the light. It’s striking.”

“You realize you just admitted to staring at my tits, right?”

“Are you offended?” he asks dryly. “They’re quite the set.”

“So long as you never say ‘they’re quite the set’ again,” she says, giving him ammunition with which to irritate her for the rest of her days.

He reaches out, cupping her left breast, running his thumb over her pierced nipple. “These are nice too.”

“I got them when I was 20 in the back room of a seedy tavern that’s since been torn down on a dare from the girl I was fucking at the time. She bought my drinks for the night and I’m… pretty sure the guy with the needle had done it before. They turned out nice, though, right?”

Gods, Petra has had a wild life. He loves that for her; loves that she has such a positive view of her sexuality and expressing it. She has no trauma associated with sex or sex work - she was a stripper for awhile because it was a way to titillate and entertain and it’s a career she looks back fondly upon.

“Perfect. Were your others done in more legitimate establishments?” he asks, making Petra laugh.

“Obviously! Nobody is sticking a needle anywhere near my clit unless they’ve got a damned piece of parchment telling me they know how to do it.”

“I can scribble out that note in a few seconds. Notarize it too,” he teases.

“I make an exception for fangs, darling. Besides,” she leans in and gives him a kiss, and his head spins at the realization that this is now his normal, “I know you won’t bite unless I ask for it.”

“Can I take you out somewhere tonight? To one of those obnoxious lounges in the upper city that I avoided until now? I have a vague recollection of doormen outside so I can ask for entry without being overly suspicious.”

It occurs to him that when he isn’t leaning on his pick-up lines and hollow flattery, he’s terrible at asking someone out.

“I’d like that. We can dress up and I’ll eat beforehand so we can go for drinks without figuring out how to hide that you aren’t eating.”

“Sometimes, in our early days after returning to the city, I imagined being greeted as heroes. Of parties in the upper city, lace and gowns. Journalists shouting questions as I walked down the carpeted path towards the entrance of some magnificent palace. I like that sort of thing.”

He pauses; initial instinct tells him to crack a joke about how such parties are pretty but hollow. To deflect memories of his own torment, but he asked for her emotional honesty yesterday so providing his in turn seems fair. “I rarely attended Cazador’s soirées. The rancher who leads the cattle can’t be seen in a suit amongst gold.”

“Have you ever considered that there might be more to it than that?”

He hadn’t; he hesitates again but decides to ask her what she’s thinking. Petra takes his hand in hers. “You were a magistrate and that’s not exactly a career that someone like me could have gotten into, unless I had a herd of horseshoes up my ass. It’s the career path of the nobility. I think you were a big damned deal and Cazador didn’t want to risk someone recognizing you. There are many other pragmatic reasons why you kept to the Lower and Outer cities but I think that’s a big one.”

While he cannot remember much from his life, that he was nobility has long been a given for him.

“Why would he risk taking a member of the noble class as a spawn?”

“I’m a trophy,” he says bluntly.

“You are not,” Petra says softly and he bristles because he was and pretty coverings don’t fix the gore underneath.

“I was rich and beautiful and cried so prettily and there’s no use rewriting what I was,” he snaps. “I was his slave, I was his whore and I was his trophy.”

Petra does not so much as flinch away. “Fine. But you aren’t any longer.”

Something pretty on a shelf when he couldn’t even indulge his own petty vanity. The thought of parading about with nobility suddenly feels like too much tonight but maybe he can force himself through; wear a smile and carry on…

“What if I took you somewhere I went to as a young woman? It’s a cafe and bookstore near my childhood home and they’re open late. The owner is an old friend of mine,” Petra suggests and he’d accuse her of detecting his thoughts, but he felt no hum of her magic.

She just knows him that well, and it’s a thought that warms him, pulling him free from the tempest of anxiety that threatened to consume him. It’s a safer idea; less fraught. “I’m not sure I’ve seen you read anything but bodice rippers.”

“He says, as if it’s not a time-honoured genre that he also reads.”

“I read them ironically,” he retorts.

“So do I.”

Petra is a good liar, but she’s not that good, so he chuckles in response. “Sure, darling. Is there a section dedicated to your favourite… well, literature isn’t quite the right word…”

“Carson fucking loves them. He used to babysit us back when I was a little shit as opposed to a full-grown shit capable of drinking until I puke and fucking clowns.”

He’d nearly forgotten that she dated a clown during her circus days. What a shame to have that reminder of her poor taste.

“Don’t worry; he also carries smart books for intellectual vampires who pretend they’re too good for smutty literature.”

She’s absolutely making fun of him, there.

“Also, ask him for stories about my childhood and he’ll have some good ones.”

That, obviously, is going to be a top priority this evening.

***

The cafe and bookstore is in a single room in the basement of a building near where Petra grew up. The tops of the bookshelves against the wall are dusty, but the counter Carson stands behind is pristine and behind him is equipment to make all varieties of coffee.

Gondian-made, from the looks of it. Petra had secured him an invitation inside and he extends his hand, offering it to the human. Carson is tall, with broad shoulders, curly brown hair and large hands, and his brown eyes radiate warmth.

“My…” Petra hesitates; they haven’t established what they are to one another yet, “love, Astarion. He’ll be eager to hear stories of my mischief.”

Petra orders a coffee and they sit at a small wooden table that rocks whenever they put weight on it. Carson flips the sign hanging on the door and sits down to join them. “You’ll be up all night now,” Carson says, his tone friendly, and Petra smiles at him.

“This is early afternoon for me - we’re nocturnal nowadays.”

Carson glances over at him and for a moment there’s judgement in his eyes, but it fades away and he takes a sip from the glass of water he’d poured for himself. “I suppose there is practicality to such an arrangement when your lover is a vampire.”

Petra glances over at him, allowing him to lead the conversation. “Spawn. My master is dead and I’m free to do as I wish. I’m not going to nibble on you.”

“I’d assumed Petra would bring you people she likes less than I to snack on,” Carson jokes and he chuckles and nods.

“He feeds on animals,” Petra says.

It turns out Carson babysat her, and Petra’s siblings, Peter and Astrid, but had “grown out of the babysitting business by the time Jan came along”, and that Petra’s own mother babysat him as a boy.

“Imagine watching a menagerie of kids, only to wind up with a little flurry above your head ‘cause they’re sorcerers and don’t know their own power. A trait she’s grown out of I assume?” Carson says to him, making him chuckle.

“I’ll advise when she does,” he says dryly.

“Oh no; the undead man got a little frost in his hair while I was throwing ice knives at the cultists trying to kill you!” Petra retorts, smiling.

“Do you know how difficult it is to do my hair without a reflection?”

“Obviously; I was doing my hair next to you every morning.”

This is true, and frequently drove the less vain companions mad, as they fiddled with their hair until it was perfect. “It will be covered in blood within the hour!” Shadowheart once cried, exasperated at the two of them.

Carson shares a story about Petra climbing onto the roof of the house and becoming too scared to get herself down, forcing him to climb out a window to rescue her before her parents arrived home. “I’d have lost the gig for sure if Keanen caught us on the roof.”

That must be the name of Petra’s father, he realizes.

“Not Mother?” Petra asks and Carson shakes his head.

“Francis was a softie.”

“Funny; she was the primary disciplinarian in the house. Father could rarely be bothered to tend to our wounds or teach us how to be proper adults - and then when I failed to be a proper dragon, I was told I’m not enough. That I’m a disappointment.”

He should have realized that speaking of Petra’s childhood would bring this pain out. Under the table he grasps for her hand and takes it.

“Sorry. The bitterness came to a head not long ago and I decided it best to take a step back from my family - save my little brother. I don’t mean to dump all this at your feet,” Petra says, stirring her coffee with her free hand and looking down at it.

“Gods, I miss your mother. I always had a stack of books ready for her. Only happy ones, you understand; she had no time for sad or bittersweet endings.”

Petra told him this once, and he wonders what Francis Petra would have made of him. Of the tragedy of his life - his ending is far from over and life is actually enjoyable nowadays, but so much of his existence before now has been pain.

“Speaking of - got any good bodice rippers? My sweetheart loves them,” Petra says, grinning at him.

“Ironically, unlike my beloved,” he says, but Carson has already rushed away, returning with a small stack of leather-bound books.

“After you disappeared I kept a list of the ones I thought you’d find most fun. I’m glad you made it home,” Carson says, far too serious when they’re speaking about smutty books, but it warms him. Petra was missed. Genuinely.

He sure wasn’t - not for anything save what his body could provide to Cazador. His disappearance was an inconvenience, not a sadness. Once, he’d have resented this exchange, but now? He’s happy Petra has someone kind enough to have missed her.

They’ll be spending the next tenday reading each other terrible, smutty books and he can’t wait. Petra, with some encouragement, would adopt different voices for the characters, turning a reading into something resembling a play back when they were all travelling together.

Carson hugs her before they leave and offers his hand, surprising him; he hadn’t expected a man who knows he’s a vampire to offer such courtesy, but he shakes his hand.

“He’s always been a nice friend. Not the sort to go to the bars I performed at, but always good for a coffee and a nice chat about whatever drivel we were reading,” Petra says while they walk past ruins of buildings, down scorched cobblestone and downed trees that have yet to be cleaned up. His own neighbourhood isn’t too bad, but this part of the lower city was hit hard by the invasion.

They’ve been living together for a long time now and he realizes this is the first friend of hers outside their core group that he’s met. When he asks her about it, she says, “I was friends with some of my fellow performers, but after travelling with all of you, it felt… superficial. Like, we were friends because we worked in the same bar, y’know? And then we did all we did, and I lost Karlach and I just… wasn’t the same. They didn’t have much use for me when I was too sad to sing or cast spells.”

She says it so matter of factly, as if that’s not a cruel and infuriating thing. Noticing his fury, she grasps his arm and says, “I’m not mad. It’s fair - we didn’t have the sort of intimacy that led them to want to bathe me and fix up my hair after a year of hiding. Few would do what you did.”

What he thinks she really means is that few would deem her worthy of such care. Not even her own father. He stops, takes her hand and pulls her to him, capturing her lips in a kiss.

“You deserve to be loved. You should - no, you are treasured.”

She smiles and drapes her arms over his shoulders, resting her forehead against his. “Gods, you’re sweet. It’s like my little secret; my sarcastic, combative, bratty love goes to mush when he’s besotted. I love it.”

“Don’t you dare tell anyone,” he says, kissing her again and squeezing her rear. When they finally break free of one another; if only because Petra does need to breathe at least occasionally, she smiles and points across the street, where an elderly tiefling couple stand, watching them.

“I think they recognize me,” Petra says, giving them a wave. He notices they’re staring, transfixed and he offers a wave too; unsure of what else to do.

It’s been awhile since someone caught him making out with a lover on the streets like a drunken young adult, after all.

“That’ll be in the newspaper tomorrow,” Petra whispers and he shrugs, before laughing to himself.

Didn’t he once tell Petra how her public displays of affection with Karlach irritated him? It seems he is a hypocrite in an entirely new way now.

Chapter Text

Astarion is cool next to her in bed and she’s happy - blissfully so, but these last days, she’s thought about how she hid away for a year, overwhelmed by grief and sorrow. With Astarion she’d have begun to heal so much faster; she wouldn’t have languished like a petrified statue of a person suspended in animation.

Father failed her, but he always was going to fail. He sent Jan off to school a month before Mother died because he couldn’t bear his youngest son’s grief atop his own. Nevermind that Father never took an active role in raising Jan - Mother did and she helped care for her little brother when he was a boy.

A day after Karlach’s death and the final battle, Astarion walked her home and left abruptly - staying just long enough to make sure Father was there with her. Her year wasn’t his fault, but all she can think about is how much easier it would have been if he’d come for her sooner; something he’s acknowledged, himself.

She sniffles, angry with herself because Karlach wouldn’t have wanted her to shut herself away, angry with Karlach for dying, furious with Zariel for doing all she did, and angry at Astarion for walking away.

Astarion’s cool arm drapes over her stomach and he shuffles over to her, snuggling into her side, humming. She stiffens and he opens his eyes and looks up at her. “Don’t feel like cuddling?”

His curly hair is standing on end and he looks adorable. Seeing him so unkempt is a small joy every morning because it feels like he’s sharing something private with her. She wants to ignore her feelings; to just enjoy a quiet afternoon in bed before getting up to get on with their night, but maybe it’s something she needs to ask.

“Why did you leave so quickly after dropping me off at my father’s house?” Despite her attempt to sound casual, her voice breaks and her bottom lip quivers.

“I was ashamed… like I’d lost everything, just as you claimed your victory. I didn’t want you to see me like that. But you’d lost everything too.”

Astarion held it together the night Karlach died, remaining strong for her even as his own grief over the sharp shift back to the limitations he’d had before hit him. She grasps his hand in hers, ashamed of her own frustration, however fleeting. “You could have mourned your loss with me that night. I’d have understood and consoled you as you consoled me.”

“Time lent me perspective. Had I known just how worthless your father is, I’d have come sooner.”

Astarion likes to go out with her at night - even on nights she doesn’t perform, they’ll often wander the streets of the Lower City in search of a crime in progress. Astarion has stopped robberies, assaults and even saved a woman who was being beaten by her husband.

His methods are uniformly fatal, of course and he does get a good meal out of it, and he’s saving people who don’t necessarily have others to save them. Sometimes people linger long enough to thank him, their views on vampires forever altered by having one act as their saviour, but often they flee, certain they’ll be Astarion’s next victim. This doesn’t offend Astarion; on the contrary, she thinks he’s amused by it more than anything.

Astarion would deny it still, but he’s become the hero sort he so thoroughly mocked and despised during their travels.

As much as he enjoys going out with her and sharing a home together, she knows he’s going to grow restless and long for a life on the road. They’ve begun talking about where they’ll go and what they’ll do together, but it is likely to be awhile yet before they leave. She’d like to travel and visit Jan first, or arrange to have him return home to Baldur’s Gate if he’d rather that than remain at the academy.

“The darkness is just as much a part of me as the fangs. I wouldn’t say no to returning to the light, but I won’t dwell on it. There’s plenty I can do and see from the shadows.”

More than once they’ve talked about finding something that will allow him to walk in the sun, but this is the first that Astarion has told her how he’s embraced and accepted the life he has now. She finds herself wondering if she might want that for him more than he wants it for himself. “When you’re fighting from the dark, it’s a lot easier to send terror shivering through your target.”

Astarion grins, cat-like at this. “Exactly, my dear. There’s something so satisfying about your target being devoid of anything resembling dignity before you kill them. Just weeping in a puddle of their own waste, pleading for a mercy they do not deserve.”

There are few Astarion feels deserve any sort of mercy; for a man who so often breaks the law himself, he takes a rather ruthless view on the subject of law and order, preferring the harshest of punishments, claiming that they deter scofflaws. It’s a subject she doesn’t bother to broach with him, knowing that they’ll never see eye-to-eye on it, though it does make her wonder what he was like as a magistrate.

Deep down, she thinks she knows the truth: he’d have been a rigid one; levying the harshest punishments possible without hesitation or sorrow, refusing to take the convicted’s circumstances into account. It’s not something she likes to think about, but that man hasn’t existed in over two centuries, so it’s a waste of thought, really. The man she loves will never be a good man in the traditional sense, but he cares so deeply in his own way, and does help people - while satisfying his own bloodthirst.

“You don’t scare me,” she purrs, running a hand down his cold chest. “I’ve heard how you giggle when I’ve brushed my finger down the side of your waist just right. I see you every morning, with your hair so beautifully messy. Sometimes when you’re relaxed, you forget to tuck your fangs beneath your lips and gods, it’s cute.”

Not something he did before she moved in, but it wasn’t as if they were able to relax that much during their travels.

“Cute?” Astarion says, affecting a pout. “I’m hardly cute.”

“Muffin, you are the cutest fucking person. Also very scary - to people who aren’t me. But to me, you’re adorable.”

“Who taught you how to compliment people?” Astarion complains, though as he does, he’s trying, but failing to hide that he’s beaming; his eyes bright with joy.

***

Sex was just a simple next step in every other relationship Petra has been in. Nothing she’s put much thought into, save for making sure they had condoms if her lover had a penis, and, ideally, a place to fuck that wasn’t her childhood home. It was a bit awkward bringing one night stands to her childhood bedroom - much easier to rent a room for the night.

She’s had excellent sex, mediocre sex and vaguely regrettable sex, but never non-consensual sex. She’s never left an intimate encounter feeling violated in the way her love endured for two centuries.

If he’d decided he never wanted that sort of intimacy again, she’d respect and honour that, but he does, and it occurs to her that she’ll be the first person he’s genuinely wanted to be intimate with since he was turned. She’s already the first lover who has woken up beside him in his memory.

In short, she’s put a fair bit of thought into sex lately. A fair bit of effort into masturbation too.

Every morning, the sun rises and they fall into bed, sleeping naked together entwined in one another’s arms. Every day their late afternoon begins with him warm and content in their bed and sometimes the temptation is there to just remain for a few hours. Not for a roll in the hay, but to talk and laugh, and read to one another.

Sometimes they fall into that temptation and it’s night before they leave bed to begin their day.

She’s no stranger to meaningful or emotional sex - her first time with Karlach was a passionate, extended affair, because her girlfriend hadn’t felt the touch of another in a decade. It was rare that circumstances allowed for it, but she has fond memories of locking away with her in the House of Hope after Raphael’s demise, spending hours enjoying each other’s bodies.

Astarion is almost always up before she wakes up and this afternoon she finds him reading a book when her eyes flutter open, her dreams free of horrors as she slept. The nightmares have become less common in the last few months and she can only attribute it to her lover resting nestled against her.

“Good book?” she croaks, and rolls over to grab the glass of water sitting on the table on her side of the bed. Beside Astarion is a silver goblet - he’s been up long enough to get himself breakfast, it seems.

“Not particularly. It’s an Underdark travel guide but the advice is deplorable. ‘There are many mushrooms that act as a source of delicious sustenance!’”, he says, his tone mocking, “but it does not explain which ones, or warn that for every ‘delicious’ mushroom, there are six that will turn your insides to liquid. I can’t tell if the author has never been to the Underdark, or is writing a guide for idiots; watching the news gleefully for tales of lost adventurers carrying his cursed book.”

The Underdark. The spawn loom over him but he hasn’t yet made the firm suggestion that they leave for the Underdark, though it seems as if it’s only a matter of time.

Astarion closes the book and tosses it onto the floor. “What a waste of parchment,” he mutters and then turns to her, reaching out to push a strand of hair out of her face. His gaze softens into something fond and she reaches out and cups his cool cheek.

“I love you,” she murmurs.

“I love you. I love this. And I want it all.”

She looks at him, waiting for him to elaborate; to be sure of what he’s asking for. “Passion, if you’re amenable,” he says.

“I am,” she whispers and his kiss is gentle. He crawls on top of her, opening her legs with his own. Each press of his cool lips down her neck makes her shiver with anticipation.

While imagining their first time together she frequently imagined sucking his cock, and looking him in the eye as he finishes in her mouth. “Can I suck your cock?” she purrs, moaning as he pulls at one of her nipple rings.

“Why?” he asks her, as if confused.

“Because it would be really fucking hot,” she says before she can come up with something beautiful or touching, or explain that she just wants to take care of him before he takes care of her.

Astarion chuckles and maybe he understands that there’s more to her request - or maybe desire has stolen the sweet words off his tongue too. “Far be it for me to deny you something hot. Have you imagined it? Wondered what I look like enraptured under your careful attention?”

“Definitely not,” she lies, flipping them and kissing down his body, towards his hard cock.

“You’re a terrible liar when you want to fuck me,” Astarion murmurs as she takes him into her mouth and she looks up at him, watching his half-closed eyes; his mouth opening and his back arching as she brings him closer and closer to his end. When he climaxes, it’s with a soft moan for her ears alone, her name whispered while she works him through it. Afterwards, he grabs her arms, pulls her up and tightly against him, and kisses her; a passionate, near-bruising kiss.

“Can I have a minute before I make you scream against my tongue?” He clings to her and his words aren’t charged, but vulnerable; almost as if he’s ashamed of asking.

“You can have as long as you’d like,” she reassures him, and it hits her: this sort of intimacy wasn’t a part of his life during his two centuries of slavery. How reassuring it must feel for him to have this; for things to feel different from the sex he’d been forced to have for so much of his life.

When he breaks their embrace she looks at him; at his eyes in particular, and his gaze is soft. Warm. “You’ve got such pretty eyes,” she says softly and he gives her a toothy grin.

“My love, is that a proper compliment from you? Not the curl of my hair or my arm veins, but my eyes? I must make note of the day because a miracle has occurred.”

“Smartass.”

“Do you ever wonder what colour they were?” he asks her as he kisses down her body. She runs her fingers through his hair, grinning to herself as she further messes up his rest-tousled hair.

“Maybe a little?” He kisses her inner thighs, brushing his fangs over her skin gently. “It doesn’t really matter beyond mere curiosity because my love’s eyes are red and they are beautiful.”

“Gods, you’re being so sweet to me while my mouth is inches away from your cunt. It’s almost as if you want something.”

“I’m sorry; shall I be a smartass while you lick my cunt?” she retorts, making Astarion snort. He rests the side of her head against her thigh and looks up at her.

“That would be something we’d do, wouldn’t it?”

“Does it bother you?”

When he answers, it’s completely serious. “No. Not in the least. Though, you’ll have forgotten how to form words once I’m through with you.”

“Big talk, muffin.”

“Why do you call me that?”

“Because it’s the most obnoxious pet name I could think of and I grow strong on your irritation.”

He nips her thigh. “Time to shut you up, darling.”

Before she can retort that his own large list of pet names for her can be equally as obnoxious as “muffin”, his tongue is on her and the gorgeous fucker steals every word from her lips. Her hand on his head curls, gripping his hair and holding him in place when she comes, crying his name out to the heavens as he’d promised of her. She falls back onto the soft pillows at the head of the bed and Astarion lies on his side beside her, running his fingers up and down her abdomen, his touch whisper-gentle.

“How do you want me?” she asks and he sits up and moves so he’s on top of her, and she offers her his neck.

“My sweet, generous darling,” he says fondly, thrusting inside her. He nuzzles against her neck and bites; the sting quickly replaced by a cool numbness as he feeds on her. His hand brushes between them as he makes his way between her legs, drawing another climax from her before finishing with a grunt against her neck. He licks the wound until satisfied it’s closed and collapses with his head on her chest.

“I love you, Pet,” he says softly; words she whispers back to him with an emotion she tries to hide.

Joy and grief intermingled together, so twisted that she can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.

“I didn’t know it could be like that,” Astarion says, himself emotional too.

“You see, when you bed a woman who is a lousy fuck…” she jokes.

“Hush. You were perfect.”

“No notes?”

He glances up at her. “Must you say that as if I’m your teacher and expected to grade you?”

“Are you into it?”

“Are you?” Astarion asks, maintaining an uncharacteristically good poker face.

The joke; her stupid joke was an attempt to drive away the twisted emotions inside of her; to just be fun and silly and try to forget that sex can bring complicated emotions - especially for a widowed woman and a man who went through all Astarion did. She closes her eyes tightly in an attempt to force away the sting of her tears, but all that does is let them loose down her face.

“I’m… I’m… really glad we did this,” she forces out. “And now I’ve gone ahead and done that thing where I’m crying all over you after we’ve fucked, which I’m sure is a turn-off. Because, like, I’m happy. And I don’t want to be thinking of what I lost when I’m with you because I love you and I’m so fucking happy.”

More tears. More fucking tears. Grandfather would say that her behaviour is typical; that she constantly screws things up so why not fuck up sex with her boyfriend too?

“Petra?” Astarion’s voice is gentle and he taps her arm, and she opens her eyes to see his own damp with tears too. “I’d considered making a wager with you beforehand - whoever cries first buys drinks the next time we’re out, but I was so sure it’d be me.” He laughs and wipes his own eyes. “Shame I didn’t because I could get sauced on your gold.”

Astarion speaks as if he ever gets sauced. From what she can tell, before they met, he was good at pretending he was more intoxicated than he was in order to lure his marks, but rarely drank heavily because too much alcohol makes him sick. If he does drink - and he doesn’t always when he’s out at her shows, it’s usually a single glass of wine, and he constantly complains that it tastes of vinegar anyway.

Also, they’ve almost completely co-mingled their finances, which makes such a wager moot, beyond the joyful thrill of giving the other an immense amount of shit for their own entertainment. Which, truthfully, is probably the important part.

“We’re both a little bent out of shape, aren’t we?” he says and she nods, wiping her own eyes, and he pulls her close, kissing her forehead as he does.

“Want to talk about your feelings or should we do the emotionally immature thing and crack stupid jokes until we’re giggling like school kids and pretending we aren’t a mess?”

“It’s just… that’s what I could have been having. That’s what was taken from me. One more thing stolen from me by Cazador - who, by the way, is the last person I want to be thinking of while in bed with you. Just to make that very clear.”

“Obviously, darling,” she says. “So, it’s a bit of an ‘angry at what you lost but happy at what you’ve gotten back’ situation?”

“Yeah. And for you it’s grief with a lovely little topper of joy and excitement?”

“You know me well. You’d think we were lovers or something.”

“Us? No way. Definitely not. And we certainly haven’t been living in sin without the fun carnal bliss for two years without realizing that we’re lovers. We’d never do that,” Astarion says sarcastically.

Gods, were they stupid. Her stomach growls and Astarion pulls away from her. “Breakfast? I can bring you something.”

She nods, pleased by the offer, though is just the slightest bit disappointed when Astarion arrives with toast, a bowl of fruit and bacon instead of a horrifying menagerie of whatever looked appealing to him. “I’m grateful you’ve learned to mimic my plates of food, but I miss getting hot sauce, melon, cheese and sweet rolls. That was very cute, you know.”

“Keep talking and tomorrow I’ll bring you the most horrifying plate I can come up with. I’ll write Gale for suggestions.”

“As if he’d be so disrespectful to food,” she laughs. “Do it. I’m very curious just how unhinged my breakfast can get.”

She realizes that she absolutely did this to herself when, the next day, Astarion, with a shit-eating grin on his face, brings her an unfried tortilla covered in chocolate sauce, diced red pepper, and smoked fish.

“Defeat, my darling?” he coos, and, too stubborn for her own good, she takes a bite, and then another, and finishes the whole damned thing as he watches with glee.

They’re going to have a lot of fun together in this life they’ve built.

Chapter Text

Months ago, Astarion told her that her father and grandfather are abusive and it’s rarely been something she’s allowed herself to truly think about, simply because the thought of it makes her too sad. The revelation explains some of Mother’s behaviour - how she took the role of the primary disciplinarian and never fought Father’s distance. Her constant affection, even when her children were frustrating her. Mother encouraged her to follow her dreams, even as Father told her that her skills and ambitions were inappropriate for someone with her blood, but Mother, as an artist herself, was so proud that one of her children wanted to bring light and music into the world.

She was taught to hate herself and Mother’s love wasn’t enough to counter that. Now, with Mother and Karlach gone, it’s Astarion who has taken the reins and shown her the love and acceptance she needs.

Astarion told her that her abuse may not have been the same as what he survived, but that it remains abuse, but there’s still a sense of shame when she considers discussing her feelings on the subject with him. Almost as if she’s complaining about a parchment cut to a man with a freshly amputated leg.

That Astarion wouldn’t see it that way isn’t enough to persuade her away from that line of thinking, so she sits with it alone, forcing it to the back of her mind. She doesn’t speak to Father or Peter so why can’t she just bury it down forever? That’s the easy thing to do.

Their life together is a quiet one - Astarion goes with her to her shows, generally hanging back and watching proudly from his spot against one of the walls. They go to bed together as the sun rises and hold one another for awhile before she drifts off and Astarion slips into his meditation. She goes to the market once a week after waking up in the afternoon to buy herself groceries and then she picks up bottles of blood for Astarion from the butcher.

Astarion doesn’t work - he doesn’t need to because he has more than enough coin stashed away from their adventuring and Cazador’s mansion to live two of her lifetimes. The leisure won’t last; he’s not the sort to want to rest for years at home, and eventually they’ll return to the road on a fresh adventure, but for now she’s glad he’s getting time to rest and discover the sort of life he wants.

He was never going to leave the topic of her own abuse alone forever, and it finally comes up six months after their tearful conversation that wound up ending in kisses and naked cuddling. They’re in their bed; sheets dishevelled following their lovemaking and he’s spooning her and nuzzling her neck. “Tell me to shut up if you’d like, but have you put any further thought into your father and grandfather?”

Initially her instinct is to be glib - to say she’s thought plenty about family and ask if he’d like her thoughts on their sense of style and how they do their hair. But, one of them needs to push for emotionally healthy behaviour and it’s a role they take turns inhabiting. “Why now?”

“Because you’re loose and relaxed after the thorough fucking you received, you don’t need to look me in the eye, and you’ll eventually feel better for addressing it,” Astarion says, his words sounding rehearsed; not like a shield, but like an arrow sitting in a quiver, meant to shoot down her own defences as she speaks them.

“You realize it’s annoying when you’re the mature one, right?”

“Funny; I have said the same of you, darling.” Another arrow to shoot down her parchment-thin shield. He nuzzles into the back of her neck with fresh vigour. “You don’t work tonight so you can feel however you need to feel. We can go out after sunset - or not.”

Her bottom lip trembles, and how stupid she feels for this. Father never beat her; he was distant. He disapproved. She was never tortured. Never starved. Just… never enough.

“It wasn’t that bad.”

Astarion isn’t quite able to suppress his exasperated sigh, but it’s a stronger effort than he’d have once made. “Look at me.”

“But you brought this up specifically…”

“Look at me,” he says more firmly. “If I’m going to… say this, I want you to look at me.” He clears his throat; bashful, and she rolls over and looks at him.

“You’re… the first person I’ve ever cared for.” Astarion’s eyes dart away from her own face for a moment and he grimaces. “You’re brave. Funny. Obscenely good at figuring out what everyone around you wants, but terrible at knowing and embracing your own needs. You sing beautifully; with the sort of skill unmatched by the others we’ve watched at the Elfsong, and you know how to draw attention to yourself - whether on-stage or not. You have the worst taste in books; darling it’s appalling, but adorable - though I will never, ever say so aloud to anyone else. Ugh, this is… awful.”

“It’s actually very sweet. Finish making your point,” she says, leaning in to kiss him; and he clears his throat again.

“Anyone would be lucky to have you in their life. As you are - not as you were taught to be. I love you. Not the fiction your family designed. You went with me to sort out Cazador - I never even had to ask; you’d known me a tenday and told me you would foolishly attempt to murder a full-fledged vampire on my behalf, which was sweet and very stupid of you, by the way.”

“You made that very clear at the time,” she deadpans. “Gods, you were cranky.” Astarion ignores her, save for a wry smirk acknowledging this.

“You helped me sort out my family; let me help you sort out yours. I’ll come with you to speak to your father and brother.”

“What else do you love about me?” she asks quietly and Astarion startles; evidently he hasn’t prepared another arrow in response to this inquiry.

“That, no matter how rushed things are, you stop to talk to every stray cat you encounter. You’re compassionate and somehow saw things in me that did not exist until you brought them to life.”

That last bit isn’t quite true - she encouraged the best of him and gave him a push when he needed it, but his recovery and growth came from him. The same sort of push he’s giving her now, she realizes.

“I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. The way Karlach saw you.”

Cutting ties with Father and Peter means losing two people who knew and love Mother. Never again would she hear stories from Father when he’s feeling nostalgic, or anecdotes from Peter about times he went out with Mother without her, which was always a favourite for her and her brother; as twins it was tough to get individual attention growing up.

But, it also means taking that first step towards learning to love herself for who she is, rather than hating herself for who she isn’t. She doesn’t think she can get there with Father, Peter and Grandfather whispering bile in her ears.

There it is: the realization. The sort of happiness and joy she wants in her life will only be possible if she walks away from most of her family and fully embraces the family she’s made as her true family. Her breath catches and she curses.

“I’ll be whatever you need me to be. I’ll be quiet,” she can’t help but scoff at that, but Astarion grins in response. “No, I will. You didn’t say a word when I was confronting Cazador and… I like that you let me have that moment. I wouldn’t take that from you unless you asked it of me, but I am perfectly willing and able to tell your father and brother to take a long trip of their own through the Hells. Or gratuitous violence, but I assume that’s not the plan.”

“You’d be thrilled if violence were the plan.”

“Obviously? They’ve made you cry - and worse, they taught you to hate yourself.”

“I will rent out the upper floor of the Elfsong and ask if Peter and Father will meet us there. A neutral space that we know you’ll be welcomed into will make things easier for all of us. I’ll handle it - but I also trust you to know if and when to intervene. Y’know, if I’m being browbeaten too much by Peter.”

“Can I stab him?” Astarion asks without hesitation.

“No.”

“Punch him?”

“If he hits you or I first.”

“Darling, if he hits you, I’m killing him,” Astarion says, giving her a pointed look. Hitting her is extremely unlikely so this is probably a moot discussion, and she should have known that Astarion wouldn’t be willing to stand back quietly while someone hit her.

“I’ll make the booking and send letters off,” she says, sighing as the weight of it looms heavy on her. Astarion clasps his hand around her wrist.

“What would you like to do today?”

“Hide away in bed, honestly,” she admits, ashamed, but Astarion merely shrugs.

“Then that is what we will do.”

***

During their time calling the Elfsong home, it became habit to set their bags down in the middle of the room in a circle; a space they unofficially referred to as the campfire. There was no campfire in the room, of course, but something about laying their stuff there made it feel more like a camp and less like sleeping in a dorm room.

The privacy screens gave them less privacy than a tent did, but the beds were lovely after months in a bedroll. Overall her memories here are bittersweet. Yes, she and Karlach got to share an actual bed, but Karlach was at the end of a life cut short by two cruel overlords who thought her life was worth less than their own.

Today, the beds are gone, and so are the backpacks; replaced by a long wooden dining table. Alan had mentioned that someone had rented out the room for a wedding the other day and that he had not bothered to have someone alter the configuration, and she didn’t ask it of him, because it hardly matters. “You and your, uh… guy, getting hitched?” Alan asks, standing next to her in the room. Astarion is pacing around, searching for traps and she learned long ago not to try to tell him any space they inhabit is safe, because he’ll check regardless and will simply grow irritated with what he calls “pointless meddling”.

“I’m cutting ties with my father and brother and decided to do so in a neutral space,” she says bluntly.

“Oh,” Alan says awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Shall I send up a bottle of whiskey?”

“Maybe for the two of us afterwards. Best I remain sober for now.” Remaining calm and casual is an effort; it won’t do if she’s crying before her family even arrives. But afterwards she’ll make an exception and drink hard liquor instead of the wine she normally favours. “How much do I owe you?”

“Already paid for,” Alan says, gesturing to Astarion, who is tinkering with the grandfather clock. “It’s not filled with explosives,” Alan says, loudly enough for Astarion to hear. “Paranoid sort, isn’t he? So long as he’s not eatin’ my customers or whatever he was doing with the drunks he walked out with, I have no complaints.”

“He’s been through a lot,” she says quietly, though these words alone feel like underselling his experiences.

“It’s a bloody antique,” Alan mutters as he wanders down the stairs.

Astarion, content that the room is safe, returns to her side and rests a hand on the small of her back, and walks with her while she paces, trying to burn away the anxiety that’s taken root deep within her.

Father and Peter walk in together; Peter is wearing a blue tunic and brown tights; his silver hair hangs loose but tucked behind his ears. Father is wearing silver robes and carrying his staff; it’s made of oak and without embellishment - a match to the one she carried before her adventure started.

Now, hanging on her own back is her staff; the one Astarion liberated from Cazador and gifted to her, convincing her to accept it by telling her that if she had it, he’d know it would never be used against him again. Astarion’s daggers are sheathed on his back and at the bag on his hip are several vials of poison, health potions (more than they could ever need, given that they no longer work on him) and a Haste scroll.

She’d ask if he’s going to war, but knows he never leaves their house unarmed and to him, this is lightly-armed. She’s not wearing her robes; instead she’s dressed in a blue crop top and black leggings, but Astarion is wearing a lightly padded suit designed to hide that he’s actually in armour. Under the suit he’s wearing a black shirt - tied as loosely as he could get away with; the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. “Eye candy for after,” he’d purred at her while they were getting dressed.

Maybe after Father and Peter leave she’ll take Alan up on that whiskey, sit on Astarion’s lap and drink until it doesn’t hurt any longer.

“I was under the impression you’d be alone,” Peter says, staring at Astarion much as Grandfather looked at him; as if he were a slug. “Or are you in need of rescue from the monster who holds you captive?”

Beside her, Astarion stiffens and she takes his hand. “Before I say what I have to say, I suppose I should introduce you both to my boyfriend, Astarion,” she says, as sweetly as she can muster.

Neither extend their hand, but Astarion does not as well; his own glare harsh enough to melt metal.

“Right; suppose that was inevitable,” she mutters to herself. “I’ve had a lot of time to think these last few months, and I’m not what you want me to be. I never will be, and I’ve spent a long time hating the person I am, because I’m not enough to fit this romanticized ideal of what the granddaughter of a dragon should be. I’ve felt lonely in my former home; I spent a year mourning my love alone because you could not be bothered to force me out of my room and back into the world, Father. Peter, you spoke unkind things from the other side of my bedroom door; as if I could move on from my loss through willpower alone. You treat me as if I’m a child because you do not like the decisions that I make.”

“Gods, Petra, is this really necessary?” Peter says, tone irritated. “Fine, the vampire is your boyfriend,” he gestures sarcastically at Astarion. “As much as a monster can love, anyway, though I suppose it’s more of a physical arrangement.”

Beside her, Astarion grips her hand more tightly and she reaches over and rests her other hand atop his. “You’re allowed to defend yourself if you wish,” she whispers.

“Why would I allow the opinion of such a thoroughly useless man to rankle me?” he says loudly; his tone haughty, with the false confidence he adopts when he’s hurting but wishes to mask it.

“I love him and I love the life we have together, but I’m not here to have you bear witness to wedding vows or anything absurd like that, so we need not speak further about whether or not you approve of my love. Because, honestly,” she takes a deep breath, “this is goodbye and your opinions no longer matter. To love myself as I am, I need to be separate from those who seek to twist me into something I am not; those who tell me that I’m not enough and unworthy of my name. We will not speak, you will not contact me, and you certainly won’t contact Astarion. You will not attend my shows. You will not try to contact me through Jan or Astrid. Any of these actions will be taken as an act of violence and we will respond accordingly.”

Peter’s eyes go wide and his jaw drops. Father is more calm and takes several steps towards her and Astarion. “Let us avoid drastic measures. You’ve had distance and it’s corrupted your mind and your thoughts. Come home and you’ll understand the harm being done to you.”

Once, she might have listened. She might have discounted her feelings because she is worth less than her father and brother, who engage in the performative bullshit befitting their name with more success than she ever could.

“I already have a home, with someone who loves me and accepts me. My head is clear; this decision my own, with the support of my love, who wants me to be free of something that has caused me so much pain through my life. I deserve to be loved for who I am, Father,” her final words come out more pleading than angry.

“Petra, you’re being crazy,” Peter says, barking a laugh.

“Why is dying my hair purple so undignified? What’s wrong with singing or doing magic on stage? I may not have been rich before my life was changed so completely, but work never felt like a burden. It was fun; it’s the sort of thing I do anyway, even though I could spend the rest of my life at leisure without worrying about money for a single moment. Can being a kind person and finding happiness and love not be a suitable goal for one’s life? I’ve found it - twice,” the tears threaten to fall now and she takes a moment to compose herself, “and I’m so fucking lucky to have that love. It’s me they love and loved; not the pretty picture Grandfather composed of his offspring.”

The damned, traitorous tears fall and she wipes at her face roughly. “Now, instead of showing remorse for your behaviour, you tell me I’m wrong, and thus I see how right I am. Please leave.”

“You’ve hardly given us a chance to,” Father says.

“Please leave,” she repeats herself, confidence that was a loose knot threatening to unravel entirely.

“Your mother would be so disappointed,” Father says, his tone sad, but she thinks Mother would be angry if she knew how she’s been treated; how the judgement only grew worse after she died.

Mother protected her and she didn’t realize just how much she did until she was gone.

Astarion gives her hand another squeeze and then marches towards Father and Peter. “She asked you to leave. Go.” He makes a shooing motion with his hands, as if swatting at a particularly bothersome fly.

“We don’t take orders from you,” Peter says, though there’s a waver to his voice and he looks Astarion up and down. Peter is taller and broader than her lithe boyfriend, but has skill in little more than introductory combat magic. His magical skill extends to more practical spells meant to assist him with his work at the tailor shop he runs.

If she had a guess, she’d wager Peter knows that Astarion would win a fight against them both, even if they attacked him simultaneously.

“Petra’s the nice one,” Astarion says bluntly, gesturing towards her with his head. “Me? I’m not nice at all,” he takes a large step forward so he’s in Peter’s space and Peter winces and leans back, “especially to those stupid enough to hurt someone I care about.” His tone is low and ominous, and he punctuates every word with a harsh poke to Peter’s chest. Peter gulps.

Astarion raises his voice; no longer ominous but so sharp he could slice a person to ribbons with it alone and Peter outright yelps and she lets out a sigh of relief; perhaps this means her twin will be smart enough not to try to go toe to toe with a man angry enough to kill anyone who so much as breathes in his direction. “Now, can you find the door on your own, or are the lot of you too stupid to manage that?”

“Petra,” Father says, eyes pleading and damp with emotion she’s never before seen in them - not even when Mother died.

“Darling?” Astarion says, softening as he speaks to her. She should listen to Father’s final plea, she tells herself, but then realizes that it’s not her talking to herself, but the expectations weighing on her as a result of her blood. Moments pass and she realizes she doesn’t want to hear it. She’s done. Maybe she’s been done for a long time and this is nothing more than the cremation of the corpse that was once the love she had for her father and brother.

“I don’t want to hear it,” she says, every word a fight; the strain of it like casting under a veil of Silence, leaving her spent and raw.

Astarion inches forward so that he and Peter are practically nose-to-nose; close enough that she has no doubt Peter can smell the subtle metal on Astarion’s breath, or the gentle hint of bergamot that clings to his cold skin. “She’s set her boundaries. Breach them and it won’t be her you deal with; it will be me, and I promise I won’t feed on you,” Astarion looks at her family with the same derision Peter paid him earlier, “because I respect myself too much to resign myself to such a thoroughly disappointing meal. But I will slice bits of you off and shove them down your cruel throats so you can get a taste of how bland and pathetic you are. Now fuck off,” he hisses, drawing his blades, and Peter and Father pivot, slipping on the wooden floor. They scramble up and sprint towards the stairs.

“Threatening severe bodily harm just the once represents serious growth in your restraint,” she jokes as Astarion sheaths his daggers and wanders back to her. He wraps his arms around her and she clings to him, pressing her face into the fabric of his armour.

“They didn’t respect your boundaries.”

No matter what she said, they wouldn’t have, because they have years of conditioning themselves to see her as nothing more than a petulant child. Her request never would have gone heeded until Astarion enforced it by the tip of his blades. “Thank you, muffin.”

“Will I ruin your cute little pet name if I tell you that I actually love it?”

“You wouldn’t ruin my fun like that,” she teases, half-hearted as she fights the grief, panic and deep sorrow she’s feeling.

“Never, my sweet little treat,” he says, as if that isn’t just as silly as her own pet name for him. He kisses the top of her head. “We have the room until just before sunrise, so we can unwind for a bit.”

Too tired to consider walking down the stairs and out the door, she agrees and sits on Astarion’s lap, now something resembling numb, while he rubs circles into her back.

There’s a knock at the door that pulls her from her stupor and she moves to stand up. “I’ll bet that’s Alan with the whiskey.”

“Whiskey, wine and ale, I have no doubt, but it won’t be Alan,” Astarion says, his tone taking on the mischievous quality that she knows so well by now.

“What have you planned?”

He gestures with his head to the door. “Open it and find out.”

Chapter Text

Confused by what - or who will be behind the door, she wanders over and opens it to find Shadowheart holding up a bottle of red wine. “Hope you have glasses in there!” she says cheerily. Behind her is Gale and Wyll; Gale is holding a large iron pot in both hands, and around the corner comes Jaheira and Minsc.

“Halsin and Lae’zel are ordering appetizers,” Wyll says, pulling her into a hug and her eyes go wide at the realization that Lae’zel is here. She’s actually here.

“It was a bit of work to put together, but I managed to track her down after Astarion sent word that you needed to get the band back together, as it were,” Gale says, setting the pot down a potholder on the table.

In stunned silence she watches Halsin and Lae’zel walk in carrying platters of food. Jaheira leans in, whispering, “you’re enough as you are, cub,” and she thinks of Mother, who’d have said the same thing and all she can do is whimper.

Gale hugs her after setting his pot down on the table, his long hair brushing against her damp cheeks. Minsc lifts her straight off her feet and spins her around, making her burst out into shocked laughter. Halsin is gentler, as if aware of his relative bulk compared to her. “I was told that you needed the team dad,” Halsin says wryly, referencing a conversation they had shortly after he joined them where she announced that, as the token responsible adult of the group, he was the team dad.

To her surprise, Withers arrives, stoically announcing that he is bankrolling the cost of the party, and that he’d been planning on holding an event allowing them all to catch up but that “thou sorrows hadst overwhelmed”.

Lae’zel is last; standing before her, hesitating momentarily. She’s not a hugger; she was never taught tender touches and she can count on a single hand the number of times they’ve embraced, but she steps forward and gives her a tight hug. “You and your actions bring honour to those around you,” Lae’zel says and her stomach churns with guilt as she remembers Orpheus, and the sacrifice she asked him to make because she could not bear to ask it of Karlach or to take it on herself.

She’s never told Lae’zel and she tells herself that it’s a kindness, but in reality it’s because she’s too cowardly to face Lae’zel’s rightful wrath.

“I’m hardly honourable,” she says and Lae’zel speaks a word in tir’su that she’s come to understand is an approximation of the word “bullshit”.

Astarion returns to her side and she looks at him, mystified that he’s managed to pull this together. “I thought having your real family here might help ease the blow,” Astarion says softly.

The crumbled mosaic of her thoughts breaks apart and she weeps and he holds her, trying her best to silence the voice inside her; the one that sounds like Grandfather, Peter and Father that tells her she doesn’t deserve this.

“I may have booked the room for a week and I may have asked Alan if he’d have his staff set up the beds after you discovered the mischief I’ve caused,” Astarion says. “Also, I had a chat with the dog and he’ll be heading here shortly to stay with us this week.”

“You went to so much trouble…”

“Well, Gale had the lot of it,” Astarion says, waving dismissively. “He had to go plane-hopping until he found Lae’zel. Everyone else got a letter from Withers - or a knock on the door.”

“Genuinely, it was quite the delightful experience,” Gale chimes in. “I had the most invigorating chat with a counterpart while I was on the hunt, and Lae’zel’s soldiers were charming in their own way once they lowered their weapons.”

“Thank you,” she says to Gale and then turns to Lae’zel. “How is your mission going? Making headway?”

“Convincing my people of our queen’s deception has been a challenge, even with the slates we found detailing Prince Orpheus’ story, but we carry on,” Lae’zel says, stoic as ever, going on to explain a potential diplomatic alliance she’ll be negotiating soon.

“Orpheus couldn’t have found a better champion than you,” she says - partially in an attempt to assuage her guilt.

This is the first they’ve all been together since Karlach’s death, and her girlfriend’s absence feels especially sharp tonight.

She pours herself a glass of wine and lifts it in a toast as soon as she’s sure she’ll be able to speak without crying. “I’m grateful for your company and your kindness, as well as the work my love put into planning this, Withers for covering the cost - and the effort Gale went to in order to ensure our party was as complete as it could be. One of us is missing and I just… wanted to raise a glass to Karlach, my other love, who cannot be here, but her spirit and memory fills this room and our hearts, and always will.”

“To Karlach,” the room murmurs, lifting their glasses in unison.

Gale pulls her aside, and she notices the dark lines of the orb are gone from his chest, face and neck and smiles, gesturing to his body. “Mystra removed the orb, as agreed upon, after I relinquished the crown to her. My days of adventuring are now over - I’m a professor,” Gale says brightly, speaking with both fondness and exasperation about his students. “I should like to bring you in as a guest speaker - sorcerer you may be, but you understand how to apply your skills to both entertain and protect.”

“I’m not much for illusion magic, though, and that’s your subject of focus,” she admits, though Gale would already know this, on account of all the time they spent together fighting.

“I suppose we could veer away from the topic at hand for the sake of flavour. Your stories are most delightful.”

He hugs her warmly once more, and whispers in her ear, “I’m glad you and Astarion sorted out your affections for one another. You strike me as happier than you were the last I saw you.”

And she is, she realizes. She’ll carry Karlach with her until the day she dies, but she’s allowed to move on, and find a life that’s more than just missing the woman she loves.

She does ask Withers why he cannot bring Karlach back and he says, “she would not come,” and she nods, eyes stinging with tears. “Thou mayest recall your journey in search of your body.”

“Little, actually. Just that Karlach - or someone appearing as her guided me. She told me I could remain - or move on with her, but that she thought I had more to do in this life. She was right.”

“Karlach travelled on my command,” Withers says, after a brief hesitation. “Thou mayest yet be needed. For every thread you sewed, so did the gods unravel another.”

Withers’ true nature was beyond her during their travels; her own knowledge of religion is limited, given that she spent much of her life praying to Grandfather. It was Astarion who figured out who Withers was - Jergal, the original god of death, and seneschal of Kelemvor. Apparently he’d figured it out within days of Withers joining them, but protected Withers’ secret, grateful that there was a single god out there willing to look out for him. “I’m fond of the old sack of bones,” Astarion had said to her earlier tonight, and at one point he did speak with the man, but for much of the night he’s remained at a distance, watching the festivities but lingering at the edges of conversation.

These sorts of events are a lot for him; she knows that now, both because he’s blunt and prone to speaking his mind instead of filtering his thoughts, and because he’s actually an introvert, much as he’s styled himself as a hedonistic party animal.

“I wish I could remember more of it, but thank you for my life, and thank you for the chance to say goodbye to my love one more time.”

In their limited time together, she and Karlach loved enough for centuries, Withers says to her, and instead of crying, she smiles, because she hadn’t realized the old bone man was so capable of sentimentality.

***

“Minsc is confused - who is the love you spoke of? Astarion visited and Boo suggested we attend,” Minsc says, brows furrowed when she makes it around to speak to him. Around them, Alan and a member of his staff work to set up beds so everyone has a place to sleep over the next few days. It’s a strange thing, to be going back to sleeping communally, but she’s feeling almost nostalgic for it, as the night fades away into early morning.

“Astarion? They’ve been together forever now,” Shadowheart says.

“I mean, not forever…” she says.

“Three years? That’s when you moved in with him, yes?” Jaheira says.

“Definitely not three years,” Astarion stammers, having rushed over when he overheard the topic of conversation and she realizes she never actually told anyone that they had gotten together - not even Jaheira and Shadowheart, who she sees regularly. They just all assumed.

Jaheira smirks at Astarion and looks around the room, raising her voice. “What a joyous three years it’s been for our lovers here.”

“The two of you were effectively a married couple when we went on our trip together,” Wyll says - not helping the situation one bit.

“Even if you did not think yourselves tied to the other in bonds of love, we all knew the truth,” Gale adds.

“Weren’t you wanting to troll everyone and lie about our relationship?” she stage-whispers to Astarion.

“Well, I can hardly lie when everyone just assumes we’ve been married for three years, darling.”

“Karlach would be pleased,” Halsin says and she’s grateful for the addition - and that he seems content not to tease them for their obtuseness.

“She’d wanted me to be happy and… I am.”

The sorrow of formally separating herself from much of her family lingers, but seeing the people who treat her as family should - who are family to her, is a balm to the wound.

Before sunrise, they go around the room and draw the curtains, and she crawls into bed beside Astarion, and realizes that she’s finally at peace.

She’s enough.

***

The next night they go dancing and she does her best to teach Gale, who has two left feet, the steps to a popular tavern dance. Minsc suggests attempting to “drink the place dry” and Wyll agrees, seemingly willing to match an absolute wall of a man drink-to-drink, which is unlikely to end well for Wyll, but he has shared stories of vomiting in the bushes before so it’s not as if this is to be a new experience for him…

Jaheira and Halsin are sitting at a table together, watching all of this play out; there’s a mug of coffee in front of Halsin and an ale in front of Jaheira. Lae’zel and Shadowheart are dancing with her, Astarion and Gale - at least until Shadowheart rushes off, returning with a full bottle of wine that she claims is “for the group”, though as far as she can tell, she’s the only one drinking out of the large green bottle.

When Wyll taps out, complaining that he’s about to puke, she follows him outside the front door of the Elfsong and holds his shoulders as he vomits to keep him from toppling over into the pile of his own sick. “Have we learned anything from this?” she asks.

“Never drink with Minsc,” Wyll mumbles. “Boo was helping.”

The hamster and Halsin are the only sober ones of the lot of them but she opts to let Wyll maintain the fantasy if it keeps the shattered shards of his pride together tonight.

“I’ll need to get Astarion upstairs and away from the windows soon,” she says, staring up at the sky, which is beginning to lighten. It’s not quite dawn and she guesses they have another 15 minutes or so.

“Y’know, it’s good that you’re happy,” Wyll slurs, stumbling. She catches him and holds him upright. “You helped all us fix our problems. Had to help with your own sidequests.” His head droops and she gathers her strength and half-drags him back into the tavern and hands him over to Lae’zel, who scowls at the drunk man now in her arms.

“This is a good ending to your story!” Wyll says, and she smiles, but doesn’t quite agree with him.

Because this here? It’s not an ending; it’s a beginning.

***

“Astarion gave me your address so the next time we get together, it doesn’t need to be in my little sanctuary,” Jaheira says, gesturing around her underground sanctuary. Around them tiny spores float in the air - fluorescent blue, pink and yellow and she catches them on the tips of her fingers.

“I do like it here, though.” Everyone else remains at the Elfsong; soon her friends will need to depart, but they’ve all promised not to let another four years go by before doing this again, so she has hope that this week will become an annual tradition for them. “He’s decided you aren’t going to stake him?”

“Last night I may have told him that showing you that you were being treated poorly by your family and standing up for you during your confrontation with them are appealing traits in a partner. And I may have been just a little,” she presses her thumb and index finger a few centimetres apart, “intoxicated and admitted that I’d hoped you would find yourself involved with him when you were ready.”

“I’m sure he’s not going to be smug about that at all.”

“Oh no; he’d never,” Jaheira says dryly. “How are you doing? No brave faces; I learned long ago to see right through them.”

“I miss my mother more than ever,” she admits, looking down at her lap. The chair legs of the metal chair she’s sitting in are uneven on the rock and wobble, throwing her off-balance. “It’s… odd to think that I’m just… through with people I’ve known my whole life. When life goes to shit, it’s my mother that I want - that’s juvenile, isn’t it?”

“They pretend they don’t need me,” Jaheira gestures towards the stairs and when it’s quiet, they can hear Jaheira’s kids puttering around the house, “but they do. That doesn’t go away.”

“You’re all lucky to have one another. I like the dynamic you have with your kids and there’s a lot of love here.”

“I made mistakes; I make mistakes,” Jaheira doesn’t say it, but she knows enough to know that she regrets not reaching out to her kids to let them know that she survived the fighting at Moonrise Towers, “and I understand the mindset behind your father’s distance. But not his disapproval. I do not think it was ever about what you do with your life.”

She looks at Jaheira, confused by her comment.

“It’s all he knew. Two of your siblings - they tow the line, yes?”

“Peter and Astrid. Peter was at the Elfsong with Father, but Astrid lives in Waterdeep and I haven’t spoken to her in a long time. Jan is near as much a black sheep as me, as far as I can tell. Father didn’t spend a lot of time with Jan when he was little - he trained him but was mostly a stranger. Mother and I did the bulk of the work raising him as a boy.”

“He didn’t know what to do with someone he didn’t understand, and so he assumed your ambitions were small and your behaviour lazy. I’ll admit, a vampire spawn boyfriend is a hard sell, but once he sheaths his claws, Astarion can be quite entertaining. Your father felt you were an easy target - someone he can disapprove of and try to mould into something your grandfather would find more desirable. Someone who would collapse like a house of cards. But, you didn’t. You continued on your path,” Jaheira’s face shifts to something softer; almost gentle, “but you took part of his lesson to heart: you learned to hate yourself. And that? Unforgivable.”

“Father’s blows were scattershot; Grandfather’s were surgical strikes and Peter’s were a pommel blow.”

“You’re lucky, you know.” A rabbit hops over and Jaheira drops a few pieces of lettuce for the little animal to munch on. “You have a shield in someone smart enough to notice the subtleties of what your family was doing. Someone strong enough to stand in front of you, absorb the blows and throw that energy right back at them. Not that I don’t think you could have come to all of this on your own - but I do think it would have taken you longer, and you’d have endured years more heartache. The wound stings now, but your flesh will be stronger when it heals. But - you know that already. We’ve spoken enough of our losses and share the same scar on our hearts.”

“You miss him, don’t you?”

“Khalid was such a sweet man. Foolish. Soft. He loved romance,” Jaheira smiles to herself. “I dated but never found another, and I wonder if I was simply searching for what I lost. You were wise not to make that mistake.”

“Few would dare call me wise,” she laughs, reaching down to run her over down the soft white fur of the rabbit.

“You rarely are,” Jaheira concedes, and she gives her friend a wry smile; respecting her bluntness, “but in matters of the heart, I’d trust you more than I’d trust myself.”

“Do you think Karlach would have been able to do what Astarion did? Shown me the truth?”

“Not the same way he did, but she would have. I did not need to fall into your bed to recognize the dynamic you were living with. That at least some of your arrogance surrounding your ancestry was mere show and that you did not think yourself worthy of it. It’s not about worth - you’re the result of two people bedding each other and that one of the people who bedded another a generation prior happens to be a dragon is nothing more than a trivia question at the tavern. Who cares?”

“I dunno - Astarion thinks the scales are pretty.”

“Still doesn’t make your origins worth more than the slosh of ale on your shirt at the tavern.” Jaheira stands up and walks towards the edge of the platform they’re on. “You wish to find a way for him to walk in the sun.”

“We both do, yes, though he’s accepted that life in the dark is just part of who he is.”

Jaheira glances over at her. “Then why are you still here? You won’t find it in the city.”

For a long time it was because they decided they deserved some leisure time. But she’s not sure that’s true anymore; adventuring is dangerous and they’ve both seen one another fall in battle. While Astarion heals far more quickly now as a result of his vampiric regeneration ability, healing potions and magic no longer work on him. If he dies…

“Neither of you were meant to hide away forever. Have your adventures and even if you can’t find him a solution…”

“At least we’ll have had fun doing it?”

“And seen the world. Travel makes you grow and I can hardly imagine two centuries trapped in this damned city. Take Astarion out and let him stretch his legs. I would also point out that a vampire who has amassed power and influence over the centuries might have found the sort of artefact you covet.”

“You suggest we travel the world and slaughter vampire lords and steal their shit?”

“My impression is that Astarion holds no love or loyalty for Cazador’s contemporaries.”

This is true; once he said he’d sooner trust a devil than a vampire and it’s a statement that’s stuck with her.

“Or - there is one way to cure him eventually, if you become powerful enough and if you’re clever enough as you cast it…”

Wish. Grandfather once warned her of the dangers of that spell - both in the manner your wish is interpreted, and the harm that can befall the caster. Permanent harm to one’s magical abilities is common and Grandfather said he’d only ever cast it once.

When she asked what he asked for, he refused to elaborate, but over the years she’s put together a pretty good theory: immortality or near-immortality for Grandmother; potentially tied to his own long life as a dragon.

Grandfather told her she’d never be strong enough to cast it. “It is the spell of gods and the human blood in your veins creates mud where things should run clear.”

Never good enough. No matter what she ever does she’ll never be good enough.

Elminster is a human - near-immortal and can presumably cast it. Now, she has no expectation that he’d ever take the risk for a random vampire spawn and his half-elf girlfriend. But if she becomes powerful enough to cast it herself…

Jaheira smiles as she notices the cogs in her mind turning. “You won’t learn all you’re capable of sitting on your couch.”

“Do you think I could ever manage it?” she asks Jaheira.

“The chances aren’t zero, but it is a spell normally reserved for those who walk with gods or think themselves gods. I won’t live long enough to see Astarion’s cheeks flush pink, but you might.”

It’s such a small hope; a goal far larger than she ever expected to have, but it’s a little flame she holds in the palm of her hand. Perhaps one day she can give him proper life once more and listen to the beating of his heart beneath her ear.

Chapter Text

“I was hoping to bring you somewhere tonight, if you’re willing to indulge me,” Astarion says to her over breakfast a few weeks after their visit with their friends.

“Oh, where to? A tavern? A walk along the river?”

“A surprise,” Astarion says, coy. “Dress up; we won’t be engaging in acts of gratuitous violence.”

Astarion speaks as if she ever doesn’t dress up when going out on an excursion. All of her most casual clothes are either reserved for around the house, or underneath her robes.

It’s cool outside, requiring her to wear her long leather jacket over the blouse and skirt she’d put on. Astarion is dressed in a royal blue doublet and brings a basket with them. They walk over yellow leaves that have fallen off now-bare trees and she takes a deep breath, delighting in the smell of autumn.

Winter feels like freedom to her now; with the sun setting early, Astarion has more time outside the house. As a child, snow days felt stifling; Mother would often keep them in the house by the fire - both fearful that the cold would make them sick, and that the blowing wind and snow through an open door would douse the fire.

Father could get a fire going in moments, but even he couldn’t get past damp wood, and purchasing firewood was expensive. It was only when she grew up that she realized that coin was tight and keeping the door closed on the coldest days conserved heat.

Now, money is not an issue for the two of them and heating the house is more about dealing with the headache of maintaining a fire than the cost of it.

Astarion grows more cheerful as the days get shorter, she’s noticed. This life has been an adjustment for her; once she found the long days of summer energized her and made her more cheerful, but now they represent a loss for her love, so she cannot bring herself to fully enjoy the heat of the sun.

Maybe one day they’ll find a solution so Astarion can walk in the sun again. Only then will she be able to love summer as she once did. Until then, winter suits her just fine.

Astarion brings her to the cemetery, and once inside he’s focused; walking a path with purpose. He brings her, not to Karlach’s grave next to her parents’ graves, but to an older one. The stone is faded and there is a morning glory growing on the grave itself. Astarion brushes aside weeds and lays out a red blanket for the two of them. Gesturing to the grave, he says, “it’s mine. I can’t remember who would have mourned me; their faces were lost to me ages ago. All I know is that they don’t visit. After killing Cazador, I came here and sat for a long while, and decided it was time to pull myself from the ground and start living.” He gestures to the new date of birth, which was hastily scratched into the stone. She reaches out and runs her hand over the jagged numbers and letters.

His last name was Ancunín. He’d never told her his last name - she wonders if he’d even remembered it before visiting his grave. What a pair they are: a man who no longer uses his last name and a woman who has been rejected by her family and rejected them in turn.

Silverscale is a legal banality but she’d happily rid herself of the name if the opportunity presented itself.

“I had to punch a hole in the coffin and claw my way through six feet of dirt. Then, when I broke the surface, retching congealed blood and dirt, Cazador was waiting.” Astarion flinches and looks over at his tombstone. “Not my favourite memory.”

He’s never told her the logistics of being turned and she never asked, not wanting to dredge up a painful memory for him, and now she listens quietly.

“There’s almost nothing left of the man I was. Just a name on a rock. For nearly two centuries I stalked the street like a ghost while the person I was lay there, dead and buried. After we killed Cazador, I decided it was time to try living again and figure out who I am.”

“I’m glad you were able to come here and create that fresh start for yourself,” she says and Astarion gives her a smile.

“It was the day after we broke into the Iron Throne.” Her face falls as she remembers how badly hurt he was on that mission; blood seeping out the holes through his abdomen while an exhausted Shadowheart tried to stabilize him enough to get him through the night so she could rest and regain enough energy to fix him properly.

As he bled out in front of her, she tried to figure out how to tell if he had died. He has no heartbeat, his body is cold and he still breathes but it’s more habit for him than anything and once unconscious his breathing stopped. Every other time he’d died on their mission it was obvious - falling into lava doesn’t tend to leave much of a body and she relied on Withers to raise him at camp after that fight in Grymforge.

She remembers crying; pleading with him not to die and wondering if they’d already lost him when his blood-sticky hand squeezed her pinkie. An almost imperceptible gesture.

It was the duke who saved him in the end; as a non-magic user with frontline experience, he had knowledge of battlefield medicine and took over, placing pressure on his partially-healed wounds until the bleeding stopped, and then bandaged his broken body. He told her how to carry him and she flew him from the docks to the Elfsong, trusting the others to get Duke Ravengard to safety. There, she removed the rest of his blood-soaked armour and cleaned him up, remaining by his side until he woke late in the evening.

He suffered that night and it’s her fault, because she couldn’t watch him die. Having Withers raise him might have been the kinder option than saving his life and leaving him partially healed and in pain overnight.

“Sorry,” Astarion says, noticing her stricken face; her rapid breathing and her attempts to push herself out of the traumatic memory. “I realized that night that I didn’t want to die - no matter how temporary it might have been at that time. I wanted to live; not just exist as a ghost. And, because of my ever-charming flair for the dramatic, I had to announce my decision to the patrons of this lovely little cemetery.” Dramatically, he punctuates his statement by extending his arms and gesturing around them.

“I like that you did this - it wasn’t dramatic; it was important to you,” she says. He smiles at her and takes her hand.

“Gods, if you were any sweeter you’d be syrup. The one that comes from trees that you put on flatbread.” He says this with such fondness that it makes her heart race and her cheeks flush.

“Thank you for sharing this with me.”

“I’ll admit I imagine empty faces showing up for their once a century visit to my corpse and being scandalized by some urchin vandalizing my gravestone.” Astarion chuckles to himself. “It’s been so long, I doubt anyone remembers me. Or cares to.”

Astarion opens the basket he brought and pulls out a box of cheese and meat, and another container full of crackers and slices of bread. Then, he puts a plate in front of her, pulls out two silver goblets and a bottle of wine and pours them each a glass.

“I wrote to Gale and asked him for a recipe that you’d enjoy, and he wrote back with a 20 ingredient recipe written out over three whole pages that required something called a ‘roux’, and ‘thyme’. What’s thyme and who do I need to kill to ensure the assortment of tavern-related puns do not ever escape containment?”

“Darling, thyme is an herb. A very pleasant one that does not deserve your revulsion,” she teases.

“Agree to disagree,” he cuts in.

“Also, there was a shell of a tavern called ‘Closing Thyme’ in the shadow-cursed lands and if it ever re-opens I’d love to dine with you there.” She grins as the expected scowl slides onto Astarion’s face - mostly in jest.

“Gods, I regret this relationship. One good thing about being a vampire is that I do not have to eat at ‘Closing Thyme’; I merely have to watch you degrade yourself by doing it.”

“I regret not being the one to come up with the pun. So, you packed charcuterie, and I’m assuming you failed to take Gale's advice.”

“Obviously; who sends a 20 ingredient recipe to someone who doesn’t know how to cook?” Astarion says, disgusted.

“Gale, evidently.”

She’s a decent cook - not amazing but can feed herself and guests without any trouble, but pales compared to Gale’s wizardry in the kitchen.

“I spoke to Alan who agreed to put this together in exchange for a generous fee and tip. Apparently he has some idea of the sorts of cheeses you like, on account of the food you order while we’re there, and was not impressed when I implied that all cheese looked the same to me.”

“You didn’t, muffin,” she says, grabbing herself a slice of salami and a piece of gouda and tossing them into her mouth.

Astarion reaches into the basket once more and pulls out a waterskin and takes a drink from it - his own dinner. At home he’ll drink from goblets, but out in public he hides his true nature, necessitating discretion.

“Which one is your favourite?”

She points to a blue cheese and Astarion barks out a laugh. “Of course you’d pick the rancid one!”

“It’s actually tasty.” With the cheese knife she slices off a tiny corner of it and holds it up for him. “You don’t need to swallow but put it on your tongue and let me have a moment of obnoxious smugness when you admit how good it is,” she says, recognizing that Astarion is inclined to lie just to troll her.

He does, sticking the knife into his mouth, frowns, turns to his side and spits it out. “We all have our flaws, darling.”

Smirking at him, she says, “and what are your flaws?”

“I’m far too beautiful for this world,” Astarion says without skipping a beat.

“Humble, too.”

“Right? I’m glad you noticed. You’ve also told me that I’m a bitch. I don’t see it, personally. It’s a service; I’m practically a hero,” he says, gesturing dramatically at himself.

“You hate heroic stuff so if you were actually perceived as a hero by the general public you’d be impossible to live with. Just cranky all the damned time.”

Astarion takes a swig from his waterskin. “Heroism in the traditional sense is terribly dull. Self-sacrifice? Boring. Now, saving those who need it and sowing terror amongst the wicked? Great fun!”

“I know I’m no hero.” Were she a hero, she’d have tentacles on her face and wouldn’t have foisted the sacrifice onto Orpheus.

Astarion shrugs, indifferent. “I wouldn’t want to lay with you on my grave if you had tentacles sprouting out of your face. At the risk of tooting my own horn, I’d say you came out ahead in the end. I hear brain has a most unpleasant mouthfeel, anyway.”

“You want to fuck me on your grave?”

Images of Astarion on top of her; their fingers intertwined as they work one another towards release fill her mind and she aches at the thought. Astarion watches her, smirking the entire time.

“I withdraw my judgement; that sounds sexy as fuck.” She pushes aside the plates and then Astarion shoves her back and climbs on top of her. Hooking his leg around hers, he moves it so it’s resting atop his thigh and then he lifts her skirt and pulls down her underwear.

“A most convenient outfit,” he whispers while she fumbles with his belt and pants. It’s late evening and the cemetery is empty at the moment, but anyone could come strolling around the corner to find her undead boyfriend fucking her senseless.

Having the “no, we don’t get off on cemetery sex; this is just an important moment for him” conversation is not on the list of things she’d like to achieve tonight.

However, orgasm is, and neither of them are known for their patience. Which gives her an idea. “Whoever finishes first has to buy drinks next time we’re out?”

Astarion slides his cock inside her and then stops and looks at her. “Your dirty talk is off tonight.”

“We’re fucking on your grave. We may as well wager on it too.”

“I’m going to win,” Astarion whispers, sliding his hand between them to finger her clit. She moans, closing her eyes tightly and offers him her neck.

Tactically, a mixed bag because, while Astarion gets off on fucking her while he feeds, so does she. He adjusts his angle and she rocks against him, digging her nails into the fabric of his trousers and squeezing his thigh.

Her pleasure builds and when she tries to change the angle; to prolong her end, Astarion tuts against her neck and holds her in place. “Let me make you feel good. Let me win,” he whispers in her ear; his hot breath sending her over the edge.

“Fuck off,” she moans as she climaxes around his cock. Laughing uproariously, Astarion follows right behind her, stilling inside her. As they come down, he’s still laughing; a joy so infectious that she begins laughing too.

“We’re so stupid,” Astarion finally makes out, burying his face in the crook of her neck.

She likes that she can make him laugh so joyfully. Once, hearing him laugh like this seemed an impossibility; silenced by sharp bitterness and trauma.

“I believe I won, Pet,” he whispers, kissing her neck repeatedly.

“Yes, congratulations; you won cemetery sex,” she says dryly.

“I like being alive with you,” he says and she thinks about the day Karlach died; how she told him that she wished she were dead; breaking his heart without knowing it.

He told her that one day she’d want to be alive and would be happy again. It felt insurmountable at the time, but now, as he smiles at her in the afterglow, his soft cock slipping out of her, she realizes he was right.

“I like being alive with you too.”

“Our time together has been a counterweight to 200 years of misery. I’m happy - truly,” he says and her eyes well up with tears because she’d wondered how his life now; the knowledge that his future is his was affecting him.

Astarion is three years into his life and is making the most of every moment.

***

Chilled toes, foggy breath and shivers are her companions when she walks out of their bedroom, clad in both a sweater and a blanket. Astarion is wrapped in a blanket on the couch and leaning over to read a book he set down on the cushion beside him. “Fire not going?” she asks him and, scowling, he gestures to the fireplace, which has been freshly tended to and burns tall.

“Shit,” she mutters, plopping down onto the couch. Astarion opens his own blanket and wraps it around her and she adjusts her own so that it’s draped over their laps, and wraps her arms around his waist.

“A letter came for you. Not from one of those pigeons that Tara was snacking on back in the day but a squirrel. I took one of your potions because the damned thing wouldn’t leave until I gave them a few nuts. Apparently the sender promised payment upon delivery but the rodent could not name who they were.”

Who would ask a squirrel to deliver a letter? Halsin - maybe, but there’s no reason Halsin wouldn’t compensate a squirrel beforehand.

“Seems suspicious. Can you do your,” he lifts his hand out from under the blankets just long enough to wiggle his fingers, “detect magic thing? Make sure your entire bloodline isn’t being cursed or whatever?”

“I mean, poison is more likely,” she says as she reaches for the scrolled-up parchment. It’s discoloured and wrinkled, as if it got damp at some point.

“Already checked,” Astarion says and she casts her own spell, confirming that it’s nothing more than a strange letter. She unrolls the damaged parchment.

Petra,

I know you’re a big deal and stuff now because you are an adventurer and saved Baldur’s Gate so maybe you can help? I got tied up in some stuff and I’m not at school anymore, and that’s a whole story, but I went to travel through the former shadow-cursed lands and they’re real pretty but dangerous.

Like, really dangerous. So, um… I could use a hand.

I think some Sharrans got a hold of me? They’re awfully mean and I’m locked away in this rundown hospital that smells of mould and death.

But, if you’re too busy, I can figure it out! Don’t worry about it! I can probably talk my way out of it or something.

Jan

Sharrans. That means Dark Justiciars roam the shadow-cursed lands and have taken over the remains of the House of Healing. She recalls the twisted surgeon and his nurses and how she used knowledge of Sharran doctrine obtained from Shadowheart to talk them into killing one another and themselves.

Jan is in grave danger and doesn’t seem to realize just how dire things are for him without a rescue.

Hands trembling, she sets Jan’s letter down and looks up at Astarion. “My little brother has gotten himself into some trouble and needs a rescue from the House of Healing in the shadow-cursed lands. Seems a bunch of Dark Justiciars or wannabes kidnapped him and he must have had the squirrel smuggle the letter out.”

Astarion says nothing; he shrugs off the blankets and leaves the living room. When he comes back a few minutes later, it’s in full armour, with his daggers and bow on his back. He stares at her and gestures up with his hands. “Well, c’mon, then. The sun sets in two hours, but it’s grey enough that I can walk outside with my skin covered and a parasol over my head. We can take the sewers to the Underdark and arrive in the shadow-cursed lands in two days if we move quickly and face little opposition on the road.”

She stares blankly at him, having expected them to at least have a discussion about this. “Just… like that?”

“Any of those Sharrans touches a hair on your little brother’s head, and I’ll bleed them dry.”

“But… you’ve never met him?”

Astarion gives her an exasperated look. “He’s your little brother? And, frankly, the only biological family you have any relationship with nowadays so it seems rather important to get him out of whatever mess he’s gotten himself into. You know, he’s certainly your brother, my dear and I’ll be sure to make that point after I’ve finished murdering the cultists causing him trouble. Now, get your robe on and grab your staff, and I’ll pack provisions for the road. We should stop at Shadowheart’s cottage and see if she’s interested; since abandoning the Lady of Loss she’s been merciless regarding her former kin, save that one friend of hers.”

Shadowheart would be a useful ally on this mission and she thinks she may be more inclined to join them to save her brother from a group of Shar worshippers than she was to journey to the Hells.

She’s terrified about whatever Jan has gotten himself into and the anxiety swirls in her gut as she puts her robe on as Scratch watches, his tail wagging. But a part of her - perhaps a shameful part, feels a sense of excitement. Anticipation.

Her and her love are adventurers and they’re back on the road.