Chapter Text

Rivington

You've been on the road for a tenday, one of few travelers heading toward Baldur’s Gate. A steady flow of folks stream by you. Some are pushing or pulling creaking carts laden with belongings, some ride in wagons carrying families, and you even spot a carriage here or there. The one thing they all have in common, besides their direction of travel, is the guarded look in their eyes as they take you, and the direction of your travel, in.

A few nod politely. Some shake their heads, exchanging glances with each other. One old lady even insists on handing you a small wreath woven with river reeds, pungent bulbs of garlic knotted in its dry sheaves.

You thought she wanted to trade and told her politely that you had nothing to offer for it, but she placed it in your protesting hands, closing your fingers around it and murmuring a prayer before simply walking away, joining her family as they travelled west.

None of this is reassuring.

Why flee Baldur’s Gate, a city that has always been a jewel along the Chionthar, a beacon of trade, a place where anyone can go and make a fortune?

You think back to your aunt’s letters, hand touching your breast pocket unthinkingly as you ponder the words tucked within.

She wrote in her billowing scrawl on page after page when the Netherbrain fell. You couldn’t get enough of her tales, always wrote back for more. More details. More stories. What landmarks still stood? Which had fallen? How was she faring? Who were these heroes you kept hearing about?

She indulged you week after week, so many pages that you felt compelled to scatter extra seed beside the aviary where the carrier pigeons flitted in and out of as an atonement for all their work on your behalf.

Your aunt was so excited, so happy to see the city being reborn into something greater, something strong and imposing, a seat from which to govern the area with pride, a proper place for everyone within its walls.

You’d smiled at her civic-minded words, caught up in the moment with her, excited for her, exchanging wishes to come and visit soon. Wishes she enthusiastically encouraged. After the harvest, you told her. Once the crops were brought in, you could steal away and visit, leaving the easier work of mending and tending to your younger siblings and their little ones.

But, as the time drew near, her letters started to change.

Not only could you read it in her words, but you could see it in her very handwriting, the way the lines trembled and wandered on the page. How small her inked letters had become. How many words were crammed onto a single page. It made you uneasy, this change.

What was wrong, you asked? Your aunt tried to reassure you at first, saying it was just a passing thing, that the walls were almost finished and that the work concentrated in the upper city would soon start spilling into the lower city, too.

But weeks passed and the excitement faded away, turning into a restless uneasiness. Your aunt was never a flighty woman, but her letters began to make you wonder if perhaps she was losing herself as she aged. They became paranoid, full of fantastic thoughts couched in empty sentences you could tell were lies.

Why did she feel the need to deceive you? You entreated her to speak more plainly, to tell you what was wrong. Should you come sooner? Did she need help?

No, she had written back. Stay. Stay on your farm away from the city. She was perfectly fine.

She wasn’t. You could read between the lines. Something was going on in Baldur’s Gate, something that had your bubbly, sweet aunt twisted up in distraught knots.

You threatened to drop everything and rush to her, finally, and this threat forced her to reveal the truth.

Something was wrong, but she didn’t know what. The city was being built back, yes, but things were happening. All across the lower city rumors spread of disappearances. It wasn’t like the Cult of the Absolute, where corpses were left mutilated in the streets for anyone to find.

No, people simply vanished, never to be seen again. Or, sometimes a loved one would return days later, changed, with no memory of what had happened. They simply continued about their lives as though they had never been missing, going through the motions doggedly, as though the personality that used to animate them had fled.

The malaise spread to the upper city, to the council. Some patriar would get a fire in their belly, speak out, swear to get to the bottom of what was happening on behalf of the folk below, and then one day, like a switch had been flipped, they never spoke on the matter again.

Or they, too, simply vanished.

You read, brows furrowed, pressing your aunt for more. Asking her what the neighbors thought. Was there anyone there she could confide in? Did she need to leave? Could she find a caravan headed your way?

No, she said. She was born here and she wouldn’t let a little unease after the illithid attack scare her off.

It was after the disappearance of the new Duke Ravenguard that things took a turn for the worst. It was as though even the city itself was mourning him, with unseasonal rains and a clinging mist all throughout the streets. Your aunt hated the packs of wild dogs that roamed, howling in the night, and people began to fear leaving their homes after dark.

This all sounded like a tall tale to you, when you read it. Embellishments borne of a fragile, aging mind, making you even more determined to go to the city when your work was done.

And so, the day finds you on the road, nearing the end of your journey. You look down at a well creased parchment, the last letter you ever received from your aunt. It was short, frightened, barely coherent and one line echoed above the rest: they’re stealing our blood.

You ponder over this line again. Who was stealing whose blood? How? Why? You glance at another pair of wary travelers, exchanging a nod as you start down the hill into Rivington. You wish you could have seen the city from here, remembering how brightly it shone, flags lying high above the walls, but the Chionthar has bathed it in a thick fog below you.

You cast a glance overhead, noting the clouds, how they seem to hang low in the sky, heavy, pulling the life out of the countryside and turning it into a grey shroud. Best if you hurry down the rest of the way and find someplace to stay. It looks like rain again this afternoon.

As you find your way down into the streets below, the mood and the weather both dampen.

Rivington is not as busy as you remember it from your youth. Wyrm’s Rock Fortress still stands on the bridge into the city, but this used to be a bustling town full of trade and laughter.

Perhaps it’s the weather keeping everyone indoors.

Even as you tell yourself this, you know that can’t be it. There are so few carts. So few stalls. Empty market squares that should be full of the fruits of the summer and autumn by now. Merchants exchanging wagons of produce for goods from the city. Fabrics, tools, trinkets.

There are none of these as you hasten through the light spattering of rain into the flophouse.

Heads turn as you enter the door, eyes looking you up and down. You try to smile, nod your head friendly-like, but it’s hard when the air around you is thick with distrust. You can almost smell it, the lingering odor of sweat and rain clinging to the patrons. You walk to the woman behind the counter.

She eyes you as you approach, and you notice her worn apron, her threadbare sleeves, the holes in the tail of her untucked blouse. The woman’s eyes flick to your pack, see the garlic wreath, and nod approvingly.

“What’ll it be?”

“A drink,” you say. “And a bed. To wait out the weather.”

Her laughter cuts into you.

“Oh, come from far away have you? There’s no waiting this weather out. It comes and goes as it likes, but the clouds never stay away long.”

“I remember it being sunnier in the autumn,” you say.

“Well,” she scoffs, “not any more. So what’ll it be? A drink?”

You hesitate, skin crawling as you feel patrons casting glances your way. You lower your voice.

“Just a drink then. Will the rain, at least, let up?”

You hear a cough behind you and turn.

“Mary,” a woman says, smiling directly at you. “I haven’t seen you in so long. Come sit next to us!”

You don’t know this woman. Your name is not Mary. But you’re not a total rube. You understand this woman doesn’t want you to be alone. Something in the air makes you glad of her offer and you smile brightly, as though she’s your dear old friend come to share tales over the harvest at market again.

“Sit, woman,” she says, hushed voice overflowing with urgency as you draw close. “You can’t be traveling alone here. Not in these times.”

Your eyes flick around the small table at the other two sitting there with her, both young men, lean with gaunt faces.

“Your ale,” sniffs the woman from the counter as she deposits your mug. You hand her a few coppers and mutter your thanks.

No one speaks at the table. You’re unsure what to say and the trio are examining you, eyes taking in your dusty travel clothes, the pack with your nicer skirt and corset. They, too, notice the garlic wreath.

You see your opportunity.

“Why is everyone looking at this,” you ask, gesturing to it as you slide the pack down between your feet for safekeeping.

“You put it there,” the dark haired man grumbles. “Surely you know what it’s for?”

You shake your head.

“A woman on the road insisted on giving it to me. She was so adamant I couldn’t turn her down.”

The men exchange looks with each other and shift, as the woman holds your gaze.

“Why did you come here,” she asks softly.

“To visit my aunt. She lives in the city.”

“Where in the city?”

“The lower city, just down the way from Bonecloak’s Apothecary. She’s a seamstress.”

“You have a home to stay in, then,” the woman asks her, voice betraying the importance she places upon her question.

“Why?”

“Because people disappear too often these days. Especially lone wanderers like you.”

You lick your lips and lean on the table, leaning down, getting closer so you can lower your voice.

“That’s what my aunt said,” you confess. “I was worried about her all alone here, so I came to visit. To make sure she’s alright.”

The woman nods at you, face stoic. You notice the two men looking around the small parlor, eyes taking in the rest of the patrons suspiciously, noting who’s watching.

“What did your aunt tell you, dearie?”

“I… don’t rightly know,” you murmur. “Her letters weren’t making much sense at the end.”

“At the end?”

You catch the sharp tone of the man to your right, can’t help but glance up at him in alarm. You take another drink of the ale to steady you, to give you time to figure out what to say.

“She stopped writing to me,” you admit.

All three look at each other, shaking their heads and hissing in disapproval.

“You can’t stay there,” the woman whispers. “Your aunt is gone.”

You feel her words hit you like the wall of freezing rain you’re dodging by staying indoors amongst the flickering candles.

No. Your aunt is still there. She’s just stopped writing. Perhaps she can’t. Maybe she’s not able to hold the quill anymore or perhaps can’t afford parchment or ink right now.

You shake your head at the woman.

“Nonsense. She’s older. I’m sure she’s struggling and just needs an extra hand.”

You know this is a lie even as the words leave your lips. But these strangers in front of you can’t possibly know the truth, either. Your aunt is simply missing for now, not gone.

“Dearie, heed me. Go home. Do not go into the city. Stay the night with us here in Rivington and start for home at first light.”

“No,” you insist. “No. I came here to find her. What’s got you all so scared anyway?”

“Keep your voice down,” the dark haired man growls.

Fine. You’ll play along.

“My aunt’s last letter,” you say quietly, “made no sense to me. She said they’re stealing blood. Who?”

This sends the table into a tizzy, one man standing up and calling loudly for another drink, the woman hissing and shushing you before telling him to sit back down.

“Come home with us. We can’t talk here.”

You glance around the ground floor of the flophouse now, noticing how everyone's eyes are on you, on your little party. You watch their sad eyes, and see them stare in anger at the three beside you.

Suddenly, nothing about your situation sits right for you.

You don’t know these strangers, this woman and her two companions. You don’t know anything about them other than they tried to get your attention, enticed you to sit, and were now hells bent on bringing you home with them.

You shake your head.

“No. No thank you. If you can’t tell me anything more, I’ll have to continue to my aunt’s and find someone who can.”

“Don’t go into the city, dearie,” the woman hisses urgently, reaching across the table suddenly to grab your hands in hers.

Your heart is hammering in your chest now. Something is very wrong here. You turn a glance to the woman behind the bar, but she’s stubbornly ignoring all four of you.

You take your hands back.

“Thank you, but I can handle myself. I’ve fought off wolves and goblins at the farm. I’ll be just fine.”

You touch the dagger tucked beneath your skirt, sheathed on your leg, hoping they understand.

The woman sighs, defeated, and shakes her head at you.

“If you must, at least wait until the rain stops. It’s safer in the little bit of sun we get these days.”

You blink at her, brow furrowed, but nod. You’ve no desire to walk in the rain, anyway. You thank them and take your pack and the rest of your mug to the corner, sitting beside a window at a little high top, watching the drops roll down the glass. Thinking.

Your aunt was right. Something is wrong here. You hope it’s the weather, that signs of life will spring forth after the rain stops, but you begin to feel as though maybe they won’t.

Chapter Text

Lower City: Day One

The walk across the bridge into the lower city should have taken you longer than it did. There should have been carts, travelers, peddlers, buskers all making their way to or fro with you, but there weren’t.

It was only you and a single rider on horseback, cloaked against the rain that had eased, but not ceased falling.

You stand silently before the Flaming Fist as he looks you up and down.

“Business in the city?”

“Visiting my aunt.”

“Length of your stay?”

“I don’t know,” you admit. “She’s aging. I may be staying with her for a while.”

The Fist nods and requests your name, which you give and watch him write on a little log book. You notice very few entries there, coming or going. In fact, the “Going” column shows none for today. Perhaps the weather has kept them all inside.

“Enjoy your stay, ma’am.”

“Thank you,” you reply, hurrying the rest of the way across the stone bridge, eager to get your first glimpse of the city since you were a child. Since it was rebuilt. What new wonders have sprung up to enchant and delight?

You walk through the yawning gate, noting that they’ve added a thick iron portcullis to it. This makes sense to you; the city was under siege not long before, after all. You hurry beneath it and glimpse the gallows just inside.

You don’t recall them from your youth, but your aunt mentioned when they were built here during the crisis. They must not have been taken down afterward. You stare for a moment, trying to recall what had been here before. You think it was stalls with vendors, hawkers selling the Baldur’s Mouth Gazette and criers shouting out their advertisements for establishments in the streets below.

You notice that you are the only one in the square. At least, the only human. You catch movement beneath the gallows and swallow, a shudder running up your spine. In the wet dark beneath, you can see rodents scurrying, swarming over what you recognize as offal.

You shiver, as your eyes watch slick-furred rats squeaking and squabbling over the innards, glad for the rain suddenly. You know how much those leavings would stink in the sun, and you wonder why no one bothered to clean them.

You decide not to tarry here longer and hurry down the street, noticing once more that there are very few people bustling about around you. Those that do pass keep their heads down, their gaze forward, the hoods of their cloaks drawn.

You shiver again as a chill sweeps up from the harbor below and tendrils of fog grasp at your ankles just above the cobbles.

The Elfsong, you decide. Your aunt said it was still standing, said it could be relied upon for safe harbor, a good place to rest. Trembling now, from the cold and the damp, or perhaps from the unsettling atmosphere that tugs at the edges of your awareness, you find yourself all but jogging out of the drizzle and into the inviting lights of the tavern.

Inside, you feel the tension slide off of you as your senses take in a welcome scene. Here are the people. Here are the tall flagons of beer, the goblets of wine. The scent of good food wafts through the thick air. You can hear music, too, from a room off to the side. You’re used to the lyre from the tavern in the little rural town you frequent, but this sounds wonderful, rich and vibrant, almost haunting.

You think it’s a violin, though you can’t be sure. You’ve never heard one before.

A few faces look up as you make your way toward the barkeep and the fire, but folks here seem to be focused on their own business, and you find you much prefer it to the flophouse in Rivington. You order a beer and a bowl of stew before asking the barkeep if he knows anything about the neighborhood surrounding Bonecloak’s.

His eyes flash up at you for a moment, and you can read the consternation in them.

“My aunt,” you explain, “lives there. I’ve come to check on her. Do you know of her? Or someone who might?”

“Can’t say that I do,” he mutters. He pauses, taking in your traveling garb, before he glances around and leans in. “Miss, you’re not from here, are you?”

You shake your head at him. He nods.

“Look, with times how they are, it’s best that you keep your business to yourself.”

You try to interrupt, to ask why, but he clears his throat loudly, shooting you a warning look and you fall silent.

“Just keep your head down, take care of whatever business brought you, and get back on home. And don’t be out after dark, you hear me?”

He finishes his sentence in an urgent whisper, eyes flicking across your face, entreating you to take his advice and go.

“Th-thank you,” you say.

He gives you a curt nod, hands you the mug, and says he’ll have the stew sent over in a moment. You retreat to the fire, taking a single chair and looking up at the baby beholder above the crackling hearth.

None of what you’ve seen is reassuring. None of it is what you remember. Your heart constricts as you consider what might have happened to your aunt.

Your stew arrives, and you find yourself eating mechanically, the hunger of the journey all that keeps you spooning it into your mouth as your stomach twists in nauseated protest.

Yes. You’re beginning to think that perhaps your aunt wasn’t simply losing her mind. Perhaps there is something deeply wrong with the city.

You resolve to be cautious and to take the barkeep’s advice to heart. To this end, you let your eyes rove over the room, taking everyone in.

All you could see when you stepped in was warmth, light, and color, but now? Now that you’re looking closely, you see that whatever has the city outside in a stranglehold, is choking the life out of the tavern, too.

Folks look worn. Tired. Their eyes sunken, dark spots beneath them. You can see the signs of hardship, the lean bodies and the empty stares.

Even the well dressed show the cracks of stress. Their clothes are often a little too showy, a little too perfect when you can see the patches sewn at their elbows. The tears in the lace. The feathers that won’t plump back into shape.

And the way they all, to a person, huddle around the light and warmth of the flickering candles, eyes fixed upon their companions, determined not to see anything beyond their tables.

The spoon clunks along the bottom of the wooden bowl and you come out of your thoughts.

You need to get to your aunt’s house before sundown, you decide. Nothing good ever lurks in the darkness out in the country, and it seems the city is the same. Everyone you’ve met has given you the same warning: do not be outside after dark.

You cast a glance back toward the entrance, trying to determine what hour it is. It’s difficult when the weather seems to be working against you, forcing you to venture out against good advice. But you can see the faint light in the mist, still, and if it was full dark, you wouldn’t be able to glimpse a thing past the door.

You stand, shouldering your pack once more, catch the barkeep’s eye, and nod solemnly, treading across groaning timbers out into the damp air. A shaft of light catches the swirling particles, illuminating a small cluster of cobbles beside the gutter.

You find yourself almost entranced by that single shaft of light, grateful for its presence, feeling that perhaps the pall truly will lift with the rain, but the shaft vanishes. Mist swirls across the street, spiralling up into the air, almost as if it’s seeking the light and consuming it.

You’re enclosed in the city streets once more, walking past shadows who refuse to meet your eye as you continue down past Bonecloak’s, turn to the right, and seek the home you have such fond memories of.

As you arrive at your aunt’s house the sun and fog continue their game of cat and mouse, sending brief rays of hope spilling across the cobble streets in patches, only to vanish as the mist surrounds them, taking them over.

Your aunt’s house stands before you. No smoke rises from the chimney. No firelight flickers within. You knock.

No answer.

You didn’t think there would be, but you’d hoped beyond hoped that maybe your fears were wrong.

You jostle the handle and press, finding the door locked fast.

No matter. You lower your pack, take a quick look around at the alley, noticing nothing. Nothing but the drip of swollen droplets falling from the tiles above. Half the houses are in varying states of ruin, still, with unpatched roofs and large cracks and holes in the walls.

You turn your attention back to the door and fish for the spare key, hoping it still works, that your aunt’s dwelling remained intact in the upheaval. You’re relieved to find that it does, and the lock clicks open as you twist the little brass key in the door.

You brace yourself.

You’ve smelled death before, had to help clear the neighbor’s barn of pig corpses that once. You almost expect that same stomach curdling scent to be waiting for you on the other side of the door, but it isn’t.

The small home is a graveyard of dust. Nothing looks out of place. Nothing looks changed. The sight of the empty hearth summons up memories of a blazing fire, your aunt ladling stew out of the same cauldron that now sits empty and cold beside the fireplace.

Your eyes rove over the shelves, seeing her little herb basket. Noticing dried plants hanging in the closed windows. You frown at the prevalence of garlic.

You close the door behind you and lock it tight, setting your pack down beside the single wooden chair alone before the hearth.

You begin to look around, searching for clues. The small table beneath the back window is untouched, just like the cold, empty hearth. A cloak hangs on a wooden peg beside the front door, waiting patiently for the woman who’s vanished. You can see her few pots and pans still hanging neatly in the corner above the simple wash basin and counter where your aunt would show you how to peel and chop vegetables, teaching you how to wield the knife safely.

Your glance turns to the narrow, creaky stairs, the small door to the back, and the hatch jammed beneath them. You move, forcing the dread out of your limbs, and lift the hatch up. The tiny root cellar looks neat as ever, stocked with vegetables, jarred preserves, dried fruits, and a few small casks that likely contain flour or beer. Even the tiny jar of sugar remains on its dusty shelf, untaken.

You climb back out, closing the hatch, and proceed upstairs to the small bedroom.

You remember sleeping on the floor, tucked in a quilt, using your cloak for a pillow, laughing and giggling excitedly about the street performers you saw earlier in the day. The half orcs and elves and blue people with horns that you’d never seen before.

Your aunt has few possessions, and most of them are in this room. Her bed is made neatly, her own hand sewn quilt atop it, the frame sitting against the stones of the chimney for warmth. A little writing desk sits beneath the single window and you find yourself sighing in sadness.

You turn to look at the small wardrobe, noting that it, too, is neat as a pin. Nothing amiss.

This leaves the desk alone, now, and for some reason you dread examining it. Maybe it’s because you can see her there, hand stained with ink as she scratches her words out onto paper, staring out of the window into the mist, and entrusting her fears to you.

You notice a small shelf with a few books just off to the side and you decide to see what your aunt was reading. Most of them are the same tomes you recall her reading aloud to you, the Adventures of Tenebrux Morrow.

But you do find a book you don’t recognize, and it’s a new one, from the state of the leather compared to its fellows. "Lessons for Sensible Living IV: Cities and How to Survive Them." You pull this off of the shelf, noting the scuff marks in the dust as though this book above all others was the last to be touched. When you open the cover, you draw back.

The pages are not at all what you expect. Instead of "Lessons for Sensible Living IV: Cities and How to Survive Them" it appears to be a tome called “The Curse of the Vampyre”. You leaf through the pages, frowning, and something slips out of them, catching your eye as it flutters to the cold floor.

Your heart jumps and starts hammering as you recognize your aunt’s handwriting. The crazed, small scribbles of her last letters. You pick the half sheet up and read it.

“I will my home and all my belongings to-”

You.

She’s left everything to you, written here in this makeshift will. You flip the paper over, looking for more, but it’s just that one line. Nothing else.

You start to pull the other books off of the shelf, thumbing through them, fanning pages open. Looking for any more hidden messages.

You find none and collapse into the little chair at the writing desk. You lace your hands together and lean your head forward into them, perplexed.

She must have anticipated your coming. She must have known something was going to happen. Why else scrawl this will out and tuck it in a book? A book whose cover didn’t match its contents.

You jostle the drawer of her writing desk, trying to open it, and find that it is locked tight. You think back, trying to recall if you know where she kept the key. And realize you might. Your aunt kept her valuables hidden in the thick walls of the house, in a little cubby disguised as part of the frame around the door.

You search for the hollow spot, hoping perhaps she stashed it there in the little hiding place where she kept a small stack of coins and her few treasured pieces of jewelry. You knock around the door frame, unable to recall where exactly it was, and then you hear the hollow thunk you’ve been waiting for.

Grabbing your dagger from the sheath on your thigh, you prize a little hidden compartment open, a compartment that falls away, looking like an empty book cover as you set it down on the bed. You root around inside it, noting that nothing seems to be missing.

She couldn’t have been robbed, then.

But there is no key.

You feel a burning need to get into the writing desk growing in your breast.

She must have kept something of import there, to have it locked tight. She must have kept the key on her person, or hidden somewhere only a slipping mind would find it.

If only you had a lockpick with you. You look out the windows and sigh deeply. It will have to wait until morning. The street is dark now, and the fog is billowing by, creating inky patterns of moonlight along the stones of the decrepit house across the way.

Well, at least you don’t have to stay in the flophouse or the hostel. You retreat downstairs to the little door leading to the back and stick your head outside, noting a small pile of wood stacked neatly against the house in the tiny fenced alley shared with the back neighbor. You bring in a few small logs, a handful of kindling, take out your tinder, and get a fire going in the hearth.

You watch it as it sparks and flickers, protesting against the darkness that almost seems to be seeping into the house as the fog thickens. You can see nothing of the street now.

Alone in the home, you begin to feel what your aunt must have. The night feels oppressive. Isolating. Cold. Like a city of the dead. And the fog moves in hypnotic patterns that sometimes make you wonder if there aren’t shapes looking in the windows.

You hang your garlic wreath over the lone window on the ground floor for good measure.

You sit alone in your aunt’s favorite chair, the one papaw made, rocking as the sounds of the night begin to invade your uneasy solitude. The first thing you hear are the sounds of scratching and scrabbling. You know these noises. Vermin. Rats come to snuffle around looking for a meal or a warm hole to crawl into and claim as their kingdom.

You’re uncertain, though, what the soft occasional scratches you hear brushing along the windows are. They’re so rare that you almost begin to think you’re imagining them. But no. No. Again you’re startled out of dozing by another.

It’s late in the night when the howling starts.

Your aunt had mentioned packs of feral dogs roving the streets, but you know that howl. It is not the howling and baying of undisciplined mutts. It is the rallying cry of wolves. This, more than anything else that has happened, sets your heart hammering.

Wolves.

Inside Baldur’s Gate?

Perhaps the narrow streets are simply funneling the howls from outside the walls to you, making them seem louder and closer than they truly are.

Yes, you decide. This must be the case. Certainly they’re feasting outside the walls, rummaging through the middens left in the wake of war.

Even as you think this, you don’t believe yourself.

You retreat upstairs, and every sound seems to follow you. Every shadow seems to dog your hushed steps. Lethander himself couldn’t compel you to leave this house tonight and you find your heart grateful for the words of warning from the Elfsong barkeep.

Your mind frets over the day ahead. You determine to find a lockpick, recalling a smith nearby. You feel an overwhelming desire to open your aunt’s desk. There must be something in there that can tell you what happened to her. Give you some insight into what she truly thought was happening to the city.

What she was too afraid to write clearly, you realize.

And after that, perhaps you’ll spend some time back at the tavern, listening. Trying to find someone, anyone willing to talk.

Chapter Text

Lower City: Day Two

You wake to the sound of birds.

They are not the songbirds and roosters of your youthful memories, but raw throated crows cackling in the streets outside. Crows, everywhere from the sound of it.

They only gather like this when there’s food to be found.

You lie in the bed, trying to recall where the nearest drinking water is, the nearest wall fountain or communal well. You feel as though scrubbing the road dust from your face will do you good, wake you up and prepare you for the mystery you’ve got to unravel.

You glance out the window, feel a tiny stirring of hope, and whisper your thanks to Lethander. 

You brush your skirt out, belt it securely to yourself, and crack the door open, looking up to the sky between the houses. The light is trying to peek through, illuminating the bottoms of the clouds, turning them into wispy silver curls that fade into tarnished darkness.

You grab your aunt's rickety old bucket, which has long since lost its handle, in both hands and step out into the tenuous morning light. You hurry lightly across the uneven stones of the street, brow furrowing as the water between the pavers glistens darkly. 

It's hard to tell, but you don't think water is the only thing running down toward the harbor. 

You swallow and hurry your steps to the wall nearby, propping your bucket beneath the flowing water and staring off down a side street while it fills. 

You see a riot of black feathers there, converging on a lump lying in the gutter. This must be what summoned the murder to the neighborhood, and you frown, trying to make out what exactly is lying dead in the street. 

A stray dog? It's the right size, but no dog has a long, scaly tail like that. You stare as crows pick ribbons of flesh out of the corpse’s belly, and swallow against the gruesome sight, glad you cannot smell it from here. Your eyes widen as their marauding beaks tug the limp creature and reveal a daintily fingered hand.

Morninglord hold you, it's a rat. You've never seen one of that size before. 

Cold liquid flows over your hands and you jerk them back. When your heart starts beating again, you laugh nervously to yourself. It was just the water overflowing the bucket. 

You take your water and hasten back to your aunt's house where you pour some into the wash basin and scrub your face as though removing the dust and grime will let you see the city clearly at last.

You change into your good clothes, heeding your aunt's old advice about Baldur's Gate. Even if you're not upper class, the closer you look to it the better folks will treat you. Once you’ve made yourself up, you jostle the letter desk again just in case it has magically unlocked in the night.

It has not.

You gather some coin in your belt pouch, make sure your dagger is fastened securely to your thigh, and step back into the reluctant sun, considering your morning. Your insatiable curiosity prompts you to seek a lockpick first.

You recall where the smith was, just down a few blocks and up closer toward the gothic palace above, and you search him out in the smattering of morning sunshine. You present the deed and your aunt’s letters, explaining your need for the lockpick.

The tiefling chuckles, telling you that you don’t have to justify your lockpick to him. That it’s best not to ask after anyone’s business around here.

You trade him five silver pieces, thank him, and turn toward the market to buy a loaf of bread, deciding that toast and jam will suit your growling stomach well.

It's a short walk, one spattered with other passersby stubbornly staring ahead of themselves. You speak to no one, and no one except the baker speaks to you. Fresh loaf tucked under your arm, you take your breakfast -- and likely lunch -- back to your aunt's home.

Your home, now, you recall.

You look at the loaf of bread you’ve set on the little table downstairs and you decide to forgo toasting it in favor of cracking open the desk upstairs. You cut yourself a thick slice, smear jam on it, and retreat upstairs to work the lock on the desk.

It's a simple one and it doesn't take you terribly long to force it to unlatch and reveal its secrets.

Unorganized pages line the interior. Your eyes take them in with uneasy sadness; they're even more disheveled than the letters you received. Her frantic scribbles line paper after paper. So many lines are scratched furiously out. Random words are underlined multiple times. Her cramped scrawl even fills the entire margins sideways.

One word jumps out at you, as it's circled in a big, looping noose: Elfsong.

You look out the window, pondering this as you push the last bite of bread into your mouth. 

She clearly thought something important was happening there at the tavern. But what?

You turn back to the mess of papers, scanning through them, eyes catching a few more circled words. One of them is a name. 

Lord Ancunin.

You don't recognize it. You don't think it's an old family name like Ravenguard, but your aunt clearly thinks this patriar to be someone of interest.

You shut the desk on the papers with a sigh. You don't know enough about Baldur's Gate as it stands today to make any headway. Perhaps it's best if you use the morning light to venture out again. 

You could purchase a gazette, try to eavesdrop around the market, and stop into the Elfsong to attempt to puzzle out why your Aunt had it circled with such finality.

Mind made up, you set out again, locking the little home up tight behind you.

You can’t help but notice more garlic. Everywhere. In almost every window you pass. If a house looks to be inhabited, every opening has a bulb of garlic hung or nailed or tied above it in some fashion.

You look up at the tall walls of the lower city now that you can see them, noting that they’ve been rebuilt, yes, but built back and topped with masonry. Ornate. Imposing. Almost lavish.

You look closely, frowning. There, beneath the crenelation, you see spikes. They’re disguised as decoration, but they remind you of the kind used to keep the pigeons off the sign at the inn back home. These aren’t pointed out or up for bird. They’re pointed down and in.

Are these walls around the lower city meant to keep something in?

You don’t know. And you could almost swear that you see little shapes clustered beneath them in the shadows, swaying and fluttering.

But then again, maybe it's just the shadows and the beginning of the mist.

You return to your aunt's home, savoring the brief sanity the sun seems to have bestowed upon the city. Here are the residents at last, scurrying about in the morning light. The loud voices of trade and the hushed ones of gossip. The colors and sounds you recall from your youth.

You watch an ornately gilded carriage drawn by a pair of sleek black horses. As they proceed down the street, everyone scrambles out of the way, tugging children along and giving it a wide berth.

“Who’s that,” you ask the newsboy, as you flip through the broadsheet.

“The lord. Lives hereabouts. Comes out every morning to enjoy the sun.”

You nod absently and thank the boy, giving him an extra copper, for which he is much obliged.

Paper in hand, you follow in the wake of the carriage, not intending to track it, but simply heading the same direction, back toward the Elfsong Tavern. The barkeep from yesterday evening flashes you a quick, bright grin as you make yourself comfortable at a little side table to read.

He comes over to ask if you’d like a drink, and you decline for the moment, mentioning that the weather seems to have let up. He sighs.

“Does nearly every morning. Don’t worry, miss. It’ll be dreary again soon enough.”

“Is that why everyone’s out?”

He scowls, giving you a sidelong look that states very clearly he’d rather not answer any of your unusual questions, but he relents and nods.

“Best get business done early round here. You need anything, you come find me.”

You thank him and open up your paper, looking for anything that could help you better understand the city around you. Nothing seems particularly enlightening, and perhaps that’s the most useful piece of information.

You lower the sheet, perplexed, and your eyes land on a startlingly gorgeous elf sitting alone in a booth several down from you.

You can’t help but stare, eyes tracing his high collared jacket, the rich, deeply colored cloth embroidered in fine detail. His pale skin reminds you of the perfect smoothness of the wellstones back home, and seems to almost glow like they do in the morning light.

His clothing marks him out as a patriar, certainly, as does his bearing. He sits straight backed, chin up, gazing out confidently into the tavern. You see his lip twitch into a grin as he watches a pair of citizens whispering to each other by the hearth.

You’re still staring when he turns his head and meets your gaze.

Your heart skips at being caught out, and you flush, smoothing your paper on the table and casting your glance back down toward it.

You can see him smiling out of the edge of your vision, examining you now, rather like you’d just done to him. To your consternation, he rises from his table and makes his way toward yours.

He stops beside it, resting a hand with perfect nails on the wood to get your attention. You look up, flushing in embarrassment, taken aback by his eyes. You tear your gaze away, certain that you’ll make a fool of yourself if you don’t.

“Sorry, saer,” you murmur. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” he replies with a brilliant smile, before he places a finger on the edge of your paper. You look up again.

“You’re new here,” he says, red eyes fixed unblinkingly on your face.

Red eyes, you note again. Those are unusual, but you think some elves have them, usually ones with drow lineage. This would be a terribly rude thing to comment on, though, so you stay quiet until you realize you should respond to his question.

“Yes, m’lord, I am,” you reply. 

“Oh, please,” he purrs, “Call me Astarion.”

You look down at the hand he’s presented to you, uncertain if you’re supposed to shake it or kiss it. You stand hastily and decide to shake it. His smile washes over you as you squeeze his hand firmly, just like papa taught.

“An honor,” you say, dipping your head. He leans down and pulls your hand up to his face, planting a soft kiss on it. You can feel the warmth of his lips mirrored in your cheeks as you find yourself uncertain what to do next. Your heart skips a beat as he squeezes it tightly.

“Very pleased to meet you,” he replies, and lets go of your hand at last. “So. What brings you to my fair city?”

“I- I’m looking for my aunt,” you say, still standing awkwardly.

You realize, then, that perhaps this was too forward, but you’re finding it awfully hard to think straight right now. You amend yourself.

“Er, visiting my aunt.”

Astarion smirks, his eyes flicking toward the door for a moment before settling back on you.

“May I join you?”

You falter, uncertain what to do. You’re not used to being noticed, but you did come here to try to learn about the city. About what’s happening. About the rumors. He waits on your words patiently, eyes flicking across your garb, down your figure, across your neck, and back up to your face.

“Er, I wouldn’t want to trouble you, saer. I’m sure you’ve got… important business and such.”

“Oh, not at all, my dear,” he replies, sliding into the booth across from you, seating himself with a bright, infectious smile. “I enjoy coming down to the Elfsong and sampling the entertainment in the mornings.”

He laughs and the sound tickles down your spine.

“It was my old hunting ground, you know.”

You blink at him, sitting down awkwardly.

“Old… hunting ground?”

“Yes. When I was younger and ceaselessly hunting up good company, darling. I hope you don’t mind if I impose. I’m dreadfully curious to hear all about you and your aunt.”

His gaze almost seems to sink into you, seeping through your own and beckoning your words forth.

“I used to come to Baldur's Gate as a child,” you say, flushing. He makes a polite noise of interest, still watching you speak, and you continue. “And my aunt lives here, just over by Bonecloak’s.”

“Just around the corner from my own abode,” he murmurs. “I know the neighborhood well.”

“Anyway,” you fumble, “she wrote to me all the time.”

“I see by your paper that you’re literate. Unusual for…” he trails off, examining your modest best, “country folk, no?”

You nod.

“She taught me my letters when I stayed with her. We’re close. That’s what brought me back to Baldur’s Gate.”

“Learning your letters?”

“Oh, no, saer. We write to each other often.” You frown, glancing into the handsome face for reassurance. He smiles and inclines his head slightly, so you continue. “And well, I think something was off with her. Her letters turned… odd.”

Astarion casts a glance around and leans in toward you across the table. You can’t help but do the same.

“Odd how, darling?”

“It’s hard to say.”

Something nags at you, and you realize it’s the warnings that you’ve received urging you to keep your business to yourself. You clear your throat and sit back a little.

“I figured she was getting old and that her mind was going so when the letters stopped I came to help her out. Make sure she was ok.”

“I see,” Astarion purrs, a smile lurking in the corner of his lips. “How kind of you. So, how is she?”

You hesitate, looking away, breaking free of that arresting gaze. You don’t know what to say next, but Astarion saves you from having to decide.

“She’s missing, isn’t she?”

Your eyes snap back to his face. He’s watching you intently, observing your reaction. You get the sense that lying to him would be useless, so you nod a little before responding.

“Yes.”

Astarion leans back and steeples his fingers together, touching them to his nose as he appears lost in thought.

“Do you have any idea what happened to her,” he asks finally.

You shake your head and he nods solemnly, then sighs.

“Another one missing and my fellow patriars do nothing.”

You lean in, ears pricked by this statement, and you lower your voice to a whisper.

“Then it’s true?”

Astarion tilts his head and leans in, too.

“What’s that, darling?”

“My aunt said that people are disappearing. That the patriars know something but won’t do nothing.”

He casts a startled glance around the room, holding his hand out, motioning you to be quiet. You look into the room, too, trying to figure out what he’s looking for, but failing. When you turn back, his eyes flick up to your face as he speaks again.

“Keep your voice down, my dear. We wouldn’t want the wrong people to hear you.”

“The wrong people?”

“Yes. The ones responsible for these disappearances. It would be an awful shame if you were disappeared, too.”

He draws back and laughs a high pitched giggle. You scowl, not sure what’s funny about that. He notices and inclines his head apologetically.

“Forgive me, my dear,” he says, leaning back in and lowering his voice again. “We’re all a bit high strung these days. So, did your aunt have any idea who was responsible?”

“She thinks it’s one of the patriars. One of the ones who got into the council after the Netherbrain.”

“Did she,” he exclaims, all interest now. “Who?”

You glance around, and lower your voice to the barest whisper.

“Well I don’t know yet. I just got into her writing desk. Haven’t made sense of it all but she seemed interested in a fellow called Lord Ancunin.”

Astarion leans back with a dramatic gasp, eyes wide, hand on his mouth.

“Really,” he asks, conspiratorially. “You know, darling…”

He trails off, looking around the tavern and you can’t help but do the same again, noticing that just as they did yesterday, everyone is keeping their eyes on their own business.

“I think your aunt may be right.”

“No,” you say, sitting up and staring, eyes wide, heart hammering. He grins.

“I’m certain.” His eyes are fixed on yours again as you sit and absorb this, fighting off the flush of fear. “Did your aunt know anything further about all this? Say, how, it was happening?”

“I don’t know yet,” you admit. “I just started going through her scribblings.”

Astarion nods, stroking his chin.

“Well,” he says finally, looking back at you, through you it feels like with those red eyes of his. “You’ve certainly whetted my appetite. How about we meet back here tomorrow morning.”

“Meet back here,” you ask, surprised.

“Of course, my dear. A little murder mystery could be fun. I simply must get to the bottom of what your dear aunt knows. Perhaps it can help me piece it all together. We can compare notes out on the roof if the weather holds. Away from listening ears and prying eyes.”

“Alright,” you say, straightening under Astarion’s gaze. “I’ll see what I can turn up, Lord…”

“It’s Astarion, darling.”

“Lord Astarion.”

He chuckles again, eyes glinting in amusement. You get the sense that he’s laughing at you, somewhat, but you suppose this is because you’re a country woman, not a worldly patriar like him. All the same, you were taught manners.

“Thank you,” you say, feeling a little ray of hope.

“Of course,” he purrs. “Trust me, my dear. We’ll discover the truth together.”

He smiles at you, and you can’t help but smile back, heart skipping a beat under the easiness of the look. When he stands, you find yourself doing the same, reaching to shake his hand in farewell. His grin sharpens, and he takes your hand again, pressing it to his lips once more.

“Until tomorrow, darling.”

You watch as he strides out into the sunlight, stepping into the same coach you saw earlier, before disappearing from your sight. You’re left sitting alone at the little table now, chewing over everything you’ve discovered.

So something is wrong in Baldur’s Gate. Your aunt vanished, and someone believes you. A patriar believes you, perhaps even knows something important, like she might have. You shouldn’t be too surprised. Your aunt did mention some of the nobles trying to get to the bottom of all these strange occurrences. Maybe they'd just taken the hunt underground.

Perhaps you’ve just gotten very, very lucky meeting Lord Astarion when you did.

You hurry home to your aunt’s house, taking the papers out and scattering them on the floor around you. You read them all, digging for anything that seems particularly jarring or unusual. You still can’t quite piece it all together, can’t figure out what all this talk of blood and disappearances and lords has to do with each other.

And then you consider the book. The one with the fake cover.

“The Curse of the Vampyre.”

Your brow furrows as you try to recall what little you know about the creatures, and you realize suddenly that this has to be the piece connecting it all. You don’t know much, but you know they come out at night and drain folks of their blood. And that garlic is supposed to keep them away.

This makes too much sense, suddenly, as you recall the pungent herb hanging everywhere. You can feel your heart race a little bit faster and you pick up the book, bringing it downstairs in shaking hands, leaving it on the chair.

You retrieve some root vegetables from the cellar, chopping them and adding them to the pot, determined to stay inside today and read, especially as the weather darkens once more. You need to know everything you can about what a vampire is, how to identify one, how to keep yourself safe.

And if there is anything you can do to find your aunt again.

You let the cauldron simmer and leaf through your aunt’s letters and papers together again, tracing the red thread of blood and the dark thread of fear. That one name comes up again and again, the one that she left out of your letters. Lord Ancunin.

Knowing what you might be up against, listening to the scratching and scampering starting outside as night falls and mist rolls through the streets, you decide to read the thick tome all the way through before morning.

You are halfway done when the howling starts once more, chasing you up the stairs, and making you shiver in dreadful fear. Lethander preserve you, but you think that your aunt was right. Baldur’s Gate has fallen under the spell of a vampire!

Chapter Text

Lower City: Day Three

You find yourself greeting the few flickers of sunshine the following morning brings with relief. You know now why your aunt willed the house to you.

She knew you would come looking and she knew you would need a safe harbor. The only safe space for you in Baldur's Gate is this little house, and it will remain that way as long as you invite no one else in.

You find yourself wondering if perhaps you should just flee the city now. It would be safest for you, certainly.

But then you think of your aunt, consider that she could still be alive somewhere, chained up in a cellar like livestock or charmed and pressed into service. And you recall the handsome Lord Astarion, who’s counting on you to return with these papers, to help him get to the bottom of this.

You’re torn.

Your fear drives you to return home, to leave the city, but a part of you always wanted to find yourself in a story as exciting as the ones your aunt read to you. You recall all the letters she sent about how ordinary people rose up to defeat the illithid threat that day not so very long ago, and you find yourself resolving to stay.

You are extremely glad that your aunt switched the cover on the book that you’re bringing to the Elfsong this morning. The last thing you should do is draw attention to yourself by flaunting the topic in public. The vampire could have eyes or ears anywhere.

You use your aunt’s cookware to make a simple breakfast of oatmeal flavored with some preserves before you hurry off, almost feeling the irrational urge to dart from patch of sunlight to patch of sunlight like you used to do as a small child playing "Don’t Touch the Acid."

You tell yourself this is ridiculous. The book was very clear that the sun protects you. Lethander will protect you in the daylight hours, and you whisper a quick prayer as you hurry toward the Elfsong, feeling a desperate need to confide everything you’ve learned in someone who believes you, who wants to help.

You find yourself out of breath as you hurry inside. The barkeep meets your eye with a small frown and nods his head to the stairs.

“Rooftop. He’s waiting for you. Take the stairs, then the ladder.”

You murmur your thanks and make your way back outside, pausing at the sight on the roof.

Lord Astarion is sitting at a lone table, eyes closed, face turned toward the sun, a glass in his hand. He almost looks as though he’s meditating. You hesitate, not wanting to interrupt, but he turns to you smiling and beckons you over with a finger.

“So,” he croons, “find anything juicy? Because I certainly have.”

You put the book on the table, which causes him to raise an eyebrow until you open the cover, revealing the title page. A wide grin spreads across his features as he reaches out and picks up the leatherbound tome.

“How very fascinating! Your aunt was a clever woman, hiding this away.”

You nod, brow drawn down at the mention of her.

“I think they have her,” you say tentatively.

“Who has her, my dear?”

“The… vampires.”

His eyes flick up to your face from over the cover of the book.

“Mmmm. All well and good, but you can’t mount a rescue unless you know where to look.”

“It has to be that patriar that she mentioned over and over. That Lord Ancunin. Do you know where to find him?”

Astarion’s eyes sparkle as he lowers the book and covers his mouth with his hand, ineffectually hiding his smile.

“It just so happens that I do. You’re certain he’s connected to this?”

You nod.

“My aunt was convinced. And then she vanished. I don’t think that’s coincidence.”

“Describe her to me,” he commands, listening intently while you recount your aunt as you remember her, noting that she’d be older now. “Well, darling, this leaves me with some work to do this morning. You read this book, I take it?”

“Yes.”

His approving smile makes your chest swell with pleasure.

“Then you understand how important it is that you do not go out in the dark?”

You nod.

“And that I invite no one into my home.”

“Good girl,” he purrs, still smiling. He makes a soft ‘tch’ sound before speaking. “Look at you, catching on. We’ll meet back here in the afternoon, darling. I’ve business that needs doing before then.”

He hands you the book back and you grasp it to your chest.

“Er, thank you m’lord. For your help.”

“Please, darling. It’s Astarion. Just Astarion.”

You back toward the hatch nodding as he turns back to the sun, swirling a dark wine in his goblet.

“Remember,” he chides, not turning. “Stay out of the dark. And do bring back all of your aunt’s musings. There might be something important buried in them.”

You hurry downstairs, heart beating fast, wondering what he’s got to do before meeting you again. Perhaps he knows this Lord Ancunin personally. Perhaps he’s setting up some kind of diversion or excuse to run a rescue mission. Maybe he’ll duel him in the streets!

You bide your time in the city, enjoying the few blessed hours of morning sun, watching Lord Astarion's carriage withdraw, but then, just as it has the past two days, the air starts to thicken with mist and a shroud rolls in overhead.

You recall his warnings, wondering fitfully if the weather, not just the night, allows the vampires to roam freely. You determine not to risk it, and hurry home to gather the rest of your aunt’s papers together, bundling them with the letters that she sent you.

When you reach the Elfsong again, you’re running inside, dodging swollen drops of rain and scampering before the ever darkening skies. You see Lord Astarion sitting in his opulent little booth in the corner, savoring a glass of wine and watching the crowd around him with that piercing gaze.

When his eyes alight upon you, he inclines his head and smiles.

You hurry over to him, uneasy as heads track your progress across the room. You don’t like being noticed, not when you know, now, what’s lurking somewhere in Baldur's Gate. Astarion raises his hand and the barkeep appears beside him.

“A glass of red for the lady, please.”

“Oh, um, thank you,” you mumble, sinking into the seat across from him after a tiny awkward curtsy.

“My pleasure.” He pauses, eyes tracing over your flushed face. “Red is a pretty color on you, darling.”

“I was dodging the rain,” you say, blushing harder. He smiles.

“Sit. Please. Let’s see what all you’ve brought me.”

You hand him the bundle of papers, watching him flick through them all, eyes racing across the pages as he takes it all in. He scowls several times, and you catch a flicker of darkness crossing his face, before it vanishes again, replaced by his easy smile.

You sit waiting, sipping your wine, feeling it go to your head a little, loosening your shoulders and encouraging you to speak freely. Astarion places the papers down, spreading his hands across them before looking back up at you.

He regards you closely and licks his lips before speaking.

“I hate to say it, my dear, but your aunt was right.”

You can feel the edge of fear plunging into you and swallow as you try to control your heart rate. He settles back against the cushioned booth bench behind him after his proclamation, eyes never leaving your face. You speak, finally, in a small voice.

“About what?”

“All of it,” he says softly.

You want to roll your eyes and laugh, to snort in disbelief, but you’ve been here for two nights now. You’ve heard the streets in the dark. You’ve seen the way the populace deserts them before the last vestige of light flickers away. How every night the mist and rats and wolves and only the gods know what else claim the city.

You swallow again.

“I didn’t believe her,” you admit, voice quiet as you shift on your seat uncomfortably. “But the wolves…”

Astarion laughs, waving his hand dismissively.

“Oh, darling, those are just dogs.”

“No,” you argue back, causing him to lock eyes with you. “I come from the countryside. We get wolves. Lots of wolves. Those howls? They’re rallying calls. Cries to start a hunt.”

Astarion’s gaze pierces yours as he listens with a slight tilt to his head.

“Well, you charming country commoners would know wolves better than I would, of course. I’m just some upper city toff, after all.”

“And they’ve got to be a powerful vampire to do all this,” you mumble, swallowing your growing fear at the thought of what you might be facing.

“Very powerful,” Astarion agrees.

You feel a shiver run through you, can’t help but shudder visibly.

“Is something wrong, my dear?”

You shake your head a little too sharply.

“I- they could be anyone,” you whisper, looking up at his red eyes. He smiles reassuringly.

“You’re wondering if I’m one? Because of my eyes?”

You hesitate, afraid to nod, but he bursts into a laugh.

“But we were sitting in the sunshine together just this morning, darling!”

And suddenly, you feel very silly. Of course he isn’t a vampire. If he were a vampire, he’d have burnt up in Lethander’s light.

You find yourself chuckling with him, too, then.

“I apologize, Lord Astarion. This is all making me paranoid.”

“Understandable,” he purrs. “Trust me when I say they’re vicious creatures with insatiable appetites. They’d tear right through a darling little country girl like you.”

Your voice comes out soft and unsure.

“You know about vampires, then?”

“Oh, yes,” he drawls with a wave. “They have a long history in this city. One must have taken power after the Netherbrain fell.”

“Then… what do we do?”

He looks away, off into the distance, running a perfect nail down the side of his chin in thought, a small grin hiding in the corner of his mouth.

“I’m not certain, my dear. But in the meantime, you’ll share a meal with me here, yes?” He glances out the tavern door. “It doesn’t look like the rain is letting up any time soon.”

“I don’t know,” you blush, looking up into his gorgeous face. “I really shouldn’t be spending all of my coin-”

“Nonsense,” he waves. “It’s on me, my dear. It’s the least I can do to prepare you for this… hunt we’re on together.”

“Alright,” you say, a small grin creeping up onto your lips at the thought of this handsome elf patriar buying you dinner. “Er, what’s good here?”

“Mmm,” he growls, “I’m quite partial to the steak tartare myself. Will you sample it with me?”

You cannot tell him no, not when his eyes entreat you so earnestly. You simply nod as he motions for a waiter and dictates his order for two. The bottle of red you’ve been enjoying is brought to the table and then sent back for a better one to fill both of your glasses.

You can’t help but giggle in your chest, forgetting where you are and why you came, as Astarion makes conversation with you. He asks about your journey, how far you’ve traveled, what you do back home in the countryside, who’s waiting for you there.

You can’t help but feel that this last question is a little pointed, and blush, flattered, as he correctly identifies the scent of the lavender you mix into your goat milk soap. He compliments the stitching on your blouse, and you begin talking of your aunt, the seamstress.

This topic delights him, and you find yourself listening now as he discusses the tailors in the city, inquiring where your aunt had worked, nodding approvingly, wondering if he himself didn’t have some garments that had passed through her hands.

It’s with a sudden start that you recall you’d met him here before dinner and that you don’t know how much time has passed. Astarion seems to have understood your apprehension and peers out the front of the tavern with you.

“The weather just isn’t letting up, is it,” he sighs. You shake your head, noticing how your vision still blurs from the wine. “But you’ve got to get home before nightfall.”

“I suppose there’s nothing for it,” you mutter, nerves tensing at the thought of going out under the threatening pall of clouds.

Astarion chews his lip, frowning at you.

“I’m worried, darling. I don’t know that you should be out alone. It is awfully close to dusk and those clouds are dreadfully dark.” He flashes you the showy handle of a beautifully worked dagger. “Allow me to walk you home, darling, please. I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you in my fair city.”

You consider his request hesitantly, but you’ve seen him out in the daylight, after all, and if there is one thing that every myth agrees upon, it’s that vampires cannot go out in the sun.

“Alright,” you say.

“Wonderful,” he purrs, eyes shining as he stands and extends his hand to you.

You feel yourself blush at his courtly gesture and place your fingers in his palm tentatively. He beams down at you, gives your hand a tight squeeze, and raises it to his lips again, planting a lingering kiss on your skin.

You feel your heart flutter this time as he pulls his lips away and wonder briefly if he’s going to try to entice you back to his palace. Goodness. That would be unfortunate, since you’d have to decline. The only place you know is truly safe in this city is your aunt’s house, your house.

The book was very certain about that.

You wait at the entrance of the tavern as Astarion settles with the barkeep. Peering back at the faces watching you blankly, you wonder who among them is actually a monster in disguise and feel that shudder of unease crawl across your skin again.

You startle as a hand rests gently on your lower back.

“Apologies,” Astarion says, removing it. You catch your breath, exhaling sharply as you try to wrangle your heart rate back under control. “Lead the way, darling.”

You nod your head and step out into the mist nervously.

You don’t like this. You can tell from the golden glow gilt on the edges of black clouds in the distance that the sun has not yet set, but the streets are nearly silent and already far too dark for comfort. The mist is seeping in, wandering up from the harbor below, slipping beneath your skirt, curling away in petulant puffs as you hasten toward home.

Astarion follows soundlessly, and you almost forget that he’s escorting you until he steps out in front.

“Hold on, darling.”

You freeze, turning to him with wide, inquiring eyes.

“I thought I heard something. Just… be on your guard.”

This is difficult to do. The mist has thickened, racing up from the river and sprawling against the walls of the lower city before billowing back down upon itself, enfolding everything below. You almost fear to move, but you know home is just ahead. Safety is around the corner.

You blink as Astarion mumbles an incantation, holding a small flame in his hand. You hadn’t realized he could do magic, but then again, he is an elf.

“Your home is right ahead, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” you whisper.

“Stay behind me,” he orders. You nod, following in his shadow as you approach. You hear his hissed breath of concern before you see what caused it.

There is no door on the hinges. It has been shattered, lies in pieces across the floor of the small main room. You cannot suppress your cry of dismay.

“Someone must know,” Astarion says, voice low as he steps into the home before you. You follow in his wake, heart seizing up in despair as you cast your glance around in the flickering light thrown by the flame in his hand.

The furniture is smashed, splintered. The hatch to the root cellar has been ripped off of its hinges, and all the neat little shelves and their contents lay piled together in a sodden mess on the dirt floor below. You ignore Astarion’s hiss of warning and hurry up the stairs, eyes adjusting to the darkness.

The wardrobe is sprawled across the floor in pieces, clothing scattered everywhere, torn into rags. The letter desk still stands, but the drawer has been ripped out and smashed against the stones of the chimney, resting in splinters on an overturned bed.

You see great slashes in the straw mattress, wondering if they’re not from a dagger or sword, except that they’re too uniform, too close together. Too much like claw marks. The books, too, have been shredded. Pages lay everywhere, covers torn apart and left on the floor. You stare for a moment longer before backing down the stairs, feeling violated and exposed in what was your only certain sanctuary.

Astarion clears his throat softly and you looked up at him, not quite seeing him, still glancing around you, wondering what in the hells to do now.

“You can’t stay here, darling,” he says. “Not like this. It isn’t safe.”

The sadness and fear welling up inside you threaten to bring you to tears. This was the last little bit of your aunt, and now it lay in ruins. It was your safe haven in a city gone mad.

“I don’t have anywhere else to stay,” you hear yourself say quietly, wondering if there’s a way you could get an abandoned door, perhaps from the house out back, and fit it well enough to pass for the night.

“You’re welcome to come with me, darling. I live just up the hill, after all.”

“I couldn’t,” you protest. “I’m sure there’s a door around here that I can just take and fit. It shouldn’t take long and it’ll last until morning.”

“I won’t hear of it,” he sniffs. “You never know what monsters are out there combing the streets, looking for prey.”

He stares at you, face soft and concerned, eyes begging your acceptance. 

“Are you sure it wouldn’t be an inconvenience?”

“No,” he purrs reassuringly. “Not at all. I’d love to have you. I can have a room prepared just for you.”

You see him turn his head down the street, down toward the harbor in concern. You hear why then. The wolves have started howling early tonight.

“I must insist you hurry, my dear. If those are indeed wolves, they'll be upon us soon.”

His eyes plead with you as he holds his free hand out. You nod, swallowing, ears full of the crying of the wolves closer than you remember them ever being, and you reach out to him.

He grabs you firmly and pulls you out into the streets, whisking you along through the swirling mists, turning corners, climbing stairs, seemingly able to pick his way unerringly through even the densest patches of fog.

You can see next to nothing between the darkness of the night and the fog swaddling you, so you cling to Astarion's hand, a hand he hasn’t once let go of since you reached out in the shattered wreck of your aunt’s. You try to count the turns, the stairs, but it’s useless.

You simply have to trust that he knows where he’s going.

You find yourself climbing a spiraling staircase -- in a tower you think -- and suddenly you’re above the fog staring along the top of a wall toward the palace that sits high above your aunt’s neighborhood.

Your escort breathes a sigh of relief, slowing his steps and glancing back at you.

Your heart is racing, aching, pounding against your rib cage as you hear the wolves swirling somewhere in the mist below. You flinch in fear as something whirls past your head.

Astarion laughs.

“A bat, my dear. Nothing more.”

He’s smirking at you now, and you blush in embarrassment. It isn’t like you to be so easily startled.

“Come,” he purrs. “Let’s get you inside. You’re all flushed and trembling. I think a drink will put us both right.”

He smiles at you, eyes beckoning you onward with him. It makes you uneasy for a moment, and you tug at your hand. He lets it go and you rub your fingers together nervously as you stare out above the mist flooding the city below.

The wolves begin howling louder, closer.

“Don’t tarry. I'm certain they know how to use stairs.”

You shudder and force your feet to move toward Lord Astarion’s palace. He simply walks toward the door, which opens before him. You see a servant dressed in red and gold, looking fixedly ahead, not even noticing you it seems as he shuts the door behind you with a clang that echoes in the antechamber.

“Welcome,” Astarion says, hands stretched up and out, “to my estate. I do so hope you find the hospitality to your liking.”

Chapter Text

Upper City: The Palace

Your eyes lift toward the vaulted ceiling, sliding across its height and falling down the walls, taking in the myriad of paintings hung all throughout the entryway. Everything is gilded, decked in deep reds and golds. The entryway is immaculate, expensively furnished, not a speck of dust to be found. Candles glow in dozens of sconces, throwing dancing shadows around the hall.

It’s well lit, between the flames and the glittering gold all around. All the same, you can’t help it: you feel as though the night has followed you in somehow.

“Come with me,” Lord Astarion says, extinguishing the flame in his hand. “Just through here, my dear.”

You follow him timidly through a large set of doors into what must be the room where he conducts business or receives guests. A sturdy, carved chair sits alone upon a dais at the front.

“This way,” he almost hums, and you startle. You're not certain that the little dining alcove was there moments before. “Just have a seat anywhere, my dear. Let me send for a servant.”

You sink into a chair silently, eyes still roving over the details of the palace. Something is nagging at you. Something looks familiar, but you simply can’t place it.

Astarion bursts into sudden laughter as he sits down in a large chair at the head of the table and puts his feet up on the seat next to him.

“Well,” he drawls, smirking at you. “This has been invigorating, wouldn’t you say?”

You’re not certain that’s the word you would choose. You’ve never quite felt so desperately helpless and afraid. So panicked and lost. He can see it.

“Relax, my dear. No one is going to come after you in here, I promise.”

You see him inhale deeply before sighing his breath back out.

A servant appears with a bottle of wine and two elegant silver goblets on a tray. He moves to pour for the both of you, but Astarion waves him off with a scowl, taking the bottle himself.

When the servant departs, it’s just the two of you in the small, close dining room again. Astarion examines your face before glancing lower for a moment, and then back up again.

“So,” he drawls, gesturing at the wall beside him. “What do you think of the art? I had it commissioned when the upper city was finished.”

You glance toward the painting he indicated, unsure why this should be the topic of conversation when all you can think about is the mist and the wolves and your missing aunt and her ruined home, but you peer obligingly at the piece. It seems to be a painting of his palace highlighted by sun as it sits high above your aunt's neighborhood. You can recognize the gothic outline of it against the sky, the distinct arches and crenelations.

You frown.

The crenelations. They match those of the lower city walls. This detail makes you uneasy, even more uneasy when you notice that the motif matches the molding in the room you’re sitting in.

You turn back to Lord Astarion at the sound of a glass sliding across the table toward you. He withdraws his hand and lifts his own, swirling its contents and breathing in.

“A toast, my dear?”

“A toast?”

“Yes…” he pauses and glances away before smirking and resting his gaze back on your face. “To a successful hunt.”

You shift in your chair, picking your goblet up reluctantly. Your stomach is somersaulting and you don’t feel like taking a drink, but Lord Astarion lifts his goblet toward you with a wide smile. You mimic the gesture and watch him as he takes a long sip, before lowering the glass, revealing eyes watching you intently.

He notices your reluctance with a sigh.

“Come now, don’t be rude. Drink.”

You look down. The glass is half empty, but you don’t remember deciding to take a drink.

You can’t recall the goblet’s cold caress on your lips, or the bracing heat of the wine warming you. You blink, feeling sluggish, far too aware of your heartbeat.

Your heart is racing. Hammering. Clawing its way up your throat.

You blink your eyes, trying to fend off the darkness curling in from the edge of your vision, and then you realize it.

There is darkness curling in from the edge of your vision.

You open your mouth in protest, open your hand, letting the cup fall. It hits the floor with a sound that echoes up at you from far below, wine arcing out in a crimson stain across the immaculate floor.

You try to move, panicking, try to rise from your seat or shout for help. You cannot. You can’t even make your hand slip down to the dagger hidden beneath your skirt. You feel your body tumbling, toppling out of the chair into the puddle of wine on the floor.

Hands with nails that dig into you lift you, limp, up toward the sound of laughter, and nothing makes sense any more.

When you recognize your own thoughts again, you don’t know where you are.

Your head is spinning, sending a wave of nausea through you with every new movement as you try to turn, to flop your head to the other side, to see.

You can hear nothing but your own heartbeat pounding in your eardrums, pulsing in your chest. You feel that same pulse in your throat, a throat constricted in fear.

You manage to force your eyes open finally and the room around you swims, crimsons and golds whirling together in dizzying waves as your unsteady gaze tries to make sense of your surroundings.

“Shh, shh, shh,” you hear right beside you.

Your heart skips a beat then bursts back to life, pulse sticking in your throat, drumming against your skull.

You swat at the sound and it turns into lilting laughter, laughter that fills you with dread.

“Now, now. That’s no way to treat your host,” the voice chastises.

The voice. You know the voice. You met the voice… in the tavern. The Elfsong Tavern.

The silver haired elf with the easy smile and piercing red eyes. He brought you home to his palace and then…

No.

You whimper quietly.

“It’ll wear off soon, my sweet,” he says soothingly, stroking your hair.

Astarion. That was his name. But you realize something dreadfully important, then.

He never once told you his surname.

“Your… surname,” you manage to ask.

“Ah! Astarion Ancunin, darling.”

No. Gods below, no.

“The Lord Ancunin,” he says softly.

You reach down toward your thigh, fingers searching for the dagger and finding only your bare flesh. No dagger. No skirt.

You notice it then. Your clothes have been removed.

You hear another giggle.

“Looking for this?”

You tense, sucking in a breath as the cold, flat edge of a knife trails across your naked stomach. Your hands begin trembling as the fear runs riot through your gut, swirling in the wake of the blade’s caress.

You try to suppress a whimper and it comes out as a half swallowed sob.

Your vision is sharpening now. You wish it wouldn’t. You don’t want to see. You don’t want to know. You already know but it’s so much easier to pretend when you don’t have to refute the evidence of your eyes.

You’re lying in a large four-poster bed, elegantly carved, dark wood inlaid with gold. Heavy velvet curtains hang down, tied back to reveal the opulent room beyond. Everything matches perfectly, from the molding to the furniture, from the furniture to the rugs, from the rugs to the tapestries, from the tapestries to the paintings.

The paintings fill you with dread.

A hand, limp, with a glass fallen to the floor, spilling glistening red across the bottom of the frame. A skull lying in a pool of blood, jaw shrieking as though it’s being consumed by the red light bathing it from above. A naked man, his back to you, curled into a half ball behind an ornate chair as Lord Astarion stares out of the painting with a dark smile.

You try to sit up, and are forced back down with a firm hand. The room spins above you and you swallow against the nausea.

Astarion is lying beside you, dressed in a pair of simple trousers and a loose, flowing shirt with silver buttons. He is watching you, his face the face from the portrait, haughty, with a sneering grin and cruel eyes.

He sits up and reaches over, grabbing your arms one at a time. You try to pull them out of his grasp but you can’t. His fingers are shackles and you still feel so heavy and sluggish. He chuckles as he works, wrapping a silk sash around your wrists, tying them to a ring held by a snarling gargoyle fastened to the headboard.

“Relax,” he whispers down at you, settling back beside you. “We’re going to enjoy ourselves tonight, darling.”

“Let- let me go,” you say, finding your voice. “Release me!”

“Oh, don’t worry. I can promise you release tonight.”

He presses a hand to your face, tracing your cheekbone with his thumb. You pull away and he tuts at you, rolling deftly on top of you, straddling you and taking your head in his grasp, digging his nails in painfully.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way, darling. But it is happening.”

“No,” you say.

“Yes,” he smiles back.

You try to shake your head, but you can’t. It’s trapped between his hands. Astarion leans down, and you try to lean back, but there’s nowhere to go. You watch that hauntingly gorgeous face sink lower, stopping inches above yours, still smiling.

He stares, those ruby eyes of his seeming to glow in the firelight and absorb the shadows flickering throughout the room. You can’t break your gaze away; the red is almost hypnotic. 

His lips part into a fierce grin and you see his fangs clearly then.

A shiver runs through you and curls around the base of your spine. 

“Please,” you whisper, just wanting him to let you go. Just wanting to be anywhere but here.

“Of course,” he whispers back and you freeze.

His lips are on yours. You can’t help but notice how soft they are. How warm. You try again to sink away from him, but it’s useless. His hands press firmly into the sides of your skull, bruising your cheekbones, and then his tongue slips between your lips.

He plunges it into your mouth while you lie frozen in horror at the violation. The feeling of his tongue against the roof of your mouth galvanizes you for a moment, and you try to snap your teeth down onto him. To hurt him. To scare him away.

But he isn’t there.

Astarion smirks down at you playfully.

“I wouldn’t recommend that, darling. I promise I bite harder, and I am a very vengeful vampire.”

You don’t know what to do as you lie frozen beneath him. You can feel the breaths dissolving into sobs in your lungs, but you choke them down, shaking, trying to repress your terror. Your eyes betray your efforts, welling with tears. You attempt to blink them back, but fail, feeling a warm drop slide down your cheek, meeting the grasping fingers holding your head in place.

“Oh,” he breathes above you, voice laden with false sympathy as he rubs the tear away with a thumb. You can’t stop. You suck down a lungful of air in a sob as another tear escapes.

“There, there. Let’s dry those pretty little eyes, darling.”

No.

You don’t know what he means to do but you know that you don’t want him to do it.

Fight, you tell yourself as he leans closer, red eyes fixed on your own.

Fight!

But you can’t. You can’t bring yourself to move, except to shake beneath him, watching as his face descends lower and lower. It slips down beside yours and he turns toward you. You can barely see him in your peripheral vision, but you feel his breath against you, warm and soothing.

And then you feel his tongue lick up your cheek slowly, tracing the tears, the tip tickling the corner of your eye. His breath rattles out of him and he sucks down another to replace it, rising above you with closed eyes, throat bobbing as he swallows.

The look on his face is identical to the one he wore as he savored the wine at dinner.

You feel a growing presence against your naked stomach as he leans down to lick the tears off of you again. A deep shudder wracks your body as you realize that the taste of your fear and helplessness is arousing to this monster.

You blink, determined to stop crying, flinching as your eyelashes flutter against his nose. He sits up slowly as you set your teeth, your nostrils flaring in resolve.

“Lovely appetizer,” he purrs, grinding his hips against you, taking his hands off of your face, freeing it at last.

You’re grateful for this until you realize that he’s unlacing his pants. You look quickly away with a sob. You don’t want to see.

His weight is gone suddenly, and you look back, confused.

The elf reappears from a cloud of shadow at the foot of the bed, perfectly timed with your gasp of shock. Before you can look away, you’ve taken it all in. His unlaced trousers, pulled open to free his cock. The hand slowly stroking his erect shaft. His smirk as his eyes slink across you.

You flush and glance up, but he catches your gaze for a moment before you can escape.

“Like what you see,” he asks, letting his pants fall to the floor, stepping out of them.

Your heart hammers harder and you shake your head, ignoring the spreading warmth in your thighs.

He tilts his head and tuts at you, taking his hand off himself and unbuttoning the shirt he’s wearing. You cannot help but look as it falls open, framing a body so perfect it could have been carved by Sune herself.

“What about now,” he purrs, throwing an arm above his head and swaying his hips seductively, fastening a sultry gaze directly on you.

You shake your head at him again, mute, eyes too wide, too tight, too determined not to see.

You want to leave. You need to go. You shouldn't be here. You have to get out.

You try to sit up again and are tugged back down by the silk around your wrists, forced to remember that your hands are strung above your head. You scoot your legs up, pushing yourself toward your bindings, bringing your hands beside you as you try to back through the headboard, away from him.

Gods, your heart won’t stop running. Won’t stop pounding. It feels like it’s going to burst inside your chest.

Astarion throws his head back and laughs.

“I can smell it, darling. You can’t lie to me.”

He’s gone again, and suddenly condensing from the air on the bed before you. His nails dig into your thighs as he ignores your fervent head shakes and your pleas, dragging you supine again before perching back atop you.

“Admit it,” he sneers, grabbing his cock and letting it smack back against your naked flesh. “You enjoyed the show. You want to feel me inside you. You want to be mine.”

“No! I want to go back home. Let me go!”

“Ha,” he all but snarls. “Do wolves heed a bleating lamb where you’re from, darling?”

No. You can picture what the wolves do to your lambs all too well, and he knows it.

You feel a tear leak down your face again, dismay clutching your heart as his mouth falls open. His tongue roves across his beautiful lips and those red eyes pierce you, pinning you in place as they come closer. And closer.

You manage to turn away at last, seeing him only in your peripheral vision now.

The way he moves is so unnatural, too poised, impossibly slow. A mockery of a lover sinking down for a kiss. You can see his carved muscles, can’t help but feel a stir in your loins as his soft, warm flesh moves against yours.

Warm? How?

You can’t hold the thought. It flees the next one.

He’s lying on top of you now.

He’s lying on top of you. Nowhere to go. Trapped.

Trapped under his body. Trapped in your own body.

For a moment it doesn’t feel real, and you cling to that moment.

But then you feel his tongue licking up your cheek again. Still, you cannot move, lie there sickened that you just can’t make yourself move. You can’t do anything other than freeze and wait for him to be done. His exhalation tickles against your wet cheek before he slides his way sensuously back down your body.

You can feel his cock against you as he does, warm and firm as it drags down your flesh, slipping briefly between your folds as he works himself backward down the bed to get a better look at you.

He has an elbow on either side of your breasts, chin resting on steepled fingers as he watches your eyes flit this way and that, caged things seeking desperately for a way out, dragging your head back and forth. Ineffectual.

He catches your eye and smiles broadly.

“Come now. We can both have some fun tonight. I’m not a complete monster.”

Please, Lethander, please. Deliver you.

“For example,” he says, unfurling his fingers from each other and looking down, “these look fun.”

You flinch and whimper as his hands come to rest on your breasts. You don’t want them there. You don’t want his fingers on you, tickling and pinching playfully.

You yelp and try to shy away as his lips close around your nipple, but his nails dig into you painfully deep, keeping you immobilized beneath him as he swirls his tongue in a lazy circle.

Your hips buck involuntarily and you squeeze your eyes shut against the following quiver.

Astarion stops and blows on your wet nipple before smirking up at you and smacking his lips.

“Delicious.”

“Please stop!”

“Keep begging, darling,” he groans. “It really does it for me."

You don’t know what to do. You can’t even beg when you know he wants it. All you can do is sniffle and tremble as he stares back down at your naked chest.

“Time for the second course, I think,” he murmurs, more to himself than you.

A new wave of fear sweeps through you as his head falls back to your breast, lips drawn back to reveal fangs.

No.

You feel teeth.

No no no.

They clutch you as his tongue flits back and forth across the skin of your nipple. You squirm, trying to wiggle away out of his mouth and he bites down.

You shriek as his fangs sink into your breast, icy shards that imbue you with a pulsing numbness that feels… nice. His warm, tender lips and tongue caress you now, causing your loins to respond unbidden. You panic and try to ignore it, somehow remaining stoic as his fangs pull out of you and the warmth of your blood begins to flow down your skin.

His eyelashes flutter as he watches it for a heartbeat. Then he leans down, fastens his lips on the wound, and begins to drink.

You feel the world around you shimmer as your blood flows into his mouth and down his throat, where it suffuses him, mingling with his own, making you both one perfect trembling being for a moment.

You can feel the euphoria the taste of your blood grants, the aching need of his arousal coursing through you as though it were your own. He pulls away with an open mouth leaving a thin line of bloody saliva trailing between you. A drop runs down the side of his mouth, and he licks and swallows with eyes closed in pleasure.

You shake and bite back your sob, trying to ignore the wetness dripping out of you like the blood dripping down your naked breast.

His eyes lock on yours as he opens them, smirking cruelly.

“Was it good for you, too?”

You say nothing, face a mask of emptiness and tears. He pouts at you and then grins. You jolt with a surprised cry as he jams a pair of fingers inside you, pulling them out and rubbing your slickness between his fingers and thumb.

“Oh! That’s a yes,” he purrs with a devious grin.

“No,” you sob.

His gaze sharpens and you can see the edge of anger in his eyes as he cracks his voice at you.

“Don’t lie to me, darling. I can tell you did, even if you can’t.”

You sniffle and choke back another sob as he pouts up at you again, fluttering those gorgeous eyelashes, resting his head of silver curls on your unmarred breast.

“Listen to that delicious heartbeat. Gods, darling, you are decadent! Where did you say you were from?”

“Nowhere,” you state, mastering your hiccuping for a moment.

“Good,” he growls, turning and licking your nipple. You close your eyes against the sensation. “No one else to come looking, then.”

This makes you whimper.

“I- I won’t say a word,” you promise. “Please just let me leave. P-please, m’lord. Please?”

You hear nothing in response at first, and then catch the sound of a hand on flesh, schlicking up and down. You open your eyes, horrified, stomach curdling as you take it in. He is watching you and listening, stroking himself.

Your eyes meet.

“Keep going, darling,” he breathes before devolving into vicious laughter. “No? Well, alright. Maybe you need a different kind of stimulation than I do.”

These words flood you with an ice colder than his bite.

His fingers come to rest atop your folds and you flinch involuntarily at their delicate touch. He giggles, tracing his nails inside your labia before settling a fingertip on the hood of your clit. You feel your breathing deepen, hear his do the same as his finger begins to move in tantalizing little circles.

A long shuddering sobs escapes your lips as you squeeze your eyes shut. You try to lie there unmoving. Absent. Away. But you can’t.

You can feel everything he’s doing to you. You can feel your body betraying you, becoming warmer. Becoming wetter. Tensing. Your attempts to twist away from him tangled up with twitching against him.

“I will have you,” he says softly, kissing your stomach, then nipping it. “Exactly how I want.”

You feel his lips brush you in another kiss before he bites down into the smooth expanse of your skin. Your hips jolt beneath him. He giggles, pushing his free hand down against your chest, pinning you against the silk sheets as he stares rapturously at the blood pooling on your stomach. All the while, his fingers are still working your body into amorous despair.

He leans down and begins to lap the blood up, tongue tickling in time with the fingers that won't stop stroking your folds, teasing your opening, and rubbing your clit.

A moan escapes you, igniting a flash of shame in its wake. He laughs and looks up at your face, causing you to roll your head stubbornly away from him.

You want him to stop caressing. You need him to stop. Gods, any god, please just… stop you from moving like this. Before…

Astarion removes his fingers, and you look down to see what changed. He’s fixated on your inner thigh, now, and you see his tongue run across his bloody lips before he strikes.

You shriek again as the cold pain consumes your flesh, making your whole leg tingle. Your groaning and shaking intensify as he sucks, forcing the world to shiver with you both.

You know you shouldn't beg any longer, that it’s just arousing him more, but you can’t stop the words from tumbling out of your mouth.

“Pleeease,” you sob, trying to draw your leg away, feeling nails and fangs dig in and drag it back. “Don’t! Don’t!”

Blood red eyes flash up at you as he continues clutching your thigh in his fangs. You swear you can see them smiling and then you feel why.

He presses his fingers into you, and you moan in desperation as your body automatically tightens around him.

You are frantic to escape now, frantic to wrest control of yourself back, but he is drowning you, pulling you under into him.

It’s hopeless, you realize in a flash of tragic clarity. Then you feel a shift within you, almost as though you’re not you any longer, but your own flickering shadow, looking on as his fingers tease and caress. As he groans and gulps between your legs.

You are jolted back into yourself as he scrapes your insides with a sharp nail.

As soon as your eyes meet his, he slides both fingers out of you and into his mouth, sucking them clean, never removing his gloating gaze from your face.

He crawls up your body, pausing twice to lick a taste of blood off your stomach and breast again, running his fingers through it and painting it across you gleefully. You can see him hanging erect as he moves, hate that you’re looking at it. Hate that you’re swollen and ready.

“Please,” you sob louder as you feel him lower his skin to yours, smearing the blood between your bodies as he forces your thighs wider and nestles against your folds.

“Oh, darling, but this is the best part. A wonderful little death before our grand finale. A fitting end to our little charade.”

You can feel his hips moving in tiny circles, his cock teasing your entrance, his skin sliding over yours as he paints his pleasure in your blood.

“You get to have the time of your life, and the best death someone like you could hope for, and I get to revel in devouring you.”

“No,” you sob, nerves electrified with terror now. You start squirming beneath him, tugging against your bonds, searching futilely for any way to escape.

“Yes,” he growls as he draws his hips back and then slams down against you, ramming his cock inside you with agonizing, stomach-turning finality.

He breathes against your neck, pinning you down with his body. You can feel every inch of him inside you, tight against your aching walls, and you’re desperate not to. Desperate for him to go away. Desperate for the violation to be over, and suddenly just as desperate for it not to end because you know that when it’s over, he’s going to feast on your blood.

You hear his breathy laugh as he draws himself out slowly. He sneers and slams himself home again, forcing the breath from your lungs in a gasp, forcing more tears from your eyes, as he buries himself so savagely deep that you yelp in pain and tug against the silk above you.

“Yessss,” he hisses, eyes flashing as he watches you writhe and squirm, face soaked with tears that won’t stop flowing. The harder you cry, the more you try to shirk away, the hotter the fire in his eyes burns and the harder and more insistently he drives himself into you the next time.

You lie tangled in the top sheet, gasping down breath as he violates you, his cock plunging into you, his hips grinding tight against yours, rubbing against you at every pain-flecked apex, sending tingling waves of pleasure through you.

“Yes, darling,” he breathes, as another spasm wracks your vagina. “Just like this. Until the very end.”

“Please!”

“Ooh, but of course,” he moans.

You can do nothing.

You can’t make him stop. You can’t even make yourself stop. You feel yourself cracking. You won’t escape him. You won’t leave his palace alive.

“That’s right, darling,” he groans, grabbing you by the throat and forcing his tongue into your mouth. You don’t try to look away any longer and you don’t try to bite.

If you just let go… it will be over soon.

With a deep, broken sob cast directly into his mouth, you lock yourself away and relinquish your flesh to him.

His eyelashes flutter against you as he slips his hands beneath you, grasping your ass, holding you firm against him as his cock fills you over and over.

“Yes,” he whispers. He can see the surrender on your face, can feel how close your body is to giving up, too, and he nips at your neck, before bruising it with his lips, biting down, and sucking. 

You feel that euphoric rush again, and your tears fall as your body moves with him, grinds against him. Answers his desire obediently.

He relinquishes your neck, grabs the back of your head, and kisses you deeply, sucking your lower lip into his mouth, playing his fangs across it before biting down.

You scream against his mouth, overwhelmed by the pain, the tingling numbness, the insidious pleasure, and ride up his cock, pressing it unbearably, achingly deep inside you. He pounds back down into you, embedding himself ecstatically, spine-shiveringly deep as he claims you, bruising you with hips and lips, crushing you both back into the bed.

When he removes his fangs, your scream bubbles through the blood filling your mouth, letting everything out in a burst of anguished sound. The pain, the humiliation, the ecstasy, all of it echoing off the walls of the bedroom.

“Ye-e-e-sssss,” he groans above you before you see wild eyes flash down at you.

“That’s it! Scream for me, darling!”

He's panting at you, lip curled into a savage, dripping smile, as he drags your body to the edge. You both know where you are. You close your eyes and let your head fall sideways as he laughs triumphantly above you.

One more thrust, a deep thrust grinding mockingly against you, followed by a pair of caressing fingers, and you know it’s finally over. You feel the orgasm erupt out of you. Your body is raw and alive and glorious as you lay locked within it, skin ravaged by the heat of pleasure and a deep, despairing shame.

He knows what he's done, grabs you tightly by the chin and leans close. The blood drips off of his pretty lips onto you as he speaks. 

“See? I told you that you wanted this.”

You're empty. Nothing. It’ll all be over soon anyway.

His face twists into a beautiful savage smile as he turns your head to the side, pressing your face down into the bed with an iron hand.

His fangs sink into your neck and your lungs find air, letting forth a final wrenching sob that warps into a despairing wail as your blood becomes his, as your essence entwines one more time, as he pulls it all into himself, consuming what's left of you.

Your voice falters and fades. You can barely feel anything of yourself anymore, just your heartbeat fluttering weakly, a tattered flag on ruined ramparts, but you can still feel him taking you, using you, thrusting inside you. Your vision turns, darkness rushing in to leave you trapped with nothing but him.

“Yes,” he is moaning. “Yessss! Oh, oh!”

All that's left is red pleasure and laughter and his breaths of ecstasy as he slaps against your failing flesh and cries out above you.

You barely feel your throat tearing. There is no pain, just a ripping sensation and a spilling warmth as the cold dark takes it all from you at last.

You welcome it.

Until you feel his presence forcing you back.

Forcing your eyes to open. Forcing you to scream out with a voice you thought silenced, writhing and twisting, twitching and spasming again around his cock as you feel his invisible hand reaching inside you, ripping you gleefully apart and stitching you meticulously back together, binding his newest marionette to him.

He exhales as the sensation stops, leaving only an expansive, hollow emptiness and a gnawing pain deep in your gut.

“Oh, you’ll make a wonderful addition to my collection, darling. Bravo! Now,” he purrs, and you hear his next words inside your skull. “Be a dear, and pleasure your master again.”

Your body begins to move, hips rolling beneath him as he watches your face and smiles.