spreading my wings in virtual photography

“Are you sure?” The melodious purr of velvet & silk not even swapped into an echo with the shrill, organ-pipe notes of hysteria; instead, it had given way straight to the profound distress of genuine concern.

“Are you truly certain you want to do this?”

Astarion made no attempt to conceal the anxiety he felt for the former Bhaalspawn - it sat plainly on him, unmasked, a rare departure from the careful performance he wore so well. The easy incredulity - the sharp, theatrical disbelief that usually twisted those red eyes in his pretty skull at the foolishness of others - had no place here. Something quieter had taken its place. And far less forgiving. Like control that could no longer be grasped. 

He almost radiated this tantalizing fear that rarely broke through his carefully controlled actor’s facade; for he felt so out of place amidst the fumes of various herbs and the clinking of potion bottles - all part of the preparations intended to reverse the devastating, crimson amnesia afflicting his beloved Aristen, the former daughter of Bhaal and his Chosen.

“Out of place” was an understatement; he felt like a fish out of water, or a vampire without a tadpole standing in broad daylight. Surrounded by the strange scent of the ritual’s white sage, that was already seeing into his clothes.

Rituals meant to mend what had been taken from her.

But he - he did not belong here; he couldn’t help it.

Not among roots and brews and whispered assurances that the past could be coaxed back into place as though it had merely wandered off.

The rogue’s feet practically yearned for the pavement of Baldur's Gate and its filthy nighttime streets, teeming with drunken scoundrels.

Cobblestones and nocturnal alleys…that was a world he knew; there, he could take action; there, he could do more than just stand by - there he could actually help…

Who would have thought that the joy of reuniting with her foster family would lead to this? After all, it had seemed just as likely that they would return and upend the peaceful life the two of them had built after defeating the Elder Brain as that they would encounter Balduran himself... 

…Well…

Come to think of it...they had, in fact, crossed paths with Balduran.

Aristen, of course, she did not remember. Not the beginning. 

Not the village that had taken her in, a child delivered from ruin into gentler hands. Not the wood elves who had called her daughter, who had raised her beneath their own and softer days, and the adoptive father who had come at last to their door carrying a past she had never known to miss. To cast some fog aside to let in a little light in the dark corners of her past, to restore what remained buried.

Her father had spoken of her life growing up with his daughter Fiona. Detre Rosegrove had spoken of it all. 

Of the fallen temple, no one had shed a tear for, after her cruel creation within Bhaal’s kennels of sacrificial lambs and of the hands adorned with needles of a silver harp that had passed her on.

He had spoken of the baby to become their daughter, which they raised to a cheerful child and Detre had told of the lovely young woman she grew up to be.

A good life. A loved life it had been.

Until the wrong hands had found her at precisely the right time.

Until she had parted ways with her foster family. A memorable decision. Fatal. All because of her meeting a handsome man, and his wish to return to Baldur’s Gate with Aristen - her apparent happiness merely a deceptive illusion that had led her straight into Bhaal’s hands.

The Chosen Life. Devoted to her father’s name. 

Chosen, the word lingered with an unpleasant weight.

Chosen, and bound to it - until even that had been taken from her, torn away by Orin who had decided the role suited her better. Fragments of that history had surfaced since, pieced together from enemies, from allies, from those with an interest in reminding her of what she had been. People with interests like Gortash.

But never from herself.

For Aristen, it remained nothing more than a story told at a distance. 

Faces without features. Memories without shape. Her mind offered nothing in return. Only absence. A clean, merciless yawning void.

Astarion failed to see the loss in the absence of a past defined by agony and treachery. He might have rather envied it - after all, on some days he would have given anything to escape his own memories. On certain days, he still might.

While Aristen herself, for he often found her weeping in anguish , so he thought her warier.

She grieved for what she could not see, for the certainty of horrors she could not recall, for a self she could neither claim nor escape. The knowledge alone was enough to wound.

Unease settled deeper with him, as he watched the preparations unfold. Every measured step of this ritual still clinging to his doubts about these ancient methods of her foster family. Inviting the past back into Aristen’s life risked reopening old wounds that had never truly healed. Because the past had a habit of returning with teeth.

Burying the past - perhaps even quite literally - always seemed the far wiser choice for Astarion. Excluding, of course, himself and his marvellous body, which had risen from the grave. As far as he was concerned, however, everything else could be thrown into the ground and never allowed to see the light of day again, if one understood…

“Astarion,” Aristen’s gentle voice broke through his thoughts like the first ray of sunshine, “I am sure.”

The tips of her slender fingers brushed a strand of white hair from his face. Brushed him back into reality, back into the present. So gently that the touch was lighter than a breath of wind, more a whispered promise than a caress. She knew better than to startle him with sudden contact. Aristen, gentle, ever-knowing.

“Back then, you guided me through your past within the palace and when the decisive moment arrived, you didn’t have to face it all alone. Step by step, you let me into your innermost self - no matter how painful the shadows of the past may have been. But through that, I came to know you better. Even learned to love you better.”

Aristen, his present, his future. Her past held no significance for Astarion. They both came from ruins; what mattered was what had changed along the way. For him there was no need for any of this.

The turquoise of her eyes surrounded the vampiric red of his own shimmer, much like the calm, loving waves of the sea attempting to hold fast the flames. Whether this could soothe his concerns, however, was another matter, for his jaw remained set, every muscle along it aching beneath the strain he stubbornly refused to release. 

“You shared your scars’ story with me, Astarion. Now, we share your past as one. I try to be there for you in your pain - whenever it catches up with you again like death’s dark shade.”

She spoke without regrets, without hesitation. As always, nothing but gentle calm prevailed. 

“Thereby we look together toward a future that is so beautiful to me, I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. But…”, that world-famous but awaited him, yet not quite surprising, “I cannot share my past - or anything. Absolutely nothing at all. That is why my shadows never have a face; they are always just an endless void.” 

It was just a flicker, that cloud-like shadow he knew all too well; and though Aristen could shine as brightly as the sun, for a split second there was a blue sadness in her eyes - and Astarion knew what was going on behind them:

‘Like that, I will always be a burden to you’ - those were her thoughts; he knew it without the need for any spell - the bond of love was enough for that, as a bard might have put it, though he himself would certainly never voice it aloud, not even in another hundred years.

“I want this for us. Because I want to be able to give you everything of myself. Everything I have. Just as you do. But there shall be more I have to offer to you, more than there is now”, the look in her eyes formed a plea he couldn’t quite embrace, “That’s what I want for us.”

“Aristen…”

A gentle head shake silenced him - for her tender presence already read his unsaid words directly from his lips: ‘Don’t do this for me!’

“I want this for myself. Because only then will I know who I really am and where I come from. Then I will see even more clearly where I am going. I want us to be able to experience everything together, so that my life here among the people who loved me doesn’t remain forever just a vacuity in my head and words spoken by others.”

Her fingers found his like a promise, and as Astarion’s cold hand met the warmth of her life, he knew he would stand by her through every decision. Foolish or otherwise. 

“I don’t want you to worry, my sun, Nana Aubriana and I seek for the family memories growing up in this village. To give the good in my life a face. Or…the good in my past at least.”

The warm smile that she offered him, Astarion couldn’t help but to take it, getting lost in thought while enjoying the possibility of something better.

Perhaps it was important that Aristen finally would carry a genuine memory within her, a memory of people who had loved her, people who were kindhearted, just like her. Not merely memories of murder and damnation, which had haunted her since the battle in the Dread Lord’s hidden temple, festering like a sickness in her mind and heart. 

Maybe then that pitch-black hand, cold as death itself, would finally release its hold on her: the hand of her father, Bhaal.

Or rather, her creator.

For who would ever call such a being a father?

…

Smoke curled upward, cloaking the air, and everything in sight with its pervading touch.

Sweet.

Sharp.

Almost soothing.

The scent of trees and their lush foliage - usually bathed with the grass and fallen leaves of the forest floor - was barely perceptible amidst the dominant swirling wisps rising from the shaman’s bundles of roots. Clearing the presence of the ground.

Extensive knowledge of medicine and herbs, gathered over many years from the grandmother, formed the foundation of the ritual. 

Aubriana moved with quiet certainty, while the remaining family, Renera, Detre, and their biological daughter, Fiona, stood ready at her side. Together they lit the four bowls surrounding the altar, each flame blooming into life at the very same moment.

Fragrant smoke drifted in pale ribbons around the sorceress, cloaking Aristen where she lay upon the moss-covered stone. For one fleeting moment the altar upon which the former Bhaalspawn rested seemed almost like a bed, as though she were merely asleep, wrapped in the delicate, mist-veiled webs of a dream-spider carrying her gently into another world. 

But only almost.

Aubriana circled her slowly, the smouldering bundle cradled between weathered fingers. Fragrant wisps followed every measured step, settling across Aristen's body in careful patterns.

Astarion would have loved nothing more than to dismiss the entire spectacle as theatrical nonsense. Sheer humbug.

Not because he believed it meaningless. Quite the opposite.

He knew, shamans rarely devoted themselves to pointless rituals. If they insisted upon waving smoking herbs through the air, there was almost certainly a reason for it. They simply had an unfortunate tendency to dress every practical endeavour in enough ceremony to rival a stage performance.

Much like what people happily paid a few coins - or a few more - to see in Baldur’s Gate.

Though admittedly, the theatre seldom assaulted its audience with quite this many herbs.

Ridiculous amount. The scents clung stubbornly to him.

Every breath tasted of crushed leaves and bitter roots until he could no longer decide whether he had simply grown accustomed to them or whether they had quietly begun driving him mad.

His jaw reminded him before he reached an answer.

It throbbed - he had been grinding his teeth again. Astarion hadn't noticed it until now.

The red eyes never strayed from Aristen.

His initial concern had not abandoned him. It had merely found itself standing shoulder to shoulder with doubt and increasingly growing skepticism. 

Nearby, a neat procession of thick glass vials waited upon the stone.

Their contents looked unpleasantly alive. Waiting.

Dense.

Dark.

Viscous enough to catch the light before swallowing it again. 

Flowers, perhaps.

Roots.

Something that had once possessed leaves.

Judging by the color, they might contain some final touch of noblestalk. At least by Astarion’s judgment - and even though he was a judge, that judgment was limited in the extent of his educated assessment regarding ominous looking potions.

Everything beyond that belonged to the mysterious category of whatever in the Hells shamans insist on putting into these things.

Not that any of them ever volunteered the answer. 

Astarion took a deep breath.

He immediately regretted it, given the wave of herbal scent that rose to his nose once again, catching in the back of his throat. Wonderful.

The whole array of small potions found their purpose after Aubriana brought them to Aristen’s lips. One by one.

Where the dubious concoction had previously swirled lazily within the vials, the ominous liquid was now trapped inside of Aristen like a vortex, circling like a storm - a storm confined within the glass, waiting to be conjured into a hurricane. 

Under normal circumstances, he would laugh off any misfortune, provided it wasn’t looming over his beautiful head of curls - but today, the joke refused to come. The familiar smile still lingered upon his lips, polished and unreadable as ever. But only when someone looked directly at him. The moment their eyes moved elsewhere, he could feel it falter.

But by now, no one was paying him any attention; Astarion was merely a spectator in the background, forced to watch as the ritual took its course unfolding around Aristen. Perhaps that was precisely what he disliked about the situation…

…

“Aristen, remember the scent of the flowers.” Aubriana did not need to raise her voice to bring the very air to a standstill and command the undivided attention of every ear. Hers was the kind of sound - imbued with wisdom, experience, calm, and authority - that gently made itself heard without ever having to fight for it. 

The trance had already claimed Aristen. The potions and herbs had taken their toll. 

Her breathing remained slow and even, the quiet rhythm of someone drifting through an ordinary dream. Only her eyelids refused such stillness. Beneath them, her eyes stirred in restless, fleeting movements, as though they truly searched beyond the darkness - reaching for a past that lay just beyond memory's grasp, guided there by her grandmother's patient hand.

Without disturbing her, she uncorked a small vial and lifted it carefully beneath her granddaughter's nose.

Images of making flower wreaths with her mother - distant and almost translucent, like a glass mirror. The image shifted, as if the glass were moving in a hall of mirrors.

It rippled beyond her grasp, giving way to another. The cabinet deflected.

Walks beneath the forest canopy with her father. Evenings spent at her grandmother's side, where magic unfolded one careful lesson at a time. 

But too far away to hold onto the memories. Always just beyond reach. 

“Remember your first dance, Aristen. Your dance at the flower festival. Think of the taste of the honey cake you loved so much back then.”

Another vial yielded beneath the shaman's weathered fingers. Time had painted fine lines across her hands, yet they moved with unwavering certainty as she gently carried the fragrant essence towards her adopted granddaughter.

Aristen's breathing never changed. Her face didn’t answer.

She wandered somewhere between dreaming and remembering, suspended between the world she lay in and the one she struggled to find again.

Spinning circles, ribbons in her hair, laughing with Fiona, and the taste of honey on her tongue. The laughter - over and over again. So joyful she almost believed she could feel the summer sun.

“Can you see it, Aristen? Can you remember?”

For a moment, the corners of her mouth twitched upward. Faintly.

But besides this little glimmer, there was no further reaction to be seen.

Astarion’s gaze flickered between his beloved and Aubriana, without lingering on either of them for more than a heartbeat. Every movement was weighed, every gesture searched for meaning.

Whatever the elven shaman was doing, it was working  - at least a little. But not enough.

Not nearly enough.

The old woman’s lined face betrayed almost nothing, yet something in her expression shifted. A change in her unreadable demeanour. Astarion frowned as he spotted the fleeting shadow crossing her features. Not a word came over her lips. Not a single word, but her eyes darkened for a brief moment. 

She turned and made her way back to the waiting rows of bottles. To Astarion, each glass vessel looked indistinguishable from the next. An endless parade of coloured glass concealing secrets no shaman ever seemed inclined to share. Her hand hovered only briefly before settling upon another vial. When she returned to the altar, he found himself drawing the very same conclusion:

Whatever progress they had made...

It took another attempt involving more decisive measures - it would require something stronger!

“Remember how you defeated Orin the Red in the Temple of Bhaal. The place Elwyn took you back to. After you left here. Left your home. With him,” every ghost of the past, conjured with deliberation with the steady words from her lips, “Do you remember? That first love? Can you see yourself leaving your home, Aristen, because of Elwyn?” 

The images before her eyes – memories of the Rosegrove family amongst the trees and flowers, no longer merely vague – they gave way. Once more to darkness. Once more by its unresisting force. 

Blissful laughter faded away as if into an endless void, in which something dark dwelt. Lurked. Like a beast in the night, waiting for its prey to flay. Something so abhorrent that it overshadowed everything else, and whose ghastly form - unlike the rest - had no trouble manifesting itself inside of her.

It was the endless maw of Bhaal’s temple - the abysm swallowing everything that came near it and yielding nothing back - just as it had devoured her smile, her heart, and her love when the handsome, half-elf stopped smiling and ceased to be gallant. 

Vanished. Without her.

Left her trapped in this darkness, at the mercy of this starving beast.

He turned his back on her and on everything she believed to be true, to feel, to have loved.

At that moment, Bhaal put his claws around her.

Daughter...

The voice, risen from the grave and filled with the blood of all the world's murders, came to her. His words crawled into her ears, every letter smothered with the muffled screams of horror, blackened with the misfortune and depravity of humanity.

And Aristen?

She held out her hand to him.

She turned her back on what had broken her heart and soul, surrendered to her bloody fate and let the dread father take her into his arms - cherished his bloody welcome of hers into this circle of murder.

Even the darkest night could grow even darker.

Clouds drifted in front of the moon where there shouldn't have been any clouds.

It echoed through the haze, growing louder with every hurried pulse until her eyelids fluttered. A helpless answer to the restless movements beneath them as her eyes darted through memories she could neither bear to face nor run from. No hiding. Only growing rage and shame. Each one reached for her, only to dissolve into another nightmare.

Her features tightened, forming into a constrained exertion.

Not from will.

From something deeper.

Leaving the faint twitches numb and unfelt, trapped beneath a weight they could never overcome. Something unseen held her fast, its claws buried deep within her, refusing to let her break free.

Elwyn - once hands, with a warm touch on her skin, left a trail of stinging poison on it. Left her broken and cold. The shiver still ran through her.

He had seduced her and lured her away from her family, only to hand her over to the cult - and all for the sake of money. Aristen saw it in the pouch he held as he turned his back on her, left her and walked away forever, making room for a swirl of red. 

Cold exploded into heat.

The memories did not simply return. She lived them again. Every heartbeat. Every word.

Not as scattered fragments pieced together from whispered stories and uneasy suspicions, but as living moments unfolding before her with merciless clarity. 

The full extent of the heartbreak, the betrayal. The hatred.

It burned, it hurt.

It seared through her mind and settled just as deeply within her heart. They burned until she could no longer tell where one ended and the other began.

Then something even darker rose beneath them.

It forced its way to the surface of her consciousness like molten stone breaking through the earth - slow, inevitable, impossible to outrun. Its heat consumed everything in its path, leaving nothing untouched.

…

Aristen tried to scream, but her lips remained silent. Her throat locked painfully shut, as though unseen hands had tightened around it, stealing even that small release from her.

The memories refused to stop. The nightmare only began.

She saw herself, forced to strike down Orin.

Her blood wasn't shed in vain for all the madness and suffering she had brought upon the innocent, but Aristen also saw all the other blood.

All the blood.

All the carnage.

The temple filled with the blood of the sacrificed - slashed throats in the moonlight. In the name of Bhaal. The light dancing on the ruby ​​blade. A dance of joy, a song gliding from lips with which she could almost taste the glorious murder herself…

Another face.

Then another.

Lives extinguished.

Dreams cut short.

Bodies left where they fell. 

Blood…

...Blood…

…Death…

…

“I see a figure…” For the first time in this trance, her lips parted, every breath seemed to wait, every glance hung on her, hung on her deliberate, sleepy words, “…stabbing a man…and laughing…blissful…manic.”

But her words didn’t remain sleepy for long. Something found her. The grim twist happened so quickly, it was alarming. Panic tore through her voice with such sudden violence that it seemed to split her in two: “Stop it! Stop!”

Thunder rumbled across the forest. Yet no lightning answered the heavens. 

It didn't gather in the sky; instead, it gathered around Aristen. 

Blue-white arcs crackled between her tightly clenched fingers, dancing wildly over rigid hands that refused to obey her. Her face twisted beneath the weight of whatever horror unfolded before her unseen eyes, but no desperate struggle could wrench her free. The memory held her captive, every muscle locked beneath its grasp while sharp spasms rippled through her hands, snapping at each finger in relentless succession. 

…

Astarion’s own fingers twitched in an eerie response, even before he realised they had moved. 

His foot shifted almost of its own accord, carrying him towards the altar before reason managed to catch up. The flaring spasms set to nip on her fingers kept him in place. Ordered him to caution. Every part of Astarion rebelled against remaining where he stood while she suffered only a few steps away. His reason fought against the heart. The heart against the reason. One instinct drowned out every other thought: Reach her.

But her face...

There was no mistaking it. Whatever Aristen saw, she was still inside it. Offering no hiding place. Breaking the ritual now would not rescue her. Once again, he could be nothing more than a spectator in this unfamiliar territory. The realisation struck as swiftly as the panic itself.

And it chilled him just the same.

…

“Aristen, listen to my voice, you are safe here. Come back to your home. Come back to your family.”

The silence fractured.

Voices seeped into the darkness - not yet words, only blurred fragments of familiar voices laced with fear. They hovered just beyond her reach, urgent yet hushed, as though Aristen were listening from beneath deep water.

Unfortunately, they couldn't break the surface and overcome the noise inside her head. 

The blood. The stabs. The dying eyes. 

Death. And another stab. And another…

It didn’t stop…

“You monster! You are a monster!”

A tremor rippled through her body.

Somewhere beyond the darkness, something tugged at her, insistent but impossibly distant. Her eyes fluttered beneath their closed lids as though struggling against the weight of a dream. Another shudder coursed through her, stronger this time, drawing a ragged breath into her lungs.

The clang of metal mingled with the sound of tearing skin and wet blood - a requiem of horror.

Laughter, screams - the rich, smacking sound of iron piercing flesh. 

Again and again and again.

Until the screams died away and her own blood-stained face smiled back at her. Her blond hair turned red with the dripping lifeblood of her victim.

In the name of Bhaal…

“I am a monster!”

The sharp pain of shock took over. She felt the sting in her heart - burning and cold as ice all at once. And everything broke. A gasp of aching awareness escaped Aristen’s lips. 

She shattered. 

Her eyelids flashed open, violently.

The world returned, all of a sudden. Not gently.

Raging.

This sudden, violent awakening unleashed a storm from within her. The sharp jolt shattered the restraints that had held her back until then – what had been kept locked away in a hidden, tightly sealed chamber in her mind burst forth; but the glass had shattered into a million shards, and now all those ghosts were roaming about freely.

No longer whispers trapped behind silent walls. No longer shadows lurking beyond reach. Every face. Every scream. Every life. All of them had found their way back to Aristen.

Lightning slid loose between the elves, carving its singing path to destroy everything in its way and annihilate all life it would encounter.

Widened eyes staring in terror to the night sky, startled over their own hell breaking loose. 

Arcane power unfurled through her like a hound suddenly freed from its chains, whirling around her in restless currents that licked across her skin before sinking ever deeper, winding through muscle, bone, and soul alike. 

Aristen felt it tearing on her - teeth that ripped and gnawing on her flesh. It hurt. Her body, her mind, everything started to hurt. Everything screamed.

Screams

The screams.

Everywhere.

“STOP!”

It did not merely surround her; it fed upon her, drinking greedily from the very heart of her being, growing brighter and more ravenous with every heartbeat until it no longer resembled a gift but a creature that had slipped its leash - beautiful in its terrible splendour.

Wild beyond restraint. 

It was as if a hole had been punched in a dam with the hope that only a few drops would leak out; yet Aristen’s memories did not pour forth in mere little teardrops - they came in overwhelming waves. A fatal tidal wave.

And the darkness had been waiting.

Silent. Patient.

Curled within the deepest reaches of her soul like a starving beast, it had watched without stirring, biding its time until pain opened the smallest crack. That was all it had needed.

It poured through her all at once.

Not as a shadow, but as an ocean breaking through this shattered dam, swallowing every fragile corner of the soul that had only just begun to mend after being broken once before. Grief crashed into terror, terror into despair, until none of it could be separated any longer, each wave dragging another beneath it, drowning her beneath enough anguish to stain ten lifetimes and fill an endless sea with blood.

The laughter that had once echoed through the little village where she had grown up vanished beneath the flood as though it had never existed. Sunlit afternoons. Gentle smiles. The quiet certainty that she had been loved.

One by one, they disappeared into his shadow.

Her father's.

Bhaal. The Urge.

His presence coiled through every memory he touched, blackening it from within until warmth curdled into horror, and as those memories tightened their grip around her mind, her stomach twisted with them, clenching so violently that she could scarcely tell where memory ended and sickness began.

A storm of memories poured down upon her, mirroring the tempest raging around Aristen as her magic fiercely burst forth.

Lightning struck timber and shattered vessels; it was a pair of luck and instinct that drove the family to seek shelter just in time.

Aristen gazed at her hands; trembling of arcane energy. But she could not tell whether her anguish was forcing her to shudder or not, distracted by sweat and panic gathering upon her brow. Something glistened in her eyes. Fear. Or were they welling tears? 

“Stop…” she whispered.

But the magic did not stop.

Blood thundered through her veins with a force that seemed determined to tear them apart, racing faster and faster until every heartbeat shook Aristen from within. It hammered inside her chest, echoed through her ears, pulsed beneath her ribs, until her entire body seemed to beat to the rhythm of something no longer her own. A ragged gasp tore from her lips. Her muscles seized without warning, first in trembling shivers, then in violent convulsions that rippled through every limb as the wild magic coursed unchecked through every fibre of her existence, claiming one part of her after another until even her own hands no longer felt as though they belonged to her. 

“Everything is alright, child!” Aubriana tried to push through the rising storm. Internal clouds and war had found their way into existence to become a vivid danger for all.

“Aristen, are you hurt?” Astarion frantically searched for a way to get closer…without literally being struck by lightning. “Darling?”

“Try to calm down, love. Nothing you have done in the past matters. You are here now. You are safe with us.” Detre and Renera’s attempt to reassure their daughter never reached her. A bolt of lightning crashed into the earth beside them, close enough to split the ground with a deafening crack. Her foster parents recoiled instinctively, spared from its lethal force by little more than chance. Soothing words were all in vain. The wild magic erupting from Aristen surged forth from her unleashed memories - the pain stirred through her in relentless waves.

It left Aristen choking. 

Drowning in her helplessness.

Her breath caught as she watched her own magic lashing out - striking at the people she loved, threatening everyone in the village. It was almost painful. She could no longer bear it. She could no longer hold it, or herself.

Like an inevitable downfall.

“I am nothing but danger!” Desperation forced the words through her clenched teeth, the cry tore free before she realised she had spoken. A single desperate thought seized her:

Run.

Far from any living soul she might endanger. Her body obeyed beyond protest. Heedless of where her feet carried her. Resolve threw herself forward. Without course, without mind. Her leather boots slammed against the earth. Direction no longer mattered. Only distance. 

Far enough that no one else would be hurt.

Far enough that no one else would have to fear her.

No more hurt. No more risk.

Aristen clung to this single, simple awareness in her mind like a prayer.

She felt her heart pounding more violently within her heavy chest. Reaching a painful accord. Each frantic beat heavier than the last, until it seemed impossible that it could endure much more. Tears blurred the endless blue of her eyes. Sad and sorrowful wept the deep oceans within her gaze. Fibers of bursting chaos coursed through her dark waters. 

The awakening storm - a release of Aristen’s overwhelming emotions into the physical world as the hurricane leaped from within herself, tore further from her hands. The memories pulled at her with relentless force.

So she ran.

And the night swallowed her whole.

…

“Aristen!” 

The voices of her family and her beloved faded away. Dissolved into darkness and disorder. She wouldn't hear, untouched by the world around her, Aristen refused to be stilled. No reassurance could reach her now. Their voices vanished beneath the storm raging around her ears and the drums of war roaring in her chest.

A raging rhythm throbbed within her, shattering the chains.

The chains of her amnesia fell away like a released anchor.

There was no holding back the memories - yet the initial joy of laughter and childhood recollections in the elven village was tainted and stained by Bhaal’s bloody hand, which tightened around her throat like a garrotte.

Her own bloody hand…

Aristen gasped for breath but kept racing through the forest.

Onward, onward - just keep going, faster than the wind, her thoughts changed to something instinctive.

Maybe the storm would carry her off, washing her and her blood-stained soul out to the sea.  Drowning her into the watery depths where no one would ever find her. Or perhaps the sea of ​​trees would swallow her whole, devouring her like a hungry wolf. Never to spit her out again.

Her lungs were already burning. A stinging pain accompanied every breath. She stumbled over damp leaves and wet moss. 

Disoriented, tired. 

Aristen’s feet could barely carry her any further - scarcely beyond the reach of her vision. Clouded and hazy. 

Not by raindrops, but salty tears born of a paralyzing sorrow that threatened to sweep her away like the tidal wave she had set loose upon the world.

…

“Marvellous, ” The word fell from his lips with all the warmth of winter, a face as sour as a lemon basket. “Absolutely marvellous. Terrific.” Bitterness sharpened every syllable.

Though his eyes never left the dark line of woodland at the edge of the village, prying, searching every shadow, every trembling branch.

“Where on earth could she have run off to?!”

Astarion had questioned this plan from the very beginning. Quietly at first. Then rather less quietly when no one had shown the slightest inclination to listen. Digging up the past had always seemed a dangerous game, one that demanded far more than hope to keep it from turning cruel. 

Now he would be proven right about looking at the outset.What exactly it was he couldn’t be quiet about. Not that rubbing it in everyone’s face achieved anything - though that didn't stop Astarion from doing it anyway. 

It should have brought him a grim sense of satisfaction.

It didn’t.

Being right had never felt so utterly worthless.

“We have to find her!” Fiona’s voice was lost on the vampire - a triviality merely grazing the edges of the consciousness of his pointed ears.

His red eyes narrowed into bloodstained lines, as if searching for something they themselves might not even be able to see.

The surrounding voices still only a vague, distant awareness for him. 

Nervous fingertips twitched with agitation, and the tingling sensation found no resonance with Astarion, until suddenly: A rush of air filled his ears. Hit him like a jolt. 

A gust of wind reared up and struck him.

“Best to follow the storm!” he snarled, his fangs bared. The trees bent, as though they were voicing their silent approval and urging their feet to hurry. They rushed off to catch up with Aristen - and the spiraling vortex of her thoughts. Because self-hatred was a hall of mirrors built of deceptive confusion and loneliness. Vivid and hungry. Feeding on her inner self. Dangerous in its unrestrained way, broken free. A riotous creature. 

Obeying the command of the forest, Astarion and the Rosegrove family charged northward - trailing the towering dark clouds. Hopefully reaching there, before it was too late…

…

Uncontrolled energy kept surging through her body.

Aristen fought an unavoidable battle - or at least, she tried to delay it until she had put enough distance between her raging magic and anything she might harm.

Doomed to hurt others, that is your fate, right? It slid through her mind like a serpent’s voice. The thoughts were at least as unstoppable as the storm that followed her. Followed her like ash upon a blazing fire, like death following the plague.

Aristen ground her teeth until her jaw ached.

Move. The command surfaced through the chaos, faint at first, then louder, until she clung to it with everything she had left. 

Move. Before it is too late.

Her muscles screamed in protest as she forced them to obey, every trembling limb threatening to give way beneath her. Lightning crackled around her, its violent chorus swallowed by the countless voices raging inside her head, each one clawing for her attention, each one pulling her back toward the darkness. She wanted to scream with them, to drown beneath the noise, to let it consume her. But one thought refused to let go:

You have to get away.

Far enough.

If she could only put enough distance between herself and the people she loved, then the storm she carried within her could have her instead. It could tear her apart, strip flesh from bone, burn her to ash if it wished. So long as it claimed no one else.

That single resolve became the last solid ground beneath her feet. Everything else was burning away.

Pain spread through her like fire racing through dry woodland, devouring one memory after another until even the person she had once been seemed to vanish beneath the flames. The girl without sin, who had laughed beneath open skies, who had known kindness without questioning it, felt impossibly distant now, as though she had belonged to someone else entirely.

Only his “Chosen One” remained.

The memories would not loosen their grip.

They came one after another, relentless, vivid beyond endurance, each face, each cry, each life extinguished by her own hands returning with merciless clarity until the weight of them crushed the air from her lungs. There was no room left for excuses. No room for forgiveness.

Only guilt.

It pounded through her skull as fiercely as the storm itself, leaving her dizzy, numb, barely able to breathe.

You deserve this.

The words settled somewhere deep inside her, heavy as iron.

Every agony.

Every wound.

Every heartbeat of suffering.

Even twice that would never be enough.

She could not bear it, but bearing it had ceased to matter the moment the truth returned to her. Now the recollections of the atrocities committed as the Dread Lord’s daughter, lived inside of her, stood out as vibrant memories before her mind’s eye. Aristen felt them, throbbing against her heart. Pulsating, lively and aching. The vile sin eating her alive. Eating on her flesh. An ugly awareness. 

She knew she deserved a fate far worse than death.

This thought would not let go of Aristen; it haunted her blurry head and, together with the screams and ghosts of the past, it created a symphony that drove her to the brink of madness.

The faint static crackle of lightning. The drums of rolling thunder - both always in response to the crushing emotions surrounding Aristen. The constant reminder.

Powerless. Helpless. Weak. 

And with every minute the steady shakes grew. Erupted her body. 

Aristen stumbled. Her back arched with distinguished obnoxiousness, stealing the breath from her lungs as another burst of relentless voltage searched through her chest to cave out her heart. It felt as though something inside her strained to break free, hollowing her from within, before erupting outward in blinding arcs.

Lightning crashed into the towering maple beside her, splintering bark and timber as though the ancient tree had been carved from brittle glass instead of living wood.

The spirit of the past’s dark seed could no longer be contained; and forced its way to the surface. They tore through every barrier she had built, feeding upon the wild magic that answered not to her will but to her anguish. 

She was no longer its master, only its vessel.

The wind howled through the forest with teeth bared, wrenching at branches until they groaned beneath its fury. One after another the trees bent beneath the storm, bowing like a line of fragile dominoes awaiting the inevitable fall. 

Aristen lost all hold long ago. The immense force refused to be channeled. 

Her yielding hand felt broken. Useless. 

The control had slipped from her long before she’d even reached the forest. It raged unrestrained, washed over her, while every desperate breath caught somewhere behind the crushing weight in her chest - her shaking hands clawing disoriented for a hold that wasn’t there - as the memories reflected before her…

Every throat slit, every heart cut, every breath took to the final end.

Over and over.

The memories of the murders committed by her own hand. Coloured in deep thick red.

A monochrome nightmare haunting her wake reality.

Her chest twisted painfully inward until it stung as though her heart had tied itself into a knot, dragging the rest of her insides with it. There was no part of her untouched by the agony. Aristen’s entire body felt like a single, wretched lump - pathetic and broken.

To the forest, however, she was an arcane powder keg, just waiting to explode...

…

Still nothing, except the faint, static hum of…the wind?

No, it was the tension of profound magic that was at work.

A thunderclap in the distance; menacingly announcing its approach.

“This way!”

Astarion’s nose began to twitch. Rain.

Moss.

Soil.

The scent filled the air, penetrating his nostrils with an earthy note.

And beneath it - ozone.

Lightning! Astarion’s heart lurched; and he flinched back at the last saving second. His eyelids flew wide, causing his pupils to jitter.

Bark and wood exploded right next to him. 

His elven senses could have failed him, instead it saved his life from a cruel fate, unfolding right before his eyes in a dying oak. The tree offered no resistance to such raw force and the splintered trunk gave way to the raging burst. The old giant crashed to the ground with an aching groan.

“By the godsdamn…” his tongue just barely managed to hold back the rest of the curse, swallowing it down to seal it behind his lips forever.

Astarion clenched his sharp teeth, tensed his muscles. 

They had to move. 

They couldn't stay in any place for too long, or else one of them would be injured or even worse - dead soon. Yet a far deeper concern clouded his eyes, the dreadful danger ate on his mind until his eyebrows frowned to a dark line: Her magic forging into threat for Aristen herself; consuming her and crushing her to implode.

He had to press on; he had to find her. The thought settled heavily in his chest, burnt inside his throbbing thoughts.

The vampire was not called to be a savior - and certainly not a hero - but something deep within him called him to her, driving his body forward against the storm, beyond all reason.

…

The rain-soaked ground squelched disturbingly; giving way beneath her hurried feet. With every further step, she tasted the brink of surrender. Still she ran. The burn in her legs spread with each step, her muscles crying out beneath the relentless strain. A stitch in her throat with every of her moves.

Her weary knees could carry her no longer. One final step and Aristen stumbled against an old willow. Her hand caught against the gnarled bark just in time. 

Old. Steadfast. 

For one fleeting second, the weathered wood grounded Aristen. Its timeworn strength pressed reassuringly against her trembling fingers, asking nothing of her but to hold on.

Her knees buckled. Beaten and bound by the debt of her past. Battered by the source of her own magical power, her legs gave in to the exhaustion.

Scattered and rain-darkened clothes hung heavily to her jaded body. Panting, gasping for air like an animal. Running for its life, chased to death by something all but invisible. All but without mercy.

The rain soaked through every layer she wore. The wind pulled ruthlessly at her hair and clothes. Together they should have left her shivering. Instead, she felt almost nothing.

It struck Aristen, almost with cruel irony. She could no longer feel the chills.

Compared to the nightmare unfolding within her, the storm had become little more than a distant whisper. Remembering who she truly was - no - remembering what she had been, that hurt a thousand times more than this cold ever could.

No rain lashing her face was enough suffering and punishment - cruel and harsh enough to spare her from feeling the thousand stabs she had inflicted upon others.

In the name of the one.

Ripping skin. Flesh from bone.

Blood on white stone.

Hands that had been hers.

“Gods…”, Aristen choked.

She choked on her words, which she couldn't even utter, choked on the tears rising within her. Her throat tightened into a painful noose. Aristen gasped for the air to breathe - in vain.

Those had been her hands.

The thought consumed her, haunted her and hunted down the last peace of mind. Killed it. Sliced it up in bloody murder…just as she had done with so many.

A small whimper forced its way past her lips. Another surge tore through her. Aristen felt her heart breaking, felt every stab she had caused in her own beat. 

She doubled over. 

It almost made her wish to feel nothing at all, yet she was unworthy of such mercy given the suffering she had brought; her shuddering lips cursed both herself and Bhaal. The truth she had unearthed bore no forgiveness, it had stolen what little strength and hope had remained. For the dead past becoming alive inside her veins, dragging her all but down.

Her mouth quivered, wet and salty - drenched more by the silent tears she could no longer hold back in this moment of devastating revelation than by the rain unleashed by her own magic.

The visions of her unholy past, gnawing at her skin, biting where there should have been clarity. Like a wolf ravenous for life. Just like the darkness that made a new rot sprout within Aristen, sowing the seeds of madness cloaked in anxiety and despair - slipping inside and building upon her memories, towering over her.

The world narrowed and she clawed at the soaked earth as though air might be buried beneath it. 

Rain streamed down her face and her lips parted desperately. 

Still she couldn't breathe. Aristen’s lungs stayed empty.

She was drowning, drowning in a sea of red, choking on her tears.

…

Now she remembered. She remembered everything.

How she walked away from her home with this handsome half elf and later had treachery befallen upon her, ordering her to remain silent, dragged back into the murderous slavery of Bhaal. 

Doomed.

It all started with him…

Elwyn. 

She gritted her teeth with a clenched jaw, swallowing a lump full of hatred. 

The poison in her heart finally traced to its source - the darkness. The ever growing darkness. And when the darkness changed to blood, everything changed. Just like her. 

She remembered how the Dread Lord came to her; stole her name, her life, and everything that defined her. Making her his own. His weapon. Nothing more but an implement. For her to steal lives and names and tear innocent people apart, tear them from their existence. 

With a smile. 

Her scream disrupted the night.

Thunder answered at once, rolling across the heavens with a roar so immense it swallowed every other sound. Lightning burst from the sky, from the ground beneath her feet, from her own trembling body, branching wildly in every direction until the forest blazed with blinding white-blue light. Every bolt lashed out as though driven by a will of its own, striking whatever dared come within reach of her despair.

Aristen screamed until there was no breath left to feed the sound.

Still it came.

Her voice frayed into a raw, ragged cry, hoarse and breaking, until only a thin, mournful wail remained - a sound so utterly stripped of hope that it scarcely seemed human anymore.

Yet the storm refused to relent.

It fed upon itself, gathering strength with every heartbeat, every sob, every memory that tore another wound open inside her. The wild magic swelled until it seemed to breathe with her, carrying the same crushing weight with which the darkness had once wrapped itself around her soul.

At last her final strength failed. Scattered to dying pieces.

Aristen collapsed, brokenhearted, crumbled to her core. Merged with the soaked ground. The earth rushed up to meet her as grief finally broke what little remained of her resolve. A sob caught in her throat, tightening into a knot so painful she could hardly draw another breath.

Until she finally weeped. Weeped without remorse. Without restraint. 

Cried for mercy. And maybe for salvation.

But mercy was not upon her. Her mind’s eye only let her relive the newly regained memories, blurred to grotesque fever dreams and trapped her inside of them, as if she were a butterfly caught in a glass gradually suffocating. The flower in the dark, waiting for its slow death.

…

Another gust of wind ran harshly through his white curls, not the tender touch of gentle fingers, the elf would have longed for in that night. But when have things ever gone easy on them?

Astarion shivered beneath the impact of the wind. Only slightly. But the rain's thick air was gruesome and unforgiving enough. Almost as if it wanted to punish someone…

The howl of the wind tugged at his black shirt; all sodden by now. But he borrowed no time to complain - not now at least . His head made way for more urgent matters. 

Astarion’s eartip almost twitched. The scratching of electromagnetic crackles - not so distant.

For one moment Astarion paused, tilted his head to the side - pondering.

Raising waves of gusts bite on him, nastily, sending shivers across his cold skin. He tried to shut out the wind that lashed against his cheek. Even the thunder failed to hold his attention, for something else drew him close: a smell that held the essence of storm and rain itself. Fresh water and sharp electricity, yet - with the scent of rose woven through it.

But there was more to it.

Astarion hesitated, tried to grasp at something in his mind.

The tingling on his skin -  like threads of weave dancing over his pale ivory.

Or maybe…

Suddenly, a burst stirred his sharp ears. Astarion’s head snapped around. The sharp crack of splintering timber cut through the storm and his thoughts alike.

“Watch your backs!” Every trace of nonchalance vanished from his voice as it battled its way through the storm, reaching out to the Rosegrove family in cold alert.

With a groan that sounded almost alive, the great oak tore through the surrounding branches before crashing into the forest floor among them. The ground trembled beneath the impact. Renera shivered. Around them, the storm became a path of destruction, leaving chaos in its wake as the once-steadfast guardians of the forest faced their demolition. Aristen’s mother instinctively threw herself against her husband, clinging to Detre as another deafening crack echoed overhead. 

Astarion staggered, his sigh of relief caught in his throat. Another thick branch crashed to the ground, he threw himself aside and the shattered limb crashed into the dirt where he had stood only a heartbeat before. 

“Really?!” His voice rose to an alarming pitch. “I swear…”

A disbelieving breath found its way under his angry grunts.

White strands of rain-soaked hair had fallen across his brow, but he brushed them back with practiced annoyance, his composure returning almost as quickly as he had lost it. Dignity never strayed far from the pale elf. Even in danger and despair.

Then his gaze settled upon the heart of the storm.

There, the lights flickered in the dark, gathering together as if inside a cage. Circling one place as though imprisoned within invisible walls. Towering trunks swayed under the storm's assault, their crowns thrashing wildly as though the entire forest had become caught in the fury of a single wounded soul. Astarion’s expression stilled, grim, unfamiliar determined.

“That's her.” There was no uncertainty in his voice.

He looked over his shoulder, “Head back to the village. Now.” His eyes swept over every member of the Rosegrove family before settling on them with quiet determination.

“The forest isn't safe anymore. It has become too dangerous for you all to scout around this spectacular little electrical incidents.” 

Another flash illuminated the darkness between the trees.

“I'll find her,” for the briefest moment the corner of his mouth lifted, “I've grown rather familiar with her...little tingling outbursts of the dazzling sort. ”

The smile was crooked, irreverent, entirely misplaced. The smile of the damned. Which was precisely why Astarion wore it. 

“I’ll go alone and try to get through to her, calming her down.”

Lightning ripped across the sky again, enlightening the forest in violent bursts that painted the trees in stark white before plunging them back into darkness. He watched the flashes with the expression of someone marching toward the gallows who had long since decided to laugh at the executioner. 

Still, it didn’t stop his gut from fluttering.

Not so long ago, Astarion had been no one’s friend. No one’s savior. Accountable to no one. But also...no love, no freedom. A slave.

Better, then, to be a hero. Or something like it.

“Even if I were in a better mood, I wouldn't get struck by lightning in the process. I’ll keep that in mind for my next meeting with the in-laws - to be better prepared for potential disasters…”

His grin widened just enough to look convincing. It rested easily upon his lips, polished by centuries of practice, concealing the unease that still lingered beneath it. A performance no different from countless others - except this time it wasn't meant for an audience. It was for himself. Something to hold on to before he stepped willingly into danger.

His former self would have laughed at the notion. The thought almost made him do the same. Almost.

Resigned to the possibility of becoming an exceptionally handsome lightning rod, he took another step towards. Before he could, old Aubriana slipped a small vial from the wide sleeves of her robe and pressed it into his hand. Her weathered face greeted him with the same crooked smile he wore himself.

Steady. Amused. Knowing. Untroubled by the storm gathering only a few paces away.

“Why don’t you try this ‘Elixir of Lightning Resistance’?”, their eyes met in quiet acknowledgement, the faint smile that passed between them carried all the necessary trust, “I prepared it for just such an occasion, my son.”

Astarion looked down at the vial before letting out the softest huff of laughter. “I can't say I know many elderly ladies. They rarely feature in my social circles. But apparently they possess a remarkable gift and charme for predicting catastrophes.”

“Oh, you can count yourself among the elderly, my dear, with all those years you've collected,” her smile deepened, warm with unmistakable mischief. “I daresay you've surpassed me. Or so someone was kind enough to confide in me.”

His brows rose with his screwed up nose, almost dangerously close to catching raindrops.

“How dare she?!”

“The favour of the youth.”

The outrage lasted barely a heartbeat before surrendering to another grin.

A silent handshake was found in the smudged grins of their “old” faces. 

The quiet understanding that settled between them said everything that neither of them could have put into words.

“Touché,” grinning lips gave way to shining fangs, “I think I really start to like you, you tough old bird. I almost see us spending more time together; for you telling me your granny secrets…but, first things first…” 

With a quiet plop, the cork came loose from the bottle. Astarion downed the bitter draught in a single gulp. 

If anyone could keep the family - and the whole village - alive it was that stubborn lovely tenacious old boiling hen of a shaman. He could count on her watchful eye, just as she was placing the same faith in him. To bring Aristen back to them.

They believed in him, not in his strength, but in the simple certainty that love might reach where reason never could - if one had let a bard express it. That somewhere beyond the lightning, beyond the grief, beyond the darkness clawing at her soul, she would still hear his voice. 

Astarion had never admitted as much aloud, but he had trusted Aristen’s family maybe also long before he realised he did. 

“All right, I’m coming. Stay strong, my stormy rose, help is here…”

He drew a last careful breath, to brace himself, for what lay ahead, hoping his presence would suffice to pierce the walls of sadness and pain that held a broken heart in an iron grip, much like the bloody claws of Bhaal himself.

Endless in its cruelty, endless in its reach.

Life was a fight worth fighting for, and grief was a thief and a liar.

No, today a battle against his last shadows would begin, and even if it were to last forever, Astarion would never tire of fighting it, if he had to.

Slaying Orin had only been Wither's plan for them; this was now the battle for Aristen's soul - this was the battle of them both.

Just after a few steps, there was no turning back: Lightning reached for him like living hands, branching across the dark with hungry fingers, and the storm opened before him like the jaws of some ancient beast. They eye of the creature gazing directly at Astarion.

Only one path remained.

Straight into the heart of the tempest.

Straight towards her, into the paralyzing pain.

“But…”

“Let him go,” Detre held his daughter Fiona back. With a tone of calm certainty - wrapping his voice like a gentle mist on a morning after the rain - he nipped her attempts to object in the bud. “If anyone can make it through to our Aristen, it’s him. He is the home where her heart and soul find peace.”

…

‘Drip…drip…drip…

Once alive now piercing the eyes with this stick

Drip…drip…drip…’

Shutting her eyes, digging her nails with clenched fists into her skin could no longer keep the memories away. Pretending and fighting became meaningless. The truth had already taken hold of her. There was no hiding. This face that brought her such torment would not disappear. The face of her martyrum, which would haunt her in the dark, for it was the very face that greeted her every morning in the mirror.

Now, however, it was a contorted grimace that spat scorn at her - scorn for thinking she could ever escape Bhaal, but even more so herself.

Her hands, her atrocities, her victims.

All. her. fault.

Aristen felt the walls coming down upon her, the waves crashing over her until she would suffocate under the broken dam of memories…the reality of who she was.

The monster turned its face toward the center of her world like a terrible wave of doom, constantly accompanied by the never-ending screams of the dead.

‘Drip, drip, drip once alive now piercing the eyes with this stick.’

‘Come closer, help me prepare the next sacrifice for father.’

Every syllable from the lips drew another red drop and Aristen tried to shake this false demon out of her head. A demon wearing her face.

“Stop.”

‘It is your sacrifice after all.’ 

“No…”

A hand reached for her, seethed with such heat she felt the burn on her skin.

‘Your little lamb to butcher.’

Aristen failed to stop for their hands to become one…

‘Your hands thirsting for blood.’

She felt death, the smell of iron in her lungs - blood dripping on her skin. A stain on her forevermore tainted soul.

Every slice, every cut – each time the crimson blade lashed out at another victim – Aristen felt the burn in her own hand, tortured by mad eyes staring at her. Escape became impossible.

Her hands flew to her mouth, smothering the cry that threatened to burst into the world around her. 

But it was only a small consolation, for she failed herself to close her eyes from it. She would always fail. 

It was inside of her.

The quieter she tried to be, the louder the voices in her head erupted. Always louder than her. They roared like an unholy echo, repeating her patterns, until she threatened to drown in the whispers of her own thoughts.

Who would save her now?

Now...that she deserved no saving...after she had finally realized who she was and what she had done…

Salvation became impossible for her.

Cries. Chaos. 

The dreadful echoes of lives being torn apart.

The sounds threatened to drive her insane  - the sound of spilling guts tying her own stomach into a knot until Aristen could scarcely breath. 

Chops.Chops.Chops.

Faint - then the dagger broke free from bone and flesh.

‘Sceleritas bring another man-thing for the slaughter. May father enjoy this pleasure.’

Then she saw them again. 

Those eyes. 

That glint hovering above a disturbed grin - so twisted, it chilled her far more than any nightmare ever could.

Aristen trembled uncontrollably into the rain-soaked earth, her whole body twisting as though she could somehow wrench herself free from the memories that refused to loosen their grip.

“Make it stop!”  

There was no way out. She could neither close her eyes nor shut her ears to the carnage before her, for she was trapped within it inside her own head - there her words, her screams only met silence and an awful smile. Spattered with innocent blood.

The forsaken growls into the crimson vortex felt heavier than before. 

She was alone inside her skull, alone with this monster, alone with herself…

And once again the crimson-red blades danced through the darkness, danced through flesh. Like claws - and came down with a horrible noise. Tore another pleading man.

“NO!”

Aristen cried out, almost paralyzed with terror. It burst out of her chest and lungs; and still she could do nothing more but to scream to try to stop this monster. There was no reach, no hold, no end to this bloodbath.

Her nails dug deep into the ground, into her own skin - the fingertips ignoring the pain.

Aristen felt like somebody just sucked out the air to breathe from her lungs.

“Stop it already, you damned monster!” she hurled at the bloody contortion, despite struggling to catch her breath. But it was only lost in vain. Her words vanished unheard in the wind.

The harder she tried to find her voice, the more that distorted figure grinned at her from beneath the blood-red skull symbol.

“You cursed monster!” her voice reduced to a grunt, barking at this twisted reflection.

The spilled blood of every slice, every stolen life, clotted darkly upon the hands that once belonged to her - hands Aristen wished she could cut off…a wish that could never erase the murders from existence, never erase the guilt from her mind. 

“You monster!” The words tore from her throat before she could stop them, raw with grief and revulsion. 

Blood dripped from blonde locks. Like glistening rubies raining down by morning dew. Another drop slid over twisted, curled lips - a laugh frozen fast like a nightmare in hell - and yet, upon that cold lake, there was nothing to be seen but her own blood-stained reflection staring back at her.

Something deep within Aristen broke. It was not a sudden shattering, but the quiet collapse of the last fragile piece holding her together. Like the lethal dagger stabbing into her heart.

“I am a monster”, the final realization, the surrender of her mind and soul to the dark truth.

A violent shudder coursed through her body. Her stomach tightened painfully as another bolt of lightning split the sky, and the thunder that followed rolled over the forest like the tolling of an ancient bell, echoing the turmoil raging within her. 

“I am a monster!” Aristen repeated, taken by horrors, “I am a monster!”, another desperate scream into the stormy night, drawn from lips under blind eyes, blind from tears and hate - and as the crackle of lightning grew louder, she repeated these words a million times over in her head.

The psalm of her punishment.

Bathed in the flicker of lightning.

…

Aristen’s face distorted before Astarion’s eyes. Beauty and delicacy threatened to be washed away by the demons of her plagued past.

Her smile under the moonlight always felt like something almost fragile. But was Aristen that fragile?

The wind came in sharp, scouring, pressing the damp cloth tight against his skin until cold and flesh became difficult to tell apart. He barely noticed. His crimson eyes fixed on her:

A profoundly hurt and melancholic reflection of her usual self. The imagery of a frail, wispy vessel swallowed by a vast, sorrowful sea perfectly captured how easily the gentle, buoyant nature of love could be overtaken by sudden pain and grief. Trapped in this cage that the weave had created for her. Blazing around her as a witness of Aristen rotting in the cell of her own brain.

The delicate features of her face had tightened beneath the weight of pain. Tears shimmered in her eyes, mingling with regret so profound that it seemed to hollow her from within. 

For a moment, Astarion hesitated. Frozen in place. 

Something gave way beneath the surface. 

The mask slipped free of him  - no arrogant bravado left to hide behind, no easy smile behind ivory veneer lingering at the edges of his mouth. His hand clenched in on itself, slow, deliberate. A promise, though not one he cared to name.

He drew in a breath that tried everything to steady him.

Astarion stepped closer.

Close enough to meet the gloom’s sight - and this time, he did not turn his gaze aside. 

“You are not a monster!” the crackle of lightning swelled and Astarion’s words were carried away. Stolen by the storm. Unable to shatter Aristen’s darkness.

“I am a monster!” her eyes stared right through him, lost, a captive of her own illusions. Unable to break away.

“You are not a monster, Aristen!” He cut through her constant repetitions. His drenched hands, soaked from her pouring rains, reached for her trembling fingertips. Still clinging to her head, the prison cell of her torment. His touch forced her to finally look at him. Denying the storm another chance to swallow his efforts. 

Astarion’s voice reached through the chaos of her thoughts, louder even than the discharges of magic around them. 

It has been a long time since he saw her like that:

Paralyzed.

Traumatized.

In the chokehold of deep desperation. 

The sight struck him harder than any bolt of lightning ever could. For a fleeting heartbeat, it stole the air from his lungs. Then something inside him settled. The fear remained, but it no longer ruled him. He knew what he had to do.

She feared her past, the idea of what she was and could become again, more than the reality. Aristen felt adrift, he saw her drowning in her mind’s storm, because she lost a permanent anchor, which left her entirely at the mercy of life's emotional currents - Astarion knew that all too well. He knew that darkness. Had known it long enough to recognize its shape again without needing to look. After 200 years of slavery that left nothing but shadows and only the ghost of mercy. Now Aristen had to navigate between the tide of loss. The loss of her innocence.

But she didn’t have to do this alone, he could take the helm for her when her own vision failed her….

“Listen to me, darling, your past can’t harm you here and doesn’t define you either way.”

His voice seeped into silence, for his eyes reached out for her gaze to find each other, truly touch each other, a soft brush of his fingertips as their company.

If forgiveness were just a word for her soul, maybe then he could change something about her ache right here. For now all Astarion could offer to Aristen was his constancy - a shoulder to cry on and a hand to hold quietly when she simply needed closeness. Silent sympathy. Sometimes, perhaps, that was all it took.

All this…all the things she had once given him, when he was lost, alone and full of hatred.

Around them, the storm raged without mercy. Wind tore leaves from the willow trees and spit them into the air. Splintered branches broke through the forest with threatening cracks that would have sent any sensible traveller running for shelter.

Yet Astarion did not consider leaving. Not while Aristen was still there. Not while she still needed him. He would not leave her side, even as the sky threatened to come crashing down upon them at this very moment…

…

The lashing rain on her face suddenly cut coldly into her skin, as if waking from a fever dream. Slowly, she forced her eyes open. This icy claw was cold enough to make Aristen flinch, to cut through this heat that had wrapped itself around her mind. 

The reality almost blinded her – the bright flash that lit up the darkness was a dangerous spectacle. Aristen felt a burn in her tear-stained eyes.

She recoiled, closing her eyes shut again before the light could settle. Her lips parted in an unsteady breath as she shook her head once...

Twice.

Yet when she looked again...he was still there.

She wanted it all to disappear. The anguish, the hurt, gorging on her body, all of her soul and skinning her alive - maybe…as she once did in the name of murder… 

All this agony, it was still there, but suddenly…he was there too.

Astarion.

Aristen shook her head one more time, waking her mind back into reality - one quick look on her shivering hands: No blood.

Her nose still twisted from the stank of the wretched smell of foul iron - she could have sworn…

But there was no blood on her hands.

At least not visible…

Even though she had been trapped with this mirage inside her head, she would be forever trapped with the memories and certainty of her deeds, being no delusion.

Nothing could ever change that. 

Perhaps that was the greatest cruelty of all. The futility of every redemption. As if it had no meaning. Efforts and a kind heart, all for naught.

Aristen's feet could barely find ground as she stepped back. 

Did she move it all? 

Aristen could not tell, or if she solely wished to run and hide - from here and every one of her scared thoughts. 

Her footing slipped. Without avail, the leather soles tried to cling to the damp forest ground, they became entangled in leaves, moss and broken twigs, which gathered around them like silent witnesses - as accusers in the face of the destruction she had wrought.

The storm still circled her in restless coils. Lightning danced over her skin in erratic flashes, leaping from fingertip to fingertip before disappearing into the rain. Every surge answered emotions she could no longer master.

Danger still surrounded her.

“Astarion, I…,” she shook her head, unable to catch her breath. Her voice failed her to speak. Aristen couldn't find the strength, couldn't find the hope within herself. 

Where was anything good left in her? 

Everything inside her rejected the possibility that she wasn’t damned for all time, that she was worthy of being near him. How could she possibly look him in the eye now? 

She felt like she was caving in - to all the hurt, all the darkness that threatened to devour her light and all the love she found. 

Like a boat adrift on a river, love flowed gently but could be swallowed by the depths of sorrow. Aristen felt the poison in her veins, the acid running through her skull brought by her father’s heritage, forever tainting her blood streams, forever cursing her existence.

No, Aristen would have to slit her arteries to be pure, bleed to death, eradicate that rot from within her, burn her heart and hope to crumble to ashes, and maybe then…maybe she and all those souls might find peace. Perhaps then silence would descend upon those voices and those deaths, the dark urge had scattered with her own hands.

More tears spilled over her face, the stream of never-ending hurt and compassion for the victims. Yet, deep down, Aristen, as a murderer, didn't even allow herself to call it compassion, this feeling that pounded in her heavy, aching chest - no, an abomination like her had no right to feel such a thing, and the only right that would remain for her was to atone. To die.

She didn't even have the right to weep, not to weep the dead, and not even to weep for herself. But the heart that would rather break under the misery and suffering it saw, longed to undo the sins. For the indifference of the innocent and helpless was something she didn't know. 

Back at the temple of Bhaal, her father presented her with a choice, and in death, in the eternal veil of nothingness, she made a promise to the man of eternity. Withers brought her back, but that promise still held true. No one else should ever have to suffer through Bhaal’s hands again. No one else should ever have to suffer through her hands again.

Rather it would end as it had begun: Alone in the darkness.

“Aristen,” when his voice spoke her name again - soft and calm - it made her shudder from deep inside. Like a gasp for air. 

Something warm touched her cheek, reached her senses through wind and rain, and something even warmer fought its way through the storm to get to her, cutting through the cold.  

The rogue’s hands loosened the grip from her fingertips, to cup her cheeks overflowing with tears. Astarion’s gentle guidance and touch, gracing her face with his hands in this saddest moment of them all, silenced the hurt for one short moment. 

But when his voice rose, its sound, the words within it were like the shattering of chains. 

“I do not know whether I can grant you the absolution or forgiveness your soul longs for, my love…”

Caught up at the edge of the world, Astarion's voice reached her through the wind with a gentleness that hurt more than any accusation ever could. Even though her heart longed for his tenderness, she felt unworthy of it. 

“But there is one thing I can tell you with certainty: I see nothing monstrous in you. Only kindness - so much more than I ever was or could ever be - and I promise you that I will stay by your side, for my view of you will never change.”

Every word like a kiss - and every word made her choke on her own. The air became thin. Aristen searched her breath, only to find a malicious lump. The heavy knot in her throat drew tighter - as if his heartfelt words were making her falter in blushing shame.

She longed so much for his love…but Aristen no longer recognised herself.

Hungering, the magic continued to grip them, narrowed them down like a beast.

Then a burst. Roaring like the trumpets of the apocalypse, the thunder bawled in unison with flashing lightning around them, encircling them, devouring them as night turned to day.

But Astarion wouldn’t let Aristen go.

He would never let her go. Never again.

In return, his fingertips stroke against her cheeks, caressing her skin. His thumb drew little circles on her face, to wipe away the tears running across her entire face.

“The night on my grave - we began this route into the future and some more light together…not to fix things but to become one and make something whole and new of our broken pieces.”

A flicker ran over the blue eyes of Aristen that held no tenderness, no condonation for herself and she finally swallowed the lump shutting her throat so painfully.

Sudden tension stiffened her shoulders - an attempt to evade not only his piercing gaze but, even more so, the kindness of his words and the gentleness of his touch, a defensive reaction born of the feeling that she was undeserving of all them.

Unworthy. Filthy. Stained and spattered. 

His hands felt her slipping away, but furthermore his heart bid on her tantalising doubts, that would not leave Aristen.

“There is no forgiveness for the things I have done in the past…there can be no salvation and I am broken in a way that should be crashed completely, for once and for all…”, there was dripping hurt in every of her words, “...for good.”

“I don’t think there’s anyone in the world who thinks as poorly of you as you do yourself, Aristen. There’s no one who hates you as much as you do. I think…you’ve already made your amends.”

“But if you could see what I…”

“You are Bhaalspawn - I knew exactly what I was getting myself into.”

His razor-sharp smile - that of a thief in the night - settled like a gentle veil over her fresh wounds, as if it held no significance: her blood, her deeds, who she had been, and where she came from.

The wind cut between them without mercy. A chaw with carnassials, sharp and tearing. Lightning cracked, racing over her skin in blinding ribbons of white-blue light, not releasing her body from its bite. The sound came a heartbeat after the flash, rolling through the forest until the earth itself seemed to tremble beneath their knees. 

“I’m a mess,” freed from the paralysis of hanging lifelessly at her side, her arms rose tremblingly,  like a monument to what was now nothing more than a ruin.

Forever crumbling, cursed and haunted.

“There will always be war in me - I am too fragile to handle this and I don’t want you to do it either.”

Aristen - her beautiful silhouette, reminiscent of the clouds over the oceans - might have seemed fragile, yet there was no trace of fragility when she kept her grief to herself whilst others paraded theirs, or when she once again put her own needs second to those of others. It was only with him that she was able to let go of what she had clung to so tenaciously: the belief that she had to cope with it all alone. But she was no longer alone - none of them were.

“You call it fragile, my lovely rose, but I find it to be something far more substantial: to survive despite all the shadows within one’s own soul  is a testament to immense willpower. To carry on living after surviving - that is true strength.”

Something familiar, knowing, started tugging on his lips. A voice sounding so easy, but never felt easy at all.

“People would hold no interest for me at all if they had not had to overcome obstacles or carry pain within themselves. A few scars tell a story, don’t they? And what would others know about it except for us, my love?”

His wry smile lingered beneath that arched look - mildly teasing, as though the space between them were nothing more than a step to cross.

So he took it. Another foray into the troubled waters - restless, rising, sharpened by everything that could no longer keep contained. He had no intention to mend her wounds for her, to cover the hurt as if it could be fixed. Astarion settled for something far more attainable. Staying within reach. So she would not face it alone.

Love within the hearts of people was a fragile glass boat on this deep, dark ocean. Astarion knew how easily they broke and this boat would rock gently on sunny days. It held joy and bright light. But the sea was vast and unpredictable - and life cruel.

Sudden grief was a giant, black wave without mercy - crashing over the tiny boat of Aristen’s heart without warning. The wood cracked. The glass shattered into irreparable pieces and the bright light of love slowly sank into the deep cold water. 

The water froze. Froze over her soul and any hope.

This kind of loss left a heavy, quiet ache in the heart. The light suddenly swallowed by greedy waves. The only love ever known lost to the sea. Gone what once was innocent. In the freezing water, the silence felt loud. Alone, floating in the dark.

How well he knew the darkness - it was all he ever knew for so long…

Yet, the sea held both sorrow and beauty and the water mirrored the starry night sky. The fair pale moon with its secret of hope and light above.

“You saw me in my darkest hour - and you stayed. Darling, you helped me face what I couldn’t alone; helped me banish my demons,” the corner of his mouth threatening something that almost resembled a smile, “you wanted this ritual to have a story of the past, and said you wanted something of your own. Memories we could share. Said we’d face everything together.”

His voice softened, but did not falter.

“You don’t have to face this by yourself. Whatever comes, whatever follows, I’ll be there.”

A short pause fell between them, but the warmth of his last words still clung to her. Astarion drew a breath, steadier this time. Quiet and persistent. The face behind the layers of curtains and masks. 

“You don’t have to carry this alone.”

Astarion had always been the one person before whom she had never needed to hide. The one who had laughed with her until neither of them could breathe. The one who had stayed when tears had replaced laughter. The one who had listened to the darkness without ever mistaking it for who she truly was. He saw the woman she could no longer see herself.

Even now. Especially now.

Aristen had given his lonely existence a warmth he had never believed himself capable of finding. Somehow, through quiet patience, stubborn kindness and more forgiveness than he thought he deserved, she had taught him that there could be more to life than merely surviving it. She had granted him mercy and compassion.

Now it was his turn.

Slowly, carefully, he reached out. Not to stop the storm. Not to command the magic. Simply to reach her.

To remind her that beneath the shame, beneath the grief, beneath every terrible memory, she was still the woman he loved.

“Astarion, ruins are no grounding for a home.”

“What are you talking about? You seem to have forgotten that you are the light shining through the remains of these ruins. And I would rather live a hundred years with you in a ruin than spending a thousand lifetimes in a crimson palace.”

Aristen - who saw herself as a ruin, always striving not to be a burden to anyone, and who - much like him - hid her pain behind silence or a gentle smile so as not to lose her strength - now revealed her vulnerability. She was engulfed by the inner struggle she usually sought to conceal, whilst at the same time slowly drowning and suffocating.

Her hand still trembled against her chest, for she dared not close the distance. The mere thought of touching Astarion filled Aristen with such fear that her hand clenched painfully. As though even reaching for him might undo something that could not be repaired. 

“Aristen, just allow yourself to be happy. Just this much ,” his voice carried that quiet conviction she had never quite learned how to refuse. Astarion reached in a loving embrace and did what she could not:

His hand found her, gentle, certain - cradling her head, drawing her in until she rested against him, sheltered at his shoulder. A moment of respite; from the tears, the thoughts - from everything. Nothing more, yet, for them, it seemed to be almost everything.

This silence that settled between them was not empty, but full. As though two thoughts were seeking one another. Two hearts that belonged together were finding their way back to each other. Through darkness and tempest.

The rain and wind cooled their skin - yet all of that only made the warmth between them more palpable.

For a moment, there were only the two of them, and for a single heartbeat, there was almost peace amidst the storm.

“But just look around you…” she whispered at last - joyless, sad, and her worried gaze lifted, unwilling to linger where it felt secure. Refusing to let herself succumb to that fleeting chimera of safety found in Astarion’s peaceful embrace. The chaos still churned beyond them, relentless, waiting. As though she did not trust the quiet. As though she did not believe it was meant for her. 

“What if it’s always going to be like this…” , sorrows returned, a shudder threading through her voice as her eyes fixed on the demolition her magic had left behind, “…because of me?” she breathed, her voice felt heavy from the deep-seated sorrow she tried to hide against Astarion’s wet shoulder. The words barely held together.

“You are not a threat, Aristen…just someone caught up in her own storm”, Astarion’s voice stroke calm and warm amidst these shivering winds. For her he would always find a gentle, soft tone between his edges. 

“You never let me fall, either - no matter the darkness or the intoxication I was in; no matter whether I was drunk on blood or power - blinded by both, and most of all by hatred. I suppose it is only fair that I return the favor.”

“But what if I don’t deserve it?” Her words came smaller now, worn thin by the weight beneath them. “I wanted to be your shelter. To be strong for you. Not another burden. I don’t want to pull you down with me again, drag you into the place I’m in.”

“Oh, Aristen, if only you could see half the goodness in yourself that I see – all the comfort you bring to others, the same way you condemn yourself,” something lighter had already begun to return to the smile of his lips, though lacking its usual theatrical flourish. Biting sarcasm, for once, left to rest where it belonged - replaced by sincerity and tenderness. There was no lie, no deceiving when he spoke to her. Only the truth of his heart.

“My name, my hands brought only death to so many people in the name of Bhaal…”

Broken. Shattered. Plagued by that awareness, her voice could barely form these words. 

“You think you’re the black death? If anything, you’re my little black cat,” his bloodstained eyes shone over lips, that already slipped back to their pure velvet, with a tongue sharp as a knife, able to cut deep, but choosing to make love to her.

He felt his way forward as if on shifting islands, each of his words, each fleeting hint of a smile, the warmth of his presence, placed with quiet intent, as though the fragile certainty they had found might yet be held in place. 

But never pushing, never demanding - only patience. The same patience Aristen had once granted him.

Above them, the willow groaned again. Slightly reaching a critical breaking point.

Rain struck hard against skin and cloth alike as lightning tore through the sky beyond the branches, close enough that the thunder followed at once - sharp, splitting, alive. One of the great limbs shuddered overhead, straining beneath the weather’s assault. Bursting timber shattered to the ground. The untamed threatening eye - the terrifying cry amidst the storm's fury.

The wind rose with it, clawing at them, pulling at fabric and hair as though intent on tearing them apart and scattering what remained into the sky’s black heights. 

Still, neither of them moved.

Another flash. Another crack.

Wood splintered somewhere beyond sight, the sound sharp and violent as it gave way, and yet it was not the storm that drove him to act. 

Astarion drew Aristen closer. Not in panic. Not in haste. With certainty. 

The world might break itself apart around them - lightning, wind and falling branches  - but his arms did not yield. They held, steady against the force of it, a barrier not of strength alone, but of refusal.

He would not let her go.

Not to the storm. Not to anything that followed it.

The unleashed weave raged wild around them, unseen currents spiraling through rain and thunder, restless and untamed - but it broke against him as the storm did, finding no purchase where he chose to stand.

His arms remained.

Firm. Unwavering.

As though the decision had been made somewhere deeper than thought, and the rest of him had merely fallen in line.

And Aristen, she held to him just as fiercely, clung to his embroidered shirt, grounding herself in the only thing that did not shift or fracture beneath her - fingertips unconsciously digging into the fabric, as if it were the only solid point in this suddenly fluid world. An anchor in the flood.

It was as if their bodies had decided not to let go before their minds had been followed to agree.

Their bodies reunited in this embrace against the violently raging weather.

The world bent. The storm howled.

But there, within the circle of his arms, something held. And did not break.

For a moment, it was enough.

“I know I can no longer live without you, Astarion - or at least I don’t want to - but before any harm comes to you because of me...”

“Stay…” , not desperate, not uncertain but gentle - this single word drew from his lips and it unraveled something deep inside of him. “You’re the one I want, and I think the world looks better with you in it, not darker, my love. In my eyes, there’s nothing about you that isn’t loveable; you’ve always been perfect for our little chaos, my stormy rose.”

Astarion pulled Aristen closer, closer with every passing moment. As if letting go were no longer possible. A vow without words. Residing solely in his breath, his touch and the way he held her.

Their little resting conclave until the storm may pass…

“And I know sometimes it can be hard to deal with these old wounds, but we’ll face them together in time - and someday, when you’re ready, you can tell me about these memories you’ve seen, and you’ll never have to live with them alone,” his voice, lower now, but steady and warm against the cold. “I don’t see you any differently because of this - not changed, and certainly not any worse - for just as you never judged anything I did, so it would never cross my mind to judge you, my little wicked Bhaalspawn.”

Sudden mischief twitched over his cheeks “And I’ll refrain from mentioning how ravishing I looked while judging people. That alone should be evidence enough of how serious I am,” the edge in him softened again, as sarcasm broke, and for once, left to rest where it belonged, “about everything.”

Astarion’s lips slowly fell into silence - but the touch of his hands never left, never stopped to speak their volumes. His embrace, the promise to keep her safe, to never run from danger as long as they faced it together.

No answers. No mending. Just the steady presence of him, holding her through the tremor of it all, as though stillness itself might be something shared in facing her ghosts. Quiet and calm.

They had to push back this tainting rot, pierce its heart of darkness once and for all, but with a force that grew its power not from deadly, sharp daggers. A battle they had to wage without swords, without blades, or powerful spells. Patience and love would be the weapons against Bhaal’s final shadows. 

Like the boat that braved the storm; relentlessly. Until the sea had calmed - and for the first rays of sunlight to return. Their shimmer venturing between the clouds for the blue sky to be found again at last. The blue sky that had been there all along, hidden behind gray and rain just waited to be seen again.

Even Aristen’s trembling fingertips dared to cling tighter unto her vampire, with more certainty, more hope.

Her hair brushed against his with raindrops befallen chest, seeking further shelter. Dared to meet his closeness.

“The wind in my stomach must be a storm, because that’s how it feels when you stand right next to me,” her voice was nothing more than a mere whisper, but it finally returned to its usual soft tone, filled with love.

“I think,” Astarion glared towards another spectacular ribbon of blue in front of dark clouds, “we should stick to metaphorical storms from now on. I would prefer that.” 

Despite everything, the corner of his mouth lifted. It was that familiar, incorrigible grin.

Not a mask. Not this time.

An offering. Something ordinary in a moment that had become anything but ordinary.

His arms remained safely at her side, steady and warm despite the rain pouring over them.

“Everyone has skeletons in the closet,” Astarion continued lightly, his lips curling with nonchalance, “Yours just happen to be...rather less metaphorical.”

He paused, bared his fangs under a brazenly amused grin. Teasing. “I have to admit, that's one of the more original things about you. Making you oh so fascinating, my darling.”

A faint chuckle escaped Astarion’s throat. “And honestly? My own story hasn't exactly been a peaceful stroll through a rose garden. It would have been terribly…”, the white curls shifted, his tongue grasping for the right word, “...dull if it had. A land of milk and honey sounds kinda enticing. But in the long rong: Boring.”

Astarion’s smile didn’t soften, not quite yet, it became rather wicked. 

“So perhaps our story simply comes with a little more blood, a little more drama…”, his forehead rested lightly against hers, their fair hair brushed along each other, “...and that's all right. A blood-stained romance. That sounds so much more like me. Doesn’t it, my deadly red rose?”

One simple hushed breath was the answer, so his hand searched for Aristen’s fingers. His thumb brushed gently across the back of her hand. “Do you remember what you told me?” the vampire’s voice had fallen almost to a whisper.

“We share everything”, Aristen’s voice was quieter than expected, “I meant it. I still mean it.”

“So we'll face these memories together. One at a time. All of your skeletons are mine. All of your corpses are mine. One day, perhaps, they really will be…because one day…”, a flicker of mischief returned to Astarion’s eyes, “...I'll happily become your partner in crime.”

A muffled sound escaped from somewhere beneath his chin, where Aristen had buried her face against his chest.

“Don't…”

Her protest dissolved into an indistinct grumble. “Don’t you dare…”

The sharp grin widened. “There you are.” 

Quietly she looked up to Astarion, his gaze brushed her eyes, his hand her hair. A touch, soft and careful. As if both of them needed to be certain this was real. 

“Aren’t you at least a little afraid that, in the end, you’re taking on too much excitement with me - with us?” She drew in a shaking breath, her voice fell quieter, but beneath her worries were mingled with hope now “Aren’t you afraid to drown in the torrents I’m bringing down upon us?” 

“Our waters won’t always be calm and gentle - I wouldn’t want that anyway; it sounds tedious to me, darling, and you”, the mischievous smirk in his voice became almost palpable, “oh, you are the exact opposite of boring. With you, thrilling excitement and a deadly lightning bolt lurk around every corner.”

Astarion searched for another smile on Aristen’s lips. The way of his solace was twisted in his very own fashion of eloquence - to say the sunshine of a vampire was truly always a strange one. 

“I want to experience an incredible ride and sometimes the sun doesn’t shine. All I want is for sorrow not to drag you down.”

A breath passed between the words, but he did not lose them. 

“Don’t drown. Hold on to me, keep yourself afloat - keep your head above water here on my shores - and everything will be fine,” a gentle caress of her chin as he searched for the light in her eyes that was meant to meet his gaze, “will you rise from this ocean of blood and return to me?”

He nearly sighed, the reflex already there - the familiar urge to roll his eyes at himself and deflect it all before it could settle. Astarion might have told her she had exhausted her entire allowance of romance for the coming weeks. That Aristen would now be required to compensate accordingly…be especially sweet to him….

A fair arrangement, all things considered.

The words hovered, ready. And for once he let them go.

Sarcasm had carried him through worse than this. It would have been easy to reach for it again, to cast it out like a line and keep everything else at a safer distance.

Not this time. He meant it.

Kindness and their suited speeches did not come easily to Astarion; it never had. But there were moments when some words refused to remain unspoken, no matter how poorly it seemed to fit. Sometimes his sharp tongue needed to caress instead of working with bare fangs.

Perhaps he had, in fact, read too many of those books they had collected along the way.

“I will promise, Astarion…”, Aristen almost startled, her voice so frail, so faint; more whisper than words. “Even if I don’t know how…” Their eyes met almost at once, touched in this second of Aristen’s search for assurance “How can I breathe in this freezing water?”

For a brief moment his sweeping hand spoke widely through the air, before returning to her.

“The crushing waves carve out new, deep spaces in the soul. You will learn to carry the weight of the water. I can’t promise it won’t hurt, but I can promise, you will learn to breathe underwater - just as you helped me to do. You know that, right?”, his thumb moved gently over her hair, an unconscious reassurance that she was really there, “pain and love are two sides of the same coin. You cannot have one without the other - so the depth of your grief shows the great size of your love, Aristen, your compassion.”

Then he paused. For one single breath. Astarion’s lips twitched, as if lost in his own thoughts, and with that crooked smile he met Aristen’s gaze. Charming as ever. He looked completely soaked and still outrageously good at the same time. 

His eyes rested on her, open and unguarded, as if he’d forgotten to hide them. Another pause opened his lips with warmth: “When you really love, a little pain is worth it…”

Aristen smiled, and the sadness slipped from her face like a receding tide, drawn away by his disarming charm and the effortless way his words unfurled - richer than anything she had ever read or heard. He would so often lift his fine nose in quiet scorn at art, at bards, at books, and yet there it was again and again: a true poet burning within Astarion. Or else, just as swiftly, he would quench it - spoiling the moment with some deliberately grotesque turn, as though he could not bear the flame for long.

And yet, those were the moments she cherished most - the sudden shifts, the clash of heat and salt, dramatic cynicism, beauty and absurdity. Moments that belonged to no one else. To no one but him.

Together - both as eccentric as two broken clocks, and so they could strike the time right for the rest of the world at least twice a day.

But time and eternity belonged to them.

He, a vampire; she, Bhaal’s demigod. The only gift her father had ever granted her - one he’d probably bestowed without realising that she would fall just as immortally in love with an immortal being. That she would kiss him every evening, just as the moon kisses the stars.

Her father’s ghosts might know her ruins, but she would no longer answer and bow to them; together, they would face all their demons. There was no light without darkness. Yet the darkness was never endless, and the sun would return. A child’s knowledge - and sometimes, all it took was a little reminder. Aristen knew that, by Astarion’s side, the light would always return with the dawn  - no matter through what dark valley of shadows and death she had to walk. 

Only a breath held place between them, as he leaned in, his mouth close to her ear, as it may be the key to a secret, locked up deep inside of him until now.

“You scared me a little back then, my darling”, his lips brushed against her hair; Astarion only dared to whisper this confession of his unmasked feelings, “never ever say things like that again.”

He brought his lips to her head, placed a gentle kiss on the crown – a tender touch, his reassurance that this fleeting moment really existed. “Stay and never leave.”

“I’ve seen enough blood. From now on…”, her breath grazed faintly against him, “it shall only be like this…” Aristen let herself fall into his embrace, inhaled for one little tick of time his scent, the essence he held in his clothes and hair.

She would find ways to honor that love, that helped her navigate through this heavy grief.

When these memories had drowned her and the loss of her innocent soul had occurred, the waves of grief had felt as overwhelming as being trapped alone in a shipwreck. Shattering - impact after impact, after impact, where all she could do was holding onto the wreckage to stay afloat.

But Aristen was no wreckage anymore - because even ruins could grow flowers and even broken wood drifted.

Finally realized, to let the boat drift without fighting the current allowed her to find a quiet sort of peace without needlessly struggling against the water's natural flow. Aristen stopped to choke on the dark waters of her memories and found hold on her pale saving bark.

All those deaths and faces, she held them inside her heart, but those taken lives would carry her forward from now on. To sculpt a significance from their lost existences and suffering into redemption for the living.

Her grief may washed over her in devastating waves, and they might return, but the waters would become more calm, allowing her to reach an emotional shore once again. 

At last, Aristen found solid ground holding onto Astarion, burying herself into his embrace.

Safe, warm. 

Until the storm had passed… around her and within her.

…

Gently, he brushed a few wet strands of hair from her face and let his hands linger on her cheeks. Their meeting gazes rendered any further words expendable in that single moment.

Astarion leaned closer; between them lay that tense pause – Aristen’s breath caught slightly at his touch – a gentle brush, and his hands now held her face more firmly.

Soft lips met as their eyes broke their spell beneath the heavy rain and slowly flickering flashes of lightning.

A warm caress, despite the damp drops between them, which tasted so much better from Astarion’s lips, for they mingled distinctly with the last stains of Aristen’s salty traces of her profound sadness, which only her beloved could grasp – and transform into something else.

This kiss, soft and tentative, like opening a door behind which one suspects something wonderful lies.

They paused - for just a heartbeat, as if to check whether it felt right. Yet, as always, their hearts’ longing found its way into their bodies, and their lips shared more intimate kisses - longer ones - that felt like home.

Astarion’s hand rested on her cheek; the grip of her fingertips on his soaked shirt grew firmer, not demanding, just…lingering. The world around them shrank to the patter of rain, now only perceptible to them in the distance; the pounding of their hearts, so much louder and more significant; and that one shared breath.

Their kiss, bathed in the flicker of lightning.

Aristen felt the tension in her muscles melt away in an instant.

For only he managed to break through the walls and truly touch her when her self-loathing held her captive.

Astarion, the anchor in her raging storm. Just as she had been his light in the darkness.

As they parted, their foreheads remained pressed against one another, both slightly out of breath, both a little surprised by the sudden warmth in the rain and, above all, both completely fulfilled by what they had found in that moment. Right there before them.

Her head found shelter against his chest once more; there, her sadness would ebb away - not hiding from the world, but simply pausing its gaze for one moment.

Astarion held Aristen in his arms - the storm around them would make its final stirrings until it finally died down, and until then he would hold on to his beloved child of Bhaal, and continue to do so for all eternity, until the stars fell from the sky like burning infernos and the earth grew dark.

They would linger - he would linger with her forever and catch her tears.

In silence, or with every word she needed.

With every kiss he was allowed to give her.

…

Time lost its meaning, slipped somewhere beyond reach -  it was only when the thunder fell silent, the lightning dissolved, spells and rain faded away that they left not only the storm behind them, but also the forest. 

Hand in hand, they made their way out of the trees - what remained of them, at least.

Branches lay broken where they had fallen. Remaining as silent reproachful evidence. Leaves clung in damp clusters to churned earth. 

Twigs and splintered limbs littered the ground in quiet accusation. The arcane hurricane had left undeniable evidence to Aristen’s emotional torrent.

“Our nature-loving musclehunk Halsin would be devastated,” Astarion teased lightly, his gaze drifting across the scene with a crooked hint of amusement. “Saying you owe a small army of squirrels a new residence now.”

“Oooh…” Aristen’s soggy leather boots nearly tripped over a fallen tree - distracted, caught up between laughing and mourning the poor squirrel’s destroyed homes. 

“Do you have any idea how many times I was nearly taken out by a falling branch during your little performance?” he went on, glancing sidelong at her, the earlier weight gone now, replaced by something far more familiar, dramatic “Darling, we are both far too attractive to perish in a forest. Even as pretty corpses, I would expect a higher standard.”

His lip curled faintly.

“And this-” a vague gesture toward the wreckage, “-is precisely why I have always maintained that the city is superior. This sort of thing simply does not happen there.”

“It would have been worse,” Aristen returned, still a worried sight as her gaze lingered on the damage. “Imagine that storm in the city. Bricks instead of branches. Roofs torn loose-”

“Oh, fiddlesticks,” he cut in at once, dismissing the notion with a flick of his quick hand. “Stone roofs? Not even the wind is that ambitious. Magical or otherwise.”

She frowned, thinking. “Isn’t there a story about that?”

“What?”

“You know…pigs, their houses, and someone blowing them down one by one?”

His ashen brow rose, slow and incredulous. “You do not recall your time as the Chosen of the Murder God, yet you remember a cautionary tale about domestic pigs and architecture?”

“Hey,” a soft protest passed her lips, “I remember everything now. And it wasn’t about domestic pigs - it was about how the houses were built.”

“Ah. Of course.” Astarion’s eyes rolled skyward, red glinting faintly beneath pale lashes. “House-building pigs. A cornerstone of literary tradition. I imagine a certain bard named Volo was involved.”

She met his look with a glimmer of recurring mischief. “Speaking of remembering…there is one droll detail that came back rather vividly.”

Astarion’s attention shifted at once. “Oh?” Immediately, his eyebrow shot up again, though this time out of curiosity. Eyes and fangs, already the glint of full anticipation. 

“I recalled that time when Gortash thought it wise to make rather insistent advances,” she continued, almost thoughtful. “He was discouraged.”

Aristen’s smile lit up, adorned with a secret touch of malicious pride.

“With lightning. Up his buttocks.”

A bright, full fanged grin flashed in the dusk.

“That’s my girl!”

…

The first rays of sunlight reached for their eyes, quietly reflected from the fluent fractured rainbow hues of puddles on the ground. It arrived without loud notice. Just silent and steady.

Slowly breaking through the clouds, rushing their steps. 

Chasing the last shade of oaks and pines, made them blind to see what lay besides of them, dulled their hearing - though even had they listened, it would have changed nothing.

Along their path, lights moved between the trees - small, precise, flickering like embers that refused to die or stars that had lost their sky. Neither Aristen nor Astarion saw them, nor could hear the faint hush they carried, for they were not illusions of the past, but mirrors of the future: 

“Now I know why I feel so dizzy and ill in the mornings: I went to a doctor today because of it and they assured me that I am pregnant.”

“You...are...pregnant? Are you sure? I mean children were never upon our list, but I thought you like them…”

“What if there isn't enough light in me? What if the child only inherits my darkness? It should not have such mother. You both deserve better. What if I'm not good enough? Still a slave and creature of a dark urge?”

“Please, Aristen, stop crying. We...we figure this out...I guess. But don't cry anymore.” 

“How should I not cry? I'm putting an innocent life in danger of carrying the same dark urges as me, just because it's unlucky enough to get me as a mother. What if Bhaal and his line is still in my genetic, Astarion? There is this monster inside of me, that I was born to be. And what if I condemn our child to be just as much of a monster? To carry this darkness within them? What then?”

“There is no monster in you, Aristen! But only life and beauty. And I'm not talking about your appearance that everyone can see when not closing their eyes. But at the same time, everyone should be able to see the beauty in your heart right away. I see this beautiful light inside of you and that's the only thing I see when I look into your face, into your eyes. And you know I'm not one to look lightly behind the superficialities of things to see their true nature, but you've taught me that. There is only life and light growing inside of you.” 

“Thank you. For being there for me. For everything.” 

The rain had risen like a veil of dust, only left this vibrant haze where the lights flitted between the trees and allowed fears and worries to fade away. The last dance began. Hidden from their eyes.

“She is beautiful…”

“As her mother.”

“For sure as her father as well.”

“From now on, my darling, the only monsters are the imaginary ones we have to chase out from under our child's bed, alright?”

“Promise? I would love that.”

“What should she be called?”

“Aurora…because with her, the sun should rise anew for us every day.”

Until the lights, one by one, blurred completely into the mist and dissolved what was left of the rainy gray.

Detre had certainly been right about one thing: Astarion was Aristen’s home.

➹a/n: I really want to recommend the two songs again; I feel they convey the emotions and atmosphere of the reading experience beautifully, and they accompanied me while I was writing - especially when things around me were, as is often the case, too loud.

Yungblud’s "Zombie" and VNV Nation’s "Illusion."

Both songs hold great personal significance for me and touch me deeply for their words. I would be delighted if they resonated musically with others as well.

Even more so, I wish for everyone forced to walk a path of suffering and pain alone that someone might speak to them like the singer of VNV Nation does in "Illusion" - offering words of comfort and pure understanding. To be finally seen. For them find the strength to stay and find their way back, leaving loneliness behind for the light. I wish for each of you that such a person comes into your life, that you might hear those words one day - and have a saving hand extended to you, just as Astarion does in this story. Or that it might be as well these song's message and comfort what saves you.

You see, right in the middle of writing, the situation and the conversation between Aristen and Astarion reminded me a bit of that song - of its message and meaning. That made me smile, and I feel it underscores the moment musically to perfection.

"Zombie," on the other hand, fits the preceding act perfectly - reflecting Aristen’s inner struggle, hurt and self-doubt amidst her loneliness and isolation.

These are very strong songs and to be found on the playlist of another character of mine from a different fandom and yet they would fit here just once again.

I hope you enjoyed the concluding section with its touch of humor - after all, with Astarion, things rarely stay entirely serious or poetically romantic.

Personally, the part involving the fairy tale about the little pigs and Volo was my favorite; I have the most fun writing Astarion’s witty banter - I think it’s what comes most naturally to me and represents my greatest strength.

I also hope that the poetic metaphors I chose for the story were well-received.

With a storm sorceress, naturally, there had to be water and floods - and thus a boat braving the tides. A story of love encountering grief and pain.

Perhaps I also indulged myself a little in the process - after all, what is a boat if not a ship? A *spaceship* ;)

Given my absolute obsession with “Project Hail Mary” - an obsession I wanted to satisfy a bit, having no time for hobbies other than writing this story for over a month.

Dr. Grace and Rocky make me so happy. Project Hail Mary has brought me unadulterated happiness since a long time, it holds all my joy and will be all my joy for a long time - though that’s hardly surprising, considering my prior enthusiasm for Ryan Gosling.

Or maybe not. I mean, who is Ryan Gosling? Never heard of him 😅

Fingers crossed that the transitions between narrative styles weren't too jarring while reading.

More than ever, this time in this fic, I had to blend my omniscient and POV (character-focused) perspectives. After the initial, brief prompt - "Aristen regains her memories, summons a storm, and Astarion comforts her under a tree" - more details emerged later on, so I had to weave my own ideas and already planned phrasing together with those new details to pull everything into a cohesive whole within a relatively short timeframe.

I wanted to cover all the bases without simply listing things like a checklist; I wanted to convey a genuine sense of lived experience, yet avoid at the end the feel of a restrictive Grace first-person narrator who is locked into a single personal perspective. Personally, I don't care much for that style; I always prefer having both approaches work hand-in-hand - though, of course, I don't know how that lands with others.

Towards the end, in particular, I had to make the cuts sharper. I wanted to show that there was no longer a "difference" between Aristen's and Astarion's perspectives, as they had merged into one. Just as they had always hinted, their past, their future, and their experiences were meant to become one.

They become one.

It was also meant to allude to their poem, "Two Halves One Soul." Perhaps that came through - if not, I hope it at least wasn't distracting.

It seems I’ve summarized Aristen’s past in complete detail within this fanfiction - something I hadn’t quite planned from the very beginning.

But now there’s a resource I can point to: “If you want to learn about Aristen’s past and backstory, you can find it here.” That way, I don’t have to bring it up every single time; I can just provide a reference.

For some reason, I end up writing more lore-accurate background and story-focused fanfiction about Aristen than about Saulus.

I think that stems from my early days in fandoms and creating OCs online as teenager. Back then, any kind of positivity, enthusiasm, or extensive story development for an OC was demonized as "Mary Sue dumping" - and, frankly, any female OC was liable to be branded a Mary Sue. Even though I always preach that you should be as unhinged as possible - after all, if the GOAT Dante Alighieri wrote arguably the most unhinged self-insert story of all time, no one should shy away even from self-inserts or a bit of self-indulgent fic - I still find I can’t quite bring myself to do it without feeling a twinge of shame. 😅

Here is a glimpse into the future for Aristen and Astarion.

If anyone wants to be tagged in future fanfic writing, WIPs or VP - please let me know. It would be my pleasure and honor if anyone is interested in something. 

High Hall dresses itself for conquest.

Every arch and pillar gleams as though the stone itself wishes to be thought wealthy. Candlelight trembles along gilded mouldings, gathers in the cut crystal of chandeliers, and scatters itself over silk, satin, jewels, polished boots, powdered throats, and every manner of self-satisfaction Baldur’s Gate manages to crowd beneath one roof. Music rises from the far end of the ballroom with an elegance so flawless it borders upon indifference. It does not invite feeling so much as instruct it where to stand. The occasion, if one believes the host, is a celebration.

The Dekarios family has arrived from Waterdeep. This, apparently, is reason enough to summon half the city into a fever of perfume and speculation. The noble houses come first, as they always do, drawn by rank as surely as moths to expensive flame. Then come the wealthy merchants, the old families with new fortunes, the new families with old pretensions, the daughters in pale gowns, the mothers with sharper eyes than any duelist, the fathers pretending not to calculate. The lesser relations, the useful widows, the ambitious cousins, the priests, the patrons, the artists, the mages, and all those curious creatures who belong nowhere in particular but have contrived, by invitation or audacity, to be present all the same.

And beneath them, between them, behind the moving screens of trays and folded linen, go the servants. No one looks at them for long. That, Deia finds, is the great convenience of service. A lady may be studied for the angle of her fan, a gentleman for the width of his smile, but a servant girl can pass within arm’s reach of a secret and be forgotten before the secret finishes drawing breath. She enters by the eastern passage with a tray balanced upon one palm and Lune half a step behind her, carrying folded cloths she does not need and wearing a cap that makes her look both younger and more frightened than she has any right to be.

“Stop staring,” Deia murmurs, without turning her head.

“I’m not staring.”

“You are staring with such devotion the walls may begin to blush.”

Lune swallows a laugh and nearly drops the linens.

“Gods, Deia, look at it. There’s more gold in this corridor than in the counting-house at the docks.”

“Then we must pity the corridor. It has been made vulgar without consent.”

Lune gives her a look from beneath the brim of her servant’s cap.

“You’ll mock gilding itself before the night’s done.”

“Only if it insists upon provoking me.”

They move past two footmen, a harried steward, and a young maid carrying a basket of glassware with both hands clutched white around the handles. No one stops them. No one asks where they have come from. High Hall has imported half its staff for the evening, or so the gossip in the lower passage claims, and where excess reigns, confusion is often mistaken for order. Deia has always thought noble houses safest when overcrowded. Too many people make certainty difficult. Too much noise makes truth shy. A girl can disappear in such a place, if she wishes. Or if someone else wishes it for her. Her fingers tighten upon the tray. Lune notices. Of course she does. Lune has a talent for noticing the things Deia would rather bury under sarcasm and forward motion.

“Not here,” Lune whispers.

Deia’s gaze cuts toward her. Lune lowers her voice further.

“I mean, they would not take anyone here. Not from a ball this grand.”

“No?”

“No one would dare.”

Deia’s mouth curves, not quite into a smile.

“My sweet Lune, daring is seldom in short supply among men convinced consequences were invented for others.”

The words settle between them, unwelcome but familiar. Beyond the corridor, music swells, bright and graceful, while somewhere below stairs a servant girl laughs too quickly at something a footman says. The sound tightens the air. There have been too many missing. Kitchen girls. Laundresses. Tavern maids. Seamstresses. Singers with no patrons and no fathers to make inquiries. Girls who change lodgings often enough that a gap in their absence may be explained away. Girls whose employers mutter about stolen coin, whose landlords shrug over unpaid rent, whose names are written nowhere that matters. The city has a remarkable talent for misplacing women it has never valued.

Lune knows two of them. Deia knows three. That is why they come to High Hall in caps and aprons, with borrowed trays and knives hidden where no gentleman’s gaze is permitted to wander. Not for the dancing. Not for the music. Certainly not for the pleasure of watching wealth perspire beneath chandeliers. There are letters somewhere in this house, according to a girl from the lower kitchens who has seen too much and grown wise enough to be afraid. A certain seal. A certain black ribbon. A list of names passed between gentlemen who speak of charity in public and purchases in private. High Hall, for all its polished marble and excessive floral arrangements, has become a place where whispers converge. And Deia has no intention of leaving empty-handed.

At the turn of the passage, she slips through a half-open door and into a narrow retiring room meant, perhaps, for some lady overcome by heat or humiliation. Lune follows, shuts the door gently, and leans her back against it. For one breath, both listen. Footsteps pass. Voices drift by. No shout comes. No alarm. No steward bursts in to demand their business. Lune exhales so hard she nearly folds over.

“I hate this.”

“You said you wished to see the ballroom.”

“I wished to see it while not committing three separate crimes.”

“Then you should have cultivated duller friendships.”

Deia sets the tray down, reaches behind her neck, and begins undoing the plain outer garment that marks her as staff. The grey cloth falls from her shoulders without ceremony. Beneath it she wears a gown of dark blue silk, almost black where the candlelight fails to touch it. It is not new. A fashionable eye would know so at once. The cut has been altered, the hem mended, the sleeves reworked with patience rather than coin. Yet it fits her figure cleanly, close enough to suggest intention, modest enough to avoid immediate scandal, and severe enough to look less like a plea than a warning. Lune stares. Deia looks down at herself.

“What?”

“You look…” Lune’s mouth twists, searching for a word grand enough and failing cheerfully. “You look like you robbed a widow and made it tasteful.”

“A generous review.”

“You did rob a widow, didn’t you?”

“She was not widowed at the time.”

“Deia.”

“She was also dreadful. Hold still.”

Lune laughs despite herself as Deia steps close and plucks the servant’s cap from her hair. Beneath her own plain covering, Lune has tucked soft brown curls into a knot too nervous to be called elegant. Her gown, when she shrugs free of the outer cloth, is pale green and simpler still, with a ribbon at the waist pressed smooth within an inch of its existence. She looks young. Pretty. Frightened. Too much like the kind of girl the world swallows and then insists has wandered willingly into its mouth. Deia’s fingers slow for the smallest moment as she adjusts one of Lune’s pins. Lune catches her wrist.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re already planning to stab someone on my behalf.”

“I often plan to stab people. You are not as singular as you imagine.”

Lune squeezes her wrist once, quick and fierce, then lets go. Deia turns to the mirror. A narrow crack runs through its lower corner, splitting her reflection from shoulder to hip. Her horns rise dark from the sweep of black hair she now loosens and rearranges with efficient hands. Tieflings are not unheard of in noble houses, particularly not in Baldur’s Gate, where money can soften many prejudices so long as it arrives properly laundered. There are two in the ballroom already, she has been told: one a merchant’s son with lacquered horns and rings enough to blind a saint, another a distant relation to some duchess or other who has learned to smile as though forgiveness were a currency.

Deia’s own horns are not what will betray her. It is everything else. The slight disorder no maid’s hands have corrected. The absence of jewels. The plain gloves. The too-watchful eyes. The scar at her collarbone half-hidden by dark lace. The faint scales near her temples that catch light without asking permission. The manner of a woman who has learned how to stand in beautiful rooms but not how to trust them. She looks good. She does not look refined. That, she suspects, is the difficulty. True refinement requires either long practice or an impressive willingness to lie to oneself. Deia possesses practice in abundance, but little talent for that second art. Lune comes to stand beside her in the mirror.

“We’ll be noticed.”

“Of course we shall.”

“That was not comforting.”

“It was not meant to be. Comfort breeds inaccuracy.”

“Could you try lying, once?”

“I am lying. Look at me.”

Lune looks, and her smile turns smaller. Deia softens before she can stop herself. She reaches up and straightens the ribbon at Lune’s waist.

“Keep to the edges. Do not drink anything you have not watched poured. Do not follow any man into a corridor, even if he speaks sweetly enough to rot your teeth. If we are separated, you go to the kitchens first. If you cannot reach them, the eastern passage. If that is blocked, the courtyard with the orange trees.”

“I remember.”

“Say it.”

“The kitchens. Eastern passage. Orange trees.”

“And if someone touches you?”

Lune’s chin lifts.

“I scream.”

“No.”

Lune blinks. Deia’s eyes hold hers in the mirror.

“You break something first. Then you scream.”

A beat passes. Then Lune nods. Satisfied, Deia takes a pair of little silver pins from her pocket and fixes back the front pieces of her hair so that the dark weight of it falls more neatly over her shoulders. The effect is not quite fashionable. It is not quite improper either. It lives in that precarious country between invitation and insult, where Deia spends much of her life.

“Come,” she says. “Let us go be decorative.”

“Gods save the decorations.”

“No one else will.”

They leave the retiring room as two women transformed by nothing more substantial than posture, silk, and a shared willingness to be mistaken for belonging. The nearer they draw to the ballroom, the more the sound of the assembly gathers itself: violins, laughter, the whisper of skirts, the formal announcement of names, the soft percussion of shoes upon polished floor.

At the threshold, Lune stops. Deia does not blame her. High Hall’s ballroom opens before them like a jewel box constructed by someone with more money than restraint. Tall windows reflect the candlelight until it seems the night itself has been invited indoors and persuaded to wear diamonds. Garlands of white flowers loop from pillar to pillar. The floor shines so brightly one might use it to examine one’s conscience, had conscience been fashionable. Everywhere, people move in circles of rank and desire.

Young ladies stand arranged in delicate clusters, each one a pastel hope with a mother nearby to interpret opportunity. Gentlemen linger with affected ease, speaking of horses, politics, and weather as though these subjects have not been exhausted by every generation before them. Older women watch with the grave intensity of generals. Older men watch the wine.

There are mages too, though they wear their art with varying degrees of taste. Rings glimmer with warding spells. Brooches hold minor enchantments. A few visible familiars perch upon shoulders or chair backs, tolerated so long as they do not shed. Near the upper end of the room, beneath a crest worked in silver thread, the host speaks animatedly with a priest of Mystra whose ceremonial blue robes seem determined to be seen from Waterdeep. Lune’s mouth falls open. Deia sighs.

“Close your mouth. You will catch a husband by accident.”

Lune shuts it at once, then opens it again to laugh.

“Would that be so terrible?”

“In this room? Statistically, yes.”

They move to the side of the assembly, near enough to observe, far enough to avoid immediate scrutiny. Deia accepts a glass of wine from a passing servant with a nod that makes him glance twice, uncertain whether she is above or below him. She enjoys that. Confusion is a small art, and she has cultivated it lovingly. Lune takes her own glass and stares at the chandeliers.

“I never thought I’d see it from this side.”

“This side?”

“The side with the wine.”

“Do not grow sentimental. It is poor wine.”

“You tasted it?”

“I suffered it.”

Lune hides her smile behind the rim of her glass.

“You’d call the heavens badly arranged if you found yourself among them.”

“Only if they hang the stars with such desperation.”

Lune’s shoulders shake. Deia watches the room over the edge of her glass. The laughter. The bowed heads. The fluttering fans. The measured glances exchanged between people who have perfected the art of never saying plainly what they mean to sell. It is not that she despises beauty. Beauty, in honest form, has always undone her a little. Music heard through an open tavern door. A field after rain. The first orange flame caught in a cold hearth. A child asleep with crumbs on her chin. The curve of a good blade. But this is not beauty. This is display.

“It affords me constant astonishment,” Deia says, “that gentlemen should profess such a fancy for assemblies so entirely devoid of necessity.”

Lune laughs outright this time, though she quickly turns it into a cough when a lady nearby glances in their direction.

“You may say so, but plenty find necessity in them.”

“Then they are too easily satisfied.”

“Aye, well, not everyone can be satisfied by lurking in corridors and frightening criminals.”

“I have many interests.”

“Name one that does not involve knives.”

“Wine.”

“You just insulted the wine.”

“I did not claim a lack of standards.”

Lune leans closer, eyes bright despite the lingering tension at their edges.

“You know why they’re all here, don’t you?”

“To impersonate peacocks and obstruct the floor?”

“For the Dekarios family.”

“So I gather from the excessive reverence paid to every person wearing blue.”

“They have come all the way from Waterdeep. The whole family, near enough. Or the important ones, at least.”

“Families are very fond of declaring which of their members matter. It saves strangers the trouble of judging incorrectly.”

Lune ignores that with admirable discipline.

“And Mr. Dekarios is to be here.”

Deia’s gaze does not move from the room.

“How fortunate for Mr. Dekarios.”

“You’ve heard of him, then?”

“I have ears.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is an explanation.”

“Deia.”

She sighs.

“Yes, I have heard of him. Half the city has contrived to speak of little else for three days.”

“Only three? At the tavern it has been five.”

“The tavern has always been ambitious in its sufferings.”

Lune nudges her lightly.

“They say he is handsome.”

“They say many things.”

“And brilliant.”

“A more dangerous accusation.”

“And rich.”

“The least imaginative of virtues.”

“And still unmarried.”

Deia finally looks at her. Lune has the good grace to look only partly guilty.

“No,” Deia says.

“I did not say anything.”

“You inhaled with intention.”

“Well, why not?”

“Because I possess a functioning mind.”

“An inconvenient possession for a woman, I am told.”

“By men who fear competition.”

Lune smiles, then softens her voice.

“I only mean that if he is half so pleasant to look upon as they say, and if he has even a quarter of the fortune, gaining his attention would not be the worst endeavour.”

“For whom?”

“For any woman with sense.”

“Then may she enjoy him.”

“For you, goose.”

Deia stares at her. Lune lifts both brows.

“What? You could do worse than a handsome rich mage from Waterdeep.”

“I could also throw myself into the harbour and achieve dampness more directly.”

“Deia.”

“Please.” Deia turns back to the ballroom, the glass stem cool between her fingers. “The gentleman would not grant me a second glance, much less offer a word of greeting. Moreover, however great his fortune or talent, it matters little if a man of such means possesses no true merit.”

She says it quietly enough that the words are meant for Lune alone. Unfortunately, ballrooms have a strange fondness for betrayal. A hush passes near the great doors, not silence exactly, but a rearrangement of attention. Conversations loosen, then tighten. Fans lift. Spines straighten. A mother in rose silk seizes her daughter’s wrist with such swiftness one might mistake the gesture for rescue. Lune’s eyes widen. Deia does not turn at once. She does not need to. The room already tells her enough. Some presence has entered and is immediately weighed, admired, appraised, desired, envied, and offered up to speculation. The air itself seems to adjust its posture. Lune whispers, with the doomed delight of a girl watching a carriage roll directly toward a puddle,

“I think Mr. Dekarios has arrived.”

Deia takes a slow sip of the poor wine. It has not improved.

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