#drow!tav

Gale sat on the edge of the bed in your chambers, his heart pounding with nervous anticipation. He had been waiting for what felt like an eternity, his mind racing with worries and regrets. You had brought Gale back to your noble house in Menzoberranzan, you had to meet with your matron and the situation was simply unavoidable. So you had prepared Gale, dressing him in robes that would help him fit in and got him an array of books for him to read through, setting him up in your bedchambers. Gale had joked about whether you were going to leave him a bowl of water as well. You kissed him, promising not to be long and told him under no circumstances does he leave this room.

But, of course, Gale thought he knew better. He thought this was a perfect opportunity to observe lolthsworn drow matriarchal life, to see how you grew up. His plan was simple, to be seen and not heard and just keep his head down.

The concubines of the estate had other ideas, however. They had heard that one of their esteemed daughters of the house had brought back a surface pet and how they loathed the competition, especially from a human.

It didn't take long before they found him, his pale pink skin a stark contrast to their dusk and ice tones. They had teased and taunted him, picked at his robes, his hair. Throwing barbed words and snide remarks, assuring him that they would ensure you would never want to look upon him again. Just as a blade was drawn, your sharp voice cut through the air like a whip. The concubines cowered and stammered, trying to play it off that they were helping Gale, who had found himself lost in the estate.

You told Gale to return to your chambers immediately and that you would deal with the concubines first before dealing with him.

This is how Gale found himself, sat on the edge of your bed, heart beating like a caged bird. He had only seen that look on your face a few times. Mostly on the battlefield and once after the two of you had a heated argument that had melted into an encounter that left Gale unable to walk the next morning.

As the door creaked open, Gale's breath caught in his throat, and he rose to his feet, ready to beg for forgiveness.

You entered the room, your presence commanding and formidable. Gale's words stumbled over each other as he tried to apologize, but before he could utter a single syllable, you closed the distance between the two of you in swift strides.

With a rough and possessive grip, you grabbed Gale by the collar, silencing his apologies with a fierce kiss. The force of your lips against his sent a jolt of electricity through his body, overwhelming his senses with the intensity of your desire.

Gale stumbled backward, his back hitting the edge of the bed as you pushed him onto the soft mattress with urgency. His heart raced with a mix of fear and exhilaration as he surrendered to your dominant embrace, his mind reeling with the intoxicating sensation of htouch. Biting his lower lip as you pulled away, you sat up and straddled him at his hips.

`'What did I tell you not to do?"

"Leave your chambers without you."

"And what did you do?"

"Leave your chambers without you."

"The concubines are petty, jealous things. They'll do anything to get ahead of each other. Seeing a beautiful human like you be my dowager is like a knife twisted in their prideful hearts. You are lucky that I appeared when I did." You lectured him, looking down at him with half lidded eyes.

"I assure you I would have been able to handle-mph!" Gale's words were cut short by your fingers pushing into his mouth, pushing his tongue down.

"Your hubris, my love, has no place here. Not while you're in Menzoberranzen, not while you're in my chambers, not while you're mine." You told him, you removed your fingers from his mouth and admired the saliva before bringing it to your own lips. Gale lay back in shocked admiration, his hands snaking onto your hips as a familiar coil begins to build within him. However, he is promptly stopped when you grab his wrists and pins them to the side of his head. "Tut tut, and here I thought you were a quick learner."

"S-seems I'm in need of a good teacher." Gale breathed out, shuddering under the passionate ferocity of your red eyes. He kept his hands pressed against the bed even as you released them. The corner of your mouth quirked up in approval and you rolled your hips forward causing friction between their cores.

"I cannot offer you good - but ruthless, exhaustive and pleasurably yearnful - that I can offer." You dragged your finger nails down Gale's chest, pulling his tailored robe apart with ease, exposing his bare skin to you. You looked upon him like a predator who had finally caught their prey, ready to devour their well-earned feast.

Gale swallowed with a nervous excitement as he felt your nails drag across his skin. He could no longer ignore the pleasure that stirred within him but dutifully he kept his hands pinned to the bed.

"Perhaps I am too harsh on you, how can I expect you to act like a concubine of House Baenre when I haven't been treating you as such?" You scraped your nails lightly, creating patterns with the inflamed skin. "You know there is a reason why the concubines clamour for my attention, bend to my every whim so eagerly, and detest you so vehemently."

You leant down and peppered the red scratch marks with kisses before licking a long stripe up Gale's sternum causing him to gasp and as he did, you hummed in satisfaction.

"Whereas the other matrons of my noble house use the concubines for their mere pleasurable whims, seeking only their satisfaction." You swiped your fingers across Gale's exposed nipple, smiling as his breath hitched. You began to rock your hips backwards and forward grinding on his hardening bulge. "I much prefer using them entirely until they are begging me to just devour them. Is that what you want my love?"

"By the Gods yes," Gale rushed and his hands twitched above him, desperate to grab you but he sensed better. You laughed, not cruelly or mockingly but darkly, like prey that had stumbled dutifully into your trap. To his relief you grabbed Gale's hands and placed them roughly on your hips, incentivising him to squeeze as roughly as he wanted to. It was clear that that would be his only form of control.

You leaned down and kissed Gale's neck softly before biting viciously, being sure that it would leave a mark. You continued this down his body, continuing your hip movements and causing filthy whimpers from Gale. Once you were happy that he was properly marked, you relented looking at your handiwork with pride.

"Undress me." The command was quick and blunt and Gale wasted no time in obeying, as soon as the words had left your mouth he had your clothes off, his hands piously finding their way back to your hips. Your breasts fell perkily into his eyeline, teasing him. He began to feel left out that his clothes were still on, but you picked up on it immediately and pouted mockingly at him. "My poor love, what a shame for you that you look so beautiful when you're needy."

As you teased him your hand snaked past his back and your fingertips toyed with his briefs. Gale, wanting to earn your favour and encourage your touch, leant up and kissed your stomach only to be brutally pushed back down.

"So impatient," You lightly scolded and removed your fingers from his briefs. Gale couldn't help but whine, gripping your hips with fervor, trying to ignore the joy it brought his love. "But I am not one without mercy."

You offered him your hand, putting it in front of his face. Gale snaked his hand from your hip, up your side and down your arm until he clasped his fingers around yours as if to press a mere kiss to it. But he knew such poor worship was not deserving of the deity above him.

He pressed numerous chaste kisses to your finger leading to your fingernails before taking your fingers in his mouth. He knew this had earned your favour as you began to toy with his briefs again with your free hand. Gale continued to kiss and suck your fingers, only pausing to moan when you finally touched his bare aching member. As your touch continued you pushed further into Gale's mouth until he was almost gagging on your fingers. You smiled and eventually removed your fingers, swapping hands with the one that was toying with his tip. The added slick of saliva with his precum caused Gale to shiver and he involuntarily jerked his hips forward. Undeterred you continued to grip his tip, thumbing it with a torturous delicacy.

Your cunt was dripping as you continued to straddle and rock Gale's hips, his painfully erect cock pressing up against the plush of your ass. How badly he craved to be in you, how badly he began to crave release.

You continued to torture his tip, looking back accordingly to witness the dribbles of precum and Gale tried his hardest to hold back his whimpers.

Eventually leaving his tip alone, you paid attention to his balls, both full and aching from your teasing. You held them in one hand, giving them a taunting squeeze that illicit deep moans from the wizard as he continued his pointless thrusting.

"Please, my love, my goddess I beg of you-"

"-Of what my darling? All you need is to ask." You told him sweetly, as if the honey of your words masked your cruelty. As just as Gale went to speak, you increased the grip on his balls causing him to moan out in delight and his words lose their way on his tongue. You allowed him to recover before moving to the base of his cock and stroking it tightly just as he went to speak. He was close, you knew he was, but he wasn't allowed to come just yet.

Cruelly just as Gale's orgasm had begin to build you quickly got off of him entirely, walking away from the bed. Gale all but cried out and followed like a lost puppy, scrambling from the bed to grab your hand and pull you back.

But that wasn't the game you were playing.

As soon as Gale moved to pull you back, you swiftly immobilised him, causing him to fall to his knees. Satisfied you sat on the edge of your bed and simply held out a leg to him. Gale took it with gratitude and immediately began to kiss up your leg, his cock throbbing painfully.

As he diligently made his way up to your thigh he tried to hide how he positioned your leg into his crotch as he attempted to create friction to pursue his pleasure. You were well aware of this, of course, and relished as the blush of desperation and humiliation flooded your lover's cheeks, he was quite literally trying to hump you leg like a dog in heat.

You played along for a short while until you sensed his all too familiar coil about to snap. At which point you placed your foot on his chest and pushed him downward, straddling his hips whilst ruining his climax.

Gale threw his head back in frustration as a string of curse worse flooded his mouth. He was desperate, truly desperate. You could have asked him to condemn Mystra and devote himself to Lolth and he would have in a heartbeat.

"Oh my love," You cooed as tears pooled in the corner of Gale's eyes. Your hands cupping his face, relishing how his cock throbbed painfully against your ass. "You are doing so well for me, such a beautiful pet you are, my darling wizard."

Ordinarily Gale would have protested at such condescension but all he could do was lean into your touch and nod his head. You rewarded him with a soft kiss to his lips, turning vicious as you tugged his bottom lip with your teeth as you pulled away. Gale gasped and chased your lips upwards. You lifted up so you were now sat on his lap, his cock resting in front of your wet cunt.

You kissed him again, this time harder, tongue dominating his mouth, as you did your hands trailed down his glistening abdomen, fingertips resting lightly on his cock. Gale responded accordingly, filthily moaning into your mouth, like a whore. You continued to kiss him roughly, all teeth and tongue. A stark opposite to the way your fingers deftly played with his weeping cock. You focused your touch on the pulsing mushroom head, practically playing with the precum that surrounded it, lightly fingering the slit it was leaking from.

Gale continued to pant and moan into your mouth, his hips slyly rutting upwards into your touch. It earned him several bites on his lips, one drawing blood, but he did not care.

Finally, like a miracle had been gifted to him from the heavens, you began to languidly pump his cock, allowing his orgasm to build again. Gale drew back from your lips for air and pressed his forehead against your shoulder, eyes screwing shut as he chased the high, the wet slapping noise coming from below him driving him closer to the edge. But he would not be fooled again.

"Please my love, please," The begs fell almost naturally from his mouth and spilled into your skin as he pressed pathetic kisses across your breast in an effort to persuade you. You smiled and continued your pumping earning a primal grunt from your lover, but as soon as the praise stopped, overtaken by his pathetic whimpers and cries for release, you withdrew your hand and watched as he fell apart. "No...no-no..."

Whining, he pressed a kiss up your neck, his own hand instinctually moving to finish the job - a fatal mistake. You smacked his hand, before moving it to his neck. It snaked up to his jaw and tightly forced him to look up at you. He could see your red eyes flitter over him, analysing him, before your look of disappointment turned into a cruel smirk. With one hand gripping his jaw tightly, forcing him to look at you, you other hand returned back to his cock and you returned to the rhythmic languid pumping.

Stuck in your clasp, quite literally, Gale gasped as he felt the familiar wave of pleasure begin to build in him, his thighs now shaking, tears of pleasure freely falling. You forcefully pulled Gale towards you and dominated his mouth once more, and Gale thought he would die from the onslaught of building pressure and the increasing lack of oxygen.

He moaned into you, hips involuntarily bucking as he finally reached his peak, spurts of thick white cum decorating his body and yours Dutifully, you continued to pump his cock, milking him for all that he had until his cock was creamed in his own fluids.

Gale moaned and flinched at the overstimulation of your touch, nestling his damp forehead into your chest for comfort. When you were done you stood up, letting your hand trail up Gale's body till your index finger caught on his chin and tilted his head upwards. You quirked your head behind you, motioning for him to follow you back onto the bed.

Kindly, you helped him up, but the sincerity of your actions was merely a front for your real plan. With a playful shove, you pushed him onto the bed, with Gale landing on his back. A groan tore through him from the sensation of the silk sheets on his sensitive skin.

You joined him, your body hovering above his, admiring how his cock lay twitching against his stomach, practically white with the amount of cum on it. Praises slipped dilligenty from your tongue. “Oh Gale, my love, all mine.”

It seemed sense had started to come back to the wizard as he let out a short breathy laugh. His hand caresses your thigh. “Truly I’m all yours.”

“You always know what to say.” You smirked and you leaned down to place a soft yet passionate kiss on Gale’s lips. You felt Gale relax completely under your touch, probably believing you had had your fun with him.

How wrong he was.

You pulled away and peppered kisses across his face and down his neck, crowning the blooming hickeys with your lips. Between kisses you continued to compliment him, knowing the reaction it stirred within him.

“Your intellect beats any high wizard of my house.” Though your words were potentially blasphemous, though if Lolth herself tooke issue and demanded explanation then, there was plenty of evidence that you were simply corrupting the previous chosen of Mystra.

Gale hummed and put a hand on the small of your back, relishing in the pleasure he felt from your words and touch.

“Your heart is boundless, your desire ceaseless and your ambition, by the gods Gale, your ambition is indomitable and I utterly adore you for it, my love." You murmured to him, hips sneakily beginning to roll into his as you sat up, hands planted on his chest.

Gale tilted his head at you, trying to figure out what wonderful machinations were forming in your mind. He knew you well enough that no matter how sincere your words were, there was always something behind them, and he hadn't missed how you were still slowly rocking against him. You removed one of your hands and took Gale's, holding it as you placed it on your own sternum and pushed down till your hands rested on your abdomen.

"So perfect, and worthy, I believe.." You smiled down at him. Before Gale could figure out what you had meant by your words, you moved forward and slipped Gale's creamed and hardening cock into your sopping cunt. It slipped in with ease and Gale threw his head back into the pillows, a guttural moan tearing through him. His cock was already overstimulated, now he had you tight walls clamping around him. He thought he was going to die.

You gasped, your smile widening in pleasure, one hand remaining on your abdomen with his the other moving to Gale's free hand and interlocking it, increasing the speed of your bouncing.

"You know the concubines would slaughter to be you right now, your spilled seed finding its way into my womb. The chance of your child to swell inside of me. It is their highest honour, their greatest ambition." You panted, you had been teasing yourrself the entire time by toying with Gale and now you were finally taking what you wanted. "A prestige I give you so freely and know you will deliver on."

"Yes, ah fuck, my love-" Gale grunted as the pain and pleasure of overstimulation intermingled, your safe word teetering on his lips. Yet how could he deprive himself of hearing such primal words? From feeling such primal things? With a newfound vigour he met your hips with eager rutting, the hand that once rested on your back, now moved to your hip and he gripped it with a bruising ferocity.

"Ah-yes!" You moaned, head thrown back as Gale sat up, his mouth latching onto your breast, kissing it sloppily, biting it hungrily. You cupped the back of his head, fingers tangling into his brown locks of hair, holding him close. However. the waves of building pleasure did not distract you entirely from your intentions. "Fill me, Gale, l-let my womb hold our children."

Gale moaned again, moving onto your other breast, filthy words leaving his mouth that you thought would have been too impure for him to ever come across, let alone say.

"Gale, I-I'm close" You gasped as the coil of pleasure threatened to snap. Gale continued, dutifully, holding onto you as if his life depended on it. Obscene wet noises came from the joining of your skin and shared bodily fluid - and it was music to each of your ears. The two of you held onto each other tighter, lips interlocking in a passionate and desperate embrace as you came, seeing white, you cunt gripping and gushing around Gale's cock sending him over the edge, fulfilling his order, as ropes of thick cum painted the linings of your cunt.

As the two of you came down from your high, Gale fell back onto the bed drawing you close to him. As you caught your breath, you pressed a firm kiss to the side of his jaw before removing yourrself from him, shared fluids staining the silk sheets.

"..That was phenomenal.." Gale breathed out as he pulled you back close to him, in disapproval you playfully nipped him - this is not how this went. You moved him so his head lay nestled on your breasts and Gale could not protest - nor did he want to. He quite literally had nothing left in him to verbally or physically to play pretend. Besides he was more than happy to remain there. He snaked his arms around your waist, one hand resting on your abdomen.

Though he knew your words were most likely thrown out in passion, they had engraved themself in his very being. "Be careful, my love, if the rest of our nights are spent like that, I may never want to leave Menzoberranzen."

You let out a small chuckle, fingers combing through Gale's silver-streaked hair. "That's if you can survive the rest of our nights here, my love."

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woooweee so this is one of my first pieces of writing for an OC I had, which I have adapted to be x reader, which may explain some pacing issues but anyways i hope you guys liked it ! - Seluney xox

If you want to support me in other ways | Help keep this moonmaiden caffeinated x

“Open up, soldier.” Karlach pressed her thumb against Kaede’s lips, parting them slightly. Kaede obeyed, opening her mouth and sticking out her tongue. “Good girl. Gonna suck your Mama K off nice and well?” Kaede nodded, causing a pleased smile to dance on Karlach’s lips. “C’mon, then.”

Karlach pulled her trousers down just enough to free her cock, and it sprang free in front of the drow’s face. The latter got to work, pushing her ponytail off her shoulders as she suckled at the tiefling’s tip. “Oh, fuck! That’s it, do what Mama K taught you.” She thrust shallowly into Kaede’s mouth, matching the pace of her tongue.

The tiefling looked down at Kaede with adoration and lust, observing her practiced ministrations. Karlach felt her core bubble stronger with pleasure and attempted to bite back a loud moan. Before her release could approach, she pulled Kaede off of her with the tug of her ponytail. Kaede looked up at her with glassy eyes, a string of spit that was adhered to Karlach’s member now dripping down her lip. “You took that so well, soldier!” She affectionately rubbed the saliva away with the pad of her thumb, then cupped Kaede’s cheek. “How about we do something more?”

Liked this and want more? Check the full Kinktober fic on my AO3 here!

His eyes search your face, that open expression holding steady. He sits up and sets his book aside, his mouth slanting up into a tiny grin, “What do you have in mind?”

Another pause follows, and you begin to shuffle toward him on your knees. Tilting your chin toward his lap, you ask the silent question. He picks up your meaning and gives a subtle nod, opening his legs to allow you to kneel between them. You sit quietly, mapping his face with your eyes, letting the closeness settle between you.

You reach up slowly, giving him time to pull away, but his eyes are locked on yours, still with that open, slightly challenging, curiosity. Your fingers retrace the steps your eyes took, ghosting over his brows, and you catch his pupils dilating ever so slightly. Sweeping up to his hairline, you trace the lines down to the hinge of his jaw and slowly follow the muscles to his chin. A furrow forms between his brows and you reach up to smooth it away.

“Ok?” you murmur.

“It’s… different. Familiar and yet altogether new,” he mutters.

“Yeah,” you whisper, entirely enraptured by the feel of him, “Can I…?”

“Hm,” he replies softly, with a barely perceptible lowering of his chin.

You properly take his face between your hands now, marveling at how his eyes flutter and become half-lidded and how his downy skin feels against your palms. Your awe is reflected at you through his red eyes, and a warmth is spreading through your chest. His thick tresses thread through the tips of your fingers. You hold him there, brushing your thumbs across his cheeks, watching his minute reactions and pondering on that warmth you feel.

Once, back when you first set foot on the surface, a young human couple inexplicably allowed you to stay the night in their barn despite your dark skin and red eyes. When the sky reshaped itself into that blanket of stars that mesmerizes you to this day, the couple stood out on their porch and embraced in this way before retiring for the night. The man held his wife's face in his hands, and the look between them has forever haunted your memory. You could not identify it then, as this was your first witnessing of open affection, and as you absconded early that morning with their only horse, your thoughts constantly wandered back to the strange look in their eyes. Your experiences on the surface have been multitude since then, yet you never forgot the small moment you witnessed and never spoke of. Never have you felt safe enough to touch a partner in this way. The others were simply a means to an end, scratching an itch. Astarion was as well, at first. The game you both played offered familiar ground in unfamiliar territory. But now… this moment, this tenderness that is wholly removed from those games... You aren’t quite sure what to make of it.

It seems that neither of you can speak. His eyes flicker between yours as you are momentarily lost in your memory. Is it instinct that has you retracing his features as if to memorize them? As your finger follows down the bridge of his nose, his eyes slowly close. He leans into your touch slightly, and that warmth in your chest begins to bloom and burn, stealing your breath. Your hands start to tremble, and his eyes flit open again, searching your face.

“What is it?” he asks quietly, taking your hands.

Your gaze lowers to his neck, to the two small scars there. You borrow his own words, “’Familiar yet altogether new.’” Adding under your breath, “And terrifying.”

“It is, isn’t it? But also exhilarating.” He lifts your chin gently, redirecting your eyes back to his. “What happened to that confidence from earlier?”

Sighing through your nose, you duck your head. “I’ve been on the surface a long while now. But I still hear the ringing of swords, the clinking of chains, and the chanting of priestesses in the back of my mind. I am still learning that what is weakness there can be something else here…” you give a humorless chuckle, “Sometimes I need the practice.”

“I hadn’t realized how similar we are. How regrettably, terribly, similar. The whole lot of us are, I suppose. Clawing tooth and nail out of one hell and falling into another.”

You raise your head, looking into his downturned crimson eyes, “But I’d much rather wallow in this hell with you than the one I escaped.”

You aren’t sure where the courage has come from – is it courage? – but you let that warmth in your chest guide you now. Your fingers lead his eyelids closed, trailing softly down his cheeks, tracing his laugh lines, and skirting by his lips. Oh, those lips and that toothy smile that has you grinning at everything he says. It’s a sin ever to see him frown.

“Can I kiss you?” you breathe. A humorous huff is his initial response, a smile spreading across those lips and you catch them with yours as he parts starts to actually answer you. Whatever he was about to say dies with this kiss, and indeed, what a kiss it is. It is so slow, tender, his lips petal soft. It starts with that first catching, brush of skin, then delicate slow sips. He tastes like a luscious red vintage with a bitter note, all decadence. It sets your head spinning. That warm thing inside your chest burns again, but rather than smother it, you decide to kindle it with this kiss. You are sure that it is full of things you don’t have words for yet, things that you could only say now with your lips on his. Maybe, one day, you both could say those things out loud. But for now, you wade out into these unknown waters together.

As you pull away, you murmur onto his lips, “I have an idea.”

“Quite inspired this evening, are we?”

You grin, “I have an ethereal muse. Will you indulge me yet again?” 

“How can I say no when you say things like that, darling?”

With that, you jump – as much as one can in one’s lover’s lap – into action and pull him down into his bedroll with you. Quickly pulling his blankets over you both, you nudge him onto his side and curl up behind him, around his head.

“If you wanted a cuddle, you could have asked,” he chuckled.

You pause, and as a lead weight drops into your stomach, you remember that this has been a lot of contact all at once, far more than usual. You sit up suddenly, “Light, is this too much? I should’ve asked-”

He silences you with a hasty reply, “This is fine, I’m fine. I think. As I said, it’s different... but not unwelcome. I could get used to this.” He trails off for a moment, and then quietly adds, “But perhaps we go no further than this tonight.” He runs a hand down your arm in reassurance.

You smile softly in response, curling back up beside him, “Of course. Toss me out anytime if I tire you.”

“As if I could toss you out of anywhere,” he scoffs. “You have a way of ferreting yourself back in, anyway.”

“Me!? Ferreting!? That is most unbecoming; I slither, thank you!”

Now you have him in a proper laugh, and you admire the way his whole face changes. The creases at the corners of his eyes, the crinkle in his nose, and the glint of his teeth. Most of all, the sound of it. You adore his real laugh; time seems to stand still every time you hear it.

“’Light’, eh?" He posits, turning onto his side, "I don’t think you’ve ever cursed like that before.”

“I don’t think I’ve said it in several decades,” you muse, Light upon you! being a very common curse. You've since adopted surface phrases to avoid standing out so much. “How did you know it was a curse?”

“I have my sources,” he quips, glancing over at a few of his books.

With a private grin you hum acknowledgement, letting the conversation lapse into comfortable silence. You both lie still next to each other, not touching but very close, content to be together in the time before your companions rise.

In the quiet of the early morning, with only the sigh of your breaths between you, your finger coiling a lock of his hair over and over, you recall a word once whispered in a safehouse from your past. You took refuge there, tucked away in the Mantle on the outskirts of Menzoberranzan. It was depths better than the constant vigilance you were accustomed to in the streets of the slum, fighting off goblins and runaway slaves for any scrap of food. Those days before your trek through the Dark Dominion were the lowest of your shadowy life, but that small, impossible band of drow, goblins, and even a human brought a little light with them when they offered you shelter. You learned their music, accepted their alms, and heard the teachings of Lolth’s wayward daughter. You had little choice but to do so, your other options all leading back to the Stenchstreets, and you were constantly vigilant of the day they would turn on you, kill you, sell you to a pleasure house, use you for some gain. But that day never came. It flummoxed you; and on the eve of the day the group sent you off with a contact through the tunnels to the surface you backed one of them in a corner and demanded to know, to understand.

“Why do you do this?”

“Out of love for our people, and a desire to see them flourish among our brethren above,” was their simple answer. They offered no more, and stood stoic against your blade.

With a ghost of breath, you test the word around your lips, your tongue now unfamiliar with its mother language, and this word too. It is not known in deep drow – only those who dance under the Dark Maiden truly knew it.

“Alurlssrin...”

It is sweet and so unfamiliar but sends a thrill through you. You are sure Astarion hears it, as he is not in trance, but he does not react, does not say anything. He’ll not know what it means anyway, and frankly neither do you, not yet. But with time – with time and this warmth between you, maybe you’ll find out. Maybe you’ll teach him what it means one day.

Love.

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