#durgetashstarion

“You do realize we're the ones who stole that thing in the first place, right?” 

“Yes! I was in attendance when you aired my best friend's dirty laundry in a room full of patriars,” Gale returned with a triumphant smirk that turned into a pinched, judgemental scowl halfway through.

Cocking an eyebrow at him, Gortash corrected, “If you think they were listening, you're quite naïve. They all have their heads shoved so far up their own arseholes that they can taste their own bile. I kissed her and told them that she's a hero; now they know that if they get in her way, they will face retribution from me.” He tapped his own chest. “And she only considers you her best friend because she has amnesia. I'm her best friend.”

“They might not have been listening, but all of us were,” the wizard retorted. “That was a conversation that should have taken place in private. You should have given her the opportunity to tell us the truth herself instead of dropping it on her like that—in front of everyone! A best friend would know better.”

With a grumble, Gortash conceded, “You're right. I knew she needed answers, and I had them. I needed her to know that she was safe, that we would fix it… together. It was... selfish of me to do it the way that I did. You spend almost a year separated from the love of your life, and see if you don't do something selfish. Oh, wait. That's exactly what you're doing!” 

Gale scowled and opened his mouth but the Archduke was too fast for him.

“Did you think you could distract me by changing the subject? I spent over six years with Tyrsa before she disappeared. Every conversation with her contained at least three tangents to navigate before we returned to the matter at hand. It wasn't deliberate on her part; it's just the way her mind works. We knew Lorroakan had the Annals of Karsus in Ramazith's vault. Do you think that the duo who stole from Mephistopheles couldn't have robbed that imbecile?” 

“That knowledge would have been useless to you!” Gale rebuked. “The incantations in this tome require the expertise of an adept scholar and a masterful wizard.” 

“I know you're a wizard… I'm an artificer. Artificers make wizards look like yesterday's news.”

“You could not have reforged the crown.” 

“You've met Rusty. You know I made her, right? Have you figured out how I did it yet? Knowing her, if you're Tyrsa's best friend, she'd open her chassis right up and let you examine her insides to satisfy your curiosity—if you asked.”

“I did not ask. It would have been impolite to treat her like an… object.”

“And yet… you aspire to become a being that will treat everyone that way.” 

[There's no smut. These are just my favorite pictures of them. I don't have one with the men together yet. I just got this transmog mod that might let me take some later on, though.🤞]

Astarion ran a hand through his silver curls as he stretched, careful not to let the bed shift. Tyrsa was still snoring next to him. He stifled a giggle as she very quietly squeaked at the end of her exhale. Then, he reached a long, pale hand out and brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. It, too, was silver, though not all of it, nor had it always been that way. She didn't stir, still blissfully dreaming. 

It had been a good night. No tossing, no screams, no tears. Hopefully, she wouldn't wake up and ask for Env again. Those days were the hardest. When she forgot, for a moment, that he had been gone for decades. It wasn't that she was old enough yet to have begun to lose her senses; it was that he had been part of her, part of them. Some pain simply does not stop. Some losses never cease being… lost. 

Astarion sighed softly and let the tears fill his eyes. Again. He'd loved him, too. So much more than he thought he would.

He'd lived a long life, for a human, long enough to see his children grow up, which was more than a man who'd done half of the terrible things he had should ever have expected. When Astarion had first met Enver Gortash, he would never have thought he was the type of man to go peacefully—but he did—surrounded by people who loved him, blessed in ways a little boy from Heapside whose parents had sold him to a devil never could have imagined. 

Or… perhaps he could. He had big dreams once, of power and greatness, of ill-gotten achievements as a path to the feeling of self-worth he'd been denied, that years of abuse under Raphael's merciless care and the poisonous doctrines of Bane had twisted into a need to control and subvert all of Toril. Two centuries of Cazador had carved Astarion's own view of people into much the same shape: as tools whose only use was to further his own ends. 

Their savior and destroyer was one in the same… the woman snoring next to him. Tyrsa had never asked either of them to change; she'd simply been herself. Her wonderful, impossible self. She very frankly and loudly told them both how completely wrong they were—all the godsdamned time. She didn't make demands. She didn't withhold help or affection because they disagreed. She had simply proved them both wrong. Over and over again. She loved them, flaws and all. She forgave them for all the stupid things they said and did. For things many would deem unforgivable.

He didn't know how anyone could be loved like that and not want to be better. To be more like the one they loved, in some small way at least.

Not to earn it. 

To return it. What she had given him, what she had given both of them. 

Astarion was more than a little proud that he had figured out how to show Tyrsa that she deeply affected him much more quickly than Env had. The one-time Archduke of Baldur's Gate had taken five years to confess and confront what Astarion had in a matter of months. Despite being a smug son-of-a-bitch who behaved as though he was certain Tyrsa would drop everything and leap into his arms the moment she saw him again, Env had faced his own demons two years before he and Astarion had met. 

And it was Env who dropped everything, Env who abandoned a plot that could have resulted in the three of them ruling the world, perhaps even all the cosmos, at little more than Tyrsa's word alone.

Because he loved her more than power, Env had been there, by their side, when Astarion faced Cazador. He pelted the vampire lord's minions with explosive arrows, darted around and freed him from the control spell as Tyrsa buried her blade in his old master's chest, screaming the most singularly insulting curses he'd ever heard as she rained down the wrath of the Crying God upon him, over and over, searing him with blistering radiant energy. It looked almost like the full concentrated power of the sun.

She stopped, though, before Cazador was fully incinerated. The final blows she saved for Astarion to deliver. 

When he found himself tempted by the power of the dark ritual, she'd suggested that he take a moment, and ask himself whether he would be proud… of this.

Astarion knew his answer immediately: of course… not. There was nothing to be proud of in replicating a single thing that Cazador had done. No matter how much power the ritual may have offered him, it was tainted. 

His journey, his friends, and his love had shown him that he needn't follow any longer, that he could forge a new path for himself.

His path. His deeds. His power. Whatever that might be. There was something to be proud of in that. A great deal, in fact.

Two pairs of arms encircled him as he sat back on his knees, drenched in his tormentor's blood, but they had both asked first. Bless them. 

Tyrsa tucked her head under his chin, her arms locked around his ribs. Env knelt behind him, embracing them both.

She'd whispered against his heart how much she loved him, praising his strength and courage. All while he sobbed. She did, too. Even Env looked a bit misty. His tears didn't fully come until later, after Raphael was dead and Hope was finally free.

Tyrsa hadn't known what would happen when she faced her father; thus she had insisted on ensuring Astarion's freedom first, despite Minthara's objections—given her growing affection for Lae'zel. The githyanki saw Orin for what she was: a petulant child, though Astarion would never speak such a thought aloud. His love might rip him to shreds with a handful of words for it; she was still a bard, after all. Whatever Orin had become, she had never stopped being Tyrsa's sister—not to her—not in her heart. 

As expected, Lae'zel hadn't given Orin a drop of fear to feed on. She did insist upon slaughtering every Bhaalist in the temple after the duel as retribution, however. They left her and Minthara to it, as it seemed a bonding experience for them.

After Cazador was dead and before they tracked down Orin, Tyrsa had pulled Astarion and Env aside, told them she would understand if they wished to keep their distance from her, that if she hurt them, it would destroy her. She still didn't understand her own strength. Not yet. 

He expected Env to give her a rousing speech, to tell her once again how he believed in her, but instead he had very pointedly remarked that losing her had already almost killed him once, and that the prospect of repeating that experience was a fate he viewed as exponentially worse than death. It gave Astarion the opportunity to be the supportive one, to ensure her that her darkness didn't scare him. She wept happy tears as they both held her, and that was when he offhandedly remarked that not enough people mentioned how beautiful he was.

From that day forward, it was almost all Env ever called him. Tyrsa said it, too, but it meant more coming from him. Because it reminded him of that moment, of him stepping back to let another care for the woman they both loved. To let him. 

It was the first time Astarion felt as though Env was making space for him. That was also the moment when he had begun to wonder whether Tyrsa wouldn't be the only person he would ever love.

It had taken them both a while to admit it—that they weren't together just because of her—that they enjoyed each other as well. And for more than sex, which, if he was honest, had always been lovely with Env. He was good at it, for some of the same reasons Astarion was, only Env had done it by choice rather than coercion. One of the few true choices he'd had in a life shaped by the cruel indifference of those who should have loved and protected him.

After a while, he and Env had even stopped fighting before sex.

Astarion pondered how different his response to Tyrsa's question would have been had it come from someone other than her, had the one asking not been the kind of hero he'd wished, prayed, and begged was real as he lay curled up in a ball in the cells after a round of punishment. Or lost in his own mind, wearing a false smile, pretending to enjoy debasing himself to survive, to avoid wounds that cut just as deep but were more difficult to hide.

She was the kind of hero that would have come for him. That would have saved him even if he had been a stranger. The same kind he treated her like a fool for being when they first met. 

Even if she knew everything he had done, still she would have saved him.

After she fell in love with him, not for his act despite letting him think that—but for the way he made her smile, the way he touched her heart when he wasn't acting—he learned that she would rip the heavens asunder to keep him safe and… to keep him whole. 

To give him the chance to be, not to be strong or powerful, not to push him toward a future that benefitted her, but to just… be. 

All of his… weaknesses intact. 

Accepted. Seen. As he was. Not as a broken elf who needed to be fixed. As a survivor. One who had since learned to thrive. 

How she glowed in the sunlight! Yet she closed the shades. To be with him. Env did, too. Never once did they mourn it. Never once did they complain.

He'd never imagined anyone could love him like that, and Tyrsa did it like it was breathing. For her, at least. But the thought of two people? 

His life before had been a nightmare, but now? It was a dream. Better than a dream.

As he watched the sun rising through the open shades, Astarion considered how the wonders of being kind to other people seemed to never cease, either. The warm rays crept up the plush blanket toward his pale hand as it rested on his hip. He knew he should wake her, but he didn't want to. 

Not yet. 

Let her rest while the dreams are peaceful, he thought, as the light drew ever closer. 

Without Bhaal's blood, the torment of the murder lord's so-called love was gone, but when her memory had been restored, she recalled every life she had taken in her father's name. Nearly all of them were unrepentant killers, but few had wished to die, and even monsters could beg for mercy. Tyrsa simply was not the sort of person to relish anyone's suffering, even if it was well-earned. 

Her compassion had saved the world. It had saved her sister from their father. It had wrested Env from Bane's claws, and it had saved Astarion both from himself and from the sun. Several of those feats might have been accomplished by other means, but Tyrsa had chosen compassion. How he loved her for it!

It was strange how easily compassion was written off as weakness; he'd done it himself, for most of his life. Even those with supposed integrity abandoned it in lieu of what they deemed grim solutions, pretending a cruel path was somehow harder, that their advertisement of their own suffering for the sake of their righteousness was more valuable than the lives they destroyed, the choices they took. He'd learned that sort of thinking was a symptom of the most dangerous kind of hubris. 

Compassion was not weakness, but it was not for the faint of heart, either, nor for those too rigid in their convictions to permit mercy for the guilty. It required courage, mettle that few possessed, patience, and a very high tolerance for pain. However, if one could manage to wield it with the impunity that Tyrsa did, the unimaginable could be achieved. It had. 

When they fought the Absolute, a guard tower at High Hall was overflowing with allies awaiting their command. Because of her. Everyone she had helped. Every plea she could not deny had added a weight that tipped the scales in their favor. Overwhelmingly so. With so many allies to help, they made it through the courtyard unscathed. Astarion would never have believed it if he had not himself lived it. 

The battle won, his tadpole gone, the sun again rejected him. As he had fled from it, burning, all those years ago, he might have made it five steps before Tyrsa yelled, “Gale!” 

The wizard's voice had boomed in reply; he didn't even recall the words he'd spoken.

Instantly, the burning had ceased, as Astarion found himself shrouded in a cloud of darkness. His love's soft hand sought him through it, humming a tune to heal his burns as Env draped a blanket he'd pulled out of his bag of holding over his head and shoulders. It was a running joke of theirs that he was hiding an entire house in that damn thing. 

Tyrsa had given Gale a nod as they moved out of the cloud and ushered Astarion into a nearby warehouse. As the spell dissipated, he watched from the shaded doorway as four of his dearest friends—the first real friends he'd had in two centuries—waved goodbye and stepped into a portal to Avernus. With a grin, Wyll held aloft the scroll case that had earned the former Chosen of Bane his second chance: the hellfire engine plans Env had spent seven years perfecting. All they needed was a proper infernal forge and the correct ambient temperature to anneal the replacement.