thinking about how astarion would seek affection from tav post-act 2 confession. because dear god does he need it but there's also no way he'd know how to get it. the only tools in his arsenal, the only intimate things he's got experience with, are sexual, but he obviously doesn't process that as affectionate at that point. that's like the whole point.
drinking tav's blood would be the only non-sexual (or, well. semi. it's obviously metaphorically sex, but) intimate act he'd know. so he'd probably work outwards from that. lingering a little longer than he needs to. not really knowing why.
and compliments! the only words of affirmation he's heard in two centuries have been related to his appearance, so of course that's what he asks for, it's what he knows, but it's got to bring up so many mixed feelings. it's both his main/only source of self-esteem and the site of and reason for his trauma. a situation i personally know sucks just so bad.
(the drow twins four-/fivesome post-cazador is so !! for this reason. the twins and halsin shower his appearance in praise and they mean nothing ill by it, but it's no wonder he gets triggered as hell!)
tav needs to teach him about hugs. and forehead kisses. and compliment his skill with a lockpick and his embroidery and his sense of humour. you know. things he chose and can control.
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i mean the whole appeal of vampires is that they want you so bad they want to kill you (but won't). so i really enjoy the symmetry of durge/astarion where both of them kind of want to kill the other
Fatherâs voice-that-is-not-a-voice is so loud in her head. It plucks at some fundamental string inside her, calls on the moment of her creation and reminds her who once held the entirety of her existence in his hand. She owes him every joy and hatred, every pleasure and pain, her very body. She is simply an extension of him, that somehow yet thinks it is able to err. She can disobey him no more than a finger can disobey its hand.
Trembling, she throws herself to the floor, prostrate in front of the shrine and his likeness. Sheâs weeping, and itâs his right to strike her for itâshe hopes he will, to make it stop. The force of it would throw her across the room. If she were lucky, sheâd hit the wall, hard enough to make her head ring for hours on end. Itâs happened before.
The tears taste like vomit in her throat, when all she craves is bile and blood. Isnât it?
âI wonât, Father,â she says. âThank you, Father.â
âand by the looks on everyoneâs faces, they all remembered alongside her, her thoughts screaming out of her through the tadpole.
âSorry,â she said. âI canât control it right now, I ⊠I should go. Sorry.â
And she fled.
Astarion found her on a rooftop, perched on the centre of the ridge, knees pulled up against her chest, where she wasnât visible from the street. She hoped it was enough to shield even tadpoleâd passers-by from her, though perhaps it wasnât. Her mind buzzedâshe had long since run out of coherent sequences of concrete events and instead, untethered feelings and sensations roiled inside her. It wouldnât surprise her if they were spilling out.
The squirming velvet wetness of still-living viscera in her hands. The bubbling, rattling music of lungs drowning in their own blood. The bone-deep burn, one of the few things that trulyreached her,as her Lord Father had her flayed for her failures and she screamed.
Pain. Shame. Anger. A hideous, howling emptiness that yearned to spread and consume the whole world.
And the moments of perfect, glorious service, when she had pleased her Dread Father, when her works had honoured him and she had acted according to her purpose. The dissolution of her ego in the depths of her devotion.
She wanted it. Gods, she wanted it. Sheâd do anything to feel like that again. To feel and know nothing, but also somehow everything. Everything worth feeling, everything worth knowing. The world made so achingly simple.
As Astarion approached from behind, alerting her to his presence by scuffing his boots against the shingles, she sniffed and scrubbed the tears from her cheeks with her fist. They still tasted like vomit. But these days, the thought of cannibalism turned her stomach more than it whet her appetite.
âHello, Astarion,â she said in a low voice, without turning around. His pale body towered in her peripheral vision.
âYouâre not planning on flinging yourself off this roof, are you?â he said, leaning to theatrically look down at the ground.
She laughed, just a quiver on the exhale. âAfter storming off like that? I wouldnât dare. Far too melodramatic.â
âYes, it would be rather tasteless, wouldnât it?â
Zanarai rested her chin atop her knees and stared at the sky above the city. Hovering just above the western horizon, the sun seemed to be almost melting into the earth as it descended. Every so often, a ribbon of birds danced across it.
Before, she had often pictured it red and dying, burning out over a featureless, ashen plain. Herself beneath it, atop a pile of bodies taller than a mountain, ready to plunge her dagger into her own heart. The final sacrifice. All the world destroyed by her hand, in her fatherâs name.
Astarion came to sit beside her.
Zanarai despised how much more steady she suddenly felt, with his presence at her shoulder. She didnât deserve it and it was dangerous because if it continued, she might start to feel as if she did. That was the first step on the path to falling into the caustic pool of yellow bile she had instead of a soul. She knew so little, but she did know that. And oh, how tempting it was!
âItâs enough that I have to suffer through this,â she said bitterly. âYou all have your own troubles.â
âTroubles youâve very graciously assisted us with.â
She scoffed. âDonât forgetâIâm the reason youâre all in this mess to begin with. Iâm the reason you have tadpoles in your skulls and will burst into mind-controlled tentacles if youâre ever separated from the Astral Prism.â
âWell, I canât speak for the others,â Astarion said, leaning back on his hands to tilt his face up into the fading sunlight, âbut personallyâIâm rather grateful.â
Zanarai glanced at him. His expression was blisteringly peaceful, despite his flippant tone. She had to look away again.
After a moment, in a low voice, she said, âI am happy itâs worked out for you.â Him, and only him, out of thousands of people. A part of her thought it was worth it. âThatâs not what I mean.â
âDarling, based on what was in that ⊠mental blast of yours,â he said, âyou seem to be under the impression that youâre somehow the epitome of evil. Iâm trying to supply you with some of the myriad reasons thatâs not the case.â
âI know that,â she snapped. She didnât, but heâd never understandânever agreeâand for that, she loved and hated him in equal measure. âIâm just not ⊠there emotionally, yet. Iâm working on it.â
âThen you wonât mind if I sit with you while you do, will you?â
When sheâd been trying to kill him, like the mad dog she was at heart, heâd spoken kindly to that rabid, snarling beast, looked past it for a moment and told her, Youâve got this. And Iâve got you.
Zanarai swallowed, and permitted him to stay.
âIt would be so easy,â she said, because some of it, the heart of it, he did understand, âto just say, it wasnât me that did those things, it was ⊠that other person. In a sense, itâs true. The Dark Urge is something else, but the line between it and me was a lot more fluid before the nautiloid, I think. I didnât care about making a distinction.â
Without realising, sheâd been scratching at her knee through her trousers in tight little swipes. She balled her hand into a fist, claws digging into her palm. All over her body, her skin crawled and itched and tingled.
âBut thatâs the thingâthatâs the real difference.â She swallowed. âWhether I care or not. The Chosen of Bhaal, the High Primistress of Baldurâs Gate, that was still me. It was ⊠me in my full context, I suppose. When Iâm all of me, Iâm a monster. So ⊠itâs a good thing I got parts cut out. Hah.â
She sniffed and angrily wiped her eyes with the side of her hand.
âNo one can control what their past self did,â she continued. âWhatâs done is done, even if you regret it now. But I donât even always know why past me made the choices she did, because I canât remember. Sometimes, she feels so alien I might as well have been possessed. Like something else wore my skin and used my name, before it was mine. And sometimes, I understand so intimately I have no idea what to do about it.â
Instead of angels in the marble, waiting to be freed, everywhere she looked she saw only beautiful corpses. How absolutely splendid most people would look, with their breaths stilled and parts cut away just so, dolled up in their own gore. How satisfying it would be to take them apart, examine and admire each piece. How true and right it would be to strip away the pretensions of life and lay them bare in death.
It wasnât the wild and reckless abandon of the Dark Urge that told her that. It was her own, sober mind and heart. How many people had she killed and mutilated with a measured hand and exacting eye? Was that worse?
Her first murder had been her foster family, and nothing had ever lived up to it. Even still, she couldnât summon up a flicker of dismay. Nevermind remorse. At the fact it hadnât been her choice, certainly, but not at having done it. A small part of her even wished sheâd been conscious for the act itself, and railed at Bhaal for taking that away from her. As if the whole sorry affair wasnât thanks to him.
Or maybe it wasnât. Maybe she wouldâve been like this even without his influence. Maybe, even if they found a way to tear Bhaalâs fetid blood out of her, sheâd still be like this. Maybe sheâd never be able to look at the people she loved without feeling sick with longing for violence.
Was that terrifying? Or exhilarating?
âWhat matters is that youâre making the right choices now,â Astarion said. âAnd, considering the merry little band of heroes youâve gathered around yourself, it seems you are. Not that Iâm an expert, but if it matters to youâand it does, clearlyâthen ⊠trust their judgement, if not your own.â
And she did, didnât she? Karlach and Wyll were her friends. Jaheira had been her bitter enemy once, but didnât seem to be holding it against her. And Dame Aylin hadnât smitten her to unholy cindersâyet, anyway.
âPresent company excluded, of course,â she said warmly. If she looked at him, she wouldnât be able to prevent picturing how sheâd kill him.
âObviously,â he agreed. âThough you ought to trust my judgement, too, darling.â
âAbout clothing and interior decorating? With my life.â
âAbout you,â he said. âWe will find a way to free you. Iâm sure of it.â
What was there to free her from, except this mortal coil? She wanted to laugh, and she wanted to cry, and she wanted to throw up. She wanted, just a little, to die.
She settled for closing her eyes and sighing. The mild breeze danced over the rooftops, forced to split around her unmoving body. Below, footsteps and chatterâlaughter, sometimesâechoed between the buildings.
Contemptible. Hateful. She longed for screams and then silence. But it was an idle, wistful thing. The rest of her would never allow it. The familiar headache gnawed at her temples, as if her skull housed a horde of starving, restless vermin. But she couldnât let them out, and there was no cat to set on them. All she could do was close the door and pray they ate only her.
Astarionâs clothes rustled with movement once, twice. Then, so very lightly, his fingertips brushed the back of her handâand he took it in his.
When they stumbled out of the Szarr palace, it was long past midnight. Zanaraiâs clothes were bloody and torn, but Jaheira and some potions had seen to that she wasnât actively bleeding anymore. Her whole body buzzedâor, rather, didnâtâwith the hollow, sapping ache of having expended all of her magical reserves.
She made note of it, but barely cared. All she cared about was Astarion.
As Cazadorâs twice-dead body had crumpled to the floor, Astarion had gone with it to his knees, and wailed. It had been a horrid thing to look at, but a relief, too. Two centuries of grief, buried as best heâd been able in rage and terror, finally got to surface.
To be able to grieve, it must be over. And it was. After so long, it was.
He was still covered in blood. Cazadorâs, mostly, but his own, too. It was drying in tacky patches in his curls, so silvery fine in the starlight out here; across his face, his trousers, his hands. Karlach had torn a piece from the heavy drapes upstairs for him to wrap around his bare torso, but underneath that, too, there was blood.
It suited him.
They reached the streets, and Astarion walked as if in a dream. He always held his chin high, eyes darting this way and that, but now, he stared down at the cobblestones, lost in thought. A hand at his breastbone held the improvised cloak closed. Zanarai stayed a half step behind and to his side; though it almost felt like it, this was not her hurt, not her victory, not her changed life. He had this, and she had him.
But once they reached the Elfsong, his uncharacteristic silence had started to unnerve her, and she decided heâd spent quite enough time in his own mind. As Jaheira and Karlach climbed the stairs, Zanarai brushed the tips of her fingers against Astarionâs elbow to hold him back.
Claret eyes flicked to hers. A maelstrom of emotions was rising in them.
âCan I give you a hug?â she asked softly.
His lips trembled. âI ⊠suppose. Yes. Yes, Iâd like that.â
She embraced him, leaning her forehead against his upper chest and slinging her arms around the small of his back, well below his scars. For a moment, he seemed bird-boned in her grasp; then his arms wrapped around her shoulders with strength just shy of bruising. His face tipped into her hair and underneath her forehead, his chest rose and fell in a deep breath.
âIâm very proud of you,â Zanarai said and squeezed him a little. âWhat do you want to do now?â
The whole of him, not just his lips, was trembling. Not enough to see, but enough to feel. âIâGods.â He took another, tremulous breath. âI need a bath. And so do you, darling. You reek of those horrid mutts.â
She snorted. Despite his words, he made no move to let go, so she coiled her tail around his calf; loose enough that he could still slip out on his own, tight enough that she was now reliant on him to keep her balance. âYou did slit oneâs throat right on top of me.â
âYes, that was my mistake. Next time, Iâll let it bite your head off. Much less mess.â
âMy gallant protector,â she sighed. âIt was a beautiful kill, though.â
It had been brutish, nasty, and graceless. Brackish blood had filled her mouth and nose and eyes, the werewolf giving a gurgling, canine scream as it staggered to the side, before Astarionâs offhand dagger returned on the downstroke and severed its windpipe. Sheâd spat out the blood and crawled over to deliver a shocking grasp, stopping its heart in what she knew was an excruciating squeeze of muscle.
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astarion with a sorcerer-bard is such a fun concept. she distracts people by playing music whilst he robs them blind, later she twins greater invisibility so they can scout out an enemy stronghold together (and pocket whatever's interesting). if they have to fight, they fucking nuke things in a single turn as long as there are limited targets.
