Chapter 2: Astarion
Thank goodness, Talven didn’t die.
But it was a close thing. Astarion lost control. He lost himself in Talven’s blood. Gods below! It wasn’t enough for Cazador to pimp and torture him—nooo. He had to take this from him too. The one thing that might’ve made the centuries under his heel bearable. Blood of thinking creatures.
What a rush it’s been! He still feels it, hours later, coursing through him. His hands and feet are warm, his nose. Not as warm as healthy, living flesh, but, for the first time in two hundred years, not as cold as death. He’d give anything for a glance at the mirror just now. He thinks this may be… what a blush feels like. And the strange, giddy restlessness, this feeling that anything’s possible—he thinks that might be… optimism?
He must rein it in. The more he hopes for, the more he has to lose. After what happened tonight, his beautiful, generous friend, who knew his nature all along and offered him company and shelter despite it, will likely never trust him again. Talven’s hands and feet are like ice, his heartbeat irregular and his breathing shallow. He doesn’t wake when Astarion brushes the hair from his clammy brow, touches his golden scales. In the delirium that gripped him before the healing potion took effect, he didn’t know Astarion, nor heard him when he said his thanks.
What a gift you’ve given me!
And yet, Astarion would ask for more. Talven’s blood, his warmth, his very life—it’s not enough to sate the hunger. Already it stirs, stretching its greedy claws, ready to resume tearing him apart from within. He should’ve gone hunting. He should’ve rested, at the very least, but he was afraid to leave his friend.
What would become of him, he wonders, if Talven were to die—and by his fangs, no less? Lightning doesn’t strike the same spot twice. The others would stake him first and ask questions later. Oh, he supposes he could leave. Steal all the gold and valuables and try to get back to Baldur’s Gate on his own along the Risen Road. Sneak into the palace at high noon and slit Cazador’s throat. Only, he doesn’t know where the bastard sleeps. And being able to withstand the sun will mean little once he’s indoors, behind the heavy curtains draping every window. His “brothers and sisters” won’t lift a finger to help, of course. Which is only fair, if he’s honest. He never lifted a finger to help their attempts either.
Who was the last to try? Yousef? Thirty-something years ago. His shrieks made the glass panes in the windows ring for a tenday, all the way from the kennel, while the other spawn slinked about, tiptoeing around Cazador’s cool, deathly fury. At last, the Watch came to ask questions. But the chamberlain—not Dufey, nor the one before him, but that ancient, wrinkled half-elf, whatever his name had been—bribed them into accepting some witless excuse about a member of the family gone mad.
And even if Astarion were to succeed, against all odds—what of the parasite? Those cultists they’d met near the Grove—they were positively brain-washed, no better than the stupid wretches glamored into thinking Cazador will turn them if only they polish the next silver spoon just so. The tadpoles might not be keen to transform them into mind flayers just yet, but what if that’s a part of the plan? To take control of them instead?
He’d rather die than be someone’s puppet again.
No. His best chance to survive is with these people. And maybe more than just survive, if he plays his cards right with Talven. Yet he allowed the hunger to jeopardize his position. He must do better.
And, loathe as he is to consider it, he must prepare. For being questioned and accused. For being forbidden to ever do this again or try it with any of the others. For being told he may only feed on animals and monsters. For being held on a tight leash, like he’s an animal or a monster himself, under threat of being left behind.
The familiar anxiety feels different. He catches himself expecting to hear the thud of his own rapid heartbeat. A memory as thin as gossamer unravels in his mind’s eye, of watching a gentle lump outlined against a moonlit window, in abject horror that it would stop breathing, taken by the whim of gods, and leave him alone. His eyes sting and he blinks in wonder. He hasn’t thought of his mother since… oh, no. With rising panic, he realizes he can’t remember her name. A…? Al…? Oh, gods.
Then it comes back to him and he wipes angrily at the tears. For so long, he has prided himself for being “a survivor”. But how much of him has truly survived? How much has been lost… to him?
Dawn draws near. Soon the others will rise, and the clamor of the morning’s comings and goings, of firewood getting chopped and the insufferable rattle of tin plates and cups will awake his friend, or so he hopes.
Astarion stares at Talven’s chest, awaiting their rise and fall, then looks at his ashen face. I need you to be strong, do you hear? So you can stand between them and me. Between the world and me. Between… Cazador and me.
He hates it. All of it. Being indebted. Being dependent.
But now’s not the time for pride. Now’s the time for wits and charm. And for keeping the damn hunger in check.
Clenching his teeth, he rises and sneaks back to his tent.
Talven finds him there an hour later, trying, and failing, to keep his eyes closed long enough for at least a bit of rest. For a moment, Astarion gapes. Talven looked—well, drained—even in the dark, but in the gray light of the overcast morning, his countenance is positively ghastly.
“You’re paler than me,” Astarion teases to hide the shock, rising to join him outside. “Quite the achievement, for a drow.”
Talven leans over the useless glass mounted on the table, touches the side of his neck, then lifts his upper lip to inspect his teeth.
“Oh, please,” Astarion snorts. “I couldn’t turn you if I wanted to. Besides, you’d wake up buried, not in your bedroll, and significantly less alive. And you wouldn’t be able to see yourself in the bloody mirror.” Seeing Talven take breath to speak, eyes sparkling with a thousand questions, Astarion lifts a hand to stop him, and points behind his back. “Not now.”
Talven winces with pain as he turns his head—and then an incongruous little smile wrinkles the corners of his eyes. His pulse speeds up and some color returns to his pallid cheeks.
Hope bloats in Astarion like the carcass of a drowned cat. Talven clearly doesn’t resent the memory of last night, and that’s something he can work with. But he meant what he said, that this isn’t the time. The wizard has been watching them a long while from his post by the cauldron, one arm squared at the hip, the other holding a dripping ladle. And now their horned hero figure approaches him, also watching them. Words are exchanged. Shrugs. Soon they’ll come to sate their curiosity.
His friend looks at him. “Do you mean to keep this a secret from the others?”
“Of course I do.” Astarion grimaces. “But what would be the point? If you figured it out, sooner or later the others will too. And good luck, hiding that.” He gestures at Talven’s neck, where the bite-marks, black with crusted blood, pucker amidst extensive bruising. His first bite into the tender neck of a person, and he made a mess of it. He vows to do better next time. But first he needs to make sure there is a next time. “If I’d been in my right mind, I’d have picked a different spot.” He softens his voice and lets his eyes travel down Talven’s warm body, miming an impulse he just couldn’t hold back. “Somewhere… less exposed.”
Talven’s eyes widen, his lips part, and Astarion doesn’t need the tadpole to know what he’s thinking, because it’s been on his mind too, all night. Wrists. Ankles. Armpits. Thighs. Each possibility sweeter than the next.
His mouth waters, which was to be expected. The arousal, though—that’s something of a surprise. In a hot flash, he recalls the thrum of Talven’s blood inside him, awaking his body to sensations he’d long forgotten. Goodness. He clears his throat, keenly aware of feather-light warmth climbing into his cheeks.
Talven blinks at him rapidly, no doubt waking from untimely daydreams of his own. “If you come forward with it,” he says, “if you confess your nature, could you… feed… on our enemies? There seems to be no shortage of people to kill.”
Astarion puts on a conspiratorial smile, then decides he should lay it on quite a bit thicker if he wants to hide the nearly overwhelming relief. He strikes a pose, flutters his eyelashes, and prods Talven’s chest with a theatrical finger. “That’s the plan, darling,” he purrs. Now be a good boy and use that silver tongue of yours to sell it to the rest of the party.
Talven regards him a moment longer, then nods like he heard every unspoken word.
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