text stringlengths 0 41.4k |
|---|
"Yes. Maybe both." He let her wrist go. "I don’t want to know what you taste like when you don’t want me." |
Oh, no. She turned, finally, to catch his sad gaze with her own. Fear and longing painted his face. |
"I’m going to hug you," She whispered. |
"Yes," He agreed instantly. |
She sank to the floor beside him, wrapping her arms around his frame. He scooped her up and sat her in his lap, hugging her so tight it hurt. |
"I want you, you know." What a strange reassurance, surely this would pressure him? "I’m still a bit hurt by all of this, but I do love you and I do want you. What I don’t want is to pressure you or make you feel bad. Bite me, anywhere, and I will get incredibly turned on. I promise." |
"Really?" His voice was small. |
"Even though I’m not ready to do anything about you wanting me?" A little less small. Unfolding like a flower blooms to the sun. Bruised but still beautiful. |
"Even though I stabbed Halsin?" |
She put her lips to his ear, whispering out in her most breathy desire-ravaged tone of voice. "A little bit because you stabbed Halsin." |
He gave a delighted giggle. "I do love you." |
Then his fangs were in her neck and all felt right with the world. |
Life with Astarion was an entirely new experience. |
He had become a contradiction. His body cycled through practiced smoothness or genuine hesitancy, confident and shy all at once. He sought reassurance for the smallest action, violently protective of her comfort and autonomy even from himself. He associated sex with so much negativity, he couldn’t touch her that way wi... |
Astarion would forget himself, come on to her, then jerk back almost afraid. He wanted her, wanted her to want him, but that wanting was tainted. It broke her heart and warmed it at the same time. He was trying to make something real and that was hard. She was farther ahead in the "leaving my fucked up past’ journey th... |
Tav could not believe he could cling to her any tighter than he already did, but he found a way. Astarion was stickier than honey, holding her tightly in his reverie. He was as possessive and protective as he had always been and as inappropriate about it as ever - oh gods, he stabbed Halsin, was the druid ok? - so that... |
"Let me up." Tav whispered, elbowing his ribs. |
"No." Arms tightened around her. |
"You have to." She said, urgently. "I’ll come back." not exactly a lie. She would come back, eventually. |
His arms loosened around her, but he wouldn’t move them. She’d have to move from his embrace. Slowly, she struggled free of him. Hopeful that everything would work when she saw his face drift back into the peace of deep reverie. |
Grabbing her pack, she withdrew from the tent into the almost-glow of a clear predawn sky. Using every speck of her drow training, she slipped from camp silent and quiet as death. A ghost, wandering the grave of Waukeen’s Rest. She observed the three buildings that made up the main compound; brewery, Inn and bathing ho... |
Tav was thankful the bodies from yesterday's battle had been moved away. One less thing for her to do. Rifling in her pack, she drew out a potion bottle swirling with a syrupy mustard-yellow concoction. She braced herself for its horrid flavor before downing it in a shivering gulp. The potion raced wild through her vei... |
It was time to lift some bath tubs. |
"Gale, wake up!" She giggled into the Wizards ear an hour later, far too excited to wait for the man to wake naturally. |
"Mmmghughwhat, Tav?" Eloquence incarnate he was. "Why’re you in my tent?" |
"Get up Gale. Getupgetup!" She was vibrating with excitement and enhanced strength. |
"Did he stab Wyll this time?" |
"What? No." Tav rolled her eyes, grabbing Gale’s blanket instead. "GET UP." She heaved. She heaved too much, but Gale deserved to be rolled out of his bedding. |
"I’m up, I’m up." He rubbed a hand over his face. "What is going on?" |
But Tav was gone. On to Wyll’s tent. |
"Wyll, wake up!" And on it went. |
She had rescued three bathtubs, and so she woke up three friends. Gale, Wyll and, of course, Astarion reluctantly followed her back into the fire pit that was Waukeen’s Rest. They were all clearly humoring her, she caught Wyll and Gale rolling their eyes at each other when they thought she couldn’t see. It wouldn’t be ... |
Three large copper bathtubs, each full to the brim with steaming hot water, placed carefully around a fairly large campfire in the open space of the courtyard. Mismatched stools from the Inn, each fire-damaged but functional, stood beside each tub carrying a bucket, ladle and cakes of soap, each only slightly burnt. |
"Surprise!" The word slipped out of her mouth at a far higher pitch than it should have. Strength potions were an interesting experience on their own. Perhaps she should have left it there instead of dropping Haste on herself as well. She felt like the mightiest hummingbird Faerûn had ever seen. |
"I could kiss you." Gale breathed in quiet awe. |
"You’ll get stabbed." Wyll warned. |
Astarion was already headed for a bathtub and didn’t reply. Though he did make an ostentatious show of removing a dagger from his boot and placing it on the stool before undressing. |
Tav turned around to give the men some privacy. |
"I’ll switch everything around for Lae’zel, Shadowheart and Halsin when you guys are done. I think the strength potion should last that long. Maybe I can steal one from Lae’zel if it doesn’t." She was babbling with excitement. Flush with triumph that her grand plan had worked. "See you back at camp!" and then she was g... |
Hours later, with everyone relaxed and clean, the camp had descended into something resembling domesticity. Tav and Shadowheart had discussed the dream visitor with everyone over the morning meal, and the consensus was to take a highly cautious stance. Halsin still felt their cure was at Moonrise Towers and Lae’zel pus... |
After the party broke their fast, Wyll and Shadowheart had left to track his demon, a short journey that should have them back by sundown. Halsin, having easily healed himself the night before, was cleaning up the morning meal. Lae’zel spent her time polishing and sharpening her sword, while Gale studied from his spell... |
"Pet, how do you say "little bird’?" Astarion asked from the ground, where he lounged on a blanket, amusing himself by watching her trying to burn off her energy. |
"Suru lotha," Tav replied, not looking up from scrubbing blood out of a shirt, elbow-deep in the sudsy water of a copper bathtub. |
"Hmm. I suppose you don’t have a word for "hummingbird’," He mused. |
Tav laughed, "No. Why -" A foul odor assaulted her senses. "What is that?" |
Astarion got to his feet, staring behind her, towards the gates of Waukeen’s Rest. Tav stood as well, bubbles dripping unheaded down her arms. |
A human in worn leathers walked into the courtyard. He seemed older, though Tav found it hard to tell with humans. His bearded face was weathered from long days spent outdoors, his wheat-brown hair half held back in a leather thong and his mustaches twisted upward with wax. He carried a crossbow, armed with a wicked ba... |
"Ah, stranger." The man said to Astarion with a friendly grin, "forgive the aroma." |
Tav considered the man and how he acted. His crossbow still held ready, despite his relaxed, friendly stance. She didn’t feel dismissed, she felt watched. Astarion was tense at her side, something about the man had bothered him as well. She felt uncomfortable. |
"Powdered iron-vine," The man was explaining, "An old hunter’s trick - most monsters will think twice before making a meal of me. It doesn’t help one make new friends, of course, but with the amount of gnoll tracks out there, I didn’t want to make new friends." |
"You’re a monster hunter?" Astarion asked the man, "I’m surprised. I thought all Gur were vagrant cut-throats." |
"Who... what is a Gur?" Tav asked, surprised that Astarion would take such a sweeping stance. He had never once judged her for her heritage. Where was this coming from? |
"A mystical and dangerous people," The man explained to her with a wry grin. "We travel the land, never settling in one place. We steal your chickens, curse your crops, seduce your daughters - your friend here has heard it all, I’m sure." |
Oh. They were just people with an undeserved reputation. |
"I wish I had half the power settled folk think my people possess." The man chuckled. "Alas, I am a simple wanderer. I am Gandrel; a simple wanderer and monster hunter. I am no witch-doctor or cut-throat." |
"Tav," She introduced herself. Astarion said nothing. "What monster are you hunting?" |
"Something terrifying, no doubt." Astarion had decided to join the conversation after all, "Dragon? Cyclops?... Kobold?" |
"Nothing so dramatic." Gandrel laughed, dismissing Astarion’s insults. "I’m hunting for a vampire spawn." |
Her heart stopped. |
"His name is Astarion," How could Gandrel keep speaking to her like everything was normal? Her heart had stopped. She was dead. The weave was wrapping around her to take her home. "But I fear he’s gone to ground. I was hoping the hag of these lands could help me flush him out, but it seems she is no more." |
Good thing they had taken care of the hag weeks ago. That evil creature would have handed Astarion over to this man for no price at all. Just to watch him suffer would be payment enough for Auntie Ethel. |
"And when you find this "Astarion’? Tav asked, shocked at how normal she sounded. Conversational and friendly. "You’ll kill him?" |
"Not this time, my orders are to capture him." Gandrel explained. |
Astarion’s fingers were tapping insistently at her back, trying to signal her where Gandrel wouldn’t notice. His signals were nothing in the face of a decade of training at Tier Breche. They were unarmored and essentially unarmed, facing an opponent with ranged capability. But no drow of Menzoberranzan was ever truly u... |
"...I shall take him to Baldur’s Gate. My people wait for -" |
Gandrel froze mid-sentence as her magic clamped down hard upon his body, holding him in place. She yanked Astarion’s dagger from his belt, then strode forward and rammed it up under the Gur’s jaw, through his mouth and into his brain. Her potion-enhanced strength made the action as difficult as sliding a knife into but... |
She stood over the crumpled corpse for a moment, contemplating. |
"Tav?" Astarion asked, hesitantly behind her. |
A dead monster hunter could still point to them. Still set out a trail for others that would lead to Astarion. The body would be impossible to identify if it were burnt like the others. Another victim of the attack on Waukeen’s Rest. |
Scorching Blast erupted from her hands. The body flopped on the ground, blackening as three bolts of fire tore into it. She was still so strong, so fast . Three more bolts and Gandrel, monster hunter and gur, was truly no more. |
She stood over the blackened body. Was it enough? Would they be safe? |
"Tav, he’s dead." Astarion’s gentle hand on her arm. |
"Cazador sent him?" She asked, still staring at the burning corpse of the gur, her voice flat. |
"Yes," Astarion answered. "Only he would know to send a message by sending a gur. It’s the gur who near killed me the night Cazador turned me." |
"I don’t-" He didn’t want to. She would usually support that, but not when hunters could show up looking for him any moment. |
"Tell me so I can be ready, Astarion." Tav hissed, spinning around to flourish his own knife in his face. "I need to know what’s coming for us." |
"Us?" He whispered, still unbelieving that she would stand at his side after his manipulations had come to light. |
"Tell. Me." She was subsumed with tension and rage. They were in danger and he wouldn’t explain it to her. Magic sparked along her fingers, popping the soapy bubbles that still remained on them. |
Astarion sighed and gave in. "Cazador Szarr is a vampire lord in Baldur’s Gate. The patriarch of his coven and a monster obsessed with power. Not political power or military power - I mean power over people. The power to control them completely." |
Tav listened to the explanation, her body tight as a bowstring. |
"He turned me," Astarion continued, "nearly two-hundred years ago. I became his spawn and he became my tormentor." |
"He attacked you?" Tav asked, wondering how Baldur’s Gate functioned as a city with Vampires running around attacking people. |
"Not him, no." Astarion answered. "A gang of Gur attacked me, angry about a ruling that I’d handed down as magistrate. They beat me to death’s door when Cazador appeared. He chased them off and offered to save me. To give me eternal life." |
Tears threatened to spill down her face. He didn’t deserve this. No one deserved this. Murder was, ironically, a part of life, but torture for its own sake was beyond her to comprehend. |
"Given that my choices were "eternal life’ or "bleed to death on the street’, I took him up on the offer. It was only afterwards I realized just how long "eternity’ could be." |
"And you’ve been a slave ever since." She finished for him. |
He scoffed. "A vampire’s spawn is less than a slave. They’re a puppet. We have no choice but to obey our masters’ commands. They speak and our bodies react. It’s all part of the deal." |
Astarion’s eyes fell to contemplate the smoking corpse of the gur. "Sometimes, he’d order us to submit to torture. Sometimes he’d have us torture ourselves. Whatever his weathervane mood settled on." |
Tav reached out her free hand to hold his. He took it, squeezing tightly. |
"The mind flayers aren’t the only monsters out there." He observed, "And they aren’t the only ones hunting us. We need to keep our eyes open and watch out for anything lurking in the shadows." |
"We lurk in the shadows, too." She reminded him. "We can keep each other safe." |
They stood together for a moment, before a plop of suds falling from Tavs arm broke the moment. |
"You... you killed for me." Astarion realized suddenly. "He didn’t even realize he had found me." |
"So? I told you we’ll finish this," Tav stated with a shug, unaffected by the murder she had just committed. She moved back to finish the wash. "Together." |
Magic, as a concept, is eternal. |
The weave is endless, its vastness unknowable by mortal minds. It inhabits all things, bringing mystery and wonder to the world. It knows no time, it knows no death. |
Magic, once condensed into a spell or potion for a specific function, is quite finite.Plucking a stray bit of weave from the omnipresence of the universe and forcing it into a singular shape for a singular purpose is something the weave will only tolerate for so long. Then it fights against its restraints, seeking to r... |
The magic Tav had drenched herself in for the sole purpose of letting her friends bathe was going to run out at some point. And magic, when it runs out, does not ebb like water from a slowly closing tap. It pops like a bubble. |
One moment, Tav was chasing Scratch through the camp, playing a convoluted game of hide-and-seek-fetch of which only they knew the rules. Dog and drow were making as much noise as possible in their fun. |
The next moment was silence. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.