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Wyll inclined his head towards Astarion, purposefully, playfully. "Would you rather I didn’t enjoy it?" |
If he acted hard enough, Astarion wouldn’t pick up on his discomfort, and Mizora wouldn’t pick up that this hurt. And it only hurt for a moment. He was practiced at distancing himself from such things. It felt strange, like he was behind his own body, watching things happen. But it was fine. It only touched him for a moment. |
And he wanted this. He loved the way Astarion’s eyes lit up when he felt mischievous. They hadn’t at first. The first tenday, all jokes from Astarion had been so calculated, his tongue too careful by far. He hadn’t even felt safe with his own sense of humor. Every interaction felt like it had been rehearsed a dozen times over. |
As if he’d been hurt countless times for a single verbal misstep. |
Astarion grinned with all his teeth. "I’m just saying, if you miss out with this whole rotation business, I can eat you more often. If you like being devoured-" |
<If you need more devouring-> |
"It’s not about me," Wyll found himself saying. "I wanted to make sure you had options for sustenance. I didn’t want to make you feel beholden to me alone." |
"How gallant," Astarion said. "Still though. No one else seems to be enjoying my fangs, and if they feel pleasurable to you, well, seems a waste to bite someone else." |
Wyll was flushing at this point, despite even Mizora’s presence. "The sensation itself isn’t pleasant. But there’s an intimacy, with you at my neck, and my blood in your veins. For a moment, I sustain you." |
"You can dress it up in romanticism all you like," Astarion said, waving a hand. "It turns you on, and it turns out, I can taste that. Probably for the best you have me darling. I’d hate for you to go to some other vampire spawn to indulge. It’s fine you know. You can admit you have a kink. It won’t kill you." |
There were times Astarion was more practiced, when he looked at Wyll just so through his eyelashes, breathed his voice just like that. It worked powerfully, don’t get Wyll wrong, but Astarion was more relaxed right now. It felt, though it could still be a lie, more genuine. |
So Wyll inclined his head and admitted the truth. "It can be both romanticism and a kink." |
Astarion laughed delightedly, and delight looked so good on him. |
For a moment, Wyll thought Astarion was going to press again. He’d offered sex before a handful of times, and it wasn’t for lack of interest Wyll turned him down. When Astarion wanted to, he could be very seductive indeed. |
But instead Astarion just settled in next to him, half-curled into Wyll’s side, practically humming with happiness that he’d been right. He was always so much happier after having been recently fed, more overtly affectionate. |
<It’s painfully obvious what this is. But then you never had the brains for magic or character. You were convinced Daddy would listen after all.> |
It wasn’t just about blood. It clearly wasn’t, because Astarion had been ready to starve rather than bite anyone, and Astarion had approached him before that. Mizora was wrong. She was just trying to ruin things, like she always did. |
He focused on keeping his breathing a steady rhythm. No signs. All discomfort into a box that was separate from him. |
In a roundabout way, Wyll was starting to grasp that his fear of Mizora was stronger than most people’s fear of Mizora. In a detached, separate from any concept of "Wyll’, he knew that people who spent too long under the thumb of a monster found their defeat impossible to imagine. It came with his entire profession after all. |
That said, when Mizora finally showed up, rising from a pool of pitch, Wyll felt a flash of terror. |
It wasn’t that she always tormented him. There were a number of times it was little more than demeaning words and an update on the mission he was on. But he just never knew, and uncertainty roiled in his gut. |
Thankfully, he wasn’t currently on a mission, because it was always bad if she felt she had to show up when he was on the job. It meant she thought he was dallying, and that she refused to tolerate. She’d shown up the first night after the mindflayers. It hadn’t mattered he’d been infected. He was on a mission, and he was beholden to that first. He’d pointed out his magic had been taken from him, and she hadn’t appreciated that either. |
Mizora slicked the Hells off of her and gave him a look. Karlach took a step in front of him, hand on an axe, and stared at her. |
"Please, I’m not really here," Mizora said, rolling her eyes. "It’s a projection. I’m sure you heard of them. It’s mission time for my pet. You’ve spent enough time lounging about, and I think you owe me considering how your last job went." |
Her eyes didn’t leave Karlach. |
"Wyll doesn’t owe you shit," Karlach said. |
Mizora tutted. "Pact disagrees. But by all means. If you don’t want to hear your mission, that’s not on me. Failure to perform is your end." |
His horns felt so heavy. |
"What do you want?" Wyll asked. |
"Absolute’s cult has gone and grabbed one of Zariel’s assets. A devil, and a powerful one at that. They’re locked up in the cult’s fortress, Moonrise Towers. And you’re getting them out." |
If the asset was at Moonrise Towers, then the reason Wyll still breathed was becoming clear. |
It also boded well for the survival of his companions. She was running out of missions she could send him on this year. Not that she wouldn’t threaten it or dangle over his head. But the fear was abating. He didn’t want to rescue any of Zariel’s assets, hated the thought of rescuing a devil, but the mission didn’t pull him away from the artifact keeping him not a mindflayer. It wasn’t going to hurt any of his companions. For Mizora, this was passed for practically a nicety. |
It didn’t make it any less demeaning. Devil rescue. This wasn’t what he stuck around for, but, fine. It was a mockery of what he stood for, but she wasn’t telling him to kill the tadpoles in his friends’ brains. |
Occasionally you had to force yourself to look at the bright side when your end goal was lemure. |
The fear returned full-force when Astarion stepped forward. "Now, why should we spend our valuable time on this?" |
Wyll calmly looked over at Astarion. <What are you doing?> |
The telepathy didn’t have to be calm. He was panicked. This was panicking. |
<Darling, trust me on this. Something’s off in her demeanor. She’s desperate for you to do this mission. I said I was going to bargain you out of the pact, and I mean to do so.> |
Wyll’s first instinctive reaction was to argue with Astarion on this. The panic was nearly seizing in his chest, it was almost becoming visible where Mizora could see. |
But Astarion was right. She was desperate. And trust was the cornerstone of love. |
<Be careful.> Wyll sent, and then he dropped the connection. |
Mizora smiled, all shark teeth. "Because he’ll be damned to the Hells if you don’t, stupid. Clause Z, Section Thirteen: Should the promised soul refuse obeyance or neglect duty, the pact-holder shall cast the promised soul into Avernus as a lemure. But perhaps you feel he’s not needed in your little group?" |
Astarion sighed. "He’s nice and all, but rescue missions always have niggling little time limits, and I just don’t know. We have a busy schedule. More tieflings to save, apparently. I swear they keep getting thrown into danger whenever we aren’t looking. A curse to break. It could be a tenday before we get around to it. Possibly two tenday." |
"He doesn’t have to stay with you," Mizora said. "He was mine long before he was yours." |
"Except he does," Astarion said, pulling out the moon lantern with a dramatic flourish. "Shadow curse. Mighty inconvenient. He can’t get to the Moonrise Tower without this, and it’s our lantern. He’s stuck moving at the speed of the group. Which means you aren’t negotiating with him, you are negotiating with me. Also, no clue on the radius of our little artifact. I don’t think, hm, I don’t think he’d be bound to you as a mindflayer would he? He wouldn’t have a soul for you to take. So that’s two reasons it’s now a group decision." |
It was a fantastic bluff. Despite the fact that it was with Wyll’s own life, he couldn’t help but be impressed. |
Astarion smiled then in the way a beauracrat did when scenting blood in the courtroom. "Tell you what though. You agree to break Wyll’s pact, and we can bump it up on schedule, how about that." |
"Then he dies," Mizora said with a shrug. "No skin off my teeth. I keep him if he dies, you realize that. You don’t hold the winning hand here. I keep the leash on my favorite pet either way. He can gallivant around with you for the remainder of his stay here. I get him for eternity." |
"Except I do hold the winning hand," Astarion said. His voice was a singular sharp edge. "You said one of "Zariel’s’ assets. Why, that almost sounds like an order from higher up. I presume you can’t do it yourself, or you would have already, and how many warlocks do you have in this area? Can they make it in time? Sure, Wyll might die, but can you risk Zariel’s displeasure?" |
Karlach whistled. "No one can. When she’s pissed, you’re fucked." |
"You’re so fucking wrong, and you don’t even know it," Mizora said. |
Astarion folded his arms. "Then enlighten me." |
Mizora stared at Astarion, and Wyll could see her marking Astarion as a new target. Mizora smiled. "There’s a diabolist in Baldur’s Gate. I’m sure Cazador would love a message on your location." |
"Please, he already knows," Astarion said with a wave of his hand. "Don’t change the point. Enlighten me on why I don’t hold all the cards, because it really seems like I do." |
Mizora closed her eyes briefly and then opened them. "Fine," she said, the embodiment of malice. "But I amend the pact once the mission’s done, and not a moment before." |
"Fantastic doing business with you," Astarion said. |
Mizora slicked back into the ground and was gone. |
Astarion’s confident demeanor vanished. "I’m so fucking glad that was a projection," Astarion said. "She looked like she wanted to eat me. Gods. Well, at least I got her to agree to it. I knew she was too panicked. She barely even tormented Wyll. Hah. It’s good to know not all the magistrate skills decayed over the years." |
Wyll, calmly, sat down on a nearby log. |
"A rescue mission?" Shadowheart asked. "I thought you just hunted for her." |
"Always," Wyll said. His mind was reeling. "But there’s nothing in the pact forbidding it." |
"But you’re close now," Astarion said. "One last mission, and you’re done." |
Wyll inclined his head. "Thank you for sticking your neck out for me, truly. But I’m not going to celebrate until I’m actually free. I can already feel her scheming. She won’t let me go without a fuss, trust me on this. And she may hurt you in the process." |
It didn’t feel real. It felt like just another snare, something else to hurt him with. She was bound by her word, but devils were the master wordsmiths. |
Astarion scoffed. "Please, she can’t hurt me in any way Cazador hasn’t already." |
And yet Astarion was shaking, hands trembling visibly. |
"You think she’s gonna follow through with that threat to Cazador?" Shadowheart asked, eye Astarion compassionately. |
"Yes," Wyll said. "How else will people believe her threats otherwise?" |
Astarion pressed his hands to his mouth. "It’s fine. He already knew my general location," he said, in the voice of someone who was clearly not fine. "How else would he know where to send the damned Gur?" |
Wyll could not fathom two hundred years. He could barely fathom his own near decade he’d lived through. And yet despite two centuries of torment, Astarion was still standing strong. |
Gods, he was beautiful. |
"I hear you, but I agree with Wyll," Karlach said slowly, cautiously, because she had endured the Hells. She knew best of all how things went. "This could be bad. Could be a runaway like me. Could be something we really don’t want to set loose. But more than that, devils never lose. Sure they’ll give you a bit of tat here and there, but the house always wins." |
"Well the house will always win if we don’t try," Gale said firmly. "Look we have a foot in the door now thanks to Astarion’s quick thinking. We have leverage. Whatever she throws at us next, we’ll deal with that too. Devils aren’t actually omniscient, no matter how much like to appear to be." |
Wyll glanced at Karlach, and she gave him a look back. |
"I don’t know how a house wins," Lae’zel said, "but if it does, we will burn it to the ground and cast its ashes into the River Styx." |
Wyll blinked. "I guess that’s worth a shot?" |
Lae’zel nodded to herself. |
If nothing else, finally after seven years being around friends who had his back was the biggest balm to his soul. |
Apparently the only thing worse than Mizora’s commentary was quiet from Mizora. Wyll genuinely had no idea if she was watching, but he knew Astarion had upset her, and he was worried for him. |
Quiet had never been a respite with Mizora. The only times she was quiet was when she was building to something for later, and Wyll hated the way he dreaded her missing presence, hated the sick fear from her absence. |
Thankfully repression was a time-honored tradition, and there were people to save. The group decided to go ahead and infiltrate Moonrise Towers. Information on Ketheric Thorm was needed, as well as the locations of the captured tieflings and deep gnomes. Also if they could free this asset quickly, the better. If not, it was good to have a good lay of the land first for freeing the asset later. Just out of visual range of the tower, people made preparations, and Astarion approached Wyll. |
Astarion gave him an extremely fake looking smile. "Look. I know you are a disarmingly good liar when you want to be, but sometimes you have a hard time keeping the heroics on the inside. Don’t. Blow. Our. Cover." |
"I’m not going to," Wyll said. |
"Are you sure? Are you positive?" Astarion asked, tilting his head in a very pointed fashion. "You have this annoying history of trying to save people first and think about the consequences later." |
"I am going to save the captured tieflings," Wyll said. |
Astarion sighed. "This is for the greater good. That’s a concept you can understand, yes? If we are caught, they will strip us of the artifact, and turn us into mindless cultists planning on doing gods know what. This means..." Astarion paused for dramatic effect, "you may have to do unpleasant things you find disagreeable." |
"I understand," Wyll said. "I’m still going to save those tieflings." |
"Well the gods never saved me from Cazador, so I don’t see why they would save me from you," Astarion said. |
"I do have experience with this," Wyll said, feeling amused at Astarion’s exasperation. "Not every villain was some social outcast. A number of them were pillars of their community and would not overly welcome the Blade of the Frontiers in their presence. I can hold my tongue of my true thoughts." |
"Can you now? You can promise me to not engage in overt heroics?" |
"I promise you I won’t get caught," Wyll said. |
Astarion sighed again, even more dramatically this time. "I suppose that’s the best I can hope for." |
Wyll did indeed hold his tongue, and they walked right on in. The group began scoping the place out, inspecting merchants, checking food sources, or for Wyll, looking for the best areas that were isolated with no witnesses. There were more of those scrying orbs, but not everywhere had them. |
Scrying orbs also went down in two eldritch blasts, so they weren’t actually a problem. You just had to take them out when the eye was away from you. |
Karlach got some soul coins from a vendor as a gift from Flo, Lae’zel some weapons from weaponsmith, and then in a back room was of all things a blood merchant interested in Astarion. |
"I assume he belongs to you?" she asked, turning to Wyll in the most condescending dismissive gesture Wyll had seen for the past year, and he spent time with Mizora on a regular basis. |
"No person belongs to anyone else," Wyll said defensively. His hand itched to at least rest on his sword to make a point, but they were supposed to be infiltrating. "He’s his own person." |
She smiled like she was humoring him, like she was in on some lie Wyll was telling. "Of course." Her eyes slid back to Astarion. "Do you have a name spawn?" |
Astarion was half-recoiling at this point. "Astarion, but- hold on-" |
She revealed her intentions, of wanting to be bitten because Wyll wasn’t the only person who found vampire bites pleasurable. There was an entire erotica genre dedicated to it. She offered a potion of legendary strength as compensation, even as she looked at Astarion like he was nothing more than an interchangeable thing. |
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