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Chapter Text

Thicker than Blood

It was a lovely dress, and she looked lovely in it. She shifted this way and that, taking tiny steps to assess the swish and drape of the skirts, careful of her movements atop the small alterations riser. Sitting behind her on a low velvet covered stool, the tailor admired the garment in the reflection of the tri-fold mirror mirror. While rarely seen smiling, the tailor’s eyes expressed his appreciation. It was a slip dress, with a cowl neckline and thin straps in a dusky midnight blue. Simple, but sometimes less was more—no need to gild the lily, so to speak. He rested his forearms on his knees and studied her expression as the patriar’s daughter considered her reflection. 

He had made this dress only once before, that time in a plum colour he no longer worked with. That he would not make certain garments in certain colours was just an accepted quirk of the tailor’s. His many customers knew it was a minor concession when measured against the quality of his work.

The girl nodded her approval, and Astarion slid the pin cushion from his wrist and stood to offer his hand to the girl. She stepped down off the riser and back behind a screen to remove the dress. While he waited he tidied the alterations table, restoring pins and clips to their proper locations in a cabinet full of tiny drawers.

The tinkling of the bell above the door alerted him to another customer. He was not expecting anyone else that afternoon, and truth be told he wasn’t in the mood to humour any of the looky-loos that sometimes wandered in off the street. That the sign outside indicated bespoke dresses did little to inform the passing public that there were no racks of premade garments in here. Instead the walls were floor to ceiling with dark wooden shelving containing rows upon rows of fabric bolts. They were arranged by colour, not fabric, such that scanning the room from end to end was a near seamless gradient of every colour imaginable.

Astarion tugged at the bottom of his vest to straighten the hem before stepping into the main shop to greet the customer. His eyes hit on the woman, just as the girl returned with the dress gathered carefully in her arms. Astarion seemed to glide across the black and white tiled floor to take the dress from her.

‘Give me another three days, my dear.’ Astarion purred. ‘It will be ready by midday, and your father may pay me for it when he collects it.’  With a hand not quite on her back, he ushered her to the door and wished her a warm good day.

Turning back, his eyes hardened on the newcomer.

‘Nansi Gretta, I was not expecting you.’ All warmth had gone from Astarion’s garnet gaze. ‘What do you want?’

‘Don Ancunín,’ the woman’s voice was thin, and she twisted her fingers, looking just past the elf’s left ear as she spoke. ‘I need to discuss my next payment with you.’

‘Indeed,’ Astarion said flatly. ‘Best come back to the office, then.’ When Astarion stepped toward her, the bookseller flinched slightly, but Astarion merely reached past her to throw the bolt on the door to the street.

Astarion said nothing while he rolled down his sleeves and rebuttoned the cuffs. He donned his jacket—a sharply cut longcoat in black brocade, it fit snugly and contrasted sharply against his oxblood silk vest. On the crisp black shirt he wore beneath, Astarion opened an additional three pearl buttons, bringing the total to five and exposing pale, taut muscles, silver chains, and the top of some smooth hard abs. Astarion straightened his cuffs, and adjusted the rings on his fingers.

‘Come.’

Astarion led the way behind the counter, and moved aside a heavy drapery to reveal a door with no fewer than four separate locks. Astarion held the door, unsmiling, for Gretta, and she nervously stepped through.

Astarion did not look back as he led the way up a steel half-staircase to an open area, more like a warehouse than anything belonging in an atelier’s attic. The walls here were lined with slateboards. Tables, and tallies written in chalk covered the surfaces, and in one corner a table of 6 people immediately jumped to their feet, abandoning their card game, when he approached. Astarion did not acknowledge them, nor their muttered greetings of ‘boss’, ‘saer’, ‘don,’ as he passed. Opening a heavy nondescript steel door, Astarion ushered Gretta into his office.

As he entered he pressed a small button under the lip of his desk, and within moments the door opened again, and an enormous red-skinned tiefling entered.

‘Boss?’ she said in greeting. 

Astarion tipped his head toward their unexpected guest. ‘Some business. Bring the book on the Bibliophile account, Karlach.’

The tiefling nodded and started back toward the door, stopping to ask, ‘Coffee?’ 

‘Always, Darling.’

Karlach returned shortly, finding Astarion installed behind his heavy mahogany desk and slightly reclined in the highback leather chair. She set both the journal, and the tiny cup of high octane coffee before him. ‘Anything else, boss?’

Astarion lifted his chin, indicating a chair. ‘Stay. I’m not sure you won’t be needed.’ Karlack smirked, and cracked her knuckles before taking a seat on a leather club chair at the back of the room. He turned his attention finally to his anxious guest. ‘Speak.’

‘Don Ancunín, I don’t wish to bother you with this—’ Gretta started.

‘And yet, here you are,’ Astarion said dryly.

‘Well, yes. As you’re aware I was the victim of a fire last month. The damage included many of my rarer pieces as well as some arcane tomes I was storing for, uh, other parties.’ 

Astarion examined his nails, pausing to sip his coffee.

‘So, as a result, the income I usually expect for the month has been somewhat reduced.’ Gretta looked at him, expectantly.

Astarion regarded her back, impassively.

‘Err, so Saer, I find myself in a position…that is to say, I will not…what I’m sorry to report is…’

‘Out with it, already,’ Astarion snarled.

‘I can’t pay you this month.’ The words tumbled from her mouth in a rush, followed by a held breath.

Astarion wondered if she planned to hold her breath until he spoke again. How long could she, he wondered. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, dropping at the invasion of an old memory. Don’t play with your food , he had once been told, and the memory further soured his mood.

‘That is a serious situation,’ Astarion agreed. ‘What do you intend to do about it?’

‘I was hoping for leniency, given the circumstances.’ the bookmonger ventured. A snort of amusement came from the back of the room, and Astarion looked over to smirk at Karlach. 

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘But that was fucking funny.’

‘I’m afraid that without full payment, I am unable to continue my protection.’ Astarion returned to examining his nails. ‘And as you’ve already experienced what a bit of bad luck can do to a business, I’m sure you appreciate the peril of losing that protection.’

Gretta worked her lip between her teeth, her eyes wide with fear. ‘What about a payment in kind?’ 

Astarion glanced about his office. The walls in here were lined with similar heavy wood shelves to his dress shop, but these were filled with rows on rows of books. Indeed the entire room smelled pleasantly of parchment and ink, along with leather and port. ‘Do I look like I’m in need of books?’

‘Not books, information,’ she rasped. Astarion could sense a rise in her pulse and body temperature coinciding with her desperation. It was a cloying scent that he wanted out of his office as soon as possible. ‘There is talk in the lower city that might interest you.’

‘Go on.’ Astarion leaned forward slightly.

‘The rumours I hear are of a new player in town, quietly working to gain a foothold in the lower city.’ Gretta leaned forward, and whispered conspiratorially. Astarion leaned back, away from her. ‘They are building a network of allies among the shopkeepers and merchants. They have been buying great swathes of land on the outskirts of the Gate. From what I hear it’s due to a high approval with the farmers. People are allying out of loyalty and respect, not fear or greed.’

Astarion wrinkled his nose at the distasteful description. ‘I cannot see why I should concern myself with someone who feels lower city merchants and marginal land farmers qualify as worthy accomplices. They will find out in due course that there is little of value there. It is why these alliances are available to be harvested in the first place.’ Astarion sat back, ready to dismiss Gretta. ‘I am not terribly concerned with anyone wishing to be HighKing of RiffRaff. ’

‘Their reputation is that they are more huckster than villain. But few who have been duped by them will talk about it out of sheer embarrassment.’ Gretta set her jaw, and waited for a response. When she didn’t receive one, she leaned back in her seat and affected a disinterested aire to mirror Astarion’s.  ‘I believe they are the new owner of the Twin Songs tract.’ This was the piece of information she had been holding on to as her last card, Astarion was certain.

This tract of land had been hotly disputed for decades, and recently sold after a brutally competitive auction, in which Astarion was a motivated, but ultimately unsuccessful bidder. The value of the land lay in it’s proximity to both the harbour, and the lower city. For anyone wishing to bring goods—illicit or otherwise—into the city it provided a private and defensible route. It also had sold for an absolute fortune. More than Astarion had been willing to part with, which was really saying something.

‘Do you have a name? A description?’ He asked, now feigning the disinterest that had deserted him. 

Gretta shook her head. ‘The descriptions are varied and unreliable. Most rumours are that it is a woman. I have heard elvish woman, but I have also heard human, so i cannot say. No name either. She is only known as The Bard .’

Astarion heard a surprised noise from the back of the room, but did not look up. To Gretta he waved his hand, dismissing her. ‘Go now.’ Astarion turned away from the book merchant, and out the window that overlooked the lower city. ‘Karlach, see her out.’ 

Astarion stared out the window until the sun began to set.

It couldn’t be. And yet all the signs were there. An elvish woman. A trickster and a criminal. A proclivity to ingratiate herself with the poor and downtrodden. And with funds to match his own? There were few others who matched that description.

It had been nearly 30 years since he banished her from the city. His last words a threat that should she ever come back, that he would kill her. He regretted it almost the moment the threat passed his lips, but still she had gone and his pride had been too great to pursue her. By the time the anger and pride had dissolved away, hurt and time had come to fill in behind it, and it became a chapter well and truly closed.

Only when the wet soaked through his pantleg did Astarion notice his hand was bleeding. So tight was his fist that he’d cut himself open with his own signet ring.

Again, upon his approach the people assembled around the card table hurried to their feet when Astarion approached. Astarion stopped in front of them. ‘Where is the Capo?’ he barked. A half dozen slack jaws hung open at him. Astarion looked at them each in turn. Big, strong, stupid. Another flash of unbidden memory tightened Astarion’s shoulders. He used to work with the best—the smartest and the most clever partner he could have asked for. Now— ugh .

‘Lae’zel!’ Astarion bellowed.

Astarion’s githyanki lieutenant emerged from a backroom, looking annoyed. ‘What is it now, Astarion?’

‘Don Ancunín,’ he corrected her so sharply she dropped her eyes to the floor. ‘Come with me—I need information from the lower city, and your soldiers will get it for me.’

‘Karlach!’ The tiefling materialized from nowhere at the sound of her name. ‘Get Ravengard in here. I need a favour.’ Astarion began to stomp away, back to his office. ‘Tonight.’ he clarified to her.

By lantern light the elite of Baldur’s Gate gathered to socialize, scheme and otherwise be seen. A four-piece orchestra played quietly in the corner of a stone portico, while servers circulated through the garden with drinks and food.

The land had been gifted to the Gate by Don Ancunín decades ago. Well, not gifted, so much as abandoned with little concern or interest expressed when the city officials indicated that it needed either to be attended to or it would be seized. That the Gate had chosen the former site of the Crimson Palace to build their diplomatic headquarters irritated Astarion. When he let it pass into the hands of the city he expected non-descript housing, or he had hoped perhaps even a waste processing facility or rendering plant. He had not expected a million gold project to restore the grounds and build this elaborate venue—now the epicenter of society and political functions—referred to most commonly as The Gem of the Gate , or just The Gem.

Wyll Ravengard, Reeve of the city had been contrite when he delivered that news to Don Ancunín, but ultimately explained it wasn’t up to him. He had a council to satisfy. And so, while still subject to the influence of Astarion’s organization, the Reeve passed from title of trusted friend to simply political pawn . 

‘Astarion,’ Wyll said, approaching the vampire with his hand out. 

‘Don Ancunín,’ Astarion reminded, eyes flashing dangerously ‘or just Lord Ascendant, if you prefer.’ 

Weariness showed in Wyll’s already aged features, and he dropped his unshaken hand. ‘Yes, my Lord,’ he replied obediently. ‘May I have a word?’

Astarion nodded, and he went on. ‘I have heard distressing news about the reason behind this party tonight.’ Astarion raised an eyebrow but said nothing. ‘I am quite used to being used by you Astar—Lord Ascendant, but I certainly hope you haven’t put me in the position of being the man who hosted the most exquisitely catered murder.’

‘No, no, Wyll, no danger of that!’ Astarion laughed, and clapped the politician on the back. ‘The food isn’t that good.’ 

Astarion lifted a glass of wine from the tray of a passing server—his third of the night—and left the Reeve standing with his mouth open. Astarion had finally spotted the person he was waiting for, and as luck would have it, it didn’t appear as though she had yet spotted him.

She looked the same as he remembered. The same as she appeared in his dreams far more often than he’d admit, and far less than he’d like. Even from behind he’d know her anywhere. The smooth line of her delicate neck, the flash of smooth olive thigh from the slit of her dress which went up to her hip, making it clear to anyone watching—which was everyone—that she wore nothing beneath. He couldn’t help but admire her nerve. The dress crisscrossed her chest, and showed a distracting amount of side-breast. She even wore gold bands wound around her strong arms and her neck. All together it was a look of beauty, wealth, and power intended to disarm him, for there had been a different night where she had dressed in this very combination for him. 

A sudden uncertainty gripped the vampire, and while he hesitated she turned and now saw him, too. Her grey-green eyes locked with his, and he noticed faint lines at the edges that weren’t there before. Time has touched her, though only with a whispering stroke. Another lurching memory—how many nights did she lie next to him tracing the lines around his eyes with the tip of one soft finger? It was a favourite trait, she’d say, and Astarion would be annoyed that she would pick an imperfection such as wrinkles when there was so much perfection to choose from. Still, she would touch his face, and he would let her, staring back up into those eyes and wondering if it was possible to die of happiness when one was already technically dead. Looking at the lines on her face now, he suddenly saw the appeal.

‘Astarion,’ she moved first to greet him, and he bit back a growl of annoyance. He wanted to be the one to greet her. He wanted to say her name and have it ring empty of any history or longing. He wanted to make it plain that she had returned to his city unwelcomed and unforgiven.

Instead, when he said her name what came out sounded reverent, like a prayer. He cleared his throat. ‘Our daughter sends her regrets. She didn’t tell me you were back in the Gate.’

‘Hmm. She didn’t tell me you had promoted her to Underboss, so it seems our little girl is a accomplished secret keeper. Just like her father?’

‘Perhaps. Or maybe, like her mother, a talented liar.’

Chapter Text

Look At Me

26 years ago

She wandered in and out of his view, and Astarion leaned in his chair to keep her in his sights. From his spot on their balcony he could see into his office. He could see her moving about and chatting to herself, though he couldn’t hear her through the double glass doors that separated them. She was working something out. This was her process, and he enjoyed seeing her work. In the 20 minutes he had been observing her she hadn’t looked up once. She had to know he was out there, he thought, waiting for her to join him, as she did most mornings. Still, she persisted in ignoring him. He stirred eddys into the long forgotten coffee in front of him, his other hand flexing and clenching rhythmically atop the breakfast table while he waited for her to cross his view again. Mauria folded herself into his desk chair, and opened her notebook. The smack of the leather cover against his desk was loud enough to be heard outside. These notebooks, full of her songs and stories, her hopes and dreams, were everything to her. Astarion felt a tinge of jealousy–why should she need to put her dreams down on paper while he was so readily at hand? He was always eager, in fact, to hear about them. What did she hide from him now?

At last she looked up and noticed him watching her. Her eyes sparkled, and crinkled at the edges. Astarion sat forward, taller, readying himself to stand to greet her, kiss her cheek, pour her coffee. When instead she dropped her eyes back to her notes Astarion froze, his fingers curling into a fist. He felt foolish, but since that was no feeling for the Vampire Ascendant, instead he felt anger. How dare she? How dare she offer him her empty smile? Bat her eyelashes, and wiggle her ass like he was one of her rubes?

Astarion let out a shaky breath. He was being ridiculous. She had, of course, done none of that. She had nothing but adoration and respect for him-and he her. In nearly two decades he had never doubted her devotion. Theirs was the greatest love story ever told; two people fitting so perfectly together that they might have been forged from a single piece of iron and cleaved apart in a tragic accident. He was all scattered thoughts and jagged edges that only Mauria knew know to sooth and smooth. He was her rock—a solid and sure anchor when she felt untethered and liable to drift away. The way their hands reached for each other instinctively when they passed in a room - it was like magnetism. A law of nature so fundamental that it didn’t need to be observed or questioned. It just was .

She was his. For the rest of her sweet, short, mortal life.
He was hers for eternity.

She smiled at something in the notebook, and Astarion’s lip twitched in the opposite direction. 

Was it about him, he wondered. A ballad, perhaps? One with a maiden and a monster. What was she writing that was so fucking amusing? 

Nothing! Gods! Astarion rubbed his hands over his face. It was likely song lyrics. Ones she would happily sing to him, if he were just to ask. He could hear her humming softly - the same tune she always repeated when she was deeply engrossed. When she ignored him.

No. He had only to call to her. At a word— Darling —she would come to him. She would sit on his lap, comb her fingers in his curls and again the pieces of his world would be properly arranged.

So, do it then , he told himself. She’s right there. 

Why should you? another voice said. You’re the Lord of this fucking castle. 

This darker voice startled Astarion the first time he heard it, but now he was becoming accustomed to it. Perhaps he should be paying more mind to it’s council. To it’s opinions and suggestions. To it’s doubt. He grappled with his thoughts, knowing which ones were right, but unable to ignore which ones were louder.

If she truly cared for him as she claimed her eyes would seek him out in every space. She would need him like she needed the precious air she still insisted on breathing. Their love would be a thread that connected them, a tether reminding her that he was near. His devotion would thrum along her leash, reminding her that she was his. That he was watching. Always. 

‘Dad?’  

The tension bled from Astarion’s muscles, and he was already smiling by the time he turned toward the sweet voice. ‘Good morning, Little One.’ Astarion extended his hand. ‘How long have you been standing there, my treasure? I didn’t hear you come in.’ His eyes sharpened on her. Appraising. Approving. 

‘Dad, you’ve got to stop calling me Little One,’ she moaned, ‘I’m nearly 18!’ 

‘Excuse me very much. Good morning Miss Calliope Ihanna Ancunín,’ Astarion sat straighter, raised his chin, and sneered down his nose at the girl. ‘Why have you interrupted me?’

Calliope giggled and hugged her father’s shoulders from behind, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. ‘Good morning to you, too, Daddy.’ She sat down and reached for the urn at the centre of the table. Astarion raised an eyebrow at her, and turned in his seat to fully observe just what she thought she might be doing. 

‘Coffee?’ his voice was amused. Of course, coffee! Cal was her mother’s daughter, through and through. The tiny frame, the freckles, the cunning, wit, and the fierce independence. The smart mouth. His eyes slid back to where Mauria now paced in front of the office window, still ignoring her family at the breakfast table. 

From him, Cal had inherited a myriad of vampiresque characteristics; Where Astarion’s eyes were a bright garnet, Cal’s were dark, almost plum coloured. She had fangs, but only for show since to his knowledge she had never bitten anyone. She wasn’t yet 18, she better not have bitten anyone , he thought protectively. She had powers, too, though Astarion wasn’t sure how aware she was of this. 

As being the offspring off the Ascendant was an entirely undocumented condition, neither of them had a clear idea of her limits. She was impervious to the sun, and had no unslakable hunger. Astarion had shed actual tears of relief on the day they finally dared to test her tender, pale skin in the first weak rays of dawn. It was clear from a very young age that she carried an element of the bloodlust, having to be physically removed on more than one occasion when simple childish squabbles turned unnecessarily violent. Calliope had spent most of her 3rd and 4th school years at home, learning self regulation. 

Despite being the image of her mother, Calli was her father’s girl. Frequently, father and daughter would leave after breakfast and walk for hours through the streets of their city. They had done so for years—since before she could walk. The day Cal told Astarion that she no longer wished to be carried on their outings, the Ascendant had sulked for a tenday. While they walked they discussed everything. Their family, her elven heritage, the city and its inner workings, the nature of her vampirism. There was no question he would not answer, or that he would not move Toril to find for her. Apart from one. Astarion did not speak about his life before the Nautiloid. He and Mauria made up a lie the day she first asked, and never deviated.   

‘You drink coffee now?’ Astarion teased. Cal made an exasperated sort of tsk noise and rolled her eyes at the Lord Ascendant before adding three whole spoons of sugar to her cup. 

‘I see,’ Astarion noted, ‘it’s sugar you like. The coffee is a disguise.’

For 18 years his Little One had kept Astarion true. Every decision he made as a father, as a partner, as a man, as a vampire, and even as the Ascendant were measured against what was best for Calli. To say Astarion was besotted would be an understatement, but since Cal was objectively the smartest, wittiest, most graceful elf of her age in all of the Sword Coast, it only made sense that he should be so taken. In fact there was almost nothing in Toril more precious to him than his daughter. Almost. Astarion looked up again, and willed Mauria to pay attention to him—to look at him. His ears grew hotter as she continued to ignore him. Look at me, damn you!   He nodded along vaguely to what Cal was chatting about, but he no longer heard anything but the pounding of blood in his ears. He no longer saw anything but a red haze before his eyes. Look at me! His mind suddenly filled with music, and his cup fell from his fingers, shattering at his feet. The music wasn’t his—it was hers. And if she was in his head, then— 

‘Star?--’
She looked at him now. Mauria had come out from the office and was standing in the doorway. Her posture held a certain wrongness, and her expression was a mix of confusion, surprise, and something else Astarion couldn’t place.

‘Astarion,’ she whispered, fighting to force each word out, ‘Let go of me.’  

Fear , he realized. The rest of her expression was fear.

Astarion released her instantly. 

‘Mom?’ Cal stood quickly, alarmed by the look on her mother’s face. ‘What’s wrong?’ Astarion put his hand out to stop her going to Mauria, but his eyes never left his partner.

‘I’m fine, doll.’ Mauria said, smiling brightly at her girl. ‘Just dizzy for a second.’ She turned toward Astarion, and from every angle but his, she appeared to be looking at him. ‘I think I’ll take my tea back to bed for a while.’

The Ascendant watched her retreating figure. ‘She’s fine,’ Astarion mumbled, though the girl had not asked him. ‘I’ll be in my office.’

Astarion slammed the door behind him and pressed his back to it. ‘Oh, shit,’ he said to the empty room. 

Then louder, ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ He ran his hands through his hair. He sat down, then stood up, pacing from the window to the door, and back. 

‘Shit.’

Astarion sat at his desk, and splayed his hands out on the leather blotter, watching them shake. If he was this upset, Mauria must be—

This wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t— he stopped himself from finishing that thought.

He had never done that before. He made a promise never to use compulsion on her. He had meant it— still meant it. It was an accident but it didn’t matter that it happened unintentionally; that was almost worse. 

—If she had just fucking looked at me— 

It meant he was losing control of the monster. 

Mauria held a palm against the door, easing it closed. She carefully released the handle, dropping the latch in place. Then she threw the bolt. 

That strange feeling was only now ebbing from her limbs, and she flexed various muscles trying to reconfirm her agency. Mauria had occasionally wondered what compulsion felt like. She once even asked Astarion to do it to her, and despite what Mauria thought was a very tempting, debauched, and hedonistic reason, he had turned her down. Just as well, since there had been nothing remotely arousing about that. She felt violated, dirty, and ashamed. Laying down on their bed, she pulled Astarion’s pillow into her belly, and curled her body around it. She rubbed the satin trim of the cover between her fingers, trying to sooth her anxious mind. She knew she ought to be livid. Or perhaps terrified. All she felt was profound grief.

She knew this day would come. Even before the ritual, Jaheira had been very clear; Vampires are evil. Vampires are power hungry. Vampires do not make good partners. 

The HighHarper finally cornered Mauria on her way into the suite one afternoon and dragged her to a quiet table in the ElfSong’s tavern. When Mauria saw her return to the table with two double-tall glasses of Wyvern whiskey, she was certain she wasn’t going to enjoy the conversation that followed. 

Mauria sipped at her drink, marshalling her grimace at the poor quality of the counterfeit spirit.

Jaheira’s tone was as factual and curt as ever, but her eyes had held sympathy. “They say that the only thing a vampire can feel is hunger. Nothing else touches them - not grief, or mercy. Or any sense of what is just.” When Mauria opened her mouth to argue, the ranger put up her hand, ‘I know.’ she said gently. ‘So we must do everything we can to steer Astarion down a better path.’ She tipped her own glass to her lips and scowled at the bartender. ‘If you want to keep him, you must keep him safe.’

Mauria sought out the counsel of experts; from academics to monster hunters, they all said the same thing; In the end, all vampires succumbed to their innate nature. Love would turn to obsession. Friendship would become rivalry. 

Mauria had failed to keep Astarion safe, and the ritual happened. The first few hours, then days, she lived on tenterhooks watching his every movement, analyzing every word. When the parasite left their brains, she was sure that would be the moment. Days passed into months, which passed into years. Over time she let her guard down and been lulled into a sense that maybe the fates would be kind to her. To them. The day the midwife handed Astarion a tiny pale elfling wrapped in green muslin, the look of pure awe on his face made her hope—perhaps a steady influx of joy could keep the darkness away. 

But she had been foolish and naive. The moment that her Star became Lord Astarion Ancunín, Vampire Ascendant this day was inevitable. Everything that made Astarion who he was would become corrupted. Eventually the Ascendant would see anything beautiful as an affront—something to be dominated and destroyed. 

Sooner or later, every vampire lost his soul.

Chapter Text

Fantasies and Delusions

26 Years Ago

Cal knocked softly at the door, but didn’t wait for an invitation. She never waited for an invitation. Sometimes she didn’t even knock and it was only down to Astarion’s ascended hearing that Cal hadn’t come to deeply regret that habit on more than one occasion. Mauria closed her notebook and tucked it away, smiling and gesturing for her daughter to come sit on the bed.

‘You don’t have to hide that, you know.’ Calli gestured to where the book peeked out from under a pillow. ‘I’m not an idiot. I know what’s going on.’

‘You do?’ Mauria wasn’t in the mood for teenage snark, but bit down the urge to react. Yes, she was sure her precious, sheltered, privileged child understood all the ins and outs of being partnered with a vampiric ascendant, a former tortured slave, a city hero, and a man she suspected was already high-strung long before any of those other things happened. ‘And what, pray tell, is going on?’ 

‘You’re planning to leave father.’ Cal said it simply. Without emotion of any kind, Mauria was at a loss to respond. How much did her child pick up by watching them? How much had Astarion told her outright? Mauria didn’t confide in her daughter in that way, but it wouldn’t have surprised her to find out Astarion did. Astarion was always closer to Cal than Mauria had ever seemed able to get, and the idea that her partner was discussing things with their child and not her made her face flush. ‘You’re leaving him, and you’re leaving me,’ she accused. 

‘Calli, no!’ Mauria’s words came on a rush of panic. ‘I am not doing either. Everything is fine, it’s just—’ She chewed at her cheek racing to find the right words, aware how her reassurance rang more and more false as the silence stretched on. ‘I’m worried about your father.’

‘Worried?’ Calli’s eyes widened, and Mauria was suddenly reminded of much younger child. She wasn’t a child anymore, not from any angle, but that didn’t stop Mauria from wanting to gather her up into a bundle and rock her until the anxiety released her smooth brow. When Cal was small, Mauria would sing silly songs when she was worried or scared. She would play her guitar, and sing ballads about Thurston, the magical snail, or some other made up character. And together they would sing verse after verse, giggling at the increasingly absurd rhymes until they forgot why she was scared. Mauria doubted a few silly rhymes would be sufficient distraction anymore. ‘Worried about what?’

‘He’s changing, doll.’ Mauria chose her words carefully. ‘He’s struggling with something—something big—and I don’t know how to help him.’ At the distress on her daughter’s face, Mauria added a weak, and completely unconvincing, ‘Yet.’

Mauria reached for her daughter’s hand, and was startled when Cal withdrew hers with a sharp hiss. ‘He’s not struggling with anything.’ The girl stood, and stepped back, her face suddenly hardening. Mauria always felt that reading people was her strongest asset. She survived by being able to identify what people were thinking, what they wanted, what drove their decisions, but this time she missed. Cal wasn’t anxious, she was furious. ‘He’s not some corrupt soul lost to darkness, Mother . He’s the Vampire Ascendant. He’s being who he was meant to be, who we both were meant to be.’ Calli stood up, fists clenched at her sides. ‘And yet when you look at us all you see is some kind of vile monster!’ 

Mauria understood. She knew these words, and they weren’t Calli’s. Corrupt soul , vile monster —those were words Astarion used. There was a time when Astarion was as fearful as Mauria about losing himself to the fates that kept being ascribed to his condition. It seemed those fears had been conquered. 

‘He’s been the ascendant for nearly twenty years. What’s happening now is—’

Calli’s volume rose steadily and she cut across her mother. ‘You talk about it like it’s a curse. There’s nothing wrong with us, Mother. We’re stronger, faster, smarter, better than you, and you somehow see this as a fault that needs correcting.’ She stomped her foot in such a juvenile display of frustration, that under different circumstances Mauria would have laughed. ‘I’m sorry you feel inferior, and small, and stupid, but the only problem here is you !’

‘Calliope!’ Mauria said sharply, choosing anger to mask the sob that constricted her throat, ‘I don’t—’ But she was talking to an empty room now. Empty and silent but for the echo of the door Cal slammed behind her. 

Before Mauria even crossed back to her bed, she heard a quiet tapping at the door.

‘Cal—’ She rushed to open it, and took a quick step back to find Astarion there. The hopeful look slid from his face watching her recoil, and Mauria felt a sickly lurch in her stomach.

‘Star,’ she said, ‘you don’t need to knock at your own bedroom door.’ She tried for a light laugh, and had to settle for a weak smile. She reached for his hand, and after a short hesitation he gave it.

‘I was just coming to get some things,’ he explained. ‘I think it’s best if I move to the guest suite.’

‘What?’ Mauria shrieked, ‘No!’ She took both his hands and walked backward, pulling him to the blue velvet sofa that sat across the foot of their bed. ‘No, absolutely not.’ Her volume had lowered, but the panic was still there. ‘Please, Astarion.’

Astarion rubbed his hand over his face, before slapping them down to his thighs so suddenly that Mauria jumped. ‘You always do this.’

Her brows knit in confusion, her eyes darted over his expression for a clue. After Cal, she no longer trusted her ability to read faces today. She reached again for Astarion’s hands, and while he pulled them back, she persisted.

‘You trust me too much.’ Astarion was angry with her for not being angry with him? He shook his hands free and stood to leave.

‘And you always do this, don’t you?’ Mauria shouted after him, a sob cracking her voice. ‘You assume that at the first sign of trouble I won’t be bothered anymore?’ She heaved a cushion at him in impotent rage. ‘But when have I ever quit on you?’

‘You always give me far too much grace.’ Astarion said, ‘Darling, I don’t deserve it anymore.’

‘No running away, remember? It’s our rule. It’s always been our rule!’

Astarion looked at the harmless projectile lying at his feet. He picked it up and returned to the sofa. ‘That was your stupid rule.’ 

‘You agreed to it,’ Mauria muttered.

‘Yeah, well—I was trying to fuck you.’

Mauria laughed, the surprising sound bubbling from her frown. She put a hand to her mouth, to try and recover her serious expression. Astarion pressed his lips together, trying not to smile.

‘You have a terrible sense of self-preservation.’ Astarion looked at her with soft eyes, and wonder. ‘Have I ever told you that?’ 

The daylight was nearly gone, and Mauria tried to pick his expression out in the dim room. Gods, he was beautiful. Not his features, though of course that too, but when he looked at her with those eyes she might as well have been enthralled—there was nothing she wouldn’t do for him. ‘And you have a terrible habit of underestimating me,’ she teased. She lifted his hand to her face. She pressed his palm to her cheek, then turned her face to plant a kiss in it. This was the man she loved—her everything—and she was damned if she was going to give him up easily. ‘Have you ever seen me not get what I decide I want?’

He hummed assent, and though his mouth had started to form a smile, the tight set of his jaw betrayed his anxiety.

Moving slowly, giving him time to object, she climbed over his lap. She put her arms around his neck and her head against his shoulder. After a moment, his arms closed around her and he rested his chin on the top of her head. ‘I couldn’t stop it,’ he whispered, his voice thick. ‘I was watching it happen, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.’

‘It will be ok, love.’ Mauria kissed him softly, once, before putting her forehead to his. Already the wheels in her head were spinning, gears were in motion, plans were being made. This wasn’t fair, but Mauria had never worried about playing fair. That’s what she did—she found ways to cheat. She’d done it over and over. It’s what she was for. This time her target was simply bigger. She had to cheat fate. She had zero idea how. She felt ill.

‘I’m so sorry.’ 

‘We’ll figure this out, Star.’ Her fingers teased at the base of his neck, and she kissed his pulse point, feeling the dull thump against her lips. 

‘We can’t pretend this isn’t happening.’ Astarion said, already untucking Mauria’s blouse to run fingers over the skin at her waist. 

‘I know.’ Her fingers worked down the buttons of his shirt. ‘But maybe we can lie to ourselves a bit longer? Maybe just for tonight.’

Now

The party noise rose around them, but neither Ascendant nor his estranged partner paid any attention. Both were focused solely on each other.

Mauria searched his face, shamelessly lingering over each feature in turn. She noticed his stiffened posture, the way his mouth moved almost imperceptibly as he worked his tongue against a fang behind closed lips. She didn’t meet his eyes, but took in the fine lines at their edges. The favourite trait of hers, still just as appealing, made her smile faintly. Did she imagine it, or did Astarion’s eyes widen? Just as quickly, his face closed again—the transition back to cold detachment so imperceptible she wondered if she had imagined either. 

She knew that seeing Astarion, or rather Don Ancunín, after all this time would be difficult. She expected feeling angry, or anxious. She expected he would turn up with some sweet young thing on his arm, and she braced herself for jealousy. Instead of any of those what she felt was anticipation.

‘Why are you here?’ The complete hollowness of Astarion’s tone felt like cold water through her veins. Mauria corrected herself. She needed to be better than this. It was going to take a steel resolve and iron will to handle the Lord Ascendant in his own city. Mauria had no delusions that Astarion was going to welcome her back, but if she was honest she was hoping for some sign of pleasure at seeing her. She was pleased to see him.

‘I came to see you.’ she replied simply, ‘Isn’t that why you had poor Wyll throw this ridiculous party?’

Astarion glowered. When he told Wyll he needed an event that would draw out the Coast’s upper echelon it felt like a power move; he was essentially summoning Mauria to him, and she would appear because he wanted it so. Now, under the weight of her smirk, he felt like a child acting out for attention. 

‘Not why are you here tonight.’ Astarion forced the words though a clenched jaw. ‘Why are you in the Gate?’

Mauria tipped her head back and forth, considering. ‘I think we have some things left unsettled.’

‘You remember what I said would happen if you came back, don’t you?’ Astarion’s voice was quiet and low. His eyes scanned the guests, all pretending not to watch this reunion unfolding before them.

‘I’m not afraid of you, Astarion.’ Astarion wondered at the truth of that. Curiously, her pulse didn’t seem to indicate she was afraid, but he meant every word about ending her. If she wasn’t afraid, she was stupid.

‘Lord Ascendant,’ He corrected. He tsked at her, and shook his head sadly. ‘Darling, I really thought you smarter than this. You of all people should know exactly what I’m capable of.’

Mauria took a step towards him, and Astarion stood his ground. ‘Astarion, you of all people should know what I am.’  She stepped closer again, until she was so close he could feel the warmth coming off her body. Her voice dropped to a menacing hiss. ‘Have you ever, EVER , seen me not get what I decide I want?’

He didn’t answer, but set his jaw and glared at her. Around them, every guest—dozens of them—was silent, no longer pretending not to watch. Before he could respond, she stepped back.

‘Come see me tomorrow.’ Instantly, Mauria’s demeanor changed. She reached into her dress and produced a card of white cardstock, engraved on one side. She tucked it into his breast pocket, then patted it snugly. ‘We have a lot to discuss,’ she chirped.

The crowd seemed to remember themselves. They quickly resumed their chatter, and returned to their drinks, parting to allow Mauria through.

Astarion pulled the card from his pocket, seeing a lower city address marked in small, neat script. He flipped the card over, and a loud bark of a laugh escaped him. 

It was the mirror image of his. She had some nerve. Astarion bit his cheek against the unbidden smile. It wasn’t funny—it was disrespectful, and confrontational.

And the Vampire Ascendant, Lord and Don Astarion Ancunín, could not allow that to pass unchallenged.

So, she was back. Well, that changed everything. Didn’t it? Did it change anything at all? Astarion sat back in his desk chair, foot propped on the window ledge to tip him back. Outside the window, the city was asleep. A few dim lights glowed from the rows of narrow alleys, but at this hour, only bad intentions wandered among the buildings below.

It was foolish for her to have come back. He was stronger, faster, and more powerful than her even before she left him. And now? If he decided to he could…he could—

A disquiet came over him, and he shifted in his seat. He could do whatever he wanted to her. He pictured taking her as she was that evening—how easy it would have been to end her, right there and then. Astarion’s chest hitched with a silent chuckle. Poor Wyll. The Ascendant imagined Wyll standing over the scene—Mauria’s red dress spread around her, as she lay in a broken heap on the floor—knowing what was right, yet powerless to do the right thing.

Astarion was untouchable. He didn’t think he did want to watch the light go out of Mauria’s eyes in a room full of people—but he could . He could squeeze her throat until she went limp, and then insist everyone stay for the party. He could demand they continue to dance, stepping over the small corpse as they turned round the dancefloor, and no one would oppose him.

Astarion chuckled darkly to himself. As fun as it would be to horrify the good people of the Gate, the whole thing seemed a moment better suited for intimacy. He wanted Mauria alone.

Astarion squirmed again in his seat, now able to put a name to his restlessness. A slow smile spread over his lips, and he popped open the button on his trousers.

He would have her alone. She would even come willingly, following him obediently down a dark and unfamiliar corridor. The fact that she turned up to his event was already proof of her recklessness. One foot in the grave, so to speak.

Astarion dropped his head back against the chair and closed his eyes. 

She would try to lecture him, of course, and he would shut her mouth with a kiss. 

He took his cock in his hand, getting his grip just so. Testing with a couple tugs, then readjusting. Finally, sighing as he relaxed into a rhythm.

She would struggle against his grip on her hair, his bruising kiss, and his fangs would cut open her lip. He imagined the blood running freely from the wounds and Mauria whimpering pathetically to be released.

‘Fuck, Astarion!’ She’d rasp, fingertips testing her torn flesh and coming away bloodied. He would kiss her again, running his tongue over her skin, gathering every delicious drop of her strawberry essence into his mouth. 

His hand stilled at the thought. Strawberries. He hadn’t tasted strawberries in a quarter century. His cock jumped in his grasp at the memory, and Astarion took a few moments to indulge this detail, making his grip looser, and working a bead of precum over his sensitive tip.

Her pretty mouth, wet and red with her blood, would look so good wrapped around his cock, and she’d be eager to get on her knees for him after all this time. He imagined slipping open the clasp behind her neck, and just as he designed it to, the fabric that crossed her chest fell away, the skirt slipping down her hips. He would force her to her knees where she would wait, naked in the puddle of red silk. 

Astarion pursed his lips, and let out a slow breath. He would take his time. Slowing his hand to long, slow strokes, he would make this last. 

She’d try and seduce him, no doubt. He saw her looking up at him through her lashes as she ran her tongue over the blood on her lip, a gaze he would return with blank indifference, perhaps boredom, unbuttoning his trousers. Watching her squirm, and bounce those tiny tits of hers, trying to illicit his praise. But he would shake his head—he wasn’t there for her—she would do for him. Lips parted, tongue out, eyes closed, as she waited for him to use her.

Astarion’s other hand pressed between his legs as his fist pumped faster. He screwed his eyes tighter closed, trying to hold on to the vision.

She’d gag, of course, when he thrust into her face. Doubtless not having a cock that far down her throat in decades. Then—

Astarion paused again. Had she had cocks in her mouth, he wondered? Twenty-six years was a long time to abstain. He should know. Quickly deciding he didn’t wish to think about that, he changed his fantasy. 

He’d have her a different way. Bent over his knee, perhaps. She would kneel next to him, and when he pinched her inner thigh she would obediently widen her stance. He saw her eyes flitting to his mouth, as he cradled the back of her neck as though to kiss her. When he instead forced her across his lap, the thought of her surprised grunt she’d make shot excitement through him like lightning. Her hips would tilt to pop her firm little ass up to him, presenting like a bitch in heat. His hand on the back of her neck holding her down, she’d gasp and thrash, realizing she was pinned. He would smell her arousal and feel the heat of her core rise as she was unable to do anything but hang over his lap with her ass in the air, waiting for her punishment. 

Astarion fumbled his pants lower around his thighs, and groped at himself with both hands. Squeezing and stroking, panting and moaning at his own ministrations, he fought the competing image of how pathetic this all must look from the outside. 

He would trail light fingers along her spine until he reached her ass. He pictured his hand stilled on her lower back and her pulse ratcheting up, in anticipation. Her heart hammering in her chest, waiting for him to strike. 

He bit his lip, imagining her soft whimpering and shivers. 

When he rubbed his hand over her ass, Mauria would whine, impatient for her punishment. ‘Greedy little thing,’ he’d growl at her, and smooth a hand over her ass to her thighs, forcing them further apart. Mauria would be practically vibrating with sanguine need for it. When his hand finally struck her skin, she would yelp, sucking in her breath, waiting for the next. Instead, he’d trace two fingers over her seam and before she could gasp again, push them inside her. 

Astarion groaned, imagining how she’d buck, how hard he’d have to hold her down. ‘Fuck’ he gasped into the empty room. 

He saw Mauria pushing her needy little cunt back onto his fingers, and he withdrawing them and slapping her ass again, leaving a print behind in red stinging skin. 

He fucked into his fist, hips rolling to meet his hand on every downstroke, and imagined the noise he’d force from her. The debauched moans she’d make when he curled his fingers, and concentrated small circles over that one spot deep inside that had always unraveled her. 

Mauria would struggle as he alternated pleasure and pain, and Astarion could all but smell her arousal, and feel her slick gathering around his fingers. ‘Astarion, please,’ he imagined the sound, broken and desperate

That was was the thought to push him over the edge. Astarion snarled, and thrashed his head side to side. The Lord Ascendant pawed at himself furiously, desperately, nearly unable to satisfy the pleasure his body was begging for. 

For several moments he sat there, eyes still closed, regaining his breath. When he opened them he saw that he had spent all over his clothes. ‘Fuck,’ he barked, pissed off to see cum nearly up to the collar of his favourite shirt. He wiped his hands on his pants, abandoning care for his ruined clothes. 

‘Fuck!’ Astarion banging his head against the soft back of his chair. Then, more quietly, and for entirely different reasons, ‘Fuck.’

Chapter Text

Satisfied

26 years ago

‘Mauria?’ Karlach nudged her with her foot. The tiefling sat curled at the opposite end of the sofa cradling her own cup of tea in her large hands. Karlach waited several minutes after Mauria drifted away mid-sentence before prodding her back to the present.

She came home that afternoon to find Mauria sitting on her doorstep and had offered her a hand up off the step, and led her inside. Mauria sat down and curled into the corner of her sofa, and Karlach had very quietly put the kettle on, and closed the windows, muting the noise off the street. Now, in the half hour since Mauria came in, Karlach grew increasingly anxious. She was able to pull information out of her friend in bits. So far understanding that it was about Astarion, and that Mauria was seeing worrying changes in him, but Mauria continued to slip in and out of her thoughts, and hadn’t been back for some time.

‘I need an answer to my question, Mo. Is he hurting you?’

Mauria shook her head quickly. ‘No,’ she assured her friend. ‘No, he hasn’t—’

Karlach searched her friend’s face for the truth. ‘You think he might, though.’ 

‘I don’t know,’ Mauria admitted. ‘If you asked me a month ago, I would have said never , but—’ Mauria looked up at the ceiling, blinking fast. She would not let the tears out, they helped nothing. 

‘But?’ Karlach prompted. 

‘It’s like he’s suddenly— he’s suddenly everywhere—watching me.’ Mauria attempted to laugh it off. ‘It’s intense.’

‘Intense isn’t exactly new for Fangs. He’s always kept you within arm’s reach—like a comfort item. It’s part of what makes you guys cute.’ Karlach narrowed her eyes. ‘What aren’t you saying?’ 

Mauria slapped at the tears that refused to comply. ‘It’s not romantic anymore. Or sweet, or cute—it’s creepy. No matter where I am in the house, he’s just around the corner.’ A deep blush crept over her chest and neck, and she looked away from Karlach before continuing. ‘I woke up to him watching me. Just…standing over me, staring.’

Karlach didn’t comment, but her worry showed on her features. 

‘More than once.’ Mauria whispered.

‘-the fuck?’ Karlach exclaimed. ‘What was his excuse for that?’

Mauria huffed a humourless sound. ‘It’s for my protection, he says. He’s worried about me—he says I’m so fragile, so defenseless, so mortal—’ her voice hitched on the last word.

The front door opened, and Mauria startled, sloshing her tea onto her lap. Her eyes went wide, and her skin pale. A moment later Lae’zel came in, and seeing everyone frozen on her sofa, stopped in her tracks.

Karlach gave a small shake of her head to her housemate, and Lae’zel nodded her greeting, and left them.  

‘Kinda jumpy, Mo.’ Karlach said gently. ‘Why don’t you tell me everything?’

How could Mauria begin to explain this? 

She shook her head, trying to clear the fog. ‘He loves me. That hasn’t changed. It’s just—’ She chewed her lip while she thought. ‘He keeps bringing up my mortality.’

‘Your…mortality?’ Karlach looked confused. 

‘He wants to turn me,’ Mauria whispered.

‘Turn you?’ Karlach was still scowling. ‘Turn you where?’ 

Mauria wanted to cry again. Karlach didn’t understand because she was still back where Mauria had been three months ago. Back where Astarion was the picture of domestic devotion, full of passion for his life, warmth for his family, and goodhearted snark for his friends. The Astarion from springtime bore little resemblance to the one that now stalked the halls of their home. Even when he was himself—or rather his former self—he was distant. Troubled. She suggested to him that they make the most of those moments. That, it turned out, was exactly the wrong thing to say. 

He’d become furious. Suggesting that there was a version of him that she preferred angered the Ascendant, and implying there was one she feared, shamed Astarion. 

Karlach looked disbelieving, though Mauria knew her friend believed every word she was telling her.

‘So, you’re what? Just avoiding each other? That sound awful.’ Karlach took Mauria’s mug, and set it on the table. Mauria knew what was coming next, and preemptively sobbed before Karlach could even get both arms around her.

Mauria pressed her sleeve to her eyes. Gods, she had to stop crying. She thought she must have cried more in the last three months than in the previous three years. Tears always had come quickly to her, particularly for the people she cared about, and she’d never thought much of it—it wasn’t weakness, it was simply her release valve. Astarion’s recent words rang in her head. ‘This again?’ His tone was bored. ‘Honestly, you can be so exhausting.’ It was only a few words, but they articulated her situation as none had done before. Astarion no longer saw her pain, indeed no longer saw her with any compassion. It stung doubly because she couldn’t shake the idea that perhaps he never did. Every snide remark, every cutting criticism made her wonder; was the darkness causing him to feel these things, or merely removing some kind of barricade that had stifled these thoughts for years. She sniffed, wiped her nose on her shirt and took a bracing breath. 

‘Control, Mauria,’ she told herself in the mirror that morning. ‘You cannot fall apart every time he slams a door, or hurls a cruel word. You cannot let him break you.’

When Karlach finally released her, Mauria reached for her bag and withdrew a stack of envelopes. The opened envelopes and folded letters bore a variety of seals and symbols, on letterhead from universities, libraries, and monasteries 

‘I’ve started making inquiries,’ she said, handing the letters to Karlach.

Mauria picked nervously at her thumbnail while Karlach read through a couple. 

She flipped through a couple before pausing. ‘What the fuck is a Blood Hunter?’ Karlach asked, looking up.

Mauria didn’t meet her eyes. ‘Monster slayer,’ she said miserably. Adding quickly, ‘I am only looking for information. People who have more experience with vampires, I’m not—’

Karlach reached over and squeezed her hand, ‘Shhh, I know. I know.’

‘ The Order of the Paladins of the Firehair, sends its regretful reply that we cannot— ’ Karlach flipped the page over, still reading the letter. She carded through the rest, and blew out her cheeks. ‘You’ve been busy.’

‘I can’t fail him again, K.’

‘Ugh,’ Karlach groaned. ‘Best start crying, Mo, because here I come again.’

Mauria felt like a criminal walking into her own house around midnight. She eased the key in the lock, then took her boots off at the door, and crept on bare feet to her bedroom, hoping that Astarion chose the guest room as he’d begun doing more and more frequently. 

She made it to her bedroom and closed the door with not even the lightest click of the latch. A quick scan showed no vampires in her bed, and she let out a long breath, and began to ready for bed.

She emerged from washing up, naked down to her underpants when he spoke.

‘You’re up late.’ the smooth voice slid through the darkness and seemed to coil around her throat. 

Mauria’s heart stopped. Her body flooded with the icy sting of adrenaline, and sweat prickled over her whole body. ‘Bloody hells, Astarion!’ she gasped. ‘You scared the shit out of me!’ Mauria hadn’t precisely located him in the room yet, and her head swiveled, trying to find him in the dark. Elven eyesight was no match for a skilled rogue and vampire ascendant. Astarion might as well be smoke, if he so chose. 

‘It wasn’t my intention, my sweet.’ Astarion cooed. ‘I’ve just been lonely here without you.’

Mauria’s heart hammered beneath her ribs, and she was acutely aware of her nakedness when Astarion stepped out of the shadows. She stepped back, and in only a couple steps was backed into the wardrobe wit nowhere else to go. ‘Astarion,’ she whispered. ‘I thought you were sleeping in the guest suite.’ 

‘Lord Ascendant.’ he said

Mauria blinked stupidly. ‘I’m sorry, what?’

‘You may call me Lord Ascendant,’ he repeated. ‘And I think in my own home I will sleep where I fucking please.’  His voice was controlled, but tight—wound to a snapping point. He was already shirtless, and the moonlight through the window seemed to illuminate his porcelain skin. He hooked a finger into the leg of her underclothes, and pulled loose the ties of his trousers. 

‘My Lord, I don’t think—’ Mauria began and searched his face for a sign of Astarion, but he had abandoned her—left her alone with The Ascendant. She put a hand in the centre of his chest to gently hold him back, and he carefully took her by the wrist. He lifted her hand gently to his lips, and brushed her knuckles against his mouth before then flipping her hand over. He kissed her palm, eyes trained on hers. Then her wrist, watching her from under hooded lids. Then he slammed her hand over her head, pinning it against the intricate filigree of the wooden wardrobe.

Mauria gasped, but held her words. She would not cry. She squeezed her eyes shut, and bore the sharp sting of his fangs cutting her lip when he kissed her roughly. She would not cry. The lace of her underclothes left a friction burn over her hip and she heard the ripping of fabric. She would not cry. Astarion’s hand around her throat slowly cut off her breath, and finally she thumped a desperate fist against his chest signalling for release. 

‘Tell me you love me,’ he hissed.

Mauria put her free hand to his cheek. ‘Don’t do this, Astarion.’ Her stomach clenched at the fear she heard in her own plea. ‘Please, you don’t want to do this.’ 

Just as gently as the first, he took her hand, pinning this one next to her shoulder. 

‘Don’t I?’ he purred next to her ear. 

She searched his face. ‘I love you, Astarion.’ 

He chuckled darkly. ‘Do you?’ He pressed his hips against her, his fangs looking somehow longer and more wicked through this cruel smile. ‘Show me.’

Suddenly, she understood what prize he sought. He wanted proof of his power to hurt her. Fine. She could give him that. He wanted to see that he still had hold of her heart? He did, and there was little point in denying it.

He let go of her hands when the tears began to fall and Mauria slid down against the wardrobe, hugging her knees in tight. His gaze followed her to the floor. Witnessing, appreciating her with a twitch at the corner of his lips that might have been a smile.

His movements were silent as he carefully refastened his pants. Her sobs filled their bedroom, as he took his time redressing; slipping his shirt on, buttoning, then smoothing the garment with the calm of a man pleased at a job well done. 

He got what he came for, and was leaving as satisfied as if he had fucked her into the wall. 

With a final look back at his quarry, he left her, closing the door behind him.

Astarion opened his eyes to find the sun barely risen. Only just awake, already he was gripped by dread. The house was unnervingly quiet, only adding to his agitation as he washed and dressed and left the guest room. That he had no memory of going to bed in the guest room made his stomach roil with anxiety. Astarion waited quietly at their usual morning spot. He watched the ships in the harbour, glancing over his shoulder at every small noise, none of which was Mauria.

When it approached mid-day and he still hadn’t seen Mauria, he went to her room. Her door was off the latch and swung open when he knocked.

Her bed was unmade, sheets tangled and turned in a way that told Astarion that she had slept no better than he had. His sleep had been fitful, and now in daylight, he struggled to piece together the dream from the jarring and jagged fragments he struggled to hold in his mind. It was a terrible dream, but he was used to those.

A flutter caught his eye, and he found a slip of paper folded under a cosmetics bottle. For a terrifying moment, Astarion was certain it was going to be a note from Mauria indicating she’d left him. He winced as he unfolded it, and his breath rushed loudly from him with relief when he simply read. ‘Gone for a walk.’

He refolded it, and sat down on the edge of her bed. Here now in this room, more shards of the dream were coming back to him. Astarion picked up her pillow and hugged it to his chest, burying his nose in the down and inhaling deeply. It smelled of her—fresh, and green, and sweet. He would never get enough of this scent. The her-ness of it was grounding and comforting in a way he needed, particularly when he was feeling this way. He relied on her being his anchor, and it didn’t escape his notice that he wouldn’t need anchoring right now if she had simply been at breakfast as expected. But here she was, playing fucking games with him. Godsdamned missing in the middle of the day, like—

No. 

Astarion squeezed his eyes closed, and took a deep breath in through his nose, held it, then let it out in a whoosh, just as Mauria had taught him. He did this again, forcing his fingers to release their grip on the pillow. He did this again, forcing his eyes open, against the fragments of dreams that danced behind closed lids.
Dreams.

Astarion’s gaze drifted to the floor. At the base of the wardrobe lay a lace garment.
‘Just a dream,’ Astarion whispered into the empty room, hoping that this time he’d believe it. 

Calliope looked for Mauria mid-afternoon. Astarion had sent servants into their bedroom to make the bed, and clear up anything they found ‘disarranged’, so when Cal arrived she it as she expected; an unlocked door, an empty room, her mother’s notebooks and instruments stacked and leaning on any surface that was available. 

‘Mom?’ Cal made an irritated clicking noise when she was met with silence. She flopped forward onto her parent’s large bed, and rolled over to look out through the glass doors that led to the garden and into the wooded path beyond. Her dad told her that Mauria had gone walking before he disappeared into his office with a quiet ‘click’ of the lock behind him. 

Her parents were being such dicks right now. Whispering one moment, shouting the next. Doors locked, doors slammed—why they didn’t just talk to each other like they used to confused her. It alarmed her too, if she was being honest. In her 17 years, Cal never knew her parents to be anything but dependable. Reliable. Now she realized that describing her parents as  ‘boring’ and ‘lame’ to her friends while she rolled her eyes for full effect, was perhaps a bit harsh. She wanted her boring and lame family back.

Rolling onto her back, Calli stared at the ceiling. She always liked this bed best, and had often expressed the total unfairness that she did not have one equally as luxurious. Her bed was smaller, the sheets were scratchier, the pillows were lumpier, and the duvet was thinner. 

Her bed was indeed smaller, but as she had been reassured on many occasions, none of those other things were true at all. She shifted and lay on her back, stretching her legs up the wall at the head of the large bed. 

‘Calliope,’ the mellifluous voice, soft as it was, still startled her out of her thoughts. Her father stood in the doorway. Cal tipped her head all the way back, looking at him upside down in the doorway.

‘Father,’ she replied, also using his full name. Two could play at this game.

‘What are you doing?’ Astarion came into the room a couple steps. 

‘Waiting for mom to come back,’ Cal said. ‘Do you know when that will be?’ Cal twisted around as Astarion came further in to sit on the edge of the bed.

‘No,’ Astarion said. Calliope nodded, expecting him to elaborate. Expecting something like ‘but I’m sure she’ll be back before nightfall’, or ‘but if she’s not here by dinner, we’ll go find her.’  

She did not however expect him to say, ‘But it doesn’t really matter.’

Astarion’s red eyes considered his daughter. She was so like her mother. Spoiled. Soft. Naive. Mauria had insisted that they not ‘push’ vampirism on her when she was small, arguing that it would make it difficult to find her place among her peers. Astarion agreed. Why had he agreed? What he should have said was that Cal had no peers among the other children. 

So, she was guileless and weak just like Mauria wanted, but she was also young. There was plenty of time to correct his mistakes. Forever, in fact. 

‘Your mother isn’t like us, Calliope.’ Astarion spoke slowly, pinning her in his gaze. ‘She wasn’t made for this,’ he spread his arms, ‘She doesn’t understand us.’

‘I don’t understand either, dad,’ Cal sat up, and crisscrossed her legs in the middle of the mattress. 

Astarion pinched the bridge of his nose, then nodded slowly. ‘We’re better than her, Calliope.’ A thrill went up his spine. Seventeen years he was prevented from this—but no more. ‘We’re better than everyone, and it’s about time I showed you why.’ 

‘I—’ the girl just blinked at him stupidly. ‘I already know this, dad. The whole vampire thing.’

‘You haven’t yet begun to uncover your powers, my girl.’ Astarion sighed. ‘Your mother—’ he spat the word like it was a curse, ‘—your mother made me keep so much from you. She is afraid of you.’ Astarion stood, and held his daughter by the shoulders, imploring her to understand him. ‘She sees a monster when she looks at you—at us.’ 

‘Wha—?’ 

‘Maybe she comes back, and maybe she doesn’t. There was always going to be a day when she was done with us.’ Astarion’s expression hardened. ‘She had no intention of staying with us forever.’ His scowl resolved into a wide grin. ‘Calliope, my girl, I’m about to hand you the world.’ 

Astarion clapped his hands together, and tossed his head back with a laugh. 

Cal was left staring after him as he strode from the room. Her thoughts crashed against each other. Dizzying thoughts. Monster, better than her, hand you the world, no intention of staying . All his words swirled into an hazy blur. Surely her mother didn’t think she was a monster. 

Did she?

Powers. Her father said she had powers. Reaching one hand out, she did a little swoop, casting, commanding…something. She didn’t know what, but the idea excited her. Again, she flung her arm wide, imagining a wave of power arcing from it. She gasped when her hand made contact with a water pitcher that sat on the bedside table. 

‘Shit, shit, shit,’ she grumbled, and quickly walked on her knees to the edge of the bed to right it. The water ran across the table top, and made a soft pattering noise as it dribbled onto the rug. It pooled around the base of the lamp on the table, and ran into the drawer. Shit, the drawer!

Cal opened her mother’s nightstand, quickly pulling out books, and journals. She removed a velvet jewelry box, and another small box with a lavender ribbon. She rescued a deck of cards, a small money pouch, and a stack of letters, tied together with a string.

Grumbling, Calli blotted at the puddle with her mother’s pillow ineffectively for a moment or two before turning her attention to the artifacts layed out on the bed with her.
She had regularly snooped through her mother’s bedside table since she was  6 or 7, thinking of it as treasure hunting. There was always the most wonderful trinkets in there. When she got a little older she enjoyed trying on the little bits of jewelry and sometimes even her mother’s clothes. By her early teens, she’d developed an interest in the journals. While her father would talk to her about anything and everything, the same wasn’t true of her mom. The reserved nature of her mom made treasure hunting all the more exciting. Through these artifacts she learned bits and pieces and Cal felt like an archaeologist or historian trying to piece together a story from all these teasers. 

She had seen all these things before. All except the letters.

Cal tugged the string off the bundle and began to flip through. She ran her finger over the official seals and stamps of universities, libraries, religious organizations. Her pulse quickened as she read the words, and she began to flip frantically through the pages. 

While the Royal Archives of Candlekeep do maintain records on many threats—mundane and arcane—the specific nature of vampires, their lairs, movements, and methods, remains either too fragmented—

This couldn’t be right, and yet letter after letter told the same story.

Regretfully, the Order of the Silver Stake, cannot—

No, this wasn't...it couldn't be.

Madam,

Your recent inquiry regarding the nature, habits, and vulnerabilities of vampiric entities—  

Vulnerabilities? Cal bailed off the bed, bundle in hand. 

She needed to show these to her dad.

Chapter Text

Broken

26 Years Ago

The sound of breaking glass pulled Cal to her feet. For hours she’d lain in her bed, her body curled around Thurston, her stuffed snail. A once and only attempt at sewing by her Auntie Karlach when she was very small, he was colourful and soft—made of a rainbow of scraps, and only a little lopsided. The well loved friend watched Cal’s life from the comfort of her unfairly small bed for years now, and even at the age of seventeen, remained Cal’s number one secret keeper. 

Taking the letters to her father had been a mistake. One she recognized only seconds after slapping them into his hand. Astarion’s expression had gone from curiosity to disbelief. It passed through something she couldn’t name, and settled at rage. Quiet rage—the worst kind. His hand rested on his desk while he read, laid over his jewel adorned letter opener. The enormous one with the wicked twisted core and the twin blades that split around it. His eyes scanned left to right, page after page, while Cal watched with growing unease. She hadn’t noticed his hand close around the blade until he drove it’s point deep into the desktop. 

Cal hadn’t thought about what would happen next, because Cal hadn’t thought at all. But the calm expression that Astarion turned back toward her was far more unsettling than any fury would have been, and he seemed not to mind when she stammered over an excuse and fled his office.

Calli twirled the silky coil of ribbon that served as the snail’s antenna round and round her finger, while together they listened to the sounds of her life falling apart. It started as a soft staccato—tense whispering, words indistinguishable but tones unmistakable. Then a door slammed so hard it shook their whole cottage. A series of snaps—resolute steps on the hard floor—brought them both into the foyer, she guessed. The volume went up and she then clearly heard the words—most of them her father’s. She was just like the rest; taking whatever they wanted, using him up . Calli didn’t understand. The rest of who? Her father’s snarl was interrupted by the occasional burst of ‘Love!’ or ‘Star!’ as her mother tried to defend and calm against his accusations. 

She rushed toward the door, then stopped, her fingers trembling just over the highly polished brass of the lever. This was all her fault.

She winced when another loud crash rang out. More breaking glass, but something bigger this time. It hit the wall with a bang, then a muted crunch, the pieces falling to the plush rug.

She withdrew her hand, stomach turning with shame. Cal cowered, safe in her room while out there her mother faced the fallout of her misjudgement. It had been little more than a juvenile tantrum that carried Cal, letters in hand, running to Astarion’s office. 

Sitting on her parent’s bed, reading letter after letter of her mother’s correspondence with what amounted to the Sword Coast’s most impressive collection of monster hunters, Cal felt betrayed. Her dad implied that her mom thought she was a monster. That she thought them both monsters, but she didn’t believe that for a moment. That wasn’t why she was angry.  She wasn’t even feeling betrayal on behalf of her father, though perhaps she ought to be. Her spite was focused on one single question. Why hadn’t Mauria brought her concerns to Cal? Why did half the vampire experts in Faerûn know what was happening to her dad, and not her. 

A literal vampire. 

In the same fucking house. 

Why weren’t they solving this problem together? she wanted to scream at Mauria…although, what the problem was, Cal still wasn’t clear.

She wanted that more than anything to be her mother’s confidant. Astarion had always shown her that trust. He was genuinely interested in her ideas, sought her input on decisions, asked for her take on complicated problems. Mauria treated her like a child. She loved her and cared for her, certainly, but to Cal’s mind, seemed quite happy to let Astarion handle her while she just existed in the background.

Calliope gasped and reflexively put her hands to her face at the next crash, backing away from the door again. Whatever just smashed was a great deal bigger.

The moment Mauria turned from setting down her bag and saw Astarion seated by the window she tensed. When she left this morning the sun wasn’t up, and now it was nearly set over the bay. That kind of absence would not go unobserved, and the entire walk home she practiced the not-quite-lie that she would offer as an explanation. 

‘Astarion, hi.’ she smiled at him and came to sit on the padded bench that spanned the window. She sat knees to knees with him. She no longer automatically reached for him, and the air was charged with a dangerous energy that told her that was prudent. It was all she could do to force her expression to be soft and pleasant while her brain worked rapidly to identify and catalogue any ticks and tells that would tell her which Astarion she was talking to.

‘I forget sometimes,’ his voice faraway, as thought turning thoughts over in his mind, ‘how we came to be.’

‘Star?’ Mauria took in the room. Was Cal home ? she wondered.

‘I forget that deep down, at your core, you are a liar.’ He looked up at her, a considering look on his face. ‘And a manipulator. And a cheat.’ 

Mauria felt all the warmth rush from her body. This was it, she thought. It’s tonight. 

‘You were exactly who I needed, all that time ago.’ Mauria sat back from him, mentally measuring the distance to the door. ‘You didn’t even mind being used, because that’s all you know.’ Astarion followed her eyes to the door, and with a flick of his wrist it slammed closed, rattling the windows in their frames.

‘When I was securing my place in the city, you were ready with a false smile, and a practiced deception. You even had me believing it was for my benefit.’ He chuckled wryly. ‘You spin tales, you exploit, and you use,’  Astarion stood up abruptly. ‘You’re very, very good at it little bard. You had me fooled for twenty years!’ Astarion threw down his wine goblet, scattering glass shards at his feet as he roared at her. ‘Twenty fucking years!’

‘Astarion, I’ve never lied to you.’ Mauria stood too, backing away from him. ‘It’s always been you and me against them.’

Astarion took a stack of letters from his pocket, and the remaining colour drained from Mauria’s face.

‘Astarion,’ she put her hands up as she backed away from him. ‘I’m trying to help you.’

‘By searching Faerûn for a way to destroy me?’ 

‘No, by finding a way to stop what’s happening to you.’ Mauria pleaded. ‘You must see how you’ve changed!’

Astarion stopped advancing and smiled, proudly tugging down the hem of his vest. He puffed his chest, and looked to the fireplace, where an ornate mirror sat atop the mantle. ‘Oh, I’m aware, my sweet. But only for the better.’  He turned his cruel smile back to her. 

‘I am a far better man than that broken spawn you pitied,’ His fingers flexed at his side, the darkness crept from the corners to fill the room as the sun set. ‘—and yet you would keep me broken,’ he hissed. Mauria shook her head, still backing away from his slow advance. She opened her mouth to disagree, but when he held up his hand, Mauria found she was unable to make any sounds in her defence. ‘You try to keep me small, and manageable.’ She shook her head vehemently. ‘Because that’s what you do, isn’t it?’ His voice rose, a very slight vibrato in the tones below his voice. Similar to the smooth, sensual voice he used on her when he was feeling amorous, but not that at all. His voice resonated now with barely contained rage. 

‘That’s what you’ve always done. You rig the game to get your way.’ Mauria saw the flash in his eye, and felt her voice come back to her.

‘Astarion, no,’ she tried to stay calm, but her heart hammered so loudly, she could scarcely hear over it. ‘We love each other.’

Astarion laughed with such genuine mirth that her blood chilled. ‘Do you think so? Darling, for such a trickster you always made such an eager and willing mark.’ The Ascendant rolled his eyes, bored. 

Mauria’s expression hardened. ‘My Lord,’ her voice dripped with disdain, ‘Fuck you.’ 

Astarion gasped theatrically, and staggered back for effect. 

‘Do you really believe that I’ve spent 20 years of my life with you, for it all to be a lie?’ 

‘You are the master of the long con, my dear.’ Astarion tipped his head, considering. ‘For all your flaws, you have patience in abundance.’

Every argument Mauria put up, Astarion knocked down growing ever angrier, smashing and banging his way through the house.

‘I can’t live like this,’ she finally said weakly. If Astarion was no longer in charge of this man, if it was entirely the Ascendant now, then all her arguments were worthless. There was only one thing the Ascendant wanted from her. As if overhearing her thoughts, Astarion’s mood picked up, and his expression turned hungry. 

Astarion was upon her impossibly fast. Mauria grunted as her head struck the wall and the air was forced from her lungs. She gasped to refill them but Astarion’s fingers squeezed closed over her windpipe. He giggled, his voice brittle and giddy. ‘Oh, no no no. I don’t intend for you to live like this at all. I have a glorious new plan for you.’

Mauria’s eyes went wide, and her fists beat uselessly against his shoulders. Tears sprang from her eyes when his fangs cut cruelly into her throat.

‘Stop!’ came the scream from the top of the stairs. ‘Stop this! I didn’t mean…’

But of course she had. She wanted to hurt her mother, she wanted to bask in her father’s approval. She couldn’t live in the tension anymore. She had meant to tell. She meant for it to break something, she just hadn’t realized it would shatter everything.

Astarion froze, his fingers bruising Mauria’s throat. He loosened his grip, but he didn't let go. Mauria gasped in a lungful of air.

‘Go back upstairs,’ he growled. Mauria looked pleadingly at Cal, nodding as best as she could, pinned by the neck. Her hands continued to pull at Astarion’s wrist, but her eyes were locked with her daughter’s. ‘Go,’ she croaked. When Cal didn't move, Astarion closed the fist of his free hand. ‘Go back upstairs,’ he said again, and this time Calli complied. Her eyes wide and wet, and her chin trembling, she walked back against her will, and shut her door behind her.

Astarion watched her go, gazing up the staircase long after she was out of sight. That’s when Mauria did it.

‘I’m so sorry, my love,’ she whispered, ‘But I’m not ready to give up yet.’

Using her grip on his forearm for leverage, she drove her knee up between his legs and ran.

Karlach tapped quietly at the door, then eased it open. ‘Someone to see you,’ she said. Panic shot through Mauria. She was sure Karlach wouldn’t let Astarion in here, but at the same time, if the Ascendant wanted in, the Ascendant was coming in. All those vampire weaknesses—sunlight, running water, invitations —were a thing of the past, wiped from his identity at the moment the ritual completed. The panic must have shown on her face, because Karlach quickly put her hands out, like she was calming a scared beast. 

Karlach stepped back, letting Mauria’s guest into the room. Cal’s lips were a thin white line, her eyes were red and puffy, she twisted her sleeve in a tight, nervous grip. 

‘Oh my gods, Cal!’ Mauria crossed the room in seconds, pulling her daughter into a tight hug. The teenager buried her face into Mauria’s shoulder, her words completely muffled and indistinguishable. Mauria pulled her in tighter, and twisted side to side, swinging her child gently until at last Cal pulled her face up to meet her mother’s.

‘I’m so—’ she crumpled again before she could get the words out. Mauria shushed her and led her to sit at the edge of the bed. Karlach quietly closed the door, leaving them alone.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Cal tried again, but Mauria began to shake her head. 

‘No, doll. Don’t be.’

Her daughter, nearly her own size curled up close, and Mauria wondered if she meant to climb on her lap. The thought made her chest jump, though whether it was a laugh or a sob was unclear. 

‘It’s all my fault.’ Cal whispered. ‘I thought—I didn’t know.’

Mauria shushed her daughter softly. ‘That’s my fault. I tried to protect you from what was happening. I thought I could preserve…I don’t know—I thought I could pretend it wasn’t happening for you. But listen to me—’ she lifted her daughters face to her.  ‘This is not your fault. It was always going happen.’ 

Mauria scooted them back against the headboard, and pulled Cal, still weeping quietly, against her. Mauria kissed her head, and thought her chest might collapse with the pain of what came next.

When Calliope suddenly got a great deal heavier against her chest, Mauria realized that she’d fallen asleep. Trapped beneath a child she didn’t wish to wake, she fidgeted with her bracelet, twisting the stone that was secured amongst bands of braided silver and leather.

Karlach soon came back in the room. 

‘That’s so fucking—‘ seeing Cal asleep she immediately dropped to a whisper. ‘That’s so fucking cool.’ Karlach spun an identical bracelet around her wrist, and examined it.

‘Only once a day,’ Mauria reminded her. ‘Twenty-five words, and only if it’s absolutely necessary.’ Karlach nodded, pressing her lips together, her forehead twitching as she fought back emotions.

‘How long will you be gone?’ said Karlach. She eased herself down on the edge of the bed, and brushed a lock of silver hair off the girls face.

‘As long as it takes.’ Mauria craned her neck to look at the girl. ‘I know what a big ask this is—’ Mauria could hardly force out the whisper.

Karlach reached out and and took her friend’s hand. ‘We’ve been all through this, Mo. I know what we need to do, ok? She'll be ok. We’ll all be ok’

‘Use her,’ Mauria said. ‘She’s strong, she’s brave and she’s brilliant. She’ll need you, K, but give her time to grow up a little and she’ll be exactly who we need—who Astarion is going to need—on our side.’

Karlach looked worried, ‘Yeah, about him—‘

‘She’s perfectly safe with him, I’m sure of it. He loves her, and she loves him.’ Seeing Karlach’s still strained expression, Mauria gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. ‘But that’s exactly why she’ll want to help.’

‘And this? What happened tonight?’ A sad smile tugged at the corner of the bard’s mouth. ‘Well, if she didn’t already have it, tonight Calliope earned the Ascendant’s trust. His full and unquestioning trust.’

Chapter Text

Rivals

Now
Astarion held Mauria’s calling card between two fingers, and checked the address. The once crisp edges of the thick paper were softened and curled when he finally drew up to the front door. 

The address was little more than a literal hole in the wall. The pair of doors were heavy wood and carved with designs that Astarion thought were possibly druidic, though time and neglect had allowed the intricate woodcarver’s skill to go to pot. The wall plaster too, peeled and was stained and faded in a way that looked dilapidated, not antiqued.

That it did not scream excess or style, or even mild comfort was so on brand for her. He felt oddly reassured by that. Perhaps, he told himself, it was simply a matter of knowing your enemy.

He raised his hand to knock, and the door swung open before he made contact.

Astarion looked down at the elf at the door in surprise.

‘Hi, Dad!’ Calli chirped at him. She tucked her coat under one arm and slung her bag over the other, scurrying to leave.

She stood on her toes to kiss the startled Ascendant on the cheek, missing by a handsbreadth as she hurried past him into the street.

‘Mom is in the sunroom at the back,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘Go on through. She’s expecting you.’

Stepping into the house, the temperature dropped a dozen degrees—a welcome reprieve from the Baldurian summer heat. Closing the door behind him, the foyer darkened, further impressing on him the coolness of the space. The floors were lined with porcelain tiles, glazed in rich yellows and vibrant blues. These were chipped and worn in several locations, but unlike the exterior, this effect was that of history, not neglect.

The rooms grew steadily brighter as he wound his way through a series of tiny rooms. Pictures adorned almost every square inch of wall space. The dizzying clash of colours, styles, and subjects led him to believe these were the sum of her travels. She had, he knew, been an awful lot of places in the last two and a half decades. Apparently, now she liked art.

He followed his ears through to a smaller room he supposed this was the sunroom, though that might have been a misnomer. Although two full walls were made up of panes of glass, outside the windows the trees wept their branches over the glass and vines twined their way on the narrow iron frames between windows. Not much light came in, but the effect was still welcoming, albeit shady. The air smelled like green—that peaty, heady, slightly perfumed scent that hangs heavy in rooms with many plants and little ventilation. Not unpleasant, but distinct and pronounced. 

In the corner was an ornate chaise in royal blue velvet, and upon it was Mauria. The furniture looked out of place here—like fine crystal in a barroom. She looked right at home in a long full skirt, and a sleeveless white blouse that wrapped at her waist. Simple, came the thought. Pretty , intruded another. She wore no jewelry but the rings in her ears, and a single woven bracelet on her thin wrist—Plain, he thought. Classic , he pushed away. 

‘You came.’ Mauria stopped playing, and smiled as he came into the room.

‘You asked me to.’ Astarion spoke through gritted teeth. He didn’t know why he was here, and there was little that raised the Ascendant’s ire more quickly than feeling disadvantaged in business, arguments, and intimacy. Astarion felt uneasily that he wasn’t sure which this was.

She put down a guitar that he recognized as a gift he’d given her a long time ago after she'd lost her own guitar in a grift. A lifetime ago now. Her skirt rode up her leg when she unfolded herself from the chair, and he looked away.

He shouldn’t have come and was about to say so and leave, when she spoke again, ‘I did. I appreciate your time, Lord Ancunín.’ Astarion narrowed his eyes, and searched for disrespect amid her words, and was disappointed to find none.

She stretched her hands over her head, and Astarion again forced his eyes away from the sliver of skin that peeked out at her waist when her shirt rode up. She shook out her limbs another moment before turning to him. ‘I’m going to have some tea. I don’t suppose you want any, but—‘

He shook his head tightly before she could finish. ‘You don’t drink tea.’ He immediately regretted saying it.

A soft smile touched her lips, and her eyes flitted over his face, but she didn’t comment.

Astarion scoffed, ‘drink what you like,’ he mumbled. Drink what you like? Was that his best comeback? He followed her to the kitchen.

‘Let’s not drag this out, shall we? You’re back—’ he said coolly. ‘—and you think that you will simply begin operating in my city?’ Astarion pulled out a chair, and sat uninvited. ‘And The Bard , darling? Really? Did you think I wouldn’t know immediately it was you?’

Mauria shrugged. ‘I don’t think —I have been operating in your city for half a year now, and gone unnoticed. And as for my identity, I don’t know how I could have been more blatant, short of operating as Mauria Wyld, the Lord Ancunín’s estranged and disgraced ex-partner. ’ She looked up, a sad smile on her face. ‘But that didn’t fit on the stationary quite as well.’ 

Astarion had gone to no small effort to ruin her name in the weeks and months following her departure. He informed on her to former marks, he shared details indiscriminately about the less proud or professional moments of her life. He told flat out lies to her friends, which was largely how it came to be that he had both Karlach and Lae’zel in service to him now. It may have been 26 years, but anyone worth doing business with on the Sword Coast had a memory that exceeded that by a century or more. Astarion was surprised that she was able to make any inroads at all to the Baldur’s Gate underworld. 

He also found it disconcerting that she was not more wary of him. She filled the kettle and lit the stove, and he sat perfectly still, but for his eyes which followed as she moved about the room. A curious thought suddenly occurred to him. ‘You’re not operating a— legitimate —business, are you?’ he asked, one eyebrow raised. 

Mauria looked up at him sharply, eyes sparkling and wide with incredulity. ‘Astarion Ancunín, how dare you?!’ She laughed, and it sounded like sunshine. 

He took in the lines around her eyes, and the tears that pricked the corners as she hooted with genuine mirth at the suggestion. Something bubbled in his chest. An instinct to croon Good girl , at her. He arrested the reaction, instead hardening his expression. When Mauria stopped laughing it was to find Astarion glaring at her with hate and malice. 

It had the desired effect, and the smile dropped from her lips instantly. Instead of feeling triumphant, an ugly feeling squirmed beneath his skin. He wanted this conversation concluded quickly.

‘My business is none of your concern, Astarion.’ She turned her back to him, busying herself with the tea. ‘But we don’t have to be rivals.’

‘No?’ Astarion said, his voice airy with boredom he didn’t feel. Then whatever in the world could we be?

‘Nope.’ She poured the boiled water over the leaves and hopped up on the counter to wait for it. She sighed. ‘Astarion, if my intention here was truly to challenge you, I’d have done a better job. For starters, I wouldn’t have revealed myself.’

‘I learned of you through a—’ Astarion stopped short at the smirk on Mauria’s face. ‘You sent Gretta in to see me?’ he asked through gritted teeth, though he didn’t need her smirk to confirm that. The scent of her mint tea filling the room, and she calmly left space for him to continue. 

‘Please don’t mistake me. I am not concerned about your piddly little enterprise encroaching on mine with any significance, but I have a reputation to uphold. I can’t just let you waltz into town and set up your Huckster’s Bazaar on my doorstep.’

‘Astarion, I’m afraid you really must,’ Mauria looked sympathetic, though the corner of her mouth twitched even as she furrowed her brow in commiseration. ‘Your estranged spouse—the one you publicly smeared and defamed for years—moves in to your city and not only manages to set up her ‘ huckster’s bazaar’’ she made air quotes and grinned at him. ‘I like that name, by the way—But, not only set up, but snags some rather valuable property, as well as a couple choice contracts without your notice?’ She sucked her teeth and nodded before continuing. ‘It’s not a very good look, to be honest. If it’s your reputation that you’re concerned with, I don’t see an option other than to proceed as though I’m here with your blessing. You may go as far as to say that I’m here at your invitation—I’ll never tell.’ 

Astarion gritted his teeth, and felt an ache start in his temple as well. It was years since he had anything remotely resembling a challenger in the city. He’d grown complacent, not to mention bored. This meeting was pissing him off, but it also had his nerves on alert and his mind racing more than it had in years, maybe decades. 

Bare feet on tiles, she quietly reached him in only three steps. ‘Don’t scowl, love—you’ll crease’ Her hand drifted up, and stopped halfway. Muscles remembering first how she would press a thumb to the tense wrinkle in his brow, and then remembering that she no longer took that liberty. ‘I thought you might even be happy to see me.’ She quirked an inquisitive look down at him, her voice so low and quiet it took his superior senses to hear it. ‘Two decades of nothing but ass-kissers, and flaccid threats? You must be positively ravenous.’

Starving. His mouth watered with a sudden craving. A void opened inside him, and all he wanted was to fill it with her blood. Violent visions of red; coating his tongue, his hands, her throat, filled his mind. Don’t you dare.

He reached up and snatched her by the wrist.  

‘This is not a fucking game, Mauria!’ His eyes glowed red with barely suppressed rage. ‘I thought it was clear you were not to come back here.’ 

‘Yes, I remember.’ She dropped the smirk, but what replaced it was unreadable. ‘You broadcast that quite publicly.

‘Did you think I was bluffing?’

‘I thought you were hurting.’

Hurt . Astarion paused a moment, stunned by her raw honesty. Fortunately, the moment passed quickly and he laughed. It started as a giggle, and grew until he threw his head back and laughed long and loud. The more he thought about it, the harder he laughed.

‘Please find your own way out, Lord Ancunín.’ Mauria pulled her arm free, and dumped her untouched tea in the sink before turning her back on him, and starting down the narrow hallway. She reached a door, and paused, her hand resting on the knob. ‘Oh, and Astarion?’ she didn’t turn around, ‘You should know by now—it’s always a game.’

He wanted to chase her down. To crash into her and take her to the floor with such speed and power that she was forced to accede to who he was. He wanted to hold her down, hear her heart beat fast in anticipation, feel her flesh yield beneath his fingers until she begged him so prettily for release. Please.

Instead, as he left the kitchen he knocked over her guitar, leaving nothing but a cloud of dissonant sound in his wake.

Nearly 30 years, and it felt like no time at all had passed. He felt no less frustration, no less anger, no less betrayal, and no less obsession than he did the night he almost killed her.

Astarion stomped through the narrow streets, destined for home. Everyone he encountered backed quickly out of his way, sensing danger coming off him in waves. He noticed none of this.

Why was she doing this, and why now of all times? He growled and shoved it from his mind. 

It didn’t matter. She didn’t matter , and he would prove as much by simply ignoring her. He didn’t need her. Shortly after she left he brought the city to it’s knees. Rivals had come and every one of them were crushed to dust like they were nothing. Astarion now headed the largest blackmarket importing and distribution ring on the Sword Coast. He owned the council representatives in not just Baldur’s Gate but in 4 of the other 6 major cities making up the Council, some of the towns’ and villages’, too. There were few political or economic decisions made on the Coast that weren’t done with his interests either observed or consulted. His fortune was obscene. He had all the power he could possibly want. he had everything he wanted. Almost. He again pushed it from his thoughts, focusing on counting his steps as he ascended to the Upper City. And none of it excited him as the past few days had. He didn’t know what Mauria wanted, and that was a concern, but it didn’t mean that he shouldn’t enjoy a little cat and mouse when it so eagerly dropped itself at his doorstep. So she collected art, so she drank tea, deep down Mauria was the same manipulative charlatan she always was, and Astarion knew all her tricks. She was a worthy adversary, but as long as he didn’t lose focus— as long as he didn’t fall for her— crushing her to dust might be just the recreation he was missing. But right now he needed her out of his head.

She just looked so godsdamned pretty.

Chapter Text

The First Thirteen

1512-1526 (DR)
(or, the first 13 years of Mauria's absence)

[What. The. Actual. Fuck?]

[You've seen the paper, I assume? Before you freak out, he says it wasn't him. Well, actually. What he said was 'I didn't kill her']

[Graduation was today. Cal looked very happy. I think she has a beau. You'd like him. Astarion does not.]

Mauria was startled by the words flowing into her mind. She was used to receiving Karlach's messages, but she'd lost track of time. After reading the letter she did something she usually didn't permit. She felt sorry for herself. Ten years! When Mauria left she never imagined she'd be gone ten years, and now here was her baby graduated and about to start her life—

Perhaps sensing from the delay that something was unusual (as Karlach always seemed able to do) she added.

[You're doing the right thing, Mo.]

Mauria refolded the letter. ‘Well, shit,’ she muttered under her breath. The wind wailed wickedly against the side of her tent, Mauria fumbled with frozen fingers to spoon stale coffee grounds into the carafe. She would write a letter to Gale, apologizing for every derisive thing she ever said about his coffee. Right after she drank whatever this shit was.

A year or two ago that reply would have made her murderous. Now, Mauria was becoming numb to the crushing disappointment of dead-ends. She had begun with rapier-sharp focus, unassuageable certainty that the answer was out there, she had but to find it. For the last year or more she felt like she was going through the motions. 

Rumour, Hope, Study

Strategy, Obstacle

Misery, Misery, Misery, Defeat

Repeat

She found herself repeating these to a beat. A cheerful little tune, actually. ‘ As long as the last stage is Repeat , hmm Mo? ’ she sighed to herself. She noticed that she didn’t cry. Was this the first failure that hadn’t reduced her to tears? Not even a show of tears for the sake of appearances? Mauria was more saddened by the lack of tears than the dead-end itself.

Snuggling deeper into her cloak, she ran her thumb over the polished stone in her bracelet.

[Nothing new. Araj Oblodra is a heinous bitch. This coffee sucks. Moving on tomorrow. Love you. Love Cal. Miss you. Miss Cal]

The response came almost immediately

[No shit, Oblodra’s a cow! Love you too. Sailing to Luskan. Cal’s coming. Arrive mid-Eleint.]

Mauria’s face split with a grin. Luskan? Tears formed in her eyes and she laughed to wipe them away. Mauria hurried to open her pack, pulling a thick bundle of maps from it.

It was entirely the wrong direction, but it was six months since she’d seen her best friend and her daughter. That was the longest stretch yet, and she was not going to pass on an opportunity to see her baby girl. Baby, Mauria smirked. Cal was 30 years old now. A sharp ache rolled through her chest. She missed so much.
She wasn’t there when Cal chose her path of study.
She wasn’t there when Cal studied, struggled, and ultimately graduated with honours.
She wasn’t there when Cal needed someone to stand in her corner against Astarion. She learned that very soon after graduation, the Ascendant negated everything Cal might have planned for herself and insisted Cal take a place in his organization.
Astarion now had both Karlach and Calliope busy in his service, and while the idea turned her stomach with regret, there was one benefit. Since taking on some of her father’s business dealings, Cal was far more mobile and able to get away for long stretches of time without having to justify her absences with elaborate cover stories. One of them lying to Astarion was more than enough, and she was glad at least to not have Cal be making excuses to travel for tendays on end. Now, who she saw on those trips was none of her father’s fucking business.  

She traced out the route. If she left in the morning she should have just enough time to stop at Waterdeep for a resupply on the way.
And better coffee.

Chapter Text

A Big Deal

Now

Her scent hit the back of his tongue and flared his nostrils. Astarion took another large gulp of the coffee on his desk and grimaced. It had grown cold while he was struggling to concentrate on the documents before him. The sweet-tart sting of strawberry was undiluted by the bitter coffee. Astarion snapped the ledger closed in front of him, too distracted to continue working under these conditions.

‘Might as well come in!’ He bellowed up to the ceiling, ‘I know you’re here.’

Astarion waited, drumming a set of manicured nails on his desktop and huffing at regular intervals. He remained alone in his office.

Shoving hard against his desk, Astarion rolled back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head

‘Mauria!’ He barked sharply, ‘in my office!’ Suddenly aware of how petulant he sounded he managed to add ‘please,’ though what he wanted to add was Now!

He took a breath. It would not do to appear riled in any way. But he was the godsdamned Vampire Ascendant and Lord of this fucking palace, and he would not have his ex creeping through his house— He stalked to the door and wrenched it open. The hallway was silent and deserted.

Following his nose, Astarion strode confidently through the gleaming marble halls of his home, descending a half-flight of stairs and aiming to cross the small atrium that separated the majority of his business spaces from his home. He stopped short, spying the open door to Calliope’s office across the open, garden space.

Inside his daughter was engaged in animated conversation with her mother.

She wasn’t here to see him. Good. He didn’t wish to see her, either, he told himself.

He watched them a moment, conversation bouncing back and forth between them faster than he ever enjoyed keeping up with. They leaned in to each other, smiling as they chatted. These were not two women recently reunited, Astarion realized uneasily. The Ascendant backed quietly out of the sunroom, and wondered exactly what to make of that.

‘Lord Ancunin,’ Mauria’s voice emerged from the shadows a moment before she did. ‘I thought we had an arrangement.’ Astarion's shoulders tensed, before he even turned to see Mauria coming slowly down the wooden stairs that led to the harbour. A maze of alcove and nooks, it was the perfect place for a clandestine meeting. Secluded, defensible, and equally easy to either slip away if you were a talented and agile rogue, or be cornered and trapped if you were not.

Mauria made almost no sound as she came toward the two men, finally hopping off the last step with a cheerful little bounce. Astarion glared when he saw her, but said nothing. Instead of her usual modest attire, she was dressed all in black, hooded, and gloved. A good amount of skin showed from between the leather and metal features of her outfit. She looked just as one would expect from every copper novel version of the sexpot cat burglar. Mauria dropped her hood when she reached them—her eyes lined in dark smoky shades that made her grey-greens glow like moonstones in contrast. Astarion tipped his hips very slightly, and his Adam’s apple bobbed with the effort of swallowing. Almost never painted, tonight her rosebud lips quirked a blood red half-smile at him that tried its best to say ‘Just hold on a damn second before you lose your cool. You’re going to like what I’m about to do here, and as long as you don’t cock it up, this is going to pay well for both of us. You got me?’ Which admittedly was a lot to ask from a single look, but in their shared past, they’d said more with less.

She stood between the two men, smiling broadly, as though they were all good friends rather than three criminal masterminds. Well, two criminal masterminds, and the buyer. By the jittery way the man kept looking over his shoulder, Mauria didn’t think he was much of a going concern. She looked at Astarion again, flicking her eyes quickly at his buyer and trying to communicate, ‘Really? This asshole? Darling, your standards really have dropped while I’ve been away.’ She bit her cheek against the smile that was forming. If Astarion didn’t rip her throat out, this would be fun. If.

‘Do I know you?’ the buyer asked. He was a large, dull looking man. Mauria thought he looked more like a publican than a fence, all dull eyed and ruddy cheeked. He dressed neatly enough. Clean enough, and groomed, if lacking entirely in style and fashion. A prison guard, Mauria decided. That’s what he looks like.

She tugged at the cuffs of her gloves, only giving the man half her attention. ‘Oh, I certainly hope not, Saer, or I’ve done rather poorly at my job.’ At his confused expression she offered her hand. ‘I simply represent an interested party. I hope you’ll forgive me for not giving my name—’ He shook her hand warily, expectantly, as though he thought she’d complete that sentence with an explanation. She did not. Mauria took her hand back and clapped loudly, startling the buyer.

‘Well, I’m here now, so let’s begin shall we?’

‘Begin?’

‘Well, yes…’ Mauria let the smile fall from her face. ‘Lord Ancunín, I understood that my employer was to be given the right of first refusal on all goods at this level of quality.’ Astarion opened his mouth, but Mauria kept going. 'Surely you’re going to allow me at least the opportunity to bid on the merchandise, given the, shall we say highly marketable nature of it'

‘Lord Ancunín,’ the buyer cleared his throat, his voice commanding, but tinged with the slight whine of someone watching opportunity slip away. ‘The time for negotiations has passed. Our deal is settled—we’re here for the exchange. Only the exchange.’

Mauria batted her eyes innocently. ‘From where I’m standing, Saer, he still has the goods,’ she tipped her head toward Astarion, ‘and you still have the gold,’ she tipped her head toward the buyer. ‘Or have I got this wrong?’

‘I’m not here to get into a bidding war. I was promised a price, and I’m not going above that.’ The buyer looked at Astarion for confirmation, but the Ascendant’s expression remained cool and neutral. ‘The deal was set, My Lord!’, the whine getting more pronounced.

‘Ooh,’ Mauria crooned. ‘A bargain for me then.’ She shimmied with girlish delight. Mauria eyed the small chest hungrily. ‘May I take a look?’ Astarion inclined his head, and the buyer groaned, quietly.

Mauria licked her lips, and held Astarion’s eye as she easily worked the fine mechanism locking the chest. She eased the lid open, only taking the barest glance at the contents, before closing it again, maintaining a possessive hand on the lid.

‘What’s the offer?’ she asked, looking between the men.

‘It’s not an offer, it’s a deal, and it’s set at 75,000 gold!’

Astarion remained silent, though Mauria caught a wicked twitch of his cheek. He was thinking the same thing she was. This guy was a fucking rube!

‘I’ll give you another twenty percent.’

The buyer sputtered. ‘Unbelievable!’ Both Astarion and Mauria shushed him. He quieted, but when the anger couldn’t escape in words, it instead turned his face an unpleasant maroon colour. ‘This is completely unacceptable,’ he hissed. ‘If this is how you conduct business, I will—’

Mauria sucked air sharply through her teeth then quickly covered it with a quiet cough, and glanced away.

Astarion merely shifted his weight, and tipped his head. Two very mild and innocuous reactions, but it seemed to remind the buyer where he was and to whom he was speaking.

Mauria’s heart raced. She loved this. She missed this - she and Star up to some glorious fuckery. He was giving her no indication of his thoughts on her intrusion. He didn’t even look angry anymore, just…closed off. Mauria consciously tightened the mask that she knew would too easily slip if she got in her head.

When Astarion spoke for the first time it was to her. ‘I understood my relationship with your employer to be severed.’ Astarion didn’t quite look at her. ‘Your renewed interest is a little too late.’

‘Saer,’ a long beat passed before she continued, ‘Be assured, our interest in you has been unwavering—as ardent as it ever was…We have wanted to approach you for some time now, but it seemed ill advised.'

Astarion narrowed his eyes and raised his chin, suspicious. 'Then, why now?'

Mauria thought she detected a twitch in his face—a movement that looked very much like he was playing against a fang behind his closed lips. Anticipation. She dug a fingernail into the side of her thumb, refocusing her mind. 'I regret that it’s taken this long to come back to you, but we didn't wish to return empty-handed. We appreciate that there may be reparations in order.’

The buyer cleared his throat loudly, seeking to return the Ascendant’s attention to this exchange.

Astarion waved a bored hand in his direction. ‘If you don’t wish to do business, Rostol, it seems I have someone who does. Off you go, then.’

The buyer huffed once. Twice. Then, understanding no one was going to stop him, stomped up the staircase back into the mainstreet.

Mauria and Astarion stood shoulder to shoulder watching him go, unmoved by the theatrics. She clasped her hands behind her, and rocked back on her heels, looking entirely unconcerned with that turn of events.

‘You’ve overestimated yourself, it seems.’ Astarion spoke to Mauria as he watched his buyer walk away. ‘You will of course be covering my loss. Twenty percent over his offer, was it? Plus perhaps a fee for—what did you call it?—reparations.’

Mauria hummed. ‘Just wait,’ she said, her eyes still in the place where the buyer had disappeared into the dark.

‘Lord Ancunín, I can offer you twenty-five,’ he hustled back down the short staircase, ‘but that is all. There will be no next offer.’

‘Thirty,’ Mauria said lazily, and the buyer made a high pitched noise of distress. Astarion pursed his lips, his eyes tracking between them.

Astarion tipped his head, and lifted his shoulders. ‘It’s as they say, Rostol. Just business.’ Astarion turned his back on the buyer’s incredulous stare to fully face Mauria.

‘Forty-five,’ the words ripped from his throat. Astarion looked at Mauria, eyes wide. Mauria looked at Astarion, her lips parted in astonishment. The buyer didn’t see their shocked looks. His eyes were clenched shut, the deal having turned traumatic for him.

When he opened them again, he saw only detached expressions. Mauria looked disappointed. ‘Forty-five percent then.’ Astarion nodded. He addressed the woman smirking behind him. ‘Unless you’d like to—‘

The buyer whimpered and Astarion smirked. ‘Fine. Are you prepared to pay me now?’

‘Come to my office,’ the buyer said. ‘It’s only the next street over.’ He dragged his feet as though on his way to execution and ascended the stairs once again. Astarion closed the chest and tucked it under one arm. Before he followed his buyer he turned again to Mauria.

‘You’re playing a dangerous game, little bard,’ Astarion warned, his volume and pitch a low rumble. ‘You might have been left holding the bag, so to speak.’

‘Doubtful,’ Mauria grinned broadly at the vampire. ‘In fact, he had a little over one-thousand gold left to his upper limit.’

Astarion scoffed, ‘And what makes you think so?’

‘Because, what he’s about to pay you, he borrowed from me.’ Mauria winked. 'Courtesy of the Huckster's Bazaar.'

She stepped back and skipped up the stairs.

‘Goodnight, My Lord.’

Instead of going home, Astarion detoured to his shop. Following the events of the last hour he hoped a little time with his current project would be soothing.

He counted his footfalls on the stones as he went, attempting to distract himself from a host of -unwelcome thoughts-. It wasn't a bad mood he was soothing, but a feeling of lightness that had set upon him since her return. -The most fun he'd had in years- He wanted to be furious with Mauria, outraged at her audacity and arrogance. -Clever little thing-

Once a thief, always a thief, he mused. Though apparently she was now in the money-lending business. It could be a lucrative alliance, if only she had approached him with it like a peer. -Together, they were a force- Instead, she was playing games with him—and not just with him, but she threatened his reputation and enterprise as well.

And when she came down the stairs, prowling like a cat in those black leathers, looking like a parody of crime—how ridiculous! -So fucking sexy-

Still grumbling, he pulled an order slip from the cabinet and began setting the dressmaker's dummy with the measurements he had been given. Short, he noted. Small waist, narrow hips. He dialed in the numbers. Not much of a bust to speak of either. He smirked. Some tailors struggled to fit this frame. These weren’t the voluptuous curves that filled out the common fashions, all cut for hips and tits. This body was compact and fine. And he was more than practiced at sewing for this shape.

He draped the requested fabric - a dusky plum and copper brocade over the mannequin, and sat on the low stool to make some tucks and pleats. He pinned the folds in place over the bodice and ran his hand over the the intricately woven patterns, imagining the tiny tits that would fill out this dress.

More than a mouthful is a waste, she’d told him once. He lay alongside her that afternoon, cataloguing and commenting on every part of her body. She giggled and sighed as he stroked, and kneaded, and rubbed his way from toes to tip. She’d squealed when he gracelessly flipped her over to fawn and smooth his palms over over her ass, kissing both dimples at the small of her back before flipping her back just as roughly.

He’d cupped what little she had in his palm, lazily dragging over her pert nipple, and watching as it sprung back to attention as he passed. ‘More than a mouthful, hmm?’ He’d teased. ‘I’m not sure you have even a full mouthful here, darling.’ He traced a finger under each breast, watching how the skin tightened in response. He pinched gently, holding her gaze and tugging at the pink bud until she made the soft noise he was looking for.

‘I assure you, it’s a mouthful, but if you don’t believe me…’

‘Patience, darling.’ Astarion clucked his tongue, ‘I’ll give you what you want—just let me play a moment.’ She shrugged, but shifted her hips, pressing her thighs together. She always flushed all the way down her chest when she blushed, and Astarion loved it. ‘No point in being coy, little bard,’ he crooned, ‘You wear your excitement all over your skin.’

He’d taken his time, relishing the way she arched her back to him, seeking more friction from his touch, a fingernail scraping featherlight over her nipples—one at a time. He could recall the fit of his hand against the small of her back, coaxing her closer. When he finally dipped his head, she’d sighed in relief. Just for that he’d made her wait that much longer, letting his hair brush her skin, and tracing with his nose from the dip in her throat, to her navel. She’d called him a filthy name at that point, and he’d laughed, and relented. He mouthed at her breasts, deliberately clumsy and sloppy, making her squirm and laugh and pull gently on his hair. She’d moaned so sweetly when he drew flesh into his mouth, circling and flicking her nipple with his tongue. She’d responded to him as she always did—perfectly. Writhing and sighing, and flushed with pleasure, until finally in her husky whisper, she offered him a bite. Begged him for—

The sound of the bell over the door startled Astarion out of his memory.

He jumped to his feet, and in only three strides was in the front shop, on full alert.

He stopped short, seeing Lae’zel looking equally startled.

‘I saw the lamps on as I was leaving,’ she explained. ‘I thought it best to investigate.’

Astarion nodded sharply. ‘Fine.’

After a moment's thought he added, ‘Lae'zel, Find someone to watch Mauria. I want to know how and with whom she spends her time.’

Lae’zel nodded, and turned to leave. 'And take this down to the vault before you go.' Astarion crossed the room, bag of Rostol's money in his outstretched hand. The lieutenant nodded sharply, and her eyes flicked down, then immediately widened before she snatched the sack and hurried from the shop.

Astarion looked down, where his trousers were tented and straining.

‘Fuck.’

Chapter Text

Candlekeep

7 Years Ago
'Back again,' Gale clasped his hands behind him, and turned around to appreciate the surroundings, as he continued to walk alongside Mauria. 'I haven't been here since you and I spent six rides here in the Year of the Shattered Mirror.'

'Tawny Feline,' Mauria said quietly. 'Shattered Mirror was when—' She huffed what was meant to sound laugh-like. 'Quite prophetic, wasn't it, that my life should go to pieces?'

Gale gave her a tight sympathetic smile. 'Has it been seventeen years already?'
Mauria shook her head, scowling at Gale's pitying look before steering the subject out of that mood-sink. 'Does it look any different to you?'
'No, but one can hardly expect a fortress, nearly two thousand years standing to show much change over less than a generation.' Gale lectured. Mauria just smiled, glad to know that Gale hadn't changed in the five or so years since she'd seen him.
As they approached the main gate on foot, the spires of the fortress rose straight up ahead of them, seeming to pierce the clouds. It was hard not to be humbled at the foot of this monument to architecture and academia, but Gale was doing his best. He visibly preened when the young soldier at the gate ushered them inside, not even needing to check Gale against the register before granting them admission.
‘Thanks for coming with me,’ Mauria knocked into her friend playfully as they strolled through the orderly streets of the city. ‘This is definitely not my element. Books, ideas, higher knowledge.’ She wrinkled her nose in distaste.

‘I think perhaps you sell yourself short, but I’m always up for a trip to the library,’ Gale said warmly, 'And when it comes to libraries, you're hard pressed to find a greater one than Candlekeep.'

Mauria hummed her agreement.
‘But you know, we did scour this place pretty thoroughly the last time we were here,’ Gale asked, and Mauria nodded, feigning nonchalance. ‘Has something changed?’
Mauria stopped in her tracks and blew out her cheeks. It was silly to continue to be evasive. Gale had put his life on hold to help her make this trip, and it was far from the first time. The least she could do was be forthcoming.
She pulled a folded paper from her pocket, and handed it to him.
Gale examined her expression as he unfolded it, then dropped his eyes to read.

‘The Necromancy of Thay,’ Gale said slowly, ‘That’s what we’re here for?’
Mauria flushed, not sure how to explain. She prepared for Gale's disapproval—or worse, a lecture.
This was why she had petitioned for her own entry to the library for nearly a year. The third rejection was accompanied by a polite but firmly worded request to please stop writing to them.

It was only once she’d reached this dead-end that she turned to Gale for help. She would endure the lecture, the warning, the cautionary tales—it was the relatively small price she would pay for the open doors his position favoured him with.

‘It’s a great idea,’ Gale reasoned, and Mauria must have shown her surprise, for Gale grinned, knowingly. ‘It’s the only known text that addresses the ritual, or parts of it anyhow. Why didn’t we look through it before, I wonder?’

‘It wasn’t here last time,’ Mauria said, gesturing to the paper. ‘According to that register, the library only recently acquired it.

At the entrance to the library proper, they were greeted by a sage. Long white whiskers seemed to flee from his chin at all angles, and his hazy blue eyes peered at them from under folds of aged skin. In long crimson robes bearing the crest of the city over his heart, this man was the epitome of the scholar. He greeted Gale formally, by a string of honourifics that Mauria was ashamed to say she never bothered to commit to memory. She stood aside as Gale withdrew the paper from him sleeve and spoke quietly to the librarian for a long moment. Once finished, the librarian gave a nod that bordered on deep enough to be called a bow, and took his leave. Mauria smiled at the pride radiating from the wizard as he rejoined her.
'It seems you're famous, here.' she teased. '

‘No point in being the most storied mage in Faerûn if you’re not going to enjoy the benefits, I say.’

Mauria stood on her toes to kiss her friend on the cheek. ‘Really, Gale—thank you for getting me back in here.’ Gale smiled and watched her scurry up the main staircase, clearly a destination in mind.
'I'll take our belongings to the inn shall I, and find you later?' But Mauria was already up the stairs.

It was midnight when Gale finally came to retrieve her. She noticed him in her peripheral vision, and didn’t so much see, as felt him scowling.
'I forgot about the ominous dread that one experiences simply by being near that vile tome.' Pulling up a chair across from her, he rested his folded hands on the table top and regarded her seriously. 'I should have stayed with you.'

'I'm fine.' Mauria stretched, and rubbed her eyes. 'The whispering has been minimal.'

‘And?’ Gale prompted, ‘Any luck?’

Mauria growled, and flipped the cover of the book closed. ‘Not yet. Half the godsdamned thing is written in infernal. Translating it is taking ages.’

Gale nodded, spinning the book toward himself and reopening it. His eyes scanned over a few pages. He looked as though he was trying hard to not let his eyes take in any of the words. ‘Yes, well—’ he sighed, ‘that’s Infernal for you. It’s a surprisingly specific language. Perfect for writing contracts.’ Gale yawned and stretched his arms back. ‘Leaves little room for interpretation in the wording.’

Gale rose slowly, groaning and creaking at every joint as he did so. He came around to Mauria’s side of the table. ‘I assume you aren’t done yet?’ he said with a tired smile. She shook her head.

Gale kissed the top of her head. ‘Ok, I’ll find you tomorrow. The inn has your room key at the desk if you decide to do anything foolish like sleep. Don’t stay here all night.’

Mauria nodded numbly, and spun the book back around facing herself. She pressed the heels of her hands into her tired eyes. Think, Mauria, she told herself. There’s an answer, you can find it.

She stared at the jagged Infernal script on the pages before her. It all started to swim together, and she blinked hard to focus. ‘Godsdamned Infernal contracts and their godsdamned need for language—’ she growled under her breath, then froze.

For a long moment Mauria didn’t move. Her eyes were fixed on nothing in the middle distance while her brain whirred a mile a minute. She stood so abruptly that her chair clattered back over the marble floor, leading a couple gnomes at the next table to scowl at her, and one ancient elven docent to shush her.

She tapped a fist urgently on her chin as she scanned the palatial library for a direction, finally taking off between two rows of reference manuals. She bounced on her toes as she scanned the spines. Tomes with boring titles such as Adminstrative Practices in Land Litigation, Dwarven Discrimination Act: Advocacy and Precedent and Annals of Erinyes - A directory. 1190(DR) to Present lined these shelves. At last she found what she was looking for, and she began pulling books from the shelf.

Hurrying back to her table, she dropped the heavy texts on the table, earning more glares from the uptight library users. With a thrill of excitement she hadn’t felt in years she flipped open and scanned to the the table of contents of a book titled Devil's Advocate: A Guide to Infernal Contracts. Minutes later, doing the same with a heavier volume title Corpus Juris Infernis.

She focused as she’d never focused before, alternating between the book of arcane necromancy, the legal references and the Infernal to Common dictionary. Hours passed, and her eyes burned and teared in the low light of the abandoned hall.

Her blinks had become longer, and her spine started to sag, and she was about to call it a night when something snagged on her attention. Mauria traced a finger along the words, reading them slowly, one at a time. When she got to the end, she read them again, ensuring she appreciated every comma, every dash, quotation, and parentheses. She didn't want to misunderstand. But after the fourth, or maybe the fifth pass, she exhaled slowly, and allowed the hope to wash through her. She understood perfectly. She slapped her hands excitedly on the desktop, and burst into giggles.

‘Holy shit,’ she whispered. Mauria looked around, excited to share her victory, only to find the reference room now quite empty. The clock reading 5:15am. A strangled sob mixed with a laugh, much louder now. ‘That's it.’
'I've got it, Star. I've fucking got it! '

Gale passed a large mug of sweet and creamy coffee across the table to her, putting a hand over hers to stop her fingers drumming on the tabletop. Mauria had been nothing but nerves since Gale collected her at half-eight from the library, still bent over the table he’d left her at. The head-archivist had summoned him that morning when he discovered Mauria still snoring loudly, as the patrons trickled in.
She'd babbled as he ushered her, bleary and disoriented, into the garden café of the inn at the end of the road.
'You look—' Gale searched for the word he wanted to use, and settled instead on '—tired.'

'I think I have it, Gale.' Mauria whispered. The wizard leaned in, and put a consoling hand over hers. 'No,' she shook him off, angrily. 'Actually have it. I know how to help Astarion.'
Gale sighed.
It wasn't that he was unsympathetic—not in the least, but in the past, what had she said—17 years?—in the past seventeen years Gale had been privy to some dangerous, doubtful, and frankly desperate plans that Mauria concocted in the hopes of finding this elusive Answer. He'd accompanied her more than once on what could only be described as expeditions. Perhaps Quest would be a more accurate description. The long tendays of travel, the cryptic maps and trials, and the artifacts of crumbling antiquity were all certainly common between the two. The distinction lay in the mythical nature of what she pursued. It was entirely possible that Mauria was out hunting for what simply didn't exist.

'Please, Gale.' Tears pooled in her eyes, and she slapped them away with the back of her hand. 'Just listen.'
So he did. Gale listened carefully while Mauria walked him through her idea. It had merit, and his attention sharpened. Together, they reviewed her notes. Mauria walked him through her research, with Gale stopping to ask a question now and then. She had answers for most of them, and reasonable guesses for the rest. At last, Mauria folded her hands on the table, her bouncing knee causing their untouched coffees to slosh over the rim of the mugs. Her brow furrowed, and she chewed at the inside of her cheek. Gale put a calming hand over hers—he needed another moment to think.
'You have something here—' Gale didn't get a chance to finish before Mauria was out of her seat, flying at him with arms extended. He let out a soft 'oomph' as she crashed into him, and he hugged her back awkwardly from his seat at their table.
'—but,' he held up a hand, and felt suddenly cold. He didn't wish to ruin her moment. Gale couldn't recall any of her prior investigations causing her anywhere near this degree of hopefulness, but there was a key component that he felt Mauria had failed to appreciate or consider.
Slowly, she sunk back into her chair. 'But what?' Mauria asked, still breathless with elation.

'Your premise is sound. You have significant documentation supporting precedent, and a strong argument against the most obvious objections.' Gale ran a hand over his stubble. Mauria practically vibrated with anticipation.
'Fucking hells! But what, Gale?' she exclaimed, quietening upon registering the turning heads in the café.
'But, how in Toril do you plan to get and audience with Mephistopheles?'

Mauria froze, her mouth open to respond. She screwed up her face into a look of comical bewilderment. She made a faint hum that was universally understood as a flippant i dunno, and shrugged.
'Cazador got one. How hard can it be?'

Chapter Text

A Choice

Now

'Report!' Astarion barked the word moments before he spied his daughter in his reflection. Astarion primped with his outfit, but abandoned knotting his tie on seeing Calliope. 'Cal—I was expecting Lae'zel.' 

'It's a wonder she continues to work for you, if that's how you ask for things,' Cal said, chuckling at her father's temper. 

'A wonder any of you do, hmm?' Astarion offered a smile that didn't even approach his eyes. Cal said nothing. It did no good when her father was in a mood.

As if on cue, a sharp rap at the door preceded Lae'zel, paper in hand, arriving to give her report. 

'The room is set—the guests are due to arrive—' 

Astarion's smile was brittle. 'Now, now, you know that's not the report I'm looking for.' He leaned forward and snatched the paper from Lae'zel. 'Sit,' he gestured to a chair next to Calliope. 

Calliope looked anxiously at Lae'zel. 'I'll just let you—' Cal began, and started to stand.

'You'll stay too.' Astarion's eyes flicked up momentarily, meeting Cal's. 'Sit down.' Astarion's voice was calm and even, but Calliope felt her skin prickle.
Astarion skimmed the report, an occasional low rumble escaping him.

'Dammon?' Astarion looked up from his report. 'The tiefling cooper?'

'Blacksmith,' Lae'zel corrected. 'Yes.'

Astarion stared expectantly. After a long beat Astarion made an impatient gesture implying that his lieutenant should elaborate. 'Fucking hells, Lae'zel, we've discussed this.'

Lae'zel made an impatient Tchk . 'It's in the report, Astarion.' 

Astarion returned to the report, too anxious for the contents to argue with an insubordinate githyanki. His jaw unclenched-slightly-as he read Lae'zel's succinct and emotionless report on Mauria's visitors, engagements, and movements over the past tenday. Lunch with Dammon was eventless. They sat in an outdoor space, and apart from ' six instances of genial mirth ' and an ' attitude of platonic familiarity ' there was little of concern between Mauria and a man who in another reality might have been a lover. 

Scanning down further, Astarion scowled. 'A bank?'

Lae'zel nodded. Astarion growled, and the warrior-turned-mafia-heavy rolled her eyes again, but relented, elaborating in order to save her employer the arduous experience of reading another half page with his own two eyes.

'—Of sorts, yes. She seems to be in the business of lending. A kind of villain's bank.' Lae'zel sat down across from Astarion—uninvited, but not exactly unwelcome. 'She is consulting on, and funding thievery.' 

A soft knock preceded Karlach's head peeping around Astarion's office door. He waved her in, and she took a seat against the wall, patiently waiting for him to be done with Lae'zel.

'She seems to be doing well at it, too. She charges oppressive rates of interest on her loans and takes a disproportionate cut of the hauls.'

'Yes,' Astarion huffed dryly. 'She never had trouble bending a situation to her advantage.'

'That fills perhaps half her time.' Lae'zel eyed Karlach listening from the corner before continuing. 'The rest is unremarkable.'

'Nothing else? You’re certain?' Astarion eyed her over the edge of the paper. Lae'zel shook her head no. 'What about my daughter?' Astarion regarded her with a cold glare.

'Excuse me?' Calliope said. 'Me?'

'Were you planning on reporting on how Mauria spends time regularly, and amicably with Calliope?' Astarion asked. He put down the report to stare at the the gith seated before him. He spun a pencil between his fingers with a nonchalance that did not extend to the muscle in his jaw.

Lae'zel opened her mouth to speak.

'That's not exactly a secret, Boss' Karlach said coolly. 'They've been catching up.'

'Shut. Up.' Astarion glared at Karlach, each word its own stabbing thrust.

'I asked her not to,' Calliope interrupted. 'I—I wanted to speak to you, first.' She had expected to have this conversation soon, though perhaps not via blindside. Behind her, she felt Karlach rise to stand behind her.

Astarion glared at Lae'zel. 'Dad?' Calliope said gingerly, 'This is a conversation for you and me. Just you and me.'

The room held it's breath, waiting for the Ascendant's next move. 'Get out.' Astarion hissed. Calliope nodded at them both, reaching up to gently squeeze the hand that Karlach laid protectively on her shoulder. 

The door had barely clicked closed when Astarion rounded on his daughter. 'How long?' he demanded.

Cal couldn’t see compounding her situation. 'Since she left.'

Astarion didn't react. Not a single muscle moved in his expression. 'Say that again.'

'I never stopped being in contact with Mom.' Cal stepped closer, approaching him carefully, like an animal that could bolt as easily as bite. 'Please let me explain.'

'Explain?' Danger flashed in Astarion's eyes. 'Explain how you lied to me, plotted against me, and betrayed my trust for twenty-six years? You have an explanation for that?'

Calliope nodded; a soft, slow motion that spoke of understanding. 'I do, Dad. Sit down, please.'

Astarion's gaze never left his daughter's face, as he reached for the back of his chair, and lowered himself into it. Calliope thought he looked shell shocked more than furious, which worried her. Anger, she could manage, but she'd never seen her father look like this before. Hurt, she realized. He was hurt, which made him far more unpredictable than anger ever could.

'We're trying to help you—both Mom and me.' Astarion scoffed at her words. 'She left to find a way to help you, Dad. You know that—you had her tracked through half of Faerûn for years. You knew who she was seeing, and what she was doing.'
Astarion set his jaw, unwilling to be forced into truths. 

'I stayed to look out for you.' She gave him a soft smile. 'To keep what was left of you from disappearing completely. To hold on to what remained of my dad.'

'By lying to me.' Astarion said flatly.

Calliope scrubbed her hands over her face, an affectation that reminded Astarion of her mother. Mauria did that. She did that to be strong when all she wanted to do was fall apart.

'The only lies are the ones whispering to you from the dark, Dad.' Calliope pleaded. 'Everyone else is trying to bring you back.'

'Everyone else? Exactly how many people do you have making a fool of me?'

'Dad, no one is doing that. Auntie Karlach, Lae'zel, Uncle Gale…they all believe you're still in there, and worth saving, too.'

'And if I don't want to be saved?' Astarion challenged.

Calliope rose to her feet with a profound sigh. 'Then, you tell that to Mom—to her face, in no uncertain terms. You tell her clearly Stop trying to save me —because she's given everything for decades to get you back, to get us back, and she's not going to quit on you.'

Calliope closed the door behind her with a soft click .

'Damn her,' Astarion snarled to the emptiness of his office. 'Godsdamn her!' he roared, though who the her was was murky. 

All of them. Calliope for betraying him. Karlach and Lae'zel for deceiving him. Mauria for—

Who did Mauria think she was dealing with, anyhow? She wanted to save him? To bring him back, like he was some kind of lost lamb? He was the godsdamned Vampire Ascendant, a position that by it's very definition set him above everyone else. 

Returning to the mirror, Astarion stared hard for several minutes, and his temper began to cool. 'Are you still in there, you little shit?' he mumbled to his reflection. 

Astarion didn't know how long he stared into the looking glass, only that he was startled by the knock, accompanied by the mooney face of a servant in the doorway.

'My Lord, your guests are arriving.' 

Fuck , Astarion thought. He had to go out there? Now?
'Fine.' Astarion growled. The servant didn't leave. He trembled slightly from his spot in the doorway.

'Something else?' Astarion snarled. Like he needed anything else right now.

The servant looked like he'd rather eat his own thumb than answer that question, and Astarion felt a sense of dread roll down his spine.

'There's a woman here, Saer. She's not on the guest list, but says you know her?—'

Of course she was here. Of fucking course.

Astarion stood at the second floor balcony, looking down over his foyer. Guests were arriving steadily in singles and pairs. Most he knew, some he didn't, one or two he even liked.

He spotted Mauria below. She moved through the crowd, greeting guests as if she was the host. Squealed expressions of excitement and air kisses dropped flirtatiously close to cheeks left his guests stunned. Wondering why they couldn't place this tiny elf, who so clearly recognized them. 

A glint of metal caught Astarion's eye, and his grip tightened around the railing. She wouldn't dare , he tried to tell himself. And yet, once noticed, he could see every action clearly.

It only took a word or two for her warm smile and bright eyes to act like a spotlight. Her mark—for that's what she was making of his guests—were drawn in like moths. With their attention trapped in her spotlight, her practiced fingers worked in the dark, lifting items from her targets with fluid elegance. Astarion watched Mauria approach Lord Linnacker, enthusiastically gesturing at the opulence of the ballroom. She pulled his attention to the room, to her face, back to the room—she practically led him by the nose. Moments later, Mauria politely took her leave of him, and they parted. Linnacker, with a satisfied sense of having flirted with a pretty elf, and Mauria with the man's emerald cufflinks in her purse.

Mauria turned round, only to find herself face to face with Astarion. Face to chest, more precisely. A chest beneath a fine brocade coat in a dusky plum and copper that complimented her own dress so much that she wondered if it was intentional. Unlikely, she reasoned, she wasn't meant to be here. She certainly hadn't been invited, and expected that Astarion's presence in front of her now was the antecedent of her being tossed, perhaps bodily, from his event. These thoughts all occurred in the split second Mauria had before colliding with him.
'Astar—' She quickly remembered herself. 'Lord Ancunín! Hello.' She curtseyed prettily, and dropped her eyes.

She yelped when strong fingers wrapped around her upper arm, and closed too tightly. 'Come with me,' Astarion hissed at her. Mauria's choices were to comply or to make a scene. She was satisfied to see uncertainty in Astarion’s visage, not knowing which she'd choose. 

'Nice dress,' Astarion said dryly, as he frog marched her down a long corridor, but not, Mauria noticed, out the front door. 

'Do you like it?' she asked. 'I had it made special for tonight.' She smoothed a hand over her hip. While It was modest; full sleeved, and covering to her throat, it was also slit high above her hip on both sides, making Mauria hyper aware of every step she took, lest she gave a room full of party-goers a peek at her lady garden.

Mauria shook Astarion’s hand off her arm, as he closed the tall doors behind them. She rubbed at her arm, and wondered hopefully if it would bruise.

‘What in the hells do you think you’re doing?’ Astarion hissed. His eyes blazed scarlet and the tips of his ears the same colour. 

Mauria didn’t answer right away. She did a slow examination of the unfamiliar room. It had been heartbreaking to learn that Astarion moved out of their cottage that overlooked the harbour. He had done so a year—nearly to the day—of her leaving. The news came just as Mauria was finally able to spend an entire day without the crippling grief that reduced her to a sobbing puddle. As much as she tried to reason with herself that this was inevitable, the extra hurt had set her back several months. 

This room was a lounge of some kind. With high ceilings, the double doors through which he had just dragged her, as well as the three banks of windows on the opposite wall were easily 10 feet tall. The lamps were lit on the walls, casting gold sprays of light up navy wall panels. Mauria continued to wander slowly in, taking in the details. The decor was clearly of Astarion’s design. He was never one to shy away from filling his world with beautiful things, and this room was indeed full of beautiful things. She trailed her fingertips along the polished edge of a bar cart centered under a large, framed painting of— Mauria looked twice. It was a painting of their cottage, or rather the view from it, out over the balcony of their home. The scene was springtime, based on the blooms and buds on the trees, and the sun sparkled on the water in the bay. On the porch-swing an amorphous figure, presumably Mauria, played a guitar, while a smaller faceless figure was twirling, arms out and face to the sky. Astonished, she turned toward Astarion, a question on her lips—this was not a painting she’d ever seen—but he was busy examining the ceiling, and looking as though he were made of stone. 

Mauria swallowed hard, and kept touring. In the centre of the room a billiard table sat atop an ornate hand knotted rug in greens and golds. Finally, on the last wall, a rack of cue sticks hung next to a large leather sofa, flanked with marble plinths. Mauria dipped a fingertip into the pool of melted wax at the base of the candles that sat lit atop them. This tour brought her back to Astarion, glaring at her once again.

‘Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?’ Mauria asked, glancing at the bar cart.

‘No.’

‘Oof,’ she huffed, more amused than insulted. ‘You're not much of a host.’ Mauria examined the bottles atop the bar cart, removing stoppers and sniffing contents.

'You're not my guest,' came the terse answer from behind her.

She turned back moments later with two generous measures of liquid in slightly different shades of amber. She held one out to Astarion, swirling it in her palm, the glass’ stem between her first and middle fingers. 

Astarion gave her a disbelieving glare. When Mauria didn’t seem moved by his annoyance, he huffed and reluctantly took the glass from her. His eyes widened at the sensation of her fingers on the inside of his wrist as she passed him the glass. 

Before he could react, she turned away to look out the windows, though there was little to see in the inky darkness beyond. 

‘Still filling your pockets with other people's property, I see,’ Astarion said. His voice dripped with disdain.

Mauria smiled sadly, and considered her answer. ‘It's not nearly as fun, anymore.’ Setting her half empty glass on the tabletop, she took a cue from the rack. ‘Fancy playing a game?’ 

‘As if you do anything else,’ Astarion grumbled, but still he took the cue from her, and racked the table.

What in the hells was he doing? Astarion asked himself. He should have walked this woman out the front door, ideally by the scruff of the neck, the moment he saw her in his foyer. It’s just one game of billiards , he told himself. Wipe the floor with her, and throw her out.

Astarion set the table for 9-ball. ‘Ladies first,’ Astarion said. He deliberately looked about the room, examining the wall panels as Mauria leaned over the table. She sunk two off the break.

When she came around for her next shot. Astarion backed out of her way. ‘You have a beautiful home,’ she said, eyes flicking up to him, ‘I lived in the gate for fifty years, and had no idea what was in this building.’ She pulled back her cue, waiting for a response. 

Astarion was momentarily wrongfooted. They were going to make smalltalk? With all the things they had to discuss, or snipe about, or fight about, she wanted to chat? ‘Thank you,’ he replied. It sounded vaguely like a question, and he blinked at the sharp sound of her sinking another ball.

She came around toward him again, and he caught the berry-sweet scent of her skin. Astarion caught his gaze lingering on her backside as she lined up her shot. She had to rearrange her skirt up a little to make the angle of her shot, and it slid enough to reveal a peek of bum cheek and the soft crease below. The Ascendant was irritated to find bits of himself reacting to the sight.

‘Dammit,’ Mauria said, shaking Astarion out of his leering. ‘Your turn.’ She plucked the cue ball from the pocket and met him at the foot of the table. Astarion wondered as she approached if she would try to touch him again when she handed him the ball. 

He was disappointed when she set it on the table in front of him. 

‘Why are you here?’ Astarion asked, eyes on his shot. He could sense Mauria watching him again, and tried to ignore it. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her looking—how could she not? He had spent an extra effort in front of the mirror in preparation for this evening, though he couldn’t have said at the time why he did—he couldn't have known she’d crash his party. He took his shot, the cueball glancing off the edge of his target and stuttering lamely across the table. Behind him, Mauria giggled, sending a jolt straight to his pelvis.

‘I remember you being better at this game,’ Mauria teased. She took two shots, each sinking a ball, before scratching on the third. She slunk toward him, stopping within inches. He raised an eyebrow at her boldness. ‘Let me help you with that,’ she cooed, and grasped his cue with one hand, letting her grip twist gently while with the other, she teased the chalk block over the tip of the cue. Bloody hells, this fucking woman, he thought, and resisted the urge to swallow hard.

He waited for her to back away before taking his spot, in no small part because the tailored nature of his trousers left no room to hide his feelings about this little dance. She was bold—he’d say that much for her. Turning up uninvited, robbing his guests in full sight of him. Showing up looking so godsdamned good, too. Astarion’s gaze traced the lines the light cast up her thighs, and over the dip of her hip. She reached for her drink, and he shifted his eyes to the soft lines of her collarbone, then her throat, as she tipped the glass back—

‘Astarion?’ He blinked. ‘It’s your turn.’

He took another shot, staying low over the table while he watched his shot roll wide again. He growled quietly, then froze.

‘Try again?’ she said quietly. While he was taking a shot, she’d slid in behind him. 

Time slowed as a warm hand rested on his waist, followed by the weight of her bent over his back. Astarion felt like he was watching from above himself as her other hand covered his fingers, still curled around the cue. 

With the combined speed of a vampire ascendant and a startled rogue, Astarion dropped the cue and spun to face her. A blazing heat flashed in his eyes, and his lips drew back with the beginnings of a snarl.

Mauria was familiar with that look, having seen it more than enough in their time together. His eyes flashed like that in the moment he decided to give himself to her, way back in their tiny corner of camp, and it was there when he held Cazador’s staff over his head and recited those profane words. And again as the Elderbrain fell and their free will rushed back in as the tadpole’s influence rushed out. It was there the night he asked her to leave the Crimson Palace with him for something better, and the first time he held his daughter. It was the same bright, searing light that flashed as he held her by the throat on the staircase, moments from killing her. In and of itself, it was not lust, or power, or triumph, or hope, or joy, or anger although it was a familiar accessory to all of those. It was fear. Astarion’s arch-nemesis and his constant companion. 

Mauria held his gaze, wide eyed. Her lips parted in a quiet gasp. Before she could speak he put his hands on her cheeks and kissed her.

Mauria grasped Astarion’s triceps for balance as he backed her toward the wall. His cool fingers combed through her hair, his hand cradling her head against the bump into the wall.

Astarion moaned softly against her lips, causing a surge of want to race through her. She held him, pulling at his waist, wanting to feel his weight crushing her into the wall. When her hands slipped around him, he rewarded her with a small hip thrust, rubbing himself against her belly. 

‘Astarion,’ she whispered, not yet sure if her next word was ‘no’ or ‘yes’, but she didn’t object when he scooped her up and set her on the edge of the pool table. He leaned her back, one hand planted on the dark green felt of the table, the other splayed between her shoulder blades. Mauria opened another two buttons to slip her hand into Astarion's shirt. At the feel of him beneath her fingers she nearly sobbed with relief. 

His breath came in gulps and shudders. ‘Gods, woman—‘ he groaned, when Mauria kissed a trail from his chest to his throat. 

A flurry of limbs later he lay over her on top of the billiards table. He looked at her for a moment, and Mauria examined him right back. How many nights had she lain awake, distressed because she couldn’t recall the shape of Astarion’s lips, the colour of his eyes, the curve of his shoulder? Twenty-six long years she fought not to lose what small part of him remained with her. She devoured ever detail of him, refilling her memory as though this were the last glimpse she would get.

Astarion felt alight with energy. Everywhere she touched burned with a prickle of excitement. She tasted of cherry brandy, which made him smile. She had given him almond brandy, and while separately they both tasted very good, together they were so much more than the sum of their parts. Were it anyone else, he would assume it was a happy accident, but Astarion was not so naive. Mauria, more than anyone he’d ever met, knew how to prime the conditions to achieve a result. The little minx had prepared for this kiss. 

‘What?’ Mauria noticed him smiling, and stopped kissing to check in with him. ‘Are you ok?’

Are you ok? What a question! He was better than ok. He was lighter than he’d felt in decades. He felt like his veins ran with pure light. 

‘Shh,’ he said. ‘Less talking, more kissing.’ he teased.

Mauria closed her eyes, a smile on her face, but tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, kissing her neck and ear to allow her to answer him. 

‘You just—’ Mauria started then halted. 

‘I just, what?’ Astarion asked again, one hand lifting her leg to wrap it over his hips, hitching her body closer still.

‘You just feel like my old Star,’ she whispered.

Astarion reclaimed her mouth. He was hers, and she was—Wait. Her old Star? What was wrong with this Astarion? 

Suddenly he remembered exactly what she didn’t like about him now. Everything.

He dropped her leg and recoiled from her like she were red hot.

‘Astarion?’ Mauria blinked, confused, and reaching for the body that a moment ago was in her arms.

'There is no old Star , Mauria. There's no your anything. It's just me—I'm who I've always been, and who you decided wasn't good enough.' 

Mauria shook her head frantically, as Astarion backed away. 'Thinking I was anyone else was your mistake. A lie you told yourself.'
'No!'
The word ripped from her like it was connected to flesh. She advanced on him. 'No, we had a life, Astarion. A godsdamned family. Do not act like I imagined it.'

Astarion surveyed her coldly. 'Perhaps it was a lie we both told. A part I played? I wonder if I was ever capable of being who you thought I was.'

'That's pure shit, Astarion!' Mauria gasped, incredulous. 'You slept sitting against the wall next to the cot for the first month of Cal's life. You wouldn't take your eyes off her, and wouldn't leave her sight. The awe on your face was not an act.'
Astarion opened his mouth, but Mauria was not finished.
'I remember the day you brought me to our cottage. The day you bought it without telling me? It was a shithole, but you practically ran from room to room, dragging me behind and telling me your plans. Telling me everything we'd have and where. I was a hundred months pregnant and felt like a walrus, but you made me dance with you out on the balcony. Do you remember? Do you remember what you said? What you asked me?'

Astarion's face hardened. He remembered perfectly. He'd stood on that weed-strangled balcony, outside a falling down cottage, and held on to Mauria like she might evapourate. As they turned and swayed in the glow of the sunset he’s whispered to her about his hopes, his fears, and she’d attempted to kiss them all away—at the end of it all he'd pressed his forehead to hers, squeezing his eyes against the tears that threatened to undo him, and whispered to her. 'Please. Don't let me fuck this up.'

Mauria watched the memory sweep over his face, twisting it from wonder, to sadness, to anger, to regret.

'You let her braid your hair, Astarion.' she whispered. 'It wasn't a lie.'

And suddenly he could feel Cal's chubby fingers tugging at his curls. She chatted a mile a minute, excited to share her whole tiny world with him, while he handed her ribbon after ribbon to tie into knots. He remembered sitting between Mauria's thighs in the bath that night, tracing all the lines of her legs, while she sang and rubbed oil into his hair, carefully teasing out every knot.

'Nostalgia, darling? How cute.'

'You weren’t just playing house, Astarion. You loved us. You loved me.'

Astarion huffed, impatiently. 'Yes, my dear. I did. And see what it got me. I offered you everything, and you threw it back in my face. I offered you a lifetime of dancing on patios and you—' Astarion’s flippant tone caught in this throat. He went on, now tensed around each word. ‘I’d have given you everything.’ 

Mauria barked a surprised little sound, and hid behind her hands. She scrubbed at her face, and slapped tears from her eyes, but she no longer cared. ‘And all I had to do was let you kill me,’ she whispered.

‘I offered you a gift.’ Astarion hissed. ‘You threw it in my face.’

‘You offered to drain the life from me, to ensure I could never leave you!!’ Tears spilled on to her cheeks now. ‘And the sick part is that I nearly let you.’ Astarion’s head snapped up. ‘I was so close. And even after I left, there were so many nights I wanted to come back. To come back and throw myself at your feet and beg for forgiveness. To submit to death, Astarion, to be allowed to stay by your side.’

Astarion reached for her wrist, and Mauria allowed herself to be pulled in to his embrace. 

Astarion pressed his lips to her hair. 'We can have all those things. The offer still stands'

'Godsdammit, Astarion, no!' Mauria shook him loose and made to leave.

'Then why are you here?' he shouted to her back.

Mauria reached into her handbag and withdrew a box. Small enough to fit in the palm of her hand, Astarion followed it with his eyes until she set it down on the edge of the table. The sides were intricately carved wood, in a pattern that wasn't familiar to him. The top was attached with tiny bass hinges, and inlaid with a symbol he did recognize. Enameled in reds and golds was the rising sun that identified the Church of Lathander.

'What's this?' Astarion stepped toward the box, and with a single finger, flicked the lid open. The phial inside was small and square, like a flattened cube of glass. Within it, red iridescent liquid appeared to swirl to invisible currents. Astarion’s eyes narrowed and he tipped his head this way and that, considering it but not picking it up.

He looked back to Mauria, smirking. ‘A potion?’ He clapped his hands together, sarcastically delighted. ‘You’ve brought me a cure, darling? Am I ill?’

Mauria shook her head. ‘No. Not a cure. A choice.’ When he just stared at her, Mauria pushed off from where she leaned on the table, sighing heavily. ‘Drink it, or pour it into the drains—the choices are all yours, Astarion.’

She paused in the doorway without turning around. When Astarion didn’t speak, Mauria nodded once, and left.

Astarion stared at the box. What had he expected from her? Begging? Pleading with him to let her save him? 

Angrily he reached for the box, intent on tossing it straight into the trash, but something else caught his eye. Next to the box lay the cue chalk. He inspected the block, picking at the surface with a manicured nail. His fingertip came away blue, but with it something else. Wax. She had been chalking his cue with wax, which was why all his shots were wild. An old sleight of hand and a common tavern trick—and he fell for it.

Instead of tossing the box, he pocketed the phial, despite the uneasy feeling in his chest screaming for him not to. Because while he didn’t know what game the bard was playing, he did know that she never played without having an advantage.

Six years ago

Six tendays journey found Mauria in Massember, greeted by the monks who had awaited her arrival.

She’d traveled far and wide, visiting abbeys, and pouring over texts. She’d made questionable deals with questionable magic users, and funded expeditions for relics. She’d visited libraries of arcane wisdom, she took meetings with the most vile of monster hunters, and occultists. The relic had been her last lead.

Despite being days with little sleep, Mauria insisted on ascending the mountainside immediately to the temple, and the monks obliged.

Reverently, they had exhumed it, unwrapped it, carefully refolding the shroud and reclosing the fired clay pyxis. The relic itself was placed into Mauria’s shaking hands. 

‘If this doesn’t work,’ the wizened monk warned, ‘nothing will.’ Seeing the stricken look on Mauria’s face, he placed one gnarled hand over hers and offered a blessing. ‘Walk in light, child. Walk in light.’ It was all he could do.

Later, when Mauria knelt before her workbench, eyes stinging, and hands still shaking, she repeated those words to herself. ‘Walk in light—’

She repeated the verses the monks had transcribed for her from tomes so old she worried that simply looking upon them would reduce them to dust. She chanted words she didn’t understand in a language she didn’t speak. She prayed at dawn, as the ritual required. Prayed until her knees ached, and her voice cracked. Finally, she combined the relic with a drop of blood, just as she had been instructed. This would work. This had to work.

The relic was silent.
Dead.

Chapter Text

Raphael

1 Year Ago

Karlach was furious, but Mauria expected that when she did exactly what Karlach told her not to. The visit to Candlekeep had changed everything. In the grand scheme of things— things being a parlay with a cambion—Mauria thought her exposure was relatively small, and the risk was minimal. So minimal in fact that years had passed, and she had yet to hear a single cursed peep from below.

While Mauria had far from given up, her day to day slowly became more about living life—a concept long forgotten to her over the past two decades. She had a place she called home. It had a small garden where she grew vegetables, and every once in a while, a strawberry that the local rabbits didn’t get to first. While the cat curled next to her on the step was not hers, she had company on the porch while she wrote songs, something she hadn’t done in ages. The cat was a great audience, and never complained that the music was rusty and the lyrics were awkward. So, when the scent of sulphur first burned her nose, Mauria’s first thought was compost not cambion.

But there he was, in the umber flesh. Raphael, in his human form. The cat hissed, and bolted into the shrubs. ‘We meet again.’ Raphael’s voice was a mix of disgust and boredom. ‘I so hoped that watching you flee my home with stolen property would be the last I saw of you.’

‘Hello, Raphael,’ Mauria smiled blandly, while inside her mind raced. Steady, Mo, she reminded herself. You’ve been waiting years for this. ‘It’s nice to see you, too.’

Raphael raised a brow. I’ve never heard you quite so cordial.’ Raphael approached. ‘Where’s that sharp tongue I’ve grown so fond of?’ A thousand barbed responses crossed Mauria’s mind, and she struggled to keep her face neutral, and her smile demure. Raphael seemed disappointed. Mauria set her guitar down.

‘Oh, don’t stop on my account. In fact, I’ve been composing a little something myself. Something just for you.’

Rescue me, the rabbit pleads,

Blinded by its desperate needs

Too tragic now to see the flaw,

The rabbit grasps the killing claw.

’It rhymes,’ Mauria said dryly, ‘but it’s a little heavy-handed in it’s metaphor, don’t you think?’

‘Meow,’ Raphael smirked, his amusement seeming genuine. ‘Is that any way to treat a guest?

‘You’ve been busy,’ the cambion drawled. ‘I could hardly keep up with you, what with all the flitting about the land.’

Mauria wondered if her heart rate gave her away to Raphael as it used to for Astarion. ‘You’re late.’ Mauria said, annoyance palpable.

‘Late?’ Raphael looked theatrically stricken, ‘Why, when you botched the Ritual of Divine Light, I practically dashed right over and see what you were up to.’

‘Dashed?’ Mauria choked. ‘I’m sorry, you dashed?! That was nearly six years ago!’

‘No need to be sorry, I’m here now.’ Raphael paced lazily at the foot of the two shallow stairs to the porch. ‘You and I have very different scales when it comes to the passage of time, Little Mouse. In fact, I considered making you wait a little longer, but between the ritual at Massember, your forbidden peek into the Book of Vile Darkness, and that unfortunate incident with the Sage’s Mirror, you’ve poked and rankled a number of lesser demons. All of whom have come to me to get it to stop.’

Mauria stared for a second before bursting into peels of  laughter. ‘Apologies, Raphael,’ Mauria put a hand over her mouth to stop the nervous chuckle, until she recomposed herself. ‘These lesser demons complained about me to their manager?’ She still wore a grin, which Raphael matched with a sour smile of his own.

‘Yes. Essentially,’ he said peevishly. ‘You annoyed the hells into an audience—Congratulations, you’re insufferable.’

Mauria preened. She was the squeaky wheel, and Raphael, the grease. At last! Mauria spent the last half-decade being as squeaky as she could manage. If it was infernal, she evoked it, incanted it, wielded it, and yes, botched it if necessary. ‘You’re here, and that’s the important thing.’

Raphael’s irritation was poorly concealed. ‘Seeing as you’ve worked so tirelessly for an audience,’ he spoke through a tight jaw as Mauria continued to wrangle her smugness, ‘what do you want?’

‘Straight to business, hmm?  No, reminiscing? No Hello Mauria, how has the last four decades of living with the Vampire Ascendant been treating you? ’

‘As I hear tell, you do not actually live with the Vampire Ascendant at all. Is all not perfect in paradise?’ Raphael raised an eyebrow, inviting Mauria to respond. 

‘Nope, it certainly is not—which is what I want to discuss. The Rite of Profane Ascension—’

‘That’s my father’s contract, not mine.’ Raphael interrupted. ‘But you know that already.’ 

‘Yes, but as we both know, Mephistopheles does not do his own paperwork.’ She hopped up from her chair and faced him. ‘And that’s what this is—a clerical error. An oversight.’

Raphael’s eyes flashed with cruel amusement. ‘An oversight? Do tell.’ 

‘Astarion did not receive what he was promised, and I would like that corrected.’ Mauria raised her chin, ‘—please.’

‘How so?’ A sigh of boredom told Mauria she didn’t have long.

Mauria stepped inside and returned quickly with the Necromancy of Thay. She started to read haltingly and slowly from the text.

‘Stop!’ Raphael interrupted. ‘Stop. You’re butchering the language. Make your point—in Common.’

Mauria turned the book around and held it out, indicating two-thirds of the way down the page. ‘There!’ she said. ‘Right there.’

Raphael pulled half-moon reading glasses from an unseen pocket before scanning the passage. ‘It’s been forty-five years, give or take, since the rite was performed and you just bring this to me now?’

‘As you just said, Raphael, time has a different meaning to you. I’m sure the ink is barely dry from your perspective.’

He sighed and reread the passage. ‘I don’t see the issue.’

Mauria clutched the book back to her chest, and read. ‘Blah, blah, blah,... all the powers granted a full vampire …’ Mauria looked directly at Raphael now, no longer needing the text. 

‘... and none of the weaknesses .’

‘All the powers granted a full vampire. Yes,’ Raphael narrowed his eyes. The careful approach of a centuries, if not millennia old trickster trying to find the trick. ‘Which is exactly what he received—in excess, some would argue. As I hear it, he is faster, stronger, and more indestructible than any vampire has ever been. His senses and wit are heightened beyond possibly even my own—though I will deny ever saying that.’ 

Raphael crossed his arms, and leaned back, ‘He has the power to compel, and to enthr—’

Mauria flapped an impatient hand in the air and Raphael stopped, mid-sentence.

‘Not the strengths, Raphael. The weaknesses.’ Mauria thought she still sounded confident as they rapidly approached the marrow.

Raphael picked at a non-existent thread on his cuff, and cleared his throat. ‘Again,’ he stressed the word, not hiding impatience, nor his rising distemper. ‘I find myself seeking your point. Astarion is immune to damage from the sun, running water is no obstacle to him, he goes where and when he pleases without the need of invitation. He suffers no sanguine hunger. I’m quite certain that even staking would do little at this point—do i need to go on?’

Mauria swallowed hard. ‘The darkness , Raphael. My extensive research has taught me that every vampire suffers the pull of dark and jealous thoughts,’ she spoke carefully, and clearly. ‘They become slaves to paranoia, avarice and competition. They lose their souls to it.’

‘You’re a vampire scholar now, are you?’ Raphael’s face spread into a wide grin that Mauria found disturbing. ‘I see. And you see this darkness, ad you call it, you see it as weakness?’

‘I do.’

Raphael chuckled, ‘But, does he ?’

Mauria’s breath froze in her lungs. ‘Pardon me?’

‘Do you think the eminent Lord Ascendant considers those traits to weaken him? Because, I doubt that very much, and without some indication that he agrees, I’m afraid, I don’t see any validity to your claim that the conditions of the rite were not delivered as promised.’

‘So, let’s ask him.’ Mauria said. Already the wheels in her head began to turn. Raphael might be right, and then what?

‘Not so fast, little bard,’ Mauria gritted her teeth at Raphael’s mocking use of Astarion’s pet name for her. ‘There will be no asking him, not if he knows what’s on the line. That would be cheating.’

Mauria chewed her lip while she thought. ‘But if he comes to it on his own. If he indicates that he feels limited, weakened, or disserved in any way by the darkness that’s taken him?—’ she looked hopefully at Raphael.

‘—Then we’ll make the necessary corrections.’ Raphael nodded. ‘But you are forbidden from mentioning the clause in the contract. Understood?’ 

Raphael extended his hand, and time seemed to slow. 

Her eyes fell on the Necromantic tome she cradled against her chest. It wasn’t as though she was bargaining away a soul—at least not one that wasn’t already the property of Mephistopheles. Was this too easy? she wondered, the thought immediately causing bile to rise in her throat. Nothing about her life these past 25 years had been easy. Nothing. She was aware that the devil was a liar, a trickster, and a cheat…

Mauria extended her hand.

…but so was she.

The moment her hand met Raphael’s the devil disappeared in a haze of fog once again.

Mauria sat back down, fingers drumming anxiously against the arm of the swing. With a little flourish she tugged up her sleeve, revealing the bracelet she wore on her wrist for the past 25 years. She touched shaking fingers to the polished rock that rested against her pulse and cast a Sending.

Tell Calli I’m coming home.

Now

‘Where is it??!!!’ Astarion roared and it echoed through the empty corridors of the second floor. His bedroom door opened with such force that the knob cracked the plaster behind it, causing bits to crack and crumble on the rug. Astarion payed no attention to how the door teetered on its broken hinge and stalked from his room.

An upstairs maid saw him coming a moment too late, and though she tried to shrink into a side room the Ascendant set upon her at inhuman speed. ‘Where is it?’ he hissed. His fangs were bared, and only inches from her face. The maid opened her mouth a couple times, a fish gasping desperately for life, before she fainted at his feet.

Astarion didn’t give her another glance and descended the staircase in an instant as a fog of mist. 

His voice rang louder down there, careening off the high ceilings and rooms far too large for their contents. Where was everyone?!

Where the fuck had everyone— Astarion spotted his valet at the opposite end of the ballroom. ‘You!—’ he growled, for he had no idea what the man’s name might be, despite being dressed by him nearly 8 days a tenday. ‘You! Here! Now!’

The short, shuffling strides seemed to go on endlessly, as the tiny, bent human did his best impression of speed, crossing the room. Astarion grew only hotter and more impatient with each *shh shh shh* of the man’s soft leather slippers across marble. 

The valet blinked nervously up at the master of the house, but to his credit, held Astarion’s eye. ‘My Lord?’ his voice wavered only a little.  ‘How can I be of service?’

Astarion was practically panting from the strain. ‘My coat.’ When the valley didn’t move, he gritted his teeth and repeated himself. ‘My coat from last night! Where i—’ The man cut him off silently with a raised finger.

As the valet receded, the same shh shh shhed in time with each tick tick tick of the clock in the corner. Around him Astarion watched dust motes settle on the furniture. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he counted his blinks until finally, after what must have been three days, or perhaps twenty seconds, the man returned with Astarion’s formals over his arm.

‘My Lord, I took it for cleaning—eep!’ The first sign of any life in this old man was when Astarion ripped the coat from his arms, driving his hand into the pocket. He snarled, cursed, and wrestled inelegantly with the garment until he located the other pocket. 

Desperate fingers again reached deep into a satin lined pocket, and with a groan of relief that was wholly indecent, Astarion closed his fist around what he sought.

The Lord Ascendant fell to his knees on the cold stone floor. Not yet pulling his hand from the pocket, he gathered the tangle of fabric to his face, and bent double over it, regaining his composure. The shouting with which he entered the room had not phased his valet much, however the cold, quiet, “Get out” suddenly put fire under the old man’s feet.

Alone in the dancehall, Astarion knelt prostrate for many moments. Eventually, he released a shaking breath and unclenched his fists.
He stared at the tiny red phial, nearly glowing in his pale palm. ‘What are you doing to me?’ he rasped, carefully reclosing his hand.

Astarion walked slowly down the quiet alley leading to his dress shop. Late summer evenings meant the temperature now dropped with the sun behind the horizon. Astarion appreciated the coolth against his skin, still hot from his temper. There were few people on the street at this hour, which made the rhythmic snap of his shoes in the otherwise silent avenue soothing and grounding. 

The bell above the door tinkled cheerfully when he let himself in. Astarion went directly to a cabinet in the fittings area, and opened a tiny drawer among dozens of tiny drawers in his notions cabinet. He withdrew a length of silk cording, and with expert fingers, looped and tied it until he had a small net. He placed the phial inside, and when he drew the lengths of cord together, the knots slid to secure the elixir bottle in a tiny silk cage.
Astarion took two steps toward the mirror, watching his reflection as he secured the cord around his neck, and pressed it to his skin where it rested against his chest. Still looking at his reflection, he narrowed his eyes, leaning in slightly.

‘Are you still in there?’

Chapter Text

Sangréal

Astarion had bought, demolished, and rebuilt this place in a fit of temper. He had been bored. Bored by the sight of his own ballroom, more political theater than actual recreation. Bored with the low quality, counterfeit liquors the Elfsong slung at it's patrons. Bored with the dead-eyed beauties that gyrated limply on the stage of the Low Light. Bored with the droning tunes of second rate bards, enamoured of the sound of their own voices, at the Drakon. The nearest thing to interesting was the Ust Natha Tavern, but Astarion was damned if he was going to haul his ass to the underdark for what could be two—maybe three nights tops—of middling hedonism. 

Astarion pushed open the iron accordion door that led to the back of the establishment from the alley, and descended the narrow staircase. It was underground, beneath a completely disinteresting spice shop at the head of the Steeps. If you didn't know it was there, you wouldn't know it was there. A small bronze plaque was set into the cobbles of the road, reading simply Sangréal .
The sign didn't need to be dramatic. Astarion saved that for the inside.

Sangréal was entirely of his own invention and he was exceptionally proud of it. Astarion had never been in a place quite like it. It was no tavern. It wasn't a burlesque house, or a strippery. That it was unable to be so simply categorized suited Astarion, so long as it was known as decadent, dangerous and delicious.

Sangréal hosted debauched affairs, resplendent with beautiful young souls, clad in leather or less, as easily as it did more modest functions for respectable citizens. More often than not, even the respectable succumbed to the allure and the seduction before the sun came up. The music was loud, the flesh was ripe, and the liquor was fine. Those who attended thought themselves quite exclusive too, and when the Ascendant first heard Sangréal referred to as a club , Astarion adopted the word quickly. It certainly sounded more exciting than lounge, and less seedy than pleasure house.

It was early; not yet sunset, but already the bartenders were there prepping all their pretty elixirs. Behind the bar, all shape of bottles lined glass shelves. Inside them, their chromatic liquids gleamed and swirled hypnotically, promising a truly unique night. Sangréal served nothing but the finest liquors, imported from all corners of Toril. Additionally, for those seeking to adventure a little further into hedonism, Sangréal employed one of the best alchemists on the Sword Coast making some of the best party enhancements available. The club offered several, but the most popular offering was Veil; a glamour potion, designed and refined simply to make the drinker more attractive to the person they next kissed, according to their own specific tastes. The scent of licorice permeating the air indicated to Astarion that Promise was warming behind the bar. This nectar was crafted to improve one's chances. In truth, it was no more than an Elixir of Peerless Focus; a little confidence combined with well placed heuristic price theory. Mauria taught him that particular approach. Tell people it's expensive, and they will assume it's good.

His personal favourite was something he brought in from the Underdark. It was not on offer, strictly speaking, as it was entirely illegal. The man behind the bar called it Trigger. It was a potent blend of sex pollen, and for deniability Astarion never cared enough to inquire about further. It commanded a high price and was exclusive to his club. He hadn’t ever tried Trigger, nor had he any intention to. Watching his patrons empty their wallets for it was pleasure enough, he told those who dared to ask him why not. Astarion delighted in the idea of dark corners of his club writhing with bodies surrendered to its effects. He would sit in the shadow of his corner table, and watch the chemically uninhibited taste and grope and savour one another. He revelled in his ability to create and guide these carnal encounters—and would on occasion to invite couples, or small groups to perform for his enjoyment—but he never touched a soul nor allowed anyone to touch him. His pleasure was their pleasure.

At the bar, his head server handed him two fingers of a glowing amber scotch without needing to be asked, which Astarion took to his usual spot at the back of the music hall.

Tonight the atmosphere was to pulled back slightly from the usual. Sophisticated, sensual, intimate; that’s what he’d directed his staff to arrange. Around him, deep sofas of black velvet were placed in cozy arrangements, lounge-style, meant for conversation and gathering. High tables of black iron and smoked glass peppered the centre of the room, anchored with heavy crystal lamps casting everything in a flickering glow.

Even the floor, covered in a thick pile weave and patterned in black, gold, and blood red, had been carefully hand-chosen. An ill-advised selection for this kind of establishment, the rug merchant had argued, and tried repeatedly to sell him on something less extravagant. Astarion practically had to compel the vendor to take the sale. The entire point of this establishment was to be uncompromising. Looking about, he felt now as he had then; certain he was entitled, and unwilling to be denied.

The most stunning feature of this room was the wall. The feature wall ran the length of the main room, from the cloakroom to the stage. Upon it were hung mirrors—hundreds of them. From the backs of the sofas to the ceiling, they made up a mosaic of various shapes, styles and sizes crammed onto every square inch. The effect was stunning, as his entire beautiful creation was doubled. Every flickering light, every shining bottle, every beautiful body. When Astarion looked about the room he saw only himself reflected back from every angle. Dark, impossible beauty.

‘Dad,’ Calliope greeted her father cautiously and slid in opposite him. Astarion hesitated—the strain of Calliope’s recent confession had been intense, but short lived. Calliope appealed to his tempered mood a few days later, but Astarion informed her that no such discussion was necessary. He had no interest in discussing her motivations or measures, preferring to pretend it hadn’t happened. Such was the power of a daughter over her father, he supposed. That’s the answer he gave himself, and that’s the answer he was holding to. Cal’s request that he extend the same grace to Karlach and Lae’zel was not being even remotely entertained. Blood was blood , Astarion answered, feeling that answer to be adequate and conclusive. Only a breath passed before Astarion reached out to cover Cal’s hand with his. He was rewarded with her generous smile.

‘You ok?’ she asked, tipping her head to see him better. Astarion scowled, and shifted to avoid her scrutiny.
He drummed his fingers on the table. 

‘Yes.’ 

A beat passed. ‘No.’ 

Another. ‘I don’t know.’

Calliope laughed softly and kindly, and squeezed his fingers back. ‘It will be fine. It’s good for business, you know that.’

‘Yes, darling—appeal to my love of coin.’ Astarion smiled wryly. He glanced distractedly back to the stage. 

Once a customer is surrounded in beauty and comfort, a high quality scotch on his tongue, and tripping balls on sex dust what's left to want? Entertainment, of course. And Sangréal offered nothing but the highest quality.

Which was exactly how Calliope talked him into letting Mauria perform at the club. 

But now that the night was upon them, Astarion was a mix of anxiety and excitement—both things the Lord Ascendant had little use or tolerance for anymore. He struggled to recall why he agreed to this in the first place. Every fiber of his being knew this was a mistake. She’d returned to the ‘Gate without shame or shyness, flirting and teasing like she never left. Like she didn’t leave him doubled over in pain, not to be seen again for a quarter century. This club was Astarion’s pride. It was the only thing that was solely his—that he’d ever built alone, as even his freedom, his ascendency, and his authority had come, at least partially, at the hands of the bard. He told himself that he needed her to see the club. That he needed her to see what he created without her, and to see that it was fucking glorious. Without her.

There may also be a small part of him—very small—that wanted to hear her sing. Even if it hurt.
And it would hurt. Of that, he was certain.

Astarion nodded slowly as he surveyed the room—his staff had understood his instructions perfectly. He left Calli some final preparations to attend to, then with wine glass in one hand, and in keeping with the anticipated rarity of the night ahead, a bottle of Elverquisst in the other, Astarion returned to his office and shut the door.

Cal knocked on the office door at just past one hour to midnight.
'She's here?' Astarion asked, his tone bored. Cal nodded. ‘Be good,’ she warned him.

Astarion dropped his feet off the desk, and rose to view himself in a mirror, just like those in the salon, but full length.

Astarion had spent the better part of an hour selecting his clothing for this evening. Fretted and fussed through nearly every item in his expansive collection, with the express purpose of looking as casual as possible for the evening. As the owner and operator of this club he needn’t concern himself with keeping up with the trends—he set the trends. Anyone fortunate enough to be standing in his club was already seething with envy—it seemed almost unsporting of him to also guild the lily. Astarion was also keenly aware that Mauria would be looking at him tonight. Looking at him and having thoughts. Astarion was determined that those thoughts be of regret and pining.

He expected Mauria would turn up looking good. She had shown her thirst for his attention and approval in the alley the other night, and again at his party. Anticipating it did nothing to keep his heart from stopping when he caught sight of her. In any other tableau he would have laughed at the outrageous choice of costume, but in his luxe cabaret she looked perfect. Her compact figure was clad in what could only be called a costume, though saying she was clad may have been overstating it. She wore dark plum silk and leather, adorned with shining metal disks at her neck, arms, and hips. Her midriff was entirely bared, with the front of her skirts dipping low, below her navel. Astarion’s gaze lingered at the high cut of the sides of her skirt, and groaned when she turned, showing off another angle that strongly suggested there was nothing underneath. Astarion already felt an uncomfortable tug in his belly and returned his attention to the club.

The club was full, every table occupied, as well as every space at the long bar, but the Ascendant took a seat near the back of the hall, in a table, larger than the rest, and solely reserved for him. He slid in next to Cal who had Karlach on her other side—a move that Astarion thought was testing the limits of his patience. Particularly tonight. ‘Cal?’ he growled under his breath, eyeing the tiefling. 

His daughter simply grinned at him, and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. ‘Daddy?’ she replied, brightly playing ignorant to his annoyance.

'Wow, boss-' Karlach said approvingly. Astarion knew he looked good. He always looked good, and while he appreciated hearing it, particularly from people not usually predisposed to mooning over him, he was not prepared to acknowledge his former lieutenant. He turned toward the stage and waited for her to begin.

The house musicians finished their song, and as their final note vanished from the room, Mauria came into the view of the patrons. Dancing Lights were cast by someone offstage, and the bard was lit by glowing orbs in golds and pinks. Astarion growled quietly when catcalls and whoops filled the room before she had even sung a note. As usual, Mauria began her performance by subtly casting a charm. The crowd quietened, as a sense of wellbeing and generosity cradled them.

After a couple songs, Astarion looked around to see Calliope watching not her mother, but him. ‘Ugh! You’re staring, what?!’ Astarion asked sharply. 

‘Not a thing,’ Cal replied, casually. Astarion scowled, and attempted to look severe. He didn’t need Calliope to point out that he’d been smiling throughout that performance, the ache in his cheeks and the warmth in his belly was doing the telling.

It's was nearly three quarters of an hour later, and well past midnight before she reached the end of her set. The crowd continued cheering after she'd put down her instrument. She gave them her winningnest smile.

'Another?' She flirted with the crowd, 'Hmm, all right. One.' The cheering and whistling filled the opulent cavern, and she smiled a bright, beaming display of modest appreciation. It was genuine, and that was obvious.

Difficult for them not to like her, he thought. Anyone she chose to charm was utterly enamoured whether they liked it or not. She gestured to someone Astarion couldn't see, and the lights above her faded away. The club held it's collective breath.

She crossed to the pianist who sat with her onstage, and whispered something in his ear. She played four bars over his shoulder, before letting the musician take over.

Watch the torch, set aflame…

She began her song with a delicate wide wave of her hand. Around the room, the flames in the lamps and candles blazed brighter in sequence, a warm wave of light chasing along the walls, before settling back to the warm, sultry mood she began with.

The song was slow. Lazy almost, in the way the words dragged one behind the next. The bard sang at the bottom of her register in a low soft voice that she reserved for soothing and seducing. Following the steps of seduction, she made her way off the stage. Multiple patrons leapt to offer her a hand as she approached, and delicately she took one, dropping her eyes in an expression far more satisfying than a smile to the lucky chosen. At the bottom of the stairs, she let go, turning away from him without another look.

'You say my heart is almost black. Well baby, who's to blame for that?—'

The bard continued to move through the crowd, trailing a finger across shoulders, or up arms as she went. She moved like smoke, curling and winding around obstacles. Stopping to flirt, Mauria pulled a young tiefling to her feet, and turned into her embrace. The young woman was startled, but appeared pleased to find herself wrapped around the bard. Mauria swayed, her back to the stranger's body, and her fingers reaching up and behind to stroke over her horns. When her eyes found Astarion across the dim room she delivered a lyric that felt just for him.

'you taught me well, now watch me win—'

The vampire’s eyes narrowed. Was he angry or enchanted? Was he completely annoyed or hopelessly fucked? Either way, he was rapt in every velvet word, and every silken movement.

He lost her when she slipped into a crowd of men standing at a tall table, and stubbornly resisted craning his neck to follow her. A shiver slid down his spine as his body revolted at being kept from her.

He sensed her before he placed her. She was directly behind him. Close, her words sliding around him like tendrils. Astarion rolled his shoulders and neck, the sensual sounds feeling as vivid as her mouth on his skin. 

'Count your blessings, count your minutes. Played my game—hell, now you're in it—'

Her hand rested on his shoulder a beat, and when he didn't bite it off, she risked sliding it down his chest

'Bittersweet, my renegade, and I'm anything but tame.

She bent low, now beside his ear, and Astarion stiffened when her hand sneaked under his vest

'Grab your sword, you might just need it—coz I'm not afraid of cheatin'

She withdrew her hand, bringing with it the dagger he wore at his back. Letting it clatter onto the table, she came around, straddling his thigh as she drew in boldly.

'Oh, I hate to tell you this way—’

Mauria threaded her fingers into the curls at the nape of his neck,

'But villains aren't born—’

Astarion closed his eyes when she leaned in. The whispered conclusion of the song tickled where her breath landed, warm and light under his ear. 

'Darling, —we're made.

She sat back, smiling at him. He was surprised to find it was a warm smile. He'd expected triumph, defiance, or smug satisfaction—it’s certainly what he’d have offered in her shoes—but she was just smiling, in that open, elated way she had of gathering people to her.

‘Hi,’ she said, soft and breathless in the beat of silence before the air between them filled with applause. Before Astarion could get hands on her, she’d slipped off his lap and back up to the stage. She gave an appreciative bow, and some air kisses, as the crowd continued to applaud her performances of the evening.

At the rear of the hall, Astarion pressed his lips together hard and glared angrily at the empty space where Mauria stood moments before. He stood abruptly and stalked back to his office.

Around them, the house music resumed, and the patrons continued their mirthful night.

'That made an impression,' Karlach said, first thing when Mauria slipped back into the booth. She had fetched a towel and a drink from the bar, and was blotting at her damp skin, still flushed and breathing heavily.

Mauria laughed. 'I hope so.' Her smile dropped, and she studied her friend's face. 'What's wrong, K?'

Karlach looked hesitant. Mauria reached out and put her hand over her best friend's. 'Just,—' she looked regretful. 'Don't fuck with him too badly, Mo.’

Mauria gaped, and withdrew her hand. ‘Wh-what? Don’t fuck with him—?? K, you’re—you’re supposed to be on my side.’

‘I am,’ Karlach said quickly. ‘You're getting to him—in a good way, don't get me wrong. He wants you fucking badly, no question there.’ Karlach wrung her hands. ‘—but be careful rushing in. If you two can’t agree on what it is you’re doing—'

'You mean, if he still wants to turn me?'

Karlach nodded. ‘If you do all this fucking with his head, and then leave again when you don’t get the ending you want—’ She left that hanging. The implication being anything but good.

'The ending I want ,’ Mauria said tightly. ‘I’m not here to hurt him.’

'I know. It's just,…hard to remember that with all the games and lies and stuff.'

Mauria blinked as if slapped. But Karlach didn't notice in her friend's expression how that had stung her, and went on, laughing lightly. 'I mean, if someone was pulling on my strings as hard as you are, I certainly would question their motives.' Karlach seemed to realize what she just said. 'Oh, no - that's not what—'

Mauria smiled weakly and patted her friend's hand. 'I know what you meant.'

He wasn’t hiding.
He was the Ascendant and he didn’t hide. Certainly not from tiny she-elves dressed in bells.
Astarion laughed in spite of his foul mood. Ok, so, she wasn’t dressed in bells, but she had been once. Gods, that seemed like so long ago, but it was less than 50 years. Practically nothing to an elf, and even less to a vampire. Astarion pressed his lips together, and poured more wine. Mauria had been so angry when he called her conjuring “some stupid bard shit” shortly after they’d met. Little had he known how incredibly powerful she was as an illusionist. Little had he known how charismatic and charming she could be and how she delightfully used both of these for a variety of nefarious enterprises. Little had he known how he’d come to regret hurting her. 

She’d forgiven him, of course. She always forgave him. 

Astarion stopped the wine glass halfway to his lips. Always? He’d never shied away from testing that, but surely there was a limit. His stomach rolled as the memory cut in of her naked and tear-streaked at his feet.
Yet, she was here, wasn’t she? Sowing chaos, and mischief, but not once fouling his reputation. She revealed none of his cheats, and to his knowledge had told not one single secret—and she certainly could have done. So, Astarion wondered, why?

Leaning back in his chair, he peeked through the crack in the door for the umpteenth time. She was still there, her profile cast in lamplight, sitting quietly at his table. She was now the only soul left in the building. Astarion’s staff cleaned and closed the club as usual, glancing uncertainly between her and his office door, but leaving her to herself. Every once in a while she would swirl the wine in her glass, but otherwise, she hadn’t moved.

Even if he wanted to go out there, which he did not, what would he say? He should tell her to stop with all this juvenile harassment and teasing. He should tell her to go back to wherever she’s been, and give up whatever plans she thinks she has for him. Astarion instinctively slipped his fingers into the shallow pocket of his vest, feeling for the phial tucked inside. He should tell her that some things can’t be fixed, and some people don’t need to be fixed. With that, Astarion stood abruptly and downed his wine.

He closed the door behind him with more force than he intended, and the slam caused Mauria to jump up in surprise. She was barefoot, he noticed, and her shoes lay discarded under the table. That tugged strangely at his chest. His girl never enjoyed high heels, and would bitch and moan and carry on when required to put them on, no matter how briefly. Astarion thought the complaining was mostly to ensure the swift delivery of the foot massage that he inevitably offered her in consolation. He paused to consider this. She just always got what she wanted, didn’t she?

She looked up at him, grey-green eyes wide and startled. The colour of moonstones. Although, when she was awash in joy, love, or lust, her eyes trended toward green. When she was upset, frightened, or—as he expected was the case now—anxious, they turned the pale grey of a stormy sky. Mauria was a vessel of pure emotion—for better or worse—and Astarion had many times witnessed the colour in her eyes change in real time. Had been personally responsible for the shift—in both directions.

‘You’re still here,’ he said with no tone whatsoever in his voice.

Mauria was suddenly aware of the wineglass she strangled in her hands, and fumbled to return it to the table. She didn’t know why she should be so anxious tonight. She thought her performance had landed as intended, and had descended from the stage intent on teasing until those delicious little eartips turned from a blushing pink to a flaming red.

‘Don't fuck with him too badly, Mo’  Karlach’s words rang in her head. It had hurt to hear that from Karlach of all people. Was she pushing too hard? 

‘Astarion, I—‘ That was as far as she got. In two steps, Astarion had her by the neck and the waist, and Mauria felt a moment of terror, before she realized his hands were soft. He pressed his palm in the small of her back, and cradled the base of her head as he leaned in. 

He moved slowly and carefully, and Mauria was reminded of another kiss. Crammed into a tiny tent in the gloom and despair of the Shadow Cursed Lands, many years ago, she and her vampire had huddled reading books, and being generally awkward together. 

‘To be clear—‘ he’d started, although since neither hadn’t spoken for nearly 20 minutes, what exactly he was clarifying was a little undefined. ‘—I didn’t mean all of it.’ Mauria put her book down to consider him. She was becoming accustomed to this quirk. Astarion frequently had entire conversations or arguments in his head, and only looped her in mid-thought. She scrolled through her memory for the last thing they’d been speaking about. Wine…books….Shadowheart’s hair…none of it fit with what he’d just said. She tipped her head, trying another angle. Pack…lantern…bedroll… Mauria grinned. 

‘Ok, then what do you propose? Should we make a list?’

Astarion blinked at her. ‘Uh,..yes. Sure, a list.’ Mauria smirked, pleased that she’d surprised him by being able to join the conversation. Or, perhaps he was testing her. 

‘Fine.’ Mauria thought for a moment. ‘Hand holding?’ she suggested.

Astarion’s face split into a wide grin, his tongue playing against a fang. Yes!! She’d guessed correctly. He inclined his head in assent, and Mauria scooted nearer him and scooped up his hand. She turned it this way and that, stroking the lines of bones and veins and sinew made in his dexterous hands. ‘Is this ok?’ She peeked up at him. He was beautiful by lamplight. Hells, he was beautiful in the dark, but when lit by a single lantern it was different—here, he was hers. He nodded, seeming entranced to watch her hand trail up his wrist and back. His eyes followed her fingers.

‘Cuddling?’ She blurted, and Astarion looked at her like she’d just arrived. 

‘Oh, uh…I actually…don’t know,’ He admitted. ‘Example?’

Mauria searched his face for signs that he was teasing, or messing with her and found none. Her first instinct was to lay down with him, which she discarded quickly. Not yet. Instead, she held his eye, and moved around behind him, tapping him on the shoulder to indicate he should scoot forward. With him snugly between her knees, she wrapped her arms loosely around his waist, and rested her face against his back. The moment she felt the ridges of his scars on her cheek she froze, but only for a moment before his hands covered hers against his belly. She tightened her hug little by little, and eventually felt Astarion exhale.

‘Something like this,’ she said. 

‘Mmhmm,’ he agreed. ‘What else?’ 

Mauria laughed, well now he was teasing. She moved around him, trying out this position and that one, and he’d agree, or comment, or rate it relative to the last, and she giggled, stroking fingers through his curls, draping against him in various poses, until she’d run out of ideas. Well, save one.

Mauria sighed and brushed non-existent dust from her hands, indicating a job done. She retreated to her side of the tent, and picked up her book again.

When she deigned to peek up at him, he was staring at her with mock outrage.

‘Hmm? Something I missed?’ she inquired, before beckoning him over with a small curl of her finger, and a cheeky wink.

And now at this moment, just like the other, he stopped, and waited for his unvoiced question to be answered. And just like the other, she answered him. So ridiculously unnecessary, as there was nothing but a sliver of lamplight separating their lips. ‘Could I kiss you?’

It was just like those years ago. Familiar and totally new, all at once. A song they’d heard a thousand times before, but now remade to a new beat.Their mouths were barely open and pressed so softly against each other. Mechanically, the kiss was entirely chaste. The fire came from a thousand tiny sparks happening elsewhere. The flex of his hand on her waist—how he spread his fingers wide, claiming as much of her as was possible beneath them. Her palm pressed flat to his chest, elbow loaded with enough tension to hold him back.

Astarion tested her commitment by relaxing his grip, and Mauria fisted the front of his shirt tightly in response. Astarion smiled into the next, agonizingly slow press to her mouth while the air around them vibrated with shaky breaths of anticipation and muscles twitching in self-restraint. A shiver down his back when her short nails raked over his scalp made Astarion moan, and a warm, slippery sensation flooded his limbs when she echoed it.

Mauria kept opening her eyes—he knew because he did too, holding the gaze until one of them fluttered closed again. Mauria raised carefully up on her toes. A completely pointless action and one he’d teased her for a thousand times before. She remained a full head shorter than him, even on her toes, and knew that it did no good at all—except as an invitation, which Astarion immediately accepted. 

Effortlessly, he picked her up, and set her on the table, the shake of it overturning her wine glass.

‘Shit, shit, shit,’ Mauria broke loose, and twisted, looking over her shoulder with horror at the full glass of red wine that now ran across the table and over the edge. The goblet rolled off the table landing nearly soundlessly onto the plush rug beneath.

Astarion glanced briefly then guided her face back to him with a gentle grip on her chin. He stood back a half step, barely believing what he was seeing. Daring his mind to tell him he was imagining her here, with him. More than once he’d sat at this very table, and imagined taking her on it—as well as under it, and bent over it. He hadn’t realized just how poor his imagination was until now—he’d completely forgotten the feeling of her muscles relaxing, the flush that went all the way down her body, the sharp exhalation that preceded her moans. 

Mauria’s breaths came shallow and the Ascendant heard how her heart hammered in her chest. The lightest of touches of his fingertips on her knees made her gasp and jump. He looked down and tightened his grip until her flesh yielded soft dips under his fingertips. He watched her from under hooded lids as he eased her knees apart, so slowly it would have been comical under different circumstances. Under these ones, however, Astarion felt a rise in her temperature and a tightening in his trousers. He took his place between her thighs. Dragging a fingertip from the dip of her throat, he paused at the clasp between her breasts waiting for permission. When they bumped the table again, the crystal of the lantern clinked and rattled as the lid shook. Mauria looked back at the flame guttering out.

‘Careful,’ she laughed, Astarion moving to her neck when she broke the kiss. ‘We’ll burn this place down.’

He looked around her, and seeing the fuel oil swirling with the wine, made a noise of agreement. ‘Chaos,’ he tsked at her, and with a sweep of his hand the lanterns that lined the walls extinguished in a sequential swoosh. He scooped her under the thighs, and carried her across the room to the long banquettes of velvet seating that lined the wall. 

Arranged prettily on his lap, he reached out lazily and a single lantern flared life on the wall above them. ‘I need to see you,’ he said, not including the rest of his thought— To make sure you’re real.

Silver curls tickled her skin as Astarion made his way from shoulder to shoulder, leaving a trail of tingling skin where his lips had been. Mauria gasped when he mouthed at the hollow of her neck. 

‘Ah-ahh,’ she gasped. Gods below, she felt like a fucking virgin, every touch unfamiliar and strange. Their hands wandered, peeling away clothing, stroking and kneading. Their kisses deepened, Mauria prodding her tongue gently against his. Astarion’s eyes flew open in surprise when the taste of blood first registered on his tongue. She let the blood gather on her lips.

‘Bad girl,’ he scolded, and she couldn’t help but squirm against the hardness standing bare and eager between them. ‘Oh?’

Astarion chuckled darkly, and coaxed her hips into a slow roll over his length, coating him in her need. He traced her jawline, his eyes following his finger, until he reached her lips, and she obediently opened her mouth. ‘Do you like that, little bard?’ He dropped his voice low, a dangerous growl that held promises of pleasure. ‘What else do you like, I wonder,’ Astarion hummed against her throat. His eyes glinted with a wicked mischief before he slipped his hand between them.
Mauria dropped her head back, sighing, moaning and gasping in equal measure as Astarion took his time reacquainting himself with her skin.

She eased down onto him. Godsdamn! Holy fucking shit, had she always been this tight?! This soft? This warm? Astarion clenched his teeth until the pain in his jaw distracted from the very real threat of finishing before he started. Each touch sent sparks skittering along his every muscle and nerve. He tried to muffle his noises against her neck, but the strawberry sweet tang of her skin only added to the urgent ache that rolled in waves low in his belly.

Mauria ran her tongue over his lips briefly before bracing her palms on his chest, and setting a steady, slow pace. ‘Sweet hells,’ he groaned, eyes fluttering shut in ecstasy.

They moved together like they had in the beginning. Their heads close together, watching each other, murmuring approval and praise. They guided each other to their pleasure with sounds and sighs, breaking kisses to frantically whisper for more—harder—again—please. Gasping and giggling as each movement sent them up and up until through hitched breath they begged for relief and permission to shatter.

Mauria came first, but Astarion came louder, and it was several minutes before either of them moved. Astarion wrapped his arms around the small elf, and trailed his fingers over her spine while slowly the white-noise buzzing in his head rounded out to thoughts. She was here, with him again. All the anger was gone from him now, and he felt only elation to be holding her again. This was a gift, and he would honour it as such. He would not let her go again. He never be so stupid as to let her go again.

Not when he had all the power he needed to make her stay. 

Chapter Text

The Letter

Her quill scratched frantically over the pages. She’d filled 6 already with no signs of stopping. Her hand ached, her eyes watered, and her shoulders crept ever nearer her ears with each line.

She slunk from Sangréal near dawn with an excuse so naked she cringed at the memory. Now her lies forsook her? Now?!

Astarion hadn’t challenged her flimsy excuse, and walked her up to the street level with awkward chivalry. She allowed him to kiss her goodbye, before practically fleeing up the alley.

It wasn’t actually the sex that had so thoroughly freaked her out. She certainly just complicated things by allowing it to go that far, but only a couple hours separated what would have been a good time and a hopeful breakthrough, with…whatever it was she was feeling instead. None of it being good. Or hopeful.

Mauria sighed and rolled her neck, then reached for a sip of coffee only to find the mug empty. ‘Fucking perfect,’ she mumbled and with unfolded herself from the chair with exaggerated effort.

Waiting for the kettle to refill, she stared out at the day—the dull grey matching her mood. Maybe the rain that threatened on the horizon would cheer her up. Or lull her to sleep. She hadn’t been able to accomplish either on her own, and so instead she wrote. 

She decided to write out every lie she ever told. Not a healthy exercise—nor a realistic one, she knew, but it felt like penance. What she was atoning for was difficult to define. She felt it deeply, but couldn’t find the words to wrap it up in. Being with Astarion last night felt very…separate. She was having sex and he was having sex, but little about it felt ‘together’. It felt competitive, each of them trying to plant their flag. Both of them seeking to make a point. She stared at her reflection in the window and roared in frustration. Mauria lit the stove. She grimaced as she let her fingers linger too long in the flame, testing again and again how long she could hold them there. How much she could endure. Another unhealthy exercise, but she needed the focus.

Sangréal was incredible, through no small amount of effort—that was apparent. Astarion had worked very hard to make it so. She’d been watching him from the edge of the stage before her performance, peeking around the velvet lined wall that demarcated the wings of the stage. He moved around the room, a keen eye on his staff. They jumped to attention at his instructions, not out of any kind of fear, but seemingly seeking to please him. He charmed the customers, greeting what she assumed were the regulars, or guests of some importance. He surveyed the dance floor from his table at the back like a lion watches over his pride, even the way he ran his hand along the polished edge of the bar as he walked past, a gentle caress to check that all was well—all of these actions pointed to a man who had it all together. Who was proud of what he had built.

Enter Mauria, with her head games and self serving motives—

Karlach’s warning intruded jarringly in her head.

‘If you do all this fucking with his head, and then leave again when you don’t get the ending you want—’   

Who was she doing this for? 

A single day ago, she’d have said it was for Astarion—now she wasn’t so sure.

She resettled just as the sky opened up and the rain began. 

Objectively, all she had done so far was take. Astarion learned that the three people closest to him were working behind his back. Astarion and Calliope had reforged a fragile understanding, but the fact remained that she’d caused their relationship—their very good relationship—to be damaged. Her actions severed two more relationships spanning decades, and not once had she considered, let alone asked Lae’zel or Karlach their thoughts on the matter. Three important and meaningful relationships damaged because she wanted hers—cold and dead for decades—back.

She was gazing deeply into her coffee when a soft pop, and the scent of cherries suddenly turned her stomach. ‘Raphael,’ she said, not turning to see. ‘What brings you here?’ 

‘Oh, come now, bard—don’t be coy.’ Raphael’s mocking tone made her ball her fists. ‘I thought I should check on how your campaign is faring. We’re on the cusp on something interesting here, I think.’

‘Go away, Raphael,’ Mauria grumbled, already sure it would do no good. If Raphael was here now, it was because he’d been watching this all unfold. 

As though reading her mind—could he do that, too?—he raised a finger.

‘We should speak about your breach of contract,‘ he said casually.

Mauria shook her head. ‘There is no breach of contract. I’ve upheld my end of the agreement.’

‘The phial—‘ Raphael clarified.

Mauria sighed. She was too tired, physically and emotionally for this. ‘What about the phial?’
Raphael’s eyes burned a deep cherry red, and Mauria noted a measurable increase in the temperature of the room. ‘You gave him a phial that contained a cure.’

‘I did no such thing,’ she argued. ‘There’s no cure in that phial—I never found one. It’s an elixir—acid resistance, I think.’
Raphael rolled his shoulders, seeming to regain some control.
‘Yes,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘ I am aware there is no cure. But the fact remains that he thinks there is, and that’s down to you.’
Mauria started to shake her head before he was even done speaking. ‘If Astarion thinks there’s a cure in that phial, it’s a conclusion he reached entirely on his own. Not once did I say there was a cure.’

Raphael looked sour. ‘You think being technical will save you?’

‘Yes, actually.’ Mauria now rose from her chair. ‘I do. Because technical is what this is all about. You agreed to this.’ Her nerves jangled, she felt perilously close to tears, and she was pretty sure she was shouting.

Raphael strolled through her kitchen, casually examining this and that. He lifted the lid from the coffee press, wrinkling his nose at the contents. ‘He took it, you know.’

Her heart stopped.
Outside the rain beat heavily on the windows, the sky flashed with lightning, the trees bent and bowed with the wind, but inside it might as well have been a different plane of existence. It was still. It was silent. Mauria wondered for a brief moment if she might be dead.

‘He took it?’ she hadn’t enough air in her lungs to form the words, and it came out on a wheeze. The weight of that hit, and all the sounds, and smells, and sights around her came rushing back in an overwhelming wave. Swallowing hard, she managed, ‘So, what now?’

Raphael shrugged, non-commitally. ‘I suppose we wait and see what the Lord Ancunín has to say about it.’ Raphael reached into his inner pocket and produced an envelope. ‘I know that’s not really your style—to ask people what they want, I mean. You prefer to choose for them. Bend them to whatever suits Mauria, hmm?’
Mauria gaped. The logical part of her mind screamed at her that the devil had his tricks. That he knew which nerve to push on, and that he’d do whatever was necessary to keep from having to make good on his end of the arrangement. The logical part of her mind was not what made cold sweat break out around her hairline. It was not what tightened her chest until she could scarcely breathe, or started her hands shaking.
It was not her logical mind, but her heart that feared what Raphael suggested. Was this about love…or control? 

Raphael held the envelope up to her, before setting it on the counter. A wicked slash of a grin split his face, and he chuckled darkly. ‘Until later, then.’ With a dull pop similar to his entrance, he vanished.

For several moments, she could only stare at the place the devil had been. With hands still shaking she picked up the envelope.  The front of the envelope had only her name, but the handwriting was unmistakably Astarion’s. She didn't want to open it—didn’t want to see—for it certainly contained nothing good or Raphael wouldn’t have left it for her with such satisfaction on his lips.

She fought to read it, only getting a couple lines in before she had to wipe her eyes clear of tears. It was dated a few weeks after she ran from him. Her hands shook so badly, that she put the letter down on the counter to continue reading. 

M,

It’s been two months since you’ve gone. I imagine you’ve been consoling yourself with some comforting story to justify what you did. That I frightened you. That you didn’t recognize your ‘Star’ anymore. That you were protecting our daughter.

Calliope is perfectly fine, by the way. With me, of course. She asks about you less now. No longer cries into her pillow at night. She needs for nothing under my care.

But, oh, my dear, Mauria—do you even go by that now? No matter. You see, I know why you really left, and it wasn’t because I changed.

You were always happiest when I was dependent on your affection, your approval, your pity. You basked in my adoration, in the control I allowed you to exercise. You didn’t choose me as your partner, my sweet; you adopted a project. A new simpleton to con. Yet when I no longer required fixing, could no longer be manipulated… when I became something far greater than your hands could shape, you panicked.

Little bard, little bard… my little love.

It tastes sour on my tongue now. A petname for a traitor with a flair for drama and only enough talent to sell her soul in a weak chorus.

I don’t miss you, not truly. I miss the lie you sold so beautifully with those precious lips of yours. The deceit you would carefully spin me up in with that wondrous body of yours.

But that woman is dead to me now. You killed her the moment you turned your back on this family. On me.

You know, a lesser man might feel some sort of shame at what happened on the stairs that night. But I haven’t been a lesser man for some time now, isn’t that right? That’s what frightens you most, I bet. That I’m no longer chained to some weak version of myself. That I am free, and all you can do now is run.

I suspect you are still nearby to some degree or another, and so, you should know, my dear little pet—

Should you ever return to Baldur’s Gate, I will not hesitate. I will not ask questions. I will not forgive. You are not welcome. You are not missed. 

And you will not survive the Ascendant twice.

~ Lord Ancunín

Three. It was now three people who looked at her and saw her need to control. What she believed was a desperate attempt to save him, others saw as her manipulating emotions to the shape of her will. The possessiveness, the paranoia, the need to dominate—they were getting Astarion everything he wanted. He had prestige, and respect, and power, and on that foundation he’d built an empire he was justly proud of. His successful businesses, his brilliant new club, and his funny little dressmaker’s shop—they made him happy. By all accounts, the darkness served him well. She had seen proof of that up close, and in person. 

Mauria felt ill.
Twenty-six years. Mauria had been gone 26 years. She had worked so hard, living in hovels, freezing in the north, busking for passage, walking until her feet bled—for what?
She missed her daughter as a young woman, her coming of age, her graduation, the uncertainty with which she chose her path in life—for what?
She missed her friends’ lives—their triumphs, their griefs, their challenges, their children and families—for what?
She abandoned her own life—her music, her poetry. She hadn’t written more than a handful of words in all that time. She’d turned her back on all of it, nearly three decades ago—for what?

All because when Astarion became who he was truly meant to be—who he always wanted to be—it no longer included her.

This was never about him, she realized. 

With a painful sob, she sunk to the floor, and hugged her knees to her chest. It wasn’t about him, and he wasn’t the one who’d gone mad.

Chapter Text

Things We Can't Repair

He traced the twirling vine down to the bottom, then back up again with the evilest of eyes. There were eleven leaves on the right side, but only ten on the left. He counted twice to be certain. In every other way, the carvings were the same. Not identical, but so similar that he could only assume they were meant to be a matching rather than complimentary set. Except for that single leaf. Perhaps Druids just couldn’t be arsed with the rigidity of such things as symmetry or quality control. Perhaps they just lacked the basic fucking self-awareness to think the people having to view this craftsmanship day in and day out might want a matched set of doors that matched. The imbalance in the pattern was disquieting.

Astarion took a slow breath, as the women in his life often suggested he try in moments like these. He was brooding. There was nothing about the leaf that was not carved into Mauria’s front door that warranted this kind of anger, Astarion knew that logically. He also knew that if the woodcarver were to suddenly materialize in front of him, that woodcarver would be in mortal peril.

That’s exactly why she ran from you.

That thought rooted Astarion to the spot, and had done for the better part of an hour. He sat alone at the window table of Jopalin’s teahouse, from where he could see Mauria’s front door. The half-elf proprietor silently replaced the small cup in front of him, and hustled away to tend to the many customers who, rightly, believed that nothing went quite so well with a rainstorm as a cup of strong coffee. Jopalin’s coffee was the best in the ‘Gate, which Astarion found hilarious, given that the entire operation was supposed to be no more than a front for the Sable Moonflower den in the cellar. Astarion didn’t care how Jopalin made his coin only that the coffee was just as he preferred—filled to the brim, sweetened with brown sugar and topped with a rich red-brown crema—and that Jopalin paid his points.

The proprietor ground his teeth in a false smile, but Astarion barely noticed.

The breathing restored some of the logic that often fell to his more domineering nature. In these moments it was as though he watched himself, puppeted about by instinct. Not that he minded—not anymore. At first he resisted these urges. He panicked, experiencing a suffocation of his conscious will that felt too much like compulsion. Over time, he began to accept them, and grew accustomed to the ideas that trickled, thick and warm, over his own thoughts. Now, he merely watched with curiosity when one instinct was overridden by another—as though he were simultaneously his own master, and his own apprentice. It served him well, the puppeteer was more decisive; more severe than Astarion might be inclined to. His enemies feared him and his allies obeyed him. There were of course those determined to stand their ground. Courageous, stupid, or just horny for their sense of justice, they too eventually kicked up, learning the hard way that a promontory of moral high-ground didn’t exempt them from Astarion’s thrall. In the beginning it was distressing to be thinking one thing, and doing another, but as time and time again suspicion and distrust were validated, he grew to trust and respect the redirection. This darkness, as Mauria had dismissed it, had often been the only thing standing between himself and a would-be rival. His darkness meant that fear no longer knew his name, and jealousy was no longer a consideration. Astarion had learned to wield it with the same precision as he did his daggers. There was nothing he wanted that the darkness couldn’t make his through money, influence, or sheer force of will.
Nothing.

His eyes scanned the sky—a storm was brewing. Sodden shoes and wet hair were not going to improve his mood, and this was a time to shit or get off the pot, to quote one of Karlach’s more colourful idioms.
Karlach.

Before last night, his last glimpse of her had been over a month ago. After years as his right hand, she left his estate, revealed and shamed, and hadn’t looked back. Hadn’t come back. Astarion’s stomach soured, and he scowled toward the prep counter, putting the bulk of the misery down to the coffee.

He placed his palm flat on the table. He simply needed to cross the road, open that awful door, and talk to her. There were questions that needed answers. And conversations that needed to be concluded. 

They’d made love last night. The moment she walked into the club, flimsily draped in silk and leather he was certain it had been her intention to take a ride. As it had been his to resist her. Reject her, debase her—publicly, if at all possible. Except she hadn't arrived with head games and manipulation. Yes, her approach was sultry and slow. And yes, her methods were teasing and tantalizing, but she’d come with an honesty and openness he hadn’t expected. Instead, his resolve cracked, and the weaker side of him had fallen at her feet. Willingly and wantonly, he’d poured years of grief into her…

…and she'd slunk away like a hundred-pound rat before dawn broke.

No, that’s not what happened. Astarion closed his eyes, recalling how her body had turned boneless in her afterglow. She’d stayed astride him, and laid her head on his shoulder—a small, comforting weight on his body, and a warm breath on his neck. After a while, he’d gone soft inside her, and her breaths had become slow and deep.
‘This place is incredible, Astarion.’ He startled, thinking she was asleep. Her praise against his neck caused him to harden anew, and he felt her smile. ‘You’ve done so well.’

He invited her to Sangréal to flaunt his success, but the way her approval ached under his ribs told a different story.

‘Mhmm, people weren’t sure what to make of it at first,’ Astarion said. He traced lazy patterns over her back, and she wriggled in closer, molding her form to his. ‘Duke Sashenstar came in once with his wife. They stood out like orcs at the opera, darling. I assume they expected something more akin to a ball? I really couldn’t say—’
Mauria giggled. ‘Oh, nooooo…’ she breathed.

Astarion tightened his arms around her back, pleased to be making her laugh. Enjoying the buzz it conducted over his skin. ‘The look on her face, darling—’ Astarion chuckled, and brushed a lock of her short hair off her forehead, clearing a space he brushed his lips against. ‘In truth, the Duke looked as though he wanted to stay…’ he paused for dramatic effect, ‘right up until he discovered that I employ his mistress as a table dancer!’ He flexed his fingers, pressing into the softness of her waist, making her jump and squeak. Astarion was laughing heartily at the memory, and Mauria clung to him, stifling her own giggles.

‘I wish I could have seen that!’ she said, sighing as she recovered herself.

‘Yes, well—’ Astarion suddenly shifted moods. He felt it happening and he heard it come out of his mouth, but was unable to stop it. ‘that’s hardly my fault, is it?’

Astarion felt all the softness go from her flesh. The apprentice watched the master—helplessly cowing to its instincts. ‘There’s a great deal you should have been here for—’ Her muscles refilled with tension, and she shifted off his lap.

Mauria was careful as she dressed. She took just long enough with every action to appear unhurried, unbothered, and casual. Astarion looked on, face stoney, saying as little as possible lest he make this worse. That voice in his head—that unscrupulous and bold instinct—could fuck right off. He could not let it’s influence extend to matters involving this woman. His mind raced, searching for a way to salvage their night. As they said goodbye, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed the corner of his mouth. When her warm body slipped from his arms, the cold that took its place seeped into his bones, holding on far longer than her warmth had.

Astarion’s hand drifted unconsciously into his pocket, and closed around the object that his fingers now knew intimately. He knew the precise width, length, texture as surely as he knew his own skin—though the weight of it had changed.

He stood. The sky flashed, going from inky blue to bright white, and back again in an instant. Immediately behind it came the low roll of thunder, before the rain began teeming down.
‘Shit,’ Astarion muttered, and settling back into his chair, picked up the fresh coffee.

Another hour passed before Astarion risked the light drizzle, and crossed the muddy street. The sky still hung black and heavy over the city, daring those stupid enough to venture outside. Astarion hoped to not be kept waiting on the doorstep.

He knocked, and the door swung away, already off the latch. The wind picked up just as he stepped in.

‘Mauria,’ Astarion called out as he shook the water off his overcoat and slipped it off. He froze in the act of hanging it at the door and extended his senses outward. The house was cold, and dark, and he could hear nothing over the near constant roll of thunder, as a new wave of storm rolled over the city. Was she not at home?

‘Mauria!’

His voice collided with a particularly sharp clap, simultaneous with the fork of lightning overhead.

Exploring into the hall, he opened one door after another, finding the same emptiness, the same chill. His footsteps echoed off the tiled floor, expanding to fill the space, as he entered the kitchen.

Next to the stove, he found artifacts that filled him with relief—the sugar bowl, teaspoon, and half-full coffee press were signs of life. He now knew, at least, that Mauria had been home this morning. Astarion stepped into the room, pausing to close the window as he went. 

He stopped when something crunched underfoot. He reversed carefully and crouched to investigate. Even through the dim, the sheen of the sea blue glaze and bisque shone back at him. Many more lay arced away from the centre of destruction. The wall was still shiny with coffee, the dried rivulets darkened at the edges. The dent in the plaster suggested the mug had been hurled with no small amount of anger. Astarion tipped his handful of pottery shards onto the counter with the rest, and that’s when he saw the letter. 

Recognizing his handwriting, he pulled the letter from the envelope. Astarion groaned as he reread his words from two and a half decades previous. 

He no longer felt this fierce rage, but the venom imbued on this page was still potent. He wandered from the kitchen, reading over his words, recalling clearly the anger and hurt he wanted to inflict—to transfer—to her. He didn’t recall posting it, but then, he didn’t recall much from the first six months after she fled. He sat down in her armchair, and blew out a long stream of air. Simply rereading these words filled him too, with a strong desire to break something. A throw, carelessly flung over the back of the chair fell to the floor. Reaching for it, his fingers brushed over another object. One he knew as well as the phial in his pocket. 

Astarion traced a finger over the tooled design that adorned the cover of Mauria’s journal. He rested his ankle against his knee, then settled the large book on his lap and considered it a long moment. He opened it and began to read.

The next thing Astarion noticed was the quiet. The storm had ended, and the darkness now was due to the approaching dusk.
The journal read like a wild adventurer’s tale, and yet Astarion believed every word.
Dates and names and places were recorded with a meticulousness he’d forgotten she possessed. Bits of paper—a receipt, a ticket, an invitation—were tucked into makeshift sleeves. Here and there, a map was pasted in. In his lap lay a full account of where Mauria had been for twenty-six years. Astarion took a deep breath and rolled his neck. Looking down, he found that he had the blanket twisted tightly in his hands. His head pounded, his jaw ached, and he felt nauseous from the rapid and intense changes in mood.

Did Calliope know all the places her mother had visited in her time away? Was Karlach aware of how many failed rites and rituals Mauria subjected herself to? Gale must certainly have recognized the risk of some of these undertakings. Had he tried to stop any of it?

Wisps of black smoke curled around the curiosity and jerked it sharply back. How could he have counted these people as allies—as friends? It was clear to him now just how sentimentality had blinded him to the real threats in his life. He closed his eyes and looked up at the ceiling, stretching away the aches, when he heard the floorboards creak above him.

So, she was here after all.

Astarion clutched the journal to his chest, and climbed the narrow staircase to find its author.

The heavy book was hurled at the foot of the bed, the hostility of it reduced dramatically by the feather filled duvet it landed on. ‘Were you planning to tell me this?’

‘Which part?’

‘Any of this! All of this!’  Astarion felt the soft tendrils of dark fog lick at his cheeks again. ‘You’ve seen every cleric, scholar, slayer or mage in Toril! Were you going to tell me about the rituals you endured, or the gold you spent, or the blood you’ve let?’ Astarion demanded.

‘Any of it? Yes. All of it? No.’ Mauria looked at him evenly. She was curled up on the wide padded bench that overlooked the street. The light shifted over her face through the water that streamed over the glass.

‘‘The cure was garbage Mauria. It didn’t do a godsdamned thing,’ Astarion said. He had practiced how to tell her; on the walk over, as he watched her house, as he read through the journal. In this end, this was not how he meant to say it, but it tasted just as bitter on his tongue. ‘I’m still the same monster you abandoned. That thing gnawing on my spine, that vice clamp around my chest, it’s still there.’ He was yelling now. ‘The voice in my head that is telling me to drain you dry, and force you to love me—it’s still there.’ 

Mauria just nodded.

‘I tried—’ Astarion heard the prominent notes of desperation in his voice, and cleared his throat to begin again, overcorrecting so it then sounded like he was concluding a business meeting. ‘I tried, and I failed. I am what I am. Sorry to disappoint you, darling,’ He dropped his head, drawing in a long breath. ‘Please—.’ Astarion stalled. That was not the reaction he expected. He’d have bet gold that she’d cry. ‘You don’t seem surprised’ he said slowly. Between his wildly fluctuating mood, and her unexpected responses, she struggled to maintain his anger.

Mauria shook her head. 

This was getting on his nerves, and he pressed his nails into his palms in response.

‘You knew it wouldn’t work.’ It wasn’t so much a question, as a statement, but when she continued to watch him, without word or expression, his patience broke. ‘Answer me, damnit! You knew!’

Mauria unfolded herself from her perch, and stood up. She looked a great deal older than her 78 years. She'd been crying at some point, anyhow. He could tell by the patterns left by the makeup from last night. 

‘Yes, I knew—’ She didn’t look nearly as contrite as he’d prefer. ‘It wasn’t meant to. Not in the way you were expecting.’

‘So, what was all this for?’ Astarion was tired. Tired of the whiplash feeling of wanting her dead one moment, and in his arms the next. He was tired of the gnawing anxiety that had come from carrying that fucking phial around for months. He was tired of trying to sus out her motives and unpack her manipulations. ‘Why all the button pushing? The string-pulling?’ After that stunt at the harbour he was reasonably sure she was back for him. He was flattered by the effort, and he’d been short on entertainment, so he decided that she’d make a tolerable plaything—the way a cat plays with a mouse, though he had intended to be the cat.
When she first handed him the phial, he was certain. She was back to see her charity project through. Astarion grimaced just to think of it. Mauria primed him using every tool from her admittedly impressive syllabus. She brought out all the stops; memories, music, flattery, and even perhaps that’s what the fuck was all about. She’d set charges for the nearly 20 years they were together, peppering his life with smokepowder. When she’d returned she’d been entertaining, and a distraction that blinded him to the fuses she was quietly setting. When she gave him the phial, it had come with a lit match.

Mauria looked vaguely amused, and Astarion clucked his tongue in disgust. ‘You think that in 20 years I didn't learn how to spot when you’re working over a mark?’

She ignored the barb. ‘I needed to know if you were…still in there.’ Her grey-green eyes flitted over his face, and he tightened against the reflex to smile. ‘I wanted to know if you were happy…with how things are now.’

You fucked around with my life for months, because you wanted to know if I was…happy? You picked away at me until at last you unearthed that weak thing I buried. You dug him up and gave him hope.’ He pulled the phial from his pocket, and in an action that surprised them both, hurled it against the wall. ‘Empty. Fucking. Hope!’

‘Am I happy?‘ Astarion stared her down, his gaze acidic, ‘What do you think?’

‘Why did you take the cure, Astarion?’ Something about the calm, measured question made Astarion see red.

‘‘I hope you got whatever it was you were looking for. Revenge? An ego boost?’ His voice was a dangerous hiss. ‘Just needed to know you were still wanted? Still the first thing I think about in the morning, and the last at night?’ 

‘None of it matters. I’m stuck with this…this passenger. He’s taken up residence and is not going to let me…forget it. Just forget it.’ Astarion dragged his hands over his face and forced himself to calm down. ‘This has gone far enough.’

‘Say that again.’ Mauria whispered.

‘Go home, Mauria—there’s nothing in the ‘Gate for you anymore.’ He turned his back on her and was leaving, when a hand gripped his bicep.

‘No, you fucking don’t,’ she hissed. ‘Say that again.’ 

‘Say what? What do you want to hear? That it’s hopeless? That I’m cursed to be this evil thing forever? Or that I’d give it all up—the immortality, the influence, the power—just to have one more day of how it was?’ Astarion felt his eyes start to burn and he swiped angrily at them. He was the godsdamned Ascendant. He would kill them both before he’d cry.

‘What good does that do either of us?’ he snarled, challenging, or perhaps pleading with her to answer his question. He noticed her eyes shift past him to look over his shoulder only a split second before he heard the voice—long-forgotten, and terrifyingly familiar, at the same time his nose burned with sulphur.

‘Quite a lot more than you’d expect, I think.’ the voice taunted.

‘Raphael.’

Chapter Text

Confession

‘What the—’ Astarion’s outrage caught in his throat when a sudden and violent movement caused his stomach to drop, and his head to spin. The sulphur burned in his nose, and his chest convulsed with the urge to retch.

‘—hells?’ Astarion bent over at the waist, his stance wide to mitigate the spinning. He chanced a look around himself. Nothing was spinning, everything in the room was quite stationary. Astarion groped out with his right hand to where Mauria stood, more or less in the same pose a couple feet away. His sense of depth was off, and he swiped at the air, missing the hand he was trying to grasp. 

A dark chuckle rumbled across the floor, and Astarion was unable to pinpoint it’s origin. It seemed to come from every corner of the room at once. 

Astarion pressed his palms into the heavy wooden surface in front of him, and made to stand. A table, he realized—he was standing at a table. The over-warm room was lit only by firelight, but Astarion made out the face of his captor tucked deep into the corners the light left untouched. ‘Raphael,’ Astarion croaked, ‘What in the hells do you think you’re doing?’ Black mist gathered at the corners of his vision, as Astarion quickly sized up the situation, hoping to gods he didn’t worship that he was wrong.

Mauria vaguely registered Astarion to her left, and weakly reached back for him when his hand extended. He missed, and she rebalanced herself quickly.

She looked up to where Raphael leaned against a large pillar at the far end of the room. He waited patiently for the two guests to recover their bearings, and in the room’s glow, a hungry, inhuman grin stretched his features. Taking a bracing breath, Mauria assessed her situation. The room was large with all its surfaces covered in marble. The high ceilings were nearly imperceptible in the low light and a fireplace large enough to house a family of four was at their back. Both she and Astarion were bracing themselves on a heavy oak table that appeared to be set for a banquet—roast meats, bowls of exotic fruits, and lavish sweets were piled high amongst bottles of wine, and port, and other fine things. 

‘All this just for us, Raphael?’ Mauria quipped, ‘I’m flattered, but I had a big breakfast.’ She groped for the chair back and stood the rest of the way up. Every corner of this room was overdecorated with a kind of obvious extravagance she wasn’t the least surprised for. Overstuffed furniture was covered in red velvet. Gold cording, tassels, and jewelled studs adorned too many surfaces. The opulence practically sat pretty and begged to be noticed. The room was overheated by a roaring fire, and smelled of smoke and spices—like mulled wine in wintertime.

‘Little bard, little bard,’ Raphael’s voice trailed lazily behind him as he sauntered her way. ‘I suppose congratulations are in order.’ He pulled a chair out from the table and began to pour wine. He held out a glass to Astarion, who regarded him stonily. Raphael shrugged, and took a large sip before leaning back in his chair. ‘My word isn’t often tested, as few get this close to forcing my hand.’ The sound of his laugh grated on her nerves like a file over iron. ‘And it only cost you a quarter century of your life.’ Raphael turned toward Astarion. ‘Did she tell you where she's been? The trouble she's been stirring up?’ He turned the wine cork over his knuckles while he spoke. ‘Did she tell you that she came to me, hoping I’d restore you to the pathetic spawn she used to control?’

Confusion twisted Astarion’s beautiful features. He didn’t understand, which made him vulnerable. Being vulnerable made Astarion feel insecure. Being insecure was akin to feeling afraid, and Mauria knew well that being afraid made the Lord Vampire Ascendant dangerous. He looked at her questioningly, and she dropped her eyes—this was not how she wanted this to go. Astarion’s face contorted through five shades of anger and grief, and he cleared his throat. ‘I think I’d like one of you to expand on that.’ Astarion’s voice was tight with restraint. ‘Right. Fucking. Now.’

‘Would you like to do the honours, little bard?’ Raphael’s eyes narrowed in malicious amusement. Mauria glared at him. ‘You know I can’t do that, Raphael.’ She was not about to be goaded out of her prize. ‘It’s part of the terms.’

Raphael shrugged, his self-satisfied smile crawling up his face, never reaching his eyes. Astarion was recovered from his disorientation, and in a couple long strides was toe to toe with the devil in human form. Astarion’s eyes glowed crimson, and when he spoke, his voice took on an echoing quality, a profane chorus a dissonant semi-tone beneath his voice.

‘I’ve never compelled a devil before,’ the Ascendant growled, ‘but I am game to give it a shot.’

Whatever Mauria had been searching for all these years, surely Raphael could not be the solution she settled on. Over the years, Raphael’s name did come up. Once in a while Mauria would ponder these hypothetical questions of what she’d be willing to barter away to ensure their happiness and peace persisted. How much was too much to give over, and when did the cost outweigh the benefit? She always spoke so matter-of-factly on the subject, but Astarion heard the tiny tremor in her voice that betrayed the boldness. Heard it, but willfully ignored it.

‘You didn’t actually make a deal with this devil, did you?’ Astarion shrieked, ‘Tell me you’re not that stupid!’

Astarion regretted now that the extent of his participation in these discussions was limited to snarky quips, and flippant jokes. He thought he’d been lightening her mood, or distracting her from the fear he always knew—but rarely acknowledged—lived at the edges of her mind. If he’d known she’d actually approach the devil—Gods, he didn’t know what was more disconcerting; Raphael’s familiarity, or Mauria’s resignation. Astarion felt suddenly ill.

He turned to Mauria for an answer. ‘What have you done?’ His voice quivered, equal parts rage and fear.

‘Tut, tut, Lord Ascendant. Not to worry,’ Raphael crooned, ‘Her soul remains safely ensconced in that dreary, mortal husk of hers.’ The devil tipped his head to regard Mauria. He slowly trailed his eyes up her body, distaste pronounced on his features. He poured himself another glass of wine—the pause in his words feeling tendays long, at least. ‘No, no—she approached this from a rather novel angle. I would be astonished at the way she was able to work this problem, if I were inclined to be astonished by the deeds of mortals.’

Astarion looked at Mauria, who remained stoic, and still.

‘I’ve met many highly motivated people in my millenia in this line of work, but rarely have I come across anyone so single minded as this one.’ Raphael smiled almost fondly at Mauria, and Astarion felt a strong urge to open his throat with a swipe of his claws. ‘She distanced herself from her own child for years. She nurtured your daughter’s relationship with you, ahead of her own. I’m sure you must have noticed—I happen to know that young Calliope did.’ At the mention of his daughter’s name, Astarion growled, ‘—but did you never wonder why?’ Raphael stood and paced the perimeter of the table. ‘She baited a child to betray her one parent to the other, simply to put that child in a position of trust.’ Astarion’s eyebrows shot up, not sure if he was understanding. Mauria couldn’t have—she’d have had to be planning since—

For anyone else, he’d dismiss it out of hand. No one thought that many steps ahead.
Almost no one. 

Blood filled Astarion’s mouth, and he realized that he was biting his cheek so hard he’d broken skin.

‘And she didn’t stop there!’ Raphael sounded like the barker outside a circus tent. He was practically giddy with excitement at exposing Mauria’s sins.

‘Do you want to take it from here?’ Raphael said. ‘I grant you all the permission you need. Please—’ He bowed mockingly toward her, ‘this will be so much more satisfying from your own lips.’

Mauria took an uncertain breath, and began to speak.

‘It’s true—I needed Cal to love you more.’ the admission stunned the Ascendant as surely as a blow to the skull. ‘You needed that as well, I think.’ She chewed her lip and considered her next words. ‘—The fact that I was able to use that later was…convenient.’ Mauria paled, looking as though she might be ill. ‘I asked Karlach to work for you—’

‘No, I was the one who offered her a job when she asked me for a loan,’ Astarion said uncertainly, and heard Raphael’s wicked chuckle under his words.

‘She didn’t need your gold, Astarion—she needed access to your inner circle, and a plausible reason to be always underfoot.’

Astarion gritted his teeth, wanting nothing more than this horrid conversation to be over. ‘Lae’zel?—’

‘—was just more eyes on you.’ Mauria mumbled at the floor, looking up once to see Astarion glaring coldly at her. She didn’t dare look up again. 

‘I received regular reports on your business, your life—your sanity.’ She wrung her hands. ‘I needed to know you were ok!’ She heard the high whine of her pleas, and they sounded weak and pathetic.

Every step of the way, Mauria believed her actions justified. A small concession here or there—all in pursuit of a larger goal. A tiny lie, a small nudge in a questionable direction. But hearing them spoken, unbroken, in a long chain of deceit, she shrunk in on herself, until she was hunched awkwardly—cowering like a beaten mutt. When she noticed, she straightened, and leveled her chin at him defiantly. She knew there would be consequences.

‘When I got back to the ‘Gate,’ she said, ‘My business—the land I purchased, the loans I issued, the contacts I made—was all to put me in your path. And I did get your attention.’

‘Because you had a cure for me?—’ Astarion pinched the bridge of his nose, and looked at them both through eyes squinted against an oncoming headache. 

‘Not a cure, so much as a technicality.’ Raphael waved a dismissive hand at Mauria, yet his grip tightened on his goblet. 

‘But it will cure me?’ Each syllable fell clipped from Astarion’s mouth. He was wound dangerously tight.

‘Yes,’ both Mauria and Raphael answered.

‘Well?’ Astarion snarled, choosing to snap in Raphael’s direction. ‘What is it?’

‘A bit of wording in your contract—one small benefit of the Rite of Ascension for which you were not given full credit.’ Raphael’s nonchalant words were betrayed by their timbre, forced through gritted teeth. ‘It’s hardly a solution befitting the quest she embarked on. No heroics involved, no one will be immortalizing The Tale of Mauria the Contract Analyst to story and song,’ he sneered.

‘Small benefit?’ Astarion repeated. ‘Technicality…contract.’ Astarion's eyes roamed the nothing between them all as he considered this. A couple times he opened his mouth but no sound came out. When finally it did, Astarion’s giggle was so unexpected that it made Mauria’s head jerk up. She blinked rapidly at the dissonant noise and he captured her in his ruby gaze, though still addressing Raphael. ‘A clerical error?’ Astarion’s lips pressed in a hard line. His eyes shone with an impish sparkle—familiar but long unseen. It was her Star—a flash of her partner in crime for decades—this look right there was the reason for everything she’d done. He was in there still, and something began to swell in her chest. That dangerous, devastating thing that she’d only been willing to side-eye since the moment she’d read that cursed tome—Hope. Astarion turned sharply back to the devil, who glared murderously at Mauria. ‘The hells were bested, and it wasn’t some ancient artifact, or arcane incantation, or infernal pact,’ Astarion was wild-eyed and giddy now, ‘—it was paperwork!!’

‘Astarion,’ Mauria spoke quietly and carefully, as though one wrong syllable could sewer this entire endeavour, ‘if you want it, Raphael will take that—inherent vampiric evil. He will take that weakness from you—’

‘—and return you to the obedient puppy at the end of her leash,’ Raphael interrupted. ‘I can free you to resume a life of having every thought and instinct passed through her morality filter for approval—is that what you want? To be neutered by someone who would use people so callously simply to maintain control of you?’

A shadow flickered across Astarion’s face, and Mauria saw the conflict. Raphael was no stranger to persuasion himself, and his arguments were tailored precisely to a vampire ruled by mistrust, avarice, and the need to dominate. The hope flickered and guttered like the fragile flame it was.

That dark smoke crowded in again, thick and curling, and whipping violently. Astarion felt his chest constrict, and his muscles clench. A desperate feeling flooded him, a feeling of losing control, of slipping away.

Astarion saw violent images, both of what he’d done, as well as what he’d fantasized about doing. 

‘Star?’ 

He could hear her, but from a thousand miles and a lifetime away.

The memories flicked and flashed across his mind, as Astarion gritted his teeth and bore down against the physical revulsion. The pain rising behind his eyes receded, and his chest released

‘Star.’

A stolen ring, planted on a rival

A new guitar to replace one she sacrificed

The sounds of breaking porcelain

The Queen of Hearts, a joker, and a kiss

Notebook 

Forged letter

Ticking clock

Calling card

Nervous butler

Astarion squared his shoulders, and opened his eyes—the devil already fixed in his sights.

‘Raphael, you’re absolutely right,’ Astarion nodded solemnly, ‘the sheer volume of trickery, deceit, and lies needed to secure my salvation—’ Astarion put the word in airquotes, ‘is indeed a sign of a devious mind.’

Astarion paced in front of the fireplace, puzzling through his thoughts. ‘She will, in fact, stop at nothing it seems, to get what she wants!’

Raphael’s shoulders dropped, and his oily smile oozed back onto his face. The effect was short lived. 

‘–So, aren’t I fortunate that she’s on my side?’

Raphael was speechless, trying to parse what he was being told. Astarion waited patiently, enjoying the disbelief twist the devil’s ruddy features. 

‘You clearly haven’t done your research, Raphael,’ Astarion said. He turned to wink at Mauria, and thrilled at the awe on her own features. He wasn’t too late. ‘It just so happens that trickery, deceit, and lies are our love language.’ 

Astarion reached out blindly, not taking his eyes off the ever tensing devil. He was relieved when a small warm hand fit itself within his own. ‘Did I miss anything, my girl?’

‘Petty larceny,’ Mauria added quietly, and Astarion chewed at his cheek to marshal the smile. 

‘I see,’ Raphael said, looking between them, and rubbing the space between his eyes. ‘Then, let’s get on with it.’ He flicked a lazy hand toward Mauria, ‘We don’t need you for this.’

Mauria staggered and fell heavily onto her bed, the return trip being no less jarring that the first. 

She lay still, face pressed deeply into the feather pillow, until at last the room stopped spinning. She rolled onto her back, grinning up at the dark ceiling. Moonlight now cast everything in a soft blue light—the storm that fulminated earlier had moved on—satisfied, or simply burned out.
She wondered if she felt satisfied, or simply burned out. It was done. But like the storm, there was no shortage of damage done. Many things still needed to be set right, or repaired, or replaced. Some could never be restored.

Tears streamed over her cheeks, collecting in the hollows of her neck, but she hadn’t the strength to even wipe them away. She carried on like this, quietly sobbing without knowing exactly why, until she at last fell asleep.

When Astarion was returned to the mortal plane, he was dropped unceremoniously outside. It was no longer raining, though remnants of the storm still littered the street. Tree branches hung like broken limbs, awkward and loose. Trash bins has been overturned, and rotting food lay scattered drawing out rats that scurried out, grabbing what they dared, before darting back into the shadows. A few houses down a window was broken, and two men worked to fasten boards over the gaping hole. The mud that had run like a red-brown river in the streets was now just a scattering of sticky splotches left in low spots in the cobblestones. The quality of the sun—above the horizon, but still short of the skyline—as well as the cacophonous birdsong all informed that it was morning. The next morning, Astarion assumed, but even that he wasn’t certain of. The sun was barely set when they were summoned to Avernus. To his internal chronometer he hadn’t been in the hells long enough for it to be any morning at all.

Astarion quickly realized he was outside of Mauria’s home and instinctively reached for the doorknob. Doubt stilled his hand when he cued up his greeting and realized he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what he wanted her to say. The events of the last hour—or however long it had been—were still scattered across his mind. 

He pressed his palm to the door, as though he could divine the answers though some psychic vibrations of the wood. Astarion’s lips moved silently as he tried out a couple phrases, shaking his head as he dismissed each one. After a few minutes of this he turned back to walk up the street. With his eyes cast down to watch his feet carry him away from her, he never even noticed the flutter of the curtains in the upstairs window.

Chapter Text

The Way You Love Me

Her front door closed with a soft click. Quiet, but not quiet enough to evade her elf ears. Her intruder didn’t really wish to be unnoticed anyhow. If he did, he’d have stayed away, just as he’d done for the past half-tenday.

Astarion’s footsteps were slow and even, ascending the stairs. He wasn’t creeping, but equally, he didn’t rush. He wasn’t sneaking, but he hadn’t called out to her either. In another time she might have teasingly asked that he unlearn this habit of letting himself into her home. Mauria almost smiled, her face twisting instead as her throat burned with renewed regret—there would be no such teasing. Mauria pulled the covers up around her ears, turned her back to the door and hoped he’d go away, though without any real expectation that it was likely, nor any real belief that’s what she truly wanted.

The bard reflexively held her breath when the footsteps stopped at the top of the stairs. Stupid, she realized. There was no hiding from the Ascendant. He came all the way to the foot of her double bed, with Mauria watching his reflection the whole way in the mirror over her cabinet. His expression was unreadable, as were his actions. He looked around her room, overly interested in her bedspread, the pictures on the walls, the drapes. He checked his cuffs for gods knew what before finally his eyes met hers in the reflection, and she yanked the covers up. 

After watching Astarion walk away four days ago, Mauria passed through all seven stages of grief, and invented three more for herself. She’d raged, and sobbed, and stormed, directing her tempest of emotion alternately between herself, Astarion, herself, Raphael, and herself.

‘It’s past noon,’ he said without inflection. 

She was cried-out, and now just felt tired. Her voice muffled beneath the bedding she fisted against her face, she asked, ‘What do you want?’ 

‘What do I want?’ Astarion’s voice was high and incredulous, and he repeated his disbelieving question a second time, as to confirm it was indeed the one she asked. ‘Darling, I don’t proclaim to be any kind of sage, but even I think that’s a stupid question.’ 

Mauria ground her teeth, and resisted snapping back. ‘Alright,’ she said through a clenched jaw, and she lowered the covers to meet his reflection head on, ‘Where have you been?’ 

‘I needed a moment.’ Astarion’s casual tone caused angry tears to prick at her eyes. After knowing the man for several decades, Mauria had come to learn that -checking your nails with feigned disinterest- indeed had a sound. ‘I had some things to mull over, hadn’t I?’ 

The last of the hope leeched from Mauria’s bones. She hadn’t the strength to fight it off any longer, and despair rushed into the void it left behind. 

‘Yeah, well…’ she said. ‘Now you know how profoundly broken I am.’ A hysterical laugh burst from her, unbidden as she thought of the letter. ‘Though, this is not news.’

‘Ah. Yes, you do tend to bend people to your will.’ 

Astarion leaned against the polished walnut of the footboard. With all its turnings and carvings it couldn’t have been comfortable pressing into his hip, and she felt a frisson of malicious pleasure watching him dither between unaffecting his pose, or tolerating the lump in his side. 

He stood up, and for a terrifying moment Mauria thought he was going to come around the bed to talk to her directly. She couldn’t face him—not after everything she’d done. As it was, this face to reflection discourse pressed against the limits of what Mauria could tolerate. Perhaps the panic registered on her face, because Astarion stepped back.

‘If you’re here to condemn me, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait your turn.’ Mauria blinked fast, and stared up, which was more like behind her, while composing her thoughts. 

‘No,’ He sounded tired too. ‘I have no desire to mete out any further misery.’

‘You should,’ The words came ugly and harsh past the shame lodged in her windpipe. ‘I used our baby girl, your best friend, my best friend—anyone I could get my hands on really—I used them all.’

A corner of Mauria’s mind detected how the room had darkened despite the hour. It had started raining again. In the silence, her mind locked on to the patter of drops against the skylight. Her breathing slowed, and despite the consequence of this conversation, she struggled to focus, her mind threatening to succumb to the appeal of an apathetic torpor

‘Wasn’t it a good cause?’

‘I thought so,’ Mauria breathed deeply, and forced to return to consciousness. ‘Do good intentions really count for anything, though?’

‘Rarely,’ Astarion agreed, grimly. He was quiet a long time, then a soft intake of breath. ‘Although,...’

Mauria felt the bed dip as Astarion took a seat near her feet. She kept her back to him.

‘Do you recall when Calliope got into my office, and destroyed all those documents? She scrawled her little name all over them. Every one of them misspelled, too, if I recall.’

Mauria tightened her cheeks against the smile. ‘You were so angry. And rightly so. She should have known better.’
Astarion shook his head, his eyes rewatching the scene in the middle distance. ‘You misremember, I think. You told me that she was only trying to help, and I should look at the intention, not the act. You pointed out that she watched me grumble along writing and signing papers all day—looking miserable—and so found a way to carry some of my load.’

‘It’s not the same, Astarion. Calli was four years old.’ 

‘No?’

‘This wasn’t about love.’ She stopped for a moment, and waited for the lump to work it’s way from her throat. ‘I mean, I thought it was, but how could it have been?’ She met his eyes again in the mirror, and this time held his gaze.

‘Darling,’ Astarion huffed impatiently and ran a hand through his curls. ‘This is incredibly unattractive.’

‘Fuck off, Astarion.’ Mauria wiped her eyes with the cuff she gripped tightly in her palm.
‘Truly, Mauria,’ Astarion’s nose wrinkled in distaste, as he gestured vaguely at her, ‘What is this?—’

Mauria suddenly flopped her arms out of the covers, the heavy blankets folding to her waist, and Astarion stood up abruptly.

‘Don’t you get it?’ she snarled, scrambling to her knees. ‘I don’t love you. Love is selfless? I can’t be selfless. I want to be the only light your eyes see, the only shape your hands feel, and the only song your ears hear. Proper love isn’t possessive, is it? But, I want to claim you,’ she snarled. ‘I want you marked, and tagged, and a great sign put up on the lawn that declares that this is my vampire!’ She thumped hard against her chest. ‘Mine!’
A moment later she was on her feet, her voice tremulous and tense. 

‘Love should be truth, and honesty—but I have proven time and again that I’d shamelessly lie, cheat, and steal—’ Mauria was crying, and she alternated words and sobs. ‘I would bring - down buildings, I would burn this whole fuck— this whole fucking world to the ground if it meant that you and I were standing together in the ashes at the end of it.’ 

She took a gulping breath, and held it while hiccups pounded at her sternum, trying to break free. ‘But that’s not love.’ she cackled. ‘That’s not even sanity.’ 

Mauria stood with her eyes and fists clenched shut while she waited for the tears to stem. All screamed out, her skin cooled in the fireless room, and gooseflesh rose on her arms. She opened her eyes slowly, half expecting to be standing alone in the house. Instead, the bleary figure of Astarion was indeed still there. He leaned back against the window, his legs crossed gracefully at the ankles, and surveilled her with a faint smirk on his lips. 

‘There she is—’ His smirk resolved into a genuine smile, and his eyes narrowed appreciatively, ‘—my Portent of Chaos.’

‘Wh?-’

Astarion pushed off the window sill, and prowled toward her.

‘My girl doesn’t sulk, or pout, or feel sorry for herself.’ Astarion scanned her top to bottom, and the bard felt disorientated. ‘She doesn’t ask nicely, and she certainly doesn’t take no for an answer.’

Mauria blinked stupidly at Astarion. Feeling destabilized and shaky, she sat heavily onto her bed.

‘Enough, darling. I don’t know what copper novel you got that love nonsense from, but I assure you, I am loathe to align with any definition that so castrates the concept.’ 

‘Selfless? How boring. What person of any passion wouldn’t want to be pursued so ravenously?’ He clucked his tongue in mock disapproval. ‘I would accept nothing less, honestly.’

‘Honesty is easy, darling. Passive, even. Honesty is just laying out facts and hoping for the best. What you did was risky. It was painful. It was work. Hard work.’ 

Astarion dropped to a crouch before her. ‘No one has ever worked that hard for me or cared that much. No one but you would ever come close!’ 

‘As for marking me,’ Astarion’s voice dipped into the register he used for sinning, ‘—I do hope you meant that.’ He offered his hand. When she took it he pulled her with him to her feet, and gathered her up in a squeeze. ‘Although, a sign on the lawn is a bit gauche.’

‘Remember what you told me makes a good con?’ Astarion asked. Mauria didn’t answer, so he prompted her. ‘A good con is based on knowing—’
‘—what someone wants and needs,’ Mauria finished, her voice still small.

Astarion hummed agreement, and dipped his head to get in her eye line. ‘And?’

‘—and giving it to them in the right moment, in the right form—’

‘—to get what you need in return.’ Astarion finished for her. He hummed, brought her hands to his lips, and kissed her palms. ‘I think that sounds quite a lot like love, don’t you?’

Mauria shook her head, and Astarion moved to stop her objection with a kiss. Only a breath away from her lips he stopped. He lifted her hand and used her own sleeve to further wipe at her face and nose. Mauria was laughing when he finally took her face in his hands and kissed her. When he broke away, he stayed close, his forehead to hers.

‘Our love language, hmm?’ Mauria peeked up at him through damp lashes. ‘That was a cute speech you gave Raphael.’

‘It was, wasn’t it?’ Astarion preened. ‘I can be poetic, too, darling. You don’t hold a patent on clever.’

‘It’s done?’ Mauria asked. She needed to be certain.

Astarion let go of her, then put his palms up as he did a little spin. ‘I’ve been upgraded,’ he giggled. ‘What do you think?’

‘You look wonderful—’ Tears sprang to Mauria’s eyes again, but she kept her voice low and steady. 

‘Pshh, that goes without saying,’ Astarion teased, ‘What’s new is that I feel wonderful.’

Mauria covered her face with her hands, and her small frame began to shake. Astarion pulled her in tight and kissed the top of her head before resting his chin on it. ‘You never quit on me.’

‘I told you I wouldn’t.’ Mauria said, voice muffled against her vampire’s chest.

‘Yes dear, but you’re a bit of a liar.’

It was done.
Twenty-six years of—what would she even call it? Struggle? No question, but it was more than just the tendays spent on leaky boats, or horses, or on foot down endless roads. It was more than sleeping in drafty tents, dusty haylofts, or sketchy rooming houses. It wasn’t only missing birthdays, graduations, the births of her friends’ children, and boring old fifthday afternoons of tea and gossip by the fire. It wasn’t the danger. It wasn’t the monotony. It wasn’t even that pitying fucking look that Gale would give her before he inevitably sighed and retrieved his traveling pack to accompany her onto some new bizarre quest. It was just—all of it.

‘You’re shaking.’ Astarion’s voice cut through her thoughts, drawing her back into the room. He looked at her with furrowed brows, and pursed lips—as though evaluating her through a magnifying lens.

‘I suppose I am,’ she replied, straightening her spine. ‘I’m fine.’ It did nothing to change the look on his face. ‘Really,’ she insisted. ‘A nervous system reset—nothing more.’

Astarion scoffed, but didn’t argue. He steered her to the bed, and sat her down. ‘Wait here,‘ he said, and disappeared down the stairs.

Mauria laughed quietly into the empty room. Yes, she could wait another moment or two for him.

She listened for noises that would inform on what he was doing, and heard cupboard doors opening and closing, and a small amount of exasperated sighing, as he seemingly kept choosing wrong in the unfamiliar house.

When he returned, a rich scent of mint and eucalyptus clung to him. 

‘Come,’ he beckoned, and led her down the stairs. 

He’d drawn her a bath. 

The room was lit with candles, that redoubled their light in the darkened windows. ‘I’ll just let you—’ he began, laying the towel on the bench at the head of the iron tub. 

‘No,’ Mauria said quickly. ‘Stay?’

He turned his back while she undressed, and waited until she’d sunk beneath the surface. Her sharp inhalation of breath made him glance over his shoulder. ‘Too hot?’ he asked.

‘No such thing.’

A bath was indeed exactly what she needed, and the therapeutic scent and scalding temperature immediately soothed her jittery nerves and tensing neck. She dropped her head back and looked at the vampire — her vampire — upside down. ‘A little help?’ she asked, and Astarion eagerly reached for a small crate of potions and lotions on the table next to him. 

Astarion worked in long strokes, rubbing scented oils into her skin, providing varying pressure in response to her sighs and hums. He bid her sit forward so he could work on her back, and she felt him stiffen. Mauria waited, knowing what he’d found.

Astarion recovered quickly, and began tracing out the long scars that crisscrossed her back. His fingers examined the lash marks from end to end. 

Mauria chuckled nervously, ‘Have you ever had to ask a Loviatan for a favour? I don’t recommend it.’ 

Astarion didn’t bite on her levity. ‘I want to know—’ he said. His tone was final, and while Mauria wasn’t surprised that he would ask about her time away, it didn’t make her any more eager to tell him. 

‘I want to know it all.’ 

Mauria merely nodded, wondering how much was curiosity, and how much was penance. He wouldn’t like much of what she had to tell, and didn’t see the point of talking about it at all.

‘Yes, love,’ she agreed, already planning her lies. She reached for his hand, and found a spot on his wrist not coated in oils and bubbles, and planted a kiss. ‘All in time.’ He rinsed her, and helped her from the slick basin, and wound her in a towel. Perhaps she should just be honest, she thought. He would certainly find more marks given time.

She found him in the sunroom once she was dried and redressed in a robe. He stood up when she entered, and there was an awkward moment where Astarion wasn’t sure if he should or should not reach for her. He chose to hand her a glass of wine which she accepted with an appreciative smile, before sitting, not next to him on the sofa but, in the armchair opposite him. 

He’d lit a fire in the grate, and the light jumped and danced over her features as she stared into it. 

‘Do you know—’ Astarion’s light tone would have been betrayed by the deep grooves his nails made in his palms is anyone was looking. Much to his disappointment, no one was. ‘Do you know, that in all the times I’ve been in your sunroom, not once has it been sunny in here?’ He grinned crookedly at her.

Mauria looked around. It was well and properly dark now, with only a lantern and the fire casting any light. 

‘I’ll be sure to invite you by on a sunny day,’ she sipped on her wine, looking innocently at him as though she didn’t know the weight of the conversation they were really having.

‘So, you’re staying here? In this house?’ Astarion met her casual affectation. 

‘Is there a reason I shouldn’t?’

‘Don’t be coy, darling. Presumably, you didn’t go through literal hell just to be my next door neighbour.’ 

Mauria chuckled and looked down into the wine rippling blood-black in her glass. ‘No, you’re right. I did not. But, I also don’t want to assume…anything.’

‘Anything?’

Mauria huffed, ‘I don’t presume to hop back into your bed.’ She sipped her wine non-chalantly. ‘Not without first checking for occupants, or changing the bedding, at the very least.’

Astarion stared at her. 

Oh. 

He pursed his lips and thought for a second. ‘Ask.’ he finally said.

‘Ask what?’

Astarion looked up at the ceiling and groaned. ‘Big tough adventurer, bad ass criminal, absolute freak in the bedroom, and you won’t ask a question that clearly is swirling around that little mind of yours.’

Mauria opened and closed her mouth a couple times in shock. ‘I—I could ask, if I wanted—’ she spat back, ‘—and I do not.’ 

‘Like fuck you don’t,’ Astarion howled, while Mauria shot him a searing look. ‘You just don’t want to hear the wrong answer.’

Mauria continued to glare at him, and Astarion felt an enjoyable bit of stirring in his pants. Oh, he did love to challenge this woman. 

‘Fine,’ she finally said, and waited expectantly.

Astarion just shook his head, and grinned into his wine. ‘Nuh-uhn,’ he hummed, and took a long, leisurely sip of his wine all while holding her eye. ‘Ask.’
‘This is fucking stupid,’ Mauria shot angrily. ‘Forget it. I’m sure you can’t count that high anyway.’

‘Ask,’ he teased.

‘Leave it,’ she growled back.

‘Ask…’

Mauria groaned. She got up and refilled her wine, then his. ‘Is everything going to be so weird between us?’ she asked.

‘Quite possibly, darling.’ Astarion extended his hand and Mauria curled up next to him on the sofa. ‘At least for a while.’ He was pleased to find that her shape fit against his as perfectly as ever. ‘We’ll figure this out though. I promise.’

Astarion drew idle shapes over her hand, skimming her wrist, inspecting her fingertips while she relaxed into his casual, familiar touch. 

Her breathing slowed, and Astarion leaned in to see if she was drifting off, only to be met with alert grey eyes. 

He pressed a kiss to her head, and lifted her glass from her hand to set it on the floor. He slipped one hand gently behind her neck, and tilted her head to expose her neck to him. His lips trailed down her jaw, resting just beneath her ear. She shifted nearer to him. In his most seductive tone, he whispered to her. 

‘Ask.’

‘Oh, my fucking gods, Astarion!!’ Mauria jumped to her feet while Astarion cackled in mischievous glee. ‘Fucking stop!’

‘Never,’ he growled, and in a flash reached out to snag her arm, pulling her back to the sofa. He pushed her back and prowled over her, caging her in.

‘The answer—’ he spoke between nipping and kissing her neck while she squirmed beneath him. ‘—to the question—’ one hand slipped between them and tugged open the sash on her robe, ‘—you definitely don’t want the answer to—’ Mauria pulled his shirt over his head and grasped a handful of curls, making him gasp then growl, 

‘—is zero.’ 

Mauria put her hands on his chest and pushed him away, trying to see him better.

‘Yes, yes—don’t overanalyze it,’ he said, removing her hands into his grip above her head. ‘And don’t you fucking cry while I’m trying to seduce you.’ He dipped down to kiss her deeply. His tongue tested at her lips, and she parted for him and ground her hips against the urgent suggestion pressing into her thigh.

Mauria gasped in sudden realization, ‘Is that why you were so bad at it the other night?’ 

Astarion yelped indignantly, while Mauria giggled and fought half-heartedly to get free. 

‘I love you,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘I love you so fucking much.’

Mauria woke to find the room barely lit with pink rays of sunrise, laying like mist across the floor. She blinked away the blear, testing first one eye then the other. Closing them again, she rolled her head toward the elf at her side.

‘Good morning, little bard,’ Astarion crooned low and quiet. She tilted her head to get a better view of him, and only smiled in response. Her eyes flitted around his face, crinkling appreciatively at various features. A warm sensation settled in Astarion’s belly. He’d forgotten that look. No one else looked at him that way, not before her, not since her. He pressed his lips tightly together, but kept looking down at her.

She snaked her hand under the arm he supported himself with, and pressed her palm to the small of his back, gently tracing over the ridges of his scar. As her hand moved up his spine, she drew him in until, small hand between his shoulder blades, she brought him down to meet her.

Astarion looked away to peel the covers back, off her body. Instantly her skin responded to the cool air, and she made a small noise of complaint, to which Astarion just shook his head gently and covered her back up, instead, rolling over her under the quilt. Mauria’s strong body was warm and her muscles were soft in this just-woken state. All the usual definition was missing, and in their place only soft flesh. The way it yielded when Astarion pressed his lips to it made his teeth ache. 

He lined himself up to her, and looked at her with the unspoken question in his puppy dog eyes. ‘Again? Already?’ Mauria laughed. ‘I just woke up!’ Her complaints were at odds with the way she tilted her hips to meet him. 

He pushed forward carefully a couple times, before rocking all the way into her with a quiet chuckle when he discovered she was more than ready. Rather than fucking, he lay his full weight over her, and nuzzled into her neck, enjoying how she mewled and twitched in response. He just wanted to be close, to be buried in her, to feel her heartbeat pulse through his flesh. Mauria didn’t seem to mind. She combed her fingers through the curl at his temple, and brushed her lips back and forth against his forehead.

‘Do you want to get married?’ Astarion was pleased how impulsive he’d made the question sound. He’d worry how to explain the ring already in his coat pocket if and when it came up.

She barked a laugh, clearly not expecting the question in a million different realities. ‘To you?’ Mauria stuttered out, her hips jumping as Astarion hit her sweet spot when he leaned on his elbow to look at her.

He just laughed, ‘Yes, to me.’ He looked sheepish a moment, before diving back into the hollow between her neck and shoulder, and beginning a slow roll of his hips. ‘I should have asked you a long time ago,’ he mumbled between nips.

‘No.’

‘No?’ Astarion felt a flicker of hurt, and his slow thrusting stuttered to a stop. ‘Oh. Of course. It’s too soon to be asking that.’

‘Silly vampire, I’d love to, of course,’ Mauria hooked her leg around his, and brought it up, nudging him in the ass to resume his hip roll. Astarion smirked, but obliged. ‘ ‘But I wonder—’ she trailed off.

‘Oh?’ he encouraged, coaxing small noises from her as he shifted his angle.

‘I wonder—’ Mauria spoke airily, as though thoughts were only now occurring to her. Astarion knew better, and braced for the hook. Mauria rarely voiced an idea that she didn’t have already worked six ways from seventh-day. ‘I wondered if perhaps we’d be better positioned if we remained adversaries.’

‘Go on,’ Astarion sat up on his knees for a better angle, and preened quietly when Mauria let out a quiet ‘oh, fuuck’.

‘You see, I’ve been salting the mine with an eye to putting the fix on one particular cherry…’ Mauria paused at one particularly difficult to stifle moan, then quickly recovered. ‘I was just going to try something quick and ratty, but together…..you’ve got the marks, and I’ve got the sharpies, haven’t I?’ She looked hopefully at him, biting her lip. ‘Now all we need is the little blind mouse.’

‘Darling, as always I have no idea what the hells you’re on about—,’ Astarion felt a tingle of delight. Nobody did criminal fuckery quite like the bard writhing on his lap.   ‘—but tell me more, my girl. I’m all pointy ears.’