1 - 20 of 60 Works by Raayide
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The captain—because it must be the captain, there's no other possibility—stops directly before the straggled lines of captives. Black hair frames his angular features, the way his eyes narrow not against the sun but against them: their existence, maybe, or just the existence of all those beneath him.
There is a pause. And then he speaks.
"I am Captain Cazador Szarr of the Eternal," he says. It's a deep, almost melodic voice; too rich for the seadogs and savages that so often fill ships. Even against the better-dressed of his crew, he stands out like a noble in the East End rookeries. "And I am here to meet with your captain, pirates."
The year is 1728, and Astarion Ancunín casts across the Atlantic in hopes of reaching the Caribbean to finally make a name for himself.
He doesn't quite make it there.
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She hadn't really been his sister. He hadn't really been her brother, either.
But they had been something.
Astarion and Violet and Violet's death.
Series
- Part 3 of a wait for the future
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haunting out by the reeds by Raayide for stolenglow
Fandoms: Baldur's Gate (Video Games)
12 Nov 2025
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Undead cannot become mindflayers. A living mind is required to be a host, and vampire spawns don't have one.
There's something growing inside Astarion's skull.
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Some years after saving the world, Astarion and Wyll revisit their beginning.
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When Astarion flees to the city, he spends seven bloodstained days alone, and then he is never heard from again.
The story in full has been lost. But here are some of the pieces left behind.
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Not now, you say, over and over, as you gouge mortality from your body in strips of bloody red. Not now. I'll be a better person once I escape.
At a certain point, you have to understand that you're lying.
Karlach is dragged into the hells. It's a terrible place to discover yourself.
Series
- Part 2 of dialectics on death from the soon-to-be
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Three commands has Astarion broken, and now the fourth with a rapier through his gut and crossbow to his skull. Centuries he's wanted to be free—well, here it is. Dirt under his nails and blood behind his fangs. He's free. Isn't he fucking satisfied?
Astarion has not been a person in two hundred years. His journey to become one does not start off well.
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The door is in front of you, waiting. If you open it, the man you orbit will come out the other side, either dead or alive. If you open it, the decision will be on your shoulders. If you open it, you will be made to pick up the pieces.
It's quite simple; you don't want to open the door.
Jean Vicquemare knows this will all come to an end. Instead, he smokes.
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Wyll, the pieces left behind, and the pieces picked up along the way.
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The car whines when Astarion accelerates, a thumping under his feet and center console. The dashboard rattles, teeth in a skeleton, even the steering wheel keening like a death knell. Every time he brakes, something screams. He can't smell smoke, but he can feel heat pouring from the vents, sweating through his nightclothes. There's a dial from hot to cold—he spins it and feels nothing change.
When he presses its gas, the car goes forward. When he brakes, it stops.
He keeps driving.
Astarion escapes Cazador with the clothes on his back, a wad of stolen cash, and a car that's sat abandoned in a garage for thirty years.
There's a metaphor in that, perhaps.
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to know the rain is falling by Raayide for RedcloakLynx
Fandoms: Baldur's Gate (Video Games)
30 Jun 2025
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He presses a hand to his chest. Feels bone, bird-thin, protruding through his skin. Dust. The box is stone and he is stone alongside, fossilized, drawn back to a life he cannot remember. The elf—Cazador—sire—master—pulls him from the dark. Says things that should be known but are not. Calls to him. Says come back.
His voice trembles. It is barely a whisper. "Who am I?"
When he is laid to rest, he is full of history. When he wakes, there is very little left.
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Beneath the headstone is a body that will not rot. One day, after the grave has been filled, after a long, long time, you get up.
Astarion: between, around, and before.
Series
- Part 1 of dialectics on death from the soon-to-be
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When Cazador lent him out to other patriars, Astarion never quite considered how fine a whore he made; nor how prized he would become with his master dead.
Astarion's freedom does not last for very long.
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says it will destroy you by Raayide for stolenglow, RedcloakLynx
Fandoms: Baldur's Gate (Video Games)
06 Jun 2025
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The first—a closed door, impenetrable. The kennel is a greedy beast, and it does not release that which is locked within it. Years could Astarion claw at the knob and never free himself, though little doubt he would try. He always tries. It is one of his more endearing characteristics.
The second and third—simple sentences, laced through with the weight of commands.
Thou shalt not see.
Thou shalt not hear.
Cazador visits Astarion on the seventh day of his punishment.
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light through the windowpane by Raayide for stolenglow
Fandoms: Baldur's Gate (Video Games)
31 May 2025
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If Astarion is counting the imp corpses in their basement right, this can only mean the worst case scenario.
He lost the bet. Again.
Karlach is going to laugh herself stupid, he can already tell.
A lazy day in a good life.
Series
- Part 2 of a wait for the future
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A tiger cloaked in black with a sundial moving over dark eyes flicks its tail, and a fox with blood-stained teeth lifts their head, and a serpent with poison bleeding through each crack in its iridescent scales melts back into the corpse as it speaks.
"Curious," it says, a man's voice, rasped from age and still solid. Gold filigree, burial shroud. A storm bound to a raven's form spreads its wings. "What is the worth of a single mortal life?"
(Vampires are not alive. Undead is not quite dead. Astarion is normal, until he isn't.)
Or: five conversations Astarion has with Death.
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Ulder Ravengard falls ill with something curable but lasting—and considering Baldur's Gate is still reeling from the Absolute's devastation less than a year ago, someone needs to take the helm for the three months he will be waylaid. And it just so happens that Wyll Ravengard is adventuring up and down the Sword Coast with his fiancé, perfect for a temporary dukehood. For his part, Wyll isn't exactly thrilled with the idea of politicking over heroic adventuring, but he'll do what he can for his city.
In a completely unrelated note, a vigilante shows up on the same day of his arrival, clearing out monsters that laws can't touch.
Don't worry about it.
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always a blade at heart by Raayide for odessacastle
Fandoms: Baldur's Gate (Video Games)
14 Mar 2025
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Wyll Ravengard is the heir of Baldur's Gate, the son of the Grand Duke—but such a title cannot protect everyone. Astarion is still refusing to speak of who broke his ribs and owns him as a courtesan, other than a single mention of Enver Gortash. Wyll has sworn to save him, and to do so, he must brave the political world of Baldur's Gate and an evil budding beneath the city he loves.
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They're both changed from what they were. And maybe that's part of it, because everyone changes no matter the journey, yet Astarion can't help but imagine a world where they didn't carry topographical stories of past regrets. Where he wasn't a monster; where Wyll wasn't exiled.
If there hadn't been a nautiloid to scoop them all up and dump them alongside a race to save the world, would they have still found each other?
Would they still be in love?
Astarion and Wyll watch, drink, and talk about what could have been.
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"They won't kill Cazador," Sebastian says, quiet. "At least, not in time. They'll save the world first. And that breaks your protection and damns you back to the kennel."
He leans in, smoke trailing from his hair. "Tell me they would," he murmurs. "Tell me right now whether you trust them to free you."
Astarion can't meet his eyes.
The party enters the shadowlands under less auspicious conditions, and finds the curse more hungry than anticipated. Before long, they are, too.
It is three weeks to Reithwin, and something does not want Astarion to make it.