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The night air is crisp- refreshing. With the darkness comes a silence, a quiet reprieve of the day’s birdsong and broken branches of beasts making their way through thickets and wooden brambles. The stars glitter in the sky, like holes in a thick blanket ment to block out the light. Only the glow of the moon dampers the vision of night. Full and radiant. A beacon of hope, of gentle serenity in this time of darkness.
Shadowheart knows it is wrong to enjoy Selunite’s symbols and blessings, yet here under the moon’s glow, she cannot help but feel more at peace than when she is forced to confront the day and all it’s misery. The fact she lives on borrowed time, her goddess’s command burning her hand and demanding she act even if it carried her to a swift end.
The river she soaks her tired feet in is not too cold, but it soothes with the faint chill. The stones are smooth, the water clear and moving enough the moon cannot reflect in it’s surface enough for Shadowheart to see it. So long as she doesn’t look up, maybe she will be forgiven for enjoying the light the full moon brings.
“I was wondering where you’d wandered off to.”
The voice cuts the silence of her night, and as Astarion steps lightly, far too lightly to be anything but otherworldly, he smiles like a cat thats found the mouse.
“Can you leave me be Astarion? I’ve no mind for your false flattery right now.” The day had been long and in her opinion, demanding. Playing as faithful to the Absolute left a sour taste in her mouth. Shar was her goddess, and acting, even if to get information, felt wrong, like a betrayal.
“Then I simply won’t flatter you my dear Shadowheart, but you can acknowledge that it’s your little artifact that’s keeping us all from sprouting tentacles. Can you blame me for making sure it’s keeper hasn’t wandered off… or worse?” While he had a point, she wasn’t keen to admit it.
“I’ve no intention of trying to make my own way through the shadowlands no matter how much you and Laz’ael test my patience.”
“Good to know.” His voice may carry the same tones of teasing, but as of late Shadowheart has begun to hear… tells. The way his voice cants and shifts with underlying emotions he’d likely never reveal willingly. He genuinely is glad she has no plans to leave, and believes her words. Maybe because… as much as she does find him and Laz’ael annoying at times, she trusts them, their shared goal.
Get the tadpoles removed. Get to Baldur’s Gate. Or in Astrion’s case, find a way to control it so he can escape his master and sire.
He was the odd one out, not that anyone blamed him. A vampire spawn, an abused one from his very simple recounts, who now could not only walk in the sun, but also do a myriad of things that vampires only dreamed of. He was, Gale’s netherese orb notwithstanding, the most dangerous person in their merry little band. Yet Shadowheart trusted him the most just if because he had the most to lose.
Vampires didn’t share power, and they were monstrous even in the best of terms. Unable to feel love or true joy- evil in every sense. Spawn may be negative, but they could still feel, rationalize, be reasoned with. But the gods called them cursed and… she recalled their banter on the road. He’d been praying to the gods for decades and none had answered. Because they wouldn’t. Gods don’t listened to the damned, no matter their suffering. Astarion was dangerous because he was by his own nature, a force to be reckoned with, especially now that he was able to feed and sate his sanguine hunger. He was dangerous because he had everything, his very freedom, to lose should they fail their respective missions to survive.
“Any reason why you ventured out here in the middle of the night?” He broke the silence once again and she bit back the remark asking if he just liked the sound of his own voice, (it was a soothing voice. Light and airy, a voice made to orate and command attention. He said he’d been a magistrate once and she would believe it true even now).
“Sometimes, I need a bit of a break from you and the others. Can you blame me?”
A beat, he didn’t answer, before his voice was softer, more… understanding. “No. I can’t.”
The running water, the faint hum of insects- it was blessedly silent once again and Shadowheart… hated it. Now that he was near she hated how she wanted him to say something, anything, fill the void between them. They were not friends but how- how could any of them be? She hoped she had friends waiting for her, she had to believe she did. Otherwise… was she alone? Shar told them to embrace loss, yet here she was wishing she wasn’t lost. Wasn’t alone, wasn’t so… empty.
“I can’t claim to know whatever it is you’re going through Shadowheart,” Astarion made his way closer, seating himself next to her on the shore. He removed his leather boots, setting them aside as she’d done, letting the water lick at his ankles as he waded in to share the rocky outcropping.
“But, at least tell us when you wander off to find solitude. We need you. We-” he huffed, clearly uncomfortable. “I hate to say it but we do need each other if we’re to survive this mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.”
“A nice way of saying we’re using one another.” She couldn’t help the anger in her voice. Astarion, ever the flirt, so open to manipulate them all, play them fools. He was good at what he did, she’d give him that yet it hurt, knowing he’d been to blaise about his duplicity. With his vampiric nature, his goals-
“Would you rather say I want to be friends? That I would follow you to the ends of the earth? No. We both know we’re using each other, we all are. But that does not mean we do not have to turn a blind eye to one another’s behaviors.” The anger bubbled over.
“Don’t act like you care.”
“I’m not.” There. The sharpness, the lack of mirth and mockery. Shadowheart turned, and for a moment, she swore she saw someone else sitting beside her.
An elf with pale skin, and silver moonlight hair. Red eyes like rubies, a stern look, like he had weathered a storm and was ready for one on the horizon. It struck her then that Astarion had spent years playing people for fools, acting, tortured, abused- and yet he was trusting them, complete strangers with many truths that could, and would kill him. He’s survived so much… and still found a way to have something like hope even if hope was an illithid tadpole.
“I won’t comment on your goddess’s asinine demands Shadowheart, but know this. I don’t believe in divine benevolence because I’ve never once seen it. You’ve said you’d help me kill Cazador and I know you will because he’s a threat to everyone in Balder’s Gate, your own people included. That said… Whatever awaits us in Baldur’s Gate may very well be nothing at all in the end. We need to be ready to face that reality.”
“You think Shar is using me? That she-”
“We’re all using each other. Mortals, devils, and gods alike, you have the key to our survival Shadowheart, but you must be able to face the very real possibility that your memories may be gone. That Shar is like all gods and just using you the same as we’re using each other. You’re not alone in this mess, and we-”
She hated him, hated this. How dare he preach to her, say he’d not comment on her faith then question it? “We need each other, I know. You’re talking in circles Astarion. Whatever you have to say, say it.”
He looked at her, red eyes piercing in the light of the moon. Vampire. He was a vampire and this time was his. Shar may be the dark of the moon, but here, now, in the embrace of night, Astarion was in his element, he was more a child of night than Shadowheart could ever hope to be.
“I will repay what you’ve done for me, and when we kill Cazador… I will be ready for you.”
He let it linger in the air. A promise. Freedom was what Astarion wanted more than anything else.
“I won’t abandon Shar.” He huffed.
“Maybe not. But I know doubt when I see it. Questions you want to ask but cannot find an answer for. I’ll repay my debt when the time comes. I’ll be ready for that.” He paused, and his voice. That voice held something new, something she couldn’t place. “For you.”
“You say that the same way you say letting you feed off me was a gift.”
“It was.” She can’t look him in the eyes any longer, something in them making her dwell too much on her loneliness, on the fact she has so little and all she does have are half promises and a goddess’s will to command her forward.
“I want to kill Cazador and leave Baldur’s Gate. Forever, rid myself of that shit town and not look back.” He scoffed. “That means no debts. No lingering sentiments. Once we’re done… I expect we’ll part ways.”
“I.. suppose we will.” She sighed. “What was the real reason you followed me Astarion? I mean it. I know this is all your effort to keep me near keep me around but… what are you really getting at?”
Shadowheart nearly yelped- his hand is cold but it lays over her own. His gaze is distant, down the river, past it, looking at nothing, lost perhaps, in memories he can’t, or rather won’t say.
“Until it’s over, we’re not alone.”
She breathes deeply, fingers lightly curling around his own, the cool water of the over rushing over their feet. The night is calm, the stars still hang in the sky. She hates him, but he is right.
Until it’s over, she’s not alone.