Work Text:
Lords and ladies, fellow citizens, and my dearest listeners, I am Veldom, and tonight, I shall regale you with a tale as ancient as the stones beneath our feet. A story known to many, recognized by some, and perhaps, even dear to a few. I see a good sir in the corner nodding, and madam there, shaking your head, you know this story, too, don’t you? Indeed, it's a story many of you grew up hearing, perhaps even retold in this very place by other storytellers much like myself.
I’ll get right to the story. Long, long ago, in a nameless land, on a nameless beach, a nautiloid ship met its fiery fate. The beach was nameless then, and is still nameless now. Seven souls, each burdened with individual troubles, survived the crash and banded together despite mutual distrust. Little did they know, destiny would weave their lives together into a grand tapestry of swords and sorcery, heroes and monsters, the start of a heroic story!
Ah ha! But, the tale I tell tonight is not a tale of battles and bravery…
This… this is a love story.
After enduring untold hardships, fighting their way through a sea of blood, and finally saving the world and then themselves, these seven companions bid each other farewell. One among them, let’s call him the Paladin, found love in his adventuring companion - a vampire spawn. Ah, my friends, true love does exi-
You scoff? Really, true love does exist! Oh, you mean vampires, well yes, they exist, too. Hm, what is a vampire spawn? What a curious audience I have tonight! A spawn is still a vampire, but less; a spawn can be controlled like a puppet by its vampiric maker. Our spawn yearned to transcend his limitations - to feel the warmth of the sun and be free of his sanguine hunger. To taste freedom. Blinded by love, the Paladin granted him his wish. Oh? You want to hear the romantic part of this love story? How about the obscene part instead? Ha, of course you know it! But, I won’t be regaling that tonight; there’s a child sitting right there. Little dear, do you find this story scary? No? Boring? Ah ha, indeed, I concede, love stories are often a little boring.
Where was I? Oh - the heroes save the day and go their separate ways. The newly ascended vampire, now donning the title of a Vampire Lord and emerging as one of the city's most influential figures, yearned for his beloved to remain by his side throughout eternity. The Paladin had already rejected his offer of immortality before in their travels. “This is your last chance. I will never propose this to you ever again.” the Vampire Lord spat with distaste, “Once you leave, you're dead to me forever."
"No." the Paladin said softly, with a simple shake of his head before departing just like the others. His refusal reverberated through the Vampire Lord's immortal existence like a haunting melody. Heartless, the Vampire Lord believed, he will regret his choice one day. For the first two decades, he clung to the conviction that regret would consume the Paladin's heart. Another two decades passed, and still, the Vampire Lord remained steadfast in his belief.
Decades turned into a century, a century turned into two. Friends turned into dust, enemies succumbed to the relentless march of time, and the faces of strangers were but fleeting connections that drifted in and out of his immortal life. The Vampire Lord had to keep himself busy. He immersed himself in the work of ever-changing relationships, crafting alliances and enmities within the city he called home.
The Paladin, however, remained a ghost in the corridors of his memories, a contradiction whose absence persisted. Another two decades passed, and the Vampire Lord found himself embraced in the arms of a new lover, and yet, the refrain persisted – a whisper that wandered like a ghost through his mind. He will regret it one day.
Slowly, the memories slipped away, like fragments of a dream fading in the waking light.
Centuries flowed onward. Another hundred years passed, and the Vampire Lord reveled in the spectrum of human experience, tasting the bitter and the sweet, savoring the joys and enduring the sorrows. If he were still an elf, the sands of time would soon claim him at this age. Oh, yes, he had once been an elf of stunning beauty, but now he was a Vampire Lord, a creature more ethereal than the stars that adorn the night sky. In the city's dark alleys, let me warn you now about the allure of beautiful strangers, a cautionary tale rooted in centuries-old wisdom. Yet, the Vampire Lord's life had departed from the previous course, and safe in his palace alone, he warred with the nature of eternity.
He will regret it one day, was a persistent refrain in the Vampire Lord's internal symphony. Sometimes, in the silent corridors of his thoughts, he revisited the memory of the Paladin's departure. He had witnessed countless deaths – enemies, friends, lovers, children, and thousands of strangers – each demise a macabre offering that nourished him. Yet, in the quiet of his palace, the Vampire Lord felt an echoing emptiness – a loneliness that did not fade with the passage of time.
He will regret it, whispered again through his thoughts, and sometimes, just sometimes, the Vampire Lord found himself contemplating the meaning behind those words. Lost in his thoughts, surrounded by the echoes of the end of countless lives, he wondered if he, too, would bear the weight of regret.
And then, after five centuries, the Paladin returned.
He has aged, the Vampire Lord noted. Clad in a light black coat, the Paladin’s once lustrous, white hair was now dull and gray. His face was wrinkled and creased. Yet, even in the fading light of his existence, the Vampire Lord couldn't escape the haunting beauty that love had bestowed upon the Paladin's face. The Lord’s eyes were intoxicated with a timeless affection, and he gazed upon that same nameless person from that nameless shore walking towards him once more.
"Perfect," the Vampire Lord mused, a glimmer of satisfaction flickering in his eyes. "You finally regret it," he declared confidently.
"No," the Paladin shattered his assumption, stating firmly, "I'm going to die."
A momentary silence hung in the air as the Vampire Lord absorbed the weight of these unexpected words. "I know," he responded slowly, a tone of understanding in his voice. "I can give you eternal life. A little late, of course, but I can still create miracles. That's what you want, isn't it? A miracle.” He gave the Paladin a wry smile, “After everything you've seen, everything you've done, you still came back to me. You chose me."
"No.” The Paladin shook his head, “I've come to give you a gift."
Perplexed, the Vampire Lord hesitated, "... I don't understand."
With a sense of purpose, the Paladin began to unravel his gift. "I have saved the world many times over. I am a hero," he asserted. "And now, you're going to kill me. You're going to place my body at the top of Basilisk Gate, and make sure everyone knows that you killed me."
Baffled, the Vampire Lord scoffed. "Why would I do that? That's not what I want."
The Paladin, peering at the Vampire Lord and into the deep abyss within, asked him, "What do you want?"
Power, he wanted to say but stopped. No, he already had that. Immortality… no, he had that, too… Love…? If he’d ever had it, he must have lost it… "I want to give you eternal life so that you..." The Vampire Lord hesitated. "I want—I think I want—I want..." The Vampire Lord struggled to articulate his wish, grappling with the emptiness that plagued his heart, a void that had persisted since the Paladin’s initial departure long ago.
He had everything except one thing.
"What I want to give you is a gift," the Paladin declared solemnly. "I want to give you my death. It will leave you with the one thing you'll never get by yourself—an ending. You'll get everything you want eventually, except an end."
As the Paladin wove his proposal into a narrative, he painted a picture of their intertwined fates. "This will be a story worth telling," he continued. "I'm the hero, you're the monster. We love each other, but we can't have a happy ending because your dearest lover is freedom, and so is mine. You will make sure that everyone knows the story and they will keep it alive… Every time someone tells this story, I will get to meet you again and fall in love with you again. We will have a life together that is more than eternal life. This is something you can't give me, but I can give you. Promise me you’ll remember the story. Then, one day when you hear the story again and you don't feel anything anymore, it will mean that you don't love me anymore, and I will die my last death. And when that happens, your final shackles will be forever sundered, and you shall be free."
Truly, this is a gift, thought the Vampire Lord in awe. As the weight of this revelation settled, the Vampire Lord, torn between gratitude and horror, dared to ask the question lingering on his lips.
"Why don't you regret it?" the Vampire Lord asked, searching for a semblance of reason.
The Paladin's response was delivered with a simplicity that cut through the weight of the moment and suffocated the silent space between them.
"Because I love you."
The Vampire Lord, faced with a truth he had not anticipated, felt a chill of terror creeping through him—an unexpected emotion in the face of an unexpected gift.
The following dawn unfurled with somber grace to reveal a body of a holy knight at the top of Basilisk Gate. A spectral figure against the backdrop of stone and arches, his presence cast an ethereal pallor over the city. The citizens, traversing the cobbled streets, couldn't escape the haunting sight—no one had ever seen a tragedy of such magnitude nor beauty. Before this, many had long forgotten the Paladin's existence, a reality that often befalls heroes. Today though, the Paladin hung above them, now etched into the forefront of their collective memory.
Somewhere within the shadows, a nameless voice emerged, seeding tales that exhumed the Paladin's life and death. A story, a monster, a faithful, a demon, and even perhaps amarantes amores - bitter lovers to the end. Love and madness and death, everyone wants what they want in the end, that’s what I think.
No one really understood the story, but that did not stop us bards from filling the air of taverns with its song. It has all the captivating elements a story begs for: love, terror, violence, death, world destruction, insanity! Generations have passed, and the story has morphed into various versions, each unique in its essence. Every moving mouth is a new life for our two lovers. Just as the Paladin predicted: the story has endured, passed down through the ages, even in this retelling that you've just heard tonight. - Interested in the risqué rendition? Perhaps next time, ha ha!
So, what is the real story? What is the truth? Well, my friends, who can really say?
Aye, we've come to the end of the story. Following tradition, I'm going to pose that question now. Shh, only I can ask this question. Such is the tradition. Aye, just a moment more, ahem. So, the question is:
Six hundred and fifty-two years have passed. Astarion, is your promise still true? If you answer 'No, I feel nothing anymore,' then this tale will vanish into the abyss, forever silenced, and not a soul will ever tell it again.
Ah, the good sir with the white hair is chuckling. I trust you all found enjoyment in this tale, including you, dear listener! Everyone here has honored this story's old tradition! Good night, lords and ladies, fellow citizens, and my darling listeners. I bid you all farewell. May your memories of tonight allow you to relish this tale, time and time again. After all…
This is the nature of stories.
FIN