Work Text:
❀
My Darling Tav:
I can tell your time here with me will end soon.
You’ve been hiding it from me. I’m not upset about that, I appreciate that you still consider my…sensitivity to bad news; I know historically I’ve perhaps been…a tad theatrical with my reactions. But this feels like something worthy of dramatics, if we are being honest.
I don’t want to confront you about this, but I do need you to be honest with me. I suppose I’ll have to say these words out loud soon. Consider this a practice run.
It was stupid of me to forget we weren’t forever, that you would age and wither away like any other elf, a life so long but inevitably, still so fleeting to a creature such as I.
Just another hiccup in the life of The Vampire Spawn Astarion. Perhaps I should’ve Ascended, after all, so that we would be together forever. Somehow I think that wouldn’t have worked out well for either of us, though. I don’t think about that choice often anymore. I haven’t in decades. Our life is perfect enough.
Was perfect enough.
We’ve had a wonderful life together, haven’t we?
I don’t want to start thinking about you in the past tense. Not yet.
But please, darling, tell me what you’re thinking, how you’re feeling. Don’t shut me out, even here at the end of all things.
❀
My Darling Tav:
I planted a bunch of star lilies upon your grave this morning, as you requested. The dirt has settled enough I think they’ll take, and the season is still pleasant. A bit chilly in the morning, maybe, but I hardly notice the chill. And the stone should be finished in the next tenday, so we’ll be next to each other for a while longer, our names etched in stone.
I am unsure of how to continue. But I must.
You would say I have endured harder times, but I argue that wouldn’t be true. I hadn’t met you then, so I didn’t know how difficult it would be to live without you.
I do have a confession to make. I can picture vividly your expression if I were to tell you this, the way your jaw would set and your eyes would widen, the slight frown that would appear almost imperceptibly, before smoothing out into an open, neutral expression. Your non judgemental ‘I am here to help’ face. The one you always made when I confessed some other awful secret of my past, open and calm and centered on me. Sometimes I found it frustrating I couldn’t tell what you were thinking, whether I should’ve stopped or maybe held back some of the details, or brushed off how much I was hurt. But sometimes it was really nice to just get the words out without worrying about your perception of me. I think you knew that. I think that’s why your face made that face.
Anyway, get ready for this one. It would definitely have put your ‘I’m listening’ face to the test:
I opened the windows in our cottage in Baldur’s Gate. At sunrise. The sun was bright and warm, and the birds were singing, and I thought to myself, ‘it sounds lovely outside, I think I’d like to see for myself, it’s been so long.’
And of course, it burned.
And it turns out I wasn’t ready to go.
I closed the windows.I closed up the house. I retreated to the Underdark, with the remaining of my kin.
You wouldn’t want me to be alone, after all.
❀
My Darling Tav:
I miss you, my love.
I met a lost child yesterday, wandering Baldur’s Gate in the dark.
I returned to the city, yes, some stupid sense of familiarity after your…departure. Everywhere I turn is a memory and some of them are still terrible, but many of them are now shaped by your beautiful smile. I'll keep that with me as long as I can.
If I’m honest, the child looks a bit like you. She’s a girl, half-elf and red haired, and her skin is terribly pale as well, nearly as pale as mine. I think she’s been living in the sewers. But her eyes are yours, brilliantly green and wide and always looking for trouble. She smiles nicely, too, on the rare occasion I can make her laugh, her teeth impressively straight and clean for a street brat.
Also, she smells like the rats.
I’m embarrassed to say that’s how I noticed her in the first place. I may have let myself go a bit hungry. I know you’d be chastising me now, I know it, but I…needed it. If you were here I could explain better, but also I wouldn’t be doing this if you were here, so. That’s the crux of the matter. It gave me focus. I needed it.
Anyway, the girl.
She says her name is Arrow, but I suspect she doesn’t remember her actual name. She speaks very little. Which isn’t like you.
You’d be better at this than me, really. Connecting with her. I've only gotten a few words out of her and it’s been three days. She's staying with me now. In our cottage. Soon I'll need to tell her I'm a vampire spawn, I think, lest she wonder why I stare longingly out the window so often but never leave until darkness falls. Another conversation that would be better with you here.
Every conversation would be better with you here.
I miss you.
I do know you would want me to live on, though. So I must. I know you would also say it’s ultimately my choice, but our whole lives together you know the only choice I was ever sure of was being with you, so I will respect what I know would be your wish.
I can do that small thing.
I think I will tell Arrow about you. You know I don’t like to bare my soul to anyone but you, darling, but perhaps…perhaps telling her about myself will open a dialogue where she’ll feel comfortable to reciprocate.
That’s what you did for me, after all.
You did so much for me.
I’ll never forget it.
❀