Chapter Text
The attack came unexpectedly.
Three vampire spawn and four werewolves, in the dead of the night, after the camp had turned in for the night. They’d stopped posting a nightly guard weeks ago, as the horrors of the cursed lands and Moonrise Tower faded from immediate memory. After the death of Kethric Thorm, they felt invincible, untouchable - who would dare go up against them?
Cazador would.
Cazador sent his weakest as a distraction and his strongest as kidnappers. And when the fight was over and the enemies defeated, Astarion was gone.
“We have to go! We have to get him back!” Gale demanded, pulling his bloodied camp clothes over his head and reaching for his mage’s robes. He stacked rings on his fingers like a paladin strapping on armor; this one to hold, this one to protect, that one to kill.
The rest of the companions exchanged looks as Gale prepared. Wyll stepped forward, trying to calm him. “Gale. We don’t know where they took him. We don’t know what they plan–”
“We know exactly what they plan to do!” Gale shouted, whirling on Wyll. “That monster plans to sacrifice Astarion in some mad bid for power!” Gale gripped Wyll’s arm in a vice-like grip. “Wyll, he has no one but me… Us. He has no one but us in the world and we have to go after him, right now. Before Cazador can begin this ritual.”
Wyll gently extracted himself from Gale’s fierce grip. “We will go after him, Gale. We will,” Wyll spoke clearly and calmly, as if he was trying to approach a rabid dog. “But we can’t rush in blindly. Cazador sent werewolves! Powerful ones. If a vampire and a werewolf clan are in league, that means that the power structure in–”
“Power structure? That means nothing! It doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” Wyll insisted. His calm voice was infuriating Gale, sending even more adrenaline coursing through his system. At a time like this, Wyll was playing the duke’s son, worrying about power balances and allies? They should already be on their way. Images crashed into Gale’s mind: Of Astarion alone, of Astarion being tortured, of Astarion calling out for him. Of Astarion’s dead body.
“No more talking!” Gale shoved Wyll aside, ducking into Astarion’s tent. “I’m going. Now. Alone, if need be.”
Gale grabbed Astarion’s favorite shirt, left discarded on the bedroll. It was worn and much-mended, still smelling faintly of bergamot and iron. It would be an ideal ingredient in a find person spell.
Gale only hoped that Astarion knew that he was coming.
Astarion woke in unending blackness.
He didn’t know where he was, how he got there. For a long moment, he didn’t know when he was.
Was he still in the cell that Cazador threw him in for an entire year, his first great punishment at that monster’s hands? Was everything he had experienced since – the years of servitude and degradation, the Nautiloid and the tadpole, the fighting, the sunshine, Gale – were those memories all just the invention of his broken mind?
Astarion ran his fingers over the stones beneath his body; they were smooth, slick, slightly damp. He crawled to the wall, still using his hands to map the dimensions of his prison. More stone, no doors or windows. He wept. He was either still in his prison or he had returned to it. Either way, he knew he would not survive his captivity this time. He couldn’t face the darkness, the fear, the loneliness again.
“Tsk, tsk,” a melodic voice said, the sound coming from nowhere and everywhere in the dark. Astarion flinched back, pressing his back against the stone wall. “This is not how I wanted you to return to me. Like a prisoner, instead of a prince.”
A small light flared and there was Cazador. He was exactly as Astarion remembered him: Pale and flawless. Terrifying.
“Welcome home.”