Chapter Text
“Wow, you’re 300 years old?? You look so young!”
Rielle had been hoping her tight smile would come off as friendly, but not so friendly that it invited more conversation. Either she missed the mark or this girl was too oblivious for her own good.
“That’s incredible, I can’t imagine what that must be like. You must be so smart. I feel like I’d really have my shit together if I could live for 300 years.”
There it is, Rielle thought. “That’s a common misconception, actually. It’s not really linear like that. You learn a lot, but you also outlive a lot of people, and that sort of messes you up all over again. Some of the most messed up people I’ve ever met were centuries old.”
“Wow, that’s wild.” The girl was nodding, but she clearly wasn’t listening. Rielle could say anything right now and this girl would agree.
It wasn’t the first time she’d had this conversation with a human. It wasn’t even the 500th. Most of them ended this way, with her gently trying to correct their assumptions and them ignoring her to continue living in their fantasy versions of the world. She couldn’t blame them. If humans didn’t want to spend time unpacking their preconceived notions about a lifestyle they would never have the chance to live anyway, she could let them have that. It was annoying, but it wasn’t hurting anyone really. Of course, that didn’t mean she needed to indulge this girl indefinitely.
Rielle gently excused herself to keep wandering around the crowded gallery. It was busier than the average opening, definitely. Dozens of conversations blended into a roar as voices echoed off the tiled floor. It was a nice space, but loud, and that made it more overwhelming. She sipped her wine as she walked, hoping it would dull the experience for her a bit.
She recognized a few faces as she wandered, but no one acknowledged her. That was just fine. That was part of the reason she used a pseudonym for her work. One thing centuries of life had taught her was that art and fame were a volatile combination. And so, it was Tav Joren who had painted the many works adorning the walls, not Rielle. Over the last couple decades, Tav had earned herself quite the reclusive and mysterious reputation. All anyone seemed to know about her was that she had been present at the Battle of Baldur’s Gate 200 years ago and had known The Heroes, the group of companions who had taken down an elder brain and saved the city.
The work on display tonight portrayed those very companions, which had not gone unnoticed by the reviewer from the Gazette. “This anonymous artist has evoked the likenesses of some of our city’s most beloved figures, rendered all the more intimate for their abstraction,” they’d written. The reviewer had concluded that this work was her “least obscure and most accessible work yet.” She hadn’t been sure at first, but apparently that was a good thing.
It never failed to amuse her, the way people wrote about her art. All she’d been trying to do was paint her memories. They tended to come in flashes, a crinkle of an eye, a brush of a shoulder, a teardrop sliding down a cheek. So, that’s what she had painted. It really wasn’t that deep.
Regardless, the local history connection combined with the positive review had drawn a crowd, and Rielle wasn’t complaining. She had bills to pay, and abstract portraiture wasn’t always the moneymaker she needed it to be.
She continued around the room, occasionally pausing behind people who were considering one of her paintings to hear their thoughts. It seemed the “Gift” series was everyone’s favorite, which she had to agree with. Those paintings were the ones that had started this entire body of work for her. They were displayed in a side room to keep them together. Rielle passed a group of young adult halflings exiting the room and gushing about how they’d “fallen in love with a bunch of paint on canvas” and how “his eyes are so mysterious and sad??” She smiled to herself. She’d nailed his likeness, then.
Halsin’s portraits were drawing a lot of attention, but he made regular appearances in the city, so people recognized him. He was the only member of their group, actually, who lived publicly as a “Hero.” She and Shadowheart preferred to keep their heads down, and he didn’t seem to mind. The only other person still alive was Astarion, and though he was also recognizable to people (unlike Rielle or Shadowheart, who had aged and changed their hair over the years), he’d never spoken publicly about his experience fighting the Absolute. Since Wyll had died many, many years ago, Halsin had happily worked on his own to preserve their history and make sure no member of their group was forgotten. She passed a portrait of Wyll now, a flash of his stone eye in the firelight the night he’d asked her for a dance, and her heart ached. It never went away, the feeling of missing them. After all these years, it still hurt sometimes.
She cleared her throat and looked away. Maybe it was time for a fresh drink.
As she passed the makeshift bar in the corner opposite the entrance, Rielle swapped her empty glass for a full one, pausing to strategize. She knew the cast of characters who attended art openings in the city fairly well by now, and they all assumed she hung around so much because she worked at some gallery or another and left her alone. She liked most of them well enough, though there were some whose opinions on art she valued over others. Her eyes fell on Oskar’s something-great grandson. He never missed an opening, much to her dismay. As usual, he was looking down his nose at all the work and commenting loudly that “it’s just a bit simplistic, that’s all. A noble attempt, though.” Rielle snorted into her glass. Says the man who exclusively paints nudes of women he’s slept with lounging on beds. Real groundbreaking work, that.
Her eyes fell next on a tall, blue-skinned tiefling in a loose, colorful robe. Sklada, her manager. Sklada had bribed a gallery owner some 10 years ago to tell her the real name of the artist who’d done all the “sad pretty portraits” on display, and from there had tracked Rielle down and forced her way into representing her. Rielle had been resistant at first, but she was quickly forced to admit that it made anonymity easier having someone to contact galleries for her. The only people in the world who knew she was Tav were Sklada, Halsin, and Shadowheart. It was probably their 50th opening together, and her manager had not always been great at subtlety (she stood close to 7 feet tall and seemed to be allergic to flat shoes and neutral colors, so that wasn’t surprising), but she had figured it out eventually. Now, the tiefling calmly excused herself from the group she’d been talking to and made her way over to the bar, greeting Rielle as if she were a casual acquaintance and not a client/friend/godfather to her son. After 300 years of life, Rielle didn’t go out of her way to let new people into her life, but Sklada had stubbornly insisted, and she was glad.
“Hello, sweetheart!” The tiefling leaned an elbow against the bar and smiled down at Rielle. “Quite a turnout, isn’t it?”
Rielle smiled as she looked out over the crowd. “It really is, Sklada. You did a great job promoting it.”
“Please, this work sells itself.”
Rielle rolled her eyes, but smiled at the compliment.
“You know,” Sklada continued, “I hadn’t seen all of this work together until the gallery finished hanging it all this morning. It’s really something, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so.”
Sklada clicked her tongue and shook her head. “No, it is. And the ‘Gift’ series, do you know the story behind that one?”
Rielle sighed. She had avoided getting into it the several other times they’d discussed this body of work, but she’d had a couple drinks now and her tongue was feeling slightly looser.
“I think.. I think the artist said he was the person she was closest to.”
“Mm, interesting. But they’re not together now?”
Rielle laughed bitterly. “No, no, he has made it very clear he wants to leave all that behind and wants nothing to do with her.”
Sklada took a thoughtful sip of her drink, keeping her eyes on Rielle. When it became clear that was all the information she was going to get, she nodded and looked back out at the crowd.
“Well, at least it seems like the artist has made peace with the situation and isn’t still making tragic paintings about it. Oh, wait…”
Rielle gave her a playful shove, and Sklada graciously pretended to be knocked off balance, laughing.
“Listen, the best art humbles the artist, right? And look at all these young people falling in love with this man based on some portraits, you’ve really done something! Not sure what, but it’s definitely something.”
Rielle rolled her eyes. “I have not done anything, have I Sklada?”
“Oh gods, alright, the artist has done something. Either way, after all this mess is over tonight you’re coming home with me and we’re going to eat and toast to the artist’s success and annoy the shit out of my wife who has likely just gotten our baby to sleep, yes?”
Rielle smiled to herself. It was nice, feeling like she was part of a family. It had been a long time. It felt that way still when she visited Shadowheart or Halsin, but Halsin had a few centuries on her and Shadowheart was a half-elf, so neither of them were up for much late night carousing anymore. “Oh, Sklada, I forgot Halsin said he might come tonight. There’s some midsummer event happening this whole week at the inn, but he said he would try and make it afterward.”
The tiefling’s face lit up. “Oh amazing, I haven’t seen him in ages! If you see him tell him he’s invited to the afterparty, will you? If I bring him with me maybe Mir won’t be so mad at me. I keep telling her to just admit she’s in love with him, I mean who isn’t? But she insists I’m imagining things, but I know my wife, Rielle, and…”
As her friend launched into a familiar rant, Rielle saw a flash of white out of the corner of her eye. Her heart stopped as it always did, holding for a beat and then redoubling somewhat painfully. Her stomach flipped. She would have thought after a couple centuries it would get old, this dance of hope and grief that her body did every time she saw someone with white hair, but apparently not. She noted with annoyance that her heart was in her throat now, and she didn’t bother trying to stop her eyes from tracking down whatever non-vampire non-Astarion she’d just seen. Probably just a drow or someone making a fashion statement, but she knew from experience that her mind wouldn’t rest until it proved she’d been mistaken.
However, she realized as her heart fell into her stomach, that might be an issue this time.
Because as her eyes finally landed on white hair, they also landed on someone who was indisputably, unmistakably Astarion. He was drawing stares, magnetic as ever, but his red eyes, red eyes she hadn’t seen in hundreds of years, were fixed on her.
Rielle’s body was reacting before her mind had even processed what was happening. There was a rushing in her ears and sudden tears pricking at her eyes, and she could feel her face flushing. She felt as if the earth had fallen from under her but she was still suspended briefly in midair, waiting to fall. The fall was certainly coming, though.
In her many imagined versions of this moment she had been calm, articulate. She had spoken to him as if he was a stranger, told him exactly what he’d put her through. As she looked at him now, her fantasies fell to pieces. It had been a long two centuries. She wanted to kiss him as badly as she wanted to kill him, and that was no small amount.
She felt a hand on her arm. “Sweetheart, are you okay? What just happened?” Sklada had cut off her rant and was speaking softly now, like she was afraid Rielle was going to pass out. And, well, that wasn’t out of the question. Rielle couldn’t tear her eyes away from Astarion, blinking several times in the hopes that he was some sort of hallucination.
“Shit,” she whispered, and Sklada followed her line of sight, landing on the man with a sharp intake of breath.
“Hells, is that–?” She likely wasn’t the only person recognizing the pointed ears and white hair from the portraits in the side gallery. He was one of Rielle’s paintings, come to life.
Rielle fumbled around behind her to try and put her drink on the bar. “I have to–I’m sorry, Sklada, I just–”
Her friend grabbed the glass from her hand and put a reassuring hand on her back. “It’s fine, sweetheart. Do you want me to come with you?”
“Um…” Rielle couldn’t get her mind to function properly. “No, no, it’s fine. I’ll go see what he wants.” She didn’t like worrying her friend like this, so she tried a joke that ended up feeling a little too real to be funny. “If I’m not back in an hour, send in a rescue team.”
She immediately turned to head… where? She didn’t want to be alone with him, she wasn’t ready for that. But even more than that, she didn’t want to have her first conversation with him in 200 years surrounded by strangers. Not to mention, the pragmatic part of her brain was reminding her, if she wanted to stay anonymous it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to draw a ton of attention to herself arguing with someone who was very clearly the subject of several paintings on display. She had a vague memory of a door off of the permanent collection galleries that led to a garden, and without another thought she headed there, ducking her head to avoid being sucked into a conversation. She didn’t need to look to know he was following her.
She waded through the crowd towards the entrance, into the main hall and then across to the permanent gallery. These rooms were always open, but for events the gallery would often hire a Fist soldier to hang out in the hall and keep people out of them. Luckily, this particular guard had been on duty when Rielle had dropped off some of her work, and he seemed to recognize her, nodding to let her through. As she walked through the dark doorway, she pointed behind her without looking. “You can let him through, too.” Her voice was strangely steady.
The permanent galleries were a series of interconnected rooms with a variety of work from local artists over the years. There were pieces from a couple of Rielle’s former alter egos on the walls, displayed as antiques, which usually amused her. Right now it just made her sad. She was an antique. She was too fucking old to feel this many feelings.
During the day these galleries had a steady flow of visitors, but tonight they were eerily quiet. It was chilly despite the warmth of the night air outside, temperature controlled for the sake of the art. The only light was what filtered through from the lobby, and it cast long shadows in front of pedestals and statues. The chaos of the opening had receded to a dull roar that sounded much farther away than it was. Rielle felt like she’d entered a tomb.
She walked through the first room, weaving between sculptures as her footsteps echoed softly and her head spun. She had known he was alive, but apparently seeing it was a whole other experience altogether. What in all the hells was he doing here? Anger and longing were battling it out in her chest. How dare he, she thought, show up here like he didn’t abandon me for 200 years?
But 200 years was a long time, and she’d be lying to herself if she thought her anger hadn’t faded a bit. There was a not-insignificant part of her that didn’t even care for an apology, that wanted nothing more than to feel his soft, cool fingers in hers, to wrap herself around him and inhale his scent again. He was here. He was back. Surely she deserved, after he’d deprived her all this time, to have that? To feel good again in the way she only ever had with him?
Hells, that was pathetic. He’d probably replaced her dozens of times over while she’d been lonely and pining.
She slipped into the second room. The lobby light didn’t reach here, but the glass paneled door on the back wall that led out to the garden let in beams of moonlight. She walked to the door and tried it, dismayed to find it was locked.
“Allow me.”
Fuck, that voice. She’d had dreams narrated in that voice. It was still the voice she heard when she was puzzling through something difficult and didn’t have a friend to bounce ideas off of. He’d been her person for that. That, and so many other things.
She stepped aside to let Astarion kneel in front of the door, and for a moment Rielle felt like laughing at the familiarity of it. They might have been breaking into a general’s quarters or looting a crypt two centuries ago. It was as if no time had passed at all, when in fact so much time had passed as to separate them almost entirely. She put a hand on the wall to steady herself and tried to breathe.
Within a single cycle of breath the door clicked open, and Astarion smoothly stood and slipped through. Rielle followed, turning to close the door behind her as a way of giving herself one more blissful second of not looking at his face. Of course, one second was about all she could stand, she was so eager to see him again. Gods, this was confusing.
She sighed and turned, taking him in slowly as if he was a bright light in a dark room and she had to let her eyes adjust. He looked good, not that she was surprised. He was wearing an impeccable suit that was tailored to within an inch of its life, which seemed unfair. Of all people, he was one of the few who didn't need the help of a good tailor to look perfect. He’d framed himself well, too, standing in front of an ivy archway that led to a fountain. It was a beautiful night, and he was beautiful.
Rielle had grown, in many years of life, to appreciate the feeling of heartbreak. She didn’t want to become one of those elves who reached 300 and started living self-destructively, doing impulsive and stupid things just to feel something, but she understood how that happened. After a while, it did start to feel like you’d experienced everything already. Existence became boring. So when her heart was sore, it sometimes felt good. Stimulating, like a muscle she was exercising for the first time in a while.
There was an element of that now. Sharing space with him again hurt in an almost exquisite way. Despite everything, she still considered herself just a little lucky to have had her heart broken by him. It was proof he’d held it for a little while.
Slowly, as her eyes adjusted and they stood in silence, Rielle’s mind began to work again, and she finally spoke, her voice unsteady and quieter than she hoped. She sounded younger than she had in years.
“Why… why did you come here?”
He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again, looking at the ground as if to gather his thoughts. When he looked back up, his face was open and serious and all he said was “Because I missed you.”
Ah, she thought. There’s the anger. It hardened in her chest until she felt brittle with it. She was never one for yelling, and that had become more true with time. When she spoke, it was no less calmly than she had before, but her voice had a hard edge.
“I beg your pardon? You missed me? Astarion, what is this? Why are you here?”
He seemed to flinch slightly at the sound of his name from her lips. As he fucking should, she thought vindictively.
He furrowed his brow at her repeated demand, shaking his head like he was confused.
“Darling, I–”
“Don’t call me that.” Rielle was quietly seething as she stepped towards him. “Don’t you dare, not until you explain what is going on and why you abandoned me and why it took you two godsdamned centuries to find me again, and not until I somehow magically forgive you, which I won’t, and not until you swear to me on my own grave that you will not leave again, then you can call me darling. Not until then.”
She was standing an arm’s length from him now, and she was annoyed to feel hot tears flooding her eyes. I hope they make him feel like shit, she thought to comfort herself.
Astarion held up his hands as if to show he was unarmed.
“Yes, alright. But… you know where I live. I don’t understand why I’m the abandoner here and you’re the abandonee, my dear. My door is always open to you. I never wanted it to be like this.”
Rielle laughed bitterly.
“Tell me, Astarion, when was the last time I saw you?”
He blinked at that and looked to the side as if trying to escape her gaze.
“No no, look at me. Describe to me what was happening the last time I saw you.”
He shifted from one foot to the other. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him look this nervous.
“I–the sun was burning me, so I–”
She grabbed his chin and forced him to look down at her.
“Before. That.”
His eyes went from nervous to downright afraid, but he didn’t pull out of her grasp. He didn’t speak, either. Rielle waited. She’d waited 200 years, she could wait another minute. No problem.
When he finally licked his lips and opened his mouth, his voice came out impossibly faint.
“...Karlach.”
“What happened to her?”
He cleared his throat, but his voice was still barely above a whisper.
“She… she died. In your arms. She died.”
His throat caught on the last word, and Rielle saw his eyes welling up. She felt bad for him, she wanted to hold him and comfort him, but her anger was like a forest fire, eating her up faster than she could think. She tightened her grip on his jaw.
“And at her funeral, the next day? Where were you then? The funeral we held after sunset specifically so you could attend?”
His face hardened now, though his eyes were still close to overflowing.
“I didn’t ask you to do that. I don’t do funerals.”
He had found his voice, and it was cold and certain. Rielle let go of him and stepped back. Now that his anger was igniting, hers was burning out, fading to a deep, aching sadness that was too familiar.
Why couldn’t they talk to each other? They’d always, always been able to talk to each other. She shook her head and sighed heavily, letting sadness quench her anger fully as she looked up at him.
“I know you and Gale had your issues, and Wyll was a jerk to you sometimes. I know that. I didn’t expect you to go to another plane for Lae’zel’s funeral. But… Karlach, she loved you. You should have seen her after we found out about the ascension ritual, I’d never seen her so angry. On your behalf. She… she really loved you.”
His face had not softened, but a single tear fell down his cheek as she spoke. She saw him swallow hard before replying, his voice strangely formal.
“I’m aware. I cared for her as well, which is why I didn’t want to watch her get dumped into a hole while a bunch of people who barely even knew her cried their eyes out. I don't do funerals, my dear. Especially not for her.”
Rielle felt a small wave of relief settle over her. She’d known he was kind, she’d known they had broken through his walls. But there had been a small part of her, after all this time, that had started to wonder if perhaps she’d been wrong about him. If perhaps he had never cared.
It was, at the very least, a comfort to quiet that voice in her head.
But it didn’t soothe the hurt.
“Astarion… I loved her. I loved all of them.”
The mask of his anger was beginning to crack, his eyes becoming rounder as more tears fell.
“I was so, so sad. Even if you weren’t at the funeral I needed… I needed a friend. Every single time, Karlach and Wyll and Gale and Lae’zel, every one of them, I needed you.”
“You had friends. Friends who knew how to be what you needed. I wouldn’t have been of any use, I would have made it all worse.”
His words were certain, but his voice was low and unsure.
“Sure. I had Halsin, and I had Shadowheart, and I’m grateful for them every single day. But you were the one… you know what we were to each other, Astarion. You were the first person I went to when I was feeling… anything. And I thought I was that for you as well. I–”
She was crying too, now. She honestly hadn’t thought these feelings were still so close to the surface, but she was reliving it all now as she looked into his eyes. The days of waiting, the strange, detached tone in his letters as if nothing had changed. The days, the months, of crying so hard she could barely breathe, feeling so alone. Missing him on top of everyone else. She took a shaky breath before continuing.
“I really needed you, and you weren’t there. It was like you didn’t even care. I didn’t need you to be perfect, I just needed you to be there. And instead, you left me so completely alone–”
A sob cut off her last words, constricting her lungs and her throat and making it impossible to speak. Before she knew what was happening, there were cool, firm arms wrapping around her. After two centuries her body still remembered him, and her arms went around his neck without a thought.
They stayed like that for a long time, her sobbing into his shirt and him holding her. Rielle let herself relax into him. It was frightening, actually, how quickly her body seemed to forgive him, even as her mind couldn’t.
She berated herself mentally. She had not intended to cross the line of physical contact at all, because she’d known it would be too easy. She certainly had not forgiven him, and she wasn’t about to act like everything was fine. But as he held her, she felt a tiny rip in her heart begin to knit back together. For the first time in centuries, he was giving her something she needed. It wasn’t okay, it wasn’t over, but she was so tired. She needed a truce, just for now, just while his arms were around her.
When her breath quieted, Astarion moved one hand up to stroke her hair gently. She relaxed into him even further, sighing at the sensation. She remembered when this kind of thing had not come so naturally to him. He’d learned how to hug when they were together. It hadn’t been that much time together, all told, but she still carried so much of him around with her every day. What was she supposed to do with that? She couldn’t just forget. It was who she was now. They were a part of each other, forever.
After another minute, he spoke softly next to her ear.
“The paintings, the ones of me… they’re lovely. I don’t know how you do that, it’s like you paint someone but you paint more than just their appearance. You paint their essence. I’ve always admired that.”
She pulled back to look up at him, wiping her tears, and he let his arms fall.
“What do you mean ‘always?’”
He smiled sadly. “My dear, you can use any name you want, but I’d know your work anywhere. I’ve got quite a collection back home, spanning your whole career.”
Rielle’s heart constricted painfully. It was so wonderful to be loved by him. It was so cruel of him to love her only from afar. She swallowed and looked down.
“Thank you, that’s… thank you, Astarion.”
“May I ask you a question?”
She laughed humorlessly as she looked back up at him. “Sure, why not?”
“Why did you name them what you did? The paintings of me?”
She shook her head and smiled, looking to the side. “The first time you fed on me, you said ‘This is a gift, you know. I won’t forget it.’ And, I don’t know, I suppose it came to mind as I painted memories of you. Gifts are something you give freely, without expecting anything in return, and if I think of my love for you in those terms it’s a little less… painful. So, the series about how I love you is called The Gift.”
She spoke matter-of-factly. She’d become more prone to doing that over the last couple of centuries, having grown tired of trying to couch things or be tactful.
Astarion blinked, his eyes becoming round once more as his brow furrowed into sad disbelief. He didn’t say anything else, and neither did she.
He still hadn’t been there when she needed him. He still hadn’t apologized for not being there. There was nothing more to say, for now. After a moment of silence, she turned and walked back into the darkened gallery, and he did not follow.
She didn’t see him again for 10 more years.