Work Text:
Astarion found his partner’s little attempt to surprise him for their anniversary adorable. A year and a half after the small get together to celebrate surviving their adventure, two years since the destruction of the Netherbrain and their mutual decision to continue adventuring Faerun to gather the skill and the knowledge necessary to cure him, and Astarion couldn’t remember any longer amount of time he’d stayed this happy, this consistently. Istiel had secreted away candles, wine, soft sheets, and plump pillows around the same time of year since they made their pledge could only mean she’d prepared one of her little romantic gestures.
Astarion, for the woman who gave up the daylight and the comfort of life as a hero to traverse the backroads and dank dungeons to help him, had plans of his own. A ring of silver tucked away in a handkerchief in his pocket would soon grace Istiel’s hand, he hoped.
When he entered their tent, instead of lounging on their shared cot, Istiel sat upright in a chair with her complete attention on the scroll in her hands. She looked up when he approached and smiled like a mad thing, all teeth and mania.
“This is it, Astarion,” she told him, lifting the scroll. “I wasn’t sure before but now I am. I can cure you. Happy Anniversary!”
Astarion sank onto the cot at her feet feeling as though a feather could knock him over. “Darling… are you saying-”
“That you can walk out of this tent at dawn, as a perfectly normal man? Yes.”
Astarion blinked up at her before grinning. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s do it.”
Istiel laid him back on their cot, her hand stroking his hair before she took her place standing at his feet. “This is a scroll of Wish. Normally it would take me quite a bit longer to be able to cast this on my own, and I plan to still get there, of course. We can’t leave all those spawn in the Underdark forever.”
“Of course not.”
“But for now…”
And she began reading out the spell. The air crackled with energy, the magic setting a pall over their tent that tasted like ozone. The candles around the tent he thought she’d set up for a romantic interlude suddenly sparked high and hot, the flames a good foot in length brightening sharply around them. Istiel’s eyes began to glow with arcane power, her tongue dancing across the ancient language in a rush before old words traded for new. Istiel was defining her Wish. Astarion thought it would be as simple as Istiel wishing him into a daywalker.
She didn’t.
She used the Wish to cast True Resurrection on him, instead.
One moment he was a very attractive, albeit undead, cold corpse of a man, the next Astarion found himself gasping for the first breath he’d needed in over a century. His heart, a shriveled stone in his chest before, now beat wildly, throbbing with life. His senses became distinctly duller, but the feedback he was receiving from his surroundings were more intense than he thought they’ve ever been. Astarion was alive, truly alive.
All Astarion could do was lay on their bed and shake, for a while.
Once she was finished and the scroll burned away in her hands, Istiel threw a blanket over his shivering form before lying atop him, grounding Astarion in a way he didn’t know he needed.
Sweet Istiel, always his anchor.
Astarion felt half-asleep and sharply awake at the same time, distant from his own mind, fully wrapped up in the newly functioning habits of an alive body. He was thirsty, but not for blood. He hungered, but not for the life he lacked. He felt too cold and too hot, jittering with sensation.
It was a while before Astarion calmed, acclimating slowly as Istiel petted his limbs and cooed comforting nonsense to him. When he had settled into himself again, Astarion pulled her under the blanket and held her close.
“You magnificent creature,” Astarion whispered against Istiel’s mouth, unable to pull back very far from kissing her over and over again. “You are a goddess.”
Istiel giggled, squirming closer. “Perhaps not. Just in contact with a god of magic, hm?”
“Gale gave you the scroll? Wonderful man, always like him,” Astarion lied, causing Istiel to break out into a full belly laugh. “I suppose we owe him some act of devotion. Perhaps we’ll sacrifice a boar, hm?”
“Maybe later, Astarion. The sun is rising. Don’t you want to greet it?”
Despite no longer having a preternatural dexterity, Astarion sprang to his feet in a flash, pulling Istiel up with him. “Come along, darling, no time to dawdle!”
Istiel laughed again as he led them out of the tent to the edge of the cliff they had made camp atop. Now Astarion knew why Istiel had insisted on the climb up here in the first place: Astarion could see the entire valley from up here, the first rays of Lathander’s Light peeking over the horizon.
Astarion and Istiel stood in complete silence, hand in hand, as the morning sun engulfed the world before them, until finally reaching their perch. Astarion closed his eyes and basked in the warmth he hadn’t felt in a lifetime.
When Astarion opened his eyes again and turned, he found Istiel not watching the beautiful vista before them, but watching him. Astarion found another ability returned to him in surprise: he blushed.
Istiel looked at him with only love in her eyes, and Astarion had no other choice but to pull the ring from his pocket.
“Darling,” he started, unwrapping the right. “Istiel, my love, you’ve returned me to life. Allow me to spend the rest of mine with you?”
Astarion slipped the ring onto her finger as she kissed him hard on the mouth. He briefly flirted with the idea of mimicking their first time in the Grove, but this time in the full light of day. After all, it was their anniversary.