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Reithwin is cold and dark and dreary. Everything in it is dead, and everything that moves is either crazy, wants to kill them, or both. It’s not much different from the ruined battlefield outside of town, even though the shadows here lay even heavier, more suffocating.
He and Shadowheart are sifting through the office of the surgeon they’d found, while Gale searched the library. It was just them left out there right now, Lae’zel and Wyll having left with the lute they found, heading to Last Light to find Halsin. It’s their first actual clue as to how to end the curse, and the faster they deal with it, the better.
Karlach had left too, going back to camp after they found Arabella’s parents, wanting to tell the young tiefling herself. The sight of the corpses had made her grow pale, her usually bright red skin turning a sickly orange-gray, Arabella’s loss reminding her of her own. No one had stopped her, even though they’d decided none of them should travel alone. If any one of them would be fine, it was her.
That left them to search through the house of healing for anything of use, though. Gale had called dibs on the bookcases lining the walls, saying that he’d be the best option to look through them. Shadowheart had beelined for the surgeon’s office, happily digging through his notes and old medical supplies. She had dragged him along too, pointing him to a locked chest sitting on one side of the room.
It was quick work, and after picking the lock he leaned back against the wall, letting the two others handle the searching. He wasn’t really necessary right now, it was nice to get a moment to rest.
From where she’s standing bent over the desk, Shadowheart speaks. “So, Astarion?”
He looks up, taking in how she’s looking very intently at the papers in front of him. She has something sensitive to ask about then. “Yes?”
“Now that you’ve tried it all… who has the best blood?” She shifts the papers around, folding them up and then flattening them out again. Her voice is very purposefully casual.
Even so, her question makes Astarion sputter. “What?” He stands, walking closer so that he can lean over the desk, attempting to catch her eye. “What kind of question is that?”
“It’s a perfectly reasonable one.” She’s still not meeting his eyes, gaze locked onto the smudged words on the page, running down it, clearly not reading. “I’m just curious. And since Gale isn’t an option, I know you won’t be tempted to be biased.”
He scoffs. “I can be biased all on my own, thank you very much.” And it’s not like he would have lied and said it was Gale anyways, even if his blood would have been an option. He’s his own person and he’s got his pride. It’s just that, if his blood was drinkable, it probably would taste the best. He looks like he would. Soft and warm, smelling like parchment and herbs, his blood would probably still taste like magic even if it wasn’t blighted, but a softer magic, Gale’s magic.
It wouldn’t be him being biased if he was right.
She turns to him, finally looking him in the eyes. “So then you’ll tell me whose blood is best?”
He squints at her, unsure what her play here is. “…is this just you trying to figure out which one of you I like best?” Given her previous comments regarding bias, it seems as likely a motive as anything, though it really would have been simpler for her to just ask. He hasn’t reflected on it. On either question. His companions just… were.
They were all so different. He can’t just compare them on one thing and make a judgment, it would be like… apples and oranges. None of the comparators are good measures for all of them.
Shadowheart makes an amused noise. “No, I know it’s me you like best. Second to Gale of course.” She wiggles her eyebrows at him suggestively. He fights down an embarrassed flush, Gale is his favorite among them, yes, but he’s not- he isn’t in the same category as the rest of them. He’s Astarion’s friend . He hasn’t had one of those before.
Shadowheart isn’t wrong about her being his favorite among the rest, though, even if he won’t say it. Especially now that she has said it. It wouldn’t do to give her a big head. He wiggles his hand in a ‘so so’ motion, motioning for her to go on.
She gives him an amused look at his avoidance, but acquiesces, continuing her explanation. “I’ve never had blood, though, and I don’t know what makes it taste different, so I want to know who tastes the best.”
All of his companion’s blood has been overwhelming, each and every one in new and baffling ways. Halsin’s blood, the first he received, willingly given, tasted like life itself. It was greenery and druidic magic, moonlight and wild power. Karlach tasted like fire, her blood still far warmer than any other he had tasted, even with the upgraded engine. It burned, but in the way he vaguely remembered spices to do, not painful, just warming.
Lae’zel was pure physical power. Even with the odd aftertaste given by her astral heritage. It strengthened him in a different way to Halsin’s, less seeping magic into him, and more coiling in his muscles, making him stronger, faster. It was as if a small piece of her prowess was given over to him, just for a moment. Wyll’s blood was similarly rich. Strong and heavy. A life of training, of working hard, of eating well, just as Lae’zel, only sullied by the lingering sulfur of his now demonic body. The sulfur was bad. Really bad.
Not as bad as the lingering taste of Shar in Shadowheart’s blood though. The same shadows which crept into the corpses left in the dark swam in her blood, making it taste like rot and decay. It was still blood. Still better than the dying rats Cazador would feed him, but the lingering rot turned his stomach every time.
He sighs. “Has it occurred to you that you don’t?”
She laughs, waving him off. “That I don’t taste the best? It has occurred to me, yes.” Her head tilts down as she looks up at him through her lashes, an overexaggerated theatrical movement. “But if it’s not me then I want to know who it is. And also whose is the worst.” She pauses for a moment, studying his face. Whatever she sees there makes her falter. “Unless it’s me.”
It is her. “I’m very sure you don’t want to know.” Gods, when was the last time he avoided saying something to spare someone’s feelings? A long time ago. He’s not sure when.
She bumps his shoulder with her hand. “No, I do.”
He lets the silence drag out on purpose, waiting her out. If he just doesn’t answer she’ll have to give up on it. She meets his eyes, raising an eyebrow, and leans back against the desk, settling in to wait herself. The quiet sits heavy. Almost solid. The pressure of the curse doubles down on them as they stare each other down. “Fine!” He hates the quiet, the silence. If she wants to be hurt, that’s on her. She can’t say he didn’t warn her. “It’s Lae’zel.”
Her eyes go wide. “What?!”
He can feel how smug his own smile is. It’s not his fault she asked to get her feelings hurt. “I did tell you you didn’t want to know.”
She levels a glare at him, crossing her arms over her chest. “I- but- why her?”
Now it’s his turn to wiggle his eyebrows, leaning in conspiratorially. “Why? Do you want the tasting notes? Are you looking to try it yourself?” He’s almost caging her in against the desk, sidling up close to her side. “Do you want to take a bite of the big strong githyanki?”
Shadowheart blushes, uncrossing her arms to push him away. “No.” Her voice is weak, and she’s looking everywhere but at him.
He chuckles. “Mhm.” It’s funny, how easily she flusters. How her initial hostility has shifted, not quite softened, into something more. “You really are too obvious.”
The hands on his chest shove harder, forcing him back a step. “Shut up! It’s not like you’re any more subtle about Gale!”
There is nothing happening between him and Gale, other than friendship. He wouldn’t ask for anything more. Not when the wizard has made it clear that he wasn’t interested. He doesn’t want to ruin the first friendship he’s ever had. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Her laugh rings with derision. “You following him around like a lost puppy? The constant touching? The cuddling you two do every night?”
Those things don’t mean anything. They can’t. Gale is just helping him. He’s just a good friend. He cares about what happens to Astarion. That doesn’t mean that he…
He lets out an annoyed huff. “That is completely platonic, he is just a very physically affectionate friend.” What else could he be?
Shadowheart looks at him incredulously. “He isn’t like that with anyone else.”
“Well maybe no one else here is a good friend to him?” The others aren’t bad friends to Gale, per se, but it’s clear that they have sort of… let go of him. Of his needs. They’ve left that to Astarion. The designated wizard wrangler. Of course Gale is going to be closer to him than them.
He’s Astarion’s first friend.
The derision on Shadowheart’s face is clear as day. “Oh I’m sure you’re being very good to him. A bed warmer for a bed warmer , is it?”
Her implication fills him with genuine discomfort, a disgusted shiver rolling down his spine. He doesn’t- Gale isn’t- He isn’t that anymore. He doesn’t want to be. Gale wouldn’t ask that of him. Not like that.
He can’t stop the grimace on his face. “I’m leaving.” As he walks out the door, he looks back at her over his shoulder. He wants her to feel bad too. She doesn’t get to make him feel like this. “Your blood is the worst, by the way. It tastes like the undead here. Like rot.” He slams the door shut behind him before she can answer, relishing in the heavy thump of it hitting the doorframe.
His skin still crawls, the implication that he was trading… services … for Gale’s companionship sitting like a rock across his shoulders. He wants to stop thinking about it. It makes him nauseous.
The remembered feeling of fingers on his skin climbs up his torso. Rough hands, pushing, pulling, taking. Forcing him to be good for them.
Whatever this is that he has with Gale, it’s different. There’s no taking. No pushing. It’s not- Shadowheart is wrong. It’s not that. Gale wouldn’t let it be that. It’s different. It has to be.
He doesn’t know what he would do if it wasn’t.
The operating theater is silent, no sound other than the soft shuffling of the nurses. They shamble around, aimless, purposeless, and he feels for them.
Had Cazador died, that’s what he would be. A thrall without a master, a puppet with its strings cut.
Not for the first time, he feels grateful for the tadpole in his head. His free will returning, the ability to walk in the sun, to cross running water. It gave him his freedom back.
He doesn’t know what will happen when they defeat the cult.
He hopes he can still be himself.
He wants to want to keep the cult, to want to take it over. But he doesn’t. He can’t bring himself to. His companions have infected him with disgusting morals, and he hates them. He wants to feel good about sacrificing all the cult’s victims for his own freedom. He doesn’t care about them. They don’t matter . But the cult’s victims include his companions. Include Gale. And he can’t.
Gods he hates morals.
He wanders the halls, not taking anything in. He just wants to move. To keep moving.
He canvasses the rest of the house of healing, going through every room, every nook and cranny. He keeps his focus sharp, eyes out for anything even mildly interesting. None of them really searched it, passing through on their way to the surgeon, only sidetracked by the dead tieflings. There must be something he can find to take his mind off of the memories.
Something glints on one of the skeletons on the ground, and when he searches it, he finds a ring. It’s clearly magical, giving off a weak aura, but he has no way of telling what it does. He’s not a mage, and his mage is otherwise occupied at the moment.
It slips into his pocket, easy as anything.
The party generally shares their finds, trading trinkets between each other, handing over any equipment which might be better suited for someone else, but he’s not in a very charitable mood right now.
He can show it to the others later. At some point. Probably. Once he doesn’t want to crawl out of his own skin any more.
The memory of hands still lingers, the silence doing nothing to help distract him. He wants there to be sound. To be anything other than the eerie quiet of a place long dead. The thought of making any noise himself terrifies him. He can’t. He needs to get away. If he makes noise, he might be found. He doesn’t know who he thinks might find him, who he’s really running from, but he needs to get away .
The room Arabella’s parents are laying in has a cracked wall. It’s easy enough to break through, the eternal dark of the shadow curse greeting him on the other side.
Traversing it on his own isn’t safe.
He doesn’t care.
His feet lead him out as if by their own will, he’s just hanging on, dragged behind. He slips into the cursed shadows just as easily as he does the regular ones, disappearing into the dark.
He just needs to get away. Until the hands on his skin stop. Until the silence stops sounding like a threat. Until he can think again.
He paces the circumference of the house of healing once, twice, thrice, letting his legs work without thought. They feel tense, like springs coiled to snap, and he takes the next step with more force, more speed. It feels so good to just run. He’s fast. If he just runs fast enough it won’t catch up with him. If all he is is pumping legs and quiet footfalls, he might get away.
When he finally stops, his legs shake. He’s not sure for how long he was running, how long it’s been since he left Shadowheart in that office, but his thoughts feel clearer, the burn of well used muscles settling under his skin, washing out the remembered sensations. He can think again.
The clarity comes with the realization that Shadowheart and Gale have no idea where he is.
Ah. Fuck.
He stumbles in through the main door, disregarding stealth entirely as he heads back to the surgical theater. Gale and Shadowheart are sitting next to his pack, leaning against the wall, both of them with a book open in their lap, and they look up as they hear him approaching.
“Astarion!” Gale sounds relieved. “I thought we’d lost you! Where were you?”
“Out.” He doesn’t feel like explaining. He’s not sure he can explain the panic that gripped him. It feels stupid in retrospect, fleeing with no plan, without telling them anything. They could just as easily have left, leaving him behind.
It would probably have been the reasonable thing for them to do, even.
Gale just nods, taking his answer at face value. “Did you find anything else? We both are done looking here, so if there is nothing else, it seems high time we head back.” He uses the wall to brace himself as he stands, tucking his book under his arm.
Shadowheart still hasn’t said anything, avoiding his eyes as she stands. She hands her book to Gale, who tucks it into his satchel before making a ‘go ahead’ motion. He lets her take the lead, picking up Astarion’s pack before following a few steps behind.
When he passes Astarion, he sends him a questioning look. He shakes his head in return, not wanting to discuss it. Certainly not here. Not now.
If Gale asked again, later, maybe he could. But not now. Not here.
They walk back to camp in silence, him and Gale almost shoulder to shoulder, following behind a silent Shadowheart.
He’s not sure why she isn’t speaking to him, but he can’t help but be grateful. He doesn’t want her questions, her implications.
When Gale takes the lift back down to the surgical theater, he finds Shadowheart standing alone in the center. Astarion is nowhere to be found, though that isn’t all that uncommon.
“Did you find anything useful?”
She startles, looking up at him with big eyes before relaxing again. He isn’t used to sneaking up on anyone , that’s odd. “Some potions, some gloves that might be useful, and an amulet.” She holds it up by the chain. “I’m not sure what it does, but it sings with Lady Shar’s magic.”
He looks at it, nodding. It feels like enchantment magic, nothing strong. He tells her as much before looking around again. There is still no vampire to be found, but he can’t have gone too far, the shadow lands far too dangerous to traverse alone. “Where would our fanged friend happen to be?”
She looks far too guilty at the question for the answer to be anything good.
“He… He left.” She’s not meeting his eyes as she speaks.
“Back to camp?” That’s not safe. Even though Astarion is very capable, he doesn’t have the right skill set to handle being outnumbered, and the shadows tend to swarm .
She shakes her head, gesturing to where his pack is still leaning against the wall by the door. “He’s not in here, but…”
But if he isn’t, then he’s outside, and anything could happen to him.
“Why did he leave?”
She takes a moment to study the amulet in her hands, fiddling with the chain. She is very clearly avoiding looking at him. “I said something. I didn’t think he’d react like this to it though!”
His stomach drops. “What did you say?” He doesn’t care that she flinches at his tone, that her shoulders hunch. She chased Astarion out into the shadow curse. Even if it was unintentionally, he doesn’t quite feel charitable at the moment.
“I’m- I just- We were joking around! Like we normally do!” Her voice is pitched up in panic, her words almost shouted. “He said the rest of us weren’t as good friends to you as he was, so I just-” She rubs her hands across her face, clenching her eyes shut. “I just said that I’m sure that he’s being good to you. That-” She cuts herself off, making a frustrated noise. “That he was trading a bed warmer for a bed warmer . ” She finally meets his eyes again, tears glistening in her lashes. “I didn’t know he’d get this upset. I’m sorry.”
“You said what ?!” He’s- the implication makes him feel nauseous. That he would use Astarion like that. Abuse him. Use his body as a thing to trade , like so many people have forced him to do before. “Shadowheart. What the fuck.” He can’t fathom what she could have been thinking. What went wrong in her head to make those words sound like a good idea.
“I’m sorry!” She sounds close to tears. “I was just- He was being so obnoxious about it.”
He has to take a breath to keep himself from trying to hit her. It wouldn’t solve anything. He just really wants to at that moment. “Him being obnoxious isn’t an excuse to imply that a former sex slave is trading his body for things !”
Her breath hitches. “Oh.” He can see how her face crumples, any righteousness falling off of her. “I- I didn’t know- He hasn’t told me-” She lets out a weak sob. “Gods I’m so sorry.”
He feels some of the anger go out of him. She couldn’t know. It’s not her fault that Astarion has a troubled past, he won’t help anyone by being mad at her. He can’t undo it, yelling at her won’t fix anything. His sigh feels heavy. “Just- please, don’t do it again.”
She nods so fast that he’s sure it must hurt her neck. “I swear.”
The room is still eerily quiet. There is no sign of Astarion anywhere, not in there, not in the rest of the building, and they see neither hide nor hair of him when they look outside.
He’s worried. Usually, Astarion is smart. He thinks things through. He doesn’t take risks.
This is not his usual.
There is a good chance that there is a pale corpse somewhere in the shadow lands being consumed by the shadows right at that second.
There is also a good chance that, wherever Astarion has disappeared to, he’ll come back here first.
They can’t scour the entire town. Not on their own. Their only option right now, their only hope, is waiting it out. Staying here, and hoping that he comes back.
It’s a little like having spooked a stray cat, the uncertainty of if he’ll come back, or if he’s been killed somewhere.
All they can do is wait.
The minutes drag on, slow, sluggish, anxious, and after a while he sits down next to Astarion’s pack. He wants to do something, to help, he wants to find him, but if Astarion doesn’t want to be found, it’s very unlikely that Gale would be able to. Especially in the ever present darkness.
Shadowheart sits next to him, looking guilty, and while he isn’t angry any more, he doesn’t quite feel kindly enough to say something to ease it. Still, when he takes out a book he offers one to her as well. There really is nothing else to do.
The sound of approaching footsteps is the sweetest he has heard in ages, and when he looks up he sees a haggard looking Astarion. His hair is a mess, windswept and tangled, his entire posture radiating exhaustion, but he looks unharmed.
He’s not sure he’s ever seen a more beautiful sight.