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The night is quiet and it’s getting late, but Liv doesn’t want to go to bed just yet. Her eyelids are heavy and her mind drifts as she reads her book. She’s pretty sure she’s reread her current paragraph twice now and still doesn’t know what it says. But she’s warmly nestled beside Astarion in what is quickly becoming routine for them. This couch, by this fireplace, in this room in the Elfsong, has become theirs. Tonight, he’d been the one to join her and without prompting or her asking, he’d wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into him.
She is grateful for the ease, for the familiarity. It seems that once he realized that touch could come without strings or expectations, he has wanted it more. Each time he reaches for her, her heart tumbles over itself at his trust. They’ve learned each other now, and the asking has become less careful, less explicit, a brush of fingers, an opened arm. She trusts that he will say no to the things he doesn’t want, and he seems to trust that she will not ask a question to things they are not ready for.
“You’re falling asleep,” he says, voice muffled against her hair.
It’s true, but she’s not sure she wants to leave. He sleeps far less than the rest of them, and while he must rest, she envies the hours of quiet he gets each night. Their days are so full, and she is so tired, but she finds that these late hours while the fire burns down is the only time they get to just be. Each day is full of so many dangers and nothing is promised, so each moment feels precious. She curls more fully into him. “I know, but this is nice.”
“It is.”
She twists so she can look at his face. “Someday, when this is all over I want an entire day to read and sleep and eat and rest just the two of us.”
His answering smile is brilliantly bright in the firelight. “I’d like that.” He tilts his head to the side. “It would be nice to have no world-ending problems to solve.”
“No netherstones to find…”
“No shared inn rooms with every single one of our friends…”
She concedes that point. “A little bit more privacy might be nice.”
His smile is positively feline now as he lowers his voice. “Oh? And whatever could you want
privacy
for?”
This is the nearest they’ve come to even mentioning sex within their relationship since Moonrise, but she still wants to be careful with them both. There’s no label for whatever this is, but she finds she’s rather unbothered by what it might look like from the outside, or by their lack of definition. He cares for her, and she for him. That feels simple enough.
Still, she’s never sure how much of his playing is a habit or because he actually wants to. She’s overheard conversations between him and their other companions where he’s clearly maintaining a front, still wearing the mask. Does he even realize he’s doing it, or is he just wanting to keep things private? There’s a lot she could say, but she decides to follow his lead here. “Whatever you want.”
His grin widens as he tightens his hold on her. “I can think of a few things. Unfortunately, we’ll never see that someday because the leader of our merry band of weirdos keeps not getting enough rest.”
She sighs and begins extracting herself from his arms. “I’m going.” Once she’s on her feet, she is struck by just how exhausted she is and begins making her way toward the stairs.
Astarion catches her hand as she walks away, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “Goodnight.” His face is upturned toward her, his crimson eyes dark in the firelight, but his expression is open and filled with a soft adoration that makes her pause.
She almost tells him she loves him then and there. Almost tells him that no one has ever looked at her like this. Instead, she gently cups his cheek and kisses him. “Goodnight,” she whispers against his lips and hopes he hears the words she leaves unsaid. It is a feat that she manages to get her exhausted self into bed, and sleep finds her quickly.
“Get the hells away from me!” Astarion’s voice breaks through the quiet of the room.
Liv jerks awake, already up and moving, reaching for her magic. Fire dances on her fingertips, ready to seek whatever perceived danger has found them. Astarion isn’t far from her bed, shoulders tense, poised to strike at the two vampire spawn who have come through the double doors to their rooms.
The spawn’s eyes glow a dull, deep red, but they don’t look like they’re here for a fight, in fact, they look almost resigned. She’s a moment away from lobbing a firebolt at them both, but she holds off, releasing her hold on her magic until she knows how Astarion wants to play this.
“Peace, brother. We’re here to take you home,” one says, a red-skinned tiefling, her brow furrowed. Aurelia perhaps? Which means the human beside her must be Leon. After their encounter with Petras and Dalyria, Astarion had reluctantly told her about the rest of his ‘siblings’ so that their group could better keep an eye out for them.
“The master needs all seven of us for the ceremony. Come with us and be reborn. We’ll live again,” Leon says. There’s an edge of mania in his voice.
Astarion’s face twists in disgust. “Oh, I’m well aware of what the master needs, but don’t we deserve better?”
Leon pauses, frowning. “Better, what do you mean better?”
“After all these centuries of torment, I know what you all want. More than power, more than to walk in the sun. You want to see him dead.” The anger in Astarion’s voice rises with each word. “The rite of profane ascension will be mine, and he won’t see a scrap of its glory. I’m going to complete the ritual as the ascendant, and then I am going to kill him. This is your chance, stand with me, name me your new master. We will get our revenge, and you will all live again.”
It’s a neat little lie, dangling hope out like a noose and hoping that his siblings hang themselves with it. It falls so naturally off his tongue, casual and cruel. Astarion has long since stopped trying to cut her, so she has forgotten how sharp he can be.
“Astarion,” she says and shoots him a look of alarm. Every conversation about the ritual has been an uphill battle. Cazador must die, that much she knows, but sacrificing his siblings for the power Cazador wants? Fulfilling a contract to Mephistopheles? Liv can’t help but feel they’re missing something. Besides, Astarion’s siblings are just as much victims as he is. “Have you no heart? You know they will die if you complete the ritual!”
Astarion looks like he’s resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. With the sweet little ‘disappointed I’m not getting cuddly Astarion’ pout. I can’t take it. I can’t be what you want to see in me.”
But she has not seen anything in him that isn’t there. He is a tangle of contradictions, overlapping hurts and pain that’s skewed the way he sees the world. He is not kind or heroic or selfless, but he is loyal and he cares about the people who care for him. And for her, that is enough. It has always been enough. She grew up in a house characterized by so much cold indifference that even his anger is a comfort, a promise that
something
matters.
But there is something too desperate about how much he wants this ritual to be his, about the things he is willing to do that she is not sure she can support. He has said it himself, that the problem with what happened to him isn’t what Cazador did, but that he did it to him. But if he does this, who does that make him? What happens if he becomes the thing he hates?
Aurelia’s eyes go wide for a moment and then narrow in suspicion. “Die? Whatsoever are you speaking of? We are going to cheat undeath.”
Across the room, Liv catches sight of movement, of the glint of blades being drawn. Their late-night visitors have not gone unnoticed by their companions, and Liv is grateful to know that if she can’t diffuse this situation, they’ve got back-up.
She turns to Leon and Aurelia, perhaps with two more spawn on their side, then maybe just maybe they can turn the tide of this battle. “Please, let us help you.”
Aurelia brushes her off. “The master doesn’t need to lie to us. He controls us. Fully. Why go through the trouble of giving us hope?”
Leon shakes his head. “Because it’s more cruel. Shit. We’re doomed. Alright, what do you need from us? We’ll help you.”
For a moment, the room is full of a sort of hope, of a turning of the tide. Perhaps they can all rise up and solve the problem of Cazador together, perhaps…Aurelia and Leon’s bodies go taut as if some invisible strings pull at them. And hope dissipates.
Aurelia grits her teeth. “The bonds hold. He owns us. We have no choice, we must obey. Get out of here, Astarion, before…”
The desperation and regret in Aurelia’s voice cuts through the room, but Liv can’t dwell on the fact that these two want nothing less than to be here. Because she’s already stepping in front of Astarion, throwing up a shield of magic between them and his siblings, buying them just enough time to prepare to fight.
***
As his last
sibling
disappears in red mist, Astarion hopes the bastard is satisfied. He will not be so easily retrieved; he doesn’t answer when Cazador calls. Not anymore. Besides, it was ridiculously stupid to pick a fight in the middle of an inn room full of warriors. They were able to dispatch his siblings so quickly, Karlach isn’t even breathing hard.
Liv is at his side, concern evident in her eyes. He’s fine, and he needs her to know that, so he stows his daggers and wipes his hands of the whole affair. “What a mess. Well, at least you’ve met my family now.”
She’s clearly not expecting his flippancy, and surprise reigns on her face before being replaced by exhaustion. “You’re alright?”
Her concern is adorable. “Nary a scratch on me.”
“Could people not call on us at normal hours?” Gale complains around a yawn.
Lae’zel scoffs. “We should always be on the lookout for an attack. It will keep us sharp.”
“That’s great, but I need sleep. Super fun family reunion, Astarion,” Wyll replies, already heading back to bed.
Karlach is shaking her head, infernal engine a deep glow. “No one comes into my house and tries to hurt my people. We’ll show Cazador.”
It’s rather touching, actually, the way they all sprung up out of bed to fight for him. He’s…grateful. He doesn’t say it though, just offers nods of acknowledgment as their companions make their way back to their beds, leaving him and Liv alone once again. She needs to go back to bed, he can see the way the exhaustion curves her shoulders.
“You -” he begins.
She cuts him off, her voice quiet but firm. “I can’t believe how you lied to them. You know they’ll have to die for the rite to happen.”
This again? She’d dropped the conversation at the flophouse, and they haven’t brought it up since. He figured she’d simply come around to his side in the interim, well until she told his siblings that the rite means they have to die. Because of course, she did. When has she ever been able to resist playing the hero?
“What does it matter? There’s only six of them. And they are vampire spawn.” He has spent two hundred years afraid, checking over his shoulder, unable to live his life, and he will not allow anyone to have that sort of power over him again.
Liv’s brow is furrowed. “You don’t have sympathy for others sharing your plight?”
Of course he doesn’t. Why would he? His siblings are pathetic, weak, and most importantly, still bound to Cazador. He’s not. He’s stronger, better. “No one ever looked out for me. No one ever said a kind thing to me. You’re the only one. Other people don’t have a heart like you. You’re you. No one is like that.”
Liv is perhaps the only person in their group who cannot see how exceptional she is. She has been told for so long that she is nothing, that she isn’t enough, that she cannot see that she is the only person with a heart like hers. He used to view it as a weakness, and some days he still does. But it is remarkable, and she needs to know that. She also needs to know that goodness and kindness can’t win against someone like Cazador. To defeat a monster, perhaps, one must be monstrous.
She tosses his comment away, sidesteps talking about herself like she always does. “And what if it was
you
destined to die so that one of your siblings could ascend, what would you have me do then?”
“Hypotheticals are not helpful here.
I
am the one with the tadpole, with the ability to resist our master. I don’t know why you care so much. They’re bad people who have done bad things, trust me on that.”
This does nothing calm her, if anything, he’s made it worse. “You cannot have it both ways, Astarion. They cannot deserve to die for following Cazador’s orders, while you shrug off all blame for your actions because you were compelled.”
“And why bloody not?! Who the fuck cares? You are so intent on being
good
and doing the
right
thing. Why does it matter? Who is it for? You were kind and good and selfless, and it didn’t save you! Your family still treated you like shit. It didn’t matter.”
“It matters to me! Because I refuse to be anything like them!” There are tears pooling in her eyes, and he tells himself he doesn’t care; her tears do not change his mind. “I just want to look at my life and know that I didn’t make this world worse. That I didn’t profit on the suffering of others. Isn’t that enough?”
Gods, can’t she see that it doesn’t matter anyway? “And what of
my
suffering? You don’t know what it was like. There was no way out. Once - in the first decade of my slavery, I found a darling boy who I couldn’t bear to bring back to him. So I ran instead of hurting that sweet man. After Cazador caught me, the bastard sealed me,
starving
, inside a dusty tomb all on my own for an entire year.” This is the path he has never wanted to retread, his worst and darkest memory. Sometimes, he jerks awake at night and if the darkness is too deep, if it is too quiet, he is back in that tomb, alone with that gnawing, festering desperation.
He hates the way his voice shakes, at the way these words escape his throat, cutting all the way. “A year of silence. Months of scratching my hands raw, trying to carve my way out. More months of not moving at all. Months of wishing only for death. All of us begged for the end, once. I’ll be doing them a favor, making their death
mean
something.”
Silent tears run down Liv’s cheeks, but her voice is steady as ever. “Astarion -”
“Don’t!” He cuts off the apology he knows is coming, voice harsher and louder than he intends. He doesn’t want her sorrow or her pity. “I am not broken. I am still here, and I will fight him until I fight to my last. And while repaying what he did to me is impossible, I am damn well going to steal that bastard’s life work. I
will
become the ascendent!” He flashes his fangs, as if to remind her of the monster he is. He is not kind or good or selfless, and she would do well to remember that.
But Liv doesn’t flinch away, doesn’t look afraid. “Just be careful you don’t become him in the process,” she says with a sort of resignation that terrifies him. She turns away, heading up the stairs. She pauses partway looking at him over her shoulder. “We can go to Szarr Palace whenever you’re ready.”
He wants to tell her that he’s never going to be ready. That he doesn’t want this rattling, convoluted mess inside of him. That he doesn’t want to be on opposing sides of this. That he wants her to look at him like she had earlier tonight, like he was the best and brightest thing in the world.
But as she walks away, he doesn’t feel victorious. He just feels lost.