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spacebarbarianweird · 3 months

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Baby Fangs

Synopsis: Baby Alethaine is severely sick, and Astarion is afraid his daughter is going to die.

Tags: hurt/comfort, dadstarion, dhampirs

Alethaine's age: 5 month

Thanks @queenofthespacesquids for beta-reading!

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Headcanons

Astarion has never been so afraid in his life.

Not when he was dying in the streets of Baldur’s Gate. Not when he thought Tiriel had gone. Not when Cazador had inflicted tortures on him.

It just can’t compare to the fear of losing a child.

“She needs to make it till morning,” the healer says. “If she is alive by sunrise, she will get better.”

“But can we do anything?” Tiriel looks as if she is going to fight. “There are healing spells, potions, anything!”

“And most of them aren’t fit for a five month old child. Astarion, Tiriel, I give you my word. I’ve done everything I can. There are probably some clerics and wizards who can heal your child immediately but none of them live in Daggerlake. I am sorry.”

The healer walks away, leaving a dreadful silence in the house.

Astarion sits on the bed, clasping his hands together. Of course, things couldn't be this good. Of course something had to go wrong! How could he have been foolish enough to believe that things could be good for him?

His little daughter, Alethaine, is such a miracle, such a gift. When he first held her in his arms, he dared to hope that everything would be all right from then on. And now they tell him she's dying? That she would be dead by morning?

Alethaine whimpers weakly. She is already too tired to cry.

Tiriel looks terrible. She is a warrior, a fighter, but for the first time in her life, she has no enemy to kill. The enemy is her daughter's fever, and she can't beat it the way she beats monsters.

The baby starts coughing.

Astarion doesn't need to be a vampire to feel his daughter's pain. Her muscles are too tense. Her breathing is ragged and her heartbeat is too weak. Alethaine is suffering at this very moment, and there is nothing her parents can do about it.

Can’t give her medicine. Can’t soothe her pain.

There is a grip of death around her tiny heart and neither Tiriel nor Astarion can unclench it.

Tiriel sits on the bed, cradling Alethaine in her arms. Astarion wraps his hands around them.

“So what do we do?” he asks.

“We wait,” she answers. Her voice sounds exhausted.

He nods.

Yesterday, Alethaine was perfectly healthy. She tried to sit up, but each time her head proved too heavy and she fell on her back. Then her black eyes clouded over and a fever rose. She refused to eat and only cried like a wounded animal.

“What if she doesn’t make it?” Astarion asks.

Tiriel doesn't answer and he sees tears flowing down her cheek. “We will keep living. Could you please bring a blanket?”

Astarion reluctantly lets them go and picks up a thick fur blanket from the floor. Then they sit together with their backs against the wall, covering their sick daughter with the blanket. Only a desperate cough echoes through the room.

Children die all the time. Mostly little kids like Alethaine. Daggerlake isn't a very big town, but Astarion knows that at least three babies have died this year. From disease. Small children like this are too vulnerable. It happens all the time.

There's a chance that tomorrow Astarion will have to dig a grave and put a tiny bundle in there that never had a chance to grow up.

It's so unfair that it makes Astarion want to howl.

"Astarion," Tiriel touches his curls. "Let's talk. The silence is killing me."

“What do you want to talk about, my sweet?”

“I don't know… Anything.” Tiriel places the girl in his hands and Astarion flinches sensing the heat of Alethaine’s body. Fever. A terrible killing fever. “Do you think she is a dhampir?”

“She is an elf like I was before I died.”

When Tiriel was pregnant, he read as much as possible about dhampirs. Deadly and fast, half-vampires don’t need blood and can live in the sun. But they have vampiric strength, can walk on ceilings, and regenerate much faster than mortals. No wonder vampires are often jealous of their children.

But at the same time, the life of a dhampir is full of hardships. Neither a vampire, nor a mortal, they are doomed to be alone. Once they feel bloodlust for the first time and fangs replace the canines, they are outcasts often disowned by their own mortal families.

But does it have to be like that? Astarion has been fighting the odds against his vampiric nature for the last twenty years. Why can’t his daughter?

But Astarion is afraid they will never learn the answer to either of their questions. Alethaine opens her mouth and makes a deep breath as if suffocating. Something doesn’t allow her to breathe and she makes hissing sounds. Her little eyes are watery - by this time she can only cry.

So can her parents.

“I wouldn’t want to, I think,” Tiriel says. “If she is dhampir it means she is alone. Even if other spawns have children too, what is the chance she will ever meet them?”

Astarion kisses Tiriel’s cheek. if Alethaine dies, they bury her and leave. Daggerlake is a welcoming town but it will be a place of sorrow for them.

Tiriel adjusts herself a bit.

“Fuck” she mutters. Astarion immediately smells the blood. Tiriel’s thumb is bleeding. “A fucking splinter.”

Alethaine cries at the top of her lungs.

Astarion stares at his daughter with shock. She screams with the strength they didn’t know she posseses. It’s desperate. Angry.

Demanding.

This moment she doesn’t sound like a child. She sounds like a little beast.

Before Astarion makes up any coherent thought, Tiriel puts her bleeding thumb to Alethaine’s lips, making the blood pour into her mouth.

“Tiriel, what are you doing?”

Tiriel doesn’t answer. The girl makes sucking movements as her mother squeezes drops of blood from her finger.

And then her dark eyes turn red.

They glow in the half-lit room like two tiny lights.

Tiriel puts her fingers away and Alethaine makes a disgruntled sound. Her elven ears twitch.

The eyes stop glowing so intensely and return to their natural black color.

And then Alethaine laughs.

She is kicking her legs and stretching her arms to her parents.

The girl is happy. Happy like a well-fed vampire.

“Astarion, look at her gums.”

Two baby fangs. Very small, almost kitten-like.

“It wasn’t a fever,” Astarion mutters. “It was a bloodlust.”

Of course… If she was older she would just try to get blood from somewhere.

But when you are five months old you can’t do a lot of things.

Poor girl, how she suffered those two days.

Is dhampir bloodlust the same as vampiric? Was she feeling her stomach being ripped apart, her throat hurting and bleeding? Maybe it was even worse for her? Maybe her mortal nature was fighting the bloodthirsty monster, causing Alethaine to cry in pain?

Helpless baby alone with her pain and fear while her parents didn't think of the most obvious explanation.

** Astarion sits at the doorstep with a plushie doll in his hands. The toy has white hair and elven ears, and now Astarion is stitching small fangs to its mouth.

The tears prickle his eyes.

He’s condemned his child for a life of hardships. For loneliness, for constant war against herself. If someday Alethaine shows up at his doorstep blaming him for all her tragedies, he will not even try to defend himself.

“No, kitten, I don’t care if you don’t like it! I can’t breastfeed you anymore and I am not giving you any blood! You eat normal food!” He hears Tiriel’s voice from inside the house.

Alethaine isn’t going to comply easily.

Then he hears footsteps from behind.

“What are you doing?” Tiriel asks.

“Adding fangs to her toy.”

Tiriel sits beside him.

“You have mash in your hair.” Astarion notices

“I know. You should see the other girl. How do you feel about giving her a bath?”

“I don't think you should ask. It’s my child. It seems like… even more mine now.”

“Hey, don't be upset. We knew it was possible.”

“I just… Her eyes, Tiriel, you saw them.They were like theirs… My siblings…Cazador… the same fucking glowing eyes as if she was a vampire, too!”

“It’s because of blood. She doesn’t have to drink it, she can eat normal food.”

“We should have found the cure before making a child.”

“But we didn’t find any.”

Tiriel takes a wet piece of rag and wipes her hair. “Astarion, I am going to talk to you seriously and, please, pay attention to every word I say.”

“I am all pointy ears, my love.”

“I was beaten and humiliated daily for who I was. My family didn't even give me a name because they despised me. But when I met elves for the first time they called me “garbage” - Biir. Half-something, half a person. Half elves aren't uncommon. There are surprisingly many in big cities. But I’ve been taught to despise my body, to hate my ears, to be embarrassed of my own existence. And our daughter is a dhampir. And I am sure there aren’t many like her. This world will have a thousand opportunities to shove her differences up to her nose. This world will teach Alethaine to hate herself. I can guarantee you she will try to pull her fangs out or maybe will ask someone to knock them out. She will cover herself not to let people see how pale she truly is. And we must not be a part of her problems.”

“Tiriel, I would never - “

“She is a girl, Astarion. Her image of herself will be formed mostly by you, not by me. The way you will perceive her will be the way she will see herself. And if she sees resentment, if she senses your sorrows that she isn’t a normal child, she will start hating herself. She will feel it. And it will stay with her till her long days are over.”

“Tiriel, what exactly in my behavior tells you that I am going to mistreat her? She is my child! She is…”

“I didn’t mean to ignore the fact she is a dhampir. You must cherish her differences. We must love her for being a dhampir. We must form this idea that it’s good she is a dhampir.”

Astarion chuckles. To be honest, he has never accepted his vampirism. It happened against his will and he would give anything to get rid of it. It is a curse. And now… his daughter is cursed as well.

“Astarion, this is important. Even the tiniest things will affect her. And we will have to deal with the consequences.”

The girl cries for her parents, and Tiriel, planting a kiss on Astarion’s forehead, returns inside.

Several hours later, when a washed and clean-clothed Alethaine is happily lying on her parents' bed and trying to make some coherent movements, Astarion finally finds enough moral strength to accept the reality.

He takes his daughter in his arms and walks up to the ceiling. The girl laughs and tries to bite him.

"Aren't you the cutest dhampir in Faerûn?" he mutters. "I can't wait to teach you how to use those fangs in battle. You will be deadly, my princess! But don't bite your mother, that's my prerogative."

Tag list

@tugoslovenka @marcynomercy @wintersire @vixstarria @not-so-lost-after-all @ashiro20 @theearthsfinalconfession @herstxrgirl @starlight-ipomoea @micropoe10 @astarion-imagine-archive @veillsar @elora-the-slutty-songstress @fayeriess @lumienyx @tallymonster @caitlincat-95 @tragedybunny @valeprati @lynnlovesthestars @marina-and-the-memes @waking-electric @ayselluna @connorsui @asterordinary @darkarchangel96

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psychicdreamlandpizza · 5 months

Text

Commission for @spacebarbarianweird Alethaine Ancunín - Astarion's dhampir daughter.

Astarion's daughter is as beautiful and deadly as her father.

"I don't need blood to survive, but I do enjoy the taste."

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spacebarbarianweird · 4 months

Text

Little Bundle of Darkness

Synopsis: Astarion becomes a father.

Tags: fluff, comfort, dadstarion, dhampirs, pregnancy

Alethaine's age: newborn

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Headcanons

Thanks @lobster-risotto for beta-reading!

Astarion wants to leave the house, just to distract himself a bit. Just to take a break.

A cry of pain pierces the air.

The vampire starts moving objects in the room mindlessly. He hates dissociating but at this moment he misses this feeling of not being present in the moment.

It's been years since he felt so useless, so doomed. And so scared.

Another cry, louder than the previous one, and Astarion clenches his fists as if being ready to attack an invisible enemy.

He and Tiriel have been through a lot. He has seen her in blood and pain many times - his fierce warrior-wife who wields a two-handed axe with the same elegance he uses daggers is unstoppable and unbreakable.

But this… this is different.

"I - I can't!", he hears Tiriel. "It hurts!"

Whatever she wants to say next, drowns in yet another cry.

Astarion casts a glance outside. The sun is still shining so he is locked inside the house. Helpless and useless while Tiriel is suffering in agonizing pain only with a midwife to be by her side.

...He had no idea it was possible. He is an undead. Undead men don't impregnate mortal women. Besides, it had been twenty years since they met. If it had been possible to conceive a child, it would have happened a long time ago.

But –

One day her blood just tasted different. And Tiriel was so tired she couldn’t lift her weapon on their back home from the wilderness. She was claiming everything was all right and he had to drag her to the town’s healer.

She came back much sooner than he expected, and he immediately sensed something was utterly wrong. Tiriel sat in front of him in the chair, eyes firmly fixed on her hands.

"My sweet, what did he say?" Astarion asked. By this moment he started feeling a wave of his own panic. Tiriel is mortal. She is a warrior, yes, but she isn’t immune to curses and, after all, death. And besides he had never seen her like that.

"Astarion, tell me one thing. Have you heard about children born from vampires?"

"Yes, I have. Dhampirs. It’s like being a vampire without downsides,"he got so carried away that he basically gave a lecture to Tiriel, and then stumbled. "Why do you ask?"

And then she put her hand on her belly.

“He told me I am pregnant.”

… The next months were intense. Sometimes everything was good. They could even sit and talk about the future – sure, the child was going to be an elf with just a bit of human ancestry on Tiriel’s side.

But more often than that they both were scared. Tiriel had insane mood swings and she would burst into tears after some innocent mockery from him. He had nightmares and panic attacks. Everything he thought had gone for good returned the instant he’d learned about pregnancy.

And Tiriel… Well, the thing is women die at childbirth even if the child is mortal. Even if before the woman has challenged the gods.

Cries from upstairs are unbearable to hear. Astarion wants to be there with Tiriel and, at the same time, he wants to be miles away. And it’s all his fault.

If she dies, it will be his fault.

Fuck it.

Astarion goes up and with a bit of hesitation pushes the door. The smell of familiar blood makes his head spin.

“Go away, idiot! I told you not to come here!” the midwife curses. “There is too much blood!”

“No, please!” Tiriel begs, reaching out for him, “Don’t go!”

Astarion kneels beside her and squeezes her hand. “I am not going anywhere, my sweet.”

What if something is wrong? What if the child is some monster, not even resembling a sentient being? What if…

And suddenly Tiriel goes silent.

A squeal, full of fury and distress, pierces the room.

“Well, this one looks like a healthy girl”, the midwife places the baby in Tiriel's arms.

The tiny Elven baby with long pointy ears stops crying, feeling her mother’s skin against hers.

Astarion stares at the child in shock.

“Didn’t really take after me, did you?” Tiriel adjusts herself a bit in the bed. “My lovely beautiful girl”, she presses a kiss against the baby’s forehead, “Look at her ears, they are like yours!”

Astarion can’t take his eye off them. His child. His and Tiriel’s. His daughter. Not a monster – just a baby.

The long pointy ears twitch, and Tiriel starts caressing them.

“Tiriel… My love…”, he finally manages to speak again, “Her ears are very sensitive, don’t touch them too much”.

“Oh, I am sorry”, Tiriel stops. “But they are so cute!”

“They are.”

Astarion can’t decipher what exactly he feels. All these months the child was just an idea, something he couldn’t feel attachment to. But now that the baby is born, the realization that nothing will be the same hits him. That his life has just changed forever.

And this is good. The worst thing that was happening to him all the centuries of enslavement was the understanding that nothing would ever change. Nothing would get better or worse because everything would stay the same. And now, it’s something new. Something natural. Something he thought was available only for normal people, not someone so twisted and ruined like him.

Tiriel touches his arm softly.

“Hold her.”

“What?! No! I am not…”

“It’s your child, Astarion”

Astarion stands up and recoils. “Tiriel, I will hurt her! Look at her, she is small! I will… I will do something to her!”

It seems like his voice scares the newborn and she starts crying again.

“Sit with me”, Tiriel asks. “Please”

Astarion hesitates but obliges. Before he says anything, the little bundle is already placed in his pale arms.

He freezes. The girl cries even louder demanding to be returned to her mother. Astarion touches her forehead with his fingers – the skin feels delicate like silk”

“Ai armiel telere maenen hir, salen damia”, he whispers in Elven.

And the girl stops crying. She looks at him with her dark eyes and suddenly smiles. The newborn stretches her tiny arms as if trying to reach out for his face.

And Astarion bursts into tears. Sobbing, he cradles the baby in his arms, hearing the fast heartbeat within her delicate rib cage.

It’s his daughter. His treasure. The reward for everything he’s been through. The sign that he has been doing the right things all these years.

Tiriel puts her chin on his shoulder and wraps her hands around his waist.

“Thank you, my love”, Astarion says to her. “This is a gift.”

They sit like that for what feels like an eternity. Finally, Tiriel breaks the silence.

“She needs a name.”

Astarion studies the girl’s face as if looking for a hint. Then, the name comes to his mind, though he doesn't know where he could have heard it.

“Alethaine. My love, can we call her Alethaine?”

Tiriel nods. “It’s not like I have any other suggestions. I was scared to death the whole time. It’s beautiful. Let’s call her that”.

It’s already night when the midwife leaves the house. Astarion helps Tiriel to get to the bed with clean sheets and then brings her sleeping Alethaine.

Astarion watches how Tiriel pulls the collar of her shirt freeing swollen breasts and then places the girl that way so her mouth in front of the nipple. The girl makes sucking movements and her ears twitch simultaneously.

Tiriel starts humming – and Astarion recognizes a human lullaby he’s heard from Tiriel maybe only once or twice.

He carefully puts his head on Tiriel’s lap so he can see both his wife and daughter.

“How are you feeling?” he finally asks.

“Tired. Happy. And you?”

Astarion chuckles. “You pushed a whole Elven baby out of your body and wonder how I am feeling?”

“Actually, yes”

“I feel … alive.”

Tiriel reaches to his silver curls and strokes the hair with her free hand.

“Thank you for giving her to me”, she whispers.

Ai armiel telere maenen hir, salen damia (Elven) - you hold my heart forever, my child

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spacebarbarianweird · 5 months

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Beloved Monsters

So, it happened! I've finally brought Alethaine, Astarion's dhampir daughter, to life!

Synopsis: Domestic fluff about a small family of monsters.

Tags: fluff, comfort, dadstarion, dhampirs

Alethaine's age: 7

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Headcanons

“Mum! Mum!”

As you open your eyes, the coziness of your bed with a fur blanket and the softest pillow surrounds you. It feels so comfy, like a warm hug.

“Mum!”

A pale-skinned Elven girl with hair the color of snow stares at you like a cat. She stands upside down on the ceiling as if her legs were glued to it.

“Hi, Alethaine. Is anything wrong?”, you yawn and look at the window. It’s late afternoon and it's snowing. Winters in that part of Faerun are cold and merciless but nights are long. Which is good.

Alethaine, your dhampir-daughter, jumps onto the bed and you notice she’s already put on her warm clothes. Unlike Astarion, she is not immune to cold.

“Can I go? Pleeease!”

You sit up and hear a loud laughter from the inner yard. The town kids. Mostly humans, but Alethaine’s best friend is a dwarf boy, an Innkeeper’s son. All younger than ten, careless and brave like all the kids of this age no matter the race and social status.

“Cover your ears”, you say, making yourself get out of bed. You hate being stuck at home for so long – your body craves fights – but having a little child puts certain limitations.

“Thanks!”, Alethaine bares her fangs.

For the last month, you’ve been alone with Alethaine. Astarion left in the late month of Uktar, complaining that he didn’t want to travel in that awful northern weather and that there is nothing more disgusting than autumn.

“It’s cold and I will have to sleep in the dirt. Besides, hags are “known” for their hospitality!”

Simple as that. A daughter of one of the noble families fell in love with someone from the common folk. He rejected her, and she made a deal with a hag to get him. The hag turned the girl into something and locked away. So, her family searched for help and eventually got to Astarion – the only person who knew how to deal with both supernatural contracts and the monsters themselves.

“Well, I will either find a loophole to save this idiot of a girl. Or I will have to fight the hag. Not the first time. Gods, good thing Alethaine is going to be much smarter than that!”

You smile. Since Alethaine was born, Astarion has been very sensitive about cases when a young woman, someone’s daughter, is trapped by supernatural forces. Astarion can deny it but he imagines Alethaine trapped the same way.

“Alethaine! Where are you?”, the dwarf boy throws a snowball into the door with a loud thump.

“Coming!”

Astarion was supposed to come back a week ago. Before Alethaine was born you had dealt with such things together. Be it a monster hunting or helping with contracts. But life changed seven years ago.

You two became parents.

A little girl, a silver-curled elf with long pointy ears, is so delicate as if made of crystals. She has long vampiric fangs and can walk on the ceilings. A tiny copy of her father — Astarion was in tears when he realized that.

“Bye!”, Alethaine wears her warm winter coat and hat but her long ears stick out.

“Cover them!”

“It hurts when I do that!”

You sigh. Elven ears are so sensitive it hurts to tuck them under heavy winter hats. As a half-elf yourself you can relate though yours are much smaller.

You take a scarf and wrap your daughter’s head in it. By doing that you can’t resist touching her ears which twitch a bit. The girl giggles, baring her fangs. It’s a funny image – the dhampir fangs grew up many years ago and didn’t show any signs of being “baby fangs”. They were probably a single set for all her life which will last for many centuries, growing along with the rest of her body.

But her “baby” incisors have already fallen out.

“Alethaine! Come on!” the dwarf boy waves to her. Alethaine frees herself from your hands and rushes toward her friends.

The moment she is outside, she takes the scarf freeing her ears to the cold air.

You let it go.

Sticking at home on your own is boring so you take out a two-handed ax and go outside to take care of it. You never know when the weapon is needed. Here, far in the wilderness dangers lurk in the dark. Wild trolls, gnolls, werewolves, bandits, name it yourself. Townsfolk aren’t people of war and they rely on you, a retired adventurer, to protect them.

So, you always have to be ready.

The process completely takes you over as the early night falls upon the world and prickly stars start shining in the skies.

And then suddenly…

You are lifted in the air by strong hands.

“Astarion!” you exclaim and wrap your hands around his neck.

He kisses you and then looks into your eyes with love and adoration. But you can’t help but notice he is exhausted, with bruises and dark circles under his crimson eyes.

“Did something go wrong?”

“Darling, there was an obnoxious princess who could not take “no” for an answer, her brother who doesn’t process the idea that he is not as smart as he thinks. And three hags. Three, not one! And each of them had a personal contract with the girl, each contradicting the other one. What could possibly go wrong?”

“So, did you save the girl?”

“Depends. She won’t have to spend another five centuries being locked in a mirror. But she will be the hags’ servant for eighteen years, six for each of them. They also wanted to transform her into something I would call a half-rotten gnoll, but I managed to talk them out of it.”

“Two decades is long for a human.”

“Well, she wanted to make that boy her mindless lover for the rest of his human life so I think it’s fair. Her family didn’t agree, though, so I had to return on my own.”

“Did they pay you?”

“No, I stole some valuable possession of theirs”, he puts you on the ground and slips a ring on your finger. “It’s not enchanted, I checked.”

The ring is beautiful. It looks as if the fire was trapped inside it.

You two kiss again and get inside. The moment Astarion steps into the bedroom he starts undressing – he probably has been dreaming of getting rid of the dirty clothes for weeks.

You smile. You’ve seen him undressing and naked thousands of times but you never get tired of it.

“I’ve seen Alethaine. She made those human children carry her on the sled,” he says.

“If they don’t treat her well, who would sneak to other people’s houses to steal sweets?”

It is a common complaint. Apparently, Alethaine learned that if her feet are bare she makes no sound walking on the ceilings.

“I am tearing apart against the necessity to punish her for that and admiring her skills”, Astarion adds.

“You were a magistrate; I think you can find words to persuade a seven-year-old.”

“It’s much easier to persuade a devil than Alethaine!”

“Who could she take it from?”

He laughs and you approach Astarion for another kiss. You missed him. Gods knows, you missed him. You caress his strong shoulders ready to start something more sensual.

“Love”

“Hm?”

“I don’t want to.”

You pull away and touch his cheek. There aren’t enough words in your vocabulary to express how proud you are of him. It’s been twenty-seven years but he still has issues with saying “no” to you. And you often find yourself in an intimate situation when you suddenly realize he doesn’t want to take part in it. Maybe, not to upset you. Maybe, out of stubbornness.

“Sure. What do you want, then? Bath? Blood? Sleep?”

“Everything you mentioned in that exact order.”

“Wait, I will prepare the bath.”

… Soon enough, Astarion sinks himself into the bathtub and you start washing his curls out of dirt while he scrubs his skin. You notice some bruises and scratches. They still haven’t healed properly and you try not to think how they looked a week ago.

“Don’t worry. It’s not like I was butchered”, he answers, noticing your concerns.

“I wish I could come with you.”

“Darling. Alethaine is growing faster than a kitten – soon she will be old enough to be on her own. We will be doing this together again.”

You smile. Yes, that’s true. As a half-elf, you have much more time than humans. You are sixty-three, your human siblings are either long dead or very old. But you still look like you did when you were twenty. You have more than a century of life ahead. Plenty of time. For adventures, for miracles, for everything. Maybe, even for another child.

You spend what looks like a pleasant eternity like this. Talking, laughing, smiling. At least twice Astarion takes your hand graciously and drinks blood from your wrists. His bruises and scratches immediately heal. Whatever blood he managed to take in the winter woods wasn’t enough.

When the water gets cold, Astarion gets out and dresses in clean clothes, a white shirt with an embroidered dragon and black trousers.

… Together you sit in front of the fireplace. Astarion hugs you and you silently look at the fire.

A loud thump wakes you from bliss.

“Dad!” Alethaine cries out and in a moment the girl is on her father's lap.

“Hello, princess,” he stands up, lifting the girl in the air. You notice her ears have a purple color. “I see your teeth keep falling out”

Altethaine grins. And Astarion plants a gentle fatherly kiss on her forehead.

“Wait a moment, I brought you something” He puts Alethaine back on her feet, and she yawns like a cat.

Astarion pulls out two books out of his travel sack. Alethaineimmediately opens the first one. You can see pictures and intricate Elven letters – despite being a half-elf you never learned how to read it, meanwhile Alethaine had learned to read and write both Common and Elven before she turned five.

“Is it Elven?” she asks. “I can’t understand what is written!”

“It’s Old Elven. A little bit different from the one we speak.”

Alethaine opens the other book and sees an image of an Elven woman with long silver hair, and dark eyes.

“She looks like me,” Alethaine says,

“Yes, that’s what I thought.”

You look at them unable to stop smiling. Monsters. A vampire and a dhampir.

Your beloved monsters. The daughter and the husband. Sometimes you treat them like something given – besides, what is more “traditional” for a mortal woman than a child and a spouse? But Astarion never forgets, even for a moment, that these normal things are supposed to be impossible. He isn’t supposed to have a home, a wife, and a child.

You remember him crying with the newborn in his arms. Mere seven years ago. You remember coming back from a “dragon slaying travel” in the middle of the night to see Astarion and Alethaine sliding down a hill together. You remember his stare – which he gives you every single morning. The look of adoration, love, and gratitude.

The girl yawns once again, and you notice how sleepy she is.

“Are you hungry?”

“No,” the girl pouts. “I wanna sleep.”

“Oh, all right then. But come downstairs if you feel hungry”, Astarion strokes her silver hair.

Alethaine approaches you and wraps her hands around your neck. You feel a soft prickle of her fangs on your shoulder.

“Have a good sleep, kitten”, you say.

Alethaine snatches both of the books from the table and goes away. Unlike Elven children, Alethaine does sleep. Like a predator, deep in her dreams but waking up a moment something off happens.

“So, I think we should follow her example”, Astarion lifts you up in the air bridal style. “It’s tediously boring to sleep alone, do you agree?”

You giggle. When Astarion leaves, Alethaine doesn’t let you sleep alone. She crawls into her parents' bed and hugs you from behind pressing her little nose into your back. Anyone would think the girl is afraid of darkness or monsters.

But it’s not that.

Alethaine, a half-monster herself, sincerely believes her mother needs to be protected. And if Astarion isn’t at home, it’s her duty to make sure nothing comes after you. Maybe you slay monsters with your two-handed ax but who knows what night can hide?

You caress Astarion’s cheek.

“Yes, how could I even fall asleep without my beloved monsters?”

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spacebarbarianweird · 2 months

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The Tainted Past

Synopsis: Astarion's daughter learns about her father's past.

Tags: dadstarion, trauma talk, dhampirs, hurt/comfort

Alethaine's age: 14 years old

Thanks @themadlu for beta-reading!

Read on AO3

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Headcanons

Don’t slouch, boy. You know who you belong to.

Astarion’s nails pierce his skin. A scream is stuck in his throat—he can’t make a sound, if he does, the master will flay his skin again.

No, please, don’t beat me!

Astarion collapses on the stone floor. He doesn’t recognize the place—a small dungeon, more like a cellar full of books and scrolls. Is he in some forbidden part of Cazador’s mansion? Or has he gotten lost and will be punished?

The echo of the master’s voice rings in his head and Astarion is hypnotized by it.

Go. Find. Seduce. Eat the rat or be flayed. Go again. Find. Seduce. Repeat.

It will never end.

Suddenly, he hears another voice. A young girl, probably fourteen years old, in a long black dress. She looks like a young widow—her elven ears twitch a bit as she calls someone.

Run, whoever you are. I can bring only death.

She is scared but for some reason, she doesn’t run.

“GO AWAY!” he screams. “GO. AWAY!”

The girl’s lower lip starts to quiver and he sees tears in the corner of her raven-dark eyes.

Who am I? Where am I?

Astarion drowns in the darkness.

He grabs a heavy volume from the floor and throws it into the wall, as if this act can help him to stay sane.

The girl squeals as if the book were thrown at her.

“Fuck!” another female voice.

“Mum! What’s happening to Dad?!” The girl hides behind the woman’s back. “I went down and he was … peeling his skin!”

Astarion stands up and stares at the woman. She had red hair, a scar on her face, and a black pattern on her lips.

He knows her name. He must know her name.

“Alethaine, please, go upstairs,” the woman orders.

“But mum!—”

“Alethaine!”

The girl bares her fangs but obeys. She picks up the hem of her long skirt and walks off up the stairs.

The woman cups Astarion’s face and makes him look at her.

“Astarion, you are safe. You are at home in Daggerlake. It’s been thirty-four years. Your master is dead. No one is going to hurt you.” She takes his hands in hers and starts kissing his knuckles, one at a time. “It’s me, I am not going anywhere.”

“Tiriel—” he finally manages to say.

As if her name were an anchor, he manages to return to reality.

The nightmare fades away.

Tiriel, his wife and his beloved, is kneeling beside him.

Reality crashes into him like a wave. Thirty-four years, a very solid counterweight to centuries of misery. He was saved by this woman, though she thinks he saved himself. Together, they found a stable home in a distant town far from the Sword Coast.

And he has a daughter.

“I scared her,” Astarion mutters. “I scared Alethaine”

He remembers the fear and tears on her face. When she was born, Astarion swore she would never learn about his past. If she ever asked he would just make something up. But today she saw the part of him he tried to conceal.

The broken tortured creature he is.

“I will talk to her,” Tiriel says. “Besides, I don’t think she is afraid of you. Considering that her favorite place in town is a graveyard and she prefers the company of the dead to the living.”

Necromancer and a dhampir. And all this mixed with her Fey blood and a quarter of human ancestry. Alethaine probably doesn’t realize what it all means for her.

A fourteen-year-old elf who dresses like a widow, doesn’t breathe, and can walk on ceilings. A fourteen-year-old who prefers to hang out in the graveyard and walk in the underground tunnels to have friends. A very lonely fourteen-year-old who loves books and doesn’t really like people.

“Astarion, are you here?” Tiriel cradles him. “Hush, love, it’s all right.”

“I thought… I thought… I would never have a setback…I thought…”

He thought his torments were finally over. But the Sire’s voice was so loud in his head that Astarion could believe his master returned from oblivion.

The dark waves take him again and he tries to grasp the reality but all in vain. His mind is taken by the nightmares.

And then Tiriel cuts her wrist and puts it to Astarion’s mouth.

Her blood is so sweet, so divine… He sucks her wrist as Tiriel plays with his curls.

Astarion has to make an effort to let her hand go and not take more than he needs.

“I thought he was back. I thought I was there, in that wretched place again. I even didn’t recognize you two– ”

“Your mind was playing tricks on you.”

Astarion sniffs. His vampiric senses sharpen as his hunger is satiated. He hears voices from the outside—just passersby who couldn’t care less to have a vampire for a neighbor.

The underground part of Daggerlale is relatively silent—it’s daylight and most of the residents are on the surface.

And Alethaine eavesdrops standing right above her parents on the first floor of their wooden house. Though her image is very foggy—Alethaine's dhampirism manifests in her ability to hide herself from vampires.

“Tell me what you want,” Tiriel asks.

Astarion doesn’t know. His mind is empty.

“I can stay with you. I can leave for a time and return to you when you are ready. What do you want?”

Years ago Astarion would torture himself by making her stay even if knew he needed some time alone. Something deep inside him was sure if he asked Tiriel to leave him with his own thoughts she would never return.

“I’d like to be alone right now, my sweet. Just a bit to calm down. And I want to go for a hunt but it’s… daylight.”

“You can go to the tunnels.”

“And hunt there like I am some Drow? No. I will go at night.”

“Ok,” she kisses his forehead. “I need to go tomorrow for a day or two. There is a gang of bugbears who decided it’s a good idea to steal sheep from our people. I will be preparing my weapons and armor in the yard.”

Astarion stays alone.

He starts mindlessly walking around the basement. From time to time he grabs a book, opens it, and then puts it back. As one hour passes, his mind clears and Astarion is sane again.

He even laughs it all off.

Of course, he is free. Of course, he is safe. All his life is a huge FUCK YOU to his master—Astarion is a vampire who was invited to live among the mortals to protect them from other vampires should they come. He has a wife he can feed on if he needs to but who does not see him as a bloodsucker—when Tiriel is asked who she is married to she says she is married to an elf. A daughter, a beautiful smart girl—who has centuries of life ahead.

He has everything and even more.

“Dad, do you need anything?”

Alethaine walks inside. She is shorter than her mother, only five feet tall—and Astarion suspects Alethaine isn’t going to grow up anymore. His dhampir daughter looks delicate but her look is deceptive. She is as strong as a full-fledged vampire (and she doesn't need blood to be like one) and Astarion still remembers how she dragged home a dead gnoll that was four times her size when she was six. And was very upset that they didn’t let her keep that corpse.

It remains a mystery if the gnoll had been already dead when Alethaine found it.

“No, princess. I don’t need anything,” Astarion wants to stay alone but he can’t tell Alethaine to go. The little one is going to be very hurt if he pushes her away.

“Are you sure? I’ve never seen you crying like that.”

“It… happens sometimes. Bad memories.”

“What memories?”

Astarion looks at her and feels the darkness coming back again. It is a storm he can’t stop and can’t run away from.

“My past. Nothing to worry about. It’s between me… and the rest.”

Alethaine doesn’t go away.

“You said you thought your master was back. I’ve read… that when a person is turned into a vampire, they become spawns and don’t have free will. Is this what happened to you? Dad?”

Astarion closes his eyes.

It’s just a question. She is curious. He had never told her anything about his life before he met Tiriel. She would ask. Sooner or later.

But he doesn’t want to say anything.

He doesn’t want to relive it again.

“Who turned you? Are they still somewhere?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Alethaine.”

“But why? Did you want to become a vampire or you were turned against your will?”

I don’t remember.

“Do you really think I would want THIS?” Astarion asks angrily. “Do you really think I would want to stay in the shadows, to drink blood, to suffer from hunger? Do you think I wanted to spend my life in chains?!”

Alethaine flinches.

“I just asked! I didn’t mean to hurt you!”

“Then you should have thought about what to ask!”

“Dad, don't yell at me!” Alethaine cries. She clenches her fists and bares her fangs.

“I am your father, don't tell me what I can and what I can’t do!”

“Dad! I am not a little child, I want to know!”

“You are and you don’t!”

Astarion doesn’t remember what he says after. He lashes at Alethaine and then the young dhampir starts crying as if he hit her.

It’s the first time ever that Astarion doesn’t want to be around his daughter. Suddenly she is a stranger.

He rushes upstairs and leaves the house.

Suddenly, underground tunnels don’t sound that bad.

Alethaine sniffs and leaves the cellar. She has never seen her father like that.

And she has fucked up.

Ashamed and angry at the same time, she goes upstairs hoping her mother has gone after Astarion.

“ALETHAINE!”

She stiffens. No, Tiriel the Barbarian is at home. And if she uses her rage voice, it’s a very bad beginning.

“Alethaine, I told you not to go to him!”

“I’ve never seen him like that”

“And I’ve not seen him like that for ten years,” Tiriel grabs her daughter’s hand and makes her sit on a bench in the kitchen. “Which part of ‘let your dad be on his own’ didn’t you understand? If you had questions that couldn’t wait, you could have asked me!”

“But—but will he come back soon?”

“I don’t know. When it happened to him before, before you were born, he sometimes would disappear for days. And I had no idea where he was.”

“But why? What is haunting him?”

“His past. His master. His own darkness. It haunts him less often now, but it still hasn’t gone anywhere”

Alethaine looks away. The sense of embarrassment overwhelms and she bites her lip with her fang.

Tiriel is silent. Then she sighs and sits in front of her daughter.

“When you were born, your dad made me swear we would not talk about his past. We start from being stuck on a nautiloid. As if Astarion had never existed before. But he had,'' Tiriel makes a pause. “When a vampire turns a person into the undead, the said person becomes a spawn, a puppet who can’t say no to their master.”

Alethaine gulps. She read about that in one of the books her father stores in the house but for some reason, she thought her father had always been a free vampire.

“Your father was turned by a vile person, an abusive, cruel, violent one. Who had only pleasure in his life—torturing his spawns, including your father. It was just sheer luck that Astarion was kidnapped by mind flayers along with me. And it was even more than sheer luck that the Emperor thought your father could have been useful for him.”

“Yes, you’ve told me a lot about how you hung around Baldur's Gate with that thing in your head.”

“Yes, good old times. The tadpole gave your dad a chance to walk in the sun though it took his strength. But what’s more important, it cut the connection between him and his master. Your father was free for a time and together we killed that wretched creature. End of story”

“How—how bad was it?”

Tiriel looks at her and Alethaine shivers. There is a shadow in her mother’s eyes.

“I don’t want you to know that. Trust me, you don’t want either. Just… Think about what comes to your mind when you think about slavery. Your father went through the worst slavery you can imagine. His mind is a torture master’s archive. You never know which horrible fact you learn, but it will be worse than the previous one.”

Alethaine stares at her mother in shock. Her father was enslaved? Her father, who can fight a horde of enemies? Who can make a pact with a devil and leave the devil without a dime? To whom do the kings of the surrounding lands send messengers to solve some “fey contract” problems?

She can’t even comprehend it.

“And how long was he a slave?”

“Two hundred years.”

The number sounds like a hammer blow. Two centuries?! Her father was a slave for twenty decades and would still be? How can it be even possible?

“But—didn’t he have relatives? Family? Friends? Who could save him?”

“That’s another cruel thing about your father. He doesn't remember his life before he was turned. Everything was taken from him, including his memories. And I am still surprised he managed to adapt to freedom so fast when we met. He is a strong man. He managed to preserve his sanity where madness was the only way out. But sometimes the shadows come back. And when it happens he needs help. And understanding.”

Alethaine turns her head away, unable to look at her mother. Then she walks up to the ceiling trying to pull her thoughts together.

“Mum, he has scars on his back. Are they…?”

She nods.

“I am so sorry,” Alethaine whispers.

“When your dad is back, I will talk to him. Just—don’t bring this up anymore, if you have questions I will try to answer them. But don’t bring this up with him. Maybe you think you have a right to know, but you don’t. It’s between him, me, and the darkness.”

“Mum. Do you know everything? Everything you don’t want me to know?”

“Yes. And sometimes I wish I didn’t. But this was a part of the deal—no one can carry this burden alone and I share it with your father.” Tiriel stands right underneath Alethaine. “In case you think we try to conceal some secrets from you like in the adventuring stories you love to read, we don’t. Your father’s past isn’t a heroic character’s background. It’s dirt, misery, and pain.”

Alethaine jumps back on the floor and suddenly feels an urge to hug her mother

“Do you think Dad will forgive me for what I did?”

“Of course he will,” Tiriel kisses Alethaine’s cheek. “He can’t stay angry with his five-feet-tall princess.”

“It’s five feet and one inch,” Aletaine insists, burying her nose in Tiriel’s chest.

“As you wish, kitten. Let’s go and have some dinner.”

Astarion stops in front of his home.

His hunger is satiated for a few days—he managed to find a lot of food in the tunnels, including a bugbear who decided it’s a good idea to attack him.

Then, he sees Alethaine.

She goes outside with a cape on her thin shoulders and a basket in her right arm.

“Hi, Dad”.

“Going somewhere?”

“The healer asked to pick up the dragon mushrooms up in the hills. She will pay me ten copper coins for an ounce”

“Remember the rule?”

“Don't ask ‘who goes there’ but stab them right away. If they are good guys they will understand and forgive’.”

“Good girl.”

They are silent for a few moments. Astarion feels guilty, but at the same time he prays Alethaine doesn't ask anything else.

It seems like she isn't going to.

And he also notices something new in her eyes.

Understanding.

“Will you teach me how to pick up locks?” Alethaine asks.

“Going to rob someone?” he chuckles.

“I am not answering this question” she giggles.

She is lovely, his daughter.

When Alethaine was only a baby she used to breathe. Astarion remembers he would put a palm on her chest just to feel how her tiny lungs worked.

When she was five months old, her dhampirism manifested. Fangs pierced the gums, blood lust almost killed her (luckily, Tiiriel realized Alethaine needed drops of blood to make it through) and she stopped breathing.

Astarion remembers how her chest rose and fell for the last time.

He also remembers the moment when he took his last breath before his death.

A vampire and a dhampir. Father and daughter. At least, Alethaine’s beating heart wasn’t taken from her.

“When you come back I will show you how to pick up locks.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Astarion waves to his daughter as Alethaine disappears in the darkness.

As he goes inside, he immediately finds himself in the arms of Tiriel.

“You weren’t harsh on her, were you?”

“Told her what was necessary. Don't be angry.”

“I won't. It was stupid to think she would have never asked.”

Tiriel kisses his cheek.

“You look like you fought a bugbear,” Tiriel notices, looking at his bloodstained and dirty clothes.

“I did.”

“Oh? So now you are taking work from me? I thought better of you!”

“I think there are plenty of monsters for you to fight.”

Hours later, when Astarion submerges himself in a bathtub, he is sure the darkness has stepped away. It stepped away with the lights of his home, with Tiriel’s touches as she rubbed his back, with Alethaine’s plea to teach her to pick up locks.

“No one is going to lock you up,” Tiriel whispers in his ear and he closes his eyes as a contented cat.

Alethaine’s basket is already full of dragon mushrooms—an ingredient for the healing potions. It’s already night and she needs to go back–she is still not permitted to hang out on the surface after dark—and her father has probably left to find her.

But the night calls upon her—seducing the young dhampir with its secrets.

Alethaine puts the mushrooms on the ground and takes off her hood, allowing the night wind to caress her face.

Suddenly, she catches the scent of a stranger.

All her senses sharpen, as her predator body gets ready for a fight. Alethaine bares her fangs and reaches for a dagger on her waist.

An elven girl, she was supposed to be, is scared and wants to run to her safe home.

But the dhampir she is knows that you either fight or die. It’s an innate knowledge engraved into her instincts with her shadow heritage.

But the attacker is much faster, and a strong hand pushes Alethaine on the ground.

The scream remains stuck in her throat as she realizes no one is going to help her right now.

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spacebarbarianweird · 2 months

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Tiny Dhampir

Synopsis: Astarion is spending time with Alethaine.

Tags: comfort, dadstarion, dhampirs, tooth-rotting fluff

Alethaine's age: 3.5 years old

Thanks @themadlu for beta-reading!

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Headcanons

Astarion meditates.

In his memory he stands in front of his tent. It's dark, and difficult to say if it’s night or day. It's always midnight in the Shadow-Cursed Lands.

He has to tell her. He can’t continue like that.

Tiriel doesn’t deserve to be lied to.

Astarion clasps his hands. She will break up with him, and she will force him to leave the camp. And she will be right to do so.

He hears a loud laughter. Tiriel walks into the camp and waves to him. She is so beautiful in her Drow armor that Astarion can’t take his eyes from the half-elven warrior.

Astarion desires to touch Tiriel, to hold her hand, to taste her blood, to feel her warmth.

He doesn’t have a right to do either of that.

“Tiriel!” he finally approaches her. “Tiriel, can we talk?”

She’s just taken her armor off. “Yes, what is it?”

Tiriel is so close he can feel her heartbeat. Shame burns him; he is preparing himself as if this were the last conversation between the two of them.

Come what may, Astarion decides.

He confesses. His lies, his ill intentions, his betrayal.

“You deserve something real. I want us to be something real.”

Silence.

Astarion waits for the verdict. It's difficult to decipher Tiriel’s facial expression. Is she sad? Is she disappointed? Will she dump him and go to the wizard’s tent?

Of course, what did he expect? Tiriel opened up to him and he used her body for his own sake.

“Astarion…” Tiriel says. “I am not stupid. I knew what you were trying to do.”

Astarion stares at her in disbelief. What the hells… He expected any response but not that.

“Are you not angry?”

“Why would I be?” Tiriel stands up and smiles. “Astarion, love, if it makes you feel better, I forgive you, but there is nothing to apologize for. You were trying to survive. And you didn’t know any better.”

“And what does it… mean… for us?”

“It means I love you and want to be with you. It means I want to cuddle with you at night and hold your hand by day. It means I want to help you with your master and I know you can protect me in the fight. If you don’t want to have sex, it’s ok, we can be together without it.”

Astarion is so shocked he can’t say anything coherent. He expected tears, curses, and violence. Instead, there is so much softness he is drowning in it.

Tiriel approaches him, Astarion pulls back, his mind rushes, and he clenches his fists but instead of pain, there is just a gentle hug.

Tiriel holds him in her strong arms, pressing her face against his chest.

Astarion hesitates and puts his arms on her back. He might imagine this but he thinks she is smiling.

That night, she brought her few things to his tent. It was weird to share the bedroll with someone else and not have sex. He remembers listening to her quiet breath, to her heartbeat, and then waking up to her playing with his curls.

Tiriel. His love. His wife. His savior. His partner. His friend. His thiramin.

The mother of his child.

Astarion slowly returns to reality. He finds himself in a comfortable bed, not a bedroll, and with a soft pillow under his head.

Home.

He is at home.

At his own place, his and Tiriel’s, in a distant town far from Sword Coast called Daggerlake.

Astarion feels someone is staring

“Good morning, princess,” he mutters, looking at the ceiling.

A three-year-old girl with long silver hair stands on the ceiling as if she was a bat. Her hair is messy, it looks like she’s tried to braid it herself but couldn’t handle a brush. Her black dress makes her look even smaller than she is.

Alethaine doesn’t reply and keeps staring at her dad.

“How long have you been there?” Astarion elbows up. “Is anything wrong?”

Alethaine’s ears twitch and her lower lip quivers. She looks like she is about to cry.

“Princess, use your words,” Astarion lies back on the bed and reaches his hands up. Alethaine immediately falls in his arms.

'When will mum return?’ she finally asks. “She's been away for too long!”

Astarion places Alethaine beside him and his daughter immediately nestles in the crook of his right hand. She is so small, so delicate - like a kitten or a porcelain doll, much smaller than the human children in their town.

“She will be home soon. Maybe in a few days. Depends on how stupid her new companions are,” Astarion says and then he hears a fast heartbeat.

Meanwhile, Aletaine barely breathes and her pale skin is rather cold; she has a natural heartbeat which Astarion adores listening to.

Alive.

Technically, half-alive - Alethaine is a dhampir, after all, but she grows up, she eats, and her heart beats. And what bewilders Astarion is that Alethaine loves being held by him.

“Tell me, princess, were you standing on the ceiling because you’d forgotten when your mum was coming back or did something scare you?” Astarion takes Alethaine’s tiny hand in his and caresses her perfectly pale fingers.

The lower lip quivers again.

Alethaine bursts in tears.

Astarion would always freak out when she started crying but with time he got used to the fact that Alethaine cries because she can. Sometimes it’s genuine crying because of a bruised knee, an unfortunate fall from the ceiling, a dead character in a story, or a nightmare.

But most of the time Alethaine’s cries are her way of communicating she’s been lonely.

Astarion sits up and places Alethaine on his lap.

He manages to decipher a complaint that he’s been sleeping for too long. And also how did he dare not to wake up because she was intensely staring?

“Princess, you are a big girl, look at you, you are almost four! You can spend some time on your own!”

“I am three!”

“You will be four in two months”

“I am three!” Alethaine insists. She immediately stops crying and now she looks a bit angry. “I am three!”

“All right, all right. Are you hungry?”

She shakes her head.

“How about you tell me what you want?” Astarion kisses the crown of her head.

The girl sniffs. The other thing that bewilders Astarion is how much she trusts him. She comes to him when she is scared, when she is hurt, when she just wants to play or read. He was sure she would always prefer Tiriel to him - with the warmth of her mortal body. But no! Alethaine’s tiny world consists of two people - her mother and father – and it fits in one wooden house in the underground part of Daggerlake.

Alethaine trusts her father. Alethaine trusts Astarion with her tiny half-dead heart, that he loves her, that he protects her, and that he will never hurt her.

Astarion hopes he will never disappoint her.

The dhampir then jumps to the floor and walks over to the stack of books. She picks up the third one from the bottom, causing the stack to collapse, and hands the heavy volume to Astarion.

It's a book on the geography of the Lands of Intrigue, a faraway southern region – with maps, pictures, and text in different languages.

“This. I want to read.”

“You want me to read to you or you want to read with me?” he specifies.

“Read to me,” she says. “Please,” she quickly adds.

“How can I say ‘no’ to such a well-behaved young lady?”

At first, Alethaine is deeply concentrated on the text studying the detailed pictures of dragons and monsters but with every page, she gets more restless.

She bares her fangs as if trying to yawn and Astarion notices something is off with her teeth.

“Alethaine, open your mouth,” Astarion asks

Alethaine immediately squeezes her lips and shakes her head.

“Alethaine.”

“No.”

“Alethaine, I will just take a look.”

Alethaine gives up and obliges. She has a full set of baby teeth but her upper fangs are long and pointy. They grew very early when Tiriel was still breastfeeding her and Astarion suspects those fangs cause a lot of discomfort to his daughter.

The inner part of her lower lips bleeds pierced with the fangs. The upper gums are also irritated as if Alethaine rubbed them.

“Does it hurt?”

Alethaine nods.

“Why didn't you say that?”

“I don’t know.”

Astarion would sigh if he could breathe. “Let’s go to see the healer.”

It takes an eternity for Alethaine to put on her clothes. She is constantly distracted - either with a spider crawling on the ceiling, with her dolls, or with the book about the Lands of Intrigue. Astarion suspects she does it on purpose.

The most difficult part is to make Alethaine wear warm boots. The dhampir refuses to acknowledge it’s winter and even though snow doesn't fall underground it is cold outside.

Alethaine wants her black shoes - period. And it doesn’t matter that they are intended for summer and that they are already too small for her feet.

“Alethaine, put on your boots,” Astarion repeats for the fourth time.

“No!” Alethaine cries again “I want this!”

“Then we are not going to the healer.”

“Fine! I don't want to!”

“Then your teeth will keep hurting. And you won’t be able to eat sweets. There will be a lot of cakes and candies at Solstice and you won’t be able to taste any of them.”

Alethaine tries to cry once again, but Astarion pretends he is busy studying a spider crawling on the wall. The dhampir realizes she’s lost this round and puts on the winter boots. Then, she stares at her father.

“Is anything wrong, princess?” Astarion gives out a laugh. Alethaine is so stubbornly adorable.

“Daddy”

“Hm?”

“I can’t lace them.”

Astarion kneels in front of her. “And what do we say when we want something?”

“Please”

“Good girl”

Astarion quickly laces her boots. The rest of the winter clothes are put on without a fight and they finally go outside.

As they walk to the healer's hut, Alethaine rubs her gums, and Astarion catches the scent of droplets of blood. Her blood is different—half-dead. It has a bitter odor, similar to the smell of wormwood. Astarion suspects that the reason dhampirs are immune to vampirism is because vampires get poisoned by tasting the blood of their children.

…The healer, an old halfling woman smokes her pipe outside the hut. Noticing astarion and Alethaine she puts the pipe aside.

“What do you want, creatures of the night? I don’t have blood in storage!”

“Oh I am sorry, I can't hear what you from down there, Kelma”

“Careful Astarion, I am the only healer in this wretched town! Hello, Alethaine, I can see that Dhampirs still feel the cold?”

“Hello,” Alethaine says and smiles, showing her fangs.

The healer invites them inside. Kelma is also the only midwife in the town and it was she who welcomed Alethaine into the world almost four years ago. Astarion remembers that day in every detail. His own fear, the smell of blood, Tiriel’s cries, the newborn’s squeal.

“Where is Tiriel? I thought it was you who made money by dealing with contracts.”

“Tiriel couldn’t say “no” to the prospect of working as a bodyguard in a wyvern-hunting party.”

Astarion sits on the bench and places Alethaine in his lap.

“So what happened?” the halfling asks.

“My teeth hurt,” Alethaine complains. “And my lip bleeds!”

“Open your mouth,” Kelma says and Astarion sees her concern, as she carefully touches the tips of Alethaine’s fangs.

“Is anything wrong?”

“The fangs are too big and scratch her lip. And there is simply not enough space for them.”

“But is it normal?”

“Astarion, you are the only vampire I know and this is the only dhampir I know! I don’t know if it’s normal. All right, Alethaine, I am going to do something, it will hurt for a bit but you will feel better.”

Alethaine glances at her father. Now she looks absolutely helpless.

“Kelma isn’t going to do anything bad,” he assures his daughter.

Alethaine isn’t persuaded.

Kelma takes out a small bottle with liquid and opens it. It probably doesn’t stink that much for the healer but sharpened vampiric senses are immediately averse to it. Alethaine winces.

The halfling touches Alethaine’s gums and rubs the ointment on the delicate skin. The second the healer puts her finger away, the little Dhampir bursts into tears again. Now it’s tears of betrayal because she didn’t expect the medicine to cause an unpleasant sensation.

“Alethaine” Kelma coo. “You are such a big strong girl, don’t cry.”

“It burns!”

“I know,” Kelma chuckles. “Astarion, don’t let her eat for a couple of hours. And now take your tiny copy, I have work to do”

“What did you say?”

“I said take your tiny copy of a daughter and … oh damn, Astarion, I forgot you can’t see yourself in the mirror. She is your copy. And I am not talking about fangs.”

Astarion shakes his head in disbelief.

His copy? Sure, he knows Alethaine has the same silver hair color and skin tone but the rest?

Does he really see himself in her?

“Daad,” Alethaine pulls his arm when they leave the healer’s hut. “Can we go to the surface? I think it’s already night!”

“Yes, why not?”

As they go to the uppertown Alethaine constantly talks. She speaks about everything she sees, and asks dozens of questions including “Why is Kelma so short if she is an adult”, “Why can’t vampires be in the sun”, and “Why does she have fangs and other children in the town don’t”. It doesn’t seem like she pays attention to the answers but Astarion has an uncanny feeling that everything he says is being engraved in her memory for life. And he should choose words carefully.

“Are you sure mum will come back by the Solstice?”

“I am.”

“Will I be an adventurer when I grow up?”

“If you want.”

It's a chilly night and the prickly stars shine in the night sky. There are barely any people outside—most of the townsfolk are halflings and humans deprived of dark vision. As for dwarves, they prefer the company of each other.

Alethaine’s skin looks almost white in the moonlight.

First, they make a snowman—Alethaine insists on adding pointy ears to its head Then, the dhampir tilts her head up and freezes as if seeing stars for the first time.

Maybe she does. She just hasn’t paid attention before.

“Look”, Astarion points at a constellation. “This is the Circle of Swords - seven bright stars forming a circle. The Goddess Mystra has her divine castle in the center of it. And below it—the Ice Snake.”

Astarion wasn’t into astronomy of any sort but once he and Tiriel hit the night road for twenty-four years after leaving Baldur’s Gate and their former companions behind, he found a lot of comfort in observing the stars. Tiriel taught him all that—how to use stars to navigate in darkness. However, she has always preferred her people’s constellation names: Faeraula instead of the Ice Snake and the Circle of Coins instead of Mystra’s Circle.

Alethaine listens to him bewildered by the night starry sky. Suddenly her ears twitch and she turns her head away, to the road leading to the town gates.

And then Astarion catches a familiar scent.

“Mum! Mum!” Alethaine cries out.

Astarion doesn’t need to strain his eyes to see Tiriel in the distance. She probably neither sees nor hears them. But both astarion and Alethaine can already distinguish her winter armor, the hood covering her red hair, and a two-handed ax on her back.

“Mum!” Alethaine cries once again and now it’s enough for Tiriel to hear her.

Alethaine sprints and rushes to her mother. Tiriel kneels, opens her arms and Alethaine jumps in her hands.

Astarion walks toward them as Tiriel smooches Alethaine’s face.

“I suppose I am not the only one in this family who needs to be kissed” Astarion smiles at Tiriel. The warrior stands up holding Alethaine in her arms and kisses him too. First his cheek, then his forehead, and then his lips.

Astarion answers her with the same tenderness. Gods, she is warm even now after spending hours in the freezing winter.

“Dealt quickly with the wyvern?”

“The party couldn’t agree on the strategy and the wyvern burnt them to crisps. I took their loot and left. And the wyvern is flying… somewhere.”

“Oh so you didn’t challenge the wyvern, did you?”

“Hmm, I wanted to fight it alone but then I remembered I have this” she kisses Alethaine’s forehead, “and this,” she kisses astarion once again. “I am a mother and a wife, why take the risk? Besides, there are plenty of monsters I can kill later!”

Astarion takes her bag and the weapon, and all three return to their home under the surface. Alethaine demands to tell her everything about Tiriel’s small adventures and Astarion feels it’s very difficult not to use “bad words” to explain how stupid those companions were.

Astarion grabs Tiriel’s hand tighter, enjoying her warmth.

Their small family looks normal.

Astarion was stripped away from his normality centuries ago. Dead men don’t have homes. They don’t have wives and daughters.

But he does.

A gentle ear rub returns him to reality.

“What happened to her teeth?” Tiriel whispers as they go inside their house. Alethaine naps in her mother’s arms.

“The healer said the fangs grew too early.”

It’s already sunrise on the surface when Tiriel collapses on their bed and asks Astarion not to wake her up even if the wyvern returns and demands a fair duel.

“Come here” Tiriel opens up a thick blanket inviting Astarion. She wraps herself around him like she does since that day they started sharing the tent and immediately drifts to sleep. Astarion tugs her close and relaxes, stealing her body heat.

When she is so close he sometimes thinks his body is warm, too.

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spacebarbarianweird · 3 months

Text

The Dead, the Half-Dead and the Undead

Synopsis: Baby Alethaine is ten and, apparently, the thing she is a dhampir isn't the only problem Astarion and Tiriel have to face.

Tags: dadstarion, dhampirs, necromancy

Alethaine's age: 10

Thanks @queenofthespacesquids for beta-reading!

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Headcanons

Astarion immerses himself in one of his books. It is a complex text that has been written by some ancient magic who had probably been completely insane

Necromancy is an interesting subject, but damn difficult for those without an innate aptitude for it.

It's still midday, but out there in the underground part of Daggerlake, it doesn't matter. The city is divided into two parts, above ground and underground. The city is mostly populated

by dwarves, halflings, and humans but for some reason it feels like home for Astarion.

Besides, the town dwellers had decided they'd better have a vampire of their own than be threatened by other undead.

Astarion is still puzzled by this. Yes, these people should be grateful to him and Tiriel for saving them from a particularly nasty fairy pact. But letting them stay? Tiriel, a half-elven warrior, is one thing, but him, a vampire? Do they really want to share the town with him?

But they are fine. They treat him like others would treat some retired wizard or a former mercenary. But he knows he must be careful - one mistake and the neighbors will remember who Astarion truly is and that there is a reason why he never goes to the upper town in the daylight.

And there is a complication Astarion always has to take into account.

“Dad! Dad!”

Astarion looks up and sees ten-year-old Alethaine. She is upside down, but the hem of her dress brushes the ceiling, ignoring gravity. There's a bit of forest dirt on the girl's shoes, and he can distinguish the smell of wood.

“I told you not to go alone,” Astarion says. When she was younger, Astarion often found it difficult to parent her. The moment she asked something or started crying, he was ready to do anything just to make her feel better. It took him time to get a grip and establish boundaries. He is her father. If he wants the best for her, he has to be strict sometimes. Even if the response is tears and anger.

“I didn’t go to the woods! I was in the meadow. It’s still in the town!”

Fair enough. The meadow is a favorite place for town kids since it is indeed the forest but their asses won’t get whooped by their parents.

“So, what is it, princess?”

Alethaine jumps on the floor with a soft “thump” and she inclines toward him making direct eye contact. Astarion still wonders sometimes if her eyes black because his eyes used to be, too, or because of her dhampirism.

Dhampir.

Half-undead. Does Alethaine even understand what it truly means to her? Town kids don’t really care and adore her ability to walk on ceilings and steal sweets for them. But will it last long? She is ten. When she and her friends grow up, they will notice things that make her different. Will they start fearing her the same way town dogs start howling if Alethaine or Astarion pass by? Will they avoid her? Will they force her out of town to go seek her own kind?

“I want a kitten.”

“Princess, last time I checked cats don’t really like us, either.”

Alethaine sits beside him and forces him to close the book. “No, you don’t understand! A week ago, I found a kitten! She didn’t like me at first but I’ve been bringing her food. And today Wyv let me hold her! She doesn’t mind me at all!”

“Wyv?”

“She is albino! She has red eyes and white fur! I think she went missing from her litter. Or maybe her mother's cat forced her to go. Please! Pretty please! She is so tiny, she won’t make it on her own! And I will take care of her!”

Alethaine stares at him with puppy eyes and her elven ears twitch with anticipation.

“Mum won’t mind, she will be happy there is an animal that doesn’t react to me as if I am some evil entity!”

“Princess, there is a very big chance this poor creature will run away once it senses me in the house. Last time I checked I am still undead.”

“And I am half-undead! Wyv got used to me, she will get used to you, too!”

Astarion flicks the tip of her nose. “But if your mother asks, you forced me to say “yes”.

Alethaine squeals and wraps her hands around his neck forcing him to drop the book. Astarion chuckles when he feels the soft prickling of her teeth on his skin.

“I will be right back!” Alethaine rushes outside, slamming the door.

He had 200 years of pure misery and it still hurts him to see how much was taken from him. But then… Thirty years of something else. Something he hadn’t wished to have.

A woman to hold and to love who is brave enough to trust and care.

Fifteen years of adventures, when they could go wherever they wanted and do whatever they desired. Then, they were offered to stay in Daggerlake, a small town near the Unicorn Rim.

Home was a concept unfamiliar to both of them and Tiriel sometimes begged him to return to the road.

But he was adamant. He needed a home. He needed a place to stay. To own. He wanted a place to stash all the artifacts and books they'd found, a comfortable bed to sleep and make love.

Tiriel wanted it, too, though didn’t admit it.

And five years later the thing he’d least expected happened.

He barely remembers how it was - he was so drunk on blood, he felt his undead heart beating. Then he found Tiriel and dragged her home to pin her to the bed.

As a result…

Alethaine.

His daughter. His flesh and blood.

Sometimes he treats Alethaine as a matter of course. Most men in Daggerlake have children, and usually more than one. But sometimes Astarion gets distracted and forgets where he is, and only comes back to reality when Alethaine taps him on the shoulder and then Astarion looks at her in awe, wondering how he even deserves her.

Ten years. Such a tiny piece of time but Alethaine’s whole life. Astarion can already see the woman she is becoming. The woman he will be proud of, the woman who will have the freedom he had to fight for.

Suddenly, Astarion realizes Alethaine has been missing for far too long. The meadow isn’t really far away and it’s already sunset - Astarion feels it.

Astarion locks the house and goes looking for his daughter.

It's already night when he gets to the meadow. Alethaine is there sitting on her knees with her head bowed.

“Alethaine, what did we talk about not being outside after sunset?”

She doesn’t answer. Astarion comes closer and sees that her face is red as if she has just stopped crying.

“Princess, what happened?”

“It’s my fault” she sniffs. “I should have taken her with me right away,” her shoulders tremble and Alethaine bursts into tears once again.

Astarion kneels beside her, not knowing what to do. He still hasn’t learned how to react to her tears properly - so he does the only thing that works all the time with both her and Tiriel and also works for him.

He hugs her.

Through her muffled cries Astarion manages to understand that the albino kitten got out of the shelter and someone kicked her with such effort she died instantly. Now the kitten’s body lies in a small hole in the ground with her mouth wide open and stains of blood on the white fur.

'It's not your fault, it’s the fault of whoever did this, not yours.’

“No, you don’t understand! I could have taken her with me! If you had said “no”, I would have given her to the neighbors! And now she is dead! She is dead because of me!” Now Alethaine almost screams with all the sorrow a ten-year-old girl is capable of.

Astarion hugs his daughter tighter. He often stays with her on his own when Tiriel leaves to do some adventuring job - and usually, Astarion has no trouble. But right now the only thing he needs is for Tiriel to be at home. Because she can find the right words. She always can. Because what exactly does he need to tell Alethaine? It’s the first time she’s witnessed death. And it was the vilest example possible.

An innocent creature was killed for fun.

Well, maybe he should find that person and break their legs. It won’t help but maybe it will make Alethaine feel better.

“Alethaine, let’s go home.”

Alethaine doesn’t answer.

“Princess, come on,” he repeats.

His vampiric senses feel that something is wrong. As if something eerie, and unnatural has started to happen.

Astarion glances at the dead kitten.

Then the kitten moves.

“What in hell…,” he mutters.

It opens its eyes which glow an unnatural green color. The paws twitch, and the mouth opens showing small fangs.

“Dad! Look! Wyv is alive! She was just wounded! And I thought she was dead!” Alethaine exclaims, grabbing the dead kitten. “We need to show her to the healer!”

Alethaine’s eyes glow with the same eerie shade of green.

Necromancy.

Alethaine has just used the “Rise Animal” spell.

A spell so difficult it takes mages years to learn it.

Alethaine drops the dead kitten on the ground as if it were a poisonous snake.

“No… What is wrong with her, Dad?”

The kitten immediately sits up and freezes. Waiting for orders.

“She is dead, isn’t she?” Alethaine sniffs. The kitten doesn't move, staring at her with its resurrected eyes.

Necromancer. If being a dhampir wasn't enough for her. Necromancers have always been outcasts with their abilities to raise the dead and cast the darkest of spells.

Alethaine is one of them. Twice an outcast.

“Alethaine '' Astarion makes her face him. “Listen to me carefully. There must be strings, connecting you with the kitten. Like a puppet doll. You need to cut them.”

“But she will die”

“It is already dead. it’s not a life. Put it to rest.”

Alethaine wipes tears and the weird glowing fades. Alethaine concentrates, looks at her hands, and then makes a movement with her fingers as if she were tearing threads.

The dead kitten falls on the ground like a puppet.

Alethaine sits down tired and exhausted. Resurrecting a creature, even small animals, is a difficult spell requiring much energy even from adult mages. For a ten year old it’s the equivalent of hiking in the mountains.

Astarion takes Alethaine in their hands.

“Dad?”

“Hm?”

“Will you and mum still love me if I am a necromancer?”

“Of course, we will.”

“You can’t get necrotic damage, can you?”

“Well, I am very undead myself. So fear not, you won’t harm me even accidentally”

“And mum? She is mortal, she can get hurt.”

Astarion sighs. Damn, ‘Tiriel should come back sooner, I can’t answer all those questions’.

“You won’t hurt her. Don’t worry.”

Silence. The little dhampir doesn’t believe him. Alethaine sniffs again.

“Did it hurt when you were resurrected?”

Astarion has to make an effort to keep himself composed. It is still traumatic. Still hurts. Two hundred years of pain. Tortures. Isolation. Transformation.

“I am a vampire, not a ghoul. Ghouls don’t feel anything. They are already dead. you resurrected the flesh but Wyv didn’t feel anything.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am. Alethaine, promise me you won't try to practice alone, all right? No one must know you are a necromancer. People won’t understand. ”

The rest of the walk home is passed in silence. That evening Alethaine refuses to eat, and all attempts to cheer her up fail. She's heartbroken and scared, and whatever is weighing on her mind, she just can't process it.

He needs to think something up. The sooner, the better. Before Alethaine harms herself or someone in the town.

Alethaine can't sleep.

It's been a week and she feels terrible. There are whispers on the edge of her mind, dark and frightening, they call to her, they promise her something.

Alethaine can't shut them up.

She sees threads stretching from her fingers to the dead animals. Worse, she feels the threads leading to living people.

Cause them necrotic damage, the darkness whispers. It is going to be fun! Strike fear in them, make them scream, make them cry! And drink their blood if that’s to your liking!

Tiriel didn’t say anything when she heard what had happened. But Alethaine sees uneasiness in her eyes. Of course, she is afraid! There are strings attached to her as well, one or two necrotic spells and she is dead!

Astarion left two days later - he said he would try to look for something. Alethaine cried and begged to take her with him, but he refused.

Alethaine has locked herself in her room, barely leaving. But the silence and solitude are the fuel for nightmares. For the darkness. For tempting whispers.

The little dhampir gets out of her bed and goes to her parents’ bedroom. Tiriel is fast asleep under a blanket. Peaceful and quiet.

Alethaine fumbles at the door. She is ten, not three! She is too old to sleep with her mother. But the thought of spending one more night alone with those whispers feels awful.

“Kitten? Are you alright?”

“Mum… can… I…”

“Come here.”

Alethaine gets under the blanket and her mother’s arms immediately wrap around her.

“I am afraid,” Alethaine finally admits.

“I know, Kitten. Dad will think something up.”

“What if I hurt you while he is away?”

“You won’t”

“How can you know that? I am a necromancer!”

Alethaine turns around to see her mother’s face.

“Alethaine, you are also a dhampir and I don’t remember you ever trying to drain me. And you’ve had your fangs since you were five months old.”

Alethaine relaxes and hugs mother back.

“Mum, did you always know dad was a vampire?”

“Hm, I learned it on the third day I think. Woke up to him trying to bite me. He is lucky I’d already liked him.”

“And you weren’t afraid to be with him?”

“No. Your father was a troubled person, not easy to handle. But he was worth it. I know you are scared. People don’t take it easy when someone can cast dark spells. But it doesn’t mean you have to be alone or be a bad person, even if it’s expected. You will meet people who will accept you for who you are. Who will love you. One of the kindest men I knew was a warlock with a devil pact. Things aren’t always what they seem.”

Your mother’s blood is so warm! You’ve tasted it once, remember? When you were dying of bloodlust! Bite her, take what is rightfully yours!

As if hearing the intrusive thoughts, Tiriel hugs her daughter tighter.

“Whatever happens, we will always be with you. We will help you, we will support you, and no matter what happens, you can always trust us. Even if you do something really bad. ”

Alethaine sniffs and buries her nose in her mother’s neck.

The darkness steps away, and the girl falls asleep.

She doesn’t have nightmares for the first time that week.

“Alethaine,” she feels a soft tap on her shoulder. “Wake up.”

Alethaine opens her eyes and sees she is still in her parents’ bed. Tiriel, fully dressed, stands at the doors.

“Hm?”

“Dad is back. Could you go down to the basement?”

Alethaine, still half asleep, dresses up and goes down. Her senses immediately tell her Astarion isn’t alone.

“Hello, princess,” Astarion strokes her head the moment she gets closer.

A man in a dirty red robe sits on the wooden bench. His head is bald and his right eye is missing. Instead, there is a blue gemstone with intricate runes.

“Astarion, don’t you tell me she is a dhampir.”

“Oh, she very much is! Alethaine, this is Nris. He is going to be your teacher.”

“Astarion, I deeply appreciate you for saving me from that devil but I am not morally ready to teach a dhampir necromancy!”

“I doubt you will be able to pay me. My services are expensive. And I can always sell you back to the devils. I need you to teach my daughter necromancy. End of story.”

“For fuck sake… How old are you?”

Alethaine steps back. “T-ten”

“Fuck, this is the worst age ever! In a year she will hit puberty and it’s bad even without dhampirism and necromancy!”

Alethaine looks at her father.

“Dad, I don't like him.”

“He is a necromancer, princess. People aren’t supposed to like them.”

“Astarion, I knew I shouldn’t have made deals with you! A devil is better than a vampire! At least with devils, I know what to expect! Alethaine, you know what your father did? He took advantage of my desperate situation and forced me to make a pact with him.”

“Nris, don’t be stupid. It’s a working agreement!” Astarion grins. “And I can summon your former master any time, and, I fear, this time he will be harsher on you.”

Nris curses again, and Alethaine makes a note to use one of the slurs next time she gets into a fight.

The necromancer stretches his right hand, covered in weird tattoos. “Come here, Alethaine.”

Nris sends a shiver down her spine, but Astarion only nudges his daughter slightly, forcing her to approach the mage.

“Dhampir, necromancer, and all this with Fey blood. You did pick the wild cards out of Tasha’s cauldron. What exactly did you do to make your father save my ass from the devils?”

“I-I revived a kitten.”

Nris flinches. “I hate sorcerers to my guts! I’ve spent decades learning how to revive small animals - and you did it just like that! But good for you that you didn’t resurrect a human because if you had, the townsfolk would have burnt you alive. I was trying to make the darkness talk to me and it still doesn’t answer back but it calls upon you like an old friend. Life is truly unfair, Alethaine Ancunin.”

Alethaine is silent, unable to stop staring at the gemstone in the eye socket. The runes move resembling trapped flies.

“Very well, let’s start from learning the basics!”

Astarion leaves the basement. When he glances back he sees Alethaine drawing runes on the floor while Nris is giving her the lecture.

Astarion is tired. He didn’t have time to rest during the week, and besides, the worry of leaving a ten-year-old necromancer who didn’t understand how to control her powers alone with Tiriel plagued him like a nightmare.

Nris doesn’t look like the most decent or talented mage but he is bound to him by a pact and doesn’t have any desire to return to the devils. So, he is going to live in the secret basement under their house and teach Alethaine as much as he can.

Wild cards out of Tasha’s dungeon. Yes, that’s true. An unlikely child with dangerous skills.

Astarion finds Tiriel in the inner yard, throwing axes into the wooden wall. He approaches her and hugs them from behind, placing his chin on her shoulder.

“Tired?” she asks.

“Can I take your blood?”

She touches his curls with her tender fingers. “Of course.”

Astarion indulges his fangs in her neck. Blood streams down his throat, calming him down. Tiriel falters. He immediately releases her neck and takes her in his hands to carry Tiriel to the bedroom.

When they get there they lie together on the bed, their fingers intertwined. Due to sharpened hearing Astarion feels a distant echo from the basement. It seems like Alethaine and Nris have started a screaming match.

“You really didn’t warn him, did you?” Tiriel asks, drawing invisible symbols on his back.

“Maybe. Kind of.”

“Well, at least I won’t be the only mortal in the house.”

“Tiriel, don’t make him your drinking pal, I beg you!” Astarion laughs.

“What? A mug of ale after a difficult day hasn't hurt anyone yet.” Tiriel touches the tip of his ear. “Meditate. I will be with you.”

Astarion nods. Thirty years of happy memories are enough to give him bliss. He concentrates and lets the flow of memories take him to reverie.

Astarion holds Alethaine for the first time. A newborn girl is probably still in pain after being pushed into the world. He hears her fast heartbeat as her living heart pumps half-undead blood through her veins.

He cradles her in his arms. Alethaine is so warm, so delicate, so innocent. It’s not yet clear if she is a dhampir but Astarion knows he loves her. It’s a different form of affection, unknown to him. A selfless love for a child, a desire to make sure she won’t endure the same hardships as he did.

And she must not know.

Astarion gives himself a promise. His daughter will never know about his past. it will never taint her. The pain, the touches, the humiliation, the violence - she will not know a word of it.

Her mindset will be free of that dirt and of that darkness. He won’t pass it.

“Thank you, my love,” Astarion whispers. “This is a gift.”

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spacebarbarianweird · 1 month

Text

Memories of Innocence

Synopsis: Astarion sees snippets of his own past through the reverie.

Tags: comfort, dadstarion, dhampirs, reverie, Astarion's memories

Alethaine's age: 3 days

Thanks @themadlu for beta-reading!

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Headcanons

The newborn girl squeals demanding to be held and fed.

Astarion leans on the cradle where three-day-old Alethaine cries loudly stretching her arms and legs.

“So, what is it now?” Astarion smiles while taking a thick blanket to wrap around his daughter. He can’t allow her to feel cold—unfortunately, his vampire body isn’t really warm. “Your mother has just gone to sleep.”

Tiriel has been exhausted—first, labor and then a newborn who needs all her attention and also requires her body to survive. Astarion sees a weird irony in the fact that he first fed on Tiriel’s blood and now Alethaine feeds on Tiriel’s milk.

Astarion has been enjoying being a father so far. He loves being with the newborn all the time when Tiriel is asleep—and waking her up only for breastfeeding. He even likes the dirty side of having a child, and he is surprised at himself that it doesn’t annoy him.

It’s his child. His baby daughter.

Elves are so infertile every child is a blessing, and since the process is almost painless (well at least it’s a painless process for an elven mother—Astarion will never forget Tiriel’s cries). Usually, the birth of elves is welcomed by the whole community, and every member of said community wants to hold the newborn. And elves remember that moment even if their whole childhood is forgotten.

Alethaine was welcomed to the world only by her parents and a halfling midwife. Will she remember her mother touching her ears, so different from her own? Or Astarion’s ugly crying?

Is she even an elf, after all, Astarion wonders.

Alethaine squeals again and Astarion carries her to the next room where, behind a shut door, Tiriel is fast asleep.

“Tiriel, love, I hate to wake you up, but she wants to eat.” Astarion enters the room and sits at the edge of the wooden bed.

Tiriel sighs, still half asleep, and takes Alethaine in her arms. Astarion is mesmerized by how Tiriel tugs the collar of her shirt freeing the swollen breast and puts Alethaine in front of it. How a nipple disappears in the baby’s mouth and how her ears start twitching with every suckling movement.

It’s the nineteenth time Astarion has seen it.

And he wants to remember every one of these sessions.

“Are you tired?” Tiriel asks. Her eyes are half-open. “And when was the last time you ate?”

“My sweet, I can spend a few days without meditating and eating. I am a vampire-elf, after all,” he chuckles, but the next moment he realizes he actually wouldn’t mind to trance a bit.

Tiriel yawns. “Give me a couple of hours and I will take care of her,” Tiriel stretches her left hand to play with Astarion’s hair.

He closes his eyes concentrating on her touch.

Sometimes he thinks that’s all an illusion. A cruel trick of his mind. He is still locked in the dungeon, or worse, buried alive in a tomb. But he opens his eyes and sees his beloved feeding their newborn child.

And they are both real.

“Do you think she is normal?” Astarion asks. “I mean… I don’t mind if she is a dhampir, not at all! But do you think she is a mortal like you?”

“Honestly as far as I'm concerned her current species is ‘baby’", Tiriel sounds exhausted. “I think we will know, sooner or later.”

Astarion leans to kiss Tiriel. She answers him with the same passion she has had for the last twenty years.

He breaks up the kiss and pecks Tiriel’s cheek.

“A couple more hours, all right?” she whispers.

Astarion nods and then picks up the blanket.

“Astarion, I understand it’s winter and she is a newborn, but don’t you think it’s too warm?” Tiril notices as Astarion wraps the baby.

“I am as cold as a dead man,” Astarion says. “I don’t want her to suffer in my hands.”

Tiriel nods as if suddenly remembering Astarion is a vampire. “If she falls asleep and you need to reverie, come to me. I suffer without your hands on me,” she smiles adjusting the shirt.

Astarion places the baby into the cradle in the other room. Alethaine stares at him with her eyes wide open.

“I am very lucky,” he mutters. “You don’t understand it, but I am very lucky” he adds in elven.

He is lucky he was outside during the nauthiloid attack. He is lucky he was so paralyzed with fear he didn’t try to run away. He is lucky that the mindflayer, the Emperor, decided Tiriel could somehow benefit from carrying a tadpole in her head.

He is lucky Tiriel didn’t push him away.

He is lucky they both survived.

Astarion doesn’t believe in destiny, but it has been such a wild sequence of events leading to him standing in this nursery he finds it all unreal.

He notices stains on his once-white shirt, takes it off, and tosses it to the same pile of dirty fabric on the floor. Astarion will wash all these nappies and clothes later and, no, he isn’t going to let Tiriel do that.

Astarion sits on the floor, pressing his back against the wall. It seems like he can meditate to recover a bit. The last time he managed to do so was a few days earlier and it was interrupted by Tiriel’s muffled cry as she was pressing her hands to the belly.

Alethaine starts squealing. Her little face is red and her toothless mouth is wide open.

“What is it now?” Astarion asks. It may be the first time he is really tired of hearing her screams. “You are fed and still pretty clean.”

Alethaine squeals again.

Astarion picks up the blanket to take the baby in his arms, but the moment the fur touches her she yells even louder.

“What do you want, Alethaine? You don't like the blanket? Too bad, I can’t hold you without it!”

Another scream. Gods, how is it even possible for such a small child to make such loud noises?!

“My hands are cold, princess. You won't like them. I am not warm like your mother.”

The girl stretches her arms to him. Astarion feels a wave of desperation—it’s just unfair to think about it. His life was taken away from him, his youth, his childhood memories, his family, and even his past lives, if elves are right about reincarnation.

And now he can’t even hold his own daughter.

“Princess, I am going to take you but don’t complain,” he lifts her tiny body and puts Alethaine on his own bare chest. “See? I am as cold as the grave I’ve dug myself out of.”

Alethaine stops crying.

Astarion stares at her in disbelief as the newborn buries her little face in his cold skin.

Alethaine smiles.

Astarion carefully sits back on the floor and takes the blanket to wrap himself. Alethaine is blissful and he concentrates on her heartbeat and breathing.

She is so warm.

“You… wanted me to hold you,” he whispers. “Without blankets or anything else?”

Astarion sniffs. This little bundle in his arms makes him…normal. What is more normal in this world than a father holding his newborn child? He was forced to do the most atrocious things, he had to crawl back from his own grave, and his body was used in the most disgusting ways…

And yet he is here.

In his own home far away from the Sword Coast. With the most amazing woman in the next room. With their child.

Alethaine is so delicate, so innocent… So small.

“Well, it seems like you are finally asleep. Do you mind if I meditate?” He smiles, touching her baby hair.

He closes his eyes and lets the flow take him.

Astarion drifts in complete darkness. No, not this. Not the memories of being buried. He tries to run away from those memories but can’t. It's only a dream, he reminds himself. Whatever horrors he is going to witness it’s all in the past.

But why is it so dark?

Why does he feel so helpless?

He is still aware of his real surroundings and the tiny bundle in his own hands—but the weird memory takes a grip on his mind and he questions if he should have put Alethaine back in her bed.

The darkness shifts to light. Astarion can’t see anyone but he knows there are people around him. Quiet murmurs in elven reach to his ears forcing him to let out a cry.

Then a pair of hands take him and he hears a loud heartbeat. Long silver hair brushes his head and he sees the face of a tired elven woman whose smile is exhausted yet happy.

Tiriel looked similar three days ago.

“My little star,” the woman whispers to him.

The memory fades away. No more years to witness, no more light. Only darkness, misery, and cold—until he ends up in Tiriel’s arms that promise him safety and warmth.

“And you were afraid she wouldn’t want to be held by you.” He hears Tiriel’s voice as she kneels beside them, “I will take her, all right?”

Astarion, still half in his trance, lets her take the baby and Alethaine makes a disgruntled sound. “Oh, so now you like your dad more than me!” Tiriel laughs. “Was it all right? Your reverie?”

Astarion finally returns to reality. Tiriel asks him that question any time she witnesses him waking up. Unless it’s obvious he’s seen something really bad and ends up crying in pain.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t?”

“I think I saw my mother,” Astarion finally confesses. “She was holding me like you are holding Alethaine right now.”

“Oh?” Tiriel touches his cheek. “I thought you didn’t remember anything”

“I still don’t. It’s like a glimpse.”

Tiriel tugs him, helping Astarion to stand up. “Do you think she is still alive? Your mother?”

“It doesn’t matter. I am a vampire, no one would want to have a vampire son.”

Tiriel nods—she knows when to stop asking. She knows when he feels uncomfortable and uneasy and never pushes his boundaries. And if she does, it’s by sheer accident.

“It’s already dark outside,” she notices. “You need to eat”

Hunger is too painful. Gods, he wishes he could feed on Tiriel—but they agreed he would return to his habits once she stops breastfeeding.

“If you go into the woods, kill something I can eat, too,” she asks. “I am fucking starving.”

“Of course,” Astarion puts on his winter shirt. “It seems like I am leaving the house as a father for the first time. I will be back soon, love,” he kisses her lips, and the moment he pulls away Tiriel points at their daughter. Astarion carefully plants a kiss on her forehead.

The winter night meets him with howling winds and piercing cold. Astarion is on a hunt, he is going to let his predatory nature take the lead once he is in the woods. He needs a lot of blood to compensate for the few days he spent with his wife and daughter, and when he returns to them his body will be temporarily hot.

Maybe it’s for the best that those who mattered to him when he was mortal think he is dead. There are three Astarions—a forever lost soul from Baldur’s Gate, a tortured spawn, and a free elf who fears nothing and no one, who has a home, who has people to love. It doesn’t matter what happened before he woke up on that spelljammer.

Only what happens next.

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spacebarbarianweird · 6 days

Note

Dadstarion prompt:

Caretaker takes the kid to a fair, playground, restaurant or shopping, just spending the day and having fun together

Ha! Take that. Pure fluff. What could possibly go wrong??

Synopsis: Tiriel and Astarion take Alethaine to a fair.

Tags: dadstarion, dhampirs, fluff, a snippet into the future

Another fluffy thing I have written! And there is also a snippet into the distant future with adult Tiri who hasn't inherited her mother's macabre nature!

Alethaine's age - 12-years-old

Thanks @themadlu for beta-reading!

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Headcanons

Guide on How To Skin Monsters

Tiriel stops at the daggers’ stall. All of them look rather dull and Tiriel decides to search for something better for Astarion. Besides, he prefers to choose weapons for himself and Tiriel can always get something else – a book, jewelry, or a shirt. He always huffs when she brings him gifts, but she knows he is grateful for those little reminders of her care.

“Looking for something?” A merchant, a halfling woman, asks.

“Nothing in particular,” Tiriel says.

The halfling is definitely in the mood for talking and starts gossiping about a feud between two noble human houses, a serious plague “originated by giants” and someone’s wife cheating with an ork.

“Oh, and have you heard? There was a murder in Secomber! The whole family was slaughtered and by whom? A dhampir!”

Tiriel takes her eyes off the daggers.

“Yes! A half-vampire! Can you imagine sleeping with a vampire? But I think their mother was assaulted. Anyway, the dhampir grew up and slaughtered the whole family! Those half-undead are merciless cruel creatures, and they say there are so many of them!”

“Yeah… cruel monsters they are,” Tiriel mutters.

She heard of the slaughter, but there were no dhampirs or vampires involved. Just a young man possessed by a dryad. He was hanged a week later, but someone started spreading rumors his mother fucked a vampire and that’s why her child grew up so bloodthirsty.

Tiriel feels pale hands hugging her waist from behind. Alethaine presses her face against her back – she is 12 but she is still cuddly as a little child.

“Oh, is this your daughter? Such an adorable little girl. How old is she?”

“Alethaine,” Tiriel touches her fingers.

“I am twelve,” she says, trying not to betray her fangs.

“Oh… I am sorry… didn’t notice she was an elf.” The merchant apologizes and then proceeds to tell other gossip.

“Have a nice day,” Tiriel says, taking Alethaine’s hand.

“You too! And beware the dhampirs!”

“Beware the dhampirs my ass,” Tiriel says, moving further away from the obnoxious halfling.

“I can bite her,” Alethaine suggests. She is twelve, but elves mature slower than humans and half-elves and Tiriel notices her daughter sometimes behaves like a younger child.

“No, we are not biting people we don't like.”

“Dad wouldn’t mind if I bit her!”

“Hm, good thing it’s daylight then!” Tiriel rubs Alethaine’s ear. She knows her daughter too well not to notice the merchant’s words upset her.

Cruel merciless creatures? Alethaine cries her eyes out every time someone dies in the books she reads! Well, she mostly sympathizes with dragons and monsters – but also with orphan children, victims of arranged marriages and curses.

And little dead animals.

Little dead animals are a whole different story. It’s been three years, but Alethaine still feels sorry about an albino kitten killed by a stranger. The dhampir accidentally resurrected the pet and now Tiriel and Astarion also face the issue of raising a necromancer.

“Hey, don’t be sad!” Tiriel leans to a little dhampir. “Do you want anything?”

Alethaine doesn't answer. She stops by the book stall completely enchanted by a huge black volume covered in leather.

How to Skin Monsters.

Aletaine immediately flips the pages, and Tiriel sees intricate and creepy pictures of the insides of different beasts and monsters. She’d fought many of them in her lifetime (beholders in the Underdark are still one of her worst memories), but never ever did she want to look at their remains, let alone study them.

“Hey, don’t touch it!'' The merchant tries to take the book away from Alethaine’s hands, but the dhampir keeps holding it with her iron grip. “I think this book is rather dark for a little lady like you.”

“Mum, look, the cover is made of human skin,” Alethaine casually says. “No. It’s half-elf actually.”

“No it isn’t!” The merchant protests. “It’s… wolfskin!”

Liar, Tiriel realizes. She has good perception skills, and the merchant lies. And the dhampir necromancer has already passed the verdict.

Alethaine puts the book away and takes another one – a green volume with letters in Espruar.

“Is it just a collection of stories or the real guide on Feywild?’” Alethaine asks. “People who have never messed with fey write all sorts of fairytale stuff about pink unicorns and fairies who grant wishes.” She opens the book which is written with trembling handwriting. “Oh, I see. Looks like a feverish nightmare. So the writer has been there.”

The book merchant looks at Tiriel with a facial expression she knows too well.

What crypt did you find this child in?

“I have some ballads and traveler guides. Maybe...it is more for your age?” he asks

“Travelers guide on what places?”

“Icewind Dale, but it’s a rather uncomfortable read…”

“I’ve read about Icewind Dale,” suddenly something else attracts her attention and she points at a small book with a dragon on its cover. “Show me this!”

The merchant sighs in relief and reaches for the storybook. Tiriel looks at the pages – even though she still experiences issues with reading, she sees that it's just an adventure story about knights, princes, dragons, and treasure hunting.

Something her daughter stopped reading when she was five or six.

“I will take this too,” Alethaine declares.

“Eighty silver for all three,” the merchant says.

Too much, Tiriel thinks. Alethaine frowns but doesn’t try to bargain. For some reason, she is very shy when it comes to arguments.

“Thirty silver,” Tiriel intervenes. “And we are not telling anyone about the half-elf skin you’ve bound the book with.”

“It’s not made of anyone’s skin!”

“I can hear her screams,” Alethaine whispers, flipping the book pages. “They flayed her when she was still alive!”

The merchant gulps. Tiriel chuckles. So, this is true and the merchant knew it.

“All right. Thirty,” he mutters and Alethaine happily gives him the silver coins.

Alethaine puts the books in her black bag and wishes the merchant good night. The man mutters something not appropriate for children’s ears.

“Did you catch the scent of the skin or it’s more like your necromancy skills?” Tiriel asks, taking her daughter’s hand as they stand by the stall with needles and threads.

She shrugs. “I-I don’t know. Maybe both.”

“Do you know if Dad needs something to sew?” Tiriel still can’t really tell apart shades of the same color and all needles look the same to her.

“Take the black threads,” Alethaine says, touching the samples of fabric. “He’s always out of them.”

Tiriel nods. She doesn’t know why and when Astarion decided to make all his daughter’s wardrobe black, but here they are. Alethaine got from black onesies to black dresses, from black nappies to black skirts, gloves, and coats. Only her shoes and boots aren’t made by Astarion - and they are as pitch dark as everything else.

A few hours later, at sunset, they sit on the grass outside the market. It’s a beautiful summer sunset and Tiriel adores the light. Alethaine sits on her traveling cape and takes out one of her new books.

“Interesting?”

“Uh-um,” she nods, completely taken away.

Tiriel smiles to herself. She’s never been a stranger to violence and dark things – if you faint at the sight of a blood sacrifice, you won’t survive in the wilderness. But having a child like this takes everything to another level.

Death, dark arts, corpses – they have a special appeal to Alethaine, the same one Tiriel feels towards fights.

The sun sets and Tiriel sits beside Alethaine. Darkvision allows her to see in gray colors and Tiriel sees a picture of the monster inside.

“All right, now I understand who all these people were who hired me to bring them certain parts of the beasts I killed.”

“Dad is coming,” she says. “Or another vampire, but I think Dad scared all of them away.”

Tiriel smiles. “Good thing vampires hate the presence of each other.” She stands up and approaches the edge of the hill. Yes, Alethaine is right – Astarion has left his daylight shelter in the nearby inn. She can see his silhouette from the distance – white hair and black armor she can’t mix with anyone else.

She waves to him and he quickens his steps.

“Hello, darling,” he murmurs in her ear the moment he hugs her. Astarion pecks her cheek and Tiriel rubs his left ear.

“Dad! Look what I’ve bought!”

Tiriel thinks Alethaine will show him the anatomy book, but, instead, she hands him the adventure story.

Astarion studies the first page, then another. Tiriel watches them carefully.

“I just don’t get it,” Alethaine admits. “Is it about how to enter the thieves’ guild or how to smuggle drugs?”

“None,” Astarion returns her the book. “It’s about how to find a job as a bounty hunter in Neverwinter.”

“Oh, I misread the symbols then,” Alethaine pouts.

“Wait, the book is in Thieves Cant?” Triel asks.

“Yes. Hidden deep under snotty stories,” Astarion answers. “And what are these two monstrosities?”

Alethaine proudly opens the anatomy book as Astarion studies the Feywild one. Tiriel barely prevents herself from laughing as she sees Astarion cringing at the pictures. Vampire or not, he saw so many disgusting and cruel things he hated looking at them.

Then Alethaine yawns.

“Let’s go home,” Tiriel says. It will take them till sunrise to return to Daggerlake. If they don't hurry they will need to set up a camp for the daylight - or leave Astarion behind which Tirel absolutely hates to do.

It’s not like it’s a big deal right now – thirty-two years since he gained his freedom, he has nothing to fear. More than that, Tiriel is sure there is simply no other monster in the area who could be a threat to Astarion. He is a vampire, an undead, a skilled rogue, a dangerous assassin.

But when he is alone, the nightmares slowly crawl back. The loneliness fuels his memories and there are so many of them. Thirty-two years are simply not enough. Astarion can handle that too – he’s learned to. But Tiriel doesn’t want him to face mental struggles if it can be avoided.

Alethaine walks in front of them and Tiriel takes Astarion’s hand in hers. They are her little family – everything she’s ever wished for.

She looks at Astarion and notices his lips are squeezed and there is some anxiety in his eyes.

Hunger.

“Go for a hunt, we will wait for you”.

“Nonsense, let’s return home sooner.”

Tiriel doesn’t push it. They agreed years ago that Alethaine isn’t to see him dining on her mother (because it’s absolutely a sexual thing and must remain behind closed doors) and also that she shouldn’t see him feed on animals (because her dhamprisim might get awoken – blood will tempt her and they don’t want their daughter to become more a vampire then she already is).

Of course, she isn't stupid, she knows her father drinks blood. She often sees bite marks on Tiriel when she forgets to cover them – but the process remains out of sight.

It’s already sunrise when they reach Daggerlake and Astarion walks forward not to risk staying in the sun.

By the time they return home, Alethaine rushes upstairs to prepare for sleep. She sleeps a lot, even more than a human would – and Tiriel wonders how much dhampirism affects her sleeping habits.

“So, is the book really about how to be a mercenary?” Tiriel asks closing the door to the bedroom

Astarion has already put off his doublet and now sits on the bed watching Tiriel.

He waits.

“Yes. It was a guide on how to find people who will give her a job as a mercenary,” he slowly answers as if he had to concentrate on speaking. His eyes are focused on her neck.

“And can she read this book?”

“She thought it was about smugglers and thieves. Her skills aren’t that good.”

Tiriel approaches Astarion and he tugs her closer, forcing her to sit on his lap.

Astarion is no longer a sweet caring elf – his predatory side is on the loose and he pierces her skin with his nails as the fangs are looking for the vein.

Tiriel wraps her hands around his neck and lets herself drown in painful pleasure.

“Take as much as you need,” she murmurs. “I love you.”

She feels like falling into the warm dark void and, when she almost crosses the border of no return, the tender hands let her go and she finds herself on the bed with Astarion carefully applying a bandage on her fresh bite mark.

“Thank you,” he says, kissing her with his blood-stained lips.

“Will you stay with me when I sleep?”

“Of course,” he chuckles. “Besides Alethaine has occupied the bathroom – she isn't getting out any time soon”

“Oh… and I forgot…” Tiriel points at her bag. “I’ve bought you some black threads and new needles.”

Astarion kisses her cheek. “Such a caring and thoughtful wild girl. Now I have something to occupy myself with while you are asleep.” He takes her nightshirt from the floor. “Do you have anything in mind? I noticed you’ve ripped it.”

“Me? Astarion, you rip my clothes all the time!”

He unfolds the shirt showing the ripped collar. “Yeah, I agree. My fault. So, what patch do you want?”

“Maybe a dragon? A black one?”

Astarion covers her with a blanket – the one she uses when she sleeps alone – and sits on the floor with the shirt and the needle.

“I have a daughter who likes seeing monsters’ inside-outs and a wife who likes murdering monsters. Can someone in this family enjoy nice and cute things?” He pouts.

“Imagine Alethaine having a child who enjoys such things. She will pout then, ‘no one in her family has taste for macabre’”.

Astarion chuckles, and Tiriel wraps herself in the blanket.

Safe. She feels safe.

And loved.

Sewing has always helped Astarion to concentrate. It’s been centuries since he needed to shut the darkness up. Memories of his enslavement, memories of the misery have faded away and feel like a distant nightmare.

But habits never truly go, and Astarion enjoys sewing patches and repairing clothes even though the old purpose of that process has long gone.

“You know, for someone who is an elf and was raised as an elf, you are very messy,” Astarion says looking at the ripped cape. It looks like it was chewed by a tarrasque.

“It’s not my fault! I was careful!” Tiri objects. She is making new arrows (as she lost the whole quiver while running from a particularly nasty behir in the Underdark the previous day).

Astarion chuckles. Tiri, his granddaughter, showed up at his place deep in the Fairgheight Range five years ago. Red-haired like her grandmother, she was eager to see the world beyond the Isle of Evermeet – and she still doesn’t show any desire neither to return to her parents nor leave him be and travel alone.

“What patches do you want?” Astarion asks and takes his sewing kit from the traveling sack.

“Well, I am an adult independent woman…” Tiri starts.

“You are thirty and you are an elf. You are basically a child.”

“Hm, you were a magistrate and mum would work for smugglers using her necromantic skills. Barely a child activity.”

“So?”

“I want a unicorn patch,” Tiri finally admits. “Or a butterfly. Don’t laugh, ar’o’su!”

“I don’t, damia,” Astarion finds white threads. “Besides, Alethaine has never been fond of cute and nice things.”

“Mum has her own idea of what is nice and what is cute,” Tiri touches a thin tiara on her hair. While all Tiri’s clothes are made according to Wood Elves traditions, her father’s ancestors, the tiara is pitch black and with a small skull in the center. It definitely belonged to Alethaine and then she just passed it to her only daughter.

Tiri puts the new arrows on the ground and lies on her bedroll to reverie. Her drake, Aurix, immediately nestles on her chest like a cat.

Astarion casts a glance at his granddaughter. She has a certain similarity to Tiriel – and Astarion knows she would have loved her. But half-elves have such an offensive short life span in comparison with elves she had no chance to see little Tiri. At the same time, her facial features are her mother’s and sometimes she speaks like her. There is something else, something unfamiliar – Tiri’s father and their ancestors.

And she loves cute and nice things - and cringes at the sight of monsters’ inside-outs. Necromancy scares Tiri and she admits she’s never been to her mother’s dungeons just because of how uncanny it was for her. And elves would often joke that their “witch-queen” just kidnapped Tiri because no way someone like Alethaine could give birth to such a sweet young woman.

Astarion pierces the fabric with the needle.

“Well, so be it, a unicorn.”

-- Tag list

@tugoslovenka

@herstxrgirl

@herdarkestnightelegance

@vixstarria

@not-so-lost-after-all

@marcynomercy

@theearthsfinalconfession

@starlight-ipomoea

@micropoe10

@astarion-imagine-archive

@veillsar

@elora-the-slutty-songstress

@fayeriess

@lumienyx

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@ednaaa-04

@dajeong

@wilteddreamsofbaldursgate

78 notes · View notes

spacebarbarianweird · 2 months

Text

Do we want a comfort dadstarion fic where Astarion is taking a role of "stay-at-home-dad" while Tiriel is doing her adventuring job?

(I can't make myself to write anything long and serious but I want to write something)

#astarion #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 astarion #astarion bg3 #astarion romance #baldurs gate 3 #astarion x tav #dadstarion #papastarion #alethaine ancunin #tiriel of the sunset mountains #tiriel the barbarian #astarion x tiriel #oc tav: tiriel

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spacebarbarianweird · 7 months

Text

Astarion's dhampir daughter headcanon P.2

Part 1 Part 3 Part 4

Masterlist

Headcanons

- Her name is Alethaine, and she is an elf

- Astarion was surpised to see his daughter look nothing like her mother. It took him time to realize the girl is his copy

- She has black eyes, the color of the raven feathers, and Astarion sometimes contemplates if his eyes used to be black too

- He was afraid to take Alethaine in his hands ("she is so small, so delicate, I can't be trusted") but eventually he gave up and pressed the newborn against his chest. The moment it happened, the girl started purring like a kitten.

- She decided to be a monster hunter and Astarion became her first mentor

- Alethaine loves reading. Myths, history, tales of distant lands. She often reads to her mother but reading sessions regularly end with Alethaine and Astarion having an argument about some historical event

- Tav calls her "kitten", Astarion calls her "princess"

- She has good relations with both of her parents. Tav (a half-elf) understands what it is to be "mixed" and not accepted by both parts of your kin. Astarion knows her struggles with hunger and bloodthirst

- Alethaine knows there is a monster within her and if she feels like losing control she immediately tells her dad

- Alethaine was once attacked by a vampire but the attacker suffered more than her. First, dhampir blood is poisonous for a vampire. Second, Astarion stabbed him. Ten times in a row.

- Astarion never told Alethaine about his past, not wanting the shadow of his old master to cloud Alethaine's life

- After one especially bad monster hunting Alethaine came to her father in distress. Astarion listened to her muffed cries and then took her in his hands and started lulling Alethaine the same way he did back when she was a child

#astarion #baldur's gate 3 #astarion headcanon #bg3 astarion #astarion bg3 #bg3 #astarion romance #baldurs gate 3 #astarion headcanons #astarion has a daughter in my headcanon cause why not its mine #astarion being a dad #alethaine ancunin #dadstarion #spacebarbarian headcanon #meet the dhampirs #dhampirs of the sword's coast #dnd

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spacebarbarianweird · 2 months

Text

Lost and Found

Synopsis: Astarion dissapears, and Tiriel goes looking for him.

Tags: dadstarion, dhampirs, hurt/comfort

Alethaine's age: 6 years old

Thanks @themadlu for beta-reading!

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Headcanons This one is more Tiriel x Astarion centered but Alethaine has her role, too

Astarion can’t move - his regeneration doesn’t catch up with the damage he received. His ribs are broken and so are his hands. There is nothing left of his renowned vampiric strengths - he is helpless in front of those warriors.

Kill the vampire. Kill the vampire. Kill the vampire.

He feels dawn is close. His body stirs, and a wave of panic floods his mind. The sun will kill him. The sun will burn him.

Astarion tries to stand up but a strong blow knocks him down.

The first rays of the sun cut him like blades.

The last coherent thought comes to his mind.

Tiriel was right. He should have listened to his wife.

Tiriel is worried sick.

Astarion left a month ago with those men from Tunland - promising it would take only a dozen days and she wouldn't be stuck home with their daughter all alone.

But it’s been four weeks and he still hasn’t returned.

Alethaine sits on the ceiling with a book. Her adorable little face looks so serious that Tiriel can’t resist smiling every time she glances at her daughter.

Like every elven child Tiriel has seen, Alethaine looks a bit like a perfect doll - a bit smaller than human children, with soft silver hair, and pointy ears that twitch, reacting to sounds. The quarter of human ancestry doesn’t manifest at all in her. She could pass for a high elf if it wasn’t for her vampire fangs, skin too pale for a living girl, and the fact she barely breathes. Sometimes Tiriel can’t resist waking Alethaine up just to make sure she hasn’t died in her sleep. Just motherly anxiety, besides, nothing could have prepared Tiriel to be the mother of a dhampir.

Well, what did she expect, taking a vampire as a husband - but she had no idea dhampirs were anything but a myth.

“Mum.”

“What is it, Kitten?”

“When will Dad come back?”

“I don’t know”, Tiriel says.

The six-year-old flips the page. Tiriel notices elven letters, Espruar. Meanwhile, she is barely capable of reading a page in Common without having a headache, Alethaine easily reads books in both of her mother tongues.

She is smart, her daughter. Just like Astarion.

Who disappeared without a trace.

It’s not like him. Of course, dealing with pacts and contracts isn't a fast job. It often takes Astarion days just to understand what exactly happened between his client and whatever force they’ve decided to sign papers with (because no one wants to admit to their mistakes).

But Astarion doesn’t like to be away for too long. Tiriel knows it too well. They have been together for twenty-six years but what is it in comparison with two centuries of slavery, considering his previous life is completely erased from his memories? Astarion still has nightmares, he is still haunted. He needs her as much as she needs him.

He would have come back already - to her, to their daughter, to their home.

Tiriel is sure something bad has happened.

Vampires are vulnerable to the sun. To silver. Astarion could have been killed and she would never know about it.

Tiriel didn’t like Astarion’s last client at first sight—an obnoxious chieftain from the Tunland who was so similar to Tiriel’s abusive drunkard of a stepfather that she almost had a panic attack. He even spoke with the same shitty dialect native to Tiriel’s human relatives.

Tiriel even suggested finding someone in town to look after Alethaine in her absence. Hells she was going to let him go alone! But Astarion talked her out.

I love having you as my bodyguard, but let’s not leave Alethaine without both of her parents.

Tiriel feels a gentle touch of fingers on her hair.

“Mum.”

“Hm?”

“Your mum and dad were half-elves like you? Or one of them was an elf like me and Dad?”

Tiriel looks up. Well, sooner or later she would have asked. For some reason the absence of Astarion’s family doesn’t bother Alethaine (at least now), maybe because she understands the concept that “dad was killed and resurrected and it was so long ago it was all forgotten”—but the fact that Tiriel doesn't have anyone except for her husband probably surprises her.

“My mother was a human and my father was an elf.”

“But where are they? Is grandma dead?”

Tiriel is quiet for a second. Grandma. Well, sure. Tiriel did have a mother. A woman who gave birth to her. And hated her so much didn’t even bother to give her a name.

Tiriel does mental math. She has no idea how old her mother was when they last saw each other but considering some of Tiriel’s brothers had already had children,the old hag must be around ninety. If she is alive, which is dubious considering the living conditions in the Tunland and, especially, in the Sunset Mountains.

“And grandpa? If he is an elf, he is still somewhere!”

“Alethaine, I don’t know who my father was or is. I don’t know his name, I don’t know where he was from. And as for my mother… she wasn’t a good person.”

Alethaine winces her nose.

“But she was your mum!”

“She was a woman who gave birth to me. But she was never my mum. Alethaine, sometimes it happens. Sometimes mothers don’t love their children. And sometimes fathers just disappear without a trace. There are plenty of adults who shouldn't become parents at all.”

Alethaine shakes her head.

“What if Dad has disappeared too?”

“No,” Tiriel says firmly. “Your dad will come back.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am. Because he loves us.”

Alethaine squeezes her lips.

“Mum.”

Tiriel smiles. Once Aletaine starts asking, she doesn’t stop.

“Were you happy when I was born?”

“Of course! We were very happy to have you!”

Tiriel feels tears pricking her eyes. Of course, she can't know it but she is sure her own birth was met with curses and insults once her bitch of a mother and the midwife saw that the newborn had pointy ears.

Elven bastard. Dirty blood. Pixie.

Holding her own daughter in her arms for the first time, Tiriel couldn't understand how anyone could carry a child in their own body, experience childbirth, and still hate such an innocent human being.

“When I have a daughter, I will love her very-very much, just like you love me”

“Well, then she will be lucky to have both a mother and grandmother.”

Tiriel looks outside as if hoping to see a familiar figure approaching the house.

Nothing.

There is only one thing Tiriel can do about it except for waiting.

“Alethaine, I need to go away for a few days. You will live with the innkeeper's family.”

“You will go looking for dad?”

“Yes. And, please, don’t make me feel sorry I’ve left you with them.”

Alethaine nods. The innkeeper, his husband, and their five children are the only dwarves in Daggerlake - and almost the same “weirdos” as the Ancunins. Besides, the innkeeper is a retired adventurer and brews the best ale Tiriel has ever drunk.

“And promise me you won’t crawl on the ceilings. Even if you are asked to.”

“But it’s fun!”

“Yes, but people usually don’t like it when the child they are asked to look after can run away from them to the ceiling.”

“Bu muum…”

“ALETHAINE.”

Tiriel rarely uses her “rage” voice on Alethaine but it always works. Anethaine flinches, her eyes wide open and the book drops to the floor.

“Alright! I won't crawl on the ceiling!”

“Good girl. Now, get dressed and take what you need”

Tiriel hopes it will take her less than a week to find Astarion.

She is even ready to provide an offering to some deity to ensure she won’t coming back home a widow.

It’s hunger. Pain. Desperation.

Astarion wanders through narrow stone halls looking for prey. Nothing. There is nothing. This place is lifeless.

He is still there, in the dungeons, isn’t he?

Still locked somewhere under his master’s mansion. Starved, beaten, tortured.

It was all a dream

The sun. The warmth of a mortal body. The kisses, the hugs. Home, wife, daughter. It was just a mind trick.

The memories fade so does his consciousness.

A red-haired woman. Freckles on her back. She is saying something to him. Who is she? He can't remember.

A little girl. Cold pale skin, no breathing, blood with a bitter scent of wormwood. Dhampir? Or just an unfortunate child turned into a spawn?

No, they are not real. He is going to hear HIS voice. Humiliating orders. Astarions waiting for it like a lash.

Boy, don’t slouch before me.

Astarion lies on the cold stone. His body is paralyzed. Vampires can spend decades like that - they can’t die of hunger, they just freeze in a neverending torture.

The woman. She keeps invading his thoughts. Who is she? The vision slips away.

You’ve brought cattle, boy.

Yes, the master is here. He is disappointed. He will flay Astarion’s skin and chain him to the wall. But what did astarion do? Did he run away? Did he fail to bring the food? Did he break one of the unwritten rules he couldn’t possibly remember?

The night vale, the stars in the skies, the mountains in the distance. A bunch of red-haired warriors. Kill the vampire. Kill the vampire.

Sun is burning Astarion’s skin.

Did they just return him to his master?

Astarion doesn’t move. Soon there is no name, no reason. Just an empty starving shell.

BLOOD.

Astarion’s body stirs up. Someone alive is close, close enough for his vampiric senses to catch them.

HEART BEATING.

So loud he hears it from a distance.

He jumps on his feet and walks toward his prey.

A woman. Probably, a half-elf. He catches her mixed scent. She is armored with a two-handed ax.

And she is alone.

“Who is there?” she asks, ready to thrust her skull-crushing weapon. Too bad the prey has dark vision. It gives her some advantages. But she will be dead soon anyway, once she satiates his starving body.

He bares his fangs and almost physically senses her fear. The blood of a scared creature is the sweetest.

“Astarion?” her voice trembles. She takes a step back.

And drops her weapon.

He rushes toward her and knocks her to the ground. She doesn’t resist for some reason but the vampire doesn’t pay attention to that.

Astarion pierces her neck. Blood streams down his throat.

So sweet, so delicious. He can’t stop - he won’t stop. Every drop of this woman’s body is going to be his, he is going to satiate himself and then he will go hunting for someone else…

His body slowly gets warmer and his sanity slowly returns.

Astarion. My name is Astarion.

He doesn’t have a master.

He can… feed… on mortals…

Freedom. Sunlight.

Tiriel.

He pulls away and the woman falls on the stone floor, unable to move and barely breathing.

“Oh no…” he mutters observing what he has done. “Tiriel…”

Astarion crawls back to his beloved. Her eyelids are half open, and her skin is almost as pale as his.

“Tiriel!” he slaps her cheek. “Tirel! Stay awake! Look at me, look at me! Oh gods!”

He presses her weak body to his chest, cradling her in his arms. His darling Tiriel, his wife, his thiramin…

“M-my bag… There is… a… potion” she whispers.

Astarion opens it and finds a small bottle. He unclenches Tiriel’s jaw with his strong hands and pours the liquid into her mouth.

The color returns to her cheeks and her heart stops beating so fast. Her eyes are still full of fear and it hurts Astarion even more.

“Tiriel… I…” Astarion mutters but he can’t say anything else.

What is he going to say, after all?

“Astarion, what the hells happened to you?” she finally says. “You looked like a fucking ghoul! Well you still do… a bit”

Astarion gulps. His throat hurts. He needs more. He is too weak, too exhausted. Astarion looks at his hands to avoid Tirilel’s eyes and horror pierces him once again.

His hands are all covered in burns. Nail plates are broken, and the skin hangs in shreds.

“Hey! Astarion, look at me!” Tiriel finally makes herself sit up and grabs his mutilated hands. “Hush, I am here, I am here!”

She hugs him and he feels how weak she is. His body trembles, the panic crushes his mind with boiling hot waters, tears stream down his face and his mouth is open in a silent scream.

“Hush, my love, it’s going to be alright. We are going home. Alethaine misses you”

Alethaine. His daughter.

He is safe. His master is dead. He has it all.

And he’s almost lost it.

Tiriel cups his face. “Astarion, I shouldn’t have let you go. I knew something was wrong. Did they try to kill you?”

“I don't remember.”

“Where are your things? Daggers? The armor?”

Astarion looks down - his feet are bare, the trousers and the shirt are all in rags. He does look like he just emerged from a tomb.

“Damn. Well, let’s hope no one will attack us on the way back. Come on, let’s go outside and get you more blood. And then we are going home and the fuck I am letting you go alone next time!”

Tiriel lies on the bedroll. She’s set up the tent in the cave—close enough to the surface but with access to the underground tunnels.

She didn’t manage to understand what exactly happened to Astarion and why he was that feral when she found him. But the burns on his skin betrayed the only reason—the sun.

It seems like whoever did this managed to overcome Astarion in a fight and then let him burn in the sun. Astarion managed to get into the tunnels but lost his way. And since the tunnels were completely empty the hunger didn’t let him heal.

She knew they couldn't trust those bastards from Tunland! She has a good intuition after all. Next time Astarion had better listen to his wife!

Her whole body hurts, especially her neck. Astarion rarely feeds on Tiriel—her blood is more like a medicine to him rather than food but when he does he is always gentle, making sure the process doesn’t hurt her. But this—this was a full-fledged assault. He ripped her throat with his fangs and she is alive only thanks to the fact he returned to his senses before it was too late.

She hears light footsteps.

Astarion is back. His hands are healed and he looks like himself, not the starved monster she encountered in the tunnels.

She elbows up, but Astarion pulls away in embarrassment.

“Astarion, come here,” Tiriel asks. “I’ve spent a month in an empty bed. Don’t deprive me of your presence,” she takes his hand in hers.

Together they sit on the bedroll and Tiriel hugs him nuzzling the crook of his neck.

“I am sorry,” he says.

“Don’t.”

“I’ve almost killed you.”

“But you didn't. Astarion, please, you’ve lost yourself because of hunger. I won’t deny I was scared,but it doesn’t mean it has to change anything about us.”

“I almost killed you,” he repeats. “I would have stepped in the sun if I had done it.”

“Hm, and left our daughter an orphan? I don’t think there are many people ready to raise a dhampir.”

“Where is she?”

“I left with the innkeeper’s family. Good thing I went out looking for you. Who knows where the darkness would have taken you.”

He nods and presses his legs to his chest. Tiriel hugs him from behind. When they just started being together she did it daily—a ritual to console him. But it’s been a while since he needed it.

She kisses the nape of his neck. Then she kisses his cheek. Caress his ears. Plays with his curls.

“I love you,” she whispers. “You are the best thing that happened to me.”

Astarion weeps and Tiriel tugs him closer.

“You need to meditate, love” She kisses his forehead. “Think about something good. Remember how we left Baldur’s Gate twenty-six years ago? We hit the road at sunset and just walked hand in hand. Or when we were stuck in some shitty northern town for the whole winter? I couldn’t make myself leave the room and one night you came back with a pair of rings. You just put one on my finger and kept staring at me as if you saw me for the first time.”

“I prepared the whole wedding speech but forgot it all,” Astarion says, not even trying to get into reverie.

“Or remember how we were both freaking out because of the pregnancy? One day you just knelt in front of me, placed your hand on my belly and burst into tears because your vampire hearing allowed you to hear Alethaine’s heartbeat.”

“We need to go home, Astarion, and you need to rest. Then we can talk about anything that bothers you.”

Alethaine flips the page of the book. Thanks to dark vision she can read in complete darkness. The story catches her mind—it is a story of old times when elves ruled Faerun. Thousands and thousands of years before the Age of Humanity, her ancestors walked those lands, building the towers and castles and practicing the ways of long-forgotten magic.

But the intrusive thoughts keep getting into her young mind. First, Dad disappeared without a trace and Mum was so worried she could barely do anything. Then, Mum left town and Alethaine was all alone. Sure, the dwarven family is friendly and they don’t mind taking care of one more child (it’s not a big deal if there are five or six of them), but with every passing day Alethaine was getting more anxious.

What if both of her parents had died? What if she was already an orphan?

Two months passed like this. And then, she was woken up by familiar voices, and her tiny world was restored.

The dhampir puts the book away and takes her plushie. It’s nice to sleep in her own bed for once, but she feels so lonely it cripples her.

Alethaine walks to her parents’ room. Mum and Dad lie in each other’s arms. They discuss something she can’t understand.

“I think we have a visitor,” Astarion chuckles. “What is it, princess?”

“Can I sleep with you?” Alethaine asks, pressing the plushie to her chest.

“Sure, come here!” Astarion opens the blanket up inviting Alethaine in. The dhampir immediately nestles between her parents.

Tiriel hugs her and kisses the crown of her head and Astarion adjusts a bit so he can see both of his girls.

Alethaine relaxes. Her mother’s heartbeat is so loud it’s basically the only thing she can hear. Dad doesn’t breathe and his heart doesn’t beat, but she finds special comfort when he holds her—there is something more natural about his cold hands than her mother’s warmth.

“Did something scare you, princess?” Astarion asks, intertwining his fingers in Alethain’s long soft hair.

Alethaine feels a wave of sadness and fear rising up in her body. Before she manages to say anything coherent she bursts in tears causing both of her parents to immediately rush to comfort her.

“Were you afraid we were absent for so long?” Tiriel asks, placing Alethaine in her lap. Her motherly kisses are so tender the dhampir cries louder and more desperate.

Astarion sits up and wraps his hands around them both.

“I am sorry, princess. We aren’t going to leave you anymore, we promise.”

Alethaine sniffs, pressing her nose into Tiriel’s chest.

And then she hears a quiet lullaby.

Astarion hums it in Elven. Alethaine can’t decipher words but the song soothes her as Tiriel sways her a bit in her arms as if the dhampir was still a baby.

Both her mother’s warmth and her father’s undead coldness weave a perfect sense of comfort for her.

Of course, they were going to come back. They are her parents. They can’t disappear, they can’t die.

As Alethaine drifts into sleep, she notices the way her parents look at each other.

This image is being engraved in her mind and Alethaine will remember this even years later.

Even centuries later Alethaine Ancunin will remember the way her mother smiled to her father and the way Astarion held Tiriel’s hand. The way they talked to each other, the way they saw the world in their lover’s eyes.

Three centuries later, when Alethaine takes her own daughter in her pale hands, this image will flee into the dhampir’s mind, and she will weep, mourning her long-dead mother.

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spacebarbarianweird · 7 months

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Astarion's dhampir daughter headcanon P.3

P.1 P.2 P.4

Ok, I will eventually write a fic about her but I am too embarassed about my writing XD

But Alethaine Ancunin has already occupied a big piece of my heart and mind

Masterlist

Headcanons

A talented necromancer, Alethaine has the darkest sense of humor on the Swords Coast

The first spell she learned was Fear - whispering the worst nightmares in her enemies' ears

As an elf and a dhampir, she possesses what people call "unnatural beauty," but she doesn't like to rely on her looks

People mostly assume she is an "elven maiden," but she likes to scare strangers away, demonstrating her fangs

"Yes, I am an elven maiden. But my dad is a vampire. Hope it won't be a problem?"

"I don't drink blood to survive, but I do enjoy the taste."

Tav taught her to survive in the wilderness for months, but, gods, does Alethaine love gowns, balls, and opulence

Astarion taught Alethaine Thieves Cant "just in case"

Some people, upon meeting Alethaine, assume she has some dark backstory and sorrowful childhood ("such a young woman and already a necromancer, she must have been through a lot")

She brushes off all the speculations. "Dad would braid my hair and Mum still calls me "kitten". I had a happy childhood."

Alethaine is disciplined - she has to control the bloodthirsty monster within

She failed once - when she was 17. Bloodthirst took upon her mind, and Alethaine killed two men. Drunk with blood, she wandered the wilderness for a few days until Astarion finally found her and managed to reach out for his daughter

Alethaine was scared and embarrassed - she felt she'd failed her parents, especially Astarion, who she always considered a noble man who never did a single bad thing in his life

Astarion never wanted to tell Alethaine about his past, but he eventually gave up and told her as much as possible

"See, princess, the position of the monster in this family is already taken"

Alethaine eventually left home to see the world. Astarion gave her a dagger as a parting gift. "I know you are more into magic tricks, but, princess, a dagger is a dagger"

Does someone need to raise the dead to interrogate them? "Pass me a shovel, handsome, you will get your answers in no time"

Alethaine's first love was an elf-bard. The bard composed a song about her, "The Girl Who Dances with the Dead"

Coz why not dance with the dead if you can?

#astarion headcanon #bg3 astarion #astarion being a dad #astarion's daughter alethaine #astarion has a daughter in my headcanon cause why not its mine #astarion x tav #astarion bg3 #astarion headcanons #astarion romance #astarion #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #alethaine ancunin #dadstarion #spacebarbarian headcanon #meet the dhampirs #dhampirs of the sword's coast #dnd

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spacebarbarianweird · 6 months

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Astarion Dhampir Daughter Headcanon P.4

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

She always dresses like "this woman who has buried three husbands and is ready to bury the fourth one."

When she was a kid, Astarion would sew her dresses - they were supposed to be both practical and pretty, with a lot of hidden pockets.

Even though a few centuries old, Alethaine still carries her father's dagger in her boot (the one he gave her when she was 19).

She never allowed anyone to touch her silver waist-length hair.

Only Tav was allowed to brush and braid them.

When Tav died, Alethaine cut the hair short in grief.

Regretting it immediately since elven hair takes centuries to grow back.

They grew back faster than Alethaine expected, but to her own dislike, they weren't silver anymore. They were raven black, more suited for a dhampir.

For a decade, she lived in Dhampir Freehold, the city founded by the oldest of the Underdark spawns' children.

Unluckily, dhampirs are solitary creatures, and the history of the Freehold ended in worshipping abyssal demons and bloodshed.

Alethaine, having much better intuition and being a skilled necromancer, had managed to escape before things went south.

She has a living beating heart, but undead blood runs in her veins.

The blood which enables immunity to vampirism because no vampire would be able to feed on dhampirs.

Alethaine's blood smells like sagebrush.

Druidic protection circles and the divine light hurt her.

Along with the sun.

Of course, she can walk in the sunlight, but it makes her head hurt.

She is fluent in Abyssal but sort of didn't expect Abyss to answer back.

Blood is like a drug for dhampirs; it makes them strong but erases their humanity. Alethaine constantly fights the temptation to drink it.

Astarion eventually settled at the sea coast, managing his own piracy empire and being this "man in shadows" no one knows, but everyone fears.

He mostly did this to make sure Alethaine knew where to find him if she desperately needed him.

Because his "little princess" definitely would need her dad's help from time to time.

Despite being a High Elf, Alethaine believed she had no soul and would not be able to reincarnate.

To her own surprise, she met her thiramin, elven soulmate, her star-crossed love.

Erlen, the wood elf prince.

Who didn't expect to see the long-desired light in the eyes of gods damn dhampir.

It's a sin to separate thiramins, but his family decided better to do this than allow "foul vampiric blood" to poison their kin.

They put a spell on Erlen and locked him away and also casted a dozen protection spells, preventing Alethaine from rescuing him.

Well, too bad they weren't afraid to piss Alethaine Ancunin.

Because now they pissed her father.

Who is absolutely heartbroken seeing his daughter exhausted and desperate, begging him to save her love

Crying and cursing in his hands.

And Astarion has a pirate fleet who wouldn't mind whooping some elven asses.

Upon rescuing Elren, Astarion is suspicious of this wood elf he had never seen before.

What if he doesn't treat his daughter accordingly?

Only to realize that if Alethaine was his "princess," she would be the queen to her future husband.

"Just don't hesitate to ask me for help. I will gladly kill a couple self-confident elves for you two."

Alethaine called her firstborn daughter Tav.

Of course, it's a baby name and she will change it to a more appropriate one in a century, but for now, there is little Tav growing among the elves.

And Alethaine hopes she will be at least half as good a "monster" parent for her daughter as Astarion was for her.

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spacebarbarianweird · 1 month

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Damage Received

It's Astarion x Tiriel centered but there is something interesting for Alethaine's fans!

Synopsis: Tiriel was reckless and got severely wounded. Astarion is taking care of her.

Tags: protective Astarion, visions of the future

Thanks @themadlu for beta-reading!

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Headcanons

“Tiriel, watch out!” Astarion calls out for his beloved.

But she doesn’t hear him.

Her eyes glow with orange light, and her body is tense—there is nothing but primal rage in her mind right now.

She swings her two-handed ax and jumps on the enemy, a disgusting ankheg, an insectoid creature Astarion and Tiriel have been tasked to kill.

Tiriel yells but her blade barely scratches the chitin shell. Its claw knocks Tiriel on the ground and in a second the half-elf’s body is squeezed between the pliers.

Astarion hears the sound of broken bones and smells the scent of blood.

Tiriel’s blood.

“NO!” Astarion leaves his ambush. He doesn’t care if his armor is made of leather or if his daggers aren’t a match for the ankheg’s claws.

He won’t let it kill Tiriel.

The monster notices its other enemy, growls, and throws Tiriel away like a broken doll. The woman is smashed against a cave wall and falls on the dirty ground.

“Ig-nis!” fire appears on the tips of his fingers. A small fireball burns the creature’s face. It’s not enough to hurt it—but it’s enough to distract the insect and make it dig under the ground.

Astarion wastes no time and rushes to Tiriel.

Somehow she is still conscious. Her face is pale and her eyes are unfocused.

“Tiriel, we are leaving!” he grabs her hand but she doesn’t move.

“What? No…We can’t…” She can barely speak, her tongue is twisted.

“We go! Now!” Astarion knocks the ax out of her hands and grabs Tiriel’s waist. Thanks to his vampiric strength, he can easily carry her on his shoulder as if she were his captive.

The ground below them shudders and, before Astarion manages to jump on the cave wall, the ankheg breaks out of the ground.

Tiriel, still in a rage, grabs her ax, swings it, and…

The creature pierces her with his claw.

Blood gushes out of her throat. Her eyes stop glowing, and her ax falls to the ground. The insectoid tosses her lifeless body away but, instead of attacking Astarion, disappears under the ground.

It didn’t see him.

Astarion approaches Tiriel. She lies in the pool of her own blood, eyes wide open in shock and pain. Her stomach is turned into a disgusting red mash and her skin is white as if she was a vampire herself.

“Tiriel…” he whispers.

Her gaze is absolutely mindless, she whispers something with her smashed lips.

Astarion suppresses the desire to hug her, to press her against his chest. All the bones in her body are probably broken.

He is going to hurt her even more.

Gods…

He can’t lose her.

Not now, not ever.

“Tiriel… please… don’t… don’t leave me,” he kisses her cheek. “Please…”

Hours later, Astarion sits inside the tent and watches Tiriel. She is all heavily bandaged and he made her drink all the healing potions they were saving “just in case”.

What is worse, they are in the middle of nowhere—no clerics who could perform a ritual, no healers, not anyone.

They are all alone.

The scent of her blood makes him sick—it awakens something carnal in him and he has to suppress it.

“Tiriel,” he whispers, hoping she would respond to him.

If she makes it, he will never let her fight alone. He will never hide in the shadows, tricking the enemy into believing there is no second fighter.

if she…

Astarion should have ascended. To the hells with all those spawns, to the hells with the cycle of abuse. If he had ascended, Tiriel wouldn’t have lied there, wounded and dying. She would have lived a life of comfort with him like she deserved and she wouldn’t have suffered. hells, he could have made her a vampire - and…

He shakes his head.

What is he even thinking about? Tirel would have never forgiven him for ascending. She would have dumped him on the spot. And even he had managed to subdue her…

Tiriel would have never loved him. She would have preferred death to imprisonment in the castle.

It was the right choice back then. Tiriel was so sure he wasn’t a villain that he eventually believed in that, too. Astarion was always wondering how she managed to see his real self, buried and hidden. Where did she take that faith, that love, that… tenderness from?

Freedom and love come with a price.

if she is going to die, he can’t save her.

Tiriel is floating.

She can’t feel her body - but she is grateful for this numbness for she knows the alternative is pain.

The primal rage has already stepped back making Tiriel hollow. She remembers Astarion’s cry, his pleadings. “Please, be alive, please, make it!” he sounded so hurt, so miserable–she wanted to hug him and tell him everything would be alright.

Tiriel has never been a devotee—stuck between two worlds, she’s felt abandoned by both elven and human gods. People of the Sunset Mountains believe the souls feast with their ancestors. Elves believe their souls go to Arvandor for reincarnation. But what happens to half-elves?

Tiriel can’t go to reverie, her soul is new, it doesn’t have past reincarnations–and she will never have one. Will her ancestors welcome her in their savage paradise? Tiriel is sure they won’t. Besides, she doesn’t want to feast with them.

So what will happen to her?

Where will her soul go?

And Astarion… What will happen to him?

Tiriel suddenly realizes she is standing in a beautiful hall with a huge window.

An elven castle.

Tiriel doesn’t need to look closely to know who built this place and who lives there.

Elves.

A place of magical beauty–ancient and new at the same time.

Tiriel notices she isn’t alone.

An elven woman with waist-length and silver hair sits by the table with a red-haired girl on her lap. The woman’s dress is pitch black and her hair crowns a delicate tiara–Tiriel immediately knows she is a nobility, etriel, maybe even a queen if this place is a kingdom.

She holds her daughter gently but there is a menace coming from her. This elven lady knows dark secrets and she will rip anyone apart if anyone dares to threaten her little girl.

Tiriel’s heart aches. But who is she jealous of? Of the woman? Or of the girl?

“... Who was this tiefling?” the girl asks in Elven and her mother gently touches her ears.

“He is my friend. Theris.”

“You said you would stab him!”

“Hm, maybe friends is the wrong word,” the woman answers lazily. “We are… cousins.”

“But he is a tiefling! And you are an elf! Like me and Dad!”

Tiriel approaches them. The girl is adorable—like any elven child. It’s difficult to say how old she is, but Tiriel thinks she is about six. Her red hair is the color of fire and her pale skin is scattered with freckles. Her huge green eyes look at the world without fear.

As for her mother….

She could have been Astarion’s sister.

Silver hair. Pointy ears of the same perfect shape. The shape of her nose, the same pale skin. The eyes are different though, raven black, matching the dress.

She has three rings on her elegant fingers and none of them are elven—all blood red, more suitable for a vampire lady or a dark witch.

“I am a dhampir, Tiri,” the woman says and bares her fangs.” Do elves have fangs like that?”

Tiri giggles and touches her mother’s canines. The woman makes a playful movement as if trying to bite her which makes the girl laugh even louder.

“Let’s carry you to bed.”

“I had a dream today.”

“Oh, and what was that?”

“I was flying on a dragon across the Trackless Sea.”

“Well, maybe you saw your own future,” The woman kisses her daughter’s cheek and carries her away from the hall.

Tiriel wants to follow them but instead, she is mesmerized by the decorations of the castle. Elves do know beauty.

Soon she hears light footsteps. The elf is back. She stretches her arms like a lazy cat.

The first rays of the sun pierce through the window. The woman puts her face in the light and smiles.

Like Astarion would do when he was immune to the sun.

The elf opens her arms and takes a step forward.

And starts dancing.

She dances in complete silence almost making no sound with her bare feet. Her black dress resembles shadows over her pale body. There is something weird about her movements—they are elegant and vibrant and, at the same time, there is something off with them, as if she was a resurrected ghoul.

She is alive and undead at the same time.

Old and young.

A girl and a hag.

A witch and a queen.

Tiriel can’t take her eyes off her.

The dhampir keeps moving closer to the balcony. Tiriel follows her and now she finally can stop staring.

“I didn’t know you knew how to dance, Alethaine,'' a soft voice breaks the silence. A man with long blond hair and in green traveling clothes sits on a bench. His boots are covered with dirt and there are leaves in his hair.

A familiar, a lynx, lies under the bench.

“I have many talents, salen thiramin,” Alethaine answers in Common. “Though the last time I danced was two centuries ago. At the ball of those arrogant human nobles.”

“I thought you liked them.”

“It was nice enough to live up to my standards—but all these humans withered and died faster than I learned their names, Elren.”

Alethaine returns to the floor and sits near the bench. Elren intertwines his fingers in her hair.

Alethaine doesn’t move, allowing her thiramin to do whatever he wants.

“I am going to leave the isle for a few months. I have no fucking idea what Theris did and why he remembered my existence—but I am too curious not to learn”

“Hm, never knew your half-dead heart could show compassion towards other dhampirs,” he chuckles.

“Nonsense, Elren. We are like the grandchildren of that human king who made a hundred children within his pathetic human life, lived up to a century, and once he died his grandchildren started a war to get the throne. We don’t like each other, we miss the years when we thought we were the only ones and we both have a parent whose life was ruined by a pathetic cunt of a vampire lord.”

Elren takes Alethaine’s hand and kisses her fingers. It’s a weird mix of passion and chastity and Tiriel finally realizes she probably shouldn't be staring at someone else's private life.

“You are a much better person than you think, Alethaine.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, darling. I am a dhampir and a necromancer. It’s already a moral effort not to curse the sacred groves. Those druids are so obnoxious! I am the queen of this island and your wife and they refuse to let me in!” She laughs.

“Well, I think you would turn upside down any druid who would dare go to your dungeons. Besides, I thought you hated druidic magic.”

“Hm, I am three hundred and twenty years old. I am way past hating anyone. Well, except for anyone who prays to Lathander—I have personal issues with ‘the enemy of the undead’”.

Elren laughs and starts listing things his wife and queen has ever claimed to hate which forces her to offer sarcastic remarks to all of them.

“I’d like to add more points to your list. When I was ten, some unnamed asshole killed the kitten I wanted to foster and forced me to awaken my necromantic abilities. When I was fourteen, a bandit attacked me in the hills and my brain temporarily shut down, for I dined on his blood like a vampire. And let’s not forget the fucking blood witch whose eye I took with my father’s Sussur dagger”

The image blurs and the voices echo as if from a distance.

Suddenly, Alethaine turns her head and stares at the half-elf as if she could see her.

There is longing in her eyes. Sadness. Long-dried tears.

“I wish she were here,” Alethaine says.

“Who?” Elren replies.

“My mother.”

Tiriel wakes up.

She is in a dark room under a thick blanket. All her body hurts, and she can barely move.

And there is a familiar coldness close by.

“As-tarion”

The voice is so weak he barely hears it.

“Water.”

Tiriel’s eyes are wide open. “P-please.”

Astarion snatches a bottle, lifts Tiriel’s head up, and pours a little bit of water into her mouth.

“Tiriel… gods…” Astarion mutters.

“Don’t—don’t cry,” she whispers.

He collapses back near the bed. Tiriel makes an effort to sit up and sees she is wearing a very thin tunic, almost transparent.

Astarion is silent and then he looks at her and she sees anger.

“Tiriel, I will outlive you. I will witness your death regardless. Why do you insist on accelerating the natural process?”

“I am more than fine in battle,” Tiriel gets stubborn.

Asatrion jumps on his feet

“You are not! Look what this monster did to you!”

“I am fine!”

“Yes! Thanks to my skills I opened up a chest deep down the cave and there were healing potions! What if I hadn't found them? What if… “ his shoulders shudder and he sniffs.

Triel feels a knot in her stomach.

She was reckless. She didn’t think about anything except for her rage, just like she did all her life.

But the thing is…

She isn’t alone anymore.

Love is a new concept for her. Family, care—she has never had it. No one cared for her, a strong and fierce barbarian woman. And she never cared for anyone. if she bled—she bled alone. And if she was about to die, it was only her business.

But not anymore.

Tiriel makes an effort to sit up but the moment she does it a sharp pain pierces her body and she whimpers quietly.

Astarion immediately returns to her side. “Don’t move.”

He puts his head on her chest and Tiriel caresses his hair.

“I love you,” she whispers. “I am sorry I scared you. I am so sorry.”

He nuzzles into her collarbone. “I can’t lose you, Tiriel,” he confesses. “I can’t lose you. Not now.”

“And you won’t,” She kisses his bite mark and then puts her palm in the center of his back scars. Before, those parts of his body used to be forbidden for her touch, but, as time progressed, Astarion began wanting her to touch him there.

“I had a weird dream,” Tiriel whispers. “There was a woman… an elf…and she was dancing...” Tiriel suddenly realizes she doesn’t remember much. Only a blurry vision.

The witch-queen of Evermeet.

Tirlel lets her mind wander, not making any unnecessary movement or sound—she wants to allow Astarion to concentrate on her even breath and heartbeat. To be here for him. One day she will die. One day she will leave the material plane.

She doesn’t need to hurry.

Astarion finally relaxes. She is alive. She made it. Of course, she did! This impossible woman can withstand so many things—he shouldn’t have worried in the first place.

Right now he is in her arms, stealing her body heat and listening to the best sound in the world—Tiriel’s heartbeat.

All these long days he was caring for her. Doing all the work as if he were a healer.

He pulls on a thick blanket and bundles himself up. The air around him immediately becomes hot and Astarion feels himself like a kitten in its mother’s paws.

Astarion buries his nose in Tiriel’s chest—he doesn't need to breathe so he can just enjoy the warmth.

Terrible memories still haunt him even though five years were more than enough to collect good ones. But it's still a lottery if it is going to be one more nightmare when he needs to rest.

It’s neither.

He is in the cozy tavern, warm and dark. It’s a blizzard behind its walls. Even Astarion, who usually doesn’t care about the cold, wouldn’t dare to go outside.

There is only one person inside except for the innkeeper.

An elf sits at the table engrossed in a book. She wears black traveling clothes, her silver hair flowing along her back.

Sometimes, Astarion remembers, elves see glimpses of the future, something that’s already been decided but has not happened yet. It’s the first time for Astarion and he concentrates on this new experience.

The elven woman in front of him tries to look menacing but Astarion immediately notices she is rather young, maybe only seventy-year-old. The book she reads is just some tooth-rotting romance young elves love so much. The drink in her mug is something really sweet.

Suddenly the door swings open, letting in the frosty air. The elf gives the stranger a scornful glance and goes back to reading.

“Alethaine!” the stranger, a young human in her fifties bellows. “What the fuck are you doing here?! We told you to get out.”

“I am sorry, are you talking to me?”Alethaine asks.

“I don’t see any other dhampirs around here!”

Alethaine points at the mirror. “Since when do creatures like me and you don’t have reflections?”

The woman bares her fangs. “Don’t make me angry, necromancer. I told you to get out”

The elf shrugs. “Hm, don’t recall. You were yelling a lot of profanities and I stopped listening once you got repetitive. I think you should meet my father. He can teach you how to use verbal insults. Oh, I am sorry, I forgot. You have issues with vampire fathers. Unlike me.”

“ENOUGH!” The human dhampir stands up and raises her hand up to the ceiling. Astarion sees how the blood on her fingertips starts swirling resembling thin ribbons.

Blood magic.

Astarion is afraid, although it’s not real. Blood magic is deadly, unnatural even for vampires.

Alethaine flips the page.

“I DEMAND A DUEL!”

“For fuck’s sake,” Alethaine says. “Do you really have nothing to do except for hunting me in the mountains?” She stands up and Astarion is ready to see a ray of necrotic damage bursting out of her hands.

Instead, Alethaine snatches a dagger from her belt and throws it at the witch right in her eye.

The witch screams as blood floods her face. Alethaine approaches her and pulls the blade out of her empty socket.

“My eye! Elven bitch!”

“Now listen to me carefully,” Alethaine kneels in front of her wiping the dagger. "My father taught me to stab first and not to ask stupid questions like 'Who goes there’, ‘What do you want’, ‘Why do you hate me”. I don’t fucking care what your coven is up to. I don’t want your secrets, your cult, your gold. I just want you to leave me alone. And if you,” Alethaine returns to the table, “stand in my way once again, I will take your second eye.”

As if nothing happened, Alethaine sits back and picks up the book. The blood witch disappears in the blizzard.

Astarion tries to take a better look at Alethaine, but the vision gets blurry, disappearing in the fog of time.

Unlike Tiriel who remembers the vision of a dancing “witch-queen”, Astarion’s dream fades away the moment he opens his eyes.

But the name is engraved in his mind to be put to use years later.

When Astarion holds his newborn daughter for the first time.

Alethaine refers to the events taken place in The Dead, the Half-Dead and the Undead and The Monster

Tag list

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spacebarbarianweird · 2 months

Text

Monster

I left you all wondering what happened to Astarion's daughter in the end of The Tainted Past - so, here is the next part!

Synopsis: There is a monster within Alethaine Ancunín - a bloodthirsty beast she inherited from her vampire father.

And it's difficult to control.

Tags: dadstarion, trauma talk, dhampirs, hurt/comfort

Alethaine's age: 14 years old

Thanks @themadlu for beta-reading!

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Headcanons I wanted to show this dark side of being a dhampir - that it's not this "oh so sweet, Astarion has a daughter". Astarion's daughter belongs to very a rare race and no one in the whole world can tell her what to expect from her own body and mind - and it comes with complications

The dead body has been completely drained. There are no wounds except for a ripped throat, as if an animal tore the flesh out.

Astarion kneels in front of the corpse. A human man in rags—probably just a bandit or a misfortunate adventurer.

“They think it was you,” Tiriel says, digging a grave.

“Darling, they should know that I wouldn’t hide a body. And I am not that messy,” Astarion easily picks up the corpse and puts it into the dug hole. “Well, I would also know if there was another vampire around. We are apex predators, after all.”

That’s why they were allowed to stay in Daggerlake. It’s always better to have a vampire of your own.

Astarion would know if a rival appeared in the area. He would catch their scent from miles away.

And Atsarion knows there are no vampires except for him near the Unicorn’s Rim.

“Do you think she could do it?” Tiriel finally asks.

Astarion doesn’t answer and takes his wife's hand. But he doesn’t know if he wants to assure her of something or if he needs to feel the stable ground himself.

Alethane, their dhampir daughter.

Three days ago she left to gather mushrooms in the hills. Astarion would never call himself a strict parent nor would Tiriel. Alethaine is allowed many more things than girls of her age are. But one of the rules she has to follow without excuses—never be outside the town walls after dark.

If she isn’t back home by sunset, Astarion immediately leaves to pick her up—and usually, they just meet each other halfway home.

Three days ago she wasn’t back by sunset. She wasn’t back an hour after it. By midnight, Astarion finally left to go looking for her, hoping she had either found something interesting in the graveyard or hung with someone from the town—they live under the surface and it is sometimes difficult to keep track of time.

Alethaine was nowhere to be seen.

What was worse, he couldn’t catch her scent anywhere. One of the things that make dhampirs so deadly for vampires is their invisibility. Astarion barely feels her presence when she is close.

Very unfair, considering Alethaine is one of two people he desires to protect.

“Do you think she could do it?’ Tiriel repeats. “Kill this man?”

“I don’t know.”

“But?”

“Well, there are no vampires around. His throat is mutilated and I don’t see any bite marks. But he has been drained by a bloodsucker, that’s for sure. But honestly, vampires and dhampirs aren’t the only creatures who—”

Tiriel touches his left ear to return him to reality. She looks composed and ready for battle. No one would think she is a mother whose child has been lost. But Astarion knows Tiriel wants to cry and scream deep inside—so does he.

But it won’t help. They need to find Alethaine. There are thousands of awful things that can happen to a fourteen-year-old girl.

“We need to go looking.”

Astarion nods.

They have been searching restlessly. Alone and with other townspeople.

And then they found a corpse.

It was a man in rags, with a rusty dagger at his belt. Devastated, with his throat torn open. No one recognized him, but Astarion could feel the strange looks his neighbors were casting at him.

The body reminded them of who Astarion truly was.

“Alethaine doesn’t drink blood,'' he says to Tiriel. “I don’t think she even knows how to do it!”

“Does it need a lot of practice? I mean, what happens if a dhampir drinks blood?”

“I have no fucking idea.”

Astarion sits on the ground as if suddenly it were difficult to walk. Three days. A lot of bad things can happen in three days. Yes, Alethaine is as strong as him. Yes, she has deadly fangs. But it just gives her some advantage. Chain her in silver (that leaves burns on her skin), beat her—break her bones, rip her clothes. And she is no different than any other little girl helpless in the hands of strangers.

Tiriel sits beside him. “Love, it will dawn soon, you need to go back home. I will keep looking.”

He puts his head on her shoulder. “Let’s move a bit further and I will return.” He feels tears burning his eyes.

It’s his fault. He should have gone looking for her immediately. And curse be the healer, why did she need those mushrooms that day?!

“If something happened to Alethaine—'' Astarion bares his fangs. “I will find everyone responsible and massacre them.”

“I will gladly join. But we need to go. Damn, what if the innkeeper is right in saying she just ran away? She is an elf after all! Don't we all suffer from wanderlust? I mean, how often do elven children run away? Even you… It is obvious you didn’t have relatives in Baldur's Gate and no one was looking for you. Maybe you ran away too? You just don’t remember!”

Tiriel tries to hide her fears and anxiety. Astarion knows her so well that he understands she is about to break down.

How many parents believe their dead children just ran away?

“Maybe she heard those shadows calling for her,'' Tiriel continues. “They just told her to go to some motherfucking Thay to fulfill some dark prophecy? If you are born a sorcerer, the source of your magic calls upon you.”

Astarion stands up from the ground and takes Tiriel's hand. Then he presses his forehead to hers.

“Then we are going to whatever place she went to, whoop her ass and then interrogate her on whether she did this on her own free will.”

“You really need to go home.”

“I will use the tunnels the moment morning comes. I won’t leave you alone.”

Tiriel kisses him and then walks forward into the forest.

When it gets so dark, even dark vision is of little help. Astarion feels a sense of unease.

He brushes the feeling away—just anxiety. Just fear. But the feeling intensifies—and Astarion draws his dagger.

Something evil is staring at him from the dark, something that can murder him on the spot. Something any vampire should be afraid of.

Tiriel sees it too.

She grabs Astarion’s hand and points among the trees.

“Astarion… Don’t fucking tell me it’s our daughter.”

Astarion looks to where she is pointing and freezes.

He should have found the cure before making a child.

The monster is on the loose.

Chained in the cage since the moment it was born, it is finally free.

Blood. Blood. Blood.

Such a divine substance is full of life and warmth. It makes the heart beat so fast. So many scents, so many colors, so many sounds.

The monster enjoys this world.

And wants to destroy it.

The first one was easy. Fangs pierced the artery and the monster ravished every drop of spilled blood. And the fear! It was so sweet!

Then there was a hunt. The monster feared going to the town—too many people were too dangerous. It was better to chase prey in the wild.

Hunt makes blood thicker.

The next one was found easily. He was sleeping and didn't even understand who killed him. Pity. He wasn’t afraid.

And then the sun appeared in the sky, and the monster felt out of place. The sun didn't hurt, but it was disgusting. The monster didn't like the sun and hid underground in dark tunnels full of small creatures, not as tasty as humans, but still nice.

Then it was the woods. And a few more victims. Scared, screaming. The monster was hungry. Unsatiated. No amount of blood could ease its starving.

The monster has been walking here for another day or two—hiding from the sun and enjoying the darkness. More blood. Sentient blood. To satiate it, to make it full. To destroy those mortal chains that dared to lock the monster in.

The monster catches a scent.

A vampire.

The monster squints. Undead blood is useless but how does it feel to kill another monster? Maybe it is going to be fun!

There is a mortal beside the vampire. Hot blood. Warm. Desirable.

This one is going to fight.

The monster bares its fangs and moves closer.

“Alethaine,” the mortal whispers. The vampire pushes her aside and stands between them.

The name is familiar. Something deep inside the monster stirs.

Alethaine. Alethaine Ancunin.

The monster hisses to shut this voice and jumps on the vampire. He easily throws the monster away from him and before it manages to stand up and attack again the mortal hits it with the hand of her ax.

As the monster lies in the dirt shrieking and screaming the woman presses her knee into the monster's back restricting its movements.

“Astarion, give me the rope!”

The vampire tries to tie the monster’s hands but his movements are clumsy, and his hands shake. The monster releases itself and bites the vampire’s hand.

The undead blood gushes into the monster’s throat.

It’s so bitter it makes the monster scream. It whines and whimpers like a beaten dog.

The vampire pushes the monster to the ground, grasping its throat.

“Alethaine,” his voice is soft and caring. “Alethaine, it’s us, mum and dad. We’ve found you. Please, Alethaine, return to us.”

The mortal crawls to them and restricts the monster's wrists. “Kitten, it’s us, we are taking you home. Astarion, take your hand away!”

“She will attack you!”

“Please, I know what I’m doing!”

The monster tries to bite the woman but she appears to be much stronger than a regular mortal should be and hugs the monster forcing its ear against her chest.

The heartbeat is so loud, so familiar…

Mother.

The realization hits the monster hard. It wants more of this warmth, more of this heartbeat…

But it’s not its to claim.

Tiriel feels how Alethaine’s muscles relax. Her own heartbeat restarts as the vampiric possession fades away.

Astarion caresses Aletaine’s back, ready to fight once again.

Suddenly Alethaine breaks the embrace and falls to the ground. She looks horrible—her silver hair is dark gray, face is covered in bruises, dirt, and scratches. Her dress is in rags, pale legs are bloodstained. Her feet are bare and her nails are all broken, as if she had to dig her way out from a grave.

The dhampir presses her legs against her chest and looks around like a scared kitten.

“Alethaine it’s us,” Tiriel touches her cheek. “It’s us.”

“Mum… dad…” Her voice is hoarse. “I am… sorry.”

Astarion hugs her and bursts into tears. Tiriel takes Alethaine’s hands in hers. “Thank gods you are alive.”

“I want to go home,” she whines. “Please.”

“Of course,” Astarion takes the cape off Tiriel’s shoulders. The cold air burns her bare skin.

Astarion wraps the girl in the fabric making sure her legs are covered and then takes her in his hands.

Their way home passes in silence. Alethaine is half-conscious in her father’s arms and both Astarion and Tiriel are too exhausted to talk. They have to take underground tunnels as the dawn approaches and Tiriel thinks she will never be able to walk in there without having flashbacks.

Astarion is too immersed in his own thoughts and Tiriel knows they will have a lot to talk about once Alethaine is taken care of.

“I will go fetch the healer,” Tiriel says once they see the town light in the distance.

“No!” Alethaine almost screams. “No. I don't want to! Please, I just want to go home!”

She cries, begging not to involve anyone else and Tirel gives up. Astarion doesn’t say anything.

An hour later, when they close the door into their house and Astarion prepares the bath for Alethaine, Tiriel has to suppress her exhaustion to do one more thing before collapsing on her bed.

...Alethaine sits motionless on a bench as Tiriel carefully takes the dirty rags of her. The dress is completely destroyed and Tiriel just throws it all on the floor.

Then she takes her daughter in her arms and carefully puts her into the water.

Alethaine is silent and just stares in the distance as Tiriel washes her hair and skin

Astarion approaches the closed door a few times asking if everything is alright. Alethaine flinches every time he does that and Tiriel asks him to go and prepare some food.

“Alethaine, Kitten, do you want to tell me anything?”

She shakes her head and hides her face. She resembles her father way too much. The same pale skin, the same facial features.

The same posture as Tiriel rubs her back.

Tiriel suppresses her desire to look at Alethaine’s inner thighs to see if she has bruises down there, a clear indication of an assault.

“Mum,” Alethaine finally says.

“What is it, Kitten?”

“How many people did I kill?”

Tiriel doesn't expect this question.

“I remember four,” she continues, “Including the one who attacked me”

Tiriel spills water on her hair. The dirt won't wash away.

“What happened to you?” Tiriel squeezes her thin shoulder. “What did he do to you?”

Please, Tiriel thinks, don't say you don't remember.

“Someone pushed me to the ground and tried to rip the corsage of my dress. I bit him. There was so much blood it gushed down my throat and then…I started drinking.”

Alethaine shivers and Tiriel sighs in relief. Well, the fucker got what he deserved. She hopes his death was truly painful.

“And that's all?’

“That's all. Then… I lost myself. And I killed. I wanted blood.”

Alethaine sobs.

“Kitten, it's all right. You are home, you are safe!"

“No! You don't understand! Mother, look at me! LOOK AT ME!” The dhampir jumps on her feet and almost falls back into the water. “I am a monster, an abnormality!”

Alethaine cries and pierces the broken nails on her scalp. “You shouldn't have given birth to me!”

She returns back to the water and keeps crying.

“But I did give birth to you,” Tiriel says and takes her hand in hers. “And I knew who you might be.”

Alethaine sniffs and flinches as Tiriel kisses her forehead.

Astarion bandages his wrist. The dhampir’s bite itches and the vampire is fascinated with the way his own wounded flesh looks. Instead of being healed in a blink of an eye, it still bleeds.

Alethaine makes him, Astarion, normal.

He can’t catch her scent, he can’t hear her if she whispers and it seems like her fangs don’t care about vampiric regeneration.

You shouldn’t have given birth to me…

The words he heard from upstairs stuck in his mind. Poor girl. Wasn’t it selfish of him to have a child when he was and is a vampire? It’s not like he deliberately impregnated Tiriel—who knew that the amount of blood he’d consumed aligned with the few days in a year when she, a half-elf, could conceive?

Astarion thinks he can hear Cazador’s laughter.

And how many of those kids are there? 7000 spawns released in the Underdark have probably fathered a few hundred kids within those thirty-four years. How many pale, bloodthirsty kids wander around Faerun, lost and disoriented, first of their kind with no one to tell them who they are and what they are supposed to do?

Lonely, scared children.

He hears footsteps and Alethaine enters the kitchen. She wears her house dress, as black as the rest of her clothes, and a shawl on her shoulders. Her silver hair is still wet but it has returned to its normal color.

Astarion puts the plate in front of his daughter and the girl immediately starts eating. She eats in silence like a person who has been starved for weeks.

“I am going to sleep,” Tiriel says.

“Don’t worry,” Astarion kisses her cheek. Thirty-four years and he still can’t have enough of this woman. “I will keep an eye on her.”

“The first man we found tried to assault her and she ripped his throat. She says she killed two more in the woods.”

Astarion feels a wave of rage. The bastard should be happy he died three days ago because he would have found a way to torture him.

When Astarion returns to the kitchen, Alethaine has already pushed the plate away and now stares at the herbal tea in front of her as if trying to see something in there.

“I am a monster who killed a few innocent people,” she says.

Astarion sits beside her.

“You must be ashamed of me,” she adds.

Astaron would sigh if he breathed. When Alethane was born he swore she would never learn anything about his past. This darkness must not affect her. But it seems like it was dumb to think he could father a dhampir and avoid talking about his own past.

“Alethaine, when I was enslaved, I wasn't just being locked in the dungeons of my master’s mansion,” he starts. “I had a mission. Vampire spawns don’t have free will. We were puppets. A word, a gesture—and we do anything.”

Alethaine looks at him with her raven-dark eyes. Astarion continues.

“My job was to bring him food.”

“What do you mean?”

“I would find a misfortune person—someone no one would look for. A stranger, a traveler, a drunkard. Anyone. And bring them to the mansion.” Astarion avoids the exact way he performed his duty. “When my master fed on them, they became spawns and he locked them in cells. I thought I was in hell all these centuries but I was at least lucky not to be confined. I murdered those people. I ruined them. At the beginning I cared, I—I felt bad. Tried to off myself by stepping into the sun and for that, I was flayed. Then I just stopped caring. I don’t remember most of them. When I met your mother, I cared only about my own safety—I needed her to help me to stay free,” he chuckles. “But instead I fell for her. And I had the worst nightmares—you see, your mother fits very well into the description of my regular victims. A stranger without a soul knowing her in Baldur’s Gate. A lonely traveler no one will look for. In another life, where the mind flayers hadn't wreaked havoc in the city, I would have found your mother in the inn in the Lower City and brought her to an eternity of pain and misery.”

Aletahine turns away. The information has shocked her, that's for sure

Astarion switches to Elven and tugs his daughter closer.

“Princess, I would lie if I said you were normal or nothing was odd with you. You are a dhampir, a very peculiar creature, half-undead. Your blood smells like mugwort, you crawl on the ceiling and your bites still bleed. But you are not a monster, if anything I am. You didn’t act on your free will. Like I didn’t. There is no point in torturing yourself. We don’t blame warriors for killing their brothers-in-arms when they were under the “dominate a person” spell. Again, I would lie if I told you I know what you are supposed to do with your nature, it’s up to you to decide. But whatever happened wasn’t your fault.”

“But I am dangerous!”

“So am I. But Tiriel has been sharing a bed with me for many decades; she gives me her blood when I need to, trusting that I won't take more than I need. Our neighbors accepted me in this town under the promise that I would only bite strangers. Every day I go outside and hunt. That’s my nature. Your mother goes into the wild ready to fight any enemy she meets—and that’s her nature. Yours is different. We didn’t choose what we are, you and me. I was turned against my will, you were born like that. Freedom is about the choices we make.”

They sit in silence and in complete darkness.

“Princess, do you want anything to make you feel better?”

Alethaine shakes her head. She needs to be alone with her thoughts.

Astarion goes upstairs and collapses on the bed beside Tiriel. She, deep in her sleep, clings to him.

“I love you,” he mutters into her half-elven ear and he thinks she smiles.

The sun is shining brightly over the Unicorn’s Rim. Its rays wash the land in its warmth and the young dhampir basks in the sunlight like a cat.

Alethaine felt restless in the quiet house after both of her parents went to sleep. Astarion was probably just laying beside his wife and was aware their daughter left home.

The dhampir opens her arms up. The nightmarish hunt and bloodlust feel like a distant fever, but she knows the monster is still down there, deep inside her mind, ready to go off the chain.

She needs answers.

Her father’s books have very few details about dhampirs and they're even incorrect.

Alethaine Ancunin needs to figure things out on her own.

Tomorrow, she will ask her parents to train her. To teach how to survive in the wilderness, to pick up locks, to fight, and to shoot arrows. And when she is ready, she will go away to find out what it truly means to be a dhampir.

She tilts her head up and sees the tiny silhouette of a dragon soaring high in the skies.

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