#astarion needs to look more ghoulish | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

brabblesblog · 4 months

Text

Ch 12: If ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love.

Astarion has ascended, and she has stayed with him. Life in the Crimson Palace isn’t as idyllic as it seems. Is there a chance for their relationship to go back to how it was? Or is it too late for the Ascendant and his consort?

This series is about Ban, my Tav, and the Vampire Ascendant. Will be angst and smut, with sprinkles of fluff.

This fic is a softer take on Ascendant!Astarion and of the changes he undergoes after the rite. Can Ban handle the change, and if a chance came, would she choose to run? And can the Ascendant win her back in time? Inspired by the concept of vampire wives and that IGN interview with Larian that discussed the ascension.

Professionally edited by @editing-by-night

Astarion and Ban's happiness isn't as long lived as they had hoped.

Read on AO3.

Masterlist.

BONUS: I've been listening to this song for this fic. Enjoy!

Astarion awakened at dawn’s first light, and first expected his hand to fall upon thin air. Instead he grasped Ban’s side and she shifted, unwillingly stirring at his touch.

“It’s too early,” she grumbled, trying to swat his hand off. Instead he pulled her tight against him, and for a few minutes they struggled with each other playfully, ending with the Ascendant pinned beneath his beloved.

“What was the point of all these powers,” he lamented, “If you can just hold me down like this?”

“Let’s see,” she mused, leaning down to leave a trail of kisses from his temple to his jaw. “Walking in the sun, turning into a bat, or mist… summoning ghoulish minions… what’s not to like?”

“Touché.” He took a moment to try to flip her; she merely raised an eyebrow and tightened her hips around his midsection, holding him down more securely.

He growled, without heat, and gave up. Laughing at his predicament, Ban pinned him down a little longer to pepper more kisses along his throat, and then climbed off.

“I need to go to the Elfsong to get my things,” she said, rising from the bed and tugging a pair of trousers on.

Astarion watched from the bed, utterly unperturbed. “Of course, love. Shall I meet you for lunch somewhere?”

He’d been dining with her of late to allow her to enjoy the taste of human food.

“Sure.” She pulled her shirt over her head. “Blushing Mermaid?”

He snorted derisively at her choice of location, but nodded. “I’ll see you there.”

He watched as she left on foot; she hadn’t been taking the carriage recently. He’d wondered about it, had considered asking her why, but even he could feel that there was still much left unsaid when it came to Ban - and with how tentative their relationship felt, he didn't dare push.

Astarion tilted his cup, sipping his morning tea on the balcony as Ban’s figure receded in the distance. There was still a slight worry whenever she left, a niggling feeling he resented himself for harboring. As she disappeared from sight he turned to head inside, ready for today’s tasks.

Ban entered her room in the Elfsong, stopping dead in her tracks the moment she got a look inside. There was something… off about the way everything looked. She looked down at the book she was reading. It was sitting just where she’d left it, but upon closer inspection she noticed that it was opened to the wrong page.

The wind could have blown it to another page, she rationalized to herself, but when she looked up to check, the windows were closed. They had been ever since she’d started renting this room. She frowned, then took another cursory glance.

I didn’t leave my pack open, did I? She approached and opened it, then turned it over, spilling its contents out onto the bed. Ban took inventory; there was a dawning sense of unease as she concluded that seemingly nothing had been taken.

Someone had been in her room, had rummaged through her things, but had taken nothing. She immediately looked for her greatsword, and to her relief it was right where she’d left it, leaning against the wall.

A sigh of relief escaped her. A precious relic in and of itself, she valued that sword all the more for the memories it had borne witness to, for all the times it had saved their lives. Odd, that it hadn’t been taken.

She crossed the room in two strides and picked up the heavy blade. It seemed fine; she checked the grip and crossguard for any untoward substances that could indicate sabotage or poison. Nothing, yet again.

Curious.

There were always threats, of course. Being the hero of Baldur’s Gate brought accolades and honors, but it also ensured that everyone knew who you were, or at least had a passing idea of your deeds. Few however know her face, or that she was now undead, or that she had been living in the Elfsong for some time.

Few, but not none. She felt all the more glad she was leaving.

Ban gathered her possessions, trying to get everything to fit into her pack. It was a struggle, with all the clothes and random trinkets she had been bringing back from her visits to the palace requiring more space than she had been expecting.

“Fucking hells,” she groaned to herself, slinging the bulging pack over one shoulder and her sheathed greatsword over the other. She regretted not asking for the carriage, but there was no point thinking about that now.

Not taking the carriage had been a deliberate choice. She had felt rather trapped by it, by the idea of one of Astarion’s servants sitting there, waiting for her to run whatever errands she had that day. It made her feel like he was still keeping her on a leash - a leash with more slack, granted, but a leash nevertheless.

Still, Ban found herself grateful for the fact that he never argued against it. He had even stopped offering the carriage’s services, and although she could see the burning question in his eyes, Astarion had so far kept his mouth shut.

She knew his eyes always followed her as she walked out of the palace each day, that he stood at the balcony with his cup of tea, watching her as she departed. It gratified her, knowing just how much she occupied his thoughts, but there was also a sense of foreboding, the knowledge of just how easily such affection from the Ascendant could morph into possessiveness.

Ban slowly made her way out of the room after one final visual sweep, taking the stairs down and dreading the trudge to the Blushing Mermaid.

Ban loved him; she knew that without a doubt. She’d been smitten the moment she’d laid eyes on him, and loved him the moment he’d asked her to join him in the clearing. The moment he’d walked out from behind the tree and she had backed him against it, his body an easy, comfortable weight in her arms, she had been his - to manipulate, to seduce. To come to love, eventually.

With loving Astarion came understanding and forgiveness for everything he had inflicted on her. However, even she couldn’t deny the wounds would take time to heal - and that doing so would require her to actually communicate with the Ascendant about her feelings. A daunting prospect, but something she knew had to be done if they were to last.

Ban was distracted on her path by a beggar reaching into her pack and nicking the first thing his hands could reach, a pouch of coin. She turned and tried to give chase, swift despite the overfilled pack and greatsword on her back. The man turned a corner and she followed, intending to grab his wrist and demand her coin back. A silly thing to be doing, considering the wealth Astarion and she now enjoyed, but in the moment indignation won out.

She rounded the corner into a dim, covered alley, belatedly realizing she and the thief weren’t alone.

Immediately she tried to reach for her blade. She was, however, out of practice, and her reflexes had become far too slow.

Hands grabbed her - cold, strong fingers digging into her arms and shoulders. She tried to shove them off, but with a dawning sense of horror she realized that the hands holding her were just as cold as she. Vampires, she thought, but the knowledge wasn't much help at all. Not when there were six of them here, in a dark alley that only led to darker alleys. The only escape would be to try to fight them off and run to the sunlight, but the fact that they were all clothed in heavy, hooded cloaks made it unlikely to be successful.

She had been a little wary of Vel Stedez and his coven, and thus had kept her guard up at nights, staying mostly within the areas near the Elfsong. But the daytime attack took her completely by surprise.

They had obviously been to her room, or had at least hired someone to snoop for them. They had probably been watching her for days. Somewhere in the back of Ban’s agitated mind, she wondered why they’d taken her today, but then it occurred to her - they had seen her come out with her bags. They couldn’t reach her if she moved back into the palace. Realizing that their window of opportunity was closing, they had struck.

She froze as she felt something pressed against her chest, between her breasts. She looked down and saw the beggar aiming a stake at her heart.

“If you don’t want to have an unpleasant time, bride,” one of the vampires muttered, “Come quietly.”

Ban struggled. The stake pressed harder, drawing a tiny bit of blood. Growling, she dug her heels in, preparing for a fight-

She heard one of her captors utter an incantation and the others’ grips on her tightened. Belatedly, she realized which spell was being cast. Eyebite. Shit. The effect was instantaneous - she gasped, thrashing in her captors’ grasp, terror flooding her system.

In her blind panic, she failed to reach out to Astarion’s mind. Her mind focused entirely on her surroundings and the vampires holding her in place and the stake burning into her flesh, mere inches away from ending her. The panic was all-consuming, unlike anything she’d ever felt before.

There had been little cause to consider that she might ever be in any real danger, especially these past few weeks, with her and Astarion reveling in each other’s company and their renewed affection for one another. They had been too swept up in their relationship and hadn’t really considered taking the time to maintain their defensive skills. They had forever, after all.

This, Ban realized, may cost her her unlife.

Do I try to fight them off? Or do I let them take me?

The fighter in her rejected the idea of surrendering, pushing her terror to the side in her fury. She growled and bared her fangs, tensing her whole body.

“He’s not coming for me, you know. We aren’t together anymore.”

Buy it. Please. Fucking buy it!

The same vampire, probably the leader of this little group, laughed.

“Sure, princess. Sure.”

The stake dug in harder, pressing deeper.

Ban’s panic rushed back to the forefront and she froze once more.

One of her captors grabbed her pack and the sword from her back, handing them to one of the other vampires with a smirk.

“You won’t need that where we’re going,” he sneered.

They began marching her, the beggar still making sure the stake was never lifted from her chest.

They approached a carriage, black and otherwise unadorned. She braced herself, thinking this might be her final chance to break free, twisting against the grip they had on her. The panic had yet to subside, but she knew that it would be harder to escape once inside the carriage. She managed to shove off one of the two, but before she could do more, they hit her with the spell again. Sleep, this time.

Ban crumpled, and was unceremoniously shoved inside.

Astarion sat in the carriage as it made its way through the city, rearranging his waistcoat absently. Like Ban, he had been contemplating their relationship in light of last night’s events.

He had known she’d bought into his lies. She had been the easiest - tavern drunks aside - mark he’d ever had, melting into his hands like putty at the simplest of touches, at coquetry so obvious that any fool would have seen through it. She had even offered him her blood nightly, an act so hilariously saccharine and yet so idiotic that he had no words for it. In the mornings he’d replenished her with the amulet they’d found at the grove, all the while thinking just how well his plan had worked.

He had thought her simple. Just another person smitten with his beauty, enthralled by it. It had been nothing new. She was attractive enough, certainly, with the kind of figure he had not often seen or encountered in his long years of servitude. A boon, as it had made sleeping with her easier to tolerate - even slightly enjoy, if he had been, begrudgingly, honest with himself.

What he hadn’t expected was how she would ask him things. Admittedly they had been simple questions at first, due to his own reluctance to open up - how he was, or how his hunt had gone, or if his crossbows needed cleaning, because she was cleaning her own equipment. Really, just throw them in, she’d offer with a smile. But the asking meant seeing. And no one had seen him. Not for two centuries.

Then there was the way she’d acted during skirmishes.

Brave and unheeding of any danger to herself, charging into the fray, greatsword in hand. But it hadn’t been the courage itself that had so moved him; no. It was the way she would watch where he went, and make sure nothing so much as approached him. And when something inevitably had approached? She would stand back to back with him, his daggers and her sword flowing together in a furious dance, their bodies moving so synchronously that in those moments they’d seemed to be one.

She had made him feel safe. A ridiculous notion, he’d initially tried to tell himself. But that cynicism had rapidly dissolved in the face of her actions. She’d become the one he would run to at the first sign of danger. Hers was the approval he’d slowly begun to seek. Slowly, irrevocably, his heart had been bequeathed to her without his knowledge. At least, not until it had been far too late.

She’d never pushed, willing to take what little scraps of affection he’d been willing to dole out. She had told him that she loved him for him, whatever that meant, and he’d been more than happy to just continue being him, not wanting to look into exactly what she saw. Because he’d thought himself weak. Pathetic. A mere monster with nothing to offer but burdens, who had somehow enraptured someone so deliciously naive it had almost been unfair.

He’d always felt like he’d been taking advantage of her, and that the day she figured that out, she would leave. He’d longed to be better for her, to measure up to whatever vision of him she had. To be worthy of her.

When the rite had fallen into his lap, then, that fact - that need - had galvanized him, spurring his decision to ascend. How could he have refused something that not only would ensure his freedom and spite his former master, but also allow him to give her everything she deserved? A lover of equal power and prowess, one who could stand in the sun with her, who could give her life eternal?

Who would refuse that?

Only she could have talked him down. And she had voiced no real dissent.

And so his love had changed to that hideous, misshapen thing - a shadow of its former self, twisted beyond recognition. It had become obsession, a need to own and to possess. To keep her in a gilded cage, safe and treasured, but also isolated and alone.

The more he’d taken, the more she had distanced herself. And then obsession had become resentment, and their love had died.

But now the embers had caught aflame once more, and here was his chance at redemption.

Would that the gods be so kind that he could finally pull it off.

Astarion cut a path through the sweaty, drunken crowd as he made his way inside the Blushing Mermaid. His well-dressed, rather imposing bearing caused people to instinctively move out of the way, and he quickly found a relatively clean table and pulled out a chair, sitting down.

He didn’t even know why Ban liked this place. He placed both hands on his chin, sighed, and waited.

The seconds turned into minutes, the minutes to an hour. He shifted now and then, watching the doors, his patience slowly giving way to the worry bubbling up in his gut. She didn’t arrive.

Astarion closed his eyes, searching for her mind, then paused. She might find it intrusive, however well-intentioned it would be. Trust her, he reminded himself.

He forced himself to take several deep, calming breaths, fingers steepled together. It didn’t quite work.

He watched in silence as the daylight shifted with the slow waning of the sun.

Three hours. Astarion had been frozen, still as a statue for the past hour, motionless save for the rapid rise and fall of his chest. He finally broke, his worry erupting into a crescendo of fear.

He reached for her mind in desperation, and was met with an awful, devastating wall of silence.

His first and only thought was that she’d closed her mind off to him. Abandoned him again.

His hands, clasped together, dig into each other, the nails drawing blood.

No. It can’t be. She agreed to move back!

He stood abruptly, heading for the exit. He’d get in his carriage and then - then what?

Part of him, the Ascendant, wanted to hunt her down; to tear the city apart brick by godsdamned brick until she had nowhere to hide. The much larger and more powerful part of him, however, just wanted to go home. That part knew she wouldn’t leave like that - and if she had, if this was for her happiness - he wouldn’t interfere. He’d let his own heart break for her sake.

Calming himself, Astarion finally entered his carriage. He stared blankly at the seat opposite him - her seat - and silently began to weep.

Ban awoke, feeling foggy and disoriented. She looked around, trying to get her bearings. They’d apparently made their way through the city; it must have been hours, going by the angle of the sunlight outside the carriage. With every jostle and shudder of the carriage Ban fought to shake off the grogginess, using each disturbance to get a better grip on her body and mind.

They eventually arrived at an abandoned warehouse, where rough hands grabbed her again, dragging her out. She tried to pull, but felt the stake aimed at her chest once more. She realized she was being brought to another carriage, this one far larger, more lavish, an obscenely bright purple with silver filigree. Fear filled her at the realization that this abduction had been well planned. She was unceremoniously shoved inside the garish carriage.

As the carriage began to move, Ban assessed her situation. The effects of the spell were slowly wearing off. She was aware enough to realize they were likely to be leaving the city, judging from the change in carriages. She could make a run for it, jump out, and hopefully get away. She was hoping the sun would slow them down some, even with their cloaks.

She waited until the vampires seemed distracted, eyes moving away from her, obviously believing she was too groggy to make a break for it. Unfortunately, the mortal sitting beside her still had the stake aimed at her chest.

There was nothing for it. She couldn’t let them take her out of the city. Ban shifted her focus, hoping to at least shove one vampire off, creating an opening to dive out of the vehicle.

She looked each of them over, selecting the one she thought would be the weakest - a male drow, the one who took her things. Who knows? I might even be able to grab my sword.

She braced herself.

Please, let it work. Please let me go home.

Please let me see him again.

She shoved against the mortal with all her strength, hoping she would be quick enough.

But the vampires were prepared, they’d known the hero of Baldur’s Gate wouldn’t go quietly, and they moved as one, holding her down.

The stake slid home.

Astarion gasped. The dull, all-too-familiar pain of heartache suddenly transformed into an agonizingly sharp, shooting pain through his heart. He placed a hand against his chest, his eyes widening in realization. Ban.

If a vampire’s spouse was in enough pain, the other would feel it as their own.

She was hurt. Badly. Badly enough for her creator to feel it.

There was a wild, wretched joy that hit him first - she hadn’t left him. But a split second later, it was replaced by ice-cold fear.

What had happened to her?

When the carriage came to a stop, Astarion alighted and ran out with inhuman speed. He didn’t know why he felt the urge to search every room of the palace - she most certainly wasn’t there - but he pushed the urge aside. The palace would serve as a base of operations where he could think and plan.

He arrived at the doors, breathless, and a servant approached him.

“My lord, someone left this for you.”

The item on her upturned palm made his heart stop.

A ring. Three garnet stones, with pairs of seed pearls in between. Ban’s favorite ring. She hadn’t been wearing it yesterday when she came over.

So they had been to her room in the Elfsong. Had presumably taken her. The ring was a message.

He knew where to go.

Like a bat out of the hells, Astarion rushed inside the Crimson Palace, his mind whirring with a million ideas, his heart filled with longing, his body trembling in rage.

His soul numbed with fear.

He must save her.

89 notes · View notes