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underdark-dreams · 16 days

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Thank you everyone who has read this fic along its life! I finally got up the courage to tie it up with a bow. Here's the final chapter of my Rolan x Tav series Sage and Soldier, with links to the other pieces:

Blades and Spells [Fluff - First Meeting]

Good Night for Company - [Pining - Feelings Realization | NSFW] [ch1] [ch2]

[ch1] - [ch2] - [ch3] - [ch4] - [ch5]

A Strand to Climb - Ch.6

After the end of the world, there's a wizard's tower in the Upper City.

Tags: Mild Angst, Fluff, NSFW | Word Count: 4.8k [Read on AO3]

There was no time to celebrate the death of the Absolute—not when Tav and her companions stood trapped on its back like one of the doomed cities of Netheril. Not when her ears had already begun swimming and popping from the breakneck speed of their fall.

Tav yelled something back to the rest, some stupid bit of encouragement meant to keep them all on their feet. What else could they do but hold on, after all? They were all helpless, exhausted from battle, keeping their footing however they could as the brain’s pulsating flesh descended from the sky.

When they punched through the misty cloud layer below, Tav’s stomach leapt straight up into her throat. They were sailing across the Upper City, and the high spire of Ramazith’s Tower was rushing forward to meet them.

Too soon, her ears rang with the sickening, rib-shaking crash as the dying Netherbrain collided with the column of the Tower. Her shout of horror was lost to the explosive crumble of masonry and the whip of wind. She had only a second to fear the worst.

The impact spun the creature on its descent; Tav was knocked hard to her side, forced to scrabble for purchase on the monster’s slimy flesh as it careened sideways. Her limbs skated ineffectually over the brain’s folds—she was sliding toward the edge—

Not like this, her mind screamed in protest.

Tav yanked the sheathed dagger at her thigh and plunged it into the dying Absolute. Two hands gripped the hilt with all her might, even as her legs swung over the side of the Netherbrain like those of a limp ragdoll.

“Hells, we’re headed for harbor—!”

Behind her, Wyll’s yell of warning cut through. Tav understood at once—if they hit the Chionthar still standing on the back of the Netherbrain, its mass would pull them deep underwater with the strength of a vortex. She craned her neck blindly.

“Gale!” Tav shrieked for him, mad with panic. What if he’d fallen in the Upper City? What if he was gone, and she was beseeching a void?

Then she heard Gale’s voice call out for the Weave, and his spell hit hard along her spine. Her boots lifted unnaturally, the feet within them tingling with the power of flight—

The Netherbrain banked hard over the central City Wall. They were low enough now that Tav could make out figures with upturned faces—people watching the monster’s fall from the sky and fleeing away on foot, as if all pushed back by the same bank of wind. With one more lilt, the fleshy ground under her veered straight for the ancient wooden river docks.

A sharp glint of hope. If they timed their jump just right—if Gale’s spell lasted—

“Fuck this—” Beside her, Karlach was of the same mind. She was crouched low for balance, inching forward to the edge of the Crown for a better position.

Tav used her dagger for leverage to push herself crouched. “Aim for the roof of the Counting House!”

She heard the others fighting to their feet behind her. Gravity was accelerating their fall; sharp rain and river mist buffeted against her face as they swung rapidly for the water. But first, they passed beside a wide expanse of flat stone ramparts.

And then—they jumped.

—

Tav’s limbs cried out in exhaustion; her rain-soaked leg plates jangled heavily with each boot tread. She dragged herself through the streets of the Gate on adrenaline alone.

Those streets were in chaos. Though the battle was newly won, each corner she rounded brought a fresh skirmish.

Newborn mind flayers stumbled about in swarms, hungry and rudderless without direction from their Elder Brain. Many still dripped with blood from the death of their human forms. Those Baldurians who weren't running from them with crying children in their arms had snatched up tools and blades alike to run the creatures through with the ruthlessness of survival.

The chaos helped. Grit and blood and thudding bodies distracted Tav from the one sight she wanted to turn her head to, yet couldn't bear to see.

As her boots climbed the cobbles north toward the Upper City gate, Rolan’s tower crumbled over and over in her mind’s eye. She felt like retching. Her lungs were on fire.

Please let him be alive, please let him be alive, please let him be alive—she prayed to any god who might still be listening.

A child’s scream brought her up short on reflex.

Silfy—the timid one from the Grove, the little girl who cried when Tav caught her stealing a worthless trinket. A young mind flayer was reaching for her, one long-fingered hand directing its neural heat where she stood frozen in terror.

Tav’s teeth ground in her skull. She was so thoroughly fucking done—her longsword scraped out of its scabbard and arced straight toward the creature’s throat.

Just as the blow connected, an arrow shaft pushed out between the mind flayer’s dark eyes. It crumpled lifeless to the pavement in a heavy heap. Silfy turned tail without a backward glance; Tav squinted through mist and smoke, trying to identify the Flaming Fist who still held her shortbow poised.

“Lia!” Tav could have sobbed in relief. “Thank gods—is Rolan—?”

“I don’t know—” Lia’s voice was desperate as she ran closer. “Cal and I took the Sundries portal to fight with Cerys. Last we heard, Rolan was up manning the turrets.”

Tav could have swayed and collapsed where she stood. Only adrenaline kept her upright.

“I’ll find him,” she shouted above the surrounding chaos, half to herself, half to wipe that terrible fear from Lia’s face. She pushed away into a sprint without another word to her.

He’s not dead—he wouldn’t die like that—

Would she even be able to find Rolan’s body in the wreckage if he was? Tav’s knees wanted to give way at the thought. She gasped air into her lungs, wresting that image of him out of her mind with everything she had.

When she rounded the road from Flymm’s Cargo, a powerful wall of heat nearly knocked her back on her rump.

The ancient prow of the Blushing Mermaid was ablaze. Flames the height of ten men towered into the gray skies above, unaffected by the steady drizzle of rain. Her steel chestplate grew painfully hot as she forced herself up the crest of the hill.

Shouts and acrid air clouded her senses as she dashed beside the scene. Tav caught sight of Zorru and Danis, leading a bucket line all the way from Gray Harbor; their voices cracked from heat and smoke as they yelled directions.

All at once, like the emptying of a giant basin over their heads, a crash of water fell over the blaze and its surroundings. The cobbles under her feet were abruptly drenched; Tav slipped and careened forward, catching herself hard on both hands in a clang of plate armor.

There was a deep, ominous creak from somewhere above her. Knocked breathless, Tav nevertheless craned her head back.

The heavy wooden spindle on the ship’s prow that jutted over the street was already weakened from fire; now it was soaked through from the magical downpour. As she watched dumbstruck, it splintered with a slow twang. Then the wood snapped clean down the middle, and the length of it swung downward, straight for her legs.

Tav scrambled forward on hands and knees. Her boots and gauntlets scraped over the wet stones toward safety—

Footsteps were sprinting closer. There was a shouted incantation and a flash; Tav smelled roses as the Weave enveloped her completely for the space of a blink. Then she landed flat on her stomach in the middle of the street.

Thoroughly winded now, she coughed and wheezed for breath. The blaze and heat of the fire was strangely distant from where she lay.

As her lungs finally filled again, Tav realized she wasn’t just lying on pavement—something soft under her torso had cushioned the fall. She lifted up with a groan to look down at what she’d fallen on top of.

Rolan was entirely covered in soot and masonry dust from horn to foot. The effect was that he blended almost completely into the gray cobbles at first glance. Only when he opened his eyes did she recognize the two golden flames staring back at her.

“Tav!”

Rolan sat up so suddenly his horns nearly collided with her forehead. His hands gripped around her forearms with bruising force. “The Brain—I thought you’d—”

Her body had begun to violently shake as she took him in, each inch of his face strained with anxiety and streaked with dust and thoroughly alive—

Unable to go another second without him, Tav threw both arms around his neck. Rolan gripped her ribcage in turn, so tight and so long that her vision went spotty from lack of air. She couldn’t care less; in this moment, she would have dissolved right into him if she could have.

“I thought you were dead, Rolan,” she gasped into his shoulder. “Your Tower—the Netherbrain crashed right into it.”

“Only the observatory.” Rolan’s voice was muffled against her hair. “Never planned to use it anyway—not much of an astronomer—”

Tav could have laughed hysterically if she wasn’t so out of breath. Rolan continued against her neck.

“I was following it to the harbor, Tav, I had no idea what became of you—but then the fire, there were people inside—”

“You had to help,” she finished. She felt tears streaming fast and hot down her cheeks. The strength of her relief could’ve bowled her right over again. “I know, I know, just—”

They released each other at the same time. The kiss was stained with sweat and grime, yet it was the most satisfying one Tav had ever felt. She gripped Rolan’s face between two gauntleted hands, crushing his mouth against her.

“Lia’s okay,” she gasped out when Rolan’s lips finally left hers. “I met her south of here. She and Cal went with Cerys. Cal must be fine too, she would’ve said,” Tav added in a rush.

Rolan jerked his head in acknowledgement, his expression punch-drunk as he took her in. He was smoothing her hair back with both hands as if the motion was the only thing keeping him grounded at the moment.

“Are you all right?” Her voice was very small.

Rolan nodded at her again. Clearly spell-spent and dusted in plaster, he looked like his own ghost. “Are you?” Despite all that, his baritone reverberated warm and familiar in her chest.

“It’s so quiet,” she whispered hoarsely. Her words fell in almost comical contrast to the distant sounds of shouting, fire, and steel meeting illithid flesh.

But she could tell from the way Rolan’s eyes moved over her expression that he understood. The tadpole was finally gone—her mind was entirely her own again.

Rolan’s spark was beginning to return. “Can you stand?”

As he rose, Tav wobbled experimentally to her feet along with him. Her knees were bruised from the tumble, and her calves threatened to cramp from exertion—but she put on a brave face.

Unconvinced, Rolan kept an arm looped behind her back just in case; one hand fastened along her waist. Walking with him close at her side, the adrenaline began to ebb in her veins. Bone-weariness was instead closing in like a shroud.

“We should find Cal and Lia,” she said, trying to sound purposeful. Her boots dragged with each step.

“Yes,” Rolan agreed. He was holding her very firmly—practically supporting half her weight. “And we should be sure your friends made it safely from the docks.”

Tav gave a mumbled assent. It was difficult to care about any of that now, though she knew she should. She found herself staring up at his profile beside her.

“Rolan?”

He looked down in concern. “What is it?”

“After that…will you take me home?”

“My darling—” His lips pressed firmly to her brow. “Yes.”

—

Tav shifted on top of him with a mumble.

Rolan froze with arms still looped around her; perhaps the crinkle of scroll parchment had awakened her.

But then her face snuffled back into the bare crook of his shoulder. The dead weight of her across his chest assured Rolan that she was still fast asleep.

It was a lucky thing that he’d settled with reading material at arm’s length—the small pack of rare scrolls Tav herself had gifted him. She’d been out cold since dawn, when they all made it back to the Tower. It was nearly twilight now, and the sun’s last orange rays were fading fast through the high windows of Rolan’s bedroom. The distant streets had grown quiet as the city retired to nurse its wounds for the night.

Rolan hadn't seen much of her battle with the Netherbrain. Tav hadn't been in a state to tell many details once it was finally over, either. She could barely keep her eyelids open. The only thing clear was that she was completely exhausted from it.

Before anything else, Rolan coaxed several very potent healing elixirs down her throat. Then he drew them a bath and helped her out of her bloodied armor. She leaned heavily against him under the water. By the time he wrapped her in a towel to dry, he practically had to carry her back to his room.

The only hint of her fire came out when he’d tried to guide her toward the bed for sleep. Tav refused to go anywhere near the large four-poster frame that had belonged to the Tower’s previous archwizard. In fact, she declared that the whole thing was to be burned, mattress and all.

Rolan couldn’t decide whether he was more amused or touched by her vehemence.

Instead, she’d grabbed a fistful of the blankets and dragged them away in order to fall against the massive direwolf pelt rug in front of the fireplace. It was no feather bed, but still leagues more comfortable than how either of them had slept on the road to Baldur’s Gate.

Especially so with Tav draped over him, Rolan had since decided. She’d promptly held him to her and drifted off. Her bare torso was a comforting weight on his chest. Her cheek pressed against his shoulder as she slept, little steady breaths tickling against his neck.

Home. That’s what Tav had called this, hadn’t she? Silently, Rolan leaned his cheek against her hair as he read.

Lia and Cal had moved all their things into the Tower the same day its ownership changed hands. The few of Rolan’s possessions remaining in their Heapside flat had been left in a little pile just inside his bedroom door. Among them was the small leather scroll pouch Tav had gifted him on her arrival to Baldur’s Gate.

By this point, Rolan was certain he could find a much larger wealth of arcane knowledge in his new library. Still…it felt important to study from these first.

For one, they were certainly beyond anything he’d managed to teach himself from hand-me-down textbooks back in Elturel. Whoever she’d stolen them from must have been an advanced practitioner of the Weave. Or perhaps just a man with the wealth and fancy to build a collection, much like Lorroakan had been.

They were also a gift from Tav. That simple fact made them more valuable to Rolan than most of the wealth he’d inherited along with Ramazith’s Tower.

Had she collected them one by one in her travels here, thinking of him while she did? A warm affection bloomed in his chest at the thought. He’d have to ask her when she finally woke.

It was as if she sensed the thought.

With a deep inhale, Tav arched and stretched full-body against the length of him under the covers. Her hands both landed to tangle in his hair against their makeshift fur bed.

“Morning,” she purred sleepily against his neck.

Rolan decided then and there—he could very much get used to waking up like this. However, it seemed the right thing to correct her.

He kissed her brow. “Evening, actually.”

Tav raised her groggy face from his chest then, wiping one corner of her mouth. His eyes left the page to watch her blink around his bedroom in a daze. The blood-orange light of sunset was stretching long and dim across the floorboards now.

“Oh,” she said softly, a single word holding great recognition. Her wide eyes flicked to his face.

“Have—have I been laid on top of you like a dead fish this whole time?”

“I’d never call you that,” Rolan assured her calmly. “But yes.”

Tav looked at him in appraisal for a long moment.

“I think you like it,” she decided, and laid her head back down over his heart. He chuckled to himself and raised his free hand to smooth the hair back from her face.

Tav sighed happily at the gesture. “What are you reading, Rolan?”

“One of the scrolls you gave me.”

“Oh? Tell me about it, then. I’m curious.” One hand had gravitated suspiciously close to his ear. Sure enough, her thumb and forefinger began tracing along its edges to the pointed tip.

“You don’t have to do that, you know,” Rolan sighed. He’d always been unable to ignore the shivers that flowed down his spine when she touched him there. “I’d tell you regardless.”

“I'm sorry—” Her touch fell from him immediately. “I don’t do it on purpose, really. They’re just so pretty.”

Rolan cleared his throat. “It’s fine. You can—go on. If you like. Just know it’s a bit distracting.”

After a moment, her fingers cautiously returned. She was careful to keep the motion smooth and predictable this time. Rolan focused back on the page he’d pressed to fall flat before she woke.

“This one teaches a technique for arcane portal conjurement. The linking of two locations with a path carved through the Weave.”

Tav swiveled on her chin to look up at him. “Like the one from the Sundries to your library here?”

Rolan hummed in assent. “I've read about wizards who linked much more distant places together. The distance from here to Waterdeep, for instance. It requires a tremendous bit of spellwork.”

“How on earth?” She frowned at him in curiosity. “Where do you put a portal if you can't see where it's going?”

“Not sure yet,” Rolan mused, already being drawn back in by his reading despite her affectionate intrusions. “Most likely it requires two casters to sculpt the spell properly. I’ll need to understand the basic mechanics first.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Tav replied. She snuggled back into to the warmth at his neck.

“Of course I will.” Rolan shook the parchment out with his hand to punctuate the statement.

Tav let out a quiet exhale of laughter—but she said nothing to question him. It made Rolan swell with pride a bit.

He held her for another quiet moment as the fire snapped and danced in the hearth beside them. Its light seemed to burn brighter and even warmer now, with the sun finally gone behind the horizon.

When Tav shifted further over his lap, he didn’t think anything at first. Perhaps she was still trying to get comfortable on their makeshift sleeping arrangements.

Then she ground the heat between her legs over his half-hard cock, and a reflexive sound was pushed from Rolan’s throat.

“Tav,” he groaned.

“I’ve always loved that confidence of yours.” She had propped herself up with hands on his chest to gaze down at him. The covers fell back to bathe her lovely bare shoulders and breasts and stomach with firelight. “You don’t understand, it’s like catnip to me.”

“Where's this coming from?”

“What? Is it not enough that I just woke up naked with the most handsome, brilliant young archwizard on the whole Sword Coast—”

As she showered him with teasing flattery, Tav canted her hips harder against his own. Rolan leaned back against the tips of his horns with another involuntary groan; the scroll fell away dangerously close to the fire, forgotten.

“Tav,” he repeated more forcefully, pushing himself up on one elbow. Her face above him was full of mischief. “You’ve just been through hells—are you sure you’re well enough to—?”

“Yes.” She threw her head back in a moan with the word. Rolan’s hands flew instinctively to her hips. She was already rocking and grinding in rhythm against him, leaving a wet patch of heat where their hips slotted together.

“You’re unbelievable—” Rolan held her arms back insistently, forcing her to look at him.

Tav panted and bit her lip as they watched each other. He was of half a mind to return the favor. Look at the pretty hero of Baldur’s Gate, fresh from battle and already writhing on my cock—but the clear desire between her legs had rather scrambled his own thoughts.

Instead, Rolan did what he could manage to tease her. “Tell me how you feel right now.”

“Hot.” Her voice was low and tempting; her eyes were dark with desire. “Wanting you. Needing you inside me—”

Even without leverage from her palms, Tav managed to shift over his ridges in a way that made Rolan twitch and shudder under her.

“Good gods—I want you too,” he heard himself gasp out.

It was all the encouragement she needed. His grip had gone slack in distraction; with one hand guiding him, Tav angled herself up and sank down over the hard ridges of his length.

Her tight, wet heat all around him nearly knocked him breathless. Rolan lay back and ran his hands up her thighs. The firm muscle there led him straight to the lovely swell of her hips, and he gripped each hand with nails dimpling into her flesh.

Strong and soft—Tav was somehow both of those things at once. As she sat adjusting to him, her eyes certainly had never been softer than they were now, moving over his face.

“I missed this,” she breathed.

Rolan nodded in silent agreement. From tonight on, he swore to himself, neither of them would ever have a chance to miss this.

When she began moving, it was slow and deliberate. Her hips glided up and down to take him—so warm, so perfect. Rolan glanced where their bodies met, watching his length disappearing into her again and again. The sight was almost too much; he felt compelled to close his eyes.

Instead, Rolan pushed himself seated. He couldn't be close enough to her.

Tav folded her arms around his shoulders at once, adjusting to the new angle without breaking rhythm. Her face was bathed in firelight.

As he took in every inch of her, Rolan caught sight of an old blade scar under her jaw. He’d never noticed it before now. He leaned to press his lips against it.

She tilted her head with a soft sound, opening up the rest of her throat to his mouth should he want it. And he did—Rolan kissed and nipped at the flesh there while Tav rode him, her voice softly gasping and whispering his name over and over like a prayer.

The rhythm of their hips together increased to something desperate. Rolan felt heat licking under his skin, burning like flame everywhere their bodies touched. She clutched desperate fingers over the deep ridges along his shoulder blades.

“Come in me,” she gasped. “Please.”

That one little word was his undoing. Who was he to deny the woman who had just saved everything he loved in the whole Realms, herself included?

Rolan forced his mouth away from Tav’s throat to watch her come apart. She was already close—he could tell from the way her mouth fell open, the way her walls twitched and gripped him tighter each time she bounced down onto his lap.

“I love you—”

He wasn’t sure she heard with the way she arched and tensed into him—but then she already knew, didn’t she? Tav’s arms were trembling around his shoulders when she came, as if he was the only thing keeping her anchored down to earth.

When he felt the coil inside him unraveling, Rolan buried his face into her shoulder again. She was whispering praises against the tapered shell of his ear—things too sweet to even commit to his own memory. Rolan clutched at her back with both hands as he finally shuddered and spilled inside her.

He kept his arms locked tight around her middle as the twitching waves at his core echoed and subsided. Then they tipped backward together, their bodies still connected, to land in a soft pile of fur.

For a long moment, the only sounds were the crackle of the fire and the way they both panted against each other. Lying on top of him again, Tav’s lips brushed against the trail of ridges below his collar bone.

Soon enough, one of his long fingers began tracing over her back. He practiced the shapes of his somatic spell components along the empty expanse of her skin. She was so soft and smooth there—so unlike the way Tieflings were formed.

He felt goosebumps raise where his fingers touched. Tav shivered against him.

“That tickles,” she mumbled into his chest.

“Apologies, darling,” Rolan told her. Some other time it would be very interesting to investigate how ticklish she was. For now, he stilled to press his palm against her lower back instead.

Tav heaved a deep sigh against his chest. “What are we supposed to do now?”

Rolan crooked his head down at her. “What do you mean?”

“Now that it’s over.” Tav propped her chin on both hands to meet his eye. “I can barely remember what it feels like to just…live my own life. You know?”

Rolan carded one hand back through her hair. He understood the feeling well.

“There’s still plenty to occupy both of us,” he assured her. “I need to complete the Tower repairs before the next storm, which could be any day knowing Sword Coast weather. And the Lower City is in a state of absolute ruin. I’m sure you’ll have a hundred people knocking on my door come morning, asking for their hero’s help with a hundred different things—”

To his surprise, Tav sat up on his lap in a huff. The motion reminded him he was still softening inside of her.

“There you go spoiling my fun,” she complained good-naturedly. “Here I expected you to be thrilled at the prospect of finally having me in your bed day and night, with no mortal peril hanging over either of our heads, no less. And you only want to discuss Baldurian civics—”

Rolan felt himself beginning to laugh at her, a relaxed and throaty sound. “Is that what’s troubling you? Tav, I thoroughly intend to fuck you often and well.”

“You’d better,” she warned, but the corners of her mouth had begun to twitch. He wanted to devour her.

“And since you’ve declared my own bed permanently off-limits—”

In one motion he rolled their bodies to pin Tav under him. It earned him a little ‘oh’ of surprise; he was conveniently still buried between her legs. “You’ve put me in the position of having to be resourceful.”

“Big change for you, that?” Tav teased. But her legs crossed behind his flanks to keep him close. As they did, one of her heels inadvertently rubbed against the sensitive base of his tail.

Rolan hissed in air between his teeth. He saw her eyes spark with recognition, and leaned down to kiss her senseless before she could do anything wicked with this new information.

By the time they surfaced from lips and tongues and teeth, he was already achingly stiff inside her again. Her hands ran down his front, flowing over each concentric pattern on his chest with open want. It sent a shiver all the way down his spine, from neck to tail.

The way Tav looked at him—the way she touched him as if he was perhaps the loveliest thing she’d ever seen. He decided it would take him years to get used to. Maybe he never would.

Rolan kept still regardless, waiting for her to finish her explorations. All traces of teasing were long gone from her now.

Tav’s eyes reflected the warmth of the dying fire as reached up for him. She passed one more deliberate hand over the planes of his face, as if she’d like to memorize the feel of them. Her fingers landed to gently clutch around his jaw.

“My wizard,” she said softly.

Rolan had never been one for pet names; even from the people he cared about most. Those words should have sounded diminutive and sentimental to him, even spoken by Tav.

Instead…

They fell sweetly against his ear, flowed like honeyed wine down his throat, and nestled into a space that glowed with warmth somewhere behind his ribs.

And why shouldn’t they? He was her wizard, after all.

#sage and soldier #rolan x tav #bg3 rolan #bg3 fanfic #rebgrrl writes #underdark-dreams #spicy #nsft #crying (me)#holy rolan empire

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