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tcfactory · 4 months

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Dumb SVSSS thought of the day is Xuan Su being one breakthrough away from cultivating a human form and making its (his?) newfound ability to speak aloud to other people everybody's problem.

Unity of the Sword cultivators give more of themselves to their bonded blades than people cultivating other paths, because they have to cultivate together with the sword, as partners. It's both a blessing and a curse, making their swords more... aware. It's not unusual for Unity swords to ascend with their masters or to cultivate humanoid forms to become something like a platonic life partner.

Xuan Su is an old blade. A powerful one, expertly if eccentrically crafted (what kind of cultivator would choose a zhanmadao when a jian is so much more ethereal and versatile?) and wielded by dozens of prodigiously talented cultivators before.

Each one of them set it aside, finding it too heavy and unwieldy for their ambitions. Each and every one of them died for it. It could feel through the bond as they each fell, the lighter, sleeker blades they replaced it with crumbling like paper under the weight of the destinies they all bore.

If it stopped calling out to young prodigies after its history of losses things would have been... much the same, probably, because Yue Qi has heard about the power of Xuan Su before he stepped foot in the sword hall, but there might have been a chance that he might have heard the call of a sword more suited to his level of cultivation, one that could have grown organically along with him.

The problem is, Xuan Su keeps calling out to new wielders and no amount of warning from Wan Jian's masters could convince the ambitious prodigies to give up on the chance to be the one who carried the famed Xuan Su to ascension.

After losing too many of its people, however, Xuan Su no longer knows how to bond normally. It clings too hard, hooks its metaphorical claws into its cultivator's soul, crawls through their meridians until there's no boundary left between them.

The last three people who tried to take it up didn't live long enough to unsheathe it.

For good or ill, Yue Qingyuan will be the last one to ever wield Xuan Su. It will either ascend with him, die with him or Wei Qingwei will throw it in the Wan Jian forge where the cursed thing deserves to be if it manages to outlive zhangmen-shixiong.

The thing is, however, that an old sword doesn't necessarily mean a mature one. Xuan Su wasn't wielded enough for its spirit to have matured fully. The only cultivator who even entertained it past the first few months of realizing that fighting with a zhanmadao is an unwieldy affair, that they could never become the picture of divine grace hauling around a blade that gave some polearms a run for their money, has been Yue Qingyuan, so most of Xuan Su's personality comes from him.

A thousand years worth of guilt and abandonment issues mixed with whatever traits it borrowed from semi-feral ex-slave teenager Yue Qi when they bonded does not make for a pleasant personality. It would remind Yue Qingyuan of a young Xiao-Jiu, expect Xuan Su has a brand of unashamed bloodthirstiness that can't be replicated by anything that's not made of 5 feet of sharp-edged murder.

It's not all bad. Xuan Su mourned with him when they though Shen Jiu was dead and rejoiced when they found him again. It has been trying its best to help Yue Qingyuan fight his heart demons so he could confess to Shen Qingqiu, even when it has heart demons of its own. They are beyond compatible in the physical and spiritual sense, granting Yue Qi the almost inhuman strength he became famous for. The mental component of their cultivation stagnates, however, because they are trying to split their attention between dealing with Yue Qingyuan's guilt and Xuan Su's abandonment issues and they are getting nowhere.

It's Shang Qinghua who accidentally gives them the push to pick one or the other. ("All right, enough!" Shang Qinghua claps his hands and freezes the dozen frantic An Ding disciples almost coming to blows about which one of their three separate crises should get the most resources. "You," he points at a kid with a missing front tooth. "All resources to your problem. And when that's done, then to his,-" Points at another child. "- and then hers. This way all of them will get solved on time and they will get solved better because you don't spread yourself thin trying to do three different things requiring full focus at once.") They decide to address Xuan Su's bottleneck because it's easier: Yue Qingyuan has already proved that he would not abandon it. They will ascend or die together.

They don't expect the backlash from its breakthrough to knock Yue Qingyuan out for several weeks (it's the bond stabilizing, finally, but his body and core need time to grow accustomed to only having his qi and his life force, all contained neatly within him as it should have been all these years). Weeks while Xuan Su is left alone on the peaks, unsupervised and without anybody knowing that it currently wears the form of a fourteen-year-old boy.

So of course the first thing it (he?) does is slip away before anyone could identify him and goes to Shen Qingqiu. The plan is simple: chew the man out for making Yue Qi sad all these years and then tell him what went down in the caves so he forgives Xuan Su's human and they can all be a happy family together! (A lot of its previous wielders sought fame to be allowed to wed various people they would not be able to marry otherwise, so Xuan Su might have acquired a passing interest in romance. Xuan Su approves of Yue Qi's choice, Shen Qingqiu is a sharp, very sword-like human and Xiu Ya is a very nice, well-balanced sword, but they really keep dragging things out way too long.)

Except Shen Qingqiu doesn't believe that the suddenly appearing feral teenager on his peak is actually a sword spirit. Swords cultivating human form are the stuff of legends and Yue Qi is far too down-to-earth for any of that nonsense. So clearly this Xiao-Su is an orphan his idiot Qi-ge has adopted; he's certainly feral enough to be one. No idea where Yue Qingquan has hidden this child before, but he's not quite presentable enough to be among the Qiong Ding disciples, despite the wonderfully elaborate clothes he's wearing. He enjoys food like he's tasting decent cooking for the first time, so he must not have been here long. Shen Qingqiu remembers being much the same when he first got to eat regularly, but hiding it much better, thank you very much.

Shen Qingqiu decides that he's going to keep an eye on his shixiong's charge until the man wakes up, because it's obvious that the kid can't be allowed to wander the peaks unsupervised. This decision has obviously nothing to do with Xiao-Su's instant hatred towards the little beast. Nope. Nothing at all.

Xuan Su eventually does manage to tell Shen Qingqiu that Qi-ge came back for him. Yue Qingyuan wakes up and confirms that yes, that bratty rascal is the great and powerful Xuan Su. They eventually learn about Binghe's demonic heritage and go investigating how the hell that has happened. But not before a few weeks of shenanigans and Luo Binghe accidentally winning Xuan Su (and by proxy Shen Qingqiu, much to the man's annoyance) over by the wonders of his godly cooking skills.

#svsss #yue qingquan #xuan su #shen qingqiu #shen jiu #tc writes #xuan su has drank tlj's blood during their clash at bailu mountain and he can recognize the blood ties in binghe #hence the instant dislike #he will get over it soon enough which would annoy the hell out of sqq #please just imagine the shenanigans that not-really-human xiao-su would cause bc he wants to spend a bit of time with his human's human #he's only human-adjacent in the same way a demon would be? just from the other direction #he really can't convincingly pretend and he's not really trying anyway #because it's only until yqy wakes up so what's the point?#it just so happens to be that a sword spirit has a very similar vibes to sqq on an average day...#also xiu ya approves of sqq doting on xuan su. except it has the sentience of a cat so it can't tell its human WHY it approves

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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

Masterlist

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.

Tag list

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