Never Came the Day - SpeckledFiction (2024)

Chapter 1: I walked with other souls in pain

Chapter Text

Sunlight, bright and harsh, hit Astarion's eyes.

But I closed the curtains last night, he thought. I remember doing it, and thinking that it would be nice to sleep past dawn for a change. It's been more than a tenday since I was last in an actual bed. I wanted to savour it. He drew in a breath, ready to complain to Tav about waking him up and find out what unbelievably annoying Good Reason she had for it, and realised that his lungs weren't working properly. All the rushing and thrumming of a living body that he'd finally started to get used to was gone. Then the reek of burned fishy flesh hit his nostrils, unpleasantly familiar, and he felt sand under his back and a slithering behind his eye. What in the hells is going on?

He opened his eyes. It was definitely the nautiloid crash site. He was wearing the clothes he had been kidnapped in, long since consigned to rags after they had gone through a few too many bloody battles. Something was very, very wrong. Time had broken.

He had gone to sleep what felt like moments ago in the Elfsong, having returned to Baldur's Gate with Tav, Aurelia and Yousen to pay a visit to Wyll and show off his newly mortal and living state. After the year-long quest he and Tav had undertaken to find a cure for all seven thousand of Cazador's victims, he'd been thrilled at the thought of putting his feet up for a month or two. Now... now he was dead again. Dead and in sunlight and back at the start of a nightmare. This had to be a dream. It had to. Astarion pinched his arm. It hurt. He did not wake up.

He was dead. It felt horrendous. He'd only just begun to acclimatise to being alive, but each missing sensation was a gaping wound. His pulse didn't sound in his ears, his stomach didn't gurgle or grumble, there was no relief to the air rushing in and out of his lungs. It was all gone.

If he was dead, if he was back, then he was Cazador's slave again. Panic gripped him, tight as a vise. He wanted to scream, but he couldn't remember how to manually breathe. He had freed himself from this! He'd killed that bastard, he'd left him behind. And all that work had what, simply been undone? The agony of it was unbearable. He lay there, every muscle locked, for an immeasurable period of time, simply suffering. When at last the spasms of horror faded, it wasn't so much because he'd found peace with the situation as because there was only so much pain the mind could tolerate.

Feeling as wet and shaky as a consumptive invalid, Astarion picked himself up and looked around. Down the path, he could see the intellect devourers scuttling through the wreckage of the ship. So Tav hadn't killed them yet. That gave him an approximate sense of time. He rested a steadying hand on a nearby tree and forced himself to remember how to draw air in and out of his unworking lungs. One breath, then two. It didn't have the same calming effect that it had in his living body, but it was better than nothing.

Astarion was suddenly deeply grateful for the survival skills that suffering had etched into his body. As much as he hated Cazador, hated what had been done to him, the ability to take his feelings and put them in a mental box labelled "deal with this later" was invaluable. He grabbed all the horror and panic that had choked him and pushed them away. Right now, he needed more information. When he had that, then he could throw a fit about everything.

He heard footsteps, then saw the people making them walk into the ship from the other gaping hole. There she was, Tav herself. His last memory of her was of her face close to his, still and sweet with sleep, her grey skin turned to ink by the darkness of the room. Now he was looking at her from a distance, vision and memory overlapping. In some ways she was exactly as he'd first seen her, a drow paladin, tall and broad, with piercing grey eyes and an aura of calm serenity. But he knew so much more than that. He had touched every inch of her skin, heard her most agonised screams and sweetest whispers, seen her bloodied and bowed but never broken. Was he now supposed to pretend, even for a moment, for an instant, that he didn't recognise her?

Behind her stood Shadowheart (another jarring note, he'd almost forgotten in the last year that she'd ever had black hair), and then, strangest of all, a third figure, a dragonborn with white scales who was even taller than Tav. Astarion felt a sudden lurch of unease. The dragonborn was new, and anything different felt like an ill omen.

The intellect devourers scuttled forward to pounce on Tav and the others, and without thinking about it, Astarion shot and killed one of them. Tav, Shadowheart and the new unknown made short work of the other two, and then Tav called out "Thanks for the help. Are you a survivor of the crash?"

Well, there was no point in hiding. Astarion dropped down into the wreckage. "Hello," he said, biting back the 'dear' that so badly wanted to slip out after it. He had been planning to say more, to play the part of his old self, but he just couldn't. Do you know me? he wondered. Are we back here together, or am I alone? He floundered for words that weren't full of panicked longing.

The tadpole connection flared, and he got a brief sense of Tav's mind, her confusion and fear, and under that the steady glow of her indomitable will. She did not know him, he could tell at once. Then he became worried. What on earth had she seen in his mind? How could he explain it?

When the connection ebbed, Tav grimaced. "You've clearly been through a lot," she said. "Your mind is a whirl. Stick with us, and we'll figure something out together."

"How could I possibly say no?" Astarion said, finding a mask he could wear. "But who are you?"

"I'm Tav, this is Shadowheart, and this," she hesitated for the briefest instant, "is The Dark Urge."

Astarion blinked. "A name that comes with a definite article! How charming. How unique. I don't suppose there's a diminutive that you let your intimates use? Steve, perhaps?"

Tav's mouth twitched, and Shadowheart laughed outright, less politic than his beloved paladin. The Dark Urge had no expression at all. "I have no memory," they said, their voice cold. "Any name besides this one has been taken from me."

"Maybe we could think of something," Shadowheart said. "Just Dark, perhaps?"

"Urge is similar to the common name Urgen," Tav offered tentatively. "Would you like that?"

"Neither of those," The Dark Urge said, and after thinking, "Durge is acceptable."

Astarion did not miss that their new name sounded ominously similar to dirge. He told himself he was looking for ill portents where there were none to be found, and did not quite believe it.

As they had the first time he met Tav, they climbed the hill and came face to face with Gale's misfired portal. And again, just the same, Tav walked up to it curiously, and was startled by the arm that stuck out to wave at her. Astarion felt a sense of relief that some things weren't changing. The sooner they had everyone back together, the happier he would be. Then Durge snarled "Rend!" and leapt forward, jaws open. Astarion's hand dropped to his knife, Shadowheart's to her mace, but Tav was fastest.

"Stop!" Tav said, using the full force of her paladin's voice. "Dark Urge, restrain yourself." Her voice rang out like the great bell that tolled the hours in Baldur's Gate, a clarion command that could not but be obeyed. At least if you didn't know the trick of it.

It only half worked. Durge did jerk back from the arm, but their head whipped around to snarl at Tav, who planted herself firmly. She did not even touch her hammer, she just crossed her arms. Her eyes flicked to Astarion, ever so slightly, and he understood the implicit signal. Loath as he was to drop his guard, he told himself he trusted her, and moved to pull Gale out of the portal.

"Hold firm," Tav said to Durge as Astarion pulled. "Whatever darkness is on your mind, let it pass. Be free of it." Her voice was soothing and steady, still ringing with authority, but like a good teacher or a doctor, inviting trust and comfort. As Astarion finally found purchase, Durge relaxed inch by inch. And when Gale popped out and greeted them with his chipper smile and a little bow, the dragonborn seemed almost normal again.

'Seemed' being the obvious word. If Astarion had been suspicious before, now he was actively hostile.

"What do you know about our friend Durge?" Astarion asked Shadowheart, as they continued to comb the area for survivors. Durge insisted it was a waste of time, but that worked no better on Tav than any of Astarion's grumbling ever had. "You're welcome to head to the campsite we found if you get tired," was all Tav replied, and that shut Durge up.

"What I know," Shadowheart said, in answer to Astarion's question, "is that I'm relieved I don't have to call them a friend. We have a common problem, and it makes sense to stick together until we find a solution, but beyond that I don't trust them. Not that I trust you, either," she added coldly.

It was almost sweet, seeing Shadowheart at her most bristly again. We're going to be friends, Astarion thought, even though you don't know it yet. Which was sickeningly sentimental, and yet it was true, too.

They found Lae'zel, as Astarion had known they would, and Tav misdirected the Tieflings away from the area so they could free her. At least Durge didn't try any biting here. And by then it was evening, and they all returned to the campsite together for food and sleep.

One of Astarion's strongest memories of Tav was of her making her nightly rounds, back when they'd all been so jittery and fearful of each other. She'd done it every night, stopping and talking to everyone, offering to lay her hands on anyone who needed it. It wasn't perfunctory, either. She had genuinely cared about their problems, and wanted to talk to them, to listen to them. Watching her do it now, knowing all he did, Astarion could even tell that she was a little excited, unironically enthusiastic to get to know each of these interesting people. She had left him for last, originally, but tonight she came to him third. He wasn't sure if that was good or not. A sign of trust, or an indication of lack of interest?

"You were a big help today," Tav said. "I really appreciate it."

Gods, she was so lovely. That low voice, those gentle eyes. He'd been suspicious of her, at the start, sure that there was some hidden malice under her too-noble exterior. And of course, now he knew her exterior was an illusion, but that what it concealed wasn't a corrupt heart but a yearning and lonely one.

"Well," Astarion drawled, trying to lean into a character he hadn't had to be for almost a year, "someone's got to help me get this awful squirming thing out of my head. And I don't see anyone better than you."

"I'll do my best to live up to your expectations," Tav said sincerely.

"Oh damn," Astarion said. "I wasn't trying to put more pressure on your shoulders."

Tav flinched, and he realised he'd been a little too incisive. She had played the part of the shining knight so effortlessly that none of them had guessed it was costing her anything, not until much later.

"Helping people is my calling," she said. "It's what I'm for. You shouldn't be afraid to ask me for anything you need."

"Anything?" he asked, and the ever present déjà vu intensified. It was a direct echo of what he'd said that real first night. The attempt at innuendo didn't work any better this time around.

"Use your best judgement," Tav said, and held out her hand. "Do you want some healing?"

"Yes please," Astarion said. She pressed her hand to his shoulder, and he felt her lovely warm magic slide under his skin. Better still, he felt her body heat, even through his clothes, and her closeness. It would be so easy to lean forward and kiss her. He could tangle his fingers in her thick waves and hold her face to his until she ran out of breath and had to pull back. Except that he was a stranger to her. He knew so much about Tav, from the recipe for the biscuits her mother had made for her as a child to the way she liked to hum old folk songs when she cleaned her armour. And she knew nothing about him, not even that he was a vampire spawn.

sh*t. He should have told her. It would have been the perfect way to get her to trust him. But it was too late. She had finished healing him while he was lost in reverie and walked off to talk to Lae'zel.

She left Durge for last, and Astarion got that nasty prickling feeling again. Was it too paranoid to read into things, to think that Durge had usurped the place he'd held in her mind? Should he have forced himself to be as cold and withering as he had been originally, so that she would find him more compelling? Would Tav not be drawn to him now that he wasn't constantly drowning in his own misery and fear, now that he wasn't looking to tear out the world's throat as soon as he saw it bared?

Why was any of this even happening? Astarion missed Tav, his Tav, with an intensity so palpable that it would have left him breathless if he needed to breathe. Why was she not here, the powerful woman with the soft hands and softer eyes who would see him and know him and hold him without him even needing to ask? I will always find my way back to you, she had promised. I will not be kept from your side unless I am forced by some power so great that I cannot fight it with wits or sword or holy magic. A promise she wouldn't make for months, if she ever made it again. Was that memory even real? Had the future really happened? Was it all just a tadpole hallucination? He could rule out hallucination just by the fact that some of it already lined up with reality, probably, but beyond that he was overwhelmed and doubtful.

Tav was squatting at Durge's side, touching their forehead with those long fingers and looking into their eyes. She did not seem to find what she was looking for. After a moment she shook her head, stood up, and then clapped one hand gently on Durge's shoulder. Whatever the dragonborn's problem, no doubt she was telling them she would find a solution. She would never do anything else.

"You seem awfully melancholic," Gale said, ambling over. "Reflecting on our many problems, I suppose."

"Something like that," Astarion agreed. Gale took it as an invitation to launch into a long explanation of how ceremorphosis worked, and Astarion found it amusing to realise that he was truly unafraid of the tadpole behind his eye. They'd gotten rid of them once, and they would again. Still, he let Gale ramble. It did no harm, and he would take anything that distracted him from the weight on his heart. He needed answers, but how was he to get them? Withers, he thought. f*cking Jergal. If things played out as they had the first time around, they were about to run into someone at minimum god-adjacent (he wasn't clear on the exact relationship, and frankly, didn't care). Whatever was going on it was either divine or infernal in nature, which meant that Withers was the perfect person to shake down for information.

"What do you think about looking into that temple around the corner tomorrow?" Astarion asked as nonchalantly as he could. "I don't think it's going to have answers for the tadpole problem, but I've never met a locked door I didn't want to open."

"A bit of amateur archaeology?" Gale said. "Sounds like my idea of a good time. You and me, we think alike, friend."

"Do we indeed?" Astarion said, not even trying to keep the laugh out of his voice. Wouldn't that be a funny thing to throw in Gale's face back in Waterdeep? Gale, you'll never guess what your alternate self said to me on the very first day we met. But would he ever meet that Gale again? Another wave of loneliness hit him, and he couldn't think of a witty repartee to append to the end of his sentence.

The feywild was elusive that night, which was frustrating, but at least it meant he was awake to see the dawn. If he had to accept being dead once more (and what a bitter reality that was), it was nice to be able to stand in sunlight and see the world in colour. Part of him had hoped that trancing would return him to his future, his room in the Elfsong, his Tav, but that clearly wasn't happening. I will find out what caused this, he promised himself, and I will get out of here. No matter what it takes.

"You're up early," Tav said, at his shoulder, and his hand moved a little, reaching out to slide around her waist before he remembered that he no longer had that privilege.

"Couldn't sleep," he said brusquely, and she made a sympathetic noise.

"Yesterday was a hell of a day."

"The first of many, I suspect. But what are you doing here? Worried I was going to run away with all your gold?"

"No, I was having trouble sleeping too." Astarion turned slightly to look at her. Her grey eyes were watching him, but their expression was ambiguous. He hated it, and there was nothing he could do. "I wanted," she added, a little hesitantly, "to say thank you again."

"Tav?" A voice interrupted. Durge came over to join them. "There you are. We should get moving."

"You're right," Tav said at once, and whatever she had been about to say to Astarion, he didn't get to hear it.

Breaking Withers out of his sarcophagus wasn't particularly difficult, but when he emerged, his eyes flickered uncertainly between Tav and Durge for a moment. When he asked the question, "What is the weight of a mortal life?", it was in some way clearly directed at both of them.

"That depends on the life," Tav said immediately. "The innocent, we must protect at any cost. Those who do them harm I will kill if I have to, if I cannot find a way to turn them from their path in time."

"I wonder how thou distinguishes the two," Withers said dryly. Astarion privately agreed, though he knew Tav was gentler and more merciful than anyone else he'd ever met. It didn't necessarily make paladin self-righteousness easier to swallow. Withers looked at Durge, waiting for their answer.

"It has no weight. Our death is a beautiful gift that we have all been given," Durge said more slowly.

"Doubtless thou thinkest so," Withers said, "but each of thee has given me an answer, and that is all I require for now. I will speak to thee again at your camp."

Withers paused again, and looked once more between Tav and Durge, as though he knew something was not quite right, and that gave Astarion his first real sense of hope. If Withers felt the wrongness too, then he had some chance, however slim, at chasing down a solution to this nightmare.

But that would come later. For now, they had to a grove to stumble across, and Tav had a list as long as her arm of problems to solve, even if she didn't know it yet.

Astarion watched Durge more than Tav as they climbed the hill. They were unnervingly impossible to read, their red eyes restless and watchful, their sharp-toothed mouth expressionless.

"How did you end up following our saintly paladin around?" Astarion asked. "Don't take this the wrong way, but she doesn't really seem like your type."

"My pod was next to hers on the ship," Durge said, in a blunt monotone, "and I tried to kill her. Didn't, obviously. She used the voice. Got me to stop. When she does that it makes my head hurt less. Only thing that works so far. Healing does nothing. But the voice helps."

Back when he was doing this the first time, Astarion had watched everyone in the group become besotted with Tav. It had been very funny, even though he'd been too tangled up in a mental web of fear and manipulation to really appreciate it. She hadn't led anyone on, or even flirted at all, she'd just been a tower of strength and compassion that was absolutely irresistible to their motley crew of lost and lonely souls. It wouldn't be surprising, Astarion had to acknowledge, if Durge felt the same way. They were certainly lost and lonely, ensnared in their blood-stained impulses.

A memory came to him of the most delightful example of Tav realising her accidental charms, the morning after the Emperor had propositioned her. She'd peeked through her fingers at him, flustered that he'd seen the whole thing. Astarion had teased her with genuine relish, and she'd been wryly embarrassed, and then so sweetly and sincerely romantic about wanting to respect his feelings. If nothing was guaranteed, if everything changed, would he have to watch her share that moment with someone else? With Durge? He didn't think he could bear it.

They got to the top of the hill just as that grating idiot Aradin ran up begging to be let in. They would be doing the world a favour if they accidentally let him get killed by the goblins, Astarion thought, but with Tav around there was no way that would happen. And not just Tav. Wyll leapt over the barricade and introduced himself, and Astarion almost felt like cheering. It was absurd. He still thought Blade of Frontiers was a ridiculous name, and that Wyll would have benefitted immensely from having anyone of any sense around to talk to when he was starting out as a hero, but gods damn it it was good to see him. The last time he'd heard Blade of Frontiers shouted, Wyll had been leaping through a doorway in a Menzoberranzan mansion to help them kill a lich, and that kind of assistance was likely to render even the stupidest name more palatable.

The fight was short and brutal, at least for the goblins. Astarion didn't like Durge one bit, but he had to admit that they were unbelievably good at violence. They made short work of anyone unwise enough to get within range of their spells. If it hadn't been for the worry that they would stop distinguishing friend from foe, Astarion would have elevated the dragonborn in his esteem by several notches.

Astarion found, in the hours that followed, that he remembered the grove a little too well. He traipsed listlessly after Tav as she talked to everyone, interfering in their lives in the hope that she could make them better. The memories were a year old, but still vivid enough that he found it unpleasant to relive them. It reminded him of the way moments from his past with Cazador would sometimes reemerge, taking over the present like a haunting, almost pushing him out of his own body. It was the same now, the edge of displacement biting at his heels.

The dreadful irony was that as unpleasant as he found the repetition, the moments when it broke and things changed unnerved him even more. It happened three times that day, and each time it was as if some terrible alarm bell were blaring in the back of his head, pulling him out of his lull and into the world. And of course, each time it was Durge's fault.

The first was the bard Alfira. She was up on her perch, writing a song that Astarion enjoyed even less the second time round. It was too simple, and too gratingly sentimental. But she was only a baby, after all. Perhaps, in this life, he could suggest that she head to Waterdeep, and learn from the masters at the Dancing Haven. He was vaguely mulling on how he could bring it up, since there was no way he should reasonably know anything about Waterdeep's Eilistraeean temple, when Durge lunged for her lute. Alfira, too shocked to move, let it go without any resistance, and Durge raised the instrument above their head, ready to smash it. Tav moved at once, blocking them from finishing the movement with her body.

"Dark Urge," she said, and Astarion noticed that whenever she used the paladin's voice, she always said their full name, not Durge, "cease. Let this go."

Her hands were up, holding Durge's arms above their head, and even though Astarion knew how strong Tav was, he could see that the effort was straining her. He glanced at Wyll, who seemed to understand exactly what he was thinking. They moved as one, and pried Durge's fingers off the lute, which they passed back to Alfira. Tav did not move for a long moment, not until Durge uncoiled slightly. Then she turned and bowed to the bard.

"Forgive me. My companion struggles with difficult impulses. I wasn't expecting one to overtake them just then."

"Well, at least you stopped them," Alfira said, eyeing Durge suspiciously. "This lute is terribly important to me. It belonged to my old master." Her voice choked on the last syllable.

"I think that perhaps the rest of us will go this way," Astarion said thoughtfully, "and Tav, you could stay and talk to Alfira alone."

"A good idea," Tav said warmly. "I'll catch up with you shortly." She turned back to the bard, sitting beside her and asking her more about the lute. Alfira would have that song written in no time.

Meanwhile, Astarion took Durge and Wyll down to the beach with the harpies, figuring that the best cure for Durge's problems was pointing their violence in a constructive direction. And indeed, Durge seemed more centred and focused as soon as they had an enemy to bare their teeth at. Tav found them just in time to see Durge get a final strike in on the last harpy, turning it to ash with a ruthlessly aimed firebolt. She checked in with the child they'd rescued, and then looked at Durge.

"Alfira has recovered her equilibrium," she said. "I would tell you you need to apologise, but given the circ*mstances, maybe it's easier if you don't see her again."

"As you think best," Durge said heavily.

The second moment was when Tav went to talk to Kagha, and they saw her interrogating Arabella. The poor child was shaking with terror, and Astarion felt suddenly miserably guilty, knowing all that was in store for her. They could save her now, but they couldn't save her from the future. It wasn't that he'd suddenly become an orphan hugger - that was Halsin's job and he was very good at it and Astarion thought everyone ought to know their own proficiencies - but he hated the inevitable tragedy that was waiting to close its jaws around the child. Her suffering, the death of her parents, was unstoppable, and worse than unstoppable, necessary. Withers had made that clear. Astarion couldn't save her, even if he wanted to.

Was his suffering also necessary? Astarion didn't know if he wanted that to be true or not. On the one hand, it was nice to have reasons for things. On the other hand, it meant someone could have stopped it, and had chosen not to. The thought that someone could have looked at those long two hundred years and decided that he or someone else or the world would be better off for it... It made him want to find the person responsible and do truly excruciating things to them.

While he was mulling this over, something in the room shifted. Durge had been staring at Arabella, and her shivers had only grown worse and worse. Then the dragonborn shifted their stance, ever so slightly, and just as Tav was talking Kagha down from child-murder, Arabella broke and ran.

Two things happened at once. Tav leapt between the snake and the child, blocking its strike with her own body, and Astarion slammed his boot down right behind the snake's head, pinning it to the ground. It was quick reflexes and a hefty dollop of pure luck, since he just happened to be in the right place to intercept.

"Take your foot off my Teela," Kagha hissed at him.

"I'll do that just as soon as you teach your snake some better manners, druid," Astarion sneered. "She's forgotten that it's polite to ask for permission before you bite someone."

"Wyll," Tav said firmly, her voice ringing with certain truth, "bring Arabella outside. I have already judged her innocent, there's no need for this charade. Kagha, I cannot stop you from making more foolish mistakes, and I will not try. We will speak to Nettie, and then leave you to your business here."

"Suit yourselves," Kagha said, looking sour, although from what Astarion remembered, that was basically her default expression anyway. Something itched at the back of his mind. He hadn't cared about Kagha or the druids or the Tieflings or frankly anyone who wasn't him last time, but in retrospect, Kagha's attitude was decidedly and oddly rancid. Something didn't add up.

He grabbed Tav's arm and whispered into her ear, "Don't act surprised when you don't see me."

Tav was perfect. Her face showed absolutely no expression, only a tiny spark of curiosity in those grey eyes. She gave an almost imperceptible nod, beckoned Durge, and said, "Right, let's go talk to the healer."

Astarion brushed past Kagha and picked her pockets, and found what he was looking for, an unadorned key. From there, it was easy enough to sneak around and rifle through everyone's belongings. The chest the key opened was marginally better hidden than he'd expected, but that wasn't enough to keep him away. He tucked the letter inside into his pocket to show to Tav later, and then slunk back out to meet up with them.

The third unexpected Durge incident happened right as they were leaving. They had taken the moving platform up to the edge of the grove, and Tav was talking to Wyll about supplies and chores when there was a loud, wet thump. They all whipped their heads around, and saw Durge standing a few feet away, looking at a tree that had a smeared patch of blood and a broken squirrel corpse at its base. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together, and Tav's face went cold and still. Astarion was shocked too. Not by the violence, he was not yet so far sunk in heroism that he objected to animal killing, but by the meaninglessness of it. Killing randomly was worse than evil, it was dangerous. You couldn't predict someone like that, and Astarion disliked anything unpredictable.

Tav's face that evening was grim and drained, her shoulders tense with worry. Astarion hated it, hated not being able to do anything about it. He didn't think she'd been this stressed this early, before. He remembered her smiling at his jokes, listening to Gale and Wyll's stories with a fond expression, sparring with Lae'zel and chatting over chores with Shadowheart. It was not particularly difficult to understand what the difference was - even Petras would have worked it out. He only had to turn his gaze slightly to the left, to where Durge was sitting in their tent, watching the world with a flat and chilling affect, not talking to or engaging with anyone.

Maybe Tav would find it easier when they met Karlach. If anyone could lift the paladin's spirits, surely it was their good-natured barbarian. They would run into her tomorrow, assuming that his memories were correct and reliable. But first, he had to do the unbearable, and lay more burdens across Tav's shoulders. He needed her trust.

"Not to interrupt your critical work here," he said, as she was scraping mud from her boots, "but there are a few things I'd like to talk to you about. In private, if possible."

Tav managed a smile as she looked up at him. She was so good at smiles. Even when she was exhausted, she would call on that paladin well of light inside her and find some kindness and compassion that let the expression reach her eyes, and not just her mouth.

"We can go for a little stroll," she said, "if that suits you."

"That works fine," Astarion agreed, and she stood up.

"How long until dinner, Gale?" she asked.

"Oh, not too long. Three notches of the candle, probably."

"More than enough time," Tav said, relieved. "I noticed you're not a big eater," she added, as they headed into the woods. "I suppose what we have must be very different to the kinds of meals you were used to, back in Baldur's Gate."

Astarion snorted. "That, my dear, is a very funny joke, for reasons that will become obvious in about five minutes." Then he wound the sentence back, realised he'd let a term of affection slip out without meaning to, and felt a wave of worry wash over him. He didn't mind if she thought he was a flirt, but he needed to remember not to act overtly intimate.

He glanced at her. Her expression was hard to read in the evening shadows, and mostly he still saw tiredness, but she did seem a little less tightly coiled than she had been five minutes ago. She saw him looking and met his eyes, and there was a tentative kind of curiosity there. If there was a bright side to this miserable mess he'd found himself in, it was a chance to court her again without the weight of panic and manipulation on his shoulders. He could want her for simply being her, without needing to fear that he would hurt himself along the way.

"I am all ears," Tav said, "about whatever this is."

They were probably far enough from camp to begin the conversation. "Well," Astarion said, "it's simple, really. I'm a vampire spawn. Somewhat rectified by the tadpole in my head, but not entirely." He tried to sound like he was being nervously honest, pretending that he was worried about her reaction, even though he knew he had no reason to be.

"I see," Tav said, after she had turned his words over for a few seconds. "I think. The tadpole is letting you walk in daylight?"

"And enter houses uninvited, cross running water freely, things of that nature. The many simple tasks most people take for granted. The only thing it can't fix is the hunger."

"Ah. Which is why you've brought me out here alone, to drain my blood."

"No!" Astarion said, "not at all-" And then heard her laugh. It had taken until the tiefling party before he'd heard that, the first time. She had a soft, husky chuckle, and he never got tired of it.

"I know," she said. "I know you wouldn't. Astarion, thank you for trusting me. Does the hunger hurt a lot?"

"Yes," he admitted, pleased the conversation was going the way he'd wanted it to. "I can eat animals, but it's not quite the same. It doesn't sate me. One of the many cruelties of the condition. I dream of being free from it."

He had been free, really free, before he'd been pulled back to this stupid place.

"Yes," Tav said thoughtfully, "I imagine you do. No wonder you wanted to watch the sun rise."

"It's not just about the general limits of my condition," he continued, wanting to establish certain facts quickly, and in the right way. "My former master is a very evil man. He turned me and controlled me for two hundred years. If I don't kill him before we get rid of these parasites, he'll rule me again."

Astarion stared at Tav as he spoke. The last time he'd told her this, he'd been battling so much shame and fear that he hadn't read her face all that closely. But he knew her, and he wanted to imprint her expression on his mind forever. Just as he anticipated, a righteous and compassionate anger flared into her eyes. Anger on his behalf, anger against anyone who would make another person their slave. Pale light flickered around her hair as her holy aura became visible for a moment.

"He will not," she said. "You have my word. I will hold him down so you can drive the dagger through his heart yourself."

Gods, he loved her beyond anything.

"You know, I just knew you would say that," he told her, "but it sounds absolutely delicious all the same."

She blushed. He could tell even in the near darkness by the way her mouth moved. "Thank you," she said, and to his surprise she took his hand and bowed over it. Not a kiss, but a gesture of respect. "I thought you were going to give me another problem to solve, but instead you have set my favourite kind of task in front of me. I will look forward to righting this wrong with you."

"We have a long way to go before we get there," Astarion said. "Of course, I may not be quite so calm when the moment comes..." he trailed off. He'd felt it on the beach, and then he'd packed it away a little too well, papering over it with more immediate concerns. Cazador had died almost a year ago, in his memory. Not long enough to forget, never that, but long enough that Cazador's non-existence had become a settled fact. But if he didn't find a way out of this repeating life, he would actually have to see him again. In this world, as things stood, Cazador was alive. In this world, he was still Cazador's slave.

A terrible shudder wracked him, and another. From a distance, he heard Tav's voice. "Astarion? Astarion?" And then she reached inside herself, and pulled out the paladin's ringing tone, and said "Astarion, you're safe. Your master is not here, and I am. And when we do meet him, I will be your shield and your blade, and you may wield me against him to ensure he does not harm you."

The paladin voice made the things Tav believed sound as true as she thought they were. Hearing it, you could not doubt her without effort. For all its limits, it was a remarkable tool, and Tav knew just how to use it. Astarion did not resist. He forced himself to breathe, and to let her words and their truth sink under his skin. It wouldn't have been enough, before, but it could be now, because he remembered that she had really done what she said she would.

When the tremors faded, she was standing there, looking at him. Her hands were still by her sides, not reaching for him at all. But of course, she knew herself what it was to have the past come back to you, and she would know that it was almost unbearable to be touched when you felt like that. It was still a few minutes before he could really look at her, but when he finally met her eyes, there was only sadness and understanding in them.

"Let's not dwell on battles to come," she said. "There will be time enough. And we have battles we can face in the here and now. Like your hunger."

"What do you imagine you can do about that?" he asked, all mock innocence.

She tapped her chest. "Feed on me, if you like. I have power to spare for healing, and I am sworn to use it to aid those around me. And Eilistraee loves to say that everyone deserves to eat well."

"Your goddess may be meddlesome," Astarion said, "but she is also remarkably sensible, it must be admitted."

Tav hesitated a moment. "You know her? Not many non-drow do."

Damn. Another slip up. For a moment, Astarion wondered if it would be easier to just tell her everything. He almost opened his mouth, and then something stopped him. It wasn't just his own doubts, or the knowledge that no matter how honest and trusting Tav was, "hello there, I'm your lover from the future" was never going to go down well. What really stopped him was a feeling as though for a moment someone had lightly pressed two fingers against his lips. Speaking of meddlesome deities, he thought. Gods I hope Withers shows up at camp soon. I am going to have words with him.

"Oh, well, you're not the first Eilistraeean I've met. One meets everyone sooner or later, in Baldur's Gate." He kept going, hoping to thoroughly distract her. "And I believe you were saying something about offering me a little snack of blood? Because if you mean it, I'd be very interested." He purred that last line, and leaned into her personal space. "You know, Cazador never let me taste a thinking creature. You'd be my first."

The distraction worked thoroughly and very flatteringly. Tav's eyes widened and melted slightly, and she bowed her head. "In that case," she said, "I can only hope I meet your expectations."

"Darling," he told her, quite sincerely, "I promise you'll exceed them."

He pushed her back against the nearest tree trunk, and balanced himself on his toes to get a good angle at her neck. That required him to lean against her, and for a moment he was so distracted by the pleasure of her warmth and familiar scent that he forgot to actually sink his teeth into her neck. Then he recollected himself, and bit down, and the delicious bouquet of her veins enveloped him.

It was almost as hard as it had been the actual first time to tear himself away from her, not only because he wanted the familiar flavour of her blood, but because he knew he'd have to let her go. But he did, and stepped back.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"A little strange," Tav said, her voice warm and soft. Then she cleared her throat. "I mean, a little woozy."

"You should rest," Astarion said. "Even with healing magic, give yourself a break."

"There's a lot to do, back at the camp," Tav said reluctantly.

"Do you want to know what I found out about Kagha? I'll tell you if you promise to relax for ten minutes."

"Blackmail?" Tav said, in the dry teasing tone she used only rarely, and then laughed at her own joke. "You are too kind to me, Astarion. I mean it."

"Someone has to be," Astarion told her. "You'd bleed yourself dry otherwise. Apparently, quite literally."

Tav winced, and Astarion wondered if he'd been too incisive again. It had been barely two days, and he was already exhausted from playing pretend. And there was nothing to do but keep going.

She slid down until she was sitting, and leaned her head back against the bark of the oak behind her. "Will this do?" she asked.

No, Astarion thought. I want you to come and put your head in my lap, and let me run my hands through your hair, and then I want you to reach your arms up and pull me down for a kiss before you get up again, or better yet pull me down and keep me there, and let me undo the buttons of your shirt and...

"Admirably," he said. And told her what he had found in Kagha's chest.

"Hmm," Tav said. "Should we make the swamp our priority then? Or maybe the goblin camp and Halsin?"

"I think we could use a little more team cohesion before we attempt the goblin camp," Astarion said. He felt extremely guilty about consigning Halsin, who would in time also become his lover and his friend, to more days in the goblin camp, but he'd been thinking about how to keep them on track. The benefits of knowing the future only worked if the future stayed relatively intact. And if that was true, then Halsin would be fine until they got there. "Maybe we scout out the area above the Grove first? And then do the swamp, and then rescue Halsin. We could use a bit more training before we try and fight an entire campful of goblins."

"Logical," Tav said, approvingly. "We can probably sneak into the goblin camp if I pretend to be a Lolth-sworn drow. It's very unlikely that they know the difference, and I can always wear a visored helmet if I need to. But even so, we should make sure we can handle what they throw at us if things do go bad."

"Tav? Astarion?" Gale's voice called out. "Dinner's almost ready."

Tav sighed, tapped her hand to her chest and healed herself, and stood. "Duty calls," she said. Then she stopped. "I will keep your secrets as long as you ask me to, but I don't know how long that will be."

"Oh, don't worry about it," Astarion said. "I knew everyone would find out soon enough. I just wanted you to be the first."

That night, as Astarion tranced, he found his way into a memory of Tav f*cking him. It was one of the days they'd spent in the High Forest, hunting for the Lost Library of Paizazor. It had been daylight outside the tent, drowsy dusk inside it. Tav had been on top, so that he could watch her face, her palms warm against his chest, his fingers working her cl*t as her hips rolled against him. He was teasing her, bringing her to the edge of org*sm over and over but never letting her go all the way. She moaned, and then said his name in a voice that made him almost feel as if his heart could still beat.

He woke up rock hard, the sky a faded black that was just beginning to colour. He turned his head, and there was Tav, her bedroll only a few feet away. If he woke her up, took her into the woods, and pinned her against a tree would she let him have his way with her, or would she think he was mad? Unfortunately, he thought he knew the answer. He slunk off on his own, disappearing into the trees until he was far enough away to take matters in hand and relieve himself.

It struck him, as he came, that this was the first time in years he'd actually masturbat*d. Well, sometimes he'd finished himself off after a particularly unsatisfying round with a mark, but that hadn't been the same thing at all, just a mechanical release before he continued his ugly work. And then after Cazador, Tav had always been there, and always been receptive when desire awoke in him, and he'd just never thought about it. He wondered if it was one of the many tripwires Cazador's torture had left in his mind. You couldn't pretend, when you were the only participant, that it was about anyone else. He still had desires. His, not anyone else's, not even Tav's. It was... nice, actually, to realise that this part of himself was still there. Cazador hadn't killed it, just put it into hibernation for a two hundred year winter. It had waited under the ice of loneliness and cruelty, until he'd put a knife in Cazador's heart and started on the path back to spring.

With his lust slaked and his heart enlivened by this self-reflection, Astarion headed back to camp just in time for an argument.

"I'm only saying that it might be safer for everyone if you stayed here," Wyll was saying to Durge. "If you really can't control these darker impulses, then why put yourself in the path of temptation?"

"Because temptation is everywhere," Durge told him. "If I stay here, and the urge rises, and I kill Lae'zel while the rest of you are gone, would that be better? Being close to Tav is the only thing that works."

"You would not kill me," Lae'zel snapped back. "You overestimate your meagre skills."

"I know that this is not an easy question," Tav said, "but for the moment, I side with Durge. I'd rather have them where I can see them. Though I appreciate that everyone has been very helpful. I don't think we could do this without all of your assistance."

Astarion hated that 'we', which neatly bracketed her and Durge away from the rest of the group. "You know," he said, walking over, "there are intermediate steps. Ropes, for example. A good muzzle, perhaps."

Durge glared at him, and Astarion smiled his brightest smile in response.

"I pray it doesn't come to that," Tav said. "Durge, have you been practicing the meditations I taught you? If you can work on developing your own mental fortitude, that will be our greatest asset."

Durge exhaled sharply through their nose. "I will do my best," they said.

And that, at least for now, was that.

Chapter 2: He looked upon the garish day with such a wistful eye

Chapter Text

Seeing Karlach was painful in a way that Astarion's atemporal reunions with his other friends hadn't been. In the future he'd left, Karlach was dead. He hadn't internalised what that would mean, when he actually locked eyes with her again, living and breathing. There had to be another way out. There had to be. He couldn't bear to watch her die twice.

But if he changed things that much, would his old future exist to return to? Was Karlach's death some cosmic lynch pin that meant that a year later, seven thousand spawn would have the promise of a cure fulfilled? Astarion didn't know why he'd been the one chosen to remember things, but right now he hated whatever power had brought him here. He wasn't equipped to make these kinds of decisions. That was what Tavs were for, or even Wylls in a pinch. You wanted someone strong and upright and noble, someone who had already agreed to carry the weight of the world, not a dubiously ethical vampire spawn, no matter how handsome and charming he was.

"Looks like an easy kill," Durge said, as soon as Wyll hissed Karlach's name, their taloned hand crackling with electricity.

"Oh for gods sake," Astarion snapped, thoroughly unable to restrain himself, what with all the emotions he'd just had inflicted on him, "that's not a devil. She's just a tiefling with issues. Use your brain for once, Durge, can't you?"

"Astarion," Wyll said, "I know you're a kindhearted fellow," - Astarion almost had to cram his fist in his mouth to stop from laughing at that - "but my source told me she's dangerous."

"No," Tav said, ever observant and level-headed, "Astarion is right."

She made peace between Karlach and Wyll in a few moments. Durge looked sulky, but perked up when Karlach mentioned killing paladins. They did that, and then killed all the gnolls in the area, and got most of the way to the swamp before evening arrived and it came time to set up camp. And there, finally, was Withers.

"I need to talk to you," Astarion said, sidling up to him while everyone else was distracted with dinner.

Withers turned his blank-faced gaze to Astarion, and then did a slight double take.

"Thee?" he said. "Thou art the one of whom I was instructed?"

"I would also be much happier if it wasn't me," Astarion hissed. "Now tell me what you know."

Withers sighed. "I can tell thee little more than thou hast likely already guessed. I am not the architect of this event, nor even its overseer. But certain words were passed to me to pass on to thee, and now I will relay them."

"Fine, fine, whatever, just hurry up."

"The future is in doubt. The mother of spiders sensed a great loss coming, and most eager to avoid it, made a deal with a certain other god to ensure it did not come to pass. But she overstepped her bounds, and that gave her daughter a chance to retaliate."

So this was Eilistraee's fault. Astarion was going to have so much to say to her when he next saw her. He didn't even believe in the gods, and she had a perfectly good paladin right over there. What business was it of his to save the world?

But Withers was not done. "Now, the world's fate is bound to thine. Thou are champion for some of us, and opposed by the champion of another."

"So I should just kill the other champion," Astarion said, brightening up considerably. "And then look at that, problem solved."

"No!" Withers said, with as much vigour as he had ever said anything. "That would be accounted as thy loss, and thou would fail in the attempt in any case. Thou must not use the tools of thine enemy to defeat them. Think, spawn, on what Eilistraee stands for. She has entrusted much to thee, though thou art not her chosen, and I would not see that faith broken so easily."

Astarion did not have to think very hard to remember the things Tav had told him about Eilistraee. Breaker of chains, a goddess who believed that even the worst Lolth-sworn drow could be saved, a goddess of freedom and mercy. He could have got there even if he hadn't ever met Tav's goddess, just from Tav herself. I have to hope, she had said to him once, that we can all become better than we were, if we learn to make different choices.

"I have to save the awful dragonborn?" Astarion moaned. "No, this is ridiculous. They're practically feral. Why on earth would anyone pick me to do that?"

"Thou hast companions who are better suited to the task, I agree," Withers said, more than a little snidely. "Perhaps thy responsibility is to protect them while they undertake that work." Then he leaned in close. "There is much I cannot tell thee, lest I overstep my bounds and give Lolth the advantage. But when doubt clouds thy mind, remember that thou wert chosen for a reason, and that there are answers in paths untrod before."

"Oh wonderful," Astarion snapped. "Cryptic riddles. Exactly what I need."

Withers looked at him with an impassive gaze that was ridicule itself, and Astarion stalked off.

In some ways, Withers was annoyingly right. Astarion didn't know much more now than he had five minutes after the crash. He'd already guessed that Durge was the critical factor. He supposed that he should be happier now he had some concrete guidelines about how to handle their new scaly friend, but mostly he was just grumpy that murder was off the table.

As Astarion walked back towards the fire and his own tent, he saw Durge sitting calmly in their own spot, off to the side, away from the others. Oh gods, he was going to have to go and talk to them. Astarion stood by his assertion that he was the wrong person entirely to try and fix whatever monumental problems Durge had, but he wasn't even going to be able to help Tav if he didn't have more information.

"Not feeling particularly social tonight?" he said, standing in a nonchalant slouch rather than sitting. He refused to put himself on their level.

"No," Durge replied.

"Is that because you don't like any of us, or because your brain is so full of holes that you don't feel confident in having a conversation?" Astarion asked.

"In your case, both," Durge said. They shifted a little and looked at Astarion with those unnerving red eyes. "You're a vampire. Heard the others say it. Have you killed a lot of people?"

"I'm a spawn," Astarion said pointedly. "So mostly only indirectly. I served my master well, if unwillingly."

"Hmm. Feels... There's a bite in my brain, when I think of serving a master through death. Don't know what that means, though. Tav told me not to let those thoughts consume me, but it's not like there's anything else going on."

Astarion felt a little flicker of pity ignite in his heart, and mentally glowered at himself for it. "It might be for the best, you know, that you don't remember things. There are large parts of my life I'd give anything to forget."

"Want to trade?" Durge reached up and touched their temple, using the tadpole. After a moment, Astarion let them in. It was risky, given all the secrets he was keeping, but he thought if he concentrated he could show Durge a sliver of his memories of Cazador and keep them focused on those. Nothing too raw or vulnerable, just fragments of a thousand minor cruelties. Just enough to be sure Durge would understand the relief of forgetting.

"Bad," Durge said. "But not like this."

And then the scale flipped, and Astarion was in a raw whirlpool of absence and bile. Durge's mind was a nightmare of pure knives, rending at itself for lack of anything else to hurt. Astarion stumbled backwards, and most unusually, tripped over his own feet. He sprawled back onto the dirt and found that one of his canines had split his lower lip. He looked at Durge, wild-eyed and horrified.

"It's always like that?" he asked.

"No," Durge said. "Sometimes it's worse."

"Well," Astarion said at last, "sh*t."

"When Tav uses the voice it calms down for a moment," Durge said. "But I don't know if I like that any better. Then there's just... nothing."

"Then what you need is something," Astarion said, thinking about his sister Violet, and the way she'd reacted to Cazador's death. She had been so afraid to live with what she had done as a spawn that she had tried to get Tav to kill her instead, and it had taken all of Tav's skills to persuade her to give herself a second chance. "Tav telling you to meditate is all very well and good, but it's not going to help if all you've got to meditate on is that maelstrom. So stop hiding in the corner and come and talk to everyone. They're all weirdos, you know, but at least they're strong. Lae'zel wasn't wrong when she said you'd have a hard time putting her in the ground."

Durge hesitated, and for the first time, Astarion understood exactly what they were feeling, because he'd gone through it himself. That suspicious flinch at any kindness, like a feral cat clawing at the hand of its rescuer. "Alright," they said. "At this point, I'd try anything."

Karlach was talking when Durge and Astarion came over, telling everyone the story of how her horn had been broken off. "It was way back before Zariel and any of that," she was saying. "Before I even got hired by Gortash."

Durge flinched like a whipped horse, and then shook their head back and forth. "Who is that?" they asked. "Gortash?"

Karlach's nose flared, and flames licked around her body. "He's the prick who sold me to Zariel. He's a politician back in Baldur's Gate, and the most untrustworthy snake anyone ever met. The next time I meet him, I'm going to f*cking kill him."

"A politician..." Durge frowned sharply, and then slumped. "Nothing. For a moment, I thought I remembered something, but it's already gone."

"Aw, sh*t, I didn't mean to do that," Karlach said instantly. "But if you're from Baldur's Gate, one of us has got to have something that'll jog your memory. We can all tell stories, and see what works."

"Not me, I'm afraid," Gale said. "I'm a Waterdeep man through and through."

"I've always wanted to visit Waterdeep," Astarion said, as though he hadn't spent months of his life there already. As though he and Tav hadn't been planning to buy a house there. "Maybe I'll move there, when this is all over."

"Betrayal," Wyll said, "slander! As if any city could be better than Baldur's Gate."

"Exactly," Karlach agreed. "Best place in the whole world. Even the alleys that are mostly rats and sewage."

Durge laughed. They had an eerie laugh that sounded like a dragon's roar. It shouldn't have been charming, and yet it was.

"The last time I was in Baldur's Gate was a hundred years ago," Tav said. "And even then, it was only a brief visit. I look forward to going back. You'll have to show me around, all you Baldurians."

The conversation took no effort to keep afloat after that. Everyone had memories to share, and stories to tell, funny little anecdotes, favourite places to visit, recommendations that they argued back and forth over. It kept going well after dinner was finished, and Tav uncorked a bottle of wine they'd found earlier and poured everyone a little glass. It was terrible, a rough, rustic wine of the year that had barely had time to ferment, but Astarion sipped it anyway. As he was finishing, Tav scooted closer to him and flicked his glass with one of her long fingers.

"Want a more palatable vintage?" she said quietly.

"Darling, I thought you'd never ask," he told her, and she smiled. They snuck off to his tent, which was out of line of sight of tonight's campfire, and he got her to lie down on his bedroll. It was nostalgic, because this was how they'd done things the first time around, and it was agony, because she was right there, and she didn't know him and she wasn't his. Well, he thought, I suppose I could proposition her. Except that it's only been three days, and I don't think she'd say yes, and the last thing I want is to make her wary of me. What was the appropriate amount of time to wait before you asked the love of your life to sleep with you for the first time?

Did he even want to sleep with her? Astarion was somewhat thrown by the thought, even as he bit down and let her blood flow into his veins. Was he thinking about sex with her only because that was what he had done last time? Because it was the only framework he knew for intimacy and love? It was easy, that was true, and it also staked out a relationship with her that Astarion didn't want anyone else to have. He didn't need Tav to be only his forever, he was happy to eventually have conversations about including other people, but he wanted her to be his first, his fundamentally, for her to at least have to ask before she let anyone else into her heart.

What would it be like to court her without making sex a part of the equation at all? Astarion had some experience of leading people on, if only with the goal of bringing them to violent suffering. imprisonment, or death, but he couldn't exactly take Tav to a bar and get her drunk. Besides, that lacked a certain degree of care. Being on a quest in headlong pursuit of the Chosen of the Dead Three somewhat crimped his ability to say, take her for romantic picnics or row a boat around a lake or whatever you were supposed to do. There was always poetry, but somehow he wasn't convinced by his ability to recite poetry or Tav's receptivity to it as a form of courting.

"Astarion?" Tav said, touching his shoulder gently, "maybe pull back."

Astarion realised he'd been latched onto her for much longer than he'd intended, lost in his own thoughts. He jerked back at once. "Sorry," he said. "I should have been more careful. But really, you can't imagine how delicious you are." He ran his thumb lightly over the incision wounds, and Tav tilted her chin ever so slightly, like a cat that was enjoying a scratch. He was going to kiss her if he didn't move back. He moved back.

"What does it taste like?" Tav asked. She touched her hand to her neck and healed herself, but didn't move. "Is it actually like wine?"

"Not really," Astarion said. "But I've got to use some kind of metaphor, and people are more receptive to wine than some of the other choices. No one likes to be compared to cheese. And personally, darling, I think perfume would work even better, but that's a niche area of expertise."

"Well," Tav said, "I would be fascinated to hear your expert opinion, even if my appreciation of it is very pedestrian."

"If I was going to compare you to a perfume," Astarion said, drawing out the words slowly as he thought, "hmm. A warm base. Something like amber, I think. Maybe a little smoke, too. Leather, perhaps. Then on top of that, something clear and sharp. Pine, certainly, and a citrus maybe. Orange blossom, probably. And then the top note is thoroughly unexpected, floral and light and sweet. Lilies would probably work best."

"All that?" Tav said, and turned her head to look at him, thoughtful and curious and still oddly wary. "You see such depths in me, it's almost like you know me better than I know myself."

"Blood gives away a lot," Astarion said, which was a complete lie, but how was Tav going to know that?

She certainly didn't call him on it. She said, "Well then, will you even the scales and tell me more about yourself? We don't have to get into anything serious, but I'd love to know. I feel like I've been neglecting you, because you seem so calm compared to everyone else. Like you're taking all this in stride. I keep thinking, 'Oh, I don't have to worry about Astarion, I can just rely on him', but then I can't forget what you told me last night. Maybe I'm just missing your struggles because you're better at hiding them."

"Do you want to know about my struggles, or about me? You can have either, or both."

"Is there a difference? Your struggles are a part of you, but only a part. I think I would like to know the whole, but only as much as you're comfortable sharing."

"Hmm," Astarion said, "let me think." What could he tell her? What should he tell her? Should he keep things light, or give her a sense of what she had known before, all the darkness that Cazador had laid on him? He wished for a moment that he could fast forward to the point where she already knew him intimately, so that he didn't have to go through the excruciating process of putting his suffering into words all over again. In the end, he told her the story more or less as he had the first time, of bringing back victims to Cazador and having the choice of eating the rat or being flayed.

"What a loathsome worm he is," she said with disgust. "You have been denied your justice for too long."

"I imagine the people I fed to him would want me to share that justice," Astarion said. "Though I would personally rather keep living. But they did suffer because of me." He was playing a role, a little bit, wondering what it would be like for Tav to see him as noble and good all the way through - though she'd always insisted that he was better than he liked to believe of himself.

Tav looked at him fiercely. "They suffered because of Cazador," she said, "and we will grant them the mercy of knowing, in whatever afterlife they found, that he will never do it to anyone else again." She sighed a little, looked down, and then looked back up at him with disarming candour. "I hope you don't think that's presumptuous of me. I can't claim to have known anything like what you've been through, but I spent a decade of my adolescence prisoned in Menzoberranzan. I learned a lot about the cruelty people inflict on those they think beneath them while I was there. It amazes me that you can be so strong, so ready to face what happened to you. It was years before I reached the point you're at."

"It took me longer than you think," Astarion said. "And I only got there because of words like yours. We don't need to fight over who had it worse, that sounds dreadfully tedious. We can just be happy we understand each other."

Tav's fingers flexed slightly, as though she were about to move her hand. As though she were about to reach for him. Then she pulled back and sat up. "That does make me happy," she said. "But I shouldn't take up more of your time tonight. Sleep well. I'll see you in the morning."

He wanted to pin her to his bed and kiss her. He wanted to wrap himself around her and never let go. But more than that, he wanted her to want those things. She had been patiently persistent with him, the first time around. She had seen through the bristling misery he was in and coaxed him out of it, step by agonising step. Now, she seemed almost afraid of him, and he wasn't sure why. Wasn't it better, this version of him who was a little bit less of a complete bastard? Was Tav really someone who was only drawn to broken things? That felt like a slight against her character, but he didn't know how else to account for her reserve.

It's only been three days, he told himself. You're jumping ahead and you're impatient. Give her at least a week before you start expecting her to be totally won over by your charms. Astarion groaned, pressed his pillow over his face, and slipped into the feywild, clinging to memories of the version of Tav who cared as deeply for him as he did for her.

There were things Astarion did not remember perfectly. Even with reverie, it was impossible to precisely order all the events that had occurred in the frantic sprint of time between the nautiloid crash and the death of the Netherbrain. At least, that was what Astarion told himself when he realised he'd forgotten about Raphael.

The devil appeared to them that morning, reciting his little nursery rhyme, and Astarion didn't take particular notice until he hesitated, just for a moment, as Withers had. He looked quickly between Durge and Tav, and his smile got even more scheming. Something blazed across Astarion's mind, and he felt again the pressure of fingers on his lips. He must not find out! said a voice that he knew only he could hear. Meddlesome, meddlesome goddess. But it was self-evidently good advice. Whatever game was being waged across the cosmos, no good could come to any of them from Raphael getting involved.

"Well well well," Raphael purred, still looking between Durge and Tav. "A cavalier sinner in the company of such a noble knight. Isn't life full of ironies?"

Tav looked at him coldly. "You seem to know a good deal more about us than we do about you," she said. "Or at least, you presume to know."

Raphael snorted, and wound back into his long speech about how much they needed his help. It was noticeably disimproved by repeated viewing, Astarion thought. At least the first time, Raphael had had terror and uncertainty on his side. Now the whole thing just felt like bloviating.

There was a moment, just one, where Raphael looked at Astarion. It might have been nothing. It might have been that he already knew about Cazador's ritual, and was excited for Astarion to come begging about it. It might have been that Astarion was so beautiful even a devil couldn't resist him. Whatever it was, Astarion relaxed his face into its habitual expression of suspicious disdain, and Raphael's eyes swept on.

Equally troubling was what he said to Durge and Tav. "I'll be there when hope runs out," he sneered. "Though I wonder who will be left alive to greet me? The trouble with having a naked blade in your camp is that sooner or later, someone will miss their footing and stumble onto it." And on that smugly ominous note, he left.

"Don't listen to him," Tav said. "Nothing he had to say was worth hearing." Astarion did not bother to pretend to himself that he thought she was correct. Raphael loved to tell half truths over lies, because they were so much easier to manipulate people with. That was the first thing he'd understood about the demon.

Astarion was just composing a mental list of things he hated, and planning to add 'cryptic bullsh*t from divine and/or infernal beings' near the top of the list, right under Cazador and rats, but then the illusion of the sunlit wetlands broke, and it got knocked several pegs down by, in order: the concept of bogs; traps hidden in murky water; mud; hags; people who went to hags to solve their problems; redcaps; and bogs again for good measure.

"I hate this," he grumbled, and to his surprise, Durge made a noise of agreement.

"Getting mud out of my scales is the worst," they said gloomily, and then paused. "Not sure how I know that."

"Bodily memory," Astarion told them, delivering it with the air of a sage dispensing great wisdom. "Some things get in too deep to ever really be forgotten. You must have been in deep mud before. Though I'm not sure where, in Baldur's Gate. I don't suppose you spent a lot of time in the sewers."

He'd meant it as a joke, but Durge stiffened slightly. "I... Maybe I did?" they said, sounding baffled. "I don't know what that would even mean."

"Ooh, you could've been a treasure hunter," Karlach said eagerly. "There were always rumours of secret treasures hidden down in the depths under the city. Ancient ruins, cult temples, you name it, it's supposed to be buried under Baldur's Gate."

"Don't tell me you believe any of that," Astarion began, and then cut off. Durge was frowning again, their snout screwed up in agony.

"Almost," they said. "That was almost something."

"I'm being helpful," Karlach beamed, and Durge smiled wanly back at her. They did not seem nearly so enthusiastic.

Astarion left them to it. Something was coming, another chance to change things, as they rounded a curve of the road and he saw a brown-haired man in shabby clothes ambling towards them. How strange it was, to look at an old nightmare and see it without fear. He felt like a child waking up in the morning and realising that the shadows they had taken for claws were only tree branches.

"Tav," he said, "that man is looking for me." He filled her in quickly on the Gur. Tav's eyes narrowed.

"Is he a slaver?" she said coldly, ready now as she had been before to strike down anyone who might put him in chains.

"No," he said. "Just deceived. I might need you to stop him from trying to kill me, but I think I can talk him round."

"He will not harm a hair on your head while I draw breath," Tav promised.

Astarion had been thinking about this. He had planned what he would say, how to spin all the extra information he had. The lie needed to be simple but effective, which meant there was only one obvious answer. And so, once they had established the fundamental facts - yes he was Astarion, no he wasn't going quietly with this man - Astarion began weaving a slight alternate history for himself.

"I've been looking for a way to be free from Cazador for years," Astarion said. "Making plans. I couldn't do anything about direct orders, though. I had to obey those. Until now."

Gandrel was sceptical, but with all the information Astarion knew, it was easy to run verbal rings around him, and to persuade him that their interests ultimately aligned. Wouldn't you be proud of me, Tav? he thought, as they went off to fight Auntie Ethel. Even though she had never, ever breathed a word to him of regret, he knew that their closer association with the Gur later had made her realise that she had reacted too quickly. Now that weight would be taken from her shoulders.

But this Tav didn't know. Couldn't know. She hadn't seen the work it had taken him to get here. She hadn't helped do that work, by being a steady and loving presence in his life.

They went and found the evidence of the shadow druids, brought it back to Kagha - Tav talked her into admitting the error of her ways, which was very classic Tav behaviour, and got her to join their side in the fight - went to the goblin camp and freed Halsin, and then killed the goblin leaders. Noble, heroic work. Astarion didn't complain about any of it. Apart from anything else, he knew it would, irritatingly, eventually pay off. Zevlor had been a crucial element of that last fight against the Netherbrain, for example, and that was only possible because Tav had kept dragging him out of the astonishing amount of trouble he liked to get himself into.

In the year since the Netherbrain's defeat, Astarion had become a reluctant practitioner of, well, not heroism exactly, but stabbing only people Tav approved of him stabbing. But he hadn't understood how important it was to him that the people around him knew that that was an active choice, not just whatever illness it was that made Karlach and Wyll innately virtuous. He found it exhausting and alienating the way that the others talked to him in camp. "I'm genuinely impressed that you realised there was something more to Kagha," Gale told him jovially, trying to be nice. "It shows real insight. You and Tav make a great team, and we're all lucky to have you."

Astarion made some non-committal reply, and dreaded Gale assuming that he was modest. He wanted someone to see him. There was a wall between him and the world, a magical barrier keeping him apart from the others, and gazing through it was making him desperately lonely.

In that sense, Durge was almost a gift. Their blankness was so total that they didn't seem capable of making any assumptions about anyone. Even more importantly, Astarion didn't have any expectations of them. He didn't have to play back a hundred conversations in his head, to wish that they had context that didn't even exist anymore, he didn't have to think about a future that he knew was coming for them as inescapably as a magic missile. And they had something of the same self-containedness that made Tav so compelling.

"Do you really not like being a vampire?" they asked Astarion one evening. "It seems like a pretty good deal to me."

"I'm not a true vampire," Astarion said. "Just a spawn. But even if I could change that, I wouldn't take it. The downsides aren't worth it."

"You could be so powerful," Durge said, almost regretfully. "Doesn't that feel... beautiful?"

"Power can be beautiful," Astarion acknowledged, "but the kind of power vampires have is like ice. Sure, it can kill you, but it breaks too easily. My master could literally control my every action, and he was still afraid of me. That tells you something about how powerful he felt. And just like ice, all his power is no match for the warmth of the sun on your skin."

"The sun? I don't understand what's so special about that. It hurts my eyes, and makes my aim worse when it's bright."

"It was only one example," Astarion said blithely. "There are other things."

As if on cue, Tav showed up. "I'm here to offer you dinner, if you're hungry," she said to Astarion.

"You are sweet. And I was just feeling peckish." He gave her his most winsome smile.

Durge looked between them. "Strange," they said. "Strange."

Tav raised an eyebrow, but only remarked "Karlach was looking for you. She said she had an idea for something you'd definitely remember."

"She said that the last five times," Durge said, but without any rancour, and they got up and ambled away obediently.

It was half curiosity and half the need to do something different that drove Astarion to talk to the others about things he would never have dreamed of asking them, in his first life. The question of how he wanted to approach Tav was still very much on his mind. If he wanted to try something different, to play at being a true romantic at least for a while, he probably could. But what would that look like? And was it the right thing to do?

Astarion thought that the easiest way to get clarity would be to ask the person who was as unlike him as possible. So, as they were investigating the various basem*nts and caves beneath the blighted village, Astarion found the opportunity to pick Wyll's brain, and took it.

"Wyll, you seem like a sentimental and tender type," he said.

"I can't tell if that's an insult or a compliment," Wyll said, squinting at Astarion suspiciously.

"Once, it would have been the former," Astarion said. "Now, well, call it an observation of fact. I'm not quite sure I'm willing to make the concession that sentimental and tender are admirable traits."

Wyll snorted. "You talk a big game about being cynical, Astarion, but your actions speak otherwise. If I ignored what you say, I might be inclined to give you the same labels."

"How dare you," Astarion said mockingly, and Wyll laughed. "But you can take it as a compliment if you answer a question I have. Something I've never understood."

"What a fascinating lead-in," Wyll said. "Now I have to hear it."

"What is it that makes courting appealing? Or being courted? To clarify, I'm not talking about love. I certainly don't need you to explain that to me. Just the fussy business that so many people seem to think is a necessary part of the process."

Wyll's gaze flickered away from Astarion to the far corner of the room, where Tav and Shadowheart were examining a bit of wall.

"I think I see," he said, a little smile curling his lip.

"You absolutely do not," Astarion said. "This is a purely hypothetical conversation."

"But of course," Wyll assured him, his smile getting bigger. Astarion began to get the sinking feeling that this whole idea had been a huge mistake. "We will speak purely hypothetically. But I don't know if I can give you a good answer. You call it fussy business, but isn't it just how you show someone you care? For one person, that might be a bouquet of flowers, for another, a hand-written poem. It all depends."

"And that's," Astarion scrunched his face up thoughtfully, "appealing?"

"Wouldn't you like it, if someone did those things for you?"

Astarion considered this. "No," he said. "Flowers aren't interesting unless they're poisonous, and if my lover wants to recite poetry at me they'd better be as good as a goddess." That was not entirely hyperbole. Eilistraee had written an ode to Tav, in Astarion's last life, in which his own exploits had featured heavily. He could still hum most of it from memory. It was not a standard anyone should be expected to match.

Wyll snorted. "Those were only examples. Someone who was romancing you would find something that does speak to your soul, I'm sure."

"I know what presents are," Astarion said witheringly. "Are you really telling me that romance is just presents with agendas? Because I had someone gift me a diamond-" he bit back the word collar, which would thoroughly derail the conversation, "-necklace, once, and let me tell you it did not improve my opinion of them one bit."

"I suppose that's why people say it's the thought that counts," Wyll said. "But you're right. Gifts are a way of expressing romantic interest, but not the whole of it."

"It just seems hopelessly artificial," Astarion said. "I'm not saying I don't like a nice trinket, but the subtext is the same no matter what you do. Sooner or later, it's all just complicated ways of bringing someone to bed."

"What are you talking about?" Tav asked. She was rather suddenly behind them, and Astarion panicked briefly.

"I was telling Astarion about a time I tried to pick the perfect gift for a young man I was courting," Wyll said, "and it went rather badly wrong. And then we were debating what the best romantic gestures are." Astarion felt a stupid rush of gratitude at Wyll's tact. It was not a quality many of his friends were blessed with.

"Ah," Tav said, as they made their way into the plant-filled cave with all the skeletons. "In that case I am of little use to you. Romance is not my area of expertise."

"Really?" Wyll said, his eyes flicking to Astarion in a way that seemed to imply 'this is just what we need'. Astarion did not acknowledge the expression. "That surprises me. Doesn't everyone dream of falling in love with a knight in shining armour?" As he spoke, the skeletons got up out of their graves, and they all drew their weapons for the fight.

Tav was always ready to act, and quickly smashed one of the skeletons to bits, then sighed. "That lasts about five seconds," she said, keeping the conversation going. "And then they take a second look, and realise what I actually am is an adventurer who smells of dust and blood, and has little to her name but her sword and shield. The glamour fades quickly. And so most of my relationships, when they've happened, have been very practical things, with members of whichever party I was travelling with."

Astarion's heart sank a little. It was an essentially accurate description of his relationship with her, too. "And you're content with that?" he asked. "You don't dream of something more?" He shot an arrow at another skeleton and watched it shiver apart into bone fragments. Wyll and Shadowheart took care of another two.

Tav turned the last skeleton to dust with a clean strike, and did not answer for a long moment. At last, her voice rather quiet, as though she weren't entirely sure of herself, she said, "I've never had a reason not to be." Then she rallied, and spoke more cheerfully. "I'm very happy you know, in my love for my goddess and my love for my duty. I don't ever feel that anything is missing." She smiled, a perfect smile that suggested no emotional conflict whatsoever, and gestured to their companions. "That's why we must turn to Wyll and Shadowheart. What's the most romantic thing you can imagine?"

"Romance is a trap, designed to tempt us into forgetting the lessons of loss that Lady Shar is trying to teach us," Shadowheart said stiffly. "But if I were talking abstractly, hypothetically,"--Astarion rolled his eyes internally, because that phrase was no more believable coming from Shadowheart than it had been when he said it--"I think the most romantic thing in the world is to be understood. I don't need grand gestures, or elaborate gifts. I'd just want someone to look at all of me, and really know me. They could buy me my favourite flowers, or take me out for a meal, or just sit and watch the stars with me. It wouldn't matter, as long as the understanding was there."

"Beautifully said," Wyll agreed.

"Right," Astarion said, pretending that his brain wasn't going off like firecrackers, "that's quite enough sweetness and light. Any more and I'll become physically ill. Let's go take a look at the very obviously evil mirror."

Astarion didn't get a chance to think about the whole conversation properly until that evening, when it was his turn to go wash up and he finally got some solid peace and quiet. As he cleaned blood and gore off himself and his clothes in the icy river water, he mulled over what Shadowheart's words.

Little as he liked to give their sweet Sharran cleric credit for anything, she had put into words a feeling deep in his heart. He'd been worrying about the gesture, but really what he wanted was the thing under the gesture. As long as whatever he did showed Tav that he saw her, and liked what he saw, then that would be enough.

Astarion ducked his head under the rushing water, and let the cold shock him to something almost like liveliness, and then scrambled back out to dry off. He passed Gale on the way back to camp and gave him a companionable nod, but didn't stop to talk. Gale smiled back, and there was something a little odd about the smile, but Astarion didn't really take heed of it, and so he was totally taken aback when he reached his tent and found a huge bouquet of flowers left on his bed. He stared at them for a long moment, but didn't remotely know what to do about them.

Gale's tent was just across from his. No wonder the man had been smirking at him.

Astarion noticed a piece of paper sticking out from the flowers, and with the same care he would use when breaking apart a trap, slid it out between his fingertips and unfolded it. It was torn from a notebook, he thought, and was signed with a sharp cut T, though he would have recognised the handwriting even without it.

I couldn't get the conversation earlier out of my head, the note read. Maybe the topic was purely hypothetical on your part, but I found myself wondering how many simple gifts there were in your past, and thought that the answer was probably not enough. An error in the world that surely I am called on to correct. There is borage here, for courage, with daises for the sun that has returned, and thorned roses, because all flowers that look and smell so sweet need their defences. In friendship and admiration, and with the hope that this small gesture lets you dream of grander ones to come, T.

Astarion stared at the note, and then at the flowers. He had not expected Tav to try and beat him at his own game. Friendship, the note said, and he wondered if that was really true. She almost never lied, but she was sometimes careful with the truth. And she wasn't giving anyone else in the camp a bouquet. He felt a smile creep over his face, and knew even without a mirror that he was wearing a particularly soft and foolish expression.

Hurriedly, he ducked into his tent and pulled the flap down behind him, then sat on his bed next the bouquet and looked at it. Just for a moment, he felt something so big well up inside him that he wanted to cry. It was that rare moment when returning felt like a gift and not a curse, when he had the chance to experience something novel, and to know the truths that held beyond coincidence. Some parts of people were mutable, and some were eternal, and Tav's beautiful openhearted kindness was very much the latter.

He'd have to get revenge, of course, find some way to beat her at her own game, but that would be a lot of fun. Indeed, several promising options occurred to him immediately. By the time Tav stood outside his tent and said "Hungry?" in her low voice, Astarion had decided on a course of action, and was feeling positively gleeful about it.

"Starving, my dear." She ducked into his tent and beamed when she saw the flowers resting in a silver cup that Astarion had stolen at some point that week.

"You didn't find them too overbearing, then?" she asked, sitting down on his bedroll. "I certainly hope you're not just being polite, that would be the last thing I'd want."

"I was... touched," Astarion said. "Really. This is the first time anyone's given me a present like this. With no strings attached." He raised a teasing eyebrow. "Unless the strings are very thin and delicate?"

"That would be monstrous of me," Tav said seriously. "If..." she hesitated, and then turned to look at him directly with her bright and searing eyes. "If I ever wanted something from you, I hope that you can trust that I would ask directly. That you would know exactly what you were saying yes or no to."

Astarion's heart melted all over again. There was no jewel in all of Faerûn equal to being given such respect and care. "Your honesty is a gift," he said, "much greater than the flowers." He looked down at his hands. "Two presents already, and my dinner is about to be a third. You are spoiling me, darling."

"You deserve to be spoiled," Tav said. Anyone else would have been flirting, but Tav was not. She said it with the same righteous conviction that she said things like 'all slaves deserve to be free', as though it were a moral truth of the world. "But if you're counting honesty as a gift, would you give me some in return?"

"I can try," Astarion said, thinking of all the secrets he was keeping.

"Have you ever had a feeling when you met someone for the first time like you'd already known them for years?" Tav asked. She lay back on his bed, and did not quite look him in the eye. She must be talking about their first meeting, for the question to make her this shy. Astarion wondered if it was a side effect of the tadpole meld, if some of their future together had seeped into her.

"Not exactly," Astarion said, since she had asked for honesty. "But really, I've learned to be so suspicious of feelings that I simply might not have noticed. I do warm up to some people much faster than others." He pressed his icy fingers against her throat as he spoke, and she yelped and then laughed.

"Drink from me immediately, before your fingers turn to actual blocks of ice," she said, and turned her head to the side. Astarion leaned down and bit her, and did feel a little prickle of warmth run through him, her blood bringing the shallow semblance of life back to his cold body. When he pulled away, Tav reached out and very lightly touched the tips of his fingers with hers. "It's funny what a difference it makes. Do you feel it?"

"Of course," Astarion told her. "It's like watching the sun rise." He reached out and pulled one of the daisies from the bouquet she'd given him, snapped the stem short, and tucked it behind her ear. He felt the heat leap into her cheeks, though it was barely visible on her face. "You are like the sun to me," he said, which was so much more true than she could know.

"You said you didn't like poetry," Tav said. "But that is the sweetest and most beautiful compliment I have ever been paid. Thank you." She sat up, so careful not to touch him, and Astarion knew that her perfect restraint was a deliberate mark of respect, but he wished her rigid self control would slip just a little, just a fraction of an inch. Still, the lingering smile on her face was its own small victory.

He took her hand and slid his fingers between hers. "See, all warmed up." He was still cooler than she was, but not by so much.

"You could be warmer," Tav said thoughtfully, and put her other hand on top of his, letting the heat of her soak through his skin. Before the tadpoling Astarion had only slept a whole night in someone's arms once, with a boy he had loved two hundred years before Tav, and which had ended in the acutest misery of his whole existence. So he'd forgotten, until she came into his life, that he could feel warm when someone cradled him for hours.

"That feels incredible," he told her, and was about to reach out with his other hand when a shadow fell across the tent.

"Tav?" Durge said. "Are you in there? I need your help with something."

"Coming now," Tav said, and stood up. She let go of Astarion's hand slowly, reluctantly, but she did let go, and walked out of the tent, and did not return.

That night, Astarion dreamed. It was another thing he'd forgotten would happen. After the revelation that the dream visitor was the Emperor, he'd more or less forgotten about the earlier form it had taken. And unlike Tav, who had struck up a genuine friendship with the Emperor, Astarion had not been particularly interested in him as a person.

Astarion did remember that the first time round, the dream visitor had looked like a fairly generic high elf: pale-skinned, pale-haired, with dreamy blue eyes. The kind of elf who could easily have passed for Astarion's sister or mother. A rather dull interpretation of what Astarion might find comforting, but fine. Passable. Now the dream visitor looked amusingly like Tav herself. Not a perfect seeming, but she was a dark-skinned drow, and though she was smaller and slighter than Tav, and older, the astonishing silver of her eyes was just the same.

"We meet at last," the dream visitor said, her voice warm and rich and pseudo-motherly.

"Do we?" Astarion replied. He was feeling distinctly nervous. He wasn't sure how much the Emperor could see into his mind. He was sure the answer wasn't everything, judging by his memories of the first journey, but he wasn't nearly as confident that the answer was nothing. He had to be careful. He didn't think the Emperor was likely to be a safe pair of hands into which to place the fragile future. Marginally better than Raphael maybe, but that was not saying much at all.

"I am the one who saved you," the dream visitor told him. "And I have come to save you again. To offer you power. We need to work together."

"Power? What do you mean by power?" Astarion said. He let his voice purr a little, as it would have if he didn't know the answer in advance.

"You want the power to kill your master, don't you? I can make that easy for you." It was, given everything, still a surprisingly tempting offer. No memory of the future could make a confrontation with Cazador less horrible.

"That does sound intriguing," Astarion let himself admit. "Though I wonder how you know what's what I want."

"I have been listening," the dream visitor said. "I have heard your conversations with your companions."

"So you've been invading my privacy?"

"I cannot do anything but listen. I cannot block my ears to what happens any more than you stop hearing the heartbeats of your companions." That was probably a lie, but Astarion wasn't going to call it out.

"Well then. I'll have to think about it, but I'm certainly not saying no."

"I am glad you see reason. Talk to the others," the dream visitor said. "Help them see that using the parasites is in all our best interests."

"I'll do what I can," Astarion said, and feeling that it would be reasonable to seem at least a little wary, added, "but I'm not promising anything."

"Who would you trust most, if it came down to it?" the dream visitor asked. That was unexpected. "Who would you let guide you?"

Astarion had not been asked this question before, which meant it was another warning sign. Not that he needed any more of those. But at least in this case he thought it was clear what hand he ought to play.

"You're asking whether I'd trust the honourable, valiant paladin or the amnesiac sorcerer with violent tendencies? The paladin, obviously."

"In that case, make sure you persuade her," the dream visitor said levelly. "She will need every drop of the parasite's power to remain in control."

"Duly noted," Astarion said, which it definitely was, though maybe not for the reasons the Emperor expected. And then the dream faded away, much to his relief.

Their shared dream was the only conversation topic over breakfast, of course. Most people were outright hostile to the visitor, only Gale and Durge seeming interested in the idea of additional powers. Tav, inevitably, fell into the role of thoughtful mediator.

"I'm not personally interested in putting more worms in my head," she said slowly, turning it over as she ate her porridge, "but I don't want to make enemies where we could have allies. This visitor is clearly eager to make us like them, which on the one hand is very manipulative, but on the other hand makes me think they're more vulnerable than they're letting on." She tapped her spoon absentmindedly on the rim of her bowl. "There was something very sad about them. If they visit us again, I would like to find a way to reassure them that I'm someone they can trust."

"That's a very generous sentiment," Gale said. "But I shouldn't be surprised, since you've been a true friend to all of us."

"It is a dangerous softness," Lae'zel said. "Your sentimentality will get you killed."

"No doubt," Tav agreed with a smile. "And yet I still prefer to keep my sword sheathed until that last and most desperate moment."

"What makes you say that the dream visitor wants us to like her?" Durge asked.

"The form they took," Tav said drily. "It was a rather unsubtle attempt at appealing to me. They were rummaging through my head for that one. Though it's interesting that they didn't use my old master as their template. That's what I would have gone with, in her place." Astarion found himself itching to ask more about what Tav had found so appealing, but there wasn't a good way to do it without being embarrassingly obvious.

"I noticed something similar," Wyll said. "There are illusion spells that pull on the subconscious thoughts of the target. My suspicion is, our dream visitor was using something like that. I think manipulative is exactly the right word."

"I don't like how much she knew about me," Shadowheart said. "Not just the form she took, but the way she tried to interest me in taking the tadpoles. I want nothing to do with her."

"Hear hear," Karlach said. No one, Astarion noticed, had mentioned the question of leadership. Was he the only one who had been asked about it? What did that mean, if it was true? He tried to guess what all the implications were, and got nowhere.

"You're frowning," Tav said. She was looking at him right on, with that unnerving gaze that cut through him and yet did not judge him. It was the thing he had never been able to resist about her, the first time around. "Thinking about something? You never said what you made of the dream visitor."

The Emperor's warning rang clear in his ears. She will need every drop of the parasite's power to remain in control. Was that right? Would Astarion be tipping the battle in the Dark Urge's favour if he didn't try and manipulate her into pushing more worms into her skull? Astarion rated his own ability to manipulate Tav much higher than the Emperor's. Maybe it knew that too. Maybe that was why it had focused on him as the best option to persuade her. But he did not want to manipulate her. That was the one improvement he was truly sure he could make, on this second journey. "I'm not sure I know," he said, taking the coward's way out instead. "For now, I say wait and see. We can always say yes later, but it's hard to say no once we've committed."

Tav nodded thoughtfully, and then smiled at him. "Sensible as always," she said. "Don't worry. Whatever comes, we'll see it through."

Astarion hoped desperately that she was right. She had been, the first time round, and he hadn't trusted her. Now he wanted nothing more than to relax and believe she could handle everything. But if that were the case, he would not have been dragged back into this horrendous repetition in the first place. Astarion wanted comfort. He wanted to crawl into a warm lap and close his eyes and not think. He wanted the responsibility of getting things right to be someone else's burden. He wanted to be held, he wanted to be loved. Well. He had wanted those things for two hundred years, and never had them. He could hold out a little longer, couldn't he?

Chapter 3: The kindest use a knife because...

Chapter Text

The evening after they killed the last of the goblin leaders, something different happened again. Alfira showed up.

Astarion was drying his hair and watching Tav polish her armour when the bard appeared. She looked around a little curiously, saw Durge and frowned sharply, and then saw Tav and smiled. "Tav," she said, "I've been thinking a lot, and I realised something. I want to join you."

"To join me?" Tav said. "Alfira..."

"I know, you're going to tell me it's too dangerous, but Tav, I need this. I've been thinking and thinking, and something is calling to me. I feel like there's some greater purpose to my life, and I'll only find it if I go with you. And I promise I can be useful."

Is this Eilistraee interfering again? Astarion wondered. He had no idea why the drow goddess would think they needed a naive tiefling bard, but then he also didn't understand why she'd chosen him. Her motives, whatever they were, were obscure.

Tav was still hesitating, but she didn't get the chance to outright refuse, because Karlach bounded over and said, "Another tiefling? Hells yeah," and then Shadowheart turned up and asked Alfira to play them a song.

"You can at least stay tonight," Tav relented. "But we should talk in the morning. I want you to be very aware of what the cost of this journey might be."

When she showed up at Astarion's tent a little later, she still seemed troubled. "Do you ever get a vague sense of foreboding?" she asked, "and you can't tell if it's because you've actually noticed something that's about to go wrong, or you're just so worried in general that you're making up problems?"

"Darling, I feel like that all the time," Astarion said, and Tav laughed. "Are you worried about the little bardling?"

"Oh, I don't even know," Tav said. "I have the deeply unnerving sense that I'm missing something big, but I can't figure out what it could be." She rubbed her temples with her fingertips, exhaled deeply, and looked at him. "I hope that doesn't undermine whatever faith you have in my judgement."

"Why, it shattered it to smithereens," Astarion said. "Look, it's in pieces all over the floor. Like one of my master's precious porcelain vases." Tav laughed again. "Will you let me rub your shoulders for a bit? It's very relaxing, I promise."

Tav hesitated, and then nodded. "That does sound nice." She sat down with her back to him, and he began to run his fingers over her muscles, through her shirt. She groaned as he hit a knot, and Astarion shivered with want. He had been a fool to suggest this. He imagined the way his Tav would roll her eyes at him. Very cunning, she'd say, but you know all you ever have to do is ask. "You're very good with your hands," the real Tav said.

"Practice," Astarion told her. If it had been his Tav he would have replied with flirtation, because she would have understood all the nuance of it, but he found he couldn't do that now. He wanted this version of Tav to understand more than he wanted her to desire him. Gods, I am a twice-damned fool. "All part of the role I played for two centuries."

Tav tensed up immediately. "Are you really okay with this?" she asked at once, turning to look at him with her piercing eyes. "Astarion, don't do anything to hurt yourself, not for me. I would never ask that."

"I know," he said. "I did offer, Tav. You can rest assured I'm not about to do anything I don't want to. Not even for you."

"I am relieved," she said, and to his surprise, she reached up over her shoulder, caught his hand, and squeezed it. "Your trust is a gift, and I want you to know I treasure it." She moved, lying down on his bedroll and turning her neck to the side, baring her arteries for him. "And trust given should be returned. Take what you need from me."

"With pleasure," Astarion said, and lay down alongside her, buried his face in the crook of her neck, and drank. When he pulled back, Tav blinked sleepily at him.

"Oh," she said, "it must be later than I thought. I'm so tired." She yawned, and tried to get up. Astarion pushed her shoulder back down gently.

"Give it a minute," he said. "I'll wake you up if you actually fall asleep."

"Thanks," Tav said. Her eyes fluttered closed, and her breathing stilled almost instantly. Astarion felt a rush of deep warmth flood through him. Everything was awful, and he didn't know how to keep going half the time, but this was almost like happiness. He stared at her face, clearer in his memory than his own, and felt his own eyes begin to droop. This is wrong, he thought. I never feel tired like this. I don't sleep. I won't. There was something deeply unnatural about the weight that had fallen across his mind. But he couldn't fight it.

He woke up in the morning nestled in Tav's arms, and very unfairly, didn't get to enjoy it at all. Because what had woken both of them was Karlach's shouting. Alfira was dead.

Durge was sitting cross-legged beside the corpse, staring down at it. The scene was as gristly as could be. Intestines were splayed across the ground, blood painted in a wheel. That same blood had dried on Durge's white scales all the way up their forearms and worst of all, across their snout.

"I did this," they said, with no preamble. "I don't remember doing it, but I did it. I came back to myself and she was dead in front of me."

"Gods above," Wyll said, sounding sickened.

"Alfira," Karlach said, "oh no no no no no." She knelt by the dead woman's head, brushing her hair back from her face. "She was so sweet." Her eyes turned to Durge, repulsed. "You did this? You better have a good f*cking explanation."

Tav was standing very still. She had not said a word. Her face was deeply impassive, her eyes like ice.

"Can we resurrect her?" Gale asked. "It's my understanding that that's why Withers is here, after all."

"I cannot," Withers said, having appeared at some point. He could move even more quietly than Astarion, when he wanted to. "And even if I could, I would not. If she returned to life, she would only suffer again, more deeply than before."

"Dark Urge," Tav said heavily, "tell me how to show you mercy."

"I don't know," Durge replied, unflinching. "I cannot tell you what I do not understand myself."

"At least you are honest," Tav said. She knelt down and touched Alfira's cheek. "Alfira was a person. She loved music. She had a sweetheart. She had dreams. You have killed all of them. Why?"

"I don't remember doing it," Durge said again.

"Tell me why," Tav said, using the paladin voice. It rang like thunder. Her holy aura was aflame around her, crackling in the air. Astarion watched. He knew he needed to intervene, but he had no idea how. What on earth could he say, that would let Tav believe in Durge's possible redemption? If he didn't have secret knowledge from her own goddess, he wouldn't even have tried.

"I don't know!" Durge said. They grimaced. "The thing that eats at me, it hated her so. It burned through me, wanting me to hurt her, but I thought I had restrained it. I didn't know it could use me without my knowledge."

"Then you are a danger forever," Tav said. "Dark Urge, my oath is not an oath of vengeance, but I must have a reason to think that I am not failing more innocent people by sparing you."

"It seems to me," Astarion said, seeing his chance, "that it would be a much better revenge to make Durge live than to kill them. Since we can't undo what's done, let them bear the weight of Alfira's life." It was a gamble, but a calculated one. Tav looked at him for a long moment, then looked back to Durge.

"Will you accept this duty?" Tav asked. "Alfira would have brought beauty and poetry to the world. She would have loved, and been loved. Can you learn to do any of these things?"

Durge considered this. They sat for a long time, head bowed, hands pressed together, thinking. "I don't know," they said. "The bile inside me revolts at the idea. But the nothing part of me wants to be something, and what you have suggested is better than any idea I have had on my own. So I will try."

"Then I will help you," Tav said. "And that will be my penance, for I should have been on guard against something like this. I don't know why I didn't wake."

"None of us did," Shadowheart said, "and we are all light sleepers. There is something very ominous about this."

"We must consider how to restrain the Dark Urge in future," Lae'zel said grimly. "We would be fools to think that there will not be a next time."

"We will keep watch in shifts," Tav said. "Me, Astarion and Shadowheart need less sleep than anyone else, we can cover most of the night. And we can set up a rota for everyone else. If you are willing." She looked around. "If you think I am making a mistake, tell me now."

For a moment, no one answered. Karlach's hand still rested against Alfira's hair. She clenched it tight, then let it go. "No," she said at last. "I think we all know what it's like to need a second chance. As awful as what Durge did is, I'd feel better helping them earn one than casting them aside."

Everyone else agreed. They buried Alfira's body, and Tav said a prayer over her grave. Then they went back to the grove to meet Halsin, and to tell the other tieflings what had happened. The tragedy of Alfira's death was somewhat cruelly overshadowed by the general relief that things had worked out so well. It was a callous calculus, but Astarion understood it. And soon, there were all-too-familiar preparations in tow for a party.

Astarion had gone numb again, over the course of a day in which everything happened as it had before. There was a gristly, leaden quality to repetition. The same smells, the same sounds, the same repeated incidents. Astarion picked a bottle of wine and saw his own hand in his mind, reaching down for the same bottle. It wasn't going to taste good, even though it was the best available option. He skulked around his tent, watching Tav and brooding. He felt pushed out of place again, caught in the space between the glass of the mirror and its silvered back, in the minute area where reflection existed. Tav was more solemn than last time, her smile a little less easy. Every so often her eyes flickered over to Durge, but Wyll and Karlach had taken it on themselves to be friendly guards, and were sitting with the dragonborn. It was, Astarion thought, probably an improvement for Wyll, who had spent the first version of the party brooding alone.

He wondered if Tav would come and talk to him tonight. She had spoken to him first, last time. He was so exhausted from all these comparisons, so tired of micro-analysing every little difference. Tav left the refugees, and walked over to Halsin. As always, they looked good together, of a height, with a similar solemn and kind energy about them. Halsin put a hand on her shoulder at one point, and Astarion thought that if he had to watch her spend the night with anyone else, Halsin would be the least painful choice. But she left with a bow that didn't suggest any promise of future intimacy.

He wondered, as Tav moved around, whether he wanted tonight to go as it had the first time. For all his conversation with Wyll, Astarion still wasn't sure in his heart what the best way to proceed was. He felt muddled and muddy, torn between the instinct that he ought to repeat what he had done before for the sake of the plan, the want to be intimate with Tav simply because he liked it, the contrasting desire to try something different just to see what would happen, and the worry that he owed it to himself or her or something not to take the easy way out and go straight to sex. It was a miserable knot of contradictions, and he could not find a way out of them.

Astarion's bottle was almost gone by the time she finally reached him. Last, and he wanted it to mean most instead of least. "Well look who finally came to pay me a visit," he said. "You've certainly been in high demand."

"Will you sneak away with me?" Tav said, very unexpectedly. "I've had more than enough of being the centre of attention."

"That's the best idea I've heard all day." Astarion grabbed a fresh bottle of wine, and they crept off into the woods. Astarion knew where he was going, ritual or fated repetition, and found the glade where he'd waited for her before. They sat down on the grass, leaning against the same tree, and took turns taking sips from the bottle. Later, Astarion would wonder if this was the one moment he'd had the opportunity to make a different choice, and if making that different choice would have helped at all. He had no idea. But in the moment, it all felt as natural as gravity, a force greater than he could resist pulling him inexorably back to her.

"Be honest," Astarion said. "How many propositions did you get tonight?" He arched an eyebrow at her, and Tav choked on her wine.

"Propositions?" she said. "If you mean in a sexual sense, none at all."

"What?" Astarion said, genuinely baffled. He had a very clear memory of the first version of the party, when he had watched every single member of their camp try to get into her pants. It had been grating at the time, but in retrospect it was extremely funny.

"I don't know why any of them would," Tav said. "I like everyone well enough, and I hope we're all friends, but..." She stopped and then looked at him seriously. "You didn't think this was a proposition, did you?"

"Would it be so shocking if I said yes?"

Tav's eyes widened, and then she turned her head away. "Astarion, don't tease me. It's been such a long day."

"Why do you think I'm teasing you? I hope you don't think that what I've been through makes me incapable of wanting things for myself."

"I wouldn't presume," Tav said. "But given that you have such a range of choices available to you, I can't understand what would make you want me as a lover." She looked back at him wryly. "Don't take that as some fundamental self-loathing. I like myself well enough, and I've had my fair share of sex. But... I don't know. Maybe I'm not drunk enough to explain it."

"Try," Astarion said, desperately curious. This was new, something she'd never said to him in the whole long year they'd been together.

Tav took a gulp from the wine bottle and handed it to him. "Is there a way that you like to think of yourself?" she asked.

"A charming, clever, beautiful rogue?" he said, inflecting it as a question only because he wasn't sure what she was getting at. "A luxury few can afford, perhaps?"

Tav laughed. "The second one is more what I was thinking of." She looked down at her hands, turning them over, flexing her long fingers. "I tend to think of myself as a hammer. A blacksmith's hammer, specifically. I am steel all the way through. Unadorned and plain, but very effective. I don't need to be beautiful. I wasn't made for beauty. I do the thing I was designed to do, and that's enough. And I am very good at what I do!" Astarion snorted, and she grinned at him. "But you don't use a blacksmith's hammer to paint a picture or compose a symphony." She looked at him, reached out and brushed the curl that hung over his forehead to the side, then trailed her fingers down his cheek. "By comparison, you seem like a filigreed chalice, or a stained glass window. Beauty wrought from exquisite craftsmanship. Or if I'm using a tools metaphor, maybe you're like a superb violin. Not just the way you look, but how you talk, and the things you say. The way you think."

Astarion was momentarily stunned into silence by this little speech. Had she always thought this? On a purely physical level, he supposed he could at least follow the argument. Drow beauty standards leaned towards sharpness and pointiness, and Tav was flat and blunt. Broad cheeks, broad nose, a body that had neither the luscious voluptuousness of fat or the willowy grace of slenderness, but was straight up and down like the trunk of an oak. Even her hair was not the classic pure white, but a dull cream streaked through with ash browns. He had known all that the first time round, and then had forgotten it, because it simply didn't matter. Tav's beauty was in the moon curve of her eyes when she smiled, the way her dark skin looked like water at night, the touch of those long, deft fingers, the kindness and generosity that infused her so thoroughly you could taste them in her sweat.

"So that's what you think of me," he said at last. "You sweet thing, you should have been a poet."

"I am a very inferior wordsmith," Tav disagreed.

Astarion ran his tongue thoughtfully over his teeth before he spoke again, and in that instant a thousand half-formed thoughts flitted through his mind. There were memories of every pick up line he'd ever said, and memories of how they'd been received by a thousand victims. All his confidence in indulging the shallowest and flattest desires his victims had, and how laughably dull it had been to see it work. Every part of your perfect body whispers temptation. He'd said that to Tav, the first time around, and he remembered with a physically painful flash of embarrassment the look she'd given him in response, a calm and affectionate smile. Verbally, she'd played along, but she must have known. God's above, she hadn't been fooled by him for a second. Not in that respect, at least. He thought too, simultaneously, of what Shadowheart had said in the cave, and of what he'd taken from it. When the words came, they were not the effortless and hollow charm he usually deployed. They were halting, discovered one by one, stumbled into step by step.

"You know, I don't think your conclusion follows from your premise. If you'll allow me to shred an already stretched metaphor beyond the bounds of the reasonable, doesn't a blacksmith's hammer have its own kind of beauty? Not that I'm an expert, but I know how to enjoy a well-made tool. Like a knife with perfect balance, or a deftly shaped bow. There's just as much to be awed by in the work of a master craftsman as in the artistry of a painter, darling. Seeing that, couldn't I be in awe of you?"

He looked right into her eyes. Tav looked back. A noise that was part groan, part sigh, part snarl slipped between her teeth, and then she leaned forward and kissed him.

Astarion stayed very, very still, not even breathing, every particle of his being focused on what Tav was doing. She kissed him desperately, sliding her mouth roughly against his, one hand curled around the back of his neck, the other gripping his shoulder. He felt her like a brand, the yearning that filled her pouring into him, and he drank it down. It filled a little bit of the huge hollow place inside him.

Tav gasped for breath but didn't pull back. He felt her chest and shoulders expand and contract, and her kiss became softer. Now she kissed him like he was a treasure, soft and slow, little nibbles and pecks, and her fingers moved to rub his ears and tangle in his curls. And then, all at once, her eyes opened and she jerked away from him.

"sh*t," she said, "I did that without thinking. Without asking. Astarion, I'm-"

"If you apologise for the best kiss of my life, I will kill you," he said, and then closed the distance between them again.

As he kissed her back he felt that awful glassy slip again, a thousand touches she didn't remember and he did getting in the way. She noticed immediately. Tav was always so clear-eyed about people. "Astarion," she said, "come back to me. Come back to here and now." The paladin voice called him, and it worked, in a way, but it didn't stop him hurting.

"Tav," he said, anguished, "I want you so badly, you have no idea. But..." He didn't know how to end the sentence. He knew she would be getting the wrong idea, and he couldn't correct her.

"Hmm," Tav said, and drew back a little. "Would it help if I gave you all the control? If you could take what you wanted from me at your own pace, without worrying about anything else, it might be easier. I am very good at holding still." She gave him a smile halfway between reassuring and provocative.

When Astarion had pictured this night in his head, he had imagined a version of it where he used all his skill and his knowledge of what Tav liked to make her melt with pleasure. A perfect first time, something she would never forget, something that would make her want to come back for more. But if he did that he would be completely stuck in his future memories. This needed to be something new. "I think," he said, a little nervously, "that what I want is the opposite. If I take charge, it'll be too... expected. But maybe that's not something you like," he added, as though he didn't know it already.

"No, there's a way I can get there," Tav said. "If I know it's what you really want, for me to take charge and surprise you, then it becomes a kind of service. And as long as I can serve, I'm happy."

"You are such a paladin," he said, with intense and exasperated fondness.

Tav pulled him close and kissed him again, her big warm hands sliding around his waist and up his back. Carefully, she eased his clothes off him. He felt like a work of art as she touched him, or a holy relic. The quiet reverence she had for every part of his body, the way she kissed his fingertips, traced the curve of his arms, nuzzled her nose into the crook of his neck, all of it was bliss. When she touched the contract engraved on his back, her hands flinched slightly, but all she asked was, "Does it hurt if I touch these scars?"

"Not physically," he told her. "They were made years ago." She was gentle with them anyway, because in spite of her size and strength, she was always gentle.

When she had had her fill of merely touching him, she stripped her own clothes off and brought his hand between her legs. She was already damp with desire, but she said, "touch me here. Make me ready for you." He'd never heard an order he liked better. He worked her with her fingers until she came around them, and then she slid on top of him and took him inside her, pressing her body against him, pinning him to the earth and to the moment with her weight.

He turned his teeth to her neck, since it was right there, and bit down, sipping from her as she moved. She groaned slightly, and he felt her tighten. He slid his fingers down between them, playing with her, and as he finished drinking she came again, and then he came too.

She made to move off him, but he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. "Take advantage of the fact that I don't need to breathe," he said. "And let me enjoy your warmth."

"Was I able to give you what you wanted?"

"Do you really need to ask?"

She lifted her hand and laid it against his cheek, smoothing her thumb over his cheekbone. "I don't know that I feel I did you justice," she said. "But I'm glad if you're happy."

"It's not like this has to be a one time thing," he said. "You'll have plenty of opportunities to try again. At least if I get my way."

He was, in fact, starting to get hard again already. There was a kind of timelessness to their intimacy that was the best relief from the agony of repetition. All moments when lovers lie in each other's arms are the same moment, and the precise details of when and where had ceased to matter. Tav murmured as she felt his co*ck stir, and he petted her hair gently.

"Don't worry," he said, "I'll do the hard work this time." He rolled them over so that she was curled up on her side and he was spooning her, and entered her from behind. He began to move extremely slowly, sliding in and out of her in long, languid rocking motions. She moaned drowsily. He splayed a hand across her stomach and held her close to him. "Relax," he said. "Go to sleep, if you like. You can sleep all night and wake up in the morning and I'll still be here, moving just like this."

"That sounds uncomfortable for you," she said, her voice thick with sleep, but he felt her muscles clench and knew she was as aroused by the image as he was.

She didn't quite fall asleep, but didn't wake up properly either, just lay in a sleepy and content doze as he f*cked her. He thought she came again, close to his own org*sm, but wasn't quite sure. And when he was done he slid into a trance that was so full of memories of her that waking and dreaming were nearly impossible to distinguish.

Astarion opened his eyes to the sun shining, feeling better than he had in a week, and found the ground beside him cold. He rolled over, and there was Tav, sitting on the ground in the same pose Shadowheart liked to use, her calves tucked under her thighs, her hands resting on her folded legs. A penitential pose. She was dressed, too. Judging by the position, she had been staring at his back. At his scars.

"Tav?" he said. "What's wrong?"

"Astarion," she said, and her voice was the voice of someone who had been turning a problem over in their mind for hours without results, "I know you're lying to me about something. Those scars are the infernal script. I am begging you to give me a reason to think those things aren't connected."

Anger boiled up in Astarion's heart faster than he could contain it.

"Cazador gave me these scars!" he hissed at her. "He cut them into my flesh. I've never even seen them!"

He did something he had never done before, had never dreamed of doing. He grabbed the tadpole connection and forced the memory of that awful night into her mind. The agonising pain, the command 'stay still' ringing in his head so that he couldn't even twitch, Cazador humming a love song to himself as he worked. Do you see? He screamed across the connection. This was done to me. I had no choice! How dare you even imply I might have got them willingly? His anger passed through the connection, into the deep well of her mind. He expected her to resist, to push back, but she did not. She opened up to the feeling, accepting it, understanding it. She did not flinch from the agony, did not place herself above it, but entered into it and bore it with him.

But her wariness did not vanish. "I grieve for the violence inflicted on you," she said. "I hate that you had to endure such evil. But you know me too well. Everything you say to me feels precise, feels practised. You touched my body last night with too much familiarity." She stared at him not in fury but in desperation, her hands clenched in frustration. "Give me anything, Astarion, anything. Please."

The hand on his lips was there again. Astarion knew he could break through it, but did he dare? What if it ruined everything? What if it broke his only chance at getting back to the future he had fought so hard for?

"You make it sound like I have some grand master plan. But you asked me to sneak away. You wanted this! So don't act like I'm some kind of evil seducer. I have been as honest with you as I can."

Tav bowed her head. He knew that when she did that, it was because she was taking his side of the argument seriously. "Part of being a paladin," she said at last, "is keeping a little bit of yourself in reserve. No matter what I'm feeling, there's always a little bit of my heart that holds back, that watches and judges dispassionately. But with you, that part melts away. I have never, ever felt like this, and it frightens me so badly I can hardly bear it. I keep thinking about it logically. I shouldn't trust you. I was in your tent the night Alfira died. You were the one who convinced me not to kill Durge. And yet you are exactly right. This is my responsibility. I sought you out, even though I shouldn't have. I wanted you enough to take a stupid risk, and maybe when we go back to camp, I will find out that I have failed and Durge has killed again because of my carelessness. I have never been so foolish, not in the hundred and twenty years since I left Menzoberranzan. And instead of listening to wisdom, here I am bowing at your feet and begging you to give me some scrap, some story that I can use to tell myself that I have not made an incredibly dangerous mistake."

She had always had a knack for knocking the wind out of his sails. Usually by doing exactly this, and taking on the blame for something that wasn't really her fault. She was right, and he was lying to her, even if it wasn't malicious. How could he blame her for fearing that it might be? But it was so, so frustrating, to have the first loving feelings he'd been able to nourish in two hundred years called false, because some stupid god had decided he was the key to saving the world. It was worse again to know that her feelings for him were as real in this moment as in the time he had come from, and to hear her call them a mistake.

"If there is more to this," Astarion said bitterly, "then it's something I can't tell you. I won't ask you to trust me, because even I know that stubborn stupidity of yours has limits. There's nothing I can say that will outweigh the logic, the reason, the divine wisdom you can justify yourself with. Against all that, the truth is useless. But I'm not lying, and I am on your side, and I haven't done anything to hurt you."

Tav's eyes moved across his face, searching for a long time, and then she shut them firmly. She drew into herself, thinking. Astarion guessed with heavy dread where she was going, and was not surprised when he heard what she said next.

"I will believe you," she said, "to a point. I will not ask you to leave. I will not betray your secrets. But this ends. I cannot let you in any further. I need to be clear-headed, and I cannot trust myself with you. That is my failure, not yours, but it remains true." She stood up. Her face was very calm and cold. "Last night was a beautiful dream. I will never forget it, and I thank you for it."

And then she stood up and began the walk back to the camp. She did not look back.

Astarion was not surprised by Tav's choice, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. The numbness that he had been fighting since he'd gone back in time became perpetual and got worse. He felt like he was seeing the world through fog. He was afraid, though it was hard to admit it even to himself, that he had already broken the world in a way that would deny him the promise of happiness he had once had. He tried to remind himself that he could still get what he wanted. That something about the future he came from had been important enough for Lolth to try and destroy it, which meant Eilistraee had a vested interest in seeing it come to pass. So there must be a way to do it even if Tav never loved him. He could stop the ritual, free his brothers and sisters, send the spawn into the Underdark. He could go to them on his own, help them found Lakehaven... maybe. Could he save Violet, without Tav's help? Could he find Kaer'aleth, the hidden drow village, and convince its leader Zararra to help them? Could he go to Eilistraee and demand that she speak to Mystra and Jergal about making a cure for seven thousand spawn, and complete the quests they set alone?

None of it was impossible in theory, especially not if Eilistraee owed him a favour (and she owed him so much more than that), but he couldn't imagine doing it. That frightened him, too. He loved Tav, but he hated being defined by her. It was bitterly ironic that the person who would have had the most faith in him, who would have said most clearly that of course he was strong and capable enough, was Tav herself, the Tav he had left behind in the future, who seemed more and more like a dream.

The real Tav was less obliging. She was working herself, and by extension everyone else, to the bone. She took them down into the Underdark, which he knew was an excuse to pass by the entrance to Kaer'aleth, where his siblings would one day live. She visited the Myconid village and agreed to help Sovereign Spaw. She explored the Grymforge, killed Nere, all as she had done before. She was radiant doing it, radiant and cold and untouchable, steel from her skin to her heart, the perfect hammer striking true.

Astarion barely spoke to her. He would have stayed at camp if he could, but she still needed his skills, and he wanted to be near Durge. So he was stuck following her, watching her, hating her and loving her so equally that he wanted to die. The hate was love too, underneath, but that only made it worse, more full of bile.

The very worst part was that he knew it was costing her too. He saw the way she looked at him, when she thought he wasn't watching her, her face lost and yearning. She had, in spite of everything, continued to offer him blood. It's unconditional, she had told him in another world, after the conversation where he'd admitted to manipulating her. I would offer no matter what, even if you didn't want a relationship with me. She had not been lying then, she was not lying now. He said yes to punish her, because he knew the pseudo-intimacy of it hurt her, because his one relief was the way she breathed out when he pressed against her.

Durge seemed to find the tension between them fascinating.

"Isn't it remarkable?" they asked Astarion. "I don't think anyone has ever invented a more exquisite torture than what you two are doing to each other."

"I'm glad someone's enjoying it," Astarion snapped.

"Durge, pal, you can't say things like that," Karlach said. Of all of them, she was the best at explaining the world to Durge. She had a knack for cutting right to the heart of things, and she kept it simple. She had not forgiven them for the death of Alfira, but she had taken the duty of trying to change them very seriously. "Most people don't like it when you call torture exquisite."

"I mean, there can be artistry in anything," Astarion said. "It takes skill to flay a leg from the knee down in one movement, so that the skin can be used to make a boot. Which is what the technique is called."

"Astarion, you are so gross," Karlach said, snorting with laughter.

"If it's bad to torture," Durge said, apparently still mulling over Astarion's love life, "shouldn't one of them resolve the situation?"

"How?" Karlach asked. "You can't make someone feel what they don't."

"That's not true," Durge said. "There's plenty of mind changing magic. And vampires are supposed to be good at it, I think."

"I keep telling you I'm only a spawn," Astarion grumbled, and then stopped. Something came back to him, a daydream he'd had when he was still bent on completing the rite. He'd imagined himself as Cazador, and Tav as his spawn. Imagined being the gentle and kind master that Cazador never was.

The voice of his conscience, which he had given far too much free rein since meeting Tav, found the idea repulsive, hideous. That old dream would kill his siblings, whom he'd grown to tolerate and maybe even care for, a little bit, not that he would ever tell them that. It would kill seven thousand innocent souls, who would go on to make a home in the Underdark and flourish, and live again as human or spawn, their own choice. It would kill Tav, in every way that mattered. Turning her would break her oath, would break her heart, would break her mind probably. But if his future was already gone, if she was already lost to him, then couldn't he at least have her shell? If she had ruined him, wasn't he allowed to ruin her back?

"Oh come off it, Durge," Karlach said. "Astarion doesn't have mind powers, and if he did, he wouldn't use them. He's a good guy."

Durge didn't reply to her directly, but they turned their head and looked at Astarion, and their red eyes regarded him with sardonic amusem*nt. They could smell the bloodlust in him, no matter how well he'd tamed it.

Astarion was getting an awful, sinking feeling that turning Durge away from murder and violence was going to be much harder than he'd initially imagined. He'd assumed, given his own experiences, that it would be something Tav would do effortlessly. She'd changed him, after all, and Astarion had a lot of faith in his own ability to be the best at whatever it was he was doing, even if that was being a bit of a bastard. And sometimes it did almost seem like Tav was getting somewhere. When she was actually talking to Durge, they would respond almost reasonably, like they were listening to her and taking in her advice. Then Tav would get called away by one of the other people she was trying to save, and Durge's menacing energy would resurface. Astarion couldn't tell if that was because the compulsion on them was so strong that Tav couldn't break it entirely, or if they were just lying to her.

Vampires weren't the only thing they were interested in, either. Astarion overheard them talking to Shadowheart about the Dark Justiciars, showing appreciation for Shar's bloodiest and most vicious warriors. He remembered Tav's exhausted voice from the first trip saying I'm so afraid Shadowheart is going to choose darkness over us. Even without Durge, Shadowheart's turn away from Shar had not been a given. Then there was the way Durge and Lae'zel talked about serving Vlaakith, as though following the awful lich queen were a dream come true. And though Durge hadn't started picking at Gale or Wyll yet, Astarion was sure they'd be very interested in the Crown of Karsus when that showed up.

It was another reason Karlach was the safest person for Durge to be around. Unlike the rest of them, Karlach's wants were simple. If Durge did manage to persuade her to desire power, the only thing that might do was keep her alive a little longer, a net benefit to Karlach, the world, and Astarion personally.

It was almost sweet, the way Durge's ambiguous intentions smoothed out under Karlach's hands. When they suggested going down into the heart of the Grymforge to make her a special sword, Karlach was eager, but more for the adventure than for the weapon. And after they had fought Grym and forged the damn thing, Karlach's only response was "It's not bad. As long as the edge stays sharp it'll do what I need it to."

Tav smiled at her very fondly, through a layer of soot that made her dark blue skin look even more like the night sky. "You are a treasure, Karlach," she said. "Never change."

"You're not so bad yourself, soldier," Karlach said, clearly as happy as she was embarrassed.

Durge watched them impassively, but then hung back a little, so they could speak to Astarion without being overheard. "Do you hate Karlach, for making Tav smile like that?"

"Ugh, you're not trying to talk to me about my feelings, are you? And here I thought you were the one person who would keep it fun and light. Chat about knives, murder, carnal violence... You know, frivolous topics."

His attempt to deflect did not work. Durge just stared at him, waiting for an answer. Astarion sighed loudly. "No, I don't hate her. I'd rather it was me making Tav smile... But I'm glad she's smiling. The last thing we need is for another one of us to become totally absorbed in their own problems."

Durge frowned, thinking. "I think I wanted to kill Tav, a little bit. Tav makes Karlach happy. I can't do that."

Oh gods. This was the last thing Astarion needed. "Well obviously Karlach is going to prefer the kind, noble paladin who cares deeply for her well-being to the grouchy weirdo who recently ate a bard's intestines. If you want our sweet barbarian to like you, and please do not elaborate on whether that's what you actually want, then you're going to have to learn to be a bit nicer."

"I don't know if I have nice in me," Durge said morosely.

"Then pretend. Sometimes, if you pretend long enough, it turns out it was real all along."

As they backtracked through the mountain path to the githyanki's creche, Astarion reflected that Lae'zel might meld with the group more easily if she learned sooner exactly what Vlaakith really was. So when Durge started a fight with the head of the crèche, in a straightforward way that Tav would never have dreamed of doing, he was almost relieved.

He was very glad it was Tav who talked to Vlaakith, though, because he could see the little curl of Durge's lip and knew that the dragonborn's blunt indifference would have gotten them killed immediately.

There was still that same push and pull between Tav and Durge, like a weight and a counterweight, neither of them quite able to totally control the other. Tav had been the unquestioned leader before, and Astarion felt with a strange prickle of certainty that if Tav wasn't here, Durge would have led them just as naturally. It didn't make sense logically. Tav was exactly what everyone would look for in a leader: strong, compassionate, trained in strategy, used to working in groups, with decades of adventuring experiences. By contrast, The Dark Urge was cold and off-putting, their understanding of the world fractured by amnesia and violence. And yet they shared with Tav some deeper, unnameable quality, a magnetism that was compelling and inescapable. And so here they both were, orbiting around each other for better or for worse, pulling each other into a spiral that might save everyone or kill them all. And somehow it was Astarion's job to make sure it was the former.

As Tav agreed to enter the Astral Prism for Vlaakith, something that certainly hadn't happened last time, Astarion became gloomily certain it was going to be the latter. The Emperor was the only thing keeping them from ceremorphosis, but if they didn't kill it, wouldn't Vlaakith annihilate them as soon as they left?

When the Emperor drew Tav away to talk - and it was interesting that he'd chosen her over Durge, Astarion thought, though maybe it was only that the Emperor had the common sense to choose the person least likely to kill him on a whim - Astarion got a good look at Lae'zel. She was tense as an overtuned lute string, practically vibrating with nervous energy.

"Are you more worried that Tav will kill our strange dream visitor," Astarion asked quietly, "or more worried that she won't?"

Lae'zel glared at him, but without much actual malice. "Why do you even need to ask? You know what my answer must be."

"I know what it's supposed to be," Astarion agreed. "But is that really what you think?"

"Are you naming me a traitor to my queen?"

"I'm not naming anyone anything. Whether you're a traitor or a heretic or a visionary or a revolutionary has nothing to do with me. It's all just labels, and those are tiresome at best and an active nuisance at worst, my friend. There's more than one way of seeing the world. Sometimes what's holding you back is your own point of view."

Lae'zel narrowed her eyes at him, then tilted her head thoughtfully. "You speak from experience."

"Excruciatingly painful experience," Astarion told her. And it was true. It was seared into his mind forever, the moment when he'd held the knife, Cazador in front of him, and had made the choice between Ascension and freedom. He could not show that to Lae'zel, not without raising a lot of questions, but he could send her the feeling he'd had. There had been a moment of absolute clarity, when he'd realised that he was still in the prison Cazador had spent two hundred years building around him. And as soon as he saw it like that, letting go of what he'd thought he wanted had stopped feeling like a failure, or a retreat, and had become a door. That was what he showed her, via tadpole. Just the metaphor itself, stepping out of a small cramped space to breathe fresh air, lifting his eyes from a low, flat ceiling to look at the vastness of the stars.

Lae'zel flinched visibly as it passed from him to her. "Tsk'va," she said, in a sharp hiss.

Durge looked them both curiously. They had been listening in. "What do you do if you're wrong? If you change who you are thinking something else will be better, and it's not?"

It might have been an innocent question, or it might not. "Well how am I supposed to know?" Astarion said. "We're all just making it up as we go. Do the best you can, and leave sorting out the final tally to bards, gods and historians."

"That might be the best advice I've ever heard," Tav said, at his shoulder. He jumped slightly. "I talked to the dream visitor, and I have important news to relay, but first we should get out of here. Vlaakith has severed the connection, and the crèche hasn't noticed that anything is wrong, so we have a brief window in which to execute our escape. Once that's done, Lae'zel, I'll sit down with you and tell you everything I learned. If you're not satisfied, then we can figure out what to do next."

Tav put a hand on Lae'zel's shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. Lae'zel hesitated, looking up at Tav, then nodded and very briefly put her hand over Tav's. "Let us go," she said, and they did. And they even got the Blood of Lathander on the way out.

Chapter 4: A prison wall was round us both

Chapter Text

Despite his successes, however minor, and despite the fact that their journey hadn't yet veered wildly off course, Astarion was tired. He was not equal to the task in front of him. It was all too much. He was drained by the repetition, his return from life to undeath, the awful blend of knowledge and uncertainty about the future. He felt like a piece of wood he'd seen Leon carving, thin, semi-transparent slivers of him being sliced away at every moment. What did it matter, what changed and what didn't? What was the point of aiming for a good outcome when he had lost so much already?

When Tav came to offer him blood, he found a streak of spite in him that was ugly and impossible to resist. He'd been careful, since the tiefling party, to make sure that he didn't touch her more than was absolutely necessary. Not tonight. He climbed on top of her, slid one leg in between hers, and pressed his whole body against hers. She could have shrugged him off easily, Astarion knew, she was much stronger than he was, but she didn't.

Instead, as he bit down, she raised one hand and wrapped it loosely around his waist, holding him close. "Astarion," she said quietly, "I am sorry. I can bear hurting myself, but I hate that this is hurting you too."

Astarion's spitefulness did not abate. If anything, it intensified. He had never loathed her selflessness more. He finished biting her and pushed himself up onto his arms to look her in the eyes. "You overestimate your charms, darling," he said, which was a lie, but he wanted to hurt her. "I can find better than you easily. In this camp, even."

His verbal claws were fully out, ready to wound. But Tav was too sharp and insightful for that. She only looked sadder and more troubled. "Why don't you mean that?" she asked him. "I feel like it should be true. You barely know me. How could I possibly be so important to you that you haven't smiled once since we talked in the forest?" She raised her hands and ground the heels of her palms against her eyes. "I thought that drawing a line between us would make things easier, that I'd see more clearly, but now I'm just worrying about you all the time. What am I missing?"

Astarion reached down and drew her hands away from her face. She wasn't crying. Her jaw was clenched and her eyes were tight with tension. But she didn't hide from him. They looked at each other in silence.

"I can't tell you," Astarion said at last, bitterly. "I can't."

Tav drew in a breath. "I see," she said at last. "Then... Astarion, where did we first meet?"

"On the beach where the nautiloid crashed," he said at last, there being no other true answer, not in any world.

Tav nodded. "Okay. Okay." She wriggled out from under him and sat up.

"That's all you're going to ask?"

"There's a ritual to these things," she said. "Curses, bindings, whatever this is, we've got to be careful. So every night, when you drink my blood, I'll ask one question, and you'll answer if you can, and if you can't, that will be an answer too."

"It's going to take too long." She was offering him hope, and he flinched from it as he had once flinched from true freedom, a man recoiling from a hot coal.

"You told me yourself that trusting you would be a stupid choice. Beyond logic, beyond reason, beyond divine wisdom. But I am trying anyway. You make me such a fool. I can only give it my best effort."

"You always do," Astarion sighed.

She reached out and took his hands, and intertwined their fingers for a moment. "If you can give me a little trust in return, I will do my best to make it worth it." Truth. Her voice made it so. Tav left him, and Astarion spent his watch that night wondering if truth was enough.

The conversation with Tav might have been a candle in the face of a blizzard, but in fact that was better than nothing. Astarion mentally cupped his hands around that wavering light, and resolved to keep going.

What he needed, he thought, was a plan of action that didn't just rely on him and Tav. It was too easy to buy Tav's self-mythology and believe she could accomplish anything alone. But if they were going to pull Durge back from whatever the eponymous Urge was, Astarion knew it needed everyone's participation. And beyond that... Astarion still refused to consider it. From here, it all looked bleak and empty. All he could let himself think about was today, and maybe tomorrow.

He started with Halsin, and not just because he missed his sometime paramour. Halsin was good at being gentle and thoughtful. His group management skills might not measure up to, say, Jaheira's, but they were still leagues ahead of Astarion's.

"I'm worried about something," he told Halsin at camp that evening, "and I'm hoping for some advice."

Halsin looked troubled. "And you came to me?"

"Why not? You've got that whole sage mentor thing going for you. It's a good look, you know."

Halsin was clearly flattered and maybe a little embarrassed, and shook his head slowly. "If it's about you and Tav, I'm definitely the wrong person. And if it's about something else, I'm surprised the mess I made of the Emerald Grove didn't put you off already."

"Oh, that won't be an issue," Astarion said with a wave of his hand. "And I'm definitely not talking about relationships. Tav and I will figure out that mess on our own. Or not, but I'm not dragging anyone else into it. No, what I wanted to talk about was Durge."

"Ah," Halsin said, sounding relieved and a little thoughtful. "They are a strange one."

"I'm not sure I'm comfortable leaving the 'are they going to murder us in our beds' question up to Tav. Not that I think she'd let them, but she's got a lot on her mind."

"We all do," Halsin said. "The Shadow-curse remains my top concern."

"Does it require that you think about it every second of every day?" Astarion snapped. He'd forgotten what it was like, talking to this version of Halsin. Gods, you're going to get so much more palatable once Thaniel is back. "Tav will help you cure it, I know she will. But until we find some useful information, moping isn't going to help anything."

"What do you suggest?" Halsin replied. He looked annoyed, but there was a tinge of shame to it, too. Good, Astarion thought. Shame was an excellent motivator for people like Halsin.

"It's not just about watching Durge," Astarion said. "You weren't in our camp when they killed Alfira, but something strange happened that night. Everyone slept through it. Even me, and I never sleep. There's no reason that couldn't happen again."

"I hope you're not suggesting we attack them unprovoked. I won't be party to that."

"No, nothing like that," Astarion sighed. "It would be so much easier if I did think that was the solution. I think what we're doing is the right move. Giving them something to care about. I just think we need to be a bit more coordinated about it."

"You make it sound like a conspiracy," Halsin said. "That could backfire. They might be very hurt, if they realise we've all been colluding against them."

"So you'd rather do nothing? Just let them toddle off and kill more innocents?"

Halsin grimaced, and Astarion knew he had won.

He pitched the same idea to all the others, one by one. They were all wary, and they all eventually agreed. Karlach was the last person he spoke to. She had been the angriest at Alfira's death, but she had also made the most effort with Durge in the weeks since, and Astarion was worried that she, like Halsin, would see his plan as a violation of Durge's trust. But Karlach was always unique, and her actual response was very different.

"You make it sounds like you're planning this big conspiracy," she said, grinning, "but Astarion, it sounds to me like you just want us to be better friends."

Astarion folded his arms and glared at her. "That's not what I'm doing," he said, "this is strategic-"

"Sure, sure. Strategic chats about Durge's well being. Strategic check-ins about how we're all feeling. Strategic brunch, maybe? Once we get to Baldur's Gate."

"I've never had brunch. I'm a night owl, remember?"

"Me neither," Karlach admitted. "But Gortash f*cking loved a brunch. Ooh, we should do one, all of us. Once we've kicked the Absolute's teeth in."

"Maybe even before," said Astarion, a pit of dread in his stomach, knowing how little time Karlach had left. "Surely we can take one morning off from saving the world?"

"It would be a nice treat for Tav, too," Karlach said. "How's that going, by the way? You two seem a bit easier around each other again."

"We're keeping an eye on Durge's emotional well-being, not mine," Astarion deflected.

"Oh come on Astarion, give me a little gossip. It's like stress relief. You'd be doing the world a service."

"I don't know why you think that makes me want to agree," Astarion sniffed. Karlach gave him a look that was pure pleading puppy, and Astarion groaned. "There's nothing to tell. We're not together, but we patched things up a bit. That's all."

"That's good! I'm happy for you. You were both walking around with little storm clouds over your head for a while there."

"I'm just glad it wasn't only me. Now that would have been really embarrassing."

"I wish you'd actually worked things out, though," Karlach said longingly. "Since you both obviously like each other. The world could always use a bit more love."

"Well then fill it yourself," Astarion said. "You probably fall in love at the drop of a hat, anyway."

"I used to," Karlach said. "Before Avernus. Now I think it would just be cruel. Since no one can touch me."

"Love isn't all about touch, you know. Even sex isn't all about touch, if you know what you're doing. Though, we'll probably run into Dammon sooner or later, and we've already got more infernal iron ready to go, so hopefully it won't even be an issue."

"I'd still take tips, if you've got 'em," Karlach snickered. "I'm always open to suggestions."

"Am I interrupting?"

Durge was standing behind them, looking gloomy.

"Not at all," Astarion said, pouncing on the opportunity. "You are my saviour. I don't think I could handle another minute of being interrogated about my romantic relationships. Let's talk about something else. Anything else. The weather, perhaps."

"The air is full of shadows," Durge said, looking around. "As always."

"Speaking of shadows," Karlach said, "Shadowheart! Grab a bottle of wine and get over here."

"Now aren't you glad I take the time to pick through all the wine racks we come across?" Astarion said.

"I wish you found more beer," said Halsin, ambling towards them in Shadowheart's wake. "But I'll take what I can get."

Gale and Wyll came over, ostensibly lured by the wine, and then Lae'zel turned up and said, "you are all being very noisy. Why?" Astarion couldn't tell if she was putting on a remarkable performance, or if she hadn't connected this moment to his conversation with her. (Admittedly, he wasn't sure she'd been paying too much attention. She had a lot on her mind right now.)

"Because life's too short not to have a bit of fun," Wyll said, and smiled at her. Lae'zel narrowed her eyes at him and snorted, but she took a glass of wine and perched on a loop of gnarled root.

Tav showed up last, an empty laundry basket on her hip. She looked at the group a little hesitantly, but when Astarion moved slightly, she sat down between him and Halsin at once.

"We should play a game," Karlach said. "Never have I ever or something like that. Although that exact one wouldn't be fair on Durge."

"When I was younger, I spent time with a band of druids who liked to play drunken wildshape," Halsin said. "Much too dangerous to recommend, but it was very funny."

"I have a pack of cards," Astarion offered. "Why don't we play poker?"

"So you can steal all our gold? No thanks," Gale said.

"We could play for something other than money," Tav said unexpectedly. "The winner of a round gets to play King, and they can give an order to anyone. With the usual rules. No orders that cross boundaries, and if you make anyone cry the game ends and it's your fault."

"This sounds like a waste of time," Lae'zel said, but Astarion was ready for her.

"Why Lae'zel, you're not scared, are you?"

"I fear nothing."

"Then sit down and we'll teach you how to play."

Astarion did not bother cheating - at least, not for the first round. The point wasn't to win, it was to get them all tipsy and talking. He did count cards, because he couldn't help himself, and watched people's faces. Durge was a master of the poker face, but too blunt to bother bluffing. Shadowheart was sly, but she gave herself away by sounding overly coy when she had good cards. Lae'zel was awful, with no capacity for bluffing or hiding her opinion of her cards. Wyll was surprisingly good, as was Halsin, but they both had a tendency to fold too easily, not willing to push as hard as they could. Gale was very good, and Karlach even better, able to take the game on its own terms and play ruthlessly. Tav was a potent dark horse, with her perpetually mild aura hiding how good she was at reading people and cards.

Gale won the first round with a straight, and stroked his chin thoughtfully. "King Gale," he said. "Doesn't that have a nice ring to it? Alright Tav, you're up first. I know your patron deity is Eilistraee, and she's a lover of the arts, so give us a song."

"Oh no," Tav said, "your eardrums are going to hate you in a minute." But she stood up, thought for a moment, and then sang. Her singing voice was naturally an indifferent one, but trained to be as clear and strong as she could make it.

"As I was going to the mart I saw a tavern full,

of men and tieflings, elves and gnomes, all gathered round a bull.

So hie says I well what's all this? And what did they reply?

This bull can speak in tongues of men but all it says is...

Oh fol, fol de rol, the river runs down the hill..."

It was a rowdy and rambunctious song with a catchy chorus, perfect for drinking and singing along to, and soon Gale and Wyll and Karlach were joining in enthusiastically.

Tav finished to a round of applause, bowed, and sat down with her cheeks flushed navy.

"I want to win," Lae'zel said fiercely. "Tell me how you did it, Gale."

Tav leaned over and gave her a few tips, and then handily won the next round herself, despite only having two pair. She had a truly impeccable poker face, her smile as inscrutable as a saint’s.

"King Tav," Wyll said. "What is your command?"

"Well, since you asked, Wyll," Tav said cheerfully, "pick anyone you like except me, and dance with them. And I'll play an accompaniment."

"How fiendish," Wyll said, obviously delighted, and he looked around the group thoughtfully. "Durge, you've never danced before. Let me show you how it's done."

"I have to do this because of the rules, don't I?" Durge said, sounding resigned, and got up.

"My repertoire isn't huge," Tav said, picking up a lute, "but give me the time you need and I'll do my best."

"Three four, if you've got it," Wyll said. "I'll keep it simple."

Tav nodded, and began to pick out a tune that Astarion recognised as Mindevar's fifth waltz. Tav's playing was not much better than her singing, but she kept time, and the slow rhythmic pattern of the music filled the campsite as Wyll taught the dragonborn the steps of the waltz.

Astarion realised that the glassy feeling he'd become so familiar with had vanished entirely. He was here, fully and totally present. He could feel his body around him, feel the chill shadowed air on his skin, hear the music shivering from the plucked lute strings, smell the wood-smoke of the fire. It hurt, a little bit, but it was good, too. He wasn't alive, in a very literal sense, but he felt closer to it than he had since this repeating life had started.

Tav glanced sideways at him, and of course she could tell the difference. She smiled at him, then returned her eyes to her lute. Astarion scooted a little closer to her. What he really wanted was to rest his head on her shoulder, but that wasn't going to happen. Close enough to brush arms, to feel her heat, that was all he was allowed to ask for.

"Oh, look at them go," Karlach said longingly, staring at Durge and Wyll. "Someday I'll do that. Someday."

"Dancing seems frivolous," Lae'zel sniffed. "But I like the way it shows off strength and dexterity."

"You'd be very good at it, Lae'zel," Tav said.

"Of course I would. I'm good at everything."

"Let's test that theory," Shadowheart said. Her cheeks were a bit pink. She stood up and held out her hand to Lae'zel, who took it. They faced each other more like duellists than lovers, and immediately got tangled up in who was going to lead. Tav laughed very quietly. Astarion thought only he had heard her. Lae'zel and Shadowheart finally got a rhythm going, and they were beautiful together, full of fierce and graceful energy.

The song wound to a close, the dancers got their applause, and the next round began. Astarion won, with only a very tiny bit of cheating.

"I'm not as nice as Tav or Gale," Astarion said cheerfully, "and I want truth from you, not pretty dances. So everyone, please, tell me one embarrassing secret you'd rather not admit."

"I can't participate," Shadowheart said immediately. "Because of the memory loss."

"I didn't say it had to be old," Astarion said. "By all means, pick something from tonight."

"I'll go first," Tav said. She cleared her throat, squared her shoulders, her mouth curving up into an involuntary awkward smile. "So, back when I was about forty, and still training with my mentor, I was part of a band of paladins who all worked together. At the time, there was a young squire, a human of about twenty, maybe, who I became friends with. She was a darling girl, and soon I considered her my closest companion. I thought we would be sisters in arms forever, no matter what the time or distance. My mentor tried to tell me that she felt more than that, but I laughed him off. Impossible, I thought. Not purely because of the age gap, since my forty was not that much more mature than her two score, but simply because I couldn't picture her as a lover. Then my apprenticeship ended, and I decided it was time to strike out on my own. I had things I wanted to do for Eilistraee that would take me far away from where I had trained. So I said goodbye to my sweet sister. She was devastated. She clung to me, and told me she loved me. And I, fool that I was, looked her right in the eye and said 'I love you too, you're my best friend.'" Tav turned her eyes up to heaven and sighed. "And then I did not realise what I had done for ten years."

There was a short pause, and then Karlach cracked up, and soon almost everyone was laughing. Only Lae'zel and Durge seemed unmoved.

"Tchk," Lae' zel said. "She should have said something sooner. She was a fool not to make her feelings clearly known."

"I would not have understood either," Durge said. "So I can't criticise you."

Astarion did not say anything. He was caught by unexpected emotion. The story had been so quintessentially Tav, and yet he had never heard it before. He was struck with the pleasure of learning something new, and of realising that there would always be new things to learn, that he would never run out of Tav to discover. And because nothing in this repeating time could be unalloyed good, he was bitter and heartsick too. He wanted to ask more, to have her tell him all the details, and then for her to kiss him and say something straightforward that was intensely romantic for being the blunt and simple truth. He was so tired of longing for things he could not have.

"I've got a follow up for that," Halsin said, "somewhat along the same lines." He told them a story of his love affair with a druid who liked to assume the form of a peaco*ck - "he was splendid, I must admit, with all those gorgeous feathers" - and how one day Halsin had come upon a bird he thought was his lover, flirted outrageously with it, only to discover that his actual lover was standing behind him. "And that was the end of that relationship. Not because I had made eyes at someone else, you understand, but because I had confused his peaco*ck form for such an inferior bird."

"I don't have a story," Karlach said, "my embarrassing secret is that in my heart of hearts, I've always wanted someone to write a love poem about me. I used to imagine it all the time, back in Avernus. Just the sappiest sh*t you can think of, and I'd lap it up."

"That's not embarrassing at all, Karlach," Tav objected. "It's lovely. And I think you would make a beautiful muse."

"No, it counts," Astarion said, and Karlach laughed and made a face at him.

Wyll told a story about spilling a flagon of wine over Councillor Florrick at a party, and Gale admitted to having once turned himself blue instead of invisible when he was called on to demonstrate a spell during a class in his youth. Lae'zel grumblingly confessed that she was developing a taste for Gale's cooking, which was superior to anything she'd had at creche K'liir. Shadowheart tried again to use amnesia as an excuse, but when pushed she said, breathless and twitchy, that she sometimes tried her hand at writing stories in the evenings. "They're about a detective in Baldur's Gate solving mysteries." She crossed her arms, and the look in her eyes dared anyone to make fun of her.

"Let me guess," Astarion said, always ready to make a big gamble. "The villains are always Selûnites."

"Not always," Shadowheart bristled. "That would be predictable. I even have one story where the culprit is a misguided Sharran."

"Misguided because she doesn't believe in bringing about eternal darkness?" Halsin asked, a little coldly.

Astarion saw Tav move her hand very subtly. Halsin was sitting on her other side, and her fingertips grazed his forearm ever so slightly. It might have been an accident, just a natural shifting of her posture. But Halsin's eyes flickered to her, and he untensed.

"I think the most interesting thing about telling stories is the way writers have to think about what the world must feel like for other people, even people that they would profoundly disagree with in real life," Tav said. "Not that I write myself, but I admire it in the stories I read and listen to."

Shadowheart responded eagerly, and the conversation moved on. Astarion, knowing the future, did not miss the way Tav had taken the opportunity to delicately place an idea in Shadowheart's head. The paladins in her own story had been Selûnites, but he had only learned that long after Shadowheart had turned from Shar, and so he'd never put together that Tav would have had reason to be as hostile as Halsin. And yet she'd set that aside to be the person Shadowheart needed instead. He wondered how quickly she'd sized them all up, him and Shadowheart and Gale and even Lae'zel, and been determined to help them find the best version of themselves, just as surely as she'd tried to find Wyll a way out of his pact or Karlach a new heart.

That was what she had meant, about having the paladin in her heart who never stopped watching, never gave in, always remained neutral and disciplined. He would not be here as he was now if she hadn't had it, if she hadn't been able to walk the most delicate line with him when he was aching and vulnerable and raw to the world. How could he then fault her, for wanting to hold on to it now?

Everyone had answered except Durge, who was still thinking. "I don't know if I know what to say," they grumbled. "Is it more embarrassing that half my mind whispers obscenities into my ears, drowns my thoughts in viscera and murder? Or is it more embarrassing that the other half of my mind thinks that it's nice when I see Wyll and Tav telling stories while they're laying the bedrolls out in the sun to dry? Should I be ashamed of wanting violence, or ashamed of wanting peace? Tav told me of a devotion she did during her training, where she walked up a hill every morning and added a pebble to a great spiral at the top. Is it embarrassing that I wanted to go there and try it?"

It was a good thing they had gone last, because no funny story could come after that admission. Everyone was looking at them, stricken, and Karlach said "For gods sake, someone hug Durge since I can't do it." Gale was next to Durge, and he happily complied.

"We will make sure your better angels win out," Wyll said firmly. "Durge, trust in us, and everything will work out."

"Trust in some of us," Astarion said primly. "Maybe don't listen too closely to Shadowheart or Lae'zel. Or me."

That got a laugh from everyone, but a very different one than it would have the first time he'd done this. They played the next round, and this time, in a spirit of pure generosity, Astarion engineered it so that Lae'zel won. She made them debate who would win in a fight, and only didn't make them actually demonstrate because at this point everyone was too drunk. There was a lot of quibbling about different options. It was generally agreed that fire or no fire, Karlach would win a straight up wrestling competition, but if weapons were allowed it became less clear.

"I'm not saying you wouldn't hurt Tav very badly," Astarion said to Lae'zel, who was very stubbornly insisting on her own victory over everyone else. She had initially tried to remove herself from the rankings entirely, since she thought it was 'unfair' to the others. "I'm just saying you're underestimating Tav's relentlessness. You'd get a good swing in, stab her through the gut, and she'd pull the sword out and keep going."

Astarion must have been drunk, because sober he wouldn't have let himself say this. He knew he was right, though, because he'd seen Tav do it. She'd earned a scar for her troubles, but the lich who'd orchestrated the stabbing was very, very dead.

"I'm not sure I stand behind this estimation of me," Tab said mildly. "Lae'zel's speed would give her a huge edge."

"In this instance, Astarion's judgement is wiser than your own," Lae'zel admitted, her pride bowing before her blunt honesty and sense of fairness. "Anyone here would be a hard fight, but you might be the most dangerous, because if you thought I needed to die, you would kill yourself to do it."

"Rather a tragic estimation of our Tav," Gale said sadly. "Enough talk of death! Someone sing another song."

They went to bed late that night. They all knew they would pay for it in the morning, but sitting and talking together, it felt worth the cost.

Tav stayed awake until all the others had dozed off, and then looked at Astarion and tapped her neck lightly. They moved to his tent, and she lay in her customary position, head turned away from him. He bent over her, trying not to be overbearing about intruding on her personal space, and bit down.

As he was drinking, Tav said dreamily, "I don't have a scar on my stomach." Astarion froze. Tav reached up with one hand and stroked his hair lightly, just once. "I didn't mean to scare you. Keep drinking. I was just thinking. The way you talked to Lae'zel was like you were describing something you'd seen, but I don't have a scar.

"I've been turning one question over and over in my mind: is the discrepancy in you or in me? I seem to have a clear and coherent narrative of my life, but modified memories feel like that, so I couldn't rule it out. But if I don't have a scar, and you remember me getting one..." Tav pulled up the linen of her shirt and ran her fingers lightly over her abdomen. Her skin was smooth and unblemished, and Astarion felt one of those inverse echoes, remembering a night yet to come when Tav would do the same thing not that far from here, in the as yet unbuilt town that would replace the current Rethwin. Halsin would be there, watching her with hungry eyes as Astarion proposed the three of them consider some mutual satisfaction. It would be a very, very good night.

"Tav, you're drunk," Astarion said, amused and sad. "I can taste it in your blood."

"Mmm, isn't it nice?" Tav said. She turned her head to him. "Astarion, who is Arcaeth?"

Her last few questions, which Astarion had not been able to answer, had been about her past, the hundred odd years she had spent being a paladin before she got tadpoled. Astarion knew she was making a fundamental error, and worried that answering this question would only compound it, but he had promised her the truth.

"Arcaeth was a prisoner in a Menzoberranzan military camp for about a decade," he said. "Where she got a scar on her right eyelid because an older girl tried to cut it out."

Tav lifted her hand to touch the scar. "Even if you were lying about everything, you can't have been in the academy, since you're not a drow woman. Did you see that? Did I tell you that? Will I tell you that? Am I really facing the wise Alaundo come again?"

"You think I'm a prophet?" Astarion snorted.

"It's one hypothesis. Perhaps my least fanciful and romantic."

"Would you be relieved if it were true?"

"I would be relieved at any truth that is not you being in league with Raphael, and all of this revealed to be some complex and elaborate devilish plot."

Astarion's heart sank. They were going to arrive at the Last Light Inn tomorrow, he knew. "Tav," he said reluctantly, "we are going to meet Raphael again. No knowledge of the future required, he told us as much. And when we do, I'm going to have to ask him about my scars. And no doubt he will offer to tell me what they mean, for a price. Which I will take."

"Why?" Tav asked. She looked at him with those rain-coloured eyes, clear as spring water, seeing into him. There was no hostility in them. Yet.

"Because I need to know what they say. Who better to translate an infernal contract than a devil?"

"I'm sure we could find someone else," Tav said. "Somewhere. Somehow."

"I'm not. But even if I were, this has to happen."

"Has to?"

"Assume for a moment that your guess about prophecy is right. Not that I'm saying it is, to be clear. But think - who would want information about the future?"

"Ah," Tav said. "That is indisputable. So you'd have to act like you didn't know..." She grimaced.

Astarion took the liberty of reaching a hand down and smoothing out the crease between her eyes with a fingertip. "Don't frown, darling. It's not so bad. We're not doing so bad."

She smiled a little, the corners of her mouth and eyes lifting. "I should go." She got to her knees. "It'll be easier to keep trusting you if I don't let myself cross lines. If I can believe that I have some immunity to you."

"Yes," Astarion said sadly. "I suppose it would be."

Last Light Inn. Jaheira. Isobel. Raphael.

He knew Tav was watching him like a hawk as they talked to Raphael. And he saw Raphael notice it too, and smile ever so slightly. Astarion did not sweat, being dead, but he felt an echo of coldness and clamminess on his spine all the same. At least the fear leant a naturalness to his acting, as he played the ignorant petitioner, begging Raphael to help him. And Raphael agreed, just as he had before. For once the repetition was a welcome relief. Until the very last moment, when Raphael looked at him directly, and said "I think this will only be the first of many bargains." He smiled one last smug smile and vanished, and Astarion felt sick at heart.

What unsettled him seemed to calm Tav. "If you were in league with him, it would be strange for him to threaten you. I could construct a hypothetical where it was prearranged to throw me off the scent, but at a certain point my reasoning becomes so labyrinthine and convoluted that even I must admit it's absurd."

"I should be offended you think I'd ever work with someone as painfully self-congratulatory as he is," Astarion joked, and was rewarded with a laugh.

They got through the meeting with Isobel and the fight that arrived with it, and then at least had the kindness of a rest, and an evening spent eating and drinking with Jaheira and the harpers. Astarion did his best not to tune out, to talk with Durge and the others, to fight the exhaustion, but he was very glad when Tav offered him dinner and he could slip away.

"You look like you need a hug," she said sympathetically.

"Would you give me one?" he asked bitterly. "Wouldn't that cross your precious line?"

"I am only a mortal," Tav said. "I do not have inexhaustible amounts of discipline." She sat on the stone wall by the dock, leaned her back against a pillar, and opened her arms. "Only if you want," she said. "But I think we are both tired, and half an hour of peace will do no harm."

A little bit of Astarion still wanted to be cruel, to refuse her. He thought quite seriously about it, for a moment long enough that her arms moved slightly, as though she were about to withdraw the offer. Then he sighed and settled himself against her, back to chest, and let himself be enfolded in the clean lavender smell of her spare, unbloodied shirt. She wrapped her arms around him and rested her chin on the top of his head, and they stayed like that, and if he closed his eyes he could pretend, for a little while, that this was a memory from the year after the death of the Netherbrain, and Tav was the woman who knew as much about him as he knew about her.

"Astarion," she said.

"Hmm?"

"Oh, no, I just wanted to say your name." She sighed. "There's so much I wish I could say. So much I wish I could ask. But it wouldn't be fair, when I still can't promise anything. If only we weren't hurtling from crisis to crisis constantly."

"Your stubborn commitment to holding yourself back is rapidly turning the corner into full-blown masochism," Astarion said. "Which is very you, darling, but it is a bit ridiculous."

Tav shivered slightly. "If you want me to be less fearful, you should probably avoid saying things that make it sound like you've known me for a century and not a few tendays." She wrapped her arms a little tighter around him and breathed softly into his hair. "You've no idea how unnerving it is to be looked at by a near stranger and feel like they see right through you, right down to the bits of yourself that you most want to hide."

"I'd call that getting a taste of your own medicine, myself." Astarion broke her grip and turned around to look at her, red eyes meeting grey. He saw fear in them, and kindness, and the steel resolve to do right no matter the cost, and more besides. He wondered what she saw in him. He had hated those eyes, once, for being able to cut him to the quick, but he was not as afraid of himself as he had used to be. He could bear it, now, if she saw all of him.

"The minute I choose to let go of these last shreds of doubt will be like falling off a cliff," Tav said, looking away and rubbing her chin with one hand. "I will never come back from it. I am no prophet, but I can imagine it so clearly. Loving you singularly, whole-heartedly, forever. You probably know that already."

"You have always been single-hearted," Astarion said.

Tav closed her eyes, and he knew she knew who else called her that. "A little longer," she said. "Not much. Just a little."

"I'm aware that I haven't been as graceful about all of this as I could have been, but I really would wait as long as you needed. Even if that was years. Even if it was a century." Astarion was not sure this was entirely true. It was true right now, looking at Tav and seeing her caught in the trap of trying always to do the right thing, of needing to weigh her heart against her values at every moment. He was not sure it would be true tomorrow. But sometimes all you needed was truth for a moment. He had learned that when he killed Cazador.

"I will be lucky if it is days," Tav said, her voice dipping to dry self-mockery. "Come, drink from me, and let's return to the others."

In the morning, as Astarion was accepting a pile of clothes that needed to be mended from Tav, Durge came over to them. The dragonborn was never cheery, exactly, but today they were downright gloomy.

"I need you two to come with me. And maybe Lae'zel and Halsin too."

"Is something wrong?" Tav asked. The dragonborn definitely looked worse than usual, their eyes dull and their snout dipped.

"I can't explain. I just need you."

So they got Halsin and Lae'zel, and the four of them followed Durge to Isobel's room. She was sitting at her desk writing, and looked up pleasantly when they knocked.

"How can I help you?" she asked.

"Well," Durge said slowly. "I'm going to try and kill you. What my companions do about that is up to them."

They lifted their staff from their back and fired a scorching ray at Isobel, which hit true and lit her up in flames. Then Astarion stabbed them through the hand, and Lae'zel clonked them on the side of the head with the pommel of her sword. Halsin dropped into bear shape and got between them and Isobel, as Tav ran over to her and laid her hands on the wound.

"Isobel," she said, "I am so, so sorry. I had no idea this was about to happen."

"No, I can tell," Isobel said, and there was the faintest laugh in her voice, tensed as it was with pain. "You looked so shocked when it happened it almost felt like you'd been the one hit with a spell. Another traitor, then?"

"Something more complex," Tav said. "I don't understand it myself. We will restrain Durge, and bring them back to our camp, and interrogate them about this. And you have my word that they will never see you again without your permission."

"You remind me a little of someone," Isobel said fondly, "whom I miss very much. Even though I did not want to be attacked this morning, I am touched that all of you are willing to stand and stand again as my protectors."

Durge hit Lae'zel with a shocking grasp, and she flinched, but her discipline was far too rigid for it to make her drop her weapon. She got another non-lethal blow in, and that stunned them enough that Astarion was able to wrestle their staff away. Halsin bounded forward and knocked them to the ground, and Astarion and Lae'zel pulled their hands behind their back. Halsin dropped out of wildshape and stuffed a rag in Durge's mouth. Then it was just a matter of getting some rope and binding their arms and snout securely. All in all, the fight had probably taken no more than a minute. Durge was unsettled, still writhing and bucking, but they didn't have a hope of outmatching everyone else on their own.

"Tav?" Astarion said, "I think we're good."

"Coming now." She got up from Isobel's side, and the four of them wrestled Durge back to camp.

Once they were away from Isobel, Durge calmed down, and by the time they had actually gotten to their tents, dumped Durge on the ground, and told the others what had happened, the dragonborn was sitting cross-legged, peacefully watching the conversation.

"I think we can at least risk letting them speak," Karlach said. "I'd like to hear what they have to say for themself."

Tav loosened the rag gag, and Durge flexed their jaw once or twice, then said, quite cheerfully for them, "I think that went well."

"Oh gods be damned," said Astarion. Halsin put his face in his hands. Lae'zel was glaring at the dragonborn.

"Durge," Tav said, "I think I follow your logic. You knew that your urge was going to compel you to try and hurt Isobel, and so you made sure that you had people who would stand against you. In some respects, I see why you made that choice. I can even agree that it did go relatively well. But I do not understand why you felt the need to go to Isobel at all. Why not simply tell us what was happening?"

"This way, no one can say I didn't try," Durge said. "It's not my fault I got stopped."

Everyone went very still.

"Durge," Karlach said, "who is 'no one'? Is there someone making you do this?"

Durge wrinkled their snout up a little. "I... hmmm..." They hesitated a moment. "A few nights after Alfira died, I was visited by a strange little man who called himself my butler." A look of consternation passed around the group, which Durge did not miss. "Not a hallucination. Astarion has been wearing the cloak he gave me."

Astarion glanced at the admittedly very useful magic cloak, and wondered if it would ruin the mood if he ripped it off. "You told me you found this in a chest," he said accusingly.

"I didn't know what else to do," Durge said. "I didn't know how to begin explaining Sceleritas Fel. It's not like I could introduce you all. And it felt... secret."

Tav sat down on the ground beside Durge, and gestured for everyone else to do the same. "Tell us everything," she said, "from the start."

And so, slowly, with much interrupting for questions, Durge laid out their conversations with Sceleritas. There was truly not much there, but what little details they could glean were ominous.

"You're sure he said divinely unspeakable?" Tav said, her brows knotting with worry. She looked over at Shadowheart, and Astarion assumed the two of them were running through lists of potential deities in their heads.

Then there was what Fel had said when Durge tried to push back. Who knows who you might kill next if you do not satisfy your Urge? "I thought if I tried and failed, that might count enough to sate the Urge," they said. "And then maybe I wouldn't have to kill anyone else."

"The fact that it sounds like it was a threat is what really bothers me," Astarion said. "A threat is no good unless you can enforce it."

"It could simply be a warning about their nature, or Fel's reading of it," Tav said. "But I'm inclined to agree. Durge is making tremendous progress at staying in control of the urge."

"What if it's like Alfira?" Shadowheart said. "They could black out again."

"I can't rule it out," Durge said. "I wish I could. But I do think I'm getting better at... staying me. There's more of me to hold on to, these days."

"That is heartening news," Halsin said, and clapped them on the back. "Whatever it is you're fighting, Durge, it is a miserable and evil thing. But you are stronger than it, and I know you will beat it in the end."

"Hear hear," Karlach added. "We're all rooting for you, soldier."

"Next time," Tav said, "tell me before you hit the very important cleric with a dangerous spell. But Durge, you did well. I am very proud of you, for fighting against a force that seems so terrifying and overwhelming." She knelt down and gave the dragonborn a tight hug. They leaned into it, clinging to her for a moment, and then pulled back, and Tav stood up.

"Well," Tav continued, smiling broadly, "I think we all deserve a bit of good news, and luckily enough, I have some. I ran into Dammon this morning, before the incident with Isobel, and he said he's done working the infernal iron we gave him. Your second upgrade is ready when you are, Karlach."

Karlach's eyes got very wide. "And you didn't think that was more important than Durge's murdery habits?" she said, grinning ear to ear. "What are we waiting for? Let's go."

They all went, and watched Karlach and Dammon do the installation, and then Karlach spun around. Tav was standing by her, almost reaching out already, but Durge stepped in. "Let me be the test case," they said, and pulled Karlach into a hug. Astarion thought the ploy was a little obvious, but Karlach was far too ecstatic to notice, and really it was very sweet. Tav caught Astarion's eye and smiled a knowing smile. He had a moment to enjoy feeling like they were co-conspirators before she looked away, and even when she did, the moment of warmth and lightness in her face was hopeful.

Of course, they all got hugs in the end. Astarion thought Karlach might have been trying to break his ribs, she squeezed so hard, and yet he didn't mind a bit. Even if her death was inevitable, and he was not prepared to admit that it was, having more time with her was a gift in its own right.

"The thing about life," he said to Tav, "is that there are the horrors, but also sometimes there are good days."

"Yes," Tav agreed. "It has been the whole of my life to try and make the world a place where there is more of the latter than the former. And it has been a labour of love."

Chapter 5: Though the bars that hide the stars

Chapter Text

Unfortunately for Tav, there were in fact far more horrors than good days in their immediate future. The Shadow-cursed Lands were aptly named, full of monstrosities and darkness and misery. Astarion did not enjoy having to live through it again. It was particularly hard when they were around Rethwin, which contained some of the most treasured memories of his future, when he and Tav and Halsin had been happy together.

But hard as the days were, as long and full of violence as they could be, the nights were a gift. Their group had meshed better and earlier than it had the first time, thanks to card games and conversation and, in a funny way, Durge. The dragonborn's plight was so serious that everyone wanted to protect them, to give them the support they needed to hold back the Urge. They didn't usually end up drunk, but even sober there was more to laugh about when they were all together than to weep over.

Things didn't happen in quite the same order, this time, Astarion thought, but he couldn't precisely point to what had shifted. They rescued Arabella more quickly, that was certain, and found Raphael and Yurgir later. Tav pulled off the same trick she had last time, using the paladin's voice to trick Yurgir into killing himself.

Astarion wasn't unhappy Yurgir was dead, but he was nervous about meeting Raphael again. He almost wished they hadn't asked in the first place, and when they got back to camp and the devil appeared, those nerves only got worse.

Raphael explained the Rite of Profane Ascension, and Astarion tried to act some mix of fearful and curious. Tav was legitimately shocked and horrified, which he worried made his acting more obvious.

"Cazador will need to sacrifice seven thousand souls," Raphael said, "in addition to you, Astarion, and your six siblings."

Astarion froze. He knew for certain Raphael hadn't told him that before. What was the devil playing at? Raphael was not really looking at him, though. He was watching Durge and Tav, weighing their reactions.

"Repulsive," Tav said, "but not beyond what we knew him to be capable of. And we will not let him do it." She gave Astarion a sidelong glance, full of warm protectiveness.

"Seven thousand deaths in an instant," Durge said, their hands trembling. "What a vision... A spectacle of murder..." They gritted their teeth and clenched their fists. "But I don't want you to die, Astarion."

"No, I don't particularly want to die either," Astarion replied. "And I don't plan to. We'll figure something out."

"There is an option open to you," Raphael said. "You could reverse the contract. Carve your scars into Cazador's back, and take his place. Become the Vampire Ascendant yourself."

More wrongness. Somewhere in the back of his head, Astarion was panicking. Raphael was testing him, he knew it. "Could I really? That does open up possibilities. You've certainly given me a lot to think about, Raphael."

"Have I?" Raphael asked, his eyes evaluating Astarion. "Think well, little spawnling. Think quickly. You may have less time than you know."

He snapped his fingers and vanished, and Astarion took a long, shaky breath. Tav looked at him, her face troubled. "I know that Raphael likes to be smug and ominous, but I didn't expect it to discomfit you so much."

"No, it's..." Astarion struggled for something to say that wouldn't cross lines he was still worried mattered. "It's what we talked about before."

"Ah," Tav said. "That makes sense." She reached out, and did not take his hand, but offered her own to him. "Whatever I can do to help, I will do." Astarion looked down. The broad blue-grey palm, the short-cut nails, the faint glisten of the lanolin oil she used to keep them soft, the darker lines of thin scars that criss-crossed her fingers. He hesitated.

"Tav, aren't you worried I might go through with the ritual, as Raphael suggested? I'm surprised you don't see it as further proof that I can't be trusted."

Tav looked genuinely taken aback. She pulled her hand back to rub her chin and sighed. "Huh. I hadn't thought of that possibility. Probably because it doesn't align with my guesses about what a conspiracy might be focused on. I can get a bit blinkered about things like that." She gave him an assessing look, and Astarion tried not to flinch. "But even then, it doesn't really make sense. As evil as the Rite of Ascension is, it's not really operating on the cosmic scale."

"And you don't think I'd be tempted to do it anyway? For my own reasons? For power?"

Another long, assessing glance. Tav considered him very thoughtfully and carefully. "You would have been tempted, once. Before you were really free. It might have felt like the only way to be free. When you're down in the dark, sometimes it seems like your tormentor is the only true template of power. But now?" She smiled, a truly achingly brilliant smile, and leaned in and kissed his cheek. "Not for a second. I would stake my life on it. Maybe even my oath."

Astarion caught her arm as she pulled back. He almost just kissed her, and only didn't because he wanted her to be the one to cross the line. As desperate as he was for her, that still felt important. "You'd stake your life on it," he said sharply, "but you still won't trust me?"

Tav inhaled, her smile sticking in place and twisting into something pained. "It's not you I don't trust," she said. "Maybe it never was. It's myself. I'm still trying to find an answer to that."

It wasn't the conversation with Raphael that finally broke the truce between Astarion and Tav. Nor was it Araj, who had been the source of Astarion's own moment of clarity in his first life. Though the meeting with Araj was a reminder that Tav was Tav, that though their relationship was not the same, she had not lost any of the fundamental qualities that had made him love her so deeply.

"Astarion is his own person," Tav said, the moment Araj asked her to persuade him to bite her. Araj was everything Astarion had remembered - beautiful on the outside as she was ugly on the inside, with a voice that made his skin crawl. He could not entirely break free from the wave of shame and degradation that hit him when he saw how she looked at him, even now, the second time around. Not until Tav's voice spoke Truth, and brought him back to himself.

"I think you should do it," Durge said. "Who cares what it means to her?"

Astarion thought about it. They weren't wrong. He could just do it, endure his revulsion, get something useful, and forget it had ever happened. He was strong enough for that now. He had had time to remake himself. He didn't have to be chained by his past. But it still felt repulsive, and he flinched from it.

"See, someone here speaks sense," Araj purred. "Come bite me, you beautiful vampire. I'm right here. Do as your betters tell you."

And then Tav's sword was at her throat. "Astarion is a million times better than you will ever be," she said, "and you should consider your next words very carefully. Look at my sword and my eyes, and know who you face."

"One of the traitorous daughter's servants," Araj said, her face scrunched up with disgust. "Get away from me. I have no interest in religion. My motives are all political."

"Astarion," Tav said, as though Araj had not spoken. "Consider me your blade. What would you have me do?"

There was more at play than Tav's concern for his autonomy, Astarion knew, but it was still delicious to be given that power. He saw a moment of real fear in Araj's face, and that was delicious too. "Don't bother killing her," he said. "It's too much trouble. But maybe you could punch her once. Just so she gets the message."

"As you wish," Tav said, and slammed her mailed fist into Araj's mouth with absolutely no compunction. As Araj clutched her bleeding lip and glared at Tav, Tav leaned down and cupped her face gently. "Eilistraee is a goddess of mercy. If you ever wish to become someone worthy of that mercy, she will show it to you. She is much kinder than I am."

"That was fun," Astarion said to her as they left, and Tav smiled back at him with impish mischief, the bright expression that she showed most rarely.

"Thank you for indulging me," she said. "It was deeply satisfying."

The metaphorical ground shifted, and Tav slipped a few more inches, but still she did not quite let go of her reserve. Astarion wondered what the final straw would be. When he drank from her that night, the air between them was electric, but Tav closed her eyes, drew a steadying breath, then clapped him on the shoulder and bid him a friendly good night.

Astarion had had Tav's first encounter with He Who Was tucked away in his brain, something to remember to talk to her about, but in the hectic scramble of all their work, it had slipped away from him. Until they chanced upon that lonely corner of the Shadow-cursed lands and saw him, and Astarion felt a shiver run through him. This had been one of the hardest moments for the first Tav. But it didn't have to go like that again. He could protect her now. He could be there for her.

They went and got the ledger, same as before. Tav was serious about it, but she didn't have the tense gloom that had hung around her like a pall. Astarion wasn't taking any chances, though. As they were on their way back he said quietly, only for her ears, "When we get back to the corpse weirdo, remember your oath."

Tav looked surprised, and then a little nervous, and then she smiled and softened. "Courage, honesty, mercy, compassion, honour and duty?"

"Gods, is that all of it? What a nightmare." Astarion made a face, and Tav laughed. "But yes, look, just keep it mind."

"It never leaves," Tav said.

They returned to He Who Was, and Tav named herself arbiter, as she had the last time. Durge looked a little curious and twitchy, but they didn't intervene. Astarion remembered with dread the awful silence that had shown her internal conflict, as Tav had struggled to find mercy for the woman within herself, struggled not to hold poor Madeline to her own impossible standard.

"I think you should make her kill herself the same way," Durge said, when Madeline's ghost was done talking. "And if I think that, you probably shouldn't." Astarion would have agreed with Durge's original suggestion, once, more for the humour potential than anything, but really what was the point? The woman was already dead.

"You poor thing," Tav said gently, not acknowledging Durge's suggestion. "What cruelty you lived under. It was not your hand that held the blade. Let it go. Forgive yourself."

She said it quickly and naturally, with no hesitation at all. It was as unlike the first time as it could have been. Astarion wondered why, and was desperately curious, but he waited until late that night, when she was in his tent, to ask her about it.

"Did it help? Remembering your oath?"

Tav looked confused for a split second. "I suppose so," she said. "But it wasn't a particularly complex problem. Madeline was very foolish, and trusted where she should not have, but it was the systems of her society that failed her, not the other way around."

Astarion blinked rather stupidly, and Tav sat up a little.

"You thought I was going to say the wrong thing," she said, a note of surprise in her voice. "You thought I was going to break my oath."

"Not break it, exactly," Astarion said. "Just struggle a bit. Come close, maybe. And then be very hard on yourself for not being utterly perfect." He thought about that for a second and rolled his eyes. "How annoying, you didn't even have to learn that lesson. You just were as immaculately compassionate as always. That's very rude of you, my dear."

Tav was staring at him, and there was a wild and hungry look in her eyes. "You can be wrong," she said, and lifted her fingertips to her mouth, which was curving into an involuntary smile. "You don't know everything about me."

"I never said," Astarion began, and got no further. Tav had reached out and pulled him into a bone-crushing hug, almost as brutal as one of Karlach's.

"It is such a relief," she said, "to feel like I can surprise you. You know so much about me, and I so little about you, it felt like I was always on the defensive. It felt like the only way I could be your equal was to hold back."

"You didn't think yourself my equal?" Astarion said, staggered, his voice rising to operatic heights on the last word.

Tav pulled back from the hug enough that they could look at each other, raised her hand to his cheek and cupped it. She searched his face for something, and then smiled sweetly and sadly. "Is that so surprising? Don't you know you are utterly astonishing? You are so kind to me, so thoughtful with everyone else, so ready for everything this journey has thrown at us, so enduring in the face of the horrors you have been through."

Astarion had never hated being complimented, even if it was hard to recognise himself in the qualities Tav was listing. "I do sound remarkable," he said, and grinned at her. "I sound like quite the catch, in fact. Why, I'd advise anyone interested to snap up me immediately, darling."

"Wouldn't you demand someone equally remarkable?" Tav said, dry enough that he thought she was teasing him.

"Of course," he said. "Only the strongest and bravest for me. And the kindest. And most loyal. Someone who would come and save me before getting medical treatment for a very serious stab wound."

Tav made a face. "I still don't really understand where your information comes from. And I know you can't tell me, but the mystery is infuriating." Then she shook her head decisively. "But that doesn't matter. I will not pine for the unachievable, when I can be content with what I have."

"What do you have?" Astarion asked quietly.

Tav looked down at her hands. "What do I have? The truth that is left after I stripped everything else away," she said. "The truth that I have felt an indescribable yearning for you since that first night in camp. You looked at me when I healed you, and the intensity of that gaze seared through me and left me changed. And since then I have been afraid. I am still afraid, because these feelings are so big and so deep and I have never felt anything like them. I think I could drown in you. But each time I am truly in turmoil, you have been the one to reach me. I suppose this must be love, though the word feels frankly inadequate." She lifted her eyes to his, and he saw the fear she was describing.

"Well, if it helps," Astarion said, not sure that it could, "I'm afraid too. If you change your mind again..." Tav winced, and Astarion sighed. "You've got to be allowed to. Otherwise none of this means anything, not the way I want it to. But I'm afraid of how much it would hurt. And then, even if that doesn't happen, I'm worried about... about the things I know getting in the way."

Tav looked at him steadily, and then suddenly a smile broke across her face, making her eyes moon bright. "When I hear you say that it all seems so much clearer," she said. "Of course we are afraid, we are only mortal. But our fears are fears for the future, and it's foolish to draw your sword in an empty room. When our fears become real, we should face them, but until then, let's just do what we want."

"And what do you want?" Astarion asked, a little hunger awakening in him.

"Well, nothing that you don't," Tav said cautiously, "but if you were okay with it, I'd like you to kiss me the way you were thinking of that first night."

Astarion did not need further prompting. He leaned forward and kissed her, and her mouth parted under his with a sigh of pleasure, or maybe relief. Astarion felt like a burning room whose door had just been opened, flames of desire exploding inside him as his body recognised Tav's familiar touch.

"Tav," he said, aware his voice was a needy whine and not caring, "I missed you. Oh, how I missed you."

He placed kisses all over her face, across the curves of her cheeks, the scar on her nose, her jaw and mouth and eyelids. And then he sank his hands into her hair and slid his tongue between her lips and kissed her until she was gasping for air.

"If you really had kissed me like that, the first night, it might have solved a lot of problems," she said, and laughed. "Or maybe made them much worse. But let's make up for lost time. I would love to give you pleasure, and to serve you as you desire."

"I can think of so many ways to do both," Astarion said. He settled himself down and undid the fall of his trousers. "Your mouth, Tav, please."

She was not shy about physical intimacy. She knelt before him and set to work, and Astarion watched her hungrily, sinking on hand into her hair and focusing on the feeling of it, the ardent care and tenderness that she lavished on him. Pressure built under her relentless attention, until at least he released with a groan and lay back.

"You are very good, my sweet," he said, beckoning her close for a slightly salty kiss.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," she said. She slid her hand under his shirt and stroked his skin gently. "Do you have preferences for penetrative sex? Giving or receiving, I mean?"

They'd had this conversation before, but Astarion certainly didn't mind having it again, not if it was leading where he hoped it would. "Not really. They can be equally good, or equally tiresome, trust me on that. But if you're offering to f*ck me, I certainly won't say no."

Tav beamed at him, and then went off to get the ivory phallus and harness she had with her from her pack. It was an elegant piece of work. "Where did you get this?" Astarion asked, running his finger over it as Tav put it on. He hadn't seen it until much later, the first time, and he'd assumed she'd bought it after they got to Baldur's Gate.

"I've had it for years," she said. "I'm a traveller by nature, so it's good to have something to hand. For chance encounters or lonely nights. I had my knapsack with me when I got pulled onto the mindflayer ship, and they never bothered to go through it. Thankfully."

"Very thankfully," Astarion said, and Tav laughed. She adjusted the final strap, tested the tension, and looked satisfied with her work. "Wait a moment," Astarion said, reaching out to run his own hands over the leather, sitting flush against her inky skin. Then he bent his head and slid his tongue over the cool ivory, his hand reaching under to work her with his hand. Tav whimpered, and he felt the muscles of her things and pelvis tighten.

Tav's breathing grew ragged as he finger-f*cked her, his tongue still gliding up and down the ivory shaft, but she did not groan or cry out. She rarely did, he knew. Desire made her quiet and intense, not voluble. "Tav," he said, between caresses, "would you scream for me if I told you to?"

"Here?" Tav said, a hitch in her voice that might have been nerves or might have been desire.

"Here. So that everyone would hear you, and know what I was doing to you, and know how much you liked it."

Tav closed her eyes and groaned. She was trembling all over. "Yes," she said at last. "Yes."

"Then I won't make you," Astarion told her. "I just needed to know that I could." And she came viciously and silently, spasming around his fingers and grinding into him. "Oh, you sweet thing," he said, licking her off his fingers. "You delicious treat."

Tav flopped back for a moment, her abdomen rising and falling with the aftermath of her org*sm, and then she pushed herself up onto her elbows and looked at Astarion. "I hope you are prepared for me to be as ruthless with you as you just were with me," and the low murmur of her voice, charged with passion, brought Astarion all the way from half aroused to rock hard.

Tav's definition of ruthlessness was really very gentle. She was careful, working him with her fingers and lots of oil before she entered him from behind. But it felt oh so good when she finally did, her larger body pinning him down as she moved slowly, steadily, in and out of him. She was very deliberate and patient, each thrust like a hammer striking an anvil, one hand curved around to his front to stroke his co*ck.

Astarion wanted more. "Tav," he said, "you told me you were going to be ruthless. I want you to commit. I want you to ruin me."

"Will you be alright if you can't walk tomorrow?" Tav said in his ear, and he had to push down a rush of heat before he could answer.

"You can, hah, heal me afterwards," he told her.

"Understood," she said. She slid her free arm around and said, "bite down." Astarion sank his teeth into the soft meat of her forearm and let her blood fill his mouth as she began to thrust in earnest, using her full might. His groans were muffled by her flesh, his heart almost beating from the combination of blood and desire. He was right on the edge of org*sm when Tav moved her head and bit down on the back of his neck. He came explosively, for what felt like ten minutes, wave after wave of pleasure wringing out of him.

Tav slipped out of him and licked his cum off her palm as though it were cream. Her other arm was a raw mess. His teeth had shredded it. "Tav," he said, grimacing at the deep gouges, but she waved him away.

"It was all part of the excitement, in the moment," she said. "I didn't even feel it. And it's easy to heal."

"Would Eilistraee really approve of you using your power for such lascivious purposes?" he teased. Tav just snorted.

"Oh, she'd be thrilled. She always wants me to have more fun." She tapped her now-clean hand to her arm, and he watched the blue and holy light knit her wounds back together.

Astarion helped her out of the harness, admiring the stripes it had left on her thighs and hips. He thought about pushing her thighs apart and burying his face in the nest of hair between them, but Tav yawned, and gathered him up in her arms before he could do it. "That was some fairly strenuous activity," she said. "You must be exhausted too." Her healing magic ran through him, and it was a lovely feeling, even though he didn't really need it.

Tav's body was very warm, and her heart was beating deep and slow in her chest, ticking like a metronome. Astarion felt himself drifting into the meditative trance, and didn't fight it. "I do love you, darling," he said sleepily.

Tav's head nuzzled into his, but if she attempted a verbal reply, Astarion did not hear it.

Astarion slipped out of the feywild warm, comfortable and at peace. He was curled up in Tav's arms, his head tucked under her chin. Her breath fluttered against his ear.

He did not move for several minutes. He watched Tav's face, and let himself relax. Not just physically, but mentally. Surely it was all just a matter of time, now. He had Tav, Durge was getting better at taming their Urge, becoming something more than they had started as. They would kill Ketheric, save Karlach, take down the Netherbrain and stop Cazador. And then find the cure and save his brothers and sisters. He would get his happy ending. He just had to be patient.

Astarion felt a sudden itch to be outside. The happiness in his heart demanded movement, action, energy. He slipped out from under Tav's arm. Her eyelids fluttered, and half opened. He leaned down and kissed them closed. "Sleep a little longer, beautiful," he said, got dressed, and stepped out into the darkness of the absent morning.

He found a waterskin and splashed a little cold water on his face. It hit like a slap, but when he shook the drops from his hair he felt invigorated. Then chains of magic snapped around him, pinning him in place.

"Little spawn," Raphael said, "where has your bloodlust gone? You just ooze virtue these days." The devil stepped out of the shadows and smiled. It was an unpleasant expression. "It would have been simpler for all of us if I could trust you to do the selfish thing."

"Tav!" Astarion shouted, and Raphael clicked his tongue in annoyance. He made a zipping motion, and Astarion lost the ability to talk.

"Now now, none of that. I am trying to have a civil discussion, not a shouting match. It is very unfortunate, but Mephistopheles is truly looking forward to collecting those seven thousand souls, and he was most eager to offer me something I want in return for unkinking the knot that is your absence. So I made a deal with him. And I thought, no time like the present, especially with you acting the way you are."

Panic and nausea gripped Astarion. No. No no no no nononononononono. He couldn't move, he couldn't speak. He could barely hear over the horrible ringing in his ears. He could see movement, people beginning to wake up at the noise, but too late, too late, he was going to die, he was going to be Cazador's slave again, he had failed, he had lost everything, he was trapped he was trapped he was-

"Release Astarion immediately," Tav said, her voice clanging loud and righteous, the paladin's voice, "or my blade will send you back to the hells as painfully as possible."

She wasn't wearing armour. She had clearly scrambled into her shirt and pants. The back of her shirt wasn't even tucked in. It hung like a duck tail over her breeches. But her sword was in her hand, and her aura was alive around her, singing a song of power and grace.

"You may strike me as you please," Raphael said, examining his nails as though bored, "if you have a death wish. Come now, my most insufferably noble paladin. You must know you're no match for me."

"Perhaps not," Tav said, "but there are eight of us, and one of you. We can make you hurt. And you will have to kill us all, knowing that we are your best shot at stopping the Absolute." And as she spoke, the others all stepped up behind her. Like her, none of them was in total readiness - except Wyll, who had been on watch - and like her, none of them seemed to care. Astarion felt a profound and unbearable gratitude at seeing them all ready to die for him. Unfortunately, it did not alleviate the pure terror in his gut.

"Why do you think I want the Absolute's plot stopped?" Raphael said, still sounding smug.

"Mindflayers don't have souls," Tav pointed out. "You would be foolish indeed to let the thousands they have infected turn. You know as well as I do that our goals are aligned, however temporarily. Whatever it is you're aiming for, it isn't as simple as taking Astarion back to Cazador."

"Then what do you think I want now?" Raphael said. "Can you guess?"

"Who the f*ck cares?" Karlach snarled. "Let's just kill him."

"Let Tav handle this," Durge said quietly. They reached out and gripped her hand in theirs, and Astarion knew, in a moment of insight that was stupidly useless, that he and Tav had not been the only couple in each other's arms last night.

"I will not play games with you, Raphael," Tav said, "not when so much is at stake. Speak plainly with me, and let us see if we can find compromise, or if it must be swords we cross."

"Very well," Raphael said, looking a bit annoyed. "But you're no fun."

"So I have been told," Tav said, and smiled her wry little smile.

"As I told your little spawn friend, I am here because Mephistopheles is very interested in making sure the Rite of Profane Ascension is completed. He thinks it will make for a fascinating case study, not to mention netting him seven thousand souls. And I have promised him it will be completed. But I did conveniently leave out who would do it." Raphael shrugged. "What can I say? I'm a devil who always cheers for the underdog."

"So you want Astarion to promise to do it?" Tav looked uncertain. Astarion felt sick. He wouldn't. He couldn't. Leon, Aurelia, Dalyria, Violet, Yousen, even Petras. He couldn't lose them. He couldn't condemn the seven thousand victims of Cazador to hell. But he was snared, quite literally, and for all his faith in Tav, he couldn't imagine how she planned to get him out of this.

"Promise?" Raphael sniffed. "What good is a promise? I want a surety."

"I don't like the sound of that," Shadowheart said.

Tav crossed her arms thoughtfully. "A surety? Do you mean a soul? If so, that seems unreasonable. After all, the promise only lasts until Astarion ascends. It would be very unwise for us to give you something permanent in return."

"Who says it has to be permanent?" Raphael said. "Loan me your soul, Tav, just until Astarion ascends, and I will release him at once. Otherwise, I'm afraid I'll have to take him back to Cazador."

"Tav," Wyll said, moving behind Raphael with his rapier drawn, "this is not a good idea."

"Must it be my soul?" Tav asked.

"You're the one sharing his bedroll," Raphael said. "You are what Astarion values most."

Astarion felt the binding on his mouth slip, presumably because Raphael thought it would be crueller now to let him speak. "Don't insult me," he said, "I value myself most. If it's anyone's soul you should be taking, surely it's mine."

"No," Raphael said, "that won't work. You'd lose your soul anyway if you Ascend. I need you to give me something you'd want to keep intact. Like I said, if I could only trust you to be more self-interested, this wouldn't be a problem."

"I'm not going to loan you my soul," Tav said, and Astarion shared the collective sigh of relief, even though he was terrified. He didn't believe for a second that Tav would let Raphael take him, but he was still caught in chains of magic, and that was overriding most of his ability to think rationally. "I don't need to. A surety, you called it, but I think hostage is as good a term."

"So much less elegant," Raphael sniffed.

"That's as may be. You can't have my body or my soul, but I will give you control over my physical location, with my safety guaranteed. I will stay with you, in your House of Hope, until Astarion faces Cazador and ascends. When he does, you will return me to him immediately, in a way that does not damage me."

"And if he doesn't ascend?" Raphael asked.

"Then the safety clause vanishes," Tav said. "I will be trapped in your home, in Avernus, and you may do what you like with me. You could simply torture me, or kill me, but probably it would be worth at least reaching out to Eilistraee first. She has some vested interest in my wellbeing."

"You must not do this," Lae'zel said. "We need you here."

"Your githyanki friend is observant," Raphael agreed. "If you give me your soul, you can stay here and continue to guide your little band. A more effective use of resources."

"Loaning you my soul would break my oath," Tav said. "Without that, I won't do anyone any good. And Lae'zel, you should trust yourself more. I wasn't the one who made you see that Vlaakith was deceiving you. You worked that out all on your own."

She smiled at them, the warm and tender smile that sat most beautifully on her face. Astarion bit back a scream.

"You're really going to be difficult about this, aren't you?" Raphael said.

"Am I being difficult?" Tav asked. "It seems to me that what I'm asking for is only a minor adjustment. Unless you think Astarion would leave me to die."

"That is obviously exactly what you hope he'll do," Raphael sneered at her. "Don't think me stupid, little hero. You want him to give you up, so that you can die as yourself, knowing you did the right thing."

"Of course," Tav said. "But it doesn't matter what I want. The question, Raphael, is what you think will happen. Do you think Astarion will be able to leave me to torture and death? Knowing as well as he does exactly what that means? Whose judgement of his character is more trustworthy: yours, or mine?"

Raphael looked briefly startled, then laughed. "You argue like a devil, Tav. You should become one."

"You may attempt to convince me of that while I'm your guest," Tav said. "I'm sure it will be a fascinating conversation."

"No," Astarion said. "Tav, no." He felt wretched, more wretched than he had at any point since he had last seen Cazador. Why was there nothing he could do? Why did he have to let Tav trade her life for his? "I can't do this without you. I can't. I won't." Astarion's heart was in such chaos he could barely think. What would he do, if her life depended on him Ascending? He had no idea. He almost wanted to cry, and if two hundred years of misery hadn't trained him not to weep in front of his tormentors, he would have.

Then in a flash, it occurred to him that there was something he could offer Raphael that was more powerful than even the promise of Tav's soul. The future. He already knew it would work, because that voice had echoed through his mind the first time he'd met the cambion. Astarion licked his lips, drew in a breath... And felt those invisible fingers touch him. No words, only a quelling gesture. But one from Eilistraee herself. She was telling him to let Tav do this.

He looked at Tav, and she looked back, steady and serious. His tongue was poised, ready to speak. Ready to disobey. He wondered if she could see all the agony and turmoil in him. But of course she could. Those spring rain eyes always, always saw him. It's okay, they told him. Don't be afraid. Believe in me. Her eyes were not the infinite silver of Eilistraee's, but they were illuminated by her faith. She would also want him not to speak, if she knew the whole truth. Of course she would. Raging, furious, hurting beyond words to describe, Astarion obeyed her goddess's silent command. He said nothing. He hated everything.

Raphael's smile got wider. "You know, I'm coming around to this bargain," he said. "You have an astonishing capacity for cruelty under all that holy sanctimoniousness."

"There is nothing more ruthless than mercy," Tav said. "I know that well. It is a blade that I have held bare-handed for a hundred years." She had said something like that to Astarion, in another life. It had hurt then, and it hurt now. She was really going to do this.

"Very well," Raphael told her. "I accept your terms. Here is the contract."

It appeared with a snap of his fingers, and Tav read over it carefully. "I'd like clarification about the house rules. I have no desire to be a poor guest, even unwittingly. Oh, and specification about how and when I am to be returned when Astarion goes through with the ritual, please."

"Done," Raphael said, as the parchment got a little longer.

"You can't do this," Karlach snarled. "Tav, you can't just give yourself to this f*cker willingly."

"Karlach, I must make the choice that I think is best for all of you," Tav said. "And I know I will see you all again, one way or another."

"You don't know what it's like," Karlach said desperately. "It's the hells, Tav. It's so much worse than you can imagine."

"Say whatever you like about the rest of Avernus," Raphael said snottily, "but my House of Hope is a paradise amidst the flames. Many a soul has dreamed of sojourning there."

"No doubt it will be a pleasant holiday from this dark place," Tav replied. "I would not dare slight your hospitality." Astarion heard the brittle undercurrent in her voice. She was speaking calmly, even lightly, as though this were pleasant banter between friends, but he realised that it was costing her an immense amount to do so.

"Time to sign, Tav," Raphael said. Tav nodded, and he made a knife appear. Carefully, Tav cut the tip of her index finger on the blade, and wrote her name at the bottom of the parchment.

"Done. May I have a moment to say my goodbyes?" she asked.

"Just don't drag it out," Raphael told her. "We have places to be."

"Of course," Tav assured him. She turned to the others, and opened her arms to Karlach. "One last hug, before I go?"

Karlach sobbed, and flung herself into Tav's arms, and then everyone else crowded around her. Astarion still could not move. He glared at Raphael, who winked unpleasantly at him.

"You are all much stronger and braver than you think," Tav said. "I believe in you. I trust you. I know you will overcome what awaits you. Kill Ketheric. Destroy the Absolute. Free the Shadow-cursed lands. Get to Baldur's Gate, and do what you must."

Tav disentangled herself gently from the muddle, and came over to Astarion. And because Raphael loved nothing more than cruel theatricality, he chose that moment to break the binding. Astarion stumbled forward, and Tav caught him. Without thinking, Astarion raised his fist and thumped it against her chest. "How could you?" he said, truly furious. "Tav, how could you?"

She did not flinch. He hit her again. "There is only one thing worth saying," she told him, still holding him to her. "I love you, and I know in my heart that you will do what is right."

"I hate you," he said miserably. "I will never forgive you for this."

"That's fine," she said, and kissed his forehead. "I expected no less. I had only two options, and I chose to be ruthless with myself, and with you. When you have only two choices, when the world narrows down to left or right, what can you do but pick one of them?" She tipped his head up and caught his eyes, holding him prisoned in the light of those moon-bright irises. "Astarion, you know what to do. And you are more than capable of doing it."

As she spoke, the tadpole connection flared, and he heard a second set of words in the privacy of his mind. I don't know what this means, Tav said, but it can only have been meant for this moment. And then a fragment of a song, one that he knew hideously well and she shouldn't know at all. The willows weep forever, by the banks the Eldevay, and Jorindel's bones lie bound in weeds, and only his name remains.

And then she stepped away from him. He felt cold, numb, dead all over. Raphael extended his arm, and Tav slipped hers through it, as though they were going to a dance together.

"Let's get you some new clothes," Raphael said. "No guest of mine should arrive looking like that." He snapped his fingers, and Tav's practical shirt and breeches changed to a glittering black dress, beaded with thousands of seed pearls and embroidered with what Astarion judged to be the thinnest of silver wires. It was a work of sartorial mastercraft, and it looked awful on her. It was completely the wrong shape for her body type, and black made her grey-blue skin drab and pallid. Comically, she was still holding her plain, functional sword in her free hand.

Raphael snapped his fingers again, opening a portal before them. Through it, Astarion could see the dining hall in the House of Hope. "Tav," Astarion said, "I don't.. I don't actually..." His voice crumpled on the last word, and he got no further. He reached out through the tadpole instead and sent her pure feeling. He meant it to just be love, because that was the truth of his heart. But love wasn't all he was feeling. There was pain and frustration and fear and a terrible deep rage at what he was losing. It all flooded through the tadpole bond, then Tav closed her mind to it and he couldn't feel her any more.

Raphael shot him a smug glance over his shoulder. Tav did not look around at all. There was a faint glitter on what he could see of the curve of her cheekbone. They stepped through the portal, which closed behind them, and were gone.

Astarion sat down on the ground, and drew his knees up to his chest, and did not move for a long time.

Chapter 6: For each man kills the thing he loves

Chapter Text

It was Durge who came and talked to him.

"The others are worried about you," the dragonborn said. As usual, their voice was monotonous and free of inflection. No pity, no mockery, no love, no hate. What a relief.

"And here I thought they might just stake me and get it all over with," Astarion said, unable to keep a jeer out of his voice.

"I think that would condemn Tav, although we probably should have asked for clarification on that point." Durge scratched their chin. "I suppose it doesn't really matter as long as Withers can bring you back."

"Then you can kill me over and over again. How wonderful!"

"I probably can't," Durge said, sounding a little regretful. "Withers seems to think my murders are an exception."

Astarion lifted his head up and looked at Durge. They did not seem to be joking. "Please do not actually kill me," he said. "At least not until I've truly decided I want to die."

"Do you think you might?" Durge asked.

Astarion did not answer for a long moment. "Even when I was in slavery," he said at last, "for two hundred years, even in the worst moments, I never really wanted to die. I always, always wanted to live. So no, I don't think that will change."

"Have you decided what you're going to do?"

"Well," Astarion said, "either I can Ascend, kill my siblings and seven thousand innocent people, and have the person I love most hate me forever, or I can not do that, and sentence her to perpetual torture. Maybe death, too, but frankly I don't think Raphael is that forgiving. And then live the rest of my life without her. It's an easy and obvious choice, don't you think?"

And the third option, that he could not risk saying out loud, and that if he had understood Tav's tadpole message, he should not consider at all.

"If you're trying to be rhetorical, you're talking to the wrong person," Durge said. It was not quite a joke, but it was almost one, and Astarion was dimly impressed, under the misery. "You can probably guess exactly what my urge thinks you should do."

"Yes, I suppose you would think Ascension was an exciting and innovative concept," Astarion said. "A radical artistic reinterpretation of mass murder."

Durge actually laughed at that, the brass roar of it no less eerie now than when Astarion had first heard it. "Precisely. Not just killing seven thousand souls at once, but seven thousand people you lied to, tricked, bound and imprisoned. People who have known nothing but darkness and agony for years, who will never get to even hope again before they die. Actually, maybe it's more beautiful if they do get to hope? I'm not clear on that."

"Is that how your urge always thinks?" Astarion wondered.

"More or less. It's very loud right now, but it's always there to some degree, chittering away in the back of my mind. Though it's getting easier and easier to drown it out." Their face twisted into an expression of discomfort. "I know I'm changing. Tav saw to that, even if she isn't here to finish the work. And I can probably lay some of the blame at your feet, too."

"Whatever you think I did, that's also Tav's fault," Astarion said. "I wouldn't have done any of it if not for her. And you shouldn't leave Karlach out, either. She's been pulling double shifts."

"Karlach," Durge echoed. "She is the most unexpected person I have ever met. Every time she so much as looks at me I feel like my brain stops working."

"That sounds dreadfully like love, my white-scaled friend," Astarion said. "I can't say I recommend it. If I could cut out the part of me that loved Tav, I would almost do it. It would be easier." He lay back on his back and looked up at the empty sky. There were no stars in the Shadow-cursed Lands. He remembered a night with Tav, when they had been travelling from the Emerald Grove to Waterdeep. It had been late autumn, almost winter, and the cold air had made the night sky astonishingly sharp. They had stopped for a break, and while the kettle was singing over the fire, Tav had lain down on the ground and pulled him down next to her, and pointed out all the constellations she knew. He could almost hear her low voice now, saying "that's the Harp, and that's Correllian..." Gone. That night was gone forever. "I used to be so good at being a bastard," he said, "and then Tav came along."

"It's still in you," Durge said. "I can see it. You could find it again." They leaned over Astarion, looking down at him, curious and searching. "I feel like you're at a crossroads. Two choices. Two sides of yourself. Just like me. And I wonder if watching you choose will show me what it is that I really want. Because I have no idea."

"Don't you dare use me as your yardstick," Astarion said. "I want the privilege of going to pieces without feeling like I'm letting someone down. And you've got so many other people you can look to. Karlach, Halsin, Wyll, even Shadowheart. Let one of them be your inspiration. I am flipping the sign on my shopfront to closed."

"You can't stop the world from watching," Durge said. "That, at least, no one had to explain to me."

Astarion dreaded looking any of his travelling companions in their faces. He told himself there was nothing to do but get it over with, as he followed Durge back to the group. But when he met their eyes, it still hurt.

Pity was repulsive, and sympathy just as bad. Anger, he could endure, but the fear and grief made him want to claw his eyes out. He left Halsin for last, Halsin whom he had loved, might have loved, would have loved. In another world, in another time. The druid had been crying, and Astarion felt sick.

"Well," Astarion said, in a droll tone that he could use no matter what he was really feeling, "we can't waste all day sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves. Not when there are monsters we could be killing. Chop chop, everyone, let's get going."

The words withered in the shadowed air. There was a long silence. Then Karlach snorted and the tension broke. "If you're able to look on the bright side of things," she said, "what excuse have the rest of us got? Nothing to do now but carry on, like you said."

"What is our plan of action?" Wyll asked.

"There isn't much left to do," Astarion said. "We go to the gauntlet of Shar, find the source of Ketheric's immortality, deal with it, and then go to Moonrise Towers and make sure he dies for good."

"Simple, but elegant," Lae'zel said approvingly. "I look forward to severing his head from his shoulders, and watching him realise he can't just put it back on."

"If we're this close to the end," Gale said, "I probably won't ever see Tav again. The rest of you will have to pass on my best wishes to her."

"None of that, soldier," Karlach said. "Who gave you permission to think about blowing yourself up?"

"That would be Mystra," Gale replied. "The goddess of magic."

Astarion remembered the Gauntlet of Shar, but any hope he had of letting himself go numb and blank was blocked entirely by Tav's absence. It wasn't just that she was missing, and that the void where her steady presence ought to be gaped like an open wound. It was also that she had done so much of the guiding, both the first time round and in this life. They had all gotten too comfortable leaning on her.

Everyone was a bit nervous about Shadowheart completing the Dark Justiciar rituals. Well, Halsin was downright livid, but Astarion roped Gale and Wyll into helping him keep the two separated.

"She just needs to get it out of her system," he told Halsin. "When the times comes, and Shar asks her to do something truly morally repugnant, that will be the moment to press our case."

They were sitting on one of the benches outside the test chamber. Karlach, Durge and Wyll had gone in with her, and Gale and Lae'zel were waiting by the door in case anything went wrong.

"It makes sense," Halsin said. "But if you'd seen the war... This place is evil, Astarion. I feel its malevolence in my very bones."

"Lots of places are evil," Astarion told him. "At least Shar commits to an aesthetic. And it's not as if this is going to be a long stay."

Halsin smiled. He patted his pocket, and pulled out his pipe. "There's wisdom in what you say. I will distract myself with something small instead. Do you smoke?"

"Not habitually," Astarion said, "but I'll try it."

The smoke did not have any particular effect on him, though Astarion wasn't sure why. Maybe it was his lungs not working properly, or maybe just the overall state of being dead. He quite liked the ritual of it, though, drawing the deeply scented smoke into his mouth and letting it out again slowly, and passing the pipe back and forth with Halsin.

"Is it supposed to do something?" he asked. "Like alcohol does?"

"No, nothing like that. It calms the nerves, slightly, and suppresses the appetites. But mostly I just like the smell."

Astarion wondered if Tav would like it. He could imagine her joining them, sitting on the floor, perhaps, with her head resting against his leg and one arm draped over Halsin's knees. She would take the pipe from him, and draw in a breath, and then blow out smoke rings and tell a story about how Eilistraeean drow had smoking competitions or some such nonsense.

Halsin's hand touched his shoulder, and Astarion flinched sharply. He jerked away from the contact, and then realised his cheek was wet.

"I'm sorry," Halsin said. "I shouldn't have touched you."

"It's fine," Astarion said, his voice too acidic to be believable. "You were trying to be kind." He raised a hand and wiped away any trace of tears. His feelings were in a box, and they were going to stay there. Forever.

"I miss her too," Halsin said. "I know it's not the same, but I wanted you to know that you're not alone."

It was meant as kindness. It made Astarion want to break something. "We all miss her," he said. "But none of you are responsible for the fact that she's not here. So don't pretend it's the same."

"She would not hold you to that standard," Halsin said. "And I don't, either. Tav never met a decision she didn't take charge of. Going to hell was all her own doing."

"And that makes it all better? I should just think to myself that it's all fine and move on with my life?"

"No one would ever expect that of you. But Tav knew, as I know, that you were made for better things than sorrow. She would want you to live a rich, full life, with or without her."

"You have no idea what you're talking about." Astarion stood up. Standing, he was just tall enough to loom slightly over Halsin's seated head. "You couldn't possibly understand. No one made me for anything. I made myself. And I can unmake myself too, if that's what it takes."

Halsin opened his mouth, then closed it. His eyes were very sad, and very kind. If Astarion didn't leave right now he was going to kill him.

He got up and walked away, to go find the room where Yurgir had dwelled. In that shattered hall heaped high with bones, he finally sat down and thought about the thing he'd been avoiding.

In his first life, Lae'zel had been the one to suggest invading the House of Hope. She had demanded it, in fact. She had been full of self-righteous ambition, and had expected Tav to agree. But it had been right at the end, with only days left before the Netherbrain shook itself loose, and Tav had been so drained and exhausted, had been carrying everyone's burdens for far too long. She had hesitated, and in her hesitation, had turned to the group for advice. Most of them had wanted her not to go. Astarion had wanted her not to go, had in fact put aside all his pride and begged her not to go, to refuse Lae'zel. And Tav had gone off to struggle with her morality and had come back with a song. The willows weep forever, by the banks of the Eldevay, and Jorindel's bones lie bound in weeds, and only his name remains. A song about a boy who tried to be a hero and died for it, and gained nothing for himself or his friends. Tav had told him that she thought the song was meant to remind her that she didn't have to do everything by herself, that she was allowed to listen to advice. And on the back of that insight, she had chosen to heed the group opinion and break Lae'zel's heart. Avernus was too risky, and Raphael too dangerous, to be weighed against the future of the whole of Faerûn.

This Tav had said she didn't know what the song meant, which could only imply that her knowledge of it was direct interference from Eilistraee. Should he understand it as a warning, in case Astarion forgot himself? Was Tav's goddess really telling him to choose the future over her paladin? He remembered the way Eilistraee had spoken to him about Tav when he’d met her in person. Make her happy. Lead her astray. He had failed at both. Tav had stuck true to her duty, right to the end. And he would never get the chance to make her happy. How did an Eilistraee who knew Tav that well, who loved her that deeply, align with a goddess who wanted him to leave her in the hells? Surely she wouldn’t let Tav die like this. The gods are crueller than you can imagine, said the cynic who lived in his heart.

Astarion looked around. The empty hall with its skeletal decor was oppressive. Tav had killed Yurgir here, not once but twice, simply because he'd asked. And now he was being asked to let her die. I might have gone to the hells for you, if that was what it took, she had said to him, the day she refused Lae'zel. She had meant it as a self-criticism as much as a declaration of love. But had she been criticising herself for failing Lae'zel, or for risking everything for him? At the time, he hadn't thought to ask. Now he would never know.

Maybe, Astarion thought desperately, Eilistraee had intended the song as a comfort. A reminder that he could not be expected to do what Tav herself had not been able to. When he considered it from that angle, it made so much more sense. Of course, he could not go to Avernus for Tav. If she couldn't do it, strong and brave and selfless as she was, how could he be expected to? Astarion knew that he was selfish, and cowardly, and unmoved by compassion. Those were his good points. That was what had kept him alive for two hundred years. If she wasn’t brave enough to risk the hells, it was absurd to think that he could be.

If hell was off the table, there were only two choices available to him. Let Tav die, or go through with the deal. Ascend. One or the other. When the world narrows down to left or right, what can you do but pick one of them?

He drew in a breath and closed his eyes, and summoned up all his powers of fantasy. He imagined going through with the deal. He would become so powerful. All his vampire strength, plus all the delights of humanity, and more. Every power Cazador had that had been denied him. He left aside petty details like “how”, and imagined turning Tav. She would sit at his side, maybe, or stand at his shoulder. The latter seemed to suit her better. His knight, ever watchful and vigilant. They could rule Baldur’s Gate together. All gods and mortals knew the city could use some fixing up. Tav might not even mind it so much, if she saw all the good she could do. An immortal life, infinite wealth and riches. She would have so much time to improve things. And he would have her, forever. He wouldn’t have to worry about her running off to kill a dragon, or throwing herself in front of a devil for anyone.

Astarion tried to make the picture vivid in his mind, but though he could picture himself, could see in his mind’s eye an image of himself seated on Cazador’s throne, smirking at some lowly petitioner to his greatness, he couldn’t imagine Tav. She remained elusive and misty, an idea that would not coalesce. The harder he tried to grasp at her, the less real she was. Instead, a memory leapt into his mind. Tav waking up in Waterdeep from the healing sleep Shadowheart had put her in. It was after she’d been stabbed by the lich. She’d been out for almost two days, her body burned to its limits. Astarion had sat by her side the entire time, occasionally slipping into trance and then jerking back awake so he could grip her wrist and make sure she was really there. Shadowheart had told him she was fine, and that he needed rest too, but he couldn’t. Not until he saw her eyes again. He remembered the exact moment when her steady breathing had shifted, and her fingers had clenched and unclenched. Her eyelids fluttered, and she turned her head slightly, first left and then right, until she saw him. “Astarion,” she’d said. “I have to find you.” And he’d managed to reply, “You already did,” before he became unfit for words.

No Ascension for him, not even in the tawdry halls of imagination. It was the right choice. He owed it to Tav, to his siblings. To his victims. To himself. It was the right choice. But it meant Tav would die. He couldn't escape that truth. Alone, Astarion let himself feel the agony of it. Tav had always been cheerfully resigned to the possibility of her own death. Astarion had not. He'd believed, somewhere inside his mind, that she was as eternal as the moon she loved. But that wouldn't be true in a few weeks. She would die for him, to save him, and he wasn't allowed to save her.

The sorrow that had become his whole being forced itself to the surface. Astarion bowed his head and let himself weep. Not just weep, but sob. He pushed at the feeling the way you push at splinters, watching the agony and grief slide inch by inch out of his heart. They could probably all hear him, the way sound echoed in these cold dead halls, but he didn't care. It was the only time he would let himself cry for Tav, and he was going to do it right.

And then, at last, he was done. It was all poured out of him, the foul and rotting ooze of his decayed love. His heart was necrotic. In a few weeks, it would be as unliving as the rest of him.

That was the one gift he could give her. A little time. A few weeks where he would pretend that his plan was Ascension, and she would be comfortable. It was nothing, not really. It was all he could do.

Astarion walked out of Yurgir's charnel house, and back to his friends, and by the time he got there, he was totally composed. He could even smile.

They slept before they attempted their trip into the Shadowfell, a last rest before violence became their whole world. And Astarion was forced to reckon with the one person who had yet to give an opinion on Tav's choice. The Emperor.

They were still in the guise of the dream visitor, and seeing them was like a physical blow. "Change your form," Astarion said. "I don't care what to. Anything else."

The dream visitor blinked, and then sighed. "You guessed," she said. "I should have known you would."

"I'm not talking to you until you look different." There was no flashy magical effect. From one moment to the next, they became a different person. It was probably closer to the first version he'd seen, a pale-haired high elf. Astarion didn't care. The only important part was what they didn't look like.

"So," they said, calmly, as though he had not just thrown a strop about their appearance. "Tav is gone."

"Yes," Astarion said. "If you're going to tell me I should have stopped her, I'd love to know how you think I could have managed it."

"It's not ideal," the dream visitor said. "She was a more stabilising presence than the Dark Urge. But not essential. We can make do with what we have. What I'm here to impress on you is the foolhardiness of even thinking about a rescue attempt."

Astarion still didn't know the degree to which the Emperor had any sense of what he was thinking or feeling. Right now, he hoped it was some. He wanted them to feel the pure black loathing that was rolling off him in waves. It was not that the Emperor was telling him anything he didn't already know. But he hated anyone else to say it. "I don't know why you think I would risk my life for anyone but myself," was all he said, making his tone as haughty as it could possibly be.

"If that's the case, I will be very pleased," the Emperor said. They tilted their head and considered him. "Perhaps I have given you too little credit. You and I are more alike than I first thought. Even though you didn't end up using any of the tadpoles. You still have time to rectify that."

"I'm not interested," Astarion said bluntly. "I've been changed too much against my will. I like what I am now." The Emperor sighed, and Astarion could feel them getting ready to make their case. He held up a hand. "Don't. I'm too tired. You said your piece. Now let me go."

"As you wish," the Emperor said, after a long pause. And the dream ended.

Astarion had not entered the Shadowfell, the first time around. Tav had left him behind, choosing a party that was heavy on spells. It had been the first and last time on that journey that they had fought apart. He remembered again the promise she had made in the Underdark, some time later, kneeling in front of him as if she were a fairytale knight and he her lady love. I will always find my way back to you. I will not be kept from your side unless I am forced by some power so great that I cannot fight it with wits or sword or holy power. She had lied. She had lied to him, even though the promise had never been made. Could never be made, now.

I will get used to grief again, Astarion told himself. He had been so good at it, once. Was that the truth of his life? Was he made for sorrow? Had his brief joy only ever been an aberration?

Balthazar was a welcome distraction, and not particularly hard to deal with, between Durge's brutal spellcasting and Astarion's invisibility. He spent the fight taking care of the many minions the necromancer had brought with him, since his boots let him move freely across the thick layer of ice Durge had coated the battlefield with. It was Shadowheart who justly got in the final blow against Balthazar himself, skewering him with her spear.

And then there was the Nightsong. Dame Aylin the aasimar, bound in chains for a century. She spoke to Shadowheart, and Astarion could see the way her words set his friend on edge. Entirely the wrong tactic to take with our prickly cleric, he thought.

In his heart, Astarion believed that Shadowheart would make the right choice. As much as Tav had feared for her, really it took so little to sway her from darkness. As little and as much as it had taken to move him. Just friendship, and love, and the hope of something better. Still, it filled him with pride to see her get there. She stared long and hard at Dame Aylin, and then said, "I know what is right. My friends showed me that."

Shadowheart closed her eyes, and her hands clenched tight on her spear, and then she spun around and hurled it into the abyss.

With Dame Aylin free, there was nothing to do but begin the attack on Moonrise Towers. They barely had time to wipe the blood from their faces. And yet Astarion felt the difference between his memories and the present. Tav might have been gone, but the group was stronger, closer. In some ways, he thought, losing her was the final stitch that completed the garment. They were united by shared feeling, and they worked together like they'd been trained as a company. He had no shortage of targets for his arrows and knives. Every move that someone else made seemed to open up a new opportunity, and every time he killed, Durge's cloak flared to life and draped invisibility over him again.

The bloody work of killing suited Astarion's hands and heart. Mired to the wrists in gore, his tongue sated with the ichor of his enemies, it was easy to feel nothing, to think nothing, to simply be a tool that dealt death.

Once they got to the mindflayer colony Astarion was more watchful. He remembered what Tav had told him, about freeing Zevlor and other victims from the pods, and finding Mizora. Part of him thought that it would be a just punishment if he changed things, if he left those she would have saved to die. But a punishment for whom? For Tav, who didn't even remember the first journey? For the people themselves, who had done nothing to deserve his ire apart from being a convenient target? For himself, a way of undermining the person he'd thought he was becoming? He couldn't do it. He set them free and gritted his teeth against Zevlor's grateful thanks. A repulsive truth ate at him, which was that he really had changed. He had sometimes wondered, fearfully, if his abandonment of outright malice had been driven by his love for Tav, if he had turned himself inside out just so she would stay with him. But she was gone, and he had not reverted. Tav had always seen him all too clearly. She had been right, and Raphael wrong, about who he really was.

Astarion watched Wyll deal deftly with Mizora, demanding freedom from his contract in exchange for her release. He didn't need Tav either. She had been right, and it was like there was a knife in Astarion's heart. He was bleeding to death, moment by moment, with every tick of the second hand that brought his meeting with Cazador closer. He thought of the look on Tav's face when he had said he hated her, unbearably forgiving, and of the final expression he hadn't seen, and of all the expressions he would never see, if he did what she wanted him to do.

He had to put his feelings aside again, to fight Ketheric, and to make sure Gale didn't explode them all. "Unless Mystra's domain is omniscience, and it's not, she can't be sure this is the best option. So please restrain your most self-destructive impulses for a moment when I am not close enough to have my hair ruined." Gale laughed, a pained laugh like a strangled cat.

"What if I choose wrong, and lose my one chance at redemption, and die anyway, unshrived and unforgiven?"

"That seems vanishingly unlikely," Astarion said. "In the face of unspeakable monstrosities and at the risk of dying in some unexpected and deeply horrible manner, I choose to believe you were made for more than just exploding. Your suicide would be a waste of a perfectly good wizard."

Gale blinked, and then smiled very fondly at him. "Thank you, Astarion. You're a good friend."

"You can thank me by helping me kill this awful old man. I also accept gold. Lots of gold."

Ketheric died. It probably wasn't fair to call it an uncomplicated death, not when Myrkul was involved, but it wasn't different. Tav's absence, Durge's presence, Astarion's altered nature, they did not change the outcome. Astarion ought to have been relieved, and was not. What was he doing all this for, if it was just going to work out? Why had he needed to come back, why had he needed to endure this dreadful doubling, why had he needed to lose Tav?

They made their way back to camp, and put off celebrations in favour of raw and necessary rest. They had all been pushed to their limits. Astarion lay down on his bedroll, closed his eyes, and found he couldn't trance. His memories felt like a bomb waiting to go off. Even though he was exhausted, and needed it, he jerked away from the feywild whenever it got close. Eventually he gave up and climbed a tree at the edge of the camp, where he could sit and watch the moon.

As he sat there, Astarion felt a sudden terrible drowsiness come over him. He pinched his arms, fighting against it, and still, it wound its spell around him. He gritted his teeth and sank his nails into his skin, forcing himself to keep conscious. It was like pushing a boulder uphill, but he kept going, and shook off the dreadful haze. Later, looking back, he guessed that being further from the camp had been the decisive factor.

Something rustled down below. Astarion looked, and saw Durge moving. They were headed for Karlach, and at first Astarion assumed it was for sex, but there was something odd about their body language. They were too tense, almost straining against themself. He pulled a dagger into his hand, just in case, and watched them hunch over the tiefling, rocking back and forth a little.

"Karlach," they said, "wake up."

She did, and made a joke of it, but it didn't take her long to realise that something was very wrong.

"Sceleritas Fel's warning has come to pass," Durge said. "I am going to kill someone I care about."

Astarion could have intervened. He didn't. He watched, and wondered which outcome he was hoping for.

"Well, sh*t," Karlach said. "We won't let that happen,"

Durge grimaced. They were still trembling from head to toe. "This one is really bad," they said. "I don't know how to hold it back. I don't know if I can."

"You're not alone," Karlach told them, and sat up, putting a hand on their shoulder. Durge collapsed as if the gentle touch had been a blow. They almost looked like they were having a seizure. Astarion still did not make a move. He watched Karlach get some rope, and bind them as tight as she could. It was not a bad effort, all things considered. Then she sat back and began her vigil.

The thing that peered out through Durge's eyes when they came out of their stupor was a testament to the fine work that Tav, Astarion, and everyone else had done on making them into a real person. There was no comparison. This was the Dark Urge unbound, and it was nothing but hate and violence and fury. Karlach was clearly unsettled by it, but she took the insults and threats in stride, and did not recoil, did not leave them. She waited by their side, until the fit of maddened rage had passed. When they at last went limp, and looked at her with light in their eyes, Karlach smiled and leaned down and kissed them.

Astarion turned his head away. There was sweetness in his heart and a bitter taste on his tongue. And he was so tired.

Astarion could feel the exhaustion eating at him as they began the long march to Baldur's Gate. Every step was achingly familiar. He had walked it twice before, both times with Tav. The first time had been this very trip, when he'd been really falling in love with her, though still fixated on Ascension as the solution to his problems. And the second trip had been just before he was returned to the past, the last leg of their journey with Aurelia and Yousen back to their old home. Tav had been so radiantly, impossibly happy that whole time, telling stories, pointing out things of interest along the way, and always looking at him like she couldn't get enough of him.

"You're going to kill yourself," Jaheira said, dropping back from her position at the head of the group to amble beside him. "And what good that will do anyone, I can't say I know."

"I'm fine, thank you very much," Astarion said. "And I didn't ask for any help,"

"You look like you're about to collapse," Jaheira said. "If you do, I'll make Halsin turn into a bear and tie you to his back, so unless you enjoy that kind of humiliation, you should reconsider your plans."

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm not trying to hurt myself," Astarion said, "I just didn't rest very well. And I haven't had any human blood in a few days."

"Those are solvable problems," Jaheira said, "if you will let anyone help. But I don't think you will. You seem committed to misery. I recognise the symptoms."

"How would you know anything about it?" Astarion snarled.

"You think you are the only person who has ever lost someone?" Jaheira scoffed. "Your Tav isn't even dead. You still have the hope that you might see her again. Whereas my husband is gone forever, and has been for years, and I still miss him."

Astarion had forgotten about that. "Well, sh*t," he said at last. "I suppose I did put my foot in my mouth just there."

"I forgive you," Jaheira said, "because I do remember what it was like. But though I did not know Tav long, I respected her. If we'd had more time, I think we would have even been friends. So on her behalf, I am telling you to get a grip and let the rest of us help you. You are no good to anyone like this. Least of all her."

"Did you know I've always been totally immune to guilt trips?" Astarion said. "One of my many skills."

"We'll see how long that confidence lasts," Jaheira said. "Now come, you knew more of Tav's thoughts than the rest of us, and she was the leader. What were her plans for when we arrived at the city?"

Tav had not actually had plans, at least not ones she had shared with Astarion, but there was no better excuse to trot out his old memories. He and Jaheira talked practicalities until it was time for a break, and then Wyll came and sat beside him.

"You know, this journey back to Baldur's Gate reminds me of one of my adventures as the Blade of Frontiers. It was two years after my pact with Mizora, and..."

Unusually for Wyll, the story was short on action and heavy with rambling details. Wyll's voice remained beautiful no matter what he was saying, though, and Astarion let the words roll over him, relieved that he didn't have to contribute anything. Somewhere along the way, he slipped into the feywild without noticing. Even there, Wyll was an anchor. He couldn't avoid seeing Tav, not entirely, but he focused on his friends, on nights spent around the campfire and days spent exploring.

And then right at the end, he slipped from memory into dreams. Not just any dream, but a nightmare.

He was standing in a lavishly furnished room, in the dark. His senses were strange. His body was dead, not living, but the terrible hunger of spawndom was gone, and he felt almost absurdly powerful. I am the Vampire Ascendant, he thought. He looked around, at the massive four-poster bed draped with brocaded velvet, at the plush rugs on the floor. At the window, which was open, letting in the light of the full moon. At Tav, standing by the window.

She was wearing an expensive dress, not her usual plain shirt and breeches. It was at least a better gown than Raphael had put her in. It was pale blue, with navy constellations stitched all over it, and the elegant sweep of the dress over a farthingale and back into a train flattered Tav's figure and brought out all the rich and royal blues of her gorgeous skin. Her hair was long, and he had never seen it like that. His Tav cut any curl that dared touch her shoulders, practicality trumping fashion every time. This Tav had ringlets hanging thick and fat to her waist, their dull cream ornamented by a net of delicate silver woven with a thousand chips of sapphire. She was looking out at the moon, her face turned away from him. Astarion could tell at once that she was a vampire too, by the silence where her beating heart should be. He hated this version of her on sight, passionately. It was like someone had taken the real Tav, full of life and vitality, and turned her into a porcelain doll. Beautiful, maybe, but artificial.

As he stared at her, she turned her head. Her moon-grey eyes were gone. She had loved her eyes so much. The mark of Eilistraee's favour, the eyes that had almost been cut out when she was in Menzoberranzan, they were no more. Now she had a gaze as bloody as any of Lolth's faithful. "My lord," she said, and her low voice had not lost any of its charm, but the warmth had leeched from it. It was cold and dead like her.

"My lady," Astarion heard himself reply. At least he didn't sound like Cazador, he thought, but that was poor consolation. His voice was deeper and more confident, which was interesting to hear, but there was an unbearably smug edge to it. "What are you looking at?"

Astarion's body moved to stand next to Tav, resting his fingers on the small of her back. He felt himself look out the window, at the moon and its trailing tears. There was a rush of emotion in his body, a strangled envy and a desire to assert authority, and Astarion understood instinctively the power at his command, the sway he held over Tav that Cazador had once held over him.

He wanted the dream to end, he wanted to tear his own skin off he was so repulsed by what he was feeling, but he could not. He was forced to watch through his own eyes as Tav smiled at him, a smile so perfect that he almost believed it was genuine, and said, "Just admiring the beauty of the night. Since I match it." She gestured down at her dress. Astarion felt that rush of envy pulse through him again, and wanted to roll his eyes. You stupid fool, he thought, you have all this power and yet you cannot bear her to want anything that isn't you. You're so afraid of losing your control over her that you won't even let her keep her faith.

"You don't still miss her, do you?" his mouth replied. "I've told you before, my love. You're beyond the gods now. You have no need of them."

"I pay all lords the respect they are due," Tav said. "I honour you, my lord, for the power you wield. May I not also admire the splendour of Eilistraee's night? Even if she and I have parted ways?"

"Far be it from me to dampen your sense of aesthetics," Astarion said, "I just think there are more remarkable things you could give your attention to." He applied a gentle pressure, and turned her away from the window, and Tav let herself be turned. She slid her arms around his neck, and looked at him searchingly. Just for a split second, Astarion saw a spark of emotion enliven Tav's eyes. It was guilty and desperate, but at least it was real.

"Are you happy, oh prince mine?" she asked.

"Of course, darling," Astarion replied. "How could I be otherwise, when I have a sweet thing like you?" The light in Tav's eyes dimmed and vanished behind another perfectly plausible smile, and she bent her head and kissed him.

Astarion spasmed awake, flailing. He gripped at the blanket that had been draped over him, buried his face in it, and muffled a scream. It was a dream, he told himself, it wasn't real. A laughable delusion. Up above him, the bright moon shone down, fat and happy and untroubled by mortal anguish.

Eilistraee comes in dreams, Tav liked to say. But why? He’d already resolved not to Ascend. He’d got the message the first time! What need was there to show him this? If Tav was always going to haunt his dreams, couldn’t he at least have the version of her who was happy, instead of that hollow-eyed corpse? She would rather be dead than be that thing, he was terribly sure.

He could only blame it on his brief reverie about Ascension, though that didn’t really feel right. “Well,” he muttered darkly, looking up at the moon again, “lesson learned. I promise I will be very good and follow the rules from now on.” His voice was bitter with sarcasm, acid enough to blister his tongue.

"Astarion?" It was Shadowheart's voice. She was on watch, sitting in the pose that he associated with Tav and penance.

"Don't worry," he said. "Everything's fine. Just had a bad dream."

"It must have been awful," Shadowheart said sympathetically. "I've been having nightmares myself, ever since..." She touched her hand, the one with the wound that never faded. Truly, Astarion thought, the world loved to make its metaphors literal.

"It was," Astarion said, "but I refuse to indulge my mind's need to torture itself with fictive scenarios. Real life is quite bad enough."

Shadowheart smiled, and then her smile dimmed to hesitation. "There's something I wanted to ask you," she said. "It seems cruel to bring it up, but since I might not get the chance to ask Tav herself, you're the only one who would know."

"It's alright," Astarion said, his heart sinking a little. "I don't think we should pretend she doesn't exist, all of a sudden. I'm not that petty. No, that's a lie, I am easily that petty. But I'm trying to be the bigger person. Just so I can throw it in her face when I see her again."

"You're very droll tonight," Shadowheart said. "It must have been an even worse nightmare than I thought." She giggled at her own joke, coughed awkwardly, and continued. "I was wondering how honest Tav was about tolerating my worship of Shar. Did she really not mind, or was she just humouring me to keep me on her side?"

"Ah," Astarion said. He wondered if Shadowheart had asked this of Tav herself, at some point, the first time around. It was a fair question, he had to admit. The kind of thing he would very much want to know in Shadowheart's place. "Well, we didn't talk about it directly," he said, "but I can make an educated guess, if you want it."

"Please," Shadowheart said. "Whatever the answer is, it would be better than nothing, which is all I've got right now."

"I don't think she was humouring you," Astarion said. "Because that's not how Tav ever thinks about anything. I'd humour you, and feel very superior about feeling like I knew more than you--and I know you'd do the same, so don't even try and roll your eyes--but Tav really and truly doesn't see the world that way."

"Then what was it?" Shadowheart pressed.

"I think she was hoping that if she gave your beliefs the respect you felt they deserved, you'd be more likely to do the same for her, and that one day, you'd see the world the way she did and understand on your own that you were making a mistake." Astarion laughed at the scrunched up distaste on Shadowheart's face. "It's awful, isn't it? There's nothing worse than being lovingly understood."

Shadowheart glowered for a moment, and then her mouth twitched, and then a laugh escaped her. In a moment, the two of them were in hysterics, although probably neither of them could have said what exactly they found funny. When the mood that had seized them passed they fell silent, sitting and looking up at the stars. After a long while, Shadowheart sighed. "If I were you, I'd be furious at her."

Astarion flinched. He had often felt that Shadowheart was one of the easiest people in their group for him to understand, because in many ways they thought alike. He had forgotten that that would work in reverse, too. "Yes," he said eventually. "I am."

It was true. It was hidden under the grief, for the moment, but he could feel it all the same, a white hot incinerating rage at the choice she'd made, and all the reasons and presumptions she'd had when she did, and at the fact that if she hadn't, he'd be dead by now, so there was no way he could throw it in her face.

"Shar wasn't wrong," Shadowheart said, "that love leads to great pain. She was just wrong about loss being the solution."

"I am so sick of all the gods," Astarion sighed. "If I never had to think about one of them again I would be very happy."

"I still think they must be good for something," Shadowheart said drily, "but I've no idea if I can put it into words. If I ever figure it out, I'll let you know."

"What a generous offer," Astarion replied. "I feel so very deeply honoured by your consideration."

Shadowheart smiled at him. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Astarion remembered the look on her face after she’d let her parents die. The irony of it all was smothering. He wondered if he should tell her. Warn her. But what good would it do? There was no way to make the choice itself disappear. And that being true, wasn’t it better to live in pleasant ignorance for as long as she could?

“What are you thinking about?” Shadowheart asked. “You’re staring at me.”

“Oh, no, nothing,” Astarion said, shaking the daze from his mind. He waved at her. “You go to bed. I’ll take the last watch.”

Shadowheart squinted at him, then shrugged. “Alright. I’ll never say no to more sleep.”

Chapter 7: We were the devil's own brigade

Chapter Text

The next day, as the white light of noon was melting into a yellow afternoon, Durge came to him. Astarion had expected the dragonborn to tread more lightly on the earth, now that they had fought off the Urge for Karlach, but their steps were as solemn and heavy as ever. If anything had changed, it was that they felt even more palpably hungry than ever. Astarion was deeply attuned to want. He could smell it at a hundred paces.

"I made a choice," they said, without any preamble.

"I know," Astarion replied. They looked at him with their red, red eyes, and he knew they wanted something from him, but he didn't know what. "You have to keep making it," he said tiredly. "You might never stop having to make it."

"Probably true," they said. "Probably better than what I had? Hah. Better than nothing. I wonder about that. There's something alive inside me. I'm not sure I've ever felt like that before. At least not that I remember."

Astarion did not want to have this conversation. It had been easier, when Tav had still been here. Then, helping Durge had made him feel that they were colleagues. Conspirators in goodness. Now, he felt like he was usurping her. The necessary place she had occupied on the team was shrinking down, bit by bit. By the time she came back - if she came back - maybe there would be no place left for her at all. Besides, Durge had resisted their Urge. They had fought back, and not killed Karlach. Everything had already worked out, no need for Tav, no more need for Astarion either. Still, he did not quite give in to the stone feelings settling in his chest. He rallied, and pulled the ever reliable tool that was humour out of his kit.

"Oh, how your Urge must hate that," Astarion said. "I can just picture it recoiling in horror."

"Oh yes," Durge agreed. "It's almost funny."

"I was watching," Astarion admitted. "That night. I couldn't sleep, so I was in a tree at the edge of the camp."

"Would you have stopped me?" they asked.

"I don't know," he said. "I hope so. But I did hesitate. I wanted to see what you would do. Probably for the same reasons you want to see what choice I'm going to make."

Durge was silent for a long time. "I am surprised," they said at last, "that I am angry. It's no more than I said to you. I deserve to hear it in return. But I don't like it.” They frowned, not quite at Astarion.

"To be clear," Astarion added, with the sinking feeling that he was getting something wrong, “I am glad that you stopped. I certainly want Karlach to be happy. And Tav would be happy too. At the time I simply wasn't feeling very charitable."

“Tav would be happy,” Durge said, rolling the words around in their mouth. “You are so sure of her, always.”

“It doesn’t exactly take a genius to work out what Tav likes,” Astarion said, her name still sour on his tongue. “She’s not subtle about it.” There was a hint of humour there, because he’d been so distrustful of her the first time. She had seemed too good to be true. Well, hadn’t he learned better? He could bask in the lovely warm glow of knowing that Tav wasn’t too good to be true, because her very goodness was the problem.

“You know more about Tav than just the obvious,” Durge said. “You compelled her.”

“What do you mean?” Astarion asked, wondering whether Durge was implying that he had hypnotised her (incorrect) or that she found him compelling (ideally, very true).

Durge did not say anything for a while. They walked down the road, the air full of the scents of dust and greenery. "I could be the villain of your story, if you want," Durge said. "I could stop you from Ascending, and take the blame. And then you could hate me." Then they narrowed their eyes. "Or I could do the opposite. Force you to Ascend. If you’d prefer that."

There was a part of him, even after his nightmare, that found the idea appealing. Though he squirmed at the thought that anyone, least of all Durge, could see that part. A way out of his problems without guilt. He could take power, become gloriously monstrous, and not have to account for it. To Tav, or to himself. But no. Even if he could live with the deaths of his siblings, and the deaths of his victims, he had seen Cazador's imprint all too clearly on Astarion, Vampire Ascendant, and becoming Cazador was the one line he could not cross.

"What does this have to do with anything?” Astarion said. He had lost his grip on the conversation somewhere in the last few turns. What were they supposed to be talking about? Surely it wasn’t this.

“Answer the question. What would you like to do?”

“Make my own decisions,” Astarion snapped.

“Tav was a little afraid of you, I think. She never said it directly, but I felt it. It’s that certainty. Like you know in your head how things are supposed to go. A slave for two hundred years, but such presence of mind! And Tav was part of that. You know just what she should be. Is it just that you understand what kind of person she is? Or did she become what you expected? I think any of us could have loved Tav, if you weren’t here. But you are, and none of us ever had a chance.”

“What about Karlach?” Astarion said.

“I love her,” Durge agreed. “A delicate little feeling. I hate it. It terrifies me. I can feel myself about to destroy it at every moment.”

"I can't wait to hear what spectacular failure of logic explains that idea," Astarion said.

"You said it yourself. One choice isn’t enough. I have to keep making them. I have to keep fighting the Urge. Every minute. Every hour. And for what? If I slip up again, will I be forgiven? No one would sell their soul for me. Not even Karlach. Not if she knew…” They cut off, whipped their head back and forth. “Maybe I should just end the relationship now. It would hurt less, don’t you think?”

"By all the gods, that is beautifully stupid," Astarion nodded. "Just what I was expecting, thank you very much."

Durge made a noise. It might have been a laugh, or a snarl, or a roar. It was the beating of vast clattering brassy wings. “Of course!” they said. “Of course. I was a fool. You can’t give me certainty. You won’t.”

“No one can give you that,” Astarion said. “And you should be happy that Karlach wouldn’t sell her soul for you. When I get Tav back, I’m going to make sure she never does anything that idiotic again.”

“I don’t see how you can,” Durge said. “After all, when she comes back, you’ll have sold your soul for her.” They raised their snout to the sky. “Maybe the problem is that I don’t have a soul to sell. For myself, or for anyone else.” A rakish grin curled the corners of their wide mouth.

“I look forward to joining you in soullessness, then,” Astarion said. “We’ll make quite the pair.”

“Promises, promises,” Durge said. They gave Astarion one last look, and then walked off, catching up with Karlach. She beamed at them as they got close, and Durge smiled back, but Astarion thought their eyes had never looked sadder.

Astarion turned his head away. The things Durge had said were rattling around his skull, and they made him feel tired all over again. How was he meant to keep going? What on earth had Tav thought of him, that she believed he could make this journey without her? What did it say about him if he couldn’t? What, more dreadfully, did it say about him if he could?

The group had clearly talked about Astarion behind his back. They kept a kind of watch on him, all the way to Baldur's Gate. Thankfully that didn't mean constant conversation, but any time he felt his mind wander to dark and brooding thoughts, someone would appear by astonishing coincidence with something they needed his opinion about. Astarion wanted to resent his friends' kindness, but he was too wrung out to do it properly. He would rather tell Karlach about all the things that had changed in Baldur's Gate in the last ten years than think about what Tav was doing in hell. He would rather teach Durge how to repair their robes than think about Cazador and his siblings. He would rather help Gale with dinner than spend another minute in his own head.

"How did you learn to cook?" Gale asked him. "You're surprisingly good at it, for someone who hasn't needed to eat in a few centuries."

"I learned for someone I loved," Astarion said. "We had a mutually beneficial trade." He was talking about Tav, of course, in the future that had not come to pass. But there was no way to say that. It was only real in his mind, and that was no better than being fantasy.

"Blood for food?" Gale said. "Not a bad plan. Rather in favour of the person giving the blood, in some ways."

"That's what they said," Astarion told him. "But under the circ*mstances, I did consider it fair. And they always washed the dishes, so that was nice too."

Perhaps it was appropriate that he was cooking again, since he was also getting blood. They took turns, everyone except Gale and Karlach, whose blood it turned out he could not drink. Astarion had once joked with Tav about how everyone tasted, long, long ago. Neither of them had been right, he learned. Lae'zel's blood was much more delicate than he'd expected, for example, and Jaheira’s was so rich with age that it made him a little dizzy. Astarion was careful about how he drank from them, taking blood from the wrist rather than the neck, both to make it less intimate, and to remind him less of Tav. He still thought some of them enjoyed it a little too much, especially Shadowheart and Wyll, but he wasn't going to comment. Everyone had their preferences.

I'll have to tell Tav about it, he thought, she'd find it all very interesting. He didn't catch himself in time, and the moment when he remembered that he wouldn't get to do that lashed at him.

He had never wanted time to stop so badly. If he couldn't have the future, could he not have this lovely, imperfect present? It was missing so much, and yet it was still better than what he thought was coming. Astarion had resolved to practice numbness, to start cutting himself up bit by bit, but his friends wouldn't let him do that, either. They kept thanking him for things he did, and giving him easy compliments, and caring about him so earnestly and openly that it made him feel sick.

Astarion had run through a hundred vague plans, ways to circumvent the deal Tav had made. For example, if he broke the contract with Raphael, and let Tav go, but then Durge survived and stayed redeemed, surely he could ask Eilistraee to get Tav back. She could negotiate with a devil. She had to be able to. But what if she didn’t, or couldn’t? And could he really let Tav suffer torture on the off-chance that he might get her back later? None of his plans satisfied him, and yet he could not stop picking at them, scrambling for a way out of the noose that was tightening around his neck with every step.

He needed an anchor, something to stop his mind from whirling with all the things he couldn't say. Not even to his friends. He was still too afraid that Raphael might be listening, and he needed to keep the devil convinced that Astarion was planning to honour their bargain. Every moment of Tav's life that that conviction bought was worth something.

In lieu of any better idea, Astarion went rummaging through the camp supplies until he found Tav's personal pack. It was small and travel stained, inexpertly repaired. A hundred years of solo adventuring, and you'd think Tav would have picked up rudimentary stitching, but no. That was another of their chores that had been rapidly designated his.

Astarion opened the pack, drew out one of Tav's shirts and buried his face in it. Her scent lingered, and he closed his eyes for a moment and brought to mind a memory of her. Not a notable one, just her, sitting by their campfire one night, watching the sparks dance. In the memory her eyes moved, lifting to look at him, and a slow smile crept across her face.

Something thumped to the ground. Astarion opened his eyes, and saw a thick, leather-bound book had fallen out of the satchel. Without thinking about it, he bent down and picked it up, and flipped it open.

[4th Kythorn, 1489]

New journal. Had to paste pages into the last one to keep it going until we got to a town big enough to sell notebooks. This should last a while though, nice and solid. Monster-hunting with the band from Waterdeep, tracking a group of Spectators. Too much rain.

Three years ago. He turned the pages rapidly, looking for the moment when the entries stopped, and found it about halfway through. The entries were dense and cramped, clearly written with the intention of making every bit of paper count. Many of them were only a single line long, something like "Journey continued. Made camp near waterfall. Fish for dinner." But others were much longer, where and when Tav had had thoughts to record. Near the end all the entries became multiple paragraphs, including the very last.

[1st Eleint, 1492]

Still in Shadowlands. Went to Moonrise. Ketheric knows D? Troubling. A. got cornered by awful drow. Continue to be ashamed of how my people behave. He was v gracious about it. I am just about ready to fall at his feet and beg him to kiss me, except that I don't know what he would get out of a relationship with someone who did that. I have been stewing in my feelings too long and can't sort out what's fear, what's projection, what's a real problem. K said weeks ago that I should stop torturing myself + him and she was right then and is right now. My own stubbornness exhausts me.

Also, if I just get it over with can stop treating this journal like the diary of a moonstruck child and get back to making notes on the mission. Which is what this book is actually for.

Astarion laughed quietly to himself, and brushed the letter A, written in Tav's simple, unadorned script. He could hear the whole thing, as spoken by Tav's low voice. He hoped she would forgive him for reading this, because there was no way he could possibly stop. His curiosity was inflamed, and he simply missed her too much.

He flipped back, looking for the first entry after the crash.

[2nd Eleasis, 1492]

Haven't written in a few days. Got kidnapped by mindflayers. Infected, not changing, seeking cure. Have acquired a temporary band of comrades. D - dragonborn, has something wrong in mind. Violent uncontrolled impulses. Wish I was a better healer to help, but can only tell something is damaged. L - githyanki. Very young. Very rigid, reminds me of new squires from paladin training. Self-righteous. Could be difficult to get along with but I find it almost nostalgic. She would kill me if she read that. S - a Sharran cleric although won't admit her goddess (yet wears crest?). Memory issues like D but no violence so far. Snippy, but surprisingly kind underneath. Wonder why she's a Sharran, doesn't seem like a good fit. Will remember my own goddess and meditate on this. G - wizard, popped out of a portal. Normal, at least by the standards of this group. Seems shy/nervous about something? But full of interesting facts. A - some kind of adventurer? He was a little vague on the details, actually. And I forgot to ask. Don't quite know how to put this but something hit me when I saw him + tadpoles connected. Like I knew him, though we've never met. He is also v beautiful, which is embarrassing to write but objectively true. I thought I was done with crushes for a while after Cammie, but apparently not. Don't plan on doing anything though, enough going on as is. A. is very attentive and observant, which is much appreciated given everything. Good shot with a bow, too.

The entry had a few more lines about what they had done that day, in a practical style that Astarion suspected was more representative of the journal as a whole. He turned back pages, looking for a name, and stopped when he saw Cammie.

[7th Hammer, 1492]

Still on this blasted mountain. Thank goodness M. is a skilled cleric, or we'd all be dead of hypothermia and frostbite. E. says cave mouth near. Hope he's right. C. asked me to call her Cammie. I did not refuse. Cannot refuse her anything, even though I know this relationship is doomed. For her this trip is something she does because she must, a means to an end, for me it is a way of life. When this is over she will go home to Neverwinter and we will part ways and there is no hope for us. But hearts are so easily swayed when they should not be.

Ice mephits attacked. Getting better at calling on Eilistraee's power again, now that it's back. But still a bit shaky. Need more practice. Can hear Master in my head telling me to do more sword drills. He was always right about that. Hard when it's cold and I could be under a pile of furs with a beautiful bard. This is what discipline is for.

[10th Hammer, 1492]

Found cave. Big elemental inside. Fight was tricky, glad I had burning smite to hand. [This was followed by a detailed breakdown of the fight, with notes about what everyone could have done differently. Astarion skipped all of it.]

Found treasure once fight was over. C. very happy. Her family name will be restored.

Can feel her pulling away already. Which is fine. I cannot be what she needs. Even if she weren't planning to rejoin the aristocracy, with all the social obligations that implies, we would not last, and I would be rapidly unhappy too. No need to dwell on it.

Think I will head south, back towards Waterdeep. Maybe go further, visit Baldur's Gate? Haven't been there in a hundred years. Could be a nice change.

[9th Alturiak, 1492]

Leaving Neverwinter tomorrow. Said goodbye to C. It was more awkward than expected. I wanted to part on good terms, but she had saved up resentment I had never seen. Called me cruel, and said that I didn't know what love was, or passion. That my honour was armour as painful as frostbite to touch.

Probably she is right about me. I wish I could be what she wanted. I think I am not made for love.

No use in being maudlin. I buried my regrets a long time ago, and I am what I am. My happiness and my duty are one, and if that demands loneliness, it is a cost I can easily bear.

"Oh Tav," Astarion said sadly, "you fool." He turned forwards again.

[3rd Eleasis, 1492]

Turns out A. is a vampire. Makes sense, really, when taking tadpole into account. Was very brave of him to tell me so soon, and to look at me with such a lack of fear. He is dangerously easy to talk to. Almost I would accuse him of having some supernatural allure, but don't think that's a vampire power and anyway would be an insult to his many personal charms.

When we get to Baldur's Gate I will have to kill his master. Sounds like a slaver equal to or worse than most of the noble houses of Menzoberranzan, so will enjoy his death.

I wish A had not suffered so, but something about what he told me made me feel connection between us. Know from past experience that I am always drawn to those who have been victims of evil. You would think that a hundred and some years later, Menzoberranzan would rest easier on my heart, but it does not. The evil that was done to me. The evil that I did to others. I will bear it until the last slave is freed from those caverns, or until I meet my death. One far more likely than the other. Meeting others who know that weight is brings the comfort of remembering I am not alone. I think knowing darkness serves me well in bringing light, but is rarely useful to make myself central to others’ problems. But I can afford to be a little more honest with those who share suffering. I can give them and myself the gift of mutual understanding. A firsthand recognition of how awful what they endure is, and a hope that cruelty is not the end and sum total of mortal beings. That we can all heal given kindness and time, though in the bleak hours that seems beyond fantasy.

Hah. Cannot believe I indulge my own nonsense, even in writing. Such presumption. What could I have to teach A? How dare I compare a scant decade and change to two hundred years? As always, the cure for emotional turmoil is sword drills. At least Lae'zel will appreciate a sparring partner.

Astarion put the book down for a few minutes, so that he did not get water on its pages, then picked it up and kept reading.

[5th Eleasis, 1492]

A lot happening. More than I feel I can grasp. Devil showed up this morning by name of R. Offered to get rid of tadpoles. Laughably transparent, which I find worrying. There must be some deeper plan. Can’t see what it could be, feel v stupid.

Afternoon spent dealing with Hag. When I have time want to do a truly long breakdown of fight, lots of notes for future improvement, much to remember. But for now will merely sketch out notes. [Merely was a shocking lie, Astarion had to skip nearly a full page before the entry became interesting again.]

Oh, before hag had brief but notable encounter. A. talked to monster hunter who was looking for him. I had an instant flare of anger at the way he talked of A. It was the old ghost in me, who still bares teeth at anything that reminds me of Mbz. A was much more measured, and talked the hunter down. Of course there was more to it, children taken and kept as surety.

I am astonished at A’s self possession. Has been free what, days? How does he have such generosity of spirit, such wisdom? He stopped me from rash action against the hunter. I am grateful of course, and admiring, but. But. I feel a wall and I cannot account for it. In some ways A has been so vulnerable and honest, and yet there is an element of performance. I wish I could tell him that he does not have to try so hard. I like him just as well when a little surly or sarcastic.

Just reread that sentence. Tav, you star-eyed fool, go practise magic or do laundry or literally anything useful. And stop using this diary for nonsense.

The words leapt off the page to bite at Astarion in a way he had not anticipated. The thing that jarred him wasn’t the early warning signs that Tav was already seeing the ways in which his story didn’t add up. It wasn’t the pain of remembering just how well Tav saw and understood him, now that she was gone. It was Gandrel.

Astarion had spent years hating the Gur. He’d killed Gandrel without a second thought. Later, when he made peace with Ulma, and even moved past that to a kind of allyship (friendship was still probably too strong a reach), he’d thought of it as a new start for him and them. Let bygones be bygones. But he’d never imagined feeling such kinship with one of them.

Was the dilemma he was in so different from what Gandrel had faced? Do this task and maybe you’ll see your children again, ascend and get Tav back. Of course, Gandrel’s task had seemed more appealing. He hadn’t known the mission came from Cazador, and he had had every reason to believe that killing a vampire spawn was an uncomplicatedly virtuous act. But seen from a distance, from the great remove of repetition, Astarion was struck by the similarities.

The terrible sting, of course, was that Gandrel had never had a hope of saving his children. They had become spawn before he had even left Baldur’s Gate. Further evidence, perhaps, that saving Tav was beyond Astarion’s powers. If my life must be a melodrama great enough for the stage, I wish someone had conspired to make it the kind of light comedy where a buffoon rolling around the stage and farting is the main draw, instead of a grand tragedy where the hero only realises the irony of his life too late.

He didn’t know what to do with the feeling, so he shook it off and kept going. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking for in these entries, besides the fact that they brought the shade of Tav to stand at his shoulder, and that was the closest he might ever be to her again.

[7th Eleasis, 1492]

Giving A blood is maybe a bad idea. I am struggling to think of it as only an act of friendship/generosity. Would be easier if he didn't look at me the way he does. Think I am rapidly losing what little sense I ever had. I had told myself that it was enough to merely be reactive, to let him set the tempo. But sometimes I think his speed outpaces my own. All I am confident in is being measured. Will turn to other matters.

Gale has orb in chest. Still the most normal person in the camp. We are all teetering on the brink of chaos and destruction in more ways than one. Every day something new happens, and we have had not a moment to breathe, to settle, to take any measure of our circ*mstances. I feel as though I must hold the centre, until people can stabilise themselves. For this reason among many, not the time to get caught in personal attachments.

Prayed to Eilistraee to give me wisdom and stability. I think the tadpole is interfering, though. My power remains constant, but her presence is unaccountably remote. I do not expect personal focus, I am not so deluded in her estimation of me as to demand that, but normally there is something. A glancing touch, the scent of thyme, a quiet laugh. Now, nothing. I tell myself it is the tadpole but I fear I have done wrong.

[8th Eleasis, 1492]

Had a dream last night, connected to Astral Prism. Beginnings of an explanation for lack of tentacle explosions, though still have many questions. Dream began with person introducing themself. Perhaps it's not surprising that there was clear psychic influence, given connection to illithids, but I wonder if they know how much themself. Thing I am dancing around here is that their outward appearance was suspiciously pale and handsome.

Was not A., not exactly, just enough of an echo to be v amusing. Like they dipped into my subconscious and looked for what I liked, and found that. Suppose I can't disagree with their assessment. But obviously going to backfire if you think about it for more than two seconds, since it makes the ruse too explicit. And that makes me think they are more desperate and less competent than they want to present, and that makes me feel sorry for them. Whoever they really are, I suspect that the fear in their voice when they talked about the struggle they are facing was the truest thing they said. Will not trust them, not entirely, but will keep an open mind, and hope that there is a path that saves them and us.

So it had been the same for her. Astarion smiled a little sadly. He flicked forward a few pages, past the description of finding Alfira’s body. He did not bother to closely read every entry, or every line of every entry. It was not out of any sense of delicacy, or a consciousness that this was invasive behaviour. He was aware of those things, he just didn’t care about them. But large portions of the early days were devoted to their other travelling companions, especially and consistently to Durge. Tav had made detailed notes about her conversations with them, about what she thought might be helpful to their struggles, and about how her help had succeeded (or failed). Astarion was not interested in reading any of it. There was a little voice at the back of his head that said that he ought to be reading those sections most carefully of all, that in lieu of Tav being here herself, he had a duty to take on what she had left unfinished. The future was counting on him. Astarion gave that voice exactly zero attention. He was sick to death of duty.

[11th Eleasis, 1492]

Did not write last night. Was with A. Was... Well. Was good. For a little while I was happier than I've been in a long time.

But A has infernal script on his back. Showed me a vision of Cazador carving it. I think true but I am not sure. His mind felt full of shutters and secrets. Not completely confident on how tadpole communication works. And as I told him, he knows too much.

On the one hand, seems so unlikely to be some grand ploy. If Cazador vision is true, A. is a victim in every sense of the word. Hasn't even seen the script himself. A tragedy I am compounding by suggesting malicious intent. Plus, if A is mole, why would Raphael introduce himself at all? What would end goal be? Surely easier ways to manipulate me than a beautiful man. (Tho A. much more than just that.)

On the other hand, clear incentive for devil to intervene. Whatever the grand plan behind mass tadpoling, it has cosmic consequences. Who wouldn't want that power? Maybe arrogant to think I'm enough of a focal point to be the target, but possible there's a second layer of strategy I'm not seeing. And if not ploy, how to account for the knowledge A has of me? Or why the instant interest. Or all those coy conversations, letting me overhear him with Wyll, all the flirtation... I am not personally vain enough to believe that he would fall in love with me at first sight.

I feel sick and ashamed of hurting A, but the stakes are too high. Too many lives on the line. I must go on. Discipline and oaths and one foot in front of the other. My duty is to be what others need me to be. I must not fail.

[13th Eleasis, 1492]

A relief to be down in the Underdark. Suits my mood. Found a sword left by a fellow Eilistraeean, took it with his blessing. Feel it will serve me well. Was glad to see Myconids, always feel at home with them. They take me out of myself. Helps that they don't really understand human emotion.

S v kind, talked to me this evening to see if I was okay. Am v v embarrassed that personal drama is obvious to the group. Intended to be dependable, worry I have ruined that. Should have been better.

A does not talk to me any more. Reasonable, given how I hurt him. Very stupidly, I feel deeply hurt by it in turn. My instinct is lean into the pain. Will endure as I have learned to endure, and will not let myself be changed. The good of all over all.

[14th Eleasis, 1492]

Had a strange dream last night. In my dream I was in a park with A, in the sunlight. I was sitting on the grass and talking to him. Almost didn't recognise myself. The feelings I had were so strange. Deep love - that's not so surprising to me, but the steadfast surety of it was, the total lack of doubt - and a sense of calm regret but also satisfaction, like I was on the other side of a difficult choice. And then I sang a folk tune. I think in the dream it was all connected, I was explaining something, but I don't remember exactly what. I do remember the tune, though.

The willows weep forever,

by the banks of the Eldevay,

and Jorindel's bones lie bound in weeds

and only his name remains.

Wish I did not know that dreams are important. Wish Eilistraee could communicate more clearly. Maybe this is all she can do with tadpole interference. We are about to cross into the Shadow-cursed lands. There will no doubt be much danger there. I fear the dream is a warning, and yet for all my thinking, cannot interpret it. I dread making sense of it only when the moment is too late for me to act.Eilistraee shield me from doing wrong.

Astarion felt a little shiver run over his skin as he saw those words again. He could still hear them as Tav had sung them, on the first journey, her rough contralto lending them a deep melancholy. They had been a kind of a promise between him and her, a way of reminding Tav that she was not alone, that she did not have to bear every burden without help.

Well, that promise meant nothing now. He could not help her, or could only help her by betraying her, one way or another. Wyll and Gale and Shadowheart were not waiting in the wings to come and save them. Reading the journal, it was clearer than ever that Tav would not fear a righteous death, but that only made him hurt more.

[24th Eleasis, 1492]

D tried to kill Isobel. Not an ideal situation. But some good came out of it. Their honesty. They told a very troubling story about a butler. And mentioned something that sounded like a divine connection.

Thinking about what we know about Ketheric and Moonrise. Shar, Selûne, Myrkul. Too many gods already. There's also Withers, who we met in an old temple of Jergal. I have my suspicions. Not even counting Gale and Mystra, a whole separate issue. Or myself, though Eilistraee very quiet at the moment. Does all this make another god more or less likely? Is history repeating? With Jaheira herself here, feels all too possible.

Hope I am wrong, and that makes me more fearful than anything that I'm right. Will say nothing until I have proof. Would spook the others too much, I think.

Was Tav talking about Bhaal? Astarion drummed his fingers on the paper. That was the only thing that really fit, but it seemed so outlandish. Even if she was right, I have no better way of proving it than she did. He shook his head and kept reading.The next few entries were less emotional and more tactical, so he mostly skimmed until he saw a relevant initial show up.

[27th Eleasis, 1492]

R showed up to explain scars. 7000 souls for ultimate immortality. A. obviously troubled by the information.

At this point, no real reason to think R. and A. working together. Which means A. probably telling the truth. I should be happy about this. Find I am not. Am more afraid than ever. Fate has a wire around my neck, and I am being garroted. If I must love, I want to do so freely, by my own choice, not because I am compelled.

Eilistraee always said I was too stubborn for my own good. Probably this is more pigheadedness.

Almost a shame we didn't have to fight the Orthon. Worth thinking about how I would have approached it if voice didn't work. Had A., K. and S. in party... [At this point the entry, like so many of the others, became a technical manual on battle tactics. Astarion had gotten very good at skipping over them. Tav's impeccable command of group strategy might have been half the reason they ever beat the Netherbrain, but that didn't mean he wanted to read about it.]

[28th Eleasis, 1492]

Found Oliver, finally, and brought him back to Thaniel. Curse won't be lifted until Ketheric is dead, apparently, but that was all but guaranteed anyway. H very grateful about the whole thing, which is silly. Just doing my duty. He made a very delicate and polite overture about a relationship, which I turned down. Interesting food for thought, though. I could see myself liking H. He is kind and gentle, and certainly handsome enough. In earlier times probably wouldn't have hesitated to say yes, though I suspect might have approached it with the same practicality I usually do. Now...

The thing that is driving me mad is that the person I want to talk to about all of this is A. That feels like the big difference. Have loved others, certainly, and have friends, but have always been mostly content alone. My diaries have sufficed for exposing my soul. So beyond physicalities, what I do not understand is the desire to talk, to lay bare all my heart and see what he makes of it. It would earnestly feel more logical to me if I were right and my memory had been imperfectly modified, though A seems to have ruled this out.

At least will say this for my very stupid brain - if it had to pick someone, I am grateful it picked someone so remarkable. A likes to play himself off as shallow and uncomplicated. Having depth is dangerous when you are not free. But every glimpse I get only makes me want to look longer.

Ugh. Enough. Back to work. Oliver fight not a challenge, but a few notes worth making-

“Tav,” Astarion said, and her very name caught in his throat like thorns. The closer he got to the end, the harder her journal got to read. It was so much more than he had been expecting.

[30th Eleasis, 1492]

Still having the dream. Still don't understand it. Why is A in it? Further evidence for missing memories, maybe, except that I still think that’s ruled out, and not only by A’s word. Also, if reading the setting right, it might have been in Baldur’s Gate, and no matter how my memories were altered I cannot account for enough of a gap to have made the journey there. Actually, if I think about the sun, might have been around this time of year? Maybe I’m seeing the future? One prophet surely enough.

More likely a warning. Asked a bard at the inn and was told that the song is real and called The Death of Jorindel. Is my death coming? Would be the most likely explanation, given everything.

If I only have a little time left, will do my best to make it count. And if I must give my life in service of the greater good, or those I love, or both, I will do so unafraid. Death has never been my goal, but it has always been a known and possible outcome of the life I chose. When it comes, it comes. No doubt I will always wish to live longer, to be able to do more, but I will never let that stop me from taking a chance when it is in my hands.

Astarion closed the journal, and buried his face in his hands. He had come back to the end. He could not bear to read the final entry again. He would read Tav wrestling with her duty and her heart, getting ever closer to reconciling them. He would see, in every firmly marked letter, some token of feeling for him. I can imagine it so clearly, loving you singularly, wholeheartedly, forever. Astarion did not need to imagine it. He had seen a year of it, and he saw it again now.

He felt battered by emotion. Love, that was there. How could it not be? And regret, because he wished that they had been able to talk about even a fragment of all this. Aching loneliness, though that had been so constant since his return that it was easy to ignore. And then all of them swamped by one huge emotion that tore through him like a whirlwind. Ire.

He was furious, plain and simple. Why on earth had he ever let himself develop feelings for someone so stupid and self-sacrificing? Anger rose up in him, hot white, acidic as bile. Tav always discounted her own worth, always put herself in harm's way to save others, never thought for a second that she might be necessary to anyone. But he needed her. If she couldn't put herself first, then couldn't she think for two seconds about him? About what he wanted? There was a little bit of his brain that was dimly aware that this was a ridiculous train of thought when she had given herself up for him and his protection, but it was soundly outweighed by the plain and simple truth. Tav wasn't here, and he wanted her.

No wonder the version of himself had who had become the Vampire Ascendant had clung so desperately to her. Astarion had it in him, he knew, to be that possessive, that controlling, to treat Tav not as a person but as an object that belonged to him. It was almost appealing. It would make their relationship much simpler.

He ground his hands into his eyes and sighed. Was he really willing to risk the world for Tav? To risk the future that he had been brought back here to save? Why had Eilistraee given her those dreams, if they weren't intended as a message for him? He could almost feel a stern voice reminding him of the task before him, reminding him that going to hell would risk everything, that he was supposed to be accomplishing.

I sound like Tav, Astarion thought drily, and then played that sentence back in his head. It was as if a fireball had exploded in his brain. Why am I thinking like Tav? Why do I feel remotely obligated by whatever her goddess thinks is a good idea? Why am I letting her opinion of some larger nebulous good be any kind of influence on me?

Astarion wasn't Tav and he didn't think like her and it was stupid to try. He was a selfish, opportunistic sneak, and those were only some of his many good qualities. He was not the kind of person who would ever write 'the good of all over all' and sincerely believe it. He did not have to do what Tav would want him to, or what Eilistraee would want him to. He wanted Tav, and he was going to go and get her. And if that ruined the world, well it had done little enough for him.

The simple truth was that Avernus and Raphael were not as frightening as a future without Tav. And Astarion intended to make that everyone else's problem.

The anger inside Astarion was still there, but it had crystallised into something that he could use. Instead of just letting it eat at him, he had forged it into a dagger. It felt so good, to finally have that weapon in his hands again. He had unmade it, after Cazador died, and thought he would not need it again. But he did, and here it was, waiting for him as if it had never gone away.

Astarion had a more restful trance that night than he had had since Tav left. He woke in the full dark of the early morning, ready to take over camp watch from Lae'zel.

"I'm up," Astarion said, walking over to where she sat cross-legged by the fire, looking at the rising sparks. "You can head to bed, if you want."

"Right now I would rather have company and conversation," Lae'zel said, and looked up at him. "The future has been weighing heavy on my heart, and even if I try, I won't sleep."

"Yes," Astarion sighed. "I know what that feels like." He sat down beside her.

"Tell me, Astarion, does the thought of killing your master make your blood sing?"

"Naturally. It's only a shame it's too risky to resurrect him, because otherwise I'd keep bringing him back and killing him again, just for the fun of it."

Lae'zel drew her knees up to her chest and looked out into the night, and Astarion was suddenly struck by how young she was. Tav had compared her to a squire, and he saw it now, the innocent fervour of her invincible youth. Lae'zel, of all of them, had been the least tempered by the world. This might even be her first ordeal.

"Doesn't your blood sing at the thought of killing Vlaakith?" he asked. "You've always had the most charming streak of violence in you."

"Of course," Lae'zel replied. "I will set my people free!" She sighed. "And then? What will I do? I find myself fearing the moment of her death as much as I anticipate it, because I cannot imagine who I will be when she is gone. It is an irrelevant question. But these quiet nights under the stars give me too much room for thought."

"I'm by no means an advocate for self-reflection," Astarion sniffed. "It gives you wrinkles, you know. You probably will have some kind of horrible existential crisis when Vlaakith is dead. But really, it'll be fine. You'll wallow in panic and misery for a few months, make some bad choices, drink too much, f*ck the wrong people, and then you'll have the whole rest of your life to live. It won't be so bad."

"I am afraid of letting myself become soft," Lae'zel said. "I was made to be a sword, I must not dull my edge. And yet I think perhaps it has already happened."

"You sound like Tav," Astarion said, "and it was stupid when she said it, too. Trust me, Lae'zel, you're plenty sharp."

"I do trust you," Lae'zel said. "I have not forgotten what you showed me, at the creche, and I have taken heart from it more than once since then." She looked at him, almost shyly, if such a thing was possible. "What will you be, when Cazador is gone? When he is dead, and Vlaakith is dead, we should meet again. And show each other who we have become."

Astarion remembered being angry with Lae'zel, in his first life, for the relentless and punishing exactitude with which she had pursued her goals, for her indifference to what they had cost other people. Now he wondered how he could ever have been so blind to the vulnerability under that armour of cold arrogance.

"When Cazador is dead," Astarion said, "I'll be the Vampire Ascendant. I'll have a huge palace and a lot of money and as much power as I could ever dream of. I'll be so busy being hedonistic and decadent, there won't be time for an existential crisis."

As he spoke, he reached out with his tadpole and touched her mind. Do you think anyone can overhear what we say to each other this way?

You are concerned about spies? Lae'zel asked. With her mouth, she said, "I do not understand why you place value on the fripperies of existence. It is an unhealthy way to live."

"Exactly," Astarion joked back. "My favourite way to live. And don't knock it until you've tried it. Come visit me in Baldur's Gate some time, and I'll take you to an orgy. I'm sure you'll learn something valuable." Yes. Raphael was watching us before he showed up to take me, and now he has a deal on the line. There's no way he isn't still watching.

I have thought the same thing. But no, I do not think he can overhear this. Mizora could not overhear Wyll and Tav talking about his contract, when she showed up to demand we release her from Moonrise Towers. "I need no instruction in any matter of the flesh from you," Lae'zel sniffed. "Be it fighting or copulation. Perhaps you are the one who needs to learn a thing or two, lest Tav get bored too quickly when she returns."

"You're just envious that she never gave you the time of day," Astarion replied. "Unfortunately, our Tav has excellent taste." I want to break into the House of Hope and destroy Tav's contract. That way we get her back and I don't have to Ascend.

Lae'zel did not say anything for a long moment. Then a smile split her face almost ear to ear. "Hah," was all she said out loud. "We shall test that theory when Tav gets back." But inside his head he felt all her fierce delight and eager enthusiasm. Yes! This is the way. We will take the fight to Raphael and kill him where he cannot return to life.

It's going to be hard, Astarion warned her. We'll need to be as strong as we possibly can. And until we're ready, we can't give him the slightest clue we're planning anything.

Thinking tactically? Lae'zel's mental voice was amused. We will make a gith of you yet. But you're right. Are you going to tell the others?

I don't know. We can't tell Halsin or Jaheira, since they don't have tadpoles. As for the rest, it depends on whether or not they can keep a secret.

Lae'zel considered this. Don't tell them yet, she said. We must be like cloakers, and conceal ourselves until the moment we strike. The fewer who know, the less likely we are to slip up.

"I should rest," she said out loud, and stood up, slapping her knees as she did so. She pressed a hand to Astarion's shoulder. "You make me excited to see your future victories. I want to be there when your enemies lie dead at your feet."

"I'm counting down the days," Astarion replied, and meant it. Lae'zel smiled her sharp knife of a smile, and went to bed.

Chapter 8: Men must weep who never yet have wept

Chapter Text

Deciding to go to hell was one thing, planning it was quite another. Astarion’s knowledge of the future did not cover Avernus. He’d been coasting on that information, trusting to what he’d seen before to guide him, but the House of Hope was a blank void. He didn’t know how many people they’d need (as many as possible, probably), or what equipment to bring (holy weapons, presumably), or whose skills would be most necessary. He could guess that “be as strong as we can” was true. Should he wait until Gortash and Orin were dead, until those frantic few days before the Netherbrain shook loose? At least if he did that, they’d have the experience of facing down Viconia in the House of Grief, and getting the prisoners out of the Iron Throne, the missions that had required the greatest degree of skill and tactical aptitude from the team. It was a little bit of a relief to know that he didn’t have to rush to do it the next day. Though even if he'd wanted to, he couldn't have. There was simply too much happening.

Astarion did remember what a relentless whirlwind their arrival in Rivington had been, but somehow it seemed even worse this time. Easy to know who to blame for that, as always. They had barely recovered from Vlaakith’s visit and the revelation of the Emperor's true nature than another shock cracked them all over the head.

It happened over breakfast. Astarion was sitting by Shadowheart, watching her eat her porridge with idle curiosity, and thinking that it could be improved by the addition of some dried fruit, when Durge stopped scraping their spoon around their bowl, looked up, and said, "I think I'm a Bhaalspawn."

Karlach dropped her bowl. Jaheira winced, and sucked in a breath that was more resignation than surprise. Everyone else merely stared, too dumbfounded to speak. Astarion recalled the relevant entry from Tav's diary, and knew she would have taken no pleasure in being right.

"Not to be trite, but that does rather explain the murderous urges," Astarion said. "And maybe the weird butler? I admit, I'm still a little confused about that part."

"I suppose it makes sense of what's happened," Wyll said reluctantly. "Though it sounds like an old story, not real life. But I don't think it's our opinions that matter now. What do you make of this, Durge? Your heart is what matters."

"Wyll is right," Jaheira said firmly. "Don't forget I was there for the Bhaalspawn crisis. You are not bound by anything, not even your father's decrees. Your life is what you make of it."

"You have such faith in me,” Durge said. Their cold voice and flat affect lent the words a sardonic twist, but it was impossible to know if it was intentional. “And such expectations of me.”

"We know how strong you are,” Karlach said, laying her hand on them. “Being a Bhaalspawn is a heavy weight, but you’re more than equal to it. You can do this, I know you can.”

Everyone jumped in, reassuring Durge, trying to cheer them up. It was all very nice, Astarion supposed. He didn't trust it. The penny that had been hanging in the air since he'd returned to the past had finally dropped. Lolth had made a deal with the god of murder to put Durge in their path, assuming that would be enough to undo Tav and stop the future. And that had been taken seriously enough that Eilistraee had been allowed to put him through unrelenting misery as a trade. If all of that was true, it couldn't possibly resolve as neatly and cleanly as it felt like it might.

As they entered the boiling pot that was Baldur's Gate, that feeling only got stronger. Orin was unpleasantly menacing, haunting them even more than she had the first time around, clearly fascinated and compelled by her sibling. It didn't take long for everyone to understand that she was the architect of Durge's memory loss. She gloated about it with tiresome glee. Astarion wondered if Durge had been like her, once. If they had, she had done them a tremendous favour, because he would have killed them within a day if he'd had to put up with that kind of nonsense.

Astarion felt a vague and nagging sense of guilt that he wasn’t keeping a closer eye on Durge, but it was hard. Even the second time around, his own problems tugged at his attention, distracting him from all the tangled complexities of his companions' needs. How on earth had Tav managed to hold all of them in her head? She had done it essentially alone the first time through, keeping everyone's needs in mind, and steered them clear through every danger. What a terrifying accomplishment.

He met the Gur, in their camp up by the windmill. Ulma was as sour as ever, but now Gandrel was present too, and inclined to be forgiving of him. Astarion spun them the same story he'd told in the swamp, about how he'd been seeking a way out from under Cazador's thumb for some time. "I wouldn't have dreamed of taking your children if Cazador hadn't explicitly commanded me to," he lied. Ulma narrowed her eyes at him, but Astarion had enough genuine regret in his heart for it to sound plausible, and after a moment, she relaxed ever so fractionally.

"Do you think they're still alive?" Ulma asked, and Astarion heard the desperation in her voice. It sounded like his own thoughts, when he thought about Tav for too long. That hurt. He considered telling her the truth, but it seemed too risky. Too likely to tip Raphael off that he wasn't planning to complete the ritual. Because if he was, better that she thought they were already dead.

"It would be cruel of me to give you that hope," Astarion said.

Ulma could not accept the answer, true and untrue as it was. That was the same as the first time, but gods above it was worse with understanding. She was closing her ears to him because the truth was so painful.

Gandrel looked at him nervously. “Astarion,” he said, “are you planning to try and kill Cazador?”

That, at least, was easy to answer. “Of course,” Astarion said, giving the monster hunter his toothiest grin. “I can give you revenge, if nothing else.”

Gandrel did not look any happier. “Maybe you shouldn’t. Maybe you should just leave. We can find some other way in.”

Ulma shot him a glare. “What are you talking about?” she said. “Astarion is our best hope of seeing the children again. We need him.”

“It’s not that I’m not flattered you care about my well-being,” Astarion said silkily, “but Cazador has no idea who he’s dealing with. I promise you that. I’m coming for him, and I’m going to tear him to pieces.”

Ulma raised an eyebrow, then smiled her cold smile, a mirror of his own. “I don’t know how you changed so much so quickly,” she said, “but I think I like this new version, spawn.”

“Of course you do,” Astarion told her. “I’m exceptionally likeable. Ask anyone.”

Gandrel still looked troubled, but Astarion paid him no mind. Some people were cowards by nature. He mentally dusted his hands of the Gur, feeling very pleased with himself and not at all like a hypocrite of the highest order.

The reunion with Dalyria and Petras at Fraygo's Flophouse was even stranger than meeting the Gur on friendly terms. Astarion could read them both so much more clearly now than he had a year ago. Dal was stressed out of her mind, that was obvious, wound up to the point that her typically level-headed rationality had curdled into frantic panic. He had guessed the first time around that things had become truly miserable in his absence, and had had it confirmed later. But now he could feel it so tangibly, in the way Dalyria's voice shivered and scraped like a badly-played fiddle. It made him think of the cruel claws Cazador liked to make with his fingers, how he enjoyed hooking them over Astarion's shoulders and cutting through the muscles of his shoulder blades until he struck bone. The panic came back, making the edges of his vision flutter. The panic of remembering that Cazador was alive all over again, that he would have to see him and fight him and kill him again, or become a slave once more and never be free never never never... Tav was no longer here to pull him out of this spiral. There was no low and calming voice to anchor him to the now, no knell of verbal Truth to make him believe he was safe. Astarion might have stayed totally frozen and locked up if Petras hadn't spoken.

"Astarion's come back because he wants in on the glory. He wants to be exalted like the rest of us." Thank all the gods above for Petras and his imbecile tongue. He was far too stupid to be as fearful as he should be. Like a cat chasing a scrap of silvered paper, he was focused entirely on the reward Cazador had dangled in front of them, unaware that it was a shiny lie. But the inanity of it was so funny that it snapped Astarion out of the binding chains of horror, and gave him a moment of breathing room to box up all those awful feelings and metaphorically hide them under a mental mattress.

Astarion wanted to sit his siblings down and have a frank conversation with them. Maybe he could clonk Petras's head once or twice against a suitably thick table while he was at it, see if that helped knock some sense into his skull. But it was pointless. There was no way to be honest with them, not really, and it wasn't as if their knowing the truth would make his job any easier.

“Believe what you like,” he said, his voice lacking its usual emotion. “Just tell me what you know.”

Dal hesitated. “You don’t look well,” she said.

“Thank you for the observation sister,” Astarion snapped. “I’m fine. I’m certainly better than you. You look like sh*t. Not that I’m surprised.”

“Astarion,” she said, “you shouldn’t have come back. I wanted you to be free. I wanted one of us to be free, at least.”

“I would never have been free,” Astarion said. “You know that. There’s no freedom while Cazador lives. I was always going to have to come back here, one way or another, to end it.”

“You think you can end the master?” Petras sneered, but Dal shushed him. She was staring at Astarion with sharp, focused interest.

“Look,” Astarion said, “you want to be exalted. I want to be exalted. But why should Cazador have any part of it? I know a way to seize the ritual for ourselves. We’ll kill him and take his power. It’s the only way. If you two have the good sense to recognise a helping hand when it reaches down to pull you out of the water.” The lie was not particularly good, but it didn’t have to be. Dal and Petras got all wide-eyed and thoughtful, and they told Astarion things he already knew that he pretended to be interested in. It felt more like street theatre than anything, playing his role on the uncertain chance that this was the moment when an audience was watching.

He kept up the facade even when Dal said something shocking. She looked at him as she and Petras left, another piercing look that he didn’t know how to read. “I believe in you, Astarion. I don’t know why, but I do.” She blinked away, and Astarion was very proud of himself for not quailing under the weight of another person’s hopes, laid across his shoulders. Even though he knew he could do it, would do it, it was still so much. Tav, he thought, how did you do this? How could anyone ever bear this weight?

It was perhaps vindicating for Astarion’s instincts that no sooner had they left the flophouse than a woman stepped out of Sharess's Caress across the street and told them that Raphael was eagerly anticipating their company, with Kithrak Voss in attendance. Lae'zel gave Astarion a quick glance, but said nothing, out loud or via tadpole.

Astarion's gut clenched. Raphael had met them in Sharess's Caress in his first life, but it had been later, much closer to the end. Was this shift in the timeline random chance, or another ill omen? Given everything that had happened, hoping for the former seemed not just naive, but willfully blind. He followed Lae'zel, Karlach and Durge up the stairs gloomily, trying and failing to anticipate all the ways Raphael could screw them over.

"Welcome," Raphael said, with cheerful affability, every bit as suave and unpleasant as ever. Astarion saw a look of intense dislike flash across Voss's face, and had never related more deeply to a gith. "We have much to discuss. But first... Astarion? Still unascended, I see."

"I'm working on it," Astarion said, smiling what he hoped was a suitably chilly and conniving smirk. "I just got some very useful information from my siblings."

"Excellent," Raphael purred. "I'm very glad to hear it. Your Tav has her good qualities, but," his face pulled into a rather sour expression, "she makes for a rather wearing house guest. The sooner I can hand her back to you, the better."

"Can I see her?" Astarion asked. "It would be, shall we say, incentivising to know that you are maintaining your half of the bargain."

Raphael glared at him. "I am a devil of my word, spawn. Don't ever imply otherwise." Then he shrugged. "But why not? If it motivates you to work a bit faster, all the better."

He clicked his fingers, and a portal appeared in midair. Through it, Astarion could see Tav. She was not wearing the awful dress, but a rather stuffy doublet of red velvet, slashed with mustard yellow silk and embroidered with pomegranates picked out in gold thread. It was not a huge fashion improvement, the colours too garish, but at least it looked comfortable. She was reading a book, and gnawing on one of her fingernails. Astarion had never known her to have that habit. He suspected she was very, very bored.

"Tav?" a voice that he couldn't see called out. "Do you want to play a game of cards?"

"No wagers and no cheating," Tav said, lifting her head from the page. And then her eyes met Astarion's. Her eyes went far too wide, and her skin blanched to queasy grey. "Oh," she said, and it was an agonised sound, like she'd been wounded. Astarion wanted to say something, anything to her, but he couldn't find words. He watched her eyes dart around, seeing Durge and Karlach and Lae'zel, trying to absorb as much information as possible.

"What's going on?" the voice he couldn't see said, and a red-skinned hand settled on Tav's shoulder. Someone leaned down to look through the portal, though Astarion could only see the strangely familiar arc of their mouth. "Is that him?" the devil asked, and Astarion had no time to find out what that meant, because Raphael snapped his fingers and the portal closed.

"That's quite enough of that," Raphael said. "As you can see, she is in perfect health, and has her choice of diversions and little entertainments." He turned to Lae'zel. "Now. I believe I have something that might interest you."

"He has the Orphic Hammer," Voss put in impatiently. "The tool we have sought for millennia, which will free Prince Orpheus from his chains."

Astarion tuned out slightly at this point. He remembered how this conversation was going to go. Raphael wanted the Crown of Karsus, they would say no, and then Lae'zel could pick up the hammer anyway when they broke into hell. It was all very straightforward.

"I'll give you the Crown of Karsus," Durge said.

Well. That woke Astarion back up.

"No. No. No f*cking way," Karlach said. "We have made enough deals with f*cking devils to last a f*cking lifetime." Her internal flames exploded into white hot heat, so powerful that Astarion could feel the hair on his arms singing slightly.

"This is my choice," Durge said. It was an absurdly cruel reply, Astarion thought, and shivered a little. It also did absolutely nothing to reduce the incinerating heat seeping out of Karlach's skin. Even Lae'zel looked troubled.

"And one that you will have no cause to regret, I assure you," Raphael said, visibly smug and delighted. He proffered a contract, and Durge signed it. Then Raphael made the Orphic Hammer appear, and passed it to Lae'zel. "I'm sure your Prince will be very happy to be out of those chains," he told her. Lae'zel made no response, just squinted at him with sullen hostility. Since that was about her usual reaction to everything, Astarion didn't think it would make Raphael suspicious.

"Right," Astarion said, "all done? Then we're leaving before anyone here can cause any more trouble." He herded them all out the door. As soon as it shut, Karlach rounded on Durge, still boiling over with untempered rage.

"You made a deal with Raphael! With Raphael! Even after everything I've told you about devils and Avernus, after what we saw him do to Tav! Even though you know how stupid and reckless and dangerous it is. Why?"

"Well," Durge said evenly, "for one thing, I'm not sure I have a soul for Raphael to take. And even if I do and he wants it, there's a decent chance he'd have to go through my dad to get it." They smiled morosely.

"That is weak logic," Lae'zel said. "Raphael would not have been stupid enough to make a deal with you if he knew he couldn't collect."

"I'm not letting you do this," Karlach said. "We are going to find someone who can bring us to the hells, and we are going to go there and get that contract. I said I'd never go back to Avernus, and I'm going to break that vow. For you. Do you understand what that means?"

Astarion's face blanched. "Absolutely not," he hissed at her. "Over my dead body. I will not let you. What do you think would happen to Tav?" And over the tadpole connection, which he did not trust, he said, We are standing outside Raphael's door! Think for two blasted seconds about who can hear what you're saying.

"Don't talk to her like that," Durge snarled at him, which thoroughly failed to impress Karlach.

"Point taken," Karlach said sourly. "Let's get the f*ck out of here before I burn this sh*thole to the ground. We can have a real fight back in the privacy of the camp."

And then, to cap it all off, the Emperor started clamouring to know who they'd been talking to and why. Astarion let Durge answer those questions, while Lae'zel and Voss had a little side conversation that ended with her being given a very impressive sword. He turned away from the others, looked out over the balcony at the street below. A street that he would have been happy enough never to see again in his life, and which he would probably always be able to sketch from memory, marking each alley where he'd got on his knees, each dark corner where he'd stuck a knife in the gut of someone who was asking a few too many questions. It didn't look any better or more charming by daylight. The only saving grace was that he could walk away.

The trek back to camp was accompanied by the bitterest silence, acid and acrimonious. Astarion found it almost pleasantly familiar. He was more used to this than to cheerful chatter. Karlach barrelled back into camp and said "Okay everyone, we've got a problem."

The whole camp roused, even Dame Aylin and Isobel, even poor little Yenna. "What's toward?" Aylin said, shaking her enormous wings out.

"Durge just sold their soul," Karlach said.

"Not true," Durge said. "We got the Orphic Hammer from Raphael, in exchange for giving him the Crown of Karsus after we beat the Netherbrain. My soul is only forfeit if we don't follow through."

"Oh, because that's so much better!" Karlach snapped.

"You did what?" Gale said, immediately incensed. "You fool. The Crown of Karsus cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of a devil. I shudder to think what monstrosities he could work with it."

"Thank you," Karlach said. "Someone else who sees sense. I tried to stop them, for the f*cking record."

"There's no point in wasting words on what's been done," Wyll said, "though I can't say I'm happy about your choice either, Durge. The real question is what we do next?"

"There's nothing we can do," Astarion said, "while Raphael holds one of us at his mercy."

Astarion, Lae'zel said. We should tell them.

We can't! Not now. If this fight doesn't happen, Raphael will be twice as suspicious. We'd lose any chance of surprising him.

I value caution as much as any sensible warrior, but this is verging on paranoia.

I'd rather be paranoid than naive.

Lae'zel gave a mental sigh, but did not press him further. Out loud, all she said was, "This isn't an issue we need to decide now. There is much to do before we even think of confronting the Elder Brain. We can wait, and see what happens."

"I want to be clear," Gale said. "I will not allow the Crown of Karsus to fall into Raphael's hands. No matter what. Durge, you understand what that means, don't you?"

"Wizard versus sorcerer," Durge said, and grinned, showing a mouth full of extremely sharp teeth. "My feeling is, there's enough to come between now and then that I'm not convinced my soul will be around for Raphael to take."

"So that's it?" Karlach said. "We're just sitting back and doing nothing?" She looked at all of them, waiting, disappointment and frustration etched into her face. Astarion felt a slight prickle in the air. Everyone was waiting for someone to take charge. Tav should have been there, to be their answer, but she wasn't, and that was his fault. He watched everyone's eyes turn slowly to Durge.

"Waiting is fine by me," Durge said, and shrugged. "I'm not worried."

Karlach stared at them, then shook her head and stalked away to her tent. Astarion decided that his own encampment was uncomfortably close to hers, and slunk off to the stone wall behind the old stable, where he could sit and watch the Chionthar flow sluggishly by.

Alone, with only the wind and the water for company, Astarion thought back over the meeting with Raphael.

Oh, Tav had said. Oh. The sound kept ringing in his ears, more a groan than a proper vocalisation. And there had been no light in her eyes. There was a part of Astarion that was almost vindictively glad at evidence that she was unhappy. She had thrown herself into the lion's maw so readily for him, and he had known it was going to be worse than she could have imagined. And he had been right! But as delicious as pettiness was, it couldn't keep away the other thoughts. Why hadn't she been happier to see him? Who was that devil leaning over her shoulder? Just how awful had the experience been?

Astarion had assumed that the core problem with Tav was getting her back. He had not really considered how her time there might have changed her. Oh good, he thought, the last thing I needed. Something new to worry about. His brain was all too excited to generate horrors, and he had too many years experience of torture. There was such a wealth of misery to draw on, and to imagine Tav enduring. Even with the promise of physical and mental safety she had extracted from Raphael, that didn't mean there weren't ways to make her stay difficult.

"You look like you're aiming to win the Baldur's Gate brooding championships," Gale said from behind him. "And most handily too, I'd imagine. Now, if you were in Waterdeep you might have a run for your money. Wizards are astonishingly good at moping melodramatically. But here? You're in a league of your own."

In spite of his bad temper, Astarion was forced to giggle. "I suppose you would know."

"I do like to think I set a new record, in my own way," Gale said. He came and stood next to Astarion, looking out over the city. "That was a rather unpleasant scene back there. For all of us, I think."

"It was nothing to what my siblings like to do to each other," Astarion said. "If I'd had to try and go on this little camping trip with them instead of you, the Absolute would be ruling all of Faerûn by now."

Gale raised an eyebrow. "If that's true, why are you skulking up here? What's weighing on your mind?"

Astarion hesitated. But then, maybe it would do him good to tell someone else what he was thinking about. Tav certainly liked to advocate for it. "Raphael opened a portal to Tav, just for a few seconds. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with her, but she wasn't exactly happy to see us. Quite the opposite, in fact."

"I don't think Tav could ever really be happy in hell," Gale said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "She has too much conscience. Even if she's not being hurt, she's probably surrounded by suffering, with no way to alleviate it. That would wear on anyone, but on her especially."

"If I were feeling that miserable, I think I'd be positively cheered up by the sight of a friendly face," Astarion said. This was a downright lie, and he knew it, but it was a way of covering what he really wanted to say, which was she looked at me like I'd just stabbed her, and now I'm afraid that when we get her back from hell she won't be the person I love anymore.

Gale hesitated. "You know, she did ask you to let her die," he said, and then quickly held up his hands to halt whatever he was reading from Astarion's face. "I'm not saying you should! But from Tav's perspective, seeing you might be a bad sign. After all, why would you be interacting with Raphael if you were planning not to go through with Ascension? If I were in her position, I might have indulged in a little fantasy about everyone I'd left behind being well, being happy, even if I couldn't be with them. You know Tav would want that for us."

"What Tav wants has never interested me less," Astarion said.

"Ah, but of course," Gale said. "Quite naturally. That's why you're sitting up here glowering at the whole world while you chew over what her face looked like when you saw it for two seconds."

Astarion gave him a look that would, if the world had any justice, have hit Gale with the force of a Spectator's petrifying glare. Instead, its only effect was to make Gale's mouth twitch. Silence fell, the whistling of the wind through the chinks in the old stone wall only amplifying the lack of conversation.

"I'm sorry," Gale said at last. "I didn't mean to make light of what you must be feeling. I'm at a bit of a loose end myself, these days, wondering what Mystra must be thinking of me."

"The two situations are completely different," Astarion said. "Once you've given Mystra what she wants you should wash your hands of her. The gods aren't worth it."

"You were the person who told me not to do that! I very explicitly didn't explode at your encouragement."

"Not the exploding," Astarion said. "That was obviously a non-starter. I meant the C-" He stopped himself just in time. Gale didn't know! They hadn't been to Sorcerous Sundries yet, and Gale hadn't met Mystra in the temple.

"The what?" Gale said. "Were you about to say the Crown of Karsus?"

Of all the people he could have slipped up with, it had to be Gale, the person who paid attention to words. "It's just a guess," Astarion said quickly, hoping the lie sounded credible. "It seems like the kind of thing she'd be interested in."

Gale was still frowning at him. "That doesn't make much sense," he said slowly. "Not the way you'd said it. If you'd called it a fitting tribute, or something. But you said 'what she wants', like she'd already told me to get it for her."

"Don't overanalyse the conversation," Astarion said. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that's rude?"

"You're nervous," Gale said. He was leaning closer, looking a little excited, as though Astarion were an interesting specimen. "You do know something, don't you?"

"If I say yes, and then say that I can't tell you anything more, and that if you try and find out or ask me questions, it might ruin everything, and I do mean everything, will you accept that?"

Gale thought about it. "Will there be a point in the future where you can tell me the truth?"

"If everything goes well, and you're very nice to me, yes."

“Do you swear on Tav’s life that you mean me no harm, and Mystra no harm, and that withholding the information you have isn’t fundamentally dangerous?”

Astarion thought about that for a second. “Yyyyyes,” he said at last. “Yes. That’s true, I swear it.”

"Well, that's better than nothing." Gale clapped his hands together. "I think we can call that a gentlemen's agreement."

Astarion sighed. "Thank you for not being difficult about it. I think."

"Did Tav know?" Gale asked. "Back at the Last Light Inn, she asked me if it had been hard to love someone who knew so much more than I did. And I told her that if it hadn't been hard, I wouldn't have ended up with an evil orb in my chest. And then she laughed and said it was a stupid question. And then she said she should learn from my example, but she was finding it very difficult. I knew she was talking about you, of course, but at the time I thought she was just thinking about education, or something like that. Now it makes much more sense."

"Whatever Tav may have thought, she was eventually sensible enough to realise that the little bit of knowledge I have is nothing like being divine," Astarion said. "I'm so much more interesting than that." He laughed at his own joke, and Gale joined in.

"You don't have much patience for religion, do you? It must seem funny sometimes that you fell in love with a paladin."

"I like Tav because she's not her goddess. She has to try. And she does a better job of caring than any deity I've ever known." Astarion crossed his arms. "If you ask me - and more people should ask me, really, it's outrageous - you casting grease is much more impressive than whatever Mystra can do. At least you came by it honestly."

Gale thought about that for a minute. "You're a very good friend, Astarion. Thank you."

"Hmph. Save that judgement until this is all over."

"Until Tav can thank you for saving her too?" That hit a little closer to home than Astarion wanted it to.

"I get her back by Ascending,” Astarion said. “Not the kind of thing she’s likely to say thank you for."

“You wouldn’t give any thought to Karlach’s suggestion? It’s certainly risky, but nothing we’ve been doing so far has been free of risk.”

“I wouldn’t,” Astarion said, and pulled on the tadpole. Not out loud. And not yet.

Gale did not have Lae’zel’s perfect poker face. He jolted a little, and then looked thoughtful. “Well, I suppose we have enough problems to contend with,” he said. Through the connection, he added, You’re playing your cards very close to your chest on this one.

Only way to win against a habitual cheater, Astarion said. “But anyway, I’ve known for a while that even when Tav comes back, things won’t be the same. I just hadn’t felt it until now.”

Gale leaned on the wall and looked out at the roiling river. "Don’t lose hope yet, Astarion. If Mystra can find a way to forgive me, anything is possible."

Astarion made a face. “That is not comforting,” he said. But actually it was, a little. If he’d been told, a scant year and change ago, that he would one day be free of Cazador, he would have sneered at the idea as ludicrous. And yet here he was. Maybe there would come a day when the despair of this moment seemed just as shortsighted.

Whatever meagre use Astarion's knowledge of the future had been to him, it failed spectacularly as they left Rivington behind and moved into the lower city proper. Obviously, Astarion thought, it would have been helpful to have known about Durge and Gortash in advance. But he had no idea how he could have even guessed at the connection. Was he supposed to have put two and two together and got ten? Was there some conversation somewhere in his memory of that other journey that he should have remembered, that would have saved them all a little heartache? If so, Eilistraee had vastly overestimated how much he ever thought about Gortash. Which was just further proof that laying this task on his shoulders had been a bad move from the very start.

It would have been nice to have any indication. Then he could have prepared people, or done something, or... There were too many what-ifs, and not a one of them was remotely useful.

Instead, he was just as flummoxed as everyone else when Gortash laid out the final truth of Durge's origins. Not only were they a Bhaalspawn, but they had been Gortash and Ketheric's ally, and the originator of the whole plot that had led to everyone's infection. After he got over the shock, Astarion's first reaction was a kind of amused gratitude. After all, without the parasite, he would never have become free. Next to that truth, all Durge's villainy paled into insignificance.

His next thought was a cold one, that the revelation made a certain kind of elegant, cosmic sense. No wonder Lolth had been willing to gamble on them. It must have seemed a very safe bet, that someone as ruthless and evil as Durge would be able to be the undoing of Tav. Of him. It was an intimidating thought to reckon with.

And his third thought, much too late, was "Oh f*ck, Karlach." She kept a lid on the most potent of her feelings while they were in the room with Gortash, probably to avoid giving him the satisfaction, but Astarion could feel them through the tadpole. There was so much there it was impossible not to. Like a storm surge, the torrent of her emotions overwhelmed any feeble defences he might have tried to put up.

Gortash proposed his alliance, and Astarion thought there was more genuine pleasure in his voice than there had been when he'd talked to Tav about it on the first journey. Durge tilted their head. "I'll think about it," they said. Another lance of anger from Karlach broke into Astarion's mind, and he held back a wince. He could see all too clearly what was about to happen, but there was no way of stopping it now.

He wasn't quite expecting the first thing out of Karlach's mouth when they got outside, though. "I know you," she said, trembling with anger. "You were that shady hooded f*cker who was always hanging around Gortash. I never trusted you."

Durge had never been harder to read than in that moment. Their cold, red eyes looked straight at Karlach. "I don't remember," they said. "Nothing. Even now." Astarion wondered if they meant it as an excuse or as an apology.

"He still thinks you're his friend," Karlach was saying. "Why didn't you tell him to get f*cked? Do you want to be his friend again? The man who sold me to Zariel?" She stiffened. "You were around for that. You probably knew. You probably knew, and you didn't stop him. You might even have suggested it! I always thought you didn't like me." She raked her hands through her hair, hard enough to hurt. "f*ck. f*ck! And I, I-"

"For now, Orin is more dangerous than Gortash," Durge said. "That's why I didn't say no."

"Are you sure that's true?" Karlach glared. "Or does it just suit you better? How can I trust anything you say?"

“What do you want from me?” Durge snarled, suddenly showing a lot of very sharp teeth. “Do you want me to grovel on my knees before you? Should I crawl in the dirt to absolve myself of sins I don’t remember?” Even angry there was a terrible flatness to their voice, a lack of inflection that chilled Astarion to the bone.

“f*ck, I don’t know,” Karlach said. “I want you not to belong to the man who ruined my life! I cared about you. I slept with you. I loved you. And all that time, this is who you were. What am I supposed to do with that?”

Durge stood still for a moment, and then curled their tongue into their cheek and make a rueful clicking noise. They nodded their head slowly. “Yes,” they said. “Of course. You wanted to love some simple, broken thing, not the Dark Urge. But Karlach, I am the Dark Urge. Perhaps I should make it clear to you exactly what that means.”

“Is that a threat?” Karlach said. “I’d like to see you f*cking try it.” Her flames were so hot now that they were warping the cobblestones beneath her feet. Fire hot enough to melt stone. She drew in a sharp, angry breath, and cooled fractionally. “f*ck this. I don’t have enough life left to waste it on something this stupid. I’m done. I’m out of here. Don’t try and talk to me for a while. A long while.”

She strode away. There was a sharp crack, and Astarion glanced down. There was frost around Durge’s feet, and where the rime of their coldness met the cobbles Karlach had heated, the combination of hot and cold had caused them to rupture and split.

“Karlach, wait!” Wyll called out. He glanced at Durge, then shook his head. “I’m going after Karlach. She could use a friendly ear right now.”

He took off. Astarion and Shadowheart glanced at each other, then looked back at Durge. They had not moved. “She could use a friendly ear,” they said. “Of course she could. Poor Karlach, deceived by a monster.”

“You’re not-“ Astarion started, but Durge cut them off.

“I am a monster.” They looked at him, and there was something truly dreadful in their gaze. A power Astarion had seen before, but never aimed at him. “You have forgotten. You thought like Karlach, that I was meek, that I was biddable, that I was a solved problem.” They were clenching their hands into fists, so tight that blood welled out from the gaps between their fingers. “Only Tav ever had the right of it. You should have let her kill me when she had the chance.”

“Durge, stop,” Shadowheart snapped. “Look what you’re doing to yourself.”

“No one is killing anyone,” Astarion said. “That’s not happening.”

Durge looked at Astarion and smiled, and it was a terrible smile for being truly joyful. “You think you can stop me?” they asked, and in a blink, they were gone.

Durge sprang away, in the opposite direction to the one Karlach had taken, back towards Rivington.

“sh*t,” Astarion said stupidly, and ran after them, Shadowheart hot on his heels.

Tav, Astarion thought as he ran, grateful that at least the dragonborn was easy to track. Tav why did you leave me? I need you now more than ever. I cannot do this without you. I don’t know how. He felt miserably sure she would have seen this coming, would have found a way to defuse the fight, would have known exactly what words would pull Durge out of their spiral.

Durge ducked into an alleyway, and Astarion and Shadowheart bounded after them. As their eyes adjusted to the sudden dark, they saw Durge had grabbed a young man. They were strangling him, thumbs pushing into his windpipe, their mouth opening to reveal so, so many teeth.

Astarion leapt, dagger in hand, and hooked his elbow around their throat. They were about matched in strength. Astarion should have had the edge over any sorcerer, but Durge’s sheer bulk made up for what they lacked in muscle definition. He wasn’t even sure that they could feel him, with the bloodlust on them like this. Astarion hesitated, but there was no use playing coy now. He thrust his dagger through their bicep, shearing muscle, forcing them to slacken their grip on their victim.

Durge roared in pain, and dropped the young man to the ground, lurching backwards and slamming Astarion into the wall. The air left his lungs with an agonised crack, and it was his good fortune for once that he didn’t need to breathe. And even then it was still hard to hold on, his ears ringing with the shock of the collision.

Shadowheart ducked under Durge, grabbed the man and slapped a healing spell on him, almost literally. “No time for niceties,” she said. “Get out of here now, and if you breathe a word of this to the guards, I’ll hunt you down and kill you myself.”

The man gave her a terrified nod and scrambled away sobbing.

“Right,” Shadowheart said, looking at Durge. “What do we do about you?”

“Kill me,” Durge said, their voice rumbling with bloody pleasure. “Lay out my organs like a garland, just as I did to that tiefling bard. Make jelly of every inch of my flesh, as I have done to so many others, if you like. If I cannot be otherwise, then let me die as I have lived. Let me go to my father’s embrace, the Dark Urge. Forever and ever, until this stinking, miserable world ends.”

Astarion was assaulted by memory. He remembered the Underdark, remembered a town, remembered a cleared ring surrounded by people, with two women fighting in the centre. Remembered Tav pinning his sister Violet to the ground, and Violet saying Kill me. He remembered Raphael and Tav talking about the cruelty of mercy. It is a blade I have held bare-handed for a hundred years.

“I don’t want to kill you,” Shadowheart was saying to Durge, “but I can’t let you kill innocent people.”

Durge laughed. “Just like Tav. What’s the answer, then? The only freedom from the Urge is death. Death is coming for me one way or another, by Orin’s hand or yours. I think I would almost rather it was yours.”

“What happened to fighting back?” Astarion asked, his voice thin and wheezing. “You’ve resisted before.”

“And? What did that get me?” Durge reached up and pulled Astarion’s knife out of their shoulder, tossing it aside. Astarion leapt off their back and grabbed it, and now at least he and Shadowheart had the two exits from the alley covered. “Trying to be good didn’t work. Can’t work.”

Astarion saw words in his head, neat script crammed small on a page. But the stakes are too high. Too many lives on the line. I must go on. Discipline and oaths and one foot in front of the other. My duty is to be what others need me to be. I must not fail.If Tav had been here, she would have known how to answer this. She would have understood what Durge was struggling with, and how to guide them. Astarion did not.

“Why can’t it?” he asked, deciding that if he couldn’t manage clever, and he certainly couldn’t manage kind, he could try for stupidly obvious. Shadowheart certainly agreed with that assessment. She gave him a look like he’d just said the most ridiculous thing in the world. But Durge did not.

“Because it’s too hard!” they roared. Their voice was terrible. It shook the walls of the buildings to either side.

Durge leapt at him. There was magic wrapped around their hands, electricity coursing across their scales. Astarion dropped under the swipe and sank a dagger into their knee. He heard the awful pop as the joint dislocated, and Durge staggered, dropping to a knee. They brought their fists down as they did, and Astarion screamed as the lightning ripped through him. Then Shadowheart was there, casting a spell that poured a torrent of searing light across Durge’s scales. As they reeled, Astarion got another swipe in. It should have been a stab, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.

“Durge, calm down!” he begged.

Durge showed no such inclination. They reached for their staff, and Shadowheart dropped a dome of silence over the alleyway. Now limited, Durge flung a shard of ice at Astarion, who dodged, and watched as slick ice coated over the mud of the alleyway. There was something he could use, there, he thought. Tav and Violet, Tav and Violet. She’d had to pin Violet down. He could do the same. He baited Durge with a feint, and they bought it entirely, lunging after him and missing the hooked leg that targeted their already shattered knee. As they collapsed on the ice Astarion pounced, landing on top of them. Tav had been able to hold Violet with only her own strength and power, but that would not work here. He would have to use real violence. He pulled two of his spare knives out, and drove one through each of their arms, pinning them to the ground through their own muscles. Then he gestured for Shadowheart to lift the silence spell.

“Sorry to give you more work to do,” he said to Shadowheart, but she didn’t laugh. She looked sick.

“What do we do?” she asked. “We can’t let them go, not after all this.”

“I’m not giving up on them,” Astarion said. He remembered Tav, pinning Violet to the ground so that she could not turn her gaze away. Right. He climbed on top of Durge and stared at them. Their eyes looked back at him, bright and hateful. The Dark Urge was there. He could almost see it, the ruddy glow, a flickering light that coiled and moved through their irises like a terrible serpent.

“You’re going to have to kill me,” the Dark Urge taunted him. “How will it feel to have blood on your hands again? Did you think you’d get out of this cleanly?”

“Nice try,” Astarion said. “But no. I’m going to make you talk. What brought this on? Was it really just Karlach? I know she took the Gortash relationship badly, but once the shock wears off, I think you’ll be able to talk to her. It’s not like this could have gone any other way. None of us knew.”

He was rambling slightly. Durge sneered at him.

“I knew,” they said.

“What?” Their simple answer knocked the wind out of Astarion’s sails, and he blinked at them. “Did you get some of your memories back?”

“No. Found a letter in Moonrise. It’s in the breast pocket of my robe.”

Astarion dipped a hand into the pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He opened it and read it. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Then he read it again, more carefully. A letter or a prayer, written by Durge to their malevolently divine father.He handed the letter over to Shadowheart, who took it and scanned it.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Shadowheart said, when she was done.

“I tried,” Durge snarled.

Astarion had a horrible, sinking feeling. That conversation on the road. He’d been so deep in his feelings about Tav that he hadn’t really paid attention to the subtext of Durge’s behaviour, but looking at it now, he could see what he’d missed. He’d brushed them off.

“You could have talked to someone else,” Astarion said defensively.

“To who?” Durge said. “To Karlach? Why ruin a relationship any sooner than I had to? Or to Tav? But she wasn’t there. You saw to that.”

Their words stung, and for a moment Astarion faltered as the raw weight of it hit him all over again. Tav was gone and in hell because of him. The pain struck like a barbed arrow, and Durge seized their chance immediately. They pushed upwards, straining against the knives through their arms and Astarion’s full weight, and he had to use all his strength to keep them down until they tired themself out.

“Tav chose you,” Durge said, as they lay back, gasping for breath, “over me, over all of us, without a second thought. And you choose her, always. And any hope of Karlach really choosing me was gone the moment I saw the note. So what’s left? Gortash himself? Should I betray you for him?”

“Gortash likes you,” Astarion said, equally strained and breathless. “No pretence. No need to be better. Likes the blood, likes the murder.”

He knew he’d got it right. The terrible light in their eyes dimmed, and he saw the bleak, cold, lonely Durge peering out at him.

“Yes,” they said. “He didn’t treat me like you do, like Karlach does, like I’m a bomb waiting to go off. Or maybe he did, but he liked the explosion I could be.” They let out a long sigh, filled with cold magic that made little ice crystals spread across their snout. The Urge ebbed a little more. “I thought it would get easier, but it’s only gotten harder. A conscience is too heavy a weight for me.”

It was very simply put, and maybe that was why it cut clean through Astarion. He remembered that feeling. He would always, for as long as he lived, remember the moment when he had looked into a cell and seen the eyes of his victims looking back.

It made Shadowheart hesitate as well, and when she spoke, her voice had lost its usual snippy edge. “Ah. Yes. I know how that feels.”

“You have to kill me,” Durge said. “It’s you or Orin, and I know whose hand I’d rather die by.”

Astarion gave them the most unimpressed look he had, scathing enough to singe hair at twenty paces. "No. No no no. No more death. No more suicide. I forbid it. You're not dying, Karlach's not dying, Tav's not dying. We are all living through this and we are going to get brunch. Any other outcome is unacceptable."

Shadowheart laughed at the joke. Durge did not. The Dark Urge was not quite gone. “You want me not to die? What can you give me to live for?” Astarion noticed distantly how interesting it was that the thing that lived inside them could inflect their voice in a way they usually did not, giving it more life, even if that life was cruel and sharp.

Astarion glanced at Shadowheart, but she didn’t seem to have any more ideas than he did. If only Wyll hadn’t run off after Karlach. If only Karlach hadn’t blown up at the exact wrong moment. If only Gortash hadn’t been Durge’s friend. If only Tav wasn’t in Avernus.

“You’re right,” Astarion said at last. “I can’t offer you the things you really want. I can’t make Karlach love you, and I can’t fill the void she left. I will bring Tav back. And if she doesn’t know the answer either, I’ll find something else. But I will find something, if you give me time.”

Durge looked at him, and just for a moment, he saw it deep inside them. A terrible bleak sadness, a hopelessness that he knew all too well. No wonder they had opted for explosive violence instead. “You could kill me now,” Astarion said, “if you don’t think I can do it.”

It was a gamble, though he wouldn’t actually have gone down without a fight. But it was a calculated gamble, the right thing to say. Durge did not want to kill him, though they might want to be killed by him.

“You have until I fight Orin,” Durge said. “That’s the deadline.”

Shadowheart knelt at his side, and healed Durge. They bore the wash of warm magic with forbearance, and did not show any further signs of aggression. She kept her hand on their shoulder when she was done. “Durge,” she said, “I’m sorry. About, oh, I don’t know. About everything, really.”

“Yes,” Durge said. “I’m sorry, too.”

For a little while, the three of them sat in the alley, in the muck, uncaring. They were all exhausted. Astarion stared at the wall, missing Tav like a raw wound. What had he just promised? How was he going to make it real? He felt real terror again. Tav’s disappearance had numbed him to everything, including the dreadful burden Eilistraee had laid across his shoulders. Not to kill Durge, or to stop them, but to save them. A task she thought he was equal to. He did not, could not, understand why.

Shadowheart shifted, lifting her head from where it hung between her knees. “Will you two come with me? I thought of something we could all do together. I don’t think it fixes anything, but it might be fun.”

“Well, why not?” Astarion said. “Whatever it is, it’s bound to be better than sitting in this disgusting muck.”

He got to his feet, and offered Durge a hand. They took it, and pulled themself up, and the three of them set off.

They ended up at one of the little inlets where the Chionthar met the Umberlee. The water was cleaner than it was in Grey Harbour, but not by much. And the reek of salt and fish was still very strong.

"I don't remember anything specific," Durge said, "but this scent calls to me. I know I've smelled it before. Many times."

"Yes, minds are unpleasant like that," Astarion said. "I'll probably never be able to enjoy frankincense. Cazador liked--likes--it far too much."

Shadowheart opened her mouth, then shut it again. “I was going to say something about Shar, but…” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I wonder what kind of scents Selûne likes.”

“Scents aside, what are we doing here?”

Shadowheart looked at Astarion. “Can you swim?”

“No idea,” Astarion said. “I haven’t had the chance to try in two hundred years. I might be a tad out of practice.”

She turned to Durge, who shrugged. “No memories.”

“I’m the same. And I thought, well, I thought I’d like to find out. At least if the three of us try together we won’t have to be embarrassed if we can’t.” Shadowheart crossed her arms with what she probably thought looked like confidence but was clearly just defensiveness.

But there was no helping it. Astarion had said yes, and he couldn’t back out now. He could not be Tav, and he still wasn’t sure he could save Durge, but he had to try. He couldn’t give up on what they had done. Not just for Tav, or even for his own future, but for Durge themself. Somewhere in his heart, it had become important to him that they succeed, even if he didn’t quite know how to explain that to them.

They all stripped off. Durge waded into the water quickly and briskly, as though it were a warm bath. Astarion was more cautious, and made a face at the cold, but the nice thing about being dead was it didn’t really matter. Shadowheart grumbled, inching her way in at first, and then steeling her nerves and jumping, splashing both Astarion and Durge with great gouts of water as she immersed herself fully, hair and all.

“Make sure you wash your hair tonight,” Astarion said. “Salt is ruinous, you know. It’ll turn your ends to straw.”

Shadowheart laughed. “Who cares?” she said. “Look at me! I’m swimming!”

And she was. Not elegantly, her arms and legs working very hard to keep her upright and in place, but she was doing it. Durge moved closer to her and let themself go limp, and at once they were floating on their back, loose and relaxed.

“You don’t have to work at it at all,” they said. “Just give yourself up to the water, and it’ll hold you.”

“Very philosophical,” Astarion said. “You should consider becoming a monk. You could live on a mountaintop and say seemingly wise things to people who make pilgrimages.”

“Sounds relaxing,” Durge said. Their flat affect was back, and so Astarion had no idea if they were being sarcastic or not.

“Stop trying to be funny,” Shadowheart said, “and do some swimming. It’s nice once you get the hang of it.”

“I don’t need to try to be funny. I’m naturally delightful all the time,” Astarion said, but he did move further out.

He felt the strange sensation as the water got too deep for him to touch the bottom. He wasn’t sure that he had the buoyancy of a living body, so he opted for something more like what Shadowheart was doing, paddling like a dog to keep himself in place. It was deeply inelegant, but it was a little fun, too.

“You’re smiling,” Durge said. “Do you like this?”

“It’s a change of pace,” Astarion admitted. “A novelty, if nothing else. But that’s not why I was smiling.”

He dove under the water, letting himself sink, and then reached out, grabbed Shadowheart’s ankle, and pulled her under too. She shrieked, then spluttered, and when they both bobbed back to the surface she was glaring at him.

“If it is to be war between us, you will find yourself at a sore disadvantage,” she declared.

“You could revenge yourself on me,” Astarion agreed, “or we could join forced against the greater foe.” They both looked at Durge in unison, and then attacked.

It was high chaos, alliances fracturing and reforming until they were all exhausted. But it was the good kind of tired, the strain of a well-used body. They climbed out on the shore and lay in the warm afternoon sun to let their underthings dry out.

“Sorry about the stabbing, earlier,” Astarion said to Durge, looking at the patches of shiny new scales where his knives had been.

Durge snorted. “I mean, I did almost kill a man. You did what you had to. And it’s not as if I have a shortage of scars.”

There was something deeply sad about that answer. I will find something you can live for, Astarion promised silently, in the privacy of his own mind.

“I don’t suppose this was enough to change your mind about dying?” Shadowheart asked, a verbal echo of his thoughts.

Durge smiled at her, reached out and pressed a hand to her shoulder. “Not at all,” they said. “But thank you anyway. It will be a memory I’ll treasure until the end.”

Chapter 9: Every human heart that breaks

Chapter Text

Astarion arrived back at camp with a lot of worries and only one idea. He might be missing the person who he thought could really save Durge - missing in truly every sense of the word - but he had her words. If he was going to find an answer to his problem anywhere, surely it was there.

He ducked into his tent, and pulled out Tav's diary. Buried in the entries he'd glossed over the first time, he found what he was looking for.

[12th Eleasis, 1492]

Finally got the chance to talk properly with Durge about Alfira. Am somewhat unsatisfied with their answers about certain details, but they were at least honest about their feelings. They talked honestly about the darkness and the void inside them, and how numb they feel most of the time. We practised meditation together, and I used the tadpole to show them what I strive for in contemplation, for the moment when the world rests simply as it is, and I am only one small part of something vast.

Eilistraee's light, wish I knew what was done to them. The scars that cut again and again across those white scales, the violence that drips through their mind … Some great pattern is half-visible, a spiral whose curves are so great that they look like straight lines. I cannot make out the whole of it.

The terrible combination of violence and innocence reminds me of the events I encountered in Casca's Bell two years ago. Might be instructive to review notes and talk over the case with Durge. Will consider this further.

Astarion flipped through the rest of the entries, but he didn't see any indication that Tav had followed through on this particular idea. Maybe she had decided against it, or maybe she'd just forgotten. At any rate, it was the only lead he had. He turned backwards. Two years ago was an unhelpfully vague phrase that covered a lot of entries, and he was grateful he'd become so adept at skimming. He let the words flow by until the phrase Casca's Bell leapt out at him.

[7th Mirtul, 1490]

Arrived today at small town called Casca's Bell. Was only planning to rest a night, but mayor came to me and asked me for help. People have been going missing.

A terrible problem, but hopefully solveable, and my current mission not time critical, so can devote myself to this first. Took notes from the mayor, then made myself comfortable in the inn's taproom. Had supper, and asked casual questions while eating and drinking. In small town, essential to be gently social first, not make waves immediately. The details are intriguing. People vanish once a month, within a few days of the full moon. Doesn't seem to be much connection between them, but victims are overwhelmingly younger. More women than men, but not by enough to make it a useful clue.

Two obvious possibilities. One, could be the work of a supernatural being. Werewolf, vampire, or one of the many others. Will need to sit down with my notes and track likely suspects. The other is that it's work of a person, someone who has a compulsion to murder. At the moment, no obvious reason to lean in either direction.

Next full moon is five days away. I must be wary. Would like an answer before a new victim is taken away.

[8th Mirtul, 1490]

Spent the day making inquiries. Still playing very cautious and careful. Am too obvious in a small town like this to hide what I am or why I'm looking into things, but pretending to be a bit stupid v useful. Funny how I still fall back on tactics I learned in M. All these years later, and I still have her in me.

Anyway, point is, found a few things out. There was a little cult here, once. Not Sel ûne or Eilistraee or anything like that, but worship of a local spirit connected to the large circular pool at the head of the town. With at least some full moon rituals focused on moon reflecting into water. Probably pool was occupied by nature spirit or similar, venerated enough to approach deification. Then, about ten years ago, a cleric of Lathander moved in, and since then local worship has waned.

Seems to be some tension in town over that. Lathander's cleric has more power, but the minor deity was better at addressing specific needs. Caused rift in town. In my opinion, cleric handled situation v badly. Created undue strife where he might have fostered harmony. Is something of a city type, looks down on what he sees as primitive superstition. Eilistraee have mercy on ignorant mortals.

[9th Mirtul, 1490]

Hunch was correct. The spiriting away of villagers definitely has something to do with religious issues. Got talking to Clara, the girl who looks after the church. She was able to tell me more about the cleric, and about the disappearances. The timing is too precise to be coincidental. Not with his arrival, but with him gaining the upper hand over the older cult.

Clara warned me, very sweetly, that cleric doesn't like me. Called me some names I needn't bother repeating. Usual anti-drow stuff, which fair enough. But also seeming to sneer at my being a paladin. Bet he thinks I'm tresspassing on his territory. Why some clerics make it all a pissing contest I will never know.

Three days until the full moon. I have to find out where the victims are being taken. Can't let this happen again.

[10th Mirtul, 1490]

Actually met cleric today. Everything I had feared he would be. Reasonably sure he came here to escape scandal, thinking he could take on the benefice of this little place and rule it like a lord. Wonder what he ran from. Probably bribery. Noticed a little too much gold embroidery on his robes.

Would love him to be the culprit, but unfortunately I'm sure he's not. Can too easily account for his actions at the times and places when the abductions happened. He is the cause, of that I have no doubt, but only indirectly.

Better news, used a little magic, Eilistraee's guidance and some pointed questions to pin down the street where the abductions happen. A small waterway runs along it that flows from sacred pool. Clara was very helpful. She and I are going to stake out the area tonight. Tried to keep her away, but she insists. Her friend, and possibly her lover, but at any rate certainly her beloved, was taken, and she is desperate to get the girl back. Does not escape my notice that she would also make a perfect target for these abductions. Do not like the idea of using her as bait, but she seems to want to do it.

I will have to be sharp as possible.

[12th Mirtul, 1490]

Well. No entry yesterday, which predictably means I was preoccupied. As probably anyone could have guessed, the spirit was behind the abductions. Or, more precisely, its chosen was. This was interesting wrinkle, honestly. I hadn't realised such a minor deity could even have a chosen. And Tav, when you read back on this and think that with hindsight of course Clara was the chosen, I will beg of you to remember how deftly she concealed that from me. No wonder she took the job as the cleric's housekeeper. The perfect shroud with which to hide her own connection to divinity.

She dragged me down to the little bubble at the bottom of the pond, where I met her god. They were both dreadfully innocent, standing there surrounded by these dead and dying youths. As though this were all harmless fun, or loving play. They were keeping the victims asleep, draining power from their dreams.

It should not have come to this! If that cleric were not so pig-ignorant, so hostile to the community, he would have seen this. He could have done something. And all these young people would be alive. I saved a few, but too few. Less than I wished.

I did not kill the god. I did not kill Clara. I dragged her out, and brought her to the town square, and made her confess with the voice. She knelt, water dripping from her robes, weeping, saying only that it had been better when they had loved the god who loved them back, who knew all their names individually.

As I made her speak, I saw her. Like I said, she was terribly innocent. She had not realised at all the gravity of what she was doing. She only understood it as she spoke, and then it hit her all at once and she screamed. I think being the spirit's chosen had distorted how she was seeing the world. Without the nourishment of the whole town, it had reverted to something deeply primal. It probably did not understand the difference between living and dead anymore. To water, what is consciousness? It saw only matter, knew only that it needed a constant supply of new dreamers, because the old ones kept withering away.

The town bayed for her blood when they heard what she had done, but I would not let them harm her. I turned my voice on the cleric instead. Made him say what he had done, or not done, since what he did was nothing. Unlike Clara, there was no reaching him in his delusions. Like many a mortal he lives in a world of his own imagination, and cannot ever be made to reckon with other people as real. But I could let the town hear him, and understand the true scope of his culpability.

I am so tired. I will finish this tomorrow.

[13th Mirtul, 1490]

The cleric got run out of town. Knew it would happen. Do not know that it was wise. He was a vain, pompous, vicious little man, but he did provide a real service. Spoke to the mayor, offered to write to Waterdeep and ask if the church of Eilistraee has anyone to spare, even as an interim curate while they find someone suitable for the permanent role. I would be glad if it works out. It might make me feel that I had done some actual good.

My heart is heavy. What have I achieved here? A spirit that will wither and die, its worshippers lost for good. A town with no protector. A woman broken by the divine. The victims mostly dead. I know the work is often hard, but today I feel that it is all utterly futile. Would these people be better off if I had never stopped here? Surely not. Clara would have gone on killing, pulling herself and others deeper into mire. Logically, I should be proud, but I wish for better outcomes than this. I dream of the days when I get to save everyone.

Sometimes I must remind myself that being a paladin is a confidence trick as much as anything else. I must believe in myself, and in my capacity to do good, or I will falter when the world looks to me for answers. But I do not always have those answers. I will meditate tonight, and perhaps some insight will come to me. By the grace of the dancer, I will continue.

[14th Mirtul, 1490]

Eilistraee gave me a gift last night. I woke up knowing what to do.

Went to the town gaol, where Clara sits in the shabby cell that is all they have, staring out the window at a clump of flowering lousewort. Gave her the ritual absolution of the silent ear. I am not skilled in it the way that the clerics I know are, but something is better than nothing. Sat there and let her speak, let all the words in her heart flow out of her. She will never be free of the weight of the souls she killed, but when she was wrung out, I gave her the advice that saved me.

She wept in my arms, and I wept too, and when I left, it was with at least some lightness in my step. Maybe there is yet good that can come. Nothing is over until it is over. We cannot bring back the dead, but we can always change the living.

Astarion stared at the page, deeply frustrated. Tav hadn't written down her exact words, and she had never told them to him, either. The words that had saved her. He wondered who had said them. In Vas'eana, Tav's hometown, he had met a couple of older drow who had known her both before and after her time in Menzoberranzan, but for as warmly polite and welcoming as they had been, they had not told him anything he didn't already know.

What was it Tav had said, in one of the entries about him? That the thing she found strangest was the desire to talk to him about what she was feeling? Astarion closed the diary and bowed his head over it, feeling worse than he had when he'd opened it. It was somehow more painful to read this and know Tav would have had something interesting and salient to say about Durge's situation, or about Astarion's own struggle to fulfill a god's demands. She would understand him, if only he could actually talk to her.

There was a loud clamour outside, and Astarion gathered quickly that Karlach had returned. "Durge?" she called out, and Astarion wondered if she had intended to be quite that loud. But with Karlach, maybe the answer was yes. "Come out here so I can punch you in the face."

Astarion covered his eyes with his hand, then set Tav's diary aside and pushed aside the flap of his tent. Karlach was standing in the middle of the campsite, her flames still burning hot and red. Wyll was at her side, his face drained and sad. Durge was across from them, unnervingly aloof and relaxed, and everyone else was doing much as Astarion was, poking their heads out of various tents. Except Gale, who was standing nervously by the cookpot, as though he was worried someone was going to knock it over.

"Well," Durge said, "I am here to be punched. You can also shout at me some more, if you want."

It was more than provocation, it was waving a burning bottle of vodka in front of a barrel of runepowder. Karlach trembled from head to toe, her fierce, flammable heart whirring so loudly and disjointedly that Astarion wondered if everyone could hear it.

"I dunno. Are you going to go all weird and evil again if I do?" Karlach said.

"You say that like I was ever anything else," Durge said.

"Durge," Astarion said, "can we save this for the morning? It's been a long day, and the last thing anyone needs is you deliberately antagonising anyone."

"Still afraid of what I might do?" Durge asked, just an edge of sarcarm tinging their flat voice. Astarion winced internally, and wondered if there was some way to use what he'd read from Tav. The words were still ringing in his head, but he knew he could not say them. Not the way they needed to be said.

As Astarion sorted desperately through his thoughts, there was a faint rumbling. With a choice of timing as appropriate and evil as she could ever have wished, flames leapt up around a tarry circle on the ground, and Mizora appeared.

"What the f*ck do you want?" Karlach said.

"Nothing to do with you, thankfully," Mizora sneered, and turned her attention to Wyll. Astarion narrowed his eyes as she made the offer to Wyll - his service for his father's life. Astarion wondered if he should step in, as Tav had. When Wyll had looked to her for guidance, she had advised him to free himself, and promised they would free his father some other way. It struck him now what astonishing conviction it must have taken to say that, because she had not known in the moment that she could make it true.

But, he realised, as he listened to Mizora lay out the terms, he did have things he believed in. And one of them was that eternal slavery was never worth it, no matter what you thought you were getting in return. It was a very Tav-like belief, but he thought he might have come to it organically even if he hadn't spent a year being infected with her attitudes.

"Don't do it," Astarion said. "Wyll, turn her down. There'll be another way to find your father and free him." He arched an eyebrow at Mizora. "And besides, she's got terrible fashion sense and no good conversation. You don't want to be saddled with her for a lifetime."

Mizora flashed him a look of pure venom.

"Astarion," Wyll said, sounding miserable and tortured, "this city needs my father. He can be the leader that the times demand. There's no one else who can fill his shoes."

"I know," Astarion said, which was a lie. He did not particularly like Duke Ravengard, and there were plenty of other people who could step into the breach, including Jaheira, Councillor Florick, and Wyll himself if it came to it, but it was what Wyll needed to hear. "But we will get him back. Trust me."

"You will not," Mizora said petulantly. "I will stop you."

"Yeah, because you've been so successful at that so far," Karlach said. There was an odd expression on her face, and Astarion had the feeling she herself couldn't tell if she was angry or happy.

Wyll bit his lip, grimaced, and then nodded. "Alright," he said. "I say no. Gods, I say no." He ran his hands down his face. "I hope you're right about this, Astarion."

"Of course I am!" Astarion said cheerfully. "Don't worry."

Mizora glared at them, and then crossed her arms. "Well, pup, I'm not leaving," she said. "I intend to sit here and watch you ruin your life without me."

"f*ck no," Karlach snapped. "No devils. We have sign that says it. And if we don't, I'm going to make one."

"It's fine," Wyll said. "She can stay. I'm free of you now, Mizora, now and forever. I don't care about you any more." He turned to Astarion. "It doesn't feel like it right now, but I think someday I'm going to say thank you for saving me from making a terrible mistake."

"And then you can buy me a very nice present," Astarion purred. "Something lavish."

Wyll grinned, and some of the weight on his shoulders seemed to vanish. Astarion let himself bask in the pleasant feeling of having got what he wanted, just for a moment. It had been a while since anything felt like it had really gone his way.

Karlach clapped Wyll on the back. "I know you're worried about your dad, mate, but I'm so f*cking glad Mizora doesn't have her claws in you anymore."

Wyll gave her a warm smile, but his eyes were tired. "Thanks. I think I'm going to take a quick walk. Think things over."

He left, and took the conversation with him. Into that moment of peaceful silence, Durge said "Karlach, I owe you an apology."

It was a sentence that ought to have been a warm and positive sign. It ought to have boded well for Astarion. Instead, it made his blood run cold. There was something in the deep flatness of Durge's voice, and in the public venue that they had chosen, that made the sentence feel like a sharpened edge. And Astarion had a horrible feeling he knew who they were going to cut with it.

Karlach looked taken aback, but she nodded. "Yeah, alright. Let's hear it." There was, Astarion thought, almost a hopefulness there.

"I've known that I was once connected to Gortash since Moonrise Towers," Durge said. "And I didn't tell you, because I knew you would hate me for it."

The look on Karlach's face was beyond awful. The anger went out of her, and what replaced it was a hollow sadness and the beginnings of tears in her eyes. "Right," she said. "Yeah. Okay. And you're telling me this now, because…?"

"If things are done between us, they should be done completely. There should be a total and fitting end. A murder." Durge smiled, a bitter, poisonous smile.

"Done? You think this makes us done?" Karlach said. "You don't get to decide that. We're not done until I f*cking say so."

"If you want my head, you can have it," Durge said. "I would die of bliss if it was by your hand."

Astarion needed to stop this before it got worse, but he was so acutely conscious that anything but the exact right word would only catapult them closer to catastrophe. And he had never trusted his own tongue less.

"f*ck off," Karlach said. "You know what I want? I want to set things right. You can end this after you get out of that deal with Raphael. Go and tell him it's off. Better yet, let's go to hell and get that f*cking contract. We can pick up Tav along the way. You kill the devil in his own home, and I'll accept that as an ending. Until then, consider yourself in my debt."

"Karlach!" Astarion said, glaring at her. She glared back.

"Yeah, I thought you might have a f*cking problem with that," she said. "Do you want to have it out with me too?"

"Not here," Astarion said. "Let's talk in private."

Karlach looked like she was about to argue, and then she shrugged.

"Okay," she said. "If that's what you want."

Karlach took him into the old chapel at the side of the camp, and they sat down in the pews, not particularly close.

"I hope you didn't bring me here to pray," Astarion said. "Vampires are allergic to religion, as it happens."

"Nah. I just want our shouting match to have good acoustics," Karlach said. "I want every curse I say to echo from the f*cking rafters."

Astarion laughed. He looked at her. "I don't want to fight with you," he said. "I don't suppose we could just pretend we've already had the argument and I've won."

"I don't understand you," Karlach said, matching his quieter tone. "Why don't you want this? I thought you'd jump at the chance to go to hell. You've been absolutely miserable without Tav. Don't you want her back?"

"I'm scared of Raphael," Astarion said. "I don't think we stand a chance against him." As he spoke, he reached out with the tadpole. We need to have the conversation like this.

Karlach raised an eyebrow. "So you're a coward," she said. "Disappointing, and surprising. I thought you had more grit." Okay. Why?

"Really? You're a bad judge of character, then. And I thought you'd understand that devils are dangerous." I think Raphael is watching us. When we met Korrilla at Sharess's Caress, I realised that I'd smelled her around camp before. Raphael has been keeping tabs. I don't put it past him to be listening in. I would, if I had an investment I wanted to make sure I got a return on.

"Dangerous isn't the same as unkillable," Karlach said. "I know that first-hand." Alright. So what? Are you saying I can change your mind?

"Not with Raphael you don't. Anyway, can we drop the subject? There's simply nothing you can say that will persuade me." You don't need to. I've been planning on killing him for weeks.

"What?" Karlach said, her voice filling with fury again. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Tadpole voice! Tadpole voice!

f*ck off. Fine. Okay. Why didn't you tell me?

"I did. It's not your fault you didn't listen." I did talk to Lae'zel about it. Like this. But I was waiting until, well, closer to the moment of action to let anyone else know.

You didn't even tell Durge?

Durge is the last person I would have discussed this with.

"This is giving me a headache," Karlach said. Astarion couldn't blame her. Trying to have two conversations at once was a pain in the ass.

"I know a… meditation," Astarion said. "One Tav taught me. It might help recenter you."

Karlach sighed theatrically. "Well, if you say it'll help, I guess I'll try anything once." When did you decide you were gonna do this? Before we met Raphael, or after?You made it sound like you'd never go when I suggested it a few days ago.

Before. I've been thinking about it since Tav was taken in the first place.

Karlach stiffened. Astarion started saying something, to fill the silence. "Close your eyes and put your hands on your legs. We're going to practice feeling with our other senses." It was ninety percent pure bullsh*t and ten percent some of the exercises he'd heard Tav give Durge to practice.

Why didn't you say anything? It was impossible not to hear the betrayal in her voice. And Astarion realised, painfully, far too late, what this was going to sound like after what Durge had just told her.

Well, when I talked to Lae'zel about it first, we agreed that the fewer people who knew, the better. There was no good way of telling her, but as the thought slipped from his mind to hers Astarion realised he had phrased it in the worst possible way. It was even harder than usual to think twice before you said something stupid over tadpole, he was discovering.

Ah. You didn't trust me. Of f*cking course. Karlach's a silly girl who can't keep her mouth shut.

No! It wasn't about you-

I'm so f*cking sick of people lying to me. Hiding things from me. Of feeling like I was a fool to trust anyone. Karlach exhaled loudly.

"Now feel your legs," Astarion said, still sounding asanine. "Clench your muscles and unclench them." A brief wobble of heat suggested Karlach was actually following his instructions.

It's not that I don't trust you, Karlach-

I've been so afraid for you, worrying that you'd go off and kill all those people just to get Tav back. I wanted to do right by you, for your sake and for hers. Just like I wanted to do right by Durge. And then it turns out that they were friends with the bastard who hurt me worse than anyone, and they didn't even have the guts to tell me. It's like they're happy I'm upset with them. Then I'm mad at you and you tell me you were always planning to do what I suggested, but you just didn't f*cking let me in on that secret for some reason? Why should I believe you?

You think I'm lying to you? Karlach, what would be the point?

I dunno. Maybe you just want me not to cause trouble. If you'd gone proper evil, if you were just stalling until you could ascend, you might play it like this.

I have no intention of ascending! That's why I'm being so careful.

Well you would say that, wouldn't you? Want to show me inside your head? Maybe something in there will convince me. Astarion flinched. He was still carrying secrets. He remembered how Tav had described it, like his mind was full of closed doors. Showing that to Karlach would be no help.

Look, it wasn't about anyone specifically. I just... I didn't want to say anything until I was ready.

Why aren't you ready? Why aren't we doing this right now, right this f*cking second? What are you waiting for?

If we go to hell, we're going to have to fight Raphael. I was lying about us not standing a chance, but I can't say I don't have any worries. I want us as strong as possible before we tackle him.

So you're just leaving her there? Tav went to Avernus for you, fangs, and you're letting her stew there because you're afraid of a difficult fight? You coward.

"Tav wouldn't want me to save her at all!" Astarion snarled, and then realised he'd said it out loud. sh*t. sh*t. What if someone is listening in?

Karlach snorted. "Sit down. Tell me to clench my butt or something." Time to put your money where your mouth is. No more putting it off.

We should prioritise the mission. Take out Gortash and Orin first.

Nah. I want this done. Then we'll have our tactician back, right? That'll make everything easier. I don't see any issues. So tell me, what's your f*cking problem?

Astarion could feel the simmering anger swirling inside Karlach, all the pain and rage that she was feeling. He could even see, faintly, the emotional overlap she had with Tav, the way that his choice to put off Tav's rescue felt like an abandonment, and the way that she was mapping that onto her own history with Gortash, and her current feelings for Durge. But he didn't understand her emotions, not really, and even if he had, he wouldn't have had the faintest clue how to respond to them. He did not have, as Tav did, the capacity to see clear into the hearts of others.

We shouldn't tip our hand even slightly until we have everything lined up. We should find a way in, make all our preparations, then tell everyone.

Bollocks to that. If Raphael is watching us as closely as you think he is, the minute we get anywhere near any of the hell specialists he's going to know something's up.

We could send Gale. He could pretend he's researching the Crown of Karsus or something.

Now you're just scrambling. No. Either Raphael isn't watching us as closely as you think, in which case we should do it before he does start watching, or he is, and we're already on a ticking clock.

Astarion's heart sank. Karlach was right. And she was right about something else, too. He should be happy about this. He wanted Tav back. So why was he suddenly so afraid?

Give me two days, he said. One to find out where they're keeping Ravengard, and one to get him back. I think that mission is time critical. And if that goes well, and we can handle strategising there, we'll go to hell.

We'll go to hell either way, Karlach promised ominously. But fine. One more mission. Wyll deserves to get his dad back, and I'd love to spit in Mizora's eye.

Thank you, Astarion said.

"Gotta say, mate, don't think this meditation thing is for me. I'm gonna go punch something instead." Karlach closed her mind to him, stood up, and walked out. Astarion sat in the ruined chapel, no longer sacred ground, and felt the absence of the gods crowd around him.

That night, Astarion dreamed again. He was in the Szarr palace, seated on Cazador's throne, and there was a party in full swing. The cream of Baldurian society was drunkenly ambling about the room, being the insufferable crowd of pricks they always had been.

Astarion scanned the room for the only thing that mattered, and found her at once. Tav was across the room, talking to Wyll. No, Astarion realised, focusing properly on Wyll's clothes and posture. She was talking to Grand Duke Ravengard. Wyll looked tired, ten years of administration and politicking weighing all too heavily on his shoulders. Tav was as eerily lovely as she had been in the first dream, dressed in deep teal, her long curls carefully wound into fat ringlets that hung down her back. Astarion assumed he was paying her hairdresser a small fortune or blackmailing them with the world's most incriminating evidence.

As Astarion watched, Wyll smiled at Tav, and pressed her arm with one hand. Jealousy flared in the Vampire Lord's stomach, and Astarion internally rolled his eyes. He could remember, in the way that one simply knew things in dreams, that he had specifically asked her to talk to Wyll, because they were trying to find out what he was planning to do with a piece of property that this version of Astarion wanted to get his hands on. Astarion decided in the interests of his own sanity to call this version of himself Lord Astarion, with the word Lord said in as sneering and dismissive a tone as he could achieve. Lord Astarion had ordered Tav to wring the information out of Wyll, and she was doing exactly as he'd asked, and he was still jealous. How embarrassing. How pathetic.

Tav gestured, and she and Wyll walked along the moonlit terrace together. As they turned, Wyll said something that made Tav laugh, and Astarion saw a proper expression bloom across her cold and hollowed face. For a moment, she might almost have been alive. Then she lifted her gaze and their eyes locked. At once, her smile changed. It didn't fade away entirely, but became stiff and controlled. More elegant. Perhaps even more beautiful, by some high society standard. Utterly loathsome.

The dream skipped. It was later, the ball ended, and he and Tav were in bed together. Her hair spilled across the red silk sheets like seafoam. She was lying on her back, her head turned to look at him, the fingers of one hand loosely interlaced with his. She seemed peaceful and serene, and there was even some trace of gentle affection in her eyes.

"Wyll's planning to build an orphanage there," Tav said. "The work will begin when the rains end. I think it will be a significant challenge to persuade him to sell." She rubbed her thumb thoughtfully over his knuckles. "He would probably give it to me, as a kindness, if I promised to honour his plans for it."

Lord Astarion's hands tightened cruelly on Tav's. "And you don't like the thought of that darling, do you? All this time, and you still balk at even the simplest of lies."

"For all that I have changed, I am still indelibly me," Tav said. "I am sorry that you wish me to be otherwise."

Inside Lord Astarion's skin, Astarion was having a strange disembodied panic attack. Even though the superficial feeling in the room was calm, this was all too much like the nightmare nights he'd spent in Cazador's bedroom. And while he could feel the cold, petty jealousy, the haughty need to be monopolistic of everything, the terrible emptiness that ate away at everything underneath, he could not understand how any version of him had ended up letting himself be anything like the man he'd hated for two hundred years.

What had caused all of this? Desperate for anything that was not the moment before him, Astarion pulled at the mind he was linked to, looking back. He saw their version of the journey against the Absolute in jagged flashes and sharp edges. Durge had been there, but a very different Durge. They had been an altogether different sort of person, ruthless and manipulative and extremely in control. Tav had been dragged down into despair, trying to help everyone and failing, and Astarion had been an active thorn in her side. The manipulation that had become real feeling in his own first journey had ended up something much more twisted in this reality, as he played her and Durge against each other for his own benefit. Tav had broken her oath in the Shadowlands, and refused to mend it, slipping down a terrible spiral into self-hatred even before she became an accessory to the rite. Wyll had failed to save his father, Shadowheart had become a Dark Justiciar, Lae'zel had sided with Vlaakith and died for it. Karlach had died too, as had Halsin (Astarion had to hunt for that, because this stupid Vampire Lord hadn't even met him properly, only seen and killed a penned cave bear). Gale had become a god, Durge the Chosen of Bhaal. And Astarion had become Cazador in everything but name. The only surprising thing was that Durge hadn't simply taken over the cult of the Absolute and ruined the world. At the last moment, they had chosen to die instead, to the confusion of everyone. A memory of Lord Astarion talking to Tav about it some time after slipped through the cracks. "I think it was the cruelest thing they could have done," she had mused. "To their father, and to themself. And they were always so good at cruelty."

Astarion pulled out of the miserable well of memories. He didn't need to wallow further in that sordid escapade, or to linger on emotions that he thought he could see with more clarity than their actual owner did. The only remotely surprising thing was that in spite of everything, this version of Astarion had - still had - some genuine feeling for Tav. Astarion wondered if it was a blessing or a curse to know that even the worst version of him was capable of love. Had Cazador loved his spawn, loved him, in some equally twisted way? A question with no possible good answer.

The world returned, strange and fuzzy. Astarion realised that the body he was in was trancing, lost to the world. He opened the body's eyes and looked at Tav again. She was lying on her side, watching him. "I thought you'd gone to sleep," she said, when she saw his eyes. "Is something wrong?"

Astarion felt the shape of the lips and tongue of the body, and moved them. "Tav," he said. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry-"

Tav jerked upright. "Who are you?" she said. Her voice was cold, her eyes narrowed.

"I'm Astarion," Astarion said, rushed and stammering for the right words. "Well, approximately. A different version of the same person."

"What are you doing here?"

"Dreaming. I... I didn't think I'd be able to talk to you like this. It must be because he's sleeping."

Tav settled down fractionally. "A different version of the same person? How strange. How different are you?"

"Very, and not at all," Astarion said. "It's complicated, but the short version is that I didn't ascend. In at least one version of the world, you and I quested for a cure, and found it, and restored my mortal life."

"Really?" Tav said. She thought about it for a little. "It must have been a very different world indeed."

"It's not your fault things turned out this way," Astarion said urgently, wanting to get the most important things out before this moment ended. "I looked through his memories. You were facing miserable odds here. You did your best."

Tav's face softened. "You are very kind," she said. "Thank you. Thank you for worrying about me. I don't think my situation is as desolate as you are imagining, but I appreciate the concern." She reached out and pressed a hand to his cheek. Their bodies were the same temperature, both unnervingly cool. "But I would rather hear more about your world! This is more than comfort, it is hope."

"I don't want to put more weight on your shoulders," Astarion said hesitantly, but Tav shook her head impatiently.

"You're not telling me anything I don't know. I failed. I've had ten years to reckon with that. Maybe it wasn't all my fault, but some of it was. I could have made other choices. What I want isn't to rewrite the past, not anymore. But I do want to believe that good can still be done, here and now."

Astarion opened his mouth to say then you should kill me, but the words never got out. Lord Astarion was coming back, and he felt his control over the body slip away.

"Darling?" Lord Astarion said, sounding sleepy and confused. "Why do you look so startled?"

"Oh, it's nothing," Tav told him, understanding at once what had happened. "I just had a strange dream."

"Dreams. Nothing to them," Astarion said. "Come and sleep in my arms, and I'll keep them away."

Tav smiled at him, and leaned down and kissed his forehead. "Astarion?" she said, and it was the first time Astarion had heard her use his name. It startled his other self, too, and he looked at her sharply, studying her. But she was only gentle and sweet, looking at him with the tenderest affection. "I love you," she said. "I love you always."

The dream ended.

Astarion was positively delighted to be breaking Duke Ravengard out of the Iron Throne. Anything that distracted him from last night's awful dream was a victory, and the prison break had required all of Tav's strategy and ingenuity. Of course, he couldn't just say Wyll, your father is in Gortash's secret underground prison. He needed at least the veil of an excuse to get them there. There were two things he knew could lead them to it: the Gondians, and the servants of Umberlee. But the Wavemother didn't actually know it was a prison, just that she didn't like the submarine. So that was out.

"I don't think Gortash would keep the Duke in Wyrm's Rock," Astarion said over breakfast. "I bet he's somewhere secret. Which means we've got to go where Gortash's other secrets are."

"The Steel Watch Foundry!" Gale said. "That's brilliant, Astarion." Another very funny line to be tucked away for a Gale who would get the joke. A Gale who didn't exist.

"I'm not suggesting a full frontal assault," Astarion added. "Not yet, anyway. But let me sneak in and see what I can find."

He did a decent job of pretending to do that, at least, using misty step to get onto the roof and drop down into the rafters. He skulked around for a bit and listened in to the conversations, and then crawled back out and told everyone about the prison Gortash had built in the sunken ruins of the old Iron Throne. Then he took them to the Water Queen's House so that they could find out about the submersible. He was moderately proud of how natural he made it all look, although he felt both Gale and Karlach's eyes on him, accusatory in different ways. He was brushing up against the very boundaries of his pretense, he knew that, and if Karlach hadn't put him on a time limit, he wouldn't have risked doing it all so close together. But he got the information they needed, and they headed back to camp.

Everyone clustered around a table to discuss how to approach the operation, with Gale casting a barrier that would block sound and keep Mizora away. Astarion wanted Tav to get the credit she deserved for the mission, and so once they'd laid out what they already knew, he said, "I was reading Tav's diary last night, and I came across a situation she went through rather like this. I think we could use her insights as the basis for our own plan."

"Helping us even now," Gale said fondly. "Let's hear it."

"The main thing we need to plan for is that Gortash will have some kind of warning system in place. He'll probably be alerted as soon as we approach the prison. When Tav was going through this, the Lord she was rescuing prisoners from collapsed the castle around their ears rather than let anyone go."

"That would be the typical Gortash move," Karlach agreed. "And I bet she didn't have to deal with an underwater prison either."

"Agreed. We can probably expect it to start flooding as soon as we arrive," Astarion said. "Speed is going to be the key. We have potions we can take, we'll bring them all. Then our goal will be to open doors and get prisoners as quickly as possible. Fighting doesn't matter - any guards in the prison will drown sooner or later. Spells of invisibility are more useful. Any corridor that can be blocked off, we block it off. We let prisoners out, then hem enemies in."

"It would be a big help if we knew the layout," Wyll said. "But nothing we can do about that."

"Everyone should bring ranged weapons," Astarion continued, "and prepare spells that only target enemies. Shadowheart might end up being our best damage dealer."

"I can handle that," Shadowheart said, and grinned.

"Halsin and I have wildshapes that swim well," Jaheira said. "Those might be helpful."

They argued for a little longer about who exactly was going to go. In the end, it was Wyll, Karlach, Astarion, Durge and Shadowheart who made up the party. They set off, following Mizora's directions down through the old warehouse to the strange iron craft that travelled underwater. An unnatural creation, Astarion thought, and then realised that made him sound his full two hundred years and grimaced.

And then Gortash showed up, which shouldn't have been a surprise because he'd done it last time, too, and Astarion really needed his brain to stop forgetting critical details. It was only a projection, of course, but that was quite enough to rile up Karlach. "Be careful," Shadowheart said, touching her shoulder gently. "Don't forget that we're in an iron machine under a lot of water."

Karlach let out a breath and focused on keeping her cool. Astarion spared her a worried glance, but most of his attention was on Durge. They were looking coldly at Gortash. "Is this so surprising?" they asked. "Even when we were allies, you must have known that I was always going to take everything from you, in the end."

"You almost sound like your old self," Gortash responded.

"To you, I might as well be," Durge said. "It doesn't matter. No matter how I have changed, it won't stop me from being your end."

"Is that a note of sadness I detect in your voice? There's still time to change your mind, you know. I could tell you so much about who you used to be."

Durge stared at Gortash for what felt like an eternity, and was really about ten seconds. Then they reached forward and turned off the console.

"I don't think allying with Gortash is on the table any more," they said. Karlach was staring at them, and gods the emotion in her eyes stripped Astarion raw. Even though he was annoyed at her for pushing the issue of going to hell, he couldn't help feeling for her. Feeling with her. He tried to imagine what he would think if Tav had talked to Cazador like that, and could not. Even though Durge had promised to kill Gortash, even though Astarion was sure they meant it, there was still something so hideously intimate about the way they talked to him.

Astarion felt like he was watching Durge play their suicide out in slow motion. It sickened him. He needed to stop them, but he had no idea how. Get Tav back, he thought. She'll fix it. It was simple. Logical. Appealing. And yet somehow, he didn't believe himself. Or maybe he just wanted to feel like he had the capacity to fix even one problem on his own. Astarion was wading through the muck of his own emotions, and like the bog he had had to tramp through twice now, he hated their obscuring mire. The clonk of the strange submersible craft connecting to the docking station shook him out of his malaise. Astarion checked his equipment, drew the speed potion from his pocket, and then it was time.

The Iron Throne was just as brutal as he remembered it being. Even knowing every hiccup in advance, Astarion's heart was still in his throat the entire time. He took on the mission of getting to Omeluum, who was locked in one of the furthest cells, using his invisibility and stealth to slink down the waterlogged corridors without alerting the Sahuagin. It didn't quite work, but by the time the Sahuagin noticed him he had released Omeluum's shackles, and he was able to take a blow intended for the mindflayer before it teleported them both back to the ship. All the refugees and Duke Ravengard were on board at that point, only his companions were still returning. Then Wyll climbed up the ladder, followed by Karlach and Shadowheart and last of all Durge. They had done it, and the boat pulled away from the prison as it tore itself apart and tumbled into the ocean's depths.

Astarion sat on the metal floor of the submersible, his knees up and his head hanging between them. He felt wrung out. The speed potion had worn off, leaving a nasty lingering lethargy in its place. In that empty space inside him, dread began to creep in, seeping into his body the way water had oozed between the wall panels of the Iron Throne. Hell was waiting for him.

A memory of Karlach's voice echoed through his head, calling him a coward. He had never been offended by that before. Caution was sensible, life-preserving. Much better to let other people do the bold, heroic, deeply unwise things. But he could not understand what he was afraid of when he thought about Tav. Getting her back was what he wanted. It was what he'd been working towards for the last few tendays. So why did the knot of emotion in his heart all congeal into cold terror when he thought about seeing her?

Tomorrow, he would save Tav or die in the attempt. Either way, he would have to look her in the eye. And he was afraid.

Chapter 10: And what was dead was Hope

Chapter Text

Getting to hell was both harder and easier than Astarion had feared it would be.

The hardest part was the first step, which was making it general knowledge that they were going to do it. When the hubbub over Duke Ravengard's return had died down, and dinner had been served and eaten, Karlach spoke up. She clearly still did not trust Astarion. He could tell by the way her eyes flicked to him, and the ring to her voice that was almost a challenge, as though she expected him to oppose her.

"Gale, cast every warding spell you know. Make sure no one can hear us, see us, even smell us."

Gale looked startled, but he did as she asked, and wove layers and layers of protection over them. They all crowded around, except Mizora, who Karlach had pointedly excluded.

"Right," Gale said. "If so much as a fly enters this area, I'll feel it. We are as undetectable as can be. Nothing and no one will know what we say." He paused. "Is this about Orin and Gortash?"

"No," Karlach said. "Astarion has been sitting on a plan he didn't feel comfortable discussing without the most paranoid precautions known to mortals."

"That's not how I would have put it," Astarion snapped back. "But I do think we can't be too careful."

"You think it's time?" Lae'zel said, and Astarion saw a light dawn in Gale's eyes, too.

"I don't think anything," Astarion said. "Karlach is the one calling the shots about when."

"Will you stop all the mysterious blather and get to the point?" Jaheira snapped.

"We're going to Avernus," Astarion said. It felt different to say it out loud. More real. More awful.

Wyll, Halsin and Shadowheart all wore near identical looks of consternation. Jaheira was hard to read, but when she spoke again it was clear she’d been doing rapid calculations in her head.

"We're not ready," Jaheira said. "Give it another tenday or so, at least. Let us get a few more battles under our belts."

Astarion crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows at Karlach, which was extremely petty and felt wonderful.

"Jaheira, you've always been a hero of mine," Karlach said, "and you know I respect your judgement, but this is important. It needs to be done."

"I am not telling you what to do," Jaheira sniffed. "If you want to go and kill yourself, Silvanus knows that not even the wisest woman in the world could stop you."

"My fear in talking about this has always been that Raphael might be watching," Astarion said. "But if he is, these precautions are sure to put him on alert. So now that we're talking about it, we have to do it soon."

"Going to Avernus will be very risky," Wyll said, "but no use shutting the stable gates when the horses have bolted. The question is how we do it."

"And who goes," Shadowheart put in. She looked at Astarion and Karlach a little guiltily. "I know we have the best chance if it's everyone, but I don't think we can. We need some people to stay in reserve in case it doesn't work out."

It was a sensible point, and it annoyed Astarion immensely. He was more and more pressingly aware how hard it was to make judgement calls without being able to be confident about their future payoff. He had no idea who was most necessary to bring, and who he should leave behind.

"I'll go," Durge said. "And Gale, you stay. One magic user each side should be enough."

"I would gladly be in the party," Gale said, "but you have the greater claim. I'll stay."

"Then it's me, Astarion and Durge," Karlach said. "We'll take a fourth, and meet up with Tav, and that should be more than enough."

"I'm staying," Shadowheart said. "You'll have Tav for healing and divine damage, and I can't leave until I find my parents."

"I will be the last," Lae'zel said. "Durge won the Orphic Hammer for me, it's only right that I should help destroy the contract."

"Then it's settled," Astarion said. "Now all we need is a diabolist."

"I can help with that," Durge said. "When we were walking around the city, I remembered something. I think I know where the person who got me and Gortash into hell to steal the Crown of Karsus is."

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence as Karlach's temperature spiked and everyone tried not to stare. "Remembered anything else lately?" she asked, her voice a little too sharp and brittle.

"No," Durge said. Their voice was flatly monotone, but now Astarion thought that that might be masking deep emotion, rather than betraying a lack of it. "I don't even really remember the diabolist."

"Right," Astarion said, with forced cheer. "We know who's going and we know what we're doing. That's enough. We'll leave in the morning."

After that tense conversation, dealing with diabolist was easy. They promised her something from the house, and she let them use her upstairs room with its summoning circle. It was so straightforward, in fact, that Astarion was convinced it was a trap. But so what? Even if he knew for sure that it was, he would still walk into it. He followed the instructions, spoke the words, and opened the doorway to hell and to hope.

Astarion wasn't sure if he could feel an actual planar difference as they stepped through into the House of Hope, or if he was projecting because he expected a difference. But apart from the heat, which was like standing next to a bread oven on a summer's day, there was a greasy quality to the air. He hadn't even been here two minutes, and he already felt like he needed a bath. Tav had had to endure a month of this. Karlach had endured ten years.

"Let's do what we have to do and get out of here," Karlach said, and sighed. In spite of the grim set of her mouth, she looked better than she had in a tenday at least. Her engine was running smoother. Astarion could hear its happy purr as it settled into an unstrained rhythm.

When they stepped towards the grand double doors that led into the rest of the house, a woman appeared, limned with golden light. There was something a little erratic about her appearance, but she looked at them sharply enough. "Guests," she said, and then hesitated. "No. Thieves. And friends, perhaps. Friends of Tav and thereby friends of mine. Have you come to take back that which does not belong here? Have you come to break chains and topple thrones? I bid you welcome if you are, in Hope's name. In my name, though against my master's wishes."

"We've come to get Tav," Astarion said, focusing on the only word in that jumble he cared about. "Where is she?"

Hope beamed at them. "Do you have the Orphic Hammer? Are you really everything she said you were?"

"I have the Orphic Hammer," Lae'zel said, "but it is mine. I will not hand it over."

"No no no," Hope said. "You may keep it. Only shatter my chains with it, before you leave. But Tav will explain all. She always speaks clearly. She makes me clearer than I have been in an eternity."

Astarion wondered what the spirit had been like before, if this was "clearer". "Let's get to Tav," he said. "Then we can figure out the rest."

Hope gave them illusory disguises, and led them through the halls, past all the tortured souls enraptured in their private suffering, until they reached a corridor. The door to the room at the end was open, and voices drifted from it, amplified by the echoes. With his superior hearing, Astarion could hear them clearly.

"You're sure you don't want me to kill them? You know I'd be happy to wipe the floor with that creep." The voice was familiar, but Astarion couldn't immediately place it.

"Harleep is a nuisance, nothing more," Tav said. "And until it's time to execute the plan, I don't want you giving any indication that I'm anything more than an occasional lanceboard opponent."

"I still don't like the plan," the first voice said.

"If my friends hadn't made that deal for the Orphic Hammer we'd have other options, but they did. And maybe it's for the best anyway. Having them on your side will make it much easier than you and I trying to face Raphael alone."

"If you hadn't already killed me once I wouldn't listen to you. But you have a cunning mind." Which gave Astarion the clue he needed. This was Yurgir, the Orthon Tav had tricked to death.

"I am sorry about that," Tav said.

"What's a death or two between friends?" Yurgir said. "Especially when you can come back."

"I will be honoured to die at your hand," Tav said. "I only regret that I'm asking you to risk so much."

At which point Astarion walked into the room. He barely registered Yurgir, sitting across a lanceboard from Tav. He walked up to the paladin, grabbed her shirt, and stared into her eyes. "You are not going to die," he said. "I forbid it."

Tav blinked, and he saw tears briefly well around her lower lids. "Astarion?" she said. "How?" She reached out and touched his arm, and squeezed slightly, as though confirming he were real. Then her eyes widened and her chest hitched, her hand tightening painfully on his arm as she forced herself to swallow and exhale. "sh*t," she said. "You're really here." Her face tensed further. "You can’t be here. You shouldn’t be here. Is Cazador-? Or Raphael? You shouldn't be here. You shouldn't have come."

It hurt worse than a stab wound would have. He dropped her shirt and stepped back, one hand pressing unconsciously against his chest.

"Are your friends not warriors?” Yurgir rumbled. “And is this not the solution we were looking for?”

It was awful, the way Yurgir's words calmed Tav down. She looked at him and smiled, and for all that it was a wan, tired smile it was more than she had given Astarion. "You're right," she said, "though we'll have to act very fast. And it all still relies on the Orphic Hammer. If we don't have that…"

"I have it," Lae'zel said. "Fortunate that I came, and that I never go anywhere without it."

"Okay," Tav said. "Okay. That's something. We can work with that. We'll go back to a version of plan A. Hope, can you guide us through the house and alert us when Raphael arrives?"

"Of course, Tav," Hope said, looking nervous. "He hasn't noticed the intrusion yet, I silenced every whisper, every scurrying mouse. And Tav the pain of it the pain was so bad but I did it."

Tav closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her temples, concentrating. "Right. Good. So we have until we actually take the contracts, probably. Order of priorities is: get into the boudoir, get the password that unlocks the library pedestals, find Mol's contract if we can, break Hope out, and then face Raphael."

"I have to say," Karlach said, "this is not exactly the state I expected to find you in."

Tav opened her eyes and smiled. It was her usual sweet smile, but it did not light up her eyes the way it once had. "I'm sorry," she said. "It is very good to see you all. But right now we are on a ticking clock and an urgent mission. We will have to save tender moments for after we are free. Do you mind me taking charge? I'm happy to hear suggestions, but I have been thinking about this for some time, and I think I can adapt my strategy. Hope, do you still have that suit of armour squirrelled away?"

"I'll get it for you now," Hope said. "So you can shine bright and fight evil and save us all Tav don't forget to save me it's getting harder and harder."

"You've been so brave already," Tav said to Hope. "Just a little longer, and I will see you free."

Hope vanished, and then reappeared with a suit of plate-mail. She dropped it at Tav's feet. Tav looked down at the dress she was wearing, and sighed. "I have a doublet and hose in the wardrobe," she said. "Not an ideal undergarment, but certainly better than a gown. Astarion, will you stay and help me with the straps?"

It was a peace offering, or at least a chance to talk in private, but Astarion was not gracious enough to take it. "Lae'zel has more skill with plate armour than I do," he said coldly. "Let her help you." Everyone looked at him. Astarion ignored all of them except Tav, who he could not ignore, even now. You shouldn't have come. Just for an instant, he saw heartbreak on her face, and then she shuttered her expression and nodded solidly.

"Very good. Lae'zel?"

"As you wish."

They piled out into the corridor, where Durge and Karlach stared him down. Yurgir was staring too, though Astarion had no idea how to read the Orthon's expression. Astarion pulled out his knife and started picking dirt from under his fingernails, just for something to do with his hands. The silence in the air was positively frosty.

"Astarion," Karlach said, and then sighed. "No, never mind." She looked up at Yurgir. "Tav seems to have made an impression on you."

"Never met a mortal with half her mettle," Yurgir said. "She has outlasted Raphael like no one else could." He grinned. "The first thing she did was apologise to me for killing me. A paladin, apologising to a devil!"

"That's Tav," Karlach said, and laughed. Astarion continued to seethe quietly.

"I have seen you all in dreams," Hope said abruptly. She looked around at all of them, but Astarion thought her eyes lingered on him with particular curiosity. "I saw all her dreams, as I see the dreams of every resident. Hers are a reprieve, my only respite. I hide inside them and she keeps me safe. You are all what I expected you to be, except one."

Astarion opened his mouth to say something rude and cutting, but as he did the door swung back and Tav stepped out, mailed head to foot in shining steel. Astarion wondered when he had begun to find fully armoured women so attractive. "Hope, it's not polite to tell other people about my dreams," she said gently. There was the slightest tilt to her ears that suggested embarrassment, but then she settled back into her cold tactician's bearing. "Our first goal is the library. Has the inquisitor come yet?"

"No, she's supposed to come tomorrow, I think. I'm almost sure." Hope twisted her hands together as she answered.

"Good. We'll pretend to be her. That should get us access to the boudoir. We can get the password from Harleep-"

"You're going to kill them?" Yurgir said, looking excited.

"If I have to," Tav said, "but I'm afraid I have a favour to ask of you. You're not going to like it, but it would be a huge help to us."

"You want me not to fight, don't you?" Yurgir grumbled.

"I want you to go to the foyer and wait there. When Raphael gets back, pretend to be on his side. If he thinks he has you, he'll call in less reinforcements. And then when the battle starts, turn on him. I know it's dishonourable, but we're going to need every edge we can get."

"I'd love to wring Harleep's neck, but as long as you promise me I'll get to put a knife in Raphael I'm satisfied." Yurgir held out a hand, and Tav clasped it briefly. Then he stomped off.

"You've been busy," Karlach said. "Making friends with devils?"

"If angels can fall, devils can rise," Tav said. "And Yurgir isn't a bad sort. I think he can be brought around." She set off down the corridor. "Let's go. I'll fill you in on the plan along the way."

Astarion could feel, somewhere in his stomach, an explosion waiting to happen. The anger he had been nursing since Tav had left was not gone. It was burning hotter than ever, hotter than even Karlach could. But there was no space to let it out. And he wanted Tav alone for that, anyway. He wanted her at his mercy.

For the first time since he had returned, Astarion had no idea what was going to happen next. He had never been here before. He had been longing to be free of the loop, but not like this. He was afraid. It could all go wrong. It could all go so wrong.

And then on top of that Tav was taking charge like it was nothing, like she'd been born waiting for this moment. Astarion couldn't find words to frame the way it made him feel, he could only think that this wasn't what he'd imagined. He didn't like it, and he didn't understand why he didn't like it and he didn't have time to think about anything. He was furious and pent up and frightened and strangely lonely and there was nothing he could do. He simmered silently as he listened to Tav talk through her plan.

"So, most of this is strategy I developed before you made the deal for the Orphic Hammer. The original plan was to get it out of the library, use it to break Hope's chains, and then force a confrontation with Raphael. Of course, we had to wait until Astarion had dealt with Cazador, which was why we didn't execute it sooner, and then the Hammer was removed, and I had to start again from scratch."

"Do you really think that you, Hope and Yurgir alone could have defeated Raphael?" Lae'zel asked.

"Oh, it was horrifically risky, but better than rolling over and letting him torture me," Tav said. "And I was hoping to win Korrilla over, too. Maybe even find a few other allies."

"Plan A seems relatively sensible," Durge said, "I am confused as to why plan B seems to start with you dying."

Tav glanced at Astarion, as though she were not sure whether it was wise to talk about plan B. "By all means," Astarion said coldly, "enlighten us. I am simply dying to know what purpose your death was meant to serve."

Karlach glared at him. He ignored her. "Well," Tav said slowly, "I was imagining it would end up being temporary, though I know that's never guaranteed. Logically speaking, what I needed to do was get myself out of Raphael's grasp and make sure that he couldn't use me as leverage. So the plan was for Yurgir to kill me, and then for Hope to use that as an excuse to exercise her power and revoke Yurgir's guest status. That would have banished him from the house. In the meantime, I was hoping Korrilla would pass on a message to you, so you'd know you needed to be ready. Or I'd make a deal with Harleep, if I really couldn't get through to her. The message would have told you what to expect, and you could have summoned Yurgir from hell. He would have given you my body, explained about my death, and told you how to free Hope with the Orphic Hammer. I would have left instructions about somewhere I could be taken to be resurrected once you'd beaten the Elder Brain."

"That is an astonishingly ruthless plan," Lae'zel said. "Most remarkable."

"Thank you, I think," Tav said, and laughed slightly. "It's not really very good, to be totally honest. Too many contingencies, too many ifs. I would have liked something more solid. But I haven't had a lot of resources to work with."

"I can't say I love the bit where you have Yurgir drop your corpse at our feet," Karlach said.

"I sort of hoped it might be reassuring, compared to the alternative," Tav said. "At least you'd know I hadn't suffered. The hardest part was that I needed to be sure that Astarion had actually dealt with Cazador before I got the plan started, because doing anything too soon would have defeated the purpose of coming here. And chances are as soon as he realised he'd been betrayed, Raphael would have headed right for me. Hope and Yurgir and I were cooking up a few possibilities, but we didn't have anything I considered reliable yet."

Astarion felt another jolt of rage shoot through him. He didn't even really understand why. The feeling inside him was too big and complex, as snarled and knotted as a ball of yarn that a cat had got at.

"You should have trusted we would come for you," Durge said. It was exactly what Astarion had wanted to say and not found words for, and that made him even more annoyed.

Tav stopped, and looked at Durge for a long moment. Astarion had a sense, just for an instant, of strain, as though there were a very heavy weight on her shoulders. Then she shrugged it off. "Better to plan for the worst and be pleasantly surprised," she said, and no one pushed the issue.

They went to the library, and Tav had Durge impersonate the Inquisitor so they could wheedle the key to the boudoir out of the Archivist. Korrilla was there too, and she tensed up when she saw them all march in. But she did not intervene as Durge lied through their teeth. Astarion watched her with the studied gaze of one slave assessing another, and saw her force herself to look nonchalant when Tav approached her.

"You are a glutton for punishment, aren't you?" she said to Tav. "Antagonising a devil in his own home. I hope he doesn't force me to watch whatever it is he does to you."

"Korrilla, will you not reconsider?"

"You never stop trying, do you?"

"It would mean the world to Hope. And to me."

"I'll be sorry when he kills you," Korrilla said. "And happier that I kept myself intact." Tav looked bitterly regretful, but did not push any further.

As they made their way to the boudoir, Tav stopped at an archway. "One moment," she said. "I know there's a hidden safe-room of some kind here, but I haven't been able to work out the trick to it." She frowned at the wall, and Astarion, looking over her shoulder, saw what she was missing.

"Like this," he said brusquely, and activated the hidden opening. There was a small room behind it, with gold, some expensive-looking armour, and the thing Tav actually wanted.

"Mol's contract," she said, her eyes lighting up. "I thought I might have to rip it off Raphael's dead body, it was so hard to find."

"For someone who was talking about planning her own death a few minutes ago," Karlach said, "you've really got this all under control."

Tav laughed. "I have been so bored," she said, "you would not believe it. I could tell you some truly bizarre details about this place. Strategising and planning is more or less all that kept me sane. I have plans for much, much weirder outcomes than even your arrival."

There was something almost manic about Tav, like all the energy she had been tamping down for the last month was breaking free at once. Since she was perpetually calm and sedate, this mostly showed itself in her steps, which used the full span of her pace and ate up the ground before them, and the twitchy smile that lingered around her mouth.

"So you did consider our arrival a possibility then, darling?" Astarion said waspishly, the word darling dripping with enough poison to kill an owlbear.

"Right from the start," Tav said, and she lifted her eyes to his. Nothing about them had outwardly changed, but there was still that veil, as though the full-moon light of them had waned and faded. "At first, I hoped for it. But the longer I stayed here, the better I understood the risks and fears of this place, the less I could justify the rescue of one person being worth it. It's been many days since I decided that it would be safer for you all to simply forget me, even though I knew that was very unlikely."

There was too much to say, too much they couldn't say. The equal impulses to start a shouting match and to simply grab Tav and kiss her senseless warred within Astarion until he muffled them both.

"You should be grateful for our arrival. Your plan is better with our presence." Thank you, Lae'zel. Astarion hadn't actually meant to send that via tadpole, but Lae'zel didn't seem to notice the emotion in his thoughts. Her mental voice was as cool and clipped as always when she sent back Tav is not thinking clearly. This place has affected her.

Tav shrugged. "Oh undoubtedly. Though no plan survives contact with the enemy, so it may all be moot. Now, the boudoir."

She and Hope led them down the corridor stopped outside an archway sealed with glowing light. "When we go in, we're going to meet an incubus named Harleep. They're unpleasant, but at least willing to talk."

Astarion tensed slightly at the word incubus. Karlach did too. "They didn't... Try anything, did they?" she asked, her hand dropping to her sword.

"Of course they did," Tav said. She didn't sound bothered by it. "But I had that guarantee of safety. So while the house rules bound me enough that I couldn't tell them to f*ck off as bluntly as I might have wished, they couldn't actually do anything to me that crossed a line. It was an exhausting stalemate, but not a damaging one."

Astarion thought that he and Tav had different definitions of damaging, but he wasn't feeling kindly enough towards her to point it out.

"These rules of the house," Lae'zel said. "You asked about them when you made your deal with Raphael. Did they supersede your safety?"

"No, just gnawed at it. I knew they would be the problem when I agreed to come here. It's the kind of clause devils love. They'll always get you on a technicality. If I'd broken Raphael's laws of hospitality, he could have accused me of deliberately voiding the contract, and used it to his advantage. So I had to make sure I was careful about adhering to them, at least on paper. I knew it would be challenging, though I admit I didn't realise quite how onerous abiding by them would be." Tav shook her head. "But enough talking. We should stay focused."

The boudoir would have been nice if it was anywhere else, but Astarion was not in the mood to appreciate architectural water features.

"Tav? Is that you? Have you finally renounced your vow of celibacy?"

Raphael leaned over the parapet above the pool and looked at them. No, not Raphael, but another devil wearing his face. The one who had put their hand on Tav's shoulder through the portal.

"Harleep," Tav said, "my lack of interest in you is not the same as a vow of celibacy."

Harleep was about to answer when they noticed everyone else, and stood frozen for a moment, mouth slightly ajar. Then they smiled. "So your friends did come to rescue you! Won't you introduce me? I'd love to put names to faces."

"We need the password for the library," Tav said. "Do you know it?"

"I know where it is," Harleep said. "But you're not getting it for free. You can start with introductions."

Tav's right hand was half curled near her sword. She was resisting drawing it. "Fine. This is Karlach, Durge, Astarion and Lae'zel." Her voice was short and clipped, and she barely gestured. She sounded like she was listing a shopping list. His own name was half a gulp, glossed over with impossible speed. It didn't work.

"Astarion!" Harleep leaned forward and looked right at him. Astarion waved, half automatically and half to annoy Tav. "So it's your fault we've had to put up with such dull company for the last few weeks."

"You should have told me. I would have taken her off your hands if you'd only asked," Astarion said.

Tav shot him a glance, as forbidding as she was capable of. "Harleep," she said. "Don't waste our time. Tell me what I want to know, and I'll let you live."

"You're very confident that your friends make a winning hand, Tav, but unless you destroy those contracts before Raphael returns, you're going to be in trouble. So it seems to me that you finally have the incentive to give me what I want."

"Be explicit about terms," Tav said.

"Oh no, absolutely not," Astarion said, without even thinking about it. "I'm not letting you do this again. You are never making another deal with a devil as long as I'm around."

"Do you want to bargain with me instead?" Harleep asked, putting a seductive twist on their voice. "I'll happily accept, spawn, you're much prettier than Tav is."

"We should just kill them," Karlach said. "Which was what I said last time, and I was right then and I'm right now."

"I agree," Durge said. Karlach looked at them, and there was a brief riot of emotion on her face, anger and frustration and love all mingled. It made Astarion's stomach drop, because he understood it so well.

"You're going to be very disappointed when you can't get at those contracts," Harleep said. "Assuming I don't simply kill you. Bargaining with me is the easier way out."

"You said you would tell us where the password is, not what it is," Lae'zel pointed out, narrowing her eyes. "Which means it is written down somewhere, and we can find it without your help. Tav, this devil is all bluster. Slit them nave to neck and have done with it."

"Even if we don't find it," Astarion said firmly, "let's still kill them. We have an expert locksmith and a barbarian who can smash anything, we will find a way to get what we need."

Tav hesitated, just for a second, and then closed her eyes, squared her shoulders, and drew her sword. "Alright," she said. "There's no point in being stubborn past the point of sanity."

Now you understand that? Now? After all this time? Astarion thought, but he didn't get a chance to reply, since Harleep had summoned a host of imps, and the battle was joined in earnest.

The fight with Harleep was short and lethal, at least for the incubus. When they lay dead, Astarion and the others searched high and low, turning out every chest and drawer, stealing clothes from the wardrobe along the way, and generally taking pleasure in destroying Raphael's room. Karlach was the one who found the hidden button that moved one of the paintings, and Astarion unlocked the safe.

"Why hello there," he said, fishing out the paper with the password they needed written on it. "Just look at you! Exactly what we wanted. Let this be a lesson to all assembled, never write down your most crucial codes and keys. It's the most unconscionable weak point in a defence system."

"I think we are all relieved that Raphael is not as sensible as you," Tav said. She gestured to the bath in the centre of the room. "We should wash ourselves with the water from those taps before we leave. It works like a potion of angelic slumber, without even the drawback of sleep."

"How do you know that?" Karlach asked, as she waded into the steamy water and splashed it over herself, shaking her head like a big dog.

"Oh, a lewd joke Harleep made," Tav said, joining her. "About what it did for their refractory period."

Astarion glanced over at the devil's corpse, and wondered if it would relieve his feelings to stab them a few more times.

He waited until Tav was out of the bath before he stepped in and healed himself. Even fully clothed, both of them wearing armour and surrounded by the rest of the party, it felt too intimate to be close to her in the water, and the leash his feelings were straining against was already taut enough. Tav did not seem to notice this wariness, but took the opportunity to run over the next steps.

"Once we actually remove the contracts, Raphael will know," she said. "I've checked and checked again with Hope, and there's no way of removing that alert. So we go in, we take what we need, and then the house will rise against us. We have to make that fight as quick as possible. We get down into the basem*nt where Hope is actually trapped, use the Orphic Hammer to free her, and then head back up. We heal in the boudoir, and then go to the foyer. If we've done everything right, Raphael will be there waiting for us. Yurgir can distract him if needs be, but I think that's unlikely to be necessary. Raphael is a dramatist above all else, and he'll want to choose the time and place where he thinks his entrance will have the biggest impact." Tav took a breath, then continued. "As for the fight itself, here's what I know. Hope says that Raphael has defences in place to strengthen him and protect against divinity. She doesn't understand exactly what they are, but they're going to be physical objects, so targeting those is our first mission. Once they're gone, we focus down Raphael. Chances are Korrilla will fight against us, so whoever ends up having to engage her, use non-lethal attacks. She's Hope's sister and a slave in her own right, we owe her at least a chance to rethink things. Everyone else, we kill." Another breath. "Questions?"

"You know, Astarion did a pretty good job of covering for you on the Iron Throne," Karlach said, "but f*ck me, there's no substitute for the real thing. Thank the gods you were the one here and not me, I wouldn't have had the first clue how to think about any of this."

"I'm sure you would have done better than you think," Tav said. "But I'm very glad you didn't have to."

And off they went. The password got them the contracts, plus a couple of other useful items. Durge put their teeth to their contract and tore it into small pieces immediately, the fragments falling around them like wedding confetti. Karlach said "Durge, gross!", but it was with a fond smirk she could not entirely hide. She seemed in a much better mood, and Astarion wondered if that was her engine running smoother, or the satisfaction of achieving something good. Either way, her heart was surely feeling lighter.

Tav looked down at her own contract, and then held it out to Astarion. "Do you want to do the honours?"

It was too sweet an offer to dream of saying no. Astarion decided that no matter how fun Durge's savagery looked, he didn't have the brutality to pull it off, so he flipped his dagger out instead and, as Tav held the parchment steady, stabbed it right through Raphael's name. He sliced down and up, bisecting the contract. They felt the magic seep out of it, and the whole house shook for a moment.

"That's his Lordship coming back," Hope called from the doorway. "Time we were away."

Freeing Hope was not particularly challenging, which Astarion was grateful for. And then they went back to dunk themselves in the cursed bathtub one more time before they faced Raphael. As she stood in the water, stirring her fingers through her curls to get bits of Spectator gore out of them, Tav finally spoke. "I'm still not sure that you all did the right thing by making this journey. I am very frightened of what we are about to do. But I'm sorry that I didn't say this earlier, and I will regret it forever if I don't say it now. Thank you for caring enough to try and rescue me. It means more to me than you will ever know that you risked so much for me."

She looked around at them, and did not flinch from Astarion's gaze. He was not sure what his own face looked like, only that it was nothing close to kind. The apology was something, he supposed, but it wasn't what he wanted. Not that he knew what he wanted. The leash almost slipped through his fingers again, until he pulled it back.

"Let's go," he said. "The sooner we kill Raphael, the sooner we can get out of here."

"As you wish," Tav said, and put her helmet back on.

Raphael was waiting for them, just as Tav had predicted. He was truly, legitimately furious in a way that Astarion had never seen, the veneer of civility totally fallen away. It was frankly a pleasant change.

"You viper," he said to Tav. "I have hosted you with the utmost courtesy, which you have strained to its limit, and this is how you repay me? You turn my servants against me, destroy my property, and seek to break our contract? Most deceitful and dishonourable of you, little paladin."

Tav, who was some inches taller than Raphael, looked down at him stoically. "You told me that my oath was a thin curtain over vicious brutality. It seems you were right."

Raphael glared at her, then looked at the rest of the group. "And all your little allies, coming to save you. I'm going to kill them all before I kill you, Tav. I'm going to make you watch each of them die, one by one. I'm going to hurt them until they beg you to do anything, anything to help them, and they're going to die hating you."

"I can make you kill me in battle first," Tav said. "I would rather do that than listen to another word of your drivel." Astarion saw her hands clench on her sword hilt, and recognised the gesture. She was doing it to stop them from shaking. Tav drew a short breath and called forth her aura, surrounding her sword in holy flames. "Right," she said, "like we planned."

With that, the battle was joined. Raphael raised pillars up out of the floor, each of them radiating an unearthly malice. The cambion smirked, clearly feeling smug and untouchable, and then flinched as Yurgir drew his sword and stabbed Raphael in the back.

"f*ck me," Yurgir said, "been wanting to do that for years." Tav grinned at him, then bounded over the railings to whack one of the pillars with her sword.

Astarion aimed his bow at the same pillar, loosing two shots in rapid succession. Durge was unleashing their arsenal of spells on the other cambions Raphael had called in. Over on the far side of the room, Lae'zel and Karlach were wailing on another pillar.

It wasn't an easy fight. Raphael had plenty of cambion back up, and the pillars were annoyingly hard to take down. But between the five of them, Hope and Yurgir, they gained the upper hand and held it. There was a moment, Astarion thought, when Raphael could have escaped. But he was too arrogant, and too proud, and too certain of his own victory. He did not see the blow from Durge coming until it was too late, lightning crackling out of the air and pinning him down. And then Astarion was behind him, moving his dagger up and under the ribs in the old familiar strike, piercing the cambion's heart.

Astarion knew Raphael was dead as the strike landed. He could feel it, muscle memory of a hundred other kills giving him certainty. But unless he pulled the dagger out, there was a moment left. Raphael must have known it too. He turned his head and looked at Astarion. They stared at each other, and then something passed over Raphael's face: understanding, bitter and regretful.

"It was you, wasn't it?" the devil snarled quietly. His lungs had probably been nicked. Astarion could hear a wheezing burble in his voice. "You were the one who knew the future. I should have realised. But... I thought you were a symptom, not the cause."

Astarion put several things together at once. "You thought it was Tav," he said. "That's why you wanted her soul."

"If I'd had it I could have read it," Raphael said. "Even if she'd only loaned it."

"Then when she refused..."

"Made me... even more sure..." Raphael gripped Astarion's arm. "Do you think this means you've won? You little fool. Still... So many ways to fail..." He laughed. "Maybe you already have. Will you know if you've lost? Will you have to go back to the start again? Or will you have to live the rest of your life in the rotting corpse of a world you failed to save?"

His words bit savagely at Astarion, who jerked the dagger out almost on reflex. Raphael crumpled to the ground, his eyes glassy and dull. Astarion stared down at him, and wanted to feel triumph, but the devil’s words were eating at his mind. Raphael had gotten the final word, and Astarion had no answer.

"He's dead," Hope said, as Raphael crumpled. "He's dead he's dead he's dead!"

Tav walked over to his body and looked down at it. Her face was cold. "So he is," she said. She covered her face with both hands and took a deep breath, and then lifted them away and smiled. "Well, Hope? Are you sure you won't come back with us?"

"I'm sure," Hope said. "I have work to do here. And Korrilla will be with me."

"I'll keep an eye on her too," Yurgir said. "If anyone tries to bother her, at least I'll get a fight out of it."

Tav nodded, and held out her hand. Yurgir clasped it briefly, and then patted her head. "You're small, but you're mighty. Call on me whenever you have a worthy fight."

"Keep practising your lanceboard," Tav said. "I want to play you again some time." She turned to look at the group. Astarion thought she avoided his eyes, but he wasn't sure. "Time to go?" she said.

"Please," Karlach said, and Astarion added, "The sooner the better."

So they went.

Baldur's Gate. It was strange to be back. Karlach handed over the gloves to the diabolist, but Tav was already walking outside. She stood in the street, looking up at the sky, which was in the first blush of dusk, red at the horizon and velvety blue at its apex. The air was lower city air, tinged with refuse and cooking food and flowers and rot and manure, infinitely fresher than the hells. Astarion watched Tav gulp it in. Then, as though she were still not quite sure, she knelt and dug her fingers into the dirt.

"Are you praying?" Durge asked.

"Only the simple prayer of life," Tav said. "The world is vast and beautiful, and it is good to have flesh and be part of it."

"You did not think to see it again."

"My heart went numb, in Avernus. This is the first time in weeks that my soul has not felt like it was dosed with poppy juice." Tav stood up, and put a hand on Durge's shoulder. "But, Durge, you look almost as tired as I feel. Have the journey been very hard?"

"I learned some things," Durge said. "I'll tell you about them when we're alone."

Tav nodded. "I'm sorry that I left you. That I had to leave you. I'll catch up as quickly and as best I can."

Karlach came out, and they made their way back to the Elfsong. Astarion continued to skulk at the back of the group. My heart went numb in Avernus. Was that what the wall between them was? Astarion wondered if he ought to have just kissed her right away. Maybe then he wouldn't be feeling so distant. For all that Tav was no longer in hell, she still felt untouchably remote.

And it was impossible to demand her attention. Tav was mobbed as soon as they got back, and so drowned in hugs that when she finally got free her cream curls were sticking out from her head in all directions. "It's so good to see you all again," she said. "I want to hear about everything."

They caught her up over dinner, telling her the story of Ketheric's defeat, the journey to Baldur's Gate, their meeting with Gortash. It was a long tale, and the plates were cleared and the wine drunk by the time they were done. Tav was introduced to Aylin and Isobel. Just as she had the first time, she found an instant rapport with Selûne's daughter. Paladins were birds of a feather, Astarion supposed.

Mizora, Tav was much less happy to meet. "You are here at Wyll's tolerance," Tav said, "and I will not override his choice, but I have grown very fond of killing devils." Mizora rolled her eyes, but Astarion thought he detected a hint of nervousness. Which, if true, was the most sensible emotion he'd ever seen her display.

And then, when the general story had been told, Tav said, very gently, "Durge, you said you wanted to talk to me?" She took them up to the beds by the windows, and Aylin and Isobel tactfully went to talk to Shadowheart. Astarion didn't watch, or even try to listen, but went off to his own bed and read a book. He knew what Tav was doing. One of her most remarkable skills was the way she could listen to people. She would sit there attentively, and somehow you found yourself telling her everything, even the things you didn't know you wanted to say. It was totally reasonable for her to start with the person who was most dangerous and fragile. It was helpful. With any luck, by the time they were done Durge would no longer be planning to die. It was exactly what he wanted. He was still furious.

At long last Durge left Tav sitting where she was, and came back down. Astarion was mulling over whether to go to her or wait for her to come to him when Shadowheart stole Durge's place. That was another exhaustingly long conversation, and ended with Shadowheart and Tav disappearing to go look at the moon, which was sitting fat and brilliant over the roofs of the city.

Astarion wandered over to Durge, trying to look nonchalant and not like he was seething. "Well?" he asked. "Is your soul feeling cleansed?"

"I am glad to have Tav back," Durge said. "I missed her. I am glad I got to speak to her again before I die."

Astarion glared at them. "I would truly love it if everyone around me could stop planning their own deaths for five minutes."

"I'm not planning anything," Durge said. "Just accepting my fate."

That was a bold-faced lie, Astarion thought, but he still didn't know how to argue with it. He heard footsteps on the stairs, and moved back to his own berth as Shadowheart and Tav returned. He wanted to look away, cold and aloof, but of course his eyes went right to her, as soon as she entered the room. She did not look at him. Before anyone else could claim Tav's attention Jaheira stood up and bristled at everyone. "I know we are all very glad to have our paladin back, but she is clearly exhausted. Let her sleep. If anyone else tries to talk to her tonight, I'll gag them."

Tav laughed. "It's lovely to talk, Jaheira. I am not complaining." She yawned hugely. "But I might be more use to you all after some rest."

Even then, Astarion vaguely hoped that she would come to him, that he would be exempt, but Jaheira bundled Tav off to her bed, grumbling about drow and their bad habits. Tomorrow, Astarion told himself. First thing in the morning. And went off to trance with bad grace.

Astarion woke in the early hours of the morning. In his last life, when he and Tav had been travelling alone, he had enjoyed those private hours where he could look at her sleeping face. They had been moving by night and resting by day, and the tent would be warm and gently glowing, the daylight turning that little world soft red, bright enough to read or sew by. He would pass the time like that, making repairs to their clothes, adding some sorely needed decoration to Tav's shirts, or just whiling away the time with a story while Tav dreamed at his side. And every so often he could look down and see her there. And even Gale's opulent descriptions of Mystra's pleasure domes paled in comparison to that little heaven.

But this morning, Tav was not sleeping. She was awake before him, sitting and looking out the window. The grey-blue dawn light matched her skin and hair and eyes. If Oskar Fevras had seen her, he might have painted it and called it something like 'Portrait of Melancholy', which was a perfect justification for hanging all artists.

"You should rest more," Astarion said. "There's a lot to do." He meant to say it kindly, tenderly even, but somehow it came out of his mouth sneering and critical.

Tav stiffened a little, and then turned her head and looked at him. She smiled, that awful dim smile that she had learned in the hells. "I tranced," she said. "I'm as fresh as can be." She coughed, and looked down at her hands. "It wasn't safe to sleep properly in the House, so..." She trailed off, and shrugged. "I'm out of practice."

Somewhere in his heart, Astarion recognised this as a critical moment. If he could only say the right thing, or if she could. They could make the broken space between them whole. Instead, the silence dragged on, slow and torturous, neither of them speaking, neither of them moving.

"Oh," Tav said, at the point that it had gone past unbearable into darkly comic. "There was something I wanted to ask you."

"Yes?" Astarion said, his heart in his throat. This was it. Surely this was it.

"Do you have my diary?" Tav's ears flicked and darkened with embarrassment. "It wasn't in my pack."

"Oh. Yes. It's in my drawer." He went and got it, and handed it to her. Their fingers did not touch.

Tav ran her hands over the cover. She parted her lips ever so slightly, and the very tip of her tongue slipped under her front teeth. Then she closed her mouth again. "Thank you," she said. "I appreciate you keeping it safe for me."

"Don't worry, darling," Astarion said, impelled by his cruellest impulses. "There was nothing interesting enough in it to make it worth reading."

In a way, the insult worked, because Tav's eyes flicked to his, and they were not dim at all, but bright and wounded. A blotchy, inky blush spilled across her cheeks. "I am a very inferior wordsmith," she said. The same thing she had said on the night of the party, on that one, perfect evening so long ago. It was Astarion's turn to open his mouth and close it again. And then he simply walked away.

Chapter 11: He who lives more lives than one more deaths than one must die

Chapter Text

No one noticed that anything was wrong the first day. For one thing, Tav was still acting as everyone's confessional. Gale unburdened himself to her as he was making breakfast, if Astarion could judge by the snippets of conversation that inevitably reached his ears. Then, over the porridge, Tav made a list of everything that needed to be done. And when they had all added their goals, she produced another ten items from her own memory, including checking on the Ironhand Gnomes and finding Mol.

"But first," she said, "Minsc. It will do us good to have another person to share the load with, and I hate to think that he might be suffering when we could relieve it." If there was any implicit criticism of their priorities in those words, it was delivered so cheerfully and mildly as to be invisible.

It was, by all accounts, a very successful day. They met Nine-Fingers, who was as susceptible to Tav's charm as anyone else, rescued Minsc, went back to the Guild hideout and fought the Zhentarim, and earned an enjoyable amount of gold. They even crossed off Tav's personal goal of finding Mol.

That was interesting, because Astarion didn't remember her being particularly concerned about the little thief on their first journey. Oh, she'd cared, of course, but in the vague, general way she cared about all the tieflings. Now it felt personal. He didn't understand until she knelt in front of Mol in the Guild hideout and looked at her deeply and intently.

"Your eye," Tav said. She let out a short huff of breath. "Mol, why?"

Mol sneered. "What do you mean, why? It was a great deal. Got my eye, got a patron, and he's got big plans for me. I'm made, mate. I'm gonna be ruling Baldur's Gate in a few years."

For a moment, Tav's sadness was so palpable that she seemed transmuted to marble. Everyone around her felt it, the weight of something terrible settling in the room. Even Mol hesitated, and looked doubtful. "It worked out for the best. I know I left the others behind, but this life doesn't suit them, not really. They'll be happier with the adults. Just like I'm happy here."

"You were certainly right not to take them," Tav said, and gave Mol a smile that was, if anything, even sadder than her sudden coldness. But then she pulled herself together. She took Mol's contract from a pocket and handed it over. "For you," she said.

"My contract!" Mol said. "This is going to make negotiating a lot more fun. But where did you get it? How did you get it?"

"That's a long story," Tav said. "And I don't have time to tell it now. Mol, the city is in danger. You should consider leaving, for a little while. But since I know you won't, be very careful. Stay safe. When it's over, I'll come back here, and we should have a real conversation. I’ll tell you the whole story then."

Mol stared at her. "If you buy me lunch," she said. "Then fine. I'll listen to what you have to say."

Tav smiled at that, and held out her hand. "Deal," she said, and they shook on it.

"You didn't tell her Raphael is dead?" Durge said, when they were well away from the Guildhall.

"She's going to take it hard," Tav replied. "I could see it in her face. Raphael was careful. She hasn't felt the scorpion sting of a devil's contract yet, only the shiny fruit that he offers first. When I tell her that I've killed her golden goose, I want to be able to give her something real in return. And I can't be sure of doing that until I know I'm going to live past next week."

Minsc was enormous in exactly the way Astarion remembered him being. Big and booming and somehow extra present, as though he had more life in him than anyone else. He fit right in in camp, in spite of his late arrival to the group. And Tav looked better when she talked to him, like some of her old light had come back. Maybe that was because he didn't know what she had been through, or maybe she was just happy to have helped someone again. She even accepted his invitation to arm wrestle, and lost with cheerful good grace.

Tonight was Karlach's turn to unburden her soul, and Astarion had to sulkily admit that she needed it more than most. She and Tav talked until bedtime, and Astarion imagined how many squires Tav had done this with. How many heartbroken youths had come to her, hoping to be freed from their sorrow? He wondered if Tav remembered each of them, or if they had all blurred into one as the years passed.

It was all going well right until the end, when Karlach stood up, her flames suddenly hot. "We're going to have to pay for the footprints she's scorching into that floor," Gale muttered, standing next to Astarion.

"You've been there," Karlach was saying to Tav, a little too loudly. "You know what it's like! And you're still telling me to go back?"

"I am not telling you anything," Tav said. "I am simply saying that if there's a chance-"

"f*ck this," Karlach said. "I thought you'd understand. I thought you'd understand."

"I know it will be an endurance," Tav said, "but you are strong enough to endure it, Karlach. And if we can leverage our strength for some great benefit, then surely-"

"No. No way. That might be paladin philosophy but it's not mine." Karlach turned around and stomped off. Tav looked after her, and then sighed and put her head in her hands. It was funny how someone so big could look so small. Astarion wondered if he should go over to her. He didn't get the chance, because Aylin got there first. Another paladin and an aasamir? How could he compete with that?

The next few days were a whirl of activity, as Tav reoriented herself in the world, reestablished connections with the people they'd met on the journey, and got dragged into helping everyone with their problems. There was Rolan and Lorroakan, the Ironhand Gnomes, even the sad drip of a woman from Auntie Ethel's swamp, as well as others from Baldur's Gate with no prior connection or claim on their time, who simply sniffed out Tav's aura of benevolence and decided to make their concerns her concerns. Astarion would have told her to stop, but they weren't talking, so he didn't.

The first person to comment on the tension between them was Jaheira. She and Astarion were bringing laundry down to the washerwoman who worked for the Elfsong, and as they rounded the curve of the stairs, Jaheira simply said, "For someone who was so miserable while Tav was gone, her return seems to have brought you little relief."

Astarion shot her a look, and she shrugged and smirked. "I am a nosy old woman, what can I say? Forgive me if I think it a little funny that you went to all that effort and still can't be honest about your feelings."

"Being honest about my feelings is not the issue," Astarion said, bristling.

"You know best, of course. I wouldn't dream of interfering." This was such a blatant and outrageous lie that she ought to have been struck down by divine lightning on the spot, but the gods were never any actual use when you wanted them to be. "All I'll say is that life is too short to not say the thing you want to say."

"What I want to say is mind your own business," Astarion said haughtily, and Jaheira let the subject drop, at least out loud.

Gale was kinder about his interference, but not more successful. "I know I offered to have a word with Tav," he said, "but she was surprisingly inflexible. She didn't exactly tell me to mind my own business, but she wouldn't give any ground. I told her how driven you were to find her, and how much you obviously cared, but all she said was that she needed time before she could talk about it."

She had not said that to him. She said almost nothing to him, besides the meaningless conversations about who was making up the party on any given day. He had never known her to be so cold.

Everyone else seemed to have decided that if Astarion and Tav wanted to make each other miserable, that was their business. In one way, it was a relief, because it meant he didn't have to have awkward conversations, but another part of Astarion had been hoping for a little solidarity. They knew what he'd done for her. Would it have killed one of them to sympathise a little, to say yes it is bullsh*t that Tav isn't kneeling at your feet and kissing your boots to thank you for saving her from the hells.

Durge did say something, after a few nights, but it wasn't remotely sympathetic. "I wonder if you and I are bound by some kind of cosmic tether," they said cheerfully. "Since our misery seems so mutual."

Astarion threw a small chunk of malachite that had been sitting in his pocket at their head. It bonked harmlessly off, and they tucked it away. "Give me back my shiny rock."

"No. You threw it at me, it's mine now."

"I see you're here to be a nuisance."

"I'm just wondering why you don't talk to her."

"Why don't you talk to Karlach?"

"You know that. Because I'm going to die. It's better this way. She won't miss me so much when I'm gone."

"You're wrong about that," Astarion said. "She'll miss you forever. And it'll eat at her every day that she didn't take the chance to talk to you and try and fix it."

Durge tilted their head at him, those red red eyes flaring bright. "Is that how Tav will feel about you some day? Is that why you're doing this? So that you'll be carved in her heart forever?"

"I hate you," Astarion said, deliberately turning back to his book.

"The urge is gathering," Durge said at last. "It's waiting for Orin, but I can feel it at the back of my throat. It won't be too much longer. Volo told me that the heart of a Bhaalspawn is a flipped coin that always lands on its edge. One failure, one success. And I can see the third coin spinning. There's still time for it all to go wrong. There's still time for my father to win."

It was a timely reminder that Tav was not and could not be the whole of Astarion's world. There were other things he needed to do. And if he was going to do them, he needed to get over her. He told himself it was past time to move on. Somehow, one way or the other.

Unfortunately for Astarion, his internal resolution to fully let go of Tav totally failed to manifest into any kind of actual result. He found himself spending more time downstairs in the evenings, just so that he wouldn't have to be around her. He kept waiting for his feelings to settle, or at least numb, but they refused to. He couldn't even box them up properly. She wouldn't stop being there, finally solid and real again, finally safe, finally here, and it made the wall between them infinitely worse. He wished she would just start the fight that would end things forever. He wanted to tear her throat out with his teeth. He wanted to kiss her until she forgot how to breathe.

He wondered if he should sleep with someone else. He got propositioned consistently, at least once every evening, by as wide a range of people as one could possibly imagine or desire. Maybe that was the right cure. After all, other people fell in and out of love all the time, didn't they? And they just found someone new and carried on. The thought of actually doing it made him almost physically nauseous. Not just the horror of trying to be intimate with someone he didn't know or trust, but doing anything that made it feel like his relationship with Tav was actually, finally over.

Thinking things like that made him drink too much, and he was stumbling slowly back upstairs when he ran into Tav. She was standing by one of the windows in the hall.

"What are you doing out here?" he said accusingly. "Shouldn't you be off listening to one of our friends' tales of woe?"

Tav lifted her head slowly and looked at him. "I've heard," she said, "that you did a good job of taking on that responsibility in my absence. If you want to keep doing it, I wouldn't stop you."

Did she think he was jealous? It was... Well, it was exactly right, but not in the direction she was assuming. "And here I thought you'd have a litany of all my mistakes ready to read to me."

Tav sighed. "Please," she said. "Can we at least not fight?" She looked so tired. She looked like a shirt that had been washed too many times, and was wearing so thin it had become transparent.

"You know you don't have to feel so responsible for all of them," Astarion said. "We managed alright when you were in hell, you don't have to shepherd everyone. They'll fix their problems even if you don't help."

He had meant it as kindness. He was trying to say that she could relax, could take a break. But she glared at him like he'd slapped her. "If I am so unnecessary, why did you waste the resources to come and get me? You were the one who decided that it was important to have me here!" She turned away from him. "I suppose," she said, her voice astonishingly smooth and steady, "that I am still a part of the future you saw. I suppose you need me for that."

"What I need you for? What I need you for? I used to think you were so good at seeing people, so remarkably adept at understanding, but you know, your stupidity right now is absolutely jaw-dropping. A level of imbecility hitherto reserved for cows and particularly uncooperative sheep."

Astarion grabbed Tav's shoulder and spun her around. She was crying. He had seen her cry only twice before. Watching her weep was the worst feeling in the world. "I thought," she said, choked and bitter, "that I was prepared for you to hate me for doing what I did. I thought I had steeled my heart against it, when I went to hell. If that was the price I had to pay to save you, I decided I could bear it. I would rather have you alive and whole and free than have your love. But I didn't know it would be this hard."

"You think I hate you?" A little part of Astarion was begging for a moment's calm, for a breath, for a pause, for anything. It had no power to resist the tempest that had overtaken him. "Maybe I do hate you. How could I love someone who's first words on seeing me again were 'you shouldn't have come'?"

The terrible dimness that fell over her eyes almost killed him. She wiped her tears away with the back of one hand. "You're right," she said. "I have brought this all on myself. There is no one else to blame."

It was not the answer he wanted. Astarion turned on his heel and walked away from her. He got maybe six steps. "Astarion," she called after him, "wait."

He turned back at once. Even now, after the worst fight they'd ever had, his heart leapt with hope when he heard her say wait. All he wanted was one excuse. One excuse to keep loving her, in spite of everything. "What?" he said.

"I know you haven't been drinking my blood," Tav said, "and I don't think you've been drinking anyone else's either, not since I returned at least." This was true, because if he did he'd have to explain that he wasn't drinking Tav's blood and why, and the thought of having to have such a humiliating conversation was too depressing to contemplate. "I made a promise to you," Tav continued, "and I intend to honour it. You are welcome to feed on me, if you need to."

It was incredible how every sentence out of Tav's mouth made him angrier. She couldn't have achieved such an astonishing result if she'd actually tried. "Don't talk to me about promises," Astarion said. "You broke the one promise you made to me that mattered, and you don't even know what it was. I have no reason to trust any of your promises."

Tav froze. "I did?" she said. "Wait, are you holding me to a promise I might make in the future?"

Astarion opened his mouth, the words you promised you would always come back to me on the tip of his tongue, when Shadowheart flung the door open and said, "Tav, Halsin's gone. Turns out Orin kidnapped him and she's been impersonating him for a few days. We could use your help."

Tav went pale grey with shock and horror. "Halsin?" she said. "Oh no." She ran her hands through her hair and took a couple of breaths. "Right," she said. "I'm coming." She looked at Astarion, and all he got from the glance was bleak and devastated confusion.

"Don't mind me," he said. "I'm going to go get my dinner. At your command." He turned on his heel and went down the stairs, and did not look back at her.

It wasn't hard to find a victim. His only concession to his dented pride was that he didn't simply pick someone from the Elfsong. He went to the Blushing Mermaid instead, and found a young woman too many cups into her evening already, her eyes glassy and dazed. She was clearly astonished that Astarion would so much as give her the time of day. It was child's play to lure her out to a nearby alleyway.

She giggled as he pushed her against a wall, and her hands reached down for his belt. He almost retched. "Not yet, darling," he said, and pinned them over her neck with one hand. She got breathless and dizzy at that, and Astarion's soul simply left his body, hanging over his left shoulder and watching dispassionately as muscle memory did the work. The only part that wasn't trained into him was the actual bite, and that could operate on instinct anyway. He kissed her neck, which smelled like cheap soap and sweat, and then sank his teeth in and sipped away. Her blood was full of sour whiskey, and was sharp and thin besides. Nothing like the rich complexity of Tav's veins. He wondered if it was only that Tav ate a better and more nutritious diet, or if there was some element of experience and personality that gave her sanguine depth. Or if he was just deluded by love to the point that he could not stop thinking of her even with another woman's neck in his mouth.

A hand fell on his shoulder. He started, looked around anticipating the Flaming Fist or Tav or...

"Why, Astarion?" said a sad voice. "Why did you go out alone? Why did you make our job easy?"

Leon.

Astarion jerked away from his brother and sprang back, leaving his victim to sprawl ungainly in the mud. "Hello Leon," he said. "Hello Aurelia. Fancy meeting you here."

"Cazador sent us to find you," Leon said miserably. "We were hoping we could report back empty-handed."

"Dal and Petras told us you'd met them," Aurelia said, "and that you were free. And that you were planning to usurp Cazador's ritual, although they didn't say how. Or why."

"Listen," Astarion said urgently. "That ritual is a death trap. It's not going to make you true vampires. It's going to kill you, just so that Cazador can have a bit more power. If you take me back, we all die."

"Told you so," Aurelia said to Leon. "You owe me ten gold."

"I'll pay you in hell," Leon said back. "Astarion, I want nothing more than to let you go free. You know that. I would rather have simply died than do what I'm about to do."

"It was worth a try," Astarion said. "Just in case. But I never really expected it to work."

He sprang away from them, leaping up onto the roof of the tavern and then propelling himself as far as he could with misty step. Leon and Aurelia came after him. Astarion didn’t want to kill them, but knocking them out was probably the simplest solution. He was about to stop and draw his bow when he smelled something on the wind, iron and rot. He glanced left, and saw Petras and Yousen moving towards him. Damn. Four changed the odds. He was better off running than fighting. But that was fine. He just needed to make it back to the Elfsong.

Astarion leapt again, using all his skill and agility to propel himself as fast and as far as he could. And then stopped. Up ahead, more figures on the roof of Sorcerous Sundries. Dalyria and Violet. All of them? Cazador hadn’t sent all of them last time. Damn damn damn. He had to get back to the Elfsong,but they had cut off any direct path. There was planning here, tactics they hadn't used before. How could he get around them? How could he get back to the others?

If they caught him, how long would it take his friends to notice he was missing? They were busy. Halsin had been kidnapped. Maybe Tav had mounted a rescue mission to save the druid right away. That would be very like her. And then she would come back in the morning and think Oh, Astarion never came home, how strange and he would already be dead and she would never know. And even if she did notice he was gone, would she come after him? After all the vicious anger that had passed between them, would she care? He knew the answer to that one, at least. It was yes. Tav had never let a little something like personal feeling get in the way of being a hero. But she might think that he was only sulking, off having a tryst intended to hurt her. He had given her too many reasons to justify his absence, and not enough to hope that she would guess what had really happened, guess where he had been taken, and get there in time.

So he had to do this right, and do it alone. Astarion changed course, heading down for the warren of streets near the docks. He could buy time there, lose his siblings, and alter his scent with rotting fish. Or, failing that, simply keep them at bay until dawn, when they would have to retreat. Dawn was around six, this time of year. It was close to midnight now. Six hours. He could do this.

He switched from speed to stealth when he entered the tiny, choked alleys where the dockworkers lived. The place reeked, but that was only useful for him. The harder he was to track, the better. He hid in the shadows, and heard the light footsteps of Dal and Vi pass by.

“We have to find him,” Violet said. “Cazador will send us all to Godey if we don’t.” She sounded absolutely miserable, drained and exhausted.

“It might be better if we don’t,” Dal said, and she too seemed beyond tired. “Torture is bad, but this ritual might be worse. If what we’ve heard is true.”

Violet stopped and sniffed, and Astarion realised the risk of staying in one place. He sprang away as Violet pounced, up and over the roof and across a narrow gap and then down into another alley and over a wall and through a garden. He could smell vampires to his left and human to his right. He turned right, a knife in his hand, and ran into Gandrel.

“You,” Astarion said, feeling an odd wave of relief wash over him. “I need your help. My siblings are on my tail.”

Gandrel looked at him sadly. So terribly sadly. “I know,” he said, and flung something in Astarion’s face. A paralytic. Astarion felt his muscles stop working. “He has my children,” Gandrel said.

And Raphael had Tav, Astarion wanted to snarl. You have to be able to resist when the people who hold the whips try to manipulate you. Gandrel had not had a goddess’s insight. He had not had Karlach to set him right. Astarion ought to have been forgiving, but he couldn’t be. He was too frightened and too angry. And he couldn’t even rage about it, because his tongue, like all his other muscles, had gone slack.

Gandrel whistled, and Astarion’s siblings converged on them. Under his fear and rage, Astarion couldn't help appreciating the dark comedy of their expressions. They all looked completely miserable at their victory, even Gandrel. “I’ve done my part,” the Gur said. “I did as Cazador ordered. Now give me my children.”

Leon’s face was stone still. “Cazador instructed us to bring you back to him once more,” he said. “That’s all we know.”

Gandrel’s hands shook, and he opened his mouth to protest. Then, seeing the futility of the gesture, he shut it again. Leon and Petras picked Astarion’s motionless body up, and they carried him back, frozen and powerless, to the only house he hated more than the House of Hope.

Cazador beamed at him when Astarion was dragged limply into his study. They had taken his armour and his weapons, even the secret knife in his boot. He was barefoot and naked from the waist up, presumably so Cazador could check that the oh-so-important scars were intact.

"Well well well," Cazador purred, standing up and walking over to Astarion. "The errant lamb is back in the fold. You caused me a lot of trouble, boy, you know that?" He reached out and stroked Astarion's cheek. Astarion's soul slid outside his body again, watching from a slightly distant viewpoint. The fear and panic were back, as awful as they could ever be. This was it. This was the very, very worst thing that could have happened.

"Don't worry," Cazador told him. "In giving yourself up for this ritual, all sins will be repaid. You'll learn exactly what I made you for. It will be… a revelation."

I've killed you once before, and I'll do it again, Astarion thought distantly. One death, versus two hundred years of suffering. Had it even been real? Was it all a hallucination? Could Cazador die, as overwhelmingly monstrous as he was? But that life hadn't ended at Cazador's death. There had been so much more. Lakehaven, the strange village in the Underdark where he'd gotten to know Leon and Dal and Aurelia better, that had happened. And then the months of travelling with Tav. The beauty of Vas'eana, the mysteries of Paizazor, and even the bleakness of Menzoberranzan. The world had been so much bigger than Cazador had ever let him see. Cazador was so narrow. So small. Astarion remembered when he'd been caught by the lich, Tav's old enemy. She'd hung him up and tortured him, and he'd seen that same smallness in her. And then she'd died too. You just have to keep killing them, Astarion thought. All the people who like to own slaves. It was an astonishingly Tav-like thought, and that almost made him smile.

Cazador frowned. "Something funny?" he said snidely.

You're funny, Astarion thought. You're funny. You're cruel, and you're powerful, but you're also so weak. It's funny. It's actually funny. And like that, the spell his panic had bound him in broke. Cazador could not control him ever again. No matter what happened, he had reached down into the depths of his soul and found the part of himself that was free, and he would never, never let it go.

Astarion looked at Cazador, and decided that all things being equal, he had nothing to lose. "Shut up, you snivelling petty tyrant. You are the saddest and most pathetic man I have ever had the misfortune to encounter, and somewhere in that shrivelled heart of yours you know it."

At the back of the room, his siblings gasped, and Astarion was sure he heard a little giggle. Cazador's face twisted with fury. "How dare you speak back to me like that?" he squawked. "Filthy spawn. Abomination. Ungrateful brat! I will have you whipped."

Astarion spat at him. A thick gob of saliva landed on Cazador's clothes. "I don't recommend it," Astarion said. "You might ruin those valuable scars on my back."

It was bravado, really. Underneath his bold words, Astarion was thinking faster than he'd ever thought in his life before. How could he get out of this? There was only one chance, and he didn't much like it. But Godey was only a single skeleton. If he was going to be tortured (and his chances of not being tortured had been zero before he spat on Cazador, and now he needed some kind of new mathematical concept to express how low they were) then maybe he could turn that to his advantage. Play along, pretend to be weaker than he was, and slip his shackles when Godey got overconfident and cruel. It was a terrible plan. Tav would never have countenanced anything so sloppy. But it was better than nothing.

In the midst of the brain-saturating terror Astarion had one moment of perfect joy. Enraged at the spittle on his beautiful silk robe, Cazador knelt down and grabbed Astarion's chin. "Beg for your life, boy. Let me hear that mewling whine you do so well."

Astarion didn't answer. He looked right at Cazador and let his lip curl as sarcastically as possible. The silence stretched on, and he saw beautiful incredulity begin to dawn on Cazador's face. "No," Astarion said at last, and he loved his own voice for being so light and untroubled. "I don't think I will."

It was almost all worth it. Even as reality reasserted itself, Cazador kicking him in the stomach and sending him sprawling across the room, he held onto the expression of impotent fury that he had made Cazador feel, and it was delicious.

"You may not have to obey my words," Cazador said, "but you are still at my mercy. Take him away and make him scream for a while. But don't touch the scars, and nothing that will make him unfit for the ritual."

It was good, Astarion told himself miserably, that this was about to happen. It would give him a chance to escape. And he could bear it. He had borne torture so many times before. Mostly at Cazador’s hand, but the last in his memory had been the lich in Menzoberranzan. That time, of course, Tav had come to save him, dripping blood from a gut wound and not even caring. This time, he could not bank on her turning up. He could not count on anyone turning up. He would have to find a way to save himself.

Godey was as hideous as always. Astarion hated him passionately. He remembered the crunch of Godey's bones under his boot from the first journey, which was at least some private satisfaction.

"Nothing to make you unfit for the ritual," Godey muttered. "I'd better not remove any limbs, so. No flaying, either. I can take your nails and your teeth, I suppose. I could use the whip, if I'm careful about where it goes. Across the legs, that ought be fine. Hmm hmm hmm. They say a man's most creative when he's constrained. I suppose I'll test that tonight. Start with a little electricity."

Astarion was much, much stronger than he had been when he'd been taken by the Nautiloid, he knew that. It was perhaps some small comfort that he could endure more. Or perhaps not. The shocks, and then the whip, and then the removal of his nails. He screamed, of course, because screaming was a helpful technique for withstanding pain. You only made it worse by trying to focus on bottling it up inside. But he endured in spirit, clinging to consciousness and to his plan. Just a little longer. Just a little more.

Godey was contemplating the tooth pliers when a knock came at the door. Leon's voice, coming through. "The Master said to stop," he said. His voice was unusually shaky. "Says no more before the ritual." Astarion was surprised, and then, astonished, understood that Leon was lying. Leon had never taken a risk like that before. Not with Victoria to protect. Astarion was surprisingly touched. No wonder Leon was set to become his favourite brother, when all of this was over.

"Just when I was getting to my best work," Godey said. He ambled away from Astarion to stand in his default position behind the door. Astarion had, over the years, concluded that being an animate skeleton must have totally inured Godey to the feeling of boredom, because he seemed happy to stand at ease in one place until someone or something needed him.

Right. This was it. His chance to escape. Astarion was still tied to the post, but only by his hands. What he needed was to reach one of the sharp tools with his feet, and then grab it and somehow lift it up to cut his wrists free without Godey noticing. Then he could kill the skeleton, and then he could run away.

He heard Tav in his head, saying I don't like the plan much. Too many contingencies. Too many ifs. He told her to shut up. If she wanted to criticise his plans, she should come here and rescue him herself. He had managed to stretch his leg over to the little wheeled cart the torture implements were kept on. His only chance was to knock it over, hide something sharp, and hope Godey didn't notice it when he was tidying up. So if he moved his leg like this...

The cart went clattering, and a scalpel spun over to Astarion. He stepped on it with one of his feet, feeling it slice into his sole and ignoring the pain. Godey looked up. "What are you making a ruckus for?" he said. "It's no use. You're here until the master wants you elsewhere."

"f*ck you," Astarion told him, on the basis that it was true and also distracting.

Godey came over to tidy up the cart, muttering slurred insults at Astarion the whole time. Astarion ignored him. He had put everything back and turned away when he stopped all of a sudden. "Did I miss something? Wasn't there another scalpel?"

Astarion's stomach dropped, but he played dumb. "How should I know?" he spat. "Maybe you left it somewhere inside me."

Godey tilted his head, then shrugged. "Doesn't matter anyway." He resumed standing in his usual spot.

There was a pillar between him and Godey, but it did not entirely block the skeleton's view. Astarion had to guess what part of him Godey could not see, and keep his movements confined to those spots. He gripped the scalpel between his toes, cutting himself further and lifted his foot. He was only going to get one shot at this. His mind was clouded with pain and fear, and he was exhausted. He took a breath, trying to clear his head.

Out of nowhere, he remembered something from the future. The second quest that he and Tav had undertaken for the cure had involved finding and searching through the lost library of Paizazor. As they made their way into its ruined depths, they had come to a section of the building where one of the walls had collapsed. The only way through was an incredibly narrow crevice, so tight that they had to turn sideways and shimmy. It was completely dark, and too long to guess how far it would go, or if there even was a way out at the other end.

At first, it had been manageable. Tav was next to him, and she had a little light curling around her hand, giving them some visibility. Then the passage curved, and Tav fell slightly behind as she tried to fit her bigger body around the corner, and the light vanished. All of a sudden, Astarion was back in the worst year of his life. There was cold stone around him, pressing on him. He panicked. He was clawing at the rock in front of him, not screaming but making muted, awful yelps, and he had lost all orientation. "Astarion," Tav said. "I'm coming. We'll go back and try another way."

He didn't want to give in. They were so close to the room where the ring they were hunting was said to be, and if they gave this up, who knew how many more weeks they would end up searching. If there even was another way in. "No," he said. "I can do this. Just talk to me. Help me clear my mind."

"As you wish," Tav said gently. She cleared her throat, and began to speak again, using the paladin's voice, speaking Truth. "In Cantavar-on-High there is a sacred waterfall. It pours from the highest peak of the mountain all the way to its base, and locals call it the wedding veil, for the winds catch it and drift it into the finest lace sprays. There is a sacred pilgrimage there called donning the veil, where people climb the mountain on a track that winds back and forth through the waterfall..." He had never heard her use the paladin voice quite like this before, weaving a picture with it that was so true he almost seemed to be there. He had a kind of double vision, the brilliant crisp air and bright sun of the mountain path overlaying the dark cave. And as he drew in a breath, it came to him filled with the clear scent of pine and wildflowers. And then Astarion had gone on, and found the path through, and it had all been alright.

He had no Tav now, to steady his mind. But he drew in another breath and thought he smelled it again, clean pine and wildflowers.

Astarion tossed the scalpel with his foot, aiming carefully. It flew through the air and landed with a thunk in his open palm. He muffled the groan of pain. It had worked. His hands were close enough together to pull the blade out with the other, and then he could get to cutting.

It took a long time. The rope was thick, and he had to be careful and quiet. Every minute that passed made the fear worse, and it was at least an hour before he had sawed through enough of the rope to get his hands free.

He dropped soundlessly to the floor. This was it. His one chance. He picked up a hammer from the torture tray, and moved carefully towards Godey. As soon as he was close enough he swung. The hammer struck the skeleton's head and caved through his jaw. With half his face missing, Godey looked at Astarion and said "I hope that was worth it. It'll take bleeding ages before the master gets around to fixing my face."

He moved his arm, and raised a wet cloth towards Astarion's face. Astarion flinched back, but too late. The potion of sleep struck his skin and he felt his consciousness begin to slip away.

"You thought you'd got one over on me, you little rat," Godey said, as the world dimmed. "But I knew you were being too quiet! It was obvious you were up to something."

I failed, Astarion thought, and then it all went dark.

Astarion dreamed.

He knew immediately where he was, who he was. Lord Astarion, sitting on a balcony in the afternoon sunlight, eating grapes and looking out over the broad streets and gleaming cobbles of the upper city. He could hear the noise of the city, distantly, but only as a peaceful and distant hum. Here he was in his own private oasis, with nothing to do but enjoy himself, and he was furious.

Lord Astarion rose and left the balcony, stalking back through the palace, down stairs and along corridors until he got to the basem*nt. Astarion realised with a lurch of horror what his destination must be. Indeed, he stopped outside the hidden door that led to the torture chamber. Don't open it, Astarion begged soundlessly, knowing that he could not change anything and could not be heard. Naturally, the words had no effect. Lord Astarion opened the door and stepped inside.

The room had been renovated. The floor was carpeted now, thick and plush. There was a comfortable bed, and a chair. But the walls were still bare rock, and there were no windows, and short of razing the entire palace to the ground there was simply no way to remove the soundless screaming echoes from those heavy, damp stones. They had heard too much misery, and they would ring with it until they were ground to sand.

Tav was sitting in the chair. She was not reading. She was not doing anything. She could have been a wax figure, she was so still and lifeless. She did not look at Lord Astarion as he came in, and that made the vampire lord's blood boil even hotter.

"Tav," he said. Tav turned her eyes to him. They were not hateful. They were perhaps mildly curious, but mostly they were empty. "Have you reflected on your actions?"

"At length," she said.

"And? Will you apologise? That's all I want."

"No," Tav said. "I cannot. I vowed to you once that I would never lie to you, and I am not sorry."

"You betrayed me! Warned that Selûnite preceptor of what I was planning. Were you hoping she would swoop in and rescue you? Be your knight in shining armour?"

"No. I told her nothing about myself. I will not leave you. But I could not let you kill the Selûnites. I am not sorry I stopped their massacre."

"We had a deal with Shadowheart. We'll be lucky if she ever talks to us again now."

"Whatever we stood to gain, it wasn't worth it."

Astarion, tucked at the back of his other self's head, understood that this was not the first time they had had a conversation like this. How long had Tav been trapped in here? No doubt Lord Astarion considered it barely a punishment. After all, it was so much gentler on the surface than what Cazador had put him through. But Astarion saw Tav sitting like a lifeless doll, and hated himself, hated this alternate reality, hated all of it. He fought, viciously, to take control of the body again, but he could not find purchase.

Lord Astarion grabbed Tav's chin and kissed her, a savage, biting kiss. He was still furious. "You won't leave me, but you won't give yourself to me, not completely."

Tav did not push him away. "Whatever you want, you can have," she said. "I am yours."

"You think I'm talking about your body?" He gripped her chin even tighter, glaring into her eyes. "But if you want to be my whor*, who am I to refuse you? Show me what you can do."

Tav made to move, and her hand shook. It was more than just long immobility. She winced slightly, then tried again, with equal failure.

"Ah," he said. "You haven't eaten recently. I suppose you can take a little of my blood, then." Inside him, Astarion's revulsion was briefly overtaken by surprise. Was this some fragment of kindness? But as Lord Astarion lowered himself into her lap and tilted his neck for her to bite into, Astarion saw the trap of it. It was a further cruelty, deliberately withholding permission for her freedom even as she drank the blood that could grant it to her.

Astarion felt like he was hammering on a wall of ice inside his own head, trying to change something, anything. He did not want this to continue. He did not want to see the inevitable ending of this moment. If only he could intervene. If only he could do something, anything. Then he felt a sharp jerk, like catching the back of your shirt on a branch, and without warning Astarion was pulled out of the dream and back into reality.

He was being carried through the halls, down to the hidden ritual chamber. His hands and legs were bound with thick rope, though it wasn't as if he had any kind of weapon to cut himself free anyway.

"Faster," one of the men carrying him said to the other. "Lord Szarr is already furious."

"I'm going as fast as I can." the other said. "He's not exactly light."

Astarion thought that was a needlessly rude remark, but he couldn't reply, given the wad of fabric stuffed into his mouth. He found that he had moved past panic into some strange numb lacuna of the soul. He was probably going to die. The world would end. He wondered if he would have to repeat it all again. If he did, he'd just kill himself. As many times as necessary, until Eilistraee got the message. He could not do this journey a third time. The thought was so unbearable his mind actively rejected it.

Fine then. Let this be the end of him. The world would go on without him, another universe as bad as the one he'd seen with Lord Astarion. So be it. Farewell to life, even the pale imitation of it he occupied. The thing Tav had said to Durge when she got back from hell ran through his mind. The world is vast and beautiful, and it is good to have flesh and be a part of it. The only prayer anyone had invented worth saying. He thought of all the things he liked. The feel of silk and velvet against his skin. Good wine, drunk outside on a terrace on a summer's night, so warm that he could almost remember the sun. The sun itself, seen all too briefly on his tadpole journeys, rising clear and pale from the mountains in the mornings, setting orange and gold over the Chionthar in the evenings. Tav. All of her, good and bad, difficult and gentle and stubborn and kind. Tav talking to him, kissing him, Tav inside him and him inside her. Tav sitting with him by campfires in the mornings before bed, talking about this and that. Tav eager to show him anything he wanted, anything he was curious about, eager to fill in the void of experiences that had been denied to him. He thought of his brothers and sisters, who he hated and cared about in spite of himself and at last, eventually, would begin to truly know. He wanted more time with them. He wanted to watch them live and grow old. He thought of Halsin, his eventual friend and sometime lover, building walls in Rethwin, making soup, talking to Leon about the children. His other friends, all of them. Every night they'd had around the campfire, every story, every game, every stupid joke. Playing cards with Shadowheart, listening to excellent poetry with Gale in the Dancing Haven. It wasn't so bad, he thought. We didn't do so bad, in the end. That was the thing about life. There were the horrors, but there were also the good days. He'd known vastly more horrors than good days, but now, at least, he thought the good days had more weight to them.

His bearers dropped him unceremoniously in front of Cazador, who sneered at him and started talking, monologuing about his power and Astarion's weakness and failure. Astarion didn't listen. He thought about the brief period of mortality he'd enjoyed instead, and about which foods he'd liked. He thought about all the things he still wanted to try, like scallops and kebabs and those pretty-looking pastries from Gale's favourite bakery in Waterdeep. He thought about the operas he had seen, and which one he'd choose to see again if he could request a final performance. He thought about his favourite books, about breaking into the public library in Baldur’s Gate at night. He filled his mind with every pleasurable and sensual experience he’d ever had.

Cazador lifted his staff and magicked Astarion into position for the ritual, stripping away the gag and bindings as he did. Astarion felt the scars on his back come alive with malice and agony. This was it. The end was nigh, and he wasn't ready at all. He wanted to live. He wanted to live. He wanted to defeat the Netherbrain and save his siblings and find a cure. He wanted to sit on a hillside not that far from Rethwin, a year from now, and watch the sun rise with working lungs and a beating heart. If there was any one memory to hold onto, surely it was that one. Leon on one side, Tav on the other, and colour creeping slowly into the world, the dull grey of dawn giving way to brilliance, to beauty, to life.

And then the strangest thing happened. The sunrise he was dreaming of appeared, right in the middle of the ritual chamber. A beautiful orb of daylight, just as glorious as he remembered it.

Cazador screamed, and Astarion jerked back into reality. Tav was standing at the foot of the steps, her hand still raised in the casting gesture. His friends were behind her. All his friends. She hadn't brought a group. She'd brought everyone, ready and armed for battle.

Gale blinked across the room and ripped him from the ritual restraints. "Hullo old chum," he said. "Sorry it took us so long. Finding the secret basem*nt took a hell of a lot more work than we were expecting." He was trying to joke, but he looked at Astarion with such naked relief and happiness that it was almost embarrassing, except Astarion had already felt too many emotions today, and had no room left for anything so prosaic as embarrassment.

"You got here before the final toll of the bell," Astarion said, his voice hoarse but workable. "So no demerits for you."

"That is a relief," Gale said. "I'd hate to ruin my perfect record."

Tav and Shadowheart had Cazador pinned down, and Tav had just stabbed him with a sword that gushed radiant energy. Her aura was alive around her and it was huge, streaming away from her in vast and ragged wings. The fury on her face was so dreadful that Astarion was surprised looking at it hadn't been enough to cause Cazador to die from pure terror.

Jaheira cut through a ghoul and ran over to them. "Your armour and weapons," she said. "We found them upstairs."

Astarion put them on as Jaheira called lightning down on the bats that had appeared around them. He felt better once he was clad again, more ready to deal with the world. He drew his dagger, looking for a target, and found precious little to stab. Nine seasoned adventurers made mincemeat of anything, it turned out.

Shadowheart hit Cazador with the Blood of Lathander, and Tav swung her sword down again. As the blade connected with Cazador's chest he dissolved into mist, fleeing back to the illusory safety of his coffin. Astarion limped over to it, his steps getting steadier as the pins and needles induced by torture and magical suspension ebbed away.

"I didn't think about it the first time," Astarion said as he dragged the heavy stone lid back, "but really, Cazador, what did you think this was going to do? Did you think we'd act like small children playing peekaboo? Oh no, Cazador disappeared, guess he's gone forever." He yanked his former master out of the coffin and tossed him on the ground.

"It's easy to be brave with all these heroes around you," Cazador said. He was trying for sneering, but the fear in his voice made it come out warbled and weak. "They'll turn on you soon enough, you know. Or do you really think they'll tolerate an evil little whelp like you forever?"

Astarion ignored him. He picked up the ritual dagger, and hefted it in his hand. And just for a moment, he let himself think about Ascension. He could do it. Durge would help. He wasn't coerced by Raphael now. If he made the choice, it would be all his own doing. And that was the thing about choice. He'd lived for two hundred years in a world where yes and no had no meaning, and he knew deeply, better than anyone, what that felt like. It was only worth saying no if he could say yes. So he felt the weight of the choice, let himself picture it clearly. And then he brought the knife down, and Cazador died by his hand for the second time.

Maybe there were some benefits to returning.

When the tide of fury and grief ebbed, Tav was at his side. "Your hands." Her voice was bitter and her magic was sweet as she laid hands on him. "Astarion," she said, quiet, strained, "oh Astarion, I am sorry."

"I didn't think you'd get to me in time," Astarion said to her, leaning into her touch nakedly, too tired to hide his want. "After the way we left things, I thought you'd assume I was just off sulking somewhere. It was very stupid of me. I was too angry to have healthy paranoia."

"Don't blame yourself," Tav said. "It's my fault. If I hadn't provoked you, none of this would have happened."

"Stop that," Astarion said. The healing spell had been cast, but neither of them moved. It was not quite an embrace, and yet too close and too intimate to be called anything else. "Tav, you can't be a martyr about everything. I'm just glad you came."

"I think we need to talk," Tav said. "Tomorrow, when you've rested." She gripped him a little tighter, and her breath fell softly on his curls as she exhaled. "I don't want to let you out of my sight, but Gale and Wyll can see you home, and Karlach, Lae'zel and I will stay here and work out the logistics with your siblings."

"I should talk to them first," Astarion said. "At least briefly." Reluctantly, inch by inch, he pulled away from her, and then stood up.

His siblings had gathered in the centre of the room, by Cazador's corpse, and were looking around nervously. Aurelia and Leon seemed particularly jittery, perhaps worried that Astarion was going to hold his kidnapping against them.

"Astarion..." Leon began, his voice and hands shaking.

"Don't worry," Astarion said. "No hard feelings. About any of it. Cazador is dead, and we should be celebrating, not arguing. But honestly, we don't even really have time for that. There's a lot to do."

"What do you mean?" Dalyria said.

"We've got to get the people in the cells out of Baldur's Gate. The last thing we need is a spawn rampage. There's an Elder Brain under the city that's going to turn half the population into illithids in a few days if we don't stop it, and that's going to be bad enough without people mysteriously being drained of all their blood, believe me."

His siblings stared at him. "It's true," Tav said at his shoulder. "The best and safest thing you can do is get as far away from the city as possible. Follow the sewers down into the Underdark, and make your way east until you reach Grymforge. There's an area there with an old village you can rebuild. And you'll find allies, too. A Myconid colony who will help you, and the Society of Brilliance stationed in the Forge. I have an introductory letter that you can give them. One of the members we helped out recently signed it, so it should get you started on talks."

"Sorry," Yousen put in. "Who are you?"

"I am Tav, paladin of Eilistraee and Astarion's travelling companion." She bowed to them, one gauntleted fist pressed against her heart. "I can tell you more as we work. I'll stay here until you're all ready to go."

"Wait, one more thing," Astarion said. "Leon, Victoria is in one of the rooms upstairs."

"Actually," Tav said, "she's just outside. We found her hiding in a cupboard and thought her safer with us."

"She's alive?" Leon and Astarion said at the same time. They looked at each other, and then Astarion looked at Dal. She flinched slightly.

"You changed your mind?" Astarion said. It was inexcusably risky, but he had to know. This close to the end, with Raphael dead, could it really matter?

Dal looked deeply uncomfortable, but she shrugged. "When we met you in Fraygo's Flophouse there was something... I don't know. I thought it was worth gambling on."

Astarion was genuinely moved. "I'll make that bet worth it," he promised.

Leon hadn't stayed to listen. He was moving, already at the door, and then Victoria was in his arms. Astarion saw Karlach wipe her hand across her eyes, and thought he might have seen Jaheira attempt a subtler version of the same maneuver.

"Who are you?" Violet said. "You look like Astarion, but you don't act like him. Are we all going to change this much, now that we're free?"

Astarion couldn't help smiling, a little wryly. "Yes," he said. "But I can't explain it, not yet. When I see you again, in the Underdark, I'll tell you more."

He looked down at Cazador. "He needs to be burned," he said. "But first I want to take some blood."

Tav nodded. "I was thinking about that too," she said. She fished a bottle out of her pocket, and scooped as much of Cazador's blood and heart muscle into it as she could. Astarion was a little disappointed when she handed it to him. She’d kept it, last time, because she’d known she would be going with him.

Dalyria made a face. "What on earth are you planning to do with that?" she asked.

"I’ll leave Astarion to tell you about that,” Tav said. “When he sees you next. It might be unwise to say too much before there’s more certainty. False hope is a dangerous thing.” She looked at Astarion. "You should go. Your siblings are well, and will be well, and you need to rest."

Astarion did not have it in him to argue. He left Tav with his siblings, and went out into the hallway. The Gur were there, standing in a knot around Ulma and Gandrel. They parted for Astarion, though he almost wished they wouldn't. He remembered suddenly that he was still angry at Gandrel, but there wasn't even really space for that emotion. Maybe he'd feel it again tomorrow. Right now, simply standing upright was occupying most of his brain power. As he stared at the Gur who had betrayed him, he slowly realised something was different about the man. It took Astarion a long moment to find the change, and when he did he felt even more tired. Gandrel was no longer alive. He had been made a spawn too, a reward that Cazador probably thought was some kind of poetic irony instead of just cruelty.

Gandrel looked both relieved and miserable to see Astarion. His children, also spawn, were clinging tightly to his legs. Ulma looked up too, her face sour. “Well this is a right mess,” she said. “And what we’re to do about it, I have no idea.”

“Talk to Tav,” Astarion said shortly. “She’s got it under control.”

Ulma looked at him thoughtfully, then nudged Gandrel. “Go on,” she said.

Gandrel nodded. “I have no right to apologise to you, Astarion. I do not expect forgiveness. I can only tell you that I regret everything.”

Astarion thought about that. He did feel resentful. That was easy, and it might not ever go away. There was also a more complicated feeling. He could not help thinking about the two timelines, about what he had chosen to change and not to change. Gandrel had not been alive to help capture him last time. Was Gandrel siding against him a consequence of that one choice? Or could Astarion have made other choices that would have changed things further? He had no idea, but the uncertainly leeched the sting out of his anger. What he actually put into words was the simplest version of all that. “In another time and place, I killed you,” Astarion said, “without much justification. This time, you almost killed me. But we’re both still up and moving around, so let’s call it even. I’m too exhausted for more enemies.”

Gandrel looked shocked and confused. “In another time and place?” he echoed, then shook his head. “No matter. Astarion, my children and I are here and together because of you. Nothing will ever outweigh that. And if you ever need me, you can always call on me.”

Ulma nodded severely, but with approval. “We’ll go and talk to Tav,” she said. “Learn what the plan is. And when we meet again, it will be as allies.”

One piece of the future, slotting into place. It was worth letting go of the betrayal for that, Astarion thought. This time, when the curse of undeath was broken and they watched the sun rise together, Gandrel would be there too.

Wyll and Gale took him home. The last thing he heard, before they left, was Lae'zel saying to Karlach and Tav, "Five prisoners to each cell. They should elect a corporal each, the person they trust most to lead them. From there we can designate higher ranks. It will be arbitrary, but..."

Astarion closed his eyes, and didn't open them until the lift had taken them back to the surface.

Chapter 12: To heal his soul of his soul's strife

Chapter Text

Astarion slept well, which he hadn't expected to. He couldn't quite say whether it had been trance or true sleep, but whatever it was, it had pulled him under like the swiftest river current, and neither memory nor dream had disturbed him.

When he woke up it was early afternoon. Tav was sitting at his side, holding his hand in hers, the faintest trace of healing magic still seeping into his skin. His nails had mostly regrown. Tav's face was pale and grey, a sure sign that she hadn't slept last night, and her eyes were distant. She hadn't noticed that he was awake. He lay there for a little while, just looking at her. Her blunt nose, the scar that cut across it and gave it a little quirk. Her thick, straight brows, her firm mouth. Her eyes, made mercury by sunlight. She was deep in thought. Her hands squeezed his and she sighed. She bent her head a little and he felt the slightest jerk, as though she were about to lift the hand she was holding. Then she relaxed her grip and her mouth twitched into a grimace.

Astarion still had knots in his heart. Meeting Cazador, his brush with death, even they had not been quite enough. He still needed something more. And yet as he looked at Tav now he loved her so desperately that it almost smoothed everything over.

Tav's eyes turned, and when she realised he was awake, she jerked back, her cheeks darkening and her ears drooping. "Astarion," she said, "have you been awake long? I mean, how are you feeling?" Her voice was hoarse from the lack of sleep and surfeit of talking.

"I've felt worse," Astarion said, and knew he didn't sound much better. "My torture sessions didn't usually have such a kind aftermath."

"I can leave, if you need space to yourself," Tav said. "I know I said we needed to talk, but I didn't mean to crowd you." She made to let go of his hand, and Astarion clung on, keeping her with him.

"Tell me what happened," he said.

"Of course," Tav said. He saw the subtle shift on her face as she shifted into a different mode, ready to report on a mission. "After our fight, I went into the room and found the remnants of Orin's visit. Durge told me that she'd promised not to harm Halsin unless we sought her out before we killed Gortash. I asked Durge if they thought she would abide by the promise, and they said that as long as we didn’t do anything obviously transgressive, she probably would."

"That's what I remember," Astarion said cautiously.

Tav nodded. "That was part of what convinced me. If Halsin had been in real danger, I don't think our fight would have ended the same way. You care too much about everyone for that. So I thought it was probably safe. But I still needed to run over our defences, and check anything Orin might have touched. That took a few hours. By the time I was done, it had been long enough that your absence had become troubling."

"I was worried you'd assume I was staying away to spite you, and not look for me until it was too late."

"I considered that," Tav said. "But it didn't feel right." She looked at him, and he felt that old unnerving feeling of having her gaze slip right through him like water, sliding past all his defences. "Forgive me if this is wrong, but it seemed to me like you were in the middle of making a point, which was not complete without your return."

It was such a precisely accurate reading that it was almost exasperating. But it also reminded Astarion very firmly of the Tav he loved."No," he said, "that's correct."

"So when you weren't back by the end of my watch, I got worried. And then I thought it would be easier to just do something about it than fret, so I went out to look for you." She made a wry twist with her mouth. "Eilistraee alone knows what I would have done if I'd found you and you were fine. Been very awkward about it, I suppose."

"It might have been more effective than you'd imagine," It was true, because he could feel it even now, the warmth that knowing she had made an active effort to find him filled his heart with. "But it doesn't matter. I'd already been taken at that point." He cleared his throat. "How did you find me?"

"I started by checking bars, and luckily you're memorable enough that the bartender in the Blushing Mermaid recognised my description, and knew who you'd left with. The woman you’d bitten had gone home, but she was a regular, so I asked around until I met someone who knew where she lived. Then I went there, woke her up, and used the voice to get everything I could out of her. It was enough to be sure."

"I would be dead if you hadn't followed that hunch," Astarion said.

"That was on my mind," Tav said. "If I was wrong, I'd look a fool, but if I was right and I did nothing, you'd be dead. And like that, it wasn't a choice at all." She looked away. "Sorry," she said, which could have meant anything or nothing.

"Tav," he said, "would you give me a day? I know you said we need to talk, and we do, but... I think I'd like to just do something normal for a few hours. With you, I mean." He was stumbling over his words slightly, which he only did when he was very nervous. But Tav looked back at him, and her eyes were very soft and sweet.

"Of course," she said. "Anything you like. The others have gone off to face the House of Grief. They won't miss us."

"You didn't feel the need to go with them?"

"I gave them some good general advice, but I'm sure they have it well in hand. I am not so essential as all that."

Astarion had a bath, which was very welcome indeed, and then put on something that wasn't armour, another pleasant change. Tav was in her usual simple shirt and breeches. He wished he could fuss over her a little, but for now there were still limits.

"Did you have anything in mind that you wanted to do?" Tav asked.

"How about a picnic?" Astarion said. "I'd like to make the most of the sunlight, while I still can."

The picnic was a deliberate choice on Astarion's part. This was where they'd come after their fight about going to hell on the first journey. Astarion found himself humming The Death of Jorindel as they got close to the spot. Tav glanced at him, but did not ask any questions. They laid their blanket on the grass, and sat down, and Astarion poured them both wine. It wasn't a bad vintage, certainly better than most of the plonk they'd had on the road.

"We should go back and loot Cazador's wine cellar," he said. "There are some bottles in there I've been wanting to taste for years."

"I wonder if we could prove that you own it," Tav said. "While we were searching for a way down to you, I found some documents. It seems like Cazador had all the actual Szarrs killed. You might be as close a thing as there is to his legitimate heir."

Astarion shuddered. "What a horrible thought. But..." he considered the possibility. "I don't want to live there. The money might be useful, though. And it would be fun to have it all torn down."

"We can talk to Duke Ravengard," Tav said. "He'll know how to straighten out the legal side of things."

Astarion heard her hesitate slightly on the word we. There were obvious reasons why she might flinch from describing them as a singular unit, some of them considerate of his feelings, some of them not. He didn't want to know what the truth was. Not yet.

"How did it go last night, with my siblings?" he asked.

"Oh, very well, all things considered," Tav said. "I mean, it was shocking for all of them, and hard. But after they'd had a chance to breathe a little, and settle, and we'd talked through the plan, they seemed a bit more confident. And Lae'zel and Karlach really did all the hard work. Lae'zel has all the teaching she was given, which given the length of gith civilisation means thousands of years of research, and Karlach was able to supplement it with her practical experience. They got everyone from the prison organised into squads, and I was able to take your siblings aside and tell them everything I could think of about the Underdark."

Astarion remembered how many spawn had died or vanished on the way to Lakehaven (as it one day would be). One in every seven. This time, with Tav, Karlach and Lae'zel stepping in, that number might be less. "Thank you for doing all that," he said.

"I would have done it no matter what," Tav said. "It needed to be done. It was my duty. But... if doing it pleases you, then I am doubly happy."

Gods, this was impossible. He should just kiss her. "I don't think we can keep putting off this conversation," Astarion said miserably. "Even though there's literally nothing I would rather do."

Tav laughed, as strangled and choked as a sob. "Yes," she said. "I feel the same. I am so afraid."

"If we're both afraid, maybe it won't be so bad," Astarion said. "You said something like that to me, back in the Shadowlands."

"Did I? In another time, in another place." She closed her eyes and breathed. In and out. In and out. "The thing is," she said, "I still love you. I warned you once, didn't I? That I could imagine loving you forever. And you told me that I was always single-hearted."

The way Tav said it, nervous and half-apologetic, Astarion knew she didn't mean it as a solution. Which was good and bad all at once.

"I still love you too," Astarion said, a little miserably.

"When I realised you were gone," Tav said, "that you hadn't come back and might not be coming back... It certainly ranks among the worst days of my life. So I told myself that if I wasn't too late I would be honest."

"When I thought I was going to die," Astarion offered in return, "I couldn't find any reason not to love you. But then I didn't die, and it turns out that all my feelings are still… still festering inside me. I wish I could let them go, but I don't know."

"Festering," Tav said thoughtfully. "That's a good description."

Astarion waited for Tav to say something else, but she was looking at the falling water of the fountains, her eyes distant. Astarion turned his head and stared at the shapes the leaves of the trees made. Halsin or Jaheira would no doubt tell him there was wisdom to be found there, but if there was he couldn't see it. Minutes trickled by. Was this it? Was this as far as they could get? The shape of the problem was spoken, but in the choking silence between them, it became obvious that merely naming it was not enough. Just as Astarion was reaching the final limit of his patience, he heard something from Tav. She was humming, a tune that he recognised at once.

"The willows weep forever, by the banks of the Eldevay, and Jorindel's bones lie bound in weeds, and only his name remains." She sighed. "I had a dream about that song. We were sitting here, and I sang it to you."

"Yes," Astarion said.

"The feeling was all different," Tav continued. "I... I wasn't afraid at all, in that dream."

Astarion opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. "You might have felt more of what she did if you hadn't been to hell," he said. Tav flinched. He realised that she had taken it as criticism. Maybe he had said it like that. He wasn't sure. He reached out and caught her sleeve. "I didn't mean... Tav, don't pull away. Please. I'd rather you got angry at me."

Tav turned her fingers and took his hand in hers. She drew in a breath and let it out slowly. And another. Time, ever flexible and mischevious, slowed to a crawl. A butterfly, its wings the pale cream of good paper, landed on Astarion's knuckle. Tav looked down at it. Astarion did not have much faith in divine intervention, but anyone could make a metaphor out of such beautiful fragility. The insect waved its antennae thoughtfully, as if wondering where the smell of rosemary was coming from, and then launched itself back into the air and away.

"Astarion," Tav said, and his name from her mouth in that moment was sweeter than the ringing of a thousand bells, "would you trust me? I have an idea..." She lifted her eyes to his. Astarion tried to make his expression 'mildly interested' rather than 'hungry and extremely desperate', but didn't have much hope that he succeeded. Whatever he looked like, Tav seemed to take heart from it. "Let's go somewhere else, and I'll explain, and you can see what you think."

Tav took him to an inn. Not the Elfsong, but another one. He didn't pay enough attention to remember the name. She rented them a small private room, took the key and led him upstairs. It was not as nice as the Elfsong. It didn't matter. When Tav closed the door behind her, she was the only thing in the whole world that mattered.

"When I left Menzoberranzan, a woman called Arcaeth died," she said. "And for a hundred and twenty-five years, I thought she was dead and buried. In hell, Raphael tried to bring her back to life. He didn't get all the way, but... It's like he dug up her corpse. And she's here in my chest, rotting. Festering, as you put it. And I feel like all of me is infected with her, like I am rotting too. Like I will poison anything I come in contact with." Tav took a breath. "I need an exorcism, to abuse the metaphor." Another breath. "And, tell me if I'm wrong, but I think you might be feeling something similar."

"You're not wrong," Astarion said. "A rotting corpse is a good way of putting it." Though for him, it wasn't just one. There was the the future he had once had, and Lord Astarion from his dreams, and perhaps even Cazador himself, dead twice over. He was a charnel house of possibility.

"I think the only way for us to get past this is to lance the wound. Drain the pus. I need to see the worst in you, and you need to see the worst in me," Tav said. "We need to know that we can bear it." Her hands were shaking. Astarion would not have been able to endure it if she were unafraid, but seeing her terror made him braver. "But this is risky. And if you say no, I would not think any less of you for it."

She swung the picnic basket off her shoulder, and drew something out from the depths. A coil of rope. It was not the silken rope usually used for pleasure-binding. It was rough, fast-woven hemp. He looked at it, and then looked at her face. This close, the difference in their heights was most obvious. He had to tilt his head back to see her. The dim lighting in the room filled her eyes with shadows, bleeding the grey to a dull iron like a soot-blacked blade.

"Sex?" he said, his voice amused and a little incredulous. It was not a suggestion he had really expected from Tav. "I haven't known that to solve many problems."

"It doesn't solve any," Tav agreed. "But it can be revealing. Light is a disinfectant. I think I want to show you something that I can't find words for. A part of me that only exists in reds and blacks. It's this or fight to the death, and one is slightly safer than the other." She laughed at her own joke, and Astarion couldn't help smiling at her. She smiled back, not a perfect smile at all. Sad and frustrated and deeply complicated. Vastly better than perfect. "It wouldn't be an answer, but if we could bear it, it might be the start of an honest conversation."

Astarion felt it then. The way that all his emotions could become, in the furnace of his heart, alloyed with desire. It would make something terrible. He was immediately afraid of it. And yet he wanted it so badly, too. It was maybe all he had ever wanted from love. To have someone who could see the very worst of him and still love him. Someone who would look at all that and say 'yes, I will be his'. That person had been Tav, once. Astarion had become, by necessity, a master of other people's desires. He had learned over and over again to keep his own on a tight leash. That beast had been straining against his control since Avernus, and here Tav was, asking him to let it free. There was only so much restraint in any mortal body.

"You can say no," Tav said, when he did not answer her. "Maybe this is already crossing a line. I'm not sure. I think I'm right, but..."

"If I do this," Astarion said, feeling like his voice was coming from a great distance, "I don't know if I'll be able to stop."

"You would," Tav said. "If I really needed you to. I'm sure of it. If I said 'Astarion stop', you would. But I won't need to. I also believe that."

Astarion looked down at the rope in her hands. The past and the future vanished. There was only the now, and the black hound of the things he wanted baying for blood. It was such a relief to stop hiding it, to stop trying to be good or kind or sensible or wise. He broke the chain, snapped the leash, became the beast.

"Yes," he said. "The worst of me. The worst of you." He caught her mouth and kissed her, and she groaned and trembled with pleasure. He was little better. Just that one touch had him weak-kneed. "Strip," he said.

Tav obeyed. She removed her clothes without ceremony, and yet watching them come off felt like watching her peel off her own skin. There was something so raw underneath, a nakedness deeper than the body. He bound her without kindness, letting the harsh rope bite into her skin, knowing that she would be bloody by the time it came off.

"I'm going to f*ck you over and over," he said, "until you're raw. Until you're nothing more than meat. Until you don't remember your own name. Is that what you want?"

"Yes," she said. "Yes."

"Kneel," he said. "Suck me off until I tell you to stop."

She obeyed at once, stumbling slightly as she knelt, her arms unable to balance her. He wrapped his hands in her hair and thrust into her mouth. It was all in him, the possessiveness, the cruelty, the need for control, the desire to lash out and do to others what had been done to him. And he could see what she was doing, too, being utterly passive, bowing to an outside will without question, giving in to the desire to subsume herself in an order and obey it unthinkingly. The worst person he could be and the worst person she could be, made one.

He lifted her chin up before he came. "Not like that," he said. He slid two fingers between her legs, inside her. "This is the only place my seed goes. Until you're full of it. Until you're irrevocably marked as mine."

He pushed her back onto the bed and began f*cking her, with no concern for her pleasure, only for his. That that increased her pleasure was obvious, but he ignored it. She writhed under him, hips bucking, until he spent himself in her. He did not pull out when he was done but stayed where he was. Tav had not quite come, and she was wriggling and whimpering. It was very arousing, and soon enough, he was hard again. As he began moving for the second time, he saw her hips buck and her teeth sink into her lower lip.

"No," he said, catching her chin. "Not until I give you permission. You haven't earned that yet." Tav groaned, but obeyed him, forcing her breath to slow, clenching her hands into tight fists and digging her nails into her palms to hold the climax back.

Astarion came a second time. He was about to pull out when he remembered something Tav had said in hell. "Tav," he said, "heal me. Do a good enough job, and I might let you come once." Those words were an echo of dark parts of his memory. In any other context, they might have become panic, or displacement from himself. But here and now they only anchored him more deeply in this moment, in this ruthless revelation of the version of himself he feared most. And he saw in Tav's eyes some response. Those words meant something to her too, though he was not sure what.

"As you wish," Tav said. She could not move her hands enough to touch him. They were pinned at her sides. He touched his forehead to hers, and felt her power course through him. And sure enough, his co*ck stirred again, insatiable for her. He moved his hand down and brushed it against her cl*t, and she came at once, letting out a loud groan, all her muscles locking. It was such a gorgeous sight that Astarion had to use all his discipline not to come with her. But he wanted this to last. He f*cked her slowly, that third time, holding himself back from the edge over and over again.

In his first life, sex with Tav had often felt like a gift of sweetness, like a restoration, like a balm. Sometimes, it had even felt holy, as holy as Astarion thought anything in the world could be. There were moments when he had been so enveloped by love, when he was moving in her or she was moving in him, that it seemed like every bit of darkness he had ever had cut into his heart was gone. This was the opposite of that. All the ugly feelings he had been feeling were oozing out of him. In the sweat on their bodies, in the blood leaking from the raw, rope-rubbed spots on Tav's body, in the sem*n that was weeping from her vagin* and glistening her pale curls and dark thighs there was poison. And it felt so terribly, dangerously good to let it out. This was him too, as much as he hated it.

Astarion let himself come at last, a deep, shuddering release that seemed to take everything he had in him, and pulled out. Tav moaned a little.

"What?" he said. "Do you want more? Do you want my fingers?" Tav nodded. "Would you take another man's co*ck, if I found one for you? Would you f*ck any man I brought in off the street for you?"

"Is that what you want?" she said. "Is that what you demand of me?"

"And if it is? You'd jump to obey. Don't tell me you wouldn't. You're desperate for an order. Begging to give up your will to some greater force." He slid his fingers into her and worked her cl*t with his thumb as he spoke.

Tav groaned, and arched her hips into his hand, but after she came and her muscles had relaxed she spoke. And it was more than words, it was the paladin's voice. It was Truth itself. "No. I will not obey your every order. That is not what I want."

"What makes you think you get to say no to me?" Astarion said. "You're mine. I can do as I like with you."

"I'm with you," Tav said, and there was still Truth in her voice, "because I want to be. Not because you have a claim on me." She bit her lip, and another org*sm took her, but when she opened her eyes they were clearer than he'd seen in a long time. As bright as they had been before hell.

Astarion was not there yet. He had not reached the very depths of his anger, his possessiveness. Cazador had had two hundred years to ingrain patterns of cruelty into him. He stroked his dick back to hardness, Tav watching him hungrily, and slid into her again. He could see the strain and exhaustion on Tav's face. Her strength was immense, but not limitless, and she had not tranced or slept in thirty-six hours at least. Maybe more. But she did not protest. The embers of her shining soul, which had been burnt almost to ashes, were flaring into new life.

"I love you," she said, "but you cannot have all of me." She moaned with genuine pleasure as he hit a particularly sweet spot. "I have my own limits, and I will not cross them even for you. I am not just a thing that obeys."

"I could change that," he said. "I could make you crave me so deeply that you would do anything I asked. I could make you beg for me to use you, to humiliate you, just so you could have a little more of me."

"Will you do it?" Tav asked, her eyes looking right into his. He thrust into her over and over, but org*sm remained elusive. "Will you break me to make me truly yours? Do you want me placid and meek and biddable and destroyed?"

There it was. As he had stripped back the worst of her and laid bare her core of untarnishable steel, now she turned it back on him. Astarion looked inwards, and saw past the thicket of brambles that enclosed him, and found his own truth, soft as down, timid as a newborn chick.

"No," he said, the words terrible and desperate. He could not use the voice as she could, on command, but since they had met he had found that sometimes it would emerge from him. He heard himself say it, heard himself make it True. "I want you equal to me. I want you free, and with me because I am worth being with. I want you to meet me and match me, so that I know I am equal to you."

There were tears in Tav's eyes. Astarion wondered if they had fallen from his lashes. An emotion far too huge to have any name flattened his heart like a hurricane. "Yes," Tav said. "Yes. I want that. I want you. I want whatever it takes us to get there."

Astarion groaned, and came one last time. He was utterly spent, but he pushed himself up onto his arms and found the dagger in his boot. Carefully, he cut the ropes off Tav's body. She was a mess underneath.

"Tav," he said, "you poor thing. Look what these ropes did to you."

"Oh, don't worry," Tav said. "I've never felt better in my life." She laughed, a whisper of a laugh, but a true one.

"We'll see about that." He got up and fetched a healing potion. Each bloody line the rope had left he anointed with it, ritual and restoration. "You did so well, Tav. You were so brave, and so beautiful." When the skin was soft and new again he remarked it with kisses, lapping up any stray drops of blood. And then he fit himself to her so that as much of their bodies was touching as was possible. For a while, they just lay there like that.

"Raphael ordered me to come and eat with him in the evenings," Tav said, after a long time. She spoke slowly but steadily, and though her voice was low and melodious, it reminded Astarion of nothing more than the sound of the ice in Grey Harbour cracking when the spring thaw came. "And then over food he would ask these awful, needling questions. I don't know how he knew so much about my past. I suppose it's not hard for devils to find out. He would bring everything back to my time in Menzoberranzan. And when I tried to change the topic he would remind me that I'd agreed to discuss becoming a devil with him."

Astarion didn't say anything. He was listening as intently as he could, to her voice and to the subtle noises and tensions of her body.

"At first it wasn't so hard to ignore him. But as the days went by, it began to eat at me. Hearing his reading of me, over and over again, I began to doubt myself. And even the promise I'd exacted, that my mental safety was guaranteed, haunted me. If that hadn't broken, did it mean that he was right? I kept up a facade of indifference, but it cost me more and more each night."

"You were more successful than you realised," Astarion told her. "He called you 'a very wearing guest', you know."

"Did he? Well, that is satisfying to hear. But... He was trying to undermine every choice I'd ever made. He made my holy vow into something base. From his mouth it wasn't about justice, or mercy, or compassion. How did he put it? 'You just wanted to be owned.'" Tav did a rather unnervingly good impression of Raphael's voice."And then he'd ask why I was in hell, and sneer at me for throwing myself into the fire for love. If you were a devil, you could have love without begging for it. In Menzoberranzan, Arcaeth made herself a servant of an older girl from a powerful drow house, for protection. She was the best of a bad lot, but still… Arcaeth did- I did things I will never atone for. And I thought when I became a paladin that I'd left it behind. Raphael made it seem like I never could, never would.

"The longer it went on, the worse it got, the more I felt like I needed to prove to myself that my judgement had been sound. That I'd made the choice to go to Avernus for the right reasons. And then you came to get me." Her throat made a long, anguished rattling sound, and her hands clenched tightly against his back. Against his scars. "And you were so angry with me, like I'd done something wrong. And we got back, and you were still angry. And I told myself that it shouldn't matter, that if I'd really done the right thing it would be enough that I knew it was right."

Astarion, who did not feel properly comfortable without at least three daily compliments, saw the flaw in that logic immediately. "Oh Tav," he said.

"I couldn't let myself go to you, or try to apologise, because if I did it felt like it would prove him right about everything. I was so trapped. You got my body out of hell, but I had built a hell in my own head, and that is always a worse prison."

"Oh Tav," Astarion said again. He knew exactly what she meant. He had been there too.

"Before you say anything else," Tav said, "tell me your side of the story. I want to hear what you were going through."

"Alright." He thought about it for a minute, wondering where to begin. "There's a version of the future," he said, "where you and I are happy."

"Can you tell me about this?" Tav asked. "I thought it was forbidden."

"Who cares? If doing this breaks the future, well it was going to break anyway, because I can't have it without you. It doesn't exist without you. It couldn't." Astarion hesitated again. He wanted to get the words right. He had finally seen in himself, for himself, the true seed of the anger he'd been carrying since Tav left, and he wanted to convey it properly. "It was all very different, the first time round, but we made something good. You trusted me, and I trusted you. We were a team. When you went with Raphael, I was furious at you. Furious because I was so afraid for you, and so afraid of losing you. It felt like you thought I would let you go easily, and that hurt, because it meant you didn't really know me at all."

Tav did not speak. She was very, very still, listening to him as intently as he had listened to her. "All that was the part I understood immediately. But there was something more, too. I didn't recognise it, but I was angry because it felt like you had made the decision for me, not with me. I don't want a relationship where you always throw yourself on the blade for me. That's not… It's patronising at best, and destructive at worst. I want us to be a team. I want to be someone you rely on."

"You shouldn't have come," Tav said with a deep sigh, rolling the words around her mouth. "What a fool I am."

"Yes," Astarion agreed. "That hurt. And then, to see you allied with Yurgir and Hope, when you had rejected me. I was so furious I couldn't bear it. You trusted everyone but me, when I should be the person closest to you."

"It is terrible to realise how much you can hurt someone you care about while caring for them. In caring for them."

"Mmmm," Astarion agreed. "It might have helped if I had more experience of navigating relationships. It's not exactly a skill I had space to develop."

"I'm not much better," Tav said. "Where do we go from here? If love isn't always enough, how do we fix this? How do we stop it from happening again?"

There was another silence as they both thought about it, but it didn't feel like an unpleasant void. It was comfortable, companionable. Hopeful. "I have a feeling the answer is something truly dreadful, like honesty," Astarion said drily. "So tell me honestly: what did you want from me? No sugarcoating the truth."

Tav gave this due thought. "What did I want? I wanted you to say thank you. I wanted you to say 'well done, Tav, you were very good and very brave'." She blushed as she said it. "It sounds ridiculous when I put it like that." Astarion didn't think so, but before he could reply, she turned the question back on him. "What did you want?"

Astarion's turn to think, though he did not have to think very hard. "I wanted you to be happy to see me. I wanted you to come and talk to me. I wanted you to be the one to reach out."

"I was so miserably sure you hated me," Tav said. "After what you sent me through the tadpole before I left, and how angry you were when we met again, I didn't think I had a hope of patching things up."

"Gods, that still hurts to hear," Astarion said. "Even now. Tav, I don't... I couldn't. I know you too well, and I've loved you too much. But I couldn't beg. I spent two hundred years begging for scraps. I can't bear to do it again."

"And you wanted me to know you," Tav said. "To be a future version of myself, who had made you a promise. A very important promise. What was that?"

The question was clearly half rhetorical, and Astarion was about to say that he didn't think he should tell her when she jolted as though startled. "Wait, was it that one? Are you the person I say that to?" She paused, and then deftly and gently rolled them over so that she could hold herself on her elbows and look at him. She reached out and brushed her thumb over his cheekbone. "Yes, of course you are. Of course it's you."

Astarion's heart did not beat. If it could have, it would have been hammering in his chest. As it was, his brain produced the correct co*cktail of chemicals, and then dumped them in his bloodstream with nowhere to go. Tav was looking at him, and the look was so sharp and clear and loving, and it was so close to the her from the future.

"If I'm going to do it," Tav said, "I should get up and get dressed. There's a proper function to these things."

Astarion grabbed her arm. "Don't. Stay with me. If it's right, the words alone will be enough."

Tav didn't say anything for what felt like minutes. When she did speak, she had reached inside herself and drawn out the paladin's voice. "Astarion, I love you, and I would give you what I have to give. I will go where you go. Your days will be my days, your road my road. What I good I do, I will do for the glory of your name as well as Eilistraee's. If I am ever forced to leave you, I promise to return. I will always come back to you, no matter how long it takes, unless I am prevented by some force so great I cannot fight it with sword or wits or holy power."

Astarion felt the tears welling up before she was halfway done, but by the time she was actually finished he was sobbing. He covered his face with his hands and wept, and Tav did not ask any questions. She lay down on her side and pulled him close to her, so that his tears made her skin cold and damp and slimy, and held him until he had let it all out.

When he was done and he felt capable of pulling back, he saw that Tav had been crying too.

"It's so strange," she said. "I'd had those words as a dream in my head for so long, and I never really thought I'd get to say them. And then you come along, already knowing them. Would I ever have got there, without that? Would I ever have been brave enough?"

"Of course you would," Astarion told her, nuzzling into her hand. "It would have taken a bit longer, that's all."

"That's good to know," Tav said, and then pushed herself up onto her elbow. "Hold a moment!” She poked gently at his chest. “That promise is not absolute! ‘Unless prevented by some force so great I cannot fight it.’ That didn't come into play?"

"We did fight Raphael," Astarion pointed out. "And we won. I'm going to say something, and I don't want you to misunderstand, because if you ever make a deal with another devil I'll kill you, but next time, have more faith. Faith in yourself, and faith in me. When you go, tell me you'll come back. And then do it."

"You lecture me about faith," Tav said, genuinely amused. "I have earned it." She took his hand and kissed the palm. "Very well. I will trust you. Beyond logic, beyond reason, beyond divine wisdom. Always."

"Tav?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you for saving me. Every time. Every time you remember and every time you don't."

Tav kissed him, and then broke it off to yawn. "I think I'm fading," she said. "I can only resist sleep for so long."

Suddenly, Astarion was terribly afraid. Twice, he thought that he had finally reached Tav, that he had made the connection with her that he needed. Twice, it had immediately broken. Would the same thing happen a third time?

Tav must have felt his panic. "What's wrong?" she said.

"I feel like something terrible is going to happen tomorrow," he admitted. She understood at once.

"I hope not," Tav said. "I have no intention of doing anything, anyway. But if it does," and she managed to open her sleep lidded eyes enough to give him one last bright look, "then I'll just come back to you. Like I promised."

Astarion watched her eyes close, and her breathing even out and slow. He curled up against her, and let himself slip into a trance. But something tugged at him, a hook that had not worked its way out of his flesh, pulling him deeper and deeper into a dream.

He was back in the moment he'd left. Lord Astarion was sitting on Tav's lap, her teeth in his neck, his blood seeping into her body. Astarion could feel the wet rasp of her tongue and the little needy noise she was making. He could feel the way Lord Astarion delighted in her yearning, and in the control he had over it.

For a moment, Astarion felt nothing but despair. Why drag him back into this nightmare? What lesson was he supposed to take from seeing this misery? He had Tav back. He hadn't Ascended. What was the point? But then maybe that was the answer. With the happiness and resolve he could feel inside him, he was more certain than ever that he was stronger than this version of himself. He gathered all his mental fortitude and pushed, forcing his will onto this body. It was like trying to lift a boulder. He strained and strained and got nowhere.

And then Astarion felt a tiny sliver of control. Lost in the bliss of having his blood drunk, a deeply hypnotic sensation, Lord Astarion had loosed the reins of the body. Astarion leapt. "I grant you permission," he said out loud, in case that was important. "Drink from me, and become a full vampire." He reached into his other self, loosed the knot that bound Tav as his spawn, and felt it slip away, never to reconnect.

Tav jerked back as though she had been electrocuted, and Astarion slid onto the floor. He picked himself up and moved away, watching her. Tav was sitting still, looking down at her hands. She flexed her fingers, then stretched her arms over her head, then stood up. "Hello Astarion," she said.

"You figured that out quickly," Astarion said.

"You sound very different," Tav told him. "How long can you maintain control of the body?"

"I'm not sure," Astarion said. "Not long, probably."

"Right then," Tav said. "Come on."

They left the room, and climbed out of the basem*nt. When they reached the first floor, Tav stopped one of the servants, a handsome young man with red hair in neat livery.

"Cathal, do you have a little blood to spare? I am parched."

The young man looked delighted. "Tav! You're out at last. I'm so glad." Then he saw Astarion, and his face went absolutely white.

"Don't mind me," Astarion said, waving a hand loosely.

Tav sighed. "Don't worry about him, Cathal. I'll handle it."

"As you say, Tav." Cathal still looked very nervous, but he bowed and offered her his wrist, and Tav bit down. "You can take more than that," he said when she lifted her head, but she waved him away.

"No need. Thank you." She tousled Cathal's hair affectionately. "Don't worry, Cathal. All really is well."

Tav did not go towards the foyer, as Astarion had expected she would. She climbed up instead, back to the balcony the dream had started on. The sun was dipping slowly towards sunset, and the light was rich as good butter. It limned Tav like a halo. She walked to the railing and breathed in the air in huge gulps, and then leaned on it and watched the world.

"Tav," Astarion said, "you should kill me now. I don't think I can hold on much longer."

Tav looked over her shoulder at him, and gestured for him to come join her at the railing. Astarion walked over, a little nervous, and stood beside her. "Astarion," Tav said, "I'm not going to kill you. Not now, and not later."

Astarion frowned. "Tav, after everything..."

"Once," Tav said, "I was a paladin who lived by a code of mercy. I still believe, in my heart, that everyone deserves a chance to try and change. I think you are afraid that you became Cazador, when you ascended, and certainly you did slip into imitation of some of his patterns. But you never fell as far as he did."

Astarion squinted at her. "Sometimes the spawn would fall in love with Cazador," he said. "I always sneered at them. It seemed so weak. But I think I just didn't want to admit that I understood the appeal. It would have been such a comforting delusion."

Tav nodded. "I saw the same thing in Menzoberranzan. I will admit that denying it is something of a trap. You can surely never see your own delusion. I don't think this is the same. I am aware that this relationship is a snarled and tangled thing. Some of that my lord's fault, and some of that is my responsibility. I waited too long to try and hold my ground. But you have given me a second chance, and I intend to take it." She twisted her mouth into a wry smile. "I'm not sure that what we'll have when I'm done will be love, or even friendship, but it might be hope."

"You are impossibly stubborn, you know that?" Astarion said, equal parts exasperation and love.

Tav laughed. "Oh no! The way you say that, I think your own Tav has given you some difficulty too."

"Like you wouldn't believe," Astarion muttered.

"I hope you can forgive her that," Tav said. "Whatever she has said or done, she probably loves you very much. I know I would, in her place."

"I think we're working things out," Astarion said. "It took a while. Maybe not quite as long as it will take you and him." His tongue was growing thick and heavy, he noticed. "Tav, I think I'm done," he said. "Time's up."

"You should stay in the dream, if you can," Tav said. "Watch what happens. I hope it will set your mind at ease."

Control slipped away from Astarion, and Lord Astarion resurfaced. Immediately, his body was suffused with passionate emotion, anger and panic and bone-deep terror. He jumped away from Tav, clear to the opposite end of the balcony.

"What happened?" he said. "Who was that?"

"A dream," Tav said. "Or a fragment of you that you refuse to acknowledge. Or a divine intervention. I have no idea, my love."

"Don't mock me," Lord Astarion snarled. "Don't you dare mock me. You stand there, a vampire in your own right, with as much power as you want, and you still call me love?"

"Do you not want me to? Do you only desire spawn?"

Lord Astarion trembled with rage, but did not move. "What are you going to do now?" he asked.

"I am going to watch the sunset," Tav said. "And eat these grapes. Would you like a grape?"

And that was what she did, as Lord Astarion stayed tense and suspicious. The sun slipped lower and lower, the sky darkening to the same colour as Tav's skin, and then darker still, as the last light bloodied the horizon and slowly vanished. The stars came out. The moon rose. Tav watched it rise. She lifted her right hand, pressed two fingers to her lips and then lifted them in salute. And then she looked at Astarion.

"I think I should write to Wyll," she said. "And Shadowheart. And talk to them properly. I don't know if I can salvage much, but it seems like the place to start. Shadowheart will probably be our enemy for a little while, but who knows? She changed once. She could always change again."

"What am I supposed to do?" Astarion snapped at her. "You say you're not going to kill me, but for how long? You could change your mind. You could leave whenever you want. How am I supposed to know you?" It was, Astarion thought, a truly pathetic display of snivelling despair. His alternate self had never developed the emotional muscle for an equal relationship, and watching him have this conversation was like watching a baby try and lift a keg of beer. It would almost have been funny if he didn't see the parallels between who he was and who he might have been. Unfortunately, Lord Astarion was still his own reflection, however distorted, and Astarion was suffering the most acute second-hand embarrassment known to man or vampire.

Tav was more compassionate about it. "Yes," she said. "You don't know me, anymore. Not for certain. You will have to learn to trust me freely, without the leash. Or you can leave. I think I would be sad, if you did, but if you tell me it's what you need I will respect that." She looked up at the night sky, and raised her arm to point at Selûne's Tears. "You know, no one knows how that happened. There are legends, but they all contradict each other. Even Eilistraee never saw fit to grace us with the answer. But whatever it was, Selûne fractured, leaving fragments of herself strung out behind her, frozen in a perfect, unchanging orbit."

"Are you attempting to make a metaphor happen?" Lord Astarion said. "If you are, stop. You don't have a gift for poetry."

Tav did not bother to rise to the bait. She gave him a very amused look, and Astarion felt the shame and anger of his other self flare. You deserve that, he thought, and hoped Lord Astarion could hear him. "In plain speech, then," Tav said. "Ten years ago, we broke something, you and I. In ourselves, in each other, in the world. And like Selûne's Tears, we have remained frozen in a strange, fragmented orbit. I couldn't let it go, too afraid that it was all I could ever have. But I am done with being still. I want to take those shards, shattered as they are, and make something new with them. No doubt it will be scarred, and less beautiful than it was before, but it will be whole. Will you help me? Will you try?"

Lord Astarion looked at her. He was so hungry, Astarion thought. Not for blood, but for any kind of real love, though he didn't know it. He was so hungry that it had made him afraid, and Tav offering him real sustenance felt like she was dropping poison in his mouth. Say yes, you idiot, Astarion thought. It's more grace than you were ever entitled to in your whole life. This world had lost so much. Most of his friends, all of his siblings, seven thousand innocent people. But Tav was right. Better to try and build something new than to wallow in the wreckage.

"I don't know how," Lord Astarion said. "I won't be able to do it."

"You think I know?" Tav said. Her voice wobbled a little, sincere emotion creeping through. "I'm making this up as I go. All we can do is try."

There was a long, long silence. The moon drifted west. The stars wheeled.

"Alright," Lord Astarion said. "Why not? It'll be a novelty, if nothing else." His tone was too glassy, too performative. He was not being honest. Not yet. But Astarion thought he might get there, one day.

Tav smiled at him, and for the first time in all the dreams he'd seen, Astarion recognised her. Then he woke up.

His Tav was already up. She was the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes, sitting up in the bed, her diary on her knees, writing.

"You didn't change your mind?" he asked, and put the gloss of a joke on it.

"No," Tav said, lifting her quill from the page as she looked at him. "Did you?"

"No," he said. "I never changed my mind, darling, may I remind you."

Tav looked at him for a moment, and then reached down for the ink bottle tucked into her lap, screwed the lid on, and put it aside. She left the quill on top of it, and began to blow gently on what she had written, helping the last of the ink to dry. Astarion sensed the very mildest disagreement in her silence, and then remembered the fight they'd had the morning after she got back. All of a sudden, he felt like a worm.

"I was lying when I called your diary uninteresting," he admitted. "I found it very comforting in your absence."

Tav stopped what she was doing and looked at him. "I never meant for these entries to be read by anyone," she said. "They're a memory exercise, and a tool for thinking through problems, and occasionally a confessional."

Astarion felt even worse. "I am sorry," he said. "Originally I hoped you would forgive me for reading them at all."

Tav closed the diary and set it aside. "I'm not angry," she said. "I didn't ever really believe that you meant it. What hurt me wasn't the insult to my prose, but that you were trying to be deliberately cruel. And we have had the conversation we needed to about that. But will you do me a kindness? Will you tell me the truth? About what you read, and what you thought of it."

Astarion sat up, leaning his shoulder against Tav's and taking her hand. He told her about finding the diary, and reading it.

"It was only a pale imitation of you, but I was desperate for anything, given the circ*mstances." He smiled. "I did skip the strategy sections, though."

Tav laughed. "It's hard not to be self-conscious, knowing how much I wrote about my struggles with my feelings."

"Those were the best bits. The annoying part was was reading you put the whole world ahead of yourself, over and over."

"It was frightening," Tav said. "I thought I had trained myself not to want things more than was reasonable, and then you showed up. And I had never wanted anything so badly in my life."

"It was very useful to be reminded we're nothing alike in that respect," Astarion said. "I love wanting things."

"I admire that about you," Tav said. "If I were better at it, I wouldn't have hurt you so." She sighed. "When I said that you shouldn't have come to hell, I said it because I was frightened. Because I didn't want to admit to myself how much I had been hoping you would. The only way I knew how to deal with that desire was to bury it. But even though I got it all wrong, I won't ever forget how you looked when I saw you."

It was too much. Astarion swung himself into Tav's lap and kissed her. She rested her head against the chalky lime-washed wall and opened up to him, letting him in, her hands resting loosely and lightly on his thighs. Since they were both still naked, it didn't take long for mere kissing to become insufficient.

"What do you want?" Tav asked. Astarion knew the answer immediately.

"From you? Nothing. Just stay there. I'm going to show you what it really means to want me."

Astarion had spent many years touching other people's bodies for their pleasure alone. It was something totally different to touch someone because he wanted to, not in subservience but with total control, as a kind of assertion of his own power to desire and be desired. He let his hands move over Tav's dark skin, blue-grey like a winter sea, feeling the firmness of her muscles, the thin lines of old scars. He touched her breasts, small but firm, felt her nipples harden under his fingers, dipped his head to nibble at them and heard her moan. The warmth of her skin seeped into his cold lips and colder tongue as he sucked and played with her, and he felt her body heating with the flush of desire. Her thighs under him rubbed together.

"Oh," she said, and "Astarion," she said, and her fingers moved to brush his hips.

"Keep your hands where they were," he told her shortly, firmly, and she obeyed.

He resumed work on her body, touching, licking, coaxing until she was feverish with want. At which point he slithered down and pushed her legs apart so he could bury his face between them.

Astarion had sometimes mulled over whether he thought the lack of breathing was an advantage or not when it came to oral sex (pro: get the damn thing over with quicker; con: no excuse to take breaks; very important pro: smells less of an issue). He decided now that it was an absolute advantage, and one of the few things he would miss about his condition when it was cured. I could just never move again, he thought, feeling Tav clench and quake around him, her moans and words of encouragement drifting down to him.

He tongued eagerly at her cl*t, pressing down on the spot he knew she liked most, with a firm and consistent pressure, feeling the little death build and build until she fully melted underneath him. Tav groaned as she org*smed, and something about the sheer relief in her voice was healing. It was an inversion of the agony he'd heard from her when Raphael had opened the portal. There was no suffering here and now, only joy. He gave her a brief moment of relief to ride the org*sm out to the end, and then started working her again, this time pushing a little harder, using the edge of his teeth just a tiny bit.

"Astarion," Tav said, her voice strangled and breathless, "what about you?"

Astarion stopped what he was doing. "None of your business," he said. "Worry about yourself."

There was a soft chuckle from Tav, and in outrageous defiance of his instructions, she slid one hand down to tousle his hair. "As you wish," she said. "Let me know if you change your mind."

She kept her hand there, and Astarion decided he didn't need to complain about her not following the rules, because he was deeply enjoying the rhythmic and gentle brush of her fingertips over his scalp. They moved gently in time with the pace of his tongue and teeth, and there was a moment when it was almost hard to say where he ended and Tav began.

He brought her to climax again, and only then began to touch himself. For someone who had had as much sex as he had it felt strangely transgressive and provocative to masturbat* in front of Tav, a total declaration of agency. But when he felt her realise what he was doing, and heard her breath speed up and her muscles clench, when he realised that she was aroused by his pleasure in himself, then it became absolute bliss.

He brought her over the edge one last time, then sped up his hand movement and gave himself a climax, spilling his seed across his thigh and her shin. And the lay, gasping and groaning, with his head pillowed on her hip. Tav did not say anything, but continued stroking his hair. For a little while, there was only peace.

At last, though, the world intruded. The sky had fully brightened, and Tav looked out at it with resignation. "We should make our way back to the Elfsong," she said. "I left a message for the others, but that will only reassure them for so long."

Astarion snorted. "What on earth did you say? I am going to f*ck Astarion until we make up or one of us dies?"

"Not quite those words," Tav laughed. "I just told them that we needed to talk, and not to worry if we weren't back before morning."

"So, exactly what I just said."

"My version has plausible deniability."

"No, it doesn't."

As they got ready to leave, Astarion wondered about what was next. Raphael was dead. Cazador was dead. The Netherbrain wasn't, but he wasn't afraid of it. Had he done it? Had he won? Will you know if you've lost? Will you have to go back to the start again? Or will you have to live the rest of your life in the rotting corpse of a world you failed to save? Durge was not yet a sure thing. They could fail. They could die. And, Astarion realised with horror, he really, really had to make sure they didn't. Because now he had something to lose.

Chapter 13: The world had thrust us from its heart

Chapter Text

Tav and Astarion stopped for breakfast on the way back to the Elfsong, and as Tav ate sausages and eggs that Astarion was for once grateful he didn't have to try, they talked about Durge. Astarion told her everything that had happened while she was in the hells.

"It's been hard," she said. "For them and for you."

"You have such a talent for understatement, darling," Astarion said. "I have to find a way to help them, but I don't think simple platitudes are going to cut it. Or complex platitudes, for that matter."

"No," Tav agreed. "I have told Durge something of Menzoberranzan, without wanting to draw direct parallels between us, but they did not seem to find my example reassuring."

"Did you tell them what you told Clara? Whatever that was."

Tav looked momentarily startled, then relaxed. "Right. You read that. A memorable case, if frustrating." She set down her fork and steepled her hands. "I thought I had told them, but maybe it didn't sink in." She looked thoughtfully at Astarion. "It might be something they need to hear from you, not from me. I don't know if you know this, but you're very important to them."

Well that was discomfiting. Astarion must have made a face, because Tav laughed. "It's true!" she said. "You've helped them more than you realise. And I think you feel a bit more approachable than I do."

"You've always seemed approachable to me," Astarion teased, nudging her foot with his under the table. Tav gave him a fondly exasperated stare.

"I mean it," she said. "Your experiences resonate with them more. For as much as Menzoberranzan haunts me, the way that it manifests in my day to day life isn't something they can relate to yet. They can't see how to take the violence they were responsible for and make it the core of anything good. Which was what I told Clara, really."

"I'm sure you put it better than that," Astarion said sceptically.

Tav raised an eyebrow, and then spoke, her words rich with Truth. "You must learn to forgive yourself first. The worst thing you can be, in your own mind, is an evil person. The minute you decide that evil is a fixed category, and that an evil person is evil forever, is the minute you stop being able to change. We all change, every day, and we all choose, every day. You might not choose perfectly. You might make mistakes. But remember that the world begins again with each new choice. And then one day you will look back, and you will see behind you a trail of things you have done, and each action will speak for itself, the terrible and the good alike, and the good will speak louder." She stopped, let out a breath, and spoke again in her normal tone. "So Eilistraee said to me, in the first dream I ever had of her."

There were a number of things Astarion could have said to that. He could almost, almost understand why Tav had faith, hearing those words. But what actually came out of his mouth was "And that didn't work?"

"I think there is something more at play," Tav said, mopping up the last of her breakfast with a crust of bread. She pointed it at Astarion. "If I'm reading between the lines right, part of why it didn't work is that Durge is in some way still bound by Bhaal. They may believe in me to an extent, but they do not believe that I can break that connection. And as far as I know, they are right. But Astarion, if anyone knows what it is to be under the thumb of evil, you do. That's why it has to be you."

Astarion looked at her pleadingly. "And here I thought you would come back from hell and lessen the number of responsibilities on my shoulders."

Tav snorted, and pulled out the coins from her belt pouch to pay for the meal. "Consider this a token of my utmost faith in your abilities, my heart."

"Faith in my abilities? Oh no. I'm just a poor, sad little man who can't do anything." Tav laughed. Astarion tucked his arm through hers and leaned against her briefly. "But I'll forgive you your lapse in judgement, since you called me your heart."

The knowing smiles that greeted Astarion when he walked through the doors to their room in the Elfsong were satisfying, but Tav's immediate question, "How did the trip to the House of Grief go?" so thoroughly doused any bawdiness that Astarion was almost disappointed.

He went off and read a book while Tav got tactical updates, but gave her his attention again when she started on today's business."I know we've had a lot on our plates," she said, "but Orin has to be getting agitated, and while she has Halsin's life in her hands, we have to take that seriously. It's time we took care of Gortash. The Steel Watch is down, so infiltrating the keep shouldn't be too hard, though we may have to fight a lot of the Flaming Fist to get to him."

"Go gentle on my men if you can," Ravengard said. "I know the city is more important, but they do think they're doing the right thing."

Jaheira snorted, just loud enough that Astarion was sure she meant to be heard.

"We will use non-lethal force wherever possible," Tav promised. "Until we get to Gortash himself."

"The main thing we need to watch out for is traps," Astarion said. "I noticed when we went to the coronation. That place is rigged to the high heavens with concealed devices." His justification for the knowledge was a lie, but no-one needed to know that.

"Checks out," Karlach said. "Gortash did always love a clever little device. Or what he thought that meant, anyway."

"That's good to know," Tav said. "I'll certainly keep it in mind." She looked around. "We need to get back into rotations. I know everyone came to help get Astarion, and by the sounds of things it was good that so many of you went to the House of Grief too, but this pace is unsustainable. Four or five of us will be more than enough to take on Gortash."

"I'd like to stay behind," Shadowheart said. Her eyes were rather red. She had killed her parents in this timeline too, Astarion assumed. He felt sad for her, in a distant, abstracted way, but it was simply how things went.

"Of course," Tav said, and touched her shoulder gently. "You rest and relax. Maybe go and visit Aylin and Isobel."

One by one, the others ruled themselves out or were gently but firmly told to stay behind by Tav. (The latter case was really only reserved for Lae'zel, who had gotten almost as little sleep as Tav the night of Astarion's rescue, and then gone to the House of Grief as well, and who was almost dead on her feet but insisting she was fine.) Until at last it was just the four of them, Karlach and Durge, Tav and Astarion. They might have taken a fifth, and Minsc and Jaheira both offered, but Tav decided that four was enough, and no one argued with her.

"We can handle Gortash fine," she said, and that was that.

"I'm surprised you let them all come and face Cazador," Astarion said. "Should I decide that means you think I'm special?"

"You know you're special," Tav said, "and I will admit that I wasn't thinking clearly, but also I literally could not have stopped them. You know they all care about you a great deal, don't you?"

"Well, I do like to think I'm irreplaceable, but it's nice to have confirmation."

Gortash, when they got to him, looked almost sad to see Durge. "You chose your sister over me, then," he said. "That was a mistake. She won't treat you kindly. I would have dealt fairly. We could have done business. She will just kill you."

"It was death either way," Durge said philosophically.

And then it came down to what it usually did, which was swords and knives and magic. Astarion hadn't remembered killing Gortash as a difficult task, and his memory was right. Chosen of Bane might as well have meant nothing, for all the good it did him. It wasn't long before his corpse was lying on the ground in front of them, just a body in a nice robe.

This was the moment Astarion had been dreading. It was something he had never forgotten, could never forget, the way Karlach had broken down after Gortash died. On that first journey he'd been half angry with her for laying one more emotional demand on Tav's shoulders, when there had already been too many. Half angry and half devastated, because that had been the moment when he'd realised that she was really going to die, and he'd realised how much he loved her.

And now here he was back again in this moment, and a tenday or so ago he'd been so sure it would turn out differently. He'd thought that he'd arranged things to his satisfaction, with Durge and Karlach making a pair who would find in each other what they needed to go on. Before their angry break-up and Durge's explosion into violence. How much of the world was predetermined? How much could he change? How would he know, if this ended badly, whether he could have done something differently, or if he'd only ever been banging his head against the brick wall of fate?

"So Gortash is nothing more than a pile of flesh, same as the rest of us," Karlach was saying. Astarion heard her heart in her chest grind a little faster as her breathing spiked, heard the uncanny rattle of it. He needed more time. He needed to stop the world and take it to pieces and look at them all until he could see how they fit together and find the key that would make them be the shape he wanted. He looked at Tav, who looked back at him with her rainwater eyes, sad but steady, full of faith. She believed that he already had the answer. What a fool she was. "I can't do it anymore. Ten years, man. It's enough. It's enough."

Astarion opened his mouth to say something, but Durge got there first. "You can," they said, quiet but with a kind of urgency that was unusual. "Others have endured longer."

"Well, I'm not others!" Karlach said. "You don't get to decide what my life means to me. I lost my heart, my world, now my life because this bastard wanted a test subject for his sh*tty automatons." She aimed a halfhearted kick at Gortash's head, which perhaps luckily for everyone did not connect.

"So take them back!" Astarion snapped. "It's all very well to weep for what you've lost, but you're not done until you're done. If you're angry at the world, Karlach, then make it pay you back."

"I don't need to hear that from you, Mr. I'm-going-to-live-forever," Karlach snarled. "Can't you let me grieve in peace for five minutes without hounding me?"

"You know why we can't," Tav said, sounding heartbroken. "We love you too much for that."

"You love me, but you won't choose me," Karlach said. "You're asking me to be alone again, and I'm saying no. I won't. I would literally rather die."

The look of stricken agony that crossed Tav's face was horrifying. "Are you saying that you would live if I went back to hell with you?"

"No!" Astarion said it before he thought about the consequences.

Karlach didn't seem to hear him. She was looking at Tav. "Would you do it?"

Tav hesitated. Her eyes moved, ever so slightly. Like she wanted to look at Astarion, but stopped herself before she got there. Back to Karlach. "If it would save your life?" She stepped forward and took Karlach's hand. "I have reasons to think that I'm not meant to go with you. There is work that I need to do here. But Karlach, I would do it. For your life. I would find a way."

Karlach closed her eyes. "f*ck me, Tav. You don't play fair." She gripped the paladin's hand. Their fingers were knotted on each other, both their knuckles paled with tension. "I'm not that much of a dickhe*d. I wouldn't do that to you."

"Rrrrghh." Durge clutched their head, their claws digging into the scales, cutting through and drawing blood. "I hate this." They stepped forward, grabbed Karlach, and slammed her bodily into the nearest pillar. Given the difference between their strength and hers, it didn't do any actual damage, but Astarion's hand dropped to his dagger anyway. Before he could do anything, though, Durge collapsed, dropping to their knees at Karlach's feet and burying their head against her knees.

"Why is this so impossible? I want so badly to be someone else, but I can’t. I want so badly for you to live, but you won’t. If I were a good person, could I save you? Would I be enough? Since I’m not, won’t you take my death instead? The world needs less of me and more of you. Why can't I make it right? Just one thing."

"I don't f*cking know," Karlach said. "Why can't you be someone else? Why can't you just be my Durge?"

"Because it was always a lie," Durge said. "And you deserve truth."

"You don't get to talk about what I deserve," Karlach said, "not when-" She bit her lip and grimaced. Her hand flexed and then clenched into a fist, and Astarion wondered whether she was stopping herself from a loving touch or getting ready for a punch. Probably Karlach didn't know either. He glanced at Tav, and saw her watching the pair with sharp intensity, just the faintest flicker of aura around her hand. She was ready to step in, the storm-cloud pressure in the room putting her on high alert.

Something is about to break, Astarion thought, his finely honed sense of danger clanging like a bell in his skull. They had mere seconds, perhaps, before this went as bad as it could go. He had to do something now. Now. But what?

And then, like one of the strange mystery paintings that you had to squint at exactly the right way to see properly, it all clicked into place. Past and future, all the conversations with Tav, all the conversations with Durge, they all slotted together, and Astarion had an answer.

"Durge," Astarion said. "Not another word. Come with me, right now. Tav, Karlach, we'll see you back at the Elfsong."

As soon as he spoke, Tav relaxed. All the fear leeched out of her, replaced with a terrifying expression of absolute trust. She nodded once, decisively, and as Astarion grabbed Durge's collar and hauled them away, she stepped forward to give Karlach a hug.

"What is this about?" Durge asked, as Astarion dragged them through the streets. They were not really protesting—Astarion did not think he could have dragged them if they didn't want to come—but there was a certain tension in their voice.

"You were about to blow up your whole life," Astarion said. "Say 'Thank you, Astarion', because I stopped you just in time."

"You should have let me," Durge said. "It might have given Karlach enough spite to live on."

"No, I am thoroughly done indulging your stupidity, thank you very much," Astarion said. "We're doing this my way."

Astarion slowed down as they reached their destination. No need to rush now. They were where he needed them to be. He walked between the graves of the Baldur's Gate cemetery, the old and the new, the grand and the plain, looking this way and that until he recognised the right corner. The right grave.

Astarion Ancunín. He wondered, not for the first time, who had paid for it. It was a nice headstone, but not overly elaborate. Did that mean family who couldn't afford better? Or a family who could have but didn't care? Or had it been organised by colleagues who remembered him fondly enough to be embarrassed that no family had stepped in?

"Your grave," Durge said. They reached down and touched the stone with one scaled hand.

"I crawled out of it, you know," Astarion said. "Cazador was waiting for me at the top. That's my first memory."

"I have a few fragments of my childhood," Durge said. "Nothing helpful. Just glimpses. A kind gnome couple. I think… I think they were probably my parents. I think I killed them. I suppose my father told me to."

"I couldn't say no to Cazador," Astarion said. "Before the tadpole, at least. Could you say no to Bhaal?"

"I think so," Durge said. "But I don't think I ever did. I was his high priest. I loved him. Desperately. Unconditionally."

"How embarrassing," Astarion said. "For him, not for you, I mean. To be loved when you're so clearly undeserving."

"Would it be easier," Durge asked, "if I could tell myself there was no choice involved?"

"Maybe," Astarion said. "Maybe not. It never helped me, really."

Durge made a small sound in their throat. "This headstone needs to be cleaned," they said.

"Yes. That's why we're here. Among other things," Astarion said.

They set to work, pulling away the ivy that had overgrown the grave, digging out weeds, wiping two centuries of grime off the stone itself. The graveyard had buckets and scrubbers that you could rent. Durge went and got two of them. Astarion thought about the night he had come here with Tav while they were gone. He thought about the way she'd put a flower on his grave, and how she'd stayed still as he kissed her, drinking him in. He was giving up the chance at another version of this moment with her. He regretted it, very slightly, but made his peace with it. If this was what it took, if this was all it took, then it was a price he could comfortably pay.

"I don't remember who I was before Cazador," Astarion said, when Durge came back. "I don't know how much of me is him. I'll never know. The person this gravestone was made for really is dead, in every meaningful way. But I'm still here. I won't let him be all I ever am."

"You are saying Bhaal doesn't have to be all I am," Durge said. "That's kind of you. But Cazador is dead. And he was never a god."

"I'm saying you're already more than what he made you," Astarion said. "No matter how hard he tries, he can never have all of you. I have a bit, and so does Tav, and Karlach, and Jaheira, and all the others."

Durge shook their head. "No," they said. "I tried that, and it didn't work. It didn't kill the urges. I'm so… Astarion, I'm so empty. All I have is hollowness and rage. There's nothing good in me."

"I know," Astarion said. "Not to be rude, my scaly friend, but you make it rather obvious. But so what?" He stopped scrubbing and looked at them. "So what if it's all emptiness? Why can't that also be who you are? No one said that being a person had to feel good. I'm reliably informed that it mostly doesn't."

"You don't-"

"I do." Astarion put his hand over theirs and made them look at him. "I was little better off than you when I got out from Cazador's thumb. I was twitchy and paranoid and terrified. And frankly, pretty evil. You would have loved me."

Durge shook their head. "It's not true. I remember-"

"No," Astarion said. A risk. He was risking so much. But it had to be done. "That wasn't when I got free. I can't explain it, not properly, not now, but there's a bit of my story you don't know about."

Durge thought about it for a minute. "Alright," they said at last, "but so what? How does it help? Maybe this strange, empty thing I am is a person, but I don't like it. I don't want to be this! It's too lonely. What's the point in fighting, if all it gets me is my ugly, unlovable self?"

There it was, the raw wound. Astarion was not a healer. He had learned only one trick, and it was honesty. "I don't know," he said. "I quite like you."

Durge made a sceptical noise. "You would have killed me in an instant to get Tav back."

Astarion opened his mouth, then closed it again, and thought about it. "You know, I don't think that's true," he said. "If I was willing to kill anyone for Tav, the whole Ascension trap wouldn't have been an issue. I wouldn't kill my siblings for her, or seven thousand strangers. I wouldn't kill you. Not even for her."

Durge blinked. "Really? You're sure?"

Astarion grinned his sharpest grin at them. "Look, I'm not immune to the pathetic 'I don't know what I'm doing in the world and I need to be looked after while I figure it out' aura you've got. Killing you would be like kicking a puppy. A big, sharp-toothed, probably rabid puppy, but still."

"Well, that's one thing," Durge said. They sat down with a thump, leaning back on their arms and looking up at the sky. "One person who likes me."

"Tav likes you too," Astarion said.

"Tav can find something to like about anyone," Durge said. "That barely counts." They rubbed their face tiredly with the heels of their palms. "Sometimes, it is enough. But sometimes, the emptiness is too much even for that."

"Maybe you need to try the opposite approach," Astarion said. "Lean into the emptiness. See what's on the other side. I know Tav tried to teach you meditation. Isn't that supposed to be all about emptiness?"

"Are you suggesting I become some kind of cleric?" Durge said, clearly amused.

"Gods above, no. You know how I feel about deities. But there are other ways of approaching the world. Monks and such. You already sound like some kind of gnostic half the time you open your mouth anyway. You could sit on a mountaintop somewhere and people would travel for hundreds of miles to hear you say something cryptic and vaguely scary."

"And how would that help me?"

"I don't know. Isn't that what monks are all about? Finding meaning in emptiness? Maybe you'll turn out to be the best monk to ever live."

"I'll take it under consideration," Durge said. "Though I don't know that I'm particularly well suited to a life of quiet contemplation. I might end up eating my querents."

"Well if that doesn't appeal, you could come with us, you know," Astarion said. He almost swallowed the words, not sure he quite liked the idea of what he was promising. But he said it anyway. "With me and Tav. After the Elder Brain is dead. We're going down into the Underdark to visit my siblings and make sure they haven't died horribly, and then we're going to look for a cure for vampirism."

Durge made a face. "I'd be a third wheel," they said. "Don't tell me I wouldn't. I can imagine it all too well."

"We'd do our best not to make it too unbearable," Astarion said. "Well, Tav would. I'll probably get annoyed sometimes, but I think you can put up with that."

"I probably can." Durge sighed, a long whuffling sigh like a big dog. "Thank you, Astarion. It's not what I want, but it means something that you're offering."

"What do you want? Karlach?"

"Mm. I think that ship has sailed, but we did talk about going to hell together. To find her a new engine. I liked the idea of that. It's something Tav talked about a lot. That you can always choose to do something good. For a few days, I began to dream that saving Karlach's life would be the next thing I did when this was over. A truly good deed. A new life. But that was before."

"I don't think she's unpersuadable," Astarion said. "I can't promise anything, but when I was looking at the two of you in Gortash's hall, her eyes didn't look like the eyes of someone who doesn't care any more. You'd be amazed what good an honest conversation will do." He wrinkled his nose at his own words and sighed dramatically. "Gods, sometimes I hate that the things I say are true."

"You might be right. Maybe an honest conversation would fix things."

"Of course I'm right! Don't underestimate my mind just because I'm beautiful."

Durge sat up, crossed their legs and straightened their back. A monk's pose if Astarion had ever seen one. "That's not even really the problem."

"Then what is?"

"I'm still going to die."

Astarion was too close to the agony and clarity of his own recent brush with death to take that information calmly. "What? No. Unacceptable."

Durge shrugged. "I'm not saying I want to die. I think you managed to win that bet after all. You were right. There are things worth living for. It just... doesn't matter."

Astarion grabbed Durge and pulled them around so he could point to the writing on his headstone. "You see that date? I died that day. Or at least, I was supposed to. But look at me now. Still here." He took out one of his less valuable knives and cut the year into the stone. Line by line, writing out the current date, and then, the icing on the bun, adding a dash after it. He stood back up and pointed. "There. I am still alive. So you can't give up either. I forbid it." His voice was the wrong side of loud, his mouth was twitching uncontrollably and there was a faint mistiness in the corner of his vision.

Durge looked at him with their strange red eyes. He glared back, knowing his gaze was just as unnerving, willing them to understand. They moved closer to him, and before Astarion could react, wrapped their arms around him in a gentle hug and rested their snout against his shoulder. "Thank you," they said. "If I could live, I would. For you. I really am grateful."

"Where's the but? You want to live, you live. Nothing complicated about it."

"Astarion, I'm going to die tomorrow," Durge said. "When we meet Orin. I have to fight my sister. And she's going to kill me, or I'm going to kill her, but either way, I'm going to die. I can feel it coming, inescapable as nightfall. So it doesn't matter who I want to be, and it doesn't matter that you like me, and it doesn't even matter whether I'm good or bad. I've only got one day left." They reached out and touched the gravestone. "Thanks for making it a good last day."

"So it was all for nothing? All the work?"

"No," Durge said. "It meant the world to me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I only found out that I want to live too late. I'm sorry my sh*tty dad is going to kill me."

"It's not fair," Astarion said, and he felt himself giving up as he said it. He'd done his best. He'd done all he could. And it hadn't been enough.

"It's not. But I've decided to be philosophical about it." A laugh in his ear, warm wetness where his neck met his collarbone. He clung to Durge, and they clung to him, a moment longer. And then they pulled away, and picked up the buckets, and went to return them. Astarion looked down at his newly-gleaming grave.

Will you know if you've lost? Will you have to go back to the start again? Or will you have to live the rest of your life in the rotting corpse of a world you failed to save?

Maybe it was because he felt so hopeless that Astarion was certain there was one last conversation he needed to have that day. He persuaded Tav to take Durge out for a conversation, which she did gladly, and then Astarion ducked into one of the better food stalls near the Elfsong and got some dinner and a good bottle of wine. Bait prepared, he went and found Karlach.

"Let's have dinner on the roof," he said. "Just me and you. I've got something I want to talk about."

Karlach was sitting on her bed, staring into space. Astarion didn't like how drained she looked. She'd been happier than this on the first journey, and that had ended in her death. But she perked up a little when he spoke, and after a moment's consideration, said, "You know what, that sounds f*cking amazing, actually."

The roof of the Elfsong was not a bad place for a meal. It had a decent view of the city, especially around sunset, when the exquisite reds and purples of the sky lent even Baldur's Gate's ugliest rooftops a kind of splendour. And it was quiet, away from the rest of their friends, a place where they would not be interrupted or observed.

"You know," Astarion said, uncorking the wine bottle and taking a swig before he passed it over, "I never said thank you."

"For what?"

"For making me go to the hells. It was the right decision."

Karlach thought about that for a minute, and then a grin crept across her face. "Say it again."

"Thank you?"

"Not that bit. Say 'Karlach, you were right'."

Astarion rolled his eyes at her. "'Karlach, you were right.'"

She laughed. "Damn that feels good." She let out a breath. "I think I needed to hear that more than I realised." She looked sideways at him.

Astarion took the bottle back so he could have another drink. Karlach unwrapped one of the pastries he had bought and bit in.

"Ah, that hits the f*cking spot," Karlach said. "Good food, man, I f*cking missed it. My dad was a good cook, but not like this. And let me tell you, if the rations in Avernus are palatable, that's a really good f*cking day." Then she winced. "Sorry fangs, is it insensitive to praise the food when you can't eat it?"

Astarion snorted. "I'm not that delicate, thank you very much. And besides, I'm full of plans to start making up for lost time. As soon as possible."

Karlach looked at him. "I'd like to see you once you're cured," she said. "I wonder what colour your eyes really are."

Astarion squinted at her. That tone of voice was too melancholy, too certain that she was wishing for something she could not have. "Shall we make a bet?" he asked. "See who gets a fix first - your heart or my vampirism. Bet you ten gold I get there first."

"That's an easy win," Karlach said. "Dammon's already done everything he can for me."

"You say you don't want to talk about alternatives to dying, but you keep setting me up for these perfect jokes," Astarion said. "It's positively cruel, Karlach darling."

"You'll live," Karlach said. "Don't feel too bad for me, Astarion. I'm perfectly happy, most of the time. A sore moment here or there won't matter when it's all over and done with."

"I want you to observe my pointed silence. I want you to listen very hard to all the things I'm not saying."

"Yeah yeah yeah." She took the bottle back from him and drank again. "You didn't bring me here to have the exact same argument we had earlier, I don't think."

"No," Astarion admitted. "I was going to talk about Durge, but…"

"But it's none of your business?"

"That never stopped me before," Astarion said. "You don't learn to be a master locksmith by being careful around other people's property. No, mostly I just don't want to."

Karlach laughed. "You and me both," she said. She lay back, tucked her arms under her head and looked up at the mellowing sky. Astarion thought for a moment, then joined her. The tiles were still warm from the long day's heat.

"What would I even tell you? Nothing you don't know already. You're an adult, you know what you're doing. You could talk to Durge if you wanted to."

Karlach let out a long sigh. "Yeah," she said. "I could. I guess." A long pause. It was not silent, because Baldur's Gate never was. It was thick with the calls of merchants hawking their wares, and people chattering in the street, music drifting out of taverns, animals making their various noises. "I dunno. Why's it have to be so hard, fangs?"

"If I could answer that, I'd be the richest man in the world," Astarion said. "But it is hard. It is."

"Yeah." Another long pause. "How'd you and Tav work it out? I really didn't think you were going to for a minute there. Though I'm glad you did."

"Gods above, I'm not sure I know," Astarion admitted. "We just sort of said things at each other until we started listening. It was miserable. Almost dying helped. It does make you reconsider things."

"You should have seen Tav when she woke us up. After you got taken. She was like one of those steel watchers, almost. More machine than person. It was f*cking terrifying."

"Mm. She does get like that, when she's angry and frightened."

Karlach knocked his knee with hers. "How'd you know?" she asked. "How did you know that it would be worth all the effort, to get back together with her?"

"I tried not doing it, and that was worse," Astarion said.

"Right," Karlach said. "Okay." She sighed. "Maybe I should try that with Durge. I dunno. I was so pissed at them, about the Gortash stuff, and then by the time I got over it they were neck deep in some weird gloomy bullsh*t, and it's like… What have I got to offer them? They want to die, and I'm going to die. What kind of future have we got worth fighting for?"

"You know, I have an answer to that," Astarion said. "But it's no good if it comes from me. It only means something if you want it."

"Sometimes it would be nice to just be told what to do," Karlach said. "Maybe that's what gods are for."

Astarion was about to say something cutting when he stopped. Up from the street, a strain of music was rising. An old folk tune, being played in one of the local taverns. A little sad for such an early point in the evening, but the skill of the performer had lulled the crowd into quietness, making it easy to hear the words. The willows weep forever, by the banks of the Eldevay, and Jorindel's bones lie bound in weeds, and only his name remains.

"Ha! Hahahahaha." Astarion started laughing, and once he started, he couldn't stop. It shook him ragged. Karlach lifted herself up onto her elbows and stared at him.

"You alright, fangs? What just happened?"

"A god," Astarion said, still gasping air back into his unworking lungs so that he could talk. "You wanted divine intervention, well, you just got it."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"I can't explain it," Astarion said, "but that song… It means something to me. It's a reminder and a promise."

Karlach raised her eyebrows. "The Death of Jorindel? It's an old standard, isn't it? Always struck me as pretty f*cking sad, to be honest."

"It is," Astarion said. "It's about a young idiot who dies trying to fight a dragon, because he wants to be a hero and doesn't listen to anyone or accept any help."

"Seems ominous."

"It means 'listen to your friends'," Astarion said. "And don't try to solve every problem on your own."

Karlach looked at him like he'd run mad. "Sometimes I don't understand you at all," she said. "What's that got to do with me?"

"I suppose that's up to you," Astarion said. "But Karlach, you're not alone. I'm not alone. Durge isn't alone. Maybe I can't save them, maybe you can't save them, maybe all of us together can. Maybe all of us together can save you."

Karlach snorted. "You can be awfully sweet, when you're not trying to be the funniest person in the room."

"I'm never trying to be the funniest person in the room. I just am, naturally. It's a gift."

"See? There we go. Astarion's daily minute of sincerity is over."

"Not quite," Astarion said, tapping the centre of her chest. "One more thing. If you see your moment, seize it. Don't let yourself regret not saying something you wanted to." He flopped back onto the tiles. The sky above was almost fully dark now, a draped veil of navy velvet, sprinkled with what stars could fight through the fug of fires and candlelight that always illuminated Baldur's Gate. "That's all I've got."

"It's more than I had twenty minutes ago," Karlach said. "Thanks, Astarion." She reached a hand out and ruffled his curls. They stayed there quietly, watching the stars and listening to the bard in the tavern work through her repertoire, until Astarion heard Tav and Durge's footsteps on the stairs.

There were not a lot of smiles as they prepared for Orin the next morning. They checked and double checked equipment and supplies solemnly. Tav had been as reassuring as she could last night, once they were curled up together, but even her firm insistence that Astarion had done as well as he could, and that he couldn't expect to control everything, was not enough to make him feel cheerful about today.

"We'll need to go to the Murder Tribunal," Durge said. "And that will probably be a fight. And then down into the Temple of Bhaal." They scrunched up their face. "Orin will demand a duel. One on one."

"Well that's a staggeringly terrible idea," Astarion said. "I'm glad you brought it up so we can immediately rule it out."

"I'm not sure I'll be able to say no," Durge said. Karlach snorted loudly and obviously. "I think this might be something I have to do."

"Duly noted," Tav said. Her eyes flickered to Karlach, Astarion and Jaheira in a way that indicated she had plans of her own, and whatever they were, she didn't feel like sharing them with Durge.

It was just the five of them today. Wyll had asked if he could take the others down into the Wyrmway to find Ansur, and Tav had agreed after thinking about it. Astarion was slightly surprised, since she hadn't done that last time, but this world's Tav was more relaxed and, oddly, more confident than his original Tav. She had come out the other side of her time in hell and their repaired relationship with a deep serenity that nothing seemed able to ruffle.

"Just be sensible about it," Tav said. "But if it's all of you, I don't think there's much in Baldur's Gate that could stand in your way."

Astarion had not forgotten Sarevok, but when it had only been Tav, there simply hadn't been a lot of talking to do. She'd walked in, refused point blank to murder an innocent, and the fight had started. With Durge there, of course, it was different. They were family, of sorts, and Sarevok had answers that filled out the blanks in Durge's mind.

Astarion did not pay particularly close attention to what Sarevok was saying. He got the gist, and then tuned it out in favour of watching his companions. Jaheira, who had met Sarevok long ago, was narrowing her eyes like there was something about him that didn't add up. Tav was still, with the quiet intensity of someone waiting to draw a sword. Karlach was looking at the older Bhaalspawn with disgust and a kind of horrified understanding. Well, now that she'd met even more of Durge's family, their problems were probably starting to seem positively harmless and mild by comparison.

Killing Sarevok was at least straightforward, as most deaths were for their group. But Astarion did not feel any more at ease when the old Bhaalspawn was dead. He could feel the energy sloughing off Durge in waves. "Tav," they said, "have the voice ready."

Karlach looked back at them. "sh*t," she said, and went to their side immediately. "You look f*cked up, soldier."

"It's about to get worse," Durge said.

Jaheira was opening the door on the far side of the room. Astarion had his blades in hand, certain that if it came down to it, stabbing Durge through the leg would be better than letting them lose control. An oddly familiar voice drifted out. "Get me out of here," it was saying, and Astarion realised it was the investigator from the murder case.

Gods, he'd forgotten about her. And would rather not have remembered. Durge was groaning. "Hold on," Tav said. Her voice rang clear and true. "You can hold on. You are not your father's puppet. Only you decide what you will do."

Karlach was there too, and though she did not look happy, she did not leave them. "Get through this," she said. "You have to."

Astarion hesitated, then stepped in. "Tav, you go help Jaheira. I'll keep our scaly friend company."

There was a version of Tav who might have quibbled with him, but the Tav here and now only gave him the briefest of glances before nodding. She stood up and left, and Astarion took her spot, kneeling next to Durge. From the next room he heard Valeria say "Oh, you've got a familiar stink about you. One of Eilistraee's, huh?" He tuned them out.

"How are you doing?" he asked Durge.

"Your viscera would look beautiful painted around this room," Durge said. Every muscle in their body was locked, holding themself in place. But it was an improvement. No rope needed.

"My viscera look even more beautiful inside my skin," Astarion said. Durge laughed at that.

"You're very stupid or very fearless," they said. "Tav's voice was the best guarantee we had."

"You can't rely on her. You have to know that you can do it alone. You have to prove it to yourself."

"Astarion's right," Karlach said. "You can do this. Look, think about something that isn't violence. Tell me, oh, anything. Tell me your favourite thing about each of our friends." Her voice was gentle. Whatever doubts Karlach might still have in her heart about her relationship with Durge, she did not let that stop her from being their friend first. Astarion loved her for it.

"My favourite thing is the way their bones will snap beneath my teeth," Durge said, and then groaned. "Not true. My favourite thing about Gale is that he keeps recommending me books even though I hate reading." They drew in a breath. "My favourite thing about Shadowheart is that she's funny, especially when she doesn’t mean to be." Another breath. "My favourite thing about Wyll is that he taught me to dance and he was a good teacher. My favourite thing about Lae'zel is that she's so brave, and she never thinks I'm weird."

It was working, Astarion could tell. They were pulling away from the urge, back into the person they had become and were becoming. With each name they added to the list it got easier. "My favourite thing about Halsin is how he likes to talk about his hobbies. He promised to carve me a duck before Orin got him. My favourite thing about Tav is the way she hums when she's polishing her armour and also that she saved me in the Nautiloid and also that she never stopped believing in me. My favourite thing about Astarion," they turned their head and looked at him, "is that you showed me what it's like to live through the worst thing in your life and keep going."

"That's awful," Astarion said. "I can't believe you'd rank that above my beauty. And humour. And intelligence."

Durge laughed. "My favourite thing about you, Karlach... I don't know. I don't think I can pick just one. I like everything about you."

Karlach snorted, but did not actually answer. Astarion saw her throat working. Stop pushing down your feelings, he wanted to say, which would have gone over spectacularly well, no doubt. Do as I say, not as I do, and all that.

Tav and Jaheira came out with Valeria. Durge's head snapped up, and they looked intently at the hollyphaunt. And then they sighed. The Urge left them. Astarion felt it go. Somehow, Durge had ended up holding Karlach's hands. Astarion started at the interlaced fingers, red and white, and then looked at Tav. She must have understood some mute appeal in his expression, because she gave him a firm, reassuring look.

"Orin," Durge said, with terrible resignation, and they let Karlach's hand go.

Astarion remembered the tiresome ambush at the temple gates, and was not surprised that Tav opted for fundamentally similar tactics as she had the first time. Astarion was sent to sneak across the bridge with invisibility, and once in position, to use the tadpole to signal Tav. She triggered the ambush, and then the rest of them propelled themselves to the target with dimension door and misty step. And while they were drawing all the attention, Astarion stabbed the Farslayer in the back.

"Are you very good at lanceboard?" Jaheira asked, as they stopped to rest briefly before heading for Orin.

"People seem to find it surprising that I'm not better," Tav said, "but it doesn't carry over. I think I find lanceboard too artificial. So I'm only mediocre. Though I did get a bit better in the hells. Anything improves with practice."

"Play me when we get back," Jaheira said. "I want to see how much of that modesty is false."

"Gladly," Tav said, "as long as you don't mind wiping the floor with me."

"I've never complained about winning," Jaheira snorted.

Astarion took Tav aside one last time before they entered the temple proper. His whole body felt cold with nerves. He had told her about his conversations with Durge and Karlach last night, once they were curled up in bed together, but all Tav had said was "You did your best, Astarion, and that is all anyone can ask of you. Have faith in the rest of us. We will make sure the worst does not happen."

It had been reassuring then, but now it was not enough. "Tav," he said desperately. "How do we make sure Durge doesn't die? I don't want them to, and if they die, Karlach will die too, and I don't want that either."

Tav looked at him sympathetically, and then pressed a kiss to his forehead. "Astarion, it's alright. Things are not so dire as you fear. We have cards left to play."

"What cards?"

Tav smiled. "There is more at work here than the will of men. And I am not above arguing with gods, if needs be."

"Are you planning to fight Bhaal?" Astarion asked. "That seems rather a tall order, even for you, darling."

"I rule nothing out," Tav said. "But I don't think it will come to that." She squeezed his shoulder and smiled at him. "Astarion, you brought me here from the very fires of hell, and you helped me find myself again when I was truly lost. Have faith in me now, that the paladin you know will rise to the occasion."

Astarion nodded. He tried to believe her. He really did.

Will you know if you've lost? Will you have to go back to the start again? Or will you have to live the rest of your life in the rotting corpse of a world you failed to save? Horror either way, and no knowing what the answer was until the moment arrived.

The temple of Bhaal was not a patch of Shar's Gauntlet, Astarion decided. If he had to go and serve a dark Master, he knew which one he'd pick, and it was the one who understood how to carry off an aesthetic. They picked their way through the corpse-bedecked ruins, full of the sweet and foul odour of rot, and made their way to the edge of the arena where Orin was waiting for them.

And then a little man turned up in a top hat, and Astarion reconsidered some things about the universe. Sceleritas Fel (for it could only be he) was talking to Durge, telling them there was still a chance for them to be the child Bhaal wanted them to be. It was utterly bizarre.

"It's not that I didn't believe our friend," he said to Tav. "I just didn't ever expect to see the damn thing."

"Nor I," she agreed. "We live in strange times."

Durge was clearly unsettled by Fel. They were wrapped up in emotion again, for all that their face remained cold. Astarion could see it in the set of their shoulders, in the twitching of their tail, and in that very coldness that meant they were locked away in their own head.

He wanted to say something to them, but couldn't think of anything both reassuring and honest. He remembered how he'd felt when he'd been about to face Cazador the first time. Had Tav had any wisdom for him? If she had, he couldn't think of it. It hadn't been words that had saved him. It had been care, and trust, and a single look of hope and love and fear.

Still. He had to try. He grabbed Durge's arm. "I've seen it all, you know," he said. "The good and the bad. And I still think you can do it."

Durge turned back to look at him. He saw a glimmer in their eyes. Oh. They were afraid. They put their hand over his. "Take care of them," the Dark Urge said. "Don't let any of them die."

Orin was so eager to greet Durge it was almost embarrassing. "You have the signal honour," Astarion told the dragonborn quietly, "of having the only family worse than mine."

Durge laughed, a little pained but at least sincere. But they didn't have time to reply properly, because Orin was threatening to kill Halsin.

"Don't you dare spill anyone else's blood before mine," Durge told her, and Astarion had to admire the deep understanding they had of their sibling.

They swung their staff off their back and let out a breath that hung in the air, blisteringly cold. There was a moment in which both Orin and Durge seemed frozen. Tav grimaced and pressed a hand to her temple. "Bhaal," she said shortly, when she saw Astarion looking. Whatever the God of Murder was saying to his children, it made Orin smile and Durge get grimmer and more serious.

"A duel, then," they said, and Orin looked like all her dreams had just come true.

Then Orin exploded. Astarion needed to stop being surprised by things he'd already seen, but in this case, he did have to admit that it was just as spectacularly gross the second time. She bounded across the slab Halsin was bound to and swung her claws at Durge, who parried with their staff and then hit her with a blast of ice and snow. Orin shook it off like a child scampering through a winter garden and swung again, and this time her claws sank through Durge's shoulder with an ease and slickness that made Astarion sick.

"We can't let them die," he said.

"I had no intention of honouring Bhaal's wishes anyway," Tav said. "Or Durge's more suicidal impulses. The other cultists will try and stop us. Ignore them. We bear down on Orin as hard and fast as possible, then mop up the remains."

She drew her sword, swung her shield off her back and leapt into the fray, catching Orin's next swing, using the momentum to send the Slayer's arm wide, and returning a blazing blow that severed the limb.

Astarion already had his bow out, arrow knocked, and he fired twice in rapid succession, aiming for the beast's eyes. One shot went wide, but the other hit, and blood spurted out in a hot gout.

Karlach and Jaheira were moving too, Karlach's pole-arm and Jaheira's swords intercepting Orin. Tav dropped back to heal Durge, laying her hands on them and letting blue light wash through their shoulder. "You shouldn't have interfered," they said, and Tav snorted.

"Oh, that is annoying when you hear it the other way around," she replied.

"Total vindication," Astarion said, with some quiet satisfaction, as he shot an arrow at one of the cultists who was trying to sneak up in Jaheira, and heard Durge and Tav both laugh. Durge got to their feet, hand still clamped over their newly-healed shoulder, and fired so many magic missiles at Orin that it looked like a firework had gone off. The red orbs seared through her, ripping flesh and shattering bone, and she collapsed into a dying heap at Karlach's feet.

That wasn't the end of the fight, not when Orin's cultists were thick on the ground and prone to turning invisible every few seconds, but Durge was liberal with their use of ice and laid a sheet of it over the whole battlefield. After that, it was just a case of hitting everyone until they stopped getting back up.

"That's a wrap!" Karlach said, as the last enemy went down. "Looks like we got off easy." Astarion just had time to think Oh no before it all went wrong.

The last of Orin's blood was weeping hot from her body, and as it did the slayer melted entirely, meat sloughing off bone and bone crumbling to ash until all that remained was undistinguished viscera. Sceleritas Fel appeared, looking happy and nervous.

"Master," he said, "you have defeated the false child. Will you not now-?" The little imp looked almost sad, like he knew the answer before Durge said it.

"No. I am done with Bhaal."

The emergence of Bhaal himself in the bloody reflection of Sceleritas's hanging corpse was a neat piece of theatre, Astarion thought. It was easier to think about that than to feel the panic as the god exacted his final price for Durge's disobedience. The dragonborn collapsed, the life visibly sapping from their body with each passing second. He heard Karlach's devastated "No" as if underwater.

Why was there nothing he could do? Why hadn't Eilistraee given him some great magic that could fix this situation? What was the point of trying to do everything right if he could fail through no fault of his own? Or was this considered a win? Was Durge's death an acceptable outcome to the gods, a balancing of the ledger of their life that paid for all the deaths they had caused with one simple self-sacrifice?

Tav stepped forward, her aura alive, and struck the stone in front of her with her sword. "Jergal," she called out, her voice belling loudly around the amphitheatre. "I bid thee come, to make right what was undone in thy service."

There was a moment of silence, and then a soft whisper, like crackling leaves brushing across pavement. Withers stepped into view.

"You guessed," the skeleton said drily. "But thy compunction is unnecessary. I would have come anyway. With or without thy command, paladin."

"I'm glad to hear it," Tav said, "but I hope you'll forgive me for not taking chances, under the circ*mstances."

"I can only revive them if they choose to live," Withers said, and looked a little sharply at Astarion. "But let us see what their choice may be."

The air in the room changed. There was a distant chanting, and the smell of old, dry dust. All the hairs on Astarion's arms rose. They all watched, open-mouthed and silent, as the skeleton brought their friend back to them imbued with new life.

The astonishment of having seen a miracle lasted much longer than the moment itself, which was actually over rather quickly. Even as Durge was patting themself down, looking rather startled, Withers slunk away and disappeared again, probably so he could avoid giving anyone a straight answer about anything.

"I'm not dead," Durge said, more than a little amazed, and that was as far as they got. Tav, the closest to them, had pulled them into a tight hug.

"You're not," she said, "and rest assured, we are all delighted."

Jaheira was not far behind Tav. She patted Durge on the back and gave them some words of wisdom. They smiled, shy and almost a little fondly. And then they lifted their head and looked at Astarion. Astarion's tongue, usually so quick off the mark, suddenly felt thick and heavy in his mouth.

"No quips?" Durge said.

"Do you want me to tell you that it was dreadfully sentimental and twee?" Astarion said. "Because it was."

"Undoubtedly so," Durge said, nodding.

"But if twee is what it takes to get you back," Astarion said, "I suppose I can put up with it." Durge snorted, and then Astarion just had to hug them, so they wouldn't see his face for a minute.

Which only left Karlach. She was looking at Durge. "You did it," she said. "Knew you would, really." It was one of the most obvious lies Astarion had ever heard, and only made easier to spot by the fact that she was crying. "Good job."

"Don't you hate me for it?" Durge asked, with apparent sincerity.

"What? No. Gods, Durge, why would I hate you for living?"

"No god stepped in to save you."

Astarion buried his face in his palm. He was going to kill his stupid, stupid friend with his own two hands.

Karlach sniffled a bit. "Well, yeah. That would have been nice. There's still time, I guess. But even if I don't, I'll still be glad you're okay. I- I do love you, Durge. No matter what."

Durge looked legitimately taken aback. Then they stepped a little closer, and reached forward with one white-scaled hand to cup Karlach's face. "If the gods had any sense," they said, "they would choose you over me every time. But since they don't, maybe I can make up for their failures. I did not expect to have this life, and I don't think I know what to do with it. But if you'll let me, I would put it in your service. I would go where you go, and do what you need me to do, for as long as you want me."

Karlach closed her eyes and leaned into their palm. She sighed. "You'd go to Avernus?"

"Of course."

Karlach snuffled loudly and wiped away her tears. "Let's, uh… Let's go somewhere and talk," she said. "We'll see the rest of you back at the Elfsong."

"Come back for dinner," Tav said. "Since we'll be heading down to face the Elder Brain tomorrow, we should celebrate as a group tonight. Though, where you go after dinner is your own business."

"That's acceptable," Durge said in their most monotone voice, which made Astarion laugh. He was glad they hadn't totally lost that part of themself.

Jaheira did not bother waving to Karlach and Durge as they left. She was already moving to the altar to free Halsin. That invited another round of sentimentality. Astarion didn't know what he felt, truth be told. He'd known Halsin was going to be fine, mostly, and yet the surge of relief when the tall elf was back with them was almost overwhelming in intensity. But he couldn't say or even think a half of it, not when it was bound up in memories of things yet to come.

"Thank you for coming for me," Halsin said, and Tav actually winced.

"Today is really the day I pay for earlier foolishness," she said. "Halsin, you cannot have doubted that we would."

"No," Halsin said. "But even trusting you, I was afraid."

"That, I can understand," Astarion said. "If you'd like to stab anyone about it, I've found it very cathartic. I can offer you a knife, and I'm sure there's a suitable target somewhere in this foul temple."

Halsin smiled. "Tempting, but I’ve seen enough violence these last few days. The Elfsong, a bath, and a glass of good beer is all I need."

"Then let's get out of here," Jaheira said firmly. "If I never see this temple again it will be too soon." And no one was about to argue with that.

It was midafternoon when they got back to the Elfsong. Funny, that all they had done did not account for more than a few hours work. Astarion climbed up onto the roof again. He was more than a little exhausted, and not really in the mood for conversation. But when Tav found him—and he knew it was her even before her head appeared, by the firm and decisive sounds of her clambering—he did not complain. She did not make him talk. She sat behind him, her legs on either side of his, and let him lean back against her and listen to the steady thrum of her heart.

Some time later, when Astarion had almost slipped into a trance from sheer relaxation, Tav finally broke the silence.

"It's been too long a day," Tav said, a little sombrely, "and I wish that we could have nothing but peace, but I have a matter that needs your attention."

"It's bad, isn't it?" Astarion said tiredly. Of course there was something else.

"Truthfully, I'm not exactly sure," Tav said. "But loath as I am to lay any new responsibility on you, I think it would be worse if this blindsided you later."

"Alright then. Let's hear it."

"I had a dream last night." Astarion tensed up. There had been all together too many dreams recently. He was sick of dreams.

"It wasn't anything to do with that other timeline, was it?"

"No, it was the Emperor. Did it also visit you?"

"No," Astarion said. "Wait, did it proposition you?"

Tav hesitated. "Hmm. I was going to say no, but actually there was one moment... But I think I accidentally shut it down without even noticing."

"My cruel darling," Astarion said. "Monsters of all kinds falling at your impassive feet."

"You are not a monster, and I have never been impassive to you," Tav replied. "But stop distracting me."

"No," Astarion said pertly, but he did in fact stop talking. Tav snorted and kissed the top of his head.

"The Emperor was at its most charming and insinuating, which is always a bad sign. I think it is very afraid."

Astarion raised an eyebrow. "What has the Emperor got to be afraid of?"

"I don't know," Tav said, sighing. "That was why I was hoping it had spoken to you, too. It felt like it was trying to make me distrustful."

"Distrustful? Of who?"

"Like I said, it was cagey. Maybe the group as a whole..." Tav's arms tightened around him. "Maybe just you. Either way, it was wasted effort. And then when it became obvious it wasn't going to work, it tried threats. Showed me some memories of Duke Stelmane that were certainly englightening." Her voice dipped unusually close to sarcasm on that last word, but then she got thoughtful again. "It insinuated that it could make me its thrall if it wanted, but I don't fear that too much. It would be tactically foolish."

Astarion felt a little shard of ice slip into his chest. Could he not be done? They were so close. He was so close. Tav's thumb rubbed gently against his shoulder, and he realised he had tensed up. "I shouldn't have told you," she said. "You're worrying again."

"I would always rather know more than less," Astarion said.

"Whatever the Emperor is planning," Tav said. "Don't fear it. I am here. If all my own stubbornness and stupidity cannot keep me from you, what chance has anyone else?"

It was clearly a rhetorical question, intended to be reassuring, and yet Astarion felt deeply unsettled. Why was this not over? Why was it not done? Why did there always have to be one more thing?

Chapter 14: What word of grace in such a place

Chapter Text

Astarion didn't begrudge Durge and Karlach their time alone, he wasn't a complete hypocrite, but he did wish he and Tav could have taken the evening off too, instead of having to rejoin the group to report back and discuss their successes and failures.

Wyll's group had been unsuccessful in their attempts to get the dragon Ansur onside, but the story they returned with was certainly a fascinating consolation prize. "Ansur's been dead for years," Wyll said, "which didn't actually stop him putting up a hell of a fight."

"I can see that," Tav replied, turning Wyll's jaw to look at a nasty burn as she healed him. Astarion, sitting to the side, noticed Wyll looking ever so slightly embarrassed by the attention. He couldn't really blame Wyll for reacting to it - the combination of control and care was outrageously appealing. None of their friends had really even flirted with Tav in this world, maybe because Astarion had been so clearly in love with her from day one, but that didn't mean they wouldn't find her gentle magnetism just as attractive. But of course, that also didn't mean Astarion would refrain from teasing them about it.Especially when shyness made Wyll so very handsome.

"Be careful, Wyll," Astarion purred, "or Tav will get the right idea about just how much you're enjoying that attention."

Wyll blushed harder, but Tav only chuckled and said, "Don't mind him."

"It turns out the Emperor killed Ansur," Wyll said, clearly eager to change the subject. "And also, the Emperor is Balduran."

Well that was surprising.They hadn’t found that out the first time round.

"The Balduran?" Astarion said.

"That's what Ansur said."

Tav got serious and focused. Astarion guessed she was thinking about what she'd told him on the roof. "Tell me everything the Emperor said, and everything Ansur said. And everything you know about Balduran." She sat down, folding one hand over the other and pressing both to her mouth, like a general awaiting a field report. (Or at least, what Astarion assumed that looked like. He was mostly relying on paintings.)

"Balduran is easiest," Wyll said. "He was a hero. The founder of Baldur's Gate. A great adventurer, a man who believed in justice and wisdom. Gods, how it sickens me to know that his legacy was tainted by becoming something as terrible as a mindflayer."

"It does make a certain kind of sense, though," Gale said. He did not sound disappointed by the revelation the way Wyll clearly was. Possibly because he had less attachment to Balduran, or perhaps because he was not so repulsed by the strange and uncanny. "Balduran was clearly powerful and charismatic, and the Emperor is too. You can see a kind of continuity in their achievements."

"I've never been inclined to trust the Emperor," Shadowheart said, "but I don't know that this makes me distrust him any more than I already did. If anything, maybe we should be glad to have such a formidable ally."

"My mind was settled on the question of the Emperor long ago," Lae'zel said decisively. "Not just ghaik, but the one who keeps Prince Orpheus imprisoned. Why should I care what mortal form he wore centuries ago?"

Tav did not voice her own opinion. She asked more questions, drawing out all the little details of the encounter with that way she had, the openness that made people tell her everything. Whatever it was she was looking for, she seemed satisfied by the end, but she kept her conclusions firmly to herself.

"I don't like how many lies the Emperor has told," Wyll said at last, "even if they're only lies of omission. But for all that, it has helped us, too. I suppose we owe it the benefit of the doubt." Lael'zel snorted, but even she did not outright argue the point.

"You know what I like to say," Tav said, smiling. "No sense in drawing a sword on empty air. We will take the situation step by step. That's all we can ever do."

Concerns about the Emperor were put aside for dinner. "We should make tonight something special," Tav said. "The gods know we've had few enough chances to celebrate recently."

No one needed to be told twice. Astarion, Gale and Shadowheart went out to get food from one of the better taverns (according to Gale, the Elfsong was "Fine, but not worthy of real notice", which was so perfectly passive-aggressive that it made Astarion gleeful). By the time they got back, Astarion carrying a rather decent collection of wine, the room had been moved around. There was a big table in the recessed part of the floor, with a tablecloth and candles, cutlery and plates.

"Well," Astarion said, "I suppose there was some benefit to stealing every loose item from every house we passed through."

Shadowheart laughed. She still looked sad, and tired, but some of her sharp brightness had returned and Astarion was glad of it.

Tav arrived back shortly after they did, some fresh-cut flowers in her arms. "Did it really take you that long to buy flowers?" Astarion asked. He had the feeling Tav was up to something. There was an indefinable air of scheming about her.

"I stopped in to the Society of Brilliance to ask if they'd had any word from your siblings," Tav said. "Unfortunately, they have not, though it's probably too early. And then I ran into Mayrina, who sends her regards, and Mol, who reminded me I still owe her lunch."

It was a perfectly reasonable answer. Astarion remained suspicious.

Karlach and Durge walked in hand-in-hand with perfect timing, just as everyone else had sat down. "So you didn't get too distracted then," Astarion said. "I'm disappointed. I expected better of you."

"I can describe physical acts in great detail if that will sate you," Durge said, utterly without inflection.

Astarion would gladly have played that game of nerves, but Tav stopped putting mashed carrot and parsnip on her plate to give them both a look. "Not over dinner, please," she said.

Karlach and Durge took the last two empty chairs, and when they were settled and had food on their plates Astarion raised his glass. "I propose a toast," he said. "Here's to Durge, for surviving, and Halsin, for also surviving."

That got a general laugh, and then there was a round of clinking and sips.

"Are you really Urgeless now?" Wyll asked. "What a relief if it's true."

"That's what I was told," Durge said, putting a rather bloody cut of beef in their mouth. They licked the juice off their lips thoughtfully. "Truly, I don't know if I believe it. And even if it is true, even if the compulsion is gone, I still have to learn how to choose good. I fear fighting the ingrained habit of violence will be the work of a lifetime."

"You won't have to do it alone," Karlach told them. "And besides, violence isn't all bad. When you point it in the right direction."

"Well put," Jaheira said, and raised her glass. "Here's to a new generation of nosy do-gooder. Maybe I'll actually get to retire some time soon."

"Jaheira," Minsc objected, "you would not retire and leave Minsc alone! Boo does not know what he would do without you."

"Boo is not the person in this friendship that I am concerned about," Jaheira said. "Boo has the common sense to take shelter when it rains."

"Boo is always sheltered when it rains! Minsc would never allow him to get wet."

"If we're still making toasts," Gale said, "I'd like to make one. To my friends, who have stopped me from making more than one horrific mistake."

"I'll drink to that," Tav said. "To our friends, who are wise when we are being particularly foolish. Or stubborn. Or both." She raised her glass and drank, and under the table, her fingers interlaced with Astarion's and gave them a squeeze.

"Oh, I like that one," Astarion said, and tipped his glass back. Tav refilled it when he set it back down.

The evening light waned and mellowed, and the room got darker and darker. Karlach lit the candles with a wave of her hand, and Tav cast faerie fire on the banisters, so that a chain of glowing sparks spiralled around them. Astarion watched his friends laughing and talking, swapping stories about different adventures they'd had. They even managed to get a few anecdotes out of Jaheira. Durge was listening to her with rapt attention, their arm over Karlach's shoulder. His newest friend. They seemed so naturally a part of the group now that Astarion could almost forget they hadn't been there the first time. For a moment, he had a dim sense of what it would feel like to think coming back had been truly and completely worth it.

There was a quiet sigh, and Astarion looked at Tav. She was watching the group, her eyes very soft by candlelight, but not entirely relaxed. "What's worrying you?" he asked quietly.

Tav pulled out of her daze with a little jump. After a moment, she said, "Do you ever wish that time could stop?"

"Not usually," Astarion said. "Why?"

"I can't help worrying about tomorrow. I don't know how not to. There's so much on the line. It's been a long time since I had to bring so many people I cared so deeply about right into the maw of danger."

Astarion slid his hand over hers and rubbed his thumb across the ridges and bumps of her knuckles. "There's no need to worry, darling. Everyone here is certified astonishingly good at murder. It's what we're best at."

He got the laugh he wanted, but Tav did not quite relax. "I always hope," she said, "when I'm on a job, that the end result will be saving everyone. Not just a few, not just most. Everyone. It very rarely happens."

"You do love setting yourself up for disappointment. But who knows? Maybe this will be the one in a million chance. If you want to be optimistic, I'm not going to complain."

"I don't know if it's optimism," Tav said. "More like sheer bloody-mindedness."

"True, that's much more like you."

Tav shook herself slightly. "Enough gloom," she said. "No need to make trouble before it arrives." And more loudly, for the rest of the table, she added "Shall we have some music?"

There was music, and dancing. Karlach and Durge even got to stand up for a waltz together, before they made themselves scarce for the evening. At one point Wyll took over music duties and Astarion and Tav got a turn to twirl around. Tav knew the steps of the dance well enough, but was rather graceless. "Eilistraee loves dancing," she said in Astarion's ear, "but I've always hated it. I get much too self-conscious."

"Just close your eyes and leave everything up to me," he responded, which actually turned out to be rather good advice. As he led her through the steps, he leaned his head against her chest, hearing the beating of her steady heart, and hoped that this next day, at least, would be no different than it had been before.

Be very careful, the Emperor said, as the world of the Astral Prism intruded on Astarion's trance.

"What do you want?" Astarion snapped. He was sick of being menaced in his dreams.The Emperor was hovering over the ground near the ridiculous skull that Orpheus was trapped in. Astarion thought he could actually see the gith prince in the distance, suspended miserably in his chains. He could not see or feel any of his companions. How fun, a little nighttime jaunt just for him.

Do not let Lae'zel free the gith prince, the Emperor told him sternly. If you try, you will regret it. There are so many dangerous secrets tucked away against your heart.

Astarion's blood ran cold. "You've been peering into my mind," he said.

I do what I have to to survive, the Emperor said. Just like you. But I hardly needed to look far. You have grown rash, Astarion. You made so many slips. So many moments when you half-confirmed the truth. Never the whole truth to any one person, but if there was someone listening to all of it, they would see. They would know what to look for. And I am no fool.

Astarion grimaced. As much as he wanted to deny it, the Emperor was right. He had become rash. This is why paranoia is always the correct option, he thought bitterly, and then wondered if the Emperor had heard that. No doubt it would agree.

"If you know anything about me, you know that it's in both our interests that I succeed." Astarion considered himself adept at manipulation, but something about his words felt particularly hollow as he said them. It was impossible to forget what he had learned just hours earlier. Was he really going to be able to outplay Balduran himself?

I agree, the Emperor said. And you know that you will need me to defeat the Netherbrain. Our interests align exactly.

"What does that have to do with freeing Orpheus?" Astarion asked.

You have not paid enough attention, the Emperor sneered. I need to absorb Orpheus's power fully to be able to control the brain. Something that I learned by scouring your mind.

"But-"

Lae'zel will listen to you. She trusts you. If you tell her that she cannot free the prince, she will believe you.

"And if I don't?"

Try to harm me and I will turn your friends against you. I have given myself more than enough leverage to destroy any trust you have earned.

"You really think you have a chance of doing that? Tav told me you were talking to her. Trying to make her doubt me. It didn't work on her and it won't work on the others, either. They're not that stupid."

If you wish to underestimate me, that is your prerogative. A foolish choice, but then, many of your choices have been foolish.

"And what exactly are all these threats in service of?" Astarion asked, just a little thrown by the scorn in the Emperor's voice. "What do you want me to do?"

Nothing odious, the Emperor said, its voice once again pleasant and calm. Tell the truth. When I tell Lae'zel that I need to absorb Orpheus to defeat the brain, support me.

Everything in Astarion's memory and every honed instinct for safety told him the Emperor was right. It was a sure path. He knew that the Emperor would truly side with them. It would help them defeat the Netherbrain. And Lae’zel did not need Orpheus, not really. She could lead the fight against Vlaakith. She had the right to, and the strength necessary. She might resent him, but that would not stop her from succeeding.

"Why do you even care about Orpheus?" Astarion asked. "What does it matter to you if we free him?"

Do you really think he will agree to help you? I am your safest choice. We came all this way together. Do not betray me for the delusions of callow githyanki youth.

"We'll find a way," Astarion said. He spoke with more confidence than he really had. In his heart, the Emperor's argument was compelling. Persuasive, even. But he hated being manipulated so very much.

Then will you go back to the beginning again? the Emperor asked, and it even knew the right tone to use, plucked from his memories. Or will you live on here? And it knew more than Raphael had, because it threw memories at him, memories from the dreams of that other world where he had become the Vampire Ascendant. Halsin dead, Tav with her red eyes and unbeating heart, Shadowheart cold and locked in Shar's penumbral embrace forever. Lae’zel, walking through a portal to be eaten by Vlaakith. Do you think that is the worst future? Do you have any capacity to really imagine just how awful things could get?

Astarion hesitated. His will wavered. And then, like the tide rushing through a gap in a seawall, anger flooded in. "Try and scare me all you want," he said. "I'm done being controlled. By anyone. Lae'zel is going to free Orpheus, he's going to help us, and if you want to live, you'll get out of our way."

You fool, the Emperor snapped. You have no idea what it is like to have me as an enemy. You cannot begin to imagine how I will crush you.

"Will you be any more successful than any of the other people who tried?" Astarion said, his voice dripping with mockery. "If you've seen inside my memories, I really think you should be reexamining those odds."

The Emperor shook its head, and Astarion felt himself pushed out of the Astral Prism. He woke up in near darkness, the very first hint of sunrise just seeping into the sky. Tav was next to him, her arm slung loosely over his stomach. She was breathing deeply and steadily. He anchored himself to that rhythm as he stared at the ceiling and began to think.

Astarion had not made up his mind about exactly what to do when Tav woke up. She opened her eyes and saw him awake, and said, voice heavy with sleep still, "What's wrong?"

"You were right about the Emperor," Astarion told her. "I had an… enlightening conversation with it."

"Oh no," Tav said, and rubbed her knuckles into her face until she was properly conscious. "Tell me everything."

So he did. Or, well, almost everything. Even with her, he was a little cagey about exactly what the Emperor had threatened him with. He still didn't know which lines were safe to cross. Tav listened thoughtfully, and then sighed. "It keeps making the same mistake over and over again. Well, that tells me something, in its own way." She chewed on her lip, a little furrow appearing between her eyebrows.

Astarion pouted exaggeratedly at her. "I did expect just a tad more sympathy and concern, dearest," he said.

Tav's eyes jerked into focus and she looked at him, then smiled, slid her arms around him and kissed his temple. "You don't need to be afraid," she said. "I have full confidence that this is a battle you can win."

"I didn't want it to be a battle at all," Astarion whined. He was, secretly, enjoying getting to be a little petulant about the whole thing. It was so nice to have someone he could lean on.

"Nor I," Tav said. She sighed again, seeming genuinely sad. "I will support you above all, I promise, but… If there is a chance, would you forgive me for taking it?"

"A chance to do what?"

"A chance to show mercy," Tav said. Her voice was was inexpressibly gentle. From her lips, the word mercy rang with so much meaning it almost broke his heart.

Astarion wriggled a little closer to her, tucking himself in against her side. "I can't exactly tell you not to be who you are," he said fondly. "I like the Tav I know too much for that."

The morning was busy with last-minute preparations. Tav hesitated about splitting their forces, but eventually made the call that the actual Nautiloid survivors should make up the main party, while Jaheira, Minsc and Halsin stayed in the city to help evacuate and deal with any unforeseen threats. It was not quite what they had done last time, but Astarion did not quibble with it. His mind was still focused on the threats the Emperor had made. He had, in the end, decided not to mention it to anyone but Tav. There was still a chance that the Emperor was only bluffing, in which case there was no point in causing himself trouble he didn't need. When all the potions had been divided up and everyone's armour and weapons had been triple-checked, Tav said, in lieu of any grand speech, "Live through today. Do your best. That is all any of us can promise." Words to live by. And so they headed out.

Getting to the brain was not a problem. The brain itself was a huge problem. Astarion remembered the excruciating agony of the brain's full power leveraged against them, but what good did it do? Preparation did not help him to endure the attack. He wondered whether the Emperor would come for them. Could it not just let him die here? But whatever its plan was, it did not abandon him. He was pulled into the Astral Prism with all the others.

For a few minutes they all just lay there, bleary and dazed, their heads still ringing with pain. Lae'zel's ever-ferocious determination served her well. She was first on her feet, shaky but unflinching. She drew the Orphic Hammer. It was a delicate, finely-crafted thing. It did not look like the kind of tool that could shatter otherwise unbreakable chains. But then, appearances were often deceiving.

"It is time," Lae’zel said fiercely. "Prince Orpheus, we are here to free you."

Wait, the Emperor said. If you free Prince Orpheus we will have no defence against the brain. For us to truly defeat it, I must absorb his power and wield it completely.

Lae'zel snarled at the mindflayer. "Ghaik manipulation," she said. "You have lived in comfort because of my prince's suffering. But no more. This ends today." She took a step towards the suspended figure.

You have been lied to and manipulated, true, the Emperor said, but not by me. By one of your own. There is a traitor in your group. Someone who has betrayed you all, for purposes most vile. I knew something was wrong, but it has taken all this time for me to pierce his mental defences and lay bare the truth. Astarion is not your friend. He is your enemy.

Lae'zel was utterly unmoved. "A pitiably transparent falsehood," she said, in a tone that Astarion gave ten out of ten and a special judge's commendation for being perfectly withering. "What reason would he have to betray us?"

He wants me gone, the Emperor replied, because I know his plans. He has no intention of letting you kill the Netherbrain. He's going to take it over and use it.

"These are very dramatic accusations," Astarion said. He was a little nervous, but there was no way the Emperor could do what it had threatened. These were his friends. It was all fine. He was fine. "But it's all just words. You can't prove any of it."

You are so confident, the Emperor said. And indeed, you have reason to be. I have long hesitated to risk revealing your true intentions. It was too great a risk. Who would believe me, when you have been nothing but kind and helpful and considerate? I knew I would need something absolute for everyone to trust me. But my friends, my comrades, Astarion's mental defences are strong, but they are not unassailable. I have my proof.

And then the Emperor hit them with a collective blast of images. Memories from the first journey. It's a waste of a perfectly good cult we could be controlling, Astarion heard himself say. If I complete the ritual, I'd have all that power. I could walk in the sun without needing a mindflayer's parasite. And if I can seize almighty power for myself? Well, all the better. If we can control the tadpoles, we can keep ourselves safe and enjoy a little world domination. A thousand fragments, pulled out of context--although Astarion had to admit that quite a lot of them were not deeply improved by context, unfortunately--and assembled into the most unflattering picture of who he had once been.

For a moment, Astarion was merely numb, shocked by the deep violation of his mental privacy. Then there was fear, the paralysing fear that this would somehow break the rules of the task he had been given. Even though Durge had come through their ordeal, Astarion had no evidence, no guarantee his future was truly safe.

The Emperor did not give him a chance to collect himself. It kept going, hammering its point home. I have no idea how it came to be, the Emperor continued, its voice clear and strong and persuasive, but Astarion has done this all before. He returned from the future to achieve his ultimate goals, because he was unsatisfied with the way things went the first time.

"Is this real?" Wyll asked, and gods he sounded so hurt. It wasn't fair. "It can't be. Astarion, this is a lie, isn't it? Some trick of the Emperor's?"

Astarion looked around and saw shock, horror, even fear on his friends faces. "No!" And then the words got stuck in his throat. "Well, I mean, not exactly, not the way it's showing you, there's more to it than that…" He couldn't find a way to put what he meant into words. All his ability to spin a story that suited him was suddenly gone.

Don't let him talk, the Emperor said. You can't. You've all seen how carefully, how perfectly he manipulated you this whole time. He'll spin another story. He needs you to free Orpheus so that I die, because with me around he'll never be able to take control of the brain.

"That's not true!" Astarion snapped. "None of it is true except that I did come back from the future, sort of. I don't even really know how it worked myself."

In his panic, Astarion reached out to Tav. Help me, he begged. He risked one darting glance at her. She had used one of her little tricks, and made herself so quiet and still that she faded into the background. She was watching everything, her expression neutral. Tav please, use the voice.

I am on your side, Tav said, her mental voice clear as a mountain stream. I will support you no matter what. But I cannot fight this battle for you. It will mean nothing if you do not do yourself. And I do not need to. Astarion, I believe in you. A wisp of emotion passed down the tadpole bond with her words, not warmth but a bracing slap of confidence, like splashing ice water on your face in the morning.

"How can you expect us to believe you when you were lying to us?" Shadowheart asked. "You've known everything that was coming the whole time! You knew I was being manipulated by Shar, you knew I was going to have to kill my parents! And you didn't tell me."

"I couldn't," Astarion said. He was still trying to sort his thoughts out. "Look, I was told not to tell anyone anything."

"A very convenient excuse," Gale said. "Told by whom? And why? If you had this power, why not share it with us? You're asking us to trust you, but you never trusted us."

Durge tilted their head slightly, in the way that made them look oddly bird-like. Their voice was as flat as ever when they asked "Did you know about me? Did you know who I was, the whole time?"

"No," Astarion said. "You... You're new. You weren't here at all the first time. I had no idea what was going on with you." He clenched his hands into fists. "I know this looks bad, but you have to understand, I didn't ask for this. I didn't even want to come back. I was forced to, because if I didn't, things were going to go very badly wrong."

"You keep talking like there's something bigger at work," Karlach said, "but you're being very f*cking cagey about who it is. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence."

Astarion hesitated. "I'm still not sure if I can tell you that," he said. "You have to understand how much I'm risking. It's the whole world. It's my whole life."

"A very convenient answer if this is all lies," Wyll said. He was using his 'I'm not angry I'm just disappointed voice', and it had never worked on Astarion before, but right now it was like being skewered with a knife.

"If this is all manipulation," Lae'zel said, "then did you make me betray Vlaakith for nothing? Have I turned my back on my queen for a lie?" She was knotted with intense anger, and Astarion knew that if he didn't say exactly the right thing, she would run him through with her sword. What could he say? What could he do?

“Think for a second,” Astarion said desperately. “If I wanted power, wouldn’t I have Ascended? Why turn that down?”

You want more than just power, the Emperor said. You want total control. What is the Vampire Ascendant to the master of the Netherbrain?

“But why not have both?” Astarion said. “Why rescue Tav? Why help Durge to turn from Bhaal?”

“Less competition,” Shadowheart said coldly.

"You needed Raphael dead anyway," Gale added. “Once Durge promised him the Crown of Karsus. You couldn't control the Netherbrain if he took that."

Karlach bit her lip. “Tav,” she said. “You’re the one thing that doesn’t make sense. Everyone else, I can see being manipulation, but I can’t believe for a second that Astarion doesn’t care about you.”

You’re right, the Emperor said, and Astarion had to admire the perfection of its chosen tone. Resigned and sad, as though it were costing the mindflayer something to admit that Astarion could be so malicious. Astarion does love Tav. But love is not the same as goodness. Astarion would happily keep Tav by him, imprisoned, mindless, his obedient servant. He does not need her to be free to be happy. It summoned another blast of memories. Astarion’s innermost thoughts from the bad time when he and Tav were not talking were projected to everyone.

Turning her would break her oath, would break her heart, would break her mind probably. But if his future was already gone, if she was already lost to him, then couldn't he at least have her shell? If she had ruined him, wasn't he allowed to ruin her back?

It was followed by flashes from the dreams. Ascended Astarion, sad and pathetic and greedy. Astarion had never wanted anyone to see this. He had barely wanted to see it himself.

“Tav,” Wyll said, “I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t like this,” Lae’zel said. “These bits of memory are too compelling, too neat. I will not trust any ghaik, and this feels too much like a trap.”

“I want to agree with you,” Karlach said. “Gods above, I want to. Astarion, if you have an explanation for this, we’ll listen.”

He does not, the Emperor said smugly. He will not. Just for him, it added, After all, even if they all hate you, better that than break the goddess’s stipulation.

Astarion was still staring at the ground. A few minutes ago, he’d been so confident his friendships would win out over the Emperor’s manipulations. Now it was all slipping away from him. What could he say? What could he do? What did he dare risk? He had trusted lies and silence for too long; he did not know how to let them go.

“Astarion, if you won’t speak, we have to believe the Emperor is telling the truth,” Shadowheart said. Her voice was cold. She was still angry at him.

“No, I can explain,” Astarion said, “but… it’s complicated. I need to think.”

He needs to find the perfect lie, the Emperor sneered. Nothing more.

Astarion's eyes flickered to Tav again. She met his gaze, her eyes untroubled. He was a little annoyed by her stillness. She still thought he could do this alone. Why? What made her different from the others? Why could the Emperor not worm its way into her mind? Was it because she was better at faith? That didn't seem sufficient. She knows me, Astarion thought. She's seen right down to the heart of me.

He had two choices. He could say nothing. Let his friends hate him, let them mistrust him. He could tell them the truth in time, once he was mortal again, once the cure was secured and Lakehaven was established. They would forgive him, probably. Eventually. And he would have Tav no matter what. Astarion had worked so hard to do what Eilistraee had asked of him. It would be madness to give it up. He knew that.

But he could. That was choice two. He could tell his friends everything. Risk the future, risk the true worst case scenario, having to repeat the entire journey again. He could live in doubt and uncertainty for the next year. And in doing so, protect what he had now. Protect the connections he had built. It was a stupid decision, and yet the thought of having to look at all their faces if he chose safety clawed at his throat.

His friends or his future. Break a promise to a goddess or break his friend's hearts. It's only worth saying no if you can say yes. He had thought deciding not to Ascend was the most difficult decision he'd ever made, but this came close. Why did Eilistraee ask me to say silent? What was it for? What does it mean? He hoped, madly, that she would reach out again, give him some sign that he was free to talk. There was nothing but silence, and he did not know if that was permission or disapproval. He would have to make this choice alone, in the dark. But then, that was how he had always lived. Astarion had a mental image of all the prisons he had lived in, literal and figurative. The name they all shared was fear.

He made his choice.

It was not easy. It was dreadful. Astarion had been flayed the way he’d described to Karlach back in the Underdark, all the skin below his knees ripped off in one smooth movement. Cazador had made boots out of that skin, and worn them to mock him with. He had been tortured once by having his chest cut open and his ribs bent back, so that Cazador could reach his hand into the cavity and wrap his fingers around Astarion’s cold, unbeating heart. What he did now was almost as excruciating.

He reached into his mind and showed them all of himself. Who he was, and how they had changed him. It was nothing like the clean, ordered narrative the Emperor had given them. It was jumbled, messy, pieces of his first life and his second bleeding all together. It was more emotion than logic, a tapestry of who they all were to him. And it was a tapestry of himself, too, because what he had said to Durge two days ago had been spoken from experience. Everyone you let into your heart took a piece of you with them.

There was Wyll, brave and honourable, always leaping into the fray to defend others in a way that Astarion thought was exhausting and foolish and perhaps just a bit admirable. And what he had learned best from Wyll, the value of sweetness and romance, the beauty of an open heart.

Next to him Lae'zel, and Astarion showed her her bravery, the fierce brightness of her courage, the strength of her unflinching honesty. He gave her the memories his frustrations with her on the first journey, and of how that frustration had turned to deep and abiding admiration on the second.

Shadowheart was easy. He remembered playing cards with her in Waterdeep while Tav was healing, he remembered watching her throw a spear into an abyss. Companionship, like-mindedness, and the hope that he too was brave enough to change.

He showed Gale conversations from Waterdeep too, and the conversation about Tav in this life, and a snatch of the Ode Eilistraee had written. Gale was patience, and curiosity, and an appreciation for good food. He remembered the recipes Gale had passed onto him, and the notes he still needed to give his friend about some definite improvements he’d made.

Karlach… It took him a moment to find exactly what he wanted to show her. But he had learned from her to love the present, when and where he could, to take pleasure in life now, because you might not have it tomorrow. And he had learned grief from her. He did not hide that. The memory of their talk on the roof just a few nights ago was sharp and vivid in his mind, full of warmth and love and tinged with the fear that she would be gone all too soon.

And finally he caught Durge’s mind. His new friend, his strange undertaking, the dark shadow of what he had been through. Watching Durge had hammered home the lesson Tav had spent the first journey teaching him—that he always had a choice, and that everyone could change, and be better than they had been, if you gave them a real chance.

And he showed them Tav. She was love to him, love in all its strangeness and beauty, and mercy, in all its power and danger. He could have given them an ocean of her, but settled for just a fragment. It was enough.

As he laid himself bare, Astarion felt the old fear clawing at him. To admit to feeling was to make yourself vulnerable, to give others power over you. They could use you, hurt you, manipulate you, if they knew you cared. That he was able to do it at all was the greatest measure of how much he had changed. Some little corner of him still anticipated the blow that he would receive in return.

But what he got a flood of feeling. Delight, affection, amusem*nt, friendship, love. There was so much of it he couldn’t think, pouring down the connections between him and his companions.

"Look," he said, when the tide ebbed a little, "those memories the Emperor showed you are real. And the broad shape of the story is true. I’ve lived through this all once before. It was different. Durge wasn’t there, for one thing. But a lot of the same things happened. I remember all of it, including the bit that comes next, where we win. Not perfectly. Not without scars, but we did it. And then I got sent back. To do something for… someone. To make sure that it all turned out alright again.” Astarion shrugged and grinned. “I wouldn’t have picked me either, but believe me when I say that it wasn't my decision.”

"So those things the Emperor showed us, they're from the first journey?" Gale asked. "You were very different."

Astarion opened his hands theatrically. “You caught me. I wasn't always a very good person.” They all laughed at that, and Astarion continued. “When I first met all of you, the first time round, I had been Cazador’s slave for two hundred years. I had no memory of freedom. I was scared and vulnerable and I didn't exactly have a great ethical role model to base my decision making on."

Karlach snorted. "No," she agreed. "Cazador didn't seem like the type."

This is foolish, the Emperor said. You shouldn't listen to him.

"Oh, shut up," Wyll said. "Don't think I've forgotten what Ansur told us about you."

"Luckily," Astarion said, "Tav is extremely good at finding people who need to be dragged into sensible decision making by the scruff of their neck and doing exactly that. I wasn't the only person in the group she helped, the first time around," he added pointedly, eyeing Shadowheart and Gale particularly.

"So far, this does seem plausible," Gale admitted.

Astarion told them the rough shape of the rest of the adventure. "I still don't want to say too much about the future," he admitted. "But I can skip ahead to the happy ending. Tav and I spent the next year looking for a cure for vampirism. One that could save all of Cazador's victims, not just me. We found it—with some very kind help, I might add—and used it. I became mortal again. And then, about a year from today, I got sent back to the start all over again. What I was told was that what Tav and I had achieved threatened the balance of power in the Underdark. The first pebble in an avalanche, so to speak. And so Lolth made a deal with Bhaal. Well, that's what I'm guessing, now that I know who you are," he said to Durge.

"Then..." Tav's stillness broke, and she looked genuinely astonished. "The goddess who sent you back... Eilistraee?"

"She is so meddlesome," Astarion said, sighing, and Tav snorted. "I still don't know why she chose me and not you."

“I knew the ghaik was lying,” Lae’zel said with savage satisfaction. “My estimation of you could not have been so wrong.”

"You helped me be a person," Durge said. "If you want to betray me now, I think you've earned it."

Shadowheart hesitated. "Astarion," she said, "I want to believe you. But couldn't you have told me something about Shar? About my parents? Helped me prepare? If you'd told me, I could have found another way. Tried to save them."

Astarion opened his mouth to defend himself, then stopped. "I'm sorry," he said. "I... It didn't occur to me. Of everyone, you were the person I was least worried about. I'd already seen that you were strong enough to do what you needed to do."

Shadowheart bowed her head for a moment, then sighed. "Well, that's probably good enough for the middle of a crisis," she said, in the bitingly dry tone Astarion enjoyed hearing her use so much. "But don't think you're off the hook. We're going to have a much longer conversation when this is all over."

"I look forward to it," Astarion told her, and though his voice was laced with irony, in his heart of hearts he meant it.

So you have chosen, the Emperor said. How I hoped you would see reason.

It was ridiculous to describe a mindflayer as levitating sadly, but somehow the Emperor contrived to do it, and as it did, it opened up a portal.

If you stand against me, I must stand against you, it said. You will not find the Netherbrain so easy to defeat in this universe, when it has me as its agent.

“Mmm, no. I don’t think so,” Tav said. “Durge, would you?”

Durge needed no prompting, and cast a hold on the Emperor immediately.

So you wish to fight here instead, the Emperor snarled. Fine. But I will not go quietly.

The Emperor's body was bound, but it could still lash out psychically. Astarion felt the mental whip coming, tried to brace against it, and was startled when the anticipated pain didn't hit. A blue-white aura rippled over the group, and Shadowheart let out a relieved sigh. "I'm so glad you told me to prepare that spell, Tav. Thinking ahead as always." She shook her hands out of the casting gesture and smiled.

Tav gave the Emperor a long and level look, then turned to Lae'zel. “Lae’zel, why don’t you free Orpheus? I think it’s time we all talked.”

Lae’zel nodded, and brought the hammer down on Orpheus’s chains. The gith prince’s bindings crumbled, and his gag fell off his face, revealing a lot more beard than Astarion had expected. He also did not seem nearly as pleased about being free as one might have imagined.

“Freed by ghaik,” he snarled.

Tav raised an eyebrow. “You know the situation is more complicated than that, Prince Orpheus. Infected is not the same as transformed.”

Orpheus sneered at her. “For now. As long as you remain under my protection. And you have worked against me. You killed my guard.”

“I was not here,” Tav said. “I was in hell.”

This perfectly sensible point only made Orpheus seem angrier. “Well then kill the ghaik who was siphoning my power to keep your little head intact and have done with it,” he said. “There is work to do, and little time to do it in.”

“If you wish me to kill it,” Tav said, “then enumerate its crimes and let me be the judge.” She drew her sword and rested her hands on the guard, standing straight and tall, looking every inch the storybook knight come to life. The glow of her aura became visible, a soft silvery light that illuminated her.

“Of course it is our enemy,” Lae’zel said. “It just tried to turn us against Astarion. It has done incalculable harm to Orpheus. How could you ever consider it anything else?”

“I am not questioning the crime,” Tav said. “But I doubt the need for the punishment to be death. I am a paladin of Eilistraee, and I live my life by a code, and the highest tenet of that code is mercy.”

“Tav,” Shadowheart said, plainly exasperated.

“That might be a bit much, soldier,” Karlach agreed. “Even for you.”

Tav did not answer them directly. She looked at Astarion.

This is absurd, the Emperor said to Tav. I would rather just die than sit through this farce.

Tav looked at the Emperor. "Given that you did just try to turn us against Astarion," she said, "I am not particularly interested in what you want. You are not a very good judge of your own best interests. You have decided in your own mind that if we freed Orpheus you would die. Even though I told you, again and again, to trust me."

I know I will die. Even if Orpheus did not kill me, without his protection, the Netherbrain would control me again. I would lose myself. It is another kind of death.

Tav nodded. “So you hem yourself in with logic."

Orpheus glowered at Tav. "What farce is this, istik? You should be on bended knee before me, begging for mercy, and instead you defend this vile creature. This scum who has kept me chained."

Tav looked right at Orpheus. The prince of the gith was too strong-willed to flinch from her gaze, but Astarion saw his eyes tighten ever so slightly. "Prince Orpheus, you are certainly owed an apology, and some redress for the terrible harm done to you. You have been a prisoner for too long. It is my understanding that the Emperor did not put you here, but that does not negate his part in perpetuating your imprisonment, which was both cruel and unnecessary. I am not arguing that the Emperor has not done violence, because I have eyes, and I am not arguing that you are not entitled to anger, because I have a heart. But you are a statesman as well a person. You bear the title Prince, and because of that, I appeal to you as one who makes the law. Let there be space for a judgement that is not death."

"This is nonsense," Lae'zel said. "Gith law does not deal in the weakness you are describing."

"Vlaakith's law does not," Tav said. "I do not know if Prince Orpheus is similarly inclined."

"I do not show mercy to ghaik," Orpheus said. "They enslaved us for millennia. They all deserve death."

"The Emperor was not part of the illithid empire," Tav responded, showing absolutely no sign of frustration. "He was a victim of the mindflayers. That is their ultimately cruelty, is it not, that they make their victims into themselves?"

"All ghaik deserve death," Orpheus said, trembling with fury. "That, my mother knew. That was what she taught us."

"Is that true?" Tav said, and her voice had changed. It had taken on the timbre of the paladin. "Mindflayers who serve Elder Brains have no free will, and act with terrible violence and cruelty, but those who break free are as any mortal, capable of good and bad. They are cursed to feed upon sapient beings, and that is a source of conflict and tragedy, but they are capable of choice. There is one I have met who shares my dream of making the Underdark a place of light and beauty. I cannot call it evil. And even the Emperor, in all its manipulative power and selfish cunning has never been wholly bad. It did fight the Absolute for us. It used all its strength, and all your strength, to keep us safe that we might save the world. I have seen its cruelty, but that cruelty was there when it was a man called Balduran, too. And I have also seen in it the capacity for love and loneliness. So if you wish it to die, you must make a better argument."

"You are asking me to break with the traditions of my people, which are older than your civilisation, older than you can imagine," Orpheus said.

"Yes," Tav agreed. "If you wish to defeat Vlaakith, this will only be the first of many traditions you will have to break. Prince Orpheus, I too am from a people engaged in a civil war over who should rule us, and what our beliefs should be. I do not speak to you from a place of naive simplicity, but from the deepest experience, and in the most powerful conviction that when we look back on millennia of violence, that is when it is most essential that we find compassion." She held Orpheus's gaze. Everyone else was spellbound and silent. Tav had that effect, when she used all her strength. It was not, Astarion thought, that she became something greater than herself, because the thing that was so compelling about it was that she did not make herself powerful. She made herself humble, and in that humility stripped back the lies and illusions people loved to cloak themselves in, until their raw and beating hearts lay exposed before her. A terrifying power, but a human one. No god could ever do it.

Orpheus clenched his teeth, and Tav added, so softly that it was almost a whisper, and yet so clearly that everyone heard her, "I would have you show mercy to the Emperor, Prince, in the hopes that you will also show mercy to yourself."

The spell that was no spell at all but only truth made real by one woman's stubborn belief in it was cast again. Tav had not had as much of a chance to be the hero in this timeline, and Astarion was glad to see her get her flowers now. This, everyone would remember.

"You know then," Orpheus said, "what you have done, in freeing me."

"There must be an illithid with your power," Tav said, "to hold the Netherbrain in check. Either the Emperor would have absorbed your power, or…" she drew in a breath, "or you must become illithid. I am sorry. It is a cruel fate that uses you so."

"I will never know freedom," Orpheus said bitterly. "There is no one to grant mercy to me."

"I do not think that is true," Tav said. "That is why I am asking this of you. I want you to live, Prince. I want you to find out what it means to be yourself, even if your outward appearance changes. You deserve to hope, after everything."

Tav reached up and touched her temple, and for a moment, she and Orpheus were very still. Astarion asked her, later, what she had showed the Gith prince in that moment, but she only said, "Something I thought he would understand." It might have been Menzoberranzan, or it might have been Eilistraee, or it might have been some other, unknowable moment that would resonate only for the two of them.

"You are strange," Orpheus said, when Tav let her hand fall. "Very well, paladin. I will grant you favour. You may show the ghaik mercy."

Lae'zel looked more than a little flabbergasted, but she did not object. Probably, she didn't even know what she wanted to say.

How delightful, the Emperor said. I am so moved by this little performance. But it means nothing. It will not work! The Netherbrain will have me, whether you will it or not.

It was funny, Astarion thought. The Emperor had done all of this because it did not have faith in other people. It was ruthlessly cold and lonely. It could not believe that there was any way out of this without conflict. It had seen all his memories, and yet it had not understood them. It had not understood Tav. But Astarion did.

Tav grinned, the weight of the paladin sliding from her shoulders, until she was only her usual reliable self. “Trust me, Emperor,” she said. “If this is the last hand of the game, why not go all in? And I do have a plan, you know.”

There was a pause, and then the Emperor laughed. You are not like anyone else, it said. Almost, you make me want to believe in you.

"We'll knock you out and tie you up," Tav said. "Leave you here until we beat the Netherbrain and then come back for you."

The Emperor turned its strange head to look at Astarion. And what do you say? You will let her do this, after what I did to you?

Astarion took a lot of pleasure in responding with a beautifully relaxed and nonchalant shrug. "I only argue with Tav about important things," he told the mindflayer. "And you aren't important."

So they bound the Emperor, and doused him in sleep potion, and then they set off to fight the Netherbrain. More than anything, Astarion found that he was happy. He had, after everything, made Tav's wish come true. This time, she would get to save everyone.

There was one last thing to say, as they gathered in the ruins of the High Hall. Astarion drew Karlach aside.

"You have to promise me you're going back to Avernus," he said.

Karlach raised an eyebrow. "You still worried about that? Durge and I have it all sorted out. No need to fret."

"As soon as the Netherbrain is dead," Astarion told her, "I'm going to be susceptible to the sun again. I won't be able to stay. So I need to know that you're going to be alright."

Karlach opened her mouth, then shut it again and looked at him for a moment. "I died last time, didn't I?" she said.

Astarion couldn't answer properly. "I can't," he said. "I can't do that again." It was all he could say.

"You said Durge wasn't there," she said. "I guess I thought no one would go with me, and I wasn't going back alone." She sighed. "Yeah. I would have done it like that." She rubbed a hand across her eyes. "I promise I won't die this time. It's not the same."

"Do you remember we talked about getting brunch?" Astarion said.

Karlach blinked. "Oh… Oh, yeah. Back in the Shadowlands."

"Well, I'm holding you to that promise. What with my little sunlight allergy returning, and you needing to spend some time in the balmy heat of Avernus, we'll have to take a bit of a rain-check, so let's say… In a year. For the anniversary of today."

Her beautiful golden eyes were so warm, and the huge grin that lit up her face was so bright. "A date in a year? Astarion, what kind of calendar do you think I keep?"

"Do we have a deal or not?"

She hugged him. "We do."

"Excellent. I'll never forgive you if you don't make it."

"No fear there. I'm going to be showing off whatever flash new machinery I've got going on. It'll be incredible, trust me."

"I'm looking forward to it," Astarion said. "Although I might be looking forward to tasting a mimosa even more."

And so, for the second time, and the first, they went to war. They went to war, and they won. Battle was so wearying, and so chaotic, that Astarion could not really say whether it went better or worse. No one died. That was probably all that mattered.

There was one moment, when they were standing in front of the brain, when Durge grimaced and snapped their teeth.

"What's wrong?" Astarion asked, on high alert for any crisis.

"My stupid father," Durge snarled. Their fists were clenched tight. "Wants me... to take control. One last chance to be his favoured child."

"I thought you were free of the Urge!" Astarion objected. Why was there always, always one more thing?

"Not the Urge, not exactly," Durge said. "I suppose nothing about my resurrection meant dad couldn't drop by to say hi." They snorted and shook their head back and forth, and the tension in their body eased.

"Next time, pretend you're not home," Astarion said. "Draw the curtains and hide behind the sofa."

"Sneak my soul out the back door," Durge said, and smiled.

The brain died.

Orpheus saw them all the way to the end, when Astarion had to leave. He fled away into the relief of shadow, and waited. He did not have to wait very long.

"There you are," Tav said. She ducked into the sewer tunnel he was kneeling in and sat on the crate next to him.

"Did it all work out?"

"As well as you could have dreamed," Tav said. "Karlach and Durge left for Avernus, and Lae'zel and Orpheus are off to the Astral Plane. We got the Emperor out of the Astral Prism, and remanded it to Omeluum's keeping. The Society of Brilliance has some device that will restrain its powers while they work on rehabilitating it."

Astarion raised an eyebrow at her. "You didn't mention that when you were making your case for mercy."

"Well," Tav said, a little embarrassed, "it probably wouldn't have agreed if it had known. And mercy is not the same as absolution. Which was part of what I told Orpheus."

Astarion shook his head. "You can occasionally be very cunning, my dear paladin."

Tav shrugged evasively. "I merely do what I have to do." She slid an arm around his shoulders. "But enough about me," she said. "You did it. Astarion, you did it."

Astarion looked down at his hands, and realised they were shaking. "It doesn't feel like it," he admitted. "How do I know? How do I know I got it right?"

Tav did not answer him immediately. She rested her chin on top of his head and thought about it. "I'll find out for you," she said. "I think I'm owed some answers anyway. My goddess has some accounting to do."

Astarion snorted. "What, are you planning to threaten her?"

"I have every faith it won't need to go that far," Tav said, just the tiniest hint of steel in her voice. "Eilistraee is very reasonable."

"When you talk like that," Astarion said, "a man could almost get the wrong impression, darling. You wouldn't do anything silly like break your oath over this, would you?"

Tav leaned back so she could arch an eyebrow at him. "Of course not. Like I said, there's no way Eilistraee would ever let it get that far. I believe in her." The steel was, if anything, more evident. "Anyway, that's no concern of yours. My relationship with my goddess is my business." She stood up. "It's almost dusk, and the sun will have set by the time we get to the exit near the Elfsong. Shall we go and join the others?"

"As you wish, darling," Astarion said. And as they walked back he reflected that it was very nice to be loved by someone who would argue with her own deity on your behalf.

Astarion was not dreaming, though it was like a dream. Eilistraee was standing in front of him. The goddess herself, as he remembered her, tall and lithe and resplendent, both the realest thing he'd ever seen and as ephemeral as a soap bubble.

"So I won't remember the next year?" he was saying. He had the feeling there had been more conversation before this, but he could not remember it.

"Only the day before you returned to the past," Eilistraee said sadly. "That's how it has to be."

"I know," Astarion grumbled, very much in the tone of someone accepting an inevitable truth they don't like.

"What you do next must be done in earnest," she said. "You must really risk everything."

"If I don't know the future, how will I be sure I'm doing it right?"

"You won't. That's important. Not until the moment you left the first time comes again."

"And if I do it wrong, will I have to loop again? Or will I be stuck living with the consequences of failure?"

"You know I can't tell you that," Eilistraee said."Not yet. This isn't over until you reach the day you returned from. Not for certain."

"You can't do much of anything, can you?"

"Less than I or any mortal wishes. But I have a gift for you. Something to keep you going. Something that really happened, but that you never made a memory because it wasn't important. I found it accidentally, while I was looking for what I needed."

The sadness in her voice was real. He could feel it. It was one thing to reject the gods abstractly. It was a lot harder to do when they were there in front of you. But he still tried.

"You ask too much of us," he said.

Eilistraee sighed. "I know," she said. "It's never been fair. Maybe we would stop doing it if you stopped astonishing us." She tilted her head to the side. "One more thing. Astarion, I promise you this. There will come a moment when you understand why it was all worth it. A perfect moment. It might take a while, but you will get there."

"I don't believe in perfect moments," Astarion said, more than a little childishly.

"Well then, it will be a wonderful surprise. And now, the gift I promised."

Eilistraee leaned forward and kissed him tenderly on the forehead, and then shivered apart into shards of moonlight. Everything went dark, and Astarion fell into a fragment of the past.

It was a winter's night, about five years after the Bhaalspawn incident, and the snow was falling thick and fast over Baldur's Gate. Astarion was with Dalyria, Aurelia and a soon-to-die spawn called Fyodor. They were having an argument about who was going to go to which of their usual haunts. They couldn't all go to one place, and everyone wanted the luck of staking out the Moon's Rays, which had a roaring fire, comfortable seats, and served their best red wine gently warmed.

Astarion was not paying attention. He'd recently been through a particularly horrific torture session, and was still finding it hard to focus on everyday things. He knew he needed to pull himself together, but no matter how much he tried, his attention would slip and drift away, floating out into the world like the fat snowflakes that were clustering on his lashes.

Across the street, a human man of about fifty was standing with a gawky teen. They were both wearing armour, and identical tabards emblazoned with Selûne's symbol. "Where's she got to?" the man was saying, deep and gruff but not unkind. "I thought it would be you who got lost on us, Niamh."

"I'm here, master," said a more distant voice. A very tall woman appeared out of an alley. Her dark blue skin was striking, even fearful, if Astarion had not been totally numb to both surprise and fear. On either side of her face hung fat braids of pale hair, a childish hairstyle that combined with her broad mouth and wide open eyes to make her seem no older than the teen.

"What were you doing?" the older man squinted at her. Astarion's fickle attention drew his eyes to the drow's arms, where a cat lay placidly. She was scratching its head, and with his heightened senses, Astarion could hear its deep rumbling purr from the other side of the crossroads.

His attention danced away, watching the snow accumulate on the sign for the nearby apothecary. A chunk slipped off and fell to the ground.

"You're not at risk of Godey," Fyodor was saying quietly. "I'll go with Astarion. You two try the Wheat Sheaf."

Back across the street again, the paladin was upbraiding his squire. "Don't you know how many stray cats there are in this city? You can't rescue all of them. You can't even rescue one of them! We'll be gone the day after tomorrow."

"Sorry master," the drow said. She didn't look sorry. "I'll just bring her back to the chapterhouse and give her a meal. I won't keep her."

Frost ferns were rapidly blooming on the thick glass panes of the house beside them. There was an icicle forming on the gutter overhead. Astarion heard the jangle of a horse's bridle and the ring of its shoes from the next street over. The usual reek of the city had been cut through by the cold iron of the snow, a clean smell that would be lucky to last an hour in this place.

"-rion? Astarion?" Fyodor's elbow knocked into him, none too gently, and Astarion realised his brother had been trying to get his attention for a few moments. "Come on, we're going."

Astarion did not bother to reply, but followed Fyodor down the street. They passed unavoidably by the three paladins, heading in the other direction. The drow was still carrying the cat. As the two groups drew near, she smiled at them. It was a gauche, country smile, the most obvious possible sign that she was not a born city dweller. Astarion returned it with a chill nod more cutting than an open sneer.

For just a single moment, grey eyes met red. He had an instant to be startled by the brightness of those eyes and their clear depths, and the way they were shadowed by little lines of tiredness that tempered her friendly expression with old sorrow. Then his attention skittered away, and he forgot the moment entirely.

He walked on with Fyodor, through the slush and snow to the alehouse, which flung its doors open and drew them into warmth and light and chatter. Astarion quickly found himself a handsome man with dark wavy hair, and it all went on as usual, that narrow and cramped and meaningless world.

Somewhere across the city, in a Selûnite chapterhouse, a drow paladin set down a plate of chicken scraps for a cat and untangled her hair from its heavy braids, and thought about cutting it. As the cat tore into the food, she took out her diary and wrote her entry for the day. She wrote about the cat, and her hope that the chapterhouse needed another mouser. She did not remember to include a moment when she'd looked into the loneliest eyes she'd seen since Menzoberranzan. She too had already forgotten. She finished her entry, blew out her candle, and stood by the window in her warm practical flannel nightgown, watching the snow fall.

As she stared, the clouds began to ease and the white moon peeped through. It beamed off the snow below and made the city briefly resplendent, an unspoken prayer to the divinity of the mundane. Astarion, walking his black-haired boy to an early death, was moved by the same moment of dazzling beauty to quote a trite line of poetry. His victim was breathlessly appreciative, and Astarion rolled his eyes inwardly. The night was young, and the night was very old. Astarion's boots left a trail of footprints that would be gone by morning.

Chapter 15: Each day is like a year, a year whose days are long

Chapter Text

Sunlight, bright and harsh, hit Astarion's eyes.

But I closed the curtains last night, he thought. I remember doing it, and thinking that it would be nice to sleep past dawn for a change. It's been more than a tenday since I was last in an actual bed. I wanted to savour it. He drew in a breath, ready to complain to Tav about waking him up and find out what unbelievably annoying Good Reason she had for it—and froze. He knew these thoughts. He'd been here before. Was he back at the start again? Hadn't he done as Eilistraee asked? Would he have to repeat it again and again and again with no ending? What could he possibly do that he hadn't already done?

Over the whole of the last year, as they had travelled and adventured, found his siblings, searched for a cure, fought monsters and liches and all the rest of it, he had been afraid. At the six month reunion he had been afraid. When he took the cure and became mortal again, he had been afraid. All the way back to Baldur's Gate, he had been afraid. Nothing he told himself and nothing Tav said or did could drive it out entirely. I cannot bear to do it again. One set of memories had been bad enough. But to tread the same path a third time, knowing everything, feeling everything... He was too frightened to open his eyes. The thought of seeing that beach, with its rising columns of smoke and the crashed Nautiloid and its corpses. To be dead again. To have to look again at a Tav who did not know him. To have to play a part again and do it all and be that person and and and andandandand—

His chest was moving up and down, too fast, too fast. His breath was coming in and out in little gasps. His heart was thumping and thumping and there was a terrible ringing in his ears. His hand flailed out and landed on something soft, and then someone gripped his fingertips.

"Astarion," Tav said, "it's alright. You did not return to the past. You're here in the Elfsong with me."

Astarion opened his eyes and blinked. Tav, dressed neatly in an embroidered doublet and freshly pressed hose, was sitting on the side of the bed, looking down at him with mingled love and worry. He looked at her. He looked at the room. There were their packs, set neatly against the wall. There was his outfit for today, hung on a hanger to stop it creasing. "Tav," he said. He gripped her hand harder, squeezing until it hurt him and surely hurt her. She did not even wince. She squeezed back much more gently, but answering pressure with pressure. Her other hand cupped his cheek. It was a little cool, because these days he ran hotter than she did. "Tav?" he said again. He was asking for something, but he didn't know what.

"I'm here," she said. "I'm with you. Nothing will ever keep me from you again." Yes. That was it.

He reached up and pulled her down to him for a kiss, enjoying the little pleased "mmph" she made, and kept kissing her until he was breathless. When he had to stop, she pulled back a little, and looked at him curiously. "How do you feel?"

"Strange," he said. "Good. Strange. I didn't go back. I won't go back. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring."

"You're just like the rest of us," Tav said, and leaned down and kissed him. "Well, lovelier than most, but there's not much you can do about that." Astarion looped and arm around her neck, and let the fingers of his other hand creep up to the buttons of her doublet, but Tav stopped him gently. "There'll be time enough," she said, "but I don't want to crease my good shirt. And you should start getting dressed soon anyway."

"Why?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you've forgotten what day it is. If you don't start getting ready soon, we're going to be late for brunch."

It had been a long year.

Astarion thought about it as he got ready. He was, in the end, grateful that he hadn't had his memories of his first journey with him the whole time. It would have been too much. It would have driven him mad. Instead, they'd come back to him in bits and pieces on a months-long delay, so that he only knew afterwards what had changed. It was a lot and a little, the broad outlines similar, the details startlingly different.

At first, he'd wondered why Eilistraee had bothered to give him back his memories of the year after the Netherbrain at all. But when he got the chance to ask her, at the Dancing Haven at Midwinter, that had been one of the questions it was easiest for her to answer.

"I thought you'd want them," she said. "That if you didn't get them back, you'd always be a little unsatisfied. But if you want them gone again-"

"No!" Astarion said quickly. "I was just curious about your logic." His memories were his, and he hated to lose anything he owned. And besides, there were much more important things he needed to know.

"Why me?" was the first question, of course.

"Don't you know?" Eilistraee said, sounding genuinely surprised.

"You have a paladin," Astarion pointed out. "Why on earth would you pick me and not her?"

"What would have changed, if I'd picked Tav?" Eilistraee asked. "What would she have done differently from the first trip?"

Astarion thought about that. He opened his mouth. He closed it again. "You're saying she didn't need to be made better, and I did?"

"Not better," Eilistraee said firmly. "Just more experienced. You went through more change than Tav on that trip, and it was the memories of having changed that seemed most helpful to me. And I was worried that if Tav thought she had to choose between you and Durge, she would become trapped by indecision." Astarion was hit with the memories of how the journey had gone for Lord Astarion and that Tav, and winced. "Exactly," Eilistraee said. Then she reached out and touched his shoulder. It was unnerving, being touched so casually by a goddess. He could feel the raw power radiating off her. "There was more to it than that, though. You were the right person. Your connection with Durge was essential, in the end. Tav couldn't have done that. Couldn't have been that. I know that it was a weighty task, but," she smiled ruefully, "I don't think I made the wrong choice."

Astarion licked his lips nervously. "I'm not your chosen or anything now, am I?" he asked. "Because if I am, I would like to give that back."

"Tav is not my chosen," Eilistraee pointed out. "And you need not be either. I do not typically have a singular chosen, as some gods prefer to." She leaned in and stage whispered to him. "Frankly, I think the whole chosen system is a bit overrated, but never tell Mystra that." She winked slyly, and Astarion smiled in spite of himself. But he still had more he needed to know.

"How did it all work, anyway? The time travelling? How did I get from the future to the past?"

"You didn't," Eilistraee said. "One of my particular skills is portals. I simply opened a portal in your head, and let the memories I wanted pass through."

"So… Did it really happen? That original future?"

"I don't actually know," Eilistraee admitted cheerfully. "Maybe? Maybe it's still happened. It's possible that other version of Astarion is as real as you are. Or maybe it was only a possibility, and it's vanished like a soap bubble popping now that you're overwriting it. Sorry. I'm not a goddess of time, and I'm not a major deity. There's much that's as unclear to me as it is to you."

"Speaking of other versions of me," Astarion said, "why did you send me those dreams? The ones about Lord Astarion. What was the point of them?"

Eilistraee laughed her silver laugh. "That was you, Astarion," she said. "Not me. I didn't intend for you to see any of that. But the magic left some residue, I think, and after Tav was taken, you were in such chaos. You reached out, and there was enough magic there to show you what you were looking for. I thought about breaking the connection, but I got the sense that you needed something from it, so I let it continue to play out." She tilted her head and regarded him fondly. "And you did something good with it, Astarion. If we assume that all possibilities are simultaneously real, then that other world is better off for your intervention."

They talked a little more about magic and possibility, but really there was only one big question left. "How will I know if I did it right?" Astarion asked.

"You'll know," Eilistraee said. "On a grand scale, I think it's safe to tell you that what I want to happen is for you to find a cure. Lakehaven might be small, but it's like a pebble that starts a landslide. The ripples of what you and Tav are trying to do will be huge, and some day, centuries from now, the whole Underdark will change. In ways that you and even I can't really imagine yet." And then she smiled at him again, the terrifyingly vast smile of a goddess, bright against her dark skin. "On a personal level, it's like I told you before. You'll find a perfect moment. And then you'll know."

Astarion did not get all the answers he wanted from Eilistraee. One of the privileges of divinity was to be inexplicable. But as little as he liked gods, Astarion found it hard to resent Tav's deity too much. She had, after all, made good on her promises. The night after the Netherbrain's defeat, he'd woken from the memory of his first glimpse of Tav, all those years ago, to find the woman herself sitting by the window, staring at the sky.

She smiled when she saw him. "I didn't want to wake you," she said. "Not while you were still dreaming."

"Did you see it too?" he asked, unbearably curious, cutting right to the chase.

"The memory of when we saw each other in Baldur's Gate? Yes. Eilistraee told me it was 'a start', and I accepted it on those terms. She has more to do, but I can be patient. And," she smiled, her eyes curving into sweet moons, "it was a very nice memory to get back."

Astarion slipped out of bed and walked over to her, tipping her chin up to look at her. His memory supplied the face she'd had at forty over the one she had now. Time had aged her, in all sorts of little ways. It was beautiful to know. "Yes," he said. "It was very nice." And then couldn't resist adding, teasing her, "I didn't realise you used to have such bad taste in haircuts, darling. You did rather have to grow into yourself."

Tav laughed. "Some things do improve with time," she said. "I wish I could return the compliment, but of course you looked exactly the same. Just... sadder." She sighed, and wrapped an arm around his waist, drawing him against the warmth of her body. "I'm sorry," she told him. "I'm sorry that I didn't see you needed saving. I could have rescued you and the cat."

"No," he said, "it's alright. It was only one moment. How could you have noticed?"

"I should have," Tav insisted. "You needed someone's help, and you didn't get it. And I'm sorry."

Astarion had to breathe for a moment before he could answer her. "I did," he said, "but at least... If I have to look on the bright side, at least I know it wasn't fate. No god made you for me, or me for you. We did it all on our own."

He leaned back a little and looked at her. She thought about what he'd said for a moment, and then her whole face softened into an expression of perfect love. "I like that," she said. "No shortcuts. Just the work itself."

"Are you calling me work?" Astarion said, mock indignant. "Well I never, dearest."

"I think I'm calling myself work," Tav replied. "You are only ever pleasure to me."

"You seem happy," he said.

"I am," she told him. "I feel like all the missing pieces have fallen into place. I have you, and you have me. And you know, I'm looking forward to going down into the Underdark and visiting your siblings. Though there are still a few loose ends to tie up here."

Within the week, Astarion had realised that was yet another example of Tav's gift for understatement.

Sometimes Astarion impulsively found himself thinking of the changes between his first journey and his second as tokens, and imagined himself stacking them into neat piles of wins and losses and see which was higher. Some things were even easy to measure that way. Karlach's life, that was a win. Alfira's death, he supposed, was a loss, but he hadn't been very attached to her. Durge was a win, not only because they were the surest guarantee that he had done what was asked of him, but also because they were a new friend. Eilistraee's Ode, that was a loss. He knew Tav wouldn't care, but he had liked the piece. Eilistraee had promised she was going to write an even better version in this world, but whatever she meant by that, she was taking her time with it. All the extra survivors who made it to Lakehaven were a win.

And then, in the middle, was a stack he didn't know how to account for. Things that were a mix of good and bad in different ways. Things that had merely changed, and that sometimes he accepted and sometimes he resented. Of these, surely the largest difference was Mol. The little urchin, who he barely remembered from either journey, had become so startlingly entangled with Tav. Their mutual connection to Raphael had created a debt in Tav's mind, and Mol was not one to overlook any source of potential profit. But Astarion had never dreamed that that would lead to her tagging along after them. It was a story all in its own right, though not one he could tell the way it deserved. He'd mostly been annoyed by her at the start, resentful of the way that having a third person denied him time to be alone with Tav. Even though he'd promised Durge the opportunity to do just that. But like Durge, she had a way of wheedling herself into his heart. Now, all this time later, he could admit he actually liked her a great deal. But was that a win? Sometimes he still didn't know.

Every choice creates ripples. Victoria living, Leon being happier, Dal trusting him, it all mattered. Even Mol's presence had changed things. Their time in Lakehaven hadn't been at all like it was before. On balance it was probably a win, but sometimes Astarion missed the conversations he'd had with his siblings. But if that was a win, however dubious, then surely Menzoberranzan was a loss. Tav had been so adamant about not taking Mol. Astarion should have listened to her. But he knew what it was to be left behind, and he'd seen that hurt written all over Mol's face. He'd wavered, and now he was stuck with that choice, one more regret on his shoulders. It didn't even matter that they'd all gotten out, in the end. It had been that bad.

If that had been the sum total of the changes it might have tallied up even, but there was one token that outweighed everything else. Something that had happened six months after the defeat of the Netherbrain, when the invitation had arrived to summon him and Tav to Withers' reunion party.

Tav was quiet as they made their way to the appointed location (they had left Mol in Waterdeep temporarily, much to her annoyance). Astarion did not pay it much mind, since Tav was rarely a chatterer, but if he'd been thinking a little more deeply, he would have noticed the way she kept glancing at him and smiling faintly.

Everyone else had arrived before them, including the most welcome sights of all, Karlach and Durge there in the flesh and Lae'zel's semi-transparent sending of herself. They were all standing in a group, chatting together, but they fell silent as Tav and Astarion approached.

"Don't become dour on my account," Astarion said, almost a little hurt.

There was a brief glance around. "You really didn't say anything?" Wyll asked Tav.

"I told you I wouldn't," she replied. She was smiling very sweetly, with just a hint of mischief around the corners of her mouth and eyes. Astarion had a sudden flash of memory. Tav had been scribbling a lot more than usual, the past few days. He'd assumed she was just working on her diary, but now it seemed something more was afoot.

"What's going on?" Astarion asked, feeling a little more nervous. Tav wasn't the only one smiling. Everyone looked amused. It was all very strange.

Gale broke first. "You and me, we think alike, was that what I said? Astarion, your acting skills are better than I ever gave you credit for. How you kept a straight face, I will never know."

"I'm still marvelling at how much you changed," Wyll said. "I can't believe you asked me about romance! Mind, I bet being dead helps hide the blushes."

"It doesn't hide the look of shock on his face," Shadowheart snickered. "If only I could get someone to paint it."

"What’s going on?” Astarion said. “What are you all talking about?”

“We had a night time visit,” Shadowheart said. “And remembered some things.”

Astarion blinked, and then his jaw dropped. “You… you all remember? You remember everything?”

"Not me," Durge said. "What with being dead the first time."

"But yeah," Karlach added. "All the rest of us. We got our memories of the first trip back."

"Since when?" Astarion asked. "Why? What changed?" He looked at Tav, who shrugged.

"Eilistraee did promise me that she would give me those memories, but the timing was entirely her choice."

"I suppose she thought it would be more fun if we were all here for the grand reveal," Gale said. "A sentiment I can certainly get behind."

"Well," Astarion said, retreating from emotion into irony, "I suppose we should thank her for giving us an endless supply of dinner table conversation."

But of course his friends were not going to let him off the hook that easily. Jaheira shook her head and raised her glass. "How you managed what you did, I don't know," she said. "I only know I am very grateful no god has ever seen fit to use me like that." Then she grinned. "Don't think I won't tell Volo about this. Maybe they'll finally take a break from writing songs about me and write some about you instead."

"You deserve it," Halsin agreed. "And more." He stepped over and put his hand on Astarion's shoulder, holding him at arm's length to look at him for a moment, and then to Astarion's surprise, Halsin pulled him into a hug. "You did well," he said, his deep voice rumbling through Astarion's chest. "Both the first time and the second."

Astarion did not cry. He had gone a little numb. This was all very sudden and public. But he felt something melt inside him that he hadn't realised was cold and frozen until it was gone. It hurt, the way warm water hurts on hands that have been out in the snow.

Of course one hug was not enough. As soon as Halsin broke the ice, everyone was up and crowding around him, and Astarion felt like a cat surrounded by too many big dogs. Maybe he should take a leaf out of His Majesty's book and start saying hiss to people.

Tav hung back a little, letting the others swarm around him. Astarion was oddly grateful, because he wanted it to be just the two of them when they talked about her specific memories of the first journey.

"I see that thy goddess hath stolen all the attention," Withers said, appearing next to Tav in that way he had. "What I have to tell thee is most mundane, in comparison, but nevertheless I would have thy attention, if thou wilst give it."

Withers gave his speech, and then invited the group to take their seats at the table. They ate and drank and talked, spent hours comparing memories, talking about the differences between the first journey and this one.

"I don't understand why you were not allowed to tell us," Lae'zel said. "It seems to have caused more problems than it solved."

"It was to keep the information out of Raphael's hands," Astarion said, who had asked Eilistraee about that. "And to a lesser extent, the Emperor's. Not that I really succeeded at doing either."

"Like I keep saying," Karlach said, "we should have just killed the f*cker as soon as we met him."

"I am not entirely disagreeing," Tav said, amused, "but you do remember how hard it was to kill him even when we were stronger, don't you?"

Of course, there were other things to talk about. They had stories to hear of all each others adventures in the months since the defeat of the Netherbrain. Astarion was most interested in Lae'zel, Karlach and Durge. Lae'zel was deep in her civil war, negotiating with some other faction of gith for an alliance, focused on her goal like a thrown knife mid-flight. As for Karlach and Durge, they had not yet found the mechanic they were looking for, but Karlach seemed much more cheerful about it than Astation had expected.

"We got a really good tip the other day," she said. "We're gonna go check it out tomorrow. That brunch date is still on mate, I promise."

"Glad to hear it," Astarion said. "If you miss it, you're going to owe me a huge debt for the rest of your life. So, actually, maybe don't rush too much."

By the time the meal had been finished and they had moved on to tiny glasses of sweet dessert wine, everyone was very sentimental.

"You must have been terrified," Shadowheart said, leaning on her hand and looking at Astarion thoughtfully, "knowing you'd have to face Cazador all over again."

"You forget," Astarion replied, lying through his teeth, "it also meant I knew I'd get to kill him again."

"I can't believe the Emperor's manipulation almost worked on me," Wyll said. "Looking back now, it all seems so artificial. You were never the bastard it made you out to be, even the first time around." He smiled ruefully. "Thank you for not holding it against me."

Astarion shrugged uncomfortably. Perhaps seeing that he was nearing the limit of how vulnerable he could bear to be, Tav stepped in. "Did we tell you we met the Emperor in the Underdark? Omeluum brought it back to the Myconid village, feeling that Spaw might be able to help with its rehabilitation. It caused some tension and more than a little chaos, but I think Omeluum was right, in the end. I have hope that it will one day change how it sees things."

"Do you ever not have hope?" Halsin asked, looking at Tav with deep fondness.

The candles were burned down to stubs before they went to bed, but eventually the depths of the night called to those who hadn't accustomed themselves to a nocturnal life, and Tav and Astarion were left alone. They went for a walk under the light of the moon.

"You kept those new memories close to your chest," Astarion said, just a little peevishly.

"First I wanted to know if it was just me or everyone," Tav said, "so I wrote letters, and the replies I got were so excited. I couldn't deny them the chance to see your reaction for themselves."

She drew Astarion's arm through hers and pulled him a little closer. "You were so brave, my love. I knew it from the moment you told us everything, but now I feel it all over again."

"It was very difficult," Astarion agreed. "I don't think anyone in the world has ever struggled like I did."

"Certainly not," Tav said, so sweetly and gently that it was very hard to tell that she was joking. She turned her head to look at him. "Are there any memories you'd like me to relay?"

"Tell me what you thought of me, on the first journey," Astarion said.

Tav looked up at the sky for a moment, assembling her thoughts. "You were wounded," she said at last. "And in such pain. But oh, you were fighting it. In any and every way you could think of. I saw that very early, and it was beautiful to me. I have always thought you were beautiful. Inside and out."

"You are allowed to complain a little, you know," Astarion teased her. "I did not make your life easy the first time around, my sweet."

Tav gave a short laugh. "You had it worse than I did! How you put up with me on this trip, I'll never know." She slid a hand down his arm, from shoulder to wrist, and then took his hand in hers to kiss it. "My feelings didn't hit me quite as explosively the first time around, but you were never anything other than dear to me."

"Are you happy to have those memories back?" Astarion asked. "I hope you didn't want them just for my benefit."

"I treasure them," Tav told him. "I want as many moments of time with you as I can have. Truly, I'm so happy to have them it makes me feel almost greedy. Can I really be entitled to so much joy?"

Astarion's throat tightened slightly. "Darling, you really do have too limited an imagination when it comes to pleasure. Someday, there will be so much happiness in your life that this will seem like a puddle next to the ocean. I'm committing to it."

The world around them was all shades of blue and white, the wind rippling through the dried winter grasses with a soft rattling hiss. Tav's hand was warm around his, his connection to the world of life. "I look forward to it," she said, her voice a gentle murmur that blended with the sounds of the night. "I hope that I can give you half that in return." She squeezed his hand a little tighter. "How are you feeling? Are you happy?"

Astarion hesitated. "I'm still afraid," he said at last. He wouldn't have told the others this, but he owed Tav honesty. "Eilistraee said I couldn't be sure it was done until we get back to the day I left from. So for another six months, there's still a chance I could be sent back again."

"For a third loop? No! She cannot do that to you," Tav said sharply. Her aura flared. "I will not allow it."

"How can you be confident you can stop it?" Astarion asked. "What happens if something goes wrong? If I missed something, or I make a mistake? Will I go back again? Or will I live on in the rotting corpse of a world I failed to save?"

"Who said that to you?" Tav asked, her voice even more cutting.

"Raphael."

"Of course." She made a face. "There aren't too many people I'd like to kill twice. Cazador, though I suppose I kind of did. And now Raphael. You do bring my vengeful side to the surface."

"Darling, how you flatter me."

"But listen. Astarion, you carried the future alone for too long. Set down that burden, or at least share it with me. With all of us." She drew out the paladin's voice "I will make sure that it comes to pass. I swear it to you."

"Thank you," Astarion said, and drew her in for a kiss. Her words were a comfort, though they could not really dig out the root of his terror. But he clung to them in the months that followed, and told himself that it would be okay, that he would get through this, that he would pass the final deadline and grab the future he had been promised.

And now he was on the other side of that burden. Astarion stopped fussing with his reflection in the mirror, which was still a dreadful challenge when he looked so handsome and the view was so novel, and went to find Tav. She was sitting downstairs in the taproom of the Elfsong with Mol, the two of them with their heads bowed over a book. For a moment, Astarion stopped to watch quietly. Mol said something, and Tav smiled. Then, as though he'd called out to her, her eyes lifted to his and she turned that smile on him. Astarion returned it, and walked over to join them, and left the past behind him, where it belonged.

Astarion and Tav arrived at the Ducal Palace a very punctual and appropriate half an hour late. "It doesn't do to arrive on time, Tav, everyone knows that," he had said, but clearly none of their friends had got the memo about civilised behaviour, because they were almost all already there. Mol scuttled off immediately, making for the cluster of children who had come with Halsin from Rethwin.

Grand Duke Ravengard had gone all out for the anniversary of the Netherbrain's defeat, and the city was bedecked with flowers and banners and entertainments of all kinds, but Astarion thought that their private brunch showed more of Wyll's gentle touch. Everyone was in attendance, all their travelling companions, Jaheira and Minsc included; Halsin, naturally, but also all his children; not all of Astarion's siblings, some of whom had stayed in the Underdark, but Leon, Aurelia and Yousen were present; Zevlor, Dammon, Barcus Wroot of all people, Rolan, Aylin and Isobel, as well as others Astarion hadn't even bothered to remember the names of.

They were descended upon as soon as they entered. Astarion found himself in a whirl of congratulations and praise as people commented on how he had changed. He preened at the attention, though it was a little unnerving too.

"Are Karlach and Durge not here?" Tav asked Wyll as he led them over to the table. Astarion was glad she was the one who had asked. They'd seen the pair at the six month reunion, and things had seemed to be going well, but... He'd thought he was past all fear, and yet here was one more trace. This wasn't complete until he had all his friends around him.

"They're coming," Wyll proimsed. "I had a note from them last night to say they'd been ever so slightly delayed, but that they would be here."

"What about Lae'zel?" Astarion asked. Wyll's face fell.

"Nothing," he said. "But then, I'm not even sure she got the message. Reaching the astral plane isn't exactly easy."

"If she can come, she will," Tav said. "And if she does not, let us believe that it is because she has battles to win." But Astarion noticed that she did not use the paladin's voice.

Wyll opened his mouth, but whatever he was about to say got cut off. The shivering crackle of a portal opening rippled through the air, and out of the swirling vortex stepped Karlach and Durge.

"Hello all," Karlach said, "sorry we're late. We brought you a present." She pulled something out of her pocket and tossed it on the ground at Wyll's feet. A golden necklace. It took Astarion a minute to place it.

"Mizora," Wyll said, and Astarion thought he sounded as sad as he was relieved.

"Karlach didn't like the way she threatened you," Durge said. There was something different about them, Astarion thought, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. "And, well, we already had practice killing devils." They grinned their sharp-toothed grin, but it was lighter and more serene than Astarion had ever seen it before.

"Since you were off doing Tav and Astarion a favour, and my heart was all fixed, we thought we'd do you one in turn, before we left hell for good," Karlach said.

"You are true friends," Wyll told them, and stood up to give them a hug. Like a dam breaking, that was the signal for everyone to move, Astarion not the least of them.

"Look at you," Tav said, beaming at Karlach, "back in the world of the living."

"And not setting anything on fire," Karlach said, tapping her chest. It still made a metallic thumping sound, but there were no flames around her at all anymore.

"That's the incredible new machinery you promised," Astarion said to her. She turned, and beamed. "Does it fulfill your half of the promise?"

"And more!" Karlach said. "The mechanic said I'll probably even live longer than a tiefling normally does. I've got some celestial components in here now, to balance out the infernal."

"Oh good," Astarion said. "That'll give me time to get sick of you."

Karlach cackled, and then looked him over. "And you? Are you happy with mortality?"

"Oh, I love it," Astarion said. "I've got sunshine, I've got food, I can go into anyone's house even if they don't invite me."

"Have you learned to swim yet?" Durge asked.

"Hmm. Well, let's say I'm working on it."

"Excellent. We can go jump in the Chionthar tomorrow." Karlach laughed again at the look of put-upon suffering on Astarion's face.

"Sometimes you and Tav are too alike," he grumbled. That pulled Tav back into the conversation, which Astarion got away from as fast as he could, before the two of them conspired to make him do healthful and character-building activities.

He turned to Durge instead, and as Astarion looked them over, he put his finger on what the difference was. They were wearing plain, practical leathers, not the sorcerer's robe they had dressed in on the Netherbrain quest, and the staff on their back looked less like a spellcasting tool and more like it was very good for hitting people with. Around their neck was a necklace of wooden beads with a carved disc that settled over their breastbone, though Astarion did not recognise the symbol on it. "Well don't you look different," he purred at them. "What do all these changes signify?"

"I took your advice," they said. "I've become a monk."

Astarion raised his eyebrow at them. "You're serious?" he asked.

"Once we got to Avernus, I realised that I needed to change. I wanted to be someone totally unlike the Dark Urge who had served Bhaal. And since I needed to meditate regularly anyway, it didn't seem like a terrible plan. At least some of the skillset is the same."

"Well, I do love to see people recognise my genius," Astarion said.

"Oh, and... I picked a new name. Durge didn't exactly suit me any longer." They dipped their snout a little and scratched their nose shyly. "I'm Lessa, now. Karlach picked it. It started off as a joke, but..."

Astarion thought about that for a second and then rolled his eyes. "Oh, I see," he said. "Because you're Urgeless. Puns are a bane on mortal beings, you know that?"

"Is that so?" Lessa was as monotone and unreadable as ever, and Astarion felt an astonishing and spontaneous delight at seeing them again.

"It is. But I do like the name. Lessa. It's almost pretty. You'll have to grow into it, of course, but I can advise you there."

Lessa snorted. "You look good too, Astarion," they said. "I'm glad you got your cure. Even if our eyes don't match anymore."

"I had to do something, you understand," Astarion said. "I couldn't keep wearing a style that you pull off better than I ever did."

Lessa laughed, and then gave Astarion a hug. "It's good to see you again," they said. "I missed you."

Then Gale got their attention, and they turned away for another hug. Astarion switched his gaze back to Tav and Karlach.

"You got stabbed?" Karlach said.

"Right through the stomach, by a lich's servants," Tav said, lifting her shirt to show the scar. Echoes passed through Astarion's mind, the first journey and the second, Tav lifting her shirt to run her fingers over unmarked skin in the Shadowlands, Tav clutching her stomach and stumbling through a door. If he'd had his choice, he would have saved Tav the pain, but he had a feeling that Tav's wound might have been cosmically necessary for the quest. Which only served to be another tally mark in his endless list of objections to religion.

"Tell us about your adventures," Tav was saying to Karlach. "I want to hear everything."

Karlach and Lessa were happy to obey, and between the two, made a lively story out of their journey to the infernal mechanic who had fixed Karlach's heart, and what they'd had to do to win her cooperation.

"I would have just held her feet to the fire until she said yes," Karlach said, "but she needed specific materials anyway, so it was easier to just do that and get what she wanted into the bargain."

"Easy is one way of putting it," Lessa snorted. "But it was certainly worth it."

"What's your plan now?" Shadowheart asked. "Did I hear you say you're done with Avernus?"

"f*ck yes we are," Karlach said. "I mean, I won't say no to killing a devil if they cross me, but I want to be back here. In the world. Where the people I love are."

"So then what will you do?" Astarion asked. "Are you going to imitate Halsin and Shadowheart, and settle down into quaint domesticity?"

"Maybe," Lessa said. "I've never tried it. It might be fun."

"If we don't like it we can always go back to being adventurers," Karlach pointed out. "But first..." She took Lessa's hand and squeezed it. "We're going to get married. We hope you'll all come."

If Astarion thought anything before this had been loud or chaotic, he hadn't known what those words meant. He glanced sideways at Tav, who seemed equally bemused, though she offered her congratulations very sincerely.

When the initial wave of enthusiasm was over, Astarion had other concerns. "When you say plan," he said, "are we talking a little rustic village wedding where you put on your Sunday best and maybe wear a flower in your hair, or are we talking something that people will actually remember?"

"I'll be honest, fangs, I hadn't really thought about it," Karlach said, and then squinted at him. "Wait, do you still have fangs?"

"Behold," Astarion said, curling his lips back. "Totally normal teeth. I need a new nickname."

"I'll think of something soon," Karlach said. "Don't you worry about that. But anyway. All I know is that I want to have a nice party that all the people I love have to come to. Apart from that I'm fine with anything."

"Are you offering to help?" Lessa asked, looking at him a little suspiciously.

"Only if you want it," Astarion said, smoothing his napkin unnecessarily. "I wouldn't dream of intruding. But if you're interested I am a reservoir of good taste and correct opinions."

Tav did not even try and keep a straight face. Her shoulders were shaking with quiet laughter. "You're not trying to wheedle your way into being a wedding planner, are you?"

"Planner? Gods no. I'm not doing the actual work," Astarion said. "I just want a veto on fashion and decoration choices. And location. I need to be able to save them from themselves, that's all."

"I think your tastes run a bit too much to gold and gaudy for me," Karlach said.

Lessa added, just as deadpan as they had ever been, "It'll probably make attending his wedding pretty fun." It was a smokebomb of a sentence, and they clearly knew it. Astarion could tell by the sly crinkle of their eyes. But if they were aiming to wound him, they needed to get much better material.

"One thing at a time," Tav said, sounding almost nervous, and Astarion was surprised. He had expected Tav to be even less ruffled than he was. But before he could be nosy about her reaction Wyll was asking a question about timing, and then Halsin was telling Karlach and Lessa that they needed to come and visit Rethwin, and then the conversation swung slowly to pass to everyone else's lives, fully of novelty and interest in the months since they had last met.

Astarion reached out, and put a glass in Karlach’s hand.

“What’s this?” she said.

“That, darling,” Astairon told her, “is a mimosa. I’ve been saving my first taste for your arrival.”

Karlach beamed. “Nice one,” she said. They clinked glasses, and drank. The orange juice and champagne hit Astarion’s tongue in a huge burst of flavour, bright as sunshine, sweet as love, bubbling and surging through his mouth.

“Gods,” he said, “becoming mortal again was so worth it.”

Karlach looked at him very fondly, then leaned in to say, “Don’t hate me for this, but I still prefer beer.”

Astarion looked long and hard at her, and then they both started laughing.

At some point, when the celebrations had lulled, and quiet conversations were happening in little twos and threes, Duke Ravengard came over to Astarion.

"Not to talk business at a party," he said, "but I thought you might like to know that I got a note from the chancery judge who was overseeing the Cazador case the other day, and it's been cleared. You and your siblings are recognised as his only heirs, and his estate will be divided amongst you."

"You know, that didn't take as long as I thought it would," Astarion said, and Ravengard smiled wryly.

"I wonder if you have any thoughts about what might happen to the Szarr mansion," the Duke said. He was clearly fishing, but Astarion had no objections to reeling him in.

"I suppose we'll sell it," Astarion said. "Or burn it to the ground, maybe."

Ravengard gave another little smile, clearly deciding it would be best for the whole conversation if he treated that last part as a joke. "Selling it would certainly simplify things," he said. "It did come to our attention during the Chancery proceedings that there is significant connection to the sewers and the Undercity in the mansion, and we would prefer to keep such things in public hands. If you're willing to sell, and you don't mind who to, we can have a smooth transition without invoking tiresome things like eminent domain."

"What will you do with it, once you have it?" Astarion asked.

"I don't think it's been decided yet," Ravengard said. "Though the gods knows there's always more public projects waiting for land than we have room to give them."

Astarion thought about that, and a smile crept across his face, getting bigger and bigger. What would annoy Cazador most? A hospital? A museum? "What would you think," he said, "about designating it a trade school? Somewhere for people to come and learn? You could make part of it a public library, too. Open to everyone."

Ravengard considered this, and a grin lit up his face to match Astarion's. For the first time ever, Astarion really saw the family resemblance between him and Wyll. "The patriars will hate it," he said. "But you know, you could sell to us with the stipulation that it be used for that purpose. Then our hands would be completely tied."

"I think that could be arranged," Astarion said. "I have to talk to my siblings, but I don't imagine they'll complain."

"We have time," Duke Ravengard said. "The law never moves at a gallop. Come to my office when you're free, and we can talk it over more thoroughly."

He bowed politely to them and left.

"It's funny," Astarion said to Tav. "He thinks that was noble generosity of spirit, but really it was just petty revenge."

"Your generosity of spirit is your greatest revenge against Cazador," she said, and kissed the top of his head. "The final repudiation and undoing of the evil that he believed in."

Astarion thought of something he hadn't asked earlier. He wasn't sure now was the right time, but on the other hand, if not now, when? And he hated keeping his thoughts to himself. "I noticed you flinch when dearest Lessa mentioned our hypothetical wedding," he said. "Don't tell me you're getting cold feet about the relationship. Because I'll have you know, I have no intention of letting you go easily."

Tav took him terribly seriously, bless her gentle heart. "Never," she said at once. "Astarion, I couldn't. I just... I suppose I don't see why we need a big production to be happy together."

"Need, certainly not. But did you ever know me to dislike a big production? I think I deserve to be the centre of attention. With as much gold embroidery as I can fit on a shirt."

Tav laughed, but she was looking more uncomfortable by the second. "I can't argue with that," she said. "You know I think you deserve everything you want. Well, almost everything, anyway."

"Bad plans to become the Vampire Ascendant excluded," Astarion said, and Tav inclined her head to acknowledge the truth of the statement. "But darling, you're still wriggling like a worm on a hook. Why don't you like weddings?"

"Have you ever seen an Eilistraeean wedding?" Tav asked.

"Oh," Astarion said, suddenly full of suspicions. "No, but I can just imagine."

"Whatever you're thinking, it's worse," Tav said gloomily. "There's nudity and singing and dancing and everyone fusses over you. I've been a guest, and once I was even a sacred witness, and nothing could have made me happier, but the thought of being the center of attention myself..." She trailed off and shuddered.

"You know, for a moment I forgot that you'd rather get stabbed by a lich again than have someone compliment you. A truly unfathomable perspective."

Tav sighed. "It's a failing of mine," she said. "Eilistraee has more than once pointed that out."

Astarion shook his head. With the world set to rights, and the future fairly in front of him again, he had to admit that he found Eilistraee annoyingly agreeable, for a god. She could almost be said to have good priorities. "Tell me, dearest," he said, "would you do it anyway? If I wanted you to?"

Tav squirmed. He could see her doing it. The very idea was clearly agonising. But then she gritted her teeth and looked right at him, moon-bright eyes as clear and loving as they had ever been. "Yes," she said, "for you, I would suffer anything. Even the attention of a crowd."

Astarion beamed at her, and leaned in to kiss her cheek. "Well," he said, "that will do for now. We can work our way up to it, you know. Start small. We have time."

"We do," Tav agreed, and pulled him close for a real kiss. Then she stopped, her eyes focused on something behind him. "What is that?"

Astarion turned. At first he thought it was a bird, silhouetted by the sun. But it was moving too fast, and as he watched the perspective realigned and he realised that what he had taken for a small animal relatively close was a huge animal further away. But moving towards them very quickly, getting bigger every second.

"A dragon?" he said, not bothering to hide the petulance in his voice. "Can we not have one nice day where we don't have to be heroes?"

He looked at Tav, and to his surprise, saw her lips curling into a smile that grew bigger and broader as the dragon approached.

"Our last guest is here," she said, and laughed. "And in such style!"

Astarion's head whipped back. He could see it now too, the figure perched on the dragon's back. She was wearing a red cloak over a white shirt, her hair whipped back by the wind, and now she was close enough that he could see her flashing eyes and triumphant smile. The dragon landed in a clatter of scales and wings, and Lae'zel leapt off its back.

"The hero arrives!" Tav said, beaming at her.

"I come bearing wonderful tidings," Lae'zel said. "Vlaakith is dead, killed by my hand and the hand of Kithrak Voss, and the powerful aid of Prince Orpheus. I come to tell you all the tale." She looked at Astarion. "And to fulfill a promise we made that has seen me through my hardest trials."

His mind leapt back to a conversation by starlight. "Cazador's dead and Vlaakith is dead," he said. "So who have we become?"

Lae'zel looked him up and down. "Brown eyes," she said at last. "They suit you better than red."

"I'm calling them amber, thank you very much," Astarion told her. He was unconscionably choked up, but then he looked at Lae'zel and saw she was fighting back tears too. "You look-" He stopped. Across her cheek ran a savage burn scar, the skin tightened and twisted. The burn traced down her neck and across her collarbones until it vanished beneath the fabric. "Lae'zel, what happened to you?"

"We could never have beaten Vlaakith except at great cost," she said, pulling back her sleeve to show the same scar reaching all the way to her forearm. "But I am more whole than I have ever been. We did the impossible, Orpheus and I."

"But-"

"It was no price at all," she said. "Kithrak Voss gave his life, you know. I would have given more. And Astarion, we might not have won at all if it hadn't been for you. The memories I got back of the first journey, even at some months delay, were invaluable. We would never have beaten Vlaakith so quickly without you. You will have a place in our tales forever, I swear it."

What could he say to that? Easy. "I do like being a hero, you know. Admiration looks so good on me."

Lae'zel laughed, and then caught him up in a hug. He was almost used to the damn things these days, since all his friends liked them so much. And Lae'zel's slight frame belied her ferocious strength, because she just about crushed the wind out of him.

"I want to hear all your stories," Tav said. She had been making herself quietly unobtrusive, letting Lae'zel and Astarion have their moment. "But so will everyone else. Let's go in to them."

She was right about that, of course. Lae'zel took the seat at the end of the table and held them all enraptured for hours as she told the full story of what she and Orpheus had done. Astarion listened, and watched as the sunlight moved around the room, slipping from the lemon yellow of midday to the buttery gold of afternoon. There will come a moment, Eilistraee had said, when you will understand why it was worth it. A perfect moment. Here and now, surrounded by his friends, leaning his head against Tav's shoulder and holding her hand, the taste of oranges and champagne lingering on his lips, he found it.

All around them, the present became the past, and the future flowed in like a tide, each moment unknown and unknowable until it arrived, just the way Astarion had come to like it.