Chapter Text
Astarion and Tav return again and again to the crash site, trying to scavenge whatever they can from the wreckage of the nautiloid and the surrounding countryside. They aren’t the only crows to have gone after this particular corpse, though. From Tav’s assessment of the tracks left in the dirt, a band of goblins passed through here not long after the crash.
They seem to have carried off almost everything that could be potentially valuable… and even a few bodies, judging by drag marks that Tav finds. He isn’t able to tell whether the poor bastards had been unconscious or dead when they were taken. Astarion supposes he should count himself lucky that the raiders hadn’t found the pod he himself had been trapped inside. Or found Tav, for that matter. He’s a strange man, certainly, but knowing him has proved useful so far.
Still, the goblins didn’t take everything. They find a meager amount of gold in the pockets of the dead, and even manage to arm themselves with some better weapons. Although Astarion had only been carrying the knife in his boot at the time of his abduction, that wasn’t the only thing he ever wielded in service of his master. He finds a pair of shortswords and a bow to add to his repertoire, and feels just a bit more at ease as a result. Tav takes two of the goblins’ scimitars. They’re heavy things, more like a butcher’s cleavers than weapons of war, but Tav handles them like he knows what he’s doing.
Tav is… Astarion isn’t sure what to make of him yet. If the man’s story is to be believed, he has no memories of his life before the abduction, and absolutely no clue of who he is or how he came to be on that mind flayer ship. If Tav is lying, he seems very dedicated to keep up the ruse. He gives every impression that he was far more damaged by his abduction than Astarion was by his own, mentally and perhaps physically. As Astarion has yet to catch him slipping up, he’s he’s more inclined to believe that Tav’s performance is genuine rather than an act at this point.
In addition to the memory loss, Tav seems to be plagued by brief but intense headaches, and Astarion sometimes catches him staring off into space like his mind is miles away from his body. He also has something of a weak stomach when it comes to some of the horrors they uncover amid the wreckage… However, that may well have less to do with any particular frailty on Tav’s part than the fact that most normal people never have to touch this many dead bodies, let alone sift through the smoking, corpse-filled remains of airships made of meat. It’s objectively disgusting, even if Astarion can handle it without getting dizzy like Tav does.
Still, to Tav’s credit, he hasn’t let any of that slow him down as they search for any further clues about the abduction and how to prevent their tadpoles from maturing.
The amnesia does present some difficulties on that first front, however. Tav seemingly can’t remember being taken at all, let alone where he was or how it happened. In fact, the most he’s been able to tell Astarion has been his name and that he used to live in Baldur’s Gate. That’s a dangerous piece of information to hand out to a stranger, as Tav did so freely that first night he and Astarion shared a campfire. An unscrupulous person could take advantage of someone like that who couldn’t know any better. Luckily for Tav, there’s nothing to be gained by exploiting that weakness of his. Not yet, anyway.
That being said, a competent ally is not something to be thrown away lightly, and Tav has shown great promise in that respect so far. The man has been generous with his supplies, his space, and his steel. He’s proven difficult to ruffle or offend, starting with their rather tumultuous introduction at the point of a blade. He doesn’t ask a lot of unnecessary questions. It’s easy to laugh with him, too, even when what they’re laughing about is bleak or vicious or utterly morbid.
Altogether, traveling with him has been surprisingly… pleasant. Even though there’s something very clearly wrong with the man. Astarion believes him about the amnesia, and the headaches, and the dizzy spells, but there is something Tav is lying about, of that he is certain.
Since the beginning, Tav has presented himself as someone who is laid-back, easygoing, and in tune with the rhythms of nature. It’s vaguely horrifying. He chitters back and forth with beasts and birds, and somehow, there seems to be a kind of mutual understanding there. Every evening, he brews himself a pungent cup of herbal tea and sighs as he drinks it like it is restoring his very soul. Hells, the man even walks around camp wearing sandals… when he isn’t entirely barefoot, that is.
Of course, the longer Astarion spends in the man’s company, the more clearly he can see where the cracks are starting to form. Beneath that outward layer of projected serenity, Tav is a mess. He’s anxious, practically crawling out of his own skin with nervous energy. Some nights, he tosses and turns in his bedroll and twitches in his sleep, awakening the next morning with bloodshot eyes and trembling hands like he hadn’t slept at all the night before. Most familiar of all is the fact that Tav seems to be constantly looking over his shoulder. Astarion wonders if he even remembers what it is that he’s running from. When the tadpole forced their minds to connect, Astarion saw through Tav’s eyes as he stalked through a forest. At the time, he’d assumed that he had been shown a memory of a hunt, but now that he thinks about it again, Tav could have just as easily been hiding from something instead.
Whoever Tav was before his abduction, Astarion is certain that they never crossed paths back in the city. He would have remembered a face like Tav’s. There aren’t that many red-haired half-drow running around Baldur’s Gate, let alone ones with those odd, mismatched eyes. Or that much facial scarring.
Still, it makes a person wonder. Tav isn’t particularly large or muscular, but he has that wiry kind of build that puts to mind those prowling cutpurses that haunt the alleyways down in Heapside. With those scimitars on his back, he could even pass for one of those scruffy sailors that spend their shore leave brawling in the Blushing Mermaid tavern and bullying the harbor guards into signing off that their cargo from Luskan is fully legal.
Yes, there’s something about the man that could appear delightfully unsavory under the right circumstances. In fact, in a certain light, Astarion could see how some people might see Tav and think he looked intimidating. That could prove a useful asset, should they need to be able to threaten someone.
Unfortunately for Tav, the effect was fully ruined for Astarion the moment he saw the man go down on his knees to squeak at a squirrel.
To Astarion’s mild disappointment, all of the dirt-under-the-fingernails nonsense does not appear to be part of the act. The only thing Tav seems to be faking is his sense of calm. It did take Astarion a day or two to notice, to the man’s credit. Tav is an accomplished liar—though, of course, that in and of itself is a clue. There are very few innocent reasons why a person would need to develop that skill as well as Tav has.
Clearly, Tav had already seen his fair share of trouble long before the mind flayers got to him. If the scars weren’t enough proof of that, one only has to watch Tav’s face whenever they run into trouble here in the present. No matter what the danger is, the man’s whole demeanor changes once he’s threatened. The man who talks to songbirds and smiles as he picks berries disappears. In his place is someone cold, calculating, and utterly ruthless.
Honestly, it’s more of a comfort than anything else. Astarion’s only goals here are to remain free and stay alive long enough to enjoy it. Difficult decisions have to be made sometimes, and he would hate to find himself tethered to some upstanding hero-type high on his own virtue. Tav is already too willing to share his own secrets and put his trust in strangers. The last thing Astarion wants to worry about is whether he’ll be some kind of bleeding heart, too. Whenever they inevitably find themselves backed into a corner, he needs to be able to trust that Tav will be as interested in survival as Astarion himself is, no matter what that might cost.
So, for the meantime, Astarion lets Tav go on picking flowers, sipping tea, and communing with the local wildlife. He won’t be the one to puncture the illusion Tav’s trying to create, at least not yet. However, he does keep an eye on the man. If Astarion has learned anything by now, it’s that every person has within them the potential to be a threat… and that everyone has a weakness that can be used against them. Tav has been kind enough to show Astarion a few of his own so far. His trust. His fear. The false calm he tries to use to hide it.
… The way Tav smiles Astarion when it’s just the two of them together. He’s shy. Nervous. Curious. Interested. Astarion can’t help but be flattered even as he contemplates how best to turn that to his advantage, too. He will, after all, need to make sure he retains Tav’s generosity even as their ranks begin to swell.
And swell they do. Beyond the weapons and supplies, by far the most curious things they scavenge from the crash site are the other survivors. Over the course of four days, they find five others like themselves. Five more people who had been stolen from their normal lives, hauled aboard the doomed nautiloid, and left to pick themselves out of the wreckage. Five more people with mind flayer tadpoles squirming inside their skulls, pulsing with psionic power and the terrible potential for metamorphosis. Five more allies to join them in their search for a cure.
Five more people who Astarion has to watch now, too. Even if they have a common purpose, he knows that any one of them might be the one to put a blade in his heart… or sell him back to his master for the promise of a reward.
If Astarion had to pick between the two, he hopes he’d have the courage to pick the blade.
Of course, when it happens, it won’t be his choice. When has it ever been? Cazador has enough gold and influence to make a tempting proposition for anyone, which means that Astarion needs to secure the loyalty of Tav and his new friends before they find out what’s on offer. To do that, he’ll need to learn about them. Find these new people’s weak points. He will also need to make sure that when they look at him, they only see what he wants them to see.
That should be easy, shouldn’t it? Astarion has two hundred years of practice hiding behind a pretty, smiling face. This time, all he’s hiding will be simple self-preservation. He’s practically an innocent here. Hells, what a thought.
The first survivor they find is a half-elven woman—pale, dark-haired, surly, tight-lipped, and about as tactful as the mace she carries. She’s also a cleric, because that’s just Astarion’s luck. Shadowheart is the name she gives them, a name Astarion almost hopes is self-inflicted, because the alternative is that her parents had a sick sense of humor. It seems that she and Tav met briefly while aboard the nautiloid. Tav immediately invites her to join them, and Astarion immediately tries to assess just how big of a threat she’s likely to be.
Curiously for a cleric, Shadowheart doesn’t proselytize or drone on about her god’s virtues. In fact, Astarion notices that she never mentions who exactly it is that she worships, and she doesn’t carry any visible iconography, either. She does let them know that she’s been sleeping in the overgrown ruins of a temple complex near the crash site, which is how she escaped the notice of the goblin raiders. Although she knows little of the place or who it might have once been devoted to, it has also recently attracted the notice of local brigands. With any luck, that means it might contain treasure.
Unlike Tav, Shadowheart is not a very good liar. Anyone with eyes could tell that she is trying to hide something. Poorly. Perhaps if Astarion can find a way to leverage that against her, Shadowheart might not be too much of a threat after all.
The next person they find is another of Tav’s acquaintances from aboard the ship—goodness, the man certainly is a social butterfly, isn’t he? This one is a githyanki woman named Lae’zel, a member of the same species as those amber-skinned warriors who had attacked the nautiloid on dragon-back. Tav spoke of her to Astarion before, and he clearly respects her. By the time they find her, though, Lae’zel has already gotten herself into trouble: captured by scouts from a nearby druid grove. Tav, showing a promising streak of cunning, manages to talk her out of her predicament without a drop of blood spilled… much to Lae’zel’s disappointment.
Astarion finds that he actually sort of likes this one, in no small part because Lae’zel is so terribly honest about herself. Many people hide their capacity for violence behind social niceties. By contrast, Lae’zel wears hers as a badge of honor. As for niceties, a sentence from her feels incomplete if it doesn’t contain at least one threat or insult. She is absolutely a danger to Astarion, of course, without question. Lae’zel would run him through if she even thought he might be thinking of doing something to harm her, but at least he knows this about her going in. It is also a small comfort that she seems to prefer a full frontal assault to a stab in the back.
And best of all, she and Shadowheart hate each other. When Lae’zel agrees to join them on the road, Astarion wonders if she’s doing it because she actually wants them as comrades or because she thinks it will piss of the cleric. It’s difficult to tell whether these two have history or if this is a “loathing at first sight” situation. Either way, it seems likely that they’ll both be far too busy going for each other’s throats to worry about anything that Astarion is doing.
After Lae’zel, they stumble upon Gale of Waterdeep. He’s a human wizard, old enough that there’s gray mixed into the brown of his hair and beard, but young enough that there’s still something of the schoolboy about him. His complexion speaks of a life spent indoors, and he seems even less comfortable out in the wilderness than Astarion. It isn’t the most promising of introductions—the man presents himself as though he’s one of the brightest magical minds in the entire Sword Coast, but they find him somehow stuck inside a portal that opened directly into the face of a cliff. His own escape attempt from the nautiloid went a bit awry, he tells them. This does not appear to trouble Tav at all, because he wrenches the wizard free and invites him to join them on the spot. Astarion takes a moment to despair for Tav’s standards… then wonders if perhaps lower is better here after all.
Gale is knowledgeable enough about mind flayers to give them the technical term for the doom that awaits them all if they don’t free themselves of their parasites. Ceremorphosis, he calls it. The final illithid transformation that will obliterate a host in both mind and soul. Astarion isn’t sure about the state of his soul at this point, but he has gotten rather attached to his mind now that it is firmly his own again. He begrudgingly admits to himself that it might be helpful to bring a scholar along with them, even if Gale is a bit too fond of the sound of his own voice.
Astarion’s assessment of Gale is that he’s physically weak but uncomfortably perceptive. While the wizard seems less likely to try to kill him than, say, Lae’zel or Shadowheart, he will need to watch himself around Gale even more closely than he will around the others. Out of the four of them, Gale seems the most capable of piecing together the clues and coming to a truly unfortunate conclusion.
They find Wyll when they try to seek aid at the druid grove, and at this point, Astarion is really starting to wonder if the gods are laughing at him. First, they stumble into a goblin ambush. Then, a handsome young swordsman rushes in to fight at their sides, wielding magic and steel with equal skill. After it’s all over, they learn that the dashing hero is in fact a monster hunter. Dear Wyll is even famous enough that Astarion heard his title sung in bard song at some of the shittier taverns back in Baldur’s Gate: the Blade of Frontiers, he calls himself. Defender of the people against all of the nasty things that go bump in the night. Splendid.
Wyll is definitely a threat. He is very much a threat, and there is absolutely nothing Astarion can do to stop Tav from shaking the man’s hand and asking him to join their little mission. Aside from scream internally, of course. The one tiny comfort Astarion takes is in the fact that at least Wyll is already hunting someone else. His current quarry is some devil that has escaped from Avernus… though Astarion doesn’t doubt for a moment that Wyll would turn his attentions elsewhere if a closer target presented itself.
However, even stalwart heroes have levers you can press if you know where to look. Wyll is another human, younger than Gale and clearly impulsive. His brown skin is battle-scarred and one of his eyes is missing—the replacement seems to be made of stone, which is dramatic enough that even Astarion has to appreciate the effort. And there is a lot of effort to appreciate. Everything from Wyll’s short, practical twists to his simple but flattering clothes seems designed to communicate that he’s humble and down-to-earth… but keep him looking his best whether he’s covered in road dust or spattered in goblin blood.
It’s a convincing character that Wyll has built for himself, but Astarion has far too much experience managing his own image not to recognize a fellow performer when he sees one. Goodness, the man even wears perfume. It isn’t enough to hide the whiff of sulfur in the air whenever Wyll uses his magic. Astarion is no expert in the arcane, but he knows that power has to come from somewhere. People are either born with it, learn it, or take it for themselves. Wyll may very well be every bit the hero he claims, but if it turns out that the Blade of Frontiers is a warlock… well, then. That means Wyll is someone who knows how to make a deal.
The final person they add to their number is, strangely enough, the very devil Wyll has been hunting. Karlach, apparently. They find her on the banks of the river north of the crash site surrounded by fallen foes, and she is quite the sight to behold. Taller than any of them with arms that look like they could rip a person in half. One horn twisting out of her skull, the other shattered. Skin the color of a hot poker, tattooed and studded with strange bits of metal. If the rest of the look wasn’t enough, she’s also on fire when they first see her, and it doesn’t seem to be causing her any pain.
As soon as they get close to her, they are overwhelmed by a staggering rush of images of a great battle fought on the plains of Avernus itself. How curious—it seems that Karlach has a worm in her head, too, just like the rest of them. Tav convinces Wyll to stand down long enough to let her talk. She’s no devil, they learn, just a mortal tiefling bound into Hellish service as an unwilling soldier. To this end, her mistress had her heart ripped out and replaced it with some Hells-forged engine. It makes her stronger and better at killing, and it is also the reason she sometimes catches fire. The first chance she got, she deserted. Escaped onto the mind flayers’ ship as it soared through Avernus, chased the whole way by darling Wyll, only for both of them to end up tadpoled for their trouble.
It takes a bit of additional convincing on Tav’s part, but soon even the Blade of Frontiers is willing to welcome his former prey into their group. The decision seems to weigh on Wyll, but he makes it anyway, and he curses whoever it was who set him on Karlach’s trail. Apparently, he’d been told that she was a monster, not a prisoner conscripted into the Hells’ endless war.
Out of all of the people they found in the last few days, Astarion thinks that Karlach might just be his favorite. She’s clearly very dangerous, yes, anyone with eyes can see that. One can’t even stand too close to her without risking being burned by the heat from her engine. Still, you have to be someone special to claw your way up from the Hells like she did. Astarion is hardly one to want to offer help for free, but when Karlach asks them to help her slaughter the people that her infernal mistress sent to bring her back in chains, Astarion finds himself happy to lend a hand. Perhaps in time, she would be willing to do the same for him.
All things considered, it has been a very stressful series of days for Astarion. True, perhaps it is a bit less stressful than the day when he’d been kidnapped by mind flayers, had a worm shoved behind his eyeball, and dropped out of the sky when the nautiloid crashed. Or the day he spent trapped inside his clear-lidded pod on the beach, trying desperately to break out before sunrise only to discover that all the rules have changed. It was definitely less stressful than any day he spent under Cazador’s thumb.
Actually, if he’s being honest, the last few days have been more fun than Astarion has had in centuries.
Every single one of these people they have picked up is a lunatic. More than that, they’re often egotistical, petty, selfish, prone to bickering over the smallest things, distrustful, and rude. Also, deeply annoying most of the time. But also… they’re alive. Truly, actually alive, even as the threat of obliteration looms over them all.
It has been a lifetime since Astarion last spent any real length of time with anyone besides his siblings or his master. The less said about what Cazador’s company is like, the better, and his siblings… Well. They can’t focus on anything else other than trying to please the master so that they can escape his wrath—as well Astarion knows, as that was how he lived prior to his escape, too. That isn’t a life. It’s death prolonged.
Astarion has no illusions about being able to trust any of these strangers, but it is refreshing to be around people who can fully think for themselves… even if what they do with their free will is often less than inspiring. He does think it’s a bit funny, though, that he has once again ended up as one among seven.
It’s less funny when he stops to wonder how his siblings are managing now that there are only six of them left to bear the weight of Cazador’s demands alone.
But there’s no going back for them. Not now, not ever. People don’t just escape from Cazador Szarr. Astarion only got out because of random chance. Unless mind flayer ships start dropping from the sky all along the Sword Coast, there’s nothing that can be done for them. He tries to put them out of his mind.
Cruel as it sounds, it isn’t difficult to do. In spite of the pleasures afforded to him by his newfound freedom, Astarion does now have a whole host of new problems to occupy his attention. At the moment, the most pressing of those problems—other than the tadpole in his head and the lackeys his master has surely sent to collect him—is that he is hungry. Starving, really, or very nearly.
Astarion is no stranger to hunger, of course. Cazador saw to that. He enjoys making his pets beg for scraps, so he never lets any of them become too well-fed. However, for all his abuses, Cazador never sent Astarion into battle. Sent him to discreetly dispatch a rival or someone stupid enough to ask too many questions? Occasionally. Often enough that Astarion learned how to handle a blade, pick a lock, and talk his way into places he wouldn’t ordinarily be invited. Sent him to hunt for food that he would never be allowed to taste? Of course. That happened practically every night.
Cazador never made Astarion fight a band of well-armed goblins and their snarling worgs, though. Or a group of mercenaries in the employ of an Archdevil. Or skeletons, which is another damned thing they had to kill recently. Re-kill. Whatever. There were a lot of them in that ruined temple Shadowheart had been so interested in, and they had all been rather cross about being disturbed.
Well, aside from Withers. One of the skeletons they found was rather more talkative than the rest of his kin—though not by much. He said a few cryptic things about the balance of life and death, refused to explain himself further, and then followed Tav back to their camp. Tav, Astarion has learned, has a serious problem about collecting strays. First it was the people, then it was the dog they found in the woods, and now they have a skeleton at their campsite, too. Thankfully, Withers doesn’t do much of anything but stand ominously by the riverbank. They’ve all been trying to ignore him.
The relevant point here, though, is that Astarion has had to do so much more strenuous physical activity in the past few days following the crash than at any point in his servitude to Cazador. Most of what Astarion’s master had him do could be done while lying still and looking pretty. As a result, Cazador had been able to withhold food from him as often as he liked, knowing that Astarion would have little choice but to conserve his energy while he waited for the next gift of sustenance his master would bestow upon him.
Under Cazador, Astarion starved slowly. Now, however, he’s burning himself up. He’s exhausted, drained, and his nightly meditation only does so much to restore him. More often than ever before, he finds his thoughts wandering, and it’s becoming more difficult for him to follow the winding threads of the others’ conversations. Worse, he knows his reflexes are slowing. Every time they end up thrust into some fight, he can feel the swords getting a little heavier in his hands. If Astarion doesn’t feed himself soon, he will be risking a careless death at the hands of whatever awful thing attacks them next. That isn’t an option. He has come too far to die now, not when he’s finally free.
Because fate seems to have it out for Astarion personally, they find out that one of their new traveling companions has a hidden talent. Gale of Waterdeep is more than just an allegedly well-renowned wizard. He’s also a self-described “wizard in the kitchen.” They don’t have a kitchen out here in the wilderness, but he seems to be managing well enough with the campfire after some initial help from Tav. He certainly seems to be enjoying the puzzle of turning whatever they scavenge into something one might find on an actual dinner table somewhere.
After every meal, Gale asks everyone a million questions about how they enjoyed that day’s rendition of “campfire soup” or “meat cooked on a spit.” Without fail, Lae’zel always insists that all istik food is inferior to whatever culinary horrors it is that her people cook, but the others seemingly have no complaints—Astarion has no reason to doubt them, as he assumes that few in this group would have the tact to lie if they didn’t like it. Gale’s enthusiasm would almost be endearing if Astarion’s stomach wasn’t trying to eat itself from emptiness.
Tonight, there’s pheasant on the menu. Fresh. Ordinarily, a hunt would be good news for Astarion. However, luck was not in his favor today. Tav and Lae’zel brought the thing back with its head already neatly sliced from its neck, the majority of its blood no doubt spilled uselessly on the forest floor somewhere. All Astarion is left with at that point is the smell of the damned thing sizzling merrily away over the fire.
The food smells amazing every night, but Astarion can’t eat a bite of it. According to what Cazador told them, it would sicken a spawn to eat anything but blood. Cazador himself drank wine, though, so now that Astarion is free, he’s dared to try it again. Although it didn’t hurt him, it didn’t taste good, either. Solid food seems like it would be a far bigger risk. It’s possible that it’s now safe for Astarion to eat whatever he likes, just like it is now safe for him to walk in sunlight again… though Astarion isn’t in a hurry to test that theory. There’s too much to do to risk poisoning himself.
Besides, he’s gone far longer than four days without feeding. He isn’t so desperate yet to turn to Gale’s cooking to save him.
If nothing else, it is at least easier to pretend to eat his supper now than when it had only been Astarion and Tav. With more faces around the fire every night, no one is paying that close attention to Astarion’s bowl. He makes sure that none of it goes to waste. There are many more mouths to feed than before—including the stray dog that followed Tav home—and as Shadowheart said, Karlach’s muscles don’t run on air. No one else has noticed when a bit of extra food ends up back in the pot, or on someone else’s plate, or in the dirt. As far as he can tell, the only thing that they have noticed is that the dog likes Astarion in spite of his reluctance to be on the receiving end of its slobbering tongue. For some reason, Tav finds this very funny.
What Astarion would very much like to be able to do is wait until the others go to sleep, then go off into the forest to try to hunt. Unfortunately, the camp has more people in it than it did that first night and the others have made the intelligent yet deeply frustrating decision to establish a system of watch-keeping. This leaves Astarion very little time when he’s unsupervised enough to slip away unseen, especially once they have seven people taking turns.
Astarion is an urban creature unused to hunting for his prey in the brambles and underbrush. He can’t just walk out there and grab something off of a tree branch. It takes time to set a proper ambush, and time is something he no longer has. Even if he slips away on his own turn at watch, he cannot risk the questions that would arise if he ever fails to return by the time his replacement awakens. Hells, depending on what he finds out there in the woods, there’s no guarantee that he would even be able to take it down in his weakened state. Astarion can just imagine the others finding his corpse in the morning after he’d gotten himself skewered by a stag. What a disgraceful death that would be.
He got very lucky on his first night alone with Tav. That rabbit Tav shot for their dinner had been small and wiry, barely bigger than a rat. It didn’t stink of the sewers, though, and its blood had not yet gone cold by the time Astarion was able to steal a few minutes alone with its little body. Later that same night, he’d even managed to leave Tav sleeping and find himself a boar. He’d drained the beast down to the last drop. That was how he discovered what it was like to feel sated for the first time after two hundred years of hunger.
For the next four days after that, all Astarion could do was watch as that energy dwindled down to nothing. It has become apparent to Astarion that that he needs a lot more food than he used to now that he’s constantly having to fight for his life. Although he doesn’t know quite how much “more” actually means, he doubts that he will be able to continue to function for much longer without eating.
He needs more food… or perhaps better quality food.
Cazador forbid them all under pain of torture from ever feeding upon a thinking creature. Not out of any sort of ethical reasoning, of course. Astarion’s master dined nightly on whatever hapless wretches his slaves could drag in from the streets. No, this rule was just another way to control them. To leave his spawn weakened and slow and dependent on him.
But Cazador isn’t here to punish him for breaking the rules, and Astarion has to look out for himself. No one else will.
Besides, if he can break this rule… who’s to say that he can’t break all of them? Cazador also forbid Astarion from leaving his side without permission, but that didn’t stop the mind flayers from plucking him off of the streets of Baldur’s Gate without a second thought.
One day aboard the nautiloid, one day trapped in a pod on the beach, one day alone with Tav, four days gathering the other survivors of the crash… Seven days have now passed since the abduction. It has been nearly a full tenday since Astarion heard Cazador’s voice anywhere outside of the realm of memories and nightmares. In all that time, neither the master nor any of his minions have come to drag Astarion back. He has to wonder if anyone has even figured out where to look.
If Cazador can’t find Astarion, and can’t stop him from feeding himself however he likes, maybe the bastard’s power over his spawn was never as complete as he pretended. Maybe there’s hope that Astarion can sever himself from his master’s control for good.
First, though, he’ll need to feed. How convenient, then, that there will be six mortals sleeping at the campsite tonight, mere yards away from Astarion’s bedroll. Even at a distance, he can hear six heartbeats, the rythm of their pulses making his mouth water and his gums ache.
… Well. Five heartbeats and the rumble of the engine in Karlach’s chest. She’s not on the menu, certainly. Her body runs so hot that no one can touch her without being burned. Astarion is hungry, but not so hungry that he’d risk turning himself ash trying to feed from a tiefling with Hellfire in her veins.
That leaves five potential targets. No, four. Astarion doesn’t have a death wish. He wouldn’t try to drink from the githyanki, as Lae’zel would probably cut his head off for getting too close to her bedroll while she slept, even if she was completely unaware of why he was there. If she were to catch him with his mouth above her throat, she’d probably dismember him and then behead him.
Similarly, he’s not interested in feeding on Shadowheart. Although sunlight can no longer harm him, clerics probably have additional methods at their disposal for dispatching his kind. Astarion doesn’t want to find out which of those methods still work on him. Shadowheart has a mean streak, and would likely want to test a few.
… Which means Wyll is definitely off of the dinner table, too. Monster hunters tend to be tenacious, resourceful people. People who are not to be underestimated even if they do speak about themselves in third person at times. Wyll is charming, yes, and likes to make a show of his kind heart… but he doesn’t call himself the Cuddler of Frontiers, now does he?
That only leaves two options: Gale, and Tav. Between them, Gale is the heavier sleeper, and even if he were to catch Astarion in the act, Astarion thinks he might be able to talk his way out of things by engaging Gale’s academic curiosity. However, there is something off-putting about the wizard’s scent. A thrum of magical energy clings to him even when he’s doing something as mundane as chopping onions for stew. It’s very possibly a defensive tactic, and Astarion has no interest in finding out what exactly it does.
So, really, there’s no choice to he made here at all. One heartbeat. One throat. It can only be Tav. Too bad the man is such a fitful sleeper. Still, there has to be a way to make it work.
Tav was the first person Astarion saw after clawing himself out of his pod amid the wreckage of the nautiloid, and the first thing Astarion thought about him was that the man looked like an easy mark. He would be proven right soon after as Tav showed himself to be entirely too trusting and eager to be helpful. Astarion lured him within reach and held a knife to the man’s throat, demanding answers. Tav fought back like someone who had no regard for his own safety, but he had been surprised. Put off his guard. Winded, too, by the tumble to the ground. It had been so easy to pin him down…
And after Astarion had realized that they were not a survivor and an abductor, but a pair of survivors, Tav proved willing to move on from the whole knife incident like it had never happened. He brought Astarion back to his camp like they were friends. Tried to feed him, too. Did feed him, actually, not that he realized it. Beyond all of that, Tav laughs at Astarion’s jokes. Plays along with whatever strange games Astarion devises. Smiles at him often, like Astarion is someone he’s happy to see.
Astarion would not have survived for two hundred years as Cazador’s thrall if he wasn’t able to notice when someone desires him. With Tav, it’s as obvious as the scars all over the poor man’s face, and has been even since those first tense moments. After all, the way Tav’s breath quickened when Astarion held him down and pulled his hair had not been the result of fear alone.
So, yes. It’s a shame that Tav is such a light sleeper, but that isn’t enough of an obstacle to make Astarion keep denying himself. If Tav catches him near his bedroll, Astarion can say that he was coming over to seduce him. After it’s over, when Tav is sleeping again, then Astarion can drink his fill. Or, at least enough to dull his hunger. He doesn’t want to drain the poor man dry, after all. He’s such a useful person to know.
It won’t be so bad, Astarion thinks, if he ends up needing to bed Tav. He isn’t bad to look at. One could even call him handsome… Well, as handsome as anyone who wears sandals can be, he supposes. The scars do add a bit of mystery, and his hair is nice, even if it does have leaves in it more often than not. There are no troublesome romantic entanglements to worry about navigating—if the man is married or otherwise partnered, the amnesia has taken care of that little problem. Besides, Tav seems so eager for it that Astarion doubts he’d be too demanding.
Perhaps it would be wise to plan for this as an eventuality instead of as a last resort. Even if tonight goes off without an issue, Astarion will need to keep feeding in the future, and he’ll need to keep that backup plan in his pocket. Sooner or later, Tav will catch him, and Astarion will need to cover for himself. The smart thing to do would be for Astarion to get used to the idea now. He can’t afford to let himself get his hopes up. Of course he would prefer to avoid needing to fuck his way out of his problems, but if he plans for it, he can prepare himself for it.
This isn’t the first time Astarion has wondered if he might need to bed someone in their little camp. Just like it had been with Astarion’s meal planning, though, Tav is the only real option. Shadowheart and Lae’zel are too absorbed in their feud to notice anyone else, Gale and Wyll are too absorbed in themselves, and Karlach is too prone to spontaneous combustion to be approached safely. Gale might be too, for that matter. One never can tell with wizards. By process of elimination, that only leaves Tav, who already seems to be paying attention.
There is another reason why Tav would be a good choice: he holds a position of influence within the group. When Tav suggests a plan to the others, they usually go along with it—which could be invaluable if one of Cazador’s bounty hunters comes sniffing around. Astarion might not have to fully convince the other five of his value if he can at least get Tav to believe it.
Yes, Astarion could do a lot worse for a bedmate than the leader of their band of misfits. Factor in a face that’s pleasant to look at, and it could almost be an enjoyable way to pass an evening.
Almost.
… Hells, there’s no need to be precious about it. It’s just sex. Besides, it isn’t like Astarion expects that Tav would be cruel. If anything, he’d probably be infuriatingly gentle. Tav is always so careful with how he moves his hands, almost obsessively so, like he’s afraid of what might happen if he doesn’t maintain perfect control over them.
At the same time, he’s so incredibly reckless with the rest of himself. Yesterday, Astarion watched the man hum to a nest of furious baby spiders until they had calmed down enough for him to reach in and retrieve something from their web. Tav didn’t crush a single one of them, even as they crawled all over his hands, and he made sure to put all of them back after he was done. None of them bit him, though they very easily could have. From where Astarion was standing, he didn’t see any indication that Tav thought about that before going after what he wanted.
The only explanation is that the man is insane. However, Astarion can work with that. People don’t tend to find their way into his bed because they are overly concerned about making rational decisions.
If they were back in the city, Tav probably wouldn’t be the first person Astarion would notice in a busy tavern, but he would notice him before the night was over. In the absence of any easier prey, Astarion might have even brought Tav back with him. That isn’t Tav’s fault, though. There’s nothing he’s done to deserve it, he just tends to walk through the world with an expression on his face like he’s lost. Like he’s desperate for someone to tell him where to go.
A tenday ago, Astarion could have been the one to point him straight to his death.
But not tonight. Cazador isn’t here. Astarion is doing this for himself and no one else, and no one is going to die. Tav won’t even know it happened. It’s been ages since he’s been allowed to try, but Astarion thinks he can be gentle. Failing that, he can at least be careful. Subtle. He can take what he needs without ever waking Tav up from his dreams.