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ghost-proofbaby · 2 months

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Aruna hadn’t been described as dangerous before, but Nettie was right to use the word.

summary: aruna's foolishness leads to her finally getting a glimpse into the chasm that resides inside her chest. what she discovers should change something, if not everything.

wc: 4.2k+

warnings: further descriptions of being poisoned, game-adjacent violence (rip nettie), recovery of some memories, mentions of vampiric behavior (careful, he bites), vague mentions/allusions of a parental death, physical description of aruna (her eyes, ears, and hair specifically)

a/n: how much lore can i fit into one chapter? yes.

ao3 | masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

Aruna is a godsdamned idiot. A fool, just as Astarion had called her. She had been too trusting, and finally, it had gotten her into trouble.

Real trouble. Life-or-death trouble.

She should react, should move, should follow Astarion’s lead of the defense. She’s clearly been poisoned, for gods’ sakes. But her feet stay planted and her hand stays clutched as her eyes only stare at the scene before her, not even daring to blink for so long that she can feel the burn of reactive tears beginning to gather. She knows she looks pathetic, can feel the shame creeping up right along with the panic, a contract of chills and heat that trace right up her spine. That’s the only explanation for the way Astarion looks at her.

The furrow of his brows is out of disgust. There’s not a single chance that it’s because he’s sharing her fear, that he’s shouldering any of the terrified waves crashing down over her. Even the tadpole connection has finally retreated from her brain.

“You poisoned me,” she breathes out, voice trembling. She finally blinks – once, twice for good measure – as her eyes divert to the healer caught in Astarion’s hold, “You poisoned me.”

“I’m sorry, but-” Nettie’s voice is lost as Astarion digs his blade in deeper. Not yet breaking skin, but an unspoken threat.

He was right. She’s a fucking fool.

It’s the only possible explanation as she snaps her gaze to him, and with all the breath she can manage to gather, she sternly says, “Let her go.”

“I- What?” he hisses, face twisting, “Why in the sweet Hells would I let her go? She poisoned you-”

“I’m well aware, now let her go.”

There’s an internal battle that rages like no other in Astarion as he contemplates her demand. She can see his initial reaction clear as day; he wants to defy her, to deliver a killing blow instead of releasing Nettie. Aruna doesn’t need a tadpole connection to know that’s what his hands twitch to do.

But, then, the look of defiance does the unthinkable – it passes.

With the same speed in which he’d locked his arms around Nettie, Astarion lets them fall away, staying poised with his weapons as he takes a few steps back. Aruna’s hope is for Nettie to come to her senses, for her to have a reasonable conversation and for there to somehow be a cure to whatever she’s just stabbed the confused girl with. Her heart is still racing, pushing that poison through her system, and her palm feels as though she’s holding it right above an open flame. Searing, blistering, shooting pains. It’s getting harder for Aruna to keep an impassive expression, to hide away all that pain in hopes of maintaining some sort of respectable front.

Aruna realizes that maybe, just maybe, she needs to come to her senses regarding all her hopes and dreams of kindness.

“I am truly sorry,” the woman says slowly, one hand still holding the branch as her other begins a slow crawl to her hip, “But you must understand, you are dangerous. I don’t have a cure. All I can do is stop you, before you hurt anyone.”

Dangerous. It’s the first time Aruna has ever been described as such, as of recently of course. She’s been described as a fool, as clumsy, as heroic – but never dangerous.

The girl who cannot even properly wield her blades certainly cannot be dangerous, can she?

Nettie’s words betray her as she doesn’t focus on Aruna, though. She’s quick to spin around as she unsheathes the blade that neither Aruna nor Astarion had noticed, lunging straight for the only dangerous one in the room. Astarion.

He can handle his own. He’s proven that he can; he’s capable of defending himself by easily outmaneuvering Nettie. But there are words seared into Aruna’s every waking breath, and they are all she can hear as the healer attempts to catch Aruna’s companion off guard.

NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO, ABOVE ALL ELSE, SAVE ASTARION.

Aruna hadn’t been described as dangerous before, but Nettie was right to use the word.

Nettie’s blade never makes it near Astarion. Not because of his own quick blades or steady footing, but because of Aruna. The air of the room crackles immediately, a thunder rumbling somewhere deep inside of Aruna’s chest as she lifts a hand and simply channels all the rage she feels sparking awake at the prospect of Astarion’s life being in danger.

A chain of lighting. Beginning at Aruna’s palms, and ending at Nettie’s back.

No matter what I do.

Save Astarion.

Something frenzied within Aruna, the animal that recognizes the elf that has been more of a nuisance towards her than something of importance, fuels the magic. Her magic.

The magic of a sorcerer with one singular goal in mind. To save a life – a life that is certainly not Nettie’s anymore.

The blast sends Nettie flying into her stone desk of equipment, a painful snap sounding as she attempts to break the crash with her arm. And the resulting waves of magic show no mercy as their pulsating send Astarion stumbling on his feet, pushing him back and farther out of reach of Nettie.

The only thing left behind in the room is the smell of burning flesh, the ragged and pained breaths of a miraculously still-alive Nettie, and Aruna’s voice.

No longer trembling, she speaks words that feel as though they don’t even belong to her. At least, not this version of her. They come from deep within, echoing out of that lonely chasm within her that she can’t uncloak from the darkness, “You will know just see how dangerous I truly am if you so much as look at him once more.”

Astarion, tadpole connection and all, stays silent.

Aruna doesn’t know how she conjured the strength for the spell she’s used. She doesn’t even know which spell she’s just used. She hadn’t uttered a single cantation as the lighting had escaped her uninjured palm, hadn’t even thought of one. It had come to her as naturally as breathing; even more naturally than breathing, really, given her current state.

And all that strength is quickly draining from her. Her legs are growing weaker, just as Nettie had predicted, and there’s a twist in her gut that nearly forces her to keel over. But she can’t. Nettie is still alive, and very much a threat. If not to Aruna, then to Astarion.

Even with a back burnt to a crisp, charred skin peeking through her ravaged clothing, Nettie finds a way to stand up once again. Aruna’s hands fly to her daggers, not even bothering to glance and see if Astarion is in any shape to provide backup. The spell shouldn’t have hit nor affected him. And somewhere in that chasm in Aruna’s chest, she simply knows that he’s unharmed.

If he were, she would feel it in an instant. She has no doubt about it. And that has nothing to do with their current tadpole affliction.

Move, don’t think.

It’s Astarion’s voice, but not through the tadpole connection. It’s too muted, too faraway. Like a distant memory that Aruna can’t grasp her fist around.

She listens to it. Whether she’s only imagining it to be his command out of need for comfort as the poison spreads or not, it’s good advice.

Her daggers let out a ring from how ferociously she releases them from her scabbards at her hips, a heavy hilt marked with a moon in her left hand, and one marked with a star in her right hand.

Steady your feet. Keep one arm close to you at all times to protect your torso. Use gravity to your advantage.

Each set of instructions rings out as if traveling through water, back to back, as Aruna’s feet follow. Her stature is similar to that of Astarion’s, barely bent at the waist as she prowls up to Nettie, a look of determination set on her face.

One arm poised to strike, one arm defensively staying close to her waist. She swears she can feel the ghost of palms steadying her along the way, correcting her form, as she goes in for a brutal swinging of her left arm.

Her palm screams out against the leather of the dagger as her blade hits its mark. No hesitation, the metal has dug into Nettie’s chest just as the woman had been prepared for a second attack. Not a mere surface scratch – a proper slashing, one that begins to bleed profusely immediately.

Do not let your guard down after your first attack. Remember self-preservation; if you’ve managed to weaken them, go in for the kill, Aruna.

Go in for the kill, she does.

What’s left of her strength, of her self-preservation, is exhausted entirely on the killing strike. Astarion hasn’t had to move a muscle as Nettie’s body drops to the ground with a thud, Aruna being the one holding a bloodied blade with further evidence splattered across her cheeks.

Her stomach churns. Her knees finally give out, screaming out in pain as they connect with the rough ground. She swears it’s the weight of her actions and not the poison that has forced her down, but her rattling chest says otherwise.

She’s just killed someone.

It’s no longer just her palm that burns ferociously. Her entire body is alight, agonizingly blazing as she curls into herself. Her vision blackens at the edges, her hearing completely fades from her.

Nettie’s blood is on her hands, and if she were in better shape, she’d have more devastation to spare.

She doesn’t hear her own scream of agony, nor Astarion’s yell of her name. The last thing she can see, can remember, is the lifeless eyes of Nettie as she succumbs to darkness.

—

Flashes of memories.

A shadow creeping his way along the edge of the camp, retreating into the forest, unaware of a restless Aruna still awake in the dead of night.

A drained boar along a dirt path, left carelessly in the center. An irritated pale elf, insisting that investigating the carrion is a waste of time.

A whisper of fangs against Aruna’s neck in the dead of a night in which sleep would not come easily to her. Wide, red eyes and a mouth slack to fully expose dangerous fangs.

“Shit.”

A groveling of ‘just a taste’, a promise of strength, a gesture of trust. The piercing, numbing, cold stab of fangs piercing skin. The slow drain, the weightlessness, the gentle coax of ‘that’s enough’.

His mania. His saunter. His revitalization.

Her gift he won’t forget.

As the flashes slow, Aruna makes out a clear image of the night sky that she’s gazing up at. Dazzling freckles of starlight across a stark onyx sheet, a full moon glowing as if brushed with specks of sterling silver.

It’s captivating, comforting, homely.

For a moment, she doesn’t understand the familiarity. The sheer importance of the moon hangs on her consciousness, regarding it as a guiding light as she relaxes, but she doesn’t understand. Not until she turns her head ever so slightly, and she catches sight of the familiar tufts of white hair at her side.

It all clicks into place.

All the dark holes in her psyche that haunt her during her waking hours have been filled in for just a moment within this dream – within this memory. She isn’t recalling them in vivid flashes as she was before, but there is a simple knowing, a simple fullness where vacancy once resided. She knows exactly where she is, exactly who she is, and she knows the man who rests at her side. She hadn’t even noticed the cold body at first, his thigh perfectly flushed with hers without an ounce of uncertainty in sight; it was natural for them. Here, in this memory, this was the normal.

She’s sitting on the boulder with a clear outlook of camp, with Astarion at her side, whispering into the late night just as they always do.

“You know,” he starts, as if she’s entered this consciousness in the middle of a simple conversation between friends, “I swear I’ve heard more horror stories about drow than I have vampires.”

There are no choices for Aruna to make here. This script has already been written, already played out. She can only experience it.

“Really?” she snorts, shaking her head. Her dark hair is pushed into the edges of her vision by the breeze, underhues of ashen purple visible in the moonlight, “Pulling that card, are we?”

He’s wearing a sly yet easy smile. None of the tension Aruna had witnessed from him in her own journey so far is visible. This is the Astarion that that animal knows. That piece of her that resides so restlessly – it’s in control now, because it is the one that has lived this moment before. Soft, trusting eyes. Somehow, she’s aware that his guard has been let down since the night she allowed him to feed on her.

Somehow, she knows that there was a night in which she allowed him to feed on her.

He’s a vampire. New information, but for some reason, it doesn’t startle her in the slightest. She simply knows.

“Are you denying that drows aren’t a part of the shadows that go bump in the night?” he teases. He’s close enough that with every one of Aruna’s breaths, their shoulders are brushing. She doesn’t recoil from it; it’s something to lean into.

She knows him, she trusts him.

She shrugs and leans forward, and he follows. The camp is a bit different from that of Aruna’s waking hours. There’s a tent at the edge of her small cliff she’s come to love, the top clearly in sight. Deep, deep burgundy. It’s Astarion’s tent. He’d set it up there, acting almost as a guard for her small sanctuary she’s acquired in their homey camp. There’s another tent, too, that Aruna shouldn’t recognize. One off to the left, close to the campfire that’s been doused for the night. The occupant is just out of sight, but whoever resides inside, she knows she cares for.

A friend. One she hasn’t met yet. Only in this dream, in this memory, does she know whatever force of nature that claims both that physical space and one within her heart.

“Oh, no, they certainly are,” her voice is so sure, Aruna almost mourns that this version of her is not the one always in control, “You know me. Quarter drow, far more ferocious than you and those toothpicks you call fangs.”

“Darling, I’m hurt. Must we pit ourselves against each other? Would our enemies not cower more if we joined our horrific forces?”

Quarter drow.

Aruna hasn’t even seen her reflection. Not the version of her riddled with holes and lacking in memories. She had no idea – she really shouldn’t even know what a drow is, but the knowledge comes easily to her.

A dark elf. Images of red eyes far more vicious than Astarion’s glare at her judgmentally, cut through by a different pair. Vivid purple. Caring, loving, motherly. And oh so familiar, because she’s aware that when she does finally glance into a reflective surface, she is going to see a carbon copy of those eyes staring right back at her. Generational jewels, a ghost of a reminder of the woman who has long since taken her last breath.

Aruna mourns her. But the memory she’s experiencing now has its restrictions, and as much as she chases after those motherly eyes, she’s not quite able to place them. Only know that she shares them. She knows that she will never see them again before her, only in mirrors and rivers.

“I think my mother would have quite liked you, you know?” she breathes out carelessly, looking at Astarion with impossible warmth. She knows him – she trusts him, “She may have had quite a bit to say about me befriending a vampire, but you’d still grow on her.”

He throws his head back in a bark of laughter that has Aruna shushing him instinctively, “Would she? I never have been the type that most would introduce to their mothers.”

“Well, most are fools. I’ll have to introduce you to mine once we’ve returned to the city.”

Astarion is completely unaware that the only thing that waits in the city is a crumbling stone, grown over with vines, nearly forgotten in the corner of a small graveyard. He will only be meeting the carvings of a mournful child left behind, determined to keep the memory of her mother alive. He has no idea – they aren’t quite there yet.

“It would be an honor,” he nods surely, looking at her with unwavering eyes. They are alight with the same joy that consumes him every time Aruna indulges his antics. It’s beautiful – he’s beautiful.

Something hauntingly, devastatingly gorgeous. Something broken, but Aruna has never shied away from a kindred soul.

After all, how could one broken soul not call to another in the dead of night?

His hand reaches up, and something inside of Aruna prepares to flinch, but she resists. It’s with a gentle touch that he’s tucking her wild hair behind her ear, fingers lingering as they coyly trace the shape of her ears. She swears, they outline a point. Not as obvious as his own, still a bit rounded and subtle, but it’s there.

They’re quiet for a few seconds. Snores from across the camp can be heard, albeit a bit muted, and there’s a distant buzz of insects from the forest at their backs. This moment is only theirs. Come morning, their time belongs to others. There are people to help (even begrudgingly), there are other companions to entertain, there are adventures to be had. But for now, it doesn’t really matter. A bubble of safety, an escape of friendship.

It’s more than Aruna knowing and trusting Astarion. He knows her, too. He’s beginning to trust her.

He has to, because he lets her relax into him, her head falling slowly so that her temple rests against his shoulder. He tenses still, but he doesn’t push her away. If anything, he only leans into her.

“Speaking of Baldur’s Gate,” Aruna murmurs, eyes still looking up at the moon as she speaks, “What awaits you back in the city, Astarion?”

His voice is cool, even more so than his skin against hers, as he replies, “Nothing good.”

For a second, Aruna accepts the answer. She knows better than to push him, and she knows now that he means it when he says as much. But then– the memory taints.

It’s painful.

It’s not a part of the original script. This is not how the moment is meant to go. Something stains it, something makes that animalistic piece of her howl.

Aruna sees it clearly, now, that her soul has been cleaved in half. It’s not an animal clawing at her insides; it is the half of her soul that knows him and knows their story. And it had gotten lost in the memory, recalling simple and sweet times before devastation had struck. Because the taint spreads, the poison consumes, and his words are nothing more than a bitter reminder. This Aruna, this Astarion – they do not know. But the half of Aruna’s soul that held this memory near and dear does, and the words ‘nothing good’ seems to function as knives that drive into it. It knows, it knows, it knows.

Nothing good is an understatement as pain sears through Aruna. Wholly, fully.

Not just an ache. Not just a chasm. Something inside of her has been torn apart and bloodied by the reminder of what’s to come. Aruna can’t remember. The split inside of her is not even, not a 50/50 division. It’s why she can’t remember, and all she can hear is the sobs from the part of her that is forever cursed to.

Save Astarion, save Astarion, save Astarion.

The memory is gone. All that remains is the dark, and the sobs. The dreadful, defeated sobs.

—

When Aruna wakes back up, she’s covered in a cold sweat. With a gasp, she starts to sit up. Those sobs still echo, threatening to spill out of her throat now as a hand is suddenly on her shoulder, urging her to lay back down on an unfamiliar bed roll.

“No!” a frenzied voice scolds, “No, do not get up. If you undo all my healing, I swear-”

“She has been poisoned. Show her some grace.”

Astarion. She should be more focused on Shadowheart’s voice and instruction, but she can only cling to his voice defending her.

Why is he defending her? Why isn’t she dead?

“She doesn’t need grace,” Shadowheart spits back as Aruna’s eyes flutter about her surroundings, refusing to lay back down as she ignores Shadowheart’s hand, “She needs rest.”

She’s inside a tent. The afternoon sunlight casted upon it from above turns the ceiling nearly transparent, the shades of purple and delicate lacing visible.

Shadowheart’s tent.

“Since when are those two things exclusive?” Astarion stands in the doorway of the tent, taking no steps towards the two women, eyes trained on Aruna.

She flinches when the pressure of his tadpole caresses her, and he’s in her mind, breaking through far too easily.

I would lay back down if I were you, his voice begins to coo within her head. The cleric has been feeling rather feisty-

His words cut off as all of Aruna’s racing thoughts pour down the connection. She has no control of it, still reeling from her dream, still remembering the Astarion from her slumber rather than the one in front of her. Still remembering those wretched damn sobs. They aren’t new ones from the part of her that remembers. They’re a memory in themselves. Ones that had poured out of Aruna at some point, ones that were born of pure heartbreak. She can’t place why, she can’t place when – she only knows the broken tone of her own misery.

For a fleeting second, they flash to him before the connection slam shuts. Neither of them had even been aware that it was possible, but it clearly is, even if Aruna has no idea how she’s done it. It feels as though that cleaved half of her soul has taken full control. Instinctually taking the reins and effectively shoving Astarion back to an arm’s length away as she remembers.

He mustn't know.

She almost tries to pry the connection back open in order to spare an apology his way, but Aruna has no choice but to trust herself. If it says that Astarion can’t know, then he can’t. Simple as that.

It still aches when he staggers from the force of the connection being cut, finding his footing farther from her than he originally was. The distance is torture. But it is necessary.

“A mirror,” she croaks out, softer than she’d tried to force the request. Her chest is rising and falling at an unmanageable rate, hysteria threatening to take over, “I need a mirror.”

It was just a dream. It had to be.

But something about the urgency in Aruna’s tone has Shadowheart scrambling to obey her command, reaching about her belongings until she produces a small mirror. It’s passed into Aruna’s quivering palms with care before her knuckles turn white from how harshly she grabs onto the reflective surface, not yet bringing it up to eye level.

She can still see it, clear as day. Her mind feels as though it’s being ripped apart by the images. They feel real. Astarion at her side, her head on his shoulder, the moon smiling down on them. The quiet exchange of histories, that flame of kinship she had felt from the moment she’d even entered his vicinity. The sense of deja vu that had ignited before she’d ever even started to exchange proper words with him.

“I really do need you to lay back down. You still need rest yet, and-”

Shadowheart’s fussing is cut off as Aruna whispers, “It wasn’t a dream.”

For the first time since this all began at the Nautiloid crash, Aruna sees her own reflection. She looks worse for wear, lips cracking pitifully and heavy bags beneath her eyes, but those are the least of her problems.

Vivid violet stares back at her.

When her shaking hand lifts to brush her unruly hair back, she finds the not-quite-pointed ears hidden beneath.

Part drow.

It wasn’t a dream.

The only issue, of course, is that when Aruna looks up to Astarion, she is faced with a terrible truth. If the dream had truly been a memory, if it had been true that drow blood runs through her veins, then it means that someone else’s true identity was also true.

His mouth is agape still, the stun of her pushing him out of her mind lingering, and she can see the shine of his canines from behind his lips.

Not canines. Fangs.

Astarion is a vampire.

“Aruna, please-” Shadowheart tries to say.

Astarion is a vampire.

“I need to speak to Astarion,” her eyes lock on his. Amethysts meet rubies. Precious gems belonging to the night. “Alone.”

taglist: @emmaisgonnacry @writinginthetwilight @moonmunson

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#ghost's stories #astarion #astarion ancunin #astarion x tav #astarion x oc #astarion fanfic #bg3 #bg3 fanfiction #sorry i posted this on ao3 first haha #i hadn't made the chapter divider whoops #added the ao3 link in tho for anyone who prefers that format!#also i don't have a fancy option for astarion/bg3 fics right now with my taglist thing so we're going old fashioned haha

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