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etoilehistoire · 5 months

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When talking about Astarion’s choice to ascend or not, we tend to act like it's our choice. The player decides if he ascends or not. But... there IS a roll involved. Yes, as players if it doesn't go the way we want we can always reload and try again, but... in-game, the characters don't have that option. What would happen, then, if a Tav desperately tried to talk him out of ascending... and failed? Rolled a one? What might they do? What might happen next?

This story takes place after the end of the game.

The little farmhouse was in the middle of nowhere – no other homes in sight, miles from the nearest town.

Not that Wyll was surprised. In her shoes, he’d surely value his solitude too.

It was pretty, he noticed as he rode up the path. A dark brown roof over white walls, almost completely hidden behind trellises of morning glories, climbing roses, and other flowers. A spray of sunflowers nearly hid the door. Berry bushes sprawled across the front yard in glorious disorder, many of them sporting ripe fruit that filled the morning air with a sweet scent. And there, filling a bowl with blueberries, her dark hair pulled back in a scarf, was Xia.

She turned when she heard his horse's hooves, a slow smile spreading across her face. “I’ll be damned. How long has it been? Ten years?”

“At least,” he agreed with a grin. Hopping down, he clasped her arm in greeting, and wasn’t the least bit surprised when she pulled him into a full-bodied hug instead. “Oof! You’re strong as ever. Country life suits you.”

She looked well too, he mused a moment later, stepping back to look her over. Her hair had a little grey at the temples, and crow's feet were beginning to form at the corner of her unscarred eye, but she seemed more at ease with herself and the world than he remembered her being before.

She laughed at the comment. “I suppose it does. But what about you? I didn’t expect to see you out here in the middle of nowhere! How’s the war going? How’s Karlach? How’s her heart?”

He threw up his hands in mock surrender, laughing. “So many questions! And the answers are all related. The war never ends, of course – it will outlive all of us. But sometimes you have to step away from battle for a moment, to focus on more important things.” He smiled, a softness entering his voice. “Karlach's new heart is treating her well. It’s stable. So stable, in fact, that… well, that’s part of what I came to tell you.” His dark skin flushed even darker. “We’re expecting.”

She gasped. “No.”

“Yes! Dammon's with her now; she’s already complaining about us coddling her.”

Xia laughed, the sound open and free. “Oh, I’ll bet. Tell her you’ll knock her down and sit on her if she doesn’t behave.” Looping her arm through his, she continues. “You have to tell me everything! Let me show you around while you do; I’ve got a little orchard started – the trees won’t bear fruit for another year or two, but it’s pretty. And oh, do you like tomatoes? Please say at least one of you does, I have so many tomatoes and I don’t know what to do with them all…”

She’s freer with her words now too, he noted, holding back a smile as he let her ramble on. She gave him a quick tour; he dutifully admired the gardens, and smiled at the chickens and the cantankerous goat.

Finally she gave him a sideways glance. “But happy as your news is, it could have been delivered in a letter. And you didn’t come all the way out here to see my flowers and be loaded up with spare vegetables. What’s up?”

He gave her a gentle smile. “Actually? I wanted to check on you. I was surprised to hear you’d hung up your sword.”

She smiled, but it seemed more reserved now. “I got out of the game, Wyll. It happens.”

“Doesn’t usually happen to someone who makes the kind of name for themselves as you did.”

She was silent at this. After a long moment he added, gently, “They’re singing songs about you, you know. About what you did.”

Now her shoulders sagged. “Ah.”

“Is it true?”

She looked away, dark eyes staring off into the blue morning sky. “They would hardly sing songs about it if it wasn’t.”

He touched her shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“What is there to say?” She still didn’t look at him. This, this was the Xia he remembered, careful and closed-off. It made him sad to see. “The ascended vampire lord has been destroyed and his budding empire torn down. I dealt the death-blow myself.”

His heart hurt for her. He, too, had grieved what Astarion had become, but he’d never been as close with the vampire as she was. Xia had always been driven to do the right thing, but he couldn’t imagine how it must have felt, having to kill her former lover. “Is that why…?”

“Why I stopped?” She shrugged. “I made a mess, Wyll. It was on me to clean it up. Once I did, that life didn’t have much appeal for me anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it. “We should have been there with you. You shouldn’t have had to do it alone.”

“I did have an army with me,” she replied mildly. “I was hardly ‘alone.’” Glancing over at him, she gave him a small smile. “I’m glad you weren’t, honestly. It makes me happy that you and the others are living your lives. You deserve some peace.”

He returned the smile. “Well. So do you.”

“And I’ve found it.” She leaned into him, wrapping an arm around him in a half-hug. “Listen, I do want to catch up, and I have missed you, but I’m afraid I have to be a bad host. The house is a mess – turns out I’m a much better gardener than I am a housekeeper – and I never get company out here so I don’t have a guest room set up. Maybe we could-"

Just then the door banged open and someone strolled out of the house. Lanky build. White, curling hair. Skin tanned pale gold from the sun. Pointed ears. Clutching a mug of coffee in his hand.

“Darling,” he drawled, “did a blight destroy our berry bushes overnight? Did you have to plant entirely new ones before you could pick the blueberries? I don’t mean to be impatient, but you promised me muffins, not abandonment-"

“Astarion??”

He froze. She froze. Wyll stared between them, his eyes growing wide as he tried to process what he was seeing.

Then Xia turned toward him, slowly, with the absolute strangest expression he had ever seen on her face: a guilty, sheepish smile.

“Explain.”

~15-20 Years Earlier~

Astarion sat on Cazador’s- no. His throne, now. His, all his, and he should be happy about it, damn it. Instead he drummed his fingers, their last conversation playing in his head.

“You will regret leaving me. More than anything else you live to regret.”

She’d simply looked at him with her quiet eyes. “No, Star. The only thing I regret is that I couldn’t stop you from doing this to yourself.”

He scowled. What did she know? He hadn’t ‘done anything to himself’ except seize the power he deserved, the power that always should have been rightfully his. After 200 years of pain, of fear, of being weak, now finally he was the one who was strong. He would never be afraid again. He could have kept her safe too, could have given her everything she ever wanted. Instead she rejected it. Said she liked him better when he was weak. When he was pathetic.

She didn’t deserve him. Didn’t deserve the gifts his power would have bestowed. So be it. She could grow old and suffer and die, while he was beautiful and strong forever, and he wouldn’t care. He was better off without an ingrate like her anyway. He would put her entirely out of his mind and never think of her again.

It didn’t go as well as he’d hoped.

The first thing to do, of course, was make new spawns. He was powerful, of course, but he was only one man. An army of offspring, all loyal to him, all able to be controlled by him, would increase his power exponentially, allow him to effectively be everywhere at once.

So he started.

His first spawn was less than pleased by his new fate. That was fine. Astarion hadn’t suffered under Cazador all those years without learning a few tricks to break the will of a rebellious slave. If the boy couldn’t see the advantages of serving the most powerful vampire lord to ever exist, he would instead learn the folly of resistance. He’d come around in time. Astarion would make sure of it.

The second, by contrast, took to it like a duck to water. She had a streak of cruelty that delighted him, and she was a sensible girl, able to understand the quid-pro-quo of “serve me loyally, and I’ll be good to you.” Yes, she would work out nicely.

It was when he was out hunting his third spawn that he hit a snag.

A tall girl. Well-muscled from hard work. Dark hair, dark eyes – a round face with a serious expression. Not Xia, of course, but similar enough to her that they could have been sisters.

He brought her back, of course, fully intending to turn her. As he should have turned Xia, nevermind that she said she didn’t want it. Once it was done she would have seen the benefits, and even if she hadn’t, she couldn’t have left him then anyway. He should have done it.

Her face came back to him, the way he’d seen it last. Cold. Sad. Judgmental, as if she had any right to judge him. He snarled, the rage filling his mind, and lunged.

When he drew back she was dead, her glassy eyes staring at the ceiling as the tattered remains of her throat slowly dripped onto his second-best couch. Ugh. Such a waste.

He made his first spawn clean up the mess – it would do the boy good to get used to such things. His second spawn (he should learn their names eventually, or perhaps give them new ones) he sent out to hunt a replacement. “And,” he added, glancing back to the cooling corpse. “If you can… find someone who looks like her.”

He could control himself better the next time. Of course he could.

He saw her again, a year or so later.

By that point his influence had grown enough that he was making alliances with other power players, but he wasn’t quite high enough – yet – to force them to come to him. So he was traveling, visiting a strange town to seal a deal.

He hadn’t had to hunt himself for months – his pets brought him all the fresh blood he could want. Still, there was nothing quite like the thrill of the chase, and he was in a new place where his face wasn’t widely known… so why not? Why not, for old time's sake? He donned a cloak, headed to a nearby tavern, and watched the crowd.

And there she was. Singing, for the gods' sake, like she was some common wench and not a paladin. His lip twisted in pity and disgust. If she’d only listened to him, she could be living in luxury right now, her every whim seen to, instead of debasing herself like this. Singing for her supper. She might as well whore herself out.

He stayed and listened, his fury growing as he did so. The song was sad, and told the story of a woman who had loved a powerful man, but her love wasn’t enough to keep him with her and so he had abandoned her.

How dare she. As if she hadn’t left him! As if he hadn’t offered her the world, if only she’d stayed! How dare she paint him as the unfaithful one, how dare she mourn their love! She had no right!

His hunt forgotten, he waited for her until she left the lights of the tavern. Stepping out of the dark night, he grabbed her by the throat and forced her back against the wall. “You know, darling, if you miss me that much you could always come home.” He bared his fangs, moving in closer. “Your place as my consort is still open. In fact, I’ve half a mind to put you there anyway – there are others who would kill to be my most beloved spawn, you’d learn to appreciate it in time.”

A blade pressed against his throat – gods, he’d forgotten how fast she was. Cold eyes stared into his. “If.”

He considered his odds. Her throat was right there – but lunging for it would mean the dagger slicing into his own neck. Possibly he could incapacitate her before it cut all the way through… but possibly not. “Beg pardon?” he asked, playing for time.

“If.” Her gaze grew, if anything, even harder. “I told you that it was a big ‘if.’ That I didn’t see it happening. But it’s getting closer.”

He stilled. He remembered now – a conversation long ago, around a fire. How pathetic he’d been then, cringing and sniveling, as if he needed her approval or affection. “Oh, pretty paladin, please tell me you aren’t threatening me.”

“Not a threat. A warning.” Now she leaned into him, bringing their faces close. “I know that ethics won’t move you, nor morality. Not love, not mercy, not kindness. You’ve seen to that.” Her words were quiet and emotionless, fired at him with a dreadful matter-of-factness. “So I’m appealing to enlightened self-interest. Keep your predations to a reasonable level, vampire. For your sake and mine: don’t become something I’m honor-bound to kill.”

He snarled, hate twisting his features. The blade biting into his neck was becoming uncomfortable; he took a few steps back, pretending it was his own idea, glaring all the while. “The arrogance. You really believe you could do anything to me? To me?”

She sighed. “Oh, Star. You know I was never afraid of you, right? Not once. Not even with your teeth in my neck. That hasn’t changed.” Her knife disappeared, vanishing into whatever hidden pocket she’d drawn it from. “Perhaps you should have been more afraid of me.”

And with that, she turned her back on him – deliberately – and walked away.

And Astarion, for reasons he absolutely did not understand, let her.

It wasn’t enough.

He wasn’t safe enough.

He wasn’t strong enough.

He had an entire horde of spawn bound to him, yes, but they could only operate at night. That was a limitation, and limitations were weakness.

He’d had the idea, once, to cover the city in fog and clouds, blocking out the sun, making it safe for his little pets. So he did. It took a while, of course, but he figured it out in the end.

Of course, then the people in the city were angry. There were rumblings of discontent. That wouldn’t do. The city should be his – he deserved that much, didn’t he? And anyone who disagreed, well. He always needed food. And he always needed entertainment. Those who spoke against him could provide both – quietly at first, then as publicly as possible – until no one else dared to speak.

So the city became his. But then it occurred to him – it was only one city. A single city could be destroyed, could it not? No, it wasn’t enough. To be truly safe, to be truly powerful, he needed multiple cities.

He needed an empire.

And, after all, why shouldn’t he have one? Why shouldn’t he rule this land? Who could stand against him?

Some years into this, the rumors first reached his ears. Whispers of tales told in taverns and common rooms, songs sung in secrecy. The story of a paladin who had been betrayed by a vampire lord, who would ease her heartbreak by taking revenge on her evil ex-lover.

He was furious. He sent out an entire squadron of spawn, with instructions: tear out the tongues of anyone heard repeating this rumor. He nailed the tongues to a board in the square, scores of them, a grisly display for all to see.

But the stories kept being spread.

Soon it was more than whispers. An army was amassing to the west, led by a scarred paladin, sworn to bring him down. Xia's name seemed to be on every pair of lips – a beacon of hope, they called her. A hero, come to free them from the scourge of – well, of him.

He hated her. Gods, he hated her. How could he have ever thought he loved her? It wasn’t enough to abandon him, to throw away everything he’d tried to give her. She had to try to destroy everything he was working so hard to build, too? Everything that would finally, finally make him secure, safe, happy?

They moved slowly. First a tiny border town, one he had only barely secured. The spawn he’d left in charge was killed, the fog dispersed. The people were free.

He sneered when he heard it. ‘Free.’ Free to live their miserable, pathetic lives, perhaps. To die meaningless deaths. Instead of being led by someone with vision, someone who would have protected them, who would only have taken a few lives here and there – and even then, those who died would have known they were sacrificing to further a glorious cause! But no. They wanted to live and die like animals? Fine. He didn’t need that town anyway. He had others.

But her army didn’t stop there. They moved forward, inexorably, whittling apart his budding empire and growing stronger all the while as people flocked to her banners.

He screamed as the reports came in, as he heard of each new city lost. Sometimes he took it out on the messenger. Sometimes he took it out on the townsfolk. So what if he did? It was her fault anyway, for angering him like this.

Then they were there, in his home city, moving closer, fighting pitched battles in the street. It should have been impossible for them to fight him here, in his own territory, but here they were, growing closer by the day. Until the city was theirs. Until they reached his walls.

And stopped.

They didn’t move on the castle.

Maybe they were recovering from the battle, licking their metaphorical wounds. Maybe they didn’t think they were strong enough. Maybe they were doing reconnaissance, or building a powerful weapon, or waiting for the stars to align. Whatever the reason, they stopped, and for months there was a stalemate. Astarion took advantage of it, building up his defenses and training his pets. If they were going to give him breathing room, he’d make them regret it.

Then, after several months, something changed. He wasn’t sure what – he shuddered, as if someone had walked over his grave, and afterwards he knew something was different. Something had fundamentally changed, and he hated that he didn’t know what.

A week after that, the attack came.

The fighting in the lower levels wasn’t going well, he could tell by the sound. His spawn were fighting for their own lives and his, he’d summoned wolves and bats and everything else he could think of, and yet the army kept coming, kept slicing his forces apart.

And then she was there.

In his private rooms. Alone.

He grinned when he saw her. “The years are catching up to you, Xia. Is that grey I see in your hair?” He clucked. “Should have let me turn you when you were still young and – well, as pretty as you’d ever be.”

She regarded him quietly, naked sword in hand. “I didn’t come here to talk, Astarion. I came here to kill you.”

“You still think you can?” He sneered. “Your little soldiers down there might be able to defeat my spawns, pretty paladin. But I am the ascended vampire. You cannot bring me down.”

“I can,” she said – calmly. Steadily. “And I will. I promised to make it quick, Astarion. And it will be.”

With that, they flew at each other.

She was every bit as fast and strong as he remembered – more so, even, after the decade or more she’d had to improve. But he was stronger too. Faster. And he had more tricks up his sleeve.

He drew first blood – the fingernails he’d allowed to grow long, had sharpened into talons, missed her neck but scraped against the melted flesh of her scar. He paused, grinning, and licked a drop of blood off of one of them.

Hells below, it was sweet. He’d forgotten how good she tasted.

“Oh, I’m going to enjoy draining you dry,” he purred, and lunged again.

He relished the look of surprise on her face the first time he turned into mist, her sword passing harmlessly through him. He danced around her, waiting for her to grow tired and out of breath, something he no longer needed to worry about.

She stabbed. He misted. He laughed inwardly at the confusion in her eyes as she looked around, trying to figure out where he was this time. Silently, he materialized behind her, moving in for the kill.

Too late, he realized it had been a feint, as she whirled to face him, knowing exactly where he’d be.

Too late, he saw the blade swinging for his neck.

Too late.

In his cold dead heart, he hadn’t actually thought she could kill him, any more than he could kill her. Oh, he could consider it. Fantasize about it, even. But actually do it? No. They were bound together. He would disarm her. Render her helpless. Then turn her, as he always should have, and they would be together. Forever. As it always should have been.

He was wrong.

There was the excruciating pain of the sword through his neck. The sickening spin of the world as his head left his shoulders and tumbled down. The darkness taking over his vision.

Then nothing.

The first thing he was aware of was… warmth.

He was warm.

That was new.

He opened his eyes to see Xia bending over him, her eyes red and puffy, tears streaming down her cheeks. That was wrong. Xia never cried. Not once, in all the time he’d known her.

“Oh gods,” she gasped out, as soon as she saw his eyes open. Then, standing, she stumbled away, turning her back to him as her shoulders shook.

Carefully, he sat up. His body felt… weird. Something was on him, littering his lap and the floor near him. Little stones, or gems maybe, but hollow and blackened as if they’d been burnt from the inside. He touched one and it crumbled to dust.

Something was wrong. Something felt wrong, familiar and alien at once. He stilled, trying to feel it, to understand what was happening to his body.

It was a heartbeat. It was his heartbeat. For the first time in over 200 years.

He stared at the paladin’s back. “Xia… what did you do?”

The answer was slow in coming. When it did, it was in a voice that was dull and despairing. “I undid the most important choice you ever made for yourself. I ignored your wishes and turned you into what I wanted you to be, without your consent. That’s what I did.”

His breath (he had breath!) caught. He stared at the crumbling gems again. Diamonds, he realized. Or they had been, before.

He remembered… oh, he remembered the ritual. He remembered Xia trying to talk him out of it. He’d ignored her, so sure he knew what he was doing, so sure it was the only way.

He remembered everything he’d done after.

His stomach heaved and he doubled over, retching, unable to bring anything up except strings of yellow bile. Still the horror and disgust washed over him in waves.

He'd become his own worst nightmare. He was as bad as Cazador.

No. He was worse.

When he finally regained the ability to speak, he croaked, “Why?”

She shrugged – one-shouldered, listless. “Because I’m selfish? Because I knew I needed to kill you, but I wasn’t ready to live in a world without you in it? Because I would rather have you alive to hate me dead.”

He shook his head, not understanding. “No. Not – what? Why would I hate you?”

She hesitated. “Star. You made a choice. You chose power. That was your choice; my choice was to fight you. And that choice was mine to make… but I didn’t have the right to take your choice away. You’ve been treated like a thing for too long, you deserve to make your own choices about your own life. And I knew that, and I did it to you anyway. Knowing it was wrong.”

He felt sick. “No. I didn’t – I didn’t know. Xia, please, I – I chose to do the ritual, yes. But I didn’t know it would be like this.” He swallowed. “I didn’t know I would be like this.”

She did turn then, tears streaming from her eyes, turned and knelt with him. Shaking, her hands reached out to cup his face. Hope, wild and fierce, blazed in her watery eyes. “You didn’t? Star. Please. Swear it. Tell me you didn’t want… this.”

He shuddered, shaking his head fiercely. “I swear it. Xia, the things I wanted to do to you – I would never.” He covered his face. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Strong arms wrapped around him then, holding him close; he let himself lean into her embrace, feeling like he didn’t deserve it. “You should have killed me,” he whispered. “You should have let me stay dead. The things I did… Xia, you don’t know the things I did.”

“You can tell me,” she murmured back, “if you want. But it wasn’t you. If you didn’t know what the ritual would do… then you didn’t choose what you’d turn into. The person who did those things, it’s not you, and it’s not anyone you would choose to be.”

“It was still my hands,” he whispered. “Still my voice that gave the orders. You tried to warn me.”

“I did,” she replied, rubbing his back. “With things I guessed. Suspected. Not things I knew. You were scared. You wanted something to make you strong. I wouldn’t have believed my warnings either.”

He had nothing to say to that, unable to believe in the easy forgiveness but unwilling to reject it either. He clung to her in silence, until the shaking stopped.

Finally he asked, “…What happens now?”

“Mmm. My army is pretty gung-ho on ‘kill the vampire,’” she mused. “Probably you’ll want to lay low for a while. I’ll tell them you’re dead, and after things calm down I can smuggle you out of the castle.”

He nodded, sitting back and wiping his face. “I’ll… I don’t know where I’ll go,” he admitted, “but I’ll figure something out. I won’t make trouble for you, I promise.”

She frowned. “…Oh,” she said after a moment. “I mean… yes, of course you can go off on your own, if that’s what you want.” She hesitated. “I just… can I give you anything? Money, supplies?”

He shook his head, not looking her in the eyes. “You’ve given me the greatest gift I could ask for. I’m… Xia, I’m alive.” A laugh escaped him, soft and disbelieving. “I never thought, never even dared to hope… it’s freedom. True freedom. A second chance, despite everything I’ve done. I… I couldn’t ask for more. I’ve done enough to your life as it is.”

Silence. Then slowly, tentatively, gentle fingers reached out to push hair away from his face. “I mean,” she said, hesitant. “You could do more.”

He looked up then, meeting her eyes with a look of utter confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I delayed my attack for months – over the loud objections of my generals – until I could get my hands on the magics that could bring you back,” she said. “Because I didn’t want to risk killing you for real. I mean that even knowing that I had the magic to fix it, it still hurt more than I can say to see you dead by my hand. I mean that I didn’t do all of that because I never wanted to see you again afterwards.”

Now his eyes filled with tears. “Xia. You can’t mean that.”

“Can’t I?” She met his stare unflinching, and there – in her dark eyes, there she was, his quiet, pretty paladin. “Astarion. My Star. I love you. I’ve always loved you. Nothing has changed that. Nothing could.”

He shook his head. “I’ve killed people. Enslaved people. Tortured people, mutilated people. For bad reasons, when there was a reason at all. I don’t-" He ducked his head. “I don’t deserve you. I never did.”

“Oh, Star.” She reached out, her fingers soft in his hair – and then, suddenly, she was gripping his hair, gently forcing his his head up like she did the first time he fed on her, when he lost control. She raised his head until she could meet his gaze. “I already cut your head off once.”

He stared at her. “I. What?”

“I already cut your head off once.” Her mouth twisted. “It almost killed me to do so, but I did it. Was that not enough punishment? I can do it again, if you need me to; bringing you back should be much easier now. Or I can just yell at you a lot, if that’s easier. Tell you what a horrible awful person you are and why you should feel bad.”

His heart lightened even as he scowled. “You’re making fun of me.”

“Little bit.” Her grip on his hair loosened and she sat back, ruffling the curls once before letting her hand drop entirely. “I could tell you again that I don’t blame you for what you did, but you didn’t believe me the first time, so. Let’s do this instead. You say you don’t deserve me. But what do I deserve?” She leaned in. “Do I, or do I not, deserve to finally be with the man I love? After fighting for him all this time?”

Gods, she was going to be the death of him. Again. He swallowed hard. “Can you blame me for thinking you could do better?”

“Better than the love of my life?” She smiled. “Can you blame me for not believing that that’s possible?” He melted. How, how could she still believe such things about him?

She touched his cheek again, her thumb running lightly over his cheekbone. “Beloved. My night has been empty for over ten years.” She leaned in. “Please. Give me back the stars?”

He felt himself sag forward. Felt his lips meet hers.

It felt like giving in. It felt like giving up.

It felt like deciding to live again.

~Present Day~

As the story wound down, Wyll reached for another blueberry muffin – they were really very good. “So… a combination of Wish and True Resurrection? Clever.”

Xia nodded. “I cast Wish ahead of time, to undo the time limit on my next use of True Resurrection.”

“Which I felt,” Astarion chimed in. “It was itchy, feeling someone mess with my fate.”

“I’m not sorry. Anyway, I took a week to recover from the effects, and then the rest is history.”

He nodded. “How did you know it would work?”

“She didn’t.” Astarion arched an eyebrow, smearing butter on a muffin. “Which I remind her of all the time, that if her theory had been wrong I would be dead for good.”

“Yes, you do, love, and it’s not traumatizing at all,” Xia deadpanned, poking him. “But, Wyll, you can see why we keep it a secret?” Her eyes met his, pleading. “You and I, we knew him before, and we understand the circumstances. But someone who lived through the Dark Times… whose son or daughter or sister or husband was taken to the castle and never returned… they wouldn’t forgive. They’d come looking for him.” She glanced at the elf by her side. “Maybe they’d even have a right to. But gods help me, I don’t care.”

He nodded slowly. “No, I… I understand the predicament. But… well, you understand I’m not the only one who cares about you two?” He leaned in across the breakfast table. “Astarion, I’ve talked to some of the others from back then. We all grieved, when we thought you were dead.” He glanced at Xia. “And for you, when we thought you’d had to kill him.”

Astarion blinked, but recovered quickly. “Hmm. I would have thought I’d burned those bridges long ago. Surely a decade or so of terror matters more than a few weeks of sharing a common enemy?”

Wyll reached out, laying a hand across his pale wrist. “You were our friend. We didn’t forget that, even after you changed. We never stopped caring about you.”

Astarion blinked again, then looked down; there was a rustle under the table, like the sound of one person kicking another. “I told you,” Xia murmured, then turned to Wyll. “Every new person who learns a secret increases the chances that it will get out,” she said seriously. “That’s why I was trying to get rid of you before. Nothing personal, just. That’s how the numbers work.” She sighed. “But… we do trust you. If you’re in contact with the others, if you think they can keep this secret… we’ll trust your judgment.”

He felt a rush of warmth within him at the words, at the two cagiest members of his old party choosing to trust him with something so monumental. “It’s been about fifteen years,” he remarked. “Maybe twenty. Might be high time for a reunion. We could have a party and everything.”

Xia and Astarion glanced at each other, a whole conversation seeming to pass between them. Finally Xia sighed, turning back to him with an expression of resignation that didn’t actually hide the joy beneath the surface. “You’re really going to make me set up that guest room, huh?”

He grinned. “I am. I really, really am.”

#baldur's gate 3 #astarion #baldurs gate astarion #xia!tav #astarion x tav #bg3 #etoilewrites #astarion bg3 #non-canon #wyll ravengard #bg3 wyll

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fishtail-tavra · 6 months

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Dreamed of 1980’s animated adaptation of Age of Resistance (in the style of the last unicorn) and to be honest it was super fun

They pushed everything into one, hour and a half movie, so a lot of things that were secrets weren’t anymore and the set up got changed to move things right to the climax-

So everyone knows the Skeksis are evil and eating people, but the Skeksis are holding everyone hostage saying the Dark Crystal will die without them (taking all of Thra with it) and THEY will die without Gelfling essence, so from the very start tithes include sacrifices and the retuning of the drained people and

In my dream I cared more about the gays though, meaning Tavra and Onica.

Tavra got introduced arriving late to some big party Mayrin was hosting for the visiting Skeksis- no actually, it was for Brea? Some kind of coming of age thing?- anyway, Tavra trips and falls on her face coming in the doors and everyone’s very O_O; except her sisters who are already running over to say hi

She tripped though bc she saw ONICA in the crowd, disguised, and there were a lot of shots of her in the background during the main action of the party, looking worried and discreetly talking with Totally Not Onica while spilling things on herself absentmindedly or having to get tugged out of the way gently by Onica before she runs into/got run into by someone else

(there’s a morning scene later where we see them in bed together- very PG- both still fully dressed bc Tavra was up most of the night worrying- but Onica is watching Tavra sleep now, reaching out to touch her recently shortened hair (more on that later), and Tavra wakes up from that, smiling, and it’s the first time in the movie we see her really smile so)

In my dream I was mostly busy looking at screen caps and gifs of these two, but there was other changes I had fun with, like BADASS ARCHER NAIA

Naia showing up at the last big battle-

(right before the Skeksis get spooked into unleash the garthim and the clans all scatter desperately hoping at least one Gelfling survives the slaughter long enough to fulfil the Far-Dream that Onica led them into dreaming together blah blah)

-with this MASSIVE bow, bigger than she is, (lots of cool shots of her arms and back muscles whenever she drew it) and to fire the thing she actually needs to be either standing on something (usually her brother) (or one time both Kylan and Amri stood in for a single Gurjin) or she needs to be airborne

She and Gurjin had this trick where he’d kneel down and she’d run and jump on him, he’d boost her up, and she’d use her wings to slow her fall long enough to get off a shot or two before landing again

She didn’t used it to kill anyone (except Arathim) bc movie Naia still was big on not having the Mystics as collateral damage for stopping the Skeksis,

But she did get a few really dramatic shots- once shattering a Skeksis’s jeweled staff when they were using it to hypnotized and then almost kill someone- and another where (after her own bow got broken) she picks up urVa’s bow (MUCH bigger than hers) and uses her legs while lying on the ground wounded to shoot a flask of essence out of a skeksis hand before they can drink it

In this adaption though Brea is the one who really gets the rebellion kicking, still by reading something, but not a book this time

The movie had Brea going through the trial by wing that her grandmother started as like a coming of age/proof of power to rule kinda thing, where the women who lead the Vapra have to fly the dangerous winds of Raunip’s Pass alone, reach this one high spot where Raunip left an inscription, read it and bring back a stone from the pile siting nearby

This rock pile and inscribed stone is actually the movie version of Lore,

only this time Lore was created by ye oldie Tavra (Raunip’s Friend) to keep her friend Raunip company long after she was dead, and as a way to show no hard feelings for the fight they had over the UrSkeks.

But when Raunip left for the last time (passing through the mountains of Tavra’s home and what would later get named Raunip’s pass) he left Lore behind in the cliffs overlooking Ha’rar, so the Dream-Stitched stone could watch over Tavra’s people even after he was gone

This choked me up every time dream me saw a dream post about it ngl

Anyway, Seladon the 1st, Mayrin, Seladon the 2nd, and Tavra had all just flown up there, seen some old oddly etched rocks, the dedication from Raunip to his friend Tavra, shrugged and grabbed a rock before leaving

(the size of the rock you could manage to haul back was also part of the trial and Seladon was feeling both worried for ‘airheaded’ Brea and insecure knowing her little sister was probably going to bring back a larger stone than Seladon- with her crooked wing- had felt safe carrying)

Only Brea actually takes an interest the ancient writing and the symbols and the odd carvings and she gets distracted clearing away some dirt and rubble

underneath she finds the Dream-Stitching, activates it, gets a lore dump from ye oldie Tavra’s memories AND gets Lore itself to wake up, when it turns out to be able to play recordings of Raunip’s voice etched into stone- Tavra’s real gift to him, a way for him to Dream-Stitch his memories and be remembered even without vliya- so Brea ALSO gets all of RAUNIP’S fears and confessions about his involvement with the second great conjunction and the UrSkeks and the shattering and how things have gone downhill since then and

Brea’s family is getting increasingly worried she’s taking so long, what if she got smashing on the rocks by the winds, what if she’s hurt and needs help-

and the Skeksis get a chance to be evil and manipulative commenting that if Brea isn’t strong enough to follow in her grandmother’s flight path then maybe it’s the will of Thra that she fails this challenge and never comes home

I think I remember this being one of those moments where you can see everyone’s different reactions in a single frame, and it went something like Mayrin: devastated, Seladon: flinching and cringing, Tavra: looking absolutely murderous.

This is when Tavra steps forward and when questioned says she’s going to go look for her sister, since it was the will of Thra that they BE sisters in the first place, and Seladon hesitates before also saying she’ll go with Tavra

But that’s when Brea comes home with an entire rock monster and sort of accidentally starts a rebellion by asking questions, so

The night BEFORE this, the party scene, with the tithing and the prepping Brea for her big day, there had been this moment when the drained Gelflings were returned home, and Mira was one of them

And so Rian had come too, because up until this moment the “crystal anointed” were kept in seclusion, hooded and veiled, to keep a general panic from breaking out, and they only were released back to their own family in the clan they came from

(an information isolation tactic, to help the Skeksis spread rumors of each clan paying more than the other, or of their offered Gelfling being less worthy of the Crystal’s light and THAT’S why they are Like That Now, but the other clans aren’t being effected, no no no it’s totally just you, and you’re also having to give more people because the richer clans are paying more in tithes to send fewer offerings, so really the ones you should be mad at are the OTHER CLANS, not the Skeksis, the Skeksis don’t care how they get their sacrifices, the Skeksis only care about maintaining the Crystal that maintains all life on Thra obviously-)

Rian followed them to Ha’rar (with Gurjin) (and Naia because Naia’s not letting her twin go off into maybe danger without her) to finally reunite with Mira, but she’s been SO badly drained he barely recognizes her and she DOESN’T recognize him,

Cue very sad scene of Rian trying to help her remember, and after a bit she does reach out to dreamfast, like its instinct, only nothing happens, and Naia (the healer) checks and declares she doesn’t have enough vliya to dreamfast with- in fact, she doesn’t have enough to stay alive with, even. She isn’t just old and drained looking. She’s dying.

Rian is horrified, Rian breaks down, Rian shouts at the Skeksis while crying and holding Mira close,

The Skeksis don’t like that and we get a fun dramatic party screeches to a halt scene as the General gets up and draws his sword

Dream me thought it was very fun that Gurjin still got his hero moment, causing a distraction by taking on the castle guards that came here with the Skeksis so Rian could get Mira away

(also callback to the first movie, with a drained and totally out of it Mira still managing to break her and Rian’s fall with her wings when he has to throw them off a cliff)

(he totally thought they were gonna die together and was fine with that)

(instead they land on a Sifa ship and WOOO YEAH TAE AND ETHRI ARE HERE totally not because Oinca had a feeling it would be good and convenient if they parked their ship in this very specific spot)

Back in Ha’rar, Gurjin is captured by the guard, a pissed Naia challenges and fights the general about it

(there was a scene were the Skeksis realize Naia and Gurjin are twins and get Excited about that)

So they make a deal with Naia, if she wins, her brother will go free, if she loses… they both will go to the crystal together.

And while all THIS was happening, BREA ran off to fetch Tavra, who’d slipped away at some point, and runs in on the secret that her big stern sister is very much kissing a Sifa, which these days is Very Very illegal, but Brea’s just shocked to see very serious soldier Tavvra actually kissing anyone-

She remembers to tell Tavra what’s happening at the party, Tavra dives out the nearest window to get there faster, Onica suggests she and Brea take a detour along the way

(the detour is to set up a small tricky sabotage that will let Naia escape in moment)

The first time we see Tavra do anything cool in the movie is when she breaks through a window, sword drawn, and slashes at the General’s hand to make him drop Naia when he has her by the throat

Tavra and the General duel, Naia uses this distraction to attack the guards holding Gurjin and they exit stage right pursued by more guards, Seladon is freaking out and Mayrin calls for Tavra to stand down-

And in the tags of one post about this, ppl talk about how earlier in the movie it was set up how Gelfling don’t normally cut there hair short, since hair is kinda like tree rings or roots to them, so getting rid of it is like throwing away your life up till then and wanting to forget/distance yourself from it

(a thing traditionally associated with criminals, outlaws, Gelflings who went against their families)

BUT lately short hair has ALSO been used by rebels, the rumored Gelflings who refuse to pay tithes or offer up people to the castle

So this scene comes up, Tavra's duel, where the General says something like “blah blah traitorous Vapra, blah, oath breaking Gelfling scum”

And Tavra’s just like, it’s not breaking a vow to defend the people I’ve sworn to protect- which makes the General so mad he tries decapitating her, only she just kneels in response and bows her head-

So the sword cuts off her braid of hair instead. Big crowd reaction shot and gasp

(also revelation that Tavra’s hair is really wavy/curly when it’s short and not tied back, I don’t know why dream me thought that detail was super fun)

(tags on this post point out that this is kinda like, symbolism of how the Skeksis have being cutting Gelfling’s off from their actual old laws and traditions while making Gelflings bow to them instead)

And the other Skeksis sees this, hears the murmurs and muttering, sees the very bad PR image of a Skeksis about to kill a princess who is kneeling on the floor before him WHILE ALL THEIR PERSONAL GUARDS ARE MISSING and rushes in to pull the General back before he can split Tavra down the middle

The party ends… awkwardly, with the Skeksis placating the crowd by commending Tavra (through gritted beaks) for withstanding their ‘test’ of her loyalty and duty to her vows as a paladin, which they totally did on purpose, never would have actually killed anyone nope

They just barely restrain most of their rage when the guards come back (covered in odd powders that make them sneeze and slipping on boots covered in grease) to report that the three ‘criminals’ have escaped with their ‘abducted’ ‘prisoner’ (Mira)

annnnnnd they’re forced to accept Mayrin’s offer of Tavra leading her soldiers on the search, since they’re the only ones who know Ha’rar well enough to do it

(quick scene of Tavra directing her paladins to search the mountains and the cliffs and the village and the valley, and… no, not the seashore or the coast. Without the help of a Sifa they wouldn’t survive long there and would have to turn inland soon anyway. it’s not like there are any Sifa up here right now. Right? Right.)

I think I also remember that Deet gets introduced while she’s dreamfasting a giant taint-maddened nebrie-

(she can’t heal them, but as long as she’s dreamfasting with them SHE can take on the pain and horror of the taint, and when she sings while doing that they fall peacefully asleep, letting anyone nearby get safely away)

And it turns out she’s been working so hard to find out what’s going on with the tainted creatures of Thra she’s become sensitive to the presence of the taint, AND good enough at listening with her vliya that she can hear and understand what the Trees are saying, even though their voices have almost gone quiet

The trees lost contract with each other as the taint spread (some of them being taken over by it even) so Deet got sent out by her clan’s Tree to contact / warn / bring messages to the other trees and their clans

There was still that cool moment of Kylan dreamstitching the warning onto flower petals and everyone watching them fly off in a cloud so I guess Deet recruited him at some point… or no… maybe that was to summon the clans to what ended up being the big final battle?

I feel like there was a ‘lighting the beacons’ scene where all the clans lit their blue flames and a moment (echoing the opening of the tv show) where we saw their leaders all standing together in dreamfast on a map vision of Skarith land, reaching out to each other around a shared blue fire….

Anyway taking on the suffering of the taint was slowly tainting Deet herself, and she kept lashing out in pain more, or getting lost in the nightmare visions of the crystal’s breaking

She got one cool scene at the end though.

After the Gelfling come together to Far-Dream the prophecy of how the Skeksis might fall and the Skeksis see this and, in a panic, unleash all their Garthim before they can even control them properly, leading to many Gelfling being killed instead of captured for draining-

Deet is one of the ones caught and brought back to be drained, but she’s laughing when they strap her into the draining chair, and when she calls out,

all the tainted creatures she’s helped over the movie wake up in time to cause havoc on any nearby garthim-

and so do the Trees, reconnected briefly THROUGH the spreading taint BY Deet as she’s being DRAINED by the crystal, and the connection lasts just long enough for their roots to soak up as much of the taint as they can while tearing up the ground around the castle, breaking the crystal (and the taint’s) direct connection to the rest of Thra-

The trees all die, burning up in a last blaze of vliya along with Deet, but the tainted creatures aren't tainted anymore, and outside the barren land around the castle everything else starts growing in healthy again

Turns out it was the world that was feeding life to the crystal, not the other way around

(another skeksis lie)

Which makes the skeksis ultra SUPER unhappy the garthim rampage killed off so many useful Gelflings before their essence could be drained

The stinger ending was Kylan finishing writing all this down and hiding the book just before garthim burst in, the shot of his hand desperately tucking the book away-

-jump cutting to Jen’s hand gently pulling it’s crumbling pages out of hiding who knows how many trine later

Final shot being a slow pull back and pan out of Jen calling to Kira about what he found, and her excitedly calling back that she thinks a small nearby sapling might have just talked to her, so maybe he could read the book aloud to both of them?

end credits roll over the scene as Jen reads and Kira clears away weeds from a young baby tree, while fizzgig gets chased around the clearing by a whole pack of little angry baby fizzgigs

And that’s it, that’s the movie adaption that doesn’t exist but I got to be in the fandom of for a few glorious minutes

The last unicorn animation style REALLY went well with the vibes. loved it.

#the dark crystal: age of resistance #tdc:aor #tavra #brea #naia #rian #gurjin #deet #onica #adaption #au #non-canon

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