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eepyghost · 2 months

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i promised astarion content after the infodump was delivered !! here is a tester oneshot that i'm using to get used to writing this man. i'm also testing out a new original character here as i plan out a much larger fic for bg3 <3

if this is at all ooc, please forgive me.

TITLE: berynlith WORD COUNT: DESCRIPTION: at the world's end tavern, an exhausted astarion meets a curious bartender, and learns the true meaning of peace from a folklore perspective. CONTENT WARNINGS: vague game spoilers AO3 LINK HERE!

At the edge of the world, where the city of Baulder’s Gate began to fade into the night-laden forest of the west, a haggard vampire opened the door to a tavern in search of a peace he would not find.

Any outsider who would’ve seen him, emerging out of darkness and into the warm yellow light of the place, would’ve seen a man who had clawed his desperate way out of Hell’s grasp. He was trembling, his face painted in shades of gray and white that made the darkness around his reddened eyes stand out even further. His hair was pulled from his face in dissheveled waves of ivory - acting as the only put-together part of him. Each curl framed his features; the tightness of his jaw, the tones of pink that decorated the tips of his pointed ears, the strong curve of his brow bone that covered his eyes in shadow. The vampire walked to the bar like he’d been to the World’s End tavern a hundred times over, as if this were routine, though he himself knew that it wasn’t. This place did not know his name.

This place did not know Astarion.

Exhaustion fogged his gaze as he sat himself on the furthest barstool to the right of the bar. His eyes remained locked on the surface of the bar in front of him. As if he expected something to stare back at him, as if there were answers in the grain of the wood.

“What can I get started for you, sir?”

Astarion did not look up.

“Whatever it is you recommend,” he replied.

The bartender gave a low hum of approval.

He heard the dull clink of a whiskey glass being set onto the surface of the bar in front of him, before it was filled with an unfamiliar, clear chestnut liquid, much darker and cooler in color than a traditional scotch. The glass filled about halfway before the bartender pushed it forward.

“My treat,” the bartender spoke, his voice as deep and smooth as dark honey. “Looks like you need it.”

Astarion’s gaze flickered upward to meet the stranger’s eyes, and he found himself instinctively straightening his posture as he did. A man stood in front of him, perhaps half a foot or so taller than Astarion had been, though the broadness of his shoulders made him look a little larger. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing tattoos of vines wrapping up both of his arms from his wrists upward. The leaves depicted in both tattoos had the same oranges and reds of the autumn leaves outside, and they seemed to shift over top of the bartender’s skin as if controlled by magic. His hair was longer, running down his shoulders in a waterfall of deep, russet brown curls, with the front pieces pinned out of his eyes with a small branch. Overgrown stubble wrapped around the lower half of his face, ending around the bottom of both his short, pointed ears. As he met Astarion’s, his eyes hit the light, gleaming in the same brilliant green of a rain-touched forest floor.

Astarion took the drink in front of him and downed it like a shot.

It warms him in an instant, though not in the same way that a shot of whiskey often did. The heat did not come from an alcholic burn in the back of his throat, rather, from a place deep in his chest. The taste is sweet on the tip of his tongue and bitter on the back of it, as if he’d drunk down a mouthful of burnt sugar. Astarion pursed his lips. His hands had stopped trembling.

“Better?”

“Much.”

The bartender’s lips quirked into a soft, barely-there smile, one that radiated comfort and safety in such a strange fashion. He snapped his fingers, and the glass filled again in Astarion’s hand.

“I don’t…recognize you,” the bartender leaned back against the wall behind him, his brows gently furrowing in concentration. He toyed with a towel in his hands. “Are you from the Upper City?”

Astarion felt his shoulders tighten for a flash of a moment. He spun the liquid in his glass like he was inspecting a fine wine, before ducking his head back to drink it down again. A piece of him wishes to lie, to give a dry, bitter laugh and say I suppose we move in different circles if I’ve never seen your face before. He would’ve pretended that the Lower City was nothing more than a vague memory in the back of his mind, rather than the encasement of two Hell-forsaken centuries of the vampire’s life. For a long moment, Astarion didn’t say anything at all. He tried to get the words out of his throat, but they seemed to stick there. Trying to choke him.

He wonders briefly if this was what a conscience felt like.

He wants to damn it straight to Hell.

“I’ve…travelled,” the white-haired vampire spoke up, looking from the rim of his empty glass to the familiar green eyes of the man in front of him. The bartender’s hands stilled, draping the towel over his own wrist with a light chuckle.

“An adventurer,” he replied with another smile. “Traversing Baulder’s Gate on your own, then? No wonder you’re here so late.”

The on your own stings in a way that Astarion couldn’t explain, as if his body was physically rejecting the idea of forgetting his party. His companions.

“What sorts of adventures have you been up to, out here?” The bartender threw the towel over his shoulder, contrasting against the navy blue fabric of his shirt. The leaves drawn on his arm shifted as if blowing in the breeze.

The vampire traced his thumb over the rim of his glass.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Oh, you know. Pure curiousity,” the bartender replied. “Most heroes come here to talk about the stories of their successes, you know. Working here, I’ve heard it all.”

Astarion looked up at the bartender through furrowed, shadowy brows.

“Then why ask, if you’ve heard so many tales already?”

The bartender leaned forward against the bar in front of him. His hair tumbled over his shoulders, close enough that Astarion could see the faint specks of amber throughout the man’s irises.

“Because I haven’t heard yours,” he replied.

Astarion chuckled. A dry, emotionless sound. Tales. What a thought, spilling every story of the past few months of his life. Telling every bloody detail, opening up his heart to a man he’d leave behind and never see again. The concept was almost laughable. He hadn’t noticed he was staring a hole into his whiskey glass before the bartender snapped his fingers and filled it once again.

“At least tell me your name,” the bartender said. “I remember names more than I do faces.”

The vampire searched his face for any inkling of falsehood. There was none. He fought to keep his face stony, expressionless.

“Astarion.”

He remembered saying it with more hope, more bite, a long time ago. The bartender’s head tilted a bit.

“Astarion,” he whispered to himself, feeling the name in his mouth. The way his dark-honey voice spoke Astarion’s name was just as soothing and comforting as every other damn word he spoke. It was almost aggrevating. He had no sharp edges to him, nothing for Astarion to focus on, to fixate on. He was entirely molasses and sunlight. “I’m Adonis. Pleasure to meet you.” He took a moment of quiet, putting his towel back on the bar.

“At the very least, I hope the adventures were successful, friend.”

Friend.

He tastes the word. It warms him more than the alcohol, and yet leaves such a bitter aftertaste in its wake.

He remembers the last time he was ever called dear friend.

Astarion watched Adonis begin wiping down the other side of the bar, a few feet away from where the silver haired vampire sat with his drink. In spite of it all, Astarion couldn’t stop himself from staring. His red eyes remained trained on the curious bartender, tracing over every faint detail of his concentrated face. The alcohol in his glass remained untouched for a long moment before the vampire found it in himself to speak, to force the attention right back onto him.

Ever the performer, aren’t you, Astarion.

“They were,” Astarion spoke up. “Successful, I mean. I have…been away for several months, but we were successful.”

Adonis tossed the towel over his shoulder and he smiled.

“We?” Adonis asked. “Why are you here alone, then? Are the rest asleep?”

Something about Adonis seemed to shift. He looked tight in the jaw, tensed in the shoulders. Astarion studied the man through furrowed brows.

“We have gone our separate ways,” replied Astarion. “We lived in different worlds prior to our paths crossing. I suppose it was…expected for me to begin and end such a journey on my own.”

Adonis’ jaw relaxed. He watched Astarion take down the third drink, pushing the glass forward as he finished.

“But enough about me.” Astarion met Adonis’ gaze. “No use in dwelling on a past never to return, is there?”

Adonis’ smile was no longer lingering on his lips. He looked at Astarion through a distant fog in his eyes and an unreadable glint in his pupils, shifting his stare all across the vampire’s face, searching him. Reading him. Perhaps connecting with him without saying a word.

Astarion knew the color of grief. He knew it well. He could see it fill Adonis’ irises like budding tears. Curiously, he wet his lips.

“I…” Adonis exhaled. “Suppose there isn’t. But I am glad to hear of your success.”

The vampire leaned forward in his seat.

“And what about your adventures? Your quests?”

Adonis finished cleaning off the right side of the bar before tossing the towel underneath the sink.

“I have not adventured in decades, Astarion.” Adonis replied, pulling a few nearly-empty bottles from the stock on the back to replace them. “And I don’t believe I’m meant to adventure again.”

“And why is that?” He’s smiling - though it’s a little more like a tooth-laden smirk, showing one of his sharpened canines just behind his lips. Adonis had his back turned to re-stock the empty bottles. “You’re young - and there’s always adventure out there, isn’t there?”

“It’s not the adventure I seek, Astarion,” Adonis said, straightening up again, turning around to face the vampire. “It’s peace.”

His voice seemed to dare Astarion to disagree, though there was no venom behind the words. Astarion felt the final syllables burrow their way into his chest. His smile faltered.

“Peace.”

He repeats the word like he isn’t familiar. Like he’s testing it out.

“Isn’t that the goal of every person, at the end of the day? Peace and quiet, experiencing every type of love.” Adonis asked. He smiles that same gentle, knowing smile, like he already knows that desire is buried deep in Astarion’s chest, rooted in the bottom of his heart. That desire for quiet after centuries of chaos, the desire to not expect trouble in every shadow, to not worry about the past coming up behind him with an invisible dagger at his throat. He dreamed of it. Of course he dreamed of it. Somewhere out there, there was another life he could’ve lived, one without tadpoles and Infernal carvings into his skin. A life where he could wake in the morning and feel the warmth of the sun brush over his skin with the tenderness of an old friend. A life where he wasn’t stained with the memory of a man who considered him beneath vermin. A life where he could rest.

What a dream to have, indeed.

“I…” It feels as though Adonis had pulled the air from his lungs. Astarion blinked. “I suppose so.”

There’s a pause. Astarion could feel Adonis staring more than he could see it. He took the empty glass from Astarion and began cleaning it off.

“What do you mean every type of love?” Astarion asked, leaning a little further forward. The words had taken a moment to properly click. “I can’t imagine there are many.”

Adonis chuckled.

“The Seven Adorations of Thalron,” Adonis said. “Old-World Druids wrote folklore about it. The seven types of love that make life worth living.”

Astarion leaned back a bit in his seat. His head tilted.

“Araness was the first. Loving selflessly, without expecting anything from the world around you in return.”

Astarion gave a sharp exhale, softly shaking his head.

“Genusia was familial love. The love for a parent, or perhaps for a child. Ipse - love for one’s self.”

Adonis pulled a taller glass from under the bar as he spoke, recalling every detail of the story perfectly. Astarion watched his hands.

“Ebrath - platonic love. Deep, burning friendship between companions.”

The vampire remembered what it felt like to trust. To know and be known in return.

“They split romantic love into three definitions,” Adonis continued, grabbing a couple bottles from the back of the bar. “Berynlith meant the feeling of first falling in love with someone, Talas was the sexual and emotional intimacy that came with such a love.”

Astarion had lied on his back for hundreds, and he had never felt any closer to peace.

“And Tolerare.” Adonis stopped. Met the vampire’s eyes. “Long-standing love. Love that continues and endures above all else.” He paused for a second, pursing his lips, before opening a bottle and pouring clear liquid into the glass in front of him. Astarion watched his hands as he uncapped a second, much smaller bottle and shook three drops of silver liquid into the top of the glass, and with a swirl of his hand, the two mixed together, creating a shimmering cocktail of glowing blue.

“True living was supposed to come from knowing as many types of love as you could.”

Astarion looked up from the drink to Adonis’ face. There were freckles over his cheekbones, creating constellations of tawny brown, and-

“Folklore is just words, though,” Adonis snapped him out of his (certainly alcohol-induced) haze. “It’s the belief that makes it mean something.”

Astarion swallowed.

“And you believe in it?”

Adonis shrugged one of his shoulders.

“Never hurts to believe in the possibility of a better life, does it?”

It does. It always does. It maims you and it leaves you bloodied on the street.

Adonis slid the full glass of shimmering, blue liquid over to the vampire. Astarion grabbed it, studying the drink inside, watching it shine as he swirled the glass.

“It’s Moonlit Ale,” Adonis tells him. “Supposed to give you a sense of relaxation after you drink it. It’s a favorite of mine. Try it.”

Astarion glanced down into the glass, before bringing the rim to his lips, letting the sweet taste of it grow over his tongue. His body involuntarily shuddered, as if his muscles were letting go of their tension all at once as he swallowed and let his eyes drift closed. He didn’t force the drink in one go - no, this was to be savored, to be enjoyed. He let time go slower for a little while as he sipped at it again, the warmth of it running through his tired, aching bones. When he opened his eyes again, Adonis was hesitantly watching him, narrowing his eyes. Not with malice, rather, but with deep curiousity, an almost child-like wonder.

“It’s lovely,” Astarion whispered, not certain who exactly he was trying to speak to. “Thank you.”

Adonis nodded with the same soft, tender smile.

“My pleasure,” Adonis replied. “You need another, just yell for me.” He grabs the towel again before looking back at the vampire.

“And Astarion-”

Their eyes met as Adonis leaned over. His curls fell over his shoulders.

“Adonis-?”

The bartender nodded to the half-empty glass in front of the vampire.

“Peace looks good on you, you know,” Adonis said. “Even if it’s temporary.”

He returns to the other side of the bar, leaving Astarion with the lingering scent of brandy and heat.

Astarion watched the glass of Moonlit Ale like it would provide him any answers.

It never did.

#please let me know what we think of adonis because i've worked on him for like 2 days straight now #baulders gate astarion #baldur's gate #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate iii #bg3 astarion #astarion #baldurs gate astarion #baldurs gate fanart #baldurs gate tav #balders gate 3 #balder's gate 3 spoilers #balder's gate 3 fanart #balder's gate 3 #writers on tumblr #fanfic

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