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kittenintheden · 3 months

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You Can Read Me Anything - Part 1

welp, they did it, fam. @fangswbenefits and @bludazey egged me on to flesh out a one-shot based on this prompt and I have done so. this is part 1. THERE WILL BE A PART 2 I SWEAR.

Edit: PART 2 IS UP!

***

Druidic Tav grew up in a nomadic clan that recorded their history through spoken word and song rather than written text. As such, she's illiterate, and one charming-ish vampire offers to help her with reading lessons and a whole lot more. Out of the goodness of his heart, of course.

Then one night, she unwittingly brings him smut for their lesson.

Rating: E Word Count: 3500 words Content: illiterate Tav, Astarion being a shit, but also being cute, innocent Tav, suggestive dialogue, secondhand smut via fake bodice ripper

AO3 Link

"Astarion?" Tav says quietly, poking her head around the open flap of his tent. She finds him sitting cross-legged inside, his eyes scanning over the book laying open in his lap. He looks up at the inquiry and lifts his chin with a cavalier smile.

"Well, if it isn't my favorite companion," he says, voice lilting. "What can I do for you?"

Tav clears her throat and ducks inside, settling on her knees just beyond. She has a book of her own in her hands, fingers impatiently tapping against the cover. "I wondered if you might be up for giving me another reading lesson."

He hums, tipping his own tome shut and setting it aside. "Something from that broken up old temple we found today? Give it here, let's see."

Hesitantly, she holds it out for him and he accepts it, gaze scanning the binding. He lifts a brow, then flips it open and peruses a page. Then another. He snaps it shut again.

"I don't know if this is the best book for a… ah," he says, contemplating his next words. His mouth tics up on one side as he glances her up and down. "Reading lesson."

Tav frowns. "Why not? I thought you'd be interested, given the picture on the cover."

Astarion peers down at the cover and huffs. "Well. I can certainly see why you'd think so. The resemblance is... resemblant."

It's a finely-wrought etching of two people, one swooning against the other. The figure behind supports the other about the waist with one hand, the opposite pulling their hair aside to reveal their neck. The dominant figure leans toward their throat as if for a kiss, pointed teeth showing past their lips.

Tav shrugs. "Is it too advanced? Is that why?"

Astarion gives a sharp laugh and puts his fingers in front of his mouth as if he's trying to put it back. "Erm, no, dear. I think you could puzzle through it just fine."

"Okay..." Tav says, perplexed. "Then what?'

"Bleeding Hells," he mutters, rubbing a forefinger in the space between his eyes. "Why don't you try reading the title out for me? Let's start there."

Tav takes the book back and looks at the lettering on the front. It's the Common alphabet, so not too terrible to parse, though she’s still working on some of the more complex blended sounds.

"In..." she starts, running her finger beneath the words and feeling the soft leather beneath. "the... Embra... Embrace?"

Astarion is leaning on one hand and he gives a patient nod.

"In the Embrace... of... the... Nig... Nig-het..."

"Night, sweet thing," Astarion says softly. "G beside H is silent."

"Right," Tav says, looking again. "So, In the Embrace of the Night... stalker."

"Try again."

Tav studies the letters. They spot their mistake. "Nightsucker."

Astarion nods.

She looks very pleased with herself, beaming at him. "Got it! What's the problem, again?"

The vampire closes his eyes and holds his hands in prayer position in front of his lips as if he's steeling himself. He opens his scarlet eyes and moves his hands away. "Shall I read you a page or two to start? Maybe then you'll understand."

Thrilled, Tav nods and returns the tome, sitting herself more comfortably as Astarion leafs through the pages.

"Ooooh," he says, his voice lifting. "This passage looks promising." He lowers the book in front of him so Tav can scoot around and follow along as he reads, committing symbol to sound.

Astarion's carefully kept fingernails run along the text inside, showing where he's reading. In his practiced, soothing Upper City voice, he begins to read. "A creature of the night is good for only two things: destruction or seduction. Perhaps both at once, if a person is lucky. And tonight, Yolanda is very, very lucky."

Tav subconsciously nods along, feeling a little thrill of pride every time she mentally catches the word before Astarion says it aloud. Her companion continues to read about Yolanda and her new vampiric friend, until the story takes... a bit of a turn.

"Yolanda gasps rapturously as Armondo suckles at the crease of her thigh, skin flushing as his sinful tongue laps closer and closer to the place she needs it most, to her swollen secret spot, and when at last he catches it in a languid swirl, she keens out his-"

Tav puts her hands on either side of the book over Astarion's and forces him to snap it shut, her cheeks flaming. Slowly, she turns her head to find Astarion's face very, very close, a look of deep amusement in his eye and a smirk stretching his lips.

"I have to go," Tav says. "Keep the book." Her legs aren't immediately cooperative, but when she manages to get them to respond, she scrambles inelegantly for the exit. "Good night."

"Sweet dreams," Astarion calls after her, still smirking. Once she’s gone, he opens the book back up to that same passage.

"What will Armondo do next, I wonder," he whispers.

After about a minute, when he's sure Tav is safely tucked away in her own tent and likely screaming into her makeshift pillow, he clears his throat and squirms, reaching down to adjust the front of his trousers. They've gone quite tight.

That’s probably normal.

---

Tav’s washing some of her delicates out in the river the next day when the vampire she’s actively been avoiding finally finds her. She glances his way briefly then looks immediately out at the Chionthar like it’s the most interesting thing she’s ever seen.

“Hello,” she says too brightly, wadding up her soaked underthings in her hands and wringing them out.

Astarion, to his credit, is acting perfectly natural. He sets himself on a flat rock near her and tilts his face toward the afternoon sun, eyes closed as he soaks up its rays. “Hello, darling,” he lilts. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

Her laugh is tinny and high. “What? No, I…”

He tips his head forward and sets his gaze on her, amusement clear on his face.

With an exasperated hiss, she gathers her delicates up and puts them into the sack she’s brought with her. She’ll hang them up to dry inside her tent. “Fine, maybe a little. I’m embarrassed.”

“Of what?” he says, head tilting just so.

She rolls her eyes at him. “Of accidentally asking you to read me porn? Of being too dense to take the hint from the cover or the title? Of needing help to read in the first place? Take your pick.”

Astarion laughs, though not in a mocking way. “You’re quite entertaining, do you know that?” He turns his body more fully toward her, tenting one leg so he can rest his forearm on his knee. “I’ve met many, many literate people who are far duller and denser than you. And they didn’t even have the excuse of growing up severed from civilized society.”

Tav sticks her tongue out at him, but she smiles nonetheless. Her nomadic druidic clan didn’t put much stock in the written word – they shared their knowledge through spoken story and song. It’s a system that served her perfectly well up until she was plucked off the face of the world by a planeshifting aberrant ship.

Why she’d chosen Astarion of all her newfound companions to be her reading tutor, she didn’t rightly know. Gale seemed the most obvious choice, or Wyll. Both would have been kind and patient teachers. But there was something about her guarded, bristly friend that she wanted to understand, like why he spent most of his free time buried in more books than even her wizard companion bothered with. Astarion had been surprisingly amicable to the idea when she’d brought it up.

And so the lessons had begun, as had the increase in his flirting.

She knows his nature, of course. The lot of them had barely been together for seventy-two hours before he’d tried to make a snack of her and she’d agreed to allow it, much to his surprise. What was a bit of blood, really, if it meant giving another being strength? She could spare it.

Without meaning to, she reaches up to brush her fingers across her neck at the site of his latest bite. The wound is gone, healed over with her own natural magic, but she remembers the icy sting.

Astarion doesn’t fail to notice, his tented leg swaying ever so slightly to and fro. “You like it, don’t you?” he says.

“Like what?” she says, grimacing at how bad she is at nonchalance.

“Don’t play coy,” he teases, leaning toward her. “I can feel it when I feed on you, you know. Your little shakes of excitement.”

“Little shakes from blood loss, you mean,” Tav snaps, clutching up her bag a bit too tightly in her hands.

Astarion raises his hands to placate her. “All right, if we insist on living in denial,” he says. “I’ll continue to play teacher.”

“Well, good,” she says, dropping her eyes to the space between them. “Because that’s what this is. Teaching.”

“Of course,” he says, mouth lifted on one side.

Tav huffs and gets to her feet. She goes six steps before she turns on her heel and walks back to him, “You know what? Fine. Another lesson tonight. Same book.”

His brows tick up. “This ought to be good,” he says. “I’ll see you later, then.”

“Yes, you will,” she says, making a little jerk with her fist near her thigh. She seems to feel this is a fitting end to the interaction because she turns on her heel and stomps off, bag of wet undergarments in hand.

“Premonition of things to come?” Astarion says to himself, wriggling his shoulders and quietly laughing at his own joke. There’s a moment where he realizes he’s smiling his real smile. He pulls his lips back over his teeth and clears his throat, straightening his shirt before he gets up to occupy his time until better plans come along.

---

Astarion dramatically reads another passage of smut aloud and Tav is doing her level best to keep her thighs pressed tightly together. She can practically smell herself, so she’s fairly certain that her reading partner, who happens to be a literal predator, certainly can. Her cheeks must be scarlet.

“‘Armondo, darkness in my heart!’ Yolanda shrieks to the rafters.”

Her companion throws up his hand toward the roof of his tent, beaming down at the page he reads. They’ve both long since abandoned the finger on the text method in favor of his theatrics.

“The nightsucker crawls over his conquest like a panther.” Astarion reads from his whole chest, clearly having the time of his life. “He has claimed her once already and she remains unsatiated, mewling beneath him like a simpering kitten.”

Tav doesn’t think either of them are pretending this is an actual reading lesson anymore. At least, she isn’t. She’s too stubborn and too mortified to admit that this was a mistake. So here she sits while the prettiest man she’s ever met continues to regale her with complete filth.

Worse, she doesn’t hate it.

She squeezes her thighs together tighter.

“‘I will feed on you once more,’ Armondo purrs in his deep baritone.” Astarion drops his voice to match and Tav can’t help the giggle that bubbles up her throat, though she tries to catch it in her hand.

Astarion continues. “‘But first, I will drink of your nectar.’ His fingers roam down the hills and valleys of her skin, his mouth following, until he reaches her lush garden and the coveted rose within, his tongue seeking hidden depths-”

Tav interrupts him with a groan as she covers her eyes. “Oh gods, not again.”

The vampire takes pity on her at last and tips the book shut with one hand, placing his palm over the top of it where it rests in his lap. “You surprise me,” he says with a light laugh. “I’d have thought you’d want to hear tell of a lad with a gilded tongue who knows his way around a lady’s flower.”

She covers her entire face and screams into her hands a little. When she’s calmed, she lowers her hands to her folded knees and looks to the side. Before she can stop herself, she blurts, “Do a lot of people do that?”

Astarion, who had been reaching for a different book so he could at least give her the semblance of an actual lesson, stops mid-motion. He turns his head toward her and says, “What?”

Tav gives a rapidfire laugh and pulls her knees to her chest, rocking a bit. She glances at his face and away again so quickly it’s nearly imperceptible. “I mean, it’s common enough to be in a book, so I imagine it’s fairly common… place?” she stammers. “Seems like people enjoy it. Right?”

Astarion stares. “Tav.”

She scratches a spot behind her ear and doesn’t meet his eyes. “Hm?”

“Tav,” Astarion says again, the word harder.

She huffs and looks him in the eye, face completely flushed.

He’s still staring. "No one’s ever gone down on you?"

Tav puts her hands to her blushing cheeks and glares at him. "No. I didn't think it was something people... usually did."

He gives an incredulous laugh. Completely bewildered. "Darling, are you... are you a virgin?"

"No!" she says again with as much offense as she can muster. "I've been with people. Two. Two people."

"Well, they can't have been very good," he scoffs. "My gods. You poor, poor dear.”

“Okay, okay, stop making fun of me.” She flaps her hands at him. “I just thought it sounded… I don’t know. Nice?”

“Nice?” Astarion breathes through his disbelieving smile before he swallows his incredulity and pulls it back together. “I’m not making fun, my sweet. Only mourning on your behalf that you’ve experienced such flops. I wish you better future lovers.”

“Ugh,” she groans again, going to her hands and knees. “I’m leaving now. And I’m taking this book back.”

She goes to reach for it and he shrinks away, his palm pressing tighter to the cover. “No!”

When she startles at his outburst and looks at him, she catches the scarcest fraction of what looks like panic on his face before his features reform themselves into his usual smoldering smirk. It’s so fast she’s sure she imagined it.

“This is mine,” he purrs. “You gave it to me. No take-backsies.”

“Oh, fine,” she snaps at him before she makes her exit. He half-expects her to burst into a flurry of fur and feather in her huff, but she remains person-shaped.

When she’s gone, he blinks after her several times before he dares move the book from his lap, straightening his leg and wincing. He reaches a hand to adjust the rigid length standing out along his thigh under his trousers.

It’s been pinching for a minute.

---

He won’t leave her in peace.

Oh, he’s nice enough. Courteous enough not to be a complete scamp when the others are near, which she makes sure they are, frequently.

Unfortunately, he catches her alone on one of her daily nature walks by dropping out of a tree to block her path. She glowers at him as he bends forward, hands behind his back, and gives her his very best charmer’s smile.

“You haven’t been by my tent for the last few nights,” he says. “Whyever not?”

She rolls her eyes and steps around him, continuing down the path. He immediately follows.

“You must keep up with your studies, darling,” he says as he falls into step beside her. “Else you’ll lose all your freshly acquired skills.”

Tav sighs. “Gale’s been helping me.”

Astarion stops short and she gets several steps ahead before she bothers to look around for him.

“Gale?” he sneers. Under her gaze, he rapidly regains his composure and draws his shoulders back, giving his light laugh. “That must be terribly boring.”

She shrugs. “I figured I’d put you out enough.”

He tucks his chin. “Is that what you think? That I didn’t enjoy our time together? Because I assure you it’s very much the opposite.” He tosses his head and gives a cheeky grin. “I’ve many more lessons I could offer, if you’d like.”

Tav arches an eyebrow at him. “Like what?” she says as she turns to walk the path again.

Astarion retakes his place at her side. “Did you know I speak several languages?”

“Is that so?” she says. “I speak three. Common, druidic, and bad druidic.”

“Well, there you go,” he says. “Interested in learning more?”

To illustrate his point, he slips seamlessly into a flowing, silky language she presumes to be Elvish. From that, his words go harder and sharper. Finally, they edge into something guttural.

Despite herself, she smiles and looks sidelong at him. “Did you make that last one up?”

“Absolutely not, how dare you,” he says. “I also read shady secret code, but that’s neither here nor there, really.”

Tav contemplates. “The first one was pretty, I guess.”

“An Elvish language lesson it is, then.” He smiles wickedly. "Go on, repeat after me."

He says something in Elvish, a phrase with flowing vowels and rounded words that sound delicious on the tongue.

Tav forces herself to stop staring at his mouth as he speaks. "Say again?" she says, tucking her hair behind her ear and focusing on the ground, trying to pay closer attention to the sound of the words.

He repeats the phrase.

With a slight frown, she repeats it back almost perfectly. Years and years around a campfire learning the tales of her people prepared her for it.

"Oh," Astarion says. "Your intonation is... quite good."

She risks a look at him and finds him peering at her with eyes half-lidded, that same wicked smile on his lips.

Her frown deepens. "What did you just have me say?"

"Only that I'm beautiful and I deserve nice things," he says with a flourish of his hand. "Which is true."

Tav looks him up and down, but he seems sincere enough, so she continues on her walk and he stays in step, the air between them full of the language of his ancestry. She absorbs it as she absorbs the sun.

---

The next day, Shadowheart leads a dapple-gray mare laden with supplies through the camp. Wyll comes along to help her unload and the pair make small talk until the last sack is removed from the horse’s back and she shifts back into humanoid form.

“Appreciate the help, Tav,” Shadowheart says. “That would’ve taken several trips without you.”

Tav beams at her. “You could’ve taken Lae’zel, you know. Pretty sure she could lift me. While I’m in horse form.”

The cleric gives her a sardonic look. “Where’s your bloodsucking shadow?” she quips back.

Tav laughs. “Okay, I deserved that. I think he’s hunting.”

Shadowheart hums. “He could at least bring the body back for the rest of us once in a while.” She sets down her last crate and dusts her hands off. “That’s enough components for me to replenish our potion stock. What do you need?”

“I could use two or three more vials of Oil of Accuracy,” Tav admits. “You wouldn’t think a lioness’ claws needed to be more accurate, but you’d be wrong.”

“Done,” Shadowheart says. “I’ll have them to you by tomorrow morning.”

Tav nods her appreciation and gives Shadowheart a clap on the shoulder as she walks past. On a whim, she throws out one of the Elvish phrases Astarion taught her in thanks.

“... what did you just say to me?” Shadowheart says.

Tav turns. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I thought you’d speak Elvish, too. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

Shadowheart shakes her head. “No, no. I do speak Elvish. I want you to repeat what you just said.”

Blinking in confusion, Tav does so.

The cleric’s expression can only be called disbelieving. “Yes, that’s what I thought you said. Who taught you that?”

“Astarion,” Tav says, twisting her staff in her hands. “Gods, did I say it wrong?”

Shadowheart laughs into her hand, then sobers and clears her throat. “No, your ear is surprisingly good. Thank you for that. Mind if I teach you one to say next time you see him?”

“Really?” Tav says, thrilled. “I’d love that.”

They spend a few moments committing a new phrase to Tav’s memory and then Shadowheart sends her on her merry way, unable to drop the smile from her face.

Wyll comes up beside her, having finally emptied the last of the nearby crates. He holds a silver mug out to Shadowheart and lifts his own toward his mouth.

“What did that phrase Astarion taught her really mean?” he asks as he puts his drink to his lips.

Shadowheart holds her mug in both hands and leans in closer. “It’s not a direct translation, but… think along the lines of, ‘I will take you between my thighs until you forget your breath.’”

Wyll chokes and spits out his drink chivalrously in the direction opposite Shadowheart. He coughs and brings up an arm to wipe his mouth.

“And what did you teach her back?” he wheezes.

Shadowheart smirks. “‘If you wish to drink of my fountain, speak it with your lips to mine.’”

Wyll leans forward to put his hands on his knees and wheezes again. “Oh, that… that’s going to be a thing.”

“I hope so,” Shadowheart says, taking a draught from her own cup.

PART 2

#astarion #astarion bg3 #astarion x tav #astarion x female tav #astarion x f!tav #astarion smut #astarion fic #astarion fanfic #astarion fanfiction #look y'all asked for this #so it's yours now #kitten writes

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