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ghost-proofbaby · 2 months

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She’s said the wrong thing. She doesn’t fully understand how, but she can certainly feel Astarion bristle at those words. Nettie remains unaware of their internal conversation, digging around at her table full of alchemy sets and important looking herbs. If you think that, as a reward for simply existing, the world is going to hand you kindness, you are a bigger fool than I took you for. When Nettie turns around, finally having finished her piece, she holds a thorny branch. If I must be a fool, at least I am a kind one.

summary: the tadpoles prove to have some use, and aruna proves to be a bigger fool than astarion expected when she trusts the wrong person.

wc: 4k+

warnings: continued memory loss, being poisoned? just canon-adjacent violence and such. nothing crazy.

a/n: mom can you come pick me up i think i'm projecting too much onto one of my ocs again (also experimenting with placement of the read more this time don't mind me)

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Was Aruna someone’s daughter once?

It’s the only thing she can think of after she speaks to Arabella’s parents. A young tiefling girl, currently being interrogated, her parents desperate and brimming with fury as they try to find a way to save their daughter.

Surely, Aruna was someone’s daughter once. And if she was the one in interrogation, life at risk, she’d want someone to offer to help her as well.

The druids that had been arguing with the tieflings let Aruna and Astarion through under the premise of Kagha wanting to speak with them. Which, in all honesty, doesn’t sound very promising. But Aruna is determined, mind rattling with thoughts of Arabella, someone’s daughter, and her singular goal of saving her.

“What in the Hells are they doing?” Astarion questions the center of the grove, several druids gathered around the center point that appears to be a small idol.

Aruna hadn’t even noticed the green flow of magic, had hardly heard the chanting, “Who knows?”

It’s a pathetic response. Hardly humoring him, falling terribly flat as she continues to take large steps in the direction of the stone door the druids had pointed out to them.

Was she someone’s daughter once? Did she have parents out there, just like Arabella’s, anxiously seeking her return?

“You’re telling me you’re not the least bit curious about that?” Astarion squints after her. When she doesn’t respond, he reaches out for her, fingers wrapping around her sleeve just as she had done to him by the ox. But his touch is a bit rougher, a bit more secure. Less instinctual. “I find that incredibly hard to believe. What’s wrong?”

She blinks rapidly at that, taken back by his sincerity, “Since when do you care about something being wrong with me?”

“Since you’re leading us, specifically me, into a possible fight while seeming impossibly distracted.”

Right. He didn’t want to be led astray, walked straight into danger, when she was in this state. It was nothing more than that. And that was reasonable.

But she can’t stop picturing it; was she something small once? Something impossibly delicate?

She sort of feels delicate now, void of memories and uncertain of just who she is.

“I can’t remember if I have parents,” she admits all in one breath, uncomfortably aware of both his eyes on her and his hand that had yet to leave her arm, “I can’t remember if I had a childhood.”

“That’s all?” he scoffs, hand finally dropping, “You’re worried about if you had a childhood after agreeing to free some foolish tiefling girl?”

His words are hard, but she can still see right through his mask – her words have given him something to think about as well. A kindred emotion, a flash of something lost, sparking behind his eyes for only a moment.

“Yes, that is all. You seem to forget while you all have your own personal journeys and motivations that I can as well.”

She doesn’t know herself. All she knows is this, whatever this journey of their group had become. All she knows is the tadpole, the beach, her companions. She just recently learned about her magic while it’s clear the rest of them have an entire artillery of memories in which they’ve perfected their crafts.

Of course Astarion is better with his daggers. He must have practiced wielding them for years, and remembers that practice. Aruna might have also, but she can’t recall it. The fact that she remembered how to even hold them properly is a miracle.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says just as she sees Astarion’s hard exterior beginning to soften. She doesn’t want pity, doesn’t want empathy. She just wants to help the girl, “Let’s just talk to this Kagha and help Arabella.”

Before she has the chance to turn, Astarion is speaking to her lowly, disregarding the way she clearly wanted to move on from the matter, “I do apologize. Your condition… does slip my mind. I forget myself.”

“It’s not a condition,” she snaps, “It’s… it’s temporary. Maybe once we get rid of our parasites, I’ll regain my memories. It’s fine.”

Parasites. That’s what these tadpoles must be, leeches that have taken home in all their minds, and Aruna is just the unluckiest of the bunch to be stuck with one with a craving for memories.

She’ll remember. She has to.

“For what it’s worth,” he takes a step closer, nearly whispering, as though he’d rather die than allow anyone to hear his next words, “I do believe you had a childhood. We all must have, even those of us who can’t recall them.”

If she had been a little less absorbed in all her own issues at the moment, she might have picked up on that little word: us.

She would have noticed Astarion’s grouping of himself in that category.

But she doesn’t. She only turns and continues onto their mission, to find Kagha and Arabella, completely unaware that Astarion has bared a vulnerable fragment of himself to her. The moment passes, and she never witnesses the fall of his face as he realizes that the thread of connection has gone entirely over her head.

—

Aruna doesn’t know what her experiences with snakes had been prior to all of this, but she’s starting to sense they were not good. That, or all her survival instincts that were a product of human evolution were far more overactive than everyone else’s.

Astarion doesn’t even flinch at the snake. In fact, he looks monumentally disappointed when Aruna manages to persuade Kagha to not kill Arabella by letting the bloodthirsty creature sink its fangs into her.

“What a waste of a perfectly good show,” he sighs wistfully, watching the girl run off and out of the underground room they were now standing in.

One sharp warning glance from Aruna, and he’s smart enough to not make another comment on it.

“You wanted to speak with us,” Aruna says as she approaches Kagha once the death viper has long since departed. If Astarion notices, he certainly keeps quiet with his teasing.

“Indeed,” Kagha looks up. She still wears a veil of authority, holding herself bigger than she is as if to prove herself, “You are the ones who fought at the gate against the goblins.”

Suddenly, Aruna feels a squirming in her mind, a sudden presence pressing against her tadpole. It’s unfamiliar, sharp, but not unbearable.

The same experience as when she had met each of her fellow ailed companions, but to a less intense degree.

Obviously.

Aruna is shocked when she swears she hears Astarion mutter the sarcastic reply as it echoes in her head. She turns to look at him, but his lips are sealed tightly, wearing a bored expression that morphs into offense when he catches her glance.

Why is she looking at me like that? I didn’t say that outloud, did I?

It’s nearly impossible to school her shocked expression, but Aruna manages.

Astarion certainly did think the sarcastic reply, but he didn’t say it outloud. Aruna shouldn’t have been able to hear that. And yet the squirming in her head increases, and she has the sinking suspicion of who the culprit behind the shared thoughts might be.

Interesting.

“We are,” she answers Kagha before the pause grows so long it becomes suspicious, “And the druids at the entrance said you wanted to speak to us. So, please, by all means…”

She trails off, but her eyes continue to flicker towards Astarion. He’s growing more antsy under her watchful gaze, but she’s not going to scold him for being a sarcastic ass in his mind.

Maybe she had imagined it. Maybe the tadpole is draining her of memories and sanity.

Imagined or not, tadpoles to be blamed or not, Aruna remains distracted for most of her conversation with Kagha. Her focus wanes, only leaving just enough sensibility to make out that Kagha wants their group to clear the way for the tieflings to leave the Grove. The ceremony that Astarion had questioned outside, was being executed with the intent of sealing the Grove off. No one leaves, no one enters.

It’s all a bit morbid. And it makes Aruna’s bleeding heart ache for the tieflings. Predictable, she swears she hears Astarion’s voice say as her face contorts at that shared information.

She feels the crashing waves of Astarion’s irritation over all else when Kagha finishes her short speech.

“I’m asking you to help them. Will you?”

He already knows her answer. And so does Aruna – there’s not a single way in which she’ll walk out of here without agreeing to do so.

But she does take pause, and she does consider her options. Astarion may be shocked at the fact that she takes his reaction into consideration during these decisions now, but she does. And for all he seemingly loathes helping others, he is concerned with the parasite – he’s concerned with finding a healer, just like everyone else in her party.

“I’ll help,” the quietest of groans are already escaping Astarion’s lips, but they grow quiet when she continues, “On one condition.”

“Offering conditional help?” he admonishes, “I didn’t think you had that in you.”

For once, please shut up.

She doesn’t say it outloud. She thinks it, shooting the thought like an arrow, straight for the pressure of the presence against her tadpole.

It wasn’t an imagined connection. It’s clear Astarion had heard her by the way he nearly staggers not even a second after the thought has passed.

Very interesting.

“What’s your condition?” Kagha demands, looking between the two with brewing suspicion.

If she knew about their tadpoles, she’d probably kill them. With that damn death viper, no less.

“There’s a healer here by the name of Nettie,” Aruna feels Astarion perk up, all his dissatisfaction with the idea of helping the tieflings quickly fading, “I’ll help them, if she helps us.”

“And what would you need a healer for?”

“None of your business.”

Even Astarion is shocked by the sharpness of Aruna’s words. But when she looks at Kagha, all she sees is a woman turning her back on the helpless. And it sparks a new anger inside of her, a sense of righteousness that had to have been ingrained in her at some point. Whether it be before all of this or if it is simply a pillar of who she was, who she is, doesn’t matter.

Kagha is someone cruel. And Aruna suddenly realizes that cruelty is not part of who she is, not at her core.

Kagha smiles, a forced diplomatic grin that reeks of ingenuity. “You’ll find Nettie somewhere around here, feel free to seek her out as you please. But after you’ve seen her, I do expect you to speak to Zevlor, and to keep up your end of the bargain.”

There’s no need for Aruna to bristle at the words or her condescending tone. Astarion does it for her, and without looking, she knows his hands twitch beside his daggers.

Her dagger-happy friend, her shadow. She was never worried about blindly walking into a fight when it was him at her side.

Nods are exchanged, and when Kagha turns her back, Aruna is quick to guide herself and her companion across the room, narrowly avoiding the abundance of mud.

He doesn’t say a word until they’ve walked through a second doorway, entering what almost resembles a library of some sort. She expects a comment on her lashing out.

He surprises her when he simply says, “We have to talk about it, you know.”

“Out of all our companions, you are the one I least expected a lecture from regarding being rude-”

“I couldn’t care less regarding your attitude with the druid,” he interrupts, stopping them just before they cross into what looks to be a living quarters. A hospital, of sorts, “I mean the tadpoles. You spoke to me, without uttering a single word aloud. How?”

He doesn’t know that he initiated that connection. “I- You’re serious, aren’t you?”

His lips curl, nose scrunching, “If you’re about to tell me I’m going insane, I might go find the nearest stake and put myself out of my own misery.”

Stake? How oddly specific.

“See?” he exclaims suddenly, pointing at her accusingly, “I heard that! And yes, death by stake is quite specific, but don’t read into it too much, darling.”

“Get out of my mind,” she hisses, more mindful of being quiet than he was being, “Gods, Astarion, I don’t know. Technically, you opened up that connection. I heard your thoughts first. Which, by the way – thank you for not being such a smartass out loud in front of Kagha.”

His eyes widen, “Oh. Oh, you… heard that?”

Instead of answering properly, she only puts on her worst impersonation of him, accent and all as she tries to perfectly mimic his “Obviously.”

“I do not sound like that.”

“You certainly did when you said it in my head.”

“No, I did not. My voice is far less nasally, far more refined-”

“Who cares?” she cuts him off, “The point is, we can use these parasites for our benefit until we rid ourselves of them. Imagine the potential of using those private… channels to speak to each other when we’re in front of an enemy.”

“I’d hardly call Kagha an enemy,” he snorts. But he doesn’t dismiss her idea, softening up in consideration, “I suppose you’re right. The only issue, of course, is how we opened up the connection to begin with.”

He’s right. Aruna isn’t so prideful as to fight him on that, nor is she idiotic enough to force the misfortune of figuring out the answer to that solely on him.

“Well, what were you feeling when you first thought that?” she asks carefully. She isn’t trying to pry, something she’s starting to figure out he’s not fond of, but to simply get answers, “I wasn’t hearing your every waking thought before then.”

He blinks rapidly, and she swears for a moment that he’ll take a step back. As though she’s gone too far. As though what he was feeling in the moment is private information that she hasn’t earned the knowledge of yet.

He doesn’t. “I… I suppose I just wanted to say that outloud, to you.”

That alone has a dozen implications.

“I need more than that,” she squints her eyes, “Especially considering it wasn’t something very important-”

“Making a sarcastic quip,” he looks pained as he elaborates, “Whenever I have something… particularly annoying to say, I enjoy watching your reaction to it. It’s fun to see you scramble when I run my mouth.”

She doesn’t know how to respond to that, but it does make sense. When she had sent her own message to him, she’d been feeling almost the exact same way – regarding wanting to talk to him, not so much as wanting to annoy him.

“I focused on the presence, or whatever it was, of your tadpole in my head,” she says, glancing over his shoulder as she catches sight of movement in the next room. A woman of shorter stature, hovering over something on one of the stone platforms, “So I suppose that’s the secret to it. Knowing us, another situation will arise soon enough for us to test our theory.”

He has more he wants to say. She can see it clearly in the press of his lips and the flare of his nostrils, but he doesn’t dare to speak whatever weighs on his mind, “Right. Of course. Knowing us.”

It was probably just another complaint of the way Aruna keeps getting them into trouble. He held his tongue, and she’s probably better for it.

Probably.

When they continue their exploration of the area, Aruna decides to take her time in surveying the new room rather than heading straight to the woman she had spied over Astarion’s shoulder. Tables of medicinal items, ranging from mugwort to jars of odd liquids, almost appearing to swirl with the night sky inside. The shelves of books, tomes, and slabs alike also pique Aruna’s interest. She wonders just how much trouble they might get into if she sent Astarion on a quick roundup of some of the interesting reads; his hands were far quicker and more adept for slipping them unnoticed into their packs. He’d proven such with the apple.

She doesn’t even notice that the thought has slipped down their tadpole connection until Astarion is shooting her an amused look, crossing his arms as he stares her down.

“And I thought you were against thievery,” he murmurs, voice low enough so that the woman on the other side of the room won’t hear them.

Aruna really has no defense. Besides, aside from his torment of teasing, Astarion doesn’t seem to actually judge her for having any slip-ups in morale, “I am. Hence why I didn’t ask that of you.”

“Say the word, and I’d do it,” he holds up a hand, wiggling the fingers for emphasis, “You could have your own precious library to rival the wizard’s – for a price, of course.”

“A price?”

Her grin is impossible to miss. Radiant, it’s golden cast reflecting right back at her off of Astarion’s own lips.

“You didn’t think I’d do that type of work for free, did you, darling?”

It’s a fun dance. A momentary distraction. For just a few brief seconds, they’re simply two people teasing one another, unbothered by their current circumstances or situations.

“Of course not. And, just out of curiosity,” she hums, well aware that in a few moments, they’ll need to approach that strange woman. They’ll have to drop the illusion and return to reality. But that specific warmth that only he seems capable of triggering has begun to burrow into her chest again, and she chases after the feeling, “What would your price be? If I did request that of you?”

He hesitates. She had expected a quick answer, a rapid-fire she’d struggle to keep up with. She hadn’t expected for a genuine look of contemplation to cross his face, as though he was struggling to even come up with a response for the hypothetical.

“Your daggers,” he says, although his tone isn’t quite as playful as it had been. His eyes flicker down at the blades tucked safely into each of her hips, and when they rise to meet her eyes again, it’s clear he’s somewhere far from her. Lost in thoughts, lost in his own mind, “You seemed quite defensive over them the other night. If they are special, and you’re hardly adept at wielding them, I might as well make use of them.”

“You’re not getting my daggers,” she shakes her head.

“Then I suppose you’re not getting your library.”

She laughs, and she prays he doesn’t hear any of the concern brewing beneath it. She prays that he’s still too far in his own head to recognize the way her attitude dips to meet his own deflation. Her laugh is as disingenuine as his forced smile he offers her, effectively ending the conversation.

He’s gone somewhere, somewhere so far that she couldn’t possibly follow, tadpole or not.

She finds herself hoping it isn’t quite as lonely as her own mind.

—

Nettie is… nice.

Or, rather, nice enough.

She’s fairly patient with Aruna and Astarion when they first approach, ignoring Astarion’s rude comeback to her requesting they give her just a second. She reacts kinder than necessary when Astarion prods the bird she had just healed as they pass by, prattling on about how the bird needs time to heal and how Astarion could benefit from exhibiting kindness to others.

At least his responsive scoff stays between Aruna and Astarion, echoing down the connection of their tadpoles.

She’s nice as she inquires what’s wrong with Aruna, she’s nice as Aruna explains the tadpole, and she’s nice as she offers to bring them back to her own private enclave for further examination. Hells, she’s even nice as she explains her entire experience with tadpoles thus far; a story involving another healer named Halsin, another unfortunate tadpole to be studied, and the dead drow on the table that Aruna tries to not stare at.

Something about the sight of the drow makes Aruna’s chest ache. An indescribable sorrow. A mourning she can’t recognize.

Halsin sounds more useful than this bore.

Astarion’s voice in her head cuts through all that odd grief, helping her shake it off easily.

Give her a chance.

I gave her a chance when I didn’t interrupt her ridiculous spiel regarding that damned bird and kindness.

And what makes that bird any less deserving of kindness than you or me?

If you think that, as a reward for simply existing, the world is going to hand you kindness, you are a bigger fool than I took you for.

When Nettie turns around, finally having finished her piece, she holds a thorny branch.

If I must be a fool, at least I am a kind one.

He doesn’t have a snarky response for that one. As a matter of fact, all that Aruna can feel through their connection is a resigned sadness. Something old, something yearning, something learned from a different lifetime. It makes no sense to Aruna. He doesn’t know her. Her being a fool shouldn’t affect him. Aruna’s own feet being set on the path of kindness has nothing to do with Astarion in the grand scheme of things beyond their journey to rid themselves of these worms. She’s the one with the ominous letter, she’s the one with debts to be paid regarding him once it’s all said and done. Her foolish kindness shouldn’t affect him.

And yet, it does. To a startling degree that Aruna can’t even offer proper focus to at the time being, because her focus must remain on the healer in front of her.

Because Nettie is nice enough, until she isn’t.

A series of questions, as if Aruna was on some impassable trial, is all it takes for the smaller woman to lose that nice exterior. And Aruna is unsure if maybe it was her tone to blame, being a bit too snippy with Astarion’s anxieties pounding at the back of her head. Or mayhaps if it is her memory loss to blame, making certain gaps impossible to fill and certain answers impossible to be honest. She doesn’t know where she went wrong, but she did – she’s gone terribly wrong the moment that Nettie’s face hardens in a flair of certain impassive determination, and she reaches out for Aruna’s hand.

Don’t.

Aruna can’t decipher if it was that knowing animal inside of her or Astarion that warns her so ferociously. Perhaps it had been the tadpole, a self-serving parasite that got them into this mess to begin with. She doesn’t know, she doesn’t know, she doesn’t know.

She only knows that the moment those thorns scratch her palm, it hurts like all Hells.

It burns. Terribly. And Aruna, for all her cluelessness, knows that healing shouldn’t burn.

She tugs her hand away from Nettie impossibly fast the moment the tips of the thorns have dug in, looking down at the angry pink scratches left behind. Only surface level, but they burn.

“What in the hells-” Astarion starts, taking a step forward as Aruna cradles her hand to her chest.

If I must be a fool, at least I am a kind one.

“Be careful – your legs will probably give out first.”

It’s not a cure. It’s not a plant of healing. It burns, its venom sinking its way into Aruna’s veins, spreading with a painful speed, her racing heart only quickening the process.

Aruna doesn’t have the chance to so much as blink before Astarion’s daggers are against Nettie’s neck.

Kind fool indeed.

TAGLIST: @emmaisgonnacry @writinginthetwilight @moonmunson

#ghost's stories #astarion #astarion ancunin #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #astarion x tav #astarion x oc #astarion fanfic #astarion fanfiction #the moon will sing #wahoo #aruna you absolute dumb ass you failed that perception check #every day i go through life whispering to myself 'if i must be fool at least i am kind' over and over and over and over #i would rather be foolish and kind than callous and heartless #the older i get the harder it is to maintain that #anyways #three cheers to finally getting to the tadpole connection establishment we're definitely going to misuse that for nefarious reasons later o

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