Chapter Text
They split up. It was probably for the best, the way Shadowheart and Lae’zel were eyeing each other. While everyone agreed that rescuing Halsin and saving the Grove was a worthy goal, Lae’zel insisted that a nearby githyanki creche might also provide relief for their trouble, and as Gale wanted to expand his knowledge of githyanki culture (he felt that he knew quite enough about goblins), he elected to go that route. Wyll, too, as he’d heard a bounty he was oath-bound to pursue had been last spotted in that general vicinity.
Lethe had thought Astarion, too, would rather follow the path to the creche, after learning that it was an option. It seemed like more of a sure thing than Halsin, if such a sure thing existed. But when he heard there were dragons involved, he quickly decided to join Lethe and Shadowheart. Gale produced Speaking Stones that would allow them to stay in communication if needed, and after assessing and dividing their resources, they were off on their respective missions. Gale ceremoniously dubbed the two sides, “Team Lae’zel” and “Team Lethe.” Lethe didn’t love that. Lae’zel begrudgingly accepted it, but questioned the need for team names at all, as there were only two.
While it wasn’t a long walk to the goblin camp, relatively speaking, it was already near sunset by the time Team Lethe (ugh) set out. They got as far as they could, as carefully as they could, hugging the outskirts of the road where the goblins were most likely to patrol, until it was too dark to continue. She wasn’t eager to repeat the situation Aradin and his companions had found themselves in. They set up camp in a safe spot, and went to rest.
#
Luck was a currency in Faerun that few could afford under the best of circ*mstances. Lethe certainly didn’t count herself wealthy in it, even before the tadpole. But tonight, perhaps there was a god on her side after all.
Those were pretty words she might write in her journal later. But for now, when she groggily opened her eyes in the middle of the night to see Astarion hovering over her, mouth agape, all she could do was gasp and say, “sh*t.”
“sh*t,” he said at the same time, and the two of them spider-crawled away from each other in the dirt, staring with equal disbelief.
“It’s not what you think,” Astarion said quickly, but all Lethe could see was his teeth, his eyes, those pinprick scars on his neck.
“You’re actually a vampire?”
“You knew?” He didn’t deny it, and she couldn’t decide if that was better or worse than the alternative. If anything, he seemed insulted that she’d kept this extraordinary secret to herself.
“Well, I don’t know. I thought, lots of people have sharp teeth, and I didn’t want to be rude—”
“You didn’t want to be rude?” He let out a guffaw and glanced up at the stars. “Gods below.”
“How am I the embarrassed one? You’re the one who—” She glanced quickly at Shadowheart, but could only see the back of her head, unsure if she was stirring. “You’re the one who just tried to bite me,” she half-whispered furiously. “In my sleep!”
“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” he said, eyes wide and pleading. “Let me explain. Please.”
“Hells.” Shadowheart’s sleepy voice cut through the night air. “Astarion’s a vampire?” She didn’t seem fully awake, barely lifting her head from her bedroll. “Do I need to kill him?”
“No,” Lethe said. “No, I’ll take care of this. Go back to sleep.”
Shadowheart sighed with tired acceptance, and Lethe looked back at Astarion, who to his credit had not moved, and also looked terrified.
But it could be an act. Apparently, every moment with him until now had been some kind of act.
“Okay,” she said, half to herself, half to him. “Let’s go.” She stood and headed towards the nearby woods, but stopped when she realized Astarion wasn’t following her. He was still sitting on the ground, staring at her like she’d bewitched him. “You coming?”
“To my death?”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, if you’d rather just be dramatic and take your chances on your own, be my guest.”
He stood. Followed her into the trees. “I suppose it’s a dignified death,” he mused as they trekked through the growth, “to do it in private. In the woods.”
“Do you ever stop talking?” Lethe asked.
“I haven’t been known to. Oh, gods.” She could hear the dread in his voice as she pulled a sturdy branch from a tree, breaking it further over her knee, which just happened to result in a nice sharp point. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t relish his fear. After all, he’d scared the hells out of her. “Look, I don’t even know if that will be as efficient as a sword or a dagger,” he blathered on. “But if you must, at least do it quickly.”
“Oh, there won’t be anything quick about this,” she said. He winced at that, looking away from her and shrinking inward. He might grovel, if she demanded it.
She couldn’t think if anyone had ever groveled to her before. Was this how it felt to be Kagha? To be First Druid?
But as quickly as that wave of thoughts came to her, they washed out into an invisible sea, and she was left realizing that the man in front of her, whatever he was, whatever he could do, was afraid of her right now. And after what he’d done for her at the Emerald Grove, deliberately scaring him didn’t feel good.
Even still, he’d just tried to bite her.
She held the stick straight up, as unthreateningly as she could. “Astarion.” She tried to make her voice gentle, yet authoritative.
He looked at her, though not all the way.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said.
“Then what’s that?” He scowled at the branch.
“This,” she nodded to it, “is the Talking Stick.”
She thought she might have broken him, the way he blinked and frowned as if his brain had already been scrambled by the tadpole. “I’m sorry, like the talking rock Gale gave us?”
“No, this is different.”
“Is it some kind of strange Druid spell?”
“I’m not a Druid,” she reminded him.
“Well, I didn’t assume it was a Ranger’s spell.”
“It’s not a spell. It’s just a stick.”
“What does it do?”
“It’s just a stick.”
“For what?”
“For talking.”
He was silent again for another beat. “Have you gone mad? Is that what’s going on?”
She let out a beleaguered sigh. “It’s a technique we used in my enclave. My father used to use it, I mean.” Though it had been her idea, but no need to get into all that now. “Whoever holds the stick is the one who gets to talk. No arguing, no shouting, no interrupting.”
“Isn’t that something used on small children?”
“Yes. And curmudgeonly, stubborn old Druids.”
He crooked his lip at that. Surely, he at least thought of himself as better than some curmudgeonly, stubborn old Druids. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m, gods, exceedingly hungry.” He pressed his hand into his stomach. “Don’t you think we can resolve this without the, erm, the Talking Stick?” He still referred to it as if he expected it to talk.
“I don’t actually. Not right now. Because I’ll tell you something, Astarion. Holding onto this stick is the only thing keeping me calm right now. And if you want a favorable outcome from this, any favorable outcome, you need me to be calm.”
“Okay, just…” f*ck, he was hungry. The wave of it, from his mind to hers, came over her. The familiar nausea she felt when she went too long without food, he was sending it to her, whether he meant to or not. And perhaps he didn’t mean to, because he was doing his best to appear attentive. “Alright. Use the damn stick.”
She spoke quickly, but was careful to enunciate every syllable. “Earlier today, you said that we needed to be able to trust each other. I don’t expect your life’s story, but something like this, that could lead to what you just did, that did lead to what you just did, well,” she shook her shoulders, “it feels like the sort of thing you should tell a person before it gets to the point that you feel you had no choice but to sneak up on me in the middle of the night.” She took a breath. “It makes me feel as if you’ve just been using me. It makes me feel as if I can’t actually trust you at all. It makes me question every single time you’ve looked at me, Astarion, every little move, every little step. That stuff with Nettie,” she lowered her voice, “it makes me question your motives for that too. Everyone’s entitled to their secrets, but this is…this is different.”
He let her stand there, with the stick, absorbing her words for a few moments before he held out his arm for it. She handed it to him, and as their fingers brushed, she thought again about how cold they were. Colder than before, maybe.
“If you were in my position,” she’d yet to see him speak like this, like whatever air he’d put on from literally the second they’d met had finally dissipated, “you wouldn’t have seen any of this as a choice.” There was a cruel bitterness to his voice, and anger that she wasn’t sure was actually directed at her. “I never once lied to you, or to anyone in our merry band. In fact, if anything I was more honest than I wanted to be. This is all about survival. There is nothing else for me. There hasn’t been for a long time. I apologize for frightening you. I just needed blood.” He paused. Handed the stick back to her with a grimace.
“And I’m guessing a deer or boar wouldn’t do, or you’d have gone off and found one of those.” She groaned with sudden realization. “The boar.” They’d found it, completely exsanguinated, earlier that day. “That was you, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” He grimaced. “I’ve always subsisted off creatures like that. Whatever I can find, really.”
“So, what’s changed?”
“Everything,” he said, snatching the stick back and waving it around. “Hasn’t it for you too? I’ve been picked up, infected, and plopped down miles from home. I’ve been forced to fight more than I’ve ever had to, and I know there are more battles ahead. I’ve had to think on my feet, like I did with Nettie,” he gave her a pointed look, though not one of regret, she didn’t think from the way his lips turned up, “and that takes a lot out of me too. I won’t say that living off of rats is a pleasant experience, but it’s allowed me to get by until now. I can’t keep going on just animals anymore. I need to be stronger. You need me to be stronger.”
“Astarion…” She wasn’t sure what she wanted to say, but murmuring his name, showing some kind of sympathy, seemed important.
“No.” His voice was hard, and she got the feeling that sympathy was the last thing he wanted right now. “I’ve got the stick, right? I tried to rest tonight. But I couldn’t. My stomach gnawed at me, my mouth was dry. In survival mode, we take what we can get, don’t we? I’m sure you haven’t been happy yourself with the foraging options in this corner of Faerun. But I lay awake, and I saw you, and I thought, what if in this moment, I didn’t have to just survive? What if I could do something better, feel better?”
She could see the exhaustion in him, only growing the longer he talked. The hollows of his cheeks. The sickly paleness of his skin. His chapped lips, his shaking hands. He could be lying about all of it still, but she couldn’t deny that she was looking at a man brought to his very limits.
Astarion turned the stick over in his hands. “I really, truly, wasn’t going to hurt you. You were in such a deep sleep, or I thought you were. I thought, if I could just have a little, just to keep me going, and then find some creature in the woods to finish myself off. You wouldn’t have even missed it.”
He stood there, laid bare for her. Gods, what to do now? The sensible thing to do would indeed be to cast him out, wouldn’t it? But was that because he was a vampire, or because he’d betrayed her trust?
She held her arm out for the stick. “You should have asked me,” she said once she was holding it. “But I understand why you didn’t. Trust is different than knowing someone. And, I do appreciate you telling me all that. I know it’s not easy.” She locked eyes with him. “I do know that you’re hungry.”
He took a step forward, and she tried to take one back, but realized she was still standing against the tree. “Sorry,” he said. “You haven’t said yes yet, have you?”
After the sneak attack attempt, it was a bit absurd that he was still making sure he had her permission. Part of her thought she was insane for considering it, but the longer she looked at him, the less angry she felt about it all. The more she just saw someone who needed her help. “It’s not going to change me, is it?”
“No.” He said it so emphatically, so desperately, that it seemed somehow to make him even hungrier, hunching over like he could barely hold himself up anymore.
She cleared her throat. “Alright. But not a drop more than you need. Understood?”
His face lit up in the moonlight, some of his vitality perhaps restored, temporarily. “Of course! Not a drop more, I promise.”
She stood, but after a beat nothing had happened. “What do I do?” she asked awkwardly.
“Erm.” He looked thoughtful. “I suppose, if you could…” He reached out and brushed her braids and loose hair from the right side of her neck. He looked at it, mesmerized for a moment. “Sorry,” he said as he remembered himself.
“I’m sure there are prettier necks,” Lethe said, instantly hating her habit of trying to diffuse every situation with humor.
“I doubt it,” he murmured. He opened his mouth, and she realized she had no idea what it would feel like, exactly. She’d been bitten by plenty of creatures in her day. Wolves, wildcats, the occasional rat or snake. But never by something determined to do anything other than injure and run away, or to simply devour her flesh, not the liquid inside of her.
He let his lips linger on her neck, and she feared he might kiss her. Well, not feared, not as if she was repulsed.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” she said, “or, gods, impatient, but—”
“Right.” His voice was husky. She heard a light wetness, like saliva pooling in his mouth. Then the sharp teeth pierced her skin quickly, and her hand opened, dropping the stick to the ground.
She’d been right. It was nothing like a cat or wolf bite. He lingered on her, and for a split second, she wondered if he knew what to do from here. But he was either taking his time, or found his footing quickly, because his lips then wrapped around her flesh as he retracted his fangs just enough to drink.
He had her pinned against the tree, so she couldn’t do more than squirm unless she wanted to shove him off her completely. She fought an instinct to do it right away, but it didn’t really hurt now that the initial pierce was over. She felt his lips tight around the wound, his tongue lapping eagerly against her skin. He held her forearms tightly at first, but when he felt her struggle, he eased off, brought his body back just a couple of inches. But he didn’t stop drinking.
In truth, the whole experience probably took only a matter of seconds. He was that efficient. But it felt like time had stopped, like she had the opportunity to feel every inch of him against her, to contemplate whether she was enjoying herself, or just lightheaded.
f*ck, she was definitely getting lightheaded.
“That’s…” she had to take in a breath to get the words out properly, “that’s enough.”
He mumbled something she couldn’t make out, maybe just hummed. He might not even had heard her at all. Because still, he didn’t stop.
“Astarion.” Her voice shook. Every part of her shook. She couldn’t lift her hand to shove him away. The only thing she could do was lean forward as hard as she could, pressing herself against him like a battering ram against a gate. “Stop. Stop it now.”
He grumbled, pulling himself back. He almost sounded in a daze. “Hm? Oh. Yes, of course. That was…” he struggled to find the right words as he wiped some of her blood off his lips, “…amazing. Oh.” He realized almost too late that she was losing her footing, and he grabbed her forearms, easing her to the ground. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” she said. Lied, maybe. She couldn’t tell. Everything felt too fuzzy, to be sure if she was lying, and if she was doing it deliberately. “Just need to sit here for a moment. You get…gods…you get what you need?”
“Yes, I—” his grip was warmer now, but he eased off and took a step back. “Thank you.”
“Mm-hmm.” She fought her heavy eyes.
“Alright, well.” He looked behind him, into the waiting dark. “You were perfect.”
“Oh,” she said dreamily, “that’s nice to hear.”
He didn’t seem to know whether he should chuckle or not. “But I need to find something to…complete the meal. You’ll find your way back alright?”
“Which way?” she asked.
He pointed.
“Yeah,” she said, propping herself up. “I knew that. I’m fine. Go.”
He hesitated, but then gave a curt nod and started off. He stopped, briefly, glancing back at her. “This is a gift, you know,” he said. “I won’t forget it.”
Her instinct was to make a sarcastic comment about calling it a gift, something to lighten the dark mood. But now, she let herself sit in what she’d done, what he’d done. She let the gratefulness exist as it was: an acknowledgment that both of them were becoming something else on this journey already.
She didn’t want to think about what that meant for the road ahead, the likeliness that Halsin would both be alive and have a cure ready for them. But that was fine, because it was difficult to think anyway, difficult to do anything, including noticing the fact that Astarion was gone.
