Chapter Text
18 Marpenoth 1491 DR - Late Evening - Shelly's Loft
"You need a proper healing potion," Astarion said, rising to his full height. "My stitches will hold, but infection could happen, especially when one sticks their fingers into their own carnage." Shelly let out a weak laugh from her position on the divan. "Cute. That’s like worrying about a cracked window when the house is on fire." She gestured vaguely at the wound. "I'll be fine. I've survived worse."
"Darling, you tried to perform surgery on yourself with a bone needle and a bottle of cognac. The bar for 'worse' is also impressively low." He crossed to the window, peering out at the darkened streets. "I can fetch you something from an apothecary. The legitimate kind. Not the watered-down slop they sell to landlopers."
Her hand twitched toward the side table, hunting for her satchel, but the pull of the stitches—surprisingly snug, she’d give him that—forced a sharp hiss through her teeth. She slumped back. “I have enough—”
"Don't insult me." He turned back, one hand pressed to his chest in mock offense. "I'm offering to help, not extort you."
"Astarion—"
"Besides," he said, his lips curving into that familiar, razor-sharp smile. "I have a one-hundred percent discount for negligent shopkeepers." He fluttered his fingers like a stage magician. Shelly stared at him. "You're going to steal a healing potion?"
"Steal is such an ugly word. I prefer liberated. Don’t act so innocent—you lifted your first purse two nights ago, remember? I certainly do.” He was already moving toward the door, adjusting his doublet. The bloodstains were still visible, but in the Lower City, that was practically formal wear. "I'll be back before you can say malfeasance.”
"That's—wait—" But he was already gone, the door clicking shut behind him with a soft finality.
Shelly groaned and let her head fall back against the cushions. Gerald shuffled over, his jaw clacking in what might have been amusement or concern. It was hard to tell. "He's going to get caught," she muttered. Gerald's jaw clacked again. Doubtful.
Gerald’s bony hand hovered over where the wound was beneath her tunic. His empty sockets almost seem to furrow. He hurt you. Shelly lifted the hem. The stitches were small, precise—the kind of needlework you'd see on a courtier's collar, not a stabbing victim's side. “It’s his nature, he can’t help that.” She let her shirt fall, smoothed it. He wasn’t the one that stabbed her in an alley. He was the one that stitched her back together. “He can’t help what he was made to be.”
Astarion stood at the threshold of her loft with an expression of profound vindication, one hand braced against the doorframe, the other clutching a stolen bottle of wine that had cost him absolutely nothing. Well—nothing except a broken window latch and thirty seconds of mild inconvenience for a very wealthy merchant who wouldn't notice its absence until morning. "Success," he announced, kicking the door shut behind him. He produced a small crystal vial from his pocket with a flourish. The liquid inside glowed a soft, rose-gold color. "Superior healing potion. None of that common bilge. This is the good stuff. Brewed by clerics, blessed by Lathander himself, probably. Or Ilmater. One of the suffering-adjacent gods, at any rate."
She didn’t correct him. Instead she smirked. "You actually stole it.”
"Liberated. We've been over this.” He crossed to her, uncorked the potion, and pressed it into her hands. "Drink. Doctor's orders." She took it, eyeing him warily. "You're no doctor."
"I'm excellent with my hands. Close enough." He watched as she drank, making a face at the taste—most do—and then settled onto the floor beside the divan, his back against the edge. He worked the cork out of the wine bottle with his teeth, spat it across the room, and took a long pull straight from the neck. "And before you develop a conscience on behalf of some price-gouging apothecary, rest assured those halflings have been robbing sick people blind for years. Consider this redistributive justice."
She downed the vial in one swallow. The effect was immediate. The potion hit like sunrise—warmth flooding her chest, crawling down her limbs, threading itself into the wound with pins-and-needles urgency. The pain didn't vanish entirely, but it dulled to a manageable ache. She could feel the tissue knitting itself back together, the magic threading through muscle and skin like invisible sutures.
"Better?" Astarion asked, watching her with surprising intensity.
"Better," she admitted. "Thank you."
"Don't mention it. Truly. I don’t do favors."
Shelly pushed herself up carefully, testing the new stitches. They held. She watched him take another long drink, then set the bottle down on the low table with exaggerated care. The wine hit his tongue, mixed with the lingering taste of her blood, and something in his chest loosened. He took another drink. Then another.
"You planning to share that?" Shelly asked dryly as she extended her hand.
"Absolutely not." He took another swig. "You've had your medicine. This is mine." He blinked slowly, a lopsided grin drifting onto his face; the wine-darkened curve of his lip snagged against his canine, making him look like a pampered, half-feral cat.
The potion worked fast—he could see the color returning to her face, the tension easing from her shoulders. Not fully healed, but no longer teetering on the edge. Good. He took another drink.
By the time he'd made it halfway through the bottle, the world had gone pleasantly soft around the edges. Her blood and the wine were doing something strange to him. He felt... light. Untethered. Like he might float away if he wasn't careful.
"Are you… are you actually drunk," Shelly observed. She leaned forward to search his face.
"I'm delightful." He stood—gracefully, he thought, though the floor tilted a bit more than expected—and broke into a raucous, heel-and-toe shuffle. It was a commoner’s jig, the kind of rhythmic, foot-stomping nonsense favored by sailors and dock-workers. He added a flamboyant, finger-snapping spin. The movement mocked the very idea of elven dignity if high elves did such things. Which they didn't. Then again he wasn't really a high elf, was he? Just something wearing the skin of one.
The floor rose up to meet him mid-turn, and the rhythm broke into a wild, staggering lurch that sent him rebounding off the bookshelves. That didn’t deter him, he recovered and found a new rhythm. It started as something lithesome—a courtly step, maybe, from whatever bygone era he'd been turned in. Perhaps a minuet. But the wine and the blood had him off-balance, and the grace quickly devolved into something looser, wilder. He spun on one heel, arms extended, and nearly crashed into the workbench.
You’re going to hurt yourself," Shelly said, though she started tapping a clumsy, heavy beat against the side of the divan to match his shuffle. She pressed a hand to her mouth, stifling a startled snort. "And for the record, that was the most pathetic footwork I’ve ever seen. My ghouls in Bezantur had better ambulation, and half of them were missing toes.
"Impossible," he declared, recovering with a theatrical bow that threw his bangs forward. "The marionette doesn't fall unless the master cuts the strings.” He flashed a sharp, wine-stained grin. “And I’m currently stringless." He demonstrated by attempting a pirouette. His foot caught against the edge of the rug and he stumbled forward, catching himself on the back of the divan. "That was intentional."
"Of course it was." Shelly couldn’t hide the undignified snort. Gerald, who had been watching from his corner, took a tentative step forward. His jaw clacked—something that might have been curiosity or amusement. Astarion's face lit up. "Clever bones. Do you dance?" Gerald's skull tilted. Then, slowly, he raised his single arm and began to sway.
"That's the spirit!" Astarion grabbed Gerald's skeletal hand and spun him in a clumsy circle. Gerald's bones clattered like castanets. They moved together in a chaotic waltz, Astarion humming something that might have been a tune or might have been complete drivel.
She watched him spin Gerald out and pull him back. "Dancing, you almost tore out my throat and now you’re dancing." Shelly's voice was incredulous.
"I am celebrating." He swept past her, entirely too close to knocking over a candelabra. He spun, catching himself against the wall, and pointed a long, pale finger at her. "I tasted you,” he said, the slur in his voice giving way to a sudden, manic clarity. "A thinking creature for the first time.” He laughed—a bright, jagged sound. "I didn't murder you—you didn't stake me. This calls for celebration." Astarion dropped beside her, boneless and grinning. He took another drink, offered her the bottle. This time she took it, managed a sip before handing it back.
"And—” He looked at her. "I’m off the leash until the dusk of the twenty-seventh.” His eyes glittered, and one fang caught his lower lip.
Oh, was he on some kind of vampire spawn holiday? While they sat on the divan, Gerald continued to sway to the silence. Holding his arm to his chest in the mimicry of a slow dance, making gentle passes around the loft. Her eyes were on the dancing bones when she reached for the bottle. Instead of the cool glass, she felt his wrist. She froze. The reality of last night crept back.
"Astarion...I almost died.”
"I already apologized what more do you—”
"Last night...I almost died.”
He repositioned his arm, turned his wrist and tapped his fingers against her palm. There if she wanted to lace fingers, but no pressure. "I’m all pointy ears.”
"Rashid was in the crowd. I ran—well as fast as my legs allowed. He pursued and he… he blew up a firewine barrel and—” Astarion cut her off. "I smelled that. Last night when I—” He stopped himself, he’d tell her later. She blinked at him. He looked away, "Go on.” His fingers rubbed her palm, inviting her to take his hand.
"I took a wrong turn. He—he had this braided rope. Blue…glowing…strange.” She lifted her hand, fingers splayed wide. "It gutted my necrosis.” Then she snapped them into a fist to illustrate the collapse. "My blight was just gone.” He watched her, the way her brows lifted high and the way she made ugly, furrowed faces when she was trying to get the point across. He should be listening better but the wine and blood made him almost… docile. He was thinking about kissing her again. Then her words finally caught up with him and he decided not to make an ass of himself.
"He strangled me with it,” she whispered. Astarion hadn’t noticed the ligature marks until now—a necklace of abrasions and bruises turning a sickly green-yellow. The same color as the bruises on his hand she fled from, the night they met. He intertwined their fingers, tired of waiting. "And he stabbed you.” Not a question, just the fact.
"Yes. And that lieutenant, I believe you labeled him garlic-scented? I know him—well I’ve seen him before. He was at the archives when I was looking for articles on Lord Cazador Szarr.”
Astarion’s body seized. His grip tightened instantly, threatening to crush the small bones of her hand. The wine and the blood high evaporated. "Why?” The word tore out of him, jagged and sharp. She stopped talking, blinking at his sudden intensity. He realized his mistake instantly. He forced his hand to relax, forced the terror back down. He smoothed his expression into something resembling boredom.
"Why what?” she asked, confused.
She couldn't know. He couldn’t physically tell her his Master’s name, and he didn’t want her involved in that side of his business. Master would see her as useful. He would either exploit her and when he was done drain her to a husk, or she would likely become Astarion’s next sibling.
"Why were you researching him?” He waved his free hand dismissively, aiming for nonchalance and landing somewhere near disdain. "He’s just a reclusive, pretentious philanthropist. A bore, really. Honestly, I don’t know how the Upper City stomachs him.”
She couldn’t tell him Cazador was the one requesting the infernal manuscripts to be refurbished. She wanted to. She did. Against work confidentiality she wanted to tell him. After all, he asked Aurelia to help translate. Astarion had his own problems and burdens to bear, she didn’t want to add another. Despite whatever it was that was forming between them she lied. "Elso... he wanted to donate to one of the charities Szarr supports.”
Astarion’s eyes closed—lids twitching—nose wrinkled. He tucked his upper lip tightly over his teeth, hiding the involuntary sharpening of his fangs as he fought the urge to snarl at the mere mention of the man who owned him. "Yes, of course. What a benevolent lord.”
"So,” she continued, quickly shifting away from the topic. "That lieutenant told me his name—well he could have lied I suppose—Tahrin.”
"He struck Rashid with a brick and I think—think he carried me to The Temple of Ilmater?”
Astarion’s brow arched. "Oh? The betrayal.” He thought back to the night Rashid and Tahrin came to the palace. The mannerism of the lieutenant, he did seem annoyed by his commander's questioning. "He incidentally saved you by proxy? Why?”
She shook her head, shrugged her shoulders. Gerald was still swaying with an invisible partner around the loft. Gentle patterns of bony feet on the hardwood. Truthfully, she didn’t know why Tahrin saved her. "He said a friend of the family says hello.” She looked at Astarion. "My family doesn’t have any friends. I told you how my mother died. It was only my father and me.”
"Your father, is he alive?”
"Honestly, I don’t know. It was his plan to smuggle me out, set our spire on fire. I haven’t seen my father in ten years.”
Astarion remembered the night he snooped around the loft. The night she fell asleep in that overstuffed chair. He had stayed on the floor, hand laced with hers. But his curiosity had gotten the best of him. That grimoire, the one with the scripture. "Why didn’t you tell me your name was Shelmazra?”
Gerald stopped his quiet waltz, his hollow sockets darted to them. Astarion felt it then, watched the shift in her. A stillness he’d never seen in her and a darkness that seemed to swirl in those grey irises. She withdrew her hand, roughly. "You—how did you—” Astarion stood, rounded the divan to the bedroom quarter and withdrew the grimoire above her writing desk. He strode back—tossed the grimoire onto the low table—watched her flinch. "Yes, I snooped. You let me in, what did you expect?”
Shelly glowered at him, the cornered animal in their dynamic for the first time. Her entire facade was to be nobody. To be anyone other than that name and the terrible and horrible things it instilled in people thousands of miles away. His expression was open, he was giving her a chance. She could see it. This man—elf—vampire—whatever, was giving her the lifeline to bridge them. Astarion’s lips curled, the porcelain white of a fang bared just enough to catch the low candlelight as his voice lilted. "No more secrets, darling. Time to start talking.”
"That was my name. Shelmazra Morcineth. I’m not her, not anymore. That part of me is dead. I rebuke it. I don’t know who I am anymore, and that’s fine.”
He considered her words, lifted the book and sat next to her, with their hips touching. He crossed an ankle over his leg. "Tell me who she was. I want to know.”
"Why?”
"Because I want to know you. And because then we can mourn her death together.”
"You want to know me?” Shelly asked, her mouth hanging slightly open in disbelief. "Why?”
Astarion rolled his eyes, leaning back against the cushions with exaggerated exhaustion. "Oh, you're right. I have so much else going on—what with the enthrallment, the eternal enslavement, the bustling social calendar of rats and bodies. Honestly, now that you mention it, I simply don't have the time.”
She shoved his shoulder—half-playful, half-annoyed.
He smirked, catching her hand before she could pull it away.
"You’re such an ass,” she muttered, but the smile was already tugging at the corners of her mouth. He leaned into her. “Tell me. I’ve nothing better to do.”
“It’s a long story.”
“Good thing I have such a long, eternal lifespan.”
Shelly tucked her legs under her—against his thigh—and settled in for the long haul. “Shelmazra Morcineth,” she began. “ Born 1458 in the district of Bezantur. She was the daughter of—”
Astarion groaned, though his thumb continued to stroke the back of her hand. “Oh, gods. Are you going to regale this entire tale in the third person? It’s like listening to a history lecture.” Shelly blinked, caught off guard. “I told you, she’s dead. It feels weird to say ‘I’.”
“Humor me,” he murmured, resting his cheek on her shoulder. “Pretend you’re a ghost story. I like those.”
She let out a soft huff of laughter, the tension breaking one last time. “Fine,” she whispered. “I was born in Bezantur…”
Shelly told him everything.
She didn't start with politics or the Red Wizards. She started with the smell of burning refuse from in her spire and the cold, biting wind off the Alamber Sea.
She told him about the Black Keep—not as a military fortress, but as a cage. She spoke of the aviaries filled with screeching griffons and darkenbeasts, the noise so loud it rattled the windows of the spire where she lived. She told him about Valeth, her father, a man who had replaced his own father on the Council of Zulkirs, spending his fortune and his soul trying to research a cure for the rot living in his daughter’s blood. How Valeth— who survived the faction divide and Szass Tam’s purge—was still useful enough to keep amongst the Red Wizards.
Astarion listened. He didn't interrupt with witty quips or sarcastic deflections. He sat beside her on the divan, his hip pressed solidly against hers, a grounding weight in the drifting loft. His hand had started to make aimless passes through her hair. "I didn't have friends," she murmured, her voice growing heavy as the adrenaline crash finally hit her. "The other children were afraid of the blight. So I spent my time with the orderlies." She paused, picking at a loose thread on the cushion. "They were undead. Zombies and ghouls mostly. They were... quiet. They didn't judge."
Astarion’s hand stilled in her hair. He didn't say anything, but he leaned in closer, his chin resting on top of her head. She told him about Bezantur—The City of a Thousand Temples, recounting the endless pilgrimage from shrine to shrine—Cyric, Beshaba, Talos—begging gods who didn't care to fix a girl who was broken by design.
The candles drowned in their own wax, shadows stretching across the floor like grasping fingers. Gerald had stopped his swaying and stood like a sentinel in the corner, watching over the strange tableau. Eventually, the words slowed. Astarion’s doublet was hung over a stool. The wine bottle was empty, and the gap between them had vanished entirely. Shelly’s head was heavy on his shoulder, her breathing evened out into the rhythm of exhaustion.
"He tried," she whispered, the words slurring slightly. "My father tried so hard."
"I know," Astarion whispered back, his voice soft, stripped of all its usual affectation. “And the lich?”
Shelly stiffened slightly against him, but she didn't pull away. She told him about the trip to Thaymount when she was thirteen—how Valeth, desperate and out of options, had taken her to the one being powerful enough to fix her. She spoke of the Citadel, and of Ravensblood Academy deep in the dungeons, where Szass Tam collected "promising" necromancers like rare insects.
"He took me under his wing," she murmured, her eyes finally fluttering shut as the memory surfaced. "He said I was special. That's always how it starts, isn't it? Being special."
She pulled back slightly, just enough to look at the bookshelves, unable to meet Astarion's eyes for this part. "He didn't just teach me magic, Astarion. He groomed me. He took that scared, tainted little girl and gave her a purpose. I became ambitious. I wanted to serve him. I wanted to please him so badly it burned."
Her voice dropped to a whisper, cold and detached, listing the sins like items on a ledger. "I didn't just study in a library. I worked in the flesh labs. I harvested organs—fresh ones—for the trade. I stitched corpses together, threading muscle and sinew to raise soldiers for his Dread Legions." She swallowed hard. "I killed for him. Families. Children. I wiped out entire bloodlines because he asked me to, and I did it with a smile because I wanted him to be proud of me." She finally looked at him, bracing herself for the disgust, for him to recoil from the butcher she actually was. "I wasn't a slave. I was a willing apprentice. That's the truth I can't cut out."
Astarion didn't recoil. He didn't even blink. He looked at her not with judgment, but with a profound, terrifying recognition. He knew exactly what it was like to be twisted by a master until you couldn't tell where their commands ended and your own desires began. He knew the seduction of being "special" to a monster.
"He made you a weapon," Astarion said quietly, his thumb brushing the tear track on her cheek. "Weapons don't get to choose their targets. And they certainly don't get to choose if they enjoy being sharp." He pulled her back down to his shoulder, his grip tighter this time. "You were a child, Shelly. And you survived."
“I didn’t survive. I died the moment I finally started to live. In my twenty-second year, he sent me to the wastelands. And I met someone—someone who changed everything.”
Ah, this. The lover. “What was his name? The one you killed,” he whispered.
“Kethril.”
She told him about the wastelands—the year-long campaign near Aglarond, holding the line against enemies she barely remembered now. She told him about the cavalry commander’s unit she’d been assigned to. Bronze skin, a cowlick that wouldn't obey, and eyes like honey held up to lamplight. "He was the first person to touch me without gloves," she whispered. "The first person who wasn't afraid of what I might do to him."
"When we got back to Bezantur, he asked for my hand. We were going to leave Thay together. Start over somewhere. Kethril didn’t want Szass to control me anymore. A few nights before the wedding, he came to bed late. He'd been speaking with Szass Tam about something—I never found out what." Her voice went flat. "That night, I lost control. We were—" She stopped. Swallowed. "I was underneath him. And I felt my magic rip out of me. I couldn't stop it. I couldn't… I was trapped under his body while he disintegrated… I couldn’t get free—couldn’t help—couldn’t stop it—couldn’t bring him back.”
Astarion was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was barely audible. "That night downstairs…in the shop. When we—" He gulped. When we had sex. "I wasn't there. That night with you—I thought maybe it would be different. I thought if I chose it, if I wanted it, I might actually feel something." He laughed, but it was hollow. "I was counting water stains on the ceiling before I even had your skirt up. And then you screamed." His hand tightened on hers. "And I was back. All at once. No warning. Just—present. In my body. In that room. With you crying underneath me."
"I haven't been able to check out since." His voice was raw. "Whatever we did—whatever your scream broke—it's gone. I'm here now. For everything. Every touch. Every..." He trailed off. "It's terrifying."
They sat in the silence, her confession and his tangled together like the roots of the same poisoned tree.
"So," she whispered finally. "I killed the only person who touched me without fear. And you—"
"I've been touched by hundreds of people and hardly felt any of it." He finished the thought for her. "We're quite the pair."
Neither of them moved. The candles had long since guttered out. Gerald sat motionless in the corner, a silent witness to the ghosts they'd finally named. Somewhere in the telling, her hand had found his shoulder. Neither of them let go. "They ruled it accidental. Szass Tam and the Zulkirs—they covered it up. But Kethril had a brother, Rashid. He didn't believe them. Promised vengeance."
Now he understood. And he hated that he understood. He hated that he was nestled with her on this tufted divan, in this small loft, on the first night of his freedom—nine more precious nights he had before the leash snapped back. And he didn’t want to leave.
“You should sleep… we can talk more tomorrow.”
"Stay," she whispered, the word barely audible. It wasn't a question. He didn't answer. He didn't need to.
"You smell nice," she mumbled, her words thick with sleep. Her pinky finger hooked around his—a tiny, fragile anchor that held him fast. "Bergamot... rosemary... brandywine…the grave."
"You're delirious," he whispered, though he didn't pull his hand away. The corner of his mouth pulled tight into a smile, the sharp point of a fang grazing his own lip. He kissed her neck.
"Mmm. Nice." Her breathing evened out, a rhythmic, fragile sound that his ears picked up with agonizing clarity. He stared at the pulse jumping in her neck. It was right there. A heavy, rhythmic thrumming of life. His stomach gave a traitorous lurch—the hunger never truly slept—and for a second, he imagined it. Not violently—never—never violent with her. Just a gentle pressure, then a quick pop. He couldn’t of course. But what if she made a cut? A small offering. If she offered... maybe? Stop it, he hissed at himself.
The precepts didn't waver. Thou shalt not drink the blood of thinking creatures. Master’s rules were etched into his being. He thought about the taste. Euphoric and delicious as she was, there was something humming under the notes of her claret. Probably that damn blight, it was quite tangy. With a sigh that rattled in his chest, Astarion maneuvered just enough to kick off his boots. They hit the floor with a dull thud. He was staying—he’d already decided—long before she asked—long before he left the palace. He pulled her flush against him, against his chest, molding his ambient stillness around her feverish warmth. He shifted them back against the headrest of the divan—careful of her healing wound—but close.
"You smell good, too," he murmured into the curve of her neck, his nose brushing the soft skin below her ear. Shelly shifted, against the stillness of his chest, and Astarion let out a sound—a low, rumbling vibration in his chest. It wasn't a growl. It was something softer, something that belonged to a creature who'd forgotten what comfort felt like until this exact moment. If she brought it up tomorrow, he would deny it to the hells and back. He would claim it was a draft, or the floorboards, or Gerald. He buried his face close to hers, closing his eyes. But the darkness behind his eyelids wasn't done with him yet. It was filled with math. Nine nights.
He had nine nights of this—of warmth, of vanilla, of being "Astarion" instead of "Boy." And then what? The thought made his dead heart clench. He had to go back. He had to return to the palace, to the work. Before the Bindery—before her—he had survived the work by leaving his body. He would drift away to the ceiling, counting cracks, counting water stains, letting the clients use the meat while he went somewhere safe. But he couldn't do that anymore. Her scream had shattered the glass wall he lived behind. He was stuck here now. How was he supposed to let a stranger touch him in ten nights? How was he supposed to fake desire for some sweaty merchant? It was going to destroy him. Don't think about it, he told himself, tightening his arm around her waist. Focus on this instead. He didn’t trance right away. Instead, he held vigil.
Outside, the city slept, indifferent to the monsters who had finally stopped hiding from each other. Inside, these two people who had spent their lives learning to be alone discovered they didn't have to be. At least not tonight.
