The third in my series of Baldur’s Gate 3 stories, First Bite is a retelling of a favorite scene with a unique twist.
“For goodness sake.” Sitting up, Astarion sways wildly. “You sound even more intoxicated than I feel. Here.” He produces a kerchief from his sleeve. “Press this to the wound.”
“Can’t. Too weak.”
“Oh, for the love of…”
Tav can barely feel the pressure, and no pain whatsoever. Sleep beckons.
“A-a-a.” Astarion slaps his cheek. “Don’t you dare go unconscious. If you die, the others will come at me with torches and pitchforks.”
“Tell them I asked for it.” Tav grins. “They’ll believe every perversion, coming from a drow.”
But it was a close thing. Astarion lost control. He lost himself in Talven’s blood. Gods below! It wasn’t enough for Cazador to pimp and torture him—nooo. He had to take this from him too. The one thing that might’ve made the centuries under his heel bearable. Blood of thinking creatures.
What a rush it’s been! He still feels it, hours later, coursing through him. His hands and feet are warm, his nose. Not as warm as healthy, living flesh, but, for the first time in two hundred years, not as cold as death. He’d give anything for a glance at the mirror just now. He thinks this may be… what a blush feels like. And the strange, giddy restlessness, this feeling that anything’s possible—he thinks that might be… optimism?
Tav would be sleepless even if not for the full moon intruding upon his darkness through the seams of the makeshift tent. Too much has happened too fast. The tensions in the Grove. The missing Archdruid. The bejeweled skeleton with the power to recall the souls from the beyond. Karlach and her engine, Wyll and his patron, Gale and his arcane hunger—it just doesn’t stop, day in and day out. Half-digested moments of terror and relief flit before his wide-open eyes like a waking dream. Too tired to will them shut, too tense to quiet his mind, he squirms in his bedroll, feeling every bump on the ground under it.
It’s only when he hears Astarion that he realizes he’s been waiting to hear him.
I commissioned one of my favorite artists, the amazing Joe Eason, to draw a portrait of Talven Vrinn, my character from Baldur’s Gate 3, and it’s spectacular. Just look at my Golden Boy. He’s a vision! 💞
Yay, I finished another fic for Baldur’s Gate 3! This one’s a direct sequel to A Godsdamn Kraken and the first featuring Astarion’s POV.
In a verse where Tav and Astarion met prior to the events of the game, had a wild adventure together and ended up kissing in a dark street corner, they now meet again in early Act 1, each carrying his own load of troubles and secrets.
He jerks and sits up, heart hammering away at some nightmare he’s already forgotten. Except for her voice. Talice. It was as if she’d whispered right in his ear. He feels the side of his face, like he might catch her breath on it still. Gods.
The fire has burnt to embers. Next to it, Gale lies with an arm under his head, snoring softly. It doesn’t look like Tav’s abrupt waking stirred Lae’zel either. But Astarion holds himself up on an elbow, watching him.
Tav rises gingerly and makes for the trees to relieve himself. Everything hurts. He’s well-used to hours of walking, but not in the sun, with a worm wriggling inside his brain, little to eat and nothing but the hard ground to rest on.
