Chapter 2
Again, Tav can’t sleep. Anxious thoughts assail him from every corner of his mind like hounds on a bloodtrail. In his growingly desperate attempts to find something nice to focus on, or at least something boring, he goes all the way back to the mage hand exercises the withered old bitch, his grandmother, forced him to do day in and day out while all the other boys were out smacking straw-man targets with practice swords and learning to string a bow. She would spill a cup of rice on a thick carpet and then doze off, work on her writings, or go do her errands while Tav painstakingly collected it, grain by fucking grain, with the fucking mage hand. He couldn’t cheat and use his actual fingers even when she wasn’t around, because she tied him to the chair. He remembers, once she left him for what must’ve been half a day or more. His legs went to a sleep so deep he was unable to wriggle his toes. But that was hardly the worst of it. He held his water till the urge to pee turned to stabbing pains and then he could hold it no longer.
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Chapter 1
When neither Shadowheart’s magic nor three cups of coffee and an extra portion of gruel render Tav capable of gripping his staff convincingly, he’s summarily voted out of the away party. He watches them prepare to head out west towards the abandoned village, absently feeling the fresh puncture wounds on his neck. As he and Astarion are the only ones with the skills to pry open locks, disarm traps, and spot hidden things, Astarion is obliged to go, and he’s none too happy about it, although the others accepted the revelation of his… affliction… with far more grace than Tav had dared hope. With his expressive brow flattened in resignation and his chin held high, Astarion allows none of his anxiety to show. But Tav senses it nonetheless. Perhaps the others do too, thanks to the worms. Or perhaps he’s projecting his own worry. If things turn south, and he’s not there to make sure no undue harm comes to Astarion… will the others play fair? Or will they push him to take risks in their stead, seeing him as less important because he’s less… alive?
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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.”
“And would they be wrong, my dear?”
“Not about this drow, no.”
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Chapter 2: Astarion
Thank goodness, Talven didn’t die.
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?
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Chapter 1: Tav
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.
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