The Golden Boy

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! 💞

Hunger, Heat and Hallucinations

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.

Read it here or on AO3.

Hunger, Heat and Hallucinations

Chapter 4 – Tav

Talven.

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.

Awww.

Hunger, Heat and Hallucinations

Chapter 3 – Astarion

The good news is that Astarion’s charming, but alarmingly frail and undeniably weird new friend can, in fact, handle himself in a fight, despite his near-sighted, sun-struck squinting and his tendency to faint. He’s also decent at staying unseen and unheard, even without his magical cloak. They had no trouble sneaking up on the congregation of four-legged brains inside the disemboweled mind flayer ship. Even with Astarion to assist Talven’s aiming, his fire spell missed—but ended up turning the lot of the monsters to ash by hitting some flammable spillage instead. Pure luck, obviously. But then he managed to smack one of the grotesque little beasts so hard with his staff that it took to the air. Which happened to save Astarion from getting clawed, or bitten, or worse, as he stood defenseless, having already knocked an arrow. He proceeded to shoot the thing mid-flight, entirely deserving of his friend’s compliments and awe, but it had been a close thing.

Hunger, Heat and Hallucinations

Chapter 2 – Tav

I have such a headache.

It pounds against his skull like a hatchlighg breaking out of an eggshell. The world is distant and muted, bleached to near-nothingness by the cursed sun, and Tav walks around it as if through a strange dream where every heartbeat is ringing agony.

In the dream, his pale friend offers a hand to help him back on his feet. His pale friend who almost cut his throat open, thinking him an enemy. His pale friend who, it turns out, is not a vampire; he cannot be. His pale friend who got snatched by the mind flayers because of him. Or was it the other way around?

Oh, I can’t think.

Hunger, Heat and Hallucinations

Chapter 1 – Astarion

What a fool he was. He thought… he thought he’d seen “his friend” disintegrate when one of the tentacles touched him. But it must have been trickery. Because here he is, this “Talven” or whatever his real name is, running around the bowels of the mind flayer ship like he owns the place, opening pods and operating all sorts of alien machinery, complete with a pair of well-armed friends and one of those brain things following suite.

Astarion should’ve known better than to meddle with a sorcerer, and a drow to boot. Talven must’ve used a spell to charm him, the bastard. Seduce him, and lure him here, as food for his Ilithid masters! Hmpf. If he weren’t furious, he might laugh at the irony. And to think, he was about to let him go! Because Talven had been so sweet. Astarion cried out in genuine anguish, thinking him dead. Not to mention the other genuine feelings he’d had while Talven held him. Ugh. He should’ve known that nothing that good could possibly be true. Gods, he feels sick.