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Z’aemarin does not sleep well the night after they infiltrate the Szarr Palace. Startling out of her trance midway through night shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it does. Insomnia since the nautiloid has been an old friend, the inability to settle with thoughts and memories that weren’t your own swirling around your head as you tried to rest for the night. But after waves of werewolves and bats, Cazador Szarr and the fate of seven-thousand souls weighing down your hands, she expects trancing to come easy.
But nothing really has, since the nautiloid. On par for the course, really.
It doesn’t help that the unpleasant taste of stale alcohol lingers on the back of her tongue, and the way her skin still itches and tingles from where they had spent the majority of the battle with Cazador bathed in a sphere of daylight.
The latter hadn’t been avoidable, not really; her discomfort in bright light paled in comparison to the hypersensitivity a normal vampire possessed, and not taking an advantage over Cazador would have been a reckless miscalculation. One chance to stop the ritual. One chance to ensure Astarion’s safety. And Z’aemarin could have found a spot where Shadowheart’s spell hadn’t reached, but she’d had other things on her mind, like watching Astarion sneak in from the stairs once they had had Cazador distracted, and then the taste of tin in her mouth as she’d woken up face-down in a pool of blood and monster carcasses, the hum of revival magic still pulsing thick through her veins.
The former, though, bordering on a hangover with the gentle roil of nausea becoming apparent in her belly, had been an entirely-by-choice thing. Staggering back to the Inn, both her and Astarion covered in their own blood (she hadn’t seen him go down, a terrifying ordeal lost in the moments of her own consciousness being somewhere else) had been the only course of action after leaving the palace. Rest had been the only course of action. Rest, cleaning up, getting some food and wine into all of their bellies. Heavy on the wine. She’s had a particular fondness for Frostkiss Ale and a few bottles stored away in the cabinet at the inn for special occasions, and releasing one of their friends from his former master was a special occasion if they’d ever had one. So, she’d broken out the ale, and Astarion had predictably sank into the red, while the rest of the friends had grabbed their own cups and toasted a fight well done.
A short rest had been rejuvenating, giving them just enough wind back in their sails to squirrel out the rest of their good stock for a catered celebration. Lots of cooked meats and expensive fruits from downstairs. Cheersing to the defeat of a vampire lord. Karlach had swept Astarion up in her arms and spun him around saying how proud she was of him, while Astarion had bemoaned his injuries and her sentimentalism with a hectic blush high on his pale cheeks. Z’aemarin had watched all of this with pride in her veins, relief for something finally going right for their friend, and had eventually found her way to her bed once the exhaustion and drink had started kicking in.
She’d expected to sleep it off. But now her trance is cut short and she won’t be getting back to it until the churning in her gut settles down a little bit, so… she creeps out of their room, heading to the dumbwaiter in hopes of getting them to send up something more hydrating than what’s left in the bottom of the bottles spread along the conversation pit. The glance as she passes Astarion’s chosen bed is reflexive, same as has become habit for any of their companions, and she pauses when she finds it empty.
So, she’s not the only one not sleeping, then.
The rest of their rooms are quiet, though. Everyone else is fast asleep, in varying parts of the rooms, after their impromptu celebration, true, but no Astarion as Z’aemarin pours herself a glass of tepid water. That in itself isn’t usually worrying. It’s been a long time since she’s worried about Astarion missing in the dead of night. A few times after finding out about his vampirism, but he was more than capable and gods knew he enjoyed his privacy and distance. She would usually just roll over and fall back into trance without giving more than a cursory glance around camp. But it’s different tonight, after Cazador. And she’s awake, now, too, so Z’aemarin goes looking.
Downstairs is a non-starter, with the press of drunken raucousness that they could achieve well enough in their room. No, if Astarion was looking for drink, there’s plenty here. And if he’s looking for– the other kind of drink, well, she probably isn’t going to find him tonight but she’s still going to try. A quick glance across the hall, into the room that they never use, unsurprisingly finds nothing but cobwebs and dried bloodstains. So, with the fatigue of a day of hard fights and little rest shaking her bones, Z’aemarin grasps a rung of the ladder, and starts to climb to the roof.
Part of her doesn’t expect to find him there, either, but he is. It takes a second to notice him, like it always does, the way he always wants, but the moon is full and it throws into relief the sharp angles of his body leaning against the balustrade and illuminates the shock of his white hair like a beacon. The night is dark, but there are no shadows to sink away into right now.
Astarion lifts his head, and glances over his shoulder towards her. “Ah. And here I thought I was the one who should be plagued by nightmares tonight.” His tone is sarcastic, but light, and he doesn’t move from where he is nestled in between all of the things Alfira leaves gathering, expertly avoiding disturbing any of them. So, Z’aemarin takes that as permission, tacit agreement to companionship rather than the urge to turn away and tuck himself into his own darkness.
She quietly closes the hatch, and crosses the roof. Her bare feet are nearly silent against the stone, and the wind whips a cool, if not slightly sour, breeze through her hair. She stops at the balustrade, and Astarion continues,
“I knew it was you, of course. I could smell you before you climbed the ladder, not to mention everything else. Being a rogue would be wasted on you, darling,” he says, flashing her a glance that would maybe be not quite playful but not quite not, either, under normal circumstances. But these aren’t normal circumstances.
“A good thing my talents are of a more arcane nature, then,” she says lightly, and watches him instead of the quiet city below.
“Yes, something like that,” he hums.
The city is quiet. Astarion is more quiet than usual, too, contemplative rather than coy. Z’aemarin looks at him, and looks at the streets, and asks a question she normally wouldn’t ask him because he never takes to it well. “Are you okay?”
The line of his body tenses. Sharper and sharper, like the points of his teeth and the dagger from Cazador’s palace. And then it relaxes again, as he rests his elbows on the concrete. “… yes,” he says slowly, like he’s trying to decide the answer himself. “I think so.” And then, slightly more exasperated, slightly more vocal, “well, I don’t know. This is all so– unknown. Like I said, it’s thrilling and terrifying and I can’t– settle. I just… needed some air.”
Z’aemarin nods. She knows the feeling. Stealing away from the group after particularly hard-fought days, grappling with panic beneath the trees of a camp with only a handful of untrustworthy companions and the new tadpole for company. The feeling of water over her toes when standing at the river’s edge, silence and The Emperor pressing in on her from all sides. Most of this journey has been one big moment of needing some air. It’s not very often they actually get time to do that, though.
“I mean, it should feel nice,” Astarion continues. “It does feel nice. It feels… I don’t know,” he repeats. His body slumps slightly, and then tenses again, like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t. But he doesn’t straighten back up regardless. “It feels like… that this can’t be real. That he’s going to show back up when I least expect it, that all of this will be for naught, that I’m just still– part of his grand plan, but, like before, I just don’t know it yet. I don’t like knowing things. And I hate being used.”
She wonders if this is what they’ll all feel like, once they’re free of their tadpoles. If their days and weeks following will be wondering if they’re really free of that influence. Waiting for a voice in their heads that will never come again. It’s not too close of a comparison to what Astarion’s going through, but… not many situations can compare to what the spawn have been through with Cazador.
“He’s dead, Astarion,” she says softly. Much more softly than she would any other time. Their friendship is complicated. It has been from the start. He’s not like Karlach, or Gale, or even Shadowheart, and finding common ground is still a complicated thing. But Z’aemarin knows the most tolerated way to express concern to him is through tough love and more sarcasm than what most people who were hurting would want to hear.
But she had seen him break, after Cazador. She had seen the tears and the blood on his face as he’d staggered to his feet to take the staff that would seal the fates of seven thousand, and the look on his face as he’d looked to her for guidance. She doesn’t think she’s going to forget that look.
So, for now, she gives him the comfort he doesn’t think he wants. The reassurance he doesn’t think he needs. “He isn’t coming back this time.”
“I know,” Astarion replies impatiently. “I killed him. I held the blade in my hand. I tasted his blood on my teeth. I know he’s dead. But… I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that it’s over, despite that.”
She’s going to do something she’d normally never think of doing. But it’s late, she’s tired and more than a little hungover, and Astarion’s emotions are as messy as the rest of them, right now. She holds up her hand. “Can I touch you?”
He stiffens, and turns to look at her with a genuinely unimpressed glance that hides something she knows she isn’t meant to see. It’s the closest thing Astarion gets to fear-adjacent, that look in his eyes. But that’s why she’s asking. “If you’re looking to seduce me, now is really not the time,” he retorts.
Of course that’s his first line of thought. “I’m not trying to seduce you,” she says patiently, more patiently than the pounding in her head wants to be.
“I’m not Gale, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“I know you’re not Gale,” Z’aemarin says, and doesn’t lower her hand. That’s why I’m asking, she thinks, but does not project.
He looks at her hand. Looks at her. And then shrugs the shoulder closest to her, looking out across the city again.
“That’s not an answer, Astarion.”
“Fine,” he says, exasperated. “There. Verbal consent. Are you happy now?”
Not really. She’d prefer something more concrete, one way or the other, but ’fine’ is, well… fine, for right now. It’s good enough for what she wants to do, which isn’t trying to seduce him.
She lifts that hand, and cautiously places it on his shoulder.
It’s sad, how even more startled he looks by the touch. Like he had expected her to actually try and seduce him, like laying hands on him could not be anything meant as casual, comforting touch. Cazador’s influence still, that has him strung up tighter than the string on his bow. It will take a long time before that goes away, too, but– barring the Elder Brain taking over Baldur’s Gate or their looming ceremorphosis– it is something Astarion will now have the freedom to work on. With or without their help, but that’s up to him as well.
Astarion glances at her hand from the corner of his eye. Then at her, all without moving a fraction of an inch. “… sorry, is that supposed to help something?”
Z’aemarin laughs before she can stop herself, a noise that cuts the silence of the night and makes the pounding in her head ache harder. She squeezes his shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe, sometimes.”
He makes a noise that might be a laugh in his own way– barely more than a puff of air through his nose– but the tension in his body loosens, even if just slightly, and he looks back ahead. “Well. I said it before, but… thank you. Stumbling attempts at comfort aside,” he adds, and now his lips twitch in a half of a sly smile. “I… appreciate what you’ve done for me today. And I’m probably never going to be so sentimental ever again, so, take it while you can have it. Gods know I can’t stay like this forever.”
“Like what? Open?” she presses, leaning back into the teasing they’re used to. “Vulnerable?”
He shudders. “Ugh. Please. If you’re going to talk like that, you can just go back to bed.”
She chuckles, squeezes his shoulder again, and pulls away. “I would if I could. If my guts ever stop churning.”
“Darling, we have got to work on your alcohol tolerance.” He straightens up, and surprises her by herding her away from the balustrade. “If you’re going to take a flying leap off the rooftop, I’d rather it not be inadvertently because of me. I’ve got enough lives on my hands as it is.”
She hums, and lets herself be guided back towards the mass of pillows and empty bottles littering the roof. She and Gale come up here to stargaze a lot, tucked into one another and the coziest of blankets in the cold night. Gods, she could use that now. She is suddenly so tired, now that she knows Astarion is– as good as he’s probably going to get right now. “We’ll help them, Astarion,” she promises, folding herself down into the pillows to rest a moment. “After… well, the Underdark is home. I’ll do what I can.”
“I know.” He surprises her by sitting down, legs crossed, next to her. “It isn’t your responsibility. But I’ll be– doing… something… about it. After… Gods, the sheer amount of them. The sheer amount of blood it would take to sate the hunger after all these years. I can’t imagine he kept them fed more than was necessary to keep them alive. I don’t envy them the learning curve on their own.”
Her thoughts had been lingering on the ruthlessness of the Underdark, her kin and the duergar awaiting the spawn in her home. But the inevitability of fate is waylaid by the mention of blood, and the memory of the look in Astarion’s eyes when he had been surrounded on all sides by it when they had been in the palace crypt. She looks at him, and tugs the collar of her tunic away from her throat. “Do you need blood?”
“Oh!” He looks surprised, and then grins. “Well, always, darling. But I’m not sure you’re up to it right now.”
“I’m up to it,” she retorts, hears the tired petulance in her own voice and sees the amusement creep into his eyes.
“I’m not sure you…” he trails off, shrugs, and shuffles to get in a better position. “If you say so, who am I to argue?” He clasps his hand to the other side of her neck and Z’aemarin tips into it, a cool and familiar position by now. His teeth slip into her like butter, and she feels herself melting into his touch.
Her thoughts drift. To Cazador, to the spawn, to the cold trickling through her veins. To the fact that Astarion was probably right about her giving him blood in this moment, to the way her gut clenches around nothing and for a horrifying moment, she thinks she might vomit over the both of them. But then the spinning shifts to her head, hot and heavy like his mouth above her pulse. Her consciousness drifts, blissful darkness finally awaiting her on the other side.
When she comes to, she is still sprawled amongst the pillows, the night air tickling the tips of her ears. One of the tatty blankets is thrown halfhearted over her, and when she gingerly reaches to the two throbbing points in her neck, finds it expertly bandaged like always. As she sits up, the hatch creaks open.
Gale’s hair is sleep-tousled as he peeks across the roof, squinting through the dark. The moon is nowhere in sight, and the gloom must be nearly impossible to penetrate. Groggily, Z’aemarin sends a smattering of Dancing Lights to the far corners of the roof, bathing them in just enough light for Gale to be able to see.
“Zae, my love?” He crawls the rest of the way out of the hatch, stumbling over to her. His hair is a mess, his shirt tousled. He’d clearly been asleep. “What are you doing up here?” he asks, crouching next to her.
“I was…” Her mouth tastes like copper. Her head still feels full of cotton. She touches the bandage on her neck, and looks around for Astarion. He’s nowhere to be seen, but that’s alright. She isn’t worried. “Astarion needed blood and I… I think I was too willing.”
“Ah.” Gale hums, slipping his palm beneath her elbow to help her up. “That would explain a few of the dreams I thought I was having.” And then, a little louder, “come on, up you get.” He helps her up, even as she wobbles like a foal on newborn legs. “It wouldn’t be the first time us wizards have given too much of ourselves. Let’s head back downstairs, and get you straight back to bed. You’ve had quite the day.”
The blood loss seems to have overridden the hangover, at least. Or maybe it was the impromptu bout of unconsciousness, she doesn’t know. Either way, she thinks trancing might come easier, tucked up safe back in her bed.
“It’s been quite a day,” she agrees.
Gale kisses her temple and wraps his arm around her shoulders, urging her back towards the ladder. Z’aemarin nestles in, as Gale rubs her arm and gives it a gentle squeeze. Calm. Comforting.
She smiles, and allows herself to be guided back to their awaiting beds.