clazberryk

[clazberryk]

I haven’t disappeared again I promise. At the end on June I got this gorgeous boy and he has taken up a lot of my time. He is called Merlin and to privilege of watching him grow and feel immense pride in knowing I am helping shape him into the best dog I possibly can is just nothing I have felt before for Amy animals. Do not get me wrong I adore my kitties but my heart is and always will be first and foremost a doggo mum.

Everyone I would like to introduce Merlin to you.

@roguishcat @lirotation @slothquisitor @loquaciousquark @shewhowas39 @asweetlovesong @nyx-knox @astarionancuntnin @preciouslittle-bhaalbabe

[clazberryk]

Where Fire Finds Shelter

The conclusion of An unfair hand has been dealt. Not the overall story Sometimes the unkown is safer, but just an unfair hand.

An Unfair hand has been dealt: Chapter 5: Where fire finds shelter:

They reached The Elfsong just before dusk, the tavern’s melancholic ballads drifting down from the upper rooms like ghosts trailing silk. Taveleigha leaned against them, unsteady but breathing—alive. Her hand trembled faintly as they guided her through the door, past the curious stares and hushed gasps. No one dared speak.

Inside their room, the familiar scent of lavender oil and old parchment clung to the corners. Taveleigha exhaled as though she’d been holding it since the Fugue Plane itself. They sat together on the edge of the bed, and for a long moment, there was only silence. Then she whispered, “He was waiting for me.” They didn’t ask who—her eyes answered. Ketheric’s name didn’t belong to the air, not yet.

The fire hadn’t yet caught when they stepped through the threshold of their rooms at The Elfsong. Shadows spilled into the sunken sitting area, all velvet and hush, as though the air itself knew to tread carefully. Taveleigha didn’t speak—she merely let herself be guided, each step deliberate, one foot still half in the Fugue Plane.

Halsin was already at the hearth. He crouched low, arranging kindling with meticulous patience. The fire took slowly, throwing its first tentative glow across the companions gathered in the soft dimness. His hands busied themselves with purpose, but his eyes flickered, just once, to Taveleigha—to be sure. To bear witness.

Every companion had come. Shadowheart sat stiff-backed, fingers laced so tightly her knuckles shone white. Wyll’s usual poise was gentled, gaze low. Gale stood slightly apart, as if afraid his magic might interfere with something fragile. Karlach’s armour clinked as she removed ti and sat only in her under armour shirt and leather trousers, arms crossed—her stillness the loudest sound. And Astarion… he didn’t sit. He stood behind the couch, too close, too protective, gaze fixed on Taveleigha like she might flicker out. His hand hovered above her shoulder and didn’t quite land, as if anchoring her with the sheer force of being near.

Taveleigha eased into the cushions, the weight of resurrection still dragging at her bones. She said nothing for a long while, listening instead to the fire’s rise, to the quiet breathing of those who waited—not for an explanation, but a space to hold it with her. "He was waiting for me—Ketheric. And it wasn’t a fight. Not at first. It was grief… shaped like him." Her voice cracked. "He accused me of not understanding his pain. But he had nothing left in him but rot and clinging."

No one interrupted.

Taveleigha sat low in one of the velvet couches, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around herself. She hadn't spoken since they'd returned—not really. Not about that. But now, as the warmth pressed against the silence, and Astarion hovered just behind her like a ghost too afraid to touch, she exhaled. She turned slightly, enough to meet Astarion’s eyes. "And then I remembered I wasn’t alone."

He knelt by her now, a sharpness in his features muted by something aching. She touched his fingers—just barely. He didn’t pull away. "I fought back because of you. All of you. But mostly…" Her voice softened to a thread. "I remembered what it felt like to be wanted again." Taveleigha sat forward, her elbows on her knees, eyes fixed on the fire as if she could conjure the ash and silence of that place just by staring hard enough. "It wasn’t death, not exactly," she began, voice barely above a whisper. "It was... absence. No pain. No form. Like I’d been unstitched from the world, one thread at a time, until I didn’t remember I’d ever mattered." She swallowed, lips twitching into something not quite a smile. "The Fugue Plane is cruel in a very precise way. It doesn’t torment you with memory. It makes you forget you were ever worth remembering."

Her fingers curled into her palms. "I followed these threads—memories, maybe. Fragments of you. Laughter. Firelight. A kiss. They’d appear, shimmer, then vanish just as I reached for them. Like the Plane was teasing me with everything I loved but wouldn't let me have it." She looked up now, eyes catching on each of them one by one. "And then... she came."

A beat.

"A reflection of me. Shar’s voice in my own mouth, wearing my face like a lesson. She said I was nothing without being needed. That my fire wasn’t power—just a tantrum. And Ketheric... gods, Ketheric was waiting. Not just the man. The echo. The wound. He knew every part of me that still bowed when no one was looking."

The fire crackled. No one moved.

"I broke there, for a while. Fully. But then I remembered something." She smiled, small and aching. "I’ve died before. And I rose then, too."

A quiet exhale. "I didn’t just fight him. I fought every version of me he tried to make. I spoke with the pieces of myself I hated the masks I wore to survive—rage, obedience, silence. I forgave them. I forgave me.” She leaned back, the couch creaking under her. “And when he said, ‘You’re mine,’ I realised the truth.” She looked to Astarion then, gaze warm but certain. “I’m not.”

The fire in the sunken lounge crackled gently, throwing light across tired faces and worn armour. Halsin tended the flames with ritual care, his broad back turned just enough to give her space, but not distance. The others were gathered—every companion, every thread of memory that had held her tethered when everything else unravelled.

Taveleigha sat low in one of the velvet couches, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around herself. She hadn't spoken since they'd returned—not really. Not about that. But now, as the warmth pressed against the silence, and Astarion hovered just behind her like a ghost too afraid to touch, she exhaled. "It wasn’t dying that hurt," she said, voice husky. "It was being forgotten. By everything. Even by myself."

Everyone stilled. Even the fire seemed to quiet for her. "The Fugue Plane is... unkind. Not cruel in the way most people think. It doesn’t punish. It erases. And the worst part?" She looked down at her hands. "It feels like you deserve it."

Lae’zel tilted her chin, unreadable. Shadowheart blinked too slowly.

"At first, it was just confusion. No sky, no ground, just this endless fog that didn’t care if I moved. Then came the threads. Little flashes—your voices, your laughter." She looked toward Karlach. "The sound of you yelling at me to eat more." Her lips twitched. "Gale muttering about poetry. Shadowheart's laugh. The smell of smoke clinging to Wyll’s cloak."

Her throat tightened. Astarion’s fingers ghosted just behind her shoulder.

"But every time I reached for them, they vanished. Like the Plane was saying, ‘No, you don’t get to have them back.’ And then I saw her—me. Sort of. Twisted by Shar’s voice, wearing my face. She told me I was made of other people’s light. That without it, I was nothing. That I’d break again."

Her voice cracked. She didn’t stop.

"And Ketheric was waiting too. Not his body. Not the man I defeated. Just the idea of him, sharpened into a blade. He didn’t need to hurt me. He just reminded me that I’d never outrun what he put in me. That everything I was still bowed to what he made me afraid to be."

Her knuckles whitened. Karlach shifted, muttering something under her breath, fierce and incoherent.

"I saw everything. Versions of me I’d buried. The obedient daughter. The burning fury. The hollow girl who kept smiling just so no one would leave. They asked me which one I’d be. Or if I’d just run again."

She looked around now meeting each gaze, steady and fierce.

"And for a moment, gods help me, I nearly ran. But I didn’t. Because I remembered..." Her voice softened. "I remembered that I’ve already died before. And I still rose."

No one breathed.

"I chose to look those parts in the eye and say, ‘You kept me alive. Thank you. But I get to be more now.’” Her shoulders squared as though something uncoiled inside her spine. "Then the Plane threw everything it had at me. Ketheric in his true form. Chains forged from every failure. Every shame. But I heard you—all of you. Not just in my head, but in my bones. And I answered. Not with hate. Not with rage. With truth."

Astarion sat beside her now, not touching—but closer than breath. His eyes were glassy.

"I didn’t win by destroying him. I won by surviving him."

A beat.

"And when he said I belonged to him, I realised—I never did. I just forgot I had the right to choose something else. So, I did. I chose me."

The fire let out a soft pop. For a moment, no one spoke.

Then Karlach gave a hoarse chuckle. “Gods, Tav. That’s... that’s real fire. Real bloody fire.” And her voice shook.

Astarion’s hand finally rested against hers, fingertips trembling. “You came back,” he murmured.

Taveleigha turned to him. “I came back because of you. All of you. But mostly…” she touched her chest, light catching against a lingering burn, “because I wanted to.”

The fire still burned, casting gold across Taveleigha’s face—but now it caught on glints of unshed tears in every eye around the room.

Karlach stood first. She crossed to Taveleigha with heavy, deliberate steps, metal joints whispering as she moved. Without a word, she unclipped the iron tooth pendant from around her neck—one she'd worn since the hells. She pressed it into Taveleigha’s palm and closed her fingers over it. “You don’t need fire, Tav,” she said, voice thick. “You are fire. I kept this to remember who I was. Now, I want you to have it—to remind you who you are.”

Shadowheart approached next, silently, her half-gloved hands cradling something soft—a length of moonlit ribbon, frayed at the edges. “From Selûne,” she said gently. “Or maybe just from me.” Her lips curled faintly. “You reached into your darkness. That deserves light.”

Gale followed, one hand cradling a glass vial filled with slow-turning starlight. “An arcane relic,” he murmured, “meant to store fragments of the Weave. But I’d rather it store something real.” He nodded toward her chest. “What you carry now—resilience, fire, truth—this deserves preservation.”

Wyll was quiet for a long moment before reaching into the pouch at his belt. He pulled out a folded, worn letter—creased at the corners. “My mother wrote this to me, years ago, when I first left home. I never showed it to anyone.” He hesitated, then handed it over. “Sometimes we need words that were meant for someone else… to find ourselves in them. I think she'd want you to have it now.”

Lae’zel came last from the periphery of the group. She held no gift. Just met Taveleigha’s eyes with unapologetic strength. “You fought your own Vlakkith and lived,” she said solemnly. “You are not soft. You are remade. I offer only this—when next you burn; let it be your choosing.”

Astarion stepped forward. He said nothing at first, only took her hands and turned them palm-up, studying the cracks and burns, the shiver beneath her skin.

“I was afraid,” he confessed, voice low, for her ears alone. “Terrified that you’d come back… shattered. Or worse—hollow.” He reached into his coat and brought out a scrap of parchment—her own handwriting. A note she once left him tucked inside a book, long ago. “You wrote this when you thought I wasn’t listening.” He laid it in her hand like an offering. “I read it more times than I’ll admit. It reminded me what love can do.”

Taveleigha stared at the bundle in her lap: iron, light, ink, memory.

All of them pieces of who she was.

And in this small room beneath the Elf song’s ghost-song, for the first time since she’d returned, she didn’t feel like a fracture. She felt... held.

The fire’s warmth lingered long after the conversation dissolved into silence, crackling softly like the room itself was exhaling. For a few moments, no one moved. The air felt sacred, held tight by the gravity of what Taveleigha had spoken.

Then, as if obeying some unspoken cue, the companions began to shift.

Karlach stood first, stretching until her spine popped. “Well,” she said with a sniff and a sharp exhale, “I think I saw a whole roast boar in the kitchen and it’s calling my name.” She clanked off toward the door, muttering about seasoning and firewood.

Shadowheart remained seated a beat longer, brushing her hands over her knees before rising. She didn’t look at Taveleigha again—but her touch landed feather-light on her shoulder as she passed. Then she disappeared into the side room, the sound of water running moments later hinting at her long-overdue bath ritual.

Wyll offered a bow, one hand over his heart. “Your fire's your own,” he murmured, then turned on his heel and headed toward the corner where his pack lay half-unrolled, pulling out a whetstone and a weather-worn dagger. The rhythmic scrape of blade on stone followed.

Gale fetched his satchel and began tugging books from it one by one, setting them in a careful row along the windowsill. A murmured incantation, a flick of the wrist—and one began to read aloud in a slow, baritone cadence as he sipped gently from a cup of steaming wine.

Lae’zel remained a moment longer than the rest, arms crossed. Then she inclined her head in what might’ve been deference—or respect—and retreated to her usual perch on the stairwell’s landing, sharpening her sword by moonlight.

Only Astarion remained. He hadn’t moved at all since placing that scrap of parchment in her hand.

Taveleigha shifted slightly on the couch, drawing her knees closer to her chest. She didn’t speak. Neither did he.

Instead, he lowered himself to sit beside her—close enough that their shoulders touched. His hand found hers and didn’t seek permission this time. He laced his fingers through hers slowly, then rested their entwined hands against her knee. “You don’t have to talk anymore,” he murmured, his voice stripped of its usual velvet edges. “Not tonight.”

She turned to look at him, lashes damp, eyes glassy but steady. “I know,” she said. Her voice was frayed ribbon. “But thank you for listening.”

He smiled faintly, the barest upturn of lips. “Always.”

The fire crackled again. Somewhere in the next room, Karlach laughed over something half-cooked. The tavern below murmured with muffled song. Blade met whetstone. Pages turned themselves. And in this quiet corner of a loud world, Taveleigha let herself lean sideways until her head rested against Astarion’s shoulder. He didn’t flinch. He only shifted slightly to support her.

The quiet wasn’t empty.

It was earned.

The fire was burning low, all crackle and ember now, its golden glow softening the edges of the room. Most of the others had retreated fully into their corners—Karlach already half-snoring on a pile of mismatched cushions, Gale sprawled in a heap of books, Shadowheart’s hair slicked and damp where she dozed near the hearth.

Taveleigha hadn’t spoken again. Her head still rested against Astarion’s shoulder, breath shallow but even, her fingers curled loosely in the folds of his shirt. He didn’t move—not yet. Just watched the rise and fall of her chest with a vigilance that bordered on reverence. Every so often he’d shift, ever so slightly, just to hear her exhale, just to feel the brush of her pulse against his arm. When she murmured something unintelligible in her sleep and burrowed closer, his brows drew together—but there was a softness in the gesture, a storm weathered and gone quiet. Only when her body fully relaxed, her limbs heavy with sleep, did he finally allow himself to breathe.

He adjusted her gently, one hand beneath her knees, the other supporting her back. She stirred—just barely—then stilled again, lips parting slightly with a sigh that ghosted against his collarbone. Astarion rose carefully, bearing her as if she were spun from glass. No flourish. No smirk. Just quiet devotion.

The room didn’t notice.

And that was a mercy.

He crossed the threshold into the communal chamber, the one they’d long since made theirs. The large, shared bed waited, tangled in linen and scent. He laid her down with painstaking care, pausing only to brush a soot-smudge from her cheek and tuck one unruly curl behind her ear.

She didn’t wake.

But she breathed.

And he watched her just a moment longer—until the world no longer felt like it might take her from him again.

Then, at last, Astarion slid in beside her, close but not clutching. One arm draped over her waist. One fingertip resting just above her heart. And in that stillness, with the dawn hours creeping soft through the tavern’s windows, they slept. Not as soldiers. Not as scars. But simply as two people who had chosen, again and again, to live.

The room was still.

Taveleigha’s breath rose and fell, soft and steady now, tucked against him beneath the weave-worn blankets. Her hair fanned across the pillow like spilled ink, lashes casting crescent shadows on her cheeks. She was warm. Real. And alive.

Astarion didn’t sleep, not yet. He couldn’t. Not while his heart, the echo of her heart still beat this loudly in his chest. Her Bloodsong making him feel alive again.

He studied the shape of her shoulder, the rise of her back beneath his arm, the small hitch in her sigh as she shifted slightly in her dream.

You came back.

Not just to him. Not just from death. But truly back. The fierce, bleeding, maddeningly brave woman who had once told him that she saw beyond what Cazador made of him. And now… he’d watched her do the same—for herself.

His thumb brushed the edge of her collarbone, slow and reverent.

“You shouldn’t have had to fight so hard,” he whispered, knowing she couldn’t hear him. “Not to prove you were yours. Not to claw yourself back from someone else's ruin.” He swallowed hard, blinking against the burn that prickled behind his eyes.

“You’re fire. But gods, Tavi... even flame needs somewhere safe to land.” Silence answered. The hush of the tavern at rest. The rhythm of her pulse beneath his palm. He tucked his chin closer to her hair, pressed a kiss there—so gentle it barely landed. “I will never be your forge,” he murmured. “But I will be your shelter. When you burn... I’ll hold what’s left. And when you don’t—when you're just you... I’ll still be here.” And then, finally, he let his eyes close—not in fear, but in awe.

Not guarding her.

But sleeping beside her.

Outside the tall windows of The Elfsong, the city slept beneath a velvet sky scattered with constellations. A breeze slipped through the gaps in the glass, carrying with it the scent of night-blooming flowers and distant riverbanks. It stirred the curtains gently, as if the world itself was exhaling alongside them.

Within the shared bed, Taveleigha slumbered, held close, safe, whole. Astarion had finally surrendered to rest as well, though even in sleep his arm remained curled around her, protective in the quiet way of someone who now understood what it meant to stay.

Above them, the stars bore silent witness. Not as omens. Not as gods.

Just as light.

Flickering and eternal.

And in the hush that followed pain and fire, in the space reclaimed after battle, the Weave itself seemed to pause... and simply listen.

To two hearts beating softly.

To what remains.

To what begins.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions ALL WELCOME!!! <3

No ppressure tags: @preciouslittlebhaalbae, @honeybee-bard, @whiskeyskin, @lanafofana, @hellethil, @rahuratna, @busy-baker, @dramatiquechipmunk, @nerdallwritey, @caffeinatedmunchkin, @deadly-diminuendo, @astarionancuntnin, @bloodinwine, @lirotation @slothquisitor @loquaciousquark @roguishcat @lirotation

[clazberryk]

For the wip ask game: Look i said i was sorry ❤️

Tavi and Astarion had a fight. Astarion apologises but he does not realise his words hurt. But Taveleigha does not believe his original apology. It was an automatic I’m sorry.

This is his petulant reply of well I said sorry when she approaches him one night around the camp fire when all the other companions have gone to bed. It’s during act 1 in the mountain path

[clazberryk]

I feel attacked 😳😳😳🫣🫣🫣🫣. Imma blame the Audhd 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Quiet Ways Your Character Is Hiding How Lonely They Are

» They fill every silence with noise. Music, podcasts, the TV left on in an empty room. Anything but the sound of their own thoughts. Because when it’s quiet, they remember how long it’s been since someone asked how they’re really doing.

» They say “I’m just busy” to explain why they’re always alone. Busy is a shield. Busy is respectable. Busy means you’re doing fine, right? Never mind that their calendar is full of things they don’t care about, or that they go entire days without a single real conversation.

» They become the "fun one" in every group. If they can keep everyone laughing, no one will ask what’s underneath. No one will notice they’re always the one texting first. The one who plans. The one who keeps the group chat alive like it’s the only pulse they’ve got.

» They talk about “being independent” like it’s a fucking badge, not a scar. They say they like doing things alone...that it’s freeing or empowering. But sometimes, halfway through dinner at the restaurant, they look up and feel the weight of every empty chair.

» They text people just to “check in.” They say it’s to be nice. To be thoughtful. But really, they’re hoping someone will take the hint. That someone will say, “Hey, how about you? Want to talk?” Most of the time, no one does.

» They overwork themselves until they’re too tired to feel. It’s not just ambition, It’s escape. If they stay busy enough, maybe they won’t have time to notice how long it’s been since they were hugged without having to ask for it.

» They laugh off affection like a joke. They make sarcastic comments when someone is kind to them. They brush off compliments. Because letting that warmth in, might break them open more than they can handle.

» They show up for everyone else, but never ask for help. They’re the one who listens. The one who drives across town at 2 a.m. But when they need someone? They go silent. Because needing things makes them feel like a burden and they’ve been dropped enough times to stop reaching.

» They start talking to themselves. Just comments under their breath. Conversations in their head that never make it out loud. Because at some point, they stopped expecting anyone to respond.

» They tell themselves this is just a phase. That they’re fine. That it’ll pass. That everyone feels like this sometimes. But they can’t remember the last time they felt truly seen, and they’re starting to forget what it felt like.

[clazberryk]

Hiiii! I want to know more about your WIP:

what can i say but I love you

The title is so charming 🩷

Hi thank you. It’s a little bit of a fluff piece. Taveleigha is struggling with everything that is going on with the brain gortash. Her learnings of who her sister is (no she is not Durge but she is an amnesiac).

And she goes on a massive rant and Astarion just simply goes what can I say but I love you. Which caused Tavi to burst out laughing and crying at the same time.

It’s more of a break of the tension with everything going on.

[clazberryk]

Astarion’s quotes that make my heart race!

Ok, maybe you’d expect something extremely romantic—but that’s not quite it. Or at least, not just that. There are moments when this vampire spawn truly drives me crazy—and not in a sexy way. Let’s just say that part is the cherry on top! But let’s not waste any more time…

"You deserve something real. I want us to become something real." Can we talk about this? This is the very first time Astarion truly opens up. Willingly. Officially. Even at the risk of being kicked out of the group, even at the risk of being told to fuck off—because yes, everything he did before was purely out of self-preservation. He used Tav/Durge and paid for the favor with his own body. And yet, he takes a risk. He puts everything on the line—even the very mechanisms that have protected him for centuries, allowing him to keep going without stopping, without thinking, without letting himself get emotionally involved. Because if he hadn’t dissociated, it would have hurt too much. But this time? He’s done pretending. This time, he really wants to try. He wants to take a chance—for the one person who managed to crack through his armor, who lowered his defenses. He wants to be real and experience something real, for the first time in over 200 years—with everything that comes with it. For someone who has always worn a mask, this is a massive, deeply important concept. Especially because, as I said, this confession goes against everything he’s ever believed—about love, about sex, about relationships. It goes beyond control. Beyond using emotions and feelings as weapons. Beyond self-preservation, which is what pushed him to act like a piece of shit so many times throughout Act 1. Here, Astarion takes a step away from selfishness and toward altruism—toward the other, beyond himself—and spits out the truth. He shows himself, stripped bare and flawed, and braces for the consequences. He takes responsibility for what he’s done. He makes himself vulnerable. And that’s an even more powerful, meaningful act when you remember just how hard that is for someone like him—someone who’s made fear his primary driving force for so long.

“This is a gift, you know. Thank you. I won’t forget it.” What can I say? It begins in Act One and ends at the conclusion of the Pale Elf’s quest in the “good” ending. The callback is incredibly powerful—revisiting the concept of the gift shows just how much he’s grown, how he’s come to genuinely appreciate what is offered to him. Even when it’s not what he expected, or what he claimed to desire. And in this case, we’re talking about trust. He is grateful for the trust he’s been given. Just like in the bite scene, where those words are first spoken. Trust in him as a person, not a monster. Trust in his qualities—the ones lying beneath the bitter, hardened, sarcastic façade. Trust in his potential. In the depth of his soul, where something much more profound is hidden. Something more delicate and vulnerable, too. And trust—or rather, certainty—that all of this has immense value and is worth nurturing. And for this, for the opportunity he’s given to finally explore that side of himself in his future, he is grateful. He considers it a gift. And that’s something that quite literally melts me.

“I did it. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.” I’ve never experienced it in my playthroughs—I always freed the vampire spawn. Except for one time when I damned them, lol. But here, you can clearly see Astarion's growth and sensitivity. Not only that, but it also emerges in a context that doesn’t involve Tav/Durge, the safe harbor who has accompanied him on his journey so far. Instead, it involves the Gur tribe, with whom Astarion has a history that’s nothing short of turbulent: the law enacted against them, his own death, the kidnapping of the children. All violent and terrible events that left a mark on him—marked by hatred, anger, and shame. In this scene, there’s everything: forgiveness, reconciliation, redemption, leaving the past behind, and facing the future with a stronger, more determined spirit. Here, Astarion opens his mind and heart to someone he once despised, hated, and hurt. He acknowledges and embraces their pain, grief, even their resentment, and does so with compassion and newfound maturity. What else can I say but that I’m so proud of this mischievous little bastard?

“Even I deserve something better.” This is a moment I absolutely adore. I never cheated on Astarion with Mizora—just to be clear—I’ve only watched the cutscenes on YouTube. The she-devil just doesn’t do it for me, unfortunately for her. Lol. If I have to throw myself at someone with horns, I’d much rather pick Wyll or Karlach! <3 But back to why this scene makes my heart race… This is where you can see all of Astarion’s growth. All of it. This isn’t about jealousy—he makes that clear right away. We know very well that the spawn isn’t against open relationships; he’s even open to including Halsin in the mix. This is about betraying the trust of your partner—something he’s only just begun to claim for himself. To trust someone, and in turn, to be worthy of their trust. It’s a deep and incredibly important concept. If Tav/Durge attacks him with the idea that he would’ve been the first to jump into such situations and betray others, Astarion quickly replies that maybe, once, yes, he would have. But things change. People change. Another powerful concept. And the most beautiful part of all this is when spawn Astarion chooses to leave Tav/Durge, because he finally has enough self-respect and strength not only to keep going on his own, but to fight for himself. To say “No, thank you.” He’s no longer willing to settle, to bend, to swallow the bitter pill—even if that means parting from the person he loves more than anyone else in the world. Because yes, damn it, he deserves something better than that! And because, in that moment—just as he himself says—Tav represents everything he’s trying to escape from in order to become better: someone who only thinks about themselves, without caring about the consequences or who gets hurt along the way. Simply beautiful. Especially when compared to the tragic words of Ascended Astarion, who—when Tav/Durge suggests they had a bad night and regret it—responds by telling them not to dwell on it and to just focus on the next conquest. He doesn’t face anything. He runs. And deludes himself that next time, it’ll be better.

“You. I want you.” Okay, this is where my heart just can’t take it. Awwww. I mean—finally, after everything we’ve been through in the game, after all those times we’ve asked him “What do you want?” and all the times he wasn’t able to answer… At last, Astarion gives voice to his own desires and replies: “You.” Not power. Not control. The relationship. That deep connection with another person, without any more doubts, masks, roles (master, slave, vampire, human), or ulterior motives. Pure and simple, from one soul to another. It’s a conscious and free choice. From someone who, not that long ago, couldn’t even put a name to what he had with Tav/Durge—“What are we, to you?” “I don’t know. But isn’t it nice not knowing?”—I think he’s now fully realized how warm, comforting, and fulfilling it is to know. To be able to give a name to what binds him to another. And the “I love you” that follows not only warms our hearts—it shows us just how far this small, desperate vampire spawn has come. He’s achieved the unthinkable: reclaiming his shattered identity, freeing himself from the curse of vampirism—not physically, but spiritually—and rediscovering his right to be, to choose, to express himself, and to feel something real. But most of all, he’s found the ability to recognize it and name it, without fearing the consequences anymore.

I think there are more, but I’ll stop here for now. Every single line from Astarion deserves to be analyzed, if you ask me! I have a feeling my next list will be about the Astarion quotes that piss me off. Lol

[clazberryk]

I would like to know about "Gale? Gale? Really? That wizard!" :D

It’s more of a working theory at the minute. Taveleigha decides to spend the evening reading books and talking magic with Gale. The difference between learned magic and innate ability (Tavi is a sorcerer) and Astarion is offended.

Still a working theory

[clazberryk]

Tell me more about " Can you please give me a reason"

Taveleigha and Astarion are at the ends of their rope. They have been travelling the mountain pass. The underdark and the shadow cursed lands and have just come across the murdered tieflings in the road. The ones they valiantly saved. Astarion is starting to realise that maybe his feelings are purely instinctual and actually does something nice for Tavi to try and help her go through this difficulty and constant questioning. He actually gives some small sound advice.

[clazberryk]

⭐ WIP ask game ⭐

Thank you so much for tagging me @roguishcat! 💖

Rules: post the names of all files in your WIP folder regardless how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell us about it.

⭐My WIP folder⭐:

Spawn Astarion:

Well that happened

What can i say but I love you

Bloody Miracle

No More Hunger

Look i said i was sorry

Can you please give me a reason

Gale! Gale! Really? That wizard

AAstarion (Yes this is very rare but i have a couple of stories running in my head on it)

Burn

With your hands, with your chains

This decision was a mistake

Sometimes the unknown is safer Alternative:

But what if I was bad

Sunrise!Sunset!

No ppressure tags: @preciouslittlebhaalbae, @honeybee-bard, @whiskeyskin, @lanafofana, @hellethil, @rahuratna, @busy-baker, @dramatiquechipmunk, @nerdallwritey, @caffeinatedmunchkin, @deadly-diminuendo, @astarionancuntnin, @bloodinwine, @lirotation @slothquisitor @loquaciousquark

[clazberryk]

So I picked up this beauty at the weekend.

I must say there is something glorious about waking up early to enjoy the morning coolness before the heat of the day just wrecks us.

This morning consisted of helping mum put the washing on the line. Breakfast and then ball.

It’s a hard morning for a 9 week old.

[clazberryk]

An unfair hand has been dealt: A Thread Between Heartbeats

The group have started the ritual, each thread of weave connected, coloured and shaped by them.

I jsut want to say THANK YOU TO EVERYONE that voted on my Poll, it really did help me with the Astarion Line, i truly was struggling with that. And thank you for your comments and thoughts behind chosing said line. (@sanguinesexmachine @nyx-knox @roguishcat @astarionbrainrot @starlight-rogue @asweetlovesong @satan-in-a-box @slothquisitor ) And everyone else who voted, for some reason it is not showing me everyone that voted, but it has given me the percentages, so i am sorry if i did not tag all of you. This was so cathartic and a way for me to say goodbye to Taveleigha. As you guys know play in her in my IRL DND Campaign and she sadly died a couple of weeks ago, but she went the way i always knew she would defending and protecting her friends with no care in the world for her self preservation.

I mean a level 6 Sorcerer taking 101 necrotic damage in one round, yep that'll defintely do it. Anyway without futher ado (for those that do not want to read it on AO3 , i present to you

An Unfair Hand has been Dealt, chapter 4: A Thread Between Heartbeats:

With a breath, the ritual began, Astarion’s touch lingered on Taveleigha’s head as Shadowheart stepping into the Circle, the Catalyst—the large black diamond in both palms like a piece of death turned holy. Around her, the crystals hummed in subtle resonance, pulsing in time with something too old for clocks.

Gale raised his fingers to the Weave and whispered an invocation so old it had no name—just intent braided into syllables. Energy shimmered between his hands like a gossamer net. Wyll added a chant in Infernal, tone low and reverent, each syllable a promise: Come back. You are wanted. You are loved.

Karlach moved last. Not with elegance, but with purpose. Her armoured hand pressed against her chest as if steadying something deeper than her heart. “Tavi,” she said, “if you can hear us—if there’s any part of you still fighting—I need you to reach back.”

A gust swept through the room, though no windows stood open. The flames in the sconces flickered outward drawn toward the centre of the circle, as if breath were being inhaled by something unseen.

The Catalyst ignited. Not in flame. Not in light. In feeling.

The room erupted in sense: lavender, ink, copper, blood, ash after rain. Everyone staggered under the weight of memory—not their own, but hers. A starless sky. A broken blade. The sound of her own laughter caught in someone else’s throat. Then silence. Crushing, suffocating silence.

And beneath it… a thread. The world unravelled in strands. Not torn—not broken—but re-threaded. As if reality itself were being rewritten from the edges inward. One moment, the ritual room shimmered with breath and crystal light. The next, it gave way to nothingness… and then to everything.

They stood, all of them, on a great plain of velvet night. No stars. No sky. Only endless shimmer—threads of argent light stretching into infinite darkness, swaying like slow kelp in a sea of silence. “This is…” Gale breathed, his voice swallowed by the hush, “not the Astral Plane. But close. It feels sentient.”

Shadowheart reached out toward one of the threads. It pulsed, and in a rush, she remembered—her mother’s humming, a warm cup clasped between blood-streaked fingers, the way Taveleigha had once held her gaze and said, “You are not your past. You are your intention.” Shadowheart whispered “This place, is her.”

They moved forward, not walking so much as being carried, the threads of the Weave rearranging to cradle their steps. Glimmers of memory flared at the corners of their eyes: a flash of a moonlit dance. Taveleigha’s laugh echoing through rain. A kiss exchanged mid-battle. A whispered promise, long thought lost.

The plain fractured. Gently, like dew sliding from a petal. And from the folds of light, she appeared—or something that resembled her.

Taveleigha stood in the distance, bathed in the radiance of unformed magic. But her eyes did not meet theirs. She turned in slow circles, as if searching for something just out of reach.

“Is it really her?” Astarion said, the words dragged raw from his throat.

Karlach stepped forward, one hand outstretched. “Tavi,” she called. “Hey. Hey, we’re here.” The figure paused. For a breathless moment, it tilted its head—not toward them, but toward the threads around its feet. As if listening.

“I think she doesn’t know who she is yet,” said Jaheria, voice tight with awe. “The Weave’s holding her, preserving what she meant, but herself is still in pieces.”

Shadowheart clenched her jaw. “Then we remind her.”

Gale took a step forward, raised a hand, fingers trembling, voice low but sure the light of the Weave catching in the folds of his robes, softening the lines of worry etched across his face. “You told me once that magic wasn’t about control, but relationship. A language for love. That the Weave listens when it’s spoken to with care. So, listen now, Taveleigha. You are not lost. You are called.” His gaze swept upward to the ardent threads twisting through the night. “I thought that was poetic nonsense at the time. But then, that night near the lake… you guided my hands through the smallest cantrip. No flourish. No spectacle. Just trust.” He exhaled, voice trembling. “And for the first time in ages, my magic didn’t feel like a debt. It felt like home.” The Weave pulsed where he stood, and a thread spun from his words—a ribbon of violet and gold, stretching toward her heart.

Shadowheart stepped into the circle of light next, her hand brushing against the nearest thread. It shimmered, and her voice followed. “I was unravelling,” she murmured, “held together by lies and chains from gods I no longer trusted. And you… you didn’t try to break me free. You didn’t tell me what was right.” She paused, memories tugging at her breath. “You just sat with me. On the edge of the Underdark, the crystals in the underground sparkling like stars. You asked if I wanted my hair braided, and when I couldn’t speak, you did it anyway. One strand at a time. In silence.” She looked up, eyes gleaming. “You gave me a moment to rest. And somehow… that made me want to keep going.” Another thread—woven of dusk and silver ash—looped around her feet and reached for the centre.

Karlach’s armour clanked as she strode forward, grief and grin dancing warily across her face. “You remember that fight we barely walked away from? The one with the three cursed hounds and the room full of broken promises?” She huffed out a laugh. “I cracked a rib, lost my axe, and nearly punched a wall clean through. And you—you just shoved a hunk of bread at me and said, ‘You’ll feel more like yourself when you’ve eaten.’ Gods, you were right.” Her voice faltered. “I cried, Tav. Because for the first time, no one told me to calm down. No one flinched. You just stayed. That meant everything.” The thread that spun from her sparkled with ember-orange and iron grey—gritty, warm, unbreakable.

Lae’zel stepped up slowly, posture rigid but hands open. “You questioned me.” The silence that followed crackled with tension. “Not to humiliate. Not to mock. You asked me why I obeyed my Queen. Why I believed. And I could not answer. That made me angry. But it made me think.” She clenched her fists. “You forced me to consider that I might be more than a soldier. That honour might include doubt. You untangled me. And in doing so… gave me space to rebuild.” The Weave responded with a thread of green-gold light, taut and sharp as a blade honed for truth.

Wyll’s expression was tender, his voice the hush of a secret unburdened. “Everyone thinks I stood tall because of my contract. Because of my smile. But you saw through it.” He took a breath. “That night, after I nearly lost my arm, fighting that god awful shadow in the cursed lands I was shaking so badly I spilled my wine. Everyone thought it was exhaustion. You knew it was shame. You didn’t speak. You sat next to me, our backs to the fire, and let me hold still. You let me be. And because of that, I could begin to stand again—for me.” From his heart unravelled a thread of deep red and dusk blue, like twilight hope.

Astarion stepped forward slowly, tentatively, hands empty—except for the single red thread coiled between his fingers. He didn’t look at the others. Only at her. “You made me real.” His voice cracked on the second word, but he didn’t waver. “You kissed me like I wasn’t cursed. You touched me like I wasn’t dangerous. But most of all, you saw me. All my broken teeth and rotten hunger and trembling need… and you didn’t run. You stayed.” He held out the thread, its red glow whispering like a heart trying to remember how to beat. “I’ve had centuries of silence,” he said. “But your voice is the first I ever wanted to carry forward.” The thread shivered—alive, blood-bright, and luminous.

All six threads drifted toward Taveleigha like constellations pulled by gravity, each one straining toward the woman they remembered, the woman they loved, the woman they knew still lingered in the centre of the Weave.

They did not bind her.

They invited her.

At first, the threads did not register as voices. They were warmth. Pulse. Glimmering disturbance in the stillness she had grown used to. Each one brushed past her like fingers along the hem of a forgotten cloak—familiar, but not yet named.

The first thread wound around her wrist. Violet and gold. It tingled like magic spoken gently, the way a lullaby might hum from a book long closed. It carried the scent of parchment and firelight, and the sensation of hands guiding hers—patient, respectful, unhurried. She did not recall the words exactly, only the belief beneath them: Listen. Not to me. To what wants to live in you.

She gasped. Her fingers flexed.

Then came another—ash-dusk silver, drawn tight against her spine. It was quieter, heavier. It tasted of silence beside a campfire, of cool fingers brushing tangles from her hair with careful competence. It brought back the echo of a heartbeat she hadn’t realized she missed—the quiet rhythm of someone choosing not to fix her, but to rest with her. She felt her shoulders soften.

The next struck her chest directly—heat and iron, like a forge relit. It growled and grinned as it wound through her ribs, and the memory it carried wasn’t a moment, but a presence. A bear-hug pressed tight against cracked bone. A bad joke whispered to break a sob. It said, You don’t have to be alright. Just don’t be alone.

She exhaled sharply.

Then came a thread like a blade—green and gold, tempered and taut. It coiled around her spine, not cruelly, but with certainty. It reminded her of hands that did not shake in combat, of eyes that narrowed not in contempt, but in search of truth. She tasted challenge on her tongue and a single word, whispered once across sword points: Why?

And then the dusk-red one, shy but steady—looped from somewhere low in her belly to her breath. It didn’t ask. It waited. It smelled of dew and old regret, of dry laughter and a flask passed between scarred hands. It remembered the shape of a man who listened. Who saw.

And last of all—the thread she should have expected but didn’t. Red. Bright as spilled wine. Raw as skin just healed. It didn’t wrap her. It tethered her. It plunged through every false mask she’d worn and rang straight through the quietest part of her, the part that still believed she deserved tenderness. And with it came his voice. Not loud. Not pleading. Just a murmur, soft as memory You made me real.

Her knees weakened. Not from pain. From knowing. From the ache that came with being loved in her entirety—and the possibility that she might live up to it again.

Around her, the threads pulsed in time. Not as command. Not as demand.

As invitation. To remember. To return. To begin.

The threads began to burn, wrapping around her and adding to the fire that was completely and unequivocally her. Her essence, her being. Her spell, her blood song.

Taveleigha looked towards the dawnlight road. A path of golden mist rising, pulsing with heartbeat and breath and the possibility of return. She took a step forward, harmonised with her breath, with each step she felt a warmth grow in her chest, blooming and exploding. She walked for ever, but never. Time meant nothing, but the horizon met her with a warm embrace with the promise of a future the promise of living.

"There's Courage In Being Terrified, But Still Going Forward” A step taken through the dark. Karlach

"Oh, What A Tangled Weave We Web!" Truths knotted between longing and love. Gale

"I Like Her. She Looks Like She Could Throw Me Over Her Shoulder And Carry Me To Safety." A smile blooming where grief once grew. Shadowheart

"So Much Shadow Around Us. To Think I Almost Missed The Light." A flicker—hesitant, but hers. Wyll

“Why would I bury a weapon? Is it broken?” A challenge. A choice. Lae'zel

"You twine your life around the people you love. And when they're gone, you grow around their absence instead. It is just another way they shape you." Loss rethreaded as presence. Jaheria

"Oak Father, preserve me." A breath offered to faith, and to memory. Halsin

“Easy now darling. You’ve got this. And I’ve got you” And finally—home. Astarion

Around her, the threads pulsed—not to bind, not to command, but to welcome. Not orders. Not destiny. Choice.

An invitation to remember. To return. To become.

They began to burn—softly at first, then with quiet conviction—curling around her limbs, her spine, her breath. Not consuming her but kindling her. Feeding the ember that was always there.

Spellfire. Bloodsong.

Essence. Self.

Taveleigha turned toward the golden road—a path of mist and light that pulsed like breath, like heartbeat, like hope made visible. It shimmered not with perfection, but with promise.

She stepped forward. One step. And another. Each movement in time with the rhythm newly forming in her chest—steady now, glowing. Her fire bloomed inward and outward, a quiet detonation of I am.

She walked without haste. Without fear. Time became suggestion. The horizon folded itself into her arms like an old friend returning home.

And just as her foot left the ground one final time, she heard it—not behind her, but within her.

A voice woven through memory, steady and warm: “you’ve bene dead long enough”

A pause. A breath. A presence unmistakable. “It’s time to start living again”

She didn’t smile. Not yet. But her heart answered.

Yes.

And the Weave carried her forward.

It began with sound; soft, steady, fragile.

The crystalline hum of wards unravelling. The hush of breath held too long by too many. Jaheria’s study—once cloaked in sacred stillness—shivered to life as the golden strands of the ritual faded into nothing, the weave-spun chamber settling back into wood, stone, and firelight. Bookshelves creaked, the scent of myrrh and old paper returning like a memory too shy to greet them outright.

And then a gasp. Small. Hoarse. But impossibly whole. Taveleigha drew breath.

The room froze.

Shadowheart’s hand jerked to her mouth, eyes wide. Karlach stumbled back a step, not from fear, but from the weight of the moment cracking open inside her chest. Astarion’s lips parted, but no sound came.

Jaheria, calm even when trembling, stepped forward. “She’s here,” she said, as if announcing something the world had nearly forgotten was possible. “She’s returned.”

On the cot where they’d placed her, Taveleigha lay still, body slack, hair tangled, fingertips twitching. But her chest rose. Again. And again. Not as rhythm. As claim.

Gale stepped closer, his voice a prayer wrapped in disbelief. “Do you think she remembers?”

“She doesn’t need to,” Wyll murmured. “Not yet. She just needs to be.” And then—faintly, like a match struck in snow, Taveleigha smiled.

It was broken. Brief. Crooked with exhaustion. But gods, it was hers.

Astarion dropped to his knees beside her, hands hovering inches above her face—hesitating to touch, as if the gentlest contact might undo what the Weave had just dared to restore. His voice trembled, thinner than laughter, thicker than tears. “You came back,” he whispered. “You really—” His breath hitched. “You always were a stubborn little flame.”

Shadowheart knelt at the opposite side, one hand clutching her pendant, unclasped now, no longer about faith, just… anchor. “She heard us,” she murmured, not looking at the others, eyes fixed to Taveleigha’s brow, damp with sweat. “Through everything. She chose to come back.”

Karlach couldn’t speak at first. Her jaw flexed, fists clenching and unclenching at her sides like she wanted to shout, to laugh, to scream at the ceiling in gratitude but couldn’t find a single thread to pull her breath into line. In the end, she just sat down hard beside the cot and let one big, calloused hand cover Taveleigha’s knee. “Don’t do that again, soldier” she choked. “Or at least give us more warning next time, yeah?”

Gale stepped forward, careful, cautious as if proximity alone might dissolve the miracle. His fingers twitched with latent spell energy he hadn’t realized he was still channelling. “The weave,” he said, awed, “didn’t just answer. It unfolded for her. I’ve never seen… never felt…”

“She is more than magic,” Jaheria said simply. “She is meaning.”

Wyll bowed his head. “We didn’t just call her back,” he said softly. “She showed us the road out of the dark too.”

Lae’zel stood slightly apart, arms crossed—but her gaze was locked on Taveleigha with such intensity it nearly burned. “You are changed,” she said at last. “But so are we. Because of you.” She stepped closer and, without warning, placed her palm over Taveleigha’s heart. “Still beats like a warrior’s.” A breath escaped Taveleigha then—not just a gasp, but something deeper. A sigh stitched with sound. With awareness.

Her fingers twitched. Then curled.

Astarion’s breath caught in his throat. “Tavi, my sweet” he breathed. “If you can hear me, love… I’m here.”

The fire flickered in the hearth. Outside, something shifted—a rustle of wind through late-autumn leaves. As if the world had held its breath alongside them and was only just now exhaling. Jaheria stepped back, giving space. “Let her come fully,” she said. “Her soul crossed a plane none of us can fully understand. Her return must be gentle. Willed.”

But Taveleigha’s eyelids fluttered. Her lips parted, dry, cracked—but moving. No one could hear what she said. Not at first.

“Astarion,” she rasped.

He broke. Hands reached for hers, threading fingers together like prayer beads, his forehead pressed to their entwined grip. “Yes. Yes, I’m here, love. You came back.”

She blinked slowly, and for the first time, her eyes truly saw.

Everyone held still. The air between them rang with sacred quiet. “I walked forever,” she said, her voice barely audible, “but… you waited.”

“We would’ve waited a thousand forevers,” Shadowheart whispered. Tears slipped down Gale’s cheeks in silence.

Taveleigha tried to sit up—failed—but didn’t seem to mind. “I think… I’m still fire.”

“You always were,” Wyll said gently.

“Then,” she said, letting her head rest back against the pillows, eyes closing not in sleep, but in peace, “maybe I can start again.” The hearth crackled behind them. The room breathed with her. And for the first time in far too long, no one spoke of loss. Only return. Only warmth. Only beginning.

The room buzzed quietly behind them—murmured reassurances, Karlach’s rustling as she awkwardly tried to lean against a too-small wall without crushing anything sacred, Jaheria cataloguing vigil echoes under her breath—but none of it reached them. Not really. Taveleigha lay still, her fingers curled loosely in Astarion’s, barely strong enough to hold, but full of intention. Not grasping. Trusting. Astarion’s thumb dragged absently along her knuckles, back and forth, back and forth, like a ritual he hadn’t realized he’d begun. He didn’t look at anyone else. Only her. She shifted, just enough to lean her temple into his wrist. “That long, huh?” she whispered, her voice still frayed.

His breath caught. “Seventeen hours,” he answered. “One hundred and six breaths where I thought you might not come back. And then… you did.”

A beat. Then she murmured, “You counted.”

“No,” he said, too quickly. Then quieter, “Yes. I had to. If I didn’t give the fear numbers, it would’ve turned me inside out. This whole thing gave me hope, but I also feared.”

Her eyes fluttered open, slow as snowmelt. “You weren’t afraid.”

“I was only afraid,” he said. “Terrified. Furious. Grieving in advance.”

He finally looked away then—eyes tracking some invisible regret just past her shoulder. “I thought about what I’d say to you if you didn’t return. How I’d carry your name, or if I even could. And I hated myself for already trying to let you go.”

“You didn’t,” she said gently.

“No,” he whispered, lips curving—not a smile, but something bruised and real. “Because even then, I remembered the way you held my hand. Like a promise I hadn’t made yet.”

The silence swelled around them. Not awkward. Full.

Her fingers twitched inside his. “I wasn’t sure I’d make it back with… all of me.”

Astarion turned back to her, leaning in slowly until their foreheads nearly touched. “You don’t have to be all of anything,” he said. “Just here. With me.”

Her eyes closed again, and a tear slipped sideways down her cheek into the edge of the pillow. “I think,” she breathed, voice barely audible, “I left the worst of him behind.”

“Good,” Astarion said. Then, firmer: “We’ll keep walking away from him. Together.” He bent forward—not to kiss, not yet—but to press his lips to her hair, just above her temple. A slow, reverent gesture.

“I don’t need a grand ending,” he murmured. “Just more time. With you.”

In the background, Karlach silently stood and turned her back, wiping under her eyes with the heel of her hand. Jaheria motioned for Gale and Wyll to follow her from the room. Shadowheart lingered the longest, watching them with something soft in her chest she wouldn’t name aloud—but recognised.

When the door clicked shut behind them, Astarion and Taveleigha were alone in a room lit only by the fire and the fragile miracle of now. She shifted her hand once more—and this time, he didn’t just hold it. Taveleigha shifted slightly beneath the blanket, her fingers still resting in his. “You didn’t let go,” she murmured.

Astarion shook his head. “I couldn’t,” he said. Then, softer: “I wouldn’t.”

The firelight gilded his features in copper and candle-glow, softening edges that the world had tried so hard to sharpen. His thumb brushed across her cheek, slow as moonrise. She leaned into the touch without thinking, like gravity had changed its mind and decided he was the centre now.

“You smell like ash and something sweeter,” she whispered.

“I smell like nerves,” he replied with a hoarse chuckle. “I've been sitting here praying you wouldn’t wake up just to tell me goodbye.”

“Not today,” she said, and opened her eyes—tired, storm-tossed, but clear.

There was no grand declaration. No ceremonial flourish. Just a tilt of her chin. The barest shift of his weight. And then his lips met hers. Not a reclaiming. A remembering. It tasted like everything that hadn’t been said, and everything that no longer needed saying. Gentle. Grateful. Unsteady with too much feeling and not enough time—but deeply present. She exhaled softly against his mouth, and he caught it like a blessing.

When they broke apart, his forehead stayed pressed to hers. Her hand rose, weakly, to cup his cheek. And this time, she smiled. “Still afraid?” she asked.

“Terrified,” he whispered. “But gods, I’d follow you into that fire again. Every time.”

She didn’t answer.

She just kissed him once more.

And let herself begin again.

[clazberryk]

Last Line Game

Thank you for tagging me @roguishcat How did i miss this I am so sorry. Also keep feeding me your WIPS and Snippets. I lvoe seeign the notification pop up :)

This is from An unfair hand has been dealt Chapter 4:

“Terrified,” he whispered. “But gods, I’d follow you into that fire again. Every time.”

She didn’t answer.

She just kissed him once more.

And let herself begin again.

Okay, okay, okay you get the last 4 lines (i'm feeling genrous and the creative juices are snapping, popping and singign to me lately. shhh do not tell the gods they might run away)

No pressure tags: @preciouslittlebhaalbae, @nyx-knox, @lirotation, @slothquisitor @shewhowas39 @asweetlovesong

[clazberryk]

Thank you @roguishcat. This is truly lovely

Tagging:

@preciouslittlebhaalbae @lirotation @lirotationside @slothquisitor @loquaciousquark @asweetlovesong @nyx-knox @bloodinwine

favirote moots?

(People you tag have to reblog and say their favorite moots)

Okay wait

@ibrokeurheartbcuzubrokemine @foliverfalls @allyeilishh @addisonraesbaby @emiliesblohsh @bilsslut @noodleswashere @bilsbabyy @bitchesbrokenpromises @billsdollie

[clazberryk]

Hello lovely people I need your help. I am working on my next chapter of Unfair hand has been dealt, and i need quotes from specific characters. I have some but i am struggling with a Quote from Astarion. I want it to be specifically from the game. It is to help Taveleigha walk throguh the threshold from death to living again.

Could you please pick your favourite

All of these fit well for what i am trying to portray, some will bring a smiel to her face, others a laugh, some i jsut want to portray the emotion, either way I can work it in rather well. But I am stuck. If you could please pick a choice and then comment why you picked that choice, I would be immensely grateful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank You.

If you are not tagged you are welcome to choose as well. @roguishcat @shewhowas39 @lirotation @asweetlovesong @loquaciousquark @slothquisitor @renard-rogue @starlight-rogue @creativeautistic @astarionancuntnin @nyx-knox

[clazberryk]

An Unfair Hand has been dealt: Chapter 3: When the Weave Still Listens

Karlach is very much MVP in this chapter. She was very much my catalyst for tellign this part of this story.

For those that cannot access Ao3.

An Unfair Hand has been Dealt: When the Weave Still Listens

They stood in the hallway of Jaheira’s house, the air thick with silence. Karlach's arms were trembling, not from the strain of carrying Taveleigha’s body, but from what it meant. This wasn’t just their friend. She was the heart that had kept them moving forward. And now… “She’s cold,” Karlach said softly, her voice broken with disbelief. “Gods, she’s still cold.”

Shadowheart touched her shoulder, her palm steady even as tears clung to her lashes. “We should lay her down.” They moved together, instinctively, like warriors on a battlefield long after the fighting had stopped. Karlach lowered Taveleigha onto the linen-covered cot Jaheira had prepared, jaw clenched tight, as if fury might keep her from falling apart.

“She deserved better,” Shadowheart murmured. “Not this. Not some dark temple reeking of despair.”

Karlach didn’t answer. Her red eyes burned, not with fire, but with something harder to contain. “He just ran,” she said suddenly. “Astarion. He didn’t even stay, he just vanished into the streets.”

“He’s grieving,” Shadowheart said, though the words felt thin.

“No. He’s breaking,” Karlach growled. “And we’re the ones cleaning up the pieces.”

Shadowheart knelt beside Taveleigha and brushed a strand of hair from her face. “She wouldn’t want us to hate him for it.” Karlach collapsed to her knees beside her, hands clenched around her thighs like she was holding herself together by force. “I don’t. Not really. I just…”

She swallowed hard. “I just don’t know how to breathe without her.”

Shadowheart stayed quiet, knowing there were no words that wouldn’t sound like ash in the mouth. She reached out slowly, took Karlach’s hand, and held it tight.

The city roared on outside—bells ringing, people shouting, the ever-present hum of danger—but inside the house, time held its breath.

Between them lay Taveleigha, still and radiant. And around her, two warriors kept silent vigil, not as heroes this time, but as friends who had loved fiercely, and lost something irreplaceable.

The wards on Jaheira’s front gate shimmered, then parted. She stepped through them like a storm held tight in human shape, controlled but coursing with power.

Karlach looked up first. Still kneeling, her arms draped over her thighs, she barely whispered, “She got it.”

Shadowheart stood slowly, the Sending spell’s after-echo still faint behind her eyes. “I told her we’d lost someone who mattered.”

Jaheira’s boots echoed across the stone floor, her steps slow but purposeful. Time had lined her face, but it hadn’t dulled the sharpness in her eyes—nor softened the way she stared at Taveleigha’s still form. “I knew her,” she said quietly. “Not long. But well enough to understand the kind of person Astarion would cling to, when he finally let himself.”

She didn’t ask what happened. Didn’t ask where he’d gone. Instead, she knelt beside Karlach and Shadowheart, one hand steadying herself against her knee, the other brushing across Taveleigha’s wrist—not to heal, not in vain hope, but in recognition. “She was brave,” Jaheira said. “Braver than most fools running around this city with swords and speeches.”

Karlach blinked rapidly. “He didn’t even say goodbye. He just left her there. Like if he didn’t see her die, it wouldn’t be real.”

Jaheira’s voice gentled. “That’s grief. It unmakes you. Some run from it. Others carry it like a blade.”

“And us?” Shadowheart asked, voice low.

Jaheira looked between them, her gaze weathered but steady. “It makes us carry each other.”

A silence settled, thick with memory. Then Jaheira rose and looked toward the back of the house. “We’ll give her peace. You’ll stay with me tonight. I’ll send word to the rest of the camp. No one should hear this news alone.” She turned, pausing long enough to press a hand over Karlach’s shoulder. “We’ll mourn her the way warriors should.”

Karlach wept—not the roaring grief of battle, but the kind that stole breath quietly, leaving behind only a tremble and salt on steel. Her hands clutched the edge of the cot, grounding herself in the only thing that hadn’t slipped away. Then Shadowheart drew a slow breath, her eyes distant, as though listening to something beneath the silence. The ache in her chest remained—but beneath it, something stirred. A thread. A twitch in the Weave.

“She’s not... fully gone.”

Karlach’s head snapped up. “What?... What do you mean?”

“I felt it,” Shadowheart said. “Just before we lost her. A Ripple, I was too occupied before, but something… clung to her. Not just soul, but purpose. The Weave hasn’t settled around her death the way it should. There’s still a ripple.”

Karlach frowned. “You think we can bring her back?”

“I think,” Shadowheart said slowly, “we can try something no priest would sanction. No temple would risk. But it’ll take all of us. Every ally. Every soul who loved her or owed her something.” Shadowheart trailed off her fingers absently twisting and tapping against her knee “I need to send another message. To Halsin. Wyll. Gale. Even Lae’zel, if she’ll come. This has to be more than ritual—it has to mean something.”

Karlach wiped at her face with the back of her gauntlet. “You’re talking about magic deeper than resurrection.”

“I’m talking about binding intention to the Weave. A ritual shaped by connection, not just power.” Shadowheart’s voice was stronger now, burning with desperate hope. “It’ll be dangerous. Might not work. But if it does...”

Karlach stood, her hands still shaking. “If it does, we get her back.”

Shadowheart met her eyes. “Or at least, we’ll know we didn’t let the gods decide alone.”

Jaheira, who had been silently listening from the doorway, stepped in. “You’re going to need a quiet place, strong protection, and time.”

Shadowheart turned to her. “Can we do it here?”

Jaheira nodded once. “I’ve prepared this house for worse. I’ll stand with you.”

Karlach let out a shaky breath, something between a laugh and a sob. “Alright. Let’s bring her home.”

The house grew busier with silence, each corner lit by the soft scratch of parchment, the clink of glass vials, and the rustle of cloth pulled from old shelves. Jaheira’s study had been turned into something between a shrine and an alchemical war room. Shadowheart stood by the hearth, laying out white quartz, rose crystal, and fragments of emeralds along the floor—carefully, reverently. Her braid was unkempt now, hanging loose where concentration had tugged it out of place. “We’ll need the circle complete before sundown,” she murmured. “Each stone attuned to an aspect of the Weave—memory, emotion, form, and breath.”

Jaheira returned with a wooden chest clutched against her side, dust shaking loose as she opened it. Inside, dozens of diamonds, some rough, some cut, glimmered like stolen starlight. “This is what’s left from old wars and older allies. More than enough for resurrection... but not for this.”

Shadowheart nodded, scanning the box. “We’ll still need The Catalyst. A black diamond, uncut, worth at least a thousand gold. It has to channel the void; bind the space she once occupied.”

“Rarities like that don’t just sit in shops, not even in the Upper City. We might have to trade favours. Or find someone desperate enough to part with it.” Jaheira frowned.

“I’ll send to Gale. If anyone knows where to find that kind of magic, it’s him.” Shadowheart’s voice trembled slightly, but she steadied it. “We’re running out of time. Her spirit’s fading from this plane.”

Across the room, Karlach hadn’t moved. She sat beside the cot where Taveleigha lay, one great hand wrapped carefully around hers. She didn’t speak. Didn’t cry again. Just breathed, slow and steady, as if lending her strength to the fallen woman by sheer force of presence. Every so often, her thumb would brush over Taveleigha’s knuckles in an unconscious rhythm—like she was keeping time in a lullaby only the two of them could hear.

“We’re not letting you go,” she whispered once, too softly for the others to hear. “So don’t even think about drifting off.”

Shadowheart glanced toward her. The sight of Karlach—usually an inferno of movement—sitting so still was its own kind of heartbreak. She didn’t interrupt. Instead, she lit a bundle of myrrh-scented incense, letting the smoke coil upward in pale spirals. “Every step count,” she said, more to the room than anyone. “Every crystal placed. Every breath held.”

Jaheira touched her shoulder gently. “And every soul who stands with us.”

Outside, the city’s chaos churned on. But inside Jaheira’s house, something sacred was stirring grief forged into ritual, sorrow shaped into intent. The candlelight cast long shadows across the floor, flickering over crystals, herbs, and the still form wrapped in cloth and memory. Around her, the companions sat in a loose circle. None spoke at first. The silence had teeth. Then Wyll cleared his throat, and in the hush, a memory slipped free. “She used to hum when she cast,” he said, almost surprised to hear himself say it. “Soft. Like the Weave itself answered her in harmony. I never told her how comforting that was in a fight.”

Shadowheart gave the faintest smile. “She once enchanted my rations. I didn’t notice until I bit into one and it mooed at me.” A dry laugh breathed through the circle.

“She caught me burning fish one night,” Karlach added. “Didn’t say a word. Just handed me a pan, kissed her fingers like some fancy chef, and made the best damn stew I’ve ever had. Didn’t even eat any herself she just wanted me to have a good night.”

Lae’zel’s voice followed, not quite soft, but stripped of its usual barbs. “She called me stubborn. Many times. But never once did she walk away when I bared my teeth. She challenged me. She listened.”

Halsin remained quiet, then said, “She asked me once if the trees we passed on the road remembered us. I told her no. But later... I wondered if maybe they do.” Each memory carried her shape. A piece of laughter. A flash of flame. A whispered spell woven through sleep. And always, in each story, Astarion was beside her. A wry smile shared across a battlefield. A lingering touch. A stolen look when they thought no one else was watching. His presence threaded through her life like ivy—never centre stage, but never far from reach.

“She held him together,” Shadowheart said, her voice trembling now. “He didn’t know how to accept kindness, until her. Didn’t believe he deserved it. But she... gods, she saw him.”

A long silence followed. And then Karlach stood abruptly. “No,” she said. “No. We can’t do this without him.”

 “He’s chosen absence.” Lae’zel lifted her head from her spot gaze moving from the crystal to Karlach’s blazing one.

“He didn’t choose anything. He’s in shock. He’s unravelling somewhere in this god forsaken City, and he thinks…” Karlach drew a shuddering breath and then steadied herself “He thinks if he disappears into the crowd, the pain will follow.” She turned toward the door, fierce and fire-lit once more. “But this is for her. And he needs to be here to carry it with us. She wouldn’t let him vanish. So, I won't either.”

 “He may not want to be found.” Jaheira stepped forward, her eyes solemn.

“Too bad,” Karlach growled. “He’s one of us. And she’s not gone yet.” Karlach shoved open the door with a burst of heat and urgency, her mind already chasing Astarion’s trail into the Lower City.

She slammed straight into Gale, who stumbled back with a startled grunt, nearly dropping the satchel clutched to his side. “By the gods Karlach,” he managed, adjusting his robes and blinking against the rush of air and emotion. “Did someone cast Haste on you, or are you always this combustible?”

Karlach barely registered the quip. Her voice cracked with urgency. “Gale. You’ve got to help me. Astarion’s gone. He ran, he doesn’t know we’re trying to bring her back.”

Gale’s eyes flicked past her and caught sight of the room—of Taveleigha, the ring of crystals, the incense thick as memory in the air. His expression changed instantly. “She’s really gone…” he breathed, quieter now. “I felt something strange ripple through the Weave earlier. I didn't think… not her.”

“We’re not giving up,” Shadowheart called from inside, her hands guiding another sigil into position. “But we’re missing a key focus. We need a large black diamond; uncut, pure, at least a thousand gold in value.”

Gale’s gaze sharpened like a blade honing itself. “I might know where one is. I’ve kept track of certain magical collectors in the Upper City—one in particular who specialises in raw arcane gemstones. A hoarder. Difficult to charm, but not impossible.”

“You’ll go?” Shadowheart asked.

“I’ll run,” Gale answered, already turning toward the door, his usual flourish replaced with something close to reverence. “If there’s a way to bend the threads of fate, I will find the strand.”

Karlach stepped aside, heart pounding with dual purpose. “You do that. I’ve got someone else to fetch.”

“Be careful,” Shadowheart said as Gale swept out into the evening. “You both need to come back.”

Karlach gave her a look—blazing with grief, steel, and something too wild to name. “We all come back. Or not at all.” She vanished into the gloom, her footsteps thudding against cobblestone, the kind of sound that made even shadows pause. Somewhere in the crush of the Lower City, Astarion was unravelling. But now the fire was coming for him.

Gale

Gale moved like lightning through the Upper City, his cloak snapping with each stride, the Weave humming anxiously at his fingertips. There was no time for plans, only instinct. And instinct led him to a Manor that resembled a vault more than a home, known for its arcane hoard and its owner’s love of secrecy.

He expected a battle of wits. A price to haggle. A door slammed in his face. Instead, he ran headfirst into silence. The door opened before he could knock. Framed in the warm glow of levitating lanterns stood the collector: a small, wrinkled gnome draped in velvet, his face unreadable, his gaze sharp as ever.

“I know why you’ve come,” the gnome said, without preamble. “The threads of fate have been tugged. I felt them tighten.” He tilted his head. “The death you’re trying to outpace.”

Gale blinked, breathless. “You’ll give it to me?”

“No,” the collector replied. “But I’ll trade.”

Gale hesitated. For once, he had no clever bargain on his tongue. No smile. No sleight of hand. Just desperation; and one offering left. He reached slowly into his satchel and drew out the last flicker of Mystra’s grace: a mote of divinity, faint and fading, wrapped in the embers of a love now lost. It no longer thrummed with power. Only memory. Only pain. “This,” he murmured, his voice barely steady, “is the final piece of her I kept. Not because I needed it, but… because I didn’t know how to let it go.”

The gnome studied him, eyes ancient and crystalline. “She was never yours to keep, wizard.”

“I know,” Gale whispered.  And in that moment, the choice that should have broken him came easier than he expected which frightened him more than anything. He let it go.

The collector accepted the glowing mote in silence and disappeared inside. When he returned, he held a velvet-wrapped shape that seemed to devour the light. A black diamond—uncut, unyielding, heavy with meaning.

Gale stared, startled. No riddles. No delays. No fight. “You’re giving it to me… just like that?”

The gnome shrugged lightly. “I saw her once, in the market. She smiled at me. Called me ‘Saer’ after I tried to cheat her on wildroot. Anyone who mourns that deserves one miracle.”

Gale took the diamond with reverent fingers, clutching it to his chest as he stepped back into the night. And then it hit him. Mystra’s bond, gone. That final tether to a god he once worshipped had vanished not in a tempest of magic, but in a quiet exchange of grief for grace. He felt hollow. He felt… free.

For the first time since her betrayal, he didn’t mourn what Mystra had taken. He mourned what Taveleigha might never know what he gave.

He ran, feet pounding the cobbles, the city blurring around him, the Weave rising like a song in his chest. Because love doesn’t always ask for brilliance. Sometimes it simply asks for everything.

Gale’s path blurred not from exhaustion—but from memory. He remembered the tavern where she outcast him during a game of illusionary chess, each piece a flicker of light. His knight had taken her bishop. Her queen had taken his pride. She’d smiled wide, impossibly bright. “You think too loudly, Gale,” she’d said. “Try feeling your next move instead.”

He remembered her beside him in camp—watching him scribble arcane equations with growing frustration. She hadn’t grasped the theory, but she listened. And when he’d cursed and crumpled a page, she’d fished it from the fire and said, “Maybe it’s not the page that’s wrong. Maybe it just wasn’t ready.” That page was still folded in his spellbook.

And gods, her laughter. Not the loud kind. The private kind. The kind saved for moonlight and whispered puns during late-night watches. He’d groan dramatically but carry that laughter into every battle like a charm stitched beneath his robes. She had made space for him: the wounded, arrogant wizard still haunted by a goddess. She didn’t flinch. She just stayed.

Now he held a stone heavier than all that history. And yet, no part of him regretted the cost.

Because it was Taveleigha—not Mystra—who had shown him how to be human again. How to slow down. How to make tea without enchanting the kettle. How to laugh at the smallest things. How to feel. And if this ritual succeeded—if the gods dared to listen—he wouldn’t tell her all of this at once. He’d wait. Until they were under the stars again. Until she cracked another terrible pun that made him smile through tears. Then maybe he’d whisper, “You were the spell I was never clever enough to cast properly the first time. But I never stopped wanting to try.” Taveleigha was his best friend and for that he was forever grateful.

The diamond pulsed once in his palm as Jaheira’s house rose ahead—its windows aglow with candles, and the last flicker of faith daring to hold the night at bay. Gale braced himself against the rain and moved quicker.

Karlach

The rain had started, not a downpour, but a constant mist that slicked the stones and soaked through the shoulders of Karlach’s armour. She didn’t slow. She ignored the hiss the rain made when it contacted her skin. She didn’t get to grieve, not yet. Not while Astarion was still lost and spiralling through the places that once shaped them all.

The Elfsong Tavern was her first stop. It felt right. Wrong. Familiar. Hollow. The moment she stepped in, the haunting melody curled through the air above the patrons’ heads. Not the ghostly lament of the usual elven ballad, but a different kind of sorrow now, seeded in memory.

The bartender raised an eyebrow. “You’re back.”

“Looking for someone,” she grunted. “Pale elf. Arrogant in posture. Looks like he drinks regret for breakfast.”

The barkeep nodded toward a booth. “Sat there for a time. Just… staring. Didn’t even order wine. That’s how I knew something was wrong.”

Karlach’s hand brushed the wood of the table. Her fingers curled against the grain, like she might feel some echo of his presence there. She moved on.

Through the brass-fitted alleys behind the Elfsong, where once they’d dodged mercenaries on a drunken dare. Past The Old Tiefling Apothecary, now boarded up, where Taveleigha had slipped a healing potion into Astarion’s pocket and told him to stop pretending he didn’t need others.

Her boots led her toward the Thieves' Guild tunnels, half by instinct, half by dread. The stone doors still bore the sigils she remembered, now weathered with moss and grime. Inside, the air was thick and sour—old stone, older blood. She passed corners etched with memories: the place where Gale nearly triggered a trap with a spell too complex for the moment, the corridor where Shadowheart and Taveleigha had exchanged whispered secrets after a close call.

Deeper in, she checked the sparring chamber. Empty. The back vault. Empty.

A note on a crate read: Don’t follow ghosts. The handwriting was curved and sharp. She didn’t recognise it. But she folded the paper and tucked it into her belt anyway. She climbed out again, soaked in salt and dust, and kept walking.

The Sewers. Why not?

They’d traversed them once to avoid a Council’s eyes, Taveleigha laughing the whole way, cracking jokes about “romantic ambiance” while knee-deep in muck. Astarion had groaned. But he’d smiled, too. Now, the echoes answered only with drip and filth. Shadows shifted. Rats fled. No Astarion. Still she kept searching.

She reached a crumbling staircase beneath The Bloomridge District, an old escape route, half-collapsed. There, she paused. Something caught her eye: a boot print smeared in mud, but too delicate for a mercenary’s tread. Too deliberate for a wanderer’s. He was close.

Her breath caught as she turned toward the last place she hadn’t yet dared to check. The alley beside the House of Grief. No one wanted to return there. Least of all Astarion. She made her way slowly, boots scuffing the slick cobbles, heart roaring louder than the rain.

And there, half-hidden in a shrine’s shadow, curled into himself like something broken too far to mend, was Astarion. He didn’t speak as she approached. She crouched beside him, her voice low but iron wrapped. “I’ve searched every corner of this cursed city, and guess what I didn’t find?” He didn’t answer. “Peace. Because you weren’t in it.”

He blinked. Didn’t meet her eyes. Karlach exhaled slowly and pressed a hand over his. Not tugging. Just being. “We need you,” she said. “She needs you. And if there’s even the smallest sliver of her watching… don’t let this be what she remembers.”

A pause. Then a trembling nod. His hand turned slowly in hers.

And finally—finally—he stood.

Astarion moved like someone only half-willing to breathe—shoulders stiff, hands clenched at his sides. Karlach walked a pace behind, not guiding, not rushing. Just there. Unwavering. Halfway across a narrow bridge, he stopped short.

“I shouldn’t be going back,” he snapped suddenly, voice laced with venom—aimed at himself more than her. “I shouldn’t be allowed near her again. I ran. I ran like a damned coward.”

Karlach said nothing.

“She died and we didn’t’ even notice Karlach. Do you know what that feels like? She was alone as she bled out, and her warmth disappeared. And then—then I left her. Like some frightened animal.” Still, Karlach didn’t answer. She stood beside him now, arms crossed, eyes steady.

Astarion turned toward her, fury burning beneath his anguish. “Say something! Gods, scream at me. Tell me I'm worthless. That I failed her. That I’m everything Cazador said I was—”

“No,” Karlach interrupted, low and firm. He blinked. “No,” she repeated, more steel than flame. “I won’t do that. Because you are hurting, not hollow. Because you didn’t run to forget—you ran because it ripped you apart.”

She stepped closer. “You think Taveleigha would’ve wanted you to stand over her body pretending you could hold it together? No. She’d want you to crack. To scream. To feel. Because you let her in, Astarion. You let us in.”

His breath hitched.

“You were never alone,” Karlach said, voice softening. “Not once since you let yourself believe you could be more than a weapon. And I’m not going to let you fall back into that abyss, not while I’m still standing.”

He stared at her, grief and disbelief warring in his gaze. “Why are you still here? After everything, why you?”

Karlach gave him a crooked smile. Not one of cheer—but of truth. “Because you’re mine, fangs. Not like she was. Not like love. But like family. The kind you choose, the kind you fight for even when they’re being the world’s most self-pitying bastard.”

He barked a bitter laugh. It cracked at the end.

“I’ve been your sister in all but blood since the first time we got drunk, and you cried because someone called Scratch ‘loyal’ and you didn’t know what that felt like. You hid it behind your trademark snarky smile, but I saw the tears in your eyes” His eyes closed.

“I’m here,” Karlach said, “because I love her. And because I love you. And love doesn’t leave people in alleyways when it’s time to bring them home.” A long silence hung between them—shivering, silver, holy.

Finally, Astarion nodded. Just once. And for the first time since Taveleigha fell, his voice didn’t sound like it was breaking. “Let’s go”

By the time they reached Jaheira’s doorstep, the city had pulled its shadows in tight around the street like a shawl. The lamplight flickered gold against the stone. The warmth within seemed impossibly distant—some other world where laughter had once lived.

Karlach pushed the door open without knocking. Inside, candles still burned. The circle of crystals had grown tighter, more intricate, humming faintly withheld breath. Shadowheart looked up first, her hand clutching a half-burned bundle of incense. Her eyes widened, then softened.

Astarion hesitated on the threshold. No cloak of charisma. No wry lift of his brow. Just a figure drawn thin by grief, eyes rimmed in pink, lips slightly parted like each breath required effort. Regardless of his vampire nature. His fingers twitched at his sides, uncertain of where to put themselves. Of where he belonged. He stepped forward slowly, like the air might reject him.

Jaheira crossed the room without a word, pausing just before him. He lifted his gaze, unsure whether to brace or shrink. She simply nodded once and said, “You’re just in time.”

 “You aren’t going to scold me?” Astarion blinked, surprised the aged half elf usually scorned him, like a mother would a son. Even though he was sure he had at least fifty years on her.

She looked down the length of him—his blood-stiffened collar, the shadows under his eyes, the way he hovered behind Karlach like a child caught in a storm. “No,” she said. “Not today.”

Karlach exhaled like she’d been holding the world in her chest. “Told you.”

Shadowheart approached quietly and held out a hand. Not toward his face. Not toward his heart. Just his wrist—the same one Karlach had gripped to anchor him in the alley.

“I was afraid,” he whispered.

“And she knew you would be,” Shadowheart replied, voice gentle but sure. “That’s why she’d want you here now.”

He nodded. Just once. Then he crossed the threshold fully, his boots clicking soft against the wooden floor.

And slowly, he moved to her side. To where Taveleigha lay. No flourish. No fanfare. Just a man broken open and still breathing, kneeling beside the one who taught him how to live. The room fell away. Voices hushed, footsteps dimmed, even the Weave seemed to still as Astarion lowered himself beside her. The others gave him space, not as a favour, but as a rite. No one intruded on this.

He knelt quietly, hands trembling as they hovered just above her skin. Pale fingers curled into fists, then unfurled. Slowly, he touched her hand—cold now, but familiar. Still hers.

She lay like a statue carved from moonlight. The lines of her face softened in rest, not lifelessness. As if she were simply listening from somewhere deeper than the waking world.

He reached out, hesitant, and touched her hand. The chill startled him, even though he’d expected it. She had always been warmth—embers behind her laugh, sunlight in the way she listened, heat in every word that dared to pull him back from the brink. “I don't know what to say,” he whispered. He traced the edge of her wrist, where he used to feel her pulse when she fell asleep beside him. “I’ve had... centuries to master words. Flattery, deflection, manipulation. You were the first person I ever wanted to tell the truth to.” His voice cracked. “You made me want to be someone better, Tavi. Not for leverage. Not for survival. Just... for you. Because you saw something in me that I didn’t dare to believe in.”

Astarion cradled her hand carefully between his own. His voice was low, rough. “You remember how I used to mock all this? The weeping and the bedside speeches?” He huffed a broken laugh. “I would’ve scorned this, called it melodramatic... before you.” He ran his thumb over the lines of her fingers. “But you... you made everything sincere. Even grief. You made pain feel like something that didn’t have to rot you from the inside. Like it could mean something if you let it.” His eyes burned, and still, he didn’t look away from her. “You once told me that I wasn’t made to be alone. That even things broken at the root could grow again.” His voice faltered. “I didn’t believe you. Not really. But gods... I wanted to. I wanted to live in the space of your belief and pretend that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t something monstrous.”

A long silence passed. Then, softer, more fragile: “You gave me so much. Not gifts, not spells. Moments. Like the time you tucked that letter into my sleeve without saying a word. Just ‘in case you ever forget how far you’ve come,’ you said. I read it again tonight. Every line. I still know them by heart.”

He leaned forward and rested his forehead gently against the back of her hand. “I don’t want a world where I’m brave without you in it.”

“I wish I’d told you more. I wish I’d said it when it mattered. That you made my unlike feel like living.” He swallowed hard, then whispered, “Please come back. Just once more. And I swear—I’ll say it every day after that. I’ll build a thousand tomorrows if you just come back and steal the first one.” He leaned forward slowly, pressing a kiss to her fingers; soft, reverent, like a prayer whispered without expecting an answer. He leaned his head against hers and breathed.

In that stillness, it was almost as though the air shimmered—not with magic, but with memory. The echo of laughter. The ghost of her voice in the back of his mind. A whisper he wasn’t sure he was imagining “You’re not alone.”

And then he looked at Shadowheart and gave the smallest nod.

He was ready.

They all were.

I hope you guys enjoy. I really do love this chapter, i cannot explain why (I hope that is nto bigheaded). No pressure tag: @roguishcat @shewhowas39 @lirotation @asweetlovesong @loquaciousquark @slothquisitor @renard-rogue @creativeautistic @sparkysparklesuphigh @starlight-rogue

[clazberryk]

Snippet Someday

Thank you for the tag @roguishcat

This is part of Chapter 3 of An unfair hand has bene dealt, I am currently still working on it but its nearly done. I am also struggling with a title so if you can think of something, i would love some ideas.

The house grew busier with silence, each corner lit by the soft scratch of parchment, the clink of glass vials, and the rustle of cloth pulled from old shelves. Jaheira’s study had been turned into something between a shrine and an alchemical war room.

Shadowheart stood by the hearth, laying out white quartz, rose crystal, and fragments of emeralds along the floor—carefully, reverently. Her braid was unkempt now, hanging loose where concentration had tugged it out of place.

“We’ll need the circle complete before sundown,” she murmured. “Each stone attuned to an aspect of the Weave—memory, emotion, form, and breath.”

Jaheira returned with a wooden chest clutched against her side, dust shaking loose as she opened it. Inside, dozens of diamonds—some rough, some cut—glimmered like stolen starlight. “This is what’s left from old wars and older allies. More than enough for resurrection... but not for this.”

Shadowheart nodded, scanning the box. “We’ll still need the centerpiece. A black diamond, uncut, worth at least a thousand gold. It has to channel the void—bind the space she once occupied.”

Jaheira frowned. “Rarities like that don’t just sit in shops, not even in the Upper City. We might have to trade favors. Or find someone desperate enough to part with it.”

“I’ll send to Gale. If anyone knows where to find that kind of magic, it’s him.” Shadowheart’s voice trembled slightly, but she steadied it. “We’re running out of time. Her spirit’s fading from this plane.”

Across the room, Karlach hadn’t moved. She sat beside the cot where Taveleigha lay, one great hand wrapped carefully around hers. She didn’t speak. Didn’t cry again. Just breathed, slow and steady, as if lending her strength to the fallen woman by sheer force of presence.

Every so often, her thumb would brush over Taveleigha’s knuckles in an unconscious rhythm—like she was keeping time in a lullaby only the two of them could hear.

“We’re not letting you go,” she whispered once, too softly for the others to hear. “So don’t even think about drifting off.”

Shadowheart glanced toward her. The sight of Karlach—usually an inferno of movement—sitting so still was its own kind of heartbreak. She didn’t interrupt.

Instead, she lit a bundle of myrrh-scented incense, letting the smoke coil upward in pale spirals. “Every step counts,” she said, more to the room than anyone. “Every crystal placed. Every breath held.”

Jaheira touched her shoulder gently. “And every soul who stands with us.”

Outside, the city’s chaos churned on. But inside Jaheira’s house, something sacred was stirring—grief forged into ritual, sorrow shaped into intent.

[clazberryk]

An unfair hand has been dealth: Chapter two; The Fire That Remains.

Taveleigha fell to in the House of Grief, unable to be revived, the companions move through the 5 stages of Greif. Unaware that Taveleigha is fighting for her own existence, will she survive, will she return stronger than ever. How will this shape them and her in the future.

HOLY MOLY THIS CHAPTER. I poured everything into it. I do hope you like it. You cna click the link above if you want to read on AO3. But for those that do not: Enjoy

The Fire That Remains

It was cold, that was the first sensory that came to Taveleigha’s notice; she shivered and looked around, taken aback. The air tasted like ash and distant thunder, though there was no wind to carry such a thing. Shadows drifted lazily across the ground, not cast by anything visible—just impressions of movement, as if memory itself had begun to unravel and rethread in front of her. Every few steps she took echoed louder than seemed natural, as though the space around her disagreed with the idea of presence. She clutched at her arms, more from instinct than discomfort, and wondered—why here? why now?

Then it hit her—not a memory, exactly, but the absence of one. There should have been pain. There should have been something: light, a voice, perhaps even a final breath. But she remembered none of it. Only the feeling of being swept under, like ink dissolving into water. The Fugue Plane did not offer answers; it offered possibilities stitched together with doubt. In the distance, a silver chord flickered, vanishing the moment her gaze fixed on it. Taveleigha’s brows furrowed. Somewhere inside her, a whisper stirred—not in words, but in the shape of a name she no longer knew she had forgotten.

She saw a ghost of a figure, a man, tall, lithe, but why could she not place their name, she felt like she was tethered to them somehow, but no name came to her head.

A tremor rolled through her—not in the ground beneath her feet, but in her chest, where something once beat with purpose. Taveleigha turned in a slow circle, searching for anything familiar—a voice, a landmark, a sign that she hadn’t simply been discarded. But the silence here was too complete, almost hungry. Every direction looked the same: indistinct grey that blurred the line between sky and earth, as though even the horizon had forgotten how to hope.

“Hello?” she called, but her voice barely carried. It came back to her muffled and warped, like it had passed through water. Am I alone? The question struck her harder than she expected. The loneliness here was not merely the absence of others—it was the unnerving sense that no one would come, that no one even knew to try. What gods or guardians she had trusted in life were silent now, their absence as sharp as betrayal. Had she been judged? Forgotten? Or simply... lost?

Taveleigha sank to her knees, hands digging into the pale dust beneath her, trying to find purchase in a world that refused to offer any. Something inside her clawed for reason—for context, for meaning—but it met only fog. The desperation built quietly, curling at the edges of her mind like smoke. She clenched her eyes shut, willing herself to wake, to remember, to be anywhere else. But the Fugue Plane offered no mercy.

The ache in her chest deepened—not just from confusion, but from something more piercing: remembrance. The silence of the Fugue Plane cracked ever so slightly, letting through a flicker of warmth that did not belong here. A fire. Laughter. Taveleigha was not sure if it was conjured by her longing or if the Plane itself was showing her mercy.

In her mind’s eye, the firelight played across familiar faces; Gale, gesturing wildly mid-explanation while Wyll smirked behind his tankard; Shadowheart's rare, reluctant laugh breaking free as Karlach doubled over with a booming cackle. Lae'zel, ever watchful, allowed herself the smallest curve of a smile as she leaned back against a rock, feigning disinterest. These were not ghosts. They were anchor points, moments so steeped in emotion they refused to be erased. Taveleigha could almost smell the roasted mushrooms, the faint tang of damp stone from the Underdark walls surrounding their camp. The echo of Karlach slapping her on the back with a bark of, “Eat more, you’re skin and bones!”

Then Astarion's presence came like a balm and a dagger in the same breath. She remembered the way he kissed her—not always with heat, but sometimes with a strange, reverent stillness, as if trying to memorize the exact shape of her mouth. A stolen moment at dawn, his fingers brushing along her jawline while the others still slept. Or the smirk he wore when he leaned in during idle hours, only to murmur something scandalous and kiss the laughter off her lips. Astarion had always made it look effortless—this way of making her feel like she was the only thing in all the Realms worth lingering for.

Her breath caught as another memory surged forward, unwanted but vivid: the clang of swords, blood-soaked stone, the scream of something enormous in the dark. One of those battles that felt like it would be their last—Lae'zel bleeding from a gash above her eye, Gale burned and gasping, Karlach dragging Shadowheart away from a collapsing ledge. She remembered locking eyes with Astarion across the battlefield, both of them nodding like it might be their final word. She had felt small then. Mortal. Fallible.

And yet they'd survived. Now, she was here. Alone. No firelight. No warmth. No Astarion. Just the imprint of what had been, vivid against the colourless void. It almost made the memories crueller.

At the edge of her vision, a glimmer caught her attention—a single strand of silver, impossibly fine and gently pulsing like it shared a heartbeat with something far away. Taveleigha staggered toward it, not daring to speak, for fear that even breath might shatter it. As she neared, the thread curled softly into the air, beckoning her forward with the promise of something—contact, memory, maybe even escape. It shimmered with familiarity. Not Astarion’s touch, but close. Not Karlach’s warmth, but warmth all the same.

She reached for it. Her fingers brushed the thread—and it vanished.

The space where it had been felt colder, hollower. A shiver of breath escaped her—unexpected, involuntary, like a ghost leaving its last haunt. Then another thread blinked into existence a few paces away, this one arcing in a different direction, vibrating with another pulse. Shadowheart’s voice, maybe. A half-felt fragment of Wyll’s laughter. She followed, faster this time, desperate. As she neared, the silver dissolved once more, dissolving into the fog like dew in sunlight.

It happened again. And again. Threads appearing at the edge of perception—leading her deeper into nothingness. Each one tugged at a different fragment; Gale reciting poetry in the dim hours of watch, Lae'zel offering a grudging nod of approval after a hard-won fight. Pieces of a life that insisted on mattering.

But none of them held.

Eventually, she stood breathless in a field of unlit possibilities, surrounded by the ghost-marks of vanished silver. Her hands trembled—not from fear, but from a grief too vast for tears. The Fugue Plane was not teasing her. It was proving something cruel: you were loved, and that love could not follow you here.

Taveleigha fell.

Not in the dramatic way stories loved to tell it, with thunder and fury, but in a quiet, unravelling kind of way. Her knees gave out as if the truth had finally caught up to her bones—that no thread would hold, no warmth would return. She collapsed into the dust, her breath hitching, eyes fixed on nothing. A sob clawed up from her throat, not loud, but jagged, aching. Around her, the fog pulsed with indifference.

“Please,” she whispered. Not to a god. Not to the world. Just to the ache inside her. Her shoulders shook. She thought of Astarion’s smirk, of Karlach’s laugh, of Wyll’s quiet courage, of Gales constant musings, and then of the emptiness where their voices should have been. This place, this wretched limbo, had taken everything. Her grief wasn’t beautiful. It was raw, cracked, and furious.

But even then—especially then—something stirred beneath it.

Not hope. That would have been too easy.

It was something deeper. Older. The fire that had always lived at her core, the one that made her pick herself up after every loss, which helped her smile through shattered ribs and sleepless nights. She had fought for others even when she doubted herself. She’d endured. Loved. Lived. That could not be undone by this place.

She rose slowly, trembling and ash streaked. Not because she believed she could leave. But because she refused to let the Fugue Plane decide who she was.

She did not know if she wanted to return, if she could. But she knew one thing: she wouldn't lie down again. Not until there was truly nothing left to burn.

The Fugue Plane had been silent—static, unmoved by her pain. But her shift echoed, however faintly, through its endless grey.

The dust beneath her stirred.

It was not wind. It was awareness—subtle at first, like the turning of a great eye behind a veil. The air tightened, as though drawing breath in response to her defiance. Shadows thickened in her periphery, coalescing not into form, but into attention. The Fugue Plane didn’t speak, not in language, but in sensation. Where before there had been indifference, now there was tension. Curiosity. A barely perceptible pressure pressing against her skin and soul alike.

The ground cracked beneath her step—not violently, but deliberately, exposing a thin vein of lightless obsidian, pulsing faintly. A mirror-path, perhaps. Or a warning.

Taveleigha sensed it—this place didn’t want her fire, but it couldn’t ignore it either. And in that tension, there was power. The threads didn’t return, but something new stirred at the edges of her sight: not paths, but possibilities, raw and unformed. The Fugue Plane was watching now. Maybe weighing her. Maybe waiting.

Whatever this place was, it had noticed her.

And that, for the first time, made it feel real.

Tangible, malleable, conceivable. This I can work with. You will not take me!

A ripple passed through the air before her, delicate but undeniable, as if reality had blinked. The shadows congealed, folding inward like petals drawing tight around a bud. Taveleigha stepped back instinctively—yet something within her leaned closer, drawn like iron to a magnetic truth.

From the folds of fog emerged a figure, her. Not quite. Not entirely. This Taveleigha moved with the same grace but stood too still between steps, her limbs too precise, her eyes polished obsidian that reflected nothing. Her lips curled into a smirk far too knowing. She wore an expression Taveleigha had never seen on her own face—but had perhaps felt on the edge of sleep, in her darkest moments.

And when she spoke, it was not her voice. It was Shar’s; velvet over steel, ancient and seductive, threaded with grief like a whispered threat. “Oh, little spark, still clinging to embers,” the Mirror-Taveleigha said, glancing at her hands as if they were artifacts. “Did you think defiance would earn you passage? You always confuse stubbornness for purpose.”

Taveleigha’s breath caught. The tone was hauntingly intimate, shaped by someone who had watched every internal fracture. The Mirror circled her, never moving her feet, simply being wherever she was not looking.

“I saw your collapse,” Shar’s voice cooed. “I saw how easily you broke, whimpering in the dirt, begging shadows to remember you. Pathetic... yet expected.”

Taveleigha’s fists clenched. “I stood back up.”

The mirror-self tilted her head. “But for what? You don’t even know if you want to return. The truth, dear heart, is you don’t know who you are without someone to need you. Astarion’s smirk. Karlach’s warmth. You’ve built a soul from borrowed light.” The Mirror-self stepped closer now, eyes glinting. “So, I ask you, Taveleigha—will you keep pretending you matter? Or accept that some fires die quietly, unnoticed?” She raised her hand, and the plane buckled.

The world split—not in violence, but in unfolding. Taveleigha staggered as the ash beneath her feet transformed into a glasslike surface, dark and reflective. Memory bloomed around her like painted shards: scenes suspended in midair, silent and luminous, yet burning behind her eyes as if relived.

Ahead, the first form emerged—a nautiloid, impossibly vast, crashing through dimensions in looping agony. A version of herself stumbled through flaming corridors, helpless, screaming amid alien tongue and mind fire. It lunged at her, this memory, twisted into a writhing aberration of wrinkled tendrils and piercing screams. She met it not with fear, but fire—her present self-conjuring a burst of flame that severed its clawed limb.

Then came another, the blood-soaked ballroom of Cazador. The air reeked of rot and old cruelty. Her death—her first—played out like a cruel theatre. There was her body, limp, and Astarion roaring in defiance. It struck her chest anew, that memory of vanishing light. But the scene wavered, stuttered, and from her corpse rose her own silhouette, cloaked in silver flame, resurrected not by fate but by her will. This spectre nodded and stepped into her, becoming one.

From the shadows emerged a figure in armour—Ketheric.

Time slowed. The Fugue Plane, which had pulsed with memory and magic, seemed to draw inward, as though it, too, held its breath. Ketheric Thorm stepped forward not as a memory, but as a monolith of her past—the man who raised her in silence and punishment, who spoke love only in the language of dominance. His armour didn’t clink. It judged.

Taveleigha’s fire faltered.

For the first time since she rose, her knees buckled—not in weariness but in instinct. Her body remembered before her mind could shield it: the sharp sting of withheld praise, the brittle chill of being unseen. The child within her—the one who once packed a bundle and whispered, run with me—rose like smoke behind her ribs.

“You came back to me, daughter,” Ketheric said, though his voice fractured between memory and mockery. “Even in death. As it was written.”

Her flames recoiled, struggling against the gravitational pull of his presence. “I’m not yours,” she whispered, but it sounded like a plea, not defiance. Her magic flickered, the fiery sigil’s above her distorting, weeping sparks.

The scene shifted, her sister’s face lit by moonlight, then twisting in betrayal as she turned away. The sound of her name shouted across a battlefield, unanswered. The sting of the moment Astarion nearly slipped away from her grasp, and worse, the moments she almost let him.

Taveleigha sank to her knees amid the burning circle of memories, hands pressed to the mirror-floor. “I… I don’t know if I ever left you behind,” she choked, “if I’ve ever stopped running from what you made me.”

Even in the quaking silence, something stirred. A warmth that came not from pride or love—but from endurance. She had died. She had risen. She had chosen again and again to live with her pain. Not above it. Her hand clenched into a fist against the glasslike ground. “But I am still here,” she breathed. “And you? You’re just a shadow cast by who I survived.”

The flames returned—not in a blaze, but in a steady burn. She stood again, slower this time, not in triumph, but in truth.

The flames around her began to sputter—not from weakness, but in reverence. The Plane itself seemed to hold still. Then came the crack; clean and cold. A mirror appeared, tall as a cathedral gate and framed in blackened bone. It split down the centre with a hiss, revealing not passage, but presence.

Three figures stepped forward, bare feet echoing on the obsidian glass.

The first wore silk the colour of dusk, hair neatly braided, eyes downcast. She moved with mechanical grace, spine straight as a blade—but her shoulders hunched ever so slightly, as if waiting for correction. A voice echoed in a tone both familiar and cruelly hollow “I obeyed. I stayed. I made myself small enough to love.” Taveleigha flinched. The Obedient Daughter.

The second burst forth like a struck match; wreathed in fire that scorched the ground with every step. Her lips curled in a sneer, her hands already alight with flames that writhed like vipers. Her eyes were bloodshot, her voice acid “They hurt you. So, I burned them. I would burn everything before I let you be weak again.” The Vengeful Flame snarled toward the Mirror, daring the Plane to answer.

The third was barely there dressed in pale lilac, face gentle, posture open. She was… perfect. Quietly smiling. Too quiet. Eyes devoid of depth. She extended a hand with the polished grace of someone who’s learned exactly how to be wanted. “If they need you, they won’t leave,” the Hollow One murmured. “So be what they need. Be beautiful. Be soft. Be silent.”

Taveleigha staggered back as their voices layered in whispers, cutting through her armour like wind through cloth. Each was a part of her; worn like masks, forged by fear and sharpened under Ketheric’s rule.

“Which will you be?” Her mirror self crooned, Ketheric’s voice tangled in its frame. “Or will you run, as always?”

She didn’t answer at first. Her fire sparked in hesitation, the air thick with threat. “I was all of you,” she said, voice low, trembling—but not unsure. “I curled beneath his words. I lashed out to survive. I silenced myself to keep from being left behind.”

She stepped toward the Obedient Daughter. “But I’m not a child waiting for permission anymore.” Her flame touched the figure’s cheek, and the silk burned gently away, revealing raw truth beneath—innocent, still scarred, but seen.

To the Vengeful Flame, she offered her bare hand. “You kept me alive. But I won’t be ruled by rage.” The flames between them intertwined—no longer devouring, but dancing.

And at last, to the Hollow One. This one trembled. Taveleigha reached forward, wrapping her arms around the illusion, whispering, “I don’t have to disappear to be loved.”

The Hollow shattered like glass under moonlight. Silence reigned—for a breath.

Then the Mirror shuddered.

Ketheric’s voice grew jagged, unfamiliar now. “You think you can heal what I carved into you? I made you.”

Taveleigha’s eyes burned gold. “No. You tried.”

The shattered remnants of the three mirrors spiralled around her, coalescing into armour—not to shield, but to reflect her—her choices, her pain, her power.

And the Mirror began to crumble.

he shattered Mirror dissolved into lightless dust, but something remained in its wake—a figure forged not from memory, but from will, her will, twisted and reshaped by the scars it bore. Ketheric rose again—not as he was, but as what he had become inside her: a towering spectre clad in void-forged armour, crowned in burning grief. His eyes were pits of despair that reflected not truth, but the version of herself he’d always wanted her to be—obedient, broken, silenced.

This was her nightmare made flesh.

He raised a blade etched with runes of shame and legacy and spoke in a voice scraped raw by gods and failure “You will never be free of me.”

The Fugue Plane roared.

Taveleigha faltered for only a breath—but then behind her, the shards of the three mirror-daughters pulsed with remembered fire. They circled her like stars drawn back into constellation. She stood taller, steadier, even as her body trembled. From the void around them, echoes of laughter, footsteps, campfire murmurs drifted into the battlefield. Familiar voices, unseen but undeniable:

“You’ve got this, Tav! Burn him twice—once for you, once for who he��ll never be!” Karlach roared, lending her strength “You know what you are. He cannot take that from you.” Shadowheart lending her wisdom “Finish it. For her. For all you’ve become.” Gale lending his intellect.

And then, him. A presence so intimate it caught in her throat. Astarion Not as lover or broken soul, a kindred spirit but as anchor. His whisper wove through her blood like thread through cloth “Survive this, darling. And come back to me. Not because I need you whole. But because you deserve to be.”

Her fire ignited again—but this time, it harmonised.

As Ketheric charged, she met him. Not with control, but complete surrender to the storm within her. Blades of flame spiralled from her hands—some shaped by sorrow, others forged in joy. His every strike mirrored old wounds: the abandonment, the gaslight, the powerlessness. But she answered each with spells shaped by love, loyalty, and that fierce, clawing choice to live.

The Plane split around them into arcs of colour and void, reflections of her soul—this fight was reality, but it was also rite, a crucible. He screamed ancient curses, she answered in tongues of magic that had no name, only feeling.

Every hit she landed was not just against him, but against the part of her that believed she’d never escape him.

Ketheric shattered, the mirror shattered and the plane trembled.

From the dust and silence where the Mirror had shattered, a figure rose—but not Ketheric as she had just defeated. This was a god-scourged amalgamation of legacy and cruelty. Ketheric Bound Eternal, born not of flesh, but of Taveleigha’s scars.

His cathedral-like armour groaned with weightless menace, forged from spectral bone and rusted devotion, each plate inscribed with the names of memories he tried to erase from her. From one gauntleted hand hung a blade curved like a crescent of mourning, and in the other, a censer that bled violet smoke, dampening the air, stifling her fire with every breath of doubt.

“You will never be free of me,” he said, voice hollow with prophecy. “You are my echo, shaped by absence. Forged in obedience.”

She didn’t answer. Her fire flared in her veins—but dimmed beneath the shroud of his presence.

Then came the chains. They whipped through the air, latching onto her limbs—not steel, but memory, each hissed accusation forged from the worst truths:

“You let her die.” A chain around her wrists “You died crawling.” A chain around her waist, pinning her in place “You stayed. You begged. You were never strong.” This final one, straight to the chest, she stumbled, she faltered, she felt each chain dampen her magic.

The censer's smoke clouded her thoughts. Taveleigha stumbled to her knees. But before she collapsed, something shimmered behind her—the mirror-daughters.

“You endured more than he ever understood.” The Obedient daughter whispered, voice long forgotten, severing the chain that bound her wrists.

The vengeful daughter howled with rage and poured her fury into Taveleigha very soul, her very spell core, reigniting her blaze. The chain around her waist crackled, splintered then melted away.

The Hollow daughter glided over her and through her, she felt arms surround her heart and soothed the scars and the forever suffocating shame. The final chain withered and disappeared into nothing. Erased as if never existed.

She rose—burning not with wrath, but remembrance.

Enraged, Ketheric ascended into the air, and the ground beneath her splintered. A cathedral emerged from the void, floating over a chasm of oblivion. She leapt onto its steps, breathless, surrounded now by stained glass visions not of saints, but of her own failures.

One pane showed her sister’s back as she ran. Another showed her lifeless on Cazador’s floor. Another—Astarion’s tormented eyes, just before he looked away.

Ketheric’s blade pierced the stone beside her. “You are not forgiven,” he hissed.

Shatter the windows, the obedient daughter whispered from within. Each crack burst with memory and pain—but also with love.

 “He doesn’t get to define who you’ve become, soldier.” Karlach her steadfast friend

 “You did your best with what you had.” Gale her connection to the weave, a camaraderie that others do not understand, a mirror to her, a what could have been if she were wizard and not sorcerer, a constant reminder that she was a freak of nature. But not this time. This time she would own her place.

 “What’s broken can still be sacred.” Shadowheart’s wisdom, a mirror of her own struggle of her turning her back from Shar and returning to her rightful place regardless how broken.

Glass exploded around her, each shattering freeing more of her strength. Until only one pane remained unbroken: Astarion.

His image flickered with torment—chained, starved, forgotten.

Ketheric’s voice goaded: “You made him weak. You softened him. You tethered him to your rot.”

Taveleigha raised her hand.

And lowered it. “No,” she breathed. “He chose to stay. And I chose to live.”

The final pane withered, not in fire—but in forgiveness.

Ketheric fell, screaming, into the cathedral’s heart.

But he rose again.

Armour gone now, reduced to sinew and ash, Ketheric the Hollowed stood before her, light bleeding from his eyes and ribs like a false divinity. The ground melted around them—only a single platform of magic remained, suspended over the Abyss.

“You. Are. Mine,” he hissed.

Taveleigha stood steady. And somewhere beyond the veil, through golden warmth and echoed breath, came his voice.

“You told me I was more than what he made me,” Astarion whispered.

She gritted her teeth—and leapt.

The fight was desperate. Close, brutal, personal. Her spells faltered and flared, blades of flame clashing with his ashen fury. He clawed into her soul, ripping memories loose mid-strike, trying to disorient her, shouting “You begged for love, and the world found you wanting. You died screaming”.

Taveleigha struck back, not in fury but in truth with each statement her fire flaring brighter, hotter and stronger.

“I begged because I believed in better” 4 sharp rays of fire to his face mirroring the chains.

“I died saving my friends” another 4 sharp rays to his shoulders.

“AND. I. ROSE. BECAUSE. I. CHOSE. TO” The plane trembled at her ownership, it faltered, and she released the final strand of continuous fire to Ketheric’s chest. He reacted his blade piercing her shoulder, she screamed releasing an answering fire ripped from her very own blood, her very own person.

The fire formed a weapon of pure flame, she pulled the bow back, with a wavering strength, and with a final scream she released the arrow which flew true, two more released I quick succession that would make Astarion beam with pride.

For the child I was.

For the woman I’ve become.

For the one still becoming.

Ketheric shattered—not into smoke, not into ash—but into silence.

No scream. No echo. Just… release.

The Plane held still. And in that stillness, she breathed.

Around her, the voices faded—not gone, but resting, like coals beneath embers. Her body ached, her soul heavier than ever—but also… lightened. Clearer.

But she didn’t move. Not yet.

in the silence that followed, the Fugue Plane shimmered. The obsidian vein beneath her feet pulsed and cracked open, revealing not darkness—but dawnlight. A path of golden mist rising, pulsing with heartbeat and breath and the possibility of return.

The battlefield was quiet now—not because nothing stirred, but because everything had been stilled by meaning.

Ash floated like snow in the golden aftermath. The shattered ground beneath Taveleigha’s feet no longer pulsed, no longer threatened collapse or trial. It simply was—a surface reclaimed. Her chest rose and fell in time with the hush, each breath a fragile stitch pulling body and spirit closer together. The Fugue Plane, once vast and cruel, no longer pressed in on her. It gave space. Not peace, but permission.

The voices of her friends, of Astarion, had faded—but not vanished. They lived inside her bones now. Not echoes. Anchors.

The light of the path home shimmered at her back, waiting, patient.

But still, she did not move.

Not yet.

Taveleigha turned her palms skyward, letting cinders kiss her skin. Every scar she carried, every fear she’d whispered into silence, every love she dared to hold—they were all still here. Not weighing her down but woven into her.

She closed her eyes.

For the first time in too long, she let herself just breathe.

And in that stillness, she was no longer someone surviving the past:

She was someone becoming.

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