#Taveleigha

[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]

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]

Tav's Nightmare

https://archiveofourown.org/works/57464338

I have rewritten this story. I really hits on depression and how sometimes it is a beast to defeat. I really do hope you enjoy it. It also touches on very personal difficutlies

For those that do not have access to AO3: Tav's Nightmare

She twitched in her sleep, a fleeting tremor that betrayed the war still raging in her mind. He felt it—the tension coiling in her muscles, the unease pressing against him even as she slumbered. With a quiet sigh, he pulled her closer, tucking her against his chest. Skin to skin, no barriers between them. A novelty. A revelation. He had spent centuries recoiling from touch, shrinking away from warmth like it was something alien, unbearable. But here—like this—he wanted it. Needed it. Her breath ghosted against his skin, each exhale a whisper against his ribs, grounding him. The weight of her draped over him, legs tangled, her arm resting lazily at his waist. Perfect. He was at peace for the first time in two hundred years.

And yet, she was not.

The irony wasn’t lost on him; his mind was quiet, while hers was unravelling. Ever since Cazador, her nights had worsened. The nightmares, the memories—those didn’t scare him. What did was the way she had withdrawn. Her silence. The distance she placed between herself and the world, between herself and him. Their companions had noticed too. Karlach, Gale—watchful eyes, worried murmurs.

Astarion had never known how to comfort. Never been anyone’s steady foundation. But for her, he would try. He was no knight in shining armour, no hero to sweep her away to a fairytale ending. He had no illusions about that. He was not the kind of man who could fix things with a kiss and call it love. But he was hers—the man she had chosen—and that still left him breathless, overwhelmed in a way he barely understood. And yet, with each passing day, he grew more comfortable in that truth. She had never been an easy read, her trust hard-earned, her emotions a guarded thing. He had spent months learning her, peeling back the layers of a closed book, reading her story page by page. And in her eyes—the only place she never truly hid—he had seen everything. Pain, loss, the weight of a lifetime’s worth of sorrow. But now, there was something else. Something growing.

A fire.

Not the kind that burned everything down, not the kind he had spent years fearing. No—this flame was hers. It flickered in the way she looked at him, the way she stood beside him, the way she fought for him. He had seen it the night she silenced that damned Drow, standing unwaveringly at his side, her magic humming in her blood.

“He gave you his answer,” she had said, crushing the potion in her fist, letting it fall uselessly to the ground. It was then he had realised—his simple plan had unravelled. The war inside him had settled. He no longer wanted her as a conquest. No longer wanted her as a mark. He wanted her.

All of her.

And he had known, truly, without doubt, when he saw her fall at Moonrise. When she stood tall beside him against Cazador, magic burning through her veins, her body weakening from its toll. He had known when she threw herself in front of those necrotic claws and crumpled, when he felt the world threaten to shatter around him.

He had wanted power once, for himself, for survival. Now, he only wanted it for her, to protect her. But the look in her eyes when he turned away from ascension—the pride, the quiet acceptance—had been worth everything. A life in the shadows, in the unknown, as long as she was there. So, if she needed him now—if she needed someone to be steady, to be constant—he would learn how. She had carried him through his darkest moments. Now, it was his turn.

He tightened his hold on her, pressing a kiss to her hair, letting his eyes close. She had been quiet for a while. Maybe—just maybe—her mind had quieted too.

"Run, Tavi, run!" Her mother's voice ripped through the chaos, frantic, urgent. Smoke choked the night sky, turning the horizon into a nightmare of shifting orange and black. Tavi's breath came in sharp bursts, her vision blurring as tears burned at the corners of her eyes.

"Tavi!" And then, her mother was there—her hands firm, pushing her away, shoving her toward escape. Toward survival. The village burned behind her. Home—the only home she'd ever known—gone.

Tavi ran.

Her lungs burned. Her muscles snapped tight with each desperate stride. She could feel the fire in her blood, every nerve screaming at her to go faster, to get away. See danger. Run from it. Do not engage. Do not fight. Run. That was how she survived—how she was supposed to survive. She ran until the flames disappeared behind her, until the glow on the horizon faded into nothing. Darkness swallowed her whole, the forest pressing in from all sides. Her steps slowed. She turned back.

"Mum?" Her voice cracked in the stillness. Nothing. Maybe she had fallen behind—she wasn’t as fast, not like Tavi. Not spry like a full elf. "Mum?"

Silence.

The fear hit her chest like a blade. "Mum?" Her voice rose, desperate, panicked. "Mum? Mum? MUM!" Her legs buckled. She collapsed forward, trembling, her breath ragged. No, no, no, not alone, please. Not alone. But the truth was already curling into her gut. Her mother had pushed her away. Had saved her. And she was gone.

The memory fractured. Glass shattering in all directions.

Tavi was not in the forest anymore.

She was standing on the porch of her home. Her arms wrapped tightly around herself, barely holding her together. Her partner—no, her ex-partner—was leaving. Walking away, never looking back.

Because of her.

She was crying, shaking, calling for the only comfort she had ever known. "Mum?" The word felt foreign now, childish, broken. She sank to her knees, gasping through the sobs clawing at her throat. "Mummy."

A Tenday. That’s all it had taken. She had lost her unborn child. She had lost them. "Mummy." She fell sideways into herself, curling up, crushing her arms against her stomach, trying to hold in the grief. But it spilled out anyway, raw and relentless. Even her magic refused to answer her call.

Another shift.

She was walking now, down an unfamiliar road. The city loomed ahead, indistinct in the haze of time. She didn’t know what day it was. What month. What year. She only had a purpose. A small one. But a purpose, nonetheless.

Tonight was the night. Tonight, she would have her answers. She wore simple traveling clothes. Her hair hung loose—why bother pulling it up? No one was waiting for her. No one would care. She had no home to return to. No one expecting her. The world was too bright. Too dark. Too empty. She just had to get to the top of the tower. That was all that mattered.

Pain.

Restriction.

Was someone screaming? Was she screaming?

She couldn’t move.

A reptilian woman filled her vision—too close, her face sharp, calculating. Tavi struggled, but it was useless. The pressure held her still.

Then—searing agony.

The tadpole forced into her eye.

The rows of teeth.

She blacked out.

She woke in light. Too bright, too harsh, stabbing into her skull like a blade.

Her head throbbed. The scent of burning twisted in her nostrils. No, no, no—not again.

Mum. Mum. Mummy! Tavi stumbled upright, heart hammering. But it wasn’t her village. It wasn’t the raid. It was a crash site. The wreckage of a nautiloid. A dark-haired woman lay unconscious nearby. She moved toward her—

Flash of silver. Cold metal against her throat. She fell back, breath forced from her lungs, her body hitting the ground hard.

The blade pressed closer, sharp and unyielding. A silver-haired elf loomed over her, grip tight, fury burning in his gaze. "I saw you on that ship," he snapped. The blade pressed harder. "Nod." She did. Mechanically. "Good," he muttered. "Now—what the hells did you do to me?"

The Emerald Grove. The Tieflings. The goblins.

The Underdark. The Shadow-Cursed Lands.

Moonrise. The Absolute.

Ketheric. The Chosen Three.

Myrkul. The Guardian.

Cazador!

Tavi gasped, bolting upright. Her eyes darted around, wild, disoriented. Her heart slammed against her ribs. Where—where was she?

Breath. Steady breath against her skin. Warmth.

The Elfsong. Her bed.

Astarion’s chest beneath her cheek. He was trancing, still, peaceful.

She let out a shuddering breath, the tension draining, just a little. But then—He will leave eventually. You know this. The voice was back. Had it ever truly left? She knew it was fading—knew that every conversation with Astarion made it weaker—but tonight, it had returned.

Her malicious self. Her true self. You bring nothing but death. Making decisions for everyone else. She squeezed her eyes shut. She did not want to listen. But the words lingered, curling at the edges of her mind, whispering truths she had spent so long trying to forget.

No! He loves me.

Tavi clasped her hands over her ears, pressing hard, trying to drown out the words clawing at her mind.

But has he said it? Her breath caught. No. He hadn’t said it. She loved him—by all the pantheons, she loved him with every fibre of her being. She would die for him. She had, against Cazador.But the voice was relentless.

You destroy everything you touch. Your father abandoned you, disgusted by your mixed blood. Your mother left, dying just to rid herself of you.

No. Stop it. She died to save me. She told me to run.

And you ran. The only thing you’re good at.

Tavi stood abruptly, snatching up a shirt—uncertain if it was his or hers—pulling it over her head. Rosemary and bergamot filled her senses. Astarion. His scent surrounded her, grounding her, but only for a moment. Her gaze flicked downward. He was still deep in trance, unmoving, untouched by her storm. She turned toward the ladder.

Running again. No surprise there. She ignored it. Forced herself forward. The latch creaked under her hand as she pushed up onto the tavern roof.

The night stretched wide, stars scattered like broken glass across the sky. The breeze carried salt and smoke from the docks, cool against her skin. She shivered, wrapping her arms tightly around herself—not just for warmth, but for containment.

The voice slithered back in. Stupid, worthless girl. You should have perished with your mother. Then none of this would have happened. Shadowheart would be a Justiciar. Wyll wouldn’t be a devil. Karlach wouldn’t have a life sentence. Lae’zel wouldn’t be running from her Queen. And Astarion—your beloved Astarion—he would be ascended.

NO. No, stop it. Stop it. Stop it. The words caught in her throat, barely whispered. She turned her back on the voice, gripping the edges of her skull, pressing her palms hard against her ears, eyes squeezed shut.

But it was forming.

She could feel it.

A presence coiling in the shadows, stretching out from the corners of her mind—waiting. Watching. Waiting.

It breathed against her neck. It whispered through her bones.

You kept him weak. So, he wouldn’t leave you. You kept him low, kept him chained, so he wouldn’t realize how worthless you are. Just a lost little elf girl. Too weak for him. Too weak for anyone.

Tavi trembled. No. No, I never…

Tick tock. It’s almost over. There have been no talks of ‘after,’ have there? He isn’t going to bring it up. He won’t be yours beyond the battle. You deny him his freedom. You deny him his life in the sun. Keeping him buried with you in the shadows. Selfish little bitch.

She straightened. The tears on her cheeks felt distant, meaningless. Numb. Numb she could do.

She walked toward the edge of the roof, her steps slow, deliberate. Below, the city sprawled out, alive with distant voices and flickering lanterns. The fountain outside Sorcerer’s Sundries glowed faintly in the square. They were going with Gale today. Research. They could do it without her. They didn’t need her.

What use was a sorcerer when they had a wizard? Gale of Waterdeep. A name filled with history, weight, meaning.

The voice took over her mantraAnd you—Taveleigha of who-knows-where.Nothing.No mother. No father. No child to call her own.I mean, it wouldn’t take much.The thought whispered, soft, insidious.Headfirst. Nobody could stop you. Smash the brain. Smash the tadpole. It would be over. Quiet.Isn’t that what you wanted?The voice pressed closer, wrapping around her, suffocating her, pinning her beneath its weight.

She moved to the edge.

Her toes curled over the stone lip, hanging just over the drop.

The beast was circling now, winding around her limbs, breathing against her throat.

Leaning in.

Waiting.

Astarion stirred. At first, it was subtle—the faintest shift in their bed, an absence barely noticeable. But as his awareness sharpened, he realized what had woken him. The weight of his partner was gone. His hand reached instinctively for her side of the bed, brushing against cold sheets. She had been gone for a while. I knew I shouldn’t have tranced.

“Darling?” His voice cut through the stillness of the room.

Silence.

Shadowheart was still asleep in her bunk. Most of their companions remained undisturbed—except for Karlach, who was just beginning to stir. She blinked, her gaze landing on him. “Where’s Tav?” she asked immediately, concluding what he already knew—one of them was missing.

“I was thinking the same thing.” Astarion pulled himself upright, reaching for a shirt. His options were limited—only two camp shirts remained after neglecting to wash their clothes. The poet’s shirt, irritatingly sentimental, or the black one he had planned to wear tonight. With a sigh, he shook out the black shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles before tugging it over his shoulders.

Karlach had moved to the centre of the room, idly stroking Scratch’s ear as the dog shifted, sensing the movement. Astarion crossed to join her, careful not to wake the others. He settled onto the sunken seat beside her, watching as she absentmindedly ran her fingers through the hound’s fur. Karlach’s ability to touch still fascinated him—how she had gone from burning to warm, how she could hold people now. He was still navigating the complexities of his own comfort with touch, but he had noticed something recently—he missed Tavi’s. The casual touches. The way her hand would squeeze his arm. How she grasped his shirt during a kiss, or let her fingers trail along his ribs. Everyday intimacy, as natural as breath.

And now, she was gone without warning.

Tavi never left without telling someone.

“I know she’s struggling,” Karlach murmured, breaking the silence. “She’s private. Takes on everyone else’s problems without dealing with her own. But to disappear in the night…”

Astarion frowned, surprised by how easily Karlach had pieced it together. He knew Tavi wrestled with her own demons—had seen the weight of them, though never the full picture. He also knew that when she was alone, she was her worst company.

They had only been in Lower City for three weeks, but those weeks had been relentless, overwhelming; Cazador, Mizora, Wyll’s contract, Rivington. And before that—so many distractions. Maybe she had been drowning, and none of them had noticed.

Karlach’s voice pulled him back. “Hey, Fangs!”

Astarion snapped back to the present. “Do you mind? I really don’t want to wake the whole party.” Too late. Gale and Shadowheart were stirring, their heart rates spiking from the rude awakening. Halsin would be next—soon, he’d be moving toward the fire to make breakfast.

Shadowheart stretched, eyes narrowing as she picked up on the tense atmosphere. “Where’s Tavi?”

“That, my dear friend, is exactly what we were discussing.” Astarion rose abruptly, pacing now, his unease mounting.

The longer she was gone, the worse it felt. He needed to go find her, but where would he even begin? Baldur’s Gate was sprawling. Searching blindly would be foolish.

“You don’t think she was taken, do you?” Gale asked. Astarion exhaled sharply. Thank you very much, Gale. Of course, it had been his first thought. The moment he had reached for cold sheets. But he had forced it down, refusing to let panic take hold. Still, was it irrational to think that?

“I—”

“I can try Locate Person,” Shadowheart interrupted. “But it only works within a thousand feet.” She hesitated, doubt flickering across her face. Astarion caught it immediately. Don’t back down now.

“Please,” he said simply.

Shadowheart nodded, shifting toward her space in The Elfsong, gathering herself for the spell. Her fingers trembled slightly as she prepared it, and Astarion hovered. He knew he wasn’t helping, but this was Tavi.

Everyone in this room cared for her. Loved her. Shadowheart knew that, too.

He clenched his jaw, resisting the urge to demand speed as she traced melodic movements in the air, whispering litany under her breath. The room had become louder now—his heightened senses picking up the soft murmurs between their companions, making it impossible to focus.

Hurry, hurry, hurry

Then, after eleven painstakingly slow minutes—

Shadowheart sighed. Her expression flickered from exhaustion to surprise.

“She’s above us.”

A beat. The room went still. Astarion laughed. Relief shattered the tension like glass.

"The roof. We didn’t even think of the roof. Went straight to worst-case." Astarion exhaled sharply, shaking his head as he strode toward the ladder. He should have known. Tavi loved this space—the scattered throw pillows they had collected up here, the quiet retreat where they had watched the sunrise and sunset together so many times over the past few weeks. He had lost count of how often she had curled against him under the open sky. He smiled faintly at the thought, only for the warmth to vanish the second he stepped onto the roof.

She was at the edge. Bare feet barely touching the stone lip, toes dangling over open air.

Astarion froze.

She was only wearing his shirt, drowning in it, the fabric pooling at her mid-thigh. Beautiful, the thought flickered, unexpected and unimportant in the face of something far heavier.

She was staring downward. Motionless.

He swallowed, glancing back as Karlach pulled herself onto the roof. Their eyes met. A silent conversation. Give me a moment. She nodded, staying put. A barrier between them and the others.

He took a slow step forward. "Tavi, my love?" His voice was careful, measured. He couldn’t risk startling her.

She didn’t react. He stepped closer.

"Tavi?" Firmer now, but still gentle. His heart was beginning to tighten, the familiar ice of fear creeping back in.

Then, softly—flatly—she spoke. "Did you know there are more than 6,000 suicide deaths a year in Baldur’s Gate?"

Astarion stiffened. "Tavi…" He moved forward instinctively, but her shoulders tensed. He stopped short.

"What do you think their families do?" Her voice was distant, detached. "Do they mourn? Do they continue on? Do they forget?" She wasn’t waiting for answers. She was just speaking words slipping out, raw and aimless.

This scared him.

He had seen her fierce, passionate, rebellious, joyful, furious. He had seen her cry. But this—this absence, this emptiness—this was something new.

And it terrified him.

He flicked a glance at Karlach. She had gone rigid, standing at the hatch, stopping anyone from climbing up. She must have heard. If I can’t pull her back, he thought, Karlach can. She was stronger—could haul her inside if it came to that. Astarion’s voice softened. “Darling…”

"I was going to be a mother."

He stopped short. She was still staring downward, her hair falling loose around her face, half-shielding her expression.

"I was happy," she murmured. "Starting to feel little movements, little nudges. I didn’t have much—just a small home, a partner who I thought loved me. But I was going to be a mother."

Pain. There it was, rising through the numbness.

Astarion said nothing. What could he say? He had never known this loss. But he knew that she had—that many in their bloodline had. "I was picking colours, decorations for the nursery. I was going to understand my mother’s love because I was going to become one."

She still hadn’t moved.

He took another step.

Still, she didn’t flinch.

He took the chance, his steps feather-light. Rogue instincts now serving a different purpose.

Get her away from the edge.

Away. Away. Away.

"I had never felt pain like that before," she stuttered. "Constant. Never-ending. It hollowed me out, stripped me down until I was nothing."

He stopped.

She inhaled sharply, a shuddering breath. "Nothing terrible happened, I wasn’t attacked…" she gritted her teeth. "It just happened." She faltered. "I happened. I couldn’t keep my baby safe."

Astarion’s jaw clenched. “My love, these things happen—there’s no rhyme or reason—”

"They don’t just happen!" Finally, finally—she turned toward him.

Anger.

He could work with that.

"Everything I touch turns to dust!" She stepped forward, heat rising in her voice. He stayed put. Let her come closer.

"Everyone dies. Everyone leaves."

Another step.

"My mother!"

Another.

"My sister!"

Another.

"My father left!"

Another—faltering but still moving.

"My ex!"

A step closer.

She was in reaching distance now.

Astarion inhaled. How had he missed this? He had been so consumed with Cazador, so desperate for vengeance, so blind to the person beside him. He had known she carried demons—but never how deep their claws reached. Never how wrong they were about her.

"My—" She choked.

She staggered. Astarion reached forward.

Her sobs broke free, shattering the silence, harder and faster than any cry he had ever heard. Harder than his own sobs the night Cazador fell. She collapsed into him, trembling violently, her breath ragged against his neck. He held her. Held the back of her head. Held all of her. Lending her strength. Giving back what she had given him over and over again.

He looked over her shoulder, meeting Karlach’s gaze. She stared downward, silent, giving them space—but he knew. Everyone had heard. Everyone had failed her. They had all been drowning in their own burdens, too distracted to see hers—too wrapped up to realize their de facto leader was unravelling. They had to do better. He had to do better.

Tavi gasped against him, clutching at his shirt like he was the only thing keeping her tethered. He only held her tighter, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. Then, practicality. He needed to get her down. But—the ladder. Astarion stiffened. He couldn’t carry her and climb at the same time. He couldn’t risk letting go, couldn’t risk her slipping through his grasp and spiralling back into that darkness. Karlach was already moving. She pressed a scroll into his palm—Dimension Door. No hesitation. To hell with the cost. Astarion adjusted his hold, whispered the incantation. White-blue light swirled around them, and in an instant, they were back in the room.

Tavi curled into their bed, small and silent, her sniffles the only sound. Astarion knelt beside her, watching as she pulled her body in, folding in on herself.

Safe. But still breaking.

He swore to himself—he would not let her break completely. Not like this.

Halsin and Karlach gently ushered their companions out of the room.

“We’ll be back later,” Karlach murmured, her voice carrying a quiet reassurance. “Take the day. We’ll sort out Gale’s research. Just—look after her.” Astarion offered a weak smile in response, something tired but grateful. Karlach had become his closest friend. What a novelty.

And then, finally, the quiet.

Tavi was curled in his lap, small, tucked close like she wanted to disappear entirely. Her knees rested over his crossed legs, her breath brushing against his neck in soft, absent sighs. Her lips pressed gentle, thoughtless kisses to his skin—like muscle memory, like grounding. But the laugh that followed was wrong, hollow, devoid of warmth. Astarion sighed. She didn’t see herself the way he did. She didn’t know how deeply she was loved; how impossible the world would be without her in it. Those claws ran deeper than I ever imagined. He shifted, moving her from his lap onto the bed, but the sound she made—a tiny, reluctant noise of protest—sent something sharp through his chest. He ignored it.

Instead, he positioned himself in front of her, crossing his legs, closing the space between them. His fingers found her face, tracing the dried tracks of old tears, brushing them away as if he could erase them entirely. He wished he could. Gently, carefully, he tilted her chin upward.

“Tavi.” His voice was quiet, measured. “I wouldn’t lie about this.”

Her eyes searched his, uncertain. “The thought of you in this world—having endured what you have—hurts.” His thumbs ghosted over her cheekbones, slow and reverent. “I cannot fathom it. I cannot fathom how someone so strong can think so little of themselves. That you reached that point, and none of us noticed…” His gaze flickered downward, briefly weighed by guilt. “And I was guilty of it too.”

A sharp exhale. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more observant.” Something in her expression shifted—disbelief, confusion, doubt. Astarion caught it instantly and squared his shoulders, forcing himself to sit taller. “No. No guilt.”

This was not about his failure. Not now. He steadied himself, then made sure she heard him.

“I. Love. You.” Each word deliberate. Each syllable punctuated with a gentle squeeze of his fingers against her jaw, grounding her, making sure she couldn’t look away.

She gasped. Her entire face twisted with shock—like she had never expected to hear those words from him. And that alone nearly broke him. His lips curled into a slow, knowing smirk—the roguish one, the one he reserved for her alone.

Tavi swallowed thickly, voice barely above a whisper. “I love you too.” Wet. Fragile. Perfect.

Astarion wasted no time; His lips met hers, urgent but careful, exhaling into her as she breathed him in, as if grounding herself in his presence. Her fingers threaded through his hair, pulling him close like he was the only solid thing in her world. And for now, maybe he was. It was just the two of them.

Against The Brain.

Against Baldur’s Gate.

Against The Emperor.

Just them, against everything.

And they loved each other.

No Pressure tags: @roguishcat @shewhowas39 @lirotation @asweetlovesong @astarionancuntnin @starlight-rogue @renard-rogue

[clazberryk]

Snippet Tuesday (Oh No wait hang on its Wednesday) So watchful wednesday? Shall we make that a thing? Here is a snippet of a upcoming chapter for my Sometimes the Unkown is Safer BG3 Fanfic.

The Breaking Point

Astarion watched her slip away.

Not physically—no, she was still here, still beside him in battle, still standing when the others gathered around the campfire—but something had changed. She wasn’t reaching for him in the quiet moments anymore. She wasn’t forcing conversations, wasn’t prying when she knew he needed to talk.

Instead, she was retreating.

She was running.

It had been days since the fight with the Orthon, days since they uncovered the truth about his scars—about what Cazador had carved into his skin, what his body had been meant for. And Taveleigha had been there, as she always was, steady and unyielding, refusing to let him drown in it alone.

But now, it was her drowning. And instead of grasping for help, she was pulling away.

Astarion caught her at the edge of camp, just before sunset. She had been packing supplies—not enough to prepare for an expedition, but enough to leave.

"Are you going to tell me, or should I just watch you run?" His voice was quiet, sharp—not cruel, but edged with something she couldn’t ignore.

Taveleigha froze, hands stilling over the straps of her pack. She inhaled slowly, composing herself before turning to face him. But when she met his eyes, there was something guarded there—something fragile.

"I’m not running."

Astarion scoffed, stepping closer. "Oh, darling. If I recognize anything, it’s the look of someone planning their exit." He folded his arms, gaze flickering down to the supplies. "You think I haven’t noticed? Every flicker of hesitation, every step back instead of forward?"

She swallowed hard but said nothing.

"What is this really about?" Astarion pushed, voice softer now, more deliberate.

She glanced away, fingers curling into the fabric of her sleeve. "You know what’s coming. Cazador—his ritual—it’s inevitable. He’s going to try to take you back, and if he succeeds…" She paused, jaw tightening. "I can’t—I won’t—just watch that happen."

Astarion’s expression hardened. "So your solution is to run? To leave before it happens? Before I have the chance to fight?"

"I’m doing this for you."

He laughed, sharp and humorless. "No, you’re doing this for yourself. Because you think I deserve something whole—someone who isn’t broken."

She flinched. He saw it. And gods, that was the truth of it, wasn’t it?

"You do." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "You deserve more than someone who doesn’t even know who she is. Someone who can’t remember where she came from, whether she was ever good or bad—someone who doesn’t even know if she’s worth saving."

Astarion inhaled slowly, considering her words, considering her.

Then he took another step forward, closing the distance.

"You do not get to decide what I deserve," he murmured, voice steady. "And you certainly don’t get to decide that for yourself."

Her lips parted, but no words came.

"I know what it looks like to be broken, darling. I spent two hundred years as nothing more than a tool, a thing, something to be used and discarded at my master’s whim." His voice dipped lower, quieter. "You think your lack of memories makes you unworthy? That because you don’t know who you were, you can’t possibly be enough?"

She blinked rapidly, as if trying to hold back something raw.

"Well, I do know who you are," Astarion continued. "I know who I’ve fought beside, who I’ve trusted in battle without a second thought, who has dragged me from the depths of my own goddamned mind more times than I can count."

Silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating.

Then, finally—softly:

"Stay."

Taveleigha let out a shaky breath, shoulders trembling under the weight of everything she had been trying to hold together.

And after a long moment, she nodded.

No pressure tags, i would love to see what people are working on :) : @roguishcat @loquaciousquark @shewhowas39 @slothquisitor

[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]

Interweaving Purple Threads

https://archiveofourown.org/works/57679585

I ahve been going through my previous stories and updating them, for the past few months i ahve been working on my writing style and I want my past stories to reflect the change and the progression on my style. I hope you take the time to read it and enjoy. 

As always i welcome any feed back For those that have no access to AO3. Interweaving Pruple Threads

Taveleigha’s grip was firm as she dragged Astarion around the corner, her small frame belying the surprising strength of a sorcerer well accustomed to survival. Shadowheart and Karlach lingered behind, smirking at their retreat, and that alone seemed to grate on Astarion more than anything.

“What the fuck was that?” Her voice cut through the quiet like a blade, sharp and precise.

Astarion scoffed, barely containing his frustration. “You promised me we would kill the Orthon.”

Taveleigha closed her eyes, inhaling deeply, steadying herself. She refused to let his anger consume her, refused to lose herself in the whiplash of his emotions. When he was like this—volatile, wounded—he felt like a stranger. Like the man she was falling for was slipping through her fingers, replaced by something reckless and desperate.

She exhaled slowly. “And we will, but we need to be smart.”

“This must be what you do,” he snapped, crossing his arms, face tilted downward to glare at her. “Make promises, then take them back.”

Her patience frayed. Another slow breath. Her pulse thumped in her throat. She didn’t react—not yet. Instead, she watched him. Studied him. The subtle tension coiling through his muscles, the way his fingers flexed like claws held back from striking. He was wound up tight, his body a bowstring drawn too far, ready to snap. His eyes—crimson, burning—held nothing of their usual charm, only raw, exposed frustration.

“Look,” she tried again, gentler this time, “we can’t rush into this. Did you see how many Merrigons were there? A displacer beast?”

But he refused to yield, refused to see beyond the storm inside him.

“I know what Cazador” she continued

A sharp inhale. He flinched, but she didn’t stop. She would not let that name hold power over him, would not allow it to chain him to the past like a weight around his throat.

“I know what Cazador did to you was horrible. I understand—”

“Understand!” His voice cracked like thunder, vicious and raw. “Understand? Were you there? Were you the one who had their back carved out again and again and again? I think not.”

She stayed still, absorbing the blow, refusing to retreat.

But he wasn’t done.

“You have no idea. No idea! My body wasn’t my own for two centuries, and now I am this close” he held his thumb and forefinger barely apart “and you’re taking it away. Taking these answers away.”

He leaned in close, too close. Her breath brushed against his skin, but he was drowning too deep in fury to acknowledge it.

“I know you’re upset,” she whispered, reaching for him—his face, his cheeks, anything to ground him.

“Don’t touch me!”

Her hand fell away, her expression closing off. Her eyes, those gods-damned expressive eyes, shuttered, the damage sinking in. And somewhere deep inside him, in the darkest, ugliest part of himself, he felt a twisted satisfaction. He had hurt her. Not as deeply, not as permanently as he had been hurt, but enough. Enough for her to feel something close to what coiled inside him. Enough for her to bear some fraction of his pain.

“You have no idea. You wouldn’t, would you? Lost little elf girl, no memories, no past—just feelings. Just scraps of something that barely resemble a life.” His voice was venom, a hiss of words he could not stop. “I remember everything. Every mark, every scream, every knife against my spine. They live with me daily. I have no blank void, no merciful absence. I am not a blank little canvas playing hero.”

Her breath stilled.

And then

silence.

A moment suspended between them. The weight of his words, the sheer devastation of them, pressing like an unforgiving tide.

“I think it would be best if you stay at camp.” Her voice was quiet. Controlled. Final. “I’ll stay with Shadowheart and Karlach. Send Gale.”

She turned without another word, heading toward the dais, her fingers trailing along the cold stone as if grounding herself. He knew she wasn’t inspecting the glowing purple orb—she was hiding. He could smell her tears.

“Tavi—” He said her name like an apology, his anger dissolving too late.

“Go, Astarion.”

A whisper. Not an accusation. Not a plea. Just pain.

And gods above, that scared him more than anything.

Astarion exhaled, sharp and ragged, before forcing himself to move—back to the others, back to the group that had lingered in Ketheric’s crypt. Lae’zel, Wyll, and Gale had already begun setting up camp, their tents aligned in familiar arrangement. His tent beside hers. Even the others had noticed. Had seen the shift between them. And that thought—that realization—dug into something deeper than rage.

What a mess. What an absolute mess.

Gale’s voice snapped him back. “Astarion, are the others with you?”

He blinked. “No. Tavi asked for you.”

The wizard frowned. “Do you know why?”

Astarion hesitated. He wanted to answer. But instead, he turned away, retreating into his tent, armour sliding off with distracted fingers.

Gale watched him for a moment longer before sighing and heading toward the Sharran temple.

And Astarion sat there, staring at the floor, the remnants of his anger curling into something else.

Something worse.

Astarion paced the perimeter of the camp, steps aimless, mind tangled in restless loops. He had tried everything—reading, wandering, playing with Scratch and the owlbear—but nothing silenced the gnawing discomfort curling inside him. He had even turned to the Book of Thay, letting his eyes skim its cursed pages, desperate for something to anchor him. But no distraction lasted. Every thought inevitably circled back to her.

Taveleigha.

The bitter taste of their last conversation still lingered. Sharp words, cutting deep—he had aimed them with precision, knowing exactly where she was vulnerable, knowing how to wound. And he had wounded her. The realization sat heavy in his chest, a weight he couldn't shake. He had wanted control, had wanted answers—but instead, all he had done was lash out at the only person who had tried to understand him.

Would she leave?

He told himself it wouldn’t matter, that he could walk away first, cut ties before the inevitable. Before the judgmental stares, before the quiet whispers. The others would side with her, of course they would. Why wouldn’t they? She was their leader, their steady presence. And he—well, he had been a petulant fool.

The sun had long since set, and still, she did not return. The unease in his stomach twisted tighter with every hour that passed.

When Wyll’s sudden exclamation tore through the quiet, Astarion turned on instinct.

"By the gods, what happened?"

Then he saw them.

Shadowheart, barely upright, carrying a new spear and clad in unfamiliar armour. Karlach, arm wrapped around Taveleigha, who leaned heavily into her side. Even from a distance, Astarion could see the bruises—scattered across her arms, darkening her temple, lining the delicate planes of her face. Her other hand pressed against her midsection, a telltale sign of deeper injuries. Blood. He smelled her blood in the air.

He stepped forward—paused.

She did not look at him.

She waved off the others’ concerns, brushing them aside with exhausted deflection before retreating into her tent. And when the fastening snapped shut, sealing her inside, Astarion felt something curdle in his chest. It was familiar—too familiar.

Isolation.

An hour passed.

Then another.

The firelight flickered, casting shifting shadows against the canvas walls of her tent. He watched as she lit the candles inside, revealing her silhouette—watched as she began peeling off her robes, as she flinched against the pain but did not cry out. Gods, she was hurting. And still, she did not seek help.

The others spoke quietly, recounting the trials they had faced tests of memory, intelligence and endurance. They spoke of the library, of undead pouring through a portal before they could close it, of how Taveleigha had taken the brunt of the fight with only Gale beside her, stripped of magic, forced into hand-to-hand combat.

She had died.

Shadowheart had revived her, but Astarion felt his stomach coil at the thought.

Another hour.

He could not sit still. He could not keep himself from going to her.

Astarion approached her tent, hesitated only briefly before murmuring her name.

"Tavi?"

A slight pause. A sigh, exhausted and worn thin, then the quiet groan of movement. The fastening came undone, and her gaze met his.

Astarion faltered.

She was battered, bloody, exhausted. And suddenly, his anger—his sharp-edged frustration—felt so small in the wake of it.

"What do you want, Astarion?"

Gods above, she sounded drained.

He inhaled, though he did not need to. The motion steadied him, nonetheless. He flicked his gaze upward, toward the ceiling of the mausoleum, as if searching for an answer that would not come. Then, quieter:

"May I come in?"

What a novelty—asking permission, when before he had always simply entered.

She hesitated. For the first time, she hesitated.

Something twisted inside his chest.

Slowly, she shuffled back, allowing him inside.

Astarion stepped in, careful, more careful than he had ever been before. His gaze flickered over her bruises, over the way she cradled herself, exhaustion making every movement deliberate.

There was cold water in the tent, untouched. She hadn't even tried to warm it. She hadn't wanted to linger near the others.

Be honest with yourself, wretch. She didn’t want to face you.

The realization was a dagger to the gut.

"Just a second."

He picked up the bucket and left her tent without another word.

Karlach barely raised an eyebrow when he approached, but she smiled, nonetheless.

"Fangs."

The nickname was so simple, so easy. Why was everything easy for her?

"Tavi needs warm water," Astarion muttered, teeth gritted against the unfamiliar urge to ramble. Gods, when had that started? "I’m worried about her bruises, and the campfire is going to take too long—"

Karlach took the bucket before he could spiral further.

"I’ll bring it by once it’s warm enough."

He nodded stiffly.

He returned to his tent, pulled out a clean shirt, found the soap he had stolen from the Harper’s bedroom, gathered what food remained from Wyll’s earlier cooking. A plate with potatoes, root vegetables and leftover meat.

When he turned back, Karlach was already leaving the warmed water at Taveleigha’s tent, steam curling into the night air. Fresh cloth beside it, neatly folded.

Astarion lingered.

He did not know what to say.

For the first time in years, he did not know what to do

Taveleigha lay still, exhaustion wrapping around her like a heavy cloak as she listened to the camp’s murmurs fading into the night. Astarion had taken her bucket of cold water and stepped outside, and though she told herself she didn't care, she couldn't shake the absence—his absence. She had always fought with him at her side, a wordless understanding guiding their movements. A flick of her fingers, a twist of her wrist—he knew. He knew her thoughts before she voiced them, anticipated her movements like a second heartbeat. With Gale, there was skill, there was trust, but not that seamless understanding that made battle something effortless, almost graceful. If Astarion had been there today, maybe they wouldn’t have lost so much. Maybe she wouldn’t have felt so utterly useless.

She closed her eyes, willing herself into sleep when his presence returned, warm and steady. A plate of food, a bucket of steaming water, cloths in his hands. She exhaled, a mixture of frustration and something softer. Why could he not leave her be? Why wouldn’t he allow her to fold into herself, to drown in the self-doubt, the sharp edges of regret? Instead, he knelt before her, silent, placing everything within easy reach, but she ignored it. Instead, she watched him. Every movement. Every twitch. But there was none. Just quiet certainty.

He reached for her hand, pulling her gently upright, and she followed, too tired to fight him. His hands moved with careful deliberation, grasping the hem of her long-sleeved top. He didn't pull, didn’t take, only waited. She lifted her arms, letting him strip away the ruined fabric. His quiet hiss filled the space between them as he took in the deep bruising spreading over her ribs, the ghost of the longsword’s impact vibrating still in her bones.

Her breath hitched as he continued, peeling away layers of clothing until she sat before him, stripped down to vulnerability. The exposure was more than physical—it was delicate, precarious, as if she might shatter at the slightest touch.

“Oh, my sweet,” he whispered, and the words carried an ache she wasn’t sure belonged entirely to her. He dipped the cloth into the warm water, the heat blooming against her battered skin. Careful hands followed, fingers tracing over wounds as though willing them to fade. Lips pressed over bruises in a silent vow, feather-light and reverent. She leaned into the care, into the contradiction of his touch—hands that could destroy, that had destroyed, now offering only gentleness, only safety.

She was safe.

She was safe.

She was safe.

The truth of it struck too deep, too raw, and suddenly she was trembling, breaking apart. The weight of everything—the fight, the failures, his words, her doubts—pushed tears past the walls she had built. Astarion froze, his ministrations halting, before he pulled her forward, cradling her against his chest. She folded into him, gripping the fabric of his shirt as though anchoring herself to something real. His arms moved over her back, slow and steady, as if mapping the parts of her that hurt.

Time passed in hiccups and sniffles, until the worst of it eased. He kissed the crown of her head, returning to his quiet devotion, ensuring every wound was tended to, every bruise acknowledged in silent apology. The intimacy of it unsettled her more than any previous night spent tangled in his sheets. This was something different—something fragile, something terrifying.

She had known from the beginning that Astarion wore a mask, but looking at him now, with his hands tracing careful paths along her limbs, she saw past it. Had she been too blind to see before? Had she misunderstood the moments between them, failed to recognize their quiet significance?

When he ran the damp cloth over the sole of her foot, she flinched. He stilled, looking up, brow raised in curiosity.

“It tickles,” she murmured.

A slow smile spread across his lips before he tested it again, watching as she twitched. A hum of interest slipped past his lips before he lowered his mouth, pressing kisses along the arch, trailing them over her ankle, her heel, before lifting her leg and pressing one slow, deliberate kiss to the underside of her foot. He held her gaze as he did it, watching her bite her lower lip, her breath catching in her throat.

Her heart stuttered, the warmth spreading through her something dangerously close to affection. She shoved the thought down. This was not the time to unravel over him, not when he had let her glimpse so much of himself these past weeks. He needed something steady, something secure, not a lover who faltered beneath the weight of simple tenderness.

Still, when the shift came—the sudden weight pressing down as he settled against her—it startled her. His body was solid but not crushing, warmth pooling between them. A careful hand tucked her hair behind her ear, fingers ghosting over its curve and down the slope of her neck.

She looked at him—really looked at him.

There was no pretending. No games. No masks. Just him, fully present, fully real.

“You’re like a cat,” she murmured, lifting hesitant hands to his cheeks. A flicker of pause, a question unspoken. His answer came in the way he pressed into her touch, letting out a quiet sigh that she felt against her palms. She had missed him.

She hadn’t forgotten the argument. It still lingered between them, unresolved. But right now, in this moment, she let herself pretend—pretend they weren’t on a doomed quest, pretend there was no ancient relic, no looming dangers. Just two elves, learning each other, allowing themselves to exist in the fragile space between them.

Wait. Love?

No. It was too soon.

But then he smiled, the lopsided grin that made her stomach twist, and whispered, “Then adore me.”

And gods help her, she did.

No pressure tags: @roguishcat @shewhowas39 @asweetlovesong @astarionancuntnin @lirotation

[clazberryk]

Spoiler Saturday

This is a take on AAstarion and normal Tav (None Durge), very much inspired by the song Burn from Hamilton

Taveleigha stared at the old painting of them, made a century ago after they became heroes of Baldur’s Gate. Now, centuries later, she regretted decisions made back then. She wondered how so much promise and love could disappear in half a millennium. She did not recognise herself anymore, unable to talk to old friends or look in a mirror. All she had were artists’ depictions from long hours posing perfectly. Looking at her delicate bracelet chains with embedded jewels, she knew they weren't just gifts; they bound her to him. How did this happen?

Their relationship changed gradually as he gained wealth, power, and territory. He became controlling and demanding, unlike the man she once loved. Long ago, they met due to a tadpole, and she was promised the world, which she received but could only admire from afar. She watched him through palace windows as he courted people across the Sword Coast and all of Toril.

No pressure rags @roguishcat @shewhowas39 @nyx-knox

[clazberryk]

Through the Veil of Memory

This is my largest piece to date. i ahve spent several months on this peice of work alone. It is part of the Sometimes the Unknown is safer series.

This touches significantly on my Tav's backstory, some of you know it that have been with this series from the beginning. I really hope you like it. I really do. I would also hugely appreciate any feedback. What did you enjoy? Was there some things you didn't? Was it purely jsut a pile of dodo.

For those that cannot access AO3:

Through the Veil of Memory

“PERURE!!!”

Agony. It had embedded itself in her bones over the past month in the Shadow-Cursed lands—pain, fear, despair. Every fight was a fresh wound, and this one was no different. Taveleigha’s body screamed in protest, battered and bruised, her magic barely holding together. She could feel the edge of something just beyond her grasp, teasing her from the fringes of her mind, an answer locked away in the prison of her lost memories.

She still reeled from the fight with Astarion, the sting of sharp words lingering even as they charged into The Shadowfell, the relentless march toward Ketheric and Dame Aylin driving everything else aside. And yet, she knew—Ketheric knew her. His hatred burned with an intimacy she couldn’t understand. If only her mind wasn’t betraying her. If only the gods granted her a reprieve long enough to grasp the truth. But no. The realms seemed intent on wringing her dry, tormenting her with yet more grief, more wounds to carry forward. Fucking hells… I just want to curl up in Astarion’s arms and sleep for a week.

But there were worse battles ahead.

Lightning crackled from her fingertips, blue energy snapping through the air before colliding with Ketheric’s chest. He staggered, giving Aylin an opening. Taveleigha smirked despite the agony, despite the exhaustion. Watching him falter—watching him break—it gave her a deep, visceral satisfaction. He believed himself righteous. He truly thinks he’s in the right. And yet, here they were—his downfall playing out before him, a band of vagabonds proving him wrong.

She let herself savour the moment. The flicker of smugness deep in her chest.

Aylin’s sword struck true, the clash of metal ringing out, shaking the air with its force. Ketheric dropped to his knees, gasping, while Taveleigha followed suit. Her magic was sputtering, fraying at the edges. Just a few more spells left. Her body ran on nothing but fear and sheer will, the screams of battle surrounding her—ringing steel, the crackle of magic, Karlach’s war cry, Shadowheart’s unwavering faith. She had to press on. Had to push it all down. The weight of responsibility bore down on her—her companions needed her.

She couldn’t afford to drown.

The Shadowlands had sunk its claws into her, weaving dread into her very being, warping her into something brittle, something ragged. Déjà vu haunted her, teasing her with truths she couldn’t grasp, reminding her of something just out of reach. It was breaking her, piece by piece, wearing her down with every passing week. And yet, still, she forced herself forward. She donned her mask, saving every soul she could—Tieflings, Gnomes, Harpers, Rolan, Thaniel. Day after day after fucking day.

And Astarion.

She could not, would not, let him endure this alone. His pain had become hers by choice, because she loved him, because she refused to let him return to chains. She vowed—swore it with everything she had—that Cazador would never reclaim him. No god would steal his freedom.

Astarion moved swiftly, climbing the platform where Aylin had been caged moments before, eyes locking onto her as she fell to her knees. He had heard the lightning, felt the magic crackling around her—and he knew, knew she had thrown everything into it. He dropped beside her, sliding the last few feet, all past arguments forgotten in the wake of the battle. They hadn’t had time to fix their wounds, to address the sharp-edged fight before entering the cursed darkness of this place. But that didn’t stop him from caring.

He had learned—after the Orthon—that conflict wasn’t the end. That words, even cruel ones, didn’t sever the bonds they had built.

“Time to get up, darling.”

His voice was softer now, a rare warmth curling around the edges of the words. Taveleigha grimaced, beaten and drained, and yet she clasped his hand. He pulled her up, steadying her as her body trembled, her strength barely holding her upright.

Then, in a brilliant flare of magic, they blinked—reappearing on the central platform where Karlach, Jaheria, Aylin, and Shadowheart surrounded the broken paladin.

Ketheric gasped, his body bowing under another strike.

But even kneeling, even crumbling, his glare burned into her.

“You truly think you can win? You think you can best me?” His voice was a snarl. “Me! The chosen of Myrkul! When will you learn, child? I am your better. You will respect me in my HOUSE!”

He lunged.

Astarion yanked her back, raising his blade, but Ketheric pressed forward—his rage blinding him.

“You are poor, lost little lamb…” He seethed, his voice dripping with scorn. “I recognised you the moment you stepped into my throne room. The shock of seeing you—a true soul. But then I learned the truth. You don’t remember. You truly don’t recognize your own kin. Your own blood. Even after all these years. You are still a disgrace. Still a disappointment. Still defiant.”

“What?” The word barely escaped her lips, her breath catching, mind reeling.

He lunged past the others, gripping her by the arms in an iron hold, forcing her to face him. His fingers dug into her flesh, bruises already forming under his grasp.

“You ungrateful bitch!” His breath was hot against her skin, venomous. “I held you as a babe! I watched you come into this world kicking and screaming, tearing everything apart in your wake. You took Melodia from me! You took Isobel! And now—you want to take my life? My purpose?”

Taveleigha whimpered, turning her head away, revulsion and dread sinking into her very bones.

“Get off her!” Astarion’s blade struck, but Ketheric barely faltered, shrugging him away like nothing.

Taveleigha’s breath hitched.

Memories clawed their way free, the lock on her past shattering with violent force. It all came rushing in.

Ketheric was her father!

Isobel was her sister!

“You truly do not recognize yourself?” Ketheric’s voice was smooth, insidious, a blade slipping between ribs, twisting with cruel amusement. His smirk deepened. “Can you not feel your blood calling to its kin? Have you truly fallen that far from the path?”

Taveleigha’s breath hitched, her body frozen beneath his gaze. He knew. He knew something she had spent her life chasing, and now he was dangling it before her like a predator toying with wounded prey.

“Wandering the world, always searching, never finding. Oh, I watched you, child. With Murkyl’s resurrection, I kept track of you. I had to make sure—had to know—you would not come to kill me as you did your mother and sister.”

The words slammed into her like a Warhammer to the gut. Kill? No—no, that couldn’t be right. She stumbled back, the ground shifting beneath her feet, and Ketheric shoved her, sending her crashing to the floor.

The pain was instant and searing, her wrist bending at an unnatural angle, the sharp crack reverberating through her bones. She barely registered her own scream. But Astarion was there, already there, dropping beside her, his hands steadying her arm, his touch grounding her in the present while her mind threatened to spiral away.

Her head snapped upward, and that’s when it hit.

A wave of memories, violent, relentless, crashed over her, pulling her under, drowning her in fragments of a life she had lost.

Ketheric stood above her, disgust twisting his features, but Astarion moved, stepping between them, shielding her from that gaze, that voice dripping with contempt.

“Get away from her.” His voice was low, sharp with a warning that could cut through steel.

The others moved with him—Jaheria, Karlach, Shadowheart—all forming a silent, protective line between their friend and the monster looming before them.

Ketheric laughed, cold and amused. “Fools. You think you can protect her? You think you can shield yourselves from the destruction she will bring?”

Taveleigha whimpered, bile rising in her throat. Ketheric heard it, felt it, and his grin widened.

“That thing is good for one thing—burying you in the ground.”

Astarion stepped forward, but Jaheria caught his arm, stopping him. His grip on his blades tightened, his body a live wire of tension barely restrained.

Ketheric sneered, his lip curling. “A mixed-blood elf, born of two half-elves. Abomination. Magic and water swirling in her veins, unnatural, volatile, incapable of control. A sorcerer.”

The word dripped with venom as he spat it at the ground, as if the very title was filth.

Taveleigha felt the heat of Astarion’s fury beside her, felt it coiling, waiting, but then Ketheric turned his back on them.

A mistake.

Astarion struck, swift and ruthless—a crunch as his Undermountain King sword sank into Ketheric’s back, a dagger following, sliding between bone and clavicle, forcing a strangled gasp from the paladin’s throat. Astarion shoved him away, eyes burning with rage.

“You vile excuse of a father.”

Ketheric coughed, but still—still, he spoke, voice thick with contempt.

“And so, it was only a matter of time before you took me as well.” He smirked despite the pain. “Tell me, how was an elf born of two half-elves? Unheard of. A paladin and a cleric of the Moonmaiden, yet their child—a wild, unnatural sorcerer. Hair red as fire. Magic as raw and reckless as chaos itself.”

Taveleigha gasped. The words sank into her, burrowing deep, pulling her down.

She could no longer see the cavern—only memories, memories, tearing through her mind with unrelenting force.

A young Ketheric Thorm, less grey, more dust-brown hair. Silver-eyed Isobel, dark-haired Melodia. They stood together, gazing down at the red-haired baby in Melodia’s arms, her cries sharp and insistent.

Ketheric grimaced. The pointed ears, the odd-coloured eyes—she didn’t look like the others. The warmth he had felt, the euphoria of family, faded as he looked upon his youngest daughter.

And then—Melodia’s breathing faltered.

Her light disappeared.

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Sunlight. A meadow bursting with wildflowers. Taveleigha spun, arms outstretched, warmth kissing her skin. The sun made everything peaceful—no stress, no battles, no magic forced upon her. Just her, the sky, the scent of spring, the distant laughter of—

“Tavi! I’m going to find you!” The singsong voice. Isobel.

She ran through the tall grasses, excitement thrumming through her tiny frame, waiting—waiting for her sister to get close enough—then—

“Boo!” She pounced, hands curled into claws, and Isobel startled—before dissolving into laughter, bright and unburdened.

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A darker memory. The woods. The endless arguments.

Isobel and Ketheric—again. “You cannot force her into something she’s not, father!” Isobel’s voice was sharp, desperate. “She’s no cleric, no paladin—her magic is hers! To force her into something else—it will break her.”

Ketheric’s fury boiled over. “She is a Thorm! She stole my Melodia from me! She will do as she is commanded!”

“Mother died of natural causes! It was not her fault!”

Taveleigha watched from the shadows, heart pounding, hands trembling.

“Don’t you dare speak to me like that, child!” Ketheric surged forward, fury radiating from him—

“Stop it!” The scream tore from her throat, and suddenly—she was flying! Magic burned through her veins, wild, untamed—her fingers curled, fire sparked She released it.

A bolt of flame—no—a ball—too much, too wild—It exploded.

The screams—Ketheric’s rage, Isobel’s pain.

Smoke. Ash.

Taveleigha’s eyes widened in horror.

Ketheric stood, coughing, his face twisted into something beyond fury.

And Isobel,

Isobel didn’t move.

Burned. Unrecognisable.

Taveleigha dropped to her knees.

Her magic. Her anger.

She had done this.

Ketheric turned—screamed—fell to his daughter’s side. Cradled her. Rocked her like a child, his tears cutting through the soot and grime.

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Taveleigha gasped, snapped back to the present, her body trembling.

Ketheric was her father.

Isobel was her sister.

And she had killed her.

"You took everything from me!" The snarl was guttural, a sound torn from Ketheric's very soul as he lunged—pure, unrelenting hatred driving him forward. But Aylin was faster. Her grip was iron as she snatched the back of Ketheric’s neck and hurled him backward, sending him crashing onto the stone.

“Don’t touch her.” Astarion’s voice sliced through the air like a blade, sharp and dangerous.

Taveleigha gasped, dragging in ragged breaths, her mind snapping back to the present just as it collapsed under the weight of memory. She scrambled back, hands pressing against the cold ground as her chest heaved—guilt, terror, suffocating in thick waves. Monster. Wretched child. A useless nobody. A poor, lost little elf girl. Oh gods, he was right.

She barely heard Astarion, barely felt the press of her companions around her, forming a barrier between her and—him. Ketheric Thorm. Her father. A sickening nausea gripped her, something festering, twisting inside her gut. This is all my fault. Over Astarion’s shoulder, she met Ketheric’s gaze—and he smiled. But there was no warmth in it, no kindness. It was knowing. It was wrong. And as he turned, spinning in slow circles with his arms raised—the movement was familiar. Taveleigha gagged. She had done that. As a child. In the sunlit meadows. In the warmth.

He mirrored her, mockingly, deliberately—until he reached the centre of the platform. Behind him, the abyss yawned open—a churning void, sickly green and hungry. His gaze trailed over them all, assessing, drinking in their fear. Then, his eyes found hers. “You will not leave this room alive,” he purred. “I should have killed you when you were a babe.” Taveleigha flinched. “But no… I am glad I did not.” His smile widened, grotesque. “Because now, you get to watch my triumph before I return you to wherever you came from—the mistake, the unnatural spawn that denied me my rightful daughter. You are a vile, fey-touched, chaotic hag!” And before anyone could react, He fell backwards. Into the abyss.

“I. AM. YOURS!” The words were a bellow, and then—he was gone.

Taveleigha lurched forward, reaching, grasping, but Too late. Gone. But the abyss was not finished. A voice clawed its way up, raw and ancient, reverberating in her bones:

You dare end one who belongs to me?

The air splintered—sickly green light flared upward, twisting into a vortex, tendrils of magic snapping and crackling against stone. The chamber shuddered, vibrating in time with the voice that was everywhere, and nowhere.

I am the smile of the worm-cleansed skull. I am the regrets of those who remain and the restlessness of those who are gone. I am the haunt of mausoleums, the god of graves and age, of dust and dusk.

A mist slithered out, curling against flesh, searching—clawing its way into every exposed part of skin, into bone, into the soul. The cold was not a mere chill—it was emptiness, a craving, a lack of warmth that could never be filled. For a moment, there was silence. Astarion. Shadowheart. Karlach. Jaheria. Aylin. Taveleigha. They all stared. And then the rumble. A low, earth-cracking tremor that set their teeth on edge. And the vortex split open.

Bone.

A colossal forearm, fingers lined with jagged edges of ivory, dragging itself free. The chamber shrank around it.

The skull.

Crowned. Jagged. Myrkul.

I am Myrkul, Lord of Bones, and you have slain my chosen.

Astarion grabbed her, pulling her away—as if it would help, as if it could stop what was coming. It would not matter. The voice filled the cavern.

For I am Death. And I am not the end. I am the Beginning.

The Scythe rose—summoned as if it had always been waiting. Aylin barely dodged the swing, wings beating against the force of it, but Taveleigha did not. The blade sliced through her midsection, the Avatar grabbing her—using her like a discarded plaything it hurled her out into the cavern. Astarion screamed. But his voice was drowned beneath hers. A sound unlike anything he had heard before. Agony. Raw. All-consuming. Something inside his chest broke. Astarion scrambled, desperate, eyes darting frantically. Where is she? Gods—WHERE IS SHE?

His tadpole reached for her, a weak thread, something fragile, but it was there. And through it, he saw Taveleigha dragging herself back, arm trembling, her blood pooling in thick rivulets beneath her. Necromites swarmed. She lifted her hands—her last barrier, her last defence—magic flickering, struggling, like her own failing pulse. Astarion moved. He did not think. He killed. And then, he was kneeling, reaching, and she flinched—Astarion whispered, voice breaking. “It’s me. You’re safe.” The shield fell, and Taveleigha sank back, exhaustion smothering her. Her hands did not press against her wounds—she did not bother. Blood seeped past her lips, and she did not even wipe it away.

Astarion found the potion, forced it down her throat, barely breathing as he watched her wounds try—and fail—to close. Not enough. Not nearly enough. She coughed again, and his breath hitched. “Get up, darling.” His lips brushed against her cheeks, her closed eyelids, her forehead. A weak attempt to anchor her. Her smile was fleeting, more pain than joy, before it was swallowed by another grimace, another wrenching agony. Astarion ignored the fear clawing its way into his heart. Because it would consume him whole if he let it.

“Lack of healing only seems to be near Myrkul.” Astarion pushed the thought through the tadpole connection to Shadowheart, not waiting for confirmation—but he felt her nod in acknowledgment, nonetheless.He turned back to Taveleigha.She stumbled to her feet, her robes clinging to her, soaked in viscera, grime, dirt—andblood.Her blood.The scent hung thick in the air, curling around her like a mockery, a taunt, a reminder that she was not immortal, not invincible. She had time—more than most mortals, being a full elf—but she was still fragile enough to break, vulnerable enough to die. That realization gripped him tight, suffocating, squeezing something deep in his chest, something he refused to name, to acknowledge, to lose himself to.

Then a glow. Golden light shimmered over her skin—Mage Armor. Good. She needed all the protection she could summon.

“Perure.” The lightning tore from her fingertips, snapping through the air, electricity scorching across the battlefield, colliding into the avatar with violent force. Her eyes burned, her hair alight like embers, the raw, unbridled magic crackling along her skin.

Astarion turned, shifting his focus to the undead skeletons circling her, moving swiftly—blades flashing—keeping them at bay, cutting them down before they reached her. He spared a glance at the central platform���Aylin soared, wings slicing through the air, her descent a resounding crash of metal against bone, divine moonlight shrouding her figure. Karlach—all fire and fury—swung once, twice—each hit landing true, rattling the avatar. Jaheria and Shadowheart wove through the chaos, acid burning through necromites, radiant magic consuming them where they stood.

They could win this.

They just had to keep going

They just had to keep…

“LOOK OUT!”

The warning came too late.

Astarion barely registered it before the force slammed into him, sending him sprawling, but his instincts kicked in, his body twisting, tucking the momentum into a roll, landing hard but upright. Taveleigha. He whipped around just in time to see the red crackling stream pierce through her back and rip through her chest. She jerked forward, her eyes wide, breath silent, stolen, shattered. Astarion caught her, his arms locking around her before she hit the ground, and only then did he realise the spell had been meant for him. She had pushed him aside. Had taken the full brunt of the attack. Had chosen to shield him instead of herself. Her life spilled from the wound, dripping between his fingers.

Pain.

Searing agony.

Unrelenting suffering.

Life-altering devastation.

The red crackling bolt of chaotic magic sliced through the air, aimed at Astarion its violent energy promising to unmake flesh and bone. Taveleigha did not think. She reacted. Instinct took over, primal, unyielding love protecting love, shielding the most important person in her world. Consequences be damned. She threw herself into the path of the spell, shoving him aside—and took the hit herself. Astarion’s weight left her hands, his body tumbling away, but the magic did not stop—it tore through her, ripping past her ribs, bursting through her chest. She fell. The pain was beyond anything imaginable. It was all-consuming, endless, final.

Nevertheless, as the cold seeped in, as the world tilted, as the memories came thick and fast, rolling over one another, drowning her, she felt no regret. She had saved him. That was enough.

And yet, the voice came, creeping like rot, whispering like poison. Stupid, naïve, lost little elf girl. Taveleigha shuddered.

The beast—her beast—was back, slithering through her mind, taunting, mocking, wearing her down. It had taken her father’s voice now. Had it always been his voice?

She could not remember. The day had twisted itself into a storm of whiplash, pain, revelation, and now this. She had nothing left to fight it. Her father’s voice snarled in the dark corners of her mind, The Moon Maiden’s mistake. A broken, unholy creature.

Ketheric had never held back his hatred. The gods had cursed him with her existence, and he had spent his life punishing her for it—fists, gauntlets, smites, words. Her body was a map of scars, a roadmap of suffering, a timeline of his wrath. The scar along her cheek—his backhand when she had failed to summon divine light, conjuring fire instead. The deep line at her sternum—his blade, punishing her for failing to heal herself, forcing her to try again and again and again. The bruises, the cuts, the endless experiments, all bore from his grief, his anger, his rage over a mother she had never known.

And Isobel. Soft hands. A voice singing her to sleep. The only kindness in a house of cruelty. But never taking her away. Never saving her.

Now, it was unravelling.

The vault in her mind, the protection she had forged for herself, was shattered, disintegrating in the wake of a few simple words. She laughed—empty, hollow, broken. She should have died years ago. Isobel should have lived. Not her. Not her. Had she ever made a difference? Could she have saved the world? Could she have saved Astarion?

Her consciousness blurred, her vision turning dark, memories crashing violently over each other, too fast, too overwhelming. She welcomed the abyss. The weightless, empty nothing. No more expectations. No more burdens. No more fighting. All she had to do was let go.

Thump, thump, thump.

Thump, thump, thump.

Thump, thump, thump.

Thump… thump… thump.

Thump… thump… thump.

Thump… thump… thump.

Thump… thump…

Thump…

Thump…

… th…

… th…

… th…

……..

……..

……..

"Taveleigha!" Astarion shook her, voice cracking under the weight of his terror, but he already knew. He had heard it—her heartbeat spluttering, gasping, giving out. Her life traded for his.

“Tavi. Tavi, Tav, please, my sweet—oh gods, please.” His throat burned, something thick and stinging gathering behind his eyes. This could not happen. This was not their future. They had just begun—soft touches, hands clasping without hesitation, the gentle press of lips against cheeks—never followed by pain. “No, no, get up, damn you.” His hands tightened around her, his grip desperate, his arms pulling her close, as if holding her tighter could keep her here.

He had spent centuries trapped beneath iron will, his thoughts not his own, his body a slave to another’s whims—but this, this, was freedom. Learning. Healing. Choosing. Two partners—two equals—two survivors finding something beyond the wreckage of their pasts. “I need you.” His voice cracked, breaking apart at the seams.

She was growing cold. Colder than him. The necromantic stink of death clung to her, curling through the air, settling deep, taking root. No! Not like this, not here! No gods would hear him, no one would answer him. Not even for her. Astarion’s body burned, rage rising like flames, consuming him, twisting into something he would not let go.

"This is NOT the end. No. NO. This is NOT how we end." He shook her again, desperate, feral. She had undone him in ways he had never imagined—and he would not let the world take her now.

"Taveleigha, GET UP!" It was not a plea; it was a demand. His breath hitched, his hold tightening, his head falling against hers. And he knew. He knew. Her body was limp, her weight unnatural, her skin lacking the warmth that had always teased his fingertips. Astarion bit back bile, teeth grinding as he shook her harder, voice ragged with desperation.

"Get up, damn you—get UP!" It was a whisper, a plea, into her hair. She did not move. Did not stir. Did not breathe. Her head lolled, her neck bent at an unnatural angle—lifeless, empty. "Not here," he whispered, forehead pressing against hers, his touch gentle, pleading. "Not like this."

She was too quiet.

She was too small.

She was too still.

He had never truly realized how much she moved, until now. The tilt of her head when she questioned something, the fold of her arms when disbelief or frustration took hold. The way her tongue stuck out when deep in concentration, lips pursed in absent determination. The rise and fall of her chest, the steady rhythm of her breath, a rhythm that was missing now. The way her fingers twisted and flexed, a graceful dance with the arcane, shaping magic as easily as the air itself. Her nose twitch when she laughed, when she thought too hard, when something amused her just enough to break her focus. The light in her eyes, mismatched, one violet, one blue, shining brilliantly even in the darkest corners. The way she leaned toward him, unconsciously, instinctively, like it was always meant to be. The firm grip of her hand before a battle, silent, steady reassurance. The squared line of her shoulders, uncertain but defiant. The soft sigh against his lips, the little moan at the back of her throat when she kissed him, her hands fisting his shirt, as if he alone could quiet the storm in her head, even for just a few seconds.

Astarion clenched his jaw, his arms tightening around her unmoving form. The fight still raged—he could hear it, the distant clash of steel, the crackling of magic—but the tide had turned. Taveleigha had made sure of that. The necromites were gone, and Dame Aylin relentlessly tore through the avatar. Even Karlach’s strikes were landing true. But none of it mattered. Not right now. He stared down at her, willing her to wake up, willing her heart to restart, willing his tadpole to connect to hers again—but there was nothing. Her arms hung limply, her head nestled against his shoulder, her feet dragging, lifeless, boneless.

Shadowheart and Jaheria moved toward the central platform—he barely processed it.

"SHADOWHEART!" His voice cracked, the sound barely escaping his throat. Weak. Feeble. She turned, eyes narrowing. And then she saw. Saw who was in his arms. She gasped and ran.

Astarion dropped to his knees, cradling his sorceress, holding her like something sacred, something that had been ripped from the heavens far too soon. Shadowheart knelt beside him, her Armour groaning with the movement. "Lay her down."

He didn’t think. Didn’t argue. He obeyed. And gods—he was so cold. His warmth was dead beside him, her warmth was gone, and the void was pressing in, closing in, suffocating him. No air moved through her lungs. Her cheeks, once dusted in pink, were pale. Her life-song—silent. No heartbeat. No blood pumping.

Shadowheart’s hands glowed, the familiar shimmer of healing magic pooling between her fingers. She whispered under her breath, prayers woven with desperation, and Astarion could only watch—wide-eyed, rigid, silent.

Taveleigha’s eyes flew open—She gasped—choked—her body jerked violently, coughing blood, splattering red across her lips and teeth. Her breath was ragged, her gasps wild, her limbs trembling.

"Tav, darling—you’re alive." Astarion cupped her face, brushing strands of blood-matted hair from her forehead. "Keep breathing. Just keep breathing." Her eyes found his—and the terror in them nearly made him break. She was panicking, lost, still half-drowned in the abyss she had barely escaped. Astarion didn’t look away. He refused. His fingers traced along her cheek, wiping the tears away, her cold hand weakly pressing against his wrist—barely there, barely holding on. Her skin was too cold, a green necrotic sheen still tainting her flesh. He forced a smile, the lopsided one—the one she always reacted to. "Fancy meeting you here." And just like that—her heart stuttered, and she laughed, breathless. Then grimaced pain cutting through her like a blade.

"Ow." Her heart was still beating. Please. Please stay beating.

"Can you not make her laugh?" Shadowheart growled—her concentration wavering, sweat beading along her brow. Astarion gritted his teeth. It wasn’t fast enough. It wasn’t enough at all. Shadowheart fell back, exhausted, eyes pained, grimacing. "I’m out."

It wasn’t enough. Her wounds were still too deep. Shadowheart desperately rummaged through her pack—finding only a small healing potion. She forced it down Taveleigha’s throat, ignoring the weak protests.

A bellow shook the cavern. A crash of metal on bone. Then—Silence.

Astarion looked up, his breath caught, his mind only half-working. The avatar was falling, crumbling, pulled back into the abyss, A sickly green necrotic vortex twisted, reshaping, and Ketheric Thorm lay broken. His chest heaved, his form shattered—but his eyes locked onto her.

Taveleigha stiffened, her entire body curling inward shrinking, retreating. She pressed herself further into Astarion’s embrace, desperate to disappear into him, to melt into his chest until she was nothing. A lost girl. A lost little elf girl. She whimpered, and Astarion pulled her closer, tighter, his lips pressing gently to the crown of her head. A soft touch. A silent promise. Ketheric reached toward her, his fingers trembling. His voice rasped, hoarse, something softer than before. "You came home."

And, for the first time, his eyes were clear. The pain, the torment, the fatigue of a hundred years fell away. And he saw her. Not an experiment. Not a failure. Just her.

Aylin roared, her voice a guttural scream, a sound forged in centuries of captivity, vengeance, and divine fury. And with the full weight of her armoured boot, she crushed Ketheric’s body, the impact reverberating through the chamber like a final toll of the executioner’s bell. “He is dead.” The Nightsong’s cry was triumphant, relieved, her arms lifting skyward, her face for the first time unburdened. And then, finally, Aylin turned. Toward Taveleigha. Her expression cracked, unrestrained emotion flooding through her as she stepped forward, hands reaching. “Tavi. Tavi. Tavi.” She cupped Taveleigha’s cheeks, fingers pressing against clammy skin, forehead pressing against hers—searching. “You have returned. True as before.”

Taveleigha stared, breath shallow, memories clicking into place like loose fragments trying to reform. Aylin. The woman who towered over her, strong, invincible. The woman she had admired as a child, without knowing. Aylin’s hold tightened, crushing her into a fierce embrace, but Taveleigha remained rigid, unyielding. Aylin did not notice. Too overjoyed, too overcome, to see that Taveleigha was barely breathing through the weight of realization.

The past rose, unbidden, clawing its way through Aylin’s memories. Balthazar. His form, grotesque, a man long past human, twisted into something else, something wrong.

She barely had acknowledged the others, as they entered The Shadowfell only earlier that day, the four fighting to free her, the hands gripping her in spectral imprisonment, the phosphorus chains binding her soul to Ketheric Thorm. One hundred years of torment. One hundred years of captivity. And now this, more would be Dark Justiciars. She lunged for the necromancer, but he barely flinched, barely reacted—just laughed.

"Or perhaps you've led this would-be Justiciar’s blade directly into my heart?" And then she saw them. The dark-haired half-elf. The red Tiefling. The silver-haired pale elf. The wild red-haired elf.

No.

NO.

Aylin staggered back, rage boiling through her. Taveleigha was alive. She was alive. Ketheric had said—had told her—his daughters had fallen, that their lives had been ended. But here she was. Older. Harder.

Changed.

But still here. And in that moment—a fear she had not allowed herself to feel for a century broke through her rage. Please, mother-maiden not her. She shrugged off the phantom hands restraining her, her body tensing with barely contained fury. “I invite you—heap more sins upon your head,” she spat at Balthazar. “My retribution will be all the sweeter.”

She would kill him. She would tear him apart. But please—Selûne, hear me. Not Taveleigha. She has suffered enough. Balthazar smiled, mocking, patronizing.

“All this time, and still you fail to appreciate the gifts I have bestowed upon you, Aylin.” Her glare was ice, venomous.

“If looks could kill,” Balthazar mused, “I would be dead a hundred times over.”

“You already are.”

He laughed, unfazed. “Sad, to see a thing of beauty fail to recognise its own worth.”

Aylin glanced at Taveleigha. She was watching, cautious, calculating, too careful. Aylin realised, then, that maybe Taveleigha was not here to kill her. Maybe the sorcerer had come for another reason entirely. She was not the same elf Aylin had known. Even from a glance, Aylin could see it. This century had reshaped her, broken and reforged her, made her into something untamed, something hardened. If she remembered Aylin, she was hiding it well. Or maybe—she didn’t remember at all.

“However,” Balthazar continued, “General Thorm appreciates you. He wants you nearby. So, I am here to whisk you back to him.”

“Ketheric.” Aylin spat onto the stone. The name burned her tongue, like bile. Of course this was Ketheric’s doing. Of course this was all his—his games, his cruelty, his endless thirst for control. “I welcome the sight of him, after these hundred years.” Her voice was mocking, her lips curling into something sharp. “He whose immortality I supply—with my very soul.”

The reaction was instant, Taveleigha stumbled back, her expression fracturing, her breath hitching. She did not know. And the revelation cut deeper than Aylin had expected.

Balthazar’s eyes gleamed, drinking in the moment. “General Thorm,” he corrected. “I trust you will be on your best behaviour. Though… just in case, I have taken some precautions.”

The air shifted. Aylin felt it—the trap snapping shut. She braced, stepping into a loose battle stance, ready for anything.

“KEEP BACK. “Balthazar snapped at the group, his tone razor-sharp.

Taveleigha glanced between them between him, Aylin, Shadowheart. “Wait. The Nightsong is a person?”

Aylin felt something bloom—something fragile, something hopeful. But she did not show it.

Balthazar laughed. “Oh no, little elf. Aylin is no mere person—she is an immortal. The very daughter of Selûne herself.”

Taveleigha flinched, her expression tightening into something unreadable.

And then, the half elf spoke up  “You interfere with Lady Shar’s bidding—and for that, you must die.” Shadowheart’s voice was firm, unwavering. Aylin’s eyes narrowed. Not Taveleigha. Not her. But the half-elf.

“Shadowheart…��� Taveleigha spoke, her voice quiet, pleading. “She’s a person.”

“Do not suggest you know more than Lady Shar, more than her will.”

“Shadowheart, you are better than this.” Taveleigha’s voice broke, raw and desperate. “You are not a murderer.”

Hope rose—brighter this time, stronger. She was still her. Still Taveleigha. Still the soft-hearted, stubborn girl who had endured so much pain, and still managed to see the good in people.

And then—battle erupted. Balthazar lunged—magic twisting, necromites rising, skeletons charging. Taveleigha countered spell after spell, Astarion lingering, watching her back. Aylin fought her binds, rage thrumming through her. She watched as Taveleigha repelled the sickly green blast, barely—the shield flickering, an orb of protection holding for mere seconds. She was stronger now. More controlled. And when it ended—when Balthazar fell, his body crumbling—Aylin turned to her. Triumphant. Smiling. Free. It had been so long since she felt freedom, since she did not feel the pull of the magical chains binding her to this place. She felt light, euphoric.

“Are you ready?”

Taveleigha blinked. “For what?”

Aylin grinned, her wings stretching, her voice alive with vengeance.

“To kill KETHERIC THORM.”

Taveleigha nodded.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Karlach bent down, fingers wrapping around the Neverstone embedded in Ketheric’s ruined armour. With a sharp tug, she pulled it free, breathing heavily, her shoulders rising and falling under the weight of everything. Before she could hand it to Taveleigha, their Guardian emerged shimmering into existence like a Specter from the void.

“You fought well. Now we know—we are against the chosen three.” Astarion grimaced, his lips curling, barely holding back his snarl. Karlach looked tired, raw in a way none of them had seen before learning the truth about Gortash had cut deep. Aylin looked triumphant. Jaheria, weary. Shadowheart, just as worn.

And Taveleigha. Taveleigha looked broken. Something had shifted in her today. Something had fractured. This fight, this past month wandering through the shadow-cursed lands had eroded something fundamental in her. She no longer carried the optimism she once did. No longer felt like the spark of light she had been before entering this place. She was worn down. She was broken.

Astarion felt it in the way she stood—or rather, how she couldn’t stand properly anymore. She had always been poised, shoulders squared, jaw tense but ready. Now, she curled inward—her form smaller, arms wrapping around her midsection, whether for pain or for comfort, he couldn’t tell. No one spoke as the Guardian dictated what came next. No one objected.

They followed the orders.

Through the portal, Astarion guiding Taveleigha forward, his hand at her back, feeling how unsteady she truly was. Ketheric had focused on her—whether it was because of the blood they shared or because he knew she would be the most troublesome. Either way, Taveleigha felt like she was eighteen again. Like she was still trapped in his experiments. Like his words had dragged her back into a past she had spent decades trying to forget. She did not have the energy to unpack it. Did not have the strength to even begin unravelling the damage.

Astarion watched as she leaned against the double doors of Moonrise Towers, staring into the distance, staring at nothing. She looked small. She looked lost. A terrifying thought hit him. She was not going to make it back to The Last Light Inn. He could feel it. Could see it.

Shadowheart joined him, following his gaze, silent for a long moment before whispering “She needs to rest. She needs to heal more. And I do not mean just physically.”

“She refuses any healing. She blames herself for all of this.” Astarion gestured toward the towers, toward the ruin surrounding them. The devastation, the loss—everything that had led to this moment. She carried it all. Like every ounce of suffering belonged to her alone. Shadowheart said nothing, but the knowing silence between them spoke volumes. They were the original three—Astarion, Shadowheart, Taveleigha. Back when it had only been them, before the madness of Baldur’s Gate, before the Grove, before all of it. They had a quiet understanding, an unspoken camaraderie, even if neither would ever call it friendship. Especially now. Especially as he had watched his sorcerer grow closer to Shadowheart—watched them build something strong, steady, something neither had expected to find in another. If anyone asked, he would deny it. Deny everything. However, Shadowheart understood, in a way no one else did. "This is the consequence of a broken man."

Astarion’s voice was flat, thoughtful. "I do not know everything she endured, but I saw glimpses. I wish I could take it away. But time is the only thing that will help her." A hollow laugh escaped him. Wasn’t that what Taveleigha had always told him? Time heals all wounds. She had given him time. Had offered him patience, steadiness, the space to heal on his own terms. The least he could do was give her the same.

Isobel approached, her eyes lingering on her younger sister, as if still disbelieving she was real. “You have no idea.” Her voice was small, uncertain, like she was speaking through layers of memory she hadn’t touched in years. Astarion’s gaze snapped to her, sharp as a blade. “If it was that bad—why did you not take her away? Why did you not run? Why did you let her suffer?”

Isobel stiffened. Astarion knew what living through daily torment could do to a person. And he hated thinking about how that was now settling into Taveleigha’s bones—how she had finally reclaimed her past, only to realize it had been nothing but pain. She did not have to tell him. Her eyes already did. Dimmer than before. More guarded. More cut off from everyone. He was unsure how to help her through this. How could he, when he had barely begun unravelling his own suffering? How could he when he had only just escaped his own tormentor?

Isobel swallowed, voice tight. “I don’t know. I hoped he would change. I hoped he would accept her. I did what I could—I healed her, held her when she cried, fought him daily. But he was not my father anymore. He was something else. And I was too blinded to see he had been consumed completely.” She looked down, shame settling into her. But Astarion did not care. “You should have taken her far away.” His voice was cold. Unforgiving. “You are no better than him.”

Shadowheart inhaled sharply, shocked, because someone had said what they had both been thinking. She turned to Isobel, attempting peace. "I'm sorry. It has been a long day."

"That it has." Isobel's voice was quiet, barely audible. "But he's also speaking true."

Astarion left them behind, moving toward his sorcerer—toward Taveleigha, his touch gentle as he stroked her shoulders. She looked up—slow, hesitant. He kissed her temple, and she closed her eyes, leaning into him like it was the only thing keeping her upright.

They made it back to The Last Light Inn, Astarion holding her against him, keeping her steady as her legs gave out beneath her weight. “Come on, darling. Almost there.”

She whimpered, barely there. She did not speak to Isobel. Did not look at Aylin or her sister. Did not process their joy—only moved, existing in her own mind, lost in the storm of returning memories she was too exhausted to fight.

Later, in the bathhouse, Astarion watched the water rise, steam curling into the air. He gripped the basin, closing his eyes, forcing his breath to steady. Today had been difficult. He did not have the luxury to fall apart yet. She had held him together countless times. It was his turn now. And gods—he would do whatever it took.

"Gods below." Astarion muttered the words under his breath, already moving, already closing the distance, kneeling before her with precise urgency. His fingers found her chin, his thumb and forefinger tilting her face gently, searching “Darling, let’s get you out of these robes.” Her mismatched eyes did not focus. Did not blink. Did not even register his voice. They were far away, glazed over, trapped in something he couldn’t see—something he was not privy to. Astarion exhaled, carefully beginning to unclasp the buckles at her hips.

Her robes were not armour, but the enchantments woven into them offered some protection. He shuddered at the alternative. If not for the magic laced into the fabric, would she even be here now? Would she have survived? He hoped they could salvage them—the carefully crafted design, the delicate silver accents that had once shimmered against soft pink fabric. She had dyed them, though. A deep sapphire blue. He had always loved how it made her eyes stand out, how it turned her red hair into something untamed, something burning. His fingers moved to the clasps at her neck. As he brushed against her skin, she gasped. A ragged, broken sound tore from her throat. She flinched, breath stuttering, her entire body shaking at the contact.

Astarion froze.

His hands rose, slow, steady, his palms open, a peaceful surrender. No sudden movements. No pressure. Gods—he understood this reaction. Had felt it himself, had fought through it himself, too many times. "You are safe, my sweet." His voice was barely above a whisper, soft, meant only for her. "I have you." No pressure. No demands. Just his presence. Just something constant, something unshaken. She had done this for him. Had sat beside him during his own episodes, never rushing, never demanding more than he could give. He would do the same for her—not because he owed her, but because it was what he wanted to do. And that realisation unsettled him more than anything. He wanted to care for her. Wanted to be her anchor. It wasn’t a chore. It wasn’t difficult. It was instinctive.

Astarion watched, painstakingly slowly, as her eyes cleared, darting across the room, taking stock. The bath. The benches. The windows. The deadbolt across the door—searching for an escape, searching for control.

Finally, Her gaze landed on him. And he stumbled. The sorrow in them—he had never seen anything like it, not in her, not this deep, not this overwhelming. Taveleigha crumbled. Her body collapsed against him, her hands grasping desperately at his shirt, her breath breaking apart into sobs—gut-wrenching, heart-shattering sobs. She did not care if anyone heard. Did not care if she was falling apart in front of him. She could not stop it. And for a second Astarion did not know what to do.

His arms wrapped around her, pulling her tight, letting her shake, letting her break, letting her drown in grief. Her tears soaked through the fabric, each one burning—not because of what they did to him, but because they were hers. Because this pain was hers. She sank further, her body curling against his, unable to hold herself up, unable to fight the tremors wrecking her frame. And he held her. Just held her. Let it pass. Let it consume her as long as it needed to. It was almost too familiar; Only a tenday ago, she had held him like this, as he struggled through his own demons, his own confessions, his own misery. Had it only been a tenday? It felt like weeks. Months. A lifetime ago.

Eventually, she calmed. Her breath was uneven, her sniffles quiet, her body still curled in his lap. By the Gods—what must they look like? A tangle of limbs, bodies entwined, one protecting the other from the world outside. This was new. Unfamiliar territory. Something Astarion had never done before. He was just as lost in the dark as her, but something deep inside him told him what to do—Stroke her hair. Trace slow, steady circles against her back. No pressure. Just comfort. Just presence. Eventually, she returned—her eyes sharper, more present, breath more even.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was small, raw, barely audible. “I didn’t mean to—” She tried to pull away, suddenly self-aware, suddenly conscious of the closeness between them, of how gentle he had been, of how utterly unfamiliar it all was. She thought it must be uncomfortable for him. Thought she had asked too much. But Astarion did not let her go. Instead, he pulled her closer.

“My love, never apologize for needing me.” A familiar smirk, lopsided and easy. And just like that she snorted, a small, barely-there laugh. There she is. Astarion pressed his lips to hers, smiling against her mouth, teasing, soft.

“Let’s get you cleaned up.” He murmured against her skin.

“I can do this.” She mumbled, voice weakened but stubborn. “You don’t need to make yourself uncomfortable.”

Astarion laughed, shaking his head. "Oh, my love, you are a silly, silly woman." He kissed her again, tentative, but firm. “I am unsure of many things. But this—this, I am sure of.”

She hesitated, a flicker of something uncertain flashing through her eyes before the walls came back up. The guard, the defence, the ever-present insecurity. They really were too alike. Astarion kissed her again, slow, steady, familiar. This was a kiss he could do for the rest of their lives. A kiss that had no expectation, no urgency—just certainty. A kiss between equals. Something deeper, something unshaken, something real.

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Taveleigha lay in bed, her shoulders and head propped against the worn wooden headboard, aged and splintered, but familiar. She wasn't complaining. For the first time since the Nautiloid crash, they had a bed. Thin feather mattress or not, it was something solid, something that did not feel like stone or earth beneath her back. She assumed the others had taken rooms at The Last Light Inn, though she wasn’t entirely sure. She hadn’t checked. Astarion was trancing in her arms, his body draped against hers, head resting on her chest, silver curls tickling her collarbone, one arm thrown possessively over her waist. His weight was a grounding force, something constant against the chaos in her mind. Her fingers traced slow, absent-minded patterns along his bare back, skipping over raised scars, uneven ridges carved into his skin like forgotten maps. Astarion twitched, but did not wake.

She stared into the dark, thoughts fracturing, colliding, spilling over one another like ink bleeding across parchment. After Ketheric, everything had fallen into place—memories clicking together like shattered glass being forced into a mosaic, some pieces jagged, others missing entirely. Old life and new—clashing, weaving, rewriting themselves. She was a mess of contradictions, of lives lived and lost, of emotions she could not untangle, no matter how she tried. For so long, she had been Taveleigha the wanderer—purposeless, drifting from town to town, chasing answers that never materialized, chasing a truth she had never been able to name. She had taken odd jobs to survive. She had helped townspeople, travellers, caravans, farmers—not out of duty, not out of heroism, but because it was something to do. Something to fill the space inside her that had always been empty. A memory emerged not too long ago but might as well been a lifetime ago.

The Elfsong Tavern. She had sat there once, coin heavy in her purse after a long, difficult day—sipping berry wine, not bothering to remember the name, only the sweet taste left lingering on her tongue. The sunlight had bled into early evening, the sky painting itself in hues of fire and indigo, the docks bathed in golden glow before the sun had finally slipped below the horizon. She had watched as patrons came and went, living their small, predictable lives. Workers grabbing food and ale before their shifts. Families sharing meals before walking home together safe, protected, whole. Would they stroll along the docks before locking their doors, before settling into their homes, believing themselves guarded from the cruelty of the world? She had wondered about safety once. Had longed for it, despite knowing it had never belonged to her.

She had taken another sip, and then, A silver-haired elf had entered. Tall. Lithe. His presence had been assured, his gaze sweeping over the room, taking stock before fully stepping inside. His hair, the colour of it had struck something deep in her mind, an echo, a recognition she could not place. Not the elf himself. Just the silver of his hair. Something long lost. Something buried too deep to rise—until now.

Taveleigha suddenly had a history again. A mother she had never known. A father who had hated her, who had hurt her, who had only looked at her as his daughter in the final moments of his life. And Isobel, A sister. A sister who had once been her saviour, her guardian against Ketheric’s cruelty.

But now, Now, she saw the truth of it. Magic had soothed her wounds, but it had never undone the scars beneath her skin. Isobel had healed her physically, but she had never been able to protect her from the emotional wounds, the deep cracks splintering through her soul. Even on Ketheric’s worst days, Isobel had not saved her. Had not taken her away. Even after Taveleigha had begged her to, after she had pleaded, had whispered her desperation into the dark of their shared nights. Isobel had only helped in the present, only acted when Ketheric’s torment had shattered through her carefully preserved illusions.

And Taveleigha had hated that realisation. Hated the truth that her sister had not fought for her enough. That her older sister—so much older, so much wiser—had not saved her. Had not fought to protect her. Had she not been worthy of being saved? Had Isobel, deep down, thought her a freak too—just like their father? The stories, the memories before her birth, had painted Ketheric as someone else entirely. A loving father. A devoted husband. Family trips to circuses, picnics in fields, magic practiced together in harmony. But when she was born— It fell apart. She had been different. And that difference had been enough to undo everything. And so, Isobel had been forced into roles she was never meant to play.

Had tried.

Had failed.

And while Taveleigha understood it. She could not forgive it.

Her magic sang in her blood, like fire licking at her skin, like lightning charging the air, crackling just beneath her fingertips. The memory tore through her, dragged her under, drowned her.

The smell of burning hair and flesh. It was embedded in her mind, branded into her senses, her soul, her skin. She would never forget it. Would never smell anything beautiful again. Not wildflowers in the meadow. Not cooking apples and cinnamon on a hearth. Not the lilac soap Isobel used—its scent curling around her as her sister whispered, as she sang her to sleep after a particularly brutal day. She had willed her sister to rise. Had wished for healing magic to cocoon her, had prayed for her to stand. She had begged the gods in silence. But they had been just as quiet. And as she had stood there—dumbfounded, desperate, drowning in denial, Ketheric had struck. The snap of divine smite tore through her, sending her crumbling to the ground. And instinct had saved her. A shield, a forcefield stronger than his fury—unbreakable, despite his rage, despite his fists crashing against it again and again and again. It held.

And she, she had ran.

“Tavi?” Astarion’s voice cut through the memory, gentle, coaxing, but distant. She hadn't moved, but he had felt the shift in her blood, the change in the air—acrid, burning, electric. Her magic woven into the pain, curling itself around her grief, her regret. Her eyes fluttered open, slow, hesitant, And the terror in them shattered him. Another memory. Tears streaked her cheeks. How did she still have so much left to give? How could she still carry this much pain? Astarion wished he could kill Ketheric all over again. He would tear him apart a thousand times over, and it still would not be enough.

Astarion sat up, his movements slow, deliberate—no sudden motions, no abrupt gestures. His fingers cradled her face, thumbs brushing against damp skin, tilting her gaze toward him with a tenderness he had never allowed himself before. Forehead to forehead, his lips pressed gently against hers—just once, soft, fleeting, tasting the salt of her tears. “Eyes on me, my dear.” His voice was barely a whisper; a thread of sound meant only for her. Her eyes fluttered, the flicker of movement slow—hesitant, fragile. And when they finally met his Sorrow. Fear. Raw, unrelenting pain pooling in their depths.

Astarion inhaled sharply, the sheer weight of emotion breaking over him. It was a look he recognized—one he had carried for two hundred years, one that had etched itself into his own reflection too many times to count. “Oh, my love.” The words slipped from him unbidden, and he pulled her against his chest, wrapping his arms around her, anchoring her in the moment, in the present, in him. His chin rested atop her head, lips brushing against her hair, his hands steady, unwavering. She shuddered—a quake that ran through her entire body, something too deep, too painful, too fresh to truly settle.

It would get better. With time. With space to breathe, to take stock of everything, to feel everything fully before moving forward. But now, Now, her mind and body were still reeling from the day’s devastation. And that was something he could not fix. Something he could only hold her through.

“I can’t stop crying.” The words were fractured, stumbling through uneven breaths. Astarion kissed the crown of her head, his hands threading gently through her hair, then tracing slow, grounding strokes down her back. Anything to soothe her. Nothing was calculated—no premeditation, no strategy. Just instinct. Just what felt right. And for the first time, perhaps ever, he acted on what felt right rather than what served him. It wasn’t the first time. Since their dalliance at the Tiefling party, he had felt himself shifting, leaning into something unknown, something terrifying, something natural. Even now, his mind flickered to the road littered with Tiefling corpses, the moment they had first left for Moonrise Towers, the way she had broken down when she saw what had happened. He had watched her fight for those people. Had watched her fight so hard to save them—only to have their lives ripped away regardless. He had seen her rage, her grief, the quiet devastation that never fully left her after that moment.

And now, she was breaking all over again. For a different loss, for a different battle, but still—the pain was the same.

“I want… I want to stop crying.” Astarion understood that feeling far too well. How often had he wished his own tears would stop—wished the compulsion from Cazador would wane long enough for him to have control over himself? Not that they lasted long. Never long enough.

“Do you think talking about it will help?” The question was simple. But he knew it could help. It had helped him, even if he had fought against the idea at first scoffing, resisting, refusing to believe that giving voice to his darkest thoughts could make any difference at all. He had been proven wrong. Which, with her, was becoming a regular occurrence. And by the gods—he was glad for it. Because it meant he could move forward. Even if it was just by a thread, by the smallest inch, it was still forward. Something he had never been allowed before. A strand of hope—tiny, fragile, buried deep inside him, where no one could touch it, where he could hide it from the world in case it was taken from him. In trusting her, in letting her in, he had found something he had never had before. An ally. Someone who cared. Someone who respected him. Someone who never treated him like he was anything less than a person. Someone who challenged him, pushed him, laughed with him instead of at him. And gods—he had never loved anyone more for that alone.

“Everything is just so muddled.” Taveleigha sighed, her gaze drifting toward the ceiling. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.” She could hear footsteps above them—Isobel, Aylin, moving quietly. Taveleigha sighed again, her voice low, a quiet admission. “When we first got here, I kept feeling… déjà vu. It was the only way I could describe it.” Her fingers twisted together in her lap, a nervous twitch, a way to ground herself against the wave of memories clawing at her skin. “I always knew there were gaps in my mind—missing pieces. But I never knew why. Never knew how. Never knew what had been taken from me.” Her breath hitched, her words faltering. She rubbed her hands across her face, then let them fall limp, resting at her sides. “…My sister.” She whispered it like the name itself hurt, barely audible, barely able to say it at all.

“Isobel.” Her gaze drifted into the darkness, her body tense, unmoving. Not looking at anything. Just remembering. Just reliving it all over again. And Astarion held her through it, silent, steady—her anchor in the storm she had yet to escape.

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Taveleigha, Astarion, Shadowheart, and Karlach entered the room Jaheria had mentioned—a place of blessing, protection, or whatever magic was needed to traverse the Shadow-Cursed Lands safely. It was one of the largest rooms on the top floor of the inn, a single door leading to the balcony beyond.

The group watched as a silver-haired woman moved her arms in slow, deliberate arcs, soft magic flowing from her fingers and weaving into the barrier above the inn. Silvery motes pulsed, divine magic humming as the shield above them flashed and strengthened. The woman turned back into the room but halted abruptly, eyes widening with shock—and something else. Taveleigha saw it, the visceral reaction before Isobel even looked them over. She had the presence of mind to recover quickly. “So, you’re the True Souls meant to save us all?” she smirked, directing her remark toward the sorcerer in their group.

“And you’re the cleric meant to protect us all?” Taveleigha snarked back. But something about this half-elf tugged at her. A connection—why did she feel it?

“That depends on your plan. You can fight, attack. But you, you can infiltrate, you can learn. Must be fascinating; True Souls, but not under the Absolute’s control.” Isobel crossed her arms. “Moonrise Towers aren’t ready for you. Ketheric won’t be ready for you. I am Isobel.” She gave the name like it was a simple fact—no handshake, no pleasantries.

“Taveleigha,” the red-haired elf replied.

“Astarion.”

“Karlach.”

“Shadowheart.”

Taveleigha had already pieced it together—Isobel was a cleric, and her divine magic was keeping this inn a haven. For the Harpers, the Tieflings, and now them. “Well then, let’s get this over with.” Isobel lifted her hands, casting a spell, warmth rolling over them all. It seeped into muscle and bone, heat from within—not unpleasant. Shadowheart hissed, jerking back, the wound on her hand flaring with a violent purple snap.

“Selunite magic,” she grimaced, glaring at Isobel. “Dark Lady forgive me.”

“Good nose.” Isobel smirked. “Like a nasty little terrier.”

Taveleigha sighed—those two were going to be fast friends. Gods above.

Isobel turned to say something, but everyone noticed it at once. The silence. Astarion shifted an inch closer. Karlach positioned herself behind Taveleigha, Shadowheart settling to Karlach’s left. The loose circle was instinctual, protective.

“Do you hear that?” Isobel murmured. Taveleigha knew it wasn’t the presence of sound that unsettled them—it was the absence of it. Even the normal bustle below was gone. Imperceptibly, Astarion tilted his head toward the balcony door. She caught the motion—maybe because she was learning his tricks, his tells, his sincerity.

A tall man landed at the threshold. Shoulder-length black hair, Flaming Fist armour, angelic wings half-rotted and folding into his back. “Hello, Isobel.”

The silver-haired half-elf startled, stepping closer to them. “Marcus! What happened to you?” Taveleigha watched Isobel retreat another step—at least she was aware there was danger.

“I’ve been blessed. You could be, too, if you come with me to General Thorm.” The name sent a visceral shudder through Taveleigha’s body. The urge to recoil, to curl inward—it was instinctive, like a wound being pressed. A cool brush of fingers at her hip. Small. Subtle. Grounding. Astarion had seen her reaction.

“What is the meaning of this, Marcus?” Isobel asked, but Taveleigha was already piecing it together—the decayed wings, the reverence in his voice, the armour. Before she could speak, the tadpole in her skull writhed—his mind reaching for hers. Commanding. Urging.

Help take Isobel to Moonrise Towers. Her teeth clenched. “Get. Out. Of. My. Head.” The unwelcome connection shuddered, then snapped. Marcus recoiled.

“The Absolute sees all. Your treachery will be punished.” Marcus recovered quickly, but Taveleigha was faster. She yanked Isobel behind her, releasing an iridescent shield. The barrier shimmered, blocking the heavy swing of his mace. He growled. Then howled.

The room filled—winged beasts spilling from the Nine Hells. Screams echoed from below. She could only hope the others were holding their ground. Marcus didn’t relent, and her companions were too occupied with the fiends. She stood, holding the shield with everything she had—but the magic was draining. Fading. Movement behind her. The distraction cost her—the shield flickered, then vanished. She heard the swing before she felt it. The mace slammed into her shoulder. Pain tore through her, driving her to one knee. Two voices—one male, one female—shouted her name. She gritted her teeth. Twitched her fingers. Fired the spell. The fireball hit Marcus square in the face.

The explosion sent bodies sprawling, everyone reeling ot the floor killing several beasts outright. Marcus staggered, blackened and burning. He lunged, Astarion was faster. Like lightning, he snatched Marcus’s wrist—twisting, shifting, moving behind him. The crack of bone. His head wrenched left. Then the vampire sank his teeth viciously into Marcus’s neck. The winged man struggled—then stilled. His heart sputtered. Failed. Taveleigha could only watch. Fascination, not disgust.

Astarion’s eyes never left hers. Even in the final moments. When the body dropped, he wiped his mouth, spit onto the floor, and stepped over the corpse. His hand—swift in violence only moments ago—came to rest on her throat. A soft, careful touch. “Are you hurt, my love?”

She was mostly fine. Mostly. But the mace had left its mark—the bruise already forming beneath the collar of her robes. For a moment, the room didn’t exist. She closed her eyes, let herself sink into the warmth of his palm. Hands resting on his waist. She whispered, “Thank you.” Her fingers found his cheek, tentative at first—then firmer when she saw his smile.

“Isobel!” Jaheria rushed in, scanning the room. “Thank the gods you weren’t taken.”

“No thanks to Marcus,” Isobel replied, glancing at the corpse. “He turned.”

“We lost some. The Tieflings, some of the cubs. They were taken.”

Karlach stiffened. “Then we get them back.”

Taveleigha sighed. It was only getting harder.

“If you’re going deeper into the Shadowlands, you need to learn how the cultists traverse,” Jaheria warned.

Taveleigha pressed her forehead into Astarion’s shoulder. Why did this fall on their shoulders? Why were they abducted, experimented on? Why did the Visitor always choose her? Why was the world so cruel? Astarion sensed her trepidation—or her frustration. His fingers trailed up and down her arm, slow, soothing. And she hated that it was working.

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“And then we ambushed that Drider heading toward Moonrise Towers,” Taveleigha mumbled.

“I remember, my love. I was there,” Astarion said, a smirk curling at his lips. “To be honest, he needed to die. If even a vampire spawn thinks something is too far gone, then, truly, it needed to die.” Her small smile in response eased him just a little. “That was a difficult day,” he continued, his voice dipping, the memory clawing at him. “Watching you against Marcus, and then that Drider—” He shuddered. “Seeing you drop to your knees, gasping, not getting back up.”

Taveleigha always got up. It was why he had chosen her. No matter how many times she was knocked down, she rose again worse for wear, bruised, but standing, eyes burning with defiance. Those eyes—expressive, sharp, alive. He could never tire of them. And yet, that day—he had feared.

Astarion stood behind her, watching the Drider and his goblin escort tread along the broken cobblestone path, unbothered by the Shadow Curse. The group was hidden inside a crumbling house, more Harpers waiting alongside them for the right moment to strike.

A glance back. Karlach and Shadowheart were poised, ready—he knew they would cover them if things went awry. But when he turned forward again, his stomach dropped. Taveleigha had stepped into the open. The Drider grinned—a predator baring its teeth. “Another one for her. Oh yes, oh yes. You will do.”

“No, I don’t think I will do.” Astarion felt something shift within him at her snide remark, her silver tongue. It stirred things long buried.

“But you cannot be another one,” the Drider murmured, eerie and lilting. “For you have been here before cast out, removed, lost.”

Taveleigha faltered. The unease that had clung to her since they stepped into the Shadowlands—it swelled now, crashing into her chest. Then everything moved at once. The Drider lifted his longsword. Brought it down. Taveleigha crumpled. She didn’t get up. She always got up.

Astarion’s voice tore through the air. “Get up, dammit!” But she didn’t. He felt something, something familiar but foreign when directed outward. Fear.

The hobgoblin struck next—a hammer blow to her already collapsed form. Astarion saw red. How utterly graceless. The fight ended quickly—eight against five, inevitable. Karlach landed the final blow against the Drider. Silence followed. Then movement—Shadowheart and Astarion both rushed to Taveleigha’s side, healing light already spilling from the cleric’s hands. A gasp. A cough. She stirred. Just unconscious Astarion exhaled, not realizing he had been holding his breath.

Taveleigha was small. Slim, naturally, as elves often were. He had noted it before but never truly considered just how much smaller she was than him—standing close, she had to strain her neck to meet his eyes. But now, with Karlach and Shadowheart beside her, the contrast was starker. Was it her mixed Elven blood? Or was it simply that she had spent so long alone, lost, untethered? She had told him, back in the Emerald Grove, that she didn’t know who her family was—only that she had woken in a field, head wounded and memories blank. How long had she wandered? Months? Years? Decades? Longer? Astarion wasn’t sure what he was feeling. But he knew one thing—he was drawn to the small sorcerer, and some part of him, selfish or not, wanted to shield her from the world. Yes, that was part of the plan. His simple plan. Liar. That godforsaken voice again—two halves warring within him. The wretch grasping for self-preservation, and the man clawing toward something else. Something real. Gods below.

Astarion noticed the shift in her—Taveleigha was more at ease now, the weight of exhaustion easing slightly from her frame. No longer so tightly wound in her emotions, there was even a faint light in her eyes as they talked. Still, she was stifling a yawn. “Come on,” he murmured. “Time for sleep, or at least trance. Your body has been through a lot—it needs to recover.” Before she could protest, he pulled her gently down, positioning her against his chest, her head resting on his shoulder. She shuddered, a small involuntary tremor, like she wasn’t sure whether to resist or surrender to the comfort.

“But what about the nightmares?” she whispered—not quite to him, perhaps just to the quiet itself.

He exhaled, settling his hand against the small of her back in an absent-minded motion, grounding her. “Well, my dear, I have been told I am very good at chasing nightmares away.” His trademark smile curved onto his lips—roguish, teasing. His grin widened further when he heard it—that unmistakable stutter in her heartbeat, the slight stumble in her breath. He could always get a reaction from her with that smile. It was the same smile he had once wielded for survival, for manipulation, for luring his prey. And now? Now, it was a tool of something far more significant—something he had never considered himself capable of.

Ensuring his Taveleigha understood the effect she had on him. He relished the girlish giggle she gave, and as she lifted her hands to his face, cradling each cheek, he leaned down, pressing his lips against hers—soft and deliberate. Not to take, not to seduce—just to be.

If you made it all the way down to here i commend you. I hope you enjoyed it.

No pressure tags: @roguishcat @shewhowas39 @lirotation @asweetlovesong @nyx-knox @loquaciousquark @astarionancuntnin @astarion @renard-rogue

[clazberryk]

Tav's Nightmare.

Well i did it chapter one is up. I hope you enjoy it.

Warnings: Depression, suicidal tendencies.

Please look after yourself and read only if you are comfortable. There is nothing graphic.

Well this kinda took on a work all its own. My work is not ususally this angsty. Maybe i should not write when i am struggling but also, i know the importance of sheddign light on topics like this. I will say there is a hapyp endign to this. Promise.

So without further ado: I give you: Tav's nightmare. Pairing: AstarionX Tav (Female)

Chapter one: Darkness

He felt her twitch and tense in her sleep, the telltale sign that not everything was copacetic in her mind as she slumbered. Sighing he pulled her tighter against his chest, she was nestled on his left side, arm lazily thrown over his waist, no cloth barrier just the two of them, skin to skin, it was a novelty for him, for his skin not to crawl, for him not to recoil in terror or disgust, he loved it.  He loved the feel of her breath against his solar plexus, tickling him, he loved the weight of her pressing down on him in her sleep, their legs entangled together. It was perfect. His mind was at peace for the first time in two hundred years his mind and he was at peace. It was laughable that he was so at peace and yet she was not, and the world was close to ending.

Ever since the fight with Cazador she was having worst nights, the nightmares did not scare him, and witnessing what she witnessed in the fight, the lead up to the fight would impact anyone, regardless the strength of their character. What he did not like, what did scare him was how cut off she had become the following days. How withdrawn into herself she had become, even their companions were starting to notice. Constantly asking him if there was anything that they could do to help, the worrying glances when her back was turned or when she was occupying herself with a task in their shared room at The Elfsong. Often him, Karlach and Gale had shared knowing looks however he was unsure of what he, himself could do. Astarion was out of his depth with this, with supporting his partner, his equal, but he did certainly know that he would do anything he could to help her through this.

Astarion had no illusions of being her knight in shining armour because he was not one, he was no hero, no ethereal prince from a fairytale that would fix everything with a kiss and whisk her away to a fairytale land, as much as he wanted to. He was just him the person she had chose to spend the rest of her life with, which if he thought too much about still overwhelmed him but he found with each waking day he was becoming more comfortable with the idea, even starting to think on their future and what to do after the battle with the elder brain. Astarion was not stupid or oblivious he knew she had her struggles had even opened about some of them in their many nights of just talking in the Shadow-cursed lands. He knew she was a closed book, that he was slowly getting too open and read page by page, chapter by chapter. She was not quick to trust, but once you had her trust, she was quick to defend. She wore her emotions in her eyes, and even on that first night in camp he saw the depth of the pain in those brown orbs, she hid it well in her demeanour and everything else, but her eyes were so expressive. Did she know how expressive her eyes were?

Those brown depths held so much pain, sorrow, lose but there was a slowly growing fire every time she looked at him, every time she smiled at him, or he smiled at her, every interaction between the two of them he saw that fire get stoked just a little brighter. A shine, an ember, a fire just for him, he knew what that shine was, what that fire was, he at first felt guilt for it, which led to that fateful night after she defended him against that awful Drow, when she supported his decision without questioning, even feeling her magic grow hotter in her blood as the Drow kept pushing and she shut her up with a simple remark.

“He gave you his answer” and walked away even dropping and smashing the potion the Drow had given them from her blood. It was then he knew that his simple plan had fallen apart and the warring in him calmed and the side he never would have betted on, the underdog, the side that he had been supressing and pushing further down since The Underdark had won, he no longer wanted her to be a conquest, he no longer wanted her to be a mark, he wanted her. Not her protection. That is when he realised, he wanted ALL OF HER! This was further cemented when he watched her die at Moonrise and resurrected by Withers, he knew when she stood tall with him against Cazador, and they nearly lost but she let everything loose in her magic, even to the weakening of her and when she threw herself in front of Cazador’s necrotic claws and he saw her fall. He knew with every fibre of his being. He wanted all of her. He wanted to be better for her, yes, he still had craved the power of The Vampire Ascendent, but he wanted that power not for him anymore but for her, to protect her any way he could. However the look of pure pride she gave him, her eyes shining bright when he turned away from it was worth a life in the shadows.

So, if it meant that he be there for her however he could during her difficulties it would be no difficulty for him, he would learn how to support her and be a solid constant like she had been these several months of travelling. He pulled her in tighter, kissing the crown of her head, and closed his eyes, she had been quiet for a while, usually that meant her mind had quietened as well.

“Run Tavi, run” She looked around the horizon blurring as her tears gathered in her eyes, her mothers frantic voice screaming at her to run, the fires around her growing brighter and closer.

“Tavi!” Her mother’s profile was then right in front of her, pushing her away from the burning village, her home burning. Tavi turned and ran as far and as fast as she could, she could feel the fire burning in her blood, her breath burning in her lungs, she felt every contract and snap of muscle propelling her forward, away from danger out and away, just like her mother always told her to do. See danger. Run from it. Do not approach, do not engage run. It is how is you survive Tavi. She kept running until she could no longer see the orange glow in the horizon, she was surrounded by darkness, the middle of a forest, she slowed and turned for her mother, and gasped. Where was she?

“Mum?” She looked around maybe she had fallen back a little, she was not a spry has the elf was, not as young as Tavi, her mum was only a half elf whereas she was a full elf, regardless how mixed her blood was, she was still leaner, faster, eye sight more prominent “Mum?” Tavi called, fear constricting her words, she started back the way she came but saw nothing “Mum? Mum? MUM!” She screamed, her body folding over on itself has her fear took over, she could not be alone, no not alone, please no. She could not do this. It was too much. Please? Oh gods, please? However she knew, she knew in her heart of hearts her mother had pushed her away and saved her life.

The scenery merged and she was stood on the porch of her small home with her partner, she was crying, arms folded tightly against her midsection, watching as her partner, no ex-partner was leaving, never to return because of her.

“Mum?” She called out, crying, wishing she could be held by those comforting arms, anything to be loved again, unconditionally “Mummy” She fell to her knees her emotions crushing her, in the space of Tenday she had lost her unborn child and her partner. “Mummy” She fell sideways in a foetal position and just cried, her mind broken, her body exhausted, her heart shredded out in front of her. Even her magic did not answer to her call.

She was walking down a road, she could see the cityscape in the distance, she was unsure of the day, week, month, or the year. She just had a purpose, albeit a small one but a purpose, nonetheless. Tonight was the night. Tonight, she would have her answers. She was dressed in simple travelling clothes, her hair left down, what was the point of putting it up anyway, nobody was waiting for her at home. She had no one, no one to answer to, no one to come home to. It was her, alone in this never-ending world that was too bright and too dark at the same time. Just get to the top of the tower, all you need to do is get to the top of the tower.

To the top of the tower.

Fear, did someone scream? Was that her screaming?

Restricted, she could not move, a strange reptilian woman flooded her vision, she was restricted as well, she watched as a tadpole was inserted into her eye. She passed out again. She did not want to see those endless rows of teeth.

It was too bright, she rubbed her head, trying to shield her eyes and her headache from the too bright sun, her senses smelt the burning debris, no, no, no, no not again. Mum. Mum. Mummy! Tavi forced herself to her feet and saw that she was not in her village that had just been raided and pillaged by bandits, she was on a beach, it was a crash site, there was a dark-haired woman on the ground near her. She walked towards her.

Flash of silver, the cool feel of a blade at her throat, she fell backwards and landed with a thump, her breath forced out of her lungs, a silver curly haired elf had a blade to her neck, of course this would happen. She was denied death, so the universe deemed her its plaything.

“I saw you on that ship” The elf snapped, tightening his grip on her, the blade cutting closer into her skin, she did not feel it though, she felt the pressure dagger, but the pain did not come, she was numb. “Nod” The elf snapped, and she mechanically nodded. “Good now what the hells did you do to me?”

The Emerald Grove, the Tieflings, the goblins, the night out in the clearing, the Underdark, The shadow cursed lands. Moonrise, The Absolute, Ketheric, The Chosen Three, Murkyl, the guardian, CAZADOR!!!

Tavi gasped, her eyes taking in the room, and where she was, her heart and mind racing, it took her a few minutes to get her bearings, for her to realise where she was. The Elfsong, in their bed. Her head against Astarion’s chest. He was trancing, and she smiled softly.

He will leave to eventually. You know this.

The voice was back, did it really leave? She knew it was getting less the more that her and Astarion talked, but still it was back. Her malicious self. Her true self.

You bring nothing but death. Making decisions for everyone else.

No! he loves me. Tavi clasped her hands over here ears trying to block out the words.

But has he said it? Tavi could not refute that, because he had not said it, she loved him by all the pantheons she loved him with every fibre of her being. She would sacrifice herself to save him. She had done against Cazador. You destroy everything you touch. Your father left disgusted by your mixed blood, your mother left, dying because she could not spend another second of your whining weak self.

No stop it, she died to save me. She told me to run!

And run you did, the one thing at which you are good. Tavi stood grabbing a shirt, she was unsure if it was his or hers, pulling it over her head she smelt the Rosemary and the Bergamot and knew it was Astarion’s she sighed, looked down at the pale elf, ensuring he did not rouse from his trance, and headed towards the ladder that took her to the roof of the Elfsong.

Running again. No surprise there. Tavi blocked out the voice as she lifted the latch to the roof of the tavern, and looked up int the night sky, stars for as far as she could see. It was warm, but there was a cool breeze blowing in from the docks. Tavi shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, for warmth but also to just hold herself together.

Stupid worthless girl! You should have perished with your mother, then all this would not be happening. Shadowheart would be a Justiciar, Wyll would not be a devil, Karlach would not have a life sentence. Lae’zel would not be running from her Queen, and your beloved Astarion would be ascended.

NO, no stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Tavi turned away from the voice, it was starting to take form, and once it took form there was no escaping it, she slammed her hands over her ears and snapped her eyes closed. If she could not see and she could not even hear then it was not there. The monster that stayed in her, watching, waiting, lying in wait. The beast continued the diatribe.

Kept him weak, so he would not leave you, so he would not realise how worthless you are. Just a silly worthless lost little elf girl. Too weak for him, to weak for anyone. Kept him weak so he was your equal, so that there was never the risk of him leaving. Gone, gone, gone. You only have until the end of the world, tick tock, fast approaching. There have been no talks of after has there. He is not going to bring it up, denying him his freedom, denying him his life I the sun so he can hide in the shadows with the lost little elf girl. Selfish bitch!

Tavi stood up straight then, tears streaming down her cheeks, pleasantly numb again. Numb she could do; numb she could deal with. She walked to the edge of the roof, looked down into the square, she could just make out the fountain was just outside Sorcerers Sundries, they were going with Gale today to help him with his research. They could do that without her. They did not need him. What point was a sorcerer in the group when they had a wizard, a well renowned wizard at that Gale of Waterdeep. They did not need Taveleigha of who-knows-where. Lost little elf girl. No mother, no father, no child to call her own.

I mean, it would not take much. Headfirst, nobody could stop you. Smash the brain, smash the tadpole. It would be over. Would be quiet. Isn’t that what you wanted when you first came here? Before you were taken. Tavi knew the beast was taunting her, and she could not deny it. She had originally come to Baldur’s gate to kill herself, before she was snatched up in a whirl of purple smoke. She moved closer to the edge her toes hanging over the edge, the beast whirling around her, leaning over her suffocating her, pressing down.

[clazberryk]

More pics of Taliah may resist Durge. I cannot get over how beautiful she is. I knew my desktop could handle a higher resolution but this has blown my mind.

I am in love. Not as much as my Taveleigha but pretty darn close.

Her relationship with Spawn Astarion is beautiful.

What are your newest and latest Tav’s/Durge’s.

Patch 7 certainly reignited my love not that it disappeared ever.

I know I have not done any writing updates but I have had to take a break which how busy this time of year is for me and we’ll just life in general although this week is feeling pretty darn good for some updates. So keep your eyes peeled for WIPs and snippets and shock awe maybe even a story by the end of the week.

No pressure tags @roguishcat @shewhowas39 @loquaciousquark @slothquisitor @lirotation @asweetlovesong @bhaalspawn300

[clazberryk]

Teaser Tuesday.

What’s this you say? Claz you are writing. You are giving snippets? Are you feeling ok?

We thought you had dropped off the face of the earth.

Yes I know I’m terrible. Im sorry.

I’ve had a lot going on and with being burnt out and having several assessments throughout Nov and Oct. I have found a lot about me. As well as realising I mainly run on anxiety caffeine and a terrible fear of letting everyone down.

Apparently it’s not healthy 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️ who knew.

But no in all seriousness I am ok. I have reassessed, re-examined and altered my course. No more all nighters getting chapters written fueled by my failure.

I am no longer running on just caffeine and crisps. Apparently it’s not healthy.

I am hoping to upload my chapters for Sometimes the unknown once a week. It will either fall on a Friday or a Saturday.

Sometimes alternatives will still be uploaded but they will be at a slower pace. So anyone wanting for that Tav and AAstarion fic will have to wait longer (I cannot beleive i teased this waaay back in September. Seriously where has the time gone)

Anyway this is part of chapter 2 of An unfair hand has been dealt.

We dive into Karlach

No pressure tags @roguishcat @shewhowas39 @loquaciousquark @slothquisitor @lirotation @asweetlovesong

[clazberryk]

Hello and I would like you all to meet my DnD version of Taveleigha she is still similar to my BG3 Tavi.

My amazing wonderful friend who is playing an arcane trickster tiefling that is truly adorable.

[clazberryk]

WIP Wednesday

yes I am aware it is Thursday. When i say its been a week, belevie me its been a week (1 more week before the new academ year, for the UK that is and its just not enough tiem for ANYTHING).

Can someone please tell me where August has gone. its like Poof HELLO SEPTEMBER!!!! Truly can I please have my August back?

I am currently re-editing my Difficult Truths story for my Sometimes the Unknown is safer story. So this is an edit of Chapter 2 of Difficult truths, or well a snippet anyway :wink:

Thank you for the tag @roguishcat as always I love it when you tag me into these <3

Pain.

Searing Agony.

Unending Discomfort.

Life altering Anguish.

When the red crackling streak of chaotic magical energy started hurtling towards Astarion Taveleigha did not think twice to push him out of the way, it was instinct it was reactive, a love protecting the most important person in their life. Consequences be damned. Taveleigha knew going into this fight that she was naïve into thinking everyone was going to survive. Stupid naïve lost little elf girl. That voice was back taunting her, goading her. The voice was debilitating but true, the beast as she called it, returning now using her fathers voice to belittle her and her actions. Was it always her father’s voice? So much had happened today, so much emotional whiplash she could not recall how the voice sounded before. Clearly an unreliable source of information. What good was she if she could not even trust her own mind?  If this was how she was going to die, she was happy, she had saved her lover, and she did not regret it, even now as the memories came thick and fast, one rolling over the other, she could not bring herself to regret pushing her vampire out of the way.

Sorry it is a tiny snippet, but seriously if someone could please give me my August back, or at least point me in the direction it has run off to :) i would be greatly appreciative :) No pressure tags: @loquaciousquark @slothquisitor @shewhowas39 @asweetlovesong @lirotation

[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]

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.

No pressure tags: @roguishcat @shewhowas39 @asweetlovesong @lirotation @lirotationside @slothquisitor @loquaciousquark @renard-rogue @starlight-rogue

[clazberryk]

I promise it was completely unintended. But after using this I can certainly say Bergamot smells fucking gorgeous and I am fussy with my smells.