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mumms-the-word · 4 months ago

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Unexpected Reunion

Characters: Astarion x Gale Summary: Five hundred years after the events of BG3, the world of Faerûn has moved on and entered into a modern era. An art gallery at a prominent museum has opened up to display works from the 1400s, drawing the attention of two beloved characters, who did not expect to meet again so soon. A/N: February is the month of birthdays for so many friends! This was written as a gift for the super talented @unforgiving-girl for her birthdayyy. I heard she liked bloodweave and art by many classical and beloved painters so I wanted a homage to both. Enjoy!

NEW EXHIBITION! The Age of Heroes, Gods, and Monsters Baldurian Art from 1300-1500

The glossy sign stood just outside of the museum gallery, beckoning guests and visitors to come see the collection of artworks that had recently been rediscovered and carefully curated into this new display. The word online was that museum curators had just successfully acquired a whole set of Fevras portraits and other art of the 1490s, a collection that had been packed away in someone’s attic for two or three hundred years after they had disappeared from the noble halls and castles during one strife or another. Now they were unveiling a new wing to put all the art of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in one place.

Immerse yourself in rich Baldurian history! the marketing materials online said. See how art and culture were transformed during some of the most tumultuous times of Baldur’s Gate’s history. Witness the sharp upheaval of the infamous Times of Troubles. Gaze at portraits of heroes and tyrants alike, from Sarevok to Lord Gortash, from Duke Eltan to young Wyll Ravengard. Ruminate over paintings and sculptures of gods both beloved and forgotten. Expansive and dynamic, this exhibition places famous works alongside newly discovered treasures to tell the story of wars, conflicts, and adventures that shook the realms, all centered around our very own Baldur’s Gate.

Just outside of the hall, a white-haired young man paused, a black umbrella hooked over one arm, contemplating first the exhibition sign and then the steady stream of visitors making their way into the gallery. The exhibition had attracted folk of all kinds. Elderly couples walked slowly from work to work, taking their time to gaze and study. A group of uniformed schoolchildren followed along behind their teacher, notebooks in their hands, listening to her explain the rules of the museum. Further down the hall, tourists paused beside the more famous artworks, glancing down at their printed guides and museum maps before moving on to the next most well-known work.

To all of them, these paintings and sculptures were all a part of some distant, mythical history. Even the oldest elf in the room seemed too young to have a living memory of these events, enough to tell what was real history from dynamic reimagining. Not so for the white-haired guest. Where others saw the distant, impersonal past, he saw intimate memory.

He took a deep breath to steady himself—a habit not even centuries of vampirism had entirely cured—and entered the gallery. At first, it was only a little uncanny. The old paintings and marble busts from the 1300s that he had seen hanging in different manors and noble estates now featured together at the start of this gallery. The farther he walked, the further in time he traveled, moving out of a century he could only barely remember as a hazy blur into a time that was burned into his memory with sharp clarity.

The 1490s was a decade of great change for Baldur’s Gate, a large placard read between sections in the gallery. Between the technological innovations of organizations like the Gondian and Ironhand Gnomes, dangerous industrial updates to the city’s infrastructure and law enforcement, and the infamous Dead Three attempting to control an Elderbrain, resulting in widespread destruction, this decade gave rise to a full spectrum of art, from loving homages to the simplicity of home to the veneration of heroes, and from the tumult of war to the celebration of innovative design.

Ha, the visitor thought, smirking at the placard. It shouldn’t be so easy to summarize the events of history in just a few sentences.

He paced even more slowly in front of the paintings now. Some were no bigger than a piece of printer paper, some large enough to span floor-to-ceiling on the cream-colored walls. Vistas of magical battles, nautiloids in a swirling cloudy sky over a city burning with red and purple flame, sat next to careful still-life studies of fruit, flowers, or skulls. An imposing portrait of Duke Ulder Ravengard sat opposite an equally imposing portrait of Lord Gortash. Not far off, an all-too-familiar painting of a white-skinned woman curled sensually around the body of a red-skinned tiefling stretched seven feet tall, still in its original skull-topped frame. He was surprised that one made the cut, but then he recognized a few dark paintings from Cazador’s manor, too. And one that he swore he’d only ever seen in Raphael’s House of Hope.

He was nearing the end of the gallery now when his eyes finally landed on the one painting he had come here to see. When he first heard the news about the rediscovery of a few Fevras portraits, he wasn’t certain this one was among them. It wasn’t until someone texted him a photo of the gallery uploaded online, a quick red circle added clumsily around a painting on one wall, that he knew.

He paused in front of the portrait, a strange mix of emotions swirling within him. Nostalgia, humor, regret, and longing. This…was him. Him as he was five hundred years ago. Him as he was in that present moment, physically unchanged by the ravages of time but altered nonetheless.

To every other visitor to the museum, the portrait featured an aloof, mysterious young elven man, his skin as pale as moonbeams, his silver hair styled in perfect curls swept up and out of his face. His crimson eyes glimmered like rubies, standing out stark red in his otherwise white face, framed with dark lashes that cast the subtlest of shadows over his eyes. He lounged in a plush red chair—it seemed so gaudy now looking back—clothed in a well-tailored outfit of black, silver, and red. The height of fashion at the time. As he lounged, he leaned his cheek lightly against the fingers of one hand, a confident, easy smirk on his lips. The figure bore the essence of catlike, predatory grace, beckoning you closer with his eyes while waiting to pounce on you once you got too close.

He glanced at the art placard next to it.

Oskar Fevras 1452-1517, Baldur’s Gate, Faerûn Portrait of a (Comparatively) Young Vampire 1492 Oil on canvas

Not even a little description or bit of history. Not even his name. Just a reference to that fop of an artist and a title that must have been added recently. He folded his arms, frowning. It wasn’t as though the name Astarion Ancunin was unknown, even all these centuries later…

Still…he had to admit, it was good to see that face again.

“Well, well! What a surprise to see this here. We went through a lot of trouble to earn that portrait, as I recall.”

Astarion turned, the familiar voice snapping him out of his thoughts. An older gentleman stepped out of the crowd, well-dressed in a thin dark purple sweater and a blazer, a pair of gold-framed glasses perched on his nose. His thick hair and well-trimmed beard were snowy white and his face bore a few more wrinkles around the eyes and mouth than the last time Astarion had seen him, but the modern style overall made him look no older than fifty. Age had not dulled his brown eyes one bit—they sparkled with good-natured humor just as much now as they had done that first year they’d traveled together.

Astarion smirked. “My, my. If it isn’t Gale Dekarios.”

Gale smiled in return, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Astarion. You’re looking as devilishly handsome as ever.” His eyes flicked to the portrait and then again to Astarion, amusement glimmering in his eyes.

“And you don’t look a day over three hundred, darling. In fact, you look better at six hundred than you did at sixty, though I’m sure Elminster is deeply disappointed in the state of that beard.”

“Five hundred, I’ll remind you, but I’ll take the compliment in the spirit in which it was given.” Gale chuckled, stroking his carefully trimmed beard. “And while Elminster would say any decent wizard is only as good as his beard, we must keep up with the times. Trim and clean is the order of the day.”

“I’m certain Blackstaff University doesn’t mind if its Professor Emeritus has a beard down to his knees. I’m told it’s a time-honored tradition among their venerated wizard staff.”

“Perhaps they wouldn’t mind, but I would. I’ve never been one for tradition.” Gale shrugged and then shook his head. “Gods, how long has it been?”

Astarion tilted his head, one curl slipping free of his combed hairstyle and falling onto his temple. “Since when? Since we found ourselves trapped in an artist’s haunted manor fighting poltergeists?” He knew what Gale was actually asking, but he didn’t want to answer just yet. He didn’t want to acknowledge the distance or the time.

“Since we last met. Ages, surely. Well, not literally but…figuratively.”

Every day apart feels like an age to you, Astarion thought idly, but those were the echoes of lovesick words Gale used to whisper in his ears more than three centuries ago. This was a different time. A new era.

It didn’t stop the memories from flooding back, however. He recalled easily those stumbling first steps of their unexpected romance, back when they were both the hapless adventurers caught up in a grand scheme that pitted gods and mortals and illithids against one another. The way Gale had conjured whole worlds out of magic for him. The way Astarion had learned, one hesitant step at a time, to trust and even, eventually, slowly, to love. The way they had lain together at night and discussed the future, their words trailing off in the darkness, and how Gale had assuaged Astarion’s rising panic that he would one day face a world without him with the promise of finding ways to extend his life.

If Elminster can live this long as a Chosen of Mystra, perhaps I can find a way, too. The perks of being a god’s Chosen are not so easily lost, Astarion, even if Mystra and I are on the outs.

He had found a way, an effective kind of immortality that required no vampirism, no lichdom, and no chains binding himself to Mystra. And for a century, everything had been perfect.

But time wore down so many things, including love. A second century and a third were spent with the two of them like passing ships that occasionally docked in the same harbors. A visit here and there, a night of passion to rekindle old flames, only to let them softly smolder into dying embers by the next morning. Gale had plenty to keep him busy. Astarion wanted to see the world as it was evolving and changing around him. They began to meet less and less often, their interactions reduced to affectionate but politely distant letters.

They never could forget one another, though. With the advent of every new form of communication, they seemed to find each other again. Astarion still had Gale’s first telegram to him sitting in a box among letters on parchment, paper, and postcards spanning a handful of centuries. He remembered the first time he heard Gale’s voice, tinny and staticky, in the first telephone call they had shared, and the first email Gale had sent him, and the first text message. Gale always knew how to find him, somehow. Even when Astarion put distance between them all over again, it was only inevitable that Gale would come into his orbit again eventually. Like a particularly chatty comet.

“I’d say it’s been a few decades or so,” Astarion answered at last. “Everything keeps us so busy these days. But what brings you here?”

“I heard they uncovered a set of Fevras portraits,” Gale said. “I came to see if yours made it into the gallery. It is, in my unbiased opinion, the best portrait that cad ever painted. I’m gratified to see this museum continues to have discerning tastes.”

“Maybe now it’s finally worth the cost we paid to get the damned thing.”

Gale waved his hand, an expensive silver watch glinting faintly in the museum lights. “Oh, it was worth it the day we got it.”

Astarion said nothing to that, merely smiling. How could he forget the day they’d gotten the painting? Oskar had sent a messenger to their room at the Elfsong, saying the portrait was done at last, and Gale had insisted Astarion wait in the room while he fetched it himself. It had been a whole event, with Gale asking him to cover his eyes while he brought the painting inside, threatening to cast darkness over him if he didn’t comply. He had held Astarion’s hand the moment that he opened his eyes to behold the painting, and squeezed his fingers reassuringly when they began to tremble from the wave of emotion that threatened to overwhelm him.

After nearly two hundred years since he became a vampire…he could see his own face again.

It’s an uncannily realistic likeness, Gale had said softly. As handsome on canvas as what I see before me now.

“I never should have given it up,” Astarion murmured to himself. It had been a rash decision made at the height of one of their lovers' spats far too long ago. He’d wanted nothing to do with any of Gale’s gifts at the time, so off the portrait went, packed in a crate and sold to some fanatic who really loved Oskar Fevras’s works. And then it had disappeared. Until now.

Gale didn’t seem to hear him, or was very politely feigning ignorance. He looked around the gallery with interest and said, “You know, it’s a shame your statue got destroyed a while back. It would have been a fine addition to these hallowed halls.”

“It was supposed to be a fine addition to my gardens,” Astarion quipped. “And it was, right until someone’s magical experiments turned the whole place into a small crater.”

Gale winced but tried to offer an apologetic smile. “A mistake for which I still have yet to atone, it seems. I did offer to replace it. At least a dozen times.”

“It wouldn’t have been the same. That one had been a gift.” From you, like everything else I owned at the time. Like everything else I held precious until I couldn’t stand to look at it anymore.

He left those words unsaid.

“I know.” Gale gave a small sigh, his good humor faltering a little. “We never realize what is truly irreplaceable until it is already gone from us.”

Astarion said nothing. He never knew what to say in the face of Gale’s philosophizing. Especially when each thought seemed to hint at his ongoing, never-ending, eternal affection for him. How does one carry that kind of love for so long?

But the fact was, Gale didn’t carry that kind of love, not eternally. What had kindled in 1492 was not what they had sustained, broken, reforged, and let dim over the next few hundred years. For five centuries they had lived in the same world, usually on the same continent, often within the same city. For five centuries, Astarion had found himself sharing in a love with Gale that had morphed and changed, burning bright with the flash and bang of a firework, simmering slow and steady like the flame on a stove, flickering distantly in the dark like a candle flame on a pitch black night. As their lives adapted, so did their love. Even when all appeared to be over, for good, forever, as it did when they last parted amicably several decades ago, Gale’s affection for him was like the last stubborn ember in a long-forgotten fire. One soft breath could revive it back to life.

Perhaps, if Astarion gave it more than a moment’s thought, it was the same for him. It was good to see Gale again. There was none of the ache and shame right now that he had carried in previous encounters. Maybe that would come later but for now…

With love like a tiny ember nestled at the bottom of a cold stone hearth, Astarion let Gale’s presence come in like an early spring breeze, blowing color back into the coals, first red, then orange, then white. No flame yet, but the potential as there.

“It’s good to see you again,” Astarion said at last, his voice soft.

Gale’s smile was as warm and free of judgment or condemnation as ever. “And you, Astarion. I’m always glad to see you.”

“And who wouldn’t be?” Astarion said, fixing the wayward curl in his gelled hair. “Honestly.”

Gale chuckled. He had long grown used to Astarion’s dismissive nature. “Are you free the rest of today? We should get coffee and catch up. There’s a cafe not far from here that caters to vampires.”

Astarion examined his nails as if the prospect didn’t secretly add more breath to the embers within him, encouraging a flurry of briefly flickering sparks. “I could free up some time in my busy, busy schedule, I suppose.”

“I shall endeavor not to take up too much of your precious time, then,” Gale said, tone dry. But then, glancing at the portrait again, he seemed to get an idea. He pulled his phone out of his blazer pocket. “Before we go—we should take a photo by the painting. What do they call it these days? A selfie.”

Astarion raised his eyebrows. “What would be the point? You know as well as I do, darling, vampires don’t show up in photos any more than they show up in mirrors.”

“Indulge me.” Gale opened the camera, after a few hesitant swipes that suggested he was still getting used to this model of smartphone, and waved over a young half-elven woman who was passing by with a few of her friends. “Do you mind taking a photo of us in front of this painting? No flash of course. I think I’ve already turned it off.”

She nodded. “Sure.”

As she took the phone and held it up for them, Gale smiled at Astarion and gestured for him to join him by the painting. Astarion sighed softly, adjusting his hold on his umbrella, but went to stand next to him, trying to ignore that little voice that tried to convince him this was silly, embarrassing, and a waste of time.

“This isn’t a selfie, Gale,” Astarion said.

Gale waved this remark away. “Pish posh. It’s a photo with our selves in it. Same thing”

“Ready?” the girl asked, watching them.

Gale put a hand on Astarion’s back, smiling at him when Astarion glanced over uncertainly. But the touch was familiar, safely near Astarion’s shoulder blades, and despite his desire to get this photo business over with as quickly as possible, Astarion felt himself relax as he fit himself against Gale’s side. He looped an arm around Gale’s waist, resting his hand on his hip as he’d done countless times before.

“You owe me for this,” he whispered, giving Gale’s hip a small squeeze. Gale’s smile broadened and he shifted his hold, his arm now fully around Astarion so he could give a returning squeeze to his shoulder.

“Coffee first,” he murmured back. “We can see where we go from there.”

The girl cleared her throat, looking uncertainly between them. “Umm…”

“Sorry, we’re ready now,” Gale said. He gave Astarion’s shoulder another squeeze. “Smile!”

Astarion rolled his eyes but summoned his usual close-lipped smirk. The girl looked back down at the phone in her hands, shifting to center them and the portrait in the frame. Then her hands faltered, her expression shifting. She glanced between the screen and them a few times, and then blinked hard and looked again.

“Is there a problem?” Gale called pleasantly. The girl jolted.

“N-no! Of course not. One sec.” She tapped the screen a few times and then turned the phone sideways and caught a few photos that way too. Behind her, her friends started to whisper to one another and point. The girl lowered the phone with a forced cheerful smile. “Done!”

“Thank you so much,” Gale said, reaching for his phone back. As soon as it was out of her hands, the girl scurried back to her friends, whispering quickly as they hurried down the gallery. Astarion couldn’t help but catch a few phrases as they passed by.

Did you see that? I’m not crazy, right, that guy is—

—really him? In the painting? It has to be the same guy—

—just a coincidence, right, like, vampires don’t live that long—

—but he didn’t even show up in the camera!

“You’ll have me in the tabloids tomorrow,” Astarion said. “I’ll go viral on TikTok soon if we don’t leave now.”

“I’m not even sure I know what that is,” Gale said amiably, opening his photos. He paused, smiling fondly down at one of the photos and then turned the phone so Astarion could see. “What do you think? We finally got your face on camera.”

Astarion hesitated but peered at the screen, curious. For a split second, he half expected his portrait to be faceless, but every detail remained, down to the supple curve of his lips and the sharp red color of his eyes. Just off to the side of the portrait, a white-haired Gale stood with his arm around a headless body dressed in expensive, tailored clothing. Astarion had put one hand in his pocket, his umbrella hanging from his wrist, but his other should have appeared at Gale’s side. Instead, there was nothing to see there except for an odd wrinkling in Gale’s blazer, enough to suggest a phantom touch. The space above Astarion’s high-collar shirt showed nothing but the wall behind him and a hazy, thin shadow to suggest the shape of a head.

“You still can’t see my actual face,” Astarion said, straightening. “You could have simply taken a picture with the portrait yourself.”

“But then you wouldn’t have been in it.” A mischievous glint then entered Gale’s brown eyes. “I can have someone edit your portrait face over your body if that helps.”

He scrunched his nose with distaste. “No thank you, let’s not make this photo any worse than it already is.”

But Gale’s initial words continued to warm the coals within Astarion’s chest. You wouldn’t have been in it. Now he was, a body that was leaning comfortably into Gale’s side, with an arm wrapped around him and an invisible hand resting naturally on Gale’s hip.

“Send me that,” Astarion said after a second, and then promptly turned on his heel and walked away.

“Of course, I—wait a moment! Where are you going?”

Astarion paused and glanced over his shoulder. “We’re attracting attention. And you promised me coffee, didn’t you? So let’s go.”

The smile on Gale’s face was the same as it had been five hundred years ago, before there were camera phones and cars, before pictures or postcards or planes. The same smile Astarion had felt it was impossible to say no to in almost every era. Gale jogged to catch up with him, that smile never faltering, and stayed step by step with him as they made their way to the entrance of the museum. Together, the two of them stepped out into the sun, sheltered in the shade of Astarion’s black umbrella, reunited once again in a new age, a new era.

#happy birthdayyyy #everyone can have random bloodweave as a treat #its kind of a modern day AU but like #not modern earth so #idk #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #astarion #astarion ancunin #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #bloodweave #gale x astarion #my fic #bg3 fic #i don't even go here (the bloodweave fandom) so hopefully i did the boys justice <3

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