#i'm so fuckin excited for the next chapter i'm tempted to double post tonight lol

[ghost-proofbaby]

“I think…” she trails off, trying to choose her words carefully, “I think we need to talk.”  His eyes crack open, an eyebrow lifted, “Perhaps I was wrong, and thinking is a good look on you.”  “If you’re going to make a joke out of everything I say, then I can easily go back to avoiding you.” “So you admit it? You were avoiding me?”  “I didn’t mean tha-”

summary: aruna finally confronts astarion about his vampirism. how badly could it go?

wc: 5.9k+

warnings: description of a dead animal (the boar from the game)

a/n: another one that's already been on ao3, but this means we're finally caught up across platforms! next chapter is the bite scene (and the bite scene only) my friends <3

ao3 | masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

Aruna avoids Astarion for a whole five days. Impressive, given the gravity he seems to hold that continues to draw her towards him. But a necessary feat – all she can hear, every day and every night, is the echo of his words. 

My dearest Aruna. 

Her hands are reaching for her letter more often than she’d care to admit, always fearing she’ll find her pack empty. She knows Astarion couldn’t have possibly written the letter, it’s become apparent that he’d never met her before this entire misadventure, but it was too startling to be a mere coincidence . If she were smarter, she’d take the time to figure out what it all meant. 

But she isn’t smart. She’s a fool, and she avoids the man that has begun to haunt her at every corner of her days.

She fills her waking hours to the brim with anything but the vampire. Reading, practicing magic, adventuring . She tries to ignore his mildly hurt expression any time she recruits companions to join her in her explorations and pointedly ignores going anywhere near him during the enlistment process. It’s as though he’s been plagued by something absolutely abhorrent to her, and she can’t possibly get far enough away from him in order to breathe. 

And so she does what she must. They come across an owlbear den, and the mother nearly mauls them all before Aruna diffuses the situation. They explore more of the Grove, only to end up in battle with Harpies in order to save a lured child. Aruna finds that she fights infinitely better without an Astarion around to worry about saving as well.

She just chooses to ignore the fact that every time she fights with her daggers, Astarion’s muffled voice is there, in the recedes of her mind, whispering instructions that are actually helpful. She knows it’s not the tadpole connection, but that’s all she does know. 

Some time during the entire ordeal, Astarion stops sleeping at her side by the fire at night. He must have returned to the Grove without her, because he’s suddenly the proud owner of a tent just like the one from her memory. A deep maroon, the fabric uncannily free of dust. She has no idea where he’s gathered all the trinkets and mundane items that litter both the porch of it and the inside that she catches glimpses of – she doesn’t even know when he set the damned thing up. There had simply been a morning in which she departed for the day with Wyll, Gale, and Shadowheart, and returned to Astarion lounging very comfortably right below the perch of her overlook. 

It felt a bit deliberate, given how much time she spent up there in the evenings. The bastard. 

Aruna’s terrible tactic only comes to a head when her group of vagabonds for the day stumbles upon the carcass of a drained boar, left behind in the dead center of the dirt path. 

The deja vu gives her a headache. 

Wyll brushes it off for the most part. Shadowheart seems intrigued, but after finding nothing seemingly intriguing about the dead animal, she’s already wandering off a few paces away. Gale is the only one even an inch within being as curious as Aruna is. 

If you could even call her curious.

“Why, that poor thing !” he exclaims just as Aruna has paused to take a knee, only to get a closer look. Just as she had expected, there’s no external clue to the boar’s cause of death, “Do you think this might be the doing of the goblins?” 

Aruna only sighs deeply, shoulders dropping and face crumpling microscopically. 

No, this is not the doing of goblins. This is the doing of a particularly annoying prick in my side who’s lounging back at camp. 

“Goblins would be messier,” is her poor attempt at an excuse. 

They would be, to be fair. 

Gale hums thoughtfully, crouching down beside her, “I suppose you’re right. I don’t even see any wounds on the ani-” 

He cuts off as his eyes zero in on the neck of the boar. The fur there has been smoothed and smooshed enough to lay in an exposing pattern, almost a clear view of the two small puncture wounds that mar the skin beneath. 

Astarion’s work, without a doubt. 

“Have you ever seen wounds like that?” she whispers quietly, hoping that Wyll and Shadowheart will continue whatever boring chat they were trying to engage each other with.

She doesn’t want them to notice this. It’s not that she doesn’t trust them, but- Well, she simply trusts Gale more.

There had been an empty space at her side left behind due to the absence of Astarion. And Gale had easily taken to filling it in, stepping right into stride with Aruna just as her shadow once had. 

After the Harpies, he had opened up to her some. She’d nearly snipped at the young tiefling child at the beach, but something deep within her couldn’t bring herself to be so cruel as her initial reaction had been. Instead of telling the kid to stop crying in such a callous way, she’d only found herself warning him to be careful and to be more mindful of where he wandered. Gale had been at her side not a moment later, murmuring in delightful reminiscence of how he was as a young and curious child. 

It was sort of endearing. Almost familiar. Not quite what she felt with Astarion, but close enough for now. 

“Never,” he looks dumbfounded. She wonders just how often he’s come up this clueless in his life, given all his prattling about knowledge , “But… well, rather peculiar indeed.” 

“Peculiar is one word for it.” 

Gale is quickest to agree when Aruna suggests they go back to camp. The day had mostly been wasted at this point regardless; the only thing they’d discovered thus far that was of any interest was a crumbling temple of sorts not far from their camp, right beside the beach in which they’d crash landed on. But they had found people there, other looters, and Aruna hadn’t hesitated to call her group to fall back the moment she spotted the figures arguing in the decaying courtyard. 

They don’t need to know why she’s so eager to return back to camp. Or the absolute reaming she plans their entire trek back for a certain companion. 

Astarion was either being deliberately dense and playing with fire, waiting for someone to catch on and call him out on his true nature, or- 

Well. He was just truly that reckless. 

Aruna storms back into the camp, the rest close behind and nearly nipping at her heels, to find Astarion perfectly at peace as he sits in front of his tent. At first, she thinks he’s simply reading. She can see the book opened up in his lap clearly, but his finger isn’t trailing along the words as he usually would. His head is far too tilted back to even be looking at the pages. 

She stops dead in her tracks, dust kicking up from the abrupt halting of her steps, the moment she rounds his tent and sees him properly. 

Her anger fizzles momentarily at the sight. All the harsh words she was prepared to spit at him, the ravings of his idiocracy and the grand reveal of her knowing his most sacred secret, are lost to the wind. 

He looks peaceful . Perfectly, absolutely, at peace. 

Eyes fluttered shut, mouth slack, skin bright in the warm afternoon sun. He’s basking in it. She swears every pale inch of him has begun to glow golden as he absorbs all the heat the sky has to offer. 

“Have you finally decided you’re ready to speak to me again, or are you just here for a show?” 

His voice snaps her from the trance. For just a second, it felt as though the radiant glow of his peace had dispelled every single one of her shadows from existence. But the echo of his words across the otherwise quiet camp reminds her of all her frustrations. 

My dearest Aruna. 

He’s a vampire. She has to save him. And somehow, he mysteriously has addressed her just as her bizarre letter had. It matter of fact sparks new found anger. 

But not at him. It’s the strangest of realizations; none of her negative feelings are capable of being pointed towards him in this state. That golden glow gives him an innocence she had forgotten. She may know new information, she may have some sort of begrudging upper hand on their entire situation it seems, but he doesn’t. Astarion is simply surviving – the boar wasn’t some direct taunt from him. Probably nothing more than a small slip up in the process of keeping himself alive and well. 

He had to feed. She couldn’t get angry at him for that. 

“I think…” she trails off, trying to choose her words carefully, “I think we need to talk.” 

His eyes crack open, an eyebrow lifted, “Perhaps I was wrong, and thinking is a good look on you.” 

“If you’re going to make a joke out of everything I say, then I can easily go back to avoiding you.”

“So you admit it? You were avoiding me?” 

“I didn’t mean tha-”

Gale interrupts them as he strolls up beside Aruna. He’s not quite a shadow, not quite as reflexive or secure as Astarion, but he nearly fits the mold left behind. “Perhaps Astarion might know more of what we found in our travels today.” 

That catches the vampire’s attention. He displays upmost lithe as he quickly widens both eyes and brings himself to his feet, unashamed in his eagerness at the prospect. 

The prospect of being useful again. The prospect of Aruna needing him again. 

“Oh?” he asks, eyes darting between the wizard and sorcerer, “Pray tell – what did you morons find?” 

Aruna is scowling when she replies, “A boar.”

He’s waiting for her to continue on. An act that’s working well enough on Gale, but Aruna catches the sudden stiffness of his spine. 

“When you put it that way, it’s as if you want him to turn up his nose at helping us,” Gale mutters, entirely unimpressed. “It was a dead boar, but without any clear wounds. I- Well, I have my guesses as to what might have killed the poor animal, but-” 

“It had peculiar marks on its neck,” Aruna finishes before he can start up a ramble.

Astarion is growing more tense with every passing moment. 

“ Peculiar marks? ” he nearly scoffs, “And you think I’d be of any help regarding them why? ” 

“Because you’re helpful,” Aruna deadpans, leveling him with a bored stare. It takes everything in her to assure that she doesn’t clue him in to the fact that she knows he was the one who killed that boar, that those marks were a bite left by his fangs, “Or at least you’ve proven you can be when you want to be.”

Maybe her faux boredom can be what lures him in. Perhaps the new approach can work in her favor. 

“And what if I’m not feeling particularly helpful today?” he grins softly, tilting his head at her. The action is almost feline in nature, “I was quite enjoying relaxing here while the rest of you run around aimlessly, doing all the hard work.”

“That was quite the contradictory statement to your earlier sentiment,” she muses, struggling to keep her amusement from lacing up into her words. She hated that she liked playing these games with him. She hated that his taunts lit something deep within her. A whisper of come play with me, a need to dance along to the tune that he believed himself to be conducting, “Are we being useless, or are we doing hard work? Pick one or the other. As a matter of fact, you can ponder on it as you join me to go take a second look at this boar.” 

Alone. An unspoken clause. She was going to get him alone and far from camp, and then she could confront him. 

“A second look?” his eyebrows quirk, eyes darting to the horizon, “But the sun is sett-”

She cuts him off, “We’ll be fine. Besides, if we run into any trouble, you’ll protect me – right?” 

Gale is biting back his laughter as Astarion’s face falls, eyes narrowing into slits. But he doesn’t protest, much to Aruna’s chagrin. He only spins and ducks into his tent, returning with his own daggers in hand. In the flash of a glimpse she catches before he’s secured them into his holsters, Aruna swears they could pass for her own. Same length, same silver blade, same black leather wrapped around the hilt. 

“If we get into any trouble, I’ll leave you to the wolves,” he remarks as he steps up in front of her. Gale falls back, as if Astarion’s mere presence pushes him out of Aruna’s space, making room for the rightful shadow to return to her. 

Aruna rolls her eyes, and turns to look at Gale, “Don’t let camp burn down while we’re gone.”

“Won’t be too much trouble,” he still fights a grin, eyes darting between Aruna and Astarion, “Seeing as our natural-born troublemakers will be out. I should be warning you against causing any chaos or arson.” 

“No promises.”

Gale sighs, “Of course not. I forget who I’m speaking to.”

It feels right. It feels natural for Astarion to fall into step with her. To turn her back on the camp, and know that he is right there, a hairline fracture behind her and ready for anything that may interrupt their travels. She feels safer this way, she realizes, to hear the lack of twigs snapping behind her or gravel crunching as she paces the path that leads them from the camp and back out into the wilderness. Neither hers nor Astarion’s gear so much as clang a single metallic ring as they thread their way through the trees, both silent as ever as Aruna retraces her steps back to the boar. No complaining from Shadowheart, no nervous rambling from Gale, no tchs from Lae’zel. 

They make a good team, as painful as it may be to admit. 

“Your stealth has improved in the days you’ve been ignoring me,” Astarion notes as they break through the treeline not far from the entrance to the grove, “Manage to loot a new pair of boots in your misadventures?” 

“Nope,” she looks down at the same worn boots she’d been donning since waking up on the beach, “Although, now that you mention it, I could surely use a new pair.” 

“Are you sure you have enough gold for a new pair?”

She slows until Astarion falls into a leisurely pace at her side, no longer trailing behind her, “Who needs gold if I have a rogue to conveniently snag me a pair from one of the traders at the grove?” 

He nearly trips over himself as he side eyes her. Immediately, she knows she had gotten her guess correctly – he was clearly a rogue, and the night she had spent skimming through the book on the class was decidedly not a waste. 

“So you’ve figured out my class. Impressive .” 

“It wasn’t hard. You do love feeding into stereotypes, don’t you?” 

“Me? Being stereotypical?” Astarion scoffs, raising a theatrical hand, holding over his chest, “Darling, I’m hurt. I’ll have you know I’m absolutely one of a kind.” 

She rolls her eyes despite her best efforts, “Right. Of course. You must be unique to be such a sharp pain in my ass.” 

“Full of fire today, are we, my dearest sorcerer?” 

It’s not quite the phrase from the letter. One word short, and yet it still stirs something in her. Triggering the exact thing she had been battling and trying to bury deep down the past five days. 

My dearest Aruna. 

If she looks close enough, she swears she can see the endless pathways of wires and threads alike between them, all crossing and knotting past the point of being detangled. There’s too much she doesn’t know; there’s too much she does know. Like how he’s a vampire. He’s a vampire, and for some reason, it doesn’t do anything to deflate her trust in him. As a matter of fact, his usage of that familiar nickname atop the heading of the letter in her pack strikes more wariness in her than his condition ever could. 

But it doesn’t change the fact that she needs to confront him now that they’re alone.

She’s saved by the boar, it seems, as they finally stumble upon the carcass. It’s right where she had left it not even an hour prior. Still in the center of the pathway, still dead as ever. And still marked with those two fang-sized holes in what would be considered its neck. 

“Is this it?” Astarion raises a brow, stopping a few steps short of the carrion, “This is the treacherous boar that Gale was rambling on about?” 

Her throat threatens to close up from her swelling anxiety, “Look at its neck.” 

Astarion is soundless, both in voice and movement, as he crouches down. She quickly realizes that his eyes were already glued to the suspicious wounds before she’d even pointed them out, already locked into the location before he had been anywhere near close enough to properly spot them. 

For all she could rave about how sly and stealthy he can be, he certainly has his moments.

Did he ever plan to tell them? The admission would surely put him in danger. If she were in his shoes, she’d probably have been counting her days until a stake was aimed her way, always living with the fear of her deepest secret being exposed. He doesn’t know that she already knows. He has no idea that she’s already decided he’s worth the risk, and that his vampirism is just something to deal with. Just like her memory loss, just like Wyll’s heroism. It was a small thing to categorize rather than worry over. And yet, she knows – he never planned to tell them. 

It’s practically written in stone as he tsks from his crouch and glances up at her, “I see. Looks like something bit the poor thing.”

“Something did more than simply bite it,” she argues, pushing her luck and desperately trying to make him say the words aloud, “It’s been drained completely of its blood, Astarion. Doesn’t that worry you?” 

It does, and for all the reasons not implicated. She sees the flash of fear, the dredging up of anxiety. She’s yanking him from his shadows of safety, one push at a time. 

“How do you know it’s been drained of all its blood? Have you even checked?” 

“It’s dead, and there’s not a drop of scarlet to be seen.” 

“Maybe it was killed with magic.” 

“Or maybe it was killed by a vampire .” 

Time stands still as she says the cursed word. It’s out in the air between them now, impossible to take back. She hadn’t even meant to spit it out so ferociously; it had simply slipped out as her heart rate picked up as she began her confrontation, knowing exactly what she was about to get herself into-

Could he sense her heart racing? He was a vampire, after all. He must be able to hear her pulse. He must. 

He’s staring up at her, dumbfounded, clearly choosing his next words carefully. All she can do is lose herself, bit by bit, crack by crack, in those scarlet eyes. 

“You think a vampire is roaming these lands?” his tone has gone hushed, and she must admit – he’s a decent actor when he gives it his best effort, “I… Well, that certainly changes quite a few things.” 

Like what? she nearly snaps at him, Like whether we all can sleep peacefully in our camp at night, knowing the vampire was settled into a tent mere feet away? 

“I do,” she chokes out over her nerves. He was certainly going to lash out, or run in fear. Her entire purpose since leaving that ship is about to be shattered, left in complete shambles as she fails the one thing she knows as her purpose, “There must be. Nothing else would have killed the boar this way.” 

He rises slowly, eyes never leaving hers. He’s tense – just as tense as his neck and shoulders had been the night he’d humored her guessing of his class. Stoic and petrified. “And… what do you plan to do about this revelation? It’s not as though we can… hunt the fool. He surely can’t travel in the daylight, and we rest at nigh-”

She’s quick to catch his slip up.

“Who ever said the vampire was a man, Astarion?”

His entire face drops, the mask evaporating and in its place, a rampant fear spreads. She can see him making his choice in real time, grasping at the formulations of any plan or save he can manage. The excuses are nearly tangible on his tongue. 

“Well-”

His voice is lost in the breeze as she turns slowly, facing him head on, “And why do you assume I’d want to hunt him?” 

He’s trying to play it off, pitifully so. His hands are dancing out in front of him, arms slinging wildly before words have even begun to slip from his mouth.

“Well- I-” it’s the first time she’s ever heard him stutter, she realizes, “It’s a vampire , darling. A wild beast of the night. A vicious and violent creature. Why wouldn’t you want to hunt it down before it caused any more grief?” 

If she didn’t know, it’d be the performance of a lifetime. But she knows, and it strikes a terrible pang of sadness deep within her. He believes what he’s saying – he truly believes vampires to be something vial, something dangerous, something violent. He believes himself to be all of those things. He sees himself as something vicious, as something cursed to creep through the night and leave a trail of bloodshed in his wake. A thing so terrible that he deserves the stake he expects she would drive through his heart if he admitted the truth. 

He is annoying. He is exasperating. He is finicky. He calls for trouble to follow him more closely than his own shadow, it seems. He is all of those things, but he is not what he currently describes to Aruna. Not to her. 

“A vampire is an undead creature,” she recites from memory. She’d snagged a book on vampires from Gale’s piles, as well. “Undead. Something, someone, once living. I don’t make a business of hunting, in case I haven’t made myself clear in the time we’ve spent traveling together.” 

“We’re hunting that devil of Wyll’s,” he’s quick to point out.

“Wyll is hunting the devil, and I’ve simply offered minimal aid in exchange for his help in protecting us.”

Because I’m not enough. Because I can’t protect this group given my current state. And I highly doubt I ever could to begin with. 

There are unspoken words drifting into nothing more than smoke and mirrors between them. She nearly reignites the tadpole’s connection just so he gets it . Her tongue nearly slips and simply blurts out that she knows, if for nothing more than to rip the bandaid off and make it clear she doesn’t see a monster when she looks at him. She sees an ally, a valuable member of their little trope. She sees someone worth keeping around. For better or for worse. 

The nerves have died down now. The vinery of it all has slowly disengaged, no longer wrapped terribly around her throat or limbs. She chooses to finally crouch back down beside the boar, the source of this entire exchange, and let her fingers glide over the bite mark slowly. The fur lays flat beneath her touch easily. 

She has nothing to lose. The only one between the two of them that has anything to lose in what she’s about to reveal is Astarion.

“I know,” she hoarsely whispers, staring down at the mostly healed wound on the animal. Nothing more than pin-prick scars, now. 

“Excuse me?”

She clears her throat, taking a deep gulp of air for bravery, “I know about your condition. And I already knew a vampire had killed this boar. I didn’t need your expert opinion on the manner – I needed to get you alone.” 

Really, she could have phrased it better.

He’s on the defensive immediately, taking two large steps backwards as he stares down at her, “What do you mean my condition?” 

She finally tears her gaze from the boar to look at him as earnestly as she can offer, knees threatening to cry out in pain as she lifts herself back up slowly. It’s hard to imagine Astarion being scared of her – he has an advantage of height, he has an advantage of skill, he has the advantage of speed. He is more than physically capable of fighting her off if she were to attack him. And yet he’s still scared . 

“You’re a vampire.”

There’s no taking back the words once she said them. She expected a weight to lift once she spoke them outloud, but the look on Astarion’s face weighs heavier than the knowledge ever did. 

“You think I’m-”

“I don’t think you are,” she corrects, “I know you are. And stop reaching for your dagger, because I’m not going to hurt you. I’ve known for a while. If I was going to do anything about it, I already would have.” 

Astarion is a vampire, and Aruna is part-drow. Two creatures of the night, two keeper of the shadows, face to face. Two sides of the same damn coin . 

His chest heaves, likely out of habit, as he stares her down. He’s waiting for her next move, her next word. His eyes wearily watch as though he might be able to predict such, even if only a moment before it happens. All he would need is a second – he is a vampire, after all. 

“When?” 

She raises an eyebrow, “When what?” 

“When did you figure it out?” 

He takes another step back, and she pretends not to notice. 

“I just… did,” she pathetically lies. In all fairness, once she knew, she did realize that he hadn’t been the most subtle about it all, “You’ve got fangs, you’re always leaving camp in the night, you never eat. Shall I go on?”

He’s fairly quick to shake his head, “Those things don’t mean I’m a vampire.”

“But you are, aren’t you?” 

She’s almost giving him out. If he really wants to lie, now is his chance. He can deny, he can lie, he can ferociously dispel all her claims. And if he does, this can simply stay a secret between the two of them.

Her knowing, and him knowing that she knows. 

His hand still twitches by the handle of his dagger, “And… if I am? Then what?” 

“Then I tell you to be more discreet, and stop leaving your leftovers-” she pauses, kicking the boar at her feet ever so gently, “-out for others to find out. Just because I’m not in the business of hunting vampires doesn’t mean others share the sentiment.” 

She doesn’t even know how everyone back at camp would react. But she knows that if he comes clean, if he simply says the magic words, she’ll defend him. An objectively stupid choice, but the hill she has chosen to die on all the same. Since the day she awoke on the beach, she has known one thing; save Astarion, no matter the cost. 

Perhaps this is what the letter meant. 

Maybe something happened from that time she has caught glimpses of in her memory she recovered, and it all links back to this pivotal moment. Even though it doesn’t make much sense given the fact she already knew he was a vampire in the memory, he had spoken freely about it and she’d even let him drink from her, it’s something to cling to. A comforting blanket of reassurance that she’s making the right choice. 

He bites down on his lip in contemplation, and the tip of one of his fangs catches in the sunlight. It ignites the urge within her to keep speaking, to keep reassuring .

“It’s the same as the way Gale is a prideful wizard, or Lae’zel is a blood-thirsty githyanki, or I am apparently part drow. It doesn’t change anything, Astarion. I just… I’d like to know I’m not crazy.” 

When he stays silent, still several paces between the two of them, she decides to try one last tactic. 

Her tadpole squirms, almost in defiance, as she focuses her outreach to him. It’s not just to open a line of communication. This time, she has a far different goal in mind. She’s doing far more than just making snide remarks back and forth – she’s opening her mind to him. Inviting him in, beckoning across the ocean between them for him to see that she means no harm. 

She only knows that he’s felt the invitation when that same warm pressure of his presence within her mind washes over her, down her cerebral and along her spine. 

It’s all hesitant pokes and prods, uncertain wiggles as his face scrunches in simultaneous concentration and shock. She’s completely forgotten her memory that she had meant to hold sacred, has forgotten all the secrets she was drowning beneath the weight of. She trusts him; she knows he won’t go further than necessary, not with so much currently on the line. 

And even if he does, she’s decided he’s worth the risk. There are far worse choices to offer exposure of her secrets to. 

“You…” he whispers, eyes pinching shut and mouth twisting as she feels him dig deeper, “You’ve known. Hells, you- you’re not lying, are you?” 

Not at all, she calls out over the connection rather than out loud. 

His eyes snap back open. You’ve known, and you haven’t tried to stake me. 

You said you would have preferred decapitation, if I’m not mistaken. 

His laugh slips out in real time, and she can tell he hadn’t meant to the guffaw to ring out loud. But it does; it falls from his lips and echoes in the space around them. Pitched high with his shock, and cut short with realization. 

“Is this why you’ve been avoiding me?” his tone is soft, as hesitant as all his prodding within her mind. She was right, though, as she feels his presence begin to retreat – he didn’t go further than necessary. 

“Partially,” she shrugs, daring to step closer to him and diminish some of the physical distance, “And partially just because you seem to enjoy being a royal pain in my ass.” 

“I saved you, if I recall correctly.” 

“I thought you were still in the business of denying responsibility for my survival?” 

His mouth snaps shut, but he doesn’t even flinch as she takes another timid step forward. Baby steps. He’s not turning heel and running away from her. He knows that she knows, and he’s still here. 

Save Astarion. For the first time their entire journey, it almost feels possible. 

“I may have been… slightly responsible for it,” he secedes, eyeing her warily. 

She hums, looking deeply within his carmine eyes. There’s a flame of trust that flickers beneath the surface that had not been there moments before. Not even when they’d spoken in their private moments. No, it’s something new, something warm . A door unlocked from this entire revelation. 

“I wasn’t lying before. Vampires are dangerous,” he reminds her suddenly as she’s managed to sneak her way to nearly be toe-to-toe with him, “I could kill you as easily as I saved you. You are aware of that, yes?”��

“I am.”

“I’m the one who killed that boar.”

“I’d hope so. I have enough trouble keeping up with one vampire, let alone two.”

His face twitches as she says it, nose scrunching slightly as he unexpectedly corrects her, “I’m merely a spawn, not a true vampire. Still dangerous but… The devil’s in the details, I suppose.” 

That she did not know. He watches her reaction in real time, and clearly mistakes all her curiosity for shock. Or maybe fear. Maybe he’s still waiting for the other shoe drop, she realizes. 

“It means I’m less powerful,” he vomits out quickly, holding both hands up, palms facing her, “I swear-”

She breathlessly laughs, reaching up and grabbing his wrists, yanking until his hands are back to being limp as his sides, “I gathered that much, Astarion. I just haven’t heard the terms before. Brain full of holes, remember?” 

His entire body relaxes slowly, shoulders slumping as he looks as though he has to fight rolling his eyes at her, “Ah, yes. Pardon my forgetfulness. I suppose this means you’ll be wanting a full history lesson on vampires, then? When we return to camp?” 

It would certainly help. She can’t deny the way her curiosity burns and gnaws at her insides, desperate for more knowledge, especially when it concerns him. She could push him to his precipice, force him to exhume all that he is to her as soon as possible. That selfish and ravenous hunger would certainly be delighted. But she can also see all his hesitancy and discomfort with the topic. And for some unknown reason, her heart has no desire to corner him in that way. 

“You don’t have to,” she tells him quietly, finally shuffling back an inch and giving him space, “I’d like to know more, of course, but only whenever you’re ready to tell me.” 

She means it. Gods, she truly means it, even if the unknown infuriates her to no end. 

His lips crack into a lopsided grin, “How… sweet of you. I fear it’ll never be something I’m particularly eager to indulge in, though. The sooner we get it over with, the better.” 

She remembers the ache from the memory. The sharp pain, the stabbing twist at his words. 

Nothing good. Nothing good awaits him back in Baldur’s Gate. 

For all that Aruna wishes to learn more about Astarion, she also fears that it might mean finding out exactly what that nothing good might be. And she’s unsure if her heart, if her soul cleaved in two, will be able to handle the information once more. 

“Just tell me when,” she forces herself to say steadily, holding his gaze. Nothing good. Nothing good waits for him. Nothing good. “And I’m all ears, my dearest Astarion.” 

Something about her own version of the endearment echoed back in his direction leaves an ashen taste on her tongue. 

He must taste it as well, as he cringes slightly. “Perhaps leave the flowery endearments to the professionals, my friend.” 

It nearly goes over her head. Nearly the entire walk back to camp, she’s in ignorant bliss. But once she picks up on it, somewhere between Astarion’s grand tale of the night in which he’d hunted down the boar and him scolding her clumsiness as she bumps into yet another tree branch, she revels in the soft whisper of it. 

He called her his friend . Something he has already claimed to have never experienced, and yet he’s bestowed the honor upon her . 

It’s almost soft enough to override the pestering twisting of her gut regarding the mystery that remains the letter in her pack. Almost. 

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