Chapter Text
CLANG-tksssssssssss!
Three seconds prior Gale was deeply asleep.
CLANG-tksssssssss!
He was now very awake, gasping as he sat up in a panic, trying to understand the cacophony of sounds bombarding him from the darkness.
Tssss-CLANG-tkssssssssssss!
He reflexively cast an illumination spell, and though the source of the noise was obvious, he was not much closer to understanding anything.
Astarion was standing on the foot of his bed, grinning madly. He had a pair of cymbals in his outstretched arms. “Good morning! Rise and Shine!” He kicked at Gale’s legs under the blankets, “Up up up!”
“A-astarion?! What in all the realms!” He pulled his legs up.
“I said, time to get up!” He bashed the cymbals together again with a laugh.
CLANG-Tssssssssssssk!
“Cease your aural torment!” Gale rolled over and was greeted with a small feathery corpse laying next to his pillow, he groaned, “Tara!”
“Good morning, Mr. Dekarios! My eyes were rather bigger than my stomach, I must confess. I do hope you enjoy, though I am afraid it is rather dry.” Tara was sitting on her elaborate pillow throne, next to her cat tree that took up almost as much floor space as Gale’s bed.
Gale picked up the dead bird as he sat up on the side of his bed, preparing to cast it into his rubbish bin, as he always did, but then the rainbow colors caught his eye and he inspected it more closely, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “This is no common pigeon… why this is a rare Esmelian bronzewing! They’re not native to this region, they hail from Amn, near Athkatla, where they are in a sorry state, I am sad to say, their population numbers have been extremely negatively impacted by the recurrent trade wars, but I do recall there was recent success breeding them at the Aviary in this very city!” His sleepy brain put the pieces together. “Tara! No! Bad tressym!”
“Mr. Dekarios, that is not how you react to a gift, honestly, your manners are lessening everyday you spend here. At least Mr. Astarion appreciated my hunting prowess.”
Astarion tossed the cymbals aside, where they clangtsked one final time amongst some books. He commented, “For such a fancy bird it still tasted just like pigeon,” as he jumped off the bed.
“Right. That’s it. I do not wish to know anything else. Relating to your shared avian appetites. I am most interested to know other matters. Such as what bloody time is it?”
“3:17 AM, Mr. Dekarios.”
“Awww, is this too early for you to get up?” Astarion frowned deeply at him.
Gale laughed, “Point well taken… though I must comment your, well earned - mind you, revenge is a bit disproportionate! Living humans need much more rest than your people do. Both of your kin! Elven and vampiric alike. Even with your peculiarities.”
“Is that so.” He opened his mouth to say something else but was mollified when Tara landed on his shoulder demanding some pets.
“Don’t think I have not noted your habit of sleeping rather than trancing, very curious. Is that due to your undead affliction? I have read that it disrupts an elven soul’s connection to the feywild.”
“No.” Astarion was very thankful Tara had stopped him from asking Gale who in the hells let slip he was a broken spawn. A new goal solidified in his mind. Never ever let the wizard find out about his additional ‘peculiarities’. Astarion was certain he would make so many sounds in his direction if he was aware.
At the single word response, Gale dropped the topic. He rubbed his eyes with a yawn and sleepily wandered over to the other side of what was essentially, a studio apartment. There was a small kitchen arrangement here. “Would you like some coffee? Tea?”
The vampire just looked at him.
“Of course you don’t, right, right, sorry.” He stifled another yawn and began brewing for himself. “Woke me up, kicked my legs, I am prepared for a most insensitive question or three, if you plan to keep up this pattern of, again most deserved, retaliation.” Tara landed next to the coffee pot, accepting some Gale head scratches.
“How long does it take to dredge up some bits of metal anyway? Shouldn’t you be gone? Godgone? Or at least back to your glorious archmage status. Either way, no longer slumming with us powerless plebeians?”
“I have grown fond of this city! It is not Waterdeep, true, but you won’t be rid of me that easily. Rolan and I have plans to create a portal connecting my tower permanently to his!”
“Is that what wizards do when they get married?”
“What? No! …sometimes, but that is not what is transpiring in this situation.” He ignored Astarion’s giggles and continued, “Unfortunately, all other plans are delayed, as this last fragment has proved most uncooperative indeed. My latest attempt to retrieve it was three days ago, when I discovered the latent magic energy leaking from it has attracted some river denizens, including one extremely large crustacean.”
“That was you?!” Astarion laughed again, grinning as he sauntered over. “I really need to eat more people if they are letting you get away with this much chaos. Speaking of which.” He bowed at Gale. “I am sorry I tried to bite you.”
“Ah well, you’re not the first who wanted to rip my throat out to stop me from speaking more, I’m sure. I have made some more egregious verbal blunders in my time! Tara can attest to that history.”
“Nooooooo.” Astarion put a hand on his cheek in shock.
Gale laughed as he poured a himself a cup of coffee, then started scooping in a generous amount of sugar. “In the halls of ethereal academia people speak much more plainly, provided you are well versed in the various specific lexicons. Outside of it, I tend to forget myself and take people at face value too often; apply too much of a literalist view to the words of others.”
“My dear, then I fear in the realm of conversations I am as dangerous to you as the sunlight is to me.” He clarified with a smirk, as he was really speaking mostly to amuse himself, “By that I mean why would I ever just say what I mean when there are so many other more colorful turns of phrase?”
“I knew what you meant that time!” Gale shook the sugar spoon at him, before scooping in a bit more, then pouring in a generous amount of milk.
“You could just pour sugar into milk, Gale, it would be faster. No need for this coffee farce.”
“That is what I have told him, oh so many times, Mr. Astarion!”
He ignored the both of them and said, “I fully admit that my lack of subtext ascertainment is, on occasion, very willful. Really, I should have examined some of your statements in much more detail, and not been as quick to accept the more palatable interpretation.”
Astarion plucked his satchel off the floor; he had flung it there before he began the cymbal concert. “Yes, well, maybe. But you did not. So! That is ov—”
“Such as, near the end of our time in the shadow-cursed lands, when you mentioned being prized for your entertainment value.”
“What?” He stumbled in mid-step, turning back towards Gale.
“Ah, it was the night you told us of your previous visit to the area. Cazador was attempting to establish an alliance with Ketheric? You made a joke about being brought along as entertainment; in case your former master was bored. No one would have thought much of it, or at least I would not have, but Karlach had quite the reaction! I asked for clarification and you told me it was something such as storytelling or singing I believe?” He took a sip of his coffee, confident it was coffee, not sweetened milk.
Astarion slowly sank down till he was crouching on the floor and repeated himself. “What?” He rallied himself to be more eloquent than that, “Wh-when?” It did not help that the room was starting to go dim.
Gale blinked, looking down at Astarion and slowly said, “It was when your stored blood was on the edge of expiring, so you drank an extreme quantity at one time. You were most hematologically inebriated.”
He flopped over onto his back and stared at the ceiling, wishing he was blood drunk again at this very moment. Well. That solved the mystery of why he didn’t remember. Also, the much older mystery of why everybody started to be so much nicer to him. It did feel like overnight the camp’s views shifted.
There had been a huge debate concerning if they should kill the orthon for Raphael. He spent that night ripping every page out of a horrid book in his tent before shredding the pages and chewing the cover to pulp.
Then a few days later, suddenly everyone was gleefully on the side of team ‘Yes, Astarion, of course we will help you find out what your scars mean.’ He had never bothered to examine this too closely; afraid their minds would change again. He had assumed either Karlach had worked her magic or that everyone else had just come to their senses naturally.
“…Astarion?” Gale leaned over, taking another sip of coffee flavored milk.
Tara landed on his chest, shifting into loaf form.
“Hello again, cat.”
“Oh. You do not remember?”
“No. Rather a running theme with me, or have you not paid attention to that either?”
Gale hesitated then reached down to offer Astarion assistance in getting back to his feet.
He slapped his hand away. “Don’t touch me,” he snarled out, getting to his feet, petting Tara automatically as he fumed.
“Um,” said Gale, dipping deep into his linguistic reserves.
Astarion sighed deeply and tossed the tressym at Gale. “Oh, whatever. I suppose this sequence of discovery was better than everyone walking into Cazador’s bloody palace unaware of my… history.” He laughed at himself, spinning around slowly as he mused, “What a fool I am, a bargain I was not even aware I was making! So many humiliating secrets revealed to secure help…” They knew. They all knew. This whole time. Of course they did. Things were, honestly, rather obvious if anybody thought for a moment. And were not wizards. He laughed again, shaking his head.
“As the mood is already rather awkward. I would like to apologize for my insensitive words once more and—”
Astarion groaned and dropped his head into his hands. “Please no, I do not want to talk about this anymore.”
“I knew Cazador was a nasty piece of work, but I had only heard about his political scheming with hints of violent acts, no hint of any coital impropriety.”
“How did you come up with an even worse phrase? Were you practicing? No one is here to stop me if I decide not biting you was my real mistake, you know.” He hissed, baring his fangs.
Tara flew up between the two. “Oh dear, please, boys, let’s not get into any spats now. Mr. Dekarios, remember what we talked about!”
Gale held up his hands. Well, his hands and the coffee mug. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Topic dropped.”
Astarion smoothed down his clothing to help steady his nerves. He casually said, “Well. That is that. I told Tara I would take her by the aquarium if there was time. Perhaps I’ll see you again some early morning hour for an encore.” He grinned at Gale.
“Wait, don’t leave just yet. I assume Wyll gave you a sending stone as well? Do you have it on your person? If so, I can greatly improve it for you.”
“Improve it? How?”
“Allow it to have more charges for one, permit some real back and forth communication. I had offered to provide him with such prepared stones already, but I fear between the storm and the new giant river life, I am not his favorite person at present.” He sighed, “One reason for my delay is he had refused to give me any assistance from the cities various troops to deal with the aquatic megafauna.”
Astarion debated and then rolled his eyes. “Ugh. Fine.” He fished the stone out of his pocket, holding it out to Gale, “Here.” If he regretted this he could always pitch the stone out his window. He’d tell Wyll he needed another due to wizard contagions.
Gale took the stone and said, “The equipment is off in the main area of the tower. No matter how tempting, it is just not good practice to sleep next to particular arcane instruments!” He continued as he headed towards the door,” Ah, before I forget again, Astarion, do remember that I know very much so what it is like to be suddenly alone, when one has had every hour almost filled with a partner before. The circ*mstances behind our solitude are different, yes, but there is still a similarity. You should visit more often so we could commiserate!”
Astarion stared at the door as it swung shut, then looked at Tara, spreading his arms to the side with his eyes wide. “Does he do this on purpose?!” He hissed out.
Tara winced and said, “No, he does not.”
“I am going to repeat this performance at least twice more. Make sure he does not dispose of the cymbals, my dear.”
“Let me give you a tour, Mr. Astarion!” She flew to her giant cat tree. Astarion followed, shaking his head while laughing.
A few minutes later, Gale returned, without the stone but with a scroll in his hand now. “The attunement will mature shortly. Astarion! While we wait, you could assist me in my ‘bits of metal’ reforging.”
Astarion raised an eyebrow. “… how so?” Tara had taken him to the most dangerous part of the room, the cupboard of vanishing! He had just finished retrieving a number of lost cat toys from underneath it. He shook a fist at Tara after she promptly batted one right back under the furniture.
Gale held out the scroll. “This is an ancient record on reforging artifacts that were most aged at the time it was written! My elvish is, unfortunately, rather rusty, and to be very transparent, was never that strong. I only took my one required year, you see. I would appreciate if you could check my translation.”
Astarion ugh’ed, sniffing deeply in disapproval. He froze momentarily, but whatever put him off his game quickly passed. He humored Gale and took the scroll. He carefully unrolled the ancient fragile thing, making a show of looking over the elvish script, pursing his lips just so and muttering a bit to himself, pretending to not notice how eager Gale appeared. He subtly took a few more sniffs of the air, contemplating the odors more so than the writing.
He finally cast his eyes back at Gale, “Well, my name is not on here, I can tell you that!” Astarion grinned at the wizard’s confusion. “Here it talks about a hundred of something? Or is that a thousand… oh! There’s the word blue! Is that enough to confirm your translation?” He finished with a giggle that he had been holding in for the entire performance.
“Wait… what? Astarion, have you forgotten this as well?”
“I didn’t forget how to read, Gale!”
“But if you can’t read the scroll…” He gasped as Astarion flung it aside, diving to catch it before it hit the floor. “I’m sorry, but I am having trouble coming up with any other realistic explanation, it is very obvious that you are, well, an elf! I have never met any other elves that did not know elvish…”
“Almost everybody you know is a damn wizard! That is not what one would call the most ideal representative sample! I would wager good coin most non-elves you know can understand a spot of elvish!”
“That is not outside the realm of probability. Blackstaff academy does pride itself on the linguistic aptitude of its pupils! Far it be it from me to besmirch the magical arts, but translation spells are just no substitute for true knowledge. I am realizing more and more that my understanding of people with no connection to the weave is sparse, at best.”
“I can say, with much more confidence than most anything else about my past, that I never was fluent. I know very little, what one would teach a child. Numbers and colors. I can write my name! It is very gorgeous in elvish script; I’ll have you know. Unsurprisingly.”
Gale still looked rather skeptical, causing Astarion to cluck his tongue and elaborate more with a tsk. “There is a difference between forgetting and simply never knowing. I feel this…” he wiggled his fingers in front of himself, as if searching for the word. “Void? When I reach for things that have been lost. Trying to read that scroll of yours? No empty void, just a simple lack of knowledge.”
“Oh! I think I understand now! During my oral examinations when I was quizzed upon the mechanisms used to derived the base values needed for arcane stability in the myriad schools of magic. I felt my mind go completely blank, despite having gotten the highest recorded mark in my course work on the subject. Why, that was a much different feeling compared to when Elminster posited the question of what was the single greatest impact of the second sundering on agricultural practices. I could perfectly visualize the cover of the tome which held the answer to his question, exact shade and the various markings upon the cover, sitting, just at it had, for months, unopened on the corner of my desk!”
Astarion stared at him for a moment, before saying, deadpanned, “Yes, Gale. Yes. Exactly right. You perfectly understand what it is like to have lost all but the barest essence of yourself.”
Gale nervously laughed, clasping his hands together. “Still, I am surprised to hear you don’t know elvish.”
“Really? I was a bloody magistrate in my thirties for hells sake. That’s a very human age to have such a vocation. I had to have been born in this city, one of those lost and corrupted urban elves.” He tsk’ed, disparagingly. “That are, rightfully so, oh so pitied by the proper high elves. To be more serious, I do feel I was never closely involved with elvish culture.”
“You were a magistrate for much longer than I imagined…!”
Astarion grinned and leaned towards him, purring out, “Ooooh? Was I?”
“Oh no…” Even Gale knew that look and tone never portended a pleasant revelation.
“I was not even forty years old when I acquired this affliction.” He motioned at the whole of himself, striking a jaunty pose for a moment.
Gale stared at him, putting hand to his mouth, muttering from behind it, “That’s younger than I am now…”
Astarion ugh!’ed with a roll of his eyes, “Yes, yes, I’m very tragic and mournful, do you need a hankie?”
“Are you converting years or… I am familiar with a number of elves that hail from Waterdeep and the surrounding environs, to say nothing of those at Blacksta—”
“Less words, Gale!” Astarion stomped a foot.
Gale drained the remainder of his milky sweet coffee, sitting the mug down before saying, “You look older than I would have thought an elf would, if he was not even 40.”
“Well, I am faaaaaar older than that now. Aging is more than the number of years a body was alive, you know.”
“I am not following you, I must confess.”
Astarion huffed then rolled his eyes, before saying, “Observe.” He closed his eyes, taking a few calming breaths. He relaxed his face as much as possible, the tension draining out of it. Soon all but the deepest smile lines, even the worry lines on his forehead, vanish into almost nothing.
Gale tilted his head to the side and approached for a better look.
He opened his eyes again and startled at how close Gale was, pushing him away while simultaneously taking a step backwards. “Two-hundred years of pure sh*t and extreme stress takes a toll, oddly enough! Oh, and do not forget the near constant starvation! Turns out, you make that face long enough? It does stay like that! Even if you’re already dead… I am now a rather… rough elven 39.” He inspected his fingernails, “No matter. I’m still beautiful. Perhaps even more so! I’m now refined… aged like a fine wine!” He batted his eyes at Gale.
“Oh,” Gale said, followed by, “Ah.”
Astarion took pity on the stupid wizard and kept talking, “Karlach first pointed it out to me. That when deep asleep I appeared more… youthful? I suppose I was never relaxed enough before killing the bastard.”
Gale nodded. “So. No elvish.”
Astarion nodded right back at him. “No elvish. Lost and corrupted urban elf, remember?” He shrugged. “I’m even only mostly sure that I’m the moon elf variety of high elf…”
“You are,” Gale confidently said.
“… and how are you so certain?”
“That is the only variety of high elf that has your exact features, hair color and texture in particular. Why, I bet your skin was not much paler in—”
“Stop! No. I don’t want any attempt at comforting words from you.”
“Ah, but I was only…” Tara shot him a glare. “Yes. Yes. Right.”
“Thank you. I suppose it does make the most sense… they are the most common variety of elves? Hrm. Pity.”
“Yes, you are.”
“My dear, I am a vampire spawn with pointy ears and an ethereal beauty, more so than an elf; this is not something I am upset about.”
“… but to lose connection with your heritage…”
Astarion rolled his eyes, “Gale. I am deeply sad about many things that I have lost. Why do you want me to add another to the tally? So, what color eyes do moon elves have?”
“Ah! Well, while there is of course a lot of variation—”
“I don’t need a two-hour lecture, Gale!”
“Typically, green or blue, both with specks of gold or other—”
“Hrm.” He looked up at the ceiling, pondering, before nodding. That did feel right. He decided he had the loveliest specks of gold.
“If this inquiry is not over stepping, is such extreme memory loss typical for the vampire curse? Based upon the texts I have read I was under the impression it was true vampires and not spawn tha—”
“Ugh, why is everyone so concerned with my memory recently?” He dramatically waved a hand around in the air, frustration on his face for a moment, while Tara was occupied batting more of her newly freed toys around. “You’ve forgotten plenty of things yourself! You don’t remember being a baby, I assume.”
Astarion side-eyed Gale and then with a sigh decided to placate the wizard, in this at least. “We vampire spawn tend to, quicker than one would think, forget our prior life… when our bodies were really alive and not animated corpses…” He stared at his hands, flexing his fingers, a half-smile on his face.
“But you’ve forgotten more than most?”
“As far as I am aware, my dear wizard, you are looking at the champion of not remembering anything about his living-life.” He mimed receiving a trophy and did a little victory twirl before tossing the imaginary object at Gale, cackling when the wizard reflexively dodged the nothing.
“I am sorry, once again, for my assumption. Rest assured if I ever am in need of elvish color identification though, I will ask for your assistance.” There is a flash of light and a tinkling noise on the counter behind Gale, near to the coffee pot. “Ah! The stone is ready.”
Astarion dashed over and snatched up the stone. “I have lingered long enough that I’m sure you will be miserably tired the whole day, just as planned! I really must be going if I am going to try to get a bite in on my way home, as it is getting rather early. Sorry, my dear, we’ll visit the aquarium another night. But first! A gift for your wizard.” He motioned towards his satchel extravagantly.
“A gift?” Gale was filled with trepidation.
Soon enough a pillow was thrust into Gale’s hands, accompanied by a torrent of giggles. It was a small white square pillow, with flowers embroidered in each corner, encircling the words unwanted intimate activities.
“Ah.” Gale read the pillow again and again. “If a picture is worth a thousand words, you have gifted me at least an order of magnitude more.”
Astarion tapped the words with a finger as he grinned. “You’d best take that with you wherever you are staying. If you do not, Tara will let me know.”
“Mr. Dekarios, you know it is very impolite to not display gifts. Why your mother will be so curious when she lays eyes upon it!”
“Oh, how right you are… how many times I will have to expound on this gift?” Gale cannot help but laugh again at this particular earned misfortune.
Astarion was already halfway out the door. “No going back to sleep now!”
“I’ll be in touch!”
“That’s what you think!” Astarion yelled back as he slipped fully out the door.
Gale pondered the pillow for a while before tossing it at his bed. He stroked his beard, pondering. “Tara, I think I have an idea for something I just might be able to do that would benefit our vampire associate…” When no reply came, he blinked and looked around the room, “Tara?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Said vampire associate was sitting on the fountain in front of Sorcerous Sundries. He marveled at how fast everything here had been repaired. That’s powerful magic for you, he supposed.
As Tara flew down to him, Astarion nodded his head in greetings and said, “I was hoping you understood basic thieves’ cant signs. You do seem like a lady of culture. I am not surprised!”
“A little trick I picked up while having a spot of excitement with Mrs. Dekarios once upon a time. But what is it? Why did you want to speak again so soon?”
“Your wizard… he’s getting worse, isn’t he? That orb in him, it’s making him sick.”
“What? What do you mean, Mr. Astarion? What did you notice?”
Astarion chewed on his lip for a moment before explaining, “Ah, you see, he smells rather … bad. Worse than he did prior. I suspected so when I saw him last, but the taint is even worse now. His blood, I mean. I’m not commenting on his hygiene. Beyond the beard.” He blegh’ed, sticking his tongue out.
Tara flew in circles as she spoke, “He did remark once that disgusting parasite was out of his head using magic now felt more draining. He has been sleeping so much too. Oh, dear oh dear, Mr. Dekarios, oh dear!” she flew faster and faster.
Astarion sighed very deeply and looked up to the stars. “Fine. I’ll be a good boy. You’d better be watching and laughing at me.” He retrieved the sending stone again. He made sure he could not be disturbed by any messages when he was resting, but he strongly speculated that was not true for everyone. Especially not for one person in particular.
“Wyll, my dear! Rise and shine! I have some… complications to bring to your attention, for once not my own! But rather our dear wizard’s…”
“Astarion? What did Gale do now?” Wyll’s drowsy voice confirmed his suspicions.
The vampire grinned. He enjoyed this new status quo, he would freely admit.
“Amazingly enough, it’s not so much what he did but what I fear is happening to him… I will arrive shortly to explain in person.” He started walking towards the Ravengard estate. Tara flew behind him, soon enough landing on his shoulders, washing a paw to try to soothe her worries.
