#Miz'ri | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

galpalaven · 2 months

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in shadow

Pairing: Astarion x Fem!Tav (Miz'ri Jhalavar) Word Count: 2500~ Summary: The shadow-cursed lands are filled with nothing but undead. Miz'ri makes sure that Astarion isn't going hungry. Also on AO3!

The shadow-cursed lands are filled with nothing but undead.

At first, he holds out hope that they will encounter more cultists, or maybe a mostly-alive squirrel here and there. Surely not everything is dead out here, right? There are animals and people alive and well within the moon shield at the Last Light Inn, of course, but drinking from any of them would surely be met with outrage and hostility.

Not everyone is as understanding as his drow, after all.

He doesn’t need to eat, of course. He’s survived far longer than a few days without blood, but he hadn’t realized how used to being full and sated he’d gotten. As a few days becomes a week, he starts trying to readjust to the feeling of emptiness and hunger that had been his constant companion for the last two centuries. The discomfort greets him like an old friend, as his strength starts to wane and his head begins to feel far lighter than it had in weeks. The sharpness of his senses dulls as the hunger settles into his aching muscles, sinking into the marrow of his bones, taking its rightful place in the forefront of his mind.

It feels almost like it had never left, by the time they start heading for the towers.

The trip theoretically should only have taken them a few hours of walking, but the shadows are hungry and they only get hungrier the deeper into the curse they venture, making it slow going as they keep needing to fight off ravenous wraiths and shambling undead. They haven’t made nearly the amount of progress they were hoping by the time they have to make camp, lining the perimeters with lanterns to help ward off the shadows in the hopes that they can get some rest before they venture forth once more.

Aside from the looming threat of death, the red leaves make quite a pretty sight against the light of the fires burning around camp. They almost look like flames themselves, he thinks, watching the firelight dance. He avoids the main campfire tonight, unable to stand the tantalizing smell of cooked meat floating into the air as Gale cooks dinner.

He’s almost succeeded in mentally detaching himself from his body entirely when a familiar face steps into his line of sight.

Miz’ri smiles when their eyes meet, and he feels his own lips twitch with the urge to mirror that expression.

The darkness of the curse looks right against her dusky grey skin, he thinks idly, watching her run a hand through her silky, starlight hair, hanging loose around her shoulders for once. The pink of her eyes seems extra soft in the firelight, sending a strange, swooping warmth through his stomach as she clears her throat and starts to speak.

“Would you like to come to my tent in a bit?”

Ah.

The combination of emotions that wash over him — like ice water dumped over his scalp and running in chilly rivulets down his spine — confuses him. There’s a part of him that grimaces, thinking of the inevitable disgust and self-loathing that will crop up some time in the middle of the night, but that isn’t the part that confuses him. The part that’s strange is the excitement and warmth that blossoms in his stomach — the tingling anticipation of her lips on his making him nod before he can actually think about his answer.

Her face lights up, and then she disappears again, darting off towards the campfire with a quick, Great, see you in a bit!

Perhaps this would be a good distraction from the yawning void that is his stomach, he reasons as he forces himself to his feet. Perhaps he can lose himself in the taste of her lips and the gentle caress of her hands, in the feeling of those web-like scars on her back.

Maybe this time he’ll be able to forget himself for a few hours.

Despite the doubt that drapes itself over his shoulders like a cloak, he still makes his way over to her tent where it sits near the edge of camp. It’s more of a real tent now than it had been in those early nights, offering more privacy against their merry band of misfits and protection from the elements. Brushing aside the flap that serves as the door reveals a nice little set up of bedroll and fur blankets that she must have shoved into that bag of holding they found not long after they all decided to travel together. The firelight filters through the tent softly, and the coziness of the set up makes it quite easy to pull his shirt over his head, spreading himself out on the soft furs with a quiet sigh.

As he waits, he tries to busy himself with thoughts of the last encounter they had. Of the feeling of her lips on his neck, her fingers in his hair. Of the way she looked at him while she touched him, murmuring questions about his comfort into his skin. She always lets him lead, but even that first night when they’d both been tipsy on wine, she’d paused whenever she felt him hesitating, checking in with him in a way no one ever had.

He must be losing his touch, he thinks, for her to see through his facade so easily. Not that he didn’t enjoy himself at times — even with the lingering feelings of disgust and unease, there were plenty of moments when he managed to let go of those feelings and lose himself in her warmth, in the sweetness of her lips and the heat of her breath on his skin.

He can do this. The memories of pain are a small price to pay for safety. For someone who will protect him no matter what happens. For—

“Sorry for the wait, I was — oh!”

Miz’ri blinks at him, the flap of the tent half held open with one hand while the other clutches a red apple and a bottle of water.

He affixes his most seductive smirk onto his face, stretching his arms over his head and arching his back enticingly. He can see the flush on her cheeks as she stumbles the rest of the way into the tent, falling to her knees by his hip and letting the tent fall closed behind her.

Astarion trails his fingers down the center of his chest, watching her swallow thickly as he smirks and says, “Hello, darling. I thought I’d make myself a little more comfortable while I waited. You don’t mind, do you?”

She shakes her head, clearing her throat as she fixes her eyes determinedly on his face. “I — no, of course not, I just — I invited you over because I thought you might be hungry. It’s got to have been a week since the last time you drank, right?”

…wait.

What?

Astarion frowns, pushing himself into a sitting position as if being upright will help him hear her better. That… surely she didn’t invite him over so he could eat, right? That’s not… that doesn’t make sense.

“I just needed to grab myself a snack and something to drink for afterwards,” she continues, gesturing to the things in her hands. Her eyes look into his imploringly, full of genuine, honest concern. “You must be starving. I’m sorry that I didn’t realize it sooner.”

He is — without words, for once.

All he can do for a moment is gape at her, jaw hanging slack as she shuffles things around laying out a towel over her pillow and setting her snacks aside. He watches her tie her hair up into a bun high on her head, and then unbutton her top, slipping it off so she’s left only in her underthings. It’s not sexual, though, as she tosses the shirt aside and settles onto her back on the bedroll.

He still doesn’t know what to say, even as she gestures vaguely at her neck.

“Go on,” she says, smiling a little, “I’ll let you know when I start to feel woozy.”

Astarion tries to shake off the shock, reaching out to gently trace one of the jagged scars on her neck. “Are you sure?” he asks, eyes running over her pretty face, looking for any hesitation or uncertainty.

He finds nothing of the sort.

All his drow does is smile, nodding as she catches his hand in hers and presses a kiss to his fingers. In the low light, his eyes catch on the gentle thrum of her pulse in her neck, and the starving beast in the back of his mind starts to salivate at the sight. His fangs elongate uncomfortably in his mouth, and it takes all of his self control not to lunge at her.

Instead, he shakes his head slightly and says, “You don’t have to do this. I don’t — I don’t need to —”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “Don’t do that. You deserve to eat like everyone else.”

You deserve to eat.

His throat tightens something fierce at that, so much so that he doesn’t trust himself to say anything without his voice breaking. Instead of embarrassing himself further, he just lets his touch speak for him, brushing the backs of his knuckles across her cheek. She smiles and leans into the touch, and he’s sure the force behind the wave of affection that washes over him at the sight would have knocked him clean off his feet had he been standing.

Touched and feeling more seen, more respected, than he ever has in his long, miserable life, Astarion does the only thing he can think to do.

He kisses her.

And gods, the feeling of her kissing him back nearly steals the air from his lungs.

He lingers there for a long moment, trading short, soft kisses that slowly deepen, before he turns his attention elsewhere, kissing his way up her jawline and down her throat. He presses in close, laving open-mouthed kisses to the scars on her throat, a preemptive apology for the act that follows. With one more kiss, Astarion mumbles, “Thank you,” into her skin before he opens his mouth and sinks his teeth into her neck.

Her blood hits his parched tongue like the sweetest, freshest water. He hasn’t tasted her since that first night he nearly got himself staked trying to bite her in her sleep, and she is every bit as delicious as he remembers. Her blood is smooth and saccharine, reminiscent of the sweetest icewines from the Moonshae Isles, perfect for desserts and quenching even the deepest thirsts. He feels himself groan softly more than he hears it as the taste of her hits him, and he presses in closer, taking a deep drag as she arches under him, leaning into him with a mirroring sigh.

Just when he thought he couldn’t feel any more off-kilter, Miz’ri slips her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck — not to tug or pull him away, but to caress. Her fingers play with the curls at his nape as he drinks, soft and sweet and full of so much affection that he finds himself melting into her. His body feels warmer than it has in a week as her blood pumps through his veins, and with her fingers running through his hair and her other hand running up his arm to wrap around his shoulders to pull him closer, he feels something dangerous.

Astarion wants to kiss her.

The urge nearly overwhelms him as she pulls him close, and it’s all he can do to hastily lick the wound on her neck closed and kiss his way back to her mouth, uncaring of the mess he’s leaving in the process.

He has never felt anything as sweet as the feeling of being kissed by his drow, of being kissed by his Miz’ri. She grins into his lips as he kisses her, opening her mouth to welcome him when his tongue sweeps across the curve of her lower lip. The taste of her blood lingers on his tongue, he’s sure, but all she does is pull him closer. His head spins, something heady in the pure acceptance and affection he feels radiating from her with every press of her lips, every gentle touch of her fingers.

For one long, beautiful moment, Astarion loses himself in the sensation of being seen and accepted, of being known and being loved. His fingers dig into the bedroll beneath her as he presses in as close as he possibly can, kissing her deep and hard, desperate to will her to feel how grateful he is and how — how happy she makes him.

His hand has started to wander down her side towards her trousers when she finally breaks the kiss, gasping and tilting her head away with a giddy laugh. She pushes some of his curls away from his eyes as he looks down at her, grinning with amusement and arching an eyebrow in question.

“Let’s just kiss tonight,” she says, smoothing her thumb across the high arch of his cheekbone. “You don’t owe me anything for dinner.”

He should have known, looking back, that she had long-since noticed his aversion to sex, and that was why they’d only been intimate twice. In that moment, though, the thought doesn’t cross his mind — all he can do is grin and nod, brushing the tip of his nose against hers.

“As you wish, my sweet. Let me know if you change your mind.”

She snorts, giggling as he leans down and nuzzles his lips under her jaw, letting his breath tickle the sensitive skin below her ear.

They spend the rest of the night trading kisses and talking quietly. At some point, they take to holding hands, fiddling with each others fingers as they tell stories in the dark. She tells him stories about her adventures before all of this, and he — well, they talk about their experiences since the nautiloid, mostly, when it’s his turn to tell something. At some point, he ends up with his face buried in her neck, arm thrown over her middle. They drift off to sleep as she traces little figures against the bare skin of his arm, both of them completely and utterly content.

And when he wakes the next morning, groggy but warm and deliciously sated, it’s hard for him to feel anything other than a nearly giddy sense of happiness, watching her doze in his arms.

Later, he’ll worry about how quickly and deeply he’s fallen for her. He’ll try to backpedal in his own mind — fighting viciously against the idea of giving someone else the ability to hurt him like that. He’ll lose that fight the next time she asks if he wants dinner, the next time he ends up in her arms with her fingers in his hair and his mouth on her throat.

Until then, he’ll lay here with his drow, thinking about how beautiful she is when she sleeps and losing himself in the unfamiliar warmth running through him.

#my writing #astarion ancunin #bg3 astarion #tav x astarion #astarion x tav #miz'ri jhalavar #miz'ri x astarion #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #drow tav

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