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snowfolly · 5 months

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A Simple Life

Astarion x original f!Tav | one shot, 2,931 words

Astarion and Tali are taking a break from the road to stargaze for a moment. He reflects on what was and what could have been with his little gray songbird at his side.

Cw: references to Astarion’s past abuse, some cursing

Tags: tooth-rotting fluff, hurt/comfort, soft Astarion, post-game, headcanons, self-indulgent af, Astarion’s Pov

Notes: Headcanons galore about noble elves in Evereska and Astarion’s past- if that’s not your thing then this may not be the story for you friend! • No beta on this one-shot & I am certainly not a professional writer • Also just as a little side note- My Tav, Taliesin, is genderfluid and uses any pronouns. They have used a ring of opposite gender for around 60 years (which they use about half the time), so I write/draw them as either gender :>

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“Imagine though, if we had stayed back in Evereska we could have had a simple life, well, at least compared to the ones we’ve lived. Perhaps my bitch of a mother would have sold me off to your family to wed you — for a handsome dowry of course,” Tali mused, staring up at the night sky and the thumbnail of a moon that bled the faintest silver light upon the land, “can you even imagine? We would have been absolutely miserable.”

Astarion laughed, his arms behind his head as he laid upon the long autumn grass, the scent of comforting vetiver and leaf rot was strong but not unpleasant so close to the earth. He stared at the constellation Correlian just over the horizon, thirteen bright stars standing out amongst a million others, giving him some kind of vague nostalgia, although he couldn’t pinpoint why exactly. Likely something left over from his past, from the time before; broken memories that would sometimes seep through in the form of indefinite feelings.

“Oh certainly, we would have hated each other. I would have resented you, you’d have resented me, we’d keep to different rooms on opposite sides of our sprawling mansion. We’d drink too much, despise our jobs in the family business, take other lovers and hate each other for that as well. It simply would have been a grand old time!” he jested sarcastically, one hand on his chest and the other waving about for humorous emphasis before glancing over at Taliesin.

Tali was such a slight creature, dressed in an oversized ruby hued poet shirt and high black breeches, her long, cool gray hair was back in her typical loose braids, balled up unceremoniously at the nape of her neck and held in place with a red silk tie. She sat cross legged and leaning up against the trunk of a tree nearly barren of leaves, her violin propped up beside her.

“We would have bickered nonstop, both of us bored to death as we played our roles,” Tali made a dramatic gagging sound and sat forward, hugging her knees and resting her head on them as she glanced down at Astarion with an impish grin, “but here we are.”

“Indeed, here we are, love,” Astarion replied quietly, turning to lay on his side, better facing his partner.

“Just two elves that have been really shitty at being elves,” Tali conceded with a smile, and Astarion nodded with a slight eye roll. She certainly wasn’t wrong about that. Neither of them worshipped the Seldarine. Tali was as decadent as he, self absorbed and mean spirited at times as well.

They were both city dwellers and cared not for the woods, but while she had played her music in taverns and inns for over a century in Baldur’s Gate he had been prowling them as a vampire spawn for much longer. The only time they had frolicked in forests was out of necessity, to get from point a to point b.

Lying on the grass with her and staring up at the heavens, contemplating the vastness and meaning of it all was as elfy as either of them got, he supposed.

“So…what exactly would have been your fate if you had stayed home? Seeing as to how I wasn’t there to come sweep you off your stamping mad little feet?” Astarion asked, nodding his head rhythmically with each of the last four words out of his mouth and Tali shrugged, her face not showing a hint of perturbance, which was good. Her past, much like his own, could be a point of contention.

“I was arranged to wed a noble merchant’s son when we both came of age, poor boy was sweet as mead but dense as cow dung. You might have known him, he was a bit older than me and a smidge younger than you. Not a brain in his head. Spent all day elfing-about in the woods, absolutely loved all that shit. Thank the gods I had the wherewithal to run away.”

“A dire fate that would have been,” Astarion said with a half smile, his gaze distant, deep in thought.

Evereska was such an obscure, foggy memory for him. He had very little recollection of it but he could vaguely remember the sprawling estates in the upscale part of the city, and one of them, not so far from his own family home was Tali’s — a house of noble merchants.

“Do you remember what would have become of you if you had stayed in Evereska?” Tali asked him with a hint of hesitation, but it was a question he had anticipated after he had asked her the same so frankly.

Astarion stared off into the field, garnet eyes faraway, his head propped up on his hand as the gears in his mind turned, but they weren’t turning nearly as efficiently as he would have liked. They never did when it came to the past, to the time before.

“Well, I’m not sure what my parents had planned for me, if anything. I… I really just don’t remember. I know that I left when I was very young, and I don’t know if I left on my own accord or if I was sent off. I just recall that it wasn’t a positive farewell,” he said solemnly, glancing back at Tali who was absentmindedly playing with the grass under her right hand.

“Do you… ever plan to go back to see them? Your family?” Tali asked without looking toward Astarion, and he was glad for it. His face fell and his heart sank at her words. His family.

A few stray crickets brave enough to bear the autumn chill were the only sound heard between the two as Astarion stayed silent for some time while he processed Tali’s question. He knew that she was curious about his past, but she never pried or prodded and it was only fair to answer her truly now.

“I have thought about it, of course I have,” he swallowed, looking up at her with round, pleading eyes and then back up to the sliver of moon hanging above, “I don’t think I could face them. I don’t know that I could…”

Astarion stalled a moment, irritated at his hitching voice before taking a deep breath out of habit. Oxygen was useless to his undead lungs but necessary for all the talking, “they’ve thought me dead for over two hundred years now. I don’t even know them anymore, Tali. I’m positive I left on very poor terms, I was buried in the city after all and that never would have happened if…”

“You don’t know that,” Tali interrupted, grimacing as she locked eyes with him, “there could have been many reasons for that. I remember when you died… well, vaguely as I had no idea who you were then, but I do remember your family mourning.”

Astarion’s languid heart skipped a beat, he felt like he had been punched in the gut at this revelation. Tali had never told him that. Astarion had known that Tali knew of his family but never knew that they had mourned for him. He had never asked about something like that though, of course he hadn’t.

“They mourned?” he asked in a small voice as he rolled over on his back once again, feeling defeated, feeling empty, at a loss. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to hear any more of this. That part of his life was over anyway, dead in the ground like his kin thought of him, right?

“Of course they did. Your mother…” Tali looked at Astarion with a sadness that she rarely displayed, a look that hurt him further, and she must have picked up on his discomfort because she changed direction.

“Gods… I. Look , I was only a child but I remember everyone making a big deal of losing an elf so young,” Tali sighed, hesitating a moment more before continuing, “so I don’t think you left on awful terms, Astarion. If you ever wanted to go back…”

She was right… possibly. What if the negative recollection that he did have of his family was incorrect? It wouldn’t be surprising, as his memories of the time before were so shattered. But why would she even suggest going back to a place that she had run from for so long?

“You’ve been avoiding Evereska for how long now? A century?”

“One hundred and twenty two years thereabouts,” Tali said nonchalantly, taking a particularly hard blade of grass and poking Astarion with it in the side of his neck without warning.

“Gods, Tali, you little shit,” he growled, slapping at the grass with an irritated grin, “then why do you care if we ever go back? Your mother will have your head…”

“I don’t care about returning for myself you idiot, I care about what it means for you. For you to see your family, not mine,” she exhaled, ripping the long blade of grass in two with furrowed brows as Astarion glared at her momentarily before his eyes softened. He grabbed at her arm with his clawed hand, beckoning her wordlessly to his side.

Of course this was about him.

Tali was as selfish of a creature as Astarion was, unless it came to matters involving him, and then she was patient, she was generous and she was kind in ways that he knew that she sometimes felt vulnerable for. He could certainly relate to that, as he often felt the same way with her.

He couldn’t, however, quite understand why she loved him though. He would never be able to fathom why she chose to love him after he had threatened to kill her when they had first met, after every shitty thing he had done to try and manipulate her, after all the baggage he’d brought to the table, but he would not ever question her affection. He would accept her love gratefully, and give all of his in return.

Tali obeyed his beckoning hand and rolled over to his side without another word, lying against him with her head resting on the crook of his arm as he clutched the seemingly infinite amount of fabric of her oversized sleeve. They laid together in silence, watching the moon creep slowly above the grasping bones of bare branches for an indeterminate amount of time, and his mind lulled back to his atrocious past, as it was wont to do during stretches of silence.

And gods, he had endured so much silence in two hundred years, so many endless nights of hushed horrors. He found quietness in busy taverns hunting for prey, he heard nothing when his victims moaned in ecstasy under him, and when they were taken away screaming from the boudoir he would lay in silence, a million miles away. Worlds away.

Like the year he spent clawing and screaming into the dark… there was nothing but silence for so very long.

Astarion bit his lip, bringing his mind out of despair, reining his thoughts back to his gray songbird who chirruped love songs to him before every sunrise, his strange little pet, who could play every instrument put before her and made so much pleasant noise. Tali gave him so much joy, shared his wretched sense of humor, made him laugh every night with endless raucous stories and bawdy jokes. She filled his life with so much sound.

His little songbird now lay shivering against him though, and it pained him that he could provide her no warmth. He held onto her tightly as she clung to him, burrowing her head into the crook of his neck as he touched his lips to her silken hair, nearly loose from its red tie.

“I do appreciate you thinking of me like that, you know. I really do, love” he whispered to her and she nodded slightly, exhaling her warm breath against the cold flesh of his neck, sending chills over his skin.

“Of course. I love you. That’s what people do when they love each other, Astarion,” she said in way that could be construed as flippant if it wasn’t said so sweetly.

“Truly though, if you ever want to go back, we’ll go. Just say the word. I’ll be fine, my mother hasn’t sent anyone looking for me for twenty years or so. I’ll use my ring or something to lay low,” she yawned, “just say the word.”

He smiled into her gray hair, dark as charcoal in the low light, inhaling her scent, clean and floral, and he felt almost overwhelmed with it all. Not in a negative way at all though. Two hundred years of horror, neglect and misery had all led up to this moment of comfort, of truly being happy. He guessed that what he felt was overwhelming gratitude, for his freedom, for another chance at life, for her.

“Maybe if we ever find the cure for my condition…”

“When we find the cure,” Tali murmured, correcting him, and Astarion exhaled, knowing deep in his heart that the cure might not ever come, no matter how many years they searched — but he’d humor her anyway.

“Fine. After we absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent find the end to my curse then I'll think about going back. Perhaps. Maybe I’ll write them first, though. Wouldn’t want to give them a fright, thinking I was some sort of phantom,” he ventured facetiously as she curled up against him closer.

Astarion couldn’t feel the chill in the same way Tali could, and though she was no weakling he couldn’t help but worry over her being too cold. He shifted slightly, ready to announce that it was time to go when she spoke up in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Do you think it would have been so bad, really?”

“What?” He asked, raising an eyebrow, momentarily confused.

“If we had stayed home, if we had been arranged to marry. I was joking but really, it could have been possible you know. We’re not too far off in age.”

Astarion blinked, his mind going over an entire century of what very well could have been in just a moment. Gods how mad they both would have been at the prospect. But would they have really hated each other after they had gotten to knows one another? They hadn’t liked each other very much when they had first met nearly a year earlier, but now. Now he couldn’t picture his life without the little shit.

“I don’t think so. It wouldn’t have been so awful,” he answered quietly, holding her tighter, helpless to comfort her as she shivered slightly, “but we would have never stayed there.”

“Oh we wouldn’t have stayed at all. Never in a million years. But I don’t think we would’ve hated each other. I don’t think I could ever hate you,” she said groggily, and he smiled to himself as she continued, “do you think you could have hated me?”

“No, I don’t think I’d ever be able to hate you either, songbird,” he said without hesitation before pulling away from her slightly, causing her to protest with a groan.

“But it’s time to move on, pet. The next inn’s a few miles up the way, It’s getting early and you’re freezing to death. That won’t do.”

“Are you sure that you don’t hate me?” Tali whined, curling up into a miserable ball and clutching her hands at her chest as Astarion rose to his knees, beckoning her up.

“Get up. I know you’re hungry too. If the innkeep’s up and about we’ll get you a potato, butter, salt, the works. A glass of hot mead, mulled wine…” Astarion smirked as she opened her eyes wide, he knew that mentioning food, potatoes in particular, would do the trick.

“Well. Fine,” Tali finally relented, her hands reaching up to him with lethargic waggling fingers as he stood to pull her all the way to her feet.

They collected their belongings waiting at the base of the tree and Astarion dug a cloak out from her pack for her, placing it on her shoulders before they made their way back to the road in silence. Tali grabbed his hand as they ventured forth once again.

“We’d have been hand in hand getting the hells out of Evereska too, I think,” she said after some time, and he was amused that the subject was still on her mind, especially after putting the idea of hot buttered potatoes and mead in there. Astarion looked down at her, her rose hued eyes bleary but as spirited as always.

“Darling, they’d have been lucky if we didn’t burn the entire damned place to the ground before we left,” he said with a dismissive wave of his free hand and Tali laughed out loud.

“Oh, so lucky.”

The simple life would have never been for them, not in any way, shape or form. But perhaps if fate had brought them together so long ago they would have had an amazing century with one another, running all over Faerûn, getting into gods only knew what mischief. If only things had been different. If only he hadn’t died in Baldur’s Gate, hadn’t suffered for two hundred godsdamned years…

Tali squeezed his hand tightly, bringing him back from his dark thoughts once again.

Everything leading up to that moment is what they were given. Nothing could change the horrors of the past, but hand in hand they could now do their best to make up for all that lost time.

With Tali by his side everything would be alright.

#bg3 fanfiction #bg3 #headcanons #astarion x tav #astarion x oc #astarion x original female character #astarion x f!tav #astarion fanfic #astarion romance #astarion #God how many times can I write his name in one place #astaaaaariooooooon #snowyfic

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