#i'm 16 episodes in and I would die for Metrion ok (I would die for them all but especially him) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nirikeehan · 8 months

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"aftersome adj. astonished to think back on the bizarre sequence of accidents that brought you to where you are today — which makes your long and winding path feel fated from the start, yet so unlikely as to be virtually impossible." for Thaliaaaa perhaps?

Okay, listen. This one is weird, but maybe I'm planning a Dragon Age/Curse of Strahd crossover and sometimes you just wanna smush two blorbos from two different pieces of media together and see what they do. Like introducing cats.

For @dadrunkwriting

WC: 1202

Metrion belongs to the incredible Curse of Strahd: Twice Bitten podcast which, as far as I can tell, has absolutely no fanfic to its name. Until now I guess 🤷‍♀️

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“Sit, and we can make you presentable, yeah?”

Thalia sits. The cottage is ramshackle and abandoned, one of many in this desolate Nevarran backwoods, the misty, wild place known as Barovia.

“If he knows you by the tattoo,” the man says, “we can take away the tattoo, easy peasy.”

He’s a strange man, the one whose company she has found herself in. Young like her, she thinks, with tan skin and dark hair. He used an affected posh accent she saw through right away, which he has since dropped. What remains — a cockney reminiscent of Free Marcher peasants, is more authentic. He speaks in a nervous mumble almost always. There are times she thinks him selfish — when they fought wolves together on the road he dove for the bushes and shot timidly with a crossbow — but others, like now, she detects a hint of what could be compassion.

“Did you always want to be a magician?” Thalia asks, eying the array of stage makeup he sets out on a rotting table.

He shrugs, not looking at her. “You do what you’re good at, right?”

“I suppose.” Thalia chews her lip. “But what I do and what you do seem a little different. I could never just travel around, doing magic tricks for entertainment.”

Metrion smirks. “Why not? Cause you’re a highborn lady?” The posh accent is back, mocking her own inflection. He reaches out, takes her chin. “Here, look this way, love.”

His fingers are long and thin, hands covered by black gloves that must be needed in this constant damp chill. She frowns at an odd patch of magenta poking out between sleeve and glove on his wrist. Thalia is forced to look away, staring deep into his unsettling yellow eyes.

“It’s not that,” she says as he scrutinizes her complexion. “In my neck of the woods, real mages weren’t allowed to roam free at all.”

“You sayin’ I’m not a real mage?” Metrion shoots back, feigning hurt.

Thalia tries not to roll her eyes. “You’re an actor, that’s clear as day.”

“Can it only be one or the other?” A twitchy smile. He has long incisors; one is inlaid with gold and seems to wink at her in the dim light.

“Are you inviting me to join your act?” Thalia asks playfully.

“Yeah. Definitely. We can be Metrion the Magnificent and Thalia the— the—”

“Thrilling?” she supplies.

“Yeah. I like that.” He frowns at his makeup kit. “Right. You’re paler’n me, so I’m gonna have to do some blending, but I should be able to manage it. Gonna need you to hold real still, though.”

Apprehension threads through Thalia. She remembers the day, many years ago, she had to sit very still for another man, one who had needles and ink instead of sponges and pigment. “—Won’t hurt you,” Metrion adds quickly, as if sensing her discomfort. “I’m a real pro with this stuff, I promise.”

“Yes. Of course.” Thalia shifts in her seat, wringing her hands. Her palms begin to sweat. She thinks of the long series of bizarre events that led her to this moment, in the hands of someone who should, by all accounts, be a charlatan. Yet the touches on her cheekbone and brow are light and practiced, and against her will she relaxes.

“It’s quite a piece of art, this ink,” he murmurs, perhaps to put her further at ease, but Thalia only tenses. He blinks. “Sorry. Meant it as a compliment.”

“I know,” Thalia breathes. “It’s not you.”

“I’m a bit of an amateur tattooist myself, but ah, never did nothing like this.”

With each swipe of his sponge, Thalia imagines the tattoo disappearing from her face, leaving her right eye unmarred for the first time in a decade. “I didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter.”

Metrion’s hand freezes. “Seriously?”

“I mentioned that in my neck of the woods, mages couldn’t just roam free.” She chews her lip. “We were confined to a place called a Circle of Magi. This was the security measure in mine, to make sure we didn’t escape.”

“Shit.” A long silence. “You really ought to come to the Sword Coast, we don’t have nothing like that there.”

Thalia lets out a slow breath. “It’s all right. Things have changed there, somewhat. Mages have more freedom now, though there’s always reminders of the old ways.”

“Yeah. I get that.” Metrion continues dabbing and swiping at her face, brow furrowed with a troubled line between them. “And I know a thing or two, about things done to you against your will.”

“Do you?” Thalia says skeptically. “You don’t… strike me as a man who would stick around for that sort of punishment.” She pauses. “No offense.”

Metrion bows his head over the makeup kit, eyes obscured by the hair falling into his face. Peeking out from the headband he wears are wisps of hair that shine white in the torchlight. He’s awfully young to be going grey, she thinks, but then again, she can’t speak to the life he’s lived, no more so than he can for her.

“’S that a polite way of calling me a coward?” The hurt in his voice, this time, is real.

Thalia tries to protest, but he cuts her off. “No, no, maybe you’re right, a little bit. Or a lot. I dunno. Fuck. I never wanted to be in this place. It’ll wear you down, break you, faster’n you can run. We been told the devil knows our every move, that it’s all a game to him. That we’ll stay alive as long as we keep things interesting. But I dunno if painting your face would make much of a difference in the long run, if he’s got an eye on ya.”

Metrion sounds mournful, apologetic, as if trying to break bad news as gently as he can. Thalia reaches out, with a pang of sympathy, and touches his elbow through his long overcoat. He freezes, dares to meet her gaze only briefly before averting it again.

“He must have a weakness,” Thalia says. “Everyone does.” How can she explain to him that she once stood down a man who would be god? What’s one more vampiric tyrant, in the face of someone like Corypheus?

“Dunno about him,” Metrion mumbles, sighing.

“Still,” Thalia insists, trying to smile, “I appreciate that you’re trying.”

“Yeah. Yeah. ’S all we can do, I guess, in the long run. Lie down and die, or try to live.” He shakes his head as if to clear it and snaps shut his makeup kit. “On that cheery note — you’re all set, love.”

“Thank you,” Thalia says softly. “Have you got a looking glass I can borrow? I’m… curious.”

He gives her a small hand mirror caked with layers of dust and pigment. Thalia squints past it, to the pallid face beyond. Her cheeks look gaunter than she remembers, her eyes a ghostly blue. But the tattoo has vanished as if it never existed, and she turns her face this way and that in wonder.

“Maybe you are a real magician after all,” she whispers, and he looks at her with eyes so raw she worries he might cry.

#thalia trevelyan #metrion the magnificent #dragon age drunk writing circle #curse of strahd: twice bitten #curse of strahd au #i'm 16 episodes in and I would die for Metrion ok (I would die for them all but especially him)#it's criminal how obscure this podcast is i HAD TO TRY WRITING SOMETHING #thedas and the forgotten realms can totally be in the same universe right #it's the baldur's gate connection #the sword coast is the western coast of thedas no one knows about #barovia is in nevarra #no i won't be taking questions at this time

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