Chapter Text
The two druids share a look that you cannot interpret. They look less surprised than you were expecting; they certainly seem less surprised than you felt when you yourself discovered the truth of Astarion’s split soul. Halsin simply sighs, nods, and passes a hand over his tired eyes.
“That makes sense,” he says.
“It does?”
It does, of course. You know it does. But only because you’ve heard the whole story from Astarion’s own lips. You weren’t expecting this much acceptance from your companions, and certainly not so quickly.
“We knew there must be something. Something that happened to him during the ascension. And there was something off about the man I’ve just put in the cells. The lack of fight, the eyes, the scent… I should go and tend to him soon.”
Those words have your mouth drying out from worry. You swallow thickly, your tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth.
“You said he was safe.” You try to keep the note of accusation from your voice, but you don’t quite manage it.
“So he is. But I could have shown more restraint. Should have shown more restraint. I think, deep down, I was glad for the excuse to lash out.” He sighs again, as if breathing itself is quite the task. “Actions made in anger often lead to regret, but rarely quite so quickly. I’m sorry, Tav. But I doubt there is a person in this grove who would be surprised to hear that there’s some infernal influence at play here. The actions of Lord Ancunín in the past days have been— well, they've been beyond anything I thought possible of the Astarion we knew.”
A tight coldness constricts your chest at his words, making you have to fight for your next breath. For a brief, giddy moment, you wonder if you could live with not knowing. You could just not ask. You could pretend you didn’t hear a word of what Halsin has just said, and you could go on living in the wonderful ignorance of whatever it is that has caused him - sweet, steady Halsin - to appear so world-weary.
It is a nice thought, but you never were very good at letting things be, and the questions break from your lips regardless of the fact you’re quite sure you won’t like the answers.
“What has he done? Where are the others? What happened after I left you?”
Halsin meets your entreating stare, but says nothing, shaking his head as if he doesn’t have the strength to form the words.
“Halsin, please, I have to know—“
“And you will know, in time,” Jaheira cuts in, “but not until we’ve heard your story in full. So you found some lost part of Astarion. Great. Then what? How did you get back here?”
There’s a flintiness in her tone that tells you that striking back might spark a fight that you are in no position to win. You sigh and return to your tale, trying to push the gnawing worry of what your husband might have done in your absence down as you force your mind to focus on your slow escape from the hells.
“Right. So I found Astarion. This Astarion. Well, not this this Astarion— gods above, this is going to be difficult,” you say, pressing your palms into your eyes. When you look back up, both Halsin and Jaheira are watching you expectantly. You force yourself to try again. “Alright. So, Astarion’s soul was split in two by the ritual, and I found the other half in Mephistopheles's citadel. But then, um, he lost his memories. In the Styx. And now he’s… well, he’s still Astarion, I suppose, but he’s different. He doesn’t know about anything much - not about Cazador, or the Absolute, or us, or any of it.”
“Is there anything he does remember?”
“His name. And that he was a magistrate in the city.”
Jaheira does an exceptionally bad job at hiding an eye roll at that.
“I’m sure a little youthful arrogance has done wonders for his personality.”
You grimace. “You could say that.”
“Alright. So we’ve got a useless half of his soul. Then what?”
“Then we tried to make our way back to Abriymoch. I thought you found me, at one point,” you say to Halsin, “but it was just a regular bear.” You say this last part a little apologetically, unsure if it’s rude to mistake infernal beasts for friends, but he doesn’t appear to be offended.
“We were searching for you, of course. Wyll and Karlach were, at least. But we had no way of tracking you down while you still wore that.” Halsin gestures to the circlet that remains on your head. “It was strange, finding some comfort in the fact that if we couldn’t find you, it meant you were at least safe from Lord Ancunín.” He says the name with a sneer that borders on a growl, and the worry tugs at your gut once more.
“Safe from him, perhaps, but not from said bear. I think that must be why that Astarion thinks I’m dead. He saw me after I was attacked by it, in my dreams, or my head, or however it is that he can contact me when I’m unconscious. I was in a pretty bad state.”
Your lip twists at the memory of your guts spilling out from you like pink velvet ribbons, red blood blossoming across your ruined shirt, a pair of pale hands desperately grasping through you as if you were made of air. It conjures a strange mix of emotions: part horror, part hunger. As is so often the case these days, you push the feelings down, trying to stamp them out like the embers of a campfire.
“But you’re alive,” says Jaheira.
“But I’m alive. Well, as alive as an undead thing can be. Astarion - the other Astarion - helped heal me.”
You describe your journey onwards: the blossoming of joy at having found Astarion; your horror of hearing of his torture and his horror at having watched your own; Astarion’s fall in the Styx; your tentative building of trust with the memory-deprived version of him; and how that trust was then shattered by the strange chanting prophecies of the hags.
“It was strange,” you say. “We didn't see a single living thing for days, and then we came across three hags in the middle of nowhere. What were hags even doing in the hells? I always thought they were fey.”
“Night hags, most likely,” says Jaheira, looking thoughtful. “The infernal cousins of the hags of our realm.”
“Can they really tell the future, do you think?”
“I don't know. I may be haggard, but that does not make me knowledgeable in the ways of hags.” She tuts, seemingly irritated at her lack of knowledge, then looks back at you. “Well? What did they say?”
“Something about new masters and rediscovering great power. And lots about threes. Oh, and they said that I'd be the one to kill Astarion, but they also said it was only half true. And I did just drain him half to death, so I suppose…”
Jaheira tuts again. “Anyone could have predicted that. You're a vampire, are you not? That's like prophesying that a pup will chew on its master's shoe.”
“And I'm the dog in that situation, am I?”
“You're the vampire in this situation, cub. Being close to you carries the risk of getting bitten.”
You can't argue with that, as much as you might like to. Hells, even with your belly still full of Astarion's blood you can't deny you've been paying close attention to the thrumming pulse in Halsin’s thick throat this entire conversation. You sigh, nod in reluctant agreement, and continue retelling your journey. You tell them of Lilith, and of Melusine, although the pain from your ordeal with your soul is still a little too raw to touch upon, so you only tell them how she teleported you directly to the grove.
“And then we were here, and, well, you saw the rest.”
Halsin nods gravely as you finish speaking, then gives your arm an affectionate squeeze.
“Thank you for telling us. We've much to discuss, but first, I had better go and check on Astarion—”
“Won't you tell me what's happened with you?” You ask, although you know it's selfish to keep him from Astarion for much longer.
“I can tell you what you want to know,” says Jaheira, waving Halsin away. As he leaves the room, she pats the space beside her on the cot, inviting you to sit beside her. “I'd take a seat if I were you. It's not a pretty tale.”