Chapter Text
His luck really was uncannily bad.
Astarion huddled a little further beneath the shade of the tree, feeling the pinpricks of sunlight burning welts into his arm. This godsforsaken little beach had nothing in the way of cover within eyeshot. Not that he was able to see particularly clearly. The sunlight reflecting off the yellow sand felt like daggers in his eyes, and he could only squint around and hope that the blurry dark shapes might resolve into a building he could shelter within.
He pressed his face into his knees, and tried to ignore the way his flesh felt like it was crawling and peeling.
Snatched up from endless servitude, only to find himself captive of another monster. Saved from whatever horrors those monsters had put inside his skull by the ship crashing brutally into the ground. Spared an uncommonly gruesome death, only to find himself burning in the heat of the sun.
The gods had to be toying with him. They simply had to be.
Thankfully, Cazador’s voice in his head was blessedly quiet. Perhaps there was a limit to how far the command held.
That was interesting news. If he survived until nightfall, he very much intended to test that particular theory. Though survival until nightfall seemed a dim hope at this point. It must be hours still, in open daylight.
And even if he could make it to dark, how long could he travel without knowing where he could take sanctuary come dawn?
Gods, it was a mess!
Cazador’s latest punishment still seared at his feet. The flayed flesh would be healable, especially now that the command not to feed had seemingly broken. But that would require catching something, and half-starved and hobbling, he was not exactly in the best position to chase down wildlife.
Of course, with Cazador’s ever-present voice silent, he might avail himself of something rather larger than a squirrel.
In for a penny, as if were.
But no. If he couldn’t chase a squirrel, he could hardly fight a grown man. That was an exceedingly quick way for this foray into freedom to end, and Astarion very much intended to ride this wave as far from Baldur’s Gate as it would take him.
***
Before long, a moving shadow appeared on the edge of his vision, one which he couldn’t help but notice was growing larger.
A blurry hand was raised, and a voice carried across the beach. “Hey there!”
Astarion did not respond, but he also didn’t move. Where could he go after all?
After a moment, and for no reason at all he could fathom, he ducked his head back into his knees. Perhaps it would grant him a few moments more… before this stranger realised what he was.
Of course, he hadn’t seen himself for centuries, but from experience, anything brighter than candlelight was enough to alert all but the most inebriated to the predator in their midst. Fine for prowling the night, and frequenting insalubrious bars, less than useful for evading discovery under the dappled morning sun.
The crunch of the sand told him that the figure stopped directly in front of him.
“Well met, friend!” The figure’s voice was male, a hint of a Baldurian accent, though it was hidden behind something more exotic. A man who travelled. “You were on the Nautiloid too?”
It was barely a question.
Astarion hadn’t seen anyone else aboard. But then he had been in the midst of a deeply embarrassing panic attack at the time. A mindflayer had forced a worm into his eye. He did not exactly have his attention on anything else.
“I was,” he confirmed, and then, because he was sick of shivering in the dark waiting for whatever horror was wending its way towards him, he lifted his head.
The figure in front of him was little more than a silhouette, backlit with sunlight, but Astarion did hear the slight intake of breath, the way the man’s heart rate jumped, just a little.
“Spawn,” the man spat, drawing a blade in what Astarion assumed was very great aplomb from the quality of the movement.
A mercenary. That was quicker than running off to alert the mob, at least. Torches and pitchforks were so prosaic, after all.
“What of it?” Astarion said, deliberately lightly.
“You will die by my blade!” The man raised his sword.
Infuriatingly, Astarion couldn’t see well enough to meet the man’s eyes, but he gave it his very best attempt. The light felt like it was coring its way through to his brain. Perhaps it was. Perhaps his eyes were on fire, or melting down his face.
He would ask, if the man gave him a moment’s respite.
The man did apparently pause, since his blade didn’t instantly smite Astarion’s head from his shoulders.
He should be pleading, he supposed. Trying to find some silvery words to play for time, but he suddenly didn’t have the energy. Dying by some would-be hero’s sword was a better prospect than burning to death in the daylight, or waiting for the illithid worm inside his skull to tear him apart.
It was infinitely better than returning into Cazador’s thrall.
“Get on with it then,” Astarion snapped, when the man still didn’t move.
The man shifted his weight, sword rising and falling. Uncertain and hesitant.
Astarion leaned forward, though it hurt as the patches of sunlight shifted a little to find new parts of his skin to scorch away. “Are you new at this?”
“Honestly, very much the opposite.” The man gave a slight huff. “Monsters are usually a little more… reactive.”
“Well, what exactly would you like?” Astarion clicked his tongue. “I can barely see you, and I can’t move from this spot without bursting into flame. Please do tell me how I should try to defend myself!”
“There’s no need to be like that.”
There was something chiding in his tone, which quite broke all of Astarion’s composure.
“Excuse me! You’re the one waving a sword around and calling for my head! Is it too much to ask that you might damn well get on with it!”
The sword drooped a little further. “Have you killed people?”
“A great many,” Astarion spat, “hundreds of thousands! Millions! Now would you please just…”
Astarion couldn’t quite bring himself to actually ask for death. He had absolutely no intention of going gentle into the night, if he could at all help it, and death had spit him back once before, after all.
The man still hadn’t moved to strike. “Spawn,” he said, “did the mindflayers..?”
“Of course they did.” Astarion sighed dramatically, and rested his hand demurely across his heart. “A parasite infecting a monster, what a boon for a mercenary hero! Two birds, as they say.”
Astarion heard the creak of leather as the man shifted his posture. A familiar prelude to violence which did not come.
“It would be a mercy,” the man said quietly.
“Of course it would,” Astarion let the sarcasm positively drip from every word. From his seated position, he bowed as obsequiously low as he could manage. The drops of sunlight found new flesh to sear, as he exposed the back of his neck temptingly towards the blade. “Just another little pest exterminated.”
He could hear the man breathing. Hear the shift of his feet against the sand.
Astarion closed his eyes.
The collar of his jerkin was yanked upwards. Astarion gave an involuntary little yelp and then hissed as he was deposited on his raw feet.
“You’ll not meet my blade, spawn. Not yet.”
The man sheathed his sword, still holding on to Astarion like he was a scruffed cat. He was close enough that Astarion could make out dark skin, and fine clothes, even in the bright light.
Astarion sighed. “Then what are you…” A nasty little thought entered his head. “Are you going to drag me into the sun? You’re going to let me burn!”
His voice reached a pitch he would definitely be embarrassed about if he wasn’t filled with such indignation, but the man didn’t drag him anywhere. In fact, the man stopped abruptly.
“Of course not,” he said, as though he should be the one affronted. “I won’t… What’s your name?”
“Astarion.”
Because, at this point, what could he possibly have to lose?
“Astarion,” the man said, “you have my word that you’ll be treated fairly. If I have to…” The man trailed off again. Too squeamish to even say the godsdamned words. “If it comes to it, it will be quick, I promise you.”
“Oh, my hero.”
The man let go of his collar. “Wyll, will do.”
Astarion pulled his doublet straight as indignantly as he could, and gave a nasty little bow. “Charmed, my lord.”
Astarion still couldn’t make out much in the way of details with the light reflecting off the pale sand, but he did hear Wyll’s annoyed little sigh.
“Come on,” Wyll said.
Astarion snapped back up. “What?”
“I promised I wouldn’t let you burn, spawn, and there’s perhaps an hour or two until this bit of shade disappears in the noonday sun. I’ll figure out what I’m going to do with you later.”
Astarion rolled his eyes. “Ah, wonderful, a morning’s reprieve. And how exactly do you propose I cross the expanse of fiery death in front of me?”
Wyll was moving around now, rustling with his pack and apparently rearranging his clothes.
“Would a cloak help?” Wyll said.
“Oh yes, of course!” Astarion laughed, for the first time in a very, very long time. “For the last thousand years, no vampire ever thought of just buying a cloak! How could we have been so foolish? A cloak would’ve solved all those silly problems with daylight.”
Astarion broke off with a squawk as a hand lashed out next to his face. But there was no blow. Just a quiet, ‘sorry’, and the draping of fabric around his shoulders. The hood was pulled up, plunging his eyes into blessed shade, and allowing him to at least get a better look at his new companion.
Young, as Astarion had thought, wearing a fine half-padded leather jerkin, inset with scarlet brocade. Not the armour of a typical two-bit mercenary, but a fighter nonetheless. He had apparently lost an eye at some point. But he didn’t move like a predator, or like a thug.
“There’s a cabin,” Wyll said. “Just off the beach. Looks abandoned, but solid. Enough to provide you some cover.”
“Why?” Astarion said, sharply.
He oughtn’t be arguing if Wyll had apparently decided to spare him for the moment, but there were any number of awful, terrible things that a man could do with a captive in a locked cabin. Astarion had experienced a great many of them, and his imagination could conjure up a great many more.
Wyll looked at him, good eye running over Astarion’s face. “I don’t know,” he said, in a tone Astarion was inclined to believe. “But I can’t countenance killing you when you can’t fight back.”
Astarion clicked his tongue.“A hunter who won’t kill the wolf in his trap.”
“Not my trap,” Wyll said simply. He leaned forward to grasp at Astarion’s elbow. “On three…”
“Wait,” Astarion said, realising abruptly that he was about to run blindly into the fire. “I don’t know where we’re going!”
The man pointed into the expanse of white. “There.”
“I can’t see,” Astarion hissed.
“It’s not far,” Wyll said, like that was the problem, “if we sprint, we can make it in twenty seconds or so.”
“I. Can’t. See.”
“I’ll guide you,” Wyll said simply. He ran his eye over Astarion again, and from the expression on his face, what he found was less than satisfactory. “You need proper cover from the sun.”
Astarion didn’t doubt it. If landing in full sunlight on the beach was like getting stuck inside a roasting oven, then sitting in the shade of the tree was at the very least akin to being slowly baked. Still, twenty seconds could be an awfully long time. Time was a traitorous thing, with a tendency to betray when you most needed it to keep its measure.
“It’ll be fine,” Wyll said. “I’ll see you into cover, and then we’ll decide what comes next.”
Astarion wasn’t likely to survive long enough to see what would come next. Still, he was sick of waiting for things to happen to him. If he burned up in the sunlight, then at least he would have stepped into it freely.
He would die free from his master’s grasp, and oh, how it would irk Cazador! How it would gall him!
“Alright, monster hunter,” Astarion gave his most gracious bow, “on your mark.”
“That’s the spirit,” Wyll rested his hand against Astarion’s elbow. Squeezed in time with his count. “One, two, three!”
Astarion sighted where Wyll had pointed, and then lurched forward. The light was like daggers. He scrunched up his eyes. Couldn’t have kept them open if he’d tried. Deep, deep in the core of his bones came a screeching, screaming instinct to flee. To drop. To howl.
Because he was ablaze, and the clawing beast within him demanded he writhe. Put out the flames. Crawl back into the dark.
His ankles gave way. He shrieked.
The grip on his arm tore flesh.
The sand shredded at his fingertips as he grabbed handfuls. Digging, like he could burrow into the earth.
Arms hauled him backwards, and his voice broke from the screaming.
He thrashed against the hands holding him, against the fire.
He writhed until the hands dropped him. Cracked his jaw against the ground. Ripped his fingernails out against the boards, scrabbling into the darkness in front of him. Still burning.
Still aflame.