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Good Men and Monsters by Linnetagain
Fandoms: Baldur's Gate (Video Games), Dracula - Bram Stoker (Novel 1897)
07 May 2024
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Summary
“The world seems full of good men – even if there are monsters in it.” - Bram Stoker, Dracula
Usually, the long climb up the barren hillside means he sees any of his visitors coming long before they reach him. He knows all their faces too, by now; even the villagers who do not attend his services. This man is new.
He is well-dressed. Exceptionally well-dressed. Gale has seen neither cloth nor embroidery so fine since he arrived here. His stark white hair is precisely styled, the curls barely moving in the not inconsiderable wind.
He turns as Gale approaches. His hearing must be astonishing.
Gale almost does a double take. Though the fashion, when he was a boy, was to be pale, he has never seen a man as pale as this. His skin is like porcelain, like so many women would have killed to have been born with. There's something almost uncanny about it, in actuality. On the wind-blown clifftop, it makes him seem like a ghost. A beautiful ghost, undoubtedly. But a ghost, all the same.
“Good morning, and blessings be upon you,” Gale calls. The man’s placid expression twists, for a moment, into something like pain. -
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Summary
“Oh, Gale said to pass on his most fervent apologies, but he drank the last of the coffee this morning.”
“He did what?” Astarion yelps. “That-”
“Now now,” Tara scolds. “I do not tolerate name-calling in my household.”
“He’s my husband, I’ll call him what I like,” Astarion hisses, flopping despondently at the table. Having to eat three times a day is such a pain. The concept of having to make breakfast without having had caffeine momentarily defeats him. -
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Summary
A remix of Act 2 in which Gale gets more of a character arc resolution.
“Gods damn it Gale!”
Astarion leaps over him. The guard, poised to land an entirely excessive final blow to Gale’s skull, topples backwards with a knife in his gut. The second pierces his neck, sending him crashing to the ground. Astarion yanks his blades back, and drops to his knees beside Gale.
“Oh no no no, you are not dying on me now.”
Gale attempts to express something, but it comes out as a gurgle of bloody bubbles. The world swings to the side, black and spinning.
“I swear, if it turns out I did just watch you spend the last of your magic sending your cat back to safety instead of saving your own damn skin-”
The threat remains unfinished. A healing potion trickles between Gale’s lips.
“Tressym,” Gale says, when he can finally trust his voice.
Astarion is still crouched over him, cheeks flushed, sweat running down his brow and someone else’s blood smeared across his cheek. Gale has the sudden urge to kiss him.
“What?”
“She’s a tressym. Not a cat.”
Astarion makes a noise of such furious, pained exasperation that Gale half expects the dagger to end up in his neck next.Series
- Part 1 of First Light