Chapter Text
It's always alarming when the past comes careening back in the way least expected, and for Soliania Tavariel, her entire world turns upside down the day a dead man walks back into her life. The worst part? He doesn't remember her. But she remembers him. You never forget your first love, and she is no exception. How could she forget someone as entrancing as he, the man she gave up everything for, merely because he asked?
Astarion Ancunín. Aside from the rich red hue to his eyes and the slight scar just barely visible over his shirt collar, he looks the exact same as he had near 200 years prior, the night her world collapsed. The night he died in her arms. Her hands clench the mug tightly as she struggles to level out her breaths and hide the shock on her face. There he is, stupid smile plastered on his lips as he ever so casually leans towards the young human female seated next to him, her chest heaving ever so slightly with her elevated heart rate. He is charming her so effortlessly, a gentle touch here, leaning in just a touch closer there... Soliania finds her gaze being drawn back to his eyes, though. Blood red. Not the piercing blue she remembers so fondly. She shifts ever so slightly in her chair and the movement catches his attention. He looks up at her over the shoulder of his young companion, and their eyes meet. Her heart is pounding in her ears - he's real, he's alive, he's here in front of her right now! He gives her a playful smirk before turning his attention back to the young woman. She quickly drains her mug, slaps coin down on the counter, and all but runs from the tavern.
Alive. After 200 years. And the red of his eyes clueing her in to just what happened to him. Her long lost love is a vampire. And he doesn't remember her. She doesn't know if that's a blessing or a curse. Her feet carry her back to her small home through years of repetition, despite her not being fully present in the moment, wrapped up in her thoughts. She locks the door behind herself as a shuddering breath escapes and she squeezes her eyes shut to prevent the tears threatening to fall. "Astarion," she whispers, her voice catching on his name. A name she hadn't spoken aloud in over a hundred years, since she stopped visiting his grave. "What the hells happened to you?"
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Astarion barely pays attention to the young woman draped across his arm as he makes his way back to his master's mansion. His mind keeps drifting back to that rather attractive high elf he locked eyes with at the bar. The fear and pain he had seen in her eyes, almost like she had recognized him, had him intrigued. He couldn't remember her, he certainly would have remembered running into someone as attractive as her, but it seemed like she remembered him. The thought puzzled him. Did she remember him from...before? She certainly looked like she was old enough to have known him. He barely registers that he's arrived back, just going through his usual motions of knocking on Cazador's door and essentially throwing the young woman at his master. He stands stiffly by the door as his master drinks eagerly from the meal he brought, his fangs aching with desire to join in, the compulsion preventing him from doing so. He shuts out the sloppy sucking noises, retreating to the small corner of his mind that is still just his, where Cazador has yet to invade. His mind wanders back to the elf, her strong piercing eyes, vibrant white hair... not Cazador's type, thankfully. He's so engrossed in his mind that he almost misses his master's command until the compulsion surges through him.
"-clean this mess, boy, and maybe then you'll be allowed to feed. For once, you brought a rather delightful meal." His master's voice cuts through him like an ice cold knife, reaching every part of his being.
"Yes, master. Thank you, master," he replies almost robotically, his body moving before he even registers the command. Cazador always delights in making him clean up after a particularly messy meal, just to taunt and tempt him. He isn't allowed anything other than rats for his own hunger, and more often than not he is left to starve. Cazador likes to see how long Astarion can go without eating, taunting and tormenting him with words and, more often than not, a blade. His screams sound sweetest, his master loves to remind him. Due to his condition, he heals faster, and unless Cazador wills it, like he had with the mess on his back; he heals without a visual trace of what torments he went through. Whatever he does, he does to keep his master happy, to survive. He doesn't remember who he was, before, nearly 200 years ago. Whoever he was, he's sure it was a weak, pathetic creature - he had to have been, for himself to have ended up in the grasp of such a cruel master. He is the oldest spawn, favored, despite the tortures Cazador put him through. Perhaps that is why Cazador treats him so. To remind him that he was the first, the favored child, no matter how imperfect his master insists he is. Cazador demands perfection, in all things, and loves to remind his little star that he is everything but.
By the time he finishes cleaning up the wasted blood, his knees ache from kneeling on the cold stone and there is a tight tension in his muscles, but he ignores the minor discomfort. It has become all too familiar, present on a daily basis and something that reminds him that he is still alive in his undead state. He doesn't know why he keeps fighting - it's been 200 years, if someone were coming to save him, they would have done so by now. Whoever knew him in his past is most likely long dead and forgotten, just like the shell of who he used to be. He is just Astarion, the imperfect spawn, nothing more, and everything less.
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Soliania doesn't sleep. She sits on the window sill of her small two story home, staring out at the full moon hanging low in the sky, sketch book open in her lap and pencil held loosely between her fingers, the blank pages taunting her. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees his face. Those eyes burning right through her. That devilish smirk. Hells, has he been here the whole time? In Baldur's Gate, right underneath her nose? How has she not run into him until now? Tears blur her vision, but she refuses to let them fall. Astarion. It seems a cruel joke, really. Her first love, returned to her but just out of reach, locked behind an immortal curse, a slave to a sanguine hunger. Her heart hurts more than she thought possible, more than it had when she watched his last breath leave. To know that he was here, a prisoner, and she hadn't had a clue... She never told him how she had felt, all those years ago. How she still feels. She rejected countless potential lovers over the years - all had felt inadequate in comparison to the bright light he had shone on her soul.
Taking a deep, shaky breath, she blinks the tears away and drops her gaze to the blank pages before her. Her grip tightens on the pencil and she begins to sketch, from memory, the face of the boy who convinced her to leave all she knew behind for a grand, exciting adventure.