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Time in Reithwin is a strange thing.
Bittersweet: after so many years under Cazador’s control; bittersweet, really, because Reithwin still sits in stasis—a hundred years of inactivity, destruction and desolation; and he: a walking corpse among Reithwin’s memories.
Reithwin feels like disobedience, but:
Cazador’s bones are buried in the bowels of the Gate where Cazador belongs; he is... free. It is a whispered reminder to him each and every night when terrors creep through the lingering shadows to infiltrate his trances; whispered: by himself, by Halsin.
There’s moments when it’s as if he’s living nothing more than an elaborate dream but no, freedom is his, and will always be his... to an extent.
In the aftermath of the Netherbrain’s defeat: weightless, his body soared: no tadpoles, no deranged Absolutists, Mindflayers, Bhaalists, Cazador and no looming threat of complete Realm annihilation.
On the dock, he stood with the others, joy so sweet it felt like rapture, even in the absence of his beloved Bhaal-babe—and for a split second, he was, gods, hopeful, foolishly optimistic even in light of the hollow drag of loss, grief; and then: up came the sun and the reality of Cazador’s incurable blight.
His only solace lied in the putrid filth of the sewers with the same sorts of rats he would’ve given anything to have a drink from a year prior. It felt as if he were thrown back in time: back to when Cazador first changed him, back when all he knew of his past life was replaced by sadistic compulsion and a sickening obedience in the face of Cazador’s brutal punishments; and—;
Somehow, Halsin found him, saved him, hesitated not one bit at the grime and stench covering him. The relief in Halsin’s voice... he was thrown back to the wreckage of the Nautiloid, standing amongst flames and bodies and brains in the full glow of the sun: his future, it felt endless at his fingertips. Halsin: on the outskirts while he did the waltz of madness with his Bhaal-babe, but always: there, watching, supporting, yearning—still, accepting Halsin’s offer to follow him to the Shadow Cursed Lands felt... damning; like sacrificing all he could have been to instead... slum it, but as Halsin led him to the Elfsong under the cloak of night, he realized:
Cazador always called him stupid, naive—and he was: there was never any way he would’ve been able to stay with the others in the midsts of their own personal journeys. The Gate was never meant to be his to find redemption in; but with Halsin, in Halsin’s life, heart: yes.
They met with the others, one last time after a few days of rest; Halsin: anxious, eager to find himself in the rehabilitation and nurturing of orphans; it is a long gathering, yet not long enough.
Vampirism: a hinderance, a curse on the soul carefully curated to breed isolation, cruelty.
Ascension: a balm, a chance at being... normal again. It would have been nice, but as he sat at the rickety table squished in tight between Wyll and Halsin’s thick arms, he thinks of:
Cazador: of moodiness that overtook him unexpectedly, predictably, of the pangs of anguish that drifted through the compulsion bond that were nearly indistinguishable from his own; and he thinks of:
His blood-thirsty love: drowning in the torrents of confusion, chained yet dancing freely in the shadows of madmen and violent compulsions.
Before he and Halsin leave, Gale pulls him to the side with a parting gift dug up from his treasure trove of artifacts in Waterdeep: a gold ring, metal twisted to mimic the shape of withered rose thorns; (It’s not enough to cure the vampirism, I’m afraid, Gale says, apologizes, but—);
A few hours of dawn and dusk, before the sun becomes to much... it’s the greatest gift he’s ever received.
With reclaimed autonomy, his first choice is to give himself to Halsin’s cause.
Wagons full of orphans: nowhere to go, forever torn from the arms of their loved ones lost in the foolish ambitions of beings madder than Cazador, (eyes, glowing, stuck behind the gilded bars of Cazador’s cells, children, babies, the lot of them).
“We can only do what we can,” Halsin tells him once they’ve settled into their semi-permanent housing at the Last Light. “No amount of care will negate their losses or the pestilence left behind by Ketheric’s insanities. It is... a terribly daunting thought,” a breath, slow: “But the most vulnerable will still need protection.”
Warm light dips Halsin in softness and it’s a struggle not to fall back on his old routines—seduction, lying because he’s here for a reason, Halsin wanted him for a reason. Halsin: selfless, foolish: he gives himself so freely with not a thought spared for himself, has no issues of baring his neck, shoulder and providing blood, has no issues with teeth in his neck and a writhing vampire on his lap, in his bed and it’s;
It’s alluring, it’s... infuriating, confusing.
None of the history and the destruction of Reithwin is Halsin’s burden to bear alone but Halsin shifts himself into the role of alderman thrusted upon him as if it were nothing but an additional wildshape. If anyone were to ever ask, he’d say that the brutality of battle never suited Halsin—but this: a guiding light that stands strong in the shadows, doling out gentleness and patience carried over from his Archdruid days.. it suits him rather nicely.
But even with the help of the druidic circle of the Gate, the Selûnites sent to assist on Isobel’s insistence, the Harpers that find their way to Reithwin from every inch of Faerûn thanks to Jaheira... it is a monumental task.
The lot of them do what they can to chop away at the remnants that saturate the land: the stench of Shar: it sits in the gnarled branches that split collapsed buildings, her teachings in the blood drenched soil that sits underneath cracked cobblestone, the voice of her creed in the air that carries the cries of lives long lost.
The only bright side in the mess of logistics—the sun still can’t penetrate the darkness fully.
Endless disasters, the first few weeks: the land, it’s healing, but there’s still much to be done... manual things; he’s not so proud as to pretend there’s just certain aspects of himself he’ll ever have: he fakes it, naturally, (—yes, why, of course I’ll help repair the floors—yes, of course I’ll help build the bed—yes, of course I’ll help patch the walls); but the last straw is when he has an unfortunate encounter involving a hammer and a blister full of borrowed blood underneath his thumb.
From then on, he vehemently opposes any form of physical labor—(It takes a village, Halsin says, eyes puppy-dog soft,)—but he offers up his body in other ways, finding better uses for the skills he needed to survive the Gate, Cazador. In an abandoned tailors’ shop, he sets up with a halfling from Waterdeep and together, they mend the rips and tears of all those who have need for repairs. He perfects the art of spreading even coats of paint on newly constructed drywall and, gods: he even learns how to cook for all the little orphan kiddies thanks to a moth eaten recipe book found in the basement of the Waning Moon.
Cooking... it isn’t as easy as Gale made it out to be but with a little practice and guidance from one of the elders, he gets... well enough: the food stops sticking to the bottom of the pots, the children complain less and everything generally looks edible instead of like something scraped from the bottom of a worg cage.
Oh, how Cazador and Petras would laugh: a cooking vampire.
He and Halsin: they get closer, inevitable, really. It’s not unexpected given the general proximity they keep but it feels... too perfect to comprehend. It’s far from the storybook romances he and Wyll used to talk about after indulging in a few too many sips from bottles of swill pilfered from their travels, but Halsin treats him... honey sweet, spring soft. Halsin... listens, cares, and somewhere along the line, loving Halsin becomes the easiest thing he could’ve learned to do in Reithwin.
It’s very different from a life full of seducing, stealing, killing, but with every small success he brings back to their room that’s slowly begun to categorize itself into home, Halsin beams at him with the full force of Lathander’s Light.
The choice is made to make the House of Healing habitable—the orphans need proper shelter, even in the wreckage. While the structure and the land is rancid with memories of Malus Thorm, of torture, tainted ambitions—it’s the only building large enough to house them. The operation theater gets boarded up with planks of oak and warding spells get placed on the steps that lead to the theater seating and thus, a makeshift home it becomes.
It takes a while for things to go from tragically depressing to half-decent.
Halsin learns new skills of his own: making more and more elaborate furniture to suit the village’s needs, crafting the perfect bedtime story that keeps the children’s attention, deciphering the words of six of them talking all at once, answering the endless questions on the why’s and how’s of every thing the children’s curious eyes and ears find interesting.
The children, they’re little hellions more days than not, but he becomes... quite fond of them, in his own way—even if they settle on ‘Mister Ancunín’ for him. It’s strange to hear it from tiny little creatures instead of from the monotone bleakness of Cazador’s thralls; strange, but not all unpleasant.
‘Daddy Halsin’, they call Halsin; (Lay down with me, Daddy Halsin, he whispers in the air, back arched as he tugs at Halsin’s hand, basking in the gold shimmer he sees)—Halsin never corrects them and it’s... adorable, how the role of a father wraps Halsin up in an boyish sort of softness.
Each day: genuine joy, satisfaction etched on Halsin’s face when Halsin comes back to their small shared room, yet there’s: exhaustion too, deep sleeps instead of trances, grays that make themselves known with each passing month because the children hear nothing of the murmured concern behind closed doors: complications with the clerics’ spells not doing enough, shadows that intensify instead of dissipating—but he does hear: the concerns, the worry in Halsin’s voice, the fragile optimism he laces into his words.
Halsin: so adept at taking care of other people when there’s none of that same consideration for his own well-being. It makes him want to, Hells, coddle him, protect Halsin from himself—which makes things a tad bit complicated on his end.
While he may have escaped from Cazador and the terrors of his Palace, memories: they make a home in the narrow recesses of his mind like Wraiths: prowling during moments of silence for a sliver of vulnerability; memories: they grab him with frost-bitten darkness, dig their claws into him and replace what little he’s been able to cultivate with the ghosts of serpentine threats and rattling bones.
Halsin... deals with enough as is—he isn’t here to be a burden, so in the words of his tragic love: he pulls his wretched self together, bit by bit.
Time in Reithwin is: strange, yes, but it makes him... hopeful.
A year and a handful of months and life... continues.
He’s gone soft; if he stops to ponder it for too long during his rare moments of inactivity—it’s all terribly domestic. He doesn’t... mind, contrary to what he might grumble about when their dark days turn into even darker nights and every inch of his body aches like it hasn’t since falling from the damned sky.
A year and a handful of months and Halsin’s blood, affections: it lives inside of him, keeps him functioning.
Practically married, the two of them, in every sense of the except for names, rings—though, that thought hardly bothers him as much as it should. Halsin always wanted to be a father, and he always... well.
Still, he’d no sooner cut his tongue out than let that piece of contemplation slip from his mouth into Halsin’s ears, though.
A year and a handful of months, and he’s starting to think of the children as his own with the exasperated sort of affection that comes with too much exposure.
Tonight, they manage to leave with only an extra story or two negotiated out of Halsin. There’s nothing he wants more than to flop face first into the bed that smells like them both, trance, then work on repairing the rapidly rising mountain of clothes, blankets, stuffed toys.
No one ever told him children were so accident prone. He can feel the aches in his fingers already.
He groans, rubbing the tension out of his shoulders as Halsin closes the front doors of the House of Healing tightly behind them, murmured blessing on his lips.
“Far be it for me to try and monopolize your time, darling, but I will be very thankful when we manage to find some place closer. A place of our own would be preferable to making this trek every single night.”
Of our own—peacetimes have softened him terribly.
“As will I, little one,” Halsin agrees, shifting the satchel on his shoulder higher. “I apologize that the task has... regrettably, fallen to the way side. It is still a priority, trust me, just...”
Halsin’s voice: soft, sad, as if Halsin not giving him the home he confessed on wanting in a moment of vulnerably is another burden for him to carry. He rolls his eyes, even as he reaches down to lace their hands together: “You don’t have to apologize,” and Halsin’s eyes shine, even in the fog. “What we have now is fine. You should know how fussy I am by now, pet.”
Halsin’s face twists up with a smile and domesticated he may be, he can’t resist the urge to poke.
“But perhaps a castle, one even better than Moonrise ever was, naturally. I have faith in you.”
The curse isn’t so severe as to need the aid of pixies just to maneuver through Reithwin and the clerics have done some wonderful whimsy street lamp business that makes the shadowed fog that creeps in from the Chionthar less eerie... but it’s still not something he enjoys. This part of the night, he hates it, in fact—when the twenty minute walk feels hours long as darkness curls towards them, seeking life.
Twenty minutes of travel: practically a leisurely stroll compared to that damned journey from the ravaged beach back to the Gate, but even with Halsin’s presence, there’s something about Reithwin that sets his hair on end.
He half-listens while Halsin talks about the children, mind preoccupied on the long list of things he’ll have to do for the next tenday: tracking down suitable substitutions for the pickiest of children who’ve suddenly decided they absolutely cannot eat the same things they’ve been eating which more than likely means a visit to Rivington, he’ll have to make a few sets of baby clothes, put some time aside to mend most of Halsin’s clothes since the brute can’t ever take care with his village duties without ripping something in the process and—,
A smile, secret: he’s got the inner musings of a regular housewife. Comical, that a vampire should be so concerned with the matters of the metaphorical house but there is... calm in the routine. Perhaps there was some validity in Gale’s insane labor claims over all the cooking and clean up.
They’re a few feet away from the crumbled remains of the Sharran Sanctuary statue when Halsin stops short with a small, “oh.”
Nothing good ever comes from a small “oh.”
He turns, eyes narrowed—“Oh?”; in Halsin’s hand, a tiny stuffed displacer beast toy. He remembers fixing that one in particular last night for Yaza: broken horns, eyes that seem in a perpetual state of producing a torrent of tears.
“This was in the satchel,” Halsin says. “I seem to have forgotten to give it back to Yaza. I must return it at once.”
He scoffs. “Halsin, you cannot be serious. One single night of not having her stuffed toy isn’t going to—,”
Kill her.
A terrible turn of phrase.
He knows it, and the way Halsin’s eyes narrow in that dangerous way he hasn’t seen since dealing with Kagha lets him know Halsin knows too.
“Fine, fine,” he sighs. “Go. I’ll just. Wait here, shall I?”
Halsin shuffles off back to the House of Healing with a promise, “I won’t be long, my heart,”; and then: he’s alone.
He’s gotten better at being still in silence but as he idles, walks in mindless little paths, it still makes him feel as if he’s stuck inside of his skin instead of wearing it. Much like Reithwin, remnants of Cazador seem to persist.
He occupies himself with the Shar statue; it’s a rather hideous thing: Shar: nothing more than a sham goddess with terrible aesthetics as far as he’s concerned. He never understood Jenevelle’s obsession, devotion: Gods, they’re selfish—nothing good ever comes from them, even in one’s darkest moments.
The druids, clerics, barbarians: they’ve all tried their best to tear the damned thing down, but it’s as if the statue sinks into Reithwin like those gods awful roots. Shar sits shattered, cracked, but still firmly stuck—a little too on the nose when one takes into consideration her influence along the Sword Coast.
It’ll be nothing short of a blessing once they topple the ghastly thing.
He turns his mind back to his itinerary: there’s still many shops in Reithwin with secrets and he knows there to be some rather nice fleece that hasn’t been sacrificed sitting in the store closets at the Last Light. There’s enough of it that, in the event there’s scraps, he could finally make a blanket big enough to cover both him and Halsin.
Perhaps that trip to Rivington could be for other things: dye would be rather nice and as the alderman, Halsin has control over their small cache of coins in reserves so it shouldn’t be,
Insolent little rat⁏—
Insolent little rat⁏—
Serpentine venom in his ear, a rusted knife slicing through his skin: dangerous, deadly.
It would be preferable if he startled; instead, ice drips down from his head to his toes.
Cazador. Cazador is dead. He was the one that plunged that stupid pretentious dagger straight through his non-beating heart. He was the one that felt the ties of compulsion splinter and snap like brittle wood.
There’s no reason he should be hearing Cazador’s voice; and yet: close, too close,
You dare forget who you belong to?
You dare forget your father’s teachings, child?
Cazador.
Cazador is dead, and yet: shadows move, drift.
He would’ve, would’ve felt it before now. It’s just the shadows: they play all sorts of tricks; but it can’t be a trick when he feels the cold drag of Cazador’s fingers, tongue against his neck, face;
⁏—You truly forget my power?
He screams, spins, spins stumbles falls, right over the broken bits of the hideous Sharran Sanctuary statue and flat on his ass. His palms get scraped from the impact, but he hardly feels it, can hardly feel anything except the sharp pillars of fear pushing their way through his chest.
Silence.
Gods.
Gods.
“Halsin?” he calls out; his voice: weak, and he hates it, hates how the absence of the moon makes the shadows hungry even with the streetlights.
“Halsin?” and he stands, on legs too shaky, too strange, and he’ll, he’ll find Halsin. It’s not too far of a walk from the statue to the House of Healing—he can get there in short order, and then, he can, can meet Halsin, and then they, they can make their way back to the Last Light and;
Hands, more hands, too many hands, gripping, grabbing, hard enough to burn and he, he screams, slaps the phantoms away and then:
Cazador: pale, eyes blood red, blinding—hate, so much hate on that timeless face. Cold, freezing; his heart cracks, breaks as Cazador gets closer: he’s going back, away from Halsin, and this time, this time he doesn’t have his Bhaal-babe to save him, doesn’t have Wyll or Karlach or gods, Minthara, doesn’t have improbable and insane optimism on his side and,
Halsin, Halsin’ll never realize: he’s never been shy about his cowardice, not to Halsin and he doesn’t know what hurts worse—not knowing if Halsin would look for him or let him be ‘free’; and it’s that: the idea of losing all that he’s managed to created that was never supposed to be his in the first place that makes him run blind, scream, even as roots curl around his ankles, even as the frigid air around him seeps inside, even as:
First, thou shalt not drink the blood of thinking creatures⁏—faster, thorns digging in through his trousers, tearing, ripping,
Second, thou shalt obey me in all things⁏—tears, his, freezing: shackles, Godey’s gods awful rattling, rattling rattling always rattling tepid filth desperation tears screams pleas;
Third, thou shalt not leave my side unless directed⁏—searing pain down his back, Cazador’s murmurs, Cazador’s purring, delighted by all the pretty sounds he makes: the first time, the second time, the third time, the fourth fifth sixth again and again againgagainagain—
Fourth, thou shalt know that thou art mine, forever⁏—the fog, it parts, freedom, even as Cazador’s laugh slips against his skin and against his mouth, even as the taste of Cazador slides down his throat even as,
A hand, it grabs him by the cuff of his shirt and yanks him back hard enough the tear the fine threading of his shirt.
He screams, wails, begs: please, please, please,
⁏—You will burn, you will burn you will burn you will burn for me, boy!—
...and through the haze: Halsin, real, Halsin, familiar: “Astarion!”
And it’s, it’s another trick, all of this, just. Delusions. Cazador’s twisted use of his powers, of their compulsion connection: no Netherbrain, no tadpoles, just, him, in the kennels, alone, alone gods, alone, gods, help except:
arms. warmth;
He’s pulled into cinnamon spice, into musk and sweat, into the smell of dried oak and sunshine. There’s a heart underneath his chest, real, loud, thump-thump-thump.
“Astarion,” Halsin says, voice quiet, loud in the silence. “Calm yourself, I’m here, I’m here.”
And Cazador can’t know, can’t know how Halsin sounds, how the vitality of him feels; and he’s: gasping, sobbing, twisting his fingers into the fabric of Halsin’s shirt because it’s,
It’s the fog. Of course it’s the fucking fog. This blighted land: it fights for its machinations and sadism. Decades of it; how foolish to think it’d vaporize with a little bit of tender love and care.
Halsin holds him, whispers the same nonsense he whispers to the children when they suffer from nightmares, flashbacks; (Trauma responses... more often than not they are illogical fears rooted in reality, Halsin says, and he bites down on his cheek, ignores the urge to lash out, because he’s seen, knows, and gods, they’re talking about the children);—but even at his age, he is no better than a babe.
“I am so sorry,” Halsin says, whispers, as if scared. “I should not have left you, but we must... we must move from this place. It is not safe. For either of us, but especially to you, my heart.”
A creak.
A moan.
Wood snaps, screams.
Silence.
Halsin’s breathing: a whisper, no louder than a lazy push of wind. When he finds the strength to turn in the cradle of Halsin’s arms:
Behind him, the tatters of a dilapidated bridge: missing planks, stones cracked. Underneath: the dark currents of the Chionthar, deprived of a meal.