Chapter Text
The air tasted both metallic and sickeningly sweet.
That was Astarion’s first thought after the bloodlust finally faded away, leaving his hands twitching from the withdrawals of that spike in adrenaline.
The smell was a veritable assault on his olfactory senses. Of course, that could also just be the blood in his mouth. He did just consume a copious amount of it—couldn’t help himself as he slit the throats of those he ambushed and ripped out the jugulars of the others who were lucid enough to fight back. It was the first time he had fed in almost four days, and to say that he was ravenous would be a gross understatement.
It had been messy; the blood spray of the second man he had gotten to had soaked his tunic through, and it was most certainly not his preferred way of hunting.
But this hadn’t been a hunt in the first place.
Heaving a sigh, Astarion brushed his bloodsoaked hands down his torso and frowned at the flecks of viscera that stuck to his palms. No chance that he was getting out of here with his shirt on, then. He groaned, a guttural sound lower than his usual voice, before dragging his tongue across his teeth. Something was lodged between his gums and upper lip, and he spat it out onto the ground next to him. It was a fragment of flesh. The skin was still intact, some short strands of brown hair visible against the alabaster white.
The first wave of nausea hit him then, and he bowed over as he heaved. Nothing came back up, just strings of saliva that were tinted pink, but the nausea continued until he keeled over and his hands and knees were digging into dirt softened by gore. In a moment of paranoia, he wondered if it was the silkroot, that cloyingly sweet taste that lingered at the back of his tongue, which was causing this visceral reaction in him. There was probably enough of it to send a human into catatonia in all the blood he drank from those five men.
But then the queasiness passed, and he gulped down the remaining spit swimming in his mouth as he finally dragged his eyes to the carnage in front of him.
Five bodies, each and every one of them shredded and bloodied beyond recognition. Some with chunks of their necks missing, and almost all of them with their torso ruptured and viscera pooling under them.
If Orin the Red were still alive, she probably would have been impressed.
Astarion clenched his eyes shut and banished that thought from his mind.
Of course it wasn’t the silkroot, you fool.
He couldn’t recall ever experiencing a bloodlust like that. Not when he got kidnapped and experienced freedom for the first time in two centuries, not even when he was trapped in that damned coffin and buried for a whole fucking year—but maybe…
Maybe back down in that dungeon, when he—they—faced Cazador, and he had sunk that dagger into the vampire over and over and over again in a blind fit of rage.
But that was different. Wasn’t it?
He had changed.
Hasn’t he?
He flinched, as if wanting to get physically away from that train of thought, and scrambled up from the ground. He didn’t spare the bodies another glance as he pulled his tunic up and over his head and threw it into the far corner of the room. And that’s when he caught sight of it: a green and black cloak, draped over some wooden crates by the stairs.
Astarion would recognise that cloak anywhere. He was the one who noticed it among the slim pickings of the Harper quartermaster at Last Light, after all, the one who watched with amusement—and, secretly, adoration—as she stayed up late to painstakingly dye it in that shade of green and black she liked. He had trailed behind it, watched the woolen fabric flutter with each of her steps as they made their way through the crowded Lower City, careful not to let her out of his sight.
He reached to take it, and his bloodied hands sullied the otherwise spotless cloak. The blood of those who had hurt her. Used her. Touched her.
Almost instantaneously, he felt the familiar blaze of anger lick its way up his insides, yet he felt calmer than he did a moment ago. Anger was good. He could work with anger. He’d much prefer it to whatever the fuck that was just minutes before.
He pulled her cloak over himself and felt a surge of magical warmth enveloping him, a soft buzzing sensation that spread from his head to toe. It was more pleasant than most other enchanted clothing he had ever worn.
Tsk, darling, such pleasant gear and you’d never thought to share?, he thought to himself, almost amused until he remembered that the days of light teasing and banter, of ease between them, were gone. It was a sobering reminder, and he made his way up the stairs out of the basement somberly.
Standing at the threshold of the door, he briefly considered setting the whole place aflame. Let the evidence of all that’d happen here—the bloodbath and all the atrocities that led up to it—burn to cinders.
But then he thought of the mess Jaheira would already have on her hands over this carnage he had caused, and decided that removing arson from the picture would bode better for them all.
If anyone else was foolish enough to come at him after seeing this mess, well…
At least then he would have self-defence as an excuse.