Chapter Text
On their journey to Ethel’s house, Astarion makes good on his vow to drain that blasted bear of everything it has. Not Halsin, but the one that destroyed everything in their camp while they were crypt raiding.
Granted, that was some days ago, and it probably wasn’t the same one. But same difference, no?
When he returns to camp from that particular hunt, the telltale hum of a prayer song reaches his ears, and his eyes naturally land on Mimin. As they often want to do.
She’s somehow grown lovelier these past few days, he thinks, or rather the spawn just notices her intricacies more. Her hands, for example, clasped in meditation right now. Pudgier at the finger pads, sweet stubby claws, akin to the grace of a predator. Her large ears are less comedic and more cutesy, made to be nibbled on. And her spine, uuunf, her spine. He’s of this strange new urge to lick the length of it.
To think, the novelty of her should be wearing off. Even Mimin, herself, has grown bolder – like that one time, where his virginial lover was replaced by a minxy nymph, luring him into an oasis and ravishing him under a willow tree. The first time, her eyes sparkled with night stars. The last, her skin dappled with daylight…
Ahem. Point is, Astarion is all too familiar with her body by now. Yet, some days, he finds himself unable to stop staring. All too hyperaware of her prettiness, drinking in the sight of his paramour, with more indulgence than even he thinks is polite. Obsessing, just a little, the thought of jumping her bones.
It’s invigorating. It’s terrifying.
It doesn’t stop him from practically swan-diving into her neck, “There you are! My favorite acolyte!”
Mimin’s low hum pitches into a squeal as he rocks her, effectively interrupting her worship. It’s only when her night vision focuses that she sighs and goes lax, submitting under his weight with but a small chiding, “If I’m your favorite, you shouldn’t liken yourself to scaring me!”
“You must beware of creepy crawlies, my beloved,” And Astarion is entirely tickled over his own charm, because someone ought to be, as he stretches against the log she’s nearby. Feeling the beast’s vigor move through his veins. “Thankfully, I’ve had my needs met, this evening…”
When he meets her eyes again, he catches a corner of her polite little smile waver.
Eyes unmistakably flicker south.
My, my, my. Astarion gasps in mock-admonishment, leaning – perhaps closer than he needs to - to whisper conspiratorially, “Naughty pup! I meant that I found a bear.”
“I knew that!” she lies, blushing brightly, head whipping to escape from his gaze, tilting away from him just as he threatens to rest against her once more, “What with how bold you’re being. Must’ve been a rather brisk meal.”
“It’s nothing compared to – well…” This close, he takes the opportunity to blow lightly on her neck, feeling how her heart jumps. He’s much too full, but that doesn’t make Mimin any less yummy. “Other things I could be dining on, but significantly better than the rats and bugs Cazador served me.”
…And she turns back again, only to – Oh, don’t have such sad eyes, darling. A part of him wishes he could talk about his life without it weighing so heavy on everyone around, throwing him pity gazes before fumbling to pretend they aren’t. He’s trying to be cheerful, here.
Albeit perhaps he’s doing a poor job, bringing up his former Master at all. Alas, Astarion must be too smart for his own good, prone to thinking too much!
To her credit, the bard does well not to be too glum, offering another weak smile as her hand rises to fuss at his hair – adjusting a curl behind his ear, being doting in replacement of pretty platitudes, “I can only imagine. But no more of that, hm?”
Yes, pretty thing. Touch him more. Make him forget.
“It’s all in the past,” he agrees with a grin, leaning closer still, vying for a kiss, “I’ll never have to grovel for him again.”
Rather, he can have her groveling for him. He’d love to see how she’d react to how endurant he’s feeling. The spawn could bet that he could fuck her absolutely silly, right now –
“And then you can be better than what he made you,” she interrupts the thought, “You can be more.”
“Exactly! I can be better than him,” And that fantasy is a heady one, too. Stealing away his Master’s title and riches for himself, upsurging him of all the power that’s been used against the spawn so. A vampire Lord, perhaps with his own coven, who owns all the sunlight that other vampires can’t touch. Having the most dangerous allies, bathing in the richest blood. Coupled with the power of the tadpole, nobody will be able to touch him. He’ll be the fear of Baldur’s Gate. “Stronger. More powerful. More…”
But Mimin pouts at him in her old way, disappointed.
“Oh. You meant…be kinder. Pet bunnies, that sort of thing?” he realizes with a sniff, disappointed himself. Mimin, Mimin, Mimin. Soft-hearted, fool girl. “I’ve no objection to being nice, of course!”
He smirks again, humored.
“Once I have the power to bend others to my will.”
His love doesn’t find it as funny, cute pout slowly morphing into a genuine frown. Into genuine concern, not exactly directed at him.
“…You’d subject others to what you’ve been through?”
Ugh. She’s stubborn to kill his buzz, is she?
“Why not?”
He means it when he says it, not caring for the shocked blink she gives him. Really, why not? Astarion is dragged through two-hundred years of restless servitude, mind-control, malnutrition, disfiguring and being disfigured, and what? He’s expected to be the ‘better person’? An invisible, worthless honor to behold. Mimin would deny him of something more visceral? Of revenge? Of even an inch of getting his life back?
“It’s terribly cruel, for one thing,” is her excuse.
“Isn’t it just?” his chuckle is sharper now, feeling it snarl at his nose. As if she would know, as if she needs to tell him – as if the spawn needs the choirgirls oh-so generous guidance on what cruelty is and means! “I’m quite a glutton for cruelty, when I’m on the right end of it. Or did you just now notice?”
“A bit of mischief, maybe, but…” she mumbles her disagreement, uncommitted to whether she wants him to hear, and he has half the mind to be offended. She overestimates how well she knows him, if she thinks he’s never stooped a couple levels, in his life. But Mimin sighs, “If not for basic respect in your fellow man, then for yourself, surely! There’s not enough power in the world to pay off the consequences to your actions.”
He barks with laughter, right in her face.
A pretty bit of poetry but, come now, nobody’s ever said that genuinely. All the greats written in history, from Magistrates to Kings to Gods, having won their titles by pilfering and stealing and bloodying their hands. How they’ve thrived on their misdeeds, rather than burned. The world is created on those strong enough, willing enough, to be brutal. They are unchallenged, untouchable.
There’s nobody that isn’t jaded enough to see that as fact. People like this, like Mimin, just don’t exist.
“Isn’t there? Because I don’t recall Cazador facing any consequences. Quite the opposite,” he scoffs with another humored smile, tapping her nose condescendingly, before looking about to see if there’s a spare bottle of something strong. If Mimin’s going to kill his mood, he might as well get truly buzzed. Apparently, he doesn’t need to bed her at all, for her to be silly. “Anyway, just who’s going to stop me, I wonder.”
“I would.”
…The spawn blinks.
Turns his gaze back to her.
Mimin wears a glower as sharp as a flogging, black eyes boring relentlessly, sucking him in and freezing him in place all at once.
Now that she has his undivided attention, she repeats, “I would stop you.”
It’s no romanticizing that she’ll kill him with kisses, either. No, he’s seen this before. Moments when Mimin’s softness turns sinister. A steeliness that becomes her, to match and enact on the very same brutality of those very same Kings and Gods. Kind, but not pacifistic, is her mantra.
She’s not so unjaded. She doesn’t deny that power exists. That corruption within it persists. That people, uncaring and cruel, allow it to go on.
But, in the absence of justice and fairness, she will be the one to force the hand. The King’s rebel, the Gods nonbeliever. The strong will uplift the weak, or else.
Mimin is warning him.
He swallows the lump in his throat, feeling a little breathless.
“Hells, you’re beautiful.”
Astarion loves when she gets like this. It’s so hot. Whatever being constructed her face, they had some nerve, making her so hot.
Said very hot face flinches to befuddlement, brow no less furrowed, but demeanor tilted off kilter. He feels the hint of blood rushing to her face, cheeks tingeing lightly with color. It’s not long before she’s scoffing, disgusted, withdrawing into haughtiness as she raises her chin at him, “I think you lied. I think you hunted a pint, out there.”
The corners of his mouth twitch into a grin that’s all too gleeful, leaning far enough to push against her this time, arm officially wrapped over shoulder to ensure she can’t escape. The choirgirl turns her head away, a punishment, an attempt to ignore him. “You’d cast me aside? Truly? Darling, after everything we’ve shared…?”
“And what’s that? A bed? That doesn’t entitle you to my values, Astarion.”
So callous! Bedding her truly has done nothing to sway her to him, has it? Mimin is no simple waif. She’d just as easily turn to cutting him down, if he forced her to. He’s not so disarming that she’d willingly forgo all her boundaries.
Astarion, for all his plans of seducing her, strangely feels proud of that.
“Now who’s the cruel one! Come on, there’s a spark here…” he purrs, gentler, nuzzling the back of her ear, “…I know you feel it too, darling.”
The same ear flicks. A hesitation.
Still, she denies, “Well, even if I did, I’d be willing to break my own heart.”
“But it would be heartbreaking, wouldn’t it?” he sighs with feign-morose, planning to say something very bold, “How’s about we keep both our hearts intact, and you can join me, instead?”
Another pause. Another hesitation.
Mimin relents her cold-shoulder, looking back at him, “What?”
It’s the most upfront he’s been with his intentions, involving her. Astarion wonders, if he were to dress it up as domestic, as romantic, as more than either of them has ever promised each other, how tempted would she be?
“Oh, why go through all the dramatics of battling an old flame?” he urges, “Stay at my side. Take on the world with me. Just think, together, we could be so powerful - ”
“I don’t want power!” she insists, “I already have a home, with its own duties, thank you. The Promenade – “
“Oh, but with me, you wouldn’t have to lift a finger. I’d make sure of it,” His free hand takes hers, bringing it to his lips to kiss every digit, the overworked things. Always carrying burdens that aren’t hers, always saving stupid little lives. “The heads of your enemies? A dozen servants at your beck and call? Whatever pretty bobbles please your tasty little heart? All yours…I’d spoil you rotten, my dear.”
Then, very pointedly raking his gaze over her figure, he begins kissing down her wrist.
“Though, I rather prefer you wearing nothing at all…Every night, I could steal you away to the biggest, coziest bed you’ve ever seen. Do things to you that would make a brothel blush.”
A breath catches in her throat, lilac skin all but turning scarlet. Astarion nearly sees it, the ideas dancing behind her eyes. He continues planting his kisses down her arm, fishing her closer, ensnaring her in his web.
Then, like she’s catching herself, “Wha-What is it you’re asking of me? Run away from my church and - and elope with you?”
He mouths down her bicep, like he’s taste-testing a fine cutlet, “Why not?”
“You’d want me to live with you? Surely, you’d get tired of me! I-I’m not - You think our dalliance would last that long?”
“Why not?” he repeats, placing one last kiss to her should before meeting her eye. Yes, he thinks he’d rather like Mimin at his side, being his bedwarmer, indulging him in some hedonism. Astarion’s mind rolls and rolls with what debauch things he can get the choirgirl to do. “I want you far more than that Promenade or Eilistraee ever has, after all. Come stay with me, instead.”
But the blood rushes from her face in an instant.
She stares, not out of flustered shyness, gaping at his presumptuousness – but with dawning betrayal.
…What? What’d he say?
“Sweetheart - “ Just as he’s readying himself for some placating words, her hand rips out of his grasp. Mimin doesn’t even chastise him for his crassness, doesn’t plant her fists on her hips and humor his wiliness, like usual. She simply gathers herself to a stand, leaving him fumbling for another word as the situation seems to crumble before him, “Uh. Um.”
Likewise, she doesn’t give him the chance to find one. Mimin marches away, the coldness of the act like a slap to the face. He can only watch as she distances herself from him, preferring the danger of the woods over his company.
…What, really? Over what he said about – her faith, or some such?
It’s not as if the spawn is wrong, now, is he?! Mimin had told him so, herself! Now he’s meant to feel guilty over repeating it?!
“Fine! Go off and pout, then!” he shouts after her, “Perhaps the beasties out there will have mercy on you!”
It lands flat as, stubbornly, she disappears into the tree line. A twinge of regret strikes at his heart.
Astarion huffs, righting himself, not at all pouting in return. Oh, whatever. See what tune she sings, come morning.
Mimin’s not often ashamed of her weaknesses.
Mainly because what’s considered her ‘flaws’ are highly prerogative. Most find her honesty to be a sign of simpleness, not clever enough to be trickier, even when she’s no reason to be tricky at all. Her attempts at kindness are often criticized as being misplaced or even suicidal. Likewise, expecting better out of the world and people is accused as being naivety, as if she’s had some cushy life that’s protected her from becoming jaded.
Many find Mimin the fool. Fool enough that they think she doesn’t notice when they say as much.
Really, if those are weaknesses, then what is so wrong with being weak? The bard would rather blame those that would take advantage of her sympathy, than being sympathetic in itself. But she supposes it makes a prettier, easier lie, to say she asks to be fooled rather than mourn that the world is so foolhardy.
All that being said, the fact that Eilistraee does not answer her prayers, that is mortifying. Out of anyone, She wasn’t supposed to punish her for it.
Mimin has spent her years in The Promenade, watching as those younger than her excel into being clerics, while she’s remained stagnant as a simple choirgirl. Oh, how the high priestesses busy her with menial chores while her Sisters learn spells that are beyond her. The very day the mindflayers came, the oppressive silence became too overbearing of a weight to carry, and she resorted to pleading with her Goddess in yet another one-sided conversation.
Now, her life is louder than ever, and still the one sound she does not hear is Eilistraee’s song.
The only way she can think to describe the feeling is…impotent.
Yet, she had told Astarion in confidence. She had told him, because – he’s braved telling her the terrible baggage that is his life, despite how uncomfortable it clearly makes him, and Mimin had thought – Mimin had thought to give back, a little! Had thought that she could trust him! Had thought that they could support one another!
Instead, for him to weaponize it for his own means –
She cares so much for him, but Astarion takes her for a joke! A game! Gossiping about her virginity to everyone, and now using something so deeply traumatic to her, in hopes it’ll convince her to prop him up!
“Darling…”
Prop him up to inflict himself upon the world in heinous ways, at that. She wonders if he finds it particularly hilarious. The irony of the most morally concerned companion, enabling whatever terrible things he has planned. The choirgirl, the virgin, the clueless little acolyte. If he’d find it yet another thing to brag over, getting her to bloody her hands, like a lovesick, bubbleheaded, waif.
“Dearest. Sweet-heart.”
And that he got her to do it, by telling her nobody cares for her but him.
What a cruel, torturous truth he throws in her face.
“…Honey…?”
The spawn being behind her, she allows her lip to curl in disgust. Mimin has taken to giving him the cold shoulder since that night, putting some distance between them, until she can better form her thoughts. Traversing again by morning, in leu of an actual apology, he’s been trying to placate her with pet names – which is a failing endeavor, considering he’s running out of condescending things to call her.
If he thinks he won her over with his honey tongue, he’s sorely mistaken. It was always Astarion’s more honest, fragile moments. His excitements and outrages. His vivaciousness.
“I believe the elf is trying to get your attention,” Lae’zel supplies helpfully.
“I know. Thank you anyways, Lae’zel,” she sighs, not meaning it as exasperated as it sounds, because it’s not her fault she’s less privy to the social cues of this realm. Without turning to him, she makes her stance known, “I’m unhappy with us right now, Astarion. I do not wish to speak.”
Before harrumphing a little more haughtily than is mature.
Of course, it’s bound to make the air awkward, the rest of their companions falling eerily quiet. She feels eyes on her, most notably the prickle of a predator’s gaze. Mimin hates to force everyone to witness this, but – if Astarion so insists on pestering her, it’s only the most honest outcome. He’ll not strongarm her into forgiving him, out of fear of public humiliation.
Volo chimes from the rear, “What’s this? A lover’s quarrel, perhaps?”
Then again, perhaps it will make her humiliation all that more public, because he’s going to write about this. Brilliant.
Just as well, Gale’s insight is unwelcomed, in this moment, “Alright, what have you done this time?”
The spawn chuffs, “Excuse me! I resent the assumption that this is my fault!”
“Well, if it’s anything like last time you sent her running…” Shadowheart points, unable to bite her tongue in favor of a piece of gossip.
No, it isn’t like last time, where Mimin was merely shocked, embarrassed, a little drunk, and it catapulted some childish pre-coital bickering. This time, Astarion’s hurt her.
Moreover, her allies aren’t helping things. Mimin wonders what she could’ve done better to keep her personal issues personal. Ignore Lae’zel too? But then, that’d be taking her anger out on her. She sighs tiredly as reminder, “Can we not speak as if I’m not here?”
“Oh, so you’re too good for it,” Astarion grouses at the back of her head, “Meanwhile, the same kindness isn’t afforded to me.”
Don’t take the bait.
Do not take the bait.
Ooooh, but she can’t stand that he really thinks he’s done nothing wrong! She opens her mouth to refute him –
“Lads, for the love of all that is holy, I’ve never clapped eyes on your poor sister!”
Her jaw clamps shut.
“Drop the act, hag. You was the last to see Mayrina.”
Auntie Ethel?
As they pause on the downward slope towards her address, Mimin takes in the scene happening in the middle of the path. Evidently, even leaving the grove before its party and getting a head start on them, her old bones couldn’t make it all the way to her home. It’s most certainly Auntie Ethel before her, speaking with two broad-shouldered young men.
Who look agitated. Angry. Confrontational.
Weapons are strapped to their backs.
…They’re not speaking with her. They’re corning her.
Mimin jaunts quickly to the scene, but not suddenly, not unless she wants things to turn topside.
“Just let her go, please – “
“Thank goodness you’re here, sweetie!” Ethel calls just as the other man begins speaking, “Please, I-I don’t know what’s come over these boys!”
She pauses at the look the elder throws her.
It’s, appropriately, creased with concern. Frantic. But there’s…something a little cartoonish about it. A falsification. Mimin doesn’t know.
Is she lying about knowing this Mayrina, after all?
…No. This is the same woman that shared a humored tale about one of her customers having a dalliance with a dryad, upon meeting her. That gave her a concoction of great healing, completely for free. That has listened to their tragedy without judgement, and has offered to help, for no reason.
Besides, even if she is lying, this is no way to treat a stranger – much less an old woman.
It must’ve been a trick of the light.
“How about we put our weapons away?” Mimin tries to reason, gently, “Really, I’m sure this is all some misunderstanding.”
Both pair of the ruffians’ eyes land on her, one irate and the other terrified.
“Why don’t you mind your business?”
Wariness bristles throughout her. That’s how bullies thrive, don’t they? When people ‘mind their business’. No, it’s just as she told Astarion. As simple a choirgirl she may be, she’ll not stand idly by.
Mimin insists once more, harder this time, “Why don’t you back away?”
It’s with that small push that the skinnier of the two panics.
“Sh-She’s with the hag!”
The bard blinks, “What?”
“Don’t just stand there gaping, get her!”
“Oh – “ A pitchfork races towards her head. “Oh!”
If Trelasarra were here, she’s certain she’d be reminding her student of all the warnings she’s given. The clipping of her wings was meant to prevent this from happening, for crying out loud. Mimin’s pretty certain the pitchforks weren’t even meant for her! At least, not initially.
Regardless, they threaten her life in but a blink, and her instincts reach towards the weave for salvation. Mimin extends her hand, mana racing through her veins, intending to merely suppress them –
Just as her lips are forming the lyrics of a sleep spell, she feels something shift in the air, and her world bursts in a flash of white. A loud crashing sound rushes into one ear and out the next. Some kind of explosion has gone off, she fears for but a moment, but there’s no pain.
Mimin lingers in that state for a moment, blinking and blinking and blinking.
The smell hits her before her sight does. Her heart races as she comes to identify it. It’s the same one that choked the air when she faced off against Kagha.
When the radiance dissipates and her eyes finally adjust, the thugs have disappeared before her.
Or so she thinks, before her gaze follows the smell, and looks down.
They are but simple, mortal village folk, prone to burning to death. In whatever moment passed in front of her, they’re already charring.
“Who – “ the choirgirl stammers as she stumbles back, the scent suffocating her lungs upon the inhale, “Who cast that?”
Her gaze instantly assumes Karlach to answer…But, meeting it, the barbarians shoulders hunch defensively, “Oi, don’t look at me! I'm all the way back here, I didn’t do it.”
She looks towards Gale, next. Surely, the prodigy he is, it must’ve been –
The wizard looks equally confused, “Wasn’t it you?”
What? No. She didn’t cast Sacred Flame, or Guiding Bolt, or anything of the sort. Even if she did, it wouldn’t have been that bright.
Yet, upon taking in her hands, she finds her palms glittering.
Did…Did her bad mood incite her to cast poorly?
“Oh my stars! I-I didn’t mean for this to happen!” Auntie Ethel seems to pluck the words from her thoughts. “This is all my fault. But I made a promise!”
The weight of a hand presses into her shoulder, lacking in warmth, and Mimin’s eyes draw from her own palms to the eyes of Ethel.
There, she sees it again. The fake concern. The glassiness of her eyes.
“Mayrina begged me not to breathe a word, if her brothers came looking for her. And my word is my bond,” the elder explains, but she swears, she sees a twitch in the corners of her mouth – threatening to grin. “That poor thing will be distraught! We can’t let her know. It’d break her poor heart.”
A kinder part of Mimin’s reasoning wants to supply that, perhaps, these men were abusers of some sort. Pursuing a victim. But then – why would she need to lie about their death? And the waxiness of Ethel’s skin, was it always there?
“I’d best get going,” she finalizes, finally unveiling her smile, so previously sugary sweet now seeming rotten. With it, there’s another frightening shift in the air. The sun overhead seems to darken. The lush greens of the oasis dim into poisonous greys. Dread tickles mischievously up her spine. “But please stop by my house…”
Green magic glints in her irises, and Mimin’s stomach drops.
“…I’d like to thank you proper.”
Not a trick of the light, then.
Her mouth already gaping, it’s all too easy to balk as Ethel – or whatever she is – bursts in a huff of forest smoke, a rancid, identifiable stench is left in her wake. Come to find that the entire oasis has changed. It’s no fanciful swamp haven at all, holding charming toads and teahouses, but a putrid, fetid bog. A glamor, that they’ve once already traversed, that they’ve slept in.
“I haven’t spent much time with helpless old ladies,” Astarion threatens to make her jump a second time, speaking to her from over her shoulder, “Was that normal?”
The bard continues to stare on dumbly, unable to catch up with the events that have unfolded before her. Ethel is something more than a frail old maid, and she does know a Mayrina, and those men -
…Did she say they were her brothers?
“No.”
“Why, that sly old crone – “
“Nononono – “
“Oh, you’re…” Astarion clicks his tongue as Mimin falls to her knees, hauls one of the charred remains into her lap, and starts wildly searching for evidence. Please be wrong. This isn’t real. She did not just senselessly kill a pair of innocent men, only trying to save their endangered sister – ! “Talking to the corpses. Apparently.”
Pulling a letter from what used to be the eldest, crisp at the edges, she wastes no time ripping into it.
Dear Johl and Demir,
Don’t get mad. I mean it. I’m only leaving this note so you don’t panic and do something stupid.
Oh, Goddess, no.