Like Starlight and Wine (A Baldur's Gate 3 Astarion x Tav Fanfic)

24. A Proposal of Pleasure

We shake off the visit from the devil, for now, and continue on our way up the risen road. But not much further ahead, I can already smell the foul, alluring stench of blood. It only takes a few moments more before we come across the bodies, several corpses line the blood-soaked road. Their flesh has been torn to ribbons, their limbs mangled beyond recognition. Piles of bones are strewn about, glittering fibers of sinew still cling to their bleached surfaces. They've been picked clean recently, as if something large and feral just finished a meal.

"Something tore right through these people," I say gravely. "They didn't stand a chance."

As we walk through the scene of horror and gore, approaching the heart of it, we see them up ahead - several creatures - hyenas writhing around on the ground in distress. I stop to examine the closest one.

The beautifully broken heap of fur and bloated flesh smells oddly enticing to my Dark Urge. I find I can't resist inhaling her offals. Then I hear what comes next before I see it: the sharp snapping of bones and a yelp of pain as her body starts to twist and undulate. I watch with cold realization. This isn't just the end of one life, but the start of another. Her darling pups will not be of her own species. Gnolls, horrible ware-wolf like creatures with razor-sharp claws and barbed teeth as long as my hand, bring forth their iniquitous litter from many corpsed wombs - including heyenas.

I step back, trying to stifle my excitement for the horrific scene that is about to unfold before my eyes. I shouldn't enjoy it - this is grotesque.

The hyena writhes, her belly splitting open like a rotten fruit, birthing a frenzy of claws and fangs. I try to be horrified, but my Dark Urge is inspired. The raw hate of life, reared from the miracle of death. A tear almost springs to my eye. But I don't have time to revel in it. As the newborn gnolls rip from their mother's wombs, they are hungry. They smell our flesh, turn to us, lunge at us, ready to feed. And we ready our weapons.

In a few minutes we've finished off the newly birthed gnolls with relative easy, but up ahead we run into a pack of adult gnolls which are much harder to fend off. Their claws slash at us, their teeth bite. They are strong. The battle is difficult, until we run into the leader of the pack, a very large, very intimidating female gnoll. 

As she nears me, her mind clamps onto mine with a sudden shock of psychic pain. I see myself through her eyes - a pulsing red cluster of organs. A feast. No... the Voice of the Absolute has forbidden his meat. I recognize the power within me to make her obey the Voice; to leave this place, leave us. Deep in the chaos of her mind, something responds to my comand. A tadpole. She will obey it. She will obey me. A shiver runs across my mind... I feel sated.

As the female gnoll leads her remaining subjects away from the scene, my companions and I can finally regroup, and take a short break to tend to our wounds. Gale and Wyll set to work mending their mild injuries with various potions and healing times, but Astarion breaks from the group to go off on his own, like a cat slinking off to lick its own wounds.

"Not again," I grumble under my breath.

Not this time. As the Gods are my witness, I'm not about to let him run off to lick his wounds alone... not again. Whether he likes it or not not, he's part of this team, and we look out for each other.

When I search for him I'm thankful to find that he hasn't made it far. I find Astarion just around the corner of some bushes, sitting on a large, flat rock, attempting to wrap his wounds with roll of bandages, doing just as crude a job as ever. From where I stand at distance, I can see that he has a mild gash across his shoulder, and a clean cut running the length of his cheek. It's nothing dangerous - nothing fatal. Still, it doesn't look pleasant.