Recovery (Astarion BG3 Fan Fiction)

2: Mirrors

"Cute, right?" she muses.

She holds up the embellished mirror and examines her reflection. The light yellow-green of her eyes like dying grass looks extra pale against the dark circles settled around them. She smiles at herself for a flash, and it looks more like a grimace.

Aysla is small and striking, alluring when she tries to be, though her smile and her smile hold the meanness of an inside joke that she shares with no one but herself. Her body language reads as sardonic and cavalier until you stares for long enough and notice flickers of something more tragic in her edges, constantly shaking and over-tense. Her swagger comes off defiant against the backdrop of her anaemic coloring, toxic and pretty like a poisonous flower. She looks like she might have been beautiful once, if not for being so constantly over-"watered" and underfed, rather than the haunting look she possesses now; hypnotizing but edgy, like the pieces of a shattered doll glued back together haphazardly, its sharp corners turned porcelain razors.

That's what Astarion is noticing, as Aysla primps. What he doesn't notice is how the mirror is angled towards him, revealing his lack of a reflection.

She's planning the little jest she'll offer him - 'oh look, it's the second most good-looking person in camp, ' or something - when her eyes widen. She angles the mirror back and forth, seeing Karlach to one side, and an empty space on her other where Astarion is meant to be.

"Oh, it's nice!" Karlach says.

Aysla smiles at Karlach. Once the tiefling turns away, she taps Astarion's elbow. She squints at him, feeling stupid. She thinks she can make out two little scars, peeking up from under his collar.

"Can I help you?" he scoffs.

Then, she holds up the mirror once more, looking at him with raised eyebrows. His mouth purses and shock and fear flash in his eyes, but he says nothing with Lae'zel and Karlach still within earshot.

Aysla raises her hands and keeps walking, a gesture of "not my business." She can see his jaw twitching even in her peripheral vision and the tension rolling off of him in waves.

What will she do? he wonders. Stake me? Snitch?

His mind is flashing through scenarios when a strange, probing sensation breaks his focus.

Testing, testing, she says through their tadpoles' link.

Message received, he answers back.

Don't worry, I can keep a secret, she says. You're tensing so hard you're going to burst a vein - oh, wait, do vampires even have veins -

I'd appreciate it if you did, he says.

She nods and almost moves on, but her boredom and curiosity wins out.

No reflection, huh? she asks.

He doesn't respond, just looks at her drolly as if to say "duh."

Do you want a peek?

His brow knits - it hadn't occurred to him. He nods.

Her view plays in his mind in real time. He's jarred by the familiar yet strange image of his own lithe figure walking, graceful and suave. He recognizes the silver hair coiffed effortlessly sit like an angelic crown atop his head - nice to know that hasn't changed. He's pleased at the image he sees. Broad shoulders and lean limbs, goblin-blood-spattered as they are, beautiful and dangerous. He turns to better inspect his own face. Full, soft and cruel-looking lips and twinkling red eyes; yikes, very red indeed. Overall, a face that is charming enough to make someone's knees wobble. Or, are those her knees? Is it her heart that pitter patters a little faster, as she looks at him?