Chapter Text
'Cause I was filled with poison
But blessed with beauty and rage.
- Lana Del Rey, “Ultraviolence”
The dead man is beautiful.
Striking elven features, thick silver-white curls, and pearlescent skin that makes the perfect contrast for the spill of crimson blood across his chest. His corpse is truly a work of art.
And she is the artist.
She looks down at him, still holding the dagger - his dagger, ironically enough - and a smile twitches at the corners of her mouth. The metallic smell in the air is sweet and familiar. She lifts the dagger to her lips and swipes her tongue across the blade. She hums with satisfaction as she savors the taste of her victim’s blood.
“No!” a tiny, quiet voice in her head tries to scream, desperate to be heard over the pounding drum of bloodlust in her ears. “This is wrong! I shouldn’t enjoy this. I don’t enjoy this!”
She closes her eyes and breathes deep, because even as some part of her protests this gruesome act, the rest of her feels truly at peace.
When she opens her eyes, however, it is not the body of the beautiful, pale elf she is looking down at, but someone else entirely. And this corpse is not her handiwork. It’s a human fisherman, killed by falling debris as the mind flayer ship had crashed onto the shore.
“Juniper?”
She jumps and stumbles back into reality as Shadowheart calls out to her. The dark haired half-elf she had saved on the ship is watching her now. For a moment, she wonders if Shadowheart saw what she had through the strange mental link the tadpoles have given them. But then Shadoheart just gestures to the fisherman’s backpack.
“Did he have anything useful?”
“Uh, just a little gold. And this journal I can probably use as a spell book. Looks like he never got the chance to write in it.”
“A shame,” Shadoheart says. “But we should keep moving, then.”
“Right.”
She leans down to do one last rummage through the fisherman’s things, hoping to find some sort of identification so that she can maybe bring word to his family once they find civilization, but there’s none to be found. With a mournful sigh she straightens and begins following her companion up the beach.
In the silence that follows, she can’t shake the thoughts of the pale, blood soaked body. Had that been a memory? Or a vision of some kind? Guilt rises into her throat like bile as she recalls the satisfaction she’d felt looking down at her beautiful victim.
A dull throb begins in her temples.
June. Half-elf. Wizard.
She repeats it like a mantra in her head, the three things she knows about herself. Everything else - everything before waking up in that pod on the ship - is empty darkness. But those three things she is absolutely sure of.
“You can call me June, by the way.”
Shadowheart looks over at her as they walk. “What?”
“Juniper’s my name, but I go by June.” At least, she’s pretty sure she does. That feels right, even if she has no memory of ever being called anything before today.
“Very well then. Though you won’t be able to go by either name much longer if we don’t find a healer to get these things out of our heads.”
“I dunno about that. Sprouting tentacles and eating brains doesn’t mean I gotta change my name. And at least there’s something kinda charming about a mind flayer called Juniper.”
“You have a strange definition of charming.”
June shrugs. “Trying to look on the bright side. And that sure ain’t easy right now, so I gotta work with what I got.” She glances back toward the docks as they begin to follow a path that takes them away from the shoreline. “Those fishermen being out here means there’s gotta be a village or something nearby. Hopefully our companion from the ship made it there.”
Shadowheart gives her an incredulous look. “She abandoned us, and you’re still worried about her?”
“She might not have abandoned us. We could’ve just landed in different places after the crash.”
Shadowheart sniffs in a way that makes it clear she finds that prospect doubtful.
“Either way,” June says. “I hope she’s all right.”
“I’m sure she’s fine - well, as fine as any of us can be,” Shadowheart says. “But we’re better off without her barking orders at us.”
“Maybe, but she did seem to know what was going on,” June points out.
“True,” Shadowheart admits with a sigh. “The gith may be dangerous, but they dedicate their lives to fighting the ilithid. They are probably the most knowledgeable on our situation. But, considering she was so eager for you to leave me in that pod, I’m not certain that knowledge would be used to help us. Especially if it meant any delay in saving herself.”
June opens her mouth to respond, but before the words come out, the world around her seems to shift.
She’s no longer walking along a rocky path with Shadowheart, baking in the mid-afternoon sun. Instead, she’s standing in a moonlit forest clearing, the crackle of campfire and the singing of crickets filling the air. She’s looking at a pretty tiefling woman with dusky blue-gray skin and glowing amber eyes that are alight with hope and determination.
“I’ve been running since Elturel,” she is saying. “And when we finally arrived at the grove, we found danger there, too. Unless I hide away from the world, I can’t avoid it. So I’d rather face it head on.” She takes a step closer. “With you.”
June doesn’t know who this woman is, but she knows looking at her brings a smile to her face. She knows the idea of sitting with her by the fire, laughing about the day’s travels while sharing a bottle of wine makes her heart feel lighter in her chest.
“Of course you can come with me.” she hears herself saying. “I’d love that, actually.”
“Really? Just like that?” A wide smile spreads across her lovely face. “Thank you! Thank you so much!”
June grins back at her.
And then the tiefling is gone. The sky is bright again, and Shadowheart has stopped in the middle of the path to stare at her.
“Why are you smiling like that?” she asks, brows furrowed.
“I, uh….what?”
“You just stopped walking, stared off into the distance, and started to smile like an idiot,” Shadowheart informs her. “It’s…creepy, if I’m honest. What’s going on?”
June blinks at her, confused. “You…you didn’t see her?”
“Who?”
“The girl - the tiefling,” June says. “It was night time in a clearing and there was a girl. She was real sweet, asking to join us. You were there. I could feel you standing behind me, watching us talk… You didn’t feel time shift?”
Shadowheart has a look on her face that clearly indicates she has no idea what June is on about.
“I…I sound crazy, don’t I?”
“Just a little bit, yes.” Her green eyes scan over June, like she’s checking for any signs of tentacles beginning to form. “Are you feeling all right?”
“I ain’t changing, if that’s what you’re asking.” At least, she very much hopes she’s not. “I’m…I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“...Right.” Shadowheart scrutinizes her for another long moment before she turns and begins to walk again. “Let’s just keep moving.”
June follows her. She repeats her little mantra in her mind as the throbbing in her head gradually becomes more intense.
June. Half-elf. Wizard.
***
Astarion sees the women before they see him.
After coming to consciousness in the grass and opening his eyes to the sun, he had panicked, scrambling to find some sort of cave or even a hollow log he could hide in. It had taken a moment to realize he wasn’t burning. And then several minutes more to realize that, as much as he wanted to, he really could not afford to simply bask in the glorious light. He needed to feed, he needed to find out where he was, and he needed to learn what that bloody thing the monsters put in his head will do to him.
So he began to hunt.
He has been tracking the boar for a quarter of an hour when he sees the women. They’re down the hill, magic flashing and crackling as they fight off a couple of those disgusting brain creatures. Better they do it than him. But creeping closer, he realizes he has seen one of them before. The tall woman with the wild hair and unfortunate attire. He’d seen her on the ship, walking around while he was trapped in a pod.
For a moment he considers fleeing - giving up on the boar he’s been following and getting as far away from that woman as he can. She must be working with his abductors, and he’s not going back. He’s not being put back in that pod. He’s not going to be looked away in a small, dark place. Not again.
Astarion forces that fear down. Deep, deep down. He needs answers, and she may be the only one who can give them. Besides, he’s seen her first. He has the upper hand here.
He manages to corner the boar in some high grass near the path the two women seem to be taking. Once they are closer, he calls out to them. “Help! I need help!”
The familiar woman comes into view, and he gets his first good look at her. Even caked in sand and blood, he can tell she’s gorgeous. The kind of beautiful that makes people stop in the street to do a double take. The kind of beautiful Cazador would have wanted him to lure back to the palace. Or, better yet, the kind of beautiful he’d want to make a spawn so that she could be the bait.
She’s tall for a half-elven woman, with long, dark blond curls and skin that’s almost as pale as his, though she still has that hint of pink to her cheeks that vanishes when one becomes a walking corpse. Her most striking feature, however, are her eyes. They’re large and round, set wide apart on her face, and they’re the most vivid shade of dark sapphire that Astarion has ever seen.
And right now, those eyes are staring at him with some mix of shock and recognition.
sh*t, he thinks. If she recognizes him from the ship, this plan to get her close enough to ask questions may be the end of him. But it’s too late now. The best he can do is continue what he has started and hope she plays along just long enough for him to make his attack.
“Hurry,” he says, “I’ve got one of those brain things caught.” He points in the direction of the boar. “There, in the grass. You can kill it, can’t you? Like you killed the others?”
She just stares at him, those blue eyes wide and unblinking, as if she’s seeing a ghost when she looks at him. Astarion starts to feel panicked again. He may need to abort the foolish plan and just run.
But then she finally blinks and, stammering slightly, says, “I…yeah. I can handle it. Just, uh, stand back.”
Her accent is unusual. It has a twang to it that makes her vowels sound like two syllables instead of one. It sounds rustic and unrefined to Astarion’s ears.
She begins moving in the direction he’s pointing, her steps light and cautious as she leans forward, quietly searching the tall grass.
“There,” Astarion says. “You can see it, can’t you?”
She crouches and inches forward, her back completely to him now. Perfect. Slowly, quietly, he removes the dagger hidden in his boot and creeps forward.
“Ignis,” he hears her say, followed by the whoosh of a Fire Bolt cantrip and the startled squeal of the boar before the thud of it collapsing to the ground. “Only a boar,” she says with a sigh of relief.
That sigh is quickly cut short as, much to Astarion’s dismay, she whips around, just as he is about to grab hold of her. Her reflexes are faster than he had anticipated from a mage, and he is forced to take a step back and recalculate. This strategy is falling apart at lightning speed, but he will die before going back - to the tentacle freaks or to Cazador. So he keeps the dagger out in front of him as a warning.
The woman’s eyes seem to fixate on the silver blade, like she is mesmerized by it. And for a tense moment, neither of them speaks.
The silence is broken by the approaching voice of the dark haired half-elf. “June, I think I found a decent place for us to camp. It–” She stops as she comes into view, her green eyes taking in the scene with the unmistakable expression of exasperation. “Well, this is certainly a scene I’ve stumbled upon.”
“Stay back, or I’ll turn the grass red with both of your blood.” He tries to sound menacing, but he knows it’s a pathetic attempt at a threat. There are two of them now, and all he has is a dagger. He lost his chance at leverage when he failed to grapple the mage.
“I would love to see you try,” the dark haired woman replies.
The blond finally seems to shake the fixation on Astarion’s blade. She takes a tentative step back, raising her hands. But there’s a strange look in her eyes. It’s that recognition from before, but now mixed with…guilt? Fear? Astarion can’t quite place it. And right now, he doesn’t care to. He plans to either kill her or run from her - whichever gets him to safety quickest - the minute he gets the answers he’s looking for.
“I ain’t here to hurt you,” she says. “I don’t wanna hurt you.”
He ignores what he assumes must be a lie. “I just need information,” he says, keeping his voice low and much calmer than he actually feels. “I saw you scuttling around on the ship. You’re in league with them, aren’t you? Those tentacle–”
His words are cut off by the sudden, disorienting sensation of his mind being twisted. He yelps in shock and pain as unfamiliar visions flash before his eyes.
The fleshy passageways of the nautiloid. A sense of fear and confusion. The rush of magic leaving outstretched fingertips as a blast of ice shoots toward an imp. A sense of relief as a pod opens and the dark haired woman is freed from her prison.
Astarion clutches his head as his mind snaps back into place. Across from him, the blond woman is doing the same. “What was that?” he demands. “What’s going on?”
“The tadpoles,” she says, rubbing her temples as her gaze turns back up to his. “They’re connected. I ain’t in league with them. They put one of those things in my head, just like yours.”
“The worm…Of course.” He sighs and lowers his dagger as understanding dawns on him. “That explains things. And to think, I was prepared to decorate the ground with your innards.”
“It’s cute that you think I’d just stand by and let that happen,” the shorter woman says, arms folded over her chest.
But the mage seems less annoyed by the situation. In fact, she still seems shaken, though perhaps not by his threat. “It’s…it’s fine. I get it. I reckon a lotta people would’ve done the same in your position.”
“You have my apologies, nonetheless.” He sticks the blade back in his boot, but he notices her eyes follow its path. “I suppose introductions are in order. My name’s Astarion.”
“Juniper,” she says. “But you can call me June. And that’s Shadowheart.”
“Really?” the dark haired woman - Shadowheart - says with incredulity. “He tries to attack you, and now we’re just giving out our names?”
“I apologized, didn’t I? Besides, it seems like we’re all in a similarly unfortunate position with these damned worms in our heads. Speaking of which, do you know anything about them?”
“Ilithid tadpoles,” June says. “If we don’t get ‘em removed, they’ll turn us into mind flayers”
Astarion can’t help but laugh, though the sound is bitter and hollow. “Of course it’ll turn me into a monster,” he mutters. What else did he expect? It was too much to hope that he’d escaped Cazador, found a way to be in the sun, and could carry on unscathed. Instead, another painful, soul and body altering transformation is his fate.
Though it hasn’t changed him yet. Perhaps if he can find a way to control it…
He looks between the half-elven women again, weighing his options. He’d seen them take down a couple of the brains from a distance. They were clearly competent. And when their minds had linked, he’d witnessed June taking the time to free Shadowheart from a pod. It was a stupid move. One that could have cost her life, but that foolishness and her willingness to forgive might be to his advantage right now.
He tries to make the suggestion that they travel together seem off-handed, like he doesn’t care either way, like he doesn’t think he needs the help. In truth, he would rather go it alone, but Astarion is smart enough to know when the odds are against him. If he’s going to get this thing out of his head, he’s better off with allies. And these two could prove useful.
He just has to hope they don’t betray him.
Astarion’s not very good at hoping anymore.
But, after a moment of hesitation, June accepts his proposition. Her companion is clearly annoyed by this, but she doesn’t push back too hard.
“Let’s just make camp,” Shadowheart says with an irritated sigh. “I found a place nearby that should work. It’s on high enough ground that we should be able to see anything coming.”
“Camp? Already?” Astarion asks. “I thought we needed to find a healer quickly?”
“We do,” June says. “But the sun’s about to set.”
“Now, darling, don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark.”
“It ain’t about being afraid,” she says as they arrive at the top of the hill where Shadowheart wants to set up camp. “But we ain’t sure where we are or what’s nearby. And dangerous things lurk in the dark.”
“Don’t I know it,” Astarion says, feeling the grin twist the corner of his mouth.
As if on cue, he feels the pang of sanguine hunger, and thinks with regret of the boar from earlier.
“And we’re just supposed to sleep on the ground?”
“Unless you know of an inn nearby, then yes,” Shadowheart snaps.
He watches as June and Shadowheart begin to prepare camp with the assortment of supplies they had scavenged from the debris on the beach. He fantasizes for the briefest moment about sinking fangs into one of their necks, experiencing the ecstasy of consuming blood from a sentient creature for the first time. But he shakes the thought just as quickly. Shadowheart is already reluctant to let him travel with them, and he doubts June’s kindness would extend to a vampire spawn.
No. He can’t let them know what he is. Not if he wants their help and not if he wants to survive.
But he does need to feed on something. And the easiest way to do so without his new companions noticing would be to hunt while they are asleep.
“Ugh, fine,” he says, picking up a stick and tossing it onto the campfire June has just lit.
It looks like he will be volunteering to “keep watch” tonight.
