Blood & Wine - A Spawn Astarion Fan Fiction

Nymeria

The last goblin's death cry pierces the caverns and I fall to my knees, my knuckles white around my quarter staff, using it for some stability. The magical thicket I had conjured slips back into the cave floor with a crackle just as easily as it had sprouted, leaving small green bodies speckled against the warm gold stone.

Astarion walks up beside me, offering his pale bloodied hand, ruby eyes surveying the offending druidic runes hastily painted on the cavern walls as if they were to attack. "What in the Hells were those little bastards doing in a cave so close to The Grove?"

I place my hand in his, allowing him to pull me to my unsteady feet. "I would say they were looking for that."

He looks at me and follows my gaze to the three towering stone figures, a raven, a wolf, and a bear. The three forms represent different things in different druidic circles, but as a child I learned of the cunning raven, the tenacious wolf, and the unassailable bear. Here, their watchful eyes have been guarding the half dozen gilded chests in the caverns. From the looks of it the goblins had successfully wrenched open two of them, gold coins spilling from their lips.

"Fuck me." Astarion practically purrs, taking a step forward.

"Easy." I press my hand to his chest, "We take whatever the goblins have and leave the chests alone."

He turns to me, red eyes fixing me with a look, "And why would we ever do something like that? You have met the druids of Emerald Grove. They called your kind rats and parasites. The leader all but murdered a child in front of you." Astarion straightens, almost preening, "And people call me a monster."

"I say that because I can read those pretty runes that you seem so fearful of and through a massive amount of dumb luck or some innate understanding, the goblins didn't trip the magical wards protecting the final chests." I sweep my staff punctuating my words.

"Right then." He nods, "Goblins it is." Astarion's gaze flits down to my lips as he runs a finger down my cheek, "You know, you are so much more than just a pretty face."

As he pulls away from me, the pretty face in question flushes, skin missing the pressure of his fingertips. "Gods." I mutter to myself under my breath, hoping, no, pleading that he hadn't heard me.

—

We loot the goblins in silence, him turning out their pockets and remarking on whatever oddity he finds within, shoving whatever gold and promising items into his own pockets. I'm still spent from the amount of magic I expended, using my staff to prop me up while nudging the goblin bodies looking for anything useful.

"Here. This wine might be passable." Astarion holds out a large clouded blue bottle, sloshing the liquid in attempts for me to take it faster.

I tuck it into and the second bottle he finds into my pack, taking a break from rifling through the corpses to just watch him. Fine leather breeches straining at his muscular thighs, his silver hair almost ethereal in the torchlight rivaling the gilding on the chests. The set of his jaw as his deft hands pick unresponsive pockets.

He stills and my breath hitches, he must be aware of my attention. "Do you hear that?"

"Hmm?" I hum in response, "Hear what?"

Astarion gets to his feet, "It's something of a low whistle. You'd think you would have something akin to dog hearing with how much of your life you've spent as a beast."

The barb doesn't find purchase, I've spent enough time with Astarion to know that sometimes he speaks for his own amusement and nothing else. His little witty retorts are preferable to the monologues that Gale can produce when provoked in any way.