Blood Lust || Astarion

1

                          Chapter 1

Kodi wakes up covered in bruises and scrapes but surprisingly no severe injuries, only an unwelcome tadpole in her brain. But one can only ask for so much after being kidnapped by mind flayers. She brushes off the debris stuck to her clothing and her horns and she begins to look around to get her bearings of where exactly she was in Faerun. Kodi realizes she's off the coast of the country as she stares out past the horizon where there was rather clearly an ocean, or at least a giant body of water. To the other side of her was a forested area, where corpses of thralls and other victims lay, she decides to head that direction as she loots the bodies. Acquiring a broad sword and a bow alongside a quiver of arrows. Walking further into the brush she finds a woman that seemed to be alive on the ground unconscious, she was vaguely familiar as someone who might have also been kidnapped and used as a vessel for this tadpole in their brains.

Kodi makes her way over, gently placing her footsteps in order to be as quiet as possible, not drawing any more attention than needed. She kneels down next to what looks like a half elven woman with jet black hair, and shakes her a bit to wake up. "Hey, wake up" Kodi mumbles as she shakes the elf. She begins to wake up and quickly draws a mace and gets up "Woah, woah, woah, I am not a threat I promise you. Those damned illithids captured me too" Kodi says as she slowly backs away. "And why should I believe a single word you say-" the woman gets cut off as it seems like their minds connect momentarily as Kodi see's through the eyes of the woman, as she is in the pod stuck until the Nautiloid finally crashes. "Oh shit, you have one of those worms inside of you too" she takes a turn from being aggressive to withdrawing her mace. "Well with whatever the hell that was, I'm Kodi" Kodi introduces herself as she walks back up to the half elf. "I'm Shadowheart, thanks for not killing me, seems like that something that needs to be appreciated nowadays" Shadowheart says with a small laugh, and Kodi laughs at the remark too since it is absolutely true. "Shall we travel together for the time being? It may be best to have company" Kodi asked her, genuinely hoping she would come alongside her. Shadowheart nods and replies with a quick yes.

With that they continue forward into the brush when they stumble upon two tiefling, that have someone captured in a cage that was lifted a few meters off of the ground. Kodi sighs a bit of relief as she knows that these may be her people, or at the very least are also tieflings. "You!" the person in the cage shouts towards her and Shadowheart, and she's taken aback after not even knowing who this was. Upon further inspection of what was going on, the person above was a githyanki woman. Now Kodi was weary, Githyanki never took kindly to tieflings despite tieflings efforts to befriend the arrogant species.

"What's going on here?" Kodi asks the two tiefling. "It's good to see another tiefling around, though you're an odd color" the darker red skinned one says but seemed to relax a little in the presence of another tiefling. "I get that a lot. '' Kodi chuckled, after all she was pale white as compared to most darker colored tieflings. "This gith was encroaching on tiefling and druid territory, who knows how dangerous she is." The other speaks up, and frankly she was alright with leaving this gith behind. Gith had never been the kindest to her, and was the species that killed her family after all so to her, their lives are not worth saving.

"I see, well, after all the Gith have ever done to me and my family, I say that you two continue to do whatever seems fit" Kodi says as the gith woman above shouts obscenities towards her and Shadowheart. "Seems like the gith just can't be kind to others" Kodi nods her head when the tiefling spoke, and with a nod her and Shadowheart continue on.

"You don't have good experience with Githyanki either I suppose" Shadowheart says to Kodi as they continue their path, Kodi simply nods her head. "Let's just say they took everything I loved, '' Kodi says coldly, thinking back on her earlier days when she had her family with her. Before those red dragons and gith came along. "I hate to cut this little conversation short but look ahead, it looks like another person." Shadowheart points ahead of them, and just as she said ahead of them seemed to be a man. Rather dressed up, and having near white hair, he was waving around his daggers as if something was going to pounce on him but he didn't quite know what direction the attack would be coming from. Kodi cautiously approached the man, having a hand on her broadsword just in case he were to escalate the situation suddenly. "Excuse me" Kodi says with a hint of timidness that the elf picked up on quickly "Don't be shy, I saw you two on the ship, you both killed those freaky brain monsters. You'd be able to help a poor elf and kill it, correct?" He says with a posh accent, that frankly made Kodi want to punch him but she restrained herself from doing so. "And why can't you kill it yourself?" Kodi asks him, raising an eyebrow in suspicion of the elf. But she wdrew her broadsword still, Shadowheart stayed back hesitantly watching Kodi walk closer to what in her opinion, was a shady man.

"See! Over there" The man says pointing at a rustling brush a few steps away from Kodi, and himself. Kodi steps in front of him with her broad sword ready to attack and defend herself from whatever this creature would turn out to be. She moves to throw a rock into the bush and as she does so, a boar comes scurrying out of bushes away from them, she laughs to herself a bit as she puts her sword back into her sheath. Before she could turn to face what she thought was a cowardly man, but she feels an arm get wrapped around her and a cold blade against her neck. Not much of a coward anymore she thought to herself as she struggled to keep the blade from going into her neck. "Now you thrall, tell me all that you know" He spat with viciousness at the tiefling girl in his grasp. "I-I don't know anything" Kodi gasps out in between her breaths as she focuses on keeping the knife the hell away from her throat, this position being all too familiar to her from her childhood. "But I know damned well I'm no thrall" Kodi fired back at him, and with that final words whatever was in her brain connected with his, and she saw the alleyways of Baldurs Gate, and the man lurking in the shadows, and the man lets go of her stumbling back as he most likely is seeing glimpses from her past.

"What the fuck was that?" He asks. "Hi, I'm Kodi, what's your name? Lets start with introductions first, after you know, you threatened to kill me" Kodi says sarcasm dripping from the tone of her voice, and Shadowheart couldn't hold back her laughter as Kodi holds out her hand to the elf. "I, uh, I'm Astarion. You're from Baldurs Gate too?" He's taken aback by the quickness Kodi had to put his antics down before he gets to ride them out. Something that was apparent that he was not used too. Kodi's stomach had a growing pit as she realized she didn't know what Astarion or Shadowheart saw when they saw her memories. The memories she prided herself in pushing so far down she forgot they were there unless reminded of them, these mindflayers really know how to make a person vulnerable. Putting the most sensitive information in the hands of absolute strangers.

"So what do you two know about our little friends that are overstaying their welcome in our brains?" Astarion asked the two women. "We don't know much, unfortunately, we do know however that whatever they are we don't want them inside of us" Shadowheart said to him, and he sighs before putting his dagger back into his pockets. "Well then, apologies for threatening you, it was quite the overkill" Astarion says and brings his hand up to his chest trying to show sincereness but Kodi didn't buy it.

Kodi didn't know quite who this man was, but all she knew was that he was the furthest thing from trustworthy. She'd sooner trust a thrall before trusting this pale elf named Astarion.