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Night settles in the woods, and the wind carries with it the burning, stinking gore of the crashed Nautiloid. Astarion Ancunín is lying on his bedroll a few yards away from a crackling bonfire, pretending to doze off. But really, he’s watching Luka Morrigan—the so-called diplomat from Barovia.
He’s had suspicions about the boy since he held him at knife point and caught a glimmer of fang. But after four days of traveling together, he’s nearly certain.
Luka is a vampire.
It’s there in the way he mumbles when he speaks and how he skirts around puddles of sunlight. Yesterday, after they’d been ambushed by bandits in a dank crypt, he even caught the boy draining a rat that had been half-roasted in a fiery explosion. He quickly dropped the rat and turned his attention to the bookshelves.
Having another vampire around could benefit Astarion. He’s wondered how long it would take the others to start suspecting him. How much longer would Astarion be able to ignore the thirst buzzing through his veins like a swarm of angry bees? Maybe he could use Luka as a shield? Out him before someone outs Astarion, and use their reactions to gauge whether or not it’s safe to stay here. It would be a good plan, except for one audible wrench.
Luka Morrigan has a pulse.
Astarion turns irritably in his bedroll. How does he have a pulse? No one will ever believe he’s a vampire as long as he has a heartbeat. For all the ways the illithid parasite has changed Astarion—severing his connection to his master and granting him immunity to the sun—his heart is still little more than a cold, dead lump inside his rib cage. Luka’s pulse is a rabbit-quick thing, one of the most stubborn heartbeats Astarion has ever heard.
Perhaps his parasite has affected him differently?
Astarion studies Luka as he reads from a book plundered from the crypt. He’s piled half of his salt-and-pepper gray hair into a bun atop his head, the rest cascading down his shoulders like froth from a waterfall. The round glasses that make his eyes appear comically large dangle from his lips. Of course, Astarion has noticed that Luka only wears his glasses during the day.
Astarion should be sneaking away to hunt right now, not watching some overly moral goody-goody read. But this problem with his theory is driving him mad. If Astarion can see Luka for what he really is, what’s to stop Luka from noticing the same and outing Astarion first? The boy is so eerily quiet, who knows what he’s really thinking?
As the campfire’s glow reduces to cinders, Luka sets his book aside and fishes out a scrap of parchment from his pack. He starts writing what appears to be a letter—perhaps some correspondence with his vampire master or his coven in Barovia? He’s scribbled a note every night they’ve camped together. Maybe that’s all the evidence Astarion needs?
His stomach releases a cantankerous grumble, and he curses it silently, hoping no one heard. If he doesn’t find at least a squirrel to drain tonight, he may not even have the energy to walk tomorrow. And then who will be revealed as a vampire?
Finally, after reading over his work, Luka folds up the paper and adds it to his growing collection of twine-bound letters, all awaiting a courier that doesn’t exist in this miserable wilderness. Then he snuggles into his bedroll.
All goes quiet in the camp, the night is still.
Astarion waits for another hour, tracing his favorite patterns in the stars to be sure Luka is fully asleep. Then he makes his approach.
He finds Luka curled over on his side, head resting on hands that are folded as if in prayer. Overly moral indeed—a right proper stick-in-the-mud. In four days of traveling together, despite running into bandits and goblins and an entire caravan of refugee tieflings, the boy has never raised his voice. He shows kindness to everyone and always chooses to help others before he helps himself. It’s sickening. Helping yourself is a luxury Astarion hasn’t been allowed in centuries.
Who could’ve possibly sired such a soft creature?
Astarion only meant to get close enough to snatch the boy’s letters, but as he advances, Luka’s choir-bell like pulse catches him by the throat. And then… oh, the scent. The heady aroma of Luka’s blood fills his nose. It’s sharper and more complex than any blood he’s ever smelled before, and Astarion’s tongue goes sandpaper dry.
He barely notices himself drawing closer to Luka’s neck.
Astarion has never fed directly off another person before. Cazador demands—demanded—his targets unbroken and untainted. Cups of human blood, mere thimbles, really, were an occasional reward for good behavior. But the blood was always served still and cold.
Astarion imagines that drawing from Luka would be like sipping from a rare glass of Exeltis Ice Wine. He can practically taste it simmering with life as it coats his tongue.
Indeed, Luka Morrigan isn’t just a vampire, he’s a problem—a beautiful, stupid, delicious problem.
Astarion’s fangs burn as he brushes them against Luka’s soft skin.
Then gray eyes snap open.
“Shit.” Astarion jerks back.
Before he can scramble away, a leg hooks around his waist, and with more strength than Astarion thought Luka capable of, he wrenches Astarion to the ground and straddles him. Fangs graze Astarion’s neck and helplessness lances through him. Do you accept my salvation? Cazador’s phantom words make his body go limp.
But Luka Morrigan does not clamp down.
Instead, the boy pulls back and looks at Astarion with sappy eyes and lips drawn. His fangs glisten, making him look like part pleading pet and part wild animal.
Astarion gapes in return.
For several quick beats of Luka’s heart, neither of them says anything.
Then, in perfect synchrony, they both start yelling.
“I knew it, you—”
“How?”
“But you—”
Astarion shoves Luka off. “You have a pulse!”
Luka scrambles to his feet and points. “You’ve been out in the sun!”
“So have you!”
They both fall silent again, heaving deep breaths.
Luka’s perfectly round eyes shine owl-like in the silvery moon. He purses his lips, cocks his head. Astarion’s hands curl into fists under the force of such obvious scrutiny.
Then they both double over, laughing.
Luka’s laugh is low and unsure, like he hasn’t had enough practice making the sound. While Astarion’s is forced and sarcastic, a whip cracked to keep people at a distance. A light flickers on in the wizard’s tent then the Sharran’s. So much for gaining the advantage. Now he and Luka both will have some explaining to do.
Astarion runs a hand over his face and sighs. “I think the tadpole is affecting me somehow. That’s why the sun can’t hurt me, and why I”—he grinds his teeth, hedging how much he admits—“I can’t hear my master anymore.”
“Master,” Luka says, lowly. “So you’re a spawn?”
Astarion flinches. He’s always hated that word, but at least Luka says it with care, his accent softening its judgment.
“You’re not?” Astarion says, bitterly.
Luka shakes his head. “I’m only half vampire. That’s why I have a pulse. I—I’m not actually undead. I’m a dhampir.”
“A what?” Astarion has never heard of such a thing.
“A dhampir.”
“No, I heard you. Just, how…?”
Luka snorts. “Well, you see, when a human and a vampire get together, sometimes they make a baby, and—”
“Be serious,” Astarion says, flustered.
“I am.” Luka turns his palms out in a shrug. “Mother and Pop are human, but my father—Pop’s husband—is a vampire. I came to Baldur’s Gate looking for him, because apparently he’s forgotten what a Sending Stone is, and Mother and Pop are getting worried. Father has been known to disappear from time to time, but never for this long.”
“I have to sit down.” Astarion touches a hand to his forehead, feeling feverish. Partly from what he’s hearing, but also certainly due to his lack of nutrition.
Luka rushes over to Astarion’s side and grabs him by the elbow. Astarion tenses as if burned, the words don’t touch me rolling to the tip of his tongue, but for once, he swallows them back. He allows Luka to escort him over to his tent.
They settle side-by-side on Astarion’s bedroll with a careful inch of space between them. Astarion extends his legs out in front of him while Luka draws his knees into his chest.
Eventually, Astarion asks, “So how long have you known I was a vampire?”
“How many days has it been since you tried to slit my throat?” Luka casts Astarion a sly, toothy grin. “I know a vampire when I see one, Astarion. I grew up around them. Not only my father, but my aunts and uncles, too. His vampire siblings. You could say we have a… a large family.”
Luka cracks a wistful smile that Astarion doesn’t know what to make of. He supposes he has a large family too, seven vampire siblings in total, but he’d never speak of them with such reverence. Frankly, he didn’t think vampires were capable of forming happy families.
“Is that who you’ve been writing to?” he asks. “Your family?”
Luka nods. “I don’t want Mother and Pop to worry. They’re not getting any younger and, well… they’ve got enough to worry about with my father.”
“Is his sire still in the picture?”
“No.” Luka shakes his head. “Strahd von Zarovich was destroyed decades ago, and Barovia has been rebuilding ever since. But that’s another story. What I want to know is why you came to me tonight? What were you looking for?”
Astarion has to clench every muscle to prevent himself from grimacing. Does he admit that he hoped to use the boy as a shield? No, a more diplomatic answer is certainly better. “It was your heartbeat,” he says. “I— I’ve never met a half-vampire, so I couldn’t figure out what was going on.”
“I see.” Luka nods. “I guess that makes sense. Dhampirs are not so common. The only other one I’ve met is my sister, and even between us there’s… variance. Elena is perfectly fine supplementing her diet with the occasional rat. But I—” He splays his fingers out and digs their claws into his knees. “I was a sick kid. Frail and weak. I wasn’t growing. I struggled to breathe. I passed out constantly from dizzy spells. It wasn’t until I started taking human blood that I got well.”
He lets out a long sigh and adds, “It seems that dhampirs, like any other creature, inherit some traits from the mother and some from the father. I just got unlucky. My sister drew our father’s strengths. I drew his weaknesses.”
There’s a sadness in Luka’s tone that does something funny to Astarion’s chest, inciting an odd, fluttering sensation that feels dangerously like empathy.
He would do best to keep that in check.
“So your father—” He starts to say when a loud rumble in his stomach cuts him off. Humiliation licks through Astarion, and he turns away. “Speaking of weakness.”
“When was the last time you fed?” Luka asks. “Properly.”
“I don’t know,” Astarion mutters. “Cazador… my master, didn’t allow us to feed from the victims we lured in for him.”
“Are you saying you’ve never had human blood?”
“Only whatever scraps Cazador would toss us.”
Luka sucks in a sharp breath. “No wonder you’re so famished. I’m surprised you’re even lucid.”
“I hunt often enough,” Astarion says. “Boar, deer, kobolds, whatever I can get. But with all this fighting we’ve been doing…” He gnashes a fang into his bottom lip. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this hungry.”
A psionic pulse catches Astarion by surprise, and a wave of understanding nearly levels him. He feels his tadpole squirming about as Luka’s thoughts push into his skull: I get it.
So what? Astarion wants to bite back.
Sympathy will not feed either of them. It’s the kind of fault that monsters like Cazador will slip into and pry apart. Sympathy is how you wind up with your guts decorating a goblin’s neck.
Luka touches a hand to his temple, and their connection snaps. He says, “You can feed on me, if you’d like. Only, I’m not sure how good a dhampir’s blood will taste.”
“Didn’t you just say you need blood, too?”
“I’m… managing.”
Astarion glances over at Luka’s hands. He has the long, slender fingers of a vampire, his nails coming to fine points rather than blunted like a humans. But beneath those nails, his skin is turning a progressively darker share of blue.
Luka catches Astarion staring and quickly pulls his hands into his lap. “It can get a lot worse, I promise,” he says like he knows, like maybe he’s starved himself before. To test his limitations? Or because he is deeply ashamed of what he is. “Besides,” he adds, “you need your strength. We’re all relying on your stealth and speed. I only need to be able to stand on my feet and pop off a few spells.”
Now, he’s just being self-deprecating.
What else had Astarion expected? He has half a mind to deny the boy. Nothing is ever given freely.
But the ache in his gums is building to something desperate, and Astarion knows he’s hardly in the position to turn down a meal offered so willingly. Besides, why ignore his curiosity? How long has he dreamed of quenching his thirst from the vein of another—the way his vampiric nature compels him to?
With a practiced purr, he says, “Let’s make ourselves comfortable, shall we?”
Luka gives no visible reaction other than to ease himself down on Astarion’s bedroll. He's practically offering himself up on a platter. It’s truly vexing. If the boy passes out in a field or swamp tomorrow, it would be a valuable lesson for him in the dangers of altruism.
Bracing an arm beside Luka’s pointed ears, Astarion draws himself parallel to the boy’s chest. Luka blinks those owlish gray eyes, and Astarion’s cold heart gives a single, rare kick. Cazador would call Luka precious, and he would not mean it affectionately.
“It’s okay,” Luka smiles and says.
“I— right.” Astarion didn’t notice he’d been hesitating.
No longer.
He plunges his fangs into Luka’s neck.
Blood coats Astarion’s tongue, hot and sweet, and it’s all he can do to choke back a moan. Luka tenses for a moment. His breath hitches, his pulse quickens on Astarion’s lips, and then he relaxes.
Astarion realizes very quickly why Cazador never allowed his spawn to drink from their targets. There is power in the act. Warmth floods into parts of Astarion that haven’t known it in centuries. Each tinny pulse of Luka’s heart beats against Astarion’s rib cage in a way that makes him almost feel alive.
As Astarion drinks, he feels himself sinking into Luka’s mind. He doesn’t just see his memories, he feels their emotions. Soaring joy as a bearded blond man claps for him after he gets his horse to jump over a low rail. Heart-pounding fear when he finds himself locked in a coffin he’d been told not to play around. Deep shame when a woman as white as snow hands him a cup of blood and coaxes him to drink.
Luka was a little black-haired boy then, his hair turning gray before he reached his teenage years. Astarion sees family dinners, and glittering balls, and holidays gathered around a fireplace. He sees a mother peppering Luka’s forehead with kisses, a proud papa scooping him up in strong arms, and a curious black-haired man with round gray eyes standing at a distance—always watching and always worrying.
Astarion would like to drown himself in all of this love and worry. Perhaps this is why the boy’s blood is so sweet—it’s the flavor of home, of family?
Has he ever known such a taste?
It’s so hard to remember anything before Cazador.
To Astarion’s shock, a voice whispers in his mind, That’s enough for now. A hand touches his chin and gently pushes him away.
Astarion blinks and pulls back. “Oh, of course,” he slurs, somewhat drunkenly. To his horror, there are wet streaks on his face. Had he been… crying as he fed?
He palms the tears away and says, “That was… amazing.” He swallows, making a show of straightening the wrinkles from his shirt. A feeling he can best describe as happiness flutters in his core. His focus sharpens. “My mind is finally clear.”
“I’m glad,” Luka says, a dazed smile on his lips. “You think you can fight now?”
Can you? Astarion almost asks. The boy’s complexion has turned ashy. For a moment, he considers what would happen if he gave Luka some of his blood in return. Cazador drew from Astarion whenever he was getting too rebellious for his master’s liking. It strengthened their bond, allowing Cazador to sink his fangs in deeper. But maybe Astarion could trust Luka to not take advantage of his generosity?
No.
No, that’s foolishness talking. Weakness. Besides, when has Astarion’s trust ever been rewarded?
He stands and brushes phantom dirt from his shoulders. “Shouldn’t take too long. So many people need killing. Now if you’ll excuse me. You’re invigorating, but I need something a little more filling.” He fixes Luka with a pointed glance. “Shouldn’t you be doing the same?”
“I’m a shit hunter.” Luka gives a tenuous laugh. “All the vampire thirst but none of the predatory instincts.” He runs a hand over his neck, blotting at the blood there. “But I told you, I’ll be fine. Please, don’t worry about me.”
Before Astarion can snap off a retort, that alien parasite writhes again, and Luka’s Please, don’t worry about me echoes in his mind. He sees a flash of Luka embracing his mother—the silver-haired woman from his memories—as her haunting purple eyes swam with tears. Their parting, he guesses.
Please, don’t worry about me.
Maybe Astarion does understand, to some degree, where Luka’s self-effacing demeanor comes from. He’s always been the sick child, the frail boy, the more vampire of his siblings with a whole host of humans and supernaturals worrying over him. Coming to Baldur’s Gate and searching for his wayward father was all a scheme to prove he’s capable of handling himself.
And how well is that turning out?
Astarion shakes his head, snapping their tether. He isn't sure if that last thought was Luka’s or his own.
He takes a few strides toward the woods then says over his shoulder, “This is a gift, you know. I won’t forget it.”
Luka says nothing as Astarion lets the forest envelope him.
Astarion wakes early the next morning, and despite catching only a few hours of sleep, he feels as rested and rejuvenated as he has in… years? Decades?
Luka, meanwhile, is the last of their party to rise. Astarion keeps a careful watch over the boy while the others break down their tents and cast them unsure glances. The githyanki is already sharpening her silvered greatsword.
Golden light spills through the trees as Luka squirms around in his dewy bedroll. He sits up, rubs his eyes, and reaches for his glasses.
He recoils when he notices there’s a dead hare next to his pillow. Its neck is snapped, its body twisted. Astarion had been so careful to break it cleanly, so that it died quickly and without wasting a drop of blood.
Luka’s eyes dart immediately over to Astarion, but Astarion is making a show of getting his tent folds to line up perfectly with the creases already worn into the fabric. For a moment, as songbirds jump between branches, the boy sits there, cradling the limp creature in his pale hands. He rubs a blueish finger over its fluffy cheeks, the conflict and guilt in his eyes magnified behind his round glasses.
Astarion bristles. Is he going to reject the gift? The hare hasn’t been dead for more than an hour. He got up early just to catch the damned thing. Its blood should still be warm.
Then Luka lowers his mouth to the hare and whispers, “I’m sorry,” before sinking his teeth into its jugular.
Astarion relaxes and resumes folding his tent. A strange mixture of protectiveness surges through him, followed quickly by trepidation. If Cazador would call Luka precious for his tender heart, then what would he call Astarion for protecting it?
A damned fool, most likely.
Astarion had the right of things last night: This dhampir from Barovia is a problem—a beautiful, stupid, delicious problem. And now, apparently, he's Astarion’s to deal with.