Once Upon a Reverie

by deadlydiminuendo

Summary:

Lonely and longing for love, Seren Amanodel cannot help but lose herself in her reveries of Astarion Ancunín, a man she loved in lives past—a man she would give anything to meet again.

When an exchange of secret letters leads Seren into his arms, she finds herself swept into a whirlwind romance beyond anything she ever imagined. But, time reveals he is not exactly the man she remembers, and as the past begins to haunt the present, Seren fears for her future. Will they finally find harmony together, or will love again doom her to a tragic fate?

(UPDATE: on a bit of an "I should have pre-written this" break! Quietly working on this but refraining from posting until more is done)

Notes:

Welcome to my first ever longfic! Just a few things I'd like to note:

- this will have an eventual happy ending! I do still want to show AA's darker side here, and there will be a significant portion of the fic where the MC is questioning her safety with him, but this will ultimately lean towards the softer side of AA depictions.

- a bit of a mix here of interesting things I've found from DnD lore and my own homebrew. I don't have much DnD experience, so I'm sure I'm going to get some things wrong here, but I hope this will be an enjoyable story regardless!

- the MC is absolutely an adult (apart from this prologue) by biological standards, but I'm playing a bit with the idea that elves aren't culturally considered to be a true adult until they reach 100. Since I'm also channelling the classic naïve gothic romance heroine here, I want to mention that in advance in case anyone finds it uncomfy!

Click here for chapter-specific content warnings.

nightmare sequence referencing being entombed alive

Chapter 1: Prologue: Once Upon a Nightmare

1498 DR

"Come."

The word pulled her upright and pried open her bleary eyes.

She listened and listened and listened. The wind wailed and the rain wept but no more words came.

Such a strange and uncanny thing it was, that sound, that voice. Haunting in its familiarity, but she could not comprehend how or why.

Something about it made her heart ache.

Something about it made her terribly afraid.

She pulled the covers over her head and closed her eyes, tried to think of happier things. But fear filled her mind with ghosts and goblins and ghouls, and to picture them creeping and crawling over and under her bed only made matters worse. She needed comfort, reassurance, safety. She needed her mother.

"Mama?" she whispered. It was nowhere near enough. Feeling a little braver, she tried again. "Mama?" It was still not enough. Then, with all the strength her small voice could muster, she cried as loud as she could. "Mama!"

But it was the darkness that cried back.

Over and over and over the voice called to her. "Come," it cooed; "come," it coaxed; "come," it commanded, until like a creature with claws, it plucked her from her bed and carried her away.

When the world stopped its spinning, she wanted desperately to believe all was set to right again, but she knew something was horribly, horrifyingly wrong. The room too dark and the walls too close and the ceiling too low, no space to move, no air to breathe.

This was not her bed but her tomb.

Seren awoke screaming.

This time all her shrieks and all her sobs brought her mother barrelling into the room. But, even as Seren nestled in her arms, listened to her lullabies, remembered her wise words—to never lose oneself in reveries much less dreams much less nightmares—she felt ill at ease.

For, as much as she wanted to believe this night was only a macabre creation of imagination, something within her knew it was real. Felt a darkness twisting and tearing her very soul. Longed to answer the call and climb into the casket and crawl into the bones where she belonged.

"Come home to me."