You sit with your chin resting on your forearms, solemnly staring out the window of the carriage as it bumps and rumbles down the road, your freedom drifting further and further away with every stamp and clomp of the hooves of the velvety black horses that bring you closer to Baldur’s Gate, to the Crimson Palace: the opulent home you share with your lover, Lord Astarion Ancunin.

“Must you really look so sour?” Astarion asks with an amused sigh, leaning across the carriage bench to tuck a strand of your hair behind your ear. “It’s not as if you should be surprised. You know I will always find you,” he adds with a small chuckle, the threat thinly veiled.

You don’t respond, internally cursing yourself because you know it’s true. As his spawn, Astarion will always be able to locate you, even summon your return. The fact that he chose to retrieve you personally almost adds insult to injury. It was probably pointless to try to run away again, but you had to try, right?

You never imagined it would be this way when you helped him complete the Rite of Profane Ascension. You knew it would grant him freedom from his cruel and abusive master, Cazador, as well as unfathomable powers…but you didn’t know it would make him so sadistic, power hungry, possessive, domineering. If you’d known, you never would’ve agreed to become his spawn.

Astarion studies you with a smirk, but his eyes lack any warmth. “I should punish you, you know?” he muses.