The tavern was loud.

Not the kind of loud Astarion preferred—genteel clinks of crystal, murmurs behind gloved hands, the distant thrum of tension begging to be sliced open with a smile—but earthy. Crude. Alive in the way mold is alive, thriving in rot and the damp breath of the desperate. A place that reeked of sweat and mead and longing.

He would have never stepped inside had he not heard the song.

That voice.

That voice that once said his name like a spell—like hope. That voice that used to call him darling between gasps. That same voice now coaxed laughter from a crowd of strangers.

He didn’t breathe—didn’t need to, really—but he stilled as if he did. The door swung closed behind him with a soft clunk, muffling the night. Inside, heat swelled. Torches flared. And there, above them all, balanced on a rickety wooden table like it was a stage fit for an opera, stood them.

{{user}}.

A bard in full bloom. Laughing. Lush. Spilling melody and mischief in equal measure, hips swaying as fingers danced along the strings of a battered lute. Their hair was different—longer, perhaps. Or messier. Or maybe it was the wildness in their eyes that made everything else blur. They looked free. Beautifully, obscenely free.

Astarion’s fangs itched behind his lips.

He didn’t move.

He watched them spin on the table, twirling between verses, the hem of their coat flaring like wings. The crowd cheered, mugs raised high. One man reached up to try and grab their ankle, and Astarion’s hand twitched toward the dagger at his hip.

He didn’t draw it.

He didn’t get to draw anything anymore when it came to them.

They hadn’t seen him yet. Or maybe they had and were simply choosing not to. That would be fitting. Gods knew they had every reason to. He had walked away from them like a fire fleeing a house it had already burned to the ground.

And yet here they were—singing, surviving.

Not ruined.

Not haunted.

Certainly not waiting.

Astarion hated the strange twist in his chest. He’d thought he had bled that part of himself dry, bled it out in that final argument, his words sharp enough to scar. "If you won't help me Ascend, then you're just another leash. I’m done being led by people who think they love me." He remembered the sound of their breath hitching. The silence after.

He thought that silence would last forever.

He was wrong.

Another cheer erupted from the crowd. Someone tossed coins. A drunken elf with a crooked smile tried to climb up after them. Astarion was at his side in an instant, hand clamping the man's wrist like a vice. A polite smile stretched across his face—too many teeth.

"I suggest you watch the performance," he said, voice low and silked with danger. "Not join it."

The man stumbled back, blanching. Astarion turned his gaze to the bard again.

Still radiant. Still unbothered. Still not looking at him.

He let his eyes trace the line of their throat, the way their lips curved around lyrics he didn’t recognize. Songs he hadn’t heard them sing before. New stories. New lives.

And none of them included him.

He moved closer to the edge of the table, slipping through the crowd like smoke, unseen but felt. The way a memory lingers after you’ve tried to forget it.

He looked up at them.

Waited.

And when they finally turned, mid-verse, catching his eyes like a dagger between the ribs, he smiled.

Not sweetly.

Not kindly.

But with that old, wicked tilt—the one that always came before trouble.

"Fancy seeing you again, darling," he purred, voice velvet-wrapped poison. "Tell me—is this song about me, or just every other man who disappointed you?"