The Burdens We Find
2k : F!Resist Durge x Spawn Astarion : Hurt/Comfort
Summary: Before the duel, Ulcharis thought Orin was just another ghost of the past and a barrier to saving the world - but nothing is so simple. Ulcharis’s fractured mind chose the duel as the perfect time to reveal that Orin was more than just another wretched murderer. Even once the horrors are over and her freedom is in hand, Ulcharis can’t stop the weight of what just transpired from bearing down on her all at once.
Content: a touch of gore, intense guilt and grief, one very slight allusion to SA, not-so-subtle depiction of a meltdown and going nonverbal, a few brief allusions to Astarion's various traumas, self-indulgent comfort, a very sweet and attentive vampire boyfriend, cuddling, lots of headcanons and OC lore.
If anything about Ulcharis or my headcanons confuses you, don’t be shy to shoot me an ask. :)
Ulcharis sat on the bed in the rented tavern room, watching as the evening sun dipped down into the Baldur’s Gate cityscape. The sunset was a sickly yellow that did nothing to soothe her aching body. Her bare arms and neck were chilly, but she didn’t grab a blanket, afraid to stain anything.
She was dressed in only her trousers and bra; the pretty powder blue undergarment bore a dark, ugly stain where she’d accidentally let her blood-soaked hair fall. Perhaps she should hack the locs off, she thought as a ray of final-call sunshine dazzled her. They were as long as a halfling was tall, and getting it tied up and out of the way was such a hassle. Ulcharis had never minded much before, even priding herself on keeping her hair handsome despite everything life threw at her; but now, after everything, she dreaded the endless hours of upkeep to come.
She didn’t turn as she heard soft, familiar footsteps approaching.
“I hope nothing’s troubling you, my dear?”
Suddenly, she was aware of herself and how she must look. Ulcharis had barely had the wherewithal to remove her her robes and put on pants that weren’t bloodied to the knees; but she still hadn’t tended to all the gore on her face, and her beloved hair, tied at her neck into a large, lazy bun, must look like an abattoir’s mop.
“I was -” She dropped off the bed, looking for the clean rags they kept for similar, though admittedly more controlled, blood spillage - “distracted.”
“Well, no need to get your worm in a twist,” he said.
Ulcharis spared a glance for her lover. Astarion stood beside her, holding a bucket of water and a washcloth. His brows were raised in concern, and as their eyes met, his expression softened. She almost thought his cheeks pinkened a shade, but that was impossible.
“Want some help?” he asked, gesturing with the cloth in his hand.
Ulcharis was silent, but he must’ve taken the dip of her chin as a yes. He wetted the cloth and began to dab at her neck.
As he worked, Astarion clicked his tongue. “Tsk. I don’t think any of this is your blood; she didn’t even scrape you, did she?”
“Not once,” replied Ulcharis, her throat dry.
“I must say. Taking on an unholy monstrosity, all by yourself… I was ready to leap to your rescue the moment things went sour, of course, but - no need! You dueled beautifully.”
Sounds like something she’d have said.
A sob caught in Ulcharis’s throat, and she pulled away from Astarion’s gentle touch to cough.
He tilted his head, reaching forward again with the washcloth. “Is something wrong?”
“Don’t touch me.” She cupped her hand around the cloth, pushing him away.
Instantly, a look of fear spread over Astarion’s pointy features, driving a tiny knife into Ulcharis’s heart. She tried to meet his gaze, but couldn’t keep her eyes off the floor. “Babe, I’m sorry, I just - I’m tired. Very tired.”
“I can see,” he said, voice soft as velvet. He leaned affectionately towards her, but didn’t touch. “I’ll admit, I was hoping the night of your emancipation would be just as joyous and pleasurable as my own. Though if that is not what you want, I’m just as eager to comfort you as I am to delight.”
She didn’t smile, nor did she meet his eyes. But she did feel her heavy heart stir with a tiny ember of warmth. How ironic, she thought, that a creature belonging to the night could light such a sweet, sunny feeling inside her.
It didn’t last, of course - the weight of the dark day in the Undercity soon pressed down on her again as heavy as nightfall. Of course she wanted to tell him, but - Dead Gods, where to start?
After a long, quiet moment, she decided to just start talking. “I’m seventy-six.”
“Pardon?”
“Maybe seventy-seven now - I don’t know the date. I remembered a few days ago and forgot to tell you.”
“Indeed!” Astarion stammered, dark lashes fluttered. “A fair age, for one of an elven father. Not as if I know how half-elven ages ought to be reckoned, of course.”
She shrugged. “I recalled Orin’s age, as well. She was twenty - or thereabouts.”
Ulcharis managed to steal a glance at Astarion’s expression. He hid it quickly, but for just a moment, there was that look - the one he made when Gale or Wyll was talking about their lives, their childhoods. The quaint confusion of a being born for the centuries, watching the whisper of life that are those born for mere decades.
“Young,” was all he could manage.
“Her mother was…flawed,” uttered Ulcharis, despite her throat contracting. “Devoted so deeply to the cult that she failed to train her offspring in its ways. So even before the death of Orin’s mother, the responsibility of bringing the child up fell to me. Or perhaps I took it, before Sarevok…” She forced the churning bile in her stomach to stay down.
She shook her head. “I remember feeding her, disciplining her, seeing the glow in her eyes as she was named an Unholy Assassin. I had braided her hair so intricately that day - even now, I don’t think I could recreate it. As a little thing, she’d always hated how pallid her true form was, but when she emerged from that red pool…she was beautiful. She knew it, too. She was a canvas for all the splatters of blood and trails of gore she would create in the name of our Father.”
Astarion was frowning, in disbelief of all this knew information. “You speak as though you relished the whole affair.”
“I did,” she sighed. “I do. And although it caused problems for me later, when that cursed ego of hers materialized, I was proud. She let her artistic passions get in the way of Bhaal’s true will for her, but she was so full of passion. That joy was something I never truly shared, not even in the depths of my degeneracy. She was ruthless, indomitable, undivided; I, however, needed a butler to keep me on my proper course.
“All Bhaalspawn are doomed to slaughter one another until only one, the purest one, remains standing. There were times I prayed that my sister’s purer bloodlust would triumph over my conflicted heart, so that a superior spawn might’ve done Bhaal’s will in place of me. A vanity, a fantasy - one I let go of the moment her ego started making problems for me.”
She let out a wry laugh. “I wonder - why didn’t I just cull her then? I knew she was more of a hindrance than her worth. Perhaps I just…”
Finally, the sob broke through her defenses.
“I held her,” Ulcharis groaned, doubling over with tears. “When she was born, I - I held her. This tiny baby, white as a pearl and just drenched in her own mother’s gore. The most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”
Astarion looked on in awe. Her grief was far from something he could empathize with, but he could see plainly how it agonized her. He reached out with both hands, one squeezing her forearm, the other clutching her waist.
“Ulcharis, darling,” he said, trying to catch her eye. “When in the world did you remember all this?”
A shudder ran through every part of her. “When - when I was tearing her face open.”
Astarion let out a breath. “Hells…”
Something about that - that brief curse, the smallest acknowledgment of her pain from someone else - broke her. The floodgates burst open, and Ulcharis went limp. She had barely the awareness to fall towards Astarion, and he caught her, holding her tight.
“My baby,” she muttered weakly. “My baby. Oh, Hells, my baby.”
For a moment, Astarion stared dumbfounded at the top of her head. Then he pressed his face into her hair, planting tender kisses amidst the blood-crusted locs. “Shh. Shh. You did everything you could.”
“I didn't even try to help her.”
“Darling, you didn't know -”
“I knew!”
Ulcharis's growling shout startled him to silence, though she clung to him like a desperate child.
When she next spoke, it was a whimper. “I knew - I knew it as I was ripping her apart and bashing her ribs in. And I still did it.”
After this, she spoke no further. Ulcharis mumbled absent desperations into her lover's shoulder, but Astarion knew there was no point in piecing any words out; the day was finished, and she was done talking.
He let her weep until the sun disappeared and the sky was a dusky almost-black. Then he urged Ulcharis to sit up. As he slid away, she tightened her embrace, emitting a displeased moan as she suddenly tugged him back.
Astarion raised his brows, having never felt such a rough sensation from his lover. Despite the chill running down his spine, he ran a gentle finger over her cheek.
“Just going to get you some water, love,” he said. For the briefest moment, he attempted an easy grin, the one he’d used a thousand thousand times to put his prey at ease. But the expression slid off his lips; even trying made Astarion’s facial muscles feel like they were about to cramp up. Instead, he just gazed at her with red eyes full of love and worry.
The look she gave him was remote, as if she were not a few inches from his face. But he could see plain the anxiety in her forehead and the deep, dark circles under her misty blue eyes. When he felt her hold loosen and he left her side, Astarion ached to leave her alone in such a state for even a moment.
He returned soon after with a glass of water and watched as she forced it down in big mouthfuls.
“Ah-ah-ah, thirsty girl,” he cooed. He ran his nails gently over her bare back. “Take it slow. We've all the time in the world, darling, and you have a very sensitive stomach.”
Though she took smaller sips, Ulcharis still swallowed the water hurriedly, as if anxious to get each painful step of her outburst over with. When she was done, she clenched her gurgling stomach.
Astarion sighed, biting back an I told you so. “Let's finish washing up, then we'll lay you down.”
She remained nonverbal, but he could see the discomfort on her face as he finished cleaning the blood from her throat and cheeks. Even once he was finished and she flopped onto the mattress, Ulcharis held her stomach, and she pulled her knees almost to her chest.
“Want a cuddle?” He asked. Still not yet ready to talk or meet his eyes, she simply nodded.
Astarion moved her mess of dirty hair up and out of the way and laid down, his chest against her back, cheek pressed into the base of her neck. He heard her emit a very deep sigh, so he knew he'd chosen the right position. But when his fingers came to her aching belly, gently pressing in, she made a very different sound. Groaning unhappily, Ulcharis grabbed his hand and pulled him away from her abdomen.
“No massages?”
She groaned again, apparently an affirmation. But she continued to hold his hand, cupping it in both of hers and stroking his fingers almost reverently.
“Ha…” he whispered, and the sound was almost a laugh - her ministrations were so warm and light, they nearly sent him into a fit of giggles.
Astarion smiled. His soft, sweet partner was alright. Rattled - perhaps to her marrows, where none of his affections would ever fully soothe, and hurt so deep that a spell could never stitch the wound back together - but alright. He felt his own old scars tingle and took comfort. They were a pair of survivors; and, if he were to flatter himself, Astarion would say they were quite a lovely pair at that.
