Chapter Text
Before they leave the “Dancing Cod”, Ansur f*cks him once more. The hard co*ck glides into Balduran easily, wet with their mixed come. The feeling is much more intense, and instead of pain from the penetration, Balduran feels relief when the co*ck fills in the emptiness it has created.
The sex has calmed the anger between them, and the fear that was haunting Balduran the whole day. Even if some uneasiness is left within Ansur, it dissolves in between them soon, leaving nothing but a trace of white on their skin.
The tiny room provides little to no security, but the foaming waves outside and the wind susurration encapsulates them in a familiar secret world, hidden from anybody else. The waves rustle in tune with Ansur’s heavy breathing. Nothing more is left.
Having Ansur inside feels like becoming one, like Balduran can merge with his own memories. It’s as strange as pleasant, as soothing as it is scary, yet, he doesn’t want to let Ansur go—and this is what they share despite all odds. As if sex is the only thing that can fully connect them for a few minutes without a mindlink.
Perturbed by the fresh memories of the seconds he held a possession of the humanoid brain, of domination over it, Balduran seeks solace in Ansur.
He melts in the embrace of Ansur’s arms, in the warmth of Ansur’s feelings. The time can’t be brought back, and Balduran doesn’t want it to be, but Ansur even if he denies it, tries nevertheless. As if he loves and f*cks Balduran for the missing years, afraid, that he would disappear again.
A mind flayer is not supposed to lose control over itself if not for the command of the Elder Brain, a mind flayer is not supposed to be loved.
But isn’t Balduran a renegade?
If only they could’ve embraced each other's minds in mindlink and even deeper, their connection would be superior to the relationship with the Elder Brain, with anything else… if only.
Is it love? Is it real love and not just the love experienced vicariously through Balduran’s own memories? He doesn’t know, and there’s no one to ask.
After, they are both sticky, and the smell is more repugnant, than pleasant. Still, Balduran finds a strange comfort in it. With Ansur he feels protected, cared of, even if Balduran precisely doesn’t know whether Ansur means that. Balduran has no doubts.
“We can search for a healer, a sage, whomever together,” Ansur says into the tiny place on Balduran’s face which can be called a cheek. “Or I can tell you about every one I’ll find, and you’ll tell me what to do. I won’t leave you out of things.”
Balduran can’t find any interest to discuss it after the sex that practically turned his mind into mush for a few pleasant moments. His body quivers lightly, and his hole is swollen and tender after sex, too empty for his liking. If only sex could’ve solved all their problems for real…
“We can go out at night, I can write a few letters to guilds…”
Balduran quiets him with a rosy tip of the tentacle. Right then, a thunder blasts outside, a fierce wind howls through the holes in the wooden walls of the room.
“Is it your doings?” Balduran asks, mindlessly stroking Ansur’s nose.
Ansur was a lover, a dear companion, but for many years he also was a valuable member of the ship's crew, a bronze dragon, able to control the weather. It was easier for him near the lair, and it strained him much more in the open sea, but in times of need Ansur would give himself all to save the Wandering Eye from a raging tempest.
“No. I can stop it if you wish. But if you’d ask me, I wouldn’t.”
“If I’ll get additionally sick, it’s on you.”
But Ansur is excited already enough to dismiss the possibility.
They get dressed side by side. Since the rescue, Balduran hasn’t seen them both in the mirror, and he only recalls a blurred picture from distant memories. In one of them, Ansur is in a new golden armour, showing off the expensive intricate filigree to Balduran, and Balduran himself, a dash of his long blonde hair shining in the beaming sun.
“Now, come here.”
Ansur distracts him from the memories, turns Balduran to face him, and throws his heavy, long cloak on Balduran’s shoulders.
“I already have one,” Balduran says, surprised.
“You don’t have mine.” Ansur casts a bright smile.
They run home under the starting, cold and prickly rain, and Balduran almost believes that he is normal once more, that nothing matters and the day will bring only careless curiosity for something new. Balduran knows it’s an illusion, a deception of himself, but he agrees to believe in it for a little while.
He is hooked on being deceived by the pleasant sentiments, but he carelessly lets himself be caught on it.
Calm, intimately sated, safe, if only a little hungry and tired, Balduran understands that he doesn’t particularly feel anything. He is happy if he would rely only on his experience as a mind flayer, but it has no bright colours as the elf used to have. The excitement used to be sparkling in him as fireworks, as fuzzy wine, iridescent as Ansur’s scales, as wild as the storm around. But now, it’s barely a reminiscence of it. Now, the elf would consider that he feels nothing, but for the illithid it isn’t true.
Through the creases of delight around Ansur’s eyes, Balduran sees a sadness stored far out of his reach. Does something give Balduran away? Does Ansur know that Balduran experiences life differently?
Balduran tries to send him a smile only with his eyes, visible in between the hood and the tight neck of the tunic.
Does it even have to matter that the thing Balduran regards as love in himself is so calm now? What must matter is that even with the mess in Balduran’s head, even with years and illithidness in between them, Ansur is dear to him. He is relieved to see Ansur beaming despite all odds.
The soft leather boots splash in the gathering puddles, and near the particularly huge and deep one, Ansur lifts Balduran up and carries him over the water and dirt. For a moment, the veil of sadness leaves his eyes.
The following days both of them spend trying to find anybody who might help or, at least, who may come up with an idea on what to do. Ansur brings all the available newspaper issues, finds a few handbooks on Baldurian patriarchs and merchants, and gets and poster of various alchemists. The lair becomes cluttered in no time, leaving only the bed clean, so Balduran takes a place on it, and Ansur sits on the ground, leaning with his back to the bed.
“We don’t know anyone in our own city,” Balduran says, briefly reading the newspaper.
“You were always the socialite,” Ansur hums, skimming through the pages of family descendants of patriarchs. “I was introduced to everyone by you, so I don’t particularly know anyone.”
In Baldur’s Gate, it’s unexpectedly hard to gather information if you don’t have any connections.
“So, you’re out of blame?”
Balduran wants to nudge him with a tentacle like the elf would’ve done with a hand to annoy Ansur, to tease him. But the moment fleets away before he decides what to do.
“If only a little.”
Ansur turns his side to Balduran and lies his chin onto the bed, careful with the thorns not to pierce right through the bedding. Ansur looks extremely exhausted, his eyes dimmer than usual, even his fins seem to be pressed closer to the head, even if they can’t move on their own.
“Why you didn’t want to do this together? It’s enough work even for two.”
Ansur tenses from the question, but even if he is reluctant to tell, he answers nevertheless, “I didn’t want to make it harder for you. I have to take care of you, yet I can’t do it alone.”
Ansur exhales, and this time Balduran affectionately touches his face with two tentacles. This talk is too familiar, and Balduran knows, that it’s hard for Ansur, too. Balduran was the captain, but it had never stopped Ansur from trying to prove himself worthy, from partly taking the burden off Balduran’s shoulders. Ansur was always sure to make life easier for him as far as he can.
“You don’t have to take too much on yourself,” Balduran says, but he knows, too, that Ansur won’t listen to him.
Then, they choose a few names that sound familiar, a few guilds and city patrons, and Ansur writes to them indiscreet letters asking for contacts of a powerful spellcaster, while Balduran keeps on checking the other sources.
The next day, Ansur goes to the city to send mail, and Balduran is left alone in the lair, again. Busy with the last few newspapers, the only thing that keeps bothering him is the hunger, becoming stronger day by day. At least a kobold or a gnome would be nice and would make him feel better for a few weeks.
He ventures outside to the covered in rocks shore, secluded from any curious eyes by steep cliffs and dense greenery beneath. Even the shirts that Ansur has bought for him hang loosely on Balduran’s shoulders, and he misses the tunic for it’s too cold outside.
Balduran sits on a big nearly black rock, wet from coming waves as any other, and busies himself with the newspaper. Yet, the words are meaninglessly blurred before his eyes, his mind too distracted with hunger, with the memories of control over another sentient being.
The rock is so cold, Balduran’s bottom numbs in seconds, and he shifts uncomfortably, trying to press his legs closer together. Only his bony knees touch, giving little warmth to him.
He used to sit on rocks, watching out the sea, the ships coming into the port build around Balduran’s name. Would he ever sail again? The call of the sea is still alive in him, but the long pause between adventures and transformation has surely soothed it down.
Balduran of the past had a vanity of a folk hero, accepting the glory but not asking for it. People loved him and people hated him, but there was no one in Baldur’s Gate who didn’t have an opinion on him. Apparently, no one would ever think of him as a hero or a founder, even as an adventurer, if they knew what had happened to him. Nobody would care enough to understand that he is sentient, and he is still Balduran.
Should he feel bad that his needs changed? A funny thing to think, that if he looked differently and talked more cogently, people might even cater to his iniquitous needs. Even with Ansur is not that easy.
Just in time, Balduran senses his presence near, and then huge, warm hands cover his shoulders and slightly squeeze them.
“Any news from the city?” Balduran looks up at him.
“More newspapers,” Ansur answers joyfully, and with a grunt takes a place by the Balduran’s side. “I bought you the clothing.”
He places a pack on Balduran’s legs, and Balduran is sure that inside lies folded exactly what he has asked for. Aside from ceremonial and everyday garb, mind flayers have clothes for visiting the surface, even when the temperatures are extreme. With worsening weather, Balduran has asked Ansur to search for something similar.
“They say here that some archmage has recently returned to the city,” Balduran tells Ansur, showing his the newspaper. “Might be worth a letter.”
Balduran peeps inside the package, and indeed it’s a black woollen turtleneck and tight trousers. Different from what Balduran would usually buy for the adventures to the colder regions, the wool seems soft and luxurious, airy-light and not prickly at all.
The moist wind prickles his legs through the fabric, the shirt bellows by the strong gusts, and when the tide comes it splashes him from head to toes with small cool droplets.
Instead of a map, they’re looking through the crinkling newspaper, shoulder to shoulder by the sea. It’s a deja vu.
“Have you dreamed of sailing again?” Balduran asks.
The sun gleams on Ansur’s scales, colours him in dozens of bronze and green undertones. For Balduran, he is inseparable from memories of sailing, even if it all had started before he even met Ansur. Ansur has turned Balduran’s scavenger trips into proper adventures.
‘Would you imagine, a dragon is on the ship, and the dragon is with me, he is mine?’
Aren’t they both tended to be greedy over each other?
“I have been dreaming so vividly, like I was there for real.”
Ansur touches his thigh, puts his palm on it, covering the whole width of Balduran’s leg. Then, he glides it higher, until he can catch the tip of a tentacle.
“Dreamed austrat mrith wux.”
Ansur looks at him, and Balduran strives to grasp his emotions, but they’re as elusive as waves, breaking up the moment you pierce through them. Though, the strong marine smell, and a faint dash of greenery and seaweed are still holding Balduran’s thoughts in place.
“I don’t think I dream of it any more. Not like I used to. It doesn’t matter, if you are by me,” Ansur says, returning his gaze to the sea. “What’s the point of sailing if I’m without you. And even if… I would rather finally have a port to settle, forever.”
“That’s an old wyrm talking in you.”
“Would you?” Ansur interrupts, and leans back on one elbow.
The shirt tightens on his shoulders, outlining his muscular chest. He looks tempting, and his carelessness eases Balduran’s worry.
Would he?
Supposedly, they can find a way to reverse the illithidness, or to help him manage his nature. What it would be like? Would he stop craving brains or can sustain on different means? Would his abilities be easier to control, or would they be entirely wiped? Or there exists a possibility for him to become an elf again? Maybe, through possession of somebody else’s body. Does he even want this?
“Maybe on a red sky in the dusk,” he jokes, remembering one of the good signs for sailing. “We still have unfinished work here.”
“Where is your passion, captain?” Ansur shoves him playfully.
“If you were an illithid, you might’ve understood me,” Balduran says heedlessly, and for a moment he regrets it, but Ansur gets the irony.
“An illithid”, Ansur snorts,
“I heard there were some dragons like that. Quite a horrifying aberration, but indeed there is something magnificent about them.”
“You would give this up—” He puffs up his biceps, jokingly showing off. “—over the ghost of an alien power?”
Balduran stoves the newspaper and package over it to the side, and shifts closer to Ansur.
“You could’ve easily read my mind. There won’t be any secrets from you, even if I want to ever hold them. You would be much more powerful than me.”
“I’m already more powerful than you.”
Ansur leans in and exhales the electrified breath, provoking Balduran’s tentacles to squirm defensively.
“I don’t need to read your mind. Never I had to. A disgrace to the feelings I have for you.”
“And what are they?”
Ansur seems to ponder over the answer for a moment, but then the decision flickers in his eyes, and Balduran particularly feels it is as he would know of a coming storm in the air.
Ansur pushes Balduran down onto his back, and towers over him, blocking the sun. The surface of the rock under Balduran is warm, but after a mere second the coldness spreading through his back. It’s bearable, if Ansur is near, if Ansur covers him with his body.
Ansur takes him there, right by the sea, his desire loud and enticing, inescapable, but Balduran doesn’t want to escape.
Ansur tugs the breeches off Balduran and spreads his legs, taking a place between them.
Balduran wraps a tentacle snugly around one of the thickest horns and tries to coax Ansur lower, but the strength of one tentacle is nothing for Ansur. He holds his head high, a light smile flickers in the corners of his mouth.
“What?” Ansur asks innocently, but his eyes are burning hot, dilated with want.
“Don’t you know?”
“Can’t guess the direction,” he hums and drags Balduran’s leg closer, hooking his arm under it.
The pose opens Balduran for him, leaving nothing to hide. His groin is slick, hot and needy with want, and he hates the cold wind biting at it.
“Do you want me to your temple of pleasure?” Ansur says cheekily, the head of his hard, leaking co*ck brushing over the wanting opening.
“Do you need an invitation?” Balduran bites back, relaxing his tentacles.
All soft, they lazily lay on his chest and belly, falling on the sides. Flushed in pink, their excitement is too obvious on the contrast to his darker skin.
“Do I?” Ansur exhales, plunging the co*ck inside.
He leans in closer to Balduran, his co*ck pushes deeper, deeper, deeper... Balduran writhes, unable to decide whether to trust it and give in to it, whether to try to evade its dizzying motion. Whatever he would do, the rock surface is too uncomfortable to move, and he gives in to what Ansur wants to do to him.
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The tension builds in him, warms him up, ready to overflow, to outbreak.
Even if the love is just a memory, does it really matters? Balduran wants Ansur closer, Balduran wants for Ansur to not let him go.
His hole clenches involuntarily from pleasure, and Ansur’s growl vibrates through Balduran’s body. The tension wavers in him, forces Balduran to spasm, to ask for more without words.
The hot slick pours out of him, even despite the girth of the co*ck filling his hole. It’s every push is accompanied by squelching inside him, a shameful sign of his eager belonging. Instinctively, Balduran reaches out to where he and Ansur are connected, but Ansur catches his wrist. Every push of his hips is sweeter than the previous, with every push it gets wetter between them.
There, Balduran feels truly hidden from everyone and everything else, there only he and Ansur exist, enveloped by the marine wind. The rustling of nature is disturbed by their breaths, by the explicit sounds of their intimacy. Balduran moans quietly, twist the tentacle together, and then the weather spoils in seconds, the thunder roars right above them whilst the heavy clouds cast a dark shadow over him.
Ansur gives him a brazen smile, f*cking into him particularly hard. The light rain begins to drip, but Ansur shelters Balduran from it. What’s on his mind, what Ansur dreams of? Balduran doesn’t know, Balduran is taken away with a crushing wave of his org*sm.
There, for a few more moments, nothing matters aside from things that they share, eternally.
The next night, they wander the city together again. It’s piercingly cold, the wet gushes of wind practically sweep light Balduran’s body from the feet, but at least he is warm in the wool clothes.
He likes being in the city much more, than he had thought of it. It doesn’t feel like home, but more as a familiar place he can return to. Maybe, because the city wears his name, maybe because it’s known for him. Nothing has changed drastically in thirteen years, and Balduran easily recognises streets and alleys.
Balduran waits for Ansur outside the post office while he sends mail with a probably reluctant worker in these late hours.
Then, when they head to their way back, a figure passes them by, but then Balduran hears that the person turns around and takes a few rushed steps to catch up with them.
“Your condition is familiar to me,” the stranger says in a clear woman’s voice.
Balduran continues walking, but Ansur’s stops to listen to the stranger.
“Ansur, this may be danger—”
The woman comes closer to Ansur, but she looks at Balduran with piercing eyes.
“I know an apostate of your kin.”
“You’re clearly mistaken,” Ansur retorts.
He stands between a strange woman and Balduran, instinctively or purposefully, it doesn’t matter. What matters is whether it’s a friend or a foe, and why would somebody even disturb two strangers on the streets if not for malicious reason?
Balduran fears her, and he can barely resist the desire to probe into her brain, and combined with a hunger, it twists his body, turns him inside out. He does feel like a monster, desperate for nourishment only a kill may provide, and mad with the desire to fight or flee.
Her mind is a closed with unexpectedly powerful psionics gate, and Balduran will be undoubtedly noticed if he is to probe into it.
Now, Ansur’s reluctance towards his powers frustrates Balduran anew. If he had more practice, he probably would be able to pry unnoticed.
He tries to think of Ansur, of his sweet love he craves… To rely on him, and to give him the chance to sort it, is nearly unnatural, but Balduran forces himself to trust.
“Won’t you at least try to listen? We’ve done countless papers together on the ecology of your kin and many more…” The woman continues speaking so carefully and softly, it’s hard to distinguish her words. “A rare opportunity to meet one right on the streets.”
“There are a lot of papers on dragons, that’s true,” Ansur huffs, intimidating with his posture and intonation.
“Metallic ones are out of our are of interest, I fear. But if you’re busy, then I can’t hold you any longer. Write for the arcanist Thilvexet on means of rare specimen. Then, you won’t need his address,” she smiles politely.
To Balduran’s own surprise, he knows this name.
“I don’t think that would be needed. But thank you for introducing.”
“An honour,” she says as a farewell.
Ansur walks Balduran away, and past a few corners, Balduran reaches to his mind.
“Talk to me through thoughts,” Balduran begs him. He is too nervous somebody else might hear them.
“I don’t like this,” Ansur answers him harshly, but through the mind meld nevertheless.
“I heard about Thilvexet in our colony. He is an alhoon. A lich-illithid.”
“Is it a thing?” Ansur looks at him in disbelief. “I guess, there are no limits for evil to evolve.”
They walk quicker to reach home, the mood all spoiled by the unfortunate encounter, and it starts to rain, too.
“Thilvexet is a kin-killer, that’s all you need to know,” Balduran says, unable to contain his fearfulness. “That’s why I know about him. Individuals like him are despised even by illithids. I guess the rumours in the city spread faster than I imagined.”
“It may be still a coincidence,” Ansur says aloud, clearly forgotten to concentrate on the mind meld. “Then, we should be more careful if so. You don’t need to fear.”
“I doubt he is in the city, and that we would approach just like that. But I don’t like to know that I may meet him. Seems everyone need me only after you’ve done all the work, rescuing me from there,” Balduran tries to laugh it off, albeit poorly.
Balduran knows, that Ansur is worried, too, and the resentfulness of the emotions prickles them both.
In two days, there’s still no open danger, but the fear and the fruitless search for anyone who can help drains Balduran out, and even the pleasant illusions of satisfaction Balduran gets from having Ansur, doesn’t sate him enough. The hunger beats in his veins together with his blood, the hunger overwhelms him with a bitter hollowness.
Balduran doesn’t want to sneak out from Ansur, so he briefly states that he would go outside.
“What are you going to do?”
“Eat,” Balduran answers bluntly. He is too tired, his body is empty of nutrition.
“You are going to hunt somebody?” Ansur looks genuinely terrified with the idea. “Wait, no, why would you go alone? Why you didn’t tell me earlier?”
He comes closer, his chest heaving from worry.
“I don’t want you to see it.”
What Balduran means is ‘I don’t want you to be disgusted by me’.
Ansur looks worried, conflicted, but more than everything he is sad. It does something to Balduran, because he feels a slight shame for what he is going to do.
“Stay,” Ansur pleads, taking too much space before him, snatching a chance to escape from Balduran. “We’ll come up with something in the morning.”
“Ansur.”
“I can’t let you out on your own.”
“So you don’t trust me.”
“I…” Ansur shakes his head, and Balduran particularly feels how Ansur dismisses word after word.
“Say it.” Balduran slightly nods, feeling a pang of disappointment. “Say that you see a mindless monster.”
“Stop twisting my words. You keep telling that, as if you want me to treat you as one,” Ansur says with a little more persuasively, showing that what he says can’t be easily disregarded.
“I need to eat. If I don't eat, I’ll die.”
His eyes are blazing, but Balduran is familiar with what this gaze promises. The stubborn bronze dragon always had an opinion and never feared to clash it with Balduran’s. Though, wasn’t it the trait that Balduran has particularly fallen for?
“Then I’ll come with you.”
“Why? No.”
“What if you kill an innocent? What if somebody sees you? What if that lich finds you?”
Ansur takes a step closer, cornering Balduran to the stone wall. It douses Balduran’s back with wet coldness. Ansur emanates warmth too tempting to escape it, but he frustrates Balduran now so, so much.
“Then damn them.”
Balduran spurts the tentacles at Ansur with instinctive intention to frighten him, and even though he regrets it, he stands his ground.
“Why it’s so hard for you to listen to me even once?”
“I do everything as you tell me. At least, since you’ve rescued me,” Balduran says, irritated.
But Ansur doesn’t let him go, impelling to have a weird dance with no lead and no follow.
“You know how I feed,” Balduran says, trying to put all the persuasion in his mental voice, in his own eyes. “Leave yourself out of it. Ansur.”
Ansur pushes him into the wall, and cages Balduran with his body. His hands are everywhere, rude and hurried, Ansur is so angry, he is even a little terrifying. Though, it isn’t new to see him like this. Balduran had him upset, frustrated, enraged with him, for a good-aligned dragon Ansur was always too easy to provoke.
To recall Ansur being like this is more of a dream, than a memory.
He could control himself, but the emotions were always bright and clear on his face, always ready to show Balduran what he had done wrong, and why Ansur is not happy with it. In moments like this, he was so frustratingly confident, but it was never about overpowering Balduran.
Ansur strokes his sides, his sharp claws catch on the thin, stretchy fabric, and he presses them firmer, dragging them down, until he gouges the woollen suit.
“Don’t you fear what the quack has told you? That I may go insane with hunger?”
Ansur rips the turtleneck on him, almost scaring Balduran with a sudden, rough motion of his fingers. Ansur’s claws scrape against Balduran’s tender, thin skin, until Balduran senses a faint smell of blood. Balduran catches his arm with tentacles, stopping Ansur from doing more harm. It doesn’t hurt, but his distrust burns Balduran with misery.
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“I’m not telling you to die.”
“I’m scared you’d hide from me.” Balduran is startled to hear Ansur in his thoughts. It was intentional, and it couldn’t be any other way with only a mind meld in between them, but Ansur doesn’t show that he waits any reaction from Balduran. Instead, Ansur turns him around, presses his hunching figure into Balduran, letting him feel the weight of his massive chest, the hardness of the co*ck poking into him.
“If you’re that stubborn, then…”
Ansur interrupts him as ever, pressing Balduran tightly into his chest, and Balduran’s tentacles don’t help much to hold him in place. Ansur willingly seeks more conflict, Balduran thinks, but the anger within him vanishes all too soon. His sincerity time after time disarms Balduran, charms him, maybe for worse.
Ansur soothes the scratches he has left on Balduran’s sides, Ansur slides his hands lower… The possessive hold of Balduran’s tentacles becomes an affectionate touch. Maybe, Ansur is the only one, who for a while can calm the illithid, to force Balduran take over his own predator nature.
