Her Pretty Little Throat : An Ascended Astarion Fan Fiction

Amara

There's something about having a new-found sense of freedom that makes me want to hide away.

It's the same sensation that settled deep in my stomach after Rowan and I were orphaned. After we met the new reality of being truly alone and left to our own devices without our mother's guidance.

The illness took her quickly, and with our father nowhere to be seen, Rowan easily stepped into the role of head of the household. He found work wherever and with whomever he could; sometimes he'd come home with bruises and broken knuckles. Other times, he'd smell like dirt and flowers.

When it was just us? I questioned everything. Every rebellious action that my mother would scold me for. I struggled for the longest time to find my footing. To find the confidence without looking behind me and waiting for some subtle encouragement or praise from a loving face. I spent hours on the streets with Rowan, learning how to blend into the crowd or how to lift a satchel of coins from a coat without making a sound.

Which is why I've stayed in the room, stripped down to my chemise and feeding into the illusion that I could just fall asleep. Instead, I sit with a book settled on my thighs for however long. I feel wrung out and hopeless. Every careful assessment and every bit of attention I have paid to the smallest details has been rendered useless. The key to my salvation, the next step in my plan, hangs around my neck, glinting beautifully in the subtle lantern light. A new puzzle in itself.

I ground myself by recalling the sound of my mother's voice when she read us these stories so long ago. I can almost hear the hopeful lilt she gave to certain phrases. It takes me back to when I had a family and things were simple.

The stories have changed a bit now that I'm older and wiser to the ways of the world. Gone is the Amara who wishes to be a princess or a pirate. To walk the world with the easy grace that only stories can allow. To find something deeper hidden behind ruby eyes, a truth that keeps cresting my awareness and then sinking away before I can catch it.

I decide read my mother's favorite first. The Girl with the Clockwork Heart.

It's the story of an evil warlord who steals away a young woman and replaces her heart with a clockwork engine so that she will only do his bidding and bend to his will. He doesn't realize that it takes more than a heart to hope, to long, to dream, and to put thought into action. She finds her freedom and steals away with the artificer that has been tasked with keeping her alive and obedient. The one who falls in love with her and is ready to risk death to keep her safe.

The book is filled with the basic fairy tales. Themes of morality and triumph over adversity. Good overcomes evil, and life goes on without a hitch. It doesn't sate me like it usually would, not without Rowan's snarky comments interspersed. Once again, I'm reminded that I'm not that little girl anymore; remnants of her are all but washed away.

Then I see it. The Blood Prince. I cannot grasp the memory of my mother's voice reading it aloud. It's possible she hadn't, but I remember the story all too well. It's the only one that doesn't fit with the others; all of its lessons are lost in translation.

The Blood Prince begins not as a prince but as a man clawing for power. He doesn't use it to subjugate or conquer, but to survive and protect the one he loves. His Princess. He burns the world to keep her safe, losing all but the smallest sliver of his soul. For her, for a future that they can carve out together as they please. But she rejects it, tells him he is not the man she fell in love with, and takes that last piece of his soul with her when she leaves.

She's the hero of the story by turning him down. Putting the world before the one she loves. Something about it makes me sick. What I would give to offer another breath to my mother. To hear her voice again. To see my brother and to erase the final moments where I clutched his battered face, swollen into something I still can't recognize. I would bring down Gods if it meant I could protect the ones I loved. I can't understand how fairy tales could throw people to the wolves as a lesson in piety.