Astarion Ancunín

Could it really be so simple? To just...let his wanderlust take him, to have his adventures, and yet have somewhere to call home when it was done? It feels so...

...it feels like freedom. So tantalising as to be dangerous.

"Mm." He's a bit too deep in his own head to form words on the subject.

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He walks with him, feet crunching over leaves, and lets him think.

"You ready to go back?" he wonders, breaking the silence.

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"I - yes, thank you."

He pauses a moment, then leans in and kisses Jacob, gently.

"...Thank you."

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He cups his jaw before pulling away. "Yeah. Now c'mon. This will be the only time I let you play dress up with me," he says to lighten the mood.

He, of course, does not know what his gift will be.

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Astarion tsks at him, but he's smiling.

"Jacob, if this is your idea of dress-up, I don't even know what to say to you."

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"Not this," he laughs, nudging his shoulder as he leads the way out. "You were supposed to find me some new clothes since my shot was better."

In a very fair contest.

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"Ah, yes. Well. You seem to have neglected to place any conditions around your request? I'm sure I can find some lovely petticoats in the communal wardrobe."

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"I'm sure you can, but you won't get me in them," he snorts.

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Astarion huffs, though he's still in good spirits.

"Fine. I'll pick out something very predictable and masculine for you."

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He shamelessly grabs his ass. "There we go," he snorts, opening the door for him.

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"The version of me Jesus knows survived the fight where I remember getting shot and coming here."

It's... a problem, though she tries not to let it be.

"Like that you mean? Or something different?"

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"Different, I think. There are...divergences in a history we otherwise share, long preceding both his death and mine. Different people, different events, but the same broad arc."

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"This place is fucking weird."

She sighs.

"I can't decide if that actually makes it harder to figure things out, or if I'm just... inflexible."

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"Most people don't have to be 'flexible' enough to deal with a place like this," Astarion observes. "I hear there's such a thing as being so open-minded your brain falls out, and you've a stronger head than that. It's something I admire about you, actually."

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"That my brain hasn't fallen out of my head?" she answers, dry.

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"That you're practical and thoughtful," Astarion says, just as dry in return. "I - struggle to give much thought to anything beyond the immediate future."

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"You seem to be having a better time for all of that."

She's compared him to a cat, but she's the one who's feral and standoffish.

"But I'm not surprised."

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"I'm doing fine here," Astarion says mildly, "where all my needs are met and little changes from month to month. I....honestly don't know if I'd last a tenday in a world like yours."

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"I wouldn't let you fall," is what she offers, seriously.

"But that's the rub, isn't it? Here is not there, or wherever either of us goes next, or anywhere but here. I have no idea if I should adapt to here, or hold on to what's allowed me to survive out there. I wouldn't know what to tell you even if you were asking."

She reaches to pick up the pants, to study the stitches he's put in and the way the edges match up.

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"Can't you do both?" Astarion wonders, as he watches her. "You spent years in that place. The lessons you learned won't be so easily forgotten just because you're taking up some new ones, surely."

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"Two," she answers, quietly. It feels like more, but the truth is, "It's been two years since the virus. And the hardest lessons are the ones I'd have to forget about to be happy here."

Always be ready for what you have to be taken from you. Always be ready to be lied to, or stepped on, or traded.

"People are hideous, Astarion. All that keeps most of them in line is the threat of punishment."

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"I know," he says - quietly, solemnly. He's seen, and intimately experienced, what even people in a 'civil' society are capable of when that threat of punishment is removed.

"But is that kind of lawless world the one you plan on returning to?"

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Having inspected the patch, she turns the garment to another tear and starts setting it up how she remembers him doing.

"I don't know. But even if it isn't, I'm worried I wouldn't be able to stop waiting for the new world to fall, too." That's the price for thinking ahead.

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He watches carefully, making a couple of slight corrections - little more than suggesting she give herself more space to work.

"All worlds fall eventually, darling, but just because you've been witness to one once-in-an-epoch eventuality, that's no reason to believe they'll start following you around. Hells, once you've graduated, stay. Make a deal and use it to apocalypse-proof wherever you go next."

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