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He doesn't hear that enough, she thinks. She knows. She digs her thumbnails into the skin of the orange, something to take the focus off when she asks, "Tell me more?"
"It was...as close to ascension as a mortal man could get, in that world," Astarion sighed. "The means to kill anyone he chose, in his hands. A near-perfect shield from law enforcement. Nigh-unlimited wealth. Enough political influence to act unhindered. Safety. Freedom."
He grimaces.
"And it wasn't enough."
This, she could point out, is an old parable - countless books and movies and plays and television shows about it. But Faerun is different, with different culture, different priorities, different pitfalls. So she asks instead of tells.
He's been told before, anyway.
"The common sense to stay away from large windows during physical alterations, for one thing," he drawls, but he knows that's not an answer.
He takes another bite of his food.
"...More. Of all of it. When I say it 'wasn't enough', I mean it wasn't enough of those things. And perhaps it never could be."
"But being told and living through it are two different things."
"Yes, it is. And I'm not going to give him the opportunity to tell him he told me so, he'll be insufferable."
This may mean never talking to John again?? But John has other friends, so.
She isn't invested either way in Astarion ever talking to him again, but that doesn't mean she likes the guy any better.
"So that's what happened in the breach. Where's that leave you?"
"...I don't know," he says quietly. "If I accept that power is just a larger cage, that I shouldn't want it, then...I don't know what to do."
She looks up at him, watching, now.
"Yes. It is. It's been a while since I haven't really had anything to...want."
Hopelessness feels like a maw opening beneath him. Or a tomb.
But it's not about her, so she leaves it for a few moments, considering.
Then: "Is it that you don't have anything to want?" she asks. "Or that you lost how you were sure you were going to get there?"
"The former," Astarion says quietly. "I wanted to be...powerful to the point of being untouchable. Safe and free. Back home, the business with the Nether Brain and what I learned about the Rite opened a...couple of avenues. If their promises were only ever self-delusion, then..."
He shrugs.
"And it sounds to me that safety and freedom are still part of the goal, anyway."
"You're right."
He concedes this point extremely easily.
And they're good things to want. They are, she'd argue, something pretty much every sentient being wants.
"It just maybe looks different, now."
"It does."
It looks like a fantasy. It looks like a joke. If ascension was a self-delusion, then freedom without power is a delusion fed to fools by others. He thinks of Dalyria and Petras, so certain that Cazador was going to give them their liberty. Pitiable.
"You want those things too, don't you?"
"I think everyone does. It just looks different for everyone - both what they want, and how they get there."
Astarion nods. He sets down the plate and reaches for an apple, but just holds it.
"So that's where I am. Just...abstract desires, and no plans. Not a desirable place to be. As you said."
"May I make a suggestion?"
He looks up from the fruit to her face.
"Of course you may."
"If I broke my arm, you wouldn't expect me to pick a bow back up again immediately, would you?"
Astarion blinks at her.
"I - well, I'd want you to see a healer instead of just waiting it out, but I see what you're driving at. No, I wouldn't."
"Then see a healer." Since he's the one who suggested it. "And give yourself some grace before making any major decisions either way."
He nods.
"I will."
This is the decision he's made, for now. Passivity, obedience - swallow discomfort, stop arguing, stop learning over and over that he's wrong and stupid and bound for disappointment. Nobody's going to hurt him here. Not in the way he's used to.
She is an expert at losing, in a different way but no less thorough than he is, she's always thought.
"D'you know why I liked you straight away, when I can't stand most of the people here, cariño?"
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