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[ A breath out. ]
I got a couple of presents for you at port. Because I want you to feel comfortable, I'm going to let you approach me when you're ready to-
Well, anything.
By communicator. By mind. Walking up to me. Whatever. Short of needing to let you know something, I'll give you some space to cool off. If something happens where I'm concerned about you specifically, I'll contact you here and I'd appreciate a check back, but that'll be the end of it. It won't... turn into a big long talk like this did.
I mean, unless you want it to. But-
You get what I'm saying, I hope.
[ He breathes out... and then realizes one last thing.]
One last thing before I forget: Arthur knows I was shaken up by touching a corpse. I didn't tell him anything, but he's not stupid and there aren't many things I won't talk to him about. I'm going to keep an eye on him so hopefully he doesn't bother you about but I figured I'd give you the heads up just in case. I told him to stop meddling but...
[ Arthur Lester cannot be governed. ]
"No. Truly, until just now the thought didn't even occur to me."
He's had other, worse things on his mind!
So you didn't tell him anything but he'll know exactly what happened anyway.
How is that different?
He doesn't know exactly what happened. He knows something happened. He's seen how it affects me and I'm a shit liar. If I avoided him, he'd know something happened there too. There's pretty much no way for him to not know something happened.
You're confident enough that he'll work out what happened that you're warning me he might do something about it.
He always wants to know.
A 'yes' would have sufficed.
So your inability to tell Arthur that something is none of his business outweighs a promise you made to me. Understood.
But I can't control him. He does what he wants.
My problem isn't that you can't control him, it's that you won't control yourself.
You knew I'd used a weapon and you knew where. You could have just asked me what happened to them. 'Oh, but you lied to me about something insignificant, so I can't trust you'. Fine. I would be much less annoyed if you'd asked me and then gone groping corpses in the gutter to confirm my story, an idea which occurred even to me despite being a moron.
Go fuck yourself.
[ disconnecting đŸ˜” ]
And then he's going to breathe in deep and breath out slow and put his communicator down and walk for a minute. ]
"I may take you up on that," Astarion says, then pauses, thoughtful. "How long have you been assigned to him?"
"Not everyone counts time the same."
Astarion nods, sanguine.
"What does he consider to be 'wardening'?"
"We haven't discussed it. He hasn't read my file and I don't think he intends to. He tries to catch me in inconsistencies, challenge what I'm thinking. But I believe he trusts I won't harm anyone unless they deserve it, so he gives me a long leash."
Would you say? If he did harm you?
Yes. Though I...don't think he's going to.
And sometimes we're willing to endure that damage for whatever reason, but I feel like - I worry that you're someone who's so used to just taking it that you've forgotten that you don't have to.
[Astarion takes this extremely good read on his perspective plus the phrase 'I worry' slightly better than you might expect, which is to say that he just sits quietly with it all for a while instead of immediately laughing it off.]
...I...
...I know I don't have to take it. But this place makes it very easy to expect it.
But it's easier to stand up for someone else than oneself, isn't it?]
I know. It's part of what I hate about it, and what I hate about people who refuse to even acknowledge that.
But we don't have to be of this place.
"Hm. Did you ask him not to read your file, or - well, I'm fairly sure he can read."
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