sixfeetofdirt | TLV: IC Contact

[And in practice - the part that no warden she's encountered seems fully capable of understanding the threat of - it could all be taken away again at a word, with nothing functional Astarion or anyone on his behalf could do about it.]

Would you say? If he did harm you?

To you, because of this? Yes. I would.

At all. Because he could.

Yes. Though I...don't think he's going to.

If I've learned anything about people who will accept power over other people, it's that even when they're good, even if they don't mean to, sometimes they do damage.

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.

[She doesn't think he does know that, not really. She knows because she feels the same way.

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.

I'm not even sure what being 'of this place' would look like.

You know, John keeps insisting I don't have to change? I just have to 'choose a different path'. As if the choices I make aren't a product of who I am.

Well, he's right in that you don't have to change.

But if something doesn't fit anymore, sometimes you can choose to change. If you want to.

...I know.

Unfortunately, the only thing that doesn't fit is the fact that I'm stuck here.

Really.

The only thing.

Really. I'll be the first to admit that I'm a complete bastard, but I'm content with that!

If you weren't here, you'd be living your best life, happy as a pig in shit about everything else?

If I hadn't died? I'd be about five minutes away from it, yes!

[She does not believe this, not really, but if it's what he wants to tell her, who is she to challenge him?

His friend, she thinks, but then reminds herself that she has a habit of imagining things that aren't there.]

Alright.

All right.

[He lets a silence draw out.]

...I was about to kill my master. It was the first chance I'd had in two centuries.

And he just...crushed me like an insect.

[Rosita is comfortable with silence. She lets it draw too, and when he continues, there's a soft sniff of a sound before she answers, solemn.]

I'm sorry.

Hope that's closest is hardest to lose.

Yes. It is. Thank you.

Does -

[She hesitates, trying to pick her way through the unfamiliar concept.]

Does it hurt, then? Being here without him, because you couldn't kill him?

Gods, what a horrible thought. No, nothing like that.

Cazador used to have complete, compulsive control over me. I couldn't not follow his orders. He could summon me to his side no matter how far I got from him.

That link between us was...interrupted, temporarily. He lost his power over me. I tried to make the most of that, to make my freedom absolute, and...failed.

That sounds...

Horrible. And terrifying.

It was!

If I'd been able to read the small print of his offer to 'save' me while I was bleeding to death, well, I'm not sure what I would have chosen.

Save you.

The... first time?

When he made me a vampire. I'd been set on by some gang of thugs, and maybe he'd had a hand in that or maybe he was just drawn to the scent of blood. I'll never know.

'Death or immortality' didn't feel like much of a dilemma at the time. I thought he was helping an influential member of the judiciary, not acquiring a slave.

No. People will do a lot worse than that, faced with death before they're ready.

What disrupted the connection?

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private

Re: Private