TLV: IC Contact

[sixfeetofdirt]

Careful; I bite.

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[sixfeetofdirt]

"No - thank you," he says, and reaches for a plate. He hasn't availed himself of any blood since the end of the breach, either but the general discomfort of the death toll has made his hunger feel less pressing.

"Is that a common dream? Appearing somewhere undressed?"

[handleyourshit]

"Supposedly it's a common anxiety trigger," she admits, reaching to pick up one of the oranges for herself, but letting him take his pick of the rest.

"Especially in the teenage years, when everything is changing, and embarrassing."

[sixfeetofdirt]

"Ah, well, adolescents are terrible creatures, I'm not surprised that they notice that about themselves," he drawls.

Having warm food to eat is - comforting, in a way he didn't expect. Maybe it's just the fact of having it brought to him? Though he does have to fend off Aylin when she notices the bacon.

[handleyourshit]

She chuckles, taking her fingerless gloves off so she won't get orange juice on them.

"Well, to be fair, their brains aren't done forming." But all of this is buffer, something she's content to allow and participate in until she sees whether or not he'll willingly eat.

And once he does: "Jacob told me you aren't doing well."

[sixfeetofdirt]

"Wretched gossips, the pair of you," he murmurs, but without rancour. "The breach was...well. It illustrated a possible future that I can't say appeals to me."

[handleyourshit]

All the same she makes sure to say, "He's worried about you. He cares about you. So do I."

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?"

[sixfeetofdirt]

"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."

[handleyourshit]

"What was missing?"

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.

[sixfeetofdirt]

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."

[handleyourshit]

"You told me that John said that," she offers.

"But being told and living through it are two different things."

[sixfeetofdirt]

"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.

[handleyourshit]

"Good, because it's not about him."

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?"

[sixfeetofdirt]

"...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."

[handleyourshit]

"That's a hard place to be."

She looks up at him, watching, now.

[sixfeetofdirt]

"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.

[handleyourshit]

She doesn't rush past that, doesn't railroad right over it; it's a devastating state to be in, as she knows from her own experience. The one she's still, in fact, living.

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?"

[sixfeetofdirt]

"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.

[handleyourshit]

"You're still powerful," she counters, though she knows he'll blow her off. It doesn't change her opinion.

"And it sounds to me that safety and freedom are still part of the goal, anyway."

[sixfeetofdirt]

"You're right."

He concedes this point extremely easily.

[handleyourshit]

"So you still want that."

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."

[sixfeetofdirt]

"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?"

[handleyourshit]

"I do," she admits, and finishes up peeling her orange, setting the rind on the corner of the tray.

"I think everyone does. It just looks different for everyone - both what they want, and how they get there."

[sixfeetofdirt]

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."

[handleyourshit]

"Mm," she agrees. She did say that, and she can see that's where he is.

"May I make a suggestion?"

[sixfeetofdirt]

He looks up from the fruit to her face.

"Of course you may."