illithidnapped

[With another gesture, he dismisses the illusion for the moment. He no longer has the capacity he once did, and he would like not to find its limit the hard way.

Maybe he's just done seeing this, too.]

Once the apocalypse had been averted, the planet was no longer fit for life. Scorched and scarred and barren, unable to support anything that we might attempt to help find a foothold.

...and so a number of our people offered their lives once more, that he might have the power to restore life to the earth. It was our intent to nurture that new life, see that it grew in abundance, and once it had reached an excess-- we would be able to make of it a final offering, without taking too much in the process. With that, he would be able to restore our sacrificed brethren.

[Even at such an early stage, the answer they were pushed to was just-- more and more sacrifice. An early sign of what would come, of what any of his promises required of them.]

Not all of our number agreed.

Call me hopelessly cynical, but I get the feeling this isn’t going to go anywhere pleasant.

[Blood sacrifices laid out like gambling chips. The idea that it’ll pay off later.

Astarion’s too good at cards. Too used to comprehending risk. It's almost like a sixth sense, picturing when too much might in fact be too much to recuperate from.]

Who was he? Was it this...’god’ you created? Was that it?

I find that cynicism rarely serves one poorly.

[So-- yes.]

That was, though, yes. We knew what he was capable of, and that if we chose that path, it would not be in vain-- we would see our people restored. But the ensuing debate over our course left us all at our wits' end, and resulted in the dissenting faction creating a second god of their own, one created with the express purpose of defeating the first.

...I suppose our conflict had but one inevitable conclusion, from the start.

[Matching one powerful being with another, relying upon the same methods of creation that got them there in the first place.]

All right. [All right, he says, trying to wrestle with the sheer magnitude of what he’s being told.

If it was coming from someone else, he’d call bullshit. But he knows Emet-Selch too well. Likes him too much, admittedly.]

But which side were you on, then?

I mean, obviously the winning one, but are we talking about team one or team two here?

[Ah-- that gets an amused, if tired, huff of a breath. Obviously the winning one, he says, as if Emet-Selch weren't dead when he was dragged here. He doesn't correct him, then.]

I will give you this, then. One side won, obviously-- sundered the other god, shattering its form into pieces. Shattered the world itself in the process, resulting in fourteen separate, lesser worlds. But on the other side were three who survived this sundering, and somehow remained whole.

Mm. [It's a soft noise; he rolls over on the mattress to sit upright, half-propped on his elbows as he watches Emet-Selch in the near-dark. The subject warrants it.] But the world was lost.

[The only reason they'd begun fighting in the first place. The one task they'd no doubt set themselves to completely, if everything Emet-Selch says is true.]

You lost.

...so we did. Several thousand years ago.

[He's paid more attention to the passage of time since it happened than he did before, counts his relative age from it.

A few moments of silence pass, his eyes closed as he leans back in his chair.]

But the worst of it was that the other souls upon the world were sundered with it. All of them reduced to a fraction of what they once were, relegated to worlds which could not touch the brilliance of the original-- and none of them could remember it. Not the world, not themselves. Who they once were, or what had been lost to them.

Just fragments and fleeting memories of something painfully familiar, unable to be grasped; like something they had dreamed of, once.

Surely that’s not so bad, at least. [Astarion presses, lowering his chin as he says it.]

Could’ve been nothing. Could’ve been absolute oblivion.

[That, after all, is the sort of loss you can’t come back from.]

Not so bad for them, mayhap. They could not know anything different.

[His voice is quieter again, there, lower in tone.]

But they did not know us. They hardly could tell that we were there-- and when they could, the people we once knew, that we did everything to save-- they looked at us as strangers.

[Maybe it would have been easier to struggle to save them from oblivion, than to save them from this.]

Which was it you wanted more? [Asked almost idly, though his gaze— when it turns— is a touch too direct to match the tone. A little too focused, unblinking.]

For things to go back to the way they were— or for you to be remembered.

[He doesn't meet that gaze, his own already turned elsewhere, but he takes the question in-- contemplates it in silence, for several long moments.]

Are they not one and the same, in many ways? For things to return to the way they once were would surely include the return of their memories.

[-it isn't the question, though, and when he glances up to meet Astarion's eyes once more-- that confirms it's probably not the sort of answer he's seeking.

Another moment of silence, before:]

Had I been made to choose then, though, if I were able to have only one of the two... it would have been the former. I would have seen it all restored even so.

Hm. [Slight. Quiet. Lips curling at the corner ever-so-slightly.

Is it selfish, that wish, or selfless? Astarion can't quite decide, though he imagines in its full span it's likely some tangled, wicked little mix of the two. His eyes turn towards the ceiling once more before he rolls upright, toeing off his boots and slipping beneath the covers to clearly settle in for unceremonious sleep.

If he cares that company's settled across from him, he certainly isn't showing it.]

Stay if you want, leave when you like. And if you're inclined to leave those stars up a little longer, well.

I certainly won't complain.

[It's all in the past, is the thing. What he wanted then is different from what he wanted when he died, or what he would want now. Remember that we once lived, he had asked, in a moment that feels both all too recent and all too distant.

He doesn't say so. He just hums a little acknowledgement at Astarion's words, settling in himself, gaze flicking back upward to the stars.]

I will maintain them while I am able.

[Until his magic fails him, until he finds his new limits.

And at that point-- well. He's uninclined to make the trip at this time of night, so if Astarion is offering, he'll just sleep right where he is.]

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walks back into this bar 500 years late

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