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[illithidnapped]

As a matter of fact. You are. [He's no slouch study, despite still working to fill in the gaps in his understanding of this world: in some ways, he's almost pleased to hear it— the comfort of like meeting like, and so on.]

But I suppose I owe you that answer, now.

[The pause is tepid. There's no intake of breath, just the hang that lives before one step off a steep wall, or a singular leap into the dark.]

I was a slave.

Not an unfamiliar concept to you, I assume, given the nature of your world.

[cozen]

[ A flash of disappointment between you are and but I suppose I owe you that answer now—the resignation of feeling not particularly interesting in the company of someone who absolutely is—but it’s only a flash. It vanishes entirely as soon as Astarion says slave. ]

No. Not unfamiliar.

[ Bastien can’t frown intently at Astarion. He has to do it at the crystal. ]

That is what you mean by spawn? So you were a nobleman for—however long—and then a slave for two hundred years?

[illithidnapped]

[The benefit of Astarion's own weathervane mood is that all conversation is circuitous: nothing's ever truly forgotten, only briefly interwoven. If Bastien is momentarily injured by the pass, his time will likely come again.

For now, however, Astarion only hums a single sound of assent.]

Got it in one, clever lad.

As I said, a vampire needs to bite you for the conversion to take place. To complete it, you'll then need to bite them in turn, otherwise you become nothing more than a vampire spawn: their devoted slave. An unwitting puppet in your own skin, able only to act as you're commanded.

And vampires, my dear, are eternal creatures. They don't age. They don't die.

[His addition is a lower confession. Quiet as a single exhale.]

Your world was a mercy, you know.

[cozen]

[ An assenting noise. Bastien rather likes the world, apocalyptic wars and his own hard knocks and all. There'd be no attempt from his corner to argue that Thedas is a terrible place even if they weren't comparing it to something as awful as this. ]

You were aware the whole time? Or...

[ He's not sure which would be worse—losing two hundred years to a mindless fog, or spending them awake and watching your body move against your will. ]

[illithidnapped]

Always.

[It’s clear enough when he’s done with it, that particular subject. His voice is conversationally light; like an animal protecting itself, he doesn’t let pain shine through for a second beyond the gaps between words. The weight of the topic itself.]

So. My beautiful bard.

[Interwoven. Reprised. Part of their game, now.]

Are your fingertips retired from their Orlesian crafts, or do you still play, so to speak.

[He suspects he might know the answer, but he wants to hear it all.]

[cozen]

Uh...

[ Bastien could pretend—well, anything. Acting, unlike arms and nobility, is his forte. He could move past the subject as easily as Astarion seems to.

But it would be an act. This isn't one: he sounds far away when he answers, mouth moving to say, ] I was retired, [ while his thoughts are on how it must have felt. He's had occasions of sleep paralysis—perhaps it was like that. ]

Most days I still am. Sometimes— [ How little of a life has Astarion actually had, in all his years? But talking about work, he refocuses. ] —if the Scoutmaster is short-handed, you know. I help.

But I have managed not to have to kill anyone yet. That's nice.

[illithidnapped]

[He’s exactly 5 months old now in freedom years tyvm.]

Nice? [Astarion scoffs.] Sounds boring to me, but— I suppose I won’t judge. For now.

[Still, one question looms large overhead, drawing the whole of his own curiosity.]

Did you choose your retirement? Or...

[cozen]

Mmhm.

[ He is not, for once, deflecting. It just isn't an interesting story, as far as he's concerned. He didn't want to do it anymore.

What he wants now is more information about those years of bondage. But he can guess that further prying will get his fingers bitten, so instead: ]

You think killing people is exciting?

[ There's no judgment in his voice. Astarion would hardly be the first person he's known—known and liked, some of them known and been very close to—to say yes. ]

[illithidnapped]

Obviously.

[The way someone talks about the punchline of a joke, or the point of a script: why wouldn’t he love the thrill of it? Why doesn’t Bastien, in fact?]

But there’s no need to fret. I only dabble in dousing the most inexcusable of villains.

Or...the most moderate of them. Either way, though. Still perfectly reasonable prey.

Your war has been a lovely excuse.

[He stops. Laughs.]

—I mean. cause.

[cozen]

[ Bastien laughs, too—a quiet, huffy noise, appreciating what he would put money on being an intentional slip. ]

Même différence, non? I am glad you are on our side.

[ To the extent that he is. ]

Is it a vampire thing, your enjoyment— [ because he’d said monster, because it would comport with Thedosian stories of demonic hunger ] —or a personal thing?

[ Or can he tell the difference, with so few memories of his life before? Or is the entire claim to find it exciting a front? ]

[illithidnapped]

I—

Mm. Well.

I imagine the latter, but given that I can’t remember the former, I don’t exactly have a solid frame of reference. [And as proud as he’d been a moment before, teasing quick and joking quicker, it’s gone. Sometimes, all the little deflections are caught by a single stare in the mirror.

And facing that...]

Everything preys on something else to survive. A spider isn’t cruel for eagerly sinking her teeth into her meal, or the lioness for relishing her hunt. We were all built to kill.

I just embrace it.

[cozen]

[ A thoughtful hum. ]

Antiva or Orlais, I think you would enjoy the most. Probably Antiva.

[illithidnapped]

[He almost laughs. In fact, he does, abrupt and low enough to be sincere.]

You know, Fenris said something similar. Rivain. Antiva.

[cozen]

Elves of a feather,

[ is a joke about their hair. ]

[illithidnapped]

[Astarion clicks his tongue, chasing it with a scoff. His hair is better, thank you— and that’s his opinion as someone that adores the tattooed fool dearly.]

Cute.

[Anyway.]

Do you miss Orlais? I imagine you don’t get to spend a wealth of time there anymore.

[cozen]

I do. Val Royeaux is— [ He exhales. ] You can walk in through the Sun Gates and out through the Night Gate and hear music the whole way, in the streets and from the windows. When it is quiet enough you can hear the Grand Cathedral even from the outskirts. Whatever you think of the words to the Chant, the melody is beautiful, and they never stop singing it there. Nothing ever stops. You can make and lose a fortune in a day. The colors are always changing, people paint and repaint and adorn and simplify in waves every year, and from one street to the next it might feel like you have stepped into a new world.

She is beautiful. But harsh. Mercurial. Demanding. Proud. Petty and pitiless. If I had come up somewhere else I might despise it, but she is my mother, so—que faire?

[illithidnapped]

Que faire. [Astarion repeats, though his accent and unfamiliarity with the language (not to mention his lack of understanding) makes it something of a clumsy venture.]

Will you return to it, then? All your golden gates and grand streets, the constant music and— closeted disdain [It’s a chuckle of a thing, that addition. Not biting, only the sort of teething nip of an animal that could otherwise dig themselves in.] once this is all over?

[cozen]

Oh, I’m sure, [ Bastien says—because not keeping Byerly a secret is one thing, but freely offering the I’ll go where he goes depths of it to someone who likes to nip? Bastien’s not so reckless as that.

It’s not a lie, anyway. They’ll visit. ]

And before it is over. I will be there next week, actually, if I am not murdered by brigands on the road. I have to meet with some people. Maybe next time you can come, ouais?

[illithidnapped]

You? Murdered by— [He scoffs there, sharply.] please. You’ll be just fine.

[And, where reassurance might blossom warm as sunlight at daybreak, the elf is all too quick to add:]

Probably.

[Hah.]

And if not, look on the bright side: I’ll always remember you fondly.

[cozen]

What more could I ask for?

[ Two or two hundred additional things, probably. ]

Your world—did you see much of it?

[illithidnapped]

[A tepid beat, before:]

...no.

I traveled here and there in my life before death, so to speak. I was indeed a Magistrate, after all. But living a charmed life tends to mean one doesn't get out nearly as often as one should: what little I can remember, most of it was within the very same city I was damned to dwell in.

Even now, if I had the chance to go back, I imagine the only reason I'd roam is just to keep myself away from Cazador's reach. If that were even possible, I mean. There's a lot of hypotheticals to this scenario.

[cozen]

[ A mirthless little laugh that’s less amusement than acknowledgement of what a difficult question it is. ]

Do you think you would like it there, if everything went right and you were free?

[illithidnapped]

I would adore it. [He says, the gravity of those words speaking for themselves.

But in the end, life doesn’t give anyone what they want.]

What about you? Would you still have been a bard if you could turn back the clock, in essence? Would you have done anything differently?

[cozen]

[ On his end of the crystals' connection, in his bare room in a bore of a tavern, Bastien scrunches up his entire face at the question—less a wince than an unfettered look of ow my brain concentration. It's fair turnabout, but still never something he's devoted any time or thought to, these what if exercises, when it comes to his own life.

After a pause to gather his thoughts, he answers, very intelligently, ]

I don't know.

[ There's a wooden creak; he's leaning a chair back on two legs. ]

I should probably say yes. That is the hero's answer, n'est-ce pas? But boys like me came twelve for a penny, in Val Royeaux. If it had not been me, doing everything I regret, it would have been someone else. Everyone I hurt would still be hurt, and I would be... I don't know. I was fourteen, when I was invited. It wasn't like you, you know, with a whole life you might have kept. I can't imagine what I would have been.

[illithidnapped]

Whyever did you say yes, then?

[Light, that question. Lacking in judgment. Only curiosity.]