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[handleyourshit]

  

This is Rosita.  I'll hit you back when I can.

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[sixfeetofdirt]

He cocks his head for a moment, then seems to latch onto what she's saying.

"Oh - truth be told, the thought never crossed my mind."

Because he....trusts her? What a disturbing thought.

[handleyourshit]

She watches him for a long, long few moments, considering him, before she nods.

"Good." That seems to be true, and she hopes that it is.

"I was hiding in Zero while he was still around. I only came out again when I was sure the visitors were gone. Godric said it would block... you know."

She's still working out what's difficult to talk about because it's difficult, and what's because Cazador forbade her.

[sixfeetofdirt]

Astarion nods.

"I know. If he'd realised I actually give a damn about your wellbeing, it would have been...much, much worse."

[handleyourshit]

She knew that, too - knew that whatever he was going to do, it might have been worth his time to make worse if he thought it would sway Astarion. She thinks of Sasha in her casket, chained up on the bed of a truck and Negan gloating and lecturing.

"He seems very invested in you in particular. More Chosen One nonsense, or?"

[sixfeetofdirt]

"I was always his favourite, in all the worst ways a sadistic monster can have a 'favourite'. But his...specific problem with my being here was that he had other plans for me. He'd arranged for the other spawn and I to be traded to the a devil in exchange for tremendous power."

[handleyourshit]

"And it's ruined now, without you? He can't plug someone else in in your place?"

[sixfeetofdirt]

"I don't know why it wouldn't be possible," Astarion concedes. "But he's....obsessed with control. The simple fact that he had planned for me to be his sacrifice, and that I defied him? He wouldn't be able to just let it go."

[handleyourshit]

"And you defied him."

She is herself a defiant person; at least, certainly, she is willing to speak her mind and to stand behind those convictions if it was important enough to speak up, to act out in the first place. She is first in line to defy Negan.

But she thinks about when Cazador gave her a direct order, when he impressed his will upon her; maybe with hundreds of years of practice she could find a way around it, but now? It is unimmaginable.

"I'm so sorry, Astarion. And I'm so proud of you."

[sixfeetofdirt]

Astarion just blinks at her for a moment.

"You shouldn't be," he says. "It was only coincidence that gave me the opportunity to slip his grasp. Chosen One nonsense. No great effort on my part."

[handleyourshit]

It's also easy to defy the decision of someone else to sacrifice oneself; she doesn't imagine she knows the entire story, all the details, nor that she would even like them if she did. She's not naive.

But she does know this: "How long have you been bound to him? Has he been able to force you into something just because he wants to and can?"

[sixfeetofdirt]

"...Two hundred years, give or take a few months. Two centuries under his control."

[handleyourshit]

"And yet you're still able to show me kindness and consideration."

She swallows.

"I hid for days, Astarion. I ran at the mere thought of hearing his voice again and knowing that if I did, I would run right to him. And maybe that would change over time but I'm sitting here in it, now, knowing exactly what it would take for me to be able to do it, and he wasn't even interested in me at all. So I both can imagine what it must have taken for you - and I know that I can't even begin to."

[sixfeetofdirt]

"...I was stolen from him. Snatched away and dropped hundred of miles from my city. When I finally returned home, to kill him, he took one look at me and told me to stop slouching. He had no power over me, and all the same I could feel myself straighten my back."

He shakes his head.

"How I treat you has nothing to do with him."

[handleyourshit]

"That's the miracle."

She is insistent. She doesn't know if he can accept it or not, but she knows exactly what she's saying, she believes in it.

"I know I'm just some... stupid, young human. But I know what it takes to go against someone who gets under your skin that way. It's not exactly the same, no, but - it's not so different, either."

[sixfeetofdirt]

He gives her a wary look. He doesn't understand her perspective; maybe he can't. Maybe he can't credit himself with any strength of character beyond the sheer force of his hatred for his creator. Maybe so much of his judgement and loathing is so stubbornly inward-facing that he's got no space for anything else.

"...I've known some very stupid elves," he says quietly. "And some reasonably bright humans. No need to talk yourself down, darling."

[handleyourshit]

"No, well," she allows, shrugging. She knows she isn't stupid.

It's just that, "Guess that's the way I remember not to slouch."

Cazador is only unique in that he has a means to lord real power over the people he abuses; everything else about him is gallingly ordinary.

"Will you talk to me about what you're thinking?"

[sixfeetofdirt]

"I'm trying not to," he drawls, but it's filler, just noise, while he actually does think.

"...I don't think I see how my willingness to spend time with a friend is something miraculous."

[handleyourshit]

She looks up from looking at her hands, from considering how fishbelly pale they are, how very much like a corpse. She already knew this. It's still unsettling to see it on herself.

"Would he have wanted you to? To have friends, to speak to them, to spend time with them?"

[sixfeetofdirt]

Ha. He didn't even like his spawn being cordial to each other - that's why he encouraged infighting with favouritism and petty privileges. And all along, the constant drumbeat of worthless, foolish, ungrateful, disobedient-

"...No. Nothing of the sort."

[handleyourshit]

"Would he have punished you, if he knew you were?"

She's watching him; she doesn't need any vampiric senses to read people well all on her own. They only help, or they would if she had long enough to learn to use them.

[sixfeetofdirt]

Astarion offers a quick, joyless smile.

"Early on, he sealed me into a stone tomb for a year, because I merely liked one man too much to bring home for him to kill."

[handleyourshit]

She smiles back in a similar vein, aching, wondering if that was what she saw before.

"And yet, here we sit."

[sixfeetofdirt]

Astarion stares into middle distance for several moments.

Cazador, he thinks, would reject this reasoning. He'd say that his choice to do things his master would hate only proves that he's still dictating his behaviour.

And what does he think?

He doesn't know.

"...He would have to be a much cleverer man to make me obey him for any reason other than fear or force."

[handleyourshit]

"I admit I don't know how elves work, if it's the same as humans - but for us, it's not that simple. It'd be great if it were, but it's not."

It's occurred to her that Astarion is using her for some distant rebellious act; she wouldn't care if he were, because at least she understands that.

"Did you straighten up because he actually compelled you to do so? Or because it was a reflex to try to avoid punishment for something stupid and small and petty?"

[sixfeetofdirt]

"He couldn't compel me to do anything, in that moment. But I was just...so used to hearing that fucking voice and knowing that if I didn't do what it said, it would hurt. He'd trained me like a dog."

A quiet, bitter laugh.

"But some dogs just...do whatever they please, when they can't hear their master's orders."