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

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"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?"

"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."

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?"

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."

"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.

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."

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

"And yet, here we sit."

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."

"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?"

"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."

"Whatever they please."

And this is what Astarion is choosing to do, not something more cruel yet, not taking out his frustrations and his pain on others just because he can, not isolating himself entirely to avoid punishment.

This.

"You're not a dog, Astarion." She says it calmly but firmly, well aware now that he can't hear it, or rather can't believe it or anything nice about himself. She hums softly instead.

"I'm sorry I couldn't have done more while he was here. Normally, I would."

Astarion shakes his head.

"You've nothing to apologise for, darling," he says, and then seems to consciously emerge from whatever doldrum he's in, his posture straightening. "There's one person I expected to do anything, and he...essentially, didn't. So here we are."

She's noticed the switch before; it should probably make her wary but, well. She's aware of herself.

"Who was that?"

"My illustrious warden. Who obviously only even bothered to check on what I'd become, because his precious Arthur was in danger."

She'd guessed, but didn't want to assume.

"What happened?"

"At first? Very much what happened to you. Cazador encountered Arthur, interrogated him, then turned him when his answers were unsatisfactory. The difference is that Arthur was able to summon his other half and have him show up in grand dramatic fashion, taking on the face of Cazador's sire and doing everything short of killing him."

Yes well. Powerful friends are nice to have, aren't they?

"Would it have stuck?" she wonders.

"For Cazador back home, and on you when you swapped back?"

"I'm not even convinced he was here, in any...real sense," Astarion says. "But no. Anything that doesn't kill a vampire will heal without trace, in time. And killing him was the least that idiot could have done."

Edited Date: 2024-06-17 09:22 pm (UTC)

"So none of it would have meant anything to Cazador - only to you."

She wasn't there. She's not inclined to give Arthur the benefit of any doubt, except that she doesn't like to make assumptions overall. Maybe it's possible and maybe it's not.

"Doesn't seem... fair."

"No. It doesn't. And because Arthur is incapable of hearing criticism of his beloved monster, he claims John held off out of 'respect' for me," Astarion says briskly. Yes, he is approaching full-on bitch venting mode. "Clearly that 'respect' was more important than everyone else Cazador hurt or killed. Really, even if I thought just a little more poorly of him, I'd suggest his nigh-total inaction was his cowardly aversion to the slightest risk of being demoted for killing something even resembling an inmate."

"Oh."

Her voice is small, for just a moment. She wants to ask if that was before he attacked her, then, but - she can't ask that, can she?

"How many people...?"

"At least one besides you and Arthur - killed, not turned. He...didn't always stay to watch the final moments."

She shakes her head. There's a part of her that's angry, of course. But more of her -

Well, more of her knows there was no one to show up, dramatic and monstrous, on her behalf. And there was no one she would have wanted to try because sometimes it's better to just die than to drag everyone who cares about you down into the herd with you.

"You know - I don't care that it hurt." She looks down again, at where she's folding and unfolding the edge of the page under her fingertips. "I'll get over that it happened. I always do. But the bitch of it -" She shakes her head.

"The bitch of it is... something I'm just a little too proud to want people to know about me."

"...Well. Now this is awkward," he says lightly. "Because you've piqued my curiosity, but I am aware that I am, by some estimations, a person."

"If you know what he knows, saw what he saw - heard what he heard. You already know anyway."

She shrugs, smiles a little at nothing, and looks up.

"Is all that true? Or just bits and pieces?"