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

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"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?"

"...I remember seeing what he saw, hearing what he heard. But what he thought, or felt, that's all rather...abstract."

But he remembers her unwillingness to be dismissed, and in retrospect he finds it odd; as a newborn spawn, he'd been - to say the least - reluctant to spend time with his new master. If she finds it less 'odd' and more 'humiliatingly revealing' then, well. It's nobody else's fucking business, is it?

"...Regardless. What happened between the two of you isn't for me to discuss."

"...Yeah."

It's complicated, is the thing. And she doesn't know for sure if it's some side effect of being undead or just that she's reached her trauma threshold that she's so easily able to hold it at arm's length, but she can set it aside as long as no one else knows. No one else sees, or tries to talk to her about it.

"Do the. Do the files update? Do you know?"

Astarion blinks.

"...I have no idea. I could ask to see mine and check, I suppose?"

Clearly she doesn't want to have the relevant conversation with Godric.

"It's okay."

After all, "I haven't even looked at mine yet."

"Ah. Nor have I - I was there for my life story, I don't really feel the need to see it on paper, you know?"

"I just need to know how detailed it is."

She was there, yes, but what counts? When does it start?

"Has John read yours?"

"Yes, for what little it's been worth. We haven't really talked about anything he might have encountered in there."

"Do you want to?" she asks, then reconsiders.

"With him. Or anyone."

"...I don't know. It was just frustrating when he made this song and dance of 'I don't need to read your file, I'd rather hear it from you'," he is absolutely doing an unflattering impression of John, "then ultimately seemed content to just read the damned thing and then never mention it again."

"Godric did the same thing. Said he wouldn't read it without me, and locked it in a chest in a room I can't go in, and gave me a key."

No unflattering impressions here to make him smile the way she had, but she's clearly too paranoid to fully believe she has the only key or that he even locked it.

"Then I got pissed at him and we haven't talked about it since."

Edited Date: 2024-06-18 09:44 am (UTC)

"Well, that's - aggravating. And you can only take on trust that he hasn't read it, of course."

He makes a low, disgusted noise.

"What are you going to do?"

"Allegedly -" God she still hates this entire system, this entire ship.

"- the files can give clues about whatever got the Admiral's panties in a bunch about us in the first place. I need to read it, before I lose my mind over it again."

Astarion hums.

"Do you have the option to read it without him?"

"He says he'll let me do that if I want to. Says it's my life."

She frowns.

"But he can just ask for another copy and I'd never know. I can't trust that."

"I all but insisted on John reading mine because I couldn't be bothered spending the rest however-long-it'll-be second-guessing whether he did it or not regardless," Astarion says. "Is it important to you that he not read it?"

"That's what I thought, too."

She just got angry with him first.

"I'd rather not. Besides it being my life, not some fucking... entertainment column. I still don't accept that there are any grounds to hold me here on. But that's not how anywhere works."

"Sadly not. If everyone got what they deserved, well..."

He tilts his head back, gazing at the ceiling.

"I can't even imagine what that world would look like."

"I liked Godric."

She still does, it's just harder now. For a lot of reasons.

"I wish he hadn't gotten caught up in this bullshit."

"What bullshit do you mean exactly? We've had...quite a lot of it to work through."

"This."

She waves around them vaguely.

"The last thing I needed was my best friend's boyfriend invested in whether I graduate or not. Well. Maybe not the last thing, but definitely top three."