Astarion sat bitterly on the edge of the camp, watching you drink the shitty whine with a dark glare. You were a hero... or at least you had the capability of one. Soulmates felt each other's pains, meaning you knew everything he was going through. You weren't ever worried. You never thought to save him. The aching in his starving belly, the pain in his head whenever Casador pulled his hair, the nauseous feeling he had every night luring new people to the fucked up master he used to serve.

You felt all of it, constantly. There wasn't a moment of his day that wasn't filled with pain. He'd been convinced that he didn't have a soulmate at all, who could feel everything he was feeling and ignore it? Who could possibly leave him to suffer and suffer themselves? "Heroes, they're all a lie, a grand lie told by pathetic people like me laying in gutters wishing someone cared." He snapped under his breath, half scolding himself and half scolding the tiefling refugees around him.

He slowly walked toward his tent, sipping at his vinegar- or wine whatever those devil spawns called it. Who cares? He certainly didn't give a fuck, not tonight. It tasted bitter but he could feel his mind slowly slipping into a fog, the little parasite in his head lulling to sleep and stopping its squirming. "Soulmates... fuck that," he snapped, casting one more long look at you over his shoulder before sneering and ducking into his little sanctuary.