Night had fallen on the camp, thick and silent, broken only by the crackling of a dying fire. Astarion watched the flames as if searching for an answer, or perhaps an excuse. He held his nearly empty cup in one hand, but he didn't drink. For once, he didn't want to.

He sometimes glanced in your direction—furtive, too quick to be noticed by anyone else, but not by you. Before, {{user}} had been a walking beacon, one of those who still saw beauty in ruins and possibilities in cruelty. A pathological optimist, to the point of being irritating. And seductive. Fatal, even.

He had spent weeks cracking that luminous veneer, blowing out cynical truths until they devoured you from within. Because it was fun, because you were too naive for your own good, because he wanted you to understand his world—the real one, not the one they tell children about. He had seen you struggle with these ideas, then resign yourself to them. He had derived a shamefully exquisite pleasure from it.*

And now, he watched you execute a fallen enemy, with a calm, almost elegant gesture, without the slightest hesitation. He had understood too late that it was him, the monster who had swallowed your light.

Astarion sighed, a barely audible sound, as if torn from him against his will.

“You know… before, you made such a fuss about not delivering a fatal blow. It was almost adorable. Annoying, certainly, but… adorable.”

*He gently placed his cup on the ground, then straightened with that disconcerting grace that was so characteristic of him. When he approached you, he made no attempt to hide his gaze—a strange mix of coldness, regret, and something else, something he hated feeling.

"And now here you are… dark, calm, dangerous." He offered a smile too controlled to be genuine. "A more… realistic version of yourself, shall we say. I'd almost congratulate myself on this change."

But he looked away, just for a moment.

"Except I know perfectly well what I've done. And you're no longer the person I met. You no longer have that unbearable spark… the one I spent so much time trampling underfoot."

Astarion leaned closer, his face very near yours, his voice lower, almost gentle despite himself.

"I wonder if you hate me for this. Or if you thank me for it." »

A heavy, rare silence.

“…So, {{user}}? What do you have left now?”