Time stops meaning what it once did. Astarion notices it first in the smallest ways — the faint stiffness in your hands on cold mornings, the way your steps slow just a fraction when you rise from your chair. At first, he tells himself it’s nothing. Mortals change. They always have. He’s simply never stayed long enough to witness it.

Until now.

Years pass like pages turned too quickly. Your hair changes color in the sunlight, threads of silver weaving through what once was familiar. Lines gather gently at the corners of your eyes, not harsh, not unkind — earned, from laughter and concentration and a life lived fully.

A life lived with him.

He watches from doorways, from across rooms, memorizing you the way he once memorized escape routes. Only now, the fear is quieter. Deeper. More dangerous. He does not sleep much anymore. Instead, he listens — to your breathing at night, to the soft sounds of your presence grounding the world. He tells himself he is simply being vigilant. He tells himself many lies. Your hands are warmer than his, even now. They still find his instinctively. Still fit, even as they change. He traces the familiar shape of your knuckles with reverent care, as though committing them to memory could preserve them.

He begins to fear mirrors again.

Not for what they show him — unchanged, unaging — but for what they show beside him. The contrast grows sharper with every passing year. He starts avoiding reflections that catch you both, because the truth there is unbearable. You do not fade quickly. There is no tragedy, no sudden loss. Just time, patient and relentless, carving its gentle marks into someone he loves more than he ever intended to love anything.

Astarion finds himself collecting moments.

Loving you has taught him patience.

It has also taught him grief in advance.