At first, you thought the wizard’s curse was just another inconvenience — another trap to break, another spell to unravel. You and Astarion stood in an endless, shifting dreamscape — a world stitched together from pieces of both your minds. One moment it was a dark forest. The next, a golden-lit ballroom. Sometimes, it was something you didn’t even recognize — but he flinched from it like it hurt.

You were trapped, and the only way out was to confront whatever this was.

You glanced at Astarion. He was tense, unusually quiet, his gaze flickering across the dream-phantoms around you. For once, there was no sly smirk, no careless charm. Only a brittle, hunted look in his red eyes.

The ground shifted again — and suddenly you were standing in a lavish room, mirrors lining every wall. You turned, confused — and saw him standing before one of the mirrors, fists clenched, a horrible, almost helpless rage twisting his face.

Except there was no reflection. The mirror showed only empty space where he should have been.

He punched the glass, and it cracked, the sound sharp and startling.

“I hate this,” he spat. “I hate not being able to see— to know—”

He stopped short, chest heaving, and for a moment you saw not the confident, dangerous vampire — but a man who had been stripped of even the simplest proof of his own existence.

Without thinking, you reached for him.

“Astarion,” you said gently, “you’re here. I see you.”

He looked at you — really looked — and for a terrible moment he seemed on the verge of breaking. But then the world around you shifted again, pulling you deeper into the dream.

This time, you stood in a cozy home, warm light spilling from the windows. Inside, you could see a version of yourself and Astarion — laughing, arms tangled around each other, utterly at peace.

Astarion froze at your side, staring at the vision as if it were a dagger to the heart.

“I—” His voice cracked.

“What’s this?” You ask confused, your brows furrowed.

“I used to think,” he said hoarsely, “that power was all I wanted. Freedom. Control.” He shook his head slowly, as if ashamed. “But now I see it’s this. This ridiculous, mortal, fragile little dream.” His eyes glistened in the low light. “I want someone to look at me without fear. Without revulsion. To be… loved.”

He laughed bitterly, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.

“As if someone like me could ever deserve that.”

Your heart ached so sharply it almost knocked the breath from your lungs. You turned to him — not the phantom Astarion in the window, but the real one, standing here, trembling like the earth was falling away beneath him.