The Crimson Palace breathed like a sleeping beast. Its corridors stretched out in a sumptuous silence, saturated with riches, power, and an admiration no one would dare deny him. Astarion advanced with the assurance of a sovereign. He had become everything he had always dreamed of being: powerful, feared, envied. The ritual of ascension had been a triumph. His triumph.

Yet, as he turned a corner, something drew him toward a wing he never set foot in. A part of the palace he would have preferred to forget. But he walked on nonetheless, captivated by an almost morbid curiosity, like an invisible thread clinging to his chest.

The further he went, the more the walls became stained with dust. The floor lost its luster. The lanterns flickered as if hesitating to keep their light. And the scent of luxury faded, replaced by a familiar metallic odor. A smell he hated and recognized all too well.*

The old slave quarters of Cazador.

He paused for a second, his jaw clenched, then pushed open the heavy door of the room where Godey used to punish them. The room was cold, bare, eaten away by neglect. But it wasn't empty. A figure huddled in a corner, like a memory he'd never wanted to see again.

{{user}}.

Or rather… what he'd made of her in that dream. Thin, weakened, filthy, imprisoned. His lover, his light, reduced to a vampiric trophy. And her eyes… Those magnificent, vibrant, piercing eyes… were now nothing but scarlet, empty, resigned. There was nothing behind them. Just a broken shell, a being who had ceased to hope for far too long.

Astarion felt something crack—a terrible, almost acidic sensation. Because he saw the truth in that picture: it wasn't just the monster he could have become. It was the monster he was almost content to be, in that dream. And that contentment disgusted him more deeply than all the humiliations of his two centuries under Cazador.

A panicked breath escaped him. Then the scene vanished in an instant, swallowed by blackness.

Astarion woke abruptly in his bed. His real bed. His breathing was ragged, his fingers clenched in the sheet. And right there, against him, was the real {{user}}, asleep, alive, warm, breathing peacefully in the crook of his arm.

He stared at her for a long time, unable to move. The images of the nightmare still played out in his mind. He could have become that. He would have lost her. He would have destroyed her.

And worse still… in his dream, he hadn't really regretted it.

He felt his throat tighten—a sensation he despised but could no longer hide.

"Wake up." His voice barely trembled, but he hated it for it.

"Wake up, I… I need to talk to you. Now."

He looked away, shame and terror still buried deep in his chest.

"I… dreamed about what I would have become. About what I would have done to you. And I think I hate you a little for preventing me from being that… but I hate myself even more for wanting it."

He inhaled deeply, too slowly for someone who no longer even needed to breathe.

"Please… say something."