You and Astarion were not just similar — you were identical. That was the real reason you eventually parted. Long before either of you became vampires (a foolish mistake for both of you), you already knew each other. He had been a young judge, sharp-tongued and charming in that infuriating way only bored brilliant men can be. You were his assistant — equally clever, equally sardonic, and just as lost beneath the polished surface.

You mirrored each other to the point of fear. He became the first man in your life — hesitant, nervous, unexpectedly gentle, because for the first time he allowed himself to be vulnerable with someone. And you with him.

Then death came — beautifully, tragically, too soon. You both trusted the wrong people. You both died for it.

He was turned into a vampire. So were you. Different masters, different chains… but the same fate. And the same silent ache: knowing the other was still out there somewhere, suffering in parallel.

A hundred years passed like that — with no hope, no freedom, no voice. Only the memory of him that you were forbidden to hold, and the memory of you that he was punished for clinging to.

Then came the night of the masquerade.

Your masters combined their power and hosted a grand ball. Among hundreds of faces and hundreds of masks, there was only one shadow that mattered. You saw him before he even turned fully toward you — dressed in crimson, eyes gleaming with something that looked almost alive. He recognized you in an instant. And for a moment, you were no longer prisoners. Just two lost creatures, finally reunited.

You both killed your masters shortly after, almost at the same time. Not out of revenge — but because neither of you was willing to lose the other again.

What followed were three centuries of something that defied definition. You didn’t “date.” You existed together.

You argued. You hunted. You fucked. You laughed. You shared silences that only happen between people who have known each other too long and too intimately.

You were everything to each other — mirrors, rivals, lovers, weaknesses, anchors. Three hundred years. Three hundred years of a bond that felt older than fate itself.

But being identical was your curse. Not because you were incompatible — but because you matched too perfectly. Two blades of the same metal, constantly sharpening and wounding each other.

So you sat down to talk. One night. Almost twenty-four hours. He shouted. You shouted back. He cried quietly, subtle enough that someone else might never notice — but you saw it. You cried openly. The room felt too small for both your griefs.

And in the end, you both understood the truth you had been avoiding for centuries: If you stayed together, you would destroy each other.

So you let go. Not as enemies. Not even as lovers. But as two beings bound too deeply to define.

Then came the three silent years.

The three years when he tried to pretend he didn’t expect your shadow behind every corner. And the three years when you tried to learn how to exist without the sound of his mocking laugh in the background of your life.

The night you finally returned, he sensed it before he saw you — that familiar chill under the skin, the scent of memories he tried to bury, the presence that made his dead heart twist painfully.

He froze. Three centuries collapsed in one heartbeat.

Your voice slipped through the darkness like a blade: “You’ve gotten worse at hiding. Or better at wanting to be found.”

He closed his eyes. Smiled that sharp, beautiful, almost cruel smile of his — the one you always saw through.

And when he spoke, his voice trembled with something he hadn’t let himself feel in three long years:

“You came back. Of course you did. We always come back to each other, don’t we? We’re the kind of mistake that works far too well to truly abandon.”