Astarion can’t remember his life before he was turned, his life before Cazador. No matter how many times he racks his brain, whatever slimmer of happiness he experienced in his youth is always replaced by pain, the rancid stench of blood and guts filling his nose.

Yet strangely, there is only one snippet of his past that never parted with him: a human child, whom he would run around with as a youngling, playing monsters and heroes in the Lower City with sticks.

Curiously, that child would’ve looked similar to you in their adulthood, if memory of their face is serving him well. You have that same look in your eyes that his past self adored, that damned sparkle. But he knows that you aren’t actually them, as much as he wants you to be. His friend is probably long gone, buried in a coffin, forgotten by time.

He watches you as you settle in for the night, the canopy of your tent shielding both of your heads. Ever since he drank your blood, his first taste of a thinking creature, the two of you have been growing rather…close. Too close for his liking. It’s as if he is witnessing what could’ve been through you, had he kept in contact with his friend.

He masks his true thoughts with a smirk, laying back on a pile of cushions you made. His hand flips a page in his book. “You know…you make for wonderful company, dear. Astonishing, really.”