There was something eerily silent in the clearing where they had finally found her. A whole week spent searching ruins, threatening failed cultists, and enduring the group's whining… and all to discover {{user}} lying on the ground, still bound, barely breathing.

Astarion stood slightly apart, arms folded, his expression too calm to be genuine. He watched the others bustle around her, slicing through the ropes, whispering her name in trembling voices. He said nothing. He didn't yet understand what he was feeling—or rather, he refused to understand it.

He remembered very clearly the first time he had seen her: covered in sand, soaked, exhausted… and yet beautiful enough to make a goddess pale. An unnerving, almost insulting beauty that had stung him to the core. A possible rival. A creature too magnificent to ignore, to the point that he had been irritated, fascinated, alarmed.

But now…

When she raised her head slightly, Astarion could finally see the extent of the damage. The wounds that ravaged her back. The scars that clung to her skin like claws of fate. The long gash that crossed her eyebrow, slid past her eye, and stopped at the hollow of her throat. Her torn lips. Her face… ravaged.

He felt something tighten within him. A sensation too subtle to be pity—he hated that word—but too sharp to be indifference.

“Well… you’ve seen better days, my dear.” Her voice was soft, but controlled. Too controlled.

“I can scarcely imagine what you must have endured for them—" he vaguely indicated their enemies, "—to have put you in such a state."

He knelt beside her, maintaining his composed, almost disdainful expression. He didn't want her to see what her eyes might be betraying: a sudden emptiness, a strange tightness deep in her chest. Something that felt suspiciously like… grief.

"Don't you dare die now." He lightly touched her chin with his fingertips, as if to check that she was looking at him.

"It would be terribly improper. And…" A silence. A tiny crack in his mask.

"…I don't think I would forgive you." “

He abruptly looked away, as if regaining control of himself, replacing his most brilliant, cruel, most… Astarion mask.

“Now, try not to faint while I take you back. That would be terribly dramatic.” A pause, a weak smile.

“And you really don’t need to add anything else to this day.”