[ If there is one comfort to be taken in all the ghastly visions Astarion has had over the past weeks, it's that no one else can see them.
Perhaps it is also a burden in its own ways, too; he's sure he's made himself look like a lunatic recently, getting into shouting matches with people no one else can see. But at least, he tells himself, it means that they aren't really there; they can't touch him, can't harm him, can't take any physical revenge for the fate he'd lured them into. They are hallucinations; frightening, disturbing, but still only figments. Harmless.
So when that inevitable night comes, when Astarion finds himself walking the city streets, driven from his bed by nightmares, and he comes face-to-face with his master—somewhere, beneath the instinctive panic and terror, he clings to that hope: that this is just another specter. A figment that cannot touch or punish or hurt. Even as the figure draws closer bearing that all-too-familiar smile and even as Astarion himself stands there, paralyzed by dread, he doesn't abandon that hope. That this is all in his head. That it will pass, as all the others have done.
And then, there's another voice, muttered and terrified, and out of the corner of his eye, Astarion sees him: someone else, fallen to the ground, staring in horror at... at him? At Cazador? Astarion knows he shouldn't turn away from his master, but he does all the same—what else doe he have to lose?—and stares, wide-eyed and confused at the boy.
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Perhaps it is also a burden in its own ways, too; he's sure he's made himself look like a lunatic recently, getting into shouting matches with people no one else can see. But at least, he tells himself, it means that they aren't really there; they can't touch him, can't harm him, can't take any physical revenge for the fate he'd lured them into. They are hallucinations; frightening, disturbing, but still only figments. Harmless.
So when that inevitable night comes, when Astarion finds himself walking the city streets, driven from his bed by nightmares, and he comes face-to-face with his master—somewhere, beneath the instinctive panic and terror, he clings to that hope: that this is just another specter. A figment that cannot touch or punish or hurt. Even as the figure draws closer bearing that all-too-familiar smile and even as Astarion himself stands there, paralyzed by dread, he doesn't abandon that hope. That this is all in his head. That it will pass, as all the others have done.
And then, there's another voice, muttered and terrified, and out of the corner of his eye, Astarion sees him: someone else, fallen to the ground, staring in horror at... at him? At Cazador? Astarion knows he shouldn't turn away from his master, but he does all the same—what else doe he have to lose?—and stares, wide-eyed and confused at the boy.
Can... can he see Cazador, too? ]