[Around the bruising quality of his undue concern, Astarion can't help but laugh to himself at how absurd it must seem to those newfound friends (has Leto told them the truth of what he is? Where he's from? Do they believe him— or is it just the farfetched games of children growing long into their limbs, where one can swear for a month that they're Balduran reborn or Corellon's chosen or— say— even dating a godsdamned vampire, and what is that really but another farflung thought in a world that still feels more malleable than it is): an elf that doesn't speak elvish without occasionally slanting the accent wrong or forgetting which word means what. Who doesn't know what an owlbear is, or what the city streets should feel like underneath his soles.

It's not his place to fret.

Nor to be spiteful— petty— cloyingly protective or insufferably soft. Conversely: he doesn't want to. There are parts of himself he reviles for the way they try to bubble up, all fragile and afraid.

And he's had enough of fear ruling him.








....but still, a bloody owlbear though....???]

Mmph.

[That distinctive flare of breath when there's so much more he wants to say, but won't.]

For their sake I hope your friends are sturdier than they look at a very long, shadowed distance. You, I trust to know when to pull your hand out of the fire. [One nominal beat goes here.] Mostly.

Them?

[Eh.]

Is there one you like a great deal less than all the others? Maybe a soft, succulent, annoying-but-slow-moving one.