[Astarion’s embittered scowl is subconscious more than anything active; he doesn’t do it for show, or to provide Fenris with a middling amount of comfort.] In Tantervale, just after his pet dragon erased the city in its entirety, I was sent to track the thing down. Figure out where it— and the rest of Tevinter’s army— was coming from.
I chased them to a hidden fortress in the Silent Plains. And I saw him there, commanding his misshapen army. More flesh than man, if there was ever anything human underneath before it went all wrong.
It baffles me still, you know. [Offends him in the most unsettling ways, elbows shifting across his knees as he leans forward over chalky stone.]
How all it’s taken for so many to slither up to his side is the empty, grotesque promise of glory.
[By which Astarion means:]
How can anyone deify something so....wrong?
[Ugly. He means ugly.
But that’s not the point of their conversation:] One does wonder if someone went through the miserable effort of reviving him after you— collective you— and she put him down. [And now she’s gone. Which is...]
no subject
[Astarion’s embittered scowl is subconscious more than anything active; he doesn’t do it for show, or to provide Fenris with a middling amount of comfort.] In Tantervale, just after his pet dragon erased the city in its entirety, I was sent to track the thing down. Figure out where it— and the rest of Tevinter’s army— was coming from.
I chased them to a hidden fortress in the Silent Plains. And I saw him there, commanding his misshapen army. More flesh than man, if there was ever anything human underneath before it went all wrong.
It baffles me still, you know. [Offends him in the most unsettling ways, elbows shifting across his knees as he leans forward over chalky stone.]
How all it’s taken for so many to slither up to his side is the empty, grotesque promise of glory.
[By which Astarion means:]
How can anyone deify something so....wrong?
[Ugly. He means ugly.
But that’s not the point of their conversation:] One does wonder if someone went through the miserable effort of reviving him after you— collective you— and she put him down. [And now she’s gone. Which is...]
He’s still looking for it, by the way. Even now.
His Throne.