Chapter Text
Astarion,
I should not be writing this.
I should not be thinking of you.
And yet—I cannot stop.
Not from remembering.
Not from longing.
Not from clinging to the single night I had you, however briefly, however incompletely.
Father knows.
He knows that you made me weak.
That you made me show compassion—a thing unbecoming of his most pure creation, his perfect little murderer.
And so, I am being removed.
Someone else is to take over relations with the vampires, and I am to stay away from you.
Because you are a distraction.
Because you make me falter.
Because you make me question.
And Bhaal cannot have that.
But I refuse to forget.
I refuse to let him take this from me.
So I write.
Even knowing you will never see this letter.
Even knowing it would never reach you, that Cazador would burn it before it ever left the messenger’s hands.
Even knowing that Bhaal will try to strip you from my mind, feed you to the vortex, consume the memory of your silver curls, your lips against mine, the sound of your voice, the look of your smile, the red of your eyes when they lock onto mine.
I write.
Because I am afraid.
Afraid that one day, I will wake up, and there will be nothing left of you in my mind at all.
I have not felt the ecstasy of murder quite as deeply since that night.
Since we sat together, speaking in hushed voices about masters who would sooner break us than ever let us go.
Since I heard you—really heard you.
And for the first time, I did not want to kill.
Perhaps now is not our time.
Perhaps the future still holds something for us, something beyond this endless nightmare, beyond the blades at our backs, the curses shackling us to monsters older than time.
If I find what I seek—if I find my way into Mephistopheles’ fortress in the Hells, if I take his power for my own—
Perhaps then, I will be strong enough.
Strong enough to free you.
Strong enough to free myself.
Strong enough to rip apart the chains of Gods and Masters alike.
But that day is still distant, and time—time is cruel.
I do not know what will happen between now and then.
I do not know if, by the time I reach my goal, I will still remember what you meant to me.
So I write.
I will keep this letter, unread, unseen, untouched by any hands but my own.
For you.
For myself.
For all we could have been, if we had not been born into the cages of our respective Masters.
Still, I cannot fight my father—not yet.
He is a God, and I am merely a thing he has made in his image.
A butcher carved in the shape of a man.
An angel-faced murderer who slits throats with a smile.
A killer without a soul.
And yet—I met you.
And I began to want.
Is it not ironic that it took meeting a creature of unlife, a thing that should not exist, for me to want the world to remain exactly as it is?
To see value in its chaos, in its struggle, in the simple, stubborn way it refuses to be wiped out?
Even life itself is unwilling to die.
It twists, reshapes, survives. It turns into unlife.
If even existence itself resists annihilation, how much of a chance does Father’s plan truly have?
I should not be thinking like this.
The punishment will be agony.
I will be dragged back into the abyss, lashed inside and out, my mind shattered by the vortex, my body drenched in blood—both my own and that of others.
So I must stay away from you.
Because if they find out what you could become to me, they will take you.
They will hurt you.
And in the end, they will make me do it, too.
And Father’s control—it is absolute.
His claws are hooked into my very bones, burrowed beneath my skin, latched around my mind.
To pull them out—to truly break free—would be to bleed myself dry.
Perhaps one day, I will be strong enough.
But not today.
So I will mourn for what can never be.
For what we could have been—if only we were free.
If I were free, I would come for you.
If I were free, I would carve Cazador’s heart from his chest and set you loose into the night.
If I were free, I would shield you from every pain you have ever known.
If I were free, I would love you.
If you were free, would you come with me?
If you were free, would you let me protect you?
If you were free, would you let me hold you through the darkest nights?
If you were free, would you let me love you?
If only we were free…
In another life,
You might have been mine.
And I might have been yours.
Octavian
[below is a sketch of a certain silver haired man that has roused suspicion in a series of similar disappearances]