[karlach is not built for this shit, or - rather, she is, but ten years was a lot and it was never the unique experience of quick punches over and over and over, week after week. she can take a lot of sorrow and hold onto it and turn it into positive, but there are another five people dead, and there's nothing any of them can do to fix it.
and now on top of it they have to find an opportunity so gale doesn't die, and she's very, very stretched out and thin.
this is not how she wants to do things. it's not how she wants to spend the last few weeks of her life. but she doesn't say it out loud because she's pretty sure astarion and gale both know. so she just sits, and stares at the ground, and tries very, very hard to find something to cling to.
daan called her the last remaining light, the other night. isn't that funny.]
[ see, the thing is— astarion probably isn’t. at this point he’s just built differently, and broken down enough in a myriad of complicated and concerning ways that are serving to protect him now, in a situation like this.
he doesn’t warm to people easily! he trusts even less easily! he doesn’t have the tolerance or patience or the room in his shrivelled little heart to love with even an iota of the force karlach can and does, as easily as breathing. “i don’t even remember what that is”, he’s thought more than once.
it might be a bit of a lie. because maybe he gets it, just a little. and maybe it’s limited and a pale shadow of what it could be, slow and scattered. but he does know he’s better than he was when he was snatched up in baldur’s gate, and not just because cazador’s fucking dead now. and maybe it’s limited to a number he can count on one hand, but that’s one hand more than he could’ve before.
it’s awful. it’s like someone cracked him open and peeled the skin back from his ribs and shone a stage light on him.
but it’s also why he’s the one to reach out for once, take karlach’s hand and squeeze it tightly. ]
[ it's fucking awful. everything is fucking awful and torn to shreds and every day seems worse than the last.
he doesn't want to be a burden, to stretch these people any further. he is worried they will break, and it will be his fault - again. but it seems worth something that here, at the end of everything, they are all together. he didn't have that before, when he'd first gotten the orb. no one was there at all. it feels somehow like he's still managed something. if he is to die, at least it is with these people he loves.
sitting down on her other side to take her other hand in both of his, squeezing. ]
[it isn't that she's surprised, so much, that astarion takes her hand - it's a little unexpected, but she doesn't mind. of course she doesn't. she thrives off little touches like this, the way that someone holding onto her makes her feel alive. it's even better when it's those who don't like to touch, don't like to be close. it means they trust her, and that's all she ever wants.
that's all she wants both of them to do. trust her. rely on her. and know that whatever it is, whatever they do, wherever they end up, she's with them.
so when astarion takes her hand, and gale comes in to take the other, she laces her fingers with both of them and keeps them close.]
... Love you both. [she says, quietly, with no expectation that they'll say it back. it just seems important that they know.]
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and now on top of it they have to find an opportunity so gale doesn't die, and she's very, very stretched out and thin.
this is not how she wants to do things. it's not how she wants to spend the last few weeks of her life. but she doesn't say it out loud because she's pretty sure astarion and gale both know. so she just sits, and stares at the ground, and tries very, very hard to find something to cling to.
daan called her the last remaining light, the other night. isn't that funny.]
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he doesn’t warm to people easily! he trusts even less easily! he doesn’t have the tolerance or patience or the room in his shrivelled little heart to love with even an iota of the force karlach can and does, as easily as breathing. “i don’t even remember what that is”, he’s thought more than once.
it might be a bit of a lie. because maybe he gets it, just a little. and maybe it’s limited and a pale shadow of what it could be, slow and scattered. but he does know he’s better than he was when he was snatched up in baldur’s gate, and not just because cazador’s fucking dead now. and maybe it’s limited to a number he can count on one hand, but that’s one hand more than he could’ve before.
it’s awful. it’s like someone cracked him open and peeled the skin back from his ribs and shone a stage light on him.
but it’s also why he’s the one to reach out for once, take karlach’s hand and squeeze it tightly. ]
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he doesn't want to be a burden, to stretch these people any further. he is worried they will break, and it will be his fault - again. but it seems worth something that here, at the end of everything, they are all together. he didn't have that before, when he'd first gotten the orb. no one was there at all. it feels somehow like he's still managed something. if he is to die, at least it is with these people he loves.
sitting down on her other side to take her other hand in both of his, squeezing. ]
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that's all she wants both of them to do. trust her. rely on her. and know that whatever it is, whatever they do, wherever they end up, she's with them.
so when astarion takes her hand, and gale comes in to take the other, she laces her fingers with both of them and keeps them close.]
... Love you both. [she says, quietly, with no expectation that they'll say it back. it just seems important that they know.]
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