SALTBURNT | inbox.

[thirsted]

WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK

USERNAME
ASTARION

text 🩸 audio 🩸 video
 

Comments

[corporeity]

I understand.

[ That he has disappointed Astarion again and, as such, is undeserving of further assistance. A fair punishment.

It’s only that what Astarion describes — a wound that insists on reopening itself — might apply to Gale beyond this instance of questionable judgment. One must be a glutton for punishment, to serve a goddess that would ask for death. ]

You realise, however, that if I do not detonate the orb at Moonrise Towers, I’ve merely granted myself a stay of execution. It is not Orin who holds my life in her hands.

[ If Mystra releases him from her protection, its consumption will advance, unchecked. A death in service of none. Utterly meaningless. ]

I do not see a third path, at present, but I am looking.

[ With Orin, with Astarion. It’s the best he can do. ]

[thirsted]

[ Something that Astarion has kept to himself, a fear that he hasn't allowed anyone else to even begin to perceive, is the thought that, though their paths have been the same up through Gale's recollection, that perhaps they could still diverge. That he'll disappear and simply— never come back. Not because of whatever methods this place has of spiriting souls away, but because he's detonated the orb in his chest, because he's—

—dead.

He types then deletes the words look harder, frustration and fear curdling into something he's even less comfortable with. ]

What is all that cleverness for, if all it offers you is two paths through the same woods?

[ But, to curb any further argument for the moment: ]

I believe you.

[corporeity]

[ I don’t mean to disturb what peace you’ve found here typed and deleted, blinking dots the only evidence they were ever there. A shade too pathetic, even for Gale.

Astarion has already answered the question he dare not ask, in this moment. Find another way, than the path of least resistance and an end to the ache.

Finally — ]

Thank you.
I’ll endeavour to be worthier of that belief than I’ve been, of late.