I'm doing DnD research for fic setting and have come to a pretty horrifyin realisation I wasn't aware of while playing the game.
You'll notice if you play elf or drow, or have Astarion sleeping at camp, that you have a different pose, with a certain finger shape. Larian's way of showing elves meditating, I guess.
So elves/drow don't need to sleep. Instead they enter a sort of meditative trance. The content of this trance is how they actually tell what stage of their life they are in!
Before around 30yo, as a child, they dream of their past as a pure spirit basically frolicking with their god in heaven. Another fun fact, elves are on a perpetual reincarnation roulette and never get to stay in heaven because of past issues. So they all come from a small pool of original elf souls, and hardly get a pit stop in heaven before being sent back. And elven children basically see visions and experiences of their very first era as a unique soul.
Then from 30+ they begin to see memories of their life as well as those early heaven days. This marks adoleascence.
Then from around 100yo, they can ONLY dream/view moments of their lived life. Supposedly explaining why elves can be so focused on some stuff (create good and useful memories that you get to relive in trance!)
Then from 400+ they begin to see memories of their past lives or even other elves lives and become an 'elder', as well as tending to get more concerned with elf business in the grand scheme of things.
Anyway...
Astarion
Babygirl.
He got snatched at 39!!!!! This means it hadn't been many years at all since he began dreaming of his personal memories. And we all know he was a raging asshole. And then he dies...
And we meet him around 200? This means that every night of his life, he enters a trance for about 4h per night, and gets to only revisit memories of LIVING WITH FUCKING CAZADOR.
He gets *maybe* 9 years of him being an asshole magistrate, and 161 years worth of memories of being tortured, abused, controlled, and made to seduce people for Cazador.
No wonder he's haunted as fuck! I mean, besides the horrors. At least we humans get sleepless nights and abstract nightmares. Astarion gets 4h of Cazador digest. Every. Night.
Until he meets us. And then every memory he makes with us is a memory he gets to revisit instead.
okay but in books 2/3, the way keefe keeps looking for signs and uses all that body language psychology shit to see if his parents care about him is just fucking sad. Like getting happy when he told sophie that his mom gave him tea and asked tons of questions like she was worried, getting genuinely excited that his dad gave him the sencen pin, saying that his dad and mom asked him to wear a cape to keep warm and taking that as a sign they cared abt his well being, etc.
no kid should go through THIS much simply to see if their parents care I'M GOING TO SOB
"look at everything I do for you, I broke my back for you, I have given you everything you have" "If you don't love me then go with them, that's fine" "I loved Bobby more to"
I can't stop thinking about some of the things Qroier said to Pepito, it's just cruel and emotionally manipulative. Qroier is in one of his worst moments alone and it makes sense that he feels this way, seeing Pepito is a reminder of everything he has lost and what they will easily continue to take from him again and again. It is also interesting that Roier sees himself in Pepito, small, weak and unloved, Roier has a tendency to self-destruct. Why should he give love to Pepito when he can't love himself?
So um yesterday's tazercraft stream happened and I caught up mostly with other people's notes and now... have this I guess. I hesitate to call it a fic, but its definitely fictional prose imagining the night after Pac's return with the two of them in Chume Labs.
Usual disclaimer of I only speak English with any fluency and so characterisation is likely to be abysmal. I just... also love these two guys and I'm doing my best to make them happy. But it doesn't seem very realistic, so I'll make Mike cry instead.
Pac will not wake up screaming, he never does. Mike had when Pac was taken from him - when Walter Bob was taken too, and each and every time he remembers the cells they have been held in. Pac, though, Pac was the strong one, the one who could handle it, who could just manage whatever situation was thrown at them - who acted like everything was okay so he could look after Mike.
No more.
Now Mike is the one sat at Pac's bedside, holding his hand even as he sleeps. Pac seems frozen in time, perfectly still even with the tension running through him. His muscles are so tight that even his back shakes with the tension, clearly stuck in a nightmare despite how quiet he is.
And Mike... Mike does not know what to do.
He thought he was a protector, but he has failed to protect in every way that matters. It had always been the two of them - Mike would shield Pac as they fought the world, and Pac would be there to patch up his wounds. But then they were taken, and then their friend was taken, and then Pac was taken leaving Mike alone and now-
If there was something to destroy it would be easier, Mike thinks.
Destroying the Federation will not be easy, and whatever he has seen in his time, alone in their grasp, Pac does not even think it possible any more; something in Pac has been broken, or perhaps stolen, and Mike can only hope that it is something that, despite his clumsy attempts to soothe, will heal.
Impossible is not a word that should be found in Pac's vocabulary, and yet...
There it is.
Mike has never been good at picking up the pieces, not when building, and certainly not of a person. But, but if Pac has broken, has slipped beneath the water, then Mike will not give in until either he is dead, or until he has Pac in his arms, fully this time around. If Pac has learnt the word impossible then Mike will forget it, and bludgeon head first into a world trying to destroy them, tearing it piece by piece until they are all safe once again.
Pac is his friend, and Mike is Pac's friend, and they mean everything to one another.
So, when he catches Pac's eyes, half-lidded, barely open, Mike will reach slowly out, and brush the hair from his eyes. He will tell him he is safe, that Mike will protect him, that nothing will be allowed to touch him again. Perhaps Mike will fail, but he will get back up and scream and try again, and do everything Pac can't until his wounds have healed and they move together again.
He will be scared when Pac does not respond beyond a slow blink, hesitate only a little before squeezing his hands. He will help Pac sit up, fold his hands around a water glass, and keep those hands steady as his friend drinks.
He will ask Pac if he is okay, and receive only a slight bowing of his head in return.
Fear will grip him tighter - it has not left yet, it had never gone - but he will pull Pac against his chest, hold him close, clutch him closer as he tries to outsqueeze the fear.
Pac will turn his face into Mike's chest, and wrap his fingers in his shirt, and say nothing as Mike makes promises of them being together, of them being home, of having trapped the area around the beds to hell and high heaven and that, even if something can make it past, it will not be quiet enough to escape Mike's notice.
Mike will hold him and comfort him and, when the words run out with Pac still silent but now trembling against him, he will let himself sob, and he will cry for the both of them.