@celestieu : ❛ you are not as bad as everyone says you are. ❜ / astarion ! / accepting.
"Oh — then I have been slacking, haven't I?" Astarion is not AFRAID of people like her. He's not afraid of most people — why should he be? He's extremely powerful thanks to his master, a vampire spawn, and so beautiful and charismatic that he'll be captured, made a possession he rarely needs to battle at all. It's all - too easy to manipulate others, and Madeline, the little fool, is no exception; pretty, foolish, too trusting, the sort that makes him envious angry — the sort that makes him laugh.
He's not afraid of Madeline — not of what she represents, the sun to his gaping darkness. Not of her kindness, which has to be a trick, which only ever precedes a strike. And not of her promise that he's good, which is the same as weak, which is the same as helpless trapped abused. Which is the same as ———
He won't follow the thought to it's conclusion. He's not afraid. He's not.
He is, of course. He bats his eyelashes and smiles, seductive and utterly without sweetness. "Unless, of course, you meant that I was worse than everyone says I am — that is true. I am conniving and manipulative, though of course saying that just gives you more cause to stick around and prove me wrong, I suppose." Which is frightening / which is...kind, almost. The idea that another might stay, and not just because of what he can offer. And that thought is a weakness of it's own, which is the same as harmed. He is envious, again, of her easy trust, and wishes there were any shreds of the young man who might have trusted like that, too, that he had not gone through the torture that ripped them from him. Any shreds of the kind of man that Madeline's idiotic, naive kindness might actually be capable of saving.
There are not, of course. His smile curls wider. "I don't see why we can't at least have some fun in the interim — why not? Perhaps all I need is a bit of closeness..."
