There is No Pavement, My Love
Professor Love makes an observation, Professor Riley misinterprets it.
"I'd like to add your book to my syllabus." Love says leaning against Ghost's desk. He glances up from his grading, his eyes darting between the way she pushes her tits out and the way she smiles, before returning his attention to his work.
He'd worried about this after the conference. He already had enough requests rotting in his inbox for reprintings of his book. The whole thing was more trouble than it was worth, raised more heartache than he ever wanted it to. It was better left buried with the rest of his past.
"No."
"Why not?" He can hear her pouting, he stuffs down the smile it threatens to raise in him. How is it one woman can be such a balm for his melancholy?
"Never find enough copies," he circles a glaring comma splice and underlines a misquote, "it's out of print."
"Well then it's a good thing someone uploaded all of it to the internet in pdf form." Love wiggles in her seat, attempting to draw his attention again. Ghost gives a quick glance, his eyes fixing on the strained buttons on her shirt. Weak. He is a weak, weak, man. Always has been, that's exactly why he's in this mess in the first place.
"Cheeky little thing aren't you." He looks away, but his voice is thick and labidinous. The soft noise Love lets out make him think it's not an unwelcome tone. Cheeky indeed. She leans a little more heavily against his desk.
"What about just the forward?"
Ghost sets down his pen, taking off his spectacles and laying them neatly beside it. He knits his fingers together and rests his hands heavily on the papers he'd been grading.
"Why do you want to teach my book?" He asks, leaning to match her pose.
"Mostly just the forward," Love amends. Ghost shakes his head with a smile, drags his teeth over the scar splitting his lip before he can look at her again.
"Why do you want to teach my forward?" He asks again.
"Its a love letter."
Ghost freezes, his brain running through every word of his book looking for anything that could be interpreted as something so... romantic.
"Explain," he grunts, crossing his arms over his chest as he sits back in his chair. Love blinks, her expression softening in a way that makes Ghost feel like he's dying. His heart clenches in his chest. He squeezes his bicep, his fingers tight to keep himself from pulling her over the desk. If he could kiss that sad softness out of her smile he would. She laces her fingers together.
"My mum lived through Hell every day of her marriage to my father, I wish I could rest comfortably knowing she's somewhere better, but then I wouldn't be here, and neither would you." Love recites, and some long dormant crack in Ghost's chest aches. Her voice is softer, when she speaks again, and that hurts all the worse, "You spend 250 pages talking about grief and our comfort in the afterlife; talking about your time in the service, and losing people. Just because you wanted to make sense of your mum's death. How is that not a love letter?"
Ghost swallows the lump that threatens to choke him. He fixes his eyes on hers, hard and unyielding even when he can see sincerity shining through her expression. He can't stand it. Tenderness is a privilege, she should never assume such a softness about him.
"It's a book," He tells her firmly, "one that's better off buried."
"It's part of you," She tries, "an important one."
"If you're done teasin' me,"
"I'm not-
"You can get out," Ghost powers through her objection, nods towards the door. Love opens her mouth and her raises a brow, "Go on, be cute for someone else."
There's a hurt in her eyes when she closes her mouth, her lips drawing together tight. It hurts as much as Ghost thought it would, but he can't have her poking around at scars like this. There's too much about her he should have nipped in the bud, too much he's let her get away with, too much he's deluded himself into hoping for, she can't have this too. She can't think he's more than he is.
She stands, and shuts the door tight behind her.
And it's worse somehow.
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ok so has anyone made a list of things that Astarion said that had a different meaning than first thought?
For example, if you tell Astarion when you first meet that you’re Baldurian as well, he says they must not be in the same social circle. With the way he talks and dresses it seems like he’s implying you’re lower class, but later it becomes clear you’re not those petty criminals or brothel goers that he targets. (And there’s the separate “of course it’ll turn me into a monster” line that becomes obvious later.)
He reveals he fears breaking his nail to the dryad, and it seems shallow but we learn he’s traumatized by digging himself out of his coffin, and the year he endured being trapped inside a coffin and desperately scratching and breaking his nails off as punishment, which is also why he refuses to dig anyone out like Nere.
Also, he mentioned he targeted brothel visitors, and at first it sounds like he just waited outside those establishments for victims, but then if you visit the drow twins he mentions he never thought he’d be on the paying end, plus if you choose one of the twins then Astarion says you have a type for elven prostitutes. And if you really think about it, considering how Petras’ lines are similar to Astarion’s, it wouldn’t be weird to imagine Cazador forcing them to work at a brothel for a few years as training…
Some of Astarion’s lines have a lot to unpack
Many things Astarion says are doublespeak. It's a common coping mechanism used by trauma survivors to "make peace," in a way with what they went through. It's not until you've played through his whole story that you understand that, and honestly it breaks my heart. He has a lot of self-depreciating language. Little quips here and there where you realize he's not only commenting on the current situation but himself, as well.
The monster line in the beginning gets me the most, because he follows it up with, "What did I expect?" For the first time in 200 years, he's able to stand in the sun without burning. He's grappling with that entire realization while also readjusting to there being light and color in the world, and probably was looking at the whole Nautiloid experience as something slightly positive... only to learn that no, this is not something positive. In fact, it's horrendous, because if it's not rectified, he'll become a grotesque monster, worse than he already is. And idk, that guts me. He has this small glimmer of hope for the first time in two centuries, all to realize that it's a giant farce.
But, Astarion is also stubborn, so he holds onto this small glimmer of hope to see if there's a way he can work the tadpole to his advantage. So that he can continue to walk in the sun. Once he realizes that Cazador's compulsion has been interrupted due to the tadpole, he doubles down on wanting to keep the tadpole and control it.
Astarion's story is such a beautiful portrayal of what being in survival mode feels and is like. You're so entirely desperate to make it out of your current situation that you would quite literally give anything and everything to obtain it, even if it means burning the entire world down around you.
The elven prostitute line made me laugh when I first heard it; I knew he was referring to himself and trying to make some light humor about his past, but it's also heartbreaking to realize he sees himself as one. He hasn't yet taken the grace with himself to distinguish between being forced into that line of work vs who he actually is. The lines are still blurred.
I can't think about the intricacies of his background/personality too long, because it all feels way too familiar to me. To know even a smidge of the despair he probably felt for years and the constant mental and physical struggle he endured (there's even disordered eating/food insecurity in his back story too and no one really talks much about it; Cazador purposely kept all the spawn near-starving as a form of control).
Our boy was severely abused and neglected and I really just want to give him a fucking hug.
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