flameguard | mygod | pc catchall

[ sazantos regards you for a moment, and then walks away from you - he is always walking away - but you hesitate, because you know how he is and it's just like in training, that surely he will respond if you give him a moment. and sure enough, he speaks after you follow him, your gaze stuck to his back. isn't it always?

"I must say. I hadn't expected to behold your foolish face even here, at the very end of the world." sazantos says, almost wry. he turns to you, holds out his hands, as if beckoning you to attack him or run to his arms - mockingly. "Have you improved at all in the time we've been apart, Rondo?"

the way his voice smooths out the syllables of your name is so familiar that your heart aches, because it used to draw you in like a moth to the flame. you have hung on his every word for almost ten years now, and you taste something bitter and miserable in the back of your throat as you regard him.

you suck in a breath, force the lump in your throat down. you should answer the question, but you - you can't, you can't address that, you don't care if you've improved or not, because that's not why you're here. your hands curl into fists at your side, trembling. ] Why...

[ and you run to him, closer to him, facing him one to one. your voice breaks with your anger and your despair and confusion and loss and hurt. your heartbreak, as you finally get your chance to confront him. your composure shatters and you shout, desperate - ] Why are you doing this?!

[ because that's what you've wanted to know from the start.

his hands drop back down to his side, and sazantos shakes his head, says your name again. "Rondo." and the timber of his tone is familiar - he's already dismissing you. "You cannot hope to understand."

(but you want to. you've always wanted to. you want to understand everything about sazantos. you want to know him, want to understand him, and he's never once let you in.)

sazantos turns, folding his arms, and for a brief, terrifying moment, you think he's going to disappear again. "No...no. No one can."

but that's not true. can't you understand him? would he ever let you? why won't he ever let you try? you want to run to him and shake him, impulsively, want to wrap your arms around his shoulders and shake the truth into him, that you want to understand him that you love him that he is your everything - but you don't. you suck in a breath, and drop your hands to your side, curling them into tight, shaking fists.

sazantos explains to you what pushed him over the edge. he says he never knew if human lives had any value or not - which stuns you - until ceraphina and lyblac, who showed him how greedy and desiring human beings were. how every single one of them deserved to perish, because they destroyed the world around them, based on those desires. that all human beings were evil. that they all deserved death.

you almost can't believe the words coming out of his mouth.

this is sazantos, after all. the flameguard. the brilliant, protective force who cared for the continent, who has saved so, so many lives. it's dissonant, it's wrong. after everything you've seen him do, you feel like you have to defend him from himself, from this insanity, from this darkness that's taken him over that just can't be him. you can't reconcile it. and as always, passionate and impulsive, you can't help yourself, throwing out your arm with the force of your denial - like you could reach out and wrench him back from this cliff he's standing on yourself. ] No! You're wrong - humans aren't all evil!

[ your voice starts to break - your vision blurs with tears, but you barely even notice as you take another step forward, throwing your arms out, and your words pick up volume. you're shouting, now, echoing through the voluminous hallways of the castle in hell, your desperation and despair as you try to make him understand wild and untamed.

(you don't realize it, but you've started crying.) ] You saved me and my sister, didn't you?! You risked your life for us without a second thought! That's why I looked up to you - why I wanted to be like you!

[your last word rings out, and the heat goes out of your voice as you run out of air.

you stare at his back, again, always staring at his back, and you ask, tiny and hollow with the horror of realization. ] ... Are you saying that was all some sort of act?

[ sazantos finally turns to you again. he regards you, for a long moment.

"Well, Rondo..."

and then sazantos summons the accursed flame. it's ominous and dark black in his hands - its wrong, its so wrong, and he tells you that maybe you should ask the sacred flame that you love, instead of giving you an answer. the sacred flame that he taught you to follow.

you don't understand. you want to understand him. you want to know what happened, you want to understand why he fell to this depth, you want to know you want to understand him help him you want to know you want to be there for him, you have always wanted -

sazantos looks at you again, and you swear you can see his eyes behind that mask, their bright blue that you fell in love with a decade ago. and then he chuckles, and his mouth turns up in an odd smile. he walks closer to you. he holds out his hands to you. he faces you.

"...You should join us, Rondo." he says, "The dark flame awaits you."

it knocks you for a loop. you stare at him, stunned, and then your feet start moving before you can even stop yourself - not sure if you're going to throw yourself into his arms or tackle him - but before you make it three steps, he's gone. you scream his name and rush after him, but the accursed flame only leaves behind sparks.

and as sazantos vanishes, your knees give out, and you collapse to the ground, staring at the space where your future used to be. ]

[ this memory thing is already starting to grate on astarion's nerves, the longer this day goes on. he's quiet as the memory pans out -- there's not a lot he can really do otherwise, after all -- watching this little tale of betrayal and heartbreak.

the thought of believing in someone that wholly, to the point they have such power over you. power than you gave willingly? it makes his skin itch and crawl. he has lived a life where someone owned him in body and soul, and if he never experiences that again it will be too soon. ]

...

I'm going to make a wild guess and assume you didn't take him up on his little offer.

[ this sazantos, who decided he hated the world and everyone in it. ]

[ there's - the comment almost makes him laugh, this short, sort of startled noise, and rondo shakes his head. it snaps him right out of the old memories. ]

No... no, of course not. [ yeah not a chance. rondo incorruptible ravus over here. ] It was... I was more shocked he asked.

Hmm. Really?

[ he must be rather devoted then, if the thought surprises him. ] If you were good at what you do, it's hardly surprising he would want to keep that for himself, no?

I --

[ rondo falters, here. if he was good at what he does. is he? did sazantos think so? that was part of what made it all so strange. the offer had been so bizarre it threw him for a loop.

he looks down at his lap. ]

... He never... I can count the number of times that he has said that I did something well on one hand.

[ in fact - the ten words of praise that sazantos said to rondo when he was just thirteen years old that changed his life. Boy... you've got the makings of the Flame in you. it's why he's here. so it's hard to reconcile with the idea that sazantos - in his moment of betrayal, after everything - still wanted to have rondo by his side. not that he ever would have accepted. maybe it was a trick. he still doesn't know. ]

[ it's not a kindness, what he wants to say. which is essentially "he wouldn't have bothered, if you were worth nothing." it could be taken as something positive -- you're worth something, don't worry! but his thoughts on why someone would keep a hold on you are not so rosy or kind.

he doesn't get to say anything though, as it's his turn to have his memories paraded around. ]

[ crawls back here now that i'm not dying from cyoa jesus christ.

but, oh. luckily, the memory comes in and interrupts the conversation. rondo's quiet throughout the entire thing, his eyes very wide as he processes.

... it's not the kind of story that he's familiar with, but he's too empathetic not to feel for astarion on each beat of the story. the gnawing, aching feeling of guilt. the fear, at the beginning. the sense and need for vengeance, for closure. it's like ceraphina, he thinks with a start, but...

rondo swallows. ]

... Did... were you able to? [ kill him. ]

[ fluffs a pillow for you.

astarion's quiet for a moment. ]

.. Mm, yes actually. Just before I got here.

mygod | pc catchall | astarion

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