#to clarify in the first post i didn't mean that those words were spoken canonically

[invinciblerodent]

okay rambletime yeah i'm not done fuck

I keep harping on how since Iona is also an elf, these two have more alone time than the majority of possible in-game couples would (those 4 extra hours each night while everyone else -except Halsin- is asleep add up quick, and really help relationship development for me personally), and I just have this... weirdly vivid image in my head of the Rivington camp, specifically of the little shed/stable with the hay bales that's a bit further downhill from the tents, and how it'd be such a nice place for them to just... spend some of their extra time there. Pretend, for a moment, that this is an isolated pocket of time that none can intrude on, a time it's easier to be vulnerable.

what I'm more specifically thinking is that since she has relatively high dex too (16), trying to teach her some lockpicking skills would be a fun way to pass the time. Like I'm picturing them sat on a hay bale some ways away from everyone else, in this little private bubble, with her settled between his legs, his chin on her shoulder, and he's 100% a garbage teacher for sure, but it's also not helped by how they both keep getting distracted by one another? Caressing her hand instead of correcting her hold on a tool, knocking her head against his instead of listening, tangling fingers, cutesy garbage like that while she's essentially sitting in a nest of his limbs under the stars, and that's when she'd say, all soft and smiley and loosely cuddled, "I like this new, 'cuddly Astarion' flavor on you. It suits you."

(lbr it's probably easier for him too to express physical affection when she's not looking directly at him the entire time too.)

see because then, then!!!!!!!!!! he actually is what she sees in him you know, with the agonizing odreal of being known and all (we're past a successful love test here, he fucking knows and admits that she knows him), but that -at this point seldom-seen- soft core of his is still like covered under all those layers of hurt and bile, and this meeting with the other spawn is a very emotionally charged moment anyway that's full of fear, and it brings back horrible thoughts and feelings and memories about centuries of torments, so in many ways it's easier for him to say that it's actually that softness that's false (even though they both know that's a lie), than it is to acknowledge that he feels shitty in like seven different ways, and the unexpected guilt of disappointing her on top of everything else is just proving too much

and this whole exchange ofc is, once the immediate danger has passed, followed by "other people don't have a heart like you", which is just so sad and kind of backpedaling on this "I can't be what you want to see" bit with an "nobody else but you sees me the way you do" (which kind of has an edge of "so maybe I can be that, but statistically you're more likely to be wrong than everyone I've ever known"), and do any of you realize how close I am to eating drywall about this man at this fucking point frankly

do you have any idea how obsessed I am with this fucking line right now

like I can't be the only one who thinks this sounds like it could be a callback, right? Like the words "cuddly Astarion" were said at least once before???????