Chapter Text
There was no big fanfare when Cazador Szarr died.
The police didn't storm the door, there were no heroes on horseback, no media attention. There was only an overwhelming wave of spawn, desperate to live, as much as they considered what they had life. Over 200 years they had been prisoners, thousands of them starving in cells, seven personally tortured by the true vampire and it had only taken a half thought through plan, a skilled lock picker, and their sheer desperation to overwhelm Cazador. Astarion, the “favorite” pet, was given the distinct honor of the first few stabs with Cazador’s beloved blade, his Rhapsody. Together they had all screamed, cried, and most of the spawn had fled. Some descended into the underdark while others fled blindly into the night. Some of the spawn simply remained, unsure what to do next or where to go. One of them was Astarion.
For months, years, maybe weeks, he couldn’t say, he had simply laid there in the dark waiting for the moment when he would feel free. He was free, he told himself over and over, they all were. All he felt was cold numbness interspersed with anxiety, waiting for Cazador to walk up behind him. Astarion heard his voice, his cruel words and whispers, and covered his ears, willing it to go away. He’d felt powerless. Small. Freedom felt almost more strangling than captivity, because at least with torture he knew what to expect. He had known the rules, what to do.
He simply lay in dark hidden spots in the mansion and waited, his phone lighting up with calls and messages from his siblings that went unanswered. The vast majority were from Dal but the others peppered in their presence too. They had tried. It did feel good to have a phone, little as Astarion had used it at the time. Cazador had forbidden his spawn to have them, and ohhh that had made their work more difficult. Tasked with going out and luring home victims without a phone or social media account? In this day and age? Well, Cazador didn’t want it to be easy for them. Astarion had made it work. He was charming enough to find his way through whatever obstacles were placed in front of him. The thought was still bitter on his tongue. Eventually Astarion’s restlessness won against his fear. He couldn’t wait in the dark forever. He needed to try. He needed to at least, try, to live.
Astarion forced himself to go out. Petras had been throwing himself into every revelry and debauchery possible and had forced his siblings to keep him from becoming a problem. If Petras were free to, he would have drained half the city and caused all of them to be hunted to extinction. Seven thousand and seven lives relied on him not being too much of an ass and still Pale Petras needed babysitting. A few times Astarion had handed the reins over Petras’s descent into hedonism to Dal or Aurelia and gone home with a beautiful person who invited him in with seductive glances. He had danced with them, kissed them, fucked them and was fucked by them, and still once they slept or tranced he had slipped out and found himself silently screaming in the dark as he tried to keep from drowning.
Astarion felt shattered, lost, like he wasn’t really sure that he was a person, that anything was real. He never felt more alone than in the arms of someone who didn’t really see him, just the pretty mask Cazador had carved him into. Some of his siblings had walked into the sun, hoping for an ending, and sometimes Astarion wanted to join them. Leon had found his daughter’s body shortly after the death of Cazador. His howls of anguish had been interrupted by Violet’s laughter and Leon had dragged her out of the door with him, pulling her screaming into the sunlight. At the time they had all assumed that Violet was responsible for the little cursed girl’s death and had been too shocked to try to think of helping her or Leon. Later, while drifting through the palace listlessly, Astarion had found Dalyria’s journal, and the record of her idiotic attempt to cure herself with youthful blood. Dal had been quite defensive when Astarion had mentioned it to her.