Work Text:
I want to know what the world sees when it looks at me. What you see.
It was a deceptively simple request, and not at all what Sebille had been expecting to face when she'd first noticed Astarion staring intently into a hand mirror at the edge of camp. For a moment, she considered being cruel. Perhaps a snide remark about the soft lines on his face or the powder-white of his hair might do him some good. But something stopped her.
This was no mere appeal to vanity. Oh, there was certainly some vanity there, but there was more to it than that.
My face is just some dark shape in my past.
There was something hauntingly familiar in those words. Sebille too hadn't had the slightest idea what she looked like when she woke up on the nautiloid. Hells, she only learned she was a drow when she peered into her own reflection on the beach. Astarion didn't even have that capability.
She sighed heavily. "I'll be right back." She turned and left before he could object or ask questions.
Her artistic ability had been something of a surprise. She'd merely sat down with her Book of Shadows one morning and discovered a number of surprisingly well-rendered sketches in the margins. The subject matter was almost wholly brutally violent; depictions of mutilated remains, masses of flesh that had likely once been people.
It had surprised her, admittedly. She would have assumed her patron would find it insulting, but instead they seemed almost fond of the drawings. With their implicit permission, she began adding to her drawings, though this time they were considerably less violent. Nature, people they met and dealt with, her companions. But Astarion had remained the most prominent of her muses.
She told herself it wasn't strange; that it was only to be expected, given their arrangement and how beautiful he was. Even so, she couldn't help but feel like a voyeur, each time she drew him when he wasn't looking. Luckily, he never seemed to suspect.
Well, that'd likely be over with now. But she supposed it was worth it, to allow him to see himself for the first time in two centuries.
She returned to Astarion's side with her grimoire in hand, finding him exactly where she'd left him. He'd gone back to peering in the mirror, as though he expected his reflection to suddenly appear at any moment. He looked over at her approach, confusion knotting his brows.
Without waiting for him to speak, she thrust her grimoire out at him. "There. That's you."
"Darling, what—" His eyes flitted over the forbidden eldritch incantations and he let out a pained hiss. They'd learned rather soon after beginning their travels together that anyone else who attempted to read Sebille's grimoire would end up with nothing but a splitting headache and a hole in their memory.
Sebille urged her unknowable patron to ease up on the restriction for the time being, just long enough to allow him to see himself. It wasn't as if he could copy Sebille's powers even if he wanted to, after all. And after a moment of what could only be described as grumbling, her patron relented.
Astarion blinked in surprise as his headache receded, and stared down at the page. It was clear the moment he identified what he was looking at, as he glanced up at Sebille in disbelief. "You… you drew me?"
She huffed through her nose. "If you must know, I draw everyone."
A slow smirk crossed his face. "And yet, this page is all me."
Sebille scowled. "If you're going to be like that, you can forget it."
She moved to slam the grimoire shut when Astarion yelled, "No, wait! Just a moment longer. Please."
Reluctantly, she obliged, holding the grimoire open as he took in all the details of his face, as rendered through Sebille's art. At last, he looked up at her, a far brighter look in his eyes. "Thank you."
"Don't mention it." She shut her grimoire and returned it to the makeshift altar in her tent. When she returned to Astarion's side, she glared at him again. "I mean it. Don't mention it to anyone. I don't want the others knowing."
He chuckled. "Darling, they're likely to find out sooner or later. And who knows how they'll take your little hobby. But, for future reference, feel free to draw me whenever you like." His expression shifted, something almost wistful entering his gaze. "Mirrors may not be much use to me, but I could do worse than be reflected in another's eyes."