I just really like studying stories.

Unfortunately this month hasn't been great for me so I haven't contributed much, but SpawNovember is such a fun event and it's been so cool to see what people have created! I love this community! (Thank you @oona-radiant-hopeful for organizing this!) I wanted to at least contribute a little something, even if I didn't have a plan. This piece turned out almost like a poem, given the style. A little rambly and experimental, but it's what came to mind when I thought of the prompt.

(Week four: The Graveyard)

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Portrait Of A Graveyard

How many times had Astarion died? How many graves might bear his name? First there was the boy: Astarion. He had gone by a softer name, then, now forgotten. Some affectionate diminutive that suited the child's round face and bright, grey eyes. He was a dancing of silver light like morning sun through leaves. He died slowly, as summer dies and fades into the autumn of adulthood. There was Astarion the man, magistrate of Baldur's Gate. He walked with his head high, clothes sharp and tongue sharper. The dreams of the child hardened into the ambitions of the man, wild curls tamed and styled with a careful touch. His ashen eyes still shone with belief in the world—in himself. He died bloodless in the arms of a monster. Then there was Astarion the vampire spawn. The slave. Huddled in the corner of a kennel with a putrid rat clasped to his mouth as if in prayer, eyes bleeding red. Eternally colder than the steel chains that bit into his wrists. Eternally hungrier than the gazes of the people he was made to charm. He was an unwilling ferryman ushering them in endless parade across the river of death. That man died in the silence of a coffin. It was perhaps his truest death, for then there was no Astarion. Only a useable facsimile, a ghost dragged from a stone box and made to feign life again. And how well he pretended, for so long. He did not die, for dead things cannot die.

Suddenly unbound and blind in the sunlight, that ghost forced on the mask of Astarion the adventurer. Astarion the rogue. Astarion the man being pulled in two by a heart that dared to start beating again. He sought to live, truly live, through whatever violence he must. He was still that ghost desperate to be solid again. To touch the world. To feel and not just hurt. He didn't realize at first when he started doing so all on his own. On the lips of those who loved him, his name sounded like that of a living man again. The darkest, agonized, most afraid piece of Astarion died weeping as it stabbed that old monster to death. Died when the blade slipped from his hand. Now, there is Astarion. At last, just Astarion. Astarion who could be a hero, a leader, or anything he chose.

Astarion watched all those men who carried his name as they lay to rest one by one, and realized that he was himself a graveyard. There was a time when he would have hated the dead men within him—spat on the slave's grave and sneered at the naivety of the child. There were times when he couldn't even face the looming figures of these grave markers, in shame and fear and grief. Times when he refused to accept that they were all still part of him, that dead things cannot die.

Now, he tenderly brushes dead willow leaves from the headstones, and cares for the pale flowers that grow like a bed of stars around them. He lays his palm upon the stone and prays to no god but himself that each of him rests peacefully. He does it even on hard nights when cold rain saturates the grave soil and color drains from the garden. While friends can visit and place blossoms on the graves in remembrance and love, they cannot not do this work for him.

Astarion hasn't feared death for a long time, but for the first time in an age, he doesn't fear life, either. He is sure Astarion will die again, just as he is sure he will live again. Again, many times over. And what greater freedom is there than the ability to be reborn? To choose who he will be the next time he claws out of the grave? Undeath is his art, and he is a portrait of a graveyard in bloom.

astarion automatically agreeing with you about something and agonizing over it later because he actually doesn't agree but didn't know how to tell you.

or: astarion digging his heels in during what should've been a small disagreement with you because he so badly needs to have control, to exert his hard-won ability to choose.

astarion feeding excessively because it's finally sunk in that he can. astarion lashing out at a stranger who flirts with him because he's so determined not to reciprocate. astarion having an extremely complicated, precise tea order. astarion blowing off your input when he deliberates on anything because it's so important to him to make every decision independently.

This time last year, I had just moved in with my uncle who I only saw once in over a decade. I had just left my parents. I felt so awful about everything falling apart and awkward staying with someone I was really close with as a kid but barely knew now. I stayed in my room when I wasn't working. They always offered me dinner and I always felt bad accepting any more help than they were already giving, I only really ate one meal a day. I lost a lot of weight.

Now, I've rebuilt my friendships, exploring being poly, my partners are friends I've known half my life. They're helping me become comfortable with saying no and setting boundaries. They help me out with rides for D&D and take me on dates and include me in their families. I'm currently in "overeating because I realized I'm Allowed to eat my own food in my own apartment that I bought with my money," but I'm blaming it on the holidays being overeating season lol. I got some art up on my walls thats just been sitting on a table for months because I didnt feel like I was Allowed to hang it. I'm starting to feel okay asking for help.

Everyone talks about healing, but theres so many little skills you have to learn or relearn that you should have learned as a kid and didn't get to because the people that should have loved and protected you used you as a physical and verbal punching bag instead. Its so many habits to break its overwhelming, and you can't do it alone.