Chapter Text
The only time Ambrosius brought up penance, Ballister laughed in his face and made him swore to never use the word again. Real penance, he claimed, would require a decades-long scorecard they had both lost track of.
So Ambrosius accepted Ballister’s offer and moved into his lair as soon as the doctor authorized his release. He tended the garden Ballister had given up on weeding years ago. He attended physical therapy. He assisted with rebuilding in the heart of the kingdom, although restrictions on how much he could lift relegated him to delivering water to those who needed it. He did his best to ignore the voice in the back of his mind that screamed for punishment.
And yet, the world seemed to hear it. They were always little incidents, but always to him, and they stacked into the hulking form of some larger karmic retribution. A spiderweb across the entrance to the shed where he kept his gardening supplies, never spotted until it covered his face. Bird shit only on his clothes on the laundry line. Mouse droppings in his favorite shoes.
When Ambrosius complained, Ballister blamed it on how he was unaccustomed to country living. Astarion waved away his jokes and stayed awake at night, wondering if such petty inconveniences could ever make up for the years he spent abetting monsters.
It was not until the cat that Astarion began to wonder if it was more than bad luck or universal retribution.
Navigating his visual impairment had made him more cautious, especially on stairs. Caution alone prevented him from tripping over the lump of fur on the last stone step leading into the garden.
An orange tomcat lounged in the morning sunlight, its jowls spilling over its paws. It was fast asleep. Ambrosius leaned down to scratch behind its ears. At first, it stretched into the touch, a low purr rising in its throat. Then, its eyes opened and it yowled like a demon straight from hell.
If his years at the Institution gave Ambrosius one single good thing, it was his reflexes. He threw himself backward and narrowly avoided losing his strong eye to the swipe of cruel claws. Hackles raised, it hissed before bolting under a rosebush.
Ambrosius waited on the ground as his heart slammed against his ribs, fearing it would burst if he tried to stand too quickly. The cat’s eyes had been so intelligent, so hateful. Not yellow like a cat’s, but like fire. He told himself it had been orange, orange, orange, but why should that matter to her now? Pink had been convenient, an easy way to identify herself to Ballister. She didn’t need to worry about that now.
Ambrosius did.
That night, Ballister came home from the lab with an expression that stopped Ambrosius from sharing his fear. Ballister had been working diligently to help Meredith rebuild her invention, but progress was slow and frustrating.
“Are you alright?” Ballister asked suddenly while they were eating dinner. “You keep touching your face.”
Ambrosius realized he had been tracing the three ridges of scar tissue that crossed his weak eye. “I was out in the sun for too long. I daresay I might peel,” he said, voice high and bothered.
Ballister smiled, shook his head, and returned to his meal.
Before he went to bed, Ambrosius opened a can of tuna and left it on the stoop. In the morning it was gone, can and all.