[The answer is so frank it does give rise to a slightly deflated laugh. It is a struggle, he thinks, that is foreign to Astarion -- for the reasons he describes. The Continent cannot have an elf turned into a vampire, for they are born as such, but... well. Perhaps he is more optimistic. The elves, he thinks, have even embraced those with only part-elven ancestry.

Being a vampire is, of course, a far different matter.]

Couldn't you? [Blame them. He senses Astarion is not very charitable about such things. Or about most things. Which isn't a tick against him, of course. Jaskier is quite volatile in offenses himself.

The bard resettles himself, fiddling with the edges of his coat and how they lay over his legs.] Do I come off that depressing? [He teases, but it's a little startling to know it's so... obvious.] The people were turning against them, as the war grew closer. Before I came here, I was... helping move those that could find me to somewhere safer. Possibly illegally. And often now, I think, if those routes I set up remained. If someone else has taken up the mantle that I created.

[He swirls his glass, then takes a long, long draw of it. Even the burst of alcohol is not enough to slurry through his mind fast enough.] Maudlin. And it matters little now that the war is full in effect. Now I'm here, with a whole new plane to make trouble in. Perhaps by next year, I'll have the queen's head on a platter instead.