[ It takes everything he has not to grab his daggers and gut Ketheric like a fish when Ketheric grabs him. Ketheric is wildly lucky Astarion decided to join the corsairs on the Stormbringer and that they weren't on The Eventide, where Astarion is captain. But he doesn't want to rise to this bait. He balls his hands into fists to keep them from shaking and he stands still, instead imagining how it had felt to shoot Ketheric Thorm full of magicked arrows.

He'd killed the man once already, after all, his imagination hardly had to do any work. ]

You have no power here. Quite literally, as a new arrival.

[ More importantly...Astarion had friends. When they'd fought Ketheric, Astarion had thought of their group as nothing more than a bunch of people who were together out of convenience's sake. Besides, Astarion had been trying to manipulate Tav from the start, so it's not like they had a rock-solid foundation.

But after his time in this place, he'd realized that there are people who care about him. People who would come to his aid, if he needed. There would be time to think about how incredible that felt later. For now, he simply feels powerful. ]

And more than that, this is a world controlled by factions of pirates and paladins and I am the captain of a ship. [ Not this ship, but, like, a really nice ship! he's done well for himself. ] But by all means, continue to threaten me. I'm sure it'll end splendidly for you.