Hey theodwulf, glad you're enjoying the game!
Don't worry, there's still a third of the main story to go, and it will have lots of tender moments between the player character and Asterion. We just like to wrap up every build in a satisfactory way, like it's the ending of a tv episode (or season in this case, since we took so fucking long with the update). The next builds will give the player more time, of course, but the game is designed with replayability in mind. You can't really do every side quest and get every character in one go.