WHO: Athessa, Madi, Lucien, Skull, and YOU!! WHAT: catch-all WHEN: mostly Satinalia and later WHERE: Kirkwall and The Gallows NOTES: post-murderhaus h/c is gonna go here
Oh. She shifts slightly so she can turn her head up to look at him, putting the pieces together. Or trying to, anyway. She doesn't look scared, or disgusted, just concerned and confused.
"A different one than the one who took your eye? Or the same one?"
That's not the most relevant question, she knows, but it's the first that comes out. She should be asking more basic questions, like what, when, where, why, and so on. But she's never asked the questions anyone expects her to. Bastien and Byerly already know this first-hand.
His gaze shifts from her hair to her face, but — he'd already known what he would find there, really: no reason not to keep talking, no need to hide.
"The same one," he says, with a faint nod. He's given her starts and gasps of this story, and tonight seems like a good night for a full breath. His hands keep up their work.
"What have I said ... there was a ritual, a demon, I was intended as sacrifice." His tone is clinical, the broad strokes are easy enough to contemplate. "They meant to strike a deal with the thing for power, but they were idiots to trust it in any way. I think it thought it was funny to make a pact with the sacrifice, instead. I was ... ah, dying. Dissolving, I think. It gave me a choice between power and death, so, no choice at all, and then gloated that I'd accepted."
"Dissolving..." She echoes, barely able to imagine what that must've felt like. Every time she's been close to dying, she's felt an overwhelming buzz in her body, the tug of blood magic on veins, the dagger-points of frigid rain diluting her blood on the Crimson Cat's doorstep.
"Did you have magic before the demon? Or was that the start of it all?"
"No, that was all the demon." He pauses briefly to examine his hand, wiggles his fingers, and a small black spark flares to life and then fades.
"The demon left me, — sold me, actually, so it was quite official — and I shouldn't still have this." He cocks his head, thoughtful. "Which I think means it's my magic now. That's an improvement."
The thought occurs that the way Vanadi got his magic is similar, in a way, to Colin's spirit healing. She might have to ask him about spirit magic again.
"Another ... another demon." His voice wavers slightly, but he clears his throat and presses on. "That sort of thing happened sometimes. Demon politics."
He's worked his way from roots to the base of her hair, and notes with a bit of grim pleasure that his slapdash spellcasting has indeed done it. He can successfully dry hair. He gives her shoulder a little nudge.
With a few more grunts of effort and one little pathetic noise when she accidentally leans on her right elbow, she rolls herself over and settles back down against his leg. It means being face to face with his hip, but there are worse things. Athessa traces a nearly-faded scar on his skin and looks up at his face.
"But neither of them are here, right? You're free of them, and the magic is part of you because that's how it works for mages here."
Perhaps they can confirm that he isn't being hagridden by some fell spirit by going into the Fade, but that seems like more risk than reward.
He winces in sympathy for that noise, and one hand ghosts lightly at her shoulder, but there's really not much help he can be here. He brushes a thumb over her cheek in reassurance, maybe apology, and returns to her hair.
"Right." He smiles thinly. "Theoretically, it wouldn't matter if either were here, as well. When a demon sells its warlock, it's the life of that warlock it sells. I was used to collect a few of those payments. So, when it was my turn to be sold..."
He touches the scar at his neck, trusting that to speak for him. The smile remains, but lifelessly.
"That's why you said... that you might've died back in Rune."
Their chat on the beach feels so far away now, with how the way they exist together has developed, but she remembers what he said about wanting to build something new and permanent here.
Athessa places a gentle hand on his thigh, brushing her thumb over his skin. She'd rather take and kiss his hand, or caress his cheek, but oh well. Thigh is fine.
The hand on his thigh, little as it may be, is soothing. The heart behind that hand has enough grace to care, and that's beyond priceless to him. It's enough.
"Right," he says, bolstered, "Though I do doubt myself sometimes. I remember losing a fight, and a slash to the neck, and then..." He frowns faintly. "A dream, as if I'd fallen asleep en route to death. And, waking here, I was whole. More whole than I'd been in some time, even, or you'd have met me with just one arm."
That'd explain the scarring encircling his shoulder, where it looks as if his arm was torn off and a fresh one grew back in its place — only to then be scarred again.
"It seems that whenever the Fade decides to bring someone here, it wants them to be completely of this world. I'm guessing, unless there's only one way elves can look, that some other parts of you were changed, too?"
Again, her thoughts turn to Loxley, and the changes he went through to arrive as Qunari rather than Tiefling.
"How did you lose your arm, before it was...replaced?"
Her question has him nodding; it's the only explanation for those little changes. Elves of this world simply look this way, is all.
"Dissolved," he says simply, and adds a wry smile. It's a weird answer, but it was a weird moment. "The demon replaced it, as part of our pact. It ..."
He trails off, realizing he probably doesn't have to stick to just words for this. It's worth a bit of magic, he thinks. He frees both hands to make a quick gesture in the air, and with a wave of his hand, his arm seems to change. Flesh starting at his inner shoulder becomes faceted black crystal with deep purple undertones, living rock that somehow moves as easily as flesh and bone, which interlocks neatly with the existing scars. And as an afterthought, his face changes as well — a deeper bridge of his nose, less severe cheekbones, longer ears.
"I'll not bother check it with a mirror, but I think this is about right."
Athessa props herself up, eyes widening as the illusion takes shape. She's so transfixed at the sight of his arm that for a moment she doesn't notice the shift in facial features. She reaches out to touch the crystal, but it just feels like his flesh beneath her fingers.
Then her attention moves to his face, and she leans closer to examine the differences with awe. His facial features almost look more human, even if his ears are a bit longer.
And she realizes that looking at him and the face he was born with like he's some kind of magical wonder might make him feel a bit de-personized. Her expression softens and she looks into his eyes. Those are the same color, and they read as definitively Vanadi.
"Well," she says, leaning forward until she's leaned against him. "Hi there, handsome."
He doesn't mind the staring or the marveling — it's the point of the display, really. But his small smile grows as she leans, and he slips an arm around her waist.
It doesn't feel any different on his end, but for her sake, "Hello, good to meet you."
Which gives him another idea, actually. His free hand makes another gesture, and in a blink his face has changed again. Now there's no scars, features that aren't so much younger as less worn, and long, straight black hair to about his mid-back. He gestures a flourish.
"Beautiful," she murmurs, and reaches up to touch his face. It isn't something she thinks about often, but seeing this makes her wonder if she would try to hide her own scar all the time if she had the same ability. If she were generous enough to think of herself the way she thinks of Vanadi, she wouldn't hide anything.
After a moment of quiet consideration, she tips his face towards hers and kisses where she knows his scar to be. Silent confirmation, in case the thought crosses his mind, that she doesn't prefer the pristine vision he's given her a glimpse of. She brushes her thumb over his lips, and kisses him there next, slow and sweet. Then his throat, that scar, and his shoulder.
Her meaning is clear, and gods, but he melts. He's done nothing to deserve the incredible luck of having met Athessa, and he lifts a hand to curl fingers into her nearly-dry hair. He buries his face in it, happy just to breathe in the scent of her, the warmth of her. The illusion is long gone, dissolved the moment his mind turned to thoughts of Athessa, and loving her. The scars at his shoulder are as clear under her kiss as they've ever been.
Careful of her injury, his arm tightens around her waist, pulling her fully into his lap. His limbs fold around her there, and with his mouth so near a pointed ear he thinks he could sing entire songs of gratitude and appreciation.
What he says instead is, "I think I've done it. With your hair. How is that?"
She goes practically boneless against him, with a soft sigh of contentment as he wraps around her.
"Much better than going to bed with a wet head," she says, unable to suppress a little shiver at his voice in her ear, the soft warmth of his breath. (It's simply not possible to ignore everything that being naked in his lap entails.)
"Thank you. For...for everything. For listening, and telling me about yourself, for helping me and...for caring."
The shiver doesn't escape him, and — well, he'd known this might be a challenge, bathing and drying off together, without the intention to turn things to sex. He's definitely not exempt from the effects either. It's the only thing that keeps his face buried instead of peppering the kisses over her face and shoulders that he might otherwise prefer.
"You've taken the words from my mouth," he murmurs. "Thank you for ... for being here, for not feeling as if you're on the verge of running. It's a rare quality, I think."
Is that what it comes down to? He thinks so. He trusts Athessa, and he trusts her now not to be spooked by any of the less polished and rawer sides that he keeps tucked away. His arms tighten firmly around her.
"I'm sick of running," she sighs, closing her eyes briefly to feel the weight of those words leave her. It might not seem like a groundbreaking thing to admit, but despite the precedent of Athessa running headlong into danger, she's been trying to escape things her whole life.
When she opens her eyes, she turns slightly to look at him, eyes half-lidded, lips slightly parted. It's not her intention to be demure or seductive, but part of the problem with saying you're not going to have sex is that in doing so you inevitably make yourself think about having sex. Really, all she wants is to let him know that it isn't just fatigue that has halted her urge to run.
As open as he tends to be with his feelings, this — this is new. He's a little short on heart-to-heart conversations, and it strikes him that he doesn't really know the next line or step here. That half-lidded gaze has him — flustered? Is that the word for it? He glances away as a touch of color comes to his cheeks, and finds that it's easier to drop his head to bury his face into her hair again than it is to meet her eyes.
He laughs quietly, and has the sneaking suspicion that it might just be an embarrassed laugh. He's new to those.
"I should hope not," he murmurs into the safety of her hair, "Look at me, I'm no threat to anyone."
With his face buried in her hair, he can't see the flicker of doubt, the trepidation, poorly masked by a soft smile. It's gone by the time she speaks again, her gaze settling on the floor some distance away.
"Of course you are," she says, "You're just not a violent one."
The threat of caring too deeply, of that being unrequited, again. The threat of him vanishing, reclaimed by the Fade. The threat of love, and the expectations it would place on her even though he isn't Thedosian. He's an elf, and that comes with responsibility.
That doesn't sound quite right. His self-consciousness fades as he turns it over in his mind a few times, and leans back again for a look at her. He lifts a hand to her face, thumb gently tracing her jaw to coax her attention up and onto him.
"How do you mean?" Is that some romantic metaphor? He could read it that way, he supposes, but it doesn't sit right.
Athessa inclines her head, keeping her gaze averted until the very last second when it's impossible not to look into his eyes.
How does she explain? What words can she muster that will tell him her fears without admitting to something she can't take back? The answer is, quite simply: there aren't any words that don't expose a vital weakness, one that she doesn't know how to accept.
"I—" She swallows thickly, unable or unwilling on some baser level to say the only thing she can say to explain herself. She can't even tell him it's nothing. It's not nothing.
So she captures his mouth in a kiss. She closes her eyes against scrutiny and emotion and snakes her good arm around his neck, body pressing against his. If she gives herself over, if she distracts him from pursuing an explanation, maybe she can buy more time to work it out on her own before trying to tell him.
There's a fear in her eyes that Vanadi doesn't at all like; is this something he's done wrong, or something else? He's still mentally reviewing, darting with a frantic uncertainty from recent memory to recent memory.
This kiss, though, works as intended. It snares Vanadi's whole attention, mind at least temporarily jumping the track. He welcomes the kiss with warm enthusiasm, one arm going snug around her waist as the other brushes through hair at the back of her head.
He's left blinking in the wake of it, and far too conscious of the warm skin pressed against his. Had he been about to say something? It's gone now.
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no subject
"A different one than the one who took your eye? Or the same one?"
That's not the most relevant question, she knows, but it's the first that comes out. She should be asking more basic questions, like what, when, where, why, and so on. But she's never asked the questions anyone expects her to. Bastien and Byerly already know this first-hand.
no subject
"The same one," he says, with a faint nod. He's given her starts and gasps of this story, and tonight seems like a good night for a full breath. His hands keep up their work.
"What have I said ... there was a ritual, a demon, I was intended as sacrifice." His tone is clinical, the broad strokes are easy enough to contemplate. "They meant to strike a deal with the thing for power, but they were idiots to trust it in any way. I think it thought it was funny to make a pact with the sacrifice, instead. I was ... ah, dying. Dissolving, I think. It gave me a choice between power and death, so, no choice at all, and then gloated that I'd accepted."
no subject
"Did you have magic before the demon? Or was that the start of it all?"
no subject
"The demon left me, — sold me, actually, so it was quite official — and I shouldn't still have this." He cocks his head, thoughtful. "Which I think means it's my magic now. That's an improvement."
no subject
The thought occurs that the way Vanadi got his magic is similar, in a way, to Colin's spirit healing. She might have to ask him about spirit magic again.
no subject
He's worked his way from roots to the base of her hair, and notes with a bit of grim pleasure that his slapdash spellcasting has indeed done it. He can successfully dry hair. He gives her shoulder a little nudge.
"Here, give me your other side."
no subject
"But neither of them are here, right? You're free of them, and the magic is part of you because that's how it works for mages here."
Perhaps they can confirm that he isn't being hagridden by some fell spirit by going into the Fade, but that seems like more risk than reward.
no subject
"Right." He smiles thinly. "Theoretically, it wouldn't matter if either were here, as well. When a demon sells its warlock, it's the life of that warlock it sells. I was used to collect a few of those payments. So, when it was my turn to be sold..."
He touches the scar at his neck, trusting that to speak for him. The smile remains, but lifelessly.
no subject
Their chat on the beach feels so far away now, with how the way they exist together has developed, but she remembers what he said about wanting to build something new and permanent here.
Athessa places a gentle hand on his thigh, brushing her thumb over his skin. She'd rather take and kiss his hand, or caress his cheek, but oh well. Thigh is fine.
no subject
"Right," he says, bolstered, "Though I do doubt myself sometimes. I remember losing a fight, and a slash to the neck, and then..." He frowns faintly. "A dream, as if I'd fallen asleep en route to death. And, waking here, I was whole. More whole than I'd been in some time, even, or you'd have met me with just one arm."
no subject
"It seems that whenever the Fade decides to bring someone here, it wants them to be completely of this world. I'm guessing, unless there's only one way elves can look, that some other parts of you were changed, too?"
Again, her thoughts turn to Loxley, and the changes he went through to arrive as Qunari rather than Tiefling.
"How did you lose your arm, before it was...replaced?"
no subject
"Dissolved," he says simply, and adds a wry smile. It's a weird answer, but it was a weird moment. "The demon replaced it, as part of our pact. It ..."
He trails off, realizing he probably doesn't have to stick to just words for this. It's worth a bit of magic, he thinks. He frees both hands to make a quick gesture in the air, and with a wave of his hand, his arm seems to change. Flesh starting at his inner shoulder becomes faceted black crystal with deep purple undertones, living rock that somehow moves as easily as flesh and bone, which interlocks neatly with the existing scars. And as an afterthought, his face changes as well — a deeper bridge of his nose, less severe cheekbones, longer ears.
"I'll not bother check it with a mirror, but I think this is about right."
no subject
Then her attention moves to his face, and she leans closer to examine the differences with awe. His facial features almost look more human, even if his ears are a bit longer.
And she realizes that looking at him and the face he was born with like he's some kind of magical wonder might make him feel a bit de-personized. Her expression softens and she looks into his eyes. Those are the same color, and they read as definitively Vanadi.
"Well," she says, leaning forward until she's leaned against him. "Hi there, handsome."
no subject
It doesn't feel any different on his end, but for her sake, "Hello, good to meet you."
Which gives him another idea, actually. His free hand makes another gesture, and in a blink his face has changed again. Now there's no scars, features that aren't so much younger as less worn, and long, straight black hair to about his mid-back. He gestures a flourish.
"And here, before I met a demon."
no subject
After a moment of quiet consideration, she tips his face towards hers and kisses where she knows his scar to be. Silent confirmation, in case the thought crosses his mind, that she doesn't prefer the pristine vision he's given her a glimpse of. She brushes her thumb over his lips, and kisses him there next, slow and sweet. Then his throat, that scar, and his shoulder.
no subject
Careful of her injury, his arm tightens around her waist, pulling her fully into his lap. His limbs fold around her there, and with his mouth so near a pointed ear he thinks he could sing entire songs of gratitude and appreciation.
What he says instead is, "I think I've done it. With your hair. How is that?"
no subject
"Much better than going to bed with a wet head," she says, unable to suppress a little shiver at his voice in her ear, the soft warmth of his breath. (It's simply not possible to ignore everything that being naked in his lap entails.)
"Thank you. For...for everything. For listening, and telling me about yourself, for helping me and...for caring."
no subject
"You've taken the words from my mouth," he murmurs. "Thank you for ... for being here, for not feeling as if you're on the verge of running. It's a rare quality, I think."
Is that what it comes down to? He thinks so. He trusts Athessa, and he trusts her now not to be spooked by any of the less polished and rawer sides that he keeps tucked away. His arms tighten firmly around her.
no subject
When she opens her eyes, she turns slightly to look at him, eyes half-lidded, lips slightly parted. It's not her intention to be demure or seductive, but part of the problem with saying you're not going to have sex is that in doing so you inevitably make yourself think about having sex. Really, all she wants is to let him know that it isn't just fatigue that has halted her urge to run.
"And I don't feel like I need to run from you."
no subject
He laughs quietly, and has the sneaking suspicion that it might just be an embarrassed laugh. He's new to those.
"I should hope not," he murmurs into the safety of her hair, "Look at me, I'm no threat to anyone."
no subject
"Of course you are," she says, "You're just not a violent one."
The threat of caring too deeply, of that being unrequited, again. The threat of him vanishing, reclaimed by the Fade. The threat of love, and the expectations it would place on her even though he isn't Thedosian. He's an elf, and that comes with responsibility.
no subject
"How do you mean?" Is that some romantic metaphor? He could read it that way, he supposes, but it doesn't sit right.
no subject
How does she explain? What words can she muster that will tell him her fears without admitting to something she can't take back? The answer is, quite simply: there aren't any words that don't expose a vital weakness, one that she doesn't know how to accept.
"I—" She swallows thickly, unable or unwilling on some baser level to say the only thing she can say to explain herself. She can't even tell him it's nothing. It's not nothing.
So she captures his mouth in a kiss. She closes her eyes against scrutiny and emotion and snakes her good arm around his neck, body pressing against his. If she gives herself over, if she distracts him from pursuing an explanation, maybe she can buy more time to work it out on her own before trying to tell him.
no subject
This kiss, though, works as intended. It snares Vanadi's whole attention, mind at least temporarily jumping the track. He welcomes the kiss with warm enthusiasm, one arm going snug around her waist as the other brushes through hair at the back of her head.
He's left blinking in the wake of it, and far too conscious of the warm skin pressed against his. Had he been about to say something? It's gone now.
no subject
"Let's go to bed."