WHO: Athessa, Madi, and YOU WHAT: post-Dream catch-all WHEN: after part 2 of dream time WHERE: The Gallows/Kirkwall NOTES: tags will be slow, brain still bad
There's a curl in his lip as he starts, "Please, I would never consider a..." Which is as far as he gets before he quite suddenly recalls that his main objection to tattoos no longer applies to him. He blinks, the look fading out into a startled blank.
Athessa watches that shift in expression, muted surprise and confusion raising her brows. It's merely coincidental and not pointed that when she reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ear, her sleeve slips back to show her own tattoo.
"A tattoo," he finishes, sounding a little distant. "Or at least, that was the case in Rune. It would have been a faded mess of nothing after not even a quarter of my life. But of course I suppose that isn't the case anymore."
Does that mean tattoos are back on the table again? Maybe. Not any time soon.
It does make sense to assume that with all the changes he went through just to arrive in Thedas as he is, a shortened lifespan would be among them, but then again...what if it didn't?
That's not something Athessa wants to indulge in imagining right now.
"Well, I know a good artist if you ever decide you want that."
It's a strange thought. He eyes Athessa, attention lingering on the flower at her wrist.
"I'm sure I wouldn't know what sort of designs to even begin thinking about." It sounds like a dismissal, but isn't meant as one. To soften it, he nods to her flower. "Is there meaning to yours?"
Athessa nods, rolling her sleeve so she can hold her hand out for him.
"Forget-me-nots," she says. "To remind me of where I started, and how far from there right here and right now is."
It's a bit more complicated than that, but she's never truly had the words for it all. She turns her wrist over and traces the lines with her fingertips. The stems of the forget-me-nots aren't linked to form a complete circle, but off-set and left open.
"And that I'll never belong to anyone but myself."
He reaches when she offers, fingers curling gently around her wrist as he lifts it somewhat higher for inspection. It is a lovely design, he's thought so before; he's not certain why he'd never before thought to ask for its meaning. But he nods, his fingers tracing the line after hers -- more out of fondness for touching her skin than any particularly marvel at lines he's seen before.
"That's quite the story they have," he murmurs, and considers that he has no such reminders to want to keep alive in himself. It seems best kept to himself.
"It was also kinda a way to prove myself," she says even as she's nodding that yeah, it is quite a story behind a bit of ink. "Since I never got my vallaslin."
He releases her wrist, and the same hand lifts to brush a twist of hair from her forehead, about where he's seen those Dalish tattoos on the few he spots in the city. "What would it have looked like, if you had?"
She in turn brushes his hair back from his face to kiss his forehead, and draws some kind of winding pattern starting between his brows and arching up to his temples.
"Probably something that looks like antlers, or vines. I had ideas of which one I'd wanted, 'course, but ultimately it'd be up to the Keeper. Which one, and whether or not you were ready for it."
He ducks his head to accept that kiss, those tracing fingers, but his eyes are on Athessa's face. It's strange to imagine such a design on her -- he's never put much thought to it before.
"What would a Keeper base that sort of thing on?" He'd ask what a Keeper is too, but -- that one's sort of self explanatory, he supposes.
She's tried to imagine it herself more than a few times, standing in front of her own reflection and visualizing what it might look like. She's even tried to draw one on, before, with minimal success.
"Mostly it'd be about the role you fill in the clan, I think, but a little bit of it is also how you conduct yourself," Her fingers transition from tracing his skin to slipping into his hair, brushing it back a few times just to enjoy the feel of it. Silky and fine. "I used to want the vallaslin of Mythal, the protector. But I was also terrified of not being worthy of it."
He closes his eyes as her fingers move, dipping his head into the touch appreciatively. More soothing balm on the still-jumpy wreck of his mind, whether she knows it or not.
"I can't speak to what you may have earned yourself, had things been different," he murmurs, "But I should say something like that would well suit the you that I've come to know."
Athessa smiles, trying and failing to curb it a little bit, but it's one of those smiles that will not be denied. She brushes through his hair a few more times, grazing short nails across his scalp and she kisses his forehead again. Rests her cheek there, briefly.
"Thank you." It's a simple thing to say, probably nothing he had to really think over before saying, but it's something that hits just right to make her feel good. Especially after a dream where she was deemed unfit to raise her own child.
She leans to look at the kettle on the hearth, hearing it boil, and goes to fetch a towel so she can take it off the heat without burning her hand. From there it's the simple matter of pouring the water and letting the coffee steep.
An arm has snuck its way around Athessa's waist, but he releases her easily when she moves for the kettle. Then he only watches her, comforted just by the sight of such simple, mundane tasks under her hands. And isn't she always that -- a comfort, a protection?
He drops back into his comfortable lean against the counter, and holds out a hand for hers as she returns.
"Athessa," he says, tone gone pensive, "You would tell me if there were more I could do for you, yes? If there were any more I could give?"
He pauses, frowning, searching for an answer to this -- and is forced to concede a shake of his head.
"I'm not sure," he says, tone still low, as his fingers close around hers. These are more new ideas to him, he doesn't have the grasp on them that he wishes he did. "If I knew, I suppose I'd be doing it already. It feels as though I'm always the one taking from you, though -- you're always giving. I'd like to give back, is all."
"I wouldn't want you to give me anything if it was out of obligation," she says, gaze drifting from his face to look elsewhere, to sort out her thoughts on the matter. After a moment, she continues: "I don't like the idea of anyone feeling like they owe it to me to feel or act one way or another. If I didn't give of myself, I think...I think I might not be able to contain whatever it is and I'd burst."
That gets a quick laugh, and Vanadi nods faintly. "I'd believe that," he says, and finds that the thought of an ungiving Athessa is — foreign. An entirely different person. He shakes it off.
"In any case, it wouldn't be a sense of obligation. I've never felt beholden to one of those in my life," he says, and for a moment there's a younger, haughtier version of himself in the tone. It fades again quickly. "It would be — love, you know, something along those lines. I want to give more to you."
"Something along those lines," she echoes, a downright bashful grin spreading over her features. She looks down to check the coffee, an excuse to turn her face to try and wrest the grin into something a little less goofy, but she doesn't much succeed.
"I dunno what to tell ya, I don't know what I'd even ask for."
He grins as well, mostly for the sight of her bashful look, and the way it can't quite be controlled. He does so love being treated to one of those looks.
"One day you'll grow bored of romantic, candle-lit meals, and then I'll be out of tricks," he says, wistfully, although that isn't at all true. He had a whole stable of tricks once -- he's never put much mind into trying them and meaning them, though. That, he thinks, would be novel.
"You wanna know something, though?" She turns back to look at him, leaning in a little conspiratorially. As if what she has to confess is at all a secret, or even the least bit worthy of being called a confession. "I could take or leave the romance and candles."
Well that's a puzzling reaction if she ever saw one.
"It's all well and fine, but it's...well, ya know. It's whatever." She shrugs, still smiling, but her amused look is tinged with confusion as she takes in his reaction.
"What? I don't mean that I don't enjoy that stuff," she is quick to reassure, waving her hand to ward off that misconception. "But it's not what's holding my attention."
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"I didn't think they were that bad, actually. I mean, that you suffered for them was, of course, but they looked fine."
Between the Dalish thing and the decade spent in Rivain thing, Athessa is a little biased in this area.
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"You'd never consider a—?"
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Does that mean tattoos are back on the table again? Maybe. Not any time soon.
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That's not something Athessa wants to indulge in imagining right now.
"Well, I know a good artist if you ever decide you want that."
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"I'm sure I wouldn't know what sort of designs to even begin thinking about." It sounds like a dismissal, but isn't meant as one. To soften it, he nods to her flower. "Is there meaning to yours?"
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"Forget-me-nots," she says. "To remind me of where I started, and how far from there right here and right now is."
It's a bit more complicated than that, but she's never truly had the words for it all. She turns her wrist over and traces the lines with her fingertips. The stems of the forget-me-nots aren't linked to form a complete circle, but off-set and left open.
"And that I'll never belong to anyone but myself."
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"That's quite the story they have," he murmurs, and considers that he has no such reminders to want to keep alive in himself. It seems best kept to himself.
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She in turn brushes his hair back from his face to kiss his forehead, and draws some kind of winding pattern starting between his brows and arching up to his temples.
"Probably something that looks like antlers, or vines. I had ideas of which one I'd wanted, 'course, but ultimately it'd be up to the Keeper. Which one, and whether or not you were ready for it."
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"What would a Keeper base that sort of thing on?" He'd ask what a Keeper is too, but -- that one's sort of self explanatory, he supposes.
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"Mostly it'd be about the role you fill in the clan, I think, but a little bit of it is also how you conduct yourself," Her fingers transition from tracing his skin to slipping into his hair, brushing it back a few times just to enjoy the feel of it. Silky and fine. "I used to want the vallaslin of Mythal, the protector. But I was also terrified of not being worthy of it."
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"I can't speak to what you may have earned yourself, had things been different," he murmurs, "But I should say something like that would well suit the you that I've come to know."
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"Thank you." It's a simple thing to say, probably nothing he had to really think over before saying, but it's something that hits just right to make her feel good. Especially after a dream where she was deemed unfit to raise her own child.
She leans to look at the kettle on the hearth, hearing it boil, and goes to fetch a towel so she can take it off the heat without burning her hand. From there it's the simple matter of pouring the water and letting the coffee steep.
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He drops back into his comfortable lean against the counter, and holds out a hand for hers as she returns.
"Athessa," he says, tone gone pensive, "You would tell me if there were more I could do for you, yes? If there were any more I could give?"
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What more could she possibly ask?
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"I'm not sure," he says, tone still low, as his fingers close around hers. These are more new ideas to him, he doesn't have the grasp on them that he wishes he did. "If I knew, I suppose I'd be doing it already. It feels as though I'm always the one taking from you, though -- you're always giving. I'd like to give back, is all."
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"In any case, it wouldn't be a sense of obligation. I've never felt beholden to one of those in my life," he says, and for a moment there's a younger, haughtier version of himself in the tone. It fades again quickly. "It would be — love, you know, something along those lines. I want to give more to you."
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"I dunno what to tell ya, I don't know what I'd even ask for."
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"One day you'll grow bored of romantic, candle-lit meals, and then I'll be out of tricks," he says, wistfully, although that isn't at all true. He had a whole stable of tricks once -- he's never put much mind into trying them and meaning them, though. That, he thinks, would be novel.
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"Are you sure?" he asks, mouth twisting unhappily. "You aren't secretly an enormous fan of it all, and you haven't noticed yet?"
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"It's all well and fine, but it's...well, ya know. It's whatever." She shrugs, still smiling, but her amused look is tinged with confusion as she takes in his reaction.
"What? I don't mean that I don't enjoy that stuff," she is quick to reassure, waving her hand to ward off that misconception. "But it's not what's holding my attention."
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