WHO: Fenris, Jone, & YOU. WHAT: Fenris & Jone are back in Kirkwall. WHEN: When... people... are back in Kirkwall... waves hand. WHERE: KIRKWALL NOTES: None yet.
And it occurs to Astarion then that maybe there’s more to the picture than he’d initially assumed. Or— maybe that’s the wine talking. Hard to say.
Either way, he hadn't expected Fenris to care enough to ask.
“For one, I didn’t relish sleeping huddled in cramped quarters with a man that smells like muck and earth— not you, my dear, obviously. Don't ask. For another, I’ve existed long enough under someone else’s thumb, even if Riftwatch casts a much more mild shadow.” Infinitely more mild, in fact.
“I’m not a damned rat. I won’t live like one any longer.”
No more huddling over prickling straw, no more cramped quarters, no more thin, chafing blankets; if he has to beg, borrow, and steal the comforts he wants in life, he'll stoop low enough to scrape them up from the dirt without hesitation. “And yes, I know it’s impossible for someone like me to flourish in Hightown, but— well. I don’t care: I’ll start in Lowtown. I’ll figure it out. Make something remarkable of all this yet.”
Though he pauses there. Mind flicking back to dwell on that witty bitterness Fenris had shown, conversational momentum slowing to a halt.
“You know, a lot of the coin I used to purchase it came from fighting at your side. I realize you love your dust and your cobwebs but.” his tongue clicks against the back of his teeth as his lips purse ever so slightly, edging into a smile that shifts sidelong when his head tilts to one side.
“If you ever tire of it....consider my door perpetually open to you.”
Fenris' lip twitches. He's proud of this man. It's absurd; he has no right to. He taught the man nothing, helped him with little, and yet... an elf with aspirations, and damn the consequences... usually, it would be worrisome. Yet Astarion's feckless pride engenders only confidence in Fenris.
"In Tevinter," he says, "they call us rattus."
He lifts his glass, almost entirely empty, in the offer of a toast.
“To being procer.” Astarion agrees, lacking in linguistic comprehension, but not context.
Rattus, after all, speaks for itself: he doesn’t need to guess to know what that means, or how procer might somehow be its opposite. And the sneer he adopts in its wake only twists into a vivid smirk when his own glass is retrieved and raised in turn— whatever they haven’t yet polished off quickly undone in a single sip— before it's cast aside to shatter across the floor.
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Either way, he hadn't expected Fenris to care enough to ask.
“For one, I didn’t relish sleeping huddled in cramped quarters with a man that smells like muck and earth— not you, my dear, obviously. Don't ask. For another, I’ve existed long enough under someone else’s thumb, even if Riftwatch casts a much more mild shadow.” Infinitely more mild, in fact.
“I’m not a damned rat. I won’t live like one any longer.”
No more huddling over prickling straw, no more cramped quarters, no more thin, chafing blankets; if he has to beg, borrow, and steal the comforts he wants in life, he'll stoop low enough to scrape them up from the dirt without hesitation. “And yes, I know it’s impossible for someone like me to flourish in Hightown, but— well. I don’t care: I’ll start in Lowtown. I’ll figure it out. Make something remarkable of all this yet.”
Though he pauses there. Mind flicking back to dwell on that witty bitterness Fenris had shown, conversational momentum slowing to a halt.
“You know, a lot of the coin I used to purchase it came from fighting at your side. I realize you love your dust and your cobwebs but.” his tongue clicks against the back of his teeth as his lips purse ever so slightly, edging into a smile that shifts sidelong when his head tilts to one side.
“If you ever tire of it....consider my door perpetually open to you.”
no subject
"In Tevinter," he says, "they call us rattus."
He lifts his glass, almost entirely empty, in the offer of a toast.
"To being procer."
no subject
Rattus, after all, speaks for itself: he doesn’t need to guess to know what that means, or how procer might somehow be its opposite. And the sneer he adopts in its wake only twists into a vivid smirk when his own glass is retrieved and raised in turn— whatever they haven’t yet polished off quickly undone in a single sip— before it's cast aside to shatter across the floor.
“And to the Hells with Tevinter.”