faderift | [CLOSED] You hate my bad behavior

In competition with a mop. Truly, he’s come so far.

“My dance card? Oh, darling. Sweet of you, but Thedas is...mm.”

Difficult, to say the least.

Spoken while ignoring the way fine boots have to tug with every step until they’re finally out on the main road: stony pathway quick to knock the mud loose, affording him a significantly easier time of trudging along.

“There’s the occasional pretty face, true, but when you dwell in Lowtown with my— everything, you very quickly learn just how difficult it is to snare anything worthwhile.”

Wycome had been kinder. There at least Astarion was a novelty. A curiosity, well entertained and appropriately admired (barring the nuisance of one initial, decidedly irritating incident). Sometimes he thinks if he could just make it to Hightown, something in Kirkwall would finally, properly give.

“No, my dear, my card remains uniquely unmarked these days— though even if it were full, I’d still happily make room for you.”

Once they were on stable territory Dante shimmied off of Astarion's back, giving him a break knowing that he would probably keep going and could keep going, but aside from stretching his own legs he was more than aware of his own burden. He still kept an arm slung companionably over Astarion's shoulders while they strolled and he listened to Astarion discuss the ways in which this world bottlenecked Astarion from reaching his potential for simply being himelf.

"Trying to snare anything in particular?" Lowtown wasn't exactly reeking with prosperity and opportunity, it was urban and industrial and reeked of other things. It didn't really pair with Astarion, based on what Dante had assessed, while clearly able to rough it when he needed to, those fine boots covered in mud told a different story. So naturally he was curious, he knew Astarion's direction was up, and Dante wasn't beyond giving a boost if he could and when he could.

"You'd pencil me in? I'm flattered...but that's probably good all around, ignore me for long periods and I'll have to ugly cry and no one wants that," not that he's one for crying easily or anything, but he might just have to cut in in a very show stopping way if it ever came to that.

With someone else, he’d feign innocuity. Mischief. Always easier to let the most obvious impression be read as truth, even if it isn’t the entirety of it.

But he supposes he’s kept more than enough from Dante for one evening.

“Fortune. Security.” An anchor in a world rife with uncertainty. “I refuse to spend my time in this Realm plucking at spare coin or rotting in the arms of fate.”

Fate, after all, has never been kind to Astarion in any respect.

Expecting Thedas to be any different would be a fool’s folly; he knows that now.

“But like I said: you’re nice enough that I’d be willing to make an exception— it can’t be all work, after all.” Damp curls settling easy against Dante’s shoulder, grin gone sharp as a knife.

“That, and I’d hate to see you weep.”

Dante pondered the word fate as it was breathed into the universe, not being a huge believer in fate. Still he understood how fate could be comforting to people who have suffered, that there had to be meaning to it, some grandiose plan in the endless chasm of reality. In the hands of the cruel and deranged it was a way to abdicate responsibility for their own actions to some inglorious design.

Maybe Dante was pessimistic in that regard, maybe he was pragmatic, or maybe he thought determination and grit were more cogent than things like fate and luck. Sometimes it paid you a visit and sometimes it didn't.

"I think you'll silence any opposition with a master stroke," Astarion had plenty of guile and charm, reputation and fortune took work and time, but Dante didn't think it was impossible in spite of Astarion's...everything.

"And when hobnobbing with the rich and powerful starts boring you to tears I'll be easy to find," a life of luxury meant security and predictability, Dante couldn't imagine how that would be endlessly enjoyable without breaking it up somehow.

"That's very merciful of you, I'd hate to see me weep too."

He laughs for that final little quip, clear and easy. Arching high in one beat before silence simply carries it away into an almost pensive juncture.

“I didn’t use to find it so tiresome, you know.” Astarion confesses gently, devoid of all pretense. “Strange, how things change when one isn’t looking.”

It feels like a blink, his time in Thedas. Over half a year, yet so much has already shifted. Microcosms and macrocosms.

“What I mean is...well. You might not need to wait all that long, I suppose, after I start working my way back into those gilded halls once more.”

Without the occasional thrill of the hunt? There’s no telling how much he might tire of old games.

It's all so different now.

"Well if I have to vie for your attention then I'd feel sorry for the whole of the upper echelon," Dante said keeping the touch of humor in his voice, he understood that people could change for whatever reasons they wanted to change. Sometimes things that were once appealing were less so by comparison to other things and that was just fine, "they don't know how nicely I clean up."

Another playful nudge of Astarion's shoulder.

"A little polish here, a wardrobe upgrade there, a dramatic entrance...I do like a good dramatic entrance," Dante swept his hand in front of him as if trying to express it with a gesture, "and ka-boom, the competition will be blasted right out of the water. Like some kind of bourgeoisie pirate."

Dante tried to picture that one too. The bourgeoisie of the sea and he turned his face to Astarion cupping one hand over his eye in mock pirate fashion.

"If I do have to wait, I'll have no choice but to come throw a spanner in your works to liven things up a bit. So you don't have to worry."

“Charmer.” He snorts under the weight of that nudge, only meeting Dante's one-eyed stare with a peripheral glance of his own— just before turning it back towards the winding path ahead.

“They’ll all be absolutely livid, losing to a rogue like you.”

"Better hope I don't get a ship, I'll be unstoppable," as if ships just fell out of the sky and even if they did Dante wouldn't know the first thing about manning one, "I think I just found my new goal in life."

His scoff is light. It twists the corner of his mouth into an easy smile.

“You’re already unstoppable, darling. Even without the rest.”

Edited 2022-01-04 12:34 (UTC)

"You know what they say about flattery, don't you?"

Though, just like anyone else Dante enjoyed a little bit of flattery, whether he felt worthy of it particularly was an entirely different question. In the spirit of play, however, he was an eager enough recipient.

“That it gets you everywhere?” He asks, grin running a touch higher.

And without hesitancy Dante dipped down to scoop Astarion off of his muddy feet, jacket, pack, and all hoisted into his arms. They still had plenty of space between them and anything close to civilization.

"Hmmm...that's definitely along the right lines," he said agreeably.

[CLOSED] You hate my bad behavior

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject