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faderift2022-03-08 10:59 pm
illithidnapped) wrote in faderift2022-03-08 10:59 pm
Entry tags:
[CLOSED] AND YOU'LL KNOW THE NEXT TIME I WAKE UP SCREAMING
WHO: Astarion, Fenris, Bastien, Emet-Selch, Mobius, Ellie, Dante, Loki
WHAT: fear spirits are no joke when you're a bag of broken glass
WHEN: backdated to Crossroads plot hours
WHERE: the Crossroads
NOTES: so many content warnings: mind control, slavery, torture, blood, mutilation and abuse of every conceivable/literal shade, possibly more warnings to be added later, not joking this is a very horrible space. There's a reason why I'm divorcing this from the main log; Astarion's canon is, in short, unkind.
WHAT: fear spirits are no joke when you're a bag of broken glass
WHEN: backdated to Crossroads plot hours
WHERE: the Crossroads
NOTES: so many content warnings: mind control, slavery, torture, blood, mutilation and abuse of every conceivable/literal shade, possibly more warnings to be added later, not joking this is a very horrible space. There's a reason why I'm divorcing this from the main log; Astarion's canon is, in short, unkind.
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no subject
'Do you know what happens to Rifters?
We don’t always stay bound to this world. Sometimes, something in that magic gives out quick as a snuffed candle, and we go with it.'
The places where their hands met were like pressure points, knuckles and the edges of their fingers— near enough to feel that steadying weight the way that lines are lashed to shore— all grounding.
'I will die before I allow him to take you back, Astarion. That I can swear to you.’
Hope dies.
It withers now in the current that cuts beneath Fenris’ voice — Stop— Astarion's cry horrid when Fenris takes hold of him. Wounded. Like the way an injured dog keens with animal fear too distressing to passively hear, the sound bolts from the base of his throat without thought. His bones turned to iron, his heels all but nailed to fetid earth.
(He’d turned. For a moment, Fenris had turned. He’d heard it, too. Not a hallucination. Not a dream.)
Green eyes bore into his own, and the words that give chase are all mangled by the pounding of his heart in his ears. He wants to sink into the walls. He wants to run until his soles bleed and his knees buckle. Trembling through glass joints, the air in his lungs suffocatingly thin. Nine months. Nine months, and that was all it took for the tether to snap tight across his neck. The game he’d been set to lose from the very start.
Astarion always loses.
Look at where you are. Look at where he has led you, as he leads all his prey.]
Fenris—
[Pale fingers slip from the empty space behind Fenris, coalescing into unsettling solidity— claws long and sharp— brushing along the slope of Fenris’ throat in an abhorrent imitation of a lover’s caress: from the space just beneath his ear to the span beneath his collar, heavy when it sinks, palpable, into stillness.
But the hushed murmur isn’t quite right.
It sounds different to Astarion’s ears, distorted at first, the way noise beneath water bubbles before breaking. There’s a near-thrum to it. A musing affectation that Cazador never possessed. Accent drifting to the lilting tune of oppressive satisfaction.
The crypts are warmer, though Astarion can’t feel it. Humidity settling like a shroud throughout negative space.
Little wolf.
My dear little wolf.
How I have missed you.]
no subject
Little wolf.
It's not real. Danarius is dead. Danarius died in the Hanged Man, he remembers his last gurgling words, the feeling of bones snapping beneath his fingers, bloodshot eyes and fetid breath, Hawke had helped, Varric had helped, Isabela and Anders and Merrill—
My dear little wolf, cold fingers caressing the span of his throat, stopping when they tap against his collar— his collar, and of course it's always been there. He always wears it. Not to mark him as a slave, no, but as a joke, see? Those savage oxmen keep their mages leashed and bound— and so here, now, is the opposite. A jeering triumph: a mage keeping his powerful pet muzzled and tethered, a show of superiority and power all in one.
Thick iron that tapers down into looping metal curved over his chest, fitted precisely to his body— and himself, clad not in his preferred clothes, but the thin vest that Danarius had deigned to offer him, a middling excuse for modesty. What is the point of all those lyrium brands if not to show them off, after all?
How I have missed you.
Danarius is dead in Thedas, but they are not in Thedas. And who's to say this is not real? Everything is so distorted in the Fade, reality the most tenuous of things; who's to say this is not Danarius come back to haunt him? Who's to say the past few years have not been a fever dream conjured up by a mind so broken with terror that it could escape only in fantasy? And he is terrified. He is so, so afraid, for it does not matter that he had killed Danarius; it does not matter that he knows (vaguely, distantly, a fact forgotten) that he is in the Crossroads. All that matters is here and now. All that matters is that Danarius has found him once again.
He chokes— something yanks at his leash, drawing him away from Astarion like a dog shooed away from a littermate. On your knees, that lilting voice commands, and there is no hesitation, no thought of disobedience: Fenris falls, pain shooting like lightning through his body as he keeps his head bowed. Good. You have not forgotten all your training, it seems.
He can smell the sea. Faintly, that sea-salt tang spilling in from some crack somewhere, but he can smell it. He can hear (oh imekari please you don't have to) the sound of flesh meeting steel, the wet grunts and howling screams of his victims reverberating up his sword and seeping into his skin. Fingers card gently through his hair, sweeping it back from his eyes, tipping his chin up to stare at—
They blur. Danarius one moment, a man he does not recognize— crimson eyes and such indifferent coldness in his expression— the next. They speak, one and the same, distinct and yet not.
Kill him.]
No. No, I—
[Hoarse. Weak. A child protesting a chore, and the figure chuckles indulgently. (Not real, some tiny part of him screams, not real this can't be happening this cannot be real, but there Danarius is anyway, living and breathing, one hand resting on his staff, the other reaching for his pet).]
Please, master—
[Kill him, pet, so that we can go home. All will be forgiven, and what a lie that is, but what choice does he have? His master will always find him. He is inevitable. Fleeing him is like trying to flee the moon; there is no escape, and he is duller than the stupidest of elves for thinking that there was. His master always gets what he wants. His master always wins.
He wavers. Trembles there on the stone floor, his eyes rolling over to stare helplessly at Astarion, and there's another chuckle. Impatience is woven through Danarius' tone, barely masked; his master does not tolerate disobedience. Did you make him your new master? Sleeping at the foot of his bed night after night, oh, such devotion . . . perhaps you thought he would protect you if you skulked at his doorway long enough.
No, little wolf. You belong to me.]
I, [and some part of him tries to rouse, buckling on trembling legs, a flame of defiance,] belong to no one. I will not—
[But somehow, he is standing. But somehow, there is a blade in his hand. But somehow, he is covered in blood, and his expression is so cold and blank. Unseeing, unfeeling . . . a weapon, a feral dog let off his chain, and nothing more.
Cazador's voice cuts through the darkness, musing only for his spawn to hear: And when you defeat him, Astarion . . . shall I feast upon him, or turn him?
No right answer. No way out. No hope, only ever the illusion of it; a grand game that they will never, ever win.]
no subject
I know you never meant to run, boy.
A hand across the back of Astarion's neck. Commanding and cold— a distinctive, unmistakable lack of life clinging to their roaming tips. Something he hasn’t felt in well over half a year (creatures in Thedas are so warm). He’s drenched in finery beneath them. Gilded filigree across thin silk, lavish enough to mask all monstrosity. One glance towards his palms and his anchor shard— his only constant, waking comfort— is gone. Vanished without a trace, as though it’d never existed at all.
Fool.
Pitiful, pitiable fool. Pouring his heart into the thinnest of transparent tricks.
I must admit, I am disappointed. You are usually a far better at bewitching your prey. Did you hesitate? Did you hold back? Did you think it would keep him safe? Have you not learned better after all these years? Vitriol drips from between overlong teeth as Cazador's envisaged silhouette sinks closer, the edges of his form rippling like sootsmoke. Yet I think he means to kill you.
(Bloody and bladed, that languishing Blue Wraith. Standing on unsteady footing despite the way Fenris mutters in withered protest against the glassiness in his own set gaze, as if it's something to be stopped.)
Correct your mistakes, boy. Bring him to me, gift me a new toy to break in your place, and I’ll spare you all the pain you’ve earned in your misbehavior.
It’s a lie. It’s always a lie.
Cazador spares nothing. Least of all a runaway. His only runaway.
And still, even knowing better, Astarion does. Compelled as ever out of sheer terrified instinct, he does. Like fighting dogs, the two of them— already he’s on his feet and prowling, glass-black daggers in hand, and maybe there’s such cruel amusement in that, too: does a vampire spawn measure up to a lyrium monstrosity? Is a fortune’s worth of branded lines comparable to a single, corruptive bite? They circle one another to the tune of jeering whispers— the host of mortal vassals Cazador kept around like a vulgar menagerie of corruption and cruelty alike, voices Astarion can recognize from years upon years of catering to their wicked wants. The Szarr family itself; the chittering, mindless spawn in the walls, abandoned to decrepitude for their failings; Cazador himself. Danarius.
His first strike isn’t as fearful as the hammering of his own heart; he rushes into it without warning, careful to keep from lunging in across Fenris’ front where a heavy blade might easily come swinging down with only a flick of tensed muscle. More to his side, wild and shockingly strong (is it adrenaline, or is he home once more), quicker than a blink. A breath.]
I’m— [No, he can’t say he’s sorry. He doesn’t have that right when he’s struggling to upset the whole of Fenris’ balance— his freedom— in a single, wrenching shove to force him back against a nearby wall, blade tucked in at the edge of his throat.
Soft words. Softened eyes, hooded in a way that’s meant to soothe. Be calm, darling. Just surrender.
Feel the weight of his breath, the press of a straining touch. Pleasant. Lilac and leather oil almost cloying in its pervasive presence.] It’s easier if you don’t fight it. He’ll be more merciful. You’ll stand a better chance of—
No. [No. It’s all lies. All the bile he sipped from for two centuries, swearing poison was wine if only because it was better than the crushing weight of oblivion.
But he’s held freedom in his grasp, now. And the ugly mirror to their first night at one another’s side, carved from the way he’s shoved Fenris flat to stony walls, staring up into startled green eyes isn’t enough to erase the memory of far warmer spaces than this.
'Freedom suits you, Astarion. More than it does most.'
He clenches his fingertips. The pommel of his dagger bites back when he silently counts out each second held purely of his own volition.
One. Two. Three.
The physical always helps. He’d learned that while being tortured, the slide of the knife beneath his skin and he found, oh so quickly, how to muddy the worst of it all by locking his teeth or his fingers, fighting to count the constellations in high ceilings overhead. The snap of the whip. The grains in dark wood while calloused palms splayed low across his back.]
This isn’t real.
I won’t kill you. Whatever’s doing this, it—
[He remembers that hateful castle that Riftwatch had unintentionally unearthed not long ago. How everything had seemed so real, even to the touch, malicious spirits trying only to keep them there, enslaved by pain and poisonous dread alike. He forces that memory sharp against the crushing weight of a desire to sink his teeth into Fenris’ throat.
To crawl, scraping and coated in his own companion’s blood, on his knees towards his master for absolution. Maybe he’ll keep them both— no, Cazador would only swap the consequences of Astarion's laughably useless petition: if Astarion asked for leniency, Fenris would no doubt die.
But his fingers flex. They tighten, all of Astarion's own accord. And there’s a spark of heat across his palm where an anchor shard should normally be.
Normally.
Because he belongs to Thedas, now. Not Toril.]
It’s not them.
no subject
Impossible. That's his first thought, so long and strong it's a wonder he doesn't yell it out. Impossible, terror striking at his heart, his face going pale as he stares at Astarion. How could it not be? When he has a collar around his throat, when all he has to do is glance over to see his master smiling in sadistic amusement, when everything about this scenario only confirms every night terror and haunting anxiety he has ever had— that there is no escape. That freedom was nothing more than a dream, easily snatched away. That he is nothing without Danarius; that a slave is the only purpose he ever ought to have aspired towards.
Impossible, impossible, something in him howls in terror, bouncing about his mind and growing stronger with every iteration. Impossible, impossible—
And then another voice, soft like steel, murmurs: no.
No. Not an impossibility, he thinks. It seems it. Certainly Danarius wished for him to think that way. But no— and like a river bursting through a dam, all of it floods back. He had managed it once before, hadn't it? No— three times, in fact. First at harbor, and then in wake of the massacre on the beach. And then, finally, in the Hanged Man. That last, vital effort, that burst of energy— the word is Master, his master had sighed, and not half an hour later Fenris had him dangling by his throat, miserably choking, bones breaking—
This isn't real, and it all shatters at once.
Danarius. Cazador. The spectators, his collar, his clothing— all of it dissipates like so much smoke, vanishing from one heartbeat to the next. Nausea churns in his stomach, bile rising in his throat; Fenris chokes, his eyes squeezing shut as he reels— not real, and of course it isn't. The cave they're in (for of course they're in a cave, mundane and ordinary, craggy and damp-smelling, but not a crypt) is offensively ordinary, innocuous as anything.]
Fenhedis!
[It's a snarl, but the tension seeps out of him as he ceases struggling against Astarion. His blade drops, his body slumping against the wall behind him. Twice now he has found himself tricked by demons; twice he has been a fool, rushing forward in a panic, only to find himself useless and in need of rescuing.
Pathetic.]
That was—
[His mind staggers, reels, but—]
Cazador?
[And then, the puzzle pieces swiftly falling into place:]
That was his home. His crypt.
[A pale elven face, crimson eyes and coldness radiating from every inch of him . . . so unlike Danarius, and yet so much worse. Details flit back in the longer time passes: those chattering, mindless creatures surrounding them, whispering from the walls; the way that voice had rung out, inevitable as armageddon, orders that had seemed to strike Astarion to his very bones . . .
(And they aren't out of it yet, he knows, but give him a moment to reel).]
Our memories blurred. That was . . . that was how I used to look.
[The collar. The clothing. All of it was as it once was— and so the same must be true for Astarion. Being so dressed up, fine clothes and delicate appearance . . . it means nothing, of course. It does not change his opinion in any way. But it matters, in the same way Fenris' collar had mattered. It's a stark reminder not of who they are, but what they were, miserable and molded, creatures forged for a singular purpose.]
no subject
A fantasy, of course. But sometimes that’s needed. Even for someone so practical and bitter as him.
He can still hear hushed voices. He still smells, faintly, wet mold and stagnating water— but when clarity hits in the span of a blink (and he sees the face of his friend staring back at him with renewed focus, no collar, no wisps of longer hair or locked purpose in grim features) his hands are gloved once more.
So yes, it is so much like that first night. Stitched through with the same oscillating slide between what dread demands (Astarion will return home in a blink of snuffed magic; Fenris’ last living link will stride in and force him to his knees, finishing what was started; Cazador, Tevinter, mindless servitude without hope) and what they promise each other:
'I will die before I allow him to take you back.'
'Run if you need to, but my fangs aren’t just for show.'
'This isn’t real.'
'It isn’t them.'
Back. Push back against it. Against the hissing in the walls and the ghost across his spine, and he stays pressed to Fenris for a few beats longer just to cling to how that narrow contact grounds him in a sense.
His presence like a promise. Something he can tether himself to when he’s so at risk for slipping back into pervasive, rotting fear.]
The catacombs beneath his estate. [Yes.
And finally he pulls back, daggers tucked loose against his palms.]
I heard his voice. Danarius. [It had to have been; it was the only sound that didn’t fit neatly into Astarion’s own memories. The one that fights now, still, to break the surface of their won peace alongside whispers that grasp like fingers, hungry for anything at all. Too distorted to comprehend, some mixed ripple of everything they've immediately dispelled.
It’s forced out of his mind.]
I—
[Forgive me, but the words never quite make it there.] We need to get out of here.
Or at least— just talk to me. Keep the rest from getting into our heads.
[He puts one dagger away completely, open hand held— palm upright— idly in the air between them before it’s flexed beneath his own leaden stare, thinking. He isn’t counting seconds, only weighing something. Only—
Offering it wordlessly to the elf at his side. A difference of small inches. The lifting of his gaze.
It might be ridiculous, leaning on something so outwardly childish at a time like this, but when reality’s being pulled like a rug from beneath their heels, pride won’t do anyone any good.]
no subject
It's fine. It's fine, he tells himself, and yet the rush of cold air when Astarion steps back stings against his skin. He swallows thickly, his head jerking into a sharp nod as the other elf asserts that. We need to get out of here, yes, talk to me, yes, he can do that. He can come up with something that isn't rooted in the past, for perhaps by talking they can banish the last of these ghosts.
A slow exhale. Already his mind casts about for stories of the past, stories that are mundane enough not to spark any emotions (and feed whatever errant spirits haunt this place). He takes a step forward—
Oh.
Stupidly, he stalls out. He actually blinks for a moment, unsure as to what the correct course of action is, for he has never—
Look. Presumably somewhere in his childhood, his mother or Varania had held his hand. (He can, vaguely, remember a small hand in his own, tiny fingers clenched tightly against the press of a crowd, but that's neither here nor there). There were certainly times when one of the Fog Warriors had brushed their fingers against his own, although that was more instructional or briefly affectionate than anything longstanding. And certainly no one in the Kirkwall crew ever had; they weren't that kind of friends. No one in Kirkwall, typically, is that kind of friend.
So he doesn't quite know what to do at first, starved for affection as he is. A split second later and reality kicks in, his own instincts screaming at him not to be such an idiot before it gets taken away, and he reaches for him. Slips their fingers together and tries not to think about how assuring it is, having such a tether in the darkness.]
I hate fish.
[Literally the most inane thing in the world, but it's the first thing he can think to say. A tentative step forward, and then another, in what he hopes is the right direction.]
It was one of the first things I discovered in freedom. I had never . . . [No, he isn't thinking about Danarius.] Well. I had never had it before. But those that found me after my escape lived near the sea. They healed me and fed me, but it was a miserable week before I was well enough to hunt my own food.
We lived in Seheron's jungles, [because that sounds odd if he doesn't explain.] Not far from the coast. They were a group of Qunari independents, a small unit of a greater whole. Independent and proud, bowing to no one but their own customs, refusing to give in to occupying forces . . . I admired them deeply.
[He still does. Idly his fingers flex, not so much squeezing as simply adjusting, the leather of Astarion's gloves pliant against his fingertips.]
But as they were a group of freedom fighters— with an escaped, highly sought after slave trailing after them— we could not simply stroll into the nearest city and buy things. So I ate fish, disgustingly slimy though it was, and spent my second week learning how to hunt in the jungle.
no subject
[He shouldn’t laugh. He isn’t actually laughing, either— it’s all reflex, the way he scoffs out a burst of breath, like the snap-pop of a band wound too tight suddenly giving way (because beneath the sickening rise of tension as they edge out into those winding depths once more, he is amused), letting his lips just slightly curl at their corner. The gesture living for a single, passing beat.
(It isn’t what he expected this shielding conversation to start off with, and maybe for that, too, it’s all the more charming somehow.)
But this is the most he’s heard of Fenris’ past. The most he’s ever glimpsed, either in confession or—
Visibly. Audibly.
(He tries to force the image of Fenris under leashing collar from his mind, quick as it blooms— not here. Not now. Don’t feed it.
There’ll be time for questions later.)
Still, though, it catches Astarion off guard in a sense, what a surprising comfort it is to hear more about someone he thought he knew. Someone he’s only just now realizing he never truly understood at all— because there is so much more to them both than just the parallels of their suffering.
Or...maybe apprehension’s just made him soft. With the ghost of his master trailing only five steps behind, it’s admittedly hard to tell.
He squeezes just a little tighter around the hold they share. A subconscious choice.]
I'm trying very hard not to judge you right now. Admittedly, it's terribly difficult.
[But there’s too much danger in pressing for more: what did your master let you eat? Why didn’t you stay in that jungle? Why come to Kirkwall at all? They’re all loaded questions, a knife poised to bleed Fenris of the worst of his memories— something they can’t afford right now.
Instead he offers that same, narrow little smile, and presses on in time with the rhythm of their strides.]
Do you know, before I came here, I hadn’t had a bath in fifty years? [As far as confessions go, he imagines this one's most likely to prove shocking enough to keep all manner of terror vividly at bay.] Water, pure and running, burns any vampire like acid. One of the more troublesome weaknesses my thoroughly cursed kind endures.
Over half a year later and I still wince when doused in water.
[It had perplexed Loki, once. So few recoil in fear from the threat of a single cup of water, after all.]
And before you ask: no, I wasn’t some gruesome, shambling mess: we don’t shed like living creatures do. No accumulation of grit or grime that can’t easily be swept away. One good scrub down with a heavily perfumed rag, or a quick pass of water laced with scented oil, and I was good as new.
It’s far more tedious, now that Thedas has its claws in me.
[A breath, before:]
But I find I like it.
no subject
(Fifty years, Astarion says, and it's not that slips of the tongue can't happen, but . . . mm, Fenris doubts it. And yet he won't ask in this place, so later, later).]
A pity. Here I was ready to imagine you as a greasy, unkempt thing.
Does your—
[He cuts himself off, giving Astarion a rueful little glance. Later, he reminds himself, but that doesn't stop his burning curiosity now: does your hair grow, or was it always like this? Did you sweat? Was a rag satisfying, or did you miss baths?]
Someday, after a fight, you will try one of the baths in the mansion. They are worth the effort it takes to fill them— and you of all people, I think, will appreciate the grandeur there.
[What else? Now it's a game, a back and forth of the most mundane facts they can think of. An easy way to distract (as they head deeper into darkness, and Fenris has never been more grateful he glows) from the nightmare of before.]
Mm. I learned there I had hobbies I enjoyed, beyond the thrill of fighting. I am no deft hand at carving wood, but it is pleasing to me nonetheless.
[And he can do more than make a large block of wood a slightly smaller block of wood, so. Huzzah for Fenris.]
What else have you found you liked, here in the Thedas? Surely not just baths.
no subject
[It comes so easily to him. Easier than letting his mind run with the promise of a blissful bath (something he’s only granted the full benefit of either on missions or on day trips to the Gallows baths— and he does despise the Gallows too much to let his hackles ease down fully) or the way his mind twists to make a joke that isn’t quite a joke: that depends, would you join me? It tries to ask, which isn’t fair. Isn’t kind.
(And while Astarion is neither fair nor kind, the weight across his knuckles in the cold dark is enough to kill his worst instincts. Keep them quieted a little longer.)]
Another miserably damning aspect of vampirism: daylight scorches as if it were fire. [Does he realize he’s somehow slowly teaching Fenris each and every weakness his master possesses by way of admitting— piece by infinitesimal piece— exactly what his arrival in Thedas truly gifted him? No, in fact.
But maybe someday he’ll look back on it and think that the smallest little fragment of his heart knew exactly what it was doing.] A vampire lord could survive a minute of it in suffering, maybe. But a spawn like myself? I'd have been cinders, even with just the smallest little glimpse.
Cazador— [Ah. No.]
...in two hundred years, I never once saw the sun again after that first night.
I find myself incapable of tiring of it, now. Even if it is shockingly difficult to retool my own sleeping habits.
[Somewhere at their backs, there’s a sharper sound of scraping. A threatening hiss that tries to become a real thing— forcing itself against the wall of their conversation.
Astarion pinches his eyes shut for one lone beat longer, ignoring it entirely (despite the way the hairs on the back of his neck strain to rise).]
What sort of things do you whittle? Animals? People?
Little knives?
[It’s shockingly easy to taper anything down to a point and call it good, after all.]
no subject
But he also takes note of them for Astarion's sake. Not seeing the sun for two hundred years . . . oh, no wonder he loves it. Fenris has only known him in the winter, too; he must bask like a cat in the spring and summer, soaking up the warmth and light he was denied for two centuries. He is glad, he finds. Glad for the simple reason that it so clearly brings Astarion joy, and that there's nothing to stop it from happening day after day.
Cazador, Astarion begins, and he can feel the surge of tension in the grip of those gloved fingers, the scrape of something (a blade? a stake? ah, but that's the point: it could be anything, depending on what their frightened minds automatically dart towards) echoing just behind them. There's no use in pointing it out, though Fenris can feel his heart beat a little faster. Best to just move on. Pretend it isn't frightening and it isn't just like that.
Whittling, then, and he deliberately wrinkles his nose, a pointedly petulant expression.]
Animals, mostly. I . . . there have been a few recognizable shapes. A dog. A bear. A halla, once, and that may have been my greatest artistic endeavor.
[Lotta four-legged stocky animals in this list.]
I am not an artist. But it is pleasing to have something to do with your hands at the end of the night.
[He considers this, and then, in that same deadpan voice, adds:]
Well. Something else to do with your hands, anyway.
[Is that a masturbation joke? It sure is! And yet he's moving on swiftly, lest he be called on it.]
You must have found something to occupy your time between missions.
no subject
Someday he’ll admit that Ellie sat with him, and told him about her own past (a pretty little rock worth nothing at all, a trinket that linked her to the warmth she’d left behind, once), and how she’d given it to Astarion, placing it just within the center of his palm without asking.
If he couldn’t have memories of his own, she chose to gift him hers instead.
And nine months (another scrape behind them, another brushing shudder of a sound, too close for Astarion’s own instinctive comfort) is nothing in comparison to the lifetime he lacks. Nine months at war, though...
'Were those nine months worth it?'
For all his purposefully confident luster, he lacks so much, still. A reality he clutches too close to his own chest, rather than let it be seen.
'Did you think I would not find you and bring you back to me?'
And then Fenris jokes.
And his own laugh is such a stupid, abrupt thing.]
I...
[Rut, drink, murder, steal— assassinate and plot alike, and the most innocuous of all his habits is engaging in either Diamondback or Wicked Grace, both of which he uses as a means to, once again, thieve from the local populace.
It isn’t something he’s ashamed of, trust, but compared to whittling. Bathing. Basking...]
I work, mostly. Getting every advantage that I can means there isn’t much chance for rest, overall. Coin doesn’t flutter its way into my pocket, and my home is damningly expensive. [And Riftwatch pays nothing more than a pittance.]
Information sells just as well as anything else, too. So. When I’m not stealing or winning at cards, or hunting in Darktown for a body with a bounty attached to it, I work my way in where I can for gossip and secrets alike.
[It’s the truth. Just the truth.
And when he feels a press along his spine, he shoves it all away, returning to brighter things. Clutching that hold between them tighter.]
Anyway. [His mouth pulls upwards at its edge, just slightly.] Make something for me, then.
Once we’re out of this wretched place.
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But, he thinks, still. He will come over one night with knives and wood blocks, and they will carve something together. And perhaps Astarion will enjoy it and perhaps he'll find it dreadfully dull, but either way, he will know. And in doing, he will find another piece of himself.
He's just about to say something to that effect, oh-so-wise and terribly stoic, when Astarion cuts in with that, and oh, that derails him utterly.]
I—
[A strange sort of warmth fills his chest. It's identical to the feeling that had flooded him that night Astarion had called him Eladrin, and just like that night, he does not quite know how to respond to it. At least he doesn't flush this time.]
I just told you they are not good. I typically burn them once I am done. You would be better off buying something from Lowtown.
[Those noises are getting closer, and he squeezes Astarion's hand. Not real, and he does not look back to see if he can spot spirits. There's no point. Either he won't, which will frustrate and frighten him, or he will, which would somehow be worse. Best to just ignore it (though he can hear a ghostly sort of breath against his ear, an echo of a voice, you took everything from me, and now I'll take everything from you—
But Varania is not here. And Astarion is, he thinks, glancing over at him.]
What would you even want?
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Surprise me. [And oh, it is a bright flame, that dagger sharp grin of his, born of years of smiling through the worst of it.
A wretched skill now put to better use.
The path twists, and Astarion doesn’t think when he veers to the left at a winding fork, pulling Fenris along with him.]
I’m sure it’ll all look equally as unfortunate.
[A beat, his gaze hawkishly set:]
Kidding, of course.
[Tugging on tails despite everything. It's his way. And more than that, it eclipses the sudden, surging plash of a thousand murdered souls swelling like the rush of a tide when they whisper (in both their ears, audible and quick, as though struggling for attention), all urging, 'Don’t go. Don’t go, please don’t leave us to him again.'
He does, of course; it’s always been too easy for him.
Still, Astarion might be mistaken, but something beyond that split smells— brighter, somehow. A little like fresher air.]
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Oh, don't say hero, for heroes are not real (or if they are, they do not belong to this world, their light snuffed out too quickly, oh, Hawke). But . . . just, perhaps. A force of good. A bringer of light instead of darkness, freeing slaves and earning a near-mythologic moniker for himself, whatever bits of him embody that, want to turn back.
It's the grip of a hand that keeps him going forward. Fingers tightly interlaced and a voice sharp with amusement, and he focuses only on that. Kidding, of course, as they head further up that lefthand path towards that fresh air. Stronger, now, with every step forward, and it isn't five minutes later that they burst out of those claustrophobic tunnels, stumbling into a false brightness that makes his eyes water.
They do not get much further. The path they walk upon (hands releasing one another, and if Fenris feels a pang of regret for it, he does not say so) ends in a short, sheer drop. What lies below is lost in mist— or, more likely, doesn't exist at all. There's a mass of land some twenty feet above them, a sheer cliff face that they've no hope of scaling (and Fenris, frankly, is in no mood to even try to scale) without proper equipment.
So they make a note of it and head home. It's an inglorious end to a terrifying venture, but, Fenris thinks as they slip out of the Crossroads, there are far worse ways it could have ended. Oh, death, certainly, but . . . he has not forgotten how wholly that delusion gripped both their minds. Who's to say how long it might have held them if Astarion had not woken them both? Days? Years? Or perhaps it never would have ended. Perhaps they would spent years like that, howling in delusional terror, biting and clawing at one another like the beasts their masters always claimed they were.
No, disappointing or not . . . this is for the best.
By unspoken agreement, they go to Lowtown. Astarion does have a room waiting for him up in Fenris' mansion, the debris cleared away and sheets turned down, but . . . mm, another time. The mansion takes effort to endure some nights, and it's easier to huddle in the coziness of Astarion's home. A fire is lit; Astarion digs around in his hoard as Fenris bolts the door closed. Bottles clink together as Astarion gathers them; chairs are ignored in favor of sprawling on the bed, side by side with their backs to the wall. The faint creak of bedsprings, the soft exhales of breath, the rattle of the bottles— ordinary sounds, normal sounds, and Fenris listens to each one intently, trying to keep himself grounded.
It's hard not to think about what happened. Harder still not to hear Danarius' voice in the back of his mind, whispering softly— did you make him your new master? It's nonsense, he knows, the product of memories and his own terrors, but still, he feels the weight of them as he downs that first glass of wine.
Should they speak of it? Probably. There are questions Fenris himself has, and it will do them no good to pretend that they had not just seen what they had. But still, he is silent for a time, trying to figure out how he wants to begin. Where he wants to begin, for so much had been revealed. Not just for himself— although that too, yes— but for Astarion.
Those fine clothes. That cold, cruel voice. Look at where you are. Look at where he has led you, as he leads all his prey, and the hollow horror in Astarion's eyes . . . the stark terror that colored his voice as he cried out, all the hope fleeing from him in one breathless instant as the reality of his delusion had set in. And that's to say nothing of that glimpse of Cazador himself, lording in all his rotting splendor; all those chittering creatures surrounding them; the sight of Astarion, loyal spawn, whispering words of false comfort, it'll be easier if you don't fight it—
No, Fenris thinks, they must speak on it. There's no burying all those revelations away.
Still: it isn't until he's drunk enough that the world has gone soft at the edges that he speaks.]
A bath in fifty years, you told me. And yet you are at least two hundred.
Was that his work, too?
[Some torment half a century ago, or a figure of speech? But it also offers Astarion a choice: he can speak of Cazador if he wants, and Fenris will gladly listen. He has a thousand questions, Maker knows. But they can ease into it, too. They can speak of baths and fish and Qunari, and slowly meander their way back into the hell of their pasts.]
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Nothing. Nothing but sunlight scattered across motes of drifting dust. The feel of warm wood beneath his palms. Muted shape. Flickers of sensation. A promise he’d seen the sun at least once— that he’d belonged to Baldur’s Gate first, not to Cazador alone— like the tattered gaps where torn pages used to sit, swearing that something once was there. Nothing whole (nothing whole could be hidden), but yes, he can sometimes feel out what the gaps used to hold.
And because of that, he doubts he was ever a good person. Moments like these— a single second of tautness strung just along the line between them, where Astarion strides forward, away from that suffering host of desperate voices and Fenris—
Oh, Fenris.
There’s no sunlight where they sit in parallel recline almost a day or so later, their backs to the wall and a fire burning so brightly (so thoroughly overstoked) that even with winter’s chill still clinging via thickened frost to the windows on either side of that bed, the narrow space of Astarion’s flat is hot as summer itself. Not an ounce of frigidness let in. No corner left in shadow.
They drink in half silence for a time, only breaking it with words like ‘here’ or ‘move over’ or—
He fits his bottle to his lips. Spiced wine from somewhere far, far away from Kirkwall. A label he can’t read (and maybe he’ll ask Fenris about it later, if he knows, native thing that he is offsetting the nativeness Astarion only feigns at), but it tastes sweet all the same, burning warm in the back of his throat.
Another sip...and then he smiles.
It doesn’t quite fit into place.]
Sometimes it’s all too easy to turn the things the heart longs for into torture. [He doubts he needs to tell Fenris that, but...it's just talk, isn't it? A way to fill the air and scatter away everything that looms. Thoughts tangled up like fishing wire.]
Sunlight. The comfort of heated water. The touch of another living being.
You go without for so long and you dream so deeply of something better— your own secret little fantasy— and one day, after waiting for it to ripen like fruit along a heavy branch, he’d come with a smile on his lips and take that away from you, too. Make you fear it. Revile it.
[No comfort save for Cazador himself, that was the hateful point.]
Yes.
[Yes, that was why the numbers don’t align.]
Just another one of his beloved games. Another chance to watch me make myself stupid for daring to think his hold wasn’t absolute.
That I could have anything, anything at all for myself.
[Another pull, longer this time, wine sloshing faintly when it tips back and subsequently settles down, bottle sinking in against his lap. Thumb pressed too tightly to its lip.]
I...suppose that was what that place latched onto. Cazador would’ve drawn back the curtain by now, otherwise.
[His love of a grand reveal was always too potent to resist.]
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How he must have burned. Skin sloughing off and pink muscle exposed, screaming and thrashing as the scent of cooking flesh filled the air . . .
He does not allow any of his sympathy to rise to his face (though his eyes do soften). It would not be welcome now, half a century after the torment was done and gone. Any useless sentiment like I'm sorry would only be for Fenris' own sake. But still: he feels it, and maybe that's important too.
Almost idly, he reaches into Astarion's lap. Gently pries his hands free of that bottle, and if his fingers linger against his hand for a few moments longer than strictly necessary, well, they two need only know about it.]
Soulless, unhappy thing that he was, I suppose that was the only revelry that he could truly feel anymore. If he could not be happy, he would steal yours.
[It's not . . . he doesn't say it spitefully. Not a jeering derogative tossed Cazador's way like a child sticking its tongue out at a bully. Rather: it's an assessment, even and cold. He knows. He remembers. He can recall Danarius doing the same thing, albeit in a far different fashion.
But ah . . . that last sentence catches his ear, and he glances over at Astarion, seeking his gaze.]
Do you fear this, too, is a dream?
[He says it rather directly, but it's because there's a very simple trick to determining it isn't— and yet he won't enact it if Astarion is simply speaking.]
That I am nothing but a conjuration of his making?
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For only prey knows what it is to limp and be gutted.
He smiles now, as Fenris’ fingers slip against his own, plucking that bottle from his grasp. Thorns netted tight between his ribs, making it impossible to breathe in any way that isn’t shallow. Sharp. His eyes aren’t wet, but that doesn’t mean much.
(He’s grateful for this, somehow. Against the worst of himself, he is. In too many ways to articulate, and too difficult to besides, but when he flinches faintly at that touch it isn’t the ghost of his own past— just the heat of being too close to something so uniquely bright in comparison to it that it scalds his sun-starved form. Petulant as he can be, he’s not a child. He’s no stranger to games stitched from longing. Want. He knows how to keep himself from striving— don’t— but it’s hard, so reprehensibly hard, when they’re settled this close without a single guard between them.
With only his fear and his indigent want, and the knowledge that Fenris doesn’t—
Ah.
No.
Stop that, he thinks, and the tension eases from his fingers, letting them sift through Fenris’ grasp. Easy. Warm.
Not straining for what he can’t have.)
He swallows against the grain of his own muted smile, holding that heavy green gaze without blinking, and it’s such an audible sound in the drowning depths of pervasive silence. An answer, uncharacteristically unspoken, heavy as lead across his tongue; he can’t bring himself to admit it outright.]
How can I not?
[Evasive and affirmatory all at once, sloping from one truth to the next.] I begged, you know. For two hundred years, I begged for salvation. Waiting through the worst of it, staring at rotting stone over the tips of my own bleeding fingers as if something might up and manifest itself because I needed it. Because that's how these things were always supposed to work: a god beseeched, a gleaming, gilded hero— an outstretched hand.
Each time he sent me to someone, I’d always have moments of hope. This’ll be the one to see it. The one that'll glimpse, finally, between the lines.
But petty vanity is blinding. [And abundant.] That’s what he taught me.
[And the ones that had the most potential were always the ones who wound up rutting like they meant to control him.
Irony of ironies, and something he’d laughed so ruefully about those first few times, delirious in disbelief.] No one— not even the ones who watched me suffer— lifted a hand to save me.
[And he laughs now, fidgeting slightly for lack of a bottle to cling to. To drink from.
He doesn’t fetch the elfroot, tempting as it is. Being drunk is one thing, going too far while old hatreds haunt...]
Then again, it’s not as if they could have, anyway. Daft, stupid beasts. All of them. He’d have split them open only for a laugh.
Sometimes he did.
[(I’m sorry, for trying to make you one of them.)]
But you changed that. You— [The word sticks. It feels too soft. Too open. He forces it through the jagged edges of his fangs all the same, expression mired for the effort, tangled up in that space between his ribs. Between scar tissue, for that's all he feels he is at times.]
You’re not like them. You understand. And for so long, I never thought anything like that was possible.
So. [A catching sound, let out on exhale through his nose as if he’s struggling to confess.] yes.
I suppose I’m still just waiting for the moment he’ll make me look like a fool again.
Or that the world itself will.
[Tearing him away. Making him forget. How is that any different than a dream dissolved, anyway?
His thumbnail bites into his skin. A distant flicker of muted pain.]
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And then, perhaps, footsteps. Heavy and deliberate and inevitable, Cazador's eyes gleaming in the darkness, malice and cruelty written so clearly on his face, and then—
And then, and then . . . a hundred thousand endings to that sentence, and he will make himself sick if he thinks of them. How many years did it take to break Astarion? Decades, surely. Hope is a terrible thing, flaring to life when least expected, and all it takes is an ember. A stray word, a passing glance . . . sparking even when you know better. Even when you hate yourself for it.
You understand, and he does. Truly, he does, in ways Fenris suspects no one else can. But there are places where their traumas don't quite fit; jagged edges where they don't overlap. It isn't a competition and neither of them truly had it worse— but still, Fenris feels as though he teeters at the edge of a bottomless pit, vast and black, the depths of which he can only imagine.
There is nothing he can do to truly prove that he is real. It's a non-starter, a paradox that he cannot defeat with any bit of knowledge. But so much of surviving slavery is about compromise: eking out what joys and assurances one can from an intolerable source, like blood from a stone. He slides the tips of his fingers against cold skin, stroking the lines of each digit, as much about soothing as it is assurance: feel the lyrium thrumming. Feel my flesh woven between it. Feel the callouses there, and know that they are real.]
You know him better than most, I imagine. Even if he had other slaves, two centuries is a long time. You have experienced his torments, and watched him enact them upon others. And he has favorites, does he not? Tortures he returns to again and again.
In all that time, has he ever concocted such a deliberate fantasy? Illusions that last the span of months, seeping into one's senses, inventing new languages, a new world? It would take a great deal of magic, Astarion. Perhaps not more than he has at his fingertips, but to build a world so detailed as this . . .
[But what if he has now? What if this is a new trick, what if he has found a new way to torment me, the terrified probing of every flaw and angle, oh, yes, Fenris knows.]
You experience every hour, every minute, coherently. You suffer in ways that are mundane and ordinary, and not too terrible to weather. What point is there in that? Better, if he was to trick you, to send you to a place where you have your every desire. Better, if he was to be cruel, to answer all your prayers. A hero to save you, but luxuries you have been denied for two centuries. Money and power, fortune and pleasure . . . perhaps he would even put you in his place, lording over all.
But what cruelty is there in forcing you to dream of mundane poverty? In making it so that you are not a vampire, not anymore— so that you can do things he cannot. I do not know Cazador, not as you do . . . but Danarius would have eaten his own foot before he ever allowed me to do something he could not, even in fantasy.
They cannot stand the affront to their dignity. They cannot tolerate something that is lesser than them having more.
[He squeezes his hand, thumb stroking slowly, listen to me, look at me, for I am as real as you are.]
I cannot prove to you I am real, and not some conjuring amalgam of his magic and your fantasies. But I do not see the point in a dream in which I arrived so late into your life.
[In which he did not save him, but wandered in and out, amnesic and bitter.]
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He doesn’t know what he expected— but it wasn’t this.
Branded fingertips sliding just across his own with so little warning, granting him the opportunity to feel the difference between startlingly warm skin and smooth lyrium leylines, steady in their roaming course. Slow as their own breaths. Just as unmistakably present.
'Better, if he was to trick you, to send you to a place where you have your every desire. Better, if he was to be cruel, to answer all your prayers. A hero to save you, but luxuries you have been denied for two centuries. Money and power, fortune and pleasure . . . perhaps he would even put you in his place, lording over all.'
And yet Astarion can't help the single thought that comes swimming to the forefront of his mind in response to all of Fenris' grounding reason:
...you don’t know how dear you are, if that's what you think.
Better to have it all, yes. Wealth, power, sunlight, control— but what Astarion wouldn’t (have) give(n) to keep Fenris from whatever had stolen his memories. To have him here, a comfort that doesn’t demand anything, doesn’t expect anything. Between them, it isn’t about worth or want or the leveling cry of morality aimed at someone too long suffered to care (how dare anyone demand Astarion temper himself when no one tempered the monster that tore at him). It isn’t about anything at all, just the ease he feels whenever Fenris is near. Settling the cutting edges of his world, if only for a little while.
He’s addicted to it now, he knows. And maybe that’s far more alluring— far more dangerous a weapon— than either riches or fawning throngs.
But—
No, Fenris is right.
Cazador would never see it that way. He couldn’t. Even Astarion wouldn’t have before now, the whole of his worldview skewed.
There’s relief in that, even as it stings.
So he looks at him— he does— willing away the glassy weight that threatens to well at the edges of his stare if he let it in for even a second, mouth pulling high along its tightened span.]
Danarius eating his own foot? Now that I would’ve liked to see.
Pity the spirits didn’t think to grant it, at the very least.
[But it fades. All of it fades, the forced edges of his smile falling away as his fingers sink into the gaps between Fenris' own.
Carelessly, he doesn't let go.]
...did he always keep you like that? The collar. The way you looked when we...
[He doesn’t finish that sentence. He supposes he doesn’t need to.]
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So: the collar, and truthfully, there are worse topics. It aches, but it aches like a scar does: only temporary, a faint echo of the pain he had once suffered.]
Not always. For day to day living, no, there was no need, although I will not say he never had the whim for it. At parties, yes, any fete he hosted or celebration he wished to enact, I was called upon to serve wine and intimidate guests with my appearance. But it was not to mark me as a slave, for my ears did that. No, it . . .
[He tips his head back, bumping against the wall behind them. Astarion does not pry his hand free, and Fenris does not pull back. There is no point. They are past such pretensions, hesitance in touch (at least like this) long since banished. He focuses on them, the faint singing sensation of soft fingers against his own, the faint echoes of his own heartbeat thudding in his fingertips.]
Understand: Tevinter has always been at war. Even before Corypheus, they were constantly locked in bitter stalemate with the Qunari. For land, for principle . . . for tradition, I suspect, after centuries of trying to dominate the north. It is a bitter thing, igniting and easing, tensions gone slack before some event would spark them into flame once more. Add to the fray a third group: a not-inconsiderable population of Qunari who have broken away from their main religion, the Qun. The Fog Warriors, who live independently in Seheron, fighting against both Tevene and Qunari forces, trying to claim the island for themselves.
[A pause, and he vaguely adds:] I was born there. In Seheron.
[It means nothing, not really. He doesn't even know if it's true. But he clings to those bits of his past with white knuckles sometimes, and it's . . . pleasing, really, to share.
Anyway.]
Have you ever seen a Qunari mage? Saarebas, they are called, and regarded as immensely dangerous things. They wear a leash and collar, as well as a visor, to blind them to the world. Sometimes, although not always, their mouths are stitched shut or their tongues cut out, to stop them from speaking some spell. They are bound to their keepers, their Arvaarad, and rely on them like a dog does his master.
[Perhaps Astarion sees where this is going. Fenris gestures with his left hand, fingers illustrating the span of his throat, down his chest.]
So. It was a joke. There were the Qunari, who treated their mages so barbarously, who would inevitably be crushed beneath Tevinter's heel— and here was the conquering Tevinter magister, with a creature he had mutilated and forged with such rare magic, kept docile not by the parody of the collar he wore, but by the very magic the Qunari meant to imprison.
[There's a sneering snarl in his voice, no small measure of disgust and loathing . . . oh, he is bitter, yes. Not hurt, but stung, and perhaps that scar did not heal so neatly, for he can still feel iron cutting into his skin. How the lyrium would sear against hot metal after a day spent Tevinter's markets, near delirious with heatstroke, his head held high and every bit of him on high alert . . .
Fenris exhales slowly.]
It also intimidated others, and he enjoyed that, too. A bodyguard so terrifying he had to be kept leashed, with only his master muzzling him temporarily. Other slaves, or other magisters . . . he liked everyone to cower before us.
[Even the other slaves were terrified of him, and for good reason. He was a sullen thing, dull-eyed and full of a rage he did not understand. Danarius fostered it, ordering Fenris into killing others when and if they displeased him, just so none would ever dare try and get close to his little wolf.
But that is not his life, not anymore. He squeezes his fingers, a tight reminder of the present, before adding:]
Irony upon ironies, then, that when I escaped, it was a group of Qunari that sheltered me. The Fog Warriors took me in and cut my collar, melting it down into so much molten metal before my eyes.
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(Why, then, does he feel the rise of bitter nausea in his throat at that disgustingly potent description—)
His jaw flexes. Just as before, there’s no real point to his fury; the man responsible is long dead. Dust and wretched bones. But it exists all the same, enmity slithering through his veins, burning where the rest of him always runs so uniquely cold.
Cazador and Danarius would have reviled one other. Seen competition in their shared lust for unequivocal dominion. But how they mirror each other in certain monstrous facets, thriving in their love of the profane. In desecrating, mocking symbolism, all cruelly forced down onto the shoulders of a creature of their choosing. Their favoritism like a knife. A needle. Like watching yourself burn from the inside out, and wondering if there was ever anything but their work carved into your bones— for they make it clear just how much the world beyond their shadow isn’t meant for you.
Their torments are different. Their scars different. But—
Astarion is a quick learner.
In place of everything that can’t be said (I’m sorry you were his canvas, I’m sorry it was you), Astarion turns his attention towards the anchor point of that hold between them, mirroring the pressing scruff of Fenris’ previously offered touch: only this time he avoids the glassy line work of seared lyrium, fitting the edges of his fingers to calloused skin alone, watching it with hooded eyes that turn it all into an absent gesture. Devoid of a demand for a response. Existing only to exist. Because in the wake of the Crossroads, when the nights don’t bring much in the way of welcome sleep, few things ease half as much as an unspoken promise.
Yes, I am real. And yes, you have me.
Everything his piteously shriveled heart could never say aloud.
And he listens still, trying to imagine something better than the vulgarity of a stitched mouth (Cazador would have liked that) or a cut-out tongue, wondering if Danarius had employed a visor too, or if he assumed his hold was iron enough. Thoughts squeezed out by molten metal and a kinder stare.
It must have been blinding.
It must have been unthinkable.]
Fog Warriors. [He repeats it slowly, as if the name might somehow paint a picture for him (it doesn’t).]
So they freed you from his hold.
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[How to explain the Fog Warriors? He's offered vague details, snatches of trivia that more belong in a textbook than on his lips. A rebel group of freedom fighters that struggled for independence, and it isn't that it's untrue, but still, that doesn't encapsulate them. He stares at nothing, absently focusing on the feeling of Astarion's fingers against his own: delicate and gentle, yes, but more than that: familiar. His own fingers twitch, working gently against them, as he tries to push away the usual swell of guilt and self-loathing that always comes when he thinks of them.
But ah . . . he could do this tipsy, but why bother? Not daring to pull his hand free, he reaches with his left, plucking the bottle from between them, setting it to his lips as he drinks.
Silence, for a time, as he slowly drains the bottle and tries to remember. There's no rush right now. No pressing missions that will call them from this space, no need so great that they'll be forced to open the door and remember all that exists outside of this haven.]
They freed me and they kept me, the only outsider among their kind. I was . . . [he huffs a laugh, faint,] like a pup, really, those first few days. I stumbled around, helpless without orders to guide me, so lost that it was all I could do not to weep in vexation when I begged for them and still they refused to give them to me. But it eased. Slowly, surely, as they offered me the most minimal choices . . . where to sleep. What to eat. Encouraging me to speak my mind, if I wished, and I found I had a taste for it. When I realized that they would not punish me for being a person with my own thoughts and soul— when I found they liked when I disagreed with them, even if it was vexing to them, for at least I was saying what I thought instead of bowing to their will and whims.
Imekari, one or two of them called me. Child. I suppose I was to them.
[No, this isn't right either, although it's close. How to describe it? Sitting in a humid hut while grey paint was applied to his cheeks in slender lines, an elvish imitation of vitaar; staring fixedly at Setan five feet in front of him, stepping where he stepped, listening to his own footsteps become silent as sunlight drifted through the leaves and warmed his skin; standing in the sea, letting the water lap at his shins, as behind him voices in Qunlat sang of warriors long ago. The comfort of waking and choosing his task; the satisfaction of contributing, one part of a whole, working til exhaustion not because he had to, but because he wished to.
The joy of intimacy. Of being seen and known and wanted, not because of what he could do or what glory he could bring to others, but because of him. Desire and companionship, adoration and affection . . . their fingers slide against one another, Astarion's fingertips gliding against his palm, and Fenris exhales raggedly.]
Whatever I am, whatever I became . . . I owe it to them.
[And now finish the story. He pulls his hand away, shifting until they're no longer pressed together, thighs and hips, an unconscious action.]
I stayed with them for months. Five, I think, in total.
And then one day Danarius appeared, as easy as anything. He sailed to the shore and called me to his side, and like the loyal dog I was, I went.
[An inevitability. The fated conclusion to his little excursion. He had lived in a dream for five months, and there, now, was the waking world, come to collect. Fenris' voice is dull and deadened, but it's impossible not to hear the loathing in his voice. The rage and grief, all for a stupid boy who was too frightened to do anything but obey his master.]
He told me that I was a fool to run, and lucky that I had not encountered a worse fate than being taken in by oxmen, but that all was well now that he had found me. And when they refused to hand me over, for gold or power, he told me to kill them.
And so I did.
[Oh, what a terror. What a monster, and he was so very good at it. One after another, and oh, some tried to reason at first. Some begged him for mercy or reason, imekari please don't you don't have to, foolish things that they were. They thought him a person still, but his master was there to show them the truth. Fenris was nothing but a weapon. A dog leashed once more, his muzzle removed and his fangs bared.
The sand rusted red with blood. Bodies festering in the searing heat. In the distance, carrion birds calling, hungry for this newfound feast. And in the middle of it all: Fenris, his vitaar washed away by the blood and the sweat, rebirthed anew under his master's guiding hand.]
He praised me afterwards. Told me that I had done well. Told me that all would be forgiven.
[What a lie. What an enormous lie, and it was that which had shattered Fenris' terror and shock. He had taken a step back, and then another— Danarius' voice screaming in rage, echoing in Fenris' ears as he disappeared into the jungles of Seheron, as he raced to a port, as he stowed away on a ship heading for the mainland—
Running, always running, bile in his throat and unworthiness in his heart.]
I ran. And so we played cat-and-mouse for three years, until I crossed the border and crept into Kirkwall, where I stayed until he found me again.
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And now you know.
[He should not have said all this. Astarion hadn't asked for it, not really, and his mouth twists, his expression flickering.]
I am no savior, Astarion. I will not say I am an evil person, but . . . do not look at me as a hero.
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He looks away. And then, so quietly at first:]
It was only a mistake that tore me from Cazador’s hold.
Your world. Just an accident.
[Just you.]
So I can’t pretend to know what it’s like, fleeing for so long with fangs nipping at your heels. [Whatever risks Astarion faces now, they’re all different. Broad. It isn’t the same thing as your enemy hunting your face. Your name. So determined to have you back they’d do anything to cut you from whatever life you might hope to find: no rest, no comfort, no trusting that it’s over, wherever one might flee.] But one word from a spirit wearing the skin of my master and I had my blade at your throat. I—
[He what. It’s harder now, each second spent delving deeper into the waters of sincerity, his own mind pulling back on instinct from it; the silent alarm screaming in his ears, whispering that he shouldn’t. He can’t. Tangling in everything he doesn’t know how to express.
It’s one thing to lie. To weave pretty little truths, but this?]
It... [Don’t bite. Don’t flee. Don’t let fear turn candor into blackened, bitter bile. Don’t joke to hide the way it aches. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t, Astarion.
A breath. His empty hands stinging as he curls his fingertips in until it digs, anchor shard thrumming a sickly green where it rests, glassy magic seething beneath his touch.
Just a breath.]
Isn’t about heroism. [There isn’t, to Astarion’s mind, any such thing. Not even about the man who first stretched out his hand to save him— first from the rift— again in that dark, constricting alleyway only a few months ago. Selfless, yes. More so than Fenris will likely ever realize, but, ] That’s all a fantasy, a soothing, pretty little dream for those who haven’t had to drench themselves in reality just yet.
You fight and you bleed. Maybe it—
[Tongue to the back of overlong fangs. Cazador’s gift persisting.]
Nine months, that’s all I have, and the one thing I’ve learned within them is that maybe it’s worth it sometimes. Scar tissue. Open wounds.
Baring your teeth at offers of gilded comfort because there’s someone you can’t imagine losing at your side, even if it’s a battle you know you won’t win.
[Gold or power. How much they might’ve needed both. How they turned away from it for the sake of one of their own.
Foolish, if Astarion had to put a word to it.
But who wouldn’t be a fool, too, standing in their place?
(He thinks of dark hair and sun spots across paler skin, thickened scar tissue overwritten by tattoos. He thinks of silver hair and green eyes, the subtle scent of scorched ozone and the ghosting trace of fingertips across his palm.)]
Everything you learned from them hasn’t been squandered.
[One last pause held there, and he thinks back on what Fenris had said, imekari. The books he'd had stacked upon the shelves in his mansion, all conspicuously free of dust.
His head twists.
He's back to looking at Fenris yet again.]
Would you teach me? Language, I mean.
Theirs. Yours.
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But of course he says nothing of the sort. He speaks, and Fenris half-turns, staring with wide eyes at the line of his profile. One word from a spirit wearing the skin of my master and I had my blade at your throat, and it isn't the same, no, but then again it is, all at once. That self-same terror, yes, but worse than that: the sinking sense of inevitability. Your mind screaming in voiceless horror as your body numbly obeys, for you know in your heart that this was how it was destined to end. You know that you are nothing more than his, only ever his, a puppet to play with, a dog to leash and muzzle— a creature, not a person, and what a fool you were to ever dare forget it.
It isn't a revelation. There is no information here that he had not known before. But Astarion speaks, his voice so achingly sincere it stings, and for the first time it truly sinks in that he understands.
More than just as a fellow slave. More than just the horror of shared trauma. He has met other former slaves, and there is camaraderie there, yes, of course, but never any real ability to bond. No sense of understanding, not truly, for no slave in the world has ever been like Fenris. Mutilated and isolated, seared with lyrium and his memories wiped, forcibly crafted into a weapon and a pet all at once, oh, no, who could ever truly understand? Who could look at a master and understand the horrid mix of emotions, longing and terror, adoration and loathing, inevitability and rebellion, dichotomous and sickening. What person could ever look at a massacre like that and understand, so terribly intimately, just why Fenris hadn't had a choice at all? No. No, most would either condemn or try to alleviate his guilt, and it would be intolerable either way. No one understands, no one ever understands—
But there Astarion is.
(Golden, and he remembers that later on, when the fire is dim and they're both ostensibly asleep: how Astarion had looked in the firelight. The slope of his nose and curve of his lips, silver curls falling in his face, all of him haloed in gold and his red eyes lit a brilliant crimson. His eyes cast down on his anchor shard, speaking words so perfect for a moment Fenris deliriously wonders if they're still in the Crossroads. If this is another trick—
But he could never have dreamed up someone like Astarion.)]
Ataas shokra.
[Low and roughened, and he clears his throat, his eyes darting away for a moment as he tries to get a grip on himself. He can't think about this right now. He can't— he makes a show of shifting on the bed, setting the empty bottle down, turning towards Astarion, and blames the flush in his cheeks on the heat suffusing the room. Ah, and the rabbiting of his heart . . . well, no one need know about that but Fenris, surely.
Baring your teeth at offers of gilded comfort because there’s someone you can’t imagine losing at your side, and he would die before he let Astarion be taken. No matter if he was forced to fight him, if he became Cazador's puppet once more, oh, it wouldn't matter. Astarion's blade piercing his heart would be such a small price to pay to try and keep him close.]
It's, ah, it's a greeting. Translated literally, it means glorious struggle— an acknowledgement of the difficulties navigating through life.
For companions, though . . .
[Emerald eyes meet crimson ones, and he murmurs, his tongue gliding over the familiar syllables easily:]
Shanedan.
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