[CLOSED] AND YOU'LL KNOW THE NEXT TIME I WAKE UP SCREAMING

[illithidnapped]

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.

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Loki;

[illithidnapped]

Ugh. My blisters are going to have blisters at this rate.

[It’s awful. Why did he ever sign up for this? What in the Hells was he thinking, really?]

You’re a god, aren’t you. Can’t you just conjure us a way back?

[He isn’t quite serious (all right, maybe there’s a sliver of him that hopes Loki somehow can pluck them up and spirit them away with some long-held secret), but what’s more than apparent is that he is tired.

Too much fighting the pounding pressure of this place and all its disorienting magic, too much time on his feet— and the ruins they’ve wandered into, shadowed and looming in their cavernous array— don’t look anywhere like the path they’re meant to be treading.

Maybe they’ve gone too far.]

[icasm]

I was a god, before I arrived here, [ which is an important distinction that Loki feels the need to make. He is also tired, sweaty, his hair is stuck to his face in places, and Loki can smell himself which, eugh, but also at least the oils and other products he uses are holding up scent-wise. ] Which is to say I can't 'conjure' us a way out of here.

[ A sigh. He'd honestly like nothing better than to see the other side of an Eluvian right about now, but something tells him they're further from the possibility of an exit than either of them is willing to admit. ]

What are we supposed to do if we're lost?

[illithidnapped]

[Poor thing.

No, really, he means it: poor them. Because presently Astarion is so over this whole debacle that even his entirely selfish heart is actually capable of feeling pity for the creature at his side if only because they’re both currently stuck in it, suffering in equal measure.

His sigh is long-winded, his shoulders falling into a hopeless slouch.]

I don’t know, pray to one of the local gods instead?

Maybe they have it in them to be useful— though I doubt it.

[The air around them is cold as he moves closer towards a sloping series of cluttered tunnels at the edge of those light-lost ruins. More and more frigid by the minute it feels like, though rime never coats the surface of the stone where they carefully tread.

Astarion turns, gazing back through thickening mist.]

You did at least keep track of the way we came, didn’t you?

[icasm]

There's only one local god anyone who isn't hellbent on Thedosian domination is interested in, and he sounds like an absentee father to me. I doubt he's interested in the queries of a former demigod.

[ Loki is irritable, certainly, but he takes enough care that his tone is more tired than snappish. It isn't Astarion's fault, by any means. This place is strange, dizzying, and oppressive. He wants out, but out via the way they came is some distance away from here. ]

Yes, [ he half-lies, because there were brief moments when he simply trudged forward but for the most part he did. ] We may as well continue, and rule out this pathway as gaining us access to whatever the hells is going on here.

[illithidnapped]

Who knows? Maybe he’d see you as a wayward son.

[The joke doesn’t quite connect like it should, a thoroughly distracted (and exhausted) Astarion already busying himself with stepping deeply into the shadows the tunnels before them provide: reasonably, his elven cat’s eyes ought to make the transition simple— and to a certain extent, it does— but Astarion struggles still to see as clearly as he normally would, and in the increasing darkness, he finds himself reaching back to offer Loki his arm in open offering.

Well, if Loki can see it, that is.]

Stay close, my darling. The last thing I want is to watch you tumble over an edge or slip into a sudden ravine.

[Of which there might be many, admittedly.]

[icasm]

I already had an absentee father, I don't require another.

[ Loki cannot fucking see all that well, actually, but he is somewhat aware of movement towards him from Astarion and takes an educated guess, hand reaching for Astarion's arm and settling somewhere above the elbow. ]

If I die in this place I am haunting you. Alexandrie and Sylvie may never forgive you.

[ With his free hand Loki casts the illusion of a small ball of fire; it might help with being able to see, though it does cast everything in a fairly greenish light. ]

[illithidnapped]

You say that like they'd forgive me at all to begin with. [He teases back almost brightly, bolstered by that flickering show of magic.

It does, admittedly, help more than Astarion cares to admit: having a source of light in places like this— the ones that remind him (in their festering state of stagnant decay, all cold air and lightless ruin) far too much of the home he'd left behind. The one he wants never to return to.

What helps beyond that, though, is touch.

Astarion might not melt easily into Loki's grip— knowing it's only a practical gesture, despite the pleasantness of his presence— but he likes it all the same, that warmth. The closeness of a trusted companion. Winding his arm across it to draw Loki in at his side more fully.

And it's a good thing he does, too, because only a few steps farther into a narrow series of corridors lined with grim stone statues, and that magic starts to flicker and wane, no matter how Loki might try to bolster it— growing dimmer by the second.]

Darling... [Astarion chuckles dryly.] much as I love your sense of humor, now's not really the time for practical jokes.

[icasm]

You mean to tell me you haven't flirted your way into Sylvie's good graces yet? [ he teases back. ] Alexandrie may be a lost cause.

[ He sucks in a breath. She's having a rough time.

Loki bites his lower lip at the first dimming flicker of his magic, annoyed and upset that the rules are different, here, when they'd already been different enough to begin with. His illusionary light source should last longer than this, certainly.

And yet. ]

Some jokes simply aren't funny, [ he mutters, before giving Astarion's arm a squeeze. It feels like it grows darker with every step they take and he doesn't like the implications that they aren't allowed to see what's ahead. ] But that isn't me, it's... this place.