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

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[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.

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[Mobius dreams of the dead. Sometimes. And if he weren't focused on his own breathing and his own calm to try and be a rock for Astarion, he might have been unable to stifle a hysterical noise that he feels the beginnings of, shallow in his lungs. They are perhaps not ever quite so dramatic, and there are fewer mage robes among the tattered bodies, but.

It's a memory or damn near it for his companion. And the thing to focus on is not the blood their feet slosh through, nor the bodies in their terrified rigor. It's Astarion.

Because every word out of his mouth is something new, something sharp and fascinating to cling to. He knows nothing of the strange elf's story, his history. They had made up some silly backstories for one another, mused on whatever the reality is. But to hear of enslavement and years of half-remembered bloodshed, this is new. He doesn't know what to make of it. Elves have been traditionally used as slaves in Tevinter and not-quite-slaves in Orlais and the Marches as houseservants and...elsewhere for whatever means. Sometimes assassins. Was Astarion's world so similar?

But. Hard still to concentrate through the smell. He would try to go around, even knowing that it isn't quite real, but Astarion goes over, and he doesn't really have much choice for the vice grip on his arm. He breathes through his mouth nevertheless, feet trying to find purchase where they can. These weren't clean, easy deaths.

The faceless figures keep watching them.]

He had you kill people. [Clearly. Not a question, to him.] Political rivals? Inconveniences.

[Going around would be a novel idea. It might even be the smarter course overall— but it would also bring them nearer to those idle spectators. Hostile, hateful, unfeeling things, looming too large for their own nonexistent skin. Astarion would rather wade amongst the dead than draw within their reach, whether he’s right or wrong in the path presently chosen.]

...sometimes, yes.

[A twisted hand lifts itself from the mire in passing, pawing weakly at Mobius’ heel— bloody fingerprints streaked with traces of lyrium, a staff lingering in the visceral bog nearby.

Or perhaps that’s just a trick of the light, what little there is.]

But most often it was a matter of feeding. [Feeding, the word sticking so hard as he tries to spit it out that the f clings tightly to the back of his fangs, making itself an entire consonant. Know that he doesn’t want to admit this, but some part of him dreads that if he lies, he’ll be punished for it. Dearly.

By someone other than the Seeker at his side.]

He drank blood. And he was...particular.

Nobility, beauty— purity [vitriol living white-hot in that final descriptor] it made them taste better, according to him. But you can’t lure people in just by asking.

[You have to bait them.]

They have to want something. Greedily, stupidly. So feverishly they don’t realize—

[’That they’re walking into a trap.’

Calls a voice both sharp and domineering, one that seems to circle them rather than coming from any discernible direction, and to the sound of its tune Astarion buckles in a single instant: cowering through his own hunched shoulders like a beaten dog, abandoning his hold on Mobius’ arm as he shrinks down right into himself— closer to the ruin sunk beneath them as if it were a comfort in comparison.

The faceless masses are gone, now. The darkness has closed in tighter, and it leaves them exposed beyond any sense of reason. Crushing. Constricting.

As heavy as hands pressed across their shoulders.]

[Every step feels heavy. They can't just leave these people here to rot. They deserve a proper funeral, a pyre to burn them all. He shakes his head, trying to remind himself that this is a trick of some kind, but the thought persists. Just leave them there? You animal. Stepping on their bodies with no thought of dignity for the departed.

A hand comes up likes it's trying to grasp his ankle and pull him in, and he sees--he thinks he sees--if he sees her face he'll lose all composure, but it isn't her, it's someone else, half drowned in blood and if he can't make out the faces then he doesn't have to know who it was.

No. They're not here. The dead are dead and gone and only memory and ash now. Why doesn't the thought settle him, when he stumbles from the grip and against his companion?]

Maker's breath, they aren't all dead, some of them are still alive--

[No. A trick. Sometimes the things that are alive are not really alive. He gasps in a breath, chokes down another one. Astarion tells him of blood, of feedings, blood not just for magic but something seemingly even more sinister. He's heard stories, folktales, ghost stories told around a fire. Things in the dark that steal people away to drink and bathe in blood for eternal youth or some variation like that.

Is that the sort of world Astarion comes from? Where there are things, where there are people who partake of the blood of the noble and virtuous and beautiful, who enslave others to lure them in? How many had been brought to their deaths, how man--

The voice calls out, and Astarion crumples as though all his strings had been severed. The dark, the dark, the dark circles them. Is it really a trap they've walked into if there was no forward nor any back? Or have they just been ensnared?

Against the darkness, he only knows one path. One hand settles on Astarion's shoulder, to keep him within reach, do not lose sight of him, and the other draws his sword and holds it at the ready. Long familiar words fall from his lips, a steady recitation even for the waver of his tone.]

Maker, my enemies are abundant. Many are those who rise up against me. But my faith sustains me; I shall not fear the legion, should they set themselves against me. [He turns, slow, as though the Chant could pierce the dark.] In the long hours of the night when hope has abandoned me--

['You put Her words in your mouth?' Another voice cutting in, spitting, biting, disgusted. His cadence falters. He has to breathe it all in before he gets back on track.]

--I will see the stars and know, ['What do you know, what do you think you know?'] Your Light remains.

[Does that comfort Mobius? Those shaking words, hitching in his throat as the world sloughs away like dead skin— useless and unwanted. Or is it a reflex, like Astarion’s shivering supplication: an innate response done because it’s all he knows— all he puts faith in, without having any faith at all.

(Because if he kneels, he might not suffer as much. If he cowers and scrapes, some infinitesimal aspect of his sire's fixating wrath might dull by meager little degrees.)

No one with pride to spare does well before Cazador Szarr unless bid to, and even then, there is so much risk within it. Because as much as beauty or grace is a prized thing to his ever-envious eyes, too much inspires a sort of hatred of it when he’s in one of his own weathervane moods.

Mobius’ voice flickers like a candle, and in that waning break there are eyes in the darkness directly ahead of them. Blood red and gleaming, set like rubies into pale, elegant features— sharply sloping, framed by hair as pitch as what surrounds. A little too perfect. A little too difficult to look at directly. Too much a predator in its own right as it sneers, this cruel vision of Astarion’s nightmares brought remorselessly to life (or is it real? What doesn’t the fade make whole when given just enough kindling?), long fangs glinting with terrifying clarity.

How long. How long had Astarion played at freedom, only to be confronted with the truth. Is it the truth? It must be, how else could Cazador be standing here—

It's like the Fade. A world of dreams.

Dreams. Nightmares. The looking-glass reflection of his master that somehow shifts when Astarion gazes at just the wrong angle, painting the image of someone he doesn’t recognize at all. Robes, it looks like, or...

No. Cazador is too grand here. Too pervading in his presence, for as resplendent as the vampire lord had always been, he never came flocked by such a sense of dread (nor the hushed whisper of souls wreathing broad shoulders like a cloak ‘How could you. How could you leave us to rot. Liar. Serpent’.)

But seeing as I've never been in the Crossroads before, I have to warn you that it may be something else entirely that I don't know about.

Ah, and there, that prior confession strikes up against Astarion's every attempt at determined dismissal of what surrounds, snagging like a thorny burr. Keeping him from trusting in the notion that this isn't somehow real, even if only in part.

What if this is something different. What if the Fade weaves this into truth. What’s the difference between Astarion (anchor shard embedded hot in his palm beneath thick, dark gloves) and what surrounds them?]

I... it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t choose to—

[‘Astarion, come here.’

Like calling a heeled dog, that command, as Astarion bends to it with a twitching jerk, intrinsically bound. A sluggish start to movement.

And those hands (plural, now), aren’t brushing distractions. They grab at Mobius’ legs, his feet, fingers brutally clawed— lifting from a river of blood, sporting damage of every shade: scorch marks, bubbling pockets where flesh cedes to bone, no longer shapes Astarion would recognize if he looked, but ones familiar to Mobius himself, yes. Close or distant (does it matter? They’re all ruined beyond easy recognition now), all struggling to hold him.

To keep him.

For this is where he belongs, in the mire of his own fate.]

[It's a little of all. Rote memorization over decades, study of the words and their history in his own time, a reflex and a comfort that doesn't seem to give much comfort. He reaches for another like flipping through an index of cards.]

Maker, though the darkness comes upon me, I shall embrace the Light. I shall weather the storm. I shall endure.

[He hasn't needed to cling to faith like this in years, shattered with a bang, with the dead and dying, with an avalanche crash. When those eyes pierce the darkness, a figure too terrible to behold directly, he doesn't fold, stands straighter, wants to force his gaze up but every time it seems to slide away to only take it in periphery. This thing, this monster doesn't scare him. Tell that to his beating beating beating heart, the sound of it loud in his own ears that it seems to take up physical space. (Hot fresh righteous blood. A fleeting thought: would that taste any good?)]

What You have created, no one can tear asunder.

[But when he looks next, it isn't the pale figure of night, but glinting, familiar armor, flaming sword emblazoned on its chest. The face is shadow but the glinting ruby eyes remain. Ruby everywhere, red lyrium itching out from the seams of armor, growing out like a plant, a sickening radiance about it. It hurts to behold. He gags from the sheer wrongness of it. The figures flicker back and forth as he moves his gaze. They start to seem one in the same.

'Put it to rest. We will save them from themselves.'

The lyrium inside of him feels like it's physically recoiling, and he wonders, then, how it would feel to have a Seeker strike him down and burn it from the inside out. How sweet the salvation to burn as she--]

For she who trusts in the Maker, fire is her water. As the moth sees light and goes toward flame, she should see fire and go towards Light. [Another one, then, louder than before to block out the unbidden thoughts. He swings his sword, and it sings in the air and hits--nothing. Nothing but the darkness.] The Veil holds no uncertainty for her, and-- Astarion.

[The man has started to move at command. A recruit at his commander's say-so. A child to get his knuckles rapped by a stern Sister. Mobius feels hands, and stands firm, focused on his companion.] Astarion, stay here. I won't abandon you. ['Just as the Maker has not abandoned you?' A mock. Mocking. Mockery. 'Did you think you were special?' It sounds familiar but he won't think of it. The words wash over him, and he shivers as though they are physically cold.] It's a demon that wants to feed on everything you hate and fear. We'll get out of this together.

[The hands keep coming instead of slipping away with loosened grip, and he swings down without seeing to sever hands and arms from bodies. And then he sees. In the midst of the blood he sees robes and ragged clothes and abandoned staves, he sees skin burned and electrocuted and frostbitten, he sees gruesome cuts from swords and holes from arrows that hit their marks, he sees the familiar. He sees--faces from the Circle, he knows them, I know you. Mouths gaping and flapping in hate how could you or begging please let us go or screaming howling in the dark. He swings again, trying to shuffle back but they are there as well. They are around him. They will drag him down where the rest of his brothers and sisters lie, to correct the mistake of his survival.

He reaches down, into the well of emerald waters inside himself. It sings: a warble, a tune, a song, an opera. His powers are rusty with disuse but come to him with all the ease that practice of decades grants him. Cleanse this place of the hostile magic that surrounds them. Banish the powers of the demons that haunt them. Shut that shit down.]

And she will know no fear of death! [He bellows it as much in fear as in faith. There is a pressure that grows around him, some unseen force, and when he lets it go, everything...shifts. The world around them. Where normally in the world of mortals he would expect many of the nightmares to shy away or simple cease to be, in this place that shakes hands with the Fade, magic does, magic is. The stuff of dreams, the stuff of this existence, held together by tightly woven strands of magic. The darkness around them ebbs; the hands shrink back and begin to vanish; the blood evaporates from around his feet in a perfect circle expanding outward.] For the Maker shall be her beacon and her shield! [Though it is nothing physical, it takes visible effort as he pours energy into it. The ballroom beyond the dark buckles and sloughs off to reveal the crumbling relics from before.] Her foundation and her sword! [Until the illusion seems to have had quite enough of that. The walls themselves buckle when his power touches it, crumbling down, held up only by the power of the strange magics around them. Pillars tremble. The ceiling towers high above them, but it, too, trembles and begins to cave.

And then, for a few brief moments, it is done. The stone tumbles around them, the dark banished, the figures plaguing them seemingly gone, the feeling of wrongness momentarily lifted. Adrenaline rushes through him, and he feels the glory of the Maker in a way he hasn't for quite some time.

And then.

Like the world had to take a breath, the magic floods back in around them. The stones clatter where they fell, or pause in midair. The room around them changes. The floor shifts under their feet, the walls and ceiling reforming but in new ways, different shapes, doorways created in different directions, pillars in different sections of the wall. The ceiling is lower now, the stone under them smoother, the wrongness returning.

When the dust begins to settle: 'Is this how you squander your ill-gotten gifts?']

[He’ll go back to Cazador because there isn’t a choice. Stiff strides and a sunken, fearful stare; much as he hasn’t the desire to, much as he dreads what’s to come, his legs still move. His fingers twitch. He goes back to Cazador because he always goes back to Cazador— and with the dream of freedom so utterly collapsed, there’s nothing left in him that can find enough simple, pointless hope to reject it, knowing it’d only worsen the inevitable.

And then something changes.

Like a ripple— like a blink— the scenery winks out of existence, void for a second, then back to the ruins he’d seen before, ebbing like the fall of a tide.]

A demon.

[Of course, he thinks bitterly. Resentfully, falling back on the memory of only a few months prior when an abandoned castle's crumbling stone walls nearly trapped so many in the hellish pit of their own waking nightmares. Of course it would be a demon, preying on the illusion of possibility. Of fear. Of—

This time, when the darkness comes crawling back in, and he sees his master there before him (jagged crystal jutting from his skin, more monstrous in its reddened glow), he takes a step away.

And nothing comes from it.

'Astarion—' that voice commands again, louder and sharper than before, but it isn’t true compulsion. It isn’t his master come to claim him in the gap between worlds, just some pale, conjured imitation, and this time Astarion reaches back once more to latch his fingers tight across Mobius’ wrist, pulling him against the grain of this consumptive illusion.

They have to move towards that hideous amalgamation to be free. To follow the path they’d taken on their way in.

Fine.

He isn’t afraid anymore, seething through the edges of his fangs. His sneer.]

We're leaving.

[Knowing the specter of fear for what it is does not always remove the fear. The feeling of victory begins to collapse in on itself when the magic washes back over everything, and though it hasn't all fallen back into place, no ballroom, no sea of blood, the cold itch of sensation of hands returns, and knowing these are all merely reminders doesn't make the guilt any easier.

His voice is rough and quiet in the aftermath.] Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just. Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow. In their blood... [It catches in his throat like the stench of rot and of blood and lyrium but wrong. 'Have you forgotten?' A little chilling sing-song. He redoubles the effort. He hasn't. He hasn't yet.] In their blood the Maker's will is written. In their blood--

[He starts when Astarion grabs hold of him, pulling his blade back as though to swing before blinking in realization. Astarion who is now with him, who sees through it all. Instead, he simply holds it ready as he comes along, is half-dragged. The figure looms large and distinctly angry. The demon itself is real, certainly, even if the illusions are not.]

You don't have any power over us, creature. Go back into the hole you crawled out of.

[The less they fear, the weaker the spirit’s hold on their reality— on itself, as well, the tangled mess of its own form a wretched, flickering host of features more akin to transparent glass: an overlay that fades with every step closer.

And they are moving closer.

Astarion doesn’t dare stray from whatever magic (or no— the antithesis of it) Mobius provides, and so he only draws one of his daggers, flicking it back into a readied grip, red eyes so hatefully set. Teeth bared. Ready to rip that spirit to tatters the moment it’s vulnerable.

Only it’s smart.

Or perhaps self-serving.

Perhaps, like a spider exposed to the light, it knows better than to try and strike out at a losing battle against prey when it has other souls ensnared elsewhere to feed upon.

Perhaps a Templar frightens it instead.

Whatever the reason, it twists like a struck snake once they close in, illusion slithering around it like waved smoke— tendrils of reality coiling as they settle once more— and the demon, the spirit that had hungered so deeply for fear, rushes away into the shadows.

Leaving them in silence.]

...I...

[No. No, better to wait until they’re clear. He pulls faintly on that hold he’s keeping, mercifully light, now.]

I can smell fresh air.

This way.

[It takes a few minutes of walking in silence, but eventually they find their way back to the light, hostile and headache inducing as it is. An agonizing balm if ever there was such a thing.

Astarion’s grip abates almost instantly; he tucks his gloved fingers over one another somewhere in front of him, picking tediously at leather seams.]

I should...

[Ah, no. That’s not right either.

Start again.]

Don’t tell anyone what I told you back there.

About my master. What he— [His sigh is tired. His head aches. Everything aches.] No one would understand.

[He doesn't dare to fight Astarion's grip or his sense of direction. Mobius has gotten all turned around in the way everything has change and shifted when the magic of the Crossroads slid back in over everything. It was enough to show the illusions for what they were, even if it has left him feeling drained and aching.

Could be that's from the tumult of emotions, too. Best to only parse that later.

He could fight a spirit or demon or what-have-you, he's sure, but best to let it run away and leave them in peace. For as light as Astarion's hold becomes, he's still pretty sure he can feel bruises along his arm and wrist from earlier. And when he's released into the (strange wrong altered sickening) light and air and ground and sight of it all, he sheathes his sword at last and lowers himself to the ground, sat against a rock. Runs his hands through his short hair and ruffles it out of place.]

Haven't had to do that in a while.

[He glances up at Astarion, sidelong, from an angle, rather than directly.]

I'm not gonna just tell people your old master indulged in a more fucked up than usual form of blood magic and had you fetch people to feed him. He's not here, you're not that, not anyone's business.

None of it is.

[But Astarion was exactly that.

Is that still, bearing the marks from his past in full.

Even so, it’s a relief, hearing that the most damning aspects of it all aren’t about to be dragged out into the figuratively blinding Thedosian daylight (Astarion could always lie if he had to: blackmail and cheat and deny every last scrap of unsettling truth— but it’s difficult to be believed over a Seeker), and doubly so that he doesn’t seem judged for it besides.

His movements are tentative, like a wary stray inching nearer to an offered meal, but Astarion does settle down opposite to Mobius there, braced against the sickening hammering of his heart within his chest (against the painfully stark vertigo of the Crossroads, too, and you know what, maybe he’s done with all this mess for now, once they’ve finished their impending chat). Hands to his knees, posture slouched.]

I didn’t have a choice, you should know. [He says it just in case. Just in case Mobius lies now, adrenaline still pumping in his chest. Just in case he changes his mind later on a whim, or decides he no longer cares for Astarion’s presence.

A thousand different precautions all drawn up by a survivor's mind, one conditioned to see avid threats lurking in every potential corner, no matter how far away from his master that he is.

(But then come to think of it it doesn’t really matter if Astarion did have a choice: all those times he’d spent watching the delicate fools he’d lured in howl in betrayed anguish, and what wouldn’t Astarion have done to protect himself from Cazador’s ire?

Their ends were quick, relatively speaking.

Astarion’s wouldn’t be.)] My enslavement in its totality was exactly that: total. Absolute. An eternally binding curse in the most literal sense.

My mind remained my own, but my body would always adhere to his commands the moment that he spoke them— no matter how cruel.

[A puppet. A toy to be broken or mended at will. One of so many others.]

And he was cruel.

[A pause there, his own stare lowering.]

What was it you saw...? What did the demon show you.

Slaves usually don't. [Even without any literal curses. Kind of what being a slave is about, not having choices. That there's a distinction doesn't necessarily change anything in Mobius' mind. But it means something to Astarion that there is in fact a distinction, so he will make note of it.

He sees now more of the wounded dog that he had glimpsed in their first meeting at the tavern. After Mobius had read parts of him like an open book. This is playing defensively. The elf thinks no one can be trusted, and that Mobius will inevitably break his word. Say one thing, then go running off to everyone to blab about the elven blood slave and his otherworldly master and the murders perpetrated. Cast him out.

It had been sad to see then, and it remains sad now. But that Astarion cares enough to expand on any of it means...something. Even if it's just from the shared experience.]

And slaves to blood magic and enthrallment more so. I'm sorry.

[It doesn't mean much, even if it's earnest. He has questions, of course. Astarion might be from elsewhere, but he seems to bear a few similarities. Those teeth are probably not merely decorative, and those eyes are probably not exactly natural. But he's not sure how he would react if his partner in this nonsense suggests he also partakes of blood. Maybe actually better not to get into it. Digging deeper invites digs deeper. The elf asks. Mobius leans his head back against stone and blinks up at floating bits of land and a bizarre sky. So much better than a sea of blood and dead mages.]

You asked me about the red lyrium dragon, before. And I answered honestly. [Big ol' dragon crusted with the hateful stuff. He has to imagine. He hasn't seen it for himself.] I don't know if you've ever had to fight Red Templars. Same thing, but in a person. It doesn't...end well. For anyone.

[He's not necessarily afraid of fighting them if he has to, and he's in no danger of actually accepting an offer it if came to him. But. Something could happen. It could somehow end up happening to him. They could rise up and take power from the Chantry and drag everything down with them-- He breathes out slow. That's hardly the only thing. Frankly the least scary thing, even if Astarion's version was his most frightening.]

Unless we wanna talk about the dead people. Or the things it said.

[His throat feels very dry suddenly. He keeps staring at the sky. Even if it feels wrong, is it not still the Maker's light in some form? He'll take it far more readily than the dark.] You can ask questions. I can't promise I'll answer.

Mm. [Flat and stiffened; Astarion isn’t particularly kind when it comes to the subject of other slaves— particularly other vampire spawn.

Nine months free and it’s still too vivid a memory, after all. The ones that never needed the figurative whip to fawn and scrape at their master’s heels. The ones who so often convinced themselves their suffering would somehow be eased if they were the favored few amongst the flock. The adored. The cherished.

They never knew how wrong they were.

But Mobius isn’t relying on platitudes.

That counts.]

I’ve only seen red lyrium embedded in corpses. [He stops there, correcting himself with a thin gesture down towards nothing in particular. A sort of stand in for an acidic little shrug; how wretched their enemies are.

How abysmal their measures.]

Or a dragon. Or corypheus, when I saw him last.

You knew templars that subjected themselves to it?

I'm gonna assume you know better than to touch it. Just don't. Don't ever. [Ah. And maybe that's the thing that terrifies him more. Less the idea that he'll succumb, more the idea that someone he knows could. Or come across a familiar face. He doesn't know that anyone would have lasted this long, but surely some crystalline monstrosities remain.]

I knew Templars who got convinced by certain ideologies or who thought they didn't have a choice. I couldn't tell you what actually happened to them specifically, but I've got a pretty good idea. Don't ever mess with that blighted stuff. [Even literally, Blighted lyrium.] It's corrupted to its core.

[Even the memory of it makes the lyrium in him feel wrong. So he latches on to something that caught his ear. Rather than ask about the master, the bodies, the duke's estate (which he still is curious about), he instead looks over properly at Astarion.]

You've seen Corypheus?

Thankfully, I was warned on arrival not to go lapping at red rocks. [About both it and the Blight, which is more than Astarion can say for other equally damning subjects, at least.

There's a good reason why he's wary about letting his own status as a Rifter slip beyond the bounds of their collective organization these days...or even within it.]

Once. Only once. [As if that wasn’t enough, as far as anyone should ever be concerned.]

He didn’t actually know I was there, of course. Otherwise the question as to how I’m still here— unaltered and unscathed and still serving Riftwatch— would be an undeniably appurtenant one. But yes, I saw him in the flesh.

The hideous, melted, unsightly flesh.

It was during a scouting mission, just after Tantervale’s undoing. I’d been sent alongside two others to track down where Corypheus’ pet dragon was nesting down, so to speak. We followed it for a number of utterly destructive days— until it returned to its master’s side, at a hidden base within the Silent Plains. [The rest of that tale, he opts not to get into. Aside from being a long story, it's not a particularly flattering one, either.] Believe me when I say that it was more than enough of an unsettling sight to last a lifetime, even from afar.

How anyone can bring themselves to serve anything so nauseatingly vile is—

[Well.

He flicks his attention away once more, returning to the prior subject:]

They thought they had no choice, but you knew better, I take it.

[Mobius makes a noise in the back of his throat, not quite a scoff, something amused without actually finding the situation funny.] There may be a pertinent phrase regarding stones and glass houses.

[There are those who willingly choose to serve evil, whether out of fear or greed or other weaknesses of the psyche. Astarion may not have had any choice, technically speaking, but Mobius will make the gentle rebuke anyway. They've both at least known people who have served things greater and more horrible than themselves.]

You got close enough to him and the dragon to see them. Don't know that I could've stopped myself from doing something daring and extremely foolish. [Charging in, sword held high, to lop something off. Surely there were extenuating circumstances including but not limited to a whole army around. Surely.]

There was...a schism. A Templar had the idea--I don't know what he faced or what his circumstances were, but he was involved in red lyrium and wanted to outfit the Order with it, so that with their new strength they could oust the Chantry. Do away with it for slights real or imagined and run the world free of the Chantry entirely. It came from elsewhere, too, I think. Other bands of Red Templars that popped up here and there. I don't know if by design or by accident or what. Related to the Seekers, too, when there were still more around. Plenty of Templars were convinced that it was another tool in the arsenal, and just as many who thought it was a bad idea. In the group I was with, some left to go join, thinking it'd give them more power to help end the war.

[His fingers play at the hem of his sleeve between thoughts. Maybe it's become obvious by now. And if they're going to speak of the difficult...

It's still no easy thing to say. With Barrow, he saw a compatriot, a kindred spirit. The same with Ortega, if somewhat different with her reluctance to keep using lyrium. To someone outside the Order, even to a Rifter, it feels wrong. It feels frightening in its own right. He takes a breath as if to speak, and then says nothing. And then he does it again and finds the words.]

I'm not a Seeker, actually. I'm not anything right now. But I was a Templar. Still got the skills to prove it.

[The mild reminder earns a soured stare on Astarion's part: clear, but not barbed. Not volatile. Mobius has earned the decency of not being bitten for rescuing Astarion from the worst of his past, but at the core of his own withered heart, the vampire never does well with talk like this. It’s there, curling on the edge of his tongue, ‘of course there are those who didn’t have a choice— do you think I pity them because of it?’

A mess of tangled feelings. Selfish, soothing pride— all shattered.

Self-loathing, at times.

He turns his attention downwards, picking at his gloves once more. The fixation helps— though it doesn’t brace him for what follows: stare flicking sharply upwards as he blinks a few times in muted surprise as it all clicks into place.

Ah.]

A Templar. But you never took red lyrium.

[His head tilts, curiosity pervading.]

Why?

[He can look all he wants so long as he doesn't start biting--figuratively or literally.

Whatever Mobius is anticipating, it isn't what comes out of Astarion's mouth. A Rifter doesn't have the same kind of history, wouldn't normally be instilled with any kind of fear or hate for Templars. The question isn't even about why the lie (he never lied, just let Astarion come to a conclusion and not correct him), and the question that is asked seems absurd.

Wasn't so absurd to those who went off to join Samson or Lambert or who the fuck ever else. Glass, stones. Take a breath. He stretches out his legs before him, sets his palms on the ground, solid beneath him, even if it's only magic keeping it up. That with effort, he could undo the very foundation they rest upon. Only for it to come right back.

He is small here. Let that be enough.]

Because I didn't want power. I didn't want to overthrow the Chantry. I didn't want to cause any more harm than necessary.

[The hands aren't there anymore, but he can still feel the ghost, the sense-memory of them, fingers pulling at his trousers, a grip around his ankle.]

I just-- [And he breathes through a sudden spike of emotion. The thing he's wanted for nearly ten years. And it feels so stupid and foolish and childish to give voice to the words. It's small. He is small. Is that not enough?] --wanted things to go back to how they were.

[His bunk in the tower. The endless books. The friends made, Order and mage and Chantry all alike. The simplicity of doing his duty and then retiring for the evening.]

And some new strange lyrium that supposedly increased your strength tenfold wasn't going to help things. It would only help if the goal was domination. Over mages, or the rest of the people, or the Chantry itself--didn't need it. Didn't want it.

[And if they're going to ask questions, he wants to change the course of the topic and ask some of his own, but he's careful. Wants to avoid any large pitfalls with sharpened sticks lining the bottom if he can. He's not sure that he can.]

How long have you been away from your former master? [Or--was the connection severed when he got here to Thedas? Or before that?]

[No, he doesn’t bite. He doesn’t want to, either figuratively or literally despite all his own protective instincts; he’s tired, he’s still shaken— afraid of what might still try to reach out and find them even now.

Even if the storm has passed.

...and truth be told, he likes Mobius. A great deal more than he’s willing to let on.

So instead he only listens for a while, his fingertips finally stilling in their restless fidgeting.]

What were things like before?

[There's such longing Mobius' voice for something that must have been small, if power didn’t tempt him away from service. If overthrowing the status quo meant nothing— and Mobius hardly strikes Astarion as the oppressive sort: the kind of Templar the mages of Riftwatch so fretfully fear.

No, he doubts very much that was ever the case.

And because he wants to hear the answer, he forestalls his own.]

[He sees it. Hears it. Notices.

There's still some resistance. Doesn't care to talk about himself much, prefers to look forward, to pick at others and get them to talk about themselves instead. But now that Astarion knows-- Is there any harm in it?]

Where I was, [still neglecting the specifics, out of habit if nothing else] it was...pleasant. Our Circle didn't have the kind of now-well-known abuses that others did. You'd have some...transgressions, yeah, of course, but it-- [He takes a breath, starts again. Don't get into the nitty gritty.] At least for a Templar, on my end, it was nice. Nice city, well-stocked Circle. Clean, cared for, big library. Genuinely gorgeous library, stacked floor to ceiling. You have to understand, I was there for most of my life, barring missions elsewhere. It's what I knew. I was an established presence. Friends. Good friends, among the Templars and the mages. Occasionally exciting, mostly not. But it's where I felt I belonged.

[And that belonging was thrown out in an instant. His faith shook right up until the tipping point, and the unanswerable questions came again and again, rolled around in his head. Still do, sometimes.]

I know that's not much. [Small. He shuts his eyes and tries not to feel small, like he's about to wake up and forget everything but the Maker's light--] But we had a home, and we were doing good work, or thought we were. We weren't out in the world trying to figure out where to go; we weren't hunting mages and killing friends, weren't bickering with each other and fracturing into smaller and smaller pieces.

[He thinks that maybe they should start moving. But whatever was after them, it isn't following them. They are in the light. They are safe, in a relative manner. Take a breath, hold it, let it go.]

Your turn.

[He understands without understanding.

In the last two hundred years, Astarion’s found himself dreaming more and more frequently of the simplicity of so many other’s lives, resenting their steadier peace for the fact that he lacks anything similar; appreciating it because it stands as the absolute antithesis of all he’s known. Since coming to Thedas, that stands true now more than ever.

So no, he doesn’t need to be a Templar with a long lost Circle to grasp precisely what it is Mobius misses.

And he isn’t one for sympathy, but—

Well. Maybe his expression runs a little softer. His voice a little quieter. Gentler, when he exhales:]

Nine months.

[And, because he knows what’ll no doubt prove relevant to that confession:]

My master held me in binding slavery for two hundred years, before your world tore me from his side.

[Oh. Oh. That is...not insignificant. No wonder Astarion is the way he is all over. Mobius lets that wash over him, soak it in. He's heard stories of old elves, Dalish especially, who can live longer, live for centuries even, with little proof about it. And it's entirely possible that elves from Astarion's world do live so long. Possible that they all look the way he looks naturally.

Possible. But is it probable?]

Did your binding include giving you teeth like that?

[Is he like his master, is the real question being asked.]

...mmhm.

[Low, that confirmation. Only a sliver of a breath, segueing into a subtle pause.]

His curse, passed on.

I could tell you I had no choice, and to a certain extent that was true enough: I’d been attacked on my own the night he found me, beaten to death’s very door in the street by a pack of spiteful humans. [A lone nobleman who never stood even the slightest chance, and where so much of his memory has ebbed away into nothing at all, he still remembers it vividly now. Every last painful second.

It shows, no matter how he masks it, in the stiffened lines of his expression. The wooden sound of his voice.]

I was already dying by the time he chased them off. My only chance to avoid its damning grasp was to take his offer of immortality. To let him bite me, drink what little blood I had left, and allow him to change me from an elf....into a vampire, like him. [And by now, he suspects the definition in its simplest form is obvious to a mind as sharp as Mobius’:] Red eyes. Long fangs. Eternal life— at the cost of a taste for blood, but with the benefit of power beyond any mortal’s possession.

He could command wolves. Shift into the very air itself, dominate minds and shrug off undoubtedly fatal wounds, with beauty so profound you wouldn’t be remiss in thinking he was some sort of god, if you weren’t already in the know. That is what I assumed I would be, elevated to his side. My rescuer. My merciful salvation.

[Alluring. The dream of it still clings, even now, despite how he knows better.]

But the joke was on me, of course.

In order to become a true vampire, I would’ve needed to drink his blood in turn... [The twist too obvious. The betrayal he, stupid and trusting and desperate beyond belief, never saw coming:] Cazador never intended for that to happen.

The very second my blood stained his lips, I became a vampire spawn, instead. Altered, yes, but significantly weaker. Unable to defy him— to do anything but serve his every last whim right down the last detail.

I couldn’t have bitten him no matter how much I wanted to, he made damn certain of that.

[It's more, far more detail than he was honestly expecting out of Astarion. A level of trust, then, that Mobius is not entirely certain he's actually earned. Grateful for it nonetheless, even for the horrible details.

An impossible choice. And he doesn't know what kind of magic exists in this other world, what kind of prejudices if any exist against it, or against elves (although. it certainly sounds like there may be similarities.), but actively dying and being offered something that isn't death? Impossible. Part of him wants to judge, but he can't. What would he do in that situation? He has no idea.

And what of mages who choose to turn to blood, or who turn to demons, when they have fear for their lives? Mostly they choose and then fear for their lives, but sometimes, on rare occasion, it seems that there's little choice. At least in their eyes. Mostly it's power and greed and hunger and defiance. Is it fair to judge others differently? Hm.]

And do you...partake? Of blood.

[He also doesn't know what he'll do if the answer is yes. Two hundred years, and then suddenly having freedom in a whole new world, if he had gotten used to a lifestyle or has a need for it, why would he stop?]

Could you do the same to someone else? [Not would he. Just...if he possesses the power.]

No.

[No. A lie, but not a full one: beacause yes and no would technically be the truth regarding that first, overshadowing question, and there’s a risk in withholding the full scope of his answer, he knows—

But he’s afraid, still. A knot tangled in his stomach, twisted up like twine. Like wire. A barrier between opening the lid on shared honesty in everything, and keeping a few unsightly cards tucked in close against his own chest.

Just a few.

(He only indulges now for pleasure with those who willingly share. Or for self-defense when all the world turns dire in its cast. But what would either fact do to comfort a man that’s only ever known blood magic? Demons? Nothing. Nothing at all good...

He’s sure of it.)

So Astarion shakes his head, settling the whole of his stare on Mobius; keeping every inch of him relaxed despite everything.] And I was never permitted to feed on thinking creatures, besides. Only putrid rats or dying flies. Something to keep me repulsed in my starvation, yet still alive, and always hungry. [A short scoff, and then:] Appetizing, I know.

Still, whatever magic brought me to your world, it...changed me. [Which is true.] I kept my fangs, but my inability to dwell in sunlight? My weakness in water, my appetite for blood and my master’s binding hold— gone.

All gone.

And I was never capable of conversion, so believe me when I say you don't need to go clapping me in irons or locking me away in the nearest Chantry tower: spawn lack the capacity, and I'll prove it if it means putting any possible wariness to rest.

After all, only a true vampire is capable of adding to their cadre by amassing thralls that hang on their every whim.

[Knowing nothing about vampires, he can't call Astarion out on anything. On the other hand: the boneless relaxation from the wooden stiffness of before.

He won't pick at it if Astarion won't.]

I believe you. [Quiet. Sure. About the converting, at the very least, and the details as given.] You don't have to prove anything to me.

[He can't speak for others. But this isn't about anyone else. Not right now.]

Two hundred years...and then suddenly free. Or as free as a Rifter gets. Must've been a fun adjustment period. No wonder you don't want to go back home.

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

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