Tʜᴇ Pᴀʟᴇ Eʟғ | Asᴛᴀʀɪᴏɴ Aɴᴄᴜɴíɴ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
illithidnapped) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
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.
source
no subject
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.]
no subject
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.
no subject
(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.
1/2
[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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
[It sounds different from anything in Tevene he’s ever heard before (clever isn’t really the word for his intuition when it takes hold, all practicality in play over raw intelligence), and given the context he doesn’t need to ask: it’s Qunari, without a doubt. Theirs— the Fog Warriors— maybe even the first few phrases Fenris had learned while he acclimated to the weightless feeling of a throat without a collar.
A leash with no master attached to the other end.
'Shanedan', repeated a few more times for good measure, a little clumsy as it tumbles from his tongue, but not altogether an indecipherable mess— just heavy on the consonants, sluggish on the gaps between syllables; he’s never been a perfect hand at imitating language (melting pot that Baldur’s Gate was, the upper echelons weren’t), and so he has to work all the more diligently to prove passing at its demanding nuances.
But it’s nice, admittedly. Unexpectedly so, listening to the smooth rumble of Fenris’ voice as he teaches with a patient, figurative hand, offering up the entirety of his attention.
An acknowledgement of the difficulties navigating through life.
He likes that part.]
...do you ever think about going back to Seheron?
[Astarion shifts to face Fenris in turn as he asks, sinking lower through his own shoulders. Hackles easing while folding his legs until they cross in thicker, tangled covers. Comfortable. Warm. Elbows relaxed loosely across his knees.
It’s been exhausting, these last few weeks.
Interspersed nightmares aren’t helping.]
Would you want to, with Danarius gone.
[And then, returning to focus:]
At-as shook...
no subject
Mm, not quite.
[But ah, Seheron . . . it's a good question, really.]
I have, once or twice. But there is nothing for me there, not really, and I would gain nothing save heartache, I suspect.
[And though he has thought about finding some other company of Fog Warriors, explaining things to them, offering his service as atonement . . . it never felt right. An act of penance made to relieve his own guilt, not to truly make up for the lives he had taken. And either way, he would not feel worthy enough to even meet with them.]
Ataas— it is one syllable, not two. Let it vibrate low in your throat, just here—
[He doesn't think before he reaches. They've gotten too used to touch these past few days, fingers tangling together so naturally, the two of them existing in orbit with one another . . . he slides two fingers against the base of Astarion's throat, pressing lightly against the hollow there, demonstrating where he ought to let the syllable hold.
Soft, he has time enough to think, before his senses return to him and he pulls his hand back. And ah, it means nothing, truly. Astarion won't think it strange, not after all that they've been through, but still, he does not want to touch just yet. Not when he's still reeling in revelation over his own newfound feelings. So: redirect, and his hands settle on his thighs, curling and flexing.]
. . . I would continue the lesson. It is pleasing for me to teach you. [Of all people, he does not say, but perhaps that's obvious enough by the way they're huddling together already.]
But I would know more of what I saw in our hallucination, if you would tell me. There was more than just Cazador and Danarius present.
no subject
Can Fenris feel it, how Astarion’s pulse jumps? Rushing to settle beneath the pads of those marked fingers?
No. Gone. Mercifully gone. And Astarion leans on two centuries’ worth of experience to let the breath he’d been holding ease out unnoticed. Only barely thready at its edges.]
Ataas. [ He echoes once more. Ataas ataas ataas...
Had there been something else in that horrid illusion?
Of course there was, though it takes Astarion the better half of a handful of seconds to remember (for his mind to work, tracing back warily over the whole of that waking dream) and ah—
His chin drops, he pins the edge of his thumb and forefinger together, inhaling. Fitting an unfeeling mask in place, so that he can tread over the topic the way someone discusses poor weather. Lost pocket change.
Nothing.]
Vampires are immortal, as a hard and fast rule. Part of our binding curse: we don’t age, and unless our weaknesses are struck directly, as I've sparingly mentioned before, we don’t die, either. Starvation is only madness. Enfeeblement. Agonizing, yet not deadly.
And Cazador was an avaricious keeper. He always wanted more.
More spawn, more assets— more entertainment or power. [More horrors, still.] But not everyone was fit to serve. And beyond that, not everyone was decent enough at it to be spared the surplus of rats or insects he forced us to feed on.
[As if either were a valuable luxury doled out at Cazador's own bountiful mercy.]
What then, to do with the slaves he no longer wanted?
Well, he could kill them, of course— and sometimes he did. Quite often, in fact. But that was a form of entertainment for him too: he enjoyed seeing the rise of panic, or to be begged, or to feel the palpable moment of betrayal when they realized they weren’t being led to his arms...but their own death instead.
Broken dregs? The ones so hopeless in their servitude that they can’t even suffer properly?
[He lifts his hand, fingertips flicking as they splay outwards.]
You throw them away.
[In essence.]
But they can’t have their freedom, can they? A life away from your hold? No. Gods, no.
[Red eyes lift, breath slipping slow and steady into his lungs. His smile so uniquely cruel— all thoughts of kind words and soft touches to the hollow of his throat forgotten.
Eclipsed.]
You take them to the catacombs. The cellar. The heavy stone walls that comprise your estate— and you put them, stone by hewn stone, inside of it all.
As long as you like. As long as it takes, until they scrabble at the walls like rats, broken down to the last hopeless shred.
[He’d seen it happen time and time again. One of the first terrors witnessed, aside from streaks of ash or the sound of throats uprooted. Aside from the first moment adoring hands turned cruel.]
And sometimes, once that’s done, you set them free again, knowing they won’t ever go anywhere at all, lost as they are now.
That’s what you saw.
The other spawn. The fate of all his unloved pets.
no subject
(Did he take an academic view of it, as Danarius had? Pretending that all his sadism was for the sake of furthering magical knowledge, justifying his spilling of blood? Or did he grow past that after the first few centuries? It doesn't matter, not really, but still he wonders it).
But Astarion goes on. His tone light and his smile never quite reaching his eyes, gestures blithely as he describes a horror beyond comprehension. Truly: the color drains from his cheeks, leaving tan skin sallow and sickly looking; his eyes go wide, nausea pitching in his stomach. He can't help but imagine it, though he doesn't want to: the too-close press of stone and and mortar all around you, the endless darkness, unable to breathe, unable to move, unable to die— and who was to know if ever you would be found again? People forget things. Masters don't care what happens to slaves.
How long could sanity last? A month? Two? And by then madness would be a relief. To break down and find escape in any form, even if it cost everything. What more would it matter? You were nothing anyway.
All of it flashes through his mind in one horrifying, nauseating flash. And on the tail end of it, he thinks again: little wonder Astarion does not trust this miracle to hold. Who would dare? Who could ever dare to hope after a place like that, where so much of day to day existence was an exercise in horror.]
And so no matter what cruelty he lavished upon you, there was still a worse fate to fear. And in that way he had you pull your own strings.
[How wretchedly clever. How horribly, wonderfully sustainable, the perfect way to keep everyone from falling into agonized complacency or desperate suicide.
There is nothing he can say that will make this easier. Nothing that he could possibly come up with that he can compare this to in his life. It's wretched and terrible, nigh-incomprehensible in its implications, and he will not cheapen it.
Instead: he sets his hand, palm up, between them. It's an offer, but he won't press, not if touch would be too much right now.]
So you kept yourself entertaining. Amusing. Nearly always in his favor.
How?
no subject
How.
What a gutting question, that singular little word. Worse than everything else so far, Astarion finds, something in the pit of his stomach turning over, twisting in on itself. Not shame, not remorse— but much like Fenris’ prior confession (they freed me; I killed them) it’s so much worse than talking of split skin or bloodied throats.
Because it’s personal. Not what was done to them, but how they reacted to it. How they survived it, ugly with unseen scars. The sort of things that would make someone else buckle to hear them, dripping with platitudes or judgment, or both. An inability to comprehend what it is to be crushed so completely underfoot that you have to reshape yourself to endure, like a plant crawling through hairline cracks in crushing stone.
His eyes fall on that outstretched palm, held open in a gentle offer of comfort—
And Astarion pushes past it, decisive in his movements as he pulls himself up from where he's settled. A sharper turn, a sudden drop— and he’s sunken down to fit his head entirely in Fenris’ lap instead, wordlessly taking up space without bothering to so much as ask for permission.
He assumes if it’s too much, he’ll be shoved off in short order.
So then:]
How does anyone earn the favor of an egotistical, self-absorbed, fluently sadistic monster of a master?
You learn what they like. What keeps them content, what stays the worst of their inclinations— or spares your own neck in exchange for someone else’s. [The years add up. The torments no less. Only a fool struggles to clutch tight to morality throughout, and yes, some spawn did.
Astarion remembers them as stains on sills. Streaks of embers in the courtyards.
Broken babbling in the dark.]
I imagine you did the same.
Adapted. Just as you were wanted to.
[There's not even a spare flicker of judgment in his voice; he trusts his companion to understand, tipping his gaze back to meet the underview of Fenris' jaw and all its ribbing lines of silvered blue, tracing their patterning with his eyes like a point of simple fixation. Something to anchor him— much like the feeling of warmth provided— against the footfalls of his past. Part of the reason why he'd chosen to rest here.
No, all of it, actually.]
But to answer your question directly: most often, that meant knowing how he preferred torture to go. Allow yourself to grow quiet with bracing focus, and he’d lose interest. Too loud in whimpering agony, and he’d grow furious with irritation. Sometimes it meant warming his strictly fickle moods, other times his bed, or his esteemed guests. Listening so carefully for what would send him into fits of cruelty in quick anticipation— though obviously boredom itself was always a fun excuse to tear anyone unlucky enough to be nearby limb from bleeding limb.
[His exhale is thin. So acidic it could claw through steel.]
But yes. I did well, I suppose. [If there is such a thing as succeeding in suffering.] And for it, he would send me out to hunt for him. Let off the leash for a few days at a time at most, knowing I couldn’t run even if I wanted to. It was a luxury, understand. I could breathe the night air, pretend I was a living thing once more.
I had it better than most of the others, in that respect. And they certainly strived to resent me for it.
[Wretches.]
The only caveat was that I had to slip my way into the pinnacle of society’s social affairs and find someone worth bleeding to seduce during that mediocre window of opportunity. And what's important to note is that he was exceedingly particular: he craved beauty beyond beauty— a wealth of influence, or blissful youth, or pristine breeding. Or all of the above. Said it made them taste better.
I wouldn't know.
[He's still counting those glowing lines. One to the next. One, two, three—]
The night I unintentionally vanished from his side, he’d sent me off to corrupt one nobleman in particular....only I never made it back. Plucked away right in the midst of it. Left stranded here instead.
[Astarion's lips twist.
It isn't quite a smile.]
Sometimes I find myself I hoping that it gnaws at him, you know. That when he fights to yank on the enchantments that once snared me so completely, he howls hatefully to feel nothing in return. No answers. No explanations.
The only one to ever get away.
no subject
It could be too much. It would be too much in other circumstances, and distantly he notes that: the rabbit-pulse of his heart picking up speed, the way his skin memorizes the feeling of weight and faint chill seeping through his trousers. But this is so far beyond some petty amount of flared feelings. This is nothing to do with infatuation, and he will not sully it (he tells himself sharply, though he knows some part of him is taking note of all the details right now) with his own unworthy feelings.
Fenris stares straight ahead, listening to a familiar song sang in a different key: yes, he knows what it is to please a sadistic master. Not in the exact same way, of course— Danarius had never wanted to mutilate his precious wolf, and it was so much easier to punish with magic than it was with whips or flails— but still, the broad strokes he knows oh, so well. How to contort and twist yourself; how to learn intimately what a certain tone or twitch of muscles meant, and what part of play thanks to it. Slavering, devoted slave or stoic bodyguard, affectionate companion or rigid protector . . . and some days, how there would be no use in predicting, for your pain was the only thing that would please.
Carefully, he strokes his fingers through Astarion's hair. He isn't very good at it, truth be told, but it's the intent that matters more than the actual execution, isn't it? His other hand braces gently on Astarion's shoulder, his thumb brushing in time with the careful drag of his fingertips. He scoffs softly as he heads that pointed demand for prey, but once again, it makes sense. It suits the spoiled, elite way these men (these mages, though that isn't quite true of Cazador, but he thinks it nonetheless) think. Sending out one's spawn to seduce and tempt some poor soul into coming back with him . . . was it worth it for the freedom? He wonders.]
Of course it does.
[Simply. Easy, as he stares straight ahead, his fingers steady and sure.]
How could he stand it? Something out of his control, stolen away from him without so much as a by-your-leave . . .
[He glances down, a faint smile shadowing around his lips.]
It likely gnaws at him. Maddening and inexplicable, and who's to say it shall not happen again?
[Not that Fenris cares if the other spawn show up, but he does rather like the thought of Cazador writhing in terror of this unknown threat.]
Na via lerno victoria, [he says in Tevene, and wonders if Astarion can hear the difference.] Only the living know victory. Meant more for battle, but . . . it suits, I think, twisted thing that your master is. You spent two hundred years in a hell of his making, and I can only imagine what that must have been like. The horrors you must have faced.
But here you are in the sunlight, doing things he could never have dreamed of. Here you are, living and breathing, and every second you spend broken from your leash is another affront to him.
[He keeps stroking his fingers through his hair. He's getting better at it: rucking up unruly curls and then smoothing them down, combing them away from Astarion's face.]
But it is hard.
I will not begrudge you bitterness, if that is what you find fills you. Or rage, or grief . . . it is . . . complicated, to be in the position you are.
[We were, though he won't insult Astarion by inserting himself into the conversation.]
Was he ever hurt, in all those centuries? Some other vampire, perhaps?
no subject
(Is he hurting Fenris by staying here? Should he— )
Those fingers sliding through his curls, untangling the worst of them after a day of stricken travel and sullen sitting in half-silence.
He stays.
And he trusts Fenris to tell him when he’s had enough.]
No.
[Small, that word. Boundless, the truth lurking behind it, a behemoth swimming through shallow waters.]
There were attempts, sparingly, but Cazador was indescribably and thoroughly adept at threading his weave throughout the whole of Baldur’s Gate— my home— in its expansive entirety: the select elite he shamelessly courted and lorded over adored him for all his gilded bestowals; the honorable guards and allied mercenaries served without ever knowing the truth of what he was, thinking him yet another honored noble in a city rife with them; then there were the brutes. The monstrous cutthroats and scoundrels and riff raff all, who glut themselves gleefully on his table scraps without question.
And that wasn’t including the rest of his family, vampires almost equal in power to himself, yet loyal by unsevered bloodlines, or his enthralled spawn who had no say in anything at all.
Only a fool would dare try.
[Impossible. Impossible to come close without being sniffed out or snuffed out first, for even the most profound hunter will always stink of their profession. Their inability to be anything but precisely what they are, clumsy and obvious in their coming.]
And though the smallest number did make their attempts, I still remember their screams. The agony they poorly traded exchange for never even scratching the surface of his skin.
Hardly worth it.
[His inhale is slow, levering itself against a bitter smile that flickers entirely of its own volition. He reaches up to try and feel out the edge of Fenris’ hand—
Only to think better of it.
A curling of fingers in midair before they fall across his own chest instead.]
Does it pain you to speak the language of your captor?
[Ah. So Astarion did note the difference, after all.]
no subject
Hardly worth it, Astarion says in that same awful tone, and Fenris wonders if he had hoped—
But no. That's a stupid question.
Of course he had.
His fingers pause in surprise at that question, though, his head ducking down as he tries to determine if it was meant to be a stinging retort. It does not offend, but he hadn't expected so blunt a question. But no, he thinks after a moment. Not stinging. Just blunt, both of them dodging around the usual hedges and hesitations. He resumes his slow stroke, not answering right away: not out of melancholy, but merely giving the question thought.]
It could, I suppose, if I allowed it. Enslaved or not, though, I do hail from Tevinter. Her customs and her holidays, her manner of dress and cuisine . . . all are a part of me, too.
[He really doesn't think about it too much. Life is full of hardships already without having an identity crisis over his preference for hot weather and spicy food. He considers this, though, and then adds with blunt honesty:]
And adopting her culture was better than having none at all. I had no contact with the elves under Danarius' eye; even now, though I know their myths, I do not . . . I have the faintest grasp of some words in Elvish.
[It is what it is. Although that makes him wonder:]
. . . is that what you speak in your world? Elvish?
no subject
You’re right, I think.
[Not that it’s Astarion’s place to confirm or deny much of anything, but he does it regardless; offering up his opinion in the same way he always feels compelled to.
This world is far too small for you. You're not solely what you were made to be.
He meant it then, and he means it now.
The attention he’d been paying Fenris in recline fades away, drifting back into closed eyes beneath the steady brushing of those fingertips, untangling as steadily as his own curls.]
Cazador took a great many things from me, but language was never a part of that equation.
Our home was...well. I can’t say whether or not it’s similar, seeing as I’ve never set foot in Minrathous or Seheron, but I spoke Common. Trade, in essence. As did Cazador. As did the whole of the city save for—
[Eyes still shut, he frowns, the center point of his brows pinching hard enough to crease. He can’t remember enough to say more, lost beneath the transient weight of shifting shadows and a faceless silhouette. Or more.
It passes through his fingers like silt along a riverbed, there and gone again.]
I don’t know.
I remember a little. Something from before, perhaps, it’s all somewhat reflexive. [He understands far more than he speaks.
And with an exhale let out to ward away vexation, he finally reaches high to wrap his fingers around that roaming hand, the weight of it secure without being cruel. Grounding without demanding more.
For a single second, swallowing nothing at all, he finds he just needs it.]
I’ll teach you, eladrin. A fair trade, I suppose, if you care to learn it.
[He pauses there, the words sticking to the edge of his tongue before:]
...just in case those rifts ever run both ways.
[It might save him. It might help him. And the fact that that's a soothing thought somehow doesn't bother Astarion in the slightest.]
no subject
I would like that.
[Quite a bit, and it matters more than Fenris can rightly say to hear it offered. The thought of the rifts reversing it . . . incomprehensible, truly, though by all rights it oughtn't be. Why shouldn't they reverse? What's to stop them? But ah, something to think about later. Not tonight. Not when they've both gone through too much; he can't bear to think of being torn from his home.
(From—)]
A word for a word. Or a phrase for a phrase, if that suits you better.
[His fingers curl up, pushing against Astarion's hand companionably.]
You must have a favorite or two.
no subject
Mm. Doesn’t matter. Fondness overtaking him alongside wine and warmth, he doesn’t let it get the best of him. But he keeps that hold all the same, thumb to the center of Fenris’ palm, just narrowly avoiding the scoring lines of lyrium in order to fit itself to rough skin instead.]
A favorite implies I used the language often enough to enjoy— well, any of it, I suppose.
But all right, fine. Admittedly there were a few phrases here and there that always stuck out as being decidedly useful.
Le van lerina fui. [Artful, the sound of it. Flowing. Not clumsy like how he follows along in the footsteps of Fenris’ Qunari or Tevene, but fully practiced in its fluidity. Either Astarion’s spent a long time acquainting himself with the phrase (since youth, perhaps) or simply throughout hundreds of years, he’s grown accustomed to its flowing lilt.
His fingers tighten, giving Fenris’ hand a playful little squeeze— for the first time in days it’s a spark of all his usual devilish coyness, rather than the shaken outline of his past.]
It means, are you free tonight.
no subject
Maker's breath, and it's awful, but he chuckles all the same.]
Yes, that sounds about right. And so very useful: I will be in another world, without money or connections, but at least I can slip into some elf's bed that night.
[HA HA THIS IS FINE.]
Le von— van? — larine fui?
[Points for near-memorization, but ah, the pronounciation leaves a lot to be desired. He is no natural at this, and the syllables flow differently than they do with short, practical Qunlat or archaic Tevene. He knows even as he says it that it isn't entirely correct, and you know what, it's fine, but still: he likes to get these things right.]
Mm. Say it to me again. And then tell me what the correct response is.
no subject
Ahah, why is the thought of his own would-be joke suddenly such a nagging, thorny thing? He knows better. And he hasn’t the right or the room to be jealous, no. It isn’t even real. And even if it was, that’s certainly Fenris’ right. It always has been. It always will be. It's not as if Astarion hadn't known before now the man was more than capable of fucking perfectly well whenever it suited him.
He's heard her name before on his lips, after all. So many times.]
2/2
Thankfully it’s all in his head, so....small mercies for wicked hearts, at present.]
At the very least it’ll set their hearts all aflutter, more than just having a Bladesinger in their midst might. Could even fetch you allies. Gold.
Never overlook the power of seduction, darling.
[Coy, when he pinches Fenris' palm one last time (at the very same moment his nose crinkles under the pressing weight of a lopsided grin), pulling that hand away and letting it reach higher to yank soundly on a wayward tendril of Fenris’ hair— far from cruel, but far more tail-tugging than kind.
Fun. He's having fun, despite everything.]
Le van...lerina fui. [Slower, this time. Patiently. Each word left hanging.
Only when he feels as if Fenris has it mostly committed to memory, does he add:] An ilcë, inyë voro ná lerina.
[Portions broken into smaller fragments, repeated as many times as necessary until Fenris seems to catch on, arched fingers finding their way to the half-finished bottle of wine in the meanwhile— though he doesn't pull himself away from Fenris' lap for it.] You're not half bad, you know.
Another century or so and you’ll practically be fluent.
[The sip he steals from the bottle is a little halting— a little dry— owing to the angle and how he has to lean into it not to spill it all over himself, but he manages it well enough before lifting it in offering to Fenris once more.]
Are you tired yet?
[A pointless question; they haven’t slept since the Crossroads. Not properly, at least. It goes without saying they’re both exhausted—
But with things being what they are, willingness to submit to sleep is another thing entirely.]
no subject
He nods. There's no use in putting it off longer, and better to sleep here than alone in the mansion. But ah, that reminds him . . .]
I would . . . if you would permit it, I would lie with you tonight.
[Just as they had that first night. And you know, he really doesn't feel bad about asking, because this isn't some insidious way to fool Astarion into offering him some false bit of comfort. They'll have their own separate blankets, lying with a firm inch or two between them— but still, all one of them will have to do is glance to the side to see the other there.
He won't be disappointed if Astarion says no. Proximity is enough, really, and his little nest is getting more comfortable by the day now that Astarion has (with absolutely no acknowledgement) left him a few more blankets and comforters to burrow in.
But it would be nice, not weathering this alone.]
no subject
And then he exhales.
Audible. Light. Fond. Expression bleeding into a softer thing that’s like the tamed docility of a wild animal being called home.
He gets it now, what Fenris is asking for.
Granted, he doesn’t show any of it, of course, not when he rolls up to stretch his arms out for the first time in a good few minutes— feeling how exhaustion creeps throughout both his shoulders— turning around in the seconds that follow, fitting an upturned smirk just over the slope of his own shoulder.]
Thought you’d never ask, darling.
[A tip of his head. A yank at the edges of his blankets on one side, and he’s made that accommodating space once more. Just the same as before, and chased by a sturdy pat to the mattress itself.]
C’mon. You first.
[Gentle, his voice. Not gilded. Not high.
Only him.]
I’ll keep watch a little longer, just until you’ve drifted off.
no subject
There will still be nightmares, of course. Fearsome ones, and he will wake not an hour from now, clawing at the sheets and whimpering out Danarius' name. But that's for later. Right now, all that Fenris feels is a cozy sort of contentment, a security that he cannot remember the last time he felt.]
All right.
[He strips off his shirt and leans over the edge of the bed, nabbing his favorite of the blankets Astarion has deemed his. Returns to settle on his side of the bed (left, always, to the point where it would feel strange if he took the right) and settles on his side. His eyes are already half-closed, but still, he takes a few moments to simply drink in the sight of the other elf. His slender silhouette framed against the firelight, the scent of spiced wine overridden by the scent of Astarion embedded in the very sheets and pillows, the low murmur of his voice as he speaks into his crystal . . .
Safe. When was the last time he ever felt truly safe with anyone?
Not in years. Not since Hawke, but maybe not even then, not really. Not like he does now.]
Good night, Astarion.
[He says it softly, and rolls over in the next moment, finally allowing his eyes to close.]