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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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.

It...could’ve been worse, I suppose. Adjusting, I mean. [No, it could have been so much worse, and that's a thought that thins out the already stolid lines of his present expression, settling like drifting silt.]

Fenris was there right from the start. [A beat, and then:]That was before his memories were stolen, of course.

He made it easier. [He still does.]

Understand that I need this world. I don’t want to leave it, for all the obvious reasons, and I’d rather not be enslaved again either— which is what every Rifter inevitably would be underneath Corypheus’ rule. And yes, I realize telling a Templar that I’ve no intention of being locked away within a Circle is absurd, but I don’t. I won’t ever be.

[No more binding tethers, no more bordering walls, no more lack of agency. Of freedom. He knows precisely what the Chantry plans to do if the war's won.

He won't have it.]

Not again.

[But that isn't aimed bitterly at Mobius. It's only honesty, ugly and coarsely cut. It falls away not long after just as Astarion's crimson stare lifts, honed in with a sharper focus.]

Regardless of all the rest, what I mean is that I’m on your side. And you’ve a weapon against me as much as you have proof that I’m not your enemy, after what you’ve just seen.

[Terrifying, that thought, to someone like Astarion. To have someone holding something so utterly fragile. An easy way to unmake him.]

I hope you realize what a massive generosity it is on my part that I’m not killing you to protect it.

We've given each other enough rope to hang with.

[Astarion more so; he realizes this. Mobius being a Templar isn't some near-automatic death sentence, just uncomfortable, would make some people wary and others angry, and that's it. What Astarion is, the combination of things that he is, would be greeted with much more vehemency and violence.

It doesn't seem fair. This isn't about fair. It's not about equal exchange. But still. He looks at Astarion, really looks, takes in this elven man from another world whose life has been lived far too long as a whole, and too long under the unbreakable control of an actual monster. This kicked dog, this cornered wolf, who has tasted freedom and never again will allow himself to get corralled into another cage. This funny, self-assured, dangerous man.]

I can't make any promises about what'll happen when this is over. I don't know if Circles will come back, and I don't know if what Rifters can do should be classified as magic in the same way that natural-born mages are, and I don't have any future sight. But I'm not judge, jury, or executioner. Not anymore.

Used to be. You might have seen your victims in there, but I saw mine. I'll defend Templars until Andraste hears my final breath leave my chest, but I know we're not innocent. I killed people. Good people. Because someone decided they broke a rule just enough that it made them too dangerous to live. Because when everything broke loose, they all became too dangerous. I followed orders until I couldn't abide by it anymore; I had that choice. I always had a choice.

[And when you're entrenched in certain ideologies for decades, it's easy to get numb to it all. Easy to hear someone that is supposed to know better than you 'this is a blood mage' and to draw your sword against it. Easy to not think too hard or look too deep. It doesn't make him different or special that he thought too hard or looked too deep, because he still did as he was ordered, even if others thought he was too soft about it. Some didn't bother making friends or being nice or treating others with basic dignity. Some only saw themselves as a weapon begging to be used.

Doesn't make a difference now, does it?]

I'm not gonna hurt you. Not deliberately; not with this. I'm not a sword hanging over your head. I left that behind me years ago.

[He's not in the business of unmaking people. Not unless it's to build them back up to be better.

He makes to stand and holds a hand out to Astarion to help him do the same.]

We're both on the same side here, so I appreciate the whole not killing me thing.

[His eyeline sinks towards that hand. He’s quiet for so long— so terribly long— remembering the fractal image that’d laid itself across Cazador’s reflection. The way Mobius had prayed, and buckled, and even now beneath all the surety in his words, Astarion can’t help but wonder if he still feels just as unmoored.

But maybe this isn’t the time to ask that just yet.

Not when they’ve both suffered enough.

So he takes it, fingers clasped tight around an easier grip, rising to his feet with little ceremony spared outside the gesture itself. The very least he could do.] It’s a difficult sacrifice for someone like me. But I imagine I owe you, now. Just a little.

This’ll just make us even.

[Normally that’d come with a grin. Not right now, though. Not today.

All that said, though:]

I’m leaving the Crossroads. [Definitive. Decided.]

You should too.

[This place is no friend to them, and Astarion can’t stomach the thought of stumbling into another trap or grasping spirit just yet. Tired as they are. Worn thin as they are, maybe it’s better to retreat while they still can, and leave the rest to the Wardens or native elves. Hardier things.]

Be a shame if a spirit ate you right up.

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

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