Over ten years in freedom, and plenty more since. There were bound to be dalliances. Experiments. Playful one-night-stands—
Maybe even something deeper (for he knows of Isabela and her feathering touch). It doesn't bother him; there's a certain amount of turmoil that comes from going from having your life dictated to you for decades at the root, to being expected to choose— everything. Anything that happens on those shores? Hells, Astarion couldn't care less about the details beyond wanting to hear them for whatever it is they are. Not exactly selflessness. Not altruism or fairness, either. Just....understanding, possibly. Just an open-mouthed desire to know more about the elf he's fallen for against all odds, who inspires the worst of his sorefooted jealousy (oh, Rialto) and the best of his ability to be patient. And open. And soft. And against all odds, sincere. (Love me, and I won't care about the rest.)
He's comfortably ready to hear a story about young love. Reckless attraction. Messy or flawed or perfect. Someone adored just as much as he is now.
He wasn't ready for this.
For the image of Leto shackled to a wall, painfully kept on bruising tenterhooks. Used like a cheap toy and put in his place in the way of any beaten dog within a pack: his muzzle grabbed and forced down to the floor no matter how he might shiver in abject submission— obedient because he has to be. Docile because it's all he was designed for, and a weapon passed into someone else's hands can't argue for how it's used.
And he can well imagine the sort of punishment there'd be if he'd protested. Refused. Dared to show his teeth or even glower at her most dehumanizing commands. Less about arousal than irrefutable control.
Oh, but he does know the type.
You belong to your master, you're his— what does that make me, if I then get to control you?
Dominus. Dominant, exult. She cut her teeth on him and yet simpered before Danarius, and somehow (though perhaps even that assumption is misplaced, his mind always seeing Cazador in the margins), Astarion suspects their master wasn't ever oblivious to that overstepped boldness.
But maybe he was.]
Vile wretch.
[With all the gracefulness of shed spit. His chest aching without the beat of his own heart. Oh, amatus.]
She might've envied you for your favor, yet I doubt that would've ever stopped until she'd sat herself squarely on top of Danarius' throne. [....to which, Leto would've been subject to yet more humiliation, for:] Clearly she couldn't stop nursing along desire's acrid taste despite herself. For him. For you.
Goes without saying death was too good an end for her— but if she had to meet it, better at the sharp end of your claws.
[A careful pause, curiosity leveled against the wretchedness of an answer. (Tryst, he'd said. And he can't stop thinking of it. Any of it.
Little wonder they have secrets hidden in their scars.)]
no subject
Over ten years in freedom, and plenty more since. There were bound to be dalliances. Experiments. Playful one-night-stands—
Maybe even something deeper (for he knows of Isabela and her feathering touch). It doesn't bother him; there's a certain amount of turmoil that comes from going from having your life dictated to you for decades at the root, to being expected to choose— everything. Anything that happens on those shores? Hells, Astarion couldn't care less about the details beyond wanting to hear them for whatever it is they are. Not exactly selflessness. Not altruism or fairness, either. Just....understanding, possibly. Just an open-mouthed desire to know more about the elf he's fallen for against all odds, who inspires the worst of his sorefooted jealousy (oh, Rialto) and the best of his ability to be patient. And open. And soft. And against all odds, sincere. (Love me, and I won't care about the rest.)
He's comfortably ready to hear a story about young love. Reckless attraction. Messy or flawed or perfect. Someone adored just as much as he is now.
He wasn't ready for this.
For the image of Leto shackled to a wall, painfully kept on bruising tenterhooks. Used like a cheap toy and put in his place in the way of any beaten dog within a pack: his muzzle grabbed and forced down to the floor no matter how he might shiver in abject submission— obedient because he has to be. Docile because it's all he was designed for, and a weapon passed into someone else's hands can't argue for how it's used.
And he can well imagine the sort of punishment there'd be if he'd protested. Refused. Dared to show his teeth or even glower at her most dehumanizing commands. Less about arousal than irrefutable control.
Oh, but he does know the type.
You belong to your master, you're his— what does that make me, if I then get to control you?
Dominus. Dominant, exult. She cut her teeth on him and yet simpered before Danarius, and somehow (though perhaps even that assumption is misplaced, his mind always seeing Cazador in the margins), Astarion suspects their master wasn't ever oblivious to that overstepped boldness.
But maybe he was.]
Vile wretch.
[With all the gracefulness of shed spit. His chest aching without the beat of his own heart. Oh, amatus.]
She might've envied you for your favor, yet I doubt that would've ever stopped until she'd sat herself squarely on top of Danarius' throne. [....to which, Leto would've been subject to yet more humiliation, for:] Clearly she couldn't stop nursing along desire's acrid taste despite herself. For him. For you.
Goes without saying death was too good an end for her— but if she had to meet it, better at the sharp end of your claws.
[A careful pause, curiosity leveled against the wretchedness of an answer. (Tryst, he'd said. And he can't stop thinking of it. Any of it.
Little wonder they have secrets hidden in their scars.)]
....was she the only one?