But anything else he could say dies on the tip of his tongue; he can't delight in stories about Isabela's hands or her laughter any more than he can picture it— which is telling enough on its own. Gratitude pales as a descriptor on Astarion's part, yet in the places where her silhouette should be, there's just a blurry, unfamiliar outline.
Hadriana's hatred has a face. Ridiculous that Isabela's love doesn't. It's easy to define someone you revile in a set of cold, colorless eyes, but the beauty of affection? Gods know, she might've been a vixen or a common, coarse-cut stone (her nose too big or too crooked, her smile awkward and her voice thin as a reed) and she'd still be limitlessly lovely for everything she gave a freshly fled runaway slave. Sunlight and warm spaces. A place without fear, even when skin brushes across skin.]
Rough waters.
[Those first few years, he means. Thick spit wedged in the back of his throat to cut the rest of his sentiment short. It's not his fault. Really, it's far, far from deliberate.
His chest still burns, you see. His lungs and his chest and the pit of his wretched stomach, all betraying him against his will.
He's still stuck on the first part.
On the collars and cuffs. The walls and Hadriana's blunted jeers. The agony of watching Leto's master dragging him around for sport (his hound. His Fenris.) and yet there's no rest within the margins, not with one more little game to be played underneath Danarius' nose time and time again. The most wondrous creature Astarion's ever known, treated like consumable refuse. Sitting on his heels, kept starving for anything, outlined ribs the rigid undercurrent measuring his loyalty. Starving presently at times, even with them both long laid to rest. Those nights when a warm bed won't suffice and a coffin leaves him seizing around the fringe edges of sleep.
It's not fair, you know.
He tried with all he had to be convincing (it's done, now, you got her, she's gone— good job. What a monster she was. What a nightmare. It's fine). Mere seconds later, Astarion stares down the thought that he's not as good a liar as he always thought he'd been.
How is it that levity feels farther than Danarius?]
no subject
But anything else he could say dies on the tip of his tongue; he can't delight in stories about Isabela's hands or her laughter any more than he can picture it— which is telling enough on its own. Gratitude pales as a descriptor on Astarion's part, yet in the places where her silhouette should be, there's just a blurry, unfamiliar outline.
Hadriana's hatred has a face. Ridiculous that Isabela's love doesn't. It's easy to define someone you revile in a set of cold, colorless eyes, but the beauty of affection? Gods know, she might've been a vixen or a common, coarse-cut stone (her nose too big or too crooked, her smile awkward and her voice thin as a reed) and she'd still be limitlessly lovely for everything she gave a freshly fled runaway slave. Sunlight and warm spaces. A place without fear, even when skin brushes across skin.]
Rough waters.
[Those first few years, he means. Thick spit wedged in the back of his throat to cut the rest of his sentiment short. It's not his fault. Really, it's far, far from deliberate.
His chest still burns, you see. His lungs and his chest and the pit of his wretched stomach, all betraying him against his will.
He's still stuck on the first part.
On the collars and cuffs. The walls and Hadriana's blunted jeers. The agony of watching Leto's master dragging him around for sport (his hound. His Fenris.) and yet there's no rest within the margins, not with one more little game to be played underneath Danarius' nose time and time again. The most wondrous creature Astarion's ever known, treated like consumable refuse. Sitting on his heels, kept starving for anything, outlined ribs the rigid undercurrent measuring his loyalty. Starving presently at times, even with them both long laid to rest. Those nights when a warm bed won't suffice and a coffin leaves him seizing around the fringe edges of sleep.
It's not fair, you know.
He tried with all he had to be convincing (it's done, now, you got her, she's gone— good job. What a monster she was. What a nightmare. It's fine). Mere seconds later, Astarion stares down the thought that he's not as good a liar as he always thought he'd been.
How is it that levity feels farther than Danarius?]