He never thought of it like that. Torment, perhaps, and blatant abuse, oh, yes. He has never thought fondly of it. But to frame it as torture adds a heavier connotation to it, sharper and more blatant than his own half-formed thoughts. Torture to take a captive thing and render him into little more than a toy; torture to gleefully watch his reactions, and it doesn't matter whether it was jealous or twisted desire that prompted it, for it was hellish all the same.
Torture, I was tortured, and he tries it on silently, knowing even as he does that it won't stick. Not right now. Later, but not now. And maybe some part of him knows that from the start, for his next thought is so much needier.
I wish you were here.
It springs to the forefront of his mind without warning, lonely and soft. I wish you were here, I wish I was home, curled up tightly together in their coffin as Leto whispers these things in the dark. It isn't more manageable there, not really— but it feels as though it is. As if they might leave Hadriana and Danarius and all their horrors there in the shadows, with searing daylight acting as deterrent for the ghosts of the past.
But he isn't. And he's not. And he is too old to say such things aloud, no matter that he's sure Astarion feels them too. The walls creep up regardless, claustrophobic and nauseating, and his knuckles go white as he grips that rock—
And then Astarion speaks again.]
Ten years.
[More or less. And it helps, you know, to have that prompt. Better a question than bleating shows of dismay or pity (and Astarion would never, but still).]
I suspect I was eighteen when I competed in that tournament. And it was ten years of that before the Qunari attacked. [Twenty-eight. And then:] A few years on the run, and then seven in Kirkwall. Three or four more before I returned . . .
[So he was nearly forty when he and Astarion met. Or maybe he was older, or younger— he'll never know, and he's long since tormenting himself over it. At least it matters less here, when soon enough he'll count his age with three digits instead of two.
Ah. But he's deflecting.]
Ten years of enslavement. Of that . . . of torture. I grew better at evading Hadriana's grasp, and returning her torments in such a way that she could not prove it was me.
[But it was so petty. So pathetic. So pointless. He'd get her to humiliate herself in front of a group of Danarius' friends— and then wait with nauseating dread for the next torment she'd enact.]
She stopped bedding me after the first few years. Her hatred had solidified by then, as time passed and Danarius refused to allow her to graduate. But it was always a risk.
no subject
He never thought of it like that. Torment, perhaps, and blatant abuse, oh, yes. He has never thought fondly of it. But to frame it as torture adds a heavier connotation to it, sharper and more blatant than his own half-formed thoughts. Torture to take a captive thing and render him into little more than a toy; torture to gleefully watch his reactions, and it doesn't matter whether it was jealous or twisted desire that prompted it, for it was hellish all the same.
Torture, I was tortured, and he tries it on silently, knowing even as he does that it won't stick. Not right now. Later, but not now. And maybe some part of him knows that from the start, for his next thought is so much needier.
I wish you were here.
It springs to the forefront of his mind without warning, lonely and soft. I wish you were here, I wish I was home, curled up tightly together in their coffin as Leto whispers these things in the dark. It isn't more manageable there, not really— but it feels as though it is. As if they might leave Hadriana and Danarius and all their horrors there in the shadows, with searing daylight acting as deterrent for the ghosts of the past.
But he isn't. And he's not. And he is too old to say such things aloud, no matter that he's sure Astarion feels them too. The walls creep up regardless, claustrophobic and nauseating, and his knuckles go white as he grips that rock—
And then Astarion speaks again.]
Ten years.
[More or less. And it helps, you know, to have that prompt. Better a question than bleating shows of dismay or pity (and Astarion would never, but still).]
I suspect I was eighteen when I competed in that tournament. And it was ten years of that before the Qunari attacked. [Twenty-eight. And then:] A few years on the run, and then seven in Kirkwall. Three or four more before I returned . . .
[So he was nearly forty when he and Astarion met. Or maybe he was older, or younger— he'll never know, and he's long since tormenting himself over it. At least it matters less here, when soon enough he'll count his age with three digits instead of two.
Ah. But he's deflecting.]
Ten years of enslavement. Of that . . . of torture. I grew better at evading Hadriana's grasp, and returning her torments in such a way that she could not prove it was me.
[But it was so petty. So pathetic. So pointless. He'd get her to humiliate herself in front of a group of Danarius' friends— and then wait with nauseating dread for the next torment she'd enact.]
She stopped bedding me after the first few years. Her hatred had solidified by then, as time passed and Danarius refused to allow her to graduate. But it was always a risk.