That's all he hears, though there's endless more within the margins. And no, it's never been a competition (how could it be? Astarion feels the muscle and marrow beneath his skin sting with phantom slights from memories he's never had, only heard transcribed); the captive sound of Leto muttering softly that two hundred years is worse— unfathomably worse (and true, it is always remarkable to survive what seems impossible, noting it as just another horror surpassed now that the worst of it is done: 'heading out to the store this afternoon'; I was flayed alive so many times I've lost count. 'Come to bed, it's too damned cold'; I spent ages shut away like unwanted silver for daring to smile at the wrong time)— still lodged firmly in his mind. Refusing to go away no matter how he tries or what he urges.
But that isn't how it works.
Just as it was before: there's nothing to compare.
Astarion's gut won't settle in its agonized thrashing just because he swallows down a number cut from two digits rather than three. It knows as well as he does what ten years for a whelp with no memories and no freedom had to look like— fretting in a cage cut from heavy collars, merciless punishments, and the counterbalance of honeyed words and slower touches meant to make even hell seem bearable when he swears he can't take more. You lose track of time, like that. You lose track of yourself, too. Ten years of agony is more than half a waking lifetime given the age Leto guessed at. More, with so many memories stolen, no— strewth, no: there's nothing to compare except that they had lives of their own, once. Ripped from them like so much else.
Reduce it all, and pain is pain.
And everything else is just a drop against its leverage.]
I stand corrected. [About a lot of things— but about her most of all.]
You got your fangs into her long before she took her last. [He's proud of that one note. Cold breath slipping light across his lips underneath each ceding exhale, one conversational foot figuratively planted before the next. Small as a sliver of glass, it cuts its way throughout his tone regardless— even if it'd be easier to show that sense of predatory praise through a bumping push of his nose against a narrow jaw or risen cheekbone. Through the slide of his claws in moonlit hair, swearing that he's safe. And that he did well.
(Truth be told, Astarion wishes he was there.
In daylight, that is. Nestled just at Leto's side. Two months into elevated change and his sharper teeth still feel so wrong against each other, and the emptiness of his coffin's starting to feel like imprisonment all over again— or maybe that's just the fault of current conversation.
Blood is intoxicating. Power: exhilarating.
He needs both to survive. To keep them safe where all else could so easily fail and take them right back to said years of bloodsoaked pleas drooled out over folded knees. But sometimes underneath all that secured glory, he feels so much less himself. The weaknesses. The drawbacks. The endless, unslaked urges blotting out the edges of his mien. Call him weak (he'd be the first in line to lever it against himself), but he misses sunlight at his lover's side. He misses grabbing hold of vulnerable flesh without forcing an eternity's worth of delicacy into his own touch, roughly imitating trying to grasp ancient parchment without puncture. That as the weeks roll on, more and more and more he misses—
Ah.
Well.
That's not the conversation, is it?)
Funny how everything compounds when so much scar tissue bears down.]
I won't say that I'm glad it was only your master's touch that you had to endure right to the end, but....
[His lips thin; it comes across as the smallest sigh.]
no subject
That's all he hears, though there's endless more within the margins. And no, it's never been a competition (how could it be? Astarion feels the muscle and marrow beneath his skin sting with phantom slights from memories he's never had, only heard transcribed); the captive sound of Leto muttering softly that two hundred years is worse— unfathomably worse (and true, it is always remarkable to survive what seems impossible, noting it as just another horror surpassed now that the worst of it is done: 'heading out to the store this afternoon'; I was flayed alive so many times I've lost count. 'Come to bed, it's too damned cold'; I spent ages shut away like unwanted silver for daring to smile at the wrong time)— still lodged firmly in his mind. Refusing to go away no matter how he tries or what he urges.
But that isn't how it works.
Just as it was before: there's nothing to compare.
Astarion's gut won't settle in its agonized thrashing just because he swallows down a number cut from two digits rather than three. It knows as well as he does what ten years for a whelp with no memories and no freedom had to look like— fretting in a cage cut from heavy collars, merciless punishments, and the counterbalance of honeyed words and slower touches meant to make even hell seem bearable when he swears he can't take more. You lose track of time, like that. You lose track of yourself, too. Ten years of agony is more than half a waking lifetime given the age Leto guessed at. More, with so many memories stolen, no— strewth, no: there's nothing to compare except that they had lives of their own, once. Ripped from them like so much else.
Reduce it all, and pain is pain.
And everything else is just a drop against its leverage.]
I stand corrected. [About a lot of things— but about her most of all.]
You got your fangs into her long before she took her last. [He's proud of that one note. Cold breath slipping light across his lips underneath each ceding exhale, one conversational foot figuratively planted before the next. Small as a sliver of glass, it cuts its way throughout his tone regardless— even if it'd be easier to show that sense of predatory praise through a bumping push of his nose against a narrow jaw or risen cheekbone. Through the slide of his claws in moonlit hair, swearing that he's safe. And that he did well.
(Truth be told, Astarion wishes he was there.
In daylight, that is. Nestled just at Leto's side. Two months into elevated change and his sharper teeth still feel so wrong against each other, and the emptiness of his coffin's starting to feel like imprisonment all over again— or maybe that's just the fault of current conversation.
Blood is intoxicating. Power: exhilarating.
He needs both to survive. To keep them safe where all else could so easily fail and take them right back to said years of bloodsoaked pleas drooled out over folded knees. But sometimes underneath all that secured glory, he feels so much less himself. The weaknesses. The drawbacks. The endless, unslaked urges blotting out the edges of his mien. Call him weak (he'd be the first in line to lever it against himself), but he misses sunlight at his lover's side. He misses grabbing hold of vulnerable flesh without forcing an eternity's worth of delicacy into his own touch, roughly imitating trying to grasp ancient parchment without puncture. That as the weeks roll on, more and more and more he misses—
Ah.
Well.
That's not the conversation, is it?)
Funny how everything compounds when so much scar tissue bears down.]
I won't say that I'm glad it was only your master's touch that you had to endure right to the end, but....
[His lips thin; it comes across as the smallest sigh.]
I know what a difference it makes.