[It’s teasing, but...maybe not quite. Or not entirely. Or it doesn’t feel like some purely offhanded quip without gravity or weight. The smile he wears is distracted now. Almost lost beneath the focus of his work.]
Oh yes. Fearsome thing that you are, wincing over a little wine. [Said with yet another weighty dab along the edge of blotted crimson where it offsets skin framed by lines of vivid blue.
Joking, when he can well imagine the sort of power Fenris' former master had hoped to hold sole control over. How thrilling that must have been for a creature so wretched, so familiar as one undoubtedly cut from Cazador's own figurative cloth.
He can easily picture in his mind just how a man like that would treat its muzzled hound.]
But...I suppose you’re probably right. Cazador had no lack of puppets to do his bidding, after all, so our roles were distinct. Suited to his tastes, I suppose.
Or perhaps he just knew I did better on my back than on my heels.
[Bleak talk, but Astarion wears it as though talking about nothing more than the weather itself.]
Either way, I imagine there’s something to be said for all the brief little flickers of agency I’d been granted over the years.
Some of his pets never even had that, in all honesty.
[But the blood is clotted now, mostly. The skin around it cleaned.
He’s satisfied with his work, and so, fitting his fingertips across Fenris’ own, lightly presses that hold (and the shirt itself by proxy) back down into place.]
There. Good as new.
[...aside from the myriad other cuts that is, but who’s really counting.]
no subject
I had you there to help me.
[It’s teasing, but...maybe not quite. Or not entirely. Or it doesn’t feel like some purely offhanded quip without gravity or weight. The smile he wears is distracted now. Almost lost beneath the focus of his work.]
Oh yes. Fearsome thing that you are, wincing over a little wine. [Said with yet another weighty dab along the edge of blotted crimson where it offsets skin framed by lines of vivid blue.
Joking, when he can well imagine the sort of power Fenris' former master had hoped to hold sole control over. How thrilling that must have been for a creature so wretched, so familiar as one undoubtedly cut from Cazador's own figurative cloth.
He can easily picture in his mind just how a man like that would treat its muzzled hound.]
But...I suppose you’re probably right. Cazador had no lack of puppets to do his bidding, after all, so our roles were distinct. Suited to his tastes, I suppose.
Or perhaps he just knew I did better on my back than on my heels.
[Bleak talk, but Astarion wears it as though talking about nothing more than the weather itself.]
Either way, I imagine there’s something to be said for all the brief little flickers of agency I’d been granted over the years.
Some of his pets never even had that, in all honesty.
[But the blood is clotted now, mostly. The skin around it cleaned.
He’s satisfied with his work, and so, fitting his fingertips across Fenris’ own, lightly presses that hold (and the shirt itself by proxy) back down into place.]
There. Good as new.
[...aside from the myriad other cuts that is, but who’s really counting.]