[He says it carefully after a few moments of thought. You're welcome sounds trite, and it's my pleasure is true, but equally sticky. It's nothing is a falsehood and a sour one, for it isn't nothing. Fenris knows the weight of what he offers. He can hear in the fragile tone Astarion's voice has taken. The sharp difference from the man of before, flirtatious and vivacious, oh darling that's not fair, oh, darling, what a difference.
He had spoken before to Astarion, Rifter. A man freed from his past, forcibly brought into a new world and hungry to delve into it. He likes that man, Fenris realizes, but that man is but one facet of the whole. Now, Fenris thinks, and drags the wet cloth against his shoulder, now he speaks to Astarion the slave. A creature just as messy as Fenris himself, personality and instincts not naturally developed, but cobbled and stitched together as best they could, stolen moments eked out despite their masters' best efforts.
He wonders, faintly, if Astarion knows what his favorite food is. If he knows what hobbies he enjoys, or what music best pleases his ear. Little things, basic things, and oh, it's easy to point to all the horrors of slavery, but it's the mundane things stolen away that overwhelm him after all these years.
Has he ever met anyone who understood that?
It doesn't take long to clean out the wound. They both of them might do well to bandage their wounds later, but nor will they be actively bleeding. With a little hum he draws the fabric back, setting it on the ledge, tugging at Astarion's shirt to cover him up once more.]
We could hunt slavers.
[He says it a bit more normally. An easy way to move past the emotion of the moment, for all that he feels as though his skin is electrified, buzzing with this realization.]
Fitting, for tonight. But if Kirkwall has not changed too much these past few years, there are always gangs stalking the streets. There's good coin to be made from killing them.
no subject
[He says it carefully after a few moments of thought. You're welcome sounds trite, and it's my pleasure is true, but equally sticky. It's nothing is a falsehood and a sour one, for it isn't nothing. Fenris knows the weight of what he offers. He can hear in the fragile tone Astarion's voice has taken. The sharp difference from the man of before, flirtatious and vivacious, oh darling that's not fair, oh, darling, what a difference.
He had spoken before to Astarion, Rifter. A man freed from his past, forcibly brought into a new world and hungry to delve into it. He likes that man, Fenris realizes, but that man is but one facet of the whole. Now, Fenris thinks, and drags the wet cloth against his shoulder, now he speaks to Astarion the slave. A creature just as messy as Fenris himself, personality and instincts not naturally developed, but cobbled and stitched together as best they could, stolen moments eked out despite their masters' best efforts.
He wonders, faintly, if Astarion knows what his favorite food is. If he knows what hobbies he enjoys, or what music best pleases his ear. Little things, basic things, and oh, it's easy to point to all the horrors of slavery, but it's the mundane things stolen away that overwhelm him after all these years.
Has he ever met anyone who understood that?
It doesn't take long to clean out the wound. They both of them might do well to bandage their wounds later, but nor will they be actively bleeding. With a little hum he draws the fabric back, setting it on the ledge, tugging at Astarion's shirt to cover him up once more.]
We could hunt slavers.
[He says it a bit more normally. An easy way to move past the emotion of the moment, for all that he feels as though his skin is electrified, buzzing with this realization.]
Fitting, for tonight. But if Kirkwall has not changed too much these past few years, there are always gangs stalking the streets. There's good coin to be made from killing them.