[Vanilla or herbs, and Fenris wonders where the scents came from. If Astarion had cooked, perhaps, or had a beloved who indulged in sweets. Was there someone in the home? A spouse? Children? It does not matter, and yet then again it does, for it would not ache even now if it didn't.
He memorizes the scents. Vanilla and herbs, that particularly sharp scent when wood grows hot . . . he commits them to memory, for no other reason than they're precious details. Meaningless, in a way, and yet all the more vital for their lack of context. He stores them in that special place deep in his mind where he puts all his other memories, the faintest of details that he struggles to recall.
(He'll write them down later, too. If nothing else, he has learned very well that memory counts for little. He wrote down his own recollections, too. Literacy is a tool he is not wholly comfortable with just yet, but it has its uses).
But ah . . . Varania, and he pauses for a few moments.]
She sold me out.
[The words come woodenly, steadily: a statement of fact, not a bid for pity, just as Astarion's confessions have been.]
I came by these marks voluntarily.
[A bitter truth, but one he has grown used to by now. Still: it is remarkable how easily this story flows. It wouldn't with others, but . . . right now, all the walls have fallen. There are no secrets between them, not when it comes to their enslavement.]
Danarius had his favorite slaves vie for him. I do not remember the contest, but . . . I am told it was a violent thing, and for the unique prize of a boon. Anything the winner desired, so long as it was within Danarius' power to grant. Permission for marriage, or wealth beyond measure . . . or freedom for one's family.
But freedom did not suit Varania, apparently.
Years passed. I did not even know of her existence until she wrote me letters. She spoke of our mother, our time together, and after years of trying to determine if it was a trap, I sent her money to come to Kirkwall.
[Stupid, stupid . . . Fenris tips his head back, knocking his skull lightly against the wall, his throat bared.]
She is a mage. And in exchange for luring me out into the open, Danarius had offered her an apprenticeship.
[He can still remember her face, that sorrowful defiance as she'd spat out that last torturous revelation. You competed for them, when he had spent years raging against Danarius for what he had thought was involuntary mutilation.
He smiles, and it's as thin as Astarion's had been.]
I suppose I disrupted her plans by murdering him. But she should count herself lucky I left her alive.
[Only because Hawke had protested. Only because Varric had spoken of how painful it would be to lose a sibling. He really does not know if he regrets it or not.]
no subject
He memorizes the scents. Vanilla and herbs, that particularly sharp scent when wood grows hot . . . he commits them to memory, for no other reason than they're precious details. Meaningless, in a way, and yet all the more vital for their lack of context. He stores them in that special place deep in his mind where he puts all his other memories, the faintest of details that he struggles to recall.
(He'll write them down later, too. If nothing else, he has learned very well that memory counts for little. He wrote down his own recollections, too. Literacy is a tool he is not wholly comfortable with just yet, but it has its uses).
But ah . . . Varania, and he pauses for a few moments.]
She sold me out.
[The words come woodenly, steadily: a statement of fact, not a bid for pity, just as Astarion's confessions have been.]
I came by these marks voluntarily.
[A bitter truth, but one he has grown used to by now. Still: it is remarkable how easily this story flows. It wouldn't with others, but . . . right now, all the walls have fallen. There are no secrets between them, not when it comes to their enslavement.]
Danarius had his favorite slaves vie for him. I do not remember the contest, but . . . I am told it was a violent thing, and for the unique prize of a boon. Anything the winner desired, so long as it was within Danarius' power to grant. Permission for marriage, or wealth beyond measure . . . or freedom for one's family.
But freedom did not suit Varania, apparently.
Years passed. I did not even know of her existence until she wrote me letters. She spoke of our mother, our time together, and after years of trying to determine if it was a trap, I sent her money to come to Kirkwall.
[Stupid, stupid . . . Fenris tips his head back, knocking his skull lightly against the wall, his throat bared.]
She is a mage. And in exchange for luring me out into the open, Danarius had offered her an apprenticeship.
[He can still remember her face, that sorrowful defiance as she'd spat out that last torturous revelation. You competed for them, when he had spent years raging against Danarius for what he had thought was involuntary mutilation.
He smiles, and it's as thin as Astarion's had been.]
I suppose I disrupted her plans by murdering him. But she should count herself lucky I left her alive.
[Only because Hawke had protested. Only because Varric had spoken of how painful it would be to lose a sibling. He really does not know if he regrets it or not.]