[Oh, he's teasing. It's easier to jest than to admit to the quiet, fierce adoration that had just washed over him. Not a shock, not really, not when Astarion has proven his loyalty time and again— but a suffusing of love, then. A reminder that he need not beg, borrow, or steal for Astarion to aid him; he need only say the word.
How strange, for a man who is so used to doing everything alone.]
Thank you.
[A beat, and then he underlines it.]
Truthfully, I do not know where to begin. She may be within Tevinter; she may have fled. We wrote to one another for months before her betrayal, and I do not believe all of it was a lie. She is not stupid. Indeed: she is terribly practical.
[And what is love or familial loyalty to the potential for growth? Ruthlessly clever, and yet again not clever enough to see that Danarius would have made her apprentice only to use and abuse her.]
She may be dead. And my memory loss may have nothing to do with her.
[A long pause, and then, carefully:]
And if it does not, I do not want to kill her.
[He says it so that they both know. So that if he feels his rage rise and his lyrium howls in his veins, he will balk at least for a moment, knowing that he had told Astarion differently.]
no subject
[Oh, he's teasing. It's easier to jest than to admit to the quiet, fierce adoration that had just washed over him. Not a shock, not really, not when Astarion has proven his loyalty time and again— but a suffusing of love, then. A reminder that he need not beg, borrow, or steal for Astarion to aid him; he need only say the word.
How strange, for a man who is so used to doing everything alone.]
Thank you.
[A beat, and then he underlines it.]
Truthfully, I do not know where to begin. She may be within Tevinter; she may have fled. We wrote to one another for months before her betrayal, and I do not believe all of it was a lie. She is not stupid. Indeed: she is terribly practical.
[And what is love or familial loyalty to the potential for growth? Ruthlessly clever, and yet again not clever enough to see that Danarius would have made her apprentice only to use and abuse her.]
She may be dead. And my memory loss may have nothing to do with her.
[A long pause, and then, carefully:]
And if it does not, I do not want to kill her.
[He says it so that they both know. So that if he feels his rage rise and his lyrium howls in his veins, he will balk at least for a moment, knowing that he had told Astarion differently.]