For you, I would ensure it was as pretty as you wished— made of steel, naturally, so you couldn't bite your way through it, but adorned with all the diamonds you wish. Tevinter is nothing if not hedonistic, and I suspect I could spoil you far better in such a position of corruptible power. Just so long as it was adorned with my personal seal, so there would not be a person alive who did not know you belonged only to me— and that I would bring all the wrath at my fingertips down upon them if they dared think of touching you.
[There's a thoughtful little pause as he contemplates the vast world of religious-themed kink, and then adds in a swift scrawl:]
I could mount you across an altar, too. Sebastian once told me he used to fantasize about that before he grew devout, and I can understand the appeal. Though I would not actually try it, I think. Not in Thedas, where I doubt the Maker approves of such things, and certainly not here, where the gods are endlessly roaming about, apparently.
[But then:]
The same question at you, though. Would you rather lead the devout or Corypheus' armies? And to what end?
Or if you prefer a new question: a week spent having to spend significant quantities of time with my pack of friends— and acting as a friend, not simply pouting the entire time— or a month working at that sex shop, having to endure every pitiful noble's timid questions and packs of giggling teenage heiresses that try unsuccessfully with you?
[It takes a long while for him to write back after that. Don't ask why.]
Corypheus.
Heresy flatters me in a way that religion— even the ruling aspects of it— never could. I've seen too much divinity in my time: I'd rather become god than ply another one's script.
Besides, all that means is that when I inevitably storm your tower, I'll push you on your back across that altar to complete my ursurpation, and rut you until you're a pliant, well-behaved, whimpering mess.
One with a new god to serve, I think.
[An elf can (wet) dream, after all.]
Sex shop. Your rowdy packmates know more than enough about me as it stands, whereas deftly skirting the affections of a fleet of lovedrunk nobles is just another day ending in [err, well:] -day.
[No, really, look up the days of the week in DnD. Ridiculous.]
[Oh, there's no pause on Leto's end: begins writing the moment those flirtatious words appear. Perhaps he'd otherwise be content to merely shiver in private and bring up the scenario later so they could indulge it properly— but one with a new god to serve, I think, is simply too hot to ignore.]
God you might be, Astarion, but you know how stubborn I am. I suspect you'd have to mount me again and again, splayed on that altar or pinned over it, until I began to contemplate worshiping you.
Or seduce me. Me me ravenous for your touch, your voice, your tongue, your cock— until I forgot anything save you. Devout and addled enough to sit in your lap and impale myself atop your cock for hours on end just for the chance that you might deign to lay a hand on
[Scrawls the vampire that was just effectively palming at himself only minutes prior to this moment, warring with himself to keep from abandoning his efforts to write— which would consequently be abandoning his mate along with it (hence: not making that particular decision).]
I am already married no matter what hypothetical you propose, as you so vehemently demonstrated before. And there is nothing I would rather do less than fuck someone who isn't you.
[Give him a moment, please, he's melting. In fact he's currently wrestling with a pang of— what is it, guilt? Remorse? He isn't certain what to call it, but whatever it is, it's there inside his chest.
Consequence of playing roughly with the love of his unlife, he supposes.]
proposition: Permission to change my third option to my Tevene Merchant contact for my missions from Rift Watch?
If there was anyone in Thedas that I loathed beyond Corypheus' brood or those who spoke poorly to you, it was that utterly miserable wretch.
That depends entirely on which category you intend to place him.
[He lets that sit there for a time, but it feels . . . wrong. Not false, not really, but it isn't long before he adds:]
You have never told me why. Trust that I can well imagine why any Tevene contact would be vile and worthy of death, but I would hear more, if you wished to tell me.
[Somewhere Astarion is making a faint noise of gentle, (warm) amusement.]
Above the table, he was your typical highly influential merchant with a weakness for elves. Unbelievably selective about who he'd choose to mingle with at even the finest of soirées.
Behind closed doors, ah, now that was when you'd see the worst of his proclivities. The temper, the resentment, the cruelty.
[A beat— ]
You know. He always did remind me just a bit of Cazador, come to think of it.
A foul and yet typical Tevinter citizen, then. Gain the slightest bit of power and relish crushing those you can beneath your heel just to feel some form of control.
Reminded you of Cazador in his whim for enacted sadism? Or in that he liked to play games?
me looking up the old mission details after 3 years, my god
Truly? Are they all so starved for power? Or ambition?
[Contrarianism isn't his goal in picking at that point— only curiosity.]
Cazador could only dream of being so efficient as Abram Vanda had been. I'm not certain pleasure had a thing to do with his sadistic streak.
Understand as the favored slave of an oh-so-famed Altus it was never turned on me, but what I'd witnessed whilst entertaining? It'd be right at home in the palace I once called home, I can tell you that, my love.
[Abram Vanda, and ink goes thicker around the lines of those two words, Leto's pen heavy as he traces them.]
I will not pretend not to be relieved to hear that. I care little for the wellbeing of what slaves he holds, so long as it was not turned on you.
But I have a better idea of what you mean. And if ever we return to Thedas, I would not say no to the two of us paying him a visit, if you were so inclined. His name is not unknown to me, though I knew nothing of him beyond hearing him listed among the likely buyers of incoming slaves. I suppose that answers why.
[Astarion is slow again. Pen to paper. Pen off paper— touched, and yet incapable of showing it given the medium itself. Wanting to regardless, and yet not foolish enough to go interrupting the whole of their communication just to call or go rushing home as done in the past.
He loves him.
That's enough.]
Not forced, per se. [Though much like any choice along those lines, perhaps free will is....] I was good at playing the part, and I enjoyed the idea of
[what]
usefulness, I suppose? I was a stupidly naive thing back then.
[Another way to prove his worth in a world where he had nothing. No one.]
But my fangs and eyes were boon enough, I suspect. Aside from the connections to my Altus, simply loitering nearby seemed to make for a pleasant show of prestige. Nothing like Rialto. Yet I saw him often, and of course made a habit of fawning over his every business venture, mostly to note what product he was moving and when. Occasionally attempting to convince him to show favor to certain political parties, whilst keeping Venatori aligned agents at bay.
I won't say I was always successful, but courting thorns to keep them from Corypheus' rot no doubt had its impact on the war at large.
Costing only the lives and sanity of those he tortured and sold off at leisure, naturally. Nothing of value lost.
[He wonders how that's going. Probably not well, given the infighting. The mismanagement. The state of Thedas as a whole.
[Is it awful that Leto (Fenris) feels relief? He scans those words again and again and feels himself exhale in the worst way as there is no mention of beds or desks, groping hands and sour breath. Awful because he knows the kinds of horrors that Astarion is implying; awful because he can remember (in another world, in another lifetime) watching with dull-eyed neutrality as some unlucky slave was chosen to have their limbs severed or their hides whipped open, blood thick in the air for no other reason than sport.
But it wasn't Astarion.
And Leto has never deluded himself that he is a hero. He takes on noble ventures, yes, and the world is a little better off than it would be had he not acted, he knows this. But when the chips are down, he cares about those who care about him— and there is nothing and no one he loves more than his Astarion.]
I would not call it naivety.
[It's quiet, insofar as writing can be. An observation, for he will not make the mistake (though his heart longs to) of soothing every single one of Astarion's fears and insecurities.]
Another reason for us to visit him, then, if ever we return.
Is it guilt you feel, even now? Or bitterness that you could not help, even in freedom?
[Or neither, or both . . . but Leto knows both those feelings very well. And sometimes, even here, he is the elder when it comes to certain experiences.]
Would you think less of me if I said neither? [Asked when he knows the answer already, but in all things, sometimes it isn't so much about what's spoken as much as it is the conversational path they tread. The idea of broaching nightmares through flitting snippets of words exchanged through wine-soaked breath across a table or jotted down on paper— or said nothing of at all, in those moments when their fingers wind together or their knuckles faintly tap.
Only one of those is an option right now, and so that posed question is Astarion's way of deflecting the brunt of a heavy thing, coursing it away from vulnerable measures.
And a heart that knows better now than it did then.]
[They both know the answer, but Leto writes it anyway, for it's important. Important to answer the question so no fear can form; important because sometimes things need to be said more than once, not because there is any doubt— but because Astarion deserves to hear it.]
No less than you might think of me for being relieved just now, for I care so much less about what fates those unlucky wretches suffered so long as it was not turned upon you.
If I thought anything at all, [his words coming more slowly now, thought given to each one,] it would be only that you have grown since last we broached this kind of conversation— and that you could see the truth of the matter instead of the lies we have been fed all our life.
Their fates do not rest on your shoulders. Their pain is not your fault. And recognizing the cruelty and sadism that he terrified his slaves with does not make it your sin to bear.
And it does not make you a bad person to feel that way.
I simply, [a pause,] I would not see you start down the path of championing every wretched soul's plight as your own, for I have seen how that ends.
[And that's his own fears, he knows. Astarion has never been a noble martyr, and gods, he is so far from Anders that it's night and day. But still, the scars linger and ache— and just as Astarion asked that question while knowing the answer, so too does Leto say that, knowing full well the truth of the matter.]
It was, from the very beginning, a ghost. Visible and hunting every barefooted step forwards. Every footfall.]
You're in no danger of that. [Astarion pens for the same reason that No had been the leading line in Leto's own response, well ahead of everything else. Old fears never die, after all. They only shrink back and recede, packing themselves into unlit corners for about as long as it takes to be forgotten for a time, hibernating throughout every glancing mention. But when their name is called— well— the image of something feeble and thoroughly conquered proves itself nothing but a joke in the end.]
I risked my neck freeing a pack of them once. Slaves from your world. Guiding them away from an occupied city in Orlais, taken over by Tevinter. When the dust settled, I was their sole contact. They looked to me to be the one to draw them to more work or
I don't know. Another master, maybe? They had nothing. No one. It gnawed at me.
I wanted justice.
When morning came and the dust settled, I contacted one of Riftwatch's agents in the Free Marches, and washed my hands of the whole thing. [If he turns his own thoughts briefly to Shirallas, or the idea of closeness and consequence therein defined, he writes nothing of it.]
I've grown softer than I was. I tempt myself from time to time with thoughts of heroism for coin, or for the sport of following in your stride because I love the creature that you are, no matter how absurd those principles might seem to me in those seconds when I coil from the light.
But rest assured, my darling, I am selfish.
I will never care so much about the world to destroy everything in its name.
[What a strange thing: that he is glad both of the assurance of selfishness and that reminder of his lover's soft streak. Not Anders' fanaticism, a determination to break the world for the sake of his beliefs, but something smaller. Gentler. Something arguably more impactful: I contacted one of Riftwatch's agents, Astarion says, and that is worlds away from I fled in the middle of the night, leaving them alone and helpless.
Still: he is more relieved by that assurance. I am selfish, and here and now, it's as sweet a declaration as I love you.]
Just yours, always.
[An echo and an assurance both. And then, just beneath that:]
Thank you.
[For saying it. For assuring him. For promising that there is no revelation to come; for swearing that he will not destroy the family they have made for the sake of something larger. For being who he is, dark and light both— and so to that end:]
I love you— I like you— as you are. Softened and yet selfish. Sweet, in your own way, but not overly sentimental, nor a bleeding heart. Dabbling in light without being blinded by it.
And when our business is done in Baldur's Gate, I would gladly set out at your side for coin and heroism both, freeing slaves or rescuing kidnapped souls. I would like that a great deal, I think. Heroism suits you. You certainly wear it well.
[But though a part of Leto wants to linger, to what end? It will do neither of them good to grow too mired in the past, for it's never easy when they're apart, and thinking too much will only make it worse. So though he lets those words sit there for a small time, he soon adds:]
Though I cannot count decisiveness among your many virtues. All this, and you have yet to tell me your answer.
[For that hypothetical, he means. His words gentle, not boisterous; it's a transition, and he is clumsy at those, but he's trying.]
But I will allow you changing your answer to Abarm. And I will let you pick "kill" for all three, if you so wish— so long as you are inventive in how you would accomplish it.
[It isn't heard, but he laughs, then. Strong and clear, and in his own voice, no less.]
Oh please, I'm no coward.
Fuck Abarm for the obvious reasons. [No thank you to fucking either of their masters, thank you very much.] Kill Cazador, marry Danarius because the man is far, far from immortal and once his body lies yet again in tatters across the floor of a tavern owing to the violent efforts of a once-crossed bodyguard, I'll find myself free yet again.
Swooning in the arms of said bodyguard being an optional component.
On the contrary: it isn't optional in the least. And though I relish the thought of rescuing you, I will not deny part of me is sorely disappointed not to be able to watch you rip the throat out of Danarius.
Though seeing you do it to Cazador will more than make up for it, I think.
[Happy thoughts, and he lingers there for a few moments, relishing the imagined gore. But hmm . . . he does rather like this game of back and forth, but while he tries to come up with a good hypothetical . . .]
Tell me: do you have any artistic merit? Was that part of your upbringing too?
[Like, this isn't the most dignified challenge he's ever come up with, but also: after a certain point you stop caring about dignity when it comes to your beloved.]
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[There's a thoughtful little pause as he contemplates the vast world of religious-themed kink, and then adds in a swift scrawl:]
I could mount you across an altar, too. Sebastian once told me he used to fantasize about that before he grew devout, and I can understand the appeal. Though I would not actually try it, I think. Not in Thedas, where I doubt the Maker approves of such things, and certainly not here, where the gods are endlessly roaming about, apparently.
[But then:]
The same question at you, though. Would you rather lead the devout or Corypheus' armies? And to what end?
Or if you prefer a new question: a week spent having to spend significant quantities of time with my pack of friends— and acting as a friend, not simply pouting the entire time— or a month working at that sex shop, having to endure every pitiful noble's timid questions and packs of giggling teenage heiresses that try unsuccessfully with you?
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[It takes a long while for him to write back after that. Don't ask why.]
Corypheus.
Heresy flatters me in a way that religion— even the ruling aspects of it— never could. I've seen too much divinity in my time: I'd rather become god than ply another one's script.
Besides, all that means is that when I inevitably storm your tower, I'll push you on your back across that altar to complete my ursurpation, and rut you until you're a pliant, well-behaved, whimpering mess.
One with a new god to serve, I think.
[An elf can (wet) dream, after all.]
Sex shop. Your rowdy packmates know more than enough about me as it stands, whereas deftly skirting the affections of a fleet of lovedrunk nobles is just another day ending in [err, well:] -day.
[No, really, look up the days of the week in DnD. Ridiculous.]
Fuck, marry, kill: Danarius, Cazador, Meredith.
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God you might be, Astarion, but you know how stubborn I am. I suspect you'd have to mount me again and again, splayed on that altar or pinned over it, until I began to contemplate worshiping you.
Or seduce me. Me me ravenous for your touch, your voice, your tongue, your cock— until I forgot anything save you. Devout and addled enough to sit in your lap and impale myself atop your cock for hours on end just for the chance that you might deign to lay a hand on
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Bah.
[He says that out loud too.]
Kill all. Cazador, Danarius, Meredith. In that order.
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[Scrawls the vampire that was just effectively palming at himself only minutes prior to this moment, warring with himself to keep from abandoning his efforts to write— which would consequently be abandoning his mate along with it (hence: not making that particular decision).]
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kill cazador - i need not explain that
fuck danarius, as i have done it before and can endure it again
marry meredith and kill her before her insanity kills me
and then kill danarius
the same question. cazador, danarius, and one of the ones we despised from riftwatch - take your pick.
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Consequence of playing roughly with the love of his unlife, he supposes.]
proposition: Permission to change my third option to my Tevene Merchant contact for my missions from Rift Watch?
If there was anyone in Thedas that I loathed beyond Corypheus' brood or those who spoke poorly to you, it was that utterly miserable wretch.
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[He lets that sit there for a time, but it feels . . . wrong. Not false, not really, but it isn't long before he adds:]
You have never told me why. Trust that I can well imagine why any Tevene contact would be vile and worthy of death, but I would hear more, if you wished to tell me.
I don't know much about that time in your life.
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Above the table, he was your typical highly influential merchant with a weakness for elves. Unbelievably selective about who he'd choose to mingle with at even the finest of soirées.
Behind closed doors, ah, now that was when you'd see the worst of his proclivities. The temper, the resentment, the cruelty.
[A beat— ]
You know. He always did remind me just a bit of Cazador, come to think of it.
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Reminded you of Cazador in his whim for enacted sadism? Or in that he liked to play games?
me looking up the old mission details after 3 years, my god
[Contrarianism isn't his goal in picking at that point— only curiosity.]
Cazador could only dream of being so efficient as Abram Vanda had been. I'm not certain pleasure had a thing to do with his sadistic streak.
Understand as the favored slave of an oh-so-famed Altus it was never turned on me, but what I'd witnessed whilst entertaining? It'd be right at home in the palace I once called home, I can tell you that, my love.
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I will not pretend not to be relieved to hear that. I care little for the wellbeing of what slaves he holds, so long as it was not turned on you.
But I have a better idea of what you mean. And if ever we return to Thedas, I would not say no to the two of us paying him a visit, if you were so inclined. His name is not unknown to me, though I knew nothing of him beyond hearing him listed among the likely buyers of incoming slaves. I suppose that answers why.
What kind of entertaining were you forced to do?
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He loves him.
That's enough.]
Not forced, per se. [Though much like any choice along those lines, perhaps free will is....] I was good at playing the part, and I enjoyed the idea of
[what]
usefulness, I suppose? I was a stupidly naive thing back then.
[Another way to prove his worth in a world where he had nothing. No one.]
But my fangs and eyes were boon enough, I suspect. Aside from the connections to my Altus, simply loitering nearby seemed to make for a pleasant show of prestige. Nothing like Rialto. Yet I saw him often, and of course made a habit of fawning over his every business venture, mostly to note what product he was moving and when. Occasionally attempting to convince him to show favor to certain political parties, whilst keeping Venatori aligned agents at bay.
I won't say I was always successful, but courting thorns to keep them from Corypheus' rot no doubt had its impact on the war at large.
Costing only the lives and sanity of those he tortured and sold off at leisure, naturally. Nothing of value lost.
[He wonders how that's going. Probably not well, given the infighting. The mismanagement. The state of Thedas as a whole.
But really, who can say?]
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But it wasn't Astarion.
And Leto has never deluded himself that he is a hero. He takes on noble ventures, yes, and the world is a little better off than it would be had he not acted, he knows this. But when the chips are down, he cares about those who care about him— and there is nothing and no one he loves more than his Astarion.]
I would not call it naivety.
[It's quiet, insofar as writing can be. An observation, for he will not make the mistake (though his heart longs to) of soothing every single one of Astarion's fears and insecurities.]
Another reason for us to visit him, then, if ever we return.
Is it guilt you feel, even now? Or bitterness that you could not help, even in freedom?
[Or neither, or both . . . but Leto knows both those feelings very well. And sometimes, even here, he is the elder when it comes to certain experiences.]
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Only one of those is an option right now, and so that posed question is Astarion's way of deflecting the brunt of a heavy thing, coursing it away from vulnerable measures.
And a heart that knows better now than it did then.]
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[They both know the answer, but Leto writes it anyway, for it's important. Important to answer the question so no fear can form; important because sometimes things need to be said more than once, not because there is any doubt— but because Astarion deserves to hear it.]
No less than you might think of me for being relieved just now, for I care so much less about what fates those unlucky wretches suffered so long as it was not turned upon you.
If I thought anything at all, [his words coming more slowly now, thought given to each one,] it would be only that you have grown since last we broached this kind of conversation— and that you could see the truth of the matter instead of the lies we have been fed all our life.
Their fates do not rest on your shoulders. Their pain is not your fault. And recognizing the cruelty and sadism that he terrified his slaves with does not make it your sin to bear.
And it does not make you a bad person to feel that way.
I simply, [a pause,] I would not see you start down the path of championing every wretched soul's plight as your own, for I have seen how that ends.
[And that's his own fears, he knows. Astarion has never been a noble martyr, and gods, he is so far from Anders that it's night and day. But still, the scars linger and ache— and just as Astarion asked that question while knowing the answer, so too does Leto say that, knowing full well the truth of the matter.]
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It was, from the very beginning, a ghost. Visible and hunting every barefooted step forwards. Every footfall.]
You're in no danger of that. [Astarion pens for the same reason that No had been the leading line in Leto's own response, well ahead of everything else. Old fears never die, after all. They only shrink back and recede, packing themselves into unlit corners for about as long as it takes to be forgotten for a time, hibernating throughout every glancing mention. But when their name is called— well— the image of something feeble and thoroughly conquered proves itself nothing but a joke in the end.]
I risked my neck freeing a pack of them once. Slaves from your world. Guiding them away from an occupied city in Orlais, taken over by Tevinter. When the dust settled, I was their sole contact. They looked to me to be the one to draw them to more work or
I don't know. Another master, maybe? They had nothing. No one. It gnawed at me.
I wanted justice.
When morning came and the dust settled, I contacted one of Riftwatch's agents in the Free Marches, and washed my hands of the whole thing. [If he turns his own thoughts briefly to Shirallas, or the idea of closeness and consequence therein defined, he writes nothing of it.]
I've grown softer than I was. I tempt myself from time to time with thoughts of heroism for coin, or for the sport of following in your stride because I love the creature that you are, no matter how absurd those principles might seem to me in those seconds when I coil from the light.
But rest assured, my darling, I am selfish.
I will never care so much about the world to destroy everything in its name.
Just yours.
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Still: he is more relieved by that assurance. I am selfish, and here and now, it's as sweet a declaration as I love you.]
Just yours, always.
[An echo and an assurance both. And then, just beneath that:]
Thank you.
[For saying it. For assuring him. For promising that there is no revelation to come; for swearing that he will not destroy the family they have made for the sake of something larger. For being who he is, dark and light both— and so to that end:]
I love you— I like you— as you are. Softened and yet selfish. Sweet, in your own way, but not overly sentimental, nor a bleeding heart. Dabbling in light without being blinded by it.
And when our business is done in Baldur's Gate, I would gladly set out at your side for coin and heroism both, freeing slaves or rescuing kidnapped souls. I would like that a great deal, I think. Heroism suits you. You certainly wear it well.
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Though I cannot count decisiveness among your many virtues. All this, and you have yet to tell me your answer.
[For that hypothetical, he means. His words gentle, not boisterous; it's a transition, and he is clumsy at those, but he's trying.]
But I will allow you changing your answer to Abarm. And I will let you pick "kill" for all three, if you so wish— so long as you are inventive in how you would accomplish it.
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Oh please, I'm no coward.
Fuck Abarm for the obvious reasons. [No thank you to fucking either of their masters, thank you very much.] Kill Cazador, marry Danarius because the man is far, far from immortal and once his body lies yet again in tatters across the floor of a tavern owing to the violent efforts of a once-crossed bodyguard, I'll find myself free yet again.
Swooning in the arms of said bodyguard being an optional component.
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Though seeing you do it to Cazador will more than make up for it, I think.
[Happy thoughts, and he lingers there for a few moments, relishing the imagined gore. But hmm . . . he does rather like this game of back and forth, but while he tries to come up with a good hypothetical . . .]
Tell me: do you have any artistic merit? Was that part of your upbringing too?
It's relevant.
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well
what I've drawn in here. At you. For you. Why?
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[Like, this isn't the most dignified challenge he's ever come up with, but also: after a certain point you stop caring about dignity when it comes to your beloved.]
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Ah
no.
[Eloquent.]
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voice;
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