(Something something the taming power of love goes here, etc.)]
Well, I suppose it depends on who's actually attempting courtship in the first place. And where. I never left the city of Baldur's Gate to my memory, so all I have to offer are the city's own customs and a few snippets of details here or there: the poorer castes would go about it by buying candles with poetry tucked in their center, treating the paper with a few droplets of basilisk oil so it doesn't burn. Cheaper than magic. Then there were always flowers, songs, that sort of thing.
The upper class are far more extravagant: they offer gifts of rare wines and jewels, take moonlit boat rides out into the harbor and have the craft flocked by enchanted schools of fish or conjured starlings. Offer jewelry with symbolic, delicate chains meant to emulate the act of binding themselves to one another.
And I've heard eladrin do things differently in the wild. The ones that keep to old traditions.
Between them, love is a far more frightening concept. If you fall for someone, if you bear yourself to them, you'll always be theirs— and not for property ownership or societal advancement or survival as it is in the city. Your heart belongs to them for hundreds of years, until the day you both die. So the rituals tend to be much simpler; it's the act of loving that matters most as far as gestures go.
Supposedly it's sealed in wild places, through hushed words spoken only to the grass and trees.
I always just imagined it was an excuse to run off and rut for days on end, but seeing as I never actually knew any truly wild eladrin, I never could get a straight answer.
[It's a lovely list, truly. As always, Leto tends to prefer things a little more down to earth: candles with poetry at their center sounds romantic, if not a little soppy. Songs and dances, simple gestures, that suits his soul far better than the rest. Rare wines and pretty jewelry . . . it proves something, all right, although Leto is of the opinion that it says more about how deep one's pockets go than the depths of their heart.
But ah . . . he ends up rereading that bit about eladrin three times, and does not ask himself why the concept of loyalty and love spanning decades, centuries, emotions never waning and circumstances never tearing them apart, appeals to him above all.
Anyway.]
then in the interest of self-betterment and proving yourself deserving of my continued adoration: I do like courtship when it comes in the form of bruised thighs and roaming fingers. I like the way you rouse me from slumber with your tongue or unsubtly watch as I complete my exercises, driving me to the point of distraction with little more than your eyes. but I like it, too, when it is more romantic.
in Tevinter, slaves would exchange small gifts. fruit. candies. stones that might be fashioned into jewelry. in kirkwall, those who are noble tend to enact formalized rituals, meeting at dances or approved teatimes; those more common indulge in smaller courtships. offering flowers. sentimental bits of poetry. carving spoons is not unheard of.
I would take you out to dinner one of these nights. flatter you with wine. treat you as something to be worshipped, and in turn, have you treat me the same.
I love you. and i wish to romance you, not just rut you. so in the spirit of strategy, astarion: flirt with me.
and when I return home, i will also take your cock to the hilt once more, milking you down my throat until you have no room to jest any further.
[Older than most living creatures in Thedas, there are moments where Astarion flexes his age and experience with thoughtless ease. There are, in the opposite sense, times when he is so carelessly naïve in a world that's boundlessly larger than Cazador's tethered yard, suddenly as lost and unmoored as a blinded yearling.
Right now, technically, he's a bit of both.
Because yes, he knows the art of flirting so impossibly well— but only as a wicked means to a far more wicked end: if not hunting for his master, then for the mindless bliss of satisfaction.
He doesn't know this.
He isn't used to the way his heart leaps beneath his ribs as he reads, and reads and reads again one section of what's been scrawled across the page: I would take you out to dinner one of these nights. flatter you with wine. treat you as something to be worshipped, and in turn, have you treat me the same.
I love you. and I wish to romance you, not just rut you.
The rest still sets his blood instantly alight— a pang of hunger rolling through him so potently that for a moment he considers tracking Fenris down and pinning him against the nearest open window or rooftop ledge— but it doesn't stay, that urge; the rest of it sticks in the forefront of his mind.
...in the interest of betterment, then:]
I love to look at you.
I love to count the degrees in which your features soften into sleep when it takes you, hour after passing hour. The way every bit of you rucks up over itself when you wake: your hair a mess of tangled tendrils, your eyes so heavily lidded you can barely lift them— drifting lazily in and out of wakefulness in ways I know past shadows never would've let you.
I've told strangers they have pretty eyes thousands of times. I've told them I can't help but keep my stare trained only on them, even at a distance. And beautiful as they undoubtedly were, I never once meant it.
I never felt it.
But when I hear your footsteps pace throughout these halls, something in me demands that I rise and follow you. That I find excuses to be near, even if it's only to catch a passing glimpse of your slouched shoulders slipping around the edge of an open doorway. A few wisps of white hair in the dark. The flash of your eyes as you glance up from oiling your sword, more handsome than any living creature has the right to be.
I long for the smell of split ozone now. I find your laughter more precious than what jewels I've stolen, or the gold locked away beneath my mattress. I would bleed for you if you asked.
I would kill for you without question.
I know I'm an insatiable creature. That I am beastly in my nature— in temper and love and lust and spite. I can't pretend you've suddenly broken the spell of my curse and cured me of all the wickedness I house in my endlessly avaricious heart.
But I can tell you that you have my heart. And that it worships you exactly as you wish to be worshipped. And that if I cannot stop myself from leering or licking my lips or making light of the way you looked drawn hungrily around me, it's only because I want you with every fiber of my reckless being. It seethes in me in ways I don't know how to stamp out, gods know I suffered terribly in trying these last few months.
It always ended with me one room over, breathing into the back of my hand.
I'll buy you flowers, my darling. I'll bring you wine. I'll write you crude sonnets and press your name to stray leaves and bent grass with a kiss, if it'll make you happy.
That, and I'll bite and fuck you to sleep each night you're willing to have me: leaving you breathless and shivering for how I've squeezed you down across my cock, gasping desperately until every last gulp of air's left your pretty lungs— or perhaps for the way I've swallowed you to exhaustion with a vampire's tireless appetite, if you prefer to see me kneel instead. Unable to move for how your legs scream in overtaxed protest the next morning, all of you knowing that you're mine. And I'm yours.
Ensuring that very home in Hightown is ready to call the guard over the sound of your breathless howls once the sun sets each night.
Truly: he considers simply turning around and returning. He is hunting down a bounty on Sundermount, and oh, going up the mountain will always take him at least a full day and night. He'd known that going in. One day, he had promised Astarion, I will be back by tomorrow afternoon, the two of them so caught up in kissing one another that he'd nearly lost the morning light by the time he made it out the door.
His fingers stroke against the paper (I find your laughter more precious than the jewels I have stolen, I find excuses to be near, you have my heart), reading the words again and again. And of course the filth strikes at him, a hot promise that leaves him shuddering (please, he considers writing, please I want to tangle myself with you until we both collapse from exhaustion), but oh, that adoration. None of it is a revelation, precisely, but it's one thing to know something in general and quite another to hear it. To see it, written so starkly, there for him to keep forever.
It almost hurts. So good that he nearly flinches from it, overwhelmed in the best way. He has no idea how to respond; it's a relief when that last message is scrawled, and he huffs out a soft laugh.]
Perfect.
[Truly.]
I would hear you try again when I can hear you, though. Your voice would only make it sweeter. And I could show my enthusiasm and my appreciation in other ways.
I [and he hesitates, a large ink blot filling against the paper,] miss you. Foolish, when we have been apart for less than a full day, but there it is.
Do you know the same holds true for you? I will not replicate your speech word by word, but there is nothing I would not do for you. No length I would not go to in order to please you. I have ached for you, longed for you, dreamed of you . . . and despite months of fantasies, somehow you still manage to surpass and surprise me at every turn.
I would court you, and romance you— and then indulge in other appetites. I would hear every fantasy of yours and indulge them, spoiling you until you beg me for reprieve.
So. In the spirit of courtship, kadan: tell me what you have dreamed of. Or I will simply come home and get to my knees the moment I see you.
[It's the ink blot that stands out, you know. So dark. So stark in comparison to the rest of what's been etched down onto the page, severing only one sentiment cleanly in half:
I miss you.
His fingers are pressed to parchment long before he realizes it. His expression drawn heavily into shadow for how he leaves his red eyes trained on a book that's never felt so indispensable before this moment (he'll safeguard it with his life now, already he can feel that certainty take root in the pit of his chest— down to his last drop of breath or waking second, precious beyond reason for what it holds).
Somewhere Ataashi's heavy paws knock something over in the mansion, and its clattering echo snaps Astarion out of his minute long reverie.
....which is probably for the best; he was nearly a half-breath away from packing his blades and leaving for Sundermount without a word.]
If you think I can even begin to summarize all the dreams I've had of you, my darling [kadan, Astarion thinks again in cyclical amusement, his eyes flitting up the page to spot Leto's usage of it] even just the vulgar ones, you'd need an entire fleet of books for me to fill.
And I suspect my fingers would very quickly fall off from writing. Which is a shame. They're far better served tending to you.
I suppose I could also pare it down to the simple things: you on your back with that incorrigible grin yet again, only this time fresh off the heels of a bloody fight, demanding I do better. Or how it might feel to tangle myself beneath you, bodies lax and intertwined in the most intimate ways, until I slip away into depthless sleep.
More still the ones where I rush to your rescue as an ancient thing, able to rip your master to shreds before he convinces you to so much as draw your first blade. Or you, there the night of my downfall.
I dream of you sleeping beside me when you're not. I dream of wading barefoot through Fadefire to find you. I dream of us outliving the world itself.
I dreamt of turning you into a vampire, too.
Just once.
But if what you truly desire is to know the thing I want most, with every drop of living blood within my body
It's you.
It's just you, walking through the front door again.
[That, first and foremost, written back quickly enough his already jagged handwriting becomes even more of a scrawl. It's a fierce promise, undercut only by the fact that they both know he had never intended to leave the first time, either.]
Count down the hours. And get ready. I will write to you when I am outside the city limits, and you will have an hour to pick a bottle of wine and get yourself ready for me.
Count on it.
[But, ah . . .]
. . . on that note: I would ask a favor from you when I return.
I wish to seek out Varania. It will not be easy, and I imagine my duties to Riftwatch will make it all the harder. I do not even know where to begin.
It is not something you need to help me with, if you do not wish to. But I would have answers from her one way or another, and I would not undertake such a task without informing you first.
[It's a smart idea. Objectively speaking, there's a great deal of merit behind the notion of hunting down a viper in its lair long before it seeks out yours. It's what Astarion would do for most potential threats, in fact—
But that doesn't mean he likes seeing it there on the page.]
No.
[And like a word said too quickly, he's written it down too fast.
It takes longer for the rest to follow, albeit in a steadier hand.]
I'll go with you.
[And then the dot of a pen pressed to the page— lifted just as quickly so it doesn't blot. A moment later the spot widens. Just a little.]
You're going to need someone smarter than you at your side if you're digging into Tevinter and all its current nonsense.
Edited (shh I'm not tired at all) 2022-05-21 02:58 (UTC)
[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.]
[He laughs first, on his own end of things. Sharp and quick, nose crinkling as he stares down at the open book laid out in his lap. Despite everything, there's that.
It doesn't last long enough.]
It'll take time.
[That much, Astarion knows already. Barring luck or chance or simply the misfortune of her hunting her once-brother, it's unlikely she'll turn up on their doorstep in any way that'll work in their favor on a shorter timeline.]
I know an esteemed Tevinter merchant, though. A sadistic creature with a love of all things cruel— but he favors me, and he doesn't know I'm part of Riftwatch.
I could reach out to him. The man thinks I belong to an Altus, and one elf asking after another wouldn't be so odd, I imagine.
...still, whether or not he decides to lend me any sort of aid will be anyone's guess.
[They can cross that bridge when they come to it.
Which leads him to the next topic. Something that comes tacked on after a lengthy pause, nearing the bottom of the page:]
Even if she isn't responsible, she's still a danger to you, Leto.
[There's a significant pause. A hesitation, as Leto stares down at his notebook by the light of the fire and tries not to say something stupid. Distantly he appreciates that offer for what it is: a risk, and a generous one. By all rights Astarion ought not to use such a connection for Leto's sake; certainly he oughtn't to bother even a Tevene merchant, if he's so sadistic; such a creature can only ever be dangerous, and used only when necessary. And yet Leto will not offend Astarion by refusing it.
But ah . . . his eyes linger on that bit about Varania.]
I know.
[He knows. And he wishes it wasn't true. And he knows it does not matter what he wishes, not really. It doesn't matter if there is some small part of him (the bit, truly, that is Leto, sixteen and brash and brave; Leto who held a small hand in his own and guided her through Minrathous' busy markets, who furiously hushed his sister the first time she showed him how she could mend a blister on his palm, who used to play giddily with her while their mother scrubbed at marble floors) that wants things to be right. Varania made her choice long ago, and an aching heart won't change a damn thing.]
But she is my sister. And that is not a good reason to keep her alive, but still, it is why I spared her life in the first place.
If she is responsible for my memory loss, so be it. I will treat her as I would any other guilty party.
But I made my choice long ago, in the Hanged Man when I killed Danarius. I will not renege on it now.
You need not tell me how foolish I am being by saying so. I am well aware.
[Yes, there is a part of him driven to call it foolish. Pointless. Reckless. It was Leto's memory that'd been lost, yes, but it was Astarion who lost him— in the snap-turn rush of his rabbiting mind (predictive from two hundred years of mind games and manipulation of the cruelest caliber), all he can think of is what if.
What if she lies.
What if they meet, and she survives, and in knowing where Leto is, devises the sharpest trap imaginable.
What if she's planned for this inevitability; what if her allies run thicker than their collective caution. Smart and resourceful in Leto's retelling, there is such a danger to her having the upper hand when they already hold so little.]
▇▇▇
[He tries again. Scribbles on the page all too quickly scratched out.]
If she swears she isn't responsible. If you let her go
it'll be your choice.
[The pen nib hangs there, clinging to the end of that sentence. Choice. How can he possibly take away something so indescribably important to both of them?
How can he sit idle and watch the man he loves skirt along the edge of ruin?
Neither option satisfies.]
▇▇▇▇▇▇
I can't lose you again.
So when we find her, be damned well certain she tells you the truth, this time.
[That's enough. That's more than enough. He can only take so much of this on his own in an otherwise quiet mansion, the sound of his pen scratching away louder than it should be.]
And when you come home in a day or two, you bring the wine.
I can only shoulder so much heavy lifting on your behalf, no matter how pretty you are.
[Choice. Yes, it is his choice, and he appreciates that recognition now of all times. He can feel Astarion's hesitation, those ink blots saying more than paragraphs of explanations ever would— and that's fine. Astarion is right to be wary; he's right, even, to think Fenris a fool for staying his blade instead of ending a potential threat the moment he sees it.
But Varania is his sister. And she will always be that, no matter what. And perhaps Fenris has lost too much to willingly lose something else, even at his own hand. Especially at his own hand.
In any case: Astarion moves them along and Leto goes along with it willingly, for what else is there to say?]
Lazy thing, there is wine in the cellar. You need only go down a set of stairs to fetch it.
[And yet he will buy a bottle before he comes home tomorrow. Such is the form his affection takes; Astarion is going to be so terribly spoiled before half a year is up. And oh, this has nothing to do with anything, save for the fact he's been curious about it, and it's as good a time as any to bring it up.]
How long have you been studying Tevene and Qunlat?
I've lost my taste for your collection.[Untrue, he's going to drink another bottle from it in an hour or so— but Leto doesn't need to know that.]
It all reminds me of being on my own, now.
[Astarion, it's been one day.]
Anyway, since that night after the Crossroads, to answer your question. The one where you taught me a little of both. The roles they played in your life.
What they mean to you.
And while it actively pains me to admit I'm not exactly flawless at any of it just yet, I'll get there eventually.
You are nasal when it comes to Qunlat. And your verb conjugation is nonexistent. You are better in Tevene, but we will see when you begin to learn proper sentences.
And I love you very much for learning them. For even bothering to try. And I do not expect you to continue, not if it is too arduous a task. It is enough that you learned enough to surprise me with it.
Do not whine when I bring home a white wine. You brought this on yourself.
[And of course Astarion does. And of course Leto retorts, threatening to bring him home watered down juice and little else if he's going to be a brat. And of course it goes on and on, until at last his fire dies down and he has to write by the light of the moon— and even then, he only ceases when he finds himself falling asleep mid-sentence. But it's a soothing thing, to wake up and see the words from last night still there. He feels the weight of them as he catches his bounty; as he makes his way home, blood on his hands and proof in his pocket, and buys two bottles of wine before heading home.
One shatters when Astarion leaps upon him the moment he gets into the door, but that's all right too.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
2/2
(Something something the taming power of love goes here, etc.)]
Well, I suppose it depends on who's actually attempting courtship in the first place. And where. I never left the city of Baldur's Gate to my memory, so all I have to offer are the city's own customs and a few snippets of details here or there: the poorer castes would go about it by buying candles with poetry tucked in their center, treating the paper with a few droplets of basilisk oil so it doesn't burn. Cheaper than magic. Then there were always flowers, songs, that sort of thing.
The upper class are far more extravagant: they offer gifts of rare wines and jewels, take moonlit boat rides out into the harbor and have the craft flocked by enchanted schools of fish or conjured starlings. Offer jewelry with symbolic, delicate chains meant to emulate the act of binding themselves to one another.
And I've heard eladrin do things differently in the wild. The ones that keep to old traditions.
Between them, love is a far more frightening concept. If you fall for someone, if you bear yourself to them, you'll always be theirs— and not for property ownership or societal advancement or survival as it is in the city. Your heart belongs to them for hundreds of years, until the day you both die. So the rituals tend to be much simpler; it's the act of loving that matters most as far as gestures go.
Supposedly it's sealed in wild places, through hushed words spoken only to the grass and trees.
I always just imagined it was an excuse to run off and rut for days on end, but seeing as I never actually knew any truly wild eladrin, I never could get a straight answer.
no subject
But ah . . . he ends up rereading that bit about eladrin three times, and does not ask himself why the concept of loyalty and love spanning decades, centuries, emotions never waning and circumstances never tearing them apart, appeals to him above all.
Anyway.]
then in the interest of self-betterment and proving yourself deserving of my continued adoration: I do like courtship when it comes in the form of bruised thighs and roaming fingers. I like the way you rouse me from slumber with your tongue or unsubtly watch as I complete my exercises, driving me to the point of distraction with little more than your eyes. but I like it, too, when it is more romantic.
in Tevinter, slaves would exchange small gifts. fruit. candies. stones that might be fashioned into jewelry. in kirkwall, those who are noble tend to enact formalized rituals, meeting at dances or approved teatimes; those more common indulge in smaller courtships. offering flowers. sentimental bits of poetry. carving spoons is not unheard of.
I would take you out to dinner one of these nights. flatter you with wine. treat you as something to be worshipped, and in turn, have you treat me the same.
I love you. and i wish to romance you, not just rut you. so in the spirit of strategy, astarion: flirt with me.
and when I return home, i will also take your cock to the hilt once more, milking you down my throat until you have no room to jest any further.
no subject
Right now, technically, he's a bit of both.
Because yes, he knows the art of flirting so impossibly well— but only as a wicked means to a far more wicked end: if not hunting for his master, then for the mindless bliss of satisfaction.
He doesn't know this.
He isn't used to the way his heart leaps beneath his ribs as he reads, and reads and reads again one section of what's been scrawled across the page: I would take you out to dinner one of these nights. flatter you with wine. treat you as something to be worshipped, and in turn, have you treat me the same.
I love you. and I wish to romance you, not just rut you.
The rest still sets his blood instantly alight— a pang of hunger rolling through him so potently that for a moment he considers tracking Fenris down and pinning him against the nearest open window or rooftop ledge— but it doesn't stay, that urge; the rest of it sticks in the forefront of his mind.
...in the interest of betterment, then:]
I love to look at you.
I love to count the degrees in which your features soften into sleep when it takes you, hour after passing hour. The way every bit of you rucks up over itself when you wake: your hair a mess of tangled tendrils, your eyes so heavily lidded you can barely lift them— drifting lazily in and out of wakefulness in ways I know past shadows never would've let you.
I've told strangers they have pretty eyes thousands of times. I've told them I can't help but keep my stare trained only on them, even at a distance. And beautiful as they undoubtedly were, I never once meant it.
I never felt it.
But when I hear your footsteps pace throughout these halls, something in me demands that I rise and follow you. That I find excuses to be near, even if it's only to catch a passing glimpse of your slouched shoulders slipping around the edge of an open doorway. A few wisps of white hair in the dark. The flash of your eyes as you glance up from oiling your sword, more handsome than any living creature has the right to be.
I long for the smell of split ozone now. I find your laughter more precious than what jewels I've stolen, or the gold locked away beneath my mattress. I would bleed for you if you asked.
I would kill for you without question.
I know I'm an insatiable creature. That I am beastly in my nature— in temper and love and lust and spite. I can't pretend you've suddenly broken the spell of my curse and cured me of all the wickedness I house in my endlessly avaricious heart.
But I can tell you that you have my heart. And that it worships you exactly as you wish to be worshipped. And that if I cannot stop myself from leering or licking my lips or making light of the way you looked drawn hungrily around me, it's only because I want you with every fiber of my reckless being. It seethes in me in ways I don't know how to stamp out, gods know I suffered terribly in trying these last few months.
It always ended with me one room over, breathing into the back of my hand.
I'll buy you flowers, my darling. I'll bring you wine. I'll write you crude sonnets and press your name to stray leaves and bent grass with a kiss, if it'll make you happy.
no subject
Ensuring that very home in Hightown is ready to call the guard over the sound of your breathless howls once the sun sets each night.
Or ready to rut themselves to its tune.
3/3 of the Illiad part 7: but make it sexy
How was that for courting romance. Did I do all right?
Feedback is paramount when it comes to matters of improvement, as I understand. I can always try again.
no subject
Truly: he considers simply turning around and returning. He is hunting down a bounty on Sundermount, and oh, going up the mountain will always take him at least a full day and night. He'd known that going in. One day, he had promised Astarion, I will be back by tomorrow afternoon, the two of them so caught up in kissing one another that he'd nearly lost the morning light by the time he made it out the door.
His fingers stroke against the paper (I find your laughter more precious than the jewels I have stolen, I find excuses to be near, you have my heart), reading the words again and again. And of course the filth strikes at him, a hot promise that leaves him shuddering (please, he considers writing, please I want to tangle myself with you until we both collapse from exhaustion), but oh, that adoration. None of it is a revelation, precisely, but it's one thing to know something in general and quite another to hear it. To see it, written so starkly, there for him to keep forever.
It almost hurts. So good that he nearly flinches from it, overwhelmed in the best way. He has no idea how to respond; it's a relief when that last message is scrawled, and he huffs out a soft laugh.]
Perfect.
[Truly.]
I would hear you try again when I can hear you, though. Your voice would only make it sweeter. And I could show my enthusiasm and my appreciation in other ways.
I [and he hesitates, a large ink blot filling against the paper,] miss you. Foolish, when we have been apart for less than a full day, but there it is.
Do you know the same holds true for you? I will not replicate your speech word by word, but there is nothing I would not do for you. No length I would not go to in order to please you. I have ached for you, longed for you, dreamed of you . . . and despite months of fantasies, somehow you still manage to surpass and surprise me at every turn.
I would court you, and romance you— and then indulge in other appetites. I would hear every fantasy of yours and indulge them, spoiling you until you beg me for reprieve.
So. In the spirit of courtship, kadan: tell me what you have dreamed of. Or I will simply come home and get to my knees the moment I see you.
no subject
I miss you.
His fingers are pressed to parchment long before he realizes it. His expression drawn heavily into shadow for how he leaves his red eyes trained on a book that's never felt so indispensable before this moment (he'll safeguard it with his life now, already he can feel that certainty take root in the pit of his chest— down to his last drop of breath or waking second, precious beyond reason for what it holds).
Somewhere Ataashi's heavy paws knock something over in the mansion, and its clattering echo snaps Astarion out of his minute long reverie.
....which is probably for the best; he was nearly a half-breath away from packing his blades and leaving for Sundermount without a word.]
If you think I can even begin to summarize all the dreams I've had of you, my darling [kadan, Astarion thinks again in cyclical amusement, his eyes flitting up the page to spot Leto's usage of it] even just the vulgar ones, you'd need an entire fleet of books for me to fill.
And I suspect my fingers would very quickly fall off from writing. Which is a shame. They're far better served tending to you.
I suppose I could also pare it down to the simple things: you on your back with that incorrigible grin yet again, only this time fresh off the heels of a bloody fight, demanding I do better. Or how it might feel to tangle myself beneath you, bodies lax and intertwined in the most intimate ways, until I slip away into depthless sleep.
More still the ones where I rush to your rescue as an ancient thing, able to rip your master to shreds before he convinces you to so much as draw your first blade. Or you, there the night of my downfall.
I dream of you sleeping beside me when you're not. I dream of wading barefoot through Fadefire to find you. I dream of us outliving the world itself.
I dreamt of turning you into a vampire, too.
Just once.
But if what you truly desire is to know the thing I want most, with every drop of living blood within my body
It's you.
It's just you, walking through the front door again.
2/2
no subject
[That, first and foremost, written back quickly enough his already jagged handwriting becomes even more of a scrawl. It's a fierce promise, undercut only by the fact that they both know he had never intended to leave the first time, either.]
Count down the hours. And get ready. I will write to you when I am outside the city limits, and you will have an hour to pick a bottle of wine and get yourself ready for me.
Count on it.
[But, ah . . .]
. . . on that note: I would ask a favor from you when I return.
I wish to seek out Varania. It will not be easy, and I imagine my duties to Riftwatch will make it all the harder. I do not even know where to begin.
It is not something you need to help me with, if you do not wish to. But I would have answers from her one way or another, and I would not undertake such a task without informing you first.
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But that doesn't mean he likes seeing it there on the page.]
No.
[And like a word said too quickly, he's written it down too fast.
It takes longer for the rest to follow, albeit in a steadier hand.]
I'll go with you.
[And then the dot of a pen pressed to the page— lifted just as quickly so it doesn't blot. A moment later the spot widens. Just a little.]
You're going to need someone smarter than you at your side if you're digging into Tevinter and all its current nonsense.
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[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.]
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It doesn't last long enough.]
It'll take time.
[That much, Astarion knows already. Barring luck or chance or simply the misfortune of her hunting her once-brother, it's unlikely she'll turn up on their doorstep in any way that'll work in their favor on a shorter timeline.]
I know an esteemed Tevinter merchant, though. A sadistic creature with a love of all things cruel— but he favors me, and he doesn't know I'm part of Riftwatch.
I could reach out to him. The man thinks I belong to an Altus, and one elf asking after another wouldn't be so odd, I imagine.
...still, whether or not he decides to lend me any sort of aid will be anyone's guess.
[They can cross that bridge when they come to it.
Which leads him to the next topic. Something that comes tacked on after a lengthy pause, nearing the bottom of the page:]
Even if she isn't responsible, she's still a danger to you, Leto.
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But ah . . . his eyes linger on that bit about Varania.]
I know.
[He knows. And he wishes it wasn't true. And he knows it does not matter what he wishes, not really. It doesn't matter if there is some small part of him (the bit, truly, that is Leto, sixteen and brash and brave; Leto who held a small hand in his own and guided her through Minrathous' busy markets, who furiously hushed his sister the first time she showed him how she could mend a blister on his palm, who used to play giddily with her while their mother scrubbed at marble floors) that wants things to be right. Varania made her choice long ago, and an aching heart won't change a damn thing.]
But she is my sister. And that is not a good reason to keep her alive, but still, it is why I spared her life in the first place.
If she is responsible for my memory loss, so be it. I will treat her as I would any other guilty party.
But I made my choice long ago, in the Hanged Man when I killed Danarius. I will not renege on it now.
You need not tell me how foolish I am being by saying so. I am well aware.
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[Yes, there is a part of him driven to call it foolish. Pointless. Reckless. It was Leto's memory that'd been lost, yes, but it was Astarion who lost him— in the snap-turn rush of his rabbiting mind (predictive from two hundred years of mind games and manipulation of the cruelest caliber), all he can think of is what if.
What if she lies.
What if they meet, and she survives, and in knowing where Leto is, devises the sharpest trap imaginable.
What if she's planned for this inevitability; what if her allies run thicker than their collective caution. Smart and resourceful in Leto's retelling, there is such a danger to her having the upper hand when they already hold so little.]
▇▇▇
[He tries again. Scribbles on the page all too quickly scratched out.]
If she swears she isn't responsible. If you let her go
it'll be your choice.
[The pen nib hangs there, clinging to the end of that sentence. Choice. How can he possibly take away something so indescribably important to both of them?
How can he sit idle and watch the man he loves skirt along the edge of ruin?
Neither option satisfies.]
▇▇▇▇▇▇
I can't lose you again.
So when we find her, be damned well certain she tells you the truth, this time.
2/2
And when you come home in a day or two, you bring the wine.
I can only shoulder so much heavy lifting on your behalf, no matter how pretty you are.
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But Varania is his sister. And she will always be that, no matter what. And perhaps Fenris has lost too much to willingly lose something else, even at his own hand. Especially at his own hand.
In any case: Astarion moves them along and Leto goes along with it willingly, for what else is there to say?]
Lazy thing, there is wine in the cellar. You need only go down a set of stairs to fetch it.
[And yet he will buy a bottle before he comes home tomorrow. Such is the form his affection takes; Astarion is going to be so terribly spoiled before half a year is up. And oh, this has nothing to do with anything, save for the fact he's been curious about it, and it's as good a time as any to bring it up.]
How long have you been studying Tevene and Qunlat?
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Fussy thing, too.]
I've lost my taste for your collection.[Untrue, he's going to drink another bottle from it in an hour or so— but Leto doesn't need to know that.]
It all reminds me of being on my own, now.
[Astarion, it's been one day.]
Anyway, since that night after the Crossroads, to answer your question. The one where you taught me a little of both. The roles they played in your life.
What they mean to you.
And while it actively pains me to admit I'm not exactly flawless at any of it just yet, I'll get there eventually.
[A solid beat, just before:]
Why? Impressed by my talents already?
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And I love you very much for learning them. For even bothering to try. And I do not expect you to continue, not if it is too arduous a task. It is enough that you learned enough to surprise me with it.
Do not whine when I bring home a white wine. You brought this on yourself.
[And of course Astarion does. And of course Leto retorts, threatening to bring him home watered down juice and little else if he's going to be a brat. And of course it goes on and on, until at last his fire dies down and he has to write by the light of the moon— and even then, he only ceases when he finds himself falling asleep mid-sentence. But it's a soothing thing, to wake up and see the words from last night still there. He feels the weight of them as he catches his bounty; as he makes his way home, blood on his hands and proof in his pocket, and buys two bottles of wine before heading home.
One shatters when Astarion leaps upon him the moment he gets into the door, but that's all right too.]