[Such a simple assertion. Small compared to its overpowering strokes: tomorrow night and your life will change; tomorrow night you'll be bound to your most embittered rival— his enmity woven like an unalterable band round your finger, inexpressibly tight. Perspectivistically shackling.
The weight intended to both pull you down and prop you upright in a sea of fanged volatility.]
I'll make my announcement before the celebration is turned towards the both of you, instead. Your ascension and your union the last thing seen to while I take my leave. [A silent confession: the arrangements have already been made.
It is better this way, to leave them with a beginning, rather than a pervasive sense of loss or emptiness alone— and perhaps it goes without saying that there is one more reason for it playing out as a thing already settled— for as much as he loves them, he cannot trust them to carry out a command so arduously taxing as this without him there to witness its conclusion. One would flee. The other would snap.
Like the rest of his designs, he's thought this through (over and over again inside this very room with his quill left bleeding into parchment for minutes at a time. Hours, some nights. Perched over his desk sporting half-closed eyes and folded fingers— so far ahead in forethought that in retrospect it burns to feel his consort's touch brush low across his cheek, however brief. He'd worried for them, you know. Sought the best for them. Strove so hard and harsh for the necessary that he only sees it now, when finally that shadow at the desk is almost visible in the borders of his vision, sitting just as it had been: he'd been dwelling here all along, his past reflection. And in doing so, Vakares missed out on precious months that could have been spent with his own starlings).
But that's not for him to grieve.
This isn't farewell, after all, no matter how it feels to speak of plans that he cannot witness beyond their careful setup: he needs this alleviation. This long, long rest away from a world that would swallow him along with every last drop of his affection. His self-control. His ability to cherish most the splendor of small comforts in gentle hands. And when he wakes from it, it will be to something stronger than this— (the latter thought so unbearably fond:) or he will make it so.
That stroking caress returned with compound interest, rough fingertips discolored by centuries of spilled ink pinning themselves just beneath the cusp of Fenris' sharp ear. Hello, my dearest little one....]
Astarion is never endeared to what he needs. [Slight, the careful little bend pulling high along his mouth.]
But I can't help insisting that you underappraise your value to him.
no subject
[Such a simple assertion. Small compared to its overpowering strokes: tomorrow night and your life will change; tomorrow night you'll be bound to your most embittered rival— his enmity woven like an unalterable band round your finger, inexpressibly tight. Perspectivistically shackling.
The weight intended to both pull you down and prop you upright in a sea of fanged volatility.]
I'll make my announcement before the celebration is turned towards the both of you, instead. Your ascension and your union the last thing seen to while I take my leave. [A silent confession: the arrangements have already been made.
It is better this way, to leave them with a beginning, rather than a pervasive sense of loss or emptiness alone— and perhaps it goes without saying that there is one more reason for it playing out as a thing already settled— for as much as he loves them, he cannot trust them to carry out a command so arduously taxing as this without him there to witness its conclusion. One would flee. The other would snap.
Like the rest of his designs, he's thought this through (over and over again inside this very room with his quill left bleeding into parchment for minutes at a time. Hours, some nights. Perched over his desk sporting half-closed eyes and folded fingers— so far ahead in forethought that in retrospect it burns to feel his consort's touch brush low across his cheek, however brief. He'd worried for them, you know. Sought the best for them. Strove so hard and harsh for the necessary that he only sees it now, when finally that shadow at the desk is almost visible in the borders of his vision, sitting just as it had been: he'd been dwelling here all along, his past reflection. And in doing so, Vakares missed out on precious months that could have been spent with his own starlings).
But that's not for him to grieve.
This isn't farewell, after all, no matter how it feels to speak of plans that he cannot witness beyond their careful setup: he needs this alleviation. This long, long rest away from a world that would swallow him along with every last drop of his affection. His self-control. His ability to cherish most the splendor of small comforts in gentle hands. And when he wakes from it, it will be to something stronger than this— (the latter thought so unbearably fond:) or he will make it so.
That stroking caress returned with compound interest, rough fingertips discolored by centuries of spilled ink pinning themselves just beneath the cusp of Fenris' sharp ear. Hello, my dearest little one....]
Astarion is never endeared to what he needs. [Slight, the careful little bend pulling high along his mouth.]
But I can't help insisting that you underappraise your value to him.