[Perhaps they form a loop like that: Fenris's young heart aching in its bed, Vakares' wearied heart fretting over him. They could spend hours working out the burrs from between their fingers— tempered talons brushing slowly over the run of a branded spine, slow and steady—
And fortunately for them, they have those hours.]
Long enough that at one point I had to pretend to be my own son to avoid arousing suspicion. [A wry slip of flashed fangs, subdued. Promising the bare minimum when he can still feel those prickling fingertips settled tersely across his chest: it wasn't all bad.
(And I wasn't always clever:)]
I took a smarter approach after that, thank Kelevmor for belated common sense [No matter how delayed.] and simply pretended to have acquired a cursebound relic that prevented me from aging.
[To explain further:] Human lifespans are incidental. By the time the elder remnants had passed on— devoid of intervention, I should add [He did not adopt the habits of his once-sire, if the question ever came to Fenris' mind.] I was accepted in my role as just one more avid collector whose fondness for rarity ensured a bizarre future. One in which I served Baldur's Gate as its more passive steward, only intervening as necessary.
[In other words:] It worked out.
But it took centuries before I dared to try and accept what I had become [And he does mean in all its imperious-yet-faceted forms: existing as a vampire and a mundane human equally; persisting without a coven in a city that held the same scars as Vakares, and a great deal more inflammable resentment.] and I had no one to tell me how to embrace it. To alleviate it when it hurt, or to navigate meeting any of our kin, or even a voice to prepare me for what came next. I had no sire to hate for his attempt on my life, or to love for what he might have offered. [And it would have been both, perhaps, but there's only numbness in the yawning little divot where torn scars nest across his throat.]
Forgive an old man for wanting better for you.
[It comes mildly, that final addition. Isolated fondness on his lips already having bent into a sobered excuse for a smile, and coupled with the scuffing of his knuckles between high shoulders. Not some wresting yank from a leash at a distance, asserting that his (un)life was universal in its rigid make and its lessons absolute, just—
Aware, maybe. Aware of how resolved Fenris is in all things, too content to try and swallow the world like a bitter pill rather than reach out for help (aware of Astarion and his fear, and how he nurses it first without soothing), and if it's true they do not trust their own covenmates with even the roughest map of their own pasts, then light knows it will be painful once he's gone. As resilient as fractured glass, and equally braced against impending pressure.
So forgive him for one more slight. One more ugly request from a master that won't take no as a response.
(For all his sleepless poring across parchment, he's never been able to divine if the ends will ever justify the means.)]
no subject
And fortunately for them, they have those hours.]
Long enough that at one point I had to pretend to be my own son to avoid arousing suspicion. [A wry slip of flashed fangs, subdued. Promising the bare minimum when he can still feel those prickling fingertips settled tersely across his chest: it wasn't all bad.
(And I wasn't always clever:)]
I took a smarter approach after that, thank Kelevmor for belated common sense [No matter how delayed.] and simply pretended to have acquired a cursebound relic that prevented me from aging.
[To explain further:] Human lifespans are incidental. By the time the elder remnants had passed on— devoid of intervention, I should add [He did not adopt the habits of his once-sire, if the question ever came to Fenris' mind.] I was accepted in my role as just one more avid collector whose fondness for rarity ensured a bizarre future. One in which I served Baldur's Gate as its more passive steward, only intervening as necessary.
[In other words:] It worked out.
But it took centuries before I dared to try and accept what I had become [And he does mean in all its imperious-yet-faceted forms: existing as a vampire and a mundane human equally; persisting without a coven in a city that held the same scars as Vakares, and a great deal more inflammable resentment.] and I had no one to tell me how to embrace it. To alleviate it when it hurt, or to navigate meeting any of our kin, or even a voice to prepare me for what came next. I had no sire to hate for his attempt on my life, or to love for what he might have offered. [And it would have been both, perhaps, but there's only numbness in the yawning little divot where torn scars nest across his throat.]
Forgive an old man for wanting better for you.
[It comes mildly, that final addition. Isolated fondness on his lips already having bent into a sobered excuse for a smile, and coupled with the scuffing of his knuckles between high shoulders. Not some wresting yank from a leash at a distance, asserting that his (un)life was universal in its rigid make and its lessons absolute, just—
Aware, maybe. Aware of how resolved Fenris is in all things, too content to try and swallow the world like a bitter pill rather than reach out for help (aware of Astarion and his fear, and how he nurses it first without soothing), and if it's true they do not trust their own covenmates with even the roughest map of their own pasts, then light knows it will be painful once he's gone. As resilient as fractured glass, and equally braced against impending pressure.
So forgive him for one more slight. One more ugly request from a master that won't take no as a response.
(For all his sleepless poring across parchment, he's never been able to divine if the ends will ever justify the means.)]