The ceremony and the leers. The judgment. Encouraged by every instance of giggling or muttered commentary, their audience is a palpable chasm of shock and indignity and amusement cut through by little pulsework echoes, each one reverberated in someone else's mouth before passing on (and on, and on).... He feels the harshness of firm knuckles pressed against his own once their fingers intertwine, and from the narrow gap between them (sire and sired, all), it feels as if he's being choked by everything he's wanted for so long: the regalia fit for Vakares' shoulders is far too scratchy along its seams and artful hems (it worries at his shoulders; leaves him itching just to touch it or scrub it or rip it free); the attention from established eyes, hawkish and overtly loud (later, it will be worse); the coronating esteem his maker's always carried, stamped down in slow farewells; the brute that is his younger kin, compelled to listen to him— if only so they share.
But he's not a child, for all his frequent whinging.
The ridicule waiting for them in the wings didn't start when their sire opened their mouth to speak. It started long, long before now. (Before his tantrum or their isolation. Before Vakares treated them as equals at his heels. Decades upon decades ago, before the fresher idea of better started to eclipse the notion of is and always has been, razor lips were already peeling back to show off equally jagged fangs.) The other vampires wouldn't have spared them if Vakares uttered I choose Fenris any more than they would've done to hear Astarion: one configuration of voices might differ in isolation, true, but still— if a chorus trills from its left or its right side in equal volume, does that really make it any different a scenario?
No.
Obviously not.
Petty things— like Astarion— will always be petty things. Takes one to know one (or a lot of ones), as they say: he doesn't like it, but there's comfort to be found in the fact that Leto clearly doesn't, either. Their shared grip so stiff and obligatory that it could be a metaphor for its surrounding pomp— and you know, when it comes to a pair that looks only towards their waiting master rather than at one another, it is, actually.
But again, he's not a child. Not a fledgling. Not a spoiled prince whining for a wetted throat to suckle from, rather than standing on his own buckling legs. Eventually, the din feels more like background noise. Rustling wind equal to a drunken baroness teasing her own spawn by tugging at their ears and suggestively whispering it's such a good idea— making favorites breed for life. Literal husbandry, someone mutters back, and Astarion hears it as much as he doesn't, just like a noisy gust of wind. Birds chirruping. Shutters flapping in a breeze. Peripheral distraction warranting little as he tightens his already rigid grip, his kohl-lined eyes narrowed into lightless puddles when he adds:]
I do, of course.
[Temptation part of his own incorrigible existence, consigned to keeping quiet dignity at bay.]
If only because it'll be fun to see how many of our esteemed kin might finally strain their poor fragile little minds to tell us apart, now that they'll have to look up to call us by our names.
[Tsk tsk. So much for graceful vows— though Astarion silently smiles as a clawed thumb is dipped in blood before being brushed across his lips by an attending hand (and vice versa), staining their respective mouths a striking shade of crimson.]
no subject
The ceremony and the leers. The judgment. Encouraged by every instance of giggling or muttered commentary, their audience is a palpable chasm of shock and indignity and amusement cut through by little pulsework echoes, each one reverberated in someone else's mouth before passing on (and on, and on).... He feels the harshness of firm knuckles pressed against his own once their fingers intertwine, and from the narrow gap between them (sire and sired, all), it feels as if he's being choked by everything he's wanted for so long: the regalia fit for Vakares' shoulders is far too scratchy along its seams and artful hems (it worries at his shoulders; leaves him itching just to touch it or scrub it or rip it free); the attention from established eyes, hawkish and overtly loud (later, it will be worse); the coronating esteem his maker's always carried, stamped down in slow farewells; the brute that is his younger kin, compelled to listen to him— if only so they share.
But he's not a child, for all his frequent whinging.
The ridicule waiting for them in the wings didn't start when their sire opened their mouth to speak. It started long, long before now. (Before his tantrum or their isolation. Before Vakares treated them as equals at his heels. Decades upon decades ago, before the fresher idea of better started to eclipse the notion of is and always has been, razor lips were already peeling back to show off equally jagged fangs.) The other vampires wouldn't have spared them if Vakares uttered I choose Fenris any more than they would've done to hear Astarion: one configuration of voices might differ in isolation, true, but still— if a chorus trills from its left or its right side in equal volume, does that really make it any different a scenario?
No.
Obviously not.
Petty things— like Astarion— will always be petty things. Takes one to know one (or a lot of ones), as they say: he doesn't like it, but there's comfort to be found in the fact that Leto clearly doesn't, either. Their shared grip so stiff and obligatory that it could be a metaphor for its surrounding pomp— and you know, when it comes to a pair that looks only towards their waiting master rather than at one another, it is, actually.
But again, he's not a child. Not a fledgling. Not a spoiled prince whining for a wetted throat to suckle from, rather than standing on his own buckling legs. Eventually, the din feels more like background noise. Rustling wind equal to a drunken baroness teasing her own spawn by tugging at their ears and suggestively whispering it's such a good idea— making favorites breed for life. Literal husbandry, someone mutters back, and Astarion hears it as much as he doesn't, just like a noisy gust of wind. Birds chirruping. Shutters flapping in a breeze. Peripheral distraction warranting little as he tightens his already rigid grip, his kohl-lined eyes narrowed into lightless puddles when he adds:]
I do, of course.
[Temptation part of his own incorrigible existence, consigned to keeping quiet dignity at bay.]
If only because it'll be fun to see how many of our esteemed kin might finally strain their poor fragile little minds to tell us apart, now that they'll have to look up to call us by our names.
[Tsk tsk. So much for graceful vows— though Astarion silently smiles as a clawed thumb is dipped in blood before being brushed across his lips by an attending hand (and vice versa), staining their respective mouths a striking shade of crimson.]