It's a kindness he can't swallow for how it sticks in his throat across the passing flicker of a heartbeat, and suddenly— in full spite of the way that he can't feel the leashing tether of his master, replaced now with the glassy gleam of magic in his palm; in spite of the understanding brokered here already in rich firelight, perched down in the dust with blood and water licking at their skin; in spite of the fact that there is no faking this with either magic or illusion (the demons had been too real for that, and this feels like no dream he's ever suffered)— something in him jerks its way into panicked alertness, already sensing Cazador at his back long before he's attuned to his arrival. Feeling the trickle of cold sweat run rabbiting and anxious across the nape of his own neck, waiting to feel breath there. An exhale. A gloating declaration of victory. A choice, as always, perched in against his ribs like the sharp edge of a knife.
He doesn't turn around. Doesn't tear himself away. There's no palpable flood of panic in his posture, held captive in dilated eyes. There's no point in that, you see: it's the prey drive that allures— the thrill of watching something squirm and shriek before the noose— and if Astarion has one point of pride left to his own name, it's denying his own master that.
But nothing shifts.
Not aside from Fenris, that is, who falls back on his heels, leaving Astarion to stare down at cleaned fingers and mending wounds. Not a shadow to be seen. Not a devilish purr in earshot.]
—what? [He asks, stripped clean of all pretense outside confusion as it dawns on him that he'd forgotten everything of what's been said. Tries, dry-mouthed, to remember it, but the topics slip through his fingers like those droplets of shed water. Corypheus. Slaves. A— god? Or something like that.
He thinks he might have an inkling of what was offered. Leans on it, and checks just once over his shoulder in the process.]
No— [nothing.] Well, I. Mmh. It's not exactly a difficult decision, is it?
no subject
It's a kindness he can't swallow for how it sticks in his throat across the passing flicker of a heartbeat, and suddenly— in full spite of the way that he can't feel the leashing tether of his master, replaced now with the glassy gleam of magic in his palm; in spite of the understanding brokered here already in rich firelight, perched down in the dust with blood and water licking at their skin; in spite of the fact that there is no faking this with either magic or illusion (the demons had been too real for that, and this feels like no dream he's ever suffered)— something in him jerks its way into panicked alertness, already sensing Cazador at his back long before he's attuned to his arrival. Feeling the trickle of cold sweat run rabbiting and anxious across the nape of his own neck, waiting to feel breath there. An exhale. A gloating declaration of victory. A choice, as always, perched in against his ribs like the sharp edge of a knife.
He doesn't turn around. Doesn't tear himself away. There's no palpable flood of panic in his posture, held captive in dilated eyes. There's no point in that, you see: it's the prey drive that allures— the thrill of watching something squirm and shriek before the noose— and if Astarion has one point of pride left to his own name, it's denying his own master that.
But nothing shifts.
Not aside from Fenris, that is, who falls back on his heels, leaving Astarion to stare down at cleaned fingers and mending wounds. Not a shadow to be seen. Not a devilish purr in earshot.]
—what? [He asks, stripped clean of all pretense outside confusion as it dawns on him that he'd forgotten everything of what's been said. Tries, dry-mouthed, to remember it, but the topics slip through his fingers like those droplets of shed water. Corypheus. Slaves. A— god? Or something like that.
He thinks he might have an inkling of what was offered. Leans on it, and checks just once over his shoulder in the process.]
No— [nothing.] Well, I. Mmh. It's not exactly a difficult decision, is it?