Doubtful I could sleep even if I tried. [Astarion exhales skyward for a change, vacant sound like the whoosh of a laden vase overturned or a the empty pop of an opened bottle: carrying with it the audible echo of everything that'd been trapped inside, apparent at a glance or not.]
Travel up into the stars [proves an unsuspecting continuation, pulled from the very back of Astarion's throat in a voice that runs much deeper— and much softer— than his prior singsong indifference,] far into the sea of night itself, and this world would look a marble to the naked eye. Small from so great a distance that you'd think you could pluck it up and tuck it in your pocket, same as glancing down on city lights or crowded streets: it's the distance that defines perception.
And there would be others poised within the black, too. Sun, moon, meteors, more worlds— you get the idea. Scattered in clusters, sometimes isolated or far, far away from all the rest. Still, you could, in theory, sprout wings and hop to any of them. Set foot on any of them. Tangible and real as dirt.
Layered underneath— or above— or....somewhere, I don't know, is the immaterial. The astral or magical, whatever you wish to call it, it's rarely perceptible with the naked eye, and if it is, there's something very, very wrong.
[Astarion's scoff is a gently-footed thing.]
But you know of those already, by the sound of it. The realm of demons. Of magic. Those of the gods, and those of the elves.
no subject
Doubtful I could sleep even if I tried. [Astarion exhales skyward for a change, vacant sound like the whoosh of a laden vase overturned or a the empty pop of an opened bottle: carrying with it the audible echo of everything that'd been trapped inside, apparent at a glance or not.]
Travel up into the stars [proves an unsuspecting continuation, pulled from the very back of Astarion's throat in a voice that runs much deeper— and much softer— than his prior singsong indifference,] far into the sea of night itself, and this world would look a marble to the naked eye. Small from so great a distance that you'd think you could pluck it up and tuck it in your pocket, same as glancing down on city lights or crowded streets: it's the distance that defines perception.
And there would be others poised within the black, too. Sun, moon, meteors, more worlds— you get the idea. Scattered in clusters, sometimes isolated or far, far away from all the rest. Still, you could, in theory, sprout wings and hop to any of them. Set foot on any of them. Tangible and real as dirt.
Layered underneath— or above— or....somewhere, I don't know, is the immaterial. The astral or magical, whatever you wish to call it, it's rarely perceptible with the naked eye, and if it is, there's something very, very wrong.
[Astarion's scoff is a gently-footed thing.]
But you know of those already, by the sound of it. The realm of demons. Of magic. Those of the gods, and those of the elves.