[Yes is the only thought that springs to life when asked, standing on the borders of a chasm that leaves him feeling like a godsdamned child perched across the threshold of an unfamiliar schoolyard— or what he imagines one would feel like, given the shock-cold void of his own memories. That collective mass (or morass) of gaping holes and empty spaces, each chock full of discomfort. Each willing to swallow him whole if he lingers too long along their borders. Chastisement for his neediness here, shame for boiling fear there, starting with the routine cadence of his master, yet always ending with a recognition of his own voice. His own poisonously potent vitriol, swearing that it wasn't just compulsion that'd hooked its fangs into his veins.
A conscripted farrier hammers a nail into pinned metal barely ten yards away. The sudden clang of it jolts its way into pallid, road scuffed ears, and Astarion's back stiffens into alertness with it, drawing him up higher than his striped companion. Emphasizing the similarities in their stature— and the absent thought that he'd need to bend even lower to shrink down fully behind Fenris for the sake of disappearing. So much so that he might as well be kneeling for all the dignity it'd afford, frightened of— what? Of everything? He's already begged Fenris for dawn, is he going to repeat this endlessly for every mild risk that comes their way? Tiring is how that shortsighted entreatment would wind up soon enough. Sorry, Fenris, you've taken on his cause. Too late now to back out of tending to him day and night alike. Another pitiful slave rescued, always in need of watching. Safeguarding. Put him back in the kennel for how useless he'd be, and call him a bloody accessory at best.
He won't be that. Won't stoop down into the collar still burning at his throat like a phantom weight.
The answer is yes. Please, yes. But what it has to be is— ]
No.
[Confident, a flicker of a grin. It masks the nausea in his throat. the hard crunch of his anxious heart, and all the scenarios running through his head. How little they both might know of this organization. How little trust there is to be had anywhere, and perhaps most of all in a city as befanged as this one despite all its purported progressiveness.
But he can't. He can't cling. Won't cling. Will never cling to anyone again— having learned better.]
No, darling. [One thread of his cast stare sent sidelong for just a moment as his posture settles with it, angled across one heel. One leg. One comfortably cocked hip.] Not unless you want to spend your every waking moment anchored at my side, which— flattering.
no subject
A conscripted farrier hammers a nail into pinned metal barely ten yards away. The sudden clang of it jolts its way into pallid, road scuffed ears, and Astarion's back stiffens into alertness with it, drawing him up higher than his striped companion. Emphasizing the similarities in their stature— and the absent thought that he'd need to bend even lower to shrink down fully behind Fenris for the sake of disappearing. So much so that he might as well be kneeling for all the dignity it'd afford, frightened of— what? Of everything? He's already begged Fenris for dawn, is he going to repeat this endlessly for every mild risk that comes their way? Tiring is how that shortsighted entreatment would wind up soon enough. Sorry, Fenris, you've taken on his cause. Too late now to back out of tending to him day and night alike. Another pitiful slave rescued, always in need of watching. Safeguarding. Put him back in the kennel for how useless he'd be, and call him a bloody accessory at best.
He won't be that. Won't stoop down into the collar still burning at his throat like a phantom weight.
The answer is yes. Please, yes. But what it has to be is— ]
No.
[Confident, a flicker of a grin. It masks the nausea in his throat. the hard crunch of his anxious heart, and all the scenarios running through his head. How little they both might know of this organization. How little trust there is to be had anywhere, and perhaps most of all in a city as befanged as this one despite all its purported progressiveness.
But he can't. He can't cling. Won't cling. Will never cling to anyone again— having learned better.]
No, darling. [One thread of his cast stare sent sidelong for just a moment as his posture settles with it, angled across one heel. One leg. One comfortably cocked hip.] Not unless you want to spend your every waking moment anchored at my side, which— flattering.
....and yet a touch impractical, I expect.