[Play along with it because you have no choice. Be flattering. Lean in. Find out what it is they want and wear it, and above all else— be charming, Astarion.
The speech came twice, but only the second time did that lesson sink in through the oozing cracks to bore right down to bone.
Be charming.
No amount of distance spun the needle the other way. No amount of clawing his own fingers into tatters could ever open shuttered doors. No screaming. No begging. No pleading. It didn't take long in the grand scheme of things; it only took forever in his broken, lightless mind. And once rooted, it stayed. Stuck with him every waking moment— possibly even the unwaking. The unfeeling. The black, bleak misery of nothingness, alone.
Compared to centuries of that, he could swallow anything with a smile.
(Provided he ignores the ache that's mildly nauseating once he's ushered away to his designated tower quarters with a small, curtly worded speech. Alone with the tristely paralytic tug that occasionally leaves him staring at the harbor for full minutes at a time when not prone to exploring the bounds of his new kennel, trying to expunge that rampant sense of hope he knew well better than to trust.
Because by then, he also knows it's over. It's done. Doubtlessly the elf is gone, having collected either a bounty or a kindly warning off by the attending staff of Riftwatch, and if there's nothing else for small favors, he'd imparted Astarion with a wealth of useful knowledge already wielded like a knife in those first strides.) Five days of sniffing out information. Of mapping out hierarchies both local and abroad to comprehend the flow of vitriol. Power. Wealth. Still more to learn but it's a start, and Astarion can use that—
Until he finds a way to be free. Truly free.
And that's his consolation. The ancillary bulwark used to keep his chin above the tide when a shut wing and a closed door threaten to bring to bear an ocean's worth of black-mouthed memories. Fingers poring over pages— lines upon lines of history and language in the dark, lit only through the verdant green of an aching shard.
In the shadow of an alcove, amidst small stacks of 'borrowed' books, his wounds are healed. His curls brushed out. The clothes he wears a little loose from their donation, yet he's no stranger to the secondhand, and it suits him better than the tattered clothing he'd arrived in. Like everything else, it's a temporary stay.
no subject
The speech came twice, but only the second time did that lesson sink in through the oozing cracks to bore right down to bone.
Be charming.
No amount of distance spun the needle the other way. No amount of clawing his own fingers into tatters could ever open shuttered doors. No screaming. No begging. No pleading. It didn't take long in the grand scheme of things; it only took forever in his broken, lightless mind. And once rooted, it stayed. Stuck with him every waking moment— possibly even the unwaking. The unfeeling. The black, bleak misery of nothingness, alone.
Compared to centuries of that, he could swallow anything with a smile.
(Provided he ignores the ache that's mildly nauseating once he's ushered away to his designated tower quarters with a small, curtly worded speech. Alone with the tristely paralytic tug that occasionally leaves him staring at the harbor for full minutes at a time when not prone to exploring the bounds of his new kennel, trying to expunge that rampant sense of hope he knew well better than to trust.
Because by then, he also knows it's over. It's done. Doubtlessly the elf is gone, having collected either a bounty or a kindly warning off by the attending staff of Riftwatch, and if there's nothing else for small favors, he'd imparted Astarion with a wealth of useful knowledge already wielded like a knife in those first strides.) Five days of sniffing out information. Of mapping out hierarchies both local and abroad to comprehend the flow of vitriol. Power. Wealth. Still more to learn but it's a start, and Astarion can use that—
Until he finds a way to be free. Truly free.
And that's his consolation. The ancillary bulwark used to keep his chin above the tide when a shut wing and a closed door threaten to bring to bear an ocean's worth of black-mouthed memories. Fingers poring over pages— lines upon lines of history and language in the dark, lit only through the verdant green of an aching shard.
In the shadow of an alcove, amidst small stacks of 'borrowed' books, his wounds are healed. His curls brushed out. The clothes he wears a little loose from their donation, yet he's no stranger to the secondhand, and it suits him better than the tattered clothing he'd arrived in. Like everything else, it's a temporary stay.
Counting the days, so to speak. Counting— ]