The words spark an ember of— what is it, nausea? Shivering unease? Excitement? Maybe it's all one and the same, spiking hot in his blood as it courses through his restored heart, that adrenal reflex that comes on when he thinks— given all due context— that what comes next is sure to be a lunge. A whip-quick surge of movement or a feint to test his guard as either proof of prowess or deceit. So when the knife is raised his way he jerks away at an angle, twisting through his neck to—
To....nothing.
Quite literally, nothing. Inert outside the dilated flicker of his pupils as they shrink and widen by the sheerest difference of degrees. Attempting to translate what he's staring at into something that makes sense by any measure. We'll run away together— yes, of course that tracks: countless souls foster well-worn fantasies of taking flight in the stillness of the night, abandoning responsibility or care. The rest's explained away by palpable loneliness. Something even Astarion can't deny they share, no matter how he's tried over the last few days. But that's all self-comfort. Self-serving. I don't want to be alone, so it's you. I can't stomach the ghosts of my enslavement, but you understand, so when I look at you I see myself. Save myself.
And the logic of it, poured over time and time again through every sleepthin night since their departure, had the decency therein to at least make passable sense.
Gloves are cheap. Stealing in past Riftwatch's lax guard: simple enough.
This?
This is....]
....It's beautiful.
[Comes on breathless. Hazy. He might as well be drunk for how its the words that reach for it, rather than his own gloved hands, now incapable of movement. Only his eyes can manage it (again), a ratcheted little uptick that snaps from the sight of that offered gift towards whatever expression Fenris wears.
Astarion isn't certain he could read it to save his life.]
no subject
The words spark an ember of— what is it, nausea? Shivering unease? Excitement? Maybe it's all one and the same, spiking hot in his blood as it courses through his restored heart, that adrenal reflex that comes on when he thinks— given all due context— that what comes next is sure to be a lunge. A whip-quick surge of movement or a feint to test his guard as either proof of prowess or deceit. So when the knife is raised his way he jerks away at an angle, twisting through his neck to—
To....nothing.
Quite literally, nothing. Inert outside the dilated flicker of his pupils as they shrink and widen by the sheerest difference of degrees. Attempting to translate what he's staring at into something that makes sense by any measure. We'll run away together— yes, of course that tracks: countless souls foster well-worn fantasies of taking flight in the stillness of the night, abandoning responsibility or care. The rest's explained away by palpable loneliness. Something even Astarion can't deny they share, no matter how he's tried over the last few days. But that's all self-comfort. Self-serving. I don't want to be alone, so it's you. I can't stomach the ghosts of my enslavement, but you understand, so when I look at you I see myself. Save myself.
And the logic of it, poured over time and time again through every sleepthin night since their departure, had the decency therein to at least make passable sense.
Gloves are cheap. Stealing in past Riftwatch's lax guard: simple enough.
This?
This is....]
....It's beautiful.
[Comes on breathless. Hazy. He might as well be drunk for how its the words that reach for it, rather than his own gloved hands, now incapable of movement. Only his eyes can manage it (again), a ratcheted little uptick that snaps from the sight of that offered gift towards whatever expression Fenris wears.
Astarion isn't certain he could read it to save his life.]